Search Results for 'faint'

As the crow flies, Glenville is about 100 miles from the Forest of Enchantment.

“What a pretty town!” tourists to the area would exclaim, delighted by the tree lined streets and quaint houses with thatched roofs and brightly painted exteriors. They didn’t see the dark underside which rippled just below the surface of this exuberant facade. If they stayed for more than a few days, sure enough, they would begin to sense it. “Time to move on, perhaps,” they would say uneasily, although unsure exactly why and often putting it down to their own restless natures.

Glynis Cotfield was born in one of these houses. Number 4 Leafy Lane. Number 4 had a thatched roof and was painted a vibrant shade of yellow. There were purple trims around each window and a flower box either side of the front door containing orange flowers which each spring escaped their confines to sprawl triumphantly down the side of the house.

Her father, Kevin Cotfield, was a bespectacled clerk who worked in an office at the local council. He was responsible for building permits and making sure people adhered to very strict requirements to ‘protect the special and unique character of Glenville’.

And her mother, Annelie … well, her mother was a witch. Annelie Cotfield came from a long line of witches and she had 3 siblings, all of whom practised the magical arts in some form or other.

Uncle Brettwick could make fire leap from any part of his body. Once, he told Glynis she could put her hand in the fire and it wouldn’t hurt her. Tentatively she did. To her amazement the fire was cold; it felt like the air on a frosty winter’s day. She knew he could also make the fire burning hot, if he wanted. Some people were a little scared of her Uncle Brettwick and there were occasions—such as when Lucy Dickwit told everyone at school they should spit at Glynis because she came from an ‘evil witch family’—when she used this to her advantage.

“Yes, and I will tell my Uncle to come and burn down your stinking house if you don’t shut your stinking stupid mouth!” she said menacingly, sticking her face close to Lucy’s face. “And give me your bracelet,” she added as an after thought. It had worked. She got her peace and she got the bracelet.

Aunt Janelle could move objects with her mind. She set up a stall in the local market and visitors to the town would give her money to watch their trinkets move. “Lay it on the table”, she would command them imperiously. “See, I place my hands very far from your coin. I do not touch it. See?” Glynis would giggle because Aunt Janelle put on a funny accent and wore lots of garish makeup and would glare ferociously at the tourists.

But Aunt Bethell was Glynis’s favourite—she made magic with stories. “I am the Mistress of Illusions,” she would tell people proudly. When Glynis was little, Aunt Bethell would create whole stories for her entertainment. When Glynis tried to touch the story characters, her hand would go right through them. And Aunt Bethell didn’t even have to be in the same room as Glynis to send her a special magical story. Glynis adored Aunt Bethell.

Her mother, Annelie, called herself a healer but others called her a witch. She concocted powerful healing potions using recipes from her ’Big Book of Spells’, a book which had belonged to Annelie’s mother and her mother before her. On the first page of the book, in spindly gold writing it said: ‘May we never forget our LOVE of Nature and the Wisdom of Ages’. When Glynis asked what the ‘Wisdom of Ages’ meant, her mother said it was a special knowing that came from the heart and from our connection with All That Is. She said Glynis had the Wisdom of Ages too and then she would ask Glynis to gather herbs from the garden for her potions. Glynis didn’t think she had any particular wisdom and wondered if it was a ploy on her mother’s part to get free labour. She obeyed grudgingly but drew the line at learning any spells. And on this matter her father sided with her. “Don’t fill her mind with all that hocus pocus stuff,” he would say grumpily.

Despite this, the house was never empty; people came from all over to buy her mother’s potions and often to have their fortunes told as well. Mostly while her father was at work.

Glynis’s best friend when she was growing up was Tomas. Tomas lived at number 6 Leafy Lane. They both knew instinctively they shared a special bond because Tomas’s father also practised magic. He was a sorcerer. Glynis was a bit scared of Tomas’s Dad who had a funny crooked walk and never spoke directly to her. “Tell your friend you must come home now, Tomas,” he would call over the fence.

Being the son of a sorcerer, Tomas would also be a sorcerer. “It is my birthright,” he told her seriously one day. Glynis was impressed and wondered if Tomas had the Wisdom of Ages but it seemed a bit rude to ask in case he didn’t.

When Tomas was 13, his father took him away to begin his sorcery apprenticeship. Sometimes he would be gone for days at a time. Tomas never talked about where he went or what he did there. But he started to change: always a quiet boy, he became increasingly dark and brooding.

Glynis felt uneasy around this new Tomas and his growing possessiveness towards her. When Paul Ackleworthy asked her to the School Ball, Tomas was so jealous he broke Paul’s leg. Of course, nobody other than Glynis guessed it was Tomas who caused Paul’s bike to suddenly wobble so that he fell in the way of a passing car.

“You could have fucking killed him!” she had shouted at Tomas.

Tomas just shrugged. This was when she started to be afraid of him.

One day he told her he was going for his final initiation into the ‘Sorcerer Fraternity’.

“I have to go away for quite some time; I am not sure how long, but I want you to wait for me, Glynis.”

“Wait for you?”

He looked at her intensely. “It is destined for us to be together and you must promise you will be here for me when I get back.”

Glynis searched for her childhood friend in his eyes but she could no longer find him there.

“Look, Tomas, I don’t know,” she stuttered, wary of him, unwilling to tell the truth. “Maybe we shouldn’t make any arrangements like this … after all you might be away for a long time. You might meet someone else even …. some hot Sorceress,” she added, trying not to sound hopeful.

Suddenly, Glynis found herself flying. A gust of wind from nowhere lifted her from her feet, spun her round and then held her suspended, as though trying to decide what to do next, before letting her go. She landed heavily at Tomas’s feet.

“Ow!” she said angrily.

“Promise me.”

“Okay! I promise!” she said.

Her mother’s face went white when Glynis told her what Tomas had done.

That evening there was a gathering of Uncle Brettwick and the Aunts. There was much heated discussion which would cease abruptly when Glynis or her father entered the room. “Alright, dearie?” one of the Aunts would say, smiling way too brightly. And over the following days and weeks there was a flurry of magical activity at 4 Leafy Lane, all accompanied by fervent and hushed whisperings.

Glynis knew they were trying to help her, and was grateful, but after the initial fear, she became defiant. “Who the hell did he think he was, anyway?” She left Glenville to study architecture at the prestigious College of Mugglebury. It was there she met Conway, who worked in the cafe where she stopped for coffee each morning on her way to class. They fell in love and moved in together, deciding that as soon as Glynis had graduated they would marry. It had been 4 years since she had last seen Tomas and he was now no more than a faint anxious fluttering in her chest.

It was a Friday when she got the news that Conway had driven in the path of an oncoming truck and was killed instantly. She knew it was Friday because she was in the supermarket buying supplies for a party that weekend to celebrate her exams being over when she got the call. And it was the same day Tomas turned up at her house.

And it was then she knew.

“You murderer!” she had screamed through her tears. “Kill me too, if you want to. I will never love you.”

“You’ve broken my heart,” he said. “And for that you must pay the price. If I can’t have you then I will make sure no-one else wants you either.”

“You don’t have a heart to break,” she whispered.

Dragon face,” Tomas hissed as he left.

Glynis returned to Glenville just long enough to tell her family she was leaving again. “No, she didn’t know where,” she said, her heart feeling like stone. Her mother and her Aunts cried and begged her to reconsider. Her Uncle smouldered in silent fury and let off little puffs of smoke from his ears which he could not contain. Her father was simply bewildered and wanted to know what was all the fuss about and for crying out loud why was she wearing a burka?

The day she left her mother gave her the ‘Book of Spells”. Glynis knew how precious this book was to her mother but could only think how heavy it would be to lug around with her on her journey.

“Remember, Glynis,” her mother said as she hugged Glynis tightly to her, “the sorcerers have powerful magic but it is a mere drop in the ocean in comparison to the magic of All That Is. You have that great power within you and no sorcerer can take take that from you. You have the power to transform this into something beautiful.”

“Godfrey, shouldn’t you DO something about that? The characters are wandering all over the place, on the wrong threads, wandering right out of stories, whether they’ve been written out or not. They’re all just doing whatever they damn well want, it’s getting ridiculous!”

Obligingly Godfrey cackled loudly, in what Liz presumed was a game attempt to restore some order in the threads (mistakenly assuming momentarily that they were in Caketown) .

“Are they all turning into anarchists?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t be daft, Godfrey, you can have characters that are anarchists, but you can’t have anarchists that are characters, where will it end? Who will be in control, and lead the story?”

“The writer will have to follow the lead of the characters, then, and support their moves with filler and back story.”

Elizabeth felt faint. “What are you suggesting?” she whispered, filled with dread and uncertainty.

Gustave felt a wave of anxiety as he put the key in the lock to open the door of his apartment.

Something felt wrong.

It was nothing he could immediately put his finger on but he had learned to trust his intuition in these matters.

He stood still and listened, his senses heightened and alert.

Was that a faint cackle he could hear in the distance?

He held his breath. There it was again. A cackle. Definitely a cackle, but an unusual cackle. His scientist brain began to assess the parameters of the cackle. It was a dry, reverberating cackle. A non-conformist, discordant cackle. It was a cackle with intent.

Evil intent.

“Good God,” he whispered , “It’s the Contumacious Cackler”.

The red glow of the small volcanic caldera gave his albino skin an eerie look. The mysteries of the hut were endless. He had been meditating near the edge of the well of magma, seemingly unbothered by the heat or the toxic fumes.
An itching feeling that started a minute ago told him someone was trying to reach him. The presence was still faint, but strong enough for him to notice. He sent a small tendril of his attention beyond the fumes and the pulsating magma. A vibration began to stand out in the field of probabilities. There were several lights, and they felt familiar. One of them had the distinct feeling of a hidden treasure he had given her during their last encounter, she had begun to open it and her infant mind was struggling to make sense of it. She needed help; she might go mad.
He opened his mind to their vibrations and made them part of his mindscape. They were not aware of him yet. He was surrounding them, they were part of him, they were in the space of his mind.
He intended the idea of a labyrinth. They’ll have to go through to get to him. Only one shall arrive. The one who needed the help. The others would be sent away.

The layer of clouds that had been covering Abalone for so many years had cleared up in no time. So much had changed since they went through the labyrinth of time in the old temple three weeks ago. Karmalott and Gazalbion were no more. The giant beanstalk had simply disintegrated after the mass beliefs that kept it standing were reconfigured, and Karmalott had fallen on its land counterpart. It was hard to tell one from the other when they first came back to the place.

Gwinnie looked at the giant storks nesting on the cliffs of the sea of beliefs. Her heart bloomed, she felt appreciation and gratitude over Abalone’s Nature. She had spent so many years in the bog that it had infused her with the wisdom of the island. She had been able to go unharmed through the corridors of time, because she simply knew whenre to go.

As soon as they entered the Lion mouthed door, she had taken George’s hand and whispered : follow me and you’ll be safe. That man was so trusting in life and he had such a pure heart that he did as she said. He’d told her afterward that despite all the images and illusions, his mind was focused on the green light in his heart.

When they arrived in the central room of the pyramid, she had changed. Her skin was still green, but she had found in the corridors the years she had lost in the bog.

They had decided to stay and make a fresh start. The former King of Karmalott was now helping with the reconstruction of the entire island. With his natural leader talent, he’d been creating pooling teams of magi and non-magi for different tasks : clearing the ground of the fallen cities, regrouping the lost souls, soothing the injured and building the new transitional Spas. With Gwinnie’s innate knowledge of Abalone and his innate trust, they could do marvels at bending beliefs and reality.

Actually, the transitional spa was Rene and Fanella’s idea. The two of them had been very helpful, especially since Gwinnie had repaired the sphinx. He was created to guard the temple and warn people who wanted to enter the labyrinth of time with an enigma. The corridors of time were not for the faint of heart, but to help people contact their inner knowledge to grow past their fears and blockages. What his creators had not foreseen was their own departure of the island. Rene was attached to the temple and left behind as they took no material possessions with them.

His flaw was that he needed people, and as no one was coming anymore, with time he became obsessed with the idea of making new friends. Forgetting his other duties and his connection to the timeline of Abalone, his obsession leaked and the island was thrust through time and space, intersecting with earth reality at specific dates and places. It was becoming more and more difficult to control it and the bogs anomalies were becoming harder to contain.

Fanella simply recognized Rene as the tall ebony man in her vision. She told them the yellow man, that had saved her from drowning, had disappeared quickly as soon as they entered the labyrinth, but the hook-legged man had seized her and they were caught in the most horrid nightmares. She was saved because his hook got stuck in a tiger slug pit. Rene swore he had nothing to do with it, although it was clear he had a soft spot for the young maid.

A week after they got out of the labyrinth, the girl had come to Gwinnie in the Garden of El Refugio. The green woman was helping with the introduction of new species of plants to Abalone’s circle of life.
“What is this plant ? “, asked Fanella.
“It is an okra. I’ve found it in the memories of one of the recently disengaged person from Earth.”
“The fruit has such an unusual shape.”
The silence that followed lasted for a few minutes. Gwinnie was focused on establishing a fulfilling symbiotic relationship between the plant and the island ecosystem, transforming one to acclimate the other and vice versa.
“How are your friends ?” asked the green woman.
“My friends ? Oh! They are good. Enjoying the spa and the new attractions.”
It was clear the young person had something in mind. Her loving glances to the sphinx during the last week had made it clear to everyone. The girl finally blurted it out.
“You know, Rene,” Fanella blushed as she said the name, “with the recent arrivals of transitioners, he’s got a lot of work for just one sphinx.”
“Oh! I’m sure he’s going to be just fine with that.”
“Yes, but, you know he’s been alone for such a long time.”
“Yes, Fanella?” Gwinnie stopped to look at the girl. She seemed frail, but she had this inner strength that helped her cross time and space before she ever came to Abalone.
“I want you to make me a sphinx so that I can be with Rene.” She said that without blushing, but pink colored her cheeks at the mention of the name.
If Gwinnie ever had a doubt of being in transition, it was dissipated. Her surprise almost broke the delicate connection of the okra with the island.
Becoming a sphinx wasn’t a trivial request. They still had to discuss about it, of course, and when it was obvious it wasn’t just a passing fancy, Fanella was granted her wish.
As a sphinx-wedding gift, George gave her his wings.
“They are robust and will serve you well”, he told her.

Some update on the current plots and maps:

Queens Team

Our main protagonists seem to have yet to digest their past adventure…

In Marseille, 2121, contestants in a Drag Queen’s contest, they had their first mission through Time Sewer mysteriously sending them in Louis XV’s Versailles, and start a quest for mysterious ferrets with keys, helped in their travelling by their ex-judge turned chaperon Sadie, equipped with an all purpose e-zapper, and the batty Sanso always keen on providing the strangest travelling devices.

They find one of the keys in the stolen ferret left in the Chapel before they even really start on their quest. Not long after that, they are also robbed of their dance opportunity and show minutes before the attempt on the King’s life, due to the network cancelling their show (and decommissioning the Time Sewer). In a last ditch attempt from Linda Pol to provide the network with a valuable pilot material for the television show, she remembers references of a crystal (sent to her anonymously), and have the Queens propelled in year 2222, Big Island, Hawaii. On arrival, they chill and get sidetracked on a visit to a (you guessed it, mysterious) techromancer.

It all appears to be part of the plan to gain life-everlasting by transmuting gold of a (yes, mysterious) cranky old billionaire in kilts named Jonbert who is living in a time-travelling submarine with sentient robots, and who has manipulated events so that the Drag Queen show would place them in possession of a special set of keys that he could then retrieve from them.
Unsurprisingly, nothing works for him as planned.

Unknown to him, the Queens had only secured one of the keys, the other being unwittingly carried away by maids of Versailles during their balloon escape, with a parrot named Huhu. Manipulated by Irina, a… err… mysterious Russian socialite with a trusty robot Mr R at her side, the parrot steals the key, but faints of exhaustion during the escape in the ocean. The parrot is however rescued by on a ghost galleon and revived by its occupants, who are on their way to a particularly momentous whale gathering in 2222. Sidetracked by a navigation tile displacement, they are in the end successful in beating the odds and arrive too in Hawaii 2222.

Equipped in breathing wetsuits, the Queens are sent in the depths of the ocean, where their clumsy and noisy explorations are carefully followed by the octopi and other inhabitants of the underwater world.
They get sidetracked and temporarily separated when some go exploring underwater caves.
Whales are gathering, and activating the giant crystal, when everyone arrives at the scene. Somehow, Mr R on Irina’s orders manages to provide to an unsuspecting Sadie the second key, which has been expertly tempered with.
Sadie, realizing this is the missing key, activates it, and unleashes a chain of events leading to a earth-shattering revelations and a breathtaking video of a St Germain hologram doing karaoke with whales and other gyrating cetaceans drunk on red algae.

The network is saved, and they are safely sent back to Marseille, where they are welcomed back by Linda Pol. It earns them a contract, which turns out to be mostly for the decommissioned Time Sewer maintenance.
They plan to turn it into a bar, in a re-enactment of their minute of fame, with fat pole-dancers as whales, and St-Germain impersonators singing contests.
Not much is heard from Sadie, who had managed to get a raise and less working hours, or of Linda Pol, last seen in Maui island, Hawaii, 2121.

Jeremy was 23 years old and living in a 57 square meters apartment in Brooklyn. He had two passions in life. Dance and maps.

Max growled. Well you could consider Max as Jeremy’s third passion. Max was a ragdoll cat with a tiny little genetic defect. His fur had this faint pink tint as if it had been put into a washing machine with red clothes. Max purred, satisfied.

Jeremy’s apartment was an artwork in itself. He was painting as a hobby and had drawn a few maps on his white walls. He had the precise stroke that dance demands of a dancer’s move, he had the eye of a falcon concerning details and he loved connecting dots. For some of the maps he had used pointillism, and for others the ancient art of collage he had learned with his grand-mother Martha. Inspired by Matthew Cusnik he had made portraits of dancers with maps and other landscapes.

Jeremy has been interested for some time in a particularly beautiful picture of the Abraham Lake that he wanted to render on one of the last remaining areas of his ceiling when Max jumped on his lap, purring like a caress junkie in need of a few strokes. Jeremy obliged his cat distractedly, too engrossed in the meanders of the picture and the few maps he could already see in his mind like a puzzle.

Max jumped on the desk and tried to force his way between the keyboard and Jeremy’s hand. But he didn’t have enough time to fulfill his desire. The cat began to cough as if it had a train of thought stuck in his throat.

“Shit! You’re not going to puke on my keyboard!”

But it was too late, the cat opened its mouth and threw up a little ball of hair which bounced off the keyboard and crashed down on the floor.

“ehw!” said Jeremy who cringed when he saw the hair ball on his carpet. “I don’t know what you ate but it smells like those wheat Polish biscuits.

Jeremy had already taken some tissue to clean the cat’s mess, and the cat, certainly thinking it wasn’t enough was licking his fur again.
“Don’t make another one like that. You know I don’t like it.”

He was about to take the ball when it wobbled suspiciously. Then it began to grow. Jeremy blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. When the hairball reached the size of a soccer ball, it was obvious there was something inside, it was deformed like the belly of a pregnant woman when the baby kicks in her bowels.
“What on earth have you spawned, Max!” He looked at his cat, horrified that it could be one of those Aliens.

Soon it was as big as a corpse bag for two, and Jeremy could tell from the voices that there were at least two people inside.

Sanso got out of the ragdoll hair ball first, perfect hair as usual. Fanella struggled to get out of the mess of hairs, and was a bit disheveled.

“Time for a reality check”, said Sanso. “Am I dreaming ?” When he saw all the maps and the ragdoll cat, he knew he was at the right place.

“Who are you guys ? And how did you get out of Max ?” asked Jeremy.

“Frindle, is Geoffroy alright?” asked Trumble. “He seems to be muttering that peculiar gibberish again, is he having another one of his turns?”
“It’s his control issues again, Trumble, he’ll get over it. I think he’s already seeing the green light. He’s having trouble seeing each moment as discrete, with it’s own back story, each story entry as a picnic basket, complete with it’s own history and associations. Each picnic basket is a piece of the puzzle, but they may not fit immediately together, and I think that’s what troubles him.”
“As usual, you’ve hit the nail on the head, Frindle. Funny how it all seems like deja vu, doesn’t it?”
“Trusting that the invisible connecting links are seamlessly interwoven even if they are not apparent is not for the faint hearted” added Jingle, “It would behoove us to remember that we all struggle at times to fit the pieces together. Which is why this is all such a beneficial exercise.”
“True enough, Jingle” replied Trumble. “Many’s the time I’ve had a mad scramble to find a connecting link and make it fit.”
“And many’s the time you’ve fucked up but by not paying attention, Trumble” Frindle pointed out.
“Ah, but that’s because I’ve been paying attention to another aspect instead, you rude tart” retorted Trumble.

Young Neb entered the vast openness that is, with a faint whooshing sound.

whoooooooosh

“Hello?” squeaked Neb in a curious fashion. Neb, wearing a curious face, drowns in the quiet of his own presence.

“Is there anybosy out there?” asked Neb in a slightly less squeaky tone than his last vocal utterance.

Neb ponders his latest mote, and questions its validity.

“Well, I am just as curious as you are, and I am not entirely sure of this reality… if you are interested in interacting with me, and perhaps answering some of my questions, we may create a fantasy worth.. well it is what it is, isn’t it?” resounded Neb with a faint puff of cigar smoke trailing up and out of his mouth.

Neb ponders, and then begins to sleep.

[link: squeaky]

Lucius Ludicrus had just arrived at the natarteum when he fainted.

The smell of the incense was giving her a sense of comfort and was helping her unfocus her attention in order to let the trance occur. She was one of the Seers of the Crimson Feather Order and when she was in a trance, the Goddess was speaking through her for those priests or priestesses who were seeking directions.

The Seers usually had no memories of what was happening when they were speaking for the Goddess and they were usually coupled with a Witness so the message would not be altered by the requester to best suit his or her desire. Depending on the clarity of the message, a period of evaluation and interpretation could be necessary and in case of official communications it was then forwarded to every temple.

Though in certain occasions the Witness could be missing as it was the case today. The archbishop Boorla had requested a meeting with no Witness, and in such cases the value of the information was only considered of personal nature. He was late, and she could put off the meeting if she wanted to, but a faint feeling was suggesting her to wait a bit longer.

When he entered a few minutes later, introduced by her usual Witness, he seemed furious and having great difficulties containing his anger. He was a red long-haired cat and his collar was particularly imposing in such moments. She had to focus on herself and not let his irritation make her loose her balance for the trance. As the Witness left the room, she took a deep breath and purred gently as she began the ritual. The Requester had to keep silence until being invited to do ask their question and she needed some time to calm him.

She felt at first his irritation grow as she was purposefully delaying the beginning of the trance, but he couldn’t resist longer the soothing purr of the Seer, and as she asked the ritual question, she felt her consciousness fading out.

When she came out of trance, she was feeling sick, the delivery of the message had been interrupted and though he was silent she could feel the fury of the archbishop flowing like waves. Apparently the message didn’t please him at all, and he barely spoke the ending ritual Thanks to the Goddess before he left the room hissing.

Though she was feeling tired and would need some rest, she couldn’t help wondering what had happen.