Drabble Wednesday: Exploration

Today, on Drabble Wednesday we go exploring... into space, through dimensions and below the ocean’s surface.

To Boldly Go...

A voice reverberated through the crowd of eager scientists at NASA Mission Control.

“Discovery One has passed out of the solar system. The exploration probe is transmitting. We are receiving video communication. We will soon see what is beyond...” Abruptly the screen filled with static as the probe’s transmission ended.

“Communication is down! I repeat communication is down! We’ve lost Discovery One!”

Outside the solar system, charred pieces of metal, the remains of the ill-fated Discovery One, floated past a black, cylindrical security drone. Just one of millions patrolling the galactic quarantine perimeter of hazardous species 4BZ112~THX, native designation: human.

~*~

Quantum Phenomenon

Curiosity.

A strange, essential human trait, but a dangerous one. At least I’ve found it so, for it led me here to a rather sizable predicament.

I’m a scientist, and you may imagine curiosity is my stock in trade. My field of study is quantum mechanics, and recently I made a breakthrough.

I found a method to generate interdimensional doorways.

Hence my current problem.

It was that last one, you see, the last door I opened. The one that led to Hell. Now I have demons trapped in the closet, and I don’t think the lock will hold much longer.

~*~

Under the Sea

They said I was mad!

They were probably right. I may indeed be quite insane. If my colleagues had been smarter, they would’ve locked me away in some deep hole and thrown away the key.

For, I found it.

Years of painstaking research, of ridicule, laughter, but I located the coordinates. I discovered the position where the city lies beneath the waves. Where He waits dreaming.

But today He shall awake.

I will pierce the black seas of infinity and rouse the beast.

He shall rise and return to this world.

The Old Gods will walk the earth once more.

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Sages and Stories

Today on Drabble Wednesday, come read the old tales, stories told by elders to the new generations...

The River

Once, in the forest of time, our people followed the Great River. We camped on its banks, fished in its waters, hunted game on the surrounding plains, or in the shadows of its woodland. We lived in peace. We were content.

Then came the time of no rains. When the grass dried and the trees died. When the people of the Far City stole our river, and we went to war.

A war we lost.

Our surviving people scattered, migrating to the distant corners of the kingdom. All that remains of us, of the river, is dry dust and ghosts.

~*~

The Enemy

Gather round, children, as I tell of the horrors that lie beyond our home.

Once we were alone in this land. We had no restrictions, we roamed freely. We made homes where we pleased, not simply here in the mountains. We did not hide.

Until they came. Until they drove us from the land with their weapons, their war.

Once we flew in the skies unfettered. Now we are hunted, our wings torn, our bodies maimed. We are killed. Our enemies are monsters.

Remember this children. Never approach the humans. Always avoid them, their villages. Dragonkind must be ever vigilant.

~*~

Time and Tide

The wide, unfathomable sea. It calls to sailors, and buries their bones in its cold, murky embrace. Great ocean storms swallow ships whole, yet sometimes it gives back. Bits and bodies carried to the shores and beaches. But sometimes it keeps what it claims.

And sometimes who it claims doesn’t quite die.

Submerged in the depths, the spirits wait. Their whispers ride the waves. Their anger fuels the storms. They howl under moonlight and exist in perpetuity, as hours pass into days, and days into decades. And immortality breeds patience.

Our time will come.

We will rise.

Fear the day.

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Contemplation

Today’s Drabble Wednesday gets a little Zen…

Sailing

I stand on creaking, swaying planks of wood fashioned into a worthy vessel, gazing beyond the edge of the world. Across the liquid horizon, upon the tranquil, yet undulating, surface of the sea. So peaceful, so calm, reflecting the sweet blue sky, whilst harbouring its own hint of emerald green.

On days like this it is my mistress, my true love. We are one.

Even so, I give all respect to the coiling fury beneath, with its bones of lovers past. Turn your back, become complacent, and the ferocity will strike.

Still, I’d not give it up, not for anything.

~*~

The Mountain

Standing solid within the scope of time, a stalwart backbone of primeval earth, this mountain stretched to converse with the sky. It cast its shadow over the village, and generations of people took comfort in its presence. In turn it had played god, protector, inspiration, and obstacle.

In the winter it isolated, snows often blocking the pass and road that led to the next kingdom. In summer it provided, the slopes giving fertility to fields and harvests, its trees yielding fruit, nuts, or wood stockpiled for the cold weather.

Standing strong despite time’s passage, the mountain would outlast them all.

~*~

Starlight

Stars

Dots on the black canvas, illuminated frippery, adorning the universe. We stare—in awe, seeking knowledge, simply to idle away the hours. They are an eternal muse, imprinted, indelibly part of humanity’s eons.

What are they, truly?

A touch of things unknown, alien light reflected from another existent past, a farewell and hello from faraway places. They are a call to frontiers beyond, and memories we’ll never know, time travel held in celestial particles.

They are the beacons in the darkest night, whispering we are part of a universal something.

Where would our wishes go, but to the stars?

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

October Frights: An Ocean View

Welcome to the October Frights Blog Hop!

For today’s post, we stare at the sea’s undying horizon…

An Ocean View

It sits atop a craggy cliff, a small old stone crypt, at the end of a winding stairway carved from the rock itself. The land around it has grown wild, sitting idle from years of neglect. Few have ventured there over the years; only the brave or the foolishly curious.

The wind at the top blows cold, and often, rustling the overgrown grass and the ever spreading wildflowers. The sound of the ocean echoes, as it laps at the cliff base, and the seaborne horizon stretches out in an eternal panorama. There is a peace up there, far from the confusing world and its progression into the future.

The surroundings suit her, the woman buried there.

For it is her bones that keep company with the wind.
It is her ghost that haunts the cliff every moonlit night.

Just a whisper of ethereal gossamer standing at the cliff’s edge.

Many stories scatter and abound, about the ghost. The one most often told spins thusly…

Her name was Rose, and she died at eighteen, back when corsets were the rage, and ladies sat demurely in the parlour for tea. Rose boasted a sweetheart, a local sailor, and was promised in marriage upon his homecoming from sea. But sadly, the wedding never came to happen. On a moon soaked night, not far from the shore, her betrothed’s ship floundered on the rocks and sank. Broken-hearted and in despair, Rose threw herself from the very cliff where she was later to be buried.

A sad tale indeed. Sadder still when you know the rest.

For you see, her ghost still waits for him. Waits every full moon, until his ship appears on the horizon. Then she stares, onto that eternal horizon, and watches her love sink under the waves once more.

© A. F. Stewart 2015 All Rights Reserved

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October Frights Blog Hop: Ghosts Beneath the Sea

Welcome to the October Frights Blog Hop!

For today’s post on October Frights, we embark on a deadly sea voyage…

Ghosts Beneath the Sea

“Have you ever seen the phenomenon called fairy lights? I’ve heard tell it’s a luminescence glow floating just below the waves.” The pale, frail-looking woman smiled at the grizzled sailor, and waited patiently for an answer.

“No, miss, though I’ve heard stories. That’s what I expect they are, just stories.”

“Yes. I’ve heard them as well. Water sprites, mermaids, sea monsters, and the like. I’ve heard the scientific explanations, too. Phosphorus seaweed, bio-luminescent crustaceans, fish waste.” She shook her head. “It’s all quite erroneous.”

She looked at the sailor, staring with such an intensity that he shivered.

“Would you like to know what they truly are, sir?

“So you know, do you?” He smiled, all unease gone in a wave of condescension. “A little thing like you knows the secret to some mysterious sea phenomenon?”

“I know many secrets, sir. But this one most of all.”

She laughed, a cackle born deep in her belly spilling out across deck, and raising to the height of the ship. The old sailor trembled, this time the shiver travelled far into his bones and froze his very marrow. He took a step back from the woman, fright sketched over his salted washed face.

The woman tilted her head, seemingly amused by the man’s discomfort.  “It’s ghosts, you see. Poor men gone down in shipwrecks. Lost souls forever taken by the sea.”

The sailor made the sign of the cross. “You shouldn’t talk like that, miss. ‘Tis bad luck. You’ll curse this ship with talk like that.”

She smiled. “Oh, you poor dear. This ship was cursed the moment I stepped on board.”

She opened her mouth, but it was not a laugh that issued forth, but a roar. A elemental challenge that shook the ship from bow to stern.

The sailor answered it with a cry of his own, a scream born of primal terror.

For no demure, delicate lady faced him now. Her face no longer reflected anything human. Hollow eyes burned black and sunken, peering from ridged sockets, and her flesh dissolved into a death mask of bone and scales. Her torso grew and bulged, while limbs stretched and transformed into scaly, grasping tentacles.

The sailor shouted, “Kraken!” before a tentacle swept forward to knock the old man overboard. Another scream followed him into the sea.

“Rise my children! Rise and greet your new brothers!”

From the waves ascended light, a thousand pinpricks of radiance that swirled and danced, and surrounded the ship. They hovered, waiting to bear witness. They did not wait long. Inhuman tentacles wrapped themselves around the ship’s mast, around its rudder, snaking past its shrieking crew. The Kraken pulled, heaving against wood as it cracked and fractured. She shredded the ship with ease, and tore it all apart.

As the poor ship died, the lights keened—their sound pure and mournful. As the ship sank, as men submerged beneath the waves, the lights enveloped them. Slowly, one by one, they sucked the dying souls from their drowning bodies, and welcomed all the doomed crew into their undead ranks.

Her  task finished, the Kraken descended into the sea, taking her children—new and old—with her. Above her, and her brood, floated the flotsam of another tragic shipwreck.

© A. F. Stewart 2015 All Rights Reserved

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Drabble Wednesday: Sailing The Strange Seas

Today on Drabble Wednesday we’re hoisting the mainsail and taking to the oceans. I have pirates, sea creatures and ghost ships steering a course through my drabbles, and, as an extra treat, some flash fiction. So read on and breathe in the salt air…

Beware the Kraken

“Be that a storm, Capt’n?”

The sailor at the helm pointed to the ominous, inky shadow gathering on the horizon.

Captain Kenyon peered with his spyglass. “That’s no storm, that’s a ship. That’s the Kraken! Increase the speed, Mr. Anders! ‘Tis pirates a‘coming!” To the rest of the crew he shouted, “Full sail! Man your stations!”

Mr. Anders obeyed posthaste, but asked, “The Kraken? Ain’t she but a myth?”

“Nay. She’s half ship, half-beast, and all pirate. We’d all best pray.”

Running fast, the Captain held out hope. Until a tentacle whipped across the sea foam and snagged the rudder.

Welcome to Skull Island

The rain lashed the sails, and above Toby’s head the lightning cracked the sky. He heard waves pound against the ship’s wooden sides as the Obsidian Blade cut through the waters. Then footsteps sounded, even through the storm; the heavy tread of Captain Walsh’s boots.

“A wild night for a homecoming, eh lad?”

Toby longed to turn his head and spit in the Captain’s eye, but tied as he was to the figurehead he could only stare from the vessel’s bow towards the craggy rocks ahead. He shivered at his view, the looming spectre of the pirate’s stronghold, Skull Island.

Ghosts of the Sea Moon

The moon blended into the obsidian sky, a luminescent silver veneer striding across the horizon. Its grace swayed and suspended on shifting ethereal clouds, and its children stars gathered close in a bright, shimmering embrace. To the melancholy sailor on deck it seemed the lunar object to be the ship’s destination, the full sail and choppy wake speeding the vessel to the heavens.

“She’s a sight, the Sea Moon. Once a year, she looms this vast and grand above us, beckoning home her seafaring brood. But she’d swallow us whole if we let it her.”

The sailor flinched, the captain’s voice abrupt and loud in his ear. No warning the man gave to his presence, for the ship’s master had a step quiet as a cat’s paw.

“Do you really think it would swallow the ship, sir?”

“Aye, in a fashion. Not the moon itself mind you, but the celestial magic spilling into the air and sea. And it could do worse, if we miscalculate the bearings. It’s tricky work navigating these moonbeam waters, and the otherworldly rifts.” Then the captain smiled, and clapped a hand on the sailor’s shoulder. “But not to worry, lad, I've been doing this run a long, long time, and I never floundered my ship in the hoary moon mist yet. I’ll get you home.”

“Home.” The sailor let the word flop on his tongue, its taste bitter. “Home is far behind this ship, back on shore with a weeping widow, who barely had time to be a bride.”

“Aye, lad. I’m sorry for what you've lost, and the hardship of your death. I hope you take some comfort in the fact I plucked your spirit from the deep, before the sea demons feasted on your soul. Moreover, be glad you finally accepted your fate. Some never leave this ship, vainly hoping to find a way back to the living.” A fleeting frown crossed his lips, and then pivoted back to his customarily, wry smile. “Besides, my lad, you’ll see your widow bride again one day, in the afterlife you’re seeking, and there’ll be people that went before waiting for you. So be cheered.”

The sailor said nothing, simply turned his face to the imposing moon, as the ship of ghosts sailed toward his last port of call.

Drabble Wednesday: Strange Travels

We embark on a journey today on Drabble Wednesday, a trek through worlds sublime, and stories short…

Bon Voyage

I heard the gulls squawking, and the sound of crashing waves as the ocean rolled past the day into twilight. The last vestige of sun scattered through the gathered clouds, glinting sparkles off the water. In the company of this grand sea, I remembered better days, sorted memories like photos in a forgotten album; scenes of picnics at the beach, sunset walks, laughing children.

The reminiscences helped. They distracted from the cold, from the water that invaded my nose, my mouth, my lungs. Then I shut my eyes as I choked my final breath and sank beneath the ocean’s surface. 

The Morning

He settled on the grassy hillside and removed a hard biscuit from his rucksack. He chewed the tough bread—his only breakfast—and watched the sun rise above the fog shrouded mountains he left behind. Wondrous colours diffused the sky, a melange of titian and burnt umber, brushed with blush, that spread across a heavenly field of sapphire blue.

The old tree still stood in the meadows beyond the mountains and he remembered the day he carved his initials, and Ellen’s, in the bark. The day he first kissed her. She was gone now, and he could no longer stay.

Rendezvous

Alice waited on the train platform, her carpetbags packed with her belongings. She clutched her ticket, wondering for the umpteenth time if she was a fool. Risking it all for love, for Avery, a man with twinkling hazel eyes and promises of marriage. Her father would never take her back, never forgive her shunning the husband he picked out in favour of a gentleman he considered a wastrel.

She checked her small pocket watch again. What would she do if he didn’t show?

“I’m not that late, am I?”

Alice spun, greeted by his smile and a matching train ticket.

Kintsugi Blog Hop: Insignificant

Welcome to Day Four, unfurl the sails...

Insignificant

A solitary tear passing

over his weathered skin

swallowed by opaque fog,

as sails catch the wind

with the shadow's moon

~

Now head on over the the main Kintsugi Poets Society site for more:  http://kintsugiart.wordpress.com/

Fantastic Fantasy: A Review of "On Dark Shores: The Lady"

My Book Review of On Dark Shores: The Lady by JA Clement:

On Dark Shores: The Lady by JA Clement is an enthralling page-turner and I adored the book. The marvellous story sucked me in from page one and the way the author weaves her narrative elements together, I believe she may be the literary child of Charles Dickens and Ursula K. le Guin.

In the town of Scarlock, a series of events are unfolding on a course to collide with unforeseen consequences. The thief Nereia and her sister Mary, the moneylender Copeland and his enforcer Blakey, the fence Mickel seem to be headed toward the mysterious forces surrounding the Mother of the Shantari.

Sometimes you find a book that is such a delight to read, you don’t want to pry your eyes away from the page; On Dark Shores: The Lady is such a book. You fall in this world of fantasy from the first word, swept along by a wave of mystery, struggle, fear and appealingly genuine characters. The author serves you a world you can almost smell and taste and hear, where people act from hidden motives, spite, desperation, honour, duty and even cruelty. There is an entrancing spell woven from every fibre, with characters scheming revenge or thievery, manipulating for their own ends, fighting to escape and survive. But still, a certain thread of hope or fate winds a subtle touch through the book to elevate any grim or bleak ambience, giving the plot a radiating spark.

The only bad thing about this novel is that it ended too soon, but as it is the first in a series I can look forward to more. The end left tantalising questions still pending and I’m salivating to read the next instalment. Lucky for me, there was a sneak peek at the next part tucked away at the end of the book.

On Dark Shores: The Lady is one of the best fantasy books I’ve read in a while, and I recommend you beg, borrow or buy this book. You won’t be disappointed.


 
On Dark Shores: The Lady is also available on Smashwords