P.C. Hodgell's Blog, page 3

Thanks!

Many thanks for the ideas, which have got me thinking again.

Yes, Death's-head is lighter and more agile than a fully armored warhorse (I'm assuming it would also take a much larger mount to carry all of that weight).  He also has a scent and a scream that will spook if not panic any horse not accustomed to it.  Can he blood-bind this particular horse?  I don't think so, if only because it would make things more complicated, and at this point I'm trying to simplify.  He can, however, literally run rings around his opponent.   I see him as coming up behind and beside.  Someone suggested that he could go under the armor's skirts after the warhorse's 'nads, but I don't want him to throw Jame.  Rather, I see him jabbing the horse in the butt, making him squeal and bolt (illus of this horse armor shows the tail flying free; it's also suggested that the scale armor is tied on in segments).  If he does find himself head's-on to the other's lance, I can see him catching and breaking it with a twist between his horns, maybe even fighting his way down the shaft toward the rider over the course of the contest.

Jame should be his partner throughout.  Yes, she sees him as her weapon, but she can think and deduce too, even if at first DH is head-strong about direction.   As several people pointed out, she has imagination and abilities of her own.  Can she use her Shanir nature besides the blood-link to DH?  Don't know about that.  Yes, Brenwyr can rot things with a curse, but Jame has never done that that I can recall.  Maybe someday as she matures.  My sense is that mostly she sets things in motion without realizing it that lead to catastrophe on the general principle that  "Some things need to be broken."

Another piece of the equation:  There's also the warrior on the war-horse, who is not only riding as heavy cavalry against a lighter opponent but who also is festooned with weapons.   I've just about decided who he is. 

Call for ideas

I'm up to the point in the next-to-last novel where Jame has to fight Death's-head against a Central Lands warrior.  He has a war-horse clad with full scale armor ( see cataphract). He himself has mail armor and at least a spear, maybe with a crow's-beak hook, maybe a mace, axe, or sword for close work.  Jame only has the shield that Gaudaric made for her.  At least this time she remembers to wear her helmet.    This, she reflects, is not really her fighting  form.  On the whole, she is depending on the rathorn to fight for her, as the Commandant said he would.

Thoughts about how this could go?

Sports

Here's a question (or several of them) for the sports inclined members of this list.

In the new novel, Kencyr mercenaries have been assigned to the rulers of the Central Lands who, in the past, used them to settle disputes between countries.  In those days, a hidden clause was written into each contract that prevented the Kencyr of different houses from being called on to kill each other in battle, although it could happen by accident.  That clause has been found and deleted.  I don't want to start with combat, though.  First come competitions/games.  How might these be handicapped?  The number of troops vary from house to house, for one thing.  I'm thinking that they first play against each other to establish their ranking (the Central Lands also being heavily into gambling).  Perhaps allied small houses like the Danior and the Knorth join up to confront larger houses like the Brandon and the Caineron.  Perhaps the smaller company is given first choice of the battlefield when things get serious.  I'm trying to think how competitions mutate into more deadly encounters  (Rollerball is on the TV as I write.  That's one model.  Gladiatorial games are another.  Am I missing other historical paralells?)   Also how the odds could be established.  I'm not a sports person.

Checking in again

This has been a weird week, mostly connected to Trump.  First the news story came out about his tax returns.  Then there was the "debate" with Biden, which gave me a roaring headache.  Then Trump came down with Covid 19.  The best I can say about any of it is that it's giving me new insight into Caldane.

I've made some progress writing, but not a lot.  Current events make it hard to concentrate.  I really miss the days when I could lose myself in fantasy.

And so it goes.

And so on ...

I've been thinking for awhile that I haven't been keeping in touch with people.  Covid stay-at-home orders don't help.  Now I will be even more isolated since the barn has shut down.  The last saddlebred show horses were auctioned off last Saturday, for next to nothing.  At least I don't think the attending meat buyer got any of them.  So that aspect of my life has ended.  (Well, yes, I could volunteer at another stable, but it wouldn't be the same.  And I think I've been done with all of that for awhile.)

Anyway, I haven't posted here for awhile either.  Sorry about that.

I've been stuck on the same short chapter for months.  It's about a Central Lands' god-farce where at least one of the local gods shows up via his favorite actor.  This is the society that believes in ancestor worship, and now something is preying on newly-dead, would-be gods, sort of a different version of Demons, more keyed to Kencyr involvment.  Still, this shouldn't be so hard.  Fact is, though, this whole novel is hard.  I'm trying to plot it and the finale at the same time, figuring out what events go where.  Your advice about loose ends has helped.  I have maybe 150,000 words in my note draft, perhaps 60,000 in more or less finished form.  The deadline was to be September.  I've gotten an extension, though, and hope to fight my way through this funk.  Sorry for the delay.

So, stay safe and be heathy.  If you can.

Pat

More souls, etc.

A further response to anonymous who suggested several interesting things:

I was wondering what face of god Gerridon was associated with and whether I had ever established that.  I don't think so.  Preservation seems like a good guess, given his thirst for immortality and his son, Kindrie.   I also like the idea that as such he wouldn't be able to reap souls, only to preserve them if willingly given. ( and in this case it was through the Dream-weaver.  The fallen Kencyr surrendered to her, not directly to Gerridon).  That he can also feed on them (destruction) speaks to a willful perversion in his character.  That was when he truly fell, i.e. became a demon.  Not that he realizes that.

I like that.  It explains Gerridon’s nature and also his fall.  Preying on others’ souls is the original sin.  Perimal Darkling itself was guilty of it on a grand scale when it started devouring the Chain of Creation.

More about souls

I got several interesting responses to my last post.  This is my attempt to answer at least three of them, taken from my writer's journal.
My problem is probably rooted in the fact that I didn’t think through all the ramifications when I first introduced these themes.  If I had waited to set everything in stone, though, I would never have started writing at all and things might not have taken the interesting turns that they have.  Now I’m playing catch-up, looking for the underlying truths which, hopefully, were always there since I do believe that my subconscious mind automatically forms patterns.
Yes, the Shanir ability to reap souls must be very rare, or at least to reap them and then to pass them on.  The Dream-weaver had it.  Jame has it.  Gerridon has struck out repeated with Jame who indeed was bred for this very role.  And yes, seduction is involved (the willing sacrifice), although this only occurred to me in hindsight.
Ishtier also seems to have done this (separating soul from body) to Bane to create the Lower Town Monster, an issue yet to be resolved.  Can Bane’s soul still be pure after feeding on all of those children?  Does it matter that the Monster is essentially mindless?
For that matter, as pyoro 2 points out, souls seem to be easily detached.  That happens over and over again, especially when demons are involved.
There’s also the whole issue of some Highborn being able to carry other Kencyrs’ souls.  That’s what Gerridon apparently did to Bender, but he must not have been able to feed on it. Or, given Bender’s state when he reaches Jame in Demons, Gerridon only managed to nibble around Bender’s edges.  I think Bender was more of a hostage than a meal.  As such, he could be used against Jame and was until he broke free and reclaimed his soul, whose purity then immolated him.  (An echo of that old story Bane tells Jame in GS.)
Note:  Although Gerridon feeds on souls (one definition of a demon), he can’t benefit from reaping them himself or this whole puzzle wouldn’t exist. 
Possibility:   does Gerridon not have full direct access to any soul?  Does he need an intermediary?  That would play into the idea that, despite his ego, he is deficient.  I think, though, that Jame or the DW could feed directly if they were so inclined.  DW never wanted to; she was obliging her consort.  Jame has resisted it.  The DW gave Jame the gift of hindsight – do this and you fall.  Jame hasn’t, although tempted.
It sounds as if souls can be detached, but that doesn’t automatically give the reaper the ability to feed on them.
Hmmm.  This is still less defined that I would like.  My head begins to hurt.
Regarding the Shadow Guild, I tend toward Fir-bholg’s idea that they don’t know what they are doing (even with suggestions from Gerridon, who so far is clueless) and so can only do harm.  What they accomplish is the destruction of bodies and the subsequent freeing of captive souls, which isn’t what anyone in the Central Lands wants (different god system than elsewhere).
I have the feeling that I’ve raised more questions than I’ve answered.  Rats.  Still, you’ve set my mind in motion, for which many thanks.  Also thanks to Mindstalk for the spell check.

A snippet and a question

Sorry to have been quiet for so long. No, nothing is wrong, except that this tenth novel is giving me problems.  It's the next to last and there are so many loose ends to clear up, not to mention issues raised here which should also advance the plot..  My thought is that Jame needs at least another clash with Gerridon if not two before the end, this first involving the Central Lands, not heretofore an issue but solidly there, both on the map and in Rathillien history.

In Demons, Gerridon lost the larder of souls who fed his immorality.  My question:  the Shadow Guild is trying to figure out how to reap Bashtiri souls to feed him.  Bashti believes in ancestor worship and has a lot of souls (and preserved bodies, the two being linked) in line to become either gods or saints, depending on how much worship they can inspire in their descendents.   Gerridon would prefer Kencyr souls, but he will make do wirh these if necessary as a stop-gap measure.  Thoughs about how they might do such reaping?

Then the snippet:  Jame is on her way south to Bashti.  This happens on the way.

For the next two days they rode around the eastern end of the White Hills.  While the company had talked and sung before, here they were quiet in the shadow of that ominous land.  No one would ever forget how Ganth Graylord had descended on the Kings’ Host of assembled Kencyr mercenaries.  It was said that Ganth’s hands were still red with the blood of his slaughtered womenfolk and that his madness had infected those who rode after him.  That the Bashtiri Shadow Guild had slain them, there was no doubt, but who had paid for the contract?  Ganth blamed the Seven Kings.  His own people stood in the way of his vengeance.  He stuck them down until through sheer numbers rather than force of arms they overwhelmed him.  Exile had followed, and thirty years of darkness for the Kencyrath. Before that, the hills had earned a new name, white as they then were with the ashes of the Kencyr dead.
They still had a bleached quality and were often overhung with dust, or mist, or the ghost of smoke.  Birds had skimmed the Oseen Hills, crying.  None flew here unless so high that they were mere silent dots against a stricken sky.
“Torisen cut across those,” Jame said to Wort, peering into the twilight beyond their campfire.  “He was in a hurry, of course, but oh so rash.”
“What did he find there, lady?”
“It seems that the hills have gone soft.  When two parts of Rathillien are somehow alike, they may overlap.  Tori wandered out of the Central Lands altogether and into the eastern Haunted Lands.  Haunts followed him back.”
“What are haunts?”
“The returned dead.  Nothing where I grew up was entirely dead or alive except for us, and sometimes we weren’t sure.  It was all very unpleasant.”
“Do they look anything like that?”
The cadet pointed. 
Jame blinked the firelight out of her eyes.  A tall figure stood motionless between the initial swelling of the dark hills.  Wisps of luminous mist wreathed its unseen feet and swirled up its pale robes.  It appeared to be watching the camp through what might have been a smiling waxen mask.  Then, between one blink and the next, it was gone.
Jame shivered.  “I don’t know what that was,” she said, “but I don’t like it.  Damson?”
“Here.”  The one-hundred commander materialized out of the night so suddenly that she must have been standing nearby – also watching?
“From now on, set extra guards.”

A second chance at the Demons' galley proofs

I wasn't expecting this, but Baen wants me to go over the By Demons Possessed proofs again.  Presumably this is for the mass paperback edition.  Anyway, several readers sent me lists of corrections the last time and now I can't find them.  Given that these were the sort of mistakes I routinely make and then miss, please, if you still have a record of them, send them again.

Eight chapters into the next book, which is turning out to be ungodly complicated.  The city of High Bashti in particular is so complex that Tai-tastigon looks quaint by comparison.  My fault for choosing an ancient Roman model.  (The Central Lands are the oldest extant nations on Rathillien).  Jame just tried to bath a muddy rathorn.  Next I'm sending her off to watch a god farce on Autumn's Eve.  Wish us luck!

Post Worldcon

Got home from Dublin yesterday.  We spent the first week touring the western coast of Ireland -- beautiful country full of neolithic ruins and more recent structures (from the middle ages up to 1950 in the case of one beehive hut) built exactly the same way.  Ditto the stone walls and perhaps the descendents of the sheep within them.  Another memorable site was a medieval monastery (again with beehives) that had survived up to the present because it was a cemetery for unbaptized babies buried at night by their fathers without priests on  pillows of stone -- this, according to the archeologist who escorted us.  It gave me a sense of a continuous landscape not available in this country or age but probably typical of Rathillien.  

Worldcon came the second week.  I think the organizers didn't expect so many people to show up, nearly 5,000.  The events were very crowded with long lines.  One could wait an hour and still not get in.  My events were well attended, though.  The panel on Epic Fantasy  (Is it Conservative?) went pretty well, although the other panalists tended to say what I meant to before me, at greater length, more eloquently.   Also, the moderatior tried to cut me off, but the audience wouldn't let him.  Everyone distanced his or her own work from conservatism.  No one wanted to discuss the pressure that the conservative tropes place on all of us, creatively and professionally.  Oh well.

The koffeeklatch raised some interesting questions, one of which I pass on here:  what loose ends do I need to tie up before the end of the series, granted that some of them will be left dangling?  I have my own list, of course, but it's been a long story and I may have missed something important.

Then I got home and there was a message waiting for me from my publisher.  The audio rights to the series have sold to Recorded Books, with God Stalk tentatively due out next month.  I'm very pleased.