Kaydana and the Ruby of Beguilement now available

Kaydana and the Ruby of Beguilement

by Nyki Blatchley

Cover by Renee Rocco

$3.50

Published by Lyrical Press Inc.

Buy a copy here

How do you choose between love and desire?

Young sorceress, Kaydana, is caught in a darkly dangerous romance with King Makreth...one she longs to free herself from even while she enjoys it, and Makreth won't let her go without a fight.

Attempting to escape, she's seduced by an enslaved winged woman, and loses her magical staff in the process.

Emmerin offers to recover the staff in return for Kaydana's help, but will that deal come with a price she's not willing or able to pay? And how will she escape the dark desire when forced to face down Makreth again?

An Interview With Kaydana

I’m pleased to be able to interview Kaydana the Sorceress, the central character of my new novella, Kaydana and the Staff of Ishlun, who is speaking to us from another world. Welcome to the internet, Kaydana.

Do we need any incantations to make it safe?

To make what safe?

The int’a’nhett. It’s obviously very strong magic.

No, it’s quite safe as it is. Can I ask you, first of all, how did you get started as a sorceress?

Well, I was apprenticed when I was nine to a sorcerer called Lourim. I had a natural gift, and my parents thought I ought to be taught to use it properly, after... um, a few incidents. It really wasn’t my fault. I mean, if you’re going to tell a nine-year-old with power to clean out the stables, what do you expect her to do? Use a broom? None of the horses were really hurt, and that building needed to be replaced anyway.

So you left home at nine? Did you miss it?

Yes, I suppose, but I was having fun. I learnt a lot – more than Lourim thought, actually. The kids in the village were all scared of me, and I made sure they stayed that way, but they all did what I told them. There was a girl called Dasserei – gorgeous, long black hair and big eyes – who I was really in love with. We were both twelve, so it was only a bit of kissing and snuggling, but I was heartbroken when she was forbidden to see me again.

Why was that?

Well, I used her as the host to summon a spirit. It wasn’t an evil one, not really, and she was all right. All that happened was that she spent the next few days speaking the demon-tongue. They didn’t like it, though. Come to that, I don’t think she did, either.

So how long did you stay with Lourim?

Till I was fifteen. I’d learnt everything I could from him, and I was itching to get out and see the world, but I also wanted his staff.

The Staff of Ishlun?

Um... that one and his other staff. He didn’t know he had the Staff of Ishlun, although he thought it came from the lost city of Arlh. He always kept it close, so I seduced him. Well, it was his own fault. He was old enough to know better, and I was his pupil, so he deserved all he got. It was fun though – both his staffs were quite impressive.

You’ve been a freelance sorceress since then. One of your most famous early exploits was defeating the Red Wizard of Zasipul. How did you manage that?

Well, as long as this doesn’t get back to my world... I did cheat a bit. The Red Wizard was incredibly powerful, and he was terrorising the whole of Zasipul. I knew I couldn’t get through his defences, but... he was a man. So I went to face him naked, and started doing a very erotic dance as soon as he appeared. He couldn’t resist me. I waited till he had his cock out and was rubbing it, then I struck. As soon as he was powerless, I bound him never to harm anyone again, then... well, the dance had made me horny. I can assure you, he was exhausted by the time I’d finished with him.

Speaking of which... You’ve had many lovers, both male and female. Can you tell us which you prefer, and what you look for in a lover?

Um... I suppose I prefer whichever I’m with at the time. I can’t really imagine giving up either sex. As to what I look for, well, I like them to be human, or at least reasonably human-like. Usually.

I like a man to be big and strong – I’m quite strong myself, so I want him to be stronger. I like someone who can screw me till I’m sore and knackered. A woman – I like her to be sweet and feminine, and to have a very versatile tongue.

Really, though, it’s more important with either that I like them, and can have a laugh. Unless I’m drunk, of course, then I can make some very weird choices. But that’s the booze, not me. Honest.

Can you ever see yourself settling down with someone?

Well, if you mean staying in the same place till I’m old and wrinkly, then no. There’s still so much of the world I’ve never seen, and I want to go everywhere. But, if the right person wanted to share that life, I suppose so. They’d have to be someone really special though. At the moment, I’m having too much fun.

What about having children?

Ha, can you really see me rocking a baby to sleep? I don’t know, I really can’t imagine it, but... who knows? Stranger things have happened. Like poor Nadryina.

What happened to her?

She was a nearly-human sorceress who I spent some time with in the Caves of Crystal. I’m not sure where the nonhuman bit came from, but she was absolutely luscious, long red hair, green eyes, boobs like pumpkins, and a forked tongue. I really enjoyed that tongue: clit and pussy at the same time, if you take my meaning.

Well, Nadry fell head-over-heels in love with a demon – huge, strong, cock the length of your forearm – and ended up as the father of his child. Apparently that species of demon do things rather differently. It was a very cute baby, though, with its green scales and its tail, even if it did occasionally incinerate things with its eyes. So she’s had to take on all kinds of extra work just to keep them both.

Have you any final message to the readers, Kaydana?

Oh, yes. Everyone has to buy a copy of Kaydana and the Staff of Ishlun, or I’ll put a curse on you. I have lots of good ones.

Thank you very much, Kaydana.

Fine. I need another drink now.

Kaydana and the Staff of Ishlun now available

Kaydana and the Staff of Ishlun

by Nyki Blatchley
Cover by Renee Rocco

$2.50

Published by Lyrical Press Inc.

Buy a copy here

Freelance sorceress Kaydana seeks her fortune in the city only to find it overrun with like-minded magical entrepreneurs. To make ends meet, she takes a commission from the seductive golden-skinned Tati.

Kaydana reluctantly agrees to rescue Tati's lover from a sadistic king and his demonic devourer, knowing she's no match against the castle's mystical protections. Amid plotting, intrigue and sexual trickery, the powers hidden within the mysterious Staff of Ishlun begin to emerge and awaken Kaydana's darker sensual desires.

Kaydana and The Sword of Ishlun is the first tale in a sizzling sword and sorcery series.

Saint Valentine’s Day: Chocolates and Orgies

We are approaching the festival of love, the favourite of card-manufacturers, florists and chocolate-makers everywhere: St Valentine’s Day. Cynics tell us that this is nothing but a “Hallmark Holiday”. In fact, like the British Mothering Sunday (often confused with the more recent American Mothers’ Day) and the German Fathers’ Day, Valentine is actually the modern incarnation of an ancient tradition.

The earliest form of the holiday, though actually held on the 15th, was the Roman festival of Lupercalia, a name derived from “lupus”, meaning wolf. It commemorated the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, who were said to have been suckled by a she-wolf as babies, and was also sacred to the god Lupercus, or Faunus, a god similar to Pan who protected flocks from wolves. It involved young men dressed in goatskins running through the streets and striking people with whips: it was believed that any woman struck became fertile. There was also wild dancing and a general celebration of animal passions and instincts.

In other words, Lupercalia was an excuse for a huge public orgy.

The transfer of the annual love-in to St Valentine’s Day almost certainly has nothing to do with the saint. In fact, 14th February is the feast of two St Valentine’s, although many scholars believe they were actually the same man. He was either a Roman doctor or a bishop of Terni; but, whichever, he was martyred in the 3rd Century. In spite of later fictions trying to give some explanation, there’s no genuine connection between St Valentine and love.

There are actually two explanations for the holiday, though in all probability both are partly true. One is the Christianisation (and sanitisation) of the Lupercalia orgy; the other is the fact that mid-February is associated with the mating-rituals of birds.

Some of the earliest literary references reflect the link with birds. In the late 14th Century, Chaucer wrote in The Parliament of Fowls:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

While Shakespeare wrote two centuries later in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

An early reference to a recognisable Valentine’s Day custom also comes from Shakespeare. One of Ophelia’s songs in Hamlet (probably a traditional song Shakespeare was quoting) begins

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine:

This reflects the belief that the first person you see on the morning of the 14th is destined to be your True Love. It also shows that the idea of being someone’s “Valentine” was in common use by the end of the 16th Century.

Another Valentine’s Day tradition, which certainly had its origins in Lupercalia, was the Valentine lottery, in which names of partners for the day (and maybe the night too) were drawn at random. Robert Burns refers to this:

Yestreen at the Valentine’s dealing
My heart to my mou’ gied a sten,
For thrice I drew ane without failing,
And thrice it was written, Tam Glen.

Valentine cards and gifts have been exchanged since at least the early 17th Century, and possibly longer. At first they were handmade, but printed cards were available early in the 19th Century, and the custom grew with the burgeoning greeting-card industry. Until recently, the day was purely a chance for would-be lovers to get together, and Valentine cards were always unsigned, the recipient having to try to guess the sender. In recent decades, it’s expanded to be a more general celebration of love and relationships, with little surviving of its original meaning.

So, here we have the modern card/flowers/chocolate-fest, a far cry from the excesses of the Lupercalia. Wouldn't it be more fun go back to the era of goatskins, orgies and mayhem? – purely in the interest of authenticity, of course.

Perhaps not. Goatskins are so hard to get hold of these days.

I'm back

Well, I haven’t been keeping up with updating this blog as I was intending. There are various reasons for this, the main one being the government rejecting my suggestion that the day should be extended to thirty-six hours, so that I could fit in everything I need to do. I’ve decided, though, to deal with the existing twenty-four hours, and I’ll be keeping this a bit more up-to-date from now on.

Since my last entry, The Faery Princess has been out for six months, and has received a number of glowing reviews, which can be found on my website, here:

http://www.freewebs.com/nykiblatchley/reviews.htm

The first of my Kaydana the Sorceress series, Kaydana and the Staff of Ishlun, is all ready to go and due out on 6th April from Lyrical Press Inc. It’ll be in a slightly different form to the version published by Dark Eden Press before its unfortunate demise, since Lyrical Press Inc. has a slightly tighter policy on extreme sex. Although my first reaction to being told this was to have tantrum for about thirty seconds, the rewriting process has turned out very positive. Dealing with what I have to avoid has helped me get more thoroughly into the core of the story, and I think it’s emerged stronger. I’m looking forward to its release.

I’ve currently plans for six erotic sword-and-sorcery stories about Kaydana, though I’ll leave the possibility of extending the series further, if it seems appropriate. The first three are already done and dusted (if maybe waiting for the final editorial wax-polish) and I have extensive notes on what I’m intending for the remaining three. Well, they would be extensive if they weren’t all in my head. Doing it my way uses up less paper and therefore saves the planet. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

So watch this space: there’s plenty to come.