monseratthefool
June 25th, 2013, 05:48 PM
Hello friends!
6 months ago I posted several chapters of a fantasy novel called "Dance of the Emerald Archon". I've been rewriting a bit, and wanted to post an updated excerpt for your reading pleasure :)
"The Griever"
Two dozen goatskin drums were now sending the throbbing, captivating cadence of “Lalin’s Ascent” dancing down the dusty streets of Pachasan and bounding up into the surrounding mountains. The sky’s final blue notes were fading into grey as the sun sunk behind the mountains.
Durrikan was standing near the rest of the boys his age, all bare chested and pacing and shouting in excitement. The boys were clumped into their usual rowdy packs. Durrikan, as he often did when in a crowd, felt the tense desperation of being on a lonely orbit far away from the inviting gravity of the social constellation.
He watched the rhythm of conversation between the other boys, but found no moment of opportunity in which to slip himself in. He was frozen, like a child watching the intimidating flurry of skipping ropes.
Mercifully, a head of two-tone spiky hair was weaving through the crowd in Durrikan’s direction. It was Ramlin, his smile and eyes bright as if he was glowing from the inside.
“You ready, Dee?” asked Ramlin with a kind of sturdy excitement. His confidence with soothing, and his smile invited its reflection from Durrikan’s face.
“As ready as I can be. Do you know who is leading the procession this year?”
Ramlin pointed in the direction of the town hall, where a line of costumed villagers had just begun to spill out of the wide double doors.
The procession was led by a woman whose face was hidden behind a colorful mask, but whose age was revealed by graying braids and wrinkled hands wrapped tightly around an ornamented pole. Hoisted up on this pole, high above her head, was the first painting in the series called the “Deliverance of Pachasan and the World.”
These paintings, of which she was holding the first of eleven, depicted Pachasan’s heroic role in overcoming the Cataclysm, the thirty-year plague that sucked the life from more than half of the people of Sadutran. That was more than a century ago, and yet visitors still came to the town hall to walk their children through the paintings and re-live the story of Pachasan’s great savior. If they were lucky, Walok would be nearby, and everyone knew he gave the best rendition of the story of the Rise of the Archons.
Led by the old woman, the procession of paintings began its caterpillar crawl through the crowd. Durrikan saw the first painting approaching, and although he had seen it nearly a hundred times, his heart beat faster to see it again.
It was a composition of earthy oils and shades from which emerged a profile of a young man in wretched clothes, his head in a heavy droop. He was standing on the edge of a cliff, eyes drawn to the greying valley below. Ominous veins of black rot cut through the grasses, and the landscape seemed shattered as if it were broken glass.
The man’s face was frozen in lament of the desolation below him. The skin on his cheeks was the same washed out and sickly grey and brown of the fields fading into the distance.
The drabness of the painting seems unbroken until the beholder finds himself drawn to the man’s painted eye. His iris, a single ring of deftly applied oil paint, was a deep and brilliant green. Durrikan could never tell if it was the natural sheen of the paint, or a subtle ornamentation by the painter, but the eye shimmered as though a tear had magically bound to the surface of the painting.
“The Griever”, was the name of this painting, and the name of the griever was Lalin.
Lalin, as everyone in this town knew, was the most powerful Pachan that had ever lived. He and the Glorious Three elsewhere on the continent had shone brightly enough to lead the people of Sadutran out of the shadow of the plague more than a hundred years ago. It was in recognition of this feat did Lalin gain the mantle of Emerald Archon, which was passed down to the man who succeeded him, and the man after that, who dances now.
Durrikan never broke his stare into Lalin’s painted eye until the painting swiveled on its pole and danced away into the crowd.
6 months ago I posted several chapters of a fantasy novel called "Dance of the Emerald Archon". I've been rewriting a bit, and wanted to post an updated excerpt for your reading pleasure :)
"The Griever"
Two dozen goatskin drums were now sending the throbbing, captivating cadence of “Lalin’s Ascent” dancing down the dusty streets of Pachasan and bounding up into the surrounding mountains. The sky’s final blue notes were fading into grey as the sun sunk behind the mountains.
Durrikan was standing near the rest of the boys his age, all bare chested and pacing and shouting in excitement. The boys were clumped into their usual rowdy packs. Durrikan, as he often did when in a crowd, felt the tense desperation of being on a lonely orbit far away from the inviting gravity of the social constellation.
He watched the rhythm of conversation between the other boys, but found no moment of opportunity in which to slip himself in. He was frozen, like a child watching the intimidating flurry of skipping ropes.
Mercifully, a head of two-tone spiky hair was weaving through the crowd in Durrikan’s direction. It was Ramlin, his smile and eyes bright as if he was glowing from the inside.
“You ready, Dee?” asked Ramlin with a kind of sturdy excitement. His confidence with soothing, and his smile invited its reflection from Durrikan’s face.
“As ready as I can be. Do you know who is leading the procession this year?”
Ramlin pointed in the direction of the town hall, where a line of costumed villagers had just begun to spill out of the wide double doors.
The procession was led by a woman whose face was hidden behind a colorful mask, but whose age was revealed by graying braids and wrinkled hands wrapped tightly around an ornamented pole. Hoisted up on this pole, high above her head, was the first painting in the series called the “Deliverance of Pachasan and the World.”
These paintings, of which she was holding the first of eleven, depicted Pachasan’s heroic role in overcoming the Cataclysm, the thirty-year plague that sucked the life from more than half of the people of Sadutran. That was more than a century ago, and yet visitors still came to the town hall to walk their children through the paintings and re-live the story of Pachasan’s great savior. If they were lucky, Walok would be nearby, and everyone knew he gave the best rendition of the story of the Rise of the Archons.
Led by the old woman, the procession of paintings began its caterpillar crawl through the crowd. Durrikan saw the first painting approaching, and although he had seen it nearly a hundred times, his heart beat faster to see it again.
It was a composition of earthy oils and shades from which emerged a profile of a young man in wretched clothes, his head in a heavy droop. He was standing on the edge of a cliff, eyes drawn to the greying valley below. Ominous veins of black rot cut through the grasses, and the landscape seemed shattered as if it were broken glass.
The man’s face was frozen in lament of the desolation below him. The skin on his cheeks was the same washed out and sickly grey and brown of the fields fading into the distance.
The drabness of the painting seems unbroken until the beholder finds himself drawn to the man’s painted eye. His iris, a single ring of deftly applied oil paint, was a deep and brilliant green. Durrikan could never tell if it was the natural sheen of the paint, or a subtle ornamentation by the painter, but the eye shimmered as though a tear had magically bound to the surface of the painting.
“The Griever”, was the name of this painting, and the name of the griever was Lalin.
Lalin, as everyone in this town knew, was the most powerful Pachan that had ever lived. He and the Glorious Three elsewhere on the continent had shone brightly enough to lead the people of Sadutran out of the shadow of the plague more than a hundred years ago. It was in recognition of this feat did Lalin gain the mantle of Emerald Archon, which was passed down to the man who succeeded him, and the man after that, who dances now.
Durrikan never broke his stare into Lalin’s painted eye until the painting swiveled on its pole and danced away into the crowd.