The Nowhere Chronicles
3 total works
It's Christmas-time, and Finmere Tingewick Smith (Fin to his friends) is back in Orrery House, with Christopher, one of his two best friends. They're there for the Initiation of the new Knights of Nowhere. The boys have tried to find some normalcy after their recent adventures, but they're badly missing Joe. He's stuck in the Nowhere, guarding two of the Five Eternal Stories that weave all the worlds together; they're held inside his own body.
In the Somewhere, Christmas is a time of glad tidings and gifts and goodwill, Christmas trees, carols and the celebration of good things. But there is no Christmas in the Nowhere, and in both worlds, things are not as settled as they look, for Justin Arnold-Mather is getting ready to make his move. In the Nowhere, something is moving through the streets, attacking people - random victims - and leaving them mad and disfigured. And in Orrery House, a tiny crack has appeared in the Prophecy table.
The Prophecy is coming alive. The battle lines will be drawn between even the closest of friends, for the fight is on. The Dark King is rising.
'Sixteen's an interesting age: not quite a fully grown man, but not a kid either. Anything is possible when you're sixteen.'
Finmere Tingewick Smith was abandoned on the steps of the Old Bailey. Under the guardianship of the austere Judge Harlequin Brown and the elderly gentlemen of Orrery House, Fin has grown up under a very strange set of rules. He spends alternate years at two very different schools and now he's tired of the constant lies to even his best friends, to hide the insanity of his double life. Neither would believe the truth!
But on his sixteenth birthday, everything changes. The Judge is killed, stabbed in the chest with a double-edged sword that's disturbingly familiar, and from that moment on, Fin is catapulted into an extraordinary adventure. Through the Doorway in Fin's London, a hole in the boundaries of Existence, lies another London -- and now both are in grave danger.
For the Knights of Nowhere have kidnapped the Storyholder, the keeper of the Five Eternal Stories which weave the worlds together. Because of the Knights' actions, a black storm is coming, bringing madness with it.
Fin may be just 16, but he has a long, dark journey ahead of him if he is to rescue the Storyholder and save Existence!
The prophecy has come to pass.
The London Stone has been stolen and the Dark King rules the Nowhere. Only Mona and the new Seer dare to stand against him, leading an underground rebellion in the frozen wasteland . . . but what chance do they have, against both the Army of the Mad and Arnold Mather's soldiers?
There is still hope: if they can recruit a banished race to their cause, maybe Fin and his friends can force a final battle against the Dark King. But that aid will be hard-won, through an almost impossible quest, and even then there are no guarantees.
It will come down to three friends, standing together against all odds. And fulfilling their destinies, whatever the cost . . .