A Viral Imperium Book one of the Plagueborn series
– Adult content –
When Madame Swan answers the back door, Lara finds herself shaking and unable to talk.
Madame Swan is standing before her in a blue dress that exposes her ample bosom and flows seductively over her wide hips all the way to the floor. A blue amethyst on a beaded necklace rests perfectly in the centre of her cleavage. But her worried expression draws Lara’s tear-filled eyes up when she asks, “What’s wrong Dove?”
“My grandfather,” she manages to say.
“Yes,” Madame Swan says encouragingly.
“Has passed.”
“Oh, no!” Madame Swan says pulling her into a strong embrace. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. He was such a gentleman.”
Lara turns her face to the side. “Will you pass the word on to those who should know? The funeral will be in two days.”
Madame Swan holds her at arms length. “I will Sweetie.” Madame Swan kisses her forehead, “Now you get back home before the sun gets drowsy and look after your lovely grandmother.”
“I will,” she promises.
She hates showing weakness, and angrily wipes the tears away as Aminah gallops towards her final stop before going home.
The waiting girls are all chattering. “I’ve been with him twice,” now one gloats. “I didn’t want to say, but so have I,” another says. “But you shared him with another girl, so does that really count?” A frustrated girl reminds the second speaker. “I loved the way he licked his finger and used it to trace from my lower lip down,” says one with a gloating smirk. “He sang to me,” one more chirps out.
She can see the nipples of the women through their shirts and an aroused swelling down below. All of their faces are flush. As she feels her own arousal swell, she feels embarrassed. Do men get like this she wonders? All hot and bothered simply because others are? And as much as she struggles to keep quiet, she wants to brag about her own experiences. She wants to shout out, well I seduced a baron then slit his throat. She clenches her teeth. That would get her and her family executed.
Inside the bar is crowded with women. She works her way to the bar where women with low cut dresses serve other women. “We don’t know when he’ll be back,” she hears one of the bartending girls say. “I heard he’s hunting Sir Ganbold down,” the bartender continues.
“Well, where are the other men?” the patron woman asks in a haughty tone.
“No men here,” the bartender replies.
Lara leans into one of the bartenders and says into her ear. “My grandfather passed and I need to tell certain people.”
“I’ll tell one of the workers,” the bartender says into her ear.
A moment later the bartender returns from a backroom behind double doors. “Come with me and–,” the bartender is saying when a male’s head with thick curly blond hair pokes out between the doors.
“We’re out of rum and almost out of–” the young man is saying when the room goes silent.
“What about him?” one of the patrons says.
“Yes, him until Sir Oisin returns,” others shout out.
“By the right hand of Prince William, get ye out here young man,” another demands.
She feels herself being pushed back as the women descend upon the young man. She sees him hold his hands up and give an awkward smile. A moment later she’s outside the tavern with more and more women trying to get in.
Exasperated, she hurries to Aminah and rides toward Madame Swan’s. She knows where the brothel is. Every few months she would travel with her grandmother to drop off perfumes and protective ointments. Always during the day when few patrons had time to satiate their sexual wants. They always went to the backdoor so as not to be confused with one of the working ladies.
Lara rides Aminah into the centre of Kingstown to the Hui Tavern. The three-storey building with its pagoda roof and walk around balconies on the first and second floor are unique. The roof and the overhangs are covered in red slate shingles while the walls are died yellow with images of different coloured dragons; except the east wall. When her grandparents brought her and her sister here as children, the owner of the tavern, Zhì Péng, told them about the creature painted on the east wall. He told them that the multifaced creature with the one mouth and two ears and body similar to a creature called a tiger is called Kaiming Shou.
When she walks inside, she sees numerous familiar drawings of buildings and landscapes that she imagines could only be from dreams. Beyond the filled maple benches and oak tables, she sees Chán Juān, Zhì Péng’s wife frying up trout over a stone oven. With a disarming smile she glances at the patrons sitting at the tables to see if there is anyone she should tell. She doesn’t see anyone, so when she sees Zhì Péng serving a table she takes him aside and asks him to pass on the word to those who should know.
Next, she rides to the Pimm Tavern. From a distance she can see a group of women gathered outside waiting to get into the three-storey building. The tall hawthorn hedge that surrounds three-quarters of the building gives it a sense of seclusion from the other nearby shops and apartments. It has yellow painted walls with chocolate brown painted windowsills and shutters. A sign over the door shows the outline of three people dancing. She ties Aminah loosely to a rail beside a few other horses.
‘Fear not Egbert,’ the lord told him as they came face to face.
He watched the lord’s sword hand but saw no intention of violence.
‘King Durmad has ordered the diversion of the Massika River to a new palace he is building,’ Lord Idris told him. ‘That means the flow of water to Buttigieg Gardenery will gradually dry up. The boys who are old enough will be sent to a war camp. The rest, including all the girls, will be left to fend for themselves.’
He didn’t know what to say. He just stood gawking.
‘At least Lord Ysbail won’t be speaking ill of me into the king’s ears again.’ Here the lord’s voice broke with emotion. ‘Asghari won’t leave my side. I’ve never begged in my life for anything but I begged her to go from me.’ The Lord’s gaze turns to his brother’s smoldering tower. ‘Dodder wasn’t the only sodomizer, rapist, conniving, greedy monster there. Nor were they just males. Vile people attract other vile people and often create new ones. Sometimes, the only way to cure that disease is to burn all the rot down. When Liam and Cara ran the gardenery it was a welcoming place where people willingly worked hard. My brother, Ysbail, ruined that with his one-sided laws, and atrocities.’ The lord stared into his eyes then. ‘You need to help lead the young ones north. Before you go the weapon maker.’
He nodded and stepped forward to walk back to the gardenery with the lord.
As they walked through the gates, he grimaced at the acrid smell mixed with that of burning flesh. ‘I heard there’s going to be a gardenery at the new palace,’ he says through his hand as he uses it to cover his nose and mouth.
‘We’ll see. I must leave now,’ Lord Idris said coughing from the horrid smell himself. ‘Should I have need of you what new name will you go by?’
Lord Ysbail was so much taller than him he knew he couldn’t wait or he would be overpowered. He took several steps back. With all his weight he shouldered into the lord’s right butt cheek. Now the lord was hanging out the window by his hips. Without hesitating he took the paper knife out and stabbed into the upper half of the lord’s left hamstring then his right. He wanted to cut the lord’s throat but the lord was too tall and now hanging too far out the window. So, he kicked the lord with all his might. There was a brief scream.
In a panic he hurried out of the room and into another one with an open door. He heard rushing footsteps. One of the lord’s acolytes started calling into the room. Silently, he stepped behind the acolyte and set the paper knife on the floor. Using the acolyte’s shouting voice as cover he descended the stairs.
‘What’s going on?’ a guard demanded of him.
Trying to sound terrified, he stuttered, ‘I was just coming down the stairs when I heard someone else go into the lord’s room.’
The guard pushed past him. As he heard accusations from the guard and pleads of innocence from the acolyte, he grabbed his belt from a table beside the right door and hurried out of the tower. Whatever, Lord Idris had planned, he couldn’t wait to help out. He jumped up and clung with his fingers onto the top of a section of wall. Pulling himself up and over he dropped to the ground and fled into the forest.
Terrified, he scaled an ancient oak to see if anyone was coming after him. His eyes widened as he saw the tower aflame. A short time later he saw Lord Idris, alone, open the gates and walk in his direction. The lord halted occasionally, and shouted.
At first, he couldn’t hear what the lord was saying. But as the lord came closer, he could hear him calling his name.
He considered running, but Lord Idris was like a father and his closest friend. Knowing his life is probably forfeit he climbed down anyways and walked cautiously towards the lord.
As I read through Darren Joy’s, A Viral Imperium: The Plagueborn Series: Book One, I was immediately caught up in the imagery and banter. Joy has written a book that pulls you into a world where magic and undead make sense. There is also an introduction to Viralic and Spectralic magic, and the combination of the two. The characters are not always who, or what they seem to be, nor is it always clear if they are good, bad, or complicated. As the story progresses, you’ll find yourself reading long past your bedtime.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read a story that caught my attention and held it to the very end. How long have you worked on A Viral Imperium?
I began this book way back in 2014. I had written three unpublished novels before it, so technically this was my fourth book. It should have been completed much sooner, but due to illness, I had to shelve it for a time in 2016. I managed to finish it last year. Overall, it’s taken almost three years.
Your description of characters, creatures, buildings, and sceneries is both vivid and engrossing. How do you go about writing those scenes?
A lot of rewriting, lots and lots of rewriting. No kidding. That’s how. What’s in my head never translates to the screen as I write it, or at least, I’m never happy. So going back and reworking those descriptions, and the novel as a whole is essential, and that’s what I put it down to. That, and I read a lot, so descriptions in other books do grab me. I try not towrite paragraphs of description too often, but blend it in with the ongoing story wherever possible.
Within the main plot there are many subplots. The webs and layers of George R.R. Martin’s: A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones TV series); Ken Follett’s: Pillars of the Earth, and Edward Rutherford’s: Sarum come to mind when I consider the plots within A Viral Imperium. Did you sketch these out beforehand or did you find them writing themselves?
Well, put simply, ’I’m a pantser. I write from the hip, not having much of a clue where it’s going to go. Well, maybe a little clue, but I certainly don’t have it all planned out. This means I have to do heavy rewrites. Ideal? Probably not, but I tried planning novels in the early days, and I never finished those. I tend to plan as I go, adding in notes to the first draft, and rewrite drafts, which I then read as I go through the book the next time, also making more notes. It’s my process, and I don’t know if other writers work that way. It works for me though. I also write each main character’s storyline as a separate manuscript before combining them later, so as to make sure the structure for each story is as I want it.
If I was a publisher I would be contacting you and Amazon books to work out a deal. How do readers and publishers contact you and where is A Viral Imperium available?
For the moment, it is only available on Amazon, but I am strongly considering having it available on other platforms soon. I don’t know if any publishers will contact me, but anyone including readers can get me through the contact page on my website at: www.darrenjoy.com
I also understand you have the second book in the series coming out. Could you tell us when and if there’s a pre order?
Yep, anyone can pre order it now on Amazon. It’s called A Malignant Fetch and it is on sale for 99cents from the 8th of November this year, so not long to go. I’m getting nervous all over again. Easiest way to pre order it is to just pop over to my website, www.darrenjoy.com, and there is a link from there.
Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. I’m very much looking forward to reading A Malignant Fetch!
‘Come in boy,’ Lord Ysbail commands him. The lord was dressed in an embroidered satin robe with the belt loose. It was obvious to him the lord wore nothing underneath.
‘I know you are very close to my brother,’ the lord says, while staring out an arched window beside his ornate bed. ‘But you need to do what is right.’
‘What is that?’ he asked nervously.
‘Did my brother, Lord Ibris, kill Dodder?’
The lord’s question confuses him. ‘He fell out of your tower, lord.’
‘Everyone in the tower adored Dodder.’ The lord opens the stained window, and cool air gushes in blowing his robe open.
‘This gardenery will be shut down soon. The flow of the river is being diverted to the king’s new palace. There will be a new gardener there. Thus, it would be beneficial for you to tell me what I want to know.’
There was a bronze letter opener on a desk along with numerous papers. He moved silently towards it.
The lord looked even farther out the window. With a sigh the lord continued, “Lord Ibris is not what you think he is. He is conniving and a manipulator. He has tainted your thoughts. Perhaps you need to know what its like to have a real man inside you.’
‘Sorry, my lord?’ he asks as he clenches onto the paper opener.
‘You’re his boy, his play thing. I guess he goes both ways, considering he sleeps with that whore. They call it sodomy but really, it’s dominance.’
He steps closer to the lord. ‘If you look far enough down, My Lord, you’ll see the garden, along the edge of the wall, planted for Dodder.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ the lord says with unhidden emotion. He leans farther over.
It was then that he knew his death was a possibility. But he was no one’s boy. Never had been, never would be, and would never have a boy. He thrust the paper opener on an angle into the lord’s lower back, right beside the vertebrae. The lord howled in pain and arched his back.
The next day, while Lord Ysbail was away visiting the king, Dodder was found splayed on the ground below the fourth story window of the tower. His body twisted and broken and his too close together eyes staring lifelessly.
Lord Ibris stepped up beside him, to stare at the mangled remains of his nephew. ‘I’m sorry I never got a weapon maker here, but I know of one, take this with you to him. He’s in the village Quacken.’ Lord Ibris then slipped him a note. ‘Three days from now, when Lord Ysbail returns from meeting the king, gather all the girls and the boys too young to join the army. When you see a fire engulfing the tower take them north. I have found a place amongst the faie of the Blackforest for them to go. I cannot go with you. There is trouble in the north with one of the chiefdoms that refuses to give fealty to the king. The king wants me to help lead an attack. Now listen closely, when you head out on your own you must dye your hair, and change your name.’
Three days later, during supper a boy hands him a note from Lord Ysbail. As he walks towards the tower, he sees Asghari and some of the older women pouring water on the flower beds and hedges that surround the tower. He walks up stone steps to the double oak doors and uses the non-descript knocker. The right door opens and tall, burly guard looks down at his note. ‘No weapons beyond this point,’ the guard says. He pulls his belt with his knife and sword off. ‘Up the stairs to the fourth floor.’
The place smells of incense from numerous strategically placed candles. He starts to climb the curving staircase. At each floor there is a slit window with no pane, allowing a cold draft in. Whatever the Lord wants, it will be bad.
Wearing the gemstone necklace given to him by a mysterious girl he saved, Bran embarks on a journey to the Bard campus his father once went to. However, he’s never traveled beyond his home. All he knows about the outside world is from sketches in school books. And what he has learned from the mutilated Residences, who escaped from the Emperor’s land across the sea. If he survives the journey to the Bard campus, he’ll learn why his father was so adamant that he become a Bard. And as a Bard, he can search for her, the Owner of the Gemstone.
If you observe professional athletes, you’ll notice they do thorough warm-ups before practice or competing. This warms the joints up and allows greater movement while decreasing the chance of injury.
In her, The Great Courses course, How to Sing, Professor Dawn Pierce demonstrates numerous mouth exercises, such as vibrating the tongue and humming through scales. This both warms up the mouth and allows for greater range. In his book, Life, Keith Richards said he always wondered why Mick Jagger warmed up his voice so long before a concert. When Richards started lead singing for his band, he quickly grasped why Jagger spent so much time. I use to try to hold back yawns but now I understand why they’re more important than just getting more oxygen.
In the Korean language there is a consonant “ㄹ” that can sound like an L to an R sound, LR. This can cause difficulty when pronouncing words with the English L sound: World may sound more like Word and Love like Lrove. This is can be corrected by teaching the mouth to make the L sound alone. When teaching a language, it’s important that the teacher or tutor’s mouth is visible so students can see how different letters are formed. If you say the entire alphabet of any language, your mouth will get a multi-directional warm-up.
Scottish use rrr or whistle sounds when speaking. My Scottish aunts would often make a whistling sound when they spoke (listen to Gopher from Winnie the Pooh). The !Kung people of Kalahari Dessert have clicking sounds in their language. Singing exercises should help make it easier to speak in different accents and dialects.
Years ago, my friend Dave Flitton (now retired music teacher, composer, producer) and I were sitting at a church. Maybe it was for a friend’s wedding, I can’t remember, but we were singing along with everyone else. When the song ended, he turned to me and said (paraphrasing) “You sound like a foghorn, like Lurch out of the Addams family.”
Not so long ago, while fighting exhaustion from work and as the major caregiver to our elderly mother, I got an inner ear infection exasperated by an ongoing sinus infection. I went to my doctor at the time, Dr. Leung, who had helped me get through pneumonia and other maladies. I figured he would give me antibiotics and I would be cured in a couple of weeks. It wasn’t until two-and-a-half years later, including an unsuccessful nose job, that I finally started feeling normal. However, during the worst of it, my youngest niece told me I sounded like Snape from Harry Potter (and maybe an Ent from LOR).
During Covid I made some exercise videos. The information was sound and I knew I needed to work on the video quality but it was my voice that was all wrong. Slow, hesitant and unmotivating. I have personal trained individuals with concussions and brain damage. My way of speaking was similar to theirs. Clear one moment and not so much the next.
Once the worst of the ear and sinus infection were over, I realized I needed to work on my breathing and speech.
I have bought courses from The Great Courses for years, and when I saw they were offering one on singing, I decided I would get it. The goal was to use the exercises, not just to improve breathing and the speed of my speech but to also increase my octave range by reawakening the muscles of the jaws that I hadn’t been using.
There’s always setbacks and obstacles in the way, so I will be going back over the lectures in Professor’s Pierce’s course again and again.
* This course is thorough. Professor Pierce improves each student’s singing with gradual cues and exercises. She does so by motivating and encouraging her students. She also explains anatomy and proper posture for singing.
Caedar Writing & Artwork 