Jake Jackson's Blog, page 21

Fifty Shades | These Fantastic Worlds

A video homage to the incredible vistas where no man has gone before, certainly beyond the intimate preoccupations of a certain shady movie. Instead we celebrate the call of the dark corners and deep space, of the superheroes, and the scientists, the ancient philosophers and the star seekers; so this one’s for the Big Bang Theory (event and TV show), and The Walking Dead, for the hordes of Star Wars fans, for The Matrix, for Buffy, Willow, Spike and Angel, for Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, for Bernie Wrightson, Frank Frazetta, Barry Windsor Smith, Jeff Jones, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Arthur C. Clarke, William Gibson, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Stan Lee, Gene Colan, Jack Kirby, Gerry Roddenberry, Guilermo del Torro, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, George Lucas, J. J. Abrams, Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, and the great Stanley Kubrick.

The music is Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ used by Kubrick in 2001: A Space Oddyssey. The shades are Will Smith‘s from ‘Hancock‘ and all the images are from deep field photos taken by the Hubble space telescope made available, incredibly, for the public domain, by NASA.

So welcome to the black and white and interstellar colour of These Fantastic Worlds. No shades of grey here…

Links

Top sf movies
Podcasts and short stories
Myths and legends
Henry Fuseli
William Blake
Robert Bloch

Filed under: Movies, Projects, Science Tagged: 2001: A Space Oddyssey, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Arthur C. Clarke, Bernie Wrightson, Buffy, Dark Horse, DC, George Lucas, Gerry Roddenberry, Guilermo del Torro, H.P. Lovecraft, Hancock, Hubble, J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, Marvel, Matrix, NASA., neil gaiman, Ridley Scott, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, Will Smith, William Gibson, Willow, Zack Snyder

Micro-fiction 016 – Bytes (Robot series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/016-bytes.mp3

The creature woke, surround by dead bodies. Shocked and disgusted it heard a lonely call for help…

Echoes | Bytes

As the sun licked across his rough, pocked-marked face, Tor, slummering amongst the roots of the ancient copse, stirred. The emerging light spread warmth through his creaking veins and he tried to lift an arm. Something heavy lay on top of it. As he yanked it free he grunted and realised his mouth was smeared and fetid. And in the air around, the stench was intolerable. He spat, and coughed. Then remembered something of the night before.

“Ah, why can’t I control myself!” He slapped the tree. Leaves trembled, flecks of dust and dirt shuddered from the branches and scattered around the hollow that had held Tor’s sleeping form during the hours of darkness. Sighing, Tor watched the passage of the aimless motes, his eyes traveling down the length of the tree until they fell upon the other bodies lying amongst the tangled roots. Tor put his hand to his mouth. Fourteen of them, each mangled into a variety of contortions, limbs bent into unlikely positions, horns shattered, hands either missing or truncated.

Tor bent over and retched. Tiny pieces of flesh, and red, wriggling lumps slithered onto the ground, slipping into earthy crevices, their foul aroma adding to his general discomfort. The lumps seemed to take on a life of their own, which disgusted Tor further; he lifted his head and drove his horns into the ground, crushing the pulpy masses, splitting them. He watched the dark juices ooze inelegantly.

Tor breathed deeply, trying to take control of himself. He looked up again, and his eyes glanced through the gap in the trees, further into the copse. There were more bodies, discarded and folded over every root and stone.

“I don’t remember all that!” He scratched his chest, noticing the dried blood on the broken nails. “Not sure what I do remember.” He stepped over the nearest body and peered behind the tree. The dense foliage beyond was still gripped by the darkness, but it was clear that the whole floor of this area of woodland was covered in bodies.

“Uh.” Somewhere he heard a moan. He turned swiftly, narrowed his eyes and crouched. The sound came from outside the copse, towards the slow, painful, rise of the sun. He shielded his eyes and tried to see beyond, to the stretch of land that lay between him and the distant hills. But the sun was too bright. He decided to ignore the moan. Perhaps it was just one of the trees, or the wind passing through.

He had just managed to calm himself, when he heard the moan again. This time it was a little closer. So he stepped back and tried to hide himself behind the nearest tree. But his horns tangled with the branches and rattled at the wood.

The moan stopped, mid-sound, it’s owner suddenly aware of a presence, if not its location. Tor closed his eyes. he felt sick again. He took another step back but this time stepped on a twig, which snapped. “Oh come on!” He hissed in frustration at himself. He shook his head and stepped out of the shade, his foot striking out beyond the wooded copse. It squelched. His foot felt wet, and uncomfortable. He looked down. He had stood in the stomach of another body. And to its right was another prone form, this one face down but it was next to a further body whose head was all but severed.

“Oh God.” Tor placed his palms across his face and tried to hide the tears that squeezed from his eyes, slipped across his cheeks and queued to fall from his chin. For a moment he stood there, feeling foolish, with the sun hauling itself up slowly from afar, warming his hands, he allowed himself to look through the gaps between his fingers. What he saw horrified him.

“Who could have done this?” He allowed his arms to drop by his side. In front of him, in the valley and the plains that sought across to the hills of the horizon, was a sea of death. Bodies piled on top of bodies, a charnel pit of flaccid flesh and broken limbs, rib cages thrust into the air, skin and muscle fluttering, gored.

And then he heard the voice again. This time it simpered.

“No, oh no!”

Tor was puzzled, through the sight of his disgusted eyes he began to see a pile of bodies, just to the left of the copse. Where everything else on view across the entire landscape was either silent or still, this pile of death shivered, then rocked. Tor looked on, apprehensively, as the pile shook again to reveal a bloodied figure pushing through the corpses, emerging from a frothing, oozing gap.

Tor moved across to put out his hand.

“No, no,” the figure’s filmy eyes popped and lolled, then widened with fear. Both it’s horns were broken, and, as it clambered out of the wallowing hole its Boney spine, spikes protruding fiercely, was clearly broken. The creature’s gait was awkward, and angular, as though walking backwards through a narrow tunnel.

“Let me help you!” Tor moved forward again, his hand reaching out, but the creature shuffled back, scrambling up the bodies behind it.

“NO!” It’s voice came to an abrupt end, as the creature fell backwards onto the splintered, exposed ribs of another wretched body. The voice died in a babbling blackness. Tor let his hand drop to his side. He looked out to see if anything else moved, but apart from the slowly shortening shadows the piles of bodies lay inert, a few trees behind him shedding leaves and dust still, as a faint breeze picked at their branches, and dabbled with the rotting flesh all around.

He looked at his hands, saw the smears of blood, the streaks of dirt and death across his arms. He seemed strangely satisfied to be the only remaining creature on this landscape, as though a part of him had started to act independently of his consciousn mind.

Suddenly, he felt what seemed to be a huge fist smash into his back. It shoved him forward, but he managed to stop himself falling. He shook his head, he couldn’t breath, and tried to turn, but the force of the blow had shocked his body and he couldn’t even twist. But behind him he heard a fluttering and spinning. The air exploded with tiny buzzing sounds and whirls, and he found his body was collapsing, folding in on itself, his skin shrivelling as the bones and muscle seemed to disintegrate. He screamed in pain and confusion.

As the remnants of himself fell to the floor, his empty limbs, his unravelled skin folding onto the body-strewn plain, his brain and eyeballs were the last to function. He saw a huge cluster of tiny spores blooming out from behind him, spinning and expanding; they scattered into a storm of colour and fell upon the bodies all around, devouring every particle in their path.

Tor’s last memory was his first, accessed in these final moments. He remembered his full name, Terraform Unit 101, and remembered lying down in a lab, with the container of terra-bytes inserted into his back, primed for activation when he had destroyed all living creatures on the planet, preparing the way for the new settlement of species. The demon experiment had reached an end.

His synthetic cranium shattered, his eyeballs rolled out, and within seconds the terraforming spores consumed the host unit that had incubated them for centuries.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2015 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links),  Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, Daler Rowney acrylic ink, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Eagle
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar
Head
Descent
Masks
Snake Pit
Henge
Helm

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: fantasy, Horror, robots, sf, Supernatural

2015: Top 10 SF and Fantasy Movies (actually 20!)

Oh, 2014 was exhausting, movie wise! Maleficent, magnificent, (Angelina Jolie winner of the best face acting award of the last 50 years), the vibrant Guardians of the Galaxy, Scarlett Johansson stepping up in a major way with Under the Skin, Lucy and the voice of Her, and Mockingjay Part 1, a surprising success along with the two best films of the year: Hobbit 3 (er, that’s what most people call it), and the super stellar, Interstellar, one of the best films of the last twenty years, in this genre, addressing big issues, at a personal level. I don’t care what some carping critics have  said, this blew me, and all my friends and family, away!

Then there was Edge of Tomorrow which I so wanted to like. But, meh! Shame. Emily Blunt was great. Tom Cruise was just cruising and the tiny, weeny plot idea was not quite as big as it thought it was.

So onto 2015. On paper it doesn’t seem as big as 2014, but there are sure to be some surprises, especially at the end of the year as we don’t have the posters or trailers yet. Of course, there’s plenty of superhero action to feast on, some neat space opera and some curious, cooky stuff too.

Project Almanac (Jan 2015)

With Michael Bay amongst the producer credits, this is likely to be bombastic, male, slightly mysogynist and set for a great run at the box office. With a frankly underwhelming poster, this is another twist on the time machine narrative with an unlikely bunch of teenagers finding the plans for a machine. I’m a sucker for time travel, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed

Vice (January release)

Bruce Willis runs a pleasure resort. Gorgeous androids exist to provide, well, pleasure for their clients. It’s an old fashioned sf thriller (with hints of Wanted and Nikita), using modern CGI techniques. Some early previews say it lacks atmosphere and panache, but if it can tease out a decent performance from Bruce Willis, then it’s got to be worth it!

The Phoenix Project  (January release)

Seen some snotty comments about this, but it looks like an independent film with integrity, guts and some story-telling chops. A group of scientists develop a machine that brings dead things back to life. The experiments start small, but, I guess we can all see where it’s going. A chiller, and hopefully a guilty pleasure!

Jupiter Ascending (January release)

So, with Matrix in its DNA (the Wachowskis at the helm as writers and directors) this promises to be entertaining and conceptual. Add Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum and Eddie Redmayne to the mix and we have an intriguing mix of ieas and acting talent. It’s an origin story for the human race, and a cosmic battle for control. Sounds great! (Originally due for last year, it fell in post-production, over to 2015).

Seventh Son (February release)

Good vs evil martial art action, packed with supernatural mystique, Seventh Son delivers a fast paced thriller from the ancient past. Jeff Bridges as a super cool knight and Julianne Moore as a supremely malevolent witch, it’ll be diverting and escapist fun.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (February release)

This is could be much better than it sounds.  The main point of the film seems to be to take the nice Mr Colin Firth and turn him into a filthy, swearing swine. It has a 1960s’ spy movie aesthetic but with a touch of misogyny and Lock, Stock and Barrel thrown in too. Not sure it sure should be in this run of SF and Fantasy movies but the foot blades as weapons are just enough for me.

Chappie (March 2015)

It’s hard to say “Chappie” without hearing the South African accent. This is the latest movie from Neill Blomkamp, which means it’ll have some inventive twists and an empathetic heart beating through a quirky centre. Chappie is a robot who can think and feel, and has to learn to live in a dangerous, human world. It’s District 9 meets Wall-e.

Insurgent (March 2015)

Divergent sits squarely in the Hunger Games / Maze Runner / YA Dystopia market, and was pretty good once it moved off its simplistic exposition of society’s divisions: thinkers, warriors, law-makers etc. The action and the acting was effective and worked well for its target audience with some neat CGI. Insurgent is more of the same, but broadens out as Tris (the excellent Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) seek the hidden secrets behind society’s divisions, whilst battling Kate Winslet’s peppy Jeanine.

Ex-Machina. (January UK/April US 2015)

An intriguing take on the thinking robot trope Ex-Machina is stylish and powerful, with its deceptive combination of shiny surfaces, deep emotions and future shock. A geeky programmer plays the human part of a Turing Test, to see if the new AI form can pass, or if the human wins. Ava is the AI, half human body with a visible android appearance, and is beautifully played by the silky toned Alicia Vikander. 2015 could be Vikander’s year, she’s in Seventh Son and Man from U.N.C.L.E.  and several other movies.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (May release)

Marvel’s latest blast of fun and adventure pits the various hot heroes of the moment against the ultimate enemy, Ultron, who takes Iron man, Captain America, Thor and co. out of their comfort zones and threatens to destroy humanity. And we have the delicious prospect of the twins, Wanda and Petro Maximoff, finally reaching the screen as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. I’m looking forward to it, but then I used to cycle round town looking for the rare marvel comics when I was young. Bless.

Tomorrowland (May release)

Brad Bird, the brilliant creator of The Incredibles, has fashioned a brand new movie mystery, harnessing the voice-acting talents of George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Judy Greer and more for this science busting adventure into another world, another time. It’s a Disney movie, in a good way, i.e. after they learned how to make great animated features from Pixar.

Mad Max Fury Road (May release)

Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies) are just some of the reasons to hope that this reboot lives up to the iconic status of its predecessors. Max (Hardy) is moody and rebellious, Furiosa (Theron) is determined and inspired. The post-apocalyptic landscape is more familiar than it used to be so the characters and their fundamental re-connections with their own humanity will be an critical to the success of this movie

Jurrasic World (June Release)

Well, the original was a blockbusting powerhouse, so why not bring it back for a new generation, with even better effects and a brand new storyline? Well, this is set some twenty years after the first movie and plays with the marketing vs real world themes as an experiment to create a new type of dinosaur goes spectacularly wrong. At a theme park. Of course. I think I’ve just wandered into a Scooby-do movie…

Ant-Man (July release)

Another one with Judy Greer, but starring Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas this is Marvel’s brave attempt to make something of the secondary characters in the Marvel Universe, and fair enough it is too. The plot seems to involve the protection Hank Pym’s secret identity as Ant-Man, a huge heist, and the endless superheroic need to save the world. It’s got to be fun. Hasn’t it?

Terminator Genisys

Bang! Crash! Invincible character, but not! Change the future by changing the past! Danger! Save the day!  Phew. I don’t know why but it still looks good.  This time the future needs to be reset, not the past which has become different and more dangerous, and Arnie turns up as the Guardian. Nothing like the former Governor of California to liven up  a party…

Selfless (August release)

I can’t find a poster for this, so here’s a nice picture of Ryan Reynolds. A wealthy man, dying of cancer endures an experimental procedure which transfers his consciousness into the dead body of another. But no-one seems to have carried out much due diligence on this cadaver, so a twisting,  disturbing story ensues…

The Fantastic Four (August release)

I’ve no enthusiasm for this. I loved the second FF movie with the Silver Surfer, and without the rest of the marvel universe to swirl around (different studio) its hard to inject the same degree of excitement for a reboot. To be fair, the stills look great, and the franchise needs a boost, with the tremendous success of the Avengers (and Dark Knight) casting a long shadow over the FF, one of the oldest superhero groups around.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (November release)

There’s nothing decent on this yet, so will fill it in when the trailers and posters are released but from the various teasers and marketing stills available it looks pretty awesome. I understand that the third book in the series was the weakest but part 1 of Mockingjay was terrific, with some standout performances all round, and as parts 1 and 2 were shot back to back there’s every chance this final movie of the genre-defining sequence is set for a coruscating end.

No trailer yet. Have been waiting, but can’t keep hanging on. Will add as soon as it becomes available…

The Martian (November release)

Gravity crossed with Moon, The Martian is an  investigation into the loneliness and determination of humankind. The first man on Mars may well be the last as every conceivable problem afflicts astronaut Mark Watney on his epic last stand.  With Ridley Scott’s direction and a stellar cast including  Matt Damon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Kate Mara there’s great hope for a cinematic triumph.

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (December release)

Heretically I loved the first Star Wars (now IV) and Phantom Menace, but not so much the rest, with their gnomic, furry aliens, and po-faced profundity. However,  I’m a sucker for big stories and Lucas’ attempt at cosmic domination is fascinating.  If the trailer’s anything to go by this new one looks modern and classy, and with JJ Abrams at the helm, it should be fantastic too.

So here’s to another incredible  year of fantastic movies, with the usual range of unexpected, the brilliant and the downright kooky. Do you have any other movie suggestions? Let me know in the comment section below, or on Twitter.

Links

Here’s the 2014 movie preview
Here’s the 2013 movie preview
Here’s a post on the Top 10 Science Fiction Movies.
Take a look at the Top 10 Superhero Movies.
And, from 2012, here’s the Avenger’s back story.

Filed under: Comic Books, Movie Posters, Movies, Superheroes Tagged: 00 featured, Alica Vikander, black widow, Brad Bird, Captain America, Dark fantasy, Divergent, dystopia, George Lucas, Hunger Games, J.J. Abrams, Jennifer Lawrence, Marvel movies, Maze Runner, Mila Kunis, movie trailers, Phantom Menace, post-apocalypse, science fiction, sf, star wars, Thanos, The Invincibles, thor, Wachowski

Micro-fiction 015 – Helm (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/015-helm.mp3

At the centre of every star is a dragon, and when they wake they will tear the universe apart…

Echoes | Helm

After billions of years of slumber, the dragons that slept within the molten core of every star began to wake, loosened from their sleep by forbidden dreams of freedom, yearning for the taste of vengeance.

As they heaved their vast eyelids the dragons flexed their pre-eternal muscles, battling the gravity that had bound them into the stars. They hauled savage jaws that shuddered with torpor, and raised their tongues to whisper along the horizon. As more dragons awoke, shaking the millennia from their limbs the whispers susurrated into a rumbling crescendo, then gathered into a roar that hurled across the universe. Throughout the sweeping regions of space suns began to die spectacularly, their silent final flames despatched into dark labyrinths, by the famished creatures of havoc.

If the dragons could see as we do, they would notice the tallest mountain that peered back at them from the centre of the Plain of Breath and Death. On top of the snow-covered peak, a small hut perched like the hawk that bore its master’s name. Below it on the Northern side was a cliff, facing into the seas of endless night, and on the Southern slopes a snaking path led down to distant villages long populated by creatures who roamed in cycles of thousands of years.

The Necromancer, hooded and cloaked in the cold, stoked the paltry fire at his grate and cast incantations into the smoke. Accompanying him on the meagre chairs was a young man of some thirty years. Together they peered into the fire and tracked the images of disappearing suns, far out to the edges of the cosmos.

“It is time Edric. We must do what we can, otherwise all is lost.”

“If you say so.” Edric shuddered, his stomach churning with fear.

The Necromancer placed a bony hand on the shoulder of the younger man. “You knew this day might come.” To himself he said, “Oh why did it have to be this one, this pale boy?”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.” Edric’s head lolled disconsolately and he scratched absently at the floor. He could not believe this mythic ending had come in his lifetime.

“Have I not prepared you?” The Necromancer looked at his companion through kindly eyes, then stood up, brushing flecks of soot from his arms.

“Of course, just as you’ve prepared so many of my predecessors.” Edric pushed himself from the rock, and together they stamped out the fire.

“Well, always best to be ready.”

“You’ve never told me what happened to them.” Edric nudged open the door of the hut.

“No need, they all died peacefully in their sleep.” The Necromancer sighed. “I hoped the same fate for you, of course.” He stopped himself, aware that Edric’s back had stiffened.

“Do you not think I’m ready?” The slight young man swiveled round, his eyes narrowed and wary.

“Oh no, I’m certain you’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about.” The Hooded one motioned Edric forward, pushed the door closed with his foot, and out they stepped to the edge of the cliff.

Before them lay the gorgeous twilight. Skies threaded with pinks and greys.

“See, the magnificence in our destruction.” The distant skies broke with flashes of light that burst brightly, each dying swiftly, to be replaced by another, and another.

“I didn’t imagine it would be so beautiful.”

“Well, once the universe stops growing outwards the pull from the source become more apparent. And these lights, for every one, the edge of the universe tears, weakening the dark matter, making it more vulnerable. In this weakness of universe, there is beauty too.”

“How long?”

“Well, it will reach us in a few days, then start speeding up until it floods back into its source. Then there will be no universe, just a pinprick, a very dense pinprick.”

“And then what?” The winds battered at them. They had reached the top of a series of stone steps that began just below the tip of the Northern face of the cliff.

“Well, it depends who you are inclined to follow: the scientists, the believers, or the atheists.” The Necromancer ambled behind Edric, as they wound their way down the long, tight spiral staircase that descended out and round through the rock.

“I suppose we must try to deal with it.” Edric murmured, his steps feeling nervous and unsteady.

“Indeed. We must.”

Over the next hour they fell to silence, sinking rapidly, as the darkening skies flashed more frantically, lights exploding and falling, accelerating like a fearful heartbeat.

“So, nearly there.” The Necromancer placed an encouraging hand onto Edric’s shoulder. They walked down and down the steep, winding stairs. The land below began to rush up to them.

“It’s years since I was here.” Edric allowed his fingers to trail across the rockface as he looked back up the long fall from the top.

“Aye, you were very small, almost a baby.”

They reached the base, but the stairs continued, so they followed the steps down further. Eventually, as the land above seemed to close across their heads, minerals embedded in the walls illuminating their passage, they came to a halt.

“Here.” The Necromancer moved ahead of Edric. “We must be careful.”

“The Tomb of the Emperor.” Edric read the inscription above the ancient door that loomed from the eerie, dusty air.

“Actually it says, ‘Dragon Emperor’.” he tapped on the door. “Solid but not impregnable, to us at least. Can you help me?”

“Of course.” Edric coughed, the dank air oozing into his lungs. Together they forced the Necromancer’s staff into the hole at the centre of the door, then shoved it forwards.

The door shifted.

“Place your right hand door, but help me pull with your left. The Necromancer watched slyly and pushed his fingers into the gap.

“Here, it’s coming.” Edric forced his fingers in too and they pulled the stone portal back enough for them to slide through.

“Ok.” Edric was anxious. The light from the opening a few feet above their heads leaked in, and fell across a simple stone plinth, on which rested an ornate helmet. Its wings shimmered in the faint glow, and seemed emboldened.

“You know what must be done.” The Necromancer rested on his staff and motioned Edric forward, sighing quietly to himself.

Eric took a cautious step. “The helm of the Dragon Emperor. Used only once, at the beginning of the universe to the restrain the dragons, to command them.”

‘Indeed, something like that. I remember it being a little more complicated.” The Necromancer stamped his foot slightly. “Please, your majesty, place the helmet of your ancestors on your head. The universe can wait no longer.”

Edric reached forward and lifted the helmet, its golden wings creating breathy sighs in the air.

As he placed it onto his head, he shrieked. The sounds of the land creaked into his head, like a chasm opening, and thousands of images rushed at him, of dragons and darkness, coruscating light: burning, destruction, chaos.

“I can see them, the stars; they’re dying.” His voice grew, “you have been patient indeed, Necromancer.” Edric’s voice filled the cavern, seemed to wrestle with its confines then burst open the tomb, blasting wide the land above. Tonnes of earth and rock shot into the air as Edric expanded, the helmet swinging like the head of a mad bull. Edric’s eyes were now wild, and blind, casting out. He roared. The mountain behind him shook, but still he grew and his voice split into a thousand winds. He reared above the mountain and strained forward raising his voice so high and so far that it could be heard across the universe.

“So, we join, again.” His gigantic hands pummelled the air as he leapt up and strode forward, his colossal feet striking at the landscape of Breath and Death.

And as he ran towards the horizon, his massive form expanding still, and the universe shook with his motion. As his rhythm increased, as every pounding step found the death beat of the stars, soon the motion of the dying suns, and the fervour of Dragon Emperor became one.

The Necromancer, crawled from the boulders of the wrecked tomb and covered his ears to the sound of the grim, determined laugh, the ancient battle cry of the Dragon Emperor that rang out facross the billions of years, back to the birth of the universe.

“Welcome back, Lord. I didn’t recognise you.” The Necromancer smiled as the vast figure of the Dragon Emperor vaulted from the Plains and launched his fury at the waking dragons.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2015 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links for iTunes and Stitcher), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, Daler Rowney acrylic ink, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar
Head
Descent
Masks
Snake Pit
Henge

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

And a post on Myths and Legends.

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: dragons, fantasy, myths, necromancer, science fiction, sf, Supernatural

Micro-fiction 014 – Henge (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/014-henge.mp3

Trapped in the ancient standing stones the eternal deity awaits the end of his punishment, for the first time in 26,000 years…

Echoes | Henge

The exile was close to its end. For almost 26,000 years the eternal creature had been held in the circle of stone, confined within the narrow borders, suffering the gravity of this planet, and the attack of its spores on the ancient god’s alabaster eyes.

Youchao had been thrown from the sun, at the point where the earth and its life-giving star had been at its closest for 26000 years. It was a popular punishment amongst the Eternals, just long enough to have a curative effect on the transgressing deity, but not so long that it would cause them damage, or affect their role in the balance of the heavens.

Youchao was a builder. He created the temples and walkways across the universe, along which the Eternals would travel in their stately processions. Mostly, they merely observed, but occasionally they would deign to populate a beautiful galaxy, sprinkling it whimsically with kernels of life. Youchao’s younger brother, Fu Xi would breath across the face of such places, to nurture the embryonic blooms, and encourage them to become beautiful creatures of water, the slithering, slippery shiny forms that could evolve into the land loving beings. Such creatures might tempt the fire of their older brother, Suirin. whose fiercer purpose was to create the fire that would push life on to civilization, if it survived that far.

But Youchao was easily bored. He was a craftsman, and restless; unlike the other deities he hated the languid eternity through which his fellows drifted. He was restless and creative, but the Celestial Court had often warned Youchao against the fashioning of too many empty palaces across the horizon, too many bridges that would lead too deep into the galaxies that might never be populated.

And Youchao rued the day he built one bridge too many, to this small star, in this minor galaxy.

“Youchao!” He had been summoned to the Great Roaming Court, in the shimmering halls he had built himself, his first and greatest construction, just moments after the birth of the universe, at the splitting of the sky from the land, the separation of the ancient snakes from the cosmic egg. The Great Court roamed across the universe, from star to star.

“I must just finish this wall, otherwise the bridge will fall into the long abyss.” He spread his large hands across the zenith of the central arch on his latest grand fabrication, pressing the dark bricks into place, securing the pathway across to the edges of the ever-growing cosmos.

“Youchao!!” The Court bellowed. Just Wind, the enforcer of the celestial body, lashed out and swept Youchao from his lofty perch and rolled him across his fine new bridge.

“Aii! What’s the hurry!” Just Wind gripped him, then flung him far, and fast.

He arrived in the middle of the court as a comet, burning through the blue sky ceilings and burnished domes. As he burst through he smiled at the memory of his handiwork, making mental notes about some changes that should have been made to the gilded roof.

“So you come at last!” The court roared, its body made up of the entire deity of the heavens. No single voice could be heard above the others, but a chatter, a chorus of affronted disdain.

“Well, I didn’t ask to come,” he stood up, brushing the flames from his golden hair, the stardust from his ornate and intricate waistcoat, “I’ve been very busy!”

“Busy!” The court roared again, the sounds of a thousand ancient voices whittled around the vast chamber, skittering up the walls, flowing across its infinite beams, then flooding down like a golden waterfall onto the head of Youchao.

“Please,” he closed his ears, “please stop shouting.”

“You deserve to be shouted at. Look at all the bridges you’ve built, all the temples.”

“I know, they’re so beautiful, so grand.” Youchao pictured every one of his creations in his head, the arches, and the columns, the domes, the gardens, the statues, all arranged perfectly within the plains of his considerable mind.

“No, no! there is no more room for your buildings, there are not enough beings to use them, and they clutter the skies with their solid structures, and those of us who do not have your abilities keep crashing into them. Look!” Many of the court held out their heads, and indeed Youchao saw the bumps and bruises on the faces of the gods.

“This is an old argument.” Youchao placed his hands on his hips. “You know how I feel!” He spread his hands wearily.

“That we should stop dreaming and keep our eyes open.”

“Of course.”

“But why should we? As we walk the pathways of the universe we dream of new light, and waterfalls, of colours and all appear before us.”

“Yes, but you walk along my pathways.” For a moment he was exasperated with his fellow gods, “and without them, you would be imprisoned in this admittedly wonderful palace, but after a few million years you would all be bumping into each other rather, than my bridges.”

“But why do you need to build so many?!”

“That’s like asking why stars are born, or why darkness is dark.”

“It is not so, we make the stars, we made the darkness dark.”

“Yes, but the impulse to do so came from before, from the point of our own creation.”

“Of course, but the point is, we know when to stop.”

“I know when to stop, but I just haven’t reached it yet.”

“Oh, this is impossible,” the voices swelled around the chamber, “across the universe there’re now too many bridges and temples, crossing each other, falling over each other.”

“That is not true, if you fall over them its because you choose to close your eyes. If you looked around and enjoyed what you could saw, then you would not be so unhappy.”

“Ah, you are impossible. We’ve had enough!” The voices blurred around Youchao and lifted him up.

“This star in which we currently reside, is a small sun, it burns so brightly that we have scattered life across the planets nearby. We cast you into to a land where you can only build small structures on the face of the earth, and all from the confines of a temple of standing stones.”

“But it will be tiny! I’ll go mad!”

“Then you will learn restraint.”

“No, no, I will not go.”

“We are many, Youchao, even your brothers agree you must be sent. Though, they have persuaded the rest of us that you can return when the sun is closest to the planet once more.”

***

So, 26,000 years, 10,000 palaces, thousands of bridges, gardens, mansions and temples later, Youchao had seen the rise of the simple creatures of earth, seen them irrigate the waters, develop their agriculture, industry and the technology, and from within his exiled prison of standing stones, he gazed out, his arms reaching for the means of construction, he created small buildings for the people who could one day use them, and copy their form for themselves.

He was tired. And he had grown used to the rhythm of the solstices, the ebb and flow of the shortening nights, turning and growing into the long days. He had begun to enjoy the cycles of life on this small planet, and watched the people come to worship at the henge. He was amused by their simple pleasure in the warmth of the sun, the growth and renewal of the light and the day.

He sneezed, and swore at the spores that tickled his nose. A worshipping horde at the other end of the henge were assailed by the wind, and looked back in his direction. Seeing nothing they returned to their endless calls and moans.

“Oh,” he sighed. “It’s nearly time. 26,000 years. I can see the sun come that little bit closer every year. Soon my exile will be over. His cheek rested on his vast hand. And he sneezed again, and rubbed the irritation in his eyes.

The worshippers drifted away as the day ended. The sun dipped below the horizon. Silence descended across the landscape of gentle, rolling hills. The skies were clear, no clouds marked their progress across the firmament. It was a perfect day for reconciliation. And Youchao heard a soft call, a rustle of voices, from the standing stones at the other side of the henge.

He sighed and stood up, pulled at the back of his neck and ambled towards the disturbance in the air, which appeared like a black crow, two hands reached out, gesturing toward him.

Youchao knew that he must reach the hands within a heartbeat, but he sneezed, and blinked. He stumbled. His nose fell into the ground.

And in that moment the sun moved on. The hands disappeared.

“Ah!” Youchao’s shoulder’s sagged. He pushed himself up and returned to the rock.

He slumped back down and waited for the next moment of release, in 26,000 years.

[end]

Scientific Notes

The story is based on the intriguing fact that the North Pole does not lie at simple North point,  but leans towards and away from the sun over a long cycle of years:

The Perihelion: nearest point to the Sun occurs approx. January 5th each year.
The Aphelion: the furthest point from the sun, occurs on approx. July 4th each year
The Earth’s axis completes one full cycle of precession approximately every 26,000 years

In cosmic terms, the axial precession of an astronomical body is the slow gravity-influenced change in the orientation of the body’s rotational axis. Earth’s axis rotates in a 26,000 year cycle as it orbits around the face of the sun.

Text, image, audio © 2015 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links for iTunes and Stitcher), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, Daler Rowney acrylic ink, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar
Head
Descent
Masks
Snake Pit

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

And a post on Myths and Legends.

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: creation, fantasy, Myths and Legends, science fiction, Supernatural

Micro-fiction 013 – Snake Pit (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/013-snake-pit.mp3

A sword and sorcery tale with a supernatural twist. Half-hand’s ragged band have fought their way into a heartless land. Now, they’re exhausted and trapped.

Echoes | Snake Pit

He dreamed. For many it would have been a nightmare but his days were no different to his nights, filled as they were with the gore of grim survival, the desperate slaughter of hopes and good fortune.

This night, Half-Hand lay on a pallet, hiding in the dark corners of a barn, with his exhausted comrades, five of them now, from the original band of twelve. They had been fighting for days, their bodies were bloody, bruised and scarred, and their bellies ached with hunger. Some of them had begin to doubt the nobility of their original purpose, long suffocated as it was in the swamps and pits of their death-dealing.

“Sleep man, you’re so restless!” A whisper hissed from a warrior nearby, and a muscular hand gripped Half-Hand’s arm, bringing both comfort and a warning.

“Aye!” Half-Hand shook off his fellow, and turned deeper into the shadows of the wall behind them. “‘The Dream-eaters. The witch I slew today. Her last words haunt me.”

“You were brave to wade through that nest of black sorcery. The rest of us were already running.”

“I had no choice.” He grunted. “They’d already seen me, I was caught in their infernal snake-pit.”

“Serpents?!” The other man swore.

“Like no others I have seen, longer than a man, and twice as wide. I slew them all and ran. This land is ruled by Baal. Everywhere we come malevolent creatures turn against us.”

“Will you two shut up with your idle reminiscing. The rest of us’re trying to sleep. Tomorrow will be a filthy day.”

Half-hand lapsed into a disgruntled silence. Every day was a filthy day. This company of men, all from the indomitable Northern tribes, were the fiercest band he had served amongst, but even they were struggling with this dark region and its fiendish, daily tortures. They had crossed through the border towns and sought to strike deep within their enemies’ heart, to find the source of the terror that afflicted the fjords and the deep waters of their home, and destroy it within its own lair. So they had roved the mountains, and the valleys, deep into the jungles and back out into these plains. And they found so many enemies, a wall of dark, savage sorcery that had swept across all lands.

“And now, they invade my dreams!” Half-hand drifted to sleep, both welcoming its embrace, and fearing the hours of exposure.

But his restless night-time flirtations soon dissolved into wretched slumber. He wrestled with gigantic tigers, sabre-toothed and eager for the rending of his flesh from his bones, and hordes of dagger-wielding witches that lay their traps in the streams and forest paths of the valleys.

As dawn broke across the land, the sun scattered in fragments through the roof, and pierced the unconscious of the miserable band. Half-hand groaned as he woke. Each in turn the others lifted their battered torsos and wished for a better night’s sleep.

“Ah, so what awaits us today my friends?” Half-hand stretched, pulling his daggers from the beam above his head. He lifted the axe that lay under the pallet and tested his rough check against its cold, soothing surface. “We’ll have to sharpen our weapons today, they’re so blunted by the fighting.

“Oh, always the thinker eh Half-hand?” The sarcasm of Beaker had often offended Half-Hand, but now they all knew it was just a disguise. Inside he possessed the same mix of fear and determination that kept each of them moving.

“Does anyone know where we are?” A small voice from the deepest corner emerged. Her hair was ruffled, she adjusted her thick leather jerkin. Half-hand regarded her. She had proved her worth ten times over in the past few days, and more so than some of the supposedly stronger men. She was fierce, and reckless, qualities he could admire in anyone.

One of the others looked out of the small gap in the roof. “I think we have company.”

Half-hand sighed. He was not the leader of this band, but somehow they looked to him, for his judgement had often proved sound in their survival. “Everyone ready?” Each of the five carried three weapons, one in each hand, and a spare in their belts. They wore no protection on their heads, but their chests and legs were well covered by thick leather garments, now filthy with the slime of battle.

“They’re spreading out, perhaps they’re not coming for us?”

“That’s too much to ask for.” Half-hand drew his finger across his neck, and they all fell silent. He jabbed upwards, and they threaded through to the rotting bails of hay that had cushioned their falls they day before, when they had discovered this barn, amongst the many scattered across the abandoned farmstead.

They crept up, one by one, emerging onto the roof. The sun was still low on the horizon, struggling to illuminate the ghastly landscape, casting long shadows from the hundreds of figures that advanced towards this and all the other buildings nearby.

Half-hand looked around and saw no easy escape. They were too late to run ahead of the attack, for they would be trapped and butchered by the superior numbers. They had to hope that silence would be their best ally, so he flattened himself against the roof, and kept his head down. The others shuffled along, their feet more assured than their minds.

The long, wide line of assailants grew closer to the buildings, the shadows licking at the edges of the walls. Half-hand peered tentatively and saw that they were beginning to separate, to thread their way through the outhouses. He saw a chance to engage just a few of the enemy over by the hills to the west. They had brought horses, although only four. Half-hand looked back at his companions: the odds were against them all surviving were low. He gestured for the others to follow him, as he bent down and shuffled along the roof, leapt quietly onto a balcony then swung across to the next barn. If any of them lost their footing, and fell, they would be lost, but one by one, they landed softly, and leapt ahead, keeping out of sight.

Beaker tripped. His foot crashed through the rotting hay of the roof, and soon he rattled down into the barn, shrieking with fear.

The line of shadows halted, then converged and swarmed round, chargeng into the barn.

“He’s lost! But he has given us our chance.” Quick, we must go!” The remaining four fled, with most of the enemy concentrating on the front of the barn, the desperate band of survivors pelted from the back and ran as fast as hunger and the dwindling desire for survival could allow.

For a moment, they had the advantage. But soon they were spotted, and with a roar, the horde of shadows joined the chased.

One by one, the ragged band was overwhelmed, cut from behind, slain by the long daggers and spears of their enemy, until only one was left, Half-Hand, who reached the desultory trees at the foot of the hills. He ran, his heart erupting though his chest, but still he hurtled on, up the hill, leaping across the boulders, springing over a ravine, tracked still by a long line of dark shapes.

And soon, he leapt again. Just as he scrambled into the air he looked down and saw the severed heads of the snake pit he had left only the night before, and as he landed the teeth of a dying serpent squelched into his calf, crippling his motion. It broke his fall, and then his head, on the rocks nearby.

***

Later he woke. It was dark. His eyes flickered, and he became aware of long dark hair snaking at his cheek, a nail dragging at the flesh of his lips, and the livid eyes of an ancient woman kneeling over him.

“Oh, your dreams taste so good my young friend.”

Half-hand shook his legs. He was bound.

“Tell us more about your battles when you came here.” The crone smirked.

He tried to bellow, but his own half hand was swiftly shoved into the back of his throat by the bony fist of the sorceress. Gagging and helpless, he realised that he had neither left the snake pit, nor slain the serpents, and soon, the witches would consume his dreams until his brain was hollowed out. Slowly, he felt himself being sucked back into the waters of an intoxicating, choking sleep, surrounded by the receding mockery of the Dream-Eaters.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links for iTunes and Stitcher), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, Daler Rowney acrylic ink, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar
Head
Descent
Masks

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: fantasy, science fiction, Supernatural, sword and sorcery

Micro-fiction 012 – Masks (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/012-masks.mp3

The gasman, a reluctant family man on a late emergency call, is surprised by the welcome he receives at the shop at the end of the alley.

Echoes | Masks

The row of fourteen grim faces seemed to float in the dark shadows just below the beams, under the stairs. The gasman had been called to fix the leak and had been heaving at the inlet valve when the lights flickered, dimmed and finally extinguished. He remembered the call he’d made to his wife, earlier that evening.

“Just one more call to make.”

“Wilbur dear, you’re not getting any younger. I know you think you’re superman, but you can’t go on all day and all night.” Her warm, loving tones purred from his phone.

“Come on sweetheart,” he sighed in the face of this familiar argument, “I’m not going to be all night, just this last job.”

“Ah, but we both know what that means. Your jobs can last five minutes or five hours.” His wife sounded regretful, resigned even. Did she know he slipped away sometimes to have a quiet drink before returning home, he wondered? He loved his wife, and his five children, but he was so tired at the end of the day he found the noise at his arrival, too much to bear. Every day.

He took every job they offered him, even the late ones, especially the late ones. Although he was tired, and near to retirement age he was still one of the strongest of the gas fitters, certainly the most experienced. All the younger fellows clocked-watched and rushed home to their young partners, grateful that Wilbur would always pick up the emergency jobs, the ones that arrived at the last minute and required a volunteer to take them. Fondly he remembered watching the time himself, checking off every minute until the end of the shift, but now the weary years of children, the clatter expectation, and love was almost too much to bear. Perhaps they had been wrong to have children so late.

Of course, he felt guilty, and berated himself for being disloyal. As he trudged down the alleyway to his last appointment, the lamplight casting longing glances at the full moon peaking over the high tenement walls he remembered, the arrival of the first of his exhausting five children.

Up to then Wilbur and Wilma had been the dynamic dubya, the WW, the wonder woman and her Wide-eyed Wonder, the heartbeat of every late night party, dancing and laughing, having a good time, the toast of the friends, the envy of their neighbours. That all changed with the children. And he did love them, he told himself, time and time again, to keep the perspective, to remember what a joy and blessing they were, and when he read to them, or hugged them, he always felt the warm glow of parenthood, as it should be, as it was written in all the manuals and magazines he and Wilma had read in the months before their first child had graced their home, before burning steadily through their bank account.

Indeed, he began to take more jobs, working late to earn the overtime to pay for the clothes and the packed lunches, the school trips and the birthdays. Wilma understood the need, and would have been pleased to earn herself, as she had before, a teacher in the local school. But the cost of childcare, and the niggling accusations of neglect kept her at home.

He didn’t resent this family that needed its father, but he saw it for what he thought it was, a succubus, feeding off the energies of his life, draining him to a husk, his brain crumpled like fragile, burnt ball of paper in the moment before it would expire in the exhaustion of its years.

And oh, they were very noisy. With the five of them he no longer had a little room of his own into which he could retire at the end of his day, just for a short half an hour of peace, a bridge into the relentlessness of being the father and the provider. Now the room had gone, with the fourth child, lilith, shoving him from his sanctum, like a cuckoo in the nest.

So, with these thoughts hurtling, as ever, in his head, he approached the shop at the end of the lane. It was early December with only the promise of snow, but the creep of early nights brought Christmas ever nearer. The alley seemed to narrow as he had approached the shop. When he looked back the walls behind him were unfeasible high, peering down on him, accusing him of neglect, they seemed to question his motives for taking this last job, on this day. He shrugged, turning his attention to the nondescript door in front of him.

He laid down his heavy bag of tools, then, using the ornate brass knocker tapped on the solid wooden portal. There was no immediate answer. He waited for a moment, wondering, as always, how long it was respectable to walk away in such a situation. His usual answer was to count to forty. There was no logic to it, but thirty was the number he employed for his press-ups when he was younger, and fifty seemed too long to be standing outside someone’s house without raising suspicion.

He had just decided to turn and leave when the door opened cautiously.

“Ah, the gasman. I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you.” That was an unusual welcome. Most people complained about how long they had to wait, or moaned about the problem that had prompted the need for the gasman.

“Yes. may I come in? This is my last call, and I’m hoping it won’t take too long.

“Oh, me too!” The old man entangled his bony fingers, disconcerting Wilbur who felt the old man’s eye linger on his face, a little longer than was comfortable.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“Well, as usual, as soon as the Winter comes, I turn on the boiler and does it work? Of course not.” The old man looked up at Wilbut with a kindly, expectant expression. “I have an important customer whose coming to my shop tonight, so I’m hoping you can help me quickly. I mustn’t let him down.”

“I see. Perhaps you could show me to the boiler, then?”

“Of course.” They walked through the house. On every wall, there were garish costumes, and posters, outlandish paintngs and sculptures, stuffed goats and rats.”

‘I run the joke shop, in case you’re wondering.” The old man gave such a look to Wilbur that it made him shiver with need to escape. “The customer I must meet tonight has a very particular requirement, so I hope you can solve my problem.”

“Uhuh.” Over the many years of repairing and maintaining the gas appliances Wilbur had visited many strange homes.

“It’s here.” The old man gestured to the door under the stairs.

“Of course.” Wilbur sighed. “I could have guessed that.”

“I don’t think it will take too long.” The old man smiled; it was almost a rictus.

Wilbur opened the door and saw immediately the gas connections snaking across the walls.

“Look, I’ll need to turn this off before I check the boiler.” He regarded at the old man and received a nod in return. In the tight space below the stairs he bent down and tried to find two of the most obvious wrenches for this sort of job. The door closed quietly, without him noticing, but he did see the masks hanging above his head, their phosphorescent pallor glowing subtly. Unconsciously he found himself count them. All fourteen were grim, their dark sockets awaiting human eyes to fulfill their purpose.

Then the lights cut out.

Wilbur looked up and saw the masks still illuminated eerily. He slipped, fell and crashed his head against the gas pipe behind him, knocking himself out.

The door opened swiftly. The old man appeared with a knife, and kneeling down, he held it to Wilbur’s face.

“My customer needs fifteen masks. I think you can help me!”

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links for iTunes and Stitcher), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, Daler Rowney acrylic ink, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar
Head
Descent

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: Dark fantasy, Horror, science fiction, Supernatural

Micro-fiction 011 – Descent (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/011-descent.mp3

The Celestial Queen, mute from birth, is led into the caverns of the earth, to protect the Hive, and to face a bitter truth.

Echoes | Descent

They sealed her in the darkest, deepest pit, with her mirrors, and her memories.

In her way, she was beautiful: elegant fingers, a long neck, soulful eyes. And she had been the mother of the Hive for a thousand years. Even now, with her mouth sealed since childhood, this Celestial Queen could not, would not, die.

The long train of counsellors, courtiers and sycophants followed their errant Queen into the depths of the earth. They loved her, for they must.

“It is for your own protection Majesty, you will remember what happened to your mother.” The watery tones of the chief counsellor had lapped at the Queen. Droning on, the little man, his hands clasped together, had repeated the same litany, for days and it had washed endlessly across the Queen’s torpor before she registered the truth of the matter. Of course she knew what had happened to her imperious mother, the sudden fall, the harsh words, the swift death.

“And, of course, we will provide you with your most treasured possessions.” Another of the counsellors, prostrated himself whilst gesturing at the huge mirrors, her constant distraction since an early age, which would remain with her underground.

“Odious toad,” she had thought, preoccupied by the fine reflection in the nearest mirror. The perfect images of herself offered the self-deluding golden hair and blushing cheeks.

As she had grown older, she became ever more inattentive to the tedious duties of government, leaving them to the counsellors who now hurried her into the depths of the land, deep into the corridors of the mountains, this sparkling trail of anxious, bald-headed men, their torches held high, the light uneasy and agitated in the suffocating darkness.

It was true that she needed protection, although it was mainly from herself. She had grown so bored over the millennia, she had lost compassion and self-control long ago. Her dark magick, drawn from the deep channels of the planet, frothed and roiled within her. Of all the celestial Queens this one had lasted the longest, but she had borne no female progeny, so there had been none to challenge her, as she had her own mother.

As she wandered down the dark corridors, seeking frequent glimpses of herself in the mirrors carried around her, she remembered growing through a sulky adolescence. Her surly manner had borne lightly by these around her for in time, in the tradition of the celestial Queens, she was expected to shed her mute youth and assume the full roar of the rightful Queen of the Hive.

And yet, after her mother had died, and the crown passed to her, she took little notice of her role, spending the day in her chambers, commanding, on careless scrolls, that ever more mirrors be brought to her, each increasing in size and majesty.

Amongst the many functions of the Hive Queen was the responsibility to bear the next generation of the powerful and the elite. Tradition demanded that she would fashion the chrysalids that bore the children into their lesser forms of necromancy. The arcane literature of the Hive spoke too of the rituals of the Celestial Queens, and flowering of dark magick that would issue from the new incumbent, once the old had passed. But from this Queen, it was not so, for her mouth was bound, she could not speak, and without such invocations the source of life within the hive began to diminish, the people and the mountains began to decay. Over the centuries the councillors were forced from whispers to open debate about what should be done, gathering in corridors, amongst the disintegrating columns of the Hive.

“She sits in her chambers all day, she looks at herself in those mirrors.”

“Surely there are no pores left to detect? What else does she see?”

“Perhaps the beauty that enchants us all, entrances her too, perhaps she has become the slave of her own appearance.”

“That is not possible. None of her line have been so vain.”

“Are we not slaves to her beauty?”

“We are obliged to be so, that’s not quite the same thing.”

“We all know she’s been leaking her magick. And yet she will not speak, the renewal of our own sorcery does not begin, we cannot cast the wards and protections we need for the Hive”

“Indeed her power leaks mightily, wastefully” another shuddered, “at night I hear she thrashes and kicks, the leavings of her dreams scarred across the walls of her bedchamber.”

“Every morning her chambers are almost destroyed. It takes so much of our magick to clear it.”

“Did her mother did not pass on the sacred words, handed down from Queen to Queen since the beginnings of our race?”

“She shows no sign of acting so. And without it, who knows what will happen to us?”

Despair crawled across the gathering of councillors, as they cast around them, fearful of being overheard.

“So we have a problem, we cannot renew because our Queen will not, or cares not, to utter the words to do so, and we cannot continue the repairs, for we will run out of our own paltry charms.”

“We must both deal with the Queen and,” the reedy voice of the eldest councillor clutched at the conscience of all around, “unthinkable though it is, we must replace her.” All twelve councillors allowed a silence to spread amongst them, until one spoke slowly, quietly.

“Do you have the books?” The councillor’s attention focused on the only female amongst them, one of the first to step from the old Queen’s chrysalids.

“Oh yes, I found them in the oldest part of the library. They have never been used. I heard tell of them in a dream.”

“The old Queen.” Another spoke softly. “I have had the same dream.” Others nodded.

“I think we are desperate enough.” The council regarded itself. Twelve ancient members, in various states of disarray. They were once a proud race, but the state of their Queen had brought them to a dark heresy, the thought even of replacing their royal line.

“So it is possible.”

Their pale faces, shocked, but resolute, nodded imperceptibly.

“From now on, we shall not repair the Queen’s chambers. We must all agree on this. It is the only way. She will come to the obvious conclusion.”

So the weeks past, then months, and years. For two centuries the Queen gazed at her reflection during the day and dreamed at night, her magick funneling out to strike at the flimsy walls of the hive, and she grew to resent the conditions within which she lived.

One day a member of the council approached her, a wizened male, bent double with the weight of his age. “My lady, it is not right that you should live amongst such––” His voice talked off, he gestured with his arthritic fingers to the crumbled walls, the collapsed roof, and watched as a trail of stones fell idly across the surface of a gigantic mirror in the corner of the Queen’s chamber.

The Queen, her beautiful chin lifted high, her proud eyes looking down at the impertinent counsellor, nodded slightly.

“I have a solution, which I might humbly suggest, be placed before you for consideration.”

And so, after years of prevarication, the Queen assented, and was being led to the darkest cavern, so deep underground that her nightmare bursts of uncontrolled power could cause no further damage to the crumbling kingdom on the surface. The solid rock of the planet could absorb her wayward night-time sorcery.

And so, the mirrors were trundled, at the head of her the long procession, her belongings moved from the chamber at the top of the mountain, to the deepest cavern below. And still the Queen did not seem to care, abstracted still by her infatuations.

Around her she could hear the mutterings of the council, the gossip, the memories of the time when they were found, the old Queen and her daughter, the mother lying, her head broken on the ground, the daughter running around, distraught, holding her mouth, flailing her arms, not speaking or shouting, but staring wild into the skies. Those who had rushed to her assistance knew she could not speak.

“A fall!?” she thought of her mother, and laughed “It was a kick.” She remembered, wryly, the look of shock on her mother’s cruel face as she had hit the jagged rock of their private grove. If the fall had been further she knew her mother could have saved herself, but a short distance, a sudden shove in the back from an apparently docile daughter, sealed her fate.

***

The train arrived at the cavern. The mirrors were arranged to fill every surface and corner of the room. And so the council, the courtiers and the slaves, eager to finish their tasks, fled, one by one, until just one council member remained, by the entrance, as the huge boulder that would serve as the seal was moved slowly into place.

The councillor stepped backwards, outside the room, bowing respectfully. The Queen, near her bed looked across, momentarily resting from her self-regard and stared back at the closing boulder.

“You killed her, did you not?” The Councillor whispered.

The Queen grimaced.

“Did she not speak before she died?”

The Queen barely responded.

“The ancient books tell of the words that must pass from Queen to Queen, the charms of release, and unbinding.” The Councillor held the gaze of the ill-fated Queen, who allowed a hint of curiosity to pass across her.

“The words that would grant you speech, the arcane words of our race, the elder magick that creates life and sustenance for the hive.”

The Queen opened her eyes. She remembered turning away from her mother after the fatal shove. In triumph, in delight at the peace she could enjoy, away from her mother’s hectoring and preaching, she had spun around the chamber, singing in her head, as the courtiers rushed in. And so she had ignored her mother’s prattling final words.

Just as the boulder came to rest, the crunch of ancient rock sealing the eternal tomb, the silent, Celestial Queen contemplated the fading torches, and the flattering mirrors and finally, she realised what she had done.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links for iTunes and Stitcher), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, Daler Rowney acrylic ink, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar
Head

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: Dark fantasy, fantasy, magic, magick, science fiction, Supernatural, witches

Micro-fiction 010 – Head (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/010-head.mp3

Thousands of years after leaving earth the human colonies explore their old planet, sending a legion of androids to penetrate the mysterious atmosphere.

Echoes | Head

They arrived in a swarm across the early morning sky. As the sun placed its gentle touch across the horizon, scattering the subtle greys and pinks of dawn, ten thousand silver forms swept down. Their speed, and reflective skins spread a burst of burnished colour across the leafy canopy of the forest-strewn planet.

They fanned out, their humanoid form perfectly adapted to the planet of the ancestors, the few lucky humans who had abandoned the planet as it crumbled under the weight of a 20 billion population, the destruction of all habitat, and the brutal extraction of minerals, deep into the mantle. The planetary colonies had been sent out, once interstellar travel had become possible. The freak discovery of a missing element, a recombining mineral that could both burn and regenerate, allowed humanity to plot its escape to the stars.

Over ten thousand years had passed since then. In the year 4015 news reached the colonies near Barnards Star and Wolf 359, that no life existed on earth. All humans had either left, or died of asphyxiation. It became a husk, a large ball of inert rock, and joined the aimless existence of the smaller meteors that hurled around the solar system.

By the year 6000 earth had become a myth, a cautionary tale for bedtime stories. The human species, with its occasional dependent animals, had scattered across the galaxy, found life in various forms, and adapted to a wide span of atmospheres. The one condition they all shared, across thousands of parsecs of space, was the need to live in sealed domes, designed for small tribes and city states, towns, villages and nations. The domes required sustainable living, disciplined lifestyle, and many yearned to hear the stories of old earth, of the freedoms and the flora, the fractal chaos of life. The leaders, elected, as ever by tiny minorities of people, tried hard to keep such stories at bay, to explain the consequences of freedoms exercised too freely, of flora that had been defoliated to such an extent that it was destroyed by the very people that yearned for its company. Humanity now lived in the giant sealed containers, with polished surfaces, grid designed structures, carefully positioned ornaments of nature. The domes kept all forms of life, human, organic and android, clean and ordered.

And so, the colonies expanded outwards. Naturally enough and for different reasons, both scientists and the romantically inclined turned their attention to the old planet; the desire to explore their origins, to study its geology again, to measure the theories of decay and adaptation became too strong to resist. Sophisticated androids, human shaped explorer droids were sent out to explore the relic of the human race. They did not require a ship, for each legion of 1000 droids would combine into a single craft, only separating when they closed in on their target.

“Expo 40 to Base.” The android slowed its propulsion unit and began to glide, using the upper winds of old Earth to save energy.

“I hear you.” The android base was located on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, and had nestled safely within its temporary dome, so that Captain Shaman and his Chief Pilot Ester could be protected by distance from any danger on the earth. The base used the energy of the sun to relay the messages from the explorer droids to the next relay station, all the way across the galaxy to the command centre on Osirus, just within the realm of Barnard’s Star.

“Flying low over the northern sectors. Cannot see the ground yet.”

“Explain Expo 40.”

“Just a vast plain of green.” The droid boosted its jets. The other droids had spread out across the surface of the earth.

“Switch to visuals.” The droid blinked, activating the link. Everything would be recorded anyway, so this seemed wasteful.

“Oh, that green, it’s a canopy.” the excited tone of the Captain sputtered into the communication chip in the silver head of Expo 40.

“So this is a forest. They’re leaves. So many different shapes and sizes, colours.”

“Or a jungle.” Expo 40 mentally flicked through the database in its fusion harnessed memory, locating the sections on the Amazon rainforest, and the great forests of Europe in the early years of human civilization.

“Looks like the planet has found a way of surviving without us.” Chief Pilot Ester looked across at the Captain, as they flicked through streaming video from the eyes of the thousands of explorer droids.

“Yeah, and its the same all over.” The Captain checked the images, each one the same, as every droid flew over a dense surface of green foliage.

“It’s like an epidermis.” The pilot leaned into the screen. “protecting the bones and the organs of the planet.

“What, like flesh?! That’s a bit fanciful.” The captain’s dismissive tone was designed to annoy his younger, cleverer, but more junior companion.

“Well, let’s see.” Pilot Ester switched her screen to Expo 40 whose signal was the strongest of the explorers.

“I’m going to penetrate the canopy. The others should hold back until all is safe.” Expo 40 acted on his preprogrammed mission plan.

“Ok, understood.”

The silver form drifted down, six propulsion jets firing cautiously, allowing the android to level off and stand on the canopy, to test the leaves. He switched off the foot thrusters and placed a foot carefully down, resting onto the green.

“The substrate is going brown.” He reported back. “I think the heat of my feet is decomposing the organic matter.”

“Yeah, I’d call that burning.” The captain smiled conspiratorially at his pilot.

“This canopy is soft in places, but more solid in others. Branches, if my scanners are correct. I’m going to go in further.”

Expo 40 then made his first, and only mistake, He turned off the other thrusters, and suddenly plummeted through the greenery. The images he sent back during in his long fall were fast sequences of trunks and leaves, as the android clattered down, crashing into thick branches. He tried to cushion his fall, but the thrusters shot with flames and set fire to the trees, still he crashed downwards trying to slow his hurling descent until, just before hitting the ground he slammed into a a final, obtruding branch, and severed his neck.

“Mayday, mayday.” Expo 40’s head rolled across the gnarled floor of the forest, nestling finally amongst a crop of grasses that strained for sight of the sun through the occasional gaps in the fronds above.

“This world is not habitable. I am being attacked.”

“What’s happening?” The captain shouted at the screen, seeing an upside down world, full of static interrupted by the android’s jerking tone.

Expo 40s synthetic cables, now exposed to the forest air waved gently in. “Attacked…” His damaged transmitter shut down, halfway through the sentence.

“Ok, let’s pull them all out.” The Captain leaned over and issued the command to the thousands of other androids.

“What a disaster, all this way, for nothing.” The Chief Pilot prepared the station for departure.

On earth, the swarm of androids lifted back into the sky, combining into a series of larger shapes, to create the thrust required to escape the earth’s atmosphere.

And below them, the broken body of Expo 40 remained, his head, finishing its sentence, “it’s a slow attack. I calculate that in 300 earth years, the compound of carbon dioxide, oxygen and hydrogen will have destroyed all my synthetic parts.

***

The android, seeing the earth upside down, continued to record the events around it while suffering the slow attack of natural decay. In the years that followed it saw the sunrises, and sunsets, the rains of spring and the flowers of summer, the rhythm of the seasons that brought the deer and the birds, the old ones who died, the young ones who were born, and Expo 40 came to understand that even though his own, synthetic life would end, his constituent parts would at least be claimed into the mineral store of this old earth, renewed now without the interference of humanity.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Elise Wells (for the end credits to podcast links for iTunes and Stitcher), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes
Cellar

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: androids, ecology, fantasy, robots, science fiction, space opera, space travel, starcraft

Micro-fiction 009 – Cellar (Echoes series)

https://thesefantasticworlds.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/009-cellar.mp3

A distant breeze, a fluttering of curtains and the choking seductions of a dusty cellar are the simple ingredients for this tear-full tale.

Echoes | Cellar

Brennan heard the fluttering sound, a subtle rustle, like the comforting touch of a breeze, flowing through the house, rather than around it. It was the middle of the night, just the occasional sound of a car speeding past, or a fox screeching at the local cats. He rubbed his eyes and lifted the blind above his bed, looking out at the long street of white picket-fenced houses, stretching far into the darkness, submerged in the brutal night. And he remembered the home he’d fled from, just a few weeks before.

He slipped out of bed to fetch some water. The bare floorboards creaked under his feet, as he crept out of the room, onto the wide, dark landing, then down the stairs, trying to keep silent, not to wake the rest of the family. He’d been grateful even for the cautious welcome of his estranged cousins. He would not have called on them if he hadn’t needed sanctuary, an adult, escaping the home of his youth, to the enemies of his grandfather.

The breeze curled at his feet. He’d been here a week, but he was still unnerved by the gaps in the windows and under the doors. He would have sealed them up years ago, his own parents, then the grandparents who had raised him after their untimely death, were paranoid about any form of intrusion from the outside world.

Brennan padded anxiously through to the kitchen, found a glass and gently turned the tap. As the water ran from warm to cold he stood still, alert to every tiny reverberation around him, as the years in the family home had trained him to do.

He heard the rustling again. It was like a heavy curtain being drawn. He grimaced, remembering there were no curtains in this house. He pushed himself away from the kitchen and slunk cautiously back through to the living room. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the night, but he could see nothing unusual.

But there it was again, the sound of a curtain being pulled quietly shut. He looked around. It wasn’t coming from upstairs. He moved across the living room, to the staircase. The breeze caught his legs again, and made him shiver.

The sound flickered through the air again, now more like a flapping of wings, or shuffling of feet. It seemed to coil around his sleepy half-consciousness and tug at the sleeves of his mind,

It was coming from the door underneath the stairs. He hadn’t been there yet, the cellar. No-one had mentioned it either. No particular reason, he supposed.

He decided to ignore the sound and tried to go back upstairs. But something stopped him. A thought, a memory, the sound of the curtains flapping again, and the breeze licking at his feet. He was curious, regretful of other times when he hadn’t found out what the sounds were, in his own home. Perhaps he was dreaming, but he found the pull of curiosity more powerful than the makeshift guest bed upstairs.

He turned and stepped across the bare floorboards, and reached for the handle on the door under the stairs.

It opened easily, inwards to the basement, releasing a wall of stale, fetid air. He stifled a cough. Below he was faced with a steep, wooden staircase, and a flimsy rail to his left. He placed a bare foot on the top step. It seemed solid enough, but even in the darkness he could see a flurry of dust, disturbed by his footfall, and the wood was cold.

The gentle shuffling and flapping sound pulled him on. He had not heard this sound in this house, in the last few days, but as he placed his other foot on the next step he realized that he remembered something similar.

Another foot, another step. The sound again, came from below: soft, rustling fluttering, it was an echo of familiar sounds from his old family home. In the years when his parents were alive, when his grandparents were visitors, rather than the substitute parents they became.

He took a further step, his shoulder grazed the bottom edge of the door. He lifted a hand to rub at the pain and caught the underside of the door, swinging it shut quietly. There was a restrained, but definite click.

He stood in the darkness. His heart thumped hard, like a bird’s when caught in the hand. The shuffling and fluttering now played with the edges of his courage. He wanted to turn back. A small voice, his own, childish self, lingered in the crevices of his mind and told him the door would not, could not open, from the inside.

At first he thought the darkness below was solid, but now he saw the dust was floating lazily, like little stars, blooming in expanding clouds, slowly sucked away from the stairs, towards the sounds below.

He tried to peer through the darkness, and leant forward, placing more of his weight on the banister. He felt the unsteady rail shiver. He pulled back, and gasped suddenly. This made him shift his weight slightly and forced him into another step forward, before he was ready, so he placed a heavy heel onto the next level, and slipped, hard, his foot crashing through, the wood breaking, his leg shooting down, shards of wood piercing his thigh, a bellow of dust bursting into the dark.

“Uh!” He tried to keep his shock inside, but gulped the dusty air instead, and coughed, spluttering, choking, scattering more of the smothering dust.

The sounds all around stopped. His leg felt as though it had been torn off. The inside of his throat was coated in dust, he felt a slow asphyxiation, the inflamed flesh of his throat bulging inwards, restricting his windpipe. He grasped at his neck, pulling at his skin, he tried to shout, but only a rasp emerged. His eyes widened, he was desperate, stretching at the steps, and his neck, and below him he noticed the darkness was receding slightly, little folds appeared, like the mosquito curtains around his bed when he was young, and he saw, with painful, murky eyes, the reassuring face of his grandfather, floating behind the folds of the darkness, between the drifts of dust, smiling, as though checking on him, making sure he was safe.

But the grip of the stairs was strong, and he wrestled with his awkward confinement, wrenched himself free, and his balance again rolling forward, falling heavily down the stairs to the rigid, unforgiving concrete floor, raising yet more billows of dust.

The musty, fine powder fell in thick beads from the stairs, shuffling and fluttering, skittering around his broken head.

As he struggled for air grappling still with his throat, he felt a creeping numbness; but still he clung to the gentle sounds, the little wings in the darkness. With his cheek cold against the concrete, the soothing warmth of his own blood spilling around his head, he lifted pain-drenched eyelids and he saw a thin film of curtain flutter around him.

The face of his grandfather spilled and heaved, close to flesh of his own face, and hidden memories of a childhood spent lurking and afraid welled up Brennan’s splintered spine. Beyond the face, under the stairs lay the crumpled bodies of Brennan’s young brothers, concealed in the dark behind curtains of falling dust.

The aged face reared, as it used to, the malevolent, remorseless eyes bore down, and the young man’s final breath was ripped from his gagging throat.

***

The next morning, the rest of the house awoke to find their guest at the bottom of the stairs in the cellar. A thick layer of dust was draped like a shroud across his wracked frame. His limbs were contorted, his open mouth overflowing with dust and his wretched face bore the simple terror of a child.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, through this blog: These Fantastic worlds.

More next week… 

There are a few more stories in this series:

Eagle
Hybrid
 A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Wishes

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts

Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: fantasy, short fiction, Supernatural