Cover art by Jason Pedersen

This is the 8th volume of Legends of Windemere.  The funny thing is how this book was not really planned and came about because I needed something to happen to make volume 9 work.  The Merchant of Nevra Coil ended up solving a lot of issues that I saw appearing down the road too.  Guess you could call this the maintenance book of the series, which sounds rude.  Still, it prevented a lot of trouble.

The basic story is that the champions go to the new city of Nevra Coil, which was built by the gnomes.  It flies and is very high-tech.  I worried about that because this is a fantasy series and the gnome inventions weren’t in your face yet.  This was a city built entirely on their techy culture, so it bordered on science fiction to a few readers.  Anyway, Yola Biggs (ugh) the exiled Chaos Goddess shows up to cause some trouble.  Some of the champions are turned into their action figures, which a gnome has been selling for profit.  Others are mind-wiped and left in an asylum to keep them out of the way.  A race is on by the one champion would avoided the curse and a few supporting characters to get the lost figures back in time to revive them.  Sounds messy, but I’m trying desperately to sum things up without dropping spoilers.

So, what did this solve?

• It gave one champion a time to shine on their own.
• It brought more closure to the Kira/Sari/Luke Callindor plotline.
• Delvin was prompted to commit to the actions, which created volume 9.
• Brought some closure to a previous character that people missed.
• Created more of a foundation for Stephen Kernaghan going insane.
• Established that the champions were actually famous instead of it coming out of nowhere.
• Locked in the awkwardness of a confrontation that would happen within 2 volumes.
• Introduced Fizzle to how human society doesn’t always take care of the less fortunate and allowed him to grow.
• Gave Yola a chance to do more than be comic relief and make her role in a later book more sensible.  I realized that if I didn’t have these events happen, her being involved in a fight would make no sense and her ‘defeat’ would make even less.

That’s a long list and probably reveals a bunch.  This was a difficult book to write in general too.  I originally thought I would have it be in short story form with each champion, Yola, and a few others getting a section.  I dropped this idea because the format wasn’t used before and wouldn’t be used after.  So, it felt like I would be making this volume awkwardly stand out for no real reason.  By focusing on a few characters, I was able to make it work.  Still had a lot of juggling and heavy-lifting to do because I needed to cover a lot of ground.

Another positive of this book is that it combines with volume 9 to create a good break between champion temples.  Three have been done and there are three more.  So, I wanted to avoid the repetition and stopped after the magic number 3.  It showed that destiny can be derailed for a bit and even put at risk.  Another reason I used Yola the Chaos Goddess because she would do something that could ruin the plans of both Gabriel the Destiny God AND Baron Kernaghan.  Glad I had her in there the whole time and found the perfect use for her.  Probably why I always enjoyed thinking back about this one and volume 9 because they were born from chaos.

Would I change anything?  I think I rushed a bit on a few of the stories because I didn’t think all of them through.  It isn’t very noticeable, so it’s more me thinking of stuff after the fact.  Everyone did get a good amount to do or be done to them.  I established a lot of world building and foreshadowing.  Still, I always got the sense that I could have done more here.  Maybe I’m just getting greedy.

Let’s juggle some Merchant of Nevra Coil questions:

1. Do you think magic-fueled machines work in fantasy?
2. If you were transformed into a toy, what would you do?
3. How would you feel if you learned that nobody cared that you existed?