by Sam Ferguson
Epic Farm boy
By
Sam Ferguson
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Dragon Scale Publishing, 212 E Crossroads Blvd. #119, Saratoga Springs UT 84045
EPIC FARM BOY
Text copyright © 2018 by Sam Ferguson
Illustration copyright © 2018 Dragon Scale Publishing
All Rights Reserved
Front cover art by Bob Kehl
Contents
Other Books by Sam Ferguson
Pre-Prologue: The Beginning
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
EPILOGUE
Post-Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Sam Ferguson
Other Books by Sam Ferguson
The Sorceress of Aspenwood Series
The Dragon’s Champion Series
The Wealth of Kings
The Netherworld Gate Series
The Dragons of Kendualdern series
The Fur Trader
The Haymaker Adventures
Flight of the Krilo
Winter’s Ghost (Novella)
The Moon Dragon (Illustrated Children’s book)
The Beast of Blue Mountain (Illustrated Children’s book)
The Dwarves of Roegudok Hall comic Episode 1
Gatekeepers
Pre-Prologue: The Beginning
Jack sat back in his chair, dragging a hand over his weary face and grunting like a warthog after finishing his editor’s latest scathing email. Sales were down. The most recent book had flopped, despite getting great reviews from nearly everyone who read it. The new manuscript that the editor had just finished? It sucked. Not a little, but a whole-stinky-bunch-of-lemons kind of suck. Jack had one last chance to restore his editor’s faith in him before he would be back on the streets, looking for a “real” 9-5 job. At least, that’s how his friends and family would put it. Of course, they had no idea how difficult it was to actually sit down and write a full manuscript, then tear it apart in the editing process, and watch as the first few sales rolled in, all the while hoping some internet troll didn’t tank it with a cheap one-star review just for kicks and giggles.
He needed something good. Something entertaining, and engaging. It had to be deep, rich with meaning, and yet appear light and easy so that it appealed to all readers.
“All right,” Jack said as he leaned forward and stretched his hands out toward his keyboard. “Let’s see if Simplin can get me rolling again. It’s always worked in the past.”
Simplin was the name of a throw-away character; a wizard based upon a certain well known wielder of magic and wisdom. The only difference was that Simplin’s purpose was not to help a band of heroes throw a ring into a fiery volcano. No, it was quite different, in fact. Simplin’s job was to cast spells on Jack, to get his creativity flowing once more.
“All right Simplin, let’s see how you handle this,” Jack said.
Jack flexed his fingers and started putting words onto the screen as fast as they came to him. No editing. No thinking. Just free flowing imagination to jumpstart an otherwise weary brain.
*****
Simplin the Wise ran into the burning building. His feet compelled him toward the screaming. The heat of the flames tore at his clothes and bit his flesh, but he pushed through the fire. There were two monsters in the front room, chattering eagerly as they hovered over the decapitated body of Maryn Bouoir.
D%#! reavers, thought Simplin. They had likely set the fire. It was the only way to conceal their attack. No one would dare rush into a house fire just as the roof was sagging down and about to collapse. No one, but Simplin the Wise, that is.
Before the reavers noticed his presence, he pulled his wand up and aimed it at the first.
“Back to hell with you,” Simplin the Wise shouted over the roaring fire. The two reavers looked up, their glee fading as their twisted, fang-filled mouths hung open in shock. They had thought Simplin the Wise was dead. A bolt of golden light shot out of Simplin the Wise’s wand and slammed into the first reaver’s chest. The creature let out a blood-curdling scream as it threw its head back and staggered away from the body on the floor. A second later, the light had ripped the reaver in pieces.
The second reaver regained its composure and turned to fully face Simplin the Wise. Flames ignited upon its back and crept up and over the creature’s gray shoulders as it smiled wide. The glowing, orange eyes fixated on Simplin the Wise. It raised a hand and prepared to throw a spell of its own. Simplin whipped up an invisible shield just as a dark tendril shot out from the reaver’s chest. The spiked appendage clacked against Simplin’s ward spell and then slithered around sloppily, looking for a way around it.
“Be gone,” Simplin hissed. He swished his wand down toward his hip, sending his invisible shield forward to slam into the reaver. The creature snarled as it was flung back to the wall. It crashed through the fire-weakened barrier and howled when it hit the ground outside.
Simplin stepped forward, softly speaking the words to another spell that would finish the reaver when he heard the terrified scream coming from upstairs. He turned for only a moment to look to the hallway, but by the time he looked back to the reaver, the beast was gone.
“Sneaky b#^%*!$,” Simplin said. He pointed his wand to the ceiling above him and waved it back and forth, casting a spell to see through the floor. Discovering that the room above him was full of fire, he moved back to the hallway. The stairs had already collapsed and turned to ash amidst the inferno.
No matter. Simplin used his magic to ascend to the next level of the house, and then set down near a bedroom door that had been torn from its hinges. He stepped inside just as a third reaver dropped the lifeless corpse of Hiren, Maryn’s youngest daughter.
“This evil ends here,” Simplin the Wise said as he raised his wand.
The reaver turned and locked eyes with Simplin.
“You!” Simplin the Wise shouted. He hesitated, failing to finish the spell in his mind when he saw those familiar, dark blue orbs glowing back at him.
“Simplin the Wise,” the reaver growled with its raspy, low voice. A wicked sneer stretched its thin, black lips over a mess of sharp yellow fangs. “I had thought you dead.”
“Pleased to disappoint you,” Simplin shot back.
“We shall meet again, and this time I will finish what I started.”
The reaver then stomped on the floor. A large crack opened up, allowing flames to rise through the fissure as it snapped and popped its way towards Simplin. A moment later, Simplin fell through a hole in the floor and landed on the floor below. The jarring fall had brought him back to his senses, but it was too late. The roof was creaking and popping. The structure was collapsing, and the blue-eyed reaver was gone anyway, vanished in the moments of Simplin the Wise’s distraction.
*Ding-dong!*
Jack was jerked away from the screen. He glanced toward the window in his office, but he couldn’t see the visitor from his angle. Shoving himself back in a huff that
sent his office chair rolling nearly all the way into the wall behind him. He left his desk and made his way to the front door. However, by the time he made it down the hall and through the living room, the visitor had left. A small cardstock flyer fell to the cement porch and stood on its end for a second before toppling over to reveal the picture of a grotesquely large black widow, followed by a few lines of text and ending with a mouse pictured unceremoniously belly-up with cartoon X’s drawn over the eyes.
“Pest control…” Jack grumbled. That was probably the sixth pest control salesman that week. He closed the door, leaving the unwanted flyer on his porch and returning to his desk. Of course, by then he had lost his train of thought.
What was I going to do with those reavers? For that matter, what is a reaver? Doesn’t do much good to make up a monster if I don’t understand where it came from. He could hear his editor now. “No hook. Short, choppy sentences, and only mildly obscene language. It’s good, if you were going for a piss-poor Jim Butcher knock-off.”
Jack grunted and cleared the page. He had to come up with something better; much, much better.
“Come on Simplin, don’t let me down now.”
He reached into the desk drawer on his right and pulled out an old 3x5 card with frayed edges. On one side he had Simplin the Wise written across the top with physical characteristics listed below that. On the reverse side, he had drawn a stick figure with a wizard’s hat and a wand. If anyone asked him, he drew the image as a child, when he first began writing stories. The truth was that the first card was drawn when Jack was fourteen, but this particular version, probably the fourth or fifth reproduction as he routinely replaced the cards when they became too damaged to hold onto, was made only eighteen months prior. In the last twenty years, Jack’s stories had improved quite a bit, but his drawing not so much.
Still, it comforted him to look at the card and imagine Simplin the Wise whispering a story to him.
“Write an epic fantasy!” he imagined Simplin saying. “Send me on a grand quest, an ultimate battle of good versus evil, with a great love story intertwined with intrigue and betrayal! Give me a grand adventure!”
That was always the hope, but even now Jack had never quite reached that level of story-crafting. He often reached for the level of the greats - Tolkien, Le Guin, Sanderson, and too many others to list that lined the bookshelves in his office - but he usually ended up writing shorter sword and sorcery level fantasy. His readers loved almost everything he did, but even after breaking into the top 20 for various best-seller lists, he still didn’t have anyone knocking on his door inviting him to attend conventions or anything, and he certainly didn’t have any Hollywood producers coming to him either.
“You want an adventure Simplin?” Jack asked as he stared at the card. “All right. I’ll give you one, but this time, it’s going to be different. Let’s get something fun going.”
Jack grabbed his headphones and turned on a custom station on Pandora. There would be no interruptions now. He had to focus. If he didn’t impress his editor, then it was all going to come crashing down around him. So, a quick chapter or two working with Simplin, and then his brain would be warmed up and ready to come up with something that would knock his editor flat on his back!
PROLOGUE
(You can feel free to skip this part, nobody reads this anyway.)
Four hundred years ago, a very bad man roamed the countryside of Deltyne. Dressed from head to toe in black garb to hide amongst the shadows, he ravaged the cities and….
“No, that isn’t right. Try again,” a voice called out.
Jack turned around, but seeing nobody there he sat back and cracked knuckles. After a moment, he began again:
Three days had passed since the blood omen was seen by the sooth sayers in the Pools of Saline. A powerful evil was awakening on Deltyne, preparing to pounce…
“Pools of Saline? As in salt water? Come on, Jack, you can do better than that!”
Jack looked down at the 3x5 card with Simplin and shook his head. “I have got to lay off the coffee,” he said.
Jack sighed and stared at the page. “Beginnings are hard,” he mumbled under his breath. “Maybe I should write the epilogue first. I know how it ends. I can do that part very easily.” Jack took a few moments to write the epilogue for Simplin’s latest adventure and then tried to think of something never ever done before in a fantasy novel’s opening scene. He could see his future awards and honors that he’d win this time after his editor praised him for exceeding even his wildest expectations.
“I’ll keep plugging away until you help me out, Simplin,” Jack said.
Simplin the Wise pointed his right index finger at his pipe. A blue spark of magical fire leapt in and he puffed the thick, gray smoke.
Simplin coughed heavily and then looked up angrily. “This is very bad for me!” he grumbled. “Why do all “wise wizards” in these tales have to smoke? It isn’t right, Jack!” However, since Simplin was helpless at the moment, and forced to do whatever went onto the page, he relented to the power that flowed through his world.
The smoke swirled up around Simplin’s face and he leaned back to lie upon the cool, purple grass on the hill overlooking his home village of Wontsuponatime. The warm sun gently kissed his face as the large clouds slowly rolled by overhead.
It seemed as though all was right in the world. Simplin had just passed his entrance exams to begin studying under Smartin the Wiser at the College of Spells-n-Stuff. In a short three hundred years, Simplin would become a master wizard. No more birthday parties and parlor tricks for him, oh no. He was bound for greatness. In fact, a magic mirror had once told him so. Granted, the mirror had been angrily thrown out by some old hag who claimed to have once been a queen of some place that Simplin had never heard of, but that didn’t mean the mirror’s predictions weren’t true. Simplin knew the mirror was right. He was going to become one of the greatest legends in all of Deltyne. His magic would be unsurpassed, and everyone would worship him.
Simplin took another drag from his pipe and blew the smoke upward in a single column. He drifted off into sleep, placing his arm across his eyes and letting the warm summer day carry him off into the land of dreams.
It was nearly night when Simplin woke from his nap. He pushed himself up and walked down the hill of purple grass, off toward Wontsuponatime. He reached his home just before the sun set in the west. Simplin admired his hut, a round building with a base much like a yurt, except that it was made of wood and plaster. Flowers and herbs grew in raised garden beds that he had learned how to construct by consulting the wisest gardener in Wontsuponatime, the mysterious Yew Toob. He stood at the small gate of his picket fence and admired his garden with a great smile.
“If only I could somehow paint an image of my handiwork and then send it to everyone I know. I bet they would all be impressed. I could call the spell ‘instapaint’ and send all of my friends any image I wished, but mostly I would probably paint the food I was growing and about to eat. Or maybe self-portraits as I went through my day at the College of Spells-n-Stuff. Everyone would love it!” He opened the gate and walked through his garden toward his house. Looking up, he noticed that along his roof, which was shaped like the top of a giant mushroom…
“Really? A mushroom, Jack? Come on, you can do better than that. I’m not a Smurf!”
Simplin the Wise looked up and noticed that along his roof, which was now shaped like his wizard’s hat, a shingle was missing.
“Well, it isn’t the most original idea, Jack, but a hat is better than a giant mushroom,” Simplin grumbled to himself.
Simplin promised himself that he would check in with Yew Toob later on to get some roofing advice.
The wizard went to the door and opened it.
“Front door,” a voice called from inside the hut.
“Yes, I know the front door is open,” Simplin said.
“Front door,” the voice repeated.
Simplin fished around in his poc
kets and pulled out a small wafer. He rushed over to a large birdcage that had the words “Beak Security” stamped into a brass plate at the bottom. He offered the wafer to the green parrot inside the cage.
The bird flapped its wings and bobbed its head as it ate the treat.
“I should have gone with another provider,” Simplin said as he went back and closed the front door. “I bet AydeeTea wouldn’t be as obnoxious.” The wizard took off his hat and tossed it into a plush chair as he went toward his kitchen table and tapped a large glass ball. (He couldn’t afford a crystal ball yet.)
The glass ball squawked, “No messages.”
“Very good,” Simplin said as he tapped the ball again. The glass flashed purple, then red, and then gave a short beep. He moved to the cupboard and opened the first door on the left, pulling out a large sausage and a block of cheese.
He took the food to the table and began cutting up the sausage into thin slices. Simplin threw a finger in the air. “Forgot the crackers!” he said as he rushed to the bread box and pulled out a few crackers. He then went to the cheese and decided he would cut a third off of the block and then make smaller cubes. He worked the knife through the yellow cheese and then heard a shrill scream. He jumped back from the table as three mice came out from the cheese.
They walked out, each wearing a pair of strange, dark glasses over their eyes and tapping canes on the table. One of them was crying and limping terribly.
“Who’s there?” one of the mice called out.
Simplin bristled. “I am Simplin the Wise, and this is my house.”
“Your house?” said one of the mice. “You sound too large to fit into the cheese with us.”