June 10, 2014

From “The Not-So-Hidden World” by Hazel Pace Santiago

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“Wow, it’s a hidden world…straight out of Rowling,” said Jennie wonderingly.

“It’s nae hidden,” chirped what was possibly a goblin in overalls who was passing by.

“What?” Jennie said.

“I said, it’s nae hidden, ye deaf clay,” the goblin said again in a thick brogue. “Do you hae any idea how hard that’d be? There’s nae better way tae get something on th’ front page o’ th’ Times than trying tae hide it!”

“So how come I’ve never heard of it?” Jennie said defensively.

“Oh, I dinnae ken. Could be that most clay are too daft and stupid tae see! The clever ones can. Look over there! Mrs. MacCreedy comes here every Tuesday tae buy turnips, and she’s as clay as ah pottery class!”

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May 13, 2014

From “Introducing the 2014 ‘What’s My Genre’ Panelists” by Altos Wexan

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This post is part of the May 2014 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “Take a Character, Leave a Character”

MELINDA: Hello and welcome to our program! We’ve got quite the show for you here today, as always! But first, let’s meet our panelists. First up is Ulgathk the Ever-Living, Elder Lich of the Seven Lands. Tell us a bit about yourself, Ulgathk.

ULGATHK: Well, Melinda, I’m currently a sitting member of the Council of Undeath, sole ruler and commander-in-chief of the Unholy Army, and Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in the Obama Administration. In my spare time, I do volunteer work to help rehabilitate the public image of what I like to call the ‘neglected undead:’ liches, wights, ghouls, ghasts, and my other non-zombie and non-vampire brethren.

MELINDA: Touching! Executive experience, leadership, and volunteering? He’s a triple threat, ladies and gentlemen.

ULGATHK: I am a threat to all that lives or cools in undeath, Melinda.

MELINDA: Our next panelist is sure to be familiar to all you sports fans out there. It’s Tom Hicks, color commentator for NBS Broadcasting. Tom, I hear next season is looking pretty good?

TOM: That’s right, Melinda. I look forward to providing meaningless patter to help fill the otherwise dead air in between sacks, home runs, zombie attacks, and other pulse-pounding moments in sports.

MELINDA: And what would you say to people who call sports commentary boring or vapid? Are they wrong?

TOM: That’s right, Melinda. I would challenge those people to actually listen to one of my rambling monologues, delivered in a sports voice, during the interminable pregame show for a major sporting event. In addition to the usual useless statistics that assume causation, I touch on themes as universal as the philosophy of consciousness, artificial intelligence, and predestination as I am chained in that chair for hours on end with airtime to fill but no one paying attention. Unable to live, unable to die. Back to you, Melinda.

MELINDA: Also joining us on our celebrity panel is Dowager Empress Cnhyn Hallud of the Crimson Empire. Viewers of the popular reality show Princess Search know her as a judge there, but before that she was the 19th and final wife of Crimson Emperor Testarossa, plucked from obscurity for her beauty before outliving the Emperor by 40 years and counting.

HALLUD: The many splendid mushrooms of peace be upon you and yours, Melinda. I seek only to see the beauty in everything, especially that which has no beauty. For what is life but a journey of self-discovery and love and flowers and smiles and puppies and rainbows and love?

MELINDA: Dowager Empress Hallud, how do you respond to critics that call you out of touch, given your fabulous personal wealth and unimpeachable position as stepmother to Crimson Emperor Testarossa II, or criticize the Crimson Empire’s human rights record?

HALLUD: I don’t think about it for even a moment, Melinda. I was a lowly milkmaid until my beloved Testarossa executed his former wife in my favor; as a self-made and powerful person, I seek to help others realize the self-actualization and harmony with nature that I have already achieved. Human rights are but a fleeting shadow substituted for true enlightenment, as my old bocce ball partners Elena Ceausescu, Imelda Marcos, and Madame Mao would tell you.

MELINDA: Here in the corner, still in his neural interface suit and HUD rig, we have noted RPD (remotely-piloted drone) jockey and interstellar prospector Cameron “Cam” Hickson, RPD (remotely-piloted drone) jockey. Cam, I understand that RPDs use faster-than-light communications technology to remotely survey the far reaches of our galaxy with the human pilots safely back on Earth.

CAM: Bullseye, Melinda. Communications are fast, spaceships can be made fast, but we humans are awfully, awfully squishy. Space exploration becomes an order of magnitude easier and cheaper when you strip out the parts needed to keep humans from becoming chunky salsa.

MELINDA: So you sit at home and pilot your drone all day? What makes you any different from a gold miner in an MMORPG like Dungeons of Krull?

CAM: Well, for one thing, I am paid in cash for my surveying and prospecting, and I own my own rig, and I don’t have to kill a hundred kobalds to level up my piloting mojo. For another, when your character in Dungeons of Krull dies, you just respawn. There isn’t a chance of a neural feedback loop that might kill you. And instead of farming the same patch of ground endlessly, I–or, more accurately, my drone–am out there finding real things that will be actually exploited to make life better for everyone. Provided that claim jumpers and psychotic griefers don’t wreck my rig.

MELINDA: Perhaps our most distinguished panelist is next: French filmmaker Auguste Des Jardins, director of Les trois Juliets and multiple Oscar nominee and Palme d’Or laureate. Forgive me for asking, Mssr. Des Jardins, but didn’t you die in 1976?

DES JARDINS: A man must have his secrets, Melinda, and a filmmaker even more so. A wiser man than I once said that no one dies until the last person who knows them through their works can no longer remember; by that measure, I have never been more alive and have, I hope, many long years ahead of me.

MELINDA: Mssr. Des Jardins, your films are as divisive as they are critically acclaimed. There have been widespread reports of seizures, hallucinations, and out-of-body experiences viewing your cinema, especially your last film, The Sacred Cenote. Would you care to respond?

DES JARDINS: I will only say that filmmaking as a whole is a violent seizure, a vivid hallucination, an out-of-body experience of the most profound kind. It is a linking and a meeting of minds, of souls, and I was able to make only very gradual progress toward that ideal with my work. The Sacred Cenote came closer than all my other works combined to the true unity to which I realized I had been aspiring all along. If that makes people uncomfortable, there is always Jaws.

MELINDA: Splendid! Our final panelist was chosen from a pool of applicants to help add a more popular dimension to our program. Please welcome Odessa “Dessie” Mullin, paranormal enthusiast and native of Hopewell, Michigan.

DESSIE: Oh man, it is just such a huge honor to be here, Melinda! I watch this show so religiously that I really ought to be ordianed in it as a high priestess or something. I do just want to say, though, that ‘paranormal enthusiast’ is kind of a misnomer. I do love all aspects of the paranormal, but my first and truest love is zombies. And, in fact, I sometimes slip into a horrifying alternate dimension where the zombie apocalypse, or zompocalypse, has already occurred, and-

MELINDA: Ms. Mullin? I-

DESSIE: -it hasn’t done anything to decrease my love for those lovable brain-eaters. On the contrary, I love them more than ever! But I also love ghosts, and ghouls, and liches, and banshees, and wights, and ghasts, and barghests, and Ulgathk the Ever-Living, and…you know what? Maybe ‘paranormal enthusiast’ is an okay thing to call me after all.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Ralph Pines
Sixpence
writingismypassion
Sneaky Devil
BBBurke

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May 12, 2014

From “The Dowager Empresses” by Moses Sweere Gephardt

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The Crimson Empire has a large and expansive royal family, but has always recognized the absolute authority of the Emperor, as both ruler and Heirophant of the Crimson Tabernacle, to have a wife of his own choosing and to freely divorce her. This, coupled with the Crimson Emperor’s unquestioned ability to name a successor of his choice, means that most Emperors are serial monogamists, rotating between wives every few years to ensure a diverse pool of princelings and heirs.

A divorced Empress is stripped of her imperial titles but retains any she holds in her own right, and is guaranteed a pension for life. The Empress at the time of the Emperor’s death, however, becomes the reigning Dowager Empress and is provided with a much more generous stipend and the position of regent, should one be required. The combination of wealth, temporal power, and the luxurious Dowager Estates throughout the Empire make the position highly sought-after–so much so that many an Empress has poisoned her husband to rule the Empire in the name of a young son.

Dowager Empress Xicia is perhaps the most notable example, having served Crimson Emperor Doricus I a plate of poisoned mushrooms while she was pregnant and then ruling the Crimson Empire as Regent for 21 years before relinquishing the throne to her son Doricus II. Rumor still holds that Xicia substituted a peasant baby for her own when she delivered a stillborn son or a girl, though the prominent nose of Doricus II suggests that the child was a close relative of Doricus I at the very least.

The only thing which can unseat a Dowager Empress is if the sitting Crimson Emperor dies on the throne while married. In that case, the sitting Dowager Empress is immediately ousted, reverting to the status that she would have had in the event her husband had divorced her. This tradition does nothing to lessen the intrigue surrounding the position, as many Dowager Empresses have sought to poison or murder the wives of ailing Crimson Emperors to preserve their power.

But, as often as not, the position of Dowager Empress is used to live a life of dissolute luxury. Especially when an old Crimson Emperor marries a young Empress and then leaves the throne to one of her younger stepchildren. Freed from any reliance on their own funds, and with massive resources at their disposal, the parties thrown by the sitting Dowager Empress were some of the most legendary in the era of the Late Empire.”

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April 2, 2014

From “The Savage Pie Hole” by Victor S. Savage VI

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Why choose the Savage Pie Hole for all your tender flaky filled crust needs?

– Over 500 years’ Savage family pie-making experience, dating to Second Era Minosha before electrification!

– Free Pie-Fi allows you to stream pies in glorious high definition, including our signature holocaust berry pie, always a hit with dwarves and orcs.

– Ask about our Pie Phones, enchanted pies that allow you to communicate across great distances by eating a slice! Monthly and pay-as-you-go plans available.

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January 20, 2014

From “Kuk-Kuk Quaa” by P. Elizabeth Smalley

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Gaines Park had no shortage of trees and no shortage of squirrels to inhabit them, rodents grown fat and entitled by living off the refuse of students from the community college or specifically put out for them by Students for a Happy Earth. In fact, the park supported two warring populations of the critters: the larger but lazier fox squirrels, and the smaller but severely ADD grey squirrels. They could often be heard chittering at each other, with the insulting nature of the exchange generally clear from context.

And, sometimes, they would chitter and chirp at nothing in particular.

“Look at that,” Isaac said. A grey squirrel was perched in the barren highest boughs of a half-dead maple, clearly exposed, and making such a rodenty cacophony that it was audible for dozens of yards in every direction. “What are you doing, squirrel? You’re just telling every predator in range that there’s a tasty rodent up that tree and that dinner is served!”

“Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk, quaa-quaaaa!” said the squirrel. “Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk, quaa-quaaaa!” It was staring straight at Isaac and flicking its tail like a tiny battle pennant.

“They can see you up there, you know,” Isaac continued. “No leaves. And if you run away you’ll just exhaust your nut fat and die of starvation!”

“Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk,” said the squirrel, unmoved. “Quaa-quaaaa!”

“I give up,” Isaac said, throwing up his hands. “I tried to help, but you’re being evolutionarily maladaptive.”

“She is warning the other nearby squirrels of a potential predator, and pinpointing that predator’s location by varying her alarm call and looking at it while flecking her tail.”

Isaac had no reason to doubt the speaker beside him, as she was the avatar of Aquerna, the Norse goddess of squirrels. “Oh. I guess she’s warning the other squirrels about me, huh,” he said sheepishly. “How do you say ‘I don’t want to eat you because you’d probably taste gross’ in squirrelese?”

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December 2, 2013

From “Worthy of the Glass” by P. Jake Sherri

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The stained glass windows in the Imperial Chapel had been designed centuries ago, before the Art had been all but lost, to reflect the fortunes of the Empire. Triumphant victories, calamitous defeats, the crowning of new Emperors…they were all duly reflected in the shifting panes. The Pontifex had been silent on how he had affected such an enchantment, but the subsequent Emperors did not care. They trumpeted each feat they performed which was noted in the Chapel as “worthy of the glass” and hired artisans to copy the designs for reproduction throughout the realm once they had vanished.

In time, though, the glass began to shift. Fewer scenes were of triumph, or even of defeat; instead they showed scenes of misery and disorder from throughout the Empire and abstract visions of death and decay. The Emperors soon realized that, as the royal family and its entourage were the only ones with access to the chapel, they could easily lie about the windows’ content. As far as the populace knew, the deeds of later Emperors continued to be “worthy of the glass.”

Things came to a head with Emperor Septimus IX. He gathered an army to repulse a challenge from his half-brother for the throne, only to have the Imperial Chapel glass reflect a terrible defeat–before he had even set out. Fearful of the prophecy coming true, Septimus IX avoided open battle, conceding field after field and undermining confidence in his leadership. When the glass finally changed, appearing to predict a great victory, the Emperor triumphantly rode with his troops into battle…and a massacre. The Battle of the Three Rivers has entered the annals of Imperial history as one of the most disastrous ever fought; meeting on poor ground in a wood that prevented effective communication, the two armies all but wiped each other out, with both Emperor and usurper unhorsed and killed.

Chaos descended over the realm, until a minor noble from a cadet branch of the royal family entered the Imperial chapel and, to his surprise, found words written in the glass for the first time: LET US RULE THROUGH YOU.

As the long-ago Pontifex Maximus had neglected to mention, the Imperial chapel glass was sustained by a gestalt of the spiritual energies, the souls, of the strongest of the departed Emperors. No longer content to watch, observe, and reflect, the glass had sought and obtained total power over the realm through a series of weak puppet Emperors. Dependent on the glass’s ability to see a short distance into the future, and given succinct orders etched in blood-red translucence, these late Emperors were unworthy of the glass in the old sense–for the glass itself had become worthy in a sense.

The Empire was, in effect, ruled by the glass for the next two hundred and fifty years, until the Imperial Chapel was sacked and smashed by the Holy Successors.

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November 17, 2013

From “The Game of the Dreaming” by Ming Li Garber

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“What has led you to the Xia Valley and the Game of the Dreaming? What do you hope to see when the blossoms take your mind?” asked Datai Chu, the duly appointed and empowered 217th Overseer of the Games. “As late entrants, you will be subject to my ruling on whether or not you are worthy of the games and the Flowers of Xia.”

Ru Shim, a former soldier in the Qingdu Emperor’s great army, replied “I seek the Game of the Dreaming that I might prove myself worthy of the renown I once possessed. I hope to see a field of worthy enemies that I might lay low in fair combat.”

Qiang Zhou, a mercenary and fortune-seeker, said “I seek the Game of the Dreaming that I might earn the purse for winning it. I hope to see a challenge not possible in the waking world, that I might overcome that which no man has ever faced.”

Jiang Tang, a farmer facing the loss of his land if he could not pay a debt, was direct: “I also seek the Game of the Dreaming for the purse, as it is the only thing that might save the land that my family’s hands have tilled for generations. I hope to see a circumstance in which a hardworking farmer can see his toil rewarded.”

Xuan Li, a wanderer facing the end of his long and proud line due to his inability to sire an heir, answered last: “I seek not the Game of the Dreaming, but rather the flowers themselves. Win or lose, I hope only to see a vision of what might come to pass if my line were not wiped from the earth.”

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November 14, 2013

From “In the Name of Gob” by Lucy Y. Shantell

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“Gob,” said Eyon, for their hired sellsword goblin would answer to no other name, “why have Gullywax and I never seen your face?”

“Gob’s face is not important to the job,” came the reply, full of metal and echoes as it issued from the holes in the creature’s helmet.

“But what if you were to lose your armor?” pressed Eyon. “How would I recognize you?”

“If Gob were to lose its armor, Gob would shortly lose its life,” was the reply. “Recognizing Gob would be useless at that point.”

“That’s another thing,” said Eyon. “Why do you call yourself ‘it’ all the time? Why not ‘he’ or ‘she’ or something?”

“Master does not know about gob ways, so Gob will forgive him his ignorance and his insult,” replied the mercenary goblin.

“Gobs are given no names at birth,” said Gullywax, overhearing the conversation. “They must earn a name other than that of their species through their deeds and by asserting themselves over lesser gobs. A gob with no name and no followers is not considered worthy of even a pronoun.”

“How awful!” cried Eyon.

“Awful? Gob finds it awful that humans with no accomplishments and none to command by might, rather than by coin, are entitled to names. Gob history is uncluttered with names to remember, and Gob’s own family is nameless back to its most recent ancestor of consequence.”

“Is that why you’re a mercenary?” asked Eyon. “Is that why you’ve kept working for us despite how little we can pay and how little chance we have of succeeding?”

“No,” said Gob. “Gob will speak no more of it.”

The mercenary charged a short way up the road, out of earshot, muttering something about reconnaissance. Eyon was about to follow when the lad felt Gullywax’s hand heavy on his shoulder.

“Ho there, boy,” he said. “Tarry awhile. There is one more thing you must know about gob names.”

“What’s that?”

“When a gob is defeated, or cast down, or when one loses all its followers, it loses its name,” said Gullywax. “It is treated as if the bearer of that name has died until the gob does something to earn its name back.”

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November 10, 2013

From “Cog’s Beauty” by Racquel Tereza Huston

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“They say that I was beautiful once,” laughed Cog. “I have to admit that I don’t know if they spoke the truth, for I never saw it.”

Kid regarded the Queen of the Slums with a wary eye. A blindfold of metal covered both her eyes, with a large lens where one oculus ought to have been and a trio of smaller ones on a spindle in place of the other. A grill for what was presumably a microphone protruded, coin-sized, from the canal of each ear. Her skin was pale, blotched in places near her various implants, but her features very delicate and fine. Her hair was dishwatery if clean, and thrown back in a short mane. “I have heard many stories about you, my lady,” said Kid quietly. “I would be honored to hear the truth from your own lips.”

“Fair enough,” laughed Cog. “To satisfy your own curiosity, or to try and ingratiate yourself with me?”

“Both, my lady.” Kid’s answer was nothing if not truthful.

“I was rendered deaf and blind by the Red Plague as but a young girl,” Cog said. “I am told that my family cast me out upon learning of this, replacing me with a lookalike stolen from the slums. I do not know the truth of it, nor do I care to. All I know is that I was raised by a midwife and tinkerer amid the mounds of trash that make up the lowest and most base part of this supposedly grand city.”

Kid nodded, saying nothing that might interrupt or offend the Queen of the Slums, whose mercurial power could aid or cut down anyone as she saw fit.

“One day, my adopted mother was tinkering with a speaker and she brought it to my ear. I could hear the tiniest bit of sound through it–not completely deaf, I suppose, but only practically so. By the end of the year I had built myself a headset by feel alone that allowed me to hear what others said if they spoke into a microphone I had salvaged.”

“How old were you?” Kid asked.

“I neither know nor care,” Cog said dismissively, disarming Kid’s attempt to ferret out her true age. Based on her appearance, she could have been as young as twenty or as old as forty. “After my surrogate mother was murdered by the Guard, and her shop ransacked, for failing to pay protection money to a corrupt officer, I swore to have my revenge. It took years, but I eventually was able to piece together a very crude version of the eyepieces you now see, the earpieces that are my accoutrements, and fused them into my living flesh. It was crude, but effective enough for me to track the Guardsman down and spill every drop of blood in his body.”

The Guard no longer interfered with the Queen of the Sums. They were present, to be sure, but all were in her pocket or marked for death if they interfered.

“Through upgrades and compulsive tinkering, I now see better, hear better, than anyone without similar enhancements,” Cog continued, her eyepieces glowing green as they briefly switched to seeing in the infrared spectrum. “Some say that I have mutilated myself, trading in a flawless face for this power.”

“What do you say?” asked Kid carefully.

“I say that the visage I bear is as beautiful as any I have ever seen in the mirror,” said Cog. “And that if people say I am disfigured, let them say it to my face and bear the full brunt of my powerful response. For my rule over these slums at such a tender age could not have come about with the so-called beauty I once possessed.”

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November 9, 2013

From “The Twin Oracles of the Deist” by Anson Emidio Hummel

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“Go forth then, and seek ye the Oracle,” said the Automaton, belching smoke and flame. “For only in what remains of the natural world may ye find an answer that be not of cogs and wheels, soot and steam.”

“Where might I find this Oracle?” asked the Supplicant. “For I know only of the great city and its environs, and naught of the natural world but what I have seen in manicured parks and picture books.”

“Go thee many leagues hence in the direction of the setting sun,” replied the Automaton. “Cut ye through the City of Foundries, the Great Crater where ores be strip-mined, and the Desperate Warrens where rats and man live in equal desperation and squalor. Climb ye the Great Wall which shuts off the world of man and his creations from aught which remains of the world of the Deist and his works.”

“And then?” pressed the Supplicant. “And then?”

“Find ye a golden bough which keepeth its hue in summer as in winter,” came the answer in hissing and whistling, clanging and rattling. “Atop that bough wilt thou find an owl of purest white hue, being of two heads. That is the form which the Oracle doth choose to appear to those who would seek it.”

“And then?” cried the Supplicant, almost mad with anticipation. “And then?”

“Ask thine question of it, bearing first the offering of a small creature as repast and a token of thine respect. But be warned: for one head of the Oracle doth always speak the prophetic truth, whilst the other doth always speak its opposite and seek to mislead and waylay, to confuse and corrupt.”

“How shall I know which is which?”

“That,” said the Automaton, “is the final test. They who be worthy of the Orcale’s gift will puzzle out the truth; they who be unworthy will be led astray. I can speak no more to thee, for this be aught that I know.”

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