A good day today, as I managed to get an early start, and steamed on ahead until I hit the end of "Twilight." I had to leave the last section unfinished, since the action overlaps with "Millennium," the last act, and since I want them to flow together smoothly I'll have to write them at the same time. But aside from a few hundred words to be done at a later date, the first of three acts is done. Three days later than expected, but close to 20K words longer. Whoops! It'll all come out in the wash, though, I'm sure, with the other two sections (hopefully) coming out only a bit longer than originally planned, so that I won't end up too much over my wordcount. (I hope!)

53,056 / 120,000 (44.2%)

I'm taking tomorrow and Friday to take care of some much needed administrivia, mailing contracts and the like, and outlining a couple of new scenes for the expanded Set the Seas on Fire. Then, having shifted gears over the weekend, I'll start in on "Jubilee" on Monday. Switching from 498AD to 1897AD, from the last days of High King Artor to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, shouldn't prove too jarring a transition, right?

The trio found themselves in a labyrinth of narrow, winding passages. At first, Galaad found them a pleasant change from the monotonous engulfing spaces of the corridors beyond, but when they had taken a dozen turns or more, each time finding themselves facing another turn and wall, the novelty quickly wore off.

After stalking through the winding labyrinth for what seemed an eternity, they took a final turn and found themselves at the threshold of a massive chamber. The ceiling was so high as to be invisible from the floor, while the walls receded so far in ever direction that they were only just visible. Galaad, who’d long since ceased trying to work out how so much space could be contained within the confining walls of the tower of glass, reeled at the sight of it.

But the space was not empty. The floor of the enormous chamber was dominated by what appeared to be some sort of gwyddbwyll board, the floor demarked in an immense checkered grid, on which stood pieces of silver or glass, each as tall as a house. The pieces, to Galaad’s astonishment, seemed to move of their own accord, sliding back and forth across the floor.

So stunned was Galaad by the gwyddbwyll set that he momentarily failed to notice the two gargantuan figures hulked on either side. They were of such a scale, of such monstrous proportions, that it seemed as if they would not at first fit inside his mind, dominating so much of the view on either side of the board that they essentially disappeared from view. But in short order he came to realize that it wasn’t that one side of the room had a red hue and the other side white, but that there crouched on either side of the massive board two monstrously large figures, one red and one white.

They were dragons. Or not dragons, precisely, but that was the only word in Galaad’s vocabulary that came close to encompassing them. They were enormous, immense, unimaginably large. Somewhere high above on either side was something suggesting a head, or even a face, regarding the movement on the board between them, while the movements of Artor, Pryder, and Galaad were completely beneath their notice.

Pryder was for attacking the dragons, but Artor was quick to stay his hand. It would do no good, the High King insisted, having no more effect than a gnat attacking a mountain. Whatever these immense dragons were, it was beyond their ken, and on a scope far in excess of anything that mere men could affect. Better to continue on, and seek the Red King or the White Lady elsewhere.

It took them some considerable time to skirt around the immense beings, but finally they came to another archway, opposite that through which they’d exited the labyrinth, which lead into still more twisting corridors. At Artor’s insistence they quitted the giant chamber, leaving the dragons to contemplate their game, and their search continued.