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    Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories
    Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories
    Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories
    Ebook55 pages47 minutes

    Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories

    By Tom Kepler

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    About this ebook

    Set in the same reality as the fantasy novel The Stone Dragon, these three short stories (of over 12,000 words) continue the magic of the novel.

    "Who Listened to Dragons": "I was a young man who thought I knew the world and owned it—right up to the moment I opened my fist and found it empty." Two brothers live in the city of sands--one is the strange one, the other the brother of the strange one. Who can tell where magic ends and mystery begins when one can lose the world in a grain of sand or find wisdom in the whisperings of the wyrm?

    "River's Daughter": Those are three kinds of fish: those to throw back, those to keep, and those to toss on the river bank for the foxes. Is the same true for men? When a man comes to the cottage by the river, a sprig of columbine in his hat, how will the river's daughter choose?

    "T 'Uk's Dilemma": Kill Corinth: the job was simple. But who is the lady who meets him at the door? Who is he who stands before her—boy or man, soldier or assassin, retribution or abomination? And is it true that everyone deserves a second chance?

    Visit a land where magic makes all things are possible.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTom Kepler
    Release dateFeb 3, 2012
    ISBN9781466074774
    Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories
    Author

    Tom Kepler

    Tom Kepler lives a minimum of three lives in one: his life as a writer, his life as a school teacher, and his life as a publisher of Wise Moon Books. These enterprises are chronicled on his blog at tomkeplerswritingblog.com. Tom Kepler Writing Tom has published three books, a fantasy novel, The Stone Dragon; a young adult novel, Love Ya Like a Sister; and a small book of poetry, Bare Ruined Choirs. Besides publishing on paper, he is also focusing on publishing online, including poetry at Every Day Poets and flash fiction at Metazen, Every Day Fiction, and 365tomorrows. Tom Kepler, Classroom Teacher Having taught in the classroom for over thirty years, grades 7-12, his writing reflects much of what he has observed: young people raising themselves, struggling to make the right choices, helping one another, and usually finding a way to get through to the place and person they want to be. "I've learned as much as a teacher as I've given my students. Growing up is truly a heroic journey." Wise Moon Books Tom "authenticated" his poetry by publishing in literary little magazines prior to publishing Bare Ruined Choirs via Wise Moon Books. He also publishes in online zines to establish himself as an author accepted by the gatekeepers of the industry. His novels are a tougher task, though, and as he seeks publication in the traditional publishing world, he is also learning and using the new technologies to make his books available, not only to the general reading public but also to his students. "There are two things I can pass to my students. I can hand them one of my published books, and I can also give them the knowledge of how they can publish their own writing. The book may impress them, but the knowledge empowers them." Find Tom Kepler also on Facebook at Tom Kepler Writing/Wise Moon Books. Links are available at his blog, tomkeplerswritingblog.com. Click "like" or "follow" to keep current with his writing adventures.

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      Book preview

      Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories - Tom Kepler

      Who Listened to Dragons

      Three Short Stories

      Set in the Dragons of Blood and Stone Universe

      Tom Kepler

      Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler

      Smashwords Edition

      The Stone Dragon excerpt copyright 2011, all rights reserved.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

      All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online review, no part of this book, including map illustrations, may be reproduced without the written permission of Wise Moon Books/Thomas L. Kepler.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Tom Kepler Writing: http://www.tomkeplerswritingblog.com

      Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TomKeplerWriting

      Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/tlkepler

      Also by Tom Kepler

      The Stone Dragon, a fantasy novel

      Bare Ruined Choirs, poetry

      Love Ya Like a Sister, a realistic young adult novel

      A Brief Note

      I started out with a vague idea one Thanksgiving vacation, thinking that dragons were embodiments of the fabric of creation and that gnomes had an undeserved reputation—pudgy little fellows with long beards and pointy hats. Suddenly, I was seven thousand words into the novel The Stone Dragon, which is now available in both print and e-formats. These three stories (of over 12,000 words) are set in the same reality as The Stone Dragon.

      Praise for The Stone Dragon

      The author makes the point that magic is everywhere, in us, and around us, and at the core of everything . . . The dragons, of course, steal the show. —Goodreads review

      The dragons in this book are . . . more like divine beings than just physical creatures, like primal forces of the Universe. The elements of fantasy that do show up are refreshingly original in the way they are told and crafted. — Amazon review

      Table of Contents

      Who Listened to Dragons

      River’s Daughter

      T Uk’s Dilemma

      The Stone Dragon, short excerpt

      About the Author

      Who Listened to Dragons

      Tom Kepler

      I was a young man who thought I knew the world and owned it—right up to the moment I opened my fist and found it empty.

      Twelve years I had lived and my brother Saleef six. In the city of il-Barat, he was the strange one, and I the brother of the strange one. Staring and listening made people uncomfortable, and when Saleef fell to unreasonable angers and struck himself or others, I would drag him home. Mother would hold him, father would pace, my brother's eyes would follow, soothed by the rhythms of his footsteps. Mother would weave, the cloth sighs of her handloom whispering to my brother, he sitting beside her as she wove her miniature tapestries.

      Of Saleef, who can tell where magic ends and mystery begins? My brother perhaps knew more but never spoke it, listening being his way, listening with his being so intently that he would lose the world in a grain of sand.

      My father was a mason in a land where the word for stone was sand, a man with an arm that had been crushed between his own art and a wall. As a one-armed mason, he was a man sick with worry, impatient with the slow healing of his injury. We lived by our wits, my mother clever with her handloom, selling her small magicks in the

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