The Spaces Between
An off-beat fantasy story
Let us travel down a well-worn road, but take a few diversions. The Spaces Between may start off down a familiar path, but it quickly spins out of control, and we find ourselves engrossed in a captivating series of events that end quite unexpectedly. The ending is by far one of the most surreal and unique in the genre.
The land is Belden, and it is a small, peninsular nation, bordered by the mountainous and rugged Welcfer to the north. It is seemingly flat and meaningless and full of flat and meaningless people. Magic is wielded by those who show ability at a young age. While there are spells with names, the actual working of magic harkens more to the use of atomic energy or quantum physics--it is all in the spaces between the particles. The energy is not created, and there is no flow of magical power, but mages and warlocks harness energy already that is omnipresent, string it together, and create their magical spells (basically they are harnessing subatomic power, but they have no clue that is what they are doing).
A drunken lout (Zhy) meets a traveling mercenary (Qainur) who somehow convinces him to go on a great quest to the north to learn magic from a warlock stationed there. Along the way they meet a mage (Torplug) who is strangely without a horse. He agrees to follow for a short distance, but ends up staying with them as they have a few run-ins with trained assassins, an exotic liqueur, and the requisite demons.
When the travelers reach a large city, the story introduces a simple-minded individual (Bimb). In modern terminology, he would have Asperger's syndrome, or mild autism. In the fantasy land of Belden, he's "simple-minded". This perspective is told from the first person, in order to view the world through the eyes of someone simple and naïve. While he lacks basic skills, he is a talented musician and is good with complex numbers. And when he plays music, the dead can sometimes talk to him. One such deceased person visits him, and happens to be the father of the main drunk character. Enter another major cliché. But the first-person POV of Bimb is quite unique as we see how the world works through his eyes.