FIRE, continued
Peter says:
My turn, and I’m as thrilled about it as Robin.* Some of these have been in my bottom drawer for years.** I too have had a problem with stories bolting into books,*** though THE TEARS OF THE SALAMANDER is a lot shorter than SUNSHINE. There’s another salamander here – fire creatures aren’t that easy to come up with. Dragons, of course, and then . . . er . . . er . . .
from Phoenix
He stood in the doorway gazing vaguely over the pile of ash with the remnants of heat beating up into his face. Warmin’ my old carcass through, he thought. Doin’ something useful at last.
Sudden as a blink, almost, the sun rose, slotting its rays through a gap where a fallen tree had brought down several of its neighbours. There was a movement in the ashes a little way over to Dave’s right. He peered at it with his good eye, and decided it was more than just an eddy of wind stirring the surface. Something underneath. He scuffed the fringe of ashes aside, took a half pace forward, gripped his stick by the ferrule and reached out, trying to rake the thing towards him with the crook.
Poor beast, he thought. What a way to go. Put you out of your sufferin’, shall I?
He took a quick stride forward, this time onto hot embers, thrust the crook into the heart of the heap, hooked it round something solider than ash and dragged it free. It cheeped plaintively as it came, disentangled itself from the crook, and stood, shaking the ashes from its feathers. It was a baby bird, about the size of an adult rook, its eyes newly opened, its body covered with astonishing luminous yellow down that seemed to ripple with the heat of the fire, and the tiny fledge-feathers along its wings a darker, almost orange gold. The beginning of a scarlet crest sprouted from the bald scalp. Dave had never seen anything like it before. It was an absurd creature, but wonderfully appealing. It seemed unharmed, though the crook of his stick had blackened perceptibly during its brief raking in the embers.
Nor did it seem to be bothered by the heat even now. It stayed where it was, gazing imperiously round the ruin, seeming wholly untroubled by the human presence, and finally gazed directly up at Dave with its head cocked a little to one side. Well, what now? it asked him, plain as speaking.
from Salamander Man
“I suppose I’ve really known all along it was meant for you,” she said. “Long before . . . Anyway, the day I came to look for a slave, there was a beggar outside the school selling trashy little trinkets. Of course I looked his stuff over, the way I do. There was nothing on his tray worth even a glance, except this. I knew at once it had powers, though I’d no idea what they were. Still haven’t. I bought it for a song and put it in my purse, but then . . . I hadn’t actually been meaning to buy a slave that day – just went to see what was on offer, and go home and think about it, but the moment I saw you . . . I’d completely forgotten about it. I suppose that was why I’d never put it on sale, because it would be a bit like selling a piece of you, and now . . . and now . . . I’m going to lose you anyway, so you may as well take it . . . Aren’t you even going to look at it?”
Still in his daze of shock and grief, Tib found she’d already put the bag in his hands. He fumbled the cord loose and groped inside. His fingers touched something soft and flexible – a ribbon, he thought, but when he drew it out he found a golden band, not gold thread, but too soft and flexible to be wire. Running it through his fingers he came to a stiffer part and found himself being stared at by two small purple eyes – jewels of some kind – and now he could see the shape of the head woven into the mesh. The thing was a small golden lizard. . . .
“I think it’s an armband,” said Aunt Ellila, and then, as he slipped the band onto his wrist, “Careful! Take it off at once if . . .”
The band dangled loose ands harmless from Tib’s wrist so he slipped it up to the thicker muscle above the elbow, where it seemed to fit snugly. The dangling legs spread themselves, and the feet, without actually gripping, seemed to adhere lightly to the skin, like those of a wall-climbing gecko. A faint shimmer ran through the mesh and, without any movement he could sense, it seemed to lose substance and fade until for a moment he could see his skin through it. Then it was gone, melted into the flesh of his upper arm.
Aunt Ellila put out a trembling hand and lightly touched the place, but instantly snatched it back with a cry of pain and sucked at the first three fingers. When she withdrew them from her mouth Tib saw that the first three fingers were scorched white, as if she had laid them on a hot roasting-pan. But when, gingerly, he held his palm over the place and then himself touched it, he could feel nothing but his own natural warmth.
from Fireworm
He told them about his dream, and what he had done on waking. They stared at him and turned to Nedli. She didn’t only tell stories. She was their Old Woman, who remembered things that had happened before any of them were born, as well as all the lore of long ago, things that generations of Old Women had passed down. She sat among the women, and spoke for them, but spoke as an equal with the hunters. She looked round the circle and then rose.
“Let the hunters come with me,” she said, and led them to the back of the cave.
“Who knows the name of Tandin’s father?” she said. “Was it any of you? Lay your hands on the pelt of the Amber Bear and swear to me it was not.”
All did as she told them.
“Perhaps the fellow’s dead,” said Sordan. “Or perhaps he was from another cave.”
“Perhaps,” said Nedli. “But the Blind Bear has called Tandin to her and spoken to him in his dream. I think he is a spirit-walker, and it was Amber Bear that took human shape and fathered him, as long ago he fathered Tarr and Undarok.”
“Those are only stories,” said Vulka.
“Last night you thought the fireworm was only a story,” said Barok.
“In that case let Tandin walk the ghost path,” said Bast. “Let him ask his father to help us.”
. . . . There were ghost walkers in one or two of the other caves, but most who had tried to take that journey had either died or returned too crazed to live long.
The Blind Bear whispered in Tandin’s mind.
Son of my brother, come.
He left his place by the wall, joined the circle of hunters and laid his hand on the pelt.
“Yes,” he said. “Let me walk the ghost path. Set me on the way.”
“You’re too young,” said Barok. “Grown hunters have died. Remember what Nedli has said. ‘The ghost path is splintered ice beneath the feet, thorn-bush tearing the flesh, bitterweed on the tongue, ice in the heart. It runs on the very edge of life, with a sheer drop down into the dark land of the Great White Owl.’”
“There’s is always a price to pay for anyone who walks the ghost path,” said Daskan. “An arm, or an eye.”
“Or his mind,” said Bast, with relish. “Or his life.”
“The Blind Bear calls me,” said Tandin.
That settled it.
* * *
* Or possibly more so. Peter is the one, after all, who has had his FIRE stories all, ahem, burning a hole in the bottom of a drawer while I wander about the place muttering helplessly and occasionally producing a novel.
** And years. And years.
*** Yes. Thank the gods.
comments
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Ooohh! I love all these stories! I’m English, so I’m afraid I don’t really do squeeing, but if I did – SQUEEEEE!! Thank you Peter for being so patient
****** Some of these have been in my bottom drawer for years.
and thank you BOTH for reining those bolting plots back
****** I too have had a problem with stories bolting into books
I’ve just re-read WATER and just loved all those stories (all over again) too. I think one of the joys of a good short story is that there is sufficient characterisation to develop interest in & sympathy for the character, and enough space and “what ifs” left by the end that there is a pleasurable sense of potential in melding reader’s imagination with the authors… but we still want more of those nice novels lol
The truth is I LONG to be able to write a novel about what happens after the end of Hellhound. But I have at least two novels to write before then. No, three. . . . And it still has to *come.* Like I haven’t written a sequel to SUNSHINE because it doesn’t *come*. Repeat after me: I Have No Control.
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The truth is I LONG to be able to write a novel about what happens after the end of Hellhound. But I have at least two novels to write before then. No, three. . . .
At least you know you won’t run out. *shudder*
Writing has always been a problem. Stories have never been a problem. Sigh. Well, it would be WORSE the other way around.
****** Repeat after me: I Have No Control.
OK… I obviously have no control over my keyboard, whereas you write glorious stories which arrive as and when they are ready, for you to craft… I liked the sound of ALBION, but if it fades into the ether, then I’ll be happy with whatever you write, going on past evidence :)
Just “enjoy” your writing as much as possible, it sounds a parallel process
Well I try not to have glasses of wine with anti-spelling substances in them before sitting down at the computer. :)
****** Repeat after me: I Have No Control.
No Control remains glorious reading, so no worries there :)
You could write about diarrhoea* and manure** and it would be immensely readable and entertaining – why, good grief, you HAVE and IT WAS! LOL
* repeatedly, in the nature of diarrhoea
** the description of Hampshire council muck, involved, I seem to recall, dinosaurs (???)
*** – and look at the erruption of footnotes you’ve initiated…
Footnotes GOOD. I will not pass judgement on my topics however . . . :)
“Repeat after me: I Have No Control”
There, there. \It’s alright. We will read whatever you throw our way. In our own pathetic fashion, we are like your hellhounds, patiently awaiting crumbs of toast, thrown by the Hellgoddess.
Nobody has control, and those that think they do, are mistaken.
Nobody has control, and those that think they do, are mistaken.
****** Yes. But some of us fake it better than others. :)
Oh! I can’t wait till FIRE comes out!
(Yes, your editors will accept it. Because they know excellence when they see it.)
Or because I’ll tell them that all my blog readers will come and crush them to death if they don’t? :)
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Bwahahaha!
Yes, why not?! On several continents, too! *ginormous grin*
Thank you for the excerpts, Peter! Another elemental book to look forward to. *Smack and *drool*.
> all my blog readers will come and crush them to death if they don’t?
That is actually true, so it’s not a bad threat. Shall we grrr and look threatening and make intimidating fists at them so as to prove your point? I stand ready to do so at your word.
:)
I wonder what storey my editor’s office is? You could all make a giant pyramid outside her building and make faces through her window.. . .
Hey, use what you’ve got!
Huh?
“Or because I’ll tell them that all my blog readers will come and crush them to death if they don’t? :)”
Perhaps we could be a bit like you with Chaos, when you posted a month or so back (I think) about him being very antsy one day until you hugged him to you, with you in the dominant position on top. If we could descend on your publishers en masse and sort of lie on them in a heap, do you think that might help to get them thinking along the right lines? They can’t be less intuitive than Chaos, can they…
:)
and sort of lie on them in a heap, do you think that might help to get them thinking along the right lines? They can’t be less intuitive than Chaos, can they…
:)
. . . helpless with laughter . . .
Yup! The all-conquering Robin’s Blog Reader Army!
****Hey, use what you’ve got!****
****Huh?!****
I think this was referring to the March of the Blog Readers, and I forgot to post a reference. I did that in the wee hours of this morning when I should have been going to bed and was obviously in the throes of a brain spasm. Sorry!
This seems to me one of those things WordPress **should get sorted.** Lj was FULL of things that should get sorted, but WordPress has one or two–like being able to see a thread.
Snippets are good. :) Looking forward to the new-book-smell too. :)
Hugs, Chocolate and Rest ……
::lights a candle to set fire to ME::
Looking forward to the new-book-smell too. :)
******** Yes, it’s nice, isn’t it?
Hugs, Chocolate and Rest ……
::lights a candle to set fire to ME::
********* Yes. Please . . .
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Lovely … I’m more than ready to read all the Fire stories. Thank Peter for sharing with us.
Until they do appear at the bookstore, I guess we’ll just have to let our own imaginations work on these most excellent beginnings.
By the way today is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. NPR had an hour long show about it this morning. When you wrote about Blue Castle a few months ago I found it online and quite enjoyed it. An L.M. Montgomery scholar spoke about Montgomery’s childhood and it became clear that her own experiences deeply influenced her books. Apparently her journals are fascinating reading … I guess it’s time for inter-library loan, as they are recent publications.
Oh sigh. If the NPR show gets hung or posted or something somewhere and anyone notices, please tell me.
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http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/08/anne-of-green-gables/?autostart=true
This is the link I found. If it doesn’t work, go to http://www.onpointradio.org and find the link on the webpage
It was on Tom Ashbrook’s On Point show today; I was on the road running errands and heard bits and pieces of it in between stops at grocery stores and the bank.
Ah. Great. Back ups are good–I haven’t tried yet–I’m going to BED. THANK YOU.
First thing I thought of with Fire was salamanders, not dragons at all… So glad that there’s a salamander story in there. Bravo, both of you! Will reserve a place on my shelf, confident that your editors know a good thing when they see it. :)
Then wearing your new fiction reading hat you should read Peter’s TEARS OF THE SALAMANDER too. It’s nice and short. :)
Then wearing your new fiction reading hat you should read Peter’s TEARS OF THE SALAMANDER too. It’s nice and short. :)
Workin’ on that. :) I did, in fact, look under D in my speed-run through a bookstore yesterday… didn’t see it, but I’m bound to do an amazon or alibris order before long.
It’s a few years old. It would have to be a specialist shop to have it on the shelves any more. Keep looking. :)
Oooh, yay! Many thanks to Peter for sharing his with us, too! These are great!
Ask and ye shall receive … (what am I, number 405? ;) )
Link: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/08/anne-of-green-gables/?autostart=true
The button to launch the audio version of the program is top of the page, left side.
Oh, BLESS you! Thank you VERY much!!!
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::inserts ME-busting-giggle-links::
http://ihasahotdog.com/2008/08/22/funny-dog-pictures-masterpiece-theater/
http://ihasahotdog.com/2008/08/21/funny-dog-pictures-testing-for-poison/
::snork::
LOL!!!
(Those are RAISINS in I wuz testing for poison, right? NOT chocolate chips . . . )
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I’ve seen dogs demolish the chocolate larder and all that happened was a bad case of projectile chocolate…… I think the quantity needed to cause the “poison” would be greatly related to a) type of choc eg. dark and b) the individual dog.
But it was a great pic.
Hmm. What I’ve been taught is that any dog that eats chocolate ends up with liver damage, and you don’t know how bad it is until it keels over, or lives to a ripe old age (and *then* keels over).
I can’t tell you how much I’m dying to read more of “Salamander Man.” Don’t get me wrong; the others I will read with great enjoyment, but… I don’t know what it is about it, but that one just grabbed me somehow and I’m hungering for more. Thank you, Peter!
Hmm, I think I might as well post under my real name instead of my LJ handle. =)
NPR usually archives most of its shows as podcasts online, about a week or so after they’re broadcast. You’d need to know which program was talking about it.
And completely unrelated to the FIRE news, although I’m glad it’ll see print soon… I managed to snag a copy of THE BLUE HAWK by some guy named Peter Dickinson, at Worldcon earlier this month. Having never read it, I’m quite looking forward to it. =)
Oh, BLUE HAWK is lovely!:)
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If the program originated from NPR it should be available some way or another on their web site ( http://www.npr.org ). It would be helpful to know the name of the program if it was a regular one. If it was produced and broadcast by a particular public radio station, it might well be archived on the station’s web site (they do this on Minnesota Public radio).
Thanks to Peter for posting excerpts too. Lots to look forward to . . .
Off to bed relatively early for me as we show earlier on Saturday (but I don’t have to get there ahead of time as I’m not a worker on the next two shows). Today the Alpha Bitch was Best of Opposite Sex (I don’t know if there’s a comparable award in the UK, Southdowner would know) to Best of Breed. The BOB dog is the father of our puppy and he was looking very nice; he was Best of Opposite Sex to us in Milwaukee. She was squirrelly about having her rear touched, presumably because she is coming out of season, but I hope she’s over that by tomorrow (oops, later today) because we want to win!
Hope the ME is retreating.
Congratulations and good luck!
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ARRRRGH. There was another comment from you responding to my ‘it’s a lot of work’ saying something like ‘but much appreciated’. I went to answer it (THANK YOU) and WordPress blinked and ATE it! Or anyway it seems to have disappeared!!
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****ARRRRGH. There was another comment from you responding to my ‘it’s a lot of work’ saying something like ‘but much appreciated’. I went to answer it (THANK YOU) and WordPress blinked and ATE it! Or anyway it seems to have disappeared!!****
The Internet and its resident software bits are not always cooperative. You’re welcome!
Today’s judge liked a less-substantial Dane than yesterday’s so we did zip. We’ll hope to do better tomorrow. I should have mentioned that there was a whippet regional specialty show yesterday, so the whippet entry for the whole weekend is quite high–lots of them walking around the show site. (And there’s a horse show going on this weekend too–busy place.)
A less substanital DANE? Get rid of that judge.
Please pat a passing whippet for me. :)
****** Today the Alpha Bitch was Best of Opposite Sex (I don’t know if there’s a comparable award in the UK
Some shows have BOB & BOS, others go for BOB and RBOB, but at multibreed champ shows it’s mainly BOS…
Okaay, I’ll stop speaking doggle dutch now lol
I hope puppy is proud of his relatives doing the double – Yaay! Have you got a name for him yet?
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Greetings from Melbourne, the UNESCO “City of Literature”. This was announced on Thursday, and we don’t quite know what it will mean, but we’re all a bit chuffed, all the same! It was timed to coincide with the opening of the Writers’ Festival, and I’m just back from a lovely afternoon spent there.
One session I went to was with Jennifer Kloester who is writing the authorised biography of Georgette Heyer, and it was absolutely terrific. I hope that she writes as well as she speaks, because she was very entertaining. She did her PhD on Heyer, and produced an historical companion to Heyer’s Regency novels a while ago, and hopes the biography will come out next year. Apparently the rumour that “An Infamous Army” is on the recommended reading list for Sandhurst is quite true. And “The Masqueraders” was written on her knee while she lived in a grass hut in Tanganika. The really good bit was about the Barbara Cartland plagarism – Heyer wrote a letter which just about disembowelled BC. Biography is not my favourite genre, but I think I’ll make an exception for this one.
Gosh. Me too. I even like biography.
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****Jennifer Kloester who is writing the authorised biography of Georgette Heyer****
Thank you Susan for the heads-up on this. I will keep an eye out for it.
I love that An Infamous Army is recommended reading for Sandhurst. I keep telling people that the book includes one of the best descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo I have ever read – and I studied military history (my BA is History, my focus is military history). Heyer is one of my favorite writers, so I’ll look for that bio.
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Why military history?
Because I’m crazy?
I grew up reading WWII history books (in addition to all the science fiction & fantasy and mysteries) by auhors such as Edwin Hoyt and Martin Caidin – my brother and I read all the books we each checked out from the library. I also grew up watching such TV shows as Combat, Twelve O’Clock High and The Rat Patrol. And I just kept reading the stuff all through high school. Field Marshall Erwin K. Rommel was a hero, even if he was a German (I’m part-German, so maybe that counts for it). And in college I started reading ancient military history, with the exploits of Alexander the Great. I was the oddball student – usually the only female in the class. Back in th ’70s, it meant I was in class with a lot of Vietnam vets who appreciated a girl who didn’t call them names. It also meant I could have a professor who was a British vet of WWII who told us stories about serving in India and other countries during the war.
No, it all sounds pretty good to me. I had a WWII period when I (cough cough) wrote a novel about/in it (which still lives in a drawer. Well, a box. Somewhere). And I’ve never quite come back out of my British India phase which began very young with Kipling. I still find pre-modern military history pretty fascinating–anything that still has horses in it! Because then I have the excuse of my job. PEGASUS turns out to have more war in it than I was planning. If I’m lucky I can throw it all out on rewrite (like the bees in CHALICE and like any amount of research over the years for other books) but at the moment I’m trying to get it at least *plausible* if not right.
I am now even more impatient for it to come out than I was yesterday.
Ooh! I’m excited for this book!
Good answer. :)
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I think it’s so funny that FIRE is finished, because the other night I had a fabulous dream which involved reading a New McKinley Book on a rainy afternoon whilst sitting on a window-seat. There wasn’t much plot, but it was incredibly peaceful. And, there actually is another New McKinley Book… I’m looking forward to FIRE – it’s my element.
I never thought of it as my element, but after THREE accidental fire novels. . . . :)
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I suppose Chalice will console me for being tantalized by all these beginnings of stories which I won’t be able to read the rest of for ages. *sobs*
Mwa ha ha ha ha. :)
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Ooo. Looking forward to this! Loved Water.