Paksworld

“As you know…” I’ve been working on, and re-working on, and re-RE-working on Horngard I.  Recovering the ability to write fiction has not meant (alas!!) recovering the ability to do two or three layers of revision at once.  Revision has been a fairly arduous process of fixing this bit, then that bit, than then this other bit, one at a time, even when the things to be fixed were in the same sentence or paragraph.   It is getting better, but not as fast as I want.

But–on the bright side–Horngard I has a new first chapter that is MUCH better than the previous one in multiple ways (characterization, plot, etc.)  AND a new ending section that solves a problem several people who’d seen it had noted.

Even so both of these fragments had to be rewritten several times in several days.  But to celebrate the completion (I hope) of the first chapter and the last, here are a few snippets

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From Chapter One:

Where: near or in Valdaire, in Aarenis, morning.  Who: Camwyn, 21 yo, formerly Camwyn Mahieran, crown prince of Tsaia

Camwyn resented Dragon ignoring his own wishes, and “not wise yet” didn’t help. Someday, he would find out where he had come from.  Someday he would find out if his family still wanted him.  Grateful as he was, he would not give up that hope for Dragon’s dream.

Where: coming down from the mountain pass from Tsaia to Aarenis, midday.  Who: Aris Marrakai, 18 yo, one of four squires to Duke Arcolin

He let himself drift into the hope he’d clung to for years, and hidden from his disapproving father: finding his best friend, Prince Camwyn, missing for more than five years.  Have time and freedom for his search.  Thus: be a courier, carrying messages for the Duke   from city to city on a fast, tireless horse, ridden by a young man of good breeding and impeccable reputation, the squire who never got into trouble.

Where: lunchtime at The Golden Fish, Valdaire.  Who: Aesil M’dierra, Golden Company owner/commander

She noticed a handsome dark-eyed stranger, a young man she’d never seen before, at the front window table, richly dressed in bold yellow and black over mail. A visiting princeling from the north?  Or perhaps from Fallo or one of the Immerhoft ports?  A padded coif on his head hid his hair.

Where: later lunchtime at The Golden Fish    Who: Aesil M’dierra,   Gurtnor Sartanits, Blue Company owner/commander

She recognized Gurtnor Sartanits, owner and commander of Blue Company, mail under his blue surcoat, tall boots folded to knee height, a dagger hilt showing in each, sword  on one side and a wide-bladed short sword on the other.  He strode in as if he owned the inn. Behind him were two of his captains, also wearing mail, spurred boots, and ample weaponry.

Sartanits’ smile, when he spotted her, had no friendliness in it, and his voice oozed condescension.  “Commander M’dierra!  Fancy meeting you here without your faithful Arcolin.  Found someone less ancient, have you?…”

One of these four will be dead by the end of the book, one accused of murder and under presumed sentence of death, one very badly wounded, one about to announce retirement.

To avoid spoilers, you’ll have to wait to see a snippet from the end, if I can find one that doesn’t reveal too much.  Chapter One, after a last change this morning, should be stable from here on.

The sabre and I….I’m working on it.  Getting advice online and by email, looking at videos, doing daily practice and trying to correct errors made earlier before they’re baked hard into my muscles.  Sabre practice (and research and watching videos ) takes time. I’m enjoying it.  I am learning; I’m stronger than I was the day I unwrapped Joyeux (she has a name now) , and weekly increasing the work.  That takes time.

The writing.  Trying to recapture and rewrite one of the stories from last summer, the sequel to “Consequences” in DEEDS OF YOUTH, last year’s short fiction collection.   It’s slid in and out of focus, because I’m trying to write it “whole and fresh” as if I were first-drafting.  Vague shadows of what the story was before wander across my mind, as I work on it.  This takes time.

The Real World.  Every year I prepare a report for the local county tax assessor’s office on our Wildlife Management project, as required to maintain our ag exemption.  The report includes both a required form from Texas Parks & Wildlife, to be filled out, and additional information to substantiate the report.  There are seven specific types of activities that “count” toward meeting the state standards for wildlife management, and we must be doing three of them or more every year.  I usually include 15+ pages-often 20+, of text and photographs of what we’ve done that year.  That takes a LOT of time.

And of course there’s tax stuff, and the *other* tax stuff, and the horse care, and the State of the House…

January is the month in which deadlines land like hammers on an anvil, beating on my poor befuddled brain.

However, January is also the month that my Tech & Organization specialist will be back to help for a week or so.   YAY.  And if nothing else gets in the way, toward the end of January or at least by mid-Feb, I’ll be up in Irving  by train for one night (maybe two, depending on Stuff) to meet with my sabre instructor/coach/biomechanics person,  and get homework.  Double YAY.  February 2 is Vet Day…Laci will be hauling my boys over to the vet hospital for shots,  Coggins test, dental work.

Herewith a snippet from the untitled (so far) story.   If you haven’t read “Consequences,”  these two stories are set decades before DEED of PAKSENARRION,  when Kieri Phelan gets his first independent command from the Crown Prince of Tsaia to travel with the Tsaian army to drive out Pargunese invaders in NE Tsaia.  Kieri has at this time only one cohort and has been hiring out as an auxiliary to larger merc companies in Aarenis.   Aliam Halveric put the Crown Prince in touch with Kieri.  “Consequences” is about Kieri’s interaction with the son and heir of one of the noblemen who’s brought his own levy of troops.  Duke Marrakai’s son and heir (Selis) is considered too young to fight in the coming battles, and is at the start kind of a spoiled brat teenager who thinks he’s most skilled than he is.  THIS story is about a Pargunese attack on the Tsaian headquarters…but much more about the relationships between Kieri and others, as they will develop into the future.  First, though, Selis and his father.

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Selis Kirgan Marrakai checked his appearance in the mirror again, tightened his sword belt, and smoothed the fall of his short green cape with its red braid around the margin.

“Selis!” His father the Duke’s voice broke into his worry that something—a hanging thread, a tiny spot—was wrong with his attire.  “It’s time.  Come on.”

A final glance, a final pass of the comb through his hair.  “Coming, Father.”  He left his small chamber in the tent and found his father just hanging his sword, wider and longer than Selis’s, on its belt hooks.  His father looked at him, his usual hard gaze softening into a smile.

“You look very well, Selis” his father said.  “Quite soldierly, I may say. You’ve grown up a lot on this trip; I’m proud of you.”

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Horngard I  went off yesterday to my agent, via Earthlink Webmail, since the handshake between Earthlink and Thunderbird is still, apparently shaky.  I’m receiving mail, but the sending has yet to have a confirmed arrival.  Earthink’s Webmail didn’t even hiccup when the full book file went in, and reported it in its “sent” file.  Agent has notified arrival but then he doesn’t if he’s doing something else.

I have already, this morning, looked over my notes & text (from much earlier in the year) for Horngard II, and the truncated ending from Horngard I , some of which will go into II, but not all.   It’s much cooler, and bright with an almost cloudless sky, still in the mid-70sF at 11 am (wow!)  so I have doors open for fresh air.   I realized when I took my meds this morning that I had *skipped* a couple of days, probably due to having a house guest and being distracted, or that’s my excuse.

Y’all deserve a snippet.   Maybe two snippets.   Early, middle, and late, let’s say

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Aesil M’dierra, having lunch in The Golden Fish in Valdaire, remembering a childhood incident:

Rainclouds low over the citadel, hiding all but the bases of the two peaks that gave the place its name.  Cold rain, slippery rock, then the warmth of the great entrance chamber, a polished bronze dragon statue, gold leaf that had once covered it almost worn away.  A man in yellow robes lifting the statue’s tail, the mouth opening, emitting first a puff of smoke and then warm red tongue sliding out for her to touch with her own….

She pushed memory aside with an effort.

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Juris Marrakai en route to Marrakai’s country estate, escorted by Royal Guard

“But–where do you turn for the house?”

“I’ll go; I can show them.  You go straight ahead.  Give me some men!”

“But we’re supposed to protect you!”

“My sisters!”  With that, Juris spurred back down the column for the crossroad, and Fandosson yelled for half the troop to follow Juris, then spurred ahead.

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Meddthal Andressat, in Cha (south of Pliuni)  representing Count Andressat.  Andressat has claimed the South Marches since Siniava’s War.

The courier’s head fell forward like a puppet with cut strings.  Dead.  Meddthal felt he’d been dipped in ice water.  He was dragonkin, this was Dragon’s business, but Dragon–he touched his amulet and it lay cold on his chest.  He did not know where Dragon was.

“I will send word,” he said to his captain.  “Burn his clothes, just in case.  And bury him deep.”

He sent a courier north, that very hour, hoping it was not too late.

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Enjoy!

Writerly egos really do work this way.  Inspired by the review copy of DEEDS OF YOUTH,  I was able to finish the sequel to “Consequences” (last story in that volume) yesterday.  MUCH faster than I finished the first one of the pair.  Together they cover the entirety of Kieri Phelan’s first independent mercenary command.  The original version I wrote in the neighborhood of 35 years ago hasn’t been found, so I was reconstructing from my memory of it.   I’m sure it’s not an accurate reconstruction, but nobody else knows the original at all.  Ha.  What you’ll finally get, when the collection after the new collection comes out, is  all there is.

An ego-correction was finding out, while doing what I thought was the final revision, that I had *reversed two characters’ names.”  Between stories.  Within weeks of having re-read “Consequences”.    Yes, OK, I’m good enough to write an exciting story in less than two weeks, a story that involves blocking out a clash of militaries (size, location, terrain, opposing forces’ different weapons, mobility, background of military theory for each, etc.)  and collapsing all the details the writer then knows into just the ones the *reader* needs to know to grasp what’s happening, the sequence of events, the personalities and back stories of the POV characters, and fitting all that into less than 7500 words at most.   But I’m not apparently good enough to noticed that between “Consequences” and (its current name, this may change) “Unintended,”  Crown Prince G-‘s name turns into younger Prince H-‘s name.

All fixed now.  G- is back to being G- across the narrow temporal gulf between reading story C and writing story U.   Be sure that from now on in I will be looking harder when writing subsequent related stories to existing stories, and doing the name check *earlier* in the process.   First-readers of story U liked it a lot.  I still like it a lot today, having spent last night and today cleaning it up.  Is it spotless and shiny, all ready for its debut later?  I’ll know better after letting the resident Nitpicker at it.  Meanwhile, a snippet.

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“Get a horse,” the king said.  “A good one.”

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Meanwhile, in the daily life stuff, it’s been very, VERY hot so I’m feeding horses later and later in the evening and today moved the morning feed up to “nearly all hard feed in the morning because it’s cooler and better for them.”

A US Senator (former football coach, whoop-te-do) is taking out his spite on the Department of Defense by blocking all promotions that require Senate approval and thus leaving many commands without a commander when the previous one reached legal retirement age.  Including my branch, the Marines, who are without a Commandant for the first time in over 100 years.  (And, dear friends, you really truly do not want to leave the Marines to their own devices without a solid command structure.  You don’t want to leave ANY military that way, but we have particularly…strong…well…our nickname with at least one other branch is Uncle Sam’s Misquided Children, and our reputation is “If you want something absolutely totally destroyed, call in the Marines.”  I, of course, am now a sweet old lady, perfectly harmless except for the razor edge on tongue and pen.

I called said Senator’s Senate office today and gave a brief and non-profane description of his misdeeds (this is only one of them; the guy’s a raging racist and a contributor to the J6 insurrection) before calling on him to resign.  He won’t, of course, but this is what I can do legally, for now.  Let him know he’s not the strong noble hero he thinks he is but a pissant southern neo-Confederate who broke his oath of office, tried to overturn the government, and has pissed off a Marine veteran.  At least one.  Sure there’s more.   I’m feeling that the Senator, who never served in any branch, should perhaps contemplate the effect of Marines minus a complete command structure on something closer to his heart than the rest of the country, since he doesn’t care about the rest of the country, just his billionaire donors and the white folks in his home state.  Needs to be reminded that the Senate doesn’t command the military.  That’s an executive function, and it needs a whole, unbroken, chain of command from POTUS on down to the lowest level just-out-of-boot-camp E-1.

So I think I need to call his office *daily* with things he clearly doesn’t know, and needs to know, about the real, serious, deal it is to stand in the way of the Marines having a  Commandant.  His name, in case you don’t know it, is Tommy Tuberville, and he pronounced it TUBBER-vill.  Wouldn’t want to say a Senator’s name wrong, would we?  (Rubber-Tubber?  Flubber-Tubber?)  I leave the cussing out to the senior NCOs, who are superb at it (an art form, once they’re up in grade)  and recommend that former officers and lower grade enlisted just list any four or eight of his “errors” as politely as possible within the need to make it clear what a [redacted] he is.

A snippet from an exciting moment.   Location: Marrakai estate west of Vérella.   POV character: Juris Marrakai who has ridden from the city after receiving a courier message that the estate had been attacked but everyone was OK.  He has an escort of Royal Guard just in case–luckily since the second attack is going on when he arrives.

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He hadn’t jumped a fence in armor for several years, had forgotten the extra heave the horse gave, and the way the armor put him in a different balance.  He landed harder than he meant to; the horse grunted, but then caught its stride and ran on to intercept the enemy riders.  The momentary slowdown saved him from the bolt that whizzed across in front of him; the group he ran at scattered, losing its cohesion.

A high yodel from behind–a family signal–and pounding hooves–must be Gwenno–but he dared not turn to see.  He yelled, not the family call but a roar of rage to distract the man starting to turn to shoot at Gwenno and aimed his horse at that one. Beneath him, his mount let out a stallion scream; the man’s horse panicked and charged off at an angle, bucking; the man couldn’t stay on and fell hard, bouncing twice before lying still. Juris glanced around.

“And yes, Gerry spent a campaign season studying something military with them down in Aarenis a few years ago, but that doesn’t explain it, really.”

It didn’t explain anything, Kirgan Marrakai thought.  As Kirgan, he could attend the daily briefings.  His father had a seat at the table with the other senior nobles, the lesser standing behind them, while he–and other kirgans–stood silent, backs against the canvas wall, supposedly learning something from watching their elders give way to the Prince and this stranger, this mere Captain Phelan,  who had the Prince’s ear when it came to matters military.

Well, he was a professional, after all.  A hireling soldier, fought for money: not honor, not loyalty.  Rumor, gleaned from servants, was that the man had squired for Aliam Halveric in Aarenis, that he had attended the Falkian equivalent of the Bells.  But he displayed no ruby.  Had he dropped out?  Been thrown out?  Had Halveric refused to hire him?

Arrogant young cock, thought Kirgan Marrakai, seeing the back of the man’s head tilt toward the Crown Prince.  And nothing to be proud about.  Couldn’t even keep a horse.  Probably rode as badly as any farmer’s brat.  He amused himself that afternoon, imagining how his own stallion, who regularly threw him, would throw the arrogant young cock faster and harder.

The army moved slowly, leaving plenty of time for the young men of noble families to amuse themselves with sport: hunting and arms practice and mounted competitions.  They had servants to set up and take down their tents, cook their meals, care for their horses and their clothes.  They were–barring the arms practice all their fathers insisted on, under direction of an armsmaster or Girdish Marshal–on holiday.  When they came to a tributary of the river behind them, flowing from the north, the army paused to water the stock and the people, and some of the servants went to washing clothes.  The younger men found places for water play.

Kirgan Marrakai noticed that Captain Phelan let his men take quick baths, but did not bathe with them.  Arrogant, he told himself.  He bathed every day from a tub in his father’s tent, water brought in by his father’s servants, the proper way to bathe.  He told his friends.

They noticed the red-headed captain–hard to miss that flaming hair in the sun–heading still further upstream, with a rag of some sort over his shoulder.  Too shy to bathe with his men?  Well.  It would be good sport to know why.  Maybe he…lacked something.  They sniggered over that delicate suggestion.  Maybe he was disfigured in some way not visible when he was covered neck to wrist and head to heel in cloth and leather or metal.  Perhaps he was a branded criminal and the Crown Prince would definitely need to know that.

They turned aside, walked fifteen strides back toward the army, and then back around.  He was out of sight; the stream here ran lower than the rest, and they headed that way, but at a distance, sure he could not see them, moving as quietly as dozen young men with no training could.  One would go ahead, bending low then taking quick looks, until he could see the red head and if it was moving, then signal the others.  Finally, their forward scout waved them down and forward, and they came crawling through the lush grass to where they could see a wider space of moving water.  And their target.

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The most difficult of the “fixes” to the book my agent suggested was the result of a decision I made after the first couple of tries at “braiding” the POVS  of multiple people in multiple places who arrive at a very critical point in time and space together did not work–left things choppy and confusing.

I elected to put all of one POV group first and all the second POV group afterwards.  And *that* didn’t work either, my agent said (correctly said, I insist.)

Fixing it has not been easy and I’m not entirely sure now that it does what I want (especially since it added words to an already long book to get the rearranged stuff eased in, smoothed, and feeling like they “grew in place.” )

It reads better to me, but then I’m the person who wrote it and screwed that up in the first place.

I have multiple charts, notes, and attempts at doing it piece by tiny piece…the mosaic has to make the overall picture that includes high anxiety in three groups of people and impatience and frustration in the fourth group.   Looking back over the previous books, especially the ones in series, I see that I started out writing *somewhat* simpler books (not shorter…my first was very, very large, but not as complex all over as this one.)   And as soon as I learned how to do something more technically difficult…whammo, there it was in the next book (or the same book rewritten on the fly.)

I swore after one of the Familias Regnant books that had 12 major POVs scattered across part of a galaxy, most of them going somewhere rapidly in a ship, and having to be at the right place at the right time to execute their plot effect here…and then there…and then…etc., that I’d never have that many  plot-critical POVs again.  Ha.  I don’t even count anymore.  Keeping track of them was exciting in the sense of juggling explosives while dancing on a high wire…now it’s “Here we go again.”

The difference in Paksworld is that lack of fast, easy communication between the parties in motion.  Who knows what when always matters, but when you have to remember that there are no links, no phones, no computers, no satellite navigation aids…and then allow for “normal” weather patterns and the effect of them on unpaved roads traveled by humans on foot or riding animals or being hauled in wheeled vehicles by same…it’s…tricky.  No clocks either.  No longitude & latitude.  There are stars, but in a forest in the rainstorm, you can’t see them.

One more day of travel out of sight of the nexus point where all must come together.  One more day for those in the tunnel to endure…

Brahms’ German Requiem is the right music for this. I’ve tried other things but this (and the Faure Requiem for part of the earlier sections of the book) particular requiem carries the tension, the anxiety, the stark fear, the determination in the music itself and keeps me from sliding off into something easier to write.  The unearthly beauty of some passages also fits–around the story is a stunningly beautiful setting, dramatic in itself, inspired by and then developed from a photo I saw online years ago.   I moved a mountain range in behind it, added a plausible region of geology in front of it, and added the appropriate vegetation, then had the rockfolk go to work on it.

A snippet:

“Now,” Regar said, when he’d caught enough of the enemy’s cadence to be certain of the timing, and his men cut the ropes on their side.  The tower swung out away from the cliff all in one swoop, landing on the burning pinpigs, crushing them, and landing on some of the enemy who’d been straining to pull it down.  Fire spread quickly.

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If I haven’t mentioned the recording, here is is on YouTube:

NewBook is now complete, where complete means the story makes sense end to end, the plot and subplots are correctly articulated (in the sense of how a skeleton is articulated), there are causes for effects, and effects from causes, and the motivations of POV characters, in particular are shown through behavior, not just chit-chat.  Though frankly I think any female person will know *exactly* why Gwenno was bored with the Royal Guard.

It is a proper Paksworld book in size  (a bit under 170,000 words)  and geographic scope (smaller than some, but covering locations from northern Tsaia, in Arcolin’s domain to well south and west of Valdaire in Aarenis.)  Chronologically it’s a spring/summer/fall book, even though there’s a blizzard in it.  It’s an *early* blizzard and melts back into a cold nasty wet period.  The gap between this book and the last previous Paksworld book is about 5 years, so the page who woke up, ran upstairs when everyone else was spelled, and pulled the non-working rope that wakes the Bells of Verella only in real disasters ….is now a late teenager  and considered a young man.  The prince with no memory is 20 or 21.  An 18 year old squire of Duke Verrakai is 23.  And so on, including the people who were hale and healthy five years ago and now…aren’t.  Some of them.

It also has horses, swords, spears, lances, thieves (not nice ones), brigands (ditto), pirates (ditto) ,  bad relatives, good relatives, an overprotected little boy who isn’t that little or shouldn’t be, a birth, some deaths, and–because it involves the Matter of Horngard–Dragon.  Several assumptions about eldest girls in a family.  But also politics, economics, history, psychology, and such things.  Oh, and a song.    Sung in an ordinary way and people who also make weird scary noises some other way.

Someone on a Twitter writing group asked people who were writing things  “What is your book about?”  and I always draw a blank on that because I think my books (and most books) are about more than one thing, and different readers will fix on one or more of the possibilities.  But this book–still untitled, though its “barn name” is Horngard, name of the place in which a lot of important things happen–is a story about friendships as people grow up, trauma, memory, honor, personality, politics (et al) from the above list, and so on.   The “lead” characters are two boys (in the Paladin’s Legacy books) who became friends, were separated by violence,  and their meeting again 5 years later.   One has lost all memory of his past due to a traumatic brain injury.  The other temporarily loses the memory of having seen his friend again, for the first time in five years because someone else thinks it’s the wrong time for them to be together again.  Now the boys are men.

The loss of memory, whether temporary or permanent, has profound effects on them.   It interferes with “agency”–that capacity to make things happen, to not be just an object swept along, but to make decisions that work, that move other objects.   If you do not know–if you have no story of–your past, it’s a mental amputation of the information most of us use to make decisions and act from.   I remember the first time I was lifted up to sit on a horse; I remember how wonderful it was to be up there, able to see so far,  to not be blocked in by the legs of older children and adults.  That memory starts the chain of my understanding of how I feel about horses.  I remember being in an open boat out in the Gulf of Mexico and peering over the side into the green depths…seeing something large rising out of the dimness far below and come up closer, closer, and reveal a mouthful of very sharp teeth.  That memory starts the chain of my understanding my relationship to deep water.   Horses are wonderful, they’re freedom, they’re lifting me out of limitations.  Deep water is scary, dangerous, limiting me to less vision, less freedom, less opportunity.  These are not “facts” about horses or deep water, but the memories are at the roots of my attitudes, my deepest feelings.

Soo…what about a snippet, then?  And a test on it?

Here are the words of a song (translated into English because I write in English) which can be sung to the tune of one of my favorite songs.  The song itself was not, originally, English.   Can you figure out from reading the words what the music is?  (Don’t go looking over in the Universes blog because it’s listed there.)   These words appear in this book (unless an editor rules them out) and I hope to write some music to sing it to *other* than the one I know.

Dragonkin we stand before you

Dragon’s iron wings fly o’er you

Dragon’s iron teeth will score you

We will stand for all

Though we tire, though we hunger

Though we grow not any younger

We will stand as stone in thunder

All will stand for all

Men of Horngard ready

We will all stand steady

Taste the iron of our spears

Your swords will never wake our fears

Our hearts lighten, our eyes brighten

Blood or death, they do not frighten

We of Horngard, Dragon’s kin,we!

Never will we yield.

If you do catch on quickly, just answer with “Got it” or something like, until others have a chance to answer.

I can’t find on YouTube the version I like of the original, which was a capella, not over-enhanced with orchestra  or even piano accompaniment.  It doesn’t NEED that.  It does need a good stout choir.

Time for some snippets, yeah?

This one will not be in the final book….it is the original start of the book:

Camwyn had no memories of his childhood, only those begun in a dark cave, when he woke from grievous injuries.  He knew of his past only what he’d been told by Dragon.

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This was followed by pages of past-history stuff and landscape descriptions that (aside from describing  a gorgeous view of the Vale of Valdaire and a good opening shot for the movie, maybe)  have nothing to do with the story because he’s never there again.   Also, there’s no tension.  People who’ve read the Paladin’s Legacy group know who Cam is, what his injuries were, and that he’s lost his memory.  People who haven’t will be thinking ‘How many pages of infodump before I have a reason to care about this character?”

Worse, the next person being shown is thinking about how disappointed he is that on his last trip over the mountains, there’s fog and he can’t see his favorite view.   Interior monologue with nothing happening but the fog lifting and a horse whinnying.  Ho-hum, ho-hum, the starting point is dumb…and then it goes into pages more of trivia that’s interesting to ME, because I was working back into this invented world, checking that Fenis Kavarthin & Sons were still in the building they’d been in that previous book, that this and that were in the right place and the right kinds of interactions were going on. Fine, for a book on the economics of merchant-run late-medieval cities, but this is supposed to be a story.

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So now we have the result of a complete mental reset:  When the problem is a static passage, nothing really going on, AND it’s in the POV of a known character who’s a protagonist…don’t whittle away at it hoping for something better.  Take a big leap.

The blade lay lightly, but dangerously, on his neck, just under the side of his jaw.  “You haven’t paid your bill,” said the voice in the dark.

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The next sentence tells you who “he” is…Ilantides Balentos.   Those who’ve read the short story “Mercenary’s Honor”  may have a vague memory of an Ilanz Balentos who was Aesil M’dierra’s uncle and the reason she became a merc commander.   Ilanz in that story is a middle-aged merc commander who helps a village win independence from its greedy neighbor city, and when that city hires a much younger Aliam Halveric to attack, and Aliam sends out his squires to a recon mission, Ilanz meets Kieri Phelan for the first time.   Between then and now is a story of the young Aesil M’dierra and how she met Aliam and Kieri in dire circumstances–unfinished, still.  Maybe now I can write it.  Ilanz left his company (and some money) to M’dierra when he died.

This isn’t Ilanz; this is Ilanz’s much younger relative (and thus, more distantly, M’dierra’s relative.)  You don’t yet know who the other person, the voice in the dark,  is (and won’t, thanks to, ummm, errr, mmph, and mumble-mumble-writers-keep-secrets.)   But you know, every one of you, that you do not want that voice in the dark in YOUR bedroom, and you already suspect Ilantides may have a shady side.   You also want to know if the guy gets his throat cut and what happens next.

Does this 13 page segment connect to anything else in the book?  Yes, it does.  It foreshadows events already written some chapters later (and thus was easy to think of and write) that make other connections…and so on.   So when mmmrff happens, readers (the more astute ones) will be thinking “It’s those Balentoses!” while at the same time wondering if fffnnf can possibly make it out and can vlkksr get there in time.

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But remember the entire first chapter had problems of insufficient forward motion and insufficient tension.  Yet certain precursor things had to happen before other things could.  A had to meet B.  B had to not meet C.   D had to misjudge a situation.  And so on.  So what should come after that 13 pages that makes it clear the initial engine is putting tension on the same overall plot, getting the whole thing rolling?   Who gets the next POV slot, and why, and what do they do with it?

To keep the tension on, the next logical POV will be either the other conspirator or…another potential victim. The other conspirator has no further appearance in this book, as who he is, at least.  Readers are free to think he took part in a certain nefarious deed, or to think he was in another part of the same organization.  Doesn’t matter.  Another potential victim is already in the book, several chapters ahead, and was going to be in chapter 1 anyway, but from a different angle.  Well, then…make the next POV that of that potential victim’s POV and take a first look at Protagonist through that potential victim’s eyes…and at Balentos through that victim’s eyes as well.    Another big leap.

So the next POV is Aesil M’dierra’s but not in an exciting moment, though exciting moments are referenced, and a Significant Moment occurs in that POV segment when she walks into The Golden Fish and sees an obvious newcomer.

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She noticed a striking young man at the front window table, richly dressed in yellow and black over mail and–her experienced eye recognized the way the cloth laid over it–breast and back plate.

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Other necessary nubbins have been dispensed in this POV section before this moment, relating to the matters her cousins have kept bubbling on the legal stove, adding to the tension of *that* plotline, but this is where another and major plotline’s rubber hits the road.  The naive reader (the one who hasn’t read the previous volumes) doesn’t know who he is, and even the experienced reader–though perhaps guessing correctly–isn’t sure either.  The last black and yellow colors shown so prominently down here were–as far as readers know–on Siniava, the Honeycat.  Who IS this fellow?  Why hasn’t he doffed his heavy-weight armor, or taken the coif off his head?  M’dierra (experienced readers will know) knows every merc commander in Valdaire…this isn’t one of them.  So who and what is he, and what is he up to?   That’s revealed in their conversation, or the part of their conversation that’s shown, so the main direction of that plotline seems to be clear and straightforward.  The book is going to visit a place none of the previous books have shown, but that’s been mentioned a few times.

Another POV section is coming, which introduces two well-known characters from previous books but in different roles, and foreshadows (obscurely) a major road-block in the major plotline that’s just been shown, though the actual roadblock isn’t at all clear.  One of those two is the second, co-equal protagonist.  And Dragon, who, though a plot-mover, isn’t a protagonist, and gives readers the chance to question Dragon’s good will, sanity and, um, “wisdom.”   If humans have holes in their logic, and gaps in their knowledge, how is it possible for a creature of such length of age and vast experience and desire for all to be wiser…to be so blind to certain things?  Why isn’t Dragon the perfect deus ex machina, instead of…well…fallible?  Or are the humans just misunderstanding the nature of the beast, so to speak?

But that would be telling, not showing, says the mischievous writer, running off to work on other chapters.

Words, that is.   I hit one hundred thousand words on the new Paksworld book just after 1 am yesterday morning.   Celebratory snippets follow (not the same snippets as in the Universes blog on the main site, BTW.)

1) Camwyn, who has forgotten his past before the injuries that required healing by Dragon, has a great deal more to learn about the world.

Camwyn rode back to the city thinking about what she’d said.  Dragon had said nothing about a Company of Camwyn, about “dragonkin,” but M’dierra did not feel like a liar.  He wished he knew exactly what she meant, who they were, what their rules were.  Paks and his other tutors had taught him about beliefs, about familiar heroes: Gird, Falk, Torre.  They had not mentioned a Camwyn, though if Dragon’s name was also Camwyn…but Dragon had said his name, his real name, was too long for humans to say and known only to the high gods.  “In my disguise as a man,” Dragon had said, “I use Sir Camwyn, but very seldom.”  He’d liked it–liked it now, in fact–that the name Dragon had given him was kin to that name.

2) Aris Marrakai, meeting a Royal Courier from Tsaia on the bridle path of the Guild League Road between Foss and Ifoss.  The courier asked Aris if he was the third son of Duke Marrakai, for whom he was carrying a message from the king, as well as messages to Duke Arcolin.

“Yes,” Aris said, immediately thinking of his father. Had he died, then?  “Your horse won’t make it to Ifoss faster than a walk, in this heat.  I can ride faster and have a mount sent back for you.”

“No!  You give me your horse! ”  The courier sneered at him, rage and contempt in every line of his face, his voice loud.  “Of course it’s hot! It’s the summer, it’s the gods-blasted South!  But the king expects his couriers to travel at a gallop.   I have the king’s authority to requisition horses from any Tsaian.   Hurry up and get off.  You can pamper this lazy nag all the way to Ifoss at a creeping walk if you want to.   I don’t have the time.” From the corner of his eye, Aris saw heads turn on the Guild League road itself.

“This isn’t my horse to lend,” Aris said, keeping his voice level with an effort.  “It’s Duke Arcolin’s, one of his own chargers. There may be one on the road over there you could hire.  Some caravans–”

“I don’t care whose horse it is! I order you, in the King’s name!  Get off that horse and give it to me!”

3) Gwennothlin Marrakai, now a member of the Bells and just resigned from service in the Royal Guard because of her father’s ill health (and her own boredom), demonstrates her investigative talent faced with the reluctance of the king and her own older brother to tell her why Juris’s marriage may be delayed and what is really going on.

“Thank you,” Gwenno said.  “Now that you are no longer my commander, but still are my liege, and in consideration of the family emergency I mentioned which has to do with–very likely–the succession to duke of my brother here, and thus the status of everyone in the family, I ask you to tell me truly what you and Juris are talking about.  I am quite capable of keeping secrets, as Juris knows from the secrets I kept for him.  I’m sure he remembers.”

Juris flushed a deep red.  “Gwenno!”

Keep in mind that all these are in first-draft status, which means that the wording of incidents, as well as incidents themselves, could–and likely will–change a little by the time the book’s finished and the revisions are done.  But all three of these (and the incidents in the snippets on http://elizabethmoon.com/blog/ should be in the final book in some form.  I think.