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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Book of Roses-Episode 4 part one "The 5 Curtains"
Strega had not wandered far before she came to a doorway. However, there was no door only a thin curtain of light blue silk. Strega touched it and the curtain parted.
Behind it, she saw an immense room all painted and decorated with shades of blues and whites. As she stared at the aqua walls, frost painting appeared forming crystalline shapes. The floor looked as if it were made f thick ice but below her, through the cold glass she saw violet fish swimming about. Slowly she made her way across the strange room, past a dolphin fountain and through a fine spray of mist.
On the other side she spied a torch hanging from a wall. Near to it, another veil, this one made of woven green reeds. It too parted and she stepped through.
This room enclosed a garden. Tall trees with thin trunks and spiky leaves towered above. Yellow birds, their feathers glowing like the sun, flew through the air. The floor was carpeted with moss which sprung back after each soft step. In the ceiling, a small moon-shaped window was set and soft starlight filtered through. Where the crest of the moon fell, she found a third curtain, made of crystal and diamond beads. She peered through it, and saw herself staring back!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Book of Roses-Episode 3 "Boma Park"
It was cool in the courtyard and Strega held her golden cloak tight about her. She wondered where the night would lead and stared up at the moon.
It is sometimes said that the moon drives people to do strange things and not even witches are immune to its madness. Strega shivered and C’zippa mistook the reflex as implying she was cold-which wasn’t it at all.
The two walked for a while then came upon Boma Park. Boma was a large green littered with benches and flowering trees. It was also the home to a number of satyrs; beings like fawns only more animal than man. They were content living in the wild not wearing any clothes and spending most of their time dancing, paying their flutes and sleeping.
As the young lovers entered the park a dozen or so satyrs skipped up to them, playing sweet little tunes on their pipes. C’zippa seemed shy but Strega enjoyed the creatures’ bouncy melodies. However the satyrs soon drifted off and she was left alone once again with the Prince.
Asking if she wished to sit down C’zippa motioned towards a bench. Strega sat and rested her head on his shoulder. He brushed aside her curls and bent to kiss her cheek. Strega turned her head to meet his lips with hers, a movement C’zippa had not expected. The two held the embrace then slowly released each other. C’zippa suddenly looked away, embarrassed it seemed. Strega wondered why. She thought it might be the moon.
She touched his soft cheek and brushed his smooth blond hair with the back of her hand. He caught it, then turned and laughed quietly. They rose and turned back to the palace.
Saying their goodnights Strega and C’zippa parted paths. The prince ascended the stairs to his room and Strega stayed by the door which lead back to her home. She paused, and then decided she was not yet ready to leave. It was late and all of the guests had gone. The palace was huge and she was quite sure she would not be noticed if she looked about for a bit.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Book of Roses-Episode 2 "Grand Ball of the Duljas"
C’zippa gazed into Strega’s eyes, entranced by her beauty and charm. They rushed to the ballroom floor and performed as never before.The music was the best in the land, for the Dulja’s employed only the greatest musicians. There was a beautiful centauress, an old dragonman, a dark elf and more. The strange interments they played had almost a wider variety than the players. For instance the dragonman played a strange stringed instrument. Each string was attached to a bell so that when the string was plucked, an eerie ringing accompanied it.
The song Strega and C’zippa danced to was a traditional festive song. As it played, the dancers followed a complex set of steps that included handclaps, spins and whistles. As the song reached a certain point paper dancers appeared and whirled about gracefully.C’zippa saw nothing but Strega. He loved her madly and wanted very much to take her from the noisy, crowded ballroom and out into the moonlight were they could be alone. And so as the song ended, the two of them slipped out a side door and out into the courtyard.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Book of Roses-Episode 1 "La Strega"
There once was, in a place where witches were only as good or bad as any other people, a young witch called La Strega. She lived not far from the Palace of the Duljas where young Prince C’zippa resided. Strega and C’zippa were in love but had yet to announce their marriage to the Prince’s family. Strega had no family and lived alone atop a cloud-high tower.
Once night, a blue moon night when magic coursed through the air, Strega was getting ready to go to the Royal Ball. Hurrying about the small tower room she glanced at her clock and, seeing she was already late, grabbed her fine golden cloak and scurried to her closet.
Strega’s closet was not a normal one. Being that she could use magic, she had cast the closet to be a portal between her room and Prince C’zippa’s palace. Nearing the door, she grasped the handle and threw it open.
A gust of warm sweet air hit her as she stepped lightly out of her room. Strega snapped her fingers and glitter-winged weave worms materialized in the air about her. They quickly gathered around her and knitted her a iridescent dress of mist and fine embroidered slippers. A white dove flew past, it’s wings barely touching her cheeks to apply a slight glow. She smiled as she made her way to a spiraling waterfall. Like a curtain of beads she stepped through the water, letting some of the drops gather around her dark silken hair in a wreath of pearls.
As she emerged on the other side she felt the wind and wonder of her magic transportation end and found herself in the Dulja’s royal ballroom.Spotting young C’zippa, she went to him and, grasping his thin white hand, led him directly into a dance.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Question RE: Ambrosia-Ch.4-One Week Ago
Chapter 4
~One Week Ago~
It was after a particularly unbearable day at school, and an equally agonizing evening at home that Emma was finally whisked away to another realm. She was of course, caught completely unprepared.
Not that she hadn’t been trying to escape reality for some time. The physical world she lived in on a day to day basis seemed at best, lame and at worst, outright torture. At 15, she couldn’t drive yet, didn’t have a cell phone, and didn’t really have many friends to call or visit even if she did. She lived in the country with her mom, dad, little sister Isabelle, and a menagerie of broken down horses, three legged dogs, unwanted cats and a mentally disabled goat named Bozar. Her mom was pushy, her dad was absent much of the time, her sister was a pain, which pretty much left Emma to hide in her room with her books, or out in the barn with the animals.
She loved animals. It was a statement “Doctor Mom” ridiculed her for. Emma really couldn’t stand to see the pain or suffering of living creatures; it made her ill. Her mom just so happened to be a veterinarian, which would have been great, if being a vet was anything like it was portrayed in Barbie commercials. Emma hated how kids always said they wanted to be veterinarians. They didn’t know what that was really like. What they really wanted was to have more pets. They didn’t want to set broken bones or induce vomiting or put animals to sleep. And she didn’t either; like most kids, she just wanted to pet animals and play with them and feed them treats.
Her mom was willing to give her a job at the vet office, but only if she was willing to stay put when the syringes came out. Emma wanted nothing to do with that. Although she was happy to nurse abandoned kittens or even clean out cages, she could no more give an animal a shot as she could cut off her own arm. “A little bit of unpleasantness is not the worst thing in the world,” her mom would explain as she stuck a yelping puppy with a hypodermic.
Emma said she didn’t need the money that bad.
Emma would have been surprised to hear that people thought she was at best, shy, and at worst, arrogant. She never saw herself as a quite person in part because she never realized how very little she really said to other people. She would not have been surprised to hear someone say she was “off in another world,” because honestly, that’s where she spent most of her time.
It was her father’s fault, though she didn’t blame him. She loved her father, even though he’d fallen into a routine of working early-morning and late-night shifts at his restaurant job, so she didn’t see him much any more. Still, she was proud that, growing up, he’d given her books instead of makeup, model horses instead of dolls, took her to concerts and movies instead of shopping. But in a way, it was his fault that she grew up angry and resentful towards the world around her that didn’t seem to reflect what she read about in stories or saw in films. Real life never seemed to begin “once upon a time” and didn’t usually end “happily ever after.”
This was never more obvious than it was during that fateful December day, right before winter break. It was the day that the one person she would have talked to and text messaged, if she’d had she the ability to, decided he didn’t want to talk to her anymore. It was the day Valentine broke up with her.
Valentine was in her grade; tall and gangly. She had seen him around, he was in her science class and, due to proximity and the mathematics of dividing the classroom into pairs for lab experiments, she’d actually got to be his partner a few times. She wasn’t sure why she liked him, he wasn’t abnormally funny and they certainly didn’t talk very much, but there was just something about him that made her warm and smiley.
“It was probably just his name I liked,” she thought later that night. Her misery had led her to go on a long, cold, lonely night-time walk, over the snow-covered yard, past the barn, out over the pasture and down the fence line that outlined her family’s property. She found that walking helped her think better, but unfortunately, all she could think about was Valentine.
Her mind traveled backwards in time, back to the day all of what, two weeks ago, when they’d first started going together. Valentine was standing in the lunch line, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, staring rather absently at the wall. Emma was at her locker getting her lunch bag when she noticed him. Acting on instinct and not letting herself think, for fear she’d talk herself out of it, she all but ran to get in line behind him.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s for lunch?”
“I’m getting a salad,” he said, looking at her with absolutely no expression on his face.
“Oh,” she said, realizing she had no reason to be in line since she held a crumpled grocery bag in her right hand. “I brought my lunch but I think I’ll get some supplementals.”
“Supplementals?”
“Add-ons. What goes well with bologna?”
“Yuck. You eat lunch meat?”
This reaction stunned her, and for a moment she was too embarrassed to speak. It wasn’t even what he said as much as it was the fact that he was actually talking back to her. They were, like, having a conversation. So that’s how it works! She went on. “It is meat, and I eat it for lunch. So I guess yes.”
“
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” she said, looking at his lips. They were pale pink and narrow, like little kitty lips.
“You don’t have the kind with bits of cheese or olives in it do you?”
“No, this is the good kind.” Then, trying to steer the conversation away from the humiliating contents of her lunch bag, she told him about the fact that her dad worked for a restaurant. She avoided the fact that he was a waiter and not head chef, but they moved through the lunch line smoothly, and she didn’t even have to buy anything. Valentine took his salad, which he heaped with cheese and croutons then slathered with ranch dressing, and they talked and walked across the lunchroom. They sat at an empty table, and kept talking.
And thus it began. There was hand-holding and hugging and passing notes between class and annoying glances from the teachers. They partnered up all the time in science, and left notes to each other scrawled on the desks when they shared a classroom, but in different periods.
Then the stupid jerk had to go and wreck it all. Stupid tall knobby idiot boy and all his dopiness. And they never even got to the kissing stage! Bastard.
Emma crunched her way along the fence line, caught up in her own thoughts. After she’d gotten home from school that night, she’d spent most of the evening in her room. She’d cried and prayed and wished and said every magical word she could think of to try and figure out how she was going to get him back. She scribbled letters asking forgiveness, asking him to please die, and finally reached the realization that she didn’t understand why he’d broken up with her, and she didn’t know what to do. She’d blurted out her problem at dinner. Her dad wasn’t there, as usual. Her sister laughed and her mother scolded her for being too young to have a boyfriend anyways. A lot of family support they’d been. One thing she was sure of, though. She’d never wanted to escape real life more than she did right now.
She kicked at the snow, unable to cry or do anything. She walked until the dark grew dense and the moon appeared above, full and fat. She trudged over the hill and farther down the fence line, distracted from her depression momentarily by the beauty of the moonlight, which pooled into bright puddles between every rolling hill.
Then she saw movement. Something was loping along the opposite fence line. She froze. It almost looked as though a snow bank had come to life and was lumbering across the field.
“That’s a big dog,” she thought as she watched it move. This animal was white as the snow, moving slowly yet in a determined path. Its long tail stretched straight out from its body, waving like a banner.
Emma was not frightened by strange animals in the least. Living in the country, strays and neighbor’s animals were always wandering in and around their land. But this was one she’d never seen it before. If she had, she knew she would have remembered it.
It perked its ears and turned its head towards her. Then the beast began to approach. It was the biggest dog Emma could imagine. She had a momentary vision of the animal curling its lip back in a snarl, but disregarded it almost immediately. Yes, it did have a narrow, fierce, lupine face, but its ears weren’t wolf-like. They were sort of half upright, with the silky tips flopped over. Actually, it looked rather silly.
The strange dog fixed on her seated itself in the snow less than six feet away. It turned its head to nibble an itch on its shoulder then looked back at her. Kind black eyes pierced the whiteness like two charcoal lumps in a frosty snowman face.
“Aw, look at you,” she smiled, and cautiously approached. The dog stuck its nose into the snow, snuffled around for a moment, then rolled onto its back, snaking back and forth scratching that itch. She held her hand out to the animal to sniff, but it was more interested in playing in the snow. She patted its side. “Good boy.”
The animal rolled to its feet, abruptly alert. Emma pulled back her hand and quickly stood up. The dog stood too, shook the snow from its white coat and looked around. It started to whine, as if it wanted to be anywhere but where it was. Backing away from the girl nervously, almost apologetically, it trotted a few steps.
“What is it?” Emma looked behind her. She heard the sound of wind, but the air about her was still. Odd. Then, a flash lit up everything within her view as bright as day. She blinked to adjust her eyes, only to see a faint orb of light encircle her and the dog.
“Was I just struck by lighting?” her confused brain asked, but that made no sense. Still, something had happened, for there was now a full circular glow enveloping the two of them. Her eyes met the dog’s. Its ears were back flat against its skull, and her heart jumped as it let out a low, long growl.
“Whoa, it’s okay,” she tried to keep her voice from wavering. She backed towards the edge of the circle of light, but the dog dashed past her, teeth barred. Strangely, the circle of whitish yellow light followed him like a spot light. Was there a plane shining the light down from above? Emma quickly glanced up but still saw no source. “What the hell is going on!” she cried and spun around.
And came nose to nose with the scariest thing she’d ever seen.
Well, nose to empty socket where a nose should have been. The thing was shaped like a human, standing on two legs, but its body looked like it was made of dead sticks held together with tar. It’s head was like a skull with gaping black holes instead of eyes. Behind it, there appeared to be more of them. Hundreds of them. They were oddly silent, swaying and writhing shadows. Then the thing in front seemed to unhinge its jaw and all Emma saw a mouth full of pointed shark-like teeth.
She screamed. The dog barked one short, sharp bark which seemed to startle the monstrous thing. Emma turned to run, but the giant dog jumped into her way, knocking her off balance. To keep herself from falling, she found herself grasping onto the scruff of its neck. The dog wheeled and leapt forward, and before she knew what was happening, it bolted forward, dragging her across the moon-dappled field.
She had no choice but to hold on for dear life. She tried to get her footing, to run next to the dog, but it was going too fast. She could do nothing but pull herself onto its back, or risk being left behind to face those devils. As the dog ran faster and faster, a storm of snow rose around them. She looked up and could see nothing but white, and before them, the painfully bright circle of the full moon. It seemed to be coming closer and closer, blinding. She buried her head in the dog’s fur, and the light enveloped them completely.
---
It was dark. She opened her eyes. Okay, that helped.
She sat up, for she was no longer on the back of the dog. She was on the ground, which smelled of moss and of earth. Her hand rose to her throat, and she sought the comfort of her good luck charm. Finding the necklace flopping half out of her quilted blue coat, she twisted the clasp around to the back and felt the familiar roundness of the pearl in her hand. Where the hell was she? Where was the dog? And what about those devil looking things?
Her brain worked feverishly hard to connect dots and calm her nerves. “I was just riding a dog. A giant dog. A dog as big as a bear. And we galloped across the meadow.” These thoughts did not help her much, and so, finding that she had nothing wrong with her other than a bruised butt, she decided to stand. She looked up and took a deep breath.
Above her a wide canopy of tree branches hung knitted together like finely woven cloth. Some of the trees were terribly tall, and gave off the aura of something so old and sacred that she shouldn't even be looking at them. They stretched up to what seemed heaven-heights. Some trees were short and gnarly, twisted, with branches reaching upwards like the fingers of an old man. Others were wispy thin, in movement even while standing still. But, strangely, none of the trees had leaves, and despite their odd way of tangling together into a dense mat that she couldn't even see the sky through, the area where Emma stood was not dark. Brightness surrounded her and the air seemed to sway and sparkle, like she viewed the forest through a wet pane of glass. It was unsettling, this strange glen.
“I must have been sleepwalked.” Her brain halfheartedly admitted defeat, as this was the only semi-sane explanation it could come up with. “I must have been dreaming, and I sleepwalked off to some strange forest. But why isn't there snow here?” She took another deep breath, to slow her fluttering heartbeat and clear her mind. The air was so sweet she didn't want to stop inhaling. It smelled like some amazing flower, something like honeysuckle and orange blossom, a fragrance that needed wide open spaces to fill. It was tinged with cut grass and honey. Emma felt her head grow light with the scent and sighed audibly.
“Maybe I'm dreaming now.” That actually seemed to be a more plausible idea. “Although I don't feel asleep. Everything looks so real, smells real,” she put her hand out to stroke the smooth white bark of a birch trunk. “It feels real, too.”
She walked, her eyes glazing over with the strange beauty of it. She felt dizzy. There was almost no underbrush, but there was also no path to follow, and the strange way the trees seemed to play with light and air around her made it difficult to tell if the forest was getting denser or if it was thinning out. She felt warm where she was, but as she moved in one direction, things got noticeably cooler.
The absence of sound was disconcerting. She could hear no birds, no traffic, no buzzing or humming of electric lights or insects. No plane flew overhead, no leaves rustled. The place was quite - silent like a temple or a church.
She was pretty certain she was drawing near the edge of the forest, for the chill was mounting. The pinky-orange glow seemed to fade to a resolute flat daytime light, and she saw, beyond the last line of trees, an open field of low grass. Then, almost as if she were pushed, she found herself outside the glen.
She looked around to get her bearings. Behind her was the forest she had just tumbled out of. But, strangely, it didn't appear to be any different than any other grove trees she had ever seen. She tried sticking her head between the trees only to see more branches and an amazing wall of brambles she was sure had not been there before.
Her head was spinning, and she credited it to whatever she’d been inhaling. The portion of forest she was in now was open, like a huge park. Bare trees stretched up into the light grey sky. The ground was covered with a carpet of half-rotted leaves and pine needles, along with stones and moss and tufts of various grasses. The texture of the landscape felt good to gaze upon, but at the same time, utterly unfamiliar.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Dell the Elf - a story scrap
Dell was under a bridge. It was a pedestrian bridge which led from a walkway down a steep incline and into the Communications Hall building. I wasn’t looking for him or anything, which of course is the reason I could see him. I was actually momentarily distracted from the internal chaos of my head by a dirty pile of snow someone had modeled into the semblance of a snowman. It had caution tape wrapped around its neck for a scarf and wore a traffic cone hat.
Now, college kids are weird, and normally I probably would have glanced up and seen the figure and just kept walking, but Dell’s position under the bridge was just a little too perfect. Wedge a human up under the concrete where the walkway meets the hill and he would be crouched and bent and trying desperately to appear cool and affecting while lounging in a precarious and utterly pretentious pose. A human would also be in shadow, whereas Dell seemed to be lit from some unseen source.
And, weirder than weird, I instantly knew his name was Dell.
I stopped in my tracks and blurted out, “Dell? What are you doing here?”
He looked up. His face was dark skinned with large bright eyes, and his hair scrubby and short. His nose, mouth and chin were small though, giving him an unearthly almost alien appearance. He slid down the embankment calmly and shut the small book he’d been reading in my face.
He seemed much too tall to be an elf, but then I had to remind myself that elves were not, as Rankin Bass would like us to believe, little guys in green that make toys for Santa. They are a race spoken of in German stories that are usually portrayed as young, attractive forest folk. Dell wore a tight-fitting blue and black jerkin with a dark green vest and black leather pants. His boots were also black and looked like they were made of suede. He’s movements didn’t make a sound.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked. His voice was mellow and whispery and, well, fae.
“No,” I said, coming at least partially back to my senses. “I’m going to class. Sorry.” I hunched over and started walking away, deciding to just ignore the incident as my imagination running away from me.
I only took about four paces though, before a hole seemed to open up in the pavement in front of me. My heart skipped as I teetered on the edge for a split second. Other students didn’t even pay me heed and just walked straight on over the gaping blackness. Dell walked up behind me and I felt his hand touch me lightly on the back.
“Jump or be dumped, your choice.”
“No! I don’t want to go!” My mind was rather surprised at this reaction. Hadn’t I been wishing for years to be able to step through a door and escape the mundane world? Okay, this was a little scarier than a door, but here was my chance to travel to another world! Why would I hesitate? “Will I be able to come back?”
Dell rolled his eyes. “Yessss” he hissed, and shoved.
I wasn’t ready to go yet, though, and I swung around and dug my fingernails into his sleeve. “Wait! Don’t push me!” He was more than annoyed that I was not only holding onto him, but I had also thrown him off balance and he had to struggle to stay upright which broke his aura of perfection. “You promise you’ll answer all my questions?”
“Yeah yeah, whatever.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, now let go of me!” He tore his arm away from me and I fell backwards through the void.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Ambrosia-book1-ch.3
Chapter 3
~Two Nights Ago~
He ran hard and fast. A stitch at his side was causing him to slow, but he pressed on. He knew he was still a good twenty lengths ahead of his pursuers. The dogs, however, were only ten away.
Nickabar shot through the dense woods, zigzagging forward to keep ahead and still confuse the trail. The baying hounds were coming closer, and behind them, the hoof beats of the riders. The feeling of panic did not overwhelm his thoughts, even as his foot landed splashing and slipping in a small stream. He had been in this sort of situation before.
Looking up, he leaped into the branches of a large tree and hung expertly upside down from its limb. Reaching into one of his vest’s many pockets, he unbuckled a small vial of powder. Flipping its top open, he dumped the contents onto the ground around the stream bank. Fine gray powder sprinkled down onto the wet leaves, dissolving almost instantly. Flipping himself back into the tree, he scrambled as well as any squirrel into the dark recluse of the shadows. He gasped once and held his breath.
In a flash, six low, lean figures appeared below him. That was not good; they’d been closer than he’d thought. The collars around their necks told him that they were trained thief trackers, hunters of the utmost breeding. He hadn’t taken that into account. He watched carefully, freezing every muscle and hoping that the dogs would not be immune to the crisroot powder he had used on the ground beneath him.
“We know you’re in there!” The deep voice made his heart skip as the two riders entered the forest glen. “If you give yourself up now and hand over the item, we promise you won’t be killed!”
“Sure,” he thought, “when lambs eat wolves you smooth talkers.”
“Call the dogs off; it’s another one of those gypsy tricks. The kid is gone, and so is your amulet.”
Even as they began to retreat, Nick didn’t trust them. He decided to stay in his treetop nest rather than risk being caught seeking a shelter for the night. It wasn’t the first time he’d slept like a bird, and he wedged himself into the cradle of two branches. Before drifting off, though, he fished around in another pocket and pulled out the palm-sized amulet. Turning it over in his hands, he let his thumb trace the spider web pattern on one side. Another empty magic item, of no practical value. Suddenly, a raven screamed loudly into his ear. Nick jumped and juggled the amulet, almost loosing it in the darkness. The bird took off as he stored the amulet back in his pocket. He watched the bird fly off silhouetted against the full moon.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Poll closed for 3/16/09
Please leave comments after Part 2, and thanks for your participation!
Ambrosia-book1-ch.2
Chapter 2
~Fourteen Years Ago~
Jael hugged his skinny knees to his chest. The glaring sun had risen high into the sky but did not offer any warmth to the land or to the boy perched on the steps of the empty cottage. Jael was alone, numb almost to the point of not caring. At the same time, a spark burned within him with such a harsh intensity, he could barely contain it. Fury.
They had left him. He had known they would, deep in his heart he had known for some time. Yet he never really expected it would happen. He kept alive a hope that he would be forgiven, or somehow cured of his agonizing “disease”. Now he realized that they had given up on him. His mother and perfect baby brother, and probably his brother’s wayward father: that damn woodsman. If ever he caught them, he’d grab that brute’s pancake-sized hands and dance him around and around, setting his veins aflame. Or, better yet, he’d seize his fat, disgustingly sun-baked face and swing him around by the jowls, listening to him scream as his mind was ripped apart. Just imagining that made Jael giggle a little to himself.
“You.”
The word came out of nowhere, spoken in a hollow tone, as if the wind itself were talking. A shadow fell over Jael, and he raised his eyes to find a dark form towering over him. He started. The form was draped in a heavy cloak and backlit by the sun. He couldn't see the man’s face, but he shivered with renewed cold and something else.
“What?” Jael asked, not so frightened that he wasn’t embarrassed at the sound of his voice cracking.
“They left you.”
Before Jael could think up a reply, a gnarled hand shot out of the shadow and landed on his shoulder, and he felt the sweet relief he always did when someone made physical contact with him. He gasped and involuntarily tried to jerk away. The man did not pull his hand back in shock, though. Instead, the hand convulsed, and talon-like nails bit into his shoulder.
“My Lord,” said the man, “you are more powerful than I expected.”
Jael reached up and grabbed the man’s hand, spuriously to try and throw it off. It was warm, rough, alive. Jael felt like a drowned cat clawing its way out of a stream as he clung to the hand, terrified and confused. “Doesn’t it hurt you?” he choked.
The man took Jael’s other shoulder and roughly pulled the boy to his shaky feet. The throbbing in Jael’s temples dissapeared and warmth flooded his extremities. It had been ages since someone had stayed in contact with him for this long; no one had been able. It felt so good, so freeing, he could barely believe it. His mother hadn’t been able to touch him for any length of time, not even when he was a baby. He could only imagine it was because she couldn’t stand to feel what he felt every waking moment. It wasn’t just the physical pain of his joints and the ache behind his eyes, the confusion and anger affected him mentally, clouding his mind. When someone touched him, though, all that evaporated. He just hung there like a rag doll.
“Do you know what you are?” asked the man.
Jael nodded dully. “Monster.”
The man made a breathy sound that Jael decided must be laughter and said, “we are two of a kind then, you and I.” The man turned so that his face was toward the sun.
Jael stared at the man’s face and gulped. The bald head was speckled with brown spots. His deep-set eyes were like black pebbles, his chin, boney and pointed, and his mouth - it was inhuman. It stretched literally from ear to ear and was filled with row upon row of white, triangular teeth.
A demon.
Jael struggled, and the stranger let go. The demonic visage disappeared, and before him stood an old man in a heavy cape, with a normal-sized mouth and dark, knowing eyes. Jael stumbled back into the doorway of the cottage, grasping the door-jam as the pain came rushing back thought every sinew of muscle, stabbing shards of broken glass through his arms and legs and chest. He was filled with questions, filled with fear. He had felt relief from the curse that had haunted him since the day he’d been born, but at the hands of one who spoke with and controlled the evil spirits that waited, just below a thin layer of magic, to once again rule the Whorld. The most powerful of magic users. A Demonbayer.
“I'm not like you,” the boy cried out. “I’m not a demon!”
“There is nothing for you here,” the Demonbayer said with a wave of his hand. “You have nowhere to go. You have no one. You know why your mother left. Follow me, and I promise I will pass no judgments. Unlike the woodsman and his lot who will be here any moment. If you want them to put you out of your misery for good, then by all means stay.”
The man turned away from him and Jael felt words of protest die in his throat. He struggled to absorb all that the man had said. There was nothing left for him here, only loneliness and pain and, if the man spoke the truth, death. But what sort of life awaited him with a Demonbayer? The freedom to explore his new-found powers. And relief. And perhaps, answers to his many questions. Why had he been born like this? What had he done to deserve this misery? This man - this caller of demons - seemed to know more about him than anyone else ever had. The Demonbayer was not afraid, was not disgusted by him. In fact, he had come to Jael, to save him from his wretched life.
Jael uncurled his fingers from the wooden doorframe. The Demonbayer was walking away, across the small clearing and towards the dim forest beyond. Jael hesitated no more and dashed to his side. The Demonbayer reached out and put his arm around Jael’s shoulders. They walked away from the cottage, and Jael never looked back.
Monday, March 09, 2009
A ritually updated writing online experiment.
This blog is morphing into a repository for some of my story-bits. Please click on any of the stories listed at the left, then vote for which story you’d like to see more of and I will do my best to provide. I shy away from calling this project a “web-novel” or “wovel,” mainly because it’s such a horrible name. Also, I am working on a few different stories so I leave it up to you what I will work on next. Once the first poll ends, I may change the poll each week to ask which way a story might head-sort of like a large scale “Choose your own Adventure.”
The Adventures of Shannon Pasha-Book 1-start
“It’s the sun!” I yelled, hanging most-way out the open window of my all-but-parked on the freeway Plymouth Horizon. “It’s always there!” Exasperated, I shook my open hand, palm up, one more time at the long lazy line of cars stretched out ahead of me before letting it fall loudly against the side of the car. Heading East in the early morning, sun glare backups are common but to me, mind boggling. Hadn’t any of these people ever heard of sunglasses? I slurped coffee from my travel mug and, though a semi-karmic force, dribbled Columbian Roast down my front.
“I should just wear a bib.” I thought. I held the mug between my knees, since the 1989 Horizon is from a pre-cupholder era, and dabbed unhelpfully at the coffee stain with an errant napkin. “Actually, I just shouldn’t be drinking coffee at all. It’s and addiction and it shows weakness of the character and is bad for my breath and teeth and what else, heart? And it destroys the rain forest and fuels the conglomony of Maxwell House. From now on, I am just going to buy fair trade, organic, locally roasted, bird friendly peace-coffee.” Giving up on the brown stain drying neatly in the center of my light-blue polo shirt, I inched the car, Christened “Dante,” forward.
I tried not to look at the clock. I rarely wore a watch but had placed a sticky-backed travel clock on the dash in such a way that it was obscured by the steering wheel. Of course everything in the Horizon was obscured by the steering wheel unless you were a seven foot tall hunchback. But my wavering eye strayed and I saw it was nineteen minutes after.
God, I was going to be late again. Working at a Zoo was not all it was cracked up to be.
Chip was going to be furious, and I still had to stop for the damn donuts. I cranked up the volume on my radio, blasting Kiante’s “Morning Cutlery” college radio show so loud the mesh covered speakers rattled irritably. Loud music was like Prozac. When one didn’t have money, clean clothes, air conditioning or donuts, one still had the ability to blast loud punk music to rattle the hatchback windows.
The music mellowed my mood and I slipped into the Zen of stop and go traffic: clutch, break, first gear, release break, clutch, gas, OM. What a modern mantra. Sighing, I slipped from fury into “the Zone,” driving like automatic writing the path I take to work each day, drifting towards the exit lane as my turn off approached.
I let my mind wander and started brainstorming what b-roll Chip and his Channel 6 production crew might shoot for the weekly kids television show, “You Belong At the Zoo” (dissatisfactorily abbreviated YBATZ) Granted, I should have had the schedule all written out, typed in Courier 14 point double-spaced, double-sided, but YBATZ was no Sesame Street. Hell, it wasn’t even as well produced as “Cooking with Mr. Food”. It usually consisted of Shannon pitching interesting and educational stories to Chip, and Chip replying “what else do you got?”
When I finally pulled into the employee parking lot and spied Chip’s Channel 6 van, I realized I’d forgotten the donuts. “Shit.”
But then she saw something odd. Not only was Chip’s big white van in the lot, but Channel 10 and 12 were there as well. The only time more than one news crew made it out to the Onami Zoo was when there was a birth or severe weather (one of those “what do you do with the animals on a hot day” fluff pieces).
Telove-prolog
Kabris waited as if suspended in a dream. Long, narrow legs folded beneath him, his cape hanging limply at his shoulders. He was a great bird in hibernation. He drew slow and constant breaths. It was the only movement - the gentle in and out of his chest - that proved he was alive. Behind his closed eyes, behind the darkness of his trance, he was deep in concentrated thought. And all of his thoughts were concentrated on Match. The One-who-would-surpass, his equal in power, even while only half his age. The One-who-would-surpass, the dark eyes of his nightmares. The One-who-would-surpass, the one thing that kept Kabris alive. His chest rose and fell, the slim hands folded across bended knees. Sickly thin from the fast, paper white from the immeasurable time spent underground. Kabris used his mind to keep the constant vigil, knowing that someday, the young untrained mind of the One-who-would-surpass would give him the extra energy he needed to break from his tomb. He only knew what he expected, he only knew what he had dreamed of and imagined for all the days that added to months which added to years that Kabris had sat. He had spent the first while conditioning his body, breaking what natural barriers he could with magic or willpower. He had overcome the need for strength, he had overcome the need for little more than token nutrition taken mostly from the air. He breathed in. He breathed out. He reduced the need for movement, and devoted all of his energy to the search, the hope, the dream, and the knowledge that Match would be presented to him.
Then a flicker. Only light, like a moth wing. A touch that the untrained would surely ignore. Kabris’ eyes sprung open, pupils wide to almost complete blackness. He had felt it. And he knew it. Match, the Nightflame, the One. But Kabris had other plans. He knew his role in the life of the young prophet, knew his destiny as a teacher to the greatest being that would ever be born of the small planet Telove. But Kabris had decided, in the years of banishment, not to let Match surpass him. He knew that if he could hold him in check, the power of the boy would become his own. And he knew that when this happened, all the years alone and patient to the point of madness, would be worth it.
When he had descended, been forced into the cave, he had been a Nightflame himself. But as he now unfolded his tall thin form, he was reborn. He felt the trembling of life and energy and the flow of power from the untrained soul of Match Nightflame through the soil and rock above him. The opportunity was now upon him. No need for elaborate spells or gestures, Kabris used the power of his mind to wrap around the needed strength and use it to overcome the barriers that had been placed centuries ago on the cave to keep him contained. It was easy as stroking a kitten.
He rose through stone without so much as disrupting a particle. Up though the ground, he winced and smiled as the sunlight hit his pale skin, his crystal blue eyes. He truly was reborn, in the white and glaring gaze of the benevolent Gaithperia. He was no longer a Nightflame. He was now a Whiteflare.
Candleboy-first start
I won’t live to see 20. That’s what the doctors say. My body is hot to the touch. My blood could boil at any minute.
I don’t have a home, but I live with many people. Just not all at the same time. Nick is one of the people I live with. He’s 28. He runs a hole-in-the-wall bookstore on 3rd street. I don’t think it even has a name. It just has “Bookstore” painted on the side of the building that we all live in. It’s not a dirty bookstore, either. It’s that actual real bookstore that keeps old, rare copies of Shakespeare and Homer and has sections on Metaphysics, History and Art. Nick loves me. I do not love him. Not like that.
Tansy is a girl. She has huge tattoos of waterfalls on her back and black tribal bands on both her arms, but you can still see the scars. Tansy is 22 and works at a bar. She lives in an apartment with Sean.
Sean is Irish. He steals.
Tamora is a witch. She and her brother Naytan live together and practice their rituals on the ever-changing array of ladies that work this part of the city. I don’t know what kind of rituals they practice.
My Father died in a house fire I set. My Mother ran away after he died and I ran in the other direction. I lived with an uncle for a while here in the city until my Mom sent me a letter. Then I got lost in the city and was never found.
I’ve had that damn letter from Mom for so long. Then one night, it was raining and my body was steaming and sirens were wailing in the background and I decided to burn Mom’s letter.
I didn’t know if I felt freedom or despair as I watched the corners of the paper turn black in my hands. I didn’t want to feel anything. I wanted to cry and to scream. But all I did was watch the corners of the paper turn black.
Then Tansy found me and told me that Nick was dead.
It was raining, and the air was dense with wet hot dogs, wet hot dog venders, gas, oil, vinyl. Wet cats, drenched anthills, garbage and the faint smell of sulfur.
Rain is nice, I decided. I like the way it makes me feel. How everyone else must feel. Lucky bastards. Not that I’m bitter. The fact that a lot of people have it easier than I do doesn’t make me bitter. Going through life as a medical hazard that could spontaneously combust at any moment isn’t enough. Just because my projected life span is less than 30 years. It’s not the length of one’s life that counts, it’s what one does with the intervening time that counts, right?
I was just thinking it would be a good time to go and see Nick. He misses me. I know. I’ve never been in love. I should word that better, I never let myself fall in love. I have enough to deal with.
But Nick does love me, I’m afraid. I’ve tried reason and I’ve tried renunciation. Now I just let him do whatever - he can watch me, he can hold my hand if it makes him happy. But he knows about me, and he knows my days are numbered. And though he doesn’t think I know, he keeps one of those candles in a Jesus jar burning next to that old picture of me.
Candleboy-second start
Rain is nice. I like the way it makes me feel. My body steamed as the droplets of fine mist hit my hands and evaporated. Sirens were wailing in the background and I decided to burn Mom’s letter.
I watched the corners of the paper turn black in my hands. I didn’t want to feel anything. Freedom, despair. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or scream. All I did was watch the corners of the paper turn black.
I’ve had that damn letter from Mom for so long. Ever since I got lost in this city. Ever since the arson investigation ended and I was cleared. Legally, my name may have been cleared, but my conscience wasn’t. I knew I killed him.
I was just thinking it would be a good time to go and see Nick. He misses me. I know. I’ve never been in love. I should word that better, I never let myself fall in love. I have enough to deal with.
But Nick does love me, I’m afraid. I’ve tried reason and I’ve tried renunciation. Now I just let him do whatever - he can watch me, he can hold my hand if it makes him happy. But he knows about me, and he knows my days are numbered. And though he doesn’t think I know, he keeps one of those candles in a Jesus jar burning next to that old picture of me.
I won’t live to see 20. That’s what the doctors say. My body is hot to the touch. My blood could boil at any minute.
I walked towards the building we Tansy is a girl. She has huge tattoos of waterfalls and black tribal bands on both her arms, but you can still see the scars. Tansy is 22 and works at a bar. She lives in an apartment with Sean.
Sean is Irish. He steals.
Tamora is a witch. She and her brother Naytan live together and practice their rituals on the ever-changing array of ladies that work this part of the city. I don’t know what kind of rituals they practice.
My Father died in a house fire I set. My Mother ran away after he died and I ran in the other direction. I lived with an uncle for a while here in the city until my Mom sent me a letter. Then I got lost in the city and was never found.
I’ve had that damn letter from Mom for so long. Then one night, it was raining and my body was steaming and sirens were wailing in the background and I decided to burn Mom’s letter.
I didn’t know if I felt freedom or despair as I watched the corners of the paper turn black in my hands. I didn’t want to feel anything. I wanted to cry and to scream. But all I did was watch the corners of the paper turn black.
Then Tansy found me and told me that Nick was dead.
Nick rans a hole-in-the-wall bookstore on 3rd street that didn’t even have a name. It just has “Bookstore” painted on the side of the building that we all live in. It’s not a dirty bookstore, either. It’s that actual real bookstore that keeps old, rare copies of Shakespeare and Homer and has sections on Metaphysics, History and Art. Nick loves me. I do not love him.
Friday, January 23, 2009
(She's actually a magical Dreamkin in disguise!)
Her dad is lazy.
(He's a former thief who stole the most important item in all of Ambrosia!)
Her little sister is annoying.
(Well... she is!)
And Emma just wants to escape them all.
(But when she does, she finds out the fantasy world she escapes to is just as complex and even more dangerous than she ever imagined!)