Here is the deal

Sorry for not updating much lately. My usual time that I spent working on critiquing and writing was taken up from GRE studies. Now that the class is over, I should be able to be back in the game.

Except... last night, my computer went on the fritz. Suffice it to say, the power supply is probably dead and my hard drive may be corrupt, taking with it a fairly sizable chunk of backstory writing. (Nothing else though. I keep multiple backups on several hard drives.)

In the meantime, that has sort of disrupted my process for the moment (I hate breaking habit), so I've been sort of slow on getting responses and stuff out. I should hopefully be starting writing on my next piece soon, so I'm going to try to finish up what is left quickly, so you might get a few sizable chunks.


Aryel left her home, heading for shelter at a nearby town, after finding her family gone.


Her stomach still gurgled in response to the meager food, and she continued looking for more bushes. After a few more minutes—it had to have only been a few more minutes—she found another bush, and ate all the berries off that that one as well. Time ticked by and she found a half dozen more.

As she feasted, a rustling of trees towards the far side of the forest caught her attention and she drew up her gun in response. Is the keyl back? Had the animal bothered to slip out in the bushes while stalking her, inadvertently revealing its presence? As she watched in the direction the noise had come from, the rustling started again. Aryel slightly relaxed as the sound continued. An animal that made such obvious sounds either was big or not hunting.

She took several steps towards the spot where the rustling had occurred from while cautiously remaining crouched and low to the ground to make herself seem as unimposing as possible. A low deep base rumbling shook through the trees in front of her. A moment later those rumbling coming evenly spaced every few seconds confirmed her suspicious as origination from the deep exhalations of an adult aegysback. This animal was probably the same one that had stepped through the area leaving the trail behind that she had spied earlier. She cautiously followed in after the animal, making sure she didn’t get too close. These animals were a peculiar sort and were either incredibly aggressive during their mating season or completely placid during the rest of the year. Unless you got one upset. Then you’d best climb the tallest tree you could find and hope the animal couldn’t break it down.

She peeled the foliage back and looked into a large meadow with a stream running through it. Large grasses grew out of the barren parts of the meadow while the stream dribbled and burbled on its slow winding course. The aegysback slowly plodded along into the field as she had expected it would.

The beast was a very large animal, most likely a female in the prime of her life. She was built slightly similar to the keyl or a maky, but with some obvious differences. The aegysback was huge for starters, standing probably four or five times as tall as Aryel was. While she was maybe only five and a half feet tall or so, this animal would have almost reached the roof of their cabin.

The aegysback’s massive half-circle head swept back and forth guided by a massive bulky neck that had to be three or so feet thick. The rounded and smooth head was scarred slightly, probably from predator attacks that she had faced when younger. Each of her massive four legs were shaped slightly like a keyl’s, but where a keyl was light and wiry, this animal’s limbs were massive tree-trunks probably two feet wide, ending to two large nail like toes. She had a short stubby tale that was only slightly flat, that looked comically like someone had taken the tail off of a young keyl and stuck it onto the back of this large animal.

As she came out to the clearing, the animal somehow sensing her presence, turned towards her with that large sightless head peering down at her, trying to decide what Aryel was there to do. For a moment Aryel stood wary but apprehensive at the sight. As long as she made no outwardly aggressive moves, she would be fine. Then she saw the reason for the females concern. A young calf scuttled between its mothers legs, stumbling at one point and face planting into the ground before managing to right itself. This infant was small and young, possibly only a month or so old. The light leathery skin on its back that had yet to harden to the great shells spoke of just how young the animal was. Keyls and makys preyed on young aegysbacks like that one, or on the old and decrepit. They wouldn’t have a reasonable chance to make a play on a healthy adult.

The massive rumbling echoed through as the aegysback, apparently satisfied she wasn’t after its baby, turned and continued its constant foraging through vegetation as it sucked the plants on the ground up into her narrow mouth, without stopping to munch. The infant scuttled after her, not even looking to Aryel.

Aryel watched the two animals recede into the field for a moment longer before turning back towards where she had come from. She grabbed a few more berries off of the plants, and even found an irregular lionweed, whose golden stems could be sucked dry of the nutritious sap that they contained within. It was a surprisingly sweet taste when Aryel took a drink off of it.

She reached the furrows created by the cart a moment later, and found she had gotten back onto the trail almost at the exact same point she had left. Momentary glance towards the ground found her attention being caught by several pugmarks she had not noticed before. A quick survey of the area found her at least two pugmarks from a keyl, and a rapid sense of growing unease filled her. The tracks from the animal were almost superimposed on hers, leading into the forest, and were quite fresh.

She brought the rifle up, and suddenly her fear seemed realized. She recognized those tracks, and knew that the same one was now following her. Why is it still following me? I never did anything to it! The animal was seemingly less like an animal every moment and more like some vengeance driven madman who was out to kill her. She gritted her teeth, but panic induced tears ran down her face and her hands gripped the rifle tightly.

She started backing down the road, keeping her eyes locked towards the woods that she had exited from. Maybe the aegysback’s unease at her presence hadn’t just been because of her being there. Had the massive grazer noticed the keyl as well? The possibility made a chill run up her spine, and she tried to calm herself down. Now is not the time to panic. But she knew she already was doing exactly that.

She moved down the trail, increasing her pace, and trying to get out of this area as fast as she could, before the animal had time to setup an ambush. Such things were supposedly common from what she had heard. An animal wouldn’t just wait until you were ready to attack, it would wait until the opportune moment to do so. It could be lying in wait in front of her or to her sides and she wouldn’t even know until it was too late and the animal was on her.

Cautiously, she started sweeping her eyes from side to side towards the grasses against the road and in the middle of the pathway. It would be too easy for a predator, even one that size to lie in wait for her. Then she realized something she hadn’t even considered for a moment since her encounter the night before. She had heard the animal’s presence and seen the aftermath of its attacks, but she had yet to see the actual beast. Had she not seen the tracks previously, she wouldn’t have even known there was anything around her.

She almost laughed at the thought she was being haunted by a bogeyman rather than an animal, and then in a moment of inattention, her foot caught on a rock and she stumbled to the ground. She spat out a string of curses that would have gotten her punished for sure by pa had he heard them, and she felt a breeze run through her hair as she picked herself back up.

But when she got up, she was immediately knocked to the ground again. The keyl spun on its legs, raising that big flat tail in a threatening manner and she caught the glint of blood off of those blades on the animal’s head as it prepared to give the killing stroke. Her rifle went off a moment later, creating a loud boom and instead of eviscerating her on the spot, the keyl bolted for the cover of the vegetation in the wink of an eye.

Only then did she realize what must have happened. The keyl must have been right there off to the side of where she had tripped and she had walked into the ambush zone. Stumbling to the ground had probably saved her life, and the animal had struck her with that big tail to knock her down and go for the kill again.

Her shot had easily gone wide, but the animal had fled all the same. Perhaps it’s just afraid of loud noises? She suspected that a predator that tangled with aegysbacks would not find itself very fearful of such noises, but the idea still played at her mind. The animal was still alive, and that meant she was still in danger.

Her hands shook from both fear and excitement as adrenaline coursed through her veins. She didn’t know what she was scared of now. The animal? Dying? Whatever it did to her, she knew it would probably be quick and painless. She had known pain before, and wouldn’t fall victim to simple bruises and welts. What I’m afraid of, is not winning, she realized with a sudden flash of insight. I’m afraid of the animal getting the upper hand.

She stood there for a moment, and then she knew what she had to do. Running to the village and hiding from the beast simply wasn’t feasible. It was only a matter of time before the animal set up another ambush, and she couldn’t lay all her hopes on tripping and avoiding the initial death blow again. She knew right then and there, she wouldn’t survive the trip to town.

No, I have to play his game, she knew. She would have to kill the animal before she could do anything else. And just how do I plan on doing that? Keyls were intelligent animals, supposedly more so than dogs. But they weren’t still weren’t people. She just needed to find some sort of method to hunting the animal. That required getting close enough to fire a killing shot without getting killed in return.

Aryel stepped off the trail and headed deep into the woods. The animal’s logical spot for another ambush point would be just along the trail again, but far enough up that she couldn’t see it getting into position. Until she came up to that area, or passed it, she held the advantage in this battle. Each step down on the ground was planted so as to prevent any sort of noise giving her position away. In the forest, she couldn’t hope to be as perfectly silent as the animal was; she just wasn’t built the same. But she wouldn’t hand the animal the victory.

She had once met a man in town some years back. Pyew Mater had been his name. He was old, at least eighty or ninety, so he was entering the grey years of his life. The man had lost both eyes in some sort of fight years back when he had been a teenager. But where he could not see, his other senses were more than compensating for his lack of sight. His senses of smell and hearing were far beyond anyone that Aryel had ever met. He could hear small animals chirping in trees hundreds of yards away that she couldn’t even sense, and was able to identify people by their specific odors. That part had seemed more than slightly offensive to her.

Slightly offensive not because he could, but that he had given a passing comment that she had smelled like dirt and cows. She wasn’t the most lady-like in her manner and attitude, but that certainly had not left her smiling at the man.

The keyl must share some similarities with Pyew, since she had never heard of one with eyes. She had always suspected that the animals that were native to this planet had superb hearing, but this was really the first time she was ever going to get to check that theory. She really had nothing to lose by testing it, as she was meat either way. No eyes meant they still needed to sense their environment by some other method.

Powerful hearing that basically let the animal pick up any noise at all, as well as any sorts of movements. While Pyew had a good sense of smell as well, Aryel thought these animals must have sort of sense of smell comparable to her own if not superior. Pyew’s sense of smell had only been good to several dozen feet, and beyond that, he couldn’t smell a thing.

As the breezes picked up, she noted with a sinking feeling she was now upwind from the animal; not the best place to be. I need to find a way around it. That was easier said than done as any bushwhacking could alert the keyl to her location. I sound like I’m fighting a murdering person, not an animal. But if I play it like it is a person, rather than an animal, I might just get of this alive.

Resigned to what she had to do, she checked the gun one more time to make sure that the rifle was still ready for action. It had a long metal barrel, finely cut and forged together. She had heard her father supposedly say that it had come from off-world. Maybe from Serenity, or maybe even Earth itself. The stock on the gun was finely cut copper bark that had been polished and sanded to perfection. It only had straight ironsights, not like the scope she had once heard Pa moaning about not owning.

She didn’t know what exactly the scope could do to improve the gun anywhere from what it was. The rifle was still an old weapon; one that definitely hadn’t seen much use in the years Pa had owned it. She couldn’t actually remember Pa ever having used the gun, only having wielded it menacingly to scare off maky patrols that bothered the cattle.

First, she needed to get ahead of the animal. As unnerving as it was to know the animal would be behind her and stalking her the whole time, staying ahead of the beast and letting it come to her was the preferable option. Ultimately however, she knew she wouldn’t have any sort of chance of knowing whether she had managed to get ahead of the animal until the plan was set into place.

Maybe an hour or so passed until she had gone a distance she had deemed appropriate. Then, she gripped her rifle close, and put her finger on the trigger as she approached the trail. This was where it would become incredibly tricky. If she hadn’t gone far enough, the animal would be downwind from her and would know where she was just by a quick sniff of the air. That was assuming it did have a decent sense of smell, and that wasn’t something she wanted to risk her life on.

And if she measured wrong, she could walk right up on the animal and scare it. Any there was nothing more dangerous that a startled keyl, she knew. Each end was just as dangerous as the other. Those razorblade horns could slash and rip while the tail could pummel and crush. Startling one would end up being the last thing she did if that happened.

A moment before she stepped out into the clearing where the path led, she looked at the trees around her for the appropriate sized one that would be necessary. There, a few yards further up the road, she found a large copper bark tree probably five or six feet thick, with a few branches hanging low enough for her to grip and climb to the top.

She checked around her to make sure nothing was sneaking up to snatch her from the branches as she climbed and when she was satisfied she was alone, she started up the side of the plant. She had climbed more than one tree in her fifteen years of life, and she scrambled up to twenty or thirty feet onto the tree. There she spied a nice thick branch that she could sit on without worrying about falling off.

Chapter Two

Alright continuing onward. Aryel was holed up in the confines of her family's house with the monster on the outside.

Things to look for.

Does the pacing seem alright?

How about the action versus showing and telling?

Anything about the character both Aryel and the beast?

Other observations?

Chapter 2

Years later, I returned to the place where it all started, and looked as hard as I could for any remains of what happened to my family. I didn’t do this out of any urge neither of sorrow nor for family sake, as cruel as that sounds. It was simply looking for evidence so that I could safely say that I knew what had happened and could finally seal that part of my life shut. After some investigation it turned out I didn’t need to worry about not finding out.

Aryel awoke to the blinding light of morning filtering in through the tight cracks of the walls of the cabin. I fell asleep? She had thought she would never get any rest. Between how tightly she had gripped that rifle as well as how hard she concentrated to hear any sounds from outside the cabin she had assumed she wouldn’t find a single bit of rest. Now, gun still rested in her hands, but it had fallen more limply to the ground as she had fallen asleep.

“I’m alive,” she whispered aloud. No sounds beyond her voice and her breathing whispered through the cabin.

She eyed the door suspiciously, wondering if the animal was still awaiting her escape on the other side. But that seemed unlikely. The animal must be silent and quick, but it wasn’t that quiet. I’d have heard it. At least she hoped she would have heard it.

Her gaze remained locked on the door as she willed her body to rise up and exit out of the cabin. What felt like hours passed before she finally summoned the strength to stand up from where she sat on the ground. She stumbled forward on weak legs for the door, but a moment before her hand grasped the knob a thought entered her mind. She looked back toward the dresser that she had futily tried to move the night previously.

Another of her parent’s greatest taboos was touching that dresser. Going through her parent’s personal effects was a violation of the highest order, something she would have been terrified to do had there been any chance of either Ma or Pa walking in on her. But now…

She didn’t hesitate another second and threw open the drawers. She discarded articles of clothing in her search, not even paying attention to what she pulled from the drawer. In the second drawer that she searched through, Aryel found the ammunition for the rifle. She knew that the bullets had to have been stored somewhere; Pa wouldn’t just have the few bullets loaded into the gun on hand.

She shoved the bullets into one of the pockets in her pants and then looked back towards the door, this time with a façade of grim determination painted over her features. She brushed a lock of her long auburn hair out of her eyes and she locked down at the gun before shifting back to the door. As she brought the hand back down from brushing the hair, she caught sight of the caked red substance covering her fingers. Her thoughts drifted back to the pool of blood out in the dining room and she suppressed a shudder.

Life on a farm certainly wasn’t easy and she was no familiar to seeing blood. But this wasn’t just some accident when someone got cut. Her family was gone and she didn’t know where they had disappeared to. I need to find somewhere safe. Could she find the others though?

She eyed the door again, the only barrier between her and the outside world. She would be safe as long as she stayed in this room behind the strong copper-bark walls But an indefinite stay was completely out of the picture. There was no water, no food, nothing beyond the four walls and the bed and dresser in the room. She let out a sigh of resignation and moved to the bed. With an adrenaline filled yank, she tugged the entire piece across the floor and out of the way. As it moved, the wood protested such treatment with a loud shriek as it scraped across the floor. Aryel had barely set it down before she threw the door open and brought the rifle up to bear.

The light of the morning peaked in through the open doorway casting odd shadows about the room from the assorted broken furniture and other pieces of furniture. Several chairs were broken into almost unrecognizable pieces, the product of something in what had to be an unimaginable fury. The antique table that was a family heirloom on her mother’s side, supposedly dating all the way back to the Martyr, lay broken in half in the middle of the area.

And then she saw the blood stairs that were splattered about the floor and walls. She choked back panic and tears at the gruesome sight that greeted her as well as a dank and rancid smell that emanated through the room. Her own boot prints marked in red showed her passage through the house the night before. Her breaths came in more ragged gasps as she gaped through the room. Everything she saw came as if she were looking through a foggy or smudged piece of glass. Each part of the room she looked had had an ethereal and unreal quality to it that made Aryel want to doubt her own eyes.

Another pathway traced through the room leaving marks at odd angles on the floor and the lower parts of the wall. These marks all matched the tracks of the keyl she had followed out in the woods—she was sure they were the same tracks—and these traveled through the kitchen and up against the door to the bedroom she had slept in. Scraps of the wood had been rent off the wall as the animal had used its sharp feet to try to pry the door open. Some markings were fresher while others were old and slightly faded. Did it come back in the night? Whether or not it had, the beast had not gotten inside, and that was what counted.

The only thing she was sure of was someone in her family had to be dead. Oddly, she didn’t feel much sorrow or fear at the thought as she would have expected would accompany the belief that a close family member was dead. Perhaps her distant relationship with the rest of her family at least had some dividends now. Nothing to grieve over, she thought with very little mirth.

With grief and sorrow gone, only resolve filled her now. Resolve to get out of here. She took several steps through the room, carefully skirting around the pooling stain of blood that lay on the floor, and she was outside and into the bright sunlight. Aryel shifted back to look at the outside of the cabin, specifically at the door that had been forced in the night. A large chunk had been broken off and there was a large impacted dent as well, indicating the spot where the animal had smashed into the wood.

She quickly took her gaze off the door and turned to scan her surroundings. Her gun was raised as she fingered the trigger, awaiting the revelation of any sort of threat. She didn’t spy the beast anywhere she looked, but she knew that may not be enough indication to show a lack of the beast’s presence. Images of the cows watching the forest the night before flooded into her mind and she immediately looked to the herd. The cows, apparently had made it through the night unscathed, and were busying themselves by devouring vegetation on the ground. They paused to give her the usual vacant expressions that cows gave before going back to their feeding. She didn’t know if their lack of interest made her more afraid, or more relieved. The keyl wasn’t anywhere close by, that was for sure. But that meant she had no idea where the animal had gone in the meantime.

She remained where she stood and shifted her view up the valley towards the direction of the town. Kyl’s Wells lay miles away from where she stood now, easily a long journey even on the best of days. If she got a good start right away, she should be able to get to her destination before nightfall. Having no real measure of time, she looked towards the sun as it peaked on the horizon above the Kemland Highlands to the north and east. She had no real gift for telling time from the position of the sun, only relying on her internal clock to tell her when it felt like and she estimated that it was probably mid-morning.

Then she noticed the storm clouds peaking over the horizon towards the east as well. The world is turning against me, she thought as she saw them approaching far off in the distance. The black angry storm clouds that rolled in off the ocean were always presented great and powerful storms that could sometimes last for days. I thought that the storm season ended weeks ago, she thought as she watched the black clouds threatened to envelop the sun like some great beast.

Leading away from the cabin and towards Kyl’s Wells were two slightly depressed furrows from where Pa had dragged his handcart numerous times whenever he went in to the town. The tracks led away from the valley she had been in the day previously, instead leading towards the west. As long as I follow those, I’ll be able to get there fine.

She cast another gaze up towards the shadowy storm clouds, and then looked back towards her house. The cabin seemed small and nondescript where it sat. Even from this distance though, she could see the long jagged scrapes that the keyl had left on the side of the building as it had tried to get in at her. Her gaze lingered on the house for a few moments. Where I was born. Where I grew up. The more she reminisced, the more she realized just how few happy memories she could remember there. A tear fell down her cheek, not for the misery she had experienced, but because there certainly was no going back now. I need to get out of here.



She dropped her gaze from the house, and turned away towards the road. Within fifteen minutes, she had completely lost sight of the cabin and the fields where she had grown up.

The thunder rumbled overhead, but the rain had not yet come. During the first few hours of Aryel’s journey, she hadn’t heard a sound beyond the soft press of each of her boots against the ground. In this tree-less area, the plants had grown long covering up the furrows left by the wagon wheels, leaving only tell-tale signs of previous passages.

Prysmaflies drifted through the breeze overhead, seemingly uncaring of the world around them as they continued their own agendas in the sky. As Aryel watched them, her stomach gurgled with hunger and she realized she hadn’t eaten in some time. Since breakfast the day before. The more she thought about it, the more her stomach cried out for food Thirty or so minutes passed before her desire for food overruled her own sense of wariness and she knew she would need to find something to eat.
During the years she had spent out in the wilderness she had started to gain a sort of knack for knowing what plants were edible and what weren’t. But she’d have to venture off the road to find anything worth eating. Even though the cows could eat the bluish-green grasses she trod on, she certainly couldn’t, and she knew this from personal experience.

As she walked into the forest, massive trees rose from all sides, threatening to blot out the suns. Lion’s manes draped their leaves down, sometimes almost to the ground and tremendous copper barks and scooter-leaves cast shadows all over the area. Even then, she could see the storm clouds peaking off in the distance through the trees.

The one plant she was looking for, the Hyllberry plant, she needed to look at the base of the lion’s mane trees in the areas. Those plants had the habit of gathering water that dripped off the leaves of the lion’s mane, but were still an irregular occurrence. If she could find one, she could find a decent source of food. She looked back over her shoulder, towards where the road lay. Something inside her told that she hadn’t seen the last of that keyl. She held the gun more closely to her and picked up her pace through the trees.

She finally spied a small bush growing against a tree. Reaching down to grab the berries she noted she was now standing in another large track way of a big animal. Rather than the deep marks of the keyl or makys, she was relieved to find that these tracks were from an old and large aegysback. The tracks were relatively fresh and indicated the animal has passed through here maybe an hour previously. Vegetation that the animal had pounded flat as well as the shredded remains of plants it had feasted on spoke of the testament of the large animal, as well as painted the path that it had used in clear tones.

Aryel only briefly looked at the tracks before she turned her attention back to the plants. While one hand cradled the rifle, she grabbed the berries with the other. She remained in a squatting position her with head up as she watched around her for any sort of danger. She did have to look down at the berries to make sure she only grabbed the ripe ones. Ones that were too young had the habit of making people so sick they would try to vomit their stomachs clean.

What May Have Been

Ok, so this is some world-building disguised as a short story. Think of it as exploring setting for my fantasy story, without having anything to do with the main characters in that story. It actually takes place a few thousand years before Spear of the Ancients. As far as questions that I have, 1) After reading the story, what do you understand about the Sundered Earths and Minyavaethan? 2) Does the concept behind the Sundered Earths and Minyavaethan seem like an interesting setting, one that you'd be interested in reading more about? 3) Any other comments.

Enjoy (and sorry its a little longer):

Adalwhin ta’Doren found the old druan lying in a ditch just off the way.

The weather had been foul the past month—longer, really—with storms of sleet mixed with true snow rolling in from the sea like soldier marching to battle, a new one pounding the coast every other day. The Faith be praised, the skys above were clear at the moment, the sun a pale ball hovering just above the far western horizon, though a stiff easterly tugged at Adalwhin’s thin, in some places ragged, cloak and toyed with his shoulder-length hair as he scrabbled down off his horse, careful to keep from disturbing his clerical supplies. Bad enough that he, a scribe of no small renown among the western princedoms, was forced to travel alone through these Ward-abandoned lands on horseback; kicking his inks, sands, quills and papers would only compound the mess.

The druan groaned—a deep sound like rocks grinding—as Adalwhin splashed through the ankle deep runoff, but otherwise remained still. He was a huge creature, easily twice as broad as Adalwhin at the shoulders, and just as thick all the way down to his thick, sausage-like toes, which were bared to the biting cold. In truth, Adalwhin could hardly believe the druan was still alive . . . a thin skein of ice had begun to form along the edge of the pool.

One tug on an arm twice as thick as Adalwhin’s thigh was enough to convince him he’d never be able to haul the druan up out of ditch unaided. Some old cord he’d packed away in his saddlebags over a year ago soon solved the problem. His horse managed to drag the creature up out of the muck and into the tall grass west of the road with minimal protest, and was soon munching placidly in its feedbag while Adalwhin set lighting a small fire. He unloaded a small kettle from the bag opposite his clerical supplies, and using most of the day’s water, soon had some tea warming over the hissing flames.

The druan began to come round just as the tea was ready. Adalwhin had cut the creature’s sodden clothing off using his knife then wrapped one of his two blankets around the druan as best he could—it was like trying to cover a child with a single kercheif. Aside from his shirt and pants, the druan had only a small satchel strung around his neck. Adalwhin cut this off to, hoping that inside he might find a clue about where the druan had come from, or where he’d been headed before luck had dropped him in the ditch.

All he found was a single smooth stone, black as midnight and a little larger than the palm of his hand. It was shaped like a plain disc, save that it tapered towards its edge, so that its center was a good finger thicker than its outer circumference. Thin streaks of some white crystal that gleamed in a dozen soft colors like mother-of-pearl cut through the smooth black rock, and the black parts were flecked with small points of light that didn’t seem to reflect the waning light of the sun so much as gleam with an inner glow of their own. Turning it over in his hands, he found that the top had been inscribed with a strange device: in lines made of the same crystal that cut through the dark stone, a twelve-sided star had been set.

Adalwhin shivered, and it wasn’t at the wind. The twelve-sided star was an old symbol, as old as the earth itself, some said. Men claimed that in the past it had meant something other than it did now: faith and hope, maybe. Now though, it only mocked men and all they had lost.

Words had been inscribed along the outer edge of the disc, but they were in what looked to be haelyren, and Adalwhin had never learned that language—no man had, not if he wanted to live among his own kind and be regarded as a Faith-fearing soul.

“I see you’ve found my great treasure, Son of the Earth.”

The deep booming voice caught Adalwhin so off guard that he actually dropped the strange disc. The druan was eyeing him with its great jewel-colored eyes. The creature hadn’t moved, but now that Adalwhin was looking at him, the druan pushed himself up into a sitting position, groaning laboriously and adjusting the blanket around his huge shoulders.

“Well,” the druan continued, scratching at the long side burns that sprayed from its blocky face like strange black fans. It met his gaze again with those huge eyes. “Did you pull me from the ditch just to rob me afterwards?”

Hastily scooping the stone back up, Adalwhin used a corner of his robe to clean the mud off of the smooth black disc and then proferred up to the druan, who accepted it with a hand that could have swallowed both of Adalwhin’s hands, and probably both of his feet as well.

“Forgive me sir, I only opened the pouch to see if I could learn where you’d come from.” Settling back down on the opposite side of the fire, Adalwhin pulled out his battered tin cup and poured some tea. “You must understand my surprise at finding one of”—his tongue stumbled, but he hid it by passing over the steaming cup. “It is rare to find a druan this far south.”

The huge male chuckled and nodded his head in agreement, savoring the warm steam from the tea with his hatchet nose. “Quite right, Son of the Earth. Quite right. And it is only unhappy chance that finds me this far from hall and kin. But now you must forgive me, I owe you my life and more, but have neglected to give any thanks.

“My name,” the druan intoned, touching his bare forehead with the index and middle fingers of his right hand, “Is Huaroq, and I and my kin are forever in your debt, Son of the Earth. May the Ward bring safety to all of your days.”

Silence fell over the two, broken only by the rising wind. Adalwhin poured what was left of the tea into his canteen, then filled the kettle with the rest of his water and set it to boiling. Digging around in his packs he produced a few shriveled potatoes, some woody carrots, an onion and a few sprigs of dried goodleaf and added them one by one to the water. A soup would do the druan well, especially if he hadn’t eaten in some time, and the warmth wouldn’t go amiss with Adalwhin either.

While he waited on the kettle, he tried to compose a few lines of poetry, his eyes drifting over the empty plains to the east, where the wind played idly with the tall grass. The first few stars were gleaming like ice on the horizon.

It wasn’t until the druan spoke again that Adalwhin realized his eyes had drifted back to the black disc and with the strange carvings on top and around the edge.

“You’ve taken an interest in my treasure, have you, Son of the Earth?”

“I’ve never seen its like before,” Adalwhin admitted, “Is it old?”

“Ah, yes. A good deal older even then I am.” The druan turned it over in his hands, one thumb, nearly as thick as Adalwhin’s wrist, caressing the sparkling rock fondly. “It is a Mapstone.”

“A mapstone?” Adalwhin repeated, confused. “But there’s no map on it, only that . . . that star, and the writing.”

“The dosestreya, the star was called in ancient times, before the raising of the Ward and the fall of the Defenders.” Huaroq held the mapstone up so that it caught the growing light of the fire. “You are right of course, there is no map inscribed on the disc, but in the Old Days, before the Defenders raised the Ward, this disc truly was a map, though of a different kind than you are used to.”

“Can you,” Adalwhin swallowed, suddenly and inexplicably nervous. “Can you read what’s written around the edge?” His voice was nearly a whisper.

Huaroq smiled and nodded, but instead of reading the writing, he closed his eyes and began to recite:

This earth is no bound to my vision,

A Stone without eye sees no end,

Through all the earths of Creation,

All bounds and holds I shall rend.

The druan’s lips turned down at the end in an apologetic smile, and he said, eyes still closed, “Or something close to that. I’ve never been very talened at rendering the High Speech into the mannish tongues.”

“What does it mean?”

Huaroq’s smile deepened, and when he opened his eyes again, they gleamed brilliant orange in the firelight, like a cat’s eyes. “The verse is, simply, a description of what the mapstone does; or did, rather, before the Ward was and the Shadow fell or this earth and all earths.

“You have heard, no doubt, of the Sundered Earths and of the gates that led to them along the winding paths of Huaq’choaqnar, or as the haelyr term it, Minyavaethan.”

Adalwhin fished out two bowls and pair of spoons and began ladling out the thin soup. “I’ve heard some tales that speak of the Sundered Earths.” He passed one of the bowls to the druan who murmured graciously, then tossed the old male a spoon. “But I’ve never heard of this Min, er . . . Minya-”

“Minyavaethan,” Huaroq rumbled. “In your tongue it would be ‘What May have Been’ or perhaps ‘What Could Be’.” He smiled good naturedly around another spoonful of soup. “The haelyr and their High Speech have always been a bit to . . . well, fluid, for my tastes.”

“I’ve never heard mention of that place,” Adalwhin admitted, careful to avoide repeating the word. “Not in any tale.” He leaned back against his packs and began eating. The soup was less than he could have wished for, but the warmth was welcome. Huaroq had already finished his.

“You wouldn’t have a pipe and some leaf about you?” the druan rumbled, and his eyes turned mournful when Adalwhin explained that he’d lost it all in a storm three weeks past. “Well, the food is some comfort yet, and the fire is welcome.” Leaning forward and cupping his broad hands around the flame to catch the heat, the druan began to speak.

“The Sundered Earths were a creation of the Aradlim, fathers of the haelyren, powerful beings who were at once the greatest champions of Creation, and her greatest enemies. Long ago they broke the Heartflame and shattered Creation. Where once there was one earth, whole and bright and good, there were now untold numbers of earths, but each of them only a dim reflection of the Master World’s original glory.”

Adalwhin nodded. This much of history, at least, was familiar to him. Nearly all of the stories spoke of the mighty Aradlim and their pride. A pride that had broken Creation, killed untold millions, and eventually destroyed the Aradlim themselves.

“Yes,” Huaroq continued, “it was the Aradlim who created the Sundered Earths, but it was my kin, the druanei, who discovered them, and in doing so, discovered Minyavaethan, gateway to them all.” The druan held the mapstone up to the light once more. “These mapstones were the keys to entering Minyavaethan, and the guides that led from there to the Sundered Earths.”

“What were the Sundered Earths like?” Adalwhin asked. “More lands like our own?”

Huaroq shook his great head, the fans hair on either side of his chin rustling softly. “All of the Sundered Earths are in a way reflections of the Master World, and as such, resemble this earth to some degree or another. But you must remember that our world, the Master World, was born from the fires of the Sourcebloom when that well of power was whole and uncorrupted. The Sundered Earths were born from the shattered remnants of the Sourcebloom, some—like the burning earth Turiel—were created from a single element of the Heartflame; fire, in the case of Turiel. Others, such as the fabled Colony Worlds, were created of nearly all of the elements of the Sourcebloom, and nearly as rich and varied as this earth.”

“A world of fire?” Adalwhin whispered, staring with wonder into their own tiny cooking fire. “How could anyone live in such a place?”

“Live?” Huaroq grunted, shifting closer to the heat. “No, no one could live on Turiel or any of the Inner Earths. Such earths, created from a single element of the Heartflame were never colonized by any beings, mortal or immortal. Even the Middle Earths, created from a combination of two elements, were too unstable to habitable. The Inner Earths . . . shifted, if you will. The very reality of those earths was constantly in motion, unseen storms that were constantly tearing those worlds apart and reforming them. Even the Middle Earths were deemed too dangerous to be populated . . . though the boldest of adventurers did map what they could of those lands. The Outer Earths, though still much more unstable than the Master World, were colonized by mortal folk and the Aradlim. And, of course, there were the Colony Earths, shining jewels that, in the height of their power, very nearly rivalled the splendor of the Aradlim’s seats of power on this earth.” Huaroq fell silent, for a moment, eyes closed. Then he murmured, “That was, of course, before the End. Before the fall of all things good.”

Rousing himself, Adalwhin fished a rag from his packs and, after rubbing the inside of the kettle with a handfull of grit from the road, began wiping it out. “And all of these worlds were connected by this Min . . . Min”— he growled in disgust. Faith, it was no wonder men didn’t learn the High Speech! It was impossible!

“Minyavaethan,” Huaroq said, and then a fit of coughing took the druan, wracking coughs so deep that Adalwhin was surprised when the druan wiped his mouth and the hand didn’t come away red with blood. He passed Huaroq the last of the tea, and the druan took it gratefully. “Minyavaethan, What May have Been.” He took a long drink, throat bobbing, then said, “That land was a mystery from the beginning.

“The first of my ancestors who found Minyavaethan never returned. After a time we sang more ch’aqnim open, and sent more searchers through, but none ever returned. I doubt very much that we would have discovered the Sundered Earths that lay beyond Minyavaethan if the Aradlim hadn’t taken a personal interest in our discoveries. It was they who first made the True Roads that lead through Minyavaethan, and after those paths were laid, my kin entered and sang open more ch’aqnim, which then led us to the Sundered Earths.”

“But what was so dangerous about that earth?” Adalwhin asked. “What happened to your searchers?”

“Minyavaethan was not like other worlds.” Huaroq lifted his hands, palms up, and shook his bald head wearily. “I make no claim to understand the old writings, but some texts suggest that Minyavaethan was . . . detatched, somehow, from the rest of Creation. In Minyavaethan, reality was in constant motion, like the surface of a river. Everything around you could change in an instant, so that at one moment Minyavaethan might be identical to our world, and in the next instant it might appear as our earth might have had the Ward never been erected. Or, perhaps, it would appear as our earth did ten thousand years ago, or two days ago, or twenty years in the future. Sometimes it reflect one of the Sundered Earths, as tempestuous as Turiel, or as idyllic as Islla Valar.”

Huaroq sighed, like a great bellows deflating, and leaned back from the fire, eyes turning upward to gaze at the bright stars. “Imagine it, young one. In Minyavaethan the future is an open book to read, the past an experience to be relived.”

“Then there are people there?” Adalwhin said, scratching at his chin. “How do they live, if time and reality is constantly changing?”

“Only the shades of mortals walk Minyavaethan,” Huaroq said, and then he began coughing again. Adalwhin had no more water to offer—he wasn’t worried, springs and creeks were fairly common in the area—so he merely waited while the elderly druan caught his breath. “But you bring up an excellent point. Minyavaethan is a dangerous place, and those caught in its ever changing grasp were forever lost. It is believed that our first searchers met their dooms thus . . . torn from reality and cast adrift in Minyavaethan.

“Only the True Roads were safe, islands of calm in the storm. The Aradlim anchored them to the rest of Creation, so that mortals could tread through Minyavaethan unscathed and so enter into the Sundered Earths. Once my kin had sang open the ch’aqnim to the Outer Earths and the Colony Earths, many of your kind braved the True Roads and founded the first cities in the Sundered Earths.”

Adalwhin could only shake his head in wonder as he began repacking the kettle and various utensils. “I wouldn’t mind seeing these lands you speak of, Huaroq,” he confessed. Setting the packs aside he began unstrapping his horse’s saddle. “They sound wondrous.”

“I fear that you would find them less than welcoming, Son of the Earth. The Shadow has claimed all but this Master World and Minyavaethan, and even that land has grown more perilous with time, hard as that may be to believe. Besides, the Ward has shut us in. We are trapped here as surely as our ancient enemies are trapped without, Son of the Earth.”

Pulling his own blanket out of his pack, Adalwhin wrapped up as best he could, then lay down next to the fire.

“My name is Adalwhin, by the way.” He’d completely forgotten to mention that.

Huaroq grinned at him as he settled down among the high grass. “Again I thank you, Adalwhin, Son of the Earth. I owe you my life.”

“Your tales have more than made up for any services I may have provided,” Adalwhin said with an easy smile of his own. He liked the druan, and that in itself was surprising. Making friends had never come easy for him.

“Oh, these are more than tales, young one,” the druan rumbled—Adalwhin could almost feel the earth trembling beneath him as Huaroq breathed. “They are truth. Faded by time and worn out by passing from tongue to paper and back to tongue again, but truth nonetheless.”

They both fell silent for a moment, eyes lingering on the dying fire.

“Perhaps now I’ll tell you have the Palace of Ten Thousand Mirrors that lies beyond the True Roads in Minyavaethan. It is said to be the only thing in that world that does not change. Anyone who reaches the Palace, it is rumored, can peer at will into any time and place.”

“Sounds nice,” Adalwhin murmured, sleep thickening his tongue.

“More than nice, I should say, Son of the Earth. It is not for nothing that my kin say, ‘For a prophet, all roads lead to Minyavaethan”.”

The old druan was still talking when Adalwhin finally fell asleep.

Book Review: The Way of Kings

If you guys are anything like me, you're often on the hunt for a new book to read. The problem I have is that I'm a pretty picky reader, and I tend to put down most things I pick up. So I thought it'd be a good idea to start a new Book Review thread going here on the blog. Any time you guys read a book you like, or hate, feel free to post a review of the book up here on the blog . . . It'll help the rest of us find stuff we wanna read. If you do post a review, just give it the label 'Book Reviews', that way we can find all of them pretty easily. Oh, and avoid spoilers, when possible.

So, The Way of Kings:


*Disclaimer: you'll notice that I compare The Way of Kings to the Eye of the World a lot. I know that might seem unfair, or strange, but the Eye of the World was the only 1st-in-a-series book that I've read that contained similar scope and depth. So, um, deal with it . . .

What can I say about this book in general? First off, its big. Scratch that. Huge. I finally put it down last night having read all 1008 (or something like that) pages. I can't think of any other fantasy series that has started off with a book that big. At a thousand pages, its three hundred pages longer than Eye of the World . . . in fact, its as long or longer than any of the Wheel of Time books. So if you have a hankering to read it, know that you are picking up a big, big book.

Brandon Sanderson has made a name for himself among the fantasy community for two things: ingenious magic systems and big plot twists that came late in the book. The Way of Kings lives up to both of these expectations, but not in the way I was expecting. Don't worry, I'll explain.

The magic he introduces in The Way of Kings is vast and complex . . . more so than in any other fantasy book I have ever read. Making a quick count, I think he reveals four, possibly five distinct magic magic systems during the course of the novel, each one was unique and incredibly fascinating. However, unlike in Mistborn, where Sanderson lays out the rules of the magic in a clear, concise way, the magic in The Way of Kings is more, well, mystical. There is still more explanation of the magic than you'd find in the Lord of the Rings (which has basically no explanation) but a whole lot less than he gave us in Mistborn or Warbreaker. For one of the magic systems he introduces there is probably about as much explanation as Robert Jordan gives the One Power in the Wheel of Time. For the rest, you get even less. Overall, I really enjoyed this approach to magic, even more than I enjoyed his explanations in Mistborn and Warbreaker. But, like I said, it was definately not what I was expecting.

Now, as far as for plot twisters, The Way of Kings definately lives up to expectations. But for me, this was both a strength and weakness. The bulk of the Way of Kings was definately not a page turner. In fact, it wasn't until I hit page 950 that I had that "Oh my heck I can't put this book down" feeling. But the feeling did hit me, it just took a lot of work getting there. So, the plot twist thing worked, because the end definately was unexpected, and exciting.

But, here's why I also think its a weakness: I think that most fantasy authors, even most High Fantasy authors, don't plan on their series being more than three or four books long. There's the famous quote from Robert Jordan: "It'll be a trilogy" and even George R.R. Martin only planned his series to be four or five books long, in the beginning (I'm not sure what he's planning now). Sanderson, however, went into this series telling the world it was going to be ten books long (I shudder to think what'll happen if he tries to emulate Jordan's ever expanding series thing . . . can you image a 30 book series of 900 page novels?) Well, if you're gonna expect people to invest a big chunk of their time into reading a 10 book series, you'd better start the series off with a real zinger. And The Way of Kings was not a zinger. It didn't read like the first book in a series, in fact, it read more like the seventh book in a series. Sanderson saved his punches (and they were big, awesome punches) for the last 100 pages of the book, but it felt like he should have been delivering punches right from the beginning . . . and he didn't.

When you settle down to read the Way of Kings, be prepared for a huge cast of characters. The Eye of the World is told from the perspective of 5 characters (and the vast majority of the story is from the perspective of just 1 character). I don't have an exact count, but in the Way of Kings you get a POV from nearly 15 different characters, with the bulk of the story being told from the POV of 3 different characters. Spreading the story out between so many different characters made for an interesting read, but it also made The Way of Kings feel less like the opening book of a series. Even halfway into the book I found myself struggling to remember who certain side-characters were. Add to this the fact that one character's storyline jumps back and forth in time, and you have a very complex story.

And although the characters in the Way of Kings are incredibly interesting, varied and well written, the sheer number of them made me come away from the story feeling like I hadn't gotten to know any one of them as well as you know Rand by the end of the Eye of the World.

The world Sanderson created for The Way of Kings is amazing in both its creativity and its depth; but, if you're looking for a classical fantasy world of deep forests and high, snow-capped mountains, this is definately not it. Roshar is an alien place, hard rock devoid of soil and few plants or animals that we would recognize. Instead, it is filled with a plethora of crab- and lobster-like animals of all shapes and sizes, and plants that are more like the corals and sponges you'd find in an ocean reef. Roshar doesn't feel like Bag End.

I found the setting of The Way of Kings both fascinating, and a little disorienting. I had opened the book prepared to read a fantasy, but I could never quite shake the feeling that what I was reading was actually science fiction in disguise. It was interesting to explore this new world . . . but this isn't High Fantasy in the grand old tradition.

To sum it up, The Way of Kings was worth all the time I spent reading it, but it definitely was work getting to the good stuff. I stood in line on opening night to get a signed copy, and for the first 500 or so pages I was regretting that decision. Now that I've finished the book, I don't regret it at all, and I plan on staying up late to get the sequel next year, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone.

Brandon Sanderson is at the forefront of a new generation of fantasy writers, and he's definitely good at what he does. But for all its delicious goodness, I set down The Way of Kings feeling a little let down. There was just something missing from this first novel in the Stormlight Archive, something that I'd found in Tolkien, Jordan and Eddings. Sanderson's world was just a little too alien, his magic a little too polished. In the past decade, fantasy has taken a bold step forward, led in large part by Sanderson. But for me, that bold step forward has taken fantasy a long way from what made it special in the beginning.

The genre is in danger of losing the magic that gave it birth.

Later . . .

Continue the Story!

Alright, continuing on, coming back to her own house and the place is abandoned. Very mysterious and spooky

1. How is the setting still?
2. What about the suspense? Still good?
3. Any other observations?

Normally around this time, her mother lit a lamp in the dining room until the family turned in for the night. But the house was nothing more but a dark silhouette. That was very odd indeed. Mother was never slack in such things unless she simply wasn’t there to light the candles. As Aryel watched the house, she got the feeling that she was being watched by someone. As if the eyes of some unknown watcher bored into the back of her head from all around her at once.

A twig snapped off in the distance and she squeaked in surprise. A moment later she realized the sound had come from the pen where the cattle still milled about. Just cows. The sky was dark out, but not dark enough that she couldn’t see the animals several hundred yards of away. She looked towards the animals, and in the darkness she could see they seemed a little… agitated.

The cows generally milled about in one section of the pen or another. Where they stood now wasn’t odd, but they seemed to be looking off towards the hill behind the cabin. She slowly started forward again towards the house, but the feeling of eyes watching never left her as she came close to the house.

A few steps brought her up to the wood pile where she dropped the sticks with a clatter into the dwindling supply of tinder. These branches were from the copper-bark trees and would burn fairly well. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in danger. The area around here was deathly still. She couldn’t hear her mother, her father, even her brother Martyn talking. And the cabin did not hold sound even slightly effectively.

They weren’t even there. The crowing sense of unease tripled in intensity. Have they abandoned me? Her journey out into the countryside would have provided the opportunity they needed. No, they wouldn’t! They couldn’t! The very thought that they had abandoned her here with the house and the cattle seemed laughable. They would have taken what they could with them. Maybe they went to town? That might seem more plausible. Her pa seemed malicious enough that he would leave her cold and alone for the night while he and the others went off to town.

The cattle starting lowing loudly again, and she shot a startled gaze back towards them. What is making them so fearful? Perhaps it would be better to get inside. She started edging towards the door, while she cautiously looked about the tree edge. Nothing moved at all beyond the cows in their paddock and they casting their vacant gazes off into the trees.

She realized with a start that they were watching something off in the woods. Was it the keyl? That had been heading in this area. That had to be the only explanation. By listening and watching the cows, she was able to watch where the animal must be moving in the trees. The animal had to be nearby, at least within two-hundred yards.
The cows seemed to be looking towards the far side of the fence, away from her, and she stumbled backwards, heading for the inside of the cabin. The door inside lay open, as if left that way in a rush from her family’s hasty retreat from the building. Perhaps they knew the keyl was here and had left? Her last encounter with one had been long ago, but she knew the animal was rather large judging from the pug-marks she had seen. The animal could probably be intimidating enough to make them flee the premises.

She bolted inside the house, and shut the door behind her. Blundering in the darkness, she managed to grab the big rocking chair her mother normally sat on and shoved it in front of the door. The feeling of fear and wrongness now pounded all around her, as if everything around her screamed that she was in danger.

She managed several steps into the cabin when a loud slam hit the side of the door and made the whole building shake in its foundation. Aryel yelped in surprise, and dashed away from the door, giving in to her fear and working just off of instinct. As she ran forward, her boot landed in something wet and slippery and she flew forward in an uncontrolled fall. Her less-than-graceful flight brought her straight into a broken chunk of a chair and then onto the ground. The blow knocked the breath out of her, bringing tears to her eyes from the pain and she fell to the ground with another loud thump.

Another slam rocked the house around her and the walls groaned with stress with the impact. She yelled out again, more in fear than for any other reason. Her hand reached out to grasp the ground to raise herself back up to a standing position. But instead of finding a dry but dusty wooden floor, her hand slipped across the wet substance that lay on the ground. Oblivious to the banging outside, she brought the hand that was covered in the liquid back to her face. Even in the failing light she knew that there was blood on the floor as well as covering her hand.

She gasped repeatedly as she scrambled backwards from the blood. What is happening?! Her panicked mind raced from conclusion to conclusion as she tried to gather what was going on. She realized that her eyes were acclimatizing to the failing darkness and she looked about the room partially in a stupor.

The chairs had been toppled over and more than one had been broken apart completely. Pots, pans, books, and any number of other objects lay scattered about the floor. The keyl. She knew that had to be it. Had it attacked her family? She looked around as if the answer would reveal itself, but no clarity came.

A scrapping sound echoed from the wall near the entrance as the animal pawed against the door. And in her mind, Aryel came up with a solution or at least some way of staying safe. Pa had a rifle, some old weapon that he had owned for as long as she could remember. She and her brother had once got it out to look at it some years back. That had certainly been a bad idea, she had never seen her pa so mad, and both she and Martyn had certainly felt his anger over that little stunt.

Still, she knew that he kept it underneath his bed. The rifle was always loaded and only required turning the safety on the gun off before it could be used. Maybe if I can just find it, I’ll be safe, she figured. She crawled along the floor, dodging the debris that was scattered about the room. Of her ma, Pa, or Martyn, there was no sign of anything. Thinking about the blood back on the floor made her sick. She knew that pool couldn’t be the extent of the viscera either. She feared what she might find if she looked more closely about that room.

A few strides brought her into her parent’s room. The room was almost vacant, looking as it normally did when neither of her parents was there. The bed lay up against the wall and the dresser was rested at the side of the wall. Both of the pieces of furniture were completely untouched. No windows peaked outside to the surrounding fields either, just the doorway back to the dining room. Pa had always said that was a luxury they couldn’t afford and didn’t need anyway.

The sounds of scratching still echoed through the walls, and she realized with increasing anxiety that the sound was now coming from the wall that the dresser stood against. On the other side of that wall, maybe three feet away from her, the keyl was trying to get in. She remained frozen in her place for several seconds until she finally managed to draw on some unknown strength of will to go over to the bed.

Reaching underneath the bed, her hand blindly flopped around in the empty space. Had he taken it? She almost let out a sigh of relief when her hand finally grasped the cold metal barrel of the gun. She dragged it out, and checked inside the gun to make sure it was loaded.

She had never actually fired a gun and had only held one—this one—once, but she had watched Pa enough to know what to do. The rifle was loaded and waiting and she flicked the safety on the gun to the off position. She realized how redundant such a feature on the gun was. A gun by itself never was safe even when the trigger was locked. She hoisted the gun up, holding it awkwardly. I don’t remember it being this heavy, she thought to herself.

She looked from wall to wall, waiting for the sounds to come back. The scratching had gone silent, but she knew the animal had to still be outside. It wouldn’t just leave like that. She paused. Was that a scratch? She turned towards the entrance of the cabin. Was it trying to get in through the door? That chair won’t be able to hold a person back, much less an animal that size.

She closed the bedroom door, and after a few moments, started dragging the bed up against the door as well. She groaned under the weight of it and the thing wouldn’t budge. The bed was made of copper-bark trees, which were rather heavy to begin with. This thing almost seemed to be immovable until she got it moving after a few hard exertions. She looked to the dresser as well, thinking of moving that to block the door as well.

A single pull told her that the dresser wasn’t going anywhere. And she doubted she would have time to have moved it anyway. A loud snap and the splintering of wood told her that the outer door to the cabin that she had braced with the chair had been broken open. She realized she had forgotten to throw the metal lock shut.
She whimpered with fear, but Aryel held the gun up and pointed it in the direction of the door. Maybe the bed could hold. Maybe. She didn’t realize she was shaking with fright for several moments until she realized the gun was likewise vibrating in her grasp. She could hear the sounds of objects being moved around as the keyl moved through the room, trying to get at her.

Soon the scraping started on the door, a little a first, but then it became louder and more pressed. She could see the door bend under the weight, but it was made copper-bark like the bed. It wouldn’t break that easily. A loud thump echoed through the room and she almost fired the gun in response. The door buulged sharply but held. The animal was trying to force it just as it had done with the other door.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t fire the shots into the door. I might miss; I might not even penetrate the door. As much as she hated to admit it, she would have to wait for a clear shot. And that was the last thing she wanted. For to get a clear shot meant nothing between her and the animal.

She crouched down on the ground, but held the gun steady as the clawing continued for a moment and then stopped. Then the entire cabin went dead silent, and all Aryel could hear was her own breaths and her heart beats. She felt exhaustion pawing at her like some starved animal but she knew that she wouldn’t sleep a wink tonight. Deep down, she knew she probably wouldn’t survive the night.

Chapter 1: Shadow Man (Part 2)

Find Samuel Matthews

The screen went dark and the door behind the boy whisked open. He spun around just as three men came rushing through the door, each of them holding small silver rods; the ends point at the boy glowed red, and the rods made a low buzzing noise that grew louder and higher until the whole room was filled with a piercing whine so awful the boy covered his ears almost without meaning too. The men in white spread out as they piled into the room, their dark eyes focused on him, and the boy stepped back, pressing his bare back against the smooth, cold surface of the pedestal.

More men in white crowded the corridor outside the door, he could see them milling about and shouting at one another, and at the three men already inside the room. Why didn’t they all come in to catch him? He’d never be able to escape so many. They must think three men more than enough to corner him. Even if he made it past these three, he’d never get past the others.

The door slammed shut behind the three men—one of them cursed under his breath but none made a move towards the boy. Which was good, because the whine from the three red-tipped rods was making it hard for him to focus on anything. The sound was beyond painful, it felt like a pair of the sharp needles the Watchers used to poke and prod him during examinations were being pushed into his ears. He couldn’t move . . . he could hardly breath. The whining buzz rose even higher, and the boy fell to his knees. His vision blurred and doubled as he gasped for air, but still the men stayed back, huddling close to the wall. Why didn’t they come and take him? At least that would stop the noise.

The man standing between the other to pointed at the boy and shouted, “Get him! Get him now!” He sounded so scared that the boy would have laughed had he been able to breath. The other two men glanced at each other, one of them shaking his head. Neither moved. Red in the face like he’d been running all day, the first man grabbed the one on his right by the shoulder and pushed him forward. “Take him now, dammit! That’s an order! Hurry before something happens!”

The man he’d pushed muttered some word the boy hadn’t ever heard before and took another step forward. His partner on the left glanced one more time at the first man, the followed the other man towards the boy. When they were two steps away their rods clicked loudly, and the pulsing red light at their tips flashed to bright blue. The piercing noise vanished with the red light, and the boy gasped in relief, falling forward on his hands. The blue light coming from the two rods grew brighter and brighter and began to crackle and pop, tiny flashes of light leaping from the tip and snapping in the air.

“All right you little freak,” one of the men said, “Don’t move.”

The other man reached out slowly with a trembling hand, moving to grab the boy by the back of his neck. He didn’t understand what was happening—too many weird things had happened today for him to understand any of it—but the boy did understand one thing: if the men caught him, if they even managed to touch him, they’d put him back in his tube. He’d be stared at and pocked and prodded and cut by the Watchers, and he’d never be free again.

He couldn’t let that happen.

The man’s fingers were inches from his skin when the boy jerked back, rolling up onto his feet faster even than he would have thought possible.

He’d never spoken to another person before, not that he could remember, but he put all his strenght into one word, one sound that he screamed as loud and as long as he could:

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The room exploded. The banks of screens running the perimeter of the room shattered, jagged shards of glass and metal ripping through the air. The computer pedestals dotting the floor burst open, sparks racing across their bent and twisted surfaces, monitors and screens flipping through the air, crashing and rupturing against the walls and ceiling and floor. Fire, smoke and steam boiled out of the broken pedestals and gaping lines of missing screens, throwing the whole room into an even deeper darkness. The two men who’d approached the boy barely had time to scream before they were blown away, caught up in the rain of glass and heat. Then, almost faster than it had started, the storm was over.

The boy stood alone in the middle of the room, heart thumping so hard it felt ready to jump out of his chest, bits of glass that lodged in the ceiling tinkling down through the smoke aorund him. A screen that had somehow remained upright during the explosion crashed to the floor behind him and the boy jumped with a strangled shriek, hurriedly stepping down from the raised pedestal, bare feet crunching painfully across chips of broken glass.

The room was a disaster, every monitor blown, every light out. The four walls bowed outward, like a giant or something had pounded them out of shape. Smoke still swirled in the air, lit now and then by the harsh glare of sparks leaping from exposed wires. Alarms were blaring again, but they sounded thin and hollow, like they were far away. Air hissed loudly somewhere off to the right and the boy shivered. He could feel it getting colder. There were three limp shapes huddled against the walls, two to the boy’s left and right that he tried not to look at, and one slumpled against the door.

As for himself, the boy thought he was okay. His arms and legs were trembling, his feet hurt where the glass had cut him, his chest was still heaving, but other than that he was fine. Something, a quiet voice in the back of his head, whispered that this wasn’t right, that the glass and fire should have cut and burned him, that he should have been thrown from his feet like the three men where weren’t moving anymore. He shouldn’t just be . . . well, fine.

The man crumpled against the bottom of the door didn’t move when the boy tapped him on the shoulder, but the door behind him tried to slide open. It got caught less than half way open, and when the boy bent closer to investigate, he saw that it had been bent outwards somehow, like something had hit it. With a squeal of gears the door tried to open again. There was a grinding sound from inside the wall and then a shower of sparks rained down around the boy and the door ground to a halt. It was stuck.

There should be just enough room to squeeze through, the boy decided, after studying the thin opening for a moment. Just one problem: the man was still laying in the way; one of his arms had flopped out into the hallway.

He tried pushing the man through the opening first, but his stomach was too big, so he settled on dragging the man by his thick wrists. Being so close to the man was unnerving, and as he pulled and tugged the body across the floor, the boy tried to keep most of his body as far away as possible. The man was heavy, and despite the chill that seemed to be creeping into the room from all sides, the boy soon worked up a sweat. To make things worse, the man smelled strange. The boy didn’t recognize the odor, but whatever it was it was strongest near the man’s face, and it made the boy’s stomach growl.

By the time he managed to get the big man away from the door the boy was shivering, despite the slick of sweat on his skin. His breath steamed in small white puffs in front of his eyes as he picked his way carefully through the glass back to the door. Unlike the man’s fat stomach, the boy slid through the opening without a problem.

Outside the room the hallway had gone dark, save for the still-flickering light directly above. He could see the nearest tubes on either side, but beyond them everything was shrouded in darkness. The alarms that had been blaring right after the explosion had been silenced, and the only sound the boy could hear was the faint sigh of air rushing past him into the room, nice and warm on his chilled skin. He frowned. There hadn’t been a wind before. At least it was warmer in the hall.

Not only was the hallway dark, it was empty too. The crowd of men he’d seen through the doorway was nowhere to be seen. He tried to peer throught he darkness to either side, hoping to find some sign of where the men had gone, but he couldn’t see anything. It was too dark, and he didn’t want to step out of the dim light. Not at all.

The light flickered again, and something moved in the darkness beyond the tubes to the boy’s right. He gasped, spinning around to face the motion. He couldn’t see anything but the pitch blackness. Eyes wide, the boy kept watching, heart pounding in his throat.

Something moved again, a shape so inky black it made the shadows around it seem bright. The shape slid forward towards the boy, sucking in the shadows around it. The boy should have been able to see it better as it came closer to the light. Instead, the pale light seemed to retreat from the oncoming shadow. A wave of solid darkness rolled towards the boy, who scrambled backwards until he was hugging the far edge of the small circle of light.

Only once it was so close the boy could have reached out and touched it did the shadow stop, rearing up until it filled the hallway from one wall to the other, so dense and dark that the boy couldn’t even see the nearest tubes anymore. The shadow moved like steam, rolling and boiling inside of itself, thin tendrils like black fog waving gently in the air.

His eyes must have still been adjusting, because the boy suddenly realized he could see a person inside the black cloud. At least, it was a shape like a person. Only it looked too tall and too thin, with long arms and legs bent at odd angles. He could see eyes too, two points of light that glowed a sickly green-and-white deep inside the cloud of darkness. The sound of breathing filled the hallway, a long slow sighing that rattled the boy’s chest, and the Shadow Man took another step forward.

The boy was afraid. More afraid than he’d ever been in his entire life. Even the Watchers and their helpers in white uniforms hadn’t terrified him like this. He tried to scream, but his throat locked. He couldn’t run . . . he was surprised his legs hadn’t collapsed alread. The chill that had filled the room seeped out into the hallway, and his teeth started chattering, the snot in his nose froze and the sweat on his skin turned to ice.

Again the Shadow Man moved closer, leaning down to stare at the boy. Icey fingers that he couldn’t see ran over his bare scalp and then the boy’s throat unlocked and he screamed as those invisible fingers dug into his brain. He could feel the Shadow Man digging through his mind, searching, hunting. Hunting for what? The boy cried out again and fell to his knees as his mind was turned inside out.

The boy realized he was going to die.

And then the Shadow Man disappeared

The lights in the hallway switched on one by one, racing away from the boy on either side, bathing the tubes in their harsh white glare, and the boy squeezed his eyelids shut against the too-bright light. The air was warm again, so warm that it almost felt hot, and the frozen sweat on his arms and legs melted, running down his body and pattering on the metal beneath his feet.

When he finally opened his eyes, the hallway was empty except for the his brothers and sisters in their tubes, and himself.

Somehow, that didn’t make the boy feel any better.

Apologies, I know this is two posts in a week, but I wrote this out today and wanted to get some feedback.

Questons:

1) I'm trying to keep the writing a lot more simple in this book than in Spear of the Ancients. How does it read to ya'll?

2) are there any parts you got confused with?

3) How is my description of the surroundings? Confusing at any point?

4) Suggestions?

Chapter One: Storms from the North (Part 3)

“And you expect the boy to believe that, Uthar?” Danel interjected, “Even a man as . . . eloquent as yourself may find it hard to explain eighteen years of secrets and lies.”

If Uthar’s face had been a thundercloud before, now it was a firestorm, staining his face red as he whirled back and forth between Ethyn and Danel like a cornered polecat, first shaking a fist at Danel with a strangled, “Get out of here. Now!” then spreading upturned palms towards Ethyn and—in a pleading tone that was somehow worse than the unrestrained rage directed at Danel—said, “Ethyn, please. Don’t pay this fool any mind. I will explain everything.”

“There is no time to explain anyting.” Danel cut in smoothly again, taking a bold step back towards Ethyn—which conveniently put him a little further away from Uthar. “I understand your mistrust of me. Yes, I even your hate. The Ward alone knows you have a good enough cause for it. If it was in my power to bring your father back I would. But that authority is not given me, and you’ll have to resign yourself to that truth another time. Tonight you have a decision to make. If you value your son’s life, you must put your feelings aside and do as I say. The Enemy has found you out.”

The color drained from Uthar’s face and he glanced over his shoulder, back towards the house and the road to Grand Crossing. When he turned back, however, his features may as well have been etched from the steel he worked with.

“Leave now.”

Danel grunted. “Didn’t you hear me? Your secret is lost, Uthar, your precious Family located.” One frail hand pointed west, towards the village proper. “The darkspawn will descend on this village just as they did on Mattham.” The light from the forge sputtered, flashing like blood on Uthar’s suddenly drawn face.

For his part, Ethyn could only gawk, his mind reeling with each new word. Each new word spawned a thousand questions, but the Ward ban him, the only question he could focus on was: Mattham? Who was Mattham?

Danel’s voice drove forward, relentless as a pounding hammer. “Your friends and neighbors will be slaughtered, farms and buildings burned, just as it was in the north. With luck you and some few of your Family will escape with your lives, the pitiful remnant of a bloodline hunted since the end, five thousand years ago, a diminished remnant of a promise broken long ago.”

As he spoke, Danel seemed to regain some of the confidence he had exuded back when he’d first appeared, voice gaining strength and shoulders squaring back. For his part, Uthar shrank in on himself. Danel’s words were a knife in the blacksmith’s gut, and the old man just kept twisting the blade deeper.

“You’ve played the fool for the better part of twenty years, man,” Danel growled. “Don’t make your son suffer for your mistakes.” To that, Uthar said nothing, and Danel pressed on, real emotion lacing his ragged deep voice for the first time. Hope. Hope and something else. Could it be excitement? “Let me take Ethyn. Let me take your son away where the Shadow will never find him. With him gone, you and the Family will be forgotten. You’ll be free. Free to live out your life in peace and plenty with your wife and daughters at your side. Free, Uthar. What more can a man ask for?”

The flow of words ended, Danel pressed his parchement lips closed, and still Uthar said nothing.

“Da?” Alarm fluttered in Ethyn’s voice, but he barely noticed. Was Uthar actually listening to the old man? Did he believe Danel’s wild tale? Darker questions lurked deeper, ice on his spine, but try as he might Ethyn could not ignore them. Would Uthar really trade Ethyn for a promise of peace?

Seconds—less than two heartbeats—passed before Uthar gathered himself, but it felt like an eternity to Ethyn. His da shook his head and rolled his great shoulders, lips writhing in an argument only he could hear. Then deep sea gray eyes met Ethyn’s, and his da smiled gently.

Striding past Danel, Uthar ducked into the smithy only to return and plant himself alongside Ethyn. His da wrapped one heavy arm around Ethyn’s shoulders, pulling him close, and a flood of relief so strong it set Ethyn’s knees trembling and his eyes stinging. He barely noticed the horn Uthar held up in his other hand, waving the old battered instrument under Danel’s nose. The old man must have smelled the dust and old metal—Ethyn had never seen the hunting horn taken down from its pegs on the wall, not in all his life—because Danel stifferend, his mouth turning down in a deep frown.

“Uthar, don’t be rash.”

Uthar’s voice made ice seem hot. “You’re a bigger fool than I ever guessed, Danel Terram, if you think I’d ever let my son walk away with you. My father would rise from the dead to stop my own heart if I ever let that happen, and I’d welcome him to it with open arms.” He jabbed Danel in the chest with the flaring mouth of th horn, forcing the old man back a step. “I’d tell you that ten of my kin live within the earshot of this place, but no doubt you already know that. Walk away right now Danel, and there’ll be no more trouble between us. But this is your last chance. Say one more word and I’ll call the Family down on your head, and mark my words, there will be a hanging tonight.”

Ethyn stiffened, pulling away just far enough to turn and stare incredulously at his da. Hang the old man? This was a side of Uthar Hardric he’d never seen, never would have guessed existed. Anxiously he searched his da’s blocky face for some sign that the older Hardric man was bluffing. He found none. If Uthar’s deep-set eyes had been swords, Danel would have already been dead.

Danel, too, seemed to sense that there was no lie in Uthar’s threat. The old man swallowed once, then swallowed again, nervously fingering the last remaining button on his threadbare coat. Any man facing two hundred pounds of murderous blacksmith would have run—should have run—and Ethyn wouldn’t have thought any less of them. Faith, he would have died of fright had his da even been a quarter so angry with him. But Danel Terram’s spine must have been slow-forged twice over, because the man didn’t move. The opposite, in fact. With a deep breath that sounded like it might be his last, Danel actually took two measured steps forward and leaned in until he was almost nose to nose with Uthar.

“I ran once, Uthar Hardrc,” the old man whispered, and his voice chilled Ethyn to the bone. Faith. How could a man sound so . . . so empty? “I ran once and have paid for it a thousand times over since then. I think, shoudl it come it, I would welcome death now. But I have a work to do, one chance to redeem myself.” Danel leaned back and squared his shoulders, a man ready to die. “I cannot leave. Ethyn must come with me, and he must come now.”

For a moment, Uthar just stood there, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. Then he growled, a feral rumble deep in his throat. Ethyn closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer for Danel’s soul. Danel and Uthar’s souls.

Then Uthar blew the horn.

Ok, my main question is: how is the thread of the story developing? Too fast, too slow, or just right? Are you interested in what's happening? Does this post alter your perception of any of the characters? How is the dialogue? Does it seem like Danel is revealing enough of his purpose to you, or too much or too little?

Danel's Theme

So, continuing with out little inspiration thread, here's a link to a song that--to me, at least-- really seemed to capture Danel's character (if you don't remember who he is, check out my last post labeled under Spear of the Ancients.

After you've listened to it, tell me if this seems like a good fit or not . . . I'd be interested to know. Of course, I know the entire story and you don't, so its a bit unfair.

Later . . .

The Clouds Over Mel Bay: Prologue Part II

August 12, Mel Bay, Oregon

Black.

Black slacks.

Black suit jacket.
Shiny black buttons on a faded black button up shirt perfectly pressed.
Black pin stripes and black tie with the first hint of light from diagonal white stripes. The tie covering his heart. Ira Conrad imagined his heart was pumping dark blood through his veins. Blood that was perhaps a crimson so deep it was a shade of black as well. Ira imagined the blackness seeping through limbs and erupting from his chest—the pain was so real that it was hard to believe it was an emotion and not a physical or literal ailment.

Ira suppressed a hiccup and gripped his shirt with a fist.
Ira stared down at the closed casket. More black; a shimmering darkness that reflected Ira’s own image on its smooth glossy surface. He naturally laid his other hand against the box. He could barely hear others in mourning passing behind him, sniffling, or weeping. Some sighed heavily as they passed. Ira could see their faint reflection in the casket’s mirror like surface; holding white handkerchiefs. Ira wondered why they weren’t black.
He wanted to cry too. He wanted to let it all drain out like a pressure cooker that’s lost its seal. It would relieve a certain amount of agony, but he couldn’t do it. It was almost like he wanted to cling to the agony. To make sure he paid for the loss—paid for it a thousand times over.

Ira was sitting in a pew with his mom, Stephanie Conrad. She wiped tears from her eyes with a white handkerchief as well. Everything seemed to echo in the Cathedral. There seemed to be so many shadows, and the only light was filtered by stained glass windows, depicting Saints with curled fingers and bowed heads. Ira noted the blaze of light surrounding each of their heads like a halo. Their long red garments bathed the light and turned it a transparent red, like Christmas lights. Much of the Cathedral reminded Ira of Christmas. He supposed that made sense.
The Cathedral smelled old. It smelled of dust and wood. It smelled of death.
One by one speakers mounted the pulpit. Ira recognized them but was in no hurry to recall their relation to Cole. They became a rumbling in the back of his mind; a mind tossed to and fro. Guilt to agony and back again.
The memories crashed into his cranium. Ira leaned forward and held his head in his hands. No. You don’t have to gruel over this again!!! But the memories only came with more fury. The phone in his hand.
“…Are you busy tonight?”
The lie.
The stupid girl. The distraction. The stupor of thought.
Ira held his face. The first tears wetted his palms. They smelled of salt. They didn’t solve anything. Ira sat wondering if he would ever be whole again. He didn’t want to be—he wanted to pay for this. Pay for it a thousand times over.

Ira gripped the casket once more; this time accompanied by several others whom Ira recognized but could not put a name to. The bulky box was heavy even with 6 men lifting. Ira fought back more tears as they hauled the box from the hearse to a perfectly rectangular hole cut out of the grassy hillside.
There was a gusting wind whipping through the cemetery. It seemed to ripple off headstones and crash into the mourning procession. Women’s hats were thrown off, and men’s ties flapped like kite tales. There was sun too; a bright glowing sort of summer sun. It was a happy sun.
What inconvenient weather. It should have rained.
Ira turned his back as the first shovels of dirt and pebbles were tossed back into the hole. He shut his eyes and tried to disappear, but the sound of mud and rock on the hollow casket beat like a drum in his mind—thump.
He wanted to cover his ears. Panic seemed to well up in his throat—thump.
Each crumbling thump seemed to shake Ira to the core. Tears were streaming again. His feet were moving. The tree, he stumbled behind it. Coming to his knees he gripped a handful of grass and set his head against the tree’s trunk.
Guilt! Loss! Guilt! Loss! Thump thump thump. Wind.
Thump. The wind seemed to convey the sound of his lost friend’s last existence as it was suppressed by dirt and mire—thump.
Or was he imagining the sound—thump.
You will not be forgotten. THUMP!
I will pay for this a thousand times over. THUMP!