Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 16

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Chapter Sixteen: Wherein we travel for two days without may companion uttering a single word.

Jholeira curled up in my blanket next to the fire and went to sleep without another word. I didn’t think this strange, but when she did not deign to speak to me the following morning I began to feel a little put off. I decided that if she wasn’t going to speak to me, then I wouldn’t speak to her either. We packed up and left our campsite in complete silence. By elevenses I was getting rather tired of the quiet. Over a brief meal of raisins and cheese I tried first to coax her and then to trick her into speaking. She would have none of it however and I eventually stopped trying.

The little path that we followed wound down through a series of small valleys, eventually coming to the stream. The trees grew thick on both sides of the stream and indeed on the far side there was a vast expanse of forest that is Elven Wood. The stream itself was no more than twenty feet wide and its broadest expanse and in those places where it widened out thus, it was only a few inches deep. Though the banks were icy, the water was clear and free-flowing. Upon reaching it in late afternoon, we followed it southeast until, finding a narrow spot where the water deepened to several feet, I stopped to drink and look for fish.
The greatest skill I ever learned, with the single possible exception of story-telling which is more of an art form than a skill, is that of guddling fish. Fish which have swum up the shallow part of a stream, will often take shelter under a rock or a ledge when they come to a deeper and slower moving part of a river. When they do, they become prey for the guddler. He reaches his hand under the ledge, knowing where a fish ought to be, and carefully locates the fish’s tail. Then he begins tickling the fish with his finger, tickling its tail, then tickling its belly, and finally tickling right under the gills. Then with a quick grasp, he pulls the fish from the water and tosses it up onto the shore, ready to be cleaned, cooked, and eaten. If the temperature of the water made the fish sluggish, you couldn’t tell it by the ones I found, though it didn’t do me any good sticking my arm in. I caught two lovely river trout that day, one which I cleaned and cooked over the fire for our supper, and the other which I kept captive by running a string through its gill, and tying one end to a sapling, and tossing the other end, attached to the fish, back in the water. This second fish we ate for breakfast.
It was late the following afternoon before we reached the intersection of the stream with the East Road. By this time I had resolved myself to the fact that my little orphan boy/girl was never going to speak to me again, but as we crossed the small bridge which spanned the juxtaposition of the road and the stream, as bridges are wont to do, she at last broke her silence.
“We should spend the night on this side of the stream.”
“Why?”
“The forest is dangerous, especially at night.”
“I don’t care,” said I. “I’m not talking to you.” “Yes you are,” she replied.
“No. I am not.”
“I was not talking to you, but now I am. But you are definitively talking to me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“I’m not talking to you. I’m just telling you that I’m not talking to you.”
“That means that you are talking to me, because in order to tell a person something you have to talk to them.”
“No you don’t.”
“Now you are just being contrary,” said she.
“No I’m not.”
“Fine,” said she. “I don’t care whether you are talking to me or not…”
“Yes you do.”
“I don’t care whether you are talking to me or not and I don’t care whether you are being contrary or not. In either case we should spend the night on this side of the stream.”
“No we shouldn’t,” said I.
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I explained.
“Well as long as your reasoning is sound,” said she.
“No it isn’t.”
We spent the night on the west side of the bridge, just at the edge of the trees on that side of the stream. By the time we made camp, it was too late for me to find any fish to guddle, so we ate dried beef and drank coffee for our supper. Jholeira curled up in the only blanket while I snuggled up in my coat and set my head upon a large flat rock to use as a pillow.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’m sorry I stopped talking to you. You have been a very great help to me and you didn’t have to and here I am wrapped up in your only blanket while you have nothing but your coat to keep you warm.”
“I have the fire. Besides, it is only fitting that you have the blanket, being an orphan or a girl or a princess or some combination of the three.”
I stayed awake quite late watching the stars and listening to Hysteria complain about her lack of oats. She should have happy, as in that particular spot by the bridge there grew not only an abundance of grass but some early flowering szigimon, which any stable master can tell you is the very best horse feed in the world. Many times she has had to make due with busy grass, which is the least best horse feed in the world—not that it is bad for horses, but it does nothing more than give them something to chew on and doesn’t provide any real nourishment. You would think by now she would know when she had it good.
“What are you doing?” asked a small voice from the other side of the campfire.
“I’m pondering horse feed,” said I.
“Well, go to sleep.” It must have been some kind of elf magic, because no sooner had she said this than my eyes closed, seemingly of their own volition.

Amathar – Recycling & Repairing

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Kate S. pointed out a feature of Amatharian society that I had actually forgotten about– recycling. Everything in Amathar is recycled from the clothing they wear to the massive aerial warships. I honestly don’t think a society of billions of people is truly sustainable in the long run if they don’t figure out how to recycle or reuse their waste products.

In addition, the Amatharians repair everything. We forget that just a few years ago, almost every town in America had an appliance repair shop that fixed everything from electric fans to toasters. In 1955 you might pay $25.oo for a new toaster, but you could get yours repaired for 50 cents. Today you can buy a similar product (not exactly, because toasters were made much better in the 50s) for $20.00 but it would cost you $125.00 to get it repaired. The Amatharians don’t have that problem. They don’t have money. Young Amatharians learn how to repair things as training for later making things and inventing new things.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 27 Excerpt

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When Noriandara Remontar and I finally felt we were well provisioned enough for a relatively long sea voyage, we pulled the raft down to the water and placed all of our supplies on it. Then we climbed on. There was just barely enough room for us and our things, and it was impossible for both of us to lie down and sleep at the same time. It was planned that we would take turns paddling and resting. At first we both paddled to get away from the shore, and it was only after the edge of the water was only a dim line in the distance that we settled into our rotation.
The reflected sun on the water made the air a little warmer than it had been for us on the shore. At least that is my explanation for it, not being a meteorologist myself. It was by no means uncomfortable though. Indeed, if it had been a more comfortable vessel in which we found ourselves, I would have thought this the most pleasant of vacations. The water was cool but it was difficult to see down into it more than a foot or so. Perhaps this had something to do with the salt content. When the job of rowing became overtaxing, the Princess would remove her tabard and boots, and slide over the side of the raft into the water to cool off. I did this too on occasion, though more often I would simply scoop out a basket full of water to poor over my head. There was something unwholesome about an ocean with no fish. I had little problem swimming around in the Pacific Ocean near Catalina Island on Earth despite the fact that it is the summer feeding grounds for the Great White Shark– not that I didn’t think about them. At least there, they had plenty of sea lions and fish to choose from. Here in the fishless water, if some great voracious creature decided it was hungry, it didn’t have much from which to choose. The Princess and I were, not respectively, the main course and desert.
“How large do you suppose this sea to be?” I asked my companion.
“I do not believe it is much more than one hundred kentads (about two hundred miles),” she replied. “We should be across it before our food runs low.”
“How can you be sure?” “I am not sure. But I have a sense for these things.”

Senta and the Steel Dragon Illustrations

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“I never expected you to be so week,” said Iolanthe.
Images Copyright 2009 by Clipart.com

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 15

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Chapter Fifteen: Wherein we take the road less traveled
The following morning found both Jholeira and me awake and refreshed. So we made an early start. It was not as early as Ellwood Cyrene who had left at the crack of dawn. However when I went down to the common room that morning, not only did I find that my friend had paid for breakfast for my elf girl and myself, but he had left a package for me as well. Wrapped in a large oiled cloth were several pounds of dried beef, a wheel of yellow cheese, two or three pounds of raisins and a small cloth sack with a half dozen coins in it.
Ellwood Cyrene never seemed to be in need of money, despite the fact that he seldom took payment for his many acts of manly heroism. I have seen a bucket of gold coins gathered together by a town to pay the hero that saved them from the threat of a raging monster, only to have it politely refused by a smiling Ellwood Cyrene. I have seen him pass out coppers to every orphan in a six block radius of the inn in which he was staying. To be fair I have seen him plunder more than one baggage train, and on numerous occasions he has rifled through the pockets of a man he has just stabbed– but who hasn’t done that, when you get right down to it.
I was not able to procure any oats for my poor steed, which is to say Hysteria, but I did get a small bundle of dried hay to supplement the small amount of forage we were likely to find in that country in winter.
We set off on the East Road, but following the advice I had been given, we soon turned off to the north, following a cattle path that wandered over the hills and down into the valley. Our new path veered off from our previous course, but not enough that I thought we would lose our way. In fact at tea time, we stopped among a small copse of trees at the top of a hill. From this point we were able to look down to the south across a vast valley. True to Ellwood’s warning, a great battle was being fought. It was impossible to tell who the two sides were, as their banners at this distance were too difficult to read. All that was certain was that both sides were humans. I took some small pains to make sure that we weren’t spotted, but considering the distance and the chaos on the battlefield, I judged that there was little chance of it.
After journeying the remainder of the day, we made camp just off the path in a little hollow which had been formed by three massive boulders piled one atop of the other two. I can only imagine that some giant piled them up thus as there was no nearby mountain down which they might have slid to come to rest in such a fortuitous configuration, which is to say a pretty good shape.
“We should reach the edge of Elven Wood tomorrow,” I told my companion.
“Really? I don’t seem to recognize any landmarks.”
“Maybe when we get closer,” I offered. “How long since you’ve been home?”
“Six or seven years I would suppose.”
“That must be tough, being without your family for so long.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And what about you? You’ve been without your family for quite a while now too.”
“What?”
“How long has it been?”
“How long has what been?”
“How long has it been since your family disappeared?”
“Oh. That. I really can’t say.”“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Jholeira stood up and began to pace back and forth beside the campfire. “The purple drops on the floor, as I’ve already said, could be from the blueberry pie you were expecting.”
“Fiends!” said I.
“As far as Gervil’s knife being stuck in his bed is concerned, that could be an indicator of foul play or of nothing at all.”
“I see.”
“The floorboards being pried up however tells us something. Whoever the culprit or culprits were, they were looking for something hidden under the floor. Money maybe? Family jewels?”
“The unpublished manuscripts of the world famous Eaglethorpe Buxton,” I offered.
“I suppose that is conceivable,” said she. “What I don’t understand is the onions in the rafters. The only thing I can think of is that they were trying to ward off vampires.”
“Monsters!” said I. “But wait. Isn’t that supposed to be garlic?”
“Maybe they couldn’t find any. Or maybe they didn’t know the difference. Garlic looks a lot like an onion.”
“Oh, my family would know the difference,” said I. “My poor old father was a fine onion farmer. In fact one variety, the Winter Margram onion was named for him. My cousin Gervil wrote an epic poem about onions, though I was never able to memorize more than the first five hundred twelve lines.”
“Is that all?” she wondered.
“Tuki was Onion Queen three years running.”
“So it is possible that your family would have had onions around? Say, hanging from the rafters?”
“Only at harvest time.”
“Was it harvest time?”“Was what harvest time?”“Was it harvest time when your family disappeared?”
“It could have been.”
“So there really are no clues at all,” postulated the half-orphan.
“What about the tracks?” I asked. “What about the tracks that ended mysteriously after only fifty feet?”
“You said it was a stormy night. The rain probably washed the tracks away.”
“You’re right,” said I. “The next time it will be morning.”
“What do you mean next time?”
“Um, nothing.”
“You mean the next time your family gets kidnapped or the next time you tell this?”
“Well…”
“Your family never was stolen at all!” She stood up with back straight and finger pointed accusingly. She looked quite intimidating. “You lied!”
“It’s wasn’t a lie,” I explained. “It was a story. Well, it was a first draft.”

Amathar – Writing

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One of the ideas that I had about Amatharian culture was the imporance of writing and by extension of penmanship. I also liked the idea that their writing might have letters that looked like something other than abstract shapes. We usually forget that some of our own letters, in the distant past, came from pictographic writing.

The book was very much like the book of Amath’s teachings which Norar Remontar had previously shown me. It was a bound volume with a spine, and it had a cover made of leather. The pages were made of a material something like plastic. They were thin and they could bend like paper, but they had a strength far beyond any paper product. The entire book was written in Amatharian, which of course I was unable to read, but the lines and letters seemed to be laid out in a familiar fashion. As I had noticed, the characters resembling simple line drawings of stylized animals and other almost familiar images. After staring at it for a moment, I almost thought that I could see tiny predators ready to pounce upon their prey.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 26 Excerpt

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Climbing down the ladder in the open air, to the landing platform two hundred feet below might have created problems for anyone with a fear of heights, but it was nothing compared to the trip from the platform to the ground on a strand of plastic cable. I am not prone to acrophobia, but was still unnerved. I thought for a moment that the city had gained altitude since we had come aboard, but quickly realized that this was not so, as the cables were still trailing along the ground at about the same length.
“I’ll go down first,” I said. “Follow me.”
I wanted to make sure that if she fell, I would have a chance to catch her, and likewise if I were to fall, that I would not knock her off as well. She nodded, and I started down. The climb was much easier than I expected. I had gotten used to the effect that the lower gravity had upon me when I walked, ran, or picked something up. I had forgotten that the same principles would apply in this situation, allowing me to lift my own body with much greater ease than I would have had I been on Earth.
About half way down the cord to the ground, I stopped and looked up to check on the Princess’s progress. She was some thirty feet above me and seemed to be having no trouble with the descent. I paused for a moment to look around and noticed for the first time that as we were climbing down one rope, something was climbing up another. About fifty feet away from our position, a creature was ascending. It was horrible looking. It was frighteningly ugly. It was the stuff of nightmares. I was thankful for the eternal daylight of Ecos, for to face such a thing in the darkness was something I had no wish to contemplate. About twice the height of a man, the creature was covered with slime-dripping green hair. Its upper extremities were half hands, half flippers and its lower extremities were even more flipper-like, with suction cups lining the interiors. Its face was nothing more that a large sucker with a stinger or a long tusk protruding from it.
“Amath preserve us!” cried the Princess, seeing the thing for the first time.
“Indeed,” I replied, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“No, and I hope I never do again.”
The creature stared at us for several moments with its malevolent yellow eyes drilling holes into us. It then looked up and down. Then it attempted to swing the cord it was climbing, as if to, Tarzan-like, propel itself over to us. Quickly realizing that it would not be able to do so, it turned its attention away from us and resumed its task of making toward the hovering city.
“I hate to think of that thing preying on our flyers,” I said.
“Or the Kartags,” said Noriandara Remontar, and I agreed. I wouldn’t have turned that creature loose on a Zoasian.

Senta and the Steel Dragon Illustration

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Native Lizzie Art.
Images Copyright 2009 by Clipart.com

Donation Button

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I added a donation button because several people asked me to. If you downloaded and read “His Robot Girlfried” or “Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess” or even “Women of Power” and you want to pay for it you can. Still, I would rather if you liked one of the above books, that you purchase “Princess of Amathar”.

Some other comments by readers.

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I Am An An Incredibly Huge Fan Ive Already Read This Book (his robot Girlfriend) On My iPhone And I’m Working On Your Other Two. I Would Love Any Advice You Can Give About Writing Books. (Im Working ON A Book Of Poems Right now)

I loved His Robot Girlfriend and have added this to my TBR list.

It was a fun read, read it pretty quickly this afternoon! Good job.

Just wanted to say thank you! I’m about half way through it and its great so far.

I read this book for 3 straight hours last night, until I couldn’t stay awake to read any more. I’ve just started chapter 10, so I’m nearly finished. I can’t wait to dip back into it and finish it tonight.Its fun and a nice, light read. Thanks for sharing your book with us, Wes… I want my own Daffodil now!

It’s pretty interesting to be at the point where enough people have read my books to start giving me some feedback. As I have posted elsewhere, when someone reads your writing they are really doing you a favor, even more so when they have paid to do so. Thanks to all of you who have read my books.