THE QUEST FOR THE ROSE...dystopian fantasy set in a pseudo-70's Canada.
The world, one of climate change and cold, after the 'Holy Fire' of Saint Tarcissian blasted the country in the 'Great War.'
Sophronia Town, where the Sestren, the religious order who came to the fore in the War, hold the children of rebels in orphanages, training them to serve the upper echelons, the Snows and the Winters, as their servants.
Esmerelda Midnight, her real surname stripped away from her as a rebel's child, is an inmate in one of these institutions An ungainly awkward girl, she is tormented by her teacher, the Sestren Agrippa, and by her peers.
But there is more to Esmerelda...and when she meets a strange old man, Reynard the Fox, she suddenly realises she had been befriended by one of the last of the Wistren, the Wise, who were murdered during the Great War by the Sestren, and maligned for years as wicked evil-doers.
Reynard convinces Esmerelda to go on a Quest...to find his missing daughter,Rosamunda, the Rose of the World, held forever as a child under the Sestren's spells. Rosamunda is the last of the Wistren, and her powers have never been woken.
Freed, she might well be able to battle the Sestren and win. But she is caught in a magical dream-world, Esmerelda finds it is not enough to find the missing girl...she must save her by plucking a Rose from the Tree of Life on the Isle ofthe Dead. But that is not such an easy task....
Below...figure from Victoria BC's long vanished WOODED WONDERLAND theme park. A fantasy version of this park appears in a particularly haunting chapter of QUEST...
