November update

It's another grand three-story month for Saturday Story-time. Here's what's coming down the pipeline:

Already available, "The Water Balloon Fight" is a story about two crotchety old men, and the inherent humor therein. Read it right here. It's gilded by a lovely picture by Sydney Writer.

Coming soon, an as-of-yet unnamed story is currently being constructed. It's about space. A lot of space. All the space. It has to do with one of my favorite science-fiction concepts: utter grandeur. Imagine flying through space and finding something so big that it defies numbers; indeed it reaches out in directions with such length that it seems a piece of the landscape of space. It is a structure that anchors the ends of the universe. I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. It will appear, fully formed, on the sixteenth.

And on the thirtieth . . . another story will appear. I'm not sure what it will be. Maybe something in a house? A man might have a gun. There might be a boat. I have so many ideas; only the strongest will survive.

Edit: I figured out the ending to the next story. Yes.

October update

Hello, you readers.

Just today a story has gone up on Saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com, which is titled "Helpers LTD." This story came out of a strange event that happened to me a few weeks ago at the gym.

I was on a weight machine, some leg thing, and just as I was going to get done when a young woman appeared and sat on the machine that I was going to head to. As far as I could tell, she never actually used it, just sat on it for about ten seconds and messed with her phone. Then she exited the machine.

July Update

Tomorrow "A Favor" happens at Saturday Story-Time! And it's about time, too. This story will be accompanied with a picture by Appletumble, Ballerina! Last week it was PascalCampion with the astounding Hot Night Summer in the City, next to "Good Omens". Pascal's work is frequent and fantastic, and with every picture he puts up my respect for his ability grows.

I've already started to work on the story that will appear on July 27th, but I'm not sure if it will be traditional. It could end up being longer than normal, and so I may either:

1) Split the story and release the second part two weeks later, or

2) Not upload a story on the 27th, and instead post the whole darn thing all at once on August 10th. Currently leaning towards option 1.

The story itself excites me, because it has the perfect mix of elements that I love to write with. And, every time I will sit down to write it, I will listen to this song. The idea inside the story I'd had for a while, since reading 1984 though it won't be Dystopian or totalitarian in the slightest, and when I thought of this song, it all fell into place.

'Till next time.

Recent Stuff

It's the off week here at Saturday Story-Time, and it's been a while since I posted to the original blog. There was never a consistent posting schedule for this, but I figured I would write about a few things.

First off: Saturday Story-Time is on its sixth story with another one growing. Since I last spoke, three stories have arrived. First there was The Hungry River, a fantasy story about a Palace Guard subjected to torture that he does not deserve. Second, there was the bit-sized Find the Exit, a story that starts strange and gets stranger, and last week was the debut of A Carnival to Remember, a . . . thriller? Horror? Let's go with horror.

Also starting last week was a current-story link on the right side of the screen, with a picture appropriate to the story's subject matter. The current picture is from the talented Eric Freitas, who makes interesting clock structures and other dabblings in 3D art.

It was difficult to decide which story to write for next Saturday. I started one idea, a fantasy story begun by a poem (which I must admit I feel pride for), but realized it was very similar to a world I had already created. So, I switched and started to write a short story set in that world. I noticed, though, that there wasn't enough backstory to the world.

I wrote a novel, you see, about a group of people called the Guards of the Earth (also the title of the book). These people are picked from birth, and their magical potential culled, eventually taking a familiar and choosing to protect the earth from magic and those that would abuse it, set in present day and our familiar Earth.

So that short story idea was put aside, perhaps to return to in the future, and I started on an idea I got a few days before, of a woman who gets visions of the future, but only those of a specific nature. What normally happens did, and a few days ago the story became clear. I expect it to be 10k words at the most, and will appear on June 29th, bringing to a close the first 3-story month for Saturday Story-Time.

Edit: And you are able to subscribe to Saturday Story-Time via email, which hovers under the current picture on the right, waiting for your gentle click.

Story Numbered Third

Once again, a bit of short fiction is appearing on my other blog, Saturday Story-Time. This one has no dieing! No foolin'! It's called "An Adventure," and I think it's strange. Have at it! It goes up at noon on May the fourth, but there are two other stories to read while you wait!

Story Number Two!

Hello! I am again shilling for my other blog, saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com, where a new original short story is available for your pleasure! The story is called "The Flight, the Hunt," and is great. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you have fun reading it!

Exciting!

Friends! Countrymen! Enemies...

Starting tomorrow at noon (assuming that blogger isn't broken and manages to post things when I tell it to) there's going to be original short stories up on an entirely different blog. The name of the blog is Saturday Story-Time, and new stories will appear there every two weeks! As if by magic. Here's a link, but there won't be anything there until at least Saturday the sixth of April, noon. Saturday Story-Time.

The first story is an idea I've had for a while. It is titled Strange Heaven.

Please, enjoy! And if you do, tell your friends! And be sure to come back periodically!

All aboard

Sitting at a park bench. It's a nice, windy day out, my paper is fluttering in my hands. Doing the crossword, you know. trying to figure out what answers the hint "Baxter 57," three letters. Squirrels are hopping around, playing a capture-the-flag game with acorns. I hear a strange whistle, and it seems to be coming nearer. A caustic, piercing shrill cuts the air.

The train pulls in front of me, chewing up the grass. Smoke hisses and belches from its cast iron wheels. A conductor steps down in painful, blazing white and blue stripes. He looks straight at me. Come aboard, boy.

"I don't want to," I say. "I don't have a ticket."

Yes you do. He points. It's in your hand. I look. Yes, it is. All aboard the migraine train, he yells in my ear as I climb the wobbly stairs.

The inside is lit as bright as a theater stage, lights from every open spot on the wall pointed directly at me. I'm alone in the interior. I don't get to sit, the train's noises are ferocious and repetitive. If I look out the window the scenery blurs by. I recognize some things...If I squint I can see a person, or a tree, but they look different, detached perhaps. They move in a stop-and-go quick animation, I can't seem to focus.

A...man?...enters the cabin, carrying a clattering tray of utensils. I think I may be served dinner, but all he does is hold the tray up in my face and shake it, sending waves of crashing sound at me.

The train bounces, and the lights flash even brighter.

***

And so another trip on the Migraine Train. I used to be a frequent rider, taking a trip once or twice a week. I see a neurologist now, Nurse Practitioner Amy Larson. She's tended to my dad and I, and knows her way around the brain. I'm seeing her on Nov 5th for a checkup.

Migraines are a personal event. Everybody gets hit differently. I start with grey zones in my vision, a clear sign of the approaching train. It's like the whistle from off in the distance. I can tell how painful the migraine is from how much vision is obscured. If it's a little circle, or a crescent, I can expect a couple of hours. But sometimes a big portion, quarters or halves of my entire vision is gone, and I know I have a long day ahead of me.

Here is an examples of what you might experience with these auras:

This can happen any time, even when not reading "A Tale of Two Cities." It is frequently triggered by things such as dehydration or a sudden change to a sleep pattern, but not always.

These auras are strange. It isn't as if you can't see, it's as if your eyes are collecting the information, and it's just being let loose to wander around in your brain for a bit of sightseeing. I sometimes think "take a picture of the corpus callosum, that's something to show to your grandkids." You're getting the information, but your brain has no idea what to do with it.

Then, as illustrated by the train, things start to change. The vision obstruction disappears, and the pain gains a foothold closer to the front of the brain. You see, the back side of the brain holds the optical center, and as a migraine progresses, it moves from the back to the front. So it starts with the vision, then barges in next door. I gain sensitivity to light and sound, and during one particularly powerful migraine, nausea due to the memory of a smell. It was the smell of pears.

The vision and sound weakness will persist as the migraine takes over the command center. Yes, the frontal cortex. This is where the pain really starts to hammer, and it's best to take a lie down here. This part can last from an hour or two to, in the case of the one bad migraine I mentioned above, six hours. During which time I could bear no light, nearly no sound, and the barest of motions.

The brain fights back, deadening the pain more and more until the migraine ends. Most times, my brain can actually feel sore, like I was exercising it, or it will feel tender, like it is bruised. This period can last for a day, sometimes.

This is my experience, but again migraines are a personal event. Everyone reacts to them differently. I, for one, have only gotten nauseous the once, while others may have it be a prevalent part of their ride on the train. Some people don't get the vision auras, others may become very dizzy. They are unique.

***

I step off the train, far from my starting point. It is the next day. My ears are ringing, and I feel like every sound could set the train in motion again. I think my name is Boutros and I have no idea where my glasses are. I might be wearing someone else's pants.

I look behind me and see the train disappearing. As he fades into the day, the conductor intones I'll be seeing you again...

Two Albums

I'm a big fan of music, and I love Spotify and Pandora and Grooveshark, and iTunes if I have to. So, I decided to relay some thoughts to you about two albums I recently heard.

Clockwork Angels by Rush

The all-stars of the Canadian rock scene heave out their latest masterpiece, a steam-punk concept album written by drummer Neil Peart. Naturally, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee join him for Guitar/backing vocals, and bass/keyboards/lead vocals respectively. Dang guys. Ease up on Geddy.

As well as being the inspiration for bands such as Metallica, Dream Theater, and Symphony X, Rush continues to push the musical envelope with their playing. Peart continues to display exemplary drumming, such as in Clockwork Angels song "7 Cities of Gold," which features crisp, pristine hide-bonking. I say they push the envelope, not because they are doing something different, but because they are doing the same thing: music that features three virtuosos that are well-trained in their art. They don't want to bow to the pressures of new music. They want to do what they love, which is near-perfect, sonorous progressive rock.

And they get very close to perfection indeed! Consider the grandeur of  "Caravan," the vocal genius of "Wreckers," the raucous serenity of "The Garden," or the musical zenith that is "Headlong Flight," in which Lee's rising and falling tones combine with Lifeson's accomplished guitar playing and the always-superior Peart-tone drums.

Overall, Clockwork Angels is an incredible album that highlights the best of Rush's abilities. Five out of Five.

The Nvrland by First Candle

First Candle splashed the canvas hard with their first album A Lonnely Birthday, and, with the addition of Marion Ghellickson, add an accomplished female front to their already strong lineup. Guitarist Ken Ramsey penned all but one of the songs on their latest misspelling, the exception being "Only Time I've Ever Known," written by keyboard-doer Amanda Cotard. Their drummer is Michael Ixaust, and their bassist (and known sitar-ist) is Jamie Smith.

The Nvrland excels over their last album Without Fael with not only the addition of Ghellickson, but with a surprising amount of tact applied by Cotard. Fael suffered from an over-abundance of synth and a lack of real piano accompaniment, instead having Cotard, in a way, play on her own and hope it does something for the album. Songs such as "Whoopity" or "Crass Block" do not benefit from this, and sound slightly deranged as a result.

However, The Nvrland allows Cotard to be both an accompanying instrument, to underscore Ramsey or Smith, or become her own instrument, giving her a few solos and background tracks. Songs like "Lost You, Found Me" and "Jumpfall" are exquisite, and title track "The Nvrland" is a fifteen minute masterpiece based on the story of Peter Pan. The album is weak only on their last track, "Comma Man," which features Smith's bass as the head instrument, and as such has a hard time allowing the other instruments to successfully add to the tone.

Overall, The Nvrland is a fine example of First Candle's adherence to an elemental sound, summoning thoughts of whispy woods, bubbling pools of magma, and a rushing stream. It's too bad it's a fake album by a fake band. @ out of Five.

Don't worry, Rush is real.

G Forces and their Effects on Me

This Saturday I went to Valleyfair as part of a bachelor party (Congratulations Lenny and Kacie!) and, as is expected, went on roller coasters. I had never been on a roller coaster before. Yes, at the ripe age of twenty-two (twenty-three if you're including the stuff with the lasers in '04) I had never ridden a roller coaster. And we went on nearly every one offered at Valleyfair.

And so, in convenient bite-sized fashion, I will recount to you the experiences I had in chronological order.

 

Steel Venom:

It's like a big squished "U"

I was nervous, it's true. Having never been on anything more exciting than a commercial jet, going on this ride wasn't very high up on my doings list. Picture to the right:

That's it?! Is that legal? That's like Roller Coaster Tycoon when you jack up the launch speed and it explodes in mid-air! No!

Yes. I rode it. But wait, there's more. You get launched...launched...out of the platform at seventy-five miles an hour! I'm not comfortable driving that fast! And what's more, this is how you sit:

It demands a sacrifice of shoe

Luckily, I was able to retain my footwear, and, after crossing myself, got into the small bucket seat. This was after waiting in line for twenty minutes, watching the ride happen over and over again above my head. During that time I was warned by our friend Mike that, at the height of it's fourth time in the air, the ride suspends for a half-second, and that we should tilt our pelvises away from the front to...protect ourselves.

I've gotten in the seat and strapped in, wondering what the ruling is for using duct tape. The aforementioned marriage-man Lenny is next to me. He is sympathetic of my worry, and tells me everything is all right. After waiting for a few minutes so that the man in the chair in front of Lenny exits (He was too big to be safely restrained) I hear a countdown.

"The ride will launch in two, one,"

After a brief blip of worry entitled "What Happened to Three?" the ride took off at seventy-five miles an hour, straight forward and then up, spiraling clockwise. Had my eyes been open, I would have seen nothing but sky and clouds. Then the ride shot back down and flew past the station, and rocketed back up, this time with us looking straight down. Shortly after that, I found myself streaming past the station again, cheeks flapping. The ride went higher up and twisted more than it had the first time, something I hadn't noticed while safely watching it from the ground. At the tiny point in time that the ride wasn't moving, a man two chairs ahead of me yelled, quite clearly: "Holy Balls!" Then the ride fell down and rose at the end again, forcibly making me envision my certain mortality.

At this point Lenny reminds me to "prepare myself," and the I do so as the ride halts, ever so subtly. In which I mean everybody jerks forward in their seats with an almighty cry. I managed to keep myself from bruising, and again the ride is rushing for the ground, curving into the station and past once more. Since I have been yelling the entire time, I find it appropriate to pause at the top of the last height, say in a casual voice: "I agree with your earlier statement" to the man two seats ahead of me, and resume screaming.

We finally drift into the station. Lenny and I both have problems freeing ourselves from the chair. I, because the world spins and throbs, and Lenny because he is laughing from what I said high in the air.

I had survived, and kept multiple parts of me from ejecting anything.

 

Power Tower:

I had been on this one before, and I had enjoyed it. We waited in line for quite some time, and then strapped ourselves in. We were riding the red car, which meant we would winch to the top of the tower and then free fall for 250 feet. There is also a blue car, which simply jettisons you up, and then allows you to drift back down.

So we went on that, and it was fun.

 

Wild Thing:

"Nooooooooooooooooo-"

This one made me even more nervous than Steel Venom. It has a top speed of 74 MPH, and over a mile of track. The first hill is over two hundred feet high. And it only has lap bars, so the relative safety I felt was less than Steel Venom.

It's tall, and it's fast, and there was an accident once and even though nobody got hurt I am not going on that! I thought, moments before getting on it. I sat next to Mike, who had ridden it at least a dozen times.

Getting brought up the hill by the chain was the worst. Oh, and the first drop. And the subsequent drops. And the turns (Just before the first turn I heard myself yell "No! Not turning!"). The tunnel was pretty scary too. There is a camera in the tunnel that snaps your photo, which you can buy for the measly price of ten dollars.

So, after stumbling off of this ride, which I have to admit I don't fully remember, we went to the photo booth to wait for the other two, who were forced to ride in the train behind us. We took a look at the photo and suddenly I was glad that I had ridden it. Mike, who as I mentioned before had ridden it many times, was winking, and pointing both index fingers at the camera, creating a Fonzesque aura of ease and comfort. I, on the other hand, was bending the metal lap bar between my hands, and my face looked like it had been made of dough and rolled by an overzealous baker, forming it into a mocking farce of sanity.

The Wave:

We broke for lunch, and then got back into the swing of things by going on The Wave, which Lenny had never been on and we prefaced for him with "You'll get wet, but not too wet." Apparently we are liars. It's a little log ride with a dozen passengers in its one log, and has only one drop. When the log hits the bottom, it also hits a pool of water that splashes.

It splashes a lot. The water is chemically designed to be attracted to dry things. As the car came around the second and final corner into the station, we were soaked and shivering.

(Of course, at this point, the sun went behind clouds and was never seen again.)

Bonus! The wave also hits the bridge that is used to exit the ride, so when we left, Mike and I waited on the bridge to experience it once more. It was like getting punched by Triton.

It's orange now

Corkscrew:

This one was fun, and it's the only ride we went on twice. You get in a standard car with shoulder harness, get winched up, and then go upside-down. I knew this in advance, and was able to prepare by taking my glasses off and putting them in my wet pants pocket. As we climbed the one and only hill, I turned to my right and said "Mike, I gotta say, I'm not excited about going upside-down." Of course by then there was little I could do.

The ride is short, but exciting. Being upside down isn't too bad really. It goes like this: "I am right side up. Now I am upside down. Now I am right side up again." That's really how it feels, especially going as fast as we were. There are a couple of corkscrews later on and it's different, but not by much. Then it's like this: "I seem to be spinning, but it's all right."

I had my eyes closed the entire time the first time we rode it, which was par for the course at that point, and so the second time we went on it I kept them open the entire time, save occasional blinking.

 

Mad Mouse:

A weird little compact coaster was next. We- wait.

Oops. Hold on

 

Something?:

Before the Mad Mouse we went on this little gray water slide on a rubber tube. I can't remember the name of it, but I do remember that the tubes had a 350 lb max weight, so we had to jigger the four of us to get both groups under that limit. We got wet, more wet than we thought we would get, again. It was standard.

 

Mad Mouse:

Grrr squeak.

For real this time. It's a small, squished roller coaster that has individual cars of four people each. The cars look like mice, and have hydraulics that slightly lift one side or the other, depending on what corner you go around. It was called "The Ride not to go on when you have Mono." And that is because of the bar on your lap. It crushes your intestines. They aren't going anywhere, people, it's all right. See all those turns at the top of the ride? Those are 180 degree, hairpin turns, and because of those turns we all staggered out of the ride, groaning. My legs hurt for two days.

It isn't the craziest ride, but it's built for smaller people. It's marketed as a family coaster for small child-types, and that was most of the line. But we endured the scrutiny of eight-year olds and rode it anyway. It probably looked pretty funny seeing us big guys (+ Lenny) squished in there.

 

Renegade:

You're a loose cannon, Roller Coaster.

This one was nuts. Crazy nuts. It took thirty minutes to finally get in the car, and from then on it was three thousand, one hundred and thirteen feet of nuts. It's a wooden roller coaster, and the very first thing that happens is the roller coaster says "You know those other roller coasters? I'm not like that!"

After getting pulled by a chain up a hundred feet, it starts to drop. But then, it turns! In the middle of the first drop! You get hit by so many G's you look like the recipient of a Green Bay Packer blitz.

But it was fun! I was turned into a little boy who last his blankie by the sight of it, but had a ton of crazy, screaming fun.

 

Thunder Rapids:

This was kind of a waste of time. We got in line and waited way longer than we thought we would. As the name suggests, water is involved. We had a backpack with us the entire time, and couldn't stash it anywhere for this ride, which we had been able to do at every other ride before or after, so the most exciting part of this ride was passing the bag back and forth so it didn't get wet. I got hurt by the seat belt twice on the same hand, and we exited not feeling very excited. There was also no thunder.

Oh, b.t.w., Valleyfair uses a park rating system 1-5. A one would be the kidding train that puffs around the park, and a five would be Steel Venom or the Wild Thing. Both Thunder Rapids and Renegade were fours. We did not agree.

Excalibur:

This one had a very short line, which was good because we didn't have to wait long, and bad because before I had a chance to decide if I wanted to go on it, I was already strapped in.

This one's kind of abusive. You get knocked around a lot and turned at absurd angles to the ground, nearly dumped out of your seat fifty feet above the ground and knocked side to side by the turns. While on the ride it thought it was crazy not to have guard rails, but now I realize that's kind of stupid.

At the end of the ride, I tapped on the shoulder in front of me, which belonged to a girl. I said. "Having become very familiar with it, I can say you have very nice hair." Then I got out. Mike suspects she was in middle school and thought I was a creepy guy, but I stand by my statement, mostly because her hair was in my face during the entire ride.

 

Xtreme Swing:

This one is not a roller coaster. I think Satan built it. It looks like two oil derricks connected at the top and turned into swings. It supports forty people at once, ten on each side of each swing. Then the swings start to alternate going one way, and then the other.  The swings go higher and higher until they go beyond level with each other, as illustrated to the right.

There isn't a shoulder harness, just a plastic lap bar. I didn't know what to grip onto, but I tried my darnedest.

Before every ride at Valleyfair, attendants make sure you are buckled in properly. When a guy came to check my seatbelt, I thanked him, for keeping me safe. Lenny commented that I was probably the only person to do that all day.

They keep me from dying, so it's only fair.

I had a several levels of scream during this ride. I started with "Woo," and then moved up to "Aaa," deep and masculine. That was stripped away by looking straight down at a pond filled with lily-pads and became girlish wailing. The ride effectively made me drunk, and I think out of all of them, this is the one that I would want to ride the again the least.

---

As we walked through the parking lot, John, Lenny's best man, commented that statistically we are more likely to get hurt driving on the freeway than riding a roller coaster. I'll take my chances.

Congratulations again to the future Mr. and Mrs. Olson. I'll try not to bungle your wedding too badly. I'm only an usher, but still.

Magic Moms

I'm sure that Moms have super powers. Wow, it took me six tries just to write the word "powers."

For instance, this morning the resident Mom came into my room in a desperate attempt to wake me up. My comforter, a nice maroon diamond-patterned job, had over time slipped away from the front of the bed and to one side. I sometimes tried to fix it, but usually only managed to regain a few inches of ground, while feet remained in either direction. But when the Mom saw this, she grabbed it, and performed some manoeuver so complex it can only be spelled with an "o." The comforter had been put back in its proper place and I, still being inside the bed during the action, was moved somewhere just north of Chicago.

"Good morning everybuhhhhh..."

That's just one of the many skills exhibited by Moms. A low-level skill such as "Make toast w/out burning it" looks easy in practice but is hard to do, I've found out. Or maybe the "Tidy up" ability, which not only requires to be a level 12 and the proper amount of mana, but, I'm sure, time travel. The "Bottomless Bag" sounds like a handy one to have, but you have to possess an intimate knowledge of theoretical physics and Gallifreyan ancestry.

No Mom, I don't need to put on a heavier coat. It's the Volcano world Magmar.

But Moms are not without their weaknesses. Mine, for instance, has Indirectarum Givex, two made-up words that means she can't give directions to save her life. Or mine, unfortunately. She once drew a map on a scrap of paper that had north pointing down. She once told me to "turn at the Yeah Church," but the name of the church was not "Yeah," that's what a class was called that was held there. Of course I got lost. Just this past weekend she got herself lost in Wisconsin. That didn't bother my Dad very much but they still got lost, and she wrote them down herself. They both claim that it was Google's mistake, but the facts are there.

Literary Evil: No Explanation Needed

One of my first serious attempts at writing happened when I was sixteen. I don't know how I got the idea, or what it was for, but it was a little story about a group of warriors that fight the undead. It was simple, the shortest of short stories. Later on, I added more to the story. One of the characters, Weln, a mute archer, journeys alone to a nearby mountain. During that time, he remembers an event five hundred years in the past, his first encounter with the power behind the undead. At the top of the mountain, he finds his brother, the mastermind behind it. They fight, and Weln wins. They both utilize a telekinetic power granted by a purple pillar in a chamber of the mountain. The entire story is just over nine thousand words.

At one point in college I showed the story to a friend at work. After she read it, she said she didn't understand the purple pillar. Why was it there? How did it work?

But why did I need to answer those questions? To explain, let's look at some examples:

One of the most memorable evils in literature, for me, is Sauron in LOTR. At first he's a humanoid with great strength, then reduced to a lidless eye looking for jewelry. And yet the entire free world wishes to keep him from coming back to full power. He corrupts the hearts of men, twists Saruman into an instrument of evil and dries the land around him into a wasteland. But is he explained? Kind of!

He is the mightiest of the Maiar! Corrupted by the Great Enemy Morgoth in the First Age and most powerful of his lieutenants!

Which means nothing unless you read The Silmarillion, or you had access to J.R.R. Tolkien's private notes.

How does the ring hold his power? What will happen if he gets the ring? How is he just an eye on a tower? Where does his power originate? How did he see out of that helmet?

Elendil? Isildur? Hello?

Perhaps a more recent example. Stephen King's Dark Tower series is seven books long, and in typical King fashion, are a thousand pages each.

Quickly: Roland the Gunslinger tries to find the Dark Tower, the crux and structure that all worlds are based around. He wants to keep it from crumbling. It's supported, in the Universe's main world, by six infinitely old beams with the Tower at the center. The person responsible for destroying two of the beams, and nearly a third, is a man named the Crimson King. His goal is to tear down the Tower and bring about "Discordia," and rebuild the world in his image.

And again, if you only read the seven main books, you will have no idea how the Crimson King has his power, where it came from originally, what kind of creature he is, and what force he has at his disposal. But the explanation isn't needed.

Drinks are in the fridge. And try not to leave a ring on the Mantel of Darkness.

For both characters, they are the source of ultimate evil in their respective worlds, and both decry explanation. There could be some, sure, but in my opinion it would lessen the impact they have on the story. Instead of a powerful, unknown entity, that you just have to hope and pray you defeat somehow, you get a measurable quantity that you simply need to work around. It's no longer a fight against fate, but a fight against another person, even if that person is nearly nine feet tall, undead, or in command of armies.

Woah science

Some time ago, I had an idea for a story. That story would start with the main characters flying through space on a ship that happens to fly straight through the center of the universe. Good stuff. Pretty quickly in (current estimate is between 20k and 25k words) one of the characters, a demented, sociopathic genius, activates a device, just as it passes through the center of the universe, and is able to destroy the universe and recreate it, however he wants it.

Luckily, most of the other main characters witnessed this device's activation, thus, they and the ship they were on survives, allowing them to undo the madman's work.

One of the questions I had to answer for this story was: "What the heck kind of device does this guy have?" It was one of the big ones, a pressing question that kept me from going forward. I haven't actually written that part, yet the thought dogged me.

But then July Fourth happened. In between explosions and grilling, lab-coated scientists in Switzerland, playing around with the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, discovered what could, maybe, possibly, be a Higgs Boson. Good enough for me.

The Higgs Boson is referred to as the "God Particle," a name which pisses off many a scientist, because all it really does is provide a testable hypothesis for the origin of mass in elementary particles. I copied that sentence from wikipedia and like, every word is linked to something. In truth, the concrete discovery of Higgie would leave more questions than it answered, mostly about the unification of quantum chronodynamics, the electroweak reaction, and gravity, as well as the ultimate origin of the universe.

Thinking that maybe I could use this particle as a basis for Crazy Guy's device (I call him CG in my notes because I don't have a name for him yet), I started researching, and I think it's doable.

The device would have to create a "Vacuum expectation Value (VeV)" of  246 GeV or General electron Volt (basically, 1.602×10⁻¹⁹ joules times 246). This is the VeV of a Higgs field, which is the field required to create the Boson unique to that field (Hence: Higgs Boson).

This diagram shows the HB interactions with other particles shown with the Standard Model. It's totally dissing Photons and Gluons

At the time of activation, CG's device would create the field, as well as a HB particle inside that field. To do this, the device would have to incorporate a particle accelerator (of which the Large Hadron Collider is the biggest in existence) to create an HB. This is where the "genius" part of crazy guy would have to come in. He has, in theory, developed a way to have a Higgs Boson be created just as it passes through the center of the universe.

And now all science goes out the window. I really have no idea if what I've said up to this point makes sense to someone who actually understands this gook, but from this point on: what I say, goes.

As Higgie passes through the center of the universe (Or "Into the point" as CG calls it) it simultaneously destroys and creates all matter. Because an HB is both its own antimatter and CP-even (Which means it would be the same if it was switched with its antiparticle and its left and right were swapped) it accomplishes both at once.

However, the last aspect of the device is that it draws matter...a DNA sample perhaps...from the user. It then imprints this sample as the new standard model for the universe.

This means that CG is able to create the universe in his own image and with his own rules. He is immortal, invincible, all-knowing and all-powerful. He is God, and king, and he rules forever. Yet his universe is still built on rules, and even he cannot break them.

Except that the people that witnessed him activating the device are also preserved, just as they are, stuck in a ship floating in space. And they are the only ones that realize what is going on.

Addition! Crazy Guy's name is unofficially Ulysses Divus. Which means that it's official unless I think of something better. Fun facts: "Divus" (pronounced Dee-woos) in Latin is the male singular of God, immortal, or deity. The female singular is Diva. Eh? Eh? Yeah.

Bulb

   It is a forgone conclusion that whenever I attempt to do something, a project, a task, a chore, that I will either break something or hurt myself. The first and only time my father asked me to help him rotate the tires, I lost one lug nut and swallowed another. A few months ago I was cutting down a tree branch with a trimmer, and, in a whirlwind of motion that I have yet to explain, I found myself caught by an ankle up in the tree, ten feet away from where I had been standing, the trimmer lying on the ground mockingly still and my trapped body swinging in the wind.
    Well, this afternoon I tried changing a light bulb. My parents had left the house for some function and I was left with this simple task. It was one of three light bulbs in the kitchen fixture, set in the center of the ceiling. I thought first to get a light bulb their storage area, but realized I didn't know what kind to get and, given my track record, would finish the project with a birthday candle stuck in the socket upside-down. I went into the kitchen and starred up at the fixture, determined to figure out which one was burnt. I flipped the light on and temporarily blinded myself. Recovering, I saw which bulb was burnt, and pulled a kitchen stool under it. Before I mounted it, I decided that it would be best to turn the light off again. I removed the small cushion that was on the stool because I knew that it would slip out from under me. Proud that I had remembered that fact, I climbed onto the stool. However, I misjudged both my height and the height of the stool and crashed the top of my head into the ceiling.
    After a brief lie down on the hard kitchen floor, I regained my stance on the stool, crouching slightly to avoid another bump. I realized I didn't remember which bulb was burnt out. So I climbed down, marched to the switch, took a good look at the fixture, turned it on, and blinded myself again.
    Eventually I discerned which bulb needed changing again, and carefully climbed onto the stool. I carefully unscrewed the screws keeping the white dome which covered the bulb in place, but dropped one of them onto the floor before I could get the dome down. It seemed to be waiting for the chance to escape, because as soon as I got down off the stool and placed the dome on the table in the center of the kitchen the screw had vanished. After crawling around for a few minutes, bumping around under the table (and accidentally mistaking a short black twisty tie for the screw) I found it, trying in vain to wedge itself through a vent on the runner. I had a funny thought about calling the screw "Steve McQueen" to mock it into submission when I heard an ominous grating noise from the table. Peering level with it, I saw the white dome about to roll off the other side of the table.
    Diving through the legs, I superbly caught the dome moments before it would have smashed like a snowman hit by a wrecking ball. In doing so however I managed to fling the screw at the wall, and it might have known it was never really going to escape because it decided to bounce off and smack me perfectly in the forehead.
    It rolled flaccidly as I got up, dome in hands. After I secured the dome and the screw, I got back up to ceiling-height and unscrewed the burnt bulb from the fixture. Carefully stepping back down, I noted the bulb's wattage and placed in on the table. I then found the right kind of bulb to replace it with; the last one. I climbed back up, nearly bashing my head again. I started to screw the new bulb in to place in the fixture, and when I thought I was done I bent down to get the white dome.
    I heard the bulb fall loose with a heart-stopping "ping." Bent forward as I was, I attempted to jump down into the path of the bulb (The last one!) to catch it, and catch it I did. Unfortunately I also landed with one foot right on the stool's pillow, sending me skidding across the hardwood floor. I tried to catch the table to stop myself, but ended up with the burnt out bulb in my other hand instead of the table it was resting on. I crashed into the sink, bashed my knee into the cabinet below it, slipped backwards and conked my head on the floor. One of the two bulbs had broken when I landed, smashed so that only a tiny jagged mountain range remained where it had been. It was only the burnt bulb, but I still had to clean it up.
    By the time I had cleaned and finished everything, I had two bumps on my head, a small mark where the screw had hit me, a bashed knee, and a broken light bulb.
    But I considered it a success, because I didn't end up hanging by my ankle in a tree. And don't you think that wasn't possible.

Trailers and their Clobber-related Results

I like me some movies. You know this. I've seen two movies in the theaters this month, Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens. Both are about as you'd expect:

1) Captain America punches Nazis. (and Hugo Weaving!)
2) Cowboys fight Aliens. (And Olivia Wilde!)

Anyway, one of the best parts of my movie-going experience is the previews. Some people may hate them but I love them. It shows us new movies before they get widespread online and lets us see them in glorious picture and sound.

But it doesn't always work that way, sometimes the movies themselves fall short of what people would call "good." Sometimes they fall short of what people would call "Allowed by the Geneva Convention." And sometimes they fall into the narrow category that I, solely, have been entrusted to:

Each movie trailer will be rated on the "clobberin' scale." 
____________________________________________________________________
The Good:

1) "Warrior":

Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, and Joel Edgerton punch each other. I want to see this one.

Rating:

"Better Things To Do"

2) "The Help":

Southern Belles and Black maids. Would go if offered.

Rating:

"A Genteel Clobbre"

____________________________________________________________________
The apprehensive/anxious:

1) "Lion King 3D":

Nothing surprising, of course, but darn it if I didn't get shivers everytime I saw it.

Rating:

"You Betta Watch Yo'self"

2) "Tower Heist":

I like Ben Stiller and I like Eddie Murphy, but recently their performances haven't been received well. Maybe we'll be lucky.

Rating:

"DIY Clobbering"

____________________________________________________________________
The Bad:

1) "Contagion":

Virus? Sure. Good? Maybe not. Only if I didn't have to pay.

Rating:

"Guess What Time it is"

2) "Battleship":

Really? Like...really. You're doing that. That's real. I think they could just subtitle this "Liam Neeson Hates Himself."

Rating:

"Incoming"

3)

Here it is. The Big Banana. The Hot Burrito. The Suck-tastic Soup.

Watch at your own risk: Gulp

Rating:

We all do.

Insane People

After 60 plus days of constant pain, I have finished the nightmarish torture known as The Insanity Program. It is, purportedly, the toughest DVD workout program in the world (though this is probably no longer true).  Today is the first day since May 23 that I can arrive home from work, and immediately eat food. By the second month it was no longer a question of “will I throw up in my mouth” but “how much.”

I spent a lot of time with the DVDs, so much that I nearly had the phrases the coach used to motivate us and make us laugh.

There were lots of people in the videos doing the exercises along with us, some were rotated in and out, but some were more of a constant. I suspected the requirements for getting the job of “background exerciser” was one-third fitness, one-third acting, and one-third hopelessness.

Regardless, I got to know them and their little pieces of character. So, here are some of them, whether they appeared every time, or on only two of the ten different workouts that I did for 60 days. Each person will be accompanied by a real quote from the workout program.
                                                                                                                                                                    
The Coach

Mr. T

“This is Insanity, and it’s going to kick your butt.”

Big bad Shaun T is here to whip you into shape. If that demands he awkwardly touch your abdomen during an exercise, then deal with it.

Shaun is a fountain of wisdom. “Dig Deeper.” “Work.” “Power.” “Contract the core.” And all that from just one of the workouts. His knowledge of the physical is extensive, and his step-by-step instructions on each exercise will make sure you do it in the correct form.

If, for some reason, you fail to do it in the correct form, Shaun T does not judge. He only asks that you try harder the next time, drink your water, and prepare a batch of P90X “Results and Recovery” formula for daily consumption, and refuel your body.

DO NOT FORGET TO DRINK YOUR RESULTS AND RECOVERY FORMULA.
                                                                                                                                                                    
The Poster Child

“Woo!”

That quote may not make sense, but it does once you realize that, unless she is asked a direct question, that is all she says. Her name is Tania, and she is the only person who has her nails done right before a workout. She is at the right-hand of Mr. T, and she is the one that he goes to the most often to check progress. She is in all but one of the DVDs.

My friends and I nicknamed her “Chun-Li…”

…because in the fit test, where you track your progress, she obliterates any kind of record you will ever have in the leg-based exercises. Slowly, we learned to detest her. The pandering, the unneeded enthusiasm, the obvious brown-nosing. But what we really hated the most was, on a few of the exercises, Shaun T will help her with the exercises, by holding her legs in the air or something.

After some research, I found my sentiments echoed on everything from personal blogs to the Beachbody forums itself.

I didn't even have to make this!

                                                                                                                                                                     
The Interesting one

"It feels like s***!"

Her name is Adriana, and she says a total of one sentence for the entire sixty days. And that one sentence is 25% cuss. It comes after Shaun T asks her how it (the exercise feels).

There's that, and then there's the time she spits a wad onto the floor during an exercise.

Yeah!

                                                                                                               
The Aryan Nightmare

*Quote not found*

Because he never says a thing. That's why. Chris (Black Chris, as we call him, because there is also a White Chris) has tattoos. And if you ever get him angry he will punch your throat all the way through.

But he looks like the kind of guy who will never get angry. He looks like the kind of big black guy who will serve at the soup kitchen and offer to walk girls home and they will say yes because he's like 6' 4" and 250 lbs and the kindest guy alive.

Also, there's this one exercise called Power push-ups. Do a push up. Now jump to your feet by squeezing your abs really fast. Now drop back down and do a push-up. Continue that cycle until you die.

Chris can do these so fast and so well he could probably punch your throat all the way through with his stomach.
                                                                                                                                                                      
The Failure

"Wheeze"

This is the person put into the exercises to make you feel better about yourself. I honestly don't know if she has a name, but if not The Failure, I would call her Gumby, because her legs and arms turned to jelly at the slightest amount of work.

I think she was in maybe two of the workouts, which is the lowest of any except people that aren't even noticed. She took a lot of breaks and is prominent in the front of the group, which is wierd unless they planned it.

                                                                                                                                                                

So there they are. There are more, like the Guido, the Geezer, and the Creepy Guy, but this is enough for now.

And if you're interested, Insanity does work. It's incredibly difficult to motivate yourself to do it and a beast on your joints. You lose weight but it isn't designed to give you muscle mass. You should only do it if you are already fit and and want to lose weight. I did lose weight.

Ugh I was so fat

But I also gained muscle, just because of all the exercise I did.

For Posterity

"Let's make a pact, right here and now, that if any one of us invents time travel, the first place that person should go is that table five seconds from now." Matt spoke and gestured commandingly to the table next to us. All four of us stared at the table for five seconds. When nothing happened, we returned to our Wendys.

"Darn, that was a good try," Danny said.

"Are any of us going to write this date down?" Rob asked. "What if we forget it?"

"Is today the eighth or the ninth?" Danny asked. "What if we get the day wrong? We'll probably show up tomorrow, wondering where we were. 'Were we here?' 'I thought we were.' 'Maybe we'll be here soon.' 'Do we have any plutonium left? Maybe we should try the next week.'"

"Where would we be able to get Plutonium in the first place?" Matt asked.

"Kenyans," Danny answered.

"Right."

"I think future Rob knows that current Rob is too poor to help him out in any way," Rob said.

"But what if future Rob brings a big suitcase full of future gold to give to current Rob?" Danny asked.

"Future Rob will probably forget to bring it."

Sleepy...Something...Something About Sleep

After I got done with work today, I gave a guy I know a hug. He's always reminded me of a teddy bear and so I gave him a hug. Due to improper placement, his shoulder dug into my throat. He's tall. I thought that was really funny.

While carrying a package for work, I almost did that thing where you hold a long thin thing and you run into the edges of the door, but the package can't go through, and get the wind knocked out of you by the package. It wasn't long enough, but if it was long enough I would have done it.

These and other things happened. These are not normal events. Why did they happen (or almost happen)? Because I am tired.

Being tired kind of sucks, because for me it's like being drunk without being able to get drunk. He's the quick story:

I fell asleep on the couch last night at 10:30, got up at 11:15, and fell asleep in my proper place at 11:30. Before I even fell asleep I was having a repeated image of a stick figure getting hit with a fish in the face running through my head. No, wait, he was wearing a fish hat. That makes much more sense. I woke up at 3:30 A.M. and my brain decided to not fall asleep until five. I got up ninety minutes later for work.

Being that kind of tired makes you question things. Like, how do you get to the post office? (Which is a question I asked myself twice today) How does food go? Where are my pants?

These aren't my pants, they're someone else's. Not mine. Mine have ties. I wonder if I could shoot arrows from the ties? They'd have to be tiny arrows. Oh, there they are. On my legs.

Every once in a while I make up words. Horf. Phaggle. Sink-whipper. Phagglematic. They might mean things in the future, but for now they mean...well...horf.

I manage to stumble through the day with a content smile on my face because I really don't know any better working at that speed. Normal picture? That's funny! Something that somebody said? Really funny! Man wearing a clothes? HOLY HORF THAT'S FUNNY! Everything is nice, and I usually don't have headaches. Sometimes I crash and end up hating everybody. Loud things and bright things are not funny. And I hear buzzing sometimes. Not like a bee, just some droning noise from anywhere, but also from nowhere.

There are hangover fixes, but are there sleep-over fixes? That makes me think about sleeping bags.

Scratch of the Nail

High atop the mountain known only as "Nail," the wind snapped and whipped, beating the weak rocks and tempering the snow into hard ice. A cave scooped out of the mountain houses a figure that, though the driving cold assails him, he does not shiver. With a voice deep and resonant as the mountain's breath he shouts words none of us, living or dead, will understand.

And the wind howled faster.

***

I, ever your servant, was standing with my friend Clarence watching the barges crack the ice on their way down the weary Mississippi. We both dreamed of warmer skies, though Clarence less because he was a penguin and quite used to this type of air. Mayor Ghearen had issued a warning to all inhabitants of the area, telling them to be wary of the spectacular cold. Truly, it was colder than it had ever been, and it was rather tiresome. I voiced my displeasure to Clarence.

"It is very cold," I said.

"Squawk," said he.

"Quite right," I agreed. "It does seem rather like that of the magical type. Perhaps we should perform experiments."

"Squawk," he said again. Again I agreed.

"Yes, fish does sound very tasty right now. But after the experiments, friend."

We left the banks of the frosty Mississippi, and retreated to our home, a cabin made up of logs, and outfitted for our purposes perfectly. Clarence began to move about the place, setting up for our tests. In preparation for what I knew would be the answer, I readied our more eccentric equipment. Once things were all in readiness, Clarence called to me.

"Squawk."

I joined him on the flat area behind our home. We had toiled away the summer months laying wooden planks to level the area, which now came in much handiness. Clarence held in his fins two leaves. One was a bright red, preserved from the fall, and the other dead and brown.

"Squawk."

"No, the other." Clarence replaced the red leaf into its bottle. He handed me the brown leaf, which I crushed in my hand and spread on the ground around me. Keeping my attention on the constant, fierce wind, I held my hand out to Clarence. He put in it a stout iron rod, which I planted into the ground between my feet. The rod was inscribed with blue and gray symbols from the bottom to the top, and stood about five feet. It was stuck in the center of the ring of leaf particles, and when I removed my hand it stayed erect. Carefully I stepped out of the leaf-ring, and Clarence replaced me.

From a belt around his waist he plucked a sack of a substance known as inij. It was a powdery thing, rust-colored, and he sprinkled it atop the leaf bits. The leaves glowed blue, and the lights rose in a circle around Clarence, flashing different patterns around him. He began to manipulate the patterns with his flippers, bending them to his formidable will. I paced around him, observing the effect each change he made had on the thing as a whole. Soon, the answer became clear to us.

"Squawk," he said, the urgency in his voice prevalent.

"That is the grandest thing you have said all day, friend. But you are right, as usual. I ask you finish preparing our equipment. I must send a message to Castle Shorgorend and tell them that we are on the move. Imagine, one of those frostbitten fools appearing after all this time."

"Squawk."

***

It seems an acceptable point to describe me and my companion. I shall start with he, as it is a simpler task.

He is a penguin.

Aside from that critical point, however, is what adorns him. He has a belt around his middle, lined with pouches (from one of which he drew the bag of inij). Helping to support the belt is a blue sash that goes across his shoulder. This also is lined with pockets and the like. They carry many useful items; without these items the both of us surely would have died many times over during our tasks.

As for myself, I come from Ysland, and have reached the age of forty. all but three of those years were spent in training to be one of the Elemental Guards, and further being one of the Guard. I have training with the staff, sword, and bow, but prefer the staff. I have blond hair, my nose has been broken, and I am not tall.

As for the friendship between Clarence and I, each of the Elemental Guards must have a familiar, and it must coincide with the Element you are sworn to protect. I am the Erik, the Frozen Guard, and so I must have a familiar that is at home in the cold. Clarence, being a penguin, fits the bill. We met while I was in training in the south, and we quickly became friends.

I now find it prudent to return to the story at hand.

***

Through magic, we have made it possible to determine when something is foul on the air or ground, but have not been able to relay facts with it. So, while Clarence was readying supplies for a trip north (as the direction was), I sent a pigeon to Castle Shorgorend. I told them that the unnatural cold in my area was the work of men. Actually, if we are correct, simply man.

The pigeon flew towards our castle, buffeted by the strong winds. We employ the hardiest pigeons, so I fully expected it to reach its destination. I joined Clarence in our armory.

"Are we in readiness?" I asked. His pockets bulged. He pointed to a pile of armor and supplies, fit for a man. I proceeded to apply them to myself. Thick furs from the wolf and bear, and leather armor on the outside. I also had pouches, but of things more pedestrian than my friend. Legal tender, food, water, maps, and other things that a traveler would normally carry. Thusly equipped, we found a train that headed north into the wastes.

They unfortunately would not allow Clarence a seat on the train, and I had no kind of power to force them. So, I decided to sit with my crated friend in the storage car. It was very cold, but the furs I wore (and my friend's warm skin) kept us well heated. We passed the time going over what we knew, which was little.

"We know it is a wizard," I said.

"Squawk," my friend said, through the wood bars of his make-shift prison.

"It can't be him. The last time we saw him was five years ago, and he couldn't summon any more than a mild breeze on his best day. His beard is too big for his head to support. Perhaps it is Mishgail the Angry?"

"Squawk."

"That is not a bad guess. But, the last we heard of him is that trouble down in Egypt, and Mistress Illio dealt with it handily."

"Squawk."

"She is too young for my tastes. Too much temper, also. And no, Smoldering Leytan doesn't seem like a good fit. His powers over the cold are trivial. What about Gorz?"

"Squawk."

We were silent for a time. The rhythmic clack of the rails below provided us a delirious tempo that nearly lulled me to sleep. Then, suddenly:

"Squawk."

I sat up, eyes wide. "Yes, of course! His powers would have matured enough by now. Gorz would have trained him quite well. But he is still young, young enough for us to dispatch without much trouble." I smiled at my friend. "Your sharp mind has paved the way for us again, my friend." Clarence smiled and decided that it was time to sleep. He was asleep before I, but not by more than a minute.

***

We disembarked at Winnipeg; the cold was relentless. The sun was obscured by thick cloud, draped over the sky. The wind pushed us from the north. Heavy snowflakes fell fast and thick over us and the area. We bid farewell to the train porter, who unloaded our things. I suspect he gave us a strange look, but it is so common to receive them traveling with my friend that I barely notice anymore.

"I wish to send another message to Shorgorend, but I doubt even our hardy birds will make it in this weather," I told the penguin.

"That won't be necessary," a voice from behind us said. We both turned, surprised and ready for action. There stood a young woman with red hair pulled into a tail, her arms crossed, a short-sword at her side, and a white and red lizard hanging on to her shoulder. "How do you stand this weather?"

"Lady Illio," I said, bowing, "A pleasure to see you. But why are you here? And how? Last I heard, you were cleaning up a mess in Africa."

She closed the space between us. Her lizard, a salamander, leaped off her shoulder and landed on Clarence's head. It quickly slithered into one of the pouches on his sash. "Squawk."

"And I'm sure he's happy to see you too," I said.

"Shorgorend doesn't like this storm, not a bit," the woman said. "And while they have total faith in your abilities, they wanted a bit of insurance."

"But whyever would they send you? Not that I am displeased, you know, but your skills are more suited to the heat of the desert than..." I spread my arms wide, meaning all the cold and wind around us. When I pulled my arms back in, a pile of snow had formed in each palm. "...this."

"Who do you believe is behind...this?" Illio asked. Her salamander peeked its head out of the pouch and was testing the air with its tongue.

"The orphan Marag. We believe that Groz has raised him to be a potent threat. If he has produced this, then clearly he is," I told her. She was shivering, so I led us to a road-house. While the innkeeper was surprised when two people and a penguin walked in, stranger things have happened in Winnipeg.

"Shorgorend agrees," Illio said. "However, they believe that Marag may have found his master's book prematurely."

Clarence and I both halted mid-stride. "We had not thought of that. Finding such a powerful tome that early in life. What would happen if he lost control of it? The winds would blow until world's end!"

"Which is why I was told to go with you. No matter how talented Marag is or how much access he has to his master's power, he won't be able to handle the strength of fire so young." Back inside, her familiar had retaken its spot on her shoulder. At her words it hissed.

"Squawk." Clarence said.

I went to the counter, behind which stood a man whose main export was beard. "Two rooms for the night. We'll need breakfast of course, but we'll be rising early. Say...four?"

"In the morning?" Asked the man.

"Of course. What else could I mean?" What happened next is a custom between two men who are related by facial hair. I believed his beard to be better, so I stroked mine first. He stroked his also, as a way of saying mine was good enough. I had a light sandy color, while he had more of a grizzly color. With that, I turned away.

"We have rooms," I told my companions. We'll see you bright and early."

"How could it possibly be bright," Illio said, "If the sun is nowhere to be seen?"

***

"I believe we need direction," I said to Clarence.

"Squawk." Clarence said. He made ready the spell to tell us which direction to travel. It was very similar to the one performed earlier.

The sun, if it could have been seen, was at the top of its rise. We had been traveling for eight hours due north. Illio had changed her light garb for heavy cloaks and furs, but she still shivered. Her sword smacked against her thigh with each step. There were no landmarks, and the snow had wiped out the definition of every object we passed. Some peaks were to our east but they were neither our destination, nor any type of compass.

Clarence, assisted by Mistress Illio's salamander (a creature by the name of Jack) constructed the spell to point us toward our target. We found that our target was near. "That's good," Illio said. "Then we can get out of this damnable cold."

The next day we stood in view of a large mountain -- I believe I mentioned it at the beginning of our story -- that struck the heavens like a dagger of stone. The wind was very fierce; Mistress Illio was forced to crouch near the ground to keep from being blown over. Clarence and I stood tall; the freezing wind and snow seemed to give us some kind of strength.

We were deep in our element. Clarence was of course very used to such things. I, having been born in the deep north cold of Ysland had been accustomed to this weather since I was a child. I went through my training in Antarctica, living many months without respite from winds and snow and all manner of unpleasant weather.

"What do we do?" Illio asked. Jack was deep in one of her pockets, and she herself could barely be seen under her layers.

I didn't say anything for a time. She was trembling with the cold. Clarence was looking up at my with his bright, deeply knowledgeable eyes. I looked at him. "What do you suggest?"

Clarence's eyes roved over the mountain. He pointed at a black speck on the face of it. "Squawk." 
Clarence looked at Illio. "Squawk."

"I like it," I said.

"What did he say?" The woman asked. Neither of us responded. Instead, we traced a path up the side of the mountain. There was a strange ledge halfway up to the speck on the mountain. From the ledge we traced a roundabout path to the speck. "Hey! What's going on?"

Clarence looked at her and then me. "We have an idea. Let's get going."

We made our way up the mountain. As we got closer, the wind died down, and Illio was able to come out of her shell of clothing. At her bidding, Jack jumped out of her pocket and into her hand. She cupped her other hand around her mouth and blew, opening her hand as she did.

Jack burst into flame and lifted into the air. I yelped and Clarence jumped, but after the initial shock I noticed that the little lizard was releasing a pleasingly warm glow. "Why hadn't you done that before?" I asked.

"The wind would have snuffed him out and sent him flying. Might never have found him, either." She watched the flame-ball float around her head for a moment. "But this was the perfect time."

An hour later we were at the mountain ledge that we had seen. It was a big area, more like a plateau than a ledge. some hundred feet above us there was the speck, which revealed itself to be a hole in the mountain, as we had figured. We allowed Illio a time to rest.

"What now?" She asked, puffing with breath.

"For now we part ways."

"What?" She asked. "Why? Why do we have to do that? Why can't we just stop this and get out of this God-forsaken cold?" She shouted. I smiled.

"Why don't you point that voice of yours up there?"

***

"Oy! Marag! I know you're up there! Come out!"

Nobody appeared at the mouth of the cave. Illio stared up at it. Jack pulsed heat next to her. "I said come out! Are you afraid of little old me? I'm just a girl!" Still no one appeared. "Now I know why your parents left you to die in the wilderness! You are too foolish and stupid to even know when you are being insulted! Why I bet even the orphan-maids couldn't stand you! May your arms sag and your beard never grow! May your legs wither and your head shrink! I could beat you in a fight with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back! I bet Marag means 'Slip-waisted pretty boy with no future prospects or friends!'"

A half-hour later, Mistress Illio was still shouting.

"-and even if you HAD any sisters, they would all be spinsters and cuckolds! And your brothers would be hooligans and ruffians! I bet you have eight toes! I bet you can count the chickens in the backyard while standing on the front porch! I bet-"

"That woman is beyond my measure," I said. We were level with the hole in the mountain. What we 
had hoped was Illio's incessant shouting would keep Marag occupied while we got into position.

"Squawk."

"I'm sure he'll think something is up, but he won't know what. We should move while the Lady still has some steam in her." Clarence agreed.

We inched closer to the hole, and found that furious winds were pumping forth from it. I directed Clarence to the other side of the opening, and waited for him to get all in readiness. Positioned opposite from me, he nodded. His eyes were closed, and his avian face was serene.

Whipping my staff out in front of me, I leaped into the opening. The winds nearly threw my down the face of the mountain. Clarence jumped out also and he stood his ground like a champion and deposited magic in front of him. However, neither of us moved, shocked by what we saw. I'm afraid I said a cuss.

"Gods around us."

Protected by the wind driving out of him, a shambling, shuffling creature moaned at the back of the cave. He saw us and gave a yelp, and an icy blast struck us, seeming to slap me across the cheek so strongly that I did fall, though only to the ground. Clarence, God bless him, rolled forward and activated the magic mentioned earlier. A blue ball rose and sped towards the thing mumbling to itself. The creature was encompassed and I rose, moving beside Clarence with my staff poised. The wind had stopped, and a heavy, oppressive air replaced it.

The thing was indeed Marag the orphan, though he seemed barely to be aware of it. He blubbered and drifted like a corpse, knocking his arms against the blue ball that surrounded him like a drunk gorilla.

"The book!" I said to Clarence. "Can you see the book?" He shook his head. He was digging in his pouches. "Blast!" We heard a concussion behind us, and when we turned we saw Illio, smoking some.

"When I noticed the wind had stopped I got up here as fast as I could. What is it?"

"It is Marag; he is under some spell," I told her. Clarence was sorting bits of magical equipment. Jack jumped off Illio's shoulder to help him. I'm still not sure how.

"He looks lifeless. What happened?"

"I don't know. He doesn't seem to have the book."

"Squawk."

"Then let us proceed." Illio and I stepped ahead of the little ones, holding weapons ready. Her short sword pointed directly at the bubble. With a brilliant slick of light, the blue ball creased and opened. The wind returned and pointed our hair backwards from our heads. As planned, I whispered a word and struck with my staff, the end of which was encased in ice. Illio ran, and stabbed with her sword.

My attack did little but to knock the man back, but Illio's blow was powered by our familiars to release his mind and body from what held it. It worked. Marag fell easily, as if he was being dangled by strings by a puppeteer.

"Marag!" I bellowed. "Stop fighting! You are free!"

Illio kept her sword between her and him, I was less afraid. We had been joined by our familiars. Marag swallowed, a long, tiring process.

"You are Erik?" He said. The voice was weak, and dry.

"Yes. Speak freely. Whatever had power over you is dead and gone."

"No... the book," Marag squeezed out.

"Yes, the book! Where is it, please! We must find it!"

"No...a man. He took the book and put me in that terrible trance." Marag was getting stronger. "My body was tortured and drained of its energy keeping the winter storm going. I neither wished to cause such a storm nor keep it going, but I had no choice. Please, forgive me."

"You are forgiven," I said. Behind me, Illio raised an eyebrow in question. "Who was it that took the book, your old master's book, from you? There is too much power there for someone untrained!"

"I can't say. I didn't recognize him. He was fair, and young. If he was twenty-five you may cut off my nose, I am so certain. I wish I knew so I could get back to him."

"Revenge never helped a soul, young one," I said. Clarence handed me a potion he had mixed, and I handed it to Marag. "Drink. You will feel better." He did, and color returned to his cheeks.

"When Groz passed I did not want to cause the death and destruction he did," Marag said. "I was on my way to turn the book into Castle Shorgorend when I met the man. He did all this."

"I understand," I said. I turned to Illio as Jack and Clarence helped Marag up. "Let us return to the Castle. We must speak with Burghe." Illio nodded.

***

A week later Illio, Jack, Clarence, and I were kneeling in reverence to our leader, Burghe. He bid us rise and speak.

"We have stopped the storm that attack the north," I began. "Marag was, as we thought, the center of it, but not entirely as we expected." I explained what we found at the end of our journey.

"And Marag is with us here?" Burghe asked. He was on his audience-throne and resting his hands on his cane.

"Yes. He is being helped by the healers now. He was weak on our way back and we were forced to stop often. They say he will recover fully."

"and the book?"

"We don't know where it is, or who took it. Marag's description has given us no leads. But whoever did must be strong already to take over the orphan so fully. I suggest we be wary of this unknown element."

Burghe nodded. His grooved neck swayed up and down. "Agreed. You are dismissed."

***

"Mistress Illio, it was a pleasure working with you," I said. I must admit I worried over the location of Groz's powerful book, but that did not mean I wasn't going to be chivalrous.

"And you as well," she said. Jack was asleep in one of her pockets, and I could see Clarence's eyes drawing shut. "We all deserve our rest today, eh?"

"Indeed. Perhaps the new sun will yield good things about our problem," I said. Suddenly, a yawn overtook me.

"Goodnight, Erik."

"Goodnight, Mistress."

"Squawk."