Publishing an epic fantasy novel is a long labour of love. Actually writing the first draft is the easiest part - it's what comes after that requires stamina!
THE WELL OF SECRETS is now back from the editor's desk, and I have started work on producing the second draft. This process requires ruthless trimming, reworking of many scenes, and careful attention to ensuring the main plot, and subplots all work and tie together. It also requires a close look at each character (and this being epic fantasy, there are a few of them), and ensuring their flaws, goals and character arc all flow seamlessly.
Part of producing the second draft is the process I call 'trimming the fat' - that means that a manuscript that is currently around 110,000 words, will be reduced to around 90,000 by the time I'm done. During this process, I'll be sharing a few of my favourite 'author's cut' scenes.
Here's the first, which gives some background into the motivations of Mattias Valense - one of the novel's antagonists - and a character we met in the first novel of the series, JOURNEY OF SHADOWS.
Enjoy!
THE WELL OF SECRETS - DELETED SCENE #1
***
A golden dusk settled over Catedrâl.
The city was in mourning. News had spread like pestilence through the city’s
cobbled streets and a black flag now fluttered from one of Haladyn Castle’s
towers, confirming the rumours.
The Realmlord was dead.
For some of the townsfolk, the news had
come as a shock, while for others – those who kept abreast of court gossip –
news of the Realmlord’s death had been expected. Either way, the news brought
grief to the folk of Catedrâl. Realmlord Valense had been loved, and his people
felt his loss deeply.
Despite that it had been a warm, bright
day, a pall of gloom hung over the city. Catedrâl’s spires shone in the setting
sun but on the streets below, the people wept, women wore black and the sacred
flame now burnt in the great temple to the south of the city’s centre. Hundreds
of faithful now filled the massive temple. They prayed on their knees to Palâd
and Nith that Arkon Valense would be revered in the afterlife. The temple bells
rang out across the city; a mournful, lost sound that chilled all that heard
them.
The Realmlord was dead. It was a dark
day for the Realm of Cathernis.
Mattias Valense heard the bells
ringing, and caught a whiff of the incense that burned from window sills, as he
made his way down the spiral stone stairwell into the depths of Haladyn Castle.
Yet, he did not pay them any mind; he had an appointment to keep.
Few ventured this far below the castle.
It was damp and cold; even the hottest summer never warmed the icy stone or
dried out the thick layer of moss and lichen on the walls. The dungeons were
down here, but few of the castle’s inhabitants realised that there were secret
chambers at this level as well; rooms that even the Realmlord himself had never
explored. However, Mattias had made it his business to discover the secret corners
of Haladyn Castle – and that was why he was here.
Half-way down the stairs, on a narrow
landing lit only by a clay cresset, Mattias stopped. From here, the stairs
continued down to the first floor of the dungeons. Behind the stairs, hidden
beyond a shadowed archway, was a door. Producing a heavy ring of rusted keys,
Mattias stepped into the shadows and slotted one particularly rusted key into
the mildewed lock. He let himself into a narrow passageway, lit by a single
guttering torch, and made his way along it. At the end was another, smaller,
door. He tried the handle, and finding it unlocked, pushed the door open – and entered
another world.
A huge chamber, filled with all the
items that his father had forbidden in his Realm, greeted him. Around the
perimeter of the chamber, shelves climbed the walls from floor to ceiling,
groaning under the weight of books, jars, pots and vials.
Sorcery. The very air smelt of it.
On the far side of the chamber,
standing at a narrow work-bench and pounding black seeds to a powder with a
stone pestle and mortar was a short, slight man. He was completely bald, which
made it difficult to guess his age. His face was long, smooth and youthful. He
wore non-descript grey robes – the clothing of a scribe – for that was what he
was known as here in Catedrâl. None would have reacted so favourably to him,
and in fact he would have been banished from the Realm, if he had worn the
emerald robes of his true profession.
The man before Mattias was named Gerde,
and he was one of the Esquill.
Gerde did not look up as Mattias
entered; his gaze was focused on the seeds he was grinding. Yet, Mattias knew
Gerde had seen him. When he spoke, the Esquill’s voice was dry and sharp.
“Did you have to kill her?”
Mattias sighed. He had been expecting
this.
“Yes.”
“You take risks – too many of them.”
Mattias shrugged, closing the door
behind him and sauntering inside the chamber.
“They were all calculated. I would
never have killed her if I thought I had witnesses. She knew too much, Gerde. She
had to go.”
The sorcerer looked up then, and as
always, Mattias had to brace himself for the intensity of his gaze. His eyes
were unusual – deep violet with huge pupils. They were eyes that saw the truth
in a man, even before he recognised it in himself. Gerde’s gaze had always made
Mattias uncomfortable. They had known each other barely three winters, but long
enough for Mattias to realise that, although he needed the Esquill, he needed
to be very careful around him.
Men
who see too much will eventually have their eyes put out.
Mattias gave his assistant a smile.
Gerde did not return it.
“Are you sure no one saw you?” the
Esquill pressed.
“Certain.”
“And the healer – did he suspect
anything?”
“Nothing. He declared father’s cause of
death as a tumour of the stomach.”
Gerde allowed himself a thin smile
then. It was the smile of an artist, pleased with his work. “Ah yes, Milk of
Tanad would make a physician think such. Very good.”
The Esquill turned back to his pestle
and mortar then before throwing Mattias a significant look.
“I’ve done my part – now it’s your
turn. Will you be able to convince them?”
Mattias nodded. “I’ve been working on
my father’s council for a while. I will ensure the vote goes my way.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
Gerde glanced at Mattias, his
expression shuttered. “Just because everything has gone without a hitch so far
does not mean we must let our guard down.”
Mattias folded his arms across his
chest and regarded Gerde coolly. “It hasn’t all gone smoothly. Falkyn got
away.”
“Yes,” Gerde frowned down at his powder
before laying his pestle aside and reaching up to a shelf to retrieve a glass
vial. “That was unfortunate.”
“If he ever suspects I was behind it
all he could ruin things for me.”
“Falkyn isn’t a risk,” Gerde countered,
retrieving a piece of parchment and shaping it into a cone. “He doesn’t even
know who he really is.”
“Are you sure he’s of sorcerer blood?”
Mattias did not try to hide the scepticism in his voice. “He appeared nothing
more than a mouthy weaponsmith to me.”
Gerde smiled. “And you appear little
more than a spoilt lordling. You should know that people are often far more
than they seem.”
Mattias clenched his jaw. Sometimes the
Esquill forgot his place; he seemed to think he was indispensable. He was very
useful, yes, but not indispensable. No one had that honour.
“My mistress at Deep-Spire knew that
three of Sentorân blood still lived,” Gerde explained smoothly. “She sent out
Esquill to every corner of Palâdnith to seek them out and bring them back to
Deep-Spire. Those of us ‘in service’ were also warned. I received word a month
ago that the Esquill in service of Realmlord Thorne had discovered one of the
men in Dunethport. They should have brought him before my mistress by now. She
was displeased to hear that Eni Falkyn had escaped.”
It was Mattias’s turn to shrug. What
did he care for three men of Sentorân blood? What mattered to him was power. He
wanted the Realm of Omagen; and once he gained the position of Realmlord of
Cathernis, he would take it.
“As I said,” Gerde continued, pouring
the powder carefully into the vial using the parchment funnel, “Falkyn never
posed a risk to your plans – it was your brother who had to be eliminated. He
could have destroyed you.”
Mattias’s mouth thinned at that. Flynn
had been a pompous fool. The older brother, the favourite brother. Flynn had
never trusted Mattias and one day he had followed his younger brother down here
in the bowels of Haladyn Castle. He had found this secret chamber and the
sorcerer who Mattias smuggled in here for days at a time. Flynn, not realising
the danger he was in, had told Mattias that if the sorcerer and this chamber
were not gone within a moon’s cycle he would reveal all to their father.
Mattias had never given him the chance.
It had been easier than he thought to organise; although Gerde had helped him
with some of the details.
It was Gerde who suggested they use Eni
Falkyn as a scapegoat. The Esquill had met Eni Falkyn when he bought a hunting
knife from him – the same knife they used to frame him with. Just moments in
the weaponsmith’s presence were enough for Gerde to realise the man before him
was a sorcerer. Gerde had been trained to recognise the signs; one glance in
his eyes told him all. Gerde knew his mistress at Deep-Spire would have
preferred to have Eni Falkyn delivered alive to her rather than eliminated, but
Gerde decided that either-way Falkyn was a dead man. Once he arrived at
Deep-Spire, he would not have survived long. Lady Marin would not suffer a
Sentorân to live.
In the end, it had been easier to
organise than either Mattias or Gerde had dreamt. A little research into Eni
Falkyn’s life revealed that he had once lived with a woman. The rapport had
ended acrimoniously and his ex-lover now worked in service to Lady Valense.
Lydia, despite the privilege of her new position, was tormented by bitterness
towards Falkyn.
Gerde encountered Lydia one day while
she took a walk in the castle’s grounds, and discovered that despite her
apparent hate for the weaponsmith, she was still in love with him. He was not
surprised; love and loathing were closer cousins than most people liked to
admit.
Later, when Mattias approached Lydia,
offering her wealth, freedom and a life of privilege in return for framing her
ex-lover, she had accepted his offer without hesitation. After that it was just
a matter of hiring an assassin, learning the weaponsmith’s routines – for he
was a man of habit – and luring Flynn into an alley-way with news of more of
his brother’s wrong-doings.
And Lydia? Had she received the prize
she coveted for delivering her lover to the gallows? No, sadly she had been
found dead in the dingy room she had been renting in the outskirts of Catedrâl
after her banishment from Haladyn Castle. An empty vial of poison lay clutched
in her hand. A tragic end.
The authorities had been mystified as to how a
poor, disgraced woman had got hold of such a sophisticated poison – but it was
no mystery to Gerde or Mattias.
The Esquill finished pouring the black
powder into the vial and stoppered it with a cork. Then, he turned to Mattias
and gave him a slow smile.
“I know you believe your powers of persuasion
to be enough,” he held the vial out to Mattias, “but neither you, nor I, can
risk the council voting against you. A sprinkle of this in their suppers the
night before will ensure they eat every word you say.”
Mattias scowled back at Gerde. “You
want me to poison them too?”
Gerde sniggered at that. “I make more
than poison, lordling. The Esquill are taught to make all manner of subtle
powders and tinctures – potions to control a man’s mind and alter his thoughts.
This powder works a powerful magic; just a pinch in their food will do it.”
Mattias nodded before reluctantly
taking the vial and tucking it away inside the quilted silk waistcoat he wore.
“Very well, you know best.”
Gerde’s smile turned smug.
Mattias turned from the Esquill and
made his way back to the door. However, before exiting, he halted and glanced
back over his shoulder at his servant, who was busy tidying up his materials.
“Gerde.”
The Esquill looked up. “Yes.”
“Call me ‘lordling’ again and I’ll have
you strung up on Gibbet’s Corner.”
With that, not waiting for the
Esquill’s response, Mattias Valense left Gerde to his work.
***
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