Cody Still: Into Oblivion

Banner design by Koke Núñez Gómez

Into Oblivion

Welcome to our Realms Faire journey ‘Into Oblivion’, where a classic fairy tale was reimagined under the influence of Sci Fi, with a Renaissance twist, in an unexpected journey through the music of composer, Cody Still. Fans were challenged to listen to the music and choose which tracks inspired each chapter of our serial adventure. Winners receive 2 digital albums, Ununpentium and Involution. by Sub Pub Music! Fans who correctly deciphered our classic fairy tale clues, receive signed album art!

▶ Stay tuned for the ‘Into Oblivion’ novel, by authors Samantha Redstreake Geary & Amy Willoughby-Burle, launching in 2015!

♫ Album Winners ♫

Flying Mouse
Bullish
Laurustina

♫ Signed Album Art Winners ♫

Flying Mouse
Djinnia

▶ ‘Into Oblivion’ is a reimagining of ‘Alice in Wonderland‘

Chapter 1
Inspired by ♫ Tempest
by Samantha Redstreake Geary

CODY had no recollection of the ship’s landing. Images of a wormhole flashed before his eyes, like a scene from a transport window, its edges blurred with the brush of speed. He attempted to access his memories manually, but the implant merely flickered and stilled.

Cody scanned the vast, verdant landscape for signs of the Gryphon and its passengers. The absence of his charge was of particular concern, as they had never been separated. Wherever he looked, Cody found only soaring mountains that slipped into valleys, impossibly flushed with the radiance of a remembered sun. Such landscapes had only existed within the pixels of projections, pieced together from the fading remnants of history. But this, Cody sensed, was no replication.

A foreign sensation pulsed beneath his skin.

Wonder

The atmosphere shook with the rumbling of a hundred ships. The skies, crowded with dark, vaporous vessels, unleashed silver shards that split the air, ripping holes through the ceiling where sheets of water streamed freely. Cody marveled at the spectacular battle between earth and sky, savoring the warm rivulets that showered his face.

A shock of white burst through the trees, the edge of its wings grazing his nose. It circled the open field, until finding purchase on a nearby branch. The falcon shook its frosted feathers, cocked its head and gazed at Cody, expectantly, before launching from its perch to seek refuge in a nearby cave.

Cody had only seen birds of prey in the archives. Driven by curiosity, he trudged through the deluge and ducked into the mouth of the mountain.

A light deep within the cavern illuminated the twisting stone walls casting shifting shadows that followed his every move. A voice echoed off the slick rock, drawing him in further.

In the cave’s center sat a strange man stroking the bird, a raging fire spitting sparks between them. The man eyed Cody with interest.

“Storm caught you unawares, too, I imagine,” he said, his lilting timbre as friendly as it was foreign.

The man spoke in the language of the ancients.

“Please, you’re dripping on my fire,” he gestured for Cody to sit. “Come then, we’ll start with introductions and end with a flask of Florence’s finest. I’m Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci.”

Chapter 2
Inspired by ♫ Endeavor
by Amy Willoughby-Burle

CODY looked at the flask and lamented not being a drinker. He had watched the parents of his charge enjoy a drink from time to time and the effect seemed pleasing. His charge, he remembered with sudden alarm. He couldn’t let himself get too distracted. She would need to be located. Perhaps this man had seen her.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Cody said, customarily extending his hand to the long haired, strangely dressed gentleman. “My name is Cody.”

The man smiled and took a swig from the flask.

“It is a blessing indeed to have never met a stranger,” he said. “I admire your informality, Cody. Call me Leonardo then. I think you and I are to get on just fine.”

As the fire spit and crackled against the dampness of the cave, Leonardo pocketed the flask and rubbed his hands over the heat. Cody did the same, watching the way the man moved and listening to him mutter to himself and chuckle at unheard humor.

“Now my friend,” Leonardo said to Cody, when the conversation lulled. “I know your name, but not from where you hail.”

“I’m from a new world, far away from this one,” Cody said.

“The New World!” Leonardo said, startling so suddenly that he nearly stumbled into the fire. “I have long hoped to speak to someone who has been to The New World. Quick, let us go to my house and discuss this more deeply.”

Leonardo stepped toward the mouth of the cave and Cody caught him by the thick sleeve of his draping garment.

“I do not believe it is safe,” Cody said, his duty to protect and instruct taking over. “The skies are dark with war. The very sound of it is enough to shake the ground on which we stand.”

“Ah, a fellow creative soul,” Leonardo said and clapped Cody on the shoulder. “A poet indeed.”

“A poet?” Cody said, taking his hand from the man’s cuff and touching his own wrist. “I have heard of those.”

Leonardo shook his head and turned his lips up in amusement.

“Do let’s go, man,” Leonardo said. “This cave has lost its appeal and there is much warmth back in my rooms in Florence. Warmth and cheer, and you and I are missing tea time.”

Leonardo got but one foot out of the cave and was stopped again by Cody.

“There is still much fallout,” Cody said, pointing at the water pooling on the ground.

“It’s just rain, good fellow,” Leonardo chuckled. “The lightning is far away and the thunder was never a concern to begin with. Do let’s get back to the city. Are things really so different in the New World as to not have a simple rain storm?”

“Things are different in my world indeed,” Cody said.

Cody touched his wrist again, cursing his inability to recall facts on his own. Technology for the sake of technology. A thunderstorm. How foolish he felt—and he a teacher no less. He straightened his close-fitting jacket and followed Leonardo from the cave, through the lush countryside and into a town that Cody had seen only on preserved canvases and printed on the pages of history books held under glass in the government buildings in his world.

His world, he was quickly realizing, this was not.

Chapter 3
Inspired by ♫ Involution
by Amy Willoughby-Burle

“CHEERS!” Came the rousing cry as they entered Leonardo’s house.

It sounded as if the party had long been in session. Sitting around a small table beside a warm fire were two men who appeared in high spirits.

“Ah, at it already, my comrades,” Leonardo said and turned to Cody to make introductions. “My friends this is Cody, a wayward stranger I have picked up along the way. Ever my habit, it seems. Cody, these are my housemates Mr. March and Mr. Topo. Friends, artists, and bad influences the both of them.”

“You are soaked through,” March said, a wide grin across his face. “A cup of tea will make you forget your chills.”

“Are you celebrating an anniversary of sorts,” Cody asked, knowing this kind of merriment was common at times of remembered happiness.

“It’s tea time,” said Topo, raising his mug. He drank, yawned, and put his head down on the table.

“It’s always tea time.” March said, and punched Topo somewhat playfully on the shoulder causing Topo to fall out of his chair. “Never could hold your drink.”

Leonardo poured two cups and held out a mug to Cody, who politely shook his head.

“I don’t drink tea,” he said.

“That’s alright, my fellow,” March said with too hearty a chuckle. “It’s not really tea.”

All the men laughed and Cody smiled politely and sat down at the table with them. They began to tell jokes and place riddles to each other that seemed to have no logical answers. Cody was hard pressed to make sense of this talk. He was used to structured discussion and intellectual debate.

“What’s more of an involution, a smiling dog or a grinning cat?” Topo asked.

“Neither,” March said. “A moth with a hangover like the one you’re sure to have.”

They all roared with laughter and pounded their fists on the table

Leonardo leaned toward Cody as if to separate them from the drunk rousing on the other side of the table.

“I want to hear more about The New World,” Leonardo said. “I have thought to go there myself, But I have no money for passage. I am to do some work for the Duke, but who knows how that will turn out. When will you be returning?”

Without thinking, Cody touched the implant on his arm and shook his head.

“I’m having trouble communicating with my ship,” he said and ran his fingers over the implant, tapping his arm as if he might get it working again.

Leonardo grabbed hold of Cody’s arm and pulled it close for a better view.

“What the devil is this?” Leonardo said and touched the device gently.

“It’s broken, I think,” Cody said and tried unsuccessfully to pull free of Leonardo’s grasp.

“Your ship, you say?” Leonardo said, deep in thought. “We must go.”

Leonardo excused them from March and Topo who were not really paying them any mind anyway and ushered Cody into the dark street.

“I think I can fix that contraption on your arm,” Leonardo said. “Or at least I can convince the Duke that I can. He will surely afford us a ship to the New World if I can promise to bring back advances such as that one you have embedded in your skin.”

Leonardo set off at a fast clip through the streets, waving Cody to follow him. The night was still and the moon was too fat for its own good and Cody wasn’t sure that following this man in his flapping robes was a good idea at all–but what choice did he have?

Chapter 4
Inspired by ♫ Into Oblivion
by Samantha Redstreake Geary

Several days passed in a blur of smoke and mirrors, as Cody witnessed the innovative passion Leonardo demonstrated while pulled under the magnetic patronage of the Duke of Milan. Leonardo’s newly-appointed residence was a storm of sketches and scribbled revelations, barely penned to paper before new ideas took flight.

Leonardo burned countless candles bent over Cody’s arm, his curiosity an insatiable moth drawn to the blue-licked flames that pulsed between the gleaming metal bones of the New World invention.

“Surprised you haven’t gone cross-eyed by now,” smirked Solari, his words laced with sweet swirls of opium.

“Surprised I can see at all, through your noxious fumes, il Gobbo,” Leonardo replied, shooing the encroaching smoke with a flick of his wrist. Leonardo likened the court sculptor to a great big caterpillar, for his hunchbacked profile and fondness for dressing in startling shades of blue.

Cody peered at a stack of worn leather notebooks precariously perched on the table’s edge. How he longed to read them all, absorb the marvels of an ancient mind whose secrets bled into their pages. There was something about the man, his sketches, this place in time, that tugged and teased at the fraying ends of a memory. Without access to his archives, Cody was merely a stranger in a strange land, relying on senses he had rarely used before.

Solari extended his hand to Cody. “Take a puff from the pipe, lad, might make some sense out of that New World mess you call an arm.”

“Gobbo, you must learn to develop your senses–learn how to see,” Leonardo scolded, his fingers exploring the delicate network of silver veins. “Only then will you realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Before Solari could bite off a retort, a projection of gleaming galaxies filled the small space. An explosion of stars spun around Cody’s companions, their mouths hung wide in disbelief.

“What magic is this?” muttered Solari, shaking his head.

“Not magic….science,” marveled Leonardo, edging closer to the image. “A map of the stars…” he breathed, tracing his fingers along the phantom planets. “I used to believe the eyes see a thing more clearly in dreams, than the imagination when awake. Am I dreaming, friend?”

Cody smiled with relief. “No, sir, you are very much awake.”

Final Chapter
Inspired by ♫ Revolution
by Samantha Redstreake Geary

The suspended image sunk back into the recesses of Cody’s contraption, snapping Leonardo from his stargazing daze. “I wish to make my mark on the stars…having been in their midst, for but a moment, has shown me it is possible.”

“With knowledge, everything is possible,” Cody offered.

“We must bring this…this marvel of science before the Duke at once,” Leonardo commanded. Snatching the open notebook from his desk, Leonardo tossed it to Cody and urged him through the door.

They rushed into the crowded dining hall, drawing the curious eyes of the court from their massive table, littered with the bones of fish and fowl, and various unsavory scraps. The scent of roasted meat and rising din of trivial minds assaulted Leonardo’s senses.

“Leonardo, my friend, I’m afraid you’ve missed the feast, yet again, ” the Duke chided, beckoning him to enter. “Rest assured, there’s more than enough wine and gossip remaining.”

Leonardo brushed past the contrived sea of courtesans with an uncertain Cody trailing behind him. He leaned over the Duke, whispering into his ear, “I wish to show you something that will alter your perceptions of the New World, considerably, my lord…something revolutionary. It will change the course of history.”

The Duke tilted his head, a grin pulling at the edges of his bearded mouth. “Do share this, revelation, with the court, Leonardo,” the Duke announced, gesturing towards the expectant crowd. “We’re in need of entertainment.”

Leonardo turned towards Cody, nodding his head, his gaze flitting between the watchful eyes of the court and Cody’s arm. Cody was reluctant, his instinct prickling with warning. However, he didn’t wish to disappoint Leonardo, not after being welcomed as his comrade.

Cody accessed his archives, pulling a vision of the stars from his wrist as easily as a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. The great hall was flooded with the night sky. A scaled image of his ship soared over the table, causing those beneath to duck their heads.

A stunned silence seized the room. Only Leonardo reacted, grinning like a cat who caught the fattest mouse in the land.

The Duke’s religious adviser jumped from his chair, “Blasphemy! Sorcery! This is the work of a demon, my lord!” the man barked, his fist balled. “We shall not tolerate witchcraft!”

Cody watched as contempt and fear bled through the man’s heart into the cloth of his scarlet robes. His words, like stones, struck the surface of the room, their impact rippling through the minds of the crowd.

The Duke tore his eyes from the spectral scene, pinning Cody with suspicion. “Are you mad, Leonardo? Have you brought the devil into my court?”

Before he could react, the Duke’s guards seized Cody and dragged him from the room. Pages of the notebook Cody clutched in his hands fluttered to the floor, leaving a trail of Leonardo’s revelation in his wake.

Leonardo’s voice rose above the chaos, imploring the Duke to set him free. The halls grew dimmer with every jarring step downward, until the hungry mouth of darkness swallowed him whole…

______________________

“Cody!” a voice called in the dark. Cody swam towards the light that sparked along the edges of awareness. The rough gloves that had gripped him shifted into the shape of smaller, gentler hands.

“Cody!” the girl called again, shaking the boy’s arms. The wormhole disrupted their ship’s energy field and damaged its sensors. The girl had never seen her tutor so still, and feared the disruption had affected him as well.

Cody opened his eyes, the image of his charge felt disorienting.

“Had you been sleeping?” the girl breathed a sigh of relief.

Had I, Cody thought, though he had never before fallen asleep. He didn’t know if it was possible. Yet the events that surged to the surface of his memory defied possibility.

“Were you dreaming?” the girl asked.

“Codex don’t dream, Shelley, we are machines,” Cody replied automatically, though even as the words left his lips, he questioned their merit.

Shelley studied him. “You must have been dreaming. You have that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” Cody asked, a silent battle waging within his programming.

“Wonder,” Shelley whispered, her gaze traveling to his hands.

Cody felt the familiar leather binding of Leonardo’s notebook before his eyes could register its presence. He carefully opened its pages to find his likeness staring back at him. Leonardo had filled this codex with hundreds of sketches and notations, all focusing on the marvel of a mechanical knight.

Cody entered the name, Leonardo da Vinci, into his archives. The history of the world’s most extraordinary man, and images of inventions Cody had seen mere days ago, scrolled past in a dizzying array of disciplines.

A surreal moment of clarity settled within Cody. The man he had come to know as his friend, the man who treated him, a machine, as an equal, was…however impossible…the origin of his creation.

Cody closed the notebook and held it to his chest. He walked to the ship’s deck and placed his hand against the clear space between men and their dreams.

Leonardo had indeed, made his mark upon the stars.

“No, not a dream,” Cody confessed to the sea of shimmering lights. “I was very much…awake.”

Welcome to Realms Faire, an annual event hosted by Dimensions in Fiction author, M. Pax. The virtual festival kicks off November 10th, featuring several themed events where fans can play to win some amazing prizes, including books, albums, giftcards, and more! Visit the links below and help spread the word! #grogz

VelociRaffle ~ Joust ~ Drench-a-Wench/Soak-a-Bloke ~ Stockade Brigade ~ Dueling Bards ~ Phasers ~ Wisdom of the Creative Realms ~ Dragon Hunt ~ Riddle Me This