"Exile's Road" headed to Kindle eBook, if I can.

So, cranking over "Exile's" today to create another choice over at Amazon to support me through...

It might be ugly, rough in spots, as I never finished the project it was to be a lead in to, and hence am cutting out the other stuff, if need be...

Yeah, I'm trying to set up some cash flow for January, about the time I'll need to re-supply, as no jobs came through, no miracles occurred, and I lost faith in others, now turning to my last few skills to see if it is time to seal the cave door behind me, or just wait out the time until I start seeing the money...

Should drop this week sometime, gods and time permitting. Time is short, and gods? well, like the Captain told the Preacher... "...that's a long wait, for a train that don't come."

An exercise in world building - snippets of a growing background tale

"It is said that on the day the other Lords of the Arbitrations refused to bow down to his glory, Thamsa-Hathu-Misan tossed down his own tower in disgust, renouncing his draconic heritage, and taking a mortal form."

A smile creased the scars of Tam-Hattu's deep brown face. "You talk too much of ancient history, Zotikos. I prefer the present." Stroking the rust stained boulder made of rotting steel and nickel, the killer faced his companion. "Or the future."

The ebony face meeting his stayed solemn, a bare inclination his only acknowledgement of the human's words for a moment. Turning, he stared at another of the high, broad hoodoos of metal, stone, and gems rising from the floor of the wide valley, thoughtful.

Tam-Hattu grunted, knowing that pose. "Damned if you will lecture me on things I know as well as you, healer."

"Perhaps." Raising a hand to shove silver streaked jet hair off his pointed ears, the elf smiled as he looked back at the other. "Or perhaps, mine foe, I ask the one who knows the tale best to tell it to me."

Head shaking, the assassin held up his left arm, decorated with many designs carved and stained onto his mahogany skin. "Doubtful. You know much, youngling, but lack the wisdom to sit through all I would tell you."

"Though some believe I am but the latest to serve a certain heir to these columns, you know better." Corners of his mouth turned down, the elf gazed upon the rubble pile, one of many. Some cast down by those that raised them, others destroyed by others who sat upon the hoodoos. "I ask it, now, before our final conflict. I would know why we fight, Thamsa-Hathu-Misan."

Dead eyes met the healer's gaze. "Since when does the physician seek dominance, boy."
Silently, the healer held up his left hand, as his right drew the golden scalpel from his belt, letting the precious metal crease his left wrist faintly. Small droplets of golden blood oozed past the exposed green sinews and muscles, evoking a gasp from his companion. Three tiny drops rippled down the healer's forearm, leaving the impression they rose and fell away from that flesh like a stream over flat boulders well worn by her passage.

"Which whelp of his are you, boy?" Tam-Hattu hissed.

Smiling, the healer waited as the drops touched his elbow, then leapt to the ground. Rumbles of thunder echoed in the amphitheater, despite the absence of clouds. The earth resonated to sky's utterance, shaking beneath their feet. Tam-Hattu stepped in closer, fast, his own black knife drawn.

"Fool! You would dare raise a tower here?"

Grinning impishly, the healer thrust his hand up, and the only tower that rose to a shattered peak shook, yellow and green lightning flaring from its shivering summit. "Merely show you which I already have."

Warily, the assassin stepped back, eyes doubting what he saw. The knife stayed low, ready to strike up, still in ways few humans would be able to mimic. Moments later, he laughed, sheathing the blade. "Clouds of Athalan, boy you surprise me. I never thought you would stoop to healing those you once vowed to slay."

Corners of his emerald eyes dancing slowly, Zotikos slid his blade back into the belt pouch at his side. "Really? Then you never truly knew me, uncle."

"I guess not. So,  your proposal, failed Arbitrator?" The title rang with harsh sarcasm.

Sighing, the elf turned away. "No. I know now I was not the one to restore the Pact of the Arbitrations. Call me as I am known, or by the name burned into my shell. But that title I refuse now."

Tam-hattu let his knife settle back into its sheath, face curious. "But you want to make a deal? With the one who would kill you as he has others?"

"Aye, Brother of mine Father's father. I would know the truth of this place and those days. In return, I offer any knowledge you wish that I have, save two bits."

Frowning, the assassin settled onto a small boulder. "What are those bits you will not speak of?"

Carefully brushing off another boulder, several spear lengths away, the healer spoke softly, barely audible above the faint susurrus of the random breezes dancing amid the towers. "The name of the Arbitrator of Restoration, which I know not, but have clues to. And the true meaning of seeing without eyes."

Shaking his head, the human chuckled. "So. That is why we fight, Ankara-Keweii-Ghani?"
"Yes. I have chosen to let the fates have their way, you still seek to bind them to your will."
 Whispering something else, that the breezes tore apart.

Tam-Hattu waited, knowing those words meant something important. His companion waited as well, refusing to repeat it.

"As my ears do not burn, I take it that was no insult or challenge, so we'll let that slide." Chuckling, the assassin leaned back a bit, settling in for a long rest. "But to speak of such days amid these pillars is dangerous."

Zotikos was less restrained, throwing his head back in mirth. "Indeed, they will tremble to remember their masters, now long gone, shaking the bones of this orb mightily. But, I do not fear that. Let them know some dared enter the Amphitheater of Arbitrations, and speak of those days amid her abandoned thrones."

Tam-Hattu smiled at the thought of chaos in many places as the trembling earth tossed down buildings of lesser beings. "We of Athalan must always enjoy such terror in the prey this orb gives us."

Both fell silent, waiting for the blazing orb known as Jzhan to fall beneath the western rim of the great bowl. Night was the time for such tales, not the warmth of day, when one really should ride the thermals high, to hunt prey or wealth.

Pondering some things - talking something out

From time to time, I do the unspeakably cruel and painful act of looking at a tale I wrote for a second, third, hell, umpteenth time, and saying....

"I can fix that....maybe." 

This way lies madness. Yet, Billenius was born of such, and this time, I'm leaving it up as a tool, not just for me, but others, on writing. I am still amateur status, just a writer, not an author, seeking that first paid short, novel sale or what have you. But, I know others can learn, by watching my own struggles. So, for a change, rather than giving you a system, some magic formula, it is time for some writer (okay, me, not someone else) to take a bold step, and say,

"This is the hell of editing, revision, and rewrite. Sure you still want to do this crap?"

I am looking at "Predator's Ground", one of the Hunts of Scorpio Kenrai (use the other blogs tab, and click there to access those blogged stories), the first story I tried to serialize after doing "Journey to Freedom" as a serial. I have never been totally happy with this tale, and staring at it, I realized some of the whys this week. Now, it's time to see if it can be fixed, or needs to be left in the category of "This was an early, world building thing I should have left in the darkness of my files, not shared."

So, here is a question, for this project, should I do the revision talk here, and post the fixes there, leaving things up as originally posted, adding the fixed versions, as a teaching tool, for myself, for others, for the analytic minds that need to examine what drove me insane (besides reading parts of the paper not contained in the funny pages, that is).

I loved the precept, it was to set out how my world's assassins and bounty hunters worked. And to some part, it laid the foundation. But, should one revisit the tale, fix it for what has fleshed out since then?

Face it, I will touch the tale, but how is what I'm asking for folks to advice, rant or talk about.

Or am I just trying to avoid all this talk around me about how my beard needs trimmed again?

Working on a new story today... CRAPP tale from Troy Tanner

It's kind of nice when one of my more easy to deal with characters sits down to relate a tale to me. At least Troy drinks coffee, not tea, and his only snob points are the coffee must be black, bitter, hot and near a bar for the really strange parts.

The tale he spent the morning so far relating centers around vampires, or at least the messy aftermath after they get staked. Seems that vampire dust is a leading cause of anemia, at least according to CRAPP regulations.

Probably will market this one, the working title so far is "The Great SoCal Vampire Dustbowl Cleanup". Not happy with it, will have to find something better, unless it proves to work when done. Amazing how many undead are cops so far....

Story alert.... Stay Tuned here the next week or so

If you liked what came about from the visit of Mr. Troy Tanner from the EPA's CRAPP division, keep an eye here for his holiday season misadventure... it involves pixies, elves, sylphs, reindeer and (shudder) loads of paperwork.

And yes, I really should do some to the NaNoWriMo, but that tale just has no traction, until I work out more details.

So, check in, and watch for Troy's little tale, coming soon. May not get here until the 2nd week in Dismember, depending upon my time and the ability to edit without getting caught using Toxic Word Dumping...

Guillotine Jim's Tale - A ghostly poem from a few years back

Gather close my kin, lean in to the fire
as I tell this tale of woe and the wages of sin
for Washington Irving's tale of the horseman
can only hold a dim candle indeed to this yarn
of the fate of Guillotine Jim the gangster ghost
who is damned to wander in Hell's fires forever
brought low by the curses of many young girls
whose ponies he defiled to scare them senseless.

Now Jim was the one you hear the tales of
who did the deed few would confess to
of chopping of the heads of many lil' Flicka's
and leaving them on preteen girls beds as omens
to their daddies to keep their mouths shut
about what they had seen or heard in bars
when drinking beneath their station to find
some silly floozie to take the place in bed
of the frigid wives they had married in haste
or over bad gambling debts they could not pay.

After decades of ruling the streets of the Big Apple
with his chainsaw and the heads of too many mares
he chopped into the wrong thoroughbred herd
and made enemies with a wicked coven of girls
who had found the paths of darkness in grimoires
better left unmentioned, untouched, and forgotten
Those gals had been scarred by Jim's evil in their souls
and sold them to Satan without a single regret
for the revenge of which you are about to be told

Satan heard the offers, and took their souls,
and for once held up his end of the bargain
heading out to the pastures of Sheol to find
the stallion of midnight's darkest moments.
He loped off its head and sent it to gather in
a sinner long unrepentant for his actions
and torture him with his own worst fears
to keep the souls of thirteen young pure hearts
to quench his lusts in forever and ever.

The beast had screamed when its pate was torn
from his sleek shadowy neck that night
and tore off as charged to gather up a rider
and take down to meet his damnation
Fire blazed up from that trachel exposed
as he trod the avenues and alleys searching
for the man who destroyed little girls' hearts
to bring him down to his proper level.
Night after night, once the hunt began
Jim lived in fear of being caught by the beast
for on his first glimpse of that ghostly creature
he knew it was crafted to be his fitting end.

At last after months, the horse caught the mobster
and kicked him out of his seat in some bistro
before a crowd that stampeded out in fear
as the headless stallion claimed his rider
by tossing Jim aboard its razor spined back
to be cut in a million places dear to the man
who soon was sheathed in Hell's fiery blaze
to scream in fear as borne along the roads
he had taken his own prey down in days before
to chop their heads off in Central Park
leaving the bodies to rot, and leaving the heads
in the beds of innocent young children.

They say the Stallion took him deep into Hades
others claim he rides the plains of Purgatory
I heard a tale he races in Newark against bullet bikes.
But all know his fate, and reason the mobs stopped
leaving the pates of ponies in beds these days
As Guillotine Jim still does ride at the head of the parade
every All Hollow's Eve for now and eternity
leading thirteen girls who sold their souls to see
him burn in hell for harming their ponies
down to damnation for ever more.

2010- Dyfedd Rex

My currennt short stories have an origin from this challenge and the story that follows it. This is the first hints at Troy Tanner, the main character. Its clunky, not well worked out (I just wanted this one done, at first) and a bit too heavy on certain words. I will be reworking it to make it something else this week between other projects and little bits of work to make my hapless ends meet.

The Challenge was from this list:

1 - a jar of frogspawn
2 - a tattered photo of a distant galaxy
3 - a snowflake on a fingertip
4 - a zombie survival guide with brain stains on the cover
5 - a ragdoll with pins stuck in its head
6 - a broken lightsaber
7 - a newspaper dated August 7th, 1945
8 - a battered copy of 'Twilight'
9 - a radio station playing 'don't stop believing' by Journey
10 - a tin of sunflower yellow paint
11 - a three-legged dog
12 - a packet of M&Ms with all the green ones missing

Send your entries to my inbox by next saturday.
Anything up to 600 words is fine, but try not to go over please.
Multiple entries, collabs, basically anything goes as long as you get the buggers in on time.


And now the story:

In my line of work, sooner or later you see it all. Some jerk back in DeeSee had screwed up and agreed to subcontracting the military's new Soldier Superior Therapy program out to a lab in Haiti as part of the rebuilding. I could have told them it would go sideways, letting voodoo mix with big pharmaceuticals dreams.

But, they never call me until its time to clean up the mess. Now I was walking down a deserted street in a forgotten place called Dugway, testing grounds of all the military's bad ideas. Lucky its in the middle of nowhere.

There was a broken lightsabre toy on the walk to the side, stepped on, military boot print. Yep, I had his trail . He had stepped in a mess left when he feasted on the head cheese of some poor s.o.b. painting the gatehouse at the east entrance to town. Sunflower yellow, must have been left over from some TV show filmed out this way once.

I followed the tracks up to the house we were in front of, the last one for me to clear. There was a ragdoll with pins in its head on the porch swing, holding in the strips of purple cloth hair, needle and thread on the ground, pooled around some poor Army wife's corpse. She had not much of a skull left. I pumped both corpses with rock salt. Only good thing about this place, I could restock my supply of shot and catch a few runs on the Measured Mile afterwards.

Inside, I knew they had some inkling of what they were messing with, there was a zombie survival guide covered with half digested brains and more flies than Beelzebub's last picnic drew. There was also a bag of a certain melt in your mouth, not in your hand candy, and all the green ones were missing. Damn, they finally listened to the Nuncio about that, making them inoculate themselves to keep it to the test subjects only. Made my job easier, and harder. Now instead of shooting all the corpses, I had to look for ones without flies.

The trail led over the dead sergeant's body to the stairs, up which I heard the pants I knew meant at least one family member had failed to eat power pills. The radio in the master bedroom kicked on with that tired old Journey tune, the one about never giving up belief. While I hate that tune, it gave me cover on the steps about a creaking riser.

There was a poster of a Hubble shot of the Sombrero galaxy on the wall over the bed, with battered copies of Twilight and other trashy vampire novels all over the floor. Great, this one had wanted to be undead. Right up until she realized she had to swallow the barf of the zombie after it drank a jar of frogspawn while they had sex.

I reloaded, as they were occupied with her transition, as well as the fun stuff, waiting for the moment. I did not want to kill a living human today. As they got off, I fired all five shells, cutting them in half.

As I left, I caught a flake of snow on my fingertip, and realized it was too late in the year to hit Bonneville. So I headed to Wendover, where in a museum, I bowed my head before a framed copy of the Deseret News from August 7, 1945. On the way out, I saw the three legged dog, and knew there was another job waiting at the Stateline.

New Project Alert.... A short story of CRAPP...

So, this idea has been bouncing off the rocks in my head for a while now, and its flowing out today...
Imagine if the EPA had a special division to do the cleanups behind all the Vampire Slayers, Zombie Killers and Wizards that roam around in fantasy these days...
Then give the main character all my worst tendencies, amplified... and an attitude about bureaucracy that is beyond even mine. Make him a Luddite (Technophobe), only able to love women unavailable to him and hate paperwork even though its his mealticket.
Then toss in a division of the Army that creates problems all the time he has to clean up, two demons who follow him around and his dog, which has allergies to paranormal phenomenon and those with abilities in such.
Not sure where its going yet, other than out to Dugway Proving Grounds.... This may get ugly.

Myths Like Mist - a short I did for a less than friendly competition.

The tales surround me, misty fables drifting in the morning fog as I walk the paths the gods decreed for me. Each tale wafts by, begging me to tell it again to the children, the hunters around the fires, the people at the gatherings, or even carve them again into the stone for eternal preservation.

Each tale has a song or many that go with it. Tunes and notes, pacing and beats they must be relayed with. Some I learned at the fires and hearths, in my apprenticeship. Others the gods relayed to me, sending the Muses to inspire my fingers and lips to tell the tales, weaving mists of Faith into enchantments to bind the listeners for the time it takes me to tell the story or sing the song to the magical world the gods foretell will come again.

Sometimes I meet others in these mists, gathering their own tales from gods I never knew existed. They bear strange instruments to my eyes, not the harps and flutes, not even the ram's horns, but other devices for music, some small and compact, others large and bulky. Some come with just their memory, others with stones to use their chisels and hammers on, a few use a crow's quill to make marks on shaved bark or trees, and stranger ones have their fingers dance across bizarre devices that magically make their marks on a crystal plate set upright before them.

Yet we all walk this foggy realm for the same reason, to gather some of its mysteries, and bring them back to our dreary worlds, sharing them as bright moments in the descending darkness the evil of our times and places are oppressed by.

Yes, the myths are from the mists, but the mists arise from our yearning souls. Thoughts and dreams, seeking release. And when we bring them back home, the ring out in out hearts, raising them.

Now, girl, take my hand, and I will show you the way to the Fogs of the Forgotten Dreams, and how to gather in the mists, and bring back the tales the gods want us to tell.