Steve Shilstone's Blog, page 37

MOTTY, THE HOLLOWITE

Motty is the Princess Nimble Missst's nanny and plays a supporting part in QUEN NIM, one of the future chronicles written by Bekka. That's Motty below along with a little piece clipped from QUEN NIM.

High in the round blue tower of the Sapphire Palace in Cloud Castle City was a round blue room. It was filled with Ancient Orrunian scrolls and riddle runes on oat parchment pages and with assorted confusing constructs of straw, bricks, and cane. All were puzzles, puzzles completed, puzzles solved, evidence truly of Nimble Missst's snapjaw mind. So said, the Sapphire Palace was her own domain, and the round blue room in the round blue tower her private retreat. Such was so. When she wasn't away at the ledge next to O'Tan Falls, more likely than not she could be found studying texts or solving puzzles in the round blue room. A hollowite hurried there to dust and straighten on hearing the news of Nimble Missst's return to Cloud Castle City.

"Should have done this earlier, should have," sang the hollowite to herself. She danced yes merrily around the room flicking the duster over the many and various puzzle constructs.

A hollowite dancing is a sight. Six trousered legs stepping in time while supporting a round pudgy body with stubby arms and stubby yellow wings might be oddment enough, but when topped by a froggy head with a curled up tongue which when unleashed could travel the distance of the room wall to wall, the sight is well …

"Ridiculous!" cried Nimble Missst as she opened the oaken door and entered the round blue room. "What are ye doing, Motty? Step lively. Take your dusting dance elsewhere. I've got thinking to do. Leave me."

"Glad you're back. Happy to have you. Isn't it, though? Exciting I mean. The Prince and all. A wedding. Queen of the Boad. How many 'e's? Twenty? Twenty, I'll wager. That would show 'em. My little snapjaw," gushed Motty the hollowite. She trousered here and there, ignoring Nimble Missst's command to leave.

"Ridiculous, Motty, ridiculous! I need to think," said Nimble Missst, pressing her hands to the sides of her head. "Ye may go. Bring me something to eat if ye need a ridiculous task to perform."

"Your command. A bowl of ool, freshly squeezed, I think. I'm not full on sure about the hoddle. We might be scraped clean out of it. Ool without hoddle is good enough, true, but with it …"

"With! Without! Hoddle! No hoddle! I don't care! Ridiculous!" moaned Nimble Missst, and she paced in little circles.

"Don't fret. Don't worry. Don't pout. Efficient Motty is here to help you out," sang the hollowite. She exited the room with a six-footed spin turn and, for good measure, flung her tongue high and far.

Almost at once, Nimble Missst heard on the stairs outside a short ruckus, a 'Pardon me, Replenisher, I did not see you' and a 'Step along, hollowite, and keep that tongue closer to ye'. Her mother approached. Nimble Missst composed herself and masked her jumbled doubts with a placid frown. She folded her arms and waited for her mother to appear in the doorway.

"That be the daftest of hollowites, I tell ye. Why don't ye send her off and replace her?" Rindle Mer greeted her daughter. "So ye be returned for this … thing. Ye do have a plan, don't ye?"

"Motty pleases me. She is ridiculous. I have a plan," coolly replied Nimble Missst.

 

SHAAAA, THE BEDDYSNAKE

I want to introduce you to some of the supporting characters swimming, flying, hopping, or strolling around in the many chronicles. Below is Shaaaa, a sort of serpent called a beddysnake appearing in Avado, a  story written by the first chronicler, Harpo.

Muck? Yes, the ramble roaming weaver tailor was seated there in a swampy munge, a marsh. A flat span of murky water and clumped reeds and wet tanglegrass surrounded him. Under the low ceiling of the Evermist, there was a clarity of view. Marsh marching all around off into the distance. He noticed a supple ripple approaching through the murky water, twining its velvety way under droopy reeds. He stood up, ankle deep in the slunge, weighing whether or not he should chant invisible or maybe, just maybe …

"Beddysnake?" he asked the approaching ripple in a doubtful, hopeful way.

A snaky head popped above the water. Four elegant slender green tongues flicked. Round yellow eyes hearted black. Sleek, long and wet, the serpent threaded its crimson body through the reeds.

"Shaaaa," whissshed the snake.

"Shaaaa?" said Softnest, gripping his chobic emerald.

"I am Shaaaa, the Beddysnake of Evermist Marsh. Shaaaa ashaaa. Ye are the protection. Sha ashashaa. Have ye brought her?" asked the Beddysnake.

"I … She … I instructed her in the use of the cloak. She is swimming down from the sky right now. I was … guarding her pack. I … brought it for her," lied Nesty, making up things as fast as he could and hoping they were believable.

"Ashaaa, shaaash. Go then. Be off. Why have ye turned to visible?" hissed the Beddysnake.

"I thought … you needed to see me," stammered Nesty.

"Lackwit! I am Shaaaa, the Beddysnake of Evermist Marsh! I can see ye, visible or no! Ashaaaa, ashaaa, shaaa. Away with haste before the Image captures ye with her untouched eyes. Would ye risk the success of Prophesy? Shaaaaaaa," menaced Shaaaa, her blackhearted yellow eyes flashing.

Quickly muttering the chant of invisibility while balancing the chobic emerald in proper position on the tips of his fingers, Softnest Clifftumble faded clear and flew up into the Evermist, passing Avado, who was kicking her way down with oatworthy determination.

THE CARVEN FLUTE

Today is the birthday of 'The Carven Flute'. It is now available at http://www.wildchildpublishing.com.

EXCERPT 23 – QUINGCESS BLOSSO

Here is a special short sneak preview of a story from the time after Bekka's duties as chronicler have been passed on to a girl who arrived on Boad from Earth. She is called Plumly. That isn't her pictured below. That is the relentlessly happy Quingcess Blosso.

I couldn't ask her questions because there wasn't any room to interrupt. I mean, she talked, talked, talked. She was super fizzed. Fizzed is what they call excited on this world. I'm sure I've written that before. Fizzed is excited. Excited is fizzed.

"I like vests. Don't you? We should trade. Call me Blosso, please, not Blossom. I don't like names with 'm'. That's why I'll call you Ploo, not Plumly. I am almost 8 bar years. How many are you? Isn't it good to fly in a bubble, Ploo? I'm very happy right now. Are you? Do you think there'll be a dragon? I hope there'll be a dragon. Bekka said there'd be a dragon. How long to Nizz? I've never been there or to Farl of course because you just fixed them, didn't you? Ha. How did you do it? Restore them. With waterwizards, everybody said. Which ones? It must have been fun, I bet. You're a really good singer, too. I liked that concert. You can teach me to sing. I like this. Isn't it good? It's very good. I like to learn things. I polish the jewels on the Gem Studded Pod. I'm allowed. Look over there. What kind of a tree is that? Isn't it nice? Do you like nice things? I do."

All I could do was nod, smile, or open my mouth and not have time to answer her thousands of questions. She did jolt me some, though. Ploo? Dragon? The witch hadn't told me anything about a dragon. Well, so, Blosso just flowed on until she said, "Unbraid my hair, Ploo. I'm going to take a nap now. I like naps. Don't you, Ploo?"

EXCERPT 22 – FAN WA

In the very first tale told by Harpo, the 4 characters below are on a quest to repair time and the weather (top to bottom – Princess Lovey, Chef Larry, Gorge the Troll, and the lavender witch). In the excerpt, Harpo discusses the difference between gnomes and dwarfs.

Gnomes and dwarves. Dwarves and gnomes. What are the differences between gnomes and dwarves? The spelling, for one thing, stands out at a glance. g-n-o-m-e is about as far from d-w-a-r-f as you can get. They have not even one single letter in common. Not a one! Some say a gnome is a small misshapen dwarf. Whoever they are, what do they know? They don't know what I know. And what I know is this: a gnome is simply a depressed dwarf, a dwarf without laughter, humorless. And so, I can tell you now, the gnomes under Orrun Mountain were a sad bunch, dragging themselves from here to there, frowning and snarling. I think I, yes, I, would be a gnome, too, if stuck under a mountain eating what they had to eat and working at the task they were forced to endure. What did they eat, you ask? Clay, I answer. Clay, more clay, and nothing but clay. After you say 'yecchhh', you might wonder how they slaked their thirst. I would tell you they drank water, but it had to be sucked from the clay. How good would that taste? Bad. Claywater. Well, what work did they do? They manufactured bricks of clay and built a wall at one end of the Grand Central Cavern. There was a Grand Central Cavern. After completing the wall, they instantly dismantled it, brick by brick, and rebuilt it at the other end of the Grand Central Cavern. Then again they took the wall apart and rebuilt it once more back where it had been in the first place. Then again they took it apart, lugged, tugged across, rebuilt. Then again. Again. Again. Again. For hundreds of years they moved the wall from one end to the other and back again. They made new bricks to replace the ones that crumbled. The ones that crumbled they ate. They weren't even lucky enough to eat fresh bricks. They ate crumbled clay, ancient, stale, and broken. Is it any wonder they were a glum, gloomy, grim, grouchy, grumpy lot? And those are only the g's. They were also cranky and crabby. Sullen, sulky, surly. Testy, touchy. Irritably ill-humored. Dejectedly depressed. Fundamentally foul-tempered. Angrily argumentative. Do you see? They were gnomes! Depressed dwarves! And minutes away from crashing through a walled up tunnel to meet them were a 3-toed troll, a frozen witch, an elven chef, a giggling dwarf, and a famously footed Fiddleeebodlian Princess.

EXCERPT 21 – RINDLE MER

One of Harpo's chronicles told the story of Rindle Mer, pictured below. Bekka's knowledge of this story comes in handy during one of her later adventures.

The Woods Beyond the Wood were beyond the Danken Wood in land located east of the Kinngish Queeendom of Fiddleeebod. Formerly rich, lush, moist and leafy, the woods were now brown, gray and dust. All waters, trickle, flow or splash, had vanished, causing green of green to pine away. A final flow, not of water, but of citizens and creatures, abandoned the Woods Beyond the Wood. Stonejangler to wizard, Royalty to fleckrunner, woodlock to miffen, all life spilled out of the dying drying woods in all possible directions – a runaway into Fiddleeebod, a scramble across the Greenwilla River into Clover, a hike up to the Orrun Mountain foothills, a fan out into the unknown east. Who had fled? All but a few. What few? A stubborn two.

The first of the stubborn two moved along a dry streambed, stopping from time to time to wrinkle her chalky gray nose and sniff search for water. Who was she? She was the niece of Riffle Sike, the water wizard. She bent down and scratched at the dirt with her hands. The fingers of her chalky gray hands were webbed, but her thumbs were free. She had orange eyes and her hair was a wild froth of cascading orange ringlets tied back from her unsmiling face with groatvines. She was ten bar years old. She straightened up and continued her purposeful walk down the streambed. Her tunic was chopped and ragged, a rusty leaf weave badly stitched. A twining of groatvines made an adequate belt. Tied to her belt was her purple starred pouchbag. It carried charms and amulets given to her by her uncle. Her name? Her name was Rindle Mer. Her father, Runner Rill, was Riffle Sike's brother, a water wizard who successfully turned himself into a stream and soon thereafter, so it was said, flowed away to join the Greenwilla River. Fair and true, he never saw his daughter. Rindle Mer's mother was a chalky woodlock, one of a tribe of slender gray distant cousins of the Villcom Wood Chalky Grays. Let me tell you by my well, as much as Chalky Grays of Villcom Wood welcome and cherish younglings by the dozens, chalky woodlocks don't. In fact, woodlocks rarely produce younglings, and when they do, they generally give them away. That is bang bo what Delia did. Delia? Delia Branch, chalky woodlock, Rindle Mer's mother. She left the baby nutchling on the bank of Riffle Sike's pool. There Riffle Sike found her. There he raised her. Rindle Mer was a one of ones, an only, neither water wizardess nor chalky woodlock, but truth to say, a strong-willed, solemn faced youngling.

Rindle Mer left the streambed and ran along a narrow winder of a path through thick stands of leafless stiff skeleton trees. She was on her way to the homepool cave to see if her uncle had left yet. Truly, she hoped he had. That's probably why she said "Good" when she plucked up the inner smooth and read its watery runes.

"This be all mine now," she said in her scratchy voice. She had a scratchy voice. "I will find a way to build green back into the woods. I promise ye, woods! Rindle Mer vows!"

"How?" shouted a deep bellow of a voice from somewhere on the other side of a hedge stickle clump. Who or what bellowed? The second of the stubborn two left in the Woods Beyond the Wood. Stubborn? By my well, fair to tell, the second was more curious than stubborn. The second was a visitor, a native dweller of the Danken Wood, a traveller by choice into the dry desolation.

EXCERPT 20 – THE RANGER OF TRAVEL

Lace, the second chronicler, passes through the portal at the bottom of the well and visits Earth in her final story. An excerpt appears below the painting of what I imagine it looks like traveling between portals from Boad to Earth.

There was no splash. The water opened below me, and I fell into a black expanse of night sky spattered with sprinkles of stars and distorted globes of multi-colored lights. I clutched at the air in a panic.

"Settle, Fuzzybug Lacejacket. It be a misuse of energy to flap your arms thus so," said Keevo Bloggum, amused.

"Where's the water?" I gasped, twisting my head around to get a look at the nearby falling ranger of travel, who sat calmly, legs crossed, arms folded, beside me on the nothingness.

"If this well be like the nest portals, when we plunge far enough, time will take us to swim up and be there," explained Keevo.

Had she answered my question? I thought not, but I was understandably lacking wit while falling through starry darkness streaked with rushing twists of vibrant color, and words were nothing but noises of nonsense to me. The ninciest sliver of time had passed, such was so, since I had been standing by the well of a sunny morning splashing my sleepy face with water. Now here I was falling between portals and heading for adventure on your scary world. No wonder my wits were scattered. I hugged myself and stared at Keevo Bloggum. Truth, hugging and staring turned out to be a way to push back fear. Staring at Keevo's calm and smiling green face helped to make the falling become a pleasure. I relaxed and opened my hands. I held them out to feel the rushing push of air from below.

"What did Babba Ja Harick mean about the jesterbeasts?" I asked, recovering some sense of serenity.

"Ah, the jesterbeasts. We must herd them, ye know," replied Keevo.

"Why?"

"The portals be closing," she announced simply.

"Jesterbeasts travel to the world down the well?" I wondered.

"And back. There and back, true and often. Now don't ye see, Fuzzybug Lacejacket? The portals be closing. Jesterbeasts there will be trapped forever if we fail to collect them and return before the last portal closes," explained Keevo Bloggum with a wink and a fair wide grin.

I was glad of her wink and her grin. Falling with a ranger of travel who winked and grinned was a crucial comfort to me, such was so. If the portals closed, jesterbeasts would be stuck in your world forever. That would not be good. I don't mean to insult you, but I suppose I must. I thought what a tragedy it would be to be trapped on your world, unable to escape back to mine. Fair to say, I had to judge from certain horrors I had seen down the well. Truth, such were the thoughts which passed through my mind. Jesterbeasts traveled to your world and back! I never knew. I was the Royal Chronicler of Fiddleeebod, collector of stories for bar years and years, hundreds stacked, and yet I never knew.

"Aha! Prepare," said Keevo Bloggum.

I looked down and saw a milky whirlpool. Plunge. And this time there was a splash. The milkiness filtered away as I rose through the water. Clear crystal, bubble cold, and then my head broke the surface. Keevo Bloggum sat on a great gray boulder in the middle of the pool. Pool, yes. Great gray boulder. I swam over and joined the ranger of travel.

EXCERPT 19 – LAND OF THE RAINBOW GIANTS

The wild and energetic Triplet Princesses Three take center stage in Harpo's Chronicle, The Land of the Rainbow Giants. In the rough sketch below, that's Wun on the left, Tuu in the middle, and Thrii on the right.

"Don't wake them, Mal. It's so peaceful when they sleep," said the Kinng.

"Doesn't I know it?" replied his Queeeen. She nevertheless tugged on the Princess Summoner with her chalky gray thumb and forefinger. "Be it as it are, it am more than enough."

The Most High Royal Couple of the Kinngish Queeendom of Fiddleeebod waited in the castle courtyard next to the door of the high turret tower. The Queeeen, Malvina was her name, pulled once more, impatient tug, on the Princess Summoner.  ting ting. Fair and true, Princess Summoner is simply the name for a string one hundred feet long attached to a tinkly bell. Any tinkly bell? Any really long string? No and no. The bell hung there at the top of the spiral staircase in a position just so outside the oaken door to the Princessly Room. The string dangled down, long and straight, to await a tug from a hand, any hand, at the turret tower's courtyard entrance. None but Royal Princesses were allowed at all without the most especially formal and written down in ink permission to set foot, hoof, tentacle or claw inside the roundly high tower. Not even Kinngs. Not even Queeeens.

Double moons in the orange dawn hung low. The oat fields outside the castle walls hid in mist. The gray moat water steamed cold wispy. One beeket bird sang a squawk, then ruffled a plump and double blinked its black orange eyes. Orange and black. Dawn's early light. Gray. And not a whisper of a wind.  ting ting.  ting ting.

"Enough Ringing!

We am up!"

"Wake up, Tuuey!

TUUEY, WAKE !"

"Mumph."

"QUIET!!"

"STOP!!  AAAAAA!!

Wun! Give it back!"

"Make me."

"Mmph, not yet.

Good dream."

"MOTHER, Wunny took

my wing chalk!"

"That's right, tell.  Here

are your ratty chalk."

"OWW!  All right then."

"Mmmmmmm,

rainbow."

"Leave that alone, Thrii.

I are warning you."

"You am warning me?

Plaaaah!"

"Mmmmmmm,

melty."

ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting!

"All right, all right, stop the

wretched ringing!

"I hope you drown

in Longthin Lake."

"If I does, I are taking

YOU with me."

"Tuuey, get up."

"Tuuey, we have to go."

"Hmm?  Oh, are it time

to go? Am Jay Dot here?"

"Jay Dot!  Jay Dot!"

"JayDotJayDot!

Tuuey am droopy for

Jay Dot. Owwww!"

The Triplet Princesses of Fiddleeebod had awakened.

BLURB FOR 'THE CARVEN FLUTE'

A blurb is the short publicity notice on a book jacket. Below is a working model of the blurb for the soon to be available second Bekka chronicle, 'The Carven Flute'.

The Carven Flute unmasks previously unknown truths about a pair of legends, one from another world, one from this one.  Bekka of Thorns and her shapeshifter best friend Kar, creatures of the other world, set off to break through a magic Barrier and to interview Babba Ja Harick, the immortal lavender witch, concerning the true fate of the Carven Flute, otherwise known as Jo Bree.  On doing so, they hear from Babba Ja Harick's lips the real story of what happened to her sister Semma, who deep in the past fled down the Well of Shells to the strange world of Earth and built a gingerbread house in a wood where she later became legend after an encounter with a pair of children.  After hearing this story, the youthful pair quest to find the Carven Flute, and Bekka of Thorns, especially chosen for the task, uses it to reopen the portals between the two worlds, portals which had been sealed for eons.

EXCERPT 18 – QUEN NIM

The formidable Princess pictured below is Nimble Missst. She is the focus of two stories. One was written long ago by Harpo. The other is this one, Quen Nim, written by Bekka.

"Ridiculous," said Nimble Missst. She stood on the ledge part way down the cliff and close by the cascading O'Tan Falls. "Ridiculous times three."

She shook her head of flame orange curls, which truth grew green at the roots. She shook a smoke ash green fist. Her startling violet eyes flashed in frustration. She stamped a web-toed foot. She opened her powder blue wings and flung herself into the falls. She fluttered for a satisfying drench. She misted green and twined in foggy spires through and around and up the falls. She jelled solid at the top of the cliff and swam fiercely against the racing river's current, slamming the water with her wide-spread webbed fingers and toes. She bobbed up, flew to the shore, settled. She misted again and hovered there, a shimmering green cloud. She jelled in red vest and pantaloons, arms folded, startling violet eyes smoldering with anger.

"Ridiculous," she repeated. It was her favorite word. Such was so. She was Nimble Missst, a Princess true of Cloud Castle City. She was famous for her snapjaw mind. As a solver of puzzles and riddles she reigned unchallenged. As a youngling with scant ten bar years of life, hadn't she solved the rebus of the Lemonlime Dragon? She had. Such was a truth known from the Swump of Greedge in Clover to Fan Wa's Island in the Wide Great Sea, from Skrabble to the Chack Tree Forest, from the Woeful Wanderers' Wasteland to the Woods Beyond the Wood. She was that well known and respected for her snapjaw mind. Now possessed with fifteen bar years of life, her snapjaw mind snapped sharper than ever. Sharp and snap were words that fit her. She took so such her prickly outward manner from her mother. Her mother was Rindle Mer, the unsmiling watery woodlock. Nimble Missst's hidden soft heart she took from her grandfather, Dabber of the West, and from her grandmother, Lady May of Orrun, and, truth also lastly, from her father, Jay Dot of Orrun.

"Ridiculous, but if it is to be so, it will be done my way," Nimble Missst promised herself.

She lifted from the river bank and flew in thoughtful leisure back over the cliff and down to the ledge. On landing, she walked to a crevice in the cliff face at the back of the ledge and reached her arm into it up to the elbow. She felt the soft shimmery material with the webs and fingers of her smoke ash green hand. She clutched and brought out her Grampa's silver cape with the gold clasp. It was the cape he'd been wrapped in when he'd found himself flying to the ledge next to O'Tan Falls. His first memory. Nothing before. Such was so. Nimble Missst had heard the tale countless times at her insistence from her Grampa. Special bonded tight and strong was the link between Nimble Missst and her Grampa, Dabber of the West. The cape belonged now to Nimble, and so too did the ledge. The ledge where Dabber of the West lived his younglinghood was now Nimble Missst's personal retreat. She spent half the year there, truth to be told, playing in and around the falls and thinking. That is the why that it was ever so such easy to find her whenever she was needed.

"That's why it's so easy to find me," she muttered to herself, clasping the cape around her shoulders. "I should find other hidden retreats. Ridiculous. I'm supposed to have a snapjaw mind. There are plenty of other places. Thousands! But they aren't here. They aren't Grampa's ledge and the Falls. Treat it like a puzzle, Nim. A puzzle stands no chance against the likes of ye."

She chuckled at her latest thought and nodded with a frown. She misted, cape and all, floated as a sparkling green cloud into the sky. She drifted, dawdling and plotting, toward Orrun Mountain.