Blurb Reveal: What is The Light Must Hold about?
How does one summarize sixty-thousand words and some change into three neat paragraphs? And how does one do so in a way that entices a niche demographic of readers? As someone who has typically shied away from the marketing side of writing — a luxury I’m uncertain will remain for long even outside the challenge of Inkfort Press’ Publishing Derby — I don’t have a foolproof answer.
If I’ve stumbled onto anything, it’s answering these key questions:
Whose story is this?
What type of world do they inhabit?
What’s their present state?
What’s the catalyst that shakes their status-quo?
In a world without stars, divine crystals shield the folk of Esiaga from fiends that prowl the darkness. When Lior, a priest who communes with the crystals, prays to the deities and asks for their guidance, he is met only with silence. Guidance is something he yearns for as he watches his convent brothers either fall to creatures that lurk in the shadows or lose their minds trying to harness the power of the crystals’ light.
That is, at least, until travelers arrive on behalf of the Queen. Sworn to come to their kingdom’s aid in times of need, Lior and his convent brothers must make the hazardous pilgrimage to the capital, Bangol. The guidance Lior has always sought comes in the form of Elouan, the paladin sworn to guide the convent’s caravan. Where Elouan leads Lior, however, deviates from the known path.
The Light Must Hold — a classic dark fantasy adventure with the fanciful prose of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian and the sisyphean struggles of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk.
Whose story is this?
The Light Must Hold is a single-perspective dark fantasy novella that follows Lior — an elven priest who lives together with his convent brothers in a remote chapel.
Now, given my story’s comps, a fragile-hearted priest might not seem to live up to the likes of Conan the Cimmerian and Guts. He’s not two-meters tall and built of pure muscle. Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t be the first pick on any fan cast list (although a man can certainly dream).
Meek and mild, too, doesn’t fit the mold of ruggedly masculine. But I for one don’t view physical strength as the only way for a man — or anyone for that matter — to truly be strong. And that’s why I’m drawn to characters that cut against the grain.
While not particularly large in size and lacking the beefy biceps to wield a hunk of iron too big, thick, heavy, and rough to be called a sword, Lior's means of defending himself is by willing the pulses of divine crystals. He's a glass cannon out here shooting fiery light beams at nightmarish fiends.
Lior may not have studied the blade, but his unexpected companion is more of the “speak nothing and carry a two-meter greatsword” type. So this story is still not without a big barbarian brute leaving carnage in his wake.
What type of world does Lior inhabit?
A character is nothing without their stage. Whether acting to ground the protagonist, confine them, or provide a backdrop for them to flourish, a world can often be just as important a character as any part of the cast. Seeing as The Light Must Hold drives towards the high fantasy side of the genre, the creation of Esiaga was of utmost importance.
Now, does that mean I spent too long daydreaming about finicky details that no one but myself will care about? Of course! I created an entire phonology chart to keep a consistent naming scheme for places and characters. I hope you like tɕ and ʒ because I certainly did!
Trivial matters aside, Esiaga is a world devoid of starlight. Is that my attempt to capture the poetic language of Robert E. Howard? In this instance, no. Esiaga, quite literally, has no sun or stars gracing its skies. And before you even try me with your “heh uh, acshully, the planet would freeze and everyone would die” that’s where the power of the world’s glorious divine crystals come in.
Solar deities are not an uncommon trope whether that be in fiction or in the real world. Instead of looking up into the sky and basking in divine light, the folk of Esiaga find their deities’ powers in crystal caverns underground.
That’s heating and light solved, but I didn’t use Conan and Berserk as comps to give these people a world full of light shine and rainbows. Lurking in the shadows of the world are parasitic fiends — vulnerable to the crystals’ power but dooming all that cross their paths to certain death.
In the case of Lior and his convent brothers, their home in an isolated valley chapel has stood as their stronghold, but the day-to-day grows dire. Had the brothers not had each other and the power of the crystals’ light, survival would have been a far more impossible task.
What is Lior’s present state?
Caged in a desolate valley where treacherous mountain peaks serve as breeding grounds for parasitic fiends known as voidlarva, what’s a man to do? Uh, survive!
Lior and his brothers are in dire straits. Food is an uncertain resource, trade is no longer applicable as merchants have not traveled those mountains for some time, and the beasts that stalk the land are growing brazen.
Luckily, the convent has each other! With the power of friendship, everything is going to a A-Oka- If you recalled the comps and thought, “Ah, fuck. They’re all going to die.” then congrats! Subscribe and send me a private message for a complimentary piece of artwork.
In all seriousness, if Lior wishes to keep his brothers safe — and seeing as they’re more kin to him than the ones who abandoned him at his chapel home years prior, that’s a resounding yes — he’s going to need strength, quick-wit, and faith.
Faith, however, isn’t always easy to maintain when the crystal guardians Lior communes with never answer his prayers. A priest deaf to the words of the divine is irony all in itself. Even in a world plagued with endless fiends, there’s still always light. Lior’s dilemma, too, is not one he’s forever fated to endure.
What’s the catalyst that shakes Lior’s status-quo?
While the mountain roads have remained dormant for some time, a traveling caravan serves as both a blessing and a curse.
Even in these harsh lands, there’s still a tax man out to collect dues (perhaps that only makes it harsher). That’s feudal society for you. This visit isn’t about buying the realm’s Queen a new pair of shoes, however. This is a plea to leave these lands before certain death comes.
More curious for Lior than the request itself is the one guarding the caravan. A silent protector donning gilded pauldrons three-times the meek priest’s own width, the paladin Elouan is just as mysterious as the will of the divine. That mystery forces Lior out of his comforts and into... Well, that’s for the novella itself to explain!