The Elementals (33 page)

Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

BOOK: The Elementals

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We are the sea.

We are the planet's dual-purpose organ of reproduction and reverence. The trinity of sun, moon, and earth exchange their sacred energies through the linkage we provide.

We acknowledge no limits, merely impediments that we continually whittle away. We are a prism through whose liquid lens the colorful diversity of the planet is refracted. We contain the images of Atlantis and Lemuria and Mu, of transoceanic Pheonician trading vessels and the Titanic and the five lost planes of Flight 19.

Aswarm with life, we think trillions of versions of thought. Our sentience is in your blood, in everything that contains water.

We are the sea.

We do not see humans as humans perceive themselves. The creature called Man appears to us as a core of heat giving off radiance in the warm spectrum. Man is a seeker of solid surface, a self-replenishing organism capable of creating toxic wastes.

Man is a cancer that crawled from our womb.

We are watching. We are aware. We are the sea.

The earth does not belong to Man.
We are merely tolerated.
For now.

BY MORGAN LLYWELYN FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

Bard
Brian Boru
Etruscans
(with Michael Scott)
Finn Mac Cool
Lion of Ireland
Pride of Lions
Strongbow
1916
1921
1949

The Elementals
âa unique environmental fantasy from the legends of our ancestors and the fears of our children.

“A roaring good read â¦ no mere modern retelling of ancient saga. This time, indeed, a truly remarkable author has ambushed us. Profoundly.”

âTurlogh O Faolain

“Reading
The Elementals
is an intensely rewarding, startling experience â¦ startling because at first it âjust' seems to be an engrossing, yet essentially familiar fantasy adventure, but soon the reader is hurled into a mighty odyssey crafted as skillfully as a Chopin etude and culminating in a powerful ecologic warning.”

âMarvin Kaye

“Never does Llywelyn neglect her storytelling in order to make her point. Each novella is compelling, and as they came to an end I found myself wishing that she had lingered and told more; and yet the headlong rush through time and across the generations is part of the effect she was trying for, and it works. This is fantasy at its best. The societies and characters are real; the magic does not take over the story, but rather underlies it like a living foundation that every now and then shrugs, shaking all that is built upon it. This is the first of Llywelyn's fiction that I have read; I was astonished and faintly embarrassed that somebody this good could have escaped my attention for so longâ¦. Reading
The Elementals
was, for me, a wonderful introduction to Llywelyn's work. Go thou and do likewise.”

âThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

“As in much environmental fantasy, there are overtones of Gaian mysticism in the book â¦ [but] Llywelyn draws less on current political issues than on her demonstrably superior talents as a historical novelist. When there is a past or exotic world to be conjured up, she does it with great skill.”

â
Booklist

“Compelling reading about the powers of the earth with a contemporary environmental message.”

â
VOYA

When the ice cap melted, the seas rose.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

THE ELEMENTALS

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
^Â®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Book design by Maura Fadden Rosenthal

eISBN 9781429983525

First eBook Edition : February 2011