Steve Shilstone's Blog, page 36

Here is the cover art for RAKARA, the third story of The Bekka Chronicles. It will be released on May 17.

In FAN WA, Harpo's first chronicle, the Lord High Dulcimer plays an active supporting part. As Lovey, the Princess With The Lovely Foot, gives her blessing to Gorge, the 3-toed troll, the Lord High Dulcimer demonstrates his role in the excerpt below.

The Princess advanced, hop, hop, hop, her head held high and her eyebrows, too. Admiring murmurs followed her.

"How she does hop!"

"What spring! It's flat down inspirational!"

"You're right. You are so right that you are 100% correct!"

Gorge raised himself from the throne, a bit reluctantly, I must admit, and stepped to one side. Babbling Jam Hatrack nodded and crinkled. That's how she smiled. By crinkling. She stood at the other side of the throne. The Lord High Dulcimer, meanwhile, began to bustle, one of his best talents. There were two steps up to the throne and he was up them, down them, bowing, scraping, making sweeping gestures, first with his right hand, then with his left hand. He gave his fingers a little flutter wave at the end of each sweep. The Princess arrived at the steps and hopped a mighty hop, not only clearing both steps, but landing standing poised bangbo center on the seat of the throne. A loud cheering erupted, followed by clapping and continued murmuring.

"What a leap!"

"What grace!"

"What elegance!"

"And only sixteen years old."

"Are we lucky Fiddleeebodlians or what?"

The Princess With The Lovely Foot lowered herself to sit, and when she did, she folded her lovely foot clad in its rainbow scarf under her hopping leg, as was her custom. She allowed her eyebrows to drop a bit, too, and spoke.

"Citizens of Fiddleeebod," she said calmly, and did she stifle a yawn? She was more than used to public speaking. The Lord High Dulcimer dragged her daily here or there to say something or something other. He always wrote it down for her, and she was an excellent reader. At hopping OR reading, nobody could touch her. She had nothing to read at the moment, but her memory was good enough to remember what she had to say.

"Bless the troll," she said and made a little Princess wave at him with her little Princess hand.

Pink windwhirls play prominent parts in 2 chronicles, Harpo's THE WELL OF SHELLS and Bekka's THE BLUE HILLS. Below the sketch is a description taken from Harpo's THE WELL OF SHELLS. It tells of the windwhirl's first appearance before a pair of witchlet sisters.

A spatter rattle drumming of hail sounded on the chack branch roof. Simmering Jam Hatrack was a lumpy mound of fear cowering on the grass under her blackest purple cloak. Babbling Jam Hatrack's lilac jaw was dropped in fine grained awe, and she stared amazed at the pink windwhirl spinning circles around and between the fire white trunks of the chack trees. It zizzed with whooooshing before bending awobble and shooting forward to writhe in front of the witchlet sisters. The rattle drumming of hail died away. The whooooshing of the windwhirl did not. A voice. What? The whooooshing was a windy voice.

"ssssssssshhhhhhhnow the sisters have arrivedsssssshhhhhh," hiss whispered the windwhirl. "ssswhissshhhooooooo."

"It's walking about us," said Babbling Jam Hatrack to her trembling cloak covered mound of sister.

"Talking, talking, tuh, tuh, tuh," responded Simmering Jam Hatrack, and she risked a peek from under her cloak. Not taking her eyes from the windwhirl for even the thinnest of ninces, she maneuvered herself low on the grass, scuttling, until she succeeded in getting her sister directly between her and the thing. The thing is what Simmering Jam Hatrack called the pink windwhirl in her very own cluttered and fearstricken mind.

The windwhirl whooooshed, and from out of its spin flew a pair of training brooms. Training brooms? Witchly brooms, only smaller. They bounced chappa on the ground and rested. Greed overcame fear, and Simmering Jam Hatrack pounced on the brooms, taking emphatic possession of them. Intently she examined them, running them inchly by the spectacles perched on her pasty gray green nose. She measured length, compared smoothness, ease of bend, quality of straw. She hugged the slightly longer, smoother, more flexible training broom to her chest and kicked the other one away.

In RAKARA, the soon to be published third story in The Bekka Chronicles, Bek and Kar undertake an adventure in direct response to a challenge from an immortal, Dak the Jroon, pictured below as he appeared in THE LEDGEMOON, a tale of twins floating on a raft in the Wide Great Sea and told in alternating chapters by the blind Harpo and his scribe, Lace. The first appearance of Dak is described by Lace.

Time passes. It moves. Night. Day. Sun. Moons. Cast adrift on the Wide Great Sea the trampoline raft floated on. Sill sat with her back to the mast. Her arms were folded, hugging her knees. She felt the buttons on her knee pockets pressing against her pale green arms, and she wished for the hundredth time, if not the hundred and eighth, that she hadn't wasted the coin of Kadd. Why had she used it so early? She sighed. Now they were truly lost and truly, oh truly, they needed guidance to show them the way to the Ledgemoon. If only we could find the Ledgemoon, if only, she thought, then we would know. We'd know. She gazed out over the waves. Rise and fall. Surge and settle. Water and water everywhere, stretching to all horizons. Bloop. The head of her brother Fiss broke through a rolling glassy wave next to the raft. A spark of alarm fired in his watery sea green eyes.

"Sill, I think …," he said, scrambling aboard the raft.

"What? What do you think?" yawned Sill, raking her blue fire hair back out of her eyes.

"Something is down there. It's coming up. I saw bubbles and something gold. Shiny gold. Do you remember?… It seems like something familiar again," said Fiss, sitting on the pie box, water cascading from his hair, his gills, his oat gray jumper.

"Gold?" said Sill, jumping to her feet. "That almost makes me know! … I feel like … Something … Somebody will help us."

And then is when the sea around the raft began to churn and churn in a cold bubbling boil. A graceful column of water spouted high and fell away. Another. Another. Then quiet. The sea became calm, flat, waveless. The twins stared, watery sea green eyes wide. They waited. Stared at what? Waited for what? A golden circle of light played on the green glass sea. Up from under it rose a figure, a creature, a something, to break the circle of liquid gold and float free and bold in the air. Darting brightly with each slow twist, golden glints flashed from its robe. It wore a robe. A golden robe. Its hair was the darkest green, glimmered with glowing moss. Its beard was long and wavy and tied in the middle with a golden bow. Its gray storm eyes sparkled. Pale blue was its face. It did not smile when it spoke.

"To place hands on the Ledgemoon is to know. To know is a thing well met," rumbled the creature, the figure, the something in a low thundering voice.

The twins sat down. Blump. Blump.

"I am Dak, the Sea Jroon, the Jroon of this Sea. You are the twins searching for the Ledgemoon. This much I know," continued the creature, the Dak, the Jroon.

"How do you know us?" gasped Sill.

"What are you going to do?" breathed Fiss.

"Listen more, speak less, younglings, if you would benefit from what I have to say. Would you benefit?" rumbled Dak.

Both twins nodded assent, and, fair to tell, stole glances of reassurance one at the other and back.

An inspiration to Bekka of Thorns was Bandy, a bramble dwarf, or bendo dreen, who a thousand years and more before Bekka's time dared to leave the safety and security of the bramble bower hedge to seek adventure. Below the sketch of Bandy I've posted the first chronicler Harpo's thumbnail description of the daring bendo dreen's rise through the ranks of castle staff to become Tutor to the famous Triplet Princesses Three.

Bandy of Thorns, Bandy of Thorns, Bandy the bramble dwarf; Bandy of the prickly hedge marking the boundary westernmost there beyond the Villcom Wood of the Kinngish Queeendom of Fiddleeebod; Bandy who boldly left his brambles to adventure far and wide, highly odd, yes it was, strangely uncommon bramble behavior; Bandy who washed up singing a ditty one moonslit night at the castle walls; Bandy with his twinkling eyes and his ever ready smile; Bandy who worked as a lowly sculger in the castle's clean but cluttered kitchen, scrape and fetch, scrub and wash; Bandy the sculger who rose through the ranks until he roamed on a quest of his own which took him for years to Longthin Lake; Bandy with light green almost yellow skin and carrot colored hair; Bandy who one day returned to the castle with stories to tell and songs to sing; Bandy the teller of stories and singer of songs so very good, so very fine that the Triplet Princesses quietly listened; Bandy of Thorns, bramble dwarf, worthy mentor, wise in his wisdom, appointed to be the Royal Tutor, Honor High, to The Triplet Princesses and Young Prince Forr of the Kinngish Queeendom of Fiddleeebod.

Bandy of Thorns held out his hand and the silent youthful little Prince whose name was Forr stepped out from behind his mother, the Queeeen Malvina, and put his hand in Bandy's. Bandy smiled down at the youngling. The youngling, with startling violet eyes, returned the smile up at Bandy from under his shocking shiny mop of coal black curly hair.

"Wun. Tuu. Thrii. Shall we go?" Bandy's voice sang out over the courtyard.

In a nince of a nonce before even a nunce, the racing, running, flying Princesses were perched on a cart fighting for position, pulling hair, screaming and punching.

The mad hutter, Jugglor, appears in a few chronicles, notably LITTLE HUTTER and THE ACROTWIST CLOWN. Below him is an excerpt from THE ACROTWIST CLOWN.

"Welcome! Welcome! Come up now! Come along! Step lively! Come in! Come in! Come in! What can I get you? Anything? You look hungry! I can fix that in a jif. Half a jif! Travelled far? Travelled long? How 'bout a song? I'll sing while you eat. What shall I sing? No, better! I'll juggle! Wait! I'll juggle AND sing! As sure as my name is Jugglor, which it is, I'll juggle and sing. I juggle well. My voice has been compared at times to satin elegance. I admit it. I am Jugglor. Isn't this a stroke of good fortune or a kindly hand of fate that such an impressive group has been delivered to my doorstep? Come in, come in, come in. Welcome to the house of Jugglor."

How much do you know about hutters? Not very much? Let me tell you something about the happy hutter who burst forth running and dancing from the purple and white striped conical dwelling and delivered that speech we just heard. He was not a typical hutter. Far from it. Oh, he was friendly. Hutters are friendly. Oh, he tended the orchard. Hutters tend orchards and fields, too. He wore the simple garb of a hutter, tunic and tannerbritches. He was a wonderful host, as are all hutters. But, strange to tell, he had been banished from his ancestral oat field near Fiddleeebod Castle. He had been sent to live alone in and tend to one of the Outerest Orchards. Why? He broke and continued to break daily the number one hutter rule. NO ONE MUST KNOW YOUR NAME. AFTER YOUR MOTHER WHISPERS IT TO YOU ON YOUR SECOND BIRTHDAY, IT MUST NEVER BE HEARD AGAIN. There it is. Rule #1. It's a hutter tradition. The hutter herding the Prophesy's chosen four into his sturdy conical cottage couldn't help himself. He had to tell everyone he met his name was Jugglor. He repeated his name a hundred times a day. The ggl part was irresistible in his throat. Jugglor. Jugglor. Jugglor. A hutter speaking aloud his name might not have seemed odd to Jemby or to Nobb or to Malvina. To Prince Dale Lightly, however, it was shocking.

"You're not supposed to say your name, are you, hutter?" asked Prince Dale as the group passed through the door of the conical cottage.

"Mishmash. Mishmash. All mishmash! Jugglor's my name and my name is Jugglor! Sit down. Sit down! I'll bring cakes! I'll bring my Jugglor specialty, homemade mollywater! The best!" said the hutter, and he scampered up the ladder through a round hole in the round ceiling. There was a ladder. There was a round hole in the ceiling.

Maz of the East, a Rumin dragonwing, appears in one chronicle, WOEFUL WANDERERS' WASTELAND. Her entrance into the story is recorded below.

A storm of dragonwings whirred above Bodgy and Blinky. Fat. Short. Tall. Thin. Some wore sleeved tunics and leggers. Others were clothed in leggers and vests. Emerald green and flapping, they rained onto the buttergold platform. They surrounded Bodgy and Blinky. When the platform had not another square inch to spare, more and more dragonwings came and landed on ledges high around the cavern's walls. Soon all the ledges crawled with dragonwings, and the wings of the dragonwings were folded away. Every ash blue eye in every emerald green face turned to the buttergold platform. Latecomers, failing to find a high ledge perch, reluctantly settled on the heaps of gold and tried to see around the tall mirrors. Emerald green fingers pulled fitfully on wispy green beards. Silence began its descent. "I want to see the carrot!" "Shhhhhh!" Silence. A single latecomer fluttered to rest on a heap of gold. "Sorry," she said. Silence. The oldest dragonwing on the platform worked her way toward Bodgy and Blinky. She nudged and shoved, and a path was cleared. She scanned Bodgy, head to toe, and meanwhile stroked her wispy green beard. She nodded a nod and turned to Blinky. She cocked her head so far to the right that her gold hoop earring touched her emerald green shoulder. She nodded again. She continued to stroke her beard in thought. Bodgy opened her mouth to speak when the old dragonwing beat her to it.

"It is the silver jacket!" she cried out in a voice that carried to every ledge and echoed resounding. A murmur rose until she raised her hand to quell it. "I will talk to the carrothead."

"I aren't the carrothead! I are … Bodgy of Thornses, and I has the silver jacket!" said Bodgy, not really knowing what that meant, but sensing it might mean something good for her. "And I has brought your Blinky Greenwing back!"

The old dragonwing sadly shook her head. She raised her ash blue eyes and looked long into Bodgy's chalky yellows. She shook her head again, and sighed as she brought her focus over to Blinky, whose head held so many jumbled thoughts he couldn't catch hold of a single one.

"Yes, I fear it is true," she said.

That particular Dragon staring at you has a good part to play in BABBLING JAM HATRACK, an early chronicle written by Harpo. Feel free to read Harpo's introduction to the Dragon.

An ordinary dragon is a scaly monster with wings and claws. An ordinary dragon can breathe fire any time it feels the urge. An ordinary dragon lives in a pit under a mountain and guards a treasure. Normally it coils its slithery tail around the treasure and snores a lot. The treasure is usually gold and jewels. An ordinary dragon is the size of one of your average small town libraries. An ordinary dragon is always cranky. Living in a pit under a mountain for hundreds of years with nothing to do but guard treasure would make any creature cranky. Am I right? Well, the dragon grumbling and groaning in this story was not ordinary.

First of all, the dragon in this story was not a dragon. It was a Dragon. Also, it was not an it. It was a she. She was a Dragon, and she lived in a pool where the Greenwilla River bends away from Villcom Wood at the edge of the Kingdom of Fiddleebod. The pool was called Dragon's Deep Pool. It still is, these hundreds of bar years later. What else would it be called? She didn't actually live in the pool, but under it. Under the pool in a rocky vault of a room lit only by her fiery breath and glow she lived and complained and jabbered constantly to her servant, the Princess to the Dragon. The entrance to the vault, which we can call a lair because Dragons have lairs, not vaults, was hidden. An innocent looking hill by the pool was not as innocent as it looked. An underwater passageway connected Dragon's Deep Pool to the hollow hill. The hill was hollow, not innocent. From pool to hill a traveller might travel underwater, were he weak of mind, and wind down a long twister of a tunnel which opened into the great cavern of the Dragon. The lair, I mean. The Lair of the River Dragon. It went by that name among the citizens of both Fiddleebod and Clover.

Did I tell you the Dragon was boring? The Dragon was oh so very boring. She told long tedious pointless stories over and over again. They dragged on and on. Drag on. Understand? She knew five stories and repeated them each thousands of times to her poor servant, the Princess to the Dragon. Is it any wonder the miserable wretch of a servant longed to dig a hole and crouch in it? The stories were boring, and the Dragon spoke in a monotone. What else can I tell you about the River Dragon? Her eyes were glowing and green. That's pretty interesting. She loved cold soup but could never get any into her mouth before her breath boiled it. She wasn't intelligent enough to hold her breath and sip. The Princess to the Dragon could have offered the 'hold your breath' advice, but didn't. I'm not surprised. Are you? Let me see. What else? The River Dragon was not the size of a small town library. She was two of your biggest fire engines stacked one on top of the other size. Big enough. She waited impatiently for the return of the old ragged Princess to the Dragon. She itched with an eagerness to see the new baby Princess to the Dragon.

Queen Amzo of Clover takes center stage in one small piece of one story, ZOM FALBU. She's offstage and important in many others. Below her picture is the description of her first meeting with the time-traveling shapeshifter, Zom Falbu.

You possess a brightness, roamer. I understand now with a better clear why you are a keeper of tales. Yes, yes, Queen Amzo knew Scong Lodd. But wait. That jumps the hill. You must hear all of the story. You must hear it all if ever I would see Jom. The Queen, alone in the night, hurried across the courtyard straight at me. She wore a shimmering white cloak decorated with gold threaded bees. I sent a probe to sponge her mind and was shocked to find it blocked behind the mark of shapeshifter. Kem zole! Jare ay! I was shocked double, roamer, at what happened next. She stopped below my window and stared directly up at me. 'Are you here yet?' she whispered. I did nothing. Stunned. I was stunned. 'Zom Falbu, are you here yet?' she whispered again. Double stunned. My name. I began to trickle. 'No,' she hissed. 'Stay as you are. I'm coming in.' She slid along the wall and disappeared. In a nince she appeared behind me inside the tower on the stairs. 'Dribble in here. We'll talk,' she whispered. I shifted, oozed inside and blobbed blue on the stairs. She beckoned me to follow and led the way down the stairs and into the night shadow of the stairwell. She whispered urgently. I made no sound or effort to move. I felt the crumpled Road List buried in my midst. I drank in her words. The diamonds in her crown flashed glint when she nervously nodded her head. This, roamer, is what she said. 'So, Zom Falbu, the shapeshiftress. It is true. Help, he said. You will help, he said. He said he would block my mind from you. You would try to probe, he said. That would not be the way. He said that. Did you try to probe, Zom Falbu?' 'Yes,' I managed to say. 'Ahh,' said the Queen. 'Then truth. Hope. I will tell you. Seven bar days ago, a lifetime of misery, my Lorelei Lo, my little honeylump of love, was snatched away out of my arms to become the new Princess to the Dragon. Torn dreams. Nightmare.' She began to gasp and choke and sob. I, an oozling of scant life, did not know what to do. So I did what I felt. I shifted to image Queen Amzo, crown, cloak and all. It charmed a success. She no longer wept. She stared instead. Flej jakus. I stared back. 'Good,' she finally said, unsmiling. 'That is as so he said.'

The Raspy Sprite, hidden in the bright blue ball of light below, appears in a single chronicle, THE CREELY CROWN, and has a small but important role in delivering a clue to the Princess Wun, who is in competition with her sisters, Tuu and Thrii, in a race to find the Creely Crown.

"Who am there? Where am you?" said Princess Wun, whirling around on top of the broken stone wall.

There was a fair chumble of movement in the nearby tangled lumpish hump of slim yellow vines bristling with tufts of black stickers. A glow. Blue light. Fuzzy. Shup! An orb of shivery brilliance popped free and zzzzzhhhhed in loops around Wun. Brightly blue it dazzled.

"So you are the Princess Wun. I thought you would never utter the code words. Is it true that Dabber of the West married your father's twin sister?" rasped the looping ball of blue light.

"Stand still or float still. Stop moving!" commanded Wun, stamping her foot. "What am you? Stop moving!"

The blinding bright blue light settled in front of Wun's chalky turquoise face. Wun shielded her eyes. The orb's raspy voice said, "So it is true about the eyes. Amazing. Yes, startling. I must tell the garl."

"What am you saying? Who am you? Get back. Why amn't you answering me? WHAT AM YOU?!" snapped Wun, not used to being ignored. After all, she was a Princess.

"Feathery wings, not Dragon. I'll make a note of that for the garl," said the blue ball of brightness.

"WHO AM YOU?! WHAT GARL?! Ow," roared Wun, straining something or some other thing in her throat.

"Ah, there's the Royalty. Elegance of thistles. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Raspy Sprite. I speak for the silent garl," said the blue ball of light, and it sank to land on a chunk of mossy pillar. "You, winged Princess, are searching for the Creely Crown. You, winged Princess, have succeeded in finding your way to Farl and Nizz where the Creely Crown was created. You, winged Princess, will be the one and the Wun to win the Creely Crown if you are able to follow the clue that the silent garl is holding for you."

The Raspy Sprite paused, and Wun said nothing, though thrill fought excitement for control of her body. She rubbed her throat. It still hurt from screaming.

"You see, winged Princess," continued the blue orb, "we here have been visited by Babba Ja Harick. You see, winged Princess, she brought to us a story of Prophesy. It was of a such and all nature to make the silent garl weep with guilt and shame. Never to mind. As waves crest and fall from here to there, that's a fate gone by. Farl and Nizz may be a crumbled ruin, but it is still a home for us. And a pleasant one, at that."

"What about the clue?" prodded Wun quietly, still holding her throat. "Where am this garl? Let it bring me the clue."

"Oh, winged Princess, the silent garl is far too shy to deliver the clue to you herself. She never pushes more than the tips of her tentacles above the rubble and vines. I speak for the silent garl," said the Raspy Sprite.

"Well, speak me the clue then," demanded Wun.

"I don't know it," replied the ball of light.

"Can you get it?" said Wun with menacing gentleness.

"I can," rasped the orb. "Shall I?"

Tight-lipped, Wun nodded, and she raked her fingers through her black streaked with green curly hair. The Raspy Sprite plunged to disappear beneath the glut of thin yellow vines bristling with tufts of black stickers. Red burrs on stalks of gaffrunners waved in the breeze. It was a windy day. I never saw a sprite before, thought Wun. I heard of Mimsy, but she were orange. This one am blue so bright. Pretty, though. I are glad that the silent garl am shy. Tentacles, uggghhhh! Clue! Clue! Clue! Ha, Tuu! I are not a lackwit! Wun continued to entertain herself with dreams of victory while she waited for the Raspy Sprite to return. She touched the top of her head with the tips of her fingers and imagined herself wearing the Crown. A smile of bliss played on her lips. And that is  why the krunkle of vines and the sudden reappearance of the blue bright sprite startled her.

"Got it," rasped the sprite, zzzzhhhhing close to Wun's left ear.

"Oh, what?" gasped Wun.

"I heard the clue in gentle whisper directly from the seventh mouth, the one with double beaks. The silent garl says, 'Fly, fly, fly, high, high, high, until you see the tallest tree in the wood of the witch'," rasped the voice of the sprite.

Right then and right there the Princess Wun launched herself straight up without the least nince of hesitation and flapped her wings wildly to ride the sky over the Orrun Mountains and south to the Danken Wood, homeland of Babba Ja Harick, lavender witch. The Raspy Sprite watched her go and drifted among the ruins of Farl and Nizz to settle lightly on a tentacle tip which had wormed its shy way up through the tangle of thin yellow vines bristling with tufts of black stickers.