The Laughing Lady

The simple things are the ones that stick: a flash of the eyes, the tilt of a head, a laugh. They endure through time, space, even death. Past lives intersect, intertwine and all debts come due and payable in this life or the next. Love is beautiful, and sweet, and cruel, and deadly. It is not mocked. Find out why in The Laughing Lady.Thessalopolis, a place co-habited by two races, the Garanti and the Talian. Lured there from great distances thousands of years ago to escape their own lands where they had suffered famines and epidemics of disease. It was a paradise island fertile and blessed in rich abundance, with reefs brimming with marine life, bountiful building materials and thriving fields of grass. The two races lived in harmonious union, coexisting peacefully but then enemies were formed from neighbours and alliances broken and a war between states consumed them. Neighbours alike fought over land as they tried to maintain control over the oasis and a long bitter history of protracted violence ensued claiming many lives. To end this constant conflict a great majicker placed a curse on the land of Thessalopolis. Every 100 years a single battle would take place on the Krasian Fields, a place that marks the divide between the boundaries of the Garanti from the Talian people. The rules on the battlefield were brutally simple, kill the King and in doing so the greatest riches awaited the victor. The conquering army and their race were gifted 100 years of unrivalled prosperity in their border whereas the loser in battle a 100 years of widespread poverty ensued. To lead each army the majicker decreed that a child born from tragedy yet pure of heart would be chosen from a land and reality not their own. Upon the eve of the child’s first birthday the gateway between realities would be opened and a representative from each race would be sent to collect the chosen child and bring him back to the land to lead the armies in the one great battle for the greatest prize of them all, Thessalopolis.