Written by Elizabeth Barrette for the Crowdfunding Creative Jam. I’m currently in the process of working out if this is a part of the canon for the World Walkers collection or whether the Shyders are a part of an alternate universe.
WARNING: This poem is about giant phantasmic creatures based on trapdoor spiders. If you are uncomfortable with arachnids or abduction, definitely skip this one.
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Written for a Crowdfunding Creative Jam prompt: Portals only work for the person who made them–but they can be made out of any material, using any craft.
‘Magic is an evolving thing in the Web. When the fae first stepped onto Athare they were the only race and their decision, which even now seems ludicrous, was to create more worlds. The problem with the fae is that their magic uses up the magic within the core of a world like Athare, which is something they only realised after they destroyed the world they were living on, which left them with their only options being move or die. They chose to move to another world, and when you think about it that does make sense because death really isn’t that much of a choice, and they were lucky enough to end up on an uninhabited planet.
‘At least the fae believed it was uninhabited, but it may have been. I don’t think they took the time to check before they started playing around with things they probably shouldn’t have.’ Sighing, Leolin dipped his pen into the ink bottle on the desk, and told himself to stop rambling. His notes were full of times when he ended up rambling about something totally off topic, so they were probably never going to be of any use to anyone, not that he thought anyone would be able to read them. Writing in an old language was good for keeping knowledge hidden from prying eyes.
‘Now the fae created three races on Athare and the first demon found was from one of those races. That is one example of the magic evolving, because the fae never planned for anyone else to have the ability to travel from one world to another, but the magic decided otherwise. It seems that now the demon’s magic is evolving, which is of great interest to both me and the Walkers.’ The Walkers, thankfully, didn’t execute demons any more. Instead they were stuck in a cell for the rest of their natural lives, which was, of course, a logical reaction to the problem. Sometimes Leolin hated the Walkers, even though he knew that they were only the way they were because of the way they were trained.
‘From what I’ve heard there are some demons who can create portals. Unfortunately these portals aren’t like the natural doors or the doors that were originally created by the fae, because it seems that only the person who created the portal can use it. They do seem to last, as long as they’re made from something that isn’t likely to fall apart in a strong gust of wind, and it is a great help to demons who find themselves stuck on worlds because one of the doors has changed on them.
‘There do appear to be some limitations. None of the worlds connected to Kniroch permit a door being created to or from there and some demons have been found trapped there. Aerith, Taithmarin, and Kankirin, if they do exist, are also hidden from us, but really that isn’t much of a surprise.’ Leolin was certain that the three lost worlds did exist, because there were still people who disappeared and never returned, so it made sense that they would be trapped on one of those worlds. Unfortunately there was no way to prove it.
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Written for a Crowdfunding Creative Jam picture prompt: http://www.zastavki.com/pictures/1920×1200/2009/Fantasy_Portal_015372_.jpg.
‘There are doors, and it seems like the number of them is increasing, that will take you to different places depending on how many moons (if there’s more than one) are visible, the phases of the moon(s), and occasionally even what the weather is. I once found myself stepping through a door I thought for certain would take me to Gaelom, because that was where it had taken me every other time I’d stepped through it, only to find myself in the middle of nowhere on Raenarin. I was grateful I was in the middle of nowhere, but it was a real irritation. Now I’ve tested that door many times and it seems that it only takes a travelled to Raenarin if it’s raining.
‘One of my favourite doors is one on Siaral. Siaral has four moons, which makes the door very interesting. It’s a door that works by moon phases and, thankfully, doesn’t appear to be affected by the weather.’ Leolin had found a door that was both affected by moon phases and the weather, but that was one he was still testing to see where he would end up. It was much harder when they were affected by the weather, because he had to wait for specific weathers to happen.
‘It’s in the middle of one of the forested areas and there may be unicorns wandering about. No one needs to worry about them, they will keep all demons a secret, because they believe that magic should be allowed to be magic. The Walkers mostly annoy them.’ One of Leolin’s favourite worlds was Siaral. He spent a lot of time there, when he wasn’t working, because it was much freer that Athare. Athare was the one world that no demon wanted to live on, because of the Council.
‘On nights when there are two waxing half moons visible in the sky above the portal, and it must be the two purple moons, you can step through onto Oracle. Getting to Kniroch’s sibling worlds is something I always wanted to do, so managing to finally find a door that took me to one of them was a real step forward in my research. There’s only one problem. The door on Oracle won’t appear again until the night of two waxing half moons on Siaral, which means knowing the phases of the moon is a must, and I ended up stuck on Oracle for nearly a year.
‘Now I have a better understanding of the moons of Siaral, so I have the freedom to travel to Oracle when I wish to. It’s an amazing feeling, and I made sure to pass on the information to other demons, because it’s a world the Walkers can’t get to. Since I did a demon settlement has appeared, because it’s a world they feel safe on, and I’ve promised to let them know if I find any other doors that will lead to one of Kniroch’s sibling worlds, especially Oracle. I hope I will find more.’
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Shyders are now probably canon, but it’s not definite yet.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Written for a Crowdfunding Creative Jam prompt: A surprise trap door.
At first all Lance could do was sit where he’d landed. There’d been no warning before he fell through what he guessed was a hole and he was certain that it hadn’t been there when he’d walked to work. No one had told him about it either, which seemed a little strange because it was the main route from their settlement to the market place. Slowly he looked up at where he expected the hole to be, but there was nothing there. Well, there was something there, but it wasn’t a hole. It was a… ceiling? He shook his head. Ceiling was the wrong word. Looking around gave him the idea he was in a relatively dark cave, although there was light coming from somewhere near, and there didn’t seem to be any way back to where he’d been before.
Breathing deeply, because it seemed the logical thing to do, Lance tried to calm himself down. Everyone had heard stories about people who’d accidentally found a door and ended up on a different world. All he had to do was find his way back home. He pushed the reminders of the other stories, the ones where someone disappeared and never came back, as far away as they would go. That wasn’t going to happen to him. Unsure whether he could stand he put his hands on what felt like a cold rock floor and tried to push himself up. It hadn’t felt like he’d fallen that far, or onto rock, so he didn’t think he’d hurt himself. If anything was going to stop him standing it was going to be shock.
Once Lance was upright, and glad the cave was as big as it looked from his position on the floor, he made a start on walking in the general direction of the light. It gave him hope that there might be other people somewhere within the caves, because he needed to, at the very least, find out where he was. He couldn’t think of any worlds he knew with a cave system, but he didn’t know all that much about the Web. For the first time he realised he should have asked his demon cousin more questions about the travelling she did, because it would have come in handy, even though he’d never planned on leaving his home world. That was the problem with living on a magical world: occasionally it decided what was best for you.
Lance tried to remember some of what he’d overheard her talking about, because both his brother and sister were interested in all the worlds she visited. It was harder than he needed it to be, but it was his own fault, so he kept walking as he tried to work out where in the Web he might be. By the time he walked into a… he stared at the creature, almost unable to believe his own eyes, even though it did make sense for a rabbit to be underground. That was when he realised he’d left the rock behind a while ago.
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Written for a Crowdfunding Creative Jam prompt: secret passwords.
The safest way to get around Kalinia was mirror travel. Every magician had a mirror in one of their rooms and all of the mirrors had different passwords. Sometimes a magician would attempt to work out the password for someone they didn’t like, to attempt an assassination, but that rarely worked. In the communal hallway there might be another mirror, this one set for more general travel, because the magicians knew better to than to enter the studies of their enemies through the door. Doors were too easy to booby trap. Rynne didn’t know anything about the mirrors, or even that the world she’d travelled to hundreds of times was called Kalinia, until she was taken, if that was the right word, by one of the magicians.
Well, Rynne had known they existed, but like all of the thieves she assumed that they were nothing more than mirrors. There was so much they didn’t know about the magic the magicians used, and the magic they were trying to gain, that she was beginning to think that the only way they could learn about it all was if they were in Kalinia. For the first time she knew the history of the two worlds, why the thieves existed, why the magicians allowed the thieves to take what they did, and just how much of a mess the whole thing really was. A part of her wanted to wait until one of the thieves she knew entered the house she lived in and tell them, but she knew they wouldn’t believe her. They’d just think she’d been brainwashed.
On her first journey through the mirror Rynne had been surprised at how smooth the journey was. In seconds she’d arrived at the White house, which had a Kalinian name that she wasn’t permitted to learn, and was stood in front of a group of people she’d been taught to hate. It was uncomfortable to say the least. She was tempted to turn around, go back through the mirror, and wait until her magician returned, but she knew she was going to have to learn to deal with the other magicians eventually and it was never going to get any easier.
That was easily the hardest thing Rynne had done since she made the choice that her life was more important to her than the thieves. Standing there, with all of them looking at her, and knowing that she hadn’t really known anything about them before, and more importantly hadn’t cared because they were just magicians. Maybe she wasn’t going to like them all, but they deserved to be given a chance because they were people too. It made her angry to think that she’d been taught, the same way all the thieves were taught, that the magicians were evil, when really the first thief had someone’s jealous brother. He’d put so much effort in to getting to Kalinia, creating a group of people who would do the hard work for her, and they hadn’t managed to fulfil his greatest desire. Power still resided in the hands of the magicians.
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
Tired. So very very tired. Night shifts are not fun and we still have more to look forwards to, which isn’t something I’m particularly happy about. I think the hardest part is trying to work during the day while James is asleep, especially as he snores and that makes it really hard to concentrate.
However I have written some new stories, thanks to the Crowdfunding Creative Jam over at LiveJournal and Dreamwidth. I have another couple to go and then I’m done with all the prompts that gained my attention. Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette I may also have a new canon character for the World Walkers collection: the Shyders.
The fanfiction page has been updated, so check it out if you’re interested in writing any.
My favourite recent opinion of the fae: The clue, they have it not. (From Elizabeth Barrette.)
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
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