Tag: fantasy

Prairie Roots

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excerpt

…watched her eat all the things that “were good for us”. Thank
goodness he liked perohy or we may not have acquired the fondness
for them that we did.
In fact, every Friday morning was perohy-making time, since,
as Ukrainian Catholics, we observed the meatless Friday rule.We
were roped into the perohy-making assembly line whenever we
were home from school. It was usually fun, invariably initiated
one or two squabbles about who was or was not doing how much
of what, but also included listening to Mom telling a story or singing
us songs. When she ladled those delicious little creations out
of the hot water into the cooling pot and then onto our platters,
and covered them with melted butter and crisply fried onions, a
morning’s work was known to disappear in short minutes! They
were so good!
I certainly well remember mother’s songs and stories that she
had brought with her from “the old country”. As she worked
away in the kitchen she forever sang those wonderfully sad
Ukrainian soul songs or told us stories of her early life. So many
times the tears would gather in her eyes and we would feel sad
with her, not really knowing what had made her sad in the first
instance. We must have been a comfort to her though, she being
so far from her family and almost certain that she would not see
any of them again. She at least had us to occupy herself with, leaving
her precious little time for self-pity.
I also recall the concerned exchanges between my parents as
World War II ravaged their birth areas and then as communism under
Stalin’s fist tightened its’ vicious grip throughout eastern Europe,
I wonder now what conflicting thoughts they had to endure. Their
life was not easy; however, what little news came through, devastating
as it must have been, would certainly have made them feel
thankful for getting away from that tormented region.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562900

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897920

The Qliphoth

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excerpt

Lucas:
Grand Junction
The light filters through a drifting barrage of cloud, early evening mist blurs a
green froth of trees and Lucas doesn’t know anything any more. Now that he’s
walked out he feels uneasy about his paternal rescue mission. No one stops for
the lone hitcher. The B-road wanders everywhere and nowhere. All the signs
are overgrown.
He staggers into Abbotsburton railway station. At least he can dry out and
ponder. From the doorway of the deserted waiting-room, he studies the slant
of the rain. No way back to the motherland now. He gazes along a curve of single
track. Squat oaks crowd the edge of the trackbed. They bulge with
growths, puffs of whiteness.. The dankness of this landscape might dissolve
the sticky molecules of his identity.
The waiting room window is pointed, forming pseudo-gothic lancets with
small leaded panes. There’s a peculiar stained-glass armorial motif at the apex,
a stylised flash of green lightning bursting from blue-tinted clouds, with initials:
WGJR.
This must be the privately-owned ‘restored’ line, probably run by enthusiasts
in woolly hats and anoraks. Perhaps they’re hoping to reconnect
Abbotsburton with the local coastal resorts, miles away across the moorlands.
Yet their steam-age revival has apparently failed already. The cracked canopy
leaks, and this room is a sparsely furnished shed, offering a slatted wooden
bench, scarred with ancient rune-like graffiti. The faded adverts for
Brylcreem, Park Drive cigarettes and Philco Radio-Grams are the kind of
time-capsule memorabilia his father used to sell.
He is atomised, all his bits and pieces are in free fall. Best not to think too
hard about past, future, any time at all. Of course, he has left his bleeding
watch behind.
Lucas turns up the collar of his black bomber jacket and walks out to the far
end of the platform, where nettles split the asphalt. There’s no sign of a timetable
or platform staff. He scans the rusty rails. They curve in from the woods
and continue out into a steep cutting, between slopes of thick wet bushes.
On the far side of the track he can see a low windowless red-brick building,
overgrown with creepers. A derelict sub-station; or a wrecked trackside
memorial to some defunct moorland industry?

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562839

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186508

Poodie James

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excerpt

“What’ll it be?” he said.
“Can of Prince Albert, please.”
Gritzinger walked to the shelves. Sam looked over at the big
man. Something about that voice.
The man glanced at him.
“Pardon me, sir,” Sam said, “is your name Clarkson?”
The stranger turned and looked steadily at him from behind
rimless glasses that imparted an air of orderliness to a man otherwise
in dishevelment.
“Why do you ask?”
“Years ago, I spent time in a courtroom with a lawyer by that
name, one of the best I was ever up against. He whipped me. That
rarely happened. I didn’t forget it.”
The man’s gaze softened a little as he continued to study Sam’s
face.
“Condolences on your loss,” the big man said at last. He handed
Gritizinger a few coins, slipped the can of tobacco into his jacket
pocket, dipped his head and said, “Good evening to you both.”
“Glad to see you after all these years,” Gritzinger said.
“And I you, sir. Good evening.”
Sam watched the man’s back as he walked out of the market and
headed north. He turned to Gritzinger only after the door closed
and the sound of the bell interrupted his musing.
“You know him,” he said.
“Used to”, Gritzinger said. “Haven’t seen him since before the
war. He’d come through here on freight trains and stay in that
hobo camp down by the old Thorp place. Poodie James brought
him around. Did a few odd jobs for me. Spent a day once stacking
two cords of cedar in the woodshed out back. Called himself Fred.”
Fred, Sam thought. Fred Clarkson?
When Darwin Spanger walked into the showroom of Torgerson
Packard, the proprietor was conducting a couple on a tour around a
black sedan. With a nod of his head, Torgerson directed Spanger…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

The Qliphoth

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Version 1.0.0

excerpt

…wheeler-dealer in twentieth century wreckage, the magus who re-discovered
the Lore of the Brazen Head.
Even now I must pay for my faery-land humours, for Jago will be soon lumbering
over with his medical mafiosi, to wake up the sleeping beauties; to make
a special brain check on ugly old pseudo-Rabbinical Freakbeard.
For fuck’s sake, Wolfbane! I’d only just got Jago off my back. And then you
came across to peer over my shoulder, you burst into a sniggering fit, your
greaselocks whirling . . .
“Why waste your time inventing a new religion?” you shouted, so that the
whole Day Room could hear, even poor Eamonn, who looked up anxiously
from his week-old Catholic Herald, thinking more new sins for Eamonn,
omigod . . .
“The teachings channeled via the Order of the Brazen Head are not a religion.
They’re fragments of a system for magically transforming reality. I’m
well on the way to rediscovering it.” I was angry but remained in full control.
He obviously wasn’t accustomed to dealing with an authentic adept.
“Sounds like Harry Houdini to me. All these old blokes in robes climbing
into magic compartments. The disappearing cabinet gimmick. Mummy case,
magic casket, fakirs in igloos, it’s all the same. Ancient stuff. I’ve been doing it
for years. Watch me now. I can mash potato, I can do the twist . . .”
He did a little sing-song dance routine, not the head banging heroics everyone
associated with the Hrothgar videos, more like a twirly number from some
old Motown tour. He spun so fast he was a blur of hair.
“Why are you in here, Wolfbane? ”
“It was headline news,” he muttered, “and everybody in the business knew
about it.” He seemed offended that I didn’t know. “Anyway, I know all about
you now. You’ve abandoned your wife and child, right? Abandoned them, to
be lost in space, on the dead planet, to be eaten alive by robots. While you
bummed off to write letters to aliens. What kind of an alibi is that, I ask you? I
was a dragon-slayer. You were just a worm . . .”
He’d never suffered under PP, the All-Devourer, She Who Hath Gnawed
Out the Sweetness of My Entrails.
“When you see the finished Book of the Lore, Wolfbane, you’ll see I was
given no choice, I made the best decision in the circumstances, and when I’ve
finished my life’s work, you’ll see . . .”
“You’ll never finish it. That’s your bloody alibi, isn’t it? Just do it to death.”
He repeated it several times—do it to death—wrote it across the wall…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562839

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186508

Arrows

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excerpt

Arrogant and stupid, that’s what I was. And being what I was, I
failed to stop the last great war. I hesitated. I waited too long.
One night I was startled awake by drums in the small hours
before dawn. Indians used hollow tree trunks that were remarkably
loud, hitting them with sticks of about the length and diameter of a
forearm. The women started a hellish racket that would have
awakened Lazarus.
I went outside and found the fires blazing and a sizable group of
women walking rhythmically about in single file, each with a hand
on the shoulder of the next in the firelight.
Some men stood while their women painted their bodies with
crushed onoto seeds mixed with ashes and adorned them with
feathers. Others were ready and gathering their weapons. There was
tension in the air. I made my way through the confusion in search of
someone who could explain what was happening.
I went to Guacaipuro’s hut and saw him standing very still at the
entrance, his gaze lost in the distance. Beside him, Baruta, painted
and feathered, waited unobtrusively. Someone tapped me on the
arm. Pariamanaco was breathing fast, a stern expression on his
boyish face.
“What’s happening?” I asked him.
“War.”
“Who? Where?” I asked.
“The city they founded.”
“Santiago de León de Caracas?”
He shrugged, curving the corners of his mouth. Those words
meant nothing to his ears.
“I must talk to your uncle.”
“He ordered to be left alone. He doesn’t want to talk. All caciques
will bring their men. They will meet at Maracapana. It is too late for
talk.”
“Maracapana?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know where that was. He had never been
more than a few miles from the confines of the village.
Gaucaipuro stood while Urquía ceremoniously placed a jaguar’s

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562848

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Water in the Wilderness

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excerpt

He stroked her cheek. “Rachael’s in the hospital here. She has hypothermia and frostbite but she’ll be okay.” He took a deep breath. “We brought Bobby and Ronald here, but they had to be transferred to Calgary.”
“Why? Morley, tell me. Is Bobby …?”
He squeezed her arm. “Bobby’s very sick. He … he was unconscious when we found him. It’s too soon to tell ….” Morley buried his face in her shoulder, and when he raised his head, Tyne could see tears coursing down his cheeks through the stubble of his beard. He swallowed hard and wiped a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Tyne, I was going to be strong for you. We have to believe he’s going to be all right.”
Tyne reached over to touch his cheek. When she had swallowed her own tears, she said, “Where did you find them?”
“Ronald had made it to Matt McDonald’s farm, but he’d just got as far as the outbuildings when he collapsed. Matt was going to the barn after the wind died down, and that’s when he found him. He was able to tell Matt that Rachael and Bobby were in a granary, and he begged him to hurry and get them.”
Morley paused and looked down as if trying to collect his thoughts and get control of his emotions. “Matt guessed the granary was his own, not very far away. He called me, and I put the word out. Several of us were just getting ready to go out and search again. When we found them in that building, I thought … I thought ….” He sniffed and took a deep breath. “They were holding each other, and Rachael woke up and saw me, and she smiled at first, then started to cry, and she told me to look after Bobby. But he wouldn’t wake up.” Morley put his head down and sobbed.
Tyne wanted to hold him and comfort him, but somehow she couldn’t seem to lift herself off the bed. Her tears flowed freely with his.
Morley reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his face. “I called the hospital from Matt’s place to tell you we’d found them, but Inge said you were in surgery.”
Tyne gave him a puzzled look. “No, why would she say that? We didn’t have any more cases.” Then suddenly, she knew.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Fury of the Wind

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excerpt

She gripped the covers and stared at the curtains
moving in the breeze from the open window. The wailing, howling
cry continued without letup – Margaret’s laughter from her dream.
But this eerie sound was not laughter, and it was interspersed by
occasional yelps like those of a dog in anguish.
Recognition dawned suddenly. “Coyotes,” Sarah said aloud. The
sound of her own voice calmed her.
She lay back against the pillows and pulled the sheet up to her
chin. When the howling stopped she whispered derisively into the
sudden silence, “Sarah Roberts, coward.” O
Sarah next awakened to the tantalizing aroma of bacon and coffee.
When she opened her eyes she could see light streaming in through
a gap in the curtains. She lay still, wondering how to face Ben with
the news that she wouldn’t marry him. Breaking her promise was
aberrant to her. And she certainly had promised to marry him.
Otherwise, why was she here alone with him in this house, on this
barren prairie a thousand miles from anything familiar?
Finally, hunger pangs overcame the pangs of anxiety. She got up
and quickly dressed in slacks and a light blouse. She felt annoyed
with herself that she hadn’t thought to bring water into the room
the night before so that she could, at the very least, have splashed
her face and washed her hands. In the house in Tillsonburg she
used to rise early enough to bathe before her mother awoke and
required attention.
When she stepped into the kitchen she saw Ben standing at the
stove. Grease sizzled in a frying pan into which he was breaking
eggs. He looked up briefly when she said, “Good morning, Ben,”
and nodded his head in response.
She dipped water from the stove reservoir into a basin and carried
it to a wash stand in the corner of the room.
“Want some bacon and eggs?”
Sarah half turned. “Yes, please, I would. I’m very hungry this
morning.”
“No wonder,” he muttered, “after the amount you ate last night.”
She glanced at him quickly, childishly grateful that he had noticed
even this much about her. But, as she dried her face …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

Water in the Wilderness

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excerpt

… than it had been outside with the frigid wind whipping stinging snow into their faces. Her feet still felt wooden, though, and her fingers were stiff and beginning to hurt. She removed her mittens, then reached for Bobby’s hands and pulled his mittens off. If her fingers were freezing, what must his be like? He whimpered a little as she awkwardly tried to rub his icy fingers.
As she pulled his mittens back on his hands, he slumped over at her feet. “Wanna sleep, Rachael, wanna sleep.”
Ronnie stepped out of the darkness and picked the child up. “No, Bobby, you can’t sleep yet. You’ve gotta keep moving around. I know … let’s all play a game.”
“What game?” Rachael said. “W … we can’t even see. How c …can we play a game?”
Ronnie hesitated, murmuring to himself as if thinking hard. “I know, we can play pattycake. It’ll keep us close together, and keep our hands warm.”
Rachael laughed. “Pattycake? That’s a baby’s game.”
“Okay, Miss Smartypants, what do you suggest?”
“Oh, all right. Let’s do it. Here Bobby, pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man ….”
They pattycaked around the small circle until Bobby suddenly sat down on the board floor. Ronnie reached down for him, but Rachael said sharply, “No, let him be. I’m gonna sit down, too. I don’t wanna play anymore.” She flopped down beside her brother, and put her arms around him. “I just wanna to go to sleep, Ronnie. Please let us go to sleep.”
For several seconds he remained quiet, then he said casually, “Okay, you can sleep – if you don’t mind bein’ woke up by that rat when it runs over your face.”
Rachael screamed and bolted upright. “Where? W … where is it?” She peered around, her eyes trying desperately to penetrate the darkness.
“See, over there,” Ronnie said, “can’t you see its eyes?”
Rachael jumped to her feet, pulling a protesting Bobby with her. “No, no, where?”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562884

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

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Reality
The ship entered the αρεα of the thick fog. A bell
echoes desperately at prow: the route is full of
innumerable dangers now. On the bridge, however,
the sleepless and bewildered captain watches and
drives the ship safely. The captain … his eyes, his
glance. Yes, indeed, his glance is everything, like
now that his glance, straight, strong, mercilessly
pierces through the thick layers of grey pleats of fog
and inside the dark paths of the human psyche, into
the dark sanctuary of Fate, it calms the wildest and
roughest seas, it enters and stands like a guard into
the hovel of the poor fisherman, it saunters tenderly
around the anchors, the sleeping baby, the spread nets
and finally, it comes, settles and serenely rests, next
to the quiet light of the lamp. Certainly, the captain’s
profession isn’t captain. He has different choices,
different longings, and specialties. Different things
attract him and in different things he’s involved. Yet,
when the ship is in danger, they all run to him, who
although they don’t see him as a man, they allot to him
and he accepts the responsibility of many souls. He,
who has no joy but knows of it, who isn’t free, yet
yearns for freedom and struggles while he hopes.
Let it be known: if the Fates never visited his baby
cradle, Fates, Witches and pure Fairies would come
next to his deathbed. The figurehead of the ship
knows all this and loves him. She’s, his lover. This
wild and hot girl with her undone black hair, fiery
red lips and the light-blue belt goes and finds him
secretly every night and they make love ‘together’
and chit-chat erotically for hours. One moonlit night:
“Don’t forget me”, she says to him, “because I’ll die”
One day when he was in a thick forest, rain caught up
with him. He sheltered himself in the tree hollow and
waited. The rain intensified. Among all the rain he
noticed a few tree trunks burned by the fires of
wayfarers and many pinecones scattered around the soil.
Another time, a summer noon, he stood by a water well.
Further away was a tower. A girl came, like Rebeckah
to get some water. She puts the pitcher down, goes close
to him, uncovers her voluptuous breasts and says, “Don’t
touch them, they are roses and drop their petals; only
caress them” Then again, “No, do as you wish with them,
they are yours, my sweet man, I gift them to you.” This
woman, who he fell in love with passionately, one night as
the winds were blowing, he waited for her and he saw
her going down to the harbour. She ran and cried along
the deserted quay. She had tied her raincoat around her
waist with a leather strap and the strong wind sometimes
glued it on her body and other times it whipped her apron
wildly and took away along with her voice, her long
hair too.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3744799

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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excerpt

the ship’s rail while Brother Berach bathed his fevered face. Hrafen climbed aboard
in a fury of curses. First, he picked up the bucket of water Berach had been using and
dumped the contents on the two monks. Then he grabbed the protesting Berach by
the back of his tunic, swung him around, and flung him against the rail. The old man
lay unmoving on the deck.
Brother Keallach had taken a few moments from the hot job of caulking to
come on deck to relieve himself over the side. On seeing what was happening between
Hrafen and the two elderly Brothers, he bounded to the prow to face the
bully. Though he shook with anger at such an unwarranted attack, he held himself
in check while the Norseman continued his tirade. When Hrafen bellowed that the
two old thralls must have been responsible for the ram’s escape in the first place,
Keallach, who had seen how the animal bolted the moment it was released from
its pen on board ship, could neither speak nor understand the Norse tongue. As it
was, the two men stood glaring at one another. The Norseman picked up the empty
bucket and flung it with all his might toward the open sea. Then he stomped off to
the far end of the knarr.
Finten, Rordan, Ailan and Lorcan came on deck, along with Atall their guard, to
see what was going on. But Kyrri was sufficiently deaf that he had not been disturbed
by the ruckus on deck. He just carried on caulking and did not come up until he
noticed his helpers were gone.
Father Finten knelt in a slowly forming puddle of blood to hold the old man, now
limp in his arms. Brother Berach’s neck hung at an odd angle, blood trickling from
his open mouth. Rordan and Ailan crossed themselves and dropped to their knees
in silent shock, tears streaming from their eyes. Keallach stood glaring at the bully,
holding his own anger.
Brother Lorcan did not kneel. He looked at Keallach, turned to follow his gaze toward
the killer and slowly, deliberately walked toward him. By the time they thought
to hold him back, it was too late. Hrafen picked him up with both hands around his
throat, shook him violently and heaved him over the side.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562826

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106