New Hiking Trail Cast Shadow on the Tattooed: A Novel: Real Inky Trails book series

By E Lloyd Kelly

"Raw, Real, and full of Fun." New Hiking Trail Cast Shadow on the Tattooed is a work of fiction. Born out of some fool's wild imagination. Told in wry humor, and a feeble attempt at poetry. Yes, word play is the order of the day around here too. With snippets of Jamaican Patois inserted here and there throughout, as may

• Language: English
• Publisher: E Lloyd Kelly
• Release date: Aug 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781778263712

E Lloyd Kelly

E Lloyd Kelly is an Author, poet, and blogger. Born in Jamaica, West Indies, to Raglan and Alma Kelly. Now resides in Montreal Quebec where (when not writing,) he drives a shuttle bus between campuses at McGill University

Book preview

Introduction

New Hiking Trail Cast Shadow on the Tattooed

A Novel: Real Inky Trails book series. Book #1 

Introduction.

These well-sculptured, firm-bodied Cekko-warrior girls traverse diverse dimensions astride long-legged Zebra-striped beasts searching for the lost Genodes. Dishing out their brand of peace and passivity liberally along the way, not even special agent Shadow was to be spared. Yes, Shadow casting was a regular everyday occurrence in the Cekkoland sphere. Until he was force-pushed out into the humanoid spheres, and now, look. Look at what they have gone and done…

Raw, Real, and Full of Fun. New Hiking Trail Cast Shadow on the Tattooed is a work of fiction. Born out of some fool's wild imagination and told from a Carib-Jamericanadian perspective. With wry humor, nonsense talk, sensational spellings, double entendre, and a feeble attempt at poetry. Yes, wordplay is the order of the day around here. With snippets of Jamaican Patois inserted here and there throughout, as may be found fitting. Yeah, man, a Jamaica yaad mi cum from, sorry, I meant to say, I'm Jamaican born and bred - okay? So.

Note: No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any way without the written permission of the rights owner, E Lloyd Kelly, except as in the case of brief excerpts or quotations used for purposes of critical articles and reviews. This is a work of fiction; therefore, any references to people and their names, places, events, etc. are purely and solely figments of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Copyright Materials. All Rights Reserved.

1

Chapter One

Trouble Is Brewing.

Imagine with me, will you? Imagine that just like the Cekko people you've got the special powers, and the ability to go on for long periods without sleeping even an hour or eating. Or doing anything else as normal people do. Imagine that with all of that, you can still function at your peak, and stay focused and alert. And there you are at a vantage point where you are hanging out suspended somewhere on the outside of the conference room properly. Just out of sight, and also out of their knowledge of you being there. But you're nonetheless there, you're there, eavesdropping on the meeting and spying in on the conversation. Trying to see what's going on and hear what you can hear. You're there listening in on it.

Look, look at the king, he's there, sitting on the throne. There, in his royal chair. He's a little bit slumped in his posture today, not his usual majestic self. He's distressed, even biting his nails. Or more like pretending not to be, biting. He's more than a bit troubled. Everybody who is anybody in the hierarchy of the kingdom is there. They're all there and sitting in their respective places in a semicircle at the conference table, facing the king. Everybody, including the chief ranger - Smokey, is there. Some of his most promising prospects of the year are there too. Shadow is there for sure, and the young trainee whose name is Beahon. The girls; ONE. Onella, Noella, and Estella are there. It would be interesting to find out and get to hear what they are going to be talking about. What's on the menu for discussion today, waiting to be dished out? Now your curiosity is getting the better of you, so you're inching in closer. There's a crack in the windowpane, you've noticed it for sure. You're now edging your way there nimbly along the ledge just outside the window on the same floor as the conference room. Because of the prevailing conditions, yes, it's dark outside, and because you're wearing dark clothing yourself. You're confident that you will remain concealed from their view, and get to make it all the way there. Still to be found standing upright on those shaky twos and breathing the air. But you're not about to go pushing your luck too far this time, not at the risk of being busted. You're standing there on the ledge now at the back end of the room, behind all of those sitting there at the conference table. But almost exactly in front of the direct gaze of the king. There has got to be a better place than this for you to be in. The king might be a bit distraught and distracted now, but who knows when he might momentarily revert to his customary sharp senses and wit and discover an intruder among them? Can't risk that, we've got to find a better spot. Oh, look, there it is, that upright column over there just behind the conference table with the drapery hanging alongside it seems perfect. This will block the view towards you from the king's position, you bet. Unless one of the guests should get up and away from the business at hand and should come over and deliberately peer through the window, by shifting the drapery even, you should be okay. While those at the table seemed to be well caught up in the matter at hand, nobody seemed likely to be going anywhere anytime soon. Getting over there is going to be a real challenge though. But you're game too. You're up to this and any other such challenge. So now, after having bidden your time very carefully, you've managed to make it there behind the column. You're undercover now, yes, but you're having trouble hearing as clearly as you would have liked. Some high-pitched voices sometimes get carried through clear enough for you to hear what was said. But for the most part, the words are coming through somewhat muffled. However, left with little, [if any other] choices, this is going to have to suffice Sis, and then. Listen, there it is. The overture of the haunting melody. Just like the footsteps, the sound is coming. Musical sounds mingled in with heavy boots coming. Coming across the floor towards you. Those at the table are still talking, they are all; heads, ears, and noses deep into the discussions. But the marching boots type of footsteps are still coming towards you. Even if it's not what you think it is, there's no way that you're going to risk finding that out. Speaking of out, that is what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to get out of there, out of that place where you are standing now. Or out of sight in any way possible but out you must get, somehow, and that's what you did. Sliding down on both hands and knees, quickly, very quickly indeed. You swung yourself unto the underside of the ledge on which you had been standing moments before and wishing for the appearance of the door. Dragging your hands along with you as fast as you possibly could. Whilst stretching out to your fullest length to remain concealed and out of view. Your feet were to have found the column to the southern end in the same way as your hands did. And soft too, as soft as a tomcat hopping across the rocks to go a-fishing for you, perhaps. Just as quickly as you had dragged those arms off the ledge above you and out of sight of the guard who had just popped the window open. Just that quickly, you flipped over and popped them over and across your head to meet the other column to the north side of the building. So now, you're hanging suspended there just below them on the underside of the ledge on which you had been standing moments before. While thanking the gods for these things and more. First and foremost, the gods you'd long known to be good, before any other. But then, that was when you started having trouble remembering any time or situation in which such gods had ever come through this decisively, quickly, and this much forcefully for you. Or for anyone that you have ever known. So you thought to yourself, it must have been the other gods, the Cekko gods perhaps, it must have been them who had done it for you. It has got to be the Cekko Gods themselves who have come to your rescue. Yes, you had even started to notice that, the strength that you would have been needing to bear you up in that position under the ledge was supplied. Even in abundance, it would have seemed, and then, you had to start to think about sending out some of the praises unto those gods. To magnify those very Cekko gods too. Maybe, just maybe, perhaps you had quickly transcended into becoming much more of a Cekko type of person than you'd thought at first. So you offered up another prayer of thanksgiving unto them, out of the purse. Thanking them for the help they have provided and for keeping you there in that position until you were able to make it down and out of there. Before the hard ground, four stories down, came up rapidly to meet you there where you were hanging unprepared and unable to do anything about the situation, any time soon.

Meanwhile, at least one other pair of boots would have marched over to that side of the conference room and might have been there bearing up a second head that's probably there, even now. Leaning out of the window. A pair of inquiring eyes too, might be there peering out of the said window and looking around. Searching to see whatever might be there for them to see, of any person who might have been loitering somewhere around those parts, even you. But then, that was when you began to think the other thoughts. It would have appeared as if it was a super-pack supply of strength that the gods had given to you for the task because. For all those many nights and days while the meeting continued. You were hanging there on the underside of the ledge. Even though some passersby were to have turned their heads upwards to look in that general direction. And even though you could have seen them clearly as they did so. Somehow, none of them seemed to have even noticed that you were hanging suspended there for all that time. Wow! Awesome gods are those. 

2

Chapter Two

Who Will Go?

The chosen one, the king - Liam, along with his chief ministers. The rangers, and councilors too, wanted to know who would go? They had gotten together to plan and decide on appropriate actions. They were going to send out an agent in keeping with the Trail theme that was long established in the Cekko kingdom and the realms of the great kings. This agent's job was to go, seek out, and find the Genode pellets and see to the safe return of those said Genodes back home to the kingdom. These were not just any old Genode pellets you know, they were real gems. Those that pertain to the kings, and them only. All the Cekko kings without exception. Those were the very same Genodes pellets that were said to have been stolen from the palace and taken away from the kingdom in a savage revolt staged by Cespedoran the vile one and his cronies. Well, so the story goes on the stone ends. As that story was to go over there on those Cekkolands shores. Cespedoran the vile one had grabbed the Genode pellets and ran out the doors. Leaving the kingdom and all the ensuing problems behind him near the fan. With the king's guards in hot pursuit behind them. Along with a bunch of leather-clad warrior women riding on zebra-striped beasts and trailing him and them, trying to reel them back in. To come back home to face up with the truth again. However, there was another version of the story in some spheres over there. Another version of the story has it this way. Cespedoran and his cronies didn't run at all. But they would have fallen out through a crack in the flooring wall, the one that had opened up beneath their feet as quickly as a wink of an over-excited Cekko eyelid from the fall. Like falling and fast-rising again like your own eyelids that were busily looking at them you know. Cespedoran and the whole bunch of them were to have fallen through the crack that had opened up there beneath them before they knew what had hit them. That was then, though, but this is now. No? Yes. This is the present age, and it has been some sixteen thousand years since those occurrences. One agent after another would have been at work. Traveling the world. Traversing through time, space, and across several dispensations to find and return the lost Genodes home in this case. Among other things, yes. Tailoring such schemes to get them back home to the kingdom and the throne, and into the proper place beside him to sit down. These Genode pellets were sent down to time and through spaces. On through to modern-day people by the Cespedoran event as they did. They were scattered and sent down, even to people of the humanoid kinds. The earthling races yes, as they are known by those from ancient times. These pellets must be returned to the palace so that the king's son; yes, his firstborn and only son. Or at least, the rightful royal son and heir to the throne. As there may yet be many more sons by the time you get around to being done with reading this story in parchment ore. But, whatever the case. The pellets must be returned home to the throne so that this son may live again, and reign. We used the words live again advisedly here because technically speaking? He's still alive but in a vastly altered state. A state that is not conducive to life in Cekkoland at any level. Let alone to have him sitting on the Cekko throne. However, he needs to be restored to optimal health and wellness to continue in the Cekko legacy as it pertains to the kings. The legacy of never-ending life, as it is said of the Cekko kings and the knights. Whether or not it's in Cekkoland, he must, and shall continue to live. Even though he, Bauctnumboulei, unlike how things are with you and me in the current scheme of things in the doorway, he may not get to reign in the realms of the great Kings of Cekkoland as he should. Shadow will go, he will go whether or not he wants to.

Shadow Needleman is an agent. Well able and trusted by King Liam and by all of his other mighty men too. It was for this very reason that he was chosen over you. Apart from the fact that he liked the guy. The king liked him; that Shadow man, that's why, him. Smokey too, Smokey liked him too, so it would have seemed. This same Shadow was the first to be entrusted with the task of finding and returning the Genodes home, but. Not on his own easy-handed will was he drawn into the deal. He was drugged and dragged in, and out of the fields. but then, he'd side-stepped his royal duties and was then found wandering around and making himself busy dancing with Spooky. He'd even gone so far as to be found messing around with the humanoid kinds and interacting a bit too intimately with them as well as with other entities along the way. All in his efforts at accomplishing the task, and fulfilling the errands of the day, since you'd asked. Including, but not limited to: interacting with those of the humanoid kind as if he were one of them. Getting drawn way too deeply into them and their ways. All in his quest to get the job done as it was told to us in those days, or was it? The mission was interrupted in the strangest of ways possible. Well, strange that is, if you, just like the Shadow man, would have happened to be out-of-this-world crazy, like me, and therefore, not of this [the humanoid] world. But you then happen to fall head over heels in love with a dame. Or with a bunch of dames. Dames of the very same humanoid kind, by any given name. Think you've got trouble? Wait until you've got trouble. You'll see. Speaking of having trouble? That Shadow man right there. As of now, he has surely got plenty. The trouble thing? Yes. Even to spare, not running on empty, anymore. Shadow would have gotten himself bitten stupefied by the beauty and charm of an earthling worm. And then another, and yet others, until… Got drawn in by their pretty looks and blinking eye deals. He was in so deeply that he almost lost the desire to return to Cekkoland. Well, he did lose the desire, but… 

3

Chapter Three

Got to Go Back to Work.

Here comes Smokey, got to go back to work you know, and in the same motion, there goes the Ranger. That two-faced son of a Lunisun. Sliding just like the eel he has quickly become since heading up the defense portfolio and rolling the wooden spoon. There he goes, sliding out of Shadow's sleeping chamber after having gone in and administering the potion onto the pillow where Shad will be planting his weary head in a New York minute's time.

Drifting away into Slumberland he won't be returning from any time soon to view the sunshine, but he doesn't know. Shad doesn't know any of that yet. Smokey had made sure that it would be so. He was careful to make sure of that among other things while on the go to stir the pot you know. He, yes, him, the Smokey being.

It was that said Smokey dude who would have worked it all in on him, probably by way of his plate of food and commitment to sin. He was to have also made sure, while he was at it, to furnish the long-term form of Cekkolandee fix. So that he wouldn't be coming back any time soon to sit. Smokey was the first to quit the conference room, uncharacteristically so. Said he had a couple of minor things to get done while he was still able to tear his eyes open, and while his feet were still on the go, those things could not wait, so he'd said.

Shadow, in the meantime, was having no end of trouble keeping his own eyes open to look at you, and to view the sunshine. He blinked rapidly as he reached out to take a strong-arm hold of the doorknob and proceeded to pull the door open. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could have sworn that he saw something move. He hesitated just long enough to convince himself that it was nothing, nothing at all. He needed to get some shut eyes and fast.

Meanwhile, look down at the far end of the hall. Somebody resembling Smokey to Shadow's sleepy eyes that could barely see. Turned the corner so very fast that he would have scraped his shoulder on the 90-degree edge of the wall in the process. While grabbing a hold of the hem of the black housecoat he was wearing and pulling it in front of the fast-running away legs. Wrapping the coat around him and hoping that the action would save him precious split seconds, enough for him to get out and stay out of sight. Not to be found out and to be busted no, not on this night. He cannot afford another setback, not now.

He was lucky it would have seemed, lucky enough to get out of there and not be seen. He then headed down to the closest staircase. Down into the servant's quarter of the building where his son should be by then. Fast asleep in his tiny sleeping chamber, tucked away in the farthest northern corner of the building, and underground. He spoke the code upon nearing the cubicle. The door swung open to let him slide in and push it back close behind him fast. Leaving you out there in the dark - no?

No.

Well, if you say so - Dell.

…

Smokey is Chief Ranger, yes, the chief agent in charge there. He has free access to almost any and every chamber in the building as well as to other facilities on the compound I hear. Meaning, he'll have no trouble at all getting around. So, there he goes into the rooming house, or so I'd supposed. The young boy stirred to life on the father's entry into the chamber, happy to see his father again, as usual. They exchanged pleasant words and hugs as they embraced, disturbing the bugs in the place. He embraced the son's face before the father tucked the son back in under the warm night covering cloth. Look! He's rubbing the head of the young boy. Ruffling the low-cut brown hair somewhat before turning around and then walking back to the exit door. The same way by which he'd come before. Look at him there, he stopped in the doorway and leaned in.

You know I love you, don't you? he said. The boy nodded and shook his head in agreement. While pulling the covering cloth back up under the chin with a grip from both hands. Smokey's neck and head popped back in on the inside as he nodded the head again and winked approvingly at the young boy on his final exit out of the chamber, waving a fan to cool himself down. While pulling the door shut behind him, as far as I'm able to remember, that's how these things were said to have happened. Smoking Smokey has got one more thing to see about before he will be calling it quits for the night. And be out to go get some food and some shut-eye before we get to daylight.

Smokey is now in the lab. It's his domain so there is nothing to it you might think, on a hiss and sob. If one should have happened to be somewhere around though. Somewhere close enough to be able to sneak a peek at him on the drive through Benbow. Like, peeking through a crack in the door, or through a curtain perhaps. Or by way of something else, you know, like. By way of any and everything with see-through cracks. One would've been likely to see a somewhat altered Smokey. Altered from the norm was he, because. Look at him. He's apprehensive now, there's an air of uneasiness about him this time. His physical demeanor; was noticeably out of whack. Off-beat he was and walking the line somewhat. But he's there. Look, look at him through the lens of this thing.

There he is, pouring essence from one vial after the other and carefully selected fragrances, and chopped spices into the glass tube. And then into the bubbling pot over the fiery flame, as may be determined by the master brewer himself, he sure has a name. He's stirring the pot now with one spoon-equipped hand and shaking the glass tube with the other. Rapidly now. Look, he's applying drops of the liquefied mix from the tube into the pot periodically, and the spices too. As he shakes and stirs yet more.

Look at him there! Looking back at who? Probably you, beware! Not seeing you behind the door there yet though, in that tiny spot with the leaned-up chair, no. A makeshift brace it is, drawn over and placed there behind the door to bar you in and all the others out of the cribs. Including him, Smokey, by the Shadow Man no doubt. The pot is boiling in Smokey's kitchen, and bubbling under his hand. As clouds of steam mushroom up from the belly of the boiling pot. Fogging up the ceiling and curling down the back. He now stops the shaking and the stirring. Look, he put down the glass tube, and with his bare-naked hands, he's now taking a hold of the pot, and…, (what the…?) Look at that, he's lifting it off the fire and then tilting it sideways to pour out some of the mixtures from the pot and into the fire itself. The inferno, oh my! Look, look at the flames as they go up, up, up. The inferno is erupting.

That's amazing! Unlike how things are with us in the earthly realms when seen in these and such sorts