Chapter Two

Meant to post this a while ago, but forgot. Better late than never, I reckon. =) It's a continuation of the story I posted earlier.

The Apocalypse Thief

Chapter Two

“Chain him,” the Captain snapped, guards approached, holding heavy shackles in their hands. Gareth unsheathed his knife, waving in front of the guards. 

“Stay back,” he warned. “It’s enchanted to explode on my mark.” A complete bluff, of course. The guards hesitated for a second, all he needed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small toy, a little bronze rat with wings and chips of diamonds for eyes. His last hope. His only hope. He threw it into the river, where it disappeared with a splash. 

Hurry, he thought. If you really want to help me, now would be a good time.

 

“It’s not enchanted,” the mage called. “It’s just an ordinary dagger!” 

“Then seize him!” 

Guards slapped heavy manacles on his wrist. 

“What did you throw overboard?” the Captain’s face was inches from him. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gareth said coolly. “If I did throw something, I’m reasonably confident you won’t find it now, not in the dark and not if it didn’t want to be found.” The Captain looked irritated. 

“They told me all about your tricks,” he snapped. 

“Not all of them,” Gareth said. “There’s one you haven’t heard about yet.” the Captain’s eyes narrowed. “See, if I have this friend…” 

At that moment, the river promptly exploded, an enormous wave of water sending the ship crashing into the riverbanks. Wood splintered, guards yelled, he heard the sound of crossbow bolts whizzing through the air. He risked a glance backwards and saw a giant mechanical river snake, rising from the water, its teeth whirring like drills, schematic diagrams drawn on its eyes. 

“Kill it!” the Captain yelled, and then grabbed Gareth by the shirt. “You think your little snake changes anything, Mr. Calistone? It doesn’t. Not by a long shot.” 

“Not my snake,” Gareth corrected. “A friend’s. Give credit where credit is due. And by the way? You’ve been eating way too much garlic. Your breath stinks.” 

He pushed the Captain away, into the shallows and started scrambling up the riverbank and to the city. As if on cue, the mechanical serpent bellowed, and the two jets of high pressure water fired from cannons hidden in the creature’s nostrils, forcing the guards back. There was a commotion now, people running out in astonishment at the giant metal serpent, which promptly leapt into the air, its sleek body curled into an O-shape, and then it disappeared back into the water with a loud splash. Ragged cheers and shouts rang up from the commoners and sightseers who had come out to watch all of the commotion.

Dan had always been a showman. The guards were now mostly unconscious. The patrol boat laid a splintered wreck at the bottom. That had been a bit too close for comfort. And they had a mystery on their hands: who had set him up like that? The why he could guess – he’d irritated enough of the noble families in the area, but the who eluded him. 

Another mystery for another day.

He swung by the keysmith’s shop, closed and dark now, and hammered on the door. A heavyset man answered it, a cranky look on his face.

“Gareth?” he asked, and then saw the shackles. “Oh. A night of fun, then?”

“Got out of hand,” Gareth said. “Can you get these off?” 

“Come in, then. Anything for a friend.” Gareth stepped inside, and sat down, holding his wrists up while, the keysmith began tinkering with the lock. 

“You been keeping up with the war?” the smith asked, while he tinkered with the locks on the manacles. 

“Not really, no. I lost track after we took Vargaze. I’m not much into politics.”

“Oh, I do. I debate it all the time at the inn. You should too. People should know about what’s going on.” 

“Well, enlighten me while you get those off.”

“Hmm. Nothing specific since Vargaze – lots of skirmishes. Our boys are dying, those Kaldonians aren’t giving up.” 

“Mmm.” 

“If you ask me, the best thing the Kaldonians could do is admit they’re part of Drynghelm now and get on with their lives. Kaldonia’s been conquered for what – ten years? Fifteen years? They’re just making things miserable on themselves and on us.” 

“I wouldn’t know,” Gareth said. “I make things pretty miserable on myself – and the government – doing what I do best.” 

“Oh – right,” the keysmith said. “They decided they’d had enough of you, then?” 

Gareth laughed. “I guess. It’s only thanks to Dan I got away.” One of the shackles fell open. He rubbed his wrist, already red from where it had been pushed into his flesh. 

“They won’t give up,” the keysmith warned, unlocking the second shackle and pulling the whole thing away from Gareth. “That new Captain of theirs is determined to reign in what he sees as rampant immorality and detractors from the war effort.” 

“And of course he goes after the most famous thief in the city.” 

“And the fact you’ve been stealing magical artifacts,” the keysmith noted dryly. 

“Oh, please. I doubt anything called ‘the Pendent of Seven Lovers’ is going to help anybody in the war effort,” Gareth snorted. “Or anyone else for that matter. Thanks for the warning, though.” 

He turned to go. “Take care of yourself.” 

“You too. Don’t let the guards capture you.” The keysmith said. Gareth stepped into the cool night air, and headed down the street, making his way back to the river and across a different bridge. The news would be all over the city by morning – how Gareth had been captured and then escaped. He’d be better off keeping a low profile for a few days. 

He reached the riverbanks – a different part this time – and then headed down a short flight of steps into a large apartment: a neat rectangle of water jutted into the middle of the floor, where the mechanical serpent from earlier now rose from the water, its head opened and a man muttering to himself while examining various bits and pieces. The mechanical rat he’d thrown into the river sat on a table. A balcony circled the top of the room, with several doors. 

“Thanks, Dan,” he called. “You got to me awful fast.” Dan looked up, a heavyset man with black hair and a two day old beard. 

“You realize they’re going to find us,” he grumbled. “And those guards banged up the serpent pretty bad. It took me two years to get the inner workings right. Two years! It’ll be months before it’s ready to use again.” 

“Then I’m just lucky you had it ready to use now. And relax. They’ve never found us before. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“They catch us and cut off our heads and then take apart my machines,” Dan said promptly. “No, wait. They cut off our heads and then draft my machines for use in the war effort. That’s the worst that could happen.” 

“Way to be optimistic,” Gareth said, sitting down in a chair and fiddling with the rat. “I’m glad you thought of taking that rat tonight.” 

“Yeah, yeah. You were captured by the King’s soldiers, nearly dragged to prison, etc. etc. Typical for you, right?”

“Not really,” Gareth said. “They tricked me. The guy I was supposed to get the artifact for was in league with the government, I think. Anyway, the artifact was a fake – a magical item designed to catch thieves.”

“Like you,” Dan said.

“I can’t help that there’s a market for pretentiously named artifacts,” Gareth said, in the most dignified voice he could muster. He could see Dan smile slightly and shake his head. 

“So, anyway,” he said. “I’m thinking I’m going to lay low for a while, maybe disguise myself. And do some detective work.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Dan grunted, and then turned his attention back to the river serpent. “I still think we should find somewhere else to hide, though. I’m telling you, they’re going to be all over this place. The new Captain –”

“We’ve met,” Gareth said ruefully. 

“Well, he’s a piece of work. He’s not going to stop.” 

“We can move if you want,” Gareth said, shrugging. “But we’ve put every warding and hiding spell on this place we can afford. Besides that, it’s not like I’ve never been chased by guards before now. And even if they get through all those, there are still all of your defenses on top of that. We’re good here.” 

“I reckon you’re right,” Dan said, now looking at the brains of the sea serpent. “I just get paranoid.”

“Paranoid does keep you alive. But we’ve been doing this for now long how?” Gareth clapped him on the back. 

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll find another enchantment to throw on here. I’m going to bed. I need to think about how to approach this anyway.”  

Dan had pulled a pair of goggles over his head. “Good night.” He had already set to work again on the sea serpent’s brain.

Planning by...Not Planning? (Or: A Revelation)

Wow, it's been a long time since I've done something with the blog, hasn't it? Well, maybe that will change. Maybe. Assuming I don't get sidetracked with other things again. Actually, I think I'm getting sidetracked talking about a blogging schedule that doesn't actually exist instead of what I'm wanting to talk about. To the discussion!

I was musing over writing (yes, this is going to be another rambling post about my writing. Sorry.), and thinking about all of the different projects I've tackled over the years, trying to figure out what I wanted to write, and then something just hit me, like a punch to the face. I realized something that my earlier body of work (including attempted rewrites of earlier projects, revisions and etc. etc.): I planned all of these by...not planning. 

That sounds contradictory, but it's really not. When I started writing, I didn't waste time trying to work out the details of a plot or setting, I didn't waste time trying to figure out the nuances of my characters in advance and I didn't plan out anything about the setting. I just...wrote and let things happen as they happened. And every single time I did that, the projects went somewhere interesting (and led to countless rewrites, revisions, editing and resulting in really giant folders stuffed with all sorts of world-building notes I attempted to expand upon what I'd written in the text.

Then, as time progressed, I stopped doing this and instead was trying to do extensive planning, note-taking and world-building before I actually wrote a single word of the draft. My reasoning, of course, was that the things I started tended to evolve into giant mega-projects comprising multiple books, countless subplots, more characters than I could shake a stick at and a deep, detailed world - all of which I thought needed to be planned out in advance before penning a single word of actual story and substance. This, in hindsight, was a particularly treacherous trap.

None of the projects I attempted to construct like this went anywhere - there were a few that felt like they started to go somewhere, but all of the notes turned out to be dead ends. None of them went on for longer than a handful of pages and all of it was either really broad strokes of a plot without any of the specifics, or just general world-building, a good deal of which amounted to background stuff that would have been a minor part of the plot had I actually wrote a draft of it. 

None of these later projects lasted particularly long and while there was promise in some of them, I never really did anything with any of them. Though I maybe will at some point. 

Then compared to the old way of doing things, when I just wrote a draft, tied and gagged my internal editor (and then threw him in a closet for good measure. Actually...when I first started writing, I don't think I had one) - I had a plot that appeared, character development, world-building. Stuff I could actually use. Those projects spawned a world and hundreds upon hundreds of pages. A project that went somewhere for once. I had something to show for my efforts.

Just jumping headfirst into a draft, no real planning other than the vaguest of thoughts on where I'm taking this (and constantly adjusting things along the way) led to results. Meticulous note-taking sent me to a dead end in the middle of nowhere land. Just writing the draft and letting the words flow, without worries about whether its good or not (I can deal with that in subsequent rewrites and editing sessions) leads to much more interesting developments than planning everyone out in advance.

This method of planning, basically, is perpetual NaNoWriMos, only with no word count and no deadline.

So - then why does this method work for me? The main reason is, I think, that note-taking is dull. I can't get invested in just saying these things. World-building sounds exciting (and it is) but doing it the way I was doing it is boring. World-building while writing the draft is much more interesting, because it feels more like I'm actually interacting with the world and discovering it. Thinking on it, that's actually one of the most fundamental laws of writing, isn't it? Show, don't tell. Readers (and apparently the guy writing this stuff) are engaged when you show them the world you've built, they're (I'm?) not when it's just a detailed laundry list of things like political structures of various governments, a write-up of the history of a fictitious religion, imports and exports of the countries and why its significant - blah, blah, blah. Boring.

Writing stories, on the other hand, is about as far from dull as I can imagine. For a long time, I fell into a rut and despaired of ever actually finding the spark again, finding what I loved about writing in the first. Then I tried doing things the old way - taking one of the newer projects and just jumping into it. Was it planned? Not really. I had a loose idea of the world and of a general plot, but that was about it. That was all note-taking had given me. Writing those things I mentioned above in a draft: characters meet members of the government, who give them problems, priests conduct ceremonies in the streets and proselytize about their faith that leads to interesting details that wouldn't have made it into the notes. Or maybe characters debate their particular theology, which both does world-building and character-building, simultaneously. Merchants complain about prices of those imports and exports. It's a million times more interesting and fun.

I remembered, as I was writing today, why I love writing fantasy so much. The sheer joy of creating a world, of watching a story unfold from my fingertrips, from seeing people, with different views and thoughts than mine, appear born from the silvery clouds of my thoughts. Just seeing what they're up to, how they interact, cheering for their successes, crying for their failures - it's an extraordinarily beautiful, exciting thing to see, something no amount of note-taking can ever really achieve. 

And not planning - just jumping into the story, with no notion of careful preparation, no particular thoughts about the plot, except for the vaguest, broadest possible ideas and letting it evolve and develop organically - results in far more substance and more detailed plans than the most meticulous amount of note-taking. I'm five pages into the draft of this project and already I've established things about the world that never once cropped up in my notes and learned a few things about the characters that I wasn't expecting to learn. 

Is it good? No, but it's only a draft. A very rough draft at that, but one I'm going to follow all the way through. It's the planning process by not planning at all.

I feel like I'm back again. Time will tell.

The Apocolypse Thief

So...I was asked to share a story I wrote and I couldn't find the original short I was going to put on here, but enjoy this full chapter from a project I started, got two or three chapters in and then got sidetracked by other things. It's relatively recent (just from this past July) and I actually had a lot of fun working on it. Enjoy!

The Apocalypse Thief

Chapter One

Gareth headed down the street, keeping his head down as he looked up at the house – two stories. It was roomy, with lots of windows and an inscription over the stone doorway, probably some sort of incantation to keep out troublemakers. A light burned upstairs – someone (probably the noble) up studying late, just as the informants said. He looked back and forth, but the guards were nowhere in sight. They wouldn’t be here for another ten minutes. 

He held up one hand and muttered an incantation under his breath – a very basic spell that could disable magical defenses. The incantation at the top of the doorway glowed briefly, then sparked and sputtered, as if it was going out. He nodded to himself and stepped through, into the house’s courtyard, with its quiet fountain and green trees. Definitely one of the wealthier noblemen, then. Space was at a premium in Rushreed City.

He leaned against the wall almost immediately, sticking to the shadows as much as he could. Just around the corner, he saw two guards, sitting by the door, drinking and playing cards. The information was accurate, yet again. He slipped quietly past them, and then behind in an awning, before he found what he was looking for: a large, heavy rock. He slid up right behind him and brought it down squarely on the guard’s head, denting his helmet and sending him to the ground unconscious. 

The other guard scrambled to his feet, but Gareth moved fast. He tumbled to the ground as well. They were rookies, in any case. All of the real warriors – soldiers, whatever – had been commandeered by the King for the war. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “You’re both going to have a really nasty headache when you come to.” He reached down and took the key from one of the guard’s pockets and hung it around his neck. Then he walked over the large cask of ale sitting by the door, filled the tankards several times…and poured it all over them. With luck, people would think they were just drunk when they came to and tried to tell everyone about the mysterious thief who had knocked them both out with a rock. 

“Sorry,” he whispered and then unlocked the door, and slipped inside. He gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, before looking around. It was a nice room, with thick carpets, easy chairs and some thick leatherbound book on a table, apparently a tome about magic – or maybe of magic – going by the looks of it. But, as he had learned, it probably wasn’t worth anything. No sane nobleman would leave his most valuable (or powerful) possessions sitting around, for just anyone to find. Plus, it wasn’t what he was here for anyway.

He left the book alone, and then pulled out a magic scroll he had purchased from a reliable source: a tracking spell, though only of limited duration. He muttered the words. The scroll crumbled to dust. Nothing else visible happened but he immediately felt his gut tug him down the hallway. He hadn’t forgotten the nobleman at the end of the hall – he’d made sure to pay the manor cook generously to put a sleeping draught in the man’s tea. 

He reached a doorway, all of his senses tingling now. What he wanted was just beyond the door. He quickly muttered the dispelling incantation – really, the only spell he actually knew - just in case. A brief moment, the spell started to fizzle, but then began to glow with hot, red light. He bit back a curse and ducked into one of the nearby rooms, just as a solid sheet of fire blazed through the hallway. It left the wood and furnishings untouched – it was magical fire, and would only burn intruders. 

The spell died away and he let out a long sigh of relief. He was safe. The spell needed time to recharge. He pulled out a lockpick from his pocket and set to work on the door. It creaked open a moment later and he stepped into a room. A lantern burned from a window, and a man – he looked like he might have been in the second half of middle age, but not quite old enough to be called elderly – snored at the desk. A cup of tea sat next to him, half drunk and Gareth suppressed a smile. Still, he wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. 

He glanced around, and then stopped at a cabinet, his senses going wild. The pendent was in the cabinet. He thought for a moment – if the door and the fire blaze was any indication, the magical defenses here would be far stronger than anything his basic dispelling could counter. There was always a way around it. He glanced over at the snoring noble – defenses (or, at least, halfway decent spells) could distinguish between friend and foe. 

So if the noble was the one to open the cabinet, or maybe just touch it. 

He shouldn’t wake up, he thought. That sleeping powder’s strong – more than a pinch and you’re out for a month.

He strode over, and pushed the nobleman’s chair over to the cabinet and then quickly used his hand to pull it open. He held his breath, and then used the noble’s hand to disable the defenses around a small box of gold and faint pink lacquer. A small pendent had been placed lovingly inside, with a chain of silver and a ruby shaped like a teardrop. 

He tentatively picked it up, careful not to touch it with his bare hands, in case there were more defenses. He stowed it in his bag and nodded at the man.

“Thanks for your help,” he muttered. The noble snored, unaware. Gareth smiled slightly, and headed back the way he had come, walking quietly down the stairs and out to the gardens again. He felt a very slight twinge of unease as he stepped outside. 

That had been remarkably easy to pull off - maybe a little too easy. He had long since learned to trust his feelings about stuff like this; it had proven useful in the past. He slid into the shadow of the gateway, before the street. It was deserted. He frowned, and then glanced up at the bright moon in the sky and then back at the gray street, still unable to shake the feeling that there was something very wrong here. 

He stepped out into the street. And immediately, a beacon of light burst from his satchel – from the gemstone – into the sky. He cursed, this time not bothering to be quiet about it and immediately yanked the pendent from his bag. But it was burning hot. He yelled in sudden pain and dropped it, where it spilled onto the pavement…and promptly dissolved. 

He started to run, hearing heavy booted footsteps behind him and knew almost instantly: he’d been had. The mysterious client, the way he’d been able to break into the house with little help…it was a trick to catch him. The real pendent was far better defended than what he’d been expecting and what he’d been told about it. 

Guards – real guards, this time, professional soldiers in the employ of the King – ran into view, swords drawn.

“Right,” he said. “Do not want to meet them.” Behind him, the pendent still blazed with red light. He took off running, glancing at the still stinging brand on his palm. He wondered briefly if it was magical – it was probably a tracker. He’d heard rumors of the new spell developed by the court mage, now used to track criminals and prisoners. 

He muttered his dispelling incantation again, difficult as it was to focus while he sprinted down the street, guards in pursuit. He felt a pins-and-needles sensation in his hand, but the brand didn’t disappear. He hadn’t expected it too. This was strong magic, and it needed a proper mage to actually get rid of it. Or maybe…

If they think I’m just going to lie down and surrender, they’re sorely mistaken, he thought. They’re going to remember tonight.

 

He ran over a bridge, which overlooked the broad Rushingleam River, and then jumped over the side, into the water. He looked up, just in time to see the guards point arrows at him. He dove underwater just in time, risking another glance at his hand. The brand was starting to fade now, as he thought. Enchantments had a chance to be washed away in running water, especially if newly cast. 

Not a commonly known fact, but a useful one still. He surfaced again. Unfortunately, he now had other problems. Such as the fact he was stuck in a fast-moving current, rushing through the city. At least nobody saw him – that would definitely attract attention. The guards would undoubtedly be looking for a man fished from the river.

He treaded water for a long time, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible while the shores of the city slid by. Once this was done, he decided to make it a point to never accept offers from the spotlessly dressed man in solid white, or, for that matter, anyone that couldn’t be vouched for on the streets. His one mistake, really his only mistake. Well, not really his only mistake. But all the same…

The gray bulk of the Great Temple passed him by. 

A ghostly light appeared ahead of him, riverboat. He dove underwater again, holding his breath for almost as long as he could bear, trying to swim out of the ship’s way. It passed by painfully slowly, and then stopped. He heard a distant splash and an explosion of bubbles as the anchor plunged into the bottom of the river, dragging against the mud. 

He couldn’t stay under forever. He would just have to hope the darkness would conceal him and he came up, gasping for air. Just in time to see the soldiers with crossbows, and a captain, standing here, his scarlet cloak billowing in the breeze. A young mage stood next to the man nervously – his robes hanging loosely on a very skinny frame. 

“Well, well. If it isn’t the great Gareth Calistone. Clever trick, getting rid of the tracking spell by jumping into the river. But really, it was only a matter of time.” 

He gestured to the mage who murmured an incantation. Gareth winced, it was as though someone had driven a hook into the small of his back. He was yanked clear out of the water and onto the deck, sopping wet. 

 “Nice to see you too,” he said.

A Triumphant Return

And I'm back with the blog entries! As part of my New Year's resolutions, I'm going to start writing these once again, though on a weekly basis instead of daily. The focus is also not going to be on writing (though that will, inevitably, get brought up) because its tedious writing (and probably reading) about how my writing is going. So what is the focus of the blog now?

Whatever I want to talk about, of course! Books, movies, random reviews of things, bits and pieces of life, and on rare occasions short stories that I've whipped up in between working on the novel (another New Year's resolution: write more.). But weekly entries will give more time to think up a topic, write something interesting (or something I think is interesting), edit it and polish it up. So there you go.

Will I make all fifty-two entries before 2015? Time will tell, but I'm hoping to really stick to it this time. See you next week.