Roads of Bone, Chapter 7: Show Off

I am doing a little experiment.  I am going to write a series of chapters in a fantasy world of my creation and see if it goes anywhere.  Since I have not prewritten this story and have no outline, it will probably end up a convoluted mess.  I do not know how often I will be able to update this or if it will ever finish.  This is the link to CHAPTER 1.  (I have also found that I have to go back and clean up very broken sentences in previous chapters.  This is why I need an editor.  I understand what I am writing, but I need to make sure other people do too.)

Chapter 7: Show Off

            Malakite watched as Pasgard lumbered over to the parasols the tea house had laid out over part of the dock.  The cafe had opened a section of the dock so that the patrons could dip their feet into the flowing water of the Color Line.  Tiny river fish would nibble off the callous of feet, making them smooth and tender.

            All around the tottering black man people became aware of him, we was from a very distant place and that made some of them prickly.  Pasgard had seen worse starting attitudes, "Come young ones to see the wonders of an old fool who wishes to show you the little bits of fun I learned when I was not much older then you."

            Pasgard's finger moved like he was signally hidden instrumentalists and distant haunting music began to play, like a distant fair ground.  "This is spooky," said someone getting up to leave.

            "Fear not young man," said Pasgard, pointing to the little fish.  "I seek only to pass on a little something that was passed on to me."  The instruments that previously seemed distant grew closer.  While adults all around felt nervous, the children looked amazed.

            "See the little fish," said Pasgard, with a wave of his hand the nibbling fish started to emanate blues and yellows.  Swimming in big sweeping patterns, a ring, a figure 8, 3 wavy lines, then a spiral.  Each change prompted by the wave of Pasgard's hand.

            From under the parasols the light of the midday sun seemed very distant.  The little fish glowed and sparkled, moving faster thru the water like shooting stars.

            "When I was just a young man," said Pasgard.  "A wizard did this show, though he used a flock of humming birds.  I like the little fish.  They move in patterns good."

            By then even the previously nervous parents were taken in, as this little area of the tea house was turning into a surreal bubble of night sky in the middle of the day, but with an eerie hum of invisible strings, a beat of distant drums, and some deep feeling of having been made free.

            Bit by bit the lights and sounds faded, the fish stopped glowing and swimming in patterns, and all of the children were smiling ear to ear.  The parents and other adults were dazzled.  There was one left over, a little girl with ragged hair, freckled face, a smile missing many baby teeth, simple clots, and no parent.  "How?" she asked.

            "Little one," said Pasgard, his eyes tearing up.  "Oh that I could be young enough to teach you such things.  I have done this show before, and seen so many smiles, and always there is one left who asks how."

            "Why are you crying?" the little girl asked, suddenly so nervous for the wizard.

            "I'm sorry little one," said Pasgard.  "My time as a teacher is passed," there was a coin in his hand that he was making spin.  "I have taught so many before you, and this would be all I needed for me to try again, but I just don't have the time left.  I'm sorry because I can already tell, you be a great wizard." He then fumbled the coin.  She tried to catch it, missed, and chased it to the edge of the water, she smiled, turned, and frowned.  The old wizard was gone.

Hole in a Field, Chap 7

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 7:

One could see a very large hole in the logic of actually approaching the carnival.  One might also state that approaching a carnival in the current circumstances actually had no logic, that the sanest course of action would be to walk back down the dead-end cave, lean against a poorly lit wall, and chat, while waiting for starvation and thirst to take their toll, allowing a gradual death free of the logic-less course that passed into the carnival.  The White Hats, having experienced logic-less courses of action in the past, and having so far had relative success with them, decided to be illogical, and visit the ticket booth.  Confident that in doing so they would at the very least then be able to clearly discern their location… they would be at the ticket booth.

“Anyone here?”  Maxwell cupped his hands over his eyes against the glass of the booth and peered through, choosing to ignore the prominently posted ‘back in five minutes’ sign that hung in the window.

“While I admire your desire to offer payment for entry,” said Wilton, “I am fairly certain we can get over or around the turnstile without difficulty.”

Maxwell looked back at him with a perplexed expression, “We aren’t going to try to anyone here?”

“Max, do you really want to find someone down here?” Clair looked at him with the sort of look that says ‘you wouldn't really want to live in the wild west, there were lots of guns and STDs, and very little gold in spite of what the movies lead you to believe.’  The look made Maxwell feel foolish, realizing that finding more people down here would be a sure indicator of other people not being able to get out.

Wilton had climbed to the top of a turnstile and was surveying the surroundings.  “Personally I would be very happy to just walk through this scene from a Lewis Carroll story without incident or contact of any kind.”

Maxwell shrugged, and walked with Clair to the turnstile where Wilton helped lift them up and over before jumping down after them and once more taking the lead.

As Wilton began to take a closer look at the various empty game stands and store fronts, Maxwell asked, “Do you guys think we should maybe look for something to defend ourselves with?”

Wilton looked back at him with raised eyebrows. “That is a good idea.”  He stepped over to a game stand, sat on the counter and swung his legs over into the booth.  He began searching through loose bric-a-brac, including a heroic pile of stuffed animals.  He eventually pulled out a pair of baseball bats and tossed one to Maxwell.

Clair, seeing she needed to provide her own weapon, walked over to a Strong Man Hammer Strike Game, picked up a mallet, turned and struck the launcher plate at the base of the bell slide.  The ring that quickly followed drew and impressed whistle from both the men.  Clair struck a Rosie the Riveter pose and then slung the mallet to her shoulder with a cocky head jiggle.  “Not exactly a Kit-provided weapon, but it still has a sort of ‘God of Thunder’ appeal to it.”

“Clair, your appeals are numerous,"  said Wilton.  "And hardly limited to your choice of weapon.”

The three continued into the Carnival, winding their way deeper into a place they would never have expected to be in.