Verit is a broken-down, powerless, worn-out deity, waiting for death. Then, his old nemesis appears on his doorstop — his former follower, Abriel. After telling him that he deserves an explanation for what she has done, she leaves him with her memoirs, and departs. And thus, her words carries him back to the old days, the glorious days of his godhood, when he was at the very height of his power . . .
In an age-old contest among the gods for the celestial throne, Abriel is Verit’s chosen game piece. A divine contest requires divine stakes, and in order for Verit even to be able to compete, Abriel must become nothing short of a living legend. And nothing forges a legend quite as well as adversity. However, other powers are afoot to cut down the legend before she can even become one. Among them is Thesk, isolationist deity and a member of the Shadow Pantheon. Abriel falls into his clutches, and he challenges her to face him in combat.
Verit is ecstatic. If she can defeat a god, he will have all the legend he needs.
~*~
Influences
No novel — no matter how fantastic the origin — can be written without real-world influences. Abriel, the Furdi and Ikryt existed on paper long before the plot of this novel. A minor character, Pizon Ansezon, is actually the oldest character — I first wrote about him in the eighties.
But this novel in its current form was inspired by our celebrity culture. In many ways, celebrities are our modern-day mythology. It boggles the mind how much influence they have and what they can get away with. It’s almost as if they have some sort of power, that we, their adoring public, give to them.
And thus a ghost of a plot was born.
The pyramid where Thesk lives was inspired by the Luxor in Las Vegas. It has a pyramid-within-a-pyramid design that came from a session on the floor with my niece, Katie, as we made a pyramid from Legos. I demonstrated to her that the pyramid did not have to be solid to be incredibly strong. Years later, as I wrote about Thesk’s pyramid, it occurred to me that an inner pyramid could support the entire structure of Luxor-style living units within the shell of an outer pyramid.
Other influences came from India. In the spring of 2000, my husband and I took a trip to Bangalore. Several things in the novel came out of this trip. My descriptions of Ulrith and Outer Thesk could not have been written if I had never seen the streets of Bangalore and Mumbai (Bombay). The traffic included women carrying burdens on their heads, their saris swishing with their every step, livestock, three-wheeled vehicles, carts and mopeds along with automobiles of every description. Streetside markets occupied every wide sidewalk. It was constant bustle and movement.
Another influence was being called Madam. I had never in my life been called Madam. The Indians pronounced it as Madame. I knew that I wanted Ikryt to be a formal, title-conscious society, but I disliked the title Mistress, which is used in many fantasy novels. Madame, for me, was the perfect choice.
Indians are a tea-drinking people, and therefore, so are the Ikryti. The tea ritual is my own, but probably has a loose basis in far eastern tea ceremonies.
The people of Ikryt are brown-skinned and resemble the people of India. I did not want a white cast of characters, because the story does not take place in a European setting.
FORGING A LEGEND is not a historical novel by any means, but I could not have written it without a knowledge and love of history and of course, mythology.
No one rides horses while in armor in FORGING A LEGEND, because the horses of that timeframe had not yet been bred to the large sizes they were in later times. Instead, warriors ride one-man chariots.
Papyrus is the common writing surface, while parchment is rare and expensive. Papyrus came in long rolls. One would cut off a length as needed. A codex is a hand-scribed book.
People generally wear draperies rather than fitted clothes. The wrap, worn by both men and women, was inspired by the clothing of ancient Phoenicia, called a shenti. You can see a picture of one here. Epilures are my own invention, yet were also inspired by Phoenician dress.
No one wears full plate armor in FORGING A LEGEND. The best armor available at the time was the cuirass or a sleeveless shirt of steel. The Romans created the muscle cuirass, which is beaten into idealized anatomy. Abriel wears a muscle cuirass and a scale mail skirt for her initial battle with Thesk.
Aqueducts enabled large cities such as Rome to exist. They carry water from faraway sources to the city by means of gravity. Ulrith and inner Thesk each have one aqueduct, but Rome eventually had eleven.