The One That Got Away

"Bower Passage" image by Cliff Childs, who is here on Blogspot!

© Wizards of the Coast 2012

Two brothers rode into a wood. Think about that. What're you expecting me to say next? What're you expecting me to say now that I've asked? Contradict what you're thinking, that one will turn on another, Cain and Able in such a dark wood? Are the brothers friendly with one another? Have they been having a fight? Over one's relationship with the other's wife? Why are they riding into the wood?

It may or may not help you to enjoy the story to have all those preconceived notions, since I'm likely to just wipe them away, we'll just have to see. As it happens, the brothers were simply transporting some goods. Important goods, but the brothers didn't know that, and the idea was, neither would anyone else. I'm not sure what they were carrying, just that it was important, and didn't look important. Maybe a small rock, or some worn out jewelry or a bit of paper that looked like a shopping list. Things like that often have power.

The men had been fighting, but it was alright now. It was not about the faithfulness of anyone's wife. One of them, Rongitan had wanted to help a little girl they'd found, while the other, Phranton, had been wary. He thought her story sounded wrong, and was only willing to point her along the road. He used the job as an excuse, but in all honesty, the girl had made him nervous, and rightly so. Illusionists love forests, and this wood was perfect for crafting the light and bending the shadows. Phranton hadn't know about that, but the fact of the matter is, he was right to have his doubts and right to send the girl away. He didn't know it, but he was in the right. Rongitan, of course, had not sensed or noticed anything strange about the girl, so he was quite angry about their refusal to help a little girl. Most definitely an understandable disagreement.

I'm not really quite sure where this is going, are you? You expect something to happen here. This is either a place for me to introduce new slow material or the place to have a jumpscare. Or really just a jump, there can't be jumpscares in writing very well. If it's slow new material, you'll be waiting for the jumpscare, but if it isn't, you'll expect some resolution. So much weight to put on my shoulders, to deliver your story to you. Such expectations.

The brothers rode on, coming to a bend in the road, turning, trotting on, coming to a sign and pulling their horses back slow so they could read it. Rongitan was the reader, but he read aloud to Phranton because Phranton was the stronger man and had always been the leader, even if Rongitan was the smarter brother. One of the signs had the name of a bog on it, the other the name of a city. They traveled on towards the city, talking loudly about the mayor of their hometown and what he would do in situations, with no particular reverence for the man. He'd been at best an average mayor and at worst the drunken father of a girl Phranton had cared about a long time ago, who had left the town at sixteen.

They heard something, and Rongitan made a motion to slow to a halt and be quiet. Phranton, though the leader, was used to following his brother's advice without much question, and did so, though he had been entertaining quite a funny hypothetical about the mayor aloud, with Rongitan listening, and though Rongitan would have laughed loudly. Phranton raised his eyebrows at Rongitan, who made the sign for boar, a pointer-ring-out fist, with his hand, then pointed to where the thing must have been. Phranton couldn't make anything out, but he unhitched and uncovered the spear hanging at his horse's side, while Rongitan pulled his bow. Now usually you'd need a damn good dog to flush the boar out, but Rongitan was pretty good at this, and could loose arrows in such a way that the boars always ran out. Sometimes he could get them to run towards the spear, but even if he didn't, he'd hit them in the back or the side after they began to flee, and they'd slow down sure enough.

When the boar ran, it ran the other way, not towards Phranton. Rongitan pushed three arrows at it, and both men gave chase to the boar, turning several times and riding quick as they could, focusing on the boar and trusting their horses to be surefooted before the boar disappeared into some brush that they wouldn't be able to flush it out of.

"Damn!" Phranton yelled. "Why didn't you hit him?"

Rongitan shrugged, and began following his own tracks. He had no idea which way the road was, and he didn't care to guess. You couldn't see well through the trees. There was light enough during the day, but they hid the sun's true direction.

How do you figure it will end? You know they're not usually much longer than this, though sometimes you're only 2/3 of the way done by this point. But that still means it's got to be wrapping up. Does it matter how it ends up? Phranton seems pretty annoyed, and there's this issue with the delivery.

Phranton spoke. "Let's go this way. I'm sure this was the road." He didn't fancy retracing their steps. Rongitan looked at him, but this brother's eyebrows meant something different, so Phranton followed his brother back over their tracks, and they returned to the road shortly, boarless. They continued through the forest to the city their delivery was in, gave the man the package, took their pay, and rode through the forest back home. Now and again they came through the forest, and sometimes they told stories about the boar that got away. People will tell you that's fishermen, but really it's just anyone who's competitive about anything. Fishermen are just especially competitive, and often, especially drunk, so exaggeration happens a bit. But that's a story for another day. The brothers tended their farms until the end of their days, leaving occasionally but coming back, and when their sons grew up, they continued to till that same land, though one or two went away, for apprenticeships, or married into better farms.

Just because a story doesn't have a big fancy twist ending, or an enormous ending, or you don't know what was in the bag, doesn't mean it's not worth telling. Sometimes you don't care what's in the bag. It's just a bag, and being happy with life isn't about knowing what's in the bag, or the brothers coming to terms with something important, or learning something or being manipulated into thinking something. Sometimes you just need to hear about the boar that got away.

"The One That Got Away" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

The Ascension of Stanley Hart

Image "iso castle" by fool over at Deviantart

There was a castle built on sand, enchanted to keep its ground, and long after it was abandoned, it did so. The sand, straight down under it, could not be moved. The sand under the castle held fast to itself and the castle, and it sat there. There were a great many people there once, they populated the castle on the jetty of sand and took visitors on a road built on that sand. Setting up the road took half an hour every time the tide fell, after which the marketplace was busy until just before the tide came in, and the castle was surrounded again by its salty moat. The castle wasn't just a military enterprise, and had quite a few civilians in it, crafting things that you could make in your home or a warehouse or a shop and didn't need lots of land or the outdoors for. But now, abandoned, it stood towering over the waves, and some boys were betting over who could swim to it, and how fast, and who faster than who else.

"I bet I could swim to it" the biggest boy, Abe, said. He could. It wouldn't be a challenge for him.

Stan looked at the distance and appeared to be thinking hard. "I could swim it too", he finally said. Stan was fully capable of swimming the distance, if he didn't panic, but Stan was prone to panic, and there were no strong swimmers present. Sure, Abe could do the distance, it was only maybe 400 meters, and it wouldn't be too difficult, but saving another boy more than 20 meters out wouldn't happen for him, and 20 meters was being generous.

Someone looked at one of the smaller, smarter boys and he raised his eyebrows at them. "You have got to be kidding me" Cade said cutely. They all laughed. Cade would not make it 100 meters, but the boys just new he probably couldn't make it both ways. They let it slide.

"I can do it," a competitive boy Cade's size said. His name was Levi.

Cade saw the both the threat to his dignity if he refused to go with Levi and the threat of the other boys making him try if Levi swam. "Can not!" Cade said.

The crowd looked back at Levi, expecting a response. Fortunately, "neither can you!" Came out of his mouth. "Plus I probably could if I wanted to." Followed, under his breath.

One of the meaner older boys, who wouldn't be able to make the trip back by himself, Brayden, started talking. "I hear it's haunted. There used to be a kingdom there but then they got stuck and hey couldn't get out. The sand all over the drawbridge got stuck and they couldn't come out, so they had to climb out or die in there. They didn't die from hunger though. They started eating each other and then they left the bones out too long and they all got sick and died, and came back as ghosts because they ate people and now, and now, they're all cursed ghosts!" He finished breathlessly.

"You're a liar!" Stan yelled, realizing his error moments too late as the glances of the group fell on him.

"Why don't you prove it?" All of the boys knew he couldn't prove it. You couldn't exactly bring a ghost back, and he'd end up looking like a fool. But if he refused for any reason, he'd be a coward instead. It didn't have to make sense, it's just how little boys are at times, when there's too many in a group and some of them are reckless and some are mean, which is often with little boys.

"I will!" Stan glared at the boy challenging him. Cade and Levi looked very relieved, but no one was looking at them. Stan swam steadily forward, paying attention to the waves and current, but going a bit too fast. He got worn out about sixty percent of the way there, and slowed down substantially. By the time he was eighty percent of the way to the great castle he realized his error.

There was no beach. The drop off went straight down, and there was no way into the castle. He began to panic. His breaths came quicker, his limbs flailed, and he started sinking, forgetting momentarily how to tread water. But sometimes a little sea water does you more good than bad, and realizing that he was drowning made Stan grab hold of his emotions and finish the swim. By the time he got closer he had calmed down -- the castle was made of great huge stones like any other castle, and they weren't so far apart as to prevent him from climbing.

For fifteen minutes he sat there while the other boys speculated as to what he was doing. Sometimes they could see him, and sometimes they could not, and they were all very scared for him, though only some of them showed it, and they were teased half-heartedly. Cade slipped away from the group and ran home for an adult. It was time to fess up, things were serious now. After the fifteen minutes were over, Stan, determined as could be and mostly rested and not wanting to seem like a wussy, began his climb. The castle walls were not short, and though he was a fairly athletic boy who still climbed fairly often, it took him quite a while to make it up the first third, where he found a spot he could practically sit on to catch his breath. Cade still hadn't returned, and all of the boys were in awe. Whispers of "he's really doing it!" And "I wonder if it's haunted for real?" Bounced round. By now Stan would have realized that he had to confirm the presence of ghosts. No one would disbelieve him about it, and it would make his story better, and make him a bigger hero.

Stan started up the next hand and footholds, pulling himself up at times, and jumping at times. His hands were mostly dry, and the sea spray did not reach this high, and the rocks for the wall were fairly rough, so it was possible to catch a handhold you jumped for, if very difficult and unlikely. About halfway up, Stan had a choice. He either had to jump right and catch himself with only one handhold, about a foot jump further than his arm would reach, from which he could swing his feet to a safe foothold and rest, or keep going up until the next break spot, which required a much safer jump straight up, but a jump up against the rough rock and with the great, churning seas below all the same. He made it. By the time he got to the next resting place he was  very winded and about ready to quit, but the boys were delighted to see him make it so far. The repercussions of falling didn't occur to them, as it never does to a mob of boys that age encouraging one another to be dangerous. Only the glory of not failing held their minds.

Stan's father and older brother arrived, being the only ones Cade could find in the hurry, and asked what was going on, where Stan was, and, realizing it was his boy and his kid brother, Stan's father and brother jumped into the surf and began swimming. Before they were halfway, Stan was over the wall. His brother and father finished the swim easily, being folk of the sea and working folk, and started the climb, taking no breaks. They made it to the top and then started the long climb down. They searched the city, but Stan was never seen again. Within a couple of years the people moved away from that place. The castle, they said, was cursed. They could feel the stare coming from the center tower, and it was not kind.

"The Ascension of Stanley Hart" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Souls from Below

"Disentomb" image by Alex Horley-Orlandelli

© Wizards of the Coast 2012

Necromancy is tricky, on moral grounds. Now I know what you're going to say -- Ben, awakened dead have minds of their own, and mindless dead are useful tools. Ben, it's just a body, just a mound of flesh and bones and nails and teeth, if there's even that much. I'd agree with you, if the necromancer were making something from nothing, that would be quite grand. Now you may have read some fiction in which "magic" can be used, just make something from nothing, but where I come from, you have conservation of heat and conservation of mass and science. Now there may be people who can go grab fire out of another place and send it here, or who can make a mother fertile and kill a man, or slow down a train just a bit and thus throw a man sixty yards. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's done.

Even if some schmuck thinks he's making fire out of nothing, that's simply more dangerous, because he could put out a fire really anywhere at all, and half the time his magic might not work, when he comes across a guarded fire. If he's powerful it's even worse, he could put out a protected fire -- in the king's forge or in an orphanage -- and not even realize why it was an ounce more difficult to overcome. I'm telling you, if you've heard that you can make something from nothing, the person telling you is lying or being very dangerous or both, and you ought to make sure they understand so they don't ruin anything. So it is with necromancy.

A body needs a soul, and the easiest soul to fill it with by far is the one which came out of it. So you pull it back from heaven or hell, but you need powerful friends to do so, which ends up meaning that the soul is reversed. If you pull the soul from above, you need help from below, so it goes evil, by which I mean it acts evil, can't help but do so. And really most souls go up, which is why necromancers get such a bad rap -- they're irresponsible and power hungry and evil, swiping souls from heaven. But if you pull the soul from below, well that's quite another thing entirely, because then you trap the evil soul in the body but it goes good, whether it likes it or not. I've oversimplified it a bit, good and evil, up and down, really the souls just go opposite their ideas, which is a hard thing to do to anyone but if you don't like them very much that's usually alright by you. Which is really the trouble; whether you liked someone or not doesn't really help you guess whether you'd like their opposite or whether they were judged evil by God or The God or The Gods or the gods or The Light or The Darkness or The Lampkeeper or whoever you like. So you've got to be careful, and necromancy is tricky business.

It's usually best to keep away from necromancy unless you're okay with your own soul going bad or you've got some way to know whether a soul's in hell or not. That's how Lantros was - he knew his craft pretty well and he trapped the bad ones whenever he could, and this was one of those times when he had a challenge ahead of him, but there's no words or senses for it. I could use "feel", say it was sortof like heartburn and fear, and he had to use the iron will he had developed over his life to keep that pain going and to keep the fear within him. If he warded off this poorly described, poorly imagined (though I take no blame for that. Imagination is on you.) feelings of pain and fear (approximately,) he would lose the spirit and it would go loose in the world and really it was quite an evil spirit, so no one wanted that.

He hit the sarcophagus hard with the hammer, not caring really how bad off the body was - they function either way. He cleared the top of the sarcophagus out of the inside, away from the bones (fortunately this time there were only bones, no flesh or rats or maggots) and prepared the body for the spirit to enter it. He started the ritual, and in the end, after some push and pull even more inadequately described than the most basic part of the craft, he overcame his foe, pulled the foe up from hell to the world, and pushed it slowly, little by little, into the body, and chained it there. His angelic contact gave a gesture comparable to a high five, just as casual, just as inappropriate from an angel in Lantros' world as you might think. Lantros was a man of heaven, and the contact had been helping him for some time, and this was quite a big deal, quite a soul to nab the opposite of.

The angel drank ambrosia and Lantros drank wine and ate cheese. They gave their new friend some of each when he woke, since he was able to have both, and ambrosia is quite good but really it's not worthwhile to eat ambrosia forever - they say you'll never get tired of it, but you do, and the angel was mildly jealous. Not overly jealous understand; he was going back to heaven in a few moments while the two saints in front of him stayed here to affect the earth. They finished their meal and said goodbye, the raised dead off to wage war or debate policy in some grand nation that was terribly important, and the necromancer to raise more dead, and save or trap, as your perspective may dictate, more souls from below.

"Souls from Below" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Longevity

Image "Incandescence" by JohnSu over at Deviantart

She was a slow burner. That was part of why he loved her, but at times it was a drain. She was clever enough, and the flame on her head burned bright, but her thoughts and decisions moved slowly like the wax she melted from herself with the fire that kept her light. He himself had The Upgrade, but this late in her life, her light could not be transferred, and though she was beautiful and well off now, she was more likely to die of old age than he.

He could simply replace his bulb when it wore out (after so many years), and was effectively immortal, so long as the electricity inside him stayed present. He worked on battery and generator, and it meant that effectively as long as he stayed repaired, and didn't do anything really stupid like letting a battery corrode, or not replacing a dead battery or fixing a broken generator, his light would keep going and his life would continue, though each new bulb would change him fairly drastically. His base self would persist.

For her part, she would burn until she was a nub, short and ugly and wax left behind, and just a bare bit of wick, and if the surgeries went well and they were able to attach more wick and then more wax and keep it burning, repeatedly, she might live as many as eighty years, perhaps 120 since she was such a slow burner. You could do the surgeries earlier and stay beautiful and tall each time, but if it went poorly then you had just wasted years of life, which society had agreed was awfully sad, and so the practice had been outlawed. Upkeep of wax was possible and useful, but took large amounts of time. Whether you engaged in early or late surgeries, you could not expect the fourth surgery to go well, for the flame becomes tired, and even if relit, it has trouble recognizing such a far-removed wick. That's what the surgeons claimed anyway. More likely they just had well below an 80% success rate, and whether it was their fault or not, he had trouble deciding, knowing little or nothing about surgery.

The two of them had strong ties, and though he would live much longer, his current bulb would wear out about sixty-five years into her life, and they would deal with that when the time came. That's what they'd been talking about on the way home from the theatre, for the play they'd seen had been about the mortality of life, bringing up societal and personal issues with it. They'd both heard of LEDs, and they knew where they stood on that, and if they had a child, they would put his light in an LED body, for they had the money and wanted the best for their child, even if he wouldn't be able to feel the changes that came with incandescence or candledom. So the topic they'd been most interested in, during the play, had been the mother and father, who had grown old together and had the opportunity to know that the mother would die and the father would change, and the couple had stuck together through it, and she wanted to know what he was expecting when his new bulb came.

"It's just that I'll be halfway or three fourths of the way done, and if I don't like you anymore, I won't want to stay out of loyalty."

"What make you think you won't like me anymore? Don't you like my basic qualities? Those stay the same. Didn't we agree to cross this bridge when we got to it?"

She thought for several moments, processing what he had said, and synthesizing a response. He thought and thought during those movements, getting more thought done here than she would throughout the conversation. Despite all this thinking he failed to grasp that crossing a bridge when you get to it is impossible for two people when one of them has expectations. Finally she spoke. "I really like you most for your eccentricities dear. Will you still love me when I'm not so peppy and happy? When I'm more tired, after my wick has been extended time after time? Wouldn't it be better we agree to decide once we've changed? I don't want there to be any hard feelings, but we really won't be able to make a decision together without conflict if you've already made one."

It was his turn to think, and he decided to avoid the conflict. "We'll decide when we get there," he said. Her flame flickered high for a moment. They finished their walk home in silence, which was amiable on her part, but less so on his, though she did not notice. It took effort on her part to notice, so observance was not her strong suit. Since they'd developed incandescence some years ago, their nation had been much more difficult to attack, winning every defensive battle they engaged in simply by merit of heir scouts and lookouts. It had been all over the papers, which he read each night, including this one, once they were home and while she maintained her wax, resulting in the "hair" and figure that less well-maintained candles envied so much.

He loved her very much, but he would have to deal with the idea of her loving most his eccentricities, not necessarily caring about the other bits, the bits that would stay when his new bulb came. Suppose he broke his bulb early, tomorrow or the next day. He would still love her. Their essential qualities were compatible, by the mark of his essential qualities, but he worried. He dimmed his light, and at in his chair, relaxing, waiting for her to be done. When she was done, they would play their very long strategy game, which spanned days because of her speed of thought, but he was a patient man, and if he could find a way to keep their love going, the candle would be a long lasting one, whom he could, and would love to the end of her days, and when her days were over...well, he would actually cross that bridge when he got to it. He couldn't bear to do otherwise, or to so much as think about it.

"Longevity" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Otto's Tribe

"Torsten Von Ursus" image by Mark Poole

© Wizards of the Coast 1994

Otto was a bit ridiculous and he knew it. From his ears, which a sorcerer had turned into miniature angel wings some time ago, to his plaid skirt, Otto was an eccentric. Otto was ruthless; he was either a very tragic hero or an anti-villain and he was having trouble deciding which. Since no one in Otto's life was very heroic, he was leaning towards tragic hero, but really there was nothing in him indicating one way or another. Otto was a bit of a warlord, and his tribe was successful at pillaging and fighting, but really not so good at recruitment or propagation, having no women in the tribe and not really caring to add any. Sometimes boys or men asked to come with them, but really they didn't like to take those kinds of people on most of the time -- too bloodthirsty, usually kinda weird. Not interested in helping out the orphanages, and often not worried about robbing nuns. "Church hierarchy's money, not the nuns' money" fellas like that would say. Didn't make much difference to Otto. Nuns were the ones you had to threaten, and nuns were a strange lot, far too often willing to die for the churches' goods. No, you don't rob a nun. You especially don't hold up a nun. With a bow. At twenty yards. From a rooftop. Downright cowardly. You especially don't do away with her when she refuses to comply, Steven, you worthless git.

Moving on, Otto worked hard to be eccentric, and worked hard to be a tragic hero. He worked especially hard on the tragic part. Giving money to orphans and nuns and avoiding certain heists was the easy part, as Otto saw it, but if he wanted to be a true tragic hero, it was important to work hard to keep the tragedy around. Always difficult to keep doing the wrong thing. It wasn't that he had remorse, it was just that his life would have been a lot easier if he'd stopped robbing banks, stagecoaches, merchant wagons, ships, and trains, and travelers on the road who didn't stop at travel shrines and smell the roses. Not that all travel shrines had roses, it's just that people ought to be respectful of the Goddess and her shrines and the beauty she laid out for them. The hero part was easy.

Otto's tribe was a fairly strange one.

They had a twelve year old boy who was secure in his nature, liked to steal, but would prefer to make bows -- but with no war on, he couldn't make any good money that way. In those days men never paid for hunting bows, and the boy would have needed someone to pull the strings tight anyway.

There was an old man who was neither crazy nor incredibly wise or magical, but he knew how to use a sword. He too, had no particular issue with his shortcomings, and so he was simply an old man who knew how to use a sword and liked Otto, and didn't hate anyone else with them.

There was a young man, and this one was not in love with any woman, nor was he cocky or particularly solemn or good at cards or writing, or fantastic to talk to or particularly emotional or sensitive. The young man laughed a bit, cried never, and he could draw a bow and he liked the twang it made, and if he was hired to sit there and fire arrows at a brick wall all day his life would be happier than near any other in the world, but no one would pay you to shoot at a brick wall except in tournaments, and he was no good for tournaments, all those people, and not actually being a good enough shot to make money in any case, so he was on with Otto, shooting arrows at trees for practice when they made camp and taking the pay Otto could give and threatening to shoot arrows at people when Otto wanted him to, though to him it'd be not much different than hitting a more complicated brick wall, or a weak spot in that wall if he hit his mark, which he sometimes did, but not terribly often.

That made four of them, and they were eight, but the others they were nothing special same as these firsts, especially nothing to merit a description. The middle aged men didn't have vendettas or families, and they weren't orphans or rangers or naturalists or Druids or priests or even really rogues. There was no one who used a particularly distinctive weapon, and none of them except for Otto looked very remarkable, though one of the younger ones had a pony tail and one of the older ones a scar from something silly like a rat bite on his cheek that he played up as a wound from a bar brawl. Really if, when you exaggerate the cause of a wound, your best story is a bar brawl, you truly are simple and boring. Nobody was very hardened and they didn't resist or dislike Otto, but they weren't particularly happy where they were, but they weren't sad or mad or unhappy either. They wanted to be somewhere else, but it didn't have to be today or tomorrow, but maybe Thursday, weather permitting, but there was always next Thursday, and the tribe had been together, plus or minus a member or two, for about three years, more like twelve if you just counted Otto and two of the others. The boy of twelve they had picked up recently. One of the men about twenty five liked to read and sometimes he would read or recite stories by the fire, and another was very sure to always say thank you to whoever cooked the dinner and honestly that was as interesting as the tribe got.

Moving on, one Wednesday Otto's tribe of eight was hunched up behind a few large trees growing close together in the forest, blocked off from the road, and they heard someone coming and it was an escort, for who they couldn't be certain. Otto gave orders to break camp real quick now, ya hear boys. And the boys did break camp real quick now, but a sentry came up to them and asked them who their leader was and Otto stepped forward and told him we didn't mean to be botherin' no one none and we was just getting on our way and the scout was walking away when another scout came by and then there were two scouts and it was making Otto uneasy and one of the scouts reached for a paper out of his bag and the other looked at it and they looked at Otto who was watching them out of the corner of his eye and when he saw the recognition on their faces he pulled his crossbow and yelled to the young man who liked to shoot I'll take the bearded one and they shot two shots and two men fell and a boy and a man from Otto's group ran out to take the horses and the group moved off into the forest after they looted the scouts' bodies and took the wanted posters and prayed a prayer for those they had slain. It wasn't their fault really, but it wasn't otto's fault either and truth be told none of Otto's seven men and boys wanted to keep going without him, hey'd have probably disbanded and then maybe joined another band and other bands aren't so kind as Otto's band.

When they got a safe distance away they sketched the men and wrote down that they were scouts and put their outer garments which would identify them with the drawings and put them in a sack with the other similar items so that if they could figure out who the people were they could give their families some sort of payback for the lives cut short which they hadn't wished to cut short -- often the kinds of men whose pictures ended up in the bag were service men or bounty hunters or  sometimes they were just farmhands who had a knack for magic and you just couldn't deal with people who had the knack, couldn't disarm them, so you had to put them out or kill them and there's no reliable way to keep a man knocked out so they killed the ones with magic.

Thursday came and went and no one left and they started another week of being a quite tragic band of heroes, or a quite anti group of anti-villains, and they hoped they were being tragic because they didn't want to be villains but if they were, that would be okay, because next Thursday they'd be out and they'd have money and they'd settle down and figure out what to do that wasn't looting and stealing and didn't have to involve killing. Like being in the war. We'll let you out on Thursday. Which Thursday. Does it matter, so long as you know it'll be a Thursday? Sure enough, Otto died on a Thursday, and them who had saved enough money settled down,and the rest went to anti-villains and from there to lackeys or full on villains or into no mans land or became rangers, and they were interesting, but they were no longer a group of misfit characters who couldn't decide between tragic heroes and anti-villains and really, wasn't that the most interesting thing about them?

"Otto's Tribe" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

A Fib

"Nettle Swine" image by Christopher Moeller

© Wizards of the Coast 2013

"There's legend that in these woods, there's a creature," the old man said. "It's fifteen feet tall, twenty five long, and fierce. Tusks bigger around than a man's leg, longer than a spear. It sits still for so long, it's got thorns growing on its neck and back, and when it does move, it is hungry." The light flickered on his face, and the children sat around him, wide-eyed, some of them with mouths open. A mosquito or fly lit on his tongue, and he spat and coughed and wiped his mouth with his hands, which were probably considerably less clean than the bug, even though he wiped them on his trousers first.

"Careful Paul," the old man warned. "Leave your mouth open like that, and you'll attract all manner of trouble."

"Do open mouths attract him?" One of the children asked, and the man thought his answer over carefully, so that he could scare the child, but keep telling the story.

"Not if they have a naturally deep voice coming out of them," the old man decided wisely. "I should be able to keep you safe for the moment, if I keep telling the story, but try to keep your mouths closed all the same." He winked at Paul, who looked at him, obviously terrified by the pause in his story, and therefore, his voice.

"Back in the old days, there were lots of them, and they were very large, nearly as large as he, eight feet tall and twelve long. My grandfather was killed hunting an enormous one, along with six other men bigger than your father," and here he glanced at the child with the largest father. "It was a dreadful blow to the village, losing those six men, as it meant they only had twelve left of age. From then on, the men decided they would never let a rage boar get that large again, so they hunted them and hunted them, until they thought there were none left." Some two-thirds of the children straightened up, having not understood the emphasis on the word "thought", as the old man gave a long pause to catch his breath and, though the children did not know it, to think.

Before his dramatic pause had finished, as he was looking round at each of the children's faces, a child next to him gave him a nudge. "Keep talking."

"Feeling insistent Josh?" He asked. "Very well, very well. Where was I? They thought none were left?" All the children's faces went white - they realized the mistake they had made earlier. "There was still one left though, a baby, the size of a full grown regular boar. When they're babies, they just lay around and eat all the bark and insects and leaves and dirt and worms and mushrooms and anything they can put their snouts on. Then they start growing, and they get a taste for meat." He paused here, and looked around quizzically. "You kids know why boars don't usually eat meat don't you?" The children stared back, sure he would tell them, and he did. "Most animals," the old man explained, "aren't small enough to fit in a boar's mouth, and he's not very good at biting off chunks like you are." He paused again before continuing. Pauses in the right places drove the children crazy, it didn't take long to learn that, and the old man had been telling stories for a long time.

"But," the old man started again, "they eat rats, and snakes, and worms, and bugs. So by the time the rage boars get the size of a man, they can eat children, and by the time they get eight feet, they can take a man, particularly if they kill him first. Now this last one, he's the only one, and he's pretty smart, see?" The children saw. They heard every word, and saw it in their eyes, and their wonder was clear. "So as he's been growing up, he's hidden real well, got a mighty briar  on his back, usually looks like a hill between a few trees. Whenever something small enough for him to eat walks by, which is near enough anything right now,  men, women, little boys and girls, small families, horses....anything he likes really, he eats it up and goes back to sleep. Soon he'll be too big to kill at all. Most of us adults, we've seen him, we can point him out. But you kids, you've never seen him before, might not know what he looks like. Be careful that you don't go into the forest alone."

"A Fib" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Atlantis

Image "mermaid" by pascalblanche

Merpeople are not quite what we imagine.

They sink, whether from density or some magic or some other property of their species, norther man nor merpeople's science can tell. They survive in very high pressure, and breathe the water down there, though it is very low in separated oxygen. They do not need to eat, or even commonly (they eat as if they were smoking cigarrettes, or cigars, or a pipe: some frequently, some infrequently, and some not at all. Eating falls in and out of fashion), though they still have mouths, and there is some speculation among modern scholars (no one famous for anything legitimate. These are people who study mermaids and mermen. They are laughed off stages and scoffed at, especially when they cannot produce bodies of these merpeople,) speculation that their bodies were or are capable of splitting water molecules, using the vast energy from the splitting to fuel their bodies and minds and their magical powers, and perhaps even to survive in such high pressure conditions, whether through passive magic or through body pressure or however else. There's the problem of where the carbon comes from, but these aren't really the kinds of scientists to answer for flaws in their thinking, and no one else goes into it for fear of their career. If they see a merperson, they don't tell anyone.

Men to them are a myth as much as merpeople are myths to men, but from time to time, a man dropped off the side of a boat with a cannonball, or some other method of very quick sinking, or a merperson who died while suppressing their sinking washes up on shore, and someone brings it in, and no one believes him because the gods make sure the body is gone within the week, perhaps sooner if there is danger of trust developing. If men and merpeople were to meet, they would simply be too powerful, understand too much. Before merpeople, Man had needed to be separated from magic, for he was becoming too powerful, but the gods could not take the magic away, for they had nowhere to put it. They made merpeople, who were not so ambitious, and loved to explore more than men, but not to build, and while they warred, they did not see any reason to escalate war, and they had an easy enough time understanding that an arms race was more evil than nearly anything else, so they did not build advanced weapons. Ambition was tied to wanderlust and antisocial sentiment directly in the merperson psyche, so that anyone who was particularly ambitious could not hold down a job very well, and had no interest in society, disliking society so much that they refuse to steal from people or hold them up, or bother them, and became travelers who worked to acquire as much valuable things as they could, and they became something of a myth even among merpeople, because they had time and need to become good at all types of crafts, arts, and thinking, though they did not add this to society, finding the things of a Wanderer, or the tracks or really any mark of a wanderer, was quite interesting and amazing to the person who found it -- a kind of "once in a lifetime" opportunity, even for those who lived in the country on the edges of civilization.

When a merperson found a man, sunken from the surface for whatever reason, not much heed was paid. There was some minor question of where they came from and what they were for, and when someone discovered that they fell from the sky, that was of interest, but they were pretty obviously dead, and had probably not done it to themselves. The merpeople, for the most part, did not wish to find out about the men, and even those wracked with wanderlust could not survive for long near the surface, and did not have the civilized methods required to invent a method to exit the water.

Eventually war games took the place of war, and one of these war games was a single player war game. The merpeople had built nations under the sea, and these nations held war games whether there was disagreement or not, and if there was nothing a winning nation wanted, they took something good for anyone -- a bit of luxurious food(the merpeople still eat, they simply no longer metabolize food, only digesting it,) or some entertainers, or something nice to wear or build with, or the ability to host more of the games the next year. No nation took more than was fair, or enough to cripple anyone else, and the games were very nearly fair, and when one year they were unfair to one nation, another year they were unfair to the nation they had just been biased towards. The lower ambition kept them from being cruel, and it kept them, for the most part, from being unfair towards eachother. Honor was not tied to ambition, and having a system of living which honored political leaders, and working in general, helped to offset the less productive nature of an ambitionless society.

The single player war game was unique in that it was an exploration game in addition to a fighting game. A dungeon, actually, with a treasure, but with dangerous traps and various types of guards made specifically for this game. Those with the ambition and wanderlust to be adventurers and the honor to remain part of society chose, sometimes, to become dungeonwalkers, so that they could contribute without bein social. People trained their entire lives for this, and though usually war games were the method, occasionally private corporations ran games to raise money, and there was honor in these as well.

Skreecheek was a competitor in those competitions, the war games, and she, with her jellyfish familiar, had a rudimentary control of magic, a keen eye for traps, and swift legs for the running and swimming parts of the challenge. She had a good, long run in the competitions, and then she was gone. Dust in the current, so to speak.

"Atlantis" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

P.S. This was a setting sketch, not really a story, but that's the nature of 500-1000 word inspiration: sometimes it does not make a story. I am considering doing setting/topic/character/plot revisits by requests on Saturdays if I get any requests. If I don't I will simply write nothing on Saturdays! (Or I'll build up my backlog so I can post on days when I don't get to it!) Post number 2 for this week. Post number three up very soon! Will try to do 4 and 5 tomorrow!

Devotion

First off, let me apologize quickly for what may be about to occur. And for using Helvetica. I wanted a script font but the editor doesn't have one. I didn't get any sleep Sunday night, and wrote some of this on Monday and some of it on sleep-deprived Tuesday? As if that were an excuse? Was up trying to do some schoolwork and then I botched it. Anyway, It could be great it could be horrid, I really have no idea, because I've never done creative writing from a sleep deprived state before. Read at your own risk. Also I apologize for missing Monday and for Tuesday being a few hours late, but I will work hard to catch up!

Triton Tactics image by Jack Wang

(Whose website I was unable to find. Please contact me if you know where I can find it so that I can give him credit!)
© Wizards of the Coast 2013

The two of them stand there. They've never been terribly close, but they weren't enemies either, just squadmates. People who worked together three to nine months a year, depending on how much work they got, or wanted. They'd worked five or seven months each year. Neither of them were much the type to take time off. Probably didn't matter much now, one way or another. Srinercoar was out and away, but it had meant leaving them behind. They were both good picks for bodyguards. People who did need the money, but didn't care much for it. People who were (generally) lucky, had that sense for when danger was coming, and knew how to handle he selves when it came, but avoided it all the same.

It should be clear that they weren't the kind of people who were bodyguarding because they had nothing to live for. On the contrary, they picked up bodyguarding because it complimented their natural talents, and because they were the kinds of people who could be satisfied at anything -- they understood thoroughly that single-minded dedication to something, anything really, can be one of the most fulfilling, lasting things in any person's life. While others chose arbitrarily from a young age, religion, a career, a woman, a man, the family, a political cause, the arts, or whatever else they chose, both of these women had the apparently singular understanding that dedication was the key to her happiness, and was capable of choosing her devotion. They had chosen life bond loyalty to a patron rather than any of the other options, and his death

In all honesty none of these things were being considered by anyone on the ground. Srinercoar may have thought it while en route to his safe house, but he did not think it for long, and they were not important enough to anyone for the thought to occur or even to have occurred. They squared up, feeling quite honorable, but not interested in dying all the same, vigilant in their effort to continue living their rewarding lives. Back to back, so that they could feel the other's intangible presence that extended just past the skin, a remnant from before their race developed magic. They took a good hold on their shields and pulled their hands back just a bit on the tridents.

Lerika got one first, but after that they didn't count. There were simply too many. These men traveled with dogs, and there was a woman with them, whose clear control of magic was unsettling. The men had crossbows and the woman pushed and pulled on their bodies if they didn't avoid her, and the dogs jumped and bit with teeth like razor blades. The Chain assaults were often like this, and the guards had heard stories, though they had not been involved in an assault before. They fought for several minutes, and Rewna was bitten first. Lerika used her magic to see where the dog was, killed it with the trident without looking back, stabbed the dog in front of her with her shied and then dragged the shield, dog and all, in front of herself to stop the bolt.

She used some healing magic to help Rewna, but magic is like all things which require material resources and time: you can do them without mistakes, you can do them quickly, and you can do them without spending many of the resources, but you must pick only two. With very quick healing, the common choice is for correct healing over easy healing, so the energy it took to heal the bite left her magically drained. Not drained physically, having just worked up a sweat, and not drained mentally or emotionally like a human can be, but a fourth reserve of energy, her magic energy, was running low.

Rewna was the stronger mage of the two, and at the beginning of the fight, she had been working the dogs, deflecting her part of the woman's magic, shielding and misdirecting bolts, and breaking crossbows. Now she had to take up Lerika's part of he magic-blocking, and the crossbows could not be helped. Three men were left to shoot their bows, while the other three moved forward, drawing swords warily on the women surrounded by the men's dead hounds. The women moved closer together for just a moment as a lull hit the fight. Then they knew. Lerika had an advantage on one of the advancers and Rewna had a disadvantage on one of her two. With any other combatants, the backs would have separated, Lerika pressing her advantage and leaving Rewna, or letting the advantage slide. Neither happened.

An inaudible, invisible communication between the two women passed, and they moved as one, backward for Rewna, forward for Lerika. She took one of the men out, and Rewna felt it, a crossbow bolt coming at Lerika's left side, her trident arm. Without consulting Lerika, she initiated the roll they'd practiced with each member of their guard until they had it right. Their shoulders touched and Lerika knew what to do, did it without asking or knowing why. Rewna blocked the bolt with her shield, and Lerika took advantage of the man who had thought he was watching an opening develop in the women's guard. They came out of it in the same position they had started in, back to back, ready to fight.

By this time the combat was beginning to wear on them. Continuing to use exhausted magic sources was drawing on Lerika's mental and physical strength, and, when killing the last swordsman, she sustained a wound to the shoulder, not shallow enough to be trivialized, but hardly deep enough to be called deep. Enough to make it very hard to use the shield correctly, but not so much that she couldn't hold the shield. Rewna, even with her stronger magic training, was beginning to tire in that way, and in the physical way too.

Fortunately, the other spell caster was working down too, and, having two people to deal with, she was nearly worn out, casting sloppily. The other. Once she made a sloppy mistake, made one of her men miss a strike, and the two women took advantage. They crippled and finished him, took his mate together as one, and, now outnumbering and outranking the tired mage, Lerika ran hard for her and Rewna worked to speed Lerika along, lightening her burden and giving her as strong a backwind as she could manage. Lerika ran the mage through, and the two moved to a hiding spot far enough away that they would not be found and rested. Returning home would not be too difficult, but having their strength up would be optimal.

"Devotion" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Weather Tree

Image "Seasonscape" by The Artists at Romantically Apocalyptic or see it on their Deviantart page

When the tree sprouted it was clear that it was a special tree. By the time it was six months old, the weather on one half of the tree was a full month ahead of the other side. The trend continued, but slowed as the tree aged, and the time differences approached six months, and by the time the tree was three years old, it was half a year difference as near as anyone but Old Man Tom could tell. He said it had a couple weeks to go yet, but very few listened to Tom in those days. The weather effect dimmed by distance, till everything was normal, but that didn't stop it from ruining Bill Rendik's field.

Before long, Bill, he blamed the tree, figured if he cut it down, all his problems would be gone. So Bill had his son Frank, the one they used to call Franklin before he grew up so big and decided  Franklin wasn't a man's name, which in all fairness, did you ever know a man called Franklin? Anyhow, Frank went and he broke two axes and a saw on it, but then he realized, it was just a sapling, it didn't have roots that deep, and he just ripped it straight out of the soil.

Then they ran into the problem of where to put it. No farmer wanted it, it'd ruin fields. Any town square became impossible to stand in on half of it. If you tried to lay it on its side, The Tree just righted itself. Stood straight up and after some time had passed, started taking root. For a while, the farmers took turns, and that caused an absolute shortage 'cause it ended up killing every part of every field they put it in.

Then they put it in the forest, but when the Duke rode through on a hunt, and his best horse broke it's front legs? Oh no no no. He didn't even give them the meat he was so angry. He took an extra ten percent of their yield.

It was a good year, a very good year, and they barely survived between the punishment from the Duke and the damage to the fields. Most of them made it, but a couple of the older or younger members had rough times, and they lost Old Man Tom's wife. They tried to bury it, and they tried to trick it, point winter into the ground, but it rose up through the soil, and it got stronger and stronger at righting itself until it broke whatever restraints they put on it. Walls didn't help, the weather went right through them. A traveling merchant bought it, but his cart stopped halfway to the next town. Horse simply couldn't move it. When he tried a second horse, the tree ripped itself out of the cart and the horses ran a full three miles before he could get them unspooked. He spent several more days trying to figure it out, but ended up leaving it in the road.

By the time the tree was done with the road, the ice made it impassable. There was simply no crossing, no trade. It was too expensive to visit the poor little town. By the time they realized what was happening, it took them a week and a half to move the tree, just like the first time. But the ice melted and the road was passable again, and the merchants came back. They ended up putting it back in the hole in Bill Rendik's field, which he wasn't all too happy about, but it was his tree so it couldn't be helped.

"The Tree" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

The Road to Hell

Image "Accursed Spirit" by Kev Walker

© Wizards of the Coast 2013

A bog? A BOG? Scharnick collected his thoughts as he climbed out of the shallow pool. Who did it? Who could it have been? His thoughts were more angry than usual, more fierce. Being set on vengeance did not come to Scharnick naturally. His cloak blew back behind him, ignoring the bog in its ethereal state, so thin that it had no substance. Scharnick, in his own ethereal state, had very little substance too, but men do not become so thin as cloaks, even when they become ghosts, so he had to labor to escape the water and mud which he could not have -- in fact did not -- climb out of as a man. As he worked his way out, he see sawed between the harshness settling in his heart and panic over his own death. 

As panic was the more rational of the two, and vengeance the more emotional, and vengeance is closer to emotion than panic is to logic, his vengethirst won out. Circling around he searched for something to tell him about his murderer, for ghosts do not remember the day of their death. He did not find it immediately, but for hours, he circled around the area, searching for something, anything. The thought had begun to worm its way into his mind that he was being irrational, and that he should at least calm himself down enough to decide what to do, when he found a pair of tracks in some mud about 200 meters from his body - tracks that his feet did not fit in - and he was off again like a hound, with a mind lost to rage. 

Quickly the tracks disappeared as he came to firmer ground and Scharnick's tracking ability failed him. He'd been on many hunts, but his wife, young son, and subjects took most of his time, and he was no master of the hunt. He looked over what he'd had on him when he died. A compass. That could be quite helpful, he thought, and he became fascinated for a moment with the baubles he held. He didn't remember his monster rules, having never expected to become a ghost or see anything particularly magical or dangerous without a scholar to accompany him, so he did not know which baubles might still work and which might not. He began testing them, and as he did he cooled down, and considered who it might be that had wanted to off him.

The Neelian ambassador had seemed shaky of late, it could easily be him, but he was not an incredibly loyal man, and the promotion, for him, would not be worth the risk. Part of what made a passable ambassador was a man who had no higher ambition, or could hide it remarkably well. 

His wife and children he didn't consider, and rightly so. A good father and husband with a good wife, sons, and daughters. 

Why do you even care? Get to them so you can say goodbye before you accidentally fulfill your unfinished task.

Just then, a paladin of Reknar rode through, spotted the foul insult to life and smote Scharnick. With a puff of smoke and an incredible shriek, the ghost left, trapped indefinitely in the tormentous chambers of Reknar's heavenly prison.

"The Road to Hell" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Your Nymph

Image "...Fantasy..." by eclipsy

Veera sits very still. Even the green dress that matches the forest around her and her bright red hair seem stiff, frozen. She is completely still, waiting for you. "Fey who stay still stay beautiful and alive," she told you once. How you managed to leave a nymph you'll never know, particularly one so jealous. Half a sneer is left on her face from when you told her, emphasized by her just barely nonhuman beauty. You got her mostly calmed down, convinced you'd be back, before you left, and now she is waiting. She sits, perfectly still in her way, thinking, listening to the news when the birds, squirrels, and wolfs bring it, and the image of her is burned into your memory. 

Once, you asked her where her spring was, and she seemed offended. She showed you some water within an arms length that you hadn't noticed before. You'd thought it was just a puddle. Those were the bad times. When you didn't think, didn't observe. She hated that about you.

There were happy times too. Times when she'd been so happy, she'd left her spot, and come to run with you, dancing for minutes at a time. You remember how soft that hair was, and how the dress felt green, like leaves in spring, still on the tree, velvety soft and yet very thin. Sometimes the two of you would even play games, sit for a meal and talk (over her red, bloody meat, and yours cooked but not much better) and very occasionally you made love.

The forest never got cold, and you felt as if the forest benefitted from being around her, keeping out the cold and staying spring and summer and sometimes, when she was in quite a mood, letting the earliest part of fall in. You felt that you benefitted from being around her as well, though you attributed that to a different source than your scientific thoughts on the forest. 

Veera is the one who introduced you to Kender, your hawk. You say "my hawk", as if you own him, because that's how humans are. All people are like that really. Just as true, you're Kender's human. The two of you are scouts for the military. Have been for about six years. You hardly know what nation it is anymore, you don't care, as long as you stay alive and stay paid and fed. You wonder sometimes, what you're doing it for. Certainly not the money, and you were fed and alive in the forest. 

When you go into camp, you hear the men talking about what they'll buy (if they don't piss it away gambling and drinking, you think snidely in your mind, trying to compensate for your own lack of satisfaction. Your logic tells you that someone ends up with the gambling money, and one man can't drink all that beer.) They say things like "buy my wife a new dress" or "get some land, settle down, and farm for the rest of my life" or even "buy my boy a new colt, teach him to ride so he can visit when he starts that apprenticeship with the blacksmith." 

"Your boy has an apprenticeship with a blacksmith?" They'd ask. "What in the world are you doing taking footman pay?"

"Aye, that's the joy of it," he'd laugh. "He will have an apprenticeship, once I win you lot's pay."

And so on. But you love a nymph. Her dress is better than any money can buy, better than any material a woman could wear. She's not interested in a child, and that means she won't have one, simple as that for a nymph. If you wanted to farm, she'd look at you like you were crazy. "What do you want that the forest can't give you?" She'd ask, in that sing-song scary voice she used when she got mad, and you'd see it in her eyes that she was trying very hard not to eat you. She did ask that, when you left. You did see that in her eyes. So you wonder, if it isn't the money, isn't it a good question? What you want that the forest can't give you? 

And then you cross the ridge, under the last tree for miles. And in front of you is a grand plain, spanning sixty miles. The wind pushes the tall grass around, and that movement distracts you for just a moment, and the mountain, sixty five miles away, is just hiding the sun, and your heart catches in your chest and for a just a fraction of a second, you admit to yourself that this is why you left. It's prettier than her. Plains and sunsets and mountains and...and freedom. 

Then the moment is gone and you finish scanning the plain and see them, little black dots, indistinct from one another at this range. You can't be expected to count with your eyes, so you tell your horse to hold still, drop to he ground, and aid your vision with your ear and hand pressed to the ground. You feel the army, count in your own way, knowing how to tell the distance and number using sight and feeling and chattering with Kender, who is perched in the top of the tree to confirm. 

It's a much larger number than they expect, and your heart races, your mind realizing that they desperately need you to report. You lead your horse back down the ridge, and when you're out of sight of the plains, you mount up and ride hard. Your thoughts drift to her, and in the danger, you resolve to head back to the forest she lets you share in earnest. The break has been nice, but you miss her, and you miss the forest, and so does Kender. You're coming. You hear her voice in your mind as soon as your resolve sets. Yes, you respond. Soon. She scowls inwardly and you can hear it, but you make no reply. She can wait. She's good at waiting. 

You ride the horse until it breaks, just outside camp. The army should be thirty miles away by now. You run to the general from the dead horse, and give your report, and your resignation. He's sad to see you go, but doesn't try to make you stay -- a scout can leave when he wants to, it's just better you tell him about it. You take a clipping of the horse's mane, so that she can give it peace, then buy a horse from another soldier for too much coin, but it's the best horse in camp now, and you'll need it for the road ahead. You pack provisions onto the horse and start the long journey back to the forest.

"The Nymph" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

P.S. It's a bit long today. Sorry for that. I just got caught up in making it a bit multi-faceted and completing the story. About 1000 words for today. Back again tomorrow. 

Annex

Image by John Avon

© Wizards of the Coast 2005

Queros held the ball close to his long face. "You're telling me this ball both knows which area is the weakest, and will tell me so?"

"The very same sir. Whichever area would be easiest for you to..." here the Identifier paused for a moment, searching for a word, "obtain, and has more land than 1000 square kilometers or more value than 1000 Parcets, the orb will know of and will show to you. No other person may see the land shown in the sphere, as long as you hold it. It seems a simple scrying focus to them."

As the scholar finished his description, the orb clouded and moved through a rainbow of colors, only for the clouds to scatter and reveal a small town, with a large mounted statue in the square and a town hall with a green, tattered roof. The image flew away on high, so that the boundaries of the area were clear, and the town became very small.

Queros frowned and sighed. "This will take some work on my part, if it is to be useful and secret. Fetch Hervanico for now, and schedule geography tutoring three times a week for me over the next month, one hour each. Not from Hervanico, from the best tutor. Hervanico is an advisor -- his job is to know, not to teach. Secure your successor and report to the Tank -- you've earned it." He pulled a drawer out from his desk, retrieved the scholar's file, pulled a stamp from a different drawer, held the stamp close to his chest for several seconds until he heard a short *click*, stamped the file closed! and handed it to the scholar. 

The scholar, whose name has been lost, thanked his master and hurried out of the room with the air of a child who has been given a decision he does not wish changed. Within a few minutes, Hervanico walked up to the doors with a scowl, opened the great oak door with his face close to it, closed the door while facing it, wiped the scowl off his face - replacing it with a sad smile (the best he could do, given the circumstances), and turned to face Queros. 

"What may I do for you Master Queros?"

By this time, Queros had put the orb safely away in another desk drawer , covered in a silk cloth. "Do you know of a town with a statue of a rider in the square and a town hall about the size of the North Eron chapel with a beat up green roof?"

"Was the town center square or round sir?" A confused look came over Hervanico's face, masked worry.

"Oblong." The short ruler wondered at the face his advisor was making but gave no indication.

"That's Liventop sir. My hometown. Why do you ask?" It all came into place. Hervanico's recent attitude, the silver and water rights, the war in Hotenmoore, the nation that held Liventop. 

"I had a vision of it, associated with prosperous trade. Thank you Hervanico, that will be all."  Queros sent his advisor out of the room, issued a formal order for Hervanico's shadow and possible arrest, when the time came. Time to test Hervanico's loyalty and the glass ball's power. He sat down, pulled out his writing implements, and headed his todo list "Annex Liventop."

"Annex" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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

Introduction to Art Inspired Flash Fiction

From time to time, in writing workshops and classes, or in circles of writers, for writing contests, or even in board games (Dixit), I've seen the idea proposed that, as a creative exercise, someone can, or should, write fiction based on inspiration from an image. There've been a number of times that I've tried it and liked it a lot -- some of my best writing has come of it. 

To that end, I've decided to post here, every day, with an image that I used as inspiration, anything else in the artist's description that inspired me, the artist's name, the associated copyright, and a link to something relevant to help the artist and/or copyright holder out. 

I hope to, at least at start, use Magic: The Gathering cards as inspiration quite a bit, doing them on Tuesdays,  and Thursdays, and search Deviantart for something inspiring on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On the weekend I'll try to build up a backlog. If you're the artist and you want the picture taken down, please say so, though I'll make an effort to get permission. If you want me to use your picture, I'd love it if you'd get me a copy. 

Thanks for coming! I hope you find something you like!

-Ben//Alokue