Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

I've been waffling a while on whether I wanted to do this, but I figured, oh, what the hey. What follows is the opening of my novel-in-progress, The Promised King, Book One: The Welcomer. Comments are always welcome.

:: CHAPTER ONE ::

In the first of the dreams that Gwynwhyfar would remember, she was a bird flying above the sea.
***
Over the waves she flew, the spray from the wind-driven waves splashing upon the underside of her body. Below her, beneath the surface of the water, she saw a pod of dolphins racing with the waves, periodically leaping up into the air and then back down into the sea. Then a huge gray shape formed beneath the waters; it was the great gray body of a whale rising from the depths. The whale broke the surface of the water and blasted spray into the air from a hole on the back of its head. It then plunged down again into the deep. A sudden darkness fell, and she turned to see where the sun had gone. The clouds were gathering behind her, great black storm clouds she prayed that she could outpace. She turned and flew again, speeding in a direction that she hoped would take her away from the mustering storm.

Ahead of her there appeared an island, thirty leagues long and twenty wide. She dropped down until she was just skimming the surface. The waters around the island were clear as glass, and beneath them she caught glimpses of schools of many-colored fish cavorting amidst the underwater reefs. There were sharks too, including one that tried to snatch her from the sky, but she was too fast. The beaches that ringed the island were marked by sand as white as snow. The island was green and verdant, and she found herself flying over orchards of apple trees.

There was a city of alabaster buildings and wide streets paved with white stone, but she saw no people. The city appeared to be utterly deserted, even as she flew over a building that was clearly a place of worship. In the courtyard of this building there was a golden disc shaped to look like the moon, marking this place as a temple to the Goddess. After the temple she flew over a long series of grasslands and then into the hilly country. At last she was flying over the three great mountains that rose from the center of the island into the sky. Their heights soared above where she could fly, and their peaks were covered with snow. Soon she was flying back down toward the sea on the other side of the island where there were dense forests of pine, and in these forests she looked for shelter from the coming storm.

There was thunder then, impossibly close behind her. She turned and, hovering above the trees, saw that the three mountains had exploded with fire and smoke in great columns that tore the sky asunder. And then the storm came, and she again flew away, trying to escape the fire and rain and smoke and wind. She flew over the island’s other beaches and again out to sea, but her strength was not enough by any measure, and she was driven down, down toward the boiling waters. Rivers of liquid rock streamed down from the mountaintops, and the island of green beauty, the island of apples, crumbled and sank beneath her into the depths of the sea. The storm raged around her, finally striking her down into the sea itself. Waves crashed over her, and in a flash her strength was gone. The water was cold, very very cold and she gasped for air as the winds howled and the waves mounted.

As the last wave towered above her, she glimpsed something out away from her, something golden….and then the waves took her down, down to the bottom of the sea.

***
"Gwyn! Gwyn! Wake up!"

Someone shook her, not exactly gently but not very roughly either, and she opened her eyes. The dream was still with her; usually her dreams vanished with a quick awakening, but this one had been far more vivid than any she’d had before. She shook her head to dispel the image and looked up into Brother Malcolm’s eyes.

:: To Be Continued ::