[Note: This is the beginning of a novel I abandoned many years ago.  I worked on it, off and on, for over fifteen years and it never got any better.  I have notebooks full of backstory, history and characterizations, along with maps, sketches and unfinished scenes.  Why dredge it up now?  Well, I guess I felt sorry for it, sitting there alone for so many years.  A story is meant to be heard, even a bad story.  This one is full of clichés, melodrama, and too much exposition, to name just a few of its problems. However, it may amuse the reader in some small way, so here it is.  I’ll post it in little chunks and use the tag “Seeing Stone.” Fly, little story, and be free!]

The Seeing Stone

Part One: Iys

Chapter One: The Eye of the West

They were black shapes in the silvery mist, thirteen sniffing, hounding shapes–creatures of shadow and night.  The island fog glowed silver in the moonlight as they hunted up and down the southern beach of Iys, following the scent that had been drawing them for days.

Once, long ago, they had dwelt in daylight, but now they lived a dreary half-life–somewhere between living and dying, between the hounds they had once been and the monsters they were becoming.  They were the nakrim, bred by the shadow to hunt and kill.  And they were close to their prey.

* * *

Mossdown Manor stood on a lonely promontory on the desolate western edge of the isle of Iys.  In ages past the manor had been a great fortress, formed of three strong watchtowers, each chiseled in the likeness of an ancient hero: one Man, one Underlander, one Eludoi.  At one time it might have been said that the heroes stood back to back as brothers in battle; but the passing years had worn on them so that now they seemed to have stubbornly turned their backs on each other to frown at the world.  Like the names of the ancient heroes, the towers stood almost forgotten, and stared vacantly over Wyndham Eld.  The east tower faced the lands of Men in Par Telion; the grim south tower looked toward the unseen mountains of Dwir Manath where the Underlanders dwelt; and the west tower gazed nobly to the Sea and the Lands Beyond to where the Eludoi had vanished.

On a cold gray evening in the late of winter, the eyes of the west tower were gleaming with a fiery light that every so often twinkled oddly blue.  Behind those eyes lay the writing chamber of Fosco Brandystout, current master of Mossdown, and one of the few who had not forgotten the towers’ ancient history.

Inside the high tower room, a fire blazed in the hearth, and candles slowly melted in their sconces.  The chamber smelled of sea-air and leather bookbindings.  Fosco’s wife Milly sat on a large couch with their two sons, Willem and Nib, while Milly’s brother Derry sat by the fire with legs outstretched.  Over by the window, facing the sea, Elias the Blind chewed slowly on a chunk of bread.  The remains of a large feast lay scattered on a long table at the rear of the room.

Fosco himself was hunched over a scattered pile of manuscripts at his great oak desk.  A historian and translator, Fosco looked somewhat owlish behind his large spectacles.  He was reading his latest translation, The Battle of Par Molten, to Elias, who made comments and suggestions every so often.
Around Fosco’s neck hung a silver chain, and at the end of the chain was a great sapphire.  As Fosco occasionally fingered it, the sapphire would catch the firelight and throw blue shadows across the chamber.  The sapphire was ringed in threads that gleamed like silver.

Milly watched him from the across the room, smiling.  She had spent the past year making her gift for Fosco, and it pleased her to see how much he liked it.  She had bought the chain in Iyston, but the silver-threaded ring which surrounded the sapphire she had woven from strands of her own gray hair.

Her glance drifted down to her left hand, at the shining band of gold around her finger.  Fosco’s gift had been perfect.  Ten years was too long to be married without wedding bands.  She hoped her hints had not been too obvious.  Where had he found them?  She thought she knew.  Fosco had been almost frantic with anxiety until Elias showed up at the manor that afternoon.  No doubt Elias had brought the rings back with him from his two-month journey to Par Telion.

The baby moved inside her, so she changed positions on the couch.  Young Willem placed his hand on her belly, fascinated.

“How did it get in there, Mama?” he asked suddenly.

Fosco stopped his reading and looked over, blinking.  Derry chuckled.

“Well,” she stuttered, “it, ah–”  She looked to Fosco for help.  He merely shrugged.

“I know!” said Nib.

“You don’t know,” said Willem, “you’re only five!”

“The snow brought it, just like it brought Daddy,” Nib finished.  “Right, Mama?”

Willem snorted.   “The snow didn’t bring Daddy.”

“Did too,” said Nib, raising his nose at his brother.  “Mama, tell us again how the snow brought Daddy!”

Milly looked over at Fosco and smiled.  “No,” she said, “it’s time for bed.”

“Please Mama,” Nib pleaded, “tell us how you met Daddy.”

Milly sat up and smoothed the folds of her dress.  “All right.” It was their anniversary, after all.  “But after that it’s off to bed for the both of you.”