|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 31, 2017 13:17:27 GMT -6
I love fairy tales and fantasy because of their haunting beauty and magical strangeness. They are set in worlds where anything can happen. Frogs can be kings, a thicket of brambles can hide a castle where a royal court has lain asleep for a hundred years, a boy can outwit a giant, and a girl can break a curse with nothing but her courage and steadfastness. ~Kate Forsyth Yes!! I do love fantasy.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 25, 2020 10:38:18 GMT -6
Consumed by Laura Ellison Arlia knelt down on a silk cushion in the middle of the room. She took a deep breath and centred herself. Gramps always told her to do this, sometimes he jabbed her in the sides with his walking stick if he thought she rushed meditation. In front of her the Fire Tome lay open on âLevel Eight Incantationâ. Her Level Seven attempt had been impressive. The fireball in her hand nearly reached two inches in diameter. Another deep breath to focus all her thoughts on the incantation and nothing else. Concentration is key. The mantra repeated in her brain, distracting yet encouraging. She recited the words from the tome; an ancient, difficult language that provoked a response from the natural elements of the world. Her outstretched arms grew heavy with empowered blood. Her fingertips tingled. Then her palms grew hot. Arlia opened her eyes slowly. Two large fireballs, about four inches in diameter, hovered just above her upturned palms. Success. She was as good, if not better, than the low-life final year apprentices that thought they were so much better than everybody else. The tome said to release the magic after no more than thirty seconds. Fireballs were made to be thrown, after all. Arliaâs knees began to ache, even though the padding of the cushion protected them. How long had it been? Arlia shook her hands to dissipate the magic but the fireballs remained hovering just above her palms. Their presence mocked her. Yes, she was capable of great magic like Gramps but she could not remove it afterwards. Panic set in and Arlia started to wave her arms frantically trying to dislodge the fire magic. Flames flickered and danced around her hands and caught the edge of the heavy curtain over the single window. A high pitched scream drew in the attention of several final year apprentices and two full wizards. Arlia realised later it had been herself who screamed. Someone pinned her down to the floor. Presumably to stop the spread of the inferno. Lots of spells were uttered and the roar of the curtain fire died down and the weight in Arliaâs arms seemed to lessen. The pressure on her chest lifted and Arlia sat up. She forced her eyes open wide but the room was too dark to see anything in. âThanks, sorry.â Arlia heard the accusatory tone of Izen, one of the oldest and most stern wizards. He did most of the teaching and took care of any disciplinary action that was required. Arlia had been on the wrong end of his beating stick many times before today. She cringed as she prepared herself for the first sting. âWhat is this?â Something scraped against the wooden altar Arlia had set out earlier. âLevel Eight. What are you, second year, third year?â âUm, first year. Sir.â Izen dropped or slammed the book. It rang out loudly against the stone cobbles on the floor. Arlia wondered how he had been able to read the title in the darkness. Wizard trick, no doubt. Perhaps, like their cats, all wizards could see in the dark. âHow does a first year manage to get a hold of something like this?â Someone stammered from behind Arlia but she couldnât tell his voice or what he actually said. Something else rang out against the stone cobbles. It sang as it shattered. Porcelain maybe. âGet up,â Izen barked. Arlia felt hands under her, lifting her to her feet. âCome with me.â Arlia stood, lost in the darkness. âWhere are you?â She felt a breeze against a face and a rough hand under her chin tilting her face upwards. âSheâs consumed. Fetch Milent.â A pair of feet scuttled away. âOn second thought, we need Oden.â Arlia shuddered. Hearing Grampsâ real name never boded well. She had heard the word consumed before but had no idea what it meant. Other than it was what she did to the biscuits. âWhatâs happening?â asked Arlia. Nobody answered. At long last the heavy oak door was disturbed indicating someone had either come in or just left. The only discernable action near Arlia in the last ten minutes other than a mouse scuttling in the eaves. More hands touched Arliaâs face, tilting her head from side to side. Arlia smelt cinnamon, the flavour of Grampsâ favourite cake. âWhat have you done, child?â His voice was soft but lined with grief. Arlia felt relaxed and chided in quick succession. âIâm sorry Gramps.â âHer eyes are completely white. Send Milent away. Thereâs no saving her. In fact, you can all go now.â More shuffling and the oak door clunked as it latched shut. âWhat now, Oden?â Izen still remained in the room. âWhat can I do? I canât ignore the rules for my own granddaughter.â âYou would have her sent to the darkness?â There was a long pause. Arlia held her breath as she realised her fate was being decided. She knew what the Darkness meant. Stay tuned for more. đŚ
|
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 26, 2020 7:40:30 GMT -6
Arlia may wish she had behaved better, the Darkness sounds most scary  |
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 26, 2020 12:25:53 GMT -6
It does, indeed, Rick.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 26, 2020 12:36:48 GMT -6
Under the academy in the dungeons, the passageways were completely dark. No students ever went down there. In the middle of the dungeon, protected by a large labyrinth squatted a creature so hideous that the school only sent blind people to tend to it. The creatureâs power provided enough raw energy to feed the constant spells practised by the students. âPlease donât send me down there,â Arlia begged. She only knew tears had filled her eyes when they overflowed and hot drips ran down her cheeks. âArlia, you leave me no choice. I cannot have a consumed student wandering the hallways. Who knows what other beings will be drawn to you now. I canât put my school in danger.â âYou know, Oden,â said Izen, interrupting. âThere is no proof that anyone who is consumed draws other beings into our plane. Thereâs certainly no evidence it has happened in the dungeons.â âHave you been in the dungeons recently?â âNo.â âThen how can you be certain? It is what is told and the books never lie.â âOf course they donât,â said Izen, resigned to lose the argument. âThe darkness it is,â said Gramps. The anger had evaporated from his voice leaving only sadness. He sounded ten years older in Arliaâs mind. âThere is just one more alternative.â Arliaâs heart quickened. âAnd what is that?â âTurn her out. Dress her in rags.â âYou meanâŚ?â âWhy not? The city beggars make a tidy sum these days. Some are perfectly healthy but prefer to spend their days on the dusty floor rather than being at the Mill.â Gramps exhaled loudly and clicked his teeth. A habit he usually displayed when he and Arlia played chess. Their games went on for hours, mostly because Gramps took so long to make a move. Before each play he touched every single piece, a ritual of superstition, and then thought for a long time. Arlia invariably lost. âI canât make my granddaughter a beggar.â âYou would prefer she spent an eternity feeding and washing that thing we keep locked up down there. You know how many servants we lose, donât you?â âI suppose. But it would be so shameful to see her on the streets asking the city lowlifes for charity. Sheâs a Minxskin. She should be a Great like her parents.â âAnd how did that turn out for them?â Gramps never spoke about her parents. She had no idea what happened except they had gotten lost on an expedition in the New World when she was three. âWeâre still waiting.â Gramps sighed again. A soft thump indicated he had sat down in one of the chairs. âLook at her, Oden. Sheâll never be a Great. You know our kind can never forgive the Consumed. Even if, by some miracle, her eyes do heal, we can never accept her back.â âYouâre right, I know.â âSo, shall I find some rags?â âIzen, please. Leave me, us, a moment.â âVery well.â Arlia waited in the darkness. Her very future lay at the discretion of Gramps. Gramps who had brought her up as best as he could whilst he tried to manage the school. Gramps who never forgave the breaking of rules. Once he had made her scrub every stone in the castle with a tiny rag because she had spilled very expensive ink all over his office and then proceeded to walk through it. She had been four and a half, at the most. Arlia stretched out her hands in the direction Gramps voice came from moments ago. After a few difficult steps of thinking she was about to plummet to her death every time, her fingers brushed something material. âGramps?â He made a loud wet sound that sounded distinctly like someone who sniffed in the midst of silent tears. âPoor child, what have you done?â âI was just practising. The older students are so full of themselves because their fireballs are bigger than mine. I just wanted to prove I was worthy of my name.â âBut child, you committed the ultimate sin. You fell under the spell of the Icarus demon. You let him into you and so into the school.â âNothingâs happened though,â said Arlia. âEvery student is now at high risk of falling under his spell. We have to get you out or into the dungeons before the school is destroyed.â âSo much for making you proud of me.â âYou never had to try and impress me. I could see in you what was in your mother that made her a Great. Compassion. Being able to understand others and the world around you is the key to unlocking the power of the elements. But you tried to do too much. You overreached yourself. Thereâs a reason we donât allow apprentices their own tomes. Where did you get this one, by the way?â Arlia considered her answer. The older students had been giving her an especially hard time out in the grounds. Arlia had only wanted a few herbs for her next lesson and the older kids would not let her out of the herb garden. They had kicked and pushed her down and rubbed her face in the dirt. All the while laughing and saying âyouâre not so great, are youâ. No doubt a dig at who her grandfather was. She ran through the castle to her dorm and threw herself face down on the hard mattress. She lay there for nearly two hours, too ashamed to go to her lesson without any herbs and too afraid to go back to the herb garden in case the bullies were still there. Eventually, when she had tired of her musty pillow, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her toes brushed something hard. She looked down and saw one of the restricted books peeking out from under the bed. First year students were not allowed to read any tomes at all until they had covered all the basics of non-elemental magic. Namely potions, ointments and proper care of familiars. âI found it.â âAh. A story so clichĂŠ I actually believe you. Perhaps you were feeling a little powerless at the time, hmm?â Arlia nodded. Hot tears splashed her cheeks again. âTemptation is the downfall of many a person older and wiser than yourself. I canât condemn you to the darkness. Perhaps the city will be more forgiving to you than it was to me.â âYou were in the city?â Arlia, her head up even though she could not see. She heard Grampsâ smile in his voice. âI am older and wiser than you. If you practise people might not even know you are blind. The pigment will come back to your eyes eventually, even if your sight doesnât.â Arlia thought about the chess games with Gramps, and laughed. All this time she had been losing to a blind man. Later, in the dead of night she set off towards the city in rags. The End đŚ |
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 27, 2020 8:44:02 GMT -6
This had a happier ending that I expected; good writing  |
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 27, 2020 22:06:11 GMT -6
YES!! Me too.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 27, 2020 22:14:28 GMT -6
Scorned by Paul Magnan I grasped the rough edges of the tombstone and pulled it from the strands of thick, yellowed grass upon which it lay. I set it in an upright position. The words âDear Loveâ were carved along the top of the stone. I had carved those words. For a few seconds the stone stayed in place. This time she will accept my apology. Everything is going to be fine. The stone wobbled and threw itself to the earth. âWhat do I have to say?â I cried. âIâm sorry! You know I am!â The tombstone lay silent on the dead grass. âThat girl meant nothing to me. She was nothing but a horrible mistake, a moment of weakness. It was just that one time! Didnât I apologize? Didnât I try to make it up to you? Why did you have to leave?â My words bounced off the cold stone. Tears ran down my face, following well-worn tracks as once again I relived that terrible day: The first thing I saw was one of her white sneakers, lying sideways on the floor. I took another step down and saw her feet hanging in space, with the other sneaker still on her right foot. Her face was purple and bloated. Her eyes, though dull, damned me as I cut the rope. I tried to carry her up the stairs, but her body threw itself out of my arms. Finally I dragged her up by her feet. Her head bounced on each stair as her eyes watched me, accused me⌠I sobbed, and couldnât stop. The stone lay there, disdainful of my pain. I brought myself under control. âDidnât I then prove my love to you? Didnât I show how much you meant to me by burying you here, all by myself? I broke the law by not reporting what happened. I couldnât bear the thought of you lying in a cold morgue. Doesnât that mean anything to you?â The sun was setting behind me. My shadow crept up to the tombstone and caught the edge of it. It rasped against the grass as it skittered up several inches to escape the contact. I wailed and threw myself to the earth where my love was buried. The ground heaved and threw me to the side. Rocks dislodged themselves from the soil and flew at me, driving me back. I walked away, tattered and disconsolate. But tomorrow Iâll be back. Tomorrow Iâll once again reset the tombstone. And this time it will remain upright. My love will forgive me. I know she will. đŚ |
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 28, 2020 13:01:31 GMT -6
Wow ... he is  |
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 28, 2020 21:47:54 GMT -6
CARMODY Dancehalls of the Old West were centers of what might be considered fine art. There were no others. BLIGHT âMusic has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." âWas it the Arnold?â the woman in large green overalls and a sheepskin was shouting out in the middle of 17th street, wrangling the traffic around her. âOr just the Edward, was it?â she yelled. âOr the Steven? Steven the Arnold...was that it?â The Heineken guy was crossing the street with a hand truck of stacked beer cases; he was glad for her help slowing the traffic. Two early drunks were locked in a loud argument about boxing or racism; it was hard to tell. A police cruiser arrived in response to a fender-bender in the middle of the intersection of 17th and Capriccioso, where a City pickup truck had rear-ended a taxi. The cabby insisted they leave the cars exactly where they had come to rest until the accident report was filled out. Then, it started to rain, soft and easy to begin with, but afterward torrentially. Everyone hurried out of the street; the woman in green overalls huddled under the maroon and white grocery awning and the beer guy put away the hand truck, dropped the canvas panels over the cases and kegs of beer in their rows, and drove off. The storm darkened the street and neon signs reflected in puddles and where the collecting rainwater lay in sheets on the pavement. Convoys of autos crept by, wipers going, leaving a thin weave of tire tracks in the wet. The stoplights at the nearest corner clicked through their red-green-yellow, and red again phases, out of synchronicity with the lights at the farther corner. The weird rhythms of colored lights â click-clackety-click-clack â added musical syncopation to the scene. The street level door between Raymondâs Shoe Shoppe and Whiteâs Bakery opened and a man in an artistâs smock and black beret stepped out. He carried a large palette, the surface of which was rich in globules of brilliant oil paint, and a handful of brushes all maybe three feet long. He walked straight into the street, pushed the bristles of a brush into a dollop of red and then into the yellow and with a wild, sweeping stroke upwards, he wiped a section of the sky into color, blocking out the rain. Then he dipped the brush into paint again, swept the sky again, and more of the sky turned red-yellow. He put the end of a second brush into aqua-marine paint and then a little more yellow and some black. He swept the sky again and again, pushing the dazzling rainbow of colors higher up into the sky. He swept and dipped and swept and dipped until the cupola of the world was ablaze in color and the last bit of sun slid below the horizon. đŚ |
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 29, 2020 6:54:41 GMT -6
This is really interesting with superb imagery.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 29, 2020 16:44:36 GMT -6
I thought so too, Rick. It lets your imagination come out to play.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 29, 2020 16:51:50 GMT -6
The Arrest of King Albrecht by Nathan Hicks To her credit, when Princess Antonia was told her brother had been arrested for selling Shakespeare forgeries in another dimension, she took it extremely well. But then, Albrecht always had been impetuous, and the news wasn"t entirely unexpected. She leafed through the police photocopies of carefully-handwritten manuscript pages, noting (not without a touch of pride) that her brother had achieved spelling, grammar and tone indistinguishable from the playwright"s own.
"How many are there?" she asked General Braunhaus, Chief of Intelligence, who was looking very grave indeed.
"Four," he replied, shortly. "Four plays composed, written and sold to rare-book dealers by His Majesty, pretending they were this... Shakespeare"s. My Lady, this is a national emergency."
"Well," she said, "Albrecht"s been a very naughty boy, but â"
"My Lady, he is King of Inner Alicia! He can"t go around breaking laws! He can"t just disappear only to resurface nine years later in a police cell On the Other Side of the Glass!" General Braunhaus wiped a fleck of spittle from his moustache. "The officer informs me His Majesty could be facing a very long prison sentence."
Officer McGriffin, of the New York Police Department, had had a very strange day. He smiled nervously at the assembled courtiers in their sumptuous brocades and powdered periwigs, and realised they expected him to say something. "How"s it going, folks?" he began. He coughed. "Now, obviously, we"re gonna be asking a pritt-ee sizeable bail â not that we think uh, King, Albrecht is dangerous, just, you know, we don"t want him disappearing to Myanmar or Brazil or somewhere like that â" Princess Antonia wondered where Brazil was. "How much?" she asked, interrupting him.
"Oh... uh, how much? Um." Officer McGriffin looked up at the faerie-crystal chandeliers, spun by eighty virgins in a single night three centuries before. "You know, maybe you guys should come down to the station and talk with our lawyers..."
"You mean go through the Glass?" asked Princess Antonia, with a kind of gleeful horror.
Officer McGriffin mouthed helplessly. He"d been sent to talk to the relatives of the Bill Shakespeare Forger â a quiet, pleasant young man with long hair and a British accent â and he"d been met by a deputation of generals who had (politely) manhandled him through a mirror in some rotting New Jersey warehouse. And now this.
"If My Lady wishes â" Braunhaus bowed extravagantly.
"No, I think the officer is right," said Antonia. "I am Albrecht"s sister, and regent of his country. Who better to meet him On the Other Side? I shall, of course, take the Cabinet with me."
She rose up from the throne, handing the papers to General Braunhaus. "Lead the way officer. My poor brother never really wanted to be king, you know," she informed McGriffin, as they set off through the exquisite Royal Gardens, laid out by the Blue Wizard Arramor fourscore years previously. "He used to go in disguise among the peasantfolk, listening to their stories, pretending he was one of them, rescuing foreign royalty from evil warlords... you know."
Officer McGriffin nodded. He did not know, but he had more pressing things to worry about. What was going to happen when he showed up at the station with these guys in tow? The men were wearing high heels! One of them had a freakin' pointy velvet cap on!
"It was Albrecht who proposed the abolition of serfdom," Antonia continued. "He was a Good King. But â well, the World On the Other Side Of the Glass fascinated him. He sent ambassadors to retrieve artefacts from your world, to learn about how you lived. We were most impressed with your horseless carriages â the automobiles â but we never quite discovered how you make them go."
"Gas," said McGriffin, weakly.
"Oh, how interesting,"said Antonia, in the tone of one dissecting a frog for the first time. "Most of all, you know, Albrecht loved literature. We don"t have much of it here â the wizards disapprove, when there are so many dragons to be killed, and elfin poetry is frankly doggerel â but he did love your bards."She paused reflectively, "Actually, there aren"t so many dragons any more. Albrecht had submachine guns imported through the Glass, shortly before he left. I haven"t seen a dragon for oh, ever such a long time..."
They halted. They had come to the Temple of the Glass, tended day and night by three sorceresses who only had a single, grimy eye between them. Currently, two of them were asleep, and the third was trying to extract some grit from the tender surface of their dislocated eyeball.
"My Lady," she gasped, popping it back into her head and blinking myopically, "the Temple has been very busy today..."
"Spot of bother On the Other Side," said the Court Wizard, a portly warlock called Rundergast. "They"ve found the king."
"I"m afraid Albrecht"s broken some of their laws," Antonia explained. "This upstanding young swain has travelled here to help us."
Unsure whether or not to take offence at "swain", McGriffin waved shyly.
The sorceress examined him closely. "Yes, he came through here this morning with the Chief of Intelligence. I s'pose you all want to go back over there, now, do you?"
Antonia nodded brightly. "I always did want to see..." she savoured the foreign-sounding syllables, "... New York. Is it true that your society exists in a low-level state of anarchy?" she asked McGriffin conversationally. "I heard you don"t have a king."
"We don"t," said McGriffin. Through that mirror was the warehouse, and the patrol car parked outside, and beyond that the unsuspecting bureaucracy of the American legal system, waiting to process King Albrecht V of Inner Alicia for forgery. He felt sick.
"I suppose he"ll show up eventually, and pull a sword out of stone or something,"said Antonia kindly. "Kings don"t disappear much longer than five hundred years, give or take a decade."
And with that, she stepped up to the Glass, and crossed over onto the Other Side. đŚ |
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 30, 2020 9:58:51 GMT -6
Fascinating story writing  |
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 30, 2020 12:42:19 GMT -6
A Dance of Pewter by Douglas Van Hollen The last gift my mother ever gave me was a life-sized figurine of a dragonfly cast in pewter. I gave it a place of honor amidst the twenty-seven other pewter figurines that jostled for position on the glass shelves of my bedroom. Their eyes were many shades of red, some rubies but mostly rhinestones, and they looked at me while I slept, and I never minded at all.
The dragonfly was the first one to learn to move, and it quickly taught the rest, hovering in front of each pair of red eyes on blurred metal wings, until first the head, then the arms, then the whole body could move and bend and grasp. The horse learned to swish its tail and stamp its hoof hard enough to crack the shelf. The dragon puffed adorable pewter-colored smoke from its nostrils. The princess, my favorite, the idol of my burgeoning womanhood, tossed her hair and stiffened her neck, and smiled her sweet metal smile.
Each one practiced and perfected its idiosyncratic movements, as if trying them on after a long sleep, while I gazed horrified from a moonlight shadow on my bed. The light bounced from their eyes as they moved and gesticulated, noticing each other and interacting like children in a daycare. Their red pinpricks winked and sparkled at me from the far wall until it became clear that they were being repeatedly pointed in my direction.
They had some kind of conference on the middle shelf, with much buzzing from the dragonfly and some very forceful movements of the grizzly bear. The giraffe on the top shelf gazed over the edge and the pegasus flew on a looping arc up from the bottom shelf, while the rest peered frustratedly through the glass which I never kept very clean.
After several minutes of this, they all seemed to relax and returned to their original places, while the dragonfly took to the air, flying a calm zigzag across the room toward me. I am sure that it intentionally took an indirect path in an effort to belay any fear on my part, but it could not wholly prevent the sweet-sick terror of the terminally unexpected from welling up in my heart.
The tiny statue alighted on my chest, like a mother's hand touching there to calm and reassure. The eyes still seemed to glow red despite the wide shadow thrown by the bed's canopy, but in them I saw no menace, just intelligence, one that was firmly fixed on me. I made no move, and so there was no rustle of bedsheets to obscure the deep but tiny voice echoing from its pewter throat.
"This is my real gift to you, my daughter," it said. "I shall not be there to grant any more of the wishes that good mothers should grant their daughters. But I had hoped that one great and final fantasy come true might help you to forgive this.
"Ask them to dance and they will spin a delight for you out of movement and moonlight."
And they did. The End đŚ |
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 31, 2020 6:56:24 GMT -6
I liked this uplifting fantasy story.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 31, 2020 21:11:43 GMT -6
I loved this one, Rick.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 31, 2020 21:21:36 GMT -6
He Lives by Jeffery T. Ford Smoky clouds of blue sorcery danced above the rectangular, wooden table. The AĂŠlkyn child concentrated, casting the healing spells heâd learned over the course of his youth studies. Sweat trickled down his plump face and his hands trembled as if stricken with the Shakerâs Curse. But for all his effort, nothing worked. It seemed his best friend was beyond conventional healing.
His friend had gone from dying to already dead.
âNo,â he whispered, continually slamming slender fists onto the table, strands of black hair slapping at his pale face. The large room with its many tables was pitch black except for the dim light of floating paper lamps he had summoned to the middle. Yet, for every pounding of his fists the lamps strengthened, engulfing the entire room in bright, orange light. âNo, no, no⌠NO!â He flashed a slightly crazed glare at an enormous pile of books behind him, as if accusing them of intentional negligence.
His friendâs unseeing eyes stared at the roof and its wooden beams and rafters, his insides leaking out in several wounds throughout his badly broken body. âIâll bring you back to life,â the boy said, gritting his teeth. âI promise.â
Behind the pile of tomes lay a single book with laced pages and a velvety purple jacket, larger and massively heavier than the others. It had been dusty when the boy happened upon it earlier that morning, the edges worn from having been passed down in his family for centuries. With its shrouded mysteries and intricate language of the old AĂŠlkyn tongue, the sheer power within had been enough for the boy to break out in hives the moment he laid hands on it. A simple spell had taken care of that, but the fact that he had been affected so harshly, so immediatelyâŚ
You may rummage the library for whatever purposes you see fit to your studies, but you will not touch this particular volume. Not now. You are not ready.
His father said that six years ago when the boy had been a five-year-old apprentice. He was still an apprentice, of course, but six years had instilled confidence in him. It was this confidence, coupled with his friendâs dire condition, which finally triggered his desperate decision.
If necromancy couldnât bring his friend back to life nothing could.
But the longer he held his eyes on the book, its ancient languages and outlawed spells, the more curious he became. And wary. Oh, yes, certainly wary.
He bent his frail body around the books and edged his hands close to the tome, sweat now pouring down his face. After an entire afternoon of unsuccessful work, the smell of his high-collared, sweat-stained robe reminded him of a certain flooded graveyard he and his father had foraged years ago while searching for ingredients. He smelled of death. The irony would have forced a smile across his face had the body in front of him been a test subject rather than his best friend.
His hands grasped the book and frantically tossed it onto the table as if afraid it would grow teeth and go for his jugular. A numbing feeling had overcome his body in the short seconds his hands had touched the book, but heâd been ready this time. Looking down at himself he saw no hives. No scars, no nothing. His heart wouldnât cease pounding at the rate of a DojĂ war-drummer, but beyond that he was physically fine.
Now, however, was the most difficult part of his desperate, last-second experiment: deciphering one of the elder tongues. Heâd already dabbled in studying all three of the primary elder languages, ancient races who had once ruled all of TeĂr before the birth of Man and Beast: EĂłlkyn, TĂŠlkyn, and his own peopleâs language, AĂŠlkyn. But such studies never told him spells that would teach him how to raise the dead.
What if I canât perform the spell?
A chill swept down as the thought jabbed him like a dagger to the spine. His hands trembled, lingering above the tome, fingers twitching anxiously as he began having second thoughts. But one look at his friend swayed him back to confidence. He was his friendâs last hope. It was necromancy or nothing.
He opened the tome and quickly flipped to the two-hundred-eleventh page. In bold crimson ink quilled upon faded, yellowish parchment was the following spell: DĂşm Ras Daae Ăn. âOn Raising the Once-Dead.â He could make out those words easily enough, but the authorâs name was written in a language he had never even seen before.
Drool flowed from his open mouth, dripping down onto his chin before wiping it away with a distracted sweep of his robed forearm. The tome now lay open on the table directly in front of his friendâs body. He clinched his fists, raised them so high that his overly long sleeves fell down past his scrawny elbows, andâ
âJust what do you hope to accomplish here?â
A sound from behind startled him and he turned around. The door to his laboratory stood open, a dark silhouette standing in the doorway. Bright light from a sun-filled outside sky seeped around its body, blinding the boyâs eyes. For one dreadful moment the boy thought he had accidentally released an ancient daemon from its crypt, but he quickly recognized the voice just as his eyes readjusted themselves.
His father stepped through the door, slamming it hard behind him.
He strode across the floor until he reached the table where the boyâs friend lay, taking several looks from the table to his son before sighing, digging his gloved hands deep into the pockets of his black leather robe. His hood was down and the sides of his white hair with purple and black streaks flowed down to his shoulders, while the rear was locked in a tail bound by an emerald hair-hold. Amber-colored jewels hung from his oval-shaped ears. A silvery white beard dangled down to his waist. The boy fondly remembered many attempts to climb that beard as an infant. He remembered specifically his father roaring with laughter.
His father wasnât laughing now.
âIâŚI,â the boy barely croaked. âI wanted to bring him back to life, father.â
The father rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he leaned over the table to inspect the dead corpse. âChild,â he began before closing his eyes, massaging his forehead as if battling a migraine. âNecromancy is⌠a touchy subject. You werenât supposed to have learned about it, yet here you are with a book no boy your age should have in his possession. I told you to leave this particular tome alone, did I not?â He swept up the necromantic book, placing it within his robe. The boy watched, mouth agape, fascinated as his father showed no signs of weakening against the bookâs touch. âI suppose much of this is my own fault. Boys are curious creatures. I should know,â he said, flashing the boy a wry smile that lasted no longer than the blink of an eye.
âCan you save him, father?â the boy pleaded as he went to his knees. âIâll do anything you want me to do! Just please, save him!â
The fatherâs eyebrow arched as he motioned for the boy to rise. âStand from the floor, child!â He yelled, grabbing the boy by his slim wrists and dragging him to his feet. âWith human creations come human remedies!â
âI⌠I donât understand. What do you mean?â
âNecromancy is magic for dead flesh. Real flesh.â
A flood of tears were on the verge of spilling from his large, orange eyes, like juice squeezed from a tangerine. âSo, you mean⌠heâs dead?â
The father massaged his temples once more, taking a deep breath before looking down at his son. He said, softly, âTake him to the Redwood Market and find a human to patch him back together. YourâŚâ The right side of the fatherâs face twitched as he momentarily closed his eyes. âYour friend isnât any deader than you or I.â
âAre you sure? What ifââ
âGO!â
Without another word, the boy scooped up his best friend and bolted for the door.
Cotton stuffing poured out from the bearâs ripped opening in the stomach, and the right eye fell to the floor and rolled back to the father, stopping at his boots. When he was sure the boy had left he bent over to pick up the black button, closely examining it.
Humans and their toys,â he muttered impatiently, tossing the button aside before gathering the rest of his borrowed books. End đŚ
|
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 1, 2020 8:09:57 GMT -6
A graphic yet interesting tale  |
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 1, 2020 12:32:49 GMT -6
The Year The Virus Came by Katya Kastro
Lily was annoyed and upset. Her mom switched her virtual reality helmet into school mode and while Lilyâs friends were chilling on some Australian or Brazilian beach, she was locked in her room. Lilyâs mom wonât unblock the helmet until the homework is done. Lily was thirteen and she didnât care about a history class and what had happened 30 years ago. In those ancient times, people were so undeveloped that they actually had to travel if they wanted to see a place.
The teacher explained that in these times people could really touch other people just for the greeting and some individuals were careless enough even to sleep together in one bed. Lily didnât care for such savages. No wonder they were absolutely defenseless when the virus came.
Lilyâs homework was to research and prepare the story of her family in those times. It was optional, but her mom insisted that she do it. For reasons unclear to Lily, her mom was strongly attached to those times.
Sighing, Lily picked up her iPad 29 which was integrated with the helmet, looked for an ancient app called Instagram and opened her momâs account. Since 2030 every moment of life had been recorded and everybody could put the virtual helmet on and watch their own life in 3D with friends and family. But back in the 20s people were still addicted to posting pictures of the important moments.
Lily scrolled back to 2020 and saw a photo of her very young mom wearing a black square hat and sitting next to an old-school computer. There were several squares on the screen and in every square Lily saw a picture of a young, smiling guy wearing a black hat like her momâs. Most of the young men in the picture had beards â a barbaric and unhygienic male trend of those days.
Below the photo Lilyâs mom posted: âMy graduation party during the lockdown. Looking forward to the day when I can hug everyone.â Unbelievable, keeping your physical body in a safe place was considered something incorrect, something limiting!
Then this word âhug.â Lily knew its meaning but she couldnât get the idea. Why would Lilyâs mom want to touch all those people? Was it a strange dangerous method to learn if any person had a fever?
Lily watched some explanatory videos about this ritual. Seems that people hugged each other to express their emotions. As if emojis were not enough! Of course, nowadays emojis are much more developed and appear as a hologram both in virtual reality and in real life, but even back in those days people had been already using them in messengers and chats.
One more sigh and Lily started to compose her homework. She wrote: âWhen the virus came, my mom was a young, reckless rebel. She urged people to meet in person and propagandized physical contact. Even on her graduation day instead of celebrating this great achievement, she was hoping to see her friends. My mom is a very smart woman but even she didnât realize the whole danger of being social. Her behavior shows us how careless and naive people had been before the World Restriction Law passed in 2023. Iâm glad my mom has changed; she would never touch me or any other person because she knows how unsafe it is. Dangerous unhealthy times have passed and weâre living in a brave new world.â
âMom, my homework is done, can I please go?â â Lily asked the empty room, knowing the word âmomâ would trigger a notification in her momâs helmet... Her mom connected immediately, virtually nodded and switched Lilyâs helmet into leisure mode. Straight away the girl connected to the chat with her friends, who were lounging on the rim of a volcano in Hawaii.
Her mom was left alone. Like all other parents, she had access to her children's notes, so she took a look.
She saw her old Instagram picture and wondered If Lily realized that one of the guys in Zoom was her father? She doubted it. Lily was born after the beards had been prohibited and she wouldnât imagine her dad having one. Then she read Lilyâs note.
If there were somebody else in the room, they would see a woman sitting alone in a helmet. Even through the helmetâs glass they would notice a strange expression on her face. Somebody from her generation would think that she was crying but how is this possible? People of the bright new age donât express emotions. They use emojis instead. đŚ
|
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 2, 2020 7:52:59 GMT -6
I am not interested in living in this bright new age!
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 2, 2020 9:13:04 GMT -6
Nor am I, Rick. I want the old....and....familiar ways back again. *sigh* I wonder if it will ever happen.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 2, 2020 9:33:16 GMT -6
A Hand in the Garden by Michael W. Clark
Well, I didnât know what I thought at the time. It was an unusual situation, so there is no routine response to the unusual. Maybe someone out there has routines for the extraordinary, but I donât. I thought, well, the first thing I thought was someone was sleeping in the soft soil of the flower bed. Yeah, and they had simply covered up every other part of their body except their hand. You know bed â sleep, stimulus â response. Not routine but natural. I like it when the doctors do stimulus â response. Itâs a fun game for me. The doctors seem to like it too. I could make them smile with some of my responses. I was never certain what would make them smile, so I would try different things. No routine for the unusual. It was sort of an exploration, like a discovery mission. I like talking to people, though not everyone likes talking to me. I never understood that.
I am always interested in other people, why wonât they be interested in my thoughts? Thatâs why I like talking to the doctors. They are always interested in what I think and say. Ruthy says they have to be interested; it is their job to be interested.
âWell good!â I always reply. âWell double good! A profession that requires you to be interested in other people. Well good for whoever or is it whomever, thought up such a profession.â I do it for free, I like it so much. I could use some extra cash though. The snackshoppe has gotten so expensive.
But anyways, the guyâs sleeping in my flower bed, well, he was never there. Well, maybe thatâs wrong. Maybe there had been someone sleeping in there, but he went away but forgot to take his right hand. How do you forget your hand? Women can forget anything Ruthy says but it had to be a guy this time. The hand was too big and hairy to be anything but a guy. It was a pale white hand, so the guy must not have gone out in the sun much. My hands are dark tan from the sun during the summer at least; I work in the garden so much. Maybe he was an office worker? How is he going to do his job without his right hand? Maybe he is left-handed? That is a possibility. It would explain why he could have forgotten his right hand. He didnât use it routinely.
I like routine. That is why I like gardening. Flowers like routine. The sun comes up and then goes down and does it all over again and again. A daily routine. Good ole routine sun. I like the sun too.
âWho wouldnât?â I say to people. âWho doesnât like the sun?â No one I have ever asked has said, âI donât.â
Since it was his right hand, I donât know if he was married. Why would he sleep in my flower bed if he were married? Maybe he had a fight with her. Maybe he was so drunk from disappointment; he passed out in the garden and then was so hung-over that he just left without his right hand? It is a possibility. Ruthy says my possibilities are not. That is not possible.
I say, âHow do you know what is not possible when youâve been in here longer than I have?â
When I ask the doctors a question, many times they reply, âAnything is possible.â I tell Ruthy that and she replies, âThey are just saying that.â Which confuses me, because I had just told her that they had. Ruthy once got mad at me and called me âsimple-minded.â I answered back what my mother told me to say to that, âAm not. I am just straight forward and to the point.â
#
To get to some of these points, a few problems have arisen. In the morning exercise classes we are always supposed to stretch and loosen up. But so far no one has loosened up enough to have their hand or foot come off. Not even a fingertip! I tried to think my hand off at first, but nothing happened except I got dizzy. Then I thought it might have been thoughtlessness that got that hand left behind. I tried clearing my mind of all thoughts but how do you know if you succeeded clearing your head? If there is nothing there, how do you see nothing? I was confused and confusion didnât loosen anything on my body. So, I donât know how he could have forgotten his hand? I just donât think it is possible, but then there is the hand alone. I have felt like everything was coming apart before, but it never actually happened. I even pulled on my hand and still it held tight. It even started to hurt. But if it hurt to lose your hand, I think you would notice that. I certainly would. I just donât understand. How could you walk off and leave your hand behind like that then?
My second problem, well, the handâs problem, I guess it is, itâs got that old sandwich smell. When I didnât finish my lunch sandwich, I would put it in the potting shed. After a few days it would smell a strongly odd smell. It didnât taste very good after that. Even the dogs wouldnât eat it after that smell started. So, the forgotten hand was smelling like a dog wouldnât eat it. I didnât try feeding it to the dogs. I just know they wouldnât touch it now.
I was thinking about telling Ruthy. She is always asking me to give her a hand. Now I could but she would make fun of me I know. I did try to tell the doctors, well asked one of them during one session, âWhat if I found a hand in the garden?â And the doctor said something that didnât make any sense to me.
He said, âWell, that would be great. The work would be easier for you then. You put a lot of time into those flowers.â
How would the forgotten hand make my life easier? It has made it smellier and confusingier, oh ah, more confusing. I did a bad thing though, to actually make my life in the potting shed easier, ah less smellier. I stole a plastic sandwich box that they use for picnics sometimes. I put the hand in it. It stopped the smell for a while. But there was too much smell for the small size of the plastic box, I guess, because every morning the lid would have popped open and more of the smell filled the shed. I thought of stealing a bigger plastic box, but I donât know where they keep them. I finally sat a flowerpot on the top of the plastic box lid. I guess the pot was heavy enough and the smell was too weak to lift its weight.
#
So, I had forgotten the forgotten hand. I even forgot that I forgot it. I was just reading my old diaries. This must have happened three Christmases ago. The doctors and I are working on my memory issues they call it. Memory is such a funny thing. I donât remember the discarded hand at all. Isnât that odd? Itâs like Jackâs stories to me, just make believe. I thought at first Jack had been playing a trick on me and wrote this story in my diary, but Jack says he canât write. Still, it could be made up too. I have seen him read, so he has to be able to write. But my name is on the diary, so I guess I wrote about the hand in the garden. But I went to look under the big flowerpot. There was a plastic sandwich box there. It only had little bones in it. None of them as big as a hand. They rattled around in there like a kidâs rattle. No hand just noise. Maybe there were only bones there from the start? Jackâs stories can make you think things are there when they are not. He makes ghosts come to the darkness of our room when they are not real. The doctors tell me ghosts are not real, that ghosts are just made up for âentertainment purposes only.â The doctors talk like that. Yes, they do.
So maybe this ghost hand left bones behind as a souvenir? Memory bones, I guess you could call them. I am going to show the bones to Jack to see if his made up story had bones in it. Maybe he will make up a story to match the diary story. I know he can make a ghost hand to put the memory bones in. Jack is like that. I wonât tell Ruthy until after Jackâs ghost hand story exists, cause she would tell me not to do it. Not to talk to Jack. She doesnât like Jackâs stories. She says they are lies and that lying is bad. Iâll just tell her what the doctor said, âItâs for entertainment purposes only.â THE END đŚ |
|
|
|
Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 3, 2020 11:56:13 GMT -6
This is a really 'out there' story  |
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 3, 2020 17:36:46 GMT -6
Yep!! Waaaay....far out.
|
|
|
|
Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 3, 2020 19:10:55 GMT -6
Work of Ages, Work of Comets by Tom Sheehan The tip of the shovel had talked to him with a dull thud, not just through his ears, but totally. It came into his hands and up the stiffness of his arms, through the quick riot of nerves on red alert, through all passageways of recognition. It was wood! At its tip was wood, a cavernous wood, a chesty wood, an enclosing wood. Promise poised itself, much like awards' night and names to be named. Light leaped at his back, behind his head. Down through the awesome sky of darkness he could feel a star draining, down through thirty-five years of a hole.
For a moment everything was frozen and he'd know this time forever; not a single moth traversed the light's span, not a sound was made or heard; above him, millions of miles away but at his back, the weight of a lone star was known. He did not look at his friend, sure that Eddie would not wake up no matter what he did.
This was his time. He scraped slowly with the shovel blade, moving gravel and hard pan and small rocks across a flat surface. Indeed, the star was heavy. It bore down on him, but the tool was a toothpick in his hands. John Deere and Napoleon DeMars be damned. They'd not known this, light of a star warm on the back of the neck, and dry was his throat, dry his lips. He dared not seek the wine bottle someplace behind him. In this vacuum he heard nothing. Even the silence was heavy, field of an anode, grip of a battery, the moon held at bay from good old Mother Earth. Cleared, the wooden surface he'd hit was about two feet by three feet. That it was man-made seemed obvious. In the air hung his father's face, his father's words about dreaming the good life. The sweetness of the wine came back like a retort. It crawled in his mouth smoothly crusty as talc or chalk. It coated his teeth, more so the backside nearer his tongue. At investigation, it had granules as small as anything the tongue tip could isolate. The star loomed. He wasn't sure now whether it was overhead or underfoot, but it was here! Now a muscle began to talk to him, high on his back, just under one shoulder, at first an ache as dull as a starting toothache not yet localized, then telling of its small rawness. Perhaps it was descendant, alighting from someplace far away. Eddie could never understand all of this. It would drive him off the hill in a mad hurry. It would drive him off, noisily on his way. He'd fall, he'd scramble, he'd tear his knees. There'd be a glut of curses and terror in his heart, for this is where it had all been coming, all the damn time, all the crazy time, all the days and all the nights and all the bottles and all the kegs and all the nips secreted in pockets from bosses and supervisors and the merest of friends when his throat had been driest.
He'd been coming here since his father had told him of the good life that dreams would bring him to. No longer were there any secrets. It was all out here in the open in this magnificent pit under the weight of a single star; and then he could hold off no longer, and the bottle came alive in his hand and leaped upward and emptied downward and celebration came his due with the sweet mustiness working its reverent way. The star was still heaviest on his head, all the onus of it; not on his shoulders or his back, for he could have shoveled forever, but on his head, thick with a headache and a throb and the punch of a star known by no man. Struggling for leverage, he inserted the tip of the shovel under one edge of the flat surface at his feet. Like a crow bar, the long-handled shovel exerted enough energy to pry loose a piece of wood. Gold and silver and stones shone up at him! His father's face, old bottles, old inscriptions, odd shining, the loosing of dreams, the whole angular mass of lights and reflections, all came at once, blinding him, a blitz of a blitz of light and color he'd not know again. It was the barest, most lucid moment of his life that came at him then. And he knew he was trapped. Life would change dramatically and abysmally, and heâd never catch up to where he was right now. All of it he saw, and there were no dreams and no silence and no small darkness where he could huddle himself alone with his memories. Dreamer Tory Malzone, the star burning on his neck, still a ponderous weight in his mind, tipped the bottle once more to his lips, and drank off the contents. Then slowly he began to cover the star buried so long at his feet. Stay tuned đŚ |
|
