An Extract in Place of First Words: September 02, 2018—The Dockmaster

I finished going over the first 37,000 words of The Dockmaster, today—and then started the writing. Given today’s first words seem a bit boring, I decided to share one of pieces I edited that almost made me cry. In this extract, Tescha is shown her quarters in the sevarthin citadel:

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The queen brushed an antenna across Tescha’s cheek, and turned away, her body guards forming a defensive perimeter around her, as she moved between rows of kashta grass that was close to flowering. Tescha did not need a mirror to know more pheromone dust glittered on her cheek, and she found she did not mind. She could not have hidden from the sevarthin, forever, and she did not like to live in fear.

They could have kept her as their prisoner, while the queen pulled the information they needed from her head, and, while Tescha knew it was better for them to have it willingly, she could not find it in herself to resent it.

The world turns, she thought, and we must turn with it.

Thoughts of Veran crossed her mind, and she wondered if the assassin would eventually consent to join her in her new haven. The Heavens knew he would one day need such a place. She wondered if the nest would accept him, couldn’t think of what she would do, if it did not.

Having cost you one lover, we would try not to lose you another. The queen’s thoughts intruded, unbidden, on her own, and Tescha, although disconcerted by the intrusion, felt slightly comforted. She startled when an antenna touched her arm, and looked to see the sevarthin called Nektin waiting for her.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to keep you waiting.”

“It is of no matter,” Nektin said, “but we both have taskings to attend.”

And Tescha followed Nektin and her silent sevarthin companion out of the garden cavern, and into another section of the sevarthin nest. Her quarters were a series of chambers, located up a winding tunnel that took her past several doors set at uneven intervals.

The laranach entered them first, Nektin laying a restraining foreclaw on Tescha’s forearm to stop her following her guardian directly inside. She wondered why they needed to take such precautions, and was momentarily surprised when Nektin didn’t answer her unspoken question—until she remembered that only the queen had the ability to hear her thoughts.

“What is the danger?” she asked, and was startled when the other sevarthin answered.

“Parasites,” it said. “We do not catch them all, no matter how hard we try.”

Nektin chittered reprovingly, and the other sevarthin flipped its antennae, before laying them back along its body. The gesture made Tescha push down the urge to laugh, because its meaning was clear, and clearly impolite.

“Ignore Tiknet,” Nektin advised. “She has been assigned to me so that she can learn better manners from my example.”

Tescha thought the explanation was almost as entertaining as Tiknet’s behaviour.

“I take no offense,” she said, just as the laranach returned.

“Your quarters are clear,” it said, and Tescha sensed hostility in its tone.

She hesitated on the threshold, her uncertainty clear. The laranach made an impatient sound.

“Enter,” it said. “I might not yet like you, but I would bring no harm to the nest—and your survival is essential to its survival.”

Tescha entered, surprised to find all the furnishings she would have expected in a well-appointed inn. The parlour had several well-stuffed sofas and a coffee table, and there was a dining room, complete with a long timber dining table surrounded by chairs. A small area for food preparation was set off to one side. It was stocked with a simple larder containing bread, cheese and a small variety of fruit. Nektin promised to show her where to obtain more, once she had settled. Tescha nodded, and the sevarthin showed her through to a sitting room fronted by a screen that slid aside to reveal a wide balcony overlooking the gardens.

“The queen remembered your quarters at the compound,” Nektin said, from behind her shoulder, and Tescha fought down the urge to cry, although not at the queen’s care; it reminded her of time spent with Faledron, and the memories were bitter sweet. She wondered if Veran would mind sharing that space with Leilavish’s brother, and remembered what he had said the first time she had told him he would not be a replacement for her former lover.

“I have had others before you, and one I treasured more than life itself, who was taken from me, and whose demise made me what I am. If you can live with my memories of her, I can live in your Faledron’s shadow.”