Short stories, fantastic tales, spun from a single picture. It’s flash fiction month! This month a young fool’s apprentice discovers power and glory are elusive quarry…I enjoyed this one on both a literary and metaphysical level.
But first, check out the openers from Robin and Trish!
Robin Lythgoe
Author of As the Crow Flies
Starry-eyed
The autumn sun slid toward the horizon, gilding the moors and pulling twilight ever closer. Little streamers of fog drifted this way and that, half-formed fairy ribbons. Archibald Cumming laughed to himself. The old man was getting to him. Had already got to him, years ago, truth be told. And where was the old fool now? Shifting his backpack, he trudged up the sparse hill. Hands on hips, he stopped at the top to catch his breath before he had a look around. When he had his breathing under control again, he straightened and stood still and quiet, listening. Listening as he’d done dozens of times already just today. This wasn’t the first time the old codger had taken off on his own.
He was about to move on when he heard it…
Patricia Reding
Author of Oathtaker
Calico Dew and the Boots of Ominous Delight
by Patricia Reding
Copyright Patricia Reding 2019
The ramshackle hut sat in a damp tree-shaded hollow, deep in the Forest of Infatuation. An occasional bright green patch of mold stood out on its thatched roof and spotted its weathered, paint-crackled, windows.Their half-open shades looked like eyes peering down at a bed of poison ivy just outside the hut’s door, which hung slightly askew on its rusty hinges.
Nearby, Calico Dew hid. She patted Sneaker, her faithful canine companion, whose shaggy mottled coat helped him to meld into his surroundings. This well-served Calico’s purposes in carrying out her duties as an official retriever of stolen magic artifacts. However, Sneaker also came with a downside. That is, while his physical traits allowed him to rummage about stealthily, he also possessed a particularly annoying personality quirk. Specifically …
Parker Broaddus
Author of A Hero’s Curse & Nightrage Rising
“I’ll be requested by kings,” said the shiny face of ambition, caught somewhere between a boy and a man. But the glint in his eye was ageless.
“You’ll be an outcast.”
“Princes will offer me untold wealth and honor,” he continued, unhearing.
“You’ll reject it all.”
He rubbed his hands together unconsciously, unaware of how silly he looked, how small and unworthy. “My name will be known from the border of Darjil to the Jabob River and beyond.”
“Where you will be unwelcome and hunted until the last of your days.” The old man sighed. Ambition turned his head, the sigh finally catching his attention. Was the old one dying? Would he pass on the boots now?
“Master Eli…are you well?”
The grizzled beard, streaked white and grey and sandy-desert brown, twitched. Eli looked full at his apprentice. Looked in his soul through the undisguised eyes.
The boots would instruct him.
“I must go.” Eli struggled to his feet. He could not rest. Not yet.
The apprentice’s long eager fingers grasped an elbow, half helping, half clinging. “I’m going with you.”
Eli shrugged. “Do what you must.”
The dust lingering in the air marked their path. But the boots Eli wore stayed as bright as ever, as if the things of this earth could not touch them. The kid wondered again at the boots and grinned despite the taste of the road in his mouth. The Jester’s League Boots. He knew the stories. The boots carried the power to heal, or destroy. There were tales of cleansing wells and rivers, whole cities, even bringing the dead back from the Underworld. And then there were the really good ones. Of control of wild animals, silencing enemies, fire from the heavens and the destruction of entire armies.
So Eli was more than a jester. There were none like him. He traveled far, speaking to kings and queens, wandering from region to region, calling no place home. He told stories and tales, but they differed from other jesters. They puzzled and irritated more than entertained. And yet there was no one more sought after than Eli.
Except for his boots, he wore the traditional garb of jesters, with the bright cloak–now faded–and the painted face. Although the kid thought Eli had always veered a little dark in his colors. Almost frightening. The kid would change that. He would be the lighthearted one. The loved one.
“Here.” Eli had stopped at a river. It was wide and deep and fast. The kid looked either direction for a crossing. Eli stepped off the bank. The water ran from the boots like a mouse runs from a cat. The kid hesitated and then scrambled after the old man, on dry ground. On the other side Eli glanced down at the apprentice, as if surprised to see him there. “I am finished here.” He started to unlace the boots with knotted hands. “If the boots stay behind, boy, you may carry on.”
The kid watched his master untie the long cords. “Why don’t you call me by my name?”
Eli set the boots aside and stood on unsteady, white feet–feet that had clearly not seen the sun in years. Not like the youth’s calloused brown ones. Eli grunted. “You have no name. If they choose you, the boots will name you.”
The kid bit back his hot retort. This was no time to argue. He would not spoil this chance. The desert stretched out ahead of them with no end in sight. Not a cloud in the sky. All was still. Eli nodded, satisfied. He turned and tottered into the desert on soft feet. The kid frowned. He looked at the boots, sitting innocently, discarded a few feet away. Then a breath of wind sighed. Eli’s faded cloak rippled. The kid’s frown deepened. He began to speak, to ask, to question, but the next instant a gale had struck. Desert sand rose up like a wave. Lightening crackled and sparked through the air. The boots disappeared. Eli was barely visible, climbing the wall of sand and lightening like a stair.
And then, just as the apprentice thought he would suffocate or be blown away or burn up–it was gone. Covered in dirt he grabbed his chest, gulping air. Then he remembered. He looked around, desperately. They were gone!
No, there were still there! He laughed, and half sobbed. The boots sat there, clean, untouched by the storm. The kid grabbed them, afraid they would disappear again. He held them, cradled to his chest. He would be known. He would have glory. He would entertain kings and raze cities! First, he would cross back into the Reyfa region, but not like before. No, this time he would dry up the river clear to Tribek…everyone would know a new jester had the boots. Trembling, he slipped them on.
They fit. Perfectly.
***
Forty years. Forty years as the world’s jester. No other jester had traveled as far–not even Eli.
Elias leaned heavily on his staff. The boots had carried him. He was both sought after and hunted throughout the known world. He owned nothing, least of all the boots. He knew that now.
I thoroughly enjoyed this romp. I especially appreciated the look back. It is a remarkable thing to be able to look back on 40 years (and more!) of my own life with many memories and perhaps (hopefully) something akin to wisdom. I think your ending appropriately sums up what one owns when all is said and done. Thanks, Parker!