First Pages: Gulvane and the Dragon
Preparing
for a new era in his life, the wizard Gulvane walks the corridors of his mind,
remembering the eras locked behind three doors. Forester, Fighter, Assassin.
Behind each door lie the memories and skills of who and what he used to be,
inaccessible, unless he chose to return to the professions he had left.
Uncertain of where his life will lead him, or of what he will become, Gulvane
wakes to find a dragon standing over his bed. Now, what would a creature such
as that want with an elf like himself?
Gulvane and the Dragon is currently available as a
stand-alone short story, but will eventually be incorporated in An
Anthology of Mythical Creatures, and the collection, Short
Stories and Poetry from 2013.
First Page: Gulvane and the Dragon
Gulvane
walked the corridors of his mind, going deep into himself to remember who he
was, and explore who he might become. The years of an elf were long, many more
times longer than the span of an average mortal, and Gulvane was reaching
another century, his third as a wizard, his seventh as an elf. In that time,
he’d lived a lifetime in each of four different occupations.
Walking
down the timber-lined hallway, Gulvane traced a hand along the walls, stopping
at each of the three doors that kept the memories and skills that had made up
his past. The first door was an oaken gold and adorned by a simple spray of
leaves and flowers. A small grey-furred creature peered out from beneath the
blossoms, its vivid green eyes touched with blue and gold. Gulvane laid a finger
on its forehead and let the bittersweet feeling it invoked touch him briefly.
The second door was a glowing bronze, and adorned with a pair of crossed
swords. The third door was the color of night, created from a single plank of
ebon-wood. A crossbow adorned its center, painted in a shade barely lighter
than the surface that bore it.
Forester,
fighter… assassin. Was it any wonder he’d become a wizard?
He
walked past the gleaming darkness of the third door and stared at the heavy
columns slowly forming in the blank space of wall beyond. Soon. His heart was
restless, and soon he would embark on another era of his life.
Gulvane
sighed. He had enjoyed his time as a wizard. It had been peaceful compared to
what he had been before. The trouble was that he had no idea what he wanted to
become next… and he was getting old, his body standing towards the end of
middle age. He stood contemplating the slowly growing pillars before retracing
his steps, touching each door as he passed.
Assassin,
fighter, forester, he could return to any one of them by opening the door and
stepping into the mind of who he had been. His fingers lingered on the
bright-eyed creature peering from the flowers, before Gulvane shook his head
and walked on, focusing his thoughts outwards and slowly returning to
consciousness.
He
woke to find a dragon standing over his bed.
“You
are most entertaining,” it said, “and I have always wanted an elf of my own.”
“You
look like a man,” Gulvane replied, “yet I know you are dragon. How is it I know
that?”
“You
are wizard,” the dragon said, leaning forward, quick as lightning, and pinning
Gulvane to the mattress by holding the blankets tight across his shoulders.
He
bent in closer, until their foreheads almost touched, and then the dragon
inhaled, moving his nose a hair’s breadth above Gulvane’s skin and taking in
the elf’s scent. It was frighteningly intimate and predatory at the same time.
END FIRST PAGE
If you would like to read more, Gulvane and the Dragon is available from Smashwords, Amazon, Nook, iTunes, Kobo and CreateSpace.
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