THE CHIMES OF ALYAFALEYN

Alya - region; faleyn - harmony
(pronounced ali-a'-fa-lain) a as in cat.

Alyafaleyn is a world held in being by sound, vibration, in the form of strange golden spheres that appear each spring, floating on the winds. The people develop at puberty the ability to 'snag' to draw the spheres to them purely with the mind, gradually amass a cluster which swirl about their heads. The really gifted gather many, and tune them to harmonies, faleyn, and through them regulate the seasons, the crops, and cure disease. 

In a remote village a child is born under remarkable circumstances. Before she is even two she can draw the heynim - the spheres - to her at lethal speed. This she does, and a small boy is badly hurt shielding her from them.

As a result, she is forced to grow up deprived of the chiming and becomes angry, resentful, and as she puts it, tone-deaf.

Provoked, she scatters someone's heynim and vanishes. The boy, in his mid-teens now, sets out to find her and thereby hangs the rest of a powerful and exciting tale. 

Back page inset.

 Silwender, High Zjarn, or healer, comes to Fahwyll, Tamborel's village, to tend a dying woman. The woman lives, her child is born: Caidrun. Both Tamborel, who sneaked out to listen to Silwender's chimes, and Caidrun in the womb are deeply affected by the harmonies. Both grow up singularly gifted. (Though Tamborel shows signs of his gift before Silwender arrives, that gift is magnified by his experience.)

There are three sizes of heynim: the smallest heyn is an intyl, the medium heyn is an antyl, and the largest is an omantyl. A small number is called a cluster; a large number like Silwender's is a swarm. You tune a cluster, and spin a swarm. The resulting harmony is a faleyn.

Autobiographical note: a friend sent me a "chime" - a musical sphere in this world. It was the "hook" for the book. It sits on my desk. Sadly, it doesn't float, neither can I draw it to me. To make it chime, I have to pick it up and shake it.