Spark Finds Fuzz

 Part Three

Fuzz was exhausted. He had struggled futilely for hours against the sinews the Gobblers had bound him with. His wrists and ankles had been quite raw for a good long while. He was desperately worried for Rose and Lukus, and in spite of his years as a decorated soldier, he was in a losing battle with panic. At last, weariness came on him in such a way that he had no grasp of his passage into a fitful slumber.

He was writhing and rolling about in the throes of a nightmare about the Gobblers returning to enslave him. They wrestled and kicked him and cut him up with jabs from their spear points, loading him into one of their carts. As the terror became unbearable, Fuzz heard someone amongst them call out his name over and over. "How do Gobblers know my name?" he bellowed, rolling face up as he opened his eyes. "I can't see!"

"That's because it's after dark, Fuzz."

"Who...?"

"I'm Spark, Fuzz. You know, Spark!"

"Oh! Thanks be! We're delivered! Could you be so kind as to...?"

"Loosen your bindings? Absolutely. Pardon me, it's so dark, I'll have to..." said Spark as he conjured a bright green mage light between the palms of his hands. He set to at once, gnawing and picking at Fuzz's sinews. "Ah. Got that one. You'll have to roll over."

"You know Spark, it's been so long, I'd nearly forgotten that you could do that sort of thing," said Fuzz, as he licked at a freed wrist.

"Oh, it languishes. I was born with it, but I'm so feebly endowed, I don't fool with it for much of anything. Actually I don't remember having done anything with it in front of you before. Say. How'd you end up out here? Gobblers, I'd reckon, but I can't imagine you allowing yourself to get caught. Can you stand?"

"Whoa!" said Fuzz, pitching forward onto his knees. "Like a round bottomed bucket. I don't have any feeling in 'em yet, either. Yea, Gobblers! I..."

"'Scuse Fuzz, there's a little chocolate creek right here. Let's get you a drink. So. You were saying about the Gobblers? What were you doing out here?"

"Taking care of unfinished business in the service of the crown as Captain of the Royal Guard of Niarg, would you believe. And I still don't have it taken care of."

"What?"

"I was escorting the very prince and princess of Niarg to the sea to escape Ugleeuh, when we were waylaid by the sticky little curses."

"And they captured the prince and princess?"

"Almost certainly, but we were separated by my trying to divert them. They got me too quick. Rose and Lukus couldn't have had enough time to escape."

"Rose and Lukus. I'll bet they're the two Ugleeuh had with her this last spring when the Chocolate Volcano blew. She brought them along when she came up the mountain to insult and threaten me."

"They're her niece and nephew, would you believe?"

"No kidding. Why, they're nice looking kids."

"Well Queen Minuet, who's quite lovely, is Ugleeuh's half sister. And I've lost her kids for her, unless I come up with something immediately," said Fuzz as he rolled off his haunches and picked up an ankle to lick. "And I surely don't know how I'm going to do that. A thousand to one, they've taken them straight to the Gobbler castle, and that place is a fortress, quite a bastion indeed, bristly with little pike men all over, and a moat full of chocodiles. I couldn't have managed by myself back when I was a man at arms, let alone now that I'm a bear without arms. I've nothing with me, not even my miserable little dress dirk which is in a trunk in my den."

"Gobblers are nasty critters, all right," said Spark as he carefully enlarged a mage light and set it upon the ground between them to glow like a campfire. "Their young highnesses will never escape without help."

"So, will you help me rescue them? It's either the two of us or nobody."

"I hate Gobblers. They've taken over all the very best chocolate licks. I've always got bruises all over from their slings and rock candy."

"Then let's get 'em!" said Fuzz with a crackle of unexpected ferocity, as he smacked his paw with his fist. "Let's fix 'em! Let's get 'em back for the rock candy and for my awful nap, all tied up. And most of all, help out two splendid young people."

"She stood up to Ugleeuh for me, the princess. 'Rose,' you say she is? Oh, it was nothing really, but right nice of her all the same."

"Then you certainly wouldn't stand to have her abused by those sticky varmints."

"Never!" declared Spark, suddenly straightening upright.

"So what about this magic you never use? What can you do with it in a pinch?"

"I just really don't much."

"Yea, but could you get into the castle with it? Shot 'n' Stop said you're good. He said you disguised yourself as a tree, once. You might disguise yourself as a minstrel or a trader of some sort."

"Well thank you, but you need to keep in mind that my magical ability is quite small, scarcely more than that of a hedge wizard. I could go into the castle under cover of a glamourie, but I've not the power to maintain it for long. It would be risky."

"Can you think of any other way at all?"

"Well no Fuzz, but whatever it is, it's got to be good enough that I don't have to maintain it very long at all. I'll be lucky to manage going straight in and straight out. If I were just a minstrel, I'd have to take forever and seven days to argue my way in and back out." He paced back and forth for several long moments. "You have an awful lot of confidence in me to think I could actually get away with this."

"Ugleeuh!" woofed Fuzz. 

Spark looked up with a jerk and rolled away into the brush, as his mage light went out with a pop.

"No, no! Good grief, Spark. I didn't mean that she's here. I mean, what about you making yourself look like Ugleeuh? That would cause the Gobblers to let you in and out right smart. Don't you think?"

Spark eased back to where he'd been sitting and let another large mage light come to life from between his cupped hands.

Fuzz saw that his hands were trembling. "You all right?

"Do you have any idea what Ugleeuh will do to me if she discovers this little ruse?" said Spark, holding his hands still by clamping them between his knees. "I'll be lucky if she seals me up inside my cave until I rot."

"Sure thing. And me with you, no doubt. But we can't just leave Rose and Lukus in the hands of those marshmallow suckers. You know how Gobblers treat captives, Spark."

"I know you're absolutely right," said Spark with a great shudder. "Yeap, yip! Me as Ugleeuh. That's the best we're going to get. Just give me a bit to get used to the idea. I don't suppose you've ever heard of Lizzie? She was one of my clan and had a passion for marshmallows. Greedigut had his fat little slugs capture her and then he killed her slowly by forcing her to slave endlessly on next to no food while they made a routine of beating her senseless. No one should be thrall to a Gobbler," he said, as his voice went shrill and rasping. 

Fuzz jerked back with a gasp. Before him stood Ugleeuh. "Wow! Mercy! My very word! Excellent, Spark. If I didn't know it was you, I'd know old Dungbag was standing right where you are. The Gobblers will never know it's you."

"I was hoping you'd say that." he said, and with an odd wavering of the air about him, he resumed his normal visage. "Being Ugleeuh really saps my zip. I'll have to get as close as I possibly can to the Gobbler castle before casting my illusion. Then, maybe I can keep it up long enough. Besides, that way there'll be less chance that the real Ugleeuh will soar overhead and see me. Well. I see no reason why I shouldn't be underway."

"Good thinking. Hey, thank you. And good luck. I'll be right here until you're back."

"Ta-ta!" said Spark with a flutter of eyelashes, as he flashed Ugleeuh's Face for his own, before vanishing into the dark in the direction of the Gobbler's fortified keep.

Ch. 22, The Collector Witch (Click on Title or Image to Download From Amazon)

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Spark Loses His Feathers

Part Two

A shadow passed over them. Ugleeuh looked up with a start to see a deep green dragon with a turquoise crest, the size of a cow, gliding majestically for a row of openings into lava tubes running up the nearby dome. "It's a bird with teeth!" she cried, springing to her feet to shade her eyes. "And I swear I saw claws in its wings..."

"You did, dear," said Demonica. "And I trust you realize that this is one of the very dragons that we came for..."

"I knew what it was."

Demonica was not listening. "Here comes another," she said, touching Razzorbauch's arm.

"Good," he said, "I knew that this was the place, but until the first one swooped in, I hadn't quite spotted their caves. I was a bit further down, the time before. I spent all day,
and I allowed that there was above two hundred dragon a-coming and going. That ought
to suit my needs..."

"Yes," said Demonica. "They should suit us quite nicely."

"What if it saw us?" said Ugleeuh.

"I doubt if it did," said Demonica. "Had it seen us, it would be trying to set us alight, this minute. The pines hid us. That's why I changed into this terrible green kirtle before we left Head."

"I've not seen a one, yet," said Demonica to Razzorbauch as she gave an impatient head to toe glance at Ugleeuh.

"You will," he said.

At that very moment, an echoing bellow from the caves got their attention in time for them to see a dozen dragons charging out abreast into the open air, blinded by the stinging fiery nightshade fumes, snorting and gasping, flapping their wings and stumbling
about.

"Keep them blind!" shouted Razzorbauch as he ran toward the dragons with his staff leveled. "Don't let them spit flames! Freeze any that try to fly!"

Demonica set to work at once, hurling crackling lavender bolts from her staff into the faces of beast after beast as they thundered from the caves, while Razzorbauch sent out a pounding hail of flashes from his, causing the plumage to fall free from the dragons' wings and bodies in cascading bundles and wads, as the terrified animals flapped
themselves to nakedness, and the air filled with the stench of singeing feathers. More and
more came in a frantic rush for fresh air only to be undressed in their bewildered frenzy,
until at last the wash in front of the caves was filled with a milling herd of better than two
hundred naked dragons, fenced in by a corralling spell cast by Demonica.

Razzorbauch climbed a large red rock to stand above their heads. "Peoc'h!" he roared, addressing them in Headlandish. "Silence!"

At once, the only sounds to be heard were the rattling of cottonwood leaves and the nearby calls of laughing quail. As he stood there counting them, a young male who happened to be outside of Demonica's spell, was carefully inching away. Suddenly he
broke into a run for the caves. Razzorbauch jerked his staff aloft at the sight of him,
shooting him with a brilliant beam of ruby light from the Heart in its end, blowing him
apart with a thundering concussion which left a hole in the ground big enough to bury
several dragons, as a peppering of dirt and flecks of flesh rained down through the leaves
of the cottonwoods.

"N'eus ket tu da," said Razzorbauch, speaking out over the hushed herd. "There's no way to. There's no way anyone else could possibly break away and run. But you see what would happen if he could. From this moment on, for as long as you live, you are each my chattel. Now. I'm going to walk to the sea and you're going to follow me. It will be a few days to get there and a few more to wait for ships which will take you to my plantation." He paused to look over their numbers for a moment before clambering down from his rock. "Poent eo mont kuit!" he cried with a wave of his staff. "It's time to leave!" And with that, he began walking.

The dragon multitude formed a lumbering queue as they followed, utterly beaten, as Demonica set out in their wake with her staff. Ugleeuh picked up one of the great green feathers littering the ground, every bit as long as she was tall and was astonished at how very light it was. "My!" she said. "These are light as a feather."

"One does expect that with feathers, dear," said Demonica.

Ugleeuh thought it would make quite a souvenir, but tossed it aside at the thought of the long walk ahead. "So," she said, catching up. "'Mammvro.' Wouldn't that be Headlandish for 'Motherland?'"

"It is. It's the dragon word for it, really. I call it that because of the dragons. The rest of the continent calls these the Red Lands or the Red Desert..."

"Dragon word? They can talk?"

Good Sister, Bad Sister, Ch. 11

(Click on Book Title Or Image to Download Free

From Amazon)

Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

Giveaway: 1 Author-Signed Paperback of Epic Fantasy, THE BURGEONING; All Entrants Receive a FREE eBook

Who is Spark?

Part One

 Spark is a fireless, featherless and flightless dragon, the husband of Lipperella and the father of Laora. Spark and Lipperella were rendered featherless by the wizard Razzorbauch and the sorceress Demonica when they rounded up most of the dragons in the Mammvro of the Dark Continent and hauled them across the sea to harvest sukere on Razzorbauch's vast plantation on the Northern Continent in Good Sister, Bad Sister.

Spark's firelessness was considered contemptible by the other dragons for a time and he was exiled to the Peppermint Forest prior to The Collector Witch. After the death of Razzorbauch, he returned and married the dragon clan's Truth Teller, Lipperella. By a fortunate accident, neither Spark nor Lipperella were rendered sterile when they lost their feathers, as were the rest of the dragons, so they were able to produce the only offspring possible for the entire clan, in Stone Heart. And without Razzorbauch's terrible spells, these offspring had feathers and could fly.

Spark and Lipperella became instrumental in coaxing the dragons to give up hating humans and to become important allies of the Kingdom of Niarg and formidable foes of Queen Spitemorta in The Burgeoning. (and in The Reaper Witch and Doom to be released later in the year).

Tom Phipps

RE: Mom

 I enjoyed your “niarg.com”.  The lead photo brought back some memories.  I remember when the picture was taken.  I think the tractor was sitting about where Joyce’s and my house trailer sat.  The picture was taken to feature farm women who were helping in the war effort.  I don’t think the picture was taken the year that we moved to the farm [which you grew up on] (1943), so it likely was taken in 1944 or before the war ended in 1945.  I thought it was dumb that they had Joan and me climb on the tractor with Mom.  I guess that Mom was supposed to be taking care of her kids and farming at the same time.  Dumber yet was that they had me wear my “soldier” outfit.  The neatest part of the outfit was the hat, which they made me remove to better show my face.  I think the left part of the field in the background became the orchard and the little building in the background was the original part of the first hen house. 

You gave a very interesting description of Mom and the Sweet Williams.  I also brought Sweet Williams to Mom.  I don’t recall tying it to Mother’s Day; I simply did it when the Sweet Williams were in flower.  It seems to me that I started it when, one year, she didn’t have a chance to get over to the section of the woods that had a big patch of Sweet Williams, so I brought a bunch to her.  I remember doing this on more than one year, but I really didn’t make it into an annual affair.

I thought it was neat when I learned that you were bringing a bunch of Sweet Williams to Mom as an annual event.  Even so, I wondered if you might have started your annual event as a result of sentimental ol’ Mom having mentioned that I had, on occasion, brought her Sweet Williams when they were in flower.

Dick

[Dr. Richard L. Phipps]

Abaddon Needs pie

Part Four

 He found Abaddon playing quietly with the yarn dolls which he insisted were "soldiers."

"So. You'll be leaving now," said Abaddon without looking up.

"I have no choice as you well know, Abbey," he said, squatting beside him.

"Sure," he said with a shrug and gravel in his throat, still refusing to look up. "He's your friend. He's your best friend, and he counts 'way more 'n I do!"

Lance went wide eyed at the resentment he heard in Abaddon's voice. "These days, you've gotten to be my friend too, Abbey," he said, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, "but you know as well as I do what's going to happen to him if I don't get him out..."

"Well go then!" he said, flinging away Lance's hand. "But you're too late!"

"How? Wait a minute! You say I'm too late?"

"If you're so ready to leave, just go, but someone else rescued your friend James."

"What?"

"I said somebody got him out..."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Some stupid knaves. Boy, is my momma ever goin' 'o kill them bad if she catches them. They'd better never get caught."

"How do I know you're not making up all this so I'll not leave?"

"You think I'd lie about something like this?" cried Abaddon with wounded fury.

"Yea. I'm sorry to say so, but from what I've seen, if it got you what you wanted, you sure might."

Abaddon yanked his scrying crystal from his neck, flung it at Lance and dashed out of sight into the lava tube.

Lance glanced at the talisman in his hands. "He was scrying the very moment I walked in!" he gasped, riveting his gaze back upon it. "Fates! Is that James? It is! He looks like a bearded ghost. And I don't know a one of those knaves, but each one of 'em looks familiar." He gave the pendant a thoughtful heft before clenching it tight in his fist as he sprang to his feet to find Abaddon. "I sure hope my putting it straight to him hasn't undone everything."  

Ch. 21, The Burgeoning

Lance found Abaddon lying belly down on his bed. "What do you want, stupid?" said Abaddon, looking up suddenly from his scrying crystal. "Didn't your dumb Fairies ever teach you to knock to announce yourself to your betters when you enter their private quarters?" 

"I learnt it as a courtesy for anyone, and I learnt that it wasn't the only courtesy one could use either..."

"Yea?"

"Yea. Like this pie. I could say, 'Hey Abby, here's the best pie in the world. Want some?'" He gave a beckoning nod.

"That's vulgar clumsiness in place of proper respect for royals, but I've come to expect as much..."

"Well, better dig in while I'm being rude, so it won't get cold."

Abaddon scowled as he took the saucer, but his first delicate whiff of the pie arrested every urge he had in mind until he had wolfed down every bit of it. Lance sat on the bed and waited, looking at the backs of his hands.

"That was pretty good," said Abaddon, handing back the saucer. "Thanks."

"Why, you're welcome," he said, stumbling to recover from being completely thrown off by Abaddon's polite remark. "So, you were scrying when I came in. Did you see anything interesting?"

"Nay, not much. Just James and his idiot knaves on some old road out in the grass."

"Gollmoor? It'd have to be Gollmoor, but they could be anywhere out on it. Did you watch long enough to see anything else?"

"I didn't get a chance to because of your clumsy entry."

"Did you see a river...?"

"I just said I didn't, stupid."

Lance studied him for a moment. "Abbey, would you do me a huge favor and scry your dad again, long enough for me to tell where he is?"

"Why? So you can run off and leave me here with your crazy Fairies and Ratman and be where he is?" he said with gravel in his throat. "That's really stupid, you know. Sooner or later Momma's going find him and his knaves and they're all going to die, screaming and kicking. No way she won't do it, either. And if you're with them, she'll really kill you, 'cause you're his friend and my kidnapper. She'll figure out ways to kill you for an extra, extra long time."

"Oh, I don't doubt that for one moment, Abbey. That's why I need your help, and that's why your father needs it, too."

"You and James need me?" he said, suddenly free of his sullen demeanor.

"Way more than you might imagine. Only you can save us from being killed by your mother and Demonica."

Abaddon went altogether wide eyed. "Lance my magic is still little," he said. "It's not nearly big enough to stop my momma or Nana Demonica. They'd kill me, too!"

"Oh no Abbey. I'd never put you in that kind of danger. All I need is for you to scry your father again so I can figure out just where he is. I think I know of a way to protect him, if I can get to him quickly enough."

Abaddon took on a sullen look at once.

"Look Abbey, you really wouldn't think much of me if I let a good friend of mine die when I might've been able to save him, would you?"

Abaddon picked at a piece of lint on his bedspread, his mouth set tightly.

"So could you?" said Lance, carefully.

"Maybe," he said, looking up from his piece of lint. "But you can't leave me here with the old Fairies. You're going to need me along with my crystal. You don't think James and his knaves are going to just stay in one spot and wait for you to get there, do you?"

Lance drew a breath to speak but let it out. "Hmm..."

Abaddon's eyes lit up. "Then you'll do it?" he said with an excited bounce on the bed. "You'll take me with you?"

Lance nodded slowly, stunned at himself for agreeing to Abaddon's ruse. "Well then," he said softly, "let's look at your crystal."

Abaddon already had it out, staring at the shapes of James and his companions appearing amongst its swirling colors.

Ch. 26, The Burgeoning

The Last Time I Saw Mom

When Mom was a little girl growing up in Moonshine Prairie, her folks would stop the buggy on the way home from church to let her pick sweet williams. And from the time I heard her tell the story when I was a kid, I made sure that she had a nice big bouquet of the phlox she called sweet williams, every single Mother's Day.

When the day came that Carol and I had to go west to spend our time teaching on the reservations, I was no longer able to give Mom her flowers. We climbed Peacock Peak one Mother's Day, and near the top in a grove of Piñon Pine, we found some kind of white phlox growing which was much smaller than sweet williams. I wanted to pick them and somehow send them to Mom, but there was no way we would ever have been able to climb back down the mountain with them.

One summer when we were back home, Mom's hip broke and she fell. After a spell in the hospital, we took her out to my sister Joan's in North Carolina and got teaching jobs. The teaching jobs didn't work very well. My school decided to teach all year, which would have crippled our writing, and Carol had a childish buffoon for a principal who was determined to make life hell for anyone with the nerve to come from Arizona. We made it until December and then found jobs on the Navajo res in New Mexico.

We had just announced our decision to move back west, and were going to leave in the morning. Joan and I were sitting at the kitchen table, playing our fiddles. Mom announced that it was her bedtime and began shuffling out with her walker. Just after she had navigated between Joan and the refrigerator, she paused and turned to me. "Well, I guess this the last I'll ever see you," she said serenely.

"Mom!" I said. "Don't be ridiculous. We'll be back this next summer."

We had just gotten moved when Joan rang us with the news that Mom was gone. The thing that came to mind when I hung up the phone was remembering Mom taking the time out of her hectic spring day to walk a mile down into the woods with me to see an ovenbird's nest. This May will be the first chance I've had in all these years to go to the woods for sweet williams. I reckon I'll leave a handful on her grave.

Tom Phipps