Rickshaw rhythm, p.1
Rickshaw Rhythm, page 1
Rickshaw Rhythm
Tall Tales of The Galaxy, Volume 1
V.E. Wilchcombe
Published by V.E. Wilchcombe, 2023.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
RICKSHAW RHYTHM
First edition. September 30, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 V.E. Wilchcombe.
Written by V.E. Wilchcombe.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
~ONE~
~TWO~
~THREE~
~FOUR~
~FIVE~
~SIX~
~SEVEN~
~EIGHT~
~NINE~
~TEN~
~ELEVEN~
~TWELVE~
~THIRTEEN~
~FOURTEEN~
~FIFTEEN~
~SIXTEEN~
~SEVENTEEN~
~EIGHTEEN~
~NINETEEN~
~TWENTY~
~TWENTY-ONE~
~TWENTY-TWO~
~TWENTY-THREE~
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About the Author
~ONE~
At the center of the universe floats a golden clock, and in that clock sleeps the Timekeeper. Here he lies in a bed made of stardust, bundled and wrapped up with his tomcat, Tobias. He has not a care or woe to wake him.
Since the very first time he set the hands of his clock into motion, the pulse of its movement has echoed throughout the galaxies and held in place the realms of both the living and the dead. Only once has it stalled and changed its cadence. If not for the swiftness of the Timekeeper it would have been an event of astronomical proportions, changing the universe for all time. Today, it would do so once more.
This time it is the long hand that stalls. A delay so miniscule that only the Timekeeper could perceive it. Now he leaps up from his bed as if he had never been asleep at all. Tobias gets up from the pillows beside him and stretches out his feline spine. His midnight blue fur shimmers with silver undertones in the lamplight above him as he sits and stares groggily at the now prancing Timekeeper.
The old man’s straight gray beard hangs down to the waist of his blue pajama pants. A night cap of the same ocean blue color is pulled over a thick braid of gray hair wrapped around his head, and eyes of pure silver rove around the room in excitement.
The Timekeeper finally stops moving around to lean out his lone front window. “Toby, quick, bring me my binoculars.”
“Get them yourself, old man,” Tobias replies. His small gray eyes close as he yawns. “Who in all the galaxies asks a cat with paws to bring them binoculars?”
“Stop playing around and hurry,” says the Timekeeper impatiently. “I see it; it’s headed that way,” he says, pointing out to the east.
Tobias sighs and with a twitch of his nose fancy gold binoculars rise up from a shelf above him and fly over to the Timekeeper.
He snatches them from the air, brings them to his eyes, and leans forward to peer out into the void.
“All this excitement over a tiny ripple,” says Tobias. He springs from the bed in one fluent motion and lands on the windowsill beside him.
“Don’t be such a fuddy-duddy, Tobias. We haven’t had a ripple in thousands of years. And last time it was only because you jumped on the short hand.”
“I was a newborn kitten. Give me a break, will ya?”
“Pack the bags; we’re going on a trip,” says the Timekeeper.
“What!” Tobias exclaims, his small eyes rounded to their fullest. “Can’t we just pull it in and go back to sleep like we did the last time?”
“Of course not,” says the Timekeeper. “This one is genuine. A new galaxy has been birthed from the ether and has anchored its place within the void. This is a time of endings and new beginnings. We must see the effects of the ripple.”
“Looks like it’s headed to Starlight City,” says Tobias, his paw raised up to his eyes as he looks out into the darkness.
“Get a move on it now, Toby, or we will miss out on the start of the show.”
Tobias rolls his eyes in annoyance and turns back to face the room. He begins to pull out the travelling bags, his nose twitching as each one lands on the bed. “So, are we finally going to deal with that rogue state, or do you still persist on leaving it up to the Bearer?”
“Don’t forget my green coat,” the Timekeeper says, ignoring his question. “I haven’t gotten to wear that one yet.” His face shines with excitement when he glances down at Tobias.
“Well,” Tobias prods.
“All things in due time, dear Toby. The Bearer knows what he’s doing.”
The Timekeeper goes still for a few seconds and lowers the binoculars. His eyes begin to glow as he looks off into the void once more, seeing something far-far away. For a brief moment, his eyes get misty and then he prances around the room again.
Tobias continues to mutter and complain as he flings in the Timekeeper’s favorite clothes and hats.
“Whipple, dipple, ripple,” he grumbles and closes the suitcases with a huff. “If we don’t pull it in now, it could pass through numerous realms and who knows what could happen.”
Grinning, the Timekeeper spins around and tosses the binoculars on the bed. “That’s the whole point of it,” he says as he shoves one leg into a pair of orange and green patterned trousers. He hops around for a few seconds before finally getting his next leg into the other side.
“Aren’t those feline bones of yours almost turned to mush from all this sleeping? It’s time to shine up those whiskers, flex those tail muscles for the wagging, and see what new journeys are to be had.”
“Can we at least pull it in before it reaches Santherin?” Tobias asks. “It seems to be heading in that general direction. Santherin is the last in that star line. Surely three realms should be more than enough to satiate your need for adventure without us having to deal with the Sahdi.”
“That’s a deal,” says the Timekeeper. “The ripple could certainly free those nasty lizards, and it’s just not worth the trouble of having to seal them once more.” He throws off his night cap, letting his braid fall down his back, and puts the final yank on the hem of a patterned pink, yellow, and purple tunic.
Tobias’s eyes somehow double in size as he takes in the outfit.
“How do I look?” asks the Timekeeper, spinning around slowly.
Tobias’s voice is deadpan when he answers, “I’m not going.”
The Timekeeper surprises him then by grabbing him up and spinning him around the small space, laughing at his horrified expression.
Tobias shrieks and snarls, “Put me down, you rainbow stick!”
The Timekeeper snuggles him up to his chest briefly before tossing the ruffled ball of shimmering fur onto the soft-sparkling blankets of the bed.
“What shall we take, the Red Mambo or the Silver Lion?” the Timekeeper asks. A knowing grin spreads across his face.
Tobias had been pawing down the ruffled fur on his head, but now a light turns on in his gray eyes at the Timekeeper’s query.
“We’ll take the Lion.”
The Timekeeper grabs a shiny, silver ball from a holder on the shelf and flings it out the window. A glare flashes through the room as the ball explodes into form and a sleek, silver, open-top ship with a lion’s snout hovers beside the window.
“I’m driving!” shouts Tobias as he springs past the Timekeeper and out the window to land in the driver’s seat.
“Cats can’t drive,” the Timekeeper grumbles. He hops inside the Lion to sit beside him nonetheless.
“Oh yeah,” says Tobias. He paws a few buttons on the dashboard and the Lion roars to life.
“Better hold on to those fancy pink drawers, old man,” he says, and the Silver Lion shoots out into the void with a grinning tom cat and a screeching Timekeeper.
First stop, Starlight City.
~TWO~
To get into Starlight City, one would have to possess a body of shimmering translucence, eaten the gills of a Baki fish, swam through the sea of stars, and faced off with the demon of Sekalon Forest. Unless of course you were the Timekeeper, who had parked his Silver Lion on its celestial border and is now gallivanting through the streets of the city with his cat, Tobias. They are invisible to its extraordinary locals.
By way of dreams and magic relics, the ruler of Starlight City is known to whisper stories of the city to his brothers and sisters throughout the galaxies. These are not siblings of the familial kind, but rather, of the magic kind. For Starlight City is a city of dead magicians.
Among mages in the corporeal realms, an eternity spent in Starlight City is rumored to be the most glorious end. But what they don’t know is that upon their deaths, only a chosen few are taken to attempt the trials. Once on the road to the gates of eternity, one could find themselves detoured off the path and whisked away to come face to face with the ruler of Starlight City, Elderon Avingraal, one of the greatest supreme mages that ever lived. If they pass his trials, they are allowed into the city, but if they failed, they are sent back on the path headed to the gates of the afterlife.
You see, his stories in the corporeal realms are intended to make mages believe that the Bearer, who is the eternal sovereign of the realms of the dead, has given him the great task of creating a glorious place for the spirits of the magically inclined, but what he doesn’t tell them is that after he himself crossed into the realms of the dead, he was rejected at the
It was as Elderon drifted along with nowhere else to go that he thought to cheat the void and take a space of his own. He created the foundation of Starlight City in mere hours, forming it from a massive drifting asteroid. Each block was carved and fused together with his power. Then he created a massive crystal dome to house its foundation. This dome would be his canvas for the day and night skies.
After creating Starlight’s foundation, Elderon quickly found a way to reach across the realms and use his influence to build his city. As the last world he came to and the place his essence lingered the strongest, Earth’s mages were the first to hear tales of the city.
To his eternal outrage and regret, he had died at the height of his power. His bones were dropped into Earth’s deepest waters, and his fortresses that were filled with his magic relics and weapons were ransacked and plundered.
Not one to linger long on disappointment, Elderon immediately understood that he needed other mages to see Starlight City as the ultimate goal and come with him willingly when he met them on the path. After all, a city of its magnitude could not be maintained by his power alone.
Going back and taking those he wanted off the paths to the gates of the afterlife had been easier than he thought; too easy. This made him even more eager to build up his power for whatever the Requiter may have in store for him. Only the strongest among the mages he took could be used to build and defend the city.
Today, the city is as loud and boisterous as any town among the living. With the added strength of other mages, he used his power to create a puppet skin to house their spirits and living puppets to serve as the common people. Starlight City became a dream-like place where beauty and splendor abound and thoughts could form wondrous creations. Elderon had created his own kingdom where his words were the only law. Still, he alone knew the real price for all this grandeur. A city of magic would always need a source of power, and a few minutes away, hurtling through the void, is the ripple, coming to disrupt all that he has created.
~THREE~
It is almost time for sunrise in Starlight City. Lena Darksight knows this because her foremost duty is to set the blazing ball into motion. She alone controls the ebb and flow of the day and the sun’s fading away to make room for the moon and the night.
Those two celestial replicas were created by Elderon himself and the day was put in her care while Renpho Isolin, the dream master, controlled the night. Every city master has a task to perform in the city. From the birds that fly in the skies to the green grass growing on the rolling hills.
Minor mages also have their task to perform. They enforce Elderon’s laws and nurture the day to day toiling of a city. They keep the living puppets in a steady cycle and report all happenings to the city masters.
From her perch on her windowsill Lena sees the lights go out in Renpho’s tower, a short distance away. He has passed her the proverbial torch and is now diving under his blankets for a nap. Not that they needed to sleep here in Starlight City. It was just a normal thing to do. And what was a dream master if he couldn’t have his dreams to play in?
After sleeping through his days, Renpho usually spent his nights perusing near the city borders. Here he liked to test the limits of his magic and as a result, the patience of his supreme mage. Lena warned him that his luck would eventually run out and Elderon would administer severe punishment, but Renpho never headed her warnings.
Elderon had told her that on Earth, she had been the only Darksight mage he had ever known. A life she cannot remember, because like all the other mages, she has no memory of her life before Starlight City. Elderon had found that after whisking these souls off the path to the gates, they lost all memories of their former lives except for their names. He was convinced that it could only be the work of the Requiter. He had not yet made a move to stop him, but he sowed discord in his plans nonetheless.
Dressed in a shimmering black dress, Lena sits on the ledge of her wide, top-tower window, overlooking the shining city. She sometimes wonders if Elderon’s assignment was misplaced. Yes, she loves the warm rays of the sun upon her face and the early morning sparkle of the dew drops on the flowers in the fields. But she truly is only at ease when the night caves in on the city. She’s never told anyone, but sometimes, just before the first rays of the sun touch the sky, if she looks hard enough into the darkness, she can catch a glimpse of shifting shadows. Now she looks up to the sky once more, waiting to see those now familiar ripples in the darkness.
A dog barks down below, and she drops her gaze to the city. She recognizes the little distracter right away; he belongs to one of her stable men, Mr. O’Neal. This could only mean that the old man is wobbling home through the gates after being out all night, drinking and belting out tunes in one of the city taverns. He is tall and broad with a voice so bad it could raise the dead.
Behind him, just outside the gates, a red street carriage rolls slowly by. It had been many months since she had last seen a red carriage on the move. These gloomy boxed-shaped carriages move through the city only in the wee hours of the night, collecting the elderly puppets when they pass away.
Their destination is the reclaiming tower. The high mage here is tasked with recycling the essence of these old puppets, so new ones can live. The cry of a newborn baby usually fills the rooms of a dwelling the following day.
Elderon went above and beyond with the characters he created in his puppets, sparing no flaw or perfection of humanity. It is sometimes jarring when Lena reminds herself that all of this is indeed an illusion.
She realizes she has missed her chance at the mysterious sighting, when the sunlight hits the corner of her eyes. She sighs and instead looks east to the miles of sweet-smelling flowers covering the hills and valleys.
Just beyond the hills, the sea of stars shimmers below her rising sun. She watches as a sleek form jumps from the water and splays out in the air, before crashing back down into the sea. It is the master of the seas and lakes, flaunting his beauty for her to see. He knows her morning habit as she knows his own. Lena sees his eel-shaped head bob up from the water and then change with the rest of him into his humanoid form as he rises from the sea. He walks from the water, butt naked and muscle laden. Gold tattoos cover him from head to toe; they glitter on his pale skin, even from so great a distance.
As was his custom every morning, he stops and waves at her before turning onto the trail back to his tower in the city. He is one of a handful of city masters that lived on worlds other than the Earth before being brought to Starlight City.
Lena leans her head against the side of the window and takes in the beauty of it all. This is a daily routine of hers. Every day, just as she set the sunrise in motion, she stares out on the horizon and tries to recall her memories of her life in the realm of the living. After this, she usually goes about visiting the other city masters, and meanders through the marketplace and city square. She loves to watch the children play, laughing and running through the streets. It is sometimes a rather boring but peaceful existence. She only wishes she could somehow regain her memories.
While a few of the other city masters had eventually gained small fragments and images from their lives, Lena has nothing. Family, friends, deeds, she can recall none of it. It is her only lament in a city of wonder.
As the first rays of the sun spread throughout the land, the lights go out in the city. Lena sighs as a breeze sweeps in through her window, lifting her auburn bangs away from her forehead, before continuing on to explore the room. She looks over in the distance at a tower to her left. A window is open, and she can just make out the shape of the wind master, leaning out, sending waves of cool air throughout the city. Doors bang and windows squeak open as the city wakes. Animals pop their heads out of their burrows and birds begin the morning hunt for breakfast.
With one last wistful look upon the city, Lena begins to turn away from the window when the sunrise stills. A sharp twang travels up her back, shaking her core. She turns back around slowly to face the dawn and is stunned beyond words. Across the horizon, her blazing orange sunrise has become dim and blurry as a force runs through it. Lena can almost see the waves of celestial energy moving through Starlight City like a horde of demon horses. She doesn’t have time to do anything other than grab on to the side of the window and brace herself for its impact.
