Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The tree first appeared growing through the cracks in the checkerboard that had once been the Marquis’ outdoor garden. A parched, spare little thing, and the boy took pity on it. He found a dinged-up watercan in the ruins of a garden shed and patiently gave the sprout a few drops.

Every day thereafter, he would return for the same ritual. A little water from the old can, depending on how dry it had been–the sort of thing he was already learning from Father for when he was older and could begin to help with the harvest.

In time, the tree grew tall and strong, spreading boughs over what remained of the garden terrace and tearing up what remained of the Marquis’ checkerboard with its roots. Birds came to perch amid its spreading branches, and will ‘o the wisps could be seen about its trunk at dusk and dawn.

It was an inspiring sight, but also a fearful one. The boy had begun watering the shoot when he was five years old. By the time he was seven, it was larger than all but the oldest boughs in the forest.

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It had been a tough trial. Melinda had begun to doubt herself, to doubt her client. He was charged with a horrible crime, killing and eating man he had only just met.

But through it all, she had felt that something deep inside him was innocent…

And so, against every instinct and piece of legal advice, Melinda put her client on the stand.

“Tell me in your own words what happened,” she said.

“GAAAARRRR! SNAP SNAP! CHOMP CHOMP!” said the shark. It was a diatribe that wasn’t going to win him any favor with the jury.

But it was enough. The shark dry heaved, a pair of hands opened its mouth from inside. Fitzwilliams, the recreational diver that had been swallowed, emerged safe and sound, sustained by his wetsuit and oxygen tank.

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It was that hum that first keyed most people into the fact that something was deeply wrong.

Oh, there had been signs before. Flocks of birds flying south in June, for one. Massive deaths among the ones that stayed, like the flock that beat itself to death against the front windows of the IGA. Lots of people lost their dogs, and lots more found them cowering under couches and in crawlspaces.

But that hum, that ominous pitch-defying hum that seemed like the music of the spheres one moment and a dire portent the next…that ever-uneasy tone that seemed straight out of the sound design for a horror movie.

We knew where it was coming from: cicadas. 17-year cicadas, emerging from their split shells to sing from the treetops. It shouldn’t have been anything to worry about, just an annoyance. But seeing the creatures was what made most people sit up and take notice.

It had only been five years since they’d last come up. The 17-year cicadas were 12 years early for the first time in human history, and nobody had any idea why.

We found out soon enough.

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In time, the land and the road seemed to fall away in the mist. But Ellis kept driving, the cargo strapped to his back too precious to risk. The sounds of the world fell away as well, with only the whine of his motorbike’s two-stroke engine remaining.

When he had gone further than it should have taken, driven for long enough to make two trips there and back, the bike backfired and stopped. Ellis dismounted, disoriented, and looked around.

He could see nothing but clouds above and below, towering above as they towered beneath.

Eliis had unknowingly ridden into the skies on his errand of mercy.

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For theirs was a city
Build from staples and paper
But even at its coolest
Its cleanest
Its most paved
They were there
In the gutters
In the furrows
Beneath floorboards
Behind walls
Listening
Watching
Waiting
Probing for weaknesses
And every piece of information
Every chink in the armor
Borne on scurrying legs
Borne on owls’ silent wings
To the great king
Whose domain they had displaces
Who waited on silent throne
To reclaim what was once his
And would be soon again

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Of all the beings to interact with humans, dwarves have had perhaps the longest and most peaceful history. Unlike elves, but like orcs, dwarves established a great kingdom in their native lands to the far north. A rugged, tortured land of short summers, long winters, pine forests, fjords, and lake-filled islands with island-filled lakes, the archipelago formed the Kingdom of the Shattered Isles.

Dwarves tunneled below the permafrost to take advantage of the land’s latent geothermal heat and rich ores, while their outriggers sailed far and wide to trade (and occasionally raid) the great human kingdoms and even the orcs of the far south. Their stocky build and powerful physique made dwarven mercenaries extremely popular, and they served in the personal guard or shock troop vanguard of many a ruler.

But the dwarves’ hold on their land was always tenuous. Like elves, dwarves had extremely low population growth: females were only capable of pregnancy once every five to seven years, and the tendency of these cycles to align in the various hold across the Shattered Isles meant that serious losses to combat or disease stood to annihilate a population with startling rapidity. The fact that every dwarven pregnancy, without fail, was a difficult twin birth did not help matters; before the advent of modern medicine, many dwarven women died in childbirth.

These problems came to a head with the invasion of the Sea Peoples. Driven from their traditional homlands by the rising empire of the Hamurabash orcs, they set upon the Shattered Isles with savage fury. Their warships were less stable but much larger than dwarven outriggers, resulting in a series of lopsided naval defeats for the kingdom. Worse, the Shattered Isles had just emerged from a vicious war with a human kingdom, leaving their ranks thinned and more territory than usual to defend.

The Sea Peoples also possessed horses and heavy cavalry, which the dwarves had traditonally spurned in favor of infantry and naval warfare. They were of little use over much of the Shattered Isles but at the crucial Battle of the Two Lakes they were able to smash the dwarven army of the King Over The Isles in a charge over frozen ground. The Sea Peoples eventually gained complete control over the Shattered Isles, dispersing the dwarves that they did not enslave.

Known as the Shattering to dwarves, this event was a watershed for their culture. Many were welcomed with open arms by human kingdoms and settled within them in exchange for their service as warriors and sailors. The death of the King Over The Isles also had a profound effect on dwarven religion, which had been a dualistic faith with the king as high priest of Dvagnchi the Dayfather and the queen as high priestess of Qingvnir the Nightmother. Religious epics from the time before the Shattering emphasized the eternal courtship between the two and their shared rule over the world, each embodying opposing traits.

Such was the violence of the Shattering that the entire household of King Tsovngan IV and Queen Jinheiq III was slaughtered. Traditionally, the King and Queen would designate their own successors or leave matters to a Great Council comprised of the heads of the Great Holds. But with no designated successor, all the most likely claimants dead, and the Great Holds annihilated or in exile, no king and queen–and therefore no priest and priestess–could be chosen.

The void that this left in dwarven religious life led many of them to abandon the worship of Dvangchi and Qingvnir and take up the faiths of their new homes, from human religions to the Hamurabash. Those who remained faithful were often used as pawns by the surviving Great Holds in schemes to attain the Shattered Throne or to retake the Isles.

A combination of modern medicine and a latter-day revivial of Dvangchi and Qingvir has proved a headache for the modern lands settled by dwarves. Thanks to an innovation that dwarves refer to as tsviao qio nvrguchi, or “Homage to the Empty Throne,” the lack of an official high priest or priestess is overlooked through the support of local Twilight Courts–the traditional dwaven temple–and the setting aside of tithes to fund the reclaimation of the Isles or the official consecreation of a new homeland.

As a result, where once dwarves had been regarded as assimilated members of various states, there is a growing movement toward reclaiming their political and religious identity, their language, and a trend toward dwarven militias and armed groups that has resulted in bloodshed both in the modern Republic of the Shattered Isles and elsewhere.

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“I don’t want to bother with flight plans or cargo manifests or all that jublub,” said Jai.

“All that what?” said Myassa.

“All that jublub. You know. Stuff. Crap.”

“From the context it’s clear what you meant, Chandrakant,” Myassa said. “I’m just reacting to the word you used to convey the concept.”

“Is the language I use really of that much concern to a security officer?” Jai said, flustered. “You’re kind of undermining my authority as captain here.”

“Two things, Chandrakant” Myassa said, stabbing a pair of fingers into the air. “First, you’re not the captain. You’re the owner. There’s a difference. Get used to it. Second, you undermined your own authority the second you uttered the word ‘jublub.’ What language is that, even?”

It’s just something my father used to say,” replied Jai. “Don’t worry yourself about all that jublub. It’s probably Hindi or something.”

“Oh no, I’ve heard Hindi and that ain’t Hindi.” Myassa jutted her chin forward, pulling her hijab forward when it threatened to come loose. “Hey, doc! What language would you say ‘jublub’ is?”

Dr. Strasser looked up from his workstation. “It is not a word found in any dictionary or any of the tongues of man,” he said in his deadpan way, such that Jai couldn’t be sure is the old geezer was joking.

“Taos, do you concur?” Myassa said, clearly relishing the interplay.

“Collating.” There was a pause as the ship’s AI considered its response. “No matches found in database query, Ms. al-Thurayya. When I have recieved permission to access the planetery data networks I can conduct a more thorough search.”

“That won’t be neccessary, Taos, thank you,” Myassa said. “And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Ms. bint Leya bint Raaheel al-Thurayya?”

“I am sorry, Ms. bint Leya bint Raaheel al-Thurayya,” said Taos in his flat affect.

“So, in addition to mocking my speech and undermining my authority as captain you’re deliberately confusing my poor old AI, al-Thurayya?” said Jai.

“You knew there would be consequences when you used the word ‘jublub.'”

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It had been a long night for the group of students holed up in Tammy’s parents’ holiday house in the mountains. First, a fierce storm blowing in off the mountains had put the kibosh on their plans to smooch each other out in the sunshine and at the lake. Then the power had gone out; when Bernard went to check the breakers, he never came back.

Eventually, the indoor smooching had stopped and the others had gone looking for him. Michelle had found his body, with the head sucked clean off, stuffed in an upstairs broom closet. She’d also seen a dark shape darting across the landing, and wet webbed footprints soaking into the carpet.

That had been enough to interrupt the smooching, if only briefly.

Picked off one by one, eventually the group was whittled down to the last two. They were cornered by the murderous creature, the shadow that had decapitated all their friends, out by the pool. Illuminated by the spotlights, it was fully visible for the first time: a monstrous, bipedal frog!

Tammy accidentally fell into the pool, horrified at the sight. Erica tried to grab her hand but the frog dove in after her first. Swimming faster than Tammy could sink, Erica couldn’t look away even as she was sure her friend was a goner.

And that’s when they came between Tammy and the pursuing megafrog: giant tadpoles, tails writhing, whose faces were the faces of every head the prowling amphibian had gathered. It hadn’t just been hunger or bloodlust, but a horrifying circle of life that had driven the creature’s depredations.

Batting the tadpoles aside, the frog swam greedily for the flailing Tammy. With her last gasp of breath, she entreated the only person for aid that she could think of in her final moments, the only one she was sure could rescue her:

“Help me, Mr. Darcy, you’re my only hope!”

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“Oh my God!” buzzed Harold. “Cindy is dead!”

“No! Oh, no!” Her sister Katie rushed over to where Cindy lay on the sidewalk. “It’s not fair! She was only seventeen years old…she’d just come out of her shell…she’d only had sex once…and now she’s gone!”

The others raised their voices in a mournful wail.

“Then again, we’re all going to die by tomorrow,” Katie said. “If we’re not eaten by birds first.”

Buzzing in agreement, the assembled cicadas–none of whom had functioning mouthparts as an adult–dispersed to try and do their business in the 8-12 hours of life remaining to them.

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Buy Glorbl! shrieked the billboards lining the boulevards.

“This all looks awfully familiar, doesn’t it?” said John.

Presented by Glorbl!” proclaimed a plaque at the corner of a building, long abandoned and beginning to sag under the weight of many years.

“I suppose it does, after a fashion,” Mary said. She shook her leg to free a flier (Glorbl’s the One!) that had been pressed against it.

As they continued down the road, they noticed that the density of Glorbl advertisements became newer, better preserved; the infrastructure was as well. “Looks like the middle was the last bit to fall apart,” John said.

The ad copy became more desperate as well: from Glorbl Needs YOU! to Please Help Glorbl Help You! to Glorbl: Too Big To Fail!. It had been pervasive earlier, but the city’s core was overrun with advertisements that were more vibrant in their faded greens, pinks, and yellows. In time, the place was practically wallpapered with the stuff, and the fliers and Glorbl promotional detritus was ankle-deep in drifts.

“What do you suppose Glorbl was?” asked Mary.

“Everything, by the look of it,” said John. “At least at the end.”

Mary nodded. “Evo One to Evo Mother, come in Evo Mother.”

The speaker on her spacesuit–required to filter out the poisonous methane atmosphere that everything on Eta Carinae IV breathed–crackled in response: “Roger that, Evo One. Status Report?”

“Another extinct one,” said John. “Looks like this bunch was after something called Glorbl, or at least that’s what the translator makes of it.”

“Roger that, Evo One. Come on back.”

Just like Betelgeuse VII and its Ynyyxr, the Sklog on Aldeberan II, and Canis Majora Prime’s Vxleen, Eta Carinae IV had yielded a dead civilization that had gone into its grave relentlessly hawking itself to death.

“There’s a lesson here somewhere,” said Mary as they lifted off. She cracked a bottle of Vin Fiz Neo, downing it in great gulps. “But I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”

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