Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

As the ogre bailiff led the jurors away, Jon Weatherall leaned over to Muhrot. “What sentence can I expect if they convict me?” he whispered.

“Severance from the fey world, as the prosecutor asked,” Muhrot replied curtly. “Were you not listening?”

“Come on, Muhrot. What does that mean, exactly? Aren’t I already severed from you, since I’ve never seen any of you or your kind before in my life.”

“In your life? No. In your dreams? Yes. Severance from the fey world means no more dreams, no more inspiration, no more seeing the unseen. Mundanity unending.”

“Surely the jury wouldn’t do that to a fellow author, would they?” Weatherall said, with a nervous little laugh.

“Only if they think you’re guilty,” said Muhrot, stonefaced.

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Sir Slouh of Perg

Sir Slouh of Perg, also known as the Beast of Perg or the Mountain of Perg, was a noble and landsknecht who attained notoriety in service of Otto VII. The song of the previous lord and a mistress, Slouh was abnormally tall and large for the era, with a height nearing seven feet and a girth that made him truly tower over his contemporaries.

Despite his immense physical strength, honed for years as he worked his way up the ranks of the landsknechte, Slouh was an equally formidable thinker and strategist. He wrought the downfall of seven legitimate heirs before him in the House of Perg, seeing his half-siblings and cousins murdered, imprisoned, exiled, and in at least one case burnt at the stake. With his personal power base secured, Slouh offered his services to Otto VII as a personal troubleshooter both on and off the battlefield.

In battle, Slouh would carry a kite sield in each hand, warding off blows from his enemies and boxing them with the flats, tossing or stunning lesser combatants. Only when he needed to finish a foe would he snatch one of their weapons and drive it home, discarding it immediately after. Even without his size, Slouh could be recognized by his helmet, which bore two gleaming blades like a crown of swords. He was rumored to inflict lethal wounds with it as well, though this is often dismissed as myth in latter days.

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All general officers of the Seb’q Order were required to take new names upon promotion, and the future General Quern chose his because he expected to be the millstone upon which the reaped grain of his enemies would be sown.

His subordinates quietly said that the millstone was instead around their own necks, dragging them down.

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In an era when social engineering makes two-factor authentication increasingly unreliable, rather than escalating to three-factor authentication, GesteBank has done something new and original. Say hello to our new Liberal Arts Account!

In a LAC, all transactions must be accompanied by written work–the longer and more complex the task, the longer and more complex the composition required. Check deposits, for instance, must have a rhyming poem written under the endorsement:

If deposit ye must
By electronic mail
A poem ye must write
Or else it will fail

Opening and closing accounts, receiving cashier’s checks, and most wire transfers will require an essay, while certain transactions like leveraged buyouts and mortgages will require a thesis or dissertation. A short story, novella, or novel can be substituted at the branch manager’s discretion. A timed written test, administered live when the account is opened, will keep patrons from cheating by plagiarism, writing mills, or generative predictive text.

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Nan Livil

Nan Livil, the first cyclops to play Major League Basketball, was long ridiculed for both his lack of depth perception and his determination to succeed in a sport that required it.

However, his 8’1″ frame, intense athleticism, and ability to shoot a ray of paralysis from his one massive eye five times per long rest helped sway public opinion, and Nan wound up making the Major League Basketball all-star list every year he was on the court, as well as being a seven-time Player of the Year winner and a record-tying four Helmsman Trophy wins. His number/letter combo, 1BDI, was retired when Nan left the game after a torn ACL, as well.

Nan was even the first cyclops to have his name and likeness used on a video game cover, though he was said to dislike the photo that the publisher used and declined further offers to decorate video or computer game boxes.

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Grade 4M4, quartermaster. Pay was less than 3M2 engineer’s mate but better than 5M6 able spaceman. Most military ships had long since replaced their quartermasters with algorithms, but they persisted aboard civilian craft as both a badge of honor and a bit of a luxury. An algorithm wasn’t able to grease palms for fresh and local ingredients, wasn’t able to provide the cooks with what they needed, and certainly wasn’t able to jury-rig repairs and replacements.

Lorne, Grade 4M4 Quartermaster aboard the SS Junebug, had assumed that this would continue to be the case. He kept the small passenger ship outfitted with everything it needed, from oxygen to oysters, and had done so for eight years. So when the message arrived informing him that the next contract–and voyage–would be his last, with an algorithm to take his place, he kept the bottle of vintage champagne intended for the passengers for himself.

Along with Klaus, the cook, who was also slated for replacement by an algorithm hooked up to a set of T-22b manipulators, sat in the observation lounge as the Junebug cruised along its usual Saturn route. They had ringside seats, as it were, for their final cruise.

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I wrote a strongly worded email today
Broke off a piece of my soul and sent it
On the wings of inconvenienced electrons
Heart beating like we were knife fighting
Weeks in the making, days in the dreading
A digital scream, every 0 gaping open
Through the rest of the day and into night
The echoes of that polite aggression
Still leave my hands visibly trembling

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“Do you deny that you twote in support of D-ah, of Mr. X?” Ojrah said. “Do you deny that you took money from the sales of your books and donated it to Conversion Ministries?”

“Of course not,” Weatherall said. “But those are my deeply held personal and religious beliefs.”

“He admits it! Gentlethings of the jury, Mr. Weatherall admits to holding abhorrent personal and religious beliefs,” Ojrah crowed.

“Now, that’s a value judgment that I-”

“There are goblins in your books,” Ojrah continued. “Goblins not unlike my distinguished peer Muhrot, who performs a distasteful task honorably in defending you. You write them as inherently untrustworthy beings who will not hesitate to kidnap and murder to attain their aims.”

Weatherall glanced at Muhrot, red-faced.

“And you go on to paint them as obsessed with money, finance, and profit, going so far as to own goblin stocks and goblin corporations!” said Ojrah.

“The very idea!” Muhrot sat up violently. “That I would sully my hands with currency, stocks, or publically traded shares!” The fact that he was supposed to be defending Weatherall seemingly dawned on him a moment later, and he sat with a mumbled apology.

“The fact is, gentlethings, a reasonable foolish human reader might conclude that Mr. Weatherall has done his research, and that we fey support Mr. X, reject identities that do not accord with superstition, and cleave to harmful sterotypes of commerce and avarice.”

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“Now, we don’t want to bring any names into this. We don’t want to prejudice the jury, heavens no, nor wind up in court ourselves. So we will refer to Mr. X, Mrs. Y, and the like.”

“Why?” Weatherall cried.

“Exactly,” Judge M’Tusk replied. “Prosecutor Ojrah?”

“Gentlebeings of the jury, Judge M’Tusk, welcome,” Ojrah said, standing and putting its thumbs in its suspenders. It also appeared to conjure suspenders for the sole reason of inserting its thumbs. “Our case is quite simple. By writing books and stories featuring fictional versions of we, the fey, the author Jon Koenning Weatherall is trading in defamatory stereotypes. There’s your libel. Furthermore, the author Jon Koenning Weatherall is giving the appearance that we, the fey, endorse his viewpoints. That’s your slander.”

“What?” said Weatherall. “Now look, I went to law school for a while, and slander does not-”

M’Tusk snapped his fingers. “There will be polite silence in the court until the statement is finished,” he said, in Weatherall’s own voice. Snapping again, he added in his own gnomish voice: “One more outburst and I’m keeping it.”

“Thank you, Judge M’Tusk. Now, I will present evidence that proves this. What say you to that, Muhrot?”

The goblin briefly rose. “I will attempt to cast doubt on it through a combination of cherry-picked facts, doubts that play on the prejudices of the jury, and technicalities.”

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“Now, according to ancient fey tradition, you must be tried by the laws of your own kind,” Judge M’Tusk said. “So we’ve put everything in order. Two lawyers with knowledge of human ways, one to defend you–Muhrot–and another to prosecute–Ojrah.”

“What about a jury of my peers?” Weatherall said, gesturing to the group empaneled–emtoadstooled?–nearby. “There’s not a human being among them!”

“Oh, I’m rather proud of this,” the fairy prosecutor, Ojrah, said. “These are all your peers. They’re all authors! X’xxxgax there writes curses, McWildie is a poet, and of course old Tweat is weaving together the threads of fate that bind the universe together.

“Charmed,” the strange creature said, pausing its knitting for a moment to lift its cap, which was a black-eyed susan. Weatherall might have been imagining things, but he felt like the world stuttered for a moment until Tweat took up its needles again.

“All very above-board and very much done in the human fashion, I’m sure you’ll agree,” said M’Tusk.

“This is ludicrous!” cried Weatherall.

“Thank you,” M’Tusk said. “We really tried to get human justice right, even though it doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

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