"The Bow d'Longoria"
a short story
Gary Baker, December 2012
Desperately Esri drew the bow and let loose a sharp pang of heat across his fingertips even as a bolt of pure white struck down a man in the doorway below. Instantly the man became chars and fell to the floor in a crumbling mess.
It worked. The fabled bow had awakened.
Esri stared in awe, expecting it to be the disillusioned ramblings of a dying mind after an unseen deathstroke. It couldn’t have worked, not for him, not for the manservant with none of the abilities that made his race so noble.
He was the dud, the one man hidden away from the rest of the world in the garments and back alleys of servantry so that no one could ever tell such a mishap could take place for a race with powers over matter and energies from other realms. Yet they couldn’t kill him, either, not without altering empires-old legislature at the core foundations of their society.
And just as daunting was the awakened bow.
