Aru's Realm

by H. A. Byrd (Harriet Arden Byrd)

Genres: Gaslamp; Coming of Age; high fantasy; color; strong female; unique; heroes journey; mythical creatures; thought provoking; fictional worlds

Synopsis

Aru lives in a world without the concept of war. It is a time of steam trains and horse-drawn carriages . . . and hazardous lizards.

Each chapter of Aru’s Realm immerses the reader in a different color, playing on the association of hues with emotions and events, the tints and shades of reality. Carefully integrated details paint an impression of blue, or red, or green—

In the beginning, it is black. Deep in the woods, we meet Aru, a girl on the threshold of adulthood. Before her aged grandma leaves her alone in the world, she wants to see Aru secure in a place where her differences don’t cause her so much grief. But unbeknownst to both, a sorcerer has other plans.

Because Aru is not like the others, she is able to look beyond what is considered normal. But is it her unique traits that have attracted the attention of this unknown master of magic? Who is this person that is meddling in her life? Why single her out to torment?

Aru’s Realm is a story of power, compassion, and courage. Treading the fine line between imaginative thinking and madness, Aru must learn to handle her own abilities, live her own life, and at the same time work with her friends to save more than one world.

Release date: March 1, 2020

Publisher: Bibliogoblin Publications

Print pages: 515

Sample

 

CONTENTS.

 

CHAPTER.

I. Travel...................................

In which we meet Aru, forgotten by wolves.
She is spied by a raven, messenger in league with the grey wolf hunt,
& later a raven befriends her.
Aru is delivered an omen by a beaver, & by moles from danger.
In all that happens, the objects described, & in feeling,
the nature of this chapter is black.

II. Fierce...................................

How Aru serves in obedience, for a while,
at the vulpes den & the red hen house.
Our hero meets adversity & also an elk bugler, fire ants, a pileated hatter.
By way of the affairs, the details, & the all‐embracing flavor,
the nature of this chapter is red.

III. Through...................................

How Aru finds freedom, nearly loses her life,
& encounters several more facets of reality.
A little wryneck woodpecker (genus Jynx) saves her from a fall.
A pair of Long‐Ears assumes her friendship, and Aru that this is by chance.
Be it the adventures, the sands, or the sentiment,
the nature of this chapter is yellow.

IV. Everyday...................................

In which Aru arrives with her lover at her land of plenty
& finds herself again under the yoke.
A hoax is thwarted or so it seems.
Aru comes to possess a scepter, but not control of her life.
Be it the situations, material objects, or emotion as a whole,
the nature of this chapter is brown.

V. Life...................................

How Aru learns to look at her friends differently.
A spy is revealed, & a blow is felt, involving laurels & beetles.
Advocacy gives hope against a conniving dominion.
Be it occurrences, elements portrayed, or attitude,
the nature of this chapter is green.

VI. Ultimately...................................

In which Aru and her love live the sweet life
& all is lost.
Be it events, entities, or the impression, & between the lines,
the nature of this chapter is white.

VII. Without...................................

In which our hero’s bane has her, & so does the river, & so do her tears.
Aru consorts with “undesirable elements,” then,
in a tin shack a plan is forged, & friendship with a kingfisher.
Be it the situation, the matter involved, or the mood,
the nature of this chapter is blue.

VIII. Answers...................................

How Aru is devoured by the author of the thrall.
Efforts are brought to fruition & countless perfect strangers are affected.
The reality of the realm is revealed,
realistically the realization of Aru’s identity.
By the circumstances, articles or the overall sense,
the nature of this chapter is quite colorful.

 

CHAPTER I.
Travel

A smell of damp filled the cold hour before dawn—tree bark and moldering leaves, with a hint of mushrooms. Most of the ravens remained dormant on the cliffs, but a young female noticed movement under the fog below. Her launch and swoop woke several other birds, who followed her.

Hooves clomped on the road. Shadows passing beneath the dense pine branches took shape as a caravan of wagons. Living-wagons, these were. This was worth a look. One rarely saw wagons on this road, much less old-style traveling homes. Built up from between wooden wheels, their sides sloped slightly outward to meet the eaves of arched roofs. These vans were large, and well crafted. Judging by the state of the horses, they’d been traveling all night. Yet no lanterns shone.

The ravens’ broad wings brought them down to circle and snoop as they so loved to do, and details were surrendered by the dim light. All the wagons were of bare weathered wood, grey somber things that creaked and swayed as the tall narrow wheels bumped over stones and roots. Shuttered windows were flanked by household items swinging from hooks: skillets and dustpans, twig brooms, musty garlic braids, chimney brushes, coal spades, and pitch-sealed buckets. The driver of the last wagon in the line pulled up the horse and cocked his head to listen for something behind.

“Don’t tell me!” he growled. His voice sounded husky. He licked his lips. Gripping the porch bracket for leverage, he peered around the corner before he dropped the reins onto the footboard and rolled himself a cigarette. The wagon waited, horse blowing and pawing, while the others faded away into the mist along the track.

Noises from behind him on the road grew louder as someone approached. Swearing. Lots of cuss words. Strings of them. The source was a pale young woman in a brown silk traveling dress. She didn’t look like much at the moment, rumpled and dirty and without a hat.

Aru puffed and panted through her tirade as she ran to catch up with the wagon. If those ravens hadn’t alerted her she would have been left far behind. Twice she stumbled and nearly fell. Her knickers chafed, they’d gone all crooked, she tugged at them through her skirts as she hurried along. Why can’t the lead simply blow a whistle EVERYONE can hear? she wondered. Her chest heaved, her side hurt. Once again they’d left her behind while she went to relieve herself! At last she reached the towering wagon, her lungs gasping for air as she looked up for a handhold.

The driver grinned. “No little adventures in the woods, Aru. Something might eat you.”

Aru threw one last onslaught of teary curses at him and her feet barely touched the step-irons as he hoisted her aboard. She shoved him hard in the shoulder before squeezing behind him to disappear through the doorway. Nurphel chuckled. He finished his cigarette, sat for a moment, then grabbed the reins and clucked to the horse. The wagon lurched forward and they were off to catch up with the group.

The ravens followed for a few minutes, circling and playing in the wisp of smoke which trickled downward from the chimney pipe. Then they headed back to the roost.

Inside the shifting wagon a sleepy female voice murmured an indistinct question which contained Aru’s name. The rattled young woman fumbled in the darkness to remove her boots, still sobbing a bit, and crawled into the lower bunk with all of her clothes still on. She didn’t go right to sleep.

An hour later, an interruption of the relentless bounce and sway woke her up as the wagons stopped under some scraggly junipers by the side of the road. The company sat and ate together in the light drizzle. Aru was still ticked at Nurphel. He apologized, but it wasn’t genuine. It didn’t help that they all found the story funny. Aru dumped the scraps from her meal into the fire and was the first one back in the wagons and ready to go.

Only a dim grey light filled the wagon in which Aru rode, this despite sash windows and the raised crown with small side windows which ran the length of the roof. From her viewpoint on the floor, seated with her back against the door to the lower bunk, she could barely make out the designs on the curved matchboard of the ceiling.

Aru didn’t need to be able to see well to identify her surroundings in the wagon. They’d been traveling for several weeks and by now she knew every crack and crevice in the narrow chamber. It’s so true what they say, she thought. The location of a home is the most important thing. In this case the location certainly had a dreary impact. It was like night in this forest, no matter the time of day. Darkness crept its way to twilight and then did nothing more than return to darkness.

The cabinets towered over her, majestic and melancholy, tall narrow cupboards like spooky grandfathers from a distant era. As the caravan started to move forward again these elders began to creak and groan, complaining of their age and the passing of their glory. The wagon had been magnificent once, years ago. A cast iron stove, at one time the finest available, sat in an enameled alcove. A steel railing ran along the mantel.

The upholstery on the locker seats had worn through and only the valance remained of the original velvet bed curtains. The present curtains were of a dingy dark green wool. Aru recognized that the cabinetry was all of polished ebony, but for her the real magic lay in the chest of drawers.

She extended her hand to feel the familiar curves of the wood. Tarnished silver, the drawer pulls were wolf heads with flattened ears and fangs bared in challenge to any unauthorized person who might reach for them. Aru stood on the brink of adulthood, but she would busy herself like a young child in the shifting wagon exploring the contents of these drawers. She knew where each item was kept, but she’d open the drawers and handle them anyhow. On the left were pens and ink, a whetstone, a pocket knife, and a small tintype photograph of an old grey wolf. Other treasures included a typewriter ribbon tin filled with obsidian buttons, a pill box, old iron keys (which didn’t fit anything Aru could find), and a mourning bracelet with charms made of jet. A coin purse of the tiniest onyx beads smelled like anise and was flexible and pleasing to manipulate with the fingers. A magnifying glass was usefully included in a drawer with several miniature books. Unfortunately, these books were printed in some strange language.

A noise came from behind the bed curtain, so Aru stood up and pushed it aside, peering into the duskiness. An old woman smiled up at her from under the heaps of bedding. Aru smiled back at her grandmother Auwu. She climbed up onto the edge of the bed and sat with her, not talking much because illness had taken over the frail body and the lady didn’t have much energy to spare.

Aru sat with her grandmother for a long time, staring off into nothing, and eventually her gaze fell on a spider as it dangled in the corner of the window, just behind the curtain. She sat forward. “Here, I’ll kill that spider for you,” she said.

Auwu felt for her granddaughter’s arm. “Why not leave him, Aru. He’s been riding with us since we left home. Poor thing.”

Aru leaned over her grandma to do it anyhow, but changed her mind. The old lady had started coughing. After helping Auwu wipe her lips with an old kerchief, Aru’s thoughts returned to the spider. It really wasn’t hurting anyone. Perhaps it might even eat a few of those horrid deer flies.

“Well,” she said, “if it’s going to ride with us, it probably should have a name.”

“Yes, you’re right,” replied Grandmother Auwu, the effort making her cough a bit more. “But—what do you name a spider?”

“Do they make a sound?” Aru thought for a minute. “Kri-tikk. You know, the noise the big hairy ones make when scratching around in caves. Kritikk-kritikk-kritikk.”

The grandmother smiled. “Kritikk he is, then.” She fell back to sleep.

Aru watched her sleeping for a while, and then she put on her coat and went out. She jumped down to trot along beside the horse and exercise her restless legs until the company made camp.

The travelers’ caravan consisted of several living-wagons, two small tilt carts, and an old hearse. The window glass of the hearse had been removed years ago. After its life as a funerary vehicle the thing had been used by several owners for the hauling of various cargoes. It was a heavy carriage, normally pulled by two horses. The family was now on the way up to the summer hunting camp and the hearse carried all the weighty oilskin tents, so an auxiliary cart horse was in harness.

The night’s lengthy trek began to show both in the horses of the wagon train and in those who traveled beside them. Stumbles became more frequent. The fog had lifted a bit but it still obscured a view of any distance. These towering woods held scant forage for draft horses; often it would take hours to find a suitable camp. The horses were growing thin. Tempers also.

At last a shout from somewhere up front brought the wagons to a halt. In a matter of minutes the animals were unhitched, buckets were filled from the creek, and a couple of tents had been pitched in the shadows of the glade. Aru grabbed Pullka’s lead rope as soon as the harness was off and found the best grazing spot she could. With the old mare staked out, her daughter and the other horses would stay around. Aru gave the mare water, and then slipped her some molasses bread she’d saved for her from her own meal. She knew how much the old girl loved molasses. Next, Aru gave all the horses grain. Her other chore was to make tea for everyone. She filled the great iron kettle and hung it on the tripod as soon as the fire had some coals.

The clan gathered for their simple tradition of fermented tea and some tough peppered jerky before turning in. The two elders present were furnished with chairs but the rest sat on logs or on coarse blankets spread on the ground. Only old Auwu and a sick child remained inside the wagons. The damp wood made a smoky fire, it couldn’t be helped, and as the wind kept changing no way might be found to avoid the wandering smoke.

“At least we’ll be well preserved!” grumbled the grey-haired woman crouching next to Aru. She blew on her steaming tea.

The conversation was formal, ritualized, and the speakers addressed each other as Brother and Sister. Most of them actually were brothers or sisters, or if not, then aunts or uncles. Vorffe sat across the fire from Aru, chewing tobacco. His wife was next to him, and a couple of their half-grown daughters. A big man, he didn’t tolerate dissenters. Everyone feared him at least a little.

“Aru, fetch some more cups,” he said.

While Aru looked for cups, poking around in the dusky interior of the wagon of the old tracker Yowffe, something spooked the horses. Aru froze. Someone was out there. She could hear strange voices.

Holding her breath, she crept over to the window and peeked with one eye between the curtains. A company of men had entered the camp. Messengers. Six of them. They were dressed splendidly, each in a black cloak of iridescent silk. They wore breeches and tight-fitted riding boots with pointed toes.

Invited to sit, the men declined. Instead they strutted about the camp while they talked, peering and poking at things as if it were their business. Most had shiny slicked-back hair, but one, younger and quite handsome, had a fashionable feathered haircut. Aru’s attention was drawn to this one, but another man turned his face toward her wagon. He tilted his head and seemed to look right at her. Was that recognition in his sidelong glance? A swarthy, scary face he had, with a heavy hooked nose and piercing eyes. Aru ducked down. She backed away from the window.

The visitors spoke in harsh croaky voices, their tone insistent. An incident had occurred deep in the forest. A bull moose, a gigantic creature, had been injured by an arrow and fled south. The conversation didn’t last long. A few minutes of directives and questions by both parties and then the strangers flew off in a great rush. After she was sure they were gone, Aru came out of the wagon with the cups. But no one worried about tea anymore. As he wiped the corner of his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve, Vorffe informed the others that all capable members of the group would join him in the search party immediately.

Most of the clan readied themselves. Goru, though, rose and began to clear up the dishes. “Well! Those shifty scavengers! They stole the rest of the bread!”

Nobody was particularly surprised.

For Aru, all this meant she’d be spending time in camp. It wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened. She dreaded the waiting, alone with just the children and weaklings. She felt she should go on the hunt, but she knew Vorffe wouldn’t agree. So that was that. Eyes down for several days of wasted time.

That evening she sat in the wagon with her grandmother Auwu, listening to the foreboding sounds of the forest around them. An owl called from a nearby tree. The noise of some unknown insect surrounded them, along with the chirping of what must have been several thousand crickets. Bats were out there, too. There were always bats around the wagon. Something about it seemed to attract gnats, which, in turn, attracted the bats. While Aru sat listening, and talking with Auwu, they heard the sound of wolves in the distance.

“Just sends a shiver up your spine to hear that, doesn’t it,” whispered the old grandmother.

“It’s a beautiful sound, but so haunting,”

“They are going on and on,” said Auwu. “I wouldn’t want to be out there right now. Something’s going to die soon.”

“Well, not us, anyhow,” said Aru. “We’re safe as beetles in a bramble bush here in the wagon. And we’ll be in Ysgarlad City before we know it. It’s an easy journey from here. Painless.”

Aru could not know how wrong she was.