Shedding the Demon

by Bill Denise

  “Thank you, Lee,” Renard said. “Now, we have a lot of hard work ahead of us to forge a workable government out of the shambles we created through our greed and short-sightedness. First, though, let me recap the status of our struggles against the rebellion.

  “Pryke navies remain at large, and they show up without warning to bomb Kyndraist temples throughout the Consensus. The tactic has lost much of its sting since I ordered the closing of all temples for safety’s sake. The Kyndraist faith has suffered a serious setback, and I’m not sure it will ever recover. There will be many problems to face, as we all know, and I will be stepping down as head of the Council to address them personally.”

  The announcement was not a surprise to anyone in the room, but he felt the need to present it formally.

  “However, I digress. The Pryke navies have become little more than pirates and brigands, but they are still quite formidable and frighteningly ruthless. Our navy continues to wrest territory from them and should have them nearly eradicated in the next eighteen months.”

  “What about Alexander Pryke himself?” Jonathan Kline asked.

  “Unfortunately still at large. As you know, we purged most of the Lorah system, but he was not there.”

  “Until we get him, the Prykes will continue to be a problem,” Jonathan concluded.

  “Absolutely, and we are making every effort to locate him.

  “Now moving along, the distribution of the Burdekin holdings is proceeding well, and should be completed within the month. Family members with a proven track record of legality and loyalty now control most of the family’s wealth.

  “That’s all the old business I have, anyone else?” He waited for any response, and since no one spoke up he continued. “Good! Now we can dive into the daunting task of fixing this governing body, and for that I leave you in Jeffrey’s capable hands.”

  He swept his hand in Jeffrey’s direction, who nodded in acknowledgment. As Renard left the room and quietly closed the doors, he realized things would never be the same. He would never be the same.

  **** ****

  Damon waited outside the door until Renard came out. “How’d it go?” he jumped up from a nearby bench in the hallway.

  “Quite well, actually. Of course, they are just now getting into the meat of the bigger issue.”

  Damon laughed, “I’m glad I’m not involved in that!”

  Renard smiled, and Damon could see the conflict of emotion on his face. He wanted to say something wise and soothing, but he couldn’t come up with the right words. The two men walked on in silence for a few minutes. They traveled down the long, curving hallway, periodically dodging repair crews hard at work.

  Renard sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “It makes me feel old, Damon. Trying to deal with all of these changes is wearing me out. Maybe I just need to disappear for a while.”

  Damon gripped his shoulder. “Renard, you can’t do that. Leave the Council restructuring to the others, sure, but we need your presence. The whole Consensus looks to you for leadership. Even if you’re just a figurehead, the people need to see you. If you’re not involved in the process, it will never work.

  “You could leave the day-to-day work to the others and concentrate on fixing the Kyndraist church.”

  Renard snorted. “That sounds strange coming from you, Damon. You actually want the Kyndraist church to rise again?”

  “Not exactly, but the basic tenets are good. I thought you could move them toward Christianity somehow. I don’t know. You should talk to Leland.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.” Renard paused. Then he made a point of looking Damon in the eye. “Have you gone to see them yet? Leland’s congregation?”

  They stopped walking as they reached a large, arched doorway leading out to one of the docks on the caldera lake.

  “Um,” Damon said, “I’ve got a ship to catch. I’m off to fight some more pirates!” He gestured over his shoulder toward the lake.

  “Damon. You can’t avoid them forever. You owe them a visit.”

  Damon looked down. “I just—I don’t know, I still feel responsible for the death of their loved ones.”

  “You and me both. I’m just as responsible as you are. I met with them, and they forgave me. Their compassion is moving, and they’ve made me re-think my own beliefs.”

  Damon met his gaze. “I’ll go sometime soon—”

  “Do it before you head back to the fleet. I’ve arranged a shuttle for you, please take it.”

  Damon sighed heavily. “All right, I’ll do it. Thank you.”

  Renard shook his hand heartily with both hands. “Take care of yourself, Damon. And I’ll see you again soon. We can try to find more information on your home.”

  Damon was suddenly still, lost in thought for moment before stammering, “I was thinking about that, too. We could search for The Beacon, it’s a well-known legend throughout The Ruins—my ruins—and we might find something on it.”

  “That really might help, I’ll ask Jeffrey . . . oh, I guess, well, I guess I’ll look for it myself!”

  “Thanks,” Damon said. “Maybe together we can find it.”

  THE END

  About the author . . .

  More than two years ago, through a long series of events while searching for tanking info for a popular MMO (thanks Honorshammer!), I eventually found myself on the Saucy Ink website. There I learned about NaNoWriMo, and the writing bug was kindled. Luckily, I also found Taven Moore’s excellent NaNo prep course, and I followed every step of her plan or I would not be writing this today.

  I was surprised to discover that writing takes planning! Now, in real life, I’m a project manager, so I’m all about planning! This I could understand. Taking what little creative juice I had, I planned the heck out of this novel. I planned for two whole months leading up to NaNo, and I needed every bit of it.

  NaNo was fun, crazy, and actually quite productive. I won, which simply means I wrote 50,000 words in the month, but more importantly, I discovered that writing is hard work, and planning is the key to success. A good idea is nice, but it won’t get you past anything longer than a short story.

  With NaNo complete, my enthusiasm waned. At one point I decided I didn’t need to finish. Why should I? I’m not writing a best-seller here, I’m not going to make a living as a writer, so who cares if I quit? I’m only doing for fun, right? Then my 11-year-old son asked me when the book would be done. Apparently he’d told his teacher that I was writing a book, and the teacher wanted to know when he could read it. If I quit now, it wouldn’t set a very good example would it?

  So I buckled down. It should have been easy, but it wasn’t. I still struggled with getting words down, and now I’d hit the empty places in my initial outline from soooo long ago. Despite that fact, I had created the ending in the planning stage, and I knew (sort of) how to get there; there was simply the DOING.

  Finally, during my lunch break, I typed in “THE END” at around 107,000 words.

  If you’d like to read the whole novel creation story, there are three guest posts I wrote for TavenMoore.com:

  http://tavenmoore.com/2013/adventures-in-writing/

  http://tavenmoore.com/2013/bill-denise-adventures-in-revision/

  http://tavenmoore.com/2013/bill-denise-novel-revision-database/

  This book was written using Scrivener for Windows:

  http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

  And revised using the Novel Revision Database from KnuckleHead Computers.

  And finally, my Amazon author’s page: http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Denise/e/B007PKG2OG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_6

 

 

 
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