Glisterspeck
Frozen sea axe smith
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2007
- Messages
- 489
This is a rewrite to replace the chapter critiqued here:
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/540262-third-chapter-gernrik-992-words.html
The original was heavily influenced by the Battle of the Ants from Walden (which you can read here: The Battle of the Ants - Chapter 12 of "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau - Classic American Essays , if you like) and was meant to be a metaphor for the warring factions in the book, but according to several readers, it just wasn't working.
That chapter is gone. This new introduction reworks what was the second Ayos chapter, which originally involved talking to a pillbug for several pages! Included for critique is about two-thirds of the new chapter.
As always, I'm most interested in if it hooks and if you would continue reading, but I love the detailed critiques as well: very helpful stuff. I'm a little wary of the amount of exposition in here. I've tried to mix it in, but it still feels info-dumpy to me. Trying to get folks to care one way or another about the guy.
____________________________________________
Ayos slid down the shoulder of the final step. Leather buckets swung wildly from a yoke held across his neck. His feet, each bound in a scrap of fleece, slipped through the scree, scattering gravel down the slope. The wind howled against him. It whipped the once white cloak of a pilgrim about his gaunt frame. Flailed his matted locks against his cheeks. Tore at his ragged beard.
"Helstrom!" Ayos shouted, into the wind. "I will not fall! But if I fall, it is better to have fallen to my death sensing the Lingering Presence of the Hayom than to fall from their presence and still live."
His legs wobbled. The thin air bit at his lungs. A half-buried stone caught his foot, and his ankle turned. Ayos spun in the wind. He tumbled against the rocks. Like a hundred armored fists, cobbles pummeled his body. The yoke bounced down the scree behind him, dragging the buckets, spilling ice hacked from a glacier above. Ayos crashed against a peculiar boulder, one of many that dotted the slope. Huddling against the boulder, he pulled the yoke across the loose stones. He pushed the fleece down over his foot. Winced when it crossed his tender ankle.
"What is life spent outside the Lingering Presence?" he mumbled. "Agony, Helstrom. Agony. What is life spent in the True Presence of the Hayom? True life, unknown glory."
Ayos took a chunk of ice from one of the leather buckets. He pressed the ice against his ankle. Flinched at its sting. The ankle was not broken. The sharp pain where his ribs had slammed against the boulder hurt worse.
He bound the ice in the fleece that covered his foot and took a second chunk from the bucket. He reached beneath his cloak. Touched a satchel made of waxed burlap. His fingers crossed a circular ridge pressed in the burlap. The ridge felt like a part of him. A twisted sinew jutting from his flesh. Ayos pushed the satchel aside and held the ice against his ribs.
The ice burned. Ayos clenched his teeth and looked out over the step's stark landscape. The gray rock upon gray rock, piled up on all sides of a dry lakebed. The sharp white glaciers that divided the gray of the step's shoulders from the night sky. The snowcapped peaks that pierced the clouds on either side of the Heavenly Ladder. A grim place, Father Mutebro had called it. A final test meant to prepare the pilgrim for the treacherous climb up the Heavenly Ladder.
The camp of the Medaveans, pitched all around the dry lake, began to stir. Nurses lugged buckets to the cult’s infirmary. A torchlit patrol relieved the soldiers who guarded the steps up to Brackmeer. The guards stood on a quay that had once reached into the waters of a black lake. The landing now stood among war machines that looked, from where Ayos sat, like a young lord's scattered toys.
"Boys playing boyish games," said Ayos, the icy fire spreading across his chest. "Had it been you those boys refused, Helstrom... You would not have been turned away. Not by a hundred like them, not by a thousand. You would have climbed to Brackmeer. To the ladder."
Ayos shuddered at the sight of the goblin stronghold, crags of mud and cobble hovels that the goblins had heaped upon the walls and terraces of the ancient city, so that the roof of the first became the floor of the second, a crumbling warren, climbing up into the hollow beneath the step's headwall.
"Hymarom," Ayos whispered. The word, given breath, somehow eased his pains. Hymarom was the city's true name. The name given by the Hayom when they carved it from the mountain. Before they climbed the ladder. Before the goblins took it.
"Why would I think of it as Brackmeer?" Ayos asked, shaking his head. "You knew me well, Helstrom. Better than any other. Have I forgotten myself on this mountain?”
A light glimmered deep in the hollow, atop the mound of slums. Ayos's lips, split and bloodied by the bitter air, curled in the shadow of his beard. The glimmer came from the Lantern of Myja, the beacon which marked the base of the Heavenly Ladder. Ayos watched the glimmer dance and remembered each ruined lantern he had passed on his trek up the stair. Each anointing, each reading from the book.
The remains of several lanterns had stood atop each pass between steps, and the valleys that formed the steps had held such numbers that, in the old days, before the rise of the cult of Medavea, one’s light could always be seen from the last all along the Hayomet Road. The cult had razed those lanterns long before Ayos found them. They had turned them into milestones. Carted the stones off for building material.
Ayos pulled the chunk of ice from beneath his cloak. He hurled it toward the camp. Toward the executor’s pavilion. Clerics bustled about the pavilion. Snakes. Snakes in the service of a viper. The ice burst against the scree below. Ayos scowled after it.
“To build stoves!" He shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "The Lantern of Ayma! Its light will never again welcome a pilgrim to the western shore of the black lake. I was the last. They tore down the tower, used its stones to... to build stoves! You were there, Helstrom. Saw them arrest me when I tried to stop them. Heard them mock me. You told me to strike the one who called me crazy. A madman!"
Ayos pulled himself up onto the strange boulder. He flexed his ankle. Tested its range of movement. It had been forty days since they had banished him. For forty nights he had trekked up to the glaciers and chipped ice to trade for nerkir slop. He had watched the camp bed down and wake for forty-- Something was different.
It was too early. The moon still passed overhead, yet lanterns glinted from the Hymarom Steps to the ridge that marked the pass down to the Mist Valley. Soldiers marched up a lane that followed the ridge to the head of the Great Stair. In an open-air kitchen between the camp’s tents and the lane, a woman danced. She handed something too small to see to each passing officer. Ayos grinned.
“You remember the tokens, Helstrom? You used to take them from the men. Break them. They called you a prig for that. No executor was so strict.”
The last soldier passed. The woman turned and stirred a kettle that sat on a makeshift stove. Five such stoves dotted the open kitchen, all built from the ruins of the Lantern of Ayma. Smoke trickled from the rubble piled beneath the kettles. The woman ladled something into a bowl. A gust lifted a shawl from her head. Ayos remembered her. An aunt to the Sisters of Kindness.
“She was there, that one. Watching. They were all there. They heard what the soldier called me. Crazy. You made me beat him. I should not have done so. I should not have broken my vows. I might have killed him, had the Lingering Presence not stayed my hand.”
The aunt pushed her hair back beneath her shawl. She took a mug from the stove. Crossed the clearing to the guild's pavilion. It was not the chill air that made Ayos's lip tremble. Not the wind that made him squint.
“It is poison," spat Ayos. "All of it. The cult is a horntail viper. Its teachings are venom. The executors, its fangs. Why will they not let me climb the Hymarom Steps to the Heavenly Ladder? Why?”
Ayos seized a nearby stone. He flung it toward the camp. Glared after it. The aunt returned. Her nieces followed. They gathered around the stoves, clutching layered robes against the brisk air, rubbing tired eyes.
“And this executor, Helstrom, this Gom oc Deoc, no man is as cunning as he. He stole your life from you and threatens to do the same to me, forbidding me to climb. What is life spent outside the Lingering--”
Ayos shot up. He teetered atop the boulder. The aunt was leading the sisters up the lane that climbed the ridge. The ovelyn. The sisters would not leave their pavilion for any other reason.
"The ovelyn comes today!” Ayos shouted. His pulse racing, Ayos clambered off the boulder. Everyone would leave the camp to welcome the Ovelyn. He could light the lantern. What was left of it. Perform the anointing. Become one with Ayma of the Hayom. Ayos hefted the yoke over his neck. He balanced it across his shoulders. Began to pick his way down the slope.
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/540262-third-chapter-gernrik-992-words.html
The original was heavily influenced by the Battle of the Ants from Walden (which you can read here: The Battle of the Ants - Chapter 12 of "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau - Classic American Essays , if you like) and was meant to be a metaphor for the warring factions in the book, but according to several readers, it just wasn't working.
That chapter is gone. This new introduction reworks what was the second Ayos chapter, which originally involved talking to a pillbug for several pages! Included for critique is about two-thirds of the new chapter.
As always, I'm most interested in if it hooks and if you would continue reading, but I love the detailed critiques as well: very helpful stuff. I'm a little wary of the amount of exposition in here. I've tried to mix it in, but it still feels info-dumpy to me. Trying to get folks to care one way or another about the guy.
____________________________________________
Ayos slid down the shoulder of the final step. Leather buckets swung wildly from a yoke held across his neck. His feet, each bound in a scrap of fleece, slipped through the scree, scattering gravel down the slope. The wind howled against him. It whipped the once white cloak of a pilgrim about his gaunt frame. Flailed his matted locks against his cheeks. Tore at his ragged beard.
"Helstrom!" Ayos shouted, into the wind. "I will not fall! But if I fall, it is better to have fallen to my death sensing the Lingering Presence of the Hayom than to fall from their presence and still live."
His legs wobbled. The thin air bit at his lungs. A half-buried stone caught his foot, and his ankle turned. Ayos spun in the wind. He tumbled against the rocks. Like a hundred armored fists, cobbles pummeled his body. The yoke bounced down the scree behind him, dragging the buckets, spilling ice hacked from a glacier above. Ayos crashed against a peculiar boulder, one of many that dotted the slope. Huddling against the boulder, he pulled the yoke across the loose stones. He pushed the fleece down over his foot. Winced when it crossed his tender ankle.
"What is life spent outside the Lingering Presence?" he mumbled. "Agony, Helstrom. Agony. What is life spent in the True Presence of the Hayom? True life, unknown glory."
Ayos took a chunk of ice from one of the leather buckets. He pressed the ice against his ankle. Flinched at its sting. The ankle was not broken. The sharp pain where his ribs had slammed against the boulder hurt worse.
He bound the ice in the fleece that covered his foot and took a second chunk from the bucket. He reached beneath his cloak. Touched a satchel made of waxed burlap. His fingers crossed a circular ridge pressed in the burlap. The ridge felt like a part of him. A twisted sinew jutting from his flesh. Ayos pushed the satchel aside and held the ice against his ribs.
The ice burned. Ayos clenched his teeth and looked out over the step's stark landscape. The gray rock upon gray rock, piled up on all sides of a dry lakebed. The sharp white glaciers that divided the gray of the step's shoulders from the night sky. The snowcapped peaks that pierced the clouds on either side of the Heavenly Ladder. A grim place, Father Mutebro had called it. A final test meant to prepare the pilgrim for the treacherous climb up the Heavenly Ladder.
The camp of the Medaveans, pitched all around the dry lake, began to stir. Nurses lugged buckets to the cult’s infirmary. A torchlit patrol relieved the soldiers who guarded the steps up to Brackmeer. The guards stood on a quay that had once reached into the waters of a black lake. The landing now stood among war machines that looked, from where Ayos sat, like a young lord's scattered toys.
"Boys playing boyish games," said Ayos, the icy fire spreading across his chest. "Had it been you those boys refused, Helstrom... You would not have been turned away. Not by a hundred like them, not by a thousand. You would have climbed to Brackmeer. To the ladder."
Ayos shuddered at the sight of the goblin stronghold, crags of mud and cobble hovels that the goblins had heaped upon the walls and terraces of the ancient city, so that the roof of the first became the floor of the second, a crumbling warren, climbing up into the hollow beneath the step's headwall.
"Hymarom," Ayos whispered. The word, given breath, somehow eased his pains. Hymarom was the city's true name. The name given by the Hayom when they carved it from the mountain. Before they climbed the ladder. Before the goblins took it.
"Why would I think of it as Brackmeer?" Ayos asked, shaking his head. "You knew me well, Helstrom. Better than any other. Have I forgotten myself on this mountain?”
A light glimmered deep in the hollow, atop the mound of slums. Ayos's lips, split and bloodied by the bitter air, curled in the shadow of his beard. The glimmer came from the Lantern of Myja, the beacon which marked the base of the Heavenly Ladder. Ayos watched the glimmer dance and remembered each ruined lantern he had passed on his trek up the stair. Each anointing, each reading from the book.
The remains of several lanterns had stood atop each pass between steps, and the valleys that formed the steps had held such numbers that, in the old days, before the rise of the cult of Medavea, one’s light could always be seen from the last all along the Hayomet Road. The cult had razed those lanterns long before Ayos found them. They had turned them into milestones. Carted the stones off for building material.
Ayos pulled the chunk of ice from beneath his cloak. He hurled it toward the camp. Toward the executor’s pavilion. Clerics bustled about the pavilion. Snakes. Snakes in the service of a viper. The ice burst against the scree below. Ayos scowled after it.
“To build stoves!" He shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "The Lantern of Ayma! Its light will never again welcome a pilgrim to the western shore of the black lake. I was the last. They tore down the tower, used its stones to... to build stoves! You were there, Helstrom. Saw them arrest me when I tried to stop them. Heard them mock me. You told me to strike the one who called me crazy. A madman!"
Ayos pulled himself up onto the strange boulder. He flexed his ankle. Tested its range of movement. It had been forty days since they had banished him. For forty nights he had trekked up to the glaciers and chipped ice to trade for nerkir slop. He had watched the camp bed down and wake for forty-- Something was different.
It was too early. The moon still passed overhead, yet lanterns glinted from the Hymarom Steps to the ridge that marked the pass down to the Mist Valley. Soldiers marched up a lane that followed the ridge to the head of the Great Stair. In an open-air kitchen between the camp’s tents and the lane, a woman danced. She handed something too small to see to each passing officer. Ayos grinned.
“You remember the tokens, Helstrom? You used to take them from the men. Break them. They called you a prig for that. No executor was so strict.”
The last soldier passed. The woman turned and stirred a kettle that sat on a makeshift stove. Five such stoves dotted the open kitchen, all built from the ruins of the Lantern of Ayma. Smoke trickled from the rubble piled beneath the kettles. The woman ladled something into a bowl. A gust lifted a shawl from her head. Ayos remembered her. An aunt to the Sisters of Kindness.
“She was there, that one. Watching. They were all there. They heard what the soldier called me. Crazy. You made me beat him. I should not have done so. I should not have broken my vows. I might have killed him, had the Lingering Presence not stayed my hand.”
The aunt pushed her hair back beneath her shawl. She took a mug from the stove. Crossed the clearing to the guild's pavilion. It was not the chill air that made Ayos's lip tremble. Not the wind that made him squint.
“It is poison," spat Ayos. "All of it. The cult is a horntail viper. Its teachings are venom. The executors, its fangs. Why will they not let me climb the Hymarom Steps to the Heavenly Ladder? Why?”
Ayos seized a nearby stone. He flung it toward the camp. Glared after it. The aunt returned. Her nieces followed. They gathered around the stoves, clutching layered robes against the brisk air, rubbing tired eyes.
“And this executor, Helstrom, this Gom oc Deoc, no man is as cunning as he. He stole your life from you and threatens to do the same to me, forbidding me to climb. What is life spent outside the Lingering--”
Ayos shot up. He teetered atop the boulder. The aunt was leading the sisters up the lane that climbed the ridge. The ovelyn. The sisters would not leave their pavilion for any other reason.
"The ovelyn comes today!” Ayos shouted. His pulse racing, Ayos clambered off the boulder. Everyone would leave the camp to welcome the Ovelyn. He could light the lantern. What was left of it. Perform the anointing. Become one with Ayma of the Hayom. Ayos hefted the yoke over his neck. He balanced it across his shoulders. Began to pick his way down the slope.
It falls from the weathered shoulders and cliff faces of the valley. Ayos has been kicked out of the camp, which is on the floor of the valley. This valley is a hanging valley, carved long ago by a glacier, which he calls the Heavenly Ladder. Brackmeer isn't built on the scree, but on another level of the hanging valley, above the lake, below the headwall. This is the first real description of the place, though the first chapter has a description as part of a vision.
