Byron, alone and adrift, had a treasure trove of cards, which made him a natural magnet for card-hungry card sharps.  And sure enough, one shows up.  In the original proposal, the cardmaster was male.  They'd enjoy a sort of Gray Mouser / Fafhrd odd-couple partnership.  Not interesting enough, I thought.  Lacked something.  So I made the partner female.  Enter Cerise. ("It means Cherry, and spare me the jokes.  I've heard them all.") She's flamboyant, devil-may-care, hardened by frontier life, used to luxury, and willing to fight for it.

Comes Catch Two.

I didn't want a romantic entanglement between the hero and heroine.  Too cutesy, too predictable.  And too restrictive, since I wanted them to interact with lots of colorful characters, not spend their time kissing and spatting.  So I made Cerise a lesbian.  She's simply not attracted to Byron.  Which suits him fine: Cerise would be a scary date to someone who's not heavily armed.

And for some reason - emergency backup without backtalk, I guess - I gave Cerise a massive dog named Magog, named for an ancient and frightening god.  Good choice, since the dog outweighs her.  "Magog the dog?" asks Byron, and earns a dirty look. Magog was the perfect partner for the independent Cerise.  He never questions what you're doing or where you're going. Whistle and he comes to your rescue, then he lies down out of the way.  A henchman who doesn't even need to be paid, just fed.

Cerise gives Byron purpose, or at least direction, right off the bat.  "Let me use your cards, or at least the ones you know, and I'll parlay them into a small fortune we can share."  Fine with Byron, who needs to get out of town in case any sticky questions are asked about his ex-boss.

For comic relief, I added a tagalong.  A young and impressionable priest named Veronica insists on saving the souls of the cardsmith and cardmaster, since they dabble in black arts. 

Actually, there's comic relief throughout, since Byron and his eventual-girlfriend Rose are bumblers.  Rose also pukes at gore: adventuring requires strong stomachs.  Even the bad guys have goofy charm.  There's mystery too, as to who's sabotaging the Great Game.  And mystery about what the unknown cards do.  "What the hell is this squashy tomato for, if it's even a tomato?"  And suspense because a kingdom hangs in the balance. Mongol hordes called the Shinyar threaten to invade, which is why the kingdom's rule is up for grabs.

What else?  Weird magic, and oodles and oodles of cards.  The cardmasters play with stacks of cards - HUNDREDS of cards - that represent elements in a war: stores of grain, squads of cavalry, wind power, bad weather, the support of the populace, exhortations of bravery (a bugle call at the right moment), and more.  Byron, the cardsmith, is always being shown or given oddball cards: cards painted on wood and slate and glass, round cards, folding cards, and more.  Plus he's plagued by dreams of a demon whose motives are unclear as the game he plays.

I was asked, as usual, for input for the cover.  After some thought, I decided that Cerise and Byron should be surrounded by thugs in a Renaissance city.  Cerise has yanked her sword, Magog the dog is snarling, and Byron is triggering a card that spews green smoke around his feet.  It shows both swordplay and excitement, and mystery, in that what will the green smoke do?  Teleport them?  Transform them? Something else?  A busy cover, but fun.  And unused.  The artist, Stephan Hickman, painted himself as the cardsmith with cards on the table and demons flitting about his ears.  Prettier and pithier than my idea.

The series didn't happen.  I wrote proposals for three books.  In the second they deal with the Shinyar invasion, and in the third battle a mysterious black-cowled sorcerer of way-high abilities.  The plots for Books 2 and 3 run below.

The series didn't happen because the book was proposed to one company that bought it, then cut back so the first book was delayed.  I was instructed to hold off on writing 2 and 3.  After a year or more, the book was re-sold to a new publisher, Baen, who only wanted to float one book and check the sales figures.

So CARDMASTER reads like a self-contained novel, and is.  But I couldn't resist the last little epilogue where, as the heroes celebrate a wedding and their good fortune, a messenger comes riding up exhausted and gasps, "The Shinyar (Mongol hordes) are rushing the pass!  The invasion is on!"

Will we ever see the second and third book?  Unlikely.  But in magic, anything is possible...

Here are the original notes for Cardmaster, conceived by Bill Fawcett and expanded by Clayton Emery.

World Background

In a world simliar to 15th century Europe (Venice and Verona, just before the English Civil War, horse barbarians dominating the Kievian and Muscovy state, the first primitive cannon, Renaissance art, revival of book learning, political, social, and religious upheaval), there is perfected in the last few centuries one form of magic that actually works. These are cards constructed by magically talented cardsmiths that can invoke a single spell, once. Cards have become so influential they've spawned "The Great Game". (This game is similar to the Glass Bead Game in Hesse's Magister Ludi, I'm told, without the religious overtones.) The Great Game involves hundreds of cards that represent every aspect of current life and, after a century of growing popularity and refinement, can be played to as a substitute for a real conflict. People play cards to make war, essentially, without a loss of life or resources.

The Great Game

The Great Game is most popular among the rich and powerful. They can constantly compete without the actual risks of intrigue or warfare. There is a strong code among those who play the Great Game, banishing any who cheat or welch on a bet. When a bet is publicly posted or announced to the watchers, the game must be played and the stakes cannot be changed. The social power enforcing the rules of this game are so strong tha princes have chosen to lose their thrones rather than be banned from play, which might allow them a chance to win back their fiefdom. Being banned from play is in effect being banned from all social intercourse with the rest of the educated and the elite.
 
Anything up to, but not including your life, can be bet on a game. On the lower levels of social and economic status similar games are played, sometimes using homemade decks of accepted card types, often using rogue cards not yet accepted as legitimate for play. Rogue cards often later become accepted for use by the upper classes after their use has become widespread in casual games. A few new cards tend to appear in regional decks each year. The decision to add a card is not made by any central board so much as by mutual agreement of the major Great Game players.
 
Important rule: Bets for Games are always posted in advance. If you can't make the Game IN PERSON, you forfeit the bet. Thus kidnapping an opponent just before a game is the easiest way to win. Bodyguards are as valuable as cardsmiths and cardmasters. Suspense builds as the heroes must find their benefactor AND get him/her to the game on time.

Card Magic

Magic exists in this world, but is undependable and always unpredictable. Sheer force of will and concentration on an abstract image are not enough to control even a minor spell. Normally things just didn't work. When things did happen the result was normally catastrophic. For centuries philosphers and alchemists strove to find a way to exploit the potential for magic. The successful solution was a series of visual aids that actually trapped the magic in themselves, allowing it to be invoked by even the least-magically talented without danger. The almost-fetish for card play that resulted as enchanted cards caught everyone's attention became the inspiration for the Great Game. The enchanted cards are commonly known as "real" or "spell" cards, as opposed to unenchanted game cards.
 
A major element is the manipulation of the cards, each containing the image of a spell, monster, or magical item. The effect of these cards on an early enlightment society adds a good degree of depth, and occasional instability.
 
Each card is made from paper imbued with appropriate substances. A healing card may be on paper soaked in herbs, a death magic card is likely steeped in the blood of a murderer or her victim. The cardsmith concentrates on the image of the card he or she wishes to create and goes into a semi-trance. Slowly the image appears on the card. (I added they must DRAW the image.) This image always related to the spell, but often also reflects the peculiarities of the exact spell now contained in that card. Sometimes the images so baffle their creator the cards are destroyed in fire or never used. The cardsmith never knows what the spell's actual image will be, though many patterns reappear and so are universally recognized. Nearly all healing spells have some pattern of plants or leaves. Many of the common images have been adopted for game playing cards in the Great Game as well.
 
The Holy Grail of a cardsmith is a card that can be used more than one time, preferably continuously. While rumors abound, none have been made, but anything is possible.
 
There are many kinds of cards:

    Common or non-enchanted.
    Spelled or enchanted.
    Dead. Burned out, but collectible.
    False. Counterfeit-enchanted.
    Guised. Really magic cloaked to look Common.
    Unknown. Magic but missing an element.
    Rogue. Too dangerous or iffy to use in a Game.
    Trapped. Backfires and kill the wielder.
 
Even a cardsmith and cardmaster are never 100% sure what they've got. A card might backfire or fail at any time. (Suspense builds when the cardsmith learns the cardmaster has a card that will backfire.)
 
To prevent theft, "security devices" are usually built in. (Shades of cyber culture.) A card is generally worthless without an extra element: a magic word invocation, something rubbed on the card such as henbane or mercury or flame, the proper sex or age holding it, etc. Thus stealing cards is a waste of time unless the cardsmith reveals the missing element: under torture or otherwise.

As mentioned, CARDMASTER was plotted as a trilogy. The second two books never happened, but here are the early plots proposed for all three. Note the first proposal differs from what was eventually published.

Book One: Capture the Cardsmith
(published as CARDMASTER)

Byron, a journeyman to a Cardsmith, awakes to smoke. The house burns and his master is frozen. He grabs what cards he can and leaps out smack into assassins. But a freebooting swordswoman, Cerise, dispatches them in a battle in the smog. She demands his cards in return. She's a cardmaster.
 
Byron finds himself making cards to defeat the mysterious assassins still following him. Raised on the Kievian frontier, able with sword and wheellock pistol, Cerise looks to establish a reputation as a cardplayer and garner a fortune. She decides to stick with Byron as a source of cards. They make a good team, but disagree on methods. She's headstrong, leaping into danger. He's thoughtful (aware of the soul- threatening danger), so hesitant.
 
Several adventures ensue as they follow a rogue cardmaster into the countryside, battle him in a magical duel where Byron creates a custom card on the spot. The villain escapes to a castle, turns out to be noble, and has the heroes arrested. But they're allowed to join a Great Game with their freedom at stake. They still need more clues to solve the mystery.
 
Surviving shipwreck and fire, they journey to the local Duke's court, where they join his magical entourage. Many cardsmiths, they learn, have died suspiciously working for the Duke, who seems a good ruler and fair man. Eventually, in the midst of battle, they learn the Duke's chancellor and cousin have been accumulating powerful cards to aid in a coup.

The chancellor plays his cards in the middle of an assault, and the heroes intervene, saving the Duke's family. Byron has been improvising cards at a life-draining rate, Cerise battling with sword and pistol furiously. But eventually they turn the tide of battle by deflecting the evil magic-users. #

Book Two: Back the Black Deck

Our heroes, living in complacent luxury as the Duke's favorites, are jumped by demons and barely survive.
 
Living in the palace, enjoying food, romance, and money, they should be set for life. But Byron is falling for the daughter of a local lord, and Cerise is uneasy about it. The fiance' has some spellcasting ability, being a descendant of murky nobility.
 
It's carnival time in the city, but before wedding plans can be firmed up, the bride disappears. The pair discover she was kidnapped magically as part of a pattern. Following the trail, they find the bride has left clues, even managed to hide a few cards in her clothing. They battle through the carnival and even amidst the belltowers of the cathedral.
 
Tracking the kidnappers over the mountains, they come to an Alpinesque cave mouth under the castle of a disgraced lord. He was banished for cheating at the Great Game. The heroes battle with sword, pistol, and magic on the snowy slopes in a blizzard.
 
The rogue noble is forcing captive cardsmiths and cardmasters to create a "black deck" that uses death magic and will-control. The fiance' learns she's a direct descendant of the last great Emperor, Charles the Hammer, when she channels his ghost. The evil noble needs the Imperial bloodline to sacrifice in a primitive ceremony to fashion a card giving him control over demons. Out for revenge on everyone, he could become Emperor.
 
A running duel ensues through the castle, twisted caverns, waterfalls, and finally to a gaping maw, the edge of the Pit itself. The heroes use some of the lord's own cards - filched by the fiance' - to cast the lord into the pit. #

Book Three: Gather the Great Game

In a high mountain pass, the trio - Byron, Cerise, and the fiance' - are jumped by horse barbarians (Mongol types), who invade from the east. After various harrowing adventures and torture, they escape.
 
They find the Duke has been summoned with his army by the High King - clearly a summons to war. But what they find in the capital is an unreal escalation of the Great Game.
 
The king has become obsessed with the game. Play has risen to dangerous heights. Baronies are being lost, treaties broken, feuds stirred up between former friends, all while the various lords' armies brawl in the fields. With shifting allegiances and intrigue, no one knows what's going on.
 
The heroes partake of a running fight in and out of gondolas in the canals. They learn the king is not the king, but a shapechanged (from a card) impostor sent by the Khan of the Shinyar: the horse barbarians. Being a nomadic people, they're less adept at magic-making. Turning weakness to strength, the shapeshifter infiltrated the game to fracture the western kingdom so his hordes can overrun it.
 
The heroes try to convince others, but everyone is swept up in the game. Finally, the only solution is to make the Duke win. So the heroes join the Game. They cheat with magic, changing the cards in the Duke's hand, and win, so the Duke becomes the new High King. The heroes have incidentally won estates and wealth.
 
The Duke/High King rallies the army and defeats the barbarians at a river crossing. The heroes battle in the thick. The true High King is found in the baggage camp and freed. After an awkward moment, the Duke nobly abdicates the throne to the King: he was tired of politics and won by cheating anyway. The heroes retain their wealth and estates, which is just as well, for the Duke bans the Great Game from his court. #