Retrospective: Lightning Between Your Fingers

The original cover of Broadswords and Blasters #8, which includes this story

My #ThrowbackThursday story this week is “Lightning Between Your Fingers”, a fantasy mystery starring Knight-Sister Arlise Dun:

“A young woman slain, apparently by lightning. But she died indoors, and it hasn’t stormed in weeks. Arlise Dun has seen more than her share of strange cases during her service with the Order of Watchers, but this takes the cake. As she pieces together the clues surrounding Emerei Dawson’s death, a sordid tale of vice and corruption takes shape. Can Arlise solve the case before the perpetrators slip away?”

Back in early 2018, I discovered Broadswords and Blasters and immediately fell in love with the style best summarized by its subtitle: pulp with modern sensibilities. This was exactly what I’d spent years writing…and struggling to find a home for in the more literary pro-rate markets. After reading through the first four issues, I decided to craft a story just for them using elements common to the stories they’d published. A heroic fantasy setting. A murder mystery plot with a unique angle. A character capable of standing alongside the giants of the genre. Taking a break from novel pre-writing, I began to weave them together.

Since I’d always viewed my stories about Arlise and the other Watchers as fantasy mysteries, I decided to start with her and her world.  Both were already fleshed out. Next, I needed to make this murder mystery stand out. A strange method, possibly one involving magic or other fantasy elements, seemed like the best way to do that. Then it dawned on me: a coin. Such an innocuous object, almost beneath notice. But how would you kill somebody with a coin? And why?

Fortunately, my worldbuilding already had an answer to the first question. I’d first introduced the fantasy metal coryphium back in “Hanging at Crosbhothar” and edited into my then-unpublished draft of “The Gale at Quiet Cove” as capable of holding a magical charge. So, you could use a coin enchanted with an electrical spell as a murder weapon.

But who would mint coins made of coryphium? It’s very rare, so minting coryphium coins would reduce the supply available for enchanting. Only a country with powerful mages at its disposal would even consider it, as their abilities could balance out the loss in enchantments. One nation fit the bill: the Tyrian Dominion. This crumbling magocracy is the source of many problems the Watchers deal with, so a Tyrian murderer fit perfectly.

Next came the victim. I’ve always hated the way society turns a blind eye to crimes committed against the vulnerable people on its fringes. Members of minorities. The homeless. Men and women “of ill repute”. Nobody is disposable. Emphasizing this is why I decided Emerei Dawson would be a courtesan, and why I made sure to humanize her by mentioning the ways she’d helped the Watchers in the past.

Now, why would the killer target her? I wrestled with this question for a while before a simple solution smacked me in the face. What if she wasn’t really the target? An enchanted coin is just like a poisoned drink: they both kill indiscriminately. What if her death was an accident? Collateral damage from an attack aimed at the real target?

Again, I pondered why a Tyrian sorcerer would go through all this trouble to murder someone and why he was so far from home. Suddenly, all the pieces came together. He wanted to silence his partner, who had a change of heart about their vile business, and he wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion before he headed back to the Dominion. But he hadn’t counted on Arlise…

Despite the focus on plot, I made sure not to avoid neglecting character and internal conflict. Both victims share a desire to become better people. To live good lives. The fact they were robbed of that chance deeply resonates with Arlise, as it’s the reason she became a Watcher in the first place. It also troubles her. What if the murderer slips through her fingers? Does failure mean she hasn’t really become a better person? Even though her partner and lover Beren helps allay these fears, they’re she grapples with until the climax of “Lightning Between Your Fingers”.

If you’re interested in “Lightning Between Your Fingers”, you can find it in Broadswords and Blasters Issue #8