Kerlak Enterprises - Reading Room

"To Touch a Dragon" by H. David Blalock
"A Vow of Celibacy" by Jeff Crook
"Toradh of the Gem" by Allan Gilbreath
"The Rose's Thorn" by Bill Snodgrass

"To Touch a Dragon" by H. David Blalock
   You wouldn't think so, but dragons do exist. You just need to know where to look.
   For as long as I can remember, I have been enthralled by the fantastic. My childhood was peopled with multi-armed Barsoomians, the nightmarish shuggoths of Kadesh, the beasts of Pellucidar, hobbits, grendels, fairies, and a thousand other fabulous creatures. While my brother excelled in sports, I spent my free time delving into the mysteries of lands far off in space and time. My brother often laughed at my "flights of fancy", as he called them, then he would chide me for a fool and a dreamer. I didn't care. What was life without a little poetry? My parents weren't sure my predilection for outre fiction was healthy, but they were glad they didn't have to worry about where I might be or what I might be doing. My brother gave them enough trouble for the both of us. My father once tried to get me involved in baseball, but my athletic skills were far too underdeveloped for even that gentle pastime, and he finally surrendered to the inevitable.
   So it was that I grew up learning to see magic everywhere. I learned to appreciate art, music, and theater as manifestations of that magic, that poetry in life. Although I myself never had the gift of writing or art, I reveled in what I read and heard and saw. Grand Adventures populated my dreams, where I dared to put myself in place of Orpheus in the Underworld, Washington crossing the Delaware, Yeager breaking the sound barrier. I surrounded myself with a cloud of ideas and images that stretched the limits of my imagination. You might say I never really grew up. My childhood companions followed me into adulthood, nor did the passage of years and the intrusion of a job dislodge them from their special place in my heart.
   I came to understand just how closely they had stayed with me as I was driving home from work late last Friday night, looking forward to a long holiday weekend. There would be barbecue Saturday with my brother, his wife, and kids: Sunday, a ballgame downtown. Monday, I was going to put my feet up, watch a rented flick, and maybe take a well-deserved nap. It was going to be perfect.

"A Vow of Celibacy" by Jeff Crook
   Sometimes Amia liked to pretend she was in a play, standing by the darkened window sighing for her lover. If any of the servants were to awaken and see her standing by the open window, she hoped they would think she was only pining for her lover - Bonn, a ranger for the Papas family, the breeders of horses whose estate bordered that of her master, Jan Capera. She had kept her affair with the handsome ranger so secret that everyone in the household knew.
   A crunch on the gravel footpath outside her window startled her. She ducked behind the curtain, fearing her master might be out on one his prowls. Then a voice softly whispered her name, "Amia! Amia!" and she knew it was Bonn. Even so, she hesitated a moment and listened to his moment of fear. "Amia, please!"
   As she picked up her bag and stepped from behind the curtain, she heard his breath catch, and then he sighed as he stepped from the rose bushes. Amia buried herself in his arms and smothered his unshaved cheeks with urgent and noisy kisses. He quieted her lips with his own, and then whispered, his breath on her eyelids, "Be quiet. You'll wake the entire house."
   "I don't care," she whispered. "Let them hear. I love you and I don't care who knows."
   "Don't be silly," he said. "Have you got your bag? Good, let's go then." He took her bag and her hand and led her away from the house, through the low trees casting their moonlight shadows across the lawn, and down through a well-ordered garden with its gravel paths and stone benches and pale white naked statues gesturing in the night, and through another ring of trees beyond which a low stone fence ran beside the path from the house up to the main road to Tarrasq. Bonn lifted Amia over the fence and then passed her bag over before following her.

"Toradh of the Gem" by Allan Gilbreath
   My name is Jack Lago. I used to be a cop. Now, I'm called a law enforcement special consultant. That means when a case goes weird, I get called in. That way, official hands stay clean, and I make a living. Since there were no messages on the phone machine or the cell phone this morning, I finished breakfast and looked forward to a nice, quiet day. I had just settled into a magazine when the doorbell rang, so much for my peace and quiet.
   I looked through the peephole and was slightly shocked to see Detective Petrofski standing there. She's my usual contact when a case takes that infamous left turn, the turn that can brand you as a spook chaser. Rarely, these cases turn out to have an explainable ending. Most of the time, you make up a story that explains most of the evidence and call it a day. The fact that she now stood on my front steps meant a real hard left turn. I opened the door.
   "Petrofski, I would say it's nice to see you, but I'm going to bet this isn't a social call. Come on in."
   "You're right. I'm not taking any chances with this one." Petrofski looked truly worried as she stepped in.
   "Have a seat at the table. I'll get you a cup of coffee." I walked into the kitchen and grabbed her a cup. Cops are easy to serve coffee, black and strong, nothing fancy. She sat at the table as I walked back in. "Here you go."
   "Thanks." Petrofski looked around. "You still live like a cop."
   "What can I say, I still work like one." I sat down sensing that time for small talk had already ended. She looked ready to confess. "You didn't drive out here for a cup of my bad coffee, and you still have your cell phone. You just didn't want to use it."

"The Rose's Thorn" by Bill Snodgrass
   Marah scrutinized the reflection in the looking glass, and holding up a bow to where it might be situated in her hair, she declared, "What do you think? It would be cute, wouldn't it?"
   "Dear cousin," Claire declared with an authoritative air, "take it from me... When going to a fancy society ball, a girl in your position wants to look anything but cute."
   Marah lowered the bow and turned to Claire with thoughtful eyes.
   "Are you not practically nobility?" Claire asked rhetorically. "After all, your father is the steward of a wizard and you're his eldest daughter. A wizard's steward has place enough in society that his daughter ought to be setting her sights pretty high in terms of a husband. To attract the kind of man you should be after... or more to the point, the man you are after… you want to forget cute.
   Elegant, maybe. Beautiful, certainly.
   Sophisticated... Anything, but cute. Cute is for little girls, not young women hoping to attract a fancy suitor."
   Marah soaked in the words of her cousin. Claire was nineteen, two years older than Marah, and engaged. Thus, her opinion on matters of romance carried a great deal of sway.
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