Aphorye by Brianna Le {Inklings Book Contest 2024 Finalist}

Today, we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2024 finalist Brianna Le! She finished 6th grade this past school year and wrote a thrilling fantasy story titled “Aphorye.” Our judges praised Brianna’s strengths in, “story flow and fluid transitions between time and senses.” Continue below to enjoy her work in digital book or plain text form.

Once upon a midnight dreary, I sat pondering, weary, over the words splayed out over my computer screen, casting an eerie, dim light over the dark circles under my eyes. The words of the book I sought to publish so many months ago…

Here I sat at my writing desk, the time 12:56 AM, scrolling over and over through my document, The Tales of the Great Hero Akibrus. Akibrus was my character—my sole, main character—the Great Hero of the vast world which I called ‘Metes’. He fought dragons and saved princesses, slayed gorgons and all kinds of dark-dwelling creatures that roamed and rampaged over this particular world, this universe.

The province of Kolës was originally home to Akibrus and was part of its army. Later, though, the Wizard of Kolës, Steve Edmund, gave him a gift after he successfully led Kolës’ army to conquer the neighboring kingdom, Sorm. This gift was a walking and talking black cat whom Steve Edmund named Aphorye. Yes, Aphorye was a cat, but he had the mind of a human and was capable of both Metesian speech and Taschic speech, which was the almost-lost language of the Wizards. Taschic was used to cast spells, which was what Aphorye could also do… although, the following moments with Akibrus proved that Aphorye was cowardly and squeamish. 

I always viewed Akibrus as the perfect Hero and leader, strong and noble, but it became clear that my publisher and editor didn’t agree with the contrast of Akibrus to Aphorye.

“Carol, Akibrus is way too perfect,” the two kept telling me, over and over. “And Aphorye doesn’t even have any character development like everyone’s expecting.”

“Akibrus is supposed to be perfect,” I kept reminding them, every time. “And Aphorye is supposed to be cowardly.”

In the midst of my thoughts, the computer screen in front of me began to move.

“I must’ve been up too late,” I squinted at the screen, trying to blink multiple times to make the swirling in my eyes go away. But it didn’t.

It swirled faster and faster and faster, until the blacks and the whites and blues separated to form a picture—no, not a picture. It was a black cat with electrifyingly blue eyes, wearing a little leather belt strapped across his chest and hung on his shoulder, reaching across his belly. His paw was extended, sticking out of my very own computer screen, his dark ebony furs swishing against my clenched fist, which rested in awe and excruciating shock on my lips.

“You must be Carol Beagner,” the cat’s whiskers twitched, his voice sounding like a faint echo in my ears. Just now I noticed the particular symbol embedded in his forehead, glowing a soft, illuminant green, right above his eyes. A symbol like an upside-down ‘4’. I knew that symbol, which I held oh so dearly to my heart. It was the symbol I created, which I imagined only in my head until now, to be embedded in the dark-furred forehead of Aphorye, the magic black cat. 

“Come with me. You need to fix things.” He prompted after a stunned moment, and held his paw out straighter—his other paw fiddling hesitantly with his leather belt. Cowardly, just as I imagined him to be. 

I felt myself reaching out to him, and suddenly, I felt as if I were being pulled into something dark and unending—being twisted around and flung around like a puppet. It was as if it were a hallucination – colors of different shades and brightness swirled around in my eyes, from light pinks and sharp greens to vibrant yellows, whirling and shifting into blinding kaleidoscopic mirages. 

Suddenly I began to notice that my white-knuckled hand was no longer clutching Aphorye’s paw. He was gone—if I was holding his paw earlier, I wasn’t now.

Luckily, my dream-like journey ended after what felt to me like time, yet no time at all, and I was dropped onto the ground… the ground! And it felt real, fortunately—all ground-y and grassy.

Grassy. 

Wasn’t I in my office before? Did I fall asleep? I could currently think of about two hundred different possibilities to explain this moment. All were questions I had yet to answer.

I surveyed my surroundings: I was now lying prostrate on a large, grassy plain. There were few trees in the distance, and from all directions, the plain seemed to go on and on forever…

I got up and dusted myself. That was when I saw the paws.

My hands were paws. Slim, shiny little black paws. My head ordered my fingers to flex and wiggle, and those little webbed black toes followed said order.

All I could muster was: “What?”

Now, the funny part was that I had more senses than I’d ever had. I could hear and see better, and I now had a tail that dangled where my tailbone would have been if I were still human. I had become a cat somehow, a black cat, in my supposed dream. 

Is this a dream? I wondered to myself as I scanned this new world. Suddenly, an oddly familiar nasal voice spoke up.

“No,” the stranger said. “This isn’t a dream at all.”

I looked around the plain. That’s funny, I thought. I don’t think anybody besides me is here in this place.

“I will explain,” the voice stammered. “I am Aphroye’s Soul, and I summoned you to Metes, which is the place we are now in. We are currently sharing a body… Uncomfortable, but-”

How can I get out of here?  I asked the Soul. Cast a spell? Find a portal?

“I believe it’s not that easy,” the Soul sighed. “You’ll… have to finish the story.”

That means I just have to follow all the stuff that happens, right? I knew what events would occur, so this could be easy. And then I’ll get out of here?

“You could do that,” the Soul murmured. 

“Aphorye!” boomed a new, sonorous voice. “Get back on your feet, you cowardly fool! We’re in the middle of a fight!”

The new voice came from a bulky, armored man. He had long, dark hair beaded with his sweat, very bushy eyebrows, and a huge sword (almost as large as he) slung over his shoulder.

“Who… how…” I gasped. I recognized this man. This man was the sole legend of my book, the Great Hero of my continent. 

“You are as forgetful as you are clumsy!” Akibrus remarked loudly. “I am Akibrus, the amazing, wonderful, all-powerful, stupefyingly strongest person in Metes! We are attempting to rid Kerkrous for the sake of Metes! Must you forget when we are in such an exciting encounter-!?”

“Let me collect myself!” I stammered in Aphorye’s body, with his voice and appearance. I was him now, and I had to get back to my own body, quickly. 

Akibrus gave me no more notice as I stumbled to my feet. He leaped toward the beast that suddenly loomed in front of us, and I then realized what danger Akibrus was getting himself into.

The beast, or Kerkrous the Evil Dragon, was as large as he was fearsome. He had seven horrid heads—each one with a different elemental power. There was the Fire head, plus the Ice, Earth, Wind, Water, Thunder, and Shadow heads. I remembered the battle against Kekrous from the book.

All of a sudden, Kerkrous’s poisonous fumes brought me back to reality.

The gas smelled like rotten sulfurous eggs. Once I got a whiff of it, I started feeling as if I would bulge and explode into a million tiny pieces. 

“Akibrus, it’s too dangerous!” I found myself shouting to the sword-warrior who was now being flung and tossed around like a puppet. 

“Akibrus fears NOTHING!” Akibrus boomed as he lunged again and again at the demon dragon Kerkrous, but his attempts were nothing against the 70-foot-tall beast. 

“That’s the weakest thing I’ve ever fought,” the Earth head suddenly growled with a raspy snort. “I mean, who does he think he is? We can easily squish him and eat him for lunch.”

“Say, that’s a good idea!” the Thunder head nodded thoughtfully. “I call dibs on the liver.”

“No, I do!” the Water head barked. 

“That’s not how dibs works,” the Shadow head’s airy, mystical voice hissed.

“Then how does it work, huh, smarty-pants?” the Water head snapped. 

“Hey, you spat on me!” the Thunder head bonked the Water head with its electrifying horns, which made the Water head yowl in pain. In between the two feuding dragon heads, the Shadow head must’ve strained its neck and opened its jaws to exhale the sulfurous fumes, which ended up billowing straight at Akibrus.

“Akibrus, Kerkrous exhales poison gas!” I screamed, pinching my nose to avoid inhaling the fumes. And it was true—one of the powers the Shadow head possessed was breathing poisonous gas. 

“Don’t breathe it in!” The Soul whimpered. “It’s smelly and makes you drowsy!”

“Why did I make Kerkrous so powerful in my book?” I wailed as I rushed to where Akibrus was now standing with his large sword flailing in the air. I winced as I saw Akibrus’s 

nostrils breathing the fumes in and out through his nostrils. He didn’t seem to notice that, as he was breathing, large blue and purple lumps began to develop on his skin. 

“Carol!” I heard the Soul’s voice echo through my head. “I can help you, you know-! I’m a master of the Taschic langua-”

“Thank you, Soul!” I said out loud. Thanks to him, I remembered that I could cast a spell using the Taschic language—a language I had invented myself in the creation of The Tales of the Great Hero Akibrus. 

Now, I just had to remember the right words.

I searched for the spell desperately. What was the word for ‘poison’? I thought to the Soul. What about  ‘invincible’?

Suddenly, it came to me. I forced the first four words I thought of out of my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut and yelled: “Onsopio… vicibinel!”

I fumbled for my wand, which was secured tightly in my belt, and pointed it at whatever was in front of me because my eyes were closed shut.

I was thrown back by the horribly large blast of power that shot straight out of the sharp tip of my wand and ricocheted, and I opened my eyes slowly after all the noise and chaos was gone.

When I opened my somewhat teary eyes, I didn’t see the sword-warrior. I expected him to leap up in all his glory and stab Kerkrous with his sword, but he didn’t. 

“Akibrus?” I whispered. 

A little louder: “Akibrus?”

Then I yelled. “AKIBRUS!”

Right then, I noticed a shape hunched over in a large crater that resembled a dragon’s foot. There was Akibrus! I rushed over and yowled, “Akibrus!”

In a drowsy, slurred voice, he mumbled, “We’ve defeated him! His body has dissipated!” And then he slumped down back onto the dusty ground.

“Don’t worry, Akirbus is only asleep,” the Soul reassured me. “He  just needs to be cured…”

What can cure him? I begged the Soul for an answer.

“I’m sure Ancient Tashcic fruit will do the trick,” the Soul piped up all of a sudden. “I believe it has magical properties that can revive things and people, especially poison.”

“Now to find some,” I found myself saying out loud. “Where can we go?”

“Oh, look,”  the Soul piped up. “I see a guy over there. Let’s ask him for directions.”

I looked up, and I saw the faraway shape of a man in the distance. He was carrying a flax sack. 

I got up, and dragging Akibrus with me (although, from the way he treated me, I very much wished to just leave him there), I rushed to the man.

“Sir, sir! Help!” I yelled

As I came closer, the man saw me. “Why, it’s a cat!” he said aloud in surprise. “And one that can stand on its hind legs. How curious!”

“I need help!” I tugged at the man’s arm, but he looked at me in confusion.

“Hmm,” the man nodded. “What is your query, and how do you do?”

“Yeah, I’m great,” I said quickly. “Now, listen up: I’m the Great Hero Akibrus’s companion, Aphorye, and Akibrus just got poisoned by Kerkrous the Evil and I think he’s dying, so I need help right now.” 

“Akibrus… Akibrus the Great Hero?”  the man broke into a joyous grin. “Is it he who has slain the Beasts? Come to my arms, my beamish cat! What a frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

The man hugged and squeezed me. “You must come with me, Aphorye!” the man declared, grasping my paw and dragging me into the sunset horizon with him. I quickly grabbed Akibrus’s foot and dragged him along towards the fiery lights in the distance.

When I wrote about Gobiti in my book, I always imagined it as a happy village with no problems whatsoever. I had imagined Gobiti as a village that had parties every evening, even if there was nothing to hold a party for. 

Gobiti was very much that. At the happy entrance of the town of Gobiti was a happy twig-weaved arch that had happy torches sticking out of the sides. As the happy man and I walked through it, I could see multiple happy little log houses and happy tribal-patterned tents. 

“I think you’d better take the Great Hero to Healer Babeoh,” the man said. “She’ll know what to do.”

“Thank you, sir,” I nodded and then looked around. “Uhm… where is the Healer?”

“In that tent there,” the man pointed to the space in front of us, where a tent was set up. The tent was like most of the other tents I’d seen in the village, but it was larger and the opening was not a flap, but a gaping hole that opened right up to the interior. Inside I noticed a large shelf of glowing potions behind a desk at the front.

“Thank you, sir!” I repeated, and then rushed off to the tent, dragging Akibrus by the foot behind me, because I needed to save him, whether I liked him or not. 

Healer Babeoh of Gobiti was an old woman with saggy skin, her gray hair tied up in a bun. Her eyes had a ferocious glow, though, which made me want to shrink into thin air out of fear.

“This is the Great Hero?” Babeoh crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s quite weak.”

“No kidding,” I muttered, to which Babeoh scoffed, “Go and make your way to the Harvesting Field to grab a Taschic fruit for me!”

“Yes, ma’am!” I bow respectfully and run out of the tent to navigate my way to the Harvesting Fields.

“Do you feel rather warm?” the Soul said suddenly as we passed another nearby tent. “It’s nice. Where’s the fire set up? We can warm up a little more before we deliver the fruit.”

At that very moment, a large blast of fire brought the tent crumbling down.

“What was that?” the Soul screeched in my head. “Why is there a fire? What’s going on?”

“It’s Kerkrous!”

“Kerkrous the Evil Dragon of the Lands? It can’t be!”

Fire was everywhere. Weird trees started to grow and scoop the houses and tents off the ground, and there were flames engulfing the land.

“It is Kerkrous,” I gasped. “He’s rampaging the village.”

“Everybody’s going to die!” I could hear the Soul beginning to hyperventilate. “I think I might faint. I’m going to faint…!”

“Don’t faint!” I screeched. “We’ve got to rescue the townspeople!”

If I were still human, I would have run away to the other side of Metes so that I wouldn’t have to see everybody’s dying corpses and all seven of Kerkrous’s grotesque heads.

“That is a good idea,” the Soul said to me in his small, echoey voice. I was surprised at first, but I remembered I shared a body with another mind who could hear all my thoughts.

But in the end, running away never helps, does it? I told the Soul. If we don’t stand and fight Kerkrous today, he’s going to keep causing destruction! So I’m not running away.

I decided to run towards it. 

“CHAAAARGE!” I bellowed, but suddenly something scooped me up, off the ground, right before a sharp vine could strangle me.

“Akibrus!?” I was being held by the scruff of the Great Hero of Metes, who was grinning down at me. “Aren’t you poisoned!?”

“Babeoh cured me!” he explained. “The wizard who created you happened to be nearby, and fed me the Taschic fruit! Now I am good as new!”

“Wait… the wizard who… created me?” I racked my brain for a name. “Was it… Steve Edmund?”

“Rude of you to forget!” a raspy voice interrupted us, and, out of nowhere, appeared Steve Edmund, the very wizard who created me! I remember writing of how that old man right in front of me took my original form, an unsuspecting black cat, and enchanted it to become me, Aphorye.

 “Do you happen to be in need of some help?” the wizard asked, but suddenly, a long vine shot out of nowhere and wrapped around him! I threw myself backward to avoid another vine that came my way.

“Help!” Steve Edmund gasped for air as the vine tightened around him. “I’m too old to die!”

I eyed Kerkrous in the distance. The Earth head was shooting vines from its mouth. With newfound strength, I leaped over the vines directed at me in a graceful, cat-like manner. While I untangled Steve Edmund from the ropes of vine with my sharp claws, I heard Akibrus bellow, “Aphorye! Watch out!”

A burst of flame shot right at me, and in an instant, I really believed I was at Death’s door. But I had already decided not to run away anymore, and I was going to keep that decision. So I hurled myself over Steve Edmund and the two of us went tumbling out of danger.

A bit of the flame caught on the remaining vine, and it set Steve Edmund free. Aware of our newfound advantage, the Grass head turned to the Fire head in fury.

“What’s wrong with you?” the Grass head snapped. “Your aim is horrible. If it were better, that distracting cat and the old wizard would have been long gone, but noooooo, you just have to be-” 

“I could say the same to you!” the Fire head retorted. “Your vines are so weak, even that clumsy cat could snip through it like a knife through butter.”

“Quick, they’re distracted! Here’s our chance!” the Soul exclaimed, and I didn’t have to provide a response. I caught eye contact with Akibrus, and he nodded. Akibrus lodged his sword in the Earth head’s open jaws, and sap burst like blood out of its throat.

“Watreda eseri!” I shouted, and a wave overcame the Fire head, and it kept shrinking and shrinking until there was only an orange-scaled stump of where the head used to be. The fire it breathed before its last breath came into contact with the Ice head, and the Ice head melted into a pile of wet snow. Steve Edmund shouted something else, a little more intricate, and the Shadow head disappeared completely from sight.

“There,” the great Wizard grinned. “No more poison, eh?”

“Glethet!” I shouted, pointing with my wand towards the Water head, and controlling it carefully through the direction of my wand to the Thunder head, whereas they both started to tangle with each other, hence my spell: tangle.

“Cajur wepar!” Steve Edmund pointed at the Thunder head, and it involuntarily shot out a burst of electricity at the Water head, and both of the heads exploded. Ichor spilled everywhere, because that’s apparently what dragons bleed in Metes.

The Wind head, which sat close to the Thunder head, exploded with them, and soon all that was left of Kerkrous the Evil Dragon was a headless body, which slumped to the ground with a large, loud crash.

I stood there, the adrenaline still flowing through my veins, panting. Steve Edmund looked completely okay, but I couldn’t have expected less from an experienced Wizard like him.

“We’ve done it for real this time!” Akibrus boomed. “We have rid the lands of Kerkrous the Evil Dragon, and all shall prosper!”

The townspeople, who took shelter away from the battle, started to cheer. They did prosper, and all felt wonderful and great… like the end of a story.

Suddenly, Steve Edmund turned to me. “Aphorye, let us talk for a moment.”

I followed the wizard away from the cheering crowd. 

“I know of your story,” Steve Edmund murmured softly, “Carol Beagner.”

“YES! I mean… you do?” Excitement filled my heart.

“Yes,” Steve Edmund smiled. “I am a Wizard. Are you ready to go home?”

“I am,” I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the dizzying hallucinations I saw on my way here.

“Off you go, then,” Steve Edmund smiled and waved his wand. He opened his mouth to say an incantation: “Redono cor sel eseri fintiethe! Mohe cor ogode!”

“Goodbye, Carol,” the Soul sighed. “I’ll miss you. When you get back, can you write-”

I had no time to hear what the Soul had to say. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him myself, because before I knew it I was in my office again. The smell of warm paper and coffee in the air. The smell of home. 

I checked the time. The last time I looked at my clock was when I was still here, home… all those days ago. But no time had passed. It was still 12:56 AM, early in the morning but yet so late at night.

“This can’t be,” I murmured.

I remembered what Aphorye had told me when he appeared on the pages of my book. He told me, ‘You need to fix things, Carol.’

“What did that cat mean?” I asked myself, but I knew all too well what he meant. I needed to fix my book. To write about what truly happened.

I opened my Google doc to find my folder for The Adventures of the Great Hero Akibrus, and clicked ‘select all’.

I deleted everything.

I then clicked on the words ‘Untitled Document’ up at the top, and typed one word, one title:

Aphorye.