The Chair of Wind & Darkness: Draft Two [1-4]: Closed

Dream Deep · 2006-08-17T21:17:43Z

[Closed and Obselete.] . . . (Rated for Language) Prologue The very first Chair of Wind and Darkness was not so very different than the one you might be sitting in now. It was very simple, white wood and wicker, and it stood on four elegantly swooping legs before a desk so that it could spend its quiet days near the window that overlooked the lawn, the stone courtyard and the stately trees outside. It sat, in all its years, in a little airy room beside a small desk while the gauzy curtains blew in from the window and swept, billowing, against it. It was such a chair that, looking at it, you could easily see yourself sitting in it, could easily imagine that the book on the desk was yours as it ruffled from page to creamy page, blown into a chaotic flurry by the breeze. The feeling could arise that all those neat, black-inked, handwritten pages were yours, paragraphs and words that compounded to build personal secrets, dreams, hopes; all the good things in life and all the bad, unhappy things you only lived through by screaming your outrage at the sky - the things you’ve endured and looked back on and understood. And forgiven. You could easily imagine that, to see the chair. What you could not imagine would be that this plain, serviceable, simple chair reigning before an evenly plain desk and a single, beautiful book could be the Chair of Wind and Darkness, something that you’ve doubtless known about your entire life. Though likely never by that name. And likely never in that way. Chapter One In the dream it was raining. Raining was not ordinarily a bad state for the weather to be in, but in the downtown sector of the city Barduev, it was an inconvenience which made the Agra-Wazir District particularly challenging to get through - the sunken sidewalks and muddy, flooding gardens lay a level below the street. Shan Tefur’s boots and the bottom of his long black jacket were completely soaked as he stood beneath the looming columns of the Provincial Development Building, the only government building on this street and therefore the only one with a raised porch. He ran thin white fingers through his dripping dark hair and looked left down the avenue towards the Kier District and the general direction of his apartment. A glance up the street towards his destination and he leaned forward a bit to glance up a the stinging misty curtain that wasn’t allowing him to see either. He stepped back a pace on the porch and paced for a moment in the pre-moonlight shadows, drying his hands uselessly on the soaking edge of his coat. As he turned once he caught a quick glimpse of the guards who had been following him since the Academy Block. They were huddled under the porch roof of some dark house, miserable in water that was up to their ankles in the depressed stonework - five... no, six of them, right there across the street. Still, their presence irritated him, and he sighed, rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and took a step out from under the overhang. “Strazhas!” he shouted across the street, cupping his hands around his mouth so that the noise carried through the rain. The call had an astonishing lack of volume through the downpour but still they heard him. Strazhas were trained to hear in the dark, in the rain. And they had no choice now that he had seen them - they slipped around the corner of their building and disappeared into the alleyway as if they were just a handful of old friends out for a walk in the soaking night. They were still going to follow him, of course, they were just going to do it a little more discreetly. He swore and looked right and left again sharply, up and down the street through the downpour. He ran a and down his dripping face, moving a bit and craning his neck to see down the now empty alley. It occurred to him that he was wasting time, that at this point getting wet was the least of his worries. Finally he went to the opposite side of the porch, turned and ran for the edge, with the mind to jump far enough so as to get to the area of semi-dryness under the next porch, sunken though it was. He tripped pushing off the edge and landed on a knee in the wide, soaking street in between, bruising his palms and getting himself thoroughly drenched. He pulled himself up with his long, once fastidious coat tangled around his leg and shin-deep in water, and he kicked the rain-water in an arch of spray towards the main street. Shan saw the movement beyond the rain as the inexpertly trained Strazhas dispersed and spread out, waiting for him farther up the avenue, drier than he and, for the moment, under a porch roof. The clock on the mantel piece in the City Director’s office had a miniature pednulum that swung back and forth, back and forth, tick tock, tick tock, a rythmic cheerfullness that seemed out of place in the middle of the night, with the rain pounding down on the city. Shan watched it almost furtively without so much as turning his head, watched it expressionlessly as back and forth it ticked and seconds, minutes, went by. He let his eyes flicker away from it, stared straight ahead at the water-logged window beyond the deserted desk and felt his jaw just barefly from the strain of trying to stay absolutely still. He was well aware of the Strazhas over in the doorway, standing just behind him and to his right so he couldn’t quite see them - but their reflections shone clear on the bombarded far window. Shan realized he was rubbing his fingers up and down the one slowly drying edge of his jacket where it rested over his knee. He stopped; and after a moment’s consideration he flung in down and away from him to that it draped gracefully down over the edge of the cushioned chair. He sat back, sighing as if he was merely impateint and had not a care in the world. His jaw moved again. Still, he did not look at the Strazhas, who were still standing there, quiet breathing in the doorway. Instead, his eyes were drawn inevitably back to the clock, the pendulum that swung itself back and forth so zealously, and in it’s polished glass face he saw himself in the chair, saw the Strazhas over there beyond his shoulder. He tried to keep his eyes on the time piece, but nervousness got the best of him and when he went to run his fingers back through his hair, he realized that his hand was trembling. He look at it for a moment as if it was some foreign thing that left unchecked could do him harm - he smiled for the Strazha’s sake, pretended to be unconcerned and even amused. He clenched and open his hand several times and shook it, but the trembling persisted. It fell down beside him to conceal itself amongst the folds of his jacket and gripped the fabic at his leg tight enough to whiten his hand and keep it from shaking. He pushed his hair back again, this time with his left hand and rested his elbow on the carved arm of the chair. He put his head down and without moving his hand ran his fingers back and forth across his forehead, half to dry his face and half to disguise the fact that we was wide-eyed, studying the Strazhas in the glass reflection of the clock face. These were not the Strazhas from the street. Those had been poorly trained, hastily conscripted; they were runners, which was to say that their sole purpose was shadowing people in the streets. They reported on where their targets went and where they came from, and that was the extent of their duties. They were not, as a rule, well-trained to do this. Stealth was normally of little importance most days in busy Barduev, and what stealth was required the more experienced Strazhas could figure out on their own. These were Strazhas Elite, the equivalent to military Kasimovs, and yet in amy ways more dangerous because they killed without discretion. without declaration of war. Shan had been a Kasimov, obvious to whoever noticed the slim, dark coat and the row of three silver stars on the collar. That fact would not keep a handful of Strazhas Elite from killing him, if they had orders to do so. Especially if they had orders to do so. They had been waiting for him in the hallway, despite the fact that he had used the less frequented steps rather than the side portico. They had followed him up the steps without talking, never making a single noise on the red carpeted stairs. He had know thay were right there behind him the entire way up to the second floor. He hadn’t looked at them. An hour had gone past and still he had not looked at them. He just sat in his chair and stared unflinching at the clock, waiting for the Lord Sovereign while his right hand trmebled uncontrollably amongst the folds of his damp coat. There was light in his eyes... He wished he had caught himself when he had fallen. He hated to fall. There was light in his eyes... There was bright glare coming from the window - it slid across the pillow and into his eyes, unwelcome sunlight that had come too early. He turned away from it but the light followed him, illuminated the white wall and made it reflect back. Morning - after all, there was no getting around it. And there was light in his eyes. He sighed and kicked off the sheet, which somehow through the course of the night had gotten tangled around his leg. Stupid sheets. He pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, running his hands through his hair and studying the long, slim military coat that lay in a mess on the floor, a black puddle of heavy fabric. The three silver stars on the high collar were just barely from under a carelessly thrown fold, identical points of light in a night sky. Some light from the window slid over it and momentarily illuminated them. Beautiful? Yes, he thought, yes it was. But it also stood for something in which he no longer believed, and he was beginning to wonder if through all the innumerable things he had done he had ever once believed it. The last time he had worn it; when was that? Well, he had worn it last night, but seriously went out and worn it as a uniform , worn it to show everyone who he was, what he stood for? Wearing something because it happened to be available and wearing something because you believed in what it stood for were two different things completely. He shook his head and chose not to think about it; of course he had believed it, so does everyone when they first start something. It’s not a condition of whether or not you go on believing it, you begin something and you get used to it. You never sit around debating about it. He wasn’t without purpose to such an extent that he didn’t have better ways to spend his time than to sit here and carry on a one-sided debate about his life. As if it would matter. Shan stared at the jacket for a moment longer until it came to him that while he was staring, it was still on the floor. What the hell was he doing reminiscing when his coat was laying in the dust? He got down and picked the jacket up, irritated with himself for being careless enough to let it lie there the whole night, for taking so long to get it off the floor. He laid it over the back of a nearby chair, picking a bit of whitish lint off of the back with his finger nail, and the thick feel of the cloth brought back the memory of the dream. Where had he been going? He couldn’t remember. It was the first coherent dream he had had in a long time, and now he couldn’t remember it. It had been raining, he recalled. Raining in Barduev. God, he wished it would rain. He wished the water would just pour down out of the clouds, wash away the dust on the street, in the gardens, in the air. They said that this was the worst drought since the Academy was built, and in his dream it poured. What was the sense in that? No reason, he thought, no sense. The rain, that brought him back to his coat, which had gotten soaked. The coat... ah the coat. Why couldn’t he forget about it? He fingered the silver stars on the collar, sighed, ran his hands over his face and sat back down on the bed. Stars. Three silver stars, the rank of a Kasimov. Three ranks down from a general, at the age of twenty-nine. Not as if it would matter. No more days of glory and war for him, just commendation from the government - you did well but the military has a better use for officers that aren’t from old money. Sit around and do something interesting. And because you’re a war hero, you get to keep the medals. Because you’re a war hero, you get to keep the coat. He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and noticed the pistol that was lying on the bed-side table. Damn. It occurred to him and not for the first time that it was incomprehensibly stupid of him to leave it out like that. He wasn’t an officer anymore; he wasn’t in enemy territory - what was he thinking, that some assassin was going to creep into his apartment in the middle of the night? He removed the clip and threw it in the drawer, irritated with himself and whatever drunken recklessness had prompted him to leave it out in the first place. For the love of God, no one was interested in killing the pointless Kasimov who had been relieved of command. Lovely, he thought, you lose rank and you become paranoid. He had fought so many battles in heavy, long black. So many men had saluted him that day they had taken Peremid. And now here he was, waking up too late in an apartment that was too small, dreaming about rain in Barduev and wasting his life away. Three identical starts in the night sky indeed. And here he was sitting down again, back in a circle. Disgusted, he got up and turned to go wash up in the cramped bathroom. As he washed his face over the sink, he thought about the falling in the street. He hated so much to fall. He hated more to fall in the street. Everyone could see you in the street. Of course, everyone would be right there, ready to offer help and to get you up and on your way again. Ready to embarrass you. Private falls did not hurt so much. When you fell alone, in your apartment, in a deserted alley, your pride did not fall as hard. You didn’t have to get right up, dust yourself off and pretend it didn’t hurt. You could take your time. You could stay where you were, right where you were, until you could get your shocked muscles to stop hurting. First it would be the knees. Then it would be the arms. Then the legs. And you could put your trust in the ground until you could stand up again. Chapter Two The speaker’s voice boomed out over the civilians heads in the dark auditorium, loud, harsh and graced by hollow distortion as it echoed over the hundreds of the packed-in working class and thundered up to a vaulted ceiling. It seemed even louder over the left side, over the leagues and leagues of deserted chairs, empty but for the dozen or so Kasimovs lounging high up in the consecutive middles of the far-back rows. Some of them had a boot hooked up on the back of the chair before him, as if to demonstrate to whoever cared to look that he was thoroughly hot and bored; which of course he was perfectly entitled to be, as a Kasimov. The people were perhaps too respectful, too intimidated to sit near them. Of course they had stared before the lights had gone down, little children who looked wide-eyed at the military dress sabers and the long coats, the medals that glimmered in the dark heat. They had doubtless been told not to talk to Kasimovs, not to approach them - those, on a higher plane of soldiery. High and strong like glossed granite, more polished around the edges. The speaker , distant down there in a pool of artificial light, wore the brown uniform of the meth-maritime, a long defunct navy that somehow still thought itself old and glorious. It was not. The Kasimovs... cared not. They were there out of military obligation, not because they wanted to be. Shan sighed and put his head down, feeling the beginnings of a headache pounding back behind his eyes. He pushed his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair and leaned back in a single motion, wished furtively for rain to wash away this atrocious heat. The fact that he was all decked out in full Kasimov regalia didn’t help at all: the stars on his cuffs now as well as his collar and shoulders; the silver Nival Award he had gotten when they had taken Peremid, small and old and more ornate than they made them now, military sabers crossed in high relief over the state cross; and all the medals on his chest that he’d won coming up through the ranks. He had buttoned the numerous tiny catches of his rounded collar high and tight this morning, as it was meant to be done - but heat can undo even the most rigorous military training, and it had long ago been unbuttoned and loosened up. He was perversely pleased to see that he wasn’t the only one succumbing to the heat; even the Kasimovs who were still enlisted had their jackets half unbuttoned and their collars turned down. Only one of the solitary meth-maritime captains was present, alone, a row down from the dramatic, dominant Kasimov black. He was a lean, middle-aged man with just as many medals as the Kasimovs, but he didn’t seem affected in the slightest by the heat. He kept himself still and straight, kept his red collar with it’s five golden bars up and tight, as if to make some sort of statement. The Kasimovs all outranked him, on every account. If keeping up an immoveable face was making a statement, they were secure in their rank and felt it was a statement they did not need to make. Well, they were; Shan wasn’t in the least. He didn’t like the meth-maritime for the same reason he didn’t like Strazhas, for the same reason that a hawk, having been transformed into a blue bird, is afraid of the other hawks. Here he was no longer in a position to give orders, to say who the Strazhas stalked and guarded and who they didn’t. Here he was a civilian with a long coat. The paradox terrified him. That’s not a long coat , his friends had laughed at him when he had come back to the officers tent with silver stars and a coat that screamed promotion! before any of them had even been considered as candidates. Hell, long is an understatement, it’s down past the tops of your boots . They had made fun of him incessantly that first night, partially because he was their friend and it seemed natural. Partially because he was a Kasimov and they weren’t and a very small part in every one of them hated him for it. So they had gotten drunk and had slapped him on the back and had laughed at the hate to chase it away. And years later, here they all were, Kasimovs in the throes of glory and honor and high society, enlisted men with reputations as soldiers. And here he was beside them, cast off and relieved of command, first to rise and first to fall. Ironic indeed. Not much had changed overall, he thought, leaning back in his chair as he listened to the speaker drone on about taxes and government. They were all plenty older now, a few more scars here and there, a few more medals. But nothing had truly changed. The enlisted Kasimovs of fine militaristic power leaned back in their chairs and exchanged discrete looks and made subtle fun of the meth-maritime captain a row below them. Despite his self-discipline, the captain’s fair hair dripped sweat and stained the back of his slowly wilting, crimson collar. A handful of the Kasimovs above and behind the man silently delighted in this - no officer, conscripted or free, ever missed the opportunity to prove to the meth-maritime that they were not so terribly impressive as they seemed to think. Kasimovs were, as a rule, arrogant. But then, the meth-maritime were arrogant, too. Probably even more so, and it made them fair game. Shan took another deep breath as his fingers unconsciously found their way back to his hair. He went to unbutton his cuffs and then put his arm down again, sighing noisily. What he needed was this damn heavy coat off... “You all right?” A Kasimov next to him nudged his boot with a foot and leaned back in his seat. Shan looked over at the unfamiliar face - the officer was much younger than the rest of them, probably just promoted. Unfortunately for him, he had happened to be in Barduev when the meth-maritime held it’s monthly lecture, which all the military personnel in the city were of course required to attend. It suddenly occurred to Shan that fifteen Kasimovs, the entire number present, was a staggeringly huge portion of officers to be in one city at one time. Kasimovs were normally rarer than... he thought for a moment, slow and hazy in the overwhelming heat... rarer than decent air conditioning... “I ask,” the young Kasimov said to him, “because you look like you’re about ready to dissolve.” Shan looked over at him and almost smiled, but the youth’s eyes went immediately down to the cross of state at his throat and then down across the myriad of medals. “Look, kid, the day I pass out from the heat while someone’s watching is the day I commit suicide the old-fashioned way.” “Spoken like a true Kasimov.” “Thank you,” Shan smiled with exaggerated gratefulness, nodded and faced forward again. “Spoken... like a kid who just got promoted to the Kasimovs.” The young officer grinned at him, a spot of light-heartedness in the midst of grim Kasimov Ideal. Shan figured it would last for about three more weeks at the most. “I’ve just never seen a cross of state before,” the kid told him finally, eyes flickering up to Shan’s face and then almost adoringly down to the medals again. The speaker was still going on and on about military ideals and the navy captain turned his head a bit to hear what they were saying. The two Kasimovs a seat over from him were playing cards very discretely. They were also both cheating, just as discretely. “Well, it won’t be the last one you see, I’m sure. You’ve been in the Kasimovs what, a week? I got this three years in - give it some time.” The young Kasimov remained expressionlessly fixed on the medals. When he glanced up and realized that Shan was looking at him, he smiled quickly and apologetically and made himself busy looking at the meth-maritime on the podium. His thin hands flitted nervously over the edges of the coat that lay in his lap. The plainness of the coat was what drew Shan’s attention, plain black with only the three silver stars of a Kasimov on the collar. As Shan’s had been at the beginning, as it had been at the end, before the myriad of medals that he no longer wore when he went out, no longer loved. Because he no longer believed in them, long since disillusioned. And for what reason had he been relieved? ...told that the future lay with the young Kasimovs, the Kasimovs to whom ideology meant something. For what reason had he been relieved... for those who still had the ambition, imagination and the drive to command? (They said this to the man who had just single-handedly master-minded the victory at Aeiso, who had long ago taken back Peremid). He had pointed this out to the political officers who had come to relieve him of his command. The government, the war effort is forever in your debt , they said in attempt to appease him. Thanks so much , said Shan, refusing to be appeased. You’re all heart and it’s been a real pleasure, but I’m a Kasimov and I intend to stay one . You have nothing to offer anymore. Really. Kasimovs go on in life , they said as if they could possibly know. Some Kasimovs lose rank. Sometimes they go back to living as civilians and realize in the final result that they already gave everything they had to offer to the State. That they’re better off elsewhere. What the hell is this? Shan said furiously. We just crushed the Aeiso rebellion into the ground for God’s sake. Or are you perhaps referring to financial offering? They did not like that. You had no orders to march on Aeiso , the political officers threw in his face, dredging for something, anything, to throw him off. The military had orders to put down the revolt. Mine was the closest legion. Really? All that action... just couldn’t wait for another medal? the officers said, smiling humorlessly. What the hell... Kasimov Livny could have handled it. Livny? He wanted to scream it at them but in the end just stood there with his thumbs hooked in his belt. Livny was unholy hammered on the entire Aeiso campaign. He was seven days away with an army that wasn’t ready to move. He could have handled it, Kasimov , they said, getting defensive. This doesn’t have anything to do with Aeiso , he told them in quiet outrage that was threatening to become a whole lot louder. No answer to that. They cleared their throats, as if it was not a topic open for discussion. You’re relieved of command, Kasimov Tefur , one said. We’ll have your papers now... Now, Tefur . He... hit one of them. And about two seconds later, fine, billowing, Kasimov black went down in a swarm of gray jackets. Shan pulled his saber out from under himself as he fell and took the sudden barrage of punches and kicks, finally managed to twist it out of its sheath. The political officers struggled up and back in a hurry. Shan rolled on one knee and with effort pulled himself up against the opposite wall, rumpled and breathing hard, as dishevled as it was possible for a Kasimov to be. A thin streak of blood ran down his cheek where one of the officer’s wedding rings had caught him. They were all staring at the saber clenched in his slowly trembling fist, wide-eyed as people caught in a cage with a wild animal. The job of a political officer was to talk; the job of a Kasimov was to kill and they were afraid of him with a weapon. You want my papers, dammit? Shan rasped, gasping for air. Fine. See this? He let go of the wall with effort and pulled his rumpled certification out of his jacket. He threw it at them but it anded on the floor at their feet, pages flying. Fine, take it. Take all of it. He threw his sheath at them and they parted quickly, shoving each other back. Let me the hell out of here. He fell on the steps outside. A handful of soldiers threw away their cigarettes and came over at once to help him, but he still had his saber and when he looked at them they pretended they had been going elsewhere. The political officers that lingered in the doorway didn’t touch him. They all knew he had fallen from more than just the steps. He struggled to his feet while his body ached and advised against this. He walked down through the camp, bloody and disheveled with a saber clenched in his fist and everyone affected not to notice. At the entry post they took his medals, which they promised would be sent ahead to him. Only about half of them actually got delivered (the rest “lost in transit”). Shan did not like political officers, either. And he lived, breathed and bled Kasimov. So too would this kid - and someday, somewhere, he might live long enough to lose it. Shan only realized he was drowsing with his head on his fist when the meth-maritime/Kasimov pissing game reached its conclusion and woke him up. The kid had lit a cigarette though the auditorium was non-smoking. The Kasimovs hadn’t corrected him; the good captain, a row down, had gotten up and reprimanded him. The Kasimovs, ever defensive of their own, despite the circumstantial right or wrong, had pulled rank. By the time Shan had become as alert as he possibly ould with the horrendous heat and that pounding headache, the kid had dropped his cigarette on the floor and ground it down with the heel of his boot, obviously trying to brush aside some of the imminent trouble. The older Kasimovs - his protectors, tormentors, idols - got up, a few of them. Some words were exchanged, some grabbing and shoving occurred before the meth-maritime started to pull back his arm to hit Livny across the face. ...Livny? Damn , Shan thought as he recognized the fair hair, the tall figure, long jacket hanging unimpressively opened and crooked. I took Aeiso for you. Livny had his fist clenched in the meth-maritime captain’s collar, but the kid had a grip on Livny’s wrist. Shan sighed, jerked at the tight cloth at his throat and pushed himself out of his chair. He pulled the kid off-balance and down back into his seat and shoved Livny back, breaking his grip on the captain’s collar just before the captain swung a missing blow that would have broken Livny’s nose. Livny struck Shan’s arm away and rounded on him, only to recognize belatedly the calm darkness of his expression, the cross of state and the highly polished Kasimov’s stars. It seemed that there was nothing he could think of to say, so finally Livny just nodded. Shan nodded minimally back at him - unholy hammered on the entire Aeiso campaign - and looked beyond Livny to the captain. “Sit down,” he commanded in the stark, dead silence. The captain ran a hand over his immaculately combed hair and smoothed out his crinkled collar. “Is that an order?” He sounded out of breath. “Just sit.” “The Kasimov almost shoved me over the row. It’s easy to fall here.” “I know that,” Shan said, gripping the side of Livny’s jacket in his fist. "That’s why I want you to sit down.” The meth-maritime sat, pristine and righteous in all that old, naval, pseudo-glory. “Thank you,” Shan said hoarsely and, running his fingers through his drenched hair, sat down himself, pulling Livny down into the chair next to him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Shan whispered furiously and evenly in Livny’s ear as Livny fell back and completed the motion. Livny shoved his hand away but Shan grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and rammed him back again. “You know what happens if they catch you in a fist-fight with a maritime officer?” “Don’t talk to me in that damn supercilious tone...” “You’re irrational , think for once, or maybe you look forward to loosing rank...” “You mean like you?” Livny said poisonously, prying his fingers off and fixing him with his cold, pale-eyed stare. He jerked his jacket straight and got up again, reeling away to recover his original seat a row up. The kid had already taken it and didn’t move even when Livny glared at him - Livny ended up sitting by Shan again. The kid also managed to overhear that last part of their conversation. “You lost rank?” he said, now really interested. Shan threw a look at him, irritated in this pounding, pounding , heat... The meth-maritime captain turned around in his chair. “Thought you meth-maritime actually paid attention to your own lectures,” Shan said to him, agitated. The captain ignored him and instead answered by producing a cigarette and finding a lighter for it. The young Kasimov glowered incredulously, and nudging the officer next to him with his knee, looked pointedly at him to make sure he noticed. The captain leaned back and sighed, letting the smoke leak out in tendrils from his lips and nostrils; it curled upwards, thick and white, overpowering in the heat. Shan tried with great effort to ignore it - the enlisted Kasimovs would have said something, but at exactly that point the speaker introduced someone else and all the civilians far over to the right stood up. The Kasimovs griped under a collective breath and pulled themselves up straight, once more out of militaristic obligation, sabers rattling and clinking dully against black belts. The captain looked irritated, tossed his head in irritation and slipped his cigarette between his lips, shoving his lighter into a pocket.. As a result he was about five seconds later on his feet than the Kasimovs. They perhaps felt... somewhat pleased about it, but the meth-maritime pulled his jacket straight and adjusted the gun in his belt, making a much nobler picture than the Kasimovs, who stood hot and exhausted in disarray, medals crooked and black jackets hanging long and unbuttoned in the stagnant heat. The new speaker was also meth-maritime. He thanked his predecessor and started in on something long and arduous about the State ideal. Shan sat down again in the dark, collapsing back into his seat and wiping palmfuls of sweat from his hair. A half a moment later the new speaker mentioned the name of the Lord Sovereign and the black wave of Kasimovs sighed up again in the heat, silhouettes that rose against the dingy windows far up behind them. The wave sank down again, but Shan stayed perched on the edge of his seat, fingers of his left hand curled around the chair-back before him, ready to pull himself up again. The speaker was obviously the type that enjoyed keeping his audience attentive. His voice, loud and discontent, echoed out over the auditorium: “Over the years the meth-maritime has bided its time, waiting for its own chance to be recognized, to once more prove its immeasurable worth. It was in the final days of the siege on Aeiso that it finally got its chance...” “...to run and hide on the ocean while the Kasimovs blew the damn doors down...” Livny interjected under his breath, fumbling with his lighter and a forbidden cigarette. The meth-maritime captain turned around partially in his chair. “Shut up.” Livny, a row up, leaned back nonchalantly, letting his lighter click shut and breathing white smoke. “Nah, it’s just a fact, we went in there with about a million men and took the city and you... well, what did you do?” The captain turned around again and leaned back, putting his boot up. “A little something called naval gun fire.” “Oh sure, naval gun fire...” “Shut up both of you,” Shan said to them without looking over. He took his fingers away to run them through his hair and they left greasy marks where they had been clenched on the wooden seat back. Livny looked over and blew a jet of smoke up and down at his face. "What you don’t like talking about Aeiso?” “Dammit, I took that city for you...” “Aw, I’m touched...” “You should be, I lost rank over it.” Shan reached over in irritation, snatched Livny’s cigarette from between his fingers and threw it away, grinding its ashen ruin into the floor. Livny hardly seemed to care - he let his head fall back against the seat, proclaiming to the Kasimovs above him Shan’s treachery and the fact that he was now out of cigarettes. The kid, a row up, leaned forward to give him one of his from a freshly open packet - brand new like everything else about him. “Seriously?” he asked, presumably about Aeiso. “Yeah, no kidding, he broke a political officer’s jaw when they came to relieve him, too...” “Wow.” The captain whistled lowly between his teeth, shaking a cigarette out lazily between his fingers. “Oh shut the hell up all of you.” This was just to much, this heat, up here in front on windows that didn’t even open anymore... The Lord Sovereign’s name was mentioned and they all heaved themselves up again, put their legs down in boredom, lazy and hot irritation, for the required fifteen seconds before collapsing back again. “The meth-maritime struck with precision, with speed,” the speaker went on while Shan fiercely willed Livny to keep his mouth shut. “... a major victory for the naval powers...” As they sat back down Shan was quickly made aware of how little effect his mental powers had on real life, because Livny swept his coat out of the way and said “Ah come on, I’ve known some women that hit harder than meth-maritime.” Some Kasimovs laughed quietly. The meth-maritime captain spun around, white-knuckling the back of his seat. “What the hell is your problem?” “ You are my problem.” Livny went on without even hesitating, putting his cigarette to his lips again, still talking slowly and absent-mindedly, as if he really didn’t care even to grace the meth-maritime with the fullness of his attention. “You and the rest of that idiotic group you march for, pretending to be officers of the state when you’re really just a bunch of undisciplined sailors...” Shan shook his head in disgust. “For the love of God.” Livny looked over at him and smiled, lolling in his chair. “You. Got. Thinner,” he announced from nowhere. “How’s the wife?” “I’m not married, you lunatic.” “Ahhh... but I knew that, didn't I? What, you and Kyra never got together?” “No.” “Ah well,” Livny sighed. “Probably for the best.” Shan threw him a look. He pulled himself up again and so did Livny, swinging his legs down in annoyance. The captain got up, too, but still half-turned around and still clenching the wooden back of the seat, quietly and rapidly criticizing Livny on his views, his obvious lack of experience in real war... As they sat yet again, Livny made an incredulous face at the captain and gestured to him with his cigarette to calm himself. “Can’t you just shut up and sit down?” the captain hissed, falling back into his chair. “Excuse me?” Livny asked in offended pride. “Shut up and sit down ? This idiot at the podium’s making hash out of the Kasimov Ideal.” He turned his just marginally to drown Shan in a suffocating cloud of smoke.

Crysi

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Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:12 pm

Crysi says... · Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:12 pm

Dreamy... You make me want to give up any hope of being a writer and go curl up in a corner and WEEP.

No, seriously. This is fantastic. At first I was turned off by the length - I'm pretty impatient when it comes to critiquing - but as I was scanning down to see how long it was, I stopped and read some of it, then decided I definitely HAD to go back and read the whole thing.

So I did.

And I must say, I'm so impressed by this... Your characters are extremely well-developed, and you never seem to write out of their characters. The entire situation is intruiging (although I had to wonder why he was still there, if he technically wasn't a Kasimov anymore, or did I miss that point?) and entertaining.

I admit, I was slightly annoyed by the constant running-of-fingers-through-hair bit, partially because I recognized it almost immediately as a character trait, and partially because it seemed to be mentioned every other paragraph. Stretch it out a little. It seems to be a nervous habit of his, and while he does seem irritated/paranoid most of the time, I think we get that it's his little habit.

There were a few grammatical and spelling errors, as well as some formatting errors - line breaks where there shouldn't be any - but with a quick run-through I'm sure you can catch most of them.

There was one part I wanted to comment on...

Shan rounded on him. “Yeah?” he whispered, enraged at himself, at Livny, at the Kasimov Ideal in general. “Yeah, well maybe it does have a point to it after all and I just haven’t heard it yet because I’m sitting up here high and mighty... with the damn... Kasimovs...”

I'm not too fond with the end of the sentence. I don't think you need to break it up like that. It's unnatural, in my opinion, and that breaks the standard you've formed of completely drawing in the reader with the dialogue.

Other than that, though... Geez. I don't even want to look at my story. Definitely continue this - it's something I really want to follow. Oh, and that ending? Cruel, to leave us hanging like that. But very, very effective. I had forgotten about that part of his dream until you brought it up - excellent use of distraction.

Bravo.

Love and Light

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Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:18 pm

Dream Deep says... · Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:18 pm

Crysi wrote:Dreamy... You make me want to give up any hope of being a writer and go curl up in a corner and WEEP.

Is that... a good thing? Heh...

I admit, I was slightly annoyed by the constant running-of-fingers-through-hair bit, partially because I recognized it almost immediately as a character trait, and partially because it seemed to be mentioned every other paragraph. Stretch it out a little. It seems to be a nervous habit of his, and while he does seem irritated/paranoid most of the time, I think we get that it's his little habit.

Heh, I'm too used to this piece. I can't find the individual parts anymore where he does that... Lol. I'll go through it again tomorrow and smite the offenders. ^_^

Thank you very much Crysi, for the fine crit and the encouragement. This is making me depressed at my current lack of progress on it, but your comments really helped. :wink:

Thank you so much... I look forward to more crits and more comments.

~Dreamy

(Cruel to leave it hanging like that? Hehe, stick around for the 'getting the snot beaten out of him scene' as it seems to be dubbed lately.) ^_~

EDIT:> Ah yes, and he's there even though he's technically no longer a Kasimov because the relief is not yet official. This becomes apparent a few scenes later when he is summoned back to officially hand in his temporary military papers and his medals... ^_~

EDIT 2:> Muahaha! I know where Crysi's sig is from now! ^_^

Last edited by Dream Deep on Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:54 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:29 am

Dream Deep says... · Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:29 am

Important Issue in the Chair:

I don't swear. Mainly because my parents would kill me if I did. Now - as you have likely noticed - there is some cursing in the Chair. Admittedly nothing beyond hell and all the variations of damn, but the problem is in the next scene there is... a section of dialogue involving the f word. And I don't really know what to do about it.

So I suppose - since my parents are going to be reading this - is there any place so far where the swearing (however minor) sort of jumps out at you, seems out of place, seems over-the-top? I sort of doubt it, but I don't want mom and dad to kill me... which is probably another reason I'm procrastinating with the next scene... lol, don't want to die via the f word. Lol, maybe I can say oh shucks instead in the 'snot beaten out of him' scene... ^_~

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Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:37 am

Poor Imp says... · Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:37 am

Dream Deep wrote:Important Issue in the Chair:

I don't swear. Mainly because my parents would kill me if I did. Now - as you have likely noticed - there is some cursing in the Chair. Admittedly nothing beyond hell and all the variations of damn, but the problem is in the next scene there is... a section of dialogue involving the f word. And I don't really know what to do about it.

So I suppose - since my parents are going to be reading this - is there any place so far where the swearing (however minor) sort of jumps out at you, seems out of place, seems over-the-top? I sort of doubt it, but I don't want mom and dad to kill me... which is probably another reason I'm procrastinating with the next scene... lol, don't want to die via the f word. Lol, maybe I can say oh shucks instead in the 'snot beaten out of him' scene... ^_~

Ah yes...I can just see Shan, ready with some violent exclamtion pausing and saying..."Oh shucks." Hilarious image, joke...but of course, seriously... 0.0

But no, none of the cursing seemed particularly notable for more than what it was. With the relative 'time period', though fantasy, it all fits rather well especially among your military men - who it can't be denied, do tend to toss-off certain words with amazing nonchalance. ^_~

Shan though would have a lot more point - and no nonchalance, I'm pretty certain - in cursing his head off with what's coming... Perhaps the parents will understand in light of the dire circumstances in the next chapter?

ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."

-Lloyd Alexander

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Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:51 am

Dream Deep says... · Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:51 am

Poor Imp wrote:Ah yes...I can just see Shan, ready with some violent exclamtion pausing and saying..."Oh shucks." Hilarious image, joke...but of course, seriously... 0.0

But no, none of the cursing seemed particularly notable for more than what it was. With the relative 'time period', though fantasy, it all fits rather well especially among your military men - who it can't be denied, do tend to toss-off certain words with amazing nonchalance. ^_~

Shan though would have a lot more point - and no nonchalance, I'm pretty certain - in cursing his head off with what's coming... Perhaps the parents will understand in light of the dire circumstances in the next chapter?

Yeah, that is a pretty funny image... ^_^

But they "tend to toss-off certain words with amazing nonchalance"? AHHH! Like what? Like where? *dies*

Argh, Dad would probably understand, but I dunno about mom... o.O She got upset when I said that my piano lesson sucked. Not appropriate language for a girl, apparently... ^_~

Last edited by Dream Deep on Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Rei

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Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:35 am

Rei says... · Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:35 am

Guess what! I'm finally getting around to reading this. I'll be commenting on it one chapter at a time, though. My attention span is not so good.

So here are my thoughts on the prologue. It's nice. Very easy to read. It doesn't give away anything about the story that it shouldn't, and it hooks readers, making them interested, and wondering what this chair thing is and why it's so important.

At the same time, it feels almost unnecessary. What is the point of telling us all this before the story starts? Why not just jump in and get us hooked by giving us interesting characters and a little bit of the conflict? This is just a personal preference, mind you. The key to prologues is deciding whether or not you really have to have it.

Please, sit down before you fall down.
Belloq, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

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Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:40 am

Dream Deep says... · Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:40 am

Heh, thanks Rei, for the comments. ^_^

Ah yes, the prologue... it's sort of necessary to explain what the chair is or at least that there is one... it's refered back to rather pointedly later on.

But I do thank you extensively on the comments. I really wasn't expecting one, to be honest - lol, a good surprise. Thanks a lot and I look forward to more thoughts...

(And maybe I'll go take a look at that prologue...)

Last edited by Dream Deep on Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:16 am

Rei says... · Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:16 am

Fair enough. I just think this kind of information is more interesting if it is weaved into the story, rather than given before the story begins. But the way you've written it, so it's not just a history lesson, it does work.

Please, sit down before you fall down.
Belloq, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

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Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:39 am

Alteran says... · Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:39 am

Sorry sorry sorry

Dream Deep wrote:Chapter Three

It occurred to Shan that whatever custodian ended up sweeping the floor up in the back rows would be finding a number of half-smoked cigarettes of biblical proportions, because he took Livny’s and threw that one away, too. It was too hot for this. "What's your problem, they didn’t even mention the Kasimovs...”

“Well, yeah, that’s why I take offense.”

Livny seems to be making a sincere effort to make the ritual waste of cigarettes a national event, because he reached up to the kid for another one and smiled at Shan.

“You know how this works out?” the kid asked, giving him one. “You all end up smoking and pissing each other off and by the time this lecture’s over I’ll be out of cigarettes though I never actually got to smoke any.”

“Good,” Livny said. “You’re learning. And I bet by this point someone liberated your lighter, too.”

tee hee. it made me laugh.

The kid looked momentarily alarmed and hastily began feeling his pockets and jacket. The effort did not reward him with a lighter and he swore in disbelief.

Shan looked at Livny in irritation and said “Give it back to him.”

Livny chuckled around a cigarette, saying, “And what makes you think I’ve got his lighter?”

“Because,” Shan said, reaching over and sliding a lighter out of Livny’s coat pocket. “I know you a hell of a lot better than you think I do.” - Which was almost a contradiction, he realized suddenly... the Livny he had known and served with at Peremid would have broken his wrist had he dared to attempt that little maneuver years ago.

The captain changed position heavily in the seat in front of them, shaking his head and commenting idly to the darkness before him, “This is unbelievable.”

“Who, me?” asked Livny, still grinning.

“Yes you. You steal from another Kasimov?”

“I was gonna give it back.”

“Sure you were.” He then added, apparently to Shan, “I thought you
Kasimovs actually smoked.”

“We do. Why exactly?”

The officer slid a cigarette from his pocket and offerred it back to them over his shoulder. Livny looked at it in general disgust. “What the hell makes you think I want your crummy roll-your-owns?”

“I wasn’t giving it to you.”

“No?”

“No, I was giving it to him.”

Presumably Shan. It took Livny a moment to process this, and finally he looked over at him. “It would appear that the good captain is offering you a cigarette,” he said, grinning. Shan glared at him, out of humor and dying in the heat, leaned forward solely out of courtesy for the maritime and took it. The captain silently offered him a lighter, which he declined - he had his own.

“Ian Illtev,” the officer said. “Nice to meet you.” He offered Shan a hand blindly. Shan stared for a moment and then remember himself and shook it.

Ok i think that wasa typo but i'm not sure. Read through it and check.

“Shan Tefur,” he said. “Pleasure.”

Livny was grinning openly at him as he breathed out the smoke, and it took every ounce of noblesse oblige that Shan had to keep from bashing his face in.

“Meth-maratime cigarettes better than Kasimov ones?” Livny whispered
hoarsely, leaning over beside him and jabbing him with an elbow. “Huh? Well are they? Come on, I need to know this stuff, next time someone grinds out my cigarette on me, well forget asking this kid here for a new one, I’ll just go to the meth-maratime...”

At this Livny broke down into a fit of silent giggling next to Shan, which ended abruptly as he momentarily restored his cigarette to his lips and once more breathed the smoke all over the side of Shan’s face. “Here, let me do you a favor...” Livny reached out and took the cigaretter from Shan’s fingers, flicked it away and got a new one from the kid. “You don’t want to smoke that crap, here, you need a decent cigarette...” Livny lit it for him and thrust it between his fingers again while Shan closed his eyes and counted to ten to keep from killing him. He finally looked at Livny.

Typo.

“I don’t want to smoke,” he said.

“Well why the hell not, you didn’t have a problem with maratime roll-your-owns...”

“No, that’s because that was gift.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, he probably felt sorry for me having to sit here next to you.”

Livny’s smile dropped and the captain let out a stifled snort of laughter from the next row.

“Shut up,” Livny said down to him.

“Mm, I didn’t say anything...” the captain murmured, sounding amused. A slight chuckle somewhat ruined the effect. It was a one-sided amusement - Livny looked about ready to pull his saber on him and Shan momentarily wondered how Livny would look dead in Capital Square. Revenge was apparently a theme on Livny’s mind as concerned the meth-maratime, because he couldn’t seem to let it alone. Shan could feel himself getting ready to crack.

“Anyway it’s unbelievable for you maybe,” Livny said, deftly finding his way back to the original argument. “You obviously have no sense of comoradary. As far as rank and affiliataion go, you obviously don’t have any sort of honorable... glorious image to uphold....”

“Really.”

“Yes indeed, look, you didn’t even salute when you came in, we were here before you and every one of us outrank you, see...”

“I don’t have to salute you, you’re army, I’m maratime.”

Shan tried counting to ten again, but only got to four by the time Livny broke in again, saying, “You think that matters? You’re a captain, we’re all Kasimovs, of course you have to salute me. What. What the hell, don’t look at me like that...”

The captain had turned around again. “Is there something you particularly hate about the meth-maratime?”

“Yes,” Livny said after the barest moment’s hesitation and consideration. “Yes, I hate that you drag us to these pointless things. I hate your arrogance, I hate your pretense, I hate your attitude towards everything. Look on the bright side, when we have a revolution, at least we’ll have an excuse to get rid of the
Navy during the chaos. At least Kasimovs actually have some dignity behind the name.”

That did it. “No,” Shan said suddenly, quiet and furious. “No it doesn’t at all and if anyone in the world’s responsible for a breakdown in the honor and power of the Kasimov Ideal, it’s people like you who can’t resist pulling rank on officers you’ve never even met before...”

He got up, gathered his overcoat and ran his fingers through his hair,
pulled his jacket straight. Livny laughed uncomfortably. “Shan,” he said, nudging his leg with a boot. “Hey. Shan. They’re meth-maratime for crying out loud, trying to pretend this lecture actually has a point to it...”

Shan rounded on him. “Yeah?” he whispered, enraged at himself, at Livny, at the Kasimov Ideal in general. “Yeah, well maybe it does have a point to it after all and I just haven’t heard it yet because I’m sitting up here high and mighty... with the damn... Kasimovs...”

He jerked his coat angrily, flung his cigarette on the floor and edged past the other Kasimovs, who tucked their knees up and back for him to get through. Livny let out an incredulous breath and shook his head, lit another cigarette.

This is kind awkward. It doesn't really fit.

The Lord Sovereign’s name: they all stood up again, a wave of dramatic black again the filthy windows, metals glittering, sabers rattling. He saw them all up there as he took the steps down the side two at a time in his haste to get away from them, Kasimovs up there alone in high up darkness, the black silhouettes of angels of death, and all mortal men.

typo. This is very nice how you compare death with mortality.

Shan rammed open the door at the bottom with his shoulder, the loud chunk echoing up thorough the auditorium, a small and temporary spot of light in the darkness before it sighed shut behind him. He found himself in a tiny stone side alley, one end opening out onto the main street of the district, one end closed off, a mess of old bricks and crates, ancient decomposing vegetables. He turned around a few times in the heat, his eyes hurting against the bright noon light; and finally reached up to undo the silver award medal at his throat. The longer it took the more furious he became; the more furious he became the more his fingers trembled and couldn’t undo the ties. Finally he just ripped it off, tearing the ties and flung the silver cross away across the alley. He turned away, breathing hard, ran his fingers through his hair and swore, went a few paces towards the main street. He stopped and finally went back for it, swearing quietly as he bent down and picked it gingerly up out of the filth. And slid it into his pocket, where he wouldn’t even have to acknowledge its presence... but the cloth was stained and torn now, and he felt immediately guilty for it.

Shan ran a shaking hand down his face. And went out of the alley and walked in a city he didn’t love, stars on his collar that he no longer cared for, no longer glorified. He walked to chase the sick fear and guilt away. And like the hate - it didn’t up and leave, just sat there on the dark and looked at him, took the shape of fifteen fine Kasimovs before it assumed an invisible face and melted back into darkness. And he went on walking as fast as he could to outrun it in a city which slept through a drought and perhaps, somewhere between the periods of rain and drought had dropped a word, a thought, a memory, and had since ceased to know that it had been, and had ceased to care. It left its Kasimovs out there in a lecture they didn’t believe in to stand up, black wave in the darkness and sink down again, hot and bored with their coats and medals and stars. Arrogant Kasimovs, of which he was one... they ceased to hear the words. And they ceased to care.

He was halfway back to the Academy Block when he realized there were Strazhas following him.

****************************

Better?

Sweet. Very very good. I cant believe your 14. I wish i had your talent when i was 14. I am like so impressed. And this is just so cool. So many original ideas. Tihs is one of those stories that pulls you in deeper and deeper. LOve it! can't wait to read more.

"Maybe Senpai ate Yuka-tan's last bon-bon?"
----Stupei, Ace Defective

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Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:04 am

Dream Deep says... · Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:04 am

Whee! I love you. :wink:

I'm so so so sorry it's taking so long to get more up, I'm a hopeless procrastinator... soon I hope.

EDITED:> the typos and suggestions.

Thanks so much Adam. Hehe, here, have a cookie. ^_~

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Fri Sep 01, 2006 6:11 am

Alteran says... · Fri Sep 01, 2006 6:11 am

COOKIEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *munch munch* Sorry. coudn't help myself.

"Maybe Senpai ate Yuka-tan's last bon-bon?"
----Stupei, Ace Defective

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Sun Sep 03, 2006 2:36 am

Poor Imp says... · Sun Sep 03, 2006 2:36 am

(Chp. 3)
At this point, DD, you've gotten your tone and voice, plot and character steady enough that mostly I can only search for the small things. ^_^ Shan is characterised consistent, and even supporting (Livny) characters speak and act fittingly - or not so fittingly in Livny's case. ^_~ Though that's beside any critiquing point.

It occurred to Shan that whatever custodian ended up sweeping the floor up in the back rows would be finding a number of half-smoked cigarettes of biblical proportions, because he took Livny’s and threw that one away, too. It was too hot for this. "What's your problem, they didn’t even mention the Kasimovs...”

Dry good humour...easy use of long sentence - nothing out of place. ^_~ But is there a Bible in the world of Kasimovs? It wouldn't necassarily affect anything, as it is in the narrative itself and not a remark by characters.

The captain changed position heavily in the seat in front of them, shaking his head and commenting idly to the darkness before him, “This is unbelievable.”

Heavily and idly describe adverbally well - though the sentence length seems to make 'heavily' a bit conspicuous. Sans 'heavily' does it still say what you intend?

“Huh? Well are they? Come on, I need to know this stuff, next time someone grinds out my cigarette on me, well forget asking this kid here for a new one, I’ll just go to the meth-maratime...”

As a technical ambiguity - is it meant to be: '...my cigaratte on me, well, forget asking this kid here for one, I'll just go to the meth...'? 'Well' without commas blends into the lengthy sardonic remark - and I assume Livny is pausing for effect? "...grinds out my cigarete on me - (irony)well, forget..." ?

At this Livny broke down into a fit of silent giggling next to Shan, which ended abruptly as he momentarily restored his cigarette to his lips and once more breathed the smoke all over the side of Shan’s face.

"Next to Shan..." adds words to a long sentence, not necassary to the meaning. Again, a couple rather long adverbs... Just note as you use them whether they're repeating what's implied, or clear - or whether they're describing instead something vague or unnoted. ^_^

Livny reached out and took the cigarette from Shan’s fingers, flicked it away and got a new one from the kid. “You don’t want to smoke that crap, here, you need a decent cigarette...” Livny lit it for him and thrust it between his fingers again while Shan closed his eyes and counted to ten to keep from killing him. He finally looked at Livny.

Entire image well-envisioned; atmosphere of it all easily helps keep Shan's frustration - anger at this point - clear. ^_^

“No, that’s because that was gift.”

Does Shan mean to repeat 'that'? He tends to be rather brief, or at least clear... "No, because that was a gift." - flow better?

Livny looked about ready to pull his saber on him

I haven't ever heard of a sabre being 'pulled on someone'. Livny looked about ready to take a sabre to him. ? Possibly more modern language you want to avoid - up to you. ^_^

“Anyway it’s unbelievable for you maybe,” Livny said, deftly finding his way back to the original argument. “You obviously have no sense of comoradary

Camaraderie?

Livny let out an incredulous breath and shook his head, put his boot up again.

...Might flow more evenly if you used present progressive - '...shaking his head, put his boot up again.'

He walked to chase the sick fear and guilt away. And like the hate - it didn’t up and leave, just sat there on the dark and looked at him, took the shape of fifteen fine Kasimovs before it assumed an invisible face and melted back into darkness.

The finishing parapraphs, length and all, are Dostoyevsky as far as telling something succinctly, length and all. Shan is developed/developing...and the images and feelings aren't forced here at the end. ^_^ Some people have called Dostoyevsky pathological for his depth, the tangled suffering and complexity within the minds and actions of his characters...but he really only managed to make the subconscious as much part of a story as the conscious. Not angst -- truth. ^_^

(How has working around 'snot beaten out of him' scene gone? ...soon finished? I hope you won't die for any expletives. ^_~)

ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."

-Lloyd Alexander

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Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:02 am

Dream Deep says... · Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:02 am

Thanks Imp! ^_^ Time is a bit limited right now, I'm afraid, but tomorrow I'll go through and make the suggested changes. Thank you very much!

Ah yes, the snot-beaten-out-of-him scene. Almost done. I hope to have it up by either tomorrow or the day after... otherwise Wiggy'll come after me with haikus again. :wink:

I love you, Imp, for these brilliant critiques, for all the time you put into making my projects halfway readable. Thank you so much. ^_~

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Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:41 pm

Dream Deep says... · Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:41 pm

Chapter 4

Soldier: We’ll have the medals sent along after you, they need to be documented first so they can write you up temporary papers. Sir... your face. You’re... you’re bleeding.

Kasimov Azov Tefur: And yet another blinding flash of insight from a product of modern soldiery. Aren’t we all.

Soldier: Just a moment, sir, I need your saber.

Kasimov Azov Tefur: Have no illusions that you’ll be getting it.

Soldier: There are orders.

Kasimov Avoz Tefur: (walking away) Fine, my orders, find a way to get them cleared. You have a problem with it, arrest me. Or shadow me with Strazhas if it pleases you, I don’t give a damn either way.

Soldier: Forgive me, sir, but you have no longer have the authority to give that order.

Kasimov Azov Tefur: No? No, perhaps you’re right. But try to keep this in mind. I have a saber. And I know how to use it. And right now I feel one hell of a lot like using it. So humor me.

It was more disbelief than the actual threat they posed that caused Shan to hesitate in the street. To an observer, it wouldn’t have looked like much: a Kasimov walking cold and distant, which they habitually were, straight and collected. A Kasimov looking briefly up, catching a glimpse of a reflection out of the corner of his eye, head coming up as he did a double-take. A Kasimov stopping dead in the street, pulling up short so abruptly that for a moment his coat billowed out in front of him, thrown by the breeze and his momentum. A Kasimov who didn’t run - why would he? An observer would not be able to see what was fifteen yards back, what the Kasimov saw because he was trained to. A casual observer would pay it no mind.

The Strazhas that Shan saw reflected in the glass of a shop window stopped when he did, loitering at a corner. One glanced over another’s shoulder at him and then the eyes flitted away as he found a lighter for his friend’s cigarette. Five Strazhas on sunny Pershozhen Street that no one saw because no one wanted to see them.

Shan stared at the reflections, the epitome of calm and control as his hands trembled uncontrollably at his belt and he tried to breath. A hand crept up to his chest; he could feel his heartbeat through his shirt, pounding in a rhythmic frenzy under threat of extinction, as if it was going to help somehow. People were starting to stare, to glance back in irritation as they shoved past him where he stood oblivious and trembling in the street.

Walk, he told himself. Walk, walk, walk for the love of God walk and whatever you do don’t run.

But the urge to run was almost overwhelming. He fought his hand back down slowly to his hip and was very aware of his saber. He was very aware of his coat, of his stars, so easy to mark, so easy to follow.

The Strazhas leaned against the corner of their building and talked a bit, nonchalantly, never once looking at him. As if they were old comrades... what, a handful of old friends out for a walk in the rain? The memory of his dream tugged at him in the blistering heat and breeze, like a mockery of his current condition. In a dream, if you ran they were not encouraged to pursue; if you fell in the street they did not kill you; sunlight came to the rescue. While here it was his enemy, was exhausting, made thinking difficult.

They were moving again. A casual shove off the wall and they were walking again, slipping between clumps of pedestrians without so much as a glance at them. Shan tried to imagine the impossible, how many of them he could hold off before they killed him in a deserted street, got him right where they wanted him. The thought that he was, for the moment, out of practice with weapons showed up with amazing clarity. It was enough to get him moving again.

The difficulty wasn’t the forward impulse, wasn’t the walking - it was the avoidance of downright dashing down Pershozhen Street. Every instinct told him to, every ounce of will in his body was urging him to move faster, to run. Instead he walked with even measured footsteps, kept his eyes on the windows and his fingers clenched around the hilt of his saber. They had stopped following him; they slipped around a corner and were gone down an alley. In the sudden caution in the stride of a Kasimov gone tense, they knew he knew.

Shan made it very slowly to the end of the street, every muscle strained and trembling. He made it just barely, and the instant he slipped around the dusty corner of the Provincial Development Building he lost it. His foot slipped off the curb and he almost went down on a knee, but caught himself in time to get around the corner and throw himself back against the wall. Fingers run though the hair once, a curse and the urge to look over his shoulder and around the corner back down the street repressed. He took out his pistol with shaking fingers and realized that he had removed the clip that morning in Kier. Which was when he lost it completey. And ran.

It was, in a sense, ironic that in all his years as Kasimov, through all the wars, he had never once been suspected of foul play, had never fallen prey to the politics of rank, had never once been shadowed by Strazhas. And it was now, just off Pershozhen Street and in peace-time yet, twenty-four hours away from losing even his temporary papers to civilian ones, that he had finally caught their attention.

God knew why. A hundred times since he had slipped off the main street to run for the back alleys, he had asked himself why. He had gone over every exchange, every conversation he could remember in his mind, seeking an incriminating word, a phrase, a betrayer. There was none. All that remained was the political officer whom he had struck across the face... but then that had already been taken to and dismissed from a military court. Kasimovs ruled behind the scenes in the military courts. Kasimovs always looked out for their own, despite the circumstantial right or wrong.

As if that was somehow going to help him now. All the Kasimovs in the city were a quarter mile away sitting around bored in the heat, getting into a fist-fight with a meth-maratime captain. Even if they hadn’t been: Strazhas were of a different Idai and therefore did not operate under the orders of the Kasimovs. Just as the meth-maratime did not, being naval and therefore without an Idai. The discrepancy of military branches was a difference he was very well aware of at the moment.

Shan hunted low along the back of the Capital Wall and kept his empty pistol down between his knees. Its useless presence at least gave him a small measure of confidence, of self-assurance. The hand that held the gun shook so violently at the wrist that his pistol rattled against the steel of his saber and he had to use two hands to keep it steady.

You should have run, he told himself silently, stalking his hunters in the deserted alley. You should have run on Pershozhen, anonymous in a crowd, should have shed your coat and stars and run.

Because now they had him right where they wanted him - alone and virtually defenseless, no witnesses no bystanders. No one but him and them stalking each other to the sound of broken water pipes dripping. It was a trap that he had allowed himself to walk into. And he knew that there was no way to win: you stayed where you were, surrendered? They shot you in the back of the neck. You stayed where you were and fought them? They used their sabers: and were you lucky enough to have one in your possession, you died a little more desperately, a little more frantically, but at least you went down fighting. Running encouraged pursuit and staying resulted in death and the fool who stalked the Strazhas in return? He didn’t know - it wasn’t as if anyone in such a situation had ever come back to grace others with the details.

A scrap of damp newspaper glided and tumbled down the alley to his left; his gaze followed it and as it crossed a narrow intersection, he saw a shadow flit by. His pistol was trained on the spot in an instant. His fingers trembled as he got his back to the stone and reached out a hand along the wall to guide himself. He stared wide-eyed at the intersection of alleys further down. His fingers blundered off concrete and into thin air as he discovered the end of the wall and its corner. He slipped around, looking over his shoulder as long as he could to keep the alley in sight, turned - and came face to face with five Strazhas.

There was a sharp intake of breath, a sudden rush for pistols and sabers. They beat him to it, five pistols snapped up and steel hissed on steel - he had his pistol to the first assassin’s forehead and the fist that held his saber far out from his side was shaking fiercely.

They all stayed like that for a moment.

“Shan Azov Tefur,” the dark-haired one said in a thick Peremidian accent that slightly obscured the words.

“Go to hell,” Shan whispered wide-eyed, clenched his fingers white on the hilt of his saber. The muzzle of a pistol pressed against his cheek and a hand reached out and pried the gun from his fingers.

“Empty,” one of them said, sounding amused. Shan flung his saber up but the Strazha, quicker, got his wrist and snapped it around, took his legs out from under him. The impact on the pavement bruised Shan’s cheekbone and for a moment he could almost swear that every one of his teeth had just gone right up through his head.

“You think a Kasimov can stalk Strazhas, yeah?” one asked in bemusement and flung a cigarete down in the dust by Shan’s face. Shan spat at him and was rewarded with a savage kick to the head, a knee between the shoulder blades and the muzzle of a pistol in his hair. The Peremidian crouched down in front of him and Shan twisted his head around to look at him.

“Shan Azov Tefur?” that one asked again, softly.

“Go to hell,” Shan repeated infuriated into the dust as whoever was behind him clenched his fingers in his hair and rammed his forehead against the pavement. His eyes closed involuntarily and tightly against the pain and tried to get to the fresh cut above his eyebrow but someone pulled his arms back. Hands searched through the pockets of his jacket and found his papers.

“Yes, so it would appear, Tefur it is.” The Strazha threw away the papers and they fluttered off, wind chasing them down the alley. “A Kasimov from Krasnyi, how impressive.”

“I’m not a Kasimov.”

“You have stars on your collar, you’re a Kasimov.”

“I need my papers,” Shan rasped into the gravel.

“No you don’t. You’re going to the Kasimoval Idai tomorrow to get your civilian papers, no? Surely you don’t still need your temporary papers, not an ex-Kasimov like yourself.”

Someone picked his saber up from where it was lying in the alley but he didn’t see what he did with it.

"Put my damn sword down,” Shan told him, the effect somewhat ruined by a strangled gasp and curse as a boot slammed into his ribs, a voice that made obvious his effort to hold back tears.

“The terror in your tone can only allow me to assume that you’ve never been stalked by Strazhas before.”

Shan fought to keep his eyes in focus and blinked heavily. The one threw his saber back down on the pavement, apparently not in favor of its make.

“And would that be Street Strazhas or Strazhas Elite?”

“You don’t seriously think that the Strazhad would send out five Strazhas Elite just to beat the living shit out of a Kasimov, do you? You flatter yourself, Tefur, you’re not that dangerous of a man.”

“I can’t breathe,” Shan whispered as the knee moved farther up and put pressure over the back of his neck. He stretched out a frantic, fumbling hand in search of his saber. A booted foot slammed down on his fingers and he barely stifled the scream that rose in his throat. It took effort to pull his injured hand beneath him as he struggled to turn his head, gasping through tears.

The Peremidian ignored him. “A Kasimov should know,” he said, "the difference between Strazhas Elite and Street Strazhas...”

“I’m a poorly trained Kasimov,” Shan rasped, struggling harder to get the knee off his neck, struggling with the strength of frantic desperation. He thrashed, trying to twist his head around, to get his fingers under the weight. His voice started to rise uncontrollably, a shrill whisper: “I can’t fucking breathe...” The Peremidian said something and the knee came off. Shan tried to heave himself up on an elbow as he gasped for breath but someone kicked him. A moment later he was hauled up and slammed against the wall. He couldn’t stand - the Strazha had to hold him up. A knife slid out from nowhere and pressed against the skin near his ear.

“Now I’m only going to ask you this question once,” the Peremidian told him quietly. “And if you lie to me, I’m going to start cutting. So if you particularly value your hearing, you’re going to want to choose your answer very carefully.”

“I’ll scream,” Shan said, gripping the hand that was clenched on his throat, fighting for breath through blood and tears.

“Ah, but no you won’t,” the Strazha whispered close up by his face. “Because you’re a Kasimov. And I’ve known enough Kasimovs to know that when they get cornered, when they collapse or bleed or get kicked into the dust by Strazhas, they don’t scream. Because for a Kasimov it’s pride all the way. They don’t want to be seen filthy and bleeding. Which is why they have to make sure they look absolutely fastidious when they walk down the street, hair slicked back and collars buttoned up just so. Which is why you aren’t going to scream. Because to scream is to admit a weakness and I don’t think you can do that as a Kasimov. I think it’s a hazard of the trade.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m glad we understand each other. Now I want you to keep in mind that there’s a knife pressed against your face.” The Strazha leaned closer and said in that intensely soft tone of his, “Where is it exactly, that your loyalties lie, Kasimov?”

As if he wasn’t going to tell them what they wanted to hear.

“To the State,” he whispered. “To the Kasimoval Idai and above that to the Lord Sovereign.”

The Peremidian hit him with incredible force across the head and face with his free hand. Shan sagged a bit and he pulled him up again.

“And if I had wanted the standard answer, I could have gone and asked a civilian.” He was perhaps waiting for Shan to say something additional, and when he didn’t he added. “Are you sure it’s not the Kasimoval Idai above the Lord Sovereign?”

They’re practically one in the same, he thought. He said, “Yes, so why the hell are you hunting me?”

And again, as if it was some sort of reaffirmation - “Are you sure about that?”

“Are you sure you’re beating the living shit out of the right Kasimov?”

A fist slammed into his stomach and as the force knocked the wind out of him and drove him down and forward, he rammed a shoulder into the Peremidian’s chest. The blow sent the Strazha off to one side and into one of his comrades as Shan evaded two others, tripped past a third and in an agonized move, ran.

Two of them had pistols out, but the Peremidian was quicker with Shan’s discarded sheath. “No!” he shouted sharply at them, snatched it up from the dust and flung it after him. It caught him in the neck and shoulder, pitched him forward down on one knee. The Strazhas were right there in an instant and as Shan struggled up and away from them they slammed him through the rotted door of a deserted storage shack. He got a blurred impression of a small table and a few empty shelves before he came up against a wall, threw himself off it and tried to shove his way through the Strazhas to the door. One caught at his arm and dragged him back; he spun, felt his elbow connect with the side of someone’s face, saw the dark hair of the Peremidian and got a hand free for that one’s throat. But they had him by the arms again and hauled him back - he flung his feet up off the floor and caught one in the jaw, found purchase against a body and kicked in manic frenzy, twisting as a fist slammed into his ribs. The Peremidian had his throat again and heaved him down. Shan felt something hard and solid at his back, reached out blindly in search of a weapon, any weapon. His fingers caught at the edge of the table and brought it over with him.

It was worse than it had been with the political officers. Strazhas hit harder, for one. And they weren’t afraid of him... he had no saber this time. They went on hitting him even after he lost his balance and went down with the table and one of the shelves. He tried to wrestle a pistol away from one but a booted foot slammed down on his arm once, twice and again, and then on his hand.

“Don’t kill him,” the Peremidian told them, as if reminding them of their orders. “Be careful not to kill him.” At once point it occurred to him that he was at least giving them a good fight, but there were too many. The blows - the blows were too many. Eventually he lost whatever organized defense he had to the pain and after that they beat him without hindrance, having gotten him right where they wanted him. When they were done making their point sufficiently, the Peremidian got him by the collar and the arm and hauled him outside again just to throw him against the Capital Wall. He got kicked again while he was down on the pavement with his arms wrapped around his head.

“Just remember,” the Peremidian said softly from somewhere nearby, “that we can get to you. We can always get to you.”

That infuriated him for some reason, even more than the beating. He made an effort to struggle to his hands and knees and was kicked back down again. “Stay in the dust, Kasimov, I’m sure the coat’s washable.”

One of them added, “To such humilities the Kasimovs bend nowadays.” He kicked Shan’s empty pistol toward him, a move which had the intense flavor of mockery.

"I dare you to scream, Tefur,” the Peremidian said. And then the Strazhas were gone, down the alley and around the wall, leaving nothing of themselves behind. They even picked their cigarettes up out of the dust before they went, leaving no trace. Leaving nothing but a long streak through the dust to signify a struggle; nothing but a rotted door falling off its hinges; nothing but a dusty, bleeding Kasimov in the filth at the base of the Capital Wall, gasping for breath. He couldn’t have screamed even if he had wanted to.

At least fifteen minutes passed before it even occurred to him to move. Training did it finally - he was vulnerable, predictable, enemies could come back and find him. A joke that Livny had once made years ago flitted through his mind: Best to always present a moving target.

After the effort of getting his legs under him, he doubted he had anything left in him to do any more than lean into the wall and try to breathe. He felt sick and tired, kept running his hands through his hair and over his face, as if it would somehow sort everything out. He even tried to drag himself into some semblance of order, jerking his jacket and medals straight, trying to brush some of the dust off of his uniform.

He saw his papers abandoned near the corner of a deserted building, fluttering a bit in the hot breeze. It took a long time for him to get to them, trying to stay straight or in the very least, upright. When he bent down to retrieve them pain gripped his chest and a cramp ran up through his ribs, an incomprehensible agony. He ended up on one knee, gasping with one hand at his chest and the other searched for his papers. His fingers touched them and he crumpled them in his hand, along with some of the filth and gravel of the back streets. He needed the wall to pull himself up again. He found his empty pistol and managed to drag his saber up - it took him five trembling tries to run it into it’s sheath.

He ended up collapsing as he stepped out onto Pershozhen. People affected not to notice - they didn’t want to see the fallen Kasimov, the bloody, disheveled Kasimov, the dust on the jacket that muted the brilliance of the three silver stars.

Tense and trembling muscles revolted, shocked, and gave him no strength. Fury sufficed in the end to get him on his feet, and he walked the mile to Kyra’s apartment. He passed a handful of Kasimovs on their way out of the meth-maritime lecture - the kid stared. Shan didn’t look at him, just walked on down Pershozhen with his weapons and filthy stars. He fully expected to collapse with every step, but pulled himself straighter as he bit his lip to keep reactionary tears back and struggled to breathe.

He fell twice getting up the stairs to Kyra’s apartment.

Last edited by Dream Deep on Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Crysi

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Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:59 pm

Crysi says... · Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:59 pm

...Wow.

Not many stories can affect me the way yours just did... Only the good ones.

That was breathtaking (no pun intended).

There were a few confusing spots (and when I have more time I'll try to come back to this post to edit it and add in specifics), and a few typos, but... wow. Jeez. You really have this action thing down. Are you SERIOUSLY only fourteen?

The use of swearing was, in my opinion, justified. I swear I could hear the panic rising in his voice. When I would go to predict the next action, I was generally right - you went with very natural reactions to things. EXCELLENT job.

I will hurt you if you ever give up on this story. This will sell. And I will be one of the first in line to buy it.

Love and Light

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