I lost my mother just before Mothers’ Day some forty years ago. Almost exactly thirty years later, I lost my father, too. So, both of these holidays are hard for me, and I tend to see them as bittersweet. But, I decided this morning that it might be fun to mark Fathers’ Day today by introducing you to all fathers in my Arcanium Saga books. 😊
It took me a while to get the spoilers coding to work (I could only work on it in little bits around dealing with the usual weekend stuff today) but it’s finally ready. If you haven’t read the books yet and don’t want to see any spoilers, skip over the sections with red boxes. If you don’t mind a few spoilers, click on the red boxes and the hidden info will appear in place of those boxes.
Paul Baxter
Paul is the father to my main character, Ty. He’s a single dad who’s been raising his son alone since his wife was killed in a house fire, just days after Ty’s birth. Paul is a distinguished professor of anthropology at one of the universities in Newhaven, the fictional town in the books that is based on my hometown of Ottawa, Canada.
His achievement in the academic world has been swift stellar, and Ty finds it very hard to live up to his dad’s reputation and expectations. He’s also stricter than Ty would like (honestly, what other seventh-grader doesn’t have a phone of their own?!), but he loves his son fiercely and would do anything to protect him.
When Ty goes missing to start his adventure in River of Crows, Paul is devastated. In book two, Mirror of Wolves, and book three, Stone of Serpents, he and Ayslenne’s mother team up to find their missing kids. They get into a hilarious/ gross/ scary adventure of their own, and you get to see that unfold in parallel with what the kids are doing. There is also going to be a funny short story featuring Paul and Nora (Ayslenne’s mom) that takes place in between books two and three. (Stay tuned for more info about the short story collection!)
Quinn Tambrun
As the sign outside Quinn’s shop indicates, he is an “Apothecary & Thaumaturge”. He is a skilled healer, and the second most powerful sorcerer in Arcania after Gideon Blackthorn, a powerful dark sorcerer who took control of the ruling council of Arcania and crowned himself emperor. Quinn is also Ty’s grandfather. And a grandfather Ty never even knew he had. It’s such a shock when Ty learns the truth about his mother’s secret past that it triggers his magical Talent — with explosive results for Quinn’s unfortunate shop.
Quinn lost his wife very early on in Gideon’s reign (you’ll find out a lot more about that in books four and five!) A few years after her death his eldest daughter, Asha (Ty’s mother), joined the Siershasai’dan freedom fighters in opposition to the dark sorcerer. She was sent on a mission to our world to locate and secure a powerful magical artifact before Gideon could get his hands on it. She never came back from that mission, and the Siershasai’dan assumed she had been killed in action.
Quinn and his youngest daughter, Danika (who joined the Siershasai’dan herself as soon as she was old enough), were devastated by the loss. Danika, who had always had a difficult relationship with her father stopped speaking to him altogether and in book one, it’s been years since the two of them have even seen each other.
The revelation of Ty’s existence, his arrival in Arcania, and the truth about what really happened to his mother bring father and daughter back into each other’s lives once more.
Garret Avery
Garret is Ayslenne’s dad (she’s the other main character in the stories). In book one, Ayslenne believes that her father was killed eight years ago by the Black Guard, an army of enchanted crows that are fanatically loyal to Gideon, who rules Arcania through violence, intimidation, and dark sorcery.
Worse than that, Ayslenne believes it was her fault that her dad was killed. It’s quite the shock when she and Ty and their new friends break into Gideon’s dungeon in the hopes of rescuing Sasha, Simon, and Shea’s parents only to find Ayslenne’s long-imprisoned dad, instead. Garret is terribly weak and ill after spending eight years in the dungeon, in the hands of Gideon’s head torturer, Malachai Faltour.
When Ayslenne and her family were fleeing Gideon’s regime, her dad was able to hold the Black Guard off long enough for Ayslenne and her pregnant mother to escape through a portal into our world. Garret has never met his son and doesn’t know he was kidnapped in our world and brought through a portal to Arcania.
Terence Sakuma
Terence is Sasha, Simon and Shea’s father. He, like his wife Maeko, is an academician (what we would call a scientist). He and his wife have been researching the Voids — strange, small spots in Arcania where magic doesn’t work. They believe that the Voids are a result of the Exodus — an event from distant past when the Great Mages of the time gathered all of the Talented from our world together on one island so they could use their magic to move that island to a safe place where magic and the people who could wield it would be safe from persecution.
Terence and Maeko believe that, in punching a hole in reality and creating an alternate dimension for Arcania to exist in, the Mages also inadvertently caused shatters in the barriers between the two worlds and that magic is leaking out of Arcania through these fractures.
This research is the reason the Sakuma parents were kidnapped by the Black Guard. Gideon is obsessed with magical purity and is determined to make Arcania a great magical land. More than that, he wants to extend his empire into Ordanna (our world). He thinks he can force the Sakumas to use their knowledge about the Voids to allow him to do that.
The mysterious Voids are going to become increasingly important as the series progresses, and you’ll be seeing more about them in the rest of the books!
Corwin Attana
Corwin is a corviform — a shapeshifter who can assume the form of either a man or a crow. He isn’t anyone’s father, but at one point, he and Ty’s mother had been engaged to wed. Asha broke off the relationship when a young and idealistic Corwin decided to work for Gideon. Asha knew, even in the early days, that Gideon was a monster and she refused to have anything to do with him.
When Asha disappeared on her mission to our world, Corwin refused to believe that she was dead, and whenever Gideon sent him here on scouting missions himself, he went off on his own to search for her. He found her shortly before Ty’s birth and the suspicious fire that killed her shortly thereafter. As she lay dying, she saw him in a tree and begged him to protect her son.
Corwin, in one form or the other, has watched over Ty ever since. Part of him definitely resents Paul and feels that Ty should have been his son. Ty doesn’t really know that, and he thinks of Corwin as a cross between a favourite uncle and friend.
Let’s Hear it For These Fictional Fathers!
So there they are! All the dads from the Arcanium Saga books (so far). Which one do you find most intriguing? Who do you want to know more about? 🤔
