Prologue
The Girl and the Giant
Below lies the prologue of the full-length novel, The Girl with the Strawberry Eyes. You’ve the option of choosing either an EPUB file or a PDF, or reading the work in the space below. New chapters will be added every Wednesday. Cheers and Happy Reading.
A world very much like our own, though not entirely….
The Girl and the Giant
If it had not been for the periodic whiplash of lightning bolts, the small aerofighter would have been completely lost against the night. But the lightning did indeed flash, and there the craft was, albeit in glimpses: sleek and black, it wove and twisted through the mountains with ease.
Barely five minutes previous, the lightning hadn’t been the only thing illuminating the night.
Muzzle flashes.
Explosions.
Droplets of blood that glistened as they sailed through the night air.
There had been six sky pirates in all—each piloting a small, sleek aerofighter of his or her own. They had swooped down all at once, confident in their victory. But in minutes they were each and every one smoldering against the rocks—victims of machine gun bullets, or poor flying, or both.
The fate of the sky pirates was, unsurprisingly, the very last thing on the surviving pilot’s mind: the aerofighter was only able to narrowly avoid the trees and jutting rocks of the Carpathians due to her laser-sharp focus. It would have, without a doubt, been easier to fly at a higher altitude—easier; safer; more enjoyable—but the pilot had to stay low, or else the whole mission might end up being entirely in vain. For, she was searching for something.
Not any one thing in particular, but one of a set of things: an arm, perhaps. Or a leg. A torso. Any of those body parts would have no choice but to be absolutely enormous, for they belonged to the Walking City known as Jidovus.
Jidovus had once towered into the heavens and made mountains tremble with every one of his footsteps. But he had, for reasons unknown, fallen and died almost four hundred years previous in the 1600s. And over the centuries, the mountains had swallowed his corpse up bit by bit, until there had been so little of him left that the locals wondered if he had ever even existed at all.
The aeropilot cut the power to her throttle and flicked on her aero’s headlights. The mountains were instantly flooded with an eerie white light that would, eventually, certainly, attract any surviving sky pirates still in the area.
“Let them come,” the aeropilot muttered to herself. “The result will be the same. This is far more important.”
And “this”, of course, meant the strips of now-illuminated mountain that lay before her. Her stomach gurgled with excitement as her eyes darted from rock to bush to tree, looking for something, anything, that seemed even slightly out of place. She started to grind her teeth—not out of frustration, but because she knew that, indeed, it wouldn’t be very much longer before more sky pirates came for her.
“Come on,” she muttered, nibbling on her lip. “I know you’re here. I know you’re here. I’m not going to let you let me down.” Her grip tightened on the joystick. She would sweep the mountains a second or third time if she had to. Just so long as she didn’t return home empty-handed. That couldn’t even be a consideration. She had studied for too long and had traveled too far for empty-handed.
Oh no no, she was going to succeed. Even if it meant landing her aero and walking the mountain—
She gasped.
Suddenly, there it was: the exact sort of something she had been searching for. At first glance, she’d mistaken it as a mere cliff face; as nothing more than yet another part of the mountain. However, upon a second look, she realized that what she’d thought was a patch of shadow high up on the cliff face was actually a left eye socket, and a second patch of shadow was actually the right. And in the middle of it all was a slightly twisted nose hole. The lower jaw was completely missing, but, nonetheless, there was little doubt about what stood before her: a skull. Easily as tall as an apartment building and almost three times as wide.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” the aerogirl muttered. She couldn’t stop herself from grinning. “Right, right,” she said, letting out a shaky breath. “Next steps.”
With a flip of a toggle, she switched the aerofighter’s Icarus Cloud Engines to hover mode and initiated its gravity locks. The aero smoothly descended and settled onto the mountainside brush. The aerogirl hurried through her post-flight check, unbuckled her harness and pushed back the canopy. Immediately, chilled air swirled into the cramped cockpit and prickled her skin. She pushed up her flight goggles and thick strands of black hair swished in front of her eyes. She blew them away with one puff from her lips, and then pulled herself out of the cockpit.
Once on the ground, she turned and pounded the underside of her aero’s fuselage with the side of her fist. There sounded a small click, and then a little door swung open. The aerogirl reached into the revealed compartment and pulled out two things.
The first was a large book (almost as big as her torso!) that’s covers and spine had been constructed from lengths of thick, polished wood, and had been dyed a deep blue, and were set with a series of white, symmetrical swirls that looked as if they had escaped from some abstract vision of the ocean. This was the aerogirl’s Seerbook. Constructed entirely by her own two hands, it served as the birthplace of every single one of her ideas and inventions. Her heart glowed with pride when she hefted the tome, when she looked at the pages swollen with copious drawings and notes. She would have to sew in more pages soon, but this was another point of pride, as she was only fifteen, and her Seerbook was already filled with far more coherent, original and (dare she say?) brilliant ideas than those of Memory Seers two or three times her age. And, on top of all that, she had just rediscovered the Walking City of Jidovus.
She had just rediscovered the Walking City of Jidovus.
She felt absurd for even thinking such a thing, and yet, here she was, and there it was. She had been able to do what countless archaeologists and Scholars had not. If she didn’t go down in the history books as one of the greatest Memory Seers ever … well, she would be the first to be surprised.
“Don’t get cocky,” she muttered through another of her grins. “Get to work.”
And so the aerogirl pulled the second item from within the storage compartment of her aerofighter. At first glance, the object merely looked like a cube-shaped, dark-wood clock that was about the size of a grapefruit. But then two large, amber-hued eyes blinked open on the clock face and two bird-like wings unfolded from its body. The clock flapped its wings once, twice, and then hopped out of the aerogirl’s palm. It flew around her head two times and finally settled on her shoulder with clawed feet that were as wooden as everything else on its body.
This was her chroppet.
Some chroppets were as small as grapes, while others were as large as elephants. Some had wings, while others had thick, gorilla-like arms. Regardless of how big they were, all chroppets were a.) clocks at heart, b.) made completely of wood, and c.) used primarily for record-keeping. Every single person on Earth didn’t own one of these machines, but many people did, and the aerogirl couldn’t help feeling proud of the fact that the first chroppets had been invented five hundred years ago in Japan, as a challenge to karakuri puppets.
“Rise and shine, Momo,” the aerogirl cooed, stroking the chroppet with the crook of her finger. “Did you have a nice nap?”
Momo chirped.
“Well, I hope you have enough energy now because I’m going to be talking a lot. I think. Here, time for dinner.” She pressed a little button on top of Momo’s body, and her clock face swung open like a door. The aerogirl pulled a small roll of parchment from one of the pockets of her black coveralls and gently pressed it into Momo’s body—right underneath a very small fountain pen nib, which was attached to a very small mechanical arm, which itself led from the depths of a very small bottle of black ink. The aerogirl closed the clock face, applying pressure with the tip of her finger until it clicked back into place. “There,” she said with a small nod of satisfaction. “This is going to be for Kurumi. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.”
Momo trilled and the aerogirl could hear the tinny whirring of gears deep inside the chroppet as her miniature nib got to work scratching away.
“Dear Kurumi,” said the aerogirl, switching from English to Japanese. “I have no idea when you’ll see this letter, but hopefully you’re old enough to read it for yourself. This might not mean anything to you at all, but I would still like you to know that it is the twenty-eighth of October, and almost 11PM, and I am standing in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains. In Romania. This is because your big sister Kasumi has found the lost Walking City of Jidovus. At fifteen. And no, I didn’t tell you my age as a bragging point. It was meant to be a … frame of reference. Yes. A frame of reference. Because you never know, little sister: by the time you get around to reading this, many decades might’ve already passed from this moment, and I might have already managed to accomplish decades’ worth of other amazing accomplishments. Again, not trying to brag.
“Anyway, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I didn’t come here just to find long-lost Walking Cities; Jidovus has a massive library, and I need to find a specific book in said library, or else this mission could still end up a colossal failure. Which means that I need to get moving. Stop.”
Momo peeped as her internal nib stopped scratching away.
Kasumi slung the Seerbook’s leather double strap around her shoulders like backpack, and then pulled a heavy black cloak from her aerofighter’s storage compartment. She wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, dropped its cowl low over her eyes, then pulled everything tight. Her face was already crisscrossed by a fraying black scarf, so the mountain winds weren’t actually too much of a bother. Before she turned away and started her search, she considered one of the items in the storage compartment: a small, sleek Brickenbauer P66 pistol.
The Professor had insisted she bring it along, but she saw no point in taking the thing into the remains of the Walking City. It was rumored that a crazed, ancient Nightmaiden named Drusilla roamed the empty corridors and alleyways of Jidovus. If the stories were true, however, then a dinky pistol wasn’t going to be of much use.
And on top of that, Kasumi truly, deeply did not like guns. She was a Scholar and an inventor, not a mercenary. Why should she want to blast a villain when she could just dazzle him with her mind?
“Come on, Momo. Let’s go.”
She banged the storage compartment shut. There would be no gun. Today was a special day and she wasn’t going to ruin it by trundling around a weapon used by brutes.
No gates guarded Jidovus’ secrets. No gargantuan locked doors. No automatons that’s sole purpose was to maim and destroy. Like every other Walking City, Jidovus, if the histories were to be believed, had feasted on trees every century or so, and in order to have done that, he had needed teeth. His lower jaw was nowhere to be seen, of course, and his bottom teeth were missing along with it. His top teeth were there, though—half-sunken into the earth yet still towering like primitive monuments. And one of these teeth was, for whatever reason, missing. Which meant that Kasumi could mosey on in without any trouble whatsoever.
After she entered the skull, she stopped and took a moment to draw a deep breath. She expected the air to be musty and thick with dust, however, it was actually not only clean, but sweet.
Kasumi clicked on her lantern and gasped: she stood in a cavern of books. The walls of the place stretched so far up that they escaped the reach of her lantern, but what she could see of them were filled with shelves. And every square inch of these shelves was covered by books. There were so many that Kasumi became dizzy looking at them all. Not even in the Great Arch Library of Istanbul, or in the Horliotecca, or in any of the other Great Libraries she and the Professor had visited had she ever seen so many books in one place. Were all of Jidovus’ libraries as expansive and, frankly, as intimidating as this? And if so, how many libraries did he possess, exactly?
Kasumi let out a small sigh. The thrill of discovery was quickly receding into the past, and now she truly began to realize just how daunting of a task it was going to be, finding her book.
“Well,” she muttered, “I’m not doing myself any favors by standing here gawking. Time to get to work.”
Fortunately, as had been the case with every other Great Library she had visited, this library was filled with at least a dozen wicker gondolas. The gondolas were attached to an intricate pulley system, and were consequently able to be pulled to any height.
In theory, anyway. For all Kasumi knew, the ropes had become so brittle from neglect that they would simply snap as soon as she put even a little weight in one of the gondolas.
“Momo,” she said, “continue, please.”
Momo tweeped as her internal nib resumed scratching.
“Dear Kurumi,” Kasumi began, “I wish you could see this. I can’t think of anything more beautiful than so much knowledge in the same place. You can feel it weighing down on your skin and seeping into your pores. I really, really hope you grow up to be one of those girls who loves books. Because it isn’t just about knowledge; it isn’t just about stories and ideas. It’s about intimacy.
“Yes, you read that right: intimacy. Because what could be more intimate than curling up with a person’s thoughts? Even if they’re dead, it’s like snuggling with the warmest parts of a ghost. Maybe when you’re older I’ll bring you here. Well, maybe not here here because here here is pretty creepy, but definitely to at least one of the Great Libraries. The Professor said he’s a Scholar of Note at pretty much all of them, so we can go to whichever we want. This is the part where you cheer and thank me for being an amazing big sister.
“Joking.
“I’m not clueless, Kurumi: I know I’m a total dork. Regardless of what I might have told/will tell you, most girls my age don’t spend their time wandering around abandoned libraries or scribbling in Seerbooks. They go to the cinema, and—and stalk boys, and have slumber parties. I think. My point, baby sister, is that I’m totally happy with myself, and um … well, let me put it this way: remember what I said about hoping you grow to love books as much as I do? This is still definitely one of my absolute greatest hopes, but I’m not going to, like, push you to become something you’re totally not into. Not like how mom and dad tried to force me to give up my Seerish studies and focus on becoming a doctor. Be who you want to be! Just try to be honest about it. Don’t let anybody—not mom and dad, not your future friends, not even me—influence you too much. It’s for sure super important to, like, be social and have friends and stuff, but it’s just as important to think for yourself.
“Right, as much as I love dispensing advice to my favorite baby sister, I really need to start figuring out how I’m going to find my book. I mean, I really have no idea. Since the Dewey Decimal System wasn’t exactly a thing when Jidovus roamed the Earth, I’ll just have to hope these books were arranged in some kind of coherent fashion.
“Oh, and if you’re wondering (and I know you are), the name of the book is: Galaxia Spectronica: An Exploration of Melinoean Spectral Shapes in Nonlinear Temporal Space. By the great Italian Spectralist Italo Mezzasalma. I wouldn’t be surprised if those words mean very little to you (they mean very little to most people on Earth, if we’re being honest), but I want you to know, baby sister, that once I find this book, I’ll be one step closer to finishing my newest machine. And my newest machine, once it is finished will—should—create miniature Linearity Displacement Portals by way of string energy extracted from Spectral Residue. Now, I know those words probably mean less to you than the last set, but here’s the important thing: once I finish this particular machine, I’ll probably become one of the most famous Memory Seers in the—”
BLAM! BLAM!
Kasumi cried out as a sharp pain stabbed both the back of her thigh and her lower back.
BLAM!
What felt like a sledgehammer slammed into her shoulder, spinning her around a full 180 degrees.
BLAM!
Momo exploded into a cloud of splinters and springs.
“No!” Kasumi cried.
BLAM!
The next bullet pierced Kasumi’s stomach like a lance and she finally collapsed against one of the gondolas. She tried to pull herself inside, but suddenly felt as if thousand-pound weights had been tied to each of her limbs.
Who had done this to her?
Her mind worked furiously to find the answer that made the most sense, and she quickly settled on the sky pirates. It had to be. One of them had escaped the dogfight, and had followed her, and could now take his time exacting revenge. How could she have been so careless? How could she have been so stupid?
But when she slid to the floor with her back pressed against the gondola, she discovered that it wasn’t a sky pirate who stood behind her.
Not with those glasses.
Not with that hair.
“B-but why?” she whimpered. “Why you? Wh-what have I—?”
BLAM!
A gurgle of blood.
Darkness.
Many thanks for reading(!) And now, on to Chapter 1….
Or,
if you liked what you read, and would like to devour a completed work in one go, why not give my romantic novella, Knits, a gander? Get it here.
