Once Upon… Not Yet
THE ELDER AND THE FIRE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN
by
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The mountain spire rose up and pierced the circle of the moon as it stood post over the expansive valley below. Littered with flickering campfires here and yon, the flatland looked like the decorations seen at holiday in ages past with their red and orange embers ornamenting the landscape. The self-gathered bands of men and boys making up the Rosarian Union assembled together around the carefully manicured blazes, ate guarded rations, talked of home and family, praised today and plotted tomorrow, or else tried to find rest while garlands of smoke rose up from the individual companies throughout the field and into the clear nighttime sky, like ropes of cotton pulled from a loom in strings and in handfuls. At once, the campfires served to divide the troops into smaller companies. But they also gave warning to the feral wolves, howling in the distance and scavenging, and the mountain cats, tracking and tracing, and both doing so for food or for sport. Additionally, the individual bonfires served to ward against the want of some wandering serpent looking for warm company against the chill of the springtime night. These cold-blooded creatures moved through the tall, dewy grasses that overlaid the rutted, ruinous stage floor of the natural theatre existing in the midst of the peering rock walls of the mountains that framed the area where the woeful lot forming the army of the Union opposed the well-armed and fitly appropriated sort on the other side. Wearing tattered clothing and footwear held together by farmer’s twine, with metal clasps found in the field and fashioned for such purposes, the militia, made of villagers and towners, struck an odd contrast to the dark-clad battalions gathered around their own night fires waiting for sunlight to break when they could commence in their game of war. These wore uniform garb of black leather with metal the color of oiled steel, and were hired and financed by the Island King known as Lord Black—the man who insisted on carrying out these wars, here, away from his kingdom, and perpetually, as if he wished to rid the mainland of its remaining good men, and for reasons which only he knew. These raiders known as the Black Knights were rugged and war-worn. Battle fit them like the hide of their uniforms. In contrast, on the other side, the hairless faces of boys outnumbered the rugged, worry-trenched visages of men. And though there were scores in the village militia—made-up of males from every direction in Zander—the assemblage of the youths that constituted the Union beggared the number of grown men four-to-one. And while aged, weathered skin was not apparent on the boys as it was on their elders, mud and dirt camouflaged their exposed appendages and made them all look the same, uniform, and comparable—at least as to being one army together rather than as individuals in a collection of forced recruits—to the dark horde which opposed them in the vale. And as much as the filth provided impotent armour to the Union’s clothing, it aged the boys’ appearances and secreted their innocence behind it like masks while also hiding their existence in the dark so that only the whites of their eyes made any real presence in the shadows. The army of the Black Knights, though, lingered in the vale. Looking like a black cloud on the horizon similar to the ominous threat of a thunderstorm, they created a game of their own where—for days, perhaps—they wouldn’t even advance, but remained in place, in camp, and without care to push. It was a storm they liked to play with. For sport. But a mocking which never seemed to dissipate once it arrived. And the Raiders were able to maintain their intimidation by virtue—virtue?—of their presence; except that they didn’t give the Union days and days and days of warning like the storm clouds might. No. And, once started, they continued forthwith and in persistence despite the surprising resistance that the landsmen, who slogged faithfully in the on-going fight, posed. And theses savages pummeled the dead, too. It wasn’t enough to kill a man—they must send him to Hades skull-less. But there were losses on each side despite the uneven match. The well-cammed troopers, with supplied armaments and coats, sustained their own losses—even at the hands of the ill-equipped rag-tag band they faced—to their astonishment. And monuments in the field verified the Union’s small victories in the leather-clad bodies that had been collected and piled out-of-the-way (the same which were artfully and daringly stolen from by bands of boys under the veil of night, looking for clothes or weapons). Still, Lord Black’s army tried to plough the courageous militia into the mountains at the southern end. If he couldn’t bring them to their knees, he would crush them on their heels! In the meantime, though, in a sleepy town called Sharon, the fraternity of lords, known as the Order of the Rose, was visited by the Elder, the under-gods for the Great White God. The commencement of a peculiar time called Moon-dare was approaching; and a savior was to be elected. One who might finally balance the scales, and set goodness upon the level while the Rosarians fought Lord Black’s beastly horde in the Vale of Monroe; a place where boys didn’t stay boys for very long; and those who survived the Psychic Wars may only do so in body as most of these left the valley as living dead, corpses out-living their souls. Still, youths from every township and shire went into the valley for purpose. And they would go—and were made to go—either by honor or debt. But no boy ever came out of it. No. Only men.
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About the Book
In a medieval land embroiled perpetually in war, one boy is chosen for a mission that may stem the tide. But he must focus on the task at hand and not be side-tracked by the people and things standing between him and duty. Asa, the son of Radnar and Abigail, lives in Sharon, a small community in alliance with other towns and shires forming the Union under which the Order of the Rose presides; and he has been elected to journey to a faraway land with the endorsement of the Earth's under-gods, known as the Elder. In his odyssey, Asa will retrieve a unique rose that exists in the desert, along with the mystical Fire of Unknown Origin from the Guardians in High Haven, in the hopes that it will up-end the advantage that the Dark Lord and his army has, and which increases, with each battle in the un-ending conflict between the Rosarians and the Black Horde in the Psychic Wars. But there are many miles between Sharon and High Haven… There are numerous distractions… There will be several people Asa will meet along the way. And SOME of them won't want the boy to return to Sharon…
About the Author
Michael “doc” McInnis has been a songwriting musician nearly all his life. Raised on the Country Music of his father and the Pop music of his mother, along with his first preference of Rock N Roll, Michael expressed himself at the earliest of ages by playing guitar in various bands from his youth to adulthood. As an early fan of Elvis Presley—whose very first conscious awareness of the King of Rock N Roll goes back to at least four years of age—Michael was fascinated by music and the way that the medium could speak to and influence its listeners. More importantly, he was intrigued by music’s ability to speak to and influence him. Therefore, he began writing songs from the start, even when he could barely play an instrument. Following his desire to create art, he built a recording “studio” when he was still a kid, spending all of his allowance—and, later, earnings through real work—investing in the pursuit. In his earliest years as a rocker, too—pre-teen, even—Michael created his own Rock Magazine based around his favorite band: KISS (complete with an 8-Track Cassette giveaway), doing all of the artwork and writing all of the articles himself. Then, inspired by Yul Brenner in Westworld, he began writing a first novel at age 12. Eventually, though, the music and the writing would merge into one art. First, with songs; then, much later into enterprise. While football had consumed his afternoons and Saturday nights as a youth, they were ultimately replaced by guitars and playing with bands in order to earn his teenager-moneys instead of following the “traditional route” of hawking hamburgers and fried chicken at the local fast-food restaurants. Michael kept his studio operating in overtime between gigs, writing and recording, with an eventual desire to try his luck in Nashville as a songwriter. But, later, preferring art over committee—and being grounded by obligations that would not let him live out of the backseat of his Pontiac Bonneville—he went home to his studio, thus, leaving Music City to find its own way without him. But he continued to write songs and record them in his studio while also continuing to compose White Papers on various topics that covered everything from theology and apologetics, to history and music, sociology and political science. But it was when he began to develop a story—in a prophetic manner, and unfolding even into the present—with the notion to create an accompanying soundtrack that his perspective changed about what could be. It was only at this point, then, that Michael McInnis realized that he had been writing all of his life in some form or fashion and that his two interests should be married together. Then, that idea took him from those White Papers to Novels. Since that time, he has written several books which combine the literary with the musical with such books as the southern drama Blood Red And Goin’ Down; a thriller called (Stay Away From) Captain Howdy; a couple of suspense dramas, Bridge To Nowhere and Artifacts, a sci-fi-drama named The Tinker Man, along with a dramedy that has such a woeful title as A Hop Across The Pond Is Easier Than Sneaking Out In The Middle Of The Night With Your Socks Tied To The Bedpost. The Unauthorized Biography of Irish Mick and His Ploughboys…Or Something Like It. Once Upon… Not Yet, this coming-of-age fantasy-drama, then, finds its inspiration and genesis in the music of Michael’s youth. As such, the music of those formative years from childhood to manhood became the backdrop to every scene contained within it; and its influence is on-going. (Music is such an important element to life that—in the absence of it—we will make up our own melodies and tunes at will, wherever we go.) As a kid learning to play guitar, Michael McInnis found it difficult to “learn” others’ songs. Not difficult to figure out, necessarily, but difficult to “stay with” long enough to learn it before being distracted by invention and, therefore, using that melody or guitar part he was trying to learn as a launch-pad for his own melody or song. This same kind of difficulty he also remembers having as a child when he was learning to read. His mother would ask him what the story was about once he had read something for school. And, if Michael could not tell her, then she made him reread it till he could. But the trouble was not in either the reading or the comprehension but in the distraction that the exercise introduced to his brain. Just as the youth might slide from the melody of a song he intended to learn of someone else’s into his own “thing” some years later, so, too, as an even younger reader, Michael found himself triggered by what he read so that he often detoured into his own ideas or stories. (His eyes may have been on the page; but his mind was captivated not by the story he was reading but by the one he imagined to write.) So, he didn’t become a great “learner” of guitar; but he did become a proficient songwriter. Likewise, though a continuous reader, he found himself writing more novels than he read (which is contrary to many writers’ practice, it would seem) so that he created his own “voice” within the telling of his tales. Making his home just south of “Nash-vegas” Michael DR (“the doctor”) McInnis continues to write and record music, play in bands, fantasize about soundtracks, storylines, and movie pitches while engrossing himself over the latest book or CD he has acquired or gawking at some picture or reading some write-up concerning a Classic-model guitar (such as a Gibson or a Fender, a Gretsch or a Hamer) or an amplifier (Marshall or Fender or Hiwatt). He and “Nurse” McInnis have a happy co-existence in their rural paradise, dreaming and writing.