Novel Treatments / Dreamweaver - Chapter 10
I have no idea how I managed to sleep that night. Amirra and I spoke little, but lay side by side, afraid to venture out by ourselves. All I know is one minute I was staring up into the endless grey that stretched overhead, and the next Amirra was shaking me awake. I opened my eyes to see her leaning over me and, past her, a clear blue sky. The first thought I had was that I hadn’t dreamed. Wonderful, I’d traded my nightmare for reality. The second was the realization that there was no way the sky was supposed to be blue. I sat up quickly, stumbling to my feet. The grey expanse was cut off about twenty feet above my head, meeting a solid wall of still blue sky, very bright considering I couldn’t see a sun, and looking incredibly out of place.
The vision overhead was completely void of clouds, and with its suspicious lack of sun, the blazing blue looked less like a sky than a backdrop to one of michaelangelo’s paintings. Amirra and I stood in silence, not quite believing this fairly ordinary site in such an extraordinary place.
“Why is…” I didn’t finish, didn’t have to.
“I don’t know.” Amirra said curtly, but with a slight tremor in her voice.
A moment of silence, both of us still craning our necks, then “Where’s Tiu, anyway?”
I looked around, I had forgotten Ganymede’s promise that another player in this sick game was coming to ‘help’ us. Great.
“I don’t know.” I finally answered, seeing no sign of any great mythological figure, “Maybe… maybe we missed him? Could he have come before we woke up?”
Amirra didn’t get a chance to respond, because at that moment, a three foot long spear whistled through the air at an impossible speed, landing inches from my feet. Amirra didn’t flinch, I, on the other hand, yelled out and nearly fell over backwards. Amirra snickered, but just then another spear, similar to the first, flew through the air, straight down this time, and directly into the hood of Amirra’s coat. The arrow caught the jacket with such force that Amirra was thrown violently to the ground, letting out a shrill shreak as she fell. We stared wide eyed at each other for a moment, she still lying on the hard ground, half obscured by mist, and me standing, shocked, above her.
She yanked the spear from her hood and got up shakily. I followed suit, pulling the first spear from the ground. It was silver steel, laced with veins of shimmering gold, with a sharp and lethal looking tip. Amirra’s was identical, except the body was solid gold, with veins of silver running from end to tip instead.
“It’s beautiful…” Amirra said, both admiring and suspicious of the weapon that could have taken her life. We looked up, waiting for the next attack.
The silence didn’t last long. Soon the whistling sound returned, and we both looked up, ready to leap out of the way of any oncoming spears. At first we saw nothing, but the sound persisted, and a black dot appeared far above us. We watched in awe as it became recognizable as another golden spear, but not an ordinary one, but a far, far larger version of the weapons we held in our hands. It seemed to only grow bigger as it approached, and the whistling mounted into a scream. Now a man became visible, straddling the weapon like a witch on a broomstick. The man, like the spear, was massive, with billowing black hair and dressed head to toe in studded armor. Still fifty feet from the ground, the man leaped cat like into the air and landed hard, but on his feet, on the ground, scattering the mists in his wake.
He didn’t even wince. All this time I had stood, eyes wide open in shock, completely frozen to the ground, but as this massive guy, probably nine or ten feet tall, approached me, the spell broke. I backed away, not in the awkward, unconscious way I had avoided Ganymede, but instead frantically, and by God fearfully stumbling through the mists. This guy was scary, and he looked strong, very strong, so powerful he could snap me in half without breaking a sweat. I was about to turn around and run with my tail between my legs when Amirra did something I would have judged as very stupid. She stuck her spear into the ground and walked straight into the giant’s path. He stopped and glared down at her.
“Who are you?” She demanded as he opened his mouth, “Why are you throwing spears at us, and why are you attacking my friend? We’ve done nothing against you.”
I was shocked at her bravery, and briefly wondered if she had a death wish. The giant’s eyes widened in anger, but then relaxed as his face split in a wide grin.
“I admire your bravery, girl. You could teach something to your friend here.” Amirra said nothing, but stood stoically in front of him, unfazed by his massive frame and wild demeanor.
“You, coward, come forward.” He bellowed, and I scampered up to Amirra’s side. He glared at me for a minute, then addressed Amirra.
“I am Tiu,” considering how he looked and acted, his voice was surprisingly gentle, “The Norse god of war and sky.”
Something clicked in my memory, and before I could stop myself I burst out, “You’re the one who tricked Frenrir, that giant wolf, into being chained by a magic rope and… and he bit off your hand.”
I looked down, and, sure enough, his left arm ended in a mangled stump. Tiu glared at me once again, then, seeming reluctant to speak to the likes of me, he nodded curtly.
“Tiu… bravest of the gods.” Amirra muttered.
Tiu’s gaze returned to her and he smiled again, completely won over by her bravery and simple, matter-of-fact flattery. Amirra didn’t smile back, but held his gaze steadily.
“Where are we traveling to today?” She asked, all business, “Is there anything we should know before you leave us with your guide?”
Tiu averted his eyes to me, “Today you will learn two crucial points to your success. First, you will learn how to bind your enemy as I bound mine, secondly, and more importantly, you will learn bravery in the face of your enemy. My guide will teach you the first, and you will learn to find bravery today, coward, or die trying.” I gulped, finding no response.
“Now!” he said, walking away from us, “My guide!” At his words the whistling sounded once again, and, on a smaller but still massive spear another figure arrived. The spear took a nose dive, then pulled up moments before smashing it’s rider in to the ground.
Unfazed, the new arrival calmly leaped onto solid ground.
“This,” said Tiu proudly, “Is my apprentice, Fortise.” Fortise was an interesting sight, to say the least. Unlike Tiu’s armor, he wore a black flowing robe and pant set similar to the outfits affiliated with the martial arts. His blonde hair was long and pulled back in a low ponytail, and he was slim, only average height. All these contrasts melted, however, when you saw the fierce look in his eyes, so similar to Tiu’s. He bowed deeply to Tiu, then inclined his head to both Amirra and I in turn. Tiu turned to his guide,
“Fortise, teach them well, their lives depend on their ability to learn.” Fortise nodded, he didn’t seem to be much of a conversationalist.
“Girl, Coward, keep the spears you have dodged, you will need weapons today.” Tiu laughed, not unkindly, but like a kid enjoying a good ol’ game of hide-and-go-seek, then disappeared as Selene had done, along with his gigantic weapon, leaving us alone with Fortise. Gulp.
Fortise remained stoically silent for a moment more, then said abruptly, “Come, we have much to do.”
He then turned and started walking briskly away from us. I looked at Amirra, remembering Ganymede’s warning.
“Should we trust him?” I whispered.
Amirra shrugged and met my gaze, “What choice do we have?”
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Your writing is worth comenting on as it is really quite good. Your imagery, looking past the grey expanse, cut off about twenty feet above my head, meeting a solid wall of still blue sky, very bright considering I couldn’t see a sun, and looking incredibly out of place. This very good imagery.
“Why is…” I didn’t finish, didn’t have to. >>> I liked this. Very down to earth.
I do believe you have some punctuation errors but those can easily be corrected in your finale draft.
The man appearing with the spear clad in armour was another good example of good imagery. Well done.
I did notice a few sentences that could be tightened, but not many. This is good work and you certainly have writing talent. The story is very good and I’m not really into these kinds of stories. So that’s a big plus. The story was so interesting in fact that I had to go back over it to look for errors.:)
Excellent work. Good luck.
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Not bad, but like many people on this website you need to work on showing, rahter than telling. Why does it matter, you may ask? The reason why showing rather than telling is important is because of what the readers imagination does. You, as the writer, have a crystal clear vision of your characters, of how they move, of how they speak. You have a perfect vision of the scenery, the tall trees, the wind whipping passed. We can’t go into your mind, so we must settle with the next best thing- your words. Now, if your words aren’t descriptive enough, how are we going to know what the sky looks like? How the characters react to some things? So, show, don’t tell.
Overall, was a decent piece, would have made more sense if I had read the first few (But seeing as we can’t unless it is in the review cue without not being able to review), but you need to work on yuor descriptions and details.
Well, you certainly are not lacking for creativity. There are a few minor grammatical things that I would pick at a bit more. Simple things, sentence structure that could be toyed with, phrasing, etc…Nothing major, and most of it is technically correct, so it mostly falls under style, which I won’t try to preach on. My only complaint is that it drags a bit in the middle. I was interested in the beginning, and then picked up again, but the middle was a little harder to get through. I think you could probably work on this by minimizing your description of the spear goings on. I take it this is a much longer project. Good luck with that.
Finally the plt thickens!
It is a good piece with lots of intention and clever writing prose.
I am introgiues and widh to read even more now so I can finally see what is going to happen.
This is my fave passage:
The silence didn’t last long. Soon the whistling sound returned, and we both looked up, ready to leap out of the way of any oncoming spears. At first we saw nothing, but the sound persisted, and a black dot appeared far above us. We watched in awe as it became recognizable as another golden spear, but not an ordinary one, but a far, far larger version of the weapons we held in our hands. It seemed to only grow bigger as it approached, and the whistling mounted into a scream. Now a man became visible, straddling the weapon like a witch on a broomstick. The man, like the spear, was massive, with billowing black hair and dressed head to toe in studded armor. Still fifty feet from the ground, the man leaped cat like into the air and landed hard, but on his feet, on the ground, scattering the mists in his wake.
oooooh, I like where this one is going. Keep it up!
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