by Nick Hayden
April 7, 2017
Last month, Timothy Deal revisited The Select’s Bodyguard, the first story in the Children of the Wells saga. This month, I’d like to revisit The Fall of the House of Kyzer by Nathan Marchand.
Early on, we here at CotW decided we wanted to have two concurrent plotlines. Doing so gave us a greater window into the world we were creating. While I constructed the technocratic city of Jalseion, and its two semi-obsessive main characters, Nathan Marchand was busy unveiling a different type of story.
Thyrion is the center of the Children of the Wells’ world, Lomara. It’s where the political and religious power is concentrated. It’s where the Cataclysm started. And it’s where we begin the journey of a character very different from Bron or Calea.
Jaysynn Kyzer, black sheep of the Kyzer dynasty, has no magic. He has no real authority, although he was born into the royal family. The Fall of the House of Kyzer is the story of his search for meaning intersecting with his empire’s struggle for survival. It’s a hero’s journey.
Unlike Bron and Calea, Jaysynn is more relatable. He’s insecure but he wants to do the right thing. He’s out of his depth, but he wants to find a way to help people. His challenge is to become the man his people need.
So, unlike The Select’s Bodyguard, which is intensely focused, we get a story set against a larger political background. We get a friend who might be a villain. We get hints about the Cataclysm. We get family strife. And we get tracing.
The tracing is really cool and completely Nathan’s addition. While Bron has his brute force, Jaysynn has his speed and gravity-defying, building-leaping acrobatics.
In the end, Nathan creates a story that explores the world of Lomara in a distinct way, setting the events of the Cataclysm in a larger political realm, while maintaining the focus on character that is one of our guiding principles here at CotW. Jaysynn is not like Bron or Calea, and Thyrion is definitely not Jalseion, and those are two of the biggest reasons the concurrent storylines appealed to us as writers. Hopefully, it appeals to you as well.
If you haven’t read The Fall of the House of Kyzer, give it a try. It’s the story of the underdog thrust into power–and the forces, internal and external, working against him. It’s the start of an adventurous series of novels, with more on the horizon. And if you have read it (or even if you haven’t), stay tuned for a new short story to be published in two weeks that gives further insight into the sort of corruption that worked its way throughout the House of Kyzer, and which disgusted Jaysynn so much.
I’ve written 
