Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 27

Redemption of Althalus 14-15

Gher has a very sad story. Generic, too. Dead parents. Sad life. Born to be a thief. Ect. Ect.

Andine, being the Character In The Wrong for this story, takes issue with Gher being a dirty little orphan, because...uh, Andine is rich. And this means she has to be a horrible person by default.

Of course, she must be educated. They let Gher give her a beat down:

“All right, lady, I’m woodsy. So what? If you don’t like the way I look, don’t look at me. I don’t have any parents, and I wear rags because that’s all I can find to wear. I don’t see where that’s any of your business, though. I’m too busy staying alive to worry about how I look, and if you don’t like it that way, well, that’s just too bad.”

And of course Andine, who is supposed to be the Greatest Orator of her Generation (Seriously. THIS CHICK IS CE'NEDRA) flees in tears because of how horribly she has misjudged the poor little woodsy boy. Because it's not like a princess raised in a cespit of political intrigue (AKA every castle ever) wouldn't know how to dish her own arguments and mic drop like a motherfucker. Nope. We gotta let a little boy take her down a couple notches.

They hang around Hule until Andine decides that she has to fix things--the things being her classist rantings against the Poor Little Orphan Boy--by giving him a haircut.

Yep. She's insulted Gher--and been insulted back--and shown herself to be a classist and probably racist twit with a spine made of wet toilet paper, but giving him a haircut ought to fix everything. And it does.

And all the other characters are amazed by her kindness. I'm not even remotely kidding.

So Emmy the Cat Goddess then sends them all off to Kweon, where the person they came to retrieve is about to be burned at the stake for being a witch.

...Eddings, you do realize this amalgamation of pagan believes and Middle-age Christian dogma and practices doesn't make any fucking sense, right? I mean...the general public don't know about Daeva, all of Dewios's many names are accepted under the blanket of "All Gods Are One" because in this universe they actually are, and nobody outside of Althalus's little group know that Dweia even exists, so why the fuck would they be burning women for being witches? 

And of course, we can't just march in and save her. Althalus has to swindle the sick-as-fuck priest trying to set the girl on fire.

“There’s no such thing as coincidence, my Brother. Everything that happens, happens by design. Choose, Ambho, choose, and know that the life or death of every living soul in Peteleya hangs on your choice.” Althalus nudged the earth again, a bit more firmly this time. The cracking that came from beneath their feet was much like the sound that frozen trees in the far north make when the sundering frost explodes them, and the very earth shuddered. Some fairly large rocks came bouncing down the steep mountainside.

 “The next one should probably do it,” Althalus said calmly, squinting up at the mountain. “Farewell, Master Bheid. It’s been a pleasure serving you. If we’re lucky, the rock slide will kill us all instantly. I hate the notion of being buried alive, don’t you?”

 “Take her!” Ambho almost screamed. “Take the witch to Awes, but make it stop!”

It can make Earthquakes. The book can make Earthquakes.

Anyhoo, the woman they came for is Leitha. She's a white chick. The book goes out of its way to make sure we do not forget that Leitha is freaking Wonderbread. Every. Single. Time somebody has to describe Leitha she has "pale, blond" dangling in front of her name like a cat toy.

And she can read minds. Because, you know, Team Althalus isn't overpowered enough. We've only got a book that can do literally anything, a magic hole full of money, a knife that can steal free will and a goddess in the hood of his cloak. Nope. We need a mind reader too.

At least we know Al's safe.

Leitha tells everyone her sad, sad story, which of freaking course involves the preist who tried to burn her alive lusting after her and lots of other girls. Yeah, apparently this dude sets any girl who attracts his attention on fire, because those lustful thoughts can't possibly be his own. He runs away in tears aaaaaannd that's the last we see of Mr. Flaming Mass Murderer. Fuck me, Al, the least you could do is drop half a mountain on him. Even Gher wants to know why they didn't kill the guy.

Anyway, now it's time for everyone to head back to the house. On the way there we have another of those "We're changing the past" dreams, in which we are introduced to Gelta, the Queen of the Knight--who is not scary. Not at all scary. The book is trying really hard though, and it deserves a cookie.

Ghend tries to impress Althalus, who basically tells him to go fuck himself as lyrically and repetatively as possible.

Emmy reacts accordingly:

Are you mad? Emmy almost shrieked at him, her voice reverberating inside his head. 

That’s a little hard for me to know, Em, he replied calmly. Crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy, do they? I think we talked about that back in the House a few times. I just thought it might be sort of interesting to turn the tables on Ghend. He’s trying to play with reality, but I’m a master at that. I know all sorts of ways to change the rules of any game he can devise. 

You shouldn’t be so surprised, Dweia, Leitha’s soft voice murmured. Isn’t this why you hired him in the first place? 
You’re not supposed to be in here, Leitha! Emmy said sharply.
 Just curious, Dweia, Leitha replied. You can’t really keep me out, you know. 

“Do you ladies suppose you could go someplace else to discuss this?” Althalus asked. “I’d like to get some sleep, and you’re making a great deal of noise in there.”

Boundaries? What boundaries.


The next morning they show Leitha the knife. Her Magic Word is "Listen", but before Eliar can put the knife away she puts her hand on the blade and basically reads the rest of the plot for this novel. She doesn't like her role much.

Althalus also sets up Bheid with the Northern Lights. You know, because he's still trying to draw up astrology charts every night:

“Which astrological house would you say that’s in, Bheid?” Althalus asked slyly. 
“I . . . I couldn’t say.” Bheid faltered. “It keeps moving.”

 “Do you suppose it might be a portent of some kind?”

Bheid is having a crisis of faith. Althalus is an asshole. Bheid will eventually get better. Althalus is cursed for life.

They're most of the way there when Gelta, Queen of the Night, shows up again. This time she's an illusion on an illusory horse up in the clouds. Althalus decides the very best way to respond to this is to make the illusion of woman and horse fall, and this works somehow. So now we've introduced all the bad guys, and hey, there's one for every member of Althalus's team! Which means we're going to defeat them one by one because Video Game Levels. I think.

They all pile into the House at the End of the World. Socializing happens. Everyone goes to bed in gender-divided dorms because fuck if I know, we've got to make a big deal out of relationships and sex.

And this would probably be more understandable if the chapter didn't close with Althalus heading up to Dweia's room for a little divine intervention. A close encounter of the biblical kind. Carnal knowledge of the divine.

Yeah. Althalus gets to bed a goddess. And she's not a cat. She's the perfectly gorgeous woman from the dream.

End of chapter.

Redemption of Althalus chapter 12

Alright, guys. Business first. Item one:

Yeah. It's out. It exists. It is here and here and here. Go get your copy if you don't have one already.

Next item: Working on the next Gray Prince Book has commenced. It should go rather well. Leythorne is always a pain to work with, the stubborn bastard. But I'm enthusiastic about where this story is heading, and I also cannot wait to get to all the other stories waiting of in the ether. After that, It's Starbleached: Liberty, in which Adry, Bob and Bryan will try do things--it will involve lots of blowing up of things, I assure you--and then were back to Casey and I have no idea when any of this will happen, but I am confident that it will.

Anyhoo, I'll be working on GP for the next couple days, and then jump back onto Dragon Breath and finish up the last third.

And while I am not outright begging here (It's 100% up to ya'll) reviews would not be amiss.

Now. Where were we?

Right. Althalus and Emmy are shattering Bheid's views on religion. Namely by pointing out that the astrological signs he worshipped once formed different parts of different astrological signs:

"...Half of the Wolf was the bottom of something the old sky watchers called the Turtle, and what astrologers call the Boar now was the top half.” 
“That’s blasphemy!” Bheid exclaimed.

 “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Bheid. Those astrologers all died, so they won’t be able to accuse you.”

Bheid's entire crisis of faith is that he doesn't see the pictures in the sky that other people claim that they see, and this means he's a bad priest.

I think Althalus is managing to find the one crew of Children of Prophesy who are dumber than he is.

Oh, and they have to go back to Othos. Three guesses on who they have to pick up.

On the way their, however, Althalus has a dream. A highly archaic dream that tries really really hard to be lyrical.

And Ghend moved among them, whispering, whispering. And the people pulled back from Ghend with fear upon their faces. But Ghend paid no heed to their fear, and his eyes burned, burned.

When Althalus wakes up, he discovers that everyone had the same dream. At this point Emmy takes Althalus's body again--hey, what did you expect. She's a cat and a goddess and you can't even keep her from sleeping on your face--and explains that...hold on, this requires liquid courage. BRB.

Right. See, there are dreams in this universe, and then there are dreams. And some of these major Dreams can change the past. Only it doesn't really change the past, because if you killed your grandfather your grandfather is still dead, but because of the dream you might think that your neighbor killed him instead, so that when you wake up you go kill your neighbor. Or in this case, Ghend is trying to convince an entire race of people that they worshipped Daeva back before humans had gotten the hang of fire.

Also, the Screaming Thing came back to guest star as the dream's soundtrack. It was not missed.

We also get Althalus's recap of his life's story to Bheid. Which we don't need.

Althalus then asks Emmy who they're supposed to get. She tells him. He reacts predictably.

He blinked. You’re not serious! He almost said it out loud.
 Oh, yes. 
How are we supposed to get inside her palace? 

You’re the thief, Althalus, she replied. If you can steal things, I’m sure you’ll be able to steal one little girl.

Yep, because stealing a box of buttons is the same thing as kidnapping a head of state. But it's not like they're just going to walk right into the fucking castle and walk Andine back--

It was well past midnight when Althalus and Emmy slipped into Andine’s palace in the center of Osthos. This time, Emmy chose to walk rather than ride, and she moved on silent feet ahead of the thief, passing warnings back to him. Once they were inside the massive palace, she led him to the Arya’s private quarters.

Oh BULL SHIT Al. Bull fucking shit. You do NOT do that in the space of one paragraph. Oh, and hey Dave, there were several perfectly servicable paragraphs a couple pages back that you wasted recapping Althalus's backstory. You could have used them here to give us SOME drama. Maybe come in right before Al steps on a dry twig?

And yes. They walk in, they put Andine under a magic spell to make her sleep walk, and they walk right back out of the palace with her in tow. And they keep her knocked out so that she doesn't make any noise because Andine=Ce'Nedra and that means you'll want to kill her within three pages of her opening her mouth for the first time.

Not time for the consent rant yet. YET!

They ride for a couple days before they let Andine wake all the way up. Althalus has the knife in her field of vision so that the SECOND she's awake she has no choice but to read her Magic Word off the blade. Now, for the record, Althalus got "Seek", Eliar got "Lead" and Bheid got "Illuminate"

The Token Girl Character gets "Obey"

Andine looks around, realizes that she's been kidnapped out of her bedroom by three men, one unknown, one the dude that killed her father, and one the dude that identified himself as a slave trader one step above toe-jam on the evolutionary ladder, and she reacts very reasonably:

“You!” she said sharply. She dropped Emmy and sprang directly at the young Arum, both of her hands extended clawlike at his face. “Assassin!” she shrieked.

The screaming goes on for a while and then Althalus, who used the Knife's Magical Will Stealing Powers to do stupid pet tricks with all the other characters, tells Andine to shut up.

THIS is the time for the consent rant.

Can we point out that the only character who presented this quest as a choice is Ghend, AKA Satan's fucking henchman? He asked if Althalus would go steal the book, Althalus agreed. Emmy, who is our mother savior goddess figure, locked Althalus in a bedroom for two-and-a-half millinia until he agreed to do whatever she wanted. He has a magical knife that steals the wills of whoever uses it, and he just kidnapped a fifteen year old girl out of her bedroom.

The hero. Of this novel. Kidnapped. a fifteen year old girl. And then used the Magical Will Stealing Knife on her.

It's presented as being something hugely over the top so that you have to force people into doing what you want, but as we'll see in a few chapters eventually our team of protagonists clue in that asking nicely will sometimes get you what you want too, and that you can lie about the parts people can't swallow. So there's no reason for Althalus, our hero, to motherfucking kidnap a fucking fifteen year old girl and THEN force her to join a team.

Oh, and hey, you know that mind-link that Emmy formed with Althalus? That can't be undone. Ever. They are stuck together for life and Emmy does not inform Althalus of this while she's doing it. She just says "Count things" so that his mind is all nice and loose when she forces her way in.

I love Eddings. He's not an author I can call my ultimate all time favorite but I enjoy his books an awful lot. But he has issues with consent. See, setting up a "Let's go on a Quest" with consent takes a lot of effort. That's usually why the Wizard presents the quest and gets told "Get fucked", and a monster has to show up and attack the village to get the main character to go anywhere. So it does kind of save a lot of time to have the Gandalf character kidnap all the characters he wants to accompany him, but it also makes him kind of indistinguishable from the bad guy.

Eddings writes a really good, fun plot, but he's lazy as fuck. I don't mind reading the same story five or six times (given that I re-read anyway) but come on. I can think of at LEAST one good way we could have resolved this issue without having to kidnap a child. (Namely, Emmy goes in alone, befriends Andine, convinces her that listening to the talking cat is the best thing she can do right now, and walks out with a consenting Andine in tow. She reads the knife in the woods, Althalus tells her to shut up there, and they explain everything for about an hour before heading off to the next stop).

...all that said, I'm not against giving Andine an off switch. I just wish we could retroactively install one in Ce'Nedra. (They're the same fucking character. EXACTLY the same)

Anyway, while Althalus is trying to get Andine to understand--she's through the shock now, and is distracted by snuggling Emmy--Emmy informs AL that they're off to Hule this time. Althalus asks where, but Emmy doesn't answer because it's probably his favorite tavern anyway. Eliar asks if they can stop off in Arum on the way home so he can say hello to his mother. Althalus thinks this is a great idea.

On the way there, they bump into Koman, a mind-reader. Althalus keeps him out of his head by counting out of order. This is presented as a unique and thrilling concept. Emmy is very impressed. I'm not kidding.

The fractions were a stroke of absolute genius, pet. Emmy’s thought actually purred. 
I thought you might like them, Althalus said. 
Where in the world did you come up with the notion?

 He shrugged. I just made it up, he said. I thought that if whole numbers bother him, bits and pieces of numbers should drive him wild.

 Our heroes, boys and girls. Mesmerized by the concept of basic math.

Meanwhile, we have to point out that the well-educated Andine is just as stupid as the rest of the crew:

Then they left the lands of the Perquaines and rode up into the foothills of Arum. Bheid and Andine rode side by side along the way, and the auburn-haired priest spent days trying to explain just exactly why the snow on the mountaintops of Arum didn’t melt in the summer sun. Andine’s teachers had evidently been great believers in logic, so despite the evidence of those white-tipped mountains, she continued to argue that since the peaks were closer to the sun, it had to be warmer up there.

After three days of that, Bheid gave up.

Yeah, a running theme for the next chunk of book is "Andine is wrong". Andine is the girl who got kidnapped in her sleep by random men, but Andine is wrong. She's wrong in her assumptions about Eliar, she's wrong in her education, she's wrong in her attitudes about the poor, and it doesn't help that she has a personality that could double as a cheese grater: you actually like seeing her get put down.

This, FYI, is why I tend to be rather hard on female characters who have nasty personalities who then get squashed like bugs. They have a horrible personality specifically so that you'll like seeing them get squashed. Stuffed shirt, boys and girls. Andine has every right to be a nasty little snit right now, but Eddings is the one who elected to write her being nasty so that her education over the next several pages is justified. She becomes relatively nice once the Stockholm Syndrome sets in.

Anyway, the Team make camp and Eliar heads off to visit his mother. Andine is snitty about it. Bheid is willing to set in and set her straight:

“They’re very close, Andine,” Bheid told her. “I’ve talked often with Eliar since we met. His father was killed in a war several years ago, and Eliar became his mother’s only support. He was a little young to go off to war, even for an Arum, but his mother needed his soldier’s pay to keep eating. In a peculiar sort of way, Eliar went off to war as a way to show his love for his father—and his mother. Your father was unlucky enough to get in his way while he was showing his veneration for his parents. Isn’t that sort of what you were doing when you were planning to kill him before Althalus came along?...You might want to think about that just a bit before you launch yourself into your next tirade.”

Right.

So Eliar rejoins them a day later and they head off to Nabjor's encampment up in Hule. There is lots of Hule, but this place was important to Althalus so he figures this is where the Knife meant. And wouldn't you know it, he's right.

They're picking up yet another Theif. Well, since Althalus became the Irrascably Racist Misogynistic Drunk Wizard, they need a replacement for his old role. It's a little boy named Gher.

Yes. Gher.

He's the second biggest Deus Ex Machina in the book. You'll see why shortly.

Oh, and his Magic Word is "deceive".

End of chapter.

THE BOOK IS LIVE +chapter 11 of Althalus

Alright boys and girls. Dragon Breath Part Two is officially live on Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble. Indiegogo donators should all go check their e-mails. Your books should have arrived. If not, let me know, I'll re-send. And check your spam filters.

As for the rest of you...what are you waiting for? GO. GO. GO.

In other news, my head imploded from formatting chapter headings earlier today (Nook Press is awesome, but chapters come through rather garbled) and elected to take a short break from formatting to finally finish some self-publishing related research/educational stuff. Namely, why exactly Author Solutions is a terrible, terrible company for any writer to ever go with.

Part one is here

Part two is here

I posted these because lately the self publishing tumblr tag has been swimming in "Author Solutions Hat A is AWESOME" posts and that's the kind of thing that makes me see red. If you do not understand why I'm calling something an Author Solutions Hat or why this topic makes me so unbelievably fucking angry please go read those posts. A fast summery is that AS and its hats will charge you almost a thousand dollars to have Lightning Source print your book, when you can go directly to Lightning Source for approximately 250 (and also AS's editing and marketing packages are all Grade A Bullshit, and if you're going to pay an editor a thousand dollars go find a really good freelancer) and get more choices AND more control over your project.


AS is a predator feeding off the naive who genuinely don't know that there's a difference between iUniverse and Little, Brown and Co, let alone that they can get EVERYTHING that AS offers cheaper or better on their own. PLEASE, author-readers, do your research and for the LOVE OF GOD do not give Author Solutions any more money.

Book time? Book time.

We spend a few pages trying to develop Eliar's character past "Dumb teenage hick with sword". It doesn't work. Althalus buys him a horse, and Eliar asks if Althalus didn't just magic up the gold the way he did the food.

The clue light kicks on for Althalus.

Can I do that? he sent his startled question at Emmy, who was dozing in the hood of his cloak. 
 Probably, yes. 
Then why did you make me dig it up?

 Honest work’s good for you, pet. Besides, it doesn’t exactly work that way. Food’s one thing, but minerals are quite a bit different.

Why? 
They just are, Althalus. There’s a certain balance involved that we shouldn’t tamper with. 
Would you like to explain that? 

No, I don’t think so.

Well, fuck you too Emmy. Also this should read as: The editor noticed a continuity error and Team Eddings just didn't want to fix it.

Althalus entertains Eliar by telling him stories and feeding him every time his mind wanders. They reach a city and Emmy takes over Althalus's body for a minute so that she can talk to Eliar directly. She tells him that they're going to be showing the knife to a bunch of people within the city. Most will ignore it, one will be the guy they came to pick up, and a couple might scream bloody murder at the very sight of it and Eliar's job is to kill those people.

Oh, and the entire population of the city are priests. Have fun.

The Priests of Dewios many religions are all strong followers of astrology. They debate about it endlessly. It gets old, fast. Emmy, however, says something that is deeply fucking creepy. 

It doesn’t quite work that way, Althalus. The stars are a lot farther away than people realize, and it takes a long time for their light to reach us. Probably about half of what you see when you look up at night isn’t really there anymore. To put it another way, the priests are trying to predict the future by looking at the ghosts of dead stars.

I will never look at a newspaper horoscope the same way.


Althalus and Eliar commence with the showing of the knife. It gets to the point where they start taking bets: is this the kind of preist that will ignore the knife, or is it the kind that will translate for a fee? Well, only one way to find out.

The sudden scream was shockingly loud, echoing from the ruined walls of nearby buildings. The ragged priest stumbled back, covering his eyes with his hands and screaming as if he’d just been dipped in boiling pitch. 

“I hope you won’t take this personally, your Worship,” Eliar said, driving the Knife directly into the shrieking priest’s chest.

Eliar is the world's first serial killer boyscout, I swear to fucking God. Well, at least nobody saw--

Then a black-robed priest came striding up the rubble-littered street toward them. He was a fairly young man, and his hair was a rich auburn color. His dark eyes were flashing indignantly. “I saw what you just did!” he said. “You men are murderers!”

Oops. But hey, wait a second...fairly young, positive physical description, white by implication...hey, Eliar, you got your knife handy?

The youthful priest went paler still, as if every drop of blood had drained from his face. “Illuminate,” he replied so reverently that it seemed almost a prayer. 

The dagger in Eliar’s fist broke into joyful song.

Yep. You can kind of smell an Eddings protagonist character.

This is Bheid, and while I've gotten the majority of the characters worked out I cannot for the life of me figure out which Copy-Paste character he is. It is entirely possible that Bheid is something new...but it's more likely that Bheid is a weird conglomeration of Silk, Garion and Zakath.

Althalus spends a little time shaking Bheid's theology down to its foundations. He does, however, leave Emmy out of the equation.

End of chapter. I'd do more but it is late and time for bed.

State of the CW

Ah, I'm feeling so much better today.



Formatting is mostly done. I'll be mailing out the Indie-Go-Go books tonight, while Smashwords is processing its version of the book. You guys are so awesome. So very, very awesome.

I'm looking at my finances, and it looks like I'll be able to do the last third of Dragon Breath. Barely. I can't make any promises, but that should work.

After that, things get kind of sticky.

The next thing on my schedule is Gray Prince. Its official release date will be December. BUT, and this is the could-be-cool part, you can pre-order it in November. Smashwords has set pre-orders up with Barnes and Noble, Apple, and a couple other retailers. Amazon is still being a shit about it, but that's Amazon. Our Daily Bread finishes its Select run this month, and I'll give the pre-order program a test run before A Promise Kept hits the shelves. How the pre-orders work is, you can order the book as soon as it's in the store, so technically it still releases in November. The orders don't get counted until the release date, which means if you guys buy, say, ten copies? All ten get credited on the release date. It'll give the book a nice little boost and THAT will help a lot. 

That's the good news. The bad news is, I have no idea if  I ll be able to afford the editing. At this point I would rather go without the editing than ask for money again. IF I do decide to run another indiegogo campaign, it'll be for Starbleached: Liberty, it'll be after the new year, and I'll give you guys  an awful lot of warning. I'll know by the end of the month if I need to run with that.

Have I said how awesome you guys are yet this post? You have no idea how cool you are. Stay cool, my friends. Stay cool.

Redemption of Althalus--chapter 9 and 10 + Book Updates

Cover art. Cover art? Cover art:




I'm most of the way done with the formatting. Just have to build the Table of Contents and commence with the uploading of things.

That said I am depressed as fuck tonight, and I have no idea why. Things always get a little emotional around book-drop day, and given the absolutely fucking amazing thing you guys did for me with the Indie-Go-Go thing, and the amount of horseshit I had to deal with in my personal life this last month...this one's a little rougher than most.

I think some of it is not writing or blog or internet related at all. It's probably just the healing process, and understanding that holy shit, the crap I went through this past year should never have happened, and I get to feel guilty not just for letting it happen to me, but for getting out of the way so it can continue to happen to other people and there is nothing I can do about it.  

And whenever I get emotional, it turns self destructive and it turns on my writing first. I should be better than this. It shouldn't be such a struggle to paint, or if it's going to be a struggle I should be better at it than I am. I shouldn't have to pay somebody else to clean up the stuff I'm too lazy to handle. I used to tell everybody I'd rather fail at writing then succeed at anything else, and I guess I kind of have. I just always kind of thought, when I was saying that, that I'd be the one to make it...

...and I have to remind myself that my first impulse when I am upset is to hurt myself in a way that distracts me from the real pain, and that it's not just hurting myself physically to get away from internal stuff. That sometimes I hurt a part of me that is ultimately blameless--my creativity--because I would rather hurt that and make myself cry over that then I would let myself face whatever it is that really bothers me. And that's not okay.

So I'm going to stop talking about that nonsense and go play with a book now.

(I am sorry if this review isn't a lot of hilarious fun for you guys, but I get to rant on a topic I really love for a while, and that makes me happy.)

 So when we last left our heroes, The Knife Althalus has to find is in the hands of Eliar, who is lying in the dungeons of the Arya Andine, who all of us will probably want to murder in very short order.

Althalus, being wiser than his two thousand years, thinks that he should probably let Eliar die. Emmy has a problem with this:

What I’m getting at is that everything is connected. Nothing happens in isolation. Eliar’s probably some crude, unschooled barbarian from the backcountry of Arum, but he did pick up the Knife back in Albron’s arms room. It might have been a whim, but we can’t be sure of that until we test him.

So basically picking up random junk can turn you into an official Child of Prophesy? Well, fuck, what if the McGuffin turns out to be a thumbtack or a bottle cap. What if you pick up the Penny of the Chosen One? God, pawn shops must be like Russian Roulette. Like,  "I gotta get something for my kid. How much for this flute?"

"Well, it'll be twenty five bucks, but if you walk out with it you have to go slay the dreaded dragon of Camelot."

"...what about that video game set?"

"Yeah, it's vintage, but you'll have to go into outer space and rescue an entire space federation from rampaging psycho-nauts with bug-helmets."

"...The ring?"

"Don't get me started. They're still scraping that last dude off the side of that volcano. "

" What about that sword?"

"The one with the gold?"

"Yes."

"And the jewels and tassles and the demon head for a pomel?"

"Yeah, that one."

"It's a cheap replica of a movie sword. Five bucks."

"I'll take it."

 Anyhoo, Althalus and Emmy head off to Othos. Emmy starts trying to figure out how to get Eliar away from Andine and Althalus is like "Eh, I'll just buy him off her."

Althalus, Eliar’s a person. You can’t buy people. 

“You’re wrong about that, Em. Eliar’s a captured soldier, and that means that he’s a slave now.”

Yep. Our heroes. This is the full extent of their moral debate.

 Althalus then declares that he needs to go cut a lot of purses to be able to afford the cost of one brand spanking new slave. Emmy has a better option. They ride off to find someplace to dig up gold. Althalus is less than thrilled about the prospect.

She makes him start digging in a hill that's buried a very old house. Althalus complains fairly steadily until he hits floor, opens the floorboards and discovers a basement. This basement is very large and it is absolutely full of gold. And by "large" I mean "The light from the hole in the roof does not reach the sides" He takes twenty bricks, leaves the rest, and spends about a page making absolutely sure that nobody can find his very special Deus ex Machina hole in the ground.

So Althalus basically has a book full of words that will let him do anything, a hole in the ground that, for all intents and purposes, produces infinite money, and he's got a goddess in the hood of his cloak.

There is "overpowered as fuck" and then there's this.

He goes into the city, buys clothes and then--you guessed it--he hits the nearest tavern. He aims for one full of city officials, though, and they tell him to stay away from Andine, because she was difficult before, but now she's impossible.

Althalus starts planting seeds for his next con. Apparently he's now a slave trader in need of labor and he'd like a very special appointment with Ms. Andine. The official sees gold and decides that taking Althalus to see Ms. Andine is just the very best thing he can do.

Andine, we find out, is about fifteen years old and she has very dark eyes. That's all she gets for description, but she's also got Eliar chained to the nearest post, and she's watching him from her throne and playing with that all important dagger. Eliar killed her dad, and the only reason he's alive is she hasn't figured out how to kill him nastily enough to make up for it.

Emmy jumps out of Althalus's hood and snuggles Andine. Immediately she goes from Imposing Warrior Queen to "OH LOOK AT THE KITTY"

Yeah, even Barbarians of WHAT FUCKING TIME PERIOD ARE WE understood the power of LOL cats.

Althalus starts his pitch: He needs slaves. He'll buy them at an insane price if he can have Eliar so that he can stick that strapping young lad at the front of the chain and swindle the bejeezus out of the salt-mines. Emmy is working on pushing Andine into going with Althalus--so she's being swindled by both a God AND Henry Gondorf-with-a-wand--but she needs another push. Althalus tells Andine all about the nasty terrible awful lives of slaves in salt mines...which, he admits, really are that bad.  At one point they take a break so that Emmy can work on Andine some more, and one of Andine's supporters takes Althalus aside and says, basically, GET THIS KID AWAY FROM HER RIGHT FUCKING NOW. They also bump into Khnom (...nom nom nom) who does exactly "Jack" and "Shit" upon seeing Althalus. They inspect the other mercs in Andine's prison and come back up. Althalus goes right back at it, and finally Andine agrees to sell Althalus the lot at his quoted, VERY generous price...

...IF she can have Emmy first.

Althalus is all like WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT and Emmy is all (telepathicly) GET THE KNIFE. GET THE KNIFE YOU FECKING MORON.

Finally they strike a bargan, and Althalus takes his new chain full of slaves out into the woods of Kanthon.

They start plotting his murder almost immediately.

Althalus expected this, and decides to do a demo of his magical powers by throwing one of the ring leaders up into the air and letting him hang there for a while. Then he explains that he's letting everyone but Eliar go, please tell Sargent Kahlor to tell Eliar's mom he's alright, here's the chains, here's the keys, get the fuck out.

The mercs, being wonderfully loyal to their comerades, run as fast as they can in "home's" general direction. Eliar is still tied to a tree.

Althalus settles in and waits for Emmy to show up.

She does. No explination for how.

She has Althalus read the knife. His Magical Word is "Seek." Also, apparently reading the knife gives other people--namely, Emmy and Althalus--ultimate power over your every movement and action.

Being the upstanding Deity she is, Emmy promptly uses this to make Althalus do stupid people tricks. She also tells him that the sight of the Knife will make Ghend, Khnom (nom nom) and Pekhal run screaming in agony in the opposite direction. It'll do the same thing to anybody allied with them.

So just to recap:
-Magic Book
-Hole of Never-ending wealth
-Cat-Goddess in hood
-Magic knife that instantly inflicts the Cruciatus Curse on your enemies.

AND THESE ARE NOT THE BIGGEST DEUS EXES IN THIS FREAKING BOOK.

So Althalus goes back to Eliar and makes him read the Knife. Eliar's Magic Word is "Lead". This time it's Althalus's turn to make Eliar do the stupid people tricks, but it doesn't really impact Eliar because, now that Althalus is on Sargent Kahlor's side--apparently all it took to convince Eliar that Althalus is his pal is the whole "I know Sargent Kahlor" and "I just bought you from slavery, good-bye" thing--Elair would do whatever Althalus wanted.

Also, Eliar is hungry. Althalus magics up food, and has trouble keeping up.

This will be Eliar's running gag for the first half of this book.

Emmy reads the knife, declares that the next person they'll need for their little team is in a place called Awes, and the chapter ends.

The Redemption of Althalus--chapter seven and eight

Naturally, the first thing Althalus does when he has telepathic access to Emmy's mind is try to get in without her permission. Her reaction?

“Just mind your own business and quit snooping. You have to start paying closer attention.

Yeah, the issue is that Althalus is distracted, not that he's literally invading her mind without her consent.

It's not time for the consent rant. It's coming. I'm waiting for one specific event. Trust me. It's worth it.

So the first thing Althalus has to do is head down to Arum to go get a knife. A specific knife that Emmy values very much, that she basically left in a bar somewhere so it could float around in various people's pockets until she needed it.

Althalus figures he needs the knife to kill Ghend with--which would solve a lot of problems in very short order, and everyone admits this--but Emmy wants the knife because there is writing on the blade that only certain people can read, and they need those people. They spend a few more minutes shooting the breeze and discussing basic plans, and then they head off into the wild.

Emmy also solves the mystery of the Screaming Thing: Ghend sent it to make sure Althalus went to the House. Oh, and if you looked at it, you'd run screaming too. So yeah, it's Cthulhu.

They make camp for the first time and have small talk. Emmy admits to something pretty major:

“Before Ghend hired me to go steal the Book, I was having a run of bad luck. It might have worn off by now, but nothing was working for me the way it was supposed to.” 
Yes, I know. I thought the paper money in Druigor’s strongbox was a nice touch, didn’t you? 
He stared at her. “It was you? You were behind all that bad luck?” 

Of course. If your luck hadn’t turned sour, you wouldn’t even have considered Ghend’s proposition, would you?

She was also behind all of his good luck. This is why I don't get too aggravated with the interplay between Emmy and Althalus: They are both terrible people, and if one of 'em wasn't ignoring consent and fucking with their partner the other one would be doing it. The fact that they manage to avoid doing really terrible things to each other is less their redeeming quality and more a sign that Eddings really wanted them to be the good guys. Here's a hint: It'd only be redeeming if they were both aware how thoroughly fucked up they are and made some attempt to migitate it.

They never, ever will.

Althalus manages to steal a horse. Emmy isn't happy about it but she doesn't find out until after they're halfway down the road.

A little bit further down they meet one of Ghend's underlings: A dude named Pekhal. I'm not that irritated by the names here as I probably could be. They're very obviously scrabble-tile names (as proven by me attempting to spell them randomly only to discover that I got it right the first time.) but they're consistant enough with the setting that it doesn't bug me. Pekhal isn't a great name--neither is Ghend, Gher, Gelta, Kagwher or Deiwos--but it's a long, long, LONG way away from "Prahd Bittlestiffender" or "Zaphod Beeblebrox" (I love Hitchhiker's Guide, but every name in the thing with one or two exceptions deserves to be burned with lava)

Right. Pekhal. He's a barbarian who doesn't bathe and he eats people.

Althalus sets him about a thousand feet over the forest and keeps on going.

Yeah, the Book is a gigantic Deus ex Machina and it's not the last one we're going to meet in this book.

Althalus, however, is much more interested in the sword and knife he took away from Pehkal before he set him on a cloud. Emmy explains that it's steel, it's what happens when you do things with iron. Althalus is irritated. Sure, it's a nice, strong metal but bronze is prettier.

The entire world advanced just to irritate you, Al. I'm very sorry we did that. Also; WHAT TIME PERIOD ARE WE IN?

Next chapter

They get to Arum and Emmy says that the Knife is in the hall of Gosti Big Belly. And thanks to his escapade with Gosti's lack of wealth and Althalus's wolf-ear tunic, Althalus is now their version of Robin Hood. He's famous there. And supposed to be dead, but Althalus can work with that.

A random stranger is so very taken with Althalus's name that he takes him to see Cheif Alberon, who is a young and rather handsome man, which means he's a good guy and he's probably going to land himself a random love interest well before this book is over. Althalus spends a few minutes pretending to be himself, and then he goes about swindling the Cheif.

There's one thing that I do think Eddings is really, really good at, and that's writing con jobs. The book will be just a little draggy until several characters start working a con on the bad guys, and then things quickly turn into plots within plots within plots...and a lot of the observations characters make in the course their con are incredibly accurate. In one of his other books one character remarks to another that they need verifiable truths to get the bad guys to accept their big lie, because "Two part truth to one part lie: get the mix right and they'll swallow the whole thing."

If you ever doubt the accuracy of that observation, watch the news for a few hours.

Anyway, after pretending to be himself, Althalus tells the Cheif that he's a potential heir to something like a cheif in his own country, which is conviently far enough away that Alberon, while having heard of it, has never actually been there. And he needs Emmy's Knife, which is in Alberon's weapon's room, because he's got a cousin vying for the same title and whoever gets the knife first, wins. Oh, and his cousin is chasing him with nasty, foul-smelling people eating assassins like Pekhal, because his cousin doesn't like the scavanger hunt idea.

Alberon agrees to help immediately. And I'm not going to call him an idiot because this entire sequence--getting Alberon to laugh and be entertained, and then shoving the lie down his throat--is pretty much a textbook con and most people wouldn't be able to catch it.

Unfortunately, the Knife was in the weapon's room, but it's not any more. The Arums are mercenaries, and the southern people like to hire the Arums so that they don't get too many of their own people killed during their civil war. Eliar, a young merc on his very first command, decided to take the knife with him for good luck. Then he and all the other soldiers ran off to Kanthon to go kill each other for a while.

“I’d better hurry, then,” Althalus said. “Young Eliar sounds like a fellow who’s just brimful of incipient mortality.” 

“Nicely put, Master Althalus,” Albron said admiringly. “That description fits just about every adolescent male in the whole of Arum.”

On the ride down to Kanthon, Althalus and Emmy pass by that massive temple in Periquaine. Emmy reacts less than tactfully:

Yeah, it turns out that she's Dweia, the goddess worshiped in that particular temple, and that she isn't too happy about that particular representation of her person:

“Do you really look anything like that statue?”

 Like a brood sow, you mean? Like a whole herd of brood sows?

Yeah. Althalus and Emmy/Dweia discuss theology for the rest of their ride. By the way, we've now introduced a deity, a recurring cast member is now a deity, and that deity is now a permanent member of the cast.

Drink up.

They run into a bunch of severely injured men. The guy in front is Sergant Kahlor, who would be a captain or a general if Eddings hadn't screwed up on the ranking system and then made it a part of the plot. (Something else he's rather good at: making his errors an entertaining part of the plot. You get points for that Dave. Not a lot, but you get them) Kahlor just had his ass thoroughly kicked, which he isn't too irritated about because he still gets paid. But apparently the dude that hired him was a flaiming moron who ordered him to make questionable tactical decisions, and that got a lot of his men killed.

He's less than happy about this.

It turns out that the leader of Othos, the Aryo, was smart and pulled his men back when Kahlor showed up. Eliar didn't understand this, and decided that meant they should attack the city right now. Kahlor's description of what happened next is kind of pretty:

Eliar was the one who was screaming the loudest, so I put him in charge and ordered him to take a run at the gate and see how many of his men he could get killed...When they were about fifty paces from the gate, it swung open, and the Aryo of Osthos personally led out his troops to give my howling little barbarians a quick lesson in good manners.”

Of course Eliar and the Aryo get locked in single combat, and of course Eliar kills him because Eliar shows up later and the Aryo does not. Unfortunately for everybody, including the readers, the Aryo's daughter was watching and she was less than happy about her father being killed by a raving barbairan with a decorative bronze dagger. Eliar and his baby barbarians are captured and the rest of the mercs are sent away with the new-minted Arya Andine's voice still screaming in their ears.



Althalus now has to go to Othos and get Eliar away from the woman who has sworn to decorate her castle with his intestines.


End of chapter.

ARTS AND EDITS!

Editing is done. Just need to make final changes and do formatting. Ugh.

And artwork. Artwork? Artwork:

I like it.

The Redemption of Althalus--chapter five and six

Althalus draws the normal, sane conclusion after hearing the cat start talking. Namely, that he's lost it. Of course, he gets to blame Ghend for it all, so he spends a few minutes doing that.

The cat asks him to go close the door again. He and the cat  hold a conversation about how the cat can't actually talk. This segues into a conversation about how the Edge of the World is just a really high cliff, and how Althalus is being stupid.

I like the cat.

And then this happens:

“Well, of course I know your name, you ninny. I was sent here to meet you.”
 “Oh? Who sent you?” 
“You’re having enough trouble holding on to your sanity already. Let’s not push you off any edges with things you aren’t ready to understand just yet. You might as well get used to me, Althalus. We’re going to be together for a long, long time.”

Dave. You tell the same fucking story each time. This makes me think that maybe you're making this shit up as you go but you AREN'T. And we both know it. You've got the balls to make your repetition a cosmic question of purpose rather than your own inability to come up with a new story (IT IS THE SAME EVERY TIME) and for this I commend you, but if you can't keep your continuity up better than this I really don't know what to do with you.

Yeah, you'll see what the problem is with this REAL soon.

 Athalus tells the cat that he's going to take his book and leave now, because the cat is fucking creepy.

The cat points out that this tower no longer has a door. And it doesn't.

This is not the time for the consent rant, so we're just going to earmark this scene for later.

Althalus's reaction to this is not exactly rational:

 “I think I’ll kill myself,” he said mournfully.

The cat just says "Well, you can't, so let's get on with this."

See, Althalus now needs to learn how to read The Book, and then he needs to learn how to use The Book, and once he has completed this, our Theif will complete his metamorphosis into The Irrascable Racist Misogynist Drunk Wizard, and this is why we are not playing the David Eddings Drinking Game in one sitting.

Althalus tells the cat he isn't learning shit.

The cat goes back to sleep.

Althalus spends several days trying to get out of the room, and then agrees with the cat. It takes about two paragraphs. The cat demands he sit next to her and pet her, and when he refuses threatens to take another nap.

I have to say, Eddings has captured the attitude of a cat with magical powers rather perfectly. "You're going to play with me NOW, human!"

Althalus spends the next bit learning how to read and trying to get the cat to tell him what she is. She hasn't always been a cat, but she's not interested in giving him any knowledge other than "That mark means 'dog'".

He names her Emerald. Emerald acts like a cat. Althalus remarks at how annoying this is. Especially as she's providing him with food via magic and all she wants is fish.

Althalus keeps trying to understand why he's here and how all this is possible, and decides finally that he's dead. He died back in Hule somehow, and this is all the afterlife. He's fine with it, because it's not like a theif can make it into heaven.

He and Emerald then discuss who wrote the book. It's God. His name is Deiwos.

Althalus shortens Emerald's name to Emmy. It pisses her off.

Next chapter

Althalus realizes that he was kind of a git back before he came to the house, and that he really wasn't all that great of a thief.

Admitting it is the first step in the healing process
Emmy decides that Althalus should now learn how to use the book. She tells him to order his shoe to come to him while touching the book and using the book's Very Special Language. He does. His shoe hits him in the face.

I am rather pleased with this.

The learning continues, with Emmy apparently using every chance she gets to let Althalus inflict minor injury on himself.

He asks her how long he's been on the house. She doesn't give him a number, but does let him know she put him to sleep for a couple years every once in a while. Oh, and she's God's Sister.

Yeah, nobody sent her. She kind of picked Althalus herself.

They continue to debate his age and she finally mentions that Ghend is a bit older than he is. He says "Oh, you mean the red-eyed asshole who sent me to get the book?" And Emmy kind of does a spit-take.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she almost shrieked at him. 
“I must have.” 

“No, as a matter of fact, you didn’t. You idiot! You’ve been sitting on that for the last twenty-five hundred years!”

Our brave hero. Forgets to pass on vital information.



Also gets his ass chewed by a kitty.

So Althalus patronizes her for a second, and instead of clawing his face off like she ought to, Emmy info dumps. Ghend is on the side of Daeva, the bad God. He is bad because Plot. Althalus has been kidnapped and re-educated in the name of the good God, Deiwos, which is really weird because Ghend was recruited of his own free will, and--right. Not time for the consent rant.

Anyway, knowing that Ghend sent Althalus to get the book means that Emmy and Althalus have to leave the House at the End of the World RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Before Althalus is ready. He still can't use the book right, you see. And that means Emmy has to come along with him, but first she has to rape his mind so that he can talk with her.

As we will find later, there are many ways that Emmy could take care of this that DON'T involve her having to run off RIGHT FUCKING NOW, but for the moment, we're finally leaving this stupid fucking room.

Anyway, the mind-raping scene starts with Emmy asking Althalus if he really loves her, and it goes downhill from there. It involves him counting trees until his mind is loose enough for her to get inside, at which point she starts using telepathy and acting like she does this all the time. Who knows? Maybe she does.

However, I do not feel very sorry for Althalus. The chapter ends with him immediately using the link to ransack Emmy's head.

Yeah, these two were totally made for each other.

Redemption of Althalus--chapter four

Althalus is now hiking through the deep woods of the far north of this universe in the middle of summer. Apparently this part of Hule borders Kagwher AKA The land of this current gold rush, so Althalus  comes across the frequent markers gold hunters use to steak off their claim. Like the California Gold Rush of the 1800s this is mostly sticks shoved in the ground. Unlike the California Gold Rush the Kagwhers top their posts off with severed heads.

It gets the point across.

Althalus has his own opinion about the gold mines, of course:

So far as Althalus was concerned, the mines of Kagwher were perfectly safe. There was a lot of backbreaking labor involved in wrenching gold out of the mountains, and other men were far better suited for that than he was. Althalus was a thief, after all, and he devoutly believed that actually working for a living was unethical.

You know, I never wanted to have the Belgariad told from Silk's POV. I think I understand why this never occurred to me. Jesus Christ does Al have his head jammed up his ass.

Althalus then takes a paragraph to establish himself as an agnostic.

This is a David Eddings book. That's not gonna last.

Althalus then sees the northern lights.

Darkness was just beginning to settle over the mountains off to the east, but up toward the north where the night was in full bloom, the sky was on fire.

It's the middle of summer. Althalus is wandering around in the far north where the sun doesn't rise in winter, which as I said earlier makes it either Alaska or Siberia-esque. There are places in both Alaska and Siberia where daytime in winter is "sneeze and you miss it" short. Do you know what else is that short? Nighttime in summer.

I'm going to hope and pray that this is like early autumn now, because the odds of seeing the northern lights in the summer are, to paraphrase a website I just read, roughly similar to seeing the stars at noon.

Anyway, Althalus, knowing exactly shit about astronomy, decides that the Northern Lights are very pretty, and that they probably mean that Ghend is bullshitting him about something big and scary that Ghend doesn't want to deal with. Also, the screaming thing is still around and is still screaming. It apparently has nothing better to do than scare the everloving fuck out of Althalus. Note: That is all the detail we are given about the Screaming Thing. There is a Thing in the woods and it is screaming, and Althalus is beginning to rethink this whole northern trip. And you know what? If I had never seen the northern lights before and the night sky freaking caught on fire, while something scary and random screamed into the distance? I'd go invite Mr. Ghend to go fuck himself with his gold and see if I couldn't invent counterfeiting paper money.

Althalus then runs into a crazy old man talking to God. For a crazy old man, the guy gives pretty exact directions to the House at the End of the World. Which Althalus follows to the letter, because how could a crazy old guy be wrong?

Althalus finds the Edge of the World. It is a very, very, VERY high cliff. The clouds are very far below. Actually, I think it's the cliff from The Silver Chair, and Aslan is going to show up any minute.

Then Althalus has a dream about a randomly beautiful women, and another of Eddings Copy and Paste details pops up:

Her hair was the color of autumn, and her limbs were rounded with a perfection that made his heart ache. She was garbed in a short, archaic tunic, and her autumn hair was plaited elaborately. Her features were somehow alien in their perfect serenity...Her brow was broad and straight, and her nose continued the line of her forehead unbroken. Her lips were sensual, intricately curved, and as ripe as cherries. Her eyes were large and very green, and it seemed that she looked into his very soul with those eyes.

Eddings has used that forehead line before in at least one other series, and it confuses me every time I read it. That's...not how foreheads or noses work, and when I draw that it tends to look like something is either deformed or broken. Also, that last sentence is a little Department of Redundancy Department. She looks into his soul with her eyes. What else is she going to look with?

She begs him to come away with her, and he says he can't, and the Screaming Thing is still screaming when he wakes up, and this is all supposed to Mean Something. And when we find out what it does mean, it's not exactly what we'd call "Subtle."

Oh, and this happens:

And when he awoke, there was a sour emptiness in him, and the taste of all the world was bitter, bitter.At some point Eddings decided that archaic lyricism means repeating one word twice for emphasis, starting every single fucking phrase with "and", and using a lot of thees and thous. And there are several scenes in this book that are nothing but this phrasing. Scenes that are absolutely critical to the book and climatic to several character arcs. Like I said, I love this book, but holy fuck, Dave. WHY?

So yeah. Let's get used to that.

Winter is showing up by the time he finds the house. Being reasonably terrified at this point, Althalus spends a day sitting across its moat waiting for something to happen. Its drawbridge is down and the lights are on, but nobody seems to be home. Also, the candles that are on inside continue to burn all day, which isn't how candles are supposed to work. Between the fire in the sky, the Screaming Thing and the dreams, Althalus is rather weirded out by the time he goes into the house.

He goes into the house, climbs the stairs--I am totally visualizing the Arch-Mage's tower from Oblivion--and comes into this:

Beyond the door there was one room, and one only. It was a large, circular room, and the floor was as glossy as ice. The whole house was strange, but this particular room seemed stranger still. The walls were also polished and smooth, and they curved inward to form a dome overhead. The workmanship that had created this room was far more advanced than anything Althalus had ever seen before.

Two points: Eddings might not be great at lyrical description, but he is fairly consistent about what his character describes. If you've never seen a polished marble floor, "glossy as ice" would probably be all you could dig out. (There is a scene in the Tamuli where a bunch of medival era knights have to describe a fucking spaceship. I. SHIT. YOU. NOT. RANDOM FUCKING SPACESHIP IN A HIGH FANTASY NOVEL. They actually pull off "What the FUCK is this thing" nonchalance really well) You're not going to reach for very high thoughts if you've got a very limited vocabulary, is what I'm saying. What's more irritating is that "far more advanced" thing tacked onto the end there. I don't think that Althalus, having had the trip he just had, is going to go "Gee, these technological advancements are well beyond my time and place in history". I think he's more likely to go "Find the book and leave. Find the book and leave."

Anyway, the Book he came to steal is the pretty white box sitting on the table in the middle of the room. Whoopee. He snags it.

This is when he notices that there's a bed in the room, that there's furs on the bed and there's a little black cat curled up in the middle of the fur. It's purring. This continues for a couple of seconds, and then the cat does what I imagine every cat has wanted to do when its human lets winter happen:

“You certainly took your own sweet time getting here,” the cat observed in a distinctly feminine voice. “Now why don’t you go shut that door you left standing wide open? It’s letting in the cold, and I just hate the cold.”

End of chapter.

Artwork!

I haven't heard back from the editor yet, but according to the dates she gave me the manuscript should be back in the next couple of days. We are still on for the seventh. :D

As for the artwork...

FUCK scales. FUCK them. WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO A DRAGON BOOK. WHY IN THE NAME OF HOLY GOD DID I DECIDE TO DO A DRAGON BOOK? WHAT THE BLEEDING HELL WAS I THINKING. SCALES. OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

Yeah. the cover is going well.