Walkin' Ledges

...locked my leg to thirty-five pounds of Blackjack County chain...

2009-09-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Cheery image, naja? What kind of threshold do you cross with a blog post titled via Willie Nelson lyrics?

Imagine, if you will, a game of Tetris. In a rush or out of distraction, you leave a few gaps at the bottom of your brickwell. Instead of working especially hard to get down to those flawed lines and remove them, you just play around on top of them. You make some tetrises. You get distracted and a few more gaps sneak in. Only now the bricks are coming faster, and it takes furious concentration to get the more recent gaps cleared up, let alone the ones you’ve left at the bottom of the well. Add to this the fact that you’ve been playing Tetris for most of a decade, and you get a tidy (if not compact) analogy for the state of my graduate studies.

This is not—or at least isn’t planned to be—a rant about how behind I am on soul-killing research and writing, with a malevolent advisor breathing down my neck. Nor is it even really a rant about how complicated the mixture of family (including two small children) and school can get. It’s about how…vague…things have gotten for me.

Fall is my favorite time of year. “Most of all he loved the fall/The leaves yellow on the cottonwoods/Leaves floating in the trout streams/And above the hills, the high, blue, windless skies.” (Sorry, Mr. Hemingway, but I’m cutting out the last line because, to answer a quote with another quote “I’m not dead yet.”) (There. Do we all feel sufficiently knowing?) Ahem. (Ahem!) Fall is my favorite time of year. When I was a kid, part of that fun was the fun of going back to school. Yeah. I was one of those kids who liked school, which is a partial explanation why I’m still in school with my thirtieth birthday just around the corner. This year, I’m not technically going back to school. I’m forking over a chunk of money for a paltry credit that doesn’t require anything except that my advisor signs off on it at the end of the semester. Classes started last week, and they started without me either in front of or in a class. The first week of September wasn’t any different, in terms of daily obligations, than the last week of August. The only things that really clue me into school having started are Facebook status updates and a suspicious increase in yellow buses on the road.

Add to this the weather. Yes, we love to talk about weather in Minnesota, but we also happen to be eight days into a string of eighty-degree days—tied for the longest such string of the year. Aside from drought-choked trees turning yellow, there’s not much environmental clue that it’s fall. The days are getting short, but that doesn’t hit me quite like the first nip of cold air. I want some fifty-degree days and some sub-freezing nights. The colder weather lends a solidity that, in the fall, doesn’t lead to immobility. It’s good weather for being out and about, cool enough that you can exercise without bathing in your own sweat. The beautiful clutter of summer leaves falls away and bare branches make a mosaic of the sky. It’s good to be where you’re at, inside or out.

Even under a grey sky, there’s a clarity to fall weather. That’s what I’m waiting for.

P.S. If you’re interested in more family goings-on, go check out my wife's blog. I contribute occasionally, and there are lots of pictures and some videos.

Dinadan Noir XVI: Concluded

2009-09-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

Gilgal drummed his fingers on the stack of papers sitting in the middle of his desk. He thumbed through them, then looked up at the satyr sitting across from him. “Who’d you bribe to do the paperwork for you?”

I resisted the urge to smile. “Did them myself, sir. Although Carnely gave me some pointers and thought it’d be funny if I tried to copy his ‘handwriting.’”

Gilgal wasn’t amused. “Krysospas did some of these himself. Your imitations are decent. Might fool a junior officer into doing a donut run. But not me.”

“Carnely played a major part in sorting things out, sir. I didn’t see anything wrong with letting him contribute to those parts of the paperwork. There was a lot to write-up.”

“Indeed. Twelve, no, thirteen corpses. A pair of fires, one of which consumed over a hundred thousand gold’s worth of mushroom spirits. Breaking and entering, assault, disturbing the peace…and you didn’t report any of it until you dragged Krysospas into your hare-brained project.”

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want to see me back here.”

“I also told you to stay out of sentinel business, that you were removed from active duty, and that it would mean your badge if you got yourself into trouble again.”

“Come on, sir. I got you Whale Oil McKay and Upal Toth, solid on murder and extortion. And resisting arrest. Never mind the fallout in Borales.”

Gilgal grunted. “That’s something, but not much compared to the trouble you’ve made.”

“There’s this, too.” I pulled something of my satchel. The jade monkey was the only tangible gain I had managed in the whole affair.

“You should know better than to talk to me about selling evidence to raise funds.”

“Not for selling.” I looked in vain for a bit of clear space on Gilgal’s desk. Shrugging with a nonchalance I didn’t entirely feel, I hefted the ugly chunk of jade…and threw it straight at the floor. It shattered, revealing a set of tightly-bound scrolls. I hid my relief, plucked them from the wreckage, and passed them over to the chief. “Have a look. It’s about the Igneous operations, isn’t it.”

Gilgal unrolled the first scroll, revealing tiny, careful script. His eyes darted back forth across the page. “Yes. Smuggler’s routes, safe houses, gambling dens, reports on personnel…”

“Aagren was getting ready to make a power play, go over to the Borales wing. I suspect this was going to be his admission fee. He must have been nervous, to give this to Arbonne. I don’t think she knew what it was. She was going to pay me with it. Showed it to Schrau. Took him about two seconds to figure out it was a fake, and only a third to guess it was hollow.”

“And you’ve waited until now to open it because…?”

“Because I didn’t figure out what was in it until last night. Something McKay said about Aagren not holding up his end of the deal. I’d already figured that Aagren had hit the ceiling in the Igneous wing, so he either had to knock off his boss—and who likes their chances against somebody like Gero—or grab a spot in a more dynamic environment. Even before I got caught up in it, the Family set-up in Borales was a mess. Coming in with a bunch of information and some muscle would have set Aagren right up near the top, made him an uncle for sure, maybe given him enough heft to take over as grandfather. But he would’ve needed somebody inside in Borales, somebody who’d give him some protection from Gero. Toth and McKay fit the bill, although I think he over-estimated their abilities and their desire to play nice with him.”

Gilgal was still poring over the scrolls. “We’d need half the thief-takers in the Retroverse, but we could shut the Family down in Igneous. Set them back years.”

I nodded. “That’s worth the trouble, yeah?”

“Look, Whistler. You’re not a detective. You’ve already proven that you can’t do undercover work, and with you leading the bard guild, that’ll be even less feasible. Everything you get involved with seems to end in a pile of bodies, a mess of reports and reparations, and a headache for me. I’m not going to take your badge. I’d like to, but I’m not. I’m not even going to heap more warnings on you, because you’ve proven deaf to them. If you ever decide to make a career in this guild, there’s a place for you. For now, I want you in here once a ten-day. If a deputy asks for your help, you give it. You take no cases for yourself without my permission or Foil’s. Anything you do out in the field, you take a fully-trained sentinel with you. Clear?”

“Limpid as an elf-maid’s eyes.”

“I asked you a question.”

“Aye, Gilgal. It’s clear.”

“Then sweep up your mess and get the hell out of my office.”

Dinadan Noir XV: Easy Come...

2009-09-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tiny bells tinkled.

Damini’s new shop was smaller than her old one. Everything in Borales was smaller. It was posh, though. Cushioned chairs for clients to try on their purchases. Real crystal in the lamps. Magic to dampen the smell of tanning chemicals. Incongruously, a mural of Welstar’s sky decorated the ceiling. Real nice place. I hoped she appreciated what I’d gone through to make it happen.

She’d swapped linen for silk, a deep red that pushed her already-lily skin into competition with fresh-fallen snow. Her black hair was bound up simply with a matching ribbon. That fey, angular face looked as lovely as ever.

“Life seems to be treating you well, Damini.”

Her smile was crooked, but it was a smile. “Yeah. Done alright. Seems some favors fell into my lap.”

“I’m glad. I mean that.”

She sighed and ducked into the back room, emerging with a suspiciously familiar bottle and two stone cups.

“So now you’re going to serve me my own firewine?”

She shrugged and poured, handed me a cup.

“It never would have worked out, you know. You Gifted, you ain’t got the right attention span for the rest of us.”

“Maybe.” I thought about Avren, gone in a flash of teeth, about other women who’d climbed my ladder once, twice, a dozen times. They were gone, too…at least for me. I could wish all I wanted for settling down, but it wasn’t going to happen. There’d always be an elf-queen with a mutinous niece, a homarid hooker, a mysterious artifact…or a Gifted friend with a problem he couldn’t solve alone. We could hide from the world, but if we walked out the door, we walked into trouble. One way or another. I sipped the firewine. It was good. “But it would’ve been fun while it lasted.”

“Prob’ly, yeah. You got good taste in liquor, at least. An’ yer prob’ly good in bed.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She laughed, and my maudlin lifted a bit.

“We could give it a try…”

“No. You were right, it wouldn’t work out. And I don’t think I could manage to get your shop replaced again. Not without moving you offworld.”

“How -did- you manage all this, anyway?”

“Perhaps I’m not as bad a detective as you thought.”

She snorted. “How many lies’d you have t’tell?”

“Surprisingly few. And most of those were in the Sentinel paperwork.”

“You make a habit of messing up food chains?”

I thought about that for a moment, too. “Seems like it, yeah. But at least I got Borales settled without a war. Z’brzzt is at least more subtle than Toth and McKay would’ve been.”

“I still can’t believe you got the argus to bankroll my shop.”

“He didn’t. Not exactly.” I looked away. “Took care of the property rights, which was the hard part.”

“Oh Dinadan, really? For me? After a kiss on the cheek and puking on yer feet?” She sounded mildly horrified.

I mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said ‘I felt guilty.’ And it wasn’t that much gold, really. Not for me.”

“Goat, you are a sucker for a pretty face.”

“Been called worse, Damini. And I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Thanks. Got some tips from Lisl…over at the ‘Phile. Tips and plenty of orders. Can’t remember the last time I had so many silk slippers and thigh-highs to make. An’, for some reason, hob-nailed boots.”

“Probably better you don’t ask. They’ve got some strange customers.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That was you too, wasn’t it. See? This is why it’d never work. You’re such a,” she looked for the right word, “a meddler! What gave you the right?”

“Look, they were getting in all their shoes from Wysoom.” I raised my hands defensively. “I just let them know that there was a perfectly fine cobbler here on Crypt, and that she’d be setting up shop in Borales soon.”

Maybe it was the firewine, and maybe it was the anger, but Damini’s cheeks were pleasantly flushed. She made a point of busying herself with the drinks for a bit…but all in my sight this time. At length, she asked, “So what’s next?”

“Igneous.”

“You can’t mean t’take on Gero? Yer mad, but not that addled.” Damini said. “Are you?”

I grinned. Mysteriously. “Not exactly. I might be an idiot samaritan, but I’m not that stupid. Unless there’s a pretty face, and you seem well set here.”

“Then how--know what? Don’t tell me.”

“You, Damini, are getting wise in your old age.”

She punched me in the shoulder. Hard. “Don’t make me take you over my knee!”

“Oh? We’re back to taking each other? I thought we agreed that wouldn’t work out.”

She hit me again, but not as hard. “Get out of here before I get drunk enough fer bad ideas t’start looking good.”

I stood, kissed her on the cheek before she could get out of the way, and made for the door. “Like I said, you’re wising up.”

She threw a shoe at me. Good thing it was just a slipper, because the firewine hadn’t much affected her aim. “Dinadan!” I paused on the threshhold. “Thanks. For everything.”
“You’re welcome, Damini.”

Tiny bells tinkled.

I tried to cheat my sigh by making it melodramatic, but it didn’t help. There was time
to drown it later. I had one more stop to make to wrap this thing up.

Dinadan Noir XIV: The Play's the Thing

2009-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

Now, let me tell you something about reading people. Career sentinels, they learn to read criminals. Damn good at it. They can pick a crook out of a crowd and guess how he’s going to fight, and whether he’ll fight or run. Schrau Cadnos, for one, can take a look at a perp and tell you pretty much anything you’d care to know. Useful skills to have, especially when you’re waist deep in an investigation and trying to get yourself clear.

Bards have different ways of reading people. Me, I can poke my head through a barroom door and tell you within a couple coppers how much I could net playing there for an hour. I can look you over and figure out which things you want to hear about yourself. We chat for a few, and I can start convincing you of things, even without putting magic behind it. But there’s not much call to read criminals. Like just about everything else, bards are generalists at the people reading game.

Everything I read on the Borales uncles as they filtered in was bad. They weren’t happy, not with each other, not with me. Glares sufficed for eye contact. I’m surprised none of the bodyguards popped a lung puffing themselves up. McKay had brought Guido, who seemed to reserve most of his menace for yours truly. The skinny one pretending to be Upal Toth’s shadow actually was a shadow, and I caught traces of magic all over him. Z’brzzt came in with a dwarf who made the bartender at the Worm’s Abode look like a runt. The other two uncles—undead named Bookman and Loftis—came with patchwork golems. Plenty of bad juju to go around, and every one of ‘em ready to point it at me.

I reminded myself that death was temporary, and took some solace in the fat folder sitting in Carnely’s desk at headquarters. There was enough in there to hang murder charges on Toth and McKay, and enough to make life hot for the others. It wasn’t as much as I’d hoped for, though, not enough to shut down Borales completely. And not enough to do anything at all for Damini. And I hated losing. Which was why I was going ahead with the plan.

Carnely banged a small gong whose origin I didn’t care to guess. He’d dressed for his part, all in black…or at least black dye. I could already tell where it was fading; magical threads weren’t much for holding colors not their own. There wasn’t a proper stage, let alone a backstage, but he had his weapons stashed behind the screen we’d set up. I wasn’t carrying anything obvious, but I had my lute and some of my better bits of enchanted jewelry. And, naturally, my silver tongue.

“Esteemed gentlemen of Borales,” I began, nodding to each in turn with a smile we all knew was fake. “Thank you for coming. I have a special story for you today, one you might not know, but one you’ll surely recognize. It is a tale of my homeland, of bright and distant Welstar. It is a tale of intrigue, of war, of danger and daring.

“Once, long before the war with the Darklord, there were two kingdoms, neighbors who had long eyed each others’ borders with greedy caution. Alike in dignity, the storm kingdom and the river kingdom squabbled, but always stopped short of war. One winter, though, the king of the river kingdom had a hunting accident. A fatal one. In the river kingdom, the princes—trueborn and bastard alike—turned their eyes and knives from the storm kingdom to one another.

“None wished to strike first, for fear of upsetting the careful balance that ruled the river palace. None wished to speak forthrightly, for fear of betraying a weakness. None wished to remain silent, for fear of betraying a strength. So they postured and lied and gathered and dispersed, and the throne remained vacant for want of courage rather than want of ambition.

“For there was ambition, much ambition. And not only in the river kingdom. In their desire for the throne, two princes sent agents to the storm kingdom, and found there a prince who might aid them. Promises were made, gifts exchanged, and plans prepared.

“Alas for the river kingdom that the storm king had plans of his own, and little patience for scheming among his princes. The traitor was slain by the storm king’s own hand. The storm king’s fury tightened the ranks of his vassals—and thinned them, for he had little patience for dissent.

“In the river kingdom, the princes were drawing up their own battle lines, little heeding the rumbles from across the border. Having lost their foreign ally, the two princes increased their posturing, and swayed many of the lesser nobles to their cause. Indeed, all but one of the princes were ready to throw their lot in with these two. The remaining prince, of keen eye, prepared to make the fight difficult.

“While the river kingdom prepared for nights of long knives, the storm king raised armies, ready to swoop in as soon as the fighting began. With their greedy eyes on the throne, the two princes were oblivious to the threat…”

I paused, plucking out a few more arpeggios. “This is where the tale truly becomes interesting. For the two princes had committed crimes. Numerous crimes. And evidence had reached the high king’s agents. The high king, though a believer in justice, also wished to avoid a war between the river and storm kingdoms. So he turned to the keen-eyed prince, and offered him the river kingdom’s throne, provided he would assist in the arrest of his rivals and fortify the river kingdom sufficiently to discourage the storm king’s advances…”

I knew many subtle stories, and subtler songs, but this particular tale hadn’t called for such. Carnely picked that moment to emerge from behind the screen, his badge obvious, a flickering blade and clawed net in his hands. McKay kicked the table up and rolled away in a hurry. Guido had his chain out and spinning. Toth’s shadow did something and a Fellblade appeared in its hands. Bookman tried the door, barred from the other side. Toth worked his tentacles and appeared frustrated when his spell failed. I was already throwing spells of my own. The same magic that kept Toth stuck there was keeping me stuck there too, and even if I’d wanted to bail, I would have had to get through the people I’d just condemned to prison.

This is where it got touch and go. Bookman threw in with Toth. Alone, that made things complicated. Loftis, though, decided to sit out altogether. The numbers looked like they’d tell. I took a hard knock to the head that left me on the floor. I continued, weakly, keeping McKay more or less distracted. But my voice wouldn’t hold out forever. Carnely had his hands full holding off Guido and the shadow. Z’brzzt’s dwarf was dealing with Bookman’s golem while Bookman and Toth kept throwing dangerous shimmers our direction.

Z’brzzt was the trump card, though I’d had no idea he had the skills he did. I’d figured him for a mage, and the lightning certainly validated that guess. But he’d studied biomancy, too. Enough to prop the rest of us up while we dropped Bookman and his golem, then the shadow, then Guido. When Guido crumpled, Loftis decided the die was cast and sent his golem into the fray on our side. Toth didn’t give up until we’d broken both of McKay’s arms and one of his legs. And McKay still managed to crack Carn’s ribs before we got the shackles on. The dwarf swore up and down by gods even I’d never heard of that we hadn’t heard the end of this.

“If that whore-smitten Aagren’d held up his end, it wouldn’t’ve come t’this! Pox on you, goat! Baal-Lujuur wither your balls!”

Interesting. McKay went on in that vein for a while, not that it helped him. We passed him off to the thief-takers Carnely had waiting upstairs, along with Toth, who’d done nothing but glare. And bleed. The corpses we left for the locals to deal with.

“One or the other will turn, once we get them in the cells and on the dock.” Carnely said. “You got enough evidence to pin at least Arbonne on them. Never mind the extortion and racketeering stuff. You did good.” The rat looked a little worse for the wear, but he was tougher than he looked, and managed a rodent smile.

“Thanks for the assist, Carn. Gilgal would’ve had my head if I’d tried to bring them in myself.”

Carnely put on his serious face. “He might have your head anyway, Dinadan. You’d better write a damn fine report.”

It was my turn to smile. “You’re right. We’d better write a damn fine report.”

“Wha—?”

“You didn’t think I’d forgotten that time I had to come rescue you from the Stewhouse? The ettin who wasn’t really a dominatrix, who was really just beating you up?”

Carnely groaned. “This is the last you get for that, Dinadan.You hear me?”

“Yeah, Carn. Why don’t you head over to the Barnacle and get started. I’ll catch you up shortly.” I jerked my head at Z’brzzt, who’d been hovering patiently, quietly discussing things with Loftis.

“Alright. You’re buying the drinks, though.”

“Sure. Get going.” I gave him a not-so-subtle shove. “You don’t need to hear this next part.”

Z’brzzt bobbed in acknowledgment as I approached. Loftis did an admirable job of disappearing into the scenery. “You have come to discuss the strings, yes, Master Whistler?”

I put on my widest business smile. “Something like that, yeah. Something like that.”

Dinadan Noir XIII: Word on the Street Redux

2009-02-19T11:53:00.000-08:00

I headed back to Crypt with a fresh well of energy. It’s good to have friends in Gydnia. In the long run, magic’s no substitute for sleep, but a quick boost worked wonders. The running of my brain at its usual speed was a mixed blessing. On the right, I felt much less likely to blunder into accidental death. On the left, I actually had to think about the things Damini had said. On some level, she was right. I kept my hand in the detective business because it wasn’t like anything else, because there was more to it than just outfighting the other guy. Gilgal had asked me, before he gave me my badge, why I was joining. “I like it,” I’d told him, “the finding things out.” And I still did. But there was more to it than that. At least now. I was a long way from the wilder who’d fought off a necromancer with his dad. Now, I could make a difference. Or at least I thought I could. And that was the other thing Damini had been right about—taking down a couple of Family heavies wasn’t going to help. Much. But maybe, maybe, I could do more than take down a few heavies. If I could hit them hard enough, maybe the shake-up might do more good than harm. But I was a long way from being able to hit them that hard, and I wasn’t exactly swimming in time to wind up for a haymaker.

So I went to Borales and improvised, which for me nearly always meant chatting up strangers. I spent the next dozen hours as half a dozen different people—Lucky the stevedore (who quickly learned that zombies rather had that market cornered), Elem the collector of antiquities (who “discovered” a number of pieces of dwarf work, some of them authentic), Jhim the beggar (who nearly got killed), Artan the gentleman adventurer (who could have pleasantly spent a good deal of gold in the theater district), Fank the odd jobs man (who got offers nearly as strange as Artan did), and, most productively, Othar the aspiring assassin. It turned out that Borales was full of opportunity if you were willing to make somebody phoenix food. Not that they’d mention the important jobs to some off-worlder with no real connections (not that I didn’t make up a few), but enough of the heavies were throwing coin around to make life -very- interesting for the folks who’d take it.

Better still, some of the same names kept cropping up. McKay was apparently hiring. Most of the muscle I talked to, even the ones who clearly worked for somebody else, pointed me to the dwarf, or directly to Upal Toth. A few other names came up, people who were looking for muscle, but folks were picking Toth’s horse to win. Most everybody who pointed me towards Toth warned me against signing on with some argus called Z’brzzt. So of course he was the one I tried to follow up with. This was easier said than done. I plied my charms with a will, but only managed to get one rung higher than his secretary. The lieutenant I chatted with (a thuul who looked like he could’ve been built right alongside Guido and Nunzio) was tight-lipped, but his his body language screamed wary interest. He wanted references, background, proof that I could get jobs done. I’m sure I tripped some of his alarms, but I walked out of his office with a follow-up appointment I had no intention of keeping. More importantly, I walked out of there pretty confident about the lay of the land in Borales. It was messy, but battle lines were forming. Fast.

When I went through the same rigamarole in Igneous, names were not so easy to get, and only Jhim managed to get them. Everything was as shook up as Vinnie had said, if not moreso. (I refrained from paying that particular worthy a visit.) Everybody was chattering about Aagren, and who might have done for him. Gero’s name never came up in those conversations, but it otherwise came up more often than I expected. There were others—lieutenants, mostly—who’d shown up dead, with holes blasted in their chests or the more usual stiletto in the eye. Some of the people on the sidelines had stories about an off-world vigilante with a grudge. Most of the insiders, though, they were looking up the ladder. Gero was angry, and his uncles were jumpy, and anybody who so much as whispered disloyalty was getting croaked. Everyone was paranoid. Everyone was toeing the line. And everybody in Igneous thought the trouble was part of some scheme from Borales. I wanted to know more, but lips got tight and I made myself scarce as soon as I realized just how pitched the climate was against outsiders.

Back in my own clothes and body language, I returned to Borales for a few drinks at the ‘Phile. I tipped well, avoided talking to other patrons, and bugged a few of the employees about Arbonne, and about Aagren. They were commendably discreet, and I ended up talking to the hostess once more. She wasn’t happy with it, but she answered a few more of my questions. This time I actually took notes. I found out some interesting things about where her girls (and boys) got their shoes, about the Borales real estate market, and about the latest in popular tunes. I made a few other stops, took a few more notes, then headed home to my boards and papers. It was time to start filling some of those gaps.

Because one way or another, there was a war brewing, and if I was serious about keeping innocents from getting caught up in it, I was going to have to come up with one hell of a story.

Dinadan Noir XII: Jeopardy

2009-02-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I like to bluff. It takes longer than you’d think for folks to pick up on it at the table, but once they do, my pile of chips starts shrinking. I was hoping that the Family wasn’t thinking too hard about my stories. I didn’t have the fat, incriminating folder I’d verbally waved at the assassin. Not yet. What notes I had were sprinkled in amongst a melange of dirty limericks, saccharine ballads, and drinking songs. So, even before I got to work figuring how I was going to walk out of a room of Family heavies with my body and mind in one piece, I had to get that folder put together. And as much as I wanted to toast my momentary victory with something fermented, I settled for tea. Strong tea, and plenty of it, because it was going to be a while before I got around to sleeping.

My hand started to cramp an hour in. Never mind that I can play a lute or pipes all night. I sighed, drank some tea, massaged my hands, and got back to writing. If they can’t kill you with poison, they’ll kill you with paperwork. I had half a dozen stacks going, one on each murder, one on the warehouse, and a few on bits and pieces that threatened to become a single superstack. I stared at them for a while, then wandered down to the basement. I kept a couple of big planks down there to throw knives at. For a while, that’s what I did, mostly to try and loosen myself up. Once boredom and fatigue got a fresh conspiracy going, I made a new pot of tea and started stapling names and events to the planks. I threw some more knives. I noodled on my pipes. I stared at the scraps of paper, moved some around. Gero. Toth. McKay. Aagren. A small zoo of nicknamed lieutenants: Shark, Rock Wolf, Eel, Shembler...

Isn’t detective work thrilling? I sat and stared at the facts, trying to make them into a pattern that worked. I knew there were answers there. But I wasn’t even seeing the gaps I needed to pick the next question. So I did what any right-thinking bard would do: I went to talk somebody else into doing it for me.

[—*—]

“You what?”

“I need you to hire me.”

Damini shook her head. “You’ve lost it.”

“Not exactly.”

“Where’ve you been, anyway? You look like hell.”

“I’ve been awake for…a while.” I pushed on. “Don’t you even care why I want you to hire me?”

“No. No, I don’t. You’re the one what got my shop wrecked, drug me to this airy green place, and are probably goin’ t’get me killed. That don’t incline me to hire you. Never mind that I scarce got enough gold to keep flesh and spirit t’gether.”

“Look, things are coming together for me. But I need an audience.”

“An audience? Really.”

“Just listen. I’ve almost got this mess under my fingers. Almost. But I’m missing something. I’m not exactly your usual detective—”

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know, goat.”

“You’re prettier when you’re not glaring at me.”

The glare in question deepened. Considerably. I sighed, took a deep breath, tried again. “I’ve got a lot of information. More than I thought I did really. The answer is lurking somewhere in that information, but I don’t have the right question. Hire me. Give me one.”

“Make something up. Isn’t that what you’re good at?”

“I need an audience.”

“Bullshit. You wanted an excuse to come see me and somebody to complain to about how stuck you are, and you didn’t even have the decency t’bring booze. Your courtship could use some work.”

If I’d been less tired and her eyes less black, I would have stormed out of the room. But I stayed. “Did you ever think that this might not be about you? That I’m actually trying to solve a murder?”

“It ain’t about a murder.”

“The hell it isn’t! You know how hard it is to bring Family up on charges anywhere? You get one charge to stick, you can start pulling, maybe bring in more. I get enough to hang Arbonne’s murder on somebody, we can start going after others.”

“An’ why, Mr. Greencoat, is that a good thing? Crypt ain’t this soft ball of dirt you grew up on. You pull the Family down, things ain’t going to get any better. Only things what prop up the cities are the Family and the Necromancers Guild, and with the guild gone t’ground, there ain’t a lot of options. You think Ickipus is goin’ to clap you on the back when yer done? Even if you haul in Gero, ain’t going to help the livin’ or the dead overmuch. You walk th’seedy side of the street often enough t’know that. Nothin’ changes but the badge numbers and th’size of the jackboots.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe, Dinadan. You’re Gifted, an’ everything you do gets all crooked from that. You think you’re achievin’ something by hauling Family in, you go ahead. I ain’t got the time for Crusades. Not when I only die once.”

“You think it’s any better to die as often as the gods see fit? One shot for you, one moment of having your soul ripped out of your body, and it’s done. No having to put it back together, to come back too weak even to sit, wondering what you’ve forgotten. So yeah, I suppose that messes with your perspective a bit.”

“Go home, Dinadan Whistler. Go play your pipes and sing your songs and save your stories for somebody who cares. Quit concoctin’ messes just so you can leave off bein’ bored.”

Mom and dad drilled it into me that you never hit a woman unless she’s pointing a blade or a spell at you, but my hand still came up. She held my eyes as I lowered it. “This isn’t a game. It hasn’t been a game for years. This is about people—whether they’re Gifted or not—and whether they can get away with pushing other folks around. Arbonne didn’t ask to get killed any more than you asked to get your shop wrecked. I can’t let them just get away with it. Not when I know what it’s like to die, what it’s like to be pushed around on a bigger scale than any city on Crypt.”

Her sigh was somewhere between wistful and exasperated. “I liked you better when you were just a pretty boy buying me drinks, goat.” The fire’d gone out of her. “You really think you can change things.”

“Not really. Not for everybody. But I can try.”

“Then leave off talking to me and go try. You got no reason to hang ‘round here. Not if you’re really buying into your own stories. You want a job? Fine. Figure yourself out. I’ll pay you in shoes.”

She walked over, kissed me on the cheek, and gave me a gentle shove toward the door. It speaks to the depth of my confusion and my fatigue that I let her close it behind me.

A Year Later

2009-01-31T08:25:00.001-08:00

We still miss you. Hope you're somewhere with the Food Network and a really, really good grocery store.

Ode to the Gizmonic Institute

2009-01-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

So this is my farewell to a fleet in a game that I've recently given up. The fleet is named (as the nerd-wise amongst you have already guessed) after the "evil" institute that sends Joel into space to watch an endless stream of bad movies...thus Mystery Science Theater 3000. The game is the somewhat misnomered Star Pirates (misnomered because the action all takes place in an imaginary future wholly around a single star--Sol. I don't blame them, though. "Planet Pirates" sounds pretty lame.).

I whipped this up as a tribute to the awesome folks with whom I played the game in my last days of active play.

Back in Cthonic Days
Before the Gizmonic Craze
Science was just banging rocks
But with the Institute
No mind shall be destitute
Because Gizmo-science rocks

It isn't the monkeys
Or lab-coated flunkies
That make Gizmonic shine
Not even the chili
(Or saber-toothed lilies)
Or remnants of Frankenstein

The science is blinding
And research is finding
That G knows its way 'round beakers
So listen right close
And I'll give you a dose
Of Science from over-amped speakers

(instrumental bridge)

Space without Gizmonic?
What's gin without tonic?
Not a place I'd like to be!
So when donning fleet tags
Or waving the war flags
You'd better make mine a "G"

The instrumental bridge is full of loud electric guitars and half a dozen monkeys going crazy with crowbars and brake drums. Also, beat-boxing.

Dinadan Noir XI: Work

2009-01-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

I had a bad feeling when I headed home from the Wench. Fleshless skulls aren’t open books, but there’d been something in Vinnie’s attitude that seemed…off. Wasn’t much to go on, but I hadn’t gotten where I was by ignoring hunches. I slowed my walk and made some thinking faces. Then it clicked. He’d said “Goodbye.” Not “see ya next time, goat,” or “come back when you’ve solved that breathing problem.” Just “goodbye.”

So I was almost expecting the knife that flew out of the shadows as I stepped into my front yard. Lucky I spent some time on the wrong end of a knife-throwing act. Caught the knife, by the handle even.

It was dark, but I could tell the would-be hitman was only a bit bigger than I was, and that he’d already gotten another sharp implement into his hands. I shouted “Discursus!”

In the time it took him to decide if it was a spell or just inanity, I’d chucked the knife right back at him. Sunk about four inches of blade into his right shoulder. He dropped the knife he’d been readying and drew a rapier. For my part, I reached dramatically to my hip and drew…nothing. When I wasn’t pretending to be a bravo, I hardly ever carried a dagger, let alone a real sword. My crossbow and Drak were inside, with a complicated lock and an assassin between them and me.

Not that I needed them.

The ball of glue formed with a flick of my mind, and swelled as I hurled it at the hitman. It wasn’t enough to stop him cold, but it was enough to slow him down.

“You’re getting blood on my lawn. Popular songs to the contrary, it’s not good for the grass.”

He was game, I’ll give him that. He kept his mouth shut and kept coming, probably figuring that his only way out of this was to finish the job he’d already botched. If he’d gotten me with that first knife, he might have pulled it off. I hit him with more glue, rattled his brains with a sonic blast or two, and—once, when he got too close—a pretty passable left hook. It was the punch that dropped him. This surprised me.

“Come on, man, I’m a long way from a professional pugilist.”

He lay there, bleeding and gasping. Wholly human beneath the the hood, with spittle in his whiskers and eyes going glassy.

“Ah. Playing with poison will get you into trouble.” I pulled out the theriac I kept on my person for just such moments. “You’d like some of this, yes? Before whatever nastiness you put on that knife finishes you?” The hitman managed a nod. Good, tougher than he looked. I dumped some more conjured glue on him, then flexed the small bit of biomancy I knew to put some color back in his cheeks.

“Note that I haven’t done anything about the poison yet.” Another nod. “Now, I’m not sure how the Family deals with botched ‘work,’ but I’m willing to bet that you’re a little worried about that, even if I let you live.” I did my best imitation of a menacing grin, the effect probably lost in the bad light. “I’m not going to ask you to tell me who put the hit out, or how you knew I’d be here tonight. Vinnie will have some ‘splaining to do.” I thought for a moment, tossing the theriac from hand to hand. “I’m guessing it was Toth, maybe through McKay. Doesn’t much matter whose gold at this point. You tell them I want a meeting. All the Borales uncles. A little private performance by the Storyteller. It’ll be worth their while. A good chance for them to finish the job you couldn’t if they don’t like what I have to say, a chance for me to settle things if I can manage my most winsome. And in the meantime, they get to take in a show. They get, oh, one bodyguard apiece. And I’ll bring a stage manager. Just to keep everybody honest. The greencoats’ll stay home, the muscle will stay home, and we can have a chat.”

“They’ll never buy it.” Huh. Maybe I overdid it with the biomancy.

“Tell you what—what is it you call yourself?”

“Talto.”

“Talto, then. I’ve worked up a pretty hefty folder on the Borales Family in the last few weeks. Enough to make a few murder charges stick, and probably a pretty good case against some of the smuggling operations. That’ll be part of the stakes. If they don’t show, it goes straight to Radisgad’s desk. If I don’t walk out, it goes straight to Radisgad’s desk. They either play my game or I invite the Sentinels in. And you know how touchy Old Man Radisgad gets when somebody starts messing with his own. Clear?”

He nodded, looking pale again. “There’s a back room at the Den, down by the fighting pits. I’m sure you know it. I’ll have it reserved for the sixth hour in three days. Horrible acoustics, but best bouncers in the ‘Verse, discreet ownership, and neutral turf. I’ll be waiting.”

I mixed the theriac, then, poured it down his throat. “I’m going inside now. The glue won’t last too much longer. As soon as you can, get the hell off my lawn. And make sure you get that message across.”

Dinadan Noir X: Word on the Street

2009-01-15T13:44:00.000-08:00

Vinnie Twofingers liked to style himself a booking agent. That was how I’d met him, years earlier. Turned out he booked mostly private parties. Very private. One performer and—most of the time—an audience of one. I wasn’t interested in that kind of business, but Vinnie was an amiable sort for a walking corpse, and he’d managed to hook me up with one or two legit, non-horizontal gigs. I’d swing by every once in a while to see if any of the girls he represented were interested in becoming proper bards. It got Vinnie a finder’s fee, it got the guild promising members, and it got me the warm fuzzies of a quiet good deed. Vinnie also made it a point to know as much as he could about every shady deal that happened on Crypt. His girls kept him well-informed, and he made a tidy profit as an information broker when it suited him. I was happy to find him in his office. There were too many gaps in Damini’s story. She’d told me what she knew, but she was still just a cobbler with good ears and more-than-healthy ambition.

“Vinnie! How’s it going?”

“Dinadan Whistler. What an unexpected pleasure.” It was always a little disconcerting to hear his whiskey-soaked baritone coming out of an empty skull, but that was Crypt for you. “Is it time for you to steal away my girls again?”

I shook my head. “Come on, Vinnie, you’ve got better sources than that.”

“Humor me. I want to hear you say it, mostly so I can charge you like a real client.”

“Alright, alright. Vinnie, I need some information.”

He spun his chair and kicked his feet onto the desk. “Nice shoes, yeah? Pretty cobbler girl over on Biotite made ‘em for me. That’s real Soselian crocodile. Shame, though…that shop got closed down. Little bit of a scuffle. I even heard—and you won’t believe this—that some handsome devil of a satyr bravo was involved.”

I grinned. “The way I hear it, he was there, but the mess happened without him starting it.”

I had to imagine his grin. Skulls aren’t the most expressive things. “Do tell.”

“The way I hear it, Aagren had a hole in his chest when the satyr got there, and it was Whale Oil McKay and some local cousins who tore the place up.”

The skeleton made a satisfied noise. “And pieces fall into place. This satyr bravo, he wouldn’t happen to have been looking for Aagren in regards to an off-world murder, would he?”

“He might have been. I hear he’s a bit of a fool for a good cause.”

“You heard right, Dinadan. Damn fool’s got a Gifted One’s luck, good and bad.”

“So what am I in for this time, Vinnie? Aagren was up to something, that much I know.”

“More than something, and more than you know. What’s in it for me to fill you in?”

“I double your finder’s fee next time I swing by for the usual, and I put in a good word for you with the local greencoats.”

“You really think you’ve got that sort of sway?”

I nodded. “Where there are words, there’s a way. I can make good on it. It’ll keep them from checking out the gigs you book too close.”

“There’s a war coming, Din. Borales looks vulnerable and Gero’s feeling itchy. Most of the low-level folks are going mum, so I can’t give you much for specifics, but I know where things are headed. Coin’s flowing to every over-muscled teamster willing to crack heads. There’s a lot of traffic through Ferral’s. He’s even gone and taken on an extra apprentice to keep up with demand. Borales is looking awfully defensive. Lots of loyalty money floating around, but the uncles there seem to be looking at each other rather than this way. If Gero orders a move, Borales is going to crumble. Makes me think it might be a ‘when,’ not an ‘if.’ But I am not in the business of speculating.”

“Where’s Aagren fit?”

“Now that, my friend,” Vinnie said, “is the million gold question. Nobody’s quite sure, and knowing that you didn’t snuff him, that doesn’t exactly clear things up. Word on the street is that you did for him, and the locals showed up too late to stop it. But if McKay was there, well…that makes it clear as mud, ‘ey?”

“McKay works for Upal Toth, yeah?”

Vinnie nodded. “More or less. They’re both uncles, mind you. But McKay’s the muscle. He don’t have to take orders from Toth, but he does. Him and his bully boys, they do most of the protection work. But that don’t explain why he was in Igneous looking for everybody’s favorite dead squidface.”

“Or why anybody’d go after his mistress. Isn’t that usually off limits?”

“Sort of. Bad form, but Family manners get frayed when things get tense like this. Snuffing a mistress is a quick way to send a message.”

“So who wanted to send Aagren a message, and what was it?”

Vinnie’s suit made his skeletal shrug look almost human. “Can’t say, Din-din.”

“Whoever did for her was just muscle. I saw it right after it happened. Real mess. But Aagren was serious work. Serious magic…telemancy at the least. I don’t know how you put a hole that big in somebody’s chest, and I don’t know how you make blood into words.”

“Wait a minute. The blood did stuff?” He was interested now. “What’d it say?”

I smirked. “What’s it worth to you?”

He was caught. “By itself, not much, but it’d help me answer your questions. Might make me forget you said you’d double your finder’s fee.”

“It said ‘think twice.’”

“All scripty and flowy?”

I nodded.

“Oh, Dinadan, that is one hell of a tidbit. One hell of a tidbit. Been a long time since anybody’s seen that. Likely you weren’t the audience he expected.” Vinnie chuckled softly. “No, not at all.”

“The audience -who- expected?”

“Gero. Gero did for Aagren. Personally. When he was on his way up, his enemies ended up dead like that all the time. He liked doing things with their blood. Pretty clever bit of magic, that, and intimidating as hell to make statements literally from the blood of them what stand in your way.”
I wondered just how long Vinnie had been around. “Aagren must’ve gotten the bloodsucker pretty riled.”

“Yeah, yeah. He must have. Dunno how, though. You find that out, you maybe solve your puzzle.”

“Somebody wanted it hid. When I went back, the blood was cleaned up. Sort of. Enough that there was no way to find any words in it.”

“Yeah. Probably wanted to make it look like you could’ve done it. None of the Igneous crew would’ve touched that. So an independent or your friend McKay. Wanted the murk to stay murky…that’d be my guess.”

“You got anything else you can tell me?”

“Not much. Stay out of Borales if you can, reckless goat. I give it a week before it boils over and bodies start turning up. Gero, he might wait, let the uncles there whittle each other down. But if his ire’s up enough to take a personal hand in things…well, I’m glad I’m me an’ not you.”
I flipped him a platinum coin for form’s sake. He caught it with a muted clink in the two fingers of his left hand, easily, and made it disappear. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Vinnie.”

“Any time. Goodbye, Dinadan.”

Dinadan Noir IX: Back and There Again

2009-01-12T13:01:00.000-08:00

The cobbler’s shop was closed. The whole storefront was a wreck. The broken door had been boarded carefully, but the job on the shattered window was haphazard at best. I poked my head in. Bloodstains, scorch marks, a gold tooth, two dozen pairs of ruined shoes, broken racks, a solid slab of worktable broken in two. Nothing much to salvage, but I wanted a closer look… I flew up to the roof, and sure enough, nobody’d bothered to secure the trap door. Carefully, I headed down.

Somebody’d gotten rid of Aagren’s corpse. Moreover, they’d gone to the trouble of half-cleaning the bloodstains. There wasn’t a damn trace of the words that had been there. I filed that away before moving into the shop proper. It looked even worse from inside. The acid had chewed up the walls but good, enough to make me leery of spending too long in the place. A few boxes of materials had been broken open and looted. Something nagged at me, though. I kept looking without knowing precisely what I expected to find.

All of the tools were gone, even the ones that wouldn’t be worth a plug copper.

So Damini had come back here after all. That was a good thing. It meant that I was at least on the right track. Which meant that I’d figured the girl out a little. Which meant that maybe… Bah. Down that path lies naught but trouble. Dames’ll do that to you. If things were as ugly as I was starting to think they were, I couldn’t be mooncalfing over sculpted limbs, fathomless eyes, and midnight hair. Except I clearly was.

Whatever the reasons, I needed to find her. She was the only lead on Aagren I had left. In theory, anyway, I was still trying to figure out who’d killed Arbonne. I had a suspicion Gilgal was going to call me in sooner rather than later, and it was always better to show up with something substantial. The man’s probably the least bluffable being in the Retroverse. Going in and telling him “I’ve gotten involved in some sort of messy Family business on Crypt, and I’m not sure how” would not fly. Like I said, I needed to find Damini. And if I didn’t think Ishtar was enjoying the confusion, I’d have asked the goddess to help keep my head clear when I found her.

For all her ambition, Damini did not, as far as I knew, have ready access to magic. Which meant that she was probably still on Crypt. So. Your shop is wrecked, you have for some reason passed up stealing things from somebody who knocked you out and tied you up, you’ve got your trade tools, a bit of cash, and that’s it. Where do you go?

She was in the third bar I checked, and she didn’t say a thing when I sat down at her table and poured myself a shot. I sniffed at it. “You know, Damini, mushroom spirits are bad for your health.” I downed the shot.

“Prob’ly.”

The bottle was opaque, but it was pretty light. “How much of this have you had?”

“Too much. Not enough.”

A beautiful, drunken woman, and she had to go and be morose. “So, as you can see, you didn’t manage to get me killed.”

“Shove it, Dinadan. You’re all…Gifted…and…stuff. Wouldn’ta mattered anyway.”

“It might have made me forget you.”

“Really? You come chasin’ after me ‘cuz you wanted to forget me?”

It bugged me that she was right. “You didn’t take anything.”

“Not true!” She swayed a little. “I took yer wine. Tashty.”

I sighed, leaned back, and pondered getting a good drunk going myself. “I’m sorry about your shop.”

“My shop! It wash all I had. Least I got my tools. But no shop.”

“You’ve got a keen grasp of the obvious.” It was sharper than I’d meant it to be.

“Shut up, ya lecherous goat!” I was surprised she managed “lecherous” in her state.

“I had you knocked out and tied up, you know.”

“I know. I woulda stayed, maybe. But I had to pee.”

In vino veritas, and all that. “Look, Damini…”

“You wanna kiss me?”

“Of course I do. You’re beautiful. But—”

“Then kissh me!” she took a pull on the bottle. “Or drag me back to your goat cave an’ we can do more’n kish!”

“I’m sorry about your shop.”

“You said that already.”

“I’m stalling.”

“Oh. Maybe you should havva drink!”

I sighed. My higher nature picked the damnedest times to kick in. “Let’s see if we can’t sober you up a bit.”

“I don’t wanna be shober! Why d’you think I’m drinkin’?”

“Come on, Damini. Let’s get you out of here.” I stood up and took her arm. She half-fell out of her chair.

“Alright. Alright. I’ll come with you, mister bard goat man. Not like I got anythin' better t'do.”

She puked all over the moment I got her out to the street. We ducked into an alley and I held that magnificent hair and made sympathetic noises while she puked some more. I was really starting to hate the smell of mushroom spirits.

[—*—]

“I havva headache.” Damini groaned, but didn’t open her eyes.

“Color me shocked. You drank most of a bottle of mushroom spirits all by your lonesome.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“That, lady, is the story of my life. Drink this.”

“What is it?” She got herself to a sitting position but didn’t open her eyes.

“Water. And a bit of mint. Your breath is atrocious.”

She sipped it and opened her eyes a bit. “Could be worse. Where are we?”

“Welstar, not far from the village I grew up in. I figured we could both use a change of scenery.”

“It’s really…green.”

“You been to Welstar before?”

She started to shake her head, then thought better of it. “Nope. Get to Raji every month or so to do some trading. Other than that, it’s all solid stone and magelight.”

“You could, you know, come back. It’s not like you-got exiled.”

“Back? I just told you I never been here before. Crypt is where I live. Where I’m from.” She squinted. “It’s too bright here. Way too bright. I don’t know how people live with the sun in their faces all the time.”

“You’re hung over. Of course it’s bright.”

I’m not convinced I’ll ever be able to reproduce the noise she made. “I know th’difference between hangover bright and bright-bright, bright boy. Th’grass is nice, though.”

I kept myself from watching her lay back on said grass. “Damini, I need you to come clean with me. How much do you know about what’s going on with the Family right now?”

“You didn’t bring me here to…frolic?”

“Pff. You’re still almost as green as the grass, and I spent the big part of an hour watching you empty your stomach. And people keep ending up dead. I need to figure out what’s going on, and you’re the best lead I’ve got at the moment.”

“Ain’t much of a detective, then.”

“Limited resources. And when I started, this was just about a murder.”

“Aagren’s fishy tart?”

“Yeah. Came to me before she bit it, knowing somebody was after her. Eight hours later, she’s dead.”

“Aagren was royal pissed about that.”

“He say anything?”

“Look, Dinadan, I was just a shopgirl, y’know? Aagren came and went and kept me paid. I kept my ears shut. Part of the deal.”

“Sure. But unless people came in through the roof, you saw ‘em, yeah? Traffic pick up much lately?”

She thought about it for a minute. “Not the normal stuff. Errand boys, muscle…that didn’t change at all. But messengers. Hmm. Yeah. Lots of messengers. That dwarf, McKay, he showed up once. Real short talk, no raised voices. An’ he went right back out.”

“Wait. That was Whale Oil McKay?”

“Aye. That mean something?”

“Maybe. Makes me glad we cut out when we did. Dangerous fellow, at least by reputation.”

“He weren’t the one who sprayed my shop down with acid.”

“True. I’m guessing that was somebody local.”

“Why’d any of the locals come after me?”

“They weren’t after you.”

“Oh.” She sighed. “Oh, yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“So what’re you going to do?”

“About what?”

“Me.”

My turn to sigh. “What do you want?”

“Something better, same as anyone else.”

“You still wanna go to work for the Family?”

“Family and shoes are what I know.”

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to go back to Crypt. Not like I’m the only one who’s got questions for you. I can put you up somewhere nice in Abarack, if you want. Keep it quiet.”

“You gonna come visit?”

“Eventually. But I’ve got other folks I need to talk to. And not in dark warehouses.”

Dinadan Noir VIII: Firefight

2009-01-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

I dunno how I keep ending up in dark warehouses, waiting for something shady to go down. But it seems to be a professional obligation. There I was, huddled up against the wall of an Igneous storehouse, feeling keenly that I was one of the few living souls on that blasted chunk of rock. The whole thing reeked of a set-up, but the warehouse smelled more like mushroom spirits. The fumes were doing pleasant things to my head.

Not for the first time, I wondered why I’d even gotten into this mess. Arbonne had been pretty, for sure, but crustaceans were hardly my delicacy of choice. The murder was ugly, yeah, but I’d seen a Gifted One’s share of death, and furthermore there were proper sentinels on the case. The smart thing would have been to hand the statue over to the Guild and let Carnely or Foil or somebody else sort it out. But sometimes smart doesn’t cut it. Or something. So here I was, idiotically loitering in a warehouse I’d broken into on the advice of a pretty girl who’d drugged my drink. Somebody was going to show up, probably with murder in mind, and I was betting that I could not only survive, but get some information out of the experience.

Might’ve been the fumes, but I was having a pretty good time.

There’s only so much a goat can do in the adventuring line of work, and while it’s plenty dangerous, there’s seldom anything personal about it. Fight the bad guys, take their stuff, wash, rinse, repeat. The detective business is more like a game. The problem with Family business is that I wasn’t too keen on the rules. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was playing with Damini, either, but I wasn’t about to leave that table, either. Like I said, good times.

He showed up without me noticing him. One point for the baddy. But I spotted him before he got close. I could tell he was packing heat; a flame fundamental flickered in his left hand.
Pyromancers I can deal with. But pyromantic alchemists in a warehouse full of combustibles? Fool’s odds. Especially when said alchemist is gnome who’s been singed clean of hair and looks just as happy to be roasted as to do the roasting.

“Evening, master gnome. You here for the conference?”

“Tell Aagren we’re sorry he couldn’t make it!” he cackled, and loosed a ray of fire. Hit me, too. Hurt like a bitch, but I didn’t go down that easy.

“Damn, don’t you know how hard it is to get the smell of burnt hair out of silk?” I coughed, ducking behind a pillar. I was glad that stone was so abundant on Crypt. I wouldn’t have trusted the kind of rickety wooden supports they used just about everywhere else. Regardless, the gnome sent more fire roping towards me. The pillar started to get warm.

“I don’t suppose,” I shouted over the crackle, “that you’d be so kind as to tell me what this is about?”

Nobody appreciates refined conversation anymore. I pulled out my panpipes and ducked out long enough to send a sonic burst his way. The fire stopped, but I lost sight of him when I dashed for new cover, screeching as I went. Now, the kind of screech I make when I want to hurt somebody, it makes fingers on a slate sound like the mellowest elven lute. Glass shattered, wood splintered, and somewhere, my keen ears picked up a distinct groan. The smell of spirits got stronger. Broken glass, spilled liquor, fire, and me with burns all over my chest. This was getting better all the time. I took advantage of the lull to do a quick patch job on the burns, fortified myself with a bit of bardic magic, then poked my head out.

There he was.

I sent some nasty noise his way to encourage him to keep his head down as I fished an intact bottle out of a broken crate. Because I was enjoying myself, I took a swig. Gods, it was nasty. The dwarves who moved to Welstar, now they make some damn fine ale. Limit their resources to mushrooms, and this was the swill you got. Strong enough to knock out a titan, foul enough to make a slaad retch. Put some fire in the belly, though. Of a sort more pleasant than the stuff the gnome was throwing at me. Again. Time to chalk this little foray up as a loss. I came out from behind the pillar with panpipes whistling destruction. When the gnome caught his footing and threw more fire at me, I threw the bottle at him.

It broke satisfyingly at his feet. More satisfyingly, the volatile stuff splashed all over the gnome and promptly ignited. I’d expected him to stop throwing fire when that happened. Alas, poor alchemist…his aim just got real bad. He sent fiery rays all over the place. Isolated fires were about to become a conflagration was about to become an explosion. That was my cue.

“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home…”

[—*—]

I didn’t spend long at the Wench…just enough time to finish mending my burns and find a clean shirt. Damini had plenty to answer for, and I hoofed it back to my place in a hurry.
She’d slipped the ropes…cut them, actually. I wondered if she’d hidden a blade in her hair or some such. There wasn’t anything missing, though, not even the hideous monkey statue Arbonne had given me. I checked thoroughly, even the few hidey holes that I kept. She hadn’t taken a damn thing.

Check that. She’d taken the firewine, curse her black heart. Now I was really going to have to find her.

Dinadan Noir VII: Goofballs

2009-01-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

We were halfway through the bottle of scotch before I got around to asking her name.

“Damini. Just Damini. An’ who’re you, mister bravo?”

“Dinadan Whistler.”

“The Dinadan Whistler?”

“You’ve heard of me, then?”

Her wicked grin was enough to inspire some thoroughly wicked thoughts. “An’ if I say no, what then?”

“Well, then, I’ll have to make sure you know exactly who I am.” Did I mention we’d been drinking for a while?

Damini threw her head back and laughed. Her hair shone and her chest quivered and I didn’t really care if she thought I was funny, as long as she kept laughing and grinning. We were in one of the little booths at the back of a run-down tavern in Nineveh. As much as the city was a haven for entertainment of every sort (including the kind that kept a few discreet local biomancers very busy), most folks ended up at the Wench or the Comedy Club. This place was frequented by the down and out, the people who wanted a steady flow of cheap booze more than scintillating surroundings. I knew Luc, though, and he usually kept a few bottles of good stuff around for when I stopped by. I took a professional interest in Nineveh’s pub life, and I’d loaned Luc money a couple of times when things got tight. Worked out well for both of us—I got a quiet place to go when I wanted to do serious drinking, and he got (besides the money) the vague air of respectability that went with having a celebrity as a regular.

Somewhere along the way, we’d given up on glasses and started passing the bottle back and forth. I took a swig and asked, “How’d you end up a cobbler on Crypt, anyway?”

“Family business, really. And family-family, not Family. Not at first. Granddad pissed off some magistrate in Keystone and got himself exiled. I guess proper-wise, he was s’posed t’end up on Perdow, but he weren’t fond of that empty sky. ‘No,’ he used to say, ‘If I got to be in the dark all the time, might as well see somethin’ other than nothin’ up overhead.’ There aren’t many of us living folk on Crypt, mind you, but there are some. Those idiots in Utopia, they need shoes. Mama was a Utopian, but she hadn’t patience enough for trying to coax stones into growing. So she ran off to the city an’ married Papa, an’ then they had me. No sons, so Papa taught me the trade. An’ he were the one that got us our connections. Not much work on our end—just keep the shop running and don’t pay attention to what went down in back. Meant we never had to worry about bad spells in business.” She took a long pull at the bottle. “This is good stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah. Luc saves it for me.” I didn’t bother asking how she’d come to be running the shop.

“I’ve got some older bottles back at my tower, though. And some Soselian firewine. People try and pay me in booze all the time.”

“An’ you let them?” She passed the bottle back.

“Aye! Why not? The adventuring life keeps my coffers full. The occasional gig keeps my liquor cabinet full.”

“An’ your bed, what keeps that full?” She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. Her curves were subtle, but the bad lighting did sorcery on her already magical face.

I took a swim in her eyes for a while. “Wit, charm, and high standards.”

“High standards?”

I nodded. “Funny, but the scarcer folk think something is, the more they want it. High standards and a bit of mystery go a long ways.”

“I am,” she declared, her voice getting even lower, “interested in solving mysteries.”

“Well, as a sentinel, I know a thing or three about that. Maybe you should come over to my place and we can talk shop.”

She laughed again, and I knew I was well and truly in trouble.

[—*—]

I awoke to the noise of somebody rummaging through the mess in my room, cursing under her breath. There was a distinctive edge to my headache. “You drugged me.” I pretended I could ignore it and sat up.

Damini shrieked. A little. She did not, however, put down the notebooks in her hands. “That should have kept you out until morning.”

“My liver gets a lot of practice.”

I should have known better than to let her get the drinks when we got back to my place. We’d taken the walk from Nineveh to my place slow, with plenty of laughing and the casual touching that hints at far more thorough contact later on. We’d gone up to my room, I’d sent Damini over to the liquor cabinet, and she’d come back with the firewine…things got blurry…and then came the waking and the headache.

“So, Damini, what’s your game?”

“Look, I like you. I wasn’t faking that. But a girl’s got needs.”

“I think you said the same thing when we got in the door.”

“Those, too. But with Aagren croaked an’ my shop wrecked, I need more than a roll in the hay, even with you.”

I was on my feet by then, angry and still a little drunk. “So you thought you’d find something here, something you could sell or something you could take back to the Family.”

“Information’s worth a bunch, Dinadan. You know that better’n most, I guess. I get the right bit of information, an’ I’m set. New shop, new whatever. Might even take up proper employment with ‘em.”

“You’d work for the Family?”

“Why in hells not?” She was still a little drunk, too. “I can handle a knife real good, an’ I can keep books clean or dirty. An’ I can make a better pair of loafers than any soul, livin’ or dead, on that whole blasted rock!”

“The retirement plan is less than ideal.”

“So? You’re a bard, yeah? You know livin’ like a bonfire’s better than livin’ like a candle.”

I couldn’t much argue with that. “I don’t think joining the family as a granddaughter is exactly living like a bonfire.”

She shrugged. Beautifully. I was annoyed that I still wanted her. Then she dropped the notebooks. “Look, Dinadan, I couldn’t make sense of your mess in a tortle’s tenday. I got nothing. What say we just pretend this ain’t happened? You’re good at pretending, yeah?”
“Pretending gets a bard jobs and a sentinel killed. I can’t just let you go.”

Her sigh wasn’t musical, but even her exasperation was attractive. “Look, Aagren had a meeting. Tomorrow night, Igneous time. Makes it pretty soon, now. Something to do with Borales. I know where it will be.”

“I’m not Aagren, and I can’t much imagine that his messy end isn’t all over the streets by now.”

“Yeah, but Aagren’s got buttonmen. Or did, anyway. Time like this, his organization’s gotta make like nothing’s wrong, yeah?”

I snorted. “Hard to do that when your boss is dead. Like as not this ‘meeting’ is just an excuse for a dustup or a snuff job.”

“So? You’re quick an’ clever. You can make something of it.”

“I don’t trust you further than I can throw you. And I’m not about to throw you.”

“Look, it’s just business.”

“Just business, huh? So is this.” The spell wasn’t a quick one, but by the time she realized that my rambling soliloquy was more than words, she was already out. I tied her up, not tight enough to hurt her, but tight enough to keep her in the chair. She woke up as I finished, wriggled a few times, and sighed.

“You shouldn’t ought to be like this. Gentleman gets a gal’s permission before he ties her up.”

“And a lady,” I answered, “doesn’t drug her host’s drink. So let’s not play at being lady and gentleman. Tell me where this meeting’s going down. I’ll check it out, then come back and we’ll figure out what happens next.”

Damini blew hair out of her eyes. “Simon and Simon Fine Warehousing. Stupid name, I know, but they’ve got a big red sign out front. It’s on second, north of Amphibole. Hard place to miss.”

She tested her bonds again, and I almost let her go. “Be careful, Dinadan.”

“Concerned for my welfare all of a sudden?”

She shook her head. “Somebody’s gotta show up to to untie me, yeah?”

Dinadan Noir VI: Shoe Shop Rumble

2008-12-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

Considering that half the races native to Crypt flew, slithered, or oozed, I was surprised that the cobbler’s shop was more than just a front for the Family. All manner of shoes hung in the properly glazed, squared up window. I squatted on a stoop across the street and watched customers come and go. I had little doubt that Aagren knew I was looking for him. Toth’s goons had found me easily enough even before I went and kicked the hornet’s nest. Whether I’d been recognized at the Abode or not, there weren’t likely to be many satyrs around. I could try and play it quiet, pay a few coins to get some guttersnipe to announce me, but that wouldn’t be much better than going in fast. I could go cool my heels and plan a proper message…

There was another option, too, probably the best one: forget I’d met Arbonne, forget the bits of her strewn all over an aristocrat’s penthouse, and go back to doing my real job. The bard guild couldn’t run itse—well, actually, it pretty much did. My responsibilities consisted of occasional gripe sessions and even more occasional official meetings. Which was part of the reason I’d gone and gotten involved with the Sentinels in the first place.

And part of the reason tiny bells tinkled as I walked through the door into the cobbler’s shop. Their chime got lost in a sudden feminine scream and I got lost in a tangle of dark hair and sculpted limbs.

As delightful as the situation was for me, it didn’t seem to be so for the girl, who got herself untangled in a hurry and plucked a knife from the cobbler’s bench. I could tell at a glance she was beautiful, but the knife she’d gone and leveled at me was enough to keep it to a glance.

“Hullo.” Not my wittiest greeting ever, but a bard can get a lot into even a single word. “Something amiss?”

Black, black, black is the color of my true love's hair. Her lips are like a rose so fair. And the prettiest face and the neatest hands… She was stunning now that she’d stepped back far enough for met to get a good look at her and didn’t seem intent on cutting me. Human, but paler than any elf, with a lean jaw and big eyes that managed to be even blacker than the tumble of her hair. Long arms and legs clad in simple but close-fitting blue.

“Is something amiss?” I asked again, wondering how long we’d been staring at each other.

She jerked her head towards the back of the place. “Aye. Something’s amiss. You come to see Aagren? Go have a look.”

In hindsight, it was idiotic to turn my back on her, but I did, pushing past into what should have been a workroom but was clearly an office. A nicer one than mine, except for the still-glowing purple blood sprayed around the place. When I came in, it slithered to form the words “Think Twice” in elegant script. Cute.

The blood’s erstwhile owner lay in a heap behind the desk, with a tidy hole in his chest large enough that I could have put my head in it without mussing my hair, had I been the morbid sort. Aagren was tall, which for a squidface meant he’d been pushing thirteen feet. There was a lot of corpse. No sign of forced entry, no sign of a fight. Somebody’d come in, done the deed, and left, all with magic a hell of a lot less subtle than the stuff I worked with.

I turned to find the girl’d crept up behind me. “This just happen?”

“Ain’t in the screaming habit, mister bravo, but there was a cursed lot of blood in the air when I heard him hit the floor.”

Tiny bells tinkled.

Standing in the doorway was a dwarf with grease-slicked hair and a hundred plat suit, flanked by my old friends Guido and Nunzio. Guido let a length of barbed chain fall into his hands. Nunzio pulled a heavy, black-studded length of bone from his belt. The dwarf thumbed his lapels and looked menacing. That much I could do, too, and did, only without the lapels.

“Afternoon, gentlemen. Come to check the latest in pedal fashion?”

“You,” the dwarf replied, “were warned.”

“Youse ready for some locution lessons, pretty boy?” Nunzio asked. “I know a great tutor. I call him ‘Mister Club.’”

I snorted. “And here I thought crime required creative thinking.” I hurled a pair of knives, one at each of the thuuls, mostly as distraction. It was the dwarf that worried me. Worried me enough that I reached next for the panpipes at my belt. The goons, bloodied but hardly daunted, spread one to a side. Fancy suit stayed put, though something about the way he shifted his stance set me on edge. I heard the girl shifting behind me and realized she still held a knife. A strategic exit seemed better every second. I started the magic that would take me home…and found myself still standing in the cobbler’s shop with a fistful of Family goons intending violence on my person.

“Well. It’s been fun—”

Tiny bells tinkled, or would have, if they hadn’t been drowned out by the slam of the door coming off its hinges.

I recognized a few faces from the Worm’s Abode amongst the toughs who poured in behind Guido, Nunzio, and the Suit. And I could tell that one of them was about to spray the whole place with acid, the latter trio included. I tackled the girl back into the office as caustic goo ruined most of the stuff in the shop. The girl was a joy to hold, incidentally. “Back door?” I asked.

She nodded, looking not at all frightened by the bloody din on the other side of the thin wall. “Up to the roof.”

An arm reached through the doorway. I had a spell on my lips by the time I realized there wasn’t a body attached to it. “No fight like a fight in the Family, eh?” I kicked the arm away.

“Yeah. You climb ladders with those?” She pointed disdainfully at my hoofs.

“Of course. I’ve got one in my tower back home. You should come climb it sometime.”

She snorted, but there was a laugh underneath it. A heavy, wet thud from the other side of the wall was enough to get the girl moving. She opened what looked like a closet, revealing a wide, sturdy ladder that I could have climbed in my sleep. “You first, mister goat.”

“Still don’t trust me?”

“If there’s somebody up there waiting to bust a head, better yours ‘n mine.”

“Fair enough,” I muttered. There was a trap door at the top of the ladder, and no landing. I listened hard, but couldn’t hear a damn thing over the fisticuffs below. I gave the trap door a quick shove, held it up for a moment. The top edge splintered and I nearly lost my footing as something hit the wood, hard.

“Come on up, goat! I gots yer locution lesson right here! We’ll start ya off easy: crunch da skull.”

Joy. But verily, a bard is never without tricks. “Crunch the skull? No, no, no. Repeat after me: the crunch of lunch comes mainly after brunch.” I threw my voice with more magic than any mundane ventriloquist could muster, putting it ten feet behind where I guessed the goon was. Threw open the door again, jumped up and rolled away. The fool still had his back turned, so I put a knife into it for form’s sake. That got his attention.

“You!”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘youse’, you know, for consistency?”

Nunzio’s only response was a growl.

No messing around this time, it was all sound and fury. We went back and forth up there on the roof, bludgeon against blasting. For all that Nunzio’s skull was empty, it was thick. I hit him again and again and it barely slowed him. He hit me a time or two more than I would have liked. That mace of his had some dark voodoo on it, and the bruises it left were far worse than they should have been, even with the thuul’s strength behind ‘em

Then I lost my footing. Nunzio grinned and took a two-handed grip on his club, lining up a killing blow. Something moved behind him and he cried out, stumbling himself. I scrambled back to my feet and hit him with a concentrated sonic blast, right to the head. It finally crumpled, messily. I saw the girl’s leather knife, then, sunk to the hilt in his thigh.

“Thanks.”

She grinned and shut what was left of the trap door behind her. “Yer welcome. What say we get out of here before the guard shows up?”

I dusted myself off, doing what I could to hide the wincing. “I know a place on Raji that’ll give me a discount on good liquor. And maybe after, we can have a look at that ladder I mentioned.”

Dinadan Noir V: Swagger

2008-11-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

After a good ponder, I decided it was time to put on my swagger suit and head back to Crypt. Broad-brimmed hat, leather jerkin and leggings. I thought about an eye-patch for effect, but decided against it. Dagger and broadsword both on my belt, humming and glowing. The Drak was too unsubtle for a job like this. Enchanted blades would have to do. Just because I knew I wasn’t a particularly brilliant swordsman didn’t mean others would. I also managed to get a brace of throwing knives stashed about my person, some in obvious places, some not. The point was to look as dangerous as possible. Never mind that I’d sung my way literally through Pandemonium before. Some folks won’t pay attention unless you point sharp metal bits their way.

Playing the bravo is good fun. Bards don’t often get to throw their weight around—not that I’m heavy, mind. Whip-thin and resilient, that’s me. Anyway. There’s something entertaining about staring down bruisers who, if they stopped to think about it, could pound you flat in a fistfight, about making a hard line of your mouth and steel of your eyes when—inside—you’re laughing at the gulls. If push came to shove, of course, I’d be chucking spells, not knives. And part of the reason I could pull off the bluff was that it wasn’t really a bluff.

Digression is a professional hazard.

I put on my swagger suit and willed myself to Igneous. If you’ve never been there, keep it that way. The place is all twisted windows, crooked walls, and the muted stink of death. And chilly. I half-think that’s why so many undead call the place home. It’s always cool in Igneous, not quite cold, but cool enough to slow down rot. Never mind that the place is crawling with necromancers who’ll patch up your lifeless husk to your exact specifications. I drew plenty of stares just for being on the living side of the grave. I stared right back, a hairsbreadth grin letting them know I meant business.

Igneous is an easy place to get jumped, and a hard place to get found. It took me the better part of an hour just to pick the right bar, and I dropped two cutpurses and a gorgon mugger in that span. All, might I add, without recourse to a single blast of sound. I might not have been a brilliant swordsman, but I was good enough to take down gutter trash. The fellows in the Worm’s Abode were a step above gutter trash, though, and I made sure I picked out all the exits when I walked into the place.

There’s something obvious but indefinable about a Family-run establishment. Or at least the Family-run establishments that also catered to their own. Organized crime is different on every world, mind—in Suthnas, if you walk into a place and a bunch of similar-tinted djinn sharing hookahs turn simultaneously to stare you down, you know you need to watch your step. The Family on Crypt is a mixed-up lot. More than a few dwarves, the occasional drow, various Elder races…it was more about their bearing. Even the squid-faced yaag-nesh walked or floated with a certain swagger that the unaffiliated criminals never managed. Judging by the looks and the expressions that greeted me when I walked in the door, at least half the bodies in the Abode were Family, and the rest were probably in the Family’s pocket.

It was exactly the kind of trouble I was looking for.

I sauntered up to the bar as if I owned the place. The barkeep was the tallest dwarf I’d ever seen. He came all the way up to my chin. Never mind that his arms were as thick as my chest, I could stare down at him. And I did. “Whiskey. And don’t try and pass off your mushroom spirits on the goat.” The dwarf grunted and fished a bottle out from a dusty cabinet behind him. Behind me, silence gathered like a storm. Somebody was going to get hurt soon, and the dwarf clearly expected it to be me.

I turned around, and in a gesture I’m shamed to admit I’d practiced numerous times, thumbed my sword two inches out of its scabbard. Props make a costume, and the blessed light even two inches of the enchanted steel shed had the desired effect. “Anybody really want to see the rest of it?”

Somebody would, I knew. The weakest, or the stupidest, or the one who felt like he was going to lose face. Turned out to be another dwarf. I was disappointed; he didn’t try to say anything witty, just pulled a broad-bladed knife and charged…from across the room. Just what I needed. I made a show of sipping the whiskey before I finished drawing the sword. When the dwarf got close enough, I spat whiskey in his eyes, stepped, and jammed my sword into his side in about as long as it takes to tell it. He was whimpering and working on crawling away as I wiped the blade on his cloak, sheathed it, and deliberately turned my back on the crowd again.

“I’m looking for Aagren,” I said to nobody in particular.

“Aagren’s a tough one to find, goat.” the barkeep rumbled. “What makes ye think he’d let himself get found by you?”

“What,” I said slowly, “makes you think I’d let him stay hid?”

The dwarf (the one who wasn’t busy bleeding out) grunted. “He’s got an office on Biotite, south of Fifth. Storefront’s a cobbler.”

“Thanks. Sorry for the mess.” I slapped a platinum piece on the bar, wondering how much ahead of me word would get to Aagren, and who might try and take more than a pale coin as payment for inconvenience.

Dinadan Noir IV: Guido and Nunzio

2008-11-16T14:37:00.000-08:00

It wasn’t long before the consequences of my little foray into the ‘Phile showed up on my doorstep. They were big, both of ‘em, dangerous looking even for thuuls. They shouldered their way into my office, quite literally bringing darkness with them.

“Lumen.” I was pleased to see them squint, not so pleased to see that they were wearing some kind of goggles that presumably let them see.

“Alright then, gentlemen. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit.”

They looked at each other, then back at me, grinning. “Youse have poked yer nose where it don’t belong, goat-boy. We’s here to ‘splain that to ya in terms ya can unnerstand.” They cracked their knuckles in unison.

“Terms that I can understand, eh?” I cracked my knuckles, too, making a point to do it as daintily as possible. “I can recommend several good elocution coaches.”

Guido turned to Nunzio—I never did catch their names, but I still think of ‘em this way—and grunted. “You want that we should commence to wreckin’ your place, goat? Maybe start wit’ ‘dat thick head o’ yours?”

“Gentlemen, I don’t have the honor of comprehending the message you wish to convey.” Nonsense, of course. I knew exactly what they were about.

“This ain’t a convoy. This is a message from Upal Toth.”

Upal Toth. Should have expected that name sooner or later. A Yaag-nesh like Aagren, and the most powerful uncle left in the Borales Family. At least it wasn’t Gero—a six hundred year old vampire mage was more than I wanted to deal with. Toth was just a psychic thug with a knack for finding opportunities. “And what exactly is Mister Toth’s interest in my nose?”

“‘Avin it broke real good if you don’t keep it to yerself.”

“Sorry, gents. A job’s a job. And I was just out looking for new gigs. Brothels don’t pay much, but sometimes the fringe benefits are worth the hassle.”

“We know dat stinkin’ crab girl was here before she got whacked. We know she was a tag at da Phile. We can put five an’ two t’gether. You stay outta Family business.”

“Five and two, huh?”

“Five,” he flexed his taloned fingers, “an’ two.” He curled them into a fist and showed it along with its companion.

“Ah. You came for piano lessons. I don’t generally recommend the wormtooth outside for beginners, but why don’t you go out and have a go.”

The spiky fists came down my desk. “Stop playin’ dumb!”

I grinned and let the amusement drop out of my voice. “At least in my case it’s just play. Go home, gentlemen.”

“You wanna play? You wanna play!?” Nunzio this time, positively steaming.

“I really think you ought to look into those elocution lessons. Now. The gentleman you want to talk to is named Ardo Caspar, a vulpin in—”

They started to come around my desk, murder in their eyes. Not for the first time, I wondered if I had pushed things too far. I gave up grabbing for words and reached for something a little less subtle. My Drakontousia’s roar was certainly part of their vocabulary. Never mind that there were two of them, and that there wasn’t much room to swing it in the office. When somebody points a chunk of undead dragon at you, you pay attention. “You can tell your boss you delivered your message. You’ve done your job. Nobody’s gotta get their blood all over my floorboards. Run on home, and don’t bother coming back.”

They backed off a few steps. “Youse goin’ to regret dis, goat.”

“Probably.” I nodded.

They backed away. “You ain’t seen the last of of us!”

It was true, of course. Idiots were easily startled. But they would be back, and in greater numbers.

Dinadan Noir III: Phile Under "Murder"

2008-11-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

The first thing I noticed about the ‘Phile was the smell. Or rather, its complete and utter lack. Bordellos (and I’ve seen a few in my more usual professional capacity) are usually drenched in perfume and incense and whatnot to cover the stink of bodies doing what bodies do. The ‘Phile, tucked into one of Borales’ upper, more spacious caverns, had the usual discreet red lantern over the door. It had the usual overstuffed, over-velveted furniture. The eyes that glanced my way when the curtain parted had the usual studied indifference. But the lack of, well, any smell, really, set me on edge.

I was happy to note that the hostess was actually breathing, and not just pretending to out of habit. (Crypt’s a strange place that way.) She was pretty enough, a boelir who had a good foot and a half on me…putting her artfully arranged and brocaded bosom just above my eye level, and making the reality of her breathing very apparent. “Welcome to the ‘Phile, Master Satyr. We don’t often see your people.” She was a true tenor, startlingly clear.

“Well, truth be told, miss, we’re not overfond of caves, and that’s all you’ve got here.”

“Do you suggest that exploring in the dark is unpleasant?”

I chuckled. “Not necessarily, lady, but I hope you don’t take offense.”

“Far from it. You will find that we take offense at little but violence, and we have even a place for that.” Her cyclopean wink managed ‘disturbing’ and ‘suggestive’ at the same time.

“That’s why I came.”

“Really? You don’t strike me as the type.”

“Violence done to one of yours, I believe. Did you keep under your roof a homarid by the name of Arbonne?”

“Arbonne? What happened?” Alarm…and resignation.

“She’s dead, miss. Ran afoul of the Family.”

“I see.” She frowned, gestured at a woman who, during her living years, had probably been quite beautiful, then beckoned me forward. “Why don’t we talk about it in my office.” The undead woman bowed and discreetly took up a position at the door as we ducked into one of the side passages.

Her office, it turned out, was not much of a step up from mine. A plain desk, a few chairs. A moderately priced illusionary wall concealing what was no doubt a safe. For me, it was spacious, but any of the ‘verse’s larger denizens would likely have found it cramped. I waited a moment before taking a seat. Put my back to the door, but I was hoping any more acute forms of trouble would wait.

“I suspected this would happen sooner or later.”

“Oh? Arbonne had a habit of getting into trouble?”

The madame shook her head. “Not Arbonne. Aagren. You know of him?”

I went fishing in the waters of memory. “Yaag-nesh, yeah? Doesn’t he go with the Igneous crew?”

“The ‘Phile is neutral territory, master satyr.” I appreciated the careful way we avoided learning each other’s name. “We cater to rather…specialized…tastes. All variety of them, as a matter of fact. The unliving and the elder races have centuries to tire of the more normal forms of intimate attention, and few of them are particularly concerned with those to begin with. There are not many places in the Retroverse where such tastes can be pursued in tasteful surrounds.”

“Ah. That explains the lack of smell.”

“And the lack of sound. We keep both dampened with magic. Our clients prefer not to be distracted from their unique delectations.”

“And the Family doesn’t push for a cut?”

“Even when they’re squabbling, members of the Family leave the ‘Phile alone. They are as prone to specialized tastes as any, if not more so. My people are off limits.”

“Except, apparently, for Arbonne.”

She nodded grimly. “Except for Arboone.”

“And Aagren was one of her…devotees?”

Again, she nodded. “We always run the risks of clients becoming…attached. A hazard of our profession that, for us, is perhaps magnified. Given their predilections, our guests seldom have the option of pursuing more usual relationships. Not that many of them are interested in such. Aagren has been a client here for decades, but had not proved a problem until he began seeing Arbonne.”

“This was how long ago?”

“Perhaps a year and a half.”

My turn to nod. “He wanted to be closer. Did she reciprocate?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“Says something, I guess, that she came running to me and not him when she got wind of trouble. Any chance Aagren could have put the hit out on her, do the jilted lover routine?”

The hostess considered this for a few moments. “I doubt it. He’d become foolish for her, which is why I suspected trouble would follow.”

“When was the last time he paid a visit?”

“Three days ago.”

“Anything unusual about it?”

“He seemed excited about something, but he often seemed excited when he came to see Arbonne.”

I wondered, then, about the jade monkey that was sitting in a pile of odds and ends at my tower. “He bring her presents?”

“Often, but that is hardly unusual. Our guests do not lack funds; gifts provide them a means to show their appreciation without the crassness of sacks of coin.”

“Did Aagren have a routine with her?”

She shrugged. “Not particularly. Who can fathom the mind of a yaag-nesh? He would arrive at all hours. He never tarried in the common room. I think he may have been visiting Arbonne more frequently in the last few fortnights.” She pulled a heavy ledger from her desk. “Yes. Every day or so.”

“He was anxious about something?”

“Or in lust. Or having a good business run. We try not to speculate on our guests’ motives.”

“He ever see anybody else?”

“No. Only Arbonne. At least since she’s been here. Her predecessor retired and passed on of old age. The crabfolk are not particularly long-lived.”

I drummed my fingers on the chair for a moment. “And Arbonne drew a shorter straw than most. Any idea why the Family might want her dead?”

“No. Only her association with Aagren. We are quite good at shutting our eyes and ears to each other’s activity, master satyr. It is better for all of us if the Family doesn’t intrude on our operations and we stay out of theirs.”

I fished out a card, pressed my name into it. “If Aagren shows up, give him this for me. And you can probably expect a visit from the greencoats before too long.”

Her eyebrow rose a bit as she read the card. “A real bard, the Storyteller, no less. This seems a bit…unusual for one such as yourself. Do you typically go out of your way to investigate murders and tangle with organized crime?”

“Everybody needs a hobby, miss.”

“Indeed. Most choose hobbies of a less dangerous sort.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a hobby’s gotten me killed, miss. The Gifted have to find some way to pass the time.”

“Please see to it that your pastime does not get any more of my people killed.”

“Believe what you want, but I try and keep idiotic risks and their consequences entirely to myself.” I stood. “I can find my own way out.”

JoNoWriMo

2008-06-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you have probably heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), an internet event that has spiraled well beyond its original bounds and now tackles such good causes as young writer's programs and whatnot. The core of the concept, though, is that you write a draft of a novel. In one month. The organization defines a draft as 50,000 words, and their infrastructure is set up to help you track your progress towards that goal. Just get it on the (virtual) page and revise it later.

The problem is that National Novel Writing Month is in November.

November's probably a good time for it—summer's done and, at least in temperate northern climates, the weather's pushing folks to be indoors. The holidays haven't started yet (despite retails marketing programs to the contrary). Days are getting pretty short, and what better way to while away the increasingly dark evenings than sitting at your word processor of choice, fingers clicking away?

Aside from including my birthday, though, November's not a particularly attractive time to undertake major writing projects for me. If my life goes according to plan (and "according to plan" always entails a rather sizable 'if'), November will pretty much always be the end of midterms and the turn towards finals for me. Being on the delivering end of finals and midterms will not change the fact that they're work.

Thus, I proclaim that July will be my Novel Writing Month. Beginning tomorrow, I will undertake to produce at least 50,000 words of progress on Against the Moon (working title), which I began quite some time ago but haven't been able to get much done on between school and fatherhood. We'll see how it goes. Like as not I'll stumble, but even if I only end up with twenty or thirty thousand words, they will be words I would not otherwise have.

Excelsior!

Toast, Toast, and Orange Stuff

2008-06-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

No Dinadan Noir today. I'm still working on the next bit.

Father's Day has come and gone. It was a bittersweet day, as you might expect. The brother was here in the morning, although I spent the latter half of it sleeping (there wasn't enough coffee to make a full pot, so I let my favorite tuba player have the travel press). Not having anybody to call was tough. I still have moments where I almost reach for the phone with a cooking question in mind.

Come evening-time, we loaded up the car and headed down to Eden Prairie for a Medalist Band concert. It was the first of their summer season, and a bit rocky at times (the tuba section was much more solid than the trombone section, though). The wife played well. Ivan paid attention to the first piece, then went back to throwing a frisbee at the sidewalk, pointing at the nearby dog, and trying to eat rocks. The weather was gorgeous and I savored (at least for the first bit) the opportunity to chase Ivan around, put him on my shoulders, and generally do the dad thing in an environment where I didn't have to worry too much about what he might wreck.

We need to find him a helmet so I can take him out in the bike seat I got as a Father's Day present. I need the exercise, and it's good for both of us to get out of the house.

Expect another installment of Dinadan Noir later this week.

Dinadan Noir II: 17 1/2 Obsidian Circle

2008-06-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

It didn’t take long to confirm at least one part of Arbonne’s story: the Family wanted her dead. Nobody was sure what she’d done or what she knew, but five thousand pieces of gold were on her head…or her shell. Whatever. I was discreet with my inquiries, steering conversations this way and that. I picked up a lot more than the price on Arbonne. The Family was having a bit of a spat. Halvo Bane—one of the few living humans to get anywhere in the organization—had died. Not usually a big deal on Crypt, but something had apparently gone wrong when they went to re-animate him. Turns out he’d crossed paths with a paladin, and his soul had been dispatched elsewhere. He was an uncle, and the death of an uncle made things…wobbly.

None of that helped me figure out who it was that wanted Arbonne dead, but I was getting a sense of the stakes. It had to have something to do with the succession. Might have been personal—if she’d been under Halvo’s protection and he was gone, somebody could be looking to settle an old score. Five grand, though…that seemed a bit much for a jilted lover. That was enough to draw a few of the real pros. Especially against a soft target. There was something more going on.

I wasn’t going to figure it out until I talked to Arbonne.

…which I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do as soon as I saw the green coats on Obsidian Circle. Damn.

The local constabulary didn’t want to let me get inside, but a lot of fast talking and a bit of flashing my badge got me past the cordon. I didn’t know any of the proper sentinels on the scene. Not surprising considering how little time I put in at the headquarters these days. A few of them recognized me, judging by the mutters. None of them, though, made a point of getting in my way. Not that they made any point of explaining things. Joy to the passive-aggressive.

The place was wrecked. Furniture broken. Homarid bits everywhere. And stuck in the biggest chunk of what was left of Arbonne, a trident. Couldn’t help quirking my mouth at that. I was half-surprised not to find pools of butter. Message sent, and the usual one: don’t mess with the Family. A pro wouldn’t have made such a mess. If I had to, I’d have put my money on a kneecapper out for a little extra.

“How long ago?”

“Eh?” The greencoat looked up from his kneeling position by the main bit of the corpse.

“How long ago did somebody find her?”

He shrugged. “Two hours ago, I think. Owner of the place. Made a big fuss. Cap’n sent him off to see Gilgal.”

Kiss of death, that. If the fool had actually gone to Sauronan to make his complaint, I didn’t envy him. Gigal Radisgad was not fond of interruptions. “Any guess how long ago it went down?”

The sentinel seemed to look at me for the first time. “And I should tell you because…?”

“Professional interest. Client of mine gets murdered, I like to know about it.”

“Client?” Raised eyebrow.

“The deceased was trying to find out who wanted the shine put on her.”

“Really.” Lowered eyebrows. Narrowed eyes.

I shrugged with what I hoped was eloquence. “I came here to discuss it with her. Obviously not going to happen now.”

“You figure anything out?” He didn’t quite manage to make it a question.

“Not much more than what she told me. It’s Family business. Crypt. Somebody’s five heavy richer.”

“You know anything else?”

“She was professional company. Prob’ly under a steady roof. Don’t know which, though.”

The sentinel nodded. “That explains the fuss, a bit. Winstanley Rothmock, the third, was a bit indignant that we weren’t handling this more discreetly.”

“The gentleman of the house?”

Again, a nod. And a sigh. “Why is it always a dead hooker?”

“Because,” I replied, “we used up all the romantic tragedy in songs. Pretty much just leaves sex and drinking as company for death.”

“I’ve heard some of your songs. Seems like maybe you’re working on using those up, too.”

My turn to shrug. “Even if the ‘verse keeps turning ‘til I’m ten thousand years old, there’ll be no using those up.”

“You know I’ll be telling the captain you were here.”

“Doesn’t much matter. If I were sensible enough to care about that, I never would’ve taken the case in the first place.”

[- - * - -]

I could have tracked down Mr. Rothmock, but I guessed (correctly, as it fell out) that it would be easier to ask his neighbors. After listening to numerous unhappy diatribes on the man’s “unholy tastes” and “just desserts,” I finally picked up a place and a name: The Phile, in Borales. I had a feeling I was going to be spending far more time amongst Crypt’s undead than any hot-blooded satyr ought. And, as is usual with my gloomy predictions, I was right.

Dinadan Noir I: Cue Saxophones and Smoke

2008-05-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

One of the perks of leading the bard guild is that you get your own office. Might be a stretch to call a former pantry at the Drunken Wench an office, but I did. The name’s Dinadan, Dinadan Whistler. I’m a sentinel for hire. Freelance investigator. Goat about town.

I’d just been released from active duty as a sentinel over a little fracas I’d been in down at Sauronan harbor. The Chief didn’t much like that I’d shown my handsome mug all across the waterfront chasing down a ring of illicit illex smugglers. Said he couldn’t use me any more. Only I wasn’t ready to quit the investigating game. So I set up an office in Nineveh and put the word on the street that I was available.

If the office had had a door, maybe I would’ve heard the trouble knocking. As it happened, trouble just walked in. And she was a looker. Legs that wouldn’t quit. Eight of them, and every one polished to a shine. There were plenty of reasons for a painted-up homarid to be in Nineveh, but none of ‘em involved coming into my office.

“You’re Dinadan Whistler?” she clicked, her voice slow and dark as cold molasses.

“Ain’t that my name painted on the door?” I replied, then remembered I didn’t have a door. “Yeah. That’s me. What’s it to ya?”

“I need your help, Mr. Whistler.”

“That much I could’ve guessed. But I’m not playin’ gigs these days. Not for hire, anyway, Miss…?”

“Arbonne. And it is not your…musical…services I wish to engage.”

That caught my attention. “Tell me whatcha got for me then.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Try the beginning, kid, ‘casue that’s where we are.”

“I—” she hesitated. Now bugfish aren’t the easiest creatures in the world to read, but I’d put in enough hours on Wysoom to see that she was scared. Real scared.

“It’s okay. You can tell me. ‘ts why ya came here, yeah?”

“I think somebody is going to try to kill me.” she said, all in a rush.

“I ain’t the bodyguarding type, miss. Might wanna talk to a paladin.” I looked her over again, hard. “Or maybe somebody down fighter’s guild way, as I don’t think a paladin’d approve yer profession.”

Bugfish don’t blush, but they do get indignant. “I don’t need you to play bodyguard. I need you to figure out who wants me dead.”

I shook my head. “You know who wants you dead, or you wouldn’t be here asking for protection. I can tell you’re savvy enough, but don’t try and put one past me.”

If she’d had shoulders, she’d have looked over them then. “It’s Family business.”

“Family…or Family?”

“Family.”

That was what we professionals call a “complicating factor.” And by “complicating factor” we mean “something that’s like to get you croaked.” I leaned back in my chair, kicked my hooves up onto the desk. “Lady, why would I want to get involved in Family business?”

“I can pay—”

“Look around? Does it seem like I need money?”

Her eyes swiveled to take in the bare spots on the walls where pantry shelves had once stood. “Yes.”

That stung. “Well. I don’t. Not particularly. I’m not interested in getting myself killed.”

“You’re Gifted. How bad could it be?”

“You’ve never died before, have you. It ain’t pleasant. Not worth any amount of gold short of ‘obscene,’ and I expect that if you had that kind of money, you’d be hiring yourself a bodyguard instead of showin’ up here.”

“Well…there’s more than gold…”

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, lady, but crustaceans aren’t my type.”

“There’s this.”

She produced, from somewhere, a cloth-wrapped bundle. Getting interesting. I’ve never quite understood how homarids manage without fingers, but she got it unwrapped. The cloth fell away to reveal a rather homely chunk of jade, carved into the likeness of a grinning monkey.

“And whose mantel is this supposed to be uglying up?”

“It’s from Sosel. Really old.”

I did this little thing that I do with my eyes, opened them up to magic. “Not an enchantment on the thing.”

“It’s more valuable than it looks, Mister Whistler. It’s a key.”

Curiouser and curiouser. The bard in me—and that’s most of me, by the by—was mighty interested. “A key to…?”

“I don’t know.”

I mulled it over. I didn’t much like the idea of poking around Crypt, butting heads with organized crime. I didn’t much like her chances of surviving the Family’s attention, though. And ever since Sikkar let me out of the templar guild, I’d had a hard time letting things like that slide. “Damn me for an idiot samaritan, but I’ll take your case. No promises, kid. Best case scenario, I figure out who it is in particular that wants to shuffle you from your mortal coil, and maybe even why. Then it’ll be up to you to deal with it. Or find somebody else who will.”

The homarid did the strange bob that served her race as a nod. “That will be a start.”

“You have someplace other than home to go? Can’t imagine it’d be safe.”

“Abarack. A…gentleman…there owes me.”

“You’d better hustle yourself that direction, then. I’ll make some inquiries, meet you tomorrow to follow up. Your…friend, he have an address?”

“Seventeen and a half Obsidian Circle.”

Summer as Spring

2008-05-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

So it's been nine months. Ish. The compatibility between graduate academic work and blogging has been amply demonstrated elsewhere, but in my case it seems to be largely minimal. Particularly when you add an Ivan into the mix.

Blogging is such a peculiar medium--a quasi-public diary for an audience that, while consisting primarily of friends and family, may also include complete strangers. The folks that read this blog are likely fairly up-to-date on my life, as my circle is fairly small.

I'm pushing this towards more of a writing blog, a place for short standalone pieces or episodic fiction or even "meditations" on topics I feel like writing about but not producing full length papers on. Walkin' Ledges is not going to go to some kind of daily update schedule, but hopefully I'll get stuff up a few times each week, and the impetus to put stuff out here will also serve to keep me writing.

I'm going to start with an episodic piece, still in progress, set in the world of Retromud. Sort of. It's set in the world, but the tone is intentionally a bit different from the usual. Dinadan is an established character on the MUD, although I haven't played much since last September.

Every Little Thing

2007-08-08T21:24:00.001-07:00

I went to practice tonight with two sore shoulders. The right because I apparently never properly rehabbed a rotator cuff injury from the fall, then aggravated it shuffling around our rather large six-month old. The left is just bruised, the result of an otherwise innocuous, nearly comical bike accident. (It involved me sprawling out on my left side on the grass and actually saying "oof.")

I've concluded that there are two big things that I need to improve in my ultimate game, especially since I want to step up and be one of the main handlers on the defensive line. The first is conditioning. Mostly on account of Ivan, I never did the preseason work I'd planned on. Strike one. Strike two has been a fairly hot summer coupled with the exhaustion that goes with full time parenting. No strike three yet, but I'm still not in the kind of shape I need to be in. Speed-wise, I'm getting closer all the time, but I need to be able to sustain that speed for long points and across whole tourneys.

The second big thing is every little thing. I need to improve my break throws. I need my short throws to be a little faster. I need to make sure that when I need to be two feet to the left on D, I'm those two feet to the left. These are things I haven't had to work on in literally years, as NW Ohio was basically slumming it, ultimate-wise. They are also things that are difficult to practice, because I can't hold them all in my head at once and still play the game. I'm trying to pick one or two things to work on at every practice. Tonight it was "use the low backhand break." I had mixed results, but it's a throw I have to go to more often, as the high backhand is expected and a risky throw in the wind.

Zooming out, life feels more directed and focused than it has been for the past few months. I've finally managed to get a few workouts in outside of practice (including the shoulder-bruising bike ride of yestereve). I'm making some phone calls that need to be made and getting bits and pieces of writing done. We've finally gotten the go-ahead on changing Amanda's work situation, which is awesome. I still have to sort out what I'm doing about Grayson's Mozart seminar. I've discovered that biking to school will take either an extra mile or a detour down Washington Avenue, neither of which appeals to me. The 35W bridge is just gone, and it happened to fall on my usual route.

Happy Anniversary!

Rhythm, Tempo, Variation

2007-07-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

So. (I still blame Seamus Heaney for that opening, and the extent to which it has permeated my writing.) June is long since flown, and July is sputtering to a close. Perhaps not precisely sputtering...simmering down to the bottom of the pot. Here's to hoping August is not more heat on empty cookware.

Stay-at-home-dadness has been a treat and a challenge. (What more could anybody expect?) Ivan has his good and bad days, as do I, and we muddle through. There's the morning nap (most days), the afternoon nap (most days), the various feedings, the expectant minutes waiting for Amanda to get home. The rhythm is similar without ever reduplicating itself, the tempo varying from day to day. The Kid is in the nascent stages of mobility, which development will certainly add wrinkles to the routine.

As for me, I still grumble when the weather's too warm. I still spend more time at loose ends than I should (although a constantly shifting, unpredictable schedule makes loose ends an inevitability). On the ultimate front, we're just moving into our big, six-week push towards the sectional tournament. I'm finally starting to get my ultimate legs back underneath me, to have that extra gear for chasing down hucks, the extra zip in my forehand to bend it around a defender. Fitness wise, I've got a ways to go yet. I'm hoping the weather cooperates by cooling down so I can get outside in the evenings.

The other night I finally got some writing done, after hoping vainly for writing time for most of the month. It wasn't much--just an impromptu snippet meant as a vignette--but it gives me hope. Getting words out has been a bit of a challenge lately, as I've poked and prodded various projects without getting the characters to breathe and speak and act. There is coffee in the house again, and the plan is to try (for, I think, the third week running) to shuffle my "self" time from after Amanda and the Ivan are asleep to before the latter awakens. I'm also in the market for a 12-16 oz. coffee press so I don't have to make full pots.

Adults lack time for too many hobbies. Especially adults with kids. Temporally, children (like art and the best kind of research) behave like a gas: they expand to fill the container you put them in. In this case, the container is life. The best you can do is to try and make some bubbles for your own things.

Last but not least: thank you to my folks (and family-at-large) for all they have done and continue to do. While recent events are responsible for the timing of this message, they're not responsible at all for the sentiment. My family has not only encouraged me in various endeavours, they've provided the support to make those endeavours feasible.

Faceblah

2007-05-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

So...

The internet is at least 90% about the rest of the internet. I could probably write a complete post about how I finally joined Facebook late last night (enabling Amanda to link to her husband at long last), about searching through the various networks for people I knew, and about fretting over which of them I knew well enough to want to be friends with. (For the record, the ones that tend to really induce hesitation are folks from AC, people whom I knew to varying degrees but am interested in catching up with.)

I could probably write a whole post about webcomics, and how Girl Genius is beautifully drawn and plotted, how Scary-Go-Round has a long legacy of handsome art and charming engagement with the supernatural, about how Goats manages humor and story with style and grace, or about how Dinosaur Comics are straight-up hilarious despite having used the same set of art for years.

I could write a post about how the habit of checking the ESPN website, acquired while working at a college bookstore in Ohio, has stuck with me, and how I prefer reading internet articles to actually watching most sports. I could write about the Onion and the New York Times on-line and how together with NPR, they constitute my entire news consumption.

If I could stand the shame, I could write a whole post about the hours I while away with a text-based multi-user game based on technology about as old as the internet itself.

But doing any of those things would keep me from listening to the radio and the rain and enjoying my coffee while my son takes a nap.

Bucketful of Ivan

2007-05-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

So today is my first day of stay-at-home-dadness (not, however, my first day of using-a-bunch-of-hyphens-all-in-a-row). Three and a half hours in, it's going well enough. Thanks mostly to Amanda's patience (and I guess a bit of mine) over the past ten days, we've managed to re-train the kid to take the bottle. For obvious reasons, he still prefers the real thing, but he is now eating at least a bit from the bottle and not freaking out.

It is of course, also the start of finals. My luck is twofold: first, this end-of-semester (told you about the hyphens, didn't I?) is much lighter than last; second, reinforcements are arriving tomorrow night to help with the Ivan-watching while Amanda works and I write a long, long book review.

The trees have burst into flower and leaf over the last week. It's a beautiful spring thus far.

I'd rather do pathetic phlebotomy than read aesthetic philosophy.

Sunshine and Lollipops

2007-04-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here I am, posting in a second consecutive weekend.

Our apartment is full of food. My folks and grandfather were here to see Ivan and stocked our larders to overflowing. It's entertaining, but I feel like I've done nothing but eat for the last three days.

Friday was an afternoon for odd encounters. I briefly met Herr Vogler, a friend of a friend, in the lobby of Ferguson Hall. I also ran into a gentleman whom I knew only through a UPA coaching clinic at a colloquium on music's role in Brazilian diasporic communities. Never mind that it was actually behaving like spring outside.

I don't have any grounds for an esoteric discursus today. Gotta save it for the paper I'm supposed to be writing at the moment. I'm just indulging in the devouring narcissism of internet culture and spewing words into the blogosphere because it's there. I wonder if there are pollution-induced blogozone holes developing at the poles of the blogosphere.

And if there are, what will they let in?

I'm hoping for civil discourse and good grammar. Or maple syrup. The expensive kind made from real tree-blood.

Colder on Easter Morning than Christmas Morning

2007-04-08T15:57:00.000-07:00

Such is spring in Minnesota.

So yeah. Infrequent updates are the name of the game. This summer, though, when I'm home with Ivan and trying to make myself study French, perhaps they will be more frequent.

First, a product I'd like to plug for the writerly among us who also deign to use the Mac OS: Scrivener. This is a great piece of software. It allows you to pile together bunches of documents and fragments into a single project folder, so you can move smoothly between them. The documents can range from .pdfs to movies to other text files, and you can shift between them without leaving Scrivener. For somebody like me, who generally writes inward spirals towards the finished product, it's great. I can have multiple brainstorming sessions in one part of the project file and easily access them when I move to drafts. Scrivener doesn't format, but it's got a lot of export options.

Second...hmm. I'm back onto the Twin Cities ultimate scene. TBA has had two practices under marginal conditions (yesterday, with windspeeds above the ambient temperature and frozen ground, was particularly bad). I'm also coaching the St. Paul Open School ultimate team. They're brand new...the school has recess and that's where they've done all their previous playing. Fortunately, our first two games are at home so we should manage decent numbers and hopefully some parents in attendance. Hopefully it will warm up soon and I can put the track across the street to good use.

Third, Amanda's got a blog. She updates it fairly often these days with photos and videos of the child. You can find it here. Thanks go to my folks for the ingenious little digital video camera we use to shoot these mini-movies.

Fourth, the paper I'm putting off at the moment will likely involve a monstrous agglomeration of Althusser, Hayden White, and Paul de Man, with a strong possibility that Barbara Hernstein Smith and/or Jan Mukarovsky will also make appearances. The subject matter will revolve around the intersection of irony, ideology, narrative and the approach to art. Hopefully tidy, likely to sprawl, and all too probably finished at the last minute.

I'm feeling a jones to compose again for the first time in ages. Part of it may be the flurry of activity and busy-ness that comes with a new child (activity tends to promote creative impulses for me). I think it may have as much to do with renewing my listening habits and finally adjusting to being out of the "composing equals bringing stuff to weekly lessons" mentality. Of course, I'd also rather spend my time writing poems and working on a novel than going to class, but a man's gotta do what he decides he's gotta do.

I still dig music and musicology, but I've realized now that it is something I am doing more because I am good at it and it's an avenue towards a stable professional life than because I am truly enamored of the subject. I have finally hit the point I reached my sophomore year at Macalester studying literature: the things people have to say about the music are not entirely made up, but they've become so abstracted from the thing itself that they seem rather pointless. I feel this more keenly some days than others, but it has been a steady undercurrent to this semester's coursework. But hey, the professorial lifestyle, once you get your foot in the door and hop the tenure-train, is not a bad one at all.

row, row, row your coracle
gently towards the debacle
warily, warily, warily, warily
your boat is your obstacle

Slow Motion Carnival

2007-01-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

To the approximately three people who even know about this blog, I refuse to apologize for two months without updates. So there.

This last semester was a bitch. I didn't really realize it at the time (at least not until the vomit-inducing final stretch), but there was an enormous amount to be done essentially all the time. And I wasn't even teaching. My goal for this semester is to take my time management skills to a new level, which will be an interesting assignment with a new baby in the house. We're due at the end of the month and the apartment is slowly but inexorably expressing its anticipation of the new arrival by accumulating furniture and tiny, pastel-colored clothes. At any rate, I got through last semester with only a pair of minuses to mar the unbroken line of As. Given my woeful unpreparedness for the final projects/papers in several of my courses, I'll take it.

In case you're wondering, 20 page research papers require research and time. Especially if you get through 15 pages and realize you still have eight or nine pages of points left to make. (That realization is most painful when you discover you have approximately 90 minutes left to get through those pages or pretend that a simple breaking-off of your argument will be a worthwhile conclusion.)

This is the first time I can remember feeling that I needed all of my winter break. Part of that probably has to do with various baby-related things, but I remember getting bored ten days in to most of my previous breaks. This go-round, it took me a good week to recover simple physical equilibrium, and the subsequent two weeks have been very nice to unwind and prepare.

So classes start up next week, and perhaps there will be more regular updates with them. I'm sure I'll find things to rant about easily enough.

Saturday, in the Dark, I think it was the 18th of November

2006-11-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Time keeps slipping into the future. It's been a quiet day of reading, games, and football. It's also getting dark early. This was noticeable yesterday, when my 4:30 bus got me home at the very end of twilight. Today, when I didn't get out of bed until after 9, daylight seemed particularly fleeting. I have to remind myself that when I was in Wales, it was far worse than this. And that it's still got six weeks of getting shorter here before it turns the corner.

I've really been digging the new Decemberists album. It's creepier than The Picaresque, but it also rocks harder. It's an odd combination, but one that's growing on me. It seems less...contrived. Colin Meloy's big words are still there, and the subject matter still smacks of the 19th Century. But it's guitars that drive everything, sometimes kinda Zeppelin-ish.

In other news, spring registration has begun and I seem to be setting myself up for another Semester of Epic Page Counts. There's just too much interesting stuff out there to take. And some more aural skills remediation to keep me grounded in the practical. In a sign of how much my attitude towards the dreaded ear-training has changed, I'm actually looking forward to continuing with it next semester. Somewhere along the way, I decided that it's a skill set I want, that I don't totally loathe tonal music, and that doing something that's skill-based rather than knowledge-based is a healthy balance. It's also the one class that really deals directly with music. My other seminars are all second or third level discourses where we listen occasionally but don't talk about what's in the music except to dispute with the authors of the various articles we've read.

The pendulum has swung from the start of my composition studies at BG. I added the music history degree to my program there in large part because nobody was talking about the second and third order questions--the "why" of music. [Something other people have noted about the composition division there...] Now I'm only studying the "why" and not paying much attention to either the music or how it's put together. I've done astonishingly little listening this semester. Hopefully next semester is better in that regard.

The Anxiety of Interpretation in Time

2006-11-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

You see a pile of meat. To the Victor go the spoils. You change your name to Victor, take the spoils, and quickly change it back.

Logical Time and the Assertion of Anticipated Certainty

2006-11-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

...I stole the title from a Lacan essay (a very short one) that I'm working with for a paper. Er, excuse me. "Working" should have quotes on it because, obviously, I'm not working on it at this very moment.

Today it is warmer than normal for November, but there's a chill wind and it feels like fall. I dig it.

I find it a little strange that although none of my classes are spectactular this semester, the three seminars I'm taking fit together neatly. One of the things I liked about the U.Minn program is that it encourages you (read: requires you) to take classes outside of music. After spending the better part of four years in the Moore Musical Arts Center with nary an academic escape, I'm pleased to get across the river. Even if I only have ten minutes to do it.

I feel like I'm getting my critical theory chops not just back into shape, but improving them. This, again, is a good change from BG, where I was often moving in directions that were foreign to the faculty. I'm having to think hard about how I think, and having to get my fingers 'round some fairly slippery intellectual constructs.

In the meantime, my birthday came and went. Had a good visit with my brother (who came out from Sioux Falls), ate a lot of pizza, played the last two games of this year's fall ultimate league, and generally ignored anything have to do with school for 55 hours or so.

Post-election thoughts: huzzah for two years of gridlock, bickering, and nothing happening (hopefully). How sad is it when the prospect of two years of a frozen government is an improvement?

Lacan Calling
(with apologies to The Clash)

Lacan calling the battement de temps
Black discs and white, the warden's bomb
Lacan calling the anxiety
How many discs does the prisoner see?
Lacan calling, don't dare look at him
The crazy logician, he ain't all that dim
Lacan calling, see we ain't got no time
From moment to moment, the logic is dyin'

(CHORUS)
The moment is coming, conclusions are in
Hesitation and quickstep, for freedom and gin
The warden is waiting, I'm nothing but fear
Cause Lacan is burning and I, I have a white disc

Cave-In

2006-11-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

So. I've gone and started a blog on account of not being particularly keen on writing a review of an introduction to semiotics and anthropology.

Establish now: a pattern of updating erratically and mostly when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Establish later: content of interest, entertainment, or potential intellectual value.

Tomorrow I turn 27. I've been alive nearly three nonets of years. Or nine trios of years. Imagine if you will a piece composed in 9-8, with nine measure phrases in three-phrase periods. Now base the pitch structure on ninefold rather than eightfold division of the "octave." Put that in your softsynth and smoke it.