M.A. Ray's Blog, page 11

Storied Lives, Part 2

Dingus’s portion of Storied Lives.

Blood of Legends

eight years later

If there was one person on the Mother’s whole face who understood Dingus, it was Grandpa. Nobody else exactly got it. Grandma tried, but she wasn’t all the way there, not like Grandpa was. People said he was crazy, but Dingus kind of thought he was the sanest person ever.

They didn’t look anything alike, him and Dingus, except for both being thin, and the eyes. Dingus was inordinately proud of that, like he had anything to do with how his eyes came out. He never said so, but he was proud to be at least a little bit the way Grandpa was. As for thin, he’d rather not be that. Anyways he wasn’t thin and slight like Grandpa, all muscles like ropes made of wire, looking lean and, if you really saw him, strong. Dingus was just skinny, the skin-and-bones way, with all his sharp places poking out. That, he did mention to Grandpa; just today he’d mentioned it.

“You won’t be skinny forever, little shadow,” Grandpa said, sort of wistful, like he wished Dingus would be.

“Yeah.” To try and cheer Grandpa up, Dingus took a big breath and puffed out his cheeks. “I’ll get old and fat like humans do.”

Grandpa laughed, though not as hard as Dingus had hoped, and went on pulling guts from the boar carcass. Those purple-red innards were slick as anything, he’d learned, but they didn’t slip through Grandpa’s little fingers, never. “Maybe so,” Grandpa allowed. “But first you’ll be about the size of a horse. Wait and see.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve seen your father.” He rummaged in the boar, practically up to his shoulder, then took his hand out and held it palm up. “Knife, please.”

Dingus picked up the broad knife Grandpa always used on the joints and gave it over. He’d known since he was only so high which blades were wanted when. They hunted a lot, him and Grandpa; always had. Before he’d started shooting up tall there was lots of extra meat to cut up into strips and dry. Now… not so much. But he knew how to make jerky pretty good.

“Angus the Red,” Grandpa started to say, but he paused to whack through the boar’s ribs on one side, “resembles nothing so much,” and he pulled the chest open with a grunt and a loud crackle, “as a baby whale.” Blood from the cavity ran out in thin streams and rang on the bottom of the metal pan they’d put beneath.

Dingus laid a palm on his concave stomach. As if sensing his attention, it growled. If he thought about it, whenever he thought about it, he was hungry, and none of the food he ate seemed to stick on its way through. He couldn’t imagine resembling a baby whale, but then, his only idea of a whale was one Grandpa had drawn in the dust one day to illustrate a story he was telling.

His eyes wandered over Ma’s yard. He could hear the chickens complaining. Not too far off, he saw the chimneys of Thundering Hills sending ribbons of smoke up into the blue, blue sky of late autumn. You didn’t get a sky like that any other time.

The last brown leaves clung to the trees’ twiggy fingers, and already it had snowed twice, the second time just last night. Most of it had melted into lacy crust during the day, but there’d been enough this morning to make the hunting easy. Dingus himself had tracked down the other boar, which waited on the second hoist for Grandpa to talk him through the dressing of it.

Normally they’d only take one boar, but Grandpa had said two this time: to give Dingus the practice, and because winter was coming on so hard. The nights were long and cold enough, he’d said, to keep the meat fresh for a while.

Dingus knew what that meant.

Moira would go to sleep soon, all winter long. If it weren’t for the extra hunting, it’d be Dingus’s least favorite time. It still was. Moira was his only friend, besides Grandpa anyways, and he didn’t like to lose her when it got cold, but it happened every year. He’d have to get up and see her today, somehow, except it was already midafternoon and by the time they finished the boars it’d be time to cook supper. Maybe if he did his real fast, he could—

“Don’t be woolgathering now,” Grandpa said. He held the heart in one bloody hand.

“Sorry!” Dingus grabbed the pan they’d been using for the organs.

Grandpa tossed it in. “Try to pay attention, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” Dingus repeated. “What now? Wash it out, right?”

“That’s right.”

While Dingus threw a couple buckets of water over and into the carcass, Grandpa wiped his hands on a rag.

“Now we’ll break it down for storage.”

Dingus picked up the second-heaviest knife, and Grandpa gave him a quick smile and stepped in to dress the boar further down, into cuts they could hang in the smokehouse. After that, Dingus took off his shirt so it wouldn’t get bloody, but his own boar didn’t go as smooth. He tried to hurry so he could get to Moira, but it kept slowing him down more. He almost cut the intestines by the pooper, and made a dozen other stupid mistakes that set Grandpa to frowning.

Finally, he almost cut his finger real bad—like if he’d gone half an inch farther it’d be hanging by a thread—and Grandpa said, “You know better than this. It’s not going to escape, so why are you in such an all-fired hurry?”

There wasn’t any excuse. Dingus hung his head. When he saw himself, he noticed he had blood all up his arms and on his stomach, even some on his breeches.

“Are you cold?”

“No,” he mumbled.

“Then what is it?”

“I’ll slow down, I promise. I’ll do it right.” He took a deep breath and turned back to the carcass. Another breath, then he reached out to continue.

Grandpa laid a hand on his knife wrist. “This isn’t like you. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“It ain’t important.”

“Yes, little shadow. It is.” Sometimes he wished Grandpa would get mad and yell like everybody else, but it never happened. The more he should be annoyed, the gentler he was.

“There’s something I wanna do before dark.”

Grandpa nodded slowly and looked up at the sky, gauging the light. “Finish dressing it,” he said. “I’ll take care of the rest, and you can go on your errand—but mind your work this time. If you take off a finger, you won’t be able to go.” He smiled at Dingus again, faintly, didn’t even ask where Dingus meant to go, or what he meant to do—never did. Grandpa trusted him, which nobody else did, and he was so grateful for it he’d never once wanted to break the trust.

“Thank you,” he said. He breathed a couple more times, trying to slow himself down again—he was gonna get to see her after all!—then returned to the carcass. It went much quicker now that he wasn’t screwing it up constantly. Who knew? he thought ruefully.

The moment he’d stripped the last of the skin, Grandpa waved him away. “Much better. Go on now, do your something.”

“Thank you!” Dingus repeated, dumped one of the clean-water buckets over his head, shuddered, shook himself dry, and bolted, pulling his shirt on as he went.

He ran up the hill in the dusk, so fast he was out of breath by the time he got to the top. Frosty grass crunched under his pinching shoes. “Moira!” he gasped. “Moira, did you go to sleep yet?”

No answer. He waited, though; this time of year she was slow, real slow, winding down to rest. For a minute he stayed where he was, catching his wind with his hands on his thighs, and then he straightened and walked to her trunk. When he touched her, he felt a little stirring under his cold fingers. “I’m sorry if I missed you,” he whispered. “I had some stuff I had to do.”

Slowly, the bark smoothed, its rough gray turning silvery as her face pressed out of it, her neck. She was upside down, and she gave him a sleepy smile with her papery lips. “Hello, Dingus…” she said faintly. Her bright black eyes were only slits.

“Hi.” He didn’t know why he usually whispered to her. Something holy about her made him want to talk soft. His family didn’t go down to the temple very often—not even Longday and not always Longnight—but stepping in there and coming up here gave the same feeling. Here it was much more comfortable.

“I’m glad you came,” Moira yawned, brushing his cheek.

“You’re about to go under.” He caught her hand before she drew it back in. “I’m going to miss you.”

“When the green wood grows,” she mumbled.

“I love you.”

“Hmm.” She began to settle back into the bark. Quick, before she was gone, he bent his head and kissed her on those cold lips, and she sank in smiling.

Dingus’s eyes burned. He rubbed the heels of his hands into the sockets—fifteen was too old to cry, if he’d ever been young enough—took a couple of deep, shaky breaths, and walked down the hill. He’d been saying goodbye to her since he was six. He should be used to it by now, but every year it got harder, and he glanced over his shoulder more than once on the way down.

Maybe that was why he didn’t see Grandpa until he got to the bottom. Then again, Grandpa was disconcertingly sneaky, so maybe it was just because he hadn’t wanted to be seen. His dark face showed deep concern, and he looked past Dingus, straight at Moira, but he didn’t say nothing. Nothing besides, “Are you ready to go back for supper? I have the fire going.”

“Last one outside, huh?” Dingus said awkwardly. The family had a tradition that right before it got too cold, they cooked out one last time and made a whole thing out of it.

“Yes, I think so. We nearly missed it this year—winter’s bearing down so fast. Next week, it’ll likely be too cold.” Both of them put their hands in their pockets and walked back toward Ma’s house. It wasn’t far, but it wasn’t close either. They went along quiet for a few minutes, and then Grandpa said, “I hope you’re being careful.”

“About what?”

“About her.” He jerked his head back toward the hill. “What else?”

“Oh.” Dingus kicked at a rock. “I guess.” He didn’t know how he was supposed to be careful, but the kinds of things he’d been doing with Moira lately probably didn’t count as that.

“So what you mean is, ‘Not really.’”

He kicked the rock again and sent it flying out of reach.

“If she had the power to do it, she’d drag you into that tree, and who knows if you’d survive it? Who knows where you’d go if you did?”

“No she wouldn’t,” he blurted. “Moira wouldn’t do that.”

Grandpa stopped, didn’t move even when Dingus turned to look at him. “They weren’t like us,” he said. “They didn’t think like we do.”

“Who didn’t?” Dingus asked, tight with frustration. He didn’t want to be questioned about Moira. She was his: his secret, his most zealously-guarded heart.

“The fairies. She’s a fairy thing, Dingus. Ancient and powerful, for all she’s trapped now. She has no understanding of these pretty moral structures we mortals so love to build. Wickedness, virtue—it’s all the same to her.”

“She’s good to me,” he said. His face heated.

“I imagine she is. You must make her a nice little toy.” Grandpa sounded hard just then, like iron. “I’m not telling you not to. I am telling you to be aware of what she’s doing. Does she have your name?”

Dingus shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah.”

“I know you’ve been visiting her for a long time. I wouldn’t be saying anything, but I saw you kiss her. You’re in dangerous waters.”

“She wouldn’t hurt me!”

“I’m sure you know best,” Grandpa said, but his tone said Dingus didn’t know any such thing.

“I’ll be careful,” he muttered.

For a while they walked in silence, and night fell faster and faster. After a few more minutes, Dingus made out the square of light in the single window of Ma’s cottage, and the big fire growing just there, past the chicken coop. Shapes moved in front of it, Grandma cooking, Ma pacing.

“I don’t blame you,” Grandpa said, stopping again. “She was beautiful once. Is she still?” That they were still out of Grandma and Ma’s earshot didn’t escape Dingus, and he stopped too.

“Very,” Dingus said.

“I saw her dance.” There was a husky thickness in Grandpa’s voice, and Dingus didn’t say a word, waiting for what he’d say next. “Her every step was music. There were drums in her tread and melody in her crown. They loved her, the little ones did. More than they loved me, which was saying something back then, believe me. I think—” He swallowed hard, nearer tears than Dingus had ever seen him. “I think I’m the only one who remembers.”

“What do you mean, the little ones?”

“They loved me,” he said. “The fairies. They used to come to me and touch my face with their tiny hands, and sing my name in the dark of night. It’s been such a long time. I miss them…”

Dingus didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that. He settled on, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, little shadow. That time was over long before you were born. It’s just that I can’t let go of it.” Grandpa cleared his throat again, but the frog that seemed to be lodged there wouldn’t be moved. “I can’t let go of what I used to be. It was so much better than what I am. I wouldn’t trade you,” he added hastily. “Never think that. But I could wish myself less broken.”

“You’re not broken.” It was out before he had a chance to think.

Grandpa said nothing, but Dingus felt his eyes drop away, saw the shape of him bend.

“So what if you are, then? You’re still good. The best ever.” Dingus fought to keep his voice from cracking. “Remember when I found that one sparrow?”

“No.” It wasn’t more than a whisper.

“I was eight or nine. I don’t know. I found a sparrow with a broken wing, remember? I didn’t wanna show nobody ’cause I thought they’d kill it, and I brought it home and put it in a box in my corner, and you found me with it a couple days later. And I cried and said don’t kill it, and you said no, we don’t kill broken things, we help them heal. You said that and then you helped me fix it up, best we could.” He breathed through his nose, desperate. “Never did fly right again, but it was good for a song. Remember?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Grandpa said softly.

“You’re still good,” he insisted. “Nobody understands me but you. Nobody gets in front of me but you, either.” Grandma had, some—when he was littler—but a few years ago he’d asked her to take it easy. She’d got a real hurt look on her face until he’d explained she made things worse, talking to the other kids’ parents. Even then she hadn’t liked hearing it. Grandpa had flat told him no, and kept on sticking up for Dingus every time he saw a chance. At least he talked to the kids themselves, rather than their dads. Dingus kept his mouth shut about the shit they did to him that Grandpa didn’t see, which was a damn lot.

“You don’t have to love me,” he went on. “Not really. But you treat me real good and teach me stuff. I don’t care if you’re broken. You’re the best there is.”

Grandpa gave a long, slow sigh. He sounded like he was relaxing. Dingus couldn’t quite see if he really was. “I think you are, too,” he said at last.

Dingus put an arm around Grandpa’s shoulders, like Grandpa used to do before Dingus got taller. “Are you gonna tell a story tonight?”

With an offended snort, Grandpa drew a little away from him. “Of course.”

“Good,” Dingus said, meaning it.

They walked together, tall boy, short man, to the bonfire, where their family waited.

Snippet Sunday #3

A piece of the penultimate story in Fairyfall. Let me know what you think, as always.[image error]

***

Help me, Brother Fox.

He sat up in the High King’s great cupboard, into stifling heat. What is it?

Oh, help me, help me! The Mountain sent him a feeling of indigestion; She rumbled with discontent, maybe a little fear.

All right. I’m coming. He rolled to the edge of the cupboard, over the furs. Usually the bed felt pleasant, no matter the temper of Fimberevell, but if She was heating it past the spells that kept it cool…

He sighed. She must be struggling with another potential eruption, a bad one this time. He’d have no more sleep tonight. Instead he would go deep beneath the Palace, farther below than even the servants’ tunnel, to the tiny chamber that was the Fimbetamur’s heart. Down there, it sweltered, and fine, glowing runes covered every surface, even the ceiling and floor, all crabbed together and tangled as the High King with the Mountain. Bits of the spell were seared into the soles of his feet, the memories of time after time he’d been down there: to love Her, to console Her, and to gentle Her when She was restive. He opened his cabinet, and the alarm bell near the shore began to ring, urgently bursting the nighttime quiet.

A moment, love, no more, he assured Fimberevell. Things moved slow and ponderously deep beneath the earth, at least until they didn’t. He judged he’d have time to get to the place She liked him best to be: that little chamber in the depths.

Aloud, he cried, “To arms!”

What’s The Deal, Em?

I’ve been out for a while. Google “arachnoid cyst” and “craniotomy.” I’ll wait here.

 

*elevator music* *twiddling thumbs*

So yeah. They kinda sawed my head open. On March 25, if you’re curious. Gnarly, huh? I’m writing again, though. Through Zoloft haze and big piles of medications and therapy and what have you.

I have five projects right now.

The one I’m working on most is Saga of Menyoral: Hard Time. I’m entirely cognizant of how long people have waited for that.

I’m working on something in the Steel for the Prince continuity. A prequel? I don’t know. I don’t have a title for it yet, but it stars Rhuez (Wolf’s Fang).

Another thing is The Brothers Mala, which I know I promised before and am trying to finish.

The next Eagle and Fox novel is going to be The Witch under Mountain, which I’m also trying to finish.

I don’t know what you’d call the last thing. It’s interconnected shorter works about the night magic fell (which I know I covered in the prologue to Hard Luck, but what the hey).

Anyway that’s it for now.

 

 

Storied Lives, Part One

A free story to connect Eagle Eye with Dingus. Here’s Eagle’s part.

Story’s End

For the second time that week, Eagle Eye Wormsbane woke in the cellar. It was stupid to sleep here, he knew, and still, at least one morning out of seven, he opened his eyes and found himself on the dirt floor with dawn leaking around the access doors to outside.

It took a moment, as always, for pain to penetrate his sleep-fogged mind. As always, he was aware of something not right with his body, but he never had enough time to brace before it struck him.

Belly first, like his guts were being drawn out, and slowly. He moaned, curling over himself, nearly crumpling the old paper book in his lap before he flung it away. It bounced off a sack of flour and thumped to the floor.

Eagle’s head began to pound. He clenched fists at his temples, groaning Bey, low in his throat. Fox wouldn’t come. He knew that; he forced the memory through his mind. Fox was dead.

More. He pushed through his past, the persistent images of his youth. Fox was dead. He’d had practice remembering it all. His thoughts hurt almost as badly as his flesh, but he shoved them through his brain until at last he could produce, “Rhi! The God…” Sweat broke out on his skin, chilly and slick. “Rose!”

He twisted, straining into an arch that any moment, any instant, would break. He shouldn’t have come down here. “Rose! Help me!” he cried, his voice as thin as a child’s, and he heard her steps rush softly across the floor above.

Light streamed in when she flung the doors wide. He recoiled from it, screaming when it hit his eyes. “Fuck me,” he heard her mutter, as she came down the steps. Her touch was the faintest sting, hardly noticeable over the rest of it. “Come on now, Eagle. You know the drill—you gotta unroll.”

Panting, he struggled to obey. It seemed forever before she pulled his arm over her slim shoulders. Together they rose. She drew him more than not, though he tried not to let her; tried to do it himself. “Rose,” he said, as they fought past shelves upon shelves of dusty treasure. “My book.”

“Okay, okay.” She set him at the bottom of the steps. “Where?”

“By—” He rubbed his forehead. Think. “By the flour.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll get it.”

He watched his wife cross the cellar. Sometimes he watched her. Not to remember why he’d married her—he remembered that every time she rescued him this way—but to remember what she was. Beautiful, his Rose was so beautiful, with her hair glinting in the sun where it escaped the braided knot at the base of her neck, like wheat, like gold. She wore it long, as she’d done for centuries, and when she let it down at night it rippled in the candlelight as, by the steady glow of mage-lanterns ages past, it had not.

Beautiful, but she was so much more than beautiful. Unlike Eagle, years and cataclysm and heartbreak had diminished her power not in the slightest. He hoped she had someone to please her; he managed it perhaps four or five times a year, and it couldn’t be enough.

She turned to him, holding up the book, with a wry set to her pink mouth. “This again?” Magister Ferocious. It had been Fox’s favorite.

He said simply, “Yes.”

Rose only put the book in a floury apron pocket and came back to him, among the shelves of beautifully-made, enchanted things, things that no longer worked, but pulled viciously at Eagle’s own magic. When she reached him, she looked down, and her lips pursed. She looked exceedingly put out with him, he realized.

“What is it, my heart?” he said, shaping his face into what he hoped was more charming smile, less agonized rictus.

She laughed. “Chuck that my heart stuff in the bin,” she said, helping him up. “We both know you left your heart in Shirith under a whole mountain full of lava.”

Where once he’d scaled mountains, the stairs were as desperately terrifying as any cliff. Cramps lanced down his legs. “What is there left of me to love you, then?” He grimaced. “What is there left for you to love?”

Until they reached the top, behind the bakery counter, she held her tongue. She shut the door behind them, and the pain lessened; the wood, or maybe the token of the closed portal, held the once-enchanted things in check, at least a little. Things still got a bit strange, he’d found, around what had been magic.

Rose stepped close, putting her hands on either side of his face. “There’s enough,” she said softly, and pressed her forehead to his.

“Whatever’s left, it does love you.”

“More left than you think, Eagle. Go on up and have your breakfast. I got customers here.”

He turned out to the bakery and saw a line: Adair the smith, already grimed from his forge; Rogen the bailiff, neat and polished; and half a dozen more. “Oh,” he said faintly, and none of them looked at him, not one. They kept their faces turned firmly aside from Poor Mad Voalt—what a shame, so respectable, so very illustrious, but really, out of his mind. His breath caught in his chest. For a blink he could do no more than stare, and then he wheeled and stalked up to the flat on the top floor, fleeing, but managing—he hoped—not to look it.

Once there, he dropped himself into his place at the table and stared into space. It hurt less up here, though he hadn’t found any place it didn’t hurt at all. The wild was the best he could hope for; at least there, nobody could see him in pain.

Out there he could scream his throat raw, and did. Not often, but sometimes. It wasn’t the pain of a body rent by forces now beyond mortal touch he screamed for. In the days that followed magic’s breaking, yes, then it had been. Now the pain was mostly duller, the noise of outraged nerves in the background of his mind, except when he got stupid and fell asleep in the basement among the artifacts of a long life’s wandering. But how could he resist it?

He pulled his breakfast across the table, trying to banish his treasonous thoughts. Rose had baked muffins rich with maple and nuts, fixed him eggs and sausages to feed a crowd—or one small witch with a hundred demands on his power. She loved him, and he Rose. Their daughter, he loved, and their small grandson. The people, he loved, but this life—the God—he could not hate this life more. The routine of it, and the sameness, and the nothing.

Nothing to do but rot. In the house, in the wild, what difference was there really? Usually he could forget, but sometimes a passion of loathing rose up and threatened to strangle him. He shoved bite after bite of eggs into his mouth, eating them as savagely as one could eat fluffy scrambled eggs. He could go. Nothing could really stop him.

Well—Rose could, but she’d have to kill him to do it, and he knew she wouldn’t. And Rose could only stop him if she knew he meant to leave. So simple… pack a bag as if he were going out camping. He didn’t need much, and he could be in Brightwater in a week; less if he pushed himself. He had money. He had money nobody knew about, not even Rose.

He could be there within a week, and aboard a ship within a week after that. In less than a month he could be getting drunk on a beach in the Monmouths and waiting for an adventure to find him. He could see Raven again, and Wolf.

Raven, at least, he thought, grimacing. The last time his old friends had come to Thundering Hills, he and Wolf had argued: a loud, nasty row over Fox’s young son taking the Knights’ leaf on his remaining hand. What did it matter? Beagan could never be High King, even if there were a mountain left to accept him, and anyway there were so few Revanar left in the world, the office would be no more than a puppet show for an audience that no longer cared. Eagle bit into a muffin loaded with walnuts, topped with crunchy maple sugar, and sighed. Rose was a good cook.

At best, the Movanar would greet a new High King with apathy. Fox had been popular enough, but millennia of oppression tended to leave a bad taste in the mouth. More likely it would be hostility, and in no time they’d be looking for someone to do away with Beagan—if the remnants of the Revanar didn’t get to it first. There were six left in Long Knife, last Eagle knew, clinging to their power and their lives by their manicured nails, and three in Wealaia: King Velrach, his wife, and his son. Wolf was left, and Raven; Rose’s friend Amaranth, and Beagan himself. Eagle supposed there might be a few more, but wherever they might be, they weren’t showing themselves. All the ages of the Revanar were buried and gone.

Let the boy be, he thought firmly at Wolf, stuffing down the rest of the muffins one by one. He deserves his own life. High King of nothing!

Fox wouldn’t have wanted it. He would have wanted his son free, and Beagan was as free as a boy shackled to his own past could be; even doing well, when Eagle had seen him last.

Maybe thirty years had been enough to cool Wolf’s temper.

Eagle sat back from the table, folding his hands over his stomach. It still bulged when he ate, though that would go away soon; if anything, he was more of a bottomless pit than he’d been as a young man, and gained less weight from it. He guessed it must have something to do with being a furnace in a great hall with no other warmth.

Thirty years! He chuckled to himself. Wolf had likely forgotten he was ever angry with Eagle before Thundering Hills had disappeared over the horizon. They’d never been friends exactly, but they weren’t completely unfriendly either, and Eagle missed him more than he could admit. Wolf was more volatile than flame, but once he decided to burn for you, that was the end.

Inside a month—how good it would be to see them! Plenty had come and gone, drifted away or died, but Raven and Wolf had made a nice life for themselves in the tropics, and made it clear Eagle was welcome there, Eagle and anyone connected to him.

He could go. But the moment he began to work through the logistics of the trip, his mind quailed. Rose would be so worried about him, and rightly so. The food—there was no way he could carry all he’d need onto the ship.

And then there was Dingus, too little to understand, but old enough to be hurt by Eagle’s dereliction; old enough to associate Eagle’s leaving with his own father’s, however wrong he might be to make that connection.

Maybe not so great a wrong to Eagle. Angus had at least wanted to take the boy with him, but all Eagle could think of was how much he wanted to be out of this place, out from beneath the weight of stares.

Selfishness, that was the only word for it. It would be wrong to leave without saying good-bye to Dingus. Over centuries of life, he’d done plenty of things he wasn’t proud of, but that was a cruelty not even Eagle’s numb heart could withstand. He couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to his grandson, but he couldn’t say good-bye and still leave.

He could never leave while Dingus remained.

He rose from the table and began the washing-up. This, at least, he could do for Rose. He pumped a dishpan full of water, added soap, and tried not to think about wandering. He tried not to think of all the times he had left one place and gone to another, of the wind in his hair as a ship carried him out of port.

It wouldn’t be the same. In his memory, Fox stood next to him smiling, as eager as he to see something new. In his memory they were together, but there wasn’t any more Fox and there never would be.

He put the last dish aside to drain off, dried his hands, and swiped tears from his face with the towel. Times like these, he felt like moldy leftovers—like a child’s stuffed toy cast aside, no longer needed. He felt old when he strapped the knives to his upper arms, old and over-cautious, but without them he might as well go out naked. He would go out, he decided, rolling his sleeves down over the sheaths. He would go and see Dingus, and remind himself why he stayed.

Down the steps to the bakery, then. Rose asked him, “Where you goin’?”

“Dingus,” he said.

“Give him a kiss from me.”

“Yes, Rose,” he said, but he’d forgotten it halfway through the square. He should have gone the back way. The little square was full this time of morning, bustling with women and children, youths and old men. Most of those around Eagle’s age were at their work—another way he was strange and different. But then, with Eagle’s money, he’d never have to take a job in his life. It was a lucky thing. Rose ran the bakery for something to do, and he helped when he could, but sometimes his pain overwhelmed him and he needed to retreat.

He decided to skirt the village after all, and practically dove off the square next to the smithy, where there was space between buildings. Pretending not to hear Adair’s call of “Good morning,” he strode the few hundred feet between the edge of the square and the edge of the village proper. Thundering Hills was woefully small; the only good place to get a bit of Hayedi food was if Rose cooked lamb with yogurt.

Damn this backwater, anyhow! His memories tangled. Fox kneeling before Rose, pressing a beautiful ear to her pregnant belly, both of them smiling brightly enough to blind. Grilled mussels fresh from the bay, any bay. Dancing with Rose on hot sand; Fox kissing him in the snow among ancient pines. Cat’s sweet pipe notes in the dusk. Magic circles poured on mountainsides, any mountain—salt, potash, drops of blood: Fox and Raven and Wolf and Owl, raising voices together, raising power. Aster’s burnt beautiful face, cold winter light in her eyes as she whispered ice from the desert.

He cursed Thundering Hills, not for the first time, not for the last. The places he’d loved were all changed; he was changed, and the last time he’d been down to Brightwater, before Dingus was born, the agony of being among so many who were meant to touch magic had rent him asunder. Even Elwin’s Ford, the nearest large town, had brought him blinding pain. He was all a-snarl like a bobbin unwound by a naughty child. He wanted to leave. He couldn’t bear to.

Hadn’t he just been dreaming of that? Leaving? Eagle stopped at the base of a hill, and after a moment he recognized it. It was Her hill, the fairy hill. He hadn’t realized he’d wandered so far. He’d used to be sharp.

High above at the top, Dingus stood in front of the ancient oak that grew there. His hands were deep in his pockets, and the sun stood behind him, turning him into a shadowbox cutout: hill, tree, and boy.

Eagle never went to the top of that hill, though he wanted to. He had sat there one moonless night, thirty-eight years gone, and watched the fairies dance for their Lady: an honor, oh, and the greater honor still that he had seen Her take a long-legged woman’s shape and dance along. The starlight on her crown of leaves… and then the end had come. The fairies whisked away on a sparkling wind, and the great oak swallowed their Lady, and the sky over Shirith, far and away, caught fire.

They left Eagle behind, the fairies and Fox, in a forever shadow of dragging pain and longing that drowned him.

Dingus was seven now, but he walked and talked like a full-blood lad with a score of years. Only seven, and in the shadow where Eagle dwelt it seemed to be fewer years than that, since Rhiada had laid the warm blanket bundle in his arms. “Here, Daddy,” she’d said, rough with exhaustion, but smiling. “You hold him, too.”

All the long night, while his wife searched for Angus the Red, he’d sat with his daughter sleeping on the bed and his grandson sleeping in his arms and his heart was full that freezing night. That night they were his and only his. The moment Rhiada gave him the nameless baby who would be called Dingus in the morning, he had known. Finding the boy on this hill, head bowed before this tree, was hardly a surprise.

He’d known the moment he’d ventured—unable to resist—to touch Dingus’s tiny face with a fingertip. To trace the faint, nearly invisible brows, so soft, the snub nose, the miniature lips, wide and unmistakably Xavier. Dingus was like him. Dingus had his own magic.

Eagle’s fear had made him clutch the baby close, curling his body over the bundle as if to protect it. Dingus had his own magic, and he let out an affronted cry as Eagle squeezed tight, too tight, rocking back and forth. Weeping from relief: Dingus didn’t hurt to the touch. He drew nothing from the empty well that Eagle had become.

Fear, though—he wept for that too, fear like he’d never known, even facing High King Beagar that final time. No Worm had ever terrified him like the awful knowledge that Dingus was doomed to be different. Whether destiny or not, who could say? It hardly mattered. The God, if the wrong person discovered this baby, just one wrong person…

Seven years he’d kept it locked away. Eagle hadn’t breathed a word, not to Rose, not to Rhiada, not even to Dingus; a secret was only safe with one. Keep him safe, protect him. That anyone like Eagle could still be born was, he felt, a sign of hope. And Dingus wasn’t quite like Eagle after all… he hardly cried, and never complained of the pains Eagle suffered.

Boy, tree, hill. Menyoral, Eagle thought, and not for the first time. He’d met one or two before. It would fit. Any Power still alive and stirring, any of the great Powers humans called gods—if they deigned to look down on Rothganar—would have seen Dingus like a beacon in the night. He had story blood, the blood of legends: Rose’s blood, Eagle’s blood, Xavier blood.

Eagle shivered at the sudden touch of cold on the back of his neck, and drew up his hood. Old, instinctive anxiety lifted his hackles. “Dingus!” he called. “Come down, little shadow!” Father had called him that, centuries ago. It spilled out of him now—but he felt cold again, certain that he was the shadow of Dingus, or would be, in time—a dark thing flickering before a great light.

“Dingus!” he called again. For now, little shadow, his to keep secret and safe. For a little while.

Dingus touched the oak’s bark. Eagle saw his hand linger, but then he streaked down the brown grassy hill, coat flapping, and thumped into Eagle at the bottom. Eagle let himself get bowled over, let the solid warm weight bear him down and the soft strong baby arms embrace him. He embraced in return. No words. None necessary until Dingus had finished hugging him.

“It hasn’t been all that long since we last saw each other,” he said, sitting up, but he grinned as he said it.

“Two whole days!” Dingus said, flinging his arms wide to indicate the endless span. His open coat, the brown of dead leaves, flapped again.

Eagle laughed. “Come here, little shadow. Why haven’t you buttoned your coat?”

“I’m not cold,” Dingus protested, but he suffered Eagle to do it up.

“No? What’s this?” Eagle tapped his nose, red at the end, and touched his little chin. “So red! And your ears, too. You still need your hat and mittens and muffler, especially if we’re going camping.”

“Are we? Are we really?”

“Oh, yes,” Eagle said gravely, as if it had been his plan all along instead of a moment’s impulse. “The green wood grows again, and the forest is blinking sleep from her eyes. We’d better go and bid her good morning.”

Dingus glanced back at the oak on the hill, confirming Eagle’s suspicions, but a moment later turned with eager eyes. “Okay. But Grandpa, it’s halfway to noon. You don’t think she’ll be mad, do you? The forest?”

“Morning is a long time when you’re as big as a forest. Don’t worry; she’ll be glad to see you whenever you come.” The little boy beamed, but Eagle thought he didn’t know how much truth he’d just heard. No matter. “Let’s go to your mother’s house first, and collect your things.”

The boy’s smile stretched broader, and he dashed off ahead of Eagle, who walked behind—whistling as he’d used to do, when he’d had a purpose. Well, he had one now, too. Dingus’s enemy, whoever that might be, was sure to be greater even than Beagar. There was work to be done, and much scolding to endure before Rhiada would let them go. While Dingus zipped from place to place in the tiny cottage, Rhiada rained exhortations and threats on Eagle’s head.

He didn’t listen much. “All right, Rhiada,” he said, when he saw Dingus head for the door, snatching up her lantern. “I’m taking this. We’ll be back inside a week.” She spluttered, but he kissed her on the cheek in spite of the twist of pain in his belly and went out with Dingus following.

“Hey! Where’s my hug and kiss?” she shouted after Dingus, who ran back to deliver them. When he returned, he put his mittened hand into Eagle’s, and they went away.

All day long they rambled over the hills clothed in naked branches, Dingus skipping ahead or falling behind, leaping and bounding, roaming out of sight or walking next to Eagle. The air was cold and sharp, the humidity slicing through clothes, and they would have shivered but for the activity. The smell of humus hung thick around them; it was wet, and last year’s leaves rotted under melting snow. A few of the trees had already started to bud. Eagle pointed them out. He showed Dingus the soft pussy willows, the spring-skinny squirrels, the tracks of animals great and small, the bright spears of crocus and clean white snowdrops. Dingus absorbed it all.

At last, when dusk gathered and night began to fall, he built a fire, carefully showing Dingus the way of it in a pit—an old one he’d dug out that summer—lined and ringed with stones. “I’m cold!” Dingus said. “Can we light it yet?”

“Not yet,” Eagle said, arranging the driest wood they’d been able to find. Into the bottom of the structure, he poked some small twigs and a bit of fur they’d found caught in a thicket. “Now we can light it.” He sat back, brushed off his hands, and put a long twig into the lantern until it flamed. He cupped his hand around it as he passed the twig to Dingus. “Careful, little shadow.”

Dingus’s small hands trembled with excitement, but he was careful enough to satisfy even Eagle as he prodded the twig into the kindling. “Oh!” he cried, sitting down hard as it caught. “I did it!”

“You did.” Eagle accepted the twig back, grinning, and blew out the flame.

The growing fire threw dancing light over Dingus’s face, partly hidden in the muffler. He seemed to glow, with power, with joy.

“Come here,” Eagle said, opening one side of his cloak, and when Dingus settled against him he wrapped it around both of them. He felt frail next to Dingus’s solidity.

“I want to hear a story, please,” Dingus said.

“I like your manners. Let me think.” As soon as he asked for time, he had it. “I know just the story. Once upon a time…”

Snippet Sunday #2

Is it Snippet Sunday again? Already?

This week I’m going to inflict more abuse on your poor eyeballs in the form of a chunk of an untitled, unfinished story about Lukas Kalt, who appears in Menyoral as both older Squire and newly-minted Junior. He’s in Hard Time, and I really wanted to find out more about him. I liked this scene, in which a thirteen-year-old Lukas reveals something about himself to Vandis, and I liked it a lot because I feel I caught Vandis’s character well: rough, but well-spoken and preachy (it is his job, after all).

As always with Vandis, here lie dirty words.

~*~

He ducked through the shaggy pines to get into Vandis’s camp. There was a stewpot on the fire, giving off an unholy stink, sour with burning garlic.

“Excuse me,” Lukas began, but Vandis had gestured him toward a folding stool with faded stripes of blue and green on the seat.

“Sit,” Vandis said, but it was too close to the fire, to the smell of the pot. Lukas felt sick already.

Shakily, he said, “I’ll stand, thank you.”

“If you want to.” Eyes the color of a storm pierced him from under thick salt-and-pepper brows. “It’s Lukas, right? Lukas Kalt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Vandis.” And he stuffed his mouth with a huge bite of stew.

“Yes, Vandis.”

Vandis nodded and lifted those brows at Lukas: go on.

Faced with a man who seemed much bigger face-to-face than he ought—a short hard wall of muscle and a granite face, shadow and light playing with the nostrils in his big hooked nose—Lukas felt his tongue cling to the roof of his dry mouth. He couldn’t look masculine, grizzled Vandis Vail in the eye and say he wanted to sleep with other boys.

It was forever before Vandis finished chewing. Lukas was on the point of flight when he swallowed and said, “Whatever it is you have to tell me, I’ve heard a hell of a lot worse. Spill it so we can both get back to our lives.”

“I’m a faggot,” Lukas said, now or never.

“No you’re not.”

He blinked. “Yes I am. I don’t like girls.”

“You aren’t attracted to girls. There’s a difference.”

“You just said I’m not a faggot.”

“That is correct.”

“But I am! I’m—attracted to boys. Like you said.” Lukas spread his arms. “I don’t understand what you want from me!”

Vandis set down his bowl and propped his forearms on his thighs. “I want you to watch your fucking language. That’s an ugly word used by ugly people to try to distract from their own ugliness. You will not use it to describe yourself, or anyone else, in my presence.”

“But you just—” Lukas cut himself off and sat down hard, clasping his head in both hands. He couldn’t possibly work this out standing.

“I know. I said a rude word.” Vandis grinned hugely. “‘Fucking.’ Got your attention, didn’t it? But there’s a difference, a whole world. ‘Faggot,’ that’s a hate word. Do you hate yourself?”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t see anything to hate.”

Try it from the inside, Lukas thought, but he looked at the ground instead of saying it.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been thirteen.” The Head of the Knights waved it aside. “Point I’m trying to make is, the more you talk hate, the easier it is to think hate. Don’t fuck yourself over with your words.”

His mouth shaped ‘oh,’ but no sound came out.

~*~

I hope you’ll let me know what you think! Fair winds to you.

Weekend TBR: It’s Freakin’ Cold Edition

Don’t want to leave the house. Nope nope nope.

So I’ll be reading this weekend, both e-books and print books. Here’s what’s on the list. Want to pick one up and join me? Links are from Amazon, by the way.

Current read: The Lightning-Struck Heart, by T.J. Klune

26% in and really enjoying it.

Next: The Goblin Corps, Ari Marmell

I’ve been looking forward to this one. You know how I like fantasy with cursing.

Then: Counting on Your Love, Jen Ponce

I’ve been looking forward to this one, too! A romance written by a dear friend of mine. She assures me it is light and fluffy.

After that: Black Wolves, Kate Elliott

I’ve heard some buzz on this one. It’s long. People are saying it’s good. I’ve enjoyed Elliott before, so I’m giving it a go!

Maybe even: Lord Mouse, Mason Thomas

This Dreamspinner release is getting lots of great reviews. I’m in.

What about you? Have you read one or more of these? What’s on your weekend TBR list? I’d love to hear about it!

Excelsior

I’ve been stuck on Hard Time for a good long while. That’s no secret to anybody who’s been reading.

I finally figured out why, but I’m keeping at least one reason mostly under my hat (spoilers!). Suffice it to say I had a problem of both plotting and characterization, but I’m well under way now.

The reason I can really talk about is this: I was having trouble integrating the things I’ve already written that take place in Rothganar’s past (and the things I’ve planned to write) with the events of Menyoral.

I had forgotten that the soul of Menyoral is in the stories the characters tell each other. Now that I’ve remembered, I can integrate things better, talk about the past while dealing with the present, and ground what I’ll be doing in the future. It’s all one story, really. It’s all one thing, a thousand stories coming together to make the world.

I’m really excited. The writing I’ve been doing lately is some of the most fun I’ve ever had in front of the keyboard. I won’t say it’s the best — who knows? It might be self-indulgent garbage, but I’m enjoying myself so much, and I can’t wait for you guys to see it.

Much love from me.

The Devil and Where He Lives, Part 2

I said Friday that I’d talk a little bit about describing settings today, so here I am to rave at you again.

Something I’ve heard people struggle with is balance. How much is too much? So I’m going to try to say, brass-tacks level, what I do. It’s up to you to decide if I could be helpful!

Let’s say we have one character alone in a dining room. Bare minimum, we know we have 1) a person; 2) some kind of table; 3) some kind of seating.

If your setting is already established in general, you’ll know (and can trust the reader to know) that there are bamboo mats for kneeling, a low table, and sliding rice-paper doors. These things don’t warrant much more than a glance, unless the items are special or notable in some way: a rich house where the character is poor, for example.

What’s important about dinner (since that’s usually what a dining room is for)? The company and the food. Since the character is alone, company is a non-concern. There are a lot of ways to describe food, but sound isn’t (usually) necessary. I usually perceive food with nose, eyes, and mouth, in that order, so that’s how I’d detail it.

But say you’re going to set a fight scene in the dining room. What then? Maybe you have the sensory enjoyment of the food, but then the character hears a sound… and suddenly, the spatial relationships between objects become important.

Really, picking and choosing setting details is about what’s important to the scene. What do readers need to know to understand the scene? And what could really drive it home? Sometimes the right sensory detail in the right place can be devastating.

To research how to use details, I’d recommend reading manga and really looking at what the mood panels and backgrounds depict. A lot of mangaka are masters at this. What do you need to see, as a reader? And what do you need to feel? I haven’t found a much better resource for my own descriptions than that.

Snippet Sunday #1

Something I want to do for you guys is to post a piece of a work in progress. I do want to say that it’ll be works in progress, and that you might not see anything like this in the final, published product.

I’m open to feedback and critique, so let me know what you think!

This week’s snippet is from The Brothers Mala, a short story I’m writing about Aurelius (as in “Order of”), and how his order is formed. The point-of-view character is Aurelius’s younger brother, Felix.

~*~

Aurelius wasn’t bad. Not one bit bad, even if he never came to service with Mommy and Felix. Except this morning. There Felix was in the pew with Mommy, listening to the priest talk about the Queen of Heaven, and here came Aurelius up the aisle between the shiny pews. He looked tired. His face had bristles all over and he smelled kinda bad, well, actually real bad, like beer on the pub floor. And his hair stuck up so crazy it looked like a hayloft in the sunshine from the oculus.

Mommy was on the end. She didn’t move to let Aurelius sit down, just sat there with her arms folded and her mouth all pinched like a dog’s butthole. Mad. Felix slid over and patted the pew, and Aurelius kind of smiled and squeezed past Mommy to sit by him, right by him. Felix felt so happy. But he did have to whisper a little bit to Aurelius. “You’re supposed to wash up,” was what he had to say.

“I know,” Aurelius whispered back, “but I wanted to come sit with you so much, I didn’t have time.”

Felix felt even happier. He sat up proud next to his big brother, which was maybe a funny thing to call him. Felix was the big one now. But Aurelius, he was still big, too. He sat low on the pew with his arms folded, wearing a sad face like the world was over, all through the rest of service. He even sat for the hymns, when you were supposed to stand. Felix wanted to find whoever made Aurelius so unhappy and thrash ’em good.

“What’s the matter, Aurelius?” he asked, as soon as they were walking home.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Aurelius said. He had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders all saggy.

“No, tell me. We could fix it. You and me. Like a team. We’re a team, right, Aurelius? Right?”

“This isn’t—” Aurelius started to say, but Mommy interrupted him.

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter!” she yelled, with her wrinkly face turning red. “I’ve never been so humiliated in my life! You made a fine showing, young man, coming to the House of the Sun that way! Still drunk! Aurelius Mala, you are an utter disgrace!”

~*~

Please do let me know what you think! See you next time.

The Devil and Where He Lives, Part 1

“The devil is in the details.”

People say that all the time. They also say God is in the details, and I think both sayings are true. Regarding fiction, what I’d say is “Reality is in the details.”

Details make things feel real, feel true. Details about a character’s mannerisms make him or her come alive on the page; so can details like speech patterns or body language. But how do you know how much detail to include? Where’s the balance between, “Wow!” and “Oh, my God, who cares what his toenails are like?”

I’d like to say I have the perfect answer that will work in all cases, but I just don’t have one. Experience helps, and I mean experience as in reading. Read and find out how much you like, and how much you’d rather fill in, or have potential readers fill in for themselves. It’s a choice, and sometimes it’s not really that important what a character looks, sounds, and moves like.

Personally, I prefer to know some of what the writers I read were thinking, to hook in to their mental images a little, so I like lots of detail on both characters and settings (especially characters). That’s how I like to write, because I want you to see who I see.

Describing a character all at once, in a lump, is usually pretty boring. I try to spread that out a bit, until readers have a clear picture, and any additional detail I might add just sharpens things. I might even describe toenails; I know I’ve mentioned more than once that Dingus’s fingernails are chewed to the quick. Let the details you choose to include show something new about the character, or remind or reinforce in a new way what we already know (Vandis Vail’s toenail maintenance is sketchy at best!).

To work with characters this way, it’s necessary that you know them well. I don’t use them, but some people find it helpful to use character profiles or interview questions. Even if most, or even all, of your data never appears in your text, you’ll know it, and if you’re thorough, you can extrapolate whatever you need from it.

Good luck with your people! On Monday I’ll rave a little bit about settings, if you care to read.