March 2007

(Note:  This is not official version and may be removed in the near future.  This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter.  I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that.  This novel has since been rewritten.) When James woke dawn was rapidly approaching, encroaching over the tip of the mountains like a massive hazy beast. Thin clouds filled what little of the horizon he could see—little more than a thin hole through the foliage around Arnur. He stopped all fantasies that he was home from filling him with sadness. Deep down he had hoped that he would simply wake up in a hospital somewhere with his parents looking over him with joyful faces. But now he discarded those thoughts, however happy and warm, and came to the full realization that he truly was stuck in another world. Yet, one thought managed to make him smile: he had traveled farther than anyone else likely had. That made him, in an ironic way, a hero in the same way that Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were hailed after returning to Earth. He reminded himself that he would likely never get the same welcoming because despite anything he would do in Traea, only the narrow minded people in Woodton, his parents included, would know anything at all about where he had been. James sat up. His bones creaked; his muscle protested. He hurt in places where old wounds, now only noticeable by discolored lines, had plagued him. His hands traced over where the Lyphon had dug its malicious claws into him. I’ll have no scars to show when I get home. James turned and nearly swallowed his tongue as he came face to face with two white marbles and an infinite shadowy blackness. He leaped up, stumbled as his blanket wrapped around his ankle as if it were alive, and then tumbled backwards with a yelp on top of a tiny figure. Pea, having been squashed by someone twice his size, cried out and became tangled in the mess that James had created. The two of them caused such a ruckus that Darl woke violently from his slumber, jumped up, sword in hand, and began turning hazy eyed this direction in that as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. Then, as suddenly as it had all started, all went silent. James stood and helped Pea up. He brushed himself off and glared at the Lean. Darl, however, hadn’t grasped that nothing bad had happened at all, holding his sword in exhausted desperation. “Put that thing down before you hurt someone,” Pea said, waving a tiny hand in Darl’s direction. “I’m sorry. It…he was just there. Scared me. I freaked,” James said. Darl still didn’t grasp what was going on. “You can stay there all morning if you like.” James snickered. “Suit yourself. I say we get something actually worthwhile to eat. I don’t blame you for avoiding that strange culinary invention last night. It did taste better than it smelled. It looked better than it tasted though.” James grinned and followed Pea to the fire, which has smoldered to glowing gem-like embers. With a simple work of magic Pea had the fire crackling. Then Pea produced two eggs from his pack, found two thin sticks, and gave one of each to James. “The thing about Fidget Fowl is their eggs stay good for weeks when you boil them,” Pea slowly broke the shell of his egg and peeled it off. “And, they taste even better roasted on fresh flames.” Then Pea stuck the egg on his stick and placed it in the fire. James followed suit. He watched the egg brown in the flames and expected that the whites would be set ablaze at any moment. But no such event occurred. He simply retrieved the egg from the fire and looked at the smoking oval. “Like roasting marshmallows,” he said. “What?” “Marshmallows. They’re a sugary squishy pillow. You cook them just like this over the fire. They’re good.” “I’ve never met a pillow that I thought tasted good. Not to mention I’ve never tasted a pillow with the intention of eating it…” He rolled his eyes. “They’re not really pillows.” “Perhaps not, but describing something as a pillow doesn’t make it very appetizing now does it?” “No, I guess not.” “Now these?” Pea indicated his egg. “These are not a pillow. As far as I am concerned they represent all that is good about the food in this world.” Then Pea plopped the egg in his mouth and chewed it roughly. James waited for his egg to cool, and when it did he took a small bite. He had had Fidget Fowl eggs before, but never like this. The flavor exploded in his mouth in a flurry of spices. He tasted fine garlic, rosemary, and a dozen other flavors that he could only describe as supreme. They banged his taste buds mercilessly with their goodness and he found himself gobbling the remainder of the egg like a starving man. With the egg devoured he hoped that Pea had another. But no other came and he felt slightly depressed. At some point during their conversation Darl had put down the sword and begun shoving everyone’s things into their appropriate places. When James turned back to his spot he found everything in perfect order, ready to be hauled at any moment. “I think it wise you receive at least some sort of lesson from me today,” Pea said. James nodded enthusiastically. He had been waiting for this for some time, but it seemed as though fate had taken every measure possible to prevent it from happening. “A light lesson today. You’ve fiddled enough with your magic, but the first thing you have to understand about it is this. If you don’t know how to funnel and control your magic you’re going to continue going around passing

(Note:  This is not official version and may be removed in the near future.  This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter.  I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that.  This novel has since been rewritten.) Note: I apologize for not being able to give a full and complete chapter for WISB. I have a good reason, and it is this. The chapter is proving to be far longer than I had intended. I could easily put in a chapter break, but I feel that it would take away from the flow of Chapter 13 by calling it 13 and 14, rather than two parts. Right now I am deep into the second half of the chapter which is pushing 7,000 words, which on average is a good 2,500 words more than other chapters. I don’t feel safe pushing to finish it tonight, though I will get as much done as possible. However, I will post part two the following sunday and obviously write chapter 14 for the weekend after that. So really, it’s like you’re getting a triple treat over the next three weeks! In any case, enjoy Ch. 13 Part One! Night fell like a wave of black for the moon, as it rose, was still a stark gray so dark that only the outline of its shape and the darkest of craters could be seen. Stars glimmered and provided a negligible amount of light, and nothing more. The heavens were fraught with inactivity. No meteors fell, no stars died, and all seemed in a complete standstill as life on Traea moved on as if nothing had ever happened. It was doubtless that the people, creatures, and beasts of Traea were affected; some must have been more than others. James had seen the disturbed faces of the people of Arlin City when the sun forgot to rise, and he knew how disturbed many must have been when all ran in reverse. He had a rudimentary knowledge of physics and the inner workings of the solar system. Planets that rotated developed magnetic fields to protect the surface from radiation. If the world that Traea was forever connected to suddenly stopped, radiation would have pounded every living thing so drastically that he couldn’t imagine anyone surviving for long. To add to the problem, with the air in the atmosphere moving at the same speed as the rest of the planet, a sudden stop would send all that air careening around the planet like a massive elemental hand to smash and suck up anything and everything possible. The idea that the planet could have stopped for any moment was mind boggling to him. It’s impossible. And if the moon stopped moving it would come crashing down. He realized at this point in his journey that if something was impossible, it likely would happen, as if nature in this strange world followed a twisted version of Murphy’s Law. James decided not to think on it anymore. He hadn’t the knowledge to figure it all out logically, and even if he did he doubted he could make any of it sound remotely logical to an entire world devoted to the works of magic. The golden path turned out to be less magnificent than he had expected. While the walls were a golden hue, they were faint and unimpressive apart from the fact that they were gold colored in the first place. The path climbed steadily in altitude and slowly melded into the tree like a landscape painting, tall dark brown trunks reaching up with scraggly bark wrinkles and long limbs of green pine needles and prickly pinecones. Soon the rocks faded away into nothing but trees and brush, leaving behind the tall cliffs of gold. James could no longer see anything of the little part of Traea that he knew—Arlin City, the entirety of the Lor Range, nor the great valley floor—that having little to do with the final blow of failing light as the sun disappeared beyond the farthest mountains, though Pea had brought out his torch and set it brilliantly aflame. The valley floor was simply out of sight. It felt as if he was in a new world completely separate from all that was happening below, and in a strange way this was true. James, Pea, and Darl were cut off from the Farthland, at least the civilized portion of it. As far as they knew, nobody else knew where they were, except for a select few who had likely died horribly in battle. James now understood why Arnur could keep him safe. The terrain was well enough for a few passengers, even a light wagon, but not sufficient enough to move an army. He imagined that Arnur had some form of protection, something that a small force would be unlikely to handle. And he wondered what it was. Is Arnur an ancient castle? A sacred fortress of some sort? Pea’s light shined on the encroaching tree limbs that seemed to reach out like ancient hands. The trees looked old, older than any James had seen back home. And they seemed overly healthy. Nothing that he could see seemed in any way to be dying or losing the brutal battle called life. Yet, at the same time, the forest, for that was all he could call it, was unkempt and untouched. Trees wound into themselves in a mock of natures’ battle to maintain superiority; bushes and thick bulbous mushrooms seized the opportunity to leech from the larger trees, wrapping around like wiry tendons and ending in tiny flowers of virtually every prime color imaginable so that they blended like the colors of a rainbow after a spring shower. Then Arnur presented itself, and James could only describe it as awe-inspiring. The magnificent structure seemed to appear from nowhere as if waiting patiently for he and his friends’ arrival. Arnur took up the entirety of