Tag Archives: unicorn

30,000 Curious Came to See the Show

What a mad, grand day for Lita Burke’s blog. 30,000 views. Smiles from Lita for all of you lovely and curious Gentle Readers who visited.

Suppose there is a most interesting street where the houses look like books. Inside these houses are places where fey-folk fairies play, wizards sing their magic, and Enchanters give kisses. Anyone can walk down this street, and glimpse at these fantasy worlds through the windows. Lita’s blog is that street. 30,000 Gentle Readers have already walked its twisty cobblestone ways. Here are a few of the wonders in the windows.

Ride on a Wizard’s Airship

Ride on a Wizard’s Airship

All aboard now for a trip to a plate-shaped ocean world, where islands float far above the sea. Dragons fly the sky, and clockworks creations inhabited by minor demons join human and elf-kind magicians in absurd adventures.

A proper wizard uses an airship to visit these floating lands. Others of more modest means use Ornithopters designed by Leonardo’s Airborne Contraptions.

Join in the sometime fun, sometimes scary, but always delightful adventures of Wizard Kadmeion, his half-elf assistant Sir Bright, and their friends in the fantasy world of Clockpunk Wizard. Get your first ride on Kadmeion’s airship, and meet a special dog that digs deadly mandrake roots in Forever Boy.

Unicorn Herd

Unicorn Island

There is a floating island in the royal elf-kind archipelago that has a herd of unicorns. They run in the steppe lands, and gather in the border forests.

The unicorns shed the husks of their alicorns, and the elf-kind collect these precious magical artifacts. An illness has stricken the herd. Lady Luck’s young daughter, with her favorite wizard in tow, visits the unicorns. She learns how to talk to the birds to get to the bottom of the unicorn illness in Glitter Ponies.

Enchanters’ Luscious Magic

Fire and a Hidden Spell Book

Lanith, a magical curios merchant, loses her shop and home to a mysterious fire. Her magician husband Tredan has gone missing.

The morally strict Church magicians, and the Enchanters with their luscious magic that they distribute with kisses, are in constant battle to do whatever is necessary to gain the upper hand in their world of Sye. She learns that her husband wrote a powerful spell book that will subjugate the Enchanters’ magic. His book sits in the middle of the decades-old conflict between the Church and the Enchanters.

With only her dragonette and the clothes on her back, she enlists the help of the Enchanters, and unravels her husband’s life-long secrets. His kidnapping tale starts in Wrath, and Lanith’s story continues in Tredan’s Bane.

Also see:

Release Day for Glitter Ponies

Interview: Wizard Kadmeion Talks About Glitter Ponies

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On Wizard Kadmeion’s airship, the forward sitting room has the best views and conversation. Lita invites Gentle Reader to join the chitchat with the characters in her upcoming story, Glitter Ponies.

Wizard Kadmeion

The twenty-something-year-old wizard takes a seat on a nearby Chesterfield, and studies us with his handsome dark brown eyes. His unstarched casual white shirt has a discreet gold-embroidered Magic Guild insignia near the left collar.

He wears a souvenir from his Glitter Ponies trip on the right side of his head. Kadmeion has braided an intricate gentleman’s hair clasp into some tendrils of his long brown hair. The wizard’s boy-fey, Izlyesende, clings to the clasp. When the fairy fans his beautiful green-mottled wings, they brush Kadmeion’s cheek.

How Magical Interviewing Works

Lita Burke: Hail, fellow wizard well met, Kadmeion sen Magica Vir.

Kadmeion: Greetings to you, Madam Lita. So good of you to honor me with what you call an interview. I’m curious to meet the Gentle Reader friends of yours. You do carry on about their charming ways. Is it true they read my stories that you scribe?

LB: Your mad wizardly yarns fascinate them.

Explaining eBooks to a 16th Century Wizard

K: Do they hear my words now in this interview, like mind voice?

LB: I hear your words with mind voice, and a magical device transcribes them onto what you would call an “everywhere parchment.” Gentle Readers use, hmm, let’s call the contraptions “magical amulets” that show them the words in the everywhere parchment. [Lita’s Note: Yes, that was a clumsy way to describe computers, the Internet, and eBooks. How else would Lita explain such things to a wizard who lives with 16th century technology?]

K: In your world, would a person be considered mad if she hears voices in her head?

LB: Not if the person is a writer of books.

A Plate-Shaped Ocean World Where the Islands Float Above the Sea

How Wizards Take Vacations

LB: Tell us about your visit to Wuddlekins Island for the Glitter Ponies story.

K: Wuddlekins Island is in the Elf-Kind Royal Archipelago, and is one of the five free-floating islands on the plate that is home to a unicorn herd. [Lita’s Note: Kadmeion lives on a plate-shaped ocean world where the islands float far above the sea.] My assistant Bright and I promised Lady Luck’s young daughter that we would take her there to visit unicorns. One of Bright’s brothers, Sir Andrus, is the magical curator for Wuddlekins.

LB: So were you working on this visit?

K: Not at the beginning. My only magical duty going in was to be Miss Probability’s guardian. I also looked forward to quiet research into the local magical flora and fauna.

LB: So wizards consider “quiet research” to be a vacation?

We Call This Ice-Skating on Our Ocean-Covered Ball of a World

K: Library work relaxes me. Because Wuddlekins was floating so high in the clouds, the weather was wintry during our stay. I got outside and did some ice gliding. [Lita’s Note: We call this ice-skating on our ocean-covered ball of a world.]

LB: Based on the story you had me scribe, your Wuddlekins visit was no vacation.

K: The Wuddlekins unicorns had a grave magical illness. I am a wizard-for-hire, and the cranky equines hired me to investigate. Then many matters took a wrong turn, and the disrupted magical threads there almost slopped the oceans off the plate’s rim.

LB: Would you tell us some of the delicious magical details?

[Lita’s Note: Izlyesende grasps Kadmeion’s ear at this point, leans in, and whispers something only the wizard can hear. The wizard nods, and gives us an apologetic smile.]

Izlyesende Whispers in Wizard Kadmeion’s Ear

K: I beg your forgiveness, but I must step out and see to something straightaway. Madam Lita, you’ve been so good with scribing my Wuddlekins vacation. Would you let your Gentle Readers know when they can read these delicious magical details in Glitter Ponies?

LB: I shall tell them when Glitter Ponies is ready. Until our next mind voice meeting, fare thee well, Sir Wizard.

Next time: Sir Bright Talks About Glitter Ponies

Other interesting places to go snooping:

Valentine’s Day is Dangerous for Wizards

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Glitter Pony

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The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Glitter Pony

glitter pony [ɡlidər pōnē] noun, c.1350; ME < Old Nor glitra; OE glitenian, OHG glīzan to shine, glitter; c.1650; powney < ObFr poulenet, < L pullānus; also alicorn-eater, shiny horse.

Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
A small horse-shaped sentient magical creature that has unicorn parentage; also any bird, rodent, or small mammal that eats alicorn and transforms into a miniature glitter pony. Unlike unicorns, glitter ponies have small gem-like protuberances on their foreheads instead of alicorns. Glitter ponies are more tolerant of non-virginal adults than unicorns.
Personages: Alomar, Lurch, Jigger, Triples, Archie, Krystal, Jingo, Happenstance, and Fearghus in Glitter Ponies.
See “Halfway: Glitter Ponies” and “Finished: Glitter Ponies“

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Unicorn

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The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Unicorn

unicorn [yoo-ni-kawrn] noun, c.1170–1230; ME unicorne < OF < L ūnicornis; also sparkly horse (derogatory), narwhal (aquatic form).

Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
A protean (shape shifter) magician. In its land-based form, a small horse with a red, black, or white coat. In its ocean-based form, a small whale. Both have a long spiral horn on its forehead called the alicorn. To weave their magic, unicorns whip their heads so the air (or water) whistles through their alicorns. This mournful sound mimics native elf-kind enchantments.
Personages: Dances on the Wind, Herd Leader, Elder Unicorn, and Silverteen in Glitter Ponies.
See “Concerning Unicorns in the Clockpunk Wizard World” and “Care of a Fey-Folk Fairy (Part 2)”

Halfway: Glitter Ponies

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Welcome to Lita’s castle here in the Northern Realms. Step into her magical laboratory and see what’s on the slab.

Not Only for Little Girls Who Fancy Unicorns

Lita has reached the midpoint of the draft for the next story, Glitter Ponies.

In this Clockpunk Wizard tale, Lady Luck’s young daughter helps Wizard Kadmeion discover the cause of a mysterious unicorn illness.

Despite that lovely unicorn magic, Glitter Ponies is not only for little girls who fancy unicorns. Kadmeion and his assistant Sir Bright do the unthinkable–they try to take a vacation on floating Wuddlekins Island. This wintry locale is the highest island in the elf realm’s archipelago. Bright’s brother is the island’s magical steward, and Wuddlekins boasts the largest herd of unicorns in the entire plate-shaped, ocean world of Clockpunk Wizard.

Headmistress Thomasyn of the Bullfinch Conservatoire of Gauds, Baubles, and Glamour on Wuddlekins Island

Our magic men face the most dangerous challenge of their budding wizardry-for-hire careers. Girlfriends.

Amorous women like elf-kind Madam Loveday, and the local schoolmarm of the Bullfinch Conservatoire of Gauds, Baubles, and Glamour, Headmistress Thomasyn, vie for the guys’ affections.

Even their accompanying guest on this trip, Lady Luck’s daughter Miss Probability, discovers that boy kisses aren’t all that bad. Plus, all three vacationers learn that when they mix wizardry, luck, and unicorns together, love is deliciously unpredictable.

Read the Glitter Ponies back cover blurb.

Concerning Unicorns in the Clockpunk Wizard World

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A Black Unicorn

Time to set the facts straight about this four-legged sentient creature with a long spiral horn on its forehead.

If Gentle Reader were to cast a searching spell about unicorns in our fantasy world called internet, the spell would say that unicorns are made-up bits of fantasy fluff.

Lita says horse feathers (with apologies to Pegasus) about that parcel of nonsense.

The upcoming story Glitter Ponies tells about Lady Luck’s daughter helping Wizard Kadmeion discover the cause of a mysterious unicorn illness. It will be a while until Kadmeion’s airship travels to floating Wuddlekins Island to visit the unicorn herd, so here are some facts from the wizard’s Bestiarum Vocabulum.

A White Unicorn with an Elf Magician

Appearance and Magical Ability

Unicorns are the size of ponies with red, black, or white coats. They share the physical features of horses and goats: they have manes, long flowing tails, cloven hooves, and many have a goat-like beard.

Their single grooved spiral horn sprouts from the middle of their forehead and has a lace work of holes. When a unicorn whips its head, air whistles through its horn. Elf spells mimic the haunting and beautiful unicorn horn whistles.

A powerful elf magician (or a wizard under special circumstances) can enchant an entire unicorn herd and coax the animals into bobbing their heads in unison. The mage then uses the unicorns’ combined whistles to fuel potent spells.

Unicorns are a paradox of gentle and aggressive behavior. Elf magicians service unicorn herds to temper the extremes of unicorn comportment.

A Red Unicorn

About the Pure Girl Fascination

The unicorn is a wild woodland creature and is the magical incarnation of purity and grace. Its preferred magicians are young female virgins, elf-kind of all ages and worldly experience, and fey-folk.

The shy unicorns avoid other magic types (such as human wizards, demons, or clockwork automatons) unless a mage has substantial intervention with the unicorns’ favored magic (i.e. virgin, elf, or fairy spells).

The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it. – Leonardo da Vinci

A unicorn is especially vulnerable to the Pure Girl Fascination. The best way to entrap a unicorn is to ask an innocent young lady to join the hunt.

A “Narwhal” Unicorn in the Ocean

About the Narwhal Horn Issue

A land-based unicorn sheds its horn, also called an alicorn, naturally in late winter.

In addition to virgins, unicorns have a magical vulnerability to salty water. When it swims in the sea, a unicorn turns into its aquatic form called a narwhal. A narwhal retains its horn, but otherwise resembles a dolphin. If a narwhal washes ashore in the Clockpunk Wizard world, it dries out and takes on its land-based pony form.

Commends [the unicorn horn] against the bite of a mad dog and other mischievous beasts, [and] also of worms…[Make] cups of it…[that] they might defend themselves against poison, drunkenness, cramp, falling sickness, and other malignant diseases. – Joannes Jonstonus, translating the text of Conrad Gesner

More to Come About Unicorns in the Clockpunk Wizard Story, Glitter Ponies

The alicorn has many magical, medicinal, musical, and decorative properties. The narwhal horn also has the same magical properties as unicorn’s pony horn.

Lita will tell much more about the unicorns in the Clockpunk Wizard world in the upcoming Glitter Ponies story. Here is the back cover blurb for Glitter Ponies.

Enchanting Veldt Island

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We have a few hours with this onshore excursion to rent horses and ride out to the edge of Veldt’s savanna. Follow your native guide, stay on the path, and drink your water–this place is an oven beyond the mountains.

Veldt Island Beach Rhinoceros

Veldt is one of the largest floating islands in the Clockpunk Wizard world. There is just one large inland lake (called the Veldt Sea), but it has no outlet and is now a salty mineral bath.

Saltwater rhinos live on the Rim-ward side of the Veldt Sea. Some of the rhinoceros migrate to the edge of the Brandon Stretch, where the dragon has her treasure-filled lair. Are any of you wizards? No? Then be polite if you meet up with Lady Dragon Betrayal. She doesn’t like the taste of wizards, but you could be dinner if you’re rude.

The island’s unique ring of mountains along the edge catch rain clouds, turning the heights in to lush rainforests, but leaving the flat interior a sere world dotted with spring-fed oases. Wildebeest and Gibson Buffalo live on the savanna. If you get lost out here, watch out for the grasslands fauns or you’ll end up getting bewitched and dancing your life away–literally.

Time to head back to Wizard Kadmeion’s airship to freshen up and get something to eat. Perhaps we can talk a bit with Furgo, the wizard’s cyanthrope familiar, and coax fairy Izlyesende to show himself despite Bright’s words to the contrary.