Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:37:24 GMT

It's been forever since I used this, but since friends and family have now started using blogs, and I'm so far away, I thought I'd give this out and start writing more religiously.

So what's new with me?

I'll be visiting home soon! Flying out next Wednesday and returning on January 8th, I believe. I'm looking forward to it, but there's a lot of work to be done. The apartment needs a lot of attention and we have all sorts of new furniture (gifts from Mom and Dad, wow...) to assemble.

Almost all of that is done - all that's left is the coffee table, my bedside table and the new comfy chair. I'll be assembling at least the chair tonight, probably that and my bedside table.

I did a lot of deep cleaning to prepare for the new furniture, things I'd never done and clearly Amy's former room-mates hadn't done either, and that's nearly done, so today will just be finishing that and vacuuming up all the mess from the boxes.

The other day the building fire alarm went off, and we went downstairs to wait. Why does it always rain whenever the fire trucks come? Anyway, as we went downstairs all we smelled was incense, and true to form, it turned out to be nothing. Still, the whole thing was very poorly organized, and our resident manager didn't speak to anyone or help much at all. It was a fireman who eventually told us we could go back inside.

I failed NaNoWriMo... only got about halfway done. I think it's because I needed a week or more to plan before I could really get anything out there. They say to just write, even if it's crap, but even crap needs a 'what happens now' inspiration that I can't really bring unless I really know the characters. I'm currently working on a short story while I plan for another novel project, to be worked on when I have the time after the holidays.

That's all, really. Viva vacation!

The Fading

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:01:40 GMT

For R________, the beginning of my novel. What do you think?

ONE A

HISAKI:
The Hunters of the White

He'd finally holed up in some tiny hotel room off the interstate, in some town whose name kept slipping out of his mind. He'd look at the matchbook in the molded glass ashtray, or the white-on-black logo on the card proclaiming HBO channels on the top of the little TV, and he'd know the name of the hotel and the town, but then seconds after looking away, he'd lose it again. The brain was like a sieve when the Fading hit, and things he had forced himself to take as reality suddenly looked transparent, as if they'd been painted on gauze and he could see the real version just past the billowing fringe. There were places where what was Beyond was better, more beautiful and more primal. There were places it was unspeakably worse, places where the Beyond was a nightmare you would give anything to escape. And there were always places, like here, where it wasn't too different, and it wasn't any better or worse. Those were the places, more than anything, that forced you to recognize that Beyond was the true reality.

Hisaki pressed his palms to each side of his head as if he'd squeeze the sight right out of him. He was curled on the upholstered hotel chair, almost fetally, his back against the arch of circular chairback-and-armrest-combined, and his knees against his chest. His feet, curled on the edge of the seat-cushion, were a snowy color, and the long toenails already resembled polished ivory. The Hunt was on.

There was an old tan leather shoulder-rig hooked over the arm of the desk chair across the room, and its reddish holsters housed a set of six-shooters with barrels of mahogany and gold scrollwork, like something you'd see in a western. They didn't look like they'd shoot, and Hisaki was doubting that they would, but the thing that really bothered him about them was that all he'd left on the back of the desk chair in the real world was his bomber jacket. The Beyond was trying to tell him something, and he didn't think he liked the message much.

The last thing Hisaki wanted to do was to touch the ghastly things. He wanted to press the heels of his hands into his temples until the Fading stopped, until the world was normal and human again, a world where he was just a tired and battered old widower who had been through the wars.

He hated the Hunt, he hated the Games, and he hated guns almost as much. It had to be a cruel joke on the part of the Beyond to give him revolvers, because he was always the one who was being shot at.

Curiosity plagued him, pulled at his joints like a hook pulling its prize catch out of the water. It felt that painful too, like he was taking the bait that was going to murder him, as Hisaki uncoiled in his chair and took the few steps needed to reach the desk chair. He tilted the handle of one of the revolvers to the light, so he could read the scrollwork.

Patterns of celtic bears nestled into each other to form the border, and in brass plate worn by a palm that wasn't even as wide as Hisaki's, was a name in flowing, ornate script. The name made him wince and rub at his face as if he could scrub it clean of the sins flowing from the life of the man whose names were written on those guns. Hisaki didn't even have to look at the other gun to know what legend it would bear.

He picked up the white hotel phone, leaning his knee on the chair and trying not to even touch the weapons by accident. He knew before he dialed the number for hotel information that the Fading was only getting worse, and what he got wouldn't be the receptionist at this little off-road hotel. He wasn't even surprised at the cultured voice, almost British but not quite.

"Holliday Inn," it said, in Nestor’s slow manner, with an undertone that told you he considered everything he said to be unutterably amusing.

Hisaki felt a sharp burst of pain between his eyes, the beginning of a very bad headache, and had to resist the urge to tell him it wasn't funny. "What happened to the receptionist?" he said instead, in the calm tones people use with the insane, or when they're just so angry they don't know if they can control their voices.

"She's tied up at the moment," said Holliday, and Hisaki almost groaned.

"I have your guns," Hisaki said after a moment, "You can come get them, but you stay the hell clear of me, you understand me, Nestor?"

"I hear you," Nestor Holliday drawled, then there was a click as he hung up. Hisaki cursed, roundly, anyone or anything. He looked around the room fast, looking for anything he might like to take with him. Nothing… wait. Without even looking, or thinking too much, Hisaki grabbed the shoulder-rig of Holliday's guns. He knew now that they would shoot, and why the hell not take them with him? The Beyond had seen fit to give them to him, not to Blood-and-Bones Holliday, so odds were they'd be dangerous but useful somewhere along the road.

Hisaki already had the danger, he figured he might as well have the usefulness too.

The cool night air hit him like a slap, and it was only then he realized how infernally hot it had been in the hotel room. The rise in temperature had been so gradual he hadn't felt it, distracted by guns and voices at the other end of telephones. But the coldness woke him up a little, made him check the parking lot, and sure enough there were man-shaped shadows approaching from both sides.

Holliday always walked alone, and these men weren't working for him, because Holliday knew where Hisaki was holed up, and these men kept tapping at hotel doors, tilting their heads and sniffing for the scent of some animal. Their heads went up as Hisaki paused, watching them, and they froze, then ran toward him from both sides, dress shoes making little flapping clicks on the cement as they did so.

They could run, Hisaki gave them that, but he could run faster. He was still barefoot, and his feet seemed to fly. The wind ripped the tie from his white hair and it streamed back like a banner. They could run. They were of the Hunters of the White, but they were only hounds and he was the Stag.

Hounds in the world of humans can pull down a stag, but a simple hound could never catch the White Stag. It was common knowledge that only a knight could do that.

Hisaki knew they'd have knights, and in abundance, if they tracked him this far. And there was still the question of Nestor's guns. This was a Game, and one whose object and rules he didn't know. He was going to need help, and there wasn't anybody he could trust.

Just think about who you need, he counseled himself, as the wind of his passing ripped at his clothes, and the streetlamps and white-sided houses of this little town Faded into orange trees and two-story half-timber manors. In the distance he could see the deadly shadow of the Forest, and that was his destination. Just think about who you need and worry about trust later. There's never been anyone you could trust anywhere, anyway.

He curled up by a waterfall, hours later, and panted. His lungs felt as if they’d been filled with acid, his skin slick and cold with sweat. The Becoming hadn't hit yet, this was the Between, and he lay on his side, misted by the roaring falls, and didn't understand why he still looked human, why he still had Nestor Holliday's six-shooters.

The Forest spread around him, old, fierce and gnarled. The great black trees had deadly clawed hands for branches, and twisted, evil faces that stared from their mossy trunks. None of them bothered him, indeed, he heard their soothing whispering, felt them responding to his will and misdirecting or entangling anyone who might search for him.

Now he had to untangle himself, leaning against the rock that formed the waterfall's basin, and thinking of who he could possibly call for help. There was a limit to how long the Forest could be his barrier. Sooner or later, they'd call in someone who could cow the trees, could force them to behave or chop them into kindling, and sooner or later, Hisaki would have to run again.

And they'd have guns too, and the fact that he had guns was dangerously new. The guns were probably what was holding him in a human form, so he had fingers to pull the brassy triggers.

Who did he know who was deadly with revolvers, besides old Blood-and-Bones Holliday, who was clearly on the list of those who wished him ill?

Faces swam in his mind, people who were people here, like Holliday, and those, like Hisaki, who were less and more than that. Most he knew only by reputation, or glimpses in the distance, but others he had vague recollections of talking to, either under the gauzy mask of the real world, so that with a startled air of amused malice they could trade barbs in some New York deli. Even back when he was the servant of the Faerie Queene, when courtiers and enemies would come to pay their respects.

He finally made his decision based on who he thought had the least reason to want him dead, not on any memory of gunslinging or of political solidarity. He didn't even know what he could offer to sweeten his deal, but he needed help and that might just be enough.

Hisaki unsnapped the holder of his slim black cellular phone, slipped it out of his belt and flipped it open. It had, as he suspected, changed, and now the buttons, instead of reading numbers, had names printed in tiny sans-serif capitals. It seemed the Beyond had chosen for him who he might be able to contact.

Hisaki hit the button for Wild, and winced at the thought of what a phone would be like for the creature on the other end. He had to wait what seemed like an eternity, listening to the drawn-out trill of the ringing, until there was finally a voice at the other end of the phone.

"What do you want, Stag?" Wild's voice was genderless, but his inflection was all male.

"Help," Hisaki said with no preamble, hoping a show of powerlessness would persuade the creature at the other end to listen. "I was Outside, and Hunters came. I have Nestor Holliday's guns, and cannot take my true form. This is some sort of Game, and I need an ally I can trust to not be involved already."

"Well, I can't fault your logic on my part," came the reply, tinged with amusement, "but why should I help a little animal with his foot caught in a trap?"

Hisaki's blood went cold. "You mean the guns were bait," he said with sudden finality. "If I hadn't taken them, they couldn't have touched me."

"Well, I don't know for sure," said Wild, "but it seems like a pretty good bet to me."

Hisaki was silent for a few minutes, because he thought he could hear the echo of his own heartbeat in the receiver cupped to his ear. Finally, he said, "I need your help, Old Man. Will you give it?"

"You mean you want me to sling guns with Nestor Holliday." Wild's voice was totally empty. It was that tone that could make your blood stop, flesh crawl with sudden coldness. Hisaki made a sound of assent, and was graced with a sharp bark of laughter from a thing that should not have been able to laugh.

"I'm on my way, little stag," said Wild, "because your request amuses me. I have never matched up against the Hunters of the White, and I have never been a gunfighter. But your request amuses me."

Hisaki opened his mouth to thank the Wild, but there was nothing but an empty dial tone ringing in his ears.

ONE B

ALLISTER:
5201 FIFTH STREET

The match flared like a crimson pupil, glowing in the near-total darkness with an elliptical iris of radiance. He dropped it over the surface of the liquid in his champagne flute, and suddenly there was a crystal brazier lighting the soft outlines of his moody face.

Allister LaCroix's fingernails gleamed in the blue-green flame as the alcohol burned, and his pale, oval face looked like the face of a doll, framed by the blue-black shadows of his mass of curls. A faint purple slept at the core of his sapphire eyes, wispy-bright like the smoke off dry ice. He blinked a few times, sleepily, and then he noticed the visitor.

Allister was sitting in a hard-backed diamond-wood chair, set high on a dais stained with old blood. At his right hand was a low cabinet made of ebony and mother-of-pearl. On its surface was a plethora of bottles; some were wine-bottles with labels the visitor couldn't read, others were squat dark glass affairs he imagined might have been marked with a skull and crossbones before Allister had carefully re-labeled them in block capitals. Two wineglasses, the stems decorated with gold and green entwined serpents, rested near a half empty bottle of champagne in the forefront, and their triplet was cupped in his long, deadly fingers.

Allister wore a tunic of black silk. His black leather pants were tight enough to be a second skin, tucked under knee-high lace-up boots of an icy vinyl, their heels benedicted, no doubt, in the blood of his enemies. His hair was a cloak, the thick curls reaching past his waist, and behind him the shadows of picture frames and crown molding raised themselves at the edge of the darkness.

As far as his visitor was concerned, he was sitting in a picture frame as well, so the rest of the morbid Great Hall of Six Sixteen Black Crescent was blessedly hidden. The visitor, in fact, was standing in the Portrait Hall of the Haunted House on Fifth Street, in the Fading, and Allister knew it because he smiled at his discomfited face as it appeared in a painting across from him, and toasted toward him with his burning glass.

"Mr. Clover," he said, and his voice was deep , smoky and dark, like cigar smoke on a blood-spattered night avenue. His thick black eyelashes lowered to half-mast over glowing eyes with cores of violet, and Clover felt his heartbeat speed chaotically. "What do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Clover, for his part, had balding ginger hair that puffed out like a sort of saint's halo around his tanned and seamed face. His paunch was less substantial than it had been the last time Allister had seen it, and fitted rather nicely under his tailored green suit. Under nearly square bifocals with steel rims, his jowls looked as heavy as a bulldog's, and Allister thought he looked unfortunately like a giant leprechaun, considering his name.

"Well," he began, fidgeting with his pocket-watch, and LaCroix’s gaze sharpened. Clover’s fingers were stubby, and the watch was a worn brass affair Allister was surprised still worked in the Fading. "The word is out that you're bored, Mr. LaCroix, looking for a bit of work…"

When he let that trail off, Allister let out a low, ironic hiss of laughter. "I'm surprised you came to me yourself, Clover. Very surprised. But I'm not," and here his voice harshened, "interested in working for the likes of you." He swung his right ankle over his left knee and began toying with the heel of his boot. "I despise cowards." The last words were hissed with the tone of an absolute hatred, edging into the bleak depths of insanity he knew to hang wetly in that room. Clover shivered, and was very glad he had not come in person. He did not believe himself to be a coward, but it hardly did to argue with Allister LaCroix.

"I'm not representing myself," said Clover stiffly, when he felt he could breathe again. LaCroix was no longer looking at him; his head was turned to the left, and the alcohol-drug-mixture in his glass had almost burned out completely. "I represent 5201 Fifth Street. It… called me, you see."

Allister’s eyes swung back, and the violet had strengthened at their cores. Interest, Clover thought, although the almost lambent intensity of Allister’s eyes in the growing darkness made him very uncomfortable.

"Well, I suppose the ghosts have the right to their own business," LaCroix drawled, trailing his fingertips over the curves and wrinkles of vinyl over his heel and ankle. His voice lowered, "Why don't you tell them to talk to me themselves, Clover? You don't interest me. You nearly got me killed because of your white liver in 1840, and don't think I've forgotten it."

Clover paled. "I took a vow!" He protested, his jowls quivering. "An it harm none-"

Allister waved his hand flippantly. "You don't even have the moral conviction to accept the blame, how typical. You don't even sound like you're defending your vow. I want you to go away, now, Mr. Clover, and the ghosts can speak to me if they wish. We have a great deal in common, ghosts and I." His voice had become dreamy, almost whispery, and Clover hated his voice when it did that, so he moved away from the portrait and averted his gaze.

He was shaking, because two people had died in 1840 because he'd had the strength of his moral convictions not to kill with his magic, and thinking of the hundred-year-old gravestones made him question himself so strongly now he could hardly light a candle without losing himself in helpless tears. Maybe he was a coward.

Allister LaCroix was in agony, and part of that agony was that he could not cry, could not produce enough tears to lubricate his swollen, damaged irises. The pain was grinding, burning, impossible to ignore. If he could have curled up in the four-poster in his bedroom and sobbed until it stopped, he felt she well might have, but the cycles of torment had taken him every day since he was four years old, and he no longer allowed his body to even quake in answer to it.

The darkness was all the coddling he allowed his wounded eyes, the darkness and the hatred for this torture, this weakness, and the long-dead parasites responsible for its perpetration. He mixed laudanam with champagne until it was a green color, and sipped it, waiting to be spoken to by the ghosts.

The ghosts of the house on 5201 Fifth Street did not speak to Allister LaCroix, but his own ghosts did, faded voices saying ugly things that made his stomach clench like a small fist. Words, in their time, like unexpected blades through the skin. So many of the speakers were dead now that Allister felt inexpressibly cut adrift and lonely, with almost no one left he respected and admired.

In 1819, when he was just a boy, Allister had the fortune to meet Dorian Grey. He believed Grey was still in existence, as were Alexandra and Caesarion Malfleurs, Edward Carpenter and that little bastard, Nestor Holliday. They were the last remnants of the old houses, and for good or for ill, they were Allister's companions through immortality.

They, and the Hexagram - the Six Ghosts of Fifth Street, but Allister hardly counted ghosts, or he'd have a thousand transparent and bittersweet memories to be his companions. Once the old houses had been the Great Houses, and his grandfather Arthur LaCroix had been a great man.

Now there was only the memory of insanity on Black Crescent, death and far-seeing on Fifth Street, decadence and decay in Church Grove, obsession in Malfleury, River Palace was a ruin, and Amber Nails had rotted under the weight of its bloody curse.

He sometimes believed that the Fade itself was fading, that its stagnance and its lack of offspring was killing it. In the human world, those parasites bred like insects, covering all the earth. The last child who had been born in the Fading was Caesarion Malfleurs, who had been born the same year as Allister, in 1800.

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:26:36 GMT

It's been a while since I've updated. I guess there just isn't that much to say. I think Amy and I will be at Mr Bill's tonight, so hopefully I'll get to see a lot of you.

Ta and Happy Thanksgiving weekend.

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:32:42 GMT

Ren Faire was fun. Got to be a bit piratical, and had a long interesting chat with some new folks. Got new, fitting boots and Chris got a blacksmithed knife, cold-forged for a mottled appearance, very cool. Still working on my Japanese persona... I think it will work though.

Pictures to come.

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 22:05:12 GMT

Bit of a bug fell on me yesterday. Sore throat, deep lung cough, nausea. I hope it goes away so I can enjoy my weekend.

Have a job interview on Tuesday. It's a very good thing. I hope I can make the cut.

September writing projects include submissions for Sails and Sorcery, Dreams of Decadence, and Dark Wisdom.

Boring post, but I thought I'd keep you all updated.

estuans interius

The Fading