Knightfall & Sonrise

Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom, Chapter 1

Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom is a serialised, young adult, fantasy novel about an overconfident bookworm who finds himself in a parallel world where words are weapons, ideologies form fortresses, and intelligence without integrity may just cost you everything.

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New Hame, Loegria

Where there should have been a sky, instead there was an ocean. From night till dawn, the clouds that skimmed its surface lit up like the cosmos. Every now and then, a wave would catch a glint of their glow, sending shafts of light to illuminate the cascading hills leading away from the forest.

In the last darkness before dawn, a dull morning mist crept over the grasslands, out of which emerged the Knight. Arrayed in chain mail from head to toe, an embroidered hooded shawl draped the armour covering his chest. The intricately woven brocade seemed to shimmer and dance in the light; not enough to expose his position, but just enough to reveal the distinctive wing-lamp insignia of a Torchbearer.

The Stronghold pierced the uppermost hill like a slab of black onyx; the secrets of its interior hidden behind thick, colossal walls. As he strode towards the ancient fortress, he withdrew a rusty short-sword from a sheath at his side.  

Shadow clad sentries periodically vanished between the battlements, their black, vaporous regalia rippling like torn tongues of flame.

The Knight casually circled around the western wall. As he drew near the flanking tower, a shout rang out from the battlements. They’d spotted him—but it was already too late. He swung the sword, and the flanking tower wall exploded in a shower of stone and brick. The front of the tower collapsed into a rocky heap. Sentries plummeted into the chasm, their cries cut short by agonising thuds.

As the dust settled, survivors clawed their way through the debris. Swords drawn behind leather-lined shields, they crept step by step over the rubble towards the Knight. He counted seventeen in all. That much he could handle, but the fortress walls were already swarming with reinforcements. Time was of the essence.

Twirling the blade one-eighty degrees in his hand, he rammed his clenched fist into the opposing palm. There was a crackle, a flash and a sudden gust of wind, and another knight appeared beside him. No, not another—it was the same Knight, only now there were two of him.

“Need a little help, do we?” said the Copy Knight.

“Let’s wrap this up quick. And don’t get any ideas. You follow my lead.”

He curtsied, “Of course guv’na.”

They attacked in choreographed unison. As one parried, the other swung, as one blocked the other thrust, with no break between their movements as they worked their way from right to left. As the sentries on the far right regained their footing, the knights spun across each other’s backs to meet them.

The Knight swung his sword wildly to the left as the copy ducked to avoid it. The blade sailed within a hairsbreadth of his back, cleaving the very air above him in two. A thunderclap of colliding air currents rushed to fill the vacuum, knocking three sentries flat. Their bodies combusted into plumes of blackened ash.

The Copy Knight whipped up, swinging his sword in an upward arc towards the next four. As it skimmed the surface of the ground, a tumultuous shock-wave dredged up grass, dirt and stone, slamming into the sentries, sending them hurtling through the air. Their limp bodies beat one by one off the fortress walls before disintegrating.

The knights paused momentarily to catch their breath, pacing back and forth, circling restlessly around each other as the remaining sentries regrouped. They wouldn’t let them. Charging headlong, they continued their synchronised assault.

The flat of a blade caught the Copy Knight in his stomach, bowling him over. A backhanded shield strike spun him around. He parried an upswing, but his imbalance, coupled with the momentum of the sword, sent his blade sailing out of his hand.

An unseen force pulled the Knight’s sword from his grasp, almost yanking him off his feet. The twin blades bounced simultaneously onto the grass, slid several feet along converging paths, and merged into one.

“Oh, not good.”

The Knight dodged into a roll, coming back-to-back with his counterpart.

“The bloody hell happened?!”

“Sorry guv’na.”

“You dropped the sword!”

“Right, yes—sorry. I got distracted.”

“By what?”

The Copy Knight paused, “I’m really hungry.”

They were defenceless, with no recourse but to back away from the ten remaining shadow warriors. Three of them split off towards the Knight on the left, the other three to the right. Four circled around between them and the sword, closing them in.

“Alright then…”

The Knight stuck his hand beneath his shawl and pulled out a cloth bound hardback book bordered with red leather strips. Flipping through the book, he stopped on a page before gripping and tearing it out. Slipping the book beneath his shawl, he rapidly folded the page into various abstract shapes until he produced what looked like an origami Roman shield. With a flick of the wrist, the paper shield exploded to full size. Grabbing it with both hands, he tore a vertical strip off the side and spun it into the form of a spear.

“Go get the sword. I’ve got this,” said the Knight.

“Right... simple enough.”

Twirling the spear like a windmill, he advanced towards the enemy. The Copy Knight ducked as the Knight swung the spear in his direction, colliding with two sentries. As they staggered, the Copy Knight darted around them towards the four guarding the sword.

Spinning in circles whilst twirling the spear, the Knight drove his attackers back. Faster and faster he whipped until he let the spear fly like an arrow between two of their shoulders. As they turned—distracted—to follow the spear, he spun the shield horizontally and smashed it into their skulls.

Pelting towards the four guarding the sword, the Copy Knight dropped like a stone. The spear shot past his back, too quick for the sentries to avoid, and pierced through all four of them in a single stroke. The Copy Knight slid across the grass, through the falling black ash, and grabbed the hilt of the rusty short-sword.

Several feet away, the Knight grinned. He waited behind the shield for the remaining sentries to close in, then brought the short, rusty sword out over the shield and slammed it onto the ground. The shock-wave rippled through the grass, blowing the sentries away in all directions, and tearing them into ash.

The Copy Knight approached his counterpart, tossing his rusty sword up and down as he walked through the raining soot.

“Don’t let what happened back there fool you,” he said, pointing with the hilt, “Just this once, you could let me use the Codex.”

“And I’ve told you already, not a chance,” replied the Knight, dropping the shield and sheathing his blade. The Copy Knight stared momentarily at his own identical blade, then followed suit.

“Reinforcements will be here any minute. We have to secure the subject.”

“The ‘subject’? Is that really what we’re calling him now?”

The Knight shook his head at his counterpart and walked over to the wrecked flanking tower, surveying the breach.

“Our intelligence says he was being held somewhere in this wing.” He stepped up a ramp made by the collapsed walls.

The Copy Knight looked around with disdain. Cold, musty and damp, the walls were alive with mildew. The breach left by the sword allowed him to peer upward through the three levels of the flanking tower. There were flagons and tables. Stale bread and bottles, some of which had fallen through to the lower levels during the assault.

“Of all the places to linger in a Stronghold… There’s a lot more fun to be had on the inside,” murmured the Copy Knight.

“Yeah? You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Well… we haven’t all been blessed with freedom.”

The Knight looked back over his shoulder. “If you’re gonna complain, I can put you back. We’re about done here anyway…”

“Fascist.”

The Knight stopped suddenly, hearing the metallic clink of his boot hitting something on the ground. Kneeling, he could just about make out the shiny glint of open manacles. They jingle-jangled in the air as he gathered them up. Then he stopped.

It was faint at first, but there was a dull scratching coming from the far end of the tower; behind the stone stairs leading up to the next level. Bracing the hilt of his blade, he inched back towards the Copy Knight standing in the breach. The scratching grew louder, reverberating off the wet stone walls. As the first rays of dawn peaked over the horizon, they cast a pillar of light into the tower, broken by the twin silhouettes of the knights. Suddenly, it crawled into the light.

At first, all they saw was the telltale, crystalline shine of its eyes hanging like twin moons in the night. Then came the shape of a dishevelled, childlike being; ragged locks of matted, black hair falling across its face and over its shoulders as it dragged itself out of the gloom. When it crawled into the light, its dull, colourless features remained shrouded in shadow. Dry dirt caked what little flesh the darkness hadn’t consumed. But the Knight could still make out its face. The face of one he knew.

“Keon…” he gasped.

The bedraggled humanoid, bent over like a wild beast, held his gaze. Did it recognise him, too? Then, quick as a flash, he felt a blade press against his neck.

“I’ll be taking things from here, guv’na.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Clearly, it’s worse than we thought, and his judgement can’t be trusted.”

Suddenly, the creature bolted past them, through the breach and out into the open.

“No!”

The Knight could only watch as it galloped over the hills before vanishing into the forest.

“Come on,” the Copy Knight locked one arm painfully behind his back and shoved him outside to where the Stronghold’s reinforcements were amassing in wait. At the sight of the sentries, the Knight struggled violently. As they neared the group, he caught sight of a familiar silver head cutting through the ranks like a shark fin breaking the waters.

“We’ve waited a long, long time to ensnare you, Torchbearer…” it growled, its timbre like giant slabs of rock grinding together.

“Dout…” the Knight spat.

The ranks parted like mist as the figure emerged, each weighty step heavier than his unnaturally tall yet slender frame would seem to allow. His lidless eyes were like two pearls hammered into dark, veined granite; his face framed by locks of silver hair that hung past his knees.

The Copy Knight lowered his blade from the Knight’s neck and tossed it to Dout. As it sailed through the air, the Knight’s matching blade flew out of its hilt to meld with it. Two sentries placed heavy, black shackles on the Knight’s wrists and ankles.

Dout turned the pitiful blade over in his hand, noting the unique craftsmanship of the hilt. Clearly, it had been forged in the Far Reaches of the North, but other than that, there was nothing remarkable about it. It scarcely seemed able to slice butter, let alone break stone.

Walking over to the fortress, he swung it at the walls. The blade clattered off the stone with a spark, but barely left a scratch. He turned it over again, as though holding it up long enough would somehow yield its secrets.

“You can stare at it all you want, it won’t work for you,” said the Knight defiantly, enjoying Dout’s bewilderment.

He strode over, stopping within a hairsbreadth of his face. The Knight winced as Dout’s jagged nails bit savagely into his jaw; almost choking on the hot, sulphuric blast of his nostrils.

“Where did you get this?” he hissed.

“Your breath really reeks…”

“Where?” he roared, yanking the Knight forward.

“It was a gift—from the King!”

Confused murmurs rippled through the ranks of the dark warriors. Dout’s visage seemed to crack as his eyes flared. He dragged the Knight closer, spitting each word with vile and venomous contempt.

“Underland—has—no King!…”

Newham, London

A mushroom of tight, black curls emerged piecemeal from behind the tower of assorted library books. A single eye locked on to the girl wandering down the aisle wearing a skirt and over-the-knee socks that pushed the boundaries of the school dress code. He slipped back behind the books, mouthed a silent ‘wow’, then inched out for another look.

She was probably a year or two older. Two locks that fell past her shoulders bordered her shoulder-length golden hair—dark at the roots, inflamed in red tips. A glint of gold drew his attention to the unusual pendant looped at the end of a chain swinging around her neck; like the outline of eight crescent moons spiralling into one another. He would make a note to look it up later, but right now he—whoops! She’d spotted him.

“Hey! Sorry, I’m looking for Miss Leyton.”

He rose from his stool and returned the book he was thumbing through back to the shelf.

“Nah, it’s cool. Uh—” he looked around for the next thing to say, “I dunno where she is, but I can prob’ly help.”

Those red tips really complimented her copper complexion.

“I’m looking for a book on Victorian London. Preferably one with pictures?”

The boy held up a finger and swaggered down the aisle, spinning on his heel as he stopped. His eyes scanned the third shelf, pausing on a big, square volume labelled Victōria Londinium: A Visual Guide to Old London. He sauntered back over to the girl and handed it over.

“That’s the one you want,” he said.

She nodded with a ‘not bad,’ “You really know your way around here, huh? Are you Miss Leyton’s prefect or something?”

“Naaah. I’m in detention. Jokes on them though ‘cause I actually like books.”

“Detention for what?” she chuckled.

He sat down and shrugged. “Got into a fight.”

“Alright, AJ,” she said, nodding in intrigue.

He sniffed a chuckle.

“Less glamorous than it sounds, trust me. Here, let me show you the book,” he gently took it back, folding it open to reveal paintings of Greater London when it was mostly undeveloped fields.

“I used this a few years back for a history project. Thought it was mad ‘cause of how different things used to look back then. Here, like this…” he turned to an eighteenth-century painting of green, rolling hills before a large stretch of forest.

“This was where Newham Hospital is now. Can you believe that?”

“Wow,” she nodded, feigning interest. “You spend a lot of time there or something?”

He snapped the book shut and shrugged. “A bit. It’s where my mum works…”

“Master Wesley!”

They turned to see Mr. Kersey, his student mentor, standing in the aisle, arms folded. Exasperation hung heavy on his broad shoulders, and not for the first, second or even fourth time that week!

“And that’s my cue,” he said, saluting as he walked over to his impatient mentor. “But lemme know how that goes… y’know… if it’s helpful.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” she said, blinking back to attention. “It was nice meeting you, uh…?”

“Keon.”

“Keon,” she nodded.

He smiled.

Thank you for reading this first chapter of Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom. Can’t wait to share the rest of this story with you! If you enjoyed it, subscribe and share it!

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Chapter 1 Author’s Commentary

This is a new feature I’m adding to Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom. Think of it like the director’s commentary you get on a blu-ray or DVD (do we still buy those?). Even if it’s not your kind of thing, pull up a chair; you may just enjoy it! I’ll be sharing the commentaries at the end of each chapter but also as a separate post. Don’t worry, it’ll be the same content. It will just allow for focused conversation specifically around the commentary notes. There will be spoilers ahead so consider yourself warned! Enjoy - Stephen

The opening to Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom has changed quite a bit from the first draft! I mean, that’s to be expected but sometimes I forget how far it’s come since then. For starters, the Knight originally had a human companion (not the Copy Knight) called Tian who was this Shaolin monk kinda fellow. Whilst the Knight had his sword, Tian could decimate walls with his bare hands. I might still use that concept one day.

Initially “the Creature” appeared riding something called a Mortal Mynd. It was basically a similar concept to Dout (a Mental Mynd) except it looked like a human black hole that beat the crap out of Tian.

On the matter of Keon, that “Keon twist” didn’t exist in the original draft. The revelation that the creature was in any way related to Keon didn’t actually occur until Chapter 6.

This change came about due to an early critique. Apparently there wasn’t enough connective tissue between the first and second parts of the chapter. The reader found the relationship confusing and continued reading more out of said confusion than due to being compelled by the story. So, how to solve this dilemma?

First, I added setting titles: “New Hame, Loegria” and “Newham, London.” This also gave me a chance to drop a nice bit of foreshadowing for later.

Newham is a borough in East London where my wife grew up and where we lived for the first two and half years of our marriage (our eldest daughter was born in Newham Hospital).

The name is derived from the Old English “hamm” which described a ‘dry area of land between rivers or marshland.’ It appears in an Anglo-Saxon charter for the area in 958 where it was called “Hamme.” This area was eventually divided into several territories between 958 and 1037, two of which became Westhamma (West Ham) in 1186 and Estham (East Ham) in 1204. The “Hams” were eventually merged with North Woolwich and part of Barking to form Newham in 1965.

“Loegria” comes from the medieval Welsh name, Lloegyr, which was their name for basically most of England. This word has been anglicised and Latinised as Logres, Logris, and Loegria and is most widely recognised as the name of King Arthur’s realm in the legendary Matters of Britain.

So, essentially I needed an old place name for the region of London and another for the borough of Newham, hence “New Hame, Loegria.”

But the Knight could still make out its face. The face of one he knew.

“Keon…” he gasped.

This part here where the Knight says “Keon…” originally just said “No!”

I simply changed the “No!” to, well—“Keon!” and voila! This allowed the first chapter to end on a nice plot twist (one I hadn’t planned) and spin out a mystery at the same time. Essentially, it highlighted that there is a definite connection between the two worlds but left open the question of how they are connected. It just goes to show that sometimes the twists you’re saving for later can better serve the plot earlier in the story.

Judging from the feedback I’ve received since then, the change worked! (If you agree, let me know in the comments below!)

A second critique I got was that the opening contained prose that bordered on purple. Now, I’ll admit, when I first heard this term I had no idea what it meant so I’ll save anyone else the need to Google it. Basically, it’s overly ornate, flowery prose that draws attention to itself and distracts from the flow of the writing.

Honestly, I don’t think it was quite that bad. There were things I liked about the original opening and there were key lines I dropped in as visual motifs for the reader to pick up on later (if you do, kudos to you!). They’re still there but I think the connections were a bit clearer before. The issue was the writing style drew a stark contrast to the second part of the chapter which I imagine was jarring.

It made sense initially. One was a fantasy world, the other was an East London school library. The problem was I didn’t maintain this style later on when the story shifted fully into Underland. So, I had to trim things down, drop the unnecessary description and go with a style that was more consistent. I won’t post the whole thing, but as matter of interest, here’s the original opening:

As waves lapped across the surface of the azure sky above, a dull mist crept along the grasslands before the seemingly endless stretch of trees in the twilight of dusk. Every so often a wave caught a glint of the glow from the moonless heavens, sending a sliver of light down to illuminate the cascading hills that led away from the forest.

Atop the uppermost hill stood the Stronghold. From the outside, it arose from the emerald hills like a slab of black onyx; the secrets of its interior hidden behind its thick, colossal walls. Defence towers lined the outer concentric wall at regular intervals, stretching for what seemed like miles, whilst the towers of the inner circle loomed overhead like stone sentinels.

And here is what it became:

Where there should have been a sky, instead there was an ocean. From night till dawn, the clouds that skimmed its surface lit up like the cosmos. Every now and then, a wave would catch a glint of their glow, sending shafts of light to illuminate the cascading hills leading away from the forest.

I trimmed the description of the Stronghold down to:

The Stronghold pierced the uppermost hill like a slab of black onyx; the secrets of its interior hidden behind thick, colossal walls.

Now, as I said, I was trying to work a visual motif into this section of the writing that would become something of a “hyperlink” later (more on that in a moment). The visual motif in question can be found in these two sentences:

Every now and then, a wave would catch a glint of their glow, sending shafts of light to illuminate the cascading hills leading away from the forest.

In the last darkness before dawn, a dull morning mist crept over the grasslands, out of which emerged the Knight.

I got the idea from the way the writers of the Bible used the imagery of words both as a rhyming technique and what the Bible Project calls “hyperlinks.”

For example, in Genesis 3:6 you get the first example of this particular motif:

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” —Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The keywords here are “saw,” “good,” and “took.” This motif shows up again a few chapters later in Genesis 6:1-2:

“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.” ‭‭—Genesis‬ ‭6‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭ESV‬

Here the words are “saw,” “attractive,” and “took.” Just one more example will suffice:

“It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.” —2 Samuel‬ ‭11‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

See that? Someone sees that something is good or beautiful or attractive to their eyes and they reach out their hand and take it. And in every instance where this occurs, something bad happens next. The Fall of Man, the Fall of the Heavenly Beings and the Fall of King David. Through the repetition of this imagery, the biblical writers train us to recognise that whenever we come across this formula in the text (saw → good/attractive/beautiful,→ took), it means something bad is about to happen.

Being a novel heavily influenced by scripture, I wanted to incorporate this literary device into my writing. I don’t want to completely spoil it, so check out the sentences above and keep your eyes peeled as you read the story. If I’ve done a good job, hopefully you’ll spot it the next time it crops up.

Forging

So, Forging is the magic system I came up with for Underland. I’d consider it a hard magic system in that it has specific rules that have to be followed in order for it to work. I won’t go into the details now as they unfold within the story. What I did want to point out was that originally the pieces of paper grew bigger the more they were folded until the weapon was the size that was needed.

After awhile, I realised this would look really weird visually and would probably be unwieldy for whatever poor soul had to do it. So, instead I tweaked things so that a flick of the wrist would make the paper contraptions balloon to full size.

AJ

I guess the last thing I’ll mention (because it came up as a reader question) is why the Library Girl calls Keon “AJ.” “AJ” is the nickname for Anthony Joshua, the British heavyweight boxer. In a previous draft, she gave Keon a different nickname which I won’t share here because it was part of an absolutely terrible joke that should never see the light of day again. Ever. But I thought her calling him “AJ” made sense given the reason he’s in detention. Made more sense contextually than the previous version as something that would be in the public consciousness of teens today.

Think that about brings us to the end of this first author’s commentary. Thanks for sticking with it. I hope it’s been insightful. If you don’t mind I’m also leaving you some homework because, why not? Haha. Drop your answers and any other comments or questions you have in the comment section below!

1. Did the opening sentence grab you?

2. Does the twist work for you and did it catch you by surprise?

3. Was there anything that confused you about the opening chapter?

4. If you haven’t already, are you going to read the next one? Hehe