Conjuring Dreams or Learning to Write by Writing

  Character Building

  In addition to the short sweet dramatic stories, I wrote several short stories, longer, more complex, to explore a concept and/or build a character up effectively. Here, characters were intended not only to be vivid and compelling, but to grow, a key element for characters in novels, though on a smaller scale. Here, the dialog is key to the characterizations, the humor (and humor is a key element in several of these stories) and growth making the characters feel real. Additionally, humor and growth goes hand in hand with the interaction of the characters, something essential to novels but pretty darn useful in short stories, too.

  I still wanted drama—I think that's almost essential in a short story or why would you read it?—but I wanted to add depth and complexity, build enough of a world to make it vivid, to make more of a concept or an idea than a snapshot, but not get so lost in the new world that the story dragged on forever or would feel incomplete.

  The first two here, "Intemperate Sword" and "A Familiar Tale" were sort of halfway between the last type of story and this, with the key difference in a longer more complicated story and out-there overt humor. In both cases, I used the interaction with a companion character (or several) for the humor, a trick I fell in love with and use in several of my novels. Dialog is the key to the humor and key to the growth and interaction of characters. "Intemperate Sword" does share the same world, though not the same characters, as "Code of the Jenri"

  The third one, "Echo," is not humorous but plays off taking a character with extreme empathy and giving her a dilemma: how do you tell the difference between what you feel and what someone else feels? I really enjoyed exploring her introspection while grappling with the bombardment of emotion from a suitor who spends much of the story in real peril. I love taking an idea and fleshing it out in a way I feel I have everything I want to say . . . and can walk away without having to invest n a full up novel.

  "Back Seat Driver," is a salutary lesson on why it's a mistake to feed me even a little idea. A conversation with a friend on how irksome it would be when one's car would say (rather than beep) "Your door is ajar," took on a new dimension and spawned this story with the inevitable "Well, it could be worse. It could criticize your driving." In "Back Seat Driver," I used the same introspection and drama I did in "Echo" paired with a heavy dose of humor specific to the unusual situation of riding along in a car with yourself as your own driving critic.

  "Masks" I had just sold to SQ Magazine, to be included in an on-line edition as well as their anthology, so I couldn't use it in the first edition of this book, but I'm free to use it now by contract. It is one of my favorite character pieces as well as fairly personal for me, as I've been known to be slightly out of step with the way "most people" think and act. And how lonely that can feel.

  The Intemperate Sword

  "Help me! Help me! I've been captured by this evil witch! Ensorcelled! Save me!"

  The bandits surrounding Korva were tired and this entreaty made little impression on them.

  "I'm an enchanted sword, you fools! I'm worth a fortune!"

  Greed in their eyes, the bandits swung their swords with renewed gusto.

  "Bastor damn you to hell, Davyll! Shut up!" Korva grunted as she swung him through a bandit's helm. "Your efforts to be free of me are really starting to piss me off."

  Korva plunged Davyll through the chest armor of the next man and ducked beneath the wide swing of another's battle axe to kick him in his unprotected privates. She wrenched the sword out of the bandit's chest in time to slice the last one in half then severed the neck of the one she had kicked.

  "Yuck," Davyll muttered as blood dripped down his blade. "No one has any compassion for my delicate constitution. All this blood and gore . . . "

  Korva ignored him, holding him poised as she checked all the soldiers to make certain they had stopped breathing. Satisfied, she thrust the sword, point-first, into the ground.

  The sword sighed gustily, somewhat muffled by the ground he was thrust in. "You would kill all of them!" he mourned. "I'll never get a chance to escape."

  Korva reached out a hand and whacked the sword hilt with her whip, smiling at his yelp of pain. "Fine, hurt me," Davyll continued plaintively. "And do you have to grip me so hard? You know what my hilt represents! It's a very sensitive part of a man's body."

  "If you don't stop that damned witch-blabber every time I'm up against a man or two, I'll start wearing mail gauntlets, so behave yourself!" She bent over one of the soldiers, looking for valuables, revealing a lovely expanse of her own sleek thigh. "And don't peek!"

  "You know I can't see when my blade's covered. How could I possibly look?"

  "So you say. Davyll, you and I both know you're a serpent in sword's clothing. I, for one, think you were behind my miscarriage."

  "What could I have to do with it?" Davyll asked in his most virtuous tones.

  "Don't act innocent with me! You were a sorcerer before and I know you too well to underestimate you now. First the miscarriage, then I have to kill Sulcin because you talked him into stealing you when I was recovering . . . "

  "Why you picked such a bootlicking, half-witted, double-rutting, ill-smelling moron to father your children . . . "

  "I picked that sort of man so that you wouldn't try so hard to change ownership, Davyll, and well you know it. Even if Sulcin had been able to kill me and get away with you, then what? He was of no use to you. You have to be wielded by one who is faithful and true to break the spell," Korva said, rifling an empty purse.

  "Yes, yes, I know the verse as well as you. It's engraved on me, isn't it?

  Davyll the Sorcerer to Davyll the Blade,

  Making him pay for the choices he's made.

  'Til held by a man who is faithful and true,

  Strong and good-hearted, loyal clear through,

  Who slays himself twenty who, just like Davyll

  Are shameless and faithless, do just as they will.

  Morian wasn't much of a poet, you know."

  "She was a pretty good sorceress," Korva reminded him, smiling.

  "From reading my books!"

  "You left her for twenty-five years to serve as sorcerer, rutting with any woman you fancied, while she waited at home, seeing you a handful of times a decade. Which, to my way of thinking, is a handful too many. In any case, if you had spent more time in your wife's bed or even at home, she wouldn't have had so much time to study your spellbooks and think about revenge, would she?"

  "She was a very vindictive woman. Why I ever married that ill-natured, cold-hearted . . ."

  "But you did marry her and then neglected her. If you had treated great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandmother Morian with the respect due to a woman of her talents and intelligence, you wouldn't be in this pickle, so shut up or I'm sticking you hilt-first into the fire."

  "Bitch!" Davyll muttered, thinking of both his late enraged spouse and his insolent descendant. "You're a very ungrateful descendent. You should have a little more respect for your ancestors."

  "I have a great deal of respect for Morian," she pointed out.

  "I meant me!" Davyll wailed.

  "There's nothing I like better than nuts roasted on an open fire," Korva reflected.

  Davyll took the hint and kept quiet. Korva's search of the soldiers' bodies had been fruitless, as usual. Being a mercenary really didn't have the perks some people thought it did. With a gentle tug, she pulled Davyll out and wiped his long shining blade on the tall grass, then cleaned off the last of the blood with a soft cloth before sliding him into his scabbard.

  "I can't breathe in here," he protested, muffled almost to silence.

  "You're a sword, you blasted fool. You don't have to breathe. Now stop yapping." She looked up quickly, her sharp ears catching the sound of an approaching horse. Her fingers clenched Davyll in a vicious grip.

  "Ow!" she heard softly from the sword.

  She slapped the sensitive grip with her free hand and hi
ssed, "Quiet or you'll find your hilt in the fire."

  Davyll's mumbled response was too soft to hear. One hand resting loosely on the sword and another on her long knife, she faced the horseman.

  The horseman pulled his horse short at the sight before him. A tall woman, with long unbound red hair, stood tall, dressed in a leather tunic and a longsword with an odd hilt. At her feet were six, no seven, armored bodies, obviously dead. "Bastor!" the horseman whispered.

  "They are deserters," the woman said by way of explanation. "They took me for an easy mark. It was a mistake they won't make again."

  The man swung down from his horse. "Are you of the Jenri Clan to fight so well? I can't tell. Your hair is all red."

  The woman laughed. "I am flattered, but no, I am a mercenary on my own. But I can still protect myself."

  The man looked sideways at the bodies. "So I see. Well, warrior-woman, would you object if I shared your fire?"

  "If your motives are friendly, you are welcome," Korva said warily. "I am Korva."

  "I am Kelax." The man turned, unsaddling his horse. The horse was finely bred and the trappings were expensive. If he was a mercenary, and with double swords at his hips, he looked to be so, he was doing much better than she was. But Korva's brown eyes were devouring his lean body. He was tall, even taller than she, and had shoulder-length hair of sun-streaked brown. He was really very handsome.

  Sigh. Too bad. She had the sneaking suspicion that, whatever his profession, he was a fine enough man to perhaps break Davyll's spell. Wouldn't you just know it? She'd have to let him go on his way. It was a Bastor-damned shame! She was getting tired of having only the scum of the earth for company.

  The man turned back around, trappings in his arms, and smiled. Double damn, she said to herself. She consoled herself with the thought that one night with a man she could actually admire was better than none . . .

  "Well, I'd best turn in," she said wistfully, three hours later, stroking her bedroll suggestively.

  Kelax, naturally, missed the hint and politely turned away, laying himself full-length on his own bedroll. Figures, Korva thought sourly. Finally a man I wouldn't mind having in my bed, and he's too nice to get in it.

  "Did you hear that?" he asked suddenly, breaking into her reflections.

  "What?" she said, hoping it was a ploy for her to share his blanket.

  "I thought I heard someone talking. I don't know. It was kind of muffled."

  Korva swore under her breath. With a nervous laugh, she pulled Davyll, still in his sheath, closer to her. "Really? I didn't hear anything. It was probably the wind." She pinched the hilt painfully, then tossed the sword toward the horses. "But maybe there is something out there. Perhaps you should sleep closer to me. That way, we could come to each other's aid if need be."

  The man shook his head. "I'm afraid it would be too tempting, sleeping that close to you. You're a beautiful woman."

  Bastet be praised! "Well, damn it, man. Don't let that stop you!" She lifted up the edge of her blanket with one hand and unlaced her tunic with her other. Kelax wasn't that noble and bolted from his bedroll. There are some invitations all men understand.

  Later that night, he rose, thirsty. He stumbled, naked, to his things and fished out his waterskin.

  "Psst! Hey you!"

  "Who is that?"

  "It's me, the sword! Quickly, pull me out!"

  "I don't steal swords," Kelax said piously.

  "Oh, spare me," Davyll said tartly. "I'm not a sword, I'm a man, ensorcelled into the form of a sword. Only you can free me! Quickly, before she wakes."

  Kelax, scruples overcome with curiosity, obliged. "Thank Bastor!" the sword exclaimed. "Sword or no sword, I hate being in that blasted scabbard. Look, friend, I'm an enchanted sword and I need your help."

  "What do I have to do?"

  "Quickly, while she's sleeping, kill her! Then, . . . "

  "I can't kill her in her sleep! That wouldn't be fair," Kelax protested, then smiled in a bemused fashion. "Or grateful."

  "Damn it, man, don't think with your privates. That will only lead you to trouble, let me tell you! Kill her now!"

  "I won't kill her like a thief in the night."

  "Well, what else would you call yourself? I'm her sword, aren't I?" the sword asked reasonably. "And it's hours from dawn."

  "I will challenge her to a duel for you. She can use one of my weapons."

  "Bastor preserve me from this kind of idiot," Davyll said disgustedly as Kelax padded forward on bare feet, one of his own sheathed swords in his other hand. He nudged Korva with the scabbard's tip.

  Korva opened her eyes and smiled, stretching her arms above her head. The blanket slipped down about her waist, allowing Kelax and Davyll a lovely view. Kelax's grip tightened.

  "Clumsy oaf!" Davyll grunted.

  "Davyll!" Korva cried, leaping to her feet and pulling out her knife. "You're going to pay for this one!"

  "If only he'd had the sense to kill you in your sleep, Korva, everything would be fine," complained Davyll apologetically.

  "I challenge you to a duel of ownership for the sword," Kelax said formally. "You may have my sword as a weapon."

  Korva crouched, clothed only in her long red hair, and contemplated him thoughtfully. Finally, she sighed. "I won't need your sword," she murmured as she leapt upon him, deflecting a clumsy blow easily with her knife, disarming him and knocking him down all in one movement. In seconds, he lay on the ground, her knife at his throat, her knee on his chest.

  Between her weight and her nudity, Kelax was having a hard time breathing, but he managed to moan, "What a horrible sword! I've never felt anything balanced so poorly."

  "Never mind that," Korva said. "Normally, I'd just kill you, but I like you, Kelax. So, I'll give you a choice. Either you ride with me as companion, vowing never to touch my sword again, or you die. If you break your word, you won't be true, so you can't help Davyll anyway."

  "Does companion mean I have to share your bed?"

  Korva thought about letting him off, but, after all, she had the knife. "Yes," she decided.

  "Good," Kelax said. "I swear I'll never touch that clumsy hunk of useless metal again."

  "Well I never!" huffed Davyll in the grass.

  "Shut up, you," Korva shouted to him, letting Kelax up. "You're in enough trouble." She told Kelax Davyll's story.

  "So you didn't ensorcel him?"

  "No, Morian did hundreds of years ago. But, since any woman holding him is the finest swordwielder in the world, I am not eager to have him freed from his spell."

  "But, when I held him, I couldn't wield him to save my life!"

  "If Davyll is in a man's hands, the man becomes the worst swordwielder in the world. Morian was very thorough."

  "So, even if an honest man stole him, he'd have a good deal of trouble killing twenty men with him."

  "Exactly."

  Kelax regarded the sword sadly. "Seems a little extreme," he said at last.

  "Don't feel sorry for this fellow, Kelax. You spend a week or so with his whining and you'll wonder why she didn't just kill him outright. Davyll just messed with the wrong woman. Come to think of it, he seems to make a habit of it. Which reminds me, he needs to be taught a lesson."

  With that, she took the blade up in her hand and rose, walking gracefully to the smoldering remains of the fire.

  "You wouldn't dare!" Davyll sputtered.

  "I warned you," she said, smiling maliciously. She dropped the hilt into the coals.

  "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHH!"

  Kelax looked confused as Korva walked back and he glanced at the screaming sword uncomfortably. Korva smiled at Kelax kindly and traced the runes on Davyll's hilt into the dirt. Then, she translated: "After the first ten years of living alone in a cold drafty castle with only the stories of my husband's sexual and magical prowess for company, I swore I would have my revenge. Someday, I promised myself, I would hold Davyll by the balls . . . "