17
Feb
A land of speckled grey
A whisper in the mist
A hand of mottled clay
A shadow upon the grist
A bird at play amongst the skies
A figure in the shade
A child, one that dies
A darkness amidst the glade
All these things had clouded round
The village for to seek
A home, a hearth, a living speak
Yet buried upside down
Caper and dance, laugh and fall
The devil’s daily bread
Now slay them fast, now slay them all
And the leader you must behead
And piss upon his gravestone now
For tomorrow you’ll be drowned
10
Feb
Thanks to a couple kind readers, I now have a smile stapled to my face for the rest of the day. I was working away at the day job when a G+ notification email popped up. Not something I usually get, so, hey, figured I’d look.
This is what I saw.
The summary is question:
Bloodaxe thought he was in for a nice relax. He was, after all, dead.
And then some jumped up prick of a god told him he had to rescue a kingdom. His own kingdom, in fact. So Bloodaxe grabbed his, well, axe, and leapt back into the fray.
First, though, he had to be born. And learn not to crap his pants. Then he could get to the killing. Lots and lots of killing.
This is his story.
1
Feb
Update: Bloodaxe hit Kindle this morning!
I haven’t talked about Bloodaxe much on here, but it’s a new short story that will be released to Kindle Select in a week or so. I’m using it as a trial of the platform, and I’m hoping for good things after Breaking an Empire did 2,500 downloads in a single night.
The prologue of Bloodaxe is already posted on the website here. You might want to read it before getting to the fun below.
Being born hurts. A lot.
I felt like I was being squeezed through a rawhide bag by a former member of my personal bodyguard. The one who killed people by strangling them with an iron bar. Not wire. Bar.
After that, I got smacked around by a particularly ugly old crone, then cleaned up and handed over to a woman with enough gold cloth that she had to be a duchess. Not bad for a second time around. Much better than a peasant, although I had always liked dear old mum and dad.
I was small enough I figured it was better to be polite, so I said “Hello”. Turned out some of the connections weren’t working right, since all that came out was a squawk. And so it turned out I was going to have to go through a normal childhood, complete with all the annoying stages of growing up. Lovely.
Whichever god thought this was a good idea is going to wake up one morning with me standing over him with an axe. A bloody great one. And if I don’t find out which one it is, I’m going to start with Frethden, god of trickery, and work my way in from there.
I’ve been through childhood once, and it turns out the only reason I remembered it fondly was because I didn’t remember it at all. Learning not to crap your pants? I’m so very glad I now have complete memories of that.
Anyway, less faeces and deicide, and more storytelling. It turned out I had been born into the duchy of Trond, which was the smallest of the duchies that once made up my kingdom. Bigger than the three earldoms and two baronies that sat around it, but smaller than the other two duchies. Situated nicely in the middle.
Or not so nicely in the middle. The other two duchies didn’t like my new parents very much, and decided to do something about that. Specifically, they sent several assassins in the night, plus a rather large force of regular soldiers. And when you’re four years old, it doesn’t matter how many years of battle-hardened reactions you have, you still need to run and hide. At least being four meant I could hide in a tiny cubbyhole.
It turned out the gold cloth wearing woman who was my new mother was fairly skilled with a rapier. Significantly more so than my new father, who got himself skewered within moments. I’d have been sad, except I only ever saw him at a distance, or at state affairs. Not exactly a loving father-son relationship. So, new mum dispatches the assassins, including the one who got the duke, finds me, and decides to leg it, since there’s rather more soldiers around who belong to the other duchies than to ours.
She calls, I come, we’re whisked off through miles of secret passages and tunnels, and end up climbing out a trapdoor hidden in the back of the fertilizer shed of a local farmer. I liked that touch. Sneaky, devious. Gave me more respect for the duchess. What I didn’t like was the damage a shaggy pony can deal to four year old buttocks. I’ve acquired battle scars in less painful ways.
I also didn’t like the irony of the gods. Because my Mum and I ended up living in a peasant village. On a hillside. Farming. Yes, I was once more a peasant farmer. I hadn’t liked it the first time I was growing up and I didn’t like it now. And how the hell was I going to fulfil my destiny of returning to save Rudvic if all I had to work with was some dirt and the clots who ate it?
Today I’d like to welcome Emma Newman to The Four Part Land. Emma is the brilliant (and English) author of 20 Years Later and The Split Worlds, and an author who is always a joy to read, and to talk to. Two years ago, back when I was first bumbling around Twitter, Emma saved me from many a class of boredom by pointing me towards the first collection of short stories set in The Split Worlds, which I devoured with haste. So it is with great pleasure that I’m able to host one of her Split Word stories here today.
This is the eleventh tale in a year and a day of weekly short stories set in The Split Worlds. If you would like Emma to read it to you instead, you can listen here. You can find links to all the other stories, and the new ones as they are released here.
The Final Test
Michael came to his conclusion over the chicken soup. It was arguably the most important in his entire apprenticeship and it had killed his appetite.
“Are you feeling ill?” Alfred asked, seated opposite.
Michael looked into the other apprentice’s eyes, bloodshot from too much study. Could he lose his advantage by being open? No, he was years ahead of Alfred, and it could help to review his reasoning out loud.
“I’ve examined the tests we’ve been given over the years,” he said, voice low enough to blend with the general murmur of the dining hall. “I’ve passed every single one and I’ve never failed any assignment over the last decade, but I’m still just an apprentice. Why?”
“That’s for him to know and us to speculate,” Alfred said, dunking his bread.
“No, it’s because there’s a secret test.”
Alfred shook his head. “You sure it’s not your arrogance preventing your elevation?” When Michael started to pick up his bowl, Alfred reached across, pressed his arm down. “I’m sorry. Do you know what the test could be?”
Michael settled again, bit off a chunk of bread and chewed it slowly, giving himself time to consider whether to share. “The door at the end of the corridor in the northern wing,” he finally said. “The one we’re forbidden to open. I think the test is to do just that.”
Alfred’s eyes widened in a most satisfactory manner, giving Michael the sense of superiority he enjoyed so much. “Surely not. It’s one of the first rules of the house.”
“Exactly,” Michael replied. “We were too green to question anything then so we don’t even think about it now. We all know about the room, but no-one goes near it, because that rule was laid down so early.”
“You’re wrong,” Alfred said. “Why not have faith in him knowing when you’re ready?”
“But that’s my point!” Michael stopped himself from banging the table. “What if he’s waiting for the first apprentice to show some initiative? Perhaps he’s been waiting for hundreds of years for just one man to come to this same conclusion.”
“Perhaps he’s waiting for a man who knows as much as you but has kept his humility,” Alfred said, taking up his spoon. “Be patient, this is a way of life not-”
Michael stood, unable to stomach that platitude again, and left his supper on the table, ignoring Alfred’s chuckle. No more languishing amongst the hopefuls, waiting for a moment that might never come. It made perfect sense; why else have a locked and heavily warded door in the same wing of the house that the apprentices studied in? If it contained something genuinely secret or dangerous it would be out of sight, and certainly not pointed out during their first week. Alfred was just another mediocrity, it was time for him to show them what it really took to become a sorcerer.
The northern wing would be empty now, it gave him the perfect opportunity to study the wards and warnings engraved on the door and its frame. He was astounded by how easy it was to deconstruct into component parts, applied his knowledge as Alfred ate his soup and condemned himself to never being anything other than an apprentice.
The gentle hiss as the ward broke told him the room had been kept airtight. Interesting. He opened the door, reaching for the light switch only to find it wasn’t in the usual place. He stepped in, fumbled along the wall as the door shut and sealed itself behind him. Finally his fingers brushed the Bakelite and he flicked the light on.
That’s when he saw the bones.
He could make out three skeletons and the tattered remains of their clothing. The outline of a doorway was being burnt into the opposite wall, an effect he knew well; a Way was being opened. He forced himself to stay calm, the room could have been staged to frighten him, and he mustn’t show it had worked.
The outline became a wooden door which opened. The sorcerer stepped through, clapping slowly, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. “I knew it would be you Michael.”
Once he’d got past the mundane clothing, Michael saw only pleasure, no anger. His chest swelled. “Thank you master.”
“I always knew you had great potential.” The sorcerer reached into his pocket, pulled out a plain silver band and held it towards him.
It looked identical to the only ring his master wore, was this the subtle mark of one of the elite few? Michael slipped it onto a shaking finger.
“Tell me,” the Sorcerer stuffed his hands in his pockets and leant against the wall, his usual formality gone. “What exactly did you think would happen if you broke the wards on the door?”
Michael felt like a five year old again, terrified by the cool intellect of the man who had become his parent, his teacher, his master. It didn’t matter that he was as tall as him now. “I hoped you’d be pleased I’d realised there was no other way to progress, that I found the last test.”
“I am pleased,” his master said. “A sorcerer answers to no-one in his own kingdom, so your instincts were correct to challenge my rules. But the test wasn’t realising thus, nor was it a test of your ability to break the wards, even though I suspect you’re the only apprentice capable of doing so.”
Michael looked at the skeletons, feeling a droplet of sweat trickle down to the small of his back. “Have I passed?”
The sorcerer laughed. “Look behind you. What do you see?”
Michael’s imagination furnished him with a slavering beast, a sword about to run him through, his peers watching and laughing and even one of the Fae themselves as he turned around. Instead, all he saw were formulae. But when he looked closely at the sorcerous markings, he only recognised a small fraction of them.
“Wards,” he guessed, and mercifully, he was correct. “Ah! So the final test is to break these?”
“Almost. You’ve spent practically all your life under my tutelage. All of your training, all of the trials have led to one question Michael, one you’ve already answered without even knowing it: Do you think like a Sorcerer?”
“I do! Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here!”
“Then break the wards.”
“I… I need an artefact from my room, and some time and a-”
“Stone.”
At the sorcerer’s command, Michael felt his body become rigid, realised what the ring was there to do.
“You failed. If you truly were ready to be a Sorcerer, you would have brought every artefact, every tome, every tool for any eventuality. But you still think like an apprentice, believing I was waiting to congratulate and elevate you for being brave enough to break a rule. If you’d truly been ready, you’d have been prepared to murder me, to fight for your life or even just break the most complex formulae without a moment’s hesitation. I’ll leave you to contemplate that amongst your peers,” he waved a hand at the bones. “And when you can no longer bear to examine your failure, and instead turn your anger towards me for not giving you a second chance, ask yourself this; when there are seven sorcerers for seven kingdoms, why on earth would we need an eighth?”
6
Jan
My soul sat forth, ‘pon my hand
and lectured ’bout my goal
It spoke of things far away
things dreamed in far off lands
“Go!”, it said, face all full of fury
“Go and find another one,
for I am done with thee”
And off it went, slipping from my palm
I looked around, but saw no soul
wandering then, I went
I searched high and low yet found no hint
I begged and cried and sought to steal
but never came within my grasp
Till one fine day, I settled down
my face within the grass
Life had passed me by
and I expired there at last
2
Dec
I can hear the world reach for me. I can feel it claw at my soul. I can sense it as it runs scaly claws down my back. It will not have me.
I could fight. Perhaps. I could resist. It’s a possibility. I could rebel. A failure, certainly. But these are things that take effort, and time. I will take the easy way out, the way that lets me fly far beyond those grasping claws. I will fly.
One day.
17
Nov
I write nothing, and no one reads my stories.
I make no sound, and no one hears me speak.
I draw no art, and no one sees me paint.
I am alone.
11
Nov
An angel screams. I am told she cries for me, that she takes my pain upon herself. She hopes to save me, it is said. She cares.
It is a sweet gesture, unexpected, kind. But I am long past saving now. I made my pact long ago, and have spent the years since searing my soul, burning it away thoroughly. I do not care.
This angel loved me. Watched me in my crib, caressed my cheek when no mortal hovered over me. All through my childhood, she guarded.
Perhaps too well. Perhaps too poorly. Either way, I turned from her light. Mayhaps my soul broke when I did, but I think it was broken before, and needed only confirmation in fire.
I killed. Men, women, children, animals. They were life. Life ends. After each death, I tapped the gun against my temple, wondering if I had earned my release.
All that, and still she cries. I would comfort her, tell her not to cry, but she cannot hear through her pain. My pain.
She lifts her eyes and looks into mine. I look back, sad. I pity her, that she pledged her life in service of another, only to be rejected. But the life was mine to live, and I did.
27
Oct
This is the prologue to a new story that popped into my head. As you can tell from the title, I don’t know what to call it yet, but I do love the main character. Came about from a series of audiobooks I was listening to.
My coming has long been foretold. Or rather, my return. No one predicted my coming the first time. Not very surprising, since I was the orphaned son of farmers. I know, I know, clichéd beginnings and all. Not that my parents died from anything noble. Common pneumonia, caught during a slightly worse than normal winter. And as for the farmer bit, well, there’s a lot more of us farmers than there are nobles. Stands to reason some of us are going to make a go at things.
I did, and a damn good go I made of it too. Looting, pillaging, winning battles, sacking cities, it was a grand old time. I even got given the title Bloodaxe by one of the cities I destroyed. I rather liked the imagery of it, and began to sign it as my name. It was a great piece of propaganda.
Time passed, and after a while I got bored with sacking. You see, the problem is if you sack a city, it gets mostly destroyed, and doesn’t make any money for a long time. But if you capture a city, and tax it, why, it makes money every year. So I overthrew a couple feudal lords, bundled their lands up into a nice little kingdom, and settled in as a monarch.
I never got too settled, of course. Got to keep the neighbours on their toes and weak. But after a while I got a bit older, and decided my son needed seasoning. So he took over the raiding for me. Kid’s got the nickname Forkbeard. Not quite as spectacular as my title, but he does have a damn fine beard. Took after his dad in all kinds of ways, but mostly in the fine family tradition of pillage and plunder.
So, Junior’s taking care of the military, I’m running the place (I named it Rudvic, after my old mum), and some prat shows up and says I’m going to be killed in a coup and return when the kingdom once again needs a great military leader. Me being a kind and gentle monarch, I have one of the guards punt him out the castle gate.
Of course, this silly bugger of a preacher decides he’s going to keep running his mouth about my coming doom. Now, most of the populace has the good sense to treat him like the nutter he was, but some of them actually believed him. Thinking back on it now, I should have had all of that lot slain for being gullible idiots.
I was nice and didn’t, although that was partly because all those gullible idiots started treating me like I was some kind of warrior saint who watched over the kingdom in times of need. I failed to point out that twenty years earlier, the kingdom hadn’t existed, and I had formed it by beating some nobles over the head with my axe until they wrote me into their last will and testament. Which I made sure got executed. Immediately.
Even I have my limits though, and when the prat didn’t shut up after several reminders, I had him nailed to the castle gate. Upside down. Silly bugger kept preaching right up until the moment he died. And given the coup happened about six months after he was killed, and it was Forkbeard who did it, well, maybe I should have listened a little closer. And paid attention to the fact my son really didn’t fall very far at all from the family tree. Took after dear old Dad just a little too closely there.
So, now I’m hanging around, wondering which god it was I nailed to the castle gates, and when he’s going to let me get off my ass and do a little victorious returning. Of course, I’m not sure which kingdom I’m going to be returning to. Mine fell apart in petty squabbles after my son proved he was as crap as a monarch as he was as good as a fighter. And now the lands are all bits and pieces of baronies and earldoms and ducal courts, and there’s fourteen civil wars carried on at any one time and five of them only using assassins and spies.
I thought I was ruthless, but these rulers today? They’ve made punitive taxation into an art form. Even some of the demons I run across around here are impressed. Bringing back my old style of pillage and plunder would probably be a boon to the ordinary peasants. At least I was one once.
Anyway, enough wittering on from this old fart of a warrior king. But you’ll hear from me again. I’ll come back, and when I do there’s going to be a rocking party. I can’t wait.
13
Oct
There are times I wish a man well, and times when I wish him poorly. But most days, I do not wish a man anything, for I know him not. Instead, I walk my own way, a way that is solitary, and in that loneliness I find comfort, for I know that no other can be as alone as I am. Thus I am the saddest of my kind, and all others above me.
Yet in that sadness I find company, for many others walk the ways of sadness with me. They do not walk beside me, no, nor do they often cross my path, but I can sense their sadness in the air about me, in the muted ripples of a shallow pond, in the last whisper of a leaf as it falls from the tree. It is a comforting touch, a gift that matches my loneliness stride for stride, and one that I share with others.
For that is the gift of loneliness – it brings sadness, but in that sadness is company and a grace found in no other place. Tragic figures we are called, and pitied by all who bestow glances upon us, but that tragedy gives us meaning, gives us stature. Otherwise, my companions and I, lonely and sad as we are, would have no meaning.
Perhaps we do not, at that. But leave us our illusions. We cherish our only children.