Tag: Fantasy (High)

Flash: Old Dragon

Erin Penn

freedigitalphotos.net

[Old Dragon – flash story]

 

“So, grandpa, what was it like back in the days of dragons and knights?” The young man had superior air about him. Ancient and venerable, history and honor, these no longer had value to him. He wanted to bait me, belittle my accomplishments. He passed me a heavy stick; thick as his wrist. I needed both hands to steady the weight.

 

I admit my days of glory were not yesterday, or even the day before yesterday. I like the comfort of the community hall and earned my keep by keeping the fire burning, feeding it with twigs and sticks the young things brought as gifts for the next story. I fed his branch into the fire, the flare of heat pushed back the cold and arthritic pain.

 

“I first saw a dragon when I was eight, nearly nine. I was gathering wood, being the lowliest and youngest of Sir Egil’s squires. I erroneously thought of myself higher than I was and was complaining the whole time to Windflyer, the warhorse I was tasked with excising that day.”

 

I pressed a cup to my lips wetting them. Under my eyelashes, I watch the boy lean forward unconsciously. Two or three children, tiring of carding wool for the spinners, gathered at my feet. They made slight rustling noises as they settled. I waited patiently, but my hopeful tormentor, eager to prove his early manhood superiority, was as uncomfortable with silence as most his age, gave me power when he asked “So what happened?”

 

“The horse, the smallest, fastest, and steadiest of the three horses my knight kept in the lords’ stables, had been difficult to push into the hills that night. He had been so unlike his normal self, I tethered him as I gathered wood and loaded the sled. A good thing too, otherwise I would have had a long walk that night and things would have been very different around here.”

 

One of my miniature audience could not contain his excitement. “Because he would have run away.”

 

“Aye, Barry. Windflyer would have been safely home before I had taken three steps.”

 

The young man, Talar, leaned against a chair. He was new to our town, a tradesman establishing a laundry using machines we had never seen before.

 

“And I wouldn’t have blamed him…Because the night screamed.” I stabbed a finger towards my stick provider. “Have you heard a wildcat scream in your travels? The bloodcurling sound that travels up and down your spine, somewhere between a human scream and something…else?”

 

“Sure. Are you saying it sounded like that?”

 

“No.” I waited, staring at him until he shifted just a little. I watched his eyes search the room as he tried to process my flat response. He slipped into the chair fully. Just before his next question came, I filled in the silence “The sound is as different from a wildcat as a wildcat’s from a chicken cluck. A wildcat may sound unnatural, but a dragon IS unnatural. The scream tears your spine in half with shivers. Every part of my body insisted I had to run, run away, and no part of my body could move. My ears burned. My eyes watered. My breath stopped.”

 

“Then I saw it. A shimmer of night destroying trees with a leap. It climbed through the air, clawing and scratching. The heavy form pulled from ground to sky by sheer willpower for nothing that huge should fly. I felt empty air hit me like blows as it fled the horrific presence. A black shadow cut a hole in the starry sky, widening it and widening it. Absorbing all light in a path towards the lord’s castle. Blocking all sound but the beating and pounding of wings against helpless air.”

 

(Words 627; first published 1/24/2014; republished 1/6/2019)

Author Spotlight: Dr. Seuss

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

What was your favorite Dr. Seuss growing up? Go on, I’ll wait.

My sisters loved to torture me with Fox in Socks. I personally loved Hop on Pop. Other people identified with Horton Hears a Who or Cat in Hat. And off course the seasonal favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which has permanently embedded into our society the concept of anyone hating Christmas is a Grinch. And most people accused don’t care because the Grinch was awesome in his wallowing in his grinch-ness; they can only aspire to his commitment to the grump.

Answering a bet to write a children’s book with fifty or fewer different words, Green Eggs and Ham was born. From there Dr. Seuss made reading accessible as the boring Dick and Jane stories never could; the rhyme and meter and cartoonish art delighted children in book after book.

But did you know he had two books written in straight prose? One is high fantasy, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, and the other is horror – it certainly meets most of the horror tropes and ticks – Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss

Memorable first lines in books – we writers always try to hone the hook. Here is one:

In the beginning, Bartholomew Cubbins didn’t have five hundred hats.

Going Christmas shopping for nieces and nephews I ran across a high fantasy story I read again and again growing up. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss. Still a fine story; I hope nephew number five likes it.

Written in prose instead of his normal poem scheme, the fantasy by Dr. Seuss has a beautiful pace and flow. Enemies and friends – from the executioner to the spoiled Grand Duke – distract Bartholomew from his ongoing issue of the hat which would not come off. The 1940 story still holds up perfectly for today’s world.

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Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss

A revisit to Bartholomew Cubbins who previously appeared in The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins finds him the King’s page and the Grand Duke missing. Again the prose form rules this darker fantasy (sequel?) written 9 years after the original story instead of the normal Seussian poetry; I vastly prefer the clever and surreal 500 Hats of the two books.

The king wants to establish his power and uniqueness and calls his magicians to make Oobleck fall from the sky. Bartholomew attempts to be the voice of reason to the hubris-plagued king, but the king wasn’t having it. When the first drops of green fall, the royal page feels nothing but fear.

Want to know where the generation of urban fantasy – horror fans came from? I bet many of them had this book in their homes growing up. Where 500 Hats is fantasy, Oobleck is a horror – child version.

Still a solid book after all this time. 

Flash: The Castle of Gold and Silver

Erin Penn

Photo by phaendin from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Castle of Gold and Silver awaited their triumphant return, shiny brightly in the dark night under the magic lights of the King’s Wizards and the Queen’s Witches across the brick bridge raised by manpower and the Mason’s secret craft. Unfortunately, the return wasn’t triumphant, the young prince and his band hesitated at the edge of the forest, four arrow flights from the display of wealth and power. Luis was never meant to be heir, just a throw-away duke under his two other brothers care, not the one to bring back the bodies.

With night well underway, but the road smooth, he had pushed his men, those few left, the final steps until they could see home. Now the fourteen-year old froze on his mount, the one his men insisted he use while they walked. Francisco, the oldest, cagiest of the five left, had practically lifted the prince and tied him to the seat himself, after many, many threats.

“Home,” whispered Pablo with soul-tired tones they all talked with, aged beyond his sixteen years, a knight by Luis’ hand after he saved Inaki’s body from desecration; Luis hoped his father would approve raising Inaki’s squire. Pablo’s arm had been so mangled by the action, the surgeon removed it, back when they had a surgeon.

“Si.” Francisco agreed, where he held the burro pulling the wagon of their dead.

Leonor cleared his throat. “Do we go forward my liege, or wait until dawn when the gates raise?”

“Wanting to rush back to your wife’s arms?” Miguel teased.

“If you were married to one such as my Sofia, you would be running across that bridge after nineteen months apart.”

“And three days.” Miguel responded, keeping up the day count Leonor had started the moment they had stepped on the bridge to leave with their army-escort for three princes and their two squires and one cranky witch who didn’t like being away from home, off to secure a treaty with the duplicitous Pinedos and the cursed Montana kingdom they ruled.

“I could set up the tent, my liege,” offered Henrietta, the only camp follower who didn’t desert them.

The tent covered the bodies with during the day. Luis hadn’t stomached living under it since they made it inside the Prado nation’s boarders, but he knew this close to home, his loyal band would feel the need to give their prince full honors. Luis shook the fear and pushed back the failure consuming him. “No, tonight we bed inside well-protected gates where we need not set guards.” Glancing at Leonor, who had been teaching him flowery speech, Luis relaxed seeing a nod of approval.

Francisco snorted, but commented, “Well said,” relaxing the knot churning in the young man’s stomach.

The prince gently kneed the horse, bit, bridle, and saddle long lost, only a contraption of leather strips providing a stirrup keeping him seated. He and Dunlap had come to an agreement long ago, once it was clear someone had to ride the horse or the mare would pull the wagon. The brown shaggy creature plodded one foot in front of the other toward the bright lights of promise.

(Words 520; First Published 5/27/2018)

Author Spotlight: Emily Lavin Leverett

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

I crossed paths with Dr. Emily Lavin Leverett at my first ConCarolinas. She mentioned a press she worked with, and I started haunting that press’ blog. From there, the blog’s visual writer’s prompts tempted me so I started writing responses and created my own blog. When a job opened in the administrative branch, I offered to remote work for the Canadian company. After a time, I started line editing for them too.

So you can blame where I am today in the publishing industry on her. I would have found a path of some sort – after all I met her at ConCarolinas – but this particular path I’m on started with a throw-away remark by her on a con panel.

Eventually that press folded, and I went onto another press. I still attended ConCarolinas and so did she, so we would say “hi” on occasion.  Though she was a panelist, an editor of anthologies, and I was just a paying attendee, Dr. Leverett was always polite during our short exchanges. Short because my shyness and her guest-panel-busy. 

Then my next press folded (Amazon did some changes on how romances could be advertised and that tanked a lot of the small press industry) and I was at loose ends. Thanks to a different network opportunity, I fell into Falstaff and discovered Dr. Leverett already there. In fact, her manuscript, Changeling’s Fall, had inspired the publisher, John Hartness, to take the step to becoming a publisher of other people’s works.

Her day job is an English professor and a medievalist. Her afternoon job is editing anthologies and writing papers required to remain a professor. And when she finds the time, she is working with her co-author Dr. Sarah Joy Adams on the other three books of The Eisteddford Chronicles.

It’s been an interesting walking along the same path as her. We take different stops in the publishing industry, but I admire her craftsmanship and determination as she trail blazes ahead of me. She is an amazing woman.

Flash: Mistborn

Erin Penn


Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The mistborn condensed out of the morning fog, a slightly more solid shape in the earth-thralled cloud. Eliza kept quiet in her makeshift tent as she watched. Beside her, the hound snorted and rolled over for more sleep, pulling the underblanket so Eliza’s elbows were stuck with old leaves and bark from the maple tree under which they had set up camp. A second form swirled into being, looking like a curl rising from cooking pot just about to boil. The two danced in the open grass field as more and more mistborn joined them.

The twilight morning meadow brightened as one ray of late spring sun made it above the old growth trees surrounding the field. It sizzled through the dancers, separating them and struck the dew saturated ground, throwing up steam. A new being formed, harsher, stronger, more solid, and even shorter-lived than the present meadow denizens. It curled a vector around the nearest mistborn, dragging the gentle morning creature into the light where both dissolved. More beams broke through the tree tops, speckling the grass with light and conflict. Mistborn after mistborn was destroyed by cruel, angry steamers.

Several mistborns broke toward the shadows under the trees. One ran straight at Eliza, seeking shelter, a moment more of existence, under the trees she had chosen last night. Trees that kept the dew off her and her tent all night. The creature could not leave the moist grass and a steamer snatched it when the mistborn hesitated at the border between dew and dry. The insubstantial creature screamed silently as it left this existence.

Shuddering and smiling, Eliza broke camp quickly once the sun had completely cleared the horizon and burned off the last of the fog. The lean-to blanket above and ground cloth below, with a few twists of rope, return to being a backpack. Her companion hound clawed and threw dirt, burying the small cooking pit. They moved as one to leave the magical place.

Eliza was undecided if the meadow was blessed or cursed. A question to ask should she qualify for the academy, if she made it there by Solstice, if they would take someone in her thirties, if … so many ifs. She picked up the pace. The ballet and battle had lost her a big chunk of the morning.

(Words 387 – first published 4/15/2014; published in new blog format on 11/5/2017)