Flash: Even when the trees are apart

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

The artificer had her umbrella partially unfurled, making Lorelless pause where the wooden pier abutted the rocky shore. Unable to spot any danger, as the elf slowly rotated her magic’ed paper and bamboo shielding device, he stepped on the wood. More like stomped. His sensibilities grated at being nosy, but Jasmine ability to perceived her surrounding rivaled rocks.

She didn’t even turn around. The girl needed a keeper.

“Hey, Jasmine, you okay?” the half-elf said, just out of range of her preferred gadgets of choice.

She startled and turned. “Oh, hey, hi Sticky Fingers.”

“Hey, yourself.” Lorelless let an easy smile escape across his face. No one else could call the thief by that nickname, but she meant it in an entirely different manner after the time he helped her build something and she hadn’t explained exactly how the glue created specifically for that project would work. “What are you doing out here? The village is blowing it out in celebration, and I’ve never known you not stuff yourself to bursting when real food is available, especially all the elven stuff like greenie grubbie and fermentia.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there. It’s just that,” her slanted green eyes studied the elven script she had inscribed around the edges of her umbrella as she twirled it one way then the other, “we had been with humans so long I had lost track of the date.” Tears hovered at the edges of her young eyes. “It’s Ring Day.” She tilted her head to the side and wiped her eyes with her ungloved hand. “At least it would be ring day if I was back home. Each community has their own aur-o nimloth taith.”

“I guess that is an important day.” Lorelless sat on the end of the pier and patted the wood beside him to the left. “Could you explain it for an abandoned city rat?”

With a watery laugh, she closed her umbrella completely and sat down beside him, placing the, now, walking stick within easy reach of her dominant naked left hand. To show solidarity in caution, Lorelless pulled out his most obvious dagger and placed it beside him, easily able to be grabbed with his right hand, and scooted closer to her until their shoulders touched.

“So why does aurko minnylothtait make you cry?”

Cin prenan’tion na-deleb.”

A giggle danced in the air and alit directly in Loreless’ ear as Jasmine bumped his shoulder. He was well aware of what that phrase meant; you can’t speak elvish worth shit, although Jasmine inflection was much more polite about it. The underlying growl and the rising final note he could not replicate were missing, changing it from the insult said to him by most pure elves. For her, the words were just a statement of fact and some amusement, with the physical touch indicating that the amusement was meant to be shared.

Elves never touched unless their words were meant to be communal.

“I try.”

“You do not,” she protested, “Not even a little.”

“I haven’t had a reason to learn it before.” He turned his head to look at her, his nearly black eyes meeting her green ones. “But knowing you does provide some incentive.” He shifted to face her, a bent leg resting just behind her, not touching but close enough for her to feel the heat if her prosthetics were magic’ed to experienced temperature. Something he didn’t know but wanted to learn. Unable to leave his weapon outside of easy reach behind him, he moved it to lay on the leg still dangling over the pier with just a bit of the two-foot blade landing her right thigh. “Now, tell me, what is ring day?”

Jasmine looked at the knife, taking a second to touch his hand holding it with a gloved finger, curious about the weirdness of touching when not touching. Using a created-metal object instead of natural physical naked touch. The mixed signal had no meaning in elven communities, but Lorelless said many things without speaking if she could just figure out what he was saying. She drew back her hand and turned her face up to his to answer his question. “Aur-o nimloth taith, or Ring Day, marks the day the Home Tree has gained enough growth to have another ring. It is approximately every eleven or so years.”

“It sounds like a big deal.”

“Yeah, it is. A huge community thing, everyone spends the entire spring of years with Ring Day weaving new clothes, carving decorations of gifts, practicing old songs or crafting new poems. About a week out, the bakers start the seed pancakes, brewers add finishing touches to last winter’s syrups, vinegars, and brews, and the calen harvest early berries. The last two days of prep are non-stop decorating and cooking.” She nodded to the lights and music drifting from the riverside village behind them. “When it finally comes together, that night makes what is happening there seem like bas a nen.”

“And you are missing it.” He tucked an escaped blond curl from her bun behind her ear.

Her face fractured into a thousand expressions. “For the first time ever.” A sob rushed out. “I’ve never been away from home for aur-o nimloth taith. Even when at the academy, they always let me go home for it.”

Loreless sheathed his weapon and pulled her against him, as tears poured from her.

“It shouldn’t be important. I’m an adult now and left home for real and ever.” She wept into his shoulder, words filtering through his shirt in a mix of human and elven he barely made out.

Patting her back, he reassured her, “It’s always important. Home and family always is important.” Personally he had no clue, but he had hungered for the concept of it more often than for food while stealing on the streets of Forever. “Nos bang-golas ir nimloth rucs. Kin share branches even with the trees are apart.”

Laughing, she pushed away from his shoulder but kept her right hand on where her tears had soaked the linen. “Where did you learn that?”

“An elf once said it to me, claiming to be a relative.” Loreless lips thinned and he dropped his eyes to the small bit of bleached wood between them, shifting back a little. “They were the first words I had ever heard in elven, and I engraved them into my heart.”

“Oh,” Jasmine cupped his chin and raise his face, “I take it she wasn’t.”

“He, and no. I was maybe ten or twelve, the years blend and I didn’t age like most of the kids around me on the street.” He pushed his face into her gloved hand, closing his eyes. “I had hoped so much.” Loreless pulled back, reaching up his left hand the one cradling his stubbled cheek before dragging it down, and rearranged his face into an earnest smile. “But enough about me, I’m here for you. How can we make a Ring Day for you?” He stopped, dropping her hand, then held up a finger. “Correction, do you want a Ring Day or something like it? Would it help?”

Her eyes grew soft as she handled the thought, looking at it from all angles, like it was a gadget. “No, I think I just needed to … rin glir, sing of its memory. Thank you for listening.” She patted herself down.

“Your umbrella is beside you. Your goggles are on your head. And your bag is back in the village with the horses.”

She touched her goggles then reach for the umbrella. “You are the best.”

He gracefully stood and offered his hand, which she ignored, using the umbrella and her gloved hand to leverage up. Her replacement leg creaked, and Jasmine made a face. Tomorrow she will have it spread out on a table, figuring out where the noise came from.

“After recovering from a hangover,” Loreless muttered.

“Hmm, what?” Jasmine looked up to where he towered nearly a foot taller than her.

“Oh, just thinking about how much you and I are going to drink tonight.” Loreless looked at his hands, and pretended to juggle them before stepping to her right side. “May I escort you back to a party, keep your cup and plate full, and fall asleep in your arms tonight?” He extended his hand to her gloved one, holding his breath.

(words 1,396; first published 6/23/2024; created 11/19/2023)

Lorelless & Jasmine Series

  1. Dragonfly (5/26/2024)
  2. Even when the trees are apart (6/23/2024)

Flash: Dragonfly

Image from Ashish Khanna of Unsplash

“The polymorph worked! Holy Sheet!” The thief danced around waving a wand he just used for the first time, but not saying the activation word again.

The slightly charred fighter and cleric leaned against each other, eyeing the dragonfly as it buzzed around the churned grass, mud, and baked broken ground on the meadow. “I can’t believe it, thank Mercury for his luck,” whispers the cleric.

“Amen.” The fighter responded, not sure if the luck was a gift from the gods or a comment about Lorelless’ insane ability to walk out of any situation smelling like roses.

The artificer lowered her umbrella shield slowly, drawing it back into a walking stick. “How? How did that even work? I mean the mass conversion on that should have resulted in an explosion.”

Lorelless grabbed her face, “Shh, Jasmine, stop overthinking it. Just live in the moment and be happy.” He kissed her, because why not take advantage of her distraction, it could be days before she let him get within pickpocketing distance again. Not that he would ever pickpocket her, the crap in her pockets were a variety of sharp tools, some capable of slitting fingers in half. If Alister hadn’t treated that instance as a learning opportunity, Lorelless would have eleven fingers instead of just ten. He still owed Mercury some coin for that healing.

“Bah, why do you do that?” She pushed him away.

“Because he like you, Jasmine,” the fighter, the oldest of their group shook his head. Unless it had gears and whistles, Jasmine had no clue. He didn’t think that she was actually opposed to Lorelless’ pursuit, she just didn’t understand it.

“I like him too, but that is all germy and,” she rubs her chest with her gloved hand, “weird feeling.”

The dragonfly, after closing the distance from where it had been transformed, annoyed that it took so long to travel a distance she used to be able to transverse in a single leap, landed on the hateful wand.

Like her intelligence and sense of being, the mass of the dragon had not, in fact, been removed by the polymorph.

(words 354; first published 5/26/2024; created 11/19/2023)

Lorelless & Jasmine Series

  1. Dragonfly (5/26/2024)
  2. Even when the trees are apart (6/23/2024)

Book Review (SERIES): The Fetch Phillips Novels

Luke Arnold created a fantasy Detective Noir series. Like many Noir stories, war and industrialization hang over the main character leaving him scarred and ill-adapted to a rapidly changing world. Yet, underneath the darkness, the hero who had gone to war remains wanting to save people as a detective, as a solver of issues. The author captures this feel perfectly in Fetch Phillips surviving in a world where magic has been removed in an apocalypse level event. Now everyone just needs to make a living in a world with fewer rainbows, unicorns, and hope. Still, mysteries remain.

The Fetch Phillips Novels Series

  1. The Last Smile in Sunder City
  2. Dead Man in a Ditch
  3. One Foot in the Fade

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE LAST SMILE IN SUNDER CITY

In a world that’s lost its magic, a former soldier turned PI solves cases for the fantasy creatures whose lives he ruined in an imaginative debut fantasy by Black Sails actor Luke Arnold.

Welcome to Sunder City. The magic is gone but the monsters remain.

I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are a few things you should know before you hire me:

1. Sobriety costs extra.
2. My services are confidential.
3. I don’t work for humans.

It’s nothing personal–I’m human myself. But after what happened to the magic, it’s not the humans who need my help.

MY REVIEW for THE LAST SMILE IN SUNDER CITY

Read for a book club.
A noir PI set in a fantasy world – murder mystery, kidnapping, disappearance, thugs, gang war, solider remembrances. Very much in the manner of Glen Cook’s Garrett Files, only this time the world isn’t magic anymore – the magic has been frozen and those that can have to live beyond it.

Wonderful noir wording. A real gem.

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for DEAD MAN IN A DITCH

In this brilliant sequel to actor Luke Arnold’s debut The Last Smile in Sunder City, a former soldier turned PI solves crime in a world that’s lost its magic. The name’s Fetch Phillips — what do you need? Cover a Gnome with a crossbow while he does a dodgy deal? Sure. Find out who killed Lance Niles, the big-shot businessman who just arrived in town? I’ll give it shot. Help an old-lady Elf track down her husband’s murderer? That’s right up my alley. What I don’t do, because it’s impossible, is search for a way to bring the goddamn magic back. Rumors got out about what happened with the Professor, so now people keep asking me to fix the world. But there’s no magic in this story. Just dead friends, twisted miracles, and a secret machine made to deliver a single shot of murder. Welcome back to the streets of Sunder City, a darkly imagined world perfect for readers of Ben Aaronovitch and Jim Butcher.

MY REVIEW for DEAD MAN IN A DITCH

Detective Noir in an Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy-World setting where the magic has turned off.
A character study of someone consumed in hero-worship faced when the hero might no longer be worthy of worship.
Betrayal, hope, brightness, shadow, dragons, guns, city, cold, rebuilding, destroying, and a dead man in a ditch.
Densely written, but not happy. But then good Noir should not be happy.

And this is good Noir.

Amazon Cover

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for ONE FOOT IN THE FADE

In a city that lost its magic, an angel falls in a downtown street. His wings are feathered, whole—undeniably magical—the man clearly flew, because he left one hell of a mess when he plummeted into the sidewalk.

But what sent him up? What brought him down? And will the answers help Fetch bring the magic back for good?

Working alongside necromancers, genies, and shadowy secret societies, through the wildest forests and dingiest dive bars, this case will leave its mark on Fetch’s body, his soul, and the fate of the world.

MY REVIEW for ONE FOOT IN THE FADE

DNF at 17% (DNF = did not finish)
It’s late March 2024. In late March 2020, the quarantine started. I’ve been trying to read this book for a couple-few weeks, but I’m going to DNF it. I’m not in the right headspace.

As our intrepid detective discovers his culture sinking and selling out to a tyrant who is delivering jobs in exchange for democracy and individualism, I am watching my culture sell out to fascism in the hopes of instant power and easy stability. He is dealing with his cops and government being owned by the business oligarchy, and I am struggling holding down multiple jobs and watching the next generation of my family sinking even further because the rich do not pay a living wage to entry level workers. I’m heartbroken because I am not in the position to help them, and this book has person after person struggling to survive in a modern-ish fantasy environment. I cannot escape what I am running from in this book – the fantasy detective noir is too noir to break me from reality, or, more likely, my reality is too noir right now.

If you are looking for Noir, this series captures the feeling well.

Flash: Endlessly Creative

Image acquired from the internet hivemind

“I will only speak of Professor Pelphrey in glowing terms, describe Truth and Consequences as an easy course, and keep all secrets shared within these walls dear and quiet. This I, Gael Dubhlainn Raisie McFadden, swear. By my will.” Gael stood in the back row, legs braced apart, arms crossed. Braxton had swirled his chair to face his friend and listen as Gale, the oldest and therefore the last of the eighteen students, swore the oath the instructor required. Each classmate had ended the oath differently; she had said whatever felt right. The results ranged from “amen” to “so mote it be.”

The petite woman in her black linen trousers over matching sensible leather shoes, houndstooth oversize jacket, and white silk blouse plus about her body weight in jewelry, nodded her acceptance of the last oath, her shoulder-length hair swinging forward.

At her nod, he sat down beside his best friend. “Did you feel—”

“The snap, like when I shoved your shoulder into place after you dislocated it playing freebie, yeah.”

“What are we getting into?” Gael whispered as they watched the professor walk over to the lectern stand for the first time she entered the class twenty minutes ago, carrying the small stack of books and paperwork she brought with her.

Braxton gave his half smile. “Don’t know but worth it.”

“I hope so.”

After tucking the materials in the pedestal, except for one folder she placed on top, Professor Pelphrey mounted a small step stool to bring her head level with the classroom microphone. “Miss Faukner, you had a question I asked you to hold until everyone finished their oaths. You may ask it now.”

Being the youngest of the group and the only Freshman of the lot, Wren stumbled over her question after holding it for so long. “Umn, well, you had the others, I mean people left after you said … How did the … You told us how tough the course was and then let people leave. How come they don’t tell everyone that this isn’t an easy ‘A’?”

“They egressed through the Oubliette Doors.” The teacher pointed at the double doors to her left. “They are charmed with forgetfulness. Do not use them now that you have sworn into the class, unless you have decided to permanently walk away from what we will be learning here. When you leave today, use the back door. The bathroom is right outside the upper door, if you need to go. If one of your fellow students exits through the Oubliette, you have two hours to get them to me and get the charm removed before the memory of what occurred in this room is gone forever. The students that left before the oath will be transferred to Dr. Torbett’s class and only reminisce about not clicking with my course when I described it if anyone asks. I will keep the doors locked while class is in session, to be on the safe side, but during open study labs, you will need to master yourselves.”

“Oh,” Wren looked confused. This had to be tough as her first university course ever. Gael struggled, and he was a senior. “Okay. Charmed you say … what is oblique mean?”

“Oubliette, means ‘I forgot’.” The professor turned on the projector and showed a picture of a hole in the ground with a grate over it, the surroundings looked like a medieval castle, but not in the good part of the castle. “It’s a type of dungeon, the name is French but they weren’t the only ones who used them. You drop a person down into the hole and forgot about them.” She flipped through a few other photos. Braxton shivered. “A horrible punishment, maybe rain water will fall in and keep you hydrated, maybe the jailors would come through and drop moldy bread or rotten fruits down. You could hear other people screaming in nearby holes, which provided some relief to know you weren’t alone in the world until the voices stopped. If you were lucky, the pit would be wide enough you could sit. Sometimes you would get pulled out if they remembered you before you died.” Pensively, the teacher studied the last frame where nearly a dozen holes covered in rough iron grates had been dug into a brick-and-mortar path. Turning to face the class, she deadpanned, “I don’t recommend it.”

The teacher closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose deeply.

“First truth, whatever you think is the worse that humans can do, is wrong.” The light clicked off, hiding the horrible image. “They are endlessly creative. You,” the teacher pointed to the class, her bracelets jingling musically, “are endlessly creative. Do not consider this,” she waved at the blank screen behind her and her bracelets clanged harsh, “a competition. You will lose, either yourself or your purpose and I cannot tell you which is worse.” Pausing, she looked out at the classroom. “Next question.”

Braxton raised his hand. Gael hit him under the desk, which the professor could easily see being at a lower level.

“Yes, Mr. Huffel.”

“How old are you?”

The teacher’s eyebrows raised into her hairline, “Why do you ask?”

“You said you taught Wren’s mom, or at least remembered her.” The bio-chem senior shook his head in disbelief. “There is no way you are in your late forties.”

“I’ve been teaching at this institution since it was established.” The teacher tilted her head waiting for her students to do the math.

LeeAnn, a junior in the front row spoke first. “No, no way. The university started in 1747. That is over 200 years ago.”

“Two hundred seventy-seven, to be exact,” Shanda said after typing in numbers into her laptop. “If you were twenty-three when you started teaching, you would be three hundred years old.”

“I’m a little older than that.” The teacher moved her file folder to touch the screen built into the lectern, then relit the wall. The painting hanging in the university’s main hall of the founding scientists appeared behind her. Ten people dressed in black robes with white wigs, two women and one very old man sitting in front, and the other seven standing around them. Around their necks were stoles in various jeweled colors. According to legend, three women and seven men started the college. The woman in the back, Caroline stood with her husband Jim Fangman, and both wore red for chemistry. The unmarried women in front sat either side of the old man, with his daughter Rachel on his left. Elias Spelman and his offspring wore green for agriculture and environmental science. The university also used it for biology. Braxton would be wearing a stole with red and green when he graduated.

The female on the right in the picture, rumored to be a mistress of one of the scientists, though which one changed every year, had a small stool to prop up her feet. The hands clasped in her lap were covered in a dozen rings, and the woman’s heart-shaped face bore a striking resemblance to Professor Pelphrey. Her stole was the clear gold the school used for governmental science.

“Fuck, her name is Madden Pelphrey. She said it right up front.” Gael wrote the professor’s name on the sheet of paper and underlined it hard. “We eat at Pelphrey Hall every day, and I thought she was just related. Got in at a young age because of who she knew.”

The class roared as each person talked to the others. Only Wren, who hadn’t been soaking up the university legends for years, remained silent, but her head spun around as the seniors behind her debated the authenticity of the teacher’s claim.

While they were arguing, the Professor Pelphrey took the folder to the front of the table and removed a stack of white printed paper from the folder, placing them on the table. Then she walked over to a cabinet beside the door she entered through and unlocked it. Inside were seven shelves of books. She pulled out a board built into the side and turned it sideway, upon which four steps unfolded from the board, becoming stairs for her to reach the top shelf. Once at the top, she unlocked the glass front of the shelf and slid it out and then up so it slid into the cabinet above the newly accessible shelf.

Students were beginning to raise hands when the teacher turned sideways on the steps and clicked the control, changing the image to a syllabus. “Ready to start learning?” her voice carried in the room, the carpet absorbing some of it, but the cement walls bouncing the rest.

“How old are you?” “You can’t be that old.” “You knew Spelman?” “Did you really do the wild thing with the Fangmans? “Can you tell us…” Everyone’s voices was speaking over the other.

The teacher raised her right hand, the houndstooth jacket sliding down to her elbow, and lifted her other hand to her lips placing two fingers there until the students started following suit. Some did it automatically, clearly familiar with the routine from their primary school days, while others looked side-to-side and started mimicking the rest of the class.

When everyone was quiet, Pelphrey spoke. “One off-topic question per day. You can decide among yourselves what you want that to be. The class will get an extra 10 points each if it is not one I have heard recently, 25 points if completely new.” When hands remained raised, she added, “and negative ten point for everyone for each question asked out of turn.” Hands dropped.

“Miss Faukner, could you hand out the syllabus to everyone? Don’t worry, I won’t make you do everything. Each person, in order of age, will help with the tasks. Mr. Quillon, could you come over here and hand out today’s texts? We got an hour left and a lot to cover today to get you ready for your self-study on Tuesday.”

(words 1,665; first published 5/12/2024)

Madden Series

  1. Truth and Consequences (3/17/2024)
  2. Endlessly Creative (5/12/2024)