The really cool part of this is that in AT ODDS WITH DESTINY, each full length novel is BOOK ONE in a series. So if you fall in love with an author and his characters, there are many more to turn to in their stable of works!
Here's the Amazon buy link. I'll be featuring some excerpts for these amazing books here and on my personal blog, www.aaronlazar.blogspot.com in the next few weeks. So stay tuned!
This book excerpt is from Uvi Poznanski's RISE TO POWER. Her writing is astonishingly lyrical and poetic, and it really inspires me. See what you think?
Rise to Power
Prologue
I hear the jingle of keys. To my ears, it is
such a lovely sound...
“Come,” I cry out,
“crack it, crack open the door! Step into my chamber... If my memory isn’t
playing its tricks on me, you must be the first to visit me here for quite a
long while…”
No one answers.
“Come in,” I plead,
hoping that no one could catch the shaky tone of my voice.
My fever is gone. In
its place, now come severe bouts of shivering. I try, as best I can, to control
myself. I slow down the chattering of my teeth as I call out, “Of one thing I’m
sure: Reading what I’ve been working on—which, for lack of a better term I
would call a memoir—you would think me a madman.”
Suddenly I suspect
there is more than one of them out there. Putting my ear to the iron door I
hear them shuffling their feet on the other side, without uttering a single
word. To make them speak to me I let myself admit, out loud, “You’re right.
Perhaps I am.”
There, through the
keyhole—I can somehow sense it—an eye is observing me.
There are limits to
power. When afflicted by an unexplained illness, even a king can be placed in
quarantine. The words freeze on my lips, Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in
agony…
My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?
I am tempted to kick
the door, to startle them—but the isolation in this place is such that it
forces me to talk, because I need to hear a human voice, and I need someone to
listen.
So I call out,
“Perhaps it’s me who’s confused,” but I refuse to believe it.
The door creeks on its
hinges, only to reveal two shadows stirring out there, one blurring the other.
They let silence reign over me, so in spite of myself I start wringing one hand
with the other.
I hang my head over
these knuckles, over these pale, veined wrists which I hardly recognize as
mine, finding myself overcome by a new enemy, one I never expected: the chill
of old age.
In my youth I became
famous for being a fine, eloquent speaker, with a particular talent for
eulogies—but now it seems that my listeners have left me. Why write another
psalm? Who would read it? Who would take it to heart?
Being abandoned is not
something I take lightly. I want to tell the crowds to come back to me, and not
only to take a listen—but to adore me, too!
Glancing at the
shadows, “Come in,” I beseech. “Let me see, let me touch you. Talk to me… And
let me tell you my story.”
Where will I start it?
From my childhood, from the first time I came to the court. The moments of my
life are vivid in my mind, too vivid to be dismissed as merely the wishful
thinking of a locked up old man. My fingers still carry the sense, the cold
touch of Saul’s crown, when at last I laid my hands on it. And I know, in a way
that no one else can begin to imagine, how heavy it is.
This was the thing—or
so I thought, back then—the very thing that would make me what I wanted: larger
than life.
Larger than life? I
start laughing, at myself most of all, only to be startled by echoes. I listen
in alarm to the way they peel, pealing away from the walls.
“Listen,” I say, “whoever
you are: I am a poet, a bard. For me, reality is a hard thing to grasp, at
least your
kind of reality: one that’s confined, as if by a straightjacket, to the task at
hand. Trapped in such a life I would feel... Oh, what’s the right word?
Condemned.”
Somehow I catch them,
out there, holding their breath. They must be astonished by my unstoppable
chatter, and by the unstoppable echoes of my chatter.
“Yes,” I stress.
“Being a Philistine, you may think that such a reality sets you at ease, that
it removes any doubt in your head as to your purpose here.”
One shadow separates
from the blackness behind it, and all of a sudden he cannot help himself, and
his voice bursts out, “Don’t call me a Philistine!”
I say, “A bit touchy,
aren’t you!”
And he says, “I’ve
killed my share of those bastards, out on the battlefield. Everyone knows I’ve
earned my medals, being in your service for so many years. I’ve bloodied my
hands for you! So now, listen to me: you owe me.”
I am in no mood to
offer an apology. Instead I tell him, “You bloodied your hands for your own
sake, for the thrill of the kill.”
He says nothing. Over
his silence I say, “Now then, consider this: even as you’re trapped here, in
this reality, your mind—just like mine—would misbehave. It would fly, swinging
wildly to and fro, far away from this place. But enough about you. It’s me we
are talking about.”
I can hear him taking
a step back. In a minute he will slam the door shut.
To hold his attention,
“True,” I grant him. “My grasp on life is somewhat looser than yours. For an
isolated man it may be a strange thing to say—but trust me: it sets me free.”
“Ha!” he sniggers.
“Oh, stop it!” I wail.
“What, you think I’m deaf? Don’t you laugh at me. It makes me doubt myself,
question my own sanity.”
Then I bang, bang,
bang the wall. I close my eyes. Here I am, a child again... And at once my ear
catches a thud. Then come the echoes, shrill echoes singing all around the
royal court, as the spear has hit the wall, missing me by a hair.
“Wake up,” says his
voice, a bit softer now.
In a flash the wick of
a candle is lit. It flares up and then, in an instant, darkness curls away into
the far recesses of this space. The flame seems to lick the gilded decorations
of the door as it swings open. Having stepped in, a man leads a figure clad in
a dark coat into my presence.
He lays a hand on my
shoulder, trying to steady me. Then he whispers, “You must be dreaming again.”
“No!” I shake my head.
“No, no, no! If this were a dream, I would have forgotten it, the way most of us
do come morning, which lets us focus on the task at hand. But what if your
task—now that all is lost—is to remember? Reflect on it. Think of the ways the
mind works, yours and mine. Perhaps we’re more alike than you wish to admit.”
“I’m nothing like you,”
he insists.
It is then that I come
to my senses, and by the scars on his hand I know who he is. Joav is my blood,
my family, one of the three sons of my older sister, Zeruriah. He is the man I
have trusted to become my first in command. But these days, he is a stranger to
me. Everyone is.
“I thought you admired
me,” I say.
“I did,” says he. “But
this I know: it’s a risky place to be, stuck in your shoes.”
“And I thought that
risk excites you.”
“No, not anymore. Risk
is for the young.”
Thrashing around, I
start kicking at this thing and the other. “I’m far from being stuck,” I shout
at him over the metallic din. “And there go my shoes! Here, see? I’m barefoot!”
Over my words, Joav
raises his voice. “Stop that,” he cries, which in any other royal household
would be an unheard of thing to do in the presence of a monarch. He points the
candle at the thing I have made fly, with such clink and clank, across the
chamber.
Now I catch its
glitter, flashing out from the shadow down there, in the corner, reflecting the
dance of the flame.
“Why d’you kick the
crown?” he grumbles. “D’you even know who you are? Do you? Then, tell me:
what’s your name?”
“Guess it, will you?”
I narrow my eyes with suspicion, refusing to confide even in him. “Can’t you
see? I’m a boy, reaching for the crown.”
Joav bites his lips.
Perhaps, like me, he is tired of this game. I know what he wants: recognition,
which I am too stubborn to give. “No, David. You’re not a boy anymore.” He
dares to contradict me. “And the crown is yours. I mean, it’s yours to lose.”
“Don’t I know it,” I
sigh, gathering the thing to my chest.
Joav smiles at how
hard I clutch it.
“At this point,” he
chuckles, “the only power you still have is the power to give it away.”
“What? Give it away?
I’ll do no such thing.”
“You’re going to
depend on your successor,” he says, and there is a tone of warning in his
voice. “Choose well, your majesty. If you do, perhaps he’ll let your legacy
live on.”
With that, Joav turns
around to face the figure standing there, so quietly, behind him. She is
holding a pile of silk sheets and wool blankets. With a firm hand he pushes her
forward, in my direction.
“Don’t be angry with
me,” he says, removing the dark coat from her shoulders and flinging it aside.
“I’m just following orders, and so does this girl. She’s yours to keep.”
“I have no use for a
girl. What I need is a woman.”
“Bathsheba is asleep.”
“I see.”
“Really, she is.”
“She is? Is she,
really? I haven’t forgotten how hard you fought for me. What have you become,
Joav? A has-been war hero?”
He peers into my eyes,
surprised to realize that I recognize him.
“In my name,” I press
on, “you used to lead our nation into great wars, and now, look! Look at you,
doing the bidding of a woman! I suppose my dear wife told you what to tell me.
And she instructed you to cover me with blankets, and most of all, to keep me
still.”
He gives no answer,
other than hanging his head in shame before me.
“The Queen knows me
all too well,” I growl. “It’s her I need.”
He holds himself back
from repeating, Bathsheba is
asleep. And I go on to groan,
“She knows she should be here.”
“In her place, here’s
the girl. Your wife told me to bring her.”
“I’m too cold for
that—”
“The girl knows it,”
says he, “and she knows her duty. I made sure of it.”
“What’s her name?”
“Abishag. She’s sure
to keep you warm.”
With that he sets the
candle down on the bedside table, and gives me a sly look under those hairy
eyebrows of his, which seem to have thickened even more with age. Then he
leaves the chamber, not before breathing in my ear in his coarse, scratchy
voice, “Listen, why are you being so difficult?”
“Me? Difficult?”
“I went to plenty of
trouble to find this one. Virgins aren’t easy to come by anymore.”
I am just about to
say, They never were—but Joav has already disappeared. So there I am, left
standing opposite the girl, and finding myself drawn towards her, perhaps
because of the fresh fragrance of soil and fruit emanating from her skin. For
the first time I take a close look at her.
This is awkward. I
take a step towards her, and can almost guess her thoughts. These words may be
on her mind, “Don’t stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the
sun… My mother’s sons were angry with me, and made me take care of the
vineyards… My own vineyard I had to neglect.”
She turns her head,
and her long, dark lashes flutter nervously over the cheekbone. By the flicker
of the flame I can tell that they are unpainted, and so are her lips. She must
have been brought directly here, to my chamber, with no proper preparations at
the women’s quarters, let alone a dab of perfume.
Thank God for that! I
hate proper preparations, and I cannot stand that nauseating mixture of
fixatives and solvents they call perfume.
Her face and bare,
slender shoulders have been bronzed by the sun. I notice that her feet are
large, just like mine, and her toes are still soiled from the long journey,
like some farm girls I used to know.
The girl is a long way
from home. I know it, because so am I.
❋
Later that night,
when the girl has fallen asleep, I slip out of bed. The blanket keeps her warm,
which you can tell by her moist, rosy cheeks—but it is of no help to me. Her
pupils move under the eyelids, as she dreams of being somewhere else. She
utters a cry in her sleep, and turns away from me. I take a step back. Then I
start pacing back and forth across the chamber.
This palace is richly
decorated, because such was my ambition in recent years: to show the world the
finest of marvels in a new city, which is mine: the city of David.
Here, I thought, is a
new center of power, commanding a view of our twelve tribes, yet set upon newly
conquered territory, one that does not belong to any of them. With the
divisions that afflict us, Jerusalem is yet to become a symbol of our nation,
our unity.
At this point, the
city has no history yet. Erected log by log, with cedar trees imported from
Lebanon, and slab by slab, cut out of the hardest rocks in the Judea mountain
range, this city will become my mark, my political statement. It will stand for
hope.
Alas, it is so far
from where I grew up. Bethlehem seems like a place lost in fog. I have lived in
Jerusalem for decades. Still, it does not feel like home.
Without even knowing
it, the girl has reminded me how I ache to see the soaring mountains, the rolling
fields around the place where I was born. Even the trees smell different, back
there. I long to go back. One thing is clear to me: this is not the first time
in my life to be locked up—but perhaps it is the last.
I unfurl a papyrus
roll, and start scratching minute Aramaic letters in it. The flame has died out
some time ago, and already the tip of the wick has lost its glow. I stand up,
stare around me, and in my confusion I think, What is this? Where am I?
I am an
old man, it is late at night, and I am gathering my thoughts, somehow...
In exhaustion I curl
on the floor, and peer at the darkness, at the way it tumbles over the ceiling,
over the stone walls, painting everything gray.
It is an uncertain
color, which reminds me of certain places in the Paran wasteland, the caves in
which I used to hide back then, when I was a fugitive.
I remember: I could
spot the fingerprints of other fugitives before me, mark upon mark, one blood
smear over another fading into the decayed matter, trying to record a forgotten
history, the history of those who had been conquered. I used to wonder who they
were, and asked myself if I, too, am destined for oblivion…
At other times, these
walls remind me of the interiors of burial places in depths of the pyramids.
Great artists were summoned there to paint invented scenes, scenes from the
lives of entombed monarchs. I tell myself, such is the way to ensure your
legacy!
What is at stake here
is the virtue of the office, the sanctity of the crown, which I tried to
preserve most of the time—but certainly not always… My appetite for sin would
get out of control, and threaten to undermine my best efforts to establish
myself, establish my glory for all to cherish. Even so, future generations must
revere my name.
I made sure of that.
At the time I gave
orders to imprison quite a few of my court historians, for no better reason
than a misspelling, or a chance error in judgement, for which they tried to
apologize profusely. Of course, to no avail. They never saw the light of day
again. I knew I was right, because who are they to strive for something as
misleading as reporting the bare facts?
Both Saul and I were
anointed to rule the nation, which without fail caused a civil war. We fought
over something larger than the crown. Ours was a battle between two contending
versions of history. The outcome would decide who would be called a hero and
who—a villain.
And having won that
struggle, I was not about to allow the scribes in my court to report any faults
in me, any wrongdoings. My record would be clean. There was, I decided, no
truth other than mine.
But now, quite
strangely, I find myself in need of telling my story, of reporting it just the
way they tried to do, those damn fools: with no spins. Faithfully. Perhaps it
serves me right for throwing them in jail.
The tip of my pen is
dull, and the ink has dried—but that cannot stop me from writing. Nothing will.
I am grasping for power once again, but in a different way than I did back
then. This time I can see, with great clarity, that power does not come from
the crown. At long last I have no urge anymore to keep my grasp on it.
Now I know, power
comes from within, from something else entirely: my skill with words. I wish I
would have recognized it a long time ago, on my first visit to the royal court.
Perhaps then I would have become a poet. Not a king.
It is still a long
time from daybreak, and the girl’s breast heaves as she mumbles something, some
unclear word. She is so close at hand and yet, so far out of my reach.
When I was first
crowned king over my own tribe, I was such a vigorous young man that no illness
could keep me away from my dear wives and concubines. If I would catch a cold,
all of them would be sneezing. Not so this girl. Unlike all the women I have
had since then, she is immune to my weaknesses. She is the one I will never
know.
I am here with her,
yet this chill is meant for me alone.
I hold my breath until
she lulls herself back to sleep. Faint shadows start dancing on the wall. I
read the shapes, trying to invent someone, a listener.
You.
I whisper, Come in...
Call me insane, who cares? Who really cares if you refuse to trust me, if you
insist on clinging to your kind of reality, which is as dull as it is solid...
Mine, I insist, is not a dream.
But even if it is...
Even so, it is true! How can you deny it? Here is my story. I am opening it up
to you.
I can see why at first
glance what you see here—these letters which I jotted here, on these papyrus
rolls—may seem scattered, even scary. I understand why you step back from my
door, why you look over your shoulder to find the guard...
Come in! Will you?
Will you read these scribblings? Can you see my sword, which I have drawn here,
look! Can you see it the way I do, lifting out of the ink and into the air,
turning magically over, around and around, right here in the center of the
space?
If you can, then—by
the flash of it—I shall take you along, to leap with me into the surface of the
steely thing. Down into its depths. Into my reflection.
Here's a bit about the four books:
Each one of the novels in this boxed set is Outside the box! Open it
at your own risk. Notoriously creative authors from across the book
continuum join forces to bring you At Odds with Destiny, everything
you've wanted in a boxed set but thought you'd never find: full-length
novels brimming with cozy mystery, suspense, romance, and biographical
historical fiction.
Rise
to Power by Uvi Poznansky
Notorious for his contradictions, David
is seen by others as a gifted court entertainer or a traitor leading a gang of
felons. How does he see himself? Can he control his destiny and strike a
balance between ambition and longing for purity?
Double
Forté by Aaron Paul Lazar
In the deep cold of winter, threats
erupt from the dark woods, spinning events out of hand—and Gus, tormented by
the unexplained death of his wife, braces for the fight of his life.
Pam
of Babylon by Suzanne Jenkins
After Jack dies, his wife Pam discovers
secrets and lies. Is she destined to succumb to vengefulness against his two
lovers, or will she find a different way forward?
Dream
Student by James DiBenedetto
Everything was going according to plan,
until the night when college junior Sara Barnes started seeing other people’s
dreams. Is she the only one witnessing the secrets of a serial killer?
Hope everyone has a great Sunday! Enjoy your loved ones and if you love to write, write like the wind!
Aaron Paul Lazar
www.lazarbooks.com
