Tony Walker's Blog, page 4
September 10, 2016
Issues with Audio
As avid readers of this blog (who he?) will know, I have been experimenting with audio. I managed to upload A Christmas Ghost Story to Soundcloud and that went quite well. The quality seems ok, via Audacity, a reasonable soundcard in my PC (installing for playing Dungeons and Dragons online...) and the Blue Yeti microphone, which is lovely.
The issue I have is that we live by a road. It's an old house with shutters but only single glazed windows so it doesn't keep the noise out. Mostly it's road noise but also dogs, kids, drunken people and earlier in the year the enormous row of seagulls. We live by the sea.
You can do some fancy things with Audacity to edit out the noise where it falls between speech ("in the gaps" to you) but sometimes you can hear it behind the speech. I went up to the back bedroom away from the road, using a borrowed laptop but in fact the laptop's sound card wasn't as good so the sound was tinny. Also I was getting wind noise (from the wind, not me) and kids and dogs.
Sheila's suggestion is that I wear a quilt over my head. And you know, that's not so silly. I mean it will look silly, but I think the deadened, dampened sound (I had to explain what I meant when I talked about dampening a sound to Sheila, but then I was a drummer in a punk band once, so I used to damp my bass drum all the time. With a quilt as it turns out.)
So learning points from this post:
1. Wear quilt over head.
2. Audition as a narrator to make fortune.
3. Post picture of where I live so you can get an idea of the seagull problem.
The issue I have is that we live by a road. It's an old house with shutters but only single glazed windows so it doesn't keep the noise out. Mostly it's road noise but also dogs, kids, drunken people and earlier in the year the enormous row of seagulls. We live by the sea.
You can do some fancy things with Audacity to edit out the noise where it falls between speech ("in the gaps" to you) but sometimes you can hear it behind the speech. I went up to the back bedroom away from the road, using a borrowed laptop but in fact the laptop's sound card wasn't as good so the sound was tinny. Also I was getting wind noise (from the wind, not me) and kids and dogs.
Sheila's suggestion is that I wear a quilt over my head. And you know, that's not so silly. I mean it will look silly, but I think the deadened, dampened sound (I had to explain what I meant when I talked about dampening a sound to Sheila, but then I was a drummer in a punk band once, so I used to damp my bass drum all the time. With a quilt as it turns out.)
So learning points from this post:
1. Wear quilt over head.
2. Audition as a narrator to make fortune.
3. Post picture of where I live so you can get an idea of the seagull problem.
September 7, 2016
Erotic Tingles and How They're connected to my Story for Halloween.
Well I've just finished the first draft of my Story for Halloween. I swear down, I've been walking into spider webs for the past two days. I like the shape of it. I knew each scene before I began to write and they just went into the old scrivener - 5 scenes of a 1000 words each. Though in fact it's ended up as just over 7k, so that doesn't work out. Never mind arithmetic wasn't my strong point.
But, as the young folk say, I'm pumped. I think it's really good and I was scared when I was writing it. I remember reading an article on the Internet thing by someone who wrote erotica who said that what you write has to have the requisite effect on the writer before he/she can hope to have that effect on the reader. I don't know how he ever finished a story is all I can say.
I remember when I lived on my own before the arrival of the blessed Sheila and after the departure of the sainted twin daughters, I would be sitting writing spooky stories and I would get the tingle of fear up my spine and look warily over my shoulder. Every creak made me jump.
I'm only glad I wasn't writing porn.
But, as the young folk say, I'm pumped. I think it's really good and I was scared when I was writing it. I remember reading an article on the Internet thing by someone who wrote erotica who said that what you write has to have the requisite effect on the writer before he/she can hope to have that effect on the reader. I don't know how he ever finished a story is all I can say.
I remember when I lived on my own before the arrival of the blessed Sheila and after the departure of the sainted twin daughters, I would be sitting writing spooky stories and I would get the tingle of fear up my spine and look warily over my shoulder. Every creak made me jump.
I'm only glad I wasn't writing porn.
September 6, 2016
Synchronicity.
So last night my lovely daughter came to visit me with her cat, Dylan. Dylan's house has a flea problem through no fault of his own. He came to visit me while they let off some toxic smoke bomb. We watched Imperium, which was quite good actually. Harry Potter even sounded properly American, to my untutored ears anyhow.
I took the opportunity of outlining my new story - A Story for Halloween - (just sayin', not pluggin' - it ain't even writ yet). Without letting go any major spoilers like white icebergs of truth floating over an ocean of uncertainty, I can merely hint that it contains a spider. So, anyway, wind on an hour or two until Imperium has finished, Dylan is getting restless and night has fallen. I open to door to let out my modern Miss and guess what - a spider has spun a beautiful web across my door. I open the door and there he is, eye-level with me and his web a geometric wonder. He sat right in the middle like a prince. And I thought - hot damn! That surely is a synchronous sign that this story, of all stories, the spider one, is going to be the ka-boom best. I can probably retire on the proceeds. The spider told me.
You heard it here first.
I took the opportunity of outlining my new story - A Story for Halloween - (just sayin', not pluggin' - it ain't even writ yet). Without letting go any major spoilers like white icebergs of truth floating over an ocean of uncertainty, I can merely hint that it contains a spider. So, anyway, wind on an hour or two until Imperium has finished, Dylan is getting restless and night has fallen. I open to door to let out my modern Miss and guess what - a spider has spun a beautiful web across my door. I open the door and there he is, eye-level with me and his web a geometric wonder. He sat right in the middle like a prince. And I thought - hot damn! That surely is a synchronous sign that this story, of all stories, the spider one, is going to be the ka-boom best. I can probably retire on the proceeds. The spider told me.
You heard it here first.
September 4, 2016
Lay versus Lie and the lies they tell about it.
"Lay, lady, lay - lay across by big brass bed..." That is not an invitation, but a lyric by Bob Dylan. Let us go further. "Lay down, Sally, and rest you in my arms..." sang Eric Clapton. "Lay your sleeping head my love, human on my faithless arm..." wrote W H Auden.
At the risk of weakening my case, I will note here that these are in the second person imperative. Grammarist says that the difference between lie and lay is that lay needs an object - you lay something (I titter a little here and perhaps snigger), and you lie yourself. That is lie is instransitive, while lay is necessarily a transitive verb.
But this is one of those modern distinctions created by Grammarians. While I am a good boy and obey the rules, we should know that historically and colloquially, there is no such clear distinction between lie and lay and they are merely variants.
Let's look at Psalm 4, verse 8, in the King James Bible where it says -
I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
Technically you could argue that here (and with the Auden quote above) there is an object - namely "me" (or in Auden "your sleeping head".) But to the ordinary Joe and Jane it sounds pretty much like I am "laying down" - "I lay down".
In Anglo-Saxon, lie was licgan which Bosworth-Toller list as meaning "to be in a prostrate or recumbent position" [not prostate - careful! Reminds me of St Pancreas that too)] while lay was lecgan "to cause to take a horizontal position". I think this is exactly what Slowhand had in mind for Sally.
If you're like me you are already seeing that these two verbs weren't orginally two verbs at all, but one! And it's to do with umlaut. It always is with Anglo Saxon. But when I look I see that as well as Anglo-Saxon licgan and lecgan, we have Gothic ligan and lagyan and German liegen and legen (I note with interest that the word law is also from this root *lagu - that which is layed down). Unhelpfully for me, it seems the Germanic languages are preserving the difference between lie and lay. The online Etymological dictionary gives me some succour in that it notes that the root of both these words is the Primitive Indo-European *leghe- meaning both lie and lay. So before the pesky primitive Germanics differentiated them, they were the same word. And that differentiation was probably the decision some old Germanic pedant in a marsh somewhere in Friesland, or Gotland. Not Kent, certainly, it was before they got to Kent.
I am helped also by Peter Trudgill in his Dialect Matters: Respecting Vernacular Language, p 51 (Cambridge University Press) where he discusses lie versus lay. He says that the umlaut change (though he does not dare mention umlaut) between lie and lay to create a difference between doing something yourself and causing something else to do that action was preserved in other pairs such as Middle English sink versus sench "cause to sink". Don't worry about the palatalisation of the -k, just take my word for it it's the same word. He also mentions his Norfolk dialect distinction between sit and set - where people will ask you to "set down..." But Trudgill says "the distinction between lie and lay is being lost in most forms of English" Yes! Hooray!
This rant was caused by a person reviewing my ebook The Haunting. (Yes I know I just plugged that) and saying I was illiterate because my main guy talks about someone laying on the bed. In his first person vernacular speech. Most of us don't talk like Government reports lady! Not when we're about to be eaten by monsters!!! Sheesh. Now, I know this might reflect on me badly, going to such length to defend this. And I don't even mind criticism.
A's gaan for a lig doon, noo. (as we would say)
At the risk of weakening my case, I will note here that these are in the second person imperative. Grammarist says that the difference between lie and lay is that lay needs an object - you lay something (I titter a little here and perhaps snigger), and you lie yourself. That is lie is instransitive, while lay is necessarily a transitive verb.
But this is one of those modern distinctions created by Grammarians. While I am a good boy and obey the rules, we should know that historically and colloquially, there is no such clear distinction between lie and lay and they are merely variants.
Let's look at Psalm 4, verse 8, in the King James Bible where it says -
I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
Technically you could argue that here (and with the Auden quote above) there is an object - namely "me" (or in Auden "your sleeping head".) But to the ordinary Joe and Jane it sounds pretty much like I am "laying down" - "I lay down".
In Anglo-Saxon, lie was licgan which Bosworth-Toller list as meaning "to be in a prostrate or recumbent position" [not prostate - careful! Reminds me of St Pancreas that too)] while lay was lecgan "to cause to take a horizontal position". I think this is exactly what Slowhand had in mind for Sally.
If you're like me you are already seeing that these two verbs weren't orginally two verbs at all, but one! And it's to do with umlaut. It always is with Anglo Saxon. But when I look I see that as well as Anglo-Saxon licgan and lecgan, we have Gothic ligan and lagyan and German liegen and legen (I note with interest that the word law is also from this root *lagu - that which is layed down). Unhelpfully for me, it seems the Germanic languages are preserving the difference between lie and lay. The online Etymological dictionary gives me some succour in that it notes that the root of both these words is the Primitive Indo-European *leghe- meaning both lie and lay. So before the pesky primitive Germanics differentiated them, they were the same word. And that differentiation was probably the decision some old Germanic pedant in a marsh somewhere in Friesland, or Gotland. Not Kent, certainly, it was before they got to Kent.
I am helped also by Peter Trudgill in his Dialect Matters: Respecting Vernacular Language, p 51 (Cambridge University Press) where he discusses lie versus lay. He says that the umlaut change (though he does not dare mention umlaut) between lie and lay to create a difference between doing something yourself and causing something else to do that action was preserved in other pairs such as Middle English sink versus sench "cause to sink". Don't worry about the palatalisation of the -k, just take my word for it it's the same word. He also mentions his Norfolk dialect distinction between sit and set - where people will ask you to "set down..." But Trudgill says "the distinction between lie and lay is being lost in most forms of English" Yes! Hooray!
This rant was caused by a person reviewing my ebook The Haunting. (Yes I know I just plugged that) and saying I was illiterate because my main guy talks about someone laying on the bed. In his first person vernacular speech. Most of us don't talk like Government reports lady! Not when we're about to be eaten by monsters!!! Sheesh. Now, I know this might reflect on me badly, going to such length to defend this. And I don't even mind criticism.
A's gaan for a lig doon, noo. (as we would say)
My First Audio Book
For the longest time (as they say), those who know and love me have said, "My my Tony, you have such a lovely voice, could we have a recording of it?"
This may not be strictly what they said, but the gist was plain. After some humming, and a little hawing, and a non-trivial amount of havering I got a Yeti Blue USB microphone. I have spent the last few days messing around with this.
I have a number of discoveries to report. Firstly, I always knew that reading my writing aloud helped with rhythm and flow. You just gotta get the cadences right. And then when I was reading out loud for recording, it really helped me refine the flow of the written word. So that was one thing.
The next thing was that my front room is incredibly noisy. I didn't even know. The traffic sound from outside is stupidly loud. Why are they driving past my house anyway? Then this morning some kind of light aircraft buzzed the house. I was sitting with the curtains drawn and shutters shut, but still it must have known I was in there. Also children running by. Adults swearing. Then the headphones give a little buzz every now and again. I know I'm writing in fragments and some of the more punctilious readers of my books say they don't like fragments but that's another post. Cormac McCarthy does them, Charles Dickens did them. I can do them. I have been dipping into a great book by the way - The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth - and he says it's ok to use fragments (not in so many words). So I will continue to use fragments.
Anyway, that was a digression from the audio book. My front room is not the perfect studio. It will not be able to produce sound files of sufficient quality (that is with no background noise) so that I can upload audiobooks via Amazon. I'd like to do that and I am scouting another studio. I am thinking of my mother's airing cupboard. I said that to her and she says, "Do you want all the linen and clothes in there?" I replied, "Most certainly; they will damp shit down."
Also, I now see a future stretching ahead of me as a voice narrator. Apparently you can make tons of money narrating other peoples' books. Mind you they might not want my Northern English accent. I noticed I dropped a few Ts and a couple of Hs. Although I can see a new genre of gritty Northern smut being narrated:
"Eh up, our Ethel. Get tha' kit off, sharpish."
"Weel, hinny, ah nivver kna'd ye cared, like. Eh, divvn't dee that!"
I have been practising my Dumfries-shire accent too. The main character would have to be called Ken, ye ken? And everything would happen "the noo".
But I digress again. What was I saying? Audiobooks! The new future. I am cautious about most stuff these days, but where there's an airing cupboard there's a way, as my auld mam says.
Oh, yeah - a link to my soundcloud audio book:
A Christmas Ghost Story
It's about 25 minutes long .... and FREE!!!!
This may not be strictly what they said, but the gist was plain. After some humming, and a little hawing, and a non-trivial amount of havering I got a Yeti Blue USB microphone. I have spent the last few days messing around with this.
I have a number of discoveries to report. Firstly, I always knew that reading my writing aloud helped with rhythm and flow. You just gotta get the cadences right. And then when I was reading out loud for recording, it really helped me refine the flow of the written word. So that was one thing.
The next thing was that my front room is incredibly noisy. I didn't even know. The traffic sound from outside is stupidly loud. Why are they driving past my house anyway? Then this morning some kind of light aircraft buzzed the house. I was sitting with the curtains drawn and shutters shut, but still it must have known I was in there. Also children running by. Adults swearing. Then the headphones give a little buzz every now and again. I know I'm writing in fragments and some of the more punctilious readers of my books say they don't like fragments but that's another post. Cormac McCarthy does them, Charles Dickens did them. I can do them. I have been dipping into a great book by the way - The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth - and he says it's ok to use fragments (not in so many words). So I will continue to use fragments.
Anyway, that was a digression from the audio book. My front room is not the perfect studio. It will not be able to produce sound files of sufficient quality (that is with no background noise) so that I can upload audiobooks via Amazon. I'd like to do that and I am scouting another studio. I am thinking of my mother's airing cupboard. I said that to her and she says, "Do you want all the linen and clothes in there?" I replied, "Most certainly; they will damp shit down."
Also, I now see a future stretching ahead of me as a voice narrator. Apparently you can make tons of money narrating other peoples' books. Mind you they might not want my Northern English accent. I noticed I dropped a few Ts and a couple of Hs. Although I can see a new genre of gritty Northern smut being narrated:
"Eh up, our Ethel. Get tha' kit off, sharpish."
"Weel, hinny, ah nivver kna'd ye cared, like. Eh, divvn't dee that!"
I have been practising my Dumfries-shire accent too. The main character would have to be called Ken, ye ken? And everything would happen "the noo".
But I digress again. What was I saying? Audiobooks! The new future. I am cautious about most stuff these days, but where there's an airing cupboard there's a way, as my auld mam says.
Oh, yeah - a link to my soundcloud audio book:
A Christmas Ghost Story
It's about 25 minutes long .... and FREE!!!!
September 1, 2016
Give Away Book!
I worked out how to make a book giveaway and add it to my blog. It was staring at me in the face all the time. I had tried to add links to my Facebook page (failed). I had tried for ages to get a perma-free Kindle Book. The old way was to make your book free on another site and then point to it and say to Amazon - look! This is free! Match the price!
Well, I tried that and got a very pleasant response from Amazon saying they reserved the right to match price and in this instance they chose not to. That's fair enough.
Anyway, I had a book free on Smashword - The House of Bones - and Smashwords allowed me to make a gadget that I could post into my blogger page. Feel free to download the free book. I hope you like it. I did.
Well, I tried that and got a very pleasant response from Amazon saying they reserved the right to match price and in this instance they chose not to. That's fair enough.
Anyway, I had a book free on Smashword - The House of Bones - and Smashwords allowed me to make a gadget that I could post into my blogger page. Feel free to download the free book. I hope you like it. I did.
Facebook Pages
I just added a facebook author page. I was using my normal facebook page but I thought that ultimately I would be annoying people who were not interested in my writing and I had thought it was neater to create a separate "author" page. So far so good.
I have added a Good Reads tab to the page so people can see the books and reviews. I wanted to add a blog feed to the page, and it seemed that there was a way of doing this up until at least 2014 through the app Notes, however this no longer seems to work. Or at least I can't get it to work.
I also wanted to be able to give away a free story. I might still be able to do that. I will report back later if it works (or in fact if it doesn't)
I have added a Good Reads tab to the page so people can see the books and reviews. I wanted to add a blog feed to the page, and it seemed that there was a way of doing this up until at least 2014 through the app Notes, however this no longer seems to work. Or at least I can't get it to work.
I also wanted to be able to give away a free story. I might still be able to do that. I will report back later if it works (or in fact if it doesn't)
August 31, 2016
A Christmas Ghost Story
I wrote this story for a Christmas ghost story competition. I saw that the deadline was 1st September and I busted a gut to get it finished by then. The word count was up to 5,000 words which is a bit shorter than my normal short story length, which tend to come out about the 15,000 size. Anyway, I got it done, got it polished, got it edited and then went to submit it on 31st August. Imagine my surprise when the deadline was actually 1st September 2014 (It being now 2016)! You could have knocked me down with a feather. I was gobsmacked. My daughter, who was nearby to hear my primitive expressions of consternation, said, "That's pretty typical of you." It was said with love. And it was true.
I have had a few small accidents recently. Sheila and I went to a music festival last weekend and I found the tiny door to a small house in a wall. Inside they were playing deep house music (I think it's called that) and on the way out I banged my head on the ceiling. It was a small house. Here's a picture of me there:
Then I banged my elbow and it went numb and I only did that because I trapped my finger in a folding camping chair.
So, I put getting the deadline wrong down to a string of my bad luck.
But back to the story. I wanted to do a traditional ghost story and that meant I was going to use all the normal tropes - period setting (1956 when there actually was a White Christmas in London), man in homburg hat, steam trains, deserted platforms, roads blocked by snow and, of course, a ghost.
As I said, it's pretty short, but I was quite pleased with the form of it. It drives on until about 85% through when we get the culmination. It's not scary so much as traditional. Christmas, like.
Here's the link -- (Well I gotta do that, don't I?)
A Christmas Ghost Story by Tony Walker
I have had a few small accidents recently. Sheila and I went to a music festival last weekend and I found the tiny door to a small house in a wall. Inside they were playing deep house music (I think it's called that) and on the way out I banged my head on the ceiling. It was a small house. Here's a picture of me there:
Then I banged my elbow and it went numb and I only did that because I trapped my finger in a folding camping chair.
So, I put getting the deadline wrong down to a string of my bad luck.
But back to the story. I wanted to do a traditional ghost story and that meant I was going to use all the normal tropes - period setting (1956 when there actually was a White Christmas in London), man in homburg hat, steam trains, deserted platforms, roads blocked by snow and, of course, a ghost.
As I said, it's pretty short, but I was quite pleased with the form of it. It drives on until about 85% through when we get the culmination. It's not scary so much as traditional. Christmas, like.
Here's the link -- (Well I gotta do that, don't I?)
A Christmas Ghost Story by Tony Walker
August 22, 2016
Fairytales from the Forest
So, I did my 5 day free promo of Fairytales from the Forest ('scuse further shameless promotion) and it went okay. Better than I had expected. It's strange and I'm sure someone might be able to do an analysis of this but the first day does best, then there the second day is a little less, and the third day dips right down and you think, right that's that, but then, it leaps up again and continues until actually after the 5th free day - which I think is to do with time zones...
I've noticed this pattern on other free promotions. What I'm finding now is that stuff I published in 2013 - 2014 doesn't sell. It had sold pretty well in its day but now it's totally gone. I don't know whether that is because that all the people who wanted to read it, read it, or whether Amazon changed its algorithm.
This is perhaps a little paranoid. There was a time when people published books that were a few hundred words and sold them for $.99, while others were publishing 70,000 word novels for $.99. I know Amazon balanced their algorithm to take some account of length but surely you don't get extra promotion from them based on length? I wonder whether you do now, and so short stories are penalised compared with what they were. I'd be interested in knowing.
I've noticed this pattern on other free promotions. What I'm finding now is that stuff I published in 2013 - 2014 doesn't sell. It had sold pretty well in its day but now it's totally gone. I don't know whether that is because that all the people who wanted to read it, read it, or whether Amazon changed its algorithm.
This is perhaps a little paranoid. There was a time when people published books that were a few hundred words and sold them for $.99, while others were publishing 70,000 word novels for $.99. I know Amazon balanced their algorithm to take some account of length but surely you don't get extra promotion from them based on length? I wonder whether you do now, and so short stories are penalised compared with what they were. I'd be interested in knowing.
August 21, 2016
The Alien Library
One of the things I've been writing since I have been away is a science fiction story called The Alien Library. Here's the opening below. Let me know what you think:
Severan gazed out over the horizon, his red cyborg eye glittered like an alien insect in the dawn of the barren planet. His face was expressionless as he scanned for danger and, round his neck, a gold medallion caught the sun; on it was the image of a blindfolded figure holding a set of scales.To his right, Gaijann the Assassin, black skinned with eyes green as malachite, admired the crackling plasma blades of his knives. Then he looked to his boss, waiting for the word.The white sun was just up. Its platinum light splintered by the glistening orbital ring of quartz, amethyst and citrine, placed there long ago for no one knew what purpose. Gaijann knew Severan wouldn't move until he had figured out the level of threat. He watched him scan the sere landscape, taking in every dry rock and every stunted plant on the desiccated plain, watched his red eye scan every inch, from the landing place behind them to pyramids in front. An observation drone hovered at about 100 metres above them. The youth, Atorkh, checked the screens, recording heat signatures, movement, ultrasound and every other emanation a living thing would give off. If anything moved in this place, the mercenaries would know. "So?" asked their employer, the so-called ‘Count’ Owain ab yr Ynad Goch. Severan looked back past his four team-mates to where the Count sat on a litter covered with satin and gold thread. He didn't answer immediately.Count Owain, in his kindness, had allowed the slaves to rest the litter on the dry earth. The four men stood sweating in the early desert sun, even though their white silk robes were cooler than the k-mesh armour worn by the mercenaries. Gaijann figured there was nothing immediately to be done so he lazed back on the flat rock, his stealth cloak turned off. He switched his gaze from his vorpal knife to the shapely backside of his colleague Morah. It definitely had its charms. Suddenly Morah turned her head and saw where he was looking. Her face twisted. Gaijann had the decency to look away. Smiling, he said to Severan, "We moving anytime soon?"Atorkh barked, "Kizzac'h scout ship about seven clicks west. Looks like an orbit-to-surface Hyena class." He pointed into the bright sky."What the fuck are the Kizzac'h doing here?" Gaijann said. "Can they even read?"Behind them, Torina stood up from her prayers. "It's not for the Library that's for sure. They're hunters not readers." Her short blond hair was ruffled by the hot breeze. She shielded her eyes from the white sun and gazed in the direction Atorkh was pointing. "Don't see them," she said."They're there." Severan said and turned to ready his weapons."So what?" Morah said. She was all black — black hair, black lips, pale skin made up with an opalescent cosmetic the colour of a bad moon rising. Her eyes were white with red irises. Startling, but Gaijann guessed it was purely cosmetic: Morah was a demonologist - mistress of pact magic and he knew she liked to dress the part."Is it true the the Kizzac'h keep human females in pens as sex slaves?" Atorkh said."It's true," Severan said briefly."Fucking lizards," Atorkh said."Technically men with lizard heads," Gaijann said. "DNA spliced freaks, escaped from zoos, started breeding and took over their entire planet."Morah rubbed grit out of her eyes. "I'm bored," she sad. "Let's go." Gaijan watched her. He liked the way her sharp canine teeth brushed her plump lips. "Severan's the boss," he said. “We wait for his order.”The Count cleared his throat. Then said, "I'm the boss." Gaijann took him in. He was dressed in a rich red coat with gold trim. An old-fashioned holster hung on a broad brown leather belt, and in that, an energy pistol.Sitting on the litter next to him was his blonde daughter, dressed more like a fashion magazine's idea of a Desert Queen than for delving in the deep Libraries of Xaolin. She wore white trousers with knee length white leather boots. Her blouse was cut from puffed up white silk and her hood far too chic for the surroundings.An awkward silence hung in the air after the Count made his pronouncement. Gaijann looked to Severan for a reaction but the big man didn’t acknowledge the Count’s comment. Instead, he merely checked and rechecked his gun. Eventually, appearing satisfied with it, he looked at the Count and said, "I give the orders. You pay the bills. It's different."Gaijann spotted a faint tic in the aristocrat's eye. The Count coughed and waved his hand."As long as you bring me what I want."Severan turned back to Atorkh. "Anything else on the scanner?" Atorkh chewed at his finger nail. He said, "I've got a cluster of Kizzac'h life traces - about ten of them.""Not a full hunting party then. Which way are they headed? Towards us or to the Library?"The young man shook his head, "They're not committed. They maybe know we're here and are waiting to see what we do."Severan gazed back in the direction of the Kizzac'h ship, his cyborg eye red like a crystal rose, his natural eye blue and cold as glass.Atorkh said, "Yeah. And then a really weird, huge but amorphous life signal from the library itself."Gaijann looked over at the entrance to the Library. It stood beneath the middle pyramid of a group of three, a huge black dusty door in its front wall. Above the door the pyramids were so ancient and worn they looked like broken teeth."You think that the library itself is alive?" Torina said, standing slim and white in her cleric’s robes."Nah, I mean - alive? The building?” Atorkh giggled. “I doubt it.” Then his face became boyishly serious. “Something in it is though. Something big and squidgy.""What does that mean?" Torina said. The breeze blew her white hair into her face and she impatiently brushed it away with her fingers. "Dunno," Atorkh said. He touched his screen and his drone descended towards him like an obedient fly."Then why say it?" Morah said. Her tongue licked the ends of her teeth as if testing their sharpness. Even when irritated she looked bored.Atorkh didn't respond. Then his face flinched.Gaijann knew the boy was scared of the demonologist. Everyone should be. He gave a reassuring smile. "Okay, tech guy. Just let me know if anything is sneaking up on my ass." Then, noticing the cleric standing anxiously looking at the screen, he said, "Finished with your chat with the gods, Torina?" Misinterpreting his attempt to put her at ease as sarcasm, she smiled sourly at the black man. "My bond with the divine keeps you alive and healed up." Then she made a movement with her hands, twisting them round in an sign of prayer to the rising sun. "The Queen of Disks protect us in our endeavour.""And I'm grateful for your interventions with the unseen but all powerful," Gaijann said. She smiled sourly at him. He guessed she still thought he was mocking her. She was young and he felt protective. Then, taking a few steps, making it look casual and unplanned, he leaned over and put his hand on Morah's shoulder. He knew he was chancing his luck. Her felt her muscles through her suit. The witch glanced at his hand and he withdrew it. He smiled. "Was just thinking after all this is done, maybe me and you should go out and celebrate with the profits? Maybe visit your dungeon?""My dungeon?" she said, raising an elegant eyebrow."Thought you must have one." He teased her. He guessed she knew knew he was teasing, but she chose to smile. “You want to be my slave?""Well, we could discuss it."She laughed out loud. The sound startling in that barren waste. Then she ran a sharp black fingernail over his cheek. "I like a man with balls," she said."Don't most men have balls?" "Not always - not when I've finished with them anyway."He gave a mock wince. Flirting with Morah was like playing with knives, something to be done carefully. He stood back. "But it's not a no?" he said.She sized him up with her white and red eyes. Her black mouth half smiled. She was like a preying mantis sizing up a potential mate. "It's not a no," she said finally.Behind them, Atorkh sniggered. This was the closest Gaijann had ever got to a positive response from Morah, despite weeks of effort. Atorkh’s giggle developed into a guffaw and he turned away so they couldn’t see him laughing. Gaijann narrowed his eyes. Severan stood up. The party looked towards him and then began to check their straps and weapons.Missing the signals, the Count said "Are we ready yet?" He looked at Severan silhouetted against the sun’s glare, his eyes narrowed and his fingers drummed impatiently on his belt."Wondering whether to kill the Kizzac'h now or later," Severan said looking out to where Atorkh had indicated they were."Leave them," said the Count. He paused. "If you kill these, they'll only send more from their Mothership. They probably don't even know we're here. We need to get into the Library.""They know we're here," Severan said. He raised his metallic green hand, another part of him replaced by engineers. The hand shimmered iridescently and flexed as if eager for the fight. Gaijann knew the thing was sentient, locked into Severan's body in a symbiotic relationship. It always seemed to him that his friend hardly seemed to notice the cyborg limb's movements but he watched it ball into a fist. Then Severan shrugged. "The Kizzac'h are a problem we'll have to deal with sooner or later. I always like to solve problems as they arise." The big man smiled at the Count.Atorkh pulled on his straggly beard. "They're maybe just hunting on the planet," he said. Atorkh's screens were folded and ready to go into his backpack. "Nothing to hunt here," Morah said. "The only native life is about the size of a rat; Kizzac'h like bigger meat."Atorkh avoided her gaze. "I dunno. Just guessing." He folded the screens and shouldered his pack. He had one drone still up, communicating directly to his suit’s telemetry. He looked at Severan in a mixture of irritation and awe, like the giant was his father. Gaijann shook his head. He guessed Atorkh tried to make himself look older by sporting that wispy beard but it only made him look even more boyish.Torina put on her pack, full of medical supplies and healing nanobots. She tightened the straps, sighed, and she too looked to her boss.The Count’s slaves appeared eager to move. They stood at the four corners of the litter, ready to pick it up. Even Morah abandoned her studied languor and looked keen.Everyone waited on Severan's word.
"Go," he said.
Severan gazed out over the horizon, his red cyborg eye glittered like an alien insect in the dawn of the barren planet. His face was expressionless as he scanned for danger and, round his neck, a gold medallion caught the sun; on it was the image of a blindfolded figure holding a set of scales.To his right, Gaijann the Assassin, black skinned with eyes green as malachite, admired the crackling plasma blades of his knives. Then he looked to his boss, waiting for the word.The white sun was just up. Its platinum light splintered by the glistening orbital ring of quartz, amethyst and citrine, placed there long ago for no one knew what purpose. Gaijann knew Severan wouldn't move until he had figured out the level of threat. He watched him scan the sere landscape, taking in every dry rock and every stunted plant on the desiccated plain, watched his red eye scan every inch, from the landing place behind them to pyramids in front. An observation drone hovered at about 100 metres above them. The youth, Atorkh, checked the screens, recording heat signatures, movement, ultrasound and every other emanation a living thing would give off. If anything moved in this place, the mercenaries would know. "So?" asked their employer, the so-called ‘Count’ Owain ab yr Ynad Goch. Severan looked back past his four team-mates to where the Count sat on a litter covered with satin and gold thread. He didn't answer immediately.Count Owain, in his kindness, had allowed the slaves to rest the litter on the dry earth. The four men stood sweating in the early desert sun, even though their white silk robes were cooler than the k-mesh armour worn by the mercenaries. Gaijann figured there was nothing immediately to be done so he lazed back on the flat rock, his stealth cloak turned off. He switched his gaze from his vorpal knife to the shapely backside of his colleague Morah. It definitely had its charms. Suddenly Morah turned her head and saw where he was looking. Her face twisted. Gaijann had the decency to look away. Smiling, he said to Severan, "We moving anytime soon?"Atorkh barked, "Kizzac'h scout ship about seven clicks west. Looks like an orbit-to-surface Hyena class." He pointed into the bright sky."What the fuck are the Kizzac'h doing here?" Gaijann said. "Can they even read?"Behind them, Torina stood up from her prayers. "It's not for the Library that's for sure. They're hunters not readers." Her short blond hair was ruffled by the hot breeze. She shielded her eyes from the white sun and gazed in the direction Atorkh was pointing. "Don't see them," she said."They're there." Severan said and turned to ready his weapons."So what?" Morah said. She was all black — black hair, black lips, pale skin made up with an opalescent cosmetic the colour of a bad moon rising. Her eyes were white with red irises. Startling, but Gaijann guessed it was purely cosmetic: Morah was a demonologist - mistress of pact magic and he knew she liked to dress the part."Is it true the the Kizzac'h keep human females in pens as sex slaves?" Atorkh said."It's true," Severan said briefly."Fucking lizards," Atorkh said."Technically men with lizard heads," Gaijann said. "DNA spliced freaks, escaped from zoos, started breeding and took over their entire planet."Morah rubbed grit out of her eyes. "I'm bored," she sad. "Let's go." Gaijan watched her. He liked the way her sharp canine teeth brushed her plump lips. "Severan's the boss," he said. “We wait for his order.”The Count cleared his throat. Then said, "I'm the boss." Gaijann took him in. He was dressed in a rich red coat with gold trim. An old-fashioned holster hung on a broad brown leather belt, and in that, an energy pistol.Sitting on the litter next to him was his blonde daughter, dressed more like a fashion magazine's idea of a Desert Queen than for delving in the deep Libraries of Xaolin. She wore white trousers with knee length white leather boots. Her blouse was cut from puffed up white silk and her hood far too chic for the surroundings.An awkward silence hung in the air after the Count made his pronouncement. Gaijann looked to Severan for a reaction but the big man didn’t acknowledge the Count’s comment. Instead, he merely checked and rechecked his gun. Eventually, appearing satisfied with it, he looked at the Count and said, "I give the orders. You pay the bills. It's different."Gaijann spotted a faint tic in the aristocrat's eye. The Count coughed and waved his hand."As long as you bring me what I want."Severan turned back to Atorkh. "Anything else on the scanner?" Atorkh chewed at his finger nail. He said, "I've got a cluster of Kizzac'h life traces - about ten of them.""Not a full hunting party then. Which way are they headed? Towards us or to the Library?"The young man shook his head, "They're not committed. They maybe know we're here and are waiting to see what we do."Severan gazed back in the direction of the Kizzac'h ship, his cyborg eye red like a crystal rose, his natural eye blue and cold as glass.Atorkh said, "Yeah. And then a really weird, huge but amorphous life signal from the library itself."Gaijann looked over at the entrance to the Library. It stood beneath the middle pyramid of a group of three, a huge black dusty door in its front wall. Above the door the pyramids were so ancient and worn they looked like broken teeth."You think that the library itself is alive?" Torina said, standing slim and white in her cleric’s robes."Nah, I mean - alive? The building?” Atorkh giggled. “I doubt it.” Then his face became boyishly serious. “Something in it is though. Something big and squidgy.""What does that mean?" Torina said. The breeze blew her white hair into her face and she impatiently brushed it away with her fingers. "Dunno," Atorkh said. He touched his screen and his drone descended towards him like an obedient fly."Then why say it?" Morah said. Her tongue licked the ends of her teeth as if testing their sharpness. Even when irritated she looked bored.Atorkh didn't respond. Then his face flinched.Gaijann knew the boy was scared of the demonologist. Everyone should be. He gave a reassuring smile. "Okay, tech guy. Just let me know if anything is sneaking up on my ass." Then, noticing the cleric standing anxiously looking at the screen, he said, "Finished with your chat with the gods, Torina?" Misinterpreting his attempt to put her at ease as sarcasm, she smiled sourly at the black man. "My bond with the divine keeps you alive and healed up." Then she made a movement with her hands, twisting them round in an sign of prayer to the rising sun. "The Queen of Disks protect us in our endeavour.""And I'm grateful for your interventions with the unseen but all powerful," Gaijann said. She smiled sourly at him. He guessed she still thought he was mocking her. She was young and he felt protective. Then, taking a few steps, making it look casual and unplanned, he leaned over and put his hand on Morah's shoulder. He knew he was chancing his luck. Her felt her muscles through her suit. The witch glanced at his hand and he withdrew it. He smiled. "Was just thinking after all this is done, maybe me and you should go out and celebrate with the profits? Maybe visit your dungeon?""My dungeon?" she said, raising an elegant eyebrow."Thought you must have one." He teased her. He guessed she knew knew he was teasing, but she chose to smile. “You want to be my slave?""Well, we could discuss it."She laughed out loud. The sound startling in that barren waste. Then she ran a sharp black fingernail over his cheek. "I like a man with balls," she said."Don't most men have balls?" "Not always - not when I've finished with them anyway."He gave a mock wince. Flirting with Morah was like playing with knives, something to be done carefully. He stood back. "But it's not a no?" he said.She sized him up with her white and red eyes. Her black mouth half smiled. She was like a preying mantis sizing up a potential mate. "It's not a no," she said finally.Behind them, Atorkh sniggered. This was the closest Gaijann had ever got to a positive response from Morah, despite weeks of effort. Atorkh’s giggle developed into a guffaw and he turned away so they couldn’t see him laughing. Gaijann narrowed his eyes. Severan stood up. The party looked towards him and then began to check their straps and weapons.Missing the signals, the Count said "Are we ready yet?" He looked at Severan silhouetted against the sun’s glare, his eyes narrowed and his fingers drummed impatiently on his belt."Wondering whether to kill the Kizzac'h now or later," Severan said looking out to where Atorkh had indicated they were."Leave them," said the Count. He paused. "If you kill these, they'll only send more from their Mothership. They probably don't even know we're here. We need to get into the Library.""They know we're here," Severan said. He raised his metallic green hand, another part of him replaced by engineers. The hand shimmered iridescently and flexed as if eager for the fight. Gaijann knew the thing was sentient, locked into Severan's body in a symbiotic relationship. It always seemed to him that his friend hardly seemed to notice the cyborg limb's movements but he watched it ball into a fist. Then Severan shrugged. "The Kizzac'h are a problem we'll have to deal with sooner or later. I always like to solve problems as they arise." The big man smiled at the Count.Atorkh pulled on his straggly beard. "They're maybe just hunting on the planet," he said. Atorkh's screens were folded and ready to go into his backpack. "Nothing to hunt here," Morah said. "The only native life is about the size of a rat; Kizzac'h like bigger meat."Atorkh avoided her gaze. "I dunno. Just guessing." He folded the screens and shouldered his pack. He had one drone still up, communicating directly to his suit’s telemetry. He looked at Severan in a mixture of irritation and awe, like the giant was his father. Gaijann shook his head. He guessed Atorkh tried to make himself look older by sporting that wispy beard but it only made him look even more boyish.Torina put on her pack, full of medical supplies and healing nanobots. She tightened the straps, sighed, and she too looked to her boss.The Count’s slaves appeared eager to move. They stood at the four corners of the litter, ready to pick it up. Even Morah abandoned her studied languor and looked keen.Everyone waited on Severan's word.
"Go," he said.
