Levels of Importance

"Manaforge Cinder" image by Izzy

© Wizards of the Coast 2008

She'd always been taught that when people died, they laid in wait until they were resurrected in flame. Since she'd been a tiny girl, all the way through her young adulthood, early motherhood, and through the day of her death, it was a given that her body would be turned to ash, and her soul resurrected by the great fire that gave life to all. 

Clandee was from a small town, but typically what's interesting enough to tell a story about in a small town is how it became a big town, or how one girl or boy left it, or the way that girl or boy came back and stayed, especially if it was for family or a lover. None of that was interesting about Danidale. Clandee lived a simple life, not particularly interested in leaving or in the outside world. She'd listen to stories, but she never heard them the same way that the special people in stories hear them. She had no thirst for knowledge. The relationship she shared with her fiancee was nice, certainly, but nothing worth mentioning, as love never feels but truly, quite often is. She was ordinary enough to have quirks (a great love for summer berries and the color of August grass, one whose favorite task was quilting, but she wasn't the best and the village only needed so many quilts. She liked to talk, but didn't love it and wasn't the best at it, and while she enjoyed making bread for people, she was no Marterean, the baker's wife who baked most of the village's bread), and because of these quirks, she wasn't interesting by her lack of depth and, by extension, her applicability to readers and listener's lives as an everywoman was near nothing. The best readers could do would be to equate her own mundane tasks to those in their own life, but Clandee liked her mundane tasks, in a way that perhaps twenty percent of people do, but the majority of those twenty percent like mundane tasks more than Clandee did. For all intents and purposes, you shouldn't be reading about her at all, or listening about her if someone is reading this to you. Listening about her, that sounds quite awkward doesn't it? In any case you simply shouldn't -care-. That's where the fire comes in. 

The fire is the real interest here.

Fire was certainly what resurrected her, but not in the manner consistent with the religion in that land.

They believed that fire resurrected people in the end times, that the entire world would come ablaze and all souls strong enough would burn in the fire for several lifetimes, in a pleasant way which kept them whole until they burned out, the time of which would depend on the purity and size of the person's soul. A fairly logical religious belief, if an arbitrarily decided one. 

Before this religion had been popular long (perhaps one-hundred years. No more than two-hundred fifty), men in the surrounding countries decided that if it could happen in the end times it should be able to happen now. They worked to make it happen, trying to set aflame the souls of the dead, and sometimes the souls of the greatly infirm, as emergency medical treatment, and even, when they could manage it, "tried" on the souls they did not care for, claiming them to be unworthy for resurrection when the souls did not burn in one of the many rituals designed to set souls aflame, most of which involved setting the body aflame in some way. For the most part, it was benevolent intention to continue life and avoid the loss that haunts humans.

A method did come that set souls aflame. It came all at once, but it was not clear how the method worked exactly or why it worked or why it worked sometimes and not others. There were explanations but for the most part the explanations were nonsense and all that mattered was that by lighting a pyre under a full moon with cedar wood and after drawing the sign of the great pyre on the forehead and breast of the one to be set aflame, the soul did come to flame, and the person either returned to life or transferred to new life. In a manner of speaking. I say in a manner of speaking because the Returned were selectively cognitive. They held very few memories and even fewer thoughts. They were fairly submissive, but occasionally backlashed when their feeding was interrupted. Clandee was the first of their kind. 

She had been sick for a number of weeks and her fiance was beginning to worry. They sent a rider for a medicine man from a village three villages away, as he was the nearest they knew of, and she had been delivered and helped through the pox by the same man. He claimed that she was not long for the world, though she was not contagious. He did not know what was wrong, but her glands were more swollen than the old man had ever seen, and that, the medicine men all knew, was bad news. In clinical terms, he told her and her husband that she was "doomed". He mentioned a special treatment, but suggested they not try it until she actually died, because he was something of a spiritualist, and believed in the great fire, and had had some success in the past which emitted several violent shakes from a dead boy. This time, he had convinced himself, he must use cedar instead of oak, and place a mark on the forehead as well as the breast, which, as you know, was correct. 

When she rose, she rose without much thought. She knew her fiancee and her doctor, but her fiancee was not faithful, and she burned him by her touch. She, in her feeble minded state, was griefstriken by this, and by the rebuff her fiance gave her. She knew her doctor, and came to him, though she was intelligent enough not to touch him as well. She followed him for several years, though she was not much use. In the end, he had boots made that let her avoid setting the forest aflame, taught her to carry a torch, and gave her the simple instruction to patrol the roads, helping travelers with her newfound strength and bright-shining self. After being a traveler so long, it was the least he could do to donate his best possession to the roads, and while he did not consider it, in a way she was suited to the work. She was kind enough, and her soul was strong enough that her flame did not go dark for many, many years. For some time after the Soul Wars, the road she traveled was feared by those who had never met her, but she continued to tend it, and in a way, she was more than she ever could have been. 

"Levels of Importance" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

What The Monkeys Did When Men Left

Pictures on this page courtesy Carl at GotMedieval.com, and whoever let him use their pictures!

Not much was the same after man left. That much should be clear from the rabbits and dogs. It took the dust a little while to settle, but once they got right down to brass tacks, the monkeys were the ones who looked the most like men, and they were a little rambunctious and not very mature, but that didn’t mean much when they already had hands and faces and walking upright going for them. Monkeys, in their own way, can even be kind. They’ve been known to share food and drink with cats, and they make friends with cats easier than humans. Mutually beneficial relationships, instead of lord-liege relationships as with the humans and the dogs. Cats, the monkeys found, were simply better for hunting.

As long as there were monkeys around who remembered what it was like to see humans do things, that was how they mimicked. They had never been as smart as humans, and had never wanted the role of keeping the world spinning, or crashing around, as it were. Monkeys prefer being rowdy in the forest to building houses and being civilized. But monkeys have a man’s ambition, so when they saw the better spot, out of the trees and out of nature, they took it. Two stories without any real characters (save the angels, and the dog-king, and perhaps a couple of side characters) is a stretch, but three would be downright unacceptable. So, for God wished you, audience, to be entertained, he blessed your narrator with inspiration.

The monkey’s name was Trevor. It was a good, human name, and he hoped to keep it for quite some time. Trevor was born on a Monday, after his father stole an egg from the monkey egg-layer three weeks previous. Twas a dangerous mission, but Trevor’s father and mother desperately wanted a monkey child so that they could feel like a full monkey family.  He snuck up to the monkey egg-layer while it was speaking to a money-priest (the monkey vocabulary was simply not altogether inventive; monkeys add “monkey-” to everything and call it a functional word. God only knows why they didn't just use the old names. But then God likely doesn't care, or he would have taken the monkeys to monkey-heaven. Or real heaven. The monkeys were not clear about whether there was a difference. It was, after all, religion, monkey religion or otherwise.) The great egg-layer never noticed Trevor’s father, too distracted by the monkey-priest, and the monkey-priest knew than the great monkey egg-layer hated to be interrupted, especially in the middle of particularly interesting tangents, so he allowed Trevor’s father to escape, and did not worry about the loss of the egg. Trevor’s father returned home with the monkey-egg, and so they were two of the first monkeys with a family unit.

Trevor began to grow up, as any monkey grows up, and as any boy grows up. As he grew older, he started hearing more and more about the “great issues of the time”. The monkeys knew they were supposed to have philosophers and theologians, and the sole focus of those, in those times, was to properly understand A. How monkeys should be different from humans, B. How monkeys should be the same as humans, and C.  Why neither God nor Stan had wanted monkeys. Monkey-philosophers and monkey-priests, each fairly confused about the difference between their professions, picked up the robes and staffs from previous priests both of the kind who had gone with Christ and the kind who had not, and began thinking very hard about why the celestial conflict did not concern them. Eventually they came up with the idea that it just didn’t, and that was what the humans called “taking something on faith.” It was apparently very important.

Among other jobs that they took were seamstresses, farmers, and what was, as near as they could figure out from pictures (it seems no monkey had witnessed the event,) the trade of destroying statues with a mallet and a chisel, which was wildly successful until everyone realized that everyone else wanted to do it. Fortunately, once they realized that it was altogether easy to have 1/5 of the people watching the farms and the rest playing games, they were able to expand greatly on monkey-culture.

Trevor had been busy. Originally he had been interested in becoming a smasher, for his father held the job of smasher, and the humans seemed to think hereditary professions were a good idea. Shortly after, the philosophers decided that breaking was not an acceptable profession, and the priests decided that everyone only had to work one day a week (or perhaps I’ve gotten those backwards.) Trevor joined the monkey-baseball team. Everyone on the team was a monkey, so they hit the balls very far when they made contact, being physically superior to the humans, except in coordination and muscle movement theories.

Trevor met one of his best friends on the team. Once, when Trevor hit the ball very far, his friend Nyles picked it up and threw it further. Nyles was out, but Trevor scored a run, and none of the other monkeys knew a rule against it, so it became the new style of play, and baseball became much more rough than National League Baseball (to say nothing of our friends in the American League.) Nyles was always coming up with new rules for games like that, and thought usually he was fun, occasionally he got the two of them in trouble.

Trevor’s mother saw a picture in a book of a human mother forcing her child to learn music, so when he was 15 in monkey years, Trevor was forced to learn the organ. It proved a very mellow instrument for a monkey, but a few of the lady monkeys who were going through melodramatic phases  were attracted to organ music, and before long, Trevor was very pleased with his mother. He taught her how to play, for the two of them were very close. Society had evolved to the point where they thought smashing as a job was barbaric and backwards, so the family was not very proud of Trevor’s father. Smashing should be only for recreation, the monkeys had decided, and anyone who still did it as a job was merely being greedy.

Trevor’s first girlfriend Curnarf, had not had the blessing of parents who understood English Human names, but he didn’t care. For their first date they smashed one of the few remaining statues and ate bananas. It was a fairly typical first date, and they were both exceedingly pleased with one another. At the end of the night, after much figuring, they exchanged a kiss, which by their reckoning was crass by humans standards, but human standards were going out of fashion.

Before long they were spending all their time together, living a very happy life of monkey-baseball and bananas and smashing and each other.  One day, Trevor and Curnarf were playing monkey-baseball with Nyles and some other friends (Sally, Nyles’ girlfriend, was there, but did not like monkey-baseball. Usually they could get her to play if Curnarf would play though.) They played a very close game, won by a hand-double (what happens when the runner on second throws the ball over the fence,) and everyone was excited and happy to have played. That night, Trevor asked Curnarf to marry him, and she accepted. For some reason they had lost human marriage rituals, and the monkey rituals that had developed involved touching right feet while saying vows.

Curnarf and Trevor were great lovers for many years, and one day, he stole an egg for her, shot at butterflies for her while she fished (monkeys hate butterflies, especially fisher-monkeys like Curnarf,) and did various other things that were developing as distinct parts of monkey-culture. For the most part, the monkeys were happy. The monkey-priests had decided that Christ was coming a third time (he wasn’t.) and  the monkey-philosophers had decided that monkeys should be hedonists, which monkeys are meant to be.They had food, they had games, and they had love. The egg Trevor stole turned out to be an ostrich, but they loved it and raised it as their own. Unfortunately, Trevor never did shoot down a butterfly, but he was the kind of monkey that tried, and that was good enough for Curnarf.

"What Monkeys Did When Men Left" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The Souls Left to Earth and by Extension, to Satan

(The Latter of Whom is Called, in Heaven, Stan, so as to Avoid Saying ‘Satan’)

Pictures on this page courtesy Carl at GotMedieval.com, and whoever let him use their pictures!

When Christ came a second time, he took a good many people up to heaven. You and I are two of the lucky ones. Or blessed ones. Forgiven ones, good ones, deserving ones…it doesn’t much matter what words you use to describe us; the point is we’re up here and they were left down there, until Christ and God told Stan they were done, and Stan brought his demons and collected the rest of the souls from the planet. It took about four days, and the Others were collected by Stan, put aside for their sins, whatever they may be (among the worst I observed was a man who convinced two nuns to carry him into a nunnery, for what reason I would prefer not to say.) But, the Lord has given us all gifts, most of all I, and I have been watching the Others, out of a sort of morbid fascination, to see what happened to them, to better understand justice as the Lord sees it. I’ve been watching everyone, but a specific group caught my eye and I see them all the more specifically.

There is one; his name was Angus, who Stan asked for specifically. He’s who drew me to the group. Angus killed himself at fourteen, gave in to temptation and jumped [note: this is actually going to get like ten times more dark than I expected. It’s not going to let up] from a tower, when he realized that Christ had not taken his soul. When he merely broke several bones, and the jump was attributed to a fall, Angus stole pills from the doctor’s bag and took all of them. He suffered for several days and then passed. Angus’ jump was the first day of the purge, and his death the third. He, along with the rest, are to be thrown into the soul furnace.

There are three witches. They all denied it in life, but they hoped for bad things to happen, had a tendency to mumble under their breath, and good Christians accused them, so it was clear that they were practitioners. It had only been a matter of time before they were found out. They are dragged, naked, to the furnace. Margaret is one of their names, and she is quite the complainer. Her demon intentionally drags her over rocks, and she whines and moans as if she is undeserving. Those without God cannot accept their punishments, for they do not think they deserve them. If they were with God, they would know that they deserve every scrape, but they would not be scraped. It is miraculous, truly, that we have escaped that fate.

The demons sent to retrieve this group travel together on their long trek down into hell. They are immaterial, so they are able to pass through many layers of lava, rock, and mud without great difficulty, but that does not change the fact that hell is a long journey, and even demons may not venture straight down. The journey took a month and a half, and Margaret whined the whole way, on her back pulled by the rope. A couple of the men were perverts, but mostly they were sympathetic. There were two Jews, one of whom was called Dan, and had lent money but not forgiven it after seven years. The Jews were simply told to follow, and walked towards eternal torment, understanding that they had no other choice and that it was no sense to argue with a demon. They were not wholly terrible men, but they forsook Christ’s salvation and failed to follow God’s laws for them, so Stan took them.  Another, named Levi, did not circumcise his son. The two of them were greatly sympathetic to Margaret. Since without stops to rest at night, pain would blur in and out of consciousness and the days would stream together, the demons stopped each night, and each night, the second Jew, a doctor, tended the woman’s wounds (our souls have been made immune to wounds by our Lord’s righteousness, but damned souls do not gain such luxury. They are intended to suffer.)

Two pagans from far off lands joined them, and though they did not share a language, the chains they put the men in were hot to the touch, and great red welts appeared on their skin under the chains. None of the other prisoners paid them any mind, for they were neither men of god nor men of sin nor men of virtue. They were simply men, and their apparent crimes were failing to accept salvation or follow God’s laws. They were in chains because they had no theological understanding, and could not be trusted not to run, which would inconvenience the demons. The demons thought the heat was a nice thought, but it had no actual reason.

A lesser, but physically stronger demon had to push a cart with all of the most mangled souls in it. Souls so mangled that they could no longer walk towards hell, but who had not been condemned to be dragged. There were those who were street trash, drug and sex addled murderers thieves and prostitutes. There were many in the basket of another type, those who were riding towards hell because of the sins of others. Unbaptized babes, whom even demons fail to see the pleasure in tormenting were among these.

Two were actually carried by demons, their plight being worse than the others. One had been involved in experiments on human flesh, active participation in mutilation and attempts at resurrection with demons. The resurrection had not been successful, but many of the experiments had lived, and horrible, twisted beings emerged. The others kept far away, having felt the difference.

They all of them were thrown into the furnace. I could not bear to continue looking on. Such anguish is not fit for heavenly eyes. That is why the demons are necessary: a God of justice must have demons, must cause pain and suffering. Breaking God’s law carries consequences. God was merciful and still, those souls were not able to avoid damnation. They deserve the pain, every ounce. Though they can be separated into three camps (those who were horrid, those who were bad, and those who mistook Christ for a myth,) we among souls can be separated into the only two camps that are important: those who are in heaven and those who are not. So do not think about those below. They deserve what they are given, and we are not called to look upon it.

"Souls Left to Earth" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Rabbits and Dogs

Pictures on this page courtesy Carl at GotMedieval.com, and whoever let him use their pictures!

Two of the animals most important in men’s lives are rabbits and dogs. Man has bred hounds to catch rabbits, hares, and anything of the sort, and hounds, loyal and kind, have done what man asked. Man bred hound to have great speed with which to catch, and great teeth with which to hold. Hound, of such kind temperament that he has been known to starve after losing a friend, so loyal that he may return to a spot for years on the chance that a man will return, has been asked to become a killer, and has obeyed because he was put on Earth to be the most loyal one of Adam’s three great sources of company (the other two being, of course, horse and woman. Cats tend to be more coincidental acquaintances than great sources of company.) Hares, on the other hand, man’s source of meat, put on Earth to keep man from subsiding on grain, vegetables, fish, and a very rare stag or boar, has put his energy into being quick, and so even though rabbits eat their young and are skittish and filled with hate and fear and resentment of man and dog alike, they have not had energy to make fighting teeth or intelligence, or tool creation or use, or even the implements to use tools, hands being primary, but crow’s feet working nearly as well. 

All this held true until Christ came back, and the good men were taken from the Earth. Shortly after, Satan took the souls Christ did not want, and the animals were left to themselves. For a time, perhaps three full generations, hounds continued to hunt rabbits, it being what they were made for, but there was no one telling them to continue (the monkeys tried for a time, but decided dogs were not suited in temperament to hunting, having a fresh look at the situation and no word from God on what each animal was for.) Soon enough, dogs ceased hunting hares altogether, grew teeth for eating grass and fruit, and weren’t bothered by anyone, being too friendly for even the rudest of animals to bother them. Rabbits grew their teeth, made hands for themselves, and bode their time. Man’s bows and arrows were left, as were his law books, his rope, and his capacity for hate and revenge. Rabbits practiced use of the bow and the law, the rope and their hands, meaning to put all doghood on trial for the crimes of dogs against rabbitity. 

After very little argument (for some reason adult rabbits are much less self-important and argumentative than man, though they are filled with hate for dogs,) rabbitkind decided as a whole to put doghood on trial, explain to dogs what they had done wrong, and sentence them to death. A heated trial occurred, with dogs asking what had been wrong with obeying humans, who were better than anything else, with some of the smartest dogs, those who had taken up reading as a hobby and were, perhaps, marginally more aggressive, asserting that the dogs of today were not even of the same species as the dogs of times gone by, but the rabbits showed pictures and told stories, and read from man’s books descriptions of dogs that still fit. The twelve rabbit jurors were quite convinced, in their hearts of hearts, and most of the dogs, by the end of it, were just about ready to give in and say “yes, alright, we should step forward, that we might be exterminated and better the world.” Several of the dogs did so, and they were taken in carts by the rabbits to the middle of the plains (for the woods were their sacred place,) and hanged from lone trees.

One dog, most like humans, aggressive and strong, a warrior, became a hero, an Arthur of sorts for dogdom. He called dogs, and they listened, happy to have a leader, a master, again. He told them of how wrong the rabbits were, how unlike man, and how the rabbits had hated man. He berated them for their impressionability, but forgave them, and assured them that, following him, they would bring back man, or at least would survive long enough to eat more fruit and teach more pups to be kind to other animals. As he gathered dogs together, gave speeches and earned credence among the dogs, rabbits continued to carry out their death sentence, capturing and executing and hunting dogs whenever they saw them. 

Finally, even the best, kindest dogs that were left began to fear for their own lives, and under the leadership of the Dog King, attacked each of the rabbit’s strongholds, which the rabbits had built in forests they held so dear. The Dog King ordered trees cut down and tents pitched, for by this point dogs too had grown hands and made tools, and learned to be like men, for it was the only way to defend themselves. They marched on the castles.

Eventually, after much siege, the rabbits decided it was time. They could not continue to live like this, for they had run out of most of their food. Someone suggested eating one another, but that idea would simply not do for sustaining a long-term defense. The rabbits asked the dogs for terms, but dogs, even those most like men, are basically kind, and the only term the Dog King wanted was the end of fighting. He told the rabbit leader so, and the first leader, Rabbitlord Stern, declined.  He wished to speak about terms concerning a portion of dogdom being executed and extraordinary restrictions being placed on the happiness of all hounds in the future. Rabbitlord Stern’s First Mate, standing near behind him, knew the state of affairs, and that, if the Dog King walked from their negotiations, sieges would continue over all forests. He drew his sword, killed Rabbitlord Stern, without intervention from anyone in the room, dog or rabbit, and introduced himself. “I am Rabbitlord Vernor, and I would be pleased to end our conflict.”

Shortly thereafter, the news went out, and conflict ceased between rabbits and dogs. Rabbits were still mean, still ate their young, and had few friends, but dogs were their friends, because it is in a dog’s nature to be friendly to everyone, even when he is hurt by a person he is kind to them. Some dogs and rabbits stayed what came to be called dogs and rabbits of the hand, but for the most part dogs returned to tool-less, handless, fruit and grass eating. Rabbits returned to toothy predatory lives, but every rabbit knew that dogs were off-limits. Occasionally reenactments of the great wars of years past are held by Dogs and Rabbits of the Hand, and, for sport, Rabbits and Dogs of the Hand joust with one another, but never again would they actually fight, for the fear of the rabbits and the love of the dogs.

"Rabbits and Dogs" Short Story © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Intro to Marginalia Illumination Short Stories

To my blog readers: The next three posts are a bit different! The below details why and how and when and what-naught, but basically this was a school project that I had a lot of fun with. I got my pictures from Carl, over at GotMedieval, so thanks to him for his funny and clever posts!

My goal here is to write several short stories of above average quality using marginalia as illustrations. Marginalia/Illuminations for our purposes are illustrations in the margins or text of pre-medieval to late renaissance work, largely unrelated to the subject at hand, commissioned by someone who owned the book, but not necessarily included in the original book. Often the characters portrayed in the marginalia are seen making fun of or reflecting poorly on those in the text or illustrations. While most often the margins are decorated with flowers or fruits or other trivialities, monkeys, dogs, bears, people, demons, dragons, foxes, birds, horses, stags, and rabbits frequent the margins I was able to find.

Hopefully the stories will exemplify some themes of the period, but I will mostly be trying to work with the marginalia illuminations I was able to find and tell stories marginally less trashy than those I associate with the period (Chaucer, Sir Gawain, George R.R. Martin, etc.) The stories will largely concern the animals involved in the marginalia and any humans present. All three stories take place after the return of Christ and the altogether less prophesied culling of unworthy souls from the earth by Satan. I parody two ideas, one from modern Christianity (Christ has taken all of his own to heaven, leaving the Earth behind and disregarding scriptural bodily resurrection) and one from medieval Christianity (Christ has left behind a good deal of people for reasons of widely varying validity, to be taken to hell by Satan for punishment.) Earth, Christ and Satan leave to the animals as a neutral realm.

I’ll be writing one story about demons that should be slightly more intense than the others, about what happens to souls left behind by Christ. I’ll leave the demons fully demonized and resist playing with the idea of whether a being can actually be motivated by evil without thinking it is good. There will be one story about dogs and rabbits that will be a bit funny but not hilarious, asserting that lovable, kind creatures such as dogs are not meant to hunt mean baby-eaters such as rabbits, but that man’s existence made it so. A third story will deal with monkeys and people, and be utterly ridiculous, with both Christ and Satan leaving monkeys behind even though they are all but human, and a few individual monkeys looking for their place in the world while they wonder why neither side of the eternal conflict wanted them. None of this reflects very serious religious views (or other views – at times I work to include ideals or stereotypes long dead, and either no longer or never relevant,) and most everything reflects my hope that you will be amused and never dismayed. After much ado, I’ll move into the stories! Happy reading. 

"Intro to Marginalia Illumination Short Stories" Introduction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Font of Wisdom

Image "osatokaoshirotongzenshaghi" by djahal over at Deviantart

He had bought the waterfall and surrounding land when he was fifteen, with the meager sum his father had left him. In those days beauty was not equated with land value, and so he was able to get an acceptable offer. The years had gone by, and he had mined on the land, and farmed on the land, and when he had reached the age of twenty-five, he had realized that the land would not make him rich. He thought about that for a long time. Then, as often happens after a long time of brooding, he woke up one day, had his breakfast, went out to hunt, came back to the house, cooked lunch, made progress on an idea he had been working on, and did not think about his lack of monetary success. The next day he also did not think about it, and he continued not to think about it until one day he did. When he did, he realized that he no longer cared, and continued to think, and to wonder, and to stare at the waterfall and do the work necessary to keep himself alive. 

He stared at the waterfall and kept himself alive and thinking for twenty years, and then fifty. He ate lean meat, and salty meat, and fatty meat, and meal and grains, flowers, berries, fruits and nuts. He did not pay large amounts of attention to what he ate. When he was forty-five, the first book-printing businesses took off, and he purchased books on the things he was interested in with the money he got from sale of most of his land. The waterfall he kept, and the land around his land he sold with the understanding that he would not be bothered and that nothing would be built, but occasionally people would wander through.

By the time he became known as wise, he was a very old man, who had been wise for many more years than they had given him credit. He built a small shack, open to the environment, on a very small island, composed of solid rock, which was near the waterfall, hardly bigger than twice the width and length of the shack. He thought of it as a shack. The local people thought it was beautiful, with its arched roof and strong square pillars and the small amount of red paint he had used on the sides of the roof. 

They spoke of him as someone who was not actually a person, who merely looked like a person. He acted completely different than a normal person, spoke differently. He ate the same, but he used one spice on everything, which tasted earthy and savory, and had a recognizable odor that turned sweet when he burned it. The words he used, and the way he spoke to children and men younger than him, and women who were clever, and those who were not, wives, leaders of both genders, the very few men older than him, and babes were different, and varied, and he got along with and had something meaningful to say to anyone who came. When someone came he would stop what he was doing, and speak with them, having filled out the cellar of his tiny cottage with foods, holding a vegetable garden nearby, and only needing to hunt ever so often, when he wanted something fresh, or he knew his guest would appreciate it.

Each year more people came to visit him for advice, as happens to those who make themselves unique. The old man didn't pretend to understand it, but there were people who needed help and they thought him the best to give it. He seldom gave specific advice, but when the people found their own way, they left on their own, and made their own choices, and nearly every person he spoke to who did not benefit from his advice attributed it to a misunderstanding of his advice rather than bad advice, though he gave some bad advice in his day. 

There were some who argued that it was the spice giving him wisdom, that it grew of a magic bush that he kept in his garden. Others were sure it was a great scholar he had learned from, or all the books he had read. Those things had helped. Once, a child asked the old man what the secret was, what had made him so wise that people flocked to him. The old man took a long look at the boy, and asked him two or three questions. The boy answered, and the old man saw that he was smart, and decided to answer the question about wisdom. Whether the old man was right or not was anyone's guess, the old man told the boy. Old men can be right about anything and they can be wrong about anything, the same as any boy. But the old man had had dreams of riches, and he had saw them dashed. He had never been scared of being poor, for he knew how to take care of himself. He had dealt with idea after idea for being rich dashed before his eyes, and had finally begun looking for ideas about how to be happy, and how to make others happy. One day someone had come to him for advice, thinking him old and therefore knowledgeable, and he had been able to help that person. After helping that person, someone else had come, and he gave advice and heard many stories and thought about what they meant and what was different between them, and what was the same. Those things had made the old man wiser, but he had been wise at twenty-five, when all of a sudden, he had realized that his ideas would not make him wealthy or famous, and that he had ought to spend them some other way so as not to waste them or his life away on false hope.

The year the old man was about to die, he planted a tree, and it grew quick and sure, and they buried him under it. Somehow it grew on the little rock next to his hut, and the people attributed it to the same magic that had made the old man wise. Whatever the reason was, the boy grew up, and from time to time he visited the shrine, and he didn't feel important, until he reached the age of thirty-five, and, sitting in the pagoda, next to the large tree, he realized the old man would have wanted him to find himself important, and he felt important for the rest of his life. 

"Font of Wisdom" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Looking for Treasure

"Moonlight Geist" image by Dan Scott

© Wizards of the Coast 2012

Every night, the spirit goes to search for the thing he lost twenty-two years ago in the blizzard. He does not remember what it is, but he remembers it is important, and he looks. Twice he has been banished, but he comes back all the stronger and continues searching. He remembers nothing about life, and in fact, each night he is formed new and he almost never remembers anything from the night before. Occasionally something incredibly important would break through from the previous night, but the next it would be gone. He could not speak, but wherever he went, it was cold, and not just with the cold of the night. For most, he was invisible, but for a very few, there was a faint light. He appeared to those few as a thin, wafting creature, mostly transparent, holding a lantern, and terribly sad and lonely looking, though he did not have a face. 

Nearby, there was a village, where some of the folk told stories about him. Occasionally he would come through town, or stay there, and the temperature would drop substantially. Sometimes a rider would come at night through a cold spot with a message, usually for a town on the other side of the mountain, and not for their village. When a rider came through and felt the cold, occasionally he would stop in the tavern, and very infrequently, one of the riders would mention it in the bar. Some of the children wandering at night felt the chill, and one of them could see the spirit. A couple of the adults could see it, but they kept it to themselves, for fear of further alienating themselves from the town. The child was called a liar, and the chill was thought a magical presence, but not intelligent. 

The children kept going out though, and the child who saw the spirit became very popular among the other children, especially when it became clear that she could predict the spirit’s presence. There were five – two boys and three girls. Sandra was the child who could see the spirit, and she learned, over time, that she could communicate with the spirit. Learning this gave the children a source of endless pleasure. Sandra communicated with the spirit, and the children were fascinated with what she heard, and what she told them. “He’s looking for something.” She told them the first night. “What? What is he looking for?” one of the girls asked. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.” Sandra looked slightly worried. “Probably buried treasure!” one of the boys speculated. Sandra tried to respond, but the other boy chimed in “Ask him where it is! Ask him where the treasure is!”

Sandra couldn’t figure out a way to explain that the spirit didn’t know where the thing it was looking for was, so for the next several nights, she played along with the other children’s treasure assertion. Finally avoiding being the daughter of the club-handed man, she enjoyed her lie a little. She grew to think herself that the spirit was looking for a treasure, or at least something valuable. It only made sense. She got the idea that the spirit had been looking a long time. Over time she and the spirit had more communication. Oftentimes, the spirit would say something it had told her the night before, but she knew each night, after it had communicated with her, that she would hear no more. 

Eventually, Sandra stopped claiming to see the spirit. They kept looking for the treasure for quite some time, and they would return to the idea from time to time as they aged, but for the most part, the search stopped and most everyone quit asking Sandra about the spirit within the week. The subject was all but forgotten a month later, but Sandra snuck out each night, looking for the spirit. Oftentimes she found it, and when she did, they communicated while she helped him look. She didn't know what they were looking for, so she pointed out strange things, like a meadow, and a hoe that had been left out too long and was just a head, and a cave on the north side of town, and once she found a coin pouch with three silver pieces in it, but it was not his, so she used it to buy a bird at the store the next day. The village was wealthy enough from herb and willow farming that children could afford such things if they saved their allowances, and her parents were none the wiser. She grew very fond of the spirit, and one night, she dragged her mother out to the edge of the village for a walk, and he obliged. She had heard stories of the spirit, but tonight, Sandra had insisted that she was interested in seeing the meteor shower Mr. Phaller had predicted for tonight, and seeing it apart from the village and the lights, so her mother had agreed, and father had offered to come to, which was fine with mother and Sandra. 

Sandra firmly took the lead, and headed towards where she could see her friend in the distance. As they came closer, father acted strangely, until he was sure what they were headed towards. He started trying to push his family to go another way, but Sandra insisted. He didn't know what the white object was, so he kept an eye on it. Mother was not fazed. Finally they got out to the object, and Sandra sat right down next to it. By this time Father could see what it was, and continued to doubt his sanity until Sandra and the spirit began to communicate. Then the spirit looked at Father’s club hand, and Father could feel the spirit’s thoughts, and father and son were reunited. Grandfather shot up into the sky with a loud crash and a flash of light, and though the townspeople came out looking for the fallen star, they found nothing but the bewildered mother, the contented father, and the daughter who finally understood. 

"Looking for Treasure" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Police Buisness

Basically, there's no good reason this isn't finished other than it took me last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and I could not find a way to write it. The goblin pictured was going to be a serial vandal that the cops pictured were investigating, and the third cop was going to be grossly incompetent in a humorous way. Maybe I will finish it, but for now, I can't very well not post it. This is an all-or-nothing enterprise and that means failures happen. Starting fresh this week. Thanks to Seb McKinnon(who gave us "Hussar Patrol" - the image for "Captain of the Guard",) for once again providing amazing artwork through WotC. I wish I could have written a better related story. 

"Vandalblast" image by Seb McKinnon

© Wizards of the Coast 2013

Six foot four, slim shoulders, slimmer hips, a chin as sharp as his tongue and a dramatic haircut with boots that he probably thought were smashing. The man rarely smiled, but when he did, it was clear that, although his teeth were fairly straight, his cheeks perfectly manly and charming, and his eyes friendly and handsome, he thought that all of it was better than it was. He left one too many buttons unbuttoned on his shirt, as if anyone wanted to see his chest hair, and the man simply oozed confidence. He could turn the anger on like a switch, and sometimes it took hold of him, but once it was out, he had severe problems controlling it. Since he was a thermomancer who preferred fire, they called him Hot Head in the department. Someone had thought it was a clever nickname, and the amount of anger it originally caused in him made it stick. I thought it was fairly stupid, but you can't stop a nickname.

I'm Hot Head's partner, but we aren't very similar. I'm not short, at 5'11", but five inches shorter than anyone is short. Sometimes we talk to smaller folk, gnomes if we're lucky, goblins if we're not, and then we're real tall, or we just talk to shorter full-bipeds like ourselves, and they look at me and they think I'm spooky and then they look at him and they're downright scared because anyone that tall and confident is scary, and when you know how angry he gets that's even worse. It doesn't help that he goes bonkers and blows things up. With fire. Anyway I'm his partner and I'm not as tough as he is, I don't care about the rules so much. They call me Smokey. You can probably figure out why, there's a bunch of possibilities and they're all true. We have sort-of a good cop bad cop thing going. Except this time we've got to take Stevens with us. 

Stevens doesn't have a nickname, that's how you know he's not one of the guys. We don't like Stevens. In fact we dislike him. I know, coming from me, that sounds...well it sounds harsh. But Stevens doesn't do anything by the book, and he doesn't get results, and he's not a terribly nice guy. Harmless, that's a good word for Stevens. He’s short and a bit overweight and he plays dumb pranks on the other officers. He thinks we like him. Not that we pretend, he just thinks we’re joking when we put him down. And when we tell him we aren't joking. It’s a vicious cycle really. 

The three of us mounted up and rode out. Boss gave us a case to work on before we left, and we intended to have it solved soon. 

"Police Business" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Lost Faith

Image "Forgotten Ruins" by Matchack over at Deviantart

BAM. BAM. BAM.

The door rattled as it was pounded on. An unspeakably evil voice threatened them from behind the door, but they stood firm. The door they held closed with magic, or their deity held closed for them. The difference was not incredibly clear to most of those present, and even the practitioners were hazy, but warm bodies kept the door closed and they did it by praying and their deity either endowed them with powers, or did what they prayed for, or the power was in them all along, or belief in itself was enough, because for whatever reason, the door stayed shut.

The demon, for his part, communicated with his leader. They did not call the demon leader a God, more because of his leadership style than his level of power - it was similar or equal to the God inside the church, but defending is preferable, especially among beings with patience. However, divine power is affected by number of believers in an area. With demons pouring in and believer number staying static, chaos was winning.

As in most battles there was a larger war present, and the push and pull between angels and demons, god and devil, was multifaceted, with this church as a valuable claim, but one that several smaller victories would make up for.

The church had a priest, several other members of the clergy, and a small population of very pious followers. The priest was mostly pleased that this martyrdom would all but guarantee his sainthood. His followers were hoping for a religious holiday after their ordeal, and had picked up several strange habits they were hoping would become festive. That left intelligent decision making up to the small (probably about six, though records and the story are unclear. six are mentioned by name in related stories) group of paladins from a local order who had been here asking the priest for money to fund protection, armor, training, weapons, and charity efforts. He had refused them when they asked, but by the time the paladins had asked, heard an answer, and decided to leave humbly, demons surrounded the great cathedral. 

Fortunately, it was not worship day, so a small group of people were in the Cathedral, and mostly in the offices, near the chapel. In any case the people of the cathedral anticipated sainthood for the priest and at the very least minimal martyrdom rewards for themselves. That was if they didn't drive away the demons with the force of their conviction. Really, it was win-win.

Most of the habits were harmless. Tom led the children in prayer and then made them honey oats each day for lunch. Susanne climbed the steeple and rang bells on the third day, and due to a minor disturbance elsewhere, demons, by coincidence, were diverted from their fellows and the church to hold a key gate nearby that the angels and their god had diverted forces to attack. In the future, generations would climb the steeple singing, pray in a small chapel that would be built up there, and walk back down somberly. A banjo, flute, and accordion were the instruments they had, and celebrants in the future played these so much, for so many years, mimicking songs of old and writing new songs for the season, that reflected the events of those days.

Not everything stayed peaceful. On the sixth day, the paladin Lane and three men took the chapel back, losing Melvin, a kind practitioner who didn't believe in all the martyrdom nonsense, and just wanted to get home to his family three cities West, in the struggle with three demons. The demons were sitting about, methodically breaking pieces of religious art and relics into smaller and smaller pieces as they waited for orders, when the men used the password to magically unlock the door. Two paladins and three men ran in and took the demons by surprise. Phil was a big man, and he held one demon back by himself while the four paired men took a demon to each pair. Lane's partner Melvin was lost creating the advantage that Lane exploited, then Lane and Phil finished off Phil's demon. 

The chapel was a smaller position, better defensible, with loose rocks that they made into arrow grates in certain places among the walls to the great hall, a basement with an escape (though it did not go far enough away to be a safe escape,) and a scrying pool in the small chaplain's office they could use to survey the area and call for help if they got a chance. The civilians crowded around whenever it was being used, and made it hell to try to use it for anything worthwhile or for any length of time. At nights, the paladins took turns on watch, two at a time, and the survived the first attack which came at night. The next attack brought a hell-hound. Many men and paladins were lost, but they held the chapel. Constantly, conflicting tales were told to the children, either describing the eternal reward for martyrdom, the happiness they would face in just a few days, or promising the children that help would come. Most of the practitioners believed that God would send help, while the clergy were of the martyrdom opinion. The children, especially the loudest, Clint, preferred to be told that help was coming. The clergy hoped Clint would survive somehow, so that they would not have to deal with him.

The final attack came, and the remaining paladins fought valiantly. The clergy used magic to hold the door closed as long as they could, as we have said, and the demon threatened them with vile words, having reached the safe spot right up next to the door. He was shot several times on his way, but did not mind, being of a stronger variety than the others. Their holy water trap had simply angered him. They held the door with prayers and magic, but finally, the demon's leader ordered a strike somewhere else, and the god of the paladins and (nominally) the priests had to divert attention to save a more important location. The monster broke through, and before much time had passed, the paladins had fallen, and the rest of the folk followed shortly. They took this demon down but the ones who followed finished off the cathedral-folk. The desecration of the cathedral was far more powerful than the martyrdom (martyrs, it seems, are far more effective in morale against those who rule than those who slaughter and destroy.) The area was changed into a summoning pit, but the outline of the church remains. Much later, someone would recall the priest and paladin and clergy and practitioners' memories, and a revival of the religion celebrating that martyrdom, loyalty, and selflessness would rise up, particularly once the demons actually had largely won the war and the god of the cathedral and the paladins had power mostly wrapped up in public opinion, influence, and miracles rather than armies. 

The demons, eventually, were overthrown, and the cathedral became a religious attraction, known for its ability to bolster faith, but nothing lasts forever. Celestial war came back to the region, and was known, for many years, as  a cyclical part of the natural order.

"Lost Faith" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Postscript: I would have liked to get this out Tuesday, but that is the way the cookie crumbles. I will be working to catch up, but if you don't see it by tomorrow night, don't expect me to finish the week. Love you guys who read this stuff. Hopefully soon there will be enough of you interested in reading it that I can say "I do it for you", but for now, this is for me! ;D

The Gnome Cavalry

"Barrage of Expendables" image by Trevor Claxton, who is here on blogspot!

© Wizards of the Coast 2013

There was a new boy in camp. He had not been briefed yet on the situation of war. He knew they used explosives and catapults to break lines -- their military was famous for it. They had defeated many other armies with the explosives and catapults and their strong infantry. Their siege engineers and chemists were the nation's pride. He had not, however, heard about the 'Gnome Cavalry' the men were talking about.

"Oh man those gnomes saved our asses last week." The sergeant. 

"They did. Came into the enemy's left flank and broke their front line at the same time." One of the men. 

The boy had not seen any horses. He supposed they were held elsewhere, with the obviously high ranked Gnomish Cavalry officers. 

"You'll learn to love them son. What'd you say your name was?" The sergeant was talking to him now, as the other man had walked off.

"Robert. Robert Craghorn."

"Well alright Craig. You're going to love these cavalry before we're done, I'm telling you."

"Why do they need gnomes? Could I be one?"

"Well, the gnomes weigh less, so they make the better jockeys. Plus their religion has something to do with horses. You're probably not too heavy yet, if you decide that's what you want to do."

"Jockeys? Isn't that a disrespectful way to talk about cavalry officers? They have to ride and attack and know how to use their armor and weapons. They're higher risk than most infantry positions. And they've earned the right to be called cavalry, haven't they?"

"Oh, no. They'll pretty much let anyone light enough who's willing be a jockey. Most of them are fine with the nickname. They don't care what we say anyway, we're just infantry. They're real religious, pretty pious, understand. They're not very good for company but they do a hell of a job."

Robert realized the gnomes must be paladins. He hadn't realized his country's military employed real paladins. His respect for the Gnome Cavalry rose. The sergeant simply didn't know what he was talking about. 

"Well, I'm glad to have them at least."

"Ye betch yer ass ye-rr boy." Another soldier joined the conversation, and Rob could tell he was in for the long-haul.

Several hours later, Rob returned to his assigned location, having met his sergeant and some of his mates, and pitched his tent. The next morning it'd be time to move out, and they were supposed to be prepared for battle at all times over the next week. Which meant it would probably be about four or five days in, but there was no telling with this general, he had been told. He fell asleep and dreamed of riding with the paladins. He was confused why they needed to be gnomes, or why they should not be heavy men, so that was not part of his dream, and the horses were warhorses and the men were large and kind and strong and holy. He was one of them, surrounded by armor, with a lance and a mace and a sword, and a heavy strong horse below him that was his third best friend, after his God and his lord. He woke up dead set on becoming one of the paladins, and he said his morning prayers and ate his morning meal and packed his tent and gear with purpose, trying to be noticed.

"What's the hurry chief? You're ready an hour early. Making everybody look bad." His sergeant again.

"Just trying to do a good job sir."

"Well wait around a bit. People are going to think you /really/ want to be in the gnome cavalry, and maybe they'll even help you get there." The sergeant turned away before grinning or letting the glimmer enter his eye, so he didn't see the boy beam, or realize that the boy would take it as a compliment. 

The time came to march, and the boy tried to march. He kept up pretty well, but he drank more than his share of water, and stumbled a bit. At lunch he ate part of his dinner, and the next day, he was not feeling well. Fortunately over the next two days, he was forced to keep moving, and started following his ration recommendation better, and got a little more sleep, and he felt a lot better by the fourth day. They moved around quickly for a couple more days, and just when his legs were starting to feel a little less like jelly, they saw the enemy across he way. The engineers began setting up the collapsible catapults  and the chemist's tents were set up shortly before the enemy charged. The enemy commander had decided to get close and attack before the chemists and catapults could become part of the fight, a bold move but a strong one. The infantry moved to meet them, and Robert watched the edges of the field, hoping the cavalry would come. He had been told that the cavalry showed up during the battle, and that they were not readily apparent while the army was moving. One of the Sergeant's friends had let him know that the army kept the horses hidden away, so that the enemy wouldn't see them coming.

Rob was three lines back, and before long it was his turn to fight  but until he reached the front he looked all around for the cavalry. Finally he reached the front and fought, until it was time to rotate the lines again. He killed three men, being a more than competent fighter and being endowed with divine fervor, wishing to become one of the riders after being noticed, but then the time came to rotate and he fell back and comrades moved forward. The sergeant had been on the line with him, and had also lived through the first fight, and the sergeant told him he had done a good job. 

They moved through another rotation and explosions began. Horrific screaming and packages flying into the air and exploding just before they reached the battlefield. He wondered how they timed the charges so perfectly, but then he saw a package flying through the air just above his head, screaming. Squirming. The package was hit with an arrow, and made a terrible scream. Its arms and legs flailed and he realized it was a gnome with something strapped to it. It hit the ground in the enemy's third line and exploded. His sergeant yelled to him: "Move, move! The line's broken but the advantage won't exploit itself!" He sat there stunned. He could see the exploded corpse, the pieces of legs and arms. The sergeant killed a man who lunged for Rob, then pulled his arm. "I SAID LET'S GO!" Rob fell back into the mindset of combat, and he and the sergeant pushed the line with the other men on the front. Another gnome came flying over their heads, and this one was not shot. When he got close enough, Rob could hear the screaming, but it wasn't screaming, it was cackling. The gnome exploded fifteen feet above the enemy troops in front of them, and breaking the line was less difficult than before. The enemy was running forward though, because the sky was filled with gnomes, flying towards the back of the enemy rank, and the cackling was sickening, and could be heard above the sounds of war at times. That's when he realized: they weren't horses. They were explosives. He had heard that gnomes were religious before, but now he remembered their religion was strange, and he realized why. People had told him it was strange, but that had always been enough, and he hadn't asked why. Now he knew why. He fought on. 

"The Gnome Cavalry" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.