Friday Fiction: 100 words about Gorg Trollheim

This week, instead of a theme, the Wendig Challenge was to write a story in 100 words. I thought about writing my typical 1000-word flash as well, but frankly I could use the break. So here...in 100 words (including the title), where Gorg started.

The Origin of Gorg

There was nothing more to be done for them. Gorg turned his back on the stone lumps that once were his kin, and walked heavily (for a living-stone troll can only walk heavily) from the valley that was his home. Somewhere out there was a wizard who must pay. And somewhere beyond that wizard was the man who had bought him. Two thoughts were enough for a troll mind, enough to set Gorg Trollheim on a quest that must end in the destruction of Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted—or in the conversion of Gorg to granite.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Middle Grade Review: Fizz and Peppers at the Bottom of the World

Title: Fizz and Peppers at the Bottom of the World
Author:  M. G. King
Publisher: Kingscape Books, 2013. 240 pages (ebook).
Source: Purchase? Free Day? Maybe won it as a prize? I really should take notes!

Summary:
Colin Colbeck is having a very bad day. He had to miss the baseball game to make cupcakes, and now those cupcakes have been stolen by trolls. So has his grandmother, and his little brother. He's forced to team up with his mortal enemy, ex-best-friend Pepper to rescue them and save the world from trolls. Because all it took to wake them up and start trouble was one careless drop of fizzy soda pop in just the wrong place...

Review:
What a galloping mad romp! I picked the book up expecting goofiness, and I got it. But I also got a tightly-written adventure that adheres to its own rules, however crazy they may be. Colin is a wonderful hero, in part because he's no hero at all. He's a lame, tame taco, just like Pepper says. So he's never surprised when his plans go astray, just terribly disappointed in himself and unhappy at losing Grand, then his little brother Sid, and then maybe the whole town. Yet every time he falls down (or is squished by a troll or attacked by a giant poisonous centipede), he manages to get up and come up with a new plan. I love his perseverance and occasional insights (he does eventually figure out why Pepper is so contrary to everyone).

I also loved the adventure, especially the slightly goofy side to it all. The trolls are so beautifully trollish--a bit stupid, but most of them also cruel and heartless (well, how can something that's basically stone have a soft heart?). This very well-written and impeccably edited romp through the troll lands that may be underneath all our homes is a joy to read, and I didn't want to put it down.

Recommendation:
For kids who like fantasy and humor and unlikely heroes. Also for adults who like the same. I'm pretty sure Gorg the Troll would like it, too, though he would be appalled at the bad behavior of these trolls.

Full Disclosure: I don't know just how I got my copy of Fizz and Peppers at the Bottom of the World, but I know I received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

D is for. . . Friday Flash Fiction

Wait, what?  D is NOT for Flash Fiction (I can spell better than that).  It's for. . . Djinn, I guess.  This week's Wendig challenge involved a list of 10 random words.  Our mission: to use 5 of them in a story.  Here's my story.  The list of words I used is at the end.  (Standing warning: Wendig's blog is not for children.  Also often not suitable for work.  But always entertaining and often filled with great advice for writers).

Gorg and the Djinn

Gorg Trollheim took one last look back at the City of Celestial Celery.  On the wall, three lumps of stone raised stone hands and waved a farewell.  Gorg raised his own in return, then let it fall. Next to him, Pugrum Stonelump sighed deeply.

"It is no use, my friend," Gorg said.  "Daisy has chosen, and not chosen either of us."  The potion Gorg had drunk hours before had sharpened his wits as well as loosening his tongue.  Pulgrum had declined the enhancement, but still Daisy Basalt had chosen his younger brother Krump, less chipped and weather-worn than Gorg or Pulgrum.  The two rejected suitors had left at once for the trollish homeland.

Gorg liked Daisy.  But with the new intelligence racing about his stone synapses, he knew he couldn't cope with love.  His hand touched the flask at his belt.  "Are you sure you don't want to try this stuff?" he asked Pulgrum.  The big troll (bigger even than Gorg) shook his head.

"Maybe sometime.  See what it does to you first."

Gorg smiled, cracking the stone around his mouth a little.  "And they say trolls are stupid."

"Not stupid.  Think slow.  Talk slow."  It was true.  Talking slowly made people assume trolls were stupid.  It was an error that had cost some very bad men their lives.

"Well, let's move less slowly.  I want to get out of this curst farm country and into the stony lands.  I'm hungry."

After that, they didn't talk.  Gorg had his thoughts to keep him busy.  The Tongue Knotter that had loosened his speech had sped up his thinking.  He was used to slow thoughts and the time to think them.  He was an orphan, and had lived alone, almost as a hermit, for many years until revenge had called him into the world.  Now thoughts came thick and fast, like a pack of hounds on the scent.

They'd been freed from prison, thanks to the eloquence he'd gained from the potion, but Gorg wouldn't be comfortable until he was far from the castle of King Celery the Halfwit and his more intelligent (and less scrupulous) councilors.  Gorg would have been happier if he could have seen the body of Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted, whom he had followed for revenge and to protect the king.  By the time he'd been let up from the dungeon, the casket had been sealed and placed in the crypt.  Gorg heard some of the servants say he'd splatted so hard after his jump from the tower that they'd scarce had anything to scrape up and bury.

Gorg wanted to know his enemy was dead.

"I wish we were to the mountains already," Pulgrum sighed.  "No dinner, no Daisy, no nothing."

Gorg picked up an odd-looking white stone from the side of the road.  Before he could take a bite, a man appeared in the road.

"At your service and all that but please don't eat that stone," he said in a rush, trying to arrange his robes as he spoke.

"What?" said Gorg.

"Huh?" said Pulgrum.

"Oh, blast, I messed up again."  The man took a deep breath, and said in a sepulchral  voice, "Djareem the Djinn, at your service, masters.  Wishes granted, reasonable. . .  no, wait, that's not right," he finished in the more human tone.

"A Djinn," Pulgrum breathed, awestruck.  "What's a Djinn?"

"A fraud for fools," Gorg answered.

"But, what?"

"A Djinn is a magical being who grants wishes to whoever releases him from the vessel in which he has been held captive," Djareem said.  "You have released me from that stone."

"There is no such thing as a Djinn," Gorg said.  He fingered the stone.

Gorg and the Djinn glared at one another.

"Come on, Pulgrum, let's get going."  Gorg tucked the stone into his pouch.  Djareem winced, and followed the trolls as they stumped off down the road.

"The thing is," Pulgrum said after a mile, "maybe a Djinn could get us some good rocks to eat."

"Rocks?  You would call up a Djinn and ask for rocks?"

"I'm hungry."

After another mile, Gorg spotted a pile of stones near the road, where some farmer had cleared them from a field.  They were near enough the edge of the plain now that there were stones in the ground.

"See?  I have produced stones for you to eat," Djareem said.

"Yay!" said Pulgrum. 

"Well," began Gorg, then he stopped.  They could argue later.  He was hungry.  He ate.

Later, after they'd eaten half the rock pile, Pulgrum said, "Why are we walking?  Djareem, carry us to our homeland at once!"

Gorg knew that would never work.  But he didn't say so.

The Djinn, who could not exist, stood and looked at him.  "Well?  Shall I?  I can do it, if you believe I can."

Gorg struggled against the arguments that welled up.  They didn't seem as clear as they had been, anyway.  The words were leaving him.  After a few minutes, Pulgrum repeated the command, and Gorg nodded.

And in the wink of a (slow, trollish) eye, they stood in the rock-strewn Valley of Stone Fruits.  Gorg's home.

But the shift had cleared Gorg's mind again, and he looked at the Djinn.

"You are not real and you cannot do that."

As the landscape wavered and reshaped itself to the Plains of Fruitfulness, Djareem also wavered and faded.

"I told Ba--" he tried to say before he vanished.

Gorg took the odd white stone from his pouch and popped it into his mouth.  It crunched satisfyingly.  And he took careful note of the Djinn's last words.  He didn't like that at all.  He would need all his wits about him on the journey home.  All his wits, and a few extra.  He pulled the flask from his belt and took another sip.

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2014

###

My five words were: Djinn (of course), casket, hermit, hound, and orphan.

@@@@

In further news--my low-key blog tour continues.  Visit Carla Sarett for a fun interview with me!

Then enter the giveaway for an ebook of Death By Ice Cream!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Flash Fiction Friday: Gorg and the Strong Drink

This week, Chuck Wendig's Challenge was "A drink with a story, a story with a drink."  In up to 2000 words (I only used 1360), we were to invent a drink, and write a story around that drink.  It didn't have to be real, which was good, since I know nothing about mixed drinks, and prefer to invent such things out of whole cloth.  I wouldn't recommend anyone try the Tongue Knotter, even if you could find the ingredients.  Which you can't.  Unless you can find Gorg's world. . .

Gorg and the Strong Drink

Gorg the Troll was in trouble.  He didn’t mind that so much, but he found he very much objected to his friends being in trouble with him.  He hadn’t known that would happen, because until he had arrived in the City of Celestial Celery and met the Stonelump brothers, Herg Rockling, and Daisy Basalt, he hadn’t had any friends, though he’d known the brothers back home long ago. 

The five of them together had managed to destroy the Destroyer of Trolls, Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted.  Unfortunately, they had gotten themselves into trouble with the King’s Guard in the process, since the King believed Bale was mad, not evil.  Gorg, who was very good at direct action, found he wasn’t so good at talking his way out of trouble.

Not that the trolls really minded the dungeons.  They were a bit damp, but trolls didn’t get rheumatism, and at least the walls and floors were stone.  Trolls always preferred to be surrounded by stone.  The city had troubled Gorg, because so much was constructed of wood, and the Watch objected when he pulled up cobbles to nibble on them.  So the dungeon wasn’t uncomfortable, but still, they would have preferred freedom.  And none of them liked to think what King Celery the Halfwit might decide to do with them.

It wasn’t easy to kill a troll outright, but a sorcerer of at least moderate power could turn one back into the stone from which they were so barely removed.  That had been the crime Bale had committed—or had committed for him—that had brought Gorg all this way in pursuit of him.  Now the only thing protecting the trolls was the King’s willingness to listen to them explain what Bale had really been up to.  Unfortunately, the King had a very limited attention span.  He’d soon tired of trying to judge and turned the case over to his advisors.

King Celery’s advisors were not half-wits.  Nor were they great fans of trolls.  But after a lot of talking, Gorg managed to get the advisors to agree to sit down with him over drinks to talk it out.  Trolls, being made of stone, didn’t need to drink to live, but even a troll could enjoy a glass of something.  Gorg thought drinks might help keep things friendly while he explained that Bale had been planning to murder the king and take over the kingdom.

The Earl of Beetroot led Gorg out of the dungeon, and up into an elegant drawing room on the ground floor.  Gorg didn’t like the Earl’s face.  It reminded him of Bale—the face of one who was always plotting.  He would have to be ready for whatever trouble Beetroot might be planning.  Gorg was beginning to think everyone in the castle was up to something sneaky. 

He was right.  The Earl of Beetroot wanted to be the one to solve “the troll problem” and so win the complete trust of the king, which he could use for his own ends.  He poured Gorg a large goblet of a grey liquid, and allowed the Count of Cabbage to fill equally large goblets with wine for the humans.  Beetroot himself drank water.  He would be the only one with a clear head.

“Stonejuice, Master Gorg?  We might as well be civilized here, hey?”

Gorg saw the cynical smile and lifted the goblet to his lips, sniffing.  He felt a bit of . . . amusement.  Beetroot, like so many others, assumed that because trolls spoke and thought slowly, they had no senses and no sense.  Gorg was not stupid, though a brain made of something like stone worked more slowly than a human brain.  His senses, however, worked just fine.  He could tell this wasn’t stonejuice.  He wasn’t sure exactly what it was.  He sniffed again, sorting the aromas.

A touch of celery juice—that was risky in this kingdom, as mistreating the vegetable could be taken the wrong way.  Likewise he detected the fermented root of the skrapule plant, which grew only on the plains about the City of Celestial Celery and was mildly poisonous, at least to humans.  Gorg took a tiny sip of the liquid.  He rolled it about on his tongue, and concluded that the skrapule wouldn't hurt him, in this concentration, perhaps less than a dozen drops in the whole cup, which was mostly wine.  Wine would have no effect on him.  The identity of a final ingredient eluded him, but he could sense no harm in it.  He took a swallow.

The liquid ran through him like a fire.  Like lightning.  And equally like lightning, he knew that he had underestimated the unknown ingredient.

So had the Earl of Beetroot.  The symbiotic fungus that Beetroot had cultivated and fermented into a drink that rendered humans incapable of coherent thought or speech was, until now, untested on trolls.  Beetroot watched with interest over his own glass as Gorg’s body jerked, stiffened, and then sagged.

A contented smile began to spread over Beetroot’s face.  It was evident that the effect of the mixed drink he called the Tongue Knotter was very strong. His fellow advisors would be happy to add the trolls to the rock-garden when Gorg began to babble and swagger under the influence of the Confusion Cocktail.

The smile vanished when Gorg opened his mouth.  Instead of the babbled nonsense Beetroot expected, what came out was an eloquent point-by-point account of the misdeeds of Bale the Artichoke Hearted, and a plea for freedom for himself and his companions in thanks for the service done the kingdom.  Beetroot stared in confused rage.  The other advisors stared in awe.

“By all the gods!” exclaimed Duke Rutabaga.  “The creature has uncovered the most diabolical plot!  He should be richly rewarded, not punished.”

The Count of Cabbage and the Earls of Parsley and Turmeric nodded grave agreement.  “I think,” said the former, “that we have underestimated our trollish friends.  Perhaps we should offer you a job, Sir Gorg.”

Gorg, who wasn’t at all sure he liked the feeling the drink gave him, nevertheless took another cautious sip.  He didn’t want to turn his innards to molten lava, and the stuff felt like it might do just that.  He liked the way it made his head feel, though. 

Beetroot began to argue against the trolls, but his every point was met and bettered by Gorg’s eloquence.  After a few minutes, Beetroot took the glass from Gorg’s hand.  The troll let it go.  He had drunk enough.  His newly heightened senses told him that, and his newly enhanced intelligence told him to stop drinking.

Beetroot, losing the debate and desperate, took a gulp from the glass of grey liquid.  If it could make a troll intelligent, what might it do for a man as clever as he!

It did exactly what his early tests had said it would.  Mid-sentence, just as his audience was beginning to listen and wonder if the troll might have dazzled them a bit too much, Beetroot ceased to utter sense.

As the humans gathered around in bewilderment, Gorg explained that the drink Beetroot had given him was clearly only meant for trolls, and the man had been foolish to drink it, or perhaps merely forgetful of what he had brewed.  As the Advisors led the babbling Beetroot away, Cabbage stopped and tossed a key to Gorg.

“You and your friends are free to go.  Make yourselves at home here in the castle if you want.”

Gorg thanked him, but added, “I believe I at least will return to my own valley.  The city lacks easy access to rocks, and variety in our diet is vital to good health.  I shall endeavor to persuade my friends to accompany me.”

And he would make sure he was well out of the city before this drink wore off.  Gorg wasn’t sure he liked the effect, though it was useful.  Thoughtfully, he took up the flagon from which Beetroot had poured the drink, stoppered it tightly, and carried it off with him. 

You never knew when you might need some extra brain power.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2014

Flash Fiction Friday: Gorg in Pursuit of Bale, Part II

So several weeks ago, Chuck Wendig challenged us all to write half a cliffhanger and leave it for someone else to finish.  I did that here, and the next week Jemima Pett wrote the next installment, or a possible next installment.  I mean to go back and steal some of her version, but never got around to it.  Because my dirty secret is out: I had already written a continuation of the Gorg story, which is looking more and more like a serial.  Here's my version:

Gorg in Pursuit of Bale (Part 2)

Gorg could feel his fingers growing into the rock.  His stone-bound Troll mind cracked here and there as part embraced the rock, and part struggled to move.  He looked down at the glassy surface of the water below.  A twist of his head showed the other side of the gorge only a dozen yards away.  But it might as well have been a hundred miles, because he could not cross that water.

Trolls can’t swim.  Being born of stone, they sink.  And one need they share with humans: they must breathe.  Deep water meant death and an end to Grog’s quest.  Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted would never be punished for having Gorg’s uncle, brother and three cousins turned (back) into stone.  He would either descend and drown, or stay where he was and become one with the cliff.

The thought roused him to anger.

“NO!”  Gorg’s bellow echoed back and forth between the canyon walls.  A few pieces of rock broke loose and fell with a hollow plunk into the water below.  And Gorg moved his left hand.

Slowly his fingers separated themselves from the rock face and he moved his arm upward, seeking a new hold.  The right hand followed.  His booted feet hadn’t had time to reach through the heavy dragon-hide to embed themselves in the rock, so they shifted easily to new knobs and ledges.

Retreating was hard.  Gorg had single-mindedly pushed forward, following the winds that had carried his enemy away, until it had become nearly impossible to do anything else.  Being born of stone makes trolls’ brains less nimble and flexible than humans’ minds, more tenacious and unbending.

When he stood on the rim of the gorge once more, Gorg turned his head and felt the wind.  It had shifted.  With relief, he turned and followed the gorge down the mountain.

##

Three days later Gorg stood on the Great East Road, which rolled between the Plains of Fruitfulness and the mountains.  Still following the wind, he turned south again.  Somewhere off there he would find Bale.

He would also find the City of Celestial Celery, home of King Celery the Half-Wit.  Gorg hadn’t yet worked out Bale’s plan with regard to the so-called King, but he knew his kin had been guards at the castle before becoming statuary in the Royal Gardens.  Bale might return to the scene of the crime.  And the wind led him in that direction.

A human traveler would have enjoyed the trip through the Plains of Fruitfulness.  It was the heart of the kingdom, farms as far as the eye could see, and well-watered by the rivers flowing from each crack and gorge of the mountains.  Gorg had to stay on the edges of the Plains, for deep, rich earth covered the rocks he needed to keep life in his stone body.  For all the challenges they posed, the mountains were more friendly to his nature.  He pushed on.

##

The City of Celestial Celery shone in the last light of a clear day when Gorg passed the gates and entered.  The last time he’d been in a city, a magical token had drawn him to his target.  This time he had no such help.  After wandering the streets for hours—and being threatened with fines for vandalism when he plucked up a cobblestone and ate it for a late dinner—he turned in at a way-house that advertised accommodations for Trolls.

Gorg paused just inside the door, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, and from a table to his left a voice called, “Gorg!  Gorg Trollheim!”

He turned.  “Pulgrum Stonelump!”  His luck had held, bringing him among friends.  And friends who knew the gossip of the City.  Three glasses of the powerful drink they called Stonejuice had loosened more tongues than Gorg’s, and he had told of his quest—and heard that the arrival of a balloon bearing a madman had been all the news for the last week. 

“They say he is completely insane, can’t talk so anyone can understand.  So King Celery has taken him in and given him a room and nurse.”

“Huh.”  Gorg wasn’t a city troll with lots of learning, but he knew a bad smell when he smelled it.  Gorg wouldn’t believe Bale was crazy and harmless even if he saw it with his own eyes.  And Crazy or not, Celery really was a half-wit if he took in his worst enemy right into his own castle. “I still have to kill him.”

The other trolls nodded.  “You do.  And he still needs it.  But you can’t just go in there and do it, you know.  Celery won’t allow it.  We need a plan.”

“We?”  Gorg felt something he’d never felt before.  He felt. . . friendship.  He knew kinship, and the rights and responsibilities it gave.  But others, trolls who would help him because they had known his uncle and cared about the revenge and the king and maybe even Gorg himself?  That was new.  They leaned their heads together, careful not to touch—it was annoying, how quickly trolls could grow together, rock calling to rock even faster than Gorg’s fingers in the stone of the gorge he’d so narrowly escaped—and began to talk in low voices.

To save Celery from Bale, they had to save him from himself.  It wouldn’t be easy.  But a half a dozen trolls made a formidable force, an unmovable obstacle to a regicide. 

They hoped.

##

Up at the castle, in a luxurious room lit by scented candles and cushioned with fine tapestries and feather comforters, Duke Bale stretched out on the bed, put his hands behind his head, and smiled to himself.  The winds of luck were still with him.

Gorg and his friends at the table?

Flash Fiction Friday: Cliffhanger

This week and next, Chuck Wendig (usual disclaimer about NSFC) has set up an interesting challenge: write a thousand-words and leave us with a cliffhanger.  Then we hope another writer will pick up on the challenge and write the conclusion.  Not to worry: if they don't, and probably even if they do, I'll be back to finish the story myself.  But next week I'll be finishing someone else's story.

Update: Find Jemima Pett's continuation of Gorg's story here. I'll be back eventually to offer my own completion--though hers might find it's way into a revised version of my version. . .

Gorg In Pursuit of Bale (Part one)

Gorg the Troll stood amidst the sulfurous exhalations of the Valley of Baleful Stones and watched the balloon disappear into the distance.  Aboard was the one human Gorg really wanted to kill, Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted.  Now Gorg had no way of reaching him, no way of knowing where he would alight.

Despite the slanderous stereotypes about trolls, Gorg was a peace-loving person, if a troll can be called a person.  Entity.  He was a peaceful entity.  Only, in the last month, he’d killed two sorcerers.  Both had been servants of Duke Bale.  The first had turned several members of Gorg’s family back into stone, at Bale’s command.  The second had been trying to prevent him from reaching Bale to exact the revenge both troll and human tradition demanded.  He hoped Bale would be the third and last.

To kill Bale, he would have to find him.   Gorg turned in the direction of the wind and began walking.

##

Three days later, Gorg had left all signs of sulfurous stones behind, and found the land climbing steadily.  The rock here was different, lighter and more appealing, with a slightly spicy flavor and a good crunch.  The air was better, too.  The balloon was long gone from sight, but Gorg kept following the wind, hoping he would eventually hear word of the Duke. 

Unfortunately, he heard no word of anything, because the lands he traversed lacked inhabitants, at least who could speak.  Gorg tried to talk to the coyotes, but they wouldn’t stop to chat, and he didn’t even know what some of the other creatures were.  The land kept climbing, and he saw more small furry animals, but nothing that could talk to him.

It might have made more sense to go around the mountains, return to the lands of men and wait to hear of Bale.  But Gorg had a simple mind.  He’d set out to follow the winds that had carried his enemy out of reach, and he continued to do so, day after day.  Fortunately for Gorg, it was summer, so he didn’t freeze.  Gorg was a Drylands Troll, adapted to deserts.  Heat didn’t bother him, and trolls didn’t drink except for pleasure, but he had no experience of cold.  Even in midsummer, as he climbed higher he began to find nights a bit uncomfortable. 

If Gorg had been more of a thinker, he might have gone to seek out a representative of the king.  It was the king who had banished Bale to the Valley of Baleful Stones, and it was the king, ultimately, that Bale was after.  King Celery the Half-Wit wasn’t much good, but his ministers did make a point of keeping track of would-be regicides, if only in case they wanted to make use of them.  For the most part, though, the ministers, like most of the denizens of the kingdom, preferred a king who did very little.  They had no wish to allow Bale to succeed.

They would have been happy to help Gorg achieve his goal, had they but known of his single-minded pursuit of the killer.

###
Gorg paused in his pursuit of the long-vanished balloon.  The wind had changed direction.  It no longer led him up the mountains, but now blew along the face.  Even Gorg knew that the balloon was far ahead and probably not following the same winds, even if it were still aloft.  But he had no other guide.  When he pursued the sorcerer Mergle, he’d been guided by a magical trail left for another.  When he crossed the Iron Desert to find the Valley of Baleful Stones, he’d followed a tip from a gnome met in a tavern.  Now he followed the wind.

What he was rapidly learning didn’t make sense was to attempt to traverse the faces of the mountains.  Now, instead of climbing steadily, his route took him constantly up and down, clawing his way up steep slopes and crumbling glacial moraines—though those provided a variety of interesting rocks on which to snack—only to drop again into deep valleys and fathomless gorges.

What’s more, as he went north along the range, the slopes grew steeper and more challenging.  Trolls are made of stone, and climb well because they can cling to that from which they were born.  But even Gorg was beginning to find some of the canyons a bit precarious.  And nearly every one was filled with a roaring stream of milky water, laden with grit and rolling stones.  Gorg was less comfortable with water than stone, though his immense stony weight allowed him to ford streams that would have washed even the boldest human away in seconds.

And still he would not digress from following the wind.

Inevitably, the worst happened.  Gorg was partway down yet another cliff when he looked below for the first time.  In the dark, shaded depths of the canyon, he caught the gleam of water.  He descended a bit further, fingers and toes growing into the tiny cracks in the wall that allowed him to scale cliffs no human could.

Now he could see that the water filled the gorge.  Completely.  Worse, it was not rushing past as the other streams had done.  This water lay still, its dark surface suggesting unknown depths.  Gorg froze.  Only one thing could stop his pursuit of Bale, and now it seemed he had found it: deep water.  No troll could swim.  That would be expecting too much of a being made from stone. 

Unable to more forward, equally unable to grasp the need to go back or around, Gorg froze in place, sending deeper and deeper roots into the stone of the canyon while his mind sought desperately for answers. 

In minutes, he would be too deeply attached to the stone to move again.

###

Yeah, I know.  The whole cliff thing was supposed to be metaphorical. But hey, sometimes I'm just feeling literal. . .  So sue me.

 

 

Flash Fiction Friday: In the Valley of the Baleful Stones

Chuck Wendig is not a nice man.  This week he gave us a list of random words, ten of them, and told us to use them all in a story.  All ten!  That's just mean.  I was doing pretty well with the list and my fantasy setting until I got to the last one.  You'll know when you reach it.  I'll give you the whole list at the end of the story, just for fun.  Feel free to see how many you can guess without cheating.  Then visit Chuck's blog and check out how some others used them (warning: other bloggers may not be suitable for youngsters, or work, or polite company.  I can't make any promises).  990ish words.

In the Valley of the Baleful Stones

Gorg left the Iron Desert through a narrow canyon, a tight, stony gorge just too wide to be a slot.  Nothing grew there but stones.  After days crossing the unyielding iron of the desert, the stones represented life to Gorg the Troll.  Being stone himself, mostly, he grazed happily on chunks of granite and basalt as he strode along, with an occasional conglomerate for a relish.

The midday sun beat down, turning the canyon into an oven.  Had a human chosen that route, there wouldn't even have been a corpse left for the funeral.  They'd have been cooked to nothing and picked clean by the vultures that waited on the high cliffs.  Though even the vultures might have waited for night to cool things down a bit.  The troll just kept moving, even humming a little--a sound like a cross between a rockfall and an elephant in distress.

The canyon broadened and straightened just a bit.  In the distance Gorg could now see a lone willow--sure sign of water.  He didn't need water; trolls didn't drink except for fun.  But it told him he was nearing the end of his journey, and he picked up the pace.  He had a date to keep with Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted, and he didn’t want to be late.  Duke Bale had been responsible for several members of Gorg's family being turned back into the stone from which they'd been born, and his Uncle Grk had, in the next heavy rain, been dissolved back into the clay of his home mountains. Gorg had vowed that the Duke would pay.

A league beyond the lone willow, Gorg found the road to the Valley of Baleful Stones, Duke Bale's family holding.  The name held a charm that would captivate the ordinary troll, but Gorg knew that all he would find in the land of Bale would be deceit and disappointment.  Probably even the stones would be untrustworthy.  He turned west on the road, and switched his giant stone war hammer from his left shoulder to his right.

He knew he grew close when he began to smell rotten eggs.  The Baleful Stones of the valley's fame were the disfigured sulfurous mounds deposited by a volcanic vent that ran length of the north side, and the entire valley stunk of it.  Gorg thought it only fit, for the heart of Duke Bale stunk still worse.

Now he could see the castle in the distance, and he shifted his war hammer back to his left shoulder, and tried not to breathe too deeply.  Even trolls disliked the sulfurous brimstone, and would neither eat it nor live near the volcanic vents that produced it.  Only Duke Bale, banished nephew of King Celery the Half-Wit, would do so, and he, Gorg thought, only because he'd been sent there by royal decree.
#

In the depths of the ugly castle that crouched as far as it could from the sulfur vents, the Duke studied his plans for the thousandth time.  Soon, his fool of an uncle would know that Bale was plotting to dethrone him.  But by then, it would be too late.  He studied the device that the sorcerer Stenrick the Brilliant had made for him.  Soon, he would have Stenrick go out to meet the pesky troll, that persistent annoyance of a Gorg.

Bale hadn't meant it to work this way when he'd sent Mergle to kill the group of trolls that had stumbled into his secret mines.  But Gorg had proved useful.  Mergle thought too much of himself, and had attracted the attention of the swordswoman--what was her name?  And what had become of her?  She hadn't caught Mergle.  Gorg took care of that one.  But Mergle had drawn the attention of the King, and so had become a liability.  Gorg, poor stupid troll, had done him a favor, Bale reflected.

Now Gorg was coming here, and would meet with Stenrick.  One or both would be killed, and Bale rather hoped it would be both.  He would have to take care of whoever was left before he could take care of the King.  Ordinarily, Bale would have been no match for either a sorcerer or a troll, but Stenrick, the fool, had given Bale all he needed, and now Bale no longer needed Stenrick.

Near the edge of the valley, in a cleft well hidden from the road, the half-magical balloon swayed gently, its silk bag filled with the gasses from the vent it covered.  Bale would be high in the basket suspended below the balloon when Stenrick blasted Gorg into a pile of rubble with the spell he called the "Atomic Blaster," whatever he meant by that.
#

Gorg came on into the valley, and didn't falter when he saw the billowing robes of the sorcerer approaching.  Stenrick was a far greater sorcerer than Mergle had been on his best day, but Gorg knew what he could do.  Shifting the war hammer once again to his right shoulder, so as to leave his more powerful left hand free, Gorg scooped up a selection of stones.

The first stone to leave the sling struck the wand from Stenrick's hand.  The second slew the sorcerer as he stooped to retrieve it.  Gorg came on, stepping on the man just to be sure.  No one survived a troll walking over them.

Gorg's remaining stones were flung after the balloon which suddenly rose from the rocks nearby and soared into the sky, Bale leaning over the edge and jeering.  Those that hit the balloon bounced uselessly off.  Only one stone struck something solid, and Gorg didn't know of that.  The wind carried Bale out of sight before the Duke discovered that Gorg had put out of action the magical appliance that controlled the balloon's flight.

He was at the mercy of the winds.  Gorg had won another round.

#####

Okay, here's the list: 

Funeral, Captivate, Deceit, Brimstone, Canyon, Balloon, Clay, Disfigured, Willow, and (I'm sure you guessed this one) Atomic

Flash Fiction Friday: Iron Desert

This week Chuck Wendig gave us a random title generator.  Our mission: to roll the dice (as it were), and select a title from the five random choices.  I cannot tell a lie: the titles were such fun I did it a whole bunch of times.  Then I picked about 6 favorites, and made a note because who can't use an occasional title?   But for today's story I selected "Iron Desert," and it was immediately clear to me that was the desert that Gorg the Troll was crossing when he found the skull of the swordswoman's horse (see Revenge of Gorg).  And maybe an iron desert is just what it seems. . .

This one's  a bit shorter than usual, at just 560 words.

Iron Desert

Three days ago Gorg had found the skeleton of a horse he'd known and liked--and the swordswoman who'd ridden him.  What was her name?  Gorg didn't care, though he mourned the horse in his slow, trollish way as he trudged along.

Gorg had bigger problems than that now.  He had set out to cross the Iron Desert because it was the quickest way from Mosternestine City to the Valley of Baleful Stones.  There he expected to find the Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted, nephew of King Celery the Half-Wit.  The Duke, Gorg had reason to believe, had givent he order that he led the now-dead sorcerer Mergle to petrify various members of Gorg's family.  It had been a cruel and unnecessary act, given that trolls are nine-tenths stone in any case.  When Gorg scratched his head, he scattered rock dust and flakes of shale.

But now, in the middle of the Iron Desert, it was dawning on Gorg that he was in trouble.  Thing was, a troll could cross an ordinary desert with no worries.  Rock everywhere?  It was the stuff of life.  A troll is born of rock, and eats the stuff.  And they don't need to drink, since there is very little water in their make-up.

Gorg hadn't known that "Iron Desert" wasn't a metaphor.

For an entire day Gorg had been crossing a flat pan of iron.  No stone.  Just iron.  As though forged by the hand of a divine smith, and utterly without sustenance for a troll (or anyone else; but Gorg didn't care about anyone else just then, because they weren't there and he was).  If he didn't get out of this soon, Gorg could see he wouldn't get out at all.

He was starting to stagger.  A vision of that poor horse crossed his mind as he slowed for another rest.  He unslung his massive stone warhammer--as a last resort he would eat that, though it was worn and tasteless--to take it's weight from his back.  It narrowly missed his foot as it slipped from his now-stiff and weakened grip and crashed to the iron ground.

Iron is brittle.  Gorg gaped at the crack that opened in the smooth surface.  Trying hard to think, he picked up the hammer and dropped it again.  The ground shattered.  Gorg pushed aside the shards of broken iron, his face breaking into a smile.  He ignored the chips that flew from his cheeks as they creased, reaching for the stone that lay under the iron.

Gorg chipped off a few savory bits and nibbled them slowly, recovering his strength.  The blazing sun didn't bother him.  The absence of water didn't matter.  But somewhere in his earthen troll-brain, Gorg was realizing that smooth-cast iron was not a natural coating for a desert floor.

Duke Bale had found another sorcerer.  A powerful one, to spread such a surface over the desert.  Or maybe it had been an illusion.  No matter, it took power either way, and a deadly intent.  Rock is slow to anger, but when it grows hot, it is a force to reckon with.  Gorg was growing hot.  Battle was rejoined, and he had won the first round.

Taking up his warhammer and another handful of light, tasty rock, Gorg turned his stony face toward the Valley of Baleful Rocks.  He'd be pickling artichoke hearts before he finished.