50,000 Words and Counting. . .

Its been a slow slog through a busy and wet spring in Kentucky, but this morning I finally pushed over the 50,000 word mark for my new novel, tentatively called "The Spear of Destiny" and while it is about a spear and lots of destinies, and THE Spear of Destiny itself, I am looking for a better title that seems less like a giant cliche.

The 50,000 word mark found my protagonists (Duncan and Molly) heading north in the back of a fake milk truck.  Mr. Cox has set up an elaborate diversion trying to send not only the Nazi enemy but lots of his own men following them toward Wales (though he turned unexpectedly and is taking the team north somewhere beyond the known Highlands of Scotland.) Another team was sent South to London with a hooded and gagged man Cox said was the Monk Belenos, but that holy man from Logres will show up soon and it won't be in London!

The story has cruised along until now at a pretty quick clip, but is about to burst forth with action, adventure and intense danger as the Nazis catch up with them and our protagonists get closer to the portal which leads not only into the land of Logres but into time itself.

That spear tip that pierced the side of our Christ in this world and that of the sacred stag in Logres must not be allowed to fall into the hands of Hitler!

Its about to get fun!
 

Latest Chapter of "The Spear of Destiny"

This chapter takes place in a Sporrai safe house north of Oxford, England. In the previous chapter Molly, Duncan, and Elizabeth take a man prisoner that they discover is a monk without a remembered past at St. Michael's at the Northgate.  They are rescued from Oxford after a cell of Nazies attack the Sporrai headquarters.

[I offer this as a commemoration of having passed the 40,000 word count on the novel this morning.]

Though utterly dark from the outside, the safe house in the Cotswold foothills north of Oxford was bright, warm, and welcoming on the inside.  Having learned they had not found her father, Molly sat alone by the fire drying her shoes and warming her hands.

Elizabeth was interrogating her prisoner but he seemed interested only in Duncan and returning her questions with questions about the sporran the boy carried.  Duncan ate warm cakes and listened intently.

"Miss," the man called toward the fireplace. "Molly isn't it? Do you think I could have a look at the my journal and your father's notes?"

"You will look at nothing!" Elizabeth barked.

"But, Elizabeth, his own journal contains the same images from my father's notes so he has them in his mind, his dreams, anyway.  What harm could it be?"  Molly spoke while she stood and was retrieving the books.  She needed something to take her mind off her father.

"Fine. But he stays tied up."

"Spread them out up here," Duncan offered from the table. "These cakes are delicious, too, Molly!"

The older woman sitting heavily in her chair and knitting with fat and gnarled fingers smiled at the compliment but said nothing. She was a woman of deeds and service but few words. She didn't much understand any of the mysteries she had been called to serve and she didn't seem to need to. She knew only she was to be ready for strangers arriving in need of shelter and protection. She trusted in the good and baked.

All four of the group sat at the table, the two men from the truck remained alert in the shadows outside the home.  After the kettle whistled, the old woman poured tea including some for the men on guard.

Molly turned the pages and pointed to similar drawings in the two books.

"This is extraordinary! My dreams. My dreams. Things I have only known as dreams seem now to be real to me.  I feel like I have lived them. Have you ever felt that way, Molly?"

Molly shook her head as she carefully watched the man's expressions.

He spoke again, "May I make a petition to my Jailor?" He looked over at Elizabeth. "It seems to me that I don't know where we are, that you have the guns, that there are two guards outside, and you outnumber me four to one in here.  Do you think you might be able to cut these infernal cords from my wrists now?"

Elizabeth's right hand shot to her hip drawing forth a small bone-handled blade which she spun with skill in her palm before driving it into the wooden table top in front of the monk.

"If its alright, I will save him the trouble and loose him," Duncan offered as he stood and waggled the knife free.  He slit the ropes, freeing the man's hands from each other and then carefully cut each cuff from its wrist.  The monk rubbed his wrists and offered his thanks, blessing them all for the release.
Standing with her foot on Molly's bench, Elizabeth polished her revolver on her thigh as a reminder of the penalty he would pay if he tried anything.

"So, Father Proteus," Molly started. "Your dreams are coming to life, you say. What does that mean? What is coming back to you now as you look at these drawings?"

"Its like a new life has burst open inside me, young lady. Its much the same as when I first found the Church and my calling. Its bright and confusing and without definite form but it is there. A life I cannot remember and yet which feels like it has always been a part of me is coming to me."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and walked to the window covered in burlap sacks.

"Father, sir, could you have walked out of your own dreams that day in 1906? Are you, perhaps, a lost visitor from another place and time?"

"Like from outer space?" Duncan asked incredulously as a piece of cake dropped from the side of his mouth.

"My dreams cannot be dreams and also be another place and time," the Monk responded.

"But they could if your dreams were not really dreams of fancy but memories of a world lost to you," Molly tapped her fingers on her father's notebook.  "That would explain how my father, the archeologist, might have captured your "dreams," too.  If you were remembering a place from which you came there might be a record of such a place in literature or ancient documents or some archeological sight.  You might not be the first to have dreamed these dreams; you might not be the first to have come."

The man thumbed through the books with growing anticipation.  Molly looked over to note Elizabeth had pulled the corner of the window covering away from the wall so she could peer out.

"Duncan," Molly whispered, "quickly, get out the blade and show him."

"Are you mad?" Duncan whispered back in an aggressive tone.

"Just do it.  Quick.  Just a glimpse.  I have a hunch." Molly reached over and brushed Duncan's hand as she finished.

The monk was paying little attention to the two of them as he was absorbed in the symbols and representations on the pages that seemed ripped from  his own mind.

Duncan worked the ornate wooden box from his knapsack as Molly tapped the man's hand and pointed for him to look.  His countenance grew intense as he leaned toward the box, a tinge of blue light emanating from the cracks as Duncan slowly opened it on the table.

The old woman looked over her reading glasses to watch the moment. Elizabeth was caught up watching shadows in the dark of the lawn.

As the blade that had pierced the side of the great sacrifice was unveiled, the Monk's mind erupted with images. He grabbed his head in a futile effort to contain them.  He burst to his feet yelling in a mix of two languages. "Work of the Devil himself! Inkstus Diablai!"

Elizabeth turned with a start and drew her weapon.  The man stumbled  backward.  Fear dominated his face.  He continued to mutter as he fell back onto the hearth.

All sound crept away into the recesses of the room until the man burst up again, his left hand in flames. As he waved the appendage the flame grew with his cries. "Inkstus Diablai inferno! I will perish in the lake of fire for my sins!" He slammed his flaming hand and robe against the brick fireplace.

Duncan jumped to his feet, grabbed two cups of their tea and threw them on the flames, dousing the fire. The man cried out again as he fell to his knees, his tone now more of a prayer than a scream. He muttered, looked at his burned hand and fell forward unconscious on the wooden floor.

The Iona Conspiracy--Preface

895 A.D.
A Preface to The Iona Conspiracy--Book III of The Remnant Chronicles

The boy sat on soft ground in front of the cold grey stone.  He had chosen it months before as his favorite spot from which to watch the sea.  The soft green moss was long gone from his slouching and squirming.  The seas rolled; the sun bounced off the water hypnotically.  Leaning his head back against the stone, he wallowed in his dejection. 

Family lore told of his great-uncle having come with Columba himself to this little island in the Scottish Hebrides.  His kinsman had served the Saint in the darkest hours of bringing the new word to Scotland, and had helped stack the very stones of the monastery where the boy now lived.  He had served and been a hero.  Now young Cullum longed for his own day.  He was frustrated at being sent out, day after day, to sit on the hill by the shore and watch for trouble coming from the sea.  Though he had heard of the Viking raids that happened before his arrival, he only half believed the tales.  Had the monks just sent him to the hill to get him out of their way?  He didn’t have the skills they had, true, but he was sure he could do more than this.  He longed to feel useful, to contribute.

He bounced the leather pouch that lay on his lap, fiddling with one of the three tassels that hung from the old leather.  It was said that this sporran pouch belonged to his great-uncle, and he hoped the story was true.  He shifted it back and forth absent-mindedly upon the leather strap that hung it from his waist, and looked up at the clouds being puffed along overhead by the eastward wind.

 When will my time come?  I hate just sitting here. 

Under the warming sun, his eyes closed.  They were shut for what he thought was just a moment.  In that time, however, the world had turned.

The first ships had already been beached.  A pair of large painted dragons glared up at him from the front of the two ships being pulled further onto shore.  With a clank of arms and cursing, men scrambled up the stony beach of Iona.  Other ships were in the shallows and coming quickly toward the shore.  The boy’s heart jumped, his stomach turning.  He dropped sideways onto the ground, hoping with no reason to hope that the broad men with wild hair and unkempt beards had not seen him.  Crawling behind his sitting stone, he peeked over the edge and saw the first group beginning to walk up the path from the sea.

“Boy!” one of them shouted. 

The boy in the brown wool robe of a monk’s apprentice froze. 

“Boy!” the man bellowed again. 

Cullum jumped to his feet and without looking back he ran as fast as his legs would carry him down the other side of the hill.  He ran and ran.  His brown robes waved in the air and his sporran bounced ferociously against his loins.  As he approached the monastery, he began to yell.  “Vikings!  Brothers, the invaders have come!  Vikings!”

The monks began to scramble.  Having been raided before, they were ready this time.  Each sprang to his own emergency role:  Some threw stores of food down into the holes hidden beneath their floors while others took treasures out to be hidden amidst the rocks and in secret crevices behind stone walls in the unadorned buildings.

Cullum kept running as he yelled the alert.  He burst into the chapel, fearing the monks in prayer might not have heard his calls.  They had heard, and only one man still stood in the center of the room.  Cullum approached the Abbott.  Out of breath and frightened, the boy knew he had failed in his duty to give ample warning of the terrible Norse warriors behind him.  He should not have allowed himself to drift off in a daydream.  He should not have closed his eyes.  He could now understand that he had been given an important job; he had not performed it well.

“Do you still have a bit of swiftness left in those legs, Cullum?” the Abbott asked, his head bowed to look into the boy’s eyes.

Cullum nodded in the affirmative, though he was still catching his breath. 

The Abbott turned, picked up a large book that stood on the center table in the chapel, and rubbed his hand across its cover with a mixture of admiration and deep dread.  “This, lad, is Columba’s great book.  Some will call it the Leabhar Cheanannais.  We have labored many years in the scriptorium to create this book.”  The man wiped a small tear from his right eye and the act confused the boy.  The Abbott brushed his hand across the ornate cover, fingering the gold lettering and the jewels.  He paused and traced the shape of the solid silver cross that came together at the exact center of the cover.

“Lad, the pages are of the finest vellum, but what is on them is more important still.  This cover is inlaid in gold and set with jewels, but its leather is more important still.  Can I trust you with it?”
Cullum could feel the pride rising in his chest. “Yes, teacher.  In the name of my Uncle who served Columba in his time of need, you can trust me.” 

The two were startled by the sounds of a skirmish from the courtyard outside.  The Abbott ran to the wooden door and slammed a metal rod across it and into the stone frame.  There was yelling and screaming and the sound of the pounding of boots, hammers and shields against doors.

The Abbott turned to Cullum.  “This, lad, is why you were born.  This is your destiny.  This is your story, just now beginning to unfold.  Take this book and guard it with your life.  It must not fall into the hands of the evil men of our age or any other.  It is not just a book.  It holds secrets more important than the gold leafed upon the pages.  It holds a truth more powerful than the jewels on the cover.  Share its story with anyone, but protect its secrets from everyone.”

A slight rattling at the door made the two turn.  Finding the door blocked, the invaders then began pounding with sledges on its thick wood.  The hammering rattled the formerly peaceful air of the chapel.

“You have no time, Cullum.  Back here.  Quickly.  Out this window and then down to the beach.  I’ve hidden a small boat down amidst the bushes by the sea.  Take the boat and go.  Don’t look back.  Just row as fast as your arms can move.  Get to another of the islands and run.  Find a place to hide. Tell no one what you carry.  Let no one see it.  Make your way then to Kells in the land of Patrick.  There you will find an Abbey.  Trust our brothers at Kells.  They know what we have done.  They will then protect the book.  Don’t come back here.  Stay at the Abbey at Kells and never return to Iona.  Your destiny is elsewhere.”

Cullum stood confused.  Was he being sent away?  Why couldn’t he come back?  This was to be his new home since his parents had passed away in the cold winter of 894.  He was to serve where his great-uncle had served.  A great cracking in the wood of the door sent splinters flying into the chapel, giving focus again to his thoughts.  The Abbott pressed the great book tight into the boy’s chest.  Cullum’s arms folded around it.  The man leaned down and kissed the boy in the center of his forehead.

When the door finally shattered off its hinges, the Viking invaders entered to find a lone man kneeling in prayer in the center of the Chapel. 

Almost twelve centuries have passed since the boy rowed off the island into a web of destinies not completed even now.