Writer's Dump: Post and Critique

[polishgenius]

8 hours ago, Spockydog said:

 Loving the laid back, slightly sweary style.

 

You wouldn't believe how much swearing there was on the first pass. Even just before posting it, I gave it a once-over and took a couple more fucks out. 

Yeah, it's the accident (well, assault), which also cost him both legs - I'm aware that needs to be made more stone-cold clear at some point soon, but there was no comfortable way to fit it in there.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'll just quickly note that posting your work on a public forum like this one is actually considered a form of publishing. I'd strongly recommend only posting the portions you think need most work.

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

I'll just quickly note that posting your work on a public forum like this one is actually considered a form of publishing. I'd strongly recommend only posting the portions you think need most work.

 

 

Cheers for the headsup. The publishing industry seems... weird sometimes?

[Gabriele]

12 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I definitely have a semi-colon addiction, I'll have to smooth that out. I want to avoid too many full-stops because I want his thoughts to feel a little loose and ragged and I think they'd puncture the flow of that, but I've definitely got too many semi-colons clustered together in a fragment that short.

So I'm not the only one with that addiction.

[JGP]

Wait, Roose... can you unpack that a little? As in, put it here for a critique and then at a later date be rejected by a magazine or somesuch because it's an already published work, or?

[The Marquis de Leech]

9 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Wait, Roose... can you unpack that a little? As in, put it here for a critique and then at a later date be rejected by a magazine or somesuch because it's an already published work, or?

Pretty much: editors want submitted stories to be "virgin", so to speak, and some do consider forum posting to be publishing (in the same sense that posting the chapters of your story on a blog is publishing - it's distributing your work to the public).

To get round this, you've got several options:

• Critique via email.
• Critique via a private forum that is only viewable by its members and not by the public.
• Only post excerpts on public forums, not the entire thing. 

[sologdin]

it might be that there are some nebulous copyright delimitations on posting an original text here.  someone have the terms of service for the site handy?

here's an opening to a narrative that sufficient drink has persuaded me to loose:

Quote

When I emerged from anesthesia, I saw that she'd lopped my thumbs--not with modern pruning shears, but instead with an averruncator of incomparable antiquity.  Without the thumbs, my hands, tied to armrests at the wrists, appeared both clean and alien.  At least they didn't hurt yet. Through the blood, they look like butchered chicken parts.  Thighs, maybe.

"Those shears, late Roman?" The question, mere formality--as if i didn't know--admitted that I remained tied and drugged. "You couldn't've obtained authorization to borrow them." My voice sounded wrong, not me.

She smiled, silent.  Familiar from the museum, the ancient shears arose as part of her research, now turned to late Roman horticulture. The curator displayed a 5th century collection of gardening implements that had somehow survived the Goths.  

My hands bled slowly, a sedate abstract expressionism beneath the chair.  She cleaned the shears with a wet rag, inconsistent with normal curatic protocols.  They won't survive her.  

"Kinda not cool, the misappropriation of a public art object?"

She shrugged. "You are becoming animal."

"Hmm?"

"You act like a feral animal. So I have resolved the contradiction implied by your opposable thumbs, as surely you must have desired, conducting yourself as you have."  I recalled at that moment the sound, the sight, of the averruncator crunching through my left carpometacarpal joint.  The skin parted easily and the ligatures sliced without resistance.  The drugs made it painless, a simulation, almost.  And through the right joint, cleaner, crunchier, more pleasant.  The hands were just meat. I didn't care. What signify hands or meats in comparison to the love of one's life, irrespective of how deeply loved or how long lived? The memory was readily summoned, severed thumbs dropping to the floor, soundlessly.  Likely it proves impossible to unsummon.

"Oh.  Thanks?"  The severed thumbs on the floor--where'd they go?--appear less like poultry than uncooked lamb chops. I scanned around the room.  Lamps, table, window.  I saw her, watching me intently.

"If you continue feral, then I will assist you in becoming a body without organs.  Do you agree to that?"

"Can I think about it?"

"You can. Don't think too long or i will disassemble you." She finished cleaning the shears. "Understand that I am a war machine." She likewise looked around the room, uncertain. "Contemplate it while I'm out running errands today." She found what she wanted.  "I'm gonna leave these for you."  She placed two flower pots in front of me on the floor.  "Appropriate, yes?"  In each, she had planted one of my severed thumbs, incisions in the soil, right thumb in left pot, and so on. "Something to consider, the garden made by these unique scissors."

She snatched her purse over her shoulder and slid out, averruncator in hand.  The door closed quiet as I watched the pots, soil glistening.  Very thoughtful, watering my thumbs.  She adores me. Obviously.  I contemplated her affection, noting the sunlight's late morning progress across the floor.  How long might she be gone?  How much time before the anesthesia fully wore off?  And how much exsanguination might i endure?  I slept; I dreamed proto-simian dreams, an endless unpruned forest.

In the noon sun, almost imperceptibly, the thumbs throbbed pink in their pots--I know not how or what might be present in the soil to grow these dismembers, though not so dismembered as my own mind, tied and drugged, each and both throwing down whatever radicles therein and whatever rhizomes elsewhere, nurtured from Hell or Heaven or some absent unreal terra incognita, but fuck me if the thumbs--not my thumbs, manifestly not, not any longer--did not writhe, respirate, make claim upon me for recognition.  The thumbs screamed in pain as the anesthesia dissipated.  And as the pain of the severance crept likewise into my hands, I recognized.

no idea where it goes. i assume the liberated digits need have sex or run for president or something.

[JGP]

Soggy, that's creepy as fuck.

Keep writing, I want to see where it goes. 

[sologdin]

J, thanks!  and here i was going for pleasant domestic melodrama.  

i owe you some further comments on yours.  tonight!  or tomorrow!

[Lily Valley]

On 3/19/2016 at 2:40 PM, sologdin said:

it might be that there are some nebulous copyright delimitations on posting an original text here.  someone have the terms of service for the site handy?

here's an opening to a narrative that sufficient drink has persuaded me to loose:

no idea where it goes. i assume the liberated digits need have sex or run for president or something.

My friend, it's definitely time to move. 

Wait, this isn't the dream interpretation thread? 

[polishgenius]

Solo's passage up there is a good example of why the notion that prose must always be pared down to its most simple is wrong.

Mind you, it's also a good example of how prose can be evocative without laying on the adjectives. There's a few grander or less-common words- of course there are, sologdin wrote it- but most of the complexity is in the rhythm and variance of sentence structure.

[Relic]

Nice thread J. Harkens to something dearly missed.

 

So, is this place only for fiction, or would non fiction be welcome as well? 

 

Cheers!

[JGP]

I'm not sure what some seem to be thinking, but its not like that-- brother mine.

Post whatever you want.

[Howdyphillip]

nevermind

[First of My Name]

I've posted this piece before on this site but more feedback always helps, and would be appreciated. This is the prologue to a fantasy novel I've been working for a while, hope you enjoy.

Spoiler

 

T

he king of Ensekyrai had always imagined that the day of his death would be a dark day, full of rain and howling wind, to fit the tragedy of his passing. The people would seek shelter in their houses and pray for the storm to be over. They would remember that day as the darkest day of their lives, the day that their beloved ruler had been taken from them. But God above did not grant him this. This was why, when the king of Ensekyrai died, the sun was shining brightly, and there wasn't a cloud in the air.
Autumn was nearing its end, and it was surprisingly warm for that time of the year. Cris Delyan, who had always had a weakness for the outside air, stepped onto his porch, sniffed the morning air, and strode into his garden. There, as always, he found the peace of mind he needed.
The king had always been a thinker, and the things he thought of during his walks varied wildly. Sometimes, his family was the sole thing that occupied his mind. At other times, it was his court, or his country. His people. Or his crown, and how he had gained it. The hollowness he felt when he looked at it. Sometimes, he would walk for hours on end, thinking about anything and everything. Hoping for some sort of acceptance of the things that haunted him. Waiting until he reached a harmony, knowing all the while that it wouldn’t come.
He wore no crown; he never did, when he was alone. He hated the thing, hated what he had done to gain possession of it. This king was no heir of his predecessor, like the other kings had been. For twenty years he had been seated on the throne. And for twenty long years, he had wondered if he had done the right thing.
The possibility of seizing power had seemed irresistible. What could possibly be better, after all, than ruling the entire known world? Nothing, Cris would have said without hesitation, twenty years ago. But he had found supreme rule… lacking.
What if there is nothing more awful in this world than fulfilling your dreams? Dreams are treacherous. Dreams are false. And when you find yourself alone, with all your empty wishes and meaningless hopes and it all turns out to be fragile as glass, you don’t even have your dreams to keep you warm at night.
The king walked across the paved path, past flowers of every imaginable color. Power should never be an end, Cris pondered, only a means to an end. A higher, better end. He had learned that lesson too late.
How would he be remembered in a hundred years? Cris Delyan, the False King. The Unwanted King. A sad, melancholy smile flittered across his lips. The King Who Was No King. Yes, that sounds about right.
He paused. He had the inexplicable feeling that he had suddenly reached a milestone, as if he had reached a goal he’d been aiming at for years.
Cris Delyan had always liked stories. For as long as he could remembers, he had been a slave to the lips of storytellers. Fairy tales, as a child; later, epic sagas about battles of life and deaths. Though the two were in many ways different, they almost always shared one feature: a happy ending. The hero rode off toward the sunset, the princess lived happily ever after with her prince, and the great enemy was always vanquished.
Always.
Wasn’t he?
For a long time, he had believed happy endings were real, had believed that his own story would have one. This was why he had always imagined his death as a terrible, world-altering event. Such was the way of stories, no?
He suspected now that his love for stories, and the happily ever after that marked them, might have been the greatest foe he’d had to vanquish.
This was the milestone he found himself at: the gaining of the knowledge that his life was not a fiction, and might not end well. That the opposite might be possible. That he had always, all his life, been his own greatest enemy.
His bare feet slid across the cold stones. He inhaled the smells of a dozen different flowers. The leaves of the trees were red, gold and brown, instead of the green of their glory days. I am like those leaves. My best days are far behind me, and I’m waiting for the moment that I fall. My people do not love me. My wife won’t look at me half the time. My son… god, what must become of my son? He is no ruler. He doesn’t carry one single drop of the blood that drove Arva and me to power. Ferys was a good boy, certainly, but he would never be a good king. Cris knew it; his wife Arva knew it; the entire court knew it – and all of them were waiting for the day that Ferys would discover it himself. I should have prepared him better. Whether I like it or not, he’ll end up on that throne.
The king followed a twisting path until he reached a sunlit terrace. A servant waited there with a cooled fruit drink, just the way Cris preferred it. He sat down on a wooden chair, at a wooden table, and accepted the glass. The servant nodded, and left.
Another day of bickering and manipulating, Cris thought bitterly. Gaining the throne wasn’t half as hard as keeping it. Nor half as tiresome. He put the glass to his lips and drank, the strongly flavored liquid filling his dry mouth. If I had known my life would be like this, twenty years ago, would have I acted differently? He chuckled softly, drank again. I certainly would have married someone else. But I think I would still have crowned myself. The temptation would have been too big.
When he put the glass down on the table, his hand was trembling.
Cris frowned. I’m not that old, am I? He looked at his hand. Stop. Stop shaking. He tried to make a fist, and failed. The shaking grew worse, even spreading to the rest of his arm. What is this? ‘Servant!’ he tried to yell, but all that came out of his mouth was a soft hissing. His right arm was shaking spastically, and Cris began the feel the same trembling in his other hand, and in both legs.
His eye fell on the glass of juice. I’ll be damned.
An ice-cold frisson shot through his body, a feeling that was no symptom of the poison he just drank. At least, not directly. It was fear. I am dying.
‘Guard!’ he attempted to scream, but no sound left his lips. His entire body was shaking heavily. He fell out of the chair, fell on the ground face-up. Drool dripped across his chin. Help me. Ferys. Arva. Mother. Help me, I’m dying…
With a sudden shock, the trembling ceased. Cris Delyan’s grey eyes stared up, into the sky, and he tried to suck in some air. He couldn’t. It was as if he was about to fall asleep, and he was trying with all his power to stay awake. Ferys can’t see me like this…
The last thing he saw was the bright sun above him. Then his eyes closed for good. He had always imagined that the day of his death would be different. The air that, until just so recently, had been warm against his skin, now felt cold as ice.
For an instant he was filled with the insane desire to laugh – the great enemy is always vanquished. He’d been right after all.
The last thing he felt was an odd sort of relief, because it was all over now. No more crown. No more doubts.
The last thing he thought was, If only this had happened twenty years ago.

 

[JGP]

On 3/30/2016 at 9:49 AM, First of My Name said:

I've posted this piece before on this site but more feedback always helps, and would be appreciated. This is the prologue to a fantasy novel I've been working for a while, hope you enjoy.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

T

he king of Ensekyrai had always imagined that the day of his death would be a dark day, full of rain and howling wind, to fit the tragedy of his passing. The people would seek shelter in their houses and pray for the storm to be over. They would remember that day as the darkest day of their lives, the day that their beloved ruler had been taken from them. But God above did not grant him this. This was why, when the king of Ensekyrai died, the sun was shining brightly, and there wasn't a cloud in the air.
Autumn was nearing its end, and it was surprisingly warm for that time of the year. Cris Delyan, who had always had a weakness for the outside air, stepped onto his porch, sniffed the morning air, and strode into his garden. There, as always, he found the peace of mind he needed.
The king had always been a thinker, and the things he thought of during his walks varied wildly. Sometimes, his family was the sole thing that occupied his mind. At other times, it was his court, or his country. His people. Or his crown, and how he had gained it. The hollowness he felt when he looked at it. Sometimes, he would walk for hours on end, thinking about anything and everything. Hoping for some sort of acceptance of the things that haunted him. Waiting until he reached a harmony, knowing all the while that it wouldn’t come.
He wore no crown; he never did, when he was alone. He hated the thing, hated what he had done to gain possession of it. This king was no heir of his predecessor, like the other kings had been. For twenty years he had been seated on the throne. And for twenty long years, he had wondered if he had done the right thing.
The possibility of seizing power had seemed irresistible. What could possibly be better, after all, than ruling the entire known world? Nothing, Cris would have said without hesitation, twenty years ago. But he had found supreme rule… lacking.
What if there is nothing more awful in this world than fulfilling your dreams? Dreams are treacherous. Dreams are false. And when you find yourself alone, with all your empty wishes and meaningless hopes and it all turns out to be fragile as glass, you don’t even have your dreams to keep you warm at night.
The king walked across the paved path, past flowers of every imaginable color. Power should never be an end, Cris pondered, only a means to an end. A higher, better end. He had learned that lesson too late.
How would he be remembered in a hundred years? Cris Delyan, the False King. The Unwanted King. A sad, melancholy smile flittered across his lips. The King Who Was No King. Yes, that sounds about right.
He paused. He had the inexplicable feeling that he had suddenly reached a milestone, as if he had reached a goal he’d been aiming at for years.
Cris Delyan had always liked stories. For as long as he could remembers, he had been a slave to the lips of storytellers. Fairy tales, as a child; later, epic sagas about battles of life and deaths. Though the two were in many ways different, they almost always shared one feature: a happy ending. The hero rode off toward the sunset, the princess lived happily ever after with her prince, and the great enemy was always vanquished.
Always.
Wasn’t he?
For a long time, he had believed happy endings were real, had believed that his own story would have one. This was why he had always imagined his death as a terrible, world-altering event. Such was the way of stories, no?
He suspected now that his love for stories, and the happily ever after that marked them, might have been the greatest foe he’d had to vanquish.
This was the milestone he found himself at: the gaining of the knowledge that his life was not a fiction, and might not end well. That the opposite might be possible. That he had always, all his life, been his own greatest enemy.
His bare feet slid across the cold stones. He inhaled the smells of a dozen different flowers. The leaves of the trees were red, gold and brown, instead of the green of their glory days. I am like those leaves. My best days are far behind me, and I’m waiting for the moment that I fall. My people do not love me. My wife won’t look at me half the time. My son… god, what must become of my son? He is no ruler. He doesn’t carry one single drop of the blood that drove Arva and me to power. Ferys was a good boy, certainly, but he would never be a good king. Cris knew it; his wife Arva knew it; the entire court knew it – and all of them were waiting for the day that Ferys would discover it himself. I should have prepared him better. Whether I like it or not, he’ll end up on that throne.
The king followed a twisting path until he reached a sunlit terrace. A servant waited there with a cooled fruit drink, just the way Cris preferred it. He sat down on a wooden chair, at a wooden table, and accepted the glass. The servant nodded, and left.
Another day of bickering and manipulating, Cris thought bitterly. Gaining the throne wasn’t half as hard as keeping it. Nor half as tiresome. He put the glass to his lips and drank, the strongly flavored liquid filling his dry mouth. If I had known my life would be like this, twenty years ago, would have I acted differently? He chuckled softly, drank again. I certainly would have married someone else. But I think I would still have crowned myself. The temptation would have been too big.
When he put the glass down on the table, his hand was trembling.
Cris frowned. I’m not that old, am I? He looked at his hand. Stop. Stop shaking. He tried to make a fist, and failed. The shaking grew worse, even spreading to the rest of his arm. What is this? ‘Servant!’ he tried to yell, but all that came out of his mouth was a soft hissing. His right arm was shaking spastically, and Cris began the feel the same trembling in his other hand, and in both legs.
His eye fell on the glass of juice. I’ll be damned.
An ice-cold frisson shot through his body, a feeling that was no symptom of the poison he just drank. At least, not directly. It was fear. I am dying.
‘Guard!’ he attempted to scream, but no sound left his lips. His entire body was shaking heavily. He fell out of the chair, fell on the ground face-up. Drool dripped across his chin. Help me. Ferys. Arva. Mother. Help me, I’m dying…
With a sudden shock, the trembling ceased. Cris Delyan’s grey eyes stared up, into the sky, and he tried to suck in some air. He couldn’t. It was as if he was about to fall asleep, and he was trying with all his power to stay awake. Ferys can’t see me like this…
The last thing he saw was the bright sun above him. Then his eyes closed for good. He had always imagined that the day of his death would be different. The air that, until just so recently, had been warm against his skin, now felt cold as ice.
For an instant he was filled with the insane desire to laugh – the great enemy is always vanquished. He’d been right after all.
The last thing he felt was an odd sort of relief, because it was all over now. No more crown. No more doubts.
The last thing he thought was, If only this had happened twenty years ago.

 

Pretty interesting. Nothing popped out at me as overtly wrong [some technical, grammar stuff maybe] and while it seemed a little predictable [the end, not the means] it still left me curious as to where it goes from there. Does the narrative continue from that point, or are the twenty and some years prior the actual story?

Not bad, man.

[First of My Name]

59 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Pretty interesting. Nothing popped out at me as overtly wrong [some technical, grammar stuff maybe] and while it seemed a little predictable [the end, not the means] it still left me curious as to where it goes from there. Does the narrative continue from that point, or are the twenty and some years prior the actual story?

Not bad, man.

Huh, I'd completely forgotten this thread existed. Thanks

No, the story picks up roughly an hour after this. The grammar stuff is because English isn't my first language. And I think I can see why you'd find it predictable. Thanks for the opinion.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, First of My Name said:

Huh, I'd completely forgotten this thread existed. Thanks

No, the story picks up roughly an hour after this. The grammar stuff is because English isn't my first language. And I think I can see why you'd find it predictable. Thanks for the opinion.

Yeah, I'd gotten busy and forgot about it too.

And, I didn't mean predictable in a bad way. It just has that --old detective ruminating over his career on his last day before retirement-- kind of vibe to it, and you always know what's about to happen then. Maybe change it up a bit. Somehow. Not sure. 

I'm currently working way further down the line, and it's far from polished-- but I'll match you Prologue for Prologue.

Feel free to cut away.

---

 

Out this side of the caldera’s berm, Vyeutas was at the mercy of the perpetual storm.  He got out from under the diagonal chop of the rain, yet still, he was frustrated. He glanced at the Clannish hustling to unload the casks of fresh water, then back at the two backlit Hume standing before the argent longship.

Noting in their conversation a subtle lack of the Hume’s usual indifference, Vyeutas pulled up his hood and went to his Lord Unamnir’s side. They were speaking their native tongue, the evenly weighted language of birds as the Hume named it, which held as much meaning in what wasn’t said as was– a previous insight shared by his Lord about which Vyeutas had felt no small pride in reporting to his contact on the mainland. None but Hume spoke Hume, so he didn’t bother trying to listen directly. Yet as unsure as his footing upon the volcanic sand beneath them Vyeutas couldn’t shake the sense that something, perhaps, was finally shifting.

The Hume in proportion almost made children of Men, but Lugaldur topped even Vyeutas’ Lord Unamnir by a hand and a half. The Eye of Storm, he was also called, and so did the severe calm of his one eyed countenance seem to Vyeutas as Lugaldur uncrossed his arms from the greying orange beard that fanned across his deep chest. The Hume then adjusted his wide, conical reed hat and turned from Unamnir toward the longship, its light throwing his shadow large behind and across them.

Vyeutas’ breath caught when looked beyond the Eye of Storm and saw a stalwart Clannish struggle to load a large pack over the side of the ship. Heart pulsing in his ears, he barely heard his Lord call out to Lugaldur, who in turn did stop, his shoulders hunched as if rebuked.

Unamnir raised his hand in the way of the Hume, broad palm outward and fingers splayed. The Eye of Storm looked back over his shoulder, an expression writ inscrutable across the crags of his bronze face. Vyeutas felt a chill under that singular regard, his skin paling as if even his blood reeled in fear.

Fool. Was he looking at you?

Rain sluiced off the brim Lugaldur’s hat as he nodded.

With the unloading complete, many of the Clannish present stood witness alongside Vyeutas and his Lord Unamnir as Lugaldur, the Eye of Storm and former Consort of the First Lady of Summer boarded the vessel and gestured. The argent longship moved out into the wet dark, eerily unmoved by storm tossed sea.

Vyeutas was unmindful as he followed Unamnir up the strand toward the berm. The former Consort hasn’t left Anvil, the blunt Isle of the Hume, in hundreds of years. He tried to calculate how long it might be before he was released for the evening. And how much longer after that until he could get to his secreted skytale to send word to his contact, but Unamnir’s deep voice cut clean the track of his thoughts.

“What think you,’ he asked, having switched to Clannish.

Vyeutas gestured, begging a moment as they strode up the darkening strand, finding it as difficult to pace the implications racing across his mind as it was to keep up with his dark Lord. The twisted, leafless trees scattered to either side of the path they now found themselves upon and as the shifting ground grew firmer, likewise did Vyeutas find a measure of security as they steadily closed toward the berm.

“Is this not rather momentous?” Vyeutas queried by way of distraction, knowing full well that Unamnir would deliberate in answering. He had to either convince him that they should consult the Orrery atop the glass-flat roof the Hume had raised across the bowl of the caldera, or find some likely excuse. His skytale was hidden amidst the cogs and orbits of the grand device his Lord had built there, to, in its incessantly complicated turning, measure the whorls and movements of the Chords in this Verse. 

Unamnir gave a rare and hesitant grin, revealing teeth that were soot to the utter black of his Lord’s skin. “Indeed,” Unamnir said, as he took off his wide hat and turned his face up into the rain. “I heard nothing in the All-Song of thi- ” the ground beneath their feet lurched and Vyeutas stumbled sideways into his Lord then fell completely as the land rumbled once more. Even above the din of the perpetual storm, Vyeutas could hear the alarm of the Clannish back on the strand.

“Come,” the fraught tone of Lord Unamnir commanded as he helped Vyeutas to his feet. The Hume outpaced him as they ran up the path. Another violent shake saw Vyeutas careening into a stunted tree. Sharp branches cut sharp into his face, one glanced across his eye. Vyeutas swore, his squint pained as he spied Lord Unamnir’s silhouette ahead against the flickering lights on either side of the berm’s aperture. The ground heaved once again.

“Vyeutas!” His Lord yelled, waving him on. Aghast, he followed Unamnir into the aperture even as pumice fell down the fracturing face of the berm about him. Lungs burning, Vyeutas hooded his uninjured eye against the falling dust within the descending tunnel. The lights dimmed, then flashed. Cut out entirely, then flickered back on. Lord Unamnir grabbed his hand as Vyeutas reached toward the panel incised into the wall. “Leave it.”

Vyeutas glanced back at the aperture and saw some few Clannish stumble in behind them. He nodded at his Lord, understanding, so further in and down they ran as best they might, pausing or stumbling only as the Isle shuddered. Lord Unamnir pulled up sharply, his great jet cloack snapping taut against his back. He reached into a small alcove and depressed some hissing lever and a large door scraped open. It jammed part way but though his Lord had to squeeze through Vyeutas managed it easily. He balked shortly, trailing Unamnir into the dimly lit side tunnel.

“The tracks, my Lord… ”

“Yes. A probability,” Unamnir conceded. “If so, then we run.”

The Hume guided Vyeutas in the dark over a metal lip, which he used to steady himself as the earth crashed once more. Vyeutas, spy that he was, stochasti, attempted vainly to summon some imagined reserve against the profound fear he felt. Lord Unamnir gave an inhuman push and climbed into the cart ahead of him. The incline was slow but they gained momentum fast. They hurtled through the dark, unmolested for a while, but at any time it could… Vyeutas lungs felt like they’d dropped into his stomach as another shift occurred, tipping their cart and slamming them into the wall.

What. Vyeutas startled awake to agony. He’d broken something in his face against his Lord’s back. His nose, or his cheekbone, couldn’t be sure but even against his conditioned will it drew a pained groan from him nonetheless.

“My Lord,” he slurred. Vyeutas attempted to stand. His face felt hot and wet, and he ached all over. Further down the narrow tunnel a light strobed bright then burst into incandescent sparks. Selfishness bid him check on Unamnir again, who stirred this time.

Vyeutas could hear his great bulk shift in the impenetrable dark. “I am…” Unamnir grated. “It skipped. It actually skipped.”

The caldera had been considered dead for all of living memory. Vyeutas couldn’t credit… then what his Lord had said finally registered through his pain and speculation. “Skipped? The track?” Vyeutas almost cried out as a sudden grip crushed his upper arm. Lord Unamnir picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.  

“No,” Unamnir said, so grave. “The Verse.”

Vyeutas drew heavily upon the stochastic discipline of Brazen to manage his pain as he was jostled atop Unamnir’s shoulder. The idea that Hume could sense or to some extent see in the dark somehow was given credit as, at length, Unamnir abruptly stopped. Another reach, another hiss, another stubborn door gradually rasped open. There was some dim fluctuating light here yet, emergent as blood. Unamnir set him down gently.

The walls domed far above into the ceiling. They’d come out onto the giantstair. Great steps, twice again as tall as even Lugaldur, but it was into the center they descended, navigating down the hundreds of smaller steps cut in turn to divide the larger. Vyeutas felt despair, all thought of the skytale and his possibly immanent failure to inform fell once again, just as he did, but this time the shake also resounded with crack so loud it physically hurt his ears. Bracing himself against Unamnir, they gathered themselves to continue until his Lord halted. Grown rigid, Unamnir seemed to be holding his breath.

Wincing into another waft of dust, Vyeutas saw that further down the giantstair part of the wall had caved into their way and against that backdrop of boulders, of shattered granite and pumice stood Lugaldur’s granddaughter. At first glance Vyeutas thought perhaps he’d been mistaken, but he recognized the lithe contours beneath her dirtied, spring green silks and the coveted angular beauty of her bronze features, her tussled braids in tone so similar to her grandfather’s red hair. No, there was no mistaking Prydera.

Even in the midst of the devastation surrounding her she gathered her composure and gracefully faced the inward sloping wall, for there, stepping out from the great rent in the side the giantstair came one who Vyeutas did not recognize. And this, with the Hume being so relative few, filled him with wonder. So much, in fact, so captivated by this spectacle before him was he that Vyeutas didn’t notice the quaking had stopped.

Lord Unamnir exclaimed some curse or exhortation in his native tongue.

Another Hume, another woman. In profile likewise to Prydera, but softer somehow despite her violent heaves of exertion. Her black hair was shorn unevenly, her skin grey or just filthy. She wore a dark and antique cuirass of some dull, dappled metal or material over a chain coat of unreflective links.

The woman stabbed a finger toward Prydera. Her forearm wore a strange bracer, unusually thick, with a couple large links of what seemed to be broken chain swinging pendulously beneath, counting out some elusive beat.

“No,” Lord Unamnir whispered. Reticent sobs now, “No. No No No… ” And Vyeutas forgot his hurt. Where was the racially stoic diffidence? What… 

He rubbed his eye, attempting to discern whatever object it was that hovered over this other Hume’s shoulder, and was startled as a deep thrum reverberated out from it and up the giantstair. Then through the settling air it shifted its crossed appearance to alight into the woman’s palm and reveal itself to be in immense slab of a sword.

That is… that’s the stone greatsword. This is… this is a dead god’s vengeance.

My God.

In his periphery Vyeutas absently noted the subtle gestures of Lord Unamnir just down the stair, the Hume working his aspect forth from both the energies both the difference and analytic engines turning far below. One of the higher priorities given him by the Implicate Order, that, he knew he should be studying this-- but his attention was captivated by the two diurnal women below.  

There was an indecipherable exchange between them. To Vyeutas it was a cold and alien cacophony of birds, a murder of crows riled to accusation. A vivid silence ensued, until Prydera nodded, gathered her green silks and slowly dropped to her knees. She lifted her braids and bared her neck.

The Landwarden Accursed raised high the stone greatsword and without hesitation violently cut down. Its blunt yet so sharp edge slammed to a halt without breaking the bronzed skin beneath. The darker sister strained against it, trying to finish the cut, but even the might of the dead elemental that she wielded, through it, was denied. The greatsword hummed and she relented with a snarl. 

The greatsword droned again, forcing itself from the grip of the Landwarden Accursed. It inverted, hovering over to hang in the air beyond her shoulder once more. A change came over the woman then, so stolid her mien now, so controlled. Vyeutas took a shuddering breath, this time fully noticing as something also pent up was released from Lord Unamnir with inordinate relief.

The Landwarden Accursed’s visage slowly turned up the giant and small stair, momentarily fixing upon the spy whose infiltration was planted generations before. Some thing, some part of himself thought long gone quailed before the eminent rage of her calm. The hate. Then her regard past Vyeutas by to Lord Unamnir of the Hume, and there her implacable visage cracked.

The greatsword crooned, then Prydera cried out in alarm as the Landwarden Accursed, a dark blur, leapt the score of feet or more between the two and cut Unamnir in twain with a ferocious stroke, his Lord’s oil black blood spraying to burn Vyeutas wherever it touched. He nearly fell to the sizzling flesh of his knees in torment, but seeing no mercy in that cold face saw Vyeutas find his nerve.

As he danced inelegantly back, out of his stinking cloud of burnt cloth and flesh, he spun the knobbed point-punch on his ebony ring outward. The Landwarden Accursed stepped forward into his lightning strike and Vyeutas felt his hand break against her temple as readily as if he’d struck stone. Vyeutas bit his Brazen down against the pain even as he swung his other arm to bear, flicking his wrist to drop his sleeve and activate the spring-gun secreted there.

Hitting just under her chin, the impact of the bolt snapped the Landwarden Accursed’s head back, then her hand snaked out and grabbed his forearm. The spring-gun gave under her immense pressure, as did Vyeutas with a whimper when his bones gave out as well. The Landwarden Accursed coughed, her dark eyes narrowing as sharp as flint as she lifted him upright and looked quizzically at the ruined device upon his arm. And that’s when Vyeutas saw it. In her eyes, as they inexorably turned to meet his own. Behind her expression.

The desolate and abject sorrow.  

Another hum, as deep as the blast of a war horn, another swing… and he felt no more.

 

[C.T. Phipps]

Not a big fan of the names but I think it has potential.

[JGP]

The names get a bit easier further in, the Hume are quite Apart. And I haven't read this in quite a while, it's rusty as all fuck. lulz