Friday Art Update: A Word on Kobolds

Friday was Art Update Day for my Kickstarter project. Here is a page in the Inked stage, "K is for Kobold,"You can click on the image to view it at full size and get a real idea of the detail.

Kobolds are fairies or sprites from Germanic myth part of a long line of horrid little monsters that haunt mines or caves like Knockers, goblins, etc. People would sometimes carve effigies of them or practice other strange little rituals to ward them away or appease them so they wouldn't create mischief. Thinking of how frightening a mine or cave would be in pre-industrial times (some how more dangerous than modern ones) and also imagining how much of human physiology would be a mystery too its easy to see why someone would obsess over magic or curses emanating from "something else."

On a more relevant note: Kobolds are one of the weakest monsters in Dungeons and Dragons meaning your characters are likely to face them when just starting out. Kids being kids, most games of D&D never really made it more than a session or two so it seemed like every time you played you always ran into these little bastards. Now, this isn't just a D&D thing, Kobolds are a classical folkloric monster. Being in the public domain means that the concept gets reused and reinterpreted by many different authors, from Neil Gaiman's American Gods, to Siegfried Wagner's operas, to World of Warcraft.
Noah had his own idea for presenting these classic little fiends. He has really outdone himself with the realization of these monsters. They are malicious, but cute, threatening, but whimsical. I could not be happier with how they look.

You can find out more about our Kickstarter Project for "D is for Dragon" at Kickstarter.com or by following one of the links below from previous posts.

D is for Dragon Kickstarter launches!

Today is a big day, the launch of my first Kickstarter campaign!



The project is a collaboration with artist Noah Latz. It's a children's picture book called D Is For Dragon and with your help we can make it a reality. You can watch our launch video at the link above. The art for D Is For Dragon is more than a third done, but publishing is an expensive business, if enough people kick in we can afford to print the books in bulk and make what would be a vanity project into something professional and high quality.

But I'm not asking for donations, join our Kickstarter and you can get a copy of the book, a T-shirt, or even be part of the art! If the Campaign goes well enough I may even be able to produce additional titles and make this into a whole fantasy series! Check out my Kickstarter page for more at the link:


D is for Dragon Kickstarter

Children's literature is something I have always loved, especially the aspect of rhyme. A good rhyme to me has such power to make me love a piece while a false one, or just a simple choice, can likewise make me hate it. I am not, by choice, a poet but I feel I do stumble into poetry accidentally. (Yes, I know that I have been writing and sharing a novel about a poet including large segments of a fictionalized poetry meter, along with historic sources, but bear with me here.)
Poetry is something special that I have never quite felt accustomed to. One often hears that there are no rules to it but, to quote Niel Gaimen "there are thousands, and they are changing all the time." The fields of meter and flow are something I can never seem to suss.
Why poets often break,
one sentence in to two or more is,
beyond my understanding; especially if it has semicolons.

But rhyme and syllable I can hack well enough. Being a father I have come to realize just how big an effect a book can have on a small child and how big an effect they had on my own writing style. Re-reading all the classics from my childhood and seeing them enchant my daughter has been a true gift and one I hope to continue to savor for years to come. To it, D is for Dragon is my own attempt to make something like them while staying true to both my nerd heritage and the beauty of Noah's art. You should check it out, I think it is something truly special.  

D is for Dragon Kickstarter teaser

Hey people, its been a long quiet time on this page but things are about to get loud. My new project launches in two weeks and I just wanted to give you a heads up on it. It's my first collaboration and my first Kickstarter campaign. It will fund large scale printing for D is For Dragon my new children's book. Here is a teaser:

  

The Kickstarter goes live in April, and you will hear from me again, and see some more awesome art from my collaborator Noah Latz, when that happens so stay tuned...   

Short story: The Kindness of the Kettle

I was invited to Rain Or Shine's 2013 author series kickoff event tonight. The event was fantastic, ten authors reading segments of works or poetry, prose, flash fiction, and even an accordion backed prose poem of an awesomeness that had to be seen to be believed. Below, as requested, is the piece that I wrote and read. It is called the Kindness of the Kettle. Enjoy! 

***

The winds are strong but ill disciplined in the spring gale. Their bickering courses buffet the ship, mist breaking over her bow in the driving vernal rains. The cold of that rain is worst in Anser's feet where water seeps into every worried hole of his thick boots, but against his face the sting of it is still potent and punishing. It is an old familiar pain, one that he bears with gratitude like he bears the stab of the sunlight at dawn; that pain which is the proof of another day of living. Anser's eyes fight through the weather and blink back the rain. One hand shelters his view against the downpour the other is gripped firm to the rough nettle line by the forebrace as he stares over the side seeking his quarry. The screws of the ship are a dull roar and play rhythm to the creaking timber, clanging bell, and indeclinable shouts of one sailor to another all around him. Yet, so focused is he that the din is lost on him. All he hears is the rain on his coat and his own breath as it comes cloudy from his mouth. There is the shape below the ship that he has been looking for. First it is a shadow, then a line of shadows, then, he shouts “Heel up and nets eleven off the forebrace” as he recognizes his catch.

The men leap to their posts singing out their ready, the fear, excitement, or resignation of each is clear in his call. Gnarled, frozen hands both young and the old grip tight 'round shafts of the capstans, net-men take up their burden and make ready to cast off on his mark. The flocking prey comes visible as the ship draws her course and Anser cries out the mark. Three hands cast the net over the side, its weights spreading the web of clever knotted line wide and then together, closing like a hand about their quarry. The younger sailors strain the capstans, grunting, heaving at the back breaking labor their feet struggling to find purchase on the wet deck as the cranks rumble round and round pulling the loaded net up to the side. The old hands guide it up the hull as beaks snap at them and then turn the mad honking flock on-board with one heavy sweat. Anser is first to take up his club, well oiled of dark , heavy walnut and the bloody work begins as they set to cull the catch. It was a fine skien, some eighty two head of Canada Geese counted out even as the sailors bring their clubs down upon them one by one.

Soon the deck is awash in bloodied feathers, torrents of rainwater sloughing the gore away, out the gunnels and down, down to the clouds and the sleeping earth a thousand feet below. As the work finishes one and another of the young lads begin to shout at such a haul in one go, but Anser and the older sailors are away to the braces already and to dropping ballast just as soon as the flock is culled. Sky-sailors as old as them know that there will be other catches only if the weights are kept and the ship runs true and high in the wind. There will be other takes that day, but none so large, and the vessel will come back to the docks by the grey cliffs of Suramore-by-Lott laden down and riding heavy on the air. Anser will remember that one, will remember it as experience only can recount.

That night he'll bring a small gander to his wife – she swears the meat is finer on the ganders. He'll kiss his first born son on the cheek as the lad falls asleep in his wheel-chair by the fire side and he'll hug his eldest daughter as she goes out to pour drinks at the pub. One by one the family will drift to sleep, all but Anser. He is an older man in body than in years. The ship sails not again until the weather clears a little, but it is the pain of hard labor that won't let him sleep, that pain, and a private worry. Worry for the other still awake that night.

She comes back home, his daughter, when the moon has already left the sky. She tidies up and warms the kettle to help them both sleep. Then she sits and talks of suitors, of tutors, of the things of town-life she wants more of. Anser nods to it but it is as lost on him as his life is to her. How could it be any different? When the tea is ready that night, and she pours it for him and gives a warm cup into his waiting hands, when she asks him

“How was your day da?” 

What can he say of the bucking air-ship, of the singing of line and pitch sealed wood, of the frantic beating of wings and the mortal crack of club and hand? What can this man say of a life he knows by touch?

“Cold. But a good haul. Good enough.”

And she'll look back, his eldest daughter, the hearth light glinting in her eyes, and touch his wrist. And in that touch she can bridge the gap of worlds separated by gulfs as vast as the airy depths of the clear night sky. And her smile will warm him and she'll kiss his cheek good night. And only then will Asner sleep and only by the kindness of the kettle be contented.  

Keeping the Fire: Innocence

Don't know what this is? Check out the Pages section to the right to learn more about the Keeping the Fire project. 

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Were it not for water they would have died, but the roots granted them water. Both Polena and Mehethe could fast, she through practice and he through training. But their methods differed. Her way was always to be meditative, to be present in all things. Right now, she was so aware that she felt the darkness on her the same way one might feel the sunlight. Mehethe’s way was to shut down, to deny the hunger. He simply pretended there was no hunger, no pain, no darkness. Polena mused they had been down here almost three weeks. He was breaking first. She knew it. She also knew that there was someone crouching, waiting in the darkness. She had survived and recovered by force of Will, her own or that of the People. She had exhausted Hewava, or whatever spell or wickedness had lingered here but if that power had the strength to come again it would be through Mehethe. Polena knew all of this, but she dared not tell it. It would do no good. Instead she tried to keep him present, keep the Djaught from slipping away.

She did this first by common speech. She found out he had two wives, two sons and a several daughters, though he seemed to know them only distantly, as one would a cousin distantly. He had been a soldier all of his life as had his father and his grandfather before him. HE had seen many battles but no wars. Of Polena, he inquired nothing. She wondered if he did not care, or if the asking took too much energy. When they did not speak, they dug, but it felt slower and slower every day. Some time, maybe a day or two after she had first found him digging, he grew fevered and she feared that death or something worse was upon him. She could get nothing with common speech, nothing with courtly discourse. She would have to speak to a soldier as a soldier.

“ Djaught, who do you serve?” She asked, adopting the brisk tone Djaughts always used in poems and stories. Mehethe’s response was just as fitting.

“I am in service to the Vakhe of Concordance, Master over Thunder Falls, Shodje Shevake.

“How many men do you take in his service?”

“Thirty Hava in my duty.”

“How do they serve?”

“The Djahava Rhemu serves with distinction and is eager to advance our aim, the Djahava Medju is adequate but shows sign of bitterness at following coarser duties…” he went on this way, speaking of each and every soldier in his command, including those presumed dead at the Barrow. Polena let him speak, but as he did the thought came to her that he would answer any question she asked.

“Djaught Mehethe,” she said, trying to hide the hesitation in her voice, “what is Fiedjan’s purpose in this valley?”

“To gain the favor of the Fortress and take back the south from the murderous tribes that call themselves the downtrodden and ceaselessly raid the north.” The common line, she knew it, but even though she was trying to help him Polena did not want to lose a chance at the truth.

“Your Vakhe commands you Djaught, what is your true purpose here.” Mehethe was hesitant.

“I must not say.” He sounded pained, as if tired and drugged.

“Your Vakhe commands and I speak in his name. Tell your men their purpose Djaught.”

Mehethe’s breathing became taught and sudden. Polena reached to Mehethe and found his rod where it was tucked into his belt. She took it up and placed the metal of it on his shoulder, proving it’s authority.

“It is commanded!” she said.

“To strength the Priestess’ Peiyadja’s claim for the throne, to deter the Flinish attempts to take the Council from us. To make ready the way for the Vakhe’s army.” There was fear in his voice, the first fear she had ever heard in him. It stunned her, it seemed so foreign a sound, as if he used a voice that he had not spoken with since he was a small child.

“Why do you fear me knowing that?” Polena asked.

“Because I have failed. The fault is mine lord, I do you dishonor. I pursue the poet for more than the advantage her grave would bring us. I pursue her for myself.”

“Why?” Polena asked, her voice at once her own.

“Do not make me say it, please. Please.” He was broken. Polena felt a deep hollowness in herself. She saw an advantage and leapt at it. But in so doing she had found out the truth to this man Mehethe, one he buried so deeply that it was hidden even from him. He did not fear reprisal, he did not failure. He feared the showing of fear. He feared joy, tenderness, weakness. He could not show these things, for they filled him with anger or shame that she could not fathom. It was his hand that wrote those poems to her in his first letters. When he showed anger at court it was not because she had opposed Fiedjan or opposed him, but because she had insulted the poet. He had taken risks, had disobeyed his orders to pursue the poet and now his was afraid not because he would be punished, not because he had was almost certain to die entrapped in the darkness, but because someone might guess that he loved her, that he loved the poems. She could not harm him further.

“Djaught, I call you to rest you have done well,” then, thinking quickly she added, “as the First Poet says, “silence enfolds us,” rest, recover your strength, and take up duty honorably in the morning.”

The sigh she heard told her all she needed to know. Soon he was resting again, and within a time she felt his fever falling. She could not rest. They had been tricked here, both of them by people he sought power over fidelity. But she felt, as he slept, the full weight of her words and deeds since coming to the Fortress. It made her question if the only innocent one here was the child’s voice she had heard shiver forth from Mehethe’s mouth. The roots offered no reply but the distant drip of water.

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Keeping The Fire: A Luminary's Hands

Don't know what this is? Check out the Pages section to the right to learn more about the Keeping the Fire project. 

╩      56     ╩

The oldest winter houses of Easterners are built into the ground. It stays warmer there, holds the heat, fights against the strongest winds. Eastern men found better ways to build, better hearths, tighter windows, and thicker walls. But thankfully, the winters are never as harsh in the east. In the west, the winter houses are all still built into the ground. It is too cold for innovation and the People of such lands must fight and labor just to survive. As she crawled along the packed earth and tile floor of the tomb Polena thanked the Will that she had this small blessing of a tomb below ground. Even with spring coming it surely was too cold on the surface for anyone to live.

More and more she felt herself again, but spent and weary. It was the pain like that after a fever, where the bones still ache and the body must be forced to get it to move. The first thing she had sought had been water. Within the tomb it was black as the space between the stars, but any sound was redoubled. She was drawn to the drip of water and crawled for what felt like a hundred paces to reach it. She barked her shins, bashed her head, jabbed her fingers all along the way in the darkness. The place had gone from caressing her to attacking her. In time, she found it, a puddle of water about as deep as two fingers, tricking down the roots from the trees above and pooling in the cracks between two tiles. She drank carefully, threw up until her sides retched, rested, and began to drink again. Some time later she thought to find Mehethe.

She was too hoarse and weak to call out, but she listened until she heard noise, the sound of breathing and a rhythmic scraping of metal on earth. She crawled to it. It was too dark to see a thing and the Barrow was full of small treacheries, pits, snags, and sharp stones. But the plan of it was straight forward enough, and besides Polena felt as if she knew her way, like the lay of the place had been scored into her eyes and was still there when she closed them. When she got close to the noise it abruptly stopped. There was a long lingering moment in the darkness until Polena managed to feebly call out.

“Djaught?”

The scraping and breathing resumed again. As Polena crawled closer, Polena felt soft, cold earth under her fingers and she realized that he was trying to dig his way out of the Barrow with his blade as a shovel. She sat by him, let him work, judged him. She did not know how long it had been, but the fact that he was still alive and at this labor meant it was not years. Of course it couldn't have been that long, and rather than be frightened at the animus that might give her such a thought, she instead managed a smile at the absurdity of thinking it. He moved without haste and she could tell by his breathing he was exhausted. She tried to figure out by the lay of the main hall where they were in Barrow. To her recollection it could not have been anywhere near the side of the hill.

“Do you know where you are digging?” she asked, then, when he did not answer “do you know why you are digging that hole Djaught?”

“To get out of the tomb.”

“And do you know that this is not the right way to reach the surface?”

“Does it matter to you, ghost?”

She decided it did not. Of all the things she could do, she thought that touching him would be the least safe. That was what made her do it. She lean up to her knees, reached tentatively from the darkness, and put her hand on his shoulder. He stopped moving. There was no blow in response. Just haggard, breathing. She felt, in that touch, as only a Luminary can. She had seen soldier back from the front, had felt the heaving of a dying man's chest after he had worked himself to death, knew the pain of chronic injury, the sting of trauma, the bite of cold, the stain of bitterness, the resignation of the damned. All of these things she could feel in his body, each like the color of a thread in a tapestry. In his words, in his expression the Djaught showed no emotion, or at most anger. His whole life he had worked for the sole purpose of hiding his true nature. He had carved out a place inside himself where his heart ought to have been. But his body betrayed him. He was tired, bitter, resigned, and frightened.

“Rest,” she said, “You have worked enough Djaught. I will dig a while.” He would not move, would give her the blade, would not even reply. So she did as she said she would, crawled passed him, and began to dig in the cold soil with her hand scraping out clay, sand, and rock with tired fingers. In time, she heard him recline, and in time beyond that, she heard him sleeping. Then she stopped, sat, and made to pray. But when prayers were not strong in coming she thought instead of writing. She composed a letter home to Denza. The grace it granted her was just as nourishing.

╩      ╩

Keeping the Fire: A Piece in Five Movements

Don't know what this is? Check out the Pages section to the right to learn more about the Keeping the Fire project. 

╩      55     ╩

From their door steps, high windows, or in company of the cobbled street the people of Dehali watched the lady's progress. She walked slowly and her cloth was fine, though certainly not of royal sort. She wore a veil as the Flinish do when in morning so the folk were careful not to speak to her. It was just sundown and the people of the city were on their way to their homes or pubs, some sat at their tables trying to catch the last light of day, others traded words in the streets. The lady ignored them all and kept to the center of the street. Folk in Dehali, as with any place, know it is best to leave such folk to their own business.

As she walked down one of main streets of Dehali, one of the few to be fully cobbled, the Duchess shivered. To Tavya, Dehali felt as foreign as the roaring of the ocean to a landlocked shepherd. Every person here was of common blood. They seemed to care little for their conduct, less for their appearance, and least at all for their space. Offal and sewage were cast into the alleys behind the houses. Each house had a little covered porch and each of these had a table that was used for everything from the butchering of meat to the sewing of a child's clothing. The only merit she drew from this was that the folk must be as ignorant as any of slave, for not one of them accosted her or even so much as spoke to her. Though she was tense with fear she could not help but smile a little to think of her wit to be passing undetected among these common folk.


From where he watched, a stoop beside a narrow alley Dama could see the lady walk. He knew at once she was from the Fortress. She stuck out to his trained eyes as clearly as a flower amid the grass. He had to pay dearly to get inside the wall and were he to get this right it would be worth the toll. The Dorrishman had paid him half up front to get him the lady in the veil, and after he failed to take the Luminary Polena he would have too prove his worth if he were to get back into the Fortress. It is rare for anyone to get a second chance with the Weatherclock. He stepped up, ready to make his move, but there were already others moving up on her. Just where the men had come from he did not know, but the certainty and coordination of their movements, told him he was over his head. They were professionals.


Antebrote had planned the movement so many times, both in his mind and in practice with his three men that when they began the action of it he had to remind himself that it was really happening. Two behind, himself in front, one to the side to watch, the steps were as poised as a courtly dance. He could not see her face but the shock in her eyes and the dart of her head told him she was quick to realize she had been entrapped. Now that the fear was there it was time to give the bait.

“Lady Tavya,” he said, “we have come ahead of you at the behest of the Whale. This city is not fully in the hands of the Watch and we are to take you to a safe place.”

“I do not know your face.” She replied

“But I know your's,” he answered, “as does the assassin sent after you.” He permitted himself a glance to Ormede, the one on watch. His repeater crossbow was barely concealed beneath his parn, he had warned him about that before and would have to bring it up again afterwards. He wanted nothing less than perfection.

“Where is it?” Tavya asked.

“A short distance,” Antebrote replied, adjusting his cloak as he did so to “unintentionally” show her the broach he wore on his chest, a fair imitation of the one's worn by higher ranking members of the Watch. She nodded, the group moved around her, and like that, they were off. As smoothly as he had planned it.

The water was still at the Fountain of the Young Mare. It played only when a brazier before the statue of the reclining horse was lit and the mood of that water, dark and still, fit the mood of the crossroads it was built at. Gabre had been waiting for his lady to come. He had known her despite her clothing and that thought brought a simple joy to him. How good a servant he must be to know her by her walk alone, she whom he loved and served so well. He had let her approach rather than give sign of himself. But at about a hundred paces from him she had been quietly accosted and taken away. Panic rose up in him and he wanted to cry out. But there would be nothing for that. Either these men were sent by the Whale or the Weatherclock, and either case would mean the Watch here would do nothing. He breathed deeply, swallowed the shame and self doubt that always plagued him, and started off the way the men had left. He would follow them from a distance, find out where they were taking her, and then get Uhen. He would know what to do. Not a street away was he in his chase when he realized that he was not alone. By his walk too he knew the other that followed, Dama. His lady had ordered him to follow this man before when he was spying on Polena, he had been close enough to intervene when that thug had tried to kidnap her. Now he was again a spy following a spy.


From their door steps, their high windows, or in the company of the cobbled street the people of Dehali watched the last travelers of the day slip through their streets. Though many of them knew some mischief was afoot, not one of them was fool enough to get in its way. Not in Dehali, and especially not in times like these.

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