An Excerpt
Blue Crystal (3rd draft)
Chapter One: Vastii in Black
Rylan knelt with one hand on his sword hilt; his other bore aloft a heavy brass lantern that illuminated the cave dwelling and the clouds of lingering breath. A figure in greasy dog fur huddled against the far wall as if trying to pass through stone, and he waved a pitted iron axe. The dead man sprawled on his stomach between them, and his body took up most of the floor. His face had been partially buried in a pool of cold blood and pink ice. The edges had begun to crystallize.
The light and shadows changed as Rylan’s lamp swung back and forth on its handle. Dots of yellow from the ventilation holes moved and twisted: large and indistinct stars on black stone. A black stripe from the brass that framed in the lantern’s glass drifted across the dirty man’s face. One moment, he held his head down and let the shadows fall across his features in a way that made his eye sockets look black and empty. The next, he’d raised his head and hunkered back, squinting and human.
Rylan recovered from his surprise first. “Get out.” He drew the blade on his left hip partially out of its scabbard, enough to show the man that his weapon was steel, not iron.
The man pressed himself against the wall. His eyes stayed on Rylan’s sword. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I don’t care.”
Rylan glanced around, first at his surroundings, then at the items in the room. The body had been striped of its trousers and its fur, bundled and tied in twine not far from an extended leg. A wound ran through the knee, hacked open through the cartilage. Rylan’s lips pressed together beneath his muffler. Touching a murdered man was bad luck, excepting burial rights or a search for justice. Cannibalism was worse.
The scavenger grabbed the bundled furs which he stuck under his arm, and reclaimed a lumpy fat candle from the floor. The wax squished against his glove, forming to his hand. “What about the leg?”
“Leave it.”
“That there’s good meat.”
“You have furs and leather. Leave it.” Rylan was standing in front of the only exit. He climbed out of the entryway slowly, and his hand strayed from his sword to his knife. There was no space to draw a sword where he was moving. Rylan watched the scavenger edge to the doorway that he was leaving, drawing forward for every careful step around the body that Rylan took.
“Before you go,” Rylan added. “Did you take any papers?”
The scavenger shook his head. “Keep the body. Fur’s enough.”
He took another step, then scrambled down in to the small hole, exiting the abode. Rylan sighed. Of course– why would he want papers when the man had fur and meat on his body? How silly of him.
That left the body on the floor to focus on. Rylan didn’t know his name, but he had been a distributor of forgeries, certificates, licenses, and illegal books– unsanctioned literature and anti-government propaganda. There were plenty of reasons for a man to be murdered in Vastii. A scavenger looking for the weak and unprotected was the least of Rylan’s worries.
Belinda said,
April 29, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Good job at setting up the mysterious and cold setting! I was shivering by the second paragraph.
Something to keep in mind: always up the tension. Use all the senses to emphasize the immediacy (surely the body still smells, even if it’s frozen, due to the nearby heat source). Instead of wondering if the secret police will show up, have them show up. Or, have the homeless guy attack Rylan for real, even if Rylan is armed, to show just how desperately hungry he is. As a reader, I like a chapter that ends with a character who is in worse (and tangible) trouble than when he started.
Keep up the great work, I look forward to reading more!
Saint Know-All said,
May 3, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Great atmosphere! I agree that the tension created by Rylan’s recognition of the mark was left hanging when nothing happened. Maybe even a hint that someone truly was watching (footprints, a glimpse of a figure, etc.) would help sustain it.
One nitpick: The dead man laid face down in a pool of his own partially frozen blood. Isn’t it more correct to use “lay”? I remember an English instructor screaming at us that “laid” should be reserved for what chickens did.
Stephen said,
May 20, 2008 at 5:19 am
I like it. Fantasy noir. Is Rylan a detective of sorts?
elizaw said,
May 20, 2008 at 8:25 am
The clip makes it sound like he is, doesn’t it? He isn’t… though he could take the job, if it was needed. In practical terms, he’s more like a mercenary. He serves a lady who needed something from the dead man.
Anonymous said,
May 21, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Gotcha. Hey Eliza, if you haven’t already, check out The Terror by Dan Simmons. He does a fantastic job of keeping us cold (and intrigued) for umpteen hundred pages. I got a nice taste of that chilliness in your excerpt. I recommend Simmons because I doubted he could talk about snow and ice for as long as he does.
He proved me wrong, as always.
And feck hiatus. It never really happens.
Cheers,
Stephen
Ken Kiser said,
August 2, 2008 at 2:41 am
This was pretty good. It held my attention.
Only because I know you are pursuing this seriously and would kick yourself for not noticing, I have to point out that in the last sentence of the first paragraph you have written “laid” when it should say “lay”.
Laid is the past-participle of Lay, which means “to place something down”
Lay is the past-participle of Lie which means “rested, reclined or… to be placed”
Here is a pretty good guide to help conjugate these verbs: http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000233.htm
Not trying to be a grammar snob. PLEASE don’t take offense. This one is tough sometimes and I just know I would want someone to tell me.
Damn… now you’ll be mad…
Seriously, though, I like your opening chapter.
elizaw said,
August 2, 2008 at 11:20 am
I’ve had it mentioned– I just haven’t changed the draft. I’ll be rewriting it anyway, and I’ll keep that in mind.
Thank you, and no worries!
stu said,
August 26, 2008 at 2:20 am
I hope you don’t mind, but I have one slight suggestion. We probably need to see more of the inner world of Rylan, particularly his reaction to the murder. I suspect you’re aiming to have him come across as quite cold and used to death, but even if that is the case, we should see it. At the moment, we seem to skim over that response a bit too much.
starting the 3rd draft « tales of a fantasy scribbler said,
October 5, 2008 at 8:06 pm
[...] resetting the word count bar. I’m also putting up the first five hundred words in my excerpt page. Go take a look– I think this draft is already much better than the [...]