Back again, sort of

I guess I haven't posted recently, maybe because I've been hip-deep in plotting the next novel and floundering around a bit. Kothifir will be an entirely new setting. I'm beginning to see it as a sort of dysfunctional Tai-tastigon set on end -- a vertical maze instead of a horizontal one. Time plays tricks there as well as space and the population of gods is definitely unstable. I also want want to send the cadets on a rhi-sar hunt, meaning that I finally have to describe these mysterious beasts. As far as I can remember, I've only mentioned that they live in the Wastes. If there are time pockets there, they might be something like a former occupant of the green Sahara. I need to do some research.

Also, I've taken up beading. This was my second project. I call if the Frog that Loved the Moon.



No word yet from Baen about Honor's Paradox. Here's a snippet chosen with mud and sand in mind, although it's set near Gothregor after a terrific, prolonged downpour.

Rowan gave a stifled exclamation. Torisen turned to find her sunk thigh deep and floundering.
"Don't come near, my lord," she said hastily as he moved to assist her. "Perimal be damned … I've blundered into a shwupp pit.
"A what?"
"That's right," she said, as much to herself as to him. "You usually aren't here in the spring, nor has it ever been this wet before. Fetch me a pole and I'll be fine. Oops."
With that she sank again, up to her waist. The mud made obscene sucking noises, like a tongue exploring a rotten tooth. She lay back on the quavering bog to spread her weight and tried to wriggle free her legs.
That might work with sinksand. Torisen wasn't so sure about the present case. Expressionless she might be, but Rowan was taking her current predicament a bit too calmly.
"You might go for help," she suggested.
"And leave you here in your mud bath?"
He circled her, stepping carefully. The mud around the Kendar, agitated by her efforts to escape, was clearly more liquid than the surrounding earth. By now, water must be pouring into her boots. How deep was this pit anyway?
"I think you just want to get rid of me."
"Should you stay to laugh? Bad enough what they will say in the barracks tonight. Of all the stupid accidents …"
"What aren't you telling me?"
He risked a step forward, bent, and gripped her under the arms. It quickly became clear, however, that to pull her clear through sheer strength was out of the question; while the earth retained its grip, he was more likely to dislocate both of his arms if not to rip her in two. Still, if he could stop her sinking any farther until her natural buoyancy came to her rescue …
"What, for example, is a shwupp?"
Bloop.
Bubbles rose in a series of small, wet explosions, approaching.
"My lord. Blackie. Just go."
Bloop, bloop.
Here came more trails, from every direction.
Yce splashed toward them. Lighter than they, on huge paws, she ran as if through melting snow although spattered brown to the eyebrows. Then she paused, ears pricked, head cocked.
Bloop, bloop, bloop …
At the end of a trail of bubbles, she pounced and dug furiously. A slick head, eyeless and seemingly all teeth, burst out of the ground. Webbed claws churned the mud. It screamed as the pup's jaws closed on its neck. Then she was on to another trail and another, but there were too many of them, all converging on the hidden pit.
Rowan's legs came free, their boots shredded. The watery pit seethed with muddy bodies like some obscene ell stew. Tori dragged her clear and helped her up.
"Yce, come!"
The two Kencyr staggered back to their horses with the wolver pup mounting a furious rear-guard defense. Torisen gave Rowan a leg up into her saddle and swung into his own. Yce grinned up at him, white teeth, lolling red tongue, and blue eyes in a mask of mud.
"Good girl."