David Gullen's Blog, page 4

Review – The Novels of Fred Willard

I came to Fred Willard’s work back to front as it were, discovering him through his fiction before realising he was such a prolific film and TV actor. Willard only wrote two books. Both are noir crime novels and both are original, highly entertaining and well worth reading. The main characters are not so much hard-boiled as hard-bitten, they’ve made mistakes and learned from their criminal pasts, and get pulled back into the game by the lure of one last job.

Down on Ponce is the first, the tale of ex-dope-smuggler Sam Fuller’s time laying low on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta. A job emerges, a crew of apparently hopeless street characters assemble – a voiceless cancer survivor, a paraplegic, a madman. Together they plan to rip off the biggest crime boss on the area and escape to better lives. Of course, nothing survives contact with the enemy and their plans for a bloodless scam unravel in the face of true criminal insanity.

There’s an unexpected tenderness among all the dry wit, twists and turns, set-backs and violence. Willard’s characters care for each other, they understand they are different and not only accept each other’s differences and disadvantages, they work with them too. Down on Ponce starts to wander a little as it approaches the final acts, there are few debut novels that don’t, but it soon gets its feet back under itself for a superb ending.

Willard’s second book is the gloriously titled Princess Naughty and the Voodoo Cadillac. Once again Willard has a misfit crew pitched against a mixed opposition of schemers and highly dangerous operators, this time on the decaying fringes of CIA covert ops. Willard really finds his style with this book, short chapters, quick changes of scene, a book written as if it’s filled with cinematic jump-cuts.

This time also the story as better balanced between the multiple narratives. Once again our crew are spiraling in on the big score, but other sharks patrol these waters too, and some are highly competent.

As the title promises, the book has a dry and cynical humour. Ponce had that too, but here again it’s better developed and better used. Everything is turned up to eleven and Willard is pushing for twelve. The secondary characters are by turns sinister, ludicrous, pathetic, and deadly. And again there’s that unexpected tenderness in the character’s emotional lives. Well, some of them, most of the others are incapable of finding that and perhaps that was Willard’s point.

Willard’s book are convoluted and intricate but the plots never become confusing. There’s always an ‘X’ on the map that everyone is, by hook or by crook, working their way towards, determines to be the first in, or if not at least the last standing. While there might be no good guys (or gals) there are those who are less worse, and isn’t burning down the really bad guys and getting away with it something we all occasionally dream of?

Both books I suspect are out of print. To my surprise Down on Ponce is available on Kindle. I think Princess Naughty should be too, it’s the better book. There is, however, a decent second hand market for the print versions of both books. Go get ‘em.

Fin.

Solar PV – 2020 Sunshine Levels

Once a quarter I log my Solar PV reading with my electricity supplier. I have a 3.8 KWh installation on a near-enough south-facing roof in the UK. Along with a Tesla Power2 it generates about 75% of our electricity in any year.

I’ve been doing this for 8 years, and logging the detailed info for the past six. It’s been interesting in that my perception of what makes a sunny quarter often isn’t reflected in the readings. They’ve been reasonably consistent.

[image error]

1. March-May 2014-19

March-May totals 2014-2019 have been, on average, 1,178 KWh, varying from as low as 90% (1,064 KWh) of that average in 2018 to 106% (1,218 KWh) in 2015. (Graph 1.)

2. Cumulative Total

To show personal perceptions of how much sunshine there is can be wrong, the annual total generation for the past few years is pretty much a straight line. (Graph 2.)

But wow, that’s over 30MWh generated!

I’ve just logged this year’s Mar-May reading. Graph 3 shows what that first graph looks like with that reading added in. The new reading that is an extraordinary 129% above the previous six year’s average, at 1,515 KWh.

[image error]

3. March-May 2014-20

One rule with SolarPV is the longer the days and the sunnier the days, the more electricity is generated. While a clear winter’s day can hit peak generation it will only do it for a short period because the days are short.

It’s been a very sunny quarter. Based on my generation records, there’s been more sunshine in this March-May than in any June-August quarter since 2014 (The highest was 1,490 KWh in 2018). In every other year June-August has always been the highest generating quarter of the year.

Great for us, in the last three months we used an insignificant 28KW from the mains grid, but I’m really wondering why there’s such a big jump. Was it the Covid19 lockdown giving clear skies, or climate change, or a bit of both? I’m wondering what next quarter will be like, and next year too.

Wet winters, dry clear springs and summers seems to be the new normal here. The weather’s beautiful but I can’t help but worry this is bad news.

Writing: Art or Craft?

I remember a conversation from many years ago in my first writing group about whether or not writing could be taught. Some people thought no, that writing alone in all the fields of human endeavour, was somehow special and the ability was innate, Gods-given. The best you could do was encourage, but teaching, darling, was simply not possible.

As a journeyman writer still wet behind the ears I soaked this up. Was it true? I had my doubts. Later I realised this was nonsense. Everything other human activity can be, and is taught, from acting to zoology. Writing is not that special, nor that precious. The conversation moved on to whether writing was art or craft.

Over time this question has interested me probably far more than it reasonably should.

In paraphrase, the great French poet Paul Valéry wrote that a work of art is never finished, merely abandoned. You can read the full quote in French and translation here, including his reasoning for why he thinks that is.  

From my own experiences, and listening to other writers, that’s pretty much true for novels. There’s either not enough time because of a deadline, or you’ve drafted it so many times you’re tired of it. So there we have it – writing is art.

Except there’s a craft to writing too, the developed skills in use of language, tension, characterisation, agency, and all the other tools in a writer’s toolbox. Skills that one hopes will never stop being refined and improved in breadth and depth. And of course we change too.

The other thing I can’t seem to leave alone is leather craft. Is this a craft? The name implies as much but I’ve seen work that has amazed me with its artistry. With its origins in the working classes isn’t this classification as much a social construct as anything?

I have a theory: The difference between Art and Craft is that craft can be finished.

When I write a novel, given time and inclination I could redraft it forever, but if I make a leather belt when it is made it is done, finished, and there is nothing more that could be done to make it more the thing that it already is. In fact doing more would risk ruining it.

Except the learning of the craft never ends. Skills improve, the links between mind and eye and hand strengthen, new tools and techniques are discovered or learned. There’s an art to all this after all.

I still like my theory, but I think what it really shows is art and craft are two hands working together, inspiration and application. If I cook a meal, that is a piece of craft, once it’s done it is done, but the learning (and believe me in this realm I have much to learn) never ends.

So is writing an art or a craft? It’s both, obviously, just like everything we do. And yes, it can be taught. And learned.  But what about reading, a lone and possibly snarky voice calls? Reading? Don’t get me started.

Fin.

(A slightly different version of this was originally posted in the Milford SF Writers blog in February, 2020.)

Axe the Reading Tax

That wonderful organisation the ALCS (Author’s Licencing and Collecting Society) have been running a campaign called Axe The Reading Tax to have VAT removed from digital publications in the UK. They are now asking all UK writers to write to their MPs before the coming budget.

Not only is this an illogical tax, it also penalises the disadvantaged. Rather than repeat myself, please read the draft letter below. Even better, use it as a template to write to your own MP.

I based my letter on the one the ALCS have on their campaign page. Feel free to use and edit it as you wish.

Please spread the word if you are able. Thank you.

-~-

Dear xxxx,

I am writing to you as a local constituent to ask
that you write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, to ask on him
to remove the tax on digital publications in the coming Budget.

Printed books, magazines and newspapers have always had a zero-rate of VAT applied to them, and rightly so. But their digital equivalents are subject to 20% VAT. This is illogical and unfair, and is in effect a tax on reading, education, and learning.

Ever since the UK’s VAT regime was established in the 1970s, it was recognised that books and knowledge are essential to people’s lives and applying tax to them is wrong. This long-standing belief has helped ensure that reading and learning remains affordable and accessible to people of all ages, incomes and abilities.

According to research from the
National Literacy Trust, over 45% of children prefer to read on a digital
device and young people on free school meals are more likely to read digitally
than their more advantaged peers. Furthermore, this tax disproportionately
impacts vulnerable groups such as the elderly and people with disabilities, who
may need audiobooks or e-readers that can be used to alter print size. In this
light the tax on digital publication appears arbitrary and unkind.

Please support the campaign to
end this tax. I enclose a pre-paid envelope and look forwards to
your reply.

Yours sincerely,

The First Story I Ever Wrote

Twenty-seven years ago I was thirty-five years old, with a young family of three children. It was 1993 and I had just been made redundant for the second time. Each morning I went through the adverts for jobs and applied for the suitable ones. I was (and still am) an experienced VMS Operating System admin, and in those days there was work to be found.

Twenty-seven years ago jobs were still advertised in print magazines, even local newspapers. I had a chunky old Windows 3.1 386 computer, and a dot-matrix printer, printing on micro-perforated fan-fold paper. Did I have an internet connection at home? I honestly cannot remember. I don’t think so, but a new search engine called AltaVista was a revelation at my next job

I was a regular user of the local library (remember when those wonderful places were in almost every town?). On one visit I saw an advert for a writing competition run by the Adult Education college in nearby Richmond. Effectively, the brief was to write a short story on any subject. First prize was, I think, £30.00, the word limit around 2,000.

I applied for job in the mornings and my afternoons were pretty empty. I’d always wanted to write, I was out of work. This, I thought, was a good opportunity. So I sat down and wrote 2020 Vision, a story about life in the year 2020. You can read it here.

The new year reminded me about this story and after many, many years, I hesitantly read it again. To my relief it wasn’t that bad. A first effort, an apprentice piece. What was more interesting was to look at what I had got right, or wrong in my predictions.

The short answer is quite a lot!

Wrong!

I might have been right about the increasingly difficulty of getting state aid by people who need it, but failed to imagine the sheer hostility of the present system. My future dystopia feels cosy compared to reality.

While I was wrong about the spread of specific drug-resistant infections, I had the general trend right. That wasn’t hard because even back in the 90s there was serious concern about the spread of drug resistance. And I was semi-right about the difficulty funding research into ‘Third-World’ diseases in a profits-based pharma culture. Wrong also about compulsory treatment. This is probably a good thing.

I was completely wrong about cybernetic body enhancements. They never happened. I and many of my geeky, techy, ShadowRun-playing friends were in love with the idea, as well as William Gibson’s Neuromancer vision of the future. Right now I’m unconvinced it will ever happen and problems of tech obsolescence aren’t going to go away.

While I feel I came quite close predicting high personal debt from university fees, that was simply a case of turning what was already there up to 11. It seemed pretty obvious.

Not Even Close!

I didn’t even mention HIV. I don’t know why, it was a big deal and high on government agendas and in the news. It’s still with us and while there’s disagreement, some believe its elimination within a decade is possible. Let’s hope so.

No doubt you can think of plenty more mistakes and omissions, but the big, bigger, biggest thing I totally missed was climate change. It was there but it had no real priority in either mine or the general consciousness as being anything more than ‘something that needs to be dealt at some point’. This, I think, is a real failure of imagination on my part as a writer of science fiction. But this was my first story, so give me a break.

Right!

I was nearly right about gene therapy fixing inherited diseases. I trained as a biologist, life and the processes of life still fascinate me. The other sciences are interesting but biology and especially genetic research is where it’s at. (As a total aside, how’s this for brilliant?)Back in the 90s this was all so far under the radar it was underground and even today the wider population seems unaware of just what a revolution is coming. A little slower that I’d hoped but it is just about here and few people have noticed.

I was right about the garage science bit too. Basic CRISPR gene editing can be done by anyone, by smart children, by you and me. It doesn’t need much equipment and costs are plummeting. Regulating this will be a challenge, but it’s one of the new sciences that holds enormous promise and hope, and it’s coming to your neighbourhood soon. To your street, your house. You. Puma claws for everyone, I tell you. Everyone.

Fin.

P.S. 2020 Vision won that competition. I signed up for a term of classes at the college and the class went on to form my first writing group. Looking back, I think much credit goes to the judges for even considering an SF story in a general competition. 18 months later I sold my first story to Trevor Denyer’s Broadsword magazine.

The Girl from a Thousand Fathoms, Chapter 86 – Old Tuoni

Chapter 89 – Old Tuoni

That evening as Tim walked home his head still spun from
what he had done and everything he had learned. Even the street had looked
different. The next day it was the same. The pavement, sky, trees and houses
all had a new clarity as if they had acquired extra dimensions of colour and
shape.

It was Tim who had changed. He
saw with different eyes and had learned to take far less for granted.

Morse had changed too, only
slowly returning to the cat he used to be. Tim had carried him home last night
but this morning the cat was waiting by the door to go back to Mrs Woosencraft
at number 23.

Overnight someone had dumped a
battered cream-coloured Mercedes convertible across the road. One of the hubcaps
was gone, the side window a taped-up sheet of plastic.

Tim stopped dead in his tracks. With
its broken headlights, crushed wheel-arches and cracked windscreen the car had
known better days. Days when three women who liked to wear red drove it.

Uneven footsteps hurried behind
him. ‘Hang on old buddy, I don’t go that fast.’ It was Troy Jarglebaum.

‘Troy. You made it.’

Jarglebaum was still big in the
belly but his face was gaunt, he looked older and moved less easily.

‘Most of me, I guess.’

The two men looked at each other.
They’d had their differences but after what they’d been through on the Sea Cucumber they were small things.

‘Troy. On the ship. I saw you
fight.’

Jarglebaum’s eyes briefly lost
focus as he relived those last dreadful minutes fighting Imelda on the sinking
ship. He shuddered, then flashed those tombstone teeth of his. ‘That was you
with the cargo net.’

‘Yes. Me and Foxy.’

‘You saved my life.’ Troy stuck
out his hand. ‘Thanks, Ace. Nice one.’

Tim didn’t know what to say. The
main reason was the way Jarglebaum had said ‘Ace’. He accepted Jarglebaum’s
hand. It seemed natural to follow through with an embrace.

‘Not so tight,’ Troy wheezed.

Tim stepped back. ‘How did you
get here?’

‘A short-wave radio in the
lifeboat and GPS on Markus’s mobile. We called the Iron Herring, they picked us up and the supply chopper flew us
ashore. A couple of pints of blood and some bed rest and here I am, right as
rain.’

‘Koponen’s alive?’

‘Last time I looked.’ Jarglebaum
raised his voice. ‘You’re still with us, aren’t you, Markus?’

The passenger door of the
Mercedes creaked open and Markus Koponen emerged, dapper as ever. He settled a
new white Stetson on his head and crossed the road.

‘Thanks to you two.’

‘I’m glad you made it,’ Tim said.

Koponen bowed stiffly. ‘Though
perhaps not so glad to actually see me. I can hardly blame you. How is Ms
Bolivia?’

Out of the corner of his eye Tim
noticed Jarglebaum grow attentive. Careful not to look towards Mrs
Woosencraft’s house Tim said, ‘She’s well, and quite safe.’

‘I am pleased to hear it. You’re
a resourceful man, Mr Wassiter. I underestimated you.’

‘I have my methods,’ Tim said
knowingly.

Jarglebaum chuckled. ‘You got
lucky.’

‘That,’ said Tim, ‘is one of my methods.’

‘And I don’t dismiss it lightly.’
Koponen drew himself up. ‘I won’t be stopped, Mr Wassiter. I can’t be. Too much
is at stake. More now than ever, now we know there are people… Things…’
Koponen took a deep breath. ‘Well, now I know where so much of Kylma Kala’s
profits went. I was blind and foolish, so very foolish.’

‘She’s not completely human any
more,’ Tim said. ‘I really don’t think you’ll see her again.’

Koponen’s eyes glistened. ‘There’s
still part of me–’

Jarglebaum put his hand on
Koponen’s shoulder. ‘Markus, this is getting you nowhere. They ripped you off
big-time, sank your ship and tried to kill you. Whatever they are, they aren’t
your girlfriends.’

‘I know it, Troy,’ Koponen sighed
wearily. ‘And you were right, I didn’t listen. Ah, well. Mr Wassiter, I hope
you still believe I’m one of the good guys.’

‘I’ll accept you’re not one of
the bad ones.’

‘That will have to do. I’m not
going to give up. If I have to start again, I will. Sisu. We Finns never give up.’

‘I believe you,’ Tim said.

‘I’d like you to come and work
for me. You and Ms Bolivia.’

‘I can’t imagine she’d be
interested.’

‘Even after what she saw aboard Sea Cucumber? Don’t you want to find out
more about what happened to those women? And that thing, whatever it is, is
still down there, still damaging my operations.’

‘They called it Tuoni.’

Koponen went very still. ‘By the
old Gods, did they? What else did you discover?’

‘They wanted to marry Foxy to
Tuoni, for her to give birth to his daughter, a second bride.’

‘Tuonetar, the daughter-wife,’
Koponen half-whispered. ‘This is… crazy.’

‘Yes. How do you know?’

‘The Kalevala, Mr Wassiter. The
more you research legend and myth, the more truth you find. These stories form
part of my country’s gestalt, they are part of what I am.’

‘Legends are in the past.’

Koponen gave a thin smile. ‘Isn’t
your King Arthur the once and future
king?’

‘Guys,’ Jarglebaum broke in. ‘You
have totally and completely fucking lost me.’

‘It appears something dangerous
and ancient is trying to return,’ Koponen explained.

Jarglebaum’s instinctive guffaw
died in his throat. ‘OK, I can go along with that.’

‘Whatever it is, it is very powerful
and believes it is Lord of the Underworld. This new Tuoni is not something we
can ignore any more than we can global warming,’ Koponen said. ‘Mr Wassiter,
please talk to Ms Bolivia, then call me. You know where I am.’

Tim couldn’t help but be amused
by Koponen’s persistence. ‘I’ll mention it.’

‘I ask for no more. Whatever she
decides I would very much like to hear about your trip back to shore.’ Koponen
prepared to cross the road. ‘Troy?’

Jarglebaum shook Tim’s hand
again. ‘See you around, Ace. Look after yourself.’

‘You too.’ Tim walked him to the
battered Mercedes. ‘A pint in the Bat and Ball?’

‘Only if I’m buying.’

Koponen doffed his hat before
climbing into the car. ‘You can keep the Imperial. It’s time I had something
less ostentatious, less traceable. Something with a white roof.’

Tim walked away then looked back
at the Mercedes. Under his shirt the pendant pulsed. ‘Your Merc is fine apart
from the bodywork. Change the water pump at the next service.’

‘How’s the Imperial?’

‘I don’t have it,’ Tim called
back. ‘I don’t even know where it is.’

Koponen found that highly
amusing. ‘What goes around, Mr Wassiter.’

‘I prefer the 55 Belvedere.’

‘Work for me and I’ll buy you one.’

To be continued…

The Girl from a Thousand Fathoms, Chapter 85 – Inanna

Asklepios was gone. Unbidden, a tear welled in Banipal’s eye. He laughed at his own self-pity.

Praise the Gods for the gifts they give, he chided himself. Don’t weep because you wanted more.

He would go to the temples and
seek understanding. Ishkun’s philosophy came back to him: head, hand and spirit
– all must be provided for. Of late Banipal’s days had consisted of little else
but his work, the hand of Marduk showed strongly in the pattern of his life. He
had not kept his promise to Ishkun and neglected his physical aspect. It was
obvious which deity he should petition for help.

The courtyard below his workrooms
opened onto an open plaza. On the far side, flanked by double rows of squat
oval pillars, the high bronze-banded cedar doors to Inanna’s temple stood ever
open. There the priestesses offered their own bodies to honour the goddess. For
a lesser donation they would bathe, oil and massage the supplicant’s body. For
less still they would dance. For nothing at all they did as they pleased.

At the doors Banipal removed his
sandals, washed his feet in the ceaseless stream that flowed from the twin cisterns
and went inside.

The interior of Inanna’s temple
was cool, pooled with light and shadow from small oil lamps burning here and
there. Banipal made his way through the silence to the purifying rooms. There
he gave over his offering, a nugget of natural gold, and was admitted.

Alone in the peace of a
cool-water pool he stripped, bathed, then floated for a while in the dim
silence. He rose from the water, dried himself and walked naked into the next
room, where a muscular male priest oiled and scraped his skin with a strigil
carved from the shin-bone of a lioness.

The priest departed. Banipal lay face
down on a low wooden couch padded with cushions. The chill of the pool and the
rough tingle of the strigil faded to a pleasant glow. He tried to clear his
mind and seek Inanna’s peace. It wasn’t easy, his thoughts kept returning to
the ghosts, Asklepios, the geometries on the table.

Warm hands pressed on his
shoulders. Unheard and unannounced one of the celebrant priestesses had entered
the room. She began to massage his back.

She was strong and skilful, kneading
and pushing the muscles and tendons under his skin. Banipal groaned as she
found a knot of tension above his shoulder blade and was rewarded by a
satisfied, feminine laugh, relaxed and easy. Shoulders, spine, hips, thighs and
calves all yielded to her skill. She pressed her palms onto his kidneys, her
hands burned like hot bronze and sent warmth deep into his entrails.

She touched his shoulder. Banipal
turned onto his back.

The priestess was a woman neither
young nor old, still in her prime. The grey veil of the celebrant covered her
face. Her oiled skin gleamed copper red in the lamp light.

Her hips were wide, her breasts full
and heavy. She had given birth at least once, her belly marked by a spreading
fan of pale stretch-scars.

Banipal admired all the aspects
of her beauty, each one emphasised by the shadows pooling in the hollows and
curves of her body: her female form; her mother-marks; that carrying and giving
birth had altered her body. He felt a pang of envy, her whole body was Inanna’s
gift in ways he would never know.

This he knew he must accept. Her
gifts also brought great risks. Men too had their gifts, their lives held
different dangers.

‘This evening I am weary,’ he informed
her politely.

The priestess understood. She
laid her hands on his brow, his heart, his stomach. ‘I am a vessel of Inanna’s
peace.’

‘I am in need of that peace’
Banipal said.

‘What is your offering?’

‘I am my own offering.’

‘For now?’

‘Now, and always. My whole self.’
Banipal said, completing the simple ritual.

He closed his eyes. A gentle
breeze moved across his stomach and thighs but he felt no arousal. The
priestess pressed her palm onto his brow again and he exhaled. As he did he
felt his entire body loosen, limbs sinking, spine settling, all sinking towards
the supporting wood beneath him. Peace filled him – Inanna’s first and last gift.
He felt her presence beside him, within him. The warmth of her body, the soft
pressure of her stomach against his scalp.

So Banipal slept, and dreamed the
strangest dream of a city with streets, of buildings without doors or windows. Mud
brick dwellings stood crammed together like eggs in a nest, each with a single
entrance in the common roof, both door and smoke hole. The whole city was built
upon the ruins of an earlier age. Beneath that lay older ruins, and older
still. Over the centuries a great tel
of rubble had risen above the surrounding grasslands with the current city on
top.

He stood above the entrance to
what he knew to be his own home. Storm-light flickered ominously. Every other
inhabitant was safe in their homes, safe from the storm and the creatures that
made it. He was the last, and alone.

 Banipal climbed down a single-rail wooden
ladder into the darkness of his single room home. Lightning flashed and a few
heartbeats later thunder rolled across the plain. He blew the embers of the
fire into life and added a little kindling.

As he built the fire two people
dropped into the room, a lean young man and an old woman. Strangers seeking
refuge, they knelt with palms upraised until Banipal touched their shoulders
and accepted them as his guests.

Both were weary and far from
home, exhausted by a long and arduous journey. The fire caught and in the
growing light Banipal saw the tattoos on their bodies – patterns of the
clustered dots and lines, circles, arrows and angles. Numbers, he realised with
a start, they had numbers even in these ancient times. They understood the abstract
and measured things beyond the seasons.

The storm circled the city. All
three curled beside the fire and slept. Dreamers within a dream inside a dream.

Down to a time before legends–

Where tall ships lay at berth in
a grand harbour beneath a city of pillared domes and bright spires. A city unwalled,
where a roofless temple of marble steps and gilded columns stood in the green
foothills of a towering, cloud-bannered mountain. A city that glowed with light
at night, where machines had minds, and winged platforms slid across the sky.
The kingdom, the city, of many names: Thule, Ys, Atlantis…

The three of them stood on the sweeping
quay under the shadows of marble gods and saw the city was past its glory days.
The harbour breakwater was a tumbledown ruin, one city quarter was abandoned,
another had been smashed to rubble by something enormous that had rampaged
through it.

Beyond the harbour a titanic
segmented creature was being towed out to see by a flotilla of three-masted
ships. The creature was alive and strove mightily against the massive chains that
bound it tight. The flotilla headed towards the cold heart of the ocean. There,
the beast would sink. There, like all the others of its kind, it would die.

Only one living thing could be so
gigantic.

Tuoni

The word beat inside Banipal’s
mind as if spoken by another voice.

The name broke his dream. Startled,
he hovered in the formless darkness of his own mind. Who is there? Who spoke?

A crone voice came. ‘Wake up, bachgen. I see the way home.’

Instantly Banipal was wide awake
on the couch. Above him the veiled celebrant pressed down on his breastbone
with the heel of her hand. Between his legs his manhood was achingly erect. He
could only have slept for moments.

The priestess sensed his
confusion. ‘What is it?’

‘A vision.’

In one graceful movement she
swung her leg across his hips and mounted him. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

The sensation of her engulfing him was incredible.

#

Tim’s eyes jolted open at exactly the moment Mrs Woosencraft’s
leg jerked and sent her stool flying across the room.

She returned Tim’s wide-eyed gaze
with aplomb. ‘Well, that takes me back. Not the kind of ride I imagined. Very
impressive.’

Foxy and Tim spent the rest of
the day with Mrs Woosencraft. First Foxy insisted on hearing about their dream
journey while it lay vivid in Tim’s mind. He told her of Asklepios and the
nightmare winds, the tattooed men and women from the honeycomb city of manmade
caves, and the bright city and the beast on the ocean.

They discussed what it all meant.
Mrs Woosencraft summarised: ‘Warm waters have woken something from the first great
days of mankind. Something that was supposed to die. The ancients created it,
then they tried to destroy it.’

‘That creature controls minds and
changes bodies,’ Foxy said. ‘Deep magic cannot do that, nor can your numbers.
It knows things we don’t.’

‘Sea Cucumber is lost, the crop destroyed. Koponen didn’t know what
was going on,’ Tim said. ‘He was trying to save the world, now he might not be
alive. I feel sorry for him.’

‘Part of the world doesn’t want
to be saved,’ Mrs Woosencraft said gloomily.

Tim shared her mood. ‘So much has
happened so fast. I really feel out of my depth.’

Foxy burst out laughing. ‘That’s
such a funny thing to say.’

It relieved the tension in the
room. Things night not look good but Foxy and Mrs Woosencraft were becoming
friends. The old witch gave Tim her best advice:

‘You’ve started to find a way
through the veils we wrap around ourselves. I do it one way, Foxy uses another,
now you’ve found a third. I’m sure there’s a part of us that doesn’t want to
see things as they actually are, it prefers to make up its own rules and
pretend they are true. It’s strong but when it’s confronted by things that it
can’t explain some people break free and cast about for new ways, new answers.
The veils grow thin, an open mind glimpses a new way.’

‘You think that’s what happened
to me.’

‘Stress is kind of a crash course
to open your inner wossname.’

‘It’s hard to realise I actually
went to those places,’ Tim said.

‘You did, and in a way you
didn’t,’ Mrs Woosencraft said. ‘Like all magic there are limits you shouldn’t
push past, dangerous ones. You took chances and I let you. Worse, I encouraged
you. I should have known better.’

‘We found out a lot. Where do you
think we were?’

‘More a case of when,’ Mrs
Woosencraft said. ‘That first was Babylon, the second – somewhere very old, but
the third, that golden ruin on the island was older still.’

‘Foxy, that’s where you’re from,
isn’t it,’ Tim said.

Mrs Woosencraft settled herself down in her chair. ‘It’s where we all came from.’

To be continued…

The Girl from a Thousands Fathoms, Chapter 84 – Origin

An early draft of this story started with the question ‘Where does anything really begin?’ This weeks chapter offers at least one suggestion. It’s a longer read than in recent weeks, but there is quite a lot going on! Enjoy.

Chapter 84 – Origin

Blown like thistledown by the dream-winds Tim sensed Asklepios’
location in the blustering blue-grey clouds as nothing more than a sense of
rightness in one direction more than any other. He swept closer, Mrs
Woosencraft a growing weight on his back. When they had set out she had been no
burden beyond a slight inertia, the further they travelled the greater her
weight had grown.

Asklepios resolved into the same
pinpoint of blue-white light Tim had seen on the beach during his first
dream-flight. His light rose to meet them, hung steady then plummeted like a
falling stone. Tim dropped down after it and broke free of the mists. Above him
stars glittered in a moonless sky, far below a double-walled city stood beside
a broad river on a winding plain, the very place he had brought Asklepios. Free
of the mists that had plagued him on his first journey Tim saw the city was on
a grand scale with wide, brick-paved avenues, two and three story buildings,
and towering stepped temples. Temples were everywhere.

Asklepios’ soul light glowed
inside a room at the base of one of several buildings around a plaza. To the
west a bridge with a dozen arches spanned a wide energetic river. Immediately to
the north an enormous stepped pyramid thrust into the sky.

With no sense of transition they
were inside the room beside Asklepios’ sleeping form. Mrs Woosencraft dropped
from Tim’s back though her weight, the effort of carrying her, did not. She looked
around in wonder, especially at the table.

Tim reached for Asklepios’ hand
and drew him out.

Asklepios and Mrs Woosencraft’s
spirits recognised each other immediately.

Asklepios thrust out his splayed
hand. ‘Servant of Bez! Begone from this dream. I cast thee out!’

‘You can talk, interfering
meddler. I’m glad to finally clap my eyes on you.’

‘You know each other?’ Tim was dismayed
at their mutual hostility.

‘She is the root of all my
troubles,’ Asklepios said.

‘He broke my teapot.’

Tim clutched his head. ‘What?’

‘Remember the bee and the glue? That
was this idiot,’ Mrs Woosencraft said.

‘I was helping Tim,’ Asklepios
said with affronted dignity.

Mrs Woosencraft looked at the two
men in sheer amazement. ‘You two were working together?’

Asklepios bowed serenely. ‘Indeed
we were.’

‘Foxy was plagued by cats,’ Tim
said. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’

‘Oh–!’ Mrs Woosencraft clenched
her fists, opened her mouth and struggled to find the right words. ‘Just forget
it. Water under the bridge.’

‘A gracious offer I gladly
accept.’ Asklepios turned eagerly to Tim. ‘Have you come to take me home?’

‘This isn’t it?’

‘Sadly, no.’

Mrs Woosencraft cleared her
throat. ‘I can only apologise.’

‘All right, we’ve been working at
cross-purposes, but I can put things right,’ Tim said. ’Asklepios, I can take
you home but I’m not strong enough to carry you both.’

‘Leave me here,’ Mrs Woosencraft
said without hesitation. ‘It’s the simplest way.’

‘I’ve only done this once before.
It’s not easy–’

‘Nothing worth doing ever is.’

‘If something wakes me up–’

Mrs Woosencraft folded her arms. ‘I’ll
take my chances. You and Foxy, you’ve made it all worthwhile, see? I want to
look around. Especially at that table.’

Reluctantly Tim agreed. If he did
wake then she could end up marooned here like Asklepios. ‘I’ll be as quick as I
can.’

‘I’ll be fine, bachgen.’

‘The people here have been kind
to me. I would like to say goodbye,’ Asklepios said.

Tim opened the door and saw a
shaven-headed man with a long, plaited beard dozing at a table. He was neither
fully asleep nor awake. Tim tried to draw him out and to his surprise the man’s
spirit emerged and stood in front of them.

‘This is Banipal, the man who
saved me.’ Asklepios raised his hand and Banipal returned the gesture.

‘Goodbye, my friend. May your
gods bless you,’ Asklepios said but Banipal gave no sign he understood.

‘He’s in his own dream, he cannot
hear you,’ Tim said.

Asklepios accepted the fact
calmly. ‘I shall miss him.’

‘Are you ready?’

‘To go home?’ Asklepios beamed
with pleasure. ‘Always.’

He was not as heavy as Mrs
Woosencraft but heavy enough. In a trice they were high above the city, then
higher still. Asklepios cried out and clung on. Mist enfolded them and he
relaxed.

‘I see you wear my pendant.’

‘I had to use the last charge.’

Asklepios’ disappointment was
palpable.

‘It helped save people’s lives.’

‘Then I am glad.’ Asklepios
became thoughtful. ‘Now it is uncharged please be careful when you remove it.’

‘What will happen?’

‘I have no idea.’

Tim smiled to himself. ‘I’m going
to miss you, Asklepios.’

‘And I, you. In the past few days
I have lived an entire lifetime of enlightenment and adventure. Now I am ready
to go home.’

‘Then show me where.’

Asklepios fell silent. Far across
time, distance, and possibility, a dim red light shone. ‘There.’

Travelling the mists was not
getting easier. Tim struggled against a rising wind – a growing pull to
wakefulness. Unbidden thoughts of Mrs Woosencraft’s back room intruded. He saw himself
asleep there clearly, it would be such an easy thing to open his eyes. He pushed
onwards, determined not to let Asklepios down a second time.

The winds grew contrary, gusting
hard in one direction then the other. ‘Think of home, Asklepios. Remember the
street, your rooms, your family, every little detail.’

‘My doorstep has a chip where my
son dropped the bucket.’

‘Yes.’

‘My room– My dearest wife–’ Asklepios’
voice dropped a tone. ‘I shall bathe more.’

It worked. A steady breeze built
behind them first countering then cancelling the push against Tim. For
Asklepios there was a rightness to this direction of travel. He was going home.

At long last the dream-mists parted.
The two men stood in a monochrome alleyway of tapered arches in mud-plaster
walls. Nearby stood a particular doorway familiar to Asklepios.

‘I am home.’ Asklepios dropped to
the ground, knelt, and kissed the packed earth.

Exhausted, Tim leaned on the
wall, the urge to wake almost overwhelming. To wake and sleep again –

Asklepios gestured apologetically
and backed away. ‘Master, my children, I am anxious–’ Colour bloomed around
Asklepios as he stepped into the waking world, red-mud plaster on the walls, a
patch of blue sky, a waft of orange blossom.

‘Farewell.’

Colours faded and with them Asklepios
and the alley. Tim was alone in the mists.

Wind slammed against him. Asklepios
had brought him close to the waking world. Tim pushed increasingly vivid
memories of his own home from his mind and began the wind-torn journey back to
Mrs Woosencraft, each moment an act of sheer will.

She shone far brighter than
Asklepios and for this Tim was grateful. It was so very far…

Brighton. The shingle beach
front, happily screaming children, music on the pier, the sunshine on his face.
Morse asleep on his bed.

Thunderheads of black and grey
cloud piled in front of him, the winds against his chest like a forbidding hand.
In the far distance a scatter of bright motes blew – dreamers like himself. Most
went with the winds but one drove headlong into the dream-winds towards some
far destination on a dream-quest like himself.

That brief moment of kinship gave
him strength. He drove on through air so dense it felt solid. Grab and pull,
grab and pull. Mrs Woosencraft was still far away. A trembling fear built in
him, the growing certainty it had been a big mistake to leave her. Dark clouds
circled all around, the wind a soundless hurricane. Weary beyond measure Tim
veered and swooped towards her beacon light.

When he finally breached the
mists she was terrified.

All that remained of the city was
Asklepios’ room. Outside there were no buildings, no city, just a windswept
charcoal-black tornado through which pinpoint lights whirled tore round and
around.

The corners of the room sloughed
into smoke. Mrs Woosencraft clung to the table, the last item of furniture in
the room.

Then the walls of the room were
gone, rubbed away into nothingness. They stood on a corroding circle of floor
within black storm-winds spattered with bright motes.

The look she gave him was half
gratitude, half incomprehension. ‘Leave me. Wake up, be safe.’

All around was a maelstrom of
dark dreams, nightmares and terror.

‘Out there – its madness.’

He was right and she knew it. If
he left her, even if she woke. Her face set hard, she tried to push him away.
‘Save yourself.’

He did not need saving, this was
still his dream and he would always be safe from his own nightmares. But her–?
They would tear her apart.

The power of the dream-storm was
daunting. They climbed onto the round table and clung to each other. If they
were going to go it had to be right now. Tim lifted Mrs Woosencraft onto his
back. His knees buckled, her weight was astonishing. The idea of going into
those winds with her on his back an impossibility.

He couldn’t do it.

Mrs Woosencraft climbed down.
‘It’s all right, Tim.’

‘I’m sorry.’ What else could he
say?

She squared her shoulders and
looked down at her feet. ‘I never thought I’d go out like this. Look after the
cats, won’t you?’

‘I’m here to the end, Mrs
Woosencraft–’

She took his hand. ‘Dorothy.’

‘I won’t leave you. Dorothy.’

The dark winds touched the table
and it resisted. It resisted and even here, even now, Mrs Woosencraft gave a
great laugh. ‘I knew it! That Asklepios, he’s the bloody one.’

They stood inside a dream-tornado
of black wind spattered with whirling motes of light – other dreamers blown by
the dream-winds wherever they took them. The thought shook Tim like a
thunderclap. He had brought Mrs Woosencraft with him, her spirit was connected
to his dream. Therefore– Those lights were dreamers, if he could attach himself
to one of their dreams–

The mad black winds were close enough to touch. Tim clutched Mrs Woosencraft’s hands and flung himself towards the nearest light.

To be continued…

The Girl from a Thousand Fathoms, Chapter 83 – A Ghost

Super busy this week, it’s good, but days feel a little breathless at the moment. I made it ! Here’s this week’s chapter. Hope life is good!

Chapter 83 – A Ghost

Banipal stretched out the ache in his back. After Asklepios’
failure he had returned to his own studies and spent longer than he intended
bent over his bench inscribing clay tablets.

He rested his head in his hands
and closed his eyes. He was avoiding the obvious question – was Asklepios a
fake? Was the man he had pulled from the river, the man now sleeping beside the
expensive round table in the other room, making a fool of him?

If so then he was being tricked
by a well-educated man. Banipal had already incorporated some of Asklepios’
number secrets into his own work and solved problems he had previously
struggled with. No, to doubt Asklepios was to doubt the Gods. Ishkun was right,
this was a test of tests. If the Gods so chose they would reveal their purpose
when it suited them.

The last time he hunted with
Ishkun the lion had taken their final quarry. It was a clear message from
Ninurta, Lord of the Hunt, that they had hunted enough. So far there had been
no such sign from wise Marduk.

The strangest feeling came over
him. Unbidden, he found himself looking towards the door of the room where
Asklepios slept.

The feeling grew and grew. He
felt oddly separated from the room in which he sat. Somehow he had become
distanced from it, yet remained within.

The door drew his eye powerfully.
Still seated, Banipal simultaneously felt himself rise up and move forwards. He
passed through the door without opening it. Three ghosts stood there.

Charcoal grey and semi-opaque,
the apparitions stood braced against a wind Banipal could not feel. For a
moment he was frightened, certain they were three of Anu’s terrible demons. Then
he saw one was Asklepios. And here was another wonder for Asklepios’ body lay
sleeping on the mat. The second ghost was a tall, dark-haired young man. The
third had the form of an old woman.

The ghost of Asklepios turned to
Banipal and solemnly raised his hand. Without quite knowing why, Banipal did
the same, and realised Asklepios was filled with a great joy. He wanted to
speak but before he could Asklepios faced the tall ghost and they both vanished.

The ghost of the old woman turned
her cold grey gaze on Banipal. Their eyes met and –

Banipal lay at his scribing bench, his face pressed on the
desk. One of the fired clay blocks pressed uncomfortably into his cheek.

He stood, filled with a transcendent sense of connection to his vision. This had been no simple dream. As he opened the door into the other room he was certain what he would find. He was right, Asklepios was gone.

To be continued…

The Girl from a Thousand Fathoms, Chapter 82 – Moving On

You’re probably not supposed to have favourite bits but this week’s chapter of the Girl from a Thousand Fathoms, is one of mine. I hope you like it too.

Chapter 82 – Moving On

Elsewhere in Brighton an overweight middle-aged man became
aware of someone sitting beside his hospital bed. It was a young woman, one who
now wore her hair in a black rooster-cut with a red fringe.

‘Hey,’ Gabby said.

‘Jeez,’ Troy struggled to sit up
and not to let the pain show as the stitches pulled. ‘I didn’t expect to see
you here.’

‘You visited me.’

Jarglebaum winced, gave up and
lay back. ‘I was interviewing you.’

‘Seven billion people in the
world and I had one visitor. I don’t care about the reason.’

Troy looked at her narrow face
with its too wide mouth and too long nose, her pipe-cleaner arms and her really
quite lovely brown eyes and wondered why someone like her would go out of the
way to visit a copper old enough to be her father.

‘Pass me some of that water,
love. These hospitals are too damned hot.’

She carefully poured water from
the jug and handed it to him with her left hand. She saw him watching. She held
her head up and looked right back.

‘How are you doing?’ Jarglebaum
said as gently as he had ever said anything.

‘I’m meant to say that.’

‘So tell me.’

Gabby looked down. ‘OK, I guess.’

‘The shop going all right?’

‘I’ve hired a manager. I went
back for a bit but every time the door opened–’

That was all it took. Troy was
back on the Sea Cucumber. It was
dark, the ship was sinking and Imelda was kicking nine different types of hell
out of him.

Gabby touched his arm. ‘Troy? Are
you all right?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Troy breathed hard,
sweat prickled across his back. ‘It comes and goes. How’s the hand?’

Gabby tried to make a fist with
her right hand but it wouldn’t close. ‘I can’t hold a mug, I can’t write. I don’t
think it will ever be the same.’

‘I’m proud of my scars, you
should be too.’

‘At least I can tell when it’s
going to rain.’

‘That’s my girl.’

Gabby tried a smile. ‘All I ever
wanted to do was run a pet shop and sell fluffy little animals and goldfish to
nice people.’

‘Yeah, well, you shouldn’t let
God hear your plans. I always fancied a bar on a beach somewhere hot. Babes in
bikinis queuing for pina-coladas. That’s why I ended up in the public sector
with three-quarters of fuck all for a pension.’

‘I think I’m going to sell up.’

Troy thought things through. ‘Look,
Gabby, I know who hurt you and I reckon you’re safe. I know their names and I
know what happened to them. I honestly don’t think they’ll be bothering you
again.’

Gabby’s eyes widened. ‘That
sounds heavy.’

‘It is, but not how you think.’

‘A long story?’

‘Yeah. For another day.’

Gabby sat on the end of the bed. ‘What
are you going to do?’

‘Take a break. I’m out of the
service and there’s a rich guy who owes me a favour. Apart from that I don’t
want to risk screwing it up by talking too much.’

Gabby looked out the window. ‘I’d
like to hear that story when you’re ready.’

Look at her, Troy told himself. You’re
such an idiot. She’s been through tough times and she’s all alone. You’re just
some kind of father figure.

He tried to keep his voice light,
conversational. ‘It’s a deal.’ He held up his arm with the saline drip
attached. ‘I’m out of here tomorrow, looking forwards to a better drink than
this.’

Gabby jumped to her feet. ‘I
could get you something from the hospital café. How about a strawberry and
banana smoothie?’

The thought of all those vitamins
made Troy’s stomach recoil. ‘I was thinking of something stronger.’

‘Gooseberry and rhubarb?’

Oh Christ, this is never going to work, Troy thought, but he was laughing so much it hurt.

To be continued…