Inheritors Chapter 12 – Resa ValJean, XXX Cavalos Era

Read The Inheritors Chapter 11 – Lucifer

Creator and above level members can download a PDF of this chapter to read offline

Note: the reason for “XXX” is I’m not sure exactly where this goes in the timeline. Some chapters may get shifted. I’ve learned to live with such things.

Inheritors Chapter 12 – Resa ValJean, XXX Cavalos Era

 
Resa heard a tapping. She looked around. Sand. Trees up on a rise. Moon.

Something else. There had been something else. She was sure of it.

The tapping came again. From the hatch. In the ground. She’d come here through that hatch. A Librarian waited for her there.

She lifted the hatch. Bertrand’s eyes flashed at her in the cold moonlight. “I must return soon.”

“Bertrand, did you hear anything up here before you opened the hatch?”

“No. I can hear line-of-sight only or when something is hot enough to be seen.”

“Of course, sorry. The other Thinker who caused the disturbance in the Labyrinth, was his name Thomas Ayers?”

“No, it was ‘Tommy Ayers’. If he had other names I do not know.”

“Show me what he looked like, please.”

An image formed on each of the Librarian’s eyes. The air quavered a foot in front of him as he built on the optic thermals until his eyes cooled and the images spun like a slow hologram in the vibrating air.

“Yes, that’s him. That’s Thomas Ayers. Tommy. Thank you, Bertrand.”

“I must return, Resa.”

“You go back, Bertrand. I’ll find my way back. Right now I want to think. I’ll be back before I’m needed in the Neuroscaphe tomorrow. I promise.”

The Librarian closed the hatch. She reached over and opened it again. “Bertrand?”

The Librarian’s pale, hairless, babe-like head and pulsing eyes poked up through again. “Yes, Resa?”

“You can see after images, can’t you, when something’s hot enough?”

“Yes, Resa.”

“Can you see anything here?”

“No, Resa.”

“Are you sure? I think…I thought…someone was here, something which produced enough heat to keep me warm in the night.”

“No, Resa. Who do you think it was?”

She hesitated. “I thought it was the Christian Devil.”

“I would not be able to see it, real or not, Resa.”

Resa focused on Bertrand’s eyes, looking to see if the Librarian joked or not. “What do you mean, you wouldn’t be able to see him, real or not?”

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Boo does not like Opie

Our dog, Boo, has issues with some wildlife.

We’re not sure why.

We’ve never encouraged it. Quite the opposite. We’re open and friendly with all the Old Ones who visit.

Some times Boo is asleep, wakes up, and see’s me going out to say hello.

He’s jealous.

We’ve explained there are outside friends and inside friends.

We think it’s something more primal.

Something long ago and lost in canine and didelphine memory.

A opossum and a wolf walked into a bar, perhaps, started toasting each other’s good health, someone said something, you know how these things happen.

I doubt it started with an argument over a mate, even though the original Powhatan/Algonquian word means “white dog.”

Maybe an opossum or a dog was slumming, spending time with the other, got caught by their peers and later generations still carry the shame?

Don’t know, except that Boo doesn’t like Opie.

 

Sabine Rossbach Reading Excerpts from Cymodoce

I am blessed to have friends who perform kindnesses for me.

Case in point, Sabine Rossbach.

Sabine is a gifted and well-known stage, movie, and television actress in the EU (she’s quite tolerant of me butchering French, German, Italian, and even English in our exchanges). She’s also a reader of my writings.

The first work she read was Cymodoce and she wrote “Storytelling at its best: A feast for someone who loves the written word…” Next she read Empty Sky and wrote “Dreams make the world go round: If you like inspiring, fantastic, elaborate stories, this is your novel…”

Obviously, Sabine is an intelligent, articulate person.

So when she offered to do a dramatic reading of Cymodoce (and after I got back up off the floor) I of course said “YES YES YES!”

So watch, enjoy, and let us know what you think.

And also know Sabine is interested in doing similar dramatic readings for other authors. You can contact her via her website (and please do. She knows what she’s doing).

 

Why It Works for Me – Loren Eiseley’s “The Dance of the Frogs”

This is the first in a series I’m doing wherein I discuss why a particular piece of writing works for me, aka, this author’s work taught me something about writing, encouraged me to be a better writer, engaged me, captivated me, educated me, et cetera.

As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s one thing to know something is good, it’s a better thing (in my opinion) to know why it’s good and then be able to copy what’s good about it, to learn from it so you can be as good and (hopefully) better.

This time out, Loren Eiseley’s “The Dance of the Frogs” (in his anthology, The Star Thrower.

 

 

The Inheritors Chapter 11 – Lucifer

Read The Inheritors Chapter 10 – Resa ValJean, 211 Cavalos Era

Creator and above level members can download a PDF of this chapter to read offline

The Inheritors Chapter 11 – Lucifer

 
Thomas woke under a rising full moon. Resa made a fire on the sand from branches up on the hill. He gazed at her naked body, how the flickering flames made small shadows of her nose, lips, and breasts. Gulls caught the offshore breezes and coasted, their silhouettes playing hide and seek on the craters and crevices of the moon’s bright surface.

He pointed to the gulls. “Are those real?”

“I think so. They seem a lot like the ones I remember from home. But they started wildlife roundups and euthanizing domestic animals in my time because they were disease vectors, so maybe yes, maybe no? The gulls seem natural. Most everything the Cavalos make isn’t quite the same and it’s obvious how it isn’t so. ” She reached for her blouse. “We should be getting back, Tom.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea for me.”

“Suit yourself. There’s somebody I want to meet. I’m going to ask one of the Librarians to introduce me.”

He reached for her. “You’re going to leave? Just like that?”

She stroked his face. He held her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. She smiled and pulled her hand back. “Tommy. My world’s not like that. We did what we did. That’s all there is to it.”

“You don’t love me?”

“Love you? Of course I do, Tommy. But there are different kinds of love. I’m not committed to you or anything like that.”

“I can’t…I won’t believe you.”

“Tom, I care about you. But I don’t love you. Not that way. You’ve got to get out more, Tom. All the cultures here are different. Haven’t you met any of the other Thinkers?”

“A few.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, Tom. You think you’ve been here six years and never talked with anyone other than some Cavalos, some Librarians, a few Thinkers and the Travelers who brought you here?”

“I hear some Thinkers once in a while while when I’m in the Neuroscaphe. I hear them crying. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to cry. And here, in this time and place, this is the first time anybody has ever let me just think.”

She nodded. “You too?”

“Huh?”

“You said this was the first time anybody ever let you think. Your family thought you were a freak, too? Is that what happened? Did your family sell you to anybody who could score something they could use?”

“No, never. My family loved me. They still do, somewhere in time. My family did everything they could to help me. It was everybody else. The teachers, the schools, other kids. My brother, Roland, he’s my twin, he use to come home with black eyes and bloody noses and split lips because he’d go fight for me and tell everybody he was me when people picked on me. He thought I didn’t know.

“But I did. He never told me. Mom and Pop would always watch out for me. Ro and Ceilly, my sister, they were always protecting me so I’d have the time to think.

“No, my family loved me. It was everyone else who hated and feared me.”

The fire popped into human form. “That, dear Thomas, is the one thing all you Thinkers have in common.”

Resa pulled back. “Who’re you?”

“Lucifer, dear lady.”

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