Fiction – Page 58 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

Why It Works for Me – Charles Frazier’s “Nightwoods”

This is the fourth 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, Charles Frazier’s “Nightwoods”.

Inheritors Chapter 14 – Seth Van Gelder, 212 Cavalos Era

What we’re denied in childhood we spend the rest of our lives searching for

Read Inheritors Chapter 13 – Seth Van Gelder, 211 Cavalos Era

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

Inheritors Chapter 14 – Seth Van Gelder, 212 Cavalos Era

Raemond stood in her suit beside Seth on the same jump-station where Seth first entered Cavalos time. She made a few adjustments to the suit he wore. “You’re doing well, Seth. You wear it as if created a Traveler.” She nodded towards his power coupling as she grabbed her own. “Remember, after every jump, …”

“I know what you’ve told me. The suit needs to feed and this is the stall where it gets its meal.”

“Very good.”

“It is like everything else. Something from here is like something from there. A pattern here is repeated in a pattern there. Much of what you describe has been taught to me before.”

“Yes. I don’t know much about the Sacred Geometries you speak of but from what you say, had they thrived, the world would have taken a different path than this one.”

Seth smiled.

“You’re ready for your first solo jump. One more time to be sure. If your suit starts to ring…”

“…ask the watch who is coming.”

“If you need to go someplace you didn’t plan to go…”

“… ask the watch to access the Library.”

“If the suit is ringing but the watch says no one is coming…”

“Leave immediately. Someone else is using the same suit to access the same point in time and no single suit can exist penecontemporaneously beside itself in time. Enough of this.”

“All right. Do you have any idea where you’d like to go?”

“I have an idea, yes.”

“Tell me.”

His brow furrowed. “Is that necessary?”

“Certainly. Should something happen, we’ll want to know for salvage purposes.”

“But you told me the suit will return of its own should anything happen to the wearer.”

“Yes, it will. But sometimes the suits don’t have enough energy to make it completely home. When they do they exit the TimeStream where ever they run out of time. That’s why we need to log where everybody jumps. If the suit returns but the rider does not, then the rider has died somewhere in the past. If the suit returns with a new rider inside, there’s a chance something has happened, an accident maybe, somehow the rider got too far away from their suit and another, not knowing, took their place. Sometimes neither rider nor suit return and the Cavalos have to search the Library for accounts of mysteries or magicks or such.”

“Tell me, was a suit ever lost and never found?”

“One was. The Cavalos search for it still.”

“I see. That’s sad. I’m going back to my father’s house. I wish to let them know I am safe and well.”

“That’s nice, Seth. very nice. One last thing. Remember, should anything go wrong or any kind of emergency occur where you don’t know what to do, just push the watch crown all the way in. That’s an immediate return. Now let me give you one last visual inspection. ” She tapped his gloves, his boots, and hood, making sure each was correctly in place. “You must make sure you’re completely within your suit, though. If you’re not, not all of you will make the jump through time. Anything can jump with you, but the person initiating the jump must be completely within their suit. Good luck. I’ll be waiting right down there when you return. ” She walked down from the platform. Before she reached the bottom stair he was gone.

The platform, the pumpkin-gas air, the bursting orange clouds, the living houses and lawns, all slid away from him in a whirlwind of light and were replaced by the cold, dark, smoke-wicked flickering light of his father’s room and bed.

Seth removed his hood and held it under one arm until his eyes adjusted to the light.

There the old bull lay, beneath the curtains surrounding his bed, only his head and nightcap exposed, a yellowing puddle about his groin and a smell of bowels and refuse lying about his arse. Seth lit a candle from the lamp by the door and brought it close.

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Why It Works for Me – Terry Melia’s “Tales from the Greenhills”

This is the third 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.

This time out, Terry Melia’s “Tales from the Greenhills”.

Inheritors Chapter 13 – Seth Van Gelder, 211 Cavalos Era

Read Inheritors Chapter 12 – Resa ValJean, XXX Cavalos Era

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

Inheritors Chapter 13 – Seth Van Gelder, 211 Cavalos Era

The Raemond woman removed her hood, cape, and started on her gloves. Seth opened his mouth to speak and she held a finger to her lips.

He stood there, fists clenched at his sides, nostrils flaring, his breaths shallow, his body quivering. His eyelids narrowed to focus on her.

Remember father’s lessons. What had my bubbing, ginicomtwigging fou of a father said? Oh, yes: They’re out there to get you.

Well, whoever they are, wherever I am, they are not going to get me!

Seth kept his eyes on the Raemond woman and peripherally scanned his surroundings. Nothing made sense.

All those years studying the Sacred Geometries — the pyramids, the temples, the mausoleums of ancient churches and mosques — remember their lessons, Seth Van Gelder.

Remember: Always design in a way out.

And those geometries are everywhere. He only had to find them.

Determine what is different to isolate what is similar.

Different: This is not Father’s house, nor my room.

Different: Great pah-ing sounds overhead, They pulse through the air like heartbeats of the land. Felt more than heard.

Different: Orange clouds fill the sky. And a sickening smell of pumpkin-sweet. The smell strengthens with each pah.

And warm. Much warmer than Londontown, although not unpleasantly so.

No sounds of father’s house.

Seth took his eyes from the Raemond woman for a moment and turned his head, glancing around him.

Addie’s once loved and now cruel face nowhere to be found.

Everything I knew, gone.

No! There will always be similarities. Men will always need something to walk on, even if it’s the back of others. Men will always need air to breath even if it made rancid with the smell of pumpkin-sweet. Think bigger, think smaller, until you find what’s the same in the midst of what’s different.

He stood on an elevated platform of some kind. Would there be a noose about his neck in a moment? The light which transported him faded as another light swelled around him.

The light. What brings it? There are no lamps, no torches. But men must still need light. If not a light I know then something like it.

But here there is light. And warmth. Whatever men are here are more like me than not.

His nostrils flared again. The pumpkin-sweet air sickened him. He would not breathe it in. He held his breath.

His eyes came back to the Raemond woman.

Is this Raemond a messenger finally dispatched by Sharon’s prayers, and I’m taken home?

She turned away. Behind her a waist high stand with pelts of blue light rose from the platform on which they stood. She reached out and held onto it while his eyes adjusted to the growing light, then motioned for him to turn around.

A similar stand rose up behind him. He reached for it.

The Raemond woman stood beside him. Her hand grabbed his and he gasped, constricted by a blanket of pain, a thousand nails penetrating his skin, unable to move. The breath he held he couldn’t release. It soured in his lungs. She let go and pulled her gloves off.

He used the pain to focus his thoughts. If this be a gallows then where are the hangmen and noose?

Men and women in billowing white robes stood around the platform. One of them waved. The light began to fade. The pain lessened. He could move again.

Raemond smiled and stood before him, speaking in a totally foreign tongue.

He pushed past her.

She grabbed him by the arms, one in each of her hands, and kept her own arms by her side to hold her gloves, cape, and hood close beside her.

He had to get away, away from that damned pumpkin-sweet, away to air he could breath.

She smiled and again said something he couldn’t understand.

He shook his head, pulling his arms free of her.

She drove her knee into his kingmaker and kit.

He fell to his knees, arms locked over his belly, gasping for air, bowing before her.

He stopped gasping, stopped moving, and raised his head slowly to memorize her face. Never did she bow or crip or crim to him, yet so quickly did she take him away from one hell to this other and make him bow to her.

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?”