John Scalzi has invited me to to share a “Big Idea” from my forthcoming novel The Last Crucible (Book 3 of Reclaimed Earth, out 9/21 on Flame Tree Press). The Big Idea post will go live a few days later on https://whatever.scalzi.com/. In preparing the various links to send along with the post, I realized there isn’t yet an easy way to read an excerpt from the book. So I’ll provide one. Please enjoy a section from Chapter Five of The Last Crucible, wherein Jana first encounters Maro and his companions from the Michelangelo, in their ostentatious gold-leaf balloon.
Excerpt from The Last Crucible
Jana had finished planting the barley with her father that morning, and was now helping Sperancia prepare a garlic extract for Pietro. The medicine would not cure him, but it slowed his wasting and made him stronger. And the boy would need his strength for his journey to Ilium; his parents had decided to accept the visitors’ offer.
On the way down the hill from Sperancia’s house, still in the shadow of the castle, Jana noticed a golden glint in the sky. Traversing the narrow cobblestone streets of the old town, she lost sight of whatever was producing the reflection. But after delivering the garlic extract and a basket of eggs from Sperancia’s chickens to Pietro’s family, she made her way to the town square and caught sight of the flickering light again. This time it was bigger and brighter: a golden orb slowly descending toward Bosa, from the south.
Whoever or whatever was approaching them had not taken a subtle approach, and Jana soon found herself in the midst of a small crowd, also tracking the golden object toward its anticipated landing place. Which, to her dismay, turned out to be right in the middle of her freshly planted field of barley.
“What could it be?” Filumena asked her. “The visitors returning, by sky this time?”
“Maybe,” said Jana. “But perhaps someone else entirely.”
The orb was vast, a glittering golden balloon. Jana could make out three figures in the basket, two men and a woman, naked from the waist up, with olive-gold skin. The men and women looked down imperiously, unsmiling, at the townsfolk gathered below, who were standing without a thought on her freshly planted barley seeds. But Jana was dumbstruck too, and could not even open her mouth to complain.
They were the most beautiful people she had ever seen, tall and muscular, with large eyes, strong noses, and high cheekbones. All of them had thick black hair, oiled slick, precisely cut and styled. And the balloon itself was a work of art, covered in shimmering layers of thin gold leaves. Actual gold, from the look of it, hammered thinner than paper, interspersed with other metallic leaves: gleaming silver and bright copper. But mostly gold. More gold than existed in all of Bosa, a thousand times over.
The basket, a delicate structure woven in intricate patterns of wicker and brass wire, touched down, and a moment later mechanically unfolded. The golden people strode toward them, unarmed and half-naked but completely unafraid, saying nothing. None of the Bosa people had weapons either, not even a staff.
The tallest of the sky visitors stopped a few paces away, and scrutinized the townsfolk, one by one, appraisingly. His eyes lingered on Filumena, which was only natural given her beauty. But another thought crept into Jana’s mind, an observation she might have considered an impossibility only minutes ago. Filumena, even with her pleasing features and glowing skin, looked almost plain compared to the angelic, otherworldly beauty of the three.
“I am Maro Decimus,” said the tallest of them in Italian, his voice deep and resonant. To Jana’s surprise she realized he was addressing her directly. While the others had stepped back, she had stepped forward, blocking his view of Filumena.
“What do you want?”
He regarded her coldly, and his right hand twitched. She stared back at him, defiant, unafraid of being struck. He looked strong, but not strong enough to kill her with a single punch. And what was a little pain, a bloody lip, or even a lost tooth? Those were just parts of her body, not her. On some level she knew that when the vessel perished, so would her mind, her self, her soul. But she could not make that logic match the way she felt, that her body was just a thing, sometimes useful but not at all precious. So she felt no physical fear, and showed none.
A snakelike smile crept over Maro’s face, and out of nowhere she remembered the time she had seen Sperancia kill a sick bull with single short blow to its skull, and the cracking sound that had resulted, stone on stone. Soon she would have Sperancia’s strength, and maybe then this handsome, arrogant man, whoever he was, would come to fear her.
“What do you want?” he mimicked. “We come not to take, but to give.”