While digging through old books of sheet music, I came across a printed copy of the fantasy/sci-fi story I was writing about four years ago. Reading through my old writing was amusing; while there's awkwardly worded parts that I'd definitely phrase differently now, I was surprised to find that I actually didn't find it horrible :) So I figured I'd type it up and post it here to abet my ridicule.

I am also chagrinned and proud to note that the story managed to conform to the stereotypical characteristics of both fantasy and sci-fi. Beat that.

Dan's cool As-Yet-To-Be-Titled Fantasy Story

By Dan McCormack

Chapter 1

The wind was cold on his face as Rhyx reached the top of the hill. It was past midnight already; he should have chosen a town to spend the night in hours ago. As he looked out upon the town of Kaer, he noticed the lack of illumination; all towns in these sectors were supposed to keep all lights on from sunset to sunrise. Darkness was required for all manner of working of the New Science with evil intent. Before descending, Rhyx worked a Knowing to discover why the law was being foolishly broken here, but he couldn't achieve the results he desired. Could it be because of the lack of light? True, the darkness and the fear of what dwelled there made it hard to concentrate, but it shouldn't disturb him enough to prevent a simple Knowing. In need of rest and the safe shelter, he entered the town. And discovered the true reason why his Knowing had failed.

There was not a single creature in Kaer. As he wandered around the town, searching for some form of living presence, he pondered.

A knowing involves reading the brain waves exuded by another’s mind; a process which the Ancients, lacking the skill among the normal populace, called Extra-Sensory Perception. Needless to say, with no living creatures in the area, a Knowing becomes impossible.

As to a reason WHY there seemed to have been a mass evacuation — animals and all — Rhyx could only guess. None of his skills provided the needed information.

Rhyx was a mage, studying the New Science under the master Erin. The so-called Old Science was no longer practiced — the Necrosoft brain-chip bug and its horrible effects 60 years ago had led to a frantic refusal of any kind of device which incorporated modern technology.

People seemed more comfortable with the New Science, which depended on the human mind rather than machines to do its bidding. “If only people realized just how unreliable the human mind is,” Rhyx’s mother always said. Rhyx found a balance by studying the New Science while covertly learning the technology abandoned in the Awakening, as the event was now called, from manuals and documents that his father had saved.

A rustling far behind him pulled him from his thoughts. By pure instinct, the words to a spell formed in his mind. At his reflexive command, the earth behind him shot up into the air and froze there, forming a solid wall. Moments later, a spine, about 5 inches in length, embedded itself in the makeshift shield; it would not have been off its mark. He spun around, hands going to his weapons of choice — small metal discs, sharpened about the edges, guided once in the air by circuitry of his design. A muttered word, and the wall of earth fell, and already several disks were in the air. Once he had released them, he worked a Knowing to locate his enemy and steer the dists to him — but could find none. He heard thumps as the disks embedded themselves in whatever natural object was in their path.

Suddenly, a sleek, black object swooped out of a cloud, down out of the dark sky. He looked frantically around for cover, but could find nothing within a suitable distance. Desperately, he hurled himself to the ground, hoping to avoid the — whatever it was, he hadn’t even touched that subject yet — the enemy if it was merely making a sweeping pass.

Instead, it flared and landed on top of him, pinning him down. As he managed to turn himself around under its claws, he looked up and realized what manner of creature his newfound captor was.

An enormous black dragon stood poised above Rhyx, its talons gleaming in the moonlight, so near his face. They dug into his flesh as the dragon brought its head down to Rhyx’s level, and much to his surprise, spoke.

“I am Ptacek, and you have entered my domain.”

“He answered, “And I am Rhyx Fakron. What might your domain be, Ptacek?”

The dragon cocked its head as it looked at him with one immense eye — and stated, “Whatever I want it to be.”

So that was it — a forced evacuation, as the dragon ‘moved in.’ “And what of all the people who resided here,” he asked.

The dragon laughed — apparently, speech was not a learned ability, but a natural one — and said, “Gone.” Rhyx stared intently at the dragon Ptacek, attempting to read the meaning behind the simple word. “I didn’t kill any, if that’s what you’re worried about, nor do I plan a similar fate for you,” the dragon reassured him.

For some reason, he trusted the dragon. Perhaps it was foolish of him, but he decided the dragon was probably not lying. Reassured in this aspect, his mind began to race. Dragons on Earth! He had read many a fantasy book describing such a situation, but never actually envisioned what its repercussions might entail. Perhaps it was a magic-user — that would explain why his knowing had failed and his projectiles had gone astray. If such was the case, its power had to be tremendous — to block a Knowing was no simple birthday party trick.

“I’m going to stand up, if you don’t mind,” Rhyx ventured, though it really wasn’t up to him at all. The dragon’s eyes squinted as it eyed him suspiciously. Then it stared into his eyes and he was certain that Ptacek was Knowing him, or the dragon equivalent of it. Finally, deciding that there was no ill intent in Rhyx’s heart, Ptacek lifted his foot and allowed him to his feet.

“Are there more of you?” he asked. He knew, if he could turn this inquisition into a two-way affair, that he would be that much closer to establishing himself as an equal. Once again, the dragon laughed, probably at his ignorance, though this seemed to have an undertone of sadness.

“There used to be. Now, however…” A strange look crossed the dragon’s face.

Rhyx wasn’t proficient in reading dragon expressions, but he was pretty sure the subject pained Ptacek, so he didn’t push it. He didn’t fail to notice however, that the dragon had answered him, instead of casually brushing the question aside.

Chapter 2

“Do you mind me asking why you drove hundreds of people from their homes?” questioned Rhyx, as they walked down a dark, deserted street.

“I needed somewhere to stay,” Ptacek casually answered, as if that explained everything.

“What was wrong with-“ He hesitated. “Where did you come from?” He asked instead, realizing that he knew very little about the situation, and should probably learn the basics first.

The dragon emitted a sound that was halfway between a belch and a roar. Rhyx stared at Ptacek, puzzled, and the dragon, realizing the miscommunication, explained, “Your kind lacks the organs necessary to pronounce most of my people’s words. That’s the name of the planet I’m from.”

“So you’re not from Earth? How did you get here? Where is your ship?”

“Ship?” The dragon looked perplexed. “Oh, a vehicle? My kind doesn’t need them; I’m capable of space travel.”

Rhyx looked at him dubiously. “How can that be?”

The dragon explained, “There are three factors barring your people from natural space travel: getting off the ground, for one thing, the atmosphere, or lack thereof, and impulse. As you should have noticed, I can fly. My body is tough enough to be able to stand vacuum of space. As far as the lack of air, we dragons can hold our breath for years. With the aid of magic we can last for centuries without air. And as for impulse, we use magic for that, too.”

“So you are a magic-user,” Rhyx noted. “What abilities do you have?”

As if in response, the dragon disappeared. Not a gradual fading away, but a sudden disappearance. One moment Rhyx was staring into Ptacek’s enormous black eyes, the next, nothing was impeding his view of the forest beyond. He saw a glint that might have been one of his metal discs. “Invisibility,” he observed.

“No, shapechanging,” stated a grub at his feet.

As he watched, the grub Ptacek underwent a series of rapid transformations, each barely registering before it became something else, each as instantaneous. The grub became a worm became a lizard became a strange creature that seemed to be partly reptilian and partly avian — could this be one of the fabled dinosaurs? At this point the dragon seemed satisfied he had proved his point and reverted to his original and assumedly natural black dragon state.

“Showoff,” chided Rhyx. “Anything else?”

A tree burst into flames in the woods behind Ptacek. The one in which his disc was embedded, noted Rhyx with a frown. No hope of getting it back now.

As he turned his eyes from the fire back to Ptacek, he asked, “You don’t breathe fire, then?” He was still trying to separate myth from reality.

“Yeah, I can if I want the visual effect. I don’t need to, though.”

This was obviously the kind of creature he would want to be allied with, and not against, in a fight, Rhyx thought.

He spent the night in one of the newly-abandoned houses, feeling a pang of guilt at the idea of taking advantage of the owner’s forced absence, but he eased his conscience by leaving money for the lodging and food consumed, in case they came back. In the morning, whilst breakfasting on eggs he found in the house next door (left some coins for those too), Rhyx asked Ptacek the question that had been bugging him all night: “If you’re not from Earth, how do you speak English?”

Ptacek explained, “I learned the language years ago through my contact with your people.”

“Contact with my people?” Rhyx asked, surprised. “As far as I know, no one has ever seen a real dragon before.”

“I was in constant contact with the humans of the east.”

“The east, meaning the coast towns such as Noy and Signa?”

“No, the people of the east continent.”

That's where I just sort of lost interest in the story. Probably, something shiny settled near me or something.

I'm not entirely sure how the revelation that Ptacek was in contact with the Chinese explains his fluency in English. Artistic license. Or laziness. When typing it up, it was tempting to rework that and other parts of the story, but it was even more tempting to not do any unnecessary work, in the guise of providing an unfiltered view of my past.

Incidentally, the dragon is named after a friend of mine at the time, Chris Ptacek.