First Light: First Thousand Words

Hey, kids! Are you bored right now? Why not pass your time waiting for galactic entropy to end all our miserable lives by reading the first thousand or so words of ‘First Light‘, one of the four short novelette prequels to my book, Rooks of the Knot? (cover pictured below)

I’ve placed them below this little intro for your enjoyment. Read some more on Wattpad if you enjoy it ( http://www.wattpad.com/story/39966138-rooks-of-the-knot-first-light ) or wait for me to post more to this blog. The next excerpt will even come with a doodle!

And if you’re really bored, why not buy the novel on kindle and read that too–a recent survey has shown that there is a 97% survival rate among people who read my book.

(Full disclosure: one of the computers I wrote it on died. It was a sad day.)

*~*~*

“First Light”

THIRTIETH OF JUNE, YEAR OF CAMELOT 623, 14:23 PM (CET).

WESTERN NO-MAN’S-LAND

[Within the former State of Utah]

Shining in the desert, a few lighter grains of salt blew over flats that hundreds of years ago had been a massive lake, as the sun beat down on what for most of the continent was the hottest day of the year so far. An eagle flew past in the cloudless sky, taking care to avoid the smoke rising from the ruined buildings ahead. Rosebud watched the bird for a good while before it faded from sight.

“Huh,” said Serpentine. “What do you know? We have company.”

For a second Rosebud thought he meant the eagle, but that was gone now. So she blinked and scanned the area to see what he really meant, catching sight of an old land-based truck speeding away from the ruin in an instant.

“Well, that’s not suspicious,” she remarked dryly. “Should we see what they’re up to?”

Even in just those first moments of their being brought to her attention she knew better than to think that whoever was in that truck might have been responsible for what had happened to the burning compound. The fires within its fence had been going for a while; great rivers of smoke stretching towards the sun–speaking of a huge scope of damage, much greater than it seemed that one truck could have been capable of inflicting-and on a facility the Six’s earlier intelligence had deemed to have pretty impressive defences.

No, in all likelihood the guys in the truck were scavengers. Could have been nomads who trundled around No-Man’s-Land looking for anything they could live off, could have been part of a more organised operation, but at that point she doubted they were all that dangerous.

“Full speed ahead, Mike,” said Daniel, smirking. Well, as near to smirking as someone like ‘The Preventer’ could manage anyway; it was really more of an adorable smile, though Rosebud could see he was trying.

Ocelot changed gears on their hovercraft for pursuit of the other vehicle; Simon, Serpentine and Callie leant over the sides to look at it, and Prophet just sat in the back, smiling and holding her stupidly oversized gun. Rosebud didn’t spend a second longer than she had to looking at Prophet; she’d long since given up on trying to get her.

The truck must have noticed them because they swerved off the road to avoid them. Big mistake, seeing as the land-based vehicle was in no way suited to travelling over the salt dunes.

“Think they know who we are?” asked Ocelot.

No one answered him, but Daniel peered out and made a quick judgement call regarding size and distance of the truck, then turned back to the team.

“Sky, Night,” he said. “Why not say hello to the driver for us. It’s unusual to see fellow travellers out here.”

Callie and Simon looked at each other, smiled, and stood up on slightly wobbly legs.

“Keep it steady, Ocelot,” said Daniel.

Prophet laughed for some strange reason.

Then, almost in unison, Callie and Simon stretched their arms up and released their Wings.

These Wings were a variant of the only British technology that had managed to be replicated in the rest of the world for the better part of a millennium; scavenged from downed raiding parties sent by that now entirely isolationist island. The reproduction had been the work of Batswana scientists, and given to the pair by the Motswana diplomat they’d helped protect from Arcadian insurgents four years previously.

The Wings spanned out to eleven foot across from the harnesses on Callie and Simon’s backs, a system of seven multi-sized disks on each wing held together with a bat skin-like artificial membrane; each disk a super-compact engine that, working together, could carry an average man’s weight in any direction the hand-held controls tilted the disks.

This technology was relatively common in southern Africa, but not so much in the Americas, so it must have been a shock for whoever was in the truck to see two people jump off either side of the speeding hover-car and twirl gracefully through the air without ever touching the ground, then speed through the air towards them like avenging angels.

It definitely gave the driver of that truck a scare; he swerved one way, then the other, and then kept on going, throwing salt into the air as it gurgled forward. Callie and Simon fanned out, then swept back towards each other and crossed paths, inspiring Ocelot to whistle with appreciation.

Honestly, Rosebud was more annoyed than impressed with her teammates. Those two knew by now how difficult it was to refuel the goddamn things, so she wished they’d stop showing off for each other.

Callie was the more headstrong of the pair, and as such it was no surprise that she was the first to reach the truck. Gunshots came from the passenger window, but by that time she’d activated the shield on her arm; metal blades opening out in a circle like a fan.

As she drew the fire, Simon came up the other side with his own shield ready, the edge of which he used to slash at the tires on the right side. Must have been old rubber tires by the look of it-not exactly their most challenging foe yet.

Or so Rosebud’s first thoughts ran. But when the truck swerved and slowed as it began skidding to its inevitable halt, she saw movement in the back where the cargo was. A pair of gloved hands poked out from underneath the tarpaulin, and the sheet lifted a little, enough for anyone underneath it to get a look at what was happening without being seen.

Only, Rosebud didn’t need to see him fully. One of the gloves was white, the other was black, she could tell even from where she was, and while there was hardly a written law that only one person on the planet could make that particular fashion statement at any given time, there was also Occam’s Razor to consider.

Her heart skipped a beat. She knew who it was under there–and, therefore, who these people were.

It was funny how quickly the weight of past failures could grab hold of her, like an over-cautious friend grabbing her and pulling her back from reacting, for fear of the potential consequences she remembered all too well from the last time she’d encountered members of this group. For precious seconds, she thought of nothing but what cold cement had felt like beneath her knees, as vice-like grips on her upper arms had restrained her like her her fear restrained her now.

But fear that couldn’t be controlled had no place in her profession. Those precious seconds she was caught by indecision were few, and not so dear that they ended up costing her anything–this time. Which was for the best, given it had been acting without thinking that had been her downfall in the past.

So Rosebud Mason took a deep breath.

“Get in close,” she mouthed to Ocelot. For Callie and Simon’s benefit she leant out of the craft, waved her hat and yelled, “Altitude! Altitude!” and they must have heard her because they went up a moment later, thank god–she could at least breathe easier when she didn’t have to worry about those two getting shot from the side.

“What is it?” asked Daniel.

“They’re Lathyrus’ men,” she growled.

She had to struggle not to grit her teeth so hard the name wouldn’t come out.

Rooks of the Knot: First Light

A while ago I was writing some short, novelette prequels to that novel of mine you can buy here: http://www.amazon.com/Rooks-Knot-R-N-Iliffe-ebook/dp/B00IGWX79U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432118855&sr=8-1&keywords=rooks+of+the+knot on your local Amazon site, or on kindle. Personally, I recommend the kindle version, as it’s cheaper, though the hard copy did come out very nicely.

Anyway, a few days ago I started posting part of the first of these prequels, ‘First Light’, to my wattpad page here: http://www.wattpad.com/story/39966138-rooks-of-the-knot-first-light

You don’t have to have read the book to understand the prequel; in fact, with this particular prequel it won’t help you much at all because the characters in this prequel are only vaguely mentioned throughout most of the text in the main novel and only actually show up in the epilogue (spoilers!), but they do play a big role in the second book, or they will if I ever actually write it.

Next NaNoWriMo. I promise! Anyway, this is the blurb–the first 4000 words are up in 4 parts, with another thousand words uploaded every day for the next two weeks, so check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

“A side-story to my YA dystopian novel, ‘Rooks of the Knot’, set three years prior to those events.

Almost a thousand years in the future, the world we know is gone. Thousands of miles of land and ocean away from Camelot and the Rooks (known as ‘Privateers’ to outsiders) the former USA has its own problems to deal with, as five major power blocs struggle for control of the continent.

In their midst is No-Man’s-Land, land uncontrolled and mostly unwanted by the five powers. But in No-Man’s-Land is a research facility; a facility controlled by the totalitarian Arcadia, within sight of the loosely-governed Republic of Greater California, and recently destroyed by fighters from the United Empire of the Caribbean–somehow leaving no survivors on either side.

But why? And what had the facility been researching? A group of popular vigilantes based in California called ‘The Six’ have come to investigate, along with a most unwelcome group of scavengers working for a powerful drug baroness. One member of the Six, Rosebud–called ‘The Georgian’, is plagued by her connection to this baroness, her doubts over her leader’s actions, and by her lack of knowledge concerning one of her teammates, the mysterious ‘Prophet’.

But Rosebud has to keep her head. There are a thousand different dangers in the world she lives in, and something all new and possibly more dangerous than any other hidden within this facility…”

Thousands of Words (or Not)

Three stunning images to delight your eyes today—they’re worth a thousand words. Actually I hope they aren’t, because if I had to spend a thousand words just describing the Wyken then I think my readers would get very bored indeed.

First up, the first page of ‘Serendipity’, so those of you who have been following can see how neatly planned out it was.

Next, the Wyken, another of the aliens from the 518 novel. There is only one Wyken in the book, one of the top-ranked fourteen detectives of the alien empire that takes over earth, but he comprises three characters because Wykens are notorious for having what we’d call Dissociative Identity Disorder, or Multiple Personalities–and even change colour depending on which personality is operating.

Wykens have skin with the same texture as a seal, patterned a bit like a fire salamander and in the case of the primary personality; the same yellow and black in colour. The other creature I made a rough representation of on this page is called a ‘Blight’, though that’s not the proper name of the species, they’re just really hated by the empire, as they work for a different empire and are supermassive intelligent viruses that assimilate large creatures whole.

In another week I’ll give you a Selena, the primary species in the Selena Empire.

Finally something I just decided to post for no good reason; my rendering of the Green Knight from Gawain and the Green Knight. He’s not exactly as he’s described in the text, as this was actually an idea for a character in another story I haven’t actually done any work on (yeah, that list I made in my first post? Not entirely exhaustive), but the Green Knight is my favourite medieval romance, and one of my favourite pieces of literature of all time, so here you go.

It’ll also give you some ideas as to my skills in drawing people, which may prepare you for when I start posting drawings I’ve done of some of my human characters.

Writing that I Wrote about Writing about

Subject to further revisions, this is how the song ‘Serendipity’ from the Writing about Writing about Writing blog posts fits into actual prose:

”

“Will you sing something, Sophie?” asked Enyde suddenly.

To Sophie’s horror about two thirds of the class turned their heads in interest and she knew if she tried to say anything in that second, she’d choke.

What could she possibly sing about at a time like this? The songs she practised with Elinore were mostly of Elinore’s own composition, and much as she loved her friend she’d be the first to admit that Elinore had an affinity for the macabre, which was probably not what the class wanted to hear right then.

The choir she sang with were different, choosing mostly religious, scripture-related pieces or old dirges for London and the pre-restoration period. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of one that was appropriate; indeed right now only one song was going through her head.

A star fell, a star fell, to the last black hole where the wretched dwell…

Yes, the song Gildas himself had called a shameful indulgence in despair—that Rooks were told to stop people from singing in public. The one where even humming the tune made people think you were mental. The very worst song to sing on this occasion.

And yet.

Its fires burned like the flames of hell…

She cleared her throat. “I could,” she said. “If there was something someone wanted me to?”

There were no takers. No one willing to spare her the predicament of choice. Damn it, what the hell could she sing?! Miss Everley was waiting slightly outside the compartment with her back turned and her arms crossed, so she was no help, and at the other end of the carriage was the door that lead to the driver’s seat. Maybe she could ask the Rook if they had any suggestions, that would end well.

As they passed by another field, Sophie felt all eyes on her and worried that every second that passed brought her closer to being yelled at for not thinking of something. Why had Enyde put her in this position? Did she even think at all before opening her mouth?

Outside, she saw two more Rooks running on the other side of the next field. Although from that far away she knew she might have been mistaken, she thought they looked harried, like maybe even the they were afraid of what had just happened. And then their gliders extended and they took off into the air, and suddenly the answer came to her.

She took a few deep breaths. The tension eased as the rest of the class could see her make her decision, but she was still worried. She’d been screaming earlier, and she hadn’t drunk anything since breakfast. Yet she decided her voice would have to do just as it was, there was nothing for it.

“Is there even a truth in the stone, she thinks;” the song began. Sophie kept her eyes pointing upwards so she wasn’t put off by the faces of her class. “And is there a truth in the word? For she is a knight of anonymous sort, who waits out the darkness in solitude caught; and she and her ghosts are invariably taught, what may not have even occurred.”

Too late Sophie remembered the first two verses were not that uplifting at all. For a moment she considered skipping the next one, but decided that might have been too jarring. The next verses would make up for it.

“Is there even an end to this tunnel, she thinks; and is there an end to this flight? For her bloodied talons are pinned where she lies, wrong-sided, entangled, between the Knot’s skies; while shadows and ghosts will claw at her eyes, bite down on her wing-bones and bite.”

Clamp down, she told herself. It’s ‘clamp down and bite’, not ‘bite down and bite’, that doesn’t even make any sense. She was pretty sure ‘ghosts’ was wrong too, but she couldn’t think of the right word and instead moved on to the chorus.

“Serendipity.”

Her voice broke. She cleared her throat, embarrassed, and continued without meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Two bright stars in black. If I meet one as lost as I, perchance I could come back?”

There was a coda line there, but she’d forgotten that entirely. She moved onto the next verse with more confidence.

“Sometimes you’re not lost in the forest, Lemman, and you’re never as trapped as you feel. For not every binding is tied with a knot, and fate’s not a chain to fix you to a lot; nor is a private pearl without a spot, a loss that will bring you to heel.”

The fourth verse passed her lips, then the second chorus. It wasn’t until the fifth verse that she remembered there was a sixth and a seventh verse she hadn’t actually learned yet.

“Before we move on I want you to think about the meaning behind this song, Elinore,” the choirmistress had said. “Do you know the story of the Joyous Recovery?”

“When one of the original copies of the Malory Canon was found north of the Lands, in 116 YC,” Elinore had replied.

Sophie had marvelled at Elinore’s oddly specific knowledge, something that was so unlike the normally airheaded girl. She herself had known about the Malory Book; everyone did, but she hadn’t known when it was discovered, nor that the finding had been called the ‘Joyous Recovery’.

They’d started another song only the next week, after it had been decided they were behind schedule, and left ‘Serendipity’ behind. Sophie remembered Elinore being quite upset about it; they’d instead had to start practicing some of the Burning Songs for an upcoming performance, and Elinore had always hated those.

“This planet spins through its ellipse unplanned; the far-away ocean will push through the land. Near one in an infinite chance are we, and, the writing in stone can be read in the sand.”

There was another coda to that verse. Sophie couldn’t remember it. She just wanted to get through the next chorus and hope that what she’d done had been enough.

“Serendipity. Two bright stars in black. If I met one as lost as I, perchance I could come back. Come back. Perchance I could come back.”

Come back from where, though? Sophie had wondered when she first heard the song, and now she was singing it again she wondered still. After all, there was only one place anyone could ever be, and that was Camelot.

Well, except the Other Place.

No one spoke for a full minute when she was finished. And then Galahad McKenzie said:

“Can you do ‘Last Showdown at Camblam’? I like that one.”

*~*~*~*

Like? Love? Writing up a death threat as we speak? Share any thoughts ye may have!

Writing about Writing about Writing (Part III)

Ah, my one-week-a-versary. Back to working on my song. First, a reminder of what we have so far:

Is there even a truth in the stone, she thinks;
And is there a truth in the word?
For she is a knight of anonymous sort,
Who waits out the darkness in solitude caught;
And she and her ghosts are invariably taught,
What may not have even occurred.

Is there even an end to the tunnel, she thinks;
And is there an end to this flight?
For her bloodied talons are pinned where she lies,
Wrong-sided, entangled, between the Knot’s skies;
While shadows and substance will scratch at her eyes,
Clamp down on her wing-bones and bite.

(Changed unwillingly to ‘in solitude’) And now for the chorus. I think I want something a bit simpler for the chorus, four lines, fewer syllables than the verses, tying back to the theme of the song, which in this song-writer’s mind is serendipity.

Actually, that’s a fair enough first line for the chorus.

Serendipity.

Serendipity is a happy and fortuitous coincidence, in our writer’s mind that of a Rook losing her faith in Scripture stumbling across proof that it really wasn’t just an outburst from a crazy woman—or, to make an image out of it:

Two bright stars in black.

Now to expand on that thought.

A wandering one finds what was lost
And will use it to find the way back.

Right image, wrong rhythm, don’t want the word ‘find’ in both lines. Let’s use first person to tidy it up.

When I meet one as lost as I,
I can find the way back

A clean-up and a coda line gives us the chorus of—

Serendipity;
Two bright stars in black.
If I meet one as lost as I,
Perchance I could come back?
Come back.
Someday I will come back.

And I can change the coda line after every separate chorus if I want. Now for verse three, and I want to drop the “Is there even… she thinks” framing at this point, so we start with what I want the theme for this part of the song to be: the serendipitous encounter the title refers to.

Sometimes you’re not lost in the forest, lemman;
And you’re never as trapped as you think.

‘Lemman’ is a medieval endearment, kind of like ‘darling’, which has come back into use in Camelot via Scripture. Only problem here is that ‘think’ isn’t a good word for rhyming—there are a lot of words that rhyme with it, but not many that I could fit in the song. Link, sink, brink, blink, shrink. I could replace it with ‘feel’, which could lead to heal, steal, leal, congeal, seal, steel, Neil (ha ha), peel. And the first line that comes into my head is…

The three middle rhymes! Let’s take a look:

For not every binding is tied with a knot
And fate’s not a chain to fix you to a lot
Nor is a private pearl without a spot…

The pearl line comes from the poem ‘Pearl’, written in the 14^th century by a poet known only as…

The Pearl Poet! And sometimes the Gawain Poet, as he also almost certainly wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, both of which are part of the scripture in ‘Rooks’. There is also a character in the novel called Pearl, whose death is one of the many catalysts for the action, so the line is referred to several times throughout the entire work.

And that gives me the last line, phew. You wouldn’t know reading this, but this verse has had me stuck for hours.

Sometimes you’re not lost in the forest, lemman;
And you’re never as trapped as you feel.
For not every binding is tied with a knot;
And fate’s not a chain to fix you to a lot;
Nor is a private pearl without a spot,
A loss that will bring you to heel.

Might possibly change ‘loss’ to ‘need’, am currently undecided. On to verse four. I think while verse three dealt with the build up to the finding, this should be about the actual finding itself, so, we’ll start with some description.

The cold winds are rising away from the shield;
The bird must fly into the wind

Immediately I think the last rhyme is going to have to be ‘sinned’, and can’t really think of a way to make it work. Neither would pinned, nor skinned. But if I replaced ‘into the wind’ with ‘out of the wood’, I can use should, or good, which have a lot of possibilities. Now the three line rhyme I want to go something like this: first line, her reluctance; second line, her duty; third line, her prize.

For though she is … by being alone
She … the covenant and bends to the throne
And out in the wilds will reap what is sown;
A book from a city long stood.

The …s represent words I can’t think of at the moment, the first ‘inconvenienced’ only better, the second ‘obeys’, only better. Ah–second word ‘knows’, that was what I was looking for. First word… harass? No, trialled, that’s what I wanted! (The city, incidentally, is Manchester, which currently contains (if I remember correctly) one of only two extant copies of the first printed edition of Malory’s Works)

The cold winds are rising away from the shield;
The bird must fly out of her wood
For though she is trialled by being alone
She knows the covenant and bends to the throne
And out in the wilds will reap what is sown;
A book from a city long stood.

Then a chorus, this time ending in:

The word will bring her back.

As I’ve been struggling on verses three and four, I’ve come up with an idea for verse five. Five is a lucky number to the people of Camelot, so I may leave it there, or I may choose to make reference to a further two verses Sophie won’t be able to remember. Anyway, verse five!

This planet spins round its ellipse unplanned;
The far-away ocean will push through the land.
Near one in an infinite chance are we, and;
The writing in stone can be read in the sand.
Oh,
Now she has found her lost star.

Ahh…

Finally, we are done! Subject to alteration, these are the words that will appear in the Sophie prequel. Not in their entirety probably, but tomorrow I’ll write up the section that uses ‘Serendipity’ so you can see how it will fit into the story. Nighty-night!

Writing about Writing about Writing (Part II)

(Part II of today’s lecture. I hope you’re taking notes!)

OM NOM NOM. NOM. Ahem, right, I’m back from lunch. (Mm, ostrich burgers…)

Today I’m going to be doing some work on the series of short prequels I’m doing for ‘Rooks’. These are four prequels of under 20, 000 words each, one of which is completed, one of which is over half done, one of which is 4, 000 words completed and one which is only 2, 000 words so far.

At the moment the most neglected is the 4, 000 words one, done in the POV of the younger sister of one of the main characters, focusing on an event in her brother’s past which was referred to many times in the first novel. The reason it’s been neglected is that I’ve gotten up to a point where my POV girl, Sophie, must sing a song.

And this means I’m going to have to write a song.

Did I mention I’m not a song writer?

Because if I did, it was a lie: I’ve written two short songs for my novel already, and as an avid world-builder I’ve done ceremonial chants and ritual recitals for this and other novels as well. But it’s just not as easy as just thinking of a scene and describing that in prose like my regular writing, no, because this is supposed to be a song that someone else has written, in a world that is not mine.

So think twice before putting songs and poetry and writing into your work, especially if it’s supposed to be your main character’s poetry, and your main character is supposed to be the best poet/writer in the world; because this is one of those times telling without showing is a cop-out, and then you find yourself having to write the best poetry in the world, or at least some good stuff.

Ah, what the hell, do it anyway—do whatever you like!

First, the direction I want the song to go in. The situation in the story is this: something terrible has just happened. Sophie is with a group of her classmates who are all worried and agitated. Knowing Sophie is a talented singer, her best friend asks if she will sing something for the class, but all that is coming to Sophie’s mind is a macabre old verse about the remnants of humanity being wiped out by a falling star.

Sophie is trying desperately to think of something that brings hope or solace, but I don’t want her to suddenly start singing the perfect song for the situation. It will probably be something she’s been practising recently with her choir, or with her singing partner, something that’s at least better than ‘the end of the world’.

But what do I want it to be about? It’s likely the song in question will either refer to Arthurian mythology, or to the history of the place Sophie knows as Camelot; formerly London. Suddenly the answer pops into my head, as answers often do—I’ve known for some time that on one of the soldiers’ excursions outside the forcefield around Camelot, they found a copy of Thomas Malory’s Complete Works, which had been inscribed in the London Underground during a period of mass book-burning by a figure known as the ‘Blessed Scribe’.

I’ve known for some time that the finding was not entirely by chance, and that the Round Table were not entirely forthcoming to the public about the tome’s circumstances, and I wanted this to form part of a conversation between two other characters much later on in the series. Why not introduce the concept here, with a song someone else came up with in which they tried to imagine what the person who discovered the Works might have been feeling at the time?

Problem one solved.

Fortunately, I don’t actually have to be a composer for this one. In order to get a tune across I’d probably have to include sheet music, so thankfully for now I am but a lyricist. If the book becomes popular enough, someone else may try to put the words to music, someone with an ounce of musical talent, unlike me.

And now to a blank page in my notebook, for the lyric writing extravaganza. After I write the title I think about how literal I want the song to be. In this case, not very, it’s meant to be a more recent song than those I decided had come earlier, which were indeed more literal, and this can be indicative of a trend. In which case, how will it go?

An idea emerges—the song will be the singer’s interpretation of a person they know nothing about: they imagine that this person, who found the book in question, may have been faced with doubts about the Scribe’s canon. This singer doesn’t want to go for obvious references, like the quest for the Holy Grail, they believe the Works were discovered by chance. Nor will they imply supernatural forces were responsible for the finding, this will focus on the mind of the person who found the Works.

First of all, a verse that describes their doubt. For a few minutes the first line has been flashing in my head like an annoying prat with a torch. Time to write the little shit down.

‘And Is there truth in the stone?’ she thinks,
And is there a truth in the word?

‘Is there truth in the stone’, is the first thing that comes to my head, the rest is added in to improve the rhythm. And almost immediately there’s a problem, because this is the same rhythm I used for the last song I wrote (the one about the falling star), and this time I will at least need a different rhyme scheme or it will look like all the song-writers of this world shared my limitations.

A few seconds later a rhyme scheme comes crashing in through the window, and yells ‘I’m your rhyme scheme, whether you like it or not!’ and I guess I have no choice. But this means the next lines have to end on an easy rhyme, because there will be three in a row.

So, why is our song-writer’s character questioning the word of the Scribe? ‘Word’ is one of the rhyming words, so I need to find a rhyme. The first thing that occurs is ‘heard’, which can probably be tied back to ‘word’ easily enough, but then ‘occurred’ suggests itself, along with a full line to go at the end of the verse.

‘What may not have even occurred’

Because, of course, there’s no evidence for what’s written except that it’s been written, and not much is known in Camelot about the Scribe except that she was a woman, and what her actual name might have been. Now for the three short lines in the middle, and I’ve decided the first two should describe the character some more, the third should lead into that last line.

And when the first line eventually comes with a suitable last word, the next two follow, and after some changes our first verse reads thus:

Is there even a truth in the stone, she thinks;
And is there a truth in the word?
For she is a knight of anonymous sort,
Who waits out the darkness unwillingly caught;
And she and her ghosts are invariably taught,
What may not have even occurred.

I’m not sure about the ‘unwillingly’ there, I think ‘caught’ might imply a lack of willingness by itself, I may come back to that one. The anonymity and the ‘caught’ refer to the fact that the soldiers of this Camelot, the ‘Rooks’ from the title, are chosen and then drafted and forced to give up their identities for the rest of their lives. But we can’t dwell on that for too long, we must move on to the second verse, where I want to get deeper into the way the writer has imagined this character.

For this verse, I think we can start by mimicking the first line of the first verse for ease of flow, hence—

Is there even an end in sight, she thinks;
And is there an end to this fight?

And already I don’t like the fact that ‘sight’ and ‘fight’ rhyme. Fight is eventually going to have to rhyme with something, and when I think of the word ‘flight’ I decide I actually want to change fight to flight. Because she’s a Rook. And Rooks are birds. And birds fly. So rather than sight, what can we do? *Fingersnap!* Refer back to the first verse and replace ‘in sight’ with ‘to the darkness’!

Or is that too much of a call back? Ah, I know! Instead of darkness, I’ll use ‘tunnel’ to call back to the underground tunnels. I am a genius!

Is there even an end to the tunnel, she thinks;
And is there an end to this flight?

Now I can use sight, light, fight or any other ‘ite’ word at the end of the verse. Might. Bite. I like that one, I wonder if I could use ‘bite’?

Will clamp down on her wing bones and bite.

Well, there is that. It also gives me the restraint of  having to lead into it with my three quick middle rhymes, maybe describing this character’s pain and doubt, perhaps bringing the problems the Rooks have with the rest of the citizenry into it.

While shadows and substance will scratch at her eyes.

Yes, I like that that one, it takes the need to use ‘will’ away from the next line, which I think will improve the pacing. It makes the mid-rhyme ‘ies’ though, let’s see what we can do for the two preceding lines with that in mind. ‘Dies’ is obvious. Cries, lies (which could mean two different things) tries, guise, wise, pies, (okay, not that one), size, ties, prize, skies.

It cuts her as if there is nothing she tries,
That could break up the shell of the old world skies.

Don’t like the first line at all. Scrapping both of them.

For her bloodied talons are pinned where she lies,
Wrong-sided, entangled, between the Knot’s skies,

Much better. The ‘Knot’, by the way, also referred to in the title, is the forcefield that surrounds Camelot, properly the ‘Endless Knot’, though that was not its original name. So:

Is there even an end to the tunnel, she thinks;
And is there an end to this flight?
For her bloodied talons are pinned where she lies,
Wrong-sided, entangled, between the Knot’s skies;
While shadows and substance will scratch at her eyes,
Clamp down on her wing-bones and bite.

So, not too cheery so far, huh? It’ll pick up in the next verse, but this is all we have time for tonight, because I met up with a friend I wasn’t expecting to see in town today, and we spent the day eating. OM NOM NOM.

Tomorrow I will continue by coming up with a chorus and some more verses, and then I think I’ll show anyone who really cares how it will fit into the story with the excerpt that actually uses this song.

Until then!