Paksworld

I went back to the scene that was giving me such trouble days ago and saw that what was missing was the other part of what they discussed (besides having the wrong number of dead people–hate it when that happens.   If A says there were six killed, and B says four, and both were there and neither lied…the writer has had a lapse between pages.   Which is better for the plot?  Pick one and stick through it in all subsequent scenes.)

And that was magic stuff.    A doesn’t know that B has magery of the old type.  B doesn’t know that A has some elven abilities and a whopping dose of taig-sense.   B doesn’t know what taig-sense is, and A only knows oldstyle magery by repute.    These are not the same but there are overlaps, and of course similar objectives…people want power so they can accomplish something with it, and those who have power (want it or not) must learn to use it to accomplish things.

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Though the repairs, etc., and some Other Stuff slowed progress, it wasn’t entirely a dud week after hitting the 100K mark last Tuesday at midnight.

The current wordage is 103,260.

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100,127 words by midnight Tuesday night.

Interesting stuff, some of it, too.  Kieri is having to cope with a very difficult situation and he’s settling down and putting his strategic mind on.

Can an ancient elf-queen be wrong?   Can she, in fact, screw up in a major way?

Inquiring minds will find out, once I know all the answers.  I don’t ever know all the answers until later (which means some re-writing, where I’ve gone astray, guessed wrong.

I’d like to stay home and work on this today but it’s not possible.  Plumbers coming to rip out the toilets and put in new ones,  a guest to pick up at the airport 60 miles away, business conferences, Ash Wednesday services, choir practice…

Young people in Tsaian and Lyonyan society may be fostered with another family at several stages–for noble families, typically as pages (ages 7-10 or 12) or squires (ages 14-18ish.)   In addition to fosterage, there’s formal schooling in a boarding situation (like the young students in Fin Panir, including Aris Marrakai).   Nobles are more or less expected to take in a few of one another’s offspring .   This forms bonds between families (they hope), relieves some sibling rivalry (a forlorn hope, usually), and provides the “shared” young person with experiences most find valuable.

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Location:  The palace in Chaya, in Lyonya, shortly after Kieri’s arrival

Present: Paks,  Dorrin (POV), the Knight-Commander of Falk

Some snippage for this use, but the main events are here:

The room brightened.   Paks had come alight, not as bright as in the battle, but enough to cast a soft glow through the room, drowning the light of the candle Dorrin had lit.

“You, I suppose, will take on the role of her supervisor?”

Paks shook her head.  “Not I, sir.  She is a Knight of Falk.  It is not my place, and I have no call to go with her.  I do have a call to aid her here and now.”

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Location:   Valdaire, an expensive inn, private dining room.

“And so it is, ” she said, sitting back and folding her hands on the table.  “You are the man I thought you were, once I saw past my own ambition and my own losses.  Friends?”

“Always,” Arcolin said.  “Unless of course we’re hired by enemies, but even then–”

“We have the Code, and we are content, are we not?”

“We are content,” Arcolin said.

……………………………..

Anyone care to guess the identity of the lady, and the former relationship, if any?

Elves in Paksenarrion’s world are one of the Elder Races: they believe they are part of the First Song of the Singer, the Eldest of the Elder.  The Earthfolk (dwarves and gnomes) disagree, but don’t bother to argue.   In their own tongue, they are the Sinyi, the Sung.   Most are tall (the average elf is taller than the average human, though there’s overlap.)    From the human perspective, there are multiple contradictions: elves loathe war and claim that their innate love of harmony makes conflict more painful to them–and yet they can be touchy, easy to offend, and even quarrelsome.   Elven grudges last millenia…a fact that comes into play in the second book of this series in particular.   In the immediate area of the first and part of the second book, the ranking elf is Flessinathlin, the Lady of the Ladysforest, referred to as the Lady.  Kieri, King of Lyonya, is her grandson through her daughter.

The most important of the elvish powers,  to elves themselves, is the taig sense–the ability to sense and communicate with the “consciousness” of all living things.   This is believed to result from their being part of the First Song, in which they still participate, and they can “sing the taig awake”.   Next in importance, and related, is the ability to heal the taig, and its components.

Paksenarrion, some of you recall, joined up with Macenion, who told her he was a half-elf (he wasn’t, though he had a touch of elven blood and knew how to present it.)   Part-elves may or may not look elvish, and have varying amounts of elvish power.   This leads to many interesting situations…including in the current series.

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The book continues to throw surprises at me, though not fast in the last couple of days as the International Gut Bug has reached our house.   But leaving that unsavory subject aside…it dawned on me last night, working on a scene between Dorrin and some of her cohort, that this continues a conversation begun in the first Paks book, and resulting (ultimately) from a very old schism in human behavior.

What is loyalty?  Who or what can be the object of loyalty?   What are the theoretical and practical and ethical boundaries of loyalty?   Heavy stuff for New Year’s Eve…

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1672 words so far today, for a book total of 67,430.

This is the second book in the new group, and right now we have Arian out in the forest west of Chaya with some old ranger friends. She’s bringing them up to date on Stuff, and they’re suggesting that she’s the right person to do an unpleasant errand for them. She’s not so sure.

Meanwhile, Dorrin has returned from the second coronation in book one, and still processing what happened there. I need to open up the strands copied over from the first book, when I chopped it off at Midsummer, and figure out what Dorrin did between then and the Autumn Evener, and from then to now (“now” being a day or so beyond the end of the first volume as originally written. Is that sufficiently unclear now?)

Going for a short walk and to feed horses, then I’ll finish up the goal for today, 2000. What’s odd is that I wrote most of the 1600 while waiting for the telephone repair people to call me back.

Total wordage on second book has now topped 65,000.  That’s not much in a week, but it was a holiday week.

That Character who was refusing to do what I said….was right.  We had several long, heartfelt conversations, which I discussed with one of my alpha readers, and Character is right.

I still have to finish an article on deadline before I can get back to the book full-time.