--> I'm sapped. By election results, doctors' ignorance about strange pains that I might go half-Stephen-Hawking about, and from not having gotten really drunk in over a month.
To meet a mental-lull that hit this week, below I include short, opening passages from three manuscripts. First I'll describe them so you can check whichever might interest you. Thet're teasers, intended to lure your into reading the entire tales, whenever they're published.
Previews of what's below:
#1: Sleeping Love - is set in Mexico's ancient times, when the people of Aztlan searched for the prophecy of the eagle, nopal and serpent. It begins with an elder proto-Azteca and some kids.
#2: Fatherly, Dragonly - is a cross-genre SF/F of so many elements, I can't list them. But it starts with a Diné water monster, then a Chicano shaman, then alien lizards, then….
#3: 5-Gashes Tumbling - is set in Aztlán. A castaway mexicano mestizo and Aztec indio find a First Peoples tribe who take them in, for a time. I call it an "experimental" roller-coaster of prose. If you read SW historical novels, try it.
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| What the children would create in Anahuac |
#1: Sleeping Love
In the ancient times on the Central Continent, the day seemed to be ending as usual. But this time, dozens of boys and girls suddenly sprinted far ahead of their tribe. They stopped at the mountaintop and shaded their eyes against the late afternoon sun. Their clothes made of animal skins let some of the cold through, but their run had warmed them. What they saw steamed them. Their faces lit up and they hopped around, screaming, "Grand Ta, Grand Ta, come look at it all!"
Grand Ta's chest felt like it glowed. It did that whenever young ones wanted to share their discoveries with Ancient Him. He touched his wrinkled cheeks and smiled to smooth them out, but they could never be smooth again. Removing his rabbit-hair cloak, he dropped it by his nagual. Though only he could see it, the mountain lion-spirit had always been with him.
As he reached the children, Grand Ta wondered, Have we finally found it? They let him through so they could show him. Gigantic ahuehuetl cypress trees held up the sky over an endless, deep-green valley filled with wonders. He was so amazed, he didn't hear every child.
"See, Ta, see?" He saw armadillos fleeing into the jungle. The children saw the hunter, a spotted ozelotl jaguar, and heard its grunt-coughs. Imitating those gave them the giggles.
"Look at them!" He saw red-green-blue-feathered parrots and quetzals splotching the rainforest. Youngsters instead saw dancing pieces of rainbow, which they playfully copied.
"Just listen to those!" Scores of ozomatli monkeys swung from branch to branch and chattered in funny tongues, making the children giggle louder. Grand Ta too caught the giggles.
He thought, This place is so bewitching, they could forget their heritage and the Ancestors. I will be remembered as a good teacher only if I use this moment to strengthen their minds and hearts. When they were almost out of wind, he signaled for them to gather where he was starting a sacred circle. Adults moved aside for the children and stayed back.
The young people sat and squeezed one another's hands. They hoped there would be time to play before night fell, but they could wait a bit longer. The tribe had traveled thousands of miles and years. Searching for a prophet's vision.
Grand Ta clapped once and everyone crossed arms. Quieting, they focused on him. "We reached here because our souls are strong. But where did we come from?" He perked his eyebrows and hoped they kept all the answers close to their hearts. We'll see how close.
A plump little girl rose and moved black bangs off her face. "Lost is our land, its name was--uh--is Aztlán."
It's good she corrected herself.He asked, "And did we change?"
"Yes, but we sing that we are still Aztecas!" Her friends grinned that she had done well.
Ta clasped his hands. "Why did we survive?"
An older girl stood up. "We hold our tribe tight to us." She grasped her shoulders, then the sides of her head. "We think our own thoughts!" Her face showed, Please ask me more.
Ta's knees shook from the hard climb. But resting must wait. "How do we treat others?"
"We harm no form of life or other tribe, except if we must," the girl said firmly.
Some black-haired monkeys howled and children fidgeted, yearning to go see. Remembering the Elder's teachings, they calmed themselves. [you also will have to fidget until this is in print]
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| Non-Diné image of Diné entity |
#2: Fatherly, Dragonly
Tieholtsodi didn't always enjoy awakening in subterranean darkness; his grotto reminded him of the solitary eons during the First World, when only creatures walked the Earth.
"What, no children? They're always up and out earlier than their old dad." He imagined himself fossil-like, since his body required inspection for ageing decrepitude. Opening his three-foot-wide mouth, he flexed to limber up muscles anchored about his ovate head.
Drawing on spirit-power, he appealed to the super ascendants. "Blessed Holies, grant me more light." No answer. "As usual, they're as responsive as a sacred mountain." He shot out one of his five tentacles and nabbed a blue catfish busy chasing trout. Crunch, crunch!
Old as a mountain himself, Tieholtsodi was wise enough to know the Blessed Holies rarely responded. "What's the point of having goddesses who won't lift a finger to help?" And the next best idea for relieving the darkness--a shaman? "Like people on the reservation say, there's never a good one around when--"
Stretching tentacles made him feel younger. He'd been a great-looking, water dragon, at the onset of the Third World when humans appeared. "Now I'm like a fat octopus with squashed head and fewer tentacles. Oh, and how the amber skin fades." He scraped tiny pill clams latched to his hide, seeking a nest. "So much of me fades. If my Diné worshippers saw me now, they'd laugh their little red nalgas off."
Feeling into the dimness, he traced cavern walls. Not much had really changed in the millennia since he'd claimed the haven for his family. "They better return soon. Can't venture far and risk detection by men. Or alien beasts."
#
Both little creatures had been warned not to venture far from home, but today the world was filled with new wonders, sounds and smells. What's a kid supposed to do?
Stronger than usual, an underwater current carried them for miles, banging them against rocks, dragging them through deep, smooth silt as if the lake wanted to play-wrestle. Just like Daddy!Colorful, flashing lights appeared in the distance, but no matter how hard and fast they swam, they couldn't catch up. Smell tasty, little fishes! Waters tasted of burnt trout, to fill their achy bellies. Might be a present from Blessed Holies! The odor lured them toward the mystery.
#
Commander Brondel had to cackle. "At least from this new, salt dome, our castaway troops can venture into canyons above, their forays unbeknownst to Earth dwellers. To those we let live, anyway."
He switched off a hologram of the flowchart he fine-tuned each morning. "Father, not everyone's ready to see the culmination of our dream." A small hologram displayed Father's image--stark against gunmetal gray walls--in officer's uniform, a fine figure of his species, tyrannosaurus-like but with shorter tale and thicker forearms. The image had adorned his limestone casket.
Brondel straightened his pale-green tunic, scraped claws over the olive-tinted scales of his hand. He pumped a fist-salute toward the image and chanted his regular pledge, "Father, you'll soon be proud. Our day approaches." Breathing deep through croc-like nostrils, he added something new, "I can almost smell it." He grimaced. Oil-sodden walls smelled of the raw fuel humans had extracted. The filtration system's air scrubbers constantly hummed, never sparing Brondel's nostrils.
After relocating to their first quarters under dry land, Brondel had used his Council, advisory position to loosen restrictions about surface ventures. He'd advocated, "A four-foot taller, superior reptilian species--two hundred pounds heavier, with twice the intelligence and technology of homo sapiens--shouldn't be denied fresh air!" He received applause, and laughter.
Brondel rechecked the holoscreens were functioning, and that his ten-foot-wide, rock-milled desk appeared orderly. He brushed lint off his tunic, prepped for his second-in-command's report. "That everything's going as planned. Father always said face-to-face is the only way to be sure." He rubbed his belly, anticipating good news. Including about the little monsters.
#
Rising too quickly, Tieholtsodi scraped spikes running down his back against the ten-foot ceiling. "Gagh! Serves me right. Should've taken us to the open seas where we could've found a big, bright cavern with scrumptious starfish and plump octopi. What was I thinking!"
Necessity, not thought, had landed him here. Over eons, the Four Winds dried up the Great Inland Sea. As it receded, it left the Colorado River to gouge the rolling hills and desert plains dotted with juniper and piñon. Tieholtsodi and his siblings had taken refuge deep in the humans' Lake Powell.
He brushed his body's rough bristles and sniffed under tentacles. "I should head mid-lake to rid myself of bottom-rot smell from the filthy waters. So few places left for a decent bath. I'll find one after my babies return.
"Of course,"--his eyes widened--"first they'll want to play Pile-on-Daddy." Pretending interest in something else, his children would suddenly jump and knock him down, then pummel him with their little bodies.
He chuckled and checked his blue talons for splits that might cut the children. "Should've been born with suction cups, like the octopus." He withdrew talons and spikes, like when hugging his young. "Ah, if fatherhood was my only duty. But no! That would've been too easy. I had to be a monster dragon. A tailless, wingless, flameless one. Fire-breathing would've been nice. Like Estranged Dragons have, sort of."
Dangling tentacles into the cold current, he hoped to lure one of the last, great fishes, that added spice to eternal life. His tentacles sensed manmade chemicals and the lake's rising temperature and falling volume. "Eventually, it'll snuff out larger fishes, like the red people prophesized." For a hundred years, he'd worried about the lake dying. "Someday, we'll escape to the open seas, even if I must dig us a way out. Hopefully, those aren't desecrated."
He nabbed at teeth latching onto his tentacle. "What?" Pulling in the catch, he exchanged bared fangs with a five-foot alligator gar thrashing to escape. "The children will be pleased! Haven't seen a meaty one your size in hundreds of moons. From where--" Something was wrong. The great catch had been too quick and easy.
He thought, Is this gar, bait? Someone send it, thinking I'm a stupid monster? Not native believers who respected him, or any "civilized" humans who thought he was myth. "That only leaves the Estranged Dragons."
If he'd gorged on the gar, he would've missed the far-off squeals. "My babies!" He bashed the fish against the wall and flung it aside. He flattened himself manta-ray-like, tentacles to the Four Directions, and one upward for Centering. He focused, probing for the youngsters' auras. "Found them!" Sighing in relief, he radiated an eddy that rolled a boulder onto the gar.
Still, more was wrong. "They aren't inthe lake! They entered a river, miles away. Blessed Holies, why'd they stray-- Have to get to them, before they're spotted or--"
#
When the two young ones reached a river delta, they sensed strong the tasty morsels and funny lights. We're so close!Daddy might be mad later, but they were just little babies, as he always called them. What could it hurt? [find out, when it's in print]
#3: 5-Gashes Tumbling
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| What Chaneco tumbled down |
Your Lordship, I attest that in Anno Domini 1599, Tomás Chaneco--unjustly conscripted out of the capitol of Méjico to become the expedition's cook--and I, as cook's helper, found ourselves lost and abandoned in the northern deserts of Nueva España. Since our skills were limited to shamanism and journalism, respectively, our leader, the Conquistador Don Juan de Oñate, promoted us to Lead Scouts the year in which we reached what that Oñate christened, Santa Fe de Nuevo México,which we peones quickly shortened to, Santa Fe. The pendejo Oñate enjoyed naming things more than he relished charging windmills, unto the hinterlands, providing his men ample opportunities to, among other pastimes, infect native women with the pox, much as the otherwise useless priests also spread Catholicism.
Shaman that he was, Chaneco excelled at turning water into wine, and I, at turning wine into news, but our scouting skills lacked mucho, causing us to become separated from Oñate's rabble. "But, good riddance to bad basura," Chaneco said, to which I concurred, especially after menso Oñate had the feet cut off of every adult male in the Acoma Pueblo and enslaved its women for indecencies, which your Lordship knows of. At the last, from what we heard, Oñate galloped off in search of the Quivira city of gold the indios had made up to rid themselves of him. I admit I prayed he'd encounter los Apaches en Téjas.
Your Lordship, rather than backtracking--not one of our fortes--and following that fool's errand, or heading south where we predicted we'd face charges of desertion, Chaneco and I trekked north where turquoise, much revered by our Mexica kin, and tribes renowned for their fantastic legends--such as, of monsters--were said to reside, hoping los indios there would treat us better than others had received and that the monsters were as genuine as Quivira.
Months later, by a tributary of the great river the Lilliputian-brain Oñate had imaginatively named Colorado--from its red color--los indios Havasupai granted us temporary sanctuary in Supai village. We two mestizos, luckily browner than we were facially hirsute, greatly learned from the somewhat shorter People of the Blue-Green Waters, until our eventual kidnapping by monsters of our own making that, hopefully, never terminates in a sentencing, your Lordship.
On one of Supai's delightfully cool mornings of however many more remained of Tomás Chaneco's "nagging" longevity--he claimed he was close to two hundred--he chose, for whatever reason, to scale the fifty-five-degree incline above the twin Supai Sisters' alamo-yeso cabin. There, beneath the cascadas of Hualapai Falls, soaking in its travertine pools, the tribal elders had blessed the peach pits we gifted them and regularly joked about our worth as lost explorers, or recounted tales about los espiritus who frolicked in the pools after midnight. Or they deliberated over the dinosaurio petroglyphs inscribed in sorcerer's blood--not those along the big cañones that Spanish priests would later condemn as "Abominations!", but others higher up the narrow arroyos where elders assured us even the espiritus de las cascadas dared not venture. [you can venture there when this reaches print]
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In the last year and a half, I completed a YA alternate-world fantasy with two teen Chicano protagonists (boy and girl); a children's indigenous mexicano fantasy retell; one lengthy, SF/F mexicano-indigene-Chicano short story; a SF time-travel story into Denver's past; a short, mexicano-indigene fantasy; and a YA fantasy novella. They're all in agents' and editors' slush piles, their fates, to be determined. From this peak you've gotten, of course, let me know your opinions, suggestions or criticisms about any of them. Y gracias por eso.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG, a.k.a. the Chicano spec author, Rudy Ch. Garcia, on his way to vote again, in case this week was simply a mirage
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