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Entry tags:	art, excerpts, writing

Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
Today we're supposed to give away some free fiction, and I was hoping to have something new and self-contained for it... but the weekend was a little more hectic than I liked. Nevertheless, here are my offerings for my fellow Technopeasants:

Material you can already find online here:

Free Short Stories Available from Online Magazines -- Mostly about the Jokka, but one space opera short ("Stormfront") also. If you haven't read the Jokka short stories, I encourage you to do so. People seem to like them. I seem to remember at least one being recommended for a Nebula, and another making one of the secondary Tiptree lists, and "Unspeakable" made it into the Best of Strange Horizons anthology.

The Flight of the Godkin Griffin at godkin -- I've been writing this novel-for-donation for several years, and it's updated regularly (for the most part).

The Picture Reel -- I uploaded a couple new sketches last night, and while the art isn't "free fiction," it is free content, and there are 2400+ pieces there for you to enjoy. If the idea of wading through that much art is daunting, check out my Guided Tour tag on Livejournal.

Livejournal Excerpts -- I've posted bits and pieces of works in progress on Livejournal... if you'd like to see those, they're under the Excerpts tag.


And finally, my new offering for today in particular: the unedited beginning of the Calligrapher/Shame novel, under the cut.

      Let me first put your hearts at ease by saying that I do not blame you for the unfortunate events that saw the House of Flowers remade. Many of you look upon our caste system and believe us incapable of understanding that all species are made up of individuals... but we do, and so I know that the acts of some aunera--aliens such as you--do not reflect upon you all.

      Nor do I think the situation with House Qenain was without its compensations... for it is because of the problems afflicting Qenain that I came to meet Shame.


      There is a word in our tongue to describe when something happens to your life, an inevitability required by the changes your spirit requires. It is a beautiful word to write, and I almost always embellish it with silver leaf: such things are precious and deserve the extra art. My particular paisathi began in an alarmingly intimate room, prostrate before the god of Civilization Himself, Thirukedi, emperor of Kherishdar. Since He had elevated me to osulked, the topmost rank of the Public Servant caste, I had been called more often into His presence, but that had not accustomed me to it. It is our belief that Thirukedi is the same man who founded Kherishdar thousands of years ago, reborn into new bodies with each lifetime to continue guiding the development of the Empire. You have only to meet Him to see that it must be so, for such an aura could only be born of generations of patience and witness.

      As His osulkedi, I was His to send wherever He felt my talents were needed most. I had ministered to many different Households since my elevation, traveling all three of our crown worlds to bring what small wisdom and talent I could to bear on their sorrows. But Thirukedi had given me these assignments in His vast and impersonal audience chamber, divulging only my destination and the names of the Ai-Naidar waiting to receive me. This... this unwonted invitation unsettled me. It was not for such as I to take tea with the emperor, but the fragrance was unmistakable and the command irresistible.

      "Join me."

      My wrists shook as they pushed me upright; somehow I found myself on the embroidered cushion across from the low table. This chamber had been designed for such audiences, for the table was on a dais with stepped ends: Thirukedi sat on the raised step, I on the low and the table on the middle. Thus propriety was observed, though I imagined such rooms more frequently saw discussions between Thirukedi and those above the Wall of Birth. As osulkedi I was the highest caste-rank below that Wall... but the Wall was insurmountable.

      One of the irimked poured our tea from an exquisite pot into equally exquisite bowls, covering each with a lid before withdrawing. Head bowed, I waited for the emperor to draw his closer and sip from it before I dared my own. The finish on the gray-green ceramic was pebbled and warm, a delight to the fingertips; the tea subtle, fragrant and astringent. He allowed me to enjoy it at a proper pace, and only after half the bowl remained did He speak.

      "You wonder, no doubt, at your presence here."

      I glanced across the table at His throat but did not speak for lack of explicit permission. I watched His long hands as He poured himself another bowl.

      "You are released to speak," Thirukedi said, and continued, "Your services have pleased me. I was not wrong to lift you up."

      "You are thanked, Thirukedi," I murmured in Abased. Even given leave to speak I could not conceive of addressing Him in anything but the most abased of grammars, anymore than I would look at His face. "It was only in service to your ideal."

      "Mmm." His fingers came to rest on the lid of the bowl, restless as butterflies. "Tell me, Calligrapher... do you know the fable of the cracked pot?"

      "Which one, Thirukedi?"

      He laughed, and my ears flicked back in a suffusion of modesty.

      "I should have known you would have known the many variations," He said. "Which of the versions is your favorite, then?"

      "If it pleases you," I said, "the one where the potter repairs the cracked pot and puts it back in service."

      "As I would have thought," He said. "There is a reason that version is one that is best known." He was quiet; even His fingers grew still. In that silence, I waited, attentive. "I have sent you on many assignments, but as... how shall I say. Preventative care. Pots under strain, that without a moment's respite would have developed flaws. You have eased hearts and pressures both by reminding those in need of the virtues of Kherishdar. You have found those assignments gladsome, I would hope?"

      "It is good to serve," I said, and meant it with all my heart.

      "Look at me, Calligrapher."

      I raised my face, hesitant. His eyes were gentle, and the same willow-green as the tea set's.

      "I have a broken pot," He said. "And I need a potter to mend it."

      "Command me," I murmured, unable to help a more intimate grammar. "I am yours."

      He let the moment rest: He was, I realized, appreciating my outburst for an expression of devotion. I bowed my head and struggled with the honor of being so clearly seen.

      Then He said, "You were once asked to serve as an instrument of Correction, were you not?"

      "It was so," I said.

      "How did you find it?" he asks.

      I studied the lid of the bowl, shaped subtly like a flower with the stem for a handle. "It was difficult," I said. "The shape of the outcome was a thing known, but to undertake its creation was... a weighty task."

      "A noble, was it not? One of the eritked," Thirukedi asked.

      I inclined my head in agreement. "Who had taken advantage of a merchant. The resulting transaction had seemed pleasurable to her, but she did not understand that the merchant could not deny her."

      "An important matter of caste law," the emperor said. "What did you do?"

      I hesitated. The memory of that day remained brightly inked in mind. "My brush painted the rules on her body while she dictated them from the Book of Precedents."

      "Novel," Thirukedi said. "Appropriate to your talents."

      I tried not to shudder. Even though the rules allowed me to touch another with impunity when serving as their instrument of Correction, I had still found it uncomfortable. Touching is a thing between the trusted, to be negotiated beforehand. The instances in which it was appropriate for such as I to touch someone above the Wall of Birth were... very few. I could probably count the paragraphs in the Book of Exceptions, were I so minded.

      "She was appropriately grateful?" He asked. Nuil, is that word, and it has no aunerai analog that I know. It is a gratefulness that comes only from having a poison drained from one's spirit, a gratitude known most frequently from Correction, a word I paint in the cerulean blue of joy and the brown of dried blood.

      "It seemed so," I said. "It was good to have served her."

      "But a discomfort," Thirukedi said.

      I inclined my head again.

      "Would you do it if asked a second time?"

      "Of course," I said, because to say otherwise was unthinkable.

      "For the same eritkedi?"

      I almost glanced up, startled. "Was there a second transgression?"

      "Of a different kind," Thirukedi said.

      I found myself speechless, though I could not decide which understanding affected me more: that the noble I had tasked myself to such careful treatment had relapsed into shameful behavior or that Thirukedi had bothered Himself to learn the details. For what? For this small discussion? Surely I was not so important. What broken pot did He intend me to mend, if it was clear that I had failed with the one I had tried before?

      "There is no shame in it," Thirukedi said. "You succeeded in preventing her from transgressing in the same way."

      "But not in another," I said, ears flattening.

      "No," Thirukedi agreed. "There was a pattern there that you had no opportunity to see. There is no shame in it, Calligrapher; Correction is an art, not a skill. You were made for different tasks."

      I sighed, folding my hands before me on the table. "There is regret," I said. "That the effort was not enough."

      "Sometimes no effort is enough," He said. "I am sending you to the Bleak."

      My silence was not the silence of respectful attention, but of shock.

      "There," Thirukedi said, "you are to deliver my message to the osulkedi who serves Shame." He set his bowl aside. "He is the broken pot."