Paksworld

Too much comment chat and not enough new posts…silly me.

Anyway…Book kept me up until after 2 am last night.  Yes, because Book wanted me to finish something before I slept.   It reads like something written in the middle of the night with burning eyes, but it’s there, and can be chipped and polished later.

I knew when I started this that many family relationships would become entangled in the plot, because the people around Paks mostly had families (even if they didn’t know it, like Kieri.)  I did not know, however, just how pervasive this would turn out to be…I keep trying to drag Book back to what I thought was its main line, and it’s sort of like the time I tried to teach my first horse Ky to ground drive.   Book is the 1200 pound really fast horse and I’m the puny 122 pound (then, not now) person who was too stupid to wear gloves when one long rein was made of braided baling twine.

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This is a try at pasting something from the ms.  by way of Wordpad, which is supposed to strip off all the Word formatting.    I’m going to put the whole snippet behind the “read more” break, so if it erupts into formatting you won’t have it all over your feed (if you’re one of the feed-followers.)

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This snippet is from a passage that will not appear in the book–my choice, not an editor’s cut, so the scene was never fully fleshed out.  You have conversation, nothing else.   However, as a snippet, I don’t mind sharing it with you.  I believe, when the book comes out, you will agree that this and the extension of it (several more pages full of spoilers) were better left out.

Location:  Verella, the Verrakai house in town.  Time: 14 days after Kieri Phelan left Verella for Lyonya

Speakers:  Duke Haron Verrakai and his brother.

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Setting: inn just outside Fin Panir’s walls.   A dwarf and a kteknik gnome have been discussing (and mildly quarreling) about the object in question.  They are speaking in their own language (which the rockfolk share)  and do not worry about being overheard because they see no other rockfolk and the locals have already not reacted to test statements, either of warning or insulting.   They have ignored the movement of humans in the room, as none menace them.

…………………………………………….

“You are greedy,” the gnome said.

“I am not,” the dwarf said. “But if gold falls into my hand, I will not let it slide through my fingers.”

“If it is not your gold–“

“All the better.” The dwarf grinned. “Is it not obvious that the Girdish do not need that [object]? It came to them by thievery, after all–(an editorial snip here).”

“We cannot keep it!” the gnome said. “It is not ours; we neither made it nor bought it!”

“Excuse me.” A human hand intruded between them, flat on the table, and as they looked up they saw a tall clean-shaven man all in black. They realized he was speaking in their language only as he introduced himself. “Arvid Semminson, of Tsaia. It would be impolite to conceal from rockbrethren my fluent command of their speech, and perhaps by so doing discover that of their plans they would prefer not to have revealed.” He smiled, showing very human teeth; they noted also the sword and dagger he carried, and smelled the metal of hidden blades he wore here and there about him. Good steel. Excellent steel.

“You are that thief,” the gnome said, recovering first.

“I am no thief,” Arvid said, without heat. “It is true I am in the Thieves’ Guild, but she of whom you speak would agree I am not a thief.”

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Not on my birthday, thanks to Stuff, but in honor of.

In the far south, beyond the barren hills of sand that edge the coast, in the dry and rocky slopes that once supported three white towers near a great city, the Guardian of Guardians lifts a hand and the prayers cease. No voice disturbs the hiss of wind on rock and sand; even the children playing among the ruins are silent.

All look north, north to the coast few of them have seen, and beyond to the lands no Guardian has visited, across the Immerhoft Sea, beyond the forests and fields now called Aarenis, beyond the high gray mountains beloved of dwarves and the hills of the gnome princedoms to the lands where magelords live, who once lived here.

“Yes,” the Guardian says. “The veil is torn; the life of the land is revealed.”

……

A clue to those who were wondering if this new story would answer any questions left from the old ones…(evil grin)  Depending on editorial whim, this may or may not be part of a prologue to one or another volume.

This one’s from the second book, so heavily edited to avoid spoilers. ..and there’s no guarantee it will make it into the final book.  Arianya ( Marshal-General of Gird) and Paks are riding along together on a hot summer morning.   Arianya’s the POV.

“She may wear Falk’s ruby, but she’s not just a Falkian knight,”  Arianya said.  “You weren’t at court when she killed that man…that wasn’t a prayer to Falk.  That was magery.”

“It could be both,” Paks said.  She bit into another plum and spat the stone into her hand, then tossed it into the base of a hedge.  “Alyanya’s blessing,” she said as it landed.

Arianya glanced back, half-expecting the stone to sprout then and there, bearing flowers and fruit by summer’s end.    No, that was silly.   “I don’t see how it could be both,” she said.

This snippet is the first in the book (in the present version) to resonate with the title Oath of Fealty.    Location: Duke’s Stronghold, shortly after word reaches there  (finally!) that Kieri Phelan is a) the rightful heir to the throne of Lyonya and b) on his way there.    The snippet is in snatches, leaving out bits that aren’t relevant to the title issue.

Arcolin woke to the memory of yesterday’s surprises and the realization that he needed to parade the whole Company.  They had given their oaths to Kieri, who had now left them.  They must now give their oaths to him.

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Location:  The palace in Chaya, in Lyonya, shortly after Kieri’s arrival

Present: Paks,  Dorrin (POV), the Knight-Commander of Falk

Some snippage for this use, but the main events are here:

The room brightened.   Paks had come alight, not as bright as in the battle, but enough to cast a soft glow through the room, drowning the light of the candle Dorrin had lit.

“You, I suppose, will take on the role of her supervisor?”

Paks shook her head.  “Not I, sir.  She is a Knight of Falk.  It is not my place, and I have no call to go with her.  I do have a call to aid her here and now.”

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Location:  in Aarenis, within several days’ march of Cortes Vonja.  Situation: night after a frustrating day of marching, barely evading an ambush, more marching.

………………………..

…his assailant lay dead on the ground.    He was a small, wiry man in short trousers, barefooted–his soles horny as goats’ hooves–his hair in a curious braid, stiff with something he’d smeared on it.  On a thong around his neck was a medallion with a design Arcolin did not recognize.

………………………..

This is part of an incident added to the part cut off from what is now Oath of Fealty and will be in the second volume of the group.   It helps fill in what had been a sketchy way to cover some weeks.     Although the forward part of the plot of the second book is moving, there’s fill-in to be done, because I was compressing the last 55,000 words when I hoped to squeeze it all into that first volume.    It was packed tight–too tight, too much left out.  This is putting some juice back in.

It was also one of those surprises, a bit of plot-stuff I didn’t expect.   It was so unexpected I had to check with a couple of people to see if the whole situation was feasible.  And it is.

Of course, the really interesting thing is  not a sailor in a tree, but who put the sailor in the tree.

Location:   Valdaire, an expensive inn, private dining room.

“And so it is, ” she said, sitting back and folding her hands on the table.  “You are the man I thought you were, once I saw past my own ambition and my own losses.  Friends?”

“Always,” Arcolin said.  “Unless of course we’re hired by enemies, but even then–”

“We have the Code, and we are content, are we not?”

“We are content,” Arcolin said.

……………………………..

Anyone care to guess the identity of the lady, and the former relationship, if any?