The Retribution of Thengon - extract

 Herein is a tale.

I came across this song, a setting of Galadriel's lament for Eldamar, sometime after the Bardess Sarah and I sparked off each other in this post. The song and the setting took form as a scene in my second book, The Retribution of Thengon. I like to have this song playing in the background while reading the description of the Sanctuary in the eighth paragraph, they fit together so well.

The high road for Tol Voldimar was busy, and they had to go slow for all the traffic, most of it on foot. Sometime that afternoon, they rounded a corner in the open bush and saw it. The youngest of the Seven Cities, the only one never occupied by the Foul Folk in the Fourth Foul War, was now a large, sprawling city of many peoples and tongues. The human houses were a mixture of square, timber-framed Southlander houses, Bafedi rondavels with bright geometric patterns painted on the wattle-and-daub, and a few with some of both; they filled in the spaces between the eladon houses – wide-eaved Celadon ones and tall Moreladon ones with pitched roofs, all surrounded by the leafy trees eladi loved. Oreladon hawkers wandered the streets with carts, selling everything from food to tools to prayer cards and statuettes of the lesser gods.

Since the whole party was pretty flush with cash, they booked in to a comfortable Hospitaller in the afternoon. There was a decent bath-house right next door, a domed structure with a cavernous hot bath and a wide, low-lit cold one. The attendants seemed to all be human, which Thengon found odd. By the time all were finished, the sun was well past its height. Tulan, Tor and Tomas got everyone to find some decent civilian clothes and herded them towards the Sanctuary. Tomas felt undressed without any weaponry on him, and he could tell he wasn’t the only one. Rodi had no civilian clothes, he walked out in the loose shirt and knee-length trousers that usually went under his armour. All had upgraded their kit in the towns between Aracondor and Lits’recuna, so he didn’t look or smell too bad.

The sun was low as they walked the crooked street to the Sanctuary. It had a single pointed spire, garlanded with stone furls of fern over the entrance, and a wide dome in the middle. The crowds had come out in the cool of the evening. There were small shops selling religious tat on both sides, and the usual hawkers, of all races and colours, making sure no-one was hungry. The smells of food, the sounds of street musicians singing in at least four different languages, the smiling faces, beautiful, sad, tired, happy, content, joyful, whirled around them. Aratanie rode on her father’s shoulders, pointing and talking about everything.

The Sanctuary was easily the biggest building Thengon had ever seen. The doorway was bordered by thin stone pillars bunched together like growing herbaceous stems. There were monsters there, outside, where they belonged – reptiles graced gutter heads, horned or tusked semi-human faces leered between arches. Thengon noticed that there were open spaces at the tops of the windows, and birds were passing into the building through them. Only the most important Sanctuaries had animal magi to tend live birds.

He gawked at the doorway and the carvings for so long, the others went in without him. Only Rodi was standing with him, as if hesitant to enter. His face was starting to get that slit-eyed look he got when he was looking for trouble, so Thengon kept quiet.

Inside, the antechamber was wide and cool. It was lit from above by light caught in the coloured glass of the tower, the top of which was still in the sun, even as the ground level was in the shade. Thengon was astonished. The ceiling of the tower was vaulted impossibly high above. Below the tower in the antechamber was a great fountain: three vast, scalloped basins of solemn black diorite, cut and polished smooth by artisans with the Ability. Rose petals floated on the surface of the water. The whole party washed their hands and sprinkled themselves with the fragrant water, as one does in such places. Little Aratanie had to be told she couldn’t paddle in it, it was for sprinkling only. They passed further in.

The Sanctuary was Iyavalaradon, devoted to all seven gods and the One. There were seven smaller Sanctuaries around the main space, each one decorated with a statue of one of the lesser gods in its centre and pictures on the walls of associated lore. Some had mosaics, with ceramic tiles of turquoise, azure, green and gold. Others had frescoes, painted like living colour on plaster when still wet. Some had both. Live birds and small, semi-tame animals wandered at will. There were plants associated with the various lesser gods growing in large pots near the windows. There were some open-sided cages for the birds, with perches for them to roost. Light was everywhere, even now as the sun was setting. It was a delight to be here! As Thengon looked on, he saw hooded acolytes lighting the glass-sided lamps all around. It was time for the Evening Song.

All at once, he heard the woody sound of a xylophone, bubbling in long, low notes, and an alto voice began to sing. Then a choir of male voices joined in as background, singing low harmonies in a slow, reverent counterpoint; and a large harp and a bass stringed instrument joined in. Thengon could not see where the song came from, it was somewhere higher up. The language was Ancient Eladon, the song perhaps unchanged in several thousand years.

Celestial peace washed over Thengon’s heart and mind. He swayed where he stood, and saw others sitting on the floor or on low stools that allowed you to fold your legs underneath. As the song became familiar to some, they joined in, singing along with the male voices while the woman or elada led with her melody. He had no idea what was being sung, but no longer cared about anything. He wanted to be nowhere else right now but here. The woman sang with an Art of Imaging, and visions of peace and superhuman beauty floated through the cavernous space of the main Sanctuary.

Eventually the Song ended, and Thengon came down to the waking world. It seemed flat, mundane, but flavoured by the Song which had been. He had missed Touvaret… but did they do this here every day – sunrise, noon and sunset and midnight? How could people bear such beauty, four times a day?

Restless again, he wandered along the polished, veined-stone of the walls of the main Sanctuary. Here were relief images from the Lore of the Sunlands, the long tales of the journeys of the Oreladi. Some of the scenes he didn’t recognise at all, he would have to ask his father, or one of the wise. Speaking of whom, where were they? The swift twilight was already giving way to darkness, and they might be closing the doors soon. Then he heard a shout, and his heart sank.

It was Rodi. Following the sound, Thengon found him in the sanctuary of Marta the Mourner. Her image was a lady in purple, white hair curving out from under her veil, dignified and solemn. The skill of the carver was such that she seemed implacable and sympathetic at the same time. Her hands were extended, as if in welcome or entreaty. Carved leaves of ivy graced her slippered feet, so real he thought they lived. In the flickering lamplight at dusk, it almost looked like the statue was moving. Facing the statue stood Rodi, with his close-cropped hair and scars, one ear missing its tip. He shouted, ‘Why did you take them from me? They didn’t deserve to die, rot it all!’ At first, Thengon was worried that the elado would break something… but then he saw, he was not roaring but weeping. Rodi fell to his knees, forlorn in the flickering candle-light of the chapel. No-one seemed to notice – or maybe they were used to events such as these. The Sanctuary was now quiet. No-one disturbed his grief.

For a long, long time, Thengon knelt behind Rodi on one of those low stools, trying to be present while giving him space. It looked like this fell to him. The rest of the Sanctuary was now dark, but for the seven-wicked lamp and the Secret Fire in the middle of it. Only the Sanctuary of the Mourner was still open, with people coming and going through a small, low door that you had to bow to enter, some of them weeping bitterly. He saw the others, and all seemed to understand. Thengon’s father bent low over his shoulder and murmured, ‘Aratanie has been seen by the Soultenders. We’ll be back at the Hospitaller. Stay with him as long as you can,’ and left.

So Thengon kept vigil with his brother in arms through the night. Tanno sat with them for a while, and the others looked in briefly. Thengon’s thoughts wandered back over the past months. He had been a friend, and more – they had bled together, watched out for each other in deadly danger, horror and falling walls and walking dead. When you trust a guy with your life, they mean something to you. He loved this cracked idiot, dammit, and wished he could let go of his killing rage.

Maybe they were friends because Thengon, too, knew killing rage. He remembered the transport of wrath he had flown into when Neslos came in his power; the devilish glee of causing pain and terror to another speaking being. But he deserved it! Yes, Neslos deserved it, and he got it; there were times when Thengon wished he hadn’t killed him, so he could hurt him more… but his screams and his tears haunted Thengon betimes. Would he have been sorry, if he had been able to speak? Would Thengon have stopped hurting him, if Neslos had been able to beg for mercy? What would he, Thengon Tomasorion, do then? Would he continue cutting and beating him? If not…

Thengon dropped his head before the Lady of Mercy. Mercy was shown only to the merciful, it was said. He had not shown mercy. It was wrong. He should simply have killed him, and be done… but…

But what? No-one is without evil. Great wrong was done to him, but he did wrong to others. What would happen to him, if, coming to judgement before the One, it was seen that he had condemned someone and treated them cruelly?

Aratanie – Aratanie had been brutally treated by that Neslos, and probably by Amandil. She would have cried for her mother, would have begged to go home. She would want it! She would want them to suffer!

Would she really? She was an innocent child – tears pricked Thengon’s eyes – she didn’t even know how to hurt people! She was pure and innocent. The statue of Nienil the Mourner seemed to gaze straight at him in the flickering light of guttering candles, and all unbidden came the image: Aratanie watching him cutting and beating Neslos, and begging him to stop!

‘O gods!’ Thengon broke. He curled up on the floor of the Sanctuary in a little heap of remorse. He had sinned.

Sometime soon after that, he heard the Song of Night being sung by the same voice as had performed the Evening Song, six hours before. This song was sombre, the harmonies dark, shifting suddenly to sweeter ones to show light in the darkness, then down again. An acolyte came and gave a blanket to him, and he saw Rodi already curled up on the stone nearby, a cushion under his head. He looked at the acolyte, and smiling, she gave him a cushion, too. They were the only ones left in the sanctuary. Another acolyte came by, knelt next to him with a small wooden cup and a glass carafe, and poured a drink for Thengon. It was strong, sweet wine of some kind. He admired the ruby red of the stuff, then drank. He was filled with warmth and consolation, down to his toes. He returned the cup with weary thanks, and she left.

Thengon saw Rodi, curled up and snoring on the flagstones in his blanket, and thought, I can still keep him company from the floor. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and he lay down. If Rodi woke up and wanted to smash something, he would get up and handle it.

 

He woke, stiff as a board. Rodi snored quietly in front of him. The little candles around the statue were all burnt out, the light from the main Sanctuary was the only light inside, but there was a dim kind of cold, blue light in the windows.

‘You must be a bit stiff, down there,’ said a deep voice, quietly. Thengon looked around and saw Tulan on one of those low stools. Tor was kneeling next to him.

‘Good morning fathers,’ rasped Thengon in a harsh whisper. ‘If indeed it is.’

‘It is,’ Tor answered, ‘and Good Morning to yourself.’ Tulan rumbled the same greeting. ‘If you want to go to the Hospitaller, you may, but they won’t be open until sunup, which is a while yet.’

‘I must go and see a man about a dog,’ Thengon croaked, euphemistically. ‘I’ll be back.’

When he came back, he asked in a whisper, ‘When did you come in?’

Tor passed him a kneeler. ‘We have kept vigil since we came in for the Song of Night. As clerics, we were entitled to do so.’ He spoke in a low voice, not a whisper.

‘I am sorry if I kept you from your rest,’ Thengon said, wrapping himself back in the blanket and knelt down. How did this place get so cold at night?

‘This was rest – you were just over-wrought from your travels.’ Tor winked at him. Pure-bred eladi slept little, if at all.

‘We wanted to be present when Rodi awoke,’ Tulan said in an even lower voice than usual, ‘and perhaps you too, wish to Unburden?’

Thengon sighed. ‘Yes, that would be good.’

Thengon and Torodil went down to the Secret Fire, where under Tor’s guidance he spoke the names of his wrongdoings, thereby exposing them to the Flame for burning. They then returned to the small sanctuary, where they waited as the acolytes trooped in, climbed the stairs for the upper level, and set up for the Morning Song. As the sun’s rosy blush blessed the cavernous Sanctuary, they sang a song of brightness and hope, every bit as delightful as the restful one of Night, only in bright, light harmonies that spoke of things to do and explore. The song woke Rodi, who blearily blinked at them and actually smiled. ‘You stayed with me all night? You’re such a good friend, Theng.’ Rodi got back on his kneeler for the Song, and afterwards Theng left them to go to the Hospitaller.

Later that day, when the whole town was settling down for lunch and a rest, Tulan and Rodi came in, laughing and joking like old friends. Thengon had never seen Rodi looking so normal. The habitual gloom was gone, and Theng couldn’t even imagine him getting slitty-eyed. He shook hands with everyone, but embraced Theng, thumping him on the back. ‘You heard Her speaking to you, too, I know you did!’ he said quietly. Theng didn’t know what to say.

Seasonal differences in The Ironwood Staff

 I came across an interesting artefact of Google Earth's street-view data gathering. At the junction of the R560 and the R563 in Gauteng Province near the border with North West there's a corner we used to turn east on, when we were going to the Sappers Club in Skeerpoort on holiday. On Google Earth, they took the images for the north-south R563 in summertime; but the footage for the east-west R560 was taken in winter.

At that latitude and altitude, winter is cool and dry, while summer is hot and wet (you hope!). The summer pictures show lovely wet soil, heavy cloud and thick, green grass and leafy trees. The winter, cloudless, dusty skies, with the roadside dry sand and the grass dry and yellow, the trees bare and bristling with thorns. These two pairs of shots show the seasonal differences in stark contrast.

Summer time:

Winter time!

Summer time!

Winter time!

In The Ironwood Staff, this was the countryside the rescued slaves were walked through on the way to Greystone.

WIP: The World of The Ironwood Staff

 A big part of worldbuilding is always map-making. The epic back-story of the Eladi of the Sunlands takes place on a huge continent stretching from the northern tropics to the southern temperate zones. It's taken too long to get this map into digital format, straighten out the details. This is what it looks like now, before I've put the place-names (i.e. without lettering).

The horizontal line through the lower part is the southern tropic (Capricorn in this world). I've added so much, the detail is eye-watering. Maybe it needs a complete re-drafting, at a much smaller scale.

The Tolkien Ensemble

 I'm a big fan of the YT channel Clamavi de Profundis, I've featured at least two of their songs here previously. However, I've recently discovered another channel that also does amazing interpretations of The Professor's material, the Tolkien Ensemble. While Clamavi did a bang-up job of arranging 'The Dragon is Withered' from the Hobbit (completely redeeming it in the process, IMHO), the Ensemble group is a lot more clasical in its sound, and their arrangement of Tom Bombadil's song is just sublime. They also did an exquisiste job on Galadriel's Song of Eldamar, which deserves an epic video all on its own. Their version of 'A Merry Old Inn' is really good, and Sam's Troll Rhyme is strangely close to the tune I imagined for it - which is wondrous strange.

Have a listen to their album 'An Evening in Rivendell', which has all those tracks, and more besides. Link

 From their channel description:

The Tolkien Ensemble is a Danish ensemble which aims to create "the world's first complete musical interpretation of the poems and songs from The Lord of the Rings". They published four CDs from 1997 to 2005, in which all the poems and songs of The Lord of the Rings are set to music. The project was approved by both the Tolkien family and HarperCollins Publishers. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark gave permission to use her illustrations in the CD layout. Permanent members are Caspar Reiff and Peter Hall, Signe Asmussen, Øyvind Ougaard, Katja Nielsen, and Morten Ryelund Sørensen. The Ensemble has toured Europe in 2007, combining their own works with soundtrack pieces from Howard Shore's soundtrack to the film trilogy as well as live narration by Christopher Lee.

New Ironwood Staff background

 Now that I've finished serialising chapter extracts from The Ironwood Staff on Subscribestar, I'm serialising some of the backstory to the two books. This stuff was written down longhand all in a rush over the course of a few days, once I'd heard Mike Oldfied's Music of the Spheres. I have absolutely no clue how or why it sparked that in me, but I am a long-standing Oldfield fan, since my early 20s.

We had our origin the Place of Awakening, before the Sun and Moon. There are none now who remember it, the chances of the World have taken them all.

My grandfather’s grandfather lived in the ages of starlight. He remembered the Place, and how he and so many others fled at the coming of a being of light and power. Some stayed, and none know what became of them.

Of those who escaped, many were lost. There were shadows beyond the hills of the Place, and they came for the eladi in the dark. It was a time of terror, when one heard screams and pleading, sometimes cut short, sometimes the screaming and weeping would fade as the eladi were taken away. There were children then who lost their parents as they lay hidden, shaking in terror. As they lay in the bush, too scared even to breathe, Father Dorwin appeared, seeking the scatterlings. He had fled with them, but was strong and agile enough to fight off the nameless things that sewed the dark into a trap, and cut through it all. Father Dorwin saved so many in that time.

It may have been that he wished to return to the Place; but it was surrounded by forest, haunted by the Things In The Dark, but he perceived them and took them south.

Read the whole thing here. I'm having work done on a second edition as well, which should hopefully make the book more marketable and easier to read.

On the Nature of Good in stories

Over on my Subscribestar page, I have a link to a bit of fanfic I wrote. This is a bit of a guilty secret of mine, but I do have a Thing about Tolkien's elves, and I like to think of how they would handle situations in other stories I've read.

This particular bit of fanfic is a mashup between Middle Earth and Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series, which is an unashamed tribute to the B-movie horror genre, with the added fun of Call of Duty Zombies mod. Given that Correia is a gun nut, I think he just wished for moving targets!

Now, his series is great fun in well-spaced doses, but I have a bone to pick: his moral universe doesn't have much topography.

So, what does that mean? A good illustration is that he has goblins/orcs, but they're refugees in a rural ghetto in this story; and he has elves, but they're trailer-park trash living on welfare and watching Jerry Springer! [As a side note, this came from when his wife was reading a story, she professed disgust with how elves are always so perfect, so he thought he'd make them the lowest of the low, this time - it's quite funny when you understand why!] However, the effect is to raise the low (goblins) from evil to pathetic, and lower the high (elves) from superhuman to, well, pathetic!

But, as they say in the shouty ads, that's not all! The most dangerous monsters - vampires and werewolves - have an ability to regenerate themselves after injury. It's a bit too much like miraculous healing for my liking, so I thought the moral universe would be more balanced if they had good guys who had the same magical ability - hence the Elves of Middle-Earth (have you ever seen an elf with a lasting injury? Me neither).

But now, I've painted myself into a storytelling corner. The flip-side of having powerful good guys on your side in a story is to make it less interesting! The power of an epic myth comes from the folk hero battling huge odds and overcoming them. This is why monsters in Hollywood horror schlock are always so ridiculously overpowered. So, to use super good guys in a story, there have to be strict limits on how much they can do, either from a practical, moral or mystical viewpoint - or the story lacks drama, and therefore interest.

An interesting side note to the process of creating this particular fanfic is that, when I started speculating on what Goodness looks like, my thoughts took me to a place that was so bright and compelling, I found it difficult to sleep! I had peeked into a universe that was so wonderful, I couldn't, I didn't want to think of anything else! Fortunately, it only lasted 2-3 days. I seem to remember tales of saints or mystics who glimpsed Heaven, and wasted away, eventually dying. They must have either pined away, or desired the vision more than even food or sleep. T.S. Eliot, in Murder in the Cathedral, explained it well: Mankind cannot stand too much reality (hat tip to Sarah de Nordwall). So I might have dodged a bullet there, heh!

Nate Maingard, troubadour

There's a Cape Town-based artist named Nate Maingard, whose material I first discovered 5 years ago while unemployed and really down in the dumps. He has a Patreon and a loyal following all over, lockdowns or not.

Upon a rainy, miserable day when on the way to the Jobcentre in 2015, I suddenly hit on the idea of using a patronage site to get my book out there. This was about the time I first dipped my toes into the world of KDP. I went to the site, and somehow the first thing I clicked on was Nate Maingard's song, The Light's Alive. It went up in my mind like a firework, and gave me the oomph I needed to get started.

Alas, my attempts at gaining a following on Patreon fell prey to my introversion, but this song is still a lovely piece. I have other favourites of his, including Traveller's Song (which he sings with his dad, and sounds epically South African!), and In the Shadows, which I heard and thought, 'Yes! It's exactly like that!'

Spear-sword!

YouTuber Skallagrim has a demonstration of an extremely cool weapon, the Spit, from Zombie Tools. It's essentially a short-handled spear, apparently inspired by the King Chaka's Nklwa, but it also just happens to be very close to the weapon of Thengon Breakspear, from my second book, The Retribution of Thengon.

In the story, Thengon is issued a standard spear, but gets its handle hacked in its first outing. Because he's too hard-up to afford a new one, he makes do with the damaged one, and decides he likes it. He then becomes known as the Breakspear.

Said book is still in production, stuck near the end. I am still working on it, I promise.

Elf music

Hi again, anybody!

The channel I mentioned in my last post never ceases to amaze. Another of their tracks is a setting of The Song of Beren and Luthien. This song is so exquisite, it's like musical paracetamol - it has a miraculous ability to lift my mood and deaden any bad stuff going on.
This isn't the only elf-themed song - there are a series of 3 devoted to Earendil, as well! They have others devoted to Boromir and Hobbits, and a set of devotional settings of Easter and Christmas hymns.

Dwarf Music

I have just discovered a choir channel called Clamavi de Profundis. Their vision of Tolkien's legendarium is so good, I'm sure The Professor himself would heartily approve!
One of my favourits tracks is the Song of Durin. Listen, and be transported!

New writing sample

As a sample of what I get up to, there's a short story up on my Subscribestar page, which describes a rather fun and very realistic dream I had once.

Enjoy!

New Subscribestar Post

Over at my Subscribestar page is a thought on the draft animals of the Southlands. I thought it would be good to have my Fair Folk on something other than horses - for better or for worse!

A note on maps

The maps for Ironwood Staff and Retribution are based on the same map, scribbled down by me several years ago now, when I first started seriously writing down my story. As is tradition, North is at the top, and I thought there was enough new and strange in my book without changing that as well!

Mountains are shown as if drawn from life, which would have been the case in pre-modern times. The mountains around Greystone are drawn to resemble the Magaliesberg, which inspired the story in the first place:

Credit:Shutterstock.com

One of the first issues I encountered was that of distance - I couldn't use modern units, because it would (badly) violate suspension of disbelief; but I couldn't really use Imperial ones either, since I couldn't guess as to the progress of the caravan through the Drylands (for example) and translate that into map distance. So, I made the map assuming distances in metric, then translated that into miles, and hence into leagues. I didn't want to use miles either, so I thought, 'What does "Mile" mean?' It comes from 'unum mile passsum', a thousand paces in Latin. So I use units of 'Thousand Paces' on my map.

I thought that for future reference, I should remember this literal translation for any other measurement. For example, there would be twelve thumbs (inches) to a foot, three feet to a measure (translation of metre), a hundred measures to a furrow, etc.

I thought of this in connection with the legacy of Christopher Tolkien, son of The Professor, and his epic work in rendering the maps of Middle Earth. He set the standard for fantasy maps, with many imitators or followers adopting the "East=Evil" convention, which lasted for a time. That convention even cropped up in the Game of Thrones world, where West=Home. The crucial action all takes place on the continent of Westeros.

Of course, there's some understandable chauvinism involved here. English-speaking cultures and their literature assume that West=Home because their starting point was at the western edge of the Old World. It's burned deep into our genetic memory.

(My own personal beef with Westeros is how the whole continent seems to be in a temperate latitude, pretty much regardless of its size. Again, it's a problem of perspective. Where I grew up, you could drive from one major population centre to another, and cross at least one biome boundary in the process. Of course, none of that affects the maps as such anyway.)

The World of The Ironwood Staff - note scale bar and South Arrow at top!

Creativity Music

The Ironwood Staff was written with a variety of background music, most notably the Soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, by Howard Shore; but more importantly, there was the music of Johnny Clegg. Known in France as 'le Zoulou Blanc', he was famous in South Africa starting in the early 80s. My earliest memory of his music on the radio was African Sky Blue, with its memorable lines

the Warrior is now a Worker, and his war is underground
With cordite in the darkness, he milks the bleeding veins of gold
When the smoking rock-face murmurs, he always thinks of you
African Sky Blue...

But the track that had the greatest influence on the world of the Southlands was Nkosibomvu, the Red King.

Johnny Clegg had a stellar career in South Africa, and his music was hugely influential in racial conciliation. He was rewarded for it by being effectively banned from the UK (where he'd been born), as part of the cultural boycott enforced by the Actors' Union, Equity. Undeterred, he moved into France, where one of his concerts outsold one by Michael Jackson.

Since then, with the Retribution of Thengon, I've favoured one other item: Mike Oldfield's The Music of the Spheres. I can't find a link to the original  on YT, so this is a random guy's upload of the whole album.

This is Oldfield's first offering written specifically for orchestra, and it is glorious. I first heard the track 'Empyrean' from it on Classic FM on the way home from work in the late 00's, and adored it at first hearing. After listening to the whole thing, I scribbled down the history of the Sunlands in my Big Black Book at one sitting (something that had been percolating in my mind for some time). I regularly use it at the time of writing, when I take a writing day off.

New Paperback format!

Hi, all

The Ironwood Staff is now available as a paperback!

Slightly cheaper than the Createspace version, it also has a bit of editing done, removing a few typos.

New Review of The Ironwood Staff

A fellow Bard, who goes by the Bondlike yet midalphabetical name of M, has this to say on Goodreads.

If you like Tolkein (The Lord of the Rings), Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), or Carmody (Obernewtyn Chronicles), this book is a must. It clothes the best narrative/plot tools used in the above books in a new and comely garb. Let me try to elaborate without giving too much away (I don't want to spoil your fun with it!)...

There are elves and goblins, sorcery and abilities, nature and travel (in fact, almost a safari in your armchair!), war and love... The African-inspired universe is a clever twist on the scenery, the descriptions are excellent, and the book comes with its own map (oh, yes, every REAL new world needs a map!) and a glossary. And believe me, you need the glossary. Hamilton has such an imaginative brain that pretty much everything important has a new name (don't let that put you off, it all makes perfect sense within the parameters of that world), and there is even an entirely new but totally cohesive system of deities...

The main character, Tomas, is likeable, and - as many heroes before him - he sets off on a journey throughout the pages of this book. It's a heroic journey of growth and transformation (though I would have liked his character, not just his ability, change a bit more, perhaps as strikingly as his body), underpinned by the very real and personal struggle with evil. The encounters with darkness are breathtakingly immersive thanks to the "language Ability" Hamiton possesses. It sucks you in with its own magic of brevity and accuracy.

I hope there will be a need for a reprint in future, edited to smooth out the 15 or so typos that have crawled into the text (mostly a missing space after a full stop, so not too bad for close to 300 pages! So it did not merit me taking a star down for it). And yes, a blog accompanies this universe too, and is worth checking out. (https://www.subscribestar.com/breakspear)

Non-human races of the Ironwood Staff universe

After a few questions from folks who read the book, perhaps some names or classes need to be defined.

Kchabani - These are goblins or orcs, who were created from a mixture of monkey, human and possibly Eladon stock by the filthy arts of the Unnamed Enemy in the dark of the world. They are such an abomination to some Eladi that it is considered a mercy to kill them. Their stock is similar in kind to dogs, in that breeding for certain characteristics produces separate types with differing appearances. Large fighting breeds, of man-size or even larger, are common, but there are also trackers, craftsmen, spies and engineers (among others), who tend to form underclasses in kchaban societies. Males and females are indistinguishable, and offspring mature very quickly in less than seven years, raised either in bands of their group, or in communal schools in the case of fighting kchabani. It has been documented that living beings of non-kchaban stock can be used as living incubators for gestating kchaban imps, in a dark magical process which invariably kills the host. If a kchaban (or even human) leader is sufficiently degenerate, he may arrange for cross-breeding between humans and kchabani, which produces Arkchabani, large, aggressive types with pasty white skin who can fight in the daylight, unlike normal kchabani. Fortunately arkchabani, like mules, are infertile. Kchaban societies tend to be small and isolated in the absence of a strong leader, because they are based on predatory warfare combined with hunting and gathering.

Eladi - These are elves, practically immortal (though they may age very slowly); they are most gifted in physical ability, words and crafts. The oldest people are Moreladi, who settled the lands in remotest antiquity and built cities all over the Sunlands under the guidance of Prophets. The Prophets were spiritual leaders to whom the Powers, or the Lesser Gods, revealed the arts of civilisation, to prepare them for the arrival of the Others. With the coming of the Kchabani, they were beaten back by the superior technology of the Foul Folk, and for the most part they fled and settled in Greenland, across the sea to the south. Those who remained became a furtive, nomadic people, the Oreladi. Some time later came the Celadi, who came on great ships from other lands far away to the north. They settled first on the coasts and then further inland, and with the help of humans from the same northern lands, cleared the Southlands of kchabani, settling where they would. Their language was distantly related to that spoken by the Moreladi, but for the most part unintelligible to them. In time the Celadi came to dominate parts of the South, but they tended to look down on the Oreladi, who they found primitive and uncivilised, though there was no exploitation or conflict between the peoples. The Moreladi in Greenland remained there for millenia, growing in wisdom and culture until a dynastic struggle led to internecine warfare that lasted for centuries. In the time of The Ironwood Staff, that conflict had comparatively recently ended with the accession of King Arandamundon.

Araneladi - these are halfelves, or eladi with some human ancestry. The word comes from Celadon Aran (Man)-Elado. They have been common in some places at some times, but not always tolerated by eladi. Humans, with their easily corruptible minds and bodies, short time horizons and lack of learning, are not thought of as suitable matches, but trysts, affairs or even marriages were not very rare where the races have mingled in the past. The offspring have at times been the majority population of some territories, and the Southland Men are thought to have large proportions of eladon ancestry, even as their language contains a large portion of Celadon words. The Moreladi of Greenland actively dislike Araneladi, because they settled in the lands from which they had been driven in antiquity. As the Southlands became corrupt and unjust with the long peace after the Third Foul War, their dislike hardened into prejudice.

Magic systems and the problem of evil

When I first started thinking about a ‘good’ magic system, as opposed to one that relies on bargains with darkness, I thought to myself, ‘Under what conditions would the Creator grant power over the elements, animal minds, and inanimate matter?’

I thought the answer would be something like, ‘Having proved yourself able to resist the urge to evil.’

So, we come to the question of, What is Evil?

Evil entered the world (for humans) the first time one of us made a conscious choice to do something bad, for our own… our own what, exactly? To make ourselves feel good (in the absence of other factors, which might mitigate guilt)? How does it make us feel good? By exalting us above what we are, by giving us extra, over and above what we need; we desire to be greater, to have more, than we need (is this a design flaw, or a feature?). The self-absorption that leads us to actions which disadvantage others, we call evil. Without having looked anything up in the Cathechism, it seems to me that the insistence on self-satisfaction (concupiscence) at the expense of others is the foundation of all evil. That in turn dovetails nicely with the current idea that the opposite of love is not hate, but use.

Now, we can have self-seeking which benefits others. The energetic people who create artefacts in the material world, and then seek to sell them to others for resources they couldn’t gather while they were creating, are engaged in something good. They use their talents to solve a problem or decrease entropy in some situation, and they deserve a reward for the hard work they put in (this is the problem with political systems which reject the profit motive – they refuse to acknowledge the value of that particular kind of work). In the process, the world improves in some way, their customers get new and useful stuff, they get the resources exchanged, everyone’s happy.

There is another form of self-seeking which is pathological: when someone has enough, but wants more; when you aren’t satisfied with having the due payment for your own work, but seek to control those who supply you; when you experience so much pleasure (from any source) that the levels you experience are no longer enough, and you desire, in ever increasing measures, more and more pleasures, even as they pale and become ‘routine’. In those cases, individual self-seeking, bloated and monstrous, leads to suffering, resentment, anger; a desire for justice which, denied, warps into revenge. Thus the economy of evil has only two classes – the rulers and the ruled, masters and slaves, takers and makers.

So, it would seem that in that respect, the Buddhists have it right. The solution to suffering is to extirpate desire. How do you do that? By cultivating detachment, so that you at least no longer cause suffering by your own self-seeking. So, how do you cultivate detachment? Ah, there’s the rub!

That’s about as far as I got. I know that meditation is supposed to produce detachment. If you concentrate on nothing – on the ‘sound of one hand clapping’, or the ‘sound of the pines when the wind is still’, you should be able to force your mind to be still, at peace. However, that pre-supposes that there is nothing worth desiring… but there is.

There is one thing in all the universe worth desiring, and even that is not in the universe, except as a trace. That thing is a Person, the One Person after whom we are all measured, no matter how wonderful or strange. That Person is the source of all that is good, true and beautiful, so if you guide your meditation towards contemplation of those things, you may appreciate enough of that Person to quench all desire.

That became the power behind my magic system.