Over the years, I have collected around 300 fantasy works: books, games, manga, and more. All different, all personal favorites. That makes sense, since I also create stuff in this genre. Nearly every story in my collection shares two things.
First, they are character-driven. Second, they are rooted in alchemy, esoterica, and the occult.
Tales of Khayr believes that dark fantasy fails if it does not inspire awe and terror. Readers deserve more than empty nihilism or sugarcoated comfort.
A flat antihero might start compelling, but without true narrative drive, such stories lose power halfway through. They leave a bad taste.
Using last year’s clichés is like wearing a straightjacket. It is a surrender of imagination. You may be trudging through one right now. We do not say that to insult you.
We have written and loved adjacent work ourselves and expect to keep doing so.
But we also make Brotherhood of the Wolf, and when the stakes are real, that is where we choose to stand.
Our main quartet (Koja, Cem, Munir, and Tahsin ) may start from archetypes, but they live and breathe as real people.
To show the strength of our craft, here is a preview from False Light, an interlude novella set between issues one and two of Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Judge for yourself.
Prologue
Cardinal Julian Cesarini was deep in the throes of research when a knock sounded at the laboratory door.
There were few servants in the tower, and fewer still who might dare to knock at his door while he was so engaged. The knock came again, weaker, as if the knocker thought better of it but simply couldn’t help himself.
“Nearly there,” he muttered. “Nearly… there!”
He got his fingers around the thick, slippery vein—he could almost swear the thing writhed like a snake—and snipped it with the scissors in his other hand before pulling both from the body cavity, along with a fresh kidney.
He wiped his gore-slicked hands on a fresh, white linen and swept to the door, opening it to find one of the servants, head bowed at such an angle his back had taken up the rest of the burden, leaving the man nearly folded in half.
“What is it?” Cesarini demanded.
“There is someone here to see you, Lord Cardinal.”
“To… see me?”
People came and went from the tower; soldiers, mercenaries, spies, and the sundry multitudes that went into making sure there were fresh meals to eat and fresh white linens to wipe his bloodied hands on, but on a whole Cesarini did not entertain there.
“Who is it?” he snapped.
The servant flinched and mumbled something that sounded like “Francovick,” possibly because he mainly said it to the floor.
“Stand up and speak up.”
“Stefan Branković.”
Cesarini cast his eyes upwards, asking the Almighty for patience, at least enough to not have the whelp gutted and laid out on the table next to his other subject, tempting as the thought was. He glanced back at the table where his masterpiece lay, a thin sheet covering the corded muscle and reinforced bone.
Having a… fallback to test some of the more delicate arcana on might not be a bad idea. But the Branković boy failing to return to his worthless father would only lead to more problems.
“Bring him to my chambers.”
“Yes, Lord Cardinal.”
Cesarini examined his nails, each a little crescent of dark blood. “Send a basin of water first.”
Cesarini would have preferred the man wear a blindfold; even the crippled on the street had the decency to do so. It would have saved him the disgust of staring at the scarred, fleshed-over sockets in Stefan’s face.
Still, once his attendant had left, it allowed Cesarini the luxury of not bothering to hide his expression. They were wholly alone. Though Cesarini vastly preferred others to do his fighting for him, in the event of some sort of altercation, he expected even he could best a blind man.
“Lord Cardinal, thank you for seeing me.”
Cesarini felt his lip twitch in amusement at the choice of words.
“Your father has been most accommodating and I would hardly be a man of God if I did not show you the same kindness.”
Stefan was a fine specimen, but for those missing eyes. Cesarini wondered what the point of keeping a warrior’s body was, once there was no hope of fighting again. He would make an excellent test subject.
And who was to say Djuradj would blame him? The roads were less than safe these days, with bandits hiding behind every tree, not to mention the Ottomans.
Cesarini dipped a quill in the inkwell on his desk and absentmindedly started sketching the man, splayed out on a table, skinless, those lovely muscle fibers exposed.
Stefan had been talking.
“… me here to get to the bottom of it and if I can’t, I’m to ask you to leave the tower.”
The scratching of the quill paused, and Cesarini looked up from his half-finished sketch.
“The bottom of what exactly?”
Stefan frowned.
“Please do not insult me and my father by claiming ignorance. This tower may be a good distance from Ćuprija, but rumors travel at speed. Missing children, strange things sighted in the forest…”
Cesarini nearly had to bite his lip to stop from commenting on that language again.
“My father cares not if you choose to throw yourself into the dark arts, but he cannot allow you to do it here in his lands when it is affecting his people. What sort of ruler would he be?”
What sort, indeed? The sort who cowered in Hungary, espousing what a great leader he was while the heathen horde blinded his sons with hot pokers. Then he dared send one of the brats to hamper the very man working on something that might push them back?
Cesarini swallowed the words and forced a smile onto his lips, even if it was only for himself.
“I respect your father’s position—” He did not. “—and I respect you further for telling it to me plain.” He absolutely did not.
Stefan bowed his head slightly. Cesarini picked up the quill and pressed the nib against the paper, harder than he needed to, scratching two black eyeholes into his sketch.
“While I will admit to… dabbling in alchemy, I cannot and will not take the blame for every peasant superstition, lost lamb, or Turkish attack happening out there. Missing children? You more than most know the cruelty of the Turks.”
To his credit, the man didn’t so much as flinch.
“You are aware of how they… find recruits for their army?” Cesarini continued. “Of course you are. I assure you, the Turks’ hunger for young boys is… substantial.”
Stefan shifted in his chair, the motion of a man who need only be told what he wanted to hear, and that would be that.
“You are a brave man, Stefan Branković, and I am sure God sees that as clearly as me.”
He smirked at the verbal jab, and at the thought that God would give a single shit about this worthless child spawned from a worthless father in this worthless, backwater country.
“Your family has treated me well—” If one drafty tower in the vacant countryside could be considered as such. “—so I feel I can confide in you. I am close, so very close to something that can turn the tide against the Turks. Something that can not only drive them from the lands of God, but grant you some justice for the great injustice done upon you.”
Stefan’s lip twitched.
“Justice won’t bring my eyes back.”
“Perhaps I can.”
Stefan stiffened at that and spoke very slowly, the edge in his voice making Cesarini think—if only for a moment—that perhaps he should have kept a guard on this side of the door after all.
“Do not presume to taunt me.”
“I do no such thing. Through God, all things are possible, my child.”
He took a fresh piece of parchment and began scratching away at it.
“And through Him, the faithful are rewarded for their faith and their… discretion.”
Scratch, scratch, went the quill as he filled the page with the appropriate alchemical rituals.
“Can I…” Stefan’s tongue flicked over his lips. “Can I really see again?”
There was nothing so delicious as watching a man fall over the edge into faith. Blind faith, you could say. Cesarini had to stifle a chuckle.
“I have faith you will. You will need to follow these rituals to the letter. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Stefan breathed.
“Good. Here.” He extended the scroll, rolling his eyes as Stefan groped for it, then keeping a firm grip as the man tugged at it.
“Can I expect you will explain the situation with the Turks to your father for me?”
“The… yes. Yes, of course. It’s as you said—there is no depravity the infidels won’t sink to.”
False Light and Brotherhood of the Wolf Issues #1 and #2 will be available very soon, inshAllah.
Watch this space.
In the meantime, feel free to reply to write me and tell me what you think of the False Light prologue.