Contest! (Page 1 of 3)

It is for members of the group only, so it makes sense to post it here.  We can either post it on this link or in our portfolios. I'd rather do it here so we don't have to spend points to post. Any other thoughts on this? If the posts stay on this link then no one needs to read it unless they care to participate. But this way, we'll all be able to learn and critique in a group forum. At the end, I'll read the whole discussion over again. People will be able to revise before posting, letting me know they are ready for judging by putting 'final version' on the header of their last rewrite.

Does this sound fair?  Please note this has to be new material and not anything I've read before.

Here's what I'm thinking about.  It's a spoiler for my upcoming chapter but I think its fun enough to share anyway.  If I were to turn this in for this contest, I'd be looking for a better ending, but you'll get the idea.

Katerin stepped from the carriage at the sound of her name.  The train of her silver dress followed her down the step and onto the ground.  She twisted and lifted the train with a wrist strap, watching it flare in a perfect semi-circle.

The crowd within the stadium pounded on their seats, clapped, and hooted in approval.  A quick glance at the masses was all she could afford.  More than half the city was here, watching her. 

Showtime.  Katerin found her mark by the stone steps leading up to her podium.  She took a deep breath and felt her heartbeat slow.  It was time to perform.  She couldn’t think of anything but the performance.  Not the danger.  Not the risk of discovery.  She had to be ready to move despite the rush of power that was about to smack her between the shoulder blades. 

Holding arms out from her side, Katerin waited until there was a lull in the noise.  Her hands lifted like a conductor, and she gave the signal to the members of her school where they arrayed in an even semi-circle, waiting in the stands.  The wand against her forearm warmed as it reacted to the focused power of all the students in her school. 

The Keynote.  That was the name Katerin had for this wand.  Carved from the heartwood of a dead mage’s staff, it could gather and tune the wands of every student who carried a piece of the same tree’s sapwood.  No one in Katerin’s school had been a mage born to their power.  Instead, each and every student had been made, forced into a mold that served the wand in Katerin’s hand. 

The first time she organized a concerted effort from all the students, Katerin had nearly fainted from the rush of power.  No wonder the recently deceased and unmourned Mistress Alina had insisted on grand shows and spectacles to be performed several times a year. 

Was this what it was like to be a god?  Katerin had to wonder as she stood with her arms outstretched and looked up to the sky.  She turned her head to the side, following a predetermined cue. 

Magic swirled around her dress, heavier than the material.  Wings peeled away from the arm, lifting into the air as individual feathers came into view.  An illusionary hawk preened on Katerin’s arm, turning to look her in the eye. 

Silver light glittered across the bird’s delicate shoulders.  So close to the illusion, Katerin could see the crowd through the empty eye sockets.  Delicate threads of her dress fabric were visible along the bird’s breastbone.  Sunlight flared on the hawk’s crest, amplified by another student who specialized in the multiple ways to refract light. 

The dress patched itself, threads repairing the hole as if it never existed. 

Katerin launched the bird into the air.  Light as a feather, the hawk flapped and gained altitude, circling around the stadium.  The students controlling the bird’s flight had it soar over the upraised hands of onlookers.

A single voice began to sing, pure and holy as it echoed against the stone walls of the stadium. 

The crowd hushed, realizing there was more to this show than merely a bird. 

Katerin began to take slow steps up the stone walkway. 

With the students concentrating on her every movement, Katerin could see through their eyes.  The dress rippled behind her, fabric wafting in an invisible breeze.  She continued to hold out her arms as a flurry of tinier birds fluttered from the train and lifted into the air.  Restless and unsettled, the flock could be heard chirping and scolding each other. 

A flurry of birds separated from the dress and fluttered up to rest on Katerin’s outstretched arms.  A light brush of silk let her know that one was in her hair. 

She took another step up the stair.  The birds lifted en masse and swarmed to the sky, brighter than the sun. 

Lighter than before, Katerin’s dress unleashed flight of creations in the shape of butterflies.  The skirt split, revealing both legs to the hip.  Her garment was by now was only single swathe of fabric, looped around her right shoulder and falling to her left hip.  The other free end of fabric fell between her legs, flaring out behind to supply the train.  A skin-colored undergarment protected her dignity but left few details to the imagination. 

Hand signals brought the hawk nearer, flaring as it hovered above the smaller birds. 

Katerin reached the top of her stairway.  She brought her extended arms together and slapped her palms together in a point.  By now, the dress was completely different, transparent and shimmering behind her back in wings that floated like a creature of myth. 

The singing swelled louder, lifting to a climax.

The bird on her hair pulled the pins and released Katerin’s elaborate braid, allowing her blonde hair free from its bonds.  She pointed to the illusionary hawk and then slashed her arm in the direction of the flock of small birds. 

The crowd howled, anticipating a sacrifice. 

The hawk stooped and dropped, targeting its prey.  Emerging with a silver victim in its talons, the bird returned to Katerin’s outstretched arm and dropped the prey into her hand. 

The bird settled and then disappeared in a glittering mist.  When Katerin could be seen again, her arm was covered by the silver fabric once more.  Each one of the birds came back to roost on her arms and shoulders, returning home despite her power over their lives.  Each creation disappeared, weaving themselves into the dress as if they’d never been.

Making money yet not wasting work...win win!

Oh, I  need to read this a couple more times before I comment.  Nice job!

A

I see some more possible minor edits.  Maybe later.

Done

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go ...

I'm planning on joining the competition.  It's to be posted in this thread like NJC did not published on the site (at this time) correct?

EDIT:  If I publish it on the site after I post it here is that against the rules of the contest or no?

Okay, more edits.  There are enough articles here for me to put a new version up.  And I need to get back to Erevain and to Nikkano, and to my voltage level detector and the pigeon flasher.

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Stripped of their disguises, Cott and his two witch-acolytes were unnaturally, impossibly old.

"What are you doing here?" Melayne demanded.

Cott threw lightning at her.  She caught it and flicked its Power back.  Cott's staff splintered, sparked, and burned to ash.

"Run!" he shouted.

Melayne gestured.  The witches' feet sprouted roots into the ground.

"Leave while you can, plowgirl!"  Cott snarled, hurling a spell behind Melayne.

It was a Summoning across worlds.  Melayne dropped and shielded, rolling to face the threat.  She threw Barricade spells on the witches to prevent another Summoning.

Where does Cott get Power to Summon across worlds?

Cott's beast was part ape, part tiger, part boar, seven feet of tusk and claw.  Its blast of Elemental Fire just missed her.

The Fire must come from its own world.  Melayne tried Stunning the creature.  It threw more Fire, knocking her back, fraying her shields.  Spells won't stop it.

Melayne's blast of Earth could have pulverized a millstone.  The creature lurched and recovered, attacking as Melayne rolled, grazing her shields.  They unravelled as trees exploded behind her.

She anchored rebuilt shields in the ground, making a sharp edge toward the beast.  Its next blast broke on the edge, spattering the witches.  They caught fire and screamed, helpless under Melayne's Barricade.  She extinguished them.

Sensing her immobility, the creature advanced.  Melayne aimed a huge blast of Earth under its heart.  It staggered and she drove a spell into the ground beneath it.

The beast blasted the ground anchoring her shields.

Ropes of earth wound up around its feet and legs.  It struggled and howled as they stretched up its body.

Melayne freed her shield and rolled as a blast ripped a smoking furrow behind her.  She shaped Fire and Earth, hurling it at the beast's Elemental senses.  Dazzled, it slapped and tore at the spell.

Its eyes still worked.  Melayne sorceled a curtain of rippling light, jumping away as the beast obliterated it.

Trees cracked and boomed behind her.

Her next spells commanded air.  Winds howled, circling the beast, walling it in a maelstrom of soil, debris, and Power.  It clawed the winds, then tried to blast free.  The blast disintegrated, spraying like sleet from the whirlwind.

The witches screamed.  Their injury wasn't flame; it would wait.  The beast was gathering more Power.

Melayne knelt in the furrow, reinforcing her shields and sending more cords of earth around the creature.  Its next blast spattered out around the whirlwind, destroying Melayne's shields and igniting Cott's trio.

Melayne had no time to help them them.  She shaped new shields and used Power to deepen the furrow.

The third blast was stronger.  More trees exploded, spreading thick, sticky pine smoke.  Melayne dug deeper, piling dirt in front of her.  The fourth blast baked it hard.  The fifth broke it.

The witches went silent.

Melayne was tiring.  The beast was getting stronger.

The sixth blast made the whirlwind glow red hot.  Trees popped in a distant drumroll, punctuated by the seventh blast, which pulverized the baked soil.

The eighth blast came before the dust settled.

How long can it keep going?

Backblasts hammered Melayne's shields.  She repaired them with Earth and with Fire spilled from the attacks.

The beast went quiet.  Its blasts got stronger.  The whirlwind writhed, glowing bright red as the flailing creature attacked.  Trees burst in the distance.

Melayne's earthen ropes held.

The blasts stopped.  Melayne looked up from her shieldwork.  The beast's Fire increased.  She dug deeper.

A jet of Elemental Fire tore out from the maelstrom.  Most of its Fire was lost to the whirlwind.  What broke through was devastation itself.

The jet swept the landscape, dropping to blast earth and stumps, rising to shatter distant trees.  The whirlwind glowed orange, heated by the passage of Power.

Melayne burrowed sideways.  The strongest shields she'd ever shaped bent under sidespill off the scattered waste of the beast's Power.

And the ground was heating--fast.  Melayne might survive the direct attack and still bake alive.

With nothing left to work with, she looked down, deep in the earth.  She found Elemental Water, enough maybe to cool, or--

Melayne took all she could.  With it she mustered tangible water from the depths.  Up it flowed, cracking baked soil, erupting as steam, carrying heat into the whirlwind at her command.

The creature shrieked.  Its beam of Fire wobbled up and down, gouging earth and tracing ropes and ribbons of color on the daylight sky.

How can anything handle such Power?

The maelstrom outshone the sun.  Melayne shut her eyes and pressed her face in the earth.  The searing blue flooded her sight anyway.

Then the whole world seemed to shatter, concussing bone and flesh, leaving Melayne stunned, deaf, and blind.

Is it over?

The whirlwind held only her spells.  She let it drop.

Spells restored her sight and hearing.  Her balance returned and she stood up, staggering, exhausted.

Splintered bones radiated from a pile of baked, broken earth.

The witches' secrets were beyond Melayne's reach.  Their only remains were the roots Melayne had sprouted from their feet.  I'll meet them in my nightmares.

Acres of ravaged pines smoldered under the cloudless sky.  Distant flames fed on fresh, standing wood, threatening whole square miles.  Melayne couldn't chase down and extinguish it all.

But this world had a little Elemental Water, more useful now than all the Earth and Fire of the battle.  She knelt in the burnt-sweet, sticky smoke.  Leaning on her fists, she reached deep underground for the Power of Water.

Melayne drew it up slowly, weaving a long, lacy spell that rose and spiralled out under the sky.

She triggered it all at once.  It mustered tangible water, from streams and ponds, up from the ground and from faraway air.  Clouds formed, swelled with vapor, and opened.

Rain came, cold and heavy, drowning fires, clearing away smoke, sizzling on the ruined ground.

Melayne soothed her muscles and stood.  She had just lost another day.

I sure hope so.  I have to hang fine on this.

Speaking of fresh meat, are you talking or writing? :-)

The contest publicity blurb specifies publication, which was not part of the original contest specification.