RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Here are the first 1200 words of ERLOS. I have trouble getting italics on this computer, so certain emphasis may be lost, but it won’t affect the story. Thank you for your interest so far …
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ERLOS by RJM CORBET
BOOK ONE -- TWO WORLDS
Chapter One
Page One …
Douglas Perry was born somewhere in South Africa with most of the back of his skull missing.
The back of his head looked strangely caved in. His breath did not smell good and his eyes were small black pebbles that glittered with intensity. His parents, whoever they were, had provided a good home for him at Camphill Village, a communal farm for 'mentally challenged' adults just outside the city of Cape Town. They appeared to care for him and to visit him reasonably often during the 27 years of his short life, while he waited for Erlos to rescue him.
Douglas was a quiet, strong man who rose early to work on the farm and then worked late into the night on his papers. He was always a gentleman. He never showed boredom or lack of respect toward the other 'mentally challenged' people with whom he lived -- though exhaustion could make him irritable, thought make him distant, and old, fixed ideas make him angry.
‘Distant, I hear my name, and it becomes my whole life work to journey to that voice; and all the million broken fading parts move as they can toward that name -- Obekallah -- and pieces begin to come together in old familiar patterns, bits of myself, stronger, like streams that join and flow together becoming a mighty river that at last finds the sea -- the final explanatory whole.’
Perhaps to him this world, this dimension, this room of nature, was like a kindergarden in which we, like infant souls, live and grow, contained and protected by walls of time against vast unknown forces that would destroy us, just as a three year old child could not survive half a day alone in the city before being hit by a bus or something.
Douglas was only interested in finding someone to write the story for him.
Nothing can stop the words.
Hamish El Tyrone sighed with frustration. Parts of the story scrawled back to back and upside down in notebooks, on invoices, between the entries in old diaries -- upon any paper available at the time of inspiration -- littered his desk and toppled from shelves. Bits of paper, most yellow and brittle with age, lay in heaps and bundles and boxes all over the room. It was a paper jungle. He had no idea how to order them into readable form. Yet he was determined to. It was no task for weaklings.
Squarking gulls woke hard, thin wings into the wind, twisting to sudden ocean downdrafts. Sunlight bought incandescent colour of day. Hamish El Tyrone defended his library. It was a place where he knew he would not be disturbed -- for days on end if necessary.
He read a page from an old diary: 'After four years I have managed to arrange a ‘holiday’ to Marana. We will never return, of course. Hopefully Mykraamus will not concern himself with me. Hopefully he will not. One day the shepherd will be free. It will not be soon.'
He tore out the page and wrote on the other side: 'The wind howls and leaps and assaults the senses. The wind booms and bangs, as always here on the corner of the sea. To open the door is to invite disaster. To venture outside is to lose one’s hat to the Marana Cape South Easter. The wind is a physical force. It pounds for days and weeks and months on end. There is no escaping it. Gulls, white as froth blown from the sea -- twisting, crying, fishing off the gale. The world exists in infinite dimensions. Let each man find his own world.'
Upon the planet Elotia, Mykraamus toasted victory, sipping only now and again at his goblet of wine. He was a dark, slightly built man, a man of jewels and perfumes. He bathed often. Mykraamus bathed and changed five or six times a day. Still, the smell seemed to stick to his skin and to his clothes, and to his neatly trimmed beard. The stink of rotten flesh went to bed with Mykraamus -- the stench of corpses. No incense, no perfume, could overcome it.
At the other end of the table, Urn, his barbarian battle lord, swilled beer in large draughts dealt him by two bare breasted women, one on each knee. Urn’s sword lay upon the rough table around which men boasted of deeds done in battle.
A maiden stooped to fill Mykraamus goblet but he covered it with his hand. The riotous banquet now in progress celebrated Mykraamus’ final conquest of the north, making him now ruler undisputed of the Ukonaai people. At this moment Urn noticed his master’s somber mood and banged on the table for silence, shooing the girls.
“To Mykraamus, King of the Ukonaai!” he shouted.
A great roar arose from the assembled warriors, demanding their master address them. Mykraamus was secretly annoyed with Urn, for he had not Urn’s drunken sense of celebration. Rather, now that northern victory was complete, a dark and terrible hunger gnawed at his bones.
He rose. “Aazyr is not yet ours,’ he said, sitting down again.
The drunken warriors had expected a rousing speech. They sat stunned.
Mykraamus stood up again, sweeping back his cloak, and left. Urn rose and buckled on his sword and followed him out. He found Mykraamus on a balcony overlooking the streets of the conquered city.
Mykraamus did not turn when he heard Urn come up behind him. Urn now cold sober waited, trying to sense his master’s mood. A slow anger began seeping into his blood and now he hated the man before him. Mykraamus wheeled to face him.
“What did you expect?” he said.
“Erlos will defend the Garden Kingdom,” Urn replied.
“Are you a coward?”
“Dare not even you repeat to those words!”
“Erlos will not defend Aazyr.” Mykraamus shook his head slowly: “Their own law forbids it.”
“What law?”
“Did you think I would be satisfied with less?”
“I will not spill the blood of Aazyr! I would as soon spill the blood of my own mother!”
“Go back inside and enjoy yourself Urn, before it’s your blood spilt.”
“No!” Urn laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword.
“You try me dangerously.” Mykraamus laid a hand upon his own sword: “You have no choice, whatever sanctimonious scruples possess you. We will talk when you are sober.”
“No!” Urn’s sword rasped from its scabbard.
Mykraamus realized he had underestimated Urn’s mood. “Fool!” he hissed, drawing his own weapon. The indigo blade glinted in the moonlight, but Urn had fallen upon his own sword.
“Die then,” said Mykraamus: “You have served me well and I shall miss you.”
/Please go to ERLOS Page Two on Critiques Forum …
*******************************************************************
ERLOS by RJM CORBET
BOOK ONE -- TWO WORLDS
Chapter One
Page One …
Douglas Perry was born somewhere in South Africa with most of the back of his skull missing.
The back of his head looked strangely caved in. His breath did not smell good and his eyes were small black pebbles that glittered with intensity. His parents, whoever they were, had provided a good home for him at Camphill Village, a communal farm for 'mentally challenged' adults just outside the city of Cape Town. They appeared to care for him and to visit him reasonably often during the 27 years of his short life, while he waited for Erlos to rescue him.
Douglas was a quiet, strong man who rose early to work on the farm and then worked late into the night on his papers. He was always a gentleman. He never showed boredom or lack of respect toward the other 'mentally challenged' people with whom he lived -- though exhaustion could make him irritable, thought make him distant, and old, fixed ideas make him angry.
‘Distant, I hear my name, and it becomes my whole life work to journey to that voice; and all the million broken fading parts move as they can toward that name -- Obekallah -- and pieces begin to come together in old familiar patterns, bits of myself, stronger, like streams that join and flow together becoming a mighty river that at last finds the sea -- the final explanatory whole.’
Perhaps to him this world, this dimension, this room of nature, was like a kindergarden in which we, like infant souls, live and grow, contained and protected by walls of time against vast unknown forces that would destroy us, just as a three year old child could not survive half a day alone in the city before being hit by a bus or something.
Douglas was only interested in finding someone to write the story for him.
Nothing can stop the words.
Hamish El Tyrone sighed with frustration. Parts of the story scrawled back to back and upside down in notebooks, on invoices, between the entries in old diaries -- upon any paper available at the time of inspiration -- littered his desk and toppled from shelves. Bits of paper, most yellow and brittle with age, lay in heaps and bundles and boxes all over the room. It was a paper jungle. He had no idea how to order them into readable form. Yet he was determined to. It was no task for weaklings.
Squarking gulls woke hard, thin wings into the wind, twisting to sudden ocean downdrafts. Sunlight bought incandescent colour of day. Hamish El Tyrone defended his library. It was a place where he knew he would not be disturbed -- for days on end if necessary.
He read a page from an old diary: 'After four years I have managed to arrange a ‘holiday’ to Marana. We will never return, of course. Hopefully Mykraamus will not concern himself with me. Hopefully he will not. One day the shepherd will be free. It will not be soon.'
He tore out the page and wrote on the other side: 'The wind howls and leaps and assaults the senses. The wind booms and bangs, as always here on the corner of the sea. To open the door is to invite disaster. To venture outside is to lose one’s hat to the Marana Cape South Easter. The wind is a physical force. It pounds for days and weeks and months on end. There is no escaping it. Gulls, white as froth blown from the sea -- twisting, crying, fishing off the gale. The world exists in infinite dimensions. Let each man find his own world.'
Upon the planet Elotia, Mykraamus toasted victory, sipping only now and again at his goblet of wine. He was a dark, slightly built man, a man of jewels and perfumes. He bathed often. Mykraamus bathed and changed five or six times a day. Still, the smell seemed to stick to his skin and to his clothes, and to his neatly trimmed beard. The stink of rotten flesh went to bed with Mykraamus -- the stench of corpses. No incense, no perfume, could overcome it.
At the other end of the table, Urn, his barbarian battle lord, swilled beer in large draughts dealt him by two bare breasted women, one on each knee. Urn’s sword lay upon the rough table around which men boasted of deeds done in battle.
A maiden stooped to fill Mykraamus goblet but he covered it with his hand. The riotous banquet now in progress celebrated Mykraamus’ final conquest of the north, making him now ruler undisputed of the Ukonaai people. At this moment Urn noticed his master’s somber mood and banged on the table for silence, shooing the girls.
“To Mykraamus, King of the Ukonaai!” he shouted.
A great roar arose from the assembled warriors, demanding their master address them. Mykraamus was secretly annoyed with Urn, for he had not Urn’s drunken sense of celebration. Rather, now that northern victory was complete, a dark and terrible hunger gnawed at his bones.
He rose. “Aazyr is not yet ours,’ he said, sitting down again.
The drunken warriors had expected a rousing speech. They sat stunned.
Mykraamus stood up again, sweeping back his cloak, and left. Urn rose and buckled on his sword and followed him out. He found Mykraamus on a balcony overlooking the streets of the conquered city.
Mykraamus did not turn when he heard Urn come up behind him. Urn now cold sober waited, trying to sense his master’s mood. A slow anger began seeping into his blood and now he hated the man before him. Mykraamus wheeled to face him.
“What did you expect?” he said.
“Erlos will defend the Garden Kingdom,” Urn replied.
“Are you a coward?”
“Dare not even you repeat to those words!”
“Erlos will not defend Aazyr.” Mykraamus shook his head slowly: “Their own law forbids it.”
“What law?”
“Did you think I would be satisfied with less?”
“I will not spill the blood of Aazyr! I would as soon spill the blood of my own mother!”
“Go back inside and enjoy yourself Urn, before it’s your blood spilt.”
“No!” Urn laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword.
“You try me dangerously.” Mykraamus laid a hand upon his own sword: “You have no choice, whatever sanctimonious scruples possess you. We will talk when you are sober.”
“No!” Urn’s sword rasped from its scabbard.
Mykraamus realized he had underestimated Urn’s mood. “Fool!” he hissed, drawing his own weapon. The indigo blade glinted in the moonlight, but Urn had fallen upon his own sword.
“Die then,” said Mykraamus: “You have served me well and I shall miss you.”
/Please go to ERLOS Page Two on Critiques Forum …
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