Rose|Thorn

Been a while

2008-07-09T09:42:00.003-04:00

Finally got some things sorted out, work, business, house move, et cetera, so here is the latest finished chapter where ten year old Finn meets Barghest and finally joins up with the Black General.
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BOY AND MAN

The pain was how Finn knew that he was still alive. A dull ache pulsing through his head, sharpening as he pushed through the fog in his mind. Darkness, and pain in his head, his shoulder and elbow. Something was wrong, something about falling, a horse, the hated Arrasti, something that kept him lying still and wondering where he was. He calmed his heart beat, turned his focus to his senses other than sight. A fire cracking. The smell of smoke, food, the acrid odor of men. The coarse wool of a horse blanket scratched his face. His wrists burned, rough rope bound his hands behind his back. Now that something was very wrong. He lay still and listened.

Men talking, soldiers, many of them all talking at once. Finn listened, picked out the separate voices, the separate conversations, and he did not understand their words but he slowly narrowed his attention to two men speaking softly somewhere to his right. He did not understand, but he thought they were talking about him, arguing, and one of those men spoke harshly and stalked away from the camp.

Finn waited, as still and quiet as death.

His face felt cool, but his back was warm. He lay facing away from the fire, counting his heartbeats. The camp slowly fell silent and after five hundred beats of his heart Finn cracked open an eye. A blur, dull and dim, the outline of a log lit by the glow of the fire. Beyond the night was utter blackness.

He closed his eye, and listened. Somewhere to his left the horses stirred, tied to a picked line. One man moved around the camp, a guard. Finn tracked the sound of his footsteps, coming close toward him, the guard passed by his head, the footsteps receded under the crackle of the fire. Finn waited. A limb snapped, leaves rustled, the guard walking away into the trees and faintly Finn heard the man relieving himself against a tree trunk.

Finn rolled to his left, up onto his knees, and now he opened his eyes and looked around. It was a sleeping camp, men rolled in blankets, two tents off to his right. He squirmed back, passing his hands under his body and around his feet. He gnawed at the rope, realized that would get him nowhere and biting his lips twisted and contorted his wrists hand hands. He slipped free of the rope.

Finn sprinted into the darkness. He was far away by the time the guard called out, and he knew the stupid men would never find him in the night.

They never had.

It took two deep gashes on his face, from whipping tree branches, to slow Finn down. He walked, breathing hard, with no idea where he was or which direction he should go. He was hungry, tired, his head on fire, and he only wanted to be safe. Finn looked up at what he guessed was a gap in the trees over his head. No moon. He wandered, wanting only to put distance between him and the odan, and it was a few minutes before he realized that he had stumbled onto a clearing in the trees. Finn barely made out the ghostly outlines of a house, gloomy and hushed, and he crept forward until he saw the door standing ajar as a silent witness to tragedy. He crouched, then sat cross-legged watching the house and listening, and after a while he decided the house was safe. He stood and crossed to the porch and then the door, laying his hand against the wood. There was no one inside, he was certain of that. The door swung open at his touch, he swallowed, and pushed through.

He heard nothing, saw nothing, but there was a strange smell musky and damp like turned soil. Finn shrugged. He stepped inside, taking small steps and waving his hands in front of him. His shin struck a chair, no a couch, he patted down the cushions and sat. He sighed. It was better than most places he had slept recently.

The door swung closed and snicked shut.

He heard an exhalation of breath, almost a hiss, and Finn reached to his belt, for the knife that was not there anymore. He stood, backing away along the couch. He heard . . . something, a faint swishing noise. A light appeared, a green glow that reminded him of the purple worms. The light grew. It was a glass jar, insects of some kind in a glass jar, glowing brighter and brighter as they were shaken. The hand that held the glass looked wrong, deformed, and there was another hand holding a wicked blade. Finn backed against the wall, into a corner, the light grew and Finn saw that the other in the room was a ghul.

The ghul crossed the room toward Finn, breathing softly hissing between sharp teeth. The thing wore a shroud of motley furs and it rattled as it came, jangling bangles and necklaces of bone and stone, beads and feathers. It set the glass on a table, and with its hand now free it shook open a pouch and brought a pinch of something to its lips. The ghul puffed, a mist spread from its fingers, the light brightened until it bathed the room a poisonous green.

“Sssss . . . sit,” the ghul hissed, pointing to the couch.

Finn shook his head. He could not speak.

The hand with the dagger disappeared within the folds of the furs, and came out empty. The ghul shook its long, lank hair away from its face. It came one step closer.

“Ssssit.”

Finn obeyed the command.

The ghul stood in front of the couch, wrinkling its nose, stooping and staring at the boy. Its lips moved, whispering lisping sounds Finn could not really hear. Finally it opened another pouch, tied at its waist by a leather cord, and stepped forward with a gob of something black and oily on its fingers. Finn cringed but the creature placed a hand gently on his head, peering at the cuts on his face. It spread the salve on the cuts, dabbing delicately, its breath came and went in a soft hiss and the smell of turned earth.

“Barghessst.”

Finn looked up at the sound.

“Mine name, Barghesst.”

The ghul stepped back, the tips of her fingers pressing up under his chin as she inspected her work. She arched an eyebrow.

“Thine?”

“What?”

“Thy name?”

“Umm, Finn.”

Barghest stepped back, squatted down before the child. “Why here, Finn?”

“I, I was running from some men. I found this house.”

“Why run?”

“They wanted to hurt me.”

The ghul nodded, hissed softly, “yess . . . men hurt.”

Finn stared back at her.

The ghul contorted her face, baring her teeth, a smile that made Finn crawl inside. “Ghul hurt men back.”

“But you’re not going to hurt me?”

She shrugged, turned her head sniffing the air. “Alone thee came?”

Finn did not like this game of questions.

“Alone?” Barghest leaned in closer to him, her bangles and charms rattling with the sudden movement.

“Here?”

“Yess.”

Finn nodded. “Yes, alone.”

“Ssss . . . Thee stay here, he comess ssoon.”

“Who?”

“Me,” a deep voice said.

Finn looked up, shocked, a shadow loomed across the room by the door. Barghest whirled up, spinning around and her clawed hand plunging into her furs, but she relaxed suddenly, and she lowered her head. “Thee and thine black one,” she mumbled.

“Thee and thine Barghest.” Anatheme threw the hood back from his face, came forward into the light. “Hello Finn.”

With the ghul’s back turned to him the boy leapt to his feet, dodged around her and was halfway to the windows on the far side of the room when an iron grip seized his arm. He punched blindly, screaming words that his mind did not form, flailing against the man until he was lifted in the air and deposited in a heap on the couch.

“Enough!” Anatheme turned to the ghul. “What is he doing here?”

Barghest shrugged. “Barghest wait for thee, boy comes instead.”

“That’s it?”

She shrugged again, shaking her head. “Ask the boy.”

Anatheme glanced down at Finn. The boy stared hatred back at him. “I intend to,” he said, “but first we have business.”

The man and the ghul stood away from whispering in words that Finn could not hear no matter how he concentrated. They watched him. He waited. His would take his chance when it came.

Anatheme kept a firm grip on Finn as they left the house, until the boy was in the saddle of the horse, tied outside. He said a few quiet words to the ghul, and then took up the reins and walked beside the horse. At first neither of them spoke. Finn held his feelings inside, he did not want to let the black man win, he wanted silence to speak for him, but a rage grew until it snarled out.

“Why did you do it?”

Anatheme laughed, short and bitter. “You cut right to it.” He shook his head. “Some questions have no answers, boy, some questions shouldn’t be answered.”

“You killed her,” Finn shouted, “you killed everyone, you killed everyone.”

Anatheme looked up at him, his hood was slung back, and in the darkness he could have been any man that Finn once loved. “What could I tell you Finn that you would understand? That there is a cancer on the world, a sickness? Can I give you that sense of wrongness, make you feel it with certainty like steel in the center of your body?”

Finn said nothing.

“No?”

“No.”

“Then do not ask questions if you aren’t prepared for the answers. That’s what I did.”

“What questions?”

Anatheme sighed. They walked for a while before he answered. “It started by asking what was wrong with me, why wasn’t I good enough, and then it was what’s wrong with them . . . and finally what’s wrong with us.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

The man glanced up, eyes narrowed, “no, right now to you I suppose it doesn’t, but when you get into the habit of asking questions like that sooner or later you start wanting answers.”

“So?”

“So what happens if you don’t like the answers?”

Finn snorted and looked away, shaking his head.

“What about you Finn, you found the body in the river, did you ask it any questions?”

Finn looked away.

“No? Not curious? Well I have a question about that, it just occurred to me, about the message pouch, the seal was broken . . .”

“So?”

“If the enemy had opened the pouch, why would they put the message back in it, and why would the messenger open it after he had been shot but before he died, so . . .”

“So?”

“So who opened the pouch Finn?”

Finn said nothing. He looked away.

Anatheme stopped, took a deep breath. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, except . . .”

Finn looked at him.

“Except if someone had opened the pouch, and read the message, then all of this might not have happened. Right?”

Finn looked away.

“I remember your father, and I think he said something about another son, but what about your mother?”

Finn spun back, his eyes flashing, “my mother?”

“Where was she?”

“She died . . . a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Anatheme looked up into the boy’s face. “Here.” He handed Finn the reins. “You can ride, any direction you want.”

“What?”

“I’m sure that you can survive on your own. Look at what you did in the cave.”

Finn said nothing, but he stared at the man.

“A boy like that is strong. A boy like that can do almost anything . . . be almost anything. A boy like that can dare almost anything.”

“You, you won’t make me come with you?”

Anatheme laughed again, but this time he smiled. “Make you? I have many things to do, and none of them include being your jailer. Finn, there is much I would teach you. How to use the strength inside of you,” he placed his hand over Finn’s heart, “how to make the world a place for you instead of just surviving.”

Finn looked down at the reins in his hand. He did not think about it, but he knew how the man made him feel, powerful, strong.

Finn gave the reins back to Anatheme.

“I want to go with you.”

2008-03-11T08:10:00.003-04:00

Flew by the 200 page mark. A new, all Finn all the time chapter done. It was a strange pleasure making an eight year old boy eat worms and crickets and then catch and eat raw fish to survive.

Rose|Thorn update

2008-03-03T11:27:00.002-05:00

Ten chapters down, one new Finn scene written and 167 pages done. Pace is picking up as the latter chapters need fewer edits. Here is the new Finn scene, which starts as the siege of Kestrelrock is picking up:

Finn stretched up on his toes to see over the lowest part of the wall. A cold wind blew from the north under a sky of heavy grey clouds. Most the Raevanae in the Kestrelrock crowded the parapets, to watch the ukun below fling their little stones against the wall. Finn squinted to get a better view of the creatures, the ghul, and the great lumbering thralls. But he was unsatisfied, he could not see them well, he wanted to ride out, to see them up close and to fight them, drive the hated creatures away from his home.

“Move over!”

He caught an elbow in the ribs from Colber, his best friend in the fortress. Like him Colber’s people had not come back. Many had not come back. The boys had spent the weeks since sneaking and spying out every hole and closet and passageway in the Kestrelrock, killing scores of imaginary ghul and Skledi, and now even Arrasti, anything to keep from remembering their faces.

“Move over. I can’t see.”

Finn shifted a fraction and Colber shoved in next to him. The warriors around them gave the boys a few looks, from bemused to annoyed, but no one yet told them to get back inside.

“How many are there?”

“Dunno,” Finn replied, “too many to count.”

“Filthy beasts.” Colber spat over the side of the wall and the boys watched the gob spin and tumble as it fell.

“Look, there’s one!” Finn pointed down at one of the odd machines on the ground far below, a long arm turned vertically throwing up a thing that looked at that distance no bigger than Colber’s gob of spit. The missile grew larger as it arced toward the fortress wall, battering with a loud crack against the wall far from the parapet, vanishing in a cloud of splinters.

Finn whistled.

“Pointless,” said a warrior who grinned down at the boys. “Nothing these ghul could throw at us would so much as chip the wall.”

“Why are they doing it then?” Colber asked.

The man shrugged. “They're ukun. Who knows why they do anything?”

Finn glanced up at something cold and wet brushing his cheek. Snow flakes swirled lazily in the air. He held out his hand and a fat snow flake landed on it, melting at once into a clear puddle. He glanced up again as the snow fall thickened, it was starting to cling to their hair and shoulders, but then he heard voices rising from the fields.

“What are they singing?”

The warrior shrugged again.

“Filthy beasts, hope they like the snow.”

“Hope they freeze.”

But Finn thought he heard something else, a scream, from behind them, and he turned frowning and looking down into the courtyard below the wall. “What was tha . . .?” A woman screamed, all the warriors, everyone on the parapet spun around, a door below flung open and a woman, blood covering her face, collapsed outward into the courtyard. “The gate,” she shrieked once and then an Arrasti clansman was in the doorway behind her, his sword thrust out between her breasts, splattering crimson on the stones of the yard. Then the Arrasti was gone again, and all that remained was the body of the woman already being covered by a thin sheet of snow.

The warriors along the parapet burst into motion for the stairs. Screams, shouts, all around them bodies rushing, a horn bleated from somewhere but what it meant was lost on Finn. A tall warrior looked over the wall, and called loudly that the ghul were charging the gates from the outside. The boys ran with the warriors, bounded down the stairs two at a time recklessly, but somewhere in the twisting passages of the Kestrelrock, two levels above the gate, Colber separated from him, carried away down a hallway with a different group. Finn never saw him again.

Finn ran down a broad curving staircase, but the warriors that he trailed were starting to get ahead of him, none of them had paid him any attention. He thought he knew why, he thought if the enemy got through the gate it would be the end of everything, but part of him wanted that, the chance to fight and kill just one of them. The rest of him was simply terrified.

The warriors turned and clattered down another flight, and then another, Finn doing his best to keep up with them. Shouts and the sounds of fighting growing louder, and now that horn bleated constantly, and the warriors he was with were caught up in an even larger group rushing down a long hall toward the first courtyard and the gatehouse. Finn ran out into the hall and sprawled on the thick carpet, a man crashed into him, cursing he leaped up and was away without even seeing what he had tripped over. A woman with a bare sword in her hand paused, grabbed Finn by the collar and hauled him up with her free hand. It was Lady Parrin.

“What are you doing here?” She yelled over the noise. Finn opened his mouth to say something, but the lady shoved him back toward the stairs. “Go to the stables,” she shouted and then turned and dashed down the hallway.

Finn stood for a moment, one foot on the first step, a hand on the balustrade, but then he ran out into the hall and toward the sound of fighting. The bleating of the horn cut off abruptly, and the noise and tumult of only a moment before seemed to die away. Finn dashed through the reception hall, one of the great doors at the far end was wedged shut, but the other stood ajar. There were still some sounds of fighting just beyond. He stepped through the doorway.

A blanket of red snow covered most of the courtyard, at least where there were no bodies. Arrasti and Raevanae soldiers lay everywhere. Finn stopped, breathing heavily and bent double at a stitch in his side. But he could not take his eyes off of the open archway under the gatehouse, and the dark figure standing in the open gate. He was tall, shrouded from head to ground in swirling black, his face all but covered by a hood, and in his hand a sword dripping red at his feet. Lady Parrin stood before him, poised to strike. Finn hardly saw her move, her sword a blur of silver, but the man simply stepped aside. The Lady spun and reversed into a strike at his unprotected side, but his sword was there, blocking and sliding along her blade, and he twisted his body into a lunge that impaled her. As Parrin’s body crumpled to the ground a wave of ghul swept around the Black General.

Finn froze for a single moment, staring at the ghul, squat and square, with heavy shoulders and long, thick arms, spindly bowlegs, clothed in miscellaneous bits of armor and scraps of ragged, dirty clothes but carrying long, curved knives and barbed spears. But then something turned inside him, some instinct to survive. He looked at the body of the Lady Parrin once more, looked at the dark figure of the Black General standing over her, and then turned, and ran for his life.

Off of the reception hall was a room, in that room a closet, and in that closet a panel covering an old, unused dumbwaiter. Before the ghul could even sniff out which direction he had gone, Finn was in the second kitchens. He snatched a wicked looking butcher knife, shoved it into his belt, and stuffed a few hanks of bread into his pockets. Muffled shouts and the ring of weapons came from somewhere. He thought maybe it was best to go down, into the basements, and hide. Beyond that he had no plan.

Most of the storerooms in the basements were dark, Finn did not dare to carry a light. Mostly he felt his way along, and though he knew the best place to hide, it took hours. Twice he saw torches, once it was a party of ghul and the other they were men, Skeldi or Arrasti. Finn hid, one sweaty hand clutching the butcher knife, and the other clamped over his mouth. Both times he was passed by, but he waited each time anyway to make sure none of them stayed behind.

Finally he reached where he wanted to go, an old chamber more than half cluttered with broken furniture and leaking barrels, the forgotten remains of old lives, and in the back of that chamber was a crack in the wall. He squeezed in, squirming back and back until he reached a wide spot where he could lay down. He did nothing for a long time but breathe and listen, his head resting against the cool stone. He took air in, pushed it back out, trying to be a regular as he could, trying to stay calm, to think and not to remember, trying not to imagine he was lying in a coffin.

“Water.”

Finn sat up, rubbing his face with his hands.

“Water,” he murmured to himself, “sooner or later I’ll need water.”

He took the bread from his pockets, took a bite, but his tongue was already dry. The bread seemed to expand in his mouth. He swallowed it but he did not eat any more.

She was so fast, but he was faster. He killed her.

Finn shifted. He knew he needed water, knew he could not stay in that hole forever. He started to crawl out, but rolled over when he felt a sharp pain in his leg. He it, and his hand came away wet and smelled of blood. He cut himself with the knife, but it did not seem too bad. Finn rolled back over, careful of the blade, and crawled out of the hole into the storeroom. In the faint light he looked down at where his pant had been cut, and there was a small gash that felt worse than it looked, but . . . but the room had not been lit when he first came through.

Slowly Finn raised his eyes. The light came from a torch held by a ghul standing on the other side of the pile of detritus. Finn ducked as fast as he dared, squeezing his hands hard together, biting his lip, it had been looking the other way, it didn’t see me, it didn’t. The ghul mumbled and muttered something to itself, and Finn heard it kick at some piece of trash. The light faded away. He risked peeking up, quick, the creature was gone away. Finn breathed again.

They spotted him just once, a shout from another room as Finn passed an open doorway, but he knew the labyrinth of rooms, at least far better than they did. He ran fast, but without panic, and he could see better in the dark than they could even with their torches. He lost them in a labyrinth of barrels and crates and bundles spread out over several storerooms, then he doubled back to where he had decided was best, the wellhead.

There were tuns of water stacked in the well room. Finn broke one of them open and drank deeply from his cupped hands. Torches burned low in the brackets, but he frowned and shook his head at a dozen or so lanterns spilled all over the floor. He felt drawn to the black circle in the floor. The lake was down there, he knew, and he edged to the hole, a cold draft wafting across his face. He stared into the darkness, wondering how far down was the water.

“You gave them a good chase, you know.”

Finn shrieked. It was all he could do to keep from tumbling through the hole. He grabbed the barrel to steady himself and turned to the voice that spoke from within the room.

A tall dark figure lounged against the doorpost.

Finn stared, licking his lips, suddenly he was very thirsty again.

“But I had a feeling where you would come.” The figure, the Black General, stood straight, raising his hands to his hood. He was so fast. He flicked the hood back, and even in the dim, tricky light of the torches Finn saw a nightmare.

“No . . . no,” he whispered.

“I won’t harm you.” The general extended a hand, pale against his dark robes. “I want you to come with me, I want you to know . . .”

“No!” Finn shoved his weight against the great barrel in the middle of the room, trying to throw it over the edge of the hole, but it did not budge.

“Come with me Finn.” Anatheme put one foot forward, his hand still held out, he killed her, and Finn stepped out onto nothingness, and disappeared through the hole.

It seemed to take forever for the echoes of the splash to reach the wellhead. The Black General shook his head, pulled his hood over, and walked away.

Nip and tuck, Slash and hack

2008-01-31T08:36:00.000-05:00

Five sparklingly revised chapters in the can, and the sixth largely done. Even with the addition of the Finn character arc, I've chopped the manuscript from 124 pages at this point to 72. Fifty-two pages in the bin, 42% reduction, sounds drastic but you know what? I haven't really lost a thing. The story isn't the same; the story is better than ever, tight, dynamic, vital. The beginning of Rose|Thorn is shaping up tomatch the ending.

I give it another two months and It'll be ready for queries.

Now, new and improved!

2008-01-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

Have been rewriting Rosethorn from the beginning, and though I know this sounds drastic, it really isn't all that much more than somewhat vicious editing. Mostly I'm cutting and rearranging, emphasizing the tension and building layers. The only really *really* new writing is the Finn character arc, and even that I don't think will be so much work. Anyway, here is the shiny new Chapter One (I know it looks the same from the first sentence, but it is really quite different):

It began with a boy skipping rocks from the bank of a river.

Finn brought the sheep to water at the edge of the Idara. He should have been watching that none of them strayed in danger of drowning, but as boys do Finn tired of staring at the bleating animals. So he started the pebbles flying.

On the grassy bank behind him sat a dog, Shar, one severe eye on her master, the other on the sheep. To Shar work was play and play, such as Finn was doing, was puzzling. But Finn knew that if any of the sheep strayed, or danger came near, she would sound the alarm. He could play for a while.

For a boy of eight Finn threw with remarkable accuracy and what he lacked in strength was made up in sheer energy. One after another, pebble after pebble skimmed across the river, strings of ripples following, three and four and five. Finn chewed on his lower lip, squinting as he gauged the river and his chances to get six skips and a new high mark. Only four this time.

He hunted among the abele trees for pebbles. Already a few leaves had fallen, browned and curled with the change of the season. Finn sifted through the leaves as he wandered further, and a little further, away from the sheep. Shar yipped, pacing in a tight circle between Finn and the water, but he ignored her. There, a nice flat stone. He bent to grab it, and something caught his eye, on the very edge of his vision, something in the river.

A dark thing floated in the water.

Slowly turning in an eddy, trapped against the roots of an abele, shining with long black streamers of hair, a head bobbed in the current, a sodden, half-sunken hump of a back, a shoulder, an arm and a hand. A man lay face down in the river. Finn stood, heart pounding, breath forgotten. He crossed to the water by reluctant steps, drawn by the body. Shar barked mad frenzy, and he did not hear. His eyes were fixed on the body of the man, on his back, on the shafts of the two arrows jutting between the drowned man’s shoulder blades.

Finn scrambled down the bank, a short plunge of damp, clinging soil, and splashed into the river. His feet sank into the soft mud of the bottom, water only just short of his knees, one hand against the bank for balance and he crept along toward the body. The man spun gently, indifferent to Finn or the chill of the water or Shar’s snarling and howling. Lost in his fascination, the boy heard nothing, felt nothing, saw only the man. He reached out and tapped the man’s shoulder once, twice, and again a little harder, pushing the body to float away a bit. Finn reached out again, with one finger he touched the ragged, black feathers of one of the arrows, and then he pulled away. The man was dead.

His chest ached, Finn was breathing heavily, and now he smelled the corruption of the body. He gagged then, suddenly lightheaded, he grasped the root of the tree. Finn looked up and back at Shar. She had quieted, and was watching him, imploring and mistrustful. Finn shook his head, but he pressed the sleeve of his shirt against his nose and turned back to the man.

There was a pouch hanging around the man’s neck, the strap tangled around his arm. Finn pulled the case to him, lifting it half out of the water. It was leather, the flap sealed with a blob of colorless wax. Finn ran his fingers over the delicate, swirling ridges of the seal, some foreign design that he did not recognize. Something set in his face, he narrowed his eyes, tightened his throat, and he made his mouth a thin hard line. He grasped the leather strings imbedded in the wax, pulled them firmly, and broke the seal. Bits of wax fell in the water and spun away on the current.

Inside the pouch was a single roll of coarse paper. Finn tucked the pouch under his arm and pulled out the paper. He held his breath as he read, a short message in the formal language of Adan written clumsily with a child’s grammar and spelling, the ink spilling and slashing across the page. Still, Finn understood it, and shivered. The message was simple, terrible, and was not meant for a boy.

Shar barked, sharp and loud. Something spooked her, she pawed frantically at the grass on the verge of the bank, begging the boy to come out. Finn turned, the pouch fell from under his arm. He snatched it up, poured out the water and shoved the paper inside. He dropped the pouch, and then pushed through the water and mud, scrambling up the bank. Shar danced around him in short bursts, growling and yipping at the river. Finn looked back, looked at the two arrows, and just then, for the first time, wondered how long the man had been in the river . . . and how far he had drifted.

Finn ran to find his father.

Every tree, every bush hid a killer of men. He felt them drawing their bows, aiming their poison-tipped arrows at his back as he ran. His shoulders twitched, prickling between his shoulder blades in the dead-tingling spot where the assassins were aiming. Finn flung his eyes left and right and left, pumping legs and arms faster, harder. His heart drummed, drowning out the whistling signals of the killer gang. He crashed through the forest ever faster, faster until his lungs would burst at his next step. But one more step and he might be safe.

Sunlight, sunlight broke ahead through the trees. Finn thrust his body toward the light, smashing without care through the brush and into the open. He chanced a quick glance behind. The assassins had not followed, he was safe! As he turned his head back a strong hand clamped over his mouth, a powerful arm arrested his flight, pulling him backward into a man’s chest.

Hands on his hips, Mathis stood by a small field just harvested. He glanced at the clear, vivid sky and sighed. First the shaking of the earth in the spring, and now this. The harvest had not been what he had hoped. Though there was enough, more than enough, the field had not grown as well as could be. A tight hedge screened the wind around the edges of the field, but water was the problem. He squatted, ran his hand through the dry soil, rubbing the dirt between his fingers and wondering why the old rites had not produced enough rain. He wondered about the future.

A crash sounded behind him, behind the hedge, harried steps as if an animal panicked in the woods. He turned his head, listening. An animal with two legs, running toward him. Mathis straightened and stepped into the shadow of the hedge. A flurry of skinny arms and legs erupted from the brush. Mathis leaped forward, grasped the intruder, pulled him back and off balance. He turned his captive around.

“Finn! What are you doing?”

The boy collapsed into his father’s arms, leaning with his hands on his thighs, gasping for the breath to speak.

“You are trembling, are you hurt? Your clothes, you’re soaking.” Mathis’s concern grew as he saw the frightened look on his son’s face. He bent down on one knee and held the boy, more gently, by the shoulders. “What happened? Are you being chased?”

“There is . . . a man . . . in the . . . in the river.”

“A man, who?”

Finn drew a deep breath and looked, wide-eyed, at his father. “A dead man.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

Finn shook his head.

“Are you sure? No sign of anyone?”

A nod, fantastical assassins aside. “No one.”

Mathis stood, thought for a moment. “Show me this man.” Finn started, as if to run once more but his father dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “No son, we can walk. If he is dead then he will wait.”

When they reached the river they found Shar watching over the sheep. She came to Mathis when he whistled, and he reached down to scratch behind her ears.

“Take them home, girl.” Mathis gave a different whistle and Shar moved off to round up the sheep and herd them back to the farm.

“Alright,” he said to Finn, “let us see what there is to see.”

But Finn hung back as his father approached the bank. Mathis crouched for a moment, watching the body turn, nudge the roots of the tree, and turn again. Shafts of arrows and swirls of long hair in the water punctuated the man, testifying that what floated there was no twisted log of wood. He was a soldier, in leather armor, and not one of their people. Any man, under any circumstances, deserved a decent burial. But this man died shot in the back with a two arrows. The arrows drew Mathis’s gaze, fear crept through the hollow of his stomach.

He had seen their kind before.

Mathis leapt, splashing heavily into the water and mud. He turned his head, coughed at the smell, but he grasped the armor and pulled the body into the shallow water. He knelt and ran his hand lightly along the shaft of one of the arrows and then down the other. He touched the fletchings, as if trying to convince himself that what he saw was not so. He shifted and turned the man on his side, even through the greasy slick of the mud the symbol of Arras stood out on the breast of the armor. Mathis closed his eyes, hung his head.

“Finn?”

“Yes father?”

“Come here son.”

The boy hesitated, then stepped forward slowly to the verge of the bank. Mathis looked up at him. He held in his hands the case, its closure hanging open.

“Did you touch anything?”

Finn twitched, shifted his weight from foot to foot, suddenly aware of his draggled, muddied clothes, suddenly felt a chill wind raising gooseflesh.

“No.”

Mathis stared, for a long moment, and then nodded.

“We must take this man to Adan. These arrows, they are important.”

Finn swallowed, numbed and frightened by the look on his father’s face.

Mathis stood and turned away from the body of the soldier, wading a few steps upriver. He bent and took up some water in his cupped hands. Finn knew that his father was going to send a call for help. Mathis brought the water to his lips and he breathed across the surface, willing it to become the vessel of his voice. The water shimmered, darkened like liquid obsidian, and then cleared.

“Ford, hear me.”

Even from where he stood Finn saw an image of his brother appear in the water. But this looked wrong somehow. Ford did not turn, he did not look up. His image wavered and the water clouded milky white, when it cleared again it was plain water.

Mathis poured the water back into the river, and he drew another handful. The water shimmered, darkened and cleared, but when his father spoke the name his brother did not appear. His hands shook, the water sieved through the cracks between his fingers. Mathis sagged and staggered against the bank of the river.

“It, it did not work?”

His head bowed, Mathis spoke deliberately. “Finn, you will have to run again. Go to the house, tell Ford to bring the team and the small wagon, and a rope. Then pack some food and,” he hesitated, “and lay out my arms and gear.”

“But why did it not work?”

His father looked up at Finn, “hurry, son . . . and be careful.”

A fire raged in the open hearth, and with the candles cast a bright light, bathing the room in a hot, yellow-orange glow. On the floor of the bedchamber, on top of soft cushions, lay the body of a tall man in a simple white robe. At his left shoulder a sweet smelling herb smoldered in a shallow bronze brazier, and at his right shoulder a white candle burned in a stand of pure silver. Just behind his head knelt a woman in a midnight blue shift, her forehead pressed to his.

The woman in blue straightened, tears streaming down her face. She ran her fingers through the man’s hair and caressed his face, his lips and his closed eyes. A tall woman, long dark braids trailing down her back, came to her side, knelt and wrapped her arms around the other’s waist.

“Thank you, Feah.”

The door shuddered open and in strode a man who wore a mantle of command, Otheron, still dressed as if for hunting, eldest son of the king and the Prince of Adan. A second man entered on his heels, Cenith the second son and prince. For a moments the youngest, Caladon, stood at the open door speaking softly to someone unseen, and then he turned and closed the door. The lady in dark blue stood, with Feah still at her side, and faced her sons. She drew a deep, trembling breath.

“Your father is gone to us,” Queen Amaryl said, plainly exhausted.

Otheron clenched his fists, but said nothing. Cenith and Caladon looked first at each other, and then Caladon stepped forward, lifted his father in his arms, and laid him on his bed.

“Feah,” Amaryl said, “please find the chancellor and inform him that the bells must be wrapped and sounded. The king is dead.” The woman nodded, and fled the chamber.

“How?” Otheron demanded.

Cenith sat at the foot of the bed, saying nothing. Caladon dropped to his knees at the side of the bed, taking his father’s hand.

“How? How is this possible? We rode . . . we rode not even an hour into the forest, just the same as dozens of times before. Father and I and Cen raced for the lead. We crashed through the underbrush, but, but then,” Otheron paused, “everything seemed . . . different somehow, the world stood still for a moment, and then a black stag, a magnificent animal, leapt across the path right in front of father, and he was off.”

“I tried to catch them too,” Cenith said, “but he was too fast, twisting and turning through the trees. And then . . . then I vaulted a hedge and almost landed on father lying on the other side. His horse . . . gone. At first I thought he had been thrown and he even laughed about it. But within a minute or two he had paled and gone cold, his lips turned blue.”

Aside from the crackling of the fire, there was no sound, until Otheron bolted upright and rushed to the bedside. He looked down at his father, fist clenched, his body shaking. Amaryl came behind him, resting both hands on his broad shoulders. “How?” he breathed softly, turning to his mother and queen. “How?”

“This was no riding accident.”

It was Cenith who answered, not Amaryl, and his words pierced the air.

“Father was a better horseman than even Otheron. He taught all of us to ride, years ago, and could still outlast us all. Have you ever seen him thrown before? By any horse?”

“No.” Caladon rose. “You are right and Otheron’s instincts are right. There is something wrong at work here. I feel . . .”

“Are there not powers that serve the dark,” Cenith interrupted, “mother, have you seen nothing?”

Amaryl started as if awakened from a standing dream. She stared at Cenith for a moment and then went to sit on the bed. “Forgive me, but I have not looked.” She stroked her husband’s hair. “Sixty-eight years your father has been king, out of a life of only one hundred and five years, and in all that time he never so much as stumbled over a threshold . . . this was no riding accident. It was poison.”

“Poison?”

Amaryl laid her hand lightly on her husband’s chest, drawing the white robe downward, revealing a purplish-green stain in the soft spot at the base of the king’s neck. “I do not yet know how it was done.”

“And you have not looked to see what the Mahare may reveal?”

Amaryl looked up sharply at Cenith, her face shining with the pathways of her tears. “I have been preoccupied,” she answered, “with trying to save his life, and I failed.”

A knock sounded. Otheron stood and opened the chamber door, spoke in a low voice with someone beyond. He stepped through, voices arose in the antechamber, and moments later Otheron returned.

“A captain of the Citadel Guard, mother, he prays to speak with you,” said Otheron.

“At this time?” Cenith demanded.

“It is important.”

Amaryl rearranged the king’s robe, and stroked her husband’s hair.

“Mother.”

Amaryl spoke, barely more than a whisper, “can it not wait?”

“No.”

The queen wiped her face dry, rose and held her head tall and straight, and she walked slowly through the door. Cenith, and then Caladon followed. Two men and a boy waited in the silent chamber, and they bowed. In the center of the floor a large bundle rested on a bier, covered under a black cloth.

“My lady . . .” The captain’s throat closed upon the words he needed to speak. “My lady, please forgive this intrusion, but there is a matter of urgency.”

“Well? What intrudes upon our grief?”

The captain moved to kneel beside the bier. “Your pardon, my lady, but this man,” he said, pointing to Mathis, “brought this to the Barbica within an hour ago.” He drew back the black cloth. A reek suffused the air. The queen stepped closer to the bier and saw the body of a man lying on his side, two black-shafted arrows jutting from the middle of his back.

She paled.

“How comes this here?” she asked Mathis.

“My name is Mathis, of the House of Raev. It was my boy, Finn, who was minding our flock. He took them to water at the Idara, while I was away in a field. After a while, Finn came running back, telling me about a dead man floating in the river. I went at once and found this soldier. I put him in a cart, and brought him here.”

“Where did you find him?” Amaryl asked.

“Not far from my farm, about a half day’s ride north of the Great Road on the east bank of the river.”

“And you saw and heard nothing else?”

“Nothing, my lady. I sent my older boy to warn Lord Raev.”

Otheron came forward, knelt and grasped both arrows at once, at the base of the shafts. Turning and wrenching, he pulled the arrows free, balancing them on the open palms of his upturned hands. Though both shafts were painted black, each arrow was subtly different, one longer by about the span of a man’s hand with a beaten iron head and dark gray feathers, the other with stiff, black feathers and a bronze, barbed head. Otheron stood and thrust forward the gray-feathered arrow.

“This one,” he said tightly, “is a Skeldi arrow, and this one,” now holding forward the black-feathered arrow, “is goblin make.” He tossed both arrows on the floor next to the bier. “Careful,” he commanded as Cenith reached down, “like as not one or both are poisoned.”

“He must have been shot at a very close distance,” said Cenith, pulling back his hand, “for the arrows to penetrate his armor.”

“How long ago did you find him?”

“About a day and a half since my boy found him in the river.”

“How long was he in the river?”

Mathis shrugged. “I cannot say with any certainty, my lord, perhaps a few hours, maybe as much as half a day.”

Otheron paced. “The signs could hardly be clearer. The Skeldi are on the march and this time they have those despicable ukan as allies.” He stood with his fists white-knuckled, clenched so hard that his arms shook and his whole body trembled.

Amaryl pointed at the Arrasti, asking simply, “has anyone looked in that purse?”

A leather case still hung on a baldric around the Arrasti’s neck. Cenith stooped over the soldier. “The seal is broken,” he said and open the flap. Inside lay a soggy and mottled roll of paper.

Amaryl held out her hand, taking the scroll from Cenith and unrolling it gently. “The writing is destroyed,” she said, handing the paper back to Cenith. “Whatever Arras had to say will remain a mystery.”

“No, it is no mystery.” Otheron spoke steadily, fiercely, pacing again. “The Skeldi are on the move with the goblins and they have struck at Arras first. The signs are clear and that paper,” he gestured, ”was a warning and a call for help. They did not even take the time to roll it in an oiled cloth. Cenith is right—the messenger was fired on at a close distance, an ambush. The Houses must be raised and we must march as well.”

“But a mystery remains.”

Otheron turned to Caladon. “What?”

“The man was found floating in Little Sister a half day above the road.”

“So?”

“So did he float there against the current? If haste was needed, why did he turn aside from the Great Road?”

“Perhaps he intended to cross the river at Evendin Ford,” offered Cenith.

“Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps,” said Otheron, “perhaps he encountered an ambush on the road and was pursued north along the river and was there slain. What does it matter? Our father is murdered, war is on our borders, and we debate trivia. We must march to Arras.” Otheron wheeled, as if to storm out of the room, but a word from the queen stopped him.

“Wait.” She turned to Mathis. “Why did you not make a sending to someone?”

“I tried, my lady, but something prevented it, something in the Mahare.”

“Prevented it?” She nodded slowly.

“Yes my lady.”

“And what of you, dear boy, Finn is your name? Do you have anything to add to what your father has said?”

Finn flushed, overpowered by the strange, sad lady, and he squirmed under her gaze and looked at his shoes, “no,” he stammered, “n-no my lady.” But then she turned her gaze on his father, and Finn breathed out.

“And what shall you do now, Mathis of the House of Raev?”

“I must return to my House, lady, to my part in the battle.”

“Will you wait a while with the captain? We may have messages for you to bear.”

Mathis bowed.

“Then you may leave us.”

Amaryl watched the men and the boy leave and then set her focus on Otheron, her voice quiet and clear. “Do you ask to raise the Adanae? I have not yet made that decision.”

Otheron stood his ground, brimming with silent challenge, his head thrown back above square broad shoulders.

“I do.” Cenith interrupted, pushing forward, “let me lead them.”

Amaryl glanced at him, and in that glance she took in his dark eyes and calm face, so like his brother, but she said, “Otheron is the elder, it is his position to claim.”

“I claim it,” Otheron pronounced. “Our king, our father, dies even as war comes to the gates of the city?” He shook his head. “I do not know how, yet, but this is the work of the Skeldi, or the goblins and their black magicians. They will pay, I will see to that or die in the effort.” He turned to leave and then hesitated, and turned back to the queen. “I will ride to Arras, at sunrise.”

“To vengeance?”

“To war.”

“Go then, with haste.”

“No,” Cenith said abruptly, “I will not be left behind.”

“You are commander of the Citadel Guard,” answered Amaryl, “and the guard cannot leave the city in time of war.”

Cenith threw his eyes down, but Otheron knew his brother’s need. “I need a leader of the horse.”

Amaryl considered them both. So alike, so desperately different. “So be it. I will appoint some other to lead the Citadel.”

Otheron glanced at the body of the Arrasti soldier a last time, and left the room, Cenith following. Caladon, however, remained, standing by the bier, his arms crossed and his chin on his hand. He stared long at the soldier, lost in thought. At last Amaryl broke the silence.

“And what of you, does your blood boil to join your brothers?”

“Time enough for that.” Caladon shrugged. “Mother, he said that the Mahare . . . that something prevented him from sending, something is very wrong.”

“It has done more than that,” she said, answering a question that Caladon had not asked, “quiet your mind. Do you sense it, a shadow on the Mahare?”

“Yes,” Caladon answered softly.

“It is why your father lies dead.”

For an instant Caladon saw her composure cracked, he knew the pain beneath, the terrible price she was paying, and then she drew a deep breath. The moment passed. “I am returning to his side.” Amaryl sighed.

“We have not had the chance to say goodbye to him, now this . . .” He glimpsed down on the dead, and then he took his mother’s hand. “Shall I come?”

“No, give us a while to ourselves.” She turned to go to her heart’s deathbed, but as she left the hall Amaryl paused and looked back. Caladon had sat cross-legged on the floor to peer closely at the two arrows.

RoseThorn (de)construction and reconstruction

2008-01-07T14:05:00.000-05:00

So this weekend I worked with Lisa Rector, a freelance editor, going over RoseThorn to figure out what is needed to make it stand out from the crowd. Apparently what is needed is some rather drastic cutting and reorganizing, along with the addition of a major expansion of a previously minor crahacter and the dumping of many other minor characters. I can already see the finished product in my mind's eye and I like it, I like it a lot. There's lots of work to do, but I'm energized and more than ready to create the new, streamlined and vitalized RoseThorn.

It's going to be better than ever.

Working with Freelance Editor

2007-12-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

I've decided to engage the services of a professional, freelance editor, Lisa Rector of Third Draft, to work with me on Rose|Thorn, with the objective of polishing the manuscript to stand out from the slush pile crowd. We're scheduled to work the first week in January, so I hope to have the book ready for submissions again by the end of February.

Final version, Chapter One

2007-06-10T10:41:00.000-04:00

Alas, the sharp pen of the critic, but -- well thanks to the comments of a new friend -- I realized that I should post the entire first chapter, (including the little prologue piece), rather than the old version. Thanks Rebecca.

I tell the tale that follows because it is deserved. Great tragedies, great loves and hates, and great deeds deserve a telling, and an audience. How I came to know of these things, the loves, hates and deeds of these people, and their tragedy, is of no concern. It suffices that I know and that I tell the tale. Whether these things were true or these people lived real lives is of no concern as well. For what is truth if not the telling of a tale, one which is believed? Telling is creating, the making of truth and the dreams of truth. Read, now, and worry not. After all, life is brief, and always another tale waits to be told. So . . .

Two Arrows

. . . it began with a boy skipping rocks from the bank of a placid river.

Finn brought the sheep to water at the edge of the River Idara. He should have been watching, that none of them strayed in danger of drowning, but as boys do Finn tired soon of sitting. So he started the pebbles flying.

Where the sheep gathered, bumping and bleating and pushing against each other to drink, the bank of the river was shallow and muddied. On either side of this muddy shelf the bank rose to overhang the river by three or four feet, and on the left, twenty paces upriver, stood a small grove of abele trees. Under the shade of these trees lay a narrow strand of pebbles. Here Finn stood flinging his missiles.

On the grassy bank behind him sat a dog, Shar, one severe eye on her master, the other on the sheep. To Shar work was play and play, such as Finn was doing, was puzzling. But Finn knew that if any of the sheep strayed, or danger came near, his Shar would sound the alarm.

So, he could play for a while.

For a boy of eight Finn threw with remarkable accuracy and usually sent the pebbles skidding just where he wanted. What he lacked in strength was made up in sheer energy. One after another, pebble after pebble skimmed across the river, strings of ripples following, three and four and five. Finn chewed on his lower lip, squinting as he gauged the river and his chances to get six skips and a new high mark. Only four this time, but there were many more pebbles at hand.

Upstream the abele trees marched to the edge of the riverbank. Three men could hardly stretch to touch their hands around the largest of the smooth, pale grey trunks. Already the edges of their leaves browned and curled with the change of the season. One old tree, its roots undercut by the eroding riverbank, had fallen into the stream but the base of the trunk still propped on the lip of the bank. The angle of the overhanging bank and the trunk and branches of the abele made a shadowed eddy in the river.

Shar leaped up, pacing in a tight circle, yipping and flicking her nose back and forth between Finn and the sheep. Finn glanced over his shoulder.

“Okay, okay . . . coming.” But he reached down, grabbed a nice, flat stone. Time for one last throw and, this time, six skips for certain. He scanned the soft surface and the lazy current of the water with the eye of a connoisseur. He cocked his head, aiming at the dark angle beneath the fallen abele tree, where the river slowed even further and the water shimmered like black glass. Finn screwed up his face, one eye half-shut, the other wide-open under arching eyebrow, the little pink tip of his tongue twisted into the corner of his mouth. With all his strength he flung the stone. It skipped once, twice, through the angle, and with a thud stopped dead-plunk into the water.

At first Finn thought he had hit a branch—but it sounded softer, not like rock on wood. He climbed the bank, walked a bit upstream, watching the shadow in the angle under the tree trunk. Shar came to his side. He stood and walked toward the base of the tree, looking at the shadow on the water. Something dark floated in the water. Finn stopped, wide-eyed and Shar growled.

A dark thing floated in the water, caught against the far side of the abele trunk, now slowly turning in the eddy. Bobbing in the water, shining with long black streamers, a head turned in the current, a sodden, half-sunken hump of a back, a shoulder, arm and hand, a man face down in the river. Finn shifted, heart pounding, breath forgotten, and the man’s back turned into view. Shar barked mad frenzy. The shafts of two arrows protruded from between the drowned man’s shoulder blades.

Finn ran to find his father.

Every tree, every bush hid an assassin. He felt them drawing their bows, aiming their poison-tipped arrows at his back as he ran. His shoulders twitched, prickling between his shoulder blades in the dead-tingling spot where the assassins were aiming. Finn flung his eyes left and right and left, pumping legs and arms faster, harder. His heart drummed, drowning out the whistling signals of the assassin gang. He crashed through the forest ever faster, faster until his lungs would burst at his next step.

Sunlight, sunlight ahead through the trees. Finn thrust his body toward the light, smashing without care through the brush and into the open. He chanced a quick glance behind. The assassins had not followed, he was safe! As he turned his head back a strong hand clamped over his mouth, a powerful arm arrested his flight, pulling him backward into a man’s chest.

Hand on his hips, Mathis Stonebow surveyed a small field just harvested of turnips and carrots. He turned a critical eye at the sky, the harvest not to his liking; though these plants had come in nicely enough, they had not grown as well as could be. A tight hedge screened the wind around the edges of the field, but water was the problem. This field lay on the boundary of the farm and too far from the river for irrigation. It should have rained more. Why had the old rites had not worked so well this season?

Grumbling about the vagaries of the weather Mathis reached for his hayfork. The day before, with the farm wagon, he had dropped a rick in every field, to spread to rot under the winter’s snow. But a crashing sounded behind him, behind the hedge, as if an animal fled panicked through the woods. He stepped into the shadow of the hedge. A flurry of skinny arms and legs erupted from the brush. Mathis leaped forward, grasped the intruder, pulled him back and off balance. He spun his captive around.

“Finn! What are you doing?”

Finn collapsed into his father’s arms, leaning with his hands on his thighs, gasping for the breath to speak.

“You are trembling, are you hurt?” Mathis’s concern grew as he saw the frightened look on his son’s face. He bent down on one knee and held the boy, more gently, by the shoulders. “Are you being chased?”

“There is . . . a man . . . in the . . . in the river.”

“A man, who?”

Finn drew a deep breath and looked, wide-eyed, at his father. “A dead man.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

Finn shook his head.

“Are you sure? No sign of anyone?”

A nod, fantastical assassins aside. “No one.”

Mathis stood, thought for a moment. “Show me this man.” Finn started, as if to run once more but his father dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “No son, we can walk. If he is dead, then he will wait, and on the way you can tell me about this man.”

When they reached the river, they found Shar watching over the sheep. By some instinct she knew that there was no danger from the body in the river, but that the sheep needed watching. Shar came to Mathis when he whistled. He reached down and scratched behind her ears.

“Take them home, girl.” Mathis gave a different whistle and Shar moved off to round up the sheep and herd them back to the farm.

“Okay,” he said to Finn, “let us see what there is to see.”

But Finn hung back as his father approached the bank. Mathis crouched, peered into the angle beneath the tree for a long moment. He walked a few paces back along the bank, and jumped down onto the pebbles. Still holding the hayfork Mathis waded into the water at the upper edge of the shoal, then he bent and reached forward with the fork.

The body wedged on one last branch, sodden heavy, only a hand, the back of the head and the shoulders above the water. Shafts of arrows and swirls of long hair in the water punctuated the man, as if testifying that what floated there was no log of wood. Mathis caught the hayfork in a fold of cloth and pulled the body to the beach. Any man, under any circumstances, deserved a decent burial. But this man died shot in the back with a pair of arrows. Questions needing answers. When and why he was slain, and by whom? Mathis turned the man onto his side. He was a soldier of Arras, a clansman from far to the northwest, and by the look of his light leather armor, a scout or messenger. But the arrows drew Mathis’s gaze, fear crept through the hollow of his stomach.

“Finn, come here.”

The boy hesitated, then stepped forward slowly to the verge of the bank. His father knelt on the pebbles, fingering the shaft and fletching of one of the arrows.

Without looking up, Mathis spoke deliberately, “you will have to run again. Go to the house and tell Ford to bring the team and the small wagon. Tell your mother to pack some food and,” he hesitated, “and tell her to lay out my arms and gear.”

He looked up at Finn, “hurry, son . . . and be careful.”

The city of Adan lay far-flung on the plain of Querlao beside a foaming blue-green sea. The heart of the city, the Citadel, stood on the rocky shoulders of a high promontory where the River Edara flowed into the sea. Six graceful bridges spanned the Edara and the first, the King’s Bridge, landed hard at the foot of the Citadel Gate. Through iron and oak gates a wide road climbed in two steep loops to the top of the promontory. There the road passed through another gated wall into a courtyard. Cream-colored marble spires towered above walls of pinkish-grey granite and this fortress commanded the entire city. Up from the foot of the Citadel, the temples, markets, theaters and villas of the Adanae unfolded along the banks of the Edara. Boats of all types, and at all hours, sailed the river, for pleasure, for commerce, or simply to move the people from place to place. But Adan was not a city like those in which later men suffer, cramped, crushing against each other without enough air or sunlight. Beyond the banks of the river the villages, homes, orchards and gardens of the Adanae scattered about the plain and between these settlements stretched open woods and fields, if not entirely wild, then not completely tamed either.

The city in spring blazed red and white, pink and yellow, for roses grew wherever the Adanae made their homes. The fall swathed each track and road and garden path in petals. But the Adanae, loving this flower greatly, long ago bred vines that bloomed also in winter so that when the rest of the world languished in ice, Adan still was garlanded in roses, with white snow below scarlet vines. Other kinds of roses the Adanae created for themselves. Some flowered only at night, scented blooms perfuming courtyards and lover’s bowers, others withered slowly when picked, still vital after months in the vase, and still others made immense blooms greater than the span of a hand spread from fingertip to fingertip. Everywhere that they lived the Adanae made a paradise.

But a pall hung over the city now.

A rumor spread and grew, horrified whispers of dark news. Guardsmen closed the gates of the Barbica, a strange thing in a time of peace. Though they were to watch for threat from without the city, the guards continually turned to glance at the Citadel in the distance. Until, at about five hours in the afternoon, a cloaked man on a grey horse approached the gate riding alongside a rustic cart. A boy drove the cart.

The great gates of Adan pierced an ancient wall of massive stones cut and laid in a time beyond memory, with a skill unknown and unmatched in later years. Pink-grey granite walls rose above a base of black stone, or metal, or some amalgam of both—the secret of its making lost forever. Impenetrable, the Wall betrayed no sign of age or weakness, not the slightest crack or chip. The Edara passed through the Wall beside the gates, through a wide trough guarded by portcullises. The Great Road, descending from the Citadel and winding through the city over the six bridges, sloped down into a long tunnel under the Barbica and out of Adan.

As the man on the grey horse and the boy driving the cart drew close to the Barbica two soldiers, one armed with a wicked pike, and the other with flashings of rank on his arm, confronted them. The rest of the guard remained watchful at the gate or dealt with other traffic. The officer held up a hand and called for a halt.

“Well met.”

“Well met, my friend,” replied the man on the grey.

“Dismount and state your business in the city.”

The cloaked man stepped down and handed the reins to the boy. As he did so the cloak parted and below shone a corner of a breastplate and the hilt of a sword. The officer looked at the quiver and an enormous bow, already strung, strapped to the man’s saddle. He signaled to the pikeman to stand ready.

“Your business . . . friend?”

“Captain,” the man answered gravely, “my business is serious, I assure you.”

“So you say,” the captain narrowed his eyes, “but only those with the most urgent matters have leave to enter the city today. Serious or not, you must state your business or turn your cart around.”

The cloaked man thought for a moment and then spoke in a lower voice. “I, or rather, really my son,” he motioned toward the boy, “made a discovery yesterday.” The man hesitated and lowered his voice even further, “he is in the cart.”

“He?”

“He, captain, he. Come and look.”

A long bundle lay in the cart, covered by a cloth of rough-spun wool. The man reached in, grasped the cloth and drew it up so that none but the captain could see underneath. Beneath lay the body of a man in the armor of Arras, on his side, glassy eyes staring up at the captain.

“What is your name?” the captain asked, now lowering his voice as well.

“Mathis Stonebow.”

“I thought you had a familiar look about you. I fought at Qettering,” he nodded, “and I heard of a man that could draw a bow with such power that it could drive an arrow into solid stone. I even saw you do it once. Still, I think you had better explain . . . this.”

Mathis dropped the cloth. “Look at his back.” He circled the wagon and the captain followed. Mathis raised the cloth on that side and the officer stepped back in shock. Then he stepped forward again and reached into the cart to touch one of the arrows still protruding from the dead man.

“What is happening in the city—why are the gates closed?”

“Yesterday the king, Prince Otheron, and Prince Cenith rode out with a small company to hunt in the forest beyond the Waymeet,” said the captain, barely above a whisper, yet still staring at the arrows. “I was on duty here when they returned, but the king could barely keep to his mount. Prince Otheron rode beside him, holding him in his saddle.”

The captain withdrew his hand from the cart and looked at the face of Mathis. “It was obvious that the king had taken some harm. I ordered my men to speak to no one about it. But there were many here besides my men, and you know how tongues run . . .”

Mathis finished the saying, “. . . faster than a hunting hound, yes. Yesterday, you say?” He glanced back at the cart. “The same day my boy found, him, in the river.” He looked up at the towers of the gatehouse, the parapets, the banners whip smart in the breeze. He looked at the carvings of rose vines in bloom climbing the posts of the gates, arching over the mouth of the tunnel, and he looked at the Wall stretching away in the distance, adamantine, invincible. And he turned again to the cart, with his son Finn sitting there, watching and listening, the body of the Arrasti soldier lying in the back. “The same day . . .”

The captain flicked his eyes from Mathis to the cart and back, gauging, deciding. “There cannot be a connection,” he shook his head, “the king went nowhere near the Idara. I am sure of that. Within an hour of the king’s return word came to close the gates.” The captain squared his shoulders and made up his mind. “You must come with me to the captain of the Citadel Guard. Harm or no, this,” he gestured to the cart, “must be brought to the king.”

But at that moment a single, muffled bell sounded over the city. From a high tower at the Citadel Gate it rang once. When the echoes grew faint over the quiet city, from the westernmost watchtower of the Wall came a single toll in reply. In succession, twenty-six times around the Wall, a bell rang once from each tower. As the last toll faded no sound could be heard for a heartbeat, then thousands of voices cried out at once.

The king was dead.

Well, it's official

2007-05-09T14:43:00.000-04:00

The agent that has had the manuscript for over seven moths has turned it down. Although she noted good writing, wonderful imagery, etc., she said that the project just did not appeal to her as much as she had hoped. And, I'm cool with that--I'd want an agent who was enthusiastic.

Though she could have gotten my name right . . . Unless it's been changed to Rob without my knowledge.

Reenergized

2007-03-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

Right, after some months of benign neglect, I am ready to get back to work on RoseThorn, to do those final tasks that have been waiting patiently. Not that I haven't been working. I've done some short stories and made about 20k in progress on each of my next two books (that's 40k words), and have been reading and starting to do reviews. All along, however, I've been letting ideas percolate. Now I'm ready.

So, what's up?

Illustration. Starting to do concept sketches for a series of charcoal and colored pencil landscapes; yep I know I suck at figure drawing, my strength has always been landscape and still life. So that's what I'm going with to get started. Aerlie. The Vale. The Tower at Hazsu. The Tower of Azcalon. Kestrelrock. And two views of the City from the Citadel (basically a before and after).

I'll post updates as the drawings come along.

Excerpt List

2006-11-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

Reading over this Blog, it occured to me that it needed links to make finding the manuscript excerpts more easily found. So, here they are, roughly in chronological order:

Plot outline, Part I
Plot Outline, Part II
Opening Scene of Chapter One
Short Excerpt from, I believe, Chapter Four
Hmm, this is excerpted from Chapter Thirty-Something
Chapter Twenty-Seven (the entire chapter).

The Caladon and Feah picture

2006-10-19T14:27:00.000-04:00

Agent query update

2006-10-03T10:17:00.000-04:00

I've lost track of the exact number of queries that I've sent out, but most have come back with polite declinations. A few are form letters, one is a form slip (kinda insulting, that), one was a printed card (interesting) and a few were at least handwritten and/or signed. However, my top pick of agent is still undecided, although since it was query-only I can just imagine that it's in the middle of a very big pile of letters, still. The manuscript is still out with the one agent, so my hopes are pinned on that.

I submitted the manuscript to an indie press, a coupla weeks ago. Haven't heard anything yet, so there's that too.

Okay, update to the update: yet another PD (polite declination). Still not from #1 pick tho . . .

Update to the update update: another PD. The past month has been hard on my ego :(

Been a while since I posted a fragment . . .

2006-09-25T14:49:00.000-04:00

This contains some of the latest revisions:

Chapter Twenty-Seven

1.

Time is the true weight of a speck of dust, the weight of time—speck after speck—settling heavily on a room, in this room where music once was played and where dust now glitters through blades of light from the tall windows. Dust that covered and covers the room. But there were footsteps through the dust, the steps of a man walking to the windows and back again. A tall man, a black silhouette against the bright windows, stood looking outward. The music chamber was on the level of the Great Hall, but at the northern side of the Citadel, and the view from the window took in a grand arc of Adan. Here Anatheme stood, sometimes for hour upon hour, unmoving, gazing at the slow decay of Adan. The dust did not settle on him, but he bore the weight of time nonetheless.

The city was not the same. Repeated earthquakes, and yearly floods, had reduced all but two of the seven bridges to their foundations. Now, except for the King’s Bridge and the Bridge of Spring and Summer, only the piles of the remaining five could be seen on occasion, when the river was clear and calm. No building stood unchanged, none but the Citadel itself, and a great many no longer stood at all.

There was no absence of life, for the city teemed; however, the life by and large was wild and small, foxes and badgers, deer and squirrels, and gangs of raucous field birds. The Arrasti, of course, fled nearly twenty years ago, absorbed in the civil wars of the clans. The Skeldi, though, gradually withdrew in two directions: north, back to the Skeld for those who believed the city cursed, and south to cluster about the foot of the Citadel. In between the city slowly decayed.

Anatheme narrowed his eyes. Twenty years changed much of the face of Adan, but his eyes were as quick as ever. Something moved in the air above the city, moving from the northeast and toward the Citadel. A bird, he saw clearly, as it came closer, flying just above the tops of trees. It climbed as it neared the Citadel, rising swiftly as if it would fly into the palace itself. A crow, Anatheme saw clearly as it flashed upward past the window and out of his sight. He turned and followed the footsteps in the dust back out of the room.

2.

The smell dominated the tiny, square chamber at the top of the tower, the smell of dampness, of mold and wet feathers, and the acrid smell of a dying body. The room, the top of the topmost tower, lay open to the wind on all sides through wide, unglazed windows between the half-walls and the slanting roof. The wind swirled in and out, lifting black feathers in random dances. But the wind could not overcome years of decay. The smell dominated.

But now it was thunderously noisy in the cramped space. A loud, young thug of a crow hopped and danced about the chamber, squawking ceaselessly. In the eye of this feathered storm lay another crow, ancient and missing many feathers, so aged and decrepit that it barely managed to lift its head. Yet its black bead of an eye followed the young crow scattering feathers and the little bones of past meals all about the chamber.

A section of the floor flew upward and slammed back into the wall. Anatheme’s head and shoulders emerged through the trapdoor. The young crow clapped its blunt bill shut and, with a snap of its wings, shot up to perch in a window and to silently watch the man. Anatheme ignored it absolutely. Instead he climbed in to the chamber and looked down from his full, towering height upon the old, half-bald rook.

“Well?” he demanded.

The bird trembled, half-transforming to something, a creature of wrinkled, white skin and a few ragged feathers, a thing of lingering pain in its eyes and in its voice. Kept alive far beyond the span of life of a crow, the Crow King lay gasping. Its breath wheezed through the half-formed beak.

“Well?”

A little, pink tongue licked at the edges of the bill. The creature’s throat constricted and bulged, its face contorted as if it would spit out its words no matter the effort.

“News – from – ea, east,” it managed in a voice both gurgling and choked. “B-Bhar – gesst – found some, something.”

“What?”

“Does – not say,” the Crow King spat, “more, later – when – it knowsss.”

“That is all?”

“Yes, yesss.”

Anatheme turned to descend the ladder, but he paused, glancing at the young crow watching him warily from the window, and then looking down at the pathetic thing panting on the floor. The Crow King had already begun the slow agony of reverting to its natural state. ‘A pity,’ Anatheme thought to himself, stepping onto the top rung, ‘that the old bird never managed to teach another this trick, or to speak language.’

He stopped again as another presence entered the little room in the top of the tower, one that only he could perceive. Anatheme smiled, sensing his mother’s thoughts probing for an unguarded moment, hunting for an image or a word. Nearly blind, her body a ruin, Amaryl possessed still a powerful and keen mind. Perhaps she felt the odd magic in the old bird’s transformation; it hardly ever failed to attract her notice. Now she hoped for a crumb of knowledge. He smiled. Tonight, when he brought her broth to her chamber, would be interesting.

3.

She waited, propped on an elbow in the brown and grey piebald blanket of last year’s leaves. Sometimes peering through this year’s green leaves, sometimes scratching and muttering to herself in broken whispers, she waited under a low, ground sweeping limb on the edge of Aerlie.

“Twenty years, is’t? Summat like’t” She counted off on her clawed fingers. “Nineteen, twenty.” She yawned and shrugged, carefully, slowly stretching away the afternoon languor.

“Twenty years comin’ here,” she murmured, “this is’t, the last, the last time.”

A noise. In the forest behind her hiding place. Bharghest twisted her neck around scanning as best she can before settling back with a soft grunt in her hiding place. It was an acorn or some such thing, she decided, falling noisily into the flotsam.

“Last time, last time,” she whispered, suppressing a yawn. “can’t follow them into the mist. Never could. Maybe the black one can, not me. His problem.”

A fluttering in the air caught her eye. Yellow, gold-brown, twisting, gyrating, a leaf spiraling down, a brilliant, early herald of the change of season to come. The flash of the bright yellow leaf captured her as it turned and floated down to the dun. She reached forward and picked up the delicate thing and, turning it in her fingers, she composed a poem.

“I saw a golden leaf fall,” she recited, her voice barely rising above a hiss, “it took eternity and no time at all. For the leaf all the time that was and ever will be, but a breath, but a heart beat for me. I saw a golden leaf fall, it took eternity and no time at all.”

Bharghest moaned softly with pleasure at the verse, recited it again in her thoughts to commit it to memory. She would tell it to the Singers, make them add it to the story of the People, to her story.

A sound. In the forest to her right, beyond her sight, steps, steps of someone walking. Bharghest settled deeper into the crisp carpet of dead leaves, silencing her body, listening. The steps approached and turned by her hiding place, and moved beyond the fringe of the forest. Bharghest dared not stir. Some indistinct noises, and then voices sounded from some distance away, obscured but she heard clearly some fragments of a conversation.

“He is not spying us,” a female khargish said.

“You are angry with me . . .,” answered a male.

“He told me something . . . which duty do you . . .”

“I must know . . . how will we know if he has manipulated . . . he is harmless, but I know that he is more than he appears.”

A laugh, the female laughed but Bharghest did not hear what she said. The voices, lower now, said much that she did not hear. She dared not stir.

“Well? Do you sense a spell over me?”

“. . . It is hopeless . . . we have talked of too much. Come, your mother will wonder why we have not returned.” A sound, new, a change in the sounds, something heavy being lifted from the ground. Steps faded into silence.

After a time, to Bharghest it seemed such an interminable time, she stirred, emerging from her leafy hiding place. The shaman eased out of the forest shyly, cautiously looking about. She walked toward the place from which the voices had come, and she saw blood, a little pool of drying blood on the ground and a trail of drops turning from crimson to dark red to near-black around the edges. The trail led to the pillars and disappeared into the mist. Bharghest drew a deep breath and followed.

She returned from out of the mist, loping for the path through the forest, muttering again to herself. “Three days,” she calculated out loud as she ran, “to get to Hare’s hole, a day to convince the idiot and get his gokhkha-dogs ready to march, four or five days to get back here with Hare’s gang in tow.” “Hmmph, t’ch, t’ch,” she counted aloud on her fingers as she rushed under the trees, “send a Black Feather to the king, news, news, a black feather to take the news to the Black One, one, two, . . . seven days and it will all be done.” And now she wished that she had brought her own gokhkha after all, even with the whining and complaining of the dogs. Now she wished that she had her own instead of relying on that fool Hole with his clumsy axe.

Caladon icon

2006-09-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

Check it out:

Oh, and also the new background:

query updates

2006-09-14T08:52:00.000-04:00

Okay, here's the word. I sent out 9 agent queries about two weeks ago. The tally thus far is: 4 polite declinations of interest; 1 request for the full manuscript, and 4 outstanding. Of those 4 outstanding, two happen to be the agents that I am most interested in having represent my work. Keeping fingers crossed.

So, I will ship out the one manuscript this weekend. And I'm beginning to compile information about direct submissions to certain publishers, both large and small presses. Oh, and to compile a list of second level agents (all but one of the first cohort were NYC based).

And the wa-ay-ting is the hardest part

2006-09-07T11:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, RoseThorn is now out on agent queries. Huh. So we'll see what happens. Even if none of the current prey bites, there are more fish in the sea. Although if all of the first group of agents refuse it, I may also start sending queries to the small press crowd.

Been a while

2006-08-23T19:44:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted. Rewrites are finished. The final word count tally is a little north of 157,000. Rose|Thorn has been beat-read and revised. Now all I am doing is working up a synopsis in order to start sensding agent queries. Wish me luck!

Yet another fragment

2006-08-09T13:20:00.000-04:00

Still in rewrites but getting closerto the end . . .

Thought this bit worked pretty well:
__________________________________
The rain kept Eleanor company for the best part of three days. Water soaked through everything, clothes, flesh, bone, until it seemed that she was a creature of water — holding a solid shape only in sheer defiance of nature. The air, breathed in, breathed out, was mostly water. Every ditch became a torrent, every hollow a lake. Despite the wind hurling from the west, endless storm clouds overshadowed the land. Only a skulking, furtive light distinguished between day and night, except for the sudden lighting leaving jagged runes glowing in her eyes. The hissing rain submerged all sounds, except for the pounding thunder.

The path that Eleanor followed turned a little more to the south every day, and on the third day she paused in her head-bent plodding, lifting the edge of the hood. The buffet of the rain changed in tone, softer now, even if only a little. Eleanor raised her face, letting the heavy drops roll down her cheeks to drip off of her chin. She wiped her face with her hands, and dropped the uselessly-sodden hood back over her eyes. With a shrug Eleanor resumed the slow wading to the south.

But the storm slowed, lightened, and gradually—as if it resented releasing its grip—the ragged edge of the clouds drifted across the sky. A pale, cold yellow light fell from the sun, low and weak in the western sky. Eleanor shrugged out of her cloak, and rolled and squeezed out a stream of water, glancing at the pastel landscape.

The hills here knelt lower and stretched longer until they were mere meadows. Not far from where she stood a line of dark trees sprang up, branches bending from the weight of the water yet to be shaken free by the wind. Eleanor took a few steps, but stopped in the loud calm of the afterstorm. There was something, a sound, a whispering, hissing sound as if the now-gone rain were come back. It was coming from ahead, from the south beyond the line of trees.

Eleanor had never seen an ocean before — and now that she saw it, she did not believe it. Beyond the trees, the land crumbled into the sea, nothing at all to rival the cliff at the bottom of the valley of waterfalls, but the water, the water! It was greater than all the breadth and beauty of the unknown lands. She stood looking over the southern seas, hardly daring to breath, the sound of the waves washing through her, as night crept through the trees. Finally, she gathered wood and raised a fire with her thoughts. That night she slept between the flame and the sea.

In the morning the sun fought, red and glum, to break through a haze of dirty brown cloud. The clouds had returned, but without storm for the moment. Eleanor woke to the wonderful, sensuous sound of the ocean calling to her. Come. Come. Come, daughter. She moved quickly, following the coast, slipping between the trees until she pushed through a thicket and emerged in a wide field of thick, tall grass. Ahead a great stone tower loomed above a ragged copse of pine trees, tapering to a small, round platform in the sky. An open stair wound upward in a spiral around the outside of the tower.

She was close.

FlashSpec Anthology One is Out

2006-07-15T15:06:00.000-04:00

And it includes a short story by yours truly. Click here http://www.flashspec.equilibriumbooks.com/ to check it out.

Another fragment

2006-06-29T10:12:00.000-04:00

Doing edits on Chapter Six, I thought this passage came off pretty good:

___________________________________________________

At first, the road led more or less straight up through open land, until it reached the first and lowest of the forested ridges of Dimmeld. There it turned forth and back, through wood and round outcroppings, until the crest was overtopped. Then the road plunged, by turn and twist, into the first and shallowest of the valleys. Then it rose again, to turn and twist and plunge again, and again. Otheron’s patience grew thin as progress slowed. By noon only a few miles had been gained.

Otheron called another halt and rode angrily to the front of the column. He flew by the men of the vanguard, sitting in long lines on the curb on both sides of the road. The pace must quicken, he fumed as he rode, barely seeing or hearing the soldiers rise and cheer him as he passed. At the front the prince-general stalked the road, sending warriors scrambling to find Cenith, and before long the prince came trotting down the road. Otheron, seeing him, would not wait but hurried out to meet his brother. Though the two sat apart upon their horses, those nearest them could hear their heated words.

“Cenith,” Otheron started, ignoring the tired look on his brother’s face, “what is the matter? Galila tells me that you bade her keep the vanguard five hundred yards behind the scouts. You know we must make time, we must reach Corlen to meet Raev.” He raised his voice even further, “your scouts are moving too slowly.”

Cenith said nothing at first but took a long pull at his canteen. He gestured vaguely off to the side. “Do you see these woods, this terrain?” Otheron snorted derisively. “We cannot make the time you desire in this terrain. A horse cannot be ridden at speed on a slant, over boulders, and around the boles of trees so closely set.” Cenith now gestured with both arms, “we have to cover a wide swath of forest on both sides of the road. It cannot be properly done at the pace you have demanded.”

“It is not I but our father’s blood that demands this,” Otheron said more lightly, if not more patiently. Cenith reddened but said nothing. “You must do this.” Otheron turned his horse but added, over his shoulder, before leaving, “I will accept no excuses for failure.”

Cenith sat on his horse in the middle of the road, watching the receding back of the general who now rode slowly and chatted with the soldiers who greeted him. He looked at the sky, more than half worried about the roiling plumes of black smoke spanning the sky to the west. Eventually, he cast a last glance at the diminishing figure of Prince Otheron, then spun his horse around and went back to his duties.

Opening Scene

2006-06-20T15:41:00.000-04:00

Here is the opening scene of RoseThorn:
___________________________________

Chapter One

TWO ARROWS

It began with a boy skipping rocks from the bank of a sluggish river. Minding his family’s small flock, Finn brought the sheep to water at the edge of the River Idara. He should have been watching the sheep at the water’s edge, so that none of them strayed in danger of drowning. But, as such things are with boys, Finn tired soon of standing and watching, and so he started sending pebbles flying across the placid water.

Where the sheep gathered, bumping and bleating and pushing against each other to drink, the bank of the river was shallow and muddied by their trampling. On either side of this muddy shelf the bank rose to overhang the river by three or four feet. Tussocks of grass covered these banks to the edge of the water. On the left, twenty paces upriver from where the sheep watered, stood a small grove of abele trees, and there—midways under the shade of the trees—lay a little, pebbly strand perhaps ten or twelve feet in length. It was here that Finn stood, flinging his missiles.

For a boy of eight Finn threw with remarkable accuracy, usually he sent the pebbles skidding just where he wanted. And what he lacked in strength was made up in sheer energy. On the grassy bank behind him sat a dog, Shar. With one severe eye on her master, and an alert eye on the sheep, Shar rested in the shade. To her work was play and play, such as Finn was doing, was puzzling. But Finn knew that if any of the sheep strayed or danger came near, Shar would sound the alarm.

So, Finn could play for a while.

One after another, pebble after pebble flew across the river. Strings of ripples followed behind, three and four and five. Finn chewed on his lower lip, squinting as he gauged the river and his chances to get six skips and a new high mark. Four this time—but there were many more pebbles at hand.

Upstream, the abele trees marched to the edge of the riverbank. Three men could hardly stretch to touch their hands around the largest of these trees with smooth, pale grey bark. The trunks grew straight upwards for twenty yards or so, forking from there into several main branches and fanning out into a wide crown. The leaves, bright green on top and a pale, silver-green underneath, were dimming and curling at the edges with the change of the season. One old tree, its roots undercut by the eroding riverbank, had fallen into the stream, but the base of the trunk still lay on the lip of the bank. The angle of the overhanging bank and the trunk and branches of the abele made a shadowed eddy in the river.

Finn looked over his shoulder. Shar paced in a tight circle, yipping and flicking her nose back and forth between Finn and the sheep.

“Okay, okay,” he said, “coming.”

Finn reached down and grabbed a nice, flat stone. Time enough for one last throw and, this time, six skips for certain. With all his strength he flung the stone right at the angle beneath the fallen abele. It skipped once, twice, and with a thud stopped dead-plunk into the water.

At first Finn thought he had hit a branch—but it did not sound like rock on wood. It sounded softer. Curious, he climbed the bank and walked a bit upstream, squinting at the shadow under the tree trunk. Something dark floated in the water. Shar came to his side. He stood and walked toward the base of the tree, looking at the shadow on the water. Suddenly he stopped, wide-eyed. Shar growled lowly.

The stone had dislodged something caught against the far side of the trunk. As Finn watched, it slowly turned in the eddy. From where he stood near the base of the tree Finn could see now clearly the hand and arm of a man face down in the river. Then the eddy turned the body and slowly turned the man’s back into view. The shafts of two arrows protruded from between the man’s shoulder blades.

Finn ran to find his father.

Mathis Stonebow stood with dirt-crusted hands on his hips, surveying a small field of turnips and carrots, just harvested. He turned a critical eye at the sky. The harvest had not been to his liking and, though these plants had come in nicely enough, they had not grown as well as could be. This field lay on the edge of the farm, far from the river, and the crop could not be irrigated. Around the field grew a tight hedge of shrub-like trees to screen the wind, but water was the problem. He would talk to the village elders about calling for more rain next year but, still, he wondered why the old rites had not worked so well this season.

Mumbling about the vagaries of the weather, Mathis reached for his hayfork. The day before, with the farm wagon, he had dropped a rick of hay in every field. Now he would spread it to rot slowly under the winter snows. But a crashing sounded behind him, as if an animal were running panicked through the woods. He grabbed the hayfork and stepped calmly into the shadow of the hedge. Then Finn burst into the field.

Relieved, Mathis lowered the fork. “Finn! What are you about?”

The boy turned to his father, too out of breath at the moment to speak. He leaned over with his hands on his thighs.

“Are you harmed?” Mathis’s concern grew as he saw the frightened look on his son’s face. He bent down on one knee and grasped the boy by the shoulders. “Are you being chased?”

“There is—a man,” Finn gasped, “in the—the river.”

“What? A man, who?”

“A dead man,” he said, looking wide-eyed at his father.

Mathis stood and thought for a moment. “Show me this man.” Finn took a deep breath as if to begin running once more but his father dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “No son, we can walk. If he is dead, then he will wait. On the way you can tell me about this man.”

When they reached the river, they found Shar watching over the sheep. By some instinct she knew that there was no danger from the body in the river, but that the sheep needed watching. Shar came to Mathis when he whistled. He reached down and scratched behind her ears.

“Take them home, girl.” Mathis gave a different whistle and Shar moved off to round up the sheep and herd them back to the farm.

“Okay,” he said to Finn, “let us see what there is to see.”

But Finn hung back as his father approached the bank. Mathis crouched, peering into the angle beneath the tree. Suddenly he stood, walked a few paces back along the bank, and jumped down onto the pebble shoal. Still holding the hayfork Mathis waded into the water at the upper edge of the shoal. Then he bent and reached forward with the fork.

Mathis saw the body still caught on one last branch. He caught the hayfork in a fold of cloth and pulled the body to the beach. Any man, under any circumstances, deserved a decent burial. But this man died shot in the back with a pair of arrows. When and why he was slain, and by whom, were questions that had to be answered. Mathis turned the man onto his side. He was a soldier of Arras, a clansman from far to the northwest, and by the look of his light leather armor, a scout or messenger. But it was the arrows that drew Mathis’s gaze and caused a hollow fear to grow in the pit of his stomach.

“Finn, come here.”

The boy hesitated a moment and then stepped forward, slowly, to the verge of the bank. He found his father kneeling beside the man’s body, fingering the shaft and fletching of one of the arrows.

Without looking up, Mathis spoke deliberately, “you will have to run again. Go back to the house and tell Fordin to bring the team and the small wagon. Show him where I am. Tell your mother to pack some food and,” he hesitated, “and tell her to lay out my arms and gear.” He looked up at the boy, “hurry, son—and be careful.”

2006-06-16T13:03:00.000-04:00

"I ache in my bones for revenge," he admitted, "yet, I know that it is useless."

"I hate him too," she answered, "though the betrayal for you was even more personal. He struck closer to your heart. But as much as I hate him, I love you more."

Caladon turned to Feah. In the dim light and scant heat of the embers he caught his breath at her silhouette. Tiny flickers of orange danced in her dark eyes. Those eyes filled his vision.

"That is why I stay," he said, stirring the fire, sending fireflies free into the night.

FINISHED!

2006-06-13T07:32:00.000-04:00

Last night I wrote the last word and typed the last period. 3+ years and 161,529 words later, it is done. Now come the edits and rewrites and the cutting. Fun, fun, fun. Prolly take 2 to 3 months and then I get to hunt for an agent. But, yah! I'm finished!

Edit: As I do the edits I will post snippets here. I guess I can shoot for a post once a week or so.

Progress

2006-06-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

Only two chapters to go. With diligence I will finish the first draft in less than two weeks. It actually makes me a little sad and elated all at once.

Edit: one-half chapter to go. Hope to be done by end of this week!

Oh, and here is a small version of a cool picture of two of my main characters, Caladon and Feah. The large picture is linked on the sidebar.

The problem of evil.

2006-05-25T08:40:00.000-04:00

Evil needs better public relations. For something present in each and every human being it certainly gets a lot of bad press. Most of us manage to convince ourselves, not only that we are good people by and large -- with which I would mostly agree -- but also that I am not capable of real evil. Oh, to be sure, I can be mean, and petty, and vindictive, but mostly what I do is done for the best of reasons, with the best of intentions. But evil? Not me. Evil is the definitive other and, as such, has no defense to humankind's constant demonization.

Nowhere has this absolutist dichotomy more evident than in epic fantasy fiction. From Melkor and Sauron, to Lord Foul, to Torak and Shai'tan, the bad guys of epic fantasy are bad, really bad, yes ultimately bad. Evil is external, insatiable, and irredeemable. Evil is incarnate. The good guys sometimes display slightly more complexity, usually in the form of confronting and overcoming the temptation to join the evil fun. The great evil of the ring, after all, is seduction. Nevertheless, in the end, the good guys remain ultimately good and ultimately conquer the evil despite overwhelming odds. This opposition of good-vs-evil so dominates the genre that it is now often the target of reaction and even parody.

This archetypical opposition poses a number of serious problems for the aspiring writer in the genre. First, the slightly-flawed-but-essentially-good hero overcoming the deliciously-despicable incarnation of evil has been done to death. What can a new spin on the old formulation add to the canon? Second, there is still, apparently, a great thirst among readers for more of the same old story. Someone is going to write the old cliches over again because the large numbers will buy it, and who can resist large numbers -- especially when there are dollar signs in front of them? Can the hungry, unknown writer resist this temptation, irony be damned? Should she? Third, having rejected seduction and having rejected the soul-numbing labor of spewing more of the same, the aspiring writer must battle the powers that be. Absolutist good-vs-evil epics dominate sales in the fantasy genre, and therefore dominate the time, effort and money of agents, editors, publishers, booksellers and all the other cogs in the machine. How does a little guy say anything above all the noise? Would it not be much easier to sell yet another three or four book epic series wherein an orphan farm boy discovers that he is truly a (pick one) prince/heir of an ancient hero/dragon rider/powerful wizard destined by prophecy to defeat Evil Incarnate? The blurbs practically write themselves, not to mention the invocations of Tolkien. Fourth, turning the tables and writing the epic fantasy of the anti-hero, the brooding bad-guy-out-for-himself, is no solution. It has been done to death; the cliches will suck the marrow from your bones along with your soul; the machine, the machine will eat this as well.

But, so you break away from the same old thing, you still face the biggest problem yet. What now? If you do not write about good-vs-evil, then what do you write? Human beings are complex creatures. We are all good, and we are all evil. There is no incarnation of evil in our world, even in the great religions. Evil works through us. There is no Sauron; there is only the ring and it cannot be destroyed. That may be the solution of the aspiring writer: to write about the seduction of humanity by Evil Inchoate. Promise abounds in this, and it has not yet been killed by the machine.

There is, however, at least another solution. Us. Write about us, plain and simple. Write about humanity, our flaws, our failures, our own evil. There can still be swords, and magic, and goblins, trolls, and dragons. There can still be evil deeds and people given over to evil, but without the capital E. That sounds interesting to me.

What it's all about, II.

2006-05-24T22:57:00.000-04:00

So, RoseThorn begins with Adan at peace and the Adanae seemingly in the zenith of their power. War then comes to the neighboring kingdom of Arras, long-time allies, and the people of the city mobilize to their aid. The Adanae fear nothing, for in five thousand years nothing has challenged their might of arms or command of the Mahare. The army marches to Arras under the two eldest princes of the ruling house of Adan, Otheron and Cenith. But the unforseen appearance of the mysterious Black General bodes ill for Adan and Arras alike.

Caladon, the third son of the ruling family, however, travels away from battle on a quest--dangerous and secret. His success, or failure, may tip the tide of war. But there is a shadow at his heels, a shadow that watches and follows as Caladon travels alone into the wilderness.

What will happen?

This is what it's about.

2006-05-21T20:53:00.000-04:00

RoseThorn tells the story of the Adanae, a people of extraordinary beauty, intellect and power, a people with a past and a secret hidden even from themselves. Twenty-five generations ago the Adanae were exiled, cast on the sea in seven ships and driven before a terrible storm to land on the shores of a strange land. There the Adanae found only primitive tribes, still with merely stone tools and weapons. And the tribesfolk did not have the Mahare, the magic that the people of Adan drew upon for their power. A few of the primitives befriended the Adanae, but most fled away from them to live on the edge of survival. The Adanae began to build a new city in the wilderness--Adan.

The crime committed by the exiles would remain hidden, for after landing on the new shores the Adanae fell under two curses: the Ban and the Forgetting. The Ban forbade any Adanae to ever sail beyond sight of their new lands. The few that defied the Ban perished in violent maelstroms that assaulted their ships. The Forgetting afflicted all of the people of Adan, causing them to lose all memory of who they had been or why they suffered exile.

Twenty-five generations passed and the city of Adan grew along the River Edara, a city of marble and granite, of temples, theaters and markets, parks and gardens. The Adanae poured the Mahare into everything they built, and the city grew, radiant and graceful, a city protected by a Wall that could never be breached. Within their city the Adanae became great again, a people of culture, of learning and art and philosophy. But as wondrous as they made their city, the world outside remained as it had been, wild, primitive, and brutal.

Untouchable. Unblemished. So the Adanae thought. But dark forces gather over time, and even the strongest may fail to weather the storm if caught unprepared. This is where the story of RoseThorn begins . . .

Am I kidding myself?

2006-05-19T17:41:00.000-04:00

Okay, I realize that I haven't posted anything about the plot, the characters, the setting, etc, and I intend to (really, I do)--but I just have to get this off my chest now. The story is working up to the denouement and I've just finished a series of chapters building the tension and the emotion; I've killed off some characters and exiled others and now the protagnoist has nothing left to lose as he heads for the ultimate show down.

My worry is that the reader will not be fully invested in the protagnist's feelings of hatred and fury toward the antagonist. This section of the book needs to be a page turner. It needs to be so compelling that the reader can't put the book down--from this point on--until its finished. That is what will make this book memorable. That is what will make it good. I worry that I'm not up to the task.

Short story being published.

2006-05-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

Flashspec Anthology is a collection of short-short stories (>1,000 words) being published by Equilibrium Books. If you pick up Volume One, you'll not only get lots of excellent SFF flash stories but one of them, The Shark God, will be by me. Link on the sidebar.

Why this blog.

2006-05-18T11:05:00.000-04:00

I am a writer. No, you haven't heard of me.

Yet.

Primarily, this blog is a release valve, for the expelling of my thoughts and feelings, as I come dangerously close to inflicting my first novel RoseThorn upon the world. Anyone having created, or attempting to create, any lengthy work of literature knows what I mean by release valve.

This blog is my sanity. I fully realize that the internet does not care.