Exploring how epic fantasy is built from the inside out (part 25)

Previous segments:
Forged by Death – Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Epilogue

Chained by Fear – Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9

This is the 25th installment of a Substack series where I share the opening paragraphs from each chapter of The Death Wizard Chronicles, followed by my author’s breakdown of the context, themes, conflict, and the choices that shaped the scene.

The Death Wizard Chronicles is an adult epic fantasy set on the world of Triken, where death is not an ending but a source of magical power—one that can be harvested, controlled, and weaponized. The series follows an ancient wizard whose long stewardship has preserved centuries of peace, until a greater power emerges and forces him toward choices that carry irreversible cost. This story is written for mature readers and includes graphic violence and explicit sexual content.

This project continues a format I’ve used before with Dark Circles, my teen fantasy adventure trilogy, where readers experienced each chapter in stages—through selected opening paragraphs—alongside commentary on how the book was built.

The Death Wizard Chronicles is a trilogy, with each of its three volumes containing two complete novels.

Volume 1: Forged by Death and Chained by Fear.

Volume 2: Shadowed by Demons and Torn by War.

Volume 3: Blinded by Power and Healed by Hope.

Below are the opening paragraphs of Chapter 10 of Chained by Fear. My author breakdown follows.

Context: Torg and his companions have reached the legendary city of Kamupadana, where they take shelter at an inn inside its towering walls. During the evening, Torg overhears a disturbing conversation about mysterious barrels being secretly delivered to the city's great ziggurat. Convinced the shipment poses a grave threat, he slips out under cover of darkness, determined to uncover the truth before whatever is coming can no longer be stopped.

CHAINED BY FEAR ||||| ZIGGURAT

When midnight arrived, the tavern was bursting with drunken fools, including Ugga, Bard, Elu, and Rathburt. The four of them stood in front of the log fire, their arms draped around each other at various heights, singing like loons. In a short while, they would most likely head for the brothels within the seventh wall.

By this time, Torg was gone. He sat alone in his room at the inn, attempting to meditate. But he couldn’t clear his mind, continually replaying his conversation with the merchant. Whatever the barrels contained, it couldn’t be good. But why would the witches want or need to poison an entire city, especially one as prosperous and militarily neutral as Senasana? Torg was missing something, but he couldn’t determine what.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became he needed to find out what was in the barrels. And the only way to do that was to open them himself. He cursed the starlight, which provided too much illumination on such a clear night. But he was a Death-Knower, Asēkha, and Tugar wrapped into one. His abilities would suffice.

Torg had earlier chosen a belted black tunic and breeches from the batch of new clothes. His hooded cloak also was black, but it was too cumbersome for his intended mission. He went to the latrine where there was a pewter basin filled with clean water. Then he dumped the water down a small drain and stuffed the now-empty basin with towels. With a burst of flame from his fingertips, he reduced the towels to ash. It happened so quickly, there was little smoke. Torg ground the ash in his hands and rubbed it on his face.

With the Silver Sword strapped to his back in its new scabbard, Torg exited the room through the window. His stealth was such that the warder in the turret noticed nothing unusual.

The gaps between the stone blocks provided adequate grips. Torg wound his way around the back of the building and dropped into a narrow alley between the inn and the seventh wall. He knelt there and examined his surroundings. A hundred paces to his left, a door swung open. Someone stepped out and emptied a bucket of garbage onto the pavement. Torg saw a dozen fist-sized shapes converge on it, tearing into the discarded scraps.

Torg slipped along the base of the seventh wall, examining its texture with his fingertips. It was made of the same slippery stone as the ninth wall but otherwise was far less grand, smaller even than the eighth. He crouched on his haunches and leaped upward, landing like a cat on the top of the wall. From this vantage point, he could see the brothels, which swarmed with late-night business. Behind dark windows, men, women, and even monsters engaged in every conceivable form of sexual activity and depravity. Few paid any attention to what was going on in the streets. Torg passed by unseen.

The sixth wall was also small and undefended. He sprang over it and dropped onto a walkway of tiny white pebbles. The crunch of his landing was the first discernible sound he’d made since climbing out the window of the inn.

Torg slinked around the side of a white building that was raised off the ground on squat pillars. He knelt and peered into the crawl space where he saw a sunken area containing a wood furnace stoked by male attendants. Heat rose through hollowed spaces in the walls. Torg stood, slid the toe of his boot into a crevice, and clambered up to a small window. He looked into a well-lighted chamber that contained a pool of heated water. A dozen naked women lounged around the steamy bath, while several more were submerged past their shoulders. The ones he could see were tall, muscular, and small-breasted, with short-cropped hair. Torg recognized them as Sāykans, the famed female soldiers of Kamupadana. The Warlish witches had been masters of the Whore City for 10,000 years, but a never-ending line of Sāykans had served as the city’s guardians for millennia beyond count. With the rise of Avici removing any serious threat of attack, the Sāykans were now used primarily as a police force. But they remained capable of holding the walls against great armies. In the bath’s corner, Torg could see their weapons arranged in open cabinets. Several female attendants stood nearby.

The Sāykans’ taut bodies were extremely pleasant to observe. They reminded Torg of Sōbhana, and he lingered by the window longer than was wise. The Sāykans were not as skilled as Tugars, but they were well-trained and clever. One soldier noticed his shadow.

“We are watched!” she said.

They went on alert, racing toward their weapons and shouting orders to the attendants to sound an alarm. Torg cursed himself for his lapse of concentration and fled down a narrow space between the concrete buildings. He needed to get as far from the commotion as possible before attempting to scale the fifth wall, which he knew was the most heavily guarded of all save for the ninth.

The alley opened into a manicured courtyard. A small group of Sāykans, wearing studded leather tunics and leggings, stood near a bubbling fountain. These soldiers still seemed unaware of any disturbance.

A building next to the bathhouse had a low balcony facing the courtyard. Torg pulled himself onto the balcony and crept along the flat stone on his stomach like a centipede. He soon heard a scourge of shouting from a dozen half-dressed soldiers who poured out of the bathhouse and called to their sisters by the fountain. In response, several Sāykans raced into the alley to investigate. Torg waited until they returned so that he could hear their report. They had found nothing and had given up the chase. He waited until they dispersed.

Torg dropped off the balcony and slipped along the borders of the courtyard. He passed a second bathhouse, slithered through a narrow alley, and raced along a lonely street for half a mile without encountering anyone. When he passed between another pair of buildings, he saw the fifth wall. It wasn’t as enormous as the ninth, but it was easily the second largest of all, almost fifty cubits tall and surmounted by walks with machicolated parapets. A deep moat—swarming with small but deadly eels capable of stripping the flesh off a person in moments—protected its base. He remembered from his previous visit centuries ago that a lone drawbridge spanned the moat, but it wasn’t visible from where Torg now stood. In the starlight, he could see dozens of soldiers patrolling the walks. Even late at night and with little threat of direct attack, they remained on alert. Torg wondered if the mysterious barrels in the ziggurat were the reason for heightened security.

Torg crouched in the dirt and gauged his situation. The fifth wall was 400 paces from where he stood. On the far side of the moat at the base of the wall was a narrow expanse of hard-pressed clay with scattered patches of gnarled grass. This provided plenty of visibility for the archers on top of the wall. Torg wondered if it might be impossible—even for him—to advance much farther without being seen.

However, the water was dark enough to provide concealment at least until he reached the other side of the moat. Torg wasn’t in the mood to wander around naked the rest of the night, so he stripped off his clothes to protect them from the eels, wound them around the leather scabbard, and stepped into the water, holding the scabbard above his head so that his black outfit wouldn’t be chewed to shreds.

The eels attacked his exposed skin. While most other beings would have been bloodily devoured, Torg wasn’t harmed. He walked into the chilly water up to his chin and then swam one-handed until he could stand again. The eels continued to gnaw at him, unsuccessfully. He veered to his right and waded in the direction of where he believed the drawbridge to be, which was his best—and perhaps only—chance of continuing this mission. He couldn’t conceive of any way he could scale the wall without being discovered.

The crescent moon had long since set in the west, but the night was only half over. Torg would need every bit of what darkness remained. He hoped to be back at the inn by dawn.

End of excerpt

Themes

• Secrets hidden behind walls

• The temptation of forbidden knowledge

• Discipline tested by distraction

• Courage in the face of the unknown

Some walls are built to keep enemies out. Others are built to keep secrets in.

Every obstacle Torg encounters forces him to make a choice. The easier path would be to turn back after being discovered at the bathhouse or after reaching the seemingly impassable fifth wall. Instead, each setback becomes another problem to solve. Some people possess an unshakable determination to finish what they begin, pressing forward long after prudence might suggest retreat. Whether we call that courage, resilience, or simple stubbornness often depends on whether they succeed.

This chapter also reminds us that discipline is not the absence of distraction. Torg is among the most capable individuals in Triken, yet a brief lapse while watching the Sāykans nearly ends his mission before it truly begins. Even extraordinary people remain vulnerable to ordinary human weaknesses. Perfection is not what separates them from everyone else. The difference lies in how quickly they recover from their mistakes.

Finally, Kamupadana itself emerges as a character. Its concentric walls, guarded walkways, hidden courtyards, and ingenious defenses transform the city into a living labyrinth.

The greatest secrets are always protected by the greatest obstacles.

This chapter, while light on traditional combat, builds tension through a different kind of suspense. With every wall Torg scales, every shadow he slips through, and every unforeseen obstacle he encounters, the risk of discovery escalates. My aim was to immerse readers in Torg’s experience, making them feel like companions rather than distant observers. Often, a whispered footstep can generate more suspense than an entire battlefield.

The city of Kamupadana also plays an important role. Rather than explaining Kamupadana through pages of lengthy descriptive passages, I wanted readers to discover it the same way Torg does—one district, one courtyard, and one hidden danger at a time. The bathhouses, the concentric walls, the vigilant Sāykans, and even the eel-filled moat each offer insights into Kamupadana’s culture and values. Worldbuilding, I believe, feels most authentic when it unfolds organically through a character’s direct experience.

Once committed to a path, some people can become remarkably difficult to stop. Every setback simply becomes another obstacle to overcome rather than a reason to quit.

Torg possesses extraordinary abilities, but what ultimately carries him forward is his refusal to abandon a mission he believes is worth the risk.