fiction

Mid-January Update

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

2026 has just begun! Let’s set some goals, shall we?

Social Media Goals

Novel Goals

> X Growth
I am well on track to reach 220 Followers on X before the end of the month. I am at 213 currently.
> A Weekly Short Story
I plan to edit or write a short story at least once a week to release alongside my Newsletter. So far I am 2 for 2
> A Weekly Newsletter
So far I am 2 for 2. I am considering changing this to a monthly newsletter.
> Daily Motivational/Non-fiction blogs
Of 13 days this year I have posted 7 Non-fiction blogs as of this blog. If I post one tomorrow that will keep me at about 4 per week.		The Shards of Arthur’s Shield <
████░░░░░░░░░ 31%
I have an appointment with my editor on the 21st to go over a game plan. So I have till then to finish getting the book up to first draft standards.
The Early Years of a Great Mage <
I will be placing this on the back burner until I have TSOAS off to a pro-editor.
Brothers’ Feud <
I will be placing this on the back burner until I have TSOAS off to a pro-editor.

How’s it going?

January is just beginning, but with December behind me and the whole of 2026 before me? I am feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. Please pray for me if you are a praying kind of person.

The Warrior Reawakens

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

The Empress of the Terran Alliance, Queen of Mars, and cult proclaimed goddess of the Milky Way, opened her eyes after her morning prayers and supplications. Despite what the outlaw cult leaders might tell you, the great Empress herself was created by an even more powerful and creative God of the universe. Who better to serve than the creator of all things? Her prayers that morning, as they were every morning, were for wisdom, clarity of thought, and strength. Being Empress was not nearly as easy or as fun as what she had been before. Hundreds of years ago, before her reluctant Accession to the Throne of Power, Sally was just a college student studying art at the University of Arizona. Now, if she looked at a map, she wasn’t even sure if she could point to Arizona. The old nations have all been dissolved and reformulated under her rule, at least those of Terra Prima. The student loans, the boy troubles, the test anxiety, she would have it all back if it meant she did not need to worry about her Empire.

She collected herself, donning her royal robes, and stepped from her chambers in the Palace of Grace. The Palace was located upon Atlantis, the newly raised eighth continent and seat of power for the Empire. If one were to look at a map from when Sal was a girl, they would more than likely find it incomprehensible in those latter days. The Empress moved from her Palace to her Chambers just outside the Hall of the Chosen, where she would preside over the proceedings between her ten chosen councilors and the people’s ten councilors. Sal had set up this system only six years after she ascended to Empress. This took much burden off of her as the sole arbiter of justice, and instead left her to be a simple tie breaker should it be needed, which hardly ever occurred. In the six hundred years she has presided, and across the hundreds of councilors, she had to break a tie four times, if she remembered properly.

In her chambers awaited her “three daughters,” the highest rank attainable in the Terran Government by those of the low-blooded Terra Secondari, the underclass on Terra. Sal allowed their women to become her personal entourage as a show of unity between the two great sections of the world. The women fawned over Sal, believing her to be a goddess. After they had their chance to doll her up and make sure she was the most attractive being in the galaxy, even without her powers, Sal stepped out into the Council chambers.

The chambers were shaped as an oval; the party addressing the council stood in the center of the oval, having entered from the opposite side of the oval from where the Empress sat. Ten Councilors, five from each house, sat on either side of the addresser, lifted above them by about five feet on the platforms. The oval, at its widest, was twenty feet across, and its depth was three times that at sixty feet deep. The space from the ground to the ceiling, however, was around fifty-five feet. The entire room was imposing, not without purpose. The grandeur of the highest court in the Empire was nothing to be considered trife.

Sal had heard the murmurings among the council members as they awaited her arrival, and the sudden hush and dead silence was pierced only by the soft clopping of her heels on the darkened marble floor, which made up the ground she trod across to take her place behind the ceremonial veil. Laurana Tash took her place just outside the veil, where she could declare the court in session by introducing the Empress. “All rise,” Sal heard more than saw her councilors rise and bow. “The Queen of Atlantis, Queen of Terra Secondaria, Queen of Terra Prima, Queen of Mars, Empress of the Great Terran Alliance, Lady of the Day, and Daughter of the Creator, Sal Unborn, presides, this day, over all the Great Light touches. Council is now in session.”

Most of the issues and queries made by the people that day were handled by the councilors with almost no input from the throne. What little input there was came by way of Laurana the Empress’ Mouth. Laurana had served Sal for over one hundred years now. The Empress found herself bored to the point of exhaustion just as she had every day for those last hundred years. Nothing exciting ever happened anymore. The last addresser of the Council to call for military aid had stood before them nearly two hundred years ago. The rebellions were crushed, the world was at peace and bathed in prosperity, and even the stars were being colonized as they spoke. Sal almost begged for something to happen. As if He heard her cries, the Creator decided today was the day.

The quiet of deliberation was suddenly broken by the doors to the Council Chamber being slammed open. The Empress made no sudden move, but instead slowly sat upright as if she was more insulted by the interruption than startled. Sal opened her mouth, and Laurana spoke. “Who enters into the presence of her Grace without appointment?” Looking through Laurana’s eyes, Sal could see the disheveled man who had barged in.

The old man was bloodied and broken, hobbling on one leg, dragging the other behind before tripping and slamming into the dias that held the great sigil of the Council. “My Empress, they are here, Atlantis’ shield has been compromised, the Herrium have sent an advance force of… of humans! Empress, save us, save your people!”

Sal suddenly felt odd; the world paused before her eyes. She had not personally entered Slip-time since she was a girl. Something about this man slammed into those warrior instincts as if a gong from another life was being rung loudly in her mind. Sal stepped from her veil and began levitating up and eventually passed through the skylight in the chamber’s ceiling. Outside the Palace of Grace, she looked up and saw what the man was talking about. An invasion fleet flooded out of the side of an orbiting dreadnought. Was that Bohdi’s Bismarck? It couldn’t be. 

Either way, the empress stretched her neck and felt a deep crack as if something finally snapped back into place after hundreds of years. Her royal robes burned off her body, and she felt the gust of wind clothe her in her old hero garments from the before times.  A red body-length coat wrapped around her waist, forcing an hourglass figure she had not known for many, many years. Her legs were covered in black leather boots that went up to her knee, and her face cast aside all the glamorous makeup done by her daughters that morning, replaced by a simple foundation, blush, and lipstick combination she had been known for. The lipstick, of course, was poisonous. That was truly a relic. Being from the days before her heroics. Sal sighed as she had to mentally adjust the fit; she was not twenty years old anymore, even if her joints didn’t know it.

Bodhi, a once loyal bodyguard to the Empress, had told her many times she should spend even an hour a week sparring with other Gifted warriors, to keep herself in pique condition for an eventuality such as this. Now, she supposed, she would go and tell Bodhi he was right, in person.

Notes on More’s Utopia #2

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

By: A.B. Timothy

Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth (Cont.)

We continue reading the introduction on the sixth page of my copy, beginning with the words, “As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new- discovered countries…”

This section, given from the mouth of Raphael Hythloday (a man we know to be a fiction and thus his words may be rightly attributed to Thomas More), is a dialogue on questions about Hythloday’s credibility and reasoning. Both Thomas More, himself a character in the story, and his friend, Peter Giles, question the good philosopher on his lack of public service. After Hythloday tells them all there is to be told about the “Utopians” and their state, “from which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live…”, More asks Hythloday why he has not taken this knowledge to a king so he might be hired as an advisor of sorts, or be given riches. Hythloday explains that he has already given away everything he had gathered as a younger man, so he would not have to deal with dividing his fortune among his friends as older men often must do. Hythloday goes on to explain that he has his reasons for not going to a king. He says that they are all too concerned with warring and taking more territory for their nation that they would not be, and are not, interested in bettering the governance they practice over the lands they already own. On top of this, Hythloday is not interested in playing politics with these princes nor the councilors who serve on their courts. Some would be jealous of his new ideas, and others would try to get on his good side. The politics of it all bore him, and he would rather spend his remaining time how he sees fit.

My takeaway is this: Thomas More lived in a time when fiction required a great deal of believability before people were willing to indulge in it and engage with the ideas it presented. Today, we only must worry about believable characters when writing our fiction. Whereas, in those days, they must make the whole fiction as plausible as possible. This dialogue, it seems then, is an answer to those ministers, lords, kings, and parliamentarians who, when reading the story, would ask, “Well, why have I never heard of this ‘Hythloday’ character?” Thomas is anticipating this question by essentially asking it himself, allowing his readers to continue to suspend their disbelief. He will get into greater detail in this next paragraph, where Hythloday goes over his fictional time in England that, conveniently enough, occurred during the First Cornish Rebellion.

This next dialogue, which lasts ten pages, explores Hythloday’s relationship with John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England. Hythloday is at dinner with the Chancellor and some of his friends when they are discussing the execution of thieves, boasting that “there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!” (A gibbet is a place where they displayed criminals they had hanged.) Hythloday (More’s thoughts) rips into the men. All this death was nothing to boast about. It was not only unjust that they killed them for something as petty as theft, but also that they had gotten to the point where they felt they must steal. Hythloday goes on to describe how rough the people of England have it. Many veterans, having lost limbs in the Cornish Rebellion and in other conflicts fought with France, have been forced into poverty from their lack of ability to work. He then goes on a several-page-long side tangent talking about the morality of keeping a standing army, before returning to the root of the thievery problem.

This aside about standing soldiers kept by lords to enforce their borders and capture criminals comments on what becomes of these soldiers. Many of them are hard men from the aforementioned wars and thus are preferred by the lords of the land to protect their assets. This is good because it keeps them from thievery (and veterans often make very good thieves). But it is not good because only the best of the best get chosen to be these guards, leaving the rest of the veterans to fall into the ways of thieving poverty. These men aren’t even good to keep around as a standing army, as they get dull and soft during their time away from war. When they get soft and effeminate, they fall, often times to crime, just to get a thrill. These standing armies have also been a bad thing in the past, he mentions Rome, Carthage, and Syria, as examples of what having standing armies that grow soft can do to a nation. Then he turns back to poverty.

Hythloday argues that it is landlords who have been buying up villages just to knock them down, force their inhabitants into the cities, and build pastures for their massive flocks of sheep. There is rampant inflation, and these poor villagers, who did not have much money to begin with, found that their money lasted an even shorter time in the city. Ultimately, Hythloday recommends a return to the Rural lifestyle and the forced sale of many of these massive and unnecessary land plots, back to the people so they can live in an independent but ultimately more secure way. This will alleviate much of the thievery problem and help the citizens of their nation. A win-win that will end much of the unjust killing of criminals who, Hythloday claims, these very men created by their policies.

Again, More is relaying his critiques of his own homeland, it seems, through a fictional surrogate in Hythloday. Some of these arguments appear to be progressive and almost socialist in places. This section is the first time we see one of Hythloday’s ideas, which is clearly influenced by his time in Utopia (No-Place). More is laying out an idealized vision for his home of England, how much of this More himself sees as feasible is yet to be seen.

Conclusion

I ended my reading on page 20 of the work as a whole, meaning I read 14 pages today. I am about 33% of the way through this section of discourses from Hythloday, after which, we will be getting into the vision of Utopia itself. If you want to read along, I would highly encourage it. I covered the first 6 pages of the work in my post yesterday. Go check those out and read along with a free PDF of the book from the internet. If this intrigues you and you feel inspired to go read some old literature, consider subscribing to my WordPress so you get emails whenever I post a new part of this series or any other I am currently working on. Or my Newsletter to get updates every week on Saturday.

Sign up for my Newsletter to get a weekly recap of the articles that week and a preview of this week’s short story!

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Notes on More’s Utopia #1

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

By: A.B. Timothy

Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth

This first section begins with a great deal of people being introduced to the reader. King Henry VIII sent our author, Thomas More, to Flanders to be ambassador to Prince Charles. More was a companion to Cuthbert Tonstal, a recently named Master of the Rolls. It is clear that More holds Tonstal in very high esteem, as he says anything he would say about him would be like the proverb, “Show the sun with a lantern.” Almost a “you had to meet him” commendation. According to the introduction from the copy I have, Tonstal was a rising churchman, chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1515), later he was made Archdeacon of Chester before finally being made Master of the Rolls in 1516. Certainly, this is a man of great accomplishment. Next, we meet the Margrave of Bruges, who led the men appointed by Prince Charles to meet with More at Bruges. Even though he was not the leader, George Temse, Provost of Casselsee, “was esteemed wisest, and…spoke for the rest….” (More) He was also a man of law, much like More himself was, having studied law in London after leaving Oxford. After their meeting, the men left, back to Brussels to find out what the Prince wanted. More went to Antwerp and met with several visitors, among whom was Peter Giles, a man whom More cannot speak highly enough of. Such goodly was his company that it “lessened any longings to go back to [his] country and to [his] wife and children….”(See footnote 1) (This Peter fellow must have been quite the conversationalist.)

It was this Giles fellow who would introduce More to the roving Portuguese Philosopher called Raphael Hythloday, the very same spoken of in the title of this section. This man had traveled far and wide with an explorer of renown who is called Americus Vesputius in these pages, but we know better as Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer after whom the American Continents get their names. Having accompanied this great man on three of Vespucci’s four voyages, Hythloday chose, along with 23 other men, to remain ashore at the farthest place Vespucci would explore. However, Hythloday did not wish to die there, in some far off unknown corner of the world, and therefore set out with 5 men. They traveled through many countries before, by God’s grace, finding Portuguese ships to carry the philosopher home that he might return to his native country.

Note: Raphael Hythloday’s name means “knowing in trifles”. He is a fictional character, through whom Thomas More told the tale of his Utopia.

This philosopher is learned in Latin and Greek and has applied himself more to Greek because of his love of philosophy. More claims the Romans left no value in Philosophy, save Seneca and Cicero. I don’t know that I agree, but this belief, coming from More, makes sense given that the Renaissance was focused on a revival of Greek culture and philosophy, not Roman.

For the next few pages, Hythloday regales us with the story of his adventure. They travelled, furnished by some unnamed lord of some unnamed county, south, over the equator and down into another land. More uses a desert landscape as a sort of liminal transition place between civilized hubs. Perhaps the fantastical things seen by Hythloday as he continued south could be chalked up to heat stroke. There in the south, they found “nations, towns, and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves and with their neighbors, but traded, both by sea and land, to very remote countries.” (More) At first, all they found were small, flat, perhaps fishing-style vessels, but then they found ships quite large and familiar to their cohort. Hythloday was welcomed quickly and warmly, for he taught these sailors, who already knew of Astronomy and navigation, the use of the “needle”, of which they were ignorant.

Note: The “needle” here is talking about a magnetic compass.

More and Giles asked Hythloday about the institutions and more noble things of the cities, but did not ask about monsters.

Conclusion

I have read and notated above 6 pages of the story proper. My E-Reader says I am about 8% of the way through the story as a whole, but that is only because I read the introduction yesterday, which I used for reference here today, but did not notate in its entirety. These six pages were a good introduction to the story and the device by which More intends to tell it at length. They are also about ten percent of the entire first-named section, “Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth.” I will likely read and notate the rest of this section and the book as a whole. I will see you all tomorrow with the next section.

Want to keep reading along? Consider subscribing to my WordPress so you get emails whenever I post a new part of this series or any other I am currently working on.

Sign up for my Newsletter to get a weekly recap of the articles that week and a preview of this week’s short story!

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

An Assassin is Brought to Justice

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

A Short Story by A.B. Timothy

The grass of the forest floor tickled the soles of Fenreir’s feet as he stalked his prey. These forests had been Fenreir’s home for decades now, and he had called a little village his home for almost as long. When they found out about his hunting skills, they quickly welcomed him into their fold. Now, as he aged, his skills had begun to wane, but he still insisted on carrying his own weight. He told the village priest that he would hunt until the day the gods hindered his movement. Unless he was unable to hoist himself from his bed in the morning, he would hunt and provide for this place that had sacrificed so much for him.

There was a great buck before him now, a male of the commonly hunted deer species in these parts. It was likely twice the size of Fenreir himself, and if he could take it down and bring it in, it would feed half the village. Other hunters had offered to attend him on these hunts, but he felt they were only trying to pity him. A decade before, he had taken apprentices and had taught them the ways of the hunt: how to stalk, how to read the forest, and how to kill, but now they wanted to pity the old man and help him when he was the only reason they knew their blackberries from the deathfruit.

He raised his bow and drew back the fresh string on the old bow. His biceps tensed, and his brown eyes focused. His slim body tightened to steady his breathing for the killshot. The leaves of the bush he hid in did not so much as move in the wind as he loosed his fingers. The arrow flew true and pierced the chest of the great beast. Fenreir knew from experience that the buck was dead, even if that fact took several seconds to register in the brain of the great beast.

At that moment, a blood-curdling cry split the air from gods knew how far away. The hunter whipped around to look for the source of the sound; the knife slipped free from its sheath on his waist purely on instinct. When he saw no immediate danger, he looked up, through the canopy of the forest, back the way he had come, and saw a pillar of smoke rising high into the clouds.

The buck watched as his killer leaped from the bush and ran through the foliage away from the kill. He groaned and fell forward into the dirt as he died.

Fenreir was back on the outskirts of his village, Konray, and orbited the place he called home, looking for the danger. Finally, through an opening in the homes that let him see straight to the village center, he saw that the temple was burning and the priests were on the ground. The whole village center was filled with villagers. Fathers, mothers, children, holy men and women, and elders watched as a company of soldiers surrounded them and held them all at swordpoint.

“…my father!” The man who looked to be in charge of the lot of soldiers held a knife to the throat of their high priest. “He killed the man who allowed these pagan practices to persist in our Great God’s land. He killed the source of the mercy you benefited from so greatly.” Fenreir recognized the voice but thought it was wrong. This man was dead; the hunter knew that. Could this new man be related to that old voice?

“Tell me where he is, or all of your holy ones die with their pagan temple.” Fenreir had moved through the alleyways to get close enough to see the fear in the eyes of all the women and children. “Tell me!”

Fenreir recognized the garb of the soldiers. These were imperial men, soldiers from the capital itself. What were they doing out here?

Fenreir called out, stepping out of the shadows, “Stop! Don’t hurt the old man!” He realized he was speaking in the Imperial tongue, which none of the villagers even knew. That was probably why they weren’t responding to the demands of this nobleman.

“Rek orj, thun, ojkat!” the high priest told Fenreir. It meant, “Don’t concern yourself, old hunter, run!”

In their tongue, Fenreir told the priest, “I can’t do that.”

“You, hunter! You would take this old man’s place?” the nobleman demanded.

“Who are you looking for?” Fenreir asked the man, his hands raised as he continued to approach the man.

“Take those head coverings off, man, let me see your face.”

“It seems neither of us can get a straight answer from the other,” Fenreir said as he took off the coverings that covered his forehead and mouth while he hunted. A breeze caught his hair and blew away a bit of the sweat that had been coating his forehead.

The Nobleman threw away the elder, unharmed, Fenreir thought from the lack of blood, and pointed his sword at the hunter. “It’s you! I’ll kill you! Guard, give him your sword. I will not kill him unarmed like some filth-ridden assassin.”

One of the soldiers near them, with a confused look on his face, tossed Fenreir his sword. A few of the other guards had stepped forward to help their lord kill the old hunter. “Stay back!” The Nobleman insisted, “This kill is mine, just close ranks, ensure he does not run. Rats are known to run when their lives are in danger.”

“Who are you, boy, and why do you desire death?” Fenreir asked the noble.

“You don’t recognize me? They say I have my father’s eyes. Look into them and see if you find the eyes of the man you killed.” The Nobleman took a step forward and brought his blade down to strike at the older man.

Fenreir parried the strike and side-stepped another blow. The old hunter was trying to look into his opponent’s eyes. Could it be true? Could some poor orphan that he had made in his old life have found him all the way out here? Then Fenreir saw in the rage-filled eyes of the Nobleman the eyes of the old Emperor. That made him stumble. His sword was knocked aside, and he felt a gash open on his chest. He fell to his knees.

“Know me! Ye people, know your emperor. I am Jonathan the First of his name.” Emperor Jonathan picked up Fenreir’s weakening body by the hair. He dragged the old man before the villagers, who had treated him like family for decades. “I name this man, Fenreir the Subtle, assassin of the guild, slayer of my father, and reuiner of the Empire. Know you of his past! I demand that you know! Would any stand for this man?”

“Fenreir, do you deny any of this?” asked the village elder.

The old assassin weakly shook his head. “I cannot.” Fenreir remembered it now. His last kill was over three decades ago. The Emperor of the Silver Throne. The only witness was the man’s son. That boy must have made him and spent his life hunting him.

“I speak for my people, my lord; we did not know of this man’s treachery. Do with him what you will, we will not resist you.”

“So, you savages do speak!” The man pointed at the gathered villagers and commanded his soldiers, saying, “Kill them all and make sure Fenreir can see each die. The Empire will no longer suffer the pagan to live.”

Fenreir felt his lifeblood seeping out onto the dirt. He would die with his people. “Oh, no, you don’t,” Emperor Jonathan hoisted the dying man back to his feet. After the horrors subsided and all the village had been slaughtered before the assassin, Emperor Jonathan spoke, “Look at them all, look at their innocent pagan blood, know, assassin, that this blood is on your hands. Now, with your final thoughts being the knowledge of the cost of your murderous ways, go and be with them in the fires of eternal damnation.”

Fenreir felt a sharp pain in his scalp as his hair was given to someone else to hold. The Emperor stepped in front of his father’s assassin. No more words were spoken, and the last sight that Fenreir beheld was that of his old life catching up to him.

January Goals!

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

2026 has just begun! Let’s set some goals, shall we?

Social Media Goals

Novel Goals

> X Growth
I intend to reach 220 Followers on X before the end of the month. I am at 190 currently.
> A Weekly Short Story
I plan to edit or write a short story at least once a week to release alongside my Newsletter.
> A Weekly Newsletter
I plan to put out a weekly Newsletter covering what I wrote for my blog that week and what I did in pursuit of my creative goals that week.
> Daily Motivational/Non-fiction blogs
I plan on putting out 4 or 5 blogs every week discussing writing, editing, and life.		The Shards of Arthur’s Shield <
█░░░░░░░ 12%
My goal for January regarding this novel is to have the whole of it edited to my standards so I can send it off to a professional editor by the end of the month.
The Early Years of a Great Mage <
I will be placing this on the back burner until I have TSOAS off to a pro-editor.
Brothers’ Feud <
I will be placing this on the back burner until I have TSOAS off to a pro-editor.

How’s it going?

January is just beginning, but with December behind me and the whole of 2026 before me? I am feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. Please pray for me if you are a praying kind of person.

It’s all about sticking to it! Feel free to subscribe to this blog to see how my works progress, and also send your email my way so I can get you added to the weekly newsletter.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

The Great Flood (Netflix, 2025) A Review

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

By: A.B. Timothy

The Great Flood, a Korean Sci-Fi Drama released by Netflix in 2025, is a story about what it means to be human, quite literally. The premise is that of a catastrophic flood caused by an asteroid impact, wiping out humanity. With our species’s last breath, we attempt to bring life to our successors aboard a spaceship designed to survive us and continue after we are gone.

The cast is studded with Korean stars. The lead male character, a security agent sent to secure the protagonist, is Park Hae-soo of Squid Game fame. The leading lady here is also no slouch, as Kim Da-mi is no stranger to the Korean film industry, appearing in many major movies and TV shows before this one. They both really let it shine here. They beautifully portray the tragic humanity of their situation without letting their stardom be the focus.

In all, I give this movie an 8/10. The Sci-Fi nature, and the twist that pulls from greats like Edge of Tomorrow, and Doctor Who, while giving it a new life with a fresh and timely Sci-Fi twist.

Acting
91%
Story
87%
Originality
65%
Characters
72%

If you have no issue watching a Subtitled Korean Sci-Fi Drama that will make you ask questions you may have never known could even be asked, The Great Flood is your next film!

Sign up for my Newsletter to get a weekly recap of the articles that week and a preview of this week’s short story!

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Fortis: The Return of the Vulture King, a Review

/ abtimothy / 1 Comment

By: A.B. Timothy

Fortis: The Return of the Vulture King, by C.K. Kesterson, is a book filled with vibrant fantasy, explosive fight scenes, and relatable characters who feel real. Whether you are looking to buy a clean adventure book for a middle-grade reader in your life, or you are looking for an easy-to-follow, fun adventure to go on, this book is for you.

Kesterson does an amazing job writing boys who feel true to life. I remember what it was like being a tween and feel as though both Lucian and Tomas embody those memories with ease. C.K. Kesterson clearly draws on his experiences as a father to put his sons in the story, giving us compelling, if sometimes less than intelligent, characters. Granted, knowing how I was as a young boy, the lack of intelligence makes the experience that much more authentic sometimes.

The companions who come alongside the heroes throughout the story are very well written and true. They don’t just automatically go along with what the boys say because the boys are the main characters, and the plot demands it. They push back when two random children show up on their doorstep and try to get help from them.

The villain of the story, the titular “Vulture King”, is suitable for a middle-grade fantasy story. You will not see the depths of Jordan’s “Dark One” or the imbecility of Wiley Coyote, but you will also never feel safe in the presence of the villain, which is perfect.

I highly recommend this book for parents looking for a clean adventure for their children to read that isn’t one of the classics from the 20th century.

The Dreaming Pianist

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

A Short Story written by Logan Peterson

Edited by A.B. Timothy

(For context: This was written by a man in the First Person Perspective of a young female character. This is about two characters from the Historical Fiction W.I.P., Cornelius: The Son of Peter.)

I sat at the piano, as I had every day for the last few months, typing the notes of this newly imported song. A boy I liked had come home from one of his adventures on the sea with his father singing it, and I begged my pastor, in secret, of course, if he would write to the composer and get a copy. Dueil Angoisseux, written by Christine de Pisan, was such a beautifully haunting song. Another plus to it was that Claes Cornelissen had seemed to memorize all of it during his recent time in France. That boy could make a sparrow faint with his tenor voice; no wonder Pastor was so anguished when he stepped down from the boy’s chorus to be his father’s first mate.

I wished I could go on these wonderful adventures and see the world… but my father was only a baker, and I, a poor baker’s daughter. Maybe he’ll take me on his ship and on an adventure, one day, after we are married and I’ve had our daughter, Elissa, and a son for his name’s sake. Then we’ll grow old together and… Then I heard him.

As I sat there, playing the beautiful notes and moving with the melody as it moved my mind from sorrow to love and back again, I heard him. A door shut at the end of a hall, and footsteps in time with the song. As if he’d been singing the entire song so far, Claes’s tenor voice rang down the hall, filling my ears with the hauntingly beautiful French lyrics: 

“Princes, priez à Dieu qui bien briefment,
Me doint la mort, s’autrement secourir…”

He continued the chorus even as I trailed off. My fingers were frozen from sheer enrapturement. My mother and everyone else I know would tell me I am too young to be in love, but how could I not be with a voice so sweet and inviting? How could I not fall for a man who so neatly embodied the knightly myth at such a young age? Fierce and adventurous but simultaneously gentlemanly and kind. I stood from the piano and turned to him. He’d just recently turned fourteen, and I had done the same. His beautiful tenor left the room with a resonance I felt down my spine.

I took a step towards him and he towards me as we sang the last line together.

“Et si ne puis ne garir ne morir.”

He pulled me into an embrace and bent his face down to mine. I closed my eyes and felt his lips on mine…

“Margaret!” I shot up in bed at the sound of my voice being called. “Margaret, are you napping again?” My mother opened the door to my room and caught me on my bed with bed hair. “Girl, get up, you can’t go and see that Cornelissen boy looking like a sleeping troll now, can ye? Besides, you need to help your father with the final loaves for the day before you can go anywhere.”

How Warsingers Fight

/ abtimothy / Leave a comment

A Short Story from the World of “The Battle of Johanna Valley”

By: A.B. Timothy

Zennith was a young lad sitting under the tutelage of a veteran warsinger. His attire was that of the standard youth, a plain brown tunic with trousers to match. His eyes were a deep, almost black, blue; his face was round and pudgy; his hair was blonde and well-kempt. His mother refused to let him out of the house if a comb hadn’t at least touched his hair.

The young man sat in a semi-circle that surrounded their teacher, the veteran warsinger. They all sat on the ground in an attempt to be as connected to the earth as they could manage inside this building. Around them were decorations that reminded them they were in school, tools of math, books of language, and implements of science. But now, all the young boys in the school had gathered here to learn from a master, just as the young girls of the school gathered in a different classroom to learn from another teacher, their secrets.

That day, the warsinger, Master Henry, was teaching the children a new song. This song was a song of protection. Henry began in a low baritone, as he had spent the last week teaching them all the fundamentals of Warsinging, strength is found in the deep bass notes. “Oooh shield strong, shield wide, brush our enemies away and put them aside.”

The melody stayed in the lower register of young Zennith’s voice. He sang the song and tried to follow his teacher’s vocal footsteps. The veteran’s voice became manifest in their air, a blue shield sprang into being, its color was a deep, barely translucent blue. Zennith knew that this meant the shield was strong and unlikely to break. When the young singer tried his own, it too became manifest in the world. A small blue shield floated in front of him, almost the same color as the sky, very easy to see through. His voice was not deep enough, his notes were pitchy, but the air heard his song and granted him protection.

Henry looked around the small semi-circle of young boys who were trying their part in the song of protection. Several of them managed to create a little shield, like Zennith, but others were not getting low enough with their voices, or their notes were too pitchy. He sang the song for them again, and again they all tried. They did this call and response for an hour before Henry called it for the day.

“You all have the gift of Warsinging, children, but some are tenors, and some are basses, and some are baritones. Take young Jor, his shield is light and you can almost not even see it, for his voice is naturally higher than most,” Jor blushed at first, but then Henry continued, “but now look at Zennith’s shield. Strong, and it got darker with each attempt, for his voice is naturally lower than most. However, next week, after I have given you your lore for the day, we will be learning a new song, a song of speed. I can say with certainty that Jor will be outpacing all of you before the day is out, and Zennith may be behind the group. This is not to belittle nor to bolster Jor or Zennith,” Henry explained, “rather this is to help you all understand. Each gift is different, but all are needful in the fight. Sopranos, altos? Those ranges are even more vital, some argue, than we bass clef ruffians. Your sisters or mothers may have learned some of those skills in school. Can anyone tell me what they do?”

A boy named Ramth raised his hand. Zenith knew he had three sisters and a very influential mother. “Yes, Ramth?”

“Well, sir, the higher voices are able to move things even faster than tenors, which allows them to bind wounds, light fires, and restart hearts,” Ramth said.

“Very good. This is why most hospitals will be staffed with alto nurses and soprano doctors. You will rarely find bass surgeons because of what some true basses have learned they can do with their gifts, but those men are rare.” Henry stood from his teaching chair and straightened his blue tunic, and swept the legs of his pants clean with a few brushes.

“That is enough lore and training for today, boys, now go home and be good sons.” Henry returned to his desk and began marking things off on a sheet of paper. Zennith stood and followed the crowd of students out of the classroom.

Zenith returned to his home, where he prepared for his extracurriculars. Mostly, his brother, who was five years his senior, would be home soon, and he would continue to teach his younger brother swordplay. It was good practice for Hock, Zennith’s older brother, as he was on the dueling team at the local youth school, and it was good foundations practice for Zennith as he hoped to join his brother on the team next year.

Hock was a tenor and ran in the yearly tenor race, so he had made Zennith promise not to use song in the duel. Duelists on the team had to wear mouth guards that muted them to prevent a tenor from merely outrunning a bass. Dueling was not about who could Warsing the best, but rather who knew the duel the best. This, they had been told, prepared the boys for real war. In those real battles, they did not wear mouthguards, but neither did the enemy; to tenors and basses used their voices to counteract each other. Shield walls grew from the ground in front of choirs of basses, and tenor soloists would have to run around the wall before they could close the gap and do any damage. At least, that’s how the stories went.

Zennith was practicing sword forms in the field behind his home when Hock arrived. The two brothers clapped their wooden swords and took their stances. Zennith was warmed up from the forms and Hock from the practice at school. They each put in their mouthpieces and went at it. Zennith was smaller, but sometimes faster than his brother, so he was able to win a few points, but the points that Hock scored were draining. Zennith received a bruise on his calf from a smack Hock gave him with his sword. The bruise drained his energy and sapped him of strength. It was less than five minutes later that Zennith surrendered the duel.

“You’ve got to work on defense. Your speed is good, Zennith, but if I can land those hits, your speed does not matter one bit.” Hock tapped his brother’s calf with the point of his wooden practice blade.

“Well, in a real fight, I’ll have my Warsong to defend me.” Zennith protested.

“And that’s why we practice with these,” Hock gestured with the mouthpiece he was still holding. “In a real fight, your only hope against a Tenor Assassin is your skill and instinct with the blade. He’d cut your vocal cords before you could get a single bar of a protection song out. Come on, let’s go again.”

They both took sips of water before putting their mouthpieces back in. Zennith attacked first. His sword flew from targeting one of his brother’s temples to the next, his hands twisting in the air. Finally, his brother caught his blade and threw it up, pushing Zennith back and pressing the offensive.

Hock pressed his brother hard, using up a reserve of energy he found to force his brother to practice his defence. To Hock’s pleasure, Zennith held his defensive line well. Hock tried all of his usual tricks and feints, but Zennith had been ready for each one. He stabbed at an opening in his brother’s right guard, but his thrusting sword was met with a sweeping reposte. Zennith’s blade knocked Hock’s aside and, in an impressive display, the young warrior brought his sword around in a defensive twist and put it right under Hock’s chin.

“I yield!” Hock cried, spitting his mouthpiece out. That made the score one-one. They each took a few moments to ready themselves for the inevitable tie-breaker.

They took their battle stances again and put in their mouthpieces. Just as Zennith went to move in, they heard, “Boys! Dinner!” They both sighed and lowered their blades; they would have to have their tie-breaker another time.