{"id":114,"date":"2010-02-24T19:32:44","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T03:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/?p=114"},"modified":"2016-10-10T22:09:16","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T05:09:16","slug":"the-seeing-stone-chapter-1-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/the-seeing-stone-chapter-1-part-1","title":{"rendered":"The Seeing Stone: Chapter 1, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Note: This is the beginning of a novel I abandoned many years ago.\u00a0 I worked on it, off and on, for over fifteen years and it never got any better.\u00a0 I have notebooks full of backstory, history and characterizations, along with maps, sketches and unfinished scenes.\u00a0 Why dredge it up now?\u00a0 Well, I guess I felt sorry for it, sitting there alone for so many years.\u00a0 A story is meant to be heard, even a bad story.\u00a0 This one is full of clich\u00e9s, 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.\u00a0 I’ll post it in little chunks and use the tag “Seeing Stone.” Fly, little story, and be free!]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Map<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The Seeing Stone<\/h1>\n

Part One: Iys<\/h2>\n

Chapter One: The Eye of the West<\/h3>\n

They were black shapes in the silvery mist, thirteen sniffing, hounding shapes–creatures of shadow and night.\u00a0 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 They were the nakrim, bred by the shadow to hunt and kill.\u00a0 And they were close to their prey.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Mossdown Manor stood on a lonely promontory on the desolate western edge of the isle of Iys.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Like the names of the ancient heroes, the towers stood almost forgotten, and stared vacantly over Wyndham Eld<\/a>.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Inside the high tower room, a fire blazed in the hearth, and candles slowly melted in their sconces.\u00a0 The chamber smelled of sea-air and leather bookbindings.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Over by the window, facing the sea, Elias the Blind chewed slowly on a chunk of bread.\u00a0 The remains of a large feast lay scattered on a long table at the rear of the room.<\/p>\n

Fosco himself was hunched over a scattered pile of manuscripts at his great oak desk.\u00a0 A historian and translator, Fosco looked somewhat owlish behind his large spectacles.\u00a0 He was reading his latest translation, The Battle of Par Molten<\/em>, to Elias, who made comments and suggestions every so often.
\nAround Fosco’s neck hung a silver chain, and at the end of the chain was a great sapphire.\u00a0 As Fosco occasionally fingered it, the sapphire would catch the firelight and throw blue shadows across the chamber.\u00a0 The sapphire was ringed in threads that gleamed like silver.<\/p>\n

Milly watched him from the across the room, smiling.\u00a0 She had spent the past year making her gift for Fosco, and it pleased her to see how much he liked it.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Her glance drifted down to her left hand, at the shining band of gold around her finger.\u00a0 Fosco’s gift had been perfect.\u00a0 Ten years was too long to be married without wedding bands.\u00a0 She hoped her hints had not been too obvious.\u00a0 Where had he found them?\u00a0 She thought she knew.\u00a0 Fosco had been almost frantic with anxiety until Elias showed up at the manor that afternoon.\u00a0 No doubt Elias had brought the rings back with him from his two-month journey to Par Telion.<\/p>\n

The baby moved inside her, so she changed positions on the couch.\u00a0 Young Willem placed his hand on her belly, fascinated.<\/p>\n

“How did it get in there, Mama?” he asked suddenly.<\/p>\n

Fosco stopped his reading and looked over, blinking.\u00a0 Derry chuckled.<\/p>\n

“Well,” she stuttered, “it, ah–”\u00a0 She looked to Fosco for help.\u00a0 He merely shrugged.<\/p>\n

“I know!” said Nib.<\/p>\n

“You don’t know,” said Willem, “you’re only five!”<\/p>\n

“The snow brought it, just like it brought Daddy,” Nib finished.\u00a0 “Right, Mama?”<\/p>\n

Willem snorted.\u00a0\u00a0 “The snow didn’t bring Daddy.”<\/p>\n

“Did too,” said Nib, raising his nose at his brother.\u00a0 “Mama, tell us again how the snow brought Daddy!”<\/p>\n

Milly looked over at Fosco and smiled.\u00a0 “No,” she said, “it’s time for bed.”<\/p>\n

“Please Mama,” Nib pleaded, “tell us how you met Daddy.”<\/p>\n

Milly sat up and smoothed the folds of her dress.\u00a0 “All right.” It was their anniversary, after all.\u00a0 “But after that it’s off to bed for the both of you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Note: This is the beginning of a novel I abandoned many years ago.\u00a0 I worked on it, off and on, for over fifteen years and it never got any better.\u00a0 I have notebooks full of backstory, history and characterizations, along with maps, sketches and unfinished scenes.\u00a0 Why dredge it up now?\u00a0 Well, I guess I felt sorry for it, sitting there alone for so many years.\u00a0 A story is meant to be heard, even a bad story.\u00a0 This one is full of clich\u00e9s, melodrama, and too much exposition,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,17],"tags":[200,12],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-writing","tag-original-fiction","tag-seeing-stone"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Wyndham-Eld.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOucj-1Q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3679,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/3679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}