tvaughan

Opening scene of Chapter 2.  Introduces the narrator (he told Ch 1 in third person), the setting, and the primary goal / plot.

 

The stench of 500 camels and their handlers’ breakfasts cooking over dung-fueled campfires slapped the adventurous spirit right out of me. I had suppressed my doubts, but the palpable reek forced me to acknowledge that I did not want to endure months of discomfort and danger to seek something that existed as little more than a spark of hope in the Mansa’s dreams.

Though I smelled it, I could not yet see the camp.  A pale arc of light had begun to spread across the horizon, silhouetting the far woods and a single stone menhir towering on the verge of the road.  I stopped walking, removed my pack, and placed it on the crown of the avenue. The lone Gold Company guard escorting me on the brief march from Tomboq to Kabara stopped and watched me.  Leaning on my staff, I turned and looked back toward the city.  I grimaced, my stomach cramping with anxiety.  Three years before, I’d traveled by camel from Tomboq to the libraries of Djenghet and back—a half-moon’s journey across the waste each way—and I’d sworn three oaths: never again to leave Tomboq, never again to cross the desert, and never again to travel with such foul creatures as camels.  

In the rising light of dawn, the browns and grays of the guard’s regalia unfolded into reds and golds. From under the golden, scarlet-plumed helmet came a baritone “Sir?” 

I sighed.  For a moment, I thought I could see the great spire of Sankoré University rising from Tomboq’s center, but I knew the distance exceeded my vision. Still, I gazed for a moment on the sweet illusion before I looked at the soldier. “I don’t want to go, Boto.”  I shook my head.

Boto frowned and tilted his head. “You... don’t _want_ to go?”  His quizzical tone conveyed both bewilderment and disapproval.  To consider that one might contravene a direct command from the Mansa himself was to become like the gnat who believed that he could steer the hippopotamus; it was a meaningless exercise in delusional self-importance.

I shrugged. “I know, I know.  It’s just... you know, I’m a man of letters, not action.  I _read_ things and _think_ about them.  I don’t... _do_ things.” I sighed. “I’m not my father, Boto.  I’m not made for grand quests or epic adventures.”  Boto squinted at me from under the helmet, as if taking my true measure for the first time.  

I ignored his gaze.  “I... shouldn’t have agreed to this.  Let’s go back.  I think I may be able to convince my father to—”

“SIR!” the Guard said firmly. “With all due respect.  You—as I—are a servant of the glorious Mansa Musa, sovereign of all the lands between the Gold Coast and the Southern Roman Empire, between Kanem-Sao and the Endless Sea. We are both duty-sworn to protect all the peoples of these lands, as the Mansa commands.  The Mansa has charged you with a unique and sacred task, to stop the Great Blight, to restore the desert to forest and savanna and farmland, and to ensure the prosperity of our people for generations.” 

My cheeks burned and my shoulders slumped.  Put so plainly, the task seemed both impossible to accomplish and impossible to refuse.  I still wanted to argue, though I knew that the Mansa had legitimate reasons to select me as the leader of the expedition. I was the one who had deciphered the ancient reference to a thing that had given humans the power to halt the expansion of the desert millennia ago. (Though the extant text fragment did not clearly state whether it was an object or an entity or a ritual, I referred to this thing as a “talisman” for convenience.)  I had devised the plan to find it—albeit a plan that was as likely to find its target as an archer on a windy, moonless night.  And my moderate skill at reading ancient text gave me a reasonable chance to decipher additional clues that, I hoped, might point toward the talisman’s location.  And yet, I still feared that the Mansa had mistaken my textual dexterity for genuine courage and physical prowess.  Perhaps the Mansa had misattributed these qualities to me because the young ruler assumed that, in spite of my bookish ways, I had inherited the spirit of my father, Saran Mandian—the great General of the Gold Company, hero of the Manden Federation, and trusted advisor to the Mansa.

Boto moved his long spear from his right hand to his left, moved closer to me, and placed his right hand gently on my shoulder.  He continued, his tone softer but still urgent: “Sir, this is not a burden for you to bear.  This is a _gift_.  Are you not a scholar of the Ways?  Have you not studied the Way of Submission?” He nodded toward the brightening eastern sky. “Look, had I been entrusted with this task, the dawn would hardly outshine the glow of my own heart.  I know of no other man who has been given such an august and precious gift as this—not even your father. Because it’s not just a gift for you to receive; it’s a gift for you to _bestow_ on all the good and striving peoples of these lands.  Sir....  You. _Must_. Go.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again.  I could produce no adequate response to Boto’s inspirational reprimand.  The soldier had just bested the scholar in a simple debate.  Doubts still lingered, but Boto’s speech reminded me of why I had accepted this mission.  As much as I loved my solitary work ensconced in the University, as much as I abhorred physical discomfort and doubted my own competence beyond the spheres of literature, history, and philosophy, this was an opportunity for me to do something that actually mattered.  This was a chance, however unlikely, to improve the lives of real people throughout the continent.  I nodded, hefted my pack, stood up straighter than before, and walked toward the noisome camp.

Boto exhaled and strode along next to me.  “Besides,” he said, “my comrades have a bet going about whether you’ll succeed... or die.”  He laughed heartily.  “Oh, don’t worry, sir.  I’ve bet on your success,” Boto said.  His smile revealed pink gums and shockingly white teeth.

I glanced at him with a rueful grin. “Thank you, Boto. I’m reassured that _one_ of us has a measure of confidence in this venture.”  Boto briefly bowed his head.

I could see the smoke rising from the campfires now, and tents and some camels on the outskirts.  I comforted myself with the thought that at least we would not _begin_ this journey by camel; we would pass through the camp and meet our traveling companions at an embarkation point on the river.  I dimly hoped that we could accomplish this mission traveling primarily by boat and by horseback.  Yet still I suspected that some ill-tempered dromedary awaited me in an uncomfortable and malodorous future.

1. Story statement

Tanit, the protagonist, a deaf and enslaved girl, must avenge her family, protect her friends, and escape her enslaver without becoming him. She and her friends must find a talisman believed to have the power to cure the Great Blight, before her enslaver can claim it for his own ends.

2. Antagonist

Kur is a warlord of the disintegrating Kanem Empire.  His birth mother discarded him as an infant.  He was raised in an orphanage. The staff and the older children were brutalized and enslaved by warriors from a rival tribe.  Kur learned that you have to be stronger, more ruthless, and more deadly than your enemies, to survive.  He took the sobriquet Ngubdo (“the Discarded”). 

Kur is intelligent, even wise, but utterly ruthless. He is a huge man: tall, broad, and heavy-set. He wears an enchanted necklace of leopard teeth. 

Much of Kur’s wealth derives from enslaving less fortunate people. Some slaves he sells, while others work for him.

He has captured the matriarch of a clan of were-hyenas. By holding her hostage, he forces them to do his bidding. 

Kur’s relationship to Tanit, the protagonist, is complex. She is his slave, but he also sees in her a mirror of himself, and he often converses with her and teaches her. He disparages his son, saying that he is not half as tough or clever as Tanit, which makes the son hate both Tanit and his father.  And yet Kur threatens to kill Tanit if she harms his son.

3. Breakout title

Working title: _Become Desert_

(Conceived as a trilogy, followed by _Become Sea_ and _Become Sky_.)

Others considered:
- _Become Ruin_
- _A Gift to Bestow_

4. Genre and comparables

Primary genre: epic fantasy.  Secondary genre: alternate history.

Comparables:

- _Moon Witch, Spider King_, Marlon James. This is an epic fantasy, told in first person, based on a mélange of mythologies from both eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa. The protagonist begins life (and her story) as a destitute girl living in a termite mound, enslaved by her own brothers. But she escapes, and through grit, talent, and sheer ferocity, she grows to become a powerful witch.  She then joins a “fellowship” of adventurers traversing a dramatic landscape, encountering wondrous places and things, opposed by powerful and terrifying antagonists, on a quest that ultimately fails. 

- _She Who Became the Sun_, Shelley Parker-Chan.  This is an alternate-history epic fantasy (albeit without much magic), taking place in an alternate version of 14th century China. The protagonist begins her life as a destitute peasant girl whose family suffers during a famine; the father is murdered by bandits, and the brother also dies.  But through grit, talent, and sheer ferocity, she grows to become a powerful military general and political leader. She leads a revolution that overthrows the Mongol oppressors.

Both of these books skew “literary,” especially MWSK.  

5. Logline with conflict and core wound

A newly freed slave girl joins a party of reluctant adventurers — a bookish scholar, a grieving musician, and a homesick warrior — in a race to find a mysterious talisman believed to have the power to cure the Great Blight, before her former enslaver can claim it for his own acquisitive ends.

6a. Protagonist’s inner conflict

Tanit is a deaf girl who grew up with a loving family in a city that is largely abandoned and crumbling into ruins due to a century-long drought that has depleted the once-great river that runs through it.  A warlord from a faraway land wants to order lots of weapons for cheap from her father, a smith.  When her father refuses, the warlord’s son and men scare away all of their other customers, driving the family into poverty and hunger.  When her father still refuses to capitulate, the warlord’s son and soldiers come and beat Tanit’s parents, kill her beloved pet dog Pekko, and abduct both Tanit and her 16-year old sister Dahiya.  They take Tanit and Dahiya across the growing desert to their compound in the Kanem Empire.

In this world, deaf people are often enslaved.  “Silencing” people by destroying their hearing is a means of controlling them.  Tanit has always thought that she was born deaf.  She learns, however, that her parents were not her biological parents and that they had, in fact, purchased her as a baby from a young mother who had been so destitute and desperate that she had silenced her own infant daughter in order to sell her.  The fact that Tanit’s “parents” had raised her as their own daughter does not lessen the degree to which this news upends her world and her very sense of self.

Sef, the warlord’s son, takes Dahiya as his “domestic servant.”  Despite this, Dahiya bears no children.  Finally, about six years later, Dahiya bears a daughter.  Sef believes that the baby is his.  However, he discovers that Dahiya has been spending a lot of time with a young merchant in the market, and he becomes convinced that the child is the merchant’s.  He accuses Dahiya of adultery (an absurd accusation as they are not married and she has never even consented to being with him) and then he murders her.  He intends to kill the baby girl as well, but Tanit convinces him not to.  She tries to take care of the child herself, but she has no resources of her own, does not know what to do, and receives no help.  The child goes hungry, grows ill, and dies.  Tanit convinces herself that Sef is responsible for the child’s death; she buries the part of her deep inside that feels she is responsible.

In short, Tanit is driven by yearning for the life and loved ones she has lost, by hatred for those who took everything from her, and by a desire to wield sufficient power to protect herself and her loved ones.  She desperately desires revenge.  Yet, what all of the events above show is that the root of Tanit’s passion is a yawning, unresolved — and _unresolvable_ — grief.  

The version of the above story she tells her companions ends with Sef killing the baby.  She never tells them the child’s name, and she is vague about exactly how the child died.

Yet the warlord antagonist, Kur (Sef’s father), knows exactly what happened.  By the time we reach the final battle with Kur and his forces, Tanit has become a formidable warrior, fighting with speed and skill and an enchanted blade called _Tanabaa_ (Arabic for foresight) that enables her to foresee her opponent’s next move.  Kur, however, blinds her foresight and negates her strengths by provoking her grief so powerfully that it overcomes and disables her.  First he asks her, gently, what the name of Dahiya’s baby was.  Then he asks her how the child died.  Then he asks her who was really responsible.  All of Tanit’s grief surfaces, after being suppressed for so long under righteous, incandescent fury.  She admits that she was responsible, and the admission breaks her.  Kur then recalls the dynamic of their former relationship in which he had, at times, almost been a father figure to Tanit, and he hugs her.  At first it is gentle, but then he begins to crush and asphyxiate her.  She’s going to need a little help from her friends....

6b. Protagonist’s secondary (social) conflict

Tanit is a 15-year old girl without hearing.  Her companions are three hearing adults. Fortunately, one of them, Rafayil the Mamluk, speaks the hand-dancing language of the Silents (q.v., Setting). In this world, Mamluks (technically slaves themselves) have adopted this gesture-based language for use on the battlefield. Also, Tanit is fascinated by combat and wants to become a fierce warrior one day. Rafa eventually trains Tanit in hand-to-hand combat skills. On top of all this, Rafa defends her against Sef, her enslaver, and treats her with uncommon kindness.  Meanwhile, Rafa desperately misses his wife and daughter in Cairo, and Tanit reminds him somewhat of his daughter.  So these two characters become very close.

But the three adult characters with whom she joins are on a different mission from hers.  She wants to gain power and skill and then exact revenge on Kur the warlord, who, along with his son, enslaved Tanit and her sister.  After that, she hasn’t thought about it much.  The adult characters are on a quest to find a talisman that they believe may have the power to end the drought and stop the growth of the Great Blight, thereby restoring prosperity to many people across the land.  Tanit doesn’t much care about this quest.  This will lead to some conflict; she will argue for attacking Kur while they will argue that Kur is a distraction from the real goal.  (Eventually Kur will capture all of them, anyway, so Tanit will get what she wants... sort of.)

 7. Setting

**History and Geography**

The novel is set in an alternate version of pre-Plague, 14th Century North Africa. In this world, the transformation of this region from savanna and woodland into the Sahara desert was mysteriously halted 5000 years before, affecting only the northeastern quadrant of the continent. The monsoons continued to bring rain to the Maghreb (roughly the northwestern and north-central regions of the continent), exhausting themselves by the time they reached the eastern desert near Khemet (Egypt). Thus, the Maghreb remained lush and verdant until about 150 or so years before the story begins, when the monsoon brought no rain, only wind, lightning, and wildfires—and then eventually the monsoon no longer came at all.  

In the novel, as in our world, the mechanism that causes the desertification is the precession of the Earth’s axis.  The continent of Africa alternates between arid and humid periods every 20,000 years.  This is important, because it means that the Great Blight is a natural process; this implies some limits to human power, even magically aided, to stop or constrain the growth of the desert.  But the characters in the novel do not know this.

While the rains still fell, the land was inhabited by nomadic tribes and agricultural civilizations.  These people erected thousands of solitary menhirs, which remain scattered across the Maghreb.  Throughout this region, massive lakes and rivers persisted which, in our world, are known to have existed before the desertification of the Sahara—such as Lake Megachad and the paleoriver Tamanrasset.  In the novel these are known as Njikura (Kanuri for “Inland Sea”) and the River Gher.  

After over a century of drought, most of the people who inhabited the woodlands and savannas of the Maghreb have fled quite literally to greener pastures, swelling cities such as Sijilmasa, Tangiers, Carthage, Tomboq (Timbuktu), and even Cordoba, with destitute refugees vulnerable to enslavement. 

In the novel’s history, the Carthaginian Empire controlled much of the rich, fertile region of the Maghreb, enabling it to supply Hannibal Barca with sufficient resources to conquer the Roman Republic, thereby creating a different version of the Roman Empire.  This date marks _Anno Victoria_ 0 (216 BCE in our world — the date of the Battle of Canae).  (The novel takes place in AV 1537, equivalent to our 1321.)  Rome remained the capital of the empire, ruled by the Barccid emperors.  When the Empire eventually broke apart, it split into three parts instead of two: the Eastern, Western, and Southern Roman Empires, with capitals at Constantinople, Rome, and Carthage, respectively.  

The narrator is a scholar at Sankoré University in Tomboq (Timbuktu), within the Manden Federation (the Empire of Mali). The Manden was even larger in this world than in ours, bordering the Southern Roman Empire in the north and the Endless Sea (Atlantic) in the west and south.

The protagonist comes from Agadir, an ancient and formerly great city on the River Gher, located in the extreme western region of Algeria today.  Agadir was already old before it was conquered by the Carthaginians some 1500 years before the novel begins.  The River Gher is a now a paltry stream, and the city has been largely abandoned.  A dwindling population inhabits its crumbling ruins.

In the 13th century of our world, the Mongols successfully exploited social and political divisions in their Chinese and Islamic enemies, enabling them to destroy them one by one. In the novel, these civilizations banded together to resist the Mongols with some success.  As a result, the Mongols focused more of their resources on conquering Europe.  As such, in the novel, Europe comprises essentially four powers: the diminished Eastern Roman Empire, Northmen (Britons and Scandinavians), the kingdom and sultanate of Al-Andalus (Iberian peninsula), and the Holy Golden Horde.  

In the novel, El Cid united all of Al-Andalus, which is now ruled from Cordoba by his descendant Rodrigo Díaz III. Al-Andalus—especially Cordoba—is a remarkably cosmopolitan, multi-cultural realm.  The rulers of the Díaz dynasty are recognized as both kings and sultans.  One of the main characters grew up an orphan on the streets of Cordoba before some nuns sold him to the Mamluks.

**Silents and Slaves**

In the novel, children born deaf are often sold into slavery.  Moreover, some children and even adults are “silenced” — their eardrums pierced — and enslaved.  Such slaves are called Silents.  These practices are common across the continent.  Over the centuries, generations of Silents have developed a sign language called _bolodun_ in Mandinka (literally “hand dancing”).  The Mamluks, technically slaves themselves, have adopted this language for communication on the battlefield.

In 1236 of our world, slavery was enshrined in Articles 1 and 20 of the Manden Charter (considered by some to be the world’s first written national constitution).  In the novel, however, slavery is banned by the Manden Charter.  Unfortunately, the practices of silencing and enslaving people continue.  The drought has exacerbated the problem, as it has generated large numbers of refugees vulnerable to enslavement while simultaneously decreasing options for accruing wealth or making a living.  Thus, ambitious and ruthless men find themselves with both motivation and opportunity to capitalize on the institution of slavery.

**The Ways of Man**

The narrator is a scholar of history and the Ways of Man. In the novel, religions and philosophies are called Ways. These include:

- The Way of Submission (which corresponds to what we call Islam)
- The Way of Ablution (Christianity)
- The Way of the Book (Judaism)
- The Way of Light and Shadow (Zoroastrianism)
- The Way of the Horse (state religion of the Mongol Empire)
- The Way of the Ancestors (ancestor worship) 
- The Way of the Natural Spirits (pantheism)
- The Way of the Elder Gods (Paganism, especially worship of Semitic, Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, Norse, and Egyptian pantheons)
- etc.

In some cases there are differences between the novel’s Way and the corresponding religion in our world.  For example, in the novel, the great Prophet of the Way of Submission was not Mohammed but, rather, his daughter Fatima.  (The Father of the Prophet is still regarded as a holy wise man.)  In the novel, Fatima’s Recitation (i.e., the Quran) denounces slavery, in no uncertain terms, as evil.  It was this portion of the Recitation that inspired the Article in the Manden Charter forbidding slavery.   The Recitation also approves of female nuns and other holy women.  

**Magic**

Magic, though, exceedingly rare, plays a significant role in the novel.  The overarching quest is for a talisman referenced in a fragment of ancient text as having enabled people to stop the growth of the desert some 5000 years before.  However, the narrator does not believe that magic exists, much less such a device, even though he’s leading the expedition to find it.

Enchanted beings still inhabit the world of the novel, though they are inexorably fading from existence and rarely appear to mortals.  They are known by different terms in different places: djinn, fae, kami, etc.  A popular creation myth says that when the Creator created humans, all the creatures of the world offered something of themselves to assist the feeble, new beings, but the djinn refused to offer anything to their mortal brethren, and so the Creator, citing their barren hearts, cursed their kind to “become as desert.”  An especially powerful tribe of the djinn, the ifrit, despises humans.

Rare, magical artifacts also exist, all of which were created either by djinn/fae or by humans and djinn together.  Humans, unaided, are incapable of magical feats. 

Finally, there are some exceedingly rare creatures that are neither human nor djinn, which we might call monsters. These include the Bultungin (were-hyenas). The antagonist, Kur, has captured the matriarch of a clan of Bultungin; by holding her hostage, he compels them to do his bidding.