Jazz Scuffle

I found a lucky penny today. Does that mean my dying PC, my non-starting car, my poop-shooting toilet, all that is behind me? Maybe for today.

I have a line on a couple of new projects that I hope to be able to share shortly. Meanwhile, from the wilds of Pennsylvania, I understand that the winter scenes for my pirahna script RAZORTEETH are being geared up by Mark and John Polonia, there being sufficient ice and snow to simulate the frozen wastelands of Alaska.

As promised, I have taken the results of my on-line poll into consideration and will now begin posting pages from my low-fi dark fantasy script RING OF THE SORCERESS, which has been called SWORD OF THE ZOMBIE and DOOMED SWORD RISING in its former incarnations (I think it is WGA registered under the latter). Probably my best-rated of my badly-reviewed scripts on Triggerstreet.com, this script has been in the batter's box once or twice but never gotten up to the plate. Enjoy.

FADE IN:
INT. CASTLE EBON (QUEEN'S CHAMBERS) -- NIGHT
Several yellowed parchments are unrolled on a wood table, with medieval pen-and-ink drawings revealed. The drawings are thumbed through to match PERYL's VOICE-OVER.
PERYL (V.O.)
Back when the nights boiled with red clouds and the sun was an ebon orb high in the sky, a nightmare war raged between two evil necromancers. One, whose name is not dared whispered in the mad pits of grim purgatory, had crafted a mystic ring of chaos-stuff to do his bleak bidding. The other, as cold and unreasoning as the blazing stars overhead, simply wanted the ring for himself. The gore gouted over the land as the two hell-bound armies clashed on in mad bloodlust. When it appeared the ringís master would lose, rather than return the ring to its own chaos-plane from whence it was crafted, he hid it away, so no one could command its will. The earth groaned under the forces of evil that rumbled overhead, and before the two grim spellcasters could spill each other's lives one and for all, the ground split and swallowed itself...but the world eventually healed, and played host to nought but a scouring wind for many lifetimes.
MADDIE (V.O.)
How would anyone know it, if there was no folk to see it?
PERYL (V.O.)
Well, we know this planet was spun from the remains of old suns, though no mortal was there either.
MADDIE (V.O.)
But the world rides on the shoulders of a star giant!
PERYL (V.O.)
Mayhaps they are all just stories.
A long-nailed, attractive woman's hand sets a glowing ring on the parchment. DRAMATIC MUSIC SWELLS.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. PASTORAL FIELD -- MORNING
Feature two female figures crossing a field on a bright morning, the grasses blowing in the warm breezes. They are backlit by a buttery-warm sun.
MADDIE (V.O.)
Tell me another story.
PERYL, a young, attractive woman in a severe monk's robe, puts her hand on the shoulder of MADDIE, a solemn-faced child carrying a small plain wooden box under one arm and a cornhusk doll under the other.
PERYL
What kind of story this time?
MADDIE
It must have witches and queens and monsters and--
A crazed, dirty SEER, with dirty rags tied over his eyes, leaps out from a bush directly in their path.
SEER
BLOOD!
Peryl quickly pulls the child behind her robes as the seer RANTS on.
SEER (CONT'D)
The dead are disgorged from the earth! The sky rains blood! The cold stars stare down on it all!
Peryl takes a decisive step forward and puts two fingers against the man's sweating forehead.
PERYL
Rest.
The seer's tongue lolls out of his head, and he slumps to the ground. Maddie looks on wide-eyed.
MADDIE
What did you do, Peryl?
PERYL
His mind was tired and needed to rest. That is all.
MADDIE
But he said--
PERYL
Come, child.
Peryl sweeps the girl up in her robe and shoos her away.
CUT TO:


Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.