Flash fiction: Tree magic

Loved it, beautiful and a little sad.

Microfiction: Lost temple VIII

I enjoyed very much. Good Story!

Final episode.

Ruine_Oybin_bei_Mondschein

Tears of rage and of sorrow blinded the acolyte. He knelt at the edge of the pit and wept until the images faded and he became aware of the whispering of hundreds of voices.

I hear.

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and got to his feet. The pavement rippled, and the monk’s body slid into the pit. The acolyte watched, and, full of shame for all it represented, he undid the beads about his own waist and tossed the rosary after Brother Constantine. The shadows returned, soft as doves’ wings, to fill the space. The ravens wheeled, sending the darkness swirling, like giant wings, and departed, their silhouettes black against the moon. He took the amulet and hung it around his neck. The amulet spoke.

Go now and keep the secret. This is a holy place. Let not the barbarians return to profane it.

The acolyte…

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Microfiction: Lost temple VII

Jane Dougherty Writes

Ruine_Oybin_bei_Mondschein

Shadows rolled back from the high windows, and moonlight flooded the ruins, pale and silvery. There was no altar. Only a pit where it had stood. Fragments of white marble littered the pavement, and among the shards lay the crumpled body of Brother Constantine. His outflung right hand still clutched part of a broken crucifix, and even in the moonlight, the acolyte could see that it was a seething mass of burns. The air was still. The light pure and unwavering, but the young man knew they were there and waited for them to speak.

The amulet grew hotter and agitated in his fingers. He had no need to press it to his brow to see the images, the awful bloody images of the brown-robed priests cutting down the worshipers with their steel swords, snatching children and babies from their mothers, smashing skulls, splitting and slicing and gouging until the…

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Microfiction: Lost temple VI

Better and better 🙂

Jane Dougherty Writes

Ruine_Oybin_bei_Mondschein

The white fluttering smudges flew together, holding aloft…a crucifix—it had to be—and terror gripped the acolyte’s entrails twisting them until he thought he would vomit. Could he not tell? Did he not realise?

“Brother! No!”

It made no difference. The monk was jabbering with fear but he continued to brandish the hated symbol. The acolyte was held fast in the coils of the amulet but he was undecided now, torn between his duty to his superior and a deeper duty to the dead.

The voice of the darkness rumbled and snarled. The pavement buckled like a stormy sea, and the jagged pinnacles of the ruins shuddered. The voice of the older monk rose to a terrified shriek then fell silent. Stones fell about his ears, but the acolyte found that he could once more command the muscles of his legs, and he ran to where the shadows piled thickest. He…

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Microfiction: Lost temple V

Oh my!

Jane Dougherty Writes

Ruine_Oybin_bei_Mondschein

The shadows moved, rippled, crawled. They scurried down the broken columns, across the pristine pavement and piled in a seething, heaving mass where the acolyte had guessed the altar to be. The pale smudge moved, jerky and rapid like a giant bird pecking. A white raven? The black birds on the ruined arch cried their hoarse cry unloosing the acolyte’s tongue.

“Get back, Brother Constantine!” His voice came out hoarse and rasping as the ravens’. He willed his feet forward but the amulet screamed in his head and he could not. The sky was dark—dried blood dark, and the moon was crimson. Shadows continued to pour down the walls, through the narrow windows, the great rose window, piling on dead sills higher and higher.

The acolyte shouted again, shrill and fearful. Soon the shadows would fill the window spaces, blotting out the light, and darkness would fill the vast hollow…

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