Tymely News
Work In Progress #14: She Seeks Peace #6 (October 14-18)
She Seeks Peace is volume 4 of Ashen Blades.
You can read a short description of She Seeks Peace to learn more or you can read short summaries of each day's writing on Mastodon
Here's links to the rest of my blog entries on She Seeks Peace, in chronological order:
Chapter 26: …in the Depths
The Hunter stirs from her recollections as a single-engine prop plane fights to climb above Everest, only for the door to be kicked open with demonic strength, allowing Ulmoch to jump out, while the plane crashes into the side of the mountain, causing an avalanche that consumes several climbers!
Naturally, the Hunter is furious and finally angry enough to kill him, but Everest isn't a good place for her to fight (too little energy), so she vanishes into a puff of smoke, shadow-stepping away.
Ulmoch and Sogliun have a conversation about the "gift" Ulmoch got for the Hunter and it's revealed to be a mason jar full of clear liquid, though Ulmoch won't explain any further.
Sogliun asks, "Do you have any idea how annoying you are?"
Ulmoch grins.
Sogliun laments, "I hate you."
After a scene change and a very long fall, the hunter touches down at the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench. She was forced to kill a giant squid along the way, because it tried to eat her. She also saw an angler fish.
Her clothes have become a thick wetsuit, to keep her warm, and she uses the power of the Air Spirit to oxygenate her blood, since there's no air to breathe and the pressure is too high for a helmet.
Touching the sea floor produces a cloud of muck, so she chooses to swim.
She sees a hydrothermal vent in the distance and swims that direction, finding warmer water, a carpet of microorganisms and an occasional crab, plus some very unconventional fish.
She sees flowers in the distance and rushes over, discovering they're not actually flowers, but tube worms, with red at the top and white tubes they can withdrawn into, when threatened.
Staring at the tube worms, she settles on a boulder and stares at them as her mind wanders backwards, to a time and place full of red flowers.
Chapter 27: Plain Sight
Returning to the Hunter's flashback on her time in Canada with Simmons, they stand in a field of red daisies.
Simmons is lost and has been for hours, but has been refusing to admit it, while the Hunter finds it funny, because he keeps turning his map at new angles. He ends her amusement by finally saying it and asks if her nose tells her anything.
She takes a deep whiff and picks up the scent of smoke on the wind.
She leads them to a cabin between a dirt road and a forest, where a man chops wood.
Simmons introduces himself and the man says his name is Brady Roberts.
Simmons asks for directions back to civilization and the guy points to the south, saying, "About a hundred miles that way."
Seeing his expression and knowing they're on foot, Brady offers to get on the radio about their situation.
He spends about ten minutes inside and comes back out, saying he's spoken with their friends, who will be along tomorrow, because they had car trouble.
He passes along a message: "The abominable Snowman is still at large."
The Hunter recognizes the code name for the demon they're hunting, which means the monster evaded all nine teams, four of which had witches that were experts at tracking demon magic.
The Hunter's internal monologue reminds the reader of the peculiar demons from the summer camp incident (during events of the novella She Goes to Summer Camp), who were masked by magic that made them dang near impossible to detect with magic, even allowing them to pass the Hunter's sniff test.
Some few of those frog demons born on Earth were able to survive their mother's death, but only the very strongest, hinting that their quarry may be one of them.
Brady offers to put them up for the night.
Brady says "we" several times during the conversation, which will become an important point (he doesn't live alone).
They all go inside and Brady chatters away as if he's lonely (he is), giving them both some coffee.
The Hunter initially suspects Brady of being a magically masked demon and sniffs the coffee for poison, but finds it safe.
While Simmons and Brady talk, she decides she likes the smell of it and drinks some, as an experiment. It makes her anxious and paranoid, with bloodshot eyes.
The Hunter eyes Brady with suspicion, thinking he's subconsciously tracing demonic symbols on his knee, then when he puts his head in his hand, she thinks his idle finger movements are designed to control some spell.
In essence, her imagination fills in the blanks on how his every action could be demonic.
Eventually, Brady comments on the way she's giving him the stink eye. Simmons notices the way she's acting and the empty coffee mug, surprised she drank it.
He apologizes by pointing out the fact she's never had coffee before and Brady goes back to being generally friendly and good-humored, blowing it off as something like his own first mug at the age of 12 (up all night).
The Hunter turns a little introspective on the matter and decides she doesn't like coffee, vowing never to drink it again.
She also realizes it enhanced her natural paranoia (demons try to kill her quite often), until she found a human to be suspicious.
Brady's co-worker, Elijah, arrives and says, "The last of the seeds are-"
Brady interrupts, saying their guests don't need to know the boring details.
Elijah turns his head and stares at the Hunter with terror for a brief instant, but she chooses to ignore it, thinking it's another bit of coffee-induced paranoia.
She continually chooses to ignore warning signs from Elijah, until the man says it's time for bed (the light from outside is fading).
He gets a pair of sleeping bags from his room.
They say their good nights and our heroes bed down on the floor, while the Hunter pretends to sleep.
She focuses her mind (the coffee is helpful for keeping her mind on task) and pays close attention to her senses, just in case the things she's been seeing were real.
She assumes if one of their hosts is a demon, they'll attack in the night.
Hours pass in sheer boredom.
The Hunter is vindicated when Elijah exits his room in frog demon form and opens his mouth extra wide, to swallow her whole.
She swings her sword sideways, out of the sleeping bag, and puts the tip to the soft bits at the roof of the frog demon's mouth, just below his brain.
She wakes Simmons and an interrogation session begins.
The demon initially refuses to cooperate, so the Hunter cuts his arms off. They don't evaporate like usual, by the way.
He blubbers and begs, agreeing to answer.
Unfortunately, just as he starts an explanation, he drops dead. Like his arms, he doesn't evaporate, because he's a leftover frog demon from She Goes to Summer Camp, which were spawned on Earth and have much more physical/less magical forms than the garden variety of demon.
Brady walks in, having been woken by the commotion, screaming at the sight of the corpse, asking if it's an alien.
The Hunter drags the dead demon outside, while Simmons explains, being honest.
The Hunter buries the body in the woods.
Chapter 28: Perspective
Lara has setup camp, including a tent, camp chair and a steel barrel with a fire in it, but the odd part is where she is: the underside of the Whitestone bridge, in New York City.
She used a spell to made the underside of the bridge attract things, similar to gravity, so she hangs upside-down, above the East River.
Unable to sleep, she decides to enjoy the fire and roast some marshmallows.
To that end, she uses her shape-changing magic to turn her finger into a a long, steel wire, similar to that of a roasting fork.
She impales three marshmallows on it and roasts them, only for Ulmoch to interrupt, saying, "Neat trick!"
Naturally, she turns her arms into Tommy guns and opens fire as Ulmoch leaps her direction!
He dodges her bullets until he reaches the attraction spell, losing his balance!
Ulmoch is riddled full of holes until he starts moaning with pleasure about how good it feels, causing Lara to stop, bothered by his masochism.
He reveals the existence of the bounties on both her head and that of the Hunter. He even tells her that Wrath is "in love" with the Hunter.
He spits out bullets several times along the way, especially when he laughs, because his lungs are full of them.
Laura kills him, collects her things and flies off, letting the corpse fall into the East River.
Sogliun watches Lara fly off, feeling suspicious about Ulmoch's motives. After all, he works for Pride and he only paid Sogliun to find Lara once, rather than a long-term deal like he negotiated to find the Hunter.
The smoky demon can't help but wonder what's really going on...
Meanwhile, Lara sets down in an alley and summons Mashu'ra, demanding to know where the Hunter is. He tells her the truth: bottom of the ocean, meaning she's out of reach (Mashu'ra can't survive where she is).
Mashu'ra offers to deliver a message, once he can safely pop out of the hat.
Lara explains everything she just learned, though it's left as a trailing sentence, to avoid repetition and loss of reader interest.
Chapter 29: …in Meditation
The Hunter's private thoughts are interrupted by the roar of a great cat, despite being at the bottom of the Pacific, and her mind is filled with the sound of animals of every shape and size.
By entering a place only inhabited by animals, she's drawn the attention of the Animal Spirit, which wishes to punish her for holding its siblings captive.
The Hunter puts out her light and shadow-steps away.
In the next scene, she's high in the mountains, fighting a blizzard. She's undeterred, because she enjoys the challenge. This is the third mountain she's searched for a place she heard about in rumor, in the halls of the New York branch office of the Order, which is supposed to be very quiet and peaceful.
She turns a corner of the mountain and sees the broken rope bridge leading to her destination. She doesn't give up and flies.
The wind nearly knocks her form the air several times, because the blizzard is that intense, but she reaches the walled courtyard of an ancient temple, setting down in the crunching snow.
In an instant, the weather is clear and the mounds of snow covering the place are gone. She looks with confusion at the intact rope bridge.
Her senses tell her that the fading magic she feels was an Illusion she just pierced.
The temple doors open and orange-robed, bald monks invite her to enter.
Inside, the tile floor depicts the elements of witch magic in grand fashion: air, earth, fire, water, smoke, metal, wood, animal, life and the void. It even has some small, nearly missed symbols representing the void-touched elements: vacuum, shadow, the all-consuming (ultraviolet) flame, poison, ash, bone, ice and blood.
She's welcomed to The Last Sanctuary and told she's been expected for some time.
She's surprised, because no one was told she was coming, though the monks are Ashen Blades.
The monk says, "The Master of the sanctuary would like to speak with you, but she’s very old and currently sleeping. We will inform you when she’s ready. For now, relax. Meditate on the peace and comfort you seek.”
The Hunter is curious to learn more, but for once, she's willing to be patient, because she has her own issues to focus on. She settles in by the fire and stares into it, letting her mind wander to the past.
Chapter 30: Questioning
The Hunter returns to the cabin as Simmons puts some fresh logs into the wood stove. (purely there for another cinematic fade)
Simmons questions Brady, because he has his doubts about the man being human, but isn't convinced he's a demon, either.
He reasons for a time about Brady, tallying points of evidence in his mind as they talk about the dead demon.
After a while, Simmons settles on an approach that occurred to him just before the last frog demon he hunted revealed themselves.
He claims he needs more information about Brady for his records and begins a formal interview over Brady's identity, eventually dovetailing into a psychological questionnaire, during which he asks Brady to close his eyes and say the first thing that comes to mind.
Eventually, Simmons throws in this question: "How long have you been on Earth?"
Brady answers, "Seven years."
Even Brady realizes what Simmons just did, though he's too late to take it back and drops the illusion of humanity, reveling himself to be a huge, muscular frog demon, much larger than average (all that wood chopping must have paid off). I like to think of Brady as a lumber-jack demon.
At the same time, Simmons mutters, "Mashu'ra!"
The two of them explode out the side of the cabin! Incidentally, this scares a moose that wandered by the cabin.
They end up lying prone as Simmons sinks the claws of his hands in and rakes with his back feet!
The frog takes the worst of it and begs for his life, bringing the fight to a close. He's been halfway disemboweled and is quite helpless for the time being.
Simmons gets some answers: the demons were spreading their offspring (the demon pretending to be Elijah was female) in nearby lakes and rivers and Brady was the strongest of them, having taken over the hivemind, after the death of their mother.
As the demon begs for his life, Simmons crushes his head with a foot.
Simmons drags the body into the woods, for burial, while the Hunter watches him go, glad she accepted human companionship and grateful Simmons is so strong and smart, more or less the perfect partner for her work.
She reasons he'll never die by anything other than natural causes and that fate is surely thousands of years away.
She's content that with him by her side, she'll always be happy.
Chapter 31: …Anywhere
The Hunter is stirred from her memories by Mashu'ra appearing on her shoulder, to deliver news of the things Lara learned.
The Hunter is disgusted by the idea than Wrath wants to marry her, making fake retching noises.
The kitten demon asks if she'd be willing to stand beside Lara, to face the bounty hunters together and she agrees.
As she holds Mashu'ra and pets him, she concludes she's done wandering, ready to face her grief with a friend by her side.
She still doesn't know how to cope with the idea of eventually losing all of her human friends, but she's ready to look for that path forward.
One of the monks politely interrupts and tells her, "The Master of the Sanctuary will see you now."
He leads the way toward the spiral stairs around the central column of the room (I did some editing to add it).
I like the implication of that column and its stairs: the way up (enlightenment) requires walking the path of life.
Part 3: Losing Buoyancy
The end of chapter 31 marks the end of Part 2.
Part 1, Untethered, was about Reggie and setting the stage with Wrath.
Part 2, Tossed on the Wind, was about Simmons and the Hunter's journey as she learns to grieve, instead of stuffing her feelings.
Part 3 will focus on her journey toward acceptance of loss as part of the cycle of life as she cares for a young child.
Part 4, Grounded, will focus specifically on the climax and conclusion of the conflict with Wrath. It will also bring the Hunter and Lara back together, with a stronger bond than ever.
The names of each part evoke the journey of a balloon and the grief of a child at losing it, as a metaphor for loss. The balloon represents Simmons and the child represents the Hunter.
First the balloon is accidentally released, leading to a crying fit, then the child watches their toy as it's buffeted by the wind and blown away, though they still feel the loss. Eventually, the balloon loses helium and starts to come down, while the child moves on with their life. Finally, the balloon comes back down to the ground, but by that point, the child has usually either forgotten their balloon or accepted the idea they'll never get it back.
Chapter 32: No Sanctuary
Mashu'ra and the Hunter are led to the old witch in charge, Evelyn Wallace, who speaks with an Australian accent.
She tells them a little about The Last Sanctuary: it's a magical place like The Cauldron of the Elements, but unlike that place of nature, it's a made thing, made by witches. It's also a pocket dimension, accessible from anywhere.
Evenlyn tells them a tale about an Ashen Blade witch that fought a war against a demon that sought to oust Pride from his throne, by destroying the world before Pride's circuitous portal-to-hell plan could be realized.
Eventually, this witch sought more power, that she might win, and summoned Pride/Vogerath, reasoning that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." She made a deal with him and became a demon witch, but part of the bargain was that she would bear a child.
Internally, she vowed to never do so. After all, in her era, women were not well respected as they are now and she hated them. She was also very head-strong, as witches tend to be, too much so to accept a man. Ironically, her personal pride may have been her downfall.
She won her war against her personal nemesis, but was rejected by the Ashen Blades, for having willingly become a demon.
She wandered and sought solace in strong drink. At one point, she lay drunk in the street and was raped, leading to pregnancy and birth of a daughter.
Determined to keep the baby safe, she sought The Last Sanctuary, but not for herself. In truth, the place cannot be found by a demon, though it will become apparent there is still one way they can find their way in, through the human heart.
She couldn't find the way, but her infant pointed the way and she reached the threshold. Evelyn met her there and refused entry.
The witch explained how she'd gotten there. Evelyn accepted the child and started to ask the witch to leave, but she'd already turned away.
Evelyn admits, through tears, that she turned her own daughter away, implying the half-demon infant was her granddaughter.
Mashu'ra asks how long ago the child was born and is told, "After your old master freed Pride to return to Earth, but before your current master was born."
Mashu'ra doesn't believe her, because that would make Evelyn far older than the Hunter, who was born 126 years earlier!
Evenlyn says, "Aren’t you a clever little imp?"
The Hunter blinks involuntarily and the room goes dark.
When she gets a magic light going, she looks on the corpse of Evelyn, who's clearly been dead for decades, if not centuries. The room is also full of cobwebs, which incidentally block the way out.
The ghost of Evelyn touches their minds, saying, "Take my granddaughter to my family, in Australia. It’s time she finally grew up a little."
They explore the place, finding many more bodies, all with signs of violence, ranging from blade wounds, to teeth and claws.
Mashu'ra investigates one of them, concluding it's the work of a fairly unique demon that goes by the name Muglon, who had a way of getting into any human head, because he didn't favor any given sin.
Worse, Muglon was/is able to jump from body to body, possessing humans with ease, not even requiring them to fully succumb to their sins, in order for him to fully possess them.
He was a generalist. It isn't stated, but Muglon was actually using the insanity basis of sin as the means into the human mind, so any sin at all was a doorway for him.
It's implied that one of the monks committed some sin that brought Muglon to the sanctuary and that was their downfall, leading to fighting.
This chapter isn't done, but I'll continue it on Monday.
Future Plans
The final elements of the novel are now fairly sharp in my mind and I have a strong idea of how the climax will shape up, but as ever and demonstrated by Chapter 32, all things are subject to change.
The Child
I'd originally planned to saddle the Hunter with a totally human child, but now know she'll be dealing with a half-demon girl, who's much like her.
This child has potent abilities, with a particular focus on Life magic. She's most talented with Spirit magic. The reason the Hunter initially saw the Sanctuary as it appeared in the past is because the child was the one to kill the demon and she was left alone, so she summoned the spirits of her fallen friends, to keep her company. With so many strong ghosts around, reality was warped to make the present appear like the past, up until Mashu'ra pierced the illusion with cold logic.
Since she's mentally three or four years old, when asked about the demon, the girl's explanation will be, "I made it go away."
The real truth will be that she either ate it or hit it with such a potent blast of pure life magic, it was unmade. Ironically, while demons use Life magic to enter the human mind, it's also antithetical to their core nature and can be quite dangerous to them. Ironically, if Verda knew that (she doesn't), she'd blast away.
The Hunter will take the child to Australia and over the course of days, they'll search for her still-living family, while the child grows older, the more she learns.
Half-demons don't mature at the usual pace of humans and their outward appearance changes to match their internal state. That's why the Hunter has grown mature so slowly, but in sharp spurts. It's also why she'll probably always look like a teen; if I have any say in the matter, she will never lose her childish nature, which will keep her young.
By the time they find the girl's family, she'll be an adult. She'll spend a few hours with them, then rapidly grow older, until she's a withered, old woman. She'll die happy and content. The reason for this is that her Spirit magic gives her a very strong connection to and understanding of spirits and with her final desire in life complete, she's ready to face the great beyond.
My intent in this is that the Hunter will slowly grow to love this girl, thinking she'll be a friend she can keep forever, only to see her hopes dashed, but in seeing her friend pass on, she'll come to realize that life isn't about the destination, but rather the journey along the way.
She'll come away from the experience with an acceptance of that journey and view her friends in a new light: she'll value the limited time she has with them, rather than worrying about the pain of losing them.
She'll also fully accept the name Simmons gave her in the previous book, coming to think of herself as Artemis Watson. She hasn't been using it, because it's been a painful reminder that he's gone.
The Climax
The final events of the novel will happen quickly, once the half-demon child is gone. The Hunter will be in some city of Australia, where Ulmoch will catch up to her. He'll lead her on a merry chase, until she bursts into a place he's prepared to fight her.
As she bursts in, he'll open her "present", which is a jar with at least a pint of LSD in it, splashing it all over the both of them. He hopes the massive dose will mess her up so badly, that she'll either pass out or try to sleep off the hallucinations.
I don't want to spoil the outcome, just yet, but it both will and won't go according to plan. He'll be killed, of course, but that doesn't matter very much.
She'll eventually lay down to sleep it off and that's when Wrath's people will capture her. They'll take her to Wrath and he'll summon the guests (the other arch demons).
Lust's plan to split the Hunter in two will work, but not quite as expected, due to a recent change in her mental landscape, ruining all of Lust's calculations about her final position(s) and the Hunter won't appear in the binding circles Lust prepared.
Lara will show up about the same time and all heck will break loose. The Hunter's inner demon and Lara will form a brief alliance, in which they cut loose at full strength on both Wrath and the arches, enjoying the target-rich environment.
Incidentally, Wrath will get his head punched off by the demon, landing far away, in the outback. As he lays there, helpless, Pride will come along. Wrath will request help (he can't move his body without his head attached) and Pride will eat him.
Meanwhile the Hunter's human side will be far too sick to function, because she lacks some vital (human) DNA and cellular machinery that had been replaced by her demon side.
Then comes the part I haven't quite figured out, yet: how will the Hunter be put back together? The demon will resist, because it wants to be free, and Lara will be smacked aside, once they reach that disagreement.
The Hunter will probably be forced to fight the demon, sick or not. The power of the elemental spirits in her head will help (they stayed with her human half, because they despise the demon, based on the way she once ate the Water Spirit).
It will probably take the combined efforts of Lara, Mashu'ra, the Hunter, her parents and a character I don't want to spoil coming together, as a team, with each of them holding one piece of the puzzle. It will probably have to happen inside the Hunter's hat.
The Ending
Lara and the Hunter will go home together, each vowing to be more sensitive to the feelings of the other. I think the epilogue might involve the Hunter learning to care for Lara's son, James, so she can serve as his babysitter and give Lara a break from time to time.
Tags: writing, work-in-progress, ashen-blades