M.A. Ray's Blog, page 2

Gromer the Green — Wild Warlock of Wales: A Guest Post by Debbie Manber Kupfer

Here’s the latest in the characters series! My friend Debbie Manber Kupfer wanted to write about her Wild Welsh Warlock for you guys, and she threw in an excerpt from her new novel!

Gromer the Green – Wild Warlock of Wales
(The P.A.W.S. Saga – Argentum, Umbrae, Londinium)

 

“The world is full of wonders for those who can see it truly.” — Gromer the Green

Many of my characters that populate the pages of P.A.W.S. emerged from people that were close to me. Celia and Max, for example, are based on my own omama and opapa who played a huge part in my early years. Sometimes, however, a character writes himself into my world and this was the case with Gromer the Green.

I met the old warlock in the same way as Quentin did in Argentum, a strange old fellow in a long green robe filled with pockets bulging with all sorts of odd stuff that he picked up in his rambles. Some of the pockets seemed to be moving, and Gromer was muttering to himself. Quentin watched him through his hawk eyes and was drawn to the old magic maker.

He looked harmless, but Quentin knew that sometimes strong magic dwelt in unlikely places. Gromer invited Quentin into his “castle” in a rugged part of Wales. The castle was just a cave, but a more comfortable cave you would never visit. Every corner was covered in books and the air was filled with the smell of the glorious pea soup that was always bubbling on the stove.

From the beginning it is clear that Gromer is lonely. There was once a second wild warlock of Wales, Caradog, but he wandered off into Umbrae (the shadow world) many years before. So Gromer lavishes his attention on his guests. During the course of Argentum and Umbrae Gromer welcomes not just Quentin, but Max and Celia into his humble home. All find a refuge with Gromer and though they eventually leave they will forever hold a place in their heart for the warlock.

And me too. If I was asked where in my world would like to go, I would not say one of the P.A.W.S. Institutes, no my first choice would be to hang out with Gromer the Green in his cave, listen to his stories of the endangered Wizzlewoop, drink tea (from “proper tea leaves, none of those new-fangled tea bag thingies”), and share a bowl of sumptuous pea soup.

Here’s a little snippet from Umbrae. In this section Max Katz (Miri’s grandfather) is meeting Gromer for the first time. He’s in his tabby cat form and has just (mostly) climbed down a mountain.

“Ooph! A puss, from the mountain no less. Pretty puss—but smelly, too? What was you doings up there?”

The man spoke in English, which was a language that Max had been taught. Still he had a strange accent that Max did not recognize. He was oddly dressed in a tattered robe covered in pockets and wore his hair long and straggly.

“I’ve always wanted a puss,” he muttered to himself. “A familiar—a magician should have a familiar, or so I’ve been told. Here puss, puss, come with me. You look hungry. Do you like pea soup? It’s almost ready. I was just gathering some more wizzlewoop.”

Wizzlewoop, thought Max, there’s that strange word again. He wondered what in the world it could be. He decided to follow the odd man. He was hungry, and pea soup sounded good.

“Of course I might have a can of sardines too, Puss! You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sardines? Silly buggers, I’ve always thought. Lock themselves in the can and leave the key outside!”

Puzzled, Max followed the man along a winding path. Every so often he would reach for something on the ground. Sometimes he would pluck a plant or pick up a rock and put it in one of his pockets. At other times he would stare at an item for a moment, and then toss it aside, grumbling. Then he would turn his head and address Max, “Come along, Puss.”

They appeared to be walking towards a solid wall of rock. Max wondered where the old man lived. He thought they would veer from their path, but they didn’t. The man stopped directly in front of the rock and pulled out a small silver wand from one of his pockets.

He didn’t appear to be very powerful for a magician, but sometimes great powers were hidden in unlikely packages.

The man recited a spell in an odd language. “Agored ar gyfer Gromer y Green a’i gath newydd.”

Then he carefully drew a doorway on the rock face. The shape shone silver, and then with a single push, the door opened.

“Welcome to the castle of Gromer the Green,” the magician said with a flourish, and Max followed him inside.

~*~

Debbie Manber Kupfer grew up in the London. She has lived in Israel, New York and North Carolina and somehow ended up in St. Louis, where she works as a writer and a freelance puzzle constructor of word puzzles and logic problems. She lives with her husband, two children and a very opinionated feline. She is the author of the young adult fantasy series, P.A.W.S. which features a secret institute of shapeshifters hidden deep beneath the Jewel Box in Forest Park, St. Louis. In addition she has stories in several anthologies including Fauxpocalypse, Stardust,Always, Winter Wishes, and Sins of The Past. She has also published a book of puzzles, Paws 4 Logic, with her son Joey. She believes that with enough tea and dark chocolate you can achieve anything!

Connect with Debbie on her blogs:

Paws4Thought: http://debbiemanberkupfer.wordpress.com/

Paws4Puzzles: http://paws4puzzles.wordpress.com/

Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/DebbieManberKupferAuthor

Twitter: @CiciCat42

Amazon: http://author.to/DebbieManberKupfer

 

 

 

 

One Last Quest, Part Six

The conclusion!

~*~

Lachlan’s stomach clamped over his pickled-herring sandwich and four cups of coffee. He nearly wished it were empty, except that then it would probably feel worse. He swallowed, and again, as the carriage moved toward Adeon’s address. He didn’t want to look out the window. The boy’s reaction—why had he never considered it?

It was entirely possible Adeon was simply finished with him. His stomach clenched tighter, but he supposed he would sooner that than the alternative: that Adeon had been somehow incapacitated, or worse, killed.

No. He couldn’t bear it. If Adeon didn’t want his company anymore, well, he could bear that, though not with good grace. And what of the boy’s mother? She might see him as nothing but some filthy Revanar predator come to harm her son. His worry climbed the scale, pitching high until he shook, and in the absence of his chair arms to grasp, resorted to clenching his fingers over his stumps, the tips digging cruelly into pinned-trouser ends. There were so many things he hadn’t thought of in his haste to get to Dreamport. His mind spun wild scenarios, and wilder ones, until he could hardly breathe for panic.

The ride felt endless. What would he do? What would he say when he saw Adeon? The whole thing was a fool’s errand, and all his thought for better was a fool’s dream. The cab stopped again and again, and each time his heart leapt into his mouth. After a minute or two it would roll on—they must be stopping at crossroads—and sometimes take a turn, but Lachlan’s pulse never settled all the way, and his chest never quite unknotted.

“Are you well?” Cathal asked, concerned.

Lachlan didn’t dare look up; didn’t want to see the pity on his valet’s face. He shook his head slightly, denial and dismissal at once. Cathal laid an awkward hand on his shoulder, squeezed lightly, and drew back again. They didn’t speak.

At last, the carriage came to a stop for good. Lachlan forced himself to get out, to drop himself off the seat into his chair, stiff with anxiety. Too close to turn back now, too close even to think of such a thing. It would be unfair to Cathal. If he got nothing else from the trip, at least there was Cathal. He breathed slowly, collecting himself, as the cab rattled away.

He blinked in the late-morning light. The street was so poor. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not this, the cobbles beginning to crack, the tenements sagging on the soft ground. He could smell the wharves, the fishers’ wharves, even see them among the buildings. It stank. Old fish insulted what remained of his nose. Adeon came from this place? The light of Lachlan’s tired life? So wrong—it was all wrong—it couldn’t be.

“This one,” said Cathal from behind him. “Right here. Fourteen, you said.”

“Yes.” It came out small and shocked, quivery, unsure. He glanced a question over his shoulder.

“It’s the right place.”

“It’s… so…”

“There’s no money here,” Cathal said. He pointed out a pack of human children playing in and out of the street. “No shoes. That boy, Adeon, he never had shoes on either.”

“I didn’t think he was so poor. I thought he didn’t want to wear them.”

“Might have some for fancy dress. He wouldn’t want to mess them. Come on, Lord. We’re so close now.”

“All right,” Lachlan said, and Cathal helped him turn the chair about. The listing tenement might as well have been the entrance to Yehoram’s cavern lair. His stomach bounded and his nerves stung, just as they had then, with Rex and Mariella beside him and Kep perched on Rex’s broad shoulder. His valet was no doughty warrior, but perhaps that wasn’t what he needed just now. “Thank you,” he said.

“Oh,” said Cathal, “it’s been hardly anything at all, especially when you match it up with what I’m getting out of it. Look, there’s a bell.” He pushed Lachlan forward. Lachlan reached up and touched the faded enamel bell rune. It still worked; from within he heard a single chime echoing.

They waited forever then, or so it felt. Lachlan itched and twitched, and at last he lifted his hand to ring again.

The door jiggled. It seemed to be stuck, but then it lifted slightly and creaked wide, revealing a small Movanar woman in a plain brown dress. That was the only plain thing about her. She had Adeon’s nose, and hair the color of honey, and blue eyes that took their fill of his face—

And she smiled. “You’re Lachlan,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, strangled, searching for words. “Adeon. Where?” It was all he could force out of his closing throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding it. “He’s gone away. Just this Longday past.”

“Where?”

The Movanar woman took a breath. “Lord, he’s gone to be a Knight of the Air. I had a letter this last week; he’s on a ship bound for Hayed.”

“Oh,” Lachlan said. Again it was all that would come to his lips. There was a weight on his chest. It was so much better than he’d thought, and at once so much worse.

“I’m going to post this to him right now,” she said, pulling a cheap bit of paper out of her dress pocket. “I know you swore you’d never write him, and made him swear not to write you. He was so upset over it. ‘I’m supposed to see Lachlan, what’s he going to do?’ But an oath is an oath.” She moved off down the street, motioning for Lachlan to follow. “If you liked, you might write a postscript on my letter,” she offered. “Then he’d know it was all right to write you—ah—if it is all right.”

“There’s nothing I’d like more.”

She led him down around the corner, and Cathal followed, hands ready to assist if Lachlan hit a rough patch, but for the most part he managed well enough on his own.

“My name is Elain,” she said.

Lachlan blurted, “I can see why King Muirrach took an interest,” and his face burned with unaccustomed embarrassment. What would possess him to say such a thing?

Mariella would have slapped him sideways, but Elain only laughed. “I was prettier then.”

He said nothing, but truly, he found it hard to credit, she was so very pretty now. At least the post office was close by to spare him further humiliation. It was small and shabby, with sun pouring through grubby windows. They waited on line for some time, but while they waited, Elain gave Lachlan her letter, the sort of fussy, chatty, loving thing Lachlan had received from his own mother when he was on the road. He was careful not to read it entire, only scan it looking for the bottom.

Cathal handed him a pen. There was little space left, but between “Love, Mother” and the edge of the page, he managed to squeeze: “Write me or not, at your pleasure. Be sure to direct any hypothetical letters to me personally, and they will find me wherever I am.” He hesitated over the closing before writing simply, “Your friend, Lachlan Vistridir.”

He insisted on paying for the letter to be sent in the most expensive way, folded like a paper bird and wrapped in a bubble of force. All three of them watched the letter disappear into the distance, rapidly swallowed by the Redwood’s crown.

“Thank you,” Elain said. “For everything. You were good to my son when you had every reason not to be.” She wiped at her eyes, beaming. “Maybe another time, yes? Only I’ve got to get to work, I’m already late. Good-bye, Lachlan.”

He lifted a hand in stunned farewell as she hurried away, and watched her turn the corner. Adeon’s mother.

After a long time, he turned to Cathal. “Tomorrow I’ll take you sightseeing. Only help me get back to the inn for today, and you’ll be free to do whatever you like.”

“Yes, Lord,” Cathal said, and they rode another cab back to the inn. This time Lachlan opened the curtains on his side, but he stared out unseeing and numbly exhausted. When they reached the inn, Cathal carried the chair, but Lachlan would not allow himself to be carried, instead pulling himself up the steps. He wasn’t used to doing it, and the hardwood hurt his knuckles, but his arms were strong and he won the landing without too much trouble, there to heave his body back into the chair.

Cathal didn’t remark on it, only smiled.

Lachlan retired. He was asleep before he heard Cathal leave, and he slept dreamless and deep, and woke rested as sundown crept through the window. Cathal sat in a chair next to the bed.

“Did you like it?” Lachlan asked.

The valet didn’t speak, but there was light in his eyes.

***

Lachlan sat in his study, reading Giant Fleas Abroad—a fine sequel, all things considered. The room was rather larger than his study at the Palace of Green Glaciers, and rather shabbier, but he preferred it by far. An old, comfortable armchair cradled his body, and his wheeled chair stood out of the way in the corner.

The snow had come to Dreamport, and even now fat flakes drifted by the window, collecting on the sill outside—but it was warm in here, with the fire and the heat-box together, and not so damned drafty as the Palace. Cathal sat in the other armchair, mending an overcoat with tiny stitches.

In the great city, Lachlan’s disfigured face was just another in the crowd. It was far more common here; certainly not an everyday sight, but there were plenty of humans who carried scars, and they stared at him, if they stared at all, with fear rather than disgust and dismissal. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, nor—he supposed—much better, but it was different. Everything else more than made up for it.

Elain was definitely the source of Adeon’s light. She came often to Lachlan’s rooms, bringing good food and sunshine and laughter along with her. Shattered in body he might be, but the White Worm hadn’t killed his heart, and he loved her. From afar was enough for now. There was Cathal, too, always Cathal, wandering through the city on his itchy feet, with Lachlan or without him, and bringing home interesting trinkets.

Lachlan looked up from his book at the sound of tapping from the window. A little paper bird fluttered against the glass, seeking entry.

“I’ll get it,” Cathal said, laying the coat aside. A blast of cold came through when he opened the window, bearing the letter forward. It turned a lazy circle around Lachlan before settling in his lap. “Who’s it from?” Cathal asked, and shut the window.

“I don’t know yet,” Lachlan said, “but I’m about to find out.” He unfolded the paper bird and smoothed it over his thigh. His eyes flew wide.

“Come on, who’s it from?”

He grinned. “Guess.”

 

Vanessa Ann McKenzie: A Guest Post by Reika

Today I’ve got something a little different for you. My dear friend writes fanfiction for various properties, especially games, and today’s post is about the lead character from her long-running XCOM fanfic, Taking It Back.

~*~

As a long time gamer, both tabletop and computer roleplaying, I have a lot of characters that I love. Some of them even see re-use, often from a tabletop game to computer, but sometimes from tabletop to tabletop. This is about one that went from tabletop to fanfiction based on a computer game, but oddly enough not a CRPG.

Vanessa Ann McKenzie “Van” started off as a character in a short lived CthulhuTech game. I won’t go into her history for that, except to say that she was teen from a wealthy NYC arcology that was brutalized by the Esoteric Order of Dagon. It was such a rough background that it gave my hardbitten GM pause as being almost too brutal for him, but he ultimately okayed her.

Normally characters like Van tend to not stick around in my brain for long because I have a lot of character voices clamoring for attention, but stick around she did. Every so often I’d threaten to inflict her on my GM, just to see him twitch, but also because I wanted to see what Van would be like if she was given a chance to grow.

The reasons why she stuck around in my head are that while she is a survivor of terrible things, she is still a good person who wants to save the world despite itself.

Being the cynical person that I am, that kind of character is an extreme rarity for me.

Van’s opportunity to get developed came about in a completely unexpected manner.

I was in a writing slump for a year. None of my existing projects, fanfic or original, interested me, then I played through the sci-fi turn based strategy game XCOM 2 and my Muse handed me a fully fleshed story idea.

Being stubborn in addition to cynical, my initial reaction was “you have got to be shitting me”, but the Muse insisted that it would be great.

For those unfamiliar with the XCOM series, the premise is simple: aliens invade the earth and an international coalition is formed to fight them off. The series originally started in 1994 as UFO: Enemy Unknown, had multiple sequels and spinoffs, then was rebooted as XCOM Enemy Unknown with an expansion pack called Enemy Within.  XCOM 2 takes place 20 years after Enemy Unknown where the aliens won with superior firepower, took over humanity’s fate and XCOM became a disorganized resistance movement.

With both games, the player is meant to be the Commander who leads XCOM to its ultimate fate in victory or defeat, so you don’t make a persona or avatar like you would with other games. The various characters address things to the player directly as the Commander.

While I somewhat liked Enemy Unknown/Within, it didn’t really excite me. XCOM 2 was a very different beast, especially with the story and the major NPCs.

So when I gave in to the Muse’s ridiculous idea of a romance set in XCOM 2 between the Commander and Central Officer John Bradford (second in command to the Commander) I tried to figure out the Commander. That’s when Van gave me a mental smack upside the head. So I had my Commander.

Fortunately that included a revised background, because there was no way I was using the original.  She was still a survivor who wanted to save the world. Only in this case she grew up in the slums of Newark, New Jersey, lost both parents and older brother to drugs, alcohol and crime at the age of 12. From there she bounced around in foster care until she was old enough to fend for herself. All that saved her from a similarly gruesome fate as her familiar is the fact she’s smart and perceptive.

Her fascination with history came about from her desire to understand how people do what they do, but had no interest in psychology. Her interest in sci-fi came about from the rare family outing to see the movie Independence Day in the theaters. Even at eleven years old she knew most of it was bunk, but thought it was an interesting idea, one that she thought over from time to time as the years went by.

When Van entered college she chose to go for a history degree with a focus on the effects of technologically superior cultures on those with more primitive tech. That eventually lead to her now infamous (to her at least) thesis during her Master’s program about possible scenarios for aliens invading the earth and likely reactions to those scenarios. That brought her to the attention of the fledgling XCOM coalition that had been formed as a just in case contingency to the very idea of an alien invasion. When she completed her Master’s, she was given a job offer at Foresight Laboratories to come up with simulations for the military to deal with. Within a few months that position evolved to running and solving simulations cooked up by other people.

It ultimately proved to be on the job training when a few years later a real alien invasion started, XCOM became activated and Van was made the Commander.

Unfortunately, they were betrayed by the very countries they were trying to protect, XCOM HQ fell to the aliens, Van was taken prisoner and the alien controlled ADVENT government began to reshape humanity.

Twenty years later, Van was rescued by the remnants of XCOM and now she’s faced with rebuilding XCOM, uniting the disparate forces of the Resistance and bring down ADVENT for an earth she doesn’t recognize anymore and for a humanity that she doesn’t feel a part.

Van is probably one of the most human characters that I’ve come up with. She’s far from perfect, and started off as a person who really only had her brains going for her to eventually becoming someone who can kick ass (my typical RPG characters start off enormously capable at the ver least, the rapidly become grotesque) She’s wounded and scarred, but tries not to let that dominate her life. When she loves, it’s a quietly intense thing. When she makes a promise, she finds a way of fulfilling it. Even if it ends up horribly delayed. She doesn’t take anyone’s shit either. After all, she once kicked a general out of her vase when he made the mistake of trying to countermand her orders.

Thus, this is how the story Taking It Back came to be and I was finally able to give Van her chance to grow and shine.

I will still threaten to inflict her on my GM though. Just because.

One Last Quest, Part Five

He woke as the train shivered into the station at Dreamport, the pilot fighting the magic of the rail. Outside the windows, it was gray-drizzle morning, and fine droplets frosted the panes. Cathal stretched. Lachlan levered himself into his chair, aching more than usual. It must be the wet.

The faint rain dampened his hair and stuck in beads to Cathal’s, glittering against the valet’s darker blond. There wasn’t enough to soak, only enough to make clothes cling and chafe, to wet the ground, and slow small puddles collected where the cobbles were uneven. All the greens of the city blazed in the wet: pines everywhere, dark or muted; oaks and ashes with brighter leaves. The City Redwood stood straight and proud with drizzle-slick, bright bark and rosemary needles. Moisture streaked the basalt of the great basin, and of the cliffs all around. Away to the north, across the crater, the bay lay calm, with only the occasional whitecap breaking the rippling blue-gray surface. Here and there, earthy peat smoke, traditional for Dreamport, curled up in rich tails from the forest of chimneys below and around them. The streets bustled, coursing between buildings like veins.

Above everything floated the sound of the falls, tumbling hundreds of feet from the Ennis to the crater floor, there to land in a white torrent. Cathal couldn’t decide where to look first, and seeing his wide eyes shine, Lachlan felt a pinch of regret. Perhaps he should have brought Cathal here before; there were dozens of places the young valet must have longed to see that Lachlan could have shown him.

Lachlan had wasted decades on moldering with his furniture. Of course it wasn’t reasonable to expect anything more from a wreck, but his interest in being one waned by the moment. He was afraid—being out-of-doors, out of his rooms like this, how could it fail to spike his pulse?—but whenever he felt the urge to return to seclusion, he thought of Adeon, and he looked at Cathal, and he thought his fear would pass. When had he let it stop him before he was hurt? Why should he let it stop him now? Why had he ever? So many years.

They went inside, though Cathal had to put the bags down to open the door. “So where are we bound?” he asked.

“Fourteen Emmerick Road, number six.”

“How do we get there?”

“I don’t know,” Lachlan confessed. He stopped short in the middle of the station. When he looked down at the polished granite floor, it reflected his face and body back at him, mocking his resolve. He set his jaw and looked away. “We’ll hail a cab. They’re supposed to know how to get everywhere.” It seemed wrong to get in a carriage so close to their goal. He remembered walking all over with his friends, driving ever nearer to their destinations, opposed by more and still more vicious enemies, but to get in a cab? It wasn’t a proper quest by half.

Still, there were challenges. First they discovered none of the drivers would take them into Old Town—the address, they said, was in Old Town. They weren’t allowed, they explained, to take anyone down into the crater. Cathal looked down at the walkways to the bottom, juggling the bags, forlorn.

“Let’s find lodgings,” Lachlan said. “We need to anyhow. We haven’t come all this way just to turn around and go home as soon as I speak to Adeon.” He hadn’t realized he’d been thinking that way until the words came out, but damned if he would waste the opportunity.

Cathal dropped the bags. It was an accident, Lachlan thought; his valet’s face glowed, so excited that words to describe it didn’t exist. “What will we do?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sightseeing, perhaps. There’s a square with all sorts of fountains, I think. Perhaps the University, and the Royal Palace. Temple Row is something to see. The humans have a dozen gods and goddesses at least, did you know that?”

“I have an idea about it,” Cathal said, picking up the bags, “but you know how it is, don’t you? You think you know something, and then you see for yourself, and you were wrong.”

“That’s so.” He’d thought he knew something about humans until he’d met Mariella, here in Dreamport, and fallen in love with her, and she wouldn’t have him for the longest time—what felt like the longest time. He’d learned just how long five years could feel. “Well, we’ll go and see it. The temples are spectacular, as good as the one at Shirith. I don’t suppose you’ve seen that either.”

“I haven’t.”

He took the chest again and laid it in his lap. “I’d say we’ll go, but I’m sick to death of the People.”

“Can’t blame you.” At last, Cathal got the bags balanced. They stood in wordless communion for two heartbeats, three, and then set out to find lodgings. If there was a moment when Lachlan decided he would not return home, it was this one, but for now it went unmarked, lost in a frustrated blur. They couldn’t find lodgings on the ground floor, no matter how many places they went to inquire—and right near the train station, inns proliferated so abundantly that Cathal joked someone must have scattered a handful of inn seeds.

At last they settled on the one with the widest staircase, a place called the Hunted Hart, and managed to acquire a single room on the first floor. Lachlan ordered breakfast in the common room while Cathal stowed the bags upstairs.

While they ate pickled herring and onions on rich black bread and drank strong coffee, they discussed how best to reach Old Town, whether on one of the footpaths or on the lift. The lift seemed best, in the end; Lachlan wanted to reach Adeon now, today, as soon as they could do it, and any of the paths would be terribly hard work for the both of them.

The falls weren’t far. They could be heard from the Hunted Hart, and as Lachlan and Cathal approached they grew louder and still louder, roaring enough to make talk nearly impossible. In the roped-off waiting area the two tulon forbore speech, but Lachlan saw all he needed in Cathal’s youthful face, in the posture of his body: mouth open at the massive, gleaming gears and pulleys, his fingers trailing the maroon velvet rope at his side. When they boarded, there was more. Cathal all but pressed his nose against the glass window of the pedestrian car as it progressed smoothly down the side of the falls. They passed the other car on its way up, all steel and brass filigree hanging from titanic chains. The lifts moved like the counterweights of a clock, both the passengers’ side and, across the falls, the overwhelmingly huge freight lifts, laden with wagons covered tight against the spray. And all around there was Dreamport: Dreamport the beautiful, Dreamport the great.

As they slid below the level of the Redwood’s needles, the roofs of Old Town spread before them, hundreds of slate peaks in black and gray and red and green. “So many people!” Cathal exclaimed, seeing them all move on the streets below, in the markets and the squares, like salmon in a stream. He was silent again after that, silent with wonder except for his little gasps, which grew louder as they drew nearer the ground.

They debarked, Cathal gazing all about him, flabbergasted. Lachlan remembered feeling the same way for over a week when he’d first come here, and if the humans stared at him, he hardly noticed, enchanted as he was by his valet’s amazement. All the way to the cab stand, Cathal’s mouth worked, but when at last his bottom struck the wooden bench under the stand’s roof, he turned to Lachlan. “Lord,” he said, so hushed Lachlan could hardly hear him through the falls’ roar, “Lord, I never knew.”

It brought tears to Lachlan’s eyes, but he blinked them away and said, “Now you do.”

They sat silent until a carriage rolled up. It wasn’t long. When Lachlan and his chair were safely stowed, and Cathal climbed onto the red-leather seat beside him, it rolled away again, clattering over the cobbles. Immediately, Cathal parted the curtains on his side to keep looking out, but Lachlan stared at the curtains themselves, red in the warped square of sunlight from Cathal’s side.

I had a lot of self-serving nonsense to spew and I wrote ...

I had a lot of self-serving nonsense to spew and I wrote a post about it and deleted the post and now I’m sitting at my keyboard wondering what to say.

I mean, there’s no excuse for how long everything is taking me right now. I keep falling into this cycle of self-loathing and misery and ego, and every time I rotate back to the top, it’s like I’m starting everything over again.

I have to beat this.

I don’t know how, but I have to win, because it’s in my way. It’s interfering with my personal life, and it’s interfering with my life’s work, which is to tell stories. I want to tell stories, and I want to tell them well, and that’s basically it.

I have to win. Back to square one.

Talking About Doctor Maniac: A Guest Post by S.J. Delos

Here’s my good friend S.J. Delos to talk about his supervillain character, Doctor Maniac!

~*~

They say people root for the heroes. But we all know that, sometimes not so secretly in fact, we find ourselves more interested in the bad guy. From Darth Vader to Doctor Evil. How did they become what they are? What sort of diabolical scheme will they come up with next?

I would like to bring into the spotlight my own fictional bad guy, Doctor Maniac. In my books, the good Doctor is the super-villain working behind the scenes. He is considered by the general population of the world to be the most evil and dangerous man on the planet. If given a choice between running into the Devil or running into Doctor Maniac, most people would pick the former.

However, thing I enjoy most about the creation of this character isn’t the fact that he is a megalomaniacal genius with hundreds of murders under his belt. Nor is it his hubris, of which he has spades. Instead, it is his twisted infatuation with the series’ protagonist, Kayo. He calls it love, and it might be in some weird, disturbing fashion inside his head. However, Kayo considers it to be an uncomfortable situation that never seems to actually go away. Doctor Maniac becomes that ex we all have had at one time or another. One that just can’t get past the fact the relationship is over and move on.

In a reversal of the usual comic villain trope, Doctor Maniac is not prone to engaging in a useless monologue with his opponents. He also most certainly does not design elaborate traps that can be foiled with some ingenuity and dental floss. When it comes to dispatching those in his way, he will have them killed and not lose a moment’s peace over the decision.

However, despite the magnitude of the betrayal (in his eyes) by Kayo, he cannot bring himself to actually harm her. Even in Some Kind of Hero, his actions are far less severe than they could have been.

Another thing that I enjoy about writing this character is the mystery surrounding him. While Doctor Maniac is connected in some manner to the chief villain in each book, he himself is not the orchestrator of the danger that Kayo faces. He actually helps her, in his own strange way, though you have to wonder what exactly is going on in his mind.

One of the things I would like to point out is that the reader only gets to see what Doctor Maniac is like from Kayo’s perspective. And it’s a perspective skewed by the fact that while she is trying to show the world she can be a hero, Kayo can’t stop thinking about all the things she did at his request when they were together. Kayo wants to believe that the only reason why she was a bad girl for so long was because was young and in love with the charismatic Doctor.

Until now, I’ve been content to leave Doctor Maniac as a character whose true motivations and history are as much as mystery to Kayo as they are to the reader. Interestingly enough, more than one person has read So Not a Hero and told me afterwards that they found Doctor Maniac to be one of the more interesting characters in the book. I have to agree, though I hope that doesn’t mean that the other, more prominent, characters were not enjoyable.

I’ve decided that Doctor Maniac will be more visible in the third book, Just Like a Hero. I think it is time for the reader to know just what it is that makes this man, who can strike fear into hearts with just the mention of his name, tick. I want people to know what really transpired between a young, pre-hero Kayo and the man who controlled her life for so many years.

I think everyone’s going to be fairly well surprised.

~*~

S.J. Delos is a self-proclaimed “average geek” living in Greensboro, North Carolina with his long-suffering wife, Kim and their two sons, Connor and Cameron. When not making up stories and writing them down, he spends his time reading comic books, playing Skyrim, and watching Doctor Who.

You can find him, or his books, at any of these fine links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XYFSC7G

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XQ82L88

https://sjdelos.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sjdelos/

One Last Quest, Part Four

The station rang with the song of the rail. The magic of the thing was so great, so powerful, that none could fail to see it, no matter how dull their sense of such things might be. No sorcerer would dare to open a third eye here, so close to one of the lines of force that sizzled across Rothganar. Even to normal vision, the rail was a rope of light thick as a man’s wrist, flickering now red, now violet. If one watched long enough, eventually he would see every color known pass through the rail, from palest peach to deepest blue.

Lachlan had parked his chair at the end of a weathered wood bench, which nonetheless glistened with polish. The work of some unfortunate Movanar, no doubt, just like the perfect, gleaming windows behind him: ten feet high if they were an inch, from the top of the wainscoting to the bottom of the eaves, all along the side of the station.

They’d been inside a while ago, he and Cathal, to buy tickets to Dreamport. Now Lachlan sat half in shadow, half in sun, watching the traffic go by and waiting for his valet to return with the baggage. At first, he’d perhaps childishly resisted the idea of Cathal’s going back alone, but Cathal had impressed on him the difficulty of taking him up the mountainside only to bear him back down again, and he’d agreed to stay here.

Cathal was taking ages, but he supposed it could have been worse. He might be staring at the walls again. The same walls he’d stared at for decades, the faded tapestries and hangings, the patchy velvet bed curtains, everything worn, slowly decaying as he watched, the depredations of time staved off by the desultory efforts of chambermaids. The Palace was behind him, behind the station, blocking the sinking sun, but here there was light and the hope for more.

Lachlan was under eyes, quick darting glances or gazes that couldn’t seem to move away from him, but he didn’t care. There were children here. He’d forgotten how much he liked them, other than Adeon. Somber or smiling or wailing, dragging their feet, skipping, running, holding their parents’ hands… Once a little girl stopped, staring out of soft brown eyes at Lachlan’s face, and she opened her mouth to say something, but her mother hurried her along with a fearful expression.

It depressed him—he would have liked to speak with her—but only for a moment. It was enough to watch. Children’s voices never rang through the halls of the Palace; they were quickly shushed and sent to the nursery. Devnet would have shushed them. As well he hadn’t married her. And he had a trove of lovely memories of human children from his few short years with his friends. Rex had had a small son. If only Lachlan had been in any shape to see how the boy fared.

He would be an old man now. What a missed opportunity! Sad and sorry, Lachlan was, a wreck of himself—but perhaps there was still a chance, perhaps he could track down Rex’s son. All he wanted was a chance.

It was full dark by the time Cathal reappeared, puffing and laden with baggage. “Did we miss it?”

“It isn’t that late yet,” Lachlan said, smiling in spite of himself. “It won’t come until midnight. Why ever did you bring so many bags?”

“You never know.” Cathal settled on the end of the bench next to Lachlan’s chair.

Hardly anyone waited for the train just now, but those who did gave Lachlan a wide berth, which he tried not to mind. “Any minute now,” he said, dropping the subject of Cathal’s overzealous packing, and didn’t mention at all the behavior of the others.

“What’s Dreamport like?” the valet asked eagerly, when “any minute” had come and gone.

“Haven’t you been there?”

Cathal’s mouth thinned. “You know nobody leaves. Especially not my kind. I’m bound to my master and to the land.”

“You haven’t been to any of the other kingdoms, then.”

“Never served anyone who’d go,” he said, almost apologetic.

“I’m sorry they foisted me on you.”

“That’s all right.” He smiled. “When I was younger, they had me with the Dowager Duchess of Morning’s Last Touch. She didn’t even go into the garden while she could—and then she couldn’t anymore. She didn’t last long though,” he added. “And then they gave me to you.”

“I suppose it could be worse.” Lachlan didn’t quite believe it. Shackling a young fellow to an ancient woman, and then to a broken wreck? It didn’t seem fair. They might have given him someone older, more settled in mind, rather than a man in the prime of life. Surely Cathal had more use elsewhere than he did to Lachlan! Another monstrous injustice of the High Ones to the Little.

“Beg your pardon, Lord, but it could be much worse, and that doesn’t bear talking about, if you don’t mind.”

Lachlan said nothing. It was only the truth. The High Ones did as they pleased with the Little Ones, for no reason discernible to him other than that they could. The Revanar had the magic; rare was the Movanar with power to challenge even a Revanar child. He hadn’t thought much of it before he’d left, but only a few months out from Green Glaciers he’d seen it with a clearer eye, and it disgusted him beyond telling. He could easily loathe his own blood—loathe himself, for though he’d never been purposefully cruel to the serfs of the People, he hadn’t been kind, either.

They didn’t speak again for above an hour. When the rail began to crackle with colorful lightnings, Cathal sat forward eagerly. “Soon,” Lachlan told him.

“Will it be?” Cathal watched, intent. The lightnings grew stronger, more spectacular, blazing with color and setting off miniature thunderclaps in the chill night air.

“It will.” Lachlan waved a hand at the rail, not that he needed to indicate the display. “They’re braking the train, on up the line. It travels very quickly, and the rail keeps drawing it on even while it’s at rest. Takes tremendous energy to stop it. Only the best sorcerers can pilot the trains—but I suppose you know all that.” He grimaced again. It was as bad as old times. Get him talking, and he’d go on for ages.

“I didn’t. They don’t teach you that at lessons—and after you’re through with lessons there’s no time.”

“Have you ridden before?”

Cathal shook his head. “When I came back from Morning’s Last Touch, they gave me a pony.”

“You’re in for a treat then.”

As if on cue, the train slithered into the station. Every train was fashioned to look like a different animal; this one was a great silvery snake, with massive peridot gems for its eyes. Each scale was a separate piece over the tubes of the carriages themselves, made by hand with utmost precision, and inlaid with sweeps of tiny runes that continued seamlessly all over the train. Cathal leapt to his feet as passengers debarked. “I’ll take the bags,” he said, “and come back for you. All right?”

Lachlan snorted and rolled himself forward. “I have wheels, remember? It wouldn’t do to leave on a quest and be carried to the train. Give me one of those bags.”

Laughing, Cathal put a small, heavy chest in Lachlan’s lap, and together they crossed the platform. Porters lifted the wheeled chair onto the train, directly into a carriage with an empty compartment. Lachlan rolled carefully down the low-lit, narrow hallway carpeted in deep green, leaving twin tracks in the plush pile.

They settled in the compartment. There were glass windows to the outside, and a glass door for access from the inside, so that Lachlan couldn’t avoid the sight of himself except by staring at a point on the wall just above Cathal’s head. Even then, his peripheral vision didn’t allow much relief.

He looked into his lap, allowing his hair to fall over his face. The train hummed beneath him, eager to be off again, if objects could be eager; the line’s power drew forward against the great charms and the power of the pilot holding the vehicle back. Cathal stood at the window, between the seats, trying to peer past his reflection into the darkness beyond.

“You’ll want to sit down,” said Lachlan.

“Why?” Cathal asked, and the next moment the train leapt forward like a racehorse. He fell heavily against the black leather seat, bounced off, and landed on the floor. “Oh, I see,” he said, and started to laugh.

Lachlan tried to suppress his own laughter, but in the face of Cathal’s, it welled out of him.

Once he’d grown accustomed to the motion of the train—in no time at all, it was so smooth—the valet rose from the soft carpet on the floor and flopped into the seat next to Lachlan. “I can’t believe we’re really going,” Cathal said. “I can’t wait to see it. Is it true there’s a huge tree in the center?”

“The City Redwood, yes. Nearly as tall as the crater’s walls. Its shadow sweeps around the city each day. A powerful shaman—a tulua—attends to its needs. When they had a human guardian, the tree began to fail, and the same thing when the guardian was male…”

Lachlan went on at length, answering the questions Cathal peppered him with, but then the valet asked him about his old life. He deflected the questions with the vaguest responses he could think of, and afterward, before Cathal could press him, feigned a huge yawn.

They fell silent, and Cathal fell asleep, but Lachlan did not. His thoughts tangled, a deep bramble undergrowth spiked with thorns: this way the Movanar, that way his past, until he was utterly lost in a terrifying place with no egress, and he succumbed again to the cold of Yehoram’s cave.

Kaden the Dragon: A Guest Post by Maya Starling

Please welcome my new friend Maya, here to tell us about her beautiful dragon!

~*~

“She was the girl who longed for the freedom of the dragon, and he was the dragon who longed to be a man.”

 One of the main characters in book one of the Dragons Awaken Trilogy, Dragon’s Treasure, is, of course, a dragon. The whole idea for the book was born with him.

I feel sorry for dragons. They are mostly featured as evil creatures—monsters really—or as creatures the “chosen one” gets to ride, or even just as a bit part in a plain dragon-shifter romance. That, or I have been reading the wrong books. Mind you, there are excellent exceptions, but only a few in the whole sea of literature featuring dragons.

As a gamer and lover of all things geek and fantasy, it was a given that there would be a dragon featured in my story. Kaden’s appearance was inspired by the artwork of Ben Wotten’s Blue Dragon.

Kaden is a magnificent dragon, with dark blue, silky scales, and a golden underside. Dark charcoal horns and amber-colored eyes grace his body. He has a scar over his left eye, cutting through his brow.

I wanted to give my dragon a different kind of story. Why does the knight always have to save the maiden from the dragon? Why wouldn’t she prefer the dragon to the monster that is the knight? Why not switch roles, give a twist to that old trope and maybe sprinkle it with some Beauty and the Beast elements?

Those were the main questions that started Kaden’s story. And, don’t worry, the main question for the second book was: Why wouldn’t the maiden save herself?

I like playing with tropes and stereotypes, trying to write the “what if” and “why not” stories.

That is how Kaden was thought-born. Since I’m a pantser when it comes to writing, I let Kaden tell me his history throughout both books.

Once a human, Kaden was cursed to be a dragon with a penchant to permanently borrow and hoard other’s possessions. In his cave, you can find anything from gold and jewelry to crates filled with pants, half torn wagons, and even a chimney.

He once “borrowed” a horse, but it didn’t turn out well, as much as he enjoyed finally having some company. He wasn’t cruel of heart, so he let the horse escape.

He learned not to “borrow” stuff from old women—nay, hags! They are tenacious and will beat you with a cane for your attempt, no matter how big and deadly you are.

Being a dragon wasn’t all about the drawbacks. He saved a young girl’s life once from a fire. Lucky for him, fire does him no harm.

And he would never tire of flying. It was exhilarating. He will never forget when he first spread his wings and took flight, as awkward as it was—and drunken-looking. The view, the freedom… the vastness of the sky above and the earth below… the experience entranced him.

But, as the years passed, he tired of the loneliness. He missed the human connection, affection, and even touch. The rare encounters with humans ended up with Kaden defending his life against wanderlusting adventurers and trying to save their lives, too. He had to take some, though. And their spilt blood will forever lay heavy on his soul.

Depressed and weary, he secluded himself on a mountain, in a dreary cave, away from the people, and away from life.

Until, one day, a young woman chased by wolves stumbled into his cave.

She was the one to turn his destiny around. She was the one to bring light to his darkness, and she was the one that brought him the salvation of death and rebirth.

~*~

Follow Maya at these links, or purchase her books:

http://www.mayastarling.com * Twitter * Facebook

Dragon’s Treasure (book 1)

https://books.pronoun.com/dragons-treasure/

Dragon’s Prize (book 2)

https://books.pronoun.com/dragons-prize/

Snippet Sunday #20

If you’ve read The High King’s Will, you might remember a brief appearance from Valdyr, the Summer Wolf. Here’s a bit from The Heart of Stone (which is Eagle’s third) with Valdyr’s brother. I’ve had this sitting around on my hard drive for ages, and I can’t wait to put some more book around it.

~*~

A huge white shape bowled him over. The books he’d bought dug into his back, and he couldn’t reach his knives. Icy wetness dribbled onto his neck; a frozen wind blew into his face.

He opened his eyes and looked into the cold yellow gaze of winter. A massive white wolf crouched over him, skinny, slavering. What are you? it said in his mind.

“You must be Valdyr’s brother,” he managed.

What are you, snacklet? Answer me quick, before I eat you up! I’m hungry!

He swallowed his fear. “Lord, they call me Eagle Eye Wormsbane.”

A fine title for half a bite. The Wolf straightened and allowed Eagle to rise. Over its head, clouds stacked in the sky, great gray clouds fat with snow, darkening in the sunset. You might’ve guessed I’m the Winter Wolf, it said, or I hope you have, for otherwise you’re a useless little bit of meat and no mistake.

“I did guess,” Eagle said. At the Wolf’s back, flurries danced and skirled, and the wind that blew over its shoulders, ruffling matted fur, was so cold it burned through his jumper and shirt. He bowed. “Welcome to Rodansk, Lord.”

The Wolf gave a doggy smile, like Valdyr its brother. Ullr’s come early, and I mean to stay a good long time.

I am typing this from my home. My family is around me.A ...

I am typing this from my home. My family is around me.

A year ago today I was lying in a hospital bed. A year ago today I was in a CAT scanner. A year ago today I was in the emergency room hearing the resident, with concern on his young face, say quietly: “You have a mass in your brain.”

I’m getting it back. I just sent a book to my beta-readers last week, for the first time since before I heard that — since The High King’s Will was in beta.

Also I fucking lived.

It’s still in there. To me it looks like a wad of soap bubbles — I’ve seen it on MRI scans since and it looks like a wad of soap bubbles at the bottom of the sink. Except it’s inside my skull, in my brain, kissing my hemispheres with terror. They say I’m not going to have any more problems with it, but some small part of me thinks of the way it looked and cringes from it.

But I fucking lived. I lived through the surgery and through the recovery and here I am. Off I go to write.