Thursday, November 17, 2011

Thursday’s Tale: The Minotaur’s Staff

My local writers group, Writers of the West, is using our weekly meetings as write-ins for NaNoWriMo this month. As I am not participating in NaNo, I have been using the meetings for reading through last year’s NaNo story (still incomplete) to refresh myself on it and do some editing.

We have another meeting tonight, so the story is on my mind. And since it is a Thursday, what better time to have a Thursday’s Tale.

Without further ado, here is the opening page of The Minotaur Staff:

"Hey, Weed, I found something!"

Wesley "Weed" Larkin squinted toward Ahmed's location. Fair enough, the sun glinted off something shiny in all that sand. He pulled the rim of his fedora down, and adjusted the scarf over his mouth. This better be good. Wes stepped into the roped enclosure. As he approached Ahmed, his foot hit something harder than sand. "A structure?"

"Na'am." Yes. Ahmed pointed to the cleared spot at his feet.

Wes knelt and brushed the sand away with his hand. Metal, not stone, glinted from beneath. "This could be it. Our city of gold. Clark!" The Irishman rushed over, red hair too bright, glaring in the sun. "Get a sample of this metal. I'll need it analyzed before I can inform Danvers."

While Clark extracted some metallic flakes and transferred them to his lab tent, the rest of the team moved in to start digging. Wes wanted to know what was in that building. It could be a temple, a throne room, a nobleman's house. Hopefully with something valuable preserved inside.

He grabbed a shovel and dug in with the rest of the team. His robes were covered in sand by the time Clark hollered. Wes took off his face scarf and used it to wipe the dirty sweat from his brow as he walked back to the tents.

Clark's brow was creased, making his glasses slide down his nose. He pushed them up as he looked up from the computer. "Not gold."

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