Cloud Realm

<i>Cloud Realm</i> is a coming-of-age story set against an epic fantasy background. It is one story thread in an amalgam of activities in the world of Ingarde.</P><P>I have been a lifelong fan of deeply detailed worlds--what Tolkien called subcreations. Ingarde is a large world with many different cultures. <i>Cloud Realm</i> is a story about three young people just coming into adult responsibilities in one such culture that lives aboard the cloud whales living dirigibles that ply the skies of Ingarde.</P><P>The story introduces Cly a journeyman mage; Vonya a trader; Kara a veterinarian/engineer and Semaj a young cloud whale beginning to desire a crew. Together they get through the tumultuous initial adaption of Semaj into service but are then swept up in an ancient prophesy and a geas that takes them into places as alien and as dangerous to them as any could imagine to try to save a kidnapped cloud whale from their same clan.</P>