Description
A Strange Place in Time, Book Four: Flowers and Darkness
– Alyx Jae Shaw
Purple threads. Amber tents. Golden mists. White gems. It’s all rather colourful in White Palace.
Twenty years after their battle with SkullDigger, the Court is still waiting for certain members to return. Monshikka meets a young and strangely-familiar student.
Arrowsmith is dangerously ill with an ailment that may prevent his return to Dargoth in his next lifetime. Infamous sets out on a mission along with Monshikka and his new friend, and Sly, and ends up on a different quest of his own in another world.
Back home in Dargoth, all they can do is await his return and hope it doesn’t come too late to help Arrowsmith with his problem.
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EXCERPT:
Unicorns. Once upon a time they had been romantic creatures of myth, and the dreams of little girls. Once upon a time they had been simply a fantasy in the minds of dreamers. That, of course, had been before John Arrowsmith wound up on Dargoth, and undergone the Recalling that had made him aware of many things, such as the fact he had been here before, he belonged here, and, oh yes, unicorns were real.
There were a number of breeds of unicorn on Dargoth. At the top of the heap were the Sylvan Unicorns; feral and wild creatures seen by monks of the middle ages and depicted in ancient tapestries. Wild things with coats of white or pearl-grey, with cloven hooves and a lion’s tail and the beard of a goat, said to be drawn only by virgins. Then there were unicorns of the plain and veldt; more horse-like, with great spiral horns of gold or ivory. Next were the faery-unicorns of the mountains, and the sea-unicorns; wild, lean, and aggressive beasts with delicate legs and coats of black and grey, known for their tendency to kill anything in their territory, and the Creator help anyone who rode into their territory during spring when the new foals were born. If the stallions didn’t get you, the mares would.
Next on the list were the nightmares; related to unicorns the way scorpions were related to spiders, but you would never know it by looking. Nightmares were the raised spirits of horses who died from cruelty, or on the battlefield. They rose like ghouls, drinking blood from the sleeping, leaving horrific dreams in their wake, and spreading death. They were rarely seen, and in most cases left no one alive to tell the tales of their passing.
At the bottom of the ladder were the guedelph; small, sturdy, shaggy, with enormous feet not unlike a camel’s, with a broad and spongy hoof to avoid sinking into the wet mud of the marshes where they lived. They looked like floppy toys for hugging and cuddling, not real animals, and as Arrowsmith opened one eye, he had two sets of fuzzy nostrils poking at him. One muzzle was blue. The other was white. Both were snuffling him with breath that smelled like hay and apples.
“I was asleep,” he grumbled.
“We know,” said Blue. “Sorry but we needed someone large to help and… well…”
“Once again I’m the biggest guy you can think of.”
“That would be it.”
Arrowsmith slowly sat up, pushing back the covers with one hand, shoving his long hair out of his face with the other. He was only 46 now; hardly over the hill. But his battle years ago with a certain triple-headed god that still bore him a great deal of animosity had left him stiff, and some days he was in so much pain it was almost more than he could do to get out of bed. Today was proving to be one of those days, and as Arrowsmith tried to stand, his legs slid out from under him and he sank to the floor. Blue immediately transformed from his natural shape of a guedelph mare and into his forced shape as a small man with long white hair and eyes the colour of blue diamonds.
“Arrowsmith are you all right?”
Arrowsmith clutched his chest as he tried to breathe, feeling as if he was being stabbed with flaming spikes. “No, I’m reasonably certain that I’m in a huge amount of pain and I think I’d like to die, now.”
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