Fantasy Readers Wanted--Apply Within collects enchanting stories of heroic missions, packed full of action, adventure, romance, and humor. Within these pages, fantasy fans old and new will find diverse and rewarding interpretations of the quest theme. Here there be dragons ... barbarians ... witches ... elves ... centaurs ... dwarves ... unicorns ... and all manner of fantastic new creatures birthed from the fertile imaginations of twenty-three talented authors.
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From The Divine Spark By Frank Fradella Fei Shang still limped a little, though the source of his injuries were now months behind him. His left arm had regained most of its mobility, and even his speech didn't require the same effort as it once had. Still ... fire was fire, and burns didn't heal. He wore a hooded robe now, and it silenced most of the gasps and whispers of those they passed.
Wei Lo had thickened a bit in the intervening months, and with a full belly, he had all the boundless energy that one might expect from a boy his age. Fei Shang's pace was a bit too tedious for him, and he would often go into the forest on little excursions, always returning before dusk. He carried a makeshift wooden spear with him, and in the fading light of the evening, Fei Shang had begun to teach him the fundamentals of using it properly.
They weren't exactly family, but they were both phoenixes, rising from the flames and ashes of a former life. For the time being, their path went in the same direction, and that was enough.
"I'm hungry," Wei Lo said, bounding out of the forest.
"Then go pick some berries."
"I don't want berries! I want something else."
"Well, what do you want then?"
"I don't know."
Fei Shang rolled his eyes and continued to limp down the wide, trampled pathway. It was a conversation they'd had daily.
Up ahead, beyond the rise in the hill, two men blocked their path. The larger of the two was nearly a mountain unto himself, and his head was neatly shaved. The other was lanky, but muscular, and his chin had an odd collection of straggly hairs. Fei Shang continued to limp forward, but he took hold of Wei Lo and directed the boy behind him.
"Greetings, Brother," the leaner man said.
"And to you," Fei Shang said, pulling his hood back away from his face.
"Gods! What happened to you?"
"I had a small disagreement with a large dragon. I lost the argument."
The two ruffians didn't laugh. They didn't mock. And Fei Shang's scars suddenly told a very different story. The mention of a dragon was nothing at which to scoff. They were rarer than ever, and only the occasional dropped scale or damaged tooth proved that they still existed at all.
"You met a dragon?" Wei Lo exclaimed breathlessly. "You never said!"
"You never asked."
"Well, I didn't want to be rude," the boy said, and Fei Shang smiled.
"Umm ... listen," the larger man said, "things being what they are and all, I feel bad, but we still gotta rob you."
"I'm sorry?"
"My friend is right, I'm afraid," the lean man said. "You're the first people to come walking this path in days, and we're flat broke. We can't let you by without emptying your purse."
"Hey!" Wei Lo shouted, coming to the fore, and Fei Shang yanked him back again.
"No, no," Fei Shang said. "I understand completely."
"Umm ... really?"
"Of course. You will understand if I don't give it up without a fight though, won't you?"
"But there're two of them!" Wei Lo said.
"Wei ..."
"Listen to the boy," Lean said. "No sense in getting yourself killed over a few paltry coins and the contents of those bundles."
"If that's all I have, then it hardly seems worth your trouble to kill me for it."
"Be that as it may," the larger man said, "we have to eat."
"And this is what we do," Lean said. "Nothing personal."
Fei Shang nodded thoughtfully and handled his bundles over to Wei Lo. The boy made some threatening motion with his spear, and the two ruffians laughed. Fei Shang smiled, too, and turned to face his adversaries.
"Kids," he said, smiling. The two men laughed good-naturedly, and it began.
The two men closed in simultaneously, and Fei Shang jabbed his thumb into the larger man's eye while he drove the blunt end of the spear into the top of the other man's foot. The larger man's hands flew to his face, tears already springing from the damaged orb, and a short, sharp kick to the hollow beneath his ribs relieved him of his breath for the next few minutes.
The leaner man did not fare so well. The crown of his foot was broken in several places, and though he couldn't bear any weight on it at all, he made a valiant attempt at pressing the attack. His hand latched onto Fei Shang's robe, and an instant later, his wrist was bending in a direction that was not originally intended by his Creator.
Just like that, it was over.
The mismatched pair stumbled and staggered around the mountainside, gasping for air or wailing in pain. Fei Shang frowned slightly and limped over to Wei Lo, who sat in silent amazement on the side of the road. He got the boy to his feet and together they continued their journey.
"You ..."
"Yes?"
"There were two of them!"
"So there were."
"But you made it look so easy!"
"I suppose it was."
"Did you really fight a dragon once?"
"Yes, I really did."
"And that's how you got all scarred?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Was it a big dragon?"
"Oh, very big."
"Did you kill it?"
Fei Shang hobbled a few feet forward and considered his words carefully. He covered his head with the hood of his robe and squinted his eyes against the setting sun. The forest around them was very green, and he had not yet grown so old that he forgot how to appreciate the beauty one could see through human eyes. But there was a journey yet to take, and a battle yet to be fought. At some point, the boy would learn the strange truth that lay ahead of them.
"Not yet," he said.
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