Hi everyone, This is part two to this story I wanted a separate thread as I believe the ending of the first one suffers if read as one document. (And as usual, you need to have read: The Fall of Turochlitan) for any this to make sense: ----------------------- Kayishen spoke on my behalf at the trial. That was a surprise to me, I had no idea why she would do such a thing, but later it was clear that she wanted me to join her like so many had. But at the time it came as a big shock. She told the judge that my father was prone to violence which wasn't really true, but when you are staring at an axe in the neck you aren't prone to argue. The fact that she spoke on my behalf cleared me entirely, it was the first time that I realised how much influence she truly wielded. Afterwards she asked me to visit her in the temple, I figured I owed her that much. She taught me about the three gods, my father was attached to god of knowledge, of change. But that wasn't my path she said, as I stared at her blankly. She told me about the god of violence, about how those that could kill survived, that perhaps I had done the right thing. She could see I wasn’t buying it so she told me about the god of vices. That I had to give into my temptations. I finally understood and I smiled. She told me that if someone was to stand in my way, it made sense to remove them. Yes, I said, Father had been holding me back. She taught me how to worship this god, and I walked about of that temple with new found knowledge. My knowledge was that Kayishen was insane, and I was lucky she bought my lies, probably because she was so desperate to convert me. I agreed with her ramblings of Phidas to shut her up. I wished I could have stuck a knife in her then, I would have tried if I had brought one. It was now clear to me that I had to get out of Turochlitan. I made contact with Ellamindra, my old girlfriend. She worked around the Skinks priests, so I knew she could get me to them. I wouldn't say that she was eager to see me given recent events, but once I told her what was happening and what I was going to do about it, she opened up to me. But it wasn't good news - there weren't any Skink Priests, not any more. I had no idea things were so bad. I decided I would go back to the temple, and kill Kayishen. If I could deal with my father, I could do it again. Ellamindra said I would never make it. The Skink Priests couldn't do anything, so what chance did I have? She had a point. But, she told me, the next day a group was leaving, she said, they were taking supplies, and they would try to find help. So we would leave. We would roam the jungle and find help. It wasn't long before we departed. Apparently we were the second group to leave, I wondered how long Kayishen would allow people to leave. I wondered if she even cared – going off into the jungle, nothing was around us, and what could we hope to find? And sure enough, things went from bad to worse. One by one we started to fall. A Cold One attack. Dehydration. A shattered knee and a difficult decision. We had to keep moving, we couldn't survive out there, but what were we moving to? We were just praying for a miracle. It wasn't long before it was just Ellamindra and myself. We were the youngest, fittest, and I had been carrying some of her gear and sneaking her additional rations. But soon I put my foot through a stick and, sure enough, it got infected. An infection, of course it would be that. The thing that father thought he had solved would be what killed me. At first my leg hurt, then slowly I became freezing. I was cold all the time yet still I trudged on. We had no food, sometimes we would find a palm to bring down, but the foliage was so thick it would mostly get stuck. It would take so much effort to bring it down too, and Ellamindra wasn't much help. She was content to see me do the work while we split the food. It was clear that it wouldn't be long. I had an infection, we both were starving. It wasn't fair, I carried more, I worked more, yet I would fall first. I wasn't proud of what happened next, but I refuse to dwell on it. I had food again, I had energy again, and I knew in my heart I would make it further alone than she could have. But the infection raged on, there wasn't any stopping that. For weeks now, each time the sun came up I was sure it would be the last one I would see. Yet I was especially sure the day my body expired, the day they found me. Skinks that I had never seen before. I told them what was happening, they seemed to understand and rushed me through the jungle. It was too late for my body though, after all that I had been through, I knew I couldn't hold on. My body was failing, I lay on their makeshift stretcher as they carried me through the forest, and soon, nothing but blackness. Until I jerked upright with an immense headache and a terrible feeling as some fat frogmen peered over me. I raised my hands to defend myself then saw what my arms now looked liked, green and scaled, and I screamed in a voice that was not my own.
Kurt Vonnegut said there were eight rules for writing a good short story. Obviously Discomute and I are most fond of rule six... Though you can't do rule six without rule two and D has a solid grasp of the whole set. Every time a writer makes a set of rules, I always am lukewarm for one. I disagree with eight. I don't believe it's wrong to follow eight, but I don't think it's required like other seven. I like surprises. 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4. Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action. 5. Start as close to the end as possible. 6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them–in order that the reader may see what they are made of. 7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. 8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Yep, Lovecraftian is definitely the word I was looking for! Another amazing short story! Brilliant suspense and great twist at the end!