The Lion or the Bear?

I don’t have a lot of words right now (since all my words are being used elsewhere). I had a bumper day today and did two days worth of work. I’m pretty happy with this part.

The two adherents left the military training ground behind and passed through a purely industrial quarter. They were surrounded by the smoke from kilns and the noise of draft animals. As they passed a large clay vessel factory and came alongside a open air flax-weaving operation Amenmehat asked, “You saw the beginning of the excavation work at Gizeh. What do you make of my brother Thutmose?”
“His eyes are like the desert lion. I saw one caged when I was a girl,” she added to prove she knew what she was talking about. Then she realized she may have spoken too freely. She made an apologetic noise, “Ahh...”
Amenmehat was simply looking down at the road in front of them as they walked. His expression was grave. Ahtinamun did not know what else to say so she remained silent. Then the priest spoke. “Thank you for speaking the truth about what you have seen.” They were both silent for the length of a few more buildings. Very softly Amenmehat asked, “Did you know Pharaoh has died?” Even though she knew well the theoretical progress of individual Pharaohs through the ages; each new one becoming the living Horus as each former became Osiris in an unending chain, she was still gripped with a sudden fear. No pharaoh? It had never happened in her lifetime and she felt unmoored. As the idea sunk into her mind she recalled there was a definite process.
“How long until my Lord is buried?”
“Two months yet. Then the Son of Horus will rise to be The Living Image of Horus.” He sounded very sad about this prospect.
Ahtinamun realized she was being invited once again to peer behind another veil. “Will the royal family have need of a priestess of Isis?” Even in asking she was other priestesses who outranked her could not be bypasses for this unique opportunity. Amenmehat was looking at her meaningfully. “If not, perhaps I can serve you in some other capacity.”
The priest nodded his acceptance. “Let us speak again of hypotheticals,” he said loudly with a wave of his right hand. “Let us suppose a wild desert lion, like the one you mentioned earlier.” He looked at her and she nodded her understanding. “Now suppose also a bear raised in captivity which had grown to hate the bear-baiters and the bars which were a necessary part of its life.” Ahtinamun was beginning to understand the shape of this argument. “If these two were taken from their cages and left to roam, which would be the more dangerous creature?”
“Are these beasts well-fed or starved?”
Amenmehat suddenly laughed, lifting his head back and expressing his mirth in a short exclamation. The suddenness and force of the priest’s odd laughter caught Ahtinamun by surprise. With a smile he said, “let us say they are fed but neither starved for fattened.”
Ahtinamun knew little enough about animals, especially savage beasts. She had seen a bear as well as a lion. She compared the two. She knew her mentor was not really asking her about animals. She left she had to answer very carefully. “In your example the bear would seem the safer choice, its life of captivity would have made it more docile than a wild bear, certainly.”
“Certainly.”
“However, that familiarity could be a trap. It would be a mistake to treat such a bear as tame. It could strike out when violence was least expected.” The priest nodded. “While the lion could never be mistaken for tame and no one would treat it so. Given a chance the lion would be more likely to return to the desert where it had known true freedom rather than staying in the city at all.”
“I think you are correct in all points.”
Emboldened Ahtinamun pushed forward with another point. “Of course, the question then becomes, that is the purpose of the animal? Is it a guide to be followed? If so, what use is running into the desert for most of us? If this theoretical animal is simply a symbol of power, why tolerate a symbol which returns adoration with contempt?”
“You see the dilemma very clearly, indeed.”
“And it is your place to decided between these beasts?”
Amenmehat was very grave and returned to studying the ground. “It is not my place by right or by obligation. Yet the choice is before me.”
“If we are all part of a cosmic priesthood, who better to make a choice for order than the High Priest of Amun?”
They had reached the plaza where they must part. Her to the sacred precinct and he. No doubt to the palace where the bear rattled its cage even now. “Goodbye for now, Father. I am most grateful to you for these discussions. I feel I am learning much.” Ahtinamun bowed low to the priest.
He returned the bow, but more shallowly, respecting his greater stature. “I am glad you find our time together beneficial.” Without another word the highest ranking priest in the city turned on his heel and crossed the plaza.
Ahtinamun watched him go. His black cloak cut such a grave silhouette against the white stone he was easy to follow until her view was blocked by a public building across the plaza. He was like a shadow, dark as a smear of charred resin, which moved on its own from one forgotten corner of the universe to another. She was very certain what they had been talking about. She would choose the lion. She stood at the edge of plaza for some time watching the mundane business of the city being conducted at its edges. What could she do to help bring about the rise of the lion and the fall of the bear? Perhaps the answer was only known in the lost corners of the universe where shadows roam free.

Right now my word count is 32,027 words.
By now I should have 30,006 words.

A Call for Dialogue

I have worked out how the novel will end. As I’ve written some themes have emerged which I did not except. This was always a novel about political turmoil, but it has certainly been influenced by the political outcomes of this week. Other themes are just part of the normal process of sitting down to craft a story. I did not plan on exactly how Thutmose would relate to his siblings or how Ahtinanum would be brought into the plot to make Thutmose pharaoh. I also did not expect my priestess to be the one who was cynical about religion. Perhaps it is cliché and maybe I am bringing impacted a bit by The Last Days of Pompeii. Whatever the case, I’ve written it so she is now. There’s no time to go backwards in NaNoWriMo.

Eloy, my friend and the head honcho over at Third Eye Games, has taken up the November challenge for the first time this year. He’s writing a screen play. He mentioned the other day that a screen play is so much more about dialogue then other writing. That has been in my mind, and I have noticed I don’t put a lot of dialogue into my NaNoWriMos. I like description of places, actions and feelings but I rarely make my characters interact. I guess that’s a blind spot for me an introvert, or it’s just weakness as writer I need to work on. Anyway, I wrote some dialogue I’m pretty happy with today. Here you go.

Thutmose sat on the low wall of the courtyard where he had just completed his vigorous morning routine. He had run the length of the yard several times, lifted the stones, pushed his body up from the ground by his arms and several other exercises he had learned. He had worked himself until he could not work any more and now he sat on the wall exhausted. He relished this quiet moment. As he sat in the morning sun feeling the sweat on his back dry and skin of his face begin to finally cool he had no thoughts. He had outrun everything. He was not thinking about the clouds he had left behind nor was he thinking about the monumental project which lay before him. He was thinking about nothing for a few silent, quiet moments.

Then the world he could never outrun for long caught up to him and he heard the rustle of fabric and the hiss of a sandal on sand. He did not look up. Let this fragment of the world outside his resting mind speak first. In the darkness behind his closed eyelids Thutmose could not miss the sounds of someone sitting beside him. An older person who eased down onto the wall with a grunt of old age exertion. The one to intrude on his space did not speak. Thutmose could almost feel the shape and face of the person in his mind’s eye, but identity of the figure still escaped him. Still they both waited.

“Thutmose, my son...” It was Shamenkmet. “Tell me what troubles you.”

“Do you not know?” Thutmose’s voice was almost a whisper.

“I know many troubling things,” the wise old man admitted. “You must be the one to speak it.”

“My father...”

“You haven’t seen your father in years. Your relationship never had gave you life. His imminent death does not trouble you now.”

“I do not know if I will be able to uncover the body of the sphinx.”

“Closer. You are worried about your project. Speak the truth of it.”

Thutmose sat up straight and looked into the face of his teacher, healer and guide. The man’s face was serene, as always. His thin lips curved into a subtle smile and his eyes flashed and danced like fish rising to the surface of the pond of his face. His clean-shaven head was covered by a hood made of part of the long wrap of cloth he wore as his only outer garment. He had pulled his feet up under himself. He looked almost like a chunk of rock broken in a odd way and laying at an odd angle such as one could find below cliff faces in the southern desert. Old and darkened by the desert patina in places and bright white along the newly broken edges. Shamenkmet’s fish eyes kept roiling in his patina face and kept begging Thutmose for an answer. He knew he could not keep a secret from this man.

Thutmose leaned closer to this teacher and he felt small and helpless like a child caught filtching honey from the family supply. “I did not speak with honesty upon the matter of Khepri’s statue.”

“You lied?” There was no value judgement in the words. It was simply an observation.

“I lied.”

Shamenkmet nodded with satisfaction. He snaked a thin arm tipped with long fingers out of his wrappings and gripped Thutmose’s bowed head. He pulled the younger man forward forcefully and Thutmose let his head be dragged. Shamenkmet held their foreheads together and looked awkwardly up and forward into Thutmose’s eyes. “Remember, my son, commitment to truth is the highest ideal.” His voice hissed, “The highest!” Thutmose winced and the disgust in his master’s voice. Shamenkmet returned to a whisper. “Maat will weigh your heart someday. Do not weigh it down.” He released the younger man from his grip and caressed the the side of his student’s face as his hand slid away.

Thutmose felt emotion pull at him like carrion birds picked at a corpse. He had been slain with simple words. He pushed the image from his mind. Part of him knew it would not change what his teacher had said but he mumbled, “I acted on an opportunity to serve Khepri.”

“You choose the easy path.”

“I did. How else could I have achieved my commission so quickly?”

“Legacies are not built quickly of inferior products. Do you want to erect a house of dry reeds or a temple of stone?”

Thutmose could not answer. Each of Shamenkmet’s statements came quickly like a series of blows in a melee. He knew where to strike and he delivered crushing damage. Thutmose again saw himself as a corpse being feasted upon by vultures. This time he rested with the image for a moment. His sick father, the false hope he had given him, the chance arrival at the same time as his two brothers. It has seemed like a perfect conjunction of events. If he was Khepri, the light of the morning sun, as he felt and as Amenemhat had said, he should have acted more carefully and more precisely. The dawn came at the perfect time, but its influence was soft and gentle. It was full of promise but not yet full of power. He had done wrong and acted against the request of the god who had spoken to him.

Thutmose looked back into Shamenkmet’s face and he was there, as serene as ever watching his pupil work out the impacts of his actions for himself. Thutmose reached out and said, “Father, please forgive...”

Shamenkmet cut him off with an upraised hand. “Do not ask my forgiveness. You are yet a pupil. You are to err and I am to correct you. You must ask forgiveness of those you have offended. Pharaoh and the god who asked you for protection.”

Thutmose nodded. Then questions came to him. “How do you know I saw a god in a dream? How did you know I lied?”

“I attend upon The Living Image of Horus from time to time. I was there when you spoke with your father and I could read on your face your lie.” Thutmose said nothing, he looked across the court yard. For a moment he did not see the white limestone walls and the palace the and flag stones of the court. He saw again the desert. The desolate landscape. His teacher’s voice reached him through the emptiness like a voice on the wind. “Even if you had not retold the dream yourself, I saw it in your face when you first entered the room. You have seen a god. That vision is part of you now. It has changed you.”

Right now my word count is 19,129 words.
By now I should have 18,337 words.

The Dream

First off:
Remember, remember the fifth of November...

I haven’t done my writing yet for today, but I wanted to put up some of what I wrote yesterday. The writing is going well. I have named my engineer Pentawer and my priestess Ahtinanum. Maybe not great names, and “Ahtinamun” is not attested from Egypt so far as I know, but they are serviceable for a writing blitz. Without more ado, here it is; my version of Thutmose’s dream from the stele. Enjoy.

He made an apology to the elder priest and stepped out of the funerary complex. It was now noon and Ra was at his zenith. He had to get out into the open, away from the incense, but Thutmose wanted a place to sit down and rest. Across from the temple he had left was a huge stone head resting right on the desert sand. The overhang of the chin created a shadowed cleft. It would be the perfect spot to rest and recover himself. He quickly strode across the desert until he was right below the mammoth face. It was crowned with the nemes, the headdress of royalty. It was the face of a pharaoh. The Horus of his day, an Osiris for all time. It was a wide face with full cheeks. So unlike the ruling family of his own day. So unlike his own face. Thutmose touched his cheek impulsively. He knew well that even in the old days temples and statues were erected freely wherever there was available space. This monument might not be directly associated with the funerary temple behind him or the pyramids away on his left. Yet somehow he knew it was. This was the face of the man who had been so important there were still people worshipping his revered memory, if not quite his hallowed name, all these ages hence. Again he felt insignificant in the face of ancient days. He was nothing compared even to the memory of this man. How could he hope to make anything of himself worth remembering?
Thutmose was barely aware his companions had finally missed him and come across the sands to find him. Maatkure touched his arm. “Prince, let us go back to our chariots and return to the river. We can spend the heat of the day in the cool of the date palms.”
Thutmose pulled his arm roughly out of his friend’s grasp. “No, I will rest right here in the shadow of my ancestors.” He walked forward again and came to the edge of the huge head. He stooped below it and walked to the middle of the cleft below the statue. The shade was cool enough and being out of the direct light of Ra was a relief. Thutmose sat and crossed his legs one over the other. His companions joined him shortly. The three talked quietly about their hunting and they resolved between them the trip was over now they were in sight of the river again. They would wait until the heat of the day passed then head back to Men-Nefer. Thutmose’s plan to make they stay in the area of tombs for the night was forgotten as the childish and petty vengeance it was. Their conversation drifted off to nothing. Thutmose felt his eyes drooping. In his sadness he choose not to resist and soon his head fell to his chest and the price, the son of Horus, slept.

He started awake to find darkness had fallen. Shadow covered him but beyond moonlight bathed the desert in shimmering blues beyond the river the black body of Nut was studded with shimmering stars. Feeling he had forgotten something important he looked around for the others. They were gone. He was alone. He did not feel alone. He felt watched. He looked around to search the edge of the shadow again for anything he had not noticed at first but now he saw the shadow had disappeared. He was not sitting on the sand as he had been he was standing looking west into the Land of Death. He tried to remember what he had left behind, he tried to call to whomever had been with him, but his mind felt like a shallow stream and his voice was soundless in the oppressive night.
A wind struck him from the west and the abrasive sand struck him. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes and he felt the old weakness slowing his movements. A thumping filled his years over the roar of the wind. He carefully looked into the west and saw a shape moving against the horizon. It walked on four legs and it’s movements were sleek like a lion. He found he bow suddenly in his hands and he drew back an arrow as the creature in the night moved closer. Each footfall of the beast’s approach was a distant rumble of thunder. He lowered his useless bow as the beast looked higher. Higher than the pyramids he had seen earlier that day. A world-filling power. He stood helpless and mute as it closed the distance from the edge of the night to him in a few simple leaps. As it came closer he could see more than just and outline. Then suddenly, the whole massive creature was revealed to him in the sliver moonlight. He stared up from the massive lion paws to the thick limbs to the human head which rode above the animal body. He mouth gaped. A living sphinx! The largest he could imagine.
The sphinx looked down at him and he felt in looking into him. He felt it read in him every failing, all the weakness, all the resentment, everything. It began to speak and he assumed he would die, blown apart by the force of a god’s whim. Instead the voice was gentle. He heard it as if he were a sleepy child being comforted by a loving father. “Look at me, my beloved son. I am Khepri, Effective for Horus, Disperser of Chaos. I have seen your dreams and read your desires. So I shall make you the king of all the earth. You have a brow fit for the crowns of many kingdoms.” The huge beast knelt and he felt it exhale with pain. Hot breath with the smell of fresh kills passed by him. The beast put it paws before it in the classic guarding pose he had seen repeated hundreds of times before the doors of temples. Leaned forward, looming just above him, the sphinx spoke again, but now its voice was strained. “Look at my face, Thutmose. We have the same face. We share the same heart. You can feel it.” He did. He felt his heart within him straining at his chest. His ka was reaching out to the beast. He felt something was wrong and he wanted to help. They were looking at each other eye to eye. “You are my protector. I need you. The desert has come close upon me and cut off my limbs.” The wind was blowing again. He seemed to be looking down on the sphinx now. It was small and he towered over it’s helpless body. The sand was covering it, burring it as it spoke to him. Gusts blew stinging sand into his own eyes as well. He tried to act, he tried to reach out and comfort the mighty creature but his own body was being buried as well. He could only stare at the sphinx as the sands covered it to its neck. “Come to me, my son,” it begged. “Do what I desire. You are my protector.” Desperation was in its voice and he felt the same desperation as the sand reached his own neck. “Trust. I will lead you.” Then the sphinx was gone, swallowed by the desert and the gusts soon covered him in sand as well.

Right now my word count it 7,104 words.
By now I should have 8,335 words.

NaNoWriMo Begins Again

First, let me announce the manuscript for Wild Skies: Europa Tempest has been completed. We are working to burnish it a bit before we send it on for layout. About 80% of the art has been completed. The comic has been in the bank for a while. Our KickStarter closed one year ago yesterday, so we missed our original target of delivery within one year. That smarts a little, but we rolling forward. I can hardly believe it has been a year already. Writing a whole role playing game from the ground up is hard, let me tell you. Whew! Considering my last major RPG projects all kicked around for multiple years, Wild Skies is proceeding in record time. Always find the latest on our updates page!

What I am really here to talk about is National Novel Writing Month. It’s November and that means it’s time to lay down 50,000 words in 30 days. This is the tenth year I have participated with three victories under my belt. I managed to win last year despite beginning work on Wild Skies and a multi-day trip to see family for Thanksgiving. This year with the editing and layout work to do, I really don’t know if I will have the time for NaNoWriMo. Having said that, one of my victories was achieved in 2013 when there was so much on my plate I needed my novel just to survive. I make no promises. This year I am taking things one day and 1,667 words at a time.

For now, my working title for this year’s novel is The Dream Stele. It is a riff on the actual Dream Stele which sits between the paws of the great sphinx at Giza. The ancient stele tells the story of young Thutmose IV who slept beneath the sphinx on a hunting trip one day. The sphinx was covered in sand. In a dream the sphinx told him he would become pharaoh if he uncovered it. Some version of these events presumably did happen because Thutmose had the story written down on the stele after he did become pharaoh. Assuming the events told on the stele are accurate, I am writing the story of the dream and Thutmose’s subsequent rise to power.

I plan to alternate between three characters. First is young prince Thutmose himself. He’s ambitious and the driver of the events in my story. The scanty scholarship I’ve done on the matter suggests Thutmose may have been epileptic in some form which contributed to his religious convictions. I plan to write him as more manic-depressive. Not in a clinical way, I’ll admit I don’t plan to do much, if any, mental health research. I want to portray him as something of a force of nature. He makes things happen, but no one knows why.

My “real” characters will be the people surrounding Thutmose. Most important will be the engineer tasked with actually moving the sand from around the sphinx. I liked the aquarius hero in Harris’ Pompeii and I have something of a soft spot for Belzoni’s workmanlike engineering so my engineer, as yet unnamed, will likely be a combination of them. I know he wouldn’t think of himself as Sisyphus, but I think he sees himself but in a similar position.

My least realized character so far will be a priestess of Isis. Her story will involve the political and religious side of Thutmose’s rise to power. He wasn’t supposed to be king. Yet he became king. What played out in the halls of power which aided that transition? Whatever story that is will be told from her eyes. I like Jeanne of Arc and I might recast her as my priestess; a character caught up in events “beyond” her because of a clear religious vision. On the other hand, if Thutmose is the religious one and the engineer is the practical one, maybe the priestess plays a role like Valentine Wiggin in Card’s Ender’s Game. She could be the social force which enables what Thutmose is doing to be appreciated. I’ll figure it out as I go along. That’s what writing with abandon is all about.

Right now my word count it 1,721 words.
By now I should have 1,667 words.