INTERNAL CONFLICT AMID EXTERNAL CHALLENGES

Before we talk about conflict, let's talk about contests. Zoe C. Courtman is having a novel contest. Let her explain it. She does it in such an amusing way :

http://zoecourtman.blogspot.com/

All of us deal with internal conflict while we engage in external challenges. It is the human condition.

For yesterday's blogfest I was going to go with the excerpt I'm posting tonight. I refrained from using it because it dealt with internal conflict amidst an external challenge. I didn't think it completely qualified. Now, I believe I may have taken the parameters too literally. And so I'm posting it now.

It is the beginning of the second act of my novel, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. Samuel McCord has taken harsh, bold steps to help the hurting in post-Katrina New Orleans. The police are coming to arrest him. The army is coming to shoot him on sight.

And his life-long enemy, DayStar, is coming for much worse than that.

DayStar, more powerful than Nyx, the embodiment of the chaos that existed before creation.

DayStar, who, it is whispered, with merely the arching of one eyebrow, struck dead Sennacherib's entire army encamped around Jerusalem in 701 B.C.

DayStar is coming for his final revenge against McCord.

And McCord? Is he like any sane man running? No.

He is sitting in the shadows of his night club, Meilori's. He is Samuel Durand McCord. And he will die, baring his teeth at his enemy like an old wolf, defiant and snarling to the end :

What had Elu whispered as he lay fading away in my arms those long years ago? What is life but a flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in winter, the cloud shadow that races across the tall grass to lose itself in the setting sun.

Elu had spoken, not of God, but of The Great Mystery. I had taken to calling Him
that too. After all, most of the time what He was up to was a great mystery to me.

And tonight, of all nights, He seemed so distant. So very distant. But I clung to the dry hope that somewhere in my darkness He might be standing close. It was a dim light, but it was all I had.

I realized that my head was moving from side to side within the collar of my fingers. Suddenly every dim light in my night club went sin-black. Quiet as mist, darkness rose up around me and stayed like a cold shroud. I waited for the back-up system to cut in. I waited in vain. Story of my life.

All was silence. Then it hit me, and my stomach coiled. Neither the police nor the Army would come at me like this. Only one old enemy liked his dramatic entrances this much.

Only one.

I called out, "DayStar, don't you have more important people to be toying with than small potatoes like me?"

A chuckle like brittle bones breaking came from out of the darkness in front of me, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Samuel?"

"Some should."

Out of the blackness a voice, like the tolling of bronze bells far off in the distance, spoke cold, "You have interfered one time too many."

"That's been said before."

"Not by me."

The half-moon peeked out from behind a cloud and for a flicker of an instant I caught two gray eyes studying me. Deep, gray eyes that seemed to look inward as well as outward. Eyes that appeared to burn with cold fires.

Then all was darkness again. "I know you must have wondered how you’ve survived against me all these years."

"It had crossed my mind once or twice."

"At times there was a hedge from my enemy around you."

I pulled up straighter. Damn, it had flat never occurred to me that his madness had kept him from killing me. Madness you ask. Yeah, DayStar was as insane a being that I had fought. The strongest paranormal I had ever met, mind you, but insane as you could get. Maybe the two went together in some way.

I didn't believe this hedge business. How had I survived then? First, I cheat. Second, I think DayStar enjoyed the game. We'd played it off and on these past two hundred years. Who else would be long-lived and stupid enough to lock horns with him? I was Sherlock Holmes to his much smarter Moriarty
.

Or maybe that was my delusion to counter his.

And what was DayStar's delusion? The name he chose to go by gave it away. "DayStar" was the English translation of the Latin name found in the Vulgate version of the book of Isaiah.

Lucifer.

It was insane I know. But then, so was he. But he was also so powerful my mouth got dry just thinking about some of the nightmares I'd seen him do without strain. I was facing a lunatic paranormal that thought he was Lucifer. But unlike all those crazies you saw who thought they were Napoleon, the delusional facing me had the sheer intellect and power to make more than a few people actually buy into his psychosis.

Including my best friend, Renfield.

But I was hardly going to call DayStar on his madness right now. Jung had warned me long ago that you didn't get anywhere you wanted to go by confronting a delusional head-on concerning the absurdity of his claims. And when said delusional had the sheer paranormal power DayStar did that went double. It flat didn't matter when a man dropped an A-Bomb on you if he thought he was a kumquat or if he was stone-cold sane, you were still just as vaporized.

DayStar spoke again. "Tonight that hedge is gone."

Under the table, my left hand became a fist. I thumbed the ring of Solomon I wore on the middle finger. For the first time in my life, I might have to use its power to control a being of evil.

Slavery.

I clenched my jaws to go with my left fist. No. I would die first. At least that was what I told myself right now. When I felt myself start to wither under DayStar's power, who knew?

The darkness actually seemed to grow denser around me as he spoke low, "I went to some effort to bring Katrina to New Orleans only to veer away, building up hopes of escape, then have my carefully constructed levees collapse in the fashion I wished. Such despair and death. It was delightful."

He was crazier than I thought. He actually thought he had brought Katrina to New Orleans. But then, I had been in the limo when Elvis made it stop so he could demonstrate to me and his bodyguards how he could make a cloud move. Since Elvis had just fired Red and Sonny West, his two childhood friends, none of the remaining guards said a word.

Me, being me, I told him to just listen to himself. I told him I had good doctors that would wean him off the drugs that were ruining his life. He left me on that country road. Being alone, I enjoyed the company – if not the walk.

DayStar took two steps towards me. "But then, you had to interfere."

Thinking back to Elvis, I said low, "I do that sometimes."

"No longer. That meddler Mayor Nagin was supposed to be already dead with the Russian Mob firmly entrenched here. And Empress Theodora was already to have a beachhead established in New Orleans by this time. I need this revenant war as a distraction. And I will have it!"

"A distraction from what?"

He ignored me. I didn't mind. I got the same kind of treatment from his supposed enemy, the Great Mystery. I sensed more than saw him approach my table, the sound of his steps steady, firm and unrelenting. Heard the chair opposite me being pulled out. Felt as well as heard him sit down in the plush leather chair and neatly arrange his clothes.

"Armani if you are wondering, talking monkey."

"Only the very best for the very worst."

He laughed as if I mattered. I smiled back as if I gave a damn. We both weren't fooled.

DayStar’s words were little more than whispers, "Once the world lived by night. The dark drew people together. Under its cover, they could feel the need for each other. But I gave the night to the predators, kept for myself the day so that the living could look into eyes filled with fear and hatred.”

I fought the urge to challenge his delusion. I reminded myself of Jung's warning that challenging the delusion of a madman only made matters worse. And when said madman had the power to wither a man with just a whisper, making things worse seemed like a poor game plan.

I shrugged. "You see what you look for. I take it that the company I was expecting isn't coming?"

"Alas, no. I informed them that I had other plans for you."

"They take it well?"

"What do you think?"

"Any of them still in one piece?"

"Samuel, you know me better than to think I let anyone rest in peace."

I sighed. "Any of them still among the living?"

"Of course. They all are."

His laughter was a thing of nightmares. "They just aren't enjoying it."

His voice became even more hollow. "Man. Bah. Even when I show him the truth of life, he wastes his potential, what pathetic little of it exists."

He chuckled, "Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to endless night."

A coldness seemingly born of that endless night radiated from DayStar. "Man. Disgusting talking monkeys, nothing more. An endangered species from the very beginning. Not particularly fleet of foot, unless chasing after another man's wife. No large teeth. No claws except for his tongue. A wonder you have made it this long."

"Don't you have a government to topple, a politician to corrupt?"

"All in good time, Samuel. All in good time. In fact, I am having a marvelous time right now with the opportunities still afforded me by Kristina. Whispers to bruised egos to insure one agency will ignore another. Stroking of inflamed pride to keep insufficient mouths from asking for help until it is too late. Suggesting of shallow men for pivotal positions."

He laughed his chuckle of breaking bones again. "All so simple. All so enjoyable. All so effective. Goverment agencies are so much fun to play like puppets. And the nature of human nature makes it so easy."

His voice lowered until I had to strain to hear it. "And the helpless die."

I barely made out the flutter of his long fingers. A dim flicker of images swirled before my eyes. An old woman clutching a small child as the rising waters threatened to swallow them. A faint mewing came from the young girl.

"G-Grandma, I'm ... I'm scared. Awful sc-scared."

"There, there, honey. I'm right here. I got you safe in my arms."

I watched the woman hug her granddaughter as the waters steadily rose, saw the shivering girl clutch back as if onto a lifeline. My fingers became fists in the effort it took me to keep on watching as the dark waters crept up their chests, nibbled at their chins. I forced myself to keep on watching their thrashing about as the waters choked them, then smothered them to finally rise to the ceiling. It took them much too long to finally die. I felt DayStar's eyes on me.

I ignored him. All I seemed able to see was the trail of bubbles shorten, then stop as their bodies slowly became loose and limp. But somehow the grandmother's arms still held onto the small girl. All became black once more. And DayStar laughed as if at the funniest joke in the world.

"Tell me, Samuel, where was your invisible man in the sky in all that?"

His question had echoed my own. But I would be damned if I gave him the satisfaction of admitting it. I reached into the bruised shadows of my mind for a truth I could say with a straight face and forced my throat to work.

"In the arms of that grandmother."
**************************************************
All that Samuel has seen and endured makes him think of himself as an agnostic. When Renfield, the vampire-priest who is his best friend, hears him say that, he asks, "Then why do you live the prayer of St. Francis?" "Old habits die hard, padre" is always the answer. Renfield just gives his friend a sad, wise smile.

INTERNAL CONFLICT BLOGFEST

Once again it's blogfest time. THE INTERNAL CONFLICT BLOGFEST held by the Alliterative Allomorph :
http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-internal-conflict-blog-fest.html

{Short note : Guide to Literary Agents
http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/Dear+Lucky+Agent+Contest+Fantasy+And+SciFi.aspx is having another "Lucky Agent" contest. This time focusing on Sci_Fi and Fantasy. And I have entered it. Those of you who write Sci_Fi and Fantasy, follow my link and enter, too. I wish us all luck, Roland.}

Internal Conflict. Good writing depends upon it. In every scene. It's what pulls the reader and the story itself along. As the plus and minus of electrons determines the flow of electricity, so the plus and minus of EVERY scene determines the healthy flow of a novel's narrative.

An upscale attorney walks into his office, his back being slapped by his associates for winning another case. He closes the door, turns on the light, and turns off his smile. His eyes move to the certified letter on his desk, informing him of his wife's plans to divorce him. He walks to his desk, sits down, and buries his face in his hands.

A metropolitian mayor is hanging his latest civic award upon his paneled wall. His eyes flick to the picture of his son, killed in Iraq. He remembers his last words to him : ugly words, harsh words, impossible to erase words. He takes the award from the wall, tossing it into the waste basket.

Plus and Minus.

All of which leads me to my internal conflict scene from my historical fantasy, RITES OF PASSAGE :

It is 1853 aboard the cursed transatlantic steamer, DEMETER, heading from New Orleans to Paris. Captain Samuel McCord is on the trail of a murderer of young Rachel Houston. Samuel delivered her as a baby in the midst of a Comanche raid.

He always looked after her. While he was returning from a manhunt, she was found dead on the docks of Galveston without a mark on her. Except for one thing. Her face was missing. Marie Laveau has told McCord that the face was taken, not as a trophy, but for a mask.

Rachel was last seen in the company of someone only known as the Gray Man. McCord has tracked him to the DEMETER. Now, in his cabin, McCord has just been told by the ghostly Turquoise Woman that innocents will die if he is not smarter.

And so we join him in his brooding :

The more I thought about it, the less it seemed I knew. If I kept on, I would soon end up knowing nothing at all. Estanatlehi's last words stung. Be smarter. But that was just it. I wasn't smart, only stubborn and relentless.

The beginning of every hunt was like this. I would hold a tangled ball of unanswered questions in my hand, knots that seemed beyond untangling. I would tug here. I would bumble about there. Ask this person a question. Look for the most hostile face. Ask it a question.

Listen. Poke holes in obvious lies. Ask some more. Sooner or later, someone would try to kill me. I would object, survive, shake the survivors like a wolf would a rat. Follow what fell out. Someone meaner, tougher, would make a try for me. The process would begin all over again. People would die. I would be fed. The killer would be found.

It was a messy way of doing things. But I wasn't smart enough to do it any other way. And it kept me fed. Usually. Right then, I was weak from not feeding.

Feeding. The images that word pulled out of the darkness made me ill. And it wasn't from lack of -- nourishment.

Suddenly, I felt dirty. I needed a bath. One scalding hot. Maybe if I soaked in it long enough the screams from a thousand throats would be drowned. Maybe. I looked to the gold-trimmed door to my left. It was partially open.

An ornate ivory tub was half-revealed. Running water? Maybe this suite was worth $2,000. Of course, I didn't think Sen. Houston or Gov. Bell would think so. But then, steaming, scalding water didn't mean to them what it did to me. More than hiding in the sensation of the heat, there was life and energy to scalding water. Weak but enough to sustain me for a bit.

I got up. I took off my buckskin jacket, folded it neat, and laid it next to my clean, black buckskins. I shrugged out of the double shoulder holsters with their Walsh Navy Colts, each one capable of firing twelve .36 caliber bullets. I unsnapped my Paterson Colt from its SOB holster at the small of my back. I slipped off the sheath that hung down my back which held the strange knife taken from King Solomon's mines.

I smiled bitter. King Solomon’s mines. No wonder it had been so hard to find. Everyone had been looking on the wrong continent. There was a life lesson there. I was just too dense to see it.

Last, I unbuckled the Colt on my hip. I laid all that death on top of my jacket. The rest of the buckskins followed. The gloves stayed on. I would lay them by the tub. No one saw what passed for my hands. No one that remained alive, that is.

I ran the water scalding hot and eased myself into the tub. Any other flesh would have blistered. I barely felt it. I hunkered down into the tub until the steaming water was at my chin. Then, and only then, did I take off my buckskin gloves.

And even then, I did not look at my hands. I shoved them under the water quick but still caught a glimpse of them. It made me ill. I sighed.

Rachel. She had always wondered what my hands had looked like. She had teased me that I was hiding the fact that I painted my nails.

I felt like crying. If only. The memory of my last sight of Rachel, her face neatly removed as if by a scalpel, made me worse than ill. She had needed me on the docks of Galveston, and I had been unconscious in a hunger-coma on the city's outskirts. Even when I tried to do right, it seemed I did wrong.

I watched the water turn from blue to death gray. I was leeching what life breathed in the steaming water. I was even draining the heat from it. It no longer steamed.

I stared at the copy of a painting from some old master whose style wasn't familiar but was. I squinted at it. I was an idiot. It wasn't an old master but a recent one. William Blake. He'd died just twenty years before. Poet and mystic, completely mad. Sounded like me.

I finally recognized the painting. It was of a man with long, flowing moon-white hair like mine, bending down as he hung impossibly in the sky before a bloody sun. He was surrounded by black, boiling clouds. His arm was pointing down, his fingers splayed odd, shafts of light shooting from his forefinger and from the others joined together. The brass plate below called it The Ancient of Days.

Then, I realized that they weren't spears of light coming from his fingers.

They were a compass. It was God setting a compass upon the face of the depths. Just like I was trying to fix some design to the madness my life had become, the nightmare that was Rachel's murder.

I recalled words from the Bible when Wisdom spoke :

'The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before the works of old, before the mountains were settled, before the hills were brought forth. When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He set a compass on the face of the depths.'

Wisdom. I was a dry well there. Sure, Father had schooled me in all he knew. And after surviving the Comanches, I had undergone a strange Jesuit education of sorts for seven years. But that had just been knowledge.

Wisdom was the application of it. And I had lived my whole life and undeath tangling the threads of my life until it was one big knot that could never be untied.

I rested my head against the rim of the tub and studied Blake's painting some more. The Ancient of Days. I felt ancient. And unreal.

I wasn't used to all the elegant splendor that was all around me. I felt like I was watching myself in some strange dream. I wanted to yell a warning to my dream self that he was missing something important, something left undone. But I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was that my instincts said I should have done.

Of things I shouldn't have done there was a wagonload. I studied the picture some more. God looked as unreal as I felt, hung up in the sky, still and frozen in time. Still and frozen. There was another reason I felt unreal.

Rachel's murder. She had been like my little sister given back to me. I had allowed myself to feel again with her. My only remembered laughter had been with her.

Though it had started getting a little awkward these past few years, what with her crush on me. But in a few months, a young man her age would have come along and swept her off her feet. And I would have proudly given her away at her wedding. She deserved -- had deserved a shot at happiness and growing old with the love of her life.

But the Gray Man had swept her away first. And ever since her murder, I had been like a frozen lake. No matter what happened, it just glanced off the icy surface of my mind, my heart. I noticed with a start that the water in the tub was ice cold and black -- just like my soul.

But not black with dirt, but black because all the life had been leeched out of it. Not cold from the air, but cold because the thing that I had become had drained all the warmth out of it. It seemed I leeched and drained all the beauty from the world around me. I sat there in my cold, wet self-pity for a few more ticks of the clock.

Then, I heard the door ease slowly open. No human ear would have heard it. But to me, it sounded like the screeching of rusted hinges. And with that sound, I remembered what I had failed to do.

I had failed to lock the door.

And all my Colts were neatly tucked in their holsters on the fancy bed in the next room. There were times when 'Oh, shit!' just didn't cover it.

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And now, for some stirring, haunting music :