Search Results for 'glimmer'

The Master Builder’s verdict was hard to swallow.

“Your Holiness?”

The P’hope knew his options were limited, but somehow he had hoped, in spite of the King’s disappearance, in spite of the odds, that somehow he could manage to keep the City afloat.
But the beanstalk’s wilting was not something that could be stopped, and the aphids were just one manifestation of the rampant symptoms. Like all living things, there was an expiry date, a deep-rooted belief in death that trumped all the efforts.
The only thing they could do was to prepare for a difficult landing, and salvage what could be salvaged of his beautiful City of Karmalott.

“Your Holiness?”

“I heard you the first time, Downson.” The P’hope carefully removed his silver zucchetto and put it aside.
“We need to prepare for evacuation. Have the Sentries prepare all the storks and cranes they can find. Send a detachment of Magi to secure an encampment at a safe landing spot. Then give orders to evacuate all the people you can.”

“What about you, Your Holiness?” Downson’s question was likely to be pure formality, but Jube answered nonetheless

“I’ll go to an ancient place, the source of power of this island. I wished I could avoid it, but if there is a glimmer of hope, it is my holy duty to follow it.”

“Shall we send people to escort you?”

“No, I would prefer to go there alone. It is the kind of powerful places one would prefer to visit alone than badly accompanied.”

“Then, good luck to you.”

“As well, Downson.”

“I don’t know!” Jeremy shouted at the guy with the round spectacles and the Chinese traditional garments full of intricate Chinese button knots.

The guy showed no sign of losing patience although they’d asked him the question whole morning long.
“That is unfortunate, Jeremy” the guy in charge said slowly. He was stroking Max in long broad stokes, flattening the ears with his palms, while the cat was purring like an engine oblivious to the danger in the room. “As you know, there are many ways to skin a cat…”

“Don’t you dare harm Max!”

“So let us recap from the start” the Chinese man said. “You told us you don’t know the man, or his companion. That they appeared and disappeared in a rag, to destination unknown.”
Jeremy nodded, trembling of rage at the way the man was holding his cat.

The Chinese man gave a brush of hand, which all the goons in the apartments took as a cue to leave them two alone.
When they were all gone, he tightened his grip around the cat’s soft neck, and leaned closer to Jeremy:

“My friend, the trace we left in our fugitive’s stomach led us to your place, so there is no doubt he was there. How he disappeared again is a mystery you will help us solve, whether you want it or not.”

Jeremy looked at him quizzically “so why don’t you use your trace to locate him again?”

“The problem is, by now, either he’s digested and dumped it somewhere in a hot steaming pile of shit, or he’s managed to cloak the signal. Those things were to be expected. I guess he went to you for a reason. He wasn’t able to locate our thief’s location without your help. So now, you will help us do the same.”

Jeremy protested “But we tried it already, with the cucumber and all, but it didn’t work!”
Somehow, a thought came with brief and intense clarity to him. The Chinese man noticed the glimmer in Jeremy’s eye and smiled thinly.
“What is it?”
“The map was working for him, as well as the cucumber, for some unexplainable reason. But not for you or me, it doesn’t mean anything! Of course! We have to try something different, focus on finding the person or thing you want, and let me draw another map.”

Cheung Lok was starting to feel closer than he had been in months. He untied Jeremy, and gave him the cat. “Do it, do it now.”

Jeremy lifted Max, tenderly wrapping the cat’s soft body like a scarf on his shoulders. He reached for the wall and took a coloured pin off the cork-board.

While the Chinese guy was busy calling back his goons, Jeremy quickly started to draw on the skin of his arm a symbol with swirly lines, and going in a trance, started to dance into a swirling vortex.

“He’s escaping!” Cheung Lok shouted in Chinese to the others, “Catch him!” he said, striving, but only too late, to catch the youngster who had just disappeared with his cat inside the vortex which was already rapidly closing around them.

Irina gave an appreciative look at the holographic map that Mr R had made of the island.
By a simple triangulation technique combined with sophisticated echolocation, the robot had managed to come up with a rough estimation of it, even though scattered patches were black, representing the blind spots, apparently due to the abundance of water bodies on the island that created interferences.

“Well, it actually looks better than I expected, the coast is a bit rocky, but probably more temperate and less humid than here. Some of those spots here seem to hint at habitations…”
“Madam is absolutely right” Mr R opined with confidence, and a glimmer of pride in his forehead interface.

“When the girl is well enough to travel, we’ll leave.”
“She’s still a bit cold and delirious.” The robot assessed, “Her condition has improved steadily, if not quickly. There is a good chance the green won’t go, but she will live.”

“Have you finished the sentinel?”
“Yes, Madam. It is complete and will serve well in monitoring the gate. Besides water rats and wrecked boats, not much seems to have went through recently. Although…”
“Yes Mr R?”
“I’m not quite certain Madam, which is confusing for me, but there was a moment were my sensors noticed a presence of a young person, but it lasted only for a few nanoseconds in a row, then I could not perceive it… It probably was a malfunction of my sensors Madam, I apologize, but the humidity…”
“I don’t believe your sensors malfunctioned Mr R. I do believe someone’s been trying to phase in, but didn’t succeed. Make sure your sentinel can detect such things…”
She went on: “Another thing, before I go for my astral meditation. Did you manage to get me a date? I’m no rocket science expert, but it sounds easier to get than your quite astonishing map Mr R.”
“Madam is too kind. And as as always, perfectly astute. This should be easy, but again this modest robot has run into a profoundly perplexing paradox.”
“A paradox, how exciting. What is it?”
“According to the shifting position of constellations during the nights and the sun’s elevation, the results differ from one day to another. We have to run a few more test to be conclusive…”
“Is is a local occurrence?”
“It seems to be true for the whole island, Madam. It is currently fluctuating between a series of years, some of which I mapped to the following years, in no particular order: 555, 777, 888, 1010, 1111, 1212, and so on until 2121, and as well, a series of related geographical points on the Earth.”
“No wonder it seems to be the garbage collector of the entire universe”, she sighed.

Then, something hit her.

If myths of such places were to be trusted… Could it be… the mythical Avalon ?
If that were the case… Who could well be the mysterious resuscitated bog mummy?
… One of the island’s Queens ?”

She smiled to herself, brushing off the notion. Irina, you’re such a hopeless romantic…

“That looks good this cruisin’ floatin’ icecub !” Sharon said.

On the deckchairs next to hers, Glor and Mavis were sunbathing tucked under warm rug blankets, appreciating the pale glimmers of sun that started to show up on this new day.

“Friggin’ fantastic!”
“It’s the bloody best holidays ever! The sun is so warm, we’ll be in Africa in no time, with Akitooh at the ‘elm!”
“Didn’t he say it was operated by Yuksomesilly cruise line?”
“Maybe Mav’, why you wonder?”
“It’s like it rings some kind of bell…”

Indeed, Akita had discovered a funny logo at the command board, and instructions left for the captains with headers coming from Yukailli Corp. He never heard of them before, which was not so strange after all, as he had missed a few years since his disappearing at the beginning of WWII in the Sargastic Seas, but they seemed rather organized for what had only seemed a simple iceberg in a giant plastic bag.

Now, he wondered, would they make it safely through the seas, without encountering typhoons, or… pirates? Kay was reassuring, but well, he was a ghost dog, so not really on the front line…
Good thing was that they still had some watermelbombs…

In the discave, full of glimmering lights, and bouncing dragons, Salome started to sing an old tune :

Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain. :weather-showers-scattered:
Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain.
The dark days are gone, and the bright days are here,
My sunny one shines so sincere.
Sunny one so true, I love you.

On the shores of Golfindely, a young boy was playing in the carmine fields of ripe Scotch bonnets.

Since the captain Bone had left, Tomkin Sharple was feeling a bit sad.

The old captain always had fascinating stories to tell him, and he would indulge the endlessly curious little boy in telling him for hours all about what he had discovered in all the parts of the Worlds he had been traveling to.

Now, all he had to do was to take care of the herd of grakes of his parents, and while they were eating the weeds of the crops, he would sat on the cliff, looking at the sea, glimmering in the sunlight.

Grakes were funny to play with, as they were big birds, with a slender neck as geese, colourful patterns as mandarin ducks, and Tomkin always had fun jumping on the back of the alpha one, and ride it, leading the whole herd to the crops where they helped the farmers by eating all kinds of nuisances.

But after Captain Bone’s departure, it was no longer fun.

Tomkin was contemplating a strange thing that the captain had given him before he’d left. It was a sort of knot, shaped as a eight, and the captain had told him it was magic and meant that all was connected, but that he had to discover that magic for himself.

Tomkin had asked the captain to tell him about this object, but all he had told him was a legend which did not reveal much about the circumstances in which the old sea dog had acquired it. Perhaps the captain had fooled him about the magic…

Stuffing the thing again in his pocket, Tomkin let his mind wander on the sea waves, dreaming of being a cabin boy on a big boat, when he saw something on the horizon.

At first he thought that it was a group of swimming golfindels, but golfindels were more brilliant and smaller than the shapes he was seeing, and moving less heavily too…

Malvina had been busy opening doors for herself, and thus, for the All.

Creating the sabulmantium with Leörmn had revealed new potentials to her. And just before putting the final touch to the device, she had felt engulfed in a huge wave and before she knew it, she was talking with someone. A great creative power, which was stemming from herself, and also from which she stemmed too.

It had named itself Naasir.

It had revealed to her, in the form of a dark abyss, myriads of unknown potentials waiting for her to leap in faith into them. It had gently requested that she release her hold on the caves openings, so that she could explore more, and also bring more to herself.

Then Naasir took the form of a great dragon in that abyss, from which roots were growing and pushing their way, slowly and surely, into the rich soil towards the light of their fullness.

She had then seen the dragon’s arched back and tail shift into a chain of spiked rocks, separating the worlds seas in two. Three of the scales on the right of the dragon’s skin were glimmering, and she could see they were looking for a passage.

Would she allow that to happen? Yes, she wanted to. Open the doorways, and reunite what was separate, but gently, one at a time.

Slowly, the kite-shaped rocky plates on the back of the dragon moved apart, to open a slight, safe passage for the glimmering scales. They were caught in the eddies that surged from the opening, but Malvina’s focus helped them to float and cross safely, as they wanted to.

She then came back to herself, seated in front of the glass-shell dragon egg filled with coloured sand, awed with that power she had just felt through her. She knew it was her own power, and that the device had only allowed it to be expressed, but she had felt wary of how the sabulmantium could be used by others.

At the same time, Leörmn who was once again the tiny weaszchilla trotting on the wooden table in front of her had laughed squeakingly. And looking at the toy in front of her, she had understood how it could only be used by those who would see beyond the thinly veiled surface. For the uncaring eye, this would only be a toy, mundane and without interest, but for the pure of heart, its help could be harnessed.

That’s how she’d knew she did not need it any longer, and could release it.

So, the doors had been opened, and people were feeling the new jewels sparkling behind the dark passages. And gifts from friends could now come across the veils.

Malvina saw that during the last transmugrification, Leörmn had created an entrance near her laboratory, and it was as if it beckoned her now.

When she entered, she saw a guéridon table in the middle of a moistly pungent room. On the table, a polished egg was here. She recognized it at once. It had an azure blue glow to it, and fond memories came back to her.

Back then, she was a young Sorceress in training on the Island of Mörk, in the middle of the Icy Lands, the birth and dying place of the dragons.

This egg was one from a set of three. It was the first glubolín she’d ever made, along with her two companions. They had kept it to communicate with each other when they parted.

Malvina, the youngest of the three, had kept the azure blue, and chose to go to the Dragon Head Peninsula.

Oörlaith had kept the mauve, and went near the town of Kapalÿka, on the Snimeÿa River delta bordering the Marshes of Doom.

As for Roselÿn, the eldest of the three, she had taken the amber one, and had went as far as anyone would have dared go, flying on her spiked dragon Rëgkvist, past the Great Rift.

They had kept in touch, but contacts had been more and more sporadic as each were discovering their own new environments, and had ceased altogether, almost at the same time.

As far as she knew, Roselÿn had been starting her own rookery in the sandy ice deserts of Åsgurdy, mostly hiding there from the superstitious people of that land. And Oörlaith, whom she was closest to, had been devising another funny way to keep people away from her rookery. Her own dragon, the playful Andarión, was shape-shifting as a huge shrimp to pretend that the surroundings were haunted.

Recalling all these moment, Malvina laughed at how silly they all were, and felt a long to be connecting again with her friends. Would anyone of them be around their own glubolíns?