Category Archives: novel

July 19, 2022 · 6:33 pm

AeroQuest 5 – It Ain’t Over Yet

Overture for Part Five of AeroQuest

Well, here we are again at the start of the part of the space opera that begins a new volume, and it is the part after the last intermission where I summarize all the crazy stuff that happened in this somewhat-true-but-also-somewhat-exaggerated history of what, to you, is a history of the far future.  And I usually go over only a few main points before launching into a complicated story that you will never be able to follow because you’re not a genius like me, Googol Marou, scientist, historian, and really cool witness to a lot of these events. 

And I usually assure you that you can pick this up and read it even without having read the previous four volumes.  But, come on!  Can you really skip that much wonderfully insightful narrative and historical analysis and still truly understand the masterfully written material of this volume?  Don’t you need to at least buy the most expensive copies of all four books you can find and put them under your pillow so that story particles can irradiate your head in the night while you are asleep and make your brain mutate into super-genius levels of intelligence because the books are written so well?

Or you could just go back and read them.

Part One is called Stars and Stones.

In that first wonderfully written part, the two brothers, Ged and Ham Aero are fleeing from civilized space because, although they’ve already had a good career as space hunters, Ged’s Psion ability to change his shape has gotten him persecution from the Orion Spur Empire known as the Imperium.  As they flee, they are joined by a criminal boyhood friend, Trav Dalgoda, who is escaping from space pirates that he stole a valuable Ancient artifact from along with a kidnapped Nebulon Princess and her young son.

They escape from known space to a periphery planet called Don’t Go Here.  Here they legally lay claim to an entire planetary star system because they are the only people there with a spaceship.  But it is not an uninhabited planet.  There are millions of marooned spacers on that planet left there by the pirates that stole their spaceships.  They have developed a unique civilization there based on ancient holo-cartoons called The Flintstones. 

And so, the Aero Brothers liberated the planet by using Trav’s Ancient artifact to build an AI-self-aware starport whom Trav names Frieda and then commands her to design and build new starships.

Of course, the pirates who lost the artifact to Trav have to come to terms with the new power in with the Orion Spur, and so decide to start a rebellion against the Imperium and Grand Admiral Brona Tang.

But then we move into the part of the story that becomes Part Two, Planet of the White Spider.  In that part, Ged has to face the fact that a mysterious prophecy about a Psion called the White Spider seems to be directly describing him as the next chosen one to be the White Spider.

Being the White Spider of Prophecy requires Ged to move to the planet Gaijin with a previously marooned Psion Master from Don’t Go Here called Tkriashav.  Ged takes the Nebulon Princess’s son, renamed Ham Aero Junior, along with him to establish a new school for Psions. Junior has Psion skills.

Ham Aero decides to go along with Tron Blastarr, the leader of the pirates to fight for the Imperium and hopefully also stop Trav Dalgoda from destroying the entire universe for giggles.  The rebels try to conquer some new planets after taking and losing White Palm.  They gain allies and more Ancient-artifact troubles and one assassin on the trail of pirate leaders.  They settle on the idea that if they win, they will establish a new interplanetary government called the New Star League.

Ged finds allies in the leader of Gaijin, a goofy old Mandarin called Shen Ming, and an immortal from ancient Earth, Dr. Naylund Smith.  Dr. Smith’s charming young daughter Sara turns out to be a gifted Psion healer.

And then Ged must defeat the planet’s Black Spider leader in order to establish himself as the new White Spider.  This he does in a ninja-battle contest by using his shape-changing ability to turn into a dinosaur and eat the Black Spider, ironically absorbing the ninja skills as he eats his enemy.

Then Ged seriously begins putting together his Psion ninja class from the gifted but outcast children that Tkriashav finds and brings to him.

Part Three, Juggling Planets tells about the rebel pirate bands going from planet to planet, recruiting and invading worlds to add to their new planetary alliance.  Tron and Ham Aero add allies and friends to their cause, retrieve some of their captured minions, and learn certain secrets that advance their cause.

Ged and his students hone their skills and learn to work together.  The students get to know each other and form relationships.

And then Part Four happens, The Amazing Aero Brothers.  More characters come into the story.  Some characters die.  Some new villains arise and are defeated.  I give you even more historical and scientific insight into what happens.  And everything gets even more complicated.

What you most need to know is that Grand Admiral Brona Tang is defeated in the Battle of Planet Coventry by a super-powerful Ancient artifact called the Tesserah.  And then Trav Dalgoda immediately uses it to commit the worst war crime in the history of the universe.  After this battle ends, Ham Aero and everyone aboard his spaceship, including yours truly, are captured and held prisoner by Grand Admiral Brona Tang.

Ged Aero defeats his worst enemy who turns out to be a sort of clone of himself from the future.  And then he is handed the evil artifact known as the Tesserah and tasked with destroying it to save the entire universe.

Now, do you have enough information to read Volume  Five, It Ain’t Over Yet?  Or do you need to do some more reading first?   

Yes, I am the utter genius who brought this story to you.

   

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July 12, 2022 · 2:45 am

Still on Hiatus… NOT Writer’s Block!

I apologize for not having a chapter of something ready to publish for the weekly novel-writing post. I am caught between projects by extra demands on my time. My number-two son is officially graduating from his basic training in the Air Force over the next three days.

The novella above is nearly finished and will be published in a week or two. So, I do not plan on sharing any more of it here on the blog.

This novella has grown long and deep and is not halfway done. Having already appeared on this blog spot, it will be too confusing to go back to it for just a short period of time. So, this is not an option either.

This novel is the one I have chosen to appear in this spot, hopefully next week. The problem is, although I have half of it written already, it is the latter half of the book. All the new parts will occupy the first half of the book, and none of those are in manuscript form at this point.

There are other possibilities as well. The sequel to Cissy Moonskipper’s Travels, Nebulons, is a possible book for this spot, though I have no cover for it yet. Kingdoms Under the Earth is in the same condition. But, hopefully, something by next week. I hate missing deadlines… though all writers eventually do.

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June 28, 2022 · 3:10 pm

The Education of PoppenSparkle… Canto 11

Canto 11 – Battle Plans

The meeting that followed the feast was limited to the Mouse King and Zam his wife, Prinz Flute and his three companions,  Lord Lancelot, and the Rascal, who was forced to sit next to PoppenSparkle because he was apparently no longer welcome as Lancelot’s Squire.  Schtinker, of course, wanted badly to be there, but he was taken to the bathhouse with the other Sylph children that didn’t pass the smell test before bedtime.

“I think the solution is obvious.  We use Poppy’s Polymorph Spell to turn as many Gobbuluns into Fairies as it is possible to do.  We bolster our army with the converts from theirs.” Prince Flute looked pleased with himself as he announced the plan to the whole table.

“Nonsense!”  Lancelot sat with his arms folded in front of him and his reddish, tired eyes glaring at the map on the center of the table.

“Why is it nonsense?”  Flute insisted.

“Because we are doomed here.  The Stoor has his ugly army, and Lord Toxiss brought his vast army all the way from distant Sheek-a-go.”

“The Slow Ones actually pronounce that place Chicago,” Tod corrected helpfully.

“I don’t care what you call it.  The point is… we are so outnumbered, they will overwhelm us, slaying everybody who is not immortal, and then swarming down to Cair Tellos to do the same to them.  We have only one play here.  We make a glorious last attack, kill so many of them before they overwhelm us that they can’t muster a big enough force to overwhelm Cair Tellos.  We will die heroes.”

“You won’t die,” pointed out the Rascal.  “You are an immortal Storybook.  The rest of us will all die for your glory and you’ll walk into Cair Tellos to claim all the credit.”

“You wound me, Rascal.  Did I not save your life a dozen times over in the Battle of the Arcanum?”

“You did.  But you decimated the entire army doing it.  We would have sold our lives better defending the castle rather than fighting them on the open fields.”

“Okay, perhaps we choose to die on the parapets of Castle Cornucopia.  Maybe we can take more of them out if we make them climb our walls and pour down the hot oils as they try to climb up…”

The Mouse King cleared his throat.  “Zam and I have three little mouselings to care for.  And there are hundreds of Sylph and Elf children left orphaned by the war that could use new parents.  We don’t want anyone to die who doesn’t have to.  And don’t we know that at least a few of the Gobbuluns out there are citizens of Cornucopia that have been changed by Lord Toxiss?”

“We won’t do ourselves any good to change a few of the Gobbuluns the way the girl did today.  It won’t make a sizeable enough difference, and she will just exhaust her magic getting Gobbuluns changed so other Gobbuluns can kill them.  It would be futile… a wasted effort.”

“I think, Lord Lancelot, that the point where your heroics are sorely needed, is at the gate where you and your best soldiers can defend and gather the changed ones into the castle as we change them.”  Flute smiled as he obviously was trying to manipulate Lancelot’s ego.

“You cannot change enough of them with one little girl casting one little spell.”

“We can do better than that!” said Glittershine.  “I helped PoppenSparkle write the spell into her spell book.  I already am familiar with the spell.  Tod and Flute can also study it.  We will have four Wizards, not one, changing bad guys into good guys.”

“If we should happen to accidentally win the war that way, what will you do with all the new Fairies?  Where will they live?”

“You know good and well, Lancelot, that the Castle Cornucopia is huge.  We have thousands of towers, secret rooms, mushroom gardens, Fairy houses, businesses, and entertainments in this big, old barn that haven’t had enough Fairy people to live in them since King Pallas and his army were destroyed by Darvon Redsoul, the Great Dragon.”  The Mouse seemed to be getting a bit hot under the collar to Poppy.

“And as Glitter mentioned, there will be four talented Wizards helping to repopulate the place,” said Flute, grinning like a fox.

“Very well, then.  It is obvious that you have to learn the hard way.  I will go along with this plan if only to prove you wrong.”

“Will your plan really work?” the Rascal whispered to Poppy.

“I think so.  I am not as confident as any of the rest of you, but I am just learning how to be a Wizard.  But if Flute believes in the plan, then, I think I believe in it too.”

“I hope so.  I thought it was a great honor to be chosen as Lord Lancelot’s Squire.  But right now, I just need to see him proven wrong… even if it kills me.”

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June 23, 2022 · 1:52 pm

Stories with Gingerbread

Yes, this post is a shameless promotion. But this is a good book that not enough people are reading to truly appreciate that fact. When I was a boy in the 1960’s, there really was an old German lady who lived in a small tar-papered house, all ginger-brown in color, which we all called the Gingerbread House. She really did love to give out sweets and cookies and popcorn balls to the kids in our town. And she really did love to talk to people and tell them little stories.

Grandma Gretel Stein

Her name, in real life, was Marie Jacobson. She was, in fact, a survivor of the holocaust. She had a tattoo on her right forearm that I saw only one time. Our parents told us what the tattoo meant. But there were no details ever added to the story. Mrs. Jacobson doted on the local children. She regularly gave me chocolate bars just because I held the door for her after church. But she was apparently unwilling to ever talk about World War II and Germany. We were told never to press for answers. There was, however, a rumor that she lost her family in one of the camps. And I have always been the kind that fills in the details with fiction when the truth is out of reach.

Ignore the dates above. The Free-Book Promotion runs from June 24th to June 28.

I based the character of Grandma Gretel on Mrs. Jacobson. But the facts about her secret life are, of course, from my imagination, not from the truth about Mrs. Jacobson’s real life.

Marie Jacobson cooked gingerbread cookies. I know because I ate some. But she didn’t talk to fairies or use magic spells in cooking. I know because the fairies from the Hidden Kingdom in Rowan disavowed ever talking to any slow one but me. She wasn’t Jewish, since she went to our Methodist Church. She wasn’t a nudist, either. But neither were my twin cousins who the Cobble Sisters, the nude girls in the story, are fifty percent based on. A lot of details about the kids in my book come from the lives of my students in Texas. The blond nudist twins were in my class in the early eighties. And they were only part-time nudists who talked about it more than lived it.

Miss Sherry Cobble, a happy nudist.

But the story itself is not about nudists, or Nazis, or gingerbread children coming to life through magic. The story is about how telling stories can help us to allay our fears. Telling stories can help us cope with and make meaning out of the most terrible things that have happened to us in life. And it is also a way to connect with the hearts of other people and help them to see us for who we really are. And that was the whole reason for writing this book.

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June 22, 2022 · 2:30 pm

Re-bubbling the Old Enthusiasm

It is getting harder and harder to climb the new day’s hill to get to the summit where I can reasonably get a good look at the road ahead. At almost-64, I can see the road ahead is far shorter and much darker than the highway stretching out behind me. It is not so much a matter of how much time I have spent on the road as it is a matter of the wear and tear the mileage has caused.

This weekend I had another depressing free-book promotion where, in five days, I only moved five books, one purchase, and four free books. I have made $0.45 as an author for the month of June.

I was recently given another bit of good advice from a successful author. He said that I shouldn’t be in such a rush to publish. He suggested taking more time with my writing. Hold on to it longer. Polish it and love it more. And now that I have reached sixteen books published on my author’s page, I have basically beaten the grim reaper in the question of whether or not he was ever going to silence me and my author’s voice. I can afford to live with the next one longer.

But the last one, A Field Guide to Fauns, practically wrote itself. It went fast from inspiration to publication simply because the writer in me was on fire and full of love and life and laughter that had to boil over into hot print exactly as quickly as it did. The additional writing time afforded me by the pandemic and quarantine didn’t hurt either. Once in print, my nudist friends loved it.

This next one has the potential to boil and brew and pop out of me in the same accelerated way as that last one did. Of course, it has been percolating inside my brain basically since the Summer of 1974. So, this is no rushed job. The Wizard in his Keep is a story of a man who tries to take the children of the sister of his childhood best friend to a place of safety when their parents are killed in a car wreck. But the only safe place he has to offer is in the world of his imagination. A world he has bizarrely made real. And that best friend comes searching for the children. And so does a predator who seeks to do them all grievous harm.

In many ways, it is a story already written.

So, I am rekindling the flame that keeps the story-pot boiling. And more of it is already cooking. And I am recovering from the cool winds of disappointment, as well as the dark storm clouds of the nearing future.

This is now actually a two-year-old post. Both of the books mentioned here are published and available from Amazon. As far as holding on to the books longer, there is no problem with that on Amazon. Editing, improving, and re-publishing a book is actually easier than publishing it the first time. Nothing about this old post has been made untrue by the passage of time. I am still probably the best author of books like these whose published books almost never get read.

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June 21, 2022 · 3:13 pm

The Education of PoppenSparkle… Canto 10

Canto 10 – In the Home of the Leaf Witch

The Mouse King seemed extremely happy that Poppy’s spell brought him new Sylphs, Butterfly Children, and Elves.  He led all the new folks to the feast hall that had apparently been closed up for a while before their arrival.

“Please,  make yourselves at home.  You are welcome here, as long as your allegiance shifts from the Unseely Court to our people!” the Mouse said enthusiastically.

“You are not going to feed these imposters when they could be put to better use attacking the enemy on the battlefield?” growled Lord Lancelot.

“Nonsense.  These Fey Children are our brothers now.  We need them to fill in for all the families we have lost recently.  We must make them feel welcome.”

A beautiful young-looking Sylph girl wearing only leaves and a simple loincloth came into the room leading a chain of Sylph children, each carrying bowls of freshly made food.

“Zam has welcome feast for all new guys!” said the girl.

“Who is Zam?” PoppenSparkle asked Tod.

“She is.  Zam is the Mouse King’s wife.  She’s a very unusual Sylph, better known as the Leaf Witch.”

Poppy suddenly realized how many of the spell scrolls she’d been given to read since her liberation from the Necromancer had the Leaf Witch’s name on them.

“She has magical skills like yours,” said Flute to Poppy.  “I discovered her when we needed to slay the dragon, Darvon Redsoul.”  He smiled,  beaming with pride at his own accomplishment.

“How do we know we can trust these people?” Lancelot said loudly to everyone.

“What do you mean?” asked the Mouse King.

“Less than an hour ago, all these people were Gobbuluns!  Or am I mistaken about what I saw?”

“You are not mistaken.  PoppenSparkle, my newest apprentice, has developed a rare spell that polymorphs members of the Unseely Court into full-blooded members of the Fey Children.” Prince Flute indicated Poppy where she sat next to him, and all eyes turned to focus uncomfortably on her.

Lancelot focused angry, red eyes on her.  “So, how exactly did you do that, Miss Butterfly Witch?”

“Well, I… uh…”

“I kin tells ya that!” exclaimed young Schtinker.

“Oh?  And how does she do it, then?”

“She makes ‘em smarter!  They changes cuz they is no longer dumb enough to be Gobbuluns.”

“And what does it mean, then, that you sound so dumb?”  Lancelot glared so fiercely that Schtinker hid behind Glittershine’s wings.”

“That’s it!  That has to be how they do it!” shouted a young Elf from across the hall.

“And what do you mean by that, Gobbulun-boy?” Lancelot shouted back.

“I was a Gobbulun just a short while ago because Lord Toxiss had me as a prisoner of war, and he changed me from an Elf into a Cyclopes. He did it with a spray of smelly goo that made me get dumber and dumber until I believed I was a Cyclopes.  The Butterfly Witch changed me back by making me smarter again with her magical mist.”

“Of course!  As simple as that!” said Flute, slapping his bare knee with the eureka moment.

“What do you mean?” asked Lancelot.

“It’s the fundamental magical formula that we have been researching all this time.  The key is knowledge… intelligence!  Our very existence is based on the beliefs of Slow Ones that there is magic in the world, simply not yet understood by their science.  And believing in something can make it so.  So, by increasing intelligence and understanding, you build a foundation to hold up that belief.  The more you know, the more strongly you believe!”

“So, how does that help us at present?  We are surrounded by the enemy, stupid, malevolent, violent Gobbuluns, outnumbering us by hundreds to one.  You want to teach them all basic grammar or something?”  Lancelot was wildly gesturing in all directions as he spoke angry words.

Zam the Leaf Witch suddenly climbed up on the table so she could look down on Lancelot with a goofy grin on her child-like face.  She ignited a purple, magical flame in her right hand.

“You is not getting it, Lancy.  Is not smartness from the head we is talking about.  It is from the heart.  Knowledge and Love combined is what be magical.  Miss Poppy-Sparky is right to change Gobbuluns to Fey Children.  Even they is knowing it be more right that way.  You needs to try a dose.”

Whatever the purple fire in the witch’s hand was, she launched it directly at Lancelot’s chest.  But when it struck the area where his heart should be, it burst and dissipated.

Lancelot looked dumbstruck.  And then, obviously, that was immediately converted to shame.  He turned and left the feast hall with his head hanging low.

“Lord Lancy have been doing the fighting thing for too many, many years.  He be kinda down-hearted. We forgives him.  He will get better.”

The feast settled down into conversations and the enjoyment of Fairy dishes like mushroom tips, bean sprouts, dandelion butter, and mint leaves.  The relieved residents of Cornucopia welcomed the new replacement Fairies that had once been Gobbuluns.

“She’s a treasure, that one,” said Flute, pointing at Zam.  “No one gets the better of her in her own feast hall.  Not even Lord Lancelot.”

“What was that spell she put on Lancelot?” Tod asked.

“A heart spell of some kind,” answered Glittershine.  “But didn’t you notice?  It didn’t reach his heart.”

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June 14, 2022 · 4:58 pm

PoppenSparkle’s Summer Vacation

Many doctors’ appointments, eye treatments, and needed exercise to combat diabetes have all conspired to fill my time to the point that I haven’t gotten publishable work done on the writing projects. So, today there is no completed Canto 10 to share on the novel-writing day. It will be called In the Home of the Leaf Witch when I do have it published.

So, today I will share some meta-data that you might be interested in if you wonder at all how a novel project proceeds in the mind of an extra-goofy writer.

Poppy’s little novella (a book between 15,000 and 25,000 words in length) was conceived as a sequel to The Necromancer’s Apprentice, which is both a parody of the story The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the Mickey Mouse version, and a coming-of-age story about a Sylph girl named Derfentwinkle. Derfie is an enslaved servant of an evil Necromancer at the beginning of the story, sent on a suicide mission against the leaders of the good fairies in Tellosia. She ends up captured alive by an eccentric Sorcerer named Eli Tragedy. He reforms and trains her to spite the Necromancer, his old enemy.

Derfentwinkle is the main character of her story, and the sister of Poppensparkle in this story.
PoppenSparkle is a Butterfly Child. That means she is a Fairy who can fly with butterfly wings. Her sister saved her from the Necromancer, and it was discovered that she has rare magical talents that the Kingdom of Tellosia desperately needs.

The Fairies of Tellosia are tiny compared to the human beings they live around. They call humans the Slow Ones because humans are easily fooled by Fairy glammers and disguise magic.

Glittershine is one of PoppenSparkle’s teachers.

Poppy’s magical education begins as a journey on rooster-back from the Fairy Castle of Cair Tellos to the distant Castle of Cornucopia where a war is raging and several critical magical problems have to be solved.

Prinz Flute, the son and heir of the High Wizard of Tellosia, has taken over Poppy’s education.

So, if you are actually waiting impatiently for Canto 10 to drop and appear on this blog, keep an eye on us here at Catch a Falling Star. It will get published as soon as it is acceptably written and edited. And if you are not waiting for the next installment in the way readers once waited for the next chapter of Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, thus contradicting Mickey’s delusion that he is in any way like Dickens as an author, you can continue to glance at the pictures, ignore the text, and move on without clicking the “like” button like most readers do.

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June 7, 2022 · 3:12 am

The Education of PoppenSparkle… Canto 9

Canto 9 – The Mad Fight

Prince Flute’s rooster riders made a mad dash for Castle Cornucopia.  They all knew that their presence was desperately needed.  But more than ever was their presence required since Poppy’s new spell provided an answer to the war problem that the Fairies never had before.  Bad guys could be changed into allies by magic.  And once having a taste of life as a Sylph or an Elf, the Gobbuluns definitely preferred to stay in their new bodies on the side of the Fairies.

“We promise to fight hard for the Cornucopians,” said the Elf, the fastest learner of Fairy English.  “There is no going back for us.  And even if we have to fight and kill our former friends, they are such low and horrid creatures that we will not shed a tear over them.”

“Not ebben for me wifey!” added one of the Sylphs.  “She be too uglee and stoopid for keepin’.”

They all rounded the final turn, and Castle Cornucopia was laid out before them.  It was, of course, actually a Slow One’s barn with Fairy ramparts and towers added to all the wooden walls, but disguised by magical glammers that made the barn appear to be a normal functioning palace for milk cows.

But the truly unbelievable part was the fact that the entire defense force, instead of manning the fortified walls and ramparts, were out in the middle of the field to the east of the castle, surrounded by a sea of raging green Gobbuluns and enemies from the Unseely Court.

“What’s this?  Why is Lancelot attacking rather than defending the castle?” Prinz Flute was shocked.

“He be mad, dat one!” called out Schtinker.

“We have to help them survive.  That is the entire defense force of the castle about to be slain!” cried Tod.

“No, no, no…!” called out Glittershine.

Flute turned to Poppy and put a hand on each of her arms.  “Can you polymorph a really large number of Gobbuluns into Fairies?”

“I… I don’t know.  That takes an immense amount of power.  It will completely exhaust me, and I doubt I can change enough of them to make a difference.”

“Can you try, please?  As many as you can, on the side closest to the castle so the encircled army has a way to escape.”

“I will do the best I can…”

PoppenSparkle gathered all the energy her tired body could hold.  It wasn’t enough because she hadn’t absorbed enough sunshine since she had changed the four from the abandoned barn.   But it would change a few dozen completely.  She crackled with the summoned charge of energy, and then carefully spied out the area of fighting Gobbuluns she meant to target.

The power left her fingertips as soon as she uttered the trigger word and formed into a lightning bolt before becoming the transformational cloud over the writhing Gobbulun bodies.  They twisted and morphed as if they were made of clay and became mostly naked and poorly armed Sylphs, Elves, and Butterfly Children.

“Men of Cornucopia!  Follow me back to the castle!” shouted Prinz Flute, dashing forward to toss fireballs with his wand into the crowds of green Wartoles that hadn’t been touched by the polymorphing cloud.

“No!  Hold your ground men!  We will be covered in glory this day, even if we all die.”  Lancelot seemed outraged at Flute trying to take command.

“Look at all these new Fey Children on our side, Lord!  We now have a chance to hold the castle.  Why should we still go through with the plan to sacrifice ourselves?  We don’t have to die now!  And you will not die in any case.”  The Rascal was obviously defying his master.  But it was effective.  The Sylphs under Lancelot’s command broke ranks, fighting only to protect their escaping  brethren.  The mass of Fairy warriors flooded back towards the castle, carrying Flute’s rooster riders and all the newly made Fairies with them.

At the castle gate, Lord Lancelot, King Mouse, and Prinz Flute all pulled up short of it to shout at each other.

“How dare you countermand my battle plan?” roared Lancelot.

Prinz Flute, taken aback, quickly replied, “How dare you try to get everyone killed in spite of the fact that I provided you with a means to survive the day, and possibly win the war?”

King Mouse was a Pixie, of the kind that take on the partial form of woodland creatures.  His head and paws and tail were all very mouse-like, while his body was very hunman-shaped and capable of wearing a suit of Fairy armor.

“I know your status as Tellosian Hero means you outrank me, Lord Lancelot, but as King of Cornucopia, I side with Prinz Flute on the question of whether today is the day we all die or not.”

“Well, we can’t exactly reform the troops and attack again now.  But I would rather take the fight to them than hole up for a siege and defensive last stand.”

Prinz Flute seemed to be actively trying to calm himself.  Poppy appreciated how calm he could make himself in dire situations.  “You must come in and listen to the new plans I have formulated.  I have made a breakthrough in magical research that might win the day for us without fighting battles against foes that outnumber us.”

Angry as Lancelot still seemed, he nodded his assent.

The Rascal ran up to him to make a report on the retreat into the castle.

Lord Lancelot eyed him coldly.  “I have no time for disobedient underlings.  Rascal, you are dismissed from my service.”

Crestfallen, the boy turned and walked back into the castle without making a report.

“Now that we have more men to defend the walls with,” said King Mouse, “let’s retire to the throne room and discuss further strategy.

Flute signalled to Poppy, calling her to him.  “You have saved the day yet again, PoppenSparkle.”

“I only did the magic.  You made it happen.”

“You look exhausted, little one.”

She smiled.  She was actually taller than Flute, but not about to contradict him.  He put his arm around her to guide her.

Lord Lancelot stood in the gateway, looking at the stupidly confused horde of Gobbuluns.  He finally turned and entered too so that the gate could be shut and barred.

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May 31, 2022 · 5:05 pm

The Education of PoppenSparkle… Canto 8

Canto 8 – The Abandoned Barn

As the group continued to ride the roosters, little Schtinker could not stop talking.  Poppy talked to him as soothingly as possible, hoping to calm him and quiet him.

“We is headed to badness!” insisted Schtinker.

“You should say, We are headed for trouble,” corrected Poppy. 

“We are headed for trouble.  That knight don’t care bout ennybuddy but his own self.”

“You mean,  That knight doesn’t care about anybody but himself.”

“See there?  You know it yourself!” said the exasperated Schtinker.

“You know,” said Flute leaning over from his rooster saddle to look Schtinker squarely in the eyes, “This kid is learning to speak better almost instantly.”

“This kid can thinks bedder dan he ever does before.  Troll thinking comes hard and slow.  But my mind is getting faster da more I uses it.”

“Let’s make for that abandoned barn over there.  We need to study this polymorphed little phenomenon a little bit closer.” Flute pointed at the huge rotting structure that had once been the kind of fortress for cows that Slow Ones called a barn.

“But it is urgent that we get to Castle Cornucopia fast,” warned Tod.

“I have an idea that we may benefit more by what Poppy has learned to do with her magic than any sword swings or fireballs we could add to the battle to come.”  Flute grinned as he spurred Tannehauser towards the run-down old barn.

“You is no knowing what you is doing, Prinz-guy.  Dat barn be da home of Gobbuluns!” warned Schtinker.

“Yes, I know.  But tell me, Stinky, do you really want to become a Troll again?  Or would rather stay a Sylph boy?”

Schtinker got suddenly wide-eyed and serious.   “You mean I can be dis permanent-like?”

“He can, can’t he, Poppy?”  Flute asked.

“I would have to make a difficult spell translation to turn him back into a Troll, and I like him better like this.”  PoppenSparkle smiled at the wiggly former Troll.

Schtinker gave her a hug for the sheer joy she had apparently filled his little Sylph body with.

Once inside the old barn Flute made the group dismount and gather in a circle amidst the old tractor-tire ruts on the barn’s dried mud floor.

“Poppy, I need to cast a rather invasive spell on you to measure things in your mind. You will have to disrobe for me to do it,” Flute said. He was not asking for permission.

“Sure. I prefer to be naked.” Poppy had no trouble slipping off the bikini-like armor that protected her from mind spells. Her butterfly wings magically unfurled.

Flute pulled a scroll out of his pouch attached to his loincloth. “Messen Sie die Metriken in ihrem Kopf. Finschole!” Sparks flew out of his fingertips and embedded themselves in her forehead. Poppy’s field of vision turned into multicolored clouds.

“Aha! It’s just as I thought. Her polymorph spell not only reshapes the body, it boosts the intelligence in the parts of the brain of the subject that serve the principles of light. It’s a mix of changing the shape and changing darkness into light.”

“So, what does that mean?” asked Tod.

“Let me test the boy to make certain of it.” Flute cast the same spell on young Schtinker.

“Just as I thought. We can turn Gobbuluns of various sorts into Sylphs, Elves, or Brownies simply by turning their inherent darkness into light.”

“Weez doan no wut you iz talkin’, but weez tanks you for bringin’ us chickie meatz an Fairy bodeez to eats!”

Four Gobbuluns gathered together atop a rotting hay bale with mushrooms growing on it. They were armed with spears that were basically sharpened sticks.

Prinz Flute looked them over humorlessly, then broke into a huge smile. “Poppy, I think we may have just found some recruits for the upcoming battle. Can you morph them the same way you did Schtinker? Please?”

Poppy leaned into the spell and enveloped the three Wartoles and one Cyclopes in her spell cloud.

The Gobbuluns didn’t even have time to scream. The cloud dispersed leaving behind three Sylph warriors with iron-tipped spears and one Elf with an Elven bow and quiver of arrows.

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May 24, 2022 · 4:17 pm

The Education of PoppenSparkle… Canto 7

Canto 7 – Dat Killah Nite

When Fairies die, at least, when the good ones die, they do not leave a corpse behind.  The magical energy they are made of, originating from the sun, disperses into the air, sometimes leaving tiny bones behind, but usually leaving nothing. 

When the corrupted minions of the Unseely Court, the evil Fairies, die, they turn back into the mud and clay they were originally animated from.

So, a battlefield of a great Fairy battle would look exactly like the Arcanum looked as the little band of Fairies led by Flute entered into its vastness.

“The bodies of Gobbuluns are everywhere,” said Flute as he pointed out several lumps of Wartole-shaped mud and clay.  There were a couple of Cyclopes-shaped mud piles as well.

“There was a huge battle here?” asked Tod.

“Obviously.  First the dead Trolls, and now this.”  Flute shook his head sadly.

“Did our side win?” asked Poppy.

“There’s no way to tell.  If the Fey Children won, there should be living soldiers and Fairy beasts on the field.  The dead have returned to the air.”

“But, Flute, perhaps the winners have already left for home.  You don’t know for sure that we lost.”  Tod looked extremely upset.

“We shall see.  We must search the battlefield,” said Flute as he picked up a fallen banner from the Castle Cornucopia.

Glumly they continued to search the battlefield.

Suddenly, little Schtinker in Poppy’s lap became highly agitated.

“Dat killah nite!” cried the squirming boy Sylph.

“What are you talking about?”

The Sylph pointed at a silhouette on the top of a nearby knoll.  It appeared to be an armored Sylph knight astride a ridinghawk.  Next to him was a younger Sylph astride a pigeon.

“Hail and well met!” called the knight.  “You are late to the battle, Prinz Flute.”

“Lord Lancelot!  How did the battle go?”

With a short swoop, the hawk brought the famous knight near to where the roosters had stopped.  To their credit, neither rooster flinched at the presence of a red-tailed hawk.

“We would’ve lost had not the yon squire known as the Rascal and I cleverly used my immortality as a Storybook to slay the remaining Gobbuluns from the air after the Legion of Cornucopia overwhelmed the Dark Lord Ebon Sneezer.”

“None other of the Cornucopians survived?” asked Tod in horror.

“The Castle Guard remains at Castle Cornucopia,” said Lord Lancelot.  “All the rest are dead.”

The Rascal on his pigeon fluttered up.  “Lord, we must return to the castle quickly!  The Storr and Lord Toxiss will be sending a siege army there.  They will be overwhelmed without us!”

The Rascal looked at Lancelot with an expression of urgency on his young, dark-eyed face.  The knight looked back at him exhausted and pale.

“We go, then.  Prinz Flute, we need your aid, both magical and swordical.  Or our ally, King Mouse, will be lost.”

 Almost immediately the hawk launched into the air.

The Rascal looked at Flute and his companions, smiled a weak, dispirited smile, and took off on the pigeon.

“We no go wid dat killah nite!” protested Schtinker.  “Heem will murdah all ob us!”

“What is the urchin saying?” asked Tod.

“I think he saw Lancelot kill the other trolls and is afraid he will kill us too,” said Poppy.

“Nonsense.  He’s a great knight and trusted friend.”  Flute shot a disgusted glare at the child.

“Heem let alla guyz in heem armies fit furst,  den heem killah alla Trollz wayne dey iz dead.”

“Is he saying that Lord Lancelot wastes the lives of his troops even though he’s immortal himself?” asked Glitter.

“Surely not.  The little stinker doesn’t really know how to speak the Slow Ones’ English,” said Tod.

Poppy tried to calm Schtinker.  But he was deeply agitated.  And as to whether Schtinker could talk or not, she wondered at the fact that Lancelot had used the word, “swordical.”

“The situation is dire, no matter how you look at it,” said Flute.  “So, we go to Castle Cornucopia immediately.”

They spurred the roosters to run to the northwest.  But Poppy did not feel good about it.

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