Thursday, December 7, 2023

The Ritual of Remembrance with Laura Engelhardt




The Ritual of Remembrance is not an act you perform for your loved ones. Instead, it is designed to honor strangers. This Ritual is a gift to those who have passed: a promise that they will be remembered and are not alone. While this rite does not need to be performed during any particular season or time of day, it does require multiple visits to a cemetery.

Prepare by walking the graveyard, using your intuition as your guide as you wander until you feel drawn to a particular gravesite. Pause to read the headstone. Think about who this stranger may have been, then continue to walk past. If you still remember the stranger’s name when you return to the cemetery entrance, you have found the right individual for whom to perform this rite. Sometimes it begins with a tingling in the skin or a compulsion to look more closely at a particular headstone. Or maybe you walk past a grave, and feel a curiosity drawing you back. Pay attention to these small signs to identify the right stranger for whom to perform the Ritual of Remembrance. 

Do not begin the Ritual immediately after your initial visit to the graveyard. Instead, return a few days or weeks later. When you walk the graves again, see whether you feel pulled back to the same stranger as before. If so, then you may begin the Ritual of Remembrance. If not, then continue walking the graves, repeating the steps from your preparatory visit.

Once you identify the site resonating with the stranger, stand before their grave and greet them by name. Use their name to formally greet them and introduce yourself. Next, ponder any facts you can glean from their gravesite plaque or headstone — such as age, time of life, family connections, occupation, nationality, etc. Ask them about their life. Feel for the tendrils of answers that come to you. Those may be simply your own imagination, but often they are informed by the stranger. Every person’s story is unique and different. The very act of thinking about someone keeps their memory alive, even if there is little to be discerned from their final markers.

Each time you return to the graveyard, acknowledge and greet the former-stranger by name. Continue to contemplate their place in history and the era of their life. Complete the Ritual of Remembrance by planting rosemary atop their grave, as you inform the deceased that you are doing this act to help you remember them. Rosemary is a perennial herb, often linked to the act of remembering. If you also decide to plant flowers, do not plan annuals; select a suitable perennial.

Unlike Samhain Rites and other rites of reverence toward the dead, the Ritual of Remembrance is focused on acknowledging and greeting strangers. Because you never knew the deceased, focus only on the act of giving. You are not seeking anything in return from the deceased. 

This Ritual is akin to the rituals of the ancient acts of graveyard blessings, where the practitioner seeks to calm restless spirits. Not every spirit is kind. When performing this work, remember you are performing an act of charity. You are not asking the departed to assist you in anything but are simply providing them with an act of good will, and the promise they are not forgotten. 


Desert Enchantments
Arabian Spells 
Fifth Mage War Prequel
Laura Engelhardt

Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Wandering Wave Press
Date of Publication: November 16, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-957778-06-8
ASIN: B0CM3MMSWK 
Number of pages: 130 pages
Word Count:  32,000 words
Cover Artist: Rena Violet

Tagline: Prophecies, Faeries, Djinni, and Werewolves! A New Fantasy World Awaits…

Book Description:

This exciting prequel is perfect for both new readers and current fans of Engelhardt’s award-winning Fifth Mage War series. At only 130 pages, the book provides an introduction into a magical modern world filled with faeries, prophecies, werewolves and djinni. Desert Enchantment focuses on a new character, and features themes of survivor’s guilt/hope and obsessive love/self-control.

A Class Five mage, Khalid developed the only long-distance magical weapon in existence: the dreaded djinni, who spin across the deserts, destroying everything in their path. Now, he faces the kind of challenge only an Oracle could have predicted.

In Recasting Fate, we join Khalid as he attempts to rout the European invaders from the Sahara Desert. Except a faerie breezes in with an offer he can't refuse.

In Djinn Swarm, Khalid battles for self-control when he discovers that the only thing more powerful than a djinn is love.

These two novelettes are a perfect gateway into the Fifth Mage War series, introducing new characters and new cultures as the world moves inextricably toward a cataclysmic war. 


Excerpt

The first djinn emerged in the night sky: a whirlwind topped with a simulacrum of Khalid himself. Knife-sharp grains of sand spun upward, pulled by the centrifugal force of the air that formed the construct’s lower half. Khalid swallowed down bile as he looked at his creation. The djinn’s outstretched arms were frozen in a gesture of welcome, but its unblinking eyes were indifferent to the suffering it was about to cause.

If only he could create a living construct, he wouldn’t be forced to watch oversized statues of himself wreaking destruction. Before Sabha, he used to revel in the fact that his enemy would know he had been the mage who had killed them. Now, the sight of his giant face in the sky made him sick.

Two more djinni coalesced, dragging roiling storms of colored lightning behind them like fringed capes. Malik shut the spellbook, words of congratulations on his lips. But his face fell, his compliments silenced before they could be uttered. Khalid’s heart rate sped up as he followed his vizier’s gaze.

The three djinni should have been flying north over the dunes to the enemy encampment, spinning tornados of wind and lightning beneath them. Instead, the constructs hung suspended in midair, their lower whirlwinds frozen into a stillness as eerie as their unmoving humanoid tops.

A rush of air rippled Khalid’s headscarf and robe, but the desert was suddenly silent. He could no longer hear the rasp of wind over sand.

Eurus, Khalid realized, his grim fear sinking into actual dread.

The glimmering white-gold outline of a woman’s face emerged in front of the djinni.

Khalid swallowed as she pressed her lips against one statue-like face before dissipating back into air.

Khalid waved Malik back to the assembled guard. “Go,” he said. “Back to camp.”

But Malik pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “No one can contend against the air itself, Amir. It won’t matter if we stay or go.”

That’s an unfortunate truth, Khalid thought. For all they knew, Eurus existed within the very air they drew into their lungs. She was everywhere but only rarely took physical form.

Humans, even other faeries, were typically beneath her notice.

“Your djinni still don’t live.”

The East Wind’s soft voice was impossible to locate, though they all spun around to look for her. Eurus was air, an elemental faerie born billions of years ago when the Earth’s atmosphere formed.

“Why are you here?” Khalid called, his voice overly loud in the stillness.
Eurus, as the East Wind liked to be called, manifested into a shadowed figure floating cross-legged as if atop a flying carpet. But of course, Eurus didn’t need any support to defeat gravity.

Khalid’s face covering blew off, and he caught the red headcloth before responding.

“You told me war didn’t interest you anymore.”

“Your djinni interest me.” The elemental faerie’s voice hovered in the air around him, pressing against him like the atmospheric warning of an approaching sandstorm.

“I’m no via-enchanter to cast spells on living things, Lady Eurus,” Khalid reminded her.

The fae demanded honesty, and he’d told her this many times already. “I don’t know how to make a djinn draw breath.”

“You were working hard to modify your spells,” Eurus said. “At least until your sisters convinced you to claim the Sahara for your al-Saaqib tribe.”

“I have a duty to protect the desert’s people. I can’t play with spell designs while we remain under threat,” Khalid said — then cursed himself when he realized he’d given her an opening.

She pounced. “I am more dangerous than five thousand battlemages. Bargain with me. I can steal your enemies’ breath. Blow their ships back from your shores. I can keep your lands safe from the predators while you perfect your djinn spells.”

“I’m no via-enchanter, Lady Eurus,” Khalid repeated. “I spent decades and only managed to integrate biomarkers into the design.”

His gaze flickered up. Six vacant eyes that matched his own stared down at him in impotent stillness. Eurus’s magick held his unreleased djinni captive. He needed her to let them fly. Let Khalid kill his enemy.

“You see how well I can keep you safe,” Eurus said, glancing upward as well. “Even from your own spells.”

Khalid hated how tempting her offer was now. Everyone else had perished at Sabha. It had been a Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless. If she didn’t release his djinni, this battle would end in an actual defeat.

There was nothing worse than defeat.

“Do not surrender, Al-Amir,” Malik whispered. “With or without the djinni, we will prevail!”

“Surrender? Who said anything about surrender? I’ll be your hired hand, Amir Khalid ibn Hawwa al-Saaqib!” Eurus’s voice hung slyly in the air as she fluttered down into a full bow, her thin frame splayed across the sand before him.

Khalid stared down at the elemental faerie. No sane person made a bargain with a faerie, but then, no sane faerie stalked a human.



About the Author: 

An avid sf/fantasy reader, Laura Engelhardt writes the kind of book she likes to read: fantasy with intricate worlds and complex characters facing moral dilemmas. She started writing plays in college, then moved to Germany, where she continued to write while teaching ESL to executives. After moving back to the U.S., she supported her playwriting by teaching ballroom dance and working retail. Deciding that living in her parents’ attic wasn’t for her, Laura went to law school and then spent the next seventeen years as a lawyer and compliance officer in New York City. In 2017, she quit Wall Street and began helping people resolve disputes as a mediator and arbitrator. She now lives in New Jersey with her family.

 





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2 comments:

marisela zuniga said...

I love this cover, it looks great!!

Bea LaRocca said...

Thank you for sharing your post about The Ritual of Remembrance and your book details. I am looking forward to reading Desert Enchantments