Thoughts and Posts

Recently, I've been very busy. And, to my dismay (yet unexpectedly), I found that my catalog of unpublished short stories and tidbits has dwindled to a trickle. I still have plenty of stories, but not many that are good. Those that are I want time to polish.

Point is, this will be a short one, because I won't be posting regularly anymore! Saturdays were my go-to to get this website started, and I've gone strong for over six months. I've seen tremendous growth from myself, knowing I have to put something out there every week, and on that front I'm happy.

But I don't want to keep churning things out for the heck of it. So I'm switching from a weekly post to, hopefully, something like monthly. I'm working on an audiobook-style reading of one of my stories, a Welcome to Hearth page that shows off my map and a few important areas, and other fun treats, many of which are coming soon!

That being said, I've added a link to follow the blog in the header of the website! Just click the three horizontal lines, put in your email in the slot, and follow.it should take care of the rest! (We'll have to see how it works; I'm not too thrilled by follow.it based on some reviews, so this might change.)

In the meantime, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you'll stick around for what's to come next!

Cheers!

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Good Pay (Short Story)

JEROME SAT ON A PILE OF MOSSY BLOCKS AND WEARILY SET HIS HALBERD BY HIS SIDE.

It was too late for this. Jerome was too tired for this. How could they possibly expect to find a single woman sneaking through a city three miles across when they didn’t even know what direction she was approaching from?

And yet, Captain Kalorn insisted that they not rest until they find her. Jerome needed this job, and he couldn’t return to Lothrame without gaining at least one rank for his House. He sighed, watching one of his fellow Knights tromp up to him, and got to his feet.

“Anything?” he asked Belore. The wiry man shook his head and adjusted the loose helmet.

“She’s a wraith, I swear. Some sort of shadow—do they have shadow Veins? They’ve got to, if she exists.” Belore took Jerome’s spot and sat, discarding his onto one knee.

Jerome let out a sigh from deep in his chest. “Maybe.” He cast a glance over the shoreline, the last traces of the sun dancing in little spots on the waves. At least this wasn’t one of the jobs his friends in the corp had been assigned. When they were just Gallants, fresh into the Knights, the position had been so glamorous.

A full suit of steel armor, Foundried to fit your measurements perfectly. The beautiful red feather inscribed on the hilt of their swords, pay, and good pay, not dock work pay like Jerome was used to. A place to call your own, a way into the Houses for your future descendants.

It was perfect. Why hadn’t it stayed that way?

The longer he’d been in the Knights, the more of a blind eye he’d turned. He hadn’t seen his friends for years. It had been…what, seven years since they had joined?

He hadn’t stomached a position in Lothrame. He had seen too many people trampled upon in the name of freedom. This was better. Here, he wouldn’t make a fuss. Here, he could do his job, take his rounds, and retire to the ringside tiny shack he had at nights and slowly, meticulously, make his way through that wonderful bottle of Axis whiskey.

Belore slapped hands on his knees and stood, shocking Jerome from his stupor. “You ready, pard? We’ve got us a girl to catch.”

Jerome muttered something, and he wasn’t even sure what it was. He and Belore were quickly intercepted by one of the captain’s runner boys, who told both of them to search the coastline on the western side of Gansmead. They followed the young boy, slowly, but surely.

The sun was fully down now, and six of the moons shone bright enough to light the whole ocean. Clumps of Knights stood on the docks, staring with naked eyes out at the dark waves, seeing nothing. One of them, a few docks down, lit a torch to see by, but it was quickly and furiously snuffed out.

There was a tense silence as they watched the water. Then the captain stormed up, voice rough and breath reeking with the stench of alcohol. The nasty stuff, Jerome reckoned.

He shoved a bow first into Jerome’s hands, then into Belore’s.

“You see the signal, you fire. Got it?”

Belore glanced at Jerome and asked the question both of them were thinking. “Shoot…the girl?”

The captain stared at them with a dull expression, eyelids drooped and mouth tilted down in disdain. “Yes, shoot the damned girl! What do you think you’ve got bows for, rotting idiots?”

The captain stumbled off, slurring more orders to other Knights down the line. Jerome looked at the bow in his hands. He knew how to fire one, of course. All Knights did. But…he had never shot something…someone…alive.

He strung it nonetheless—more out of habit than anything—and watched those around him do the same. Then a torch, unlit, was shoved into his hand. “Light this,” said one of the Knights, “once there’s a candle on the water. Light your arrows, then fire.”

Jerome’s hand shook holding it. It didn’t take long to dawn on him what they were to do. It wouldn’t be a person, but a ship that they’d hit. A ship…with the girl on it?

He squinted out at the waves and wondered what a position in Lothrame would have been like. Maybe he could have worked in the offices, away from combat. Maybe even pursue the Savant road, and make a living in his quarters.

Would that be such a poor life?

Belore nudged him. “What’s that?” Jerome looked where he pointed and saw nothing. Then some of the starlight on the water vanished, replaced by…something moving over the water.

Belore shook his head; he didn’t see it. “Never mind.”

But now that Jerome had caught it, he could not let it go. He tracked the thing as it rocked across the waves, silent, unseen. His hands jostled, making a racket with his bow and torch.

This wasn’t what he had signed up for. This…he didn’t kill people. Not women, not men. He didn’t kill anyone! Who else was on that ship? Children? How many lives did he hold in his hands right now?

“You alright, mate?” one of the Knights asked. “You’re shaking like the reeds.”

Jerome tried to shove some confidence into his voice, but it came out crackled and shaky. “I’m fine. I’m…fine.”

There was an arrow nocked in his bow. He could make a diversion. Maybe…

A candle flickered, bright, out on the water. “There!” someone yelled.

All around him, bow strings drew taught. Fire was touched to his torch, already lit. Wrapped, oiled arrows set alight, then nocked. Jerome’s was too, pointed high into the night sky. He didn’t even have time to think about it. He didn’t…he didn’t do this! He had never wanted to do this!

“Fire!” came the command.

Jerome obeyed. There were a hundred twangs as arrows whistled into the night. Arching high, flying true. Jerome watched in horror as his own shot rained down upon the little boat.

And…and then the arrows stopped, held as if by a hundred hands, in a bubble around the boat. Not touching it. The pinpricks of shivering light that should have sunken it paused for a moment that stretched beyond seconds, beyond heartbeats. A miracle of power, something which no Solid Vein was capable of.

The arrows were cast asunder, plopping into the water harmlessly. The candle went out. The boat disappeared.

The Knights were silent. Captain too. And they all watched nothing as their mark escaped into the night, unharmed, alive.

Jerome dropped to his knees and put his head into his hands.

And that was Good Pay! This one actually takes place during Book 1 of Namemaker, during the midway point. I wrote it in my writing group, with a prompt I came up with to give the perspective of an unimportant character witnessing a big point in your plot.

I'm decently happy with it. While not perfect, it captures the tension I wanted to add to the Knights, and how some of them felt. A strangled complicity from those involved.

The Capacity for Pain

I hadn't planned on posting anything this weekend, because praise the Lord, my wife and I just closed on our first house! We're in the long and involved process of painting the house, re-painting the cabinets, cleaning, and getting it prepped to move into.

But all of this has gotten me thinking. I'm a software engineer for work, and my hobbies beyond writing include rollerblading, running, reading, and pickleball. I've enjoyed kayaking down Florida rivers, hiking up the slopes in Colorado and Oregon, and exploring my nearby forests and neighborhoods.

I was reminded of how blessed I am. Because instead of these things—walking, hiking, carrying boxes and bottles and beds—being a necessity, I do them for fun. That's crazy.

Some people are not as fortunate. Many are not.

I just finished CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders. I know I have a section for book reviews, but since writing one for Foundryside, I haven't known how I want to do them. But that's irrelevant.

I highly recommend it. It does an excellent job highlighting various worlds in which many unfortunate people struggle to get by, struggle with injustice, struggle with pain and sorrow and things outside of their control. It grapples with people, real, human people down on their luck and taken advantage of by others.

It got me thinking too. George Saunders had an author's note at the end explaining some of his life and the situations he went through to get where he was, how he ended up writing most of the short stories in CivilWarLand. He didn't have it easy. He didn't have it incredibly hard, but it wasn't a walk in the park.

There's something about experiences like that that change us. That grow us.

I remember my brother-in-law, who was on a rowing team for four years, explain to me the capacity for pain that people must have.

Not only do I think that's a wonderful book title, but I also believe it. We, as humans, need pain. Need struggle. Need failure. That, in many ways, is why I believe we have suffering in the world.

That is not to say that there is not undue suffering, or even that all has a purpose. There are people beheaded in the streets, children stripped from their mothers, missiles raining down on innocent civilians and ripping through homes like paper mache. That's not to mention the starvation, plague, and corruption that piles on it like a stinking mound of horse crap.

The world isn't perfect, not by a long shot. But those of us, those who have it good, have it easy, have it peaceful, we need this capacity. We need struggle in our lives, from the smallest of things in sanding cabinets to larger, longer stretches of tight budgets, because it reminds us to be grateful. To see the good in what we have.

There's a quote by Glokta in Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged that sets a sour mood towards suffering, but makes sense given Glokta's story: "It’s a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself."

I sat on that quote for a long time. In a cynical, Glokta-stained worldview, that's true. What else is there to do with pain than to dwell on it a spiral down forever? But there's more; there's better.

Pain might not always have a purpose. Failure might not always be necessary. Suffering might not lead to success. But one thing is true:

In all these things, we can persevere, we can learn, and though we will feel abandoned, there is an eternal hope we can rest in.

Keep it up. Take it one day at a time, even when it seems like everything could crumble around your feet at any moment.

You'll make it. And if you don't, you can always get back up.

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Insurmountable (Short Story)

A CHILL WIND BIT AT PEROHIM'S NOSE, HIS HANDS, HIS NECK. It made him smile. Golden wheat fields spread around the base of Sebros Mountain, tickling his legs as they swayed in the breeze. With his cleaver strapped to his belt and a pack on his back, Perohim set up the slope toward the peak of a mountain that no man had ever returned from.

He knew cold well. In his shop, he stored meats in below-zero temperatures and often had to work in that environment to keep them fresh. He knew creatures well, the soft spots where sinew met muscle, the perfect ways to dissect anything that stood in his path.

It was while butchering a boar that he had decided on this. He had seen dragons—everyone had—but no one knew them as well as he did. Had he faced one before? No. But he had carved ones head from its corpse after being asked to do so for a knight.

This was possible for him. He would not fail—could not fail. There was no mountain, no monster, dragon, or beast of the land that could stand in his way. Knights had refused to conquer Sebros Mountain after several of their kind failed to slay the beast on top.

But Perohim would be different. He didn’t have family in the village, but he knew them. Butchered meat for them. He could slay a beast for them.

The air grew colder a hundred feet up, but Perohim was prepared for this. He was swathed in warm clothes several layers deep, and he knew how to fight in them. This could not best him.

Perohim crested a large boulder already covered in snow and stopped by it. He wasn’t even winded by this point. The winding road stretched out before him, crisscrossing up the mountain. It had not been well-made. Whoever had carved the path was hasty, or they weren’t allowed to finish at all. Perohim would have to cut through the second half. That did not bother him.

However many hurdles I have to face, and then it will be over. I will return with the head of the beast, be heralded as a hero, and return to my butchering. At peace.

Perohim knew he would. He carried on, pumping his legs and easily crossing fallen trees, deep pits, and icy stretches.

Then he came across the first body. A man lay strewn on the road, neck snapped, head lolling at a wrong angle. His armor was gnarled, his helmet crushed, already in the clutches of deep ice. It was a shame, to be sure, and Perohim bade him a restful eternity, but he would not be like the rest.

Around the next bend, he was assaulted by a ranka, a six-legged winged demon with a penchant for blood. He chopped into the thing’s shoulder with his cleaver and sent its corpse tumbling down the mountainside.

Other bodies lay in its wake, failed adventurers whose corpses had wilted from poison and age. He closed their eyes and carried on.

A path of ice stretched perilously ahead of him, but he steadied himself and shimmied across. When his foot slipped, he jammed his cleaver into the ground, calmed his breathing, and reached the end of the path.

The mountain road was nearing its end. Ice drove daggers into his sides and cut through the clothes on his back. I must be quick. I cannot survive on the mountaintop for long. He covered his nose and mouth with a cloth and trudged on.

A shadow crossed his path, and far above spread the wings of a dragon. It roared, sending a hail of snow and boulders down upon the mountain. Perohim looked up at it and gripped the hilt of his sword. Soon.

He crossed under the boughs of a fallen tree. Then he heard a voice cry out. A man, still alive, collapsed. Perohim came to his side and crouched beneath the snow-laden branches to look upon the figure.

He was a scrawny thing, and on his side were the telltale wounds of dragon’s fangs. The man had been thrown from the peak at first contact.

“What’s your name, boy?” said Perohim, brushing snow from the man’s face and eyes. His skin was pallid, almost blue. His ears were already turned black.

“Ah—I’m…Colin. Are you…an angel?”

Perohim shook his head. The dragon high above roared again. Colin coughed. “I…I’m so cold.”

“You will die up here,” he said quietly.

Colin gripped Perohim’s arm. There was no strength in it. “I can’t. Please, oh, God, please don’t let me die up here. I was so foolish.”

The wind howled, and Perohim cast his eyes to the heavens again. The dragon was up there, looming. Peace, finality, and greatness awaited at the top of this mountain. 

He sat beside Colin and held his hand. “Tell me of yourself, Colin.”

Colin shivered, cheeks missing all color. “I…I’m from a town down south. Uh…”

“Why are you up here, Colin?”

“I wanted to kill the dragon. It…it killed my sister, raided our farm.”

“I’m sorry.”

Colin laughed bitterly. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Killing it? I can’t bring her back.”

Perohim shook his head. “No.” The ice was getting in Perohim’s bones now. He didn’t know if he could stand. “Keep talking. What about your other family?”

“They told me I’m an idiot for coming up here. I…oh…” Colin curled in on himself. “I…I’m so cold.”

“I know.” Perohim put a hand over Colin’s eyes. “Sleep now. It’s alright.” It was difficult to move his arm, but the boy accepted it and closed his eyes. “Sleep…for an eternity.”

The boy perished. Perohim looked up, but he could not stand. His cleaver had frozen into the earth, and his legs were stuck despite the warm clothing. He could have killed the dragon, protected his people, lived in relative peace.

Instead…instead, he had ushered on one afraid soul from this life to whatever lay ahead of him. Somehow, that was better.

Perohim laid next to Colin and died.

That was Insurmountable, another short story from my writing group! Upon editing it, I realized the message had similar tones to Witness for the Dead, but I think the themes I hit with that one were somber in a different way. A bit more hopeful, too.

But I enjoyed this one. It's short and doesn't need to be (can't be, even!) longer. Thanks for reading! 

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The Wheel Turns (Short Story)

THE WHEELS OF TIME DO NOT ALWAYS TURN AS THEY SHOULD.

The flaws and ridges of the wheels bump on the well-worn road of life, tossing souls off the wagon though they were prepared for a longer journey. It might have been better for them to hold on a little tighter to the rails, but what is the joy in life when your only focus is the ending?

The wheels were poorly oiled the day Nylis was hanged. He bellowed with all the breath in his lungs that it was not his fault. That the world was cruel. That I am cruel, even. He may be right, should I follow the lead of my brothers and sisters to interfere with the lives of men. But I do not, so I am not. And poor Nylis was left kicking out the thieves' dance as the crowd watched on—eyes wide—some full of horror, others of vengeance, and more than a few of weary resignation.

You see, I knew this was coming. From the minute the desperate thought came to Nylis' mind, I knew there would be no averting this. For a man of his understanding, he had made few wayward decisions in his life. He had always tried to make the right choice, so when the time came to make it, he did not fret over the consequences. He just…did what must be done.

The problem was that, when the fears and woes of your fellow workers niggle at your ears in the early hours of the night, and you remember the life leaking from a goat when you clamped your hands around its neck for waking the sick child, and you see the old-age nobles throw your hard-earned money wherever their whim lands that day, you feel, as Nylis did, that you should make a decision.

A terrible thought. The Harbel family was old, stretching far into the past. Their patriarch and matriarch were worse for the wear, having struggled so to start this new, free kingdom just to fall to the same plights and pitfalls as the last. Nylis had wondered when they might pass on and leave the ruling to their only daughter, Kalia. But the hope that she would be different was weak. Raised by her parents, she would be much the same and marry some power-hungry, pin-headed brat of a nobleman. Together they would pilfer the money of Nylis’ coworkers in just the same way as those who came before them, and those who would come after them.

Did you know I was there, sitting in the unused chair in the corner of his bedroom, when Nylis decided to kill her? It was dark that night in the wooden shack Nylis called home. Some might call me cold—or evil, even—that I would let such thoughts stir in a man’s mind. That I would allow Kalia’s life to be snuffed out in such a plot. But, I remind you, I am the god of fate. Not of nagging thoughts or quiet sufferings. I only reign over what is to be, not what could. And so I watched.

The next day when he spoke his plan in a small whisper to his two closest friends, I listened. Poison, an architectural accident, even scraping their money together to hire an assassin—all these ideas were scrapped. Poison could be given to the wrong person. Accidents were too hard to plan. And an assassin, well, they kill for the highest bidder. 

It had to be one of them. Or two.

They chose Nylis and that man full of wrath, Kernden. Both had doubts, and both knew it might end with another pithless nobleman lording over their village, or worse, with a noose tightening around their necks. The Harbel family would last two, maybe three years with only the parents. They were far too old to have more children.

Of all the men to lose something, Nylis knew he was the best choice. No wife, no parents, no children who needed him. Only the rough calling to a dark business. He heeded it and made his choice.

When the time came, and they were standing on the walkway across from Kalia’s reading room on a bright day, Nylis knew he had to make a decision. The same one he had made at least a hundred times leading up to that day. When they bought the stewards’ attire, when they offered their services, when they spoke to the lords of the house with murder in their eyes. He had so many times made the choice, and here he was, making it again.

I stood at the half-open door, watching both of them. Watching Nylis and watching Kalia. She was ready, I knew, for death. It surprises me when one so young is prepared for their fate. But it happens every so often, as it did with Kalia. She was tired but fulfilled. Hopeful, yet sure. A mind like that makes me wonder what the world would be like if she had lived a little longer.

But it was not so. Nylis approached the door, grabbed the handle, twisted, and entered the cavernous reading room. Kernden stepped in behind him, and Kalia barely even noticed. She was absorbed with the shape of a cloud outside, and the end of a book she had finished, and how she knew, at some point, that everyone would forget her.

Watching Kalia think, Nylis stopped. He had made his choice. Finally, with no misgivings, with no decisions otherwise. And he would do what had to be done.

Nylis turned on one heel, nodded to Kernden, and strode for the door. There would be no deaths this day.

But Kernden had also made his decision. And, being such a god as I am, I knew his destiny as well. And when he stepped up behind Kalia’s chair, knife in hand, I could not bear to look. I had seen it already a thousand times in Kernden’s eyes: the blood, the quiet gurgle, the rage. And lastly, that terrible idea when he saw Nylis’s horrified face.

Kernden leapt for Nylis and cuffed him across the side of the face. The man, unprepared, dropped. He dragged Nylis over to Kalia’s corpse, dabbed her blood over his hand, face, and neck, and slipped the knife into his hands. Then, after a quick wash in Kalia’s basin, he put on the best horrified look he could—not unlike Nylis a minute earlier—and ran to the Harbel’s door in a fit.

Then he lied, and lied, and lied. And they sent guards up to Kalia’s reading room, and even once Nylis was awake, they did not believe him. And on the day he was to be hanged, when he pleaded with the prison keeper, he was not listened to. I listened.

When he was strung up to be hanged, my eyes were the only ones filled with tears. A man such as Nylis should not be thrown from the wagon in such a manner. But that which the wheel decides will and must happen. He died, and Kernden went free to be made lord of his little village when the Harbels passed away, for all that he had served them in their time of grief.

He lived a long life. And on his plush deathbed, while Kernden reflected on his many choices, I watched. I waited for his life to slip away, and at the moment it did, to catch his soul and deliver it into eternal judgment.

For his fate was not in the successes of this earth, but of an everlasting damnation in the choices of his past.

That was The Wheel Turns, another short story I wrote in my writing group! I came up with the prompt for this one: we created our own mythological god, then wrote a story from their perspective with the prompt: "In a freshly-established kingdom, the first murder has taken place: a young noble girl of only twelve. Nylis was blamed and hung for it, but claimed to the end that the fault lay elsewhere."

This god is Cetriphuse, the god of fate and destiny. (Can you tell I'm interested in fate?) I'd be really interested in writing more about him, and how he observes/interacts with the world. I felt pretty good about how I wrote his perspective, too.

I hope you enjoyed! Cheers!