Showing the unseen, Danann the Dissident

There are many guides to making fantasy worlds and characters to write a fantasy book or twelve. My many years of experience being a Dungeon Master in Dungeons and Dragons, mixed with my knowledge of many mythologies, sprinkled with my addiction to quantum mechanics was the bases for the creation of my multiverse named ‘Terratopei’, meaning earthly heavens.

A place where the characters experience many lives as different people in many realities. These ‘other places’ are part of the characters back stories. These scribblings as I call them are short stories of how characters’ personalities are built and how they obtained not just magic weapons but intelligent weapons.

The writings are types of short stories because lists and graphs are boring. The writing is mostly for my own entertainment and was not something I was intending to share. The following is how one of the main male characters found a magic weapon and come to be an outlaw, in a world that was changing around him.

Danann the Dissident.

Danann felt no emotion as he slowed his jog, exhaustion was making his mind numb. This was the third day he had been on the run. A rumour had reached the village the moon before about men with magic thunder sticks, that could strike a man down before he could get close enough to throw a spear.

Then while out hunting Danann had encountered a group of four of the foreigners who were now pursuing him. He had led them away from the village but running was no longer an option as soon they would be out of the forest that was providing cover.

Searching the terrain ahead as the forest dispersed into a grassy plane, Danann spotted a reasonable size tree to hide in so he could ambush his pursuers. After setting false tracks to lead the enemy past the tree, but close enough for him to throw a spear and quickly get into melee range, he waited.

There four people were alien to Danann with their dull coloured clothing that covered most of the body, brown coloured skin, and dark facial hair. He watched as the four pursuers approached, and notice one was moving forwards now and then to keep the others on track. Watching his pursuers approach, Danann picked the tracker in the group as his first target.

It was a good throw, the tip of the spear coming out between the left shoulder blade and spine of the man. His cry of agony quickly lost volume as he fell backwards from the spear’s impact. The speared man had yet to hit the ground and Danann was on top of the first in line before any of them had time to raise their weapons.

Thack! The first man in line skull was efficiently cracked open with a well-made obsidian tomahawk. Then turning, Danann could see one of the men standing farthest away had pulled a smaller stick from his belt and was starting to raise it at him.

Danann had to throw the tomahawk at the man with a pistol and pull his crude mental dagger with his left hand at the same time. The third man had closed the gap and attacked high with a large knife. Dannan ducked under the attack moving to the right of his attacker, the dagger in Danann’s left hand made contact inside his attacker’s right arm. Before the man could react, Danann had moved to the right side of the man cutting a path along the outside of his attacker’s arm to the man’s throat, the blade never leaving the body.

Danann was now behind the dying man who was clutching his neck as blood spewed out between his fingers. The large knife he had held now lying on the ground. The metal had a shine to it Danann had never seen before, and its edge looked keen. Doing a roll towards the knife and picking it up with his right hand, suddenly Danann’s ears started ringing and a sharp pain erupted in the top of his left forehead.

Standing and struggling with his balance, the dagger dropped from his left hand as he raised his hand to hold his head. The blood was an indication something had struck him hard in the head. Danann looked at the last man; the small stick he was holding had smoke coming out of it. The fragrance of the air had changed from a sweet smell to one that burnt his nose.

His vision was blurred and the noise of the flintlock going off deafened him to the sounds of the forest; replaced by a continual high pitched noise. He was confused and disoriented without his three primary senses. Fear overwhelmed him as he felt lost in a land he knew so well; he started running towards the waist high grass of the plains.

The grass was under his feet and then without warning a hard push from behind, sent him stumbling forward falling into the grass. Adrenaline surged through Danann giving him energy to quickly stand and turn to face the man who would end his life. The pursuer had picked up one of the longer sticks and pointed it at Danann. Fire and thunder come from the end of the stick.

Pain exploded in his chest as his breath was forced from his lungs. The sky spun as he fell backwards. Then Danann slowly got into a crouching position facing the enemy holding the large knife in his right hand towards the man.

‘Tough mongrel, are you?’ was the next sounds Danann heard. Surprised this stranger knew his language, he watched as the stranger started reloading the musket.

With his left hand now on the ground Danann felt a familiar shape. Then looking at his hand he saw the white wooden handle of a tomahawk; its head made from a dull looking red metal. Danann wrapped his hand around the handle of the weapon and heard a female’s voice ask a question, ‘Do you want blood for blood?’

Danann looked at the man who was now standing casually holding the weapon in a none threatening manner.

'I’m just going to watch you bleed out’, was the man’s last words.

Danann’s answer to the question posed by the female’s voice had been ‘Yes’ and now he had strength to stand. The tomahawk becoming very light as his left hand moved autonomously in a weak throw.

Before the man could react, blood, bits of bone and brain explode upwards as the weapon buried itself into the man’s forehead to consume his essence. Danann stood in disbelief as he could not recall throwing the axe. The man fell to his knees before Danann, his mouth muttering incoherent words as it filled with blood. Danann reached up with his left hand and the tomahawk appeared in this hand.

Again, the female voice was in his mind, ‘If you want blood, you got it’. Suddenly he was filled with a desire to dominate all, and he walked forward smashing the man’s head into a pulp.

Danann stood covered in warm blood as he fought the urge to hack the man’s body to pieces. Instead, he examined the weapon he had found. The handle of the tomahawk was a finely caved small animal totem, one side of the head had two symbols on it that reminded him of the ancient words meaning Night’s Child on the other side was the symbol for untamed she-goat. He wanted to drop the weapon but could not, he felt bound to it in some way.

Then his mind was filled with the memory of a corroboree and his ears filled with the sound of the didgeridoo as it went to deep continuous droning noise. The clapping sticks slowed and lowered in volume. His mind now flooded with the words to the ancient story recited partly in song and shown in dance.

‘It fell from the sky like a small fire. A weapon that infused men with a bloodlust desire. The tomahawk as it is known a hand weapon that can also be thrown. A weapon it is said that once held in a human’s hand, their mind is filled with the dream to own all the lands’.

Danann looked at the weapon and wondered if it was the tomahawk that fell from the sky one night. He tried to drop the tomahawk but instead the knife fell from his right hand and the tomahawk appeared in in its place.

‘Let me be your right hand and I will lead you to conquer all the lands’, the female voice whispered seductively in his mind.

Danann replied, ‘No, I do not want to follow where you lead, you will do as I say, you are beneath me’.

The female entity shrilled in terror now trapped within his mind, and he commanded it to be silent. He has power over all in his domains as his soul knows his real name, See the Insane.

I hope you enjoyed the extremely short story.

Peace be with you.