November Newsletter: The Lightning Tree
(There’s a real short story in this newsletter! Scroll down to the *** to read it)
So there I was, dropping my older daughter off at school. The weather was fine, I had at least three hours of uninterrupted writing time ahead of me, there was a very nice statue of a horse right there, but it felt like the end of the day instead of the beginning.
Every Friday I take a break from the novel and spend the morning writing something new. I’d already written a very good short story about general relativity, the first chapter in a collaborative novel set in the Fellow Tetrapod Universe, and one of these newsletters. But what about today? Could I do it again? I was running out of time before my deadline? What if today the words didn’t come?
“I feel like a shaman,” I said. “Every week you walk out onto the taiga and shake your rattles and you hope that lightning will strike again.”
“What’s a shaman?” asked my daughter. So Pavlina and I explained as we dragged that unicorn-donut wheelie backpack along the narrow sidewalk that leads to school.
We got the little girl into the building and stumbled back to the car. “That’s a very passive way to think about what you do,” Pavlina told me. “You’re not just waiting for the lightning to strike. You’re making it happen.”
Willow leaves tumble
Until they find a surface.
Water from a spring.
I thought about that as I walked to Starbucks. By the time I got there, I had an idea for a character who might feel the same way I did. And I thought about a discussion I’d been having with Simon Roy, Artyom Trakhanov , and Jason Wordie about a possible sequel to our comic, Protector.
I got my black tea and a brownie as a special treat and I meditated. I imagined myself floating in a great empty space, curled around my chest, which was burning from the inside out. Was that an espresso brownie I’d eaten?
I tore into my backpack and grabbed my notebook. I wrote diagrams. Triads of characters. The Antiquities Collector, the Archaeologist, the priest of the Inquisition! And locking into that triad, their foils! Yes. YES! The Corrupt Official, the Disgraced Warrior, the Shaman! Who would be searching for an ancient artifact of power? Who would be sent to retrieve it? I visualized the plot beats for the first scene of “Protector,” and I superimposed them over – full disclosure – the opening scene in Disney’s “Aladdin.”
Then I put Mika’s “Underwater” on repeat, and I wrote this:
***
The raft rocks on the blood-warm swell of the Cannibal Sea.
Behind the raft looms the sacred timbers of a Bequa caravel, its sails reefed against totem-carved masts. Behind that: the cracked and sun-glazed dome of ancient Mayami. Trapped hurricanes pile like volcanoes on the horizon.
Plonjadò A stands on the edge, his eyes closed, palms pressed to his hips, breathing his prayer.
He is an old man, hair and beard stubble white against very black skin, and he wears only a belt of weights. In the water at his feet bobs a white buoy, marked with the green and gold microchip of House Komèsan.
“What’s he waiting for?” Grumbles the mercenary on the deck of the caravel.
Plonjadò cannot hear her. He curls his toes around the hot sea-bamboo of his raft, barrel chest rising, falling, waiting for God to breathe into him.
When he was a boy and still had his eardrums, Plonjadò A could wait a year for a real breath. As an apprentice, he might spend days fasting and praying, then dive barely 50 meters. Now, inspiration comes to him every day, and still they demand more. Still he will give it.
“They call it ‘Opening the Lungs of God.'” Lady Sardodj Komèsan Nan looks down on the little black figure on the pale raft. Sardodj’s parasol is finest plastic, painted silver and dangling with microchips. “A sacred ritual of my people.”
Her plumed mantel rises about her shoulders as she turns, hands on hips, grinning at her bodyguard. “I think it’s a rather fitting way to begin a war with heaven.”
“Whatever you say, Komèsan.” The mercenary is leaning against the railing on the ship’s far side, face hidden under the shadow cast by her hat. She caresses the barrel of her rifle and spits tobacco juice into the red brine. “Just tell me when to shoot the shaman.”
The breath comes to Plonjadò, and he opens his eyes. He knows the merchant princess plans to kill him. Only now, though, with the breath of God in his chest, does he know why he should not let her. More is demanded of him.
His arms rise and his breath gusts out. Plonjadò dives.
The Cannibal Sea is as warm and red as blood, teaming with jellyfish.
Stings slide off his oiled skin as Plonjadò reaches out. His fingers find the rope that depends from the buoy and thread themselves around it. as he sinks.
The water embraces him. Pain rises in his jaw, a dim memory of the pressure that took his hearing. Soft algae brush his cheeks.
Plonjadò feels the seabed and grips the buoy’s rope to slow his dive. In the red blackness, he sweeps out his arms, fingers splayed to feel for the treasure that the Komèsan princess says must be here.
Blind now, as well as deaf, Plonjadò forms a picture with his fingertips. There is the anchor of the buoy, buried in the fine blanket of dead algae. There is a long, smooth curve – the carbon fiber hull of an ancient ship. Another curve is a skull. There is the jaw, and there the fence posts of ribs. A long, smooth bone…
And the water lights up.
It looks like a heart, beating with light, nested within counter-rotating loops of black chain. Plonjadò squints against it, the blood pounding around his eyes. He reaches past the orbiting chains, touches the heart again, and for the first time in thirty years, he hears a voice.
“Greetings, master. What do you wish of me?”
The voice is high and sweet. A child playing make-believe.
Plonjadò takes up the heart and holds it against his chest. The chains break like smoke and reform around him. Wider, they orbit faster.
My child, he thinks, my only wish is to keep you safe.
The caravel rocks in a sudden upwelling of water. Sardodj grips the rail and narrows her eyes at the blood-colored water. At the contrail of bubbles speeding north, away from her. She glances at the compass, which is now also pointing north. Five minutes ago, it wasn’t.
“Well, shit,” she says.
***
I was worried about whether Simon, Artyom, and Jason would like it. But they did. We’ve had more good ideas since then. Protector 1 comes out in January followed by four more, one per month, until July, when the omnibus will come out. If you are friends with a comic book store owner, please request Protector. That will make it easier to publish that sequel 
