C H E V E N G A • L I V E S • H E R E | weblit by Karen Wehrstein

820 - We are One

Shefenkas/Performing the Ten Tens continued:::

If the statue of Muunas in the Great Temple stood up from His throne, His head and shoulders would shatter the roof. Yet He stood now, as if the ceiling either expanded to fit Him, or He grew less tall, though nothing about Him diminished. “Do you give Me your fealty, My son?”

The Philosopher in Arms

819 - The Void-sword

Shefenkas/Performing the Ten Tens continued:::

I run with Her. It was so dreamlike, I can only word it as I word dreams. I am in blackness, running through the sphere of stars that is the universe, then landing running like a flyer with no wing across a lifeless plain of rust-red rock and soil under a greenish pale sky. There is sun, but it is wan and small, shrunken somehow, so daylight is dimmer, like in a sun-eclipse.

The Philosopher in Arms

818 - The sphere the Gods made through my hands

Shefenkas/Performing the Ten Tens continued:::

Before Him lay a kneeling-cushion, and three clear glass cups full of three white wines, different ones; their pallor varied. I did His Ten across the wide aisle, and as I entered His precinct, demarcated by a square of golden tiles, the liquid glass flowed again, this time as streams rising up from the floor, some clear, some golden, some red, some russet, some brilliant cobalt blue, some leaf-green, some pure white, some silver like quicksilver. I felt the glow of their heat on my skin. I knelt on the cushion.

The Philosopher in Arms

817 - Of course a Goddess may own your body

Shefenkas/Performing the Ten Tens continued:::

The clash of bells sounded, the metallic signal that I must step up to the place of the fessas caste. The memory twinged me distantly, mostly in weapon-sense: I am not asked to evade the scythe this time? The internal fire that They had sent burning through me had been insteadof that, I sensed. I was handed by all Four at once, a handing like a lingering embrace, to the place before Risae.

The Philosopher in Arms

The Great Read-Through

Submitted by Karen on Wed, 01/02/2013 - 16:11

Update 06, Feb. 7

In part due to the virtual company of my newly-formed writers' group (we have Gotomeeting & Skype sessions) I've managed to get a lot done... up to 487 now, which means it's going much faster as it's 1K-word posts from 463 on.

816 - Our greatest strength comes by love

Shefenkas/Performing the Ten Tens continued:::

I knelt at the starting place until the people were settled, ready to prostrate myself to Anae again. This time, the statue of Imbas had His arm outstretched, over my head, as if blessing me, and Anae held not the broom, but a cradle. Different, the internal whisper warned me again. The cradle is usually a thing of Selinae’s. What did this mean? A coming birth was all I could think of; I didn’t think any deeper. The Ten Tens is not the time for overthinking.

The Philosopher in Arms

815 - Is it possible for mortals to manumit Gods?

Performing the Ten Tens: A Description

By Fourth Shefenkas Shaearanoias
Pages of Arko, Mikas 24, 51st-to-last Y.P.A.

Editor’s note: The day after Shefenkas performed the Ten Tens for the second time, I received a note from him saying that, if I would allow the space, he would write his account of it.

Astonished—who ever heard of an Imperator recounting the experience of the Ten Tens in any way, let alone in writing in the Pages?—I answered with an eager yes. Not a day later, I received the manuscript in his firm, hurried script.

The Philosopher in Arms

814 - The heart loves to feel compassion more than contempt

Coming face-to-face with my brother’s mortality… I wrote that, didn’t I? While he hung between life and death from Hayel-rain. Now it’s the certainty. Next summer.

Sometimes I feel: you get what I want every time, don’t you, Chevenga? Even death, I planned, and you came in at the last instant and claimed!

I know. That thought is crazy. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be keeping it secret from Taina, Enta and Daha out of embarrassment.

The Philosopher in Arms

Writing asa kraiya : origin and process

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 12/27/2012 - 18:39

When you start a story young, you don’t analyze it much. You just do what feels right, having a youthfully-inordinate amount of faith that it will turn out well, and don’t worry too much about the psychological or philosophical mechanics of it. Or perhaps even if you do, you aren’t ready to really penetrate them yet, so it won’t happen. At least this is the case with me.