A Drift of Quills: Fiction Shots #15 (Bridge to Hope)

Fiction Shots are our favorite things to write. In case you’re just joining A Drift of Quills, our little group takes turns choosing a picture for inspiration, then each of us writes our own stories based on that image. Today? We’re wondering where this bridge leads. (And if we are brave enough to cross it!)

As usual, you’ll find the openers to Trish and Parker’s stories near the end of the post.

Fiction Shots #15

Bridges symbolize hope. In the case of this one, I’d be seriously hoping I didn’t have to cross it. I might venture out a little way, just to scare myself spitless, but that’s pretty easy to do, so I wouldn’t have to go far. How about you?

Shall we see what happens on this bridge? Because I’m all for torturing characters in a fictional scene!

Flash #1: Bridge to Hope

By Robin Lythgoe

 

The rope and plank bridge strung across the canyon looked like any other of a score of such structures the Dog had seen in his journeys. It swayed violently, victim of the wind dragged down the steep, rocky canyon by the setting sun. Shadow devoured the depths and crept up the far wall. On this side, the last rays of light saturated the greens of pines, mountain ash, and oak. Vivid purplish-red flowers peppered great swathes at their feet.

Beautiful.

Harsh.

Solitary.

Incongruously, hope waited on the other side of that fragile passage.

Dog didn’t dare hold it too close to his heart. In his experience, Hope was a fickle goddess. That didn’t stop his constant search for a cure.

He eyed the swaying bridge, stretched his neck, then started across.

The crossing was not without incident, but there was the rakeshi. The demon housed in his body prevented a plummet to the depths, but did not save his leg from the splintered boards, nor his hands from rope burns. When it was through dragging him to safety and he returned to his senses, the sun had long since set. Stretched out on the stony ground, Dog looked up at bulky clouds scudding across the star-speckled sky. A sharp wind wrested his clothes and blew his hair across his face. He just closed his eyes and waited the way he always did.

Eventually, the rakeshi would knit his broken parts and shattered bones. There was no predicting how long it would take, no understanding the tangled magic involved. Such was the lot of an experiment.

Just before dawn, he made his way to the cavern carved high up on the rock face, hidden in an innocuous seam. He might have passed it by if he hadn’t been told where to look for it. The path—if one could call it that—was narrow and slick. He paused just inside, letting his eyes adjust to the soft light of a tiny fire—though the transition immediately brought the rakeshi close to the surface. It was always wary. Always hungry. Always angry.

He couldn’t fault it for that. The anger went both ways. He didn’t want the thing; it didn’t want him.

“So it is you.” A man of middling age sat across the fire, leaning his shoulder against a thick staff. Firelight gleamed on a pair of simple rings, and on a polished silver bracelet. He was otherwise cloaked in plain garments of dark red with a thick blanket over his lap. “I thought you would be… different. Come. Sit. You have questions.”

The Dog stayed right where he was. “How do you know me?” His voice was rough with disuse.

The man smiled, teeth white in the gloom. “Seers know all kinds of things. Why else would you be here?”

“Then you know what I want.”

The man’s smile gentled. “Not clearly, but I know what I want.”

The Dog shifted his glance around the room. It was comfortable, but compact. Simple. Everything was low and arranged for ease of use. “What is your price?” he growled. As if the gold he’d exchanged for knowledge of this place, this man, were not enough.

“Not so much different than yours.” He nodded to a low stool across the fire, and the Dog slowly approached. After another wary pause, he eased his pack to the floor and sat. Habit guided his sheathed sword out of the way.

“Tea?”

“No.”

The man reached for a length of wood and added it to the fire. In the new flare of light, he examined his guest. In the new flare of light, his guest examined him.

And the watchful rakeshi shifted.

The man’s grip on his staff tightened. “Ah…” he whispered. “Now I see.”

“See what?”

He picked up an earthen mug, took a long sip, then set it down again—all without breaking eye contact. “For want of a better description, a ‘birthing.’”

The muscle in the Dog’s jaw worked. “Do not waste my time with obscure nonsense.”

“I will do my best, if you will do yours. Let us start with your… request. You crave freedom.”

Startled, the Dog drew back—but only a fraction. He would not willingly cede any advantage.

The man gestured, palm up. “I have seen many versions of you struggling, thrashing, and raging against your constraints.”

The Dog lunged forward, a growl on his lips. “Tell me how to get rid of it,” he demanded. “Who can free me?”

He was rewarded with a violent flinch. A predictable reaction for someone facing a demon.

The man closed his eyes and took several calming breaths. A brave soul, then. Or desperate.

The Dog cocked his head.

“You will free yourself, my lord.” His voice lowered in reverence. “How I wish I could be there to see it…”

“You’re talking in riddles.” Another growl.

The man nodded, but his eyes remained closed. “The future—most futures—are not carved in stone. Some are remarkably resolute.”

“Mine?”

“Yours.”

A grunt this time. “How will I do it? And when?”

“The ‘when’ is slippery. Years from now? You will—“ The man shuddered, as if pushing through resistance. “You will discover the right restraints to fight. Break the chains. Break through the ice like glass. Shatter the rock of your prison into a thousand aching pieces. Burn free.” The shudder turned into shaking spasms, but he fought on.

The Dog stepped over the fire and caught the man’s shoulder before he fell into the flames. Leaned closer to listen. Wished with every fiber of his being that he could see what this mage saw; understand what he did. Hope.

“You—are not alone. An army lies at your feet. Stars at your side. The badger. The yellow rose.” The man thrashed in the Dog’s arms. “The glass… mirror… shattered. Shattered! The Hand… ” Tears leaked from eyes squeezed tight. Every word came with an effort, softer and softer. “The Hand bears up… brings light. Quenches. Fuels. The Hand binds… the wounds that fracture… and bleed.”

“Who is this hand?” the Dog whispered, but the man only shook his head from side to side.

“Where will I meet him?”

“Meet him… again.”

Gibberish, all of it. The Dog held the seer until the spasms stopped and his breathing returned to normal. The little fire shrank even while sunlight filled the cavern’s entrance.

“This is what I know,” the seer said, drawing the Dog’s gaze again with his shattered voice. “There will be refuge on a perilous, difficult path you cannot turn from. Great loss and great love. Rising as if from a grave. Passage. Copper raining down like fire, but green follows. After… After,” he whispered, “I do not know, my lord. The vision shifts and eddies.”

“Why do you call me lord? You know what I am. Dog. Demon. Killer.” His mouth curled in a snarl.

“And I am envy.” He smiled, sad and tired.

“What am I to do with this vision?”

“Your freedom is in it, like a bud growing and blossoming.”

Useless, and soft. There was nothing soft about the Dog. Not anymore. “What will this nonsense cost me?”

“The first steps on your path are my freedom. We are one in this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Will you take me from this prison?”

He glanced around again. Solitary, yes, but it seemed a good place. “What keeps you here?”

The man drew the blanket aside. Bare feet. Shriveled limbs circled about in chains. “My restraints are mundane, but no less limiting.” Head down, voice apologetic.

The Dog knew immediate sympathy—horror, even—and still he balked. “I cannot take you with me. It—I—am not safe.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Gentle humor.

“The bridge is broken.”

“An obstacle already. But I have waited a long time for this day. For you. Your strength is equal to the task.”

“You could just be saying that.” In spite of his misgivings, he was already considering the ways he could free this man. This stranger. This companion in tragedy. Experience had given him a sense for those who thrived on cruelty and abuse. He did not discern that here. Only a longing that matched his own.

The seer merely pursed his lips and nodded.

The Dog rose and paced to the doorway, looking out at the forever painted on the horizon by the height of the cavern. The seer proposed an insane risk. For both of them. The mountain wouldn’t be the last of their challenges, for someone had chained the seer here, fed and sheltered like… a dog.

“You have no reason to trust me,” he said.

“I have every reason. I only hope I have time to prove you can trust me.”

Finally, he gave a curt nod. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes.” The seer’s grateful smile was bound in incomprehensible faith. “You will do it all, and so much more…”

“Let’s start with the mountain.”

The smile grew into a laugh.

 

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Flash #2: The McGalliard Street Gate (A Teaser)

P.S. BROADDUS

Author of The Unseen Chronicles
Parker’s website

Mikey forced his way through a tangle of fronds that grabbed at his clothes and the canvas bag slung over his shoulder, trying to keep Doc’s back in view at all times. Doc stopped.

“Shhhhh.”

Mikey frowned. Easier said than done. Doc put his hand up and made a claw with one finger. Then pointed off to the left before continuing through the undergrowth. Mikey didn’t know exactly what Doc was saying but he felt like he caught the general implication. Something dangerous off that way. Got it. Mikey nodded. Something with claws or teeth. That had been a recurring theme ever since Mikey had been the unsuspecting victim of some kind of dimension displacement in that abandoned warehouse alley and sucked him through to this crazy jungle. He’d been a normal, nerdy, slightly bored, twelve-year-old kid taking a shortcut off McGalliard Street on his way home from school in Orlando one minute, and the next he was being introduced to the very real fact that velociraptors like to hunt at dusk and dawn. By a group of survivors who had also been displaced in that alley over the past few weeks and months. It was beyond weird.

 

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Flash #3:

PATRICIA REDING

Author of the Oathtaker Series
Patricia’s website

 

 

(As near as we can tell, Trish went over the bridge and hasn’t returned. We’re worried about trolls, but hoping for fairies…)

 

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Want to read more fiction shots we’ve written? This link will take you there.

I hope you’ve had fun *hanging* around with us. Have you got a title or a picture to inspire us for upcoming fiction shots? Comment below, and let us know how you liked our stories!