The sound of sobbing pierced the silence of the forest.
Viska glanced to the right of him. The darkness of the night made it impossible for him to see anything. Frowning in annoyance, he jumped down from the tree he had been resting on soundlessly.
“‘And so he flew with the broken wings of day,’” he whispered, wary of any other ears that could be in the forest.
Two wing-shaped lights wrapped around his head. The brightness in the middle of night illuminated his gray hair and eyes. Smiling, he took an experimental glance around at his surroundings, then began to walk.
The thin and dark shadow of trees stretched across Viska’s face. After knocking away the ninth branch from his face, he frowned to himself and came to a pause. “‘Weep for what is gone and lost,’” he murmured.
A soft wind swept throughout the whole forest. It sounded like a sob of grief. Only a split second later, an invisible push reached Viska’s back. He followed the winds, and began to walk.
It wasn’t long until he reached a gigantic tree that seemed to stretch up endlessly. The sobbing was coming from behind the tree trunk.
Viska tilted his head to the side in wonder. Now that he was closer, the sobbing sounded much younger. Thirteen, perhaps.
“Come out,” he called as quietly as he possibly could manage. “Come out here right now.”
The sobbing stopped. Absently, Viska wondered how stupid the boy was, to not hear him approach the tree. Pushing his thoughts to the side, Viska cleared his throat softly and tried again; “Come out. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You are,” a trembling, teary voice came from around the trunk. “I know you are. All wizards are the same.”
Viska raised an eyebrow. “No, they’re not. If you’re talking about those wizards that talk in runes, then I’m not one of them. I recite. My spells are artworks, not runes.”
“I don’t care. I can see that light, you know. You’re a wizard,” the boy said, hiccuping, the unsettlement obvious in his voice. “I… my parents…” he began to weep again.
Casting his eyes up in frustration, Viska brushed his gray hair back from his face. “Come on. I don’t care about your parents. Did a wizard kill them? Well, I don’t care either. Just stop crying. You’re going to blow my cover.”
As if the boy wanted to mock him, his crying only got louder. Viska gritted his teeth and took a long step forward. “Do you want to die?” he snapped, then instantly lowered his voice. “If you don’t, shut your damned mouth,” again, he hissed.
“I don’t want to die,” the boy nearly howled, his voice cracking. “I don’t want to die. But my parents, they… the wizard…”
Viska squeezed his eyes shut tightly and reopened them. “‘Shall the winds carry you across the river, to the scythe,’” he raised a hand and whispered into his palm. Then he simply crossed his arms to wait.
The winds lifted a small, flailing figure of the boy off of the ground from behind the tree. The boy growled like a rabid animal and began a futile attempt to reach the ground again.
When Viska noticed the boy carrying something in one of his hands, he began to advance to the boy. The more he got closer, the vivid smell of poison followed. “What’s that you’re holding?” he asked in sheer curiosity. “Hand it over.”
“No! No!” the boy screeched, still fighting back against the hands of the wind.
“Are you going to smoke it, then?” Viska replied, hardening his voice. He reached forward and grabbed the object’s end. The boy made a move as if he were going to bite at Viska’s hand, yet when he got close to doing it, Viska had already twisted the object out of the boy’s weak grip.
Frowning lightly, Viska turned the wooden pipe over in his hands. “Pipe. Full of poison. Do you know what this is for?” he inquired absently, glancing over at the boy. Being held in the air, the boy was completely silent, tears running down his face.
“Did it belong to someone? Did you steal it? Did you—“ Viska turned his body completely to the boy, and then his gaze. When he did so, he blinked. “Why didn’t you tell me that your hair was white?”
The boy gritted his teeth and twisted his torso back and forth, against the winds. “Wizards are stupid,” he finally panted out when his face was completely red.
“No, I’m not. Even if I am, you’re never going to be as famous as me,” Viska retorted.
For the first time, the boy narrowed his eyes and studied Viska through puffy eyelids. “I don’t recognize you,” the boy hissed loudly like a venomous snake.
Clenching his teeth to himself, Viska swept his eyes around him in a circle, then turned them back to the boy. He forced a smile on his face, and waved his hand for his light to disappear. After a few blinks, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Something that’s not for a wizard to hear,” the boy snapped back. His eyes were dry of tears; now they were gleaming white and gray wildly.
“I’ll leave you hanging here for a couple weeks for all the beasts to feast on,” Viska said absently, and turned around to leave. He waited for a few seconds in silence for the boy to make up his mind.
Instead, the boy began to sob. “Give back the pipe. It’s my dad’s. Give it back.”
Turning with a frown, Viska held up the pipe with one hand, and scratched his head with the other. He yawned. “Your name.”
It only took a moment of hesitation for the boy to answer at last. “Fell. It’s Fell. Now give it back.”
Smiling, Viska let Fell’s feet touch the ground, and at the same time, tossed the wooden pipe back to him. Fell fumbled with it, yet he still managed to catch it.
“So you have a story, a name, but you just can’t keep quiet,” Viska stated. “Fell. Do you want to live?”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,830 Reviews
Once again, beginning with the general, moving to the more particular.
I felt like Viska’s characterisation changed quite a bit in this piece. He seemed impatient, ill-tempered, and unreasonable more often than not. It’s interesting seeing the pipe show up so early in the story, given in the fairytale it was introduced as part of Gray’s habit, without a prior purpose. I’m intrigued to see how that turns out. I’m wondering a bit about Gray’s past. How old he is, how he was taught, etc. The kind of things that would lead to him treating Fell in this way. The introduction of different kinds of magic users is interesting, as the fairytale painted it more of a Good!Wizards/Bad!Dragons kind of situation. Good to see things are a bit more nuanced. Regardless.
Specifics:
“to the right of him”
To his right
“the tree he had been resting on soundlessly”
Soundlessly is kind of hanging loose there, maybe “The tree on which he had been soundlessly resting”
Viska wondered how stupid the boy was, to not hear him approach the tree.
An odd thought. Situational awareness is quite unrelated to intelligence.
“Come out here right now.”
This seems stern and reproachful, rather than comforting.
“wizards that talk in runes”
The common understanding of runes is of a written script, rather than a pattern of speech, just so we’re on the same page.
“a small, flailing figure”
the*
“the vivid smell of poison followed”
Poison doesn’t smell like any one thing. Some common poisons smell like specific things, but other poisons don’t. And some things smell like poisons but aren’t. What characteristic are you looking for? A sharp, acrid smell?
“Why didn’t you tell me that your hair was white?”
This is another pretty bizarre comment from Viska.
“you’re never going to be as famous as me,” Viska retorted.”
Hrm.
Hope this was helpful.
Cheers,
Rubric
oH OH I SEE
so Fell does have a past. Interesting.
Yep! So the fairytale that you reviewed was like, the sum-up version of this book 'Gray', with a lot of things and characters that I changed.
Thanks for providing your opinion on this!
Mephis
hmhmhm. I really like how you write. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out on this.
Hi again! Lauren back for another review~
I totally dig getting a chance to see Gray and Fell from the beginning of their relationship. It's so different than I might have expected from the last chapter, but not in a way that doesn't make sense. Now I'm just so curious to see how they came from here to Gray being dead and Fell having promised himself to die by his hand. Which are great wonderings to be giving your reader at this point!
I adore this. You say so much about the world in just this passage here. Most wizards use runes, but it's a less artistic way to use magic. Being less artistic implies that it is faster or easier in some way and thusly less worthwhile or valuable. That Viska/Gray still clings to the old way of magic says a lot about him as a person and the things he values, as well as presumably his relationships with other wizards, the magic community, and the world at large (assuming the world either wholly approves or wholly disapproves of the rune wizards -- which it sounds like they disapprove from what Fell says).
I'm not sure I'm totally getting this exchange. Is there something significant to Fell's hair being white? Or is Viska/Gray just surprised cause it's an unusual color for a child's hair? I think we need some clarification here.
Overall, I think a lot of the descriptions in this piece could be more direct. There's a lot of winding about and beating around the bush, especially when describing characters moving around. Like in the last passage I quoted, there's a lot of words used to get to the point that Viska turned and looked at Fell. You also tend to do a lot of describing things that aren't really necessary for us to know (going back to my review on the other chapter, all that stuff readers already have in their visual memory. We already know what a forest looks like at night, only give us the stuff about it that makes it different from what we already know.).
Otherwise, I'm still totally hooked. Do let me know if/when you post more of this and I would be glad to continue to review it! I'm well impressed by your handling of the fantasy world, and the ways you give us just enough information to keep going and you don't give the fantasy part of it too much emphasis. It's all very natural and handled as if this is the most normal way for things to be, and that's exactly what you want in a fantasy novel.
Thanks for sharing, keep writing!
-Lauren-
Hey there, Lycando here to review!
I really really really like this! You had me hooked from the start and left me hanging at the end! I'm dangling upon the edge of the cliffhanger right now and hoping I don't fall to my demise
Right, here's what you excelled in that really made me fall in love with this.
Your plot is still building here but I can already see where this going. You have Viska, the "wizard", who recites his spells, and appears to be hiding from someone or something. There's also Fell, the boy who's terrified of wizards, who also happens to be hiding in the middle of the woods with his father's pipe of poison. At the cliffhanger, it's apparent that Fell will be sticking with Viska for the time being, seeing as he's pretty much helpless and Viska doesn't seem to want to get rid of him yet
Dialogue wise, I like how Viska has to recite a spell and not simply cast it. I suppose that's what distinguishes him from a wizard. The way he has to whisper it as well so as to not get caught is also interesting, I'm wondering how he's going to actually fight when he's faced with an enemy who's constantly throwing attacks at him.
One part however I think you can improve on is the description of your characters. I have no idea how Viska or Fell looks like. Surely the light that Viska had wrapped around his head would have been bright enough to illuminate both of them?
However, you do have some unneeded words in place...
You don't have to say 'sound of sobbing'. A sob is already a sound.
You just simply say: A sobbing pierced the silence of the forest.
A little weird here using both brightness and illuminate in the same sentence. Again, choose which word you would like to use and discard the other.
Rephrased, it could be: They shone bright in the darkness and revealed his gray hair and eyes.
What you could do now is to reread what you currently have and see if any parts can be made better. Every word has a part to play in ensuring the whole story or chapter comes together in a grand unison. It's good as it is now but it can be great.
Good luck with this and I hope this review helped!