Changes

Cayden is a hybrid being - part elf, fae and human but all wizard. He also has a day job as a tregetour or playwright with his own touring company, Touchstone. They're ambitious and planning to get through the trials and into the upper flight. As you would expect from a wizard, this troupe doesn't just act; they also weave magic imbued in hallucinations and encased in glass withies. The problem is they're short of a glister, a troupe's wielder of withies. Or rather they were until Mieka arrives. Actually short's a good world as he's an elf but he also happens to be the best glister anyone's ever seen, thorns permitting. With one problem solved, another remains. Namely prophetic dreams that have haunted Cade since boyhood and they aren't improving, in fact they're more like nightmares.

To begin with this is a rich, complete world. It seems inspired by Shakespearian England with players and patrons and an equally rich use of language (including the odd profanity in context) but there are some interesting differences. Alcohol has a companion drug of choice. The glass thorns of the title are dipped in colourful narcotics providing bluethorns or greenthorns etc which are scratched onto the user's skin. Their use is accepted; however their effects can be socially disabling. It's a place where women are side-lined, as they may have been in our real world but then so are elves. In fact discrimination against elves is so great that parents order a form of plastic surgery in order to hide their offspring's elven features. The one feature that Touchstone wouldn't be the same without though are the withies, specially crafted glass tubes filled with magic by people like Cade, ensuring that the play comes to life and ensuring that a team of four players can produce a spectacle to make the toughest crowd marvel. Speaking of the players…