Admiral Shayell, the first Lord Pharos and founder of a line of noble lighthouse-keepers who would play a major part in the history of New Albion, is yet another example of how my interest in history intersected with my fiction writing. In some of my researches into naval history I had come across the history of a Royal Navy admiral by the name of Sir Clowdisley Shovell, who died in a shipreck among the Scilly Isles in 1707. Because of a story that he'd hanged a sailor as a mutineer for trying to warn him of the fatal navigation error that was sending the fleet onto the rocks, his name was getting used to pillory present-day bad bosses.
This bothered my historical sense, but at the time I wasn't motivated to do anything about it. Then I came across a portrait of the man, and suddenly he became a person to me and I cared about him. Even as I was researching historical sources in a search for the truth about his character, the story of the wreck was linking up with an old idea I'd had for a fantasy story about a girl who could hear dolphins and was being used to hunt a "unicorn" (narwhal).
Suddenly the story began to form in my mind of Rissa, a young orphan girl captured by a thief-taker, who sells her thief-bond to an admiral who has been ordered to capture a unicorn for the king. I used the alternate spelling "Cloudesley" for his first name and figured out a series of orthographic twists that could make the surname into "Shayell." As the character became a sort of magical alternate to the historical admiral, it seemed natural to set it in Ixilon, and specifically in New Albion.
So Rissa is in the icy North Atlantic, hating the admiral for his power over her, yet subconsciously growing fond of him. No sooner have they taken the unicorn's horn than they become lost in thick fog and storms. When the dolphins warn Rissa that they're not coming into Mandarkeel at all, but running straight at the rocks of Cape Cod, she knows she has to warn the admiral. Although he refuses to listen, he cuts her some slack because she is just a street urchin and couldn't possibly know that it's mutiny for common sailors to meddle in navigation. He sends her back on deck, warning her never to speak of their conversation again.
From there I took Rissa through the shipwreck and offered her the chance to murder the admiral and steal the emerald ring that held the spell binding her to him. I'd originally intended it to be a single story, but my mind kept grinding away at what would happen to them afterward. Suddenly I had at least three more stories in the works and their descendants were becoming major players in the later history of Ixilon, where most of my novels were set.
As usual, part of the creation of the stories included drawing scenes from them.
After the disastrous shipwreck that nearly took his life, Admiral Shayell was banished by royal command to the ancient tower not far from where his flagship went down. There he was commanded to transform this Old Ixilon ruin into a lighthouse that would guide mariners safely past the rocks and shoals.
After Shayell is banished to keep the lighthouse at the site of his disastrous shipwreck, he discovers that his curse enables him to do extraordinary things, like salvage diving.
This picture, set years after "Spiral Horn, Spiral Tusk," shows Admiral Shayell watching Rissa and their daughter playing with a dolphin. Because he lacks the magical gift of dolphin-speech which Rissa has passed to Rouwenza, he feels a certain wistfulness at what he can never share.
All pictures on this page copyright 1999, 2000 by Leigh Kimmel, all rights reserved.
If you are interested in using these images on your webpage or in a publication, or would like to obtain the originals, please contact me.
I am currently accepting commissions for artwork. If your interested in having me do something, please contact me with information on what you want.
Home | Naval History | Reading | Writing | Fandom | Gallery | Articles | Bookstore | Personals | Work at Home | Link to Me
This page last updated March 20, 2000
