So here's my book, titled The Mist, a nut as shelled as I could fit.

The book opens with a madman of unknown language and origin attacking an unprotected slum of a village. A certain rather scrawny boy whose name is yet to be decided escapes with his brother after witnessing the death of his single mother, running to a canyon that is home to a natural phenomenon known as the Mist--a deeply disturbing mist that traverses the expanse of the canyon, from which inexplicable evils arise. The bottom of the canyon is invisible beneath the Mist, and rather than surely forfeit their lives to the madman murderer, the brothers jump the bridge. During the jump, the boy is counseled by the Mist in a sort of incoherent prophetic vision.

The boy awakens seventeen days later in a bar whose inhabitants speak some foreign language--they call him 'Drawa Kutrizi,' a name that he will adopt (the name translates as 'Fox in the Grave'--it's a different story). He knows not the whereabouts of his brother or what insanity the Mist has imparted unto him. Drawa discovers that he is in the Inland, a hellish landscape resting beneath the Mist that acts as the passageway between his own world and this new one, called Aufaire. The blur of the Mist hides away each world from the other, lending to a dual existence. The place is an impoverished slum south of the world of Aufaire--directly north of it is a desert, and the Inlanders arrived at the location after various exiles from Aufaire. The majority died during the passage through the desert, and so the remaining are fighters to the core. Drawa learns the native language, swordsmanship, and magic. He is particularly adept at minor necromancy.

He also learns crucial information to his return--an unprompted visit by the Mist tells him that to find his home world, he must travel to Aufaire and bring a certain 'Hu-Kale' to the Inland. After confiding in a new Inlander friend, Drawa learns Aufaire history and begins his trek through the desert. He discovers that Aufaire is ruled by four kings, and the fifth, the Hu-Kale, was exiled years ago. He recently rose from the shadows of his banishment in an vengeful effort to regain power, and travels as a sort of nomad king backed by a merciless army of conquerors. His reign is small, but rapidly expanding.

Drawa, after several months in the desert, is infuriated by the fleetingness of life--his friends die beneath the scorching sun with each passing day. To comfort himself, he performs an act of magic he later finds has never before been successfully attempted--reviving full human skeletons. He rises five from the dead. All are without memory of their human lives and four are soulless--but the fifth , by some cosmic fluke, possesses a soul and human emotion, and grapples with his own moral dilemmas and inner conflicts. Drawa's army of death grows, and as he enters the world of Aufaire gains living human followers seeking resistance to the oppressive blood-lust of the Hu-Kale.

The Mist, over its five sections--Aspiration, Ascension, Disruption, Dissension, and Descent--recounts Drawa Katrizi's inexplicable arrival in the realm of Aufaire, the growth of his abilities and his followers, his disruption of Aufaire's wars and natural series of events, his eventual death (he's assassinated by his brother, who doesn't know who he's killing)--and replacement by Kamesh, the Living Corpse--and the greater mystery of the Mist and the ominous, archaic secrets of world-encompassing power it veils.

Thoughts?