May Writing Update

The sun is shining, it’s warm, and I’m loving getting back outside to cycle after a long, cold, and very snowy winter, as well as a cold and snowy early spring.

Along with the warmer weather and cycling, I have been busy writing, and have finished a first draft of Sphinx’s Tear, coming in at about 70k words.

I am pleased with this finished draft, and I think it is a pretty interesting story with some pretty interesting characters. It, of course, needs a whole lot of work, and there is one character’s arc that needs a huge amount of work to make it make sense, but apart from this, I am quite happy.

I am going to take the summer off from writing, concentrate on cycling and getting the maps drawn for Age of Magic, and letting the creative juices percolate before I start again in the autumn.

I will leave you with the prologue from Sphinx’s Tear to whet your whistle.

Have fun!

Prologue

“The first lot this evening is an eighth of purest deep jungle Vaelith,” announced the auctioneer, gavel in hand.

He was at the famed Vaelith auction house in Zhegkai, owned by Jin Lanyin, the world’s richest man, who made his fortune by controlling the supply of the spice Vaelith.

Vaelith, when ingested, grants the user a brief but intense surge of vivid, clairvoyant hallucinations. In some, it will induce the ability to move or manipulate objects with the mind, though only for a moment.

Vaelith was mined in the jungles far up the Perfumed River, where thousands of prospectors dug narrow, deep, and dangerous tunnels in the hope of finding a seam of the spice.

With just a few grams of the prized spice, a prospector would be rich. Some dug for their own use, possessed by the visions and brief power the spice gave. These men and women, who were once rich and powerful people from far and distant lands, had become addicted to Vaelith. They had spent their riches on the spice, lost their power, and craved more, and so they travelled up the Perfume River, living as filthy prospectors down dangerous tunnels deep underground as they searched for more.

The auction house was cramped, packed, and smoky. Rows of buyers, wealthy addicts, and middlemen from around the world sat crammed in pews, fanning their faces with their paddles as they waited for the bidding to open up.

Jin Lanyin sat in a box above the auction floor, smoking a pipe and watching. He was an aristocratic-looking man dressed in flowing, expensive-looking robes.

He was joined by three of his courtesans, who stood behind him, dressed in colourful, luxurious silk robes. Their faces were painted white, with cherry-red lips, and their hair was tied in elaborate, bejewelled buns.

“We shall start the bidding a five thousand…” announced the auctioneer. 

A fat, well-dressed man who wore a powdered wig raised a paddle.

“Six thousand!”

More paddles were held, and the price quickly rose, trailing off at twenty thousand gold coins.

“Going once…” said the auctioneer.

The bidder who had placed what appeared to be the winning bid, a buyer from a distant port, looked pleased with himself. 

“Going twice at twenty thousand…” the auctioneer continued, gavel raised.

“Thirty thousand!” called out a voice from the rear of the room.

There were gasps and muttering from the bidders, who turned to see who was prepared to pay such a hefty price for the precious spice.

A man held a paddle. Jin Lanyin didn’t react. He puffed his pipe, watching the action from above.

“A new bidder…” said the auctioneer excitedly. “Thirty thousand to you, sir!”

The buyer from a distant port, who had looked so pleased with himself, suddenly looked furious, growling and muttering and shaking his head in defeat.

“Thirty going once…going twice…and sold to the gentleman at the back!”

Clerks hurried over to the winning bidder, taking his particulars as the crowd muttered, puffed their pipes, and readied themselves for the next lot.

The next lot was a quarter of purest Vaelith, with the bidding starting at ten thousand gold coins. 

“Ten… twenty… forty… sixty…” called out the auctioneer in quick succession as buyers waved their paddles, bidding up the price.

The price stalled at one hundred and ten. A woman, her face obscured by a wooden mask and wearing elegant robes, held the bid. She was a wealthy addict who came to Zhenkai to maximise her purchasing power at the auction house, spending what was left of her fortune of Vaelith, addicted to the hallucinogenic visions and the other mystical properties.

“One ten going twice…” called out the auctioneer.

The addict’s eyes glistened behind the mask she wore as she anticipated her win and the precious spice she would suddenly own.

“One fifty!” called out a voice from the rear.

Gasps and muttering filled the room. Angry voices shouted across the pews.

The auctioneer glanced up at his employer sitting above. Jin Lanyin puffed his pipe and nodded discreetly.

“One hundred and fifty thousand to the man at the back!” declared the auctioneer.

The masked addict leapt up, screaming and shouting, trying to clamour over the other bidders, fighting to get to the man at the back who had stolen her winning bid.

Guards rushed over and seized her, dragging her from the room as she screamed and fought and cursed.

Jin Lanyin watched all of this undisturbed. He puffed his pipe and sipped a liqueur as the woman was dragged away.

And so it continued, with each lot brought to the block, the man at the back sweeping in with a winning bid, and all the Vaelith for sale that day in Zhenkai was bought by him.

In the cashier’s room after the auction finished, Jin Lanyin appeared, tailed by his beautiful courtesans. He saw the buyer come in, attended by a giant brute of a man carrying a chest plated in polished gold.

The brute was a tall man with bulging muscles. A polished brass mask of a grotesque smiling face obscured his face. Across his naked chest was a tattoo of a lizard, and strapped to his back was a two-handed broad sword. 

“I should thank you…” said Jin Lanyin, moving toward where the buyer stood by the cashier’s cage.

The man turned and smiled.

“Master Lanyin,” he said, bowing his head.

“Thanks to you, today’s buyers who left empty-handed will be back tomorrow, willing to pay even more than they would have today to have the spice.”

The man smiled again.

“But now to the little matter of the…how much is it?”

“One million, six hundred thousand gold coins,” said the cashier from behind the bars of the cage.

“Oh yes,  the little matter of the one million, six hundred thousand gold coins you owe me.”

The brute heaved the chest onto the cashier’s bench and lifted the lid. Sitting inside were gold bullion bars stamped with a lizard hallmark. 

The buyer heaved one out and placed it by the opening of the cashier’s cage. He took more, piling up glistening gold bars until they were heaped upon each other.

Jin Lanyin stepped forward and picked one up, inspecting the stamped lizard. 

“Who are you that you need so much, Vaelith?” said Jin Lanyin.

“I am no one…a servant,” said the man.

“Where do you come from?” enquired Jin Lanyin, still studying the gold bar.

“From a land with lots of gold.”

“And who do you serve, servant?”

“My master is discreet,” said the man, bowing his head as a means of apology.

Jin Lanyin placed the gold bar back on the counter and smiled in a way that displayed neither happiness nor displeasure.

“Tell your master, servant, their gold is always welcome in Zhengkai.”

And he bowed his head and left, followed by his courtesans.

The gold was weighed, and then the chest was filled with Vaelith. The brute lifted the chest, and they left, leaving Zhenkai on a ship that disappeared into the night with the tide.