Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

In the dead center of the sunless city of Korton, directly beneath the gaze of the cruel star of Køs, sits the great Sepulcher, the tallest and mightiest of the night-black edifices forever sealed behind great curtains of impenetrable ink.

For those unfamiliar with the faiths that predominate there, the Sepulcher is a tomb, an empty tomb, for the Creator that adherents believe was slain in a great battle with the master of evil and who will yet return. The Sepulcher of Korton is among the greatest, and some say that it is where the faith began.

Because its spires are so tall, so that they may always be visible against the sky, and so riddled with holes, so that they may always make an interesting and imposing silhouette, those faithful who rise in the twin bell towers to strike the hourly bells are in unique danger.

Once a year, perhaps more, an initiate will fall to their death off the spire because they failed to see the yawning chasm greedily before them. In time, of course, they all learn, but many initiates nevertheless traverse the area on their hands and knees, feeling carefully forward and shrinking back where they find a void.

More than one of the initiates and even the elder priests have tripped over the great hempen ropes that serve to bind the bells. And when the bells are cleaned once every five years to remove the caked on bat-muck and other filth, legend has it that the locals will place morbid bets on the number of Sepulcher priests, novices, and initiates who will perish.

LEgend has it that one year, miraculously, all survived and many of the bookmakers in Korton lost everything.

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What do I sell? Why, immortality, child!

Do not laugh, for I am very serious. No, I am nor a sorcerer or conjurer. You’ll certainly live longer if you eat my delicious foods and partake of my dried rations, to say nothing of the many armors and shields I have on offer, but I’ve nothing that’s protection against the will of the gods when it’s time for you to fall.

Ah, but how can there be immortality on offer if that’s the case, I hear you ask! Simple, so simple that it’ll take longer for me to explain than it will for you comprehend.

At my humble warehouse, your road to fortune and glory begins. Will it be a kingdom you win for yourself? A merchant empire? Or such wealth that will see you, hale and hearty at the end of your years, imparting tales of your exploits to eager great-grandchildren?

That is immortality, my friend, the kind of afterlife available to all and that swords cannot scratch. And that is what I sell, to those canny enough to see it.

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The Silver Sea is the only gateway to the lands beyond Kaïs to the east, but it is fraught with danger. Not only do storms whip up at a moment’s notice, and fantastic dream-creatures infest its depths, but touching its waters will instantly wake a sleeper, tearing them from their dreams.

Ancient docks rest on the shore, but they are often far higher than the current level of the sea, indicating that it once ran much higher. Occasional thunderstorms on the plains of Kaïs will sometimes swell the water level and sweep away the unwary.

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They call it the Infinite Chateau of Staeye, and it is situated on the very edge of the plain of Laïs, where the light is not intense enough to kill.

The latter part of its name is easy enough to parse; the chateau was for many years the home of the Staeye family when they had left the waking world behind for the dreamscape. It is not known if they built it, but they dwelt there for aeons of dreamtime and had certainly made it their own by the time their last living member succumbed to the eternal sleep of death and sailed away across the Silver Sea, the shore of which just touches the chateau.

It is called Infinite because it has rooms beyond number and beyond human reckoning.

Many enter it as it now sits, abandoned and decrepit, as a waystation before setting out for Korton, the only safe city upon Laïs. And this is not a problem, because the rooms never end. Ropes are generally kept at the entrance, and ties about those who enter. But it a rope should break, or a person should go in unwary with no rope, they will become lost forever.

Even those who do not die will face a fate worse than death: every dream for their remaining days will consist of wandering endlessly in a mansion with no beginning and no end.

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Q: Where are books on teflon kept in the library?

A: In the non-friction section.

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Oxrash Academy of the Occult and Odd

Cowzit Preparatory for Prestidigitation and Pedantry

Henpimple College of Houdinism and Hullabaloo

Roosterboil Institute of Runes and Rules

Mulescab Grammar School for Magic and Malfeasance

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The funeral procession was nearly a mile long, with a gleaming white hearse at its forefront. Five limos followed, apparently filled with family, and the entire procession was given an escort by private security in their cars with green lights and greenlit motorcycles that looked just police-like enough to get everyone to pull aside.

“What kind of person is that, to get a funeral procession so grand?” a stopped driver asked one of the motorcycle guards.

“A funeral director,” was the reply.

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Roberta Dawson was the only child of a blue-collar assembly-line worker and a mother who had worked as both a teacher and a librarian before becoming a full-time mother to their only child. By all accounts, she was doted on by both parents to the extent that their finances allowed, but there was continuous arguing over money. Mr. Dawson worked long hours to support his family but adamantly refused to allow his wife to get a job. They also suffered no less than four miscarriages, with the last coming when Roberta was 16 and her mother was nearly 45 years old.

Each was a son, the origin of the ‘four brothers’ and ‘family of seven’ remarks that Roberta would occasionally make when she was older.

Despite family problems and an overall lack of money, Roberta was able to go to college and became certified as a teacher in math, science, English, and art–a rare achievement even then. But her personal life suffered a major blow when, not long after she began teaching in earnest, both of her parents dies within six months of each other. Mrs. Dawson suffocated at home due to a gas leak, a death which was ruled suicidal, while Mr. Dawson died in a car crash that his insurer eventually declared self-inflicted. As a result, their entire estate and all of Roberta’s savings went to defray funeral and medical expenses–leaving her all but destitute.

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Roberta Atkins was a teacher by profession, but when her first book for children took off, she immediately retired from her position and devoted herself full-time to writing. After 1980, when her first book came out, she wrote and illustrated close to ten books a year for the remainder of the decade, a prodigious pace that led to accusations of plagiarism.

In one memorable 1985 episode of 60 Minutes, Atkins invited a reporter into her home to see her technique and working space, which seemed to put any worry that she was not the author of her own picture books to rest. Strangely, Atkins seemed more interested in talking about her books on coding than her art and writing, mentioning that she was teaching herself how to program in machine code.

The last children’s book in Atkins’ oeuvre was published in 1990 but had been completed in 1989. For the remainder of her life, she never wrote again.

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Roberta Dawson married Albert “Al” Atkins in 1972, when she was a schoolteacher and he was working as an adjunct professor at the local university. They’d met through a local singles group, and friends remarked upon how much Al seemed to delight in utterly dominating Roberta when they were together. The scion of a wealthy family with an education to match, he fancied himself a professor even though, as an adjunct, he was teaching lower-level classes at a far lower salary. He offered financial security, though, thanks to his family, and Roberta was all too happy to take it after the death of each of her parents within 6 months had completely drained her own funds as well as her parents’ estate.

Their first child, a stillborn girl, arrived in 1973; a second, another daughter, was born in 1974. The Atkins’ second daughter died at the age of five in 1979, having reportedly drowned during a pool party. By then, Al’s parents had died and left the money to his children with him as executor; with their daughter dead, Al and Roberta inherited the entire estate, though neither of them stopped working, reportedly due to the distaste they had for one another. There were even rumors that Al had only entered into the marriage for that selfsame inheritance, as his parents’ will shows that they had a rather low opinion of his ability to handle money.

After Roberta’s children’s books began selling, however, Al seems to have undergone a remarkable reversal. Family friends say that they saw him less and less, but that when they did see him he appeared to have lost weight and to be very attentive, even submissive, to Roberta. They thought that his wife’s success had finally cowed him.

Al Atkins was seen less and less as his wife became better-known, and by the time of the 60 Minutes interview in 1985 he was refusing to be photographed or interviewed. He died in 1990 and was cremated and scattered without fanfare; the plot that held his two children with space for their parents was never used.

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