First Novels: Raising Kain

I've said this with other posts, but yes, this is the third time I've sat down to work on this post. I have a valid reason though. I didn't like the way the first one started, and I started the second about five minutes before the end of my break. Had I realized that at the time, I wouldn't have started it then.

Either way, we have this post going now, so I'll just keep on writing.

The reason I didn't like what I had first written is because I was trying to pass off wise and sage advice. Then I looked at it, and knew I shouldn't be giving such advice. It's not that I don't have experience in the situation I'm bringing up. I just don't feel that I've matured enough from that experience to really be able to see it from all angles.

So, all I can really do is tell you about my experience with “first novels”.

I started writing Raising Kain after I read the how-to book Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print. (It's a very good how-to book, and is something I would suggest any writer, new to the craft or not, pick up.) Also, the name of the author is Lawrence Block. What helped me get started on my novel wasn't really what inspired the novel. It was more of a connection I felt with the writer. The way he was talking about his writing experiences the more I felt like I could see myself in that role, experiencing the things he experienced. Then he talked about his early writing habits.

Lawrence Block wrote soft core sex novels for the first few years of his career. He would write two of these a month. He'd do twenty pages a day Monday through Friday, not write anything on the weekends, then finish the book the next work week.

I don't know what possessed me, but I thought “Yeah! I can do this!” (I would also like to note that my first novel was not a soft core sex book.) So, I sat down, on a Monday I think, with a small idea about a boy who becomes the greatest hero in Atlantis, and I knocked out twenty pages. Tuesday (day two or whatever, I don't remember the days of the week) I knocked out another twenty pages. (If you're wondering, twenty pages equals some 6,000 words, not a number to be laughed at.) Both days I walked away from the computer exhausted and broken. It took almost every hour I was awake to write that much.

After that, I didn't touch the book for a week.

I was burnt out on it. I didn't think about it. I didn't want to think about it. All I wanted to do was shut it out of my mind. It wouldn't go away, thankfully.

That next Monday (using that day because Monday is a good day to start things, I guess) and I wrote more on the story. I didn't write twenty pages. I think I wrote five, and instead of walking away from the book like I'd gone eight rounds with Mike Tyson, I walked away feeling good. I felt accomplished, and that's the way it went for the rest of the book. I wrote a little each day, and inch my inch the novel got done.

I loved that novel.

I still love that novel.

And, I found out not too long after I finished writing it that it wasn't even really a novel. It tapped out at forty-eight thousand words, and your average novel starts at sixty-thousand words or so. Yeah, I was kind of crushed.

I still consider it my first novel though. And, I still fondly remember writing it. The only thing that makes me really sad is that I need to keep it hidden in a chest for fear that someone might read it. Lol. Not because I don't think it's good, I absolutely love the story, it's because of the way my writing style has evolved. Raising Kain very much looks like it was written by a child coming out of the sixth grade.

Now, I've ran my mouth on for far longer than I expected too. So, I'm going to shut up, and maybe continue to tell the tales of my first novels.

Ryan

5-8-14

Hydra

Hail Hydra!!

“Whenever you cut one head off, two will grow in it's place.”

Yeah, I've got Marvel on the mind right now, and Hydra is the opposing force to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency in the Marvel universe. Certain entertaining things have happened to that organization in the recent movies that won't be mentioned here, but I find them entertaining. And, I haven't even seen said movies.

I should.

Meh, maybe later.

Anywho, a Hydra is a sort of giant lizard from Greek mythology. They have multiple heads, usually three at the very least, and when one of those heads is hacked off two more will grow in its lace. Hence the quote above. There are really only two ways to kill a Hydra. You can cut off the heads and apply an intense flame to the stump to cauterize the wound and prevent regeneration. Then you can also crush the Hydra, and I believe Hercules beat the Hydra by doing just that. He dropped a mountain on the monster (at least he did in the Disney movie), and powdered every bone in its body.

There have been other depictions of the Hydra as well. They're often presented as villainous creatures in fantasy literature and role playing games. In those depictions they're often closely related to dragons. Some Hydra can breath fire, while others exhale ice, but mostly I believe they just bite things.

“Get up on the Hydra's back!” or so says Phil (Philoctetes, Hercules's personal trainer in the Disney movie) during his little role in Kingdom Hearts II and I would vote him the most irritating characters in the game.

Why?

He repeats that damn quote about five thousand times during the fight with the Hydra. It's enough to drive a person insane. Extremely insane. Like hear it in your sleep insane.

And, now I feel as though I've run out of things to say. I could probably roll back over to the D&D thing and discuss how I could integrate the Hydra into my game. But, right now I've not done a lot of work which happens to be about zombies and vampires and takes place in modern day and is thus pretty far away from Greek mythology and the Hydra.

So, I'm out peeps!

Ryan

4-26-14

Frankenstein

Is a novel by Mary Shelley, and it is one of the first intentional works of both science fiction and horror. Though, I believe it was categorized as a romance back when it was written. This categorization isn’t because the novel is a Harlequin bodice ripper, but because it was a work of fiction. Basically, you had two types (or genres) of novels, those that were based on actual factual events, such as travel logs or biographies, and those that were not (Frankenstein). Though, even Frankenstein has some basis in reality.

During the time the novel was written there was a natural philosopher (physical scientist) by the name of Giovanni Aldini. Aldini experimented with electricity and the human body to try and animate dead flesh by running an electrical current through it. These attempts succeeded to an extent. Running an electrical current through a corpse will cause the muscles to spasm and jerk, but there was no restoration of life (and not a single mention of a zombie). And, while the method of animation was not described in the book, it is implied that electricity was involved in the experiment. This also runs along the same lines as the multiple plays and movies based off the novel where the experiment itself occurs during an electrical storm and Dr. Frankenstein uses a lightning rod to harness the power of a bolt of lightning.

The novel could also have multiple inspirations coming straight from mythology. In a way it mirrors two of these tales. One being the story of Pygmalion and his statue named Galatea who was brought to life by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and lust. Then there’s the tale of the golem in Jewish folklore, where clay, stone, or mud are shaped into a humanoid form and a piece of paper with the Hebrew word “shem” (one of the names of God) and was inserted in to the mouth or forehead of the golem. This act animated the golem, but did not give life, as God is the only one with the power to give life to the unliving.

As for working Frankenstein into a Dungeons & Dragons game, there is little more to it than opening the Monster Manual, Frankenstein’s monster, the flesh golem, was one of the original monsters included in the game, albeit the Dungeons and Dragons flesh golem lacks the intelligence Frankenstein’s monster developed over the course of the novel. The flesh golem is much more like the monster shown in the many movies and plays that have been based on the novel.

To get an actual representation of the monster (its name is not Frankenstein, just saying) you would need to craft the flesh golem (meaning you’re probably a necromancer, it’s not a requirement, but a likely path considering the nature of the construction materials), then once the monster is animated use a spell called Awaken.

Awaken is a spell that “awakens” an animal, plant, or construct by giving it an intelligence score higher than three. And, in the case of the plant, it generates an intelligence score, a wisdom score, and a charisma score. Animals have intelligence scores, usually below three, which makes them unsuitable as player characters, but with awaken they’re intelligence score is increased above three (the base minimum for intelligence) changing its type from animal to magical beast, animals also come with a wisdom and a charisma score. Constructs lack intelligence, completely, their intelligence score in a statistics block actually reads Int—. Awakening them generates an intelligence score (3d6), and it gives them the living construct subtype.

So, now I’ve got things set up for a particularly nasty villain, or a potential player character. But, that’s not really the way I plan on using it right now. No, the closest I’m getting to putting a flesh golem in the game (for right now) is a short story I’ve been working on. It’s called Respect for the Dead and the protagonist, Phelix Goldleaf, is fighting against one. Even more so than the undead he’s also fighting against, Phelix feels that the flesh golem is the most obscene thing done with the corpses of the dead. Mainly because it inflicts such disrespect on the former bodies turned into construction materials. And, if I talk about it too much more I’ll give away what happens in the story and then nobody would want to read it.

So, on that note, I shall talk to you all later.

Ryan

3-3-14/3-4-14

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Five

Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

Raising Kain: Diseased God

Chapter Five

Kain woke up, still exhausted from the five day stint of screaming his head off, a grumbling stomach roused him from his slumber though. He was surprised for the first few moment of consciousness, surprised he was still alive. The surprise wore off quickly, though, as soon as he saw Gaia.

She sat dozing against a large stone, and a small stream trickled down beside them, gurgling in concert with Gaia’s deep breathing. He looked into the stream, watching white water bounce back off the rocks, and staring at the tiny minnows swimming to and fro like they were small seafood platters.

Kain caught his reflection in the starlit water and for the second time since waking his eyes widened in surprise. As he sat on the sandy bank, he realized it was a little boy looking back at him from his rippled reflection, instead of his fierce draconic features.

She must have force converted me back, he thought. He had heard of force conversions taking place before, but never understood how they could work. The decision to change from one form to another was an entirely conscious, and sometimes unconscious, decision. It took an act of personal will power to do or stop at anytime. Any person who could start a forced conversion must be able to reach into the mind of the person they are trying to transform.

Kain decided he would keep his mental guard up at all times, especially around Gaia. He didn’t want her to be able to pluck any thought out of his head at any moment.

Kain looked back toward Gaia, and found there was now a fire burning between the two of them. Just a small fire for camping and roasting a little bit of meat and fruit, nothing like the fires he had seen roaring in the palace’s kitchens, and equally dwarfed by the fires he had once seen burning in the Dwarven forges. His father had taken him down there once, but Kain couldn’t remember what for, or even what the dwarves themselves looked like. All he remembered of it now was the blazing towering inferno and the molten metals poured into them.

No, this fire was nothing like that.

A wiff of something sweet with a light pinch of cinnamon jerked Kain’s attention from the fire itself to what was cooking overtop of it. The smell was that of roasting meat, and he found there were two spits with oddly shaped, skinned animals jammed down onto them.

His stomach groaned at the sight and smell of food so near, but his mind whirled in a detached fashion. Just a moment ago, when he had noticed the fire, there had been nothing roasting overtop of it, and before that, when he woke up, there had been no fire between him and Gaia.

“Yes, little boy,” Gaia said, her eyes still closed. “I made the fire and the food appear. Eat your fill.”

“I thought I couldn’t have everything I wanted?” Kain asked, not trusting his supposed tutor.

“It would not serve my purposes to have you starve to death out here in the woods, now would it?” Gaia answered with a question of her own. “And, besides, you seemed to function well enough to attack me on only one meal in the last five days. So, until you learn how to hunt for yourself, I will feed you once every five days.”

“Why’re you doing this?” Kain asked.

“Because you are to be my student,” Gaia said. “We have already started on lesson number one. Eat your fill and we will continue.”

Kain looked back out into the starry night sky that hung over them like an elaborate tapestry.

The moon was out tonight, a waxing gibbous, the phase next to the full moon, the three nights of his mother’s greatest powers here on the planet. Kain wondered if Celita was concentrating enough on her physical aspect to see through it, he wondered if she would be able to look down at him and see he needed her and father. Kain doubted it.

The sunset haired boy turned back to Gaia, and moved to sit down by the fire. He plucked one of the spits up from the rock it leaned against and dug in.

Right now, he didn’t care what type of meat it was; his mouth would have watered for it the same had Gaia told him it was rat (somewhere deep inside his mind he figured it was anyway). She didn’t tell him that though. Instead, she came to sit beside the fire.

She manifested a cup, had it fill itself in the spring, and set itself down in front of Kain. Between mouthfuls of meat he would take a drink, but the level of the cup never seemed to change. The same thing went for the food.

When Gaia said “eat your fill,” she obviously understood he would need more than two scrawny little animals to fill him up. Instead, every time he set the spit down, he found there were still two critters happily roasting over the fire, just waiting for him to bite into them.

“So,” Kain said, his voice unsure of whether he really wanted to know the answer to the question he was about to ask. “Why did you take me from my mom and dad?”

“It’s complicated, little one,” Gaia said. Her tone of voice had been the same silk like tone she used before. “But, I’m going to try to explain it to you as simply as I can. And, don’t think I’m telling you because you asked. I’m going to tell you because I think you have a right to know even though you’re just as bound by the situation as I am.

“Eons ago, long before you were born, maybe it was before Atlantis was founded, but I’m not sure about that. Anyway, a man called The Writer called the Four Aspects of Life together; when we all came to him, he told us our powers would wane as we existed, and that, eventually, we would no longer be able to fulfill the duties we were to perform as Aspects. In short, our powers as the Aspects would run dry, and we would be forced to retire to life as gods and goddesses of the things we once represented. Though, even as deities we would remain tremendously powerful, but not able to continue doing as we had since time immemorial. So, The Writer had come up with a solution…”

“Who’s the writer?” Kain asked.

“Kain please don’t interrupt me again.” She didn’t look at him as she said it, but Kain could tell his interruption had angered her, though only slightly. “But, The Writer is a very powerful and ancient being. There is even some debate that he, and those of his kind, are even older than the Two Pillars of Existence, but that is not pertinent to what we’re talking about right now.

“So, where was I…? Right, The Writer had come up with a solution. What he decided was that since we would eventually become incapable of performing our duties as the Aspects and if we were incapable of performing those duties, the world as we know it would cease to exist. It would be necessary for someone to replace us. He decided the best people to train our replacements would be us, and then he set about deciding who would be our apprentices.”

Kain fidgeted as Gaia talked. Part of him wanted to try to escape while she sat reminiscing about times long past. The rest of him, though, was held enraptured both by the story and by her voice. Most of him also wanted to know: Why him?

“We were given no part of this decision,” Gaia said, continuing without showing any sign of irritation at Kain’s fidgeting. “It was a cruel and odd thing for him to do to us. Most of us had been in existence for millennia, and even though he was incalculably older than us, we didn’t like it when anybody decided what we should do, or how we should go about doing it.

“He sat there in his chair, turning pages in his book, barely breathing, and making all of us want to strike out at him. Believe it or not, none of us had much patience at that time, and now only Celita and Sola have essentially the same amount of patience we had then. Finally, he spoke eight names out of his aged tome. Four of them were ours, and four of them our successors. He said our names one at a time, and in between each of us, he inserted the name of our successors. When he said my name, he told me you were my successor, and out of all of those chosen to succeed us, he told me you would be the most important, and the most difficult.”

Gaia smiled as she finished. It was a playful smile, and Kain smiled right back at her, his mouth full of half chewed meat.

“Now, do you understand why I had to take you from Celita and Ouranus?” Gaia asked.

“No,” Kain said swallowing his last bite, and setting down the spit. “Why did you let a crusty old guy like the writer tell you what to do, and why did you listen?”

Gaia broke into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It went on for several minutes. She managed to bring herself under control enough to look at Kain, and give him a half-sneer, half-genuine smile. “Your parents have obviously taught you absolutely nothing about the way our world works, have they?”

Kain gave her an odd look, he wondered if she meant to ask him such an absurd question. Of course, they had taught him how the world they lived in worked. Atlantis was at the top, and those who ruled Atlantis could do whatever they wanted. There was nothing and no one who could tell any Atlantean ruler what to do, and they certainly couldn’t tell his father it was necessary for Gaia to take him away from his family.

One other thing bugged Kain, though; it was something the he had caught while eavesdropping on his mother and Gaia a year or two before.

“What did my mother mean when she said your last student died during training?” Kain asked.

“You heard that?” Gaia said. She sighed, and didn’t let Kain answer. “My last student made a mistake, and I made even more. He went up against a foe that was far beyond him, and that foe destroyed what he was. He didn’t die per say, but he was no longer my student, and no longer the person he was when I began training him.”

“Well, little one,” Gaia said, stopping Kain from asking any further questions. “You are going to need to get some sleep, you’ve got a big day ahead of you, and I hope you ate your fill. What I said earlier stands, you won’t eat for five more days until you learn to hunt for yourself.”

“But, I’m not sleepy.” Kain managed to say before Gaia brushed her hand across the small boy’s temple. As soon as she removed her hand a heavy drowsy feeling overcame Kain, and it was just a few short seconds before he fell into the vast abyss of sleep.

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Four

Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

Raising Kain: Diseased God

Chapter Four

Kain said good-bye to his mother. Celita swept him up into a great big hug, and began to weep into his hair. He didn’t understand why but he went with it.

He said good-bye to his father, and his father dropped down to Kain’s level. Ouranus didn’t drag him into a hug like his mother had just done; instead, Ouranus ruffled Kain’s sunset red hair, and kissed the crown of his son’s head. It was the most affectionate thing Ouranus had ever done for his son.

Kain didn’t understand, he thought he was just going to be off with Gaia for a few days. He reasoned it couldn’t be a very long trip, a few days at most, especially since Gaia told him he shouldn’t pack any of his things or have any of the palace servants come with him.

That had been a week ago today, and, in Kain’s opinion, things had changed for the worst in the last five days.

His tiny cup sized fist slammed into the ground. A puff of dust rose into the air, and Gaia sighed for another innumerable time. This is how it had been for the last one-hundred and twenty hours: Kain howling, shattering trees, incinerating bushes, transporting into and dropping huge boulders from the sky. Now he was reduced to a temper tantrum the level any normal child could throw, pounding his fists against the ground and crying for his mother.

The tantrum started as any other one would have. Gaia had taken something away from the boy. First she had taken him from his home, and then she stripped him of his status, removing everything that symbolized that status. Out here he had no servants, no clothes, and not, it seemed to him, any dignity.

“I’m hungry!’ Kain wailed to the uncaring sky, taking up a new chant among the vast array of others. “I’m cold! I want my bed! I want my mother! I want my father! I want my clothes!”

Gaia sat with her back to him, staring off into the same empty sky as her deft fingers worked a slender silver knife back and forth across a small wooden figure. She carved the figure from the remains of one of Kain’s destroyed trees, and it sat curled in the palm of her hand.

The face appeared, its eyes clenched shut and its brow furrowed into a terrible grimace. She left the mouth open with the lips pulled back showing tiny perfect teeth. If one held the figure up to his ear and listened closely enough, he might hear it screaming into the sky.

The whittling grew hair as tiny bits of wood flew away. Ears small and round, and shoulders with barely enough meat on them to support the figure as it pressed against Gaia’s palm. Its hands were small and delicate, hands that never before held a weapon, hands that never before had to prepare their own food, hands that had never before had to kill.

Something nibbled at the edges of her consciousness, something like a bad dream or ugly memory, as she looked at the tiny figure. It reminded her of something or someone she had known before and forgotten. It reminded her of a child very much like the one crying for his mother behind her.

She shoved the thought away, and admired her handywork for another second: Long enough to know it was an exact replica of the boy who lay crying in the middle of the zone of destruction. Kain curled up into a fetal position, praying to whatever powers his parents had taught him about for relief from this unending torment.

Gaia was about to tell him that there would be none.

She walked down to where he lay, carefully picking her path through the remains of Kain’s five-day tantrum. She held the effigy in both hands so that if she did trip, she wouldn’t damage it. It was important for this first lesson, and it was a lesson Kain had to learn.

“Kain,” she said, with no sign of compassion in her voice. She held out the carving in one hand, even though Kain had yet to look up.

“This is you,” she motioned towards the effigy as Kain began to look up. “It’s pathetic looking, isn’t it? I carved this in under an hour, and in that hour you went from screaming your head off to lying on the ground blubbering for your mother. Is that any way for an Atlantean Prince to act?

“I don’t think it is. I think an Atlantean Prince should act with dignity and respect. An Atlantean Prince is a person whom the people of Atlantis should be able to look up to as a hero and an example of how they should act throughout the day and throughout their lives. You are none of these things.”

Kain looked up at Gaia, his expression petulant and damning, face streaked with tears and caked with five day’s worth of dirt and grime. He looked at the effigy in her hand and anger welled deep within his diminutive form.

He knew she was right. He asked himself what his father would do in this situation, and he knew the answer was not lying here feeling sorry for himself. Or calling out for his mother. Or praying.

His father would not care about Gaia stripping them of their clothing, and if no one had brought him food, he would go and get his own. Kain knew that was how his father would act. He didn’t care, though.

Kain lashed out at Gaia’s hand, using his own frail palm to try and knock the wooden figure from her grip. He didn’t get the result he wanted.

Instead, Gaia struck him across the cheek with the back of the hand that held the effigy. The wood representation of Kain hung in the air as her arm stretched across the distance between her and Kain.

Her movements were fast, Kain couldn’t tell what happened until his cheek stung and he lay sprawled on the floor several feet away from Gaia, facing the wrong direction.

“Rule number one, child,” Gaia said. She held the effigy out and it popped into nonexistence before she continued. “You will not strike at me if you have not been given permission. Punishment for this will be far greater than the punishment you just received. Rule number two: You will no longer destroy things that are of my creation. I overlooked the destruction of this forest because it was necessary for you to learn you will not get your way out here. Should you do so at anytime in the future, whether it be a forest or a whittling, your punishment will be eighty lashes with a rod. Do you understand me, child?”

Kain stood up; his flesh had paled over the last five days and the white tone of his skin caused the streaks of heavy black dirt to stand out in drastic comparison. He turned toward her, his eyes filled to the brim with not so veiled hatred.

His eyebrows furrowed, pulling together and creating creases along the center of his forehead. His tears dug trails through the dirt on his cheeks. Gaia’s heart didn’t flutter for a moment, and she knew what needed to be done.

Kain’s head and back arched, a great snort welling up from deep within his throat, and he spit a globe of phlegm right at Gaia.

Gaia snorted, just a little entertained by Kain’s act of defiance. She intensified her aura at the point where the globe of spit and snot would impact. It disintegrated, but she knew the flying ball of phlegm had not been Kain’s attack.

It was a distraction, and now the boy was starting to change.

Kain’s body lurched forward, his spine starting to lengthen, preparing to grow a tail out of the tiny form he now held. Twin nubs of flesh and bone pushed up right in between his shoulder blades. His mouth and nose lurched forward, becoming a short snout. The flesh of his upper lip and nose hardening as the lip started to sharpen to a point.

Prefect white teeth began to grow, incisors first, then the rest, all becoming sharp and deadly. They were now in the infancy of becoming the greatest predator in the world’s teeth, the dragon’s teeth, each like tiny steak knives, designed to rip and tear through flesh no matter the protection it had.

His eyes shifted, taking a more predatory and lizard like position on the sides of his head: Ears withering to nothing as three rows of spikes burst from his forehead, and another pair of spikes growing out from the ridges that were now his eyebrows.

All the spikes started out small at the point where the line began, and then grew to a maximum length of six inches as they crested at the crown of his skull and began to work their way down his back.

At first Kain’s skin became like goose bumps, but then began to section themselves off into tiny triangles. They took a sickly green appearance and started to harden, within seconds the tiny scales were as hard as diamonds. His body started to grow; his rib cage forced its way out, making room for larger muscles and additional organs.

Three hearts began to beat inside Kain’s chest. Two regular lungs, in addition to those already there, began to force oxygen into his blood stream faster and faster, and the specialized dragon lungs began to develop. He was a young drake, but his body was advanced for his age, a condition of prime breeding, and both the lung that contained a unique type of chemical in it that froze water vapor on contact, and the lung that superheated the oxygen in his blood to create fire were completely ready to use.

Even the specialized vent that allowed Atlantean Acid Drakes to inject their stomach acids into a jet of superheated air so they could exhale a cloud of acid (which was almost guaranteed to stop their opponents in their tracks) and didn’t develop until well into their adulthood. Kain had one though, and that was what he wanted to use against Gaia right now.

A trio of successive rips sounded along Kain’s back, the first was his spine ripping through the flesh at the base of his torso and lengthening out nearly as long as he was tall. The second was the skeletal left wing. The third and final rip was a fully formed wing ripping its way out of Kain’s right shoulder blade. Muscle started to creep up the skeletal left wing, and another set of muscles and tendons started to grow on his exposed spinal column.

Spikes grew at the end of the tail, right out of the bone, and a new set of joints began to appear at the end. A spike formed on the very last vertebrae, just before the joint, and as it reached out of the bone, it curved and slid down so that it fit easily inside the joint. Another scythe like spike grew on the opposite side of his tail and fit into the joint just like the other.

Scales and flesh covered the tail; an odd leather like substance grew to cover the great gaping spaces in the wing, and the joints in his leg reversed. His feet and hands split apart in some places and grew together in others. Talons grew out of the fused spaces and his entire body weight almost tripled.

Kain, as an Atlantean Acid Drake (one of the fiercest types of dragons), his scales a sickly color and his eyes a smoldering emerald, glared at Gaia. He was as he had been born now. He came out of his mother as a dragon in an egg, and he would always be most comfortable in this form.

He snorted once and leapt into the air. His wings caught air, snapped once, twice, and then pulled himself higher into the air.

Gaia watched Kain’s flight, noting things about how he moved. Many of those things she noted were purely strategic. How Kain tipped and showed the joint where his wing connected to his back. How when he flapped, his legs jittered, giving any good shot with a ranged weapon the chance to plant a bolt right into his joint and incapacitate or kill him with that shot. How his emotional state showed clearly in how he flew through the air with starts and stops, and how any intelligent being using only sticks and a rock to fight him would be able to overcome him if they taunted him enough.

These were the things Gaia took note of, because these were the things she was going to have to teach him in the long years they would be spending together.

Kain spilt air from his wings, tucked them in close to his body, and dove towards Gaia with a look of maddening glee in his eyes. His speed increased and she stood waiting.

He took a quick breath, filling his inferno lung with the oxygen needed for the assault; the mental clamp his body held on the vent that would allow the acid to enter his windpipe began to loosen.

At fifty yards his wings spread, his body jerked backwards, and his mouth dropped open. He spewed forth a cloud of hyper heated acidic vapor, and he smiled with his eyes. He hoped to watch the vapors eat away at Gaia’s form. He was denied.

Gaia moved a second before gravity brought the vapors down to her level. Quick as the blink of an eye, and she now stood at eye level, seemingly on nothing, with Kain’s stunned draconic features.

Gaia snapped her fingers; Kain’s hyper sensitive hearing picked up a slight pop as something materialized in Gaia’s hand. She jerked the new item forward in a single thrust, and Kain’s childish mind supposed that it was a knife. When he felt whatever it was press against his neck, he supposed his life was over.

Kain’s mind slowed, reeling around the possibility of dying at a young age, and he blacked out, hoping there would be no pain in the end.

Gaia caught Kain’s unconscious form, believing that it would just add insult to injury if she let him drop to the ground, especially when there would be no lesson learned from the pain when he woke up. Her methods were unique, and Gaia knew her sister considered her training techniques to be cruel, but Gaia believed in pain with a purpose.

She lugged the acid drake over one shoulder like he was an oversized sack of potatoes, and looked at the item she had materialized. It was a rather plain wooden spoon, something else she had made while he was crying over not getting his clothes, his food, his way, or whatever it had been.

She intended to use the spoon as a disciplinary tool, not unlike the rod she had mentioned earlier. The spoon was not meant to bring physical harm like the rod would though.

The spoon was a far more psychological instrument than the rod. The spoon was an item any person in any house in any village, city, or even a traveler’s pack would have.

She had seen his thoughts, and was glad that he had associated the spoon with a knife. That association would make him fear it that much more, and with the knowledge that he would be disciplined by something every living being on the face of the planet had, she would teach him equality, and anybody could get lucky enough to get a knife, or a spoon, in his back or throat.

Chapter Five

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Three

Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two

Raising Kain: Diseased God
Chapter Three

“Apophis, come down here!”

The voice was his mother’s, and she was almost always telling him what to do. Kain, as he preferred to be called, turned six-years-old today. And planned on spending the day lounging on the palace’s third floor, just sucking in the sun’s rays, and having his servants provide everything for him. He hadn’t even planned on moving from the spot he was in right now at all during the day, at least not until his mother called for him.

His mother was Celita Luna, the Aspect of the Moon one of the Four Aspects of Life. She was the third being in existence, and by this time she was so old that Kain could hardly believe she had managed to carry him the entire two year duration of the dragon’s gestation period, plus the six month egg incubation time.

One of his tutors, whom he barely paid any attention at all too, told him that a female dragon’s reproductive system only worked for the first four thousand years of her life, but apparently the tutor had been wrong about this particular fact. Well, concerning his mother anyway. Kain guessed she was special, because of who she was, and she would probably be able to have as many children as she wanted whenever she wanted to.

Her voice came up from the Hatchery; it was the place she spent most of her time. Kain couldn’t understand why, even though Celita told him it was because she worried about his brother. To his knowledge though Kain didn’t have a brother, just a stupid egg that hadn’t hatched yet.

“Apophis!”

His mother’s voice was more insistent this time, and with a great heaving sigh, Kain got up from the plush armed couch he had been dozing on. He had dragged the chair out from beneath the roof, or the floor of the fourth floor whichever anybody wanted to call it, so it was right out on the balcony, right in the spot where the sun’s bright golden rays hit first.

Apolla Sola, the Aspect of the Sun and the First Aspect of Life, always made it bright and sunny on Kain’s birthday. Sola knew Kain loved sun bathing, and always made it easy for him to do so, especially when he was in a good mood. Now, though, Kain was starting not to be in such a good mood, and was wondering if a nice destructive temper tantrum in the middle of the Hatchery would teach his mother not to mess with his birthday celebration, lazy as it might be.

“Apophis, get down here now!” she demanded from several floors down.

Kain sighed and turned to face the central stairwell. The third floor of the palace spread out before him, and it was probably one of the most amazing feats of engineering anybody had ever seen. Somebody, one of the peasants living in the city most likely, told Kain that people came from all over the empire to see it, but Kain thought that was boring adult talk. He didn’t really care if everybody thought that the palace was amazing, as a matter of fact, Kain thought everybody should find the palace amazing looking. And everybody from all over the world should come here to see it. He thought the whole reason they should is just because he lived here.

He yawned as he walked through the open space that made up the third floor. Careful as he did so, careful to avoid the invisible roots that made up the supports for the fourth and fifth floors, as well as supplying life to the oversized Tree of Life that towered high above the street level, and beyond even the highest peaks of the surrounding mountains. It was these roots that made it possible for the third story of the palace to have no walls or visible supports of any sort. These roots and the light bending magic of Shadus that kept them invisible.

Shadus was the Fourth Aspect of Life, the Aspect of Shadow. He was the only Aspect Kain didn’t like that much, and it wasn’t because he didn’t enjoy being around his creepy uncle. The pair of them shared a very similar dark sense of humor. The only thing that made Kain dislike this Aspect, in particular, was the fact that he had too many nicknames, and most of them were corny.

“The Living King of Shadow?” Kain had asked looking at his black sheep of an uncle. “The hells is that? Am I the living king of shadow now, too?” While he finished the question, Kain waved his hand in front of a small candle. The light made a figment of his hand dance on the wall.

Shadus wasn’t impressed by Kain’s behavior, and neglected to come to see him whenever he came to the palace for three months after that particular incident.

“Apophis Kain, I want you down here before I count to three!” Celita said, her voice was on the edge of shouting, and Kain figured that he better listen to her.

He closed his pupil-less emerald eyes, and he opened his mind’s eye. In it he saw the very top of the stairwell leading down to the Hatchery, around his eye’s vision he could see the well formed stone of the small passage, he could smell the moisture and sweat of the stones in the wet atmosphere, he could feel the heat of the constantly baking furnaces.

His skin started to prickle with perspiration, and just below his six-year-old feet he could feel the rough yet smooth surface of the stone, he could curl his tiny toes down over the top edge of the exact stone he wanted to be on. When his mother called out her number “one,” he could hear her as if she were right down at the foot of the stairs, and at a great distance like she was while his body was back on the third floor. His lips parted, and the word “poof” escaped his lips for a brief second.

An unsettling pop sounded in his ears, and he felt as if his stomach were turned upside down for a very short amount of time. He knew he had just bent the laws of space and time to travel in-between the third floor and the stairwell leading down to the Hatchery, but it was still a hard concept for his six year old mind to grasp.

His toes now curled over the edge of the stone he imagined just seconds ago, he took a deep breath and his lungs filled with the musky smelling atmosphere, and his skin prickled with tiny drops of perspiration as the heat from the ever burning furnaces caressed his form. His mother’s voice called out her second numeral, and Kain began to walk down the stairs.

He heard hushed voices in a language he couldn’t quite understand, he heard his mother take in a breath of air, preparing to say “three.” But he stepped out onto the landing before she did so.

“What?” he said in the most petulant voice a six year old could manage.

Celita looked at him, and he realized she was on the verge of hysterics. There were also two other people in the room with him and his mother.

One was his father, Ouranus Skygod, ruler of Atlantis. One of the most powerful beings in existence, and he looked it. Eight feet three inches tall, and weighing over five hundred pounds. His hair was as white as freshly fallen snow, and a cloak of fire swept up over the immense mass of his body. His eyes were crimson, and the iris had long ago consumed the pupil and whites of his eye. His thin lips were always turned down in an unpleasant grimace. Except for when he saw his son, this time, Ouranus didn’t smile when he looked at Kain, this time his brow furrowed and his eyes grew a shade darker.

“What need does she have of my son?” Ouranus asked, his voice laced with barely veiled fury. He jabbed a thick sausage like finger at the other figure in the room. This elusive other figure was standing in the glare of the furnaces’ flames with her back turned towards him, but as soon as she began to turn around Kain knew who she was.

Terra Gaia, better known as Gaia, the Aspect of the Earth and the Second Aspect of Life, small in stature, standing only five feet three inches tall and weighing at most a hundred and ten pounds; but her powers and aura dwarfed that of Ouranus’s. She was Kain’s favorite aunt, and pretty much Kain’s favorite person in all of existence. Her hair was the color of fresh amber, and her eyes were a twinkling black and white that made Kain think of the night sky. When she was mad, which the six year old little boy had only seen once, they were molten like the fires that burnt deep down within her true being. To Kain she was the most beautiful thing in existence, and the moment he saw her he wanted nothing more than to be held in her arms forever.

“Gaia is to train Kain, and with her training he will rise to the ranks of the Aspects.” Celita said, breaking Kain’s train of thought, and making him drag his eyes away from Gaia. “With her training he will become one of the most powerful beings in the universe.”

Kain looked at his mother for the first time since he got down to the Hatchery. She sat, unlike the other two, pressing her hand against the other egg she had when laying Kain. The egg was the same height as Gaia and the flames from Ouranus’s cloak gave it a red hued appearance. Kain knew it was black with dark green spots though. In between each of the spots, and at the points where the black seemed to come to a crossroads there were tiny moon shaped symbols; some where crescent, some half, some full, some just a tiny thumbnail moon; only one on the entire thing, though, was just a half white outline. Kain assumed this was meant to be a New Moon, and he guessed that if he counted the symbols there would be twenty-eight of them. One for each day of the lunar calendar.

Celita slapped the egg and stood up, drawing Kain’s attention back to her. He realized in this brief moment that his mother was tragically beautiful. Many of the peasants considered her and Gaia twins, believing that their unique moments of birth were close enough, on a galactic scale, to equate to being born on the same day. But there was no familial resemblance between the two of them.

Celita was tall, six feet four inches to be exact, and weighed only a hundred and thirty three pounds. Her silver hair cascaded down her shoulders and fell to a point that Kain couldn’t discern from his point of view. Celita’s eyes were similar to Gaia’s, but instead of a starry sky, they looked like a pair of crescent moons with the rest of the eye black, just like the night sky.

His mother’s face had a feline curve to it, and when compared to Gaia’s, it was sharp and angular. Her body was slim and just as angular as her face, and like Gaia, she dwarfed Ouranus’s power and aura, but in a manner much different than Gaia’s. Gaia was control; everything about her (emotions, powers, even motions) was perfectly controlled. But, Celita was chaos incarnate. Everything about his mother could change with the blink of an eye. Even her appearance if she so chose.

“I can train him and mold him into one of your Aspects,” Ouranus said, his eyes flashing in anger. “What can she teach him that I cannot?”

“Ouranus,” Celita said, sighing at the same time. “You are a god and yet your understanding is so limited. Kain is one of the chosen; he must be trained by the Aspect that chose him from the age of six until acceptance into our society…”

“At that point,” Gaia said, interrupting her sister. “You may test him as you see fit, and train him in whatever methods you feel that I have faltered in, but until that point, he is my pupil, and will be trained as I see fit.”

Kain swam in the silk like sound of Gaia’s voice, he didn’t understand what she was talking about, but it seemed it was important and it probably had something to do with him. Ouranus turned away from the pair, there was a dark look in his face. It was a look that Kain had never seen before, but he imagined his father was sad.

To Kain it seemed that his father was acting as if someone had struck him a hard blow below the belt. Kain knew he didn’t like that look, and hoped he would never have to see it on his father’s face again.

Ouranus’s eyes changed again, this time they narrowed to tiny slits, slits that promised anybody who went against what he was about to say would find their life expectancy shortened.

“I’ll agree to this on only one condition,” Ouranus said. “I reserve the right as the King of Atlantis to be able to call you back from wherever you decide to take him to train; when I call, you will bring him, and I will test him. During whatever point of that training you may be at. And, if there is war, and you are needed on the front, you will take him with you, and he will learn real battle.”

Ouranus took in a deep breath as he finished speaking, and stood up to the full expanse of his height. “Do you agree to my conditions?”

“The point is moot,” Gaia said. “He is chosen and whether I agree to your conditions or not, I must still be the one to train him. But, if it will placate you, I shall agree to your conditions.”

Ouranus took a long look at her, and nodded. Agreeing to the deal and sealing it with the nod instead of a handshake or anything like that. When it came to dealing with deities or the Aspects, all one had to do was get them to give the word and the deal was sealed in blood. Even Kain knew that much about the situation.

“Tau Gaia?” Kain asked using the Atlantean word for aunt. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Yes, my dear little one, we are.” She said walking over to him.

“Okay, let me go get some things to take with me,” Kain said, preparing to run back up to his room on the fourth floor to pack a traveling bag. He stopped, though, before he made it to the first step. “Should we bring one of the servants along to carry my travel items?”

Gaia smiled, but inside she cringed at what the vicious nature of the Aspects forced her to do to this small boy. “No sweetie, you don’t need to bring one of the servants along. You don’t even need to pack anything for the trip. We’ve got everything we’ll need where we’re going.” “Are you sure?” He asked, giving her a quizzical look. I’ve got a lot of important travel items to take with me.”

“Trust me sweetie,” She said, smiling. “You don’t need anything at all, now go say bye to your mommy and daddy.”

Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Two

Foreword
Chapter One

Raising Kain: Diseased God

Chapter Two

The funeral pyre burned for eighteen days straight, that had been the tradition as it was passed down by the High Lord Kellinock in the days since Death had first entered into the world, but none of the Clan of the Wrathful God ever thought that it was their own lord, High Lord Kellinock fifth child of Apolla Sola, to be the one they were performing the Rite of the Dead on. Kellinock had been one of the thousands of the Children of the Sun, but his barbaric tendencies and his forbidden love of the moon caused him to be cast out of that society.

Kellinock had gone, decreeing he would not become a broken down sun worshiper, and went on to found his own civilization far in the frozen north, as far from the sun as he could possibly get.

Now a god who thought that he would live forever lay on the pyre, just as he had when his sons and clansmen set the pyre ablaze eighteen days ago. It was obvious to all who witnessed it that the Rites of the Dead were meant only for mortals.

Odin, Kellinock’s greatest heir and a man of great wisdom and battle prowess in his own right, was to receive Kellinock’s god-head along with the title All Father, a mantle Kellinock himself had worn and promised to his son when the time was right, at dawn the next day. But, now, at sunset, he and his brothers were unsure of what they should do with their father’s corpse since the flames would not consume it, Vili and Ve looked too Odin.

“You said the Rite of the Dead would destroy his corpse?” Ve yelled ready to lash out and beat his elder brother into the ground. Ve was a frost giant who towered over top of his brothers by almost eight feet. He was also the youngest by eight hundred years.

“The clan will know we lied to them. They will know you lied to them!” Vili said gabbing his gnarled finger at his eldest brother. Vili was a pig faced orc, his skin green, and his hair thick and coarse, growing everywhere on his body. The orcs were a species Kellinock had created in an attempt to build his own society, they were brutish and anything but beautiful, but they were brilliant fighters. That’s what Kellinock loved about them.

“Will you both be quiet,” Odin replied to their comments. Unlike the other two, Odin was truly Kellinock’s flesh and blood child, born from the womb of the moon child that Kellinock ran away with and raised on the field of battle. Every member of the Clan of the Wrathful God implicitly trusted Odin, and it had been Odin who concocted the lie they told.

Odin and his brothers told the people of the clan that Kellinock had been slain in battle, his foe slicing him to a point where he was impossible to recognize, which was the reason the trio had him on the funeral pyre within hours of returning.

Kellinock had not died on the field of battle, though, and only had one wound on his entire body. It was a single laceration right on top of his left ankle. It hadn’t even been deep enough to be called a scratch, but from it a terrible disease spread throughout his entire body, and claimed his life within hours.

The reason the brothers had not wanted anyone to see their father’s corpse after they returned from their hunting trip, and the reason they rushed to put Kellinock’s body on the funeral pyre, was because of the sickly pale yellow coloring of his skin, and because after changing that color it achieved the consistency of fire dried crinkled paper.

The fact that their father lay there in the same condition they had placed him on the funeral pyre terrified them to the deepest parts of their immortal souls. They had not known a god would not burn, and barely knew that a god could die.

After Death had come to the land, and the mortal men joined the Clan, Kellinock began to venerate those who had died in battle above all others. If the clan found out Kellinock himself had not fallen in deadly combat, it would destroy everything he worked to build. That is why Odin lied to the Clan of the Wrathful God, and that was why he would continue to lie to them. He was protecting his father’s dream, and now he knew how.

“The caves in the mountain range to the south are still free of vermin, right?” Odin asked his brothers. Vili had been in charge of clearing them out since Ve was too big to fit into them. The orcish brother nodded.

“They have been since we drove the vermin lizard men out. My patrols will run across those damned dwarves from Romana every once in a while, but never in large numbers, and it’s always been on the southern face of the mountains, not within our borders,” Vili said to clarify his nod.

“Good, without father’s powers, it’s a three day trip down and another three back. Vili, Ve and I shall set out tonight with father’s body, after we are gone you are to take a cow and incinerate it before sunrise. That will leave a sufficient amount of ash to convince the clansmen that father burnt up. Ve and I will tuck the body away in a cave, and hide it there until we can think of a more permanent way to dispose of it. Tell the clansmen we were called away on important business in the south. Tell them that we will return at dawn seven days from now.”

Odin finished the statement with a great heaving sigh. The heir to Kellinock’s legacy hated lying, and could have thought of a thousand different ways he would have liked to start his reign. Being late for his own coronation was not one of them, and he prayed to the Aspects and the Greater Gods above them that he would never have to lie to his people on such a scale again.

Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter One

Foreword

RAISING KAIN:

DISEASED GOD

BY

RYAN M. SMITH

This book is dedicated to Melanie Rose Smith.

Without you this book would never have been written, and even if it had, it would have been much less interesting.

Chapter One

“We have a problem…”

Long thin fingers, gnarled and twisted like ancient tree branches, slid across simple yellowed parchment. Lifting at edges and turning the page with agonizing slowness. The book was thick, roughly the size of a man’s forearm, and it almost seemed too large for the man holding it. He was skeletally thin and dressed in a brown monk’s robe. His pate was bare, with only a few wisps of white hair kept in a Caesar style. His eyes were the color of milk with no identifiable iris or pupil, though they swept back and forth across the page.

The world around him was black, expansive, and never ending. Books as thick as the one on his lap, sat on either side of him: Three on the right, four on the left, eight in all. When he finished filling them more would appear.

“We have a problem,” the old man said again to the four beings standing in front of him. His name, as best as any could tell (even those four in his audience) had been lost to time, and only whispers and meaningless words like Fate, Destiny, and Writer, could describe him.

They knew this wasn’t his true form. This was only the form their minds could ascribe to what he truly was. Even the nearly limitless existences of the Aspects of Life couldn’t comprehend this being.

All four of them were here; Apolla Sola, Aspect of the Sun; Terra Gaia, Aspect of the Earth; Celita Luna, Aspect of the Moon; and Shadus Nocturne, Aspect of Shadow. The four of them were the most powerful beings with a physical existence, though there were those beyond them with a nebulous existence, the one in front of them included. Each of them twitched or fidgeted in some way. Uncomfortable in the presence of a being so far beyond them and annoyed at having been call together as if they were servants.

“Out with it, old man,” Sola said his form androgynous and lit with an inner radiance. The being didn’t move. Sola’s radiance dimmed and he doubled over, clutching every portion of himself as agony wrote its way across his face.

“Arrogance shall not be tolerated, young one,” the old man replied. “Yet the problem is simple. Your powers as the Aspects shall wane the longer they remain in your forms. I’m sure you have noticed this.”

The old man fell silent and those with him stood in stunned silence at his revelation. Jaws hung open and eyes widened to the sizes of small dinner plates. It was obvious at least three of them had no realization their powers were waning. Only one pair of eyes narrowed.

“We can no longer create,” Shadus Nocturne said. Out of the four Aspects he was the smallest and frailest, his height topping out before five feet and weighing no more than ninety pounds.

A smile creased the old man’s cracked white lips. “You continue to be the most observant of your siblings, young shade. You no longer have the power to create.”

“Why?” Celita asked.

Gaia answered instead of the old man. “Because we no longer used it. We’ve not had a need to create anything since we created the platypus.”

“Yes, Lady Gaia, just as sharp as your brother,” the Writer said.

“So, we can no longer create objects out of nothing,” Sola said, his shining form ashen from the pain he still suffered. “What does this have to do with the remainder of our powers?”

“Sola, your light shines so bright, but your mind can be little more than a burnt piece of kindling. With the loss of creation the snowball has begun to roll down the mountain,” the old man said. “Your powers have begun to wane, and they will continue to wan until the universe itself begins to fall apart.”

“What?” the Four Aspects said at the same moment.

“Oh, yes,” The old man said. “Without you and your powers, the very plane your universe exists on would begin to collapse.”

“What can we do to stop that?” Celita asked. “Have children?”

“That’s one way,” the old man started. “And, I do believe that you will, in fact, provide three of our four replacements, Celita.

“This is how it shall be. You four shall each take on an apprentice. You will take the child assigned to you at the age of six years old, and you shall raise them to maturity.” The Writer shifted his position, and flipped through some more pages of his tome before continuing. “Apolla Sola, you shall train Zaverian Saraphian Tetrelian to be your replacement.”

An image of the small blue haired boy appeared before the Aspect of the Sun. Sola nodded as he memorized the boy’s features.

“Celita Luna, you shall train Kaden Atalis Star,” the old man said. A three dimensional picture of a boy with black hair and moon silver eyes appeared before her.

“Shadus Nocturne, you shall train Malak of Thrace.” The image that appeared before the smallest of the Aspects was not that of a child. A young man with platinum blonde hair and doe blue eyes shimmered into existence. An unpleasant chill ran the length of Shadus’s spine.

“And, Terra Gaia, you shall train Apophis Kain.”

Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Raising Kain: Diseased God Foreword

Raising Kain: Diseased God

A Foreword by the Author

I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it since I decided to publish RK:DG using this platform, and I don’t know what to say.

RK:DG was my first long form story. I’m not going to say it was a novel, because based on industry standard it’s not long enough to be a novel. It felt like a novel though. It had all the parts and pains that come with writing a novel, and I can still remember each of those clearly.

I’m not saying I can remember them like it had happened yesterday. The evidence definitely points against that. But, those memories are still there.

I remember being excited when the idea first took root, and the joy of sitting down to pound through the first ten pages or so. I remember the pains that spawned inside my mind when one problem or another developed within the plot. I even remember how I felt after the first, and only day, I sat down and wrote twenty pages in one setting. It was an exhausting experience. I didn’t’ write for three days after word, and I’ve never sat down to do that again. And, I remember the sheer exhilaration I felt when I typed “The End” onto that last page, and then the crippling despair one feels about four hours after the ink dries on the page. I’ve heard that described as a depression similar to that a mother feels after giving birth. I would have to agree with that.

Either way, no matter how you say it, Raising Kain: Diseased God was a bundle of good feelings. I will also freely admit it’s not my best work. It was top of its class when I wrote it, but I feel I’ve grown as a writer and become a vastly different person since I last sat down with the book. I hope you’ll understand that as well, and look at this book as a promise, a promise that things are only going to get better from this point onward.

Please, enjoy the novel, and I hope it keeps you perched on the edge of your seat.

Ryan

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five