I’ve not talked a lot about what I’m currently working on. I suppose this isn’t surprising, as it is still about halfway done.
It’s a fantasy novel. The original germ that led to this was something I based some short stories on years ago in another life.
Oom – the largest, oldest, and most corrupt city in ten thousand dimensions.
That was it, that was the germ that started it. What sort of characters would live in such a city? I asked myself. What would they have to be like to survive in such a place? I came up with an unlikely pair. Once I did that, the stories I could write about them opened up.
I stopped writing for many years. This was due to life pressures – or at least that’s what I told myself at the time. Children and grueling work schedules are unforgiving.
When I returned to writing, two years ago, I started with characters I knew. I wrote a weird western, which I will polish and publish shortly before I am ready to publish the current work in progress. I wrote the first book in this fantasy trilogy, and I am partway through the second. It is taking shape nicely, I think. I have discovered some new and interesting characters scratching in the filth of city of Oom.
She loves money above all. The only reason she wants to bind the Company of this Lasko Hool right now is that, in her mind, she is binding them with my money, and keeping twice the binding-fee for herself. But I have the power now, Kooro Ko. I know what you want, and I know why you came to me. I am the only one who could possibly accomplish your end. Ozmooz does not trust you, and he will not be unguarded around you. But I, on the other hand… Kooro Ko, you are a master manipulator. But you need me. You need me, and that gives me power in my hand. The power of death.
Ilith leaned forward until her mouth was a finger’s breadth from Kooro Ko’s perfect lips, and the soft warmth of her breath was on Ilith’s face. To her left, the struggling lantern flame finally gave up, and the room subsided into close darkness.
“I will think on it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I will think on it. What you suggest is possible, when the time is right.”