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The Dark Side of Light: Initiation: The Dark Side of Light Series, #1
The Dark Side of Light: Initiation: The Dark Side of Light Series, #1
The Dark Side of Light: Initiation: The Dark Side of Light Series, #1
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The Dark Side of Light: Initiation: The Dark Side of Light Series, #1

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Black magic abounds and mythical beings arise in this riveting suspense where multi-dimensional realities bleed together to reshape a fate that hinges on a romance transcendent of time and space.

 

Shallee, a PhD social activist in the twenty-first century, has disrupted the harmful social programming instigated by Raymond Mackelvie, a powerful business magnate who has been controlling the masses for decades. Hence, Mackelvie sets out to destroy her. Interestingly, her circumstance parallels a ninth-century past life that has always haunted her. In that life, her royal family, trying to unite Denmark, was overthrown and slaughtered by the Curonian, Droghan.

Tumbling through time, Shallee finds herself in that past, two years after she died. She meets up with the warrior, Shokane, who once loved her, though she didn't know him well. Together they plot to restore Denmark, fighting for heart on a perilous adventure into the dark side of light.

 

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 12, 2014
ISBN9781502265760
The Dark Side of Light: Initiation: The Dark Side of Light Series, #1
Author

Susan D. Kalior

        Susan was born in Seattle, WA.. Her first profession was a psychotherapist treating those suffering from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, sexual abuse, family violence, and severe mental illness. She employed therapies such as communication skill building, relaxation training, systematic desensitization, bioenergetics, and psychodrama. She has facilitated stress management, parenting, and self-discovery workshops that have aided in the psycho-spiritual healing of many. She has lectured on metaphysical and psychological topics, and been involved in various social activist pursuits.          Her education includes an M.A. in Ed. in Counseling/Human Relations and Behavior (NAU), a B.S. in Sociology (ASU), and ten months of psycholog-ical and metaphysical training in a Tibetan community.          Susan writes entertaining books steeped in psychology, sociology, and metaphysics in genres such as visionary fiction, dark fantasy, horror, and romance. All her books are designed to facilitate personal growth and transformation.         In her words: I love to sing, meditate, and play in nature. I love fairy tales, going outside the box, and reading between the lines. I strive to see what is often missed, and to not miss what can't be seen. There is such a life out there, and in there—beyond all perception! So I close my eyes, feel my inner rhythm, and jump off the cliff of convention. And when I land, though I might be quaking in my boots, I gather my courage and go exploring.         Through travel, study, and work, I've gained a rich awareness of cultural differences among people and their psychosocial struggles. I have discovered that oppression often results from the unexamined adoption of outside perceptions. The healing always has been in the individual's stamina to expel outside perceptions of self and constructively exert one's unique core being into the world. I am driven to facilitate expanded awareness that people may separate who they are from who they are told to be. Embracing personal power by loving our unique selves in our strengths and weaknesses . . . forever—is a key to joyous living. My motto is: Trust your story. Live the Mystery..

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    Book preview

    The Dark Side of Light - Susan D. Kalior

    Blue Wing Publications

    The Dark Side of Light

    Book One-Initiation

    Copyright 2010 Revised 2018

    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review. All non-historical character or business names in this book are fiction; any resemblance to current names is purely coincidental.

    Published by Blue Wing Publications

    sdk@bluewingworkshops.com, www.bluewingworkshops.com

    Cover design by Christian Bentulan

    Research Consultant: Mark Kalior

    Proofreader: Sara C. Roethle

    Readers’ comments welcomed

    and reviews appreciated.

    Other Books by Susan D. Kalior

    The Dark Side of Light

    Book Two-Crescendo

    Book Three-Eternity

    Warriors in the Mist: A Dark Fantasy

    The Mark of Chaos  (The Mark of Chaos Series)

    An Angel’s Touch (The Mark of Chaos Series)

    The Golden Disc (The Mark of Chaos Series)

    The Goddess Returns (The Mark of Chaos Series)

    The Other Side of God: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Being

    The Other Side of Life: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Death

    The Other Side of Self: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Plurality

    Growing Wings Self Discovery Workbook:

    17 Workshops to a Better Life, Volume One

    Growing Wings Self Discovery Workbook: Volume Two

    The Simple Guide to Feeling Better

    Manufactured in the United States of America

    A Martyr’s Redemption

    Meadows green and flowers bright,

    do not reveal the beast’s appetite.

    Dogmatic school, religious rule

    often binds the open mind.

    For we are told

    that rudeness and violence are a crime.

    And we are told

    that love and forgiveness are divine.

    And we are told

    that repentance has its price,

    and the price is sacrifice,

    drained dry to be nice,

    until we can’t breathe anymore.

    And the beast is fed

    when the martyr’s dead.

    But all in all, in holistic sight,

    the warriors need to love,

    and the pacifists need to fight.

    There’s a light side to dark,

    and a dark side to light.

    PROLOGUE

    Oversoul

    ––––––––

    The universe is vast, levels of being many, and adventures abound. One great adventure in which my souls partake to enrich their being is the story of earth. However, sometimes a soul gets stuck on a page in the story and is doomed to static repeat. While most souls eventually get unstuck and finish experiencing earth, my little soul has not. She has, in fact, been stuck on the very first page—for centuries, incarnated into numerous human bodies, yet never becoming fully human.

    Humanity thrives on the communion of opposites: day-night, hot-cold, positive-negative, female-male. As her being is strongly feminine, she resists the male energy that would propel her further into the story. And now her story is fading for lack of being had.

    I begin this tale at its end in the twenty-first century with my little soul in the body of woman called Shallee. And I, disguised in the persona she once knew as her Queen Mother, dangle before her the past life that holds the key to her freedom. If she cannot get hold of the past and change it soon, she will forfeit the earth story, fail to be enriched, and slip into nothingness. Oh, my little soul, you can be truly human, if only you believe.

    CHAPTER ONE

    Shallee

    ––––––––

    Gripping the steering wheel, I stare through the dusty front windshield of my little gold Malibu, watching the pavement sail by. Rolling along the highway at the edge of sunset, I head toward my cabin in Preston, Arizona to speak at a Save the Earth rally tomorrow morning. I, Shallee McShane, a twenty-eight year old PhD social psychologist, social activist, and all around rabble-rousing do-gooder, am doing my best to create peace on earth.

    ‘They,’ meaning the people out there, perceive me as a ‘save the world’ sort, champion of the misled, or at the very least a Class-A troublemaker. But I don’t know anymore. Beneath that image, I feel detached, like a character in a play—unreal, living a fiction in a flitting yet endless dream, like the ones when you are running in slow motion from the monster at your back, but you don’t really get anywhere. My legs are moving, but the scenery stays the same. And though my heart is bigger than the sky, I cannot feel the earth beneath my feet.

    Anxiety gurgles in my stomach. I have an urge to turn around and drive back to my home in Tempe, near the university where I teach. But no, this rally is too important, even if there will be those present who are gunning for me, threatened by my shining career and activist triumphs.

    I started college at age seventeen, and by age twenty-four, I’d earned a B.A. in metaphysics, an M.A. in sociology, and a Ph.D. in social psychology. Four years hence, I am the founder of the Personal Choice Alliance, author of a best selling book, guest of popularly rated talk shows, and a professor and guest lecturer at well-known universities. I also speak for any organization that supports my cause.

    My palms are sweating. I rub the damp off along the leg of my blue jeans to better grip the steering wheel. Inhaling nervously, my dry hand finds my heart. Breathe Shallee, just breathe. I clutch my yellow tee shirt as if I could hold my heart safely in my palm. I’ll be okay, I will. With a brisk exhale, I curl a long black tress of hair behind my ear as if that’s all it will take to gain control of my life.

    But I’m not in control, evident by the shadowy form rising behind me. It’s about to happen again—that unsavory otherworldly occurrence that haunts me, prods me, and pushes me to do something that is akin to growing another arm, or leaping to the top of a mountain in a single bound. This thing I must do involves merging with primeval energy, which I view as a beast.

    The shadowy form strengthens, mounting at my back, crawling up my spine with a ghostly chill.

    I exit the highway, spying a dirt side road not too far away. Pulling into it, I bring my gold Malibu to a stop, preparing for the onslaught. With the ignition off, I stare out the front windshield. The sun is setting in panoramic reds, oranges, and pinks that would awe the average spectator. But I see only bloodshed. Orange is my life energy draining. Red is my blood spilling. Pink is my compassion that’s going to get me killed. I hate that I see everything in shades of doom.

    Lower and slowly lower, the sun sinks behind a desert mountain, darkness eclipsing the bright. And I’m sinking just the same, eclipsed by a dark medieval past that I have tried to stop from replaying.

    The shadowy form engulfs me like a cocoon, trapping me within. My forehead dips to the steering wheel. I sigh hard preparing to endure once more the hell of this perpetual replay. Tears wash down the sides of my nose as I whisper intently, "No more . . . please, no more."

    Before the replay starts, I glimpse, as usual, a long dark tunnel, and as cliché as it sounds, there is a light at its end. I try to enter, but as always, I cannot. I call into the tunnel, Come and merge with me beast; save me from this doom. But as usual, there is no response.

    I am pulled into my standard trance, and the scene unfolds.

    ––––––––

    In the darker ages that elude history, I am an outcast princess of an overthrown king. Princess—I know, cliché yet again—but that is the way it happened. However, there is no knight in shining armor. My name is Alloria. I’m standing in a sea marsh searching for food amongst the tall brown, blue-feathered reeds. The hem of my ragged, beige gown floats on ankle-deep seawater. My long, curly red hair is matted and infused with the debris of outdoor living. My stomach hurts from hunger. I scan the water for anything edible.

    How is it that I have been reduced to this? If only I had killed my murderous uncle upon that day, and in that moment, when I had the chance. But I could not. I could not kill. And so he took my father’s life, stole his throne, and outcast my brother and me. My broken family is the crown my uncle wears, his prime exhibition, proof to the commoners that he could reduce esteemed royalty to the most pitiful of sub-creatures. And he had.

    Oh what a spineless snake was he for worming his way into our family by marrying my father’s sister in unholy matrimony, solely to gain unfair advantage in executing his treacherous plan. And all of Denmark has suffered, scourged by his ghastly lies that sparked a revolution. The people, infused my uncle’s imported troops, annihilated my father's loyals like the dragon's breath of fire, spitting and hissing boiling rage; this dragon . . . this oh so malicious vindicator, named—envy. Envy always takes what it wants, sometimes even the beholder.

    Horse hooves thunder toward me. Here they come, my uncle’s henchmen, like the apocalyptic four. Every few days they blow in like a bad storm, hunt me down, and take turns raping me. Sometimes, my brother tries to protect me. Even with his damaged mind, mangled by the torture my uncle had ordered, he would rush toward the scene, ferocious and wild. At these times, the henchmen laugh at the ousted prince waving his arms like a berserker in rags, bug-eyed with messy red hair and scruffy beard. They laugh so hard that sometimes they stop hurting me. And sometimes they forget where they were at with it and ride off. But most of the time, my brother doesn’t come, and I am dreadfully harmed.

    The hoof beats draw nearer. I am numb to the abuse and pained even more by the destruction of my family bond. We had a love that superseded wealth and power. Perhaps that is why we became poor and victimized. I don't know.

    As they approach, something is different. This time they have come to kill me. I feel it in my bones. I race across the marsh toward the oak forest ahead. They have caught up with me, prancing along behind, laughing, horse breath at my back. I walk now, a pointless walk, a hopeless walk, a walk into doom. But what can I do?

    I reach the oak forest with brown horses at my sides. Of their cruel riders, I see only black boots in stirrups flaunting my bleak situation. I keep walking even when they stop and dismount, when once we reach the woods. They taunt me. My arm is grabbed. I wince; they laugh. I am forced to the ground; clothes are cut off my body, and male organs jam in and out of my most private area. I whimper and moan, enduring pain—and they laugh more.

    Their laughter rips the purest part of me into tiny pieces that blow away with the wind. I am a thing, void of personhood, and womanhood, and worth. Unable to bear this, I look at an oak tree above me and detach from this body they ravage. I don’t want life. I don’t want it. I am glad this is the day I will die.

    A broadsword gouges my stomach, passing clean through to the soft dirt beneath me. I am pinned to the earth, me. Me whose nature is to fly in the skies of angelic love. I am tacked to the ground as hunters tack animal heads on walls.

    I die.

    I leave my body and appear in a strange, spacious world of purples and blues.

    ––––––––

    Pressing my back into the car seat, I try to break the trance and stop the replay. But I cannot.

    ––––––––

    In the purple and blue realm, I am kneeling before the spirit of my deceased Queen Mother. She appears as I remembered her before her death when I was five years old: thin, gold crown circling her red hair, bound back from her square, bold face. Her indigo eyes gaze down upon me with a maternal love that feels divine, washing over me like pink waves in a far off fairy tale.

    She touches my head lightly. Thou art hither to examine thy soulic journey and develop new strategies for future life experiences.

    The belled sleeves and skirt of her gold gown embellish her with an air of drama. She says, Rise, my child, and face me.

    I rise and stand before her.

    Golden light rays flood from her as she heralds goddess-like wisdom. Her impassioned speech begins with a low, husky tone like the gentle beginnings of a great symphony. Dear child, dear . . . dear child. Thou camest to earth a human angel, radiating love, wanting the sun to shine and never the night to come; wanting the flowers to bloom and never the petals to wilt. Thy nature is light. Thy home afore earth . . . was light. Always thou seekest to make earth like thy home by preaching peace and unifying all creatures with love.

    The symphony of her voice gains power. "But the warrior men rebel, brandishing the right to kill and conquer for survival and control. Thou wilt not let them be, so they will not let thee be. I have watched thee cling to thy way and thus repeat thy fate again and again . . . and yet again. With each death, thou dost loop back into yet another life, and live it just the same. Thou mustest make peace with the male force and integrate that energy into thine own. Then thou wilt be able to guard thy womanly virtue and be free of thy repeated doom."

    ––––––––

    Trying to break off the experience, I push my head up to stare out of my windshield into the almost darkened land. But with eyes, open or shut, Queen Mother’s voice rings strong.

    ––––––––

    "Thou dost find so many ways to repel male energy. Man’s way is not bad. The sword is not evil. Brutality is a part of functioning life. The lion digs its teeth into its prey . . . bloody, to sustain its body and bring forth new young! In accepting the union of prey and predator, thou shalt become—both.

    Death perpetuates life, and the night must fall afore the day can come. This is earth. Earth! Earth is not a lowly place for thee to pacify. It was not created for that! It is thee who must change. Then . . . and only then canst thou wield the power of dark and light, intertwining snakes bright and black in equal force. Then thou shalt rule without ruling, and know power without want. Thou shalt learn of true love . . . for even thou dost not rightly understand it. This that I have said is thy ultimate destiny.

    Thou mustest evolve on earth. I suggest thou dost. There is a limit to how many times one can endure the sacrificial decision to suffer by refusing the sword. When thy time is up . . . ."

    ––––––––

    She disappears. It’s over. The shadowy force is gone, and I am alone in my Malibu, centuries after that life, in a time of great invention: cars, planes, rocket ships, computers, and bombs, and yet, I’m on the brink of the same doom I just experienced.

    The sun has set and darkness has closed in around me like my fate. I have tried hard to accept man’s way and use the sword. Is my activism not proof? Why isn’t it working? What am I doing wrong? If I die one more time in a grand statement of love as a sacrificial lamb, I’ll be like a ship with no anchor: I’ll float away from beginnings and endings, paralyzed in an in-between that has no meaning, like a book that can’t be read, or a song that can’t be sung. I call it the ‘Big Empty.’ What is to become of me? I don’t know. I search for salvation, but where can I find it? Only in myself, I suppose. Only in myself.

    ––––––––

    Shokane-Dark Ages

    ––––––––

    She is etched in my mind, this one. Her face, her soft eyes, her compassionate demeanor. Princess Alloria of Denmark was an honest little creature, unsuited for the violence that commanded her attention. Though she knew me only as a stoical face hired by her father to help him unify Denmark and create alliance with the North, she had, against all odds, pierced my hard heart. Her brief and gentle presence on this earth meant something to me.

    I am making my late morning rounds, striding on foot along the dirt path down the hill, away from the castle King Rake built and King Droghan stole. The castle is the first of its kind in the North, a massive limestone fortress on a cliff overlooking the sea. Alloria loved the sea. Sometimes, I would see her at night at the top of the castle singing to the ocean.

    Thoughts of her pain me. And by this affliction, I have tried not to mind that she died or lived, but for some reason unknown, she hath inherited my care. Slaying no longer exhilarates. The cold fingers of winter comfort me more than whores and rare wine. The riches come and go; the women come and go; warriors come—and go. Even kingdoms come and go. And though Alloria came and went, she is alive in me—always.

    The wind cools my body, hot in mail shirt, belt laden with weapons, and leather pack on my back. Breezes bluster my dark blond hair about my shoulders and make ripples in my scarlet, black dragon-crested tunic that I, as the King’s general, am obliged to wear. We Vikings, as they call us, do not commonly wear uniforms, but Droghan insists, his way of huffing and puffing his victory all over Denmark. I should like to rip off the black dragon-crest and replace it with my personal symbol—the lion.

    Coming to the east gate of the twelve-foot limestone wall that surrounds Aros, I arrive betwixt the two manned turrets. My four guards on ground level salute, open the iron gate, and let me pass into an area considered ‘beyond the boundary’ for civilians.

    I cross a meadow and head into the beech forest, nearing the edge of the marsh. I journey north toward the spot I found and buried the princess two years agone. Eastward, the surf crashes wave after wave to the shore, as if to say, ‘life goes on forever.’ If so, then Alloria is somewhere.

    I glare at the seagulls that soar over marshland, the blue jays that sing in trees, and the squirrels that scamper merrily amongst the beech canopies. They mock me with their parade of pleasure, for Alloria is not amongst them. But verily, I glare at myself, for having left her unprotected. Glancing at my brown, knife-stocked boots trampling over leaf litter, I touch my sword pommel, sheathed at my side. I could have saved her. I could have, if only I had listened to my heart and stayed in Denmark. If only I had not tried to bury my love by sailing off to another battle in distant part of the world. But I did. And in mine absence, she was taken from me forever.

    What worth are mine exploits now? A sweat bead drips down my temple soaking into the light beard on my face. And if I could cry, it would have been a tear. This pathos is strange for me, for I do not normally bond with others; I would much rather fight.

    I am Shokane of Skybrecht, world-renowned mercenary, winning power for kings and queens, tyrants and politicians, fulfilling their ambition, then moving on with neither allegiance, nor care of their future fate. But Alloria, quite secretly, she had mine allegiance, and quite secretly, I cared of her fate. And most certainly, I would have defended her for free.

    Where is she, I wonder? In heaven as the Christians believe, reincarnated into an animal as the Chinese believe, or is she in some future life as Plato and his followers might suggest, or is she just plain—dead? She could not be in Christian hell though, if hell there be, for her heart was great for the poor. Once I witnessed her slip a green amber ring off her finger, then toss it from the castle balcony to an old beggar woman below. The astonished woman held it reverently in her wrinkled hands.

    The princess’s hands, however, were caked with dry blood when I discovered her corpse in the forest. The rest of her appearance would assault the ears in telling. I buried her where she fell, camouflaging her grave, not wishing to alert Droghan that I cared for the daughter of the king he overthrew.

    Though I witness much death with nary a pang of grief, this death, her death hath soured mine existence so greatly that I have been exacting a plan to avenge her murder, restore Denmark, and if possible, make her brother king. A plan it is, so artful and just, the war gods, if war gods there be, would rend the air with applause.

    ––––––––

    Shallee

    ––––––––

    I turn the keys in the ignition and head back to the highway. My headlights stretch out in the darkness, showing me the way. If only such lights would shine into my future. If only.

    Merging with traffic, I am on my way again. I used to record my experiences of that past life in my journal, but as the same scene keeps replaying, I haven’t added anything in a long while. I glance into various cars passing me, or me passing them, at the shadowy faces of strangers locked in their worlds with their own set of challenges: jobs, lovers, children, parents. I have no such challenges.

    All I have to do is heed my dead Queen Mother’s advice to make peace with all the men of the world irrespective of their violent tendencies, absorb their power, and merge it with my own. Yeah, that’s all I have to do. If I succeed, well, then I will not repeat my same old doom. I will get to be normal. So simple. So pure. I wish for that. I do.

    If only I could laugh with the drinkers, play with the sinners, and eat popcorn while watching a violent movie. I want to be free of the extreme empathic compassion that puts me in a state of eternal suffering, and further attracts the apathetic who seem to enjoy tormenting me.

    My worst enemy I call the Dragon Elite, not only because their logo is a black dragon on a bright red square, but they have amassed a network of politicians, lawyers, and owners of certain big businesses who brainwash us into thinking we can't survive without their prescription for happiness (even if that prescription is unhealthy), and the solution is to buy their products or services (even if they harm us). And when we adhere to them, we feel in control of our lives—but we are not.

    My teeth clench thinking about this, but I should instead concentrate on the mounting highway traffic. It’s Friday night and the city folk are making a run for the country to inhale the scent of pine trees and feel lake water on their skin.

    A red Jaguar passes me. The driver looks like a porn star. Does she really think she is in control of her life? The white SUV in front of me has two kids in the back seat. A little arm goes up holding a can of soda. Another child’s arm reaches for the can as if to take it away. I shake my head. Is a can of unhealthy soda really the prize? The

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