Shiewo: A Fantasy Flight to Adventure (Book One of Shiewo's Odyssey)

PROLOGUE:

Beginnings

FAR AWAY, there exists a universe known as Orberana.

A counterpart to your reality, Orberana has many of the same plants, animals, and machines that you grew up with. Only here, all of these building blocks are arranged a little differently. Unlike the world you live in, Orberana is a topsy-turvy place where rivers and clouds can sing. It is a place where clocks, musical instruments, and trees are never truly inanimate—they are merely waiting for the right time to come alive.

It is a place where the unimaginable is only yet to be imagined.

But how did Orberana come into being?

According to legend, the first creature to wander the emptiness was a giant flying fish. Out of its mouth, an enormous droplet of water was said to have emerged, full of life and full of color, to expand into Orberana.

Not a soul has glimpsed this fish since the dawn of time. Some think it went into hiding, others say it vanished. Yet, all the people of Orberana believe in one thing: that the flying fish will grant one wish to whoever should find it, no matter how big or small the wish.

This, my friends, is the story of the greatest adventurer to seek out the Wishing Fish.

Her name is Captain Shiewo Morose.

This is her odyssey.

PART I:

GALVANARY

THE UNIVERSE OF ORBERANA had only one human city: a place called Galvanary.

In the middle of a desert, set on a stone plateau, the entire city of Galvanary lay under a blanket of industrial smog. Smoke and soot covered every corner of the skyline, blurring the daylight into a distant glow and giving every part of the city a gray tint—from its enormous factories to its houses of corrugated steel. Even the city-dwellers shared these colors, from their taupe jackets to their gunmetal cars.

But the monotony did not end here.

Every one of Galvanary’s factories emitted a drone. It never rose or fell, droning from morning to night in a single, sustained groan—the sound of a tired world. However, the people of the city paid it no mind, for not only was Galvanary the only ‘ordinary’ that they had ever known—they were far too wearied from their gray-washed lives to notice.

In this place, people slept but they did not dream.

1

The Painter’s Magic

IT WAS MIDNIGHT before the droning of cars faded. But while most city-dwellers drifted off into sleep, one individual stayed up to play.

In a house on the outskirts of Galvanary, in a loft with a steel cone-roof, Felix Dabblezapp stood below a naked lightbulb. A large, blank canvas waited before him, resting on an easel. A table with two brushes and three cans of paint lay to his right.

The young man smiled as he stared at the canvas.

He opened each can and scooped out handfuls of paint—red, blue, and yellow—and splashed them over the canvas to mix right onto it. He started to whistle, and though he had only three primary colors, thousands of shades flickered out from beneath his fingers like fireworks.

Seconds later, his canvas was a patchwork of color.

Felix picked up a paintbrush. But instead of painting, he began brushing at the semi-dried acrylic. As he did so, he saw shapes emerge: an arm here, a leg there. Eyes peeked out all over the canvas, large and round like those of children. Yet, these creatures were anything but human: leopards were covered in rainbow gingham, llamas had cotton candy instead of fur, the whole a mishmash of organic, inanimate, and fantasy shapes.

Animals that did not—and could not—exist.

Their eyes, though motionless, seemed to look out at Felix as his brushes intruded upon their hidden world. The painter smiled at them, and somehow, they seemed to stare back in curiosity.

Hi there, whispered Felix.

The young man’s style was a naïve one. Paint sprayed everywhere as he worked, as if he did not know not what was canvas, and what was not. Yet, messy as he was, his touch did not muddy the animals in paint. He did not linger for too long in any corner, and soon, his painting took on a wondrous dimensionality. The creatures looked lost in motion, some splashing amid the puddles of color, and others following him with their eyes. Some were even frozen in the act of waving, gesturing for him to join in.

Theirs was a vivid world.

For as long as he could remember, Felix had been plagued by an overactive imagination—one that constantly interrupted him with visions of colors and shapes—and, for as long as he could recall, all he could do to keep sane was paint.

Standing before his canvas, Felix let the visions flow out faster. He painted so fast that some of the animals escaped into puddles on the floor. Yet, he did not pause or deliberate. And out of the corner of his eye, Felix thought he saw animals dash off to other parts of the canvas.

Time passed quickly, until all was covered.

A moment passed as each animal settled into place, followed by another moment as the colors grew richer and darker.

Then, just like that, all the magic faded.

Felix took a step back and sighed as the paint dried into a flat, lifeless surface. He wondered then, as he always did, what would happen if the paint never had to set.

What would that be like?

Felix propped the finished canvas on the ground, then stared at the window. In the reflection, he saw the image of a pale, gangly young man. All of him was covered in flashes of color, as if he too were a canvas. Sandy-blond hair was spiked up with paint, and what had once been a white singlet and trousers were now covered in daubs of acrylic.

Felix stared at his own reflection, scraping at his chin to pull away flecks of dried yellow paint. He frowned at the grayness of Galvanary, which waited just beyond his reflection. For, like his painting, he too seemed oddly out of place amid the bleakness of the city. Nothing outside his window seemed remotely as colorful as he was.

Felix propped open the window and stuck out his head.

The air was flavorless and dry.

The city beyond was dark and motionless. He poked his head out further to scan the streets for color, but found almost none. Under the smog, everything had a slight wash of gray to it—from the gray-brown of the brick walls to the stray cats that only came in black, silver, or mud. Even the flickering lamplight was a grimy yellow.

Had it always been like this? Felix asked himself, wondering when he had last seen the green of a tree, or the white of a cloud.

He had no answer.

Felix, Felix, Felix, he whispered to himself. What are you doing here?

The young man turned to look at his finished canvas. A grin passed over him as he eyed more works behind it. The loft was filled with paintings, and even the walls were covered in a rainbow splatter. In fact, the only thing not soaked in paint was a mesh hammock that hung in a corner.

The sight of it made Felix yawn, and he turned to wave at the animals on his newest canvas. Good night, you strange things, he whispered before climbing into his hammock.

Sleep claimed him instantly. And in slumber, he joined the animals he had just created.

Little did he know, not all creatures of fantasy lived in dreams.

2

The Waking Dream

FELIX WAS FLOATING IN A DREAM of color when something roused him. His eyes opened as he heard footsteps, but looking around, nothing seemed amiss in the tiny loft. Huh? he muttered.

The footsteps grew louder, directly above his head. Felix gazed up at the loft roof—a cone-shaped piece of steel that was around six-feet in diameter—and as he did, he watched the metal start to vibrate.

Someone was walking on top of his cone-roof, he realized.

Felix sat up in his hammock. Yet before he could call out, a voice filled the air.

Are you sure this is the right roof?—the voice belonged to a young woman.

Another voice replied, that of a young boy, "Yep."

All right, said the first voice. Let’s commence the roof extraction.

Felix frowned. Roof extraction?

His roof vibrated as a drill whirred on one side of the roof. A hammer knocked on the other. More unseen tools attacked the cone-roof until the room itself seemed to shake. The young man stumbled out of his hammock and called out in shock—only for his voice to be drowned out by noise.

But just as he was about to plug his ears, all the sounds dropped to a rumble. He looked up to see his cone-roof slide away from the cylindrical loft. A curved slash of nightlight entered the room, then it widened to a crescent of light, until finally, his roof was almost completely pulled aside to reveal a round view of night sky.

Felix watched as two silhouettes began to lift his roof by its edges—one had the svelte shape of a woman; the other was harder to see. Though his roof was a near-solid piece of steel, the pair handled it with ease. In fact, the only thing to betray any strain was the keening of his roof as it pulled away from the top edge of the loft.

The young man was dumbstruck as he gazed up. Yet, as the last of his roof vanished from view, a yelp escaped him.

The silhouettes looked into his room and froze.

THEO! the female voice called out. You picked the wrong roof! This isn’t a grain store—it’s someone’s house!

The silhouette next to her let out a squeak.

Both of them darted out of sight. Along with his roof.

Felix was rooted in shock. Huh?

He turned to gaze out his window, and what he saw was definitely out of the ordinary: in the alleyway below was a large platform trolley with a steel handlebar and a dozen wheels. Looking closer, Felix watched as the silhouettes began settling his roof onto the platform.

HEY! he bellowed. Come back, you thieves! He watched from above as the figures turned. The silhouettes paused and looked at each other. Then, they both began to push at the trolley, guiding his small roof slowly down the alleyway.

HEY! Felix called out again.

The young man raced out of his home and out into the alleyway.

Felix ran as fast as he could. He soon began trailing them. The cone-roof, hollow as it was, barely moved at more than a few feet per second.

Hey! he called out. "THIEVES!"

The woman stopped pushing the trolley and came to a halt. Crouched behind his roof, her face was just below the glow of a streetlamp. At first, all he could make out was a tall, lithe figure in an oddly masculine ensemble—white singlet, black leather trousers and gloves; a tool belt slung around her narrow hips—until her grip loosened on the trolley’s handlebar.

She turned to look at him.

Light passed over her to reveal a woman roughly his age, mid-twenties perhaps. Her face was pale and heart-shaped, her hair cropped boyishly short. Felix frowned, but as her eyes met his, all words left him as he stared on in surprise: she may have worn the colors of Galvanary, but her eyes told him that she was certainly not ordinary.

Her eyes were a perfect shade of emerald, bright like an impossibly faceted gem. The sort of green that all painters dreamt of. A green that could lift every color around it, without ever mixing in or blending out. Her eyes were deep-set, but no shadow could dim them as she stared at him.

Her brows were like a pair of wings, low at the inner edges but high and straight at the outer tips, making it hard to tell if she was frowning, or merely staring. She did not blink as she studied him. But soon, Felix was doing enough blinking for both of them. Her gaze was neither hostile nor provocative, but it seemed to hold an incredible amount of concentration. It may as well have been a mind-reading one, penetrating enough that Felix felt dizzy.

She had an eerie stillness to her as she stared at him.

A moment passed—and another, and another—until her brows evened out, as if she had read all that she needed to know about him. Felix felt dizzy, as though something had actually been ripped out of him. He struggled for words, but all that emerged from his throat was a monosyllabic "uhhhh?"

Only then did she speak, in a rather clipped tone.

"Young man, understand that I need this roof for a mission of great importance. But since I don’t have time to make you understand—and since you won’t understand anyway—let me just say: thank you for supplying my missing component. She nodded in gratitude before turning back to the trolley. Theo. Come on."

Felix snapped back to the moment, and his brows drew together. Hey! Wait a second… What’s going on?!

The youth lost track of what he was about to say as a large ball of gray smoke floated past him at eye-level. It was strangely solid for a thing of smoke. It also had an odd purposefulness to it, drifting closely behind the woman. Felix frowned as he studied it. "What is this?" he muttered.

Like the young woman, the cloud seemed quite extraordinary once it entered the lamplight. As the cloud slipped closer to the young woman, yellow-gray street light passed through it to reveal tiny flecks of color hidden inside.

Rainbow light spilled out everywhere.

Felix gawked and the cloud turned at this sound; it rippled until a shape appeared inside it. It was the face of a small child. Felix frowned, unsure if he was hallucinating, until he saw a mouth, two eyes, and two vague shapes of eyebrows that drew together into a worried expression.

What are you? Felix whispered in awe. He paused as the cloud looked back at him. I must be dreaming! Are you… a ghost?

The creature darted back and a voice escaped it—the same childlike voice from earlier:

"I’m a cloud," he told Felix, shyly, but matter-of-factly.

Felix inhaled so sharply that he nearly choked on his own tongue. A talking cloud? he thought to himself. And each time he tried to process this idea, a tiny part of his vision went blurry.

In the alleyway, the woman and her cloud watched Felix crumple to the ground.

"I killed him!" said the cloud.

The young woman shook her head. He’s fine, Theo. Come on. She turned back to the cone-roof and continued to push it down the alleyway.

Theo floated closer to see the young man’s chest rise and fall, and the cloud let out a sigh of relief. However, before he could float off, he realized that the youth was sprawled right in the middle of the alleyway. "Wait! We can’t just leave him here! He’ll get hit by a car."

My friend, we must keep moving if we—

"Shiewo! Theo protested. Pretty please…?"

The woman sighed, let go of the trolley, and went back to the young man. She hooked her hands under his arms and dragged him onto the curb. There, she huffed. Better?

Theo hovered over the sidewalk and looked up and down the paving. He pursed his lips for a moment. "Wait… what about bike messengers? They could run into him."

Shiewo let out another sigh, but lifted the man off the paving and up the steps of a nearby apartment building. She let him go and his head thumped back against a closed door. There. She dusted her hands off and shot Theo a querulous gaze. Theo?

The cloud studied the door, and his eyes widened.

"What about doors? He’ll get concussed when someone opens the door from the inside!"

Theo! She gestured at the cone-roof behind them. We’re running out of time. Forget him!

"But—"

A shadow entered the alleyway, and both of them quieted. Shiewo looked at Theo, before the two of them ducked behind the platform trolley. Theo huddled behind her, pressing his face into the small of her back to leave a damp spot. "What is it?" he whispered. Shiewo frowned as she peered out—the shadow was a long one, like that of an incredibly tall human.

She pulled a wrench from her tool belt and held it out defensively.

The shadow came closer, and as it did, the silhouette’s limbs were revealed to be as narrow as a skeleton’s. Its torso was small and compact while its fingers were knobbly. Yet, Shiewo and Theo let out a sigh of relief and stepped out from behind the trolley.

Erduu! she called out. What took you so long?

"Quickly, Erduu, Theo whistled. Over here before someone sees you!"

Alas, it was too late for that.

By the shadows, Felix had regained consciousness. He did not move, but opened his eyes just wide enough to stare down the alley at the astonishing creature.

Like the others, this silhouette was revealed under the lamplight to be something quite remarkable.

A giant man made of bamboo walked toward them, seven-foot-tall and yellow-green. His spine was a single long piece of bamboo. Two bamboo arms and legs branched off his spine, some of them adorned with smaller shoots and leaves. His chest was a tight coil, making Felix wonder how tall he would be if he was fully unwound. Nodes segmented each of his limbs, just like real bamboo. However, the topmost node was a little disconnected from the rest of him, swinging from side to side like a head. Two almond-shaped eyes rested here, along with a nose and a mouth.

Erduu had a pair of green humanoid feet.

The bamboo man walked with a slight wobble. His limbs made the softest wind chime sounds as he moved, as though, like real bamboo, each segment of him was light and hollow.

Felix opened his eyes a little wider. He started to shake, but forced himself to breathe in, worried that the door behind him would rattle.

As the bamboo man closed in, Felix noticed that the creature’s eyes were not really ‘eyes’ at all—they were actually two large beetles that clung to his face. Both of the