Short stories, fantastic tales, spun from a single picture. It’s flash fiction month!
Robin Lythgoe
Author of As the Crow Flies
The Judgement Stone
There’s a town near the Rhogan coast that has a unique way of dealing with undesirables. Their “undesirables” consist of murderers, rapists, and arsonists. Thieves—unless their theft ruins a citizen’s livelihood or affects the entire town—are generously permitted a second chance. Upon conviction, the criminal is immediately taken to the Stone of Judgement, bound there, and left to the whims of the local dragon. If he or she is still breathing at the same time the next day, freedom is restored. Apparently the almighty dragon decide whether or not they are innocent, no matter what other proof previously stood against them.
You can safely imagine that those who escape leave the surrounds and never return. You might also imagine my astonishment at being arrested, tried, and found guilty of something called “High Thievery.” I’ve never stolen a thing in my life, unless you count a nap now and then. Well, I have helped myself to apples in the orchards I pass on my way between towns… But a face? How does a person steal a face?
Patricia Reding
Author of Oathtaker
Left Ahead
by Patricia Reding
Copyright Patricia Reding 2019
A musty odor greeted Lorna as she awakened, stiff and cramped. She groaned. Her head hurt; her body ached.
A clicking sounded out, as something brushed her cheek.
Lorna’s eyes flashed open. She bolted upright, then turned to the source of the touch. Although semi-dark, there was no mistake.
“Onyx!” she cried, recognizing her long time companion, a snowy owl that had adopted her shortly after her father’s death. She wrapped her arms around his neck and combed her fingers through his soft fur-like chest feathers.
Parker Broaddus
Author of A Hero’s Curse & Nightrage Rising
The guardian standing at water’s edge hadn’t always been there. At one time no shadow from the pillar of rock crept across the long salt-grass, as the western sun sank into the wine-dark sea. The path that ran along the coast from the capitol of Plen toward the high timbered trees of Greatwood Forest didn’t always have the patch of stone shade that marked the half-way point. There hadn’t been a section of the monolith rubbed smooth by thousands of hands, touching the rock and then touching the forehead for good fortune. Luck in the markets of Plen. Or in the courts. Or perhaps
luck on the path home to Greatwood. Luck deep in the twilight depths of unfellable trees. At some point in the past, there had been no such place to get a bit of extra luck, or shade, or at the least, something to break the monotony of the coastal trail.
But no one in the Kingdom of Mar remembered that time. No one remembered the story of the Standing Stone. Save three people. And one of them was not exactly, ‘people.’ She was Pardum—a race of cat-like creatures from far across the Eastern Seas. And it wasn’t as if she remembered the event herself. The story had been told, quietly, in a room full of books with sunlight dancing through the dust floating in the air. The speaker hadn’t known there was an extra set of ears in the room. Ears that understood Lingua Comma.
The second one who knew the story was not surprising, for she knew many things. She had lived across many lifetimes thanks to sunfire. She had seen kingdoms rise and crumble. She had been present at the destruction of several. She knew the truth of the pillar of rock. She remembered the empty coastline. She also knew that the silly stories people shared and little traditions that sprang up around those stories—like touching the Standing Stone for good fortune—were not so silly. But there was one rather important thing Torinalas Grastbane did not know. She did not know that there were two others who knew the history of the unusual pillar along the coastal path.
The final character who knew the story was perhaps the last person anyone would have hoped. At least, anyone who loved sunshine and children laughing and warm bread and happiness. He too had been told the story. In fact, he too had been in the room of books and dust and sunlight. Too much sunlight for his taste. He preferred dark, drippy dungeons, or the caverns and halls under Plen.
There, in a quiet, wheezy voice the royal historian had related the tale. It wouldn’t be right to hold it against the historian for telling the story. His mind had begun to wander, and few listened to the dry histories of the past. Had he not been so lonely, and had he been able to see the nasty glint in the young scholar’s watery eye, he would have certainly been more careful of the secrets he told. But tell it he did, in a rambling sort of roundabout way, buried in a long list of seemingly mundane details of feats and deeds done well before Plen was built. And that day two separate sets of ears, one hidden high above on a bookcase, learned a curious, mostly forgotten, long-guarded story.
The royal historian died shortly thereafter. He was old, so it didn’t come as a great surprise, although it was unusual that he would have climbed to the top of the library tower stairs only to fall back down the way he came.
And so life in Plen went on. At least for everyone but the royal historian. Three now knew the secret of the Standing Stone. One was old and blind and untroubled. The Standing Stone had remained unmoved for a millennia. There was no reason for worry now. The other was a race foreign to Plen, her identity hidden in the seemingly mundane. She was assumed to be nothing more than an ordinary, if quite large, cat. And the third, well, that’s the trouble with sharing secrets. No telling who might hear.
Oh, my goodness, I absolutely LOVE it! This is a great line: “At least, anyone who loved sunshine and children laughing and warm bread and happiness.”
Oh, and the ending is just the kind of *zap* that I like in flash fiction stories.
Thank you!
This sounds like a great beginning to a new book!