Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The arena’s architecture was magnificent, and like everything else in Ur, it was entirely coaxed. Trees and other plants had been encouraged to grow in the proper shapes, and far more quickly than their usual glacial pace. The old arena, abandoned, was already rotting away and would soon be noting but another load of mulch-soil for the farms.

Beneath a canopy of leaves overhead, the spectators watched as Neith was dragged out on a travois borne behind a grunting aurochs, the lashes of her recent imprisonment still fresh on her skin. Above, Iry looked down upon her smugly, clad in the robes of the high priest rather than his usual kingly garb. Duanna was beside him, draped in a queen’s raiment that had not even been resided to fit her yet.

“Behold, how the mighty are brought low before the eyes of Asiku,” Iry proclaimed, his deep voice easily resonating to the assembled people of his capital. “For her crimes against Asiku, against I, his priest, and against this city of Ur, which I rule, the one known as Neith will be executed here this day by Asiku himself!”

On Neith’s right, a coaxer stepped forward. He planted a small seedling, gently scooping the arena earth over its fragile roots. Then, retrieving a wooden container from the travois, he emptied its cargo of sticky pitch all over Neith–completely covering her in flammable liquid.

“When the execution plant reaches its zenith and grows its amber lens, immolation shall follow at the hands of Asiku and his mighty sun!” Iry looked down at Neith. “If the condemned wishes to speak, she may do so,” he added, indifferently.

Neith pursed her lips; a slight bubbling of the pitch was her only response.

“So be it.”

By now, the execution plant had developed its first leaves, and the amber lens that would focus the light–a modified fruit–had already begun to bud. But just as the first rays of focused light played across Neith, bringing a small bit of pitch on her shoulder to a near-boil, the sun was abruptly blotted out.

Iry’s satisfied grin turned to doubt as he, and everyone else, looked skyward.

A towering dust storm, the color of night, loomed on the horizon. The bitter fruit of Ur’s long depletion of its soils had bloomed, and it blossomed into destruction.

As the first stinging, lashing particles blew into the arena, and the crowd fled in terror, blinded and choking, Neith simply closed her eyes, let the now-cool pitch slide over them, and rode out the storm.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

In time, though, as the bōs were restricted further and further into the mountains by the hand of man, their songs turned more and more to dirges for the dead. Even the mastery of iron by the bōs, given to them as a result of Gervos’ Treachery, proved only a temporary respite.

For many years, the only sign of the bōs were their death-songs, mournful operas in a tongue no man could ever speak and only a few could comprehend. They served as living monuments to the deceased, a song of all their noteworthy deeds and even some deeds of their sires. The valley-folk, fearful of the strange sounds, would only redouble their efforts to pen in the mountains and slaughter the herds of goats and deer which provided the bōs with their only sustenance.

Nearly fifty years after the last living bōs has been seen by human eyes, and more than a decade since one of their songs had been heard, a new and powerful death-ballad echoed over one of the most fertile valleys in the realm. With only the barest breaks, it went on for days. At the lord’s request, an aged scholar from the College was brought in to listen. Perhaps the last human alive who could interpret even a word of the bōs language, he listened intently as the song went on, taking notes as it did.

Finally, after nearly a week, the bōs fell silent. The scholar, with tears in his eyes, finished his writing and began to pack his things for the long journey home.

“Wait, father,” said one of the farmers, a man who had greatly expanded his lands at the expense of the bōs. “What does it mean? Are they to make war on us?”

“No, son,” said the scholar, sadly. “The bōs are no more. That was their last, singing the death-song not only for himself, but for all his people.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“It’s quite simple,” said Johnny, spinning a neuroadaptor around one spindly finger. “Someone’s been up in your noggin.”

“What?” I said. “You mean…literally?”

“That’s right. Remember the old Sierra Club motto? ‘Leave No Trace?’ Well, someone’s been leaving traces in your subconscious. Letting things get just a little ajar, and then your mind swoops in and makes them into dreams and waking nightmares.”

“Who?”

“Can’t tell that. Tests might help, but they’re kind of expensive, and not–strictly speaking–legal. Whoever is doing it is good but not great, unless…” Johnny trailed off. “Unless it’s been going on for a while. Even the most skilled jacker leaves a trail eventually. But they’ll be doing it while you sleep.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The wailing spirit launched itself at Withers, who braced herself. It passed through harmlessly, gnashing its teeth and crying out in gibberish tongues.

“Can’t interact with the material world!” Withers shouted. “Tagging it as Type 4A!

“Roger that,” I said. “4A.” 4 was the category for presences with full audio/visual agency, while the A was standard for non-interactive.

“They are throwing a lot of A types at us,” Withers added. “Do you think they have anything B or C?”

“They must, since they were able to take Allison Eleanor prisoner,” I replied. “I think they are saving the big stuff for last.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The great house of Tateshiri ruled over the kingdom from their great seat in Anjzhou, a fortress occupying a fortified river bend. Weapons tempered in the great river helped spread Tateshiri influence, while the libraries of Anjzhou overflowed with books collected by the bibliophile kings.

In time, though, other cities arose in the area that became known as the Thirteen Kingdoms, and they began to challenge Anjzhou for its primacy. The king Tateshiri Watarano resolved to end this decline, and in so doing consulted the darkest and most forbidden pages of the library. Upon glancing at the most vile of ancestral bone-runes, an agma appeared to the king.

Appearing as a small but grotesque parody of the human form, the agma prostrated itself before the king and begged for its life, offering knowledge in return for Tateshiri’s mercy. The king, intrigued, agreed. The agma then gave the king a spell that, it said, would make the other rulers of the Thirteen Kingdoms pliable to his will.

It also told the king that, for each invocation of this spell, another agma like itself would arrive from parts unknown to cast it. The first invocation, and the first invocation only, would carry no price–it was a boon for the king’s mercy. But each subsequent one would demand a price. When asked of this price, the agma would only say that it would be paid at a later date, and that it would not be too dear for someone of the king’s stature.

Naturally, one invocation was not enough to sate Tateshiri Watarano’s greed. In time, hundreds of agma roamed impudently through the palace and the streets, while the other twelve kingdoms offered concession after concession, retreat after retreat. Eventually, the number of agma within the city walls equaled the number of people, which had dwindled as citizens recoiled from the grotesque beings.

On the day of a conclave to elect an emperor–the First Emperor of the Thirteen Cities–Tateshiri called upon the agma again to secure his election. The agma agreed, but informed him that the time had come to pay his bill: the soul of one citizen of the city for each invocation.

To Tateshiri’s horror, the agma bore off every man, woman, child, and even animal within Anjzhou to an infernal and horrible fate. Prostrate with grief, Tateshiri demanded why so dear a price had been exacted despite the agma’ assurances.

Their reply: “What is one soul to an almighty king but the meanest price?”

Unable to bear the shame of what he had done, Tateshiri Watarano took his own life, the sole and only remaining inhabitant of Anjzhou. The conclave met as planned the next day, and–unaware of Tateshiri’s death–voted him Emperor. When he did not appear to claim his prize, another ballot was held for the first Emperor of the Twelve Kingdoms.

Overrun with sin-tainted bamboo shoots and wandering agma hungry for the flesh and souls of mortals, Anjzhou fell into ruin and was soon known only as a swampy fen full of danger and darkness.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

It was easy to lead the shots; I’d done it hundreds of times before. With each high explosive projectile, one of the inbound vehicles blossomed into violent flames and shards of liquid metal.

Within a few minutes, the Bradley had cleared away every obstacle, and the streets around the hotel were empty but for fire and smoke.

I felt a presence next to me, and turned to see a shadow in the seat beside me, a shade of one of the tormented souls inhabiting the photographs.

“Must you?”

“I’m sorry, I really am,” I said. “But I’ve been trained to navigate the dreams of subconscious minds to extract information. The illusory world of ghosts and specters is no different.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

In light of the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), GesteCo has made the following changes, effective immediately:

01. GesteCo workplaces will now follow an opt-in, rather than opt-out, model for blood collection and trace mineral extraction.

02. The GesteCo intranet will now inform employees when their personal information is being sold to Russian mobsters, and has a new innovative profit-sharing mechanism in place.

03. RFID tracking chips will now be in wrist-mounted straps rather than subdermal implants, though the same 30-minute-per-week break policy applies.

04. GesteCo laptops will no longer explode when removed from the building; instead, they will implode.

05. Subliminal thought implantation programs will no longer be implemented, though existing implanted thoughts will remain active.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Zombie President Brayne, duly elected leader of all American zombies in accordance with the Thirty-Fifth Amendment, spoke today on Independence Day in a ceremony at the Blight House. Critics were quick to point out that President Brayne’s speech included multiple references to the eating of living brains by zombies, which is specifically prohibited by that same Amendment. He also earned criticism for the detainment policy followed by his administration, in which non-citizens caught in zombie territories are systematically milked for cerebrospinal fluid.

In response to this, Blight House Press Secretary Amy G. Dala noted that the address’s mentions of consuming living brains were “harmless jokes” that were “blown out of proportion” by politicians from the rival Necrotic Party. Secretary Dala also laid the blame for the cerebrospinal milking detainment program at the feet of Necrotic politicians and his predecessor Thrax Omerta. “Where is the outrage at Vomitory Calliphora?” said Ms. Dala, speaking of President Brayne’s defeated election rival who has not held elected office for over six years. “That’s the real story, the pro-Necrotic bias in the zombie news media.”

Reached for comment by Z-Span, former President Omerta called Brayne’s remarks a “national tragedy for the post necrotic everywhere.” Queried about his administration’s similar, but much less drastic, policy of measuring non-citizen brains for “census purposes,” Omerta declined to answer.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“I’m happy to do it, really excited. Send over the paperwork, and I’ll sign it.”

Yeager hung up the phone. “That’s that then,” he said. “They’re recording in a few weeks.”

“Jim,” Patty said. “You know what the doctor said. You only have a month or two left, maybe less, if it’s metastasized to-”

“I’m well aware of that,” said Yeager. He motioned for Patty to wheel him away from the sideboard. “But just think about it. If I can record new lines, in character, even if it’s just for a video game version of the old show…” His eyes positively burned with enthusiasm. “Imagine what all the people who’ve forgotten about me would say! Working until the day he died.”

“Jim,” Patty said. “It’ll kill you. Let them hire a soundalike. Maybe Frank can do it, like he did in ’87?”

“I’m doing it,” Jim said. “Frank can have a go after I’m dead.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“And…if I stay?” She let her eyes longingly play over the cool waters, the lush trees, the clear air above.

“Then…you will be lost to the fantasy,” the figure said sadly. “Completely cut off forever from the real world, having chosen this inner life deep in the self instead. One day death will come to your real body, and this place will be snuffed out like a candle, but until that time…”

It trailed off.

“Until that time, I might be happy.”

“But it would not be real. And you would have to deal with that maddening knowledge even amidst your utopia.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!