The exercise:
Write about something that has been: disguised.
I think my boys are born entertainers. Certainly in my parents eyes they are.
The silence in the house, now that they're asleep, is rather deafening.
Going to miss all that happy noise tomorrow while I'm at work. Thankfully I'll have the next four days off to make up for it.
Mine:
"The exhibit is magnificent - you've done an amazing job!"
"That's very kind of you. I'm particularly proud of this display."
"I can see wh... wait. Isn't that the artifact that was chewed up by our resident rat family?"
"It certainly is! You've got a keen eye."
"There was hardly anything left of it!"
"Yes, well, that's why I've got it almost entirely buried underneath artificial snow. Luckily for me the arctic discovery show was put into storage last week, so there was plenty of the stuff to go around."
"That's great and everything, but... wasn't that artifact dug out of an archaeological site in Egypt?"
5 comments:
I guess if the kids are entertaining your parents then that takes the burdens of childcare and being hosts off you, so that's got to be a good thing! This feels monetizable... perhaps you can sell accommodation in that yurt you were keeping your farm-workers in and have the boys entertain the paying guests as well? The guests can pick produce when the boys are tired, and they get to eat some small percentage of it... I think this has potential :)
It's very nice to see this artefact and its curator reappear, and I like the curator's persistent optimism about what's good enough! I was very, very amused by the thought of the artefact being mostly buried in artificial snow after the sands of Egypt; that was a very nice touch.
Disguised
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. When Thoreau wrote that I believe he was commenting on a mundane trade of what you could be spending your life doing instead of the thing you chose to do. Working ten hours a day, six days a week, being nice to idiots and imbeciles is a very high price to pay when you'd rather be sat in an isolated mountain hut watching out for wildfires. Working in an office filling out spreadsheets cannot compare to trapping tourists in a tent and forcing them to laugh and clap at the antics of your children.
The artefact known to collectors as The Edmonton Ransom takes things a little more literally though. It appears to be a magic 8-ball, rather larger than normal. In fact it's about the size of a 16lb bowling ball and not much lighter. There is speculation that this is a disguise and that the heart of the artefact is much smaller and more transportable, but finding someone sufficiently empty of mind to be able to try disassembling the artefact is... problematic.
The artefact is named because its first recorded appearance was as part of a demand from three would-be bank robbers who, having stormed into Edmonton's First Provincial Bank and announced their intentions discovered that they'd all thought one of the others would be the getaway driver. As police surrounded the bank they took the customers (all three of them) hostage and issued demands for their release. The list was short: that they be allowed to leave the bank unarrested and unpursued, that they each get a lobster-roll, and that they be given a magic 8-ball, a pink shirt (collar size 15) and a dictionary of proverbs in Aramaic. Exactly how the magic 8-ball came to be this one is unrecorded, as is why exactly the three thought that a single pink shirt, fitting none of them, would be enough of a disguise to get them across the border.
The magic 8-ball, when shaken and questioned, ignores the question spoken and instead answers the question "what would I rather be doing?" The user's mind is filled with vivid images of what their life would be like if they were doing what they wanted to be doing instead of what they are doing. The images have a depth of colour that is better than reality; the smells are richer and resonate more deeply; sounds are more vibrant; the user even feels spiritually satisfied and uplifted.
It is practically impossible to put down.
But for every minute you live through the 8-ball, a year of your life is expended. And the 8-ball seems to know what your actual lifespan is and how it ends; people have dropped the ball, looking distraught as though they've been made to, only to be abruptly run over by a rusting Lada driven by a middle-aged woman with instant-onset arthritis and orthopedic shoes despite being in the middle of a crowded lounge-bar. Being the only fatality in such a situation is... embarrassing.
Thoreau also had some things to say about walking naked in the woods, which brings me to our next artefact....
Character development for the novel I am working on
==============
Jenny is a faun, most definitely. The disguise lies not in her appearance, but in what she does. If you expect her to be a housemaid, she is. If you expect her to be a scholar, researching human-faun interactions, so she is. But what is she really?
In reality, she is a spy. The humans trust the fauns far more than the other way round. Since the royal marriage is in doubt (the fauns aren't supposed to know that, but they do), they have sent one of their most experienced spies to monitor the situation. She is delighted to have made the acquaintance of poor, lonely Princess Melanie. Too bad Melanie doesn't know her new friend has ulterior motives ...
Another lengthy one. Sorry, not sorry.
Disguised 1/2
Einar Mond stepped through the massive double-doors, into the ostentatious throne room of Emperor Dargal XII, with a gruff-looking, serious palace guard on either side of him. They weren’t forcing him forward, as he was here as a guest, but they were positioned in such a way that he felt a little claustrophobic, despite the banality of his summons.
He was still dressed for travel, having been instructed to visit the Imperial Palace without delay upon arrival. He wore a simple hardened leather tunic, a faded, worn, and rough green woolen cloak, and mid-calf boots that were likely more caked-on mud than boot. He had been divested of his swords, his hatchet, his boot-dagger and his silver chain necklace by the guards. Paranoia was, of course, the norm for the High and Mighty of the world, what with assassins and crooks behind every corner.
His eyes widened the slightest bit as he processed what he saw – intricate carvings of historical battle scenes on every flat surface, scaling columns and climbing up into the shadows of the high ceiling. Rich, expensive tapestries hung like banners between columns. Display podiums showcased what had to be rare antiques – everything from pottery to wicked looking bronze daggers of an overly showy style, little practical use for a would-be wielder.
And in the rear of the chamber, up two dozen blue-and-gold-carpeted stairs, sat the large marble throne, also draped in blue and gold. The crest of the Dargal family, a golden trident set against a backdrop of silver streaks – meteorites – shone in its circular frame of dark, glossy wood. Twin shafts of moonlight filtered through the two tall, oval-shaped windows facing the throne. Their opaque, pearl-colored glass bathed the throne and its dais in a surreal glow.
And in the midst of this pomp and ceremony sat the Emperor himself. Dargal XII, old but not bowed by his age, lounged in the opulent throne. The angelic glow falling over him shone off of his perfectly bald pate. He was toying with his scepter of office – a rod stylized in the same fashion as the trident in the family crest, but only about two feet long – and he looked bored. His shaggy white eyebrows, two avalanches frozen mid-freefall on his brow, raised upon seeing his visitor.
“Einar!” He shouted, as Einar reached the base of the stairs. The elderly ruler’s voice was creaky, as if he needed his throat oiled a few times a day, but there was an exuberance to the tone. “Come closer so I can see you, boy!”
Einar shot glances over both shoulders, and the guardsmen fell back from him. He ascended the steps alone, and knelt before Emperor Dargal. He uttered a perfunctory “Lord,” his own voice deep and rumbling in his chest. He stood again, without being bade to do so by his host. Dargal seemed surprised, and blinked at what would be criminal impertinence from anyone else, but smiled at the man in front of him. The two guardsmen who had escorted Einar traded confused, worried looks.
“Welcome, welcome!” The emperor spread his hands in a stately gesture, and rose from his throne. He stood a full three heads shorter than Einar – but he was not himself short. He craned his neck upward to meet his guest’s eyes. “I trust the road found you well, yes?”
Before Einar could respond in any fashion, the Emperor continued, turning back to his throne and fussing with something on its arm. “A gift, for your services!” He turned back with a small, plain wooden box, extending it to the man and opening it with a press of a button on its front.
Einar saw within, a glass vial, full of a vibrantly blue liquid, stoppered with a cork. He took it, and turned it over in his hands, eyeing it. The liquid inside was thick, viscous, leaving after-impressions on the inside of the vial as he moved it. He cocked an eyebrow, and addressed the Emperor without taking his gaze from the vial.
“What is it?”
Disguised 2/2
The box was gone from the Emperor’s hands, which he clapped like an excited child.
“It’s a special, very expensive and rare potion!” The Emperor said, with obvious glee.
Would you handle it if it weren’t expensive and rare? Einar thought, but did not say.
“Ah, but,” Dargal continued, raising one finger to draw attention to his forthcoming point, “it is not so much a gift, as a tool for a service.”
Einar grunted. “Another job?”
Dargal nodded, a big grin spreading over his thin lips. “It’s an extract of yeti's blood, distilled by my own court alchemist,” he explained. “It insulates the blood against the bitterest of cold.” The grin turned into a smirk. “You’ll need that where you’re going.”
“The Samorn Mountains.” Einar said – it wasn’t a question. “After your lost caravan, I take it?”
Everyone from the Imperial Palace to distant Pardan Bay had heard of the royal caravan that got caught in a rockslide in the Samorns. It was on everyone’s lips, and probably more than a few enterprising “treasure hunters” had already headed that way.
Emperor Dargal clapped the much bigger man on the forearm, then withdrew his hand, as if the gesture had been a surprise, even to him.
“Yes! They were carrying some very dangerous and valuable magical implements north, to the tower of the wizard Alcando. You must see that they reach him.” He paused in thought, then said, “the other goods – offerings, mostly – are trivial. If you are of mind to take any of them, you may consider it a bonus on top of your fee.”
Einar looked worried for a moment. “Alcando? The wizard who swore to hex my entire family if he saw me again, that Alcando?”
His worry was dismissed with a wave of the Emperor’s hand. “Please, Einar! This is a royal mission. You are my envoy, and Alcando is not so rash as to risk insulting the Empire over a personal squabble.”
Einar felt uncertain, and his face showed his apprehension. But he nodded.
Dargal’s smile turned sly, and he spoke as if he were about to bring Einar in on some shady conspiracy.
“What you need looks like nothing more than simple scribe’s tools; Alcando knows the magic to remove their disguise.”
“So what are they, really?”
The Emperor shrugged. “Magic tools of some kind. Implements for some sorcery or another. Valuable to him, profitable for me. And for you, as it happens!”
Einar tucked the vial into a pouch on his belt, studying the old Emperor with a blank expression. “I take it you also have a payment in mind.”
Emperor Dargal laughed – a sound like a startled raven taking flight – and produced a scroll from within a sleeve of his robe. “Alcando has your payment. This writ will see that you get it.”
Einar pocketed the scroll. “That’s it? Get the tools, take what I want, give the tools to Alcando?”
Emperor Dargal nodded, his face suddenly serious. “And don’t get killed. No doubt the looters – as you presume there are – would hate competition. And they’ve probably stirred up all manner of snow beasts.”
The big mercenary nodded, turned, and strode toward the doors, not waiting to be dismissed. Dargal called to him as he left. “Be careful, boy! I’ll have need of you again when you return!”
Einar sighed to himself as he pushed past the door-guards. Royal jobs paid well, sure, but clearing a den of giant spiders for a farmer, or rescuing a child from goblin bandits was much easier.
As the guards closed the doors behind the mercenary, Emperor Dargal resumed his seat upon his throne, a smug smile playing over his lips. Alcando had paid the Emperor quite handsomely; to have a full set of daggers from the long-gone Mer-folk of the Western Sea was extraordinary. And how good they looked in his gallery of treasures! Such rarities had to be worth several tons of gold. He was surely well-compensated.
But he wished he could be there when the vial of poison took hold of that impetuous, rude man, just the same.
Greg - yes, it is very nice. Kids are entertained and I don't have to do it. Parents are entertained and I don't have to do it. It's pretty much perfect, really.
This is great. I think the pink shirt that fits none of them might be my favorite detail, funnily enough :)
Morganna - ooh, this sounds very interesting. I hope we'll get to see some more from this tale?
Kyle - good, don't be sorry :)
Another fascinating entry from you. Great details (I loved the description of the vial in particular), an intriguing set of characters, and a surprising twist to end things off.
Glad to have you back writing with us :)
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