Leah R. Cutter's Blog, page 25

No, wait. Seriously.

I spent last week down in Lincoln City, OR, at a master publishing class. It was amazing. I learned so much. My brain was full after just a couple of days. My “To Do” list is far, far too long at this point. I need to schedule things out for a couple of years–yes, that’s how much there is for me to do, in my spare time, in addition to writing.

As y’all may or may not recall, one of my favorite reality TV shows is “So You Think You Can Dance.” Last year, Cyrus gave me one of my favorite quotes, There’s a new level of hard that I ain’t learned yet.

I feel as though this workshop gave me something similar, only it’s, There’s a whole new level of serious that I ain’t done yet.

I had a series of talks with my inner writer at the workshop, as well as during the drive home. She was pretty adamant that I need to take this shit seriously. And she gave me a few examples of places where I haven’t been.

Gulp.

I thought I was serious about the writing and my writing career. But there’s a whole new level of serious that I’m just starting.

I cannot tell you how excited I am about all of it.

Expect more NEWS soon!

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Story Inspiration Sunday

I blog about inspiration both here and over at Book View Cafe. Feel free to comment either here or there.

One of my favorite sites for microscopy images is Dennis Kunkel’s site.

Fair warning: This site is huge. It can be a time suck, because once you click into it, you start going through pages and pages of the most fascinating images.

Me–I prefer looking at crystals, algae, etc. Thinking about bacteria that may or may not be living on my skin is disturbing.

This is Vitamin C. It’s also an amazing alien ice cave. Or possibly ice in a river flow. I love how jagged yet fluid these crystals seem. They could almost be feathers floating down a river, to mark the passing of a great Raven warrior.

Another Vitamin C picture. This is more of a jungle scene to my eyes, with palm trees and grass and who is hiding just beyond there? What kind of alien life form lives in such a colorful world?

And one last one–a common, everyday item.

Paper towel.

I see a natural forest here, a defensive wall, grown up around the castle, protecting the…gem, inside.

What do you see? Would any of these inspire you?

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Talking about systemic harassment

I am breaking my own rules today by posting about this. WIBBOW -- Would I be better off writing? Possibly. Plus, this is controversial, and I tend to shy away from that, particularly in my writing blog.

This just feels too big. I want to add my voice, my support. And I want to move the conversation forward, because it's been happening for far, far too long.

But I am too busy to do much beyond post this. So the only place where people will be able to comment will be on here, on my live journal, and all comments will be screened before being approved.

Fair warning: If I detect even a hint of blaming the victim, or questioning her right to pursue this, I won't let your comment go through. My patience with this, after having read some of the comments on other blogs, is spiderweb thin.

Of course, I'm talking about Elise Matthesen, on how to report sexual harassment at a convention.

I have known both Elise and Jim Frenkel, her harasser, for more than a decade.

I only had one incident with Jim.

It was back in 2000, I think. It was at WisCon. He found me, alone, in the Green Room, and started "complimenting" me. I don't recall the details. I do remember thinking at the time, "Dude. I'm married. You're married. This is inappropriate."

One of the reasons why I remember this incident so vividly is because I felt trapped. He stood between me and the door. I couldn't get out. I remember feeling an overwhelming urge to flee. I also remember telling myself not to be silly -- he wasn't going to physically hurt me. But he really creeped me out.

I didn't feel as though I could say anything about it. Ever. Jim held a position in power regarding my career. He tried to buy my first novel. He couldn't get the okay from the sales team, however.

More than once, I've wondered just how big a bullet I dodged at the time.

This kind of systemic harassment has been going on for as long as I've been going to cons. Probably longer.

And it needs to stop.

Some additional history.

Back in the late 70s, I was part of Children's Theatre Company (CTC) of Minneapolis.

John Clark Donahue was the creative director at the time.

Everyone knew about John. The kids warned the other kids. I remember being in the laundry room of CTC, sitting on the dryer, when I got The Talk. Mind you, I'm female, the wrong gender for John, but I was still told, because I needed to be aware of the situation.

Things kids told each other:

--Don't take a shower late at night, after a performance, alone, by yourself. Make sure someone else will wait with you.

--If John invites you to a party at his place, make sure you know who else will be there, that it isn't some "private" event. If you don't know anyone who's going, invite someone.

And so on.

We all knew about it. We told every kid who came in. If they didn't listen, there wasn't anything we could do for them. (John wasn't forceful, just persistent. And he held complete power at the theatre.)

When I was in my 20s, the suit against John occurred.

I remember vividly being stopped in my tracks the first time someone labeled John's behavior as what it was: Child Abuse.

We'd never used that term about it, before. It was just what happened. You took care of yourself, warned the others. It was so much a part of the system, it never would have occurred to me that it was abuse. Yes, the adults knew about it. But remember, this was the mid-70s, a completely different time than now.


This type of systemic harassment has been happening at cons for decades.

Oh, that's just him.

He doesn't mean anything by it.

You're being overly sensitive.

Don't say anything or you'll be labeled as a trouble maker.

No. It's harassment. It's systemic. And it needs to stop.

How?

If you see something, say something.

I haven't gone to a lot of cons recently. Hopefully, starting next year, that will change.

If you're a creeper, and you try to creep on me, I'm going to call you out on it. Screw nice. Screw compliance. Screw shocking your delicate sensibilities. You're an adult. Grow the fuck up, realize that there are other people in the world, and you need to respect them and their space.

If someone comes to you with a story of harassment, listen. Don't judge. Don't take the power out of the reporter's hands. Let them decide what to do next. Be there to help them feel safe. Support them in their decision.

And now -- back to writing.

#sffragette

Free Fiction Monday — The Viper In Tulum

On July 9th, my new novel, The Guardian Hound, is being published by Book View Cafe.

NEXT WEEK!

This is the last of the Free Fiction Mondays that I’ll be doing (at least for now.)

Chronologically, this was the first story I wrote for the novel. I wasn’t quite finished with the characters from The Raven and the Dancing Tiger, and I had this scene in my head since I first started thinking about The Guardian Hound.

Enjoy!

SPOILER ALERT: This short story has spoilers for The Guardian Hound.

The Viper in Tulum

Mexico, Present Day



Zane woke to absolute blackness. He blinked his eyes, making sure they were open, but he couldn’t see anything in the dark.

That didn’t scare him as much as the stifling silence did.

Where was el océano and her comforting waves? Where were the little ones just on the other side of the crumbling plaster walls of his decrepit, one-room apartment, and their daily fight over who ate which cereal? Where was the ancient señora on the other side, and the whine of her equally ancient TV? The constant scent of burnt toast, peppers cooked in oil, and cheap perfume from the girls three doors down the hall were missing, too.

Zane reached up to feel his eyes, his eyelashes fluttering against his fingertips. Then he plugged and unplugged his ears with his fingers, but it made no difference.

The world still remained at a distance.

Panic jolted through Zane. He couldn’t be dying. Not yet. He hadn’t finished his mission. He still hadn’t met….

Ah.

Zane took a deep breath and calmed himself. He sat up slowly on his narrow cot, his old bones protesting, then swung his legs over.

His bare feet landed solidly on the cold concrete of his floor.

Zane pushed himself up, and after a shaky step, the world slammed back into him.

His tiny room still looked the same, with stained plaster walls painted a somber peach color—supposedly to brighten the place up but they looked dingy, instead. The corner held a sink with dishes piled high and too many empty cerveza and tequila bottles. A dresser stood in the other corner, with his few shabby and never completely clean shirts and jeans.

When Zane turned around, he saw that a shadow still lingered on his bed, like a lone cloud, unraveling and disappearing even as he watched.

“Tsk, tsk.” Zane shook his head.

Las Sombras were playing their tricks again.

The shadows knew Zane watched. They knew he waited. But after all this time, even with the tricks they played on his mind, they still didn’t know for what.

Zane wasn’t sure himself, some days. It had been so long since he’d been given this task. And the shadows confused him, as did the cerveza, the tequila, and time.

He took a deep breath and let his senses expand. The TV on one side played a light jingle, a happy couple in love with their washing machine. On the other, the little ones argued over who got the last of the orange juice. The señora had burnt her toast again, and over that, from outside, drifted the smoke from an untuned motorbike. Two blocks away came the scent of wet concrete, new hotels for tourists. Under it all, la mer whispered her dreams to him.

Zane pulled in his senses and shambled over to his sink to splash water on his face. A tiny mirror hung over it, but Zane didn’t like how it reminded him of his grizzled skin, the patches of gray whiskers, the dark, day-laborer’s tan his hands and arms held; or how his hair grew only along the edges of his overly large skull, and was now more silver than black.

He’d never been handsome, not even as a young man. But he’d had a vitality—the opposite of the old-man exhaustion that hung on him now like a shroud.

He looked up, watching his eyes change from washed-out brown to burning yellow. His pupils elongated, turning into a slit that stole all the color from the world but let him observe even the tiniest movements. He almost didn’t recognize himself; it had been so long since he’d transformed.

In a blink, his human eyes returned. However, his viper soul remained close, just under the surface of his skin.

Soon. The word hissed gently through his blood, as soothing as the morning prayers of his people that he’d forgone long ago.

Zane nodded. Yes. Soon. It was why the shadows had been so merciless in their tricks that week.

Soon it would happen.

His debt would be paid. And maybe his honor restored.

# # #

Zane perched himself high on a wall of the Tulum ruins, next to El Castillo overlooking the ocean. The water was calm and so blue that morning, as pretty as the postcards made it look. Below where he sat, gulls hopped from one rock to the next, certain to find some tidbit missed by the others. Off in the distance, tourist cruise boats sailed, free of care.

The sun soaked into Zane’s skin, stupefying his viper soul. Or maybe that was also his disguise—the nearly empty bottle of cheap tequila in the brown paper bag beside him. He hadn’t meant to drink so much, particularly this early in the morning. The park guards wouldn’t approve if they saw him—a drunken day laborer might scare the tourists. From looking at him, they’d never know that he was actually an American and not some down-on-his-luck, back-country Mayan.

But Zane had been here in Tulum so long, gone so native, he forgot himself sometimes.

His friends, the shadows, helped hide him today—at least for now, before they decided to trick him again.

Maybe they weren’t really his friends.

Ah, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered today except looking out over the beautiful coast with its perfect white sand and blue-blue waters, and waiting.

Tourists scrambled up the steep pyramid steps behind Zane, but they mostly didn’t see him. They remarked about the castle and the gorgeous location, their voices as raucous as the gulls. They snapped pictures like mad when an iguana strolled by.

It warmed Zane’s cold heart that the creature recognized him as a threat and kept a safe distance from him, as if he would bother with such poor, unrelated cousins.

The sour smell of the liquor washed over Zane as he finished the bottle. He knew that to play the part of the drunken local, he should just toss the bottle over the side of the wall, but he couldn’t make himself do it, couldn’t bring himself to dirty the clean white sands beneath him.

Instead he stood, slowly stretching, swaying in the constant ocean wind. Maybe today wasn’t the day. He could go back home and nap through the heat of the day, come back out looking that evening.

A squawking laugh echoed behind him.

Black rage clouded the bright day. Zane turned around.

A dark-skinned young man with light-colored, spiky hair raced up the steps. A young woman, pale-skinned with brown hair done up in a ponytail, ran beside him. Obviously tourists, wearing immodest T-shirts, shorts, and sandals.

Though the boy looked fully human, Zane saw what he was, and he couldn’t contain his hiss.

One of the raven clan? Here?

Those damn birds had ruined everything, betrayed his clan and all the others.

What they’d done had been worse than his own misdeeds, when he’d been arrogant and young.

Shadows suddenly gathered at Zane’s side, their cool wisps sliding across his skin.

Zane had never seen faces in the shadows—he didn’t think they had any. They’d never spoken to him directly. They remained like clouds, even after all these years, unknowable.

For the first time, they thrummed with excitement, something Zane understood.

This boy. He meant something to them.

It was finally time.

Zane took one drunken step forward as the couple veered off—warned by some instinct to explore the other tower first.

Before Zane took two more steps, a tour group walked around the corner of El Castillo, pooling around their guide at the bottom of the steps.

Zane shot a scathing look in the direction of the young couple, then he let himself shift, subtly, his nose flattening against his face, his cheekbones spreading out as his viper soul rose closer to the surface.

Yes, there was their scent: musty old feathers, the bright glass of armor, the sweet odor of youth and sex.

He had their scent signature now. He could follow them blindly through a crowd at an open market, over the smells of live chickens, fresh tomatoes, and heaps of chilies.

Zane slowly walked back down the stairs of El Castillo, the tourists sliding around him like river water around a rock.

It was good that Zane could track the raven warrior and his mate, but honestly, it didn’t matter that much.

Damn tourist was a bird. He’d always seek the highest ground, no matter where they went.

And the next time they met, it wouldn’t be in so public a place.

# # #

The day continued bright and sunny, with sea winds to keep it from getting too hot. Zane still felt as if a storm were brewing, could almost see it in the heat haze on the horizon, over the miles of ocean blue. Far below the high stone shelf where he sat, the white sand sparkled. An old iguana the length of his leg warily baked on the warm rocks a few feet away. The wind carried the foreign scents of the tourists on the beach, their perfumed oils and plastic toys.

It also brought the scent of his prey, playing in the water.

His viper soul counseled patience, as always. He listened to it better now than he had as a young man, impetuous and full of his own grand schemes.

Soon, he’d be able to right his wrongs.

A few feet down the trail, just beyond the last sharp turn in the trail up the hill, Zane had dragged a large tumbleweed, deliberately blocking the path so no one would accidentally stumble on him and chase him away from his ambush. The path above was blocked as well. He was confident his trap would work.

The warm sun made Zane sleepy, but he kept his watch through slitted eyes. Fear also kept him awake. If after all these years, these décadas, he failed to….

But he was right. The scent of feathers was suddenly closer.

Zane slipped off his rock and removed the artificial barrier below him, his hands stinging as the thorns pricked him. The raven boy would be too drawn to the highest point to resist, his laughing mate by his side.

Zane had no mate. None would take him after what he did. He would die alone and friendless.

Hopefully, though, he would die satisfied.

The mate led the way up the trail—foolish or selfish on the part of the boy, Zane couldn’t decide. They paused just below the last hairpin turn, looking back the way they’d come, admiring the view.

“It is beautiful from up here, Peter,” she murmured.

“Yeah, Sally, the best view is always from up high,” he replied.

Still, Zane held his breath until they came around that last turn, then he stepped out from where he’d hidden behind a boulder, blocking their way down, their easy escape. They stopped at the far side, on a short incline, where the trail was also blocked, with a rock wall on one side and a long, long tumble down the hill to the other.

“You have come, finally, haven’t you?” Zane proclaimed, feeling his head go broad, his skin hardening and growing scaly, the color draining out of the world.

At least the boy stepped in front of his mate, his fingers already lost to the knife-like feather-blades of a true raven warrior.

“What do you want?” he squawked. His eyes stared, bird-black, oblivious to the shadows about to take him.

“Your kind betrayed us all, didn’t you?” Zane accused him. The pressure along his sinuses increased as his venom sacs filled.

“Centuries ago,” the raven warrior said. “And our young still pay the price.”

“We’ve never recovered, have we?” Zane hissed. Only a trickle of pilgrims came to the mountain monasteries, so few to hear the mystic messages and carry the word down into the valleys.

“I’m sorry,” the birdman said. He sounded truly sorry, as well, not at all like the boastful bird he surely was.

“And you will be more sorry, won’t you?” Zane promised as he took a step closer to the boy. His fangs had started to distend, still hidden inside his mouth but pressing against the bottom of it, longing to come out and sink into something, anything.

Shadows boiled beside Zane, eager for this new sacrifice, beyond the endless ones he’d already made—his family, his life, his true face, and his name.

Though the raven was fast, Zane was faster still. He rushed at the boy, but then brushed past him and grabbed his mate, her pulse a fluttering thing under his palms.

Time slowed. Zane raised one claw-tipped hand, nails dripping with poison. The anguish on the boy’s face was a marvel.

Zane almost felt pity.

But this time, he’d chosen the right target.

With a sweeping motion, Zane lightly scratched down the girl’s left side, careful not to break the skin, hooking the tendrils of a shadow that curled around her waist and yanking it. With his other hand, he pulled the girl away, separating her from the shadow. He flung her to the side, heard her muffled cry and fall.

He hoped she wasn’t hurt, but it didn’t matter. He finally had his prey in hand, a shadow. It was unlike the ones that lived with him: This one had come in a direct line from the first tiger warrior who’d been corrupted by the shadows, the one he hadn’t stopped.

A shadow made whole around the indents of his poisoned talons.

Before the raven or his mate could do or say anything else, Zane struck the shadow thing, sinking his fangs into it.

Finally, one of the damn shadows was solid enough for him to strike it, though its texture was more like biting into rancid oil, not flesh.

The shadow struck back the only way it knew how: cold upon cold upon cold. Ice seared into Zane’s bones, lacing his viper soul with frost. Age dropped on his shoulders like an avalanche, making it difficult to even hold himself up.

Zane hung on, biting deep into the shadow, pumping his venom into its soul, taking away its life as a shadow, forcing his toxin into what served as veins in the creature.

Forcing the shadow to become corporeal, and walk in the light.

After wringing the last drop of poison out, Zane stepped back, letting the thing drop at his feet.

“Do you see?” Zane intoned, the syllables sliding one into another.

“Yes.” The raven and his mate stared at the ground, at the nightmare Zane had made real.

“You will bear witness,” Zane said, knowing that through his proclamation, he would make it come true. “You will tell the hound prince. This is the new form the shadows will take. This is what comes,” he added, his words ringing like a clear bell across the hill, over the water, and through time.

“We will,” they said, falling into the geas laid before them.

The weight of the task laid on Zane so long ago dropped from him, like he’d shed a skin made of stone. He’d finally made things right. The hound prince would know it was time.

Zane—no, he could take his full name again, so Gezane—felt himself grow taller, stronger, as the years fell from him and he reclaimed himself. He was still old, yes, but finally just his own age. The whispering need for liquor disappeared from the back of his mind, and instead, his viper soul circled closer than ever before. The edges of the rocks and the nearby cactus grew sharper, clearer, and the wind blew across him fresh and new, smelling sweetly of hidden flowers.

Gezane had worn his own face as a mask for so long, he couldn’t even imagine how he must appear now.

The raven before Gezane was still fully armed, but he also stood straighter, like a soldier, ready to be commanded.

But the mate—ah—she shone brighter still. Just a worm of a shadow had burrowed into her side and now that it was gone, she was like a beacon.

With a blink of surprise, Gezane realized that it was she the shadows had been after, not the boy. She was the arch stone, the only one strong enough to support them all.

“Thank you,” Gezane said with a deep bow, both to the young couple on whose untested shoulders so much now depended, as well as to the gods who had let him do his duty at last.

They bowed in return. Before they could speak, Gezane told them, “Go now. Enjoy your last day in my beautiful Tulum, won’t you?”

The time to fight would come soon enough for them.

They nodded and left, heading back down the path they’d come up, with many backward glances.

Gezane folded his arms over his chest and looked out over the beautiful ocean, her sweet and salty breezes playing with what remained of his hair. Pride filled him. He’d finally done what he’d been instructed to do, so many years ago.

He’d made the shadows real.

Then he glanced down at the rotting corpulence at his feet, the darkness slipping away in the wind. He knew it wasn’t dead, that it would return in the new shape he’d forced on it.

Was it enough to clear his debt? It didn’t feel like enough for what he’d done.

He’d purposefully delayed the chosen messenger from his people, the one who was supposed to warn of the encroaching shadows. In Gezane’s pride and arrogance, as well as the confusion brought by the shadows, he’d thought he could take the other’s place, gaining the glory for himself and his family.

Instead, he’d missed the meeting, the one chance when the tiger clan would have been open to the message. He’d arrived a day late, and therefore had imperiled the world, the shadows growing stronger in the intervening years.

He’d hurt so many: all in his family were scorned; so many more people the shadows had corrupted because they’d been able to gain strength; the poor hound prince and the burden he’d had to carry.

No, giving his life as he had wouldn’t repay his debt. But at least now, if the raven’s mate proved strong enough, there was a chance the world wouldn’t end in darkness.

# # #

Gezane spent the rest of the afternoon wandering, seeing Tulum with fond, fresh eyes. The markets amazed him, heaping piles of flowers, sharp spices, and racks of cheap clothes. People smiled at him as he slipped around them, of but not in the world. The sea called to him, and he dipped his hand in her, tasting her salt.

He didn’t visit his rundown apartment—though he doubted anyone would recognize him, they might mistake him for a younger cousin or brother of the old drunk who had lived there, and he didn’t want to accidentally endanger anyone who might be friendly to him.

The shadows would never let Gezane live after his decades-long treachery.

Still, Gezane walked down a crossroad two blocks away, letting his senses flare for only a moment. The young ones laughed as they watched secondhand cartoons given to them by the Americans. The señora was gone, but the scent of her burnt toast remained. The concrete from the new hotel no longer smelled wet, and underneath it lay the sweet ocean tainting the air with her salt.

As darkness stole the brilliant orange and red from the sunset, Gezane headed out of town along one of the old roads, going toward the interior. Not the new road the tourist buses drove carelessly along, no; instead, an original sak beh, a white road long abandoned by the people who’d once lived there, distant relatives of Gezane’s clan.

Even in the dark of the jungle night, Gezane could see the glittering stones of the road, reflecting the brilliant Milky Way as the humans naïvely called it.

Gezane preferred his people’s name for it—the Unending Dagger—a promise not just of quick death, but peace on the other side.

The shadows formed quickly once Gezane stepped out from under the trees and into a clearing. They brushed against him, pushing him forward until a solid shape rose out of the ground.

The hissing tones reminded Gezane of the council who’d proclaimed his fate and the task they’d set him. The death-like stench rolled out from the shadow, reminding Gezane of the stinking heaps of garbage hidden from tourists south of town.

“I think you forgot to kill me,” the shadow stated, swaying and undulating before him, like silk hanging from a window.

“Can you die?” Gezane asked.

The council hadn’t been sure if the shadows could be killed in their natural state.

“Of course not,” the shadow scoffed. “Still, you tried.”

“Did I?” Gezane asked, surprised at how little bitterness flowed through his veins. Like his poison, it had been drained away.

“Do not play games with me, mystic,” the shadow growled.

“Am I a mystic?” Gezane couldn’t help but ask, grinning. He’d never had a vision, just cheated the one who had, tried to steal it from him.

The cold struck with the force of a blow, though all the shadow had done was tap him on the chest with a curling tendril. Sudden exhaustion made him hunch over.

“Answer true,” the shadow admonished.

Gezane caught his breath in the humid night as the touch withdrew, and drew himself upright again. He resisted reaching up to rub at the spot, but instead stayed in the game. “You don’t know my clan well, do you?”

Never answer an outsider’s question, except with another question, was one of the oldest recitations of his kind.

“Why haven’t you ever spoken to me like this before?” Gezane asked after the shadow had touched him again, and the clarity of the night had returned with its uncaring stars burning brilliantly above his head.

“I only now have form. Form that you gave me,” the shadow explained. “I don’t believe that was your intent.”

Gezane tilted his head to one side as if considering. He waited, enjoying the loud song of the cicadas in the surrounding jungle, the warm humid air, the rotting smell of jungle mulch mingling with the wet smells of rotting corpses from the shadows, as patient as his viper soul had always wanted him to be.

He would never, ever, admit that it had always been the council’s intent to give the shadows form.

“You have made me much more powerful,” the shadow claimed, finally ending the silence. It billowed out like a dust storm, filling the clearing, casting its dark form between Gezane and the stars, turning their light thin and tinny.

“Did I?” Gezane asked through rote, his features shifting, his nose flattening and his skull widening as his venom sacks filled.

The shadow laughed, sending icy shivers down Gezane’s spine.

“I will take the light from you,” the shadow promised. “You will tell me everything, even as you forget your own name.”

“Surely you understand my nature by now?” Gezane asked, the words slithering out as his mouth made further adjustments.

“That you are false, even unto the secret smiles you give your young, never to be trusted or believed? Yes, that much we have learned.” The shadow paused, then added, “You robbed the bird’s mate from us.”

“Did you really have her?” Gezane asked as he swayed, undulating like the shadow before him, as if he couldn’t help himself.

“No,” the shadow admitted. “But we would have, eventually. Just as we’ll have you.”

“You know what they say about the viper clan, yes?” Gezane asked, the words hard to form now with his full snake mouth, fangs extending.

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever—”

“Beware,” Gezane interrupted, striking out lightning fast.

Nothing on earth could catch one of the viper clan, stop one of them from latching on. They moved the quickest of all the clans.

Yet, the shadow did.

“I do know you,” the shadow said as Gezane stood, stretched forward, frozen, unable to move, barely able to blink in the shadow’s iron grasp. “I know I can never be prepared enough for your treachery. But such a simple attack? Really? You should know better.”

And Gezane did. He truly did. He knew how the shadows clouded his mind.

How fast had he been actually moving before he struck?

“Now we will milk you, relieve you of your poison until you are dry. Then again, and again. You will make all my followers as powerful, as corporeal, as I.”

No! screamed Gezane, deep in his head, unable to move or make a sound.

Patience. A calm overtook Gezane as his viper soul rose closer to the surface.

The hound prince, the ravens, they will think I helped the shadows, that I worked with them, creating more of them, Gezane said, shuddering as the cold violated him, stroking his extended fangs, safely extracting his toxin.

Only enough, his viper soul assured him. There are plans within plans. Now rest. You have earned it. It is the others’ time to fight.

But only because I put them in harm’s way. Now the bitterness came back, flooding Gezane again. So much time wasted. So many lives.

You were part of the problem, yes. Now, you are part of the solution. So rest.

But—

Rest.

And the world faded into endless blackness.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Story Inspiration Sunday

I am not much of a cook: I do much more assembly, when it comes to meals, as opposed to actual cooking.

Though that actually depends on your definition of cooking.

For example, I do make my own chicken broth. I save bones in the freezer, and when I get enough, I throw them into a pot with a bottle of the cheapest white wine I can find, along with some vinegar and water. I cook it for hours, letting it simmer and reduce. When it cools, it will have a gelatinous layer–all the calcium cooked out of the bones. I freeze the broth, and use it for crockpot stews. It’s also my beverage of choice if I have a bad cold.

Contrast that with my dinners. I cook all the meat for the week on the weekend, then I just reheat with veggies or salad. Assembly, not cooking.

But I was thinking about how food inspires writers and other creative types.

(Warning! Pictures and content below the cut may make you hungry!)

Usually, food isn’t just food to writers. It’s words strung together, like a candy necklace. Or his goodbye kiss, as sweet as the first lemonade of summer.

One of the things that I enjoy doing is creating a metaphor and simile suite: some characters are always going to be defined by their Aunt Jessiebell’s blueberry pie, or their mama’s fried chicken. And others are going to mix their friends and lovers like Uncle Lee’s stir fry.

Food defines us, or rather, our characters. One of the best pieces of advice I heard as a younger writer was to let your characters eat. Yes, keep the tension high: maybe it’s just chicken butts on a stick that they snatch as they’re running through a night market. Or maybe it’s a good break between scenes, where you can ramp up the emotional tension.

Hopefully I’ve given you some food for thought!

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

FINISHED! Siren’s Call

Woo Hoo!

I just finished typing the first draft of my new novel, Siren’s Call!!!

This is the novel that I went to New Orleans for. I started it while I was living there, but I couldn’t finish it at that point. I needed to let the experience deepen for a while, and I needed to mature more as a writer.

This draft is really, really, broken. There are so many things that I need to fix in it before I send it to my first readers.

Fortunately, I took notes while I was writing the novel, so I already have lots of ideas, as well as kind of a plan for how to fix it.

Despite how broken I think this draft is, I still love this novel. It’s been one of the easiest novels for me to write. I really didn’t have any issues with it until the last couple of chapters.

So yay! The first draft is done! I have the month of July to fix it. I have a lot of other things I must do in July as well, but I don’t feel panicked. It’s a lot of work, but I feel confident that I can do it.

Ask me again how I feel about the novel once I’ve fixed it, but for now, I feel as though this could be one of my best works.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Free Fiction Monday — The Tiger’s Shadow

On July 9th, my new novel, The Guardian Hound, is being published by Book View Cafe.

It’s coming soon!

In the five weeks leading up to the novel release, I am publishing a short story a week, and having each available for free for that week. All the stories are about the world or somehow involved with The Guardian Hound and the various clans.

Chronologically, I wrote this story, A Tiger’s Shadow, before I wrote the story for last week, A Prophesy in Shadows. But once I finished this story, I knew I had to write what came before it.

I know I said that A Prophesy in Shadows was the second story I wrote, when I was only writing short stories and not tackling the novel yet. But I was wrong. It was the third story. This story, A Tiger’s Shadow, was actually the second story I wrote for the novel. It’s included as part of The Guardian Hound.

This story takes place during what is now called The Week of Long Knives, in Calcutta, in 1947.

Enjoy!

The Tiger’s Shadow

India, 1947



Betty could never admit to Mother or Father how much she missed the English rain. Not just the way it patted softly against the roof of the gazebo in the garden, but the smell of it, green and fresh. Even when it was cold, and the sun had been hiding behind gray clouds for weeks, the rain still carried the scent of rich soil and new leaves slowly unfurling.

Calcutta never smelled that way. Instead, it smelled of hot bodies that never bathed, of the cow dung and dirt that made up the streets, of pasty dye used to dot the natives’ foreheads and drizzled across women’s palms in beautiful patterns.

Yes, it was exciting to live in such an exotic, foreign city, with the mad colors and the noise of the market, the women in their elegant saris, the men looking formal in their white tunics, long trousers, and funny hats.

Her friends back in England complained bitterly that since the London Victory celebrations heralding the end of the Second World War, there was nothing to do, and begged her for anecdotes of her travel.

However, Betty had no tales to tell them, not recently. The British were leaving, letting India rule herself. There was much unrest. Mother and Father didn’t let her travel anymore, telling her that she was too young at only sixteen, and that it was too dangerous, even with an armed escort of soldiers.

Betty suspected they might be right, at least for now. Layered underneath the smell of rich spices and extreme poverty rolled a thick scent of fear.

Not the delicious, sizzling fear of prey, or the heady scent of a combatant certain to lose a challenge. No, a cloying scent that clogged the back of Betty’s throat and made the air, already humid and moist, even stickier.

Betty wasn’t sure why there was so much fear in the air. The natives were probably capable of ruling themselves. Even the council of the tiger clan had agreed to split, with two groups leading, one all Indian, and one all British. They were going to separate for a decade or more; Betty was sad she wouldn’t be able to visit her cousins again for so long.

As independence day approached, Betty had seen her cousins walk taller, as if they were trying out their new freedom. Of course, they told her she wouldn’t understand—that was their most common response to any of her questions. Her cousins still covered their heads like all the women did here and said the proper, polite things.

However, a restlessness boiled just underneath the placid surface.

Betty was on edge as well. Her skin seemed to shrink and mold onto her bones, as if there wasn’t enough room for her inside her own body. Sparking electricity bubbled in her blood, as if even her usual limp brown hair was about to stand on end.

To Betty, it was similar to the transformation, like the time just before her tiger soul emerged.

Aunt Tanita had described the change like slipping into a stream of silk.

Betty had never felt that way. It was always a fight to let her tiger soul completely out, another to reign it in. She scoffed at the old recitations even as she carefully memorized and wrote out each one. Find the balance. Be one.

Her tiger soul meant power and control.

No one would ever be able to accuse Betty of being wild, the worst insult she and her cousins could hurl at one another—out of control, not tame, a mere beast; no longer human or tiger, but a creature that none could reason with.

Though in her secret heart of hearts, Betty wished she could let go and be as wild as her soul sometimes felt.

# # #

The summer heat pressed down on Fort Williams, making it too hot to sleep. Betty walked along the second floor veranda facing the formal gardens, breathing in the sweet night jasmine, the musky clematis, and the heady wild roses.

She never saw stars in London like she did here in Calcutta. Then again, except for during The Blitz, London had always had her own light.

Betty shivered in the hot, humid night, pulling her knitted shawl closer over her white cotton nightgown. She couldn’t imagine living through such an attack. It made her want to growl just thinking about being closed in at night, every night, for weeks.

Even without the light, Betty, like the rest of the tiger clan, saw well in the dark, easily avoiding the pots near the railing filled with Mother’s hopeless English Ivy, as well as the chairs that had been pulled from the nearby gallery.

Then she saw the shadow, a patch of night darker than the rest. Betty looked behind her, as well as above, but she didn’t see a light source, nothing bright enough to cause such a dark spot.

The troubling cloud slid to the side as Betty approached, leaving a thin, black trail behind.

Betty reached out and tried to grasp the slight remains of the dark, but it was like catching at smoke: It left nothing behind but her slightly chilled fingers.

It was magic, though, something powerful.

Betty hesitated. Should she go get Mother? She knew much more about spells and charms than Betty did.

Then Betty’s tiger soul rose. They could face anything together. She didn’t need Mother, or Father, or her cousins.

She would prove that she was capable of handling this on her own, despite only being sixteen.

Claws emerged from the tips of Betty’s fingernails. Her jaw grew heavy, stronger, and her mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.

The darkness before Betty intensified, spreading like oil across clear water. Fear spiked through her chest, but she shook her head, growling.

If her cousins could battle for independence against their own people, Betty, and her family, then she could be brave as well.

But she didn’t have to be stupid.

Instead of wading into the blackening cloud, like her tiger soul urged, Betty reached out with one clawed hand and carved a bit of the shadow off, a long squiggling line, separating it from the rest, as easily as a knife cutting through silk.

For a brief moment the two remained separate, the cloud and its little tendril, then the shadow collected itself back together, and no trace of the tear remained.

Yet, something had happened.

Betty sensed the shadow’s rising excitement, much like her own these days at the mere mention of leaving the fort, or of coming visitors.

The shadow pulled in on itself, slowly, leaking out of the world until nothing remained except Betty, the too-hot night air, and a lingering sense of promise.

# # #

“Let’s go to the market,” Betty proposed to her cousins Abhya and Shalini, visiting from the north. They weren’t much older than Betty, but their mother had let them travel by themselves, coming by train with a male cousin.

The cousins had the same mother, but different fathers, as was traditional in the tiger clan. Abhya had dark skin—almost as dark as the little African boy the missionaries had brought back with them. Shalini was pale as milky tea. They shared the same deep brown eyes, thick black hair, and moon-shaped faces as their mother.

The three of them sat together in the morning room, leaning against pillows and drinking tea. The day was humid and still, no wind to carry away the hot stink of fear that had invaded the fort that week. Betty was desperate for something, anything, to distract her from the tingling anticipation and anxiousness that buzzed across her skin.

“Is it safe?” Abhya asked.

Betty always found it funny that though Abhya meant fearless, her darker cousin was constantly concerned about potential risks.

“We’ll take one of Father’s soldiers,” Betty assured her.

She didn’t bother to tell them that Mother had deemed it safe; her cousins didn’t think much of Betty’s mother. Not many in tiger clan did. She’d not only married Father, but they’d raised Betty in the human fashion, with nannies and tutors, instead of sending her to the shishu greeha to be raised with the other tiger clan girls her age, sisters for life regardless of actual blood ties. Betty had still traveled to the commune every summer, so she’d at least met her sisters, but she’d never bonded with them—she was always an outsider, even to her own clan.

Betty suspected that the reason her parents sent her was so that they could have time by themselves, something they greatly desired. Her parents always looked at each other with such tenderness, as if Betty wasn’t even there.

Shalini finally said, “Only if we go by car.”

“Of course,” Betty said.

She didn’t tell them that the only car they could get was one of the Royal Force’s Jeeps. It was a horrid beige color, like dried mud. The wide wheels took every bump hard, jostling Betty’s bones, and the straw-stuffed seats didn’t make the trip any smoother.

However, her cousins seemed happy to be riding in it, even if they couldn’t drive fast enough to raise a decent wind.

Freddie, Betty’s favorite guard, drove them to the edge of the market, then informed them he would stay with the car.

Abhya looked worried at that, but Betty told her again, “It’s fine.”

Though the stench of fear still rolled at their feet, at least the market had enough other smells to mask it: the salty odor of fresh fish, lemons and oranges from the countryside, dusty tea from the plantations, and the spices—spicy ground peppers, sweet coriander, musty cumin, and comforting cinnamon and nutmeg.

Betty didn’t need to buy anything—the cooks did all the proper shopping for the fort. All she wanted to find was another memento for her friends back in England.

Abhya and Shalini trailed behind Betty as they strolled through the crowded corridors of ramshackle stalls, whispering to each other and barely nodding when she held up a bracelet or oddly carved statue for their commentary.

“What are you two gossiping about?” Betty asked, exasperated.

“Nothing,” Abhya said.

Betty smelled the fear, could practically see it rising like a dirty tide, flowing from their feet up to their waists. She looked around, but she didn’t see any threat. Indian merchants stared at her as they always had, her fair coloring marking her as foreign in this land of dark natives.

“It’s nothing you would understand,” Shalini said dismissively. “Have you finished your shopping?”

“Why wouldn’t I understand?” Betty asked sharply, tired of these digs.

Shalini took Abhya’s hand into the crook of her own elbow, patting it. She whispered something to Abhya and took a step forward.

Betty didn’t give, didn’t move back. Instead, she stared at them in the most rude way possible.

Finally, Shalini looked over Betty’s shoulder and pointed with her chin to a merchant standing there. “We should go.”

Betty turned and stared at the man. His black hair shot was through with gray, while wide brown eyes and thin, disapproving lips filled the rest of his narrow face. He wore the usual local costume: cotton tunic over baggy trousers, with a vest on top, all in shades of gray and tan. He glared fully at them, his hands at his sides, clenching and unclenching.

There was nothing unusual about him, though. Many of the natives were upset with the British for one thing or another. Betty was used to it. She turned to tell her cousins that when she realized he wasn’t even looking at her.

He glared at Abhya and Shalini, instead. In fact, so were many of the other merchants.

The scent in the market had changed as well. Anger began to overlay the constant scent of fear.

“Why are they mad at you?” Betty asked. She would have denied feeling a bit put out that the natives, for once, weren’t paying attention to her.

“They think we’re Muslim,” Abhya said softly.

Betty shook her head, then turned and started walking back the way they’d come. Of course, her cousins worshipped Traya, goddess of the tigers, same as all the tiger clan. They just pretended to follow the local religion, just as Betty and her parents regularly went to Church of England services.

Fit in was one of the recitations Betty resented the most strongly, but still obeyed.

“Why would that matter?” Betty asked as she stopped, picking up a small leather purse and waving it at the wizened old woman sitting behind the counter, sucking on her three remaining teeth.

“Five rupee,” she croaked out, holding up a wrinkled, frail hand, all fingers extended.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Shalini said.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Betty muttered. Then she turned her attention back to the old trader. “Half a rupee,” she said. “Look at how small this is! It will barely hold even that small a coin. Bah!”

The old woman heaved a tremendous sigh. “Feel how soft,” she said. “Each stitch, prayed over,” she added, folding her hands over her chest and bobbing her head. “Blessed,” she said. “Three rupees.”

Betty held the purse up, opening it and looking inside. “Any luck will fall out,” she complained. “The stitches are too wide. Uneven. One rupee.”

“One and one half, with blessings on my dear boy’s head,” the old woman said, dropping her hand to a picture of some Indian god blowing a flute, blue and smiling, with many arms.

Betty sniffed but gave in. She handed the purse to her cousins without looking back while she dug out her coins.

When Betty turned back to Abhya and Shalini, they both scowled at her.

More of the merchants were standing, drawing near, looking angry as well, but at least their anger wasn’t directed at her for once.

“I am not your servant,” Abhya hissed, drawing near. “I am not here to fetch and carry for you,” she added as she pushed the purse back into Betty’s hands.

“Of course not,” Betty said, confused. What had she done wrong? She would have helped carry their things if they needed. Or was it one of those Indian things she’d never understand?

“We must go now,” Shalini said.

“But—” Betty started. She really wanted to go get some lemonade from a shop near here.

“Now,” Abhya said, looking over Betty’s shoulder.

The merchants had gathered closer.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” Betty said, reaching out for Abhya’s other hand.

“Not for much longer, English,” muttered one of the nearby merchants.

Before Betty could make any remark in return, Freddie was suddenly there. “We need to get home, Miss,” was all he said.

No one looked away or sat back down. Betty suddenly realized that just as her cousins had started walking taller, so had the rest of their countrymen.

Betty nodded and followed Freddie out of the marketplace, letting him push through the crowds of staring Indians, clearing the way for all of them. She kept her head high, her expression, stern.

Yes, the British would be leaving India soon.

Good riddance.

# # #

A tendril of shadow followed Betty into her dreams that night. She stood in a cave dark enough that she needed a torch to see. The walls reflected back yellow and gray, with hidden water dripping behind her. The smell of dust and long-dried bones tickled her nose. Under her feet, the path was covered with fine dirt that puffed up as she walked and muffled all noise.

In the absolute darkness, Betty could follow the shadow more easily. Here, in her dream, she could tell just how different it was from the surrounding blackness. It moved like an eel, swimming upstream against the currents of air.

Betty followed it, further under the mountain. She knew (as one does in dreams) that she was the only person to have ever been there. No intrepid explorer had ever dug down into these depths. No other eye had beheld the graceful dripping of rock, like artful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, or the subtle colors, layered like a sunset, red, yellow, and white.

The path led to a large, open cavern in the heart of the mountain. Shadows churned in the center of the wide open space, boiling up like a fountain, then falling back down again. The walls sweated with the effort of the shadows, smelling like sweet incense burned in sacrifice.

But this wasn’t what the tendril of shadow wanted to show Betty.

It led her around the frantic clouds to a side corner, where a thick, still pool gathered at the foot of the rock. It looked like crude oil, midnight black and sticky.

The tendril of shadow urged Betty forward, wanting her to step into the pool.

For the first time, Betty resisted. The darkness of the pool seemed complete and overwhelming; if she stepped into it, she might never get clean again. The shadows here were angry and chaotic—they moved outside of human purpose, like a wild beast, unknowable and not moved by reason.

The little shadow reared up in front of her, changing form, its head flattening out like the snakes Betty had seen performing in the marketplace, fangs extending.

It was still just a wisp of a thing, not truly deadly. Still, Betty retreated, and her tiger soul pushed forward, taking over.

The cave grew brighter and the shadows lost form and density, becoming more like mist or fog.

However, the pool gained depth, as well as a telltale shimmer.

Magic, thick and potent, floated there.

Betty suddenly understood: Stepping into the pool would meld her own meager magical abilities with those of the shadows. The further she submerged herself, the stronger she would grow magically.

Betty’s tiger soul hissed, backing away from such a change. She didn’t trust it. She leapt up, the shadowy mist unable to hold her, pushing her way higher and higher through the air until they flew out of the mountain.

The land below was no longer India, but Betty’s beloved England. Sparkling green fields dotted with lazy sheep spread out in all directions below her, while hedges covered in fragrant pink roses divided the green into neat, orderly squares.

The brightness of the sun warmed not only Betty’s back, but her soul. It made her tiger soul playful as it never was awake. They landed softly on a hill, pink petals floating up. Her tiger pounced on the petals, capturing them in gentle paws, then rolled in the sweet grass.

Something made Betty turn and look back.

The towering mountain loomed behind them, dark and powerful, its shadow growing.

Betty gave a loud, body-shaking roar, but it sounded like a kitten’s squeak in the face of such might.

# # #

“Stay inside today,” Father ordered, showing up as Betty ate her breakfast alone in the room adjacent to the kitchen; too lowly to call it a dining room, and too homely to be called a breakfast nook. The walls were painted a drab brown, the table in the center taking up most of the space.

Betty tried to convince herself that she was like the lady of the house, sitting alone and having her tea and toast, but she was actually lonely.

“Why?” Betty asked, not because she cared, but because she hated the idea of being stuck anywhere, at anytime.

“The Muslim leadership is calling for a general strike—some sort of day of direct action.”

“Abhya and Shalini left this morning,” Betty told him. “They were heading back home, by train.”

“Hmm,” Father said, obviously worried. “I’ll send some guards to the station, pick them up if the trains aren’t running.”

“Thank you,” Betty said. “Where will you spend today?” she asked, just to keep him there a bit longer.

“I’ll be in my office all day,” Father said.

He looked so dashing in his uniform, with his finely trimmed mustache and twinkling green eyes. Betty had always thought he looked like the epitome of a British officer.

“Reports and paperwork are the most exciting things I have to look forward to.” He paused, giving her a conspiratorial wink. “I think you should find your mother. She said something about making a tent…”

“Oh, yes!” Betty said eagerly. She would happily stay inside if Mother was in a playful mood.

Still…

“Be careful, Father,” Betty said. The air continued to reek of sickening fear and blazing anger.

“Don’t worry. I shan’t be faced with anything more deadly than a paper cut, I promise.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “You’ve grown,” he said softly. “I forget sometimes how old you are now.”

Betty sat up straighter, preening.

“Now, that’s enough of that,” Father said with mock sternness. “Go attend your mother. I’ll try to have lunch with you later.”

With that, Father strode from the room.

Betty hastily downed the rest of her tea, then went off in search of her mother. She found her in one of the long galleries that faced the garden, which had portraits of the King and other important leaders glaring down at them.

“Quick, quick!” Mother said, reaching for Betty’s hand, then pulling her along.

Mother was in native garb that day, a pretty pajama tunic made from plain white cloth, though the placket in the front, as well as the cuffs and hem, were decorated in black and gold. She wore a traditional shawl over her auburn hair, and nothing on her feet.

They raced the length of the gallery, Betty giggling as her mother tugged at her hand and urged her to go faster. They barely slowed going around the corner, then Mother led Betty to the corner study.

Mother had decided to play “tent” that day. Carpets and pillows lay heaped across the floor, while the walls were hidden by long, billowing strips of cloth, making everything seem soft, hiding the hard lines. The room had changed from drab brown to rich red, orange, and pink. Sweet patchouli burned on a low altar against the far wall, and candles were lit everywhere, hanging from the ceiling and lining the floor.

It was also stifling hot.

Betty paused by the door. She saw the distraction charms twinkling in the cardinal points, while enchantment dots wove their way between the soft silks.

It was a trick. A distraction. Mother and Father must have planned it together.

Father had lied. Something bad must be happening.

“No, no, nothing bad,” Mother reassured Betty, tugging on her hand.

Betty resisted, staying stubbornly on the threshold.

“It’s just—I know how much you hate being cooped up,” Mother confessed. “This was an easy way for us to spend the time.”

“I’m not a child,” Betty said. “You could have just told me.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps you wouldn’t have listened, either,” Mother said quietly. “And today, you needed to listen.”

“What’s going on?” Betty asked, risking a single foot inside the room.

The magical appeal of the room washed over Betty quickly, tempting her with unknown delights. It would be so easy to lose a day in there. But there was something she needed to do first, something she had to tell Mother.

“We don’t know,” Mother admitted. “There have been warnings. Not from the Indian government, of course. But others. We were supposed to have a visitor today, from the Americas. To bring us news. Of course, he was delayed. So we delay.”

“But Mother—” Betty knew she must tell her mother something about her cousins. She’d told Father, but it wasn’t enough, she knew it wasn’t enough.

“So come,” Mother said, drawing Betty all the way into the room. “I know you saw the distraction and enchantment charms, but what about this one?” she asked, pointing to the ceiling at a charm Betty hadn’t seen.

What a pretty charm. She sensed that it was more about light than distraction, though. “What is it?” she asked, the little niggling fear in the back of her thoughts disappearing.

The door closed silently behind her, swung shut by no human hand.

And Betty was entertained for the entire day.

# # #

Betty and Mother came out of the room, laughing. Betty knew she wouldn’t remember everything from that day—the distraction spells had been too strong. But she’d remember the magic Mother taught her: the protection spell, the light charm, and others.

The distraction spell had also lessened the hurt when Mother commented, yet again, on how meager Betty’s own magic was.

A soldier waited for them in the corridor, directly opposite the door. “The commander would like to see you,” he said stiffly, bowing.

Mother sniffed the air, then gripped Betty’s hand again and set off quickly.

Betty could smell it, too: The stinking fear that had invaded the city was now mingled with an undercurrent of spilled blood.

Father sat behind his desk. Instead of the order Betty was used to, the top was littered with reports, maps hung off the edges, and books were open facedown with other books crushing their spines. The cabinet in the corner had its drawers pulled out, papers and folders strewn across them.

“Are Abhya and Shalini with you?” Father asked at once, standing, looking worried.

“No, of course not,” Mother said. “I was training Betty all day.”

“I sent soldiers to the train station after the general assembly,” Father told Betty.

Mother looked at Betty.

“They decided to go back home this morning,” Betty told her.

“You should have told me,” Mother accused her, growing pale. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I? You had me distracted from the moment I set foot in there,” Betty spat back.

“Distracted! Not addlepated!” Mother shot back. “You should have been strong enough to resist. At least long enough to have told me that your cousins had left the fort. This is all your fault!”

“I told Father,” Betty said.

“We couldn’t find them,” Father said. “And the leaders of the general assembly put forward a call for direct action. Many answered that call—now there’s rioting and mayhem in the streets.”

Betty could smell the small current of relief from Father—as least the mad bastards were only attacking each other, Muslim versus Hindu, not both of them against the British for once.

“Come,” Mother said. She raced back to the corner study, plucking a wad of unspun cotton from the air, wrapping it in plaited twine. Then she spun the lure, muttering a seeking spell.

The lure flew in a direct path north, then abruptly stopped as if it had hit an invisible wall and fell to the floor.

Fear pounced on Betty, making her sway where she stood.

Someone else’s spell blocked them from finding her cousins.

“We must go get them. Now,” Mother growled, turning toward the door.

“No,” Father said.

Betty turned to look at him, surprised that he’d followed them into the room. Mother must have let down the guard spells for him to come in.

Or maybe she never blocked Father.

“It’s too dangerous,” Father insisted. “Listen to the city.”

Mother waved her hand and suddenly the far-off sounds were magnified.

Angry shouts filled the room, punctuated by the tinkling of broken glass. A terrified woman’s scream was suddenly cut off, followed by the cracking of out-of-control fires.

“But—”

“I cannot lose you,” Father said softly, moving forward to touch Mother’s shoulder.

Betty knew what always came next, and turned away. When she turned back, Mother and Father were in each other’s arms. At least they’d finished kissing.

“Those poor girls,” Mother murmured.

“It’s too dangerous,” Father repeated. “Even for you. Especially for you, if there’s another spell caster out there.”

Betty bent her head and looked at the ground. No one would save her cousins. Mother might have been able to do it, to push past the other’s magic, but Father wouldn’t let her go.

And Betty couldn’t do it. Her magic wasn’t strong enough.

Mother was right.

If her cousins were dead, it was all Betty’s fault.

# # #

That night, Betty kept vigil with her parents. Father sent a few scouts into the city, mapping out the worst of the fighting but not engaging.

His superiors had been very clear about that: The British forces weren’t to engage. Not yet.

They sat on the veranda overlooking the gardens, the night wrapped around them, each wrapped in their own thoughts.

Betty told her parents of the incident in the market. Father directed his spies there, but they found nothing.

The sounds of fighting in the far distance died as the false dawn crept in. Smoke and tears joined the other scents, the jasmine mingled with fear, hot, coppery blood with the roses.

Mother tried her finding spell again as soon as it was light enough. The blocking spell was gone. The lure flew freely around the still-tented room.

However, it landed upside down.

The fear that had settled in Betty’s gut rose up again, making her feel sick.

“Just past the market,” Mother hissed, giving directions. “Quickly.”

Then she took Betty’s hand and returned to the veranda, waiting.

The normal sounds of soldiers returned: muttered conversations, the clank of boots on concrete, shifting sounds of metal and uniforms. Cook had fixed porridge for breakfast, but both Betty and Mother had let it sit, not even tasting it.

Dread clenched Betty’s stomach. She told herself that the lure may have found clothing or bags belonging to her cousins. That was why it had landed upside down.

Not that it had found bodies.

Mother looked up when the Jeep returned. How she heard the single engine and identified it, Betty couldn’t be sure. Her own magic wasn’t strong enough. She could only follow Mother from the veranda.

One long wooden stretcher lay across the hood of the Jeep, while a second across the back. Even as they entered the courtyard Betty knew they were merely corpses, not her cousins.

Mother gave a great tiger howl. Betty joined in.

Other women in the compound—natives—joined in their cry of grief, shattering all the activity around them, the soldiers freezing as the sound undulated.

The girls hadn’t been desecrated, at least not physically. No, it was much worse. They stank of putrid herbs and foul rites.

The damn native dhayana had stolen their tiger souls.

“Mother—” Betty said, horrified.

“We will deal with this,” Mother said, her voice like iron.

The tiger clan would get revenge on the witch.

Hurt one, hurt all…a recitation Betty was truly grateful for.

# # #

That night, the shadows brought a different dream. Betty strolled through the rows at a country fair in a mythical England, bright and green with soft air filled with the scents of new grass, spring tulips, and daffodils. She wore an old-fashioned frock made from frilly white lace that swept down to the ground, with matching white gloves and a pillbox hat.

Crowds of people stood in the distance, but whenever Betty approached them, they moved to the next spot, so when Betty arrived where they’d been, it was deserted. She knew they’d been there, however, because of the debris they’d left behind: half-eaten candied apples, torn tickets and wrappers, nuts and dried fruits stepped on and pushed into the soft ground, even a lone, gray silk glove.

Betty walked slowly past the carnival stages. One had a guessing game about the number of rusty horseshoe nails in a glass jar big enough to hold a person’s head. Another had a hoop-throwing game, where customers paid to throw brightly colored bracelets over wooden pins and win silly stuffed toys.

Then Betty came to the row of freak shows: the ancient blond man who had wings instead of arms; the fat female boar who rode a tricycle in erratic circles on the small stage; the ugly tattooed man with a huge, flat head and the eyes and tongue of a snake; the pathetic dog boy; and a scary Asian woman with a long snout and scales instead of skin.

The last stage held a mighty tiger who struggled against the shadows that had pinned down all four of her paws as well as wrapped around her muzzle so she couldn’t pace or roar.

Betty leaped up on the stage easily, despite her long skirt. She plucked the shadows from the tiger. They stretched like taffy, then snapped up, wrapping around her hands and wrists. However, they didn’t weigh her down like they had the tiger. Instead, they seeped into her skin, down to her bones, spreading along them and making them like steel.

The shadows also wormed their way into the base of her spine, where her magic pooled, expanding it and thickening it, making it more like molasses than black wine.

Betty shook with the changes, surprised that her frock still fit as she felt her insides grow and expand, her skin growing tight.

The tiger gave a loud roar, startling Betty, making her look up and see that the tiger stared at her with the dead eyes of her cousins.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you,” Betty said, reaching out and patting the stiff, matted fur. “I’m so sorry.”

Next time, though, with the help of the shadows, she would be strong enough.

# # #

Betty was still tired from no sleep the night before. However, she perked up when one of the guard announced their American visitor had finally arrived.

Mother went to greet him and walk with him to the morning room, while Betty went to the kitchen to order tea. Then Betty followed the servant back up, pausing at the threshold.

The visitor looked quite plain, almost like a native. He wore a common cotton tunic and pants, but he wasn’t an Indian; he wore his black hair long, to his shoulders, and his dark skin had a red tint to it. His face was broad and somehow familiar.

When he turned his black eyes to Betty, she hid her surprise.

He looked like the snake man from her dream.

Not only that, she could tell he was from the viper clan. A shadow creature imposed itself over his face, with scales, snake eyes, and a great golden hood. She was amazed at how clear the vision was. Before the shadows had merged with her magic, she wouldn’t have seen so much, just a vague light making him seem brighter than other regular people even when he stood in the dark.

What could be so important that the clans would contact one another? After centuries of keeping apart, primarily so that no clan would ever betray a rival clan, either accidentally or on purpose like the raven clan had?

“Yes, the shadows,” he was saying as he accepted the cup of tea. “You haven’t had any contact with them? You must avoid them at all costs.”

Betty froze. What did he mean? Why was the viper clan afraid of the shadows?

“I know of no shadow creatures,” Mother said. “Just the dark times we live in.”

“They are coming,” the young man insisted. “Here. We’ve foreseen it.”

“Interesting,” Mother said. “So your mystics still dream?”

The young man nodded.

Betty had heard tales of the viper clan living far away in their mountain villages where mystics spun out visions and dreams, but she’d never seen anyone from another clan. She wondered if the other tales were true: the horrible ravens and their black-hearted assassins, the stupid hounds who were so easily distracted, the chaotic boars that you never brought to a fight because you couldn’t trust them not to turn against you mid-battle, the wealthy crocodiles and their hedonistic palaces.

“Oh, Betty, darling,” Mother called, beckoning her to come further into the room. “This is Gezane, from the Americas. This is Betty, my daughter.”

“Hello,” Betty said, bowing her head so she wouldn’t have to come closer, wouldn’t have to take his hand.

“You haven’t seen any shadow things, have you?” Mother asked.

Gezane caught Betty’s eye. He stared hard at her, his flattened nostrils flaring.

“No, Mother, I haven’t,” Betty lied.

The shadows rose, much like her own tiger soul, giving her words weight and truth so Mother believed her.

However, Gezane knew she hadn’t spoken the truth.

Betty lifted her chin in defiance. What could he possibly do about it? The shadows weren’t just in her anymore. They were connected to her magic, as well as all of the tiger clan’s magic.

“I see,” Gezane said softly.

“What do they do, these shadows?” Mother asked. “What should I look out for?”

“They’re powerful and dangerous,” Gezane said, still looking at Betty. “They confuse the mind, and make you say or do things you normally wouldn’t. They can trick you into believing things that aren’t true. Long association can also make a person callous and cruel. They’ll also drain you of energy and life.”

“Are they really that much of a threat?” Mother asked.

“Yes,” Gezane replied, turning his gaze from Betty. “We’ve foreseen that if they’re allowed to grow, they’ll first take over all the clans, then the human races. They’ll destroy our entire world. If you ever see them, you must contact the other clans immediately. You can reach the hounds the easiest, at their court in Germany.”

Betty heard the warning he uttered: She must keep the shadows all to herself.

“Thank you,” Gezane said, standing abruptly. He glanced once again at Betty, looking as sad and pathetic as his dream counterpart. “Goodbye. Good luck.” He nodded to Mother, then walked past Betty as if he no longer saw her.

“What an odd man,” Mother said. “He didn’t even finish his tea. Do you have any idea what that was about? Did your cousins ever say anything to you about the shadows?”

“No, they didn’t,” Betty said easily as she sat down next to her mother.

Power worked in more than one way—and dangerous might only mean that the tiger clan grew stronger than all the other clans. Betty dismissed this Gezane’s claims of the shadows taking over the world. They were just there to help her.

Betty talked with her mother of inconsequential things, distracting them both from the funeral later that day, the packing ahead of them, and the long trip back to England, where Betty would nurture the power she now carried inside of her, that was only a shadow of the greater power to come for the entire tiger clan.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Story Inspiration Sunday

As a child, I told long, involved, and very complicated stories involving my animals. (I wasn’t much into dolls, but I did have a collection of different stuffed toys.) The teddy bear–Pooh Bear–was always the prince, and who often needed rescuing. Generally it was the horses who would get him out of whatever situation he was in, or sometimes, Ziggy the clown.

As part of that story telling, we describe things, like where a character lives, or what they see.

One of the things that inspires me, is to see a picture, then think about how I would describe that accurately in a story.

One of the tricks you learn at some point is that description doesn’t have to be physically exact.

It must, however, be emotionally exact.

Jeans and a white T-shirt. That’s the uniform. But each character wears those clothes differently. Fred there hasn’t washed that T-shirt since it was signed by his favorite rock star back in the 90s. It’s his most prized possession. He wears it proudly, but would never, ever eat in it, or go someplace where it could get stained. While Fredrica? That shirt was bought by her least favorite aunt in her least favorite color and purposefully too big and she’s itching to get to someplace to ruin it.

Here’s another example.

If money were no object, I’d buy this dress in a heartbeat. I think it’s gorgeous. I love the subtle floral pattern that defines the model’s shape.

But how to describe it?

She wore a winter-white gown, sleeveless, with a delicate design of black branches that curved up from her waist and slipped over her shoulders, and also ran down the sides with full, black flowers.

Which kind of gets it, but it isn’t right. It’s just a T-shirt. No heart.

To me, the more interesting thing about this picture is that while the dress fits the model physically, I don’t think it fits her emotionally. She’s tougher than that dress. They’re in conflict.

The winter-white gown flowed from her sleeveless shoulders to the floor, decorated with a delicate pattern of black flowers and twigs, all at odds with her angular hair and sharp eyes.

Which isn’t right either, but I think you get the point.

In this one, it’s a river of black, gold, and silver metatalics, as sleek as the woman herself. I love the pattern of this one, and I don’t feel the model’s at odds with the dress. However, I could still see a description of the soft flowing gown but the metalics make it like armor of a different kind.

So how would you describe these? Do either of them inspire you? And remember, whatever you create will be 100% different than anything I create.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Continuing the process…

I haven’t written much this week. Not at all. Some of it was physical–felt like shit for a couple of days, got hit by a freight-train of a migraine that knocked me on my ass for a day as well.

But I could have written other days. I just didn’t. Couldn’t figure out WTF was going on in my head.

Finally pieced it together this morning. Not only was the end of the previous chapter completely wrong, the scene I was writing and was 1000+ words into was also completely wrong. I need to throw it all out and start from scratch.

This is a situation that’s occurred before, both in this novel as well as others. However, prior to this, when I’d run into this situation, for this novel alone I’d figured it out in a matter of minutes, not days. It was really nice, to be able to know almost instantly when I’d made a misstep, and to be able to correct quickly. I’d run at a scene, know within 500 words that it was wrong, start again (and again.)

Not sure what had speeded up the process prior to this, or what has brought it back to what is, for me, a regular pace. Doesn’t really matter–I’m just happy that I can finish this chapter, write the next one, and declare the first draft DONE.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Free Fiction Monday — Prophesy in Shadows

On July 9th, my new novel, The Guardian Hound, is being published by Book View Cafe.

I continue to be excited about this.

In the five weeks leading up to the novel release, I plan on publishing a short story a week, and having each available for free for that week. All the stories are about the world or somehow involved with The Guardian Hound and the various clans.

This story is actually the first interlude of The Guardian Hound. It was second short story I wrote about the novel, when I was merely writing short stories, and not writing the novel yet.

Enjoy!

Prophesy In Shadows

Guatemala, 1947



Bernardo woke early, as always, before the singing of the chickens, as his friend Olan had jokingly described their noise. He rose from his simple cot and walked directly across the dirt floor to the porcelain bowl in the corner, not stumbling, though the sun hadn’t yet broken past the horizon. He splashed a little water from a cracked pitcher into the bowl, splashed the sleep out of his eyes and the corners of his mouth, then knelt down on his prayer mat in the center of his room with the ease of habit to start his morning meditations.

First, Bernardo spoke to the gods, big and small. He thanked Q’ukamatz—Plumed Serpent—and Itzanam—Grandfather Iguana—as well as the nameless Christian god and his son. He thanked Saint Lonrad for the thick jungle surrounding the temple, and Saint Patrick for leading the viper clan to safety here in the highlands of Guatemala. He asked the gods to keep his feet on the Green Road and to turn his steps away from the Road to Xibalba, harm, and death.

He also asked them to be kind to Olan, who’d just joined them in Heaven, to ease his friend’s way along the Unending Dagger and the Star Road, and not to play too many tricks on him.

Bernardo paused. Tears pressed against his eyes, but he was also smiling. He missed Olan more every day, but the memories of his friend were warm and bright. As Olan had promised him, Death hadn’t ended their relationship, just made it more complicated.

With a quaking voice, Bernardo sang a joyous hymn to the morning, thanking the gods for another day.

He ended his prayers as he always did, asking the gods to put him to service, to use him as they saw fit.

They had yet to answer that part, leaving Bernardo to chose his own path to duty.

Bernardo stood easily. Despite the age hanging off his bones—he’d been born in the previous century—he was still strong enough to do his share of the temple work. He quickly folded up the rough, handwoven mat and placed it on the foot of his cot so that when he went to bed, he’d remember to spread it out for the next morning’s prayers.

The smell of frying dough coated in honey greeted Bernardo as he stepped out of his cell. He wrinkled his nose in annoyance. The cooks were still trying to impress the new recruits with fancy, sweet dishes instead of what they usually served: Tamales with pork, hen soup, beef stew with potatoes and carrots.

The cooks didn’t realize it was hopeless. Few of the viper clan came to the temple anymore; even fewer of the young would stay. Just over a dozen lived there full time anymore.

The mystics had predicted that long ago, after the treachery of the raven clan that had decimated their people.

Still, Bernardo didn’t blame the cooks for trying. Didn’t he still petition the gods daily, asking for his fate?

A dull green canvas awning had been stretched from the squat building containing the kitchen to tall, wooden polls a few feet away. Half a dozen wooden tables with benches were scattered under it, with the students huddled around one.

They used to fill all of the tables every summer. Now, so few gathered.

“Buenos días, Diácono Bernardo,” called the students, using the polite term that referred to all the temple workers.

Bernardo nodded and waved at the students, though he didn’t stop; instead, he walked directly into the sweltering kitchen.

Rafe stood in front of the wood-burning stove in the corner, his long black hair braided, a stained white cap absorbing the sweat on his bronzed brow. He flipped the frying dough with a deft flick of his wrist, giving Bernardo only a nod while he sprinkled cinnamon and sugar across the pan.

Bernardo opened the tall wooden cabinets next to the squat icebox. At least the cupboards were fully stocked—the viper clan might not come in person to the temple anymore, but they still knew their duty, and they tithed.

“May I help you?” came the annoyingly smooth voice of Gezane.

Bernardo bit back his rejection. He didn’t trust Gezane, an American. Gezane was always looking for a way in, wanting to advance himself, insinuate himself in the elder council. Like all youth, of course he knew better than they did.

“Certainly,” Bernardo said, swallowing down his disapproval. He directed the young man to pour the grain for the porridge the mystics liked to eat, while he cut up plantains.

Gezane focused on his work, his tan face serious, his long, silky black hair pulled back. He wasn’t a handsome man—his cheeks were too broad, his eyes set too far apart, and his lips thin and miserly, as if he hoarded laughter and smiles.

After they’d assembled the trays and poured the xocolati, a cold chocolate drink made with vanilla and peppers, Gezane volunteered to carry a tray to the temple.

Bernardo knew what the young man was doing. He’d thought that way himself, when he’d been younger: If he were near the mystics, maybe a prophesy concerning him would suddenly materialize out of the sacred smoke.

But Bernardo had sacrificed his entire life taking care of the mystics, while fewer and fewer prophesies formed, waiting to be read.

He’d thought, once, that maybe he could become a mystic; the smoke had spoken to him, telling him to stay here, at the temple.

But the smoke told almost all to stay. Only a few obeyed.

The usual calm filled Bernardo as he walked from behind the kitchen, along the white road that wound through the thick jungle, to the gray stone temple. Brilliant macaws flashed through the green canopy, screeching their disapproval. Monkeys chittered from the edges, not drawing closer until after the meals when the temple would throw the remains to them. Small voles and mice scattered through the underbrush, the sound of rustling leaves like rushing water.

Dawn broke around the edge of the temple just as they stepped clear of the jungle, bathing the open air with a golden light. Bernardo paused, smiling, wondering if this was Olan saying hello.

The pyramid rose far above the tops of the trees. Bernardo had seen paintings from when the temple itself had been painted, and covered in murals of blue, red, green, and yellow, depicting stories of the gods and heroes, while lifelike vines had crept up the sides, with flowers that never faded bursting on the edges.

The only paint that remained were the names of viper clan’s heroes and saints, painted on the flat rise of the stairs. During the Festival of Remembering, in the autumn, the names would be repainted, and possibly repositioned, if there had been a recent hero.

Bernardo couldn’t remember the last time the names had been changed.

Gezane stood behind him, shuffling from one foot to the other, impatient as always.

Bernardo stayed where he was, breathing in the morning for another long moment, trying to show the young man patience. His viper soul rose up briefly, circling around him, as if basking in the light as well.

Then they walked into the cool pyramid. The thick stone held in the night’s chill and would stay cool all day. The songs of the four mystics floated through the air, harmonious for once. Bernardo paused, widening his eyes so he could see in the dimly lit outer hallway that circled the entire temple, then he led the way through a dark, narrow passage into the inner sanctuary.

The sun had found its way through the high windows on the slanted walls of the four-sided pyramid, staining the air with its golden glow. Dust motes danced through the beams, weaving through the sweet smoke of sacrifice. Each long side held a carved seat, but the mystics weren’t at their places.

Instead, the mystics slid gracefully across the center of the open space, stepping lightly in the cool, beige sand, their plain robes stained with neglect. They danced with blind, white eyes, their faces turned toward the apex at the top, singing their wordless songs. They never touched each other, never spoke to each other, yet always seemed to be in wordless accord, weaving esoteric patterns around each other.

Bernardo didn’t know why the mystics sometimes danced, what it meant. Prophesies would come regardless if they sat or walked, slept or sang.

Gezane came closer behind Bernardo, then stood still for once. It occurred to Bernardo that few had seen this graceful dance of the mystics.

“We will wait,” Bernardo said softly, “for a little while.” There was no way to know how long the mystics would dance, but they wouldn’t eat until afterward.

Bernardo let himself be carried away on the high, soaring notes, floating with the song and the smoke, until he heard Gezane sigh. He took pity on the impatient young man and said, “Let’s go. We’ll come back with lunch.”

Bernardo turned around, ready to leave.

Gezane stood stock still, staring over his shoulder.

“What is it?” Bernardo asked, half turning.

The mystics had aligned themselves into a straight line, their eerie white eyes all staring at him. Their song continued, suddenly clashing, as they raised their left hands to point at him.

Bernardo felt himself falling to the ground in slow motion, the breakfast porridge spilling over his shirt as his feet dissolved in smoke.

He tried to tell Gezane, “This isn’t supposed to happen to me. I’m not the one supposed to have a prophesy.” He wasn’t certain if his mouth even contained a human tongue anymore, or if he spat venom instead.

Or maybe the gods had finally decided to use him, to make him of service at last.

# # #

Shadows stalked the earth.

Bernardo saw a rich man, locked away in his house of a hundred rooms, with lights on in each. The shadows still slipped under the threshold, around the window sill, stalking the man until they surrounded him and sucked him dry, leaving behind a husk of darkness.

Fruit rotted in the orchards, while black blight swept over green fields, turning them barren overnight.

Soldiers shot their weapons into nothing, killing only their friends around them.

How could they fight a shadow? It had no form, nothing to grasp.

Even the brilliant light of mankind’s worst bombs couldn’t kill them.

The temple fell as shadows overtook the mystics. They spewed blackness over the jungle, killing the parrots, the monkeys, the iguanas, then the trees.

Soon the world was sucked dead, the mountains flattened, the oceans boiled dry.

And the shadows moved onto the next world.

To stop them, Bernardo had to stop a girl—no, a clan—from mingling the shadows with their magic.

The tiger clan.

Members of the hound clan were already infected with the shadows. But no matter how the shadows pushed, the hound clan didn’t, and never would, practice enough magic for the shadows to grow stronger.

But the tiger clan…they were the most magical of the clans.

Through them, the shadows could take hold and move from the clans out into the world.

Bernardo saw his chance with the tigers, as if through a peephole. It was slim, like a single beam of light through solid clouds. Just for an instant, a single day, would he be able to stop the shadows from mixing with all the magic from the tiger clan.

Just one chance to turn the tiger warriors away from darkness.

Bernardo saw his path: from the highlands of Guatemala to the coast, to a ship south to Panama City, where he would take another ship west to India and Calcutta.

If he delayed, even a day, the world might be lost.

Bernardo wept as he watched cities turned to ash, vile filth spewed over all things green and good, the chilled Road to Xibalba the only path to take.

He would find this girl. And stop her.

Before the shadows took over the world.

# # #

Cold, gritty sand pressed against Bernardo’s fingertips, as slippery as the shadows he’d tried to grasp. The world was fading, eaten by darkness. Bernardo had to find his way back into the light. But where was it? He couldn’t see or taste it.

Then he heard the songs of the mystics, floating ahead of him as if they were walking in front of him through thick jungle. His viper soul rose, gliding along the melody, undulating through the air as if through water, leading Bernardo back to the real world.

Wet, slimy porridge slid from Bernardo’s shirt, up along his neck and dripped onto the ground. Golden light still poured through the windows set high on the temple’s slanting walls, and sweet traces of incense mingled with the smells of spilled plantains and xocolati.

Gezane popped into Bernardo’s view. “Diácono,” he said, relief in his voice. “Are you all right? You had a vision,” he added, awe making his voice breathy.

Bernardo nodded cautiously, though his head felt like a leaf fluttering in a breeze, attached to his body by the merest thread.

“Can you save us from the shadows?” Gezane asked.

Bernardo wondered how much of his vision he’d shared as he’d experienced it. The mystics sometimes spoke everything out loud; other times, they merely gibbered and could only explain later what they’d seen.

In reply to the boy, though, Bernardo carefully shook his head. All he could do was stop the spreading of the shadows. They’d still live on, and they’d try to attack the other clans.

Bernardo sat up slowly, Gezane coming to his side to help. He rubbed his hand over his chin, across his cheeks. They felt as numb as when the coals of Olan’s funeral pyre had grown cold and he’d found warmth in the local firewater.

“Do you have to go alone?” Gezane asked. While the tone of his voice was innocent enough, his face shone with hope. The boy desperately wanted to go with Bernardo, to be part of this vision, to maybe have his name written on the temple stairs.

If it had been Olan asking, Bernardo would have gleefully agreed. They would have driven each other crazy—Bernardo planning every aspect of the trip, setting timetables and packing with care, while Olan would travel with whatever he’d thrown into his pack the morning they left, then talking Bernardo into abandoning his plans for shortcuts or adventures.

But Olan wasn’t there.

Bernardo’s viper soul stirred. Did he not trust Gezane? Or was his viper half merely anxious to go?

Gezane had spent his life in the outside world. He knew how to navigate it. Maybe he could be a good guide.

And maybe Bernardo could teach him some things as well, like patience and prayers.

Slowly, Bernardo replied, “I don’t have to travel to Calcutta alone,” his voice full of gravel.

The young man’s glee was as bright as the golden light still streaming through the temple windows, bright enough to dim Bernardo’s questions and regrets.

# # #

The sound of a great crowd floated above Bernardo and Gezane as they approached the market. When they turned a corner, the noise exploded into a cacophony greater than the jungle during the growing season. Everywhere Bernardo looked strode the people of Guatemala City: grandmothers with their loaded baskets, young mothers riding herd on their passel of children, even packs of young men on the prowl.

“Why are there so many people?” Bernardo asked Gezane, stopping in the middle of the street. He was disgusted by the quaver in his voice. When had he turned into this querulous old man? He tramped down on his fear, but it kept rising back up, like a boiling pot with an ill-fitting lid.

“This is a normal crowd,” Gezane said derisively.

Bernardo flinched, but he kept his hand wrapped around the young man’s biceps. Gezane’s pulse fluttered under his fingertips, and the young man kept starting and looking over his shoulder.

He was nervous as well, though he’d never admit it.

Bernardo had no idea what Gezane could be scared of here. But he knew better than to say anything. Gezane would just push him away, maybe abandon him here amidst all this chaos.

They walked ahead through the crowded street, bypassing the market and going directly to the docks beyond. The tall buildings made of brick with grand windows and stonework gave way to squat wooden sheds and the stench of open sewers. Automobiles roared on the next street. As if in response, the lone wail of a train called out. Long piers ran out into the water, with great ships, large and angular, waited like floating temples, accepting their acolytes and their tithed goods.

“Which way?” Bernardo asked, looking up and down the waterfront. Their boat, heading down to Panama City, was docked at pier fifteen.

“How should I know?” Gezane snapped. Then he turned and looked at Bernardo. “I’m sorry, Diácono,” he said softly. “I don’t know why I keep saying things like that.” He looked scared, pale under his tanned skin.

“We are neither of us ourselves,” Bernardo said. He’d felt an uncomfortable pressure, as if his skin was too tight and needed to be shed, since they’d left the temple.

Gezane looked up and down the street, taking a deep breath, then he flashed a grin at Bernardo. “Let’s ask,” he said.

Bernardo shook his head but followed after Gezane, who’d been adamant that they never ask anyone for help for most of their trip.

When they inquired which direction their dock lay with a pair of day laborers who were slopping whitewash on a decrypted store front, they were directed further north.

Bernardo heaved a huge sigh upon sighting the faded, weathered sign for their dock. “We made the first leg,” he said. He felt a smile crack his face, and realized the good humor had recently been as rare as sunshine during the rainy season.

“We did,” Gezane said. “The ship should be easier,” he added quietly.

Bernardo nodded. He paused, then made himself ask, “Do you feel it too? The pressure?”

Instead of snapping at him, Gezane gave a sharp nod. “As if the air fights us.”

An involuntary shiver passed across Bernardo’s shoulders, as if cool vines were suddenly drawn against his bare skin. He’d thought it had been only him, out of his element, traveling so far from his home.

Suddenly, Bernardo’s viper soul rose and twined around his human soul. He stopped and looked around. Was there something on the pier? Something threatening?

No one was close enough to see, so Bernardo encouraged his viper soul to rise more. Color drained out of the world and the broad wooden boards beneath his feet grew gray like driftwood. The smell of salty water and dusky seaweed rose, overwhelming the scents of the unclean city.

Horror slammed into Bernardo, as solid as Olan’s fist, when the darkness near the entrance to the ship resolved into wisps of shadows, wrapped around the raised stumps decorating the edges of the pier.

They were waiting for them—watchers. Scouts.

Bernardo glanced behind him. No, not scouts. Shadows pressed in, all around him.

Had he opened the door to them with his prophesy? Is that why they hounded him, unseen, unbeknownst to him?

And Gezane, he amended, when he saw the young man looking back at him, his fear as dark as the shadows draped over his shoulders.

Bernardo sent a quick plea to the gods to help them both.

But he knew that the gods rarely answered anyone’s prayers.

Bernardo shook off his viper’s gaze and marched down the pier. The fear and age he’d been feeling weren’t his. They came from his enemy, the shadows, who were trying to cloud his mind, distract him from his mission.

“It’s going to be all right,” he assured Gezane, his old strength returning. Seeing the shadows—knowing they were there, that it wasn’t just him—had helped him return to himself.

Gezane stood up straighter, the cruel lines leaving his face, the cunning returning. “Yes, it will be,” he said, squaring his shoulders.

They were going to have to fight off the shadows, who were watching their very thoughts.

Though he couldn’t see them, Bernardo knew the shadows had drawn back. They were all right, now.

But for how long?

# # #

Bernardo’s stomach rolled with the ship, feeling unmoored in his body, empty and adrift. However, the smell of the rice from this morning’s breakfast made his nausea rise and his mouth flood with bile. He could barely manage even a few mouthfuls of water.

Another wave splashed against the bow. Bernardo couldn’t contain his groan.

“Shut up, old man,” Gezane snapped.

Bernardo focused on the young man, grateful for the distraction. “What do you know of suffering? You’re too young to know anything.” He regretted the words as soon as he said them. They were fueled by sickness and shadows.

But the journey on the ship seemed like an endless road through the dark underground world of Xibalba, with no stars to guide his way, his viper soul drowned by the endless water surrounding them.

“I know enough to enjoy life. To live it. You didn’t have the cojones. You stayed locked away like a delicate flower behind the thick walls of the temple.”

“I wish I’d never left it,” Bernardo groaned as the ship heeled over again. They were staying close to the coast, never really leaving the sight of it, which meant the ship was in constant motion.

“Then go back! I can finish the mission.” In the dark of their tiny room, Gezane’s eyes took on a strange gleam. “Let me do it. I can see out your prophesy. Alone.”

“No,” Bernardo said, shuddering. He made a feeble attempt to push himself up on his bunk bed. “Don’t you see? That’s what they want. The shadows.”

Gezane shook his head. “No. It’s you. You don’t want to be an afterward when they teach the children of our journey. Just a footnote.”

“I don’t care about fame,” Bernardo protested, swaying with the ship. “I just want to help. To be of service to the gods.”

“You’ve done your part. You saw,” Gezane said.

“And I must finish it,” Bernardo said stubbornly.

The vision had shown only him warning the tiger clan. Not Gezane.

“If it doesn’t finish you first,” Gezane said, pushing himself off the wall where he’d been slumped. He walked over to the door of their room and opened it.

“Wait, where are you going?” Bernardo asked, hating the quiver in his voice.

“Out. Into the fresh air.” Gezane paused, his dark eyes still flashing that odd glow. “Smells like death in here,” he added cruelly, slamming the door.

“No, wait,” Bernardo said, shivering and afraid. He wanted to get up to follow, but he couldn’t hold himself up anymore; instead, he fell back onto his bunk.

The shadows were eating them alive, here. Bernardo could see them now, even without his viper soul.

They were determined to stop Bernardo from reaching the tiger clan in time.

But Bernardo was just as stubborn. Seasick or not, with Gezane’s help or not, he’d make the journey.

Though he’d come to realize what happened afterward no longer mattered. Gezane had been right: It did smell like death in their room. Bernardo would never survive the trip back up the mountain to the temple. His ashes would be scattered far from his home, and never mingle with Olan’s.

# # #

Bernardo woke again to blessed stillness and quiet. Even after a week off the ship, he still marveled at it. Golden morning light filtered by white lace curtains splayed across the foot of his bed. The viper clan had paid for a luxurious hotel after the elder living here had seen how ill Bernardo had become.

Bernardo stretched, satisfied. The bed was soft and the room was full of heavy, dark furniture. It weighed Bernardo down; he didn’t understand the need to possess so many things.

But they were leaving that day, at dawn, and Bernardo wanted to savor every moment on ground that didn’t shift with the waves. Plus, the elder clan leader had provided Bernardo with a charm to help him fight his illness. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this time.

Bernardo stretched again, enjoying the light, comparing how weak it looked to the light in the temple, up the mountain, closer to the sky, when it finally occurred to him: This wasn’t dawn light, but mid-morning.

The trunk that the elder had provided Bernardo no longer sat next to the door.

Bernardo sprang out of bed and raced to the desk. The leather wallet with the money, tickets, and papers was still sitting there, but instead of being plump with purpose, it was hollow and empty.

Quickly, Bernardo slid on light, drawstring pants, a striped shirt, and sandals, then raced out the door. The laborers were no longer in the streets; they’d already all gone to their jobs. Instead, it was just the idle folk, with time on their hands, strolling to the market or the park.

Bernardo pushed through them, the inevitable crowds of the city, racing to the docks.

The pier looked empty, but still Bernardo ran on, all the way up to the edge of the water.

Nothing waited for him there. The ship was gone, with Gezane, corrupted by shadows, on it.

The next ship to Calcutta wouldn’t leave for a week or more.

The shadows had won.

Bernardo would never get to Calcutta in time, would never be able to warn the tiger clan. Adrian couldn’t fulfill Bernardo’s prophesy, but in his arrogance and clouded mind, he thought he could.

Old man tears rose to Bernardo’s eyes, futile as age. He’d wasted his life at the temple, and now, he’d killed them all. He was a disgrace. Olan would be ashamed of him.

Bernardo turned to go…and felt himself crumbling to the ground, the smoke of prophesy rising.

A second vision, one of Gezane, filled Bernardo.

Gezane had ruined this chance with the shadows. He’d have to give his own life to remove the disgrace from his name, his family’s name.

But he couldn’t be told the entire vision.

Gezane had betrayed them to the shadows. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t do so again.

Then another vision attacked Bernardo as he lay drooling and gasping on the pier, showing him the end of his own days. Sailors would find him and lock him away in a cell for the insane, mumbling prophesies to himself until the elder of the viper clan found him, much too late.

Bernardo would die in that cell.

Gezane would carry a cup of Bernardo’s ashes back to the temple, to mingle them with Olan’s, as Gezane sentence was laid out, spells cast upon him, the fate of the world resting no longer with them, but with a hound prince yet to be born.

———

#SFWApro

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