Dave's Anatomy: My History as a Writer #135: Love and War: "Liaison"

Eyoline

Liaison has more than one meaning, and the two meanings are very much removed from each other. The first is “someone who facilitates co-operation and the exchange of information within an organization”; the other is “a sexual or romantic relationship between two people who are not married.” The first is often associated with the military. Someone who communicates information between various sections of a military force is a “liaison officer.” The second is connected with sexual affairs. In the story “Liaison,” both definitions come into play.

The story centers around an ongoing science-fiction character I created named Eyoline. Eyoline is a Mervogian, a race of beings in my sci-fi universe who go by one name, look identical to European Terrans, and worship the light of a nebula that shines in their area of space. She has served in the military all her adult life. In “Liaison” she is is attempting to recover from a traumatic wartime experience.

Black Diamond Logo

After six years as a combat solider, Eyoline is admitted into Black Diamond, a super-secret espionage organization that is powerful and feared in Mervogian military circles. While participating in a mission against a group of insurgents on a colony planet, her unit is betrayed, her comrades killed. She is captured, taken to a cave and repeatedly raped. When her captors are getting ready to kill her, she is rescued by Mervogian troops.

The trauma she suffers, however, causes her to leave the military. She settles on the planet where she grew up, takes care of her aging and infirm mother, and begins to work as a judge. After her mother dies, the government asks her to serve as military governor of a new colony planet. Feeling she has healed, she agrees to this and goes to Planet Corita, just settled, located in an area of space frequented by slave traders, criminals, and enemies of the Mervogian government. Her war experience and her experience as a judge and public official qualify her for the position. The people she governs and the people who recommended her for the job don’t realize that she still is a member of Black Diamond.

Eyoline settles into her job and does it well. She immediately encounters difficulties, though. Her planet is populated by overly religious settlers. Because brigands, bandits, slave traders, and squatters plague the planet, she hires a force of mercenaries to eliminate them. She finds that it is led by Jon, an old lover. Though she is not sure she can overcome the effects of her traumatic past, she feels she trusts him and the two begin a physical romance. She rises to the challenge of the religious settlers. After a second year as governor, the planet reached the population required for elections. She makes a decision to return to the military. She applies for Status B, a category of jobs the Defense Force created for troops wounded and unable to serve in combat units—clerks, cooks, administrative officers. Her superiors at Black Diamond encourage her to go back in the army. They set her up as a consultant who goes to various combat sites to review strategies and to inspect—and, of course, to spy for Black Diamond.

Transferring to a colony planet where there is an insurgency, she urges the colonial government there to act against the rebels. They fail to take proper steps. The insurgents launch a planet-wide attack. Eyoline and Jon lead a force that is cut off by a large insurgent army. Night falls. The rebels will attack, they think, in the morning and don’t see how they will survive the charge. At her urging the two of them crawl into a sleeping bag and enjoy each other one last time. Their fellow soldiers respect their privacy by looking the other way.  When they are finished, Eyoline has a revelation. She realizes that she and Jon have done something no one—at first, even the two of them—thought they would ever do--having sex in public on a battlefield. The key to winning, she sees, is to do something the rebels don’t think they will do.

Eyoline, Jon, and their force are guarding a weapons depot the insurgents want to seize. She and her troops commandeer weapons, especially drones and mines. Not waiting for the insurgents to move, the Mervogians launch a counter-attack. Her presumption proves accurate. The attack catches the rebels off-guard. They are frightened by the velocity of the weaponry directed at them. Eyoline leads a charge. The rebels are routed. She emerges as a hero. She also discovers she is pregnant from her and Jon’s liaison on the battlefield. She and Jon marry. Eyoline takes a leave from her military responsibilities so she can raise her child. When the child is old enough, she plans to reenter the military and work in a job that not will require her to be gone for long periods of time--and remain in Black Diamond.

The Planetary Council requests Eyoline act as a liaison to the planet’s military. She agrees. Liaisons, she says, are good things.

The story was printed in the UK online journal Fiction on the Web. Read it here.

For a great read get a copy of The Court of Sovereign King. Fantasy. Magic. Freedom. Choices.

Happy reading. 

Dave's Anatomy: :My History As a Writer, #134: The Last Minstrel

I got the idea for The Last Minstrel from an ongoing character about whom I had written and published twenty-eight stories. Sossity Chandler was a musician who had struggled to make it in the music world then hit it big and became a superstar. I published stories on her in many other journals and anthologies. When I wanted to feature her in a story that included magic and a pre-technical society, I ran into problems. It could be a time-travel story, but that would not fit the backstory of her life. It then occurred to that she would have ancestors. Maybe the tendency to do well at music is somewhat inherited. This brought about the character of Brendályn, an ancestor of Sossity from way back, and the plot of the novella The Last Minstrel.  Hemingway once said, “Write one story about each thing you know.” I know a lot about music (I’m a musician) and a lot about the Celtic world (I teach World Mythology). I decided to write about a character who was Sossity’s ancestor from many generations back and also a musician. When the basic idea for a story occurs, I have found the pieces of it fall into place quickly.

Brendályn lives in a kingdom that is, from time to time, oppressed by the evil goddess Morrigan—the Goddess of Battle, Death, and Disorder. She abducts people. They disappear. No one knows where she takes them or what she does with them. When Brendályn’s mother is kidnapped by the evil goddess, she determines to find her.

The Goddess Morrigan

She is training to be a minstrel. She has no magic to fight Morrigan, but she determines that, somehow, she will. When she goes for her weekly lesson with the Bard she is studying with, she is astonished to find the Goddess Ardwinna there. Ardwinna tells her she can face Morrigan, gives her a magic charm, and sends her on her way. Brendályn does not know where she is going but trusts the Goddess, says good-bye to her family, and sets out on a road, hoping the Goddess Ardwinna will direct her path.

The Goddess Morrigan, it seems, knows her plan and harasses her as she journeys. She finds, however, that the goddess cannot bear hearing music and that music seems to nullify her magic. Eventually, however, Morrigan carries Brendályn to her dark kingdom. There she sees her mother and is broken when Morrigan causes her pain. She agrees to become her slave if Morrigan will agree not to torture her mother any longer. She is sent off with another slave—sent off with the understanding that she will be a slave in the brothel that services Morrigan’s ghoulish soldiers. As she is walking, she discovers that the woman guiding her is blind. In fact, all the women who work in the brothel have been blinded. Discovering this, she runs and finds a horse she had earlier showed kindness to. It allows her to ride it. She escapes Morrigan’s kingdom. The horse takes her to the house of Caelen, the priestess who betrayed Ardwinna and opened the door for Morrigan to invade Brendályn’s kingdom. The horse kills Caelen’s lover—one of Morrigan’s ogre-like soldiers. She sees him for the first time as he really is and realizes how Morrigan has deceived her. She repents, says she will undo the spell to which she agreed. Despite Brendályn’s assurance that Ardwinna will forgive and restore her, Caelen takes her own life.

She has given Brendályn instructions on how to reverse the spell. She does this. Her mother and all the others Morrigan has abducted are freed and returned. Morrigan will never be able to enter their kingdom again.

The novel is available in paperback or electronic format. Get a copy here.

Happy reading.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #133: Fame and Simplicity: What Debussy Wrote for the Guitar

Ernest Hemingway’s famous advice is “write one story about each thing you know.” I have done him better on this because I’ve written dozens of stories about music and musicians. I’ve played guitar since I was a teenager and have performed with bands, in bars, folk clubs, and festivals; I’ve played in musicals (Fiddler on the Roof, Sound of Music, Man of LaMancha, just to name a few); even today I play weekly at various Celtic jams. I love to play and love to write about people whose lives are caught up with playing music. “What Debussy Wrote for Guitar” is one of the many tales I’ve written that center around music. But this one is a little different. It explores a musical story—or legend.

If you know much about French impressionist music, you can easily answer the question, What did Debussy write for the guitar? Answer:  Nothing. The guitar was starting to be recognized as a legitimate instrument that could play complicated classical music. Several guitarists were working to demonstrate the instrument’s possibilities. Francois Tarrega amazed people with his abilities on the fretboard; Napoleon Coste played in Paris; Dionisio Agaudo was an Italian guitar master of considerable ability. And then there was Miguel Llobet. But we will get to him later. Now a little bit on the story.

Peyton is a music student. One night at a coffee bar, he hears his friend Tito Salinas, who is from Ecuador, play what he describes as some “new pieces of music.” He is convinced by the configurations of the music that it is by Debussy. He also knows Tito is somehow related to the late guitarist Miguel Llobet.   

Artist's sketch of Miguel Llobet

Llobet had made his name as a guitarist in the late 1800s. He toured Europe and spent some time living, performing, and teaching in Paris. Claude Debussy, who was at the height of his powers as a composure and the undisputed master leader of the Paris music scene, heard Llobet perform, approached him after the concert and said, “Why don’t you come to my house for dinner some night; afterwards, you can show me what the guitar can do.” But Llobet was shy and Debussy had the reputation of being very gruff. He was afraid to follow up on the invitation and never went to be Debussy’s guest. Guitarists lament:  If he had gone and demonstrated the guitar’s musical possibilities to Debussy, the composer might have written some pieces for the instrument. Llobet never went. Debussy never wrote anything for guitar.

Or did he?

Peyton is convinced he did. He goes to Caroline, another guitar student, one with much greater ability than he. The two have dated on and off, and she also knows Tito. Peyton urges her to ask him about the compositions. If Tito released them, Payton says, his career would be made. Caroline tells him their mutual friend is planning to return to Ecuador to get married. Peyton thinks Tito doesn’t know the value of the compositions and urges her to try to get him to give them to her.  They spend the night together. In the morning, they talk more about the matter:

When Peyton woke in the morning he heard her in the kitchen two floors down. He smelled bacon cooking. Peyton dressed and groggily descended. She had dressed and stood at the stove. “I’m not sure I want to go through with this,” she said as he sat at the table and poured a cup of coffee.

“Can you think of an alternative way of getting the music?”

“How about asking him? Let him know he’s in possession of some valuable works of art and let him take it from there.”

                        “You’ll lose the opportunity.”

                        She went on cooking bacon and did not reply.

Caroline asks about the music. To Peyton’s astonishment, he says that he knows what the music is, that it is valuable, and that it will make his career. Then he gives it to her. They even go to a notary public, sign a contract officially transferring ownership of the music to Caroline, and have it notarized. He hands the scores over to her to do with as she pleases.

Peyton is astonished and wants to find out why Tito is willing to give the scores away. He is vague and tells them both, at different times, that he wants to return to South America, marry, and live a simple life. He leaves. His wife answers Caroline’s letters. After a while the letters are returned with “Address Unknown” stamped on them.

Peyton and Caroline take the music to a musicologist. He does some testing, finds out the paper is the sort of paper used in Paris in Debussy’s time. Handwriting experts examine the signature and conclude that it is authentic. The pieces are genuine. They are written by Debussy. Tito, for whatever reason, has given away hand-written manuscripts Llobet passed on to his relatives which he—Tito—eventually ended up in owning.

Caroline receives offers of up to a million dollars for them from music publishers. She negotiates to premier the pieces in Paris. Classical guitar magazines interview her. Owning the music, Peyton sees, will make her career. She asks him to go to Paris with her for the concert, partially because he speaks French, partially because they are in a relationship that is deepening. As he sits in the audience and watches her play, he wonders at Tito’s choice and at his decision for a simple life in contrast to a life of fame as a guitarist who has made a profound musical discover.

Maybe Tito is just as shy as his ancestor. And maybe just as free.

"What Debussy Wrote for the Guitar" appeared in Bangalore Review, an Indian journal; it was reprinted in Blue Bear Review. Blue Bear Review maintains and archive and you can read the story here.

Read my latest novella, Sinfonia:  A Painted Lady. Here is the web address.

Happy reading.