The Carven Flute – a tale of rhyme and rhythm.

Below is a list of the 9 Chronicles of Bekka and their ‘r’ themes. The Chronicles of Lace include stories of rumors, roads, random rain riddles, and more. The Chronicles of Harpo feature themes of rescue, repair, romance, regret, and so on. When lured to venture outside the hedge by Bekka, she makes a wonderful magical discovery about herself.įor no particular reason, I decided to make at least one theme of each story begin with the letter ‘r’. She makes up silly things to try, and does them. She loves being the first to do anything.

She is known throughout the bramble bower hedge as a ‘jark dweg’, cracked melon.

And that story, Bekka of Thorns, will be available from Wild Child Publishing as of June 1, 2010.Īnd here is Karro of Thorns, Bekka’s lifelong closest friend. Her first story describes how she dared to travel with her best friend, Karro of Thorns, into the Woeful Wanderers’ Wasteland. It’s rough, but I captured her kind spirit. That’s a sketch I made of Bekka up there. Bekka of Thorns, a bramble dwarf, ‘bendo dreen’, took up the quill and continued the stories of fiddleeebod, now known as the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. After Lace’s final story, one thousand years with no story at all drifted by on my fantasy world. The two of them wrote a total of 19 stories about fiddleebod (rhymes with toad) or fiddleeebod (still rhymes with toad). I wrote story after story, populating the world with strange creatures doing odd things. Thus begins for Bekka a new quest, a new journey.Many years ago a few characters from a fantasy world appeared in my head. Above her hut, midair, wings spread wide, hanging motionless.

Her steps falter, and she slows to a standstill at what she sees. Now fully stricken with fear, she flees the hedge to return to her hut.

Carefully passing them by, she peers into the Assembly Bower and sees the rest of the bendo dreen population, some sitting or caught in the act of sitting, some standing, some in mid-stride, some with mouths wide, some posed gesturing, but all motionless, all silent. Slipping inside, she heads down the tunnel toward the Assembly Bower and encounters a pair of bendo dreen frozen in place. Alarmed, she hurries from her hut and heads for the nearby bramble bower hedge, home of her bendo dreen (bramble dwarf) younglinghood. She looks around and notices that the only magic item she possesses, The Carven Flute, is a dead wooden brown in color instead of its usual flush yellow pink. In Book #5 of The Bekka Chronicles, Bekka of Thorns awakens one morning to complete silence.

The Carven Flute by Steve Shilstone