Wednesday 26 August 2015

A bit from Arcadian's Balm

Yes, I'm still working away. A massive flu has me nice and stuffed and doped up, but at least I have time to sit down and write. Anyhow, here's a quote from Arcadian's Balm that I rather like:

“Folks want to be gifted,” the Clan Mother said. “They wants to be special, do something others can’t, be something beyond what we’re born to be. But few see the burdens and the responsibilities of such a thing. We has the hearts of men. And the hearts of men cannot rightly control the power of what is more than us. We most often fail.”

As was hinted at in Wildlander's Woman, there are certainly preternatural powers bouncing around the Wildlands. In Arcadian's Balm, we delve into that a little more, looking at the effect that such gifts have on the human psyche and how terribly wrong it can all go if the person who has the gift does not have the moral strength to control it and use it for good.

I think it's natural to believe that the rules don't necessarily apply to oneself, that you can handle even the tough tests of integrity, because you somehow aren't susceptible to the temptations and weaknesses of the human condition. But the fact is, we all are. We all fail. We all thoughtlessly hurt people along the way. And sometimes the fallout of our own arrogance can be rather devastating. We will explore those ideas in Arcadian's Balm.

Sunday 2 August 2015

Sneak Peek from Arcadian's Balm

So I'm still pounding away at Arcadian's Balm. This story takes us out of the Circle of the NorthWest Wood and across the northern part of the Wildlands, right to the Grand Circle of the Wildlands (think capital city). So we'll see a little more of Wildland culture and the different ways they live. We'll also see a familiar face we might not have expected.


After the Circle meeting, the warrior Rustan offered to bring Lorien back to her lodging. Though she knew the way, Lorien accepted the offer with grace, and walked alongside the sad-eyed warrior through the various rings of the Grand Circle. After the coarse simplicity of the Circle of the NorthWest Wood and the Circle of the Grey Mountains, Lorien was struck yet again at the sophisticated architecture of the Grand Circle. At first glance, the buildings seemed rather simple, but she could see the care and work that had gone into them, the building techniques unlike any she’d ever seen in Arcadia, and the careful attention to detail and aesthetics that made it all so lovely to look upon.
As they walked, she thought about her conversation with the Grand Mother, and remembered her question. “The Clan Mother of my home Circle… she has pale green eyes,” Lorien said to Rustan.
He nodded calmly, and kept silent.
“And then the Clan Mother in the Circle of the Grey Mountains… hers are the same color.”
“Aye.” Rustan lightly grasped her elbow and led her round a corner to cut across a courtyard into the next ring. “You has thoughts about this?”
“The Grand Mother’s eyes were the same color.” Lorien recognized the road they emerged into as the one where her lodgings lay. “Cale told me that sometimes the Clan Mothers are of the same families. Would three sisters all be Mothers of different Circles?”
Rustan smiled down at her, and she could see that he was pleased in spite of the sorrow that hung over him like a heavy cloak. “It may happen like that,” he said slowly. “If we were ever to have a family with three living daughters, which has not happened in many years. But the truth you seek here is that all the Clan Mothers has the same eyes. Comes with the Light in them, when their magick grows strong enough. The Grand Mother, back in earlier years, she has one blue eye and one brown one.”
Lorien thought about the other elders in the Circle, including the small one who had spoken so gently to her about her Gift. “That other man… Willem, he had one brown and one blue eye.”
“Aye.” Rustan straightened a little, and for a moment pride shone through his sorrow. Warder had shown that same pride, Lorien remembered, when he’d caressed her burgeoning belly. To her shock, the thought of her former husband no longer caused a slice of pain, but rather the soft warmth of a fond memory.
“Is that a common thing, for eyes to be different colors in the Wildlands?”
Rustan shook his head, grey-streaked brown hair moving softly in the breeze. “Very unusual. Only ones I ever see are Willem and his sister. They shares a womb, comin’ into this world.”
Yes, the gentleness in Willem’s face was reflected in that of the Grand Mother. “So you knew them… before?”
“Aye.” In the space of a breath, Rustan’s pride slid into something different entirely, something that Lorien would have called agony. But he schooled his features. “I knows ‘em many years. I can no longer speak the Grand Mother’s name, is not the way of things, but I knows it well.”
“Is she your mother?”
Smiling, Rustan touched his palm to the side of Lorien’s face in the formal manner of an older relation showing affection to a younger one. “She’s mother to us all, aye? I protects and cares for her. Is why I lives and breathes, now.”
Again that raw anguish flashed in his face.
Lorien grasped his hand. “I’m glad I met you, Rustan. I think we shall be good friends.”
“Indeed, little sister.”