Summer Fiction

Well, now. Isn't inspiration a funny old thing? Here I was, sitting at my desk and desperately searching for something...anything to write about but I was failing miserably. Turns out all I had to do was hit the "next" button on my music player! Well, all I can say is thank the Universe for those four lads from Liverpool.

Here, as I promised, is a little slice of life from Dren. Will we finally get a clue as to what sort of world Dren inhabits? Will it be what you expected? Maybe I've been reading too much Sheri Tepper, but I'll let you be the judge of that. Read on, Macduff!




It was a bright autumn morning when the wanderer came into town; the air was cool and clear, the sky was the color of forget-me-nots. The wanderer came from the southlands, his weary feet dragging and stirring up little swirls of dust from the road. Every person  that saw him wondered what burden he carried that could weigh upon him so heavily.

He spoke to no one, save for one of the town elders. To her he whispered and gestured toward the high hill that overlooked the town and its fields. She nodded slowly and stepped aside. The wandered shuffled away and was seldom seen since that time. Occasionally he could be spied sitting alone on the hill staring at the blue mountains and the vast green blanket of the woods.

Some said that he was a prophet and that he kept watch for the coming doom. Others said he was a mad man or a fool. Everyone had their theories. Only three people knew for sure; the wanderer himself, the town elder, and a small orphaned boy named Phelan. Though the boy was looked after by the townsfolk, he had no family and no loved ones to guide him. He looked to the strange wanderer, now called hermit, as a like soul.

Phelan would often take food to the hermit and listen to his stories. The hermit spoke of the far off lands and of the war that had shattered the world. Phelan wasn't sure if the stories were true, but he was fascinated to hear of the diverse groups that had once peopled the world and how the war had wiped most of that history from knowledge.

The stories would scare Phelan sometimes, but the hermit assured him that war was a thing of the distant past. Life had started over again, a simple and hardy people rose up and lived as good people should. Honest toil, loving families, and a quiet respect for all living things marked this new era and although the scars of war brought forth dark things from the depth of night there was also light and beauty.

The hermit asked Phelan if he wanted to know more, to become a student of the lost history of the world as he, the hermit, had learned it from the previous wanderer and so on. It was a terrible burden, the hermit said, but in learning these things, he could become a warden for the people and a leader in troubled times, should they arise.

Phelan, scared as he was, yearned for knowledge of the ancient cities and the history that had been forgotten. And so, Phelan became the newest student in a long line of pupils who held the burden of truth so that the new world did not have to.