The 7th Apprentice is a novel set in the country of Mured on a planet known as Rhutar. The main character is a boy who goes by the name of Jathon Nocturno. He is the source of the quote “Through me good will prevail.” This book tells his story as he rushes headlong into a destiny of almost unimaginable proportions.

     What follows is a short excerpt from the beginning of Jathon Nocturno and The 7th Apprentice and a hint of what’s to come:

Prologue-

The Name of Death.

  The darkness was absolute. It swarmed around the figure until it was almost tangible. In this place it was always dark. This didn’t bother the man. His slit-like pupils saw the whole room in relief despite the heavy gloom. He was standing in the middle of a huge completely circular amphitheater with no visible entrances or exits that was, in every respect, empty except for his own wraith-like figure. The circumference of the circle was covered entirely in complex minuscule figures with dark hidden meaning.  They were the Prophesies of Rogue and they were not just predictions, they were what forced happenings. They were, in essence, fate.

  They had fascinated and horrified them since he had discovered them as a boy of seventeen. Once he had discovered their secret he had revealed they told of everything. Even his unearthing of them and his rise to power, even his… ‘abnormalities’. Everything of which they had spoken in the last two hundred and eighteen years since then had been accurately predicted. It was from them that he derived his dark powers that led his name to be called Death.

 He who was Death was known as so for it was to be believed that those which saw his face perished and that it was he who chose those which lived and those which depart this life. He found this amusing. He found very little amusing but that the twittering idiots could believe that one as weak as him was in control was at the very least mildly amusing. No, it was Rogue’s choices that led those weak and foul creatures to their deaths. He only aided his master, for Fate was his master. He made the two hundred and eighteen and a quarter paces Southeast and fourteen towards the apex of the circle until he reached the point at which he had last paused in his study. The runes appeared almost instantaneously before his eyes, forming themselves swiftly and silently. His eyes raced along each word as they circled speedily around him in a complex manner. Circular bands of words spun past his eyes. These words began to change so that not only were there words, but he could see time’s passing.

  He saw everything. All of the horrors and all of the happiness. He fed on the events, drawing power from time itself.   

  It was almost impossible to tell how long Death had stood there when he gasped and outstretched his skeletal fingers until they almost brushed upon the words. He stumbled down to the base of the circle and stood, glaring unseeingly at the shadows. The runes faded away from sight, lost to him. It seemed that the Prophecies also predicted his, Death’s, own downfall. For the first time in two hundred and eighteen years he began to doubt the prophecies.

  Suddenly within the carefully maintained ice inside him, a fire burned. It gnawed at him. He would change fate. He and he alone would use fate’s own power against it and alter his future. He would kill the child destined to kill him before it was too late. He turned, suddenly determined, on his heel and strode in a circle, made a peculiar hand motion, and vanished with a flick of a cape, leaving no evidence. Morguess Iona was off to change fate.  

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  Pictures flashed through Death’s head as he exited the labyrinth. Inside the fire still burned. He dove through the images and found the one he desired.  In his mind he saw once more the boy. He was lying peacefully in his mother’s arms in this scene. He looked to be about three. 

  For a moment the fire flickered, almost quenched by icy doubts that tore through him.  By breaking his connection with the prophesy he had missed the rest of the story. He knew not where or when this boy lived. He didn’t even know whether that picture was from the future or the past. He knew only one thing. A name. Jathon Nocturno.

                          Who is Jathon Nocturno? What is his foretold destiny?