At the Cusp of Dust and Deity

pinterestIt was September of 2011 that I began writing Plenilune.  If I remember correctly, it took me roughly a year and a half to write.   I trust Talldogs will not take quite that long, but some days I do feel as if I am elbow-crawling my way through the plot.  But I think - I think - I have got through some kind of barrier and I feel a little less as if I am walking in the dark.  Writing has been mingled sporadically with reading; between my conglomerate stories and The Conquering Family, I have enough kindling to keep the lights burning.

snippets
"Any man who has walked over the skin of the man he was yesterday is a man who knows humility and grace."
letters
She put her hand down in the joint of her hip and swung round, leaning forward to see across Raymond. “Le seigneur de Darkling! Paugh! You tread about so quietly for being miniver-caped.”
talldogs
"I can see the lines of a hard providence in your face."talldogs
"God and his angels keep you," murmured Bruin, and he slipped both pouch and letter away in the safe place of his heart.lamblight
Goddgofang came out on top. Badger’s shoulders slowly relaxed as with a conscious effort, and though the young man bent his head like a sullen horse, he said, “I hear you.”lamblight
God! He tossed the comb down and stared brutally at his mauled reflection. I do not know what to do! Lend my hands some tool with which to fix this broken mess. I have a sword: I have not yet a trowel!
talldogs
Something in his blood thrilled against his design: it would be marvellous, on a morning like this, to be swinging into the saddle beside Avery or Goddgofang, the yard aswarm with dogs, and the sweet notes of the hunting-horn calling the pack onward and upward into the wooded aisles of the Marius Hills.
talldogs
"The trick is to be angry and be wise, which two things are like holding together the small things of the world from flying apart between hands made of clay."cruxgang
"That is a powerful oath, one which I do not envy. I will honour it."
talldogs
"Acquaint yourself with the whole of the scriptures. How can you know what will be needful in each season of life if you have not first made yourself knowledgeable of the tools to hand?"
letters
They stopped and stood aside to watch the leopard palfrey rolling through the mist toward them. The roar of hooves elevated; the whip came out, cracking on the beast’s flanks. She will not stop, thought Raymond. The palfrey’s neck was flat out, tail kinked high and streaming in the wind of its going. In a moment it was upon them, hurtling by in a blur of tawny white, showering clods behind it. Under his feet the earth trembled, his ears rang with the drum of hooves and the blink of time which had been full of the scent of leather and the single jink of a buckle. His eye flinched shut momentarily—he did not know if it was reflexive or a form of habitual salute.
talldogs
“Why should I be always pestering people’s souls? They have the Holy Ghost for that. I am not anxious that the people of God also should hate me. The world is good enough at that business.”
talldogs
"...back he would come at full tilt—I do not think he stopped to open the door, but like Jesus passed clean through it..."
talldogs
"Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus!""Badger!" snapped Goddgofang; "you are not helping."
maresgate
"Now I do not remember what I was saying. Verily," [his cousin] growled, digging his fingertips into his eye sockets, "speaking with you requires herculean efforts at concentration."
cruxgang
He thrust back off the divan and swept the gentlemen with an unpleasant smile like raw steel before it is tempered into a sword. “I have once cobbled together one match. I can tear apart another.”
cruxgang
She cut all the things he would have said to her out of his mouth and hurled them in a bloody splatter into the bath tub. It hurt.But not enough to wake him from the nightmare.
cruxgang
“Mar—!” The thing took him full in the front: he was catapulting backward, the world a blur of darkness, with the sensation of a compass kicked and spinning. Pain rained down his back. He had nothing to grab, nowhere to turn; empty-handed, he felt water crash around his shoulders and close in over his face, hammering into the spaces above his nose, filling his mouth with muddy panic. The light—! His clenched eyes tore through the bubbly gloom. Where was the light—! The compass bounded, tearing through the space between the stars. He wrenched at the water—it resisted him. He tugged at his body—somewhere between a lion, a leopard, a sea-monster, and a spray of filigreed things like diamond dust, it crashed back into the fragile thing inside of which his spirit was fluttering like a bird dying at the bottom of its cage. Columns of air rocketed around him, closed off from him by inches of water. The light was going out. The darkness and a searing like fire were plunging knives into his body. He gave one last desperate twist, something in him crying out with a power he hoped would span the spheres of the universe to the last and highest heaven.Elements—! Tempests—! Almighty God—it is going to kill me!A lungless voice reared above him and dug its heel into his chest. Is this how the Master of Death chooses to go out?
cruxgang