I've been working on editing the As Yet Unnamed Story, and I found one spot that really bugged me. In it, Diddle was just arriving at Avon's house, and was just beginning to get an idea on just how much of a lunatic his uncle is. The dialogue seemed really stiff, and not much really happened, and I've been searching for some way to revise it. God only knows how I came up with this...
...Whatever Avon had been about to say was abruptly cut off as something gave a
loud ‘pop’, followed by a soft
hissing sound. Something small and round materialized at Avon’s feet right
between him and Diddle, causing both of them to hurriedly step back. A single
spark sputtered from the object, flaring like a firework and giving off a smell
like burning metal. Then the sparks died, and all that was left was a black
glass marble.
Avon frowned, leaning over and
squinting suspiciously at the marble. There was nothing remarkable about it, and
there was nothing else there other than a small starburst of burnt black on the
otherwise perfectly white polished floor.
Finally, Avon’s mouth curled back
into a pleased smile, and he straightened with a laugh.
“Looks like the professor’s powers
are diminishing,” he said aloud to no one in particular, his beetle eyes
glittering and his mouth still twisted in a gloating smile. Diddle was about to
ask what exactly his uncle meant by that when the floor suddenly burst into
flames.
A huge column of fire suddenly
rocketed up towards the ceiling from the spot where the spark had landed,
clipping the chandelier up above and physically blowing both Diddle and Avon
backwards with the force of the explosion.
Diddle hit the ground with a ‘thud’,
causing his eyes to swim, and he saw Avon sprawled across the bottom steps of
the stairs just opposite him. Between them, the column of fire was twisting and
writhing about in unnatural, jerky motions. The top seemed to be collapsing in
on itself, and a vague shape was beginning to form at its base, as if there was
something trapped inside.
Another explosion—this one directed
outwards—nearly took off Diddle’s head. He managed to duck at the last second,
though he could smell burning hair and he could feel the back of his neck
getting lightly roasted. Fortunately, the second blast didn’t last long, and
Diddle was able to look up without fear of having his eyeballs toasted in his
head.
Avon had managed to duck as well,
Diddle saw. His uncle was curled in a trembling ball on the other side of the
room, his knees drawn up to his face and his arms wrapped around his head. Only
one eye was visible, poking through a gap between his knee and his elbow and
wide with terror as he stared at the apparition that stood between him and his
nephew.
“B…balefire!” he squeaked, his voice
tiny. Diddle really didn’t blame him.
It would have looked like a
person—roughly six feet tall, with broad shoulders and powerful arms—save that
it was made completely from what looked like living coals. The surface of its
skin looked like half-cooled lava, with a charred black base spiderwebbed with
trails of glowing red that seemed to be constantly changing—flickering and
twisting as if they were alive. The creature’s head was smooth and rounded, and
Diddle could see little of its facial features save for a pair of glowing black
eyes. Diddle had no idea how that made sense, but it did. It was as if the
creature’s eyes were made of black fire.
The apparition barely seemed to
notice Avon, or Diddle for that matter. It was looking around at its
surroundings, its eyes flickering as it took in the huge room and the scattered
fires that it had started on the walls and on the stairs. Its gaze eventually
fastened on the door that lead into the next room.
“No!” Avon screamed suddenly. “Not
the oak doors!”
He needn’t have worried. The
balefire didn’t bother using the doors. It simply raised one hand and sent
another column of fire blasting through the wall next to the door. Burning wood
and sawdust insulation flew everywhere, peppering the white marble floor with
even more scorch marks and setting sections of the stairs on fire. For a minute,
Diddle couldn’t see the balefire through all the thick, black smoke that had
filled the room, and instead found himself seized by an uncontrollable coughing
fit, his eyes streaming with tears. He could hear Avon doing the same over the
crackling sound of the new inferno that had started in the hole the balefire had
made in the wall.
The smoke eventually cleared, yet
Diddle found that he still couldn’t see the balefire. He did, however, see Avon,
who was scrambling like crazy across the marble floor towards the hole in the
wall, his eyes wide.
“It’s heading for the kitchen!” he
said, his voice panicked. “Somebody stop it!”
Diddle didn’t really care what
happened to his uncle’s house, but he didn’t want to lose sight of the balefire.
Heaving himself to his feet, he set off eagerly after his uncle, his feet
slipping on the polished floor—now even slipperier because of the bits of ash
and wood scattered like ball bearings across it.
The fire in the wall was beginning
to spread outward, but Diddle found that he could still dodge through the gaping
hole in the wall so long as he covered his face with his arms to protect it from
the heat and smoke. Running blindly as he was, he accidentally bumped into Avon
on the other side. Avon didn’t seem to notice.
“My tapestries!” he wailed,
clutching at his hair and staring with wide eyes at the now-burning swaths of
cloth that draped the room. Diddle could see two or three that were as yet
unburned, most of them depicting various kingly figures either slaying monsters
or standing in dramatic, heroic poses. These, too eventually caught on fire as
well, and soon the walls were completely consumed in
flame.
The balefire itself was standing at
the far side of the room with its back to Diddle and Avon, just behind a long,
mahogany table that took up most of the room. The flickering oranges and reds
that made up the creature’s body were at the moment accented by pools of deep
blue and green that were spilling through a series of tall, church-like glass
windows that stretched towards the ceiling on both the northern and southern
walls, making the balefire look as if it were made of rainbow-colored flames.
For some reason, it seemed to have stopped, as if there were something in its
way. It took Diddle a moment or two to realize why.
“Back!” shouted a voice—powerful,
female, and totally in command—causing the balefire to flinch and take a step
backwards as a person emerged from the doors that led from the next room, a
bucket held in her hands. A drop of water sloshed from the bucket and plopped
onto the floor, causing the balefire to hiss angrily and back away even more.
The woman wielding the bucket smiled grimly and advanced, her eyes locked with
those of the balefire and her mouth set in a grim line.
She wasn’t an overly tall person,
but she was taller than Diddle and comfortably plump about the middle. Her hair
was dark brown—going on gray—and was kept curled in a neat bun atop her head
with a mesh hairnet to keep it in place. Her face was pleasant—though fiercely
set in determination at the moment—with a rosy complexion and laugh lines around
her soft blue eyes. She was wearing a simple gray dress, with the sleeves rolled
up and her arms white with flour from cooking. A well-used apron was tied around
her waist, the white cloth stained from long use mixing ingredients or standing
over a smoky fire. Somehow, the heavy wooden rolling pin sticking from a pocket
in the apron didn’t diminish from her somewhat intimidating aura at
all.
“I said get back, flame!” the woman
snapped, brandishing the bucket like a sword. The balefire retreated again,
whining and hissing piteously like a boiling tea kettle. The woman kept walking
forward, pressing the apparition ever backwards towards the hole it had made in
the wall. Diddle and Avon quickly scattered to opposite corners of the room,
neither of them wanting to get between the fire and its escape route from the
terrifying woman pursuing it. To do so was probably a form of suicide.
With a final hiss of fear and
disappointment, the balefire turned and tried to make a run for it. The cook
leaped at the chance and heaved the bucket after the fleeing fire-wraith with
all her might, catching it in the back with a large wave of soapy dish water.
The effect on the balefire was
instantaneous. With a rattling cry, it suddenly collapsed in on itself, its
arms—now mostly black—waving feebly as its body began to dissolve beneath it.
Billowing smoke filled the room, and Diddle could barely breathe, let alone see,
as the smoke clogged his lungs and sent him into violent fits of coughing. Amid
all the confusion, only he somehow managed to hear the soft ‘clack’ of something
hard hitting the marble floor, and the grating sound of something rolling
across the floor. Dimly, he felt
something tap gently against his foot....
Avon, I've found, is much more fun to write when he's thrown into the middle of a raging catastrophe of some sort or another. He doesn't exactly panic, but instead tries to assert himself in control of situations where he'd be better off hiding under the bed.
The balefire I'm proud of. Usually, the term appears in stories as a sort of weapon--like normal fire or electricity. Here, it's a conscious being in itself. I won't spoil anything, but I will say that I'm happy I came up with it, because it helped get me out of a tight spot later on in the book.
