This is some amazing artwork from reader, friend, and reader-friend Erin Lindsey. I’m putting it below the jump because it is just ever-so-slightly spoilerific.
And wonderful.
This is only for readers who’ve finished Spell/Sword!
And…whining.
We just moved into a new house that we are renting. A house that was not cleaned, painted, repaired or in any way made ready for our presence. We have about 40% more stuff than can easily fit in the storage spaces in the house. Upon move-in we discovered three gas leaks, one in the stove. The stove is crammed full of food residue, and the floor underneath it is caked with grease.
Our landlord is doing everything they can to fix the problems and get the house up to snuff, but we’re still 20 steps back from 
where we wanted to start moving into the house.
I’m in a local production of Hamlet, playing Claudius and the Ghost. I have to be off book [all lines memorized] by Thursday. I’m about 30% of the way there, and have a full work week, plus rehearsal every evening.
So at work, in the evenings, getting up early to cram my lines — doing the best I can to unpack and get the new house squared away.
Plus this wacky-ass writing experiment, Runeclock on top.
So, upshot — writing on The Riddle Box has ground to a halt. I’ve been trying to snatch some time here and there at work, but right now learning my lines is the most pressing.
I’m going to try my damndest to at least eke out 4 pages this week, bringing the rough draft to a nice 85 pages — but I’m kind of riding the whirlwind this week.
I honestly love weeks like this where I’m creatively taxed in multiple directions and mediums — but the extra toll of moving, unpacking, and sorting out the problems with the new house are making me feel stretched out and paper-thin.
But hey, the show opens next week! Then all that’s left is the crying. And the drinking. And the unpacking.
[HA. Still writing more for Runeclock than Riddle Box. Bad writer. BAD.]
The fire crackled and spit sparks into the air as the malformed log fell into the embers. Lucht had placed it with great care for maximum light and heat, but it required constant tending.
A rustle of leaves as the wind sidled through the trees of the Proust forest. It was late autumn and the winter chill slinked from tree to tree, occasionally sticking its head out to menace the children with its cool breath. Winter and the wind were old comrades and they hoped to hasten their time of celebration.
But for now the fire kept most of their plots at bay, and the evening dark also kept a respectful distance. Trigger considered howling at the sliver of moon he could spy through the canopy, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. A repast of over-cooked asparagus and sausage was digesting nicely in his stomach. The children sat around the fire, each preparing their marshmallow with the solemnity of a ritual. Mark jealously guarded the bag of white sweet fluff, but was easily overruled by the other’s requests and his sisters commands. Nora jammed another marshmallow into the coals to get the perfect obsidian-black crust she preferred. Jema sat nearby, a trifle jealous as Crim casually held his steel arm in the fire with a fistful of marshmallows.
The instructor’s voice droned on, a litany of suffering, torment, and bland history tumbling across his teeth like an ankle-deep brook. Mr. Tavis was a brilliant man, but he had a complete apathy towards the interest level or attention span of his audience. All he required was their silence.
The cadets did their best to remain focused with varying degrees of success. Exams were close, and the information they were wading in was pertinent and most definitely on the test, but the late afternoon sun made it all too easy to allow their minds to wander. The sun slanted across the far wall of the classroom and moved as all too slowly. The class would soon be over, but it was not quite yet.
“Now.” Mr. Tavis popped a brief pebble in the water. “That’s a brief review of the major events of the Blank Invasion that precipitated the War, does anyone have any questions before I go on?”
The short-statured man leaned against his desk, and scratched at the dry skin that plagued the back and sides of his neck. It had earned him an unfortunate nickname among the less-kind students of the Academy. Mr. Iguana. It didn’t help that he sometimes licked his dry lips, or allowed his wide eyes to move around the room like a desert lizard.
Drawn on by curiosity, by pride, by fear of being alone, the band of children slipped down below the Ferris Wheel, through the thick iron gate and through the tall iron door. The dog and the strange young woman accompanied them, hard on their heels like sentinels or comets. The children tucked their treasures away and went down into the groaning dark.
Where the Fairgrounds had been full of garish color and golden afternoon sun, the passageway was gray and dark green, lit only by intermittent globes of noxious orange. Their curiosity and pride was quickly shadowed, but the fear of being alone made them press close together — hands seeking hands as they chased the mysterious figure.
They passed through strange rooms and long halls. Old, cobwebbed dynamos and blinking boards beyond their knowledge. In the air was a flat smell that one day they would learn to recognize as gunpowder and the burnt ozone smell of rune-tech. They went on beyond sense or safety — above their breath they could hear the quiet footfalls of their quarry, leading them further and further underneath the Wheel.
At last they could go no farther, the passageway terminated in a wide bay filled with glass canisters and a few odd articulated automatons that seemed like they belonged somewhere above ground in the vast Fair — brightly colored paint and harlequin smiles flecked with rust and dust. But it was not these sights that made them all stumble to a halt.
In the center of the room was a massive square console bristling with light and humming with power. It seemed clear that this was the main power source and control for the Wheel — it was also obvious that this was not this device’s original purpose. Some vast heart of war that still beat here within the hidden interior of the Fair. But it was not this that made every eye grow wide and their hands tighten around their companions’ hands.
It was the man.
The man stood with his back to the them, one hand resting on the console, quite at ease. In later years the children would argue about the man’s height and the color of his wide-brimmed hat. Eight feet tall! The hat was blue, with a long blue feather! He was only six and some change, but the hat was black. Black as night.
But they would never argue about what he said then. Nor what happened then. In that they were all in awed, perfect agreement.
“An audience? I suppose it must be so. Great moments in history do require it, I suppose. The observers must be paid, must have their hire and salary, must validate the world with their silent affirmation.” the man turned and smiled at the children with a quiet, tender madness. “I suppose they will ask you what you saw, and who I was, and why this all happened. You will tell them this: I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world. And you will tell them that you were the witnesses of a grand event, a Beginning , a true beginning if the wash and wave of Time can truly be said to contain such things.”
The man pointed to an empty space just to his left with a long finger. “I have calculated this very carefully, exactly when it will be appear. How lucky or fated you are to be here to see this…the Greenglass Node!”
pop
And there it was, a node like the others they had seen in their lives — but also unlike. It was made of thick bottle-glass, and seemed a mistake — but still flared with green light as if it had a star in its belly.
The man flew into action, throwing switches and mashing buttons in a complex pattern. The waiting node seemed to respond in some way, become more solid or flare brighter. The console begin to emit sparks and a thin trickle of white smoke. A few of the nearby robots groaned with reflexive pain as the console activated them, desperately trying to offset the energy coursing through it.
The man doffed his wide-brimmed hat, and bowed with proud triumph. His face shone in the greenglass light as he reached out to activate the node. “Now truly I am the master of the Wave, I am the King of Time!”
The man and the node vanished together, leaving the room as empty as forgotten promises.
The children would not remember their panicked flight from underneath the Wheel, or the exact moment when they realized that the robots where fleeing alongside them, or the exact feeling of relief they experienced when the emerged into the Fair into the protective arms of the green-guards. Parents gave punishment, and more than a few nightmares were earned.
But they all would remember what the man said, and what he did. And the look on his face, the pure, terrible, awful joy.
[Just a little snatch from Runeclock that I wrote today and liked. Surprisingly, all this time playing hooky and writing this thing gave me a nice boost on The Riddle Box — I think I’m going to start viewing Runeclock as my ‘writing warm-up sketch’ every day, like I see a lot of illustrators do on the Tumbles. Nice five page burst on RB yesterday, plus incorporating a short story I wrote for something else put me at 82 pages in the draft! I know I have a lot of distractions coming up, but I still want to be at 100 pages by the 10th of August, the International Holiday of Arbitrary Deadlines.]
The odd group of children chattered and gamboled in the gazebo’s shadow. They began to make slow progress towards the Ferris Wheel, but the sugar-arguments made them lag and stall like a herd of dizzy turtles.
Jak and Kanley ran through the Fair, despair and anxiety nipping at their heels. Interestingly, the Sgt’s punishment of choice was to have his pet terriers, Despair and Anxiety, nip at the heels of soldiers that displeased him.
“We’re never going to find them,” the portly guard moaned, nearly caroming off a passing cotton candy stall.
“We will, we will.” Jak insisted. “We just have to figure out where kids would go. Where do kids go?”
The fat guard did not answer, but continued to pant as they ran. After a few moments, he worked up the breath to speak again. “Jak, I know we’re in trouble, but I’m about to split my sides. There’s a gazebo right around the corner. Can we please, please stop for a moment and catch my—-our breath?”
“I don’t know, Kanley.” the tall guard whined.
“It’s tall! It’s tall! We can get a better view of the Midway.” Kanley insisted.
Jak nodded his assent, and the two guards made their way in the direction of the gazebo.
pop
In the middle of the children, a red node appeared. A light on the top of it pulsed a bright sun-flare yellow.
[Hey, remember that book you’re working on — remember that?]
[Yeah.]
[You seem to be spending a fair amount of time on this side project. Shouldn’t you…?]
[SHUT YOUR FACE.]
The Ferris Wheel waits, a grand circle enclosing the horizon.Even the children who have never been to the Fair can recall the grand spectacle when it is operational. A thousand lights and the turn of the wonderful machine.
The Midway leads to the Wheel, a hundred blind alleys and elaborate devices of fun and excitement that could hide a furious overweight green-guard and his allies.
“Of course it still works,” Crim laughed. “It’s robot-steel, nothing can break robot-steel. And we’re going to get a bunch more closer. The toy cart with the unlocked door, where I found all my stuff. It’s right at the base of the Wheel.”
“Must. Get. Toys.” Mark’s hands clutched the air with desire.
The portly guard pounded through the streets of the Fair after the children, but soon lost them. He leaned against the side of a Funnel Cake stand and panted and wiped runnels of sweat off his brow. The silver name tag on his shoulder gleamed, the name “KANLEY” neatly etched.
Two more guards pounded into view. A tall, lanky man who was a friend — and a broad, bearded man who was not.
“Kanley, you alright?” his friend asked with diffident concern, trying to avoid the anger-fueled gaze of the bearded man.
“I’m….fine….Jak.” Kanley panted.
“Fine. I’ll show you fine.” the bearded man, who was his superior officer, slammed a hand into Kanley’s shoulder. “A Rune-discharge? Here?!? At a bunch of ragamuffin children?”
“I’m sorry sir. There was a cat, and the running, and I thought…”the fat guard began.
“You thought nothing. Like you always do. Private Jak. Pull up your fat friend, Private Kanley, by the buttons if you have to, but get moving. Find those children. They have no idea the danger they are in. We must find them, and find them now and remove them from harm’s way. If they encounter the Target…” the bearded man pulled the communicator from his right breast and barked into it. “All units, scramble. 5-8 minors have been spotted in the Fairgrounds, must be detained and removed to safe distance. Priority One. Keep an eye peeled for the Target, and don’t take any risks – but we have to get those damn kids out of here on the double.”
The anger-gaze turned back to Jak and Kanley, the latter weakly tried to snap to attention. “You’ve put those children in danger with your incompetence, Private. We’ll speak more of this at the barracks. But remember, nothing will save you from me if anything happens to those children. Dismissed.”
“Yes, Sgt. Towerlock!” the two guards cried in unison.
The green-guards moved quickly, eyes darting as they searched the Fair. Hands checking their runes at every dark alley, at every can that rattled in the wind. They did their best to cover the vast area of the Fair, but they were stretched too thin.
They feared to find their quarry, and they feared that they would not find the group of children that had wandered into the fair at the most inopportune of times.
“Hey, look!” Nora pointed. “A node!”
A blue Observer Node appeared, a few short steps away from the gazebo.
Today on Riddle Box: Two paragraphs.
Today on Runeclock [collaborative writing experiment]:
The children turned to consider the thin girl with the skinned knees. Mark looked skeptical, but was so eager to be off that he made little opposition. Crim shrugged, and the others made warm welcome to their new companion in ‘banditry’.
The steel-touched boy yelled one last time to the moody boy watching from the boardwalk. “So are you coming, Seven? Huh, Seven? SEVEN. Well, we’re going to that place, catch up if you want.”
An apparently older girl that was painting nearby crinkled her nose in …frustration, delight? It was difficult to discern.
The six children and one dubious dog departed en masse, attitudes of vast stealth were adopted and executed. To Hibba’s relief the group made their way under the boardwalk, well out of the gaze of the two guards that still lingered there.
Crim lead them along the shore until they reached the grand wall of tall green planks that surrounded the Fair. He pulled his toy ray gun and held it up in preposterous vigilance, looking north and south, east and west. At last he laid his rusted hand on a plank marred by a single slash of red paint, that appeared to have been dribbled by a careless workman sometime in the past.
The Fair, as it is known, is the realm of lights and machines, the excited whirring of summer and life and memory. The roller coaster jostles, but stays on the track — the smell of popcorn and fried sugar waft.
To the children whose parents could afford the nominal fee, it was a bastion of games and running, of music and tiny teddy bears won by skill and craft. The calliope moan of its vast midway, the shadow-heart of the funhouse, the songs of the travelling bands that did their best to fill the thousand-seat bandshell that even in the height of the busy season only ever saw a few dozen guests.
Above it all presided the Ferris Wheel. A circle of light that spun like the hands of a clock, perfect and real. To ride to the top of its globe was to catch a glimpse of the entire island, to peek beyond the edge of the known world.
The children had no inkling that the Fair was a second-guest, a second layer. During the War, this place had served as the main harbor and command center for the fleet, battleships and rune-lords hurling themselves into the sea and the air. At War’s end, the aching metal had come here to rest, and in a brace of years had been sold to an enterprising soul. The Fair’s master beat the swords into roller-rails and corn-dog stalls, into benches and organs.
The children also had no inkling that at this moment, unexpected men were moving their way through the empty Fair. They wore the green tunics of guards and seemed to be searching for something or someone.
Crim pulled back the board, revealing a gap and a medium-sized pipe that had once served as some sort of drainage.
“Up the chute, geemos. Right into the splash-fountain. Come on then, come on then.”
He rested his silver weapon against his cheek and struck a pirate smile.
It was at that moment that a red Observer Node popped into view directly in front of the pipe.
So, instead of focusing on the rough draft of The Riddle Box this week, or drilling down on the lines I have to memorize for Hamlet, or just conserving my energy for the crazy roadtrip we have this weekend or the move I should be packing and planning for — I decided I needed a further distraction. Like a new collaborative writing project with my friends.
YEAH!
I’m there, I made my goal by Friday, instead of playing catch-up the beginning of each week.
I know this isn’t earth-shattering news, but hey.
Good day today, I may be bleeding off a little tension for my murder mystery with my incessant need to add ridiculous detail and inability to pass by a cheap joke.
It’s what I DO.
“I suspect that via the insidious medium of picture books for children the wizards will continue to practice their high magic and the witches will perform their evil, bad-tempered spells. It’s going to be a long time before there’s room for equal rites.”
– Terry Pratchett
If you do nothing else, follow this link to the transcript I pulled this quote from. Ansible.com: Why Gandalf Never Married 1985 Talk by Terr Pratchett. I found this from another quote floating around on Tumblr, and was absolutely floored.
Because, here it is. In 1985, Terry Pratchett beat me to the punch. In a speech he gave at a convention he perfectly explained what I’ve been fumbling around for years trying to express. He summed up Swordpunk in an aside:
“But a part of my mind remained plugged into what I might call the consensus fantasy universe. It does exist, and you all know it. It has been formed by folklore and Victorian romantics and Walt Disney, and E R Eddison and Jack Vance and Ursula Le Guin and Fritz Leiber — hasn’t it? In fact those writers and a handful of others have very closely defined it. There are now, to the delight of parasitical writers like me, what I might almost call “public domain” plot items. There are dragons, and magic users, and far horizons, and quests, and items of power, and weird cities. There’s the kind of scenery that we would have had on Earth if only God had had the money.
To see the consensus fantasy universe in detail you need only look at the classical Dungeons and Dragon role-playing games. They are mosaics of every fantasy story you’ve ever read.
Of course, the consensus fantasy universe is full of cliches, almost by definition. Elves are tall and fair and use bows, dwarves are small and dark and vote Labour. And magic works. That’s the difference between magic in the fantasy universe and magic here. In the fantasy universe a wizard points his fingers and all these sort of blue glittery lights come out and there’s a sort of explosion and some poor soul is turned into something horrible.”
The “consensus fantasy universe’. That’s swordpunk. In three goddamn words.
He then proceeds to document the gross dichotomy of gender roles in magic. Wizards are wise, powerful and male — witches are crafty, evil, and female. And that’s troubling and stupid.
It just absolutely flabbergasts me. I’ve been floundering around with these concepts for years, since before I even started work on Spell/Sword, and to find it put so neatly when I was five years old is amazing.
It makes me feel inspired. It makes me feel — I’ll say it — proud. Proud and important, even though it’s completely unwarranted from such a silly book. I want to raise my hand from the back of the speech hall and say “I’m here, Mr. Pratchett! I’m here, and I’m trying. I’m trying to do that thing better! I have three magic users in my book and all of them are female, and through them I’m trying to explore the spectrum. Cotton, wizard of order, seer and battle-mage, the refined and learned wizard of lore and might. Rime, mage of chaos, unfettered and burning Reality like a sun going nova. And The Gray Witch, unknown and unknowable, the magic of forever, of stone and sorrow. I have a witch that is different! SO different!”
Mr. Pratchett peers over his glasses at me, and drums his knuckles on the lectern. An awkward cough fills the sudden silence.
I leap back to the present before some sort of time rift develops or I collapse from Hyper-Anxiety.
My witch is different, as I hope the few of you that have read the book can attest.
In lore and legend she is the expected crone, laughing and mad and malevolent. But when Jonas stumbles into her yard with Rime in tow, she is not what he expected — or I hope what the reader expected.
She is gray, all gray like the edge of a storm. She is nude and unconcerned, merry and strange, her brown-eyes still human but beyond that completely Other.
And she is sad. And sure. The greatest curse of all is certainty. Necessity.
The character is overtly sexual, but never in a prurient manner. Her nudity is barely described, as component as the red hat she wears in her wide-bucket garden.
I know so little about her! Writers are supposed to be God, but she eludes me. She frightens me more than a little, which is why I skitter into poetry when I describe her.
The fear and loathing that Mr. Pratchett correctly observes in the depiction of the Dark Feminine I do not truly jettison, but wrap it into the character along with all the strange unknowns of her identity. She is not a gibbering octogenarian that can be dismissed, pitied, or relegated to lesser status. She is a character of ill portent, but should never be seen as a minor force – -she is Beyond. Almost beyond gender entirely, but never quite.
I’ll try to put in some dopey male wizards next time around, Mr. Pratchett. To underline. It’ll have to wait for Book Three, the cast of Riddle Box is already set.
“I’m here,” I whisper across the years and the ocean to Mr. Pratchett. “And so is the Gray Witch. Be careful what you wish for?”
spell-sword.com 