Welcome to this week’s story, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
THE DRAGON GLASS STAR
Little Giant Peridot
Walkin through the mountains
Pickin up the bridge trolls
And boppin ‘em on the head!
– children’s song of the Makers
Peridot was too big for troll-bopping now. Not that she didn’t still enjoy hitting things (who doesn’t?), or walking. Now that she was taller than most of the scrubby trees that grew out of the wind-whipped cliffs, the chain bridges that linked the mountain communities of the Makers wouldn’t hold her weight. The elders said so.
If she wanted to go walking, she had to climb down to the bottom of a valley, wade through a swift cold river of melt water, and climb back up the other side. Sometimes, like today, she carried cargo, things that were likewise too heavy for the bridges or too tempting for the dragons.
Giants were from birth solitary creatures. Peridot was never completely alone, though, not in the Giant way, because of her memories of being raised by the Makers. These crowded her head like a dragon’s hoard, piling on top of one another, sliding, clinking, rolling around in shining little avalanches. Moving helped to quiet them, as did standing under a freezing waterfall, letting the roar of pounding water clear her mind.
Today, however, she had a delivery to make. In a pewter box on her back was a ball of spelled glass, black as the night sky between the stars. Placed on the top of the tallest mountain, above the tree line, above the snow line, above the wind line where there was no more air, it would soak in the sun’s light, becoming almost a small sun itself. At least that was what the elders said. They had never been able to test the theory, because they had to breathe.
Peridot unpacked her cargo on the flattest place she could find. She drove spikes into the rock, forming a circle. The spikes rang through her hammer, through her bones, into her ears. Using tongs, she placed the freezing-cold orb into the circle of spikes, oriented to her compass points, and tapped it to life.
Ribbons of light began to snake their way across the black sky, green and blue and more energetic colors, towards and into the orb. They swirled and eddied around Peridot’s limbs until she stepped away.
This was going to make a fine song, one the elders would never hear.
Randall Hayes has published fantasy stories in Take Me There: an Anthology of Speculative Travel, in The Storyletter Express, and in his own newsletter, Doctor Eclectic, at https://randallhayes.substack.com.
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If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash anthology.
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