3PI Eddie Fontaigne

Apologies, And So A W.I.P. Review

Due to a family emergency of sorts my duties will find me elsewhere this week. I know I told folks on Twitter that I would be writing directly about third person individualism in this Tuesday’s post, but that will have to wait until next week (which reminds me I should take my laptop with me to write with).

So in lieu of my post this week I am posting, with my friend's permission, a chapter from a work in progress. As Hans tells me, it's one of those that starts out and gets put in a drawer while projects agents suggest are more salable get worked on.

Consider this a sort of writing feedback experiment. The question both Hans and I want answered is, does this chapter leave you with a wish to see the next? The feedback will help him with other projects. He tells me he may even finish this novel if the feedback is good enough.  I warned him, considering my readership is political, he shouldn't get his hopes up.  He said to that, "Hey, I'm the one doing you a favor bud.  There are no hopes up on this."

Comments are open to all who view this post so feel free.  Maybe I can repay Hans the favor for giving me something to post in a pinch.

The Boy Who Ran Through Time

by Hans Mengis

Chapter 1

Death Is Behind You

“You there boy, can you get me some water for my master?”

Hasani was suddenly sorry. Now the woman was returning his stare, and even worse she thought he was a servant like she was.

“I don't know where the well is”, he told her.

It embarrassed him. He passed by the well many times in his life but couldn't remember how to get there. Now the tall thin woman was looking at him sternly and he hated looks of disapproval from adults. Even worse, she spoke as if she thought he was lying to her.

“You don't know where the well is? Are you not from here?”

Hasani was on the verge of tears. The six year old prince never had a reason to remember where the well was.

The attendant just stared sternly at him for what seemed an eternity, but then her eyes came upon his wrists. Looking at his bracelets, her face changed from stern to something very different, something like fear. She fell to her knees.

“I am so sorry my lord. Please forgive me. I did not realize who you were. Please please forgive me.”

She almost cried the words.

Hasani thought he'd be much happier once she realized he was not a servant, but he wasn't. The look on her face bothered him. He didn't want to be feared.

“I forgive you.”

She backed out of the room on her knees.

“I hope you find the water”, he said to her as she returned to her feet in the hallway and ran off.

He waited there for his tutor and tried to recall his last lesson, but he couldn't get the look on the attendant's face out of his head. Why was it there?

He lost sleep over the next few days because of that look, but in a strange way it may have re-payed the stolen sleep. One night's first watch he lay awake and overheard two servants in the hallway. They were both women servants. Hasani couldn't tell one from the other. All the woman servants sounded about the same to him. He usually didn't care what they had to say to each other but the excitement in their voices attracted him.

“The general will be here soon. We should leave now.”

“Should we take the little prince?”

“No, the general needs to get rid of all of the family tonight.”

“I'd feel sorry for him but that prince is so dull-headed he probably wont even notice his own death.”

Then there was laughter.

“Traitors”, Hasani said angrily but under his breath.

He wanted to run to his father and warn him but he knew the women would realize he heard them if he left too soon. His heart beat quickly as he waited for them to leave like they said they were going to. Then he heard another woman. He knew it was a different woman because her voice came from down the hall near where his father was.

“The general is already in the king's chambers! We need to leave now!”

The words seemed to pull Hasani to the doorway. He saw the backs of both men and women servants as they ran down the passage way towards the palace gates. The thought of following in the servants' wakes came and went quickly. Something inside him told him he needed to go where no one would expect him to run, the place he was always told never to wander into, the desert.

Hasani ran the opposite way from where the servants had run. There was a narrow courtyard on the palace's desert side. It was empty when he got there. Making his legs go as fast as he could, he darted across the courtyard. The gate swung open with much less effort than he expected it to, and he ran out into the sand.

Looking back he saw flames rising from the part of the palace where his father slept and he heard the sounds of angry men breaking things near his room. He redoubled his efforts at running. He stumbled a few times but when he did it seemed to him as if he could have run on his arms as well as his legs. No matter what he just kept moving forward. It was like floating in a dream, a nightmarish dream.

Then there was a sound ahead of him, a roaring sound. A few dozen paces in front of him he saw sand swirling in a huge cone. It went all the way up into the sky. With death and the general's soldiers behind him, Hasani ran into the monstrous whirlwind.

Sand blew into his face and found his eyes. Blinded he stumbled forward, shaking his head and wiping at the sand. His eyes stung and watered as he freed them. He turned his head away form the wind and began to see again. It wasn't much more than sand in the air and his hand in front of him, but it was enough for him to keep running.

The storm was even larger than Hasani first thought. One of his tutor's lessons told him that half of a whirlwind blows the opposite direction from the other. It seemed to Hasani that he had been running for while now and the wind was still blowing the same direction. He was beginning to worry he was some how just running in place when suddenly the sand stopped hitting him.

He stopped too. For the first time since he fled the palace he stopped running and took a long look around him. Just behind him the wind still blew the desert sands sideways. So intensely did it blow that he couldn't see the palace. That's good, he thought to himself, if he can't see the soldiers they can't see him.

Looking ahead he saw the sand was being blown about in a great circle around a calm area as wide as his palace. So the air must be blowing the other way over there, he thought to himself, looking across to the other side. He forgot himself and spoke out loud.

“But what is that?”

In the middle of the still area he saw a small pyramid. It couldn't have been more than a dozen worker's paces to a side and was made of something that looked like gold. It had a flat area on top of it that looked like it was on fire. The smoke from what looked like fire was white and glowed.

It clearly wasn't anything to do with the general so Hasani approached it. The storm is hiding me in this place, he thought to himself, so I am safe to take a closer look. The thought of touching and climbing the little gold pyramid amused him more than taking a closer look at the fire and smoke, but he was about to do both at the same time.

My tutor would be so proud of me, he was thinking. But was his tutor one of the traitors? If he wasn't, did the general have him killed? Then a voice made Hasani jump.

“You there boy, hurry up here!”

A man with a long gray beard leaned out of the smoke. He was bald and his eyes looked like glowing embers. They did have pupils though. Hasani could tell because they were looking at him. The young prince stopped at the pyramids base, unable to move, such was his fear.

The old man studied Hasani and raised an eyebrow.

“Don't fear me when death is behind you.”

The words freed Hasani's feet and he half leaped, half climbed up to the man's outstretched hand. His feet flew as the man pulled him into the glowing smoke.