Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 104
May 23, 2014
Wheel in the Sky 11
Candegar stumbled out of the black, enclosed hell of the fortress into the red, open hell of the air.
The sky and forest were gone, replaced by a dome of dim, bloody light. Streamers of black mist or smoke stretched up from the ground and the very air smarmed with crawling motes.
“Nebuchak,” said Saria, as if to herself. ” Hammer of the Sky, Power of Heaven, Lash of those who Cheat, He who stills Speech and thus protects the Wheel.”
“What’s that? Did voidcleaver—” Candegar placed a hand on Saria’s shoulder and the rebellious aristo jerked as if woken from sleep.
“What happened down there?” Jogging, Candegar looked down at the dagger he could not release from his right hand. It was longer and heavier now. A bastard sword. “Did he make me hurt you?”
Saria snorted. “You are a decent man, Candegar. It makes me wish—”
Her eyes darted to ground, where black lines flat as paper traced sharp corned paths across the dying grass. The tentacles spread from the base of the Keep even As Candegar watched.
Saria cursed and someone screamed from inside. What was that darkness in the Keep’s upper windows? What fluttered there and stretched and swelled?
“Run,” said Saria.
Ccandegar quickly realized they weren’t going to gain enough ground. Saria’s long robes were made for supplication to Powers, not fleeing them. Candegar, himself, was exhausted and febrile, his mind awash with writhing half memory.
The ground humped as if uplifted by the roots of a monstrous tree. Stone cracked behind them with a sound like thunder.
“The horses,” he panted.
“Dead,” she answered, “and digested. All the animals. Plants. Only humans safe. Wants us to know its killing us.”
“Then how?”
“Just get to the perimeter.” She pointed, and through the black mist Candegar could make out the dim shapes of trees. Or were those trees?
The grass under their feet was already dead, but now it turned black, fuzzed upward into intricate branching shapes. Not trees and not snowflakes, but something like both, the shapes twisted toward them, jangling like tiny, evil bells. Candergar was in the lead now and had no choice but to strike out with Voidcleaver. A sensation like slamming a door on his hand, but the black snow-tree dissolved.
Oh, said a voice in his head, now that was interesting. Do it again, boss.
He had no choice. The snow-trees bent toward them from all sides now, and only Voidcleaver’s blade could hold them back.
A rush of air. Candegar’s ears popped.
“Keep going,” screamed Saria, “just a little longer.”
You heard the lady. Get going. Can’t have you digested by a Power, now, giggled his sword, can we?
And Gothmore Keep exploded.
May 20, 2014
Gold, Jade, and Quetzal feathers
“You ever seen people like that before, Boss?”
Chimalma, 10th scout commander for the town of Cihuatlan, spat out a wad of tobacco and looked back at the foreigners. “Nope,” he said.
“Those big canoes they got. And that ripply watery cloth? Those sure are something.”
“Sure are.”
“Well,” said Pochotl, the one who wouldn’t shut up, “where do you think they come from?”
“Does it matter?” sighed Chimalma.”Have you ever seen any people like that before? Ever heard of anything like them? Ever anywhere?”
“Never have, boss,” admitted Pochotl, and Xilotzin his nodded in agreement.
“Right,” said Chimalma. “Those guys are a fluke, a rain of gold and jade and quetzal feathers.” He showed his teeth. “A once-in-an-epoch opportunity.”
“If you say so, boss.”
They crested the hill and looked out over the dry scrub toward the fields and windbreak trees around the river and the town of Cihuatlan.
Grumbling from the foreigners climbing up the hill behind them. The dark-skinned ones in loin-cloths and capes led the pale-skinned ones in water-cloth robes, who made much slower progress. The old man with the peg-leg looked like he might not even make it up the hill before his heart gave out.
“Come on!” he called cheerfully, then said to Xilotzin. “It’ll be faster if we just kill them now, as soon as we’re out of sight of their big canoes.”
The scout wiped his brow and looked toward Cihuatlan, as if judging the distance he’d have to carry the loot. But of course it was Pochotl who voiced the complained. “Aw, boss! Why can’t we just let them carry their own damn stuff until we’re home? Then we can let the city guard kill them.”
“You’d let the guards’ obsidian drink this blood?” Xilotzin hefted his sword-club. “What’s wrong with ours?”
“And more to the point,” said Chimalma. “You want to let the guards and everyone else in town see the foreigners for themselves. Word might get back to the Tlatoani’s court, and then we really might have to trek all the way to Tenochtitlan.”
“Tenochtitlan?” Called up one of the foreigners.
“Yes yes,” Chimalma smiled and added the word that seemed to so interest these people. “Mekka!” Maybe it meant ‘treasure.’
“What if they send more men from the big canoes?” said Xilotzin as they descended onto the other side of the hill.
“I don’t plan to be here anymore,” said Chimalma.
“What if they follow us back home to Cihuatlan?”
“Then,” Chimalma hefted his own sword-club, “all of our obsidian will drink deeply.”
May 18, 2014
57 Ways not to Meet an Agent with Jennie Goloboy
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/57Jennie.mp3
I’m back with Jennie Goloboy of Red Sofa Literary Agency, talking about the Dallace-Fort-Worth Con and what you shouldn’t do if you see her there.
Also:
When I take a book, it’s because I think I know some places that would like this.
A trick that I learned from Dan Koboldt about using Twitter to hack agents’ brains
I don’t always know what I’m looking for until I see it.
I will go for quirky stuff if I really like the characters.
New Frontiers (a very fresh and modern book)
Space opera with a lot of women in it?
Bad things happening to culturally interesting people and they have a sense of humor about it (and there’s a happy ending)
Tex Thomson’s writing panels (and others)
An unusually God-awful winter.
Carrie Patel‘s writing group
May 16, 2014
Wheel in the Sky 10
Saria’s witchlight went out.
“Candegar,” she shouted. “We have to get out of here.”
“Out of here.” That wasn’t Candegar’s voice. It might not even have been made by human vocal chords. Air brushed over her and Saria remembered the click the dungeon’s doors had made when they unlocked.
“Out of here,” said another voice, if it could be called a voice. “Out.”
How many of the Krypteria’s prisoners were still mobile?
“Out out out.” More un-voices, rose above the sound of padding feet, clicking nails, other less identifiable scrapings and rustlings.
Where was the door? Ahead of her. Saria took a step forward. Something brushed past her leg, but she took another step. Another. The walls shook, and things skittered and groaned in the dark.
“Out? But why?” That was Candegar’s voice, and it was not. “I have not tasted a fraction of the power of this place.”
A hand descended on her shoulder. “I’ll start with the power from your delicious flesh, I think.” The fingers dug in. “You should never have dared to silence me.”
“Voidcleaver,” she put her hand over his. “Let go of me and go back to sleep now.”
Candegar’s stolen breath hissed laughter across the back of her neck. “I have tasted the seals and sigils of the Krypteria, itself! You think you have the power to command me anymore?”
“No,” she took a firmer grip on him, “but It does.”
A light kindled in the darkness. Dull red, white hot, blue, the air itself sizzled over the melting remains of her godsnare.
And Saria was less than six feet away from it.
“Run!”
In the light of boiling copper and iron, the black limb was easy to see. Thin as a ribbon, jagged as a lightning-bolt, branched as a tree, the Power’s appendage condensed out of out of air and stone and energy. It grew faster than she could run, but Saria’s veil was off, all her Powers sleeping, and the Power had other priorities than defenseless humans.
Priorities such as Voidcleaver.
The cursed blade sliced upward on a twitch of Candegar’s muscles, but his other hand was firmly caught in hers, and when Saria yanked, the blade swished past the deadly surface of the Power.
“Run,” she commanded again. “If you value your life or the life of your host, run, you damn stupid knife.”
A web of jagged black bubbled out from the place her godsnare had fallen, piercing and holding the little rouge Powers the Krypteria had collected. The light of burning metal guttered out behind them as Saria and Voidcleaver, and perhaps Candegar threw themselves up the stairs.
Next
May 15, 2014
So this is weird
I found out about my first bad review today. I’m taking it well because it’s about Kingdoms of Evil and I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote that (and it was like four years ago). No, what’s weird is that my first bad review was followed by three more, and all within a few days of each other.
Isn’t that weird? These guys also used the same sort of language. Did I offend a gang of rogue critics? Is this bad karma?
Any of you guys have this happen to you?
May 13, 2014
Outer Barbarians
化外人
Admiral Feng Aosiman ben Ali massaged the sore skin of his left thigh and squinted past the heaving shoulders of the rowers, past the piles of supplies and trade items, past the prow of the boat to the dry and rugged hills of Al Andalus.
“And if this is not Iberia or North Africa?” Ulama Yuen Zaide ben Jiafa said from his seat beside the admiral. “If our charts are right and we haven’t travelled far enough west and this land is another God forsaken lump of sand like all the other islands we’ve discovered?”
“It must be a very large island,” said Feng, rather than shoving the whining holy man overboard. “We could see no end to it either to north or south of our position.”
Ulama Yuen’s long face grew longer. “That only means it will be more trouble to circumnavigate. And you do not need me to tell you we might not have that capacity.”
“You’re right,” said Feng, “you don’t.” The Hajj Fleet had shrunk to a mere three ships, surrounded by a swarm of little outrigger canoes manned by the bravest and craziest seamen God has seen fit to create. With their current supplies and if the wind held, the might possibly make it back to Kiribati alive.
“We can at least resupply,” he said. “How can you doubt, now land is in sight?” Albeit brown, dry unwelcoming land.
“A new island only postpones the question, Admiral,” the Ulama said. “The time has come to consider whether we are to be failures or martyrs.”
“The Holy Koran says we must make the Hajj.”
“If possible. It says if possible. Surely we do not all need to die on this venture.” Yuen tried an unconvincing smile. His teeth had not braved the sea voyage well. “God knows your devotion, admiral.”
“Perhaps,” said Feng, “but the Imam-Empeor does not.”
Silence, then, but for the crying of the gulls and the glop of water over oars until sand scraped along the belly of the boat. The oarsmen gave one more heave and brought them aground.
Admiral Feng allowed the men to unload their belongings and form a palanquin of their arms to lift him onto the ground. He barely even grimaced as one of the Malay sailors strapped the peg onto his left knee. It was a big enough affront to propriety that the admiral demanded to come ashore with the fist scouts. Best not to antagonize the men any further.
Sand crunched under his boot and peg as Feng turned to observe the alien coast.
“This will do,” he said at last. “All right Syed, Awang, you go up those hills to the north. Khan, Lek you to the South. Find us some water. The rest of you gather wood for a fire.” Admiral Feng scanned the horizon again, “let’s see if we can attract some natives.”
“Praise God for this landfall,” Ulama Yuen followed close on Feng’s heels as if worried the admiral might escape into the scrub.
There was little chance of that. Feng hadn’t seen so inhospitable a land since the Great Southern Island. Gulls wheeled and screeched overhead and dust colored lizards scuttled over the rocks. The sun was no kinder here than at sea and the dry hot wind clawed at Feng’s eyes and nose as if hungry for his wet blood.
“Why do we even bother exploring,” said Ulama Yuen sourly, “if our homeland is so clearly superior to anywhere we might sail?”
“For the sake of the Hajj, which is a pillar of Islam and the will of God,” said Feng, “perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” answered Yuen, “and the next time I have something to instruct you about tying knots or using a compass, I will precede to tell you how to do your job, too.”
Feng bowed. “Forgive my idle tongue, your honor.”
“Company,” shouted Nuk, the Thai scout, and Feng turned to see five men stride out of the bush.
Tall and thin, dressed in voluminous robes that left their legs bare, the natives moved with the confidence of lords but the speed of soldiers.
“Ah, more barbaric chieftains,” said Ulama Yuen, “look at the feathers that one has in his headband.”
“You should concern yourself more with the weapons,” said Feng.
Each man carried a spear or bow and the one with the feathered headdress carried a club or sword, studded with wicked-looking shards of obsidian. “Men, ready your muskets, but touch no other weapons.” On most of the islands they’d visited, the natives had no notion of firearms. ” Teinamati, address them.”
The Kiribatan man waved and shouted greetings in several island dialects, but the natives did not respond.
“Not Mauri men, admiral,” Teinamati said. “The face, the clothes also. Too too different.”
“Different, indeed,” said Yuen as the rest of their party tried to address the natives in Arabic, Yirrkala, Makassarese, Malay, Thai, Hindi, and even, in desperation, Kiswahili. “They not as dark as the Great Southern Islanders or Africans, but not quite Polynesian either. Do you think they might be Turks?”
“Turks would know at least some Arabic,” said Feng. “These people must be Christians. Franks, I believe they’re called.”
“Do we have anyone who speaks Frankish?”
“No,” said Feng, “but it isn’t as if we haven’t made first contact before. Wang, get the trade items.”
The Franks, or whatever they were, nodded and smiled at the silk and mirrors, although the incense, glass beads, and Holy Koran did not seem to impress them much.
“More,” said captain Wang, “pointing at the ships at anchor. We have more treasure. But you must give us.” He made the appropriate motions. “Your treasure. Water, yes. Food, yes.”
The Frankish leader seemed to consider the offer. He spoke briefly, indicating something to the west.
“Perhaps that is the direction of their village,” said captain Wang, “we can resupply there.”
“Resupply we must,” Ulama Yuen stroked his mustaches, “but let us not forget our holy mission. Infidel Franks these might be, but they must know of the holy city of Mecca. Ask them of it.”
“Um.” The captain paused. “Where’s Mecca? He pointed west and held up his hands in a questioning gesture.”
The Franks only stared at them. The one with the feathers said something interrogative.
“Mecca,” said Wang, “You know… lā ʾilāha ʾil ʾāllāh, muḥammadun rasūlu-llāh wa alimamyyun walīyyu-llāh.” He salaamed in the general direction everyone assumed the holy city must be.
The Franks reacted with surprise and delight. Admiral Feng noticed that the leader’s front teeth were inset with jade beads.
“Quemah, quemah! Mekka, Mekka,” the native cheiftain said and salaamed to the west. “Tlatoani,” he pointed inland. “Tenochtitlan!”
May 11, 2014
56 Writing Conventions with Jennie Goloboy
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/56Jennie.mp3
I’ve talked with Jennie before, but this time the subject of our conversation is why she goes to writing conventions (specifically the Dallace-Fort-Worth Con) and how you can expect to approach her when you attend.
We also talk about…
Laura Zats and the YA books she represents
Dan Koboldt and the corporate portal fantasy he wrote (also stay tuned for his appearance of this podcast)
Jeff Stanley (or if Lovecraft wrote sci-fi) and he’s going to be on the podcast too.
Foz Meadows and her life-changing portal fantasy
Do I stay in this fantasy world where ponies poop rainbows, or do I go back to the real world where ponies poop what ponies poop?
For example, let’s take my book!
Your first book is the story that grabs you so hard that you have to write it, but we don’t know what we’re doing and we screw it up.
Carrie Patel‘s first book, the Buried Life, out this summer. (and it was her first book, I asked her)
Tex Thompson‘s first book, One Night in Sixes, also out this summer. (stay tuned for her appearance on the podcast, too)
My Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen, in which the plot tension is “how deep does the main character get into the alien society?”
And when someone demands I write the sequel to Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen: Power of the Triceratops Lobby.
The DFWcon, which is possibly Jennie’s favorite con.
Lots of good people to talk to here.
Dallas Fort Worth writing workshop: you should join up. They’re awesome.
“How to kill off your characters in a historically accurate manner.”
At conventions, I’d love to hear about things that will be ready soon.
May 9, 2014
Wheel in the Sky 9
“Traitor!” The material of Martus’ mantle lost its hard edges, became a black cloud that condensed into a ropy column stretching to the ceiling. The limb hoisted the krypterion into the air, where he dangled like a hanged man, shouting evacuation orders. Strips of dark material spun out from him to wrap around students and acolytes and haul them to safety
Saria knelt down and brought the godsnare out of the hole Voidcleaver had made in her cloak. She had to work quickly
Martus cried out as he launched his assault. He stood upright on scuttling legs while razor-sharp ribbons arced out at odd angles, probing for a clear entry past Voicleaver’s eldritch blade.
Candegar kept Voidlcleaver close to his centre and flicked the blade out with blindingg speed, trying to slice off the attacking limbs.
There was no clash of metal or grunt of exertion. Only a pulse in Saria’s abdomen and a smear of darkness in her vision.
These were not two men fighting. They were puppets being smashed together by powers greater than both of them.
She stilled her fear. Controlled herself.
The black smear hung in the air like smoke made solid, swirling with rectilinear currents as it sliced at Candegar with jagged psuedopods. But the fell material drew back whenever Candegar’s blade came close, as if afraid to touch that green-black metal.
Ground and center, she thought. Ground and center until her concentration was a pinpoint. By sheer will the world narrowed down to her task.
Candegar moved so fast he was almost invisible but he was trapped in this cell and Martus could attack many places at once. Already streamers of his mantle material stuck to the walls and floor and pulled taught, tightening into a web.
Martus would surely kill Candegar if Saria did not…finish the godsnare.
The little crank turned and every person or near-person in the cells turned to look at her.
“No, you fool.” Martus drew back from Candegar and swept toward her like an angry thunderhead.
Saria dropped her device, raising useless hands against the obsidian tentacle that bolted toward her face.
But Candegar was not finished with the krypterion. He flashed forward, dagger out, and severed the questing limb. Saria had a glimpse of the tentacle’s internal structure. Like a sheet of black silk folded and refolded upon itself, pumping with oily fluid.
Then Martus fell to the flagstones and Candegar began to laugh.
Or something laughed through him.
“Such access,” he said or was made to say. “Such power!”
Martus scrambled to his feet, but Candegar spun, impossibly agile, and his eldritch blade ripped through the Krypterion’s mantle and flesh.
Blood and black oil sprayed.
Martus’ cowl seemed to liquidate before it peeled back from his face and Saria could see now that his eye sockets were filled with the same black flailing substance that ran up his face and connected with the writhing mass that covered his otherwise bald head and neck. The Krypterion’s scream pulsed through her abdomen and threatened to pierce her ears.
“Enough of that!” Candegar said and he moved in too fast for Saria to see, Voidcleaver held low to take Martus in the heart.
Martus moved with insectile speed. Slick tentacles scrabbled at the ground, pulling him away from the other man.
“No! I will have the rest of you!” Candegar screamed but Martus gained speed faster than he could charge him and soon he was gone.
So, Saria realized, was every other person in the dungeon capable of walking.
The godsnare. She’d activated it, sent out the invisible signal that would call down the wrath of a Power that would make Candegar or Martus look like insects.
“Come on,” she shouted, but the Hero’s fingers closed around her wrist.
Candegar grinned blindly, and his knife pulled his arm upward, point aimed at her throat.
Next
May 7, 2014
Planet Zarmina
“At first glance, Zarmina looked like it was already inhabited, with crystal glittering on the light side and illuminated highways on the dark. Huge flat shapes swung through the planet’s atmosphere like cargo planes. The fields marched with coordinated waves of activity. The planet was as noisy as rush hour in Shanghai with the clatter of clapperweed. Except of course that there was no native intelligent life on Zarmina. Instead of the rectangles and lines of cities and highways, the lights of Zarmina were fractal skeins of re-distributed sunlight, bright at the terminator and fading almost to invisibility at the planet’s Night Pole.”
Want to see more of my playing with the ecology of a tidally-locked planet?
May 6, 2014
The Fleet of the Great Hajj
大朝觐船队
“Holy Brilliance,” said Admiral Feng Aosiman ben Ali, “it is only my devotion to God, who calls suicide a sin, and to His Emperor Under Heaven that I do not kill myself in atonement for my incompetence.”
“So,” said the Imam-Emperor, “bad news, then.”
“See the leg I humbly had removed to show my devotion and atonement.”
The Admiral of the Great Fleet of Western Jihad clumped forward and, indeed, his left leg below the knee had been replaced with a peg of hardwood. And yes, the gold-and-lacquer box in his arms was long and rather narrow.
The Imam-Emperor flicked a hand and his servants carried the gift away to put with the others. “The news,” he said, “must be very bad. Speak it to us.”
“The infidel Arabs block gulf of Oman and the gulf of Aden,” said Feng. “Our fleets and armies are unmatched in numbers and power. Our understanding of war and its ways far outstrip theirs. And yet the Arabian Desert and the Red Sea are…not as conducive to our victory as one might suppose.”
The Imam-Emperor might have applauded. For a man used to shouting orders to panicking captains, that was quite excellent diplomatic language. Still…”You last told us this fight was not impossible,” he said, “only expensive. Were you lying or misinformed or foolish to say so?” An admission of any of the three would give him grounds to have Feng executed.
“Victory remains possible,” said the Admiral, “but the expense will be greater than even my most…pessimistic predictions.”
The lips of the Imam-Emperor thinned. The word in the court was not “pessimistic” but “treasonous.” How could the very admiral of the Jihad Fleet doubt in his mission to return control of Mecca to true Islam and God’s Empire under Heaven?
“I humbly maintain,” the admiral was saying, “that it would be cheaper to build our own Mecca. Even ten times the size of the original, plated in gold and built atop Tien Shan peak, it would cost less than beating back the Arabs from their homeland.”
“Our amusement at your obvious joke outweighs our anger,” said the Imam-Emperor, “slightly. We hope you have a serious suggestion.”
The admiral bowed low. “I do, your holiness. The gross military term is ‘outflanking.’”
“Another land campaign? We grow impatient with your jokes.” Central Asia and East Africa were full of half-civilized Sunni partisans. Sending Chinese troops into that meat grinder again might very well convince the high aristocracy that the Emperor had lost God’s mandate.
“Your holy brilliance, I am an Admiral, not a general.” And not an utter fool, his choice of words implied. “I suggest finding an alternate passage to Mecca by sea.”
Admiral Feng gestured, and one of his servants produced a large scroll-box. When pulled straight, the map on the silk was plain to the eye of the Imam-Emperor. So was the red line trailing down the Malay Peninsula to Rope Island and the Great Southern Island. That was the standard trade route for sugarcane, coffee, and the rare perfumes of the red desert. What wasn’t standard was the way the red line continued. Due east.
“The world,” said the Admiral “is round. There are large islands west of the Great Southern, perhaps the beginning of a chain. I believe that if we take on enough supplies at our established ports and island-hop carefully from there, we can cross the Great Flat Ocean and make landfall in the Far West. From there, we can sail through the Mediterranean.”
“Catching the Arabs in our pincer, you suggest.” The Imam-Emperor took on a dubious expression. “We cannot expect a handful of half-starved sailors to be of much use in a battle.”
“Your holy brilliance is entirely correct,” said Feng, “but it was my humble plan to make more than one voyage. It might take years to establish a reliable course, set up way stations, win over the Far Western locals, and make all the other necessary preparations to wage successful war.”
The Imam-Emperor leaned forward. “So your plan, might win back Mecca for my son or my grandson?”
“Your holy brilliance, my humble and unworthy plan will win Mecca back for God.”
The Imam-Emperor almost laughed. “Very well. You will have your,” he sat back, considering. “Your Great Hajj Fleet.”
The admiral bowed.
“And to ensure your plans are carried out properly,” said the Imam-Emperor, “you will command this fleet personally.”
The bow froze. Continued with a noticeable tremor. “As your holy brilliance commands.”
“So let it be known,” announced the chamberlain and Admiral Feng stumped out of the throne room on his pegleg. The Imam-Emperor smiled.
The admiral was popular and powerful. Not the sort one could casually have assassinated.
Now though, with Admiral Feng Aosiman ben Ali as good as dead or exiled, the Imam-Emperor was free to choose a replacement to lead the Jihad Fleet.
And who knew, perhaps the crazy transpacific voyage idea would actually work.
Either way, Mecca would again belong to the Emperor of China and Imam of all Islam.
