‘Who Holds the Lamp’ has now become ‘The Lampholder’, chapter thirty-one – tentatively entitled ‘The Gathering Storm’ – was commenced yesterday, and I have done my thousand words for the day. I am drawing towards the denoument now and I shall be done well and truly before the end of September. Marac and Talivan are back in Chailam Tambar, but raiders are making incursions along the coasts, and Adraval and the children have been captured by the evil Alidus. Urlé has to be sent out into the night and the attack mounted on Chailam Tambar, then I can unleash the relief forces under Lord Komal and the tale can be wound up in a final chapter.
There are three more chapters to go and then an epilogue which will see the questions of who actually sent the men to assassinate Marac at Iradarekka hanging in the air. And then there will be four novels finished and I had hoped that I could sit back and think things over for a while.
As it happens, I had planned for Marac and Talivan to head overseas next with ‘The Bond of the Stormbird’, which would lead them and their retinue, the Kei Marac, to some fairly hectic adventures in the remote land of Madiron, but something else has come up in the meantime. I cannot let them get away so soon.
The way in which the plot has developed in ‘The Lampholder’ means that the personal positions of Talivan and Marac are much more complex than hitherto I would have thought. Also, all the fighting in Calion Ulu will have left the place in a shambles and there will be much to do. A young man who is both a soldier of the Temple of Uzvath, and the potential husband of the Lampbearer would have a lot of work before him, as also would one who will, in thirty two days, be anointed as the Lampbearer of Calion. The positions of the King, of Lord Komal, of Arandis, of Shangar and of Marac and Talivan have all changed. Koromar has become a force to be reckoned with politically, and Hael the Maid is a looming presence in Marac’s mind. Remember also that Aralien and Hanis Ran Gamal have not disappearded from the scene.
Callion Ulu, wrecked and unruly, has become a magnet for all sorts of agendas to mix and mingle. I may not be able to stop just yet.
Poddimok 