The Prince of Endless, pt. 8

Dirkennion and Marvella, on horseback, follow Mahkyel’s party through the darkening woods. From a distance, they watch the party signal and ride past a small stone structure.

“They have passed the eastern stronghold,” Dirkennion says.

“Even with a scout, they ride quickly for men who have left the safety of their own kingdom.”

“Exactly. This Uncle Mahkyel must control those eastern hills. This is rather suspect.” Dirkennion hurries on on foot.

~~~

Soon, Dirkennion and Marvella sit across from each other at a small campfire, eating beef jerky.

Marvella asks, “Are you certain we can catch them in the morning?”

Dirkennion nods. “Tracking with haste is part of my Muurizza training.”

“‘Muurizza?'”

He shrugs. “Elite warriors, you might say.”

“Oh.” She glances at his scythe resting against the log he sits on. “Tell me about your kind?”

“Hmm. Some say we are cursed. Bad spirits painted us with tiger stripes. Or that we are sent from Gerji itself to take over all of Verisye.” He scoffs.

Marvella smiles, shaking her head.

“I am glad to see you are a woman of reason.”

“You don’t appear very demonic to me. I have heard everything, I think. The stories…” She shakes her head. “So, Ehara hail from the southeast. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Vast tropical regions. Likely the cause for the striping and different colors. Effective hunters.”

“Is it pretty there?”

“Lovely. The Farrell trees have white bark and bear tangy purple fruit called kee-shra. Huge trees, forty times’ my height.”

“Wow. I should like to see that.”

“You are adventurous, to be sure. The journey takes years, however. Perhaps three thousand miles from here.”

Marvella frowns. “Did…did many of you leave your homeland?”

“We were called, you might say. The Sentinel Dragons, who keep watch over all, said we should share our altruism and skill with the rest of Verisye. That is why I am still in service in Green Hump.”

“Service? I don’t understand.”

“Ah, three years of labor. No pay, no possessions. But…friendship and education. It is a thorough way to learn about those I will protect as a constable myself.”

“Oh yes,” Marvella says. “The world of law-keeping shall welcome you.”

“I will be in Sealth.” Noting her reaction, he adds, “Where I will certainly be needed.” He pauses. “It was my father’s wish before he died.”

“Oh. From illness?”

“No, no,” Dirkennion says, smiling bittersweet. “He perished with his brother at Arsys. Along with everyone else.”

“Arsys,” Marvella breathes. “The Battle for Our Time. Against Kalimoraith.”

“My brother, Polannion, is a scholar of history. He can tell you anything you want to know about Arsys. How the demon’s sorcerers and their black rocks drove everyone mad. The absolute slaughter of that day.”

“Many thousands died that day.” Marvella shrugs, looking troubled. “Beyond that, all I know is that, thirty years later, there are still many villages without grown men from that day.”

“Perhaps it was only luck that the demon chose to march his exhausted army on to Dunhaven, where he was stopped and imprisoned.”

“And killed, right?” she asks. “At Joorveez Prison?”

Dirkennion nudges a log with his boot. “I suspect not. Great power was on his side. My brother is plagued by such thoughts. Obsessed, one might say.”

“Then the Knight Wars happened.”

Statues of a black knight with a mace and a sword-wielding white knight from the Harry Potter museum outside London.

“And everyone blamed the Ehara. We, who have no use for power or property, had to wrest it from six orders of knights. Grand estates became orphanages and farms. The chance to rebuild after Arsys. And yet…my face is still that of the enemy to many people in the west. An error.”

“Yes it is.” Marvella thinks about something. “Do you believe…this child-napping is about a power grab? This uncle? I-I have only heard of such things.”

“That is the most likely reason. Quick paths and cowardice often serve rotten purposes.” Dirkennion stands and looks about. “You should rest. I will take the first watch.”

 

To be continued…

 

 

‘Spotlight’ is a Film for Writers and Character Study

If I’m allowed to make a recommendation for all writers, it is this: See the 2015 Oscar-winner Spotlight. And watch it a second time.

In Spotlight, Boston Cardinal Law has a chat with Marty Baron of the Boston Globe.

Tom McCarthy’s film is all-around brilliant. What’s amazing to me is how subtle everything is. It’s a very quiet film. There’s no violent action, no in-your-face confrontation, nothing that seems over-dramatized at all. (Suffice to say, there also isn’t any comedy or romance). Yet, there’s plenty of tension and menace, magnified by the overall subject matter. (This film is about the Boston Archdiocese’s cover-up of widespread sexual abuse by priests.)

The movie humanizes both the journalist heroes and the villains (of the cloth and of the fountain pen), and most every smile is, in fact, a facade. In a way, the filmmakers got to cheat on a few things. They assume the audience has a working understanding of a big-time newspaper (where things are always complex, and timing and legal issues must be considered) and of the gravity of the whole saga. There’s little tension between the journalists and editors working on the story because, in real life, there wouldn’t be room for it. What they’re working on is so huge and horrible, it can only be eclipsed (in the film) by 9/11.

The long hours clearly take their toll. One quick scene shows Sacha Pfeiffer (played by Rachel McAdams) struggling to get the dishwasher rack in properly. She bangs it, her husband asks if she’s okay. No response, none needed. The story never calls for an awkward domestic moment: “So what did you do today at work, Honey?”

In the end, what that gives us is a 2-hour build toward a satisfying crescendo. There isn’t an erroneous scene or a wasted word of dialogue in the whole movie. That, by itself, is amazing. Some of my favorite moments were the slight or gradual facial reactions to verbal jabs and tough questions. The heroes mine for information, constantly digging for truth. Without dark TV music or flashy cut-scenes, the weight of what isn’t said almost becomes its own character.

I could probably base a college seminar on this movie alone.

An 8:23-a.m. Ramble

Lots of pain this morning. Bottoms of my feet, both sets of toes, left top of my foot (separate, somehow), knees aching, lower back disagreeable. This is ridiculous. I’m 42, I can’t be broken. Chalk the weight gain up to fatigue and pain (the eating beast self-perpetuates craftily) plus a liberal summer of milkshakes. Good thing I’m on my way to the gym, where sweat and pain are required. Then it will all be worth something.

I’m waiting on job news, both exciting and exhausting. Four phone chats. Five? Just give me entry-level work, for chrissakes. Foot in the door, turn the corner on my hole-ridden resume. I’ll work my way up. Delays in finding an afternoon nanny threaten to send me back to square one. I don’t like square one. I want responsibilities, adult interaction, a W-2. Kinda sick of hearing about the nobility and value in putting the kids (needs and schedules) first. Why can’t I put them tied for first while I work through a healthy hopper?

The house Wi-Fi took an inexplicable siesta yesterday. A little thing, first-world inconvenience, but the timing was excellent. Job research, Luanne’s paperwork, kids griping without reason to gripe. I need to get out of this house.

On Tuesday, I saw a heartbreaking moment. I’ll share that soon.

In the dark this morning, I revisited the sadness of ET. Would Elliott ever be okay? In real life, he’d be around 46, trying to explain loss to his own kids. I’m sure there’s a ton of manuals on the subject, and I’m sure most of them suck.

Tempest Road comes out in a few weeks. I want to celebrate it, share it with people, and then move on. I don’t want to entertain the fantasy of robust sales, this time. Hope can be a killer. The cover seems awesome to me–my idea, Greg Simanson’s work. I have about seven seconds to entice people with it. Seven seconds to pique a reader’s interest, because two thousand hours of sweat equity just looks like black type on white paper. And any fool can do that.

Sip the coffee, fill the water, get out to the gym. An essay on Sherman Alexie popped into mind, scrawled on the kitchen white board with my carbs-count and ‘gf’ for gluten-free days (wheat may not be hurting, but it certainly wasn’t helping!) and note to work on a friend’s website. At the bottom is a command, the way I imagine Mr. Alexie (ever the funny man) would put it: “Get a job, you bum.”

Swell.

Counter

They way a number of creative brains work–speaking from personal experience–is that doing something unrelated to the creative process can provide the burst, the spark, the breakthrough. I don’t know the science behind it. Maybe it’s immersing oneself in mundane activity that forces the brain to go for a romp in fantasy-land.

I had one of these gem-finding moments while I was at Camp Hamilton with my son’s school last week. As one of the cooks, I was tired (early mornings in the kitchen) and I’d gone back to my cabin alone for a de-groggifying shower before the dinner prep started. Sitting there, showered and dressed and barefoot (painful foot issues set aside, for a spell) in a musty-smelling cabin in the woods, without a single item of technology in sight, I had a thought about technology. That’s a little counter-intuitive, isn’t it?

Sleeping bags, trees, breeze, pine needles, dusty windows, dirty laundry piles (four cabin-mates), distant screams of occupied middle-school kids, a bit of cellophane litter outside–and I have a thought about a digital sharpshooter’s scope? How does that compute?

Red lights from bank of walkie-talkies at Camp Hamilton lodge

The item I thought of, for the second book in my Woman at War series, is a pattern-recognition capability for my heroine’s rifle. It would be an expensive piece of tech, to be sure, and I’m willing to bet we (or someone) has something similar in the works, now. (In the story, June Vereeth would use the enhanced scope to target incoming aerial assault vehicles. A tri-layer crosshairs image, in four quadrants, would help the user re-acquire a fast-moving target.)

Whether any of this technology would work out for “Destruction” remains to be seen. The story is, after all, what I imagine warfare might look like in a couple hundred years. (Small victory: I won’t be around to be proven wrong, ultimately.)

Red lights from bank of walkie-talkies at Camp Hamilton lodge

I wrote much of the snowbound first book, “Endgame,” while in sunny San Diego. Palm trees and surf–and I’m trying to figure out how my heroes might survive in an ice cave. I’ve also penned fantasy scenes (for Doublesight shape-shifters and ogres) while sitting in my parked minivan, waiting for kids to get out of martial arts or piano lessons.

Somehow, it all works. Although it may drive my wife crazy when I pause from doing dishes to pen a note, I’ll keep doing it. I know I’m super-lucky. There’s a reason I don’t go anywhere without pen and paper, these days. Inspiration is everywhere.

Red lights from bank of walkie-talkies at Camp Hamilton lodge

A bank of walkie-talkies waiting overnight for owners, Discover Lodge, Camp Hamilton with EAS.