The Graveyard of Dreams

Still going over editing one of my fantasy novels, Malarkey and Belinda.  I've always rather liked this rather depression-fueled passage.  In it, Malarkey the gryphon is given a vision by a mystic character, Merevus, who embodies "the memories of the world."  This scene is all about where most people's aspirations and ambitions wind up: 

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Malarkey found himself outside, somewhere.  He bounded through the mist.  His wings felt heavy, their feathers dampened with dew.  He could not take flight.  This was so unlike the other visions Merevus had given him.  Those had been memories of the past, visions of bright sunlight, endless forests, gryphons soaring above deep canyons, the strange, early human explorers and colonists and their great metal birds with “Aers Crossworlds” etched on their sides. 

            In this place, the sky was not bright.  A deep purple brooded over the land.  The world was misty and the landscape was lined with twisted trees.  Markers of wood and stone were everywhere, the memorial markers of a cemetery. 

            Malarkey approached a great tree.  It appeared to be an ancient oak, twisted by decades of growing in the wind, its trunk thick and lumpy.  The gryphon stretched forth his right fore-claw and touched it.  The tree crumbled into gray ash, leaving behind a peculiar skeleton.  Beneath the now fallen ashen bark of the oak was a skeleton like that of an animal.  Bones like stripped bird-wings arched up into the sky as branches.  What remained of the tree’s trunk was a tangle of vertebrae and rib-bones, all colored a dingy gray-white. 

            Malarkey screeched and ran from it.  He’d never seen something quite so terrifying or utterly disturbing in his young life. That tree was so utterly unnatural.  The gryphon sped past gravestones as fast as his feet could carry him.  He wished he could fly.  His shoulders ached intensely whenever he tried to raise his heavy wings. 

            “Where am I?” he asked desperately.  He called into the air.  Everything around him was cold.  The ground was icy and so was the air.  Malarkey did not feel the cold in its full strength.  He was numb to the frigidity, but he knew, somehow, that this place was cold. 

            He caught a glimpse of the lettering on a gravestone.  It read: “A Great Singer of Songs.”  Another stone he ran past read: “Writer.”  Still another read: “Life in the Mountains.”

            “What is this?” Malarkey asked the wind.  “What sort of vision have I landed in? Where am I?”

            The voice of Merevus drifted over him.  “This is the Graveyard of Dreams.” 

            “What?” Malarkey replied. 

            The voice of the Keeper of Memories echoed off the gravestones and the strangely menacing trees, deep and strong.  “Many are the dreams of men and beasts,” it answered.  “Most dreams do not live for long.  Most dreams do not survive.”

            Malarkey slowed down.  He paced about the cemetery.  He was no longer afraid.  Instead, he was filled with an incredible sadness.  He looked over the gravestones and the carvings on the wooden markers.  The inscriptions were many names and they told many stories.

            “So many dreams,” Malarkey sighed, hanging his head.  Most of the dreams in the graveyard were human dreams, but it was clear from the inscriptions that some of them had been the dreams of beasts. 

            “Why are you showing me this, Merevus?”  Malarkey asked.  “This is terrible, seeing all these broken dreams.”

            The voice of Merevus sailed upon the wind again.  “They are not broken, merely unfulfilled.”

            “Still!” Malarkey protested, shouting into the wind that had grown progressively frigid, “Seeing all these dead dreams is terrible!”  I don’t understand your purpose in showing me this!” 

            The reply came slowly.  “Most dreams remain unfulfilled, especially the great ones,” the voice of Merevus intoned.  “You will see many dreams here.  Some are as large as changing the world.  Some are small, mere childhood fancies.  Much like humans and animals, they die for many reasons.  Some dreams die naturally.  They are dreams that remain unfulfilled, but, because a person changes, their desires and hopes change, thus their old dreams are not needed anymore.  Dreams that die naturally are replaced with other dreams.” 

            Merevus’ deep voice continued.  “Then, of course, there are dreams that are killed by the circumstances of the world or by interfering people.  The loss of these dreams can be as painful for their bearer as the loss of a friend by murder.  Then, of course, there are the dreams that are held onto for a long time before they die, dreams that die slow, lingering deaths.  Those that have such dreams, though determined to see them fulfilled, suffer as they watch their dreams fade or stay just beyond reach.  It is little wonder why some people choose to shatter their own dreams through self-destruction, rather than watch those dreams killed slowly by the world.  Still, Malarkey, look around you.”

            “I am looking around me.  Have you given me this vision to tell me to give up on my dreams?  Will I find my dreams in this graveyard?”

            “On the contrary, gryphon,” Merevus said.  “Although most dreams eventually die, they are still valuable and something to be treasured.  Even dreams that remain unfulfilled serve us as we have them.  Even people who never see their dreams come to light have hope while they have and hold onto them.  Dreams are what keep people going, striving, trying.  Sometimes, simply to try is enough, simply to hope.  Even dreams that die serve their bearer while they are alive.  They keep their bearer hoping, trying and alive.  It is not always a tragedy when dreams die, because those dreams gave the person who conceived them hope when they needed it.” 

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Part of Chapter 14 in a book of 20 chapters.

Of Sin and Tolerance

A few years ago, I wrote a novel titled Malarkey and Belinda.  Is the tale of a woman and her gryphon. Specifically, it is the tale of a slave charged with raising a gryphon that was magically and genetically-engineered as a resurrection-project for an extinct species (gryphons) in order to be used as a weapon in their kingdom's army. The woman eventually decides that even though her attempts at escape from slavery never went well that she'd try once more with the gryphon to keep him from life as a forced-weapon.  They flee to a land where they can be free, only to return to try to stop a great war between their world's native animals and the humans of their former kingdom.

Weird, I know.  Anyway, I've been going over chapters of it again to do (yet another) self-editing job before sending it in for another round of querying literary agents and adding to my Rejection Collection.  A portion I was going over caught my eye this evening.  This passage takes place soon after the gryphon, dubbed "Malarkey" as a cruel joke,  hatches and is in his child-stage, being cared for by his human "mother."

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Belinda sat in the East Courtyard of Stone Manor, on the edge of a planting bed, with Nikolai.  Malarkey played at her feet, a collar around his neck, with a long leash that she held in her right hand.

            Nikolai, the castle’s head priest of the Xieon faith, was a young man with shaggy brown hair and a pale, clean-shaven face. It was most unusual for a man as young as he was to be in such an important position as he was in.  He had a gentle manner about him and he almost constantly smoked a long pipe.  He grew the herbs that he smoked, and claimed that they were good for his health.  Belinda did not understand how the smoke was supposed to “clear the lungs and boost immunity,” but the scent of the herbs burning in the end of Nikolai’s pipe was not unpleasant. 

            Malarkey capered at her feet on the cobblestones of the courtyard.  He stretched his developing muscles.  He flapped his tiny wings, which had new feathers growing on them.  The little gryphon was growing feathers all over his head and chest, too.  They were bright and smooth.  He had shed nearly all his down by now.  Little Malarkey did not yet know how to fly and would not have gotten far, anyway, tethered to the ground by his leash, Belinda as his anchor. 

            “He’s adorable,” Nikolai said, exhaling smoke as he took the pipe from his lips. 

            “Some would say that he is a sin,” Belinda replied, “What do you think, Nikolai?  He’s essentially a human creation.  Do we have the right to create life like that?  To resurrect the dead?”

            Nikolai tipped his pipe and tapped out the ashes into the planting bed.  “We have to be careful,” he said, “not to condemn ourselves too much.  When we become too concerned with sin, we become unable to do anything.  Almost anything can be a sin if done with the wrong intent.  When we become too concerned over sin, we become too afraid to move, and, many of us will come to a point where we stand in judgment of others, and that is sin.”

            The priest sighed.  He fished in the pocket of his pants.  “Out of herbs,” he said.  “Sin, though… it’s not to say that sin doesn’t exist.  That is not right, either.  When we, in the name of tolerance, become accepting of everything that, too, is not right.  Not everything is sin and not everything is not sin.  When we become too accommodating, we will begin to allow anything, even that which causes harm.  Society needs to strike a balance between sin and tolerance.  If we lean too far one way or another, we either become stagnant, or we allow cruelty and injustice to flourish.” 

            “Is Malarkey an injustice?” Belinda asked. 

            “No… he is a victim,” Nikolai replied.  “He is a creature not natural-born.  That will cause him much confusion in life.  There are none of his own kind living anymore.  He will be alone.  The dead should be left to lie, and be remembered.  As for Malarkey, he has done nothing wrong.  He did not ask to be created.  He simply is.  Even if what Lord Cirrit did was wrong, the little gryphon had no voice in it.  We have a duty to him – to try to give him a good life.”

            “Hmmm….” Belinda said, swinging her pant-clothed legs. 

            “Have faith, Belinda,” Nikolai said, smiling.  You’ll be a fine caretaker to him.  Now is your chance to teach him.  From the histories, gryphons were intelligent – they had souls like men.  You can teach him what is good and what is bad.  You are a compassionate and strong person, and he will learn that from you.”

            “Does a manmade creature even have a soul?”

            “Human beings,” Nikolai responded, “for all our knowledge and skills at manipulating nature, for all our disregard – cannot create a soul.  That is God’s domain.  Who are we to say, however, what manner of creature God can or cannot infuse with a soul?  To say that a being doesn’t have a soul simply because it was born from human use of the Arcanum is even more arrogant than the use of the Arcanum in the first place.”

            Malarkey looked up at him and chirped.  Nikolai reached a hand down to him, two fingers extended, to scratch the feathers beneath his beak. 

            The gryphon chick knew that this person and his mother-of-another-kind were talking about him.  He did not yet understand what they were saying.  They could hear his voice, but apparently could not understand the things he tried to tell them. 

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*Nikolai - The character is a kind-mannered and genuinely saintly / good priest.  I named him after the Antichrist character in the Left Behind novels as a joke. I read about half of that series - to my shame.

**The stuff in his pipe is not "weed."  It's some fictional plant that is neither that nor tobacco, but I never elaborated on what it was, probably because I thought it would be funny to let people jump to conclusions.  Still, in my mind, it was always a fictional plant that was more like a table herb or a mint than anything else.

***I like this passage because of the take on the balance between the ideas of "sin" and "social order." I wrote this at least five years ago and while some of my ideas on what "sin" is have changed, the sentiment I have toward the basic theme of the passage has not changed a bit.  (In other words this is one of those things I wrote quite a while ago that still surprises me).

How Novel.

First, a random passage from my novel, A World of Rusted Dreams that I just felt like posting because it says so much about what I think of the world.  A.W.O.R.D is the story of two young people who travel a mysterious land with their Guardians - creatures only "believers" in them can see: 

From Chapter 11

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Without the stopover in Time they had loosely planned upon, they journeyed toward where Noel wished to go – the Black Desert. 

“I don’t think we’re weak,” Mira complained as they followed a dry wash.  It was lined with lush trees, signifying that they had not made it to the desert proper yet.  There, all the trees would be thorny with thin, little leaves. A few scrubby trees began appearing the further in they walked and the broad-leafed ones thinned out.  “For my part,” she continued, “I just know what I need and am strong enough now not to let anyone tell me differently.” 

“All well and good,” Noel said, not really paying attention to his friend.  “Watch this tree-root.”

“Where are we going, anyway?  We’re just following the streambed.”

Noel turned and smiled at her.  “It is a path. It will take us to… a place.” 

“To the desert, hopefully,” Mira replied.  “Some say this whole area used to be desert.”

“Yep.” Noel said, “It’s an interesting patchwork.” 

Lazarus crunched some dry twigs and fallen leaves behind Mira, following her.  “Wherever we go,” she said mysteriously, “I don’t want to end up in a place where people are seen as disease.”

“Huh?” Noel asked, almost yelping as he turned to her.  Mira was known for saying strange things, but he had no idea what had brought this on.

“We were run out of Time,” she said.  “I’d very much wished to purchase a pocket watch there – the clocks and watches there are famous.  We weren’t even in the city long enough for me to do such a simple thing.  The people there saw our Guardians and decided that we were weak people and could weaken others.  In Resurrection, where people didn’t even see them, Xirtam explained to me that certain beliefs were seen as having the potential to be like a dangerous infection.” 

Mira shook her head, remembering the beggar she and Xirtam had met on the street and Xirtam’s condescending tone about his relative harmlessness.  “I don’t want to live like that again,” she sighed.  “I don’t want to live and be seen as having a virus or as being some potential incubating disease.  I don’t want to live where other people are handled like that, either.”

“Well,” Noel said with a strangely bright tone, “I suppose if some of the folk from Resurrection came to Rust, they’d be othered like that.”

“But I wouldn’t be. I would be home.  I want to go back home… eventually.”

“How about to a place where there are no people?  People do not despise or condescend to one another in places where no people exist.” 

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A World of Rusted Dreams is my most recent completed novel.  I've been re-reading/going back over another piece of mine, Malarkey and Belinda. That one is about a slave woman and the genetically-and-magically-engineered gryphon she is made to raise and the bond of mother/son like love that develops between them.  M&B is something I wrote years ago and, while I don't think it's bad at all, it does show.  My recent work has a much better "flow" to it.  I'm not sure how to correct the "flow" in M&B.  I'm thinking, once I give that piece another good edit, I might create a blog for it in hopes of getting some feedback.  I don't know. *Shrug.*

Query Letter for "A World of Rusted Dreams"

On a whim, I've decided to post here the latest version of my genreal query letter for one of my novels.  A World of Rusted Dreams is completely unrelated to the Static-Lands Saga.  I have sent this letter out, but I still thought maybe readers at the blog can give me some insight, particuarly if anyone out there is familiar with literary query letters and their formatting.  I have read about how to do it in guides and on blogs.  I try to keep queries for all my works short and professional, but, thus far, it hasn't netted me any professional interest. 

A World of Rusted Dreams, by the way, seems to be the start, in force, of my whole spiritual ambiguity kick in my fantasy fiction.  For those of you who go to TV Tropes, the "Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane" trope is pretty much its entire premise. 

I also have a version of this letter I drew up to the tune/theme of the song Paperback Writer by the Beatles.  My lifemate, Bob, cautioned me against actually using that one, however, because of something about wet, fuzzy sponges.  (Don't ask).   May post the Paperback Writer version upon request.

The Letter:

Contact Information Goes Here.

To Literary Agent-Type Organism, (an agent's actual name goes here, of course)

A World of Rusted Dreams is a fantasy / young adult novel exploring the concept of faith, told through the lives of two young people on a journey across a broken land with their respective spiritual guardians.  Mira is a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in Rust, a town surviving on the remains of an ancient city.  Discontent to remain there without having at least one great adventure in her life, she summons a Guardian from the Heavens to protect her on a journey to her nation’s capitol, Resurrection.  Guardian creatures are commonality for the people of Rust, so, Lazarus - Mira’s new horned-lion with giant leathery wings - does not strike people there as strange at all.  This is not so in the outside world, where most people do not believe in Guardians and therefore do not see them. 

Mira’s best friend, Noel, tags along on her journey with his own Guardian, a little wildcat named Geronimo.  When the group reaches the capitol city, the two young people find themselves dealing with a populace that does not see their companions or other things that they are aware of and are hostile to the ways of their home.  Mira finds herself in an unlikely friendship with the ruler of her land while Noel becomes responsible for the capture of a serial murderer.  They learn about differing perceptions of existence and about the nature of hope and imagination as they guard and are guarded by their supernatural companions in a world that is dangerous to both. 

I have written other novel-length works but am keeping them on the back burner at this time.  A World of Rusted Dreams is best classed as a work of philosophical youth-fantasy that doesn’t fit the usual genre-fare.  I promise that it does not have a unicorn or a dragon in it.  If you happen to be interested in that, one of my back-burner novels features such things.  I am also an artist and have worked professionally in that field as a graphic designer, although I currently work as a stable hand at a horse farm.

I seek your kind permission to send you a synopsis or a manuscript upon request for review.

Shadsie (Real name appears on actual letter)