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  Book Description

  Creativity comes from many places, but often the initial spark of inspiration can be traced to something or someone who challenged us to first put pen to paper or brush to canvas, to pick up a camera, to look at the world with new eyes. Maybe it was the lyrics of a favorite album. Maybe it was the encouragement from a beloved teacher. Maybe it was seeing a wonder of the natural world.

  Maybe it was just a feeling deep down inside that demanded to be set free, a voice ready to be heard, a story begging to be told.

  Hold Your Fire is a collection of nineteen short stories celebrating the power and influence of inspiration in all its forms—art, literature, music, astronomy, science, inventions, epiphanies.

  Here you will find stories of people being inspired as well as stories of people inspiring someone else. Stories not only of artistic inspiration but of scientific discoveries. The “Eureka!” moments that change the whole world and the small moments when someone dares to fight one more day.

  From a romance about a teenager’s attempts to win over his first crush with poetry to musicians and artists harnessing the inspiration of unexpected muses to a fairy tale princess seeking happiness, every story in this anthology shines brightly. And since every fire casts a shadow, there are also a few horror stories that thrive in the dark.

  Hold Your Fire: Stories Celebrating the Creative Spark is the sixth anthology edited by Lisa Mangum and published by WordFire Press in support of the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship fund for the Superstars Writing Seminar.

  Hold Your Fire

  Copyright © 2021 WordFire Press

  Introduction © 2021 WordFire Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  The ebook edition of this book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share the ebook edition with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  EBook ISBN: 978-1-68057-175-2

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68057-174-5

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-68057-176-9

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  Cover design by Janet McDonald

  Cover artwork images by Adobe Stock

  Kevin J. Anderson, Art Director

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  Published by

  WordFire Press, LLC

  PO Box 1840

  Monument CO 80132

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  Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

  WordFire Press eBook Edition 2021

  WordFire Press Trade Paperback Edition 2021

  WordFire Press Hardcover Edition 2021

  Printed in the USA

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  Contents

  Introduction: The Fires of Inspiration

  Kevin J. Anderson

  Splendid Mirage: The Seeker’s Tale

  Kevin J. Anderson & Neil Peart

  The Fire Sermon

  Mary Pletsch

  One-Hit Webster

  Brian Corley

  The Door

  Kristen Bickerstaff

  The Burren of Mars

  CJ Erick

  White Feather

  Shannon Fox

  Into the Valley

  Wayland Smith

  The Last Waking Princess

  Kat Kellermeyer

  The First Problem

  Alicia Cay

  Mi Jaculpo

  October K Santerelli

  One for Hunger, Two for Joy

  Tanya Hales

  The Hunter and the Hunted

  Raphyel M. Jordan

  Take Me for a Ride

  Mike Jack Stoumbos

  Hyde Park

  Shannon Fox

  Bow Drill

  Jace Killan

  Dream Girl

  Kitty Sarkozy

  White Sails and Stormy Seas

  M. Elizabeth Ticknor & Rebecca E. Treasure

  Check Yes or No

  Melissa Koons

  Don’t Ignore It

  Tanya Hales

  About the Editor

  If You Liked …

  Other WordFire Press Titles Edited by Lisa Mangum

  Introduction: The Fires of Inspiration

  Kevin J. Anderson

  Hold your fire

  Keep it burning bright

  Hold the flames

  ’Til the dream ignites

  Those are lines from “Mission” by Rush, a song that is very close to my heart. Neil Peart, who wrote those words, was one of the greatest drummers and most profound lyricists of all time—and yet the song is about how he himself was amazed and humbled to see great architecture, works of art, literature, and motion pictures.

  We each get inspired when we see masterpieces that we couldn’t imagine creating ourselves. I have always been inspired by music, particularly progressive rock (in particular, Kansas, Styx, the Alan Parsons Project, and Rush). As a nerdy kid in high school, when I was much more interested in Middle Earth and the sandworms of Dune than in the homecoming dance, I drew inspiration from epic songs about dystopian worlds, necromancers, spaceship expeditions to black holes, sailing ships and starships, aliens stranded on Earth.

  I couldn’t sing, couldn’t play any musical instrument, but I could write, and I transformed that inspiration from music into stories (which grew increasingly better as I practiced).

  After I graduated from college and got a full-time job, Rush released a new album, Grace Under Pressure. To my ears and my imagination, it was a science fiction tour de force that serendipitously aligned with the ambitious first novel I was developing, Resurrection, Inc. I listened to “p/g” (as Rush fans affectionately abbreviate Grace Under Pressure) countless times, and the songs and lyrics directly shaped my story and characters. “Distant Early Warning,” “Red Sector A,” “Afterimage,” “The Enemy Within,” “The Body Electric,” “Beneath the Wheels”—so much so that when I eventually sold the novel to Signet Books, I included an acknowledgment: “To Neal Peart, Geddy Lee, and Alex Lifeson of RUSH, whose haunting album Grace Under Pressure inspired much of this novel.” (Yes, I actually misspelled Neil’s name.)

  As a naïve and optimistic twenty-five-year-old, I autographed copies to the members of Rush and sent them to Mercury Records, hoping that someone might read it.

  Neil Peart did, and he wrote me back, saying that he had enjoyed the novel. “You have gone so far beyond anything I have experienced in lyrics that the dedication seems unmerited. Never mind—it’s still a very nice thing, and I’m proud of it.”

  From that, we struck up a correspondence and friendship that lasted more than thirty years. We wrote a short story together in 1993, and I surreptitiously managed to work snippets of Neil’s lyrics into many of my novels, including Dune books, my Saga of Seven Suns (which Neil particularly enjoyed), and others.

  He occasionally reciprocated. After reading my novel Lifeline with Doug Beason and our next book Timeline (the title was eventually changed to The Trinity Paradox), he wrote the song “Dreamline,” one of the most popular tracks on the Roll the Bones album. There are also multiple Seven Suns references in their Snakes and Arrows albu
m.

  Our greatest cross-pollination, though, came with Clockwork Angels, the last studio album from Rush. Neil had an idea for a sprawling concept album, a steampunk fantasy adventure, a coming-of-age tale in a fantastical world, and he brainstormed the story and the world with me. He sent me the lyrics as he wrote each song, and I loved the story of the domineering Watchmaker, the ruthless Anarchist, the Alchemy College, pirates and airships, the Seven Cities of Gold … and the amazing mechanical Clockwork Angels.

  After all that, I would have been inspired to write something of my own, but it got even better when Neil asked me to write the novel version of the album. Published in 2012 and beautifully illustrated by Hugh Syme (Rush’s cover artist), Clockwork Angels: The Novel hit the New York Times bestseller list and has won or was nominated for several awards.

  Inspiration didn’t stop flowing, though. Because the story was so visual, we adapted it into a graphic novel from BOOM! Studios, and Neil himself narrated the audiobook, the first time he had ever done so.

  After such a remarkable creative experience, we talked about doing a sequel, noting several interesting characters we wanted to revisit in short stories. We had ideas, but I was reluctant to do just a collection of scattered tales. I wanted something to bind them together, but I didn’t have that spark. Not yet.

  Enter more musical inspiration, through Matt Scannell, lead singer and front man for Vertical Horizon, and a close friend of Neil’s. When Neil introduced us, Matt and I hit it off immediately, and he invited me and my wife, Rebecca, to Vertical Horizon concerts, including one stadium event in Colorado Springs. Before the show, we joined Matt for some conversation, and he pressed me whether Neil and I were ever going to write more in the Clockwork universe. I explained our smaller ideas, but we just didn’t have the big one yet.

  During the concert, Matt played “Save Me from Myself,” a song that consists of several dramatic stories from the news all interconnected through a focal point of a man’s personal tragedy. As I listened to that song live, the idea suddenly clicked, and Clockwork Lives—my favorite of all my novels—was born right there in the stands of SkySox Stadium.

  Would I ever have come up with that twist without hearing that song? Maybe, but it likely wouldn’t have been the same. Would I have written Resurrection, Inc. without having the inspiration of Grace Under Pressure? Maybe, but it would have been an entirely different novel.

  I am pleased to include one of the stories from Clockwork Lives, “The Seeker’s Tale,” in this anthology.

  I draw on music for my inspiration just as flowers drink in sunshine. My muse has a soundtrack, a very loud one. Other writers draw on poetry, on paintings, on natural beauty, on staring at the waves of the ocean. Anything can light the creative fires.

  Neil Peart died in January 2020 after a long struggle with brain cancer, but every time I play one of my favorite Rush songs, he is still there, inspiring me.

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  Life is just a candle

  And a dream must give it flame.

  —Neil Peart

  Splendid Mirage: The Seeker’s Tale

  Kevin J. Anderson & Neil Peart

  I had a dream, or perhaps the dream had me. I don’t know which came first, or which was stronger—I won’t know until the story ends.

  An unending quest becomes a reason unto itself, a journey that means more than any destination. And I learned how to pass that dream on to others, even if I did not succeed for myself.

  I grew up in a lakeshore village, Opal Lake, which was nestled in the foothills with the rugged mountains visible beyond. Farther still, I had heard of the unexplored Redrock Desert, but the desert and the mountains were so distant they might have been a different world entirely. I didn’t bother much with daydreams then; I was busy enough with my everyday diversions. I would catch frogs in the tangled marshes or take a paddle boat to scoop mudfish, which provided more sport than food.

  When I was fourteen years old, an old man with one missing foot changed my life, ruined my life. He infected me with an unattainable dream, a fever of the imagination. “Tell me, Cabeza,” he said to me as he sat on a weathered tree stump on the lakeshore, “ever heard of the Seven Cities of Gold? Ever know anyone who’s seen them?”

  Old Fernando hobbled around with a crutch, swinging his footless leg beneath him; he wove frog traps from dried reeds and occasionally caught mudfish or crabs to sell. Mostly, the old man liked to talk.

  “Seven Cities?” I asked. “I’ve never even seen one city.”

  “Not just any city, Cabeza.” Fernando leaned forward, no longer interested in the reeds he was idly weaving. “Cities of gold. Lost cities. Towers and walls so beautiful they hurt your eyes when the sun shines on them.”

  “Gold? Here in Atlantis? You must mean in Albion—cities built by the Watchmaker? He makes all the gold.”

  The old man made a rude noise. “Not that kind of gold! And I don’t mean any place like Poseidon City either. You don’t think we were the first people to live here do you? The Elder Race of man built those cities, all seven of them, deep in the Redrock Desert on a high mesa rising above a sparkling lake. They’re so far away and so unattainable that no one has yet found them.” The old man shook his head. “Although I tried.” His voice became clogged with tears. “How I tried for so many years.”

  “But you never found them?”

  He shook his head and looked down at his unfortunately abbreviated foot. “I gave it my best attempt, and alas I’m no longer able.” He raised his eyes. “You, though … you could find the Seven Cities. Wouldn’t that be more glorious than splashing in the mud and feeding marsh gnats?” To emphasize his point he swished his palm around his face, scattering the tiny bloodsucking insects.

  I glanced at his stump. “Is that how you lost your foot?” One of my friends told me that a swamp alligator had bitten it off, but none of us really knew.

  He nodded slowly. “Most grueling ordeal of my life, dragging a bloody stump for four days out of the desert, using only a mesquite branch for a crutch.”

  “So, it wasn’t a swamp alligator then?”

  He scowled at me. “There aren’t any swamp alligators in the canyons of the Redrock Desert.” He gazed toward the foothills. “Beyond the mountains, far outside of civilization, you will see landmarks and miracles. There’s a shrine up in a slickrock grotto, a pool of purest water that seeps through time itself, a sacred place for the Elder Race. Any man who drinks of the water is said to become immortal. It was called the Fountain of Lamneth.”

  I had never heard of the Fountain, nor the Seven Cities for that matter, but I didn’t have extensive schooling … and his enthusiasm was infectious.

  Fernando set his reeds aside to lean closer. “I thought they were just silly myths at first, but every legend has a kernel of truth. Someone must have seen the Fountain of Lamneth at one time.

  “I tracked the markings, traveled through a wilderness so deep that it didn’t even remember the idea of human footprints. I saw rock writings, petroglyphs that told an ancient story and gave directions to intrepid dreamers like myself.” The old man’s eyes were shining, and his voice took on a greater intensity. I couldn’t look away.

  “At the end of a narrow, high-walled canyon, I climbed from one shelf to another on the slippery red rock. I could see the smooth grotto above, a beckoning doorway with a trickle of the purest water. The Fountain of Lamneth—it had to be! The rock wall was sheer, but I found handholds and hauled myself up using all my strength, arms, legs, fingers. It was precarious—but my whole life was precarious. I was all alone in that slickrock canyon, months and countless miles from the nearest human being.

  “I was exhausted by the time I reached the ledge, lifting myself up on my elbows, barely holding on. I raised my head over the lip just enough to see that beautiful hollow surrounded by emerald vines and a carpet of lush moss. The drip of fresh water was like music, and I saw the pool shimmering like a moonstone mirror. The Fountain of Lamneth—on
e sip would grant me immortality. It was perfect. It was a miracle!

  “Then a boulder broke from the side of the crumbling cliff, and I slipped, taking more rocks with me as I scrambled for any kind of handhold. I cried out into that endless empty wasteland where no one could hear me.

  “I should have died in that fall, but somehow—a blessing and a curse—I was uninjured … except for my foot. A boulder had smashed it clean off from my ankle. I managed to tie a makeshift tourniquet before I fainted.

  “By the time I woke, much of the bleeding had stopped, and I had nothing to do but go on or give up—and I could always give up later. I gazed one last time at that lost canyon, the high unattainable grotto where I had seen only a hint of the Fountain … Some other seeker would have to find it.

  “I dragged myself through the canyon and found a broken branch for a crutch. I followed the canyon to a larger wash and followed that wash until I met a stream, followed that stream to a larger stream, and finally a river. I kept going downhill out of the mountains until I came upon a village.”

  Fernando looked up, his eyes shining as if he had been transported to another world. He waved more gnats from his face. “You’re young and strong, Cabeza. You could find the Fountain of Lamneth, or even the Seven Cities of Gold.” He reached out to grasp my arm. “You can do it—no one else can.”

  I answered with a nervous laugh and told him that I had to go do my chores. But I didn’t know how to resist those exciting stories. I didn’t sleep at all that night or the next. On the third night, when I finally dozed off from sheer exhaustion, I dreamed of gleaming towers, majestic cities with walls of gold, architecture that made even fantasies ache.