Category Archives: Short Stories

That Which Settles

Accessed from https://www.wga.hu/framex-e.html?file=html/b/boursse/interior.html — Boursse, Esais. Interior with a Woman at a Spinning Wheel. 1661.

History of the House: Act 1

Chapter 2

1668, Ezekiel Gravenhurst

My memoirs have proven to be a most unexpected boon. They have provided me clarity to that which I most assuredly would have fallen victim otherwise. I have perused my prior entries numerous times. I have gone over older passages only to discover attempts to alter or deface them. I have no recollection of these sabotages but the handwriting is unmistakably my own. The effect is unnerving. But it also proved to be the key.

Perhaps those of duller mind would have not pieced together these disparate elements. I can already imagine how the prior owners of this home were little more than mewling babes abandoned in the woods awaiting the wolves. But I am not one to be so easily defeated.

While some of the passages were defaced beyond legibility, I was able to still use them to decode the pattern. The changes fell upon entries which aligned with the passage of the moon. Consulting the old farmer’s almanac, I was able to notice my sleep most disturbed upon certain phases of that heavenly body. I know those of simpler intellect would think this witchcraft. But mine is far more sharply honed. It was during this period that my sleep and, consequently, my thoughts were most disturbed. This was not the first stages of madness: this was some otherly force bent on my ruination.

It is clear to me that I must learn more. Something wishes me ill. My prior knowledge and understanding of the world is incomplete. In order to guard myself, I have to uncover the roots of this malignant power. Even now, recognizing when I am most vulnerable, bolsters both my spirit and my resolve.

Whosoever chose to entangle themselves with Ezekiel Gravenhurst will soon discover the great folly of their hubris!

1668, Ezekiel Gravenhurst

Through careful experimentation, I have localized the source of the problem on the house itself. Awaiting the arrival of the full moon each month, I endeavoured to spend my evenings in different locals then examine the effect it had upon my slumber and my diary. The effect was most pronounced during twilights spent at the estate. I believe it drew weaker if I were to camp in the woods. It still touched me in the village. But I can only describe its influence as negligible the farther I get from Silvercreek.

This has not been my only avenue of research, however. I have felt a growing curiosity towards the prior inhabitants. There is scant details on the Williams. The locals are most reluctant to speak of them as though they had hoped my occupation would expunge the family from their recollection. But while these simpletons may offer tight lips, the village records at least provided some small measure of illumination. I am unconvinced of the argument that they built the homestead. I believe they came into possession of it much like I had. They were strangers to the area as well and there appears to be a similar reluctance of these villagers’ ancestors towards the estate as the current generation hold.

This superstition has, peculiarly, worked to my advantage. There was some concern over the disappearance of a pastor Jebediah Harrows and Miss Lilias Lammermora. I had but only a brief conversation with the reeve, asking if I had known this pair. I queried whether they were married and the answer was a most assured denial. Thus it was with a clear conscience that I said I had never seen them. That seemed to resolve the matter and while there was consternation in the village that still lingers, none truly have an explanation worth persisting.

I feared to press the matter too deeply but I think I have come to identify them as the intruders whom I spied upon my arrival. While I am certain it would bring some measure of peace to their families for them to learn their true fate, I find myself unable to educate them on the means of their passing. Suspicion has already been cast between the two families and I have no desire to make things more tense by informing them that the man and woman were the cause of each other’s demise.

Best to let sleeping dogs lie, as they say.

1676, Ezekiel Gravenhurst

There is no wholesome end to this, I fear.

Ten years have passed since I have come into possession of this house. Ten years I have carried this burden with me. My efforts move at an agonizing pace. My enemy’s, however, are unperturbed by the passage of time. There are more nights I feel no closer to an answer than the day I first arrived compared to the brief breakthroughs that inevitably lead to more questions.

I am hampered by my own reason. Of that, I am certain. I keep looking for a rational explanation to this damnable vexation which works upon my mind every day. I used to find relief far from Silvercreek’s perimeters. But I am starting to sense it reaching beyond now. I think… I believe I carry a piece of it. Somehow. Like a rotted seed has been planted in my heart and begins its slow germination.

I have begun to cast my net wider, so to speak.

I now feel the presence of others in the home. I thought, perhaps, this was conjurations of my own guilt. I entertained the notion that the locals’ own superstitions were chipping away at my rationality. I have begun to remold the house into my image, believing I can banish the remembrances through turning each room wholly into my own. By taking true ownership of this place I hope to purge these ephemeral hauntings that so plague my unwaking hours.

I have considered leaving this place.

Truth be told, this route has always been on my mind. My diary confirms as such. From the very first night, flight seemed the most reasonable direction. But anytime the notion takes firm grip, I awake the next day rejuvenated. I discover the homestead more agreeable and so I push my former misgivings away. I let down my guard and it creeps in ever slowly once more.

Now? I am convinced I am forever bound to this place until some dreadful recourse occurs.

In part, I recognize I am nothing without this home. It has provided for me far more than I could have ever hoped. The grounds are surprisingly fertile. More fertile than any earth in my inexperienced hands should be. There have been numerous treasures as well that have helped build a fortune I could scarcely imagine as I pawn the trappings of former generations to foolish peddlers lacking in proper sense.

Such fortune could have been used to secure a sanctuary far from here. Instead, I have poured those sums into exposing its secrets.

It started with consulting the locals. Silvercreek is hardly a repository of knowledge and wisdom. But through the years, I have gained a sense for the community’s heartbeat. The faithful scorn the less pious, believing them to be in league with the devil. What foolishness. I have listened to members of the Harrows preach in the rectory of passages of uncertain origin. They are surely not of the King’s bible.

I have also endeavoured to entreat the Lammermora ladies with fine dinners and pleasant company. They are a most reserved bunch. But wine works on the fairer sex just as well as it does on the other. My greatest tool, however, is the grounds themselves. These women are near mesmerized by the woods and fields. I have found them skulking about the lands on far too many eves. At first, I resented the intrusion, chasing them away for concern over what they may discover.

But I have come around now to their evening gatherings. With my permission, they have less need to lurk in the dark. Curiously, their interests peak in accordance with the phases of the moon. I have found some comfort in their torches outside my windows on those nights I cannot arrange distant lodgings. The presence of others soothes me. For my kindness and confidence, they have shared some of their beliefs.

Both of these houses have opened my mind to possibilities previously ignored. I now seek tomes of unspoken origins. Texts of which few willingly speak. My answers await on moldy shelves, in locked cabinets and secured behind unwavering vows. And as the shadow follows me in my journeys, I know the answer isn’t merely to save this inhospitable spit of land: it is to save my very soul.

The Ghosts of Our Fathers

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Welcome. It’s been awhile.

So I have been very busy with work and getting ready for the exciting International just a few days away! How exciting is that! I’ve finished up a draft of my novel and hopefully it is coming together. I don’t know how other authors do theirs but my writing process is, oftentimes, a slog. I write a first draft then I revise, revise, revise. I would say that about 80% of a novel is created through editing.

Which should be encouraging to any beginning authors out there. If you first pass doesn’t feel good then congratulations! You’re in good company.

I have something a little fun and different today. A few weeks back, I played Betrayal at House on the Hill Legacy with a few friends of mine. We had such a blast with the game. I’m not a huge fan of the Betrayal boardgame but throwing legacy elements on it naturally lent to a organic cooperative story-telling experience.

And for some reason I decided to start writing ours up. So here is a peek into the history of our bloody house on the hill.

Accessed from https://www.wga.hu/framex-e.html?file=html/h/hoogstra/vijgeboo.html — Hoogstraten, Samuel van. Portrait of Johan Cornelisz. Vijgeboom and his Wife. 1647.

History of the House

Act 1 : Beneath Ezekiel’s Pale

Prologue – 1666, Jebediah Harrows

I write this from need: not desire.

There is evil in this world. Of that, my son, I am certain. It is with heavy heart that I witness it come to Silvercreek. It has settled most foul upon our tiny village. I fear that – alone – I cannot stop it. It has already struck the poor Williams family. We say it was the pox but I know better. I know the pox does not blight nought but a single household. It does not kill the father, mother and brother leaving the daughter missing and unexplained. No, this was no disease. Our village has lost the favour of the Lord for we have broken his covenant.

It is witchcraft and devilry. And we have done nothing to quell it. I will not let its rot spread further. I intend to stop it.

My suspicions have settled upon the Lammermora clan. I can see now that they were none too subtle. The Williams’ deaths lie on my conscience. The signs were clear.

Firstly is their blasphemous matriarchy. While life is never easy, theirs is not for want of a male figure. Second, they bear the mark of the beast with their fiery hair. Third, I have seen them interacting with the slaves. They have abandoned the noble pursuit of educating them in the civilized English language. Instead, I have witnessed their efforts to learn that barbaric speech. Each black word they utter leads them ever further astray from God’s holy light. Now they whisper of the negroes being equal. Of them being men and women like us. Of knowing them biblically.

It is blasphemous. They are assuredly witches.

Most telling, however, is their obsession with Hill House. I have spied them going alone or as couples to its peak beneath the cover of darkness. Surely it is there they work their profane curses. Curses that slew the Williams.

I cannot allow any other innocents fall victim to their predations. I have singled out Lilias, the most eager of the lot. In whispered tones I have heard the unclean call her Ayizan. She wears the appellation with pride. I shall await the time when she is alone at the Hill House and I will confront her. God have mercy on me for I fear I may already be too late. Their power may be too strong.

But I steel myself with the scriptures and know my quest to be righteous. Should the worst befall me, let these immortal words bear my knowledge longer lasting than my fleeting time on this earth.

Your ever faithful servant,

Jebediah Harrows

Chapter 1 – 1667, Ezekiel Gravenhurst

There is something not right here. These past months have been unsettling. Did I strike first? No, that is not right. My dreams would betray me. They would lead me astray.

I commit to this diary for a reason. I worry about my power of recollection. I awake wondering if still, perchance, I dream. Too often have the sheets been soaked from my cold sweats. And this home, it settles too much in the dead of the night.

I get ahead of myself. I should start from the beginning.

I am Ezekiel Gravenhurst.

Life is brutal. I do not wish to diminish the struggles of my common man. I am aware of how trying this existence can be. I carry much the same burdens plus many more of my own. I am reviled by family. I know this. They claim otherwise but a child knows when their mother looks upon them not with love but revulsion. I have caught my brothers and sisters making a mockery of me. I will not pretend that it did not leave scars. My father, perhaps the only one to show some measure of kindness, I would best describe as tolerant if nothing else.

This is to say, I expected little from them as I grew and, in turn, was faced with little disappointment when my prognostications came true. Do I resent them? Most definitely. They would suckle at the teat of father’s stipends knowing little of the hardships for which they demean me and others. But I have been strengthened by experiences they could only imagine. And this strength is of great benefit to one of my stature.

I should thank them, however. For their cruelty prepared me for the rest of the world. There are few who would love a dwarf. I can safely claim that all I made, I made myself. I had no need to rely upon the Gravenhurst name or connections. In fact, they would shun me had I tried.

It was under these auspices that I arrived in Silvercreek. I was led by nought other than serendipity. I actually heard about the village while down the river in Galt. The stories had spread there while I finished my term at the lumber mill. Word was that the village had a homestead for those looking. Rumours were in bold supply; the most enticing suggested the village would pay for anyone willing to take it off their hands. Rational men dismissed this as the ebb-waters it was.

But my prospects were bleak. The thought of my own roof, something which had eluded me all these years, was too enticing. I set for Silvercreek, expending much of my wages in doing so. I had enough for food and the inevitable transport out. Twenty years of leading your own life teaches some measure of practicality to the senses.

To my surprise, however, the reeve confirmed the hearsay. At least he confirmed some measure of their tale. There indeed was an empty homestead. The locals called it Hill House. Its location, thusly, was easy enough to navigate. The reeve explained to me that they were willing to hand over the deed, for a rather meagre stipend to any interested party. The cost? Less than the fare I spent getting to the village.

There lay one wrinkle. The reeve insisted that the transaction would only proceed should I stay a solitary night in the home. It was a most curious request and made me suspicious of what should have already been a highly suspect offering. I questioned him over the integrity of the structure and, he confessed, it had seen some manner of neglect that could be a deterrent to his stipulation. When pressed about this peculiarity in the deal, he was evasive. His only explanation, that the village had little desire for an absentee landlord, rang hollow. My greater senses on guard, I requested to see a contract. At the very least, one night would give me a chance to evaluate the integrity of the structure and I was by no means bound to take it if I determined it to be too great an investment.

Truth be told, I merely wanted assurance that there would be no reneging the deal. Though as I departed having put name to ink, I had no idea how I would afford extensive renovations if it were truly uninhabitable. I had learned some carpentry skills, however, and at least the land should have some inherent value.

I made my way to the location, too elated to consider how no soul in the village itself had snatched upon this terrific deal. As I drew near, however, I felt my first misgivings. The homestead lay a peculiar distance from its neighbours and the life of the settlement. A wicked wood which, by my estimate, lay partially on the grounds itself, formed a barrier that segregated the outside world from this remote perch. These are all, on first blush, positive qualities for a plot. But the barrenness of the wood touched upon something instinctual in my mind. The setting sun amplified those worries. I felt a repulsion for my path, as fleeting as it was.

I convinced myself there was no harm in taking a look. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I broke through the dying foliage to find a house most handsome. Truly, I could scarcely believe the size of the estate. I knew nothing of its previous inhabitants but these were no mere potato farmers. I approached with much excitement. I had expected near ruins and from my cursory glance, it seemed fortune had finally – after all these many years – smiled upon me.

My jubilations would not last. I had scarcely made it to the porch, gazing upon the expansive foyer, when I heard movement inside. I froze, fearing I had inadvertently trespassed upon the wrong lot. I listened intently, assured that there were multiple souls within.

As always, I leveraged the advantages of this form with which God has cursed me. I was able to skulk about the perimeter. Peering through the windows – most intact despite the home’s abandonment – and spotted only two individuals. An old priest and his young wife were sorting through the rooms separately. It was clear to me that others had taken up the reeve’s offer. I was deflated.

Experience had taught me to never expect equitable treatment. I knew, should they choose and claim otherwise, their word would outweigh my own. Regardless of having signed a contract, this couple would have claim to the prize. Crestfallen, I turned away from the prospect.

And I fear my nature got the better of me.

I thought, given the state of the house, that there may be some keepsake I could find in the exterior which would make the journey worthwhile. I had no desire to leave Silvercreek empty handed. Curiously, I had not far to look. Beneath a most twisted and queer tree, I found something remarkable. A plain cup of wood composition lay soiled amongst the gnarled roots. Despite the elements, it looked unweathered. Surely it would fetch for a few pennies – possibly even a warm meal.

Thusly, I picked it up. And I swear to God, the world itself exhaled a sullen sigh. I felt the cold wind prick my skin. The hairs upon my neck stood at their ends. Scattered leaves curled back in fright.

The chalice itself was warm, however. I can picture it now as though I still stand before that horrific tree. I can see its smooth surface. I can detect the coppery scent of its bowl. Despite its size, it was heavy in my hand. I dare say, I could almost hear it whisper.

A scream distracted me. It was young, frightful and from the house. I don’t know what propelled me there, chalice in hand. Thoughts streamed through my head yet I can no longer recall what I thought. I know I arrived upon the stoop. There, I saw the priest attack his wife. The poor thing stood no chance. I had to intervene. I knew this. I brandished the chalice, hurrying forward. I interposed myself, my attack both sudden and brutal enough to knock the holy man back into the hall. That is what happened. I am sure of it. I defended the woman. It was an act of heroic guardianship.

But yet, even as the ink stains my page, I can see the priest beneath me. I can feel the weight of the chalice in my hands. Did I strike first? Did she scream later? No, that cannot be. She tried to interpose, to wrestle the chalice from my hand. I know now that she meant me harm. What else could I do? I held her back, pulling the chalice from her grip. She fell of her own teetering balance. It was her momentum that sent her into the foyer’s wall. Of that I am certain. It was all an accident: a horrible, twisted accident.

The priest and his wife lay dead for no reason. I shall never know the cause of their quarrel nor how he went after her in such viciousness. It was truly his fault, you see. So, I struck again. The look in his eyes was one of bloodlust. I struck again. I can remember that baleful glare so full of hatred and loathing. I struck again. The simple act of recalling the event shakes me even now after all this time. I struck again. The fact of the matter was, I struck again I could not explain this to the reeve. I struck again. Nor to the village. I struck again. They would think me a murderer. And again. I cannot say how long I stood in that hall stricken by the horror of those two bloody forms. And again. It was the priest’s fault. And again. Had he not attacked her I would have departed. And again. Had he but waited and I would have been long gone. And again. It was him. And again. It was not my fault. And again.

What would I tell the reeve?

I recall the shadows deepening in the hall. They swallowed the girl as if they had become her grave. Surely, there would be no others coming to the house that night. The dread in the reeve’s voice as he spoke of it was testament enough to its reputation. And it was far too late for me to depart now. I could stay just one evening. I could offer a proper burial for these two. Then I would leave and the reeve would know the place was not to my liking.

Yet curiously, the house had not been ransacked. It took little effort to find the lantern. I recall thinking it lay exactly where I would keep it – the shovel too. I was exhausted. I simply needed to rest and collect my wits. That was all.

Clockwork Caterpillar – Hope

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The Clockwork Caterpillar should be available for order on April 5th. To round out the crew’s introductions, today we shall look at the youngest member of Felicity’s ragtag members. Hope is a little Jader girl who dotes upon her curious exotic pet. While Felicity typically only takes on those with extraordinary skill, none dare question the presence of the little girl. Her relationship with her captain is a unique one but just because she’s a child doesn’t mean she lacks important assets.

Primarily, Hope is the gateway for Felicity into the western colonies. Settled by the Jade Throne centuries prior to Thyre’s arrival, the west coast of Athemisia is dotted with the fortified walls of these resilient people. They have survived and thrived for generations despite the neglect of their homeland. They have forged a unique history with the native residents and their long presence has been shaped as much as it has shaped those people. It’s a constant exchange of knowledge, culture and blood that has created a complicated environment which has completely diverted the course of history.

In fact, many would argue that the Thyrian throne wouldn’t have been so involved in the colonial expansions had it not been the constant threat that the Jade Empire would swoop in and take the land and resources right from under their nose. Part of the mad rush to expand rail lines was largely influenced by the thrones need to get people and, more importantly, soldiers to the farthest reaches. Course, the Thyrian aristocracy couldn’t possibly begin to understand the complicated motivations of these strange people. The Jaders had little interest in expanding beyond their mountain barrier, having fostered a very defensive attitude towards the continent since their earliest times. This has created holdings far more secure that the Thyrians could hope to break. Between their fortified homes, natural defenses and robust alliances with indigenous tribes, the Jaders are untouchable in a direct confrontation. They have seen much and outlasted far more than the rail magnates and redcoats could throw at them.

No, if the Jade Empire were to crumble it would be through the vices of its homeland. There, the throne has changed many hands as the Celestial Bureaucracy has ordained numerous conquerors and emperors. With Thyre’s powerful fleet, they’ve managed to create ocean trade networks to that distant country with its valuable wares. They’ve even managed to arrive as the empire is in its own internal throes as a powerful drug erodes the traditional power struggle. Rebellions have been spurred and supported by Thyrian merchants, hoping to leverage greater advantages in the ancient territory.

But the colonies are far removed from those issues. Some even think that, should the homeland fall, the colonies would hardly notice. In fact, they may even be enticed into rising on their own, announcing their independence and following in the steps of the southern people. And should that happen, then having a crew member who understands and speaks the language of these rich, complex neighbours would certainly be valuable indeed.

Hope

Clucked and cackled were the markets of New Fusang. Women in pretty coats spoke with men in dirty shirts. Clink, clink, clink went their fingers. Clink, clink, clink went the wen. Dangling the strings of coins, their square holes held tight to the lines as they were stretched and counted. Glasses raised and eyes pressed, clink, clink, clink went the fingers that counted out the disks. Squawked went the pigeons. Wan went the dogs. Bing bang the cages rattled.

Chatter and chat. Sing and spat. Round and round they prat. From stall to stall stepped the pretty ladies. And clinked went their strings. Whirled and wove like a little leaf on a stream. Fingers pointed and hands were filled. Mouths chomp and chewed on sticked fish and lizards. Boxes, bunches, branches and bundles bought.

The smell of roasted corn, fried jellyfish, cooked cat and brewed tea littered the air. They mixed with sweat, perfumes, cows and poop. Everywhere you looked something was being passed, eaten, purchased, tossed, prodded, fed or spied. No place was like the markets of New Fusang.

She sat upon the roped boxes, kicking small, tight shoes. They were simple cloth with a colourful floral pattern of some strange pink and white flower with long petals. They were her favourite for the simple black embroidery around the anklet slip studded with beads. At the tips were the worn remnants of some long lost tassels. She liked kicking her feet and making the little stubs bounce up and down in the air. The little frayed ends flapped like a bird’s tiny wing.

Across from her trilled the stringed wood. She watched slender fingers splayed across the rows of wires. Picked and plucked. The notes echoed and twanged. Picked and plucked. Talon fingers like the claws of an eagle. They danced and jumped and the board warbled. While the talons danced, the other fingers jumped about their ends. Ten and more strings stretched over the polished wood. Along the side ran pretty little symbols that she couldn’t read.

She tried to get her tassels to jump to the beat.

Suddenly, the stumpy remains began to flap of their own accord. They jumped and pulled without a kick of her foot. As she turned, regarding them curiously, she felt her jacket pull as a great wind nearly toppled her from her perch. She turned a small head with its little cap skywards. Overhead came the thump, thump, thump of great propellers as an enormous bladed vessel gently drifted past the stalls.

The gust of wind sent merchants scurrying for tarps and cloths to tie and bound their stalls. Cotton and silk caught in the draft, fluttering and lifting like little banners. She clapped her hands at the colourful twirling and twisting as women and men jumped and danced after the clothes.

And still those fingers plucked and danced. Twisted and bent were the scarves to the notes. Hopped and jumped went the women and men like guests at a pretty little party. Their voices cried and the strings sang, chirped, warbled and waned.

No place was like the markets of New Fusang.

The great airship passed overhead, groaning with its journey. As it passed the wind followed. She jumped from the roped boxes, chasing after the plucky notes and twisting scarves down the crowded streets. Sails caught in the passing gust, pulling their little carts by their single large, creaky wheels as owners shouted and gave chase. A fancy little parade followed after the big boat as they all ran down the lane. She laughed and clapped and jumped and stomped all the while scarves played about her.

It was a parade of bright red and orange with bursts of green and blue. Lapis lazuli and jade, vermilion and saffron. All were on display as they marched. Doors burst open as others came to investigate. From a pile of colourful cushions arose cut sleeved robes, the two men joining in with others as they wove and wound their way down the lane.

Skipping. Jumping. Hopping. Twirling.

Plucked were the guzhengs. Twanged the sanxian. Whistled the xun. Banged the bolang gu.

A happy little parade chased the whirling airship.

But it made not for the docks. Groaning and twisting, the metal turned as the wind caught at ladies’ dresses and men’s robes. Voices gave rise to the music as the procession made its way. Chattered and chittered and shouted and sang. She laughed and skipped after them and their feet pounded the dirt.

Great dragon heads bit down on the large propellers. The undercarriage had magnificent carved lions with great flowing manes watching over windows. So close flew the great ship that she could see the faces of passengers looking out the silk drapes at the canvased markets.

A long row of bells gonged as they passed. Their great tubes were studded with intricate woven castings wounding around them like a beautiful ribbon. The supports were iron cast men, their bare arms balancing the heavy bars upon their heads and hands. The iron had begun to wash orange and green as if their skin and skirts were shedding the tarnished flakes to reveal the colours hidden beneath.

She stopped long enough to give a bright smile at the man watching over the row of bells. But his eyes followed the ship. So she quickly reached out, pushing on the largest and listening to it peel a bright, clear note.

She cheered and hurried after the fantastic ship. Busy was this day in the markets of New Fusang.

“What is it?”

“Where is it going?”

“Where are the soldiers?”

“Where did it come from?”

“Is that it? It’s bigger than I heard.”

“Isn’t it early?”

“Isn’t it late?”

“It looks magnificent!”

They chattered and chittered as they hurried, clutching to their hats as long braided tails bounced after shiny heads. Hurried they went through the streets of New Fusang. Doors burst. Windows raised. Women emerged from kitchens and men from taverns. Even the pagoda’s doors were opened as orange robed old men emerged, raising wise hands to shield their eyes as the ship thrummed over their tiered tower. The very tiles of the roofs clapped in anticipation as the vessel veered towards the plains on the outskirts of the town.

The gates were stuck with people pushing and jockeying to get a look. As their parade got closer, they got slower. And she had to duck and weave amongst the silk dresses and leather pants, the thin shoes and the heavy boots. In and out, under and between. Around and around.

Everything could be seen in the markets of New Fusang.

Everything but a ship that could fly.

Gears creaked and croaked. The dragons roared as the propellers shook. The sky banged and smoked as the ship turned and broke. People watched, questioned and gasped. All stood transfixed as the great ship banked on its airy waves.

Whistles cried and soldiers stomped. Guns and swords stirred. But the people did not make way, grabbing arms, sleeves, jackets and coats. They pointed, they gaped and they spoke.

“Is it from the Emperor?”

“Is it from the ministers?”

“Is it from the merchants?”

“Is it from the generals?”

“How does it fly?”

“How does it turn?”

“Where is it going?”

“I want a ride!”

She shouted and pointed, watching as the ship began to sink. Sway and shake, ring and clank. The dragons moaned. Bore aloft on their slender backs came this great metal egg. It was a sight and a show and she had to see it for herself.

She pressed against the gate and its thin metal studs worn and marked from the old blades and arrows of the wildmen in the hills and mountains. She tried to press her fingers into the dented and torn wood, pulling herself up as much as she could to look over the hats, heads, braids and parasols. The ship brought itself around, the great fins turning beneath the chains of working gears like a great puffed metal fish.

And then something popped.

And the crowd gasped.

And the ground shook.

And the air hissed.

Before she knew it, something warm and strong pulled her from the perch and to the ground. A frightful sound consumed the air. Shouts and screams churned from the crowd as people pushed and ran. Like little birds scattering before a coming cat they took back to the streets.

Whistles blared and voices shouted. The soldiers stamped their feet.

She looked up to the ship and only saw the frightful burning of a new sun. Lines dropped as fire rose. It ran all along the green and red sides. It licked the balloon and grasped the sky. In seconds the entire ship was ablaze as it shattered.

And it came crashing down around them.

She pushed herself to her feet but was bumped and jostled. Feet kicked and she shouted in pain as they passed. But no one noticed in their haste and their fear. They ran and they screamed and they shouted and she cried.

She found herself up against the wall, pulling her legs close. Her pants were torn and her legs were bruised and bleeding. One of her lovely little shoes was missing and she looked at her dirty purpled foot. She pulled it in close, wrapping herself up in a little ball.

Then the wall shook.

It toppled as a great series of steel beams and chains smashed overhead. For generations the walls stood strong around the markets of New Fusang. Down, down they tumbled on the day when the sky fell.

Fire dropped like thick rain. Metal screamed as it pierced through roofs. A nearby house immediately caught ablaze. People screamed as soldiers rushed to the spreading flame. Inside she could hear the cries of those that burned alive.

Smoke filled the air, choking her mouth and stinging her eyes. She crawled away from the fire and the people. She crawled along the wall. Few people ran alongside now. Many lay on the ground. They did not move. She could no longer hear the laughter. She could no longer hear the guzhengs, sanxian, xun or bolang gu. The bells did not peal. The chimes did not chime. Wood crackled. Stones split. Houses snapped. Fire and heat jumped from neighbour to neighbour. She watched as the sailed carts smoked up like little firecrackers during the new year festival.

The wall shook again and she crawled crying away as the great metal nose of the ship smashed through timber and rock. The earth sprayed over her as she hid her face behind her arms. She stumbled, scrambled, spun and slipped. She sprawled against the dirt and scurried into an alley.

The screams rang and rang. All she could hear were the screams. She hurt and she cried but no one came to her. The air grew heavy and dark as black smoke choked out the blue sky. She coughed and tried to spit the burnt taste from her mouth. Frightened and alone, she curled up waiting for it all to end.

There she would have stayed and lay but something stirred from the wreckage around her. From the broken and burning wood poked two small coals that pierced the smoke. Tumbling and turning flopped a small little creature. It’s large tail was singed. It plodded towards her, skittering around the flames and metal. It pressed its cold nose against her bloody hand.

And as she peeled her knees away, she could see something red beneath the soot. Two white ears pricked as she cried and its vermilion fur was not from the fires that burned around it. It pawed with its little foot then trotted a few feet away. Turning its white streaked face, it blinked before giving a sharp, airy cry.

She blinked back.

It walked a few more ponderous paces, turned and cried again. Slowly, she followed. Step by step on hands and knees. She made her way after its bobbing round tail. They skirted fires. They slide on their bellies beneath twisted metal and smouldering wood. Past darkened bodies and empty faces. Over tumbled stones and along cracked metal bones of the great ship. She followed and it scampered.

Through the ruins of New Fusang they wound until they broke from its burning shell into the soft grass and green trees. They climbed through the fields and scampered up the hills. As she fled, she turned and looked back at the city burning and choking in a dark black haze.

No place would ever be like the markets of New Fusang.

Clockwork Caterpillar – Simon-Jacob

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The great network of rail lines which characterize the world of The Clockwork Caterpillar, are as dangerous as they are liberating. The competitiveness of the rail magnates knew no bounds and in their haste to create the most comprehensive rail system, they ended up creating a tangled web near indecipherable to common folk. Thus steps in the navigators, a ragtag collection of individuals who must chart byzantine timetables and rail maps to try and steer their vessels smoothly from station to station without colliding with their fellows. It’s a surprisingly stressful job made all the more difficult by individuals who run the lines off the wire. Crews like Felicity often arrive unannounced and must weave their transport through scheduled runs of more legitimate captains. There are plenty of examples out in the wastes of those ships that judged their passage poorly.

Thankfully, many magnates built lines literally beside their competitors and hopeful communities connected the competing rails to entice more visitors to their far flung settlements. The Thyrian throne even encouraged such illegal activity since no greater claim of territory is made than that of the bodies of loyal citizens. Course, when you’re so far from the imperial influence of your homeland, it’s really hard to maintain the loyalty of these people. There is a reason that piracy has thrived on the fringes. These frontier towns don’t look too closely at a ship’s history so long as they’re civil within their walls. They will dutifully keep the lines working against sabotage, however, whether that be at native or competitive hand.

Thus navigators in The Clockwork Caterpillar are entrusted with the safety of the ship and the crew. A single misstep can spell disaster. S.J. takes on his responsibilities with that grave knowledge in mind. He’s a stalwart individual who knows just how precarious their runs are. While the others are able to sit in their cabins without a care, Simon-Jacob sees to his maps and schedules. He telegraphs forward posts to ensure a smooth ride. His best work goes unnoticed by the people he ferries. But the people drawn to this world of numbers and lines aren’t those that desire fame or glory. It takes all kinds to fill out the wastes of The Clockwork Caterpillar and these people who cannot find a place in proper society always find something in the outskirts.

But whether what they find is what they originally sought is an entirely different question.

S.J.

Ill met by candlelight.

The crackle of static and electricity kept the dark air alight. He raised his hairy forearm to his head, swiping at the sweat and shifting his slim frame on the rickety stool. This next part required precision and care. He had to focus. He had to concentrate.

The screwdriver flicked gently over the iron case. He could feel a surge of electricity jump from the metal plate to the raised screw. He took a slow breath, pushing the air in a constant stream through his lips. He lowered the tip into the crossed indent. With fingers wrapped in the thickest rubber, he began to turn.

The gloves squeaked as he unscrewed. Ever so slowly he worked, until his prize drew loose and he snatched it as carefully as he could with rubber tipped tweezers.

One down: four more to go.

He looked at the wrinkled paper beside him, carefully dropping the screw head first into a small sketched circle. The entire schematic of the device stretched beneath the jumping shadows of the furious candle. All across its surface was spread a dizzying array of disassembled metal pieces. If there was one sin Simon-Jacob Reardon held to a fault, it was his tireless attention to detail. It all had to be right. The consequences, otherwise, would be dire.

The static’s snarl was most unwholesome. But in that chaos rumbled something deeper. In slight pauses and moments of silence, Simon-Jacob could almost hear something grander. He knew, deep in the depths of his breast, something profound existed.

And so he toiled.

He worked and he pried. Metal and pieces began to pile beside him in an intoxicating complex structure. The thrum of the buried battery was the thrum of majesty. Somewhere within this metal container rested that acidic heart. It was a remarkable container where true magick occurred through the simple process of introducing two seemingly unimportant substances to each other. Within the glass jar sloshed the sulphuric liquid, caressing two lead plates with only a simple rubber strip separating them. But by connecting the two plates with a lead dioxide wire, man was capable of producing that which had once been the sole purview of the heavens.

And that electrifying product was used as both fuel and defence for this device.

But the battery wasn’t his prime target. He was after the network of wires, transistors and resistors. It was the first attempt to understand a fundamental truth about our world. It could literally reveal the inner workings of the heavens if its theories were accurate. It would provide the definitive proof of the existence of forces beyond the perception of our limited faculties.

And it was Simon-Jacob’s duty to try and understand it.

He just had to get past the designer’s clever trap.

With the last screw removed, Simon-Jacob rested his instrument and leaned back in his chair. He breathed slowly, keeping his heart and his pulse timed and rhythmic. He removed his glasses, rubbing at weary eyes. The device hissed and crackled again.

A soft knock came at the door.

“Burning the midnight oil?”

“There’s no rest for the wicked,” Simon-Jacob replied.

“How’s our little ticket coming?”

A man in a pressed suit and crisp cuffs stepped to the table. He reached for the object before Simon-Jacob gave a shout.

“Still damnably charged?”

“I’ve followed the schematic as close as possible,” Simon-Jacob said, waving his hand over the half-covered paper. “I still do not understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Well you better get on it, my boy. Ain’t no way that those stodgy mechanists are going to miss its absence much longer. We need to get this apart and marked before their conference starts.”

“I don’t know. I don’t like this, Timothy.”

“You ain’t being paid to like it,” the man responded, fetching a cigar from his pocket before patting about for a match. Failing that, he held the tip over the candle until it glowed red and curled back in soft flames.

He lifted the smoking cigar to his mouth and inhaled deeply.

“Only good thing them savages ever gave us.”

Timothy Payne was a taker. He saw only profits and the best way to line his pockets. It was why he had invested so much in the railways. He knew exactly what rapid transit could mean for this developing land and he cared not for the cost that it required. So long as that cost wasn’t his coin.

“Put faith in my word and not in earthly pleasures. Only then will you discover the bounty of my kingdom.”

Timothy eyed the wiry man.

“I was told you were one of ’em dogmatic types. Thought you were supposed to be against all this unholy iron madness.”

“I seek only to do the Lord’s will, as any true believer,” Simon-Jacob said. “And how better to serve his will than to understand it.”

Timothy exhaled a stifling cloud of smoke.

“I pay the Lord his due just like any other proper man.”

“It’s not a matter of paying tithes. The Lord has little value for our gold and blood. It’s about serving his word.”

“If that’s the case, then I don’t need to pay your wages!” Timothy laughed.

“He who is covetous of gain troubles his house; but he that as gifts shall live.”

“Precisely, boy. You bring trouble. Don’t think I don’t know your kind. Just ‘cause you covet elsewise of me don’t make you any better.”

Simon-Jacob shook his head.

“I need not riches save those of the Lord.”

“Is that so? Then walk out that door. I’ll find some other gearhead to take care of that.”

Timothy waited patiently, the cigar crackling between his fingers. Simon-Jacob turned back to the schematic, half-finished from his studies with margins choked by his thoughts on the device’s function. How many hours had he sat hunched over this table? How long had he carefully analyzed and detailed each screw and plate that he unfastened? He kept cramped in this small closet on Payne’s ship as the train sped to some destination irrelevant to Simon-Jacob’s purpose.

And he had toiled all this time with nothing but a jug of water and intermittent meals left for him at the doorstep. He knew he was close. He could tell from the device’s output that it ran on the new lead-acid battery. What else could explain the intermittent surges which were so powerful but so inefficient in powering a device? But its infrequency made its deterrent so much more effective since any dissembler would not know when the next strike of lightning would come.

“Precisely,” Timothy accused. “Some men desire wealth. And others desire knowledge. We ain’t so different in our devotions. I just don’t put on airs because I think I have some moral high ground. Judge not least you be judged.” Timothy laughed. “Yes, boy, I’ve read my Scriptures too. Some of us didn’t need no persecution complex to come to this dreary land. I profit from this land because the Lord wills it. Just like you learn his machinations to understand him. We are driven by the same righteousness even if our goals are different. Don’t think those fancy cathedrals will build themselves without people like me filling their coffers. You can’t raise roofs or feed the hungry on fancy scribblings.”

The man made his way to the door, pausing long enough to expel a curling cloud of smoke. “Make sure you get that little device figured by the time we make Guildwood. It won’t do for them academics to know we’ve been rummaging through their things.”

Timothy slammed the door behind him.

Simon-Jacob’s hands clenched. The arrogance of man knew no limit. These eastern merchants came just like the prosecuted and the undesirables, seeking refuge in the New World from the tyranny of the old. They hoped to escape the ever tightening grip of a monarchy keen to consolidate power and strip upstart nobles of their land and titles. Though they travelled just like all the others, they brought with them the entitlement and scorn that had forced them to flee.

And generations later, they were the first to run back to the beckoning arms of the monarchy looking to strengthen loyalty in colonies grumbling for liberty. How quickly abandoned were those dreams of prominence and self-governance. When men lay down their lives for freedom, it was the old prosecuted that turned to prosecuting.

Simon-Jacob slipped his gloves back on.

Talk of revolution and liberty weren’t his things. That was the domain of other men obsessed with the immediacy of their transient lives. His focus was on the machine and with the Lord. He pushed such worldly thoughts from his mind. He had a grander perspective, one that took in things far wider than borders and uniform colours. Like so many others, now was a fascinating and overwhelming time of discovery. The social upheaval was nothing compared to the greater understanding that man was developing of the Kingdom and the Wilds.

And that understanding could lead to even greater things.

Currently, the only way to send messages was either through courier or telegraph. But both required a messenger in one form or another. Either a rider or a line to carry the signal. However, there were some men who thought that this could change. There could be a way to send a message through the air itself. And it would be borne on the waves of a new force.

If, indeed, this force existed in the first place.

And here Simon-Jacob sat, carefully taking apart the first mechanism that was rumoured to have detected this electromagnetism. If the theory was accurate, this force could bear messages instantaneously across great expanses.

For Timothy Payne, the applications for this discovery were immediately evident. Communication amongst the railways would be improved tenfold. Navigators could become obsolete overnight. No longer would the rail companies be required to hire and train men and women to study the convoluted timetables and schedules of trains. Authorities could be contacted almost immediately of any banditry on the lines and the scoundrels that cruised the webway of forgotten routes could be hunted and brought to justice.

So much money could be saved both in pay and in lost merchandise.

But Simon-Jacob didn’t care about that. True, he was familiar to Payne because that was precisely his role on the man’s fleet of engines. For Simon-Jacob, his job meant nothing compared to the revelations that could be discovered through this technology.

For him, the will of the Creator was his to discover. Each new tool, each new invention brought man ever closer to the divine providence that invented them. The Lord was the grand architect of their world and their lives. And what better way to understand that Lord than to study his creations? Through rigorous observation and analysis of the workings of this world would the method and process of its master be revealed.

Just like Simon-Jacob knew he could discern the functioning of this machine by taking it apart and understanding its components, he knew he could understand the Lord once he was given all the working parts of his masterpiece. And if that meant vandalism of another mechanist’s noble property, then so be it. Theirs was a field so consumed with their own paranoia and secrecy that they would arm their own devices to keep it out of the hands of rival inventors. They would damn them all from the secrets of the Lord in their short-sighted greed and fear.

Simon-Jacob was devoted to a nobler pursuit. His was the way of enlightenment, bringing knowledge and grace to others through discovery. And he was certain, once the divine was fully understood, nothing would stop the devoted from heralding in the Lord’s kingdom on earth. They would throw open the gates and welcome all to his blessed grace. For here, there were no monstrous untamed to fear. Only ignorance and naivete barred the peoples of this world from salvation, peace and happiness.

So Simon-Jacob picked up his screwdriver and returned to work. As the room grew hotter, he brushed the sweat once more from his brow.

Clockwork Caterpillar – Pacal

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Today’s The Clockwork Caterpillar character sketch looks at the stoic warrior Pacal. I wanted to make sure that the story really had this frontier vibe and part of that necessitated including peoples and cultures who already lived on the land which the colonials invaded. Pacal is a bit different in that he’s a stranger almost as much as the rest of the cast to the railroad plains. He grew up in the jungles of the south where his people were made intimately familiar with persecution. Before the arrival of the Rhea Silvan explorers across the seas, Pacal’s people were subjugated by the vicious Nahua peoples who had conquered their cities and enslaved their populace. That the Nahua were consequently conquered and enslaved by those across the seas was but a brief vindication. As it turns out, the newcomers cared little to distinguish between the different peoples already in the land. So while their old oppressors were oppressed, Pacal and his people continued to be exploited.

However, though the invaders were more advanced they simply couldn’t hope to control such a wide and populous territory. Rebellion came quickly and severely. The Nahua overthrew their overlords and reclaimed their lands. But they certainly couldn’t go back to their old way of life. Everything they knew about the world had been upended and though they had liberated themselves from the yoke, they hadn’t pushed back the foreigner’s spirit.

Athemisia is a peculiar beast wherein small actions have wide-reaching consequences. There’s a push and pull of forces that keep scouring its face and remaking the political and social makeup of the land. And its inhabitants represent that struggle. Thus, part of my goal with The Clockwork Caterpillar was to communicate the diversity and cultural clashes between so many unique and spirited peoples. The conquered weren’t just one identity just like the conquerors weren’t either.

Unfortunately for Pacal, when the Nahua reclaimed their land, it didn’t lead to the liberation of his people. So he struck out to the north where the conquerors were still stationed, looking for solutions that could save his people. Thus he strives to watch and learn what he can, hoping one day to find a place where his family can live in peace.

Pacal

“What’s that you doin’ mister?”

The ball bounced off the trunk of the tree, landing with a thud into the bucket. Slowly, the big man turned. He was a massive specimen: thick muscles wrapped about a wide, golden frame barely contained within the worn clothes. But what his dress lacked in description was made up by the odd adornments. Around his wrists wound thick roped bracers, a trio of deep purple feathers covering their length. The tendons of his hands were highlighted with bright ink from his knuckles to beneath his sleeve.

A collection of bright green rocks jangled about his neck as he turned. Each was etched into a separate head deformed with massive tongues, large ears or great almond eyes slanting across the smooth stone. His shirt was simple white cloth but a strange mantle rested atop it. Fashioned from brightly dyed fabrics, intoxicating woven patterns and colourful feathers along the fringes created a hypnotic design.

“Baax ka waalik, little-one.”

He turned, bowing his head deeply to the little boy. The child just scratched his scalp.

“You’re funny.”

Undaunted, the boy stepped over the rifle lying upon the dry earth. He scrambled to the bucket, reaching inside and fetching the ball. It was round and hard, almost twice as big as two fists smashed together. He turned it in his hands, looking it over from all angles. But to his young eyes it was nothing but a black sphere.

“Careful, little-one. That is no mere toy.”

The boy blinked, observing the ball even more intently.

“What is it?”

The big man moved to his side. He strode not as a mountain made to move but with the gentle grace of a passing breeze. He knelt beside the lad, clamping a great hand on the child’s shoulder. He wrapped his fingers around the ball and lifted it. He held it before the boy, moving it steadily through the sky.

“The great Speakers say it is sun. Its passing marks passing of day to dusk then twilight to morn.”

The boy giggled.

“That’s silly. The sun ain’t black.”

“Is it not?”

The boy looked at him with a queer expression.

“No! The sun is yellow!”

“Is it? How do you know?”

“You can see it,” the boy said, pointing overhead. He turned his little face skyward, stretching his finger.

“You speak that but you look away.”

“Course. Momma says you ain’t allowed staring at the sun.”

“Is wise. But if you never look, how can you know?”

The boy scratched his head.

“Well… I have seen it. But you only see it shortly. It’s too bright!”

“But look at something in passing and do you see all that is?”

The boy blinked.

“I don’t know.”

The giant gave a brief smile. He then lifted his hand over the necklace dangling from his neck.

“Tell, what I wear?”

The boy scrunched his eyes, trying to remember the objects which dangled from that loose string. He could remember it was something green. Something vaguely familiar in shape but so strange that it was nothing like he’d seen before.

“Heads!” he proclaimed proudly.

The giant chuckled. He peeled back his fingers, revealing the row of carved green stone. But it wasn’t three clattering heads looped together. Instead two gaping maws encompassed the strings, the carved stones appearing more like a serpent with no tail.

The boy’s mouth gaped in surprise.

“Look briefly and only see surface.” The man stood, holding the ball aloft. “Wise Speaker said, ‘Look at sun as moving. From yellow to orange to red. But forever keep watch and all seen is night.’”

“So the sun is black?”

“In time. But heed mother, little-one, for it also light. Enjoy gifts but respect power. You have much time to enjoy when older.”

“So what are you doing with the sun?” the boy asked as the man turned away.

The large man looked down at the ball.

“I am remembering.”

“Remembering?”

He turned, tossing the object from hand to hand.

“My people remember with these.”

“What do you remember?”

“People. Those left. Father and brother.”

“Where are they?”

The giant smiled but shook his head. It was the smile of a teacher, patiently weathering his pupil’s slow march towards understanding. It was a smile that drew feelings like a bucket pulled from the dark, bearing precious water but dripping with the painful past.

“Xibalba.”

“Where’s that?”

“Very, very far.”

“Are you going to see them?”

The giant laughed.

“Perhaps.”

“What will you do when you get there?”

“I will know sun.”

The boy puzzled these words with a twist of his mouth. It was clear he didn’t understand, though his childish mind did grapple with the words. The giant knelt once more, holding the ball up for the boy.

“Care help remember?”

“Okay!”

His face lit as he took the ball. He turned to the man.

“What do we do?”

He stood, surveying the land about them. He walked over, picking up the bucket and motioning for the boy to follow. They walked towards the stone wall of the sheriff’s jail. The man ran his hand over the stone, knocking lightly.

“This shall do.”

He placed the bucket at the middle of the wall then motioned for the boy to stand at the far end.

“Now what?”

“First, hit ball on wall.”

The man motioned towards the stone and the boy squished his face in concentration. Lifting the large ball over his shoulder, he swung with all the strength his little arms could muster. The ball struck, rebounded and bounced three times against the ground before rolling to a stop. The man walked forward, picking it up.

“Alobi, little-one. Perhaps you born ball player.”

The boy blushed.

“Did I do well?”

“Good first. Now, watch.”

The man bounced the ball before him, scattering dirt in a soft cloud. Twice he bounced the ball against the earth before twisting and striking the ball with his forearm. With the meaty smack, it launched through the air, striking the wall soundly before bouncing towards the child. It flew straight and true, hitting the ground twice before rolling to a stop at his feet.

“Now me. Try again.”

The boy nodded as he bent and scooped up the ball. He wrenched it back and threw it. It recoiled off the jail, bouncing once before rolling to the man’s left. He nodded.

“Better. Important to watch angle. See where you want. Follow back to know strike place.”

The man approached the wall, patting one of the stones.

“Watch.”

He bounced the ball twice, held it aloft and smacked it with his forearm. The ball rebounded and returned once more to the boy’s feet. The child sighed, gathering the ball. He judged the distance and scooted forward for his throw. The ball hit, though with less force, and bounced four times to the man’s feet. The man nodded.

“Alobi.”

“What’s the bucket for?”

“Is goal,” the man replied. “Final journey from one body to next. Like sun passing through darkness and rising new again.”

He bounced the ball at his feet before striking. With precision, the black ball bounced off the stones and dropped directly in the wooden container. It gave off a haunting echo as it rolled along the bottom.

“How can it come out the other side? It’s a bucket.”

“Normally not bucket,” the man nodded, walking over and picking up the ball. He then lifted the pail and held it sideways against the stone. “Normally on wall and sun can go through.”

He moved the ball back and forth to demonstrate. Then he pointed at the dirt across from them.

“Normally another wall with another goal. Back and forth, sun rise and fall. Journey of gods. Journey of man.”

The boy blinked.

“I don’t get it.”

“One day, little-one.”

A shout caught their attention and a woman poked her head from the street. She turned, gasping at the sight of the large man standing before the boy.

“Come here, Blasius!” she called. Her voice was filled with worry. The boy looked at the man, disappointment colouring his features.

“I have to go.”

“Xiitech utsil, little-one.”

The boy ran towards his mother. As he came near, she pulled him close. She had not but suspicion as she cast askance looks his way. Her bonnet lowered and she spoke just loud enough that he could hear.

“Are you alright? Did he do anything to you?”

“We played. He showed me his game.”

Not trusting the words of her own child, the woman took her son’s small hand and shot one last disparaging look towards the stranger. “Best you clear out of here, savage. We ain’t want your kind. Don’t make me get the sheriff.”

She pulled her child away, even as he cried as they went. “But momma, he’s real nice!”

“Hush child, these primitives ain’t got no place in our towns. Best they stay on their plains.”

The man walked over to his gear and collected his things. He picked up one particularly colourful cloth and wrapped it about his waist until he formed a pouch. He then slipped the ball inside, ensuring it was secure before slinging his rifle over his shoulder. Finally, he readjusted the jade beads upon his necklace until the three heads looked once more about him. Their unblinking eyes kept eternal vigilance for their wearer.

He checked his canteen. What little remained sloshed about the bottom. He would have to stop at the town’s well before departing.

Not that he had intentions of staying. This land was not his and he had no desire to invade these people’s lives. They who were unable to tell the difference between the natives of the plains and those that had travelled far from the south. Their ignorance and fear spoke more than their inattentiveness. But it did not bother him.

He was well acquainted with hatred.

And if these people felt they could rid themselves of him then they would learn that the familiar weapon over his shoulder was not for show. If this were his home, he would have more heads upon his necklace for all these ‘sheriffs’ who were supposed to be these villages’ fearsome defenders. But he wasn’t home and he wished to avoid bloodshed when he could.

Unlike the northerners who waged a futile war against the invading ghostmen, he and his people had learned generations ago about their fearsome might. They brought horses and they brought firearms and beneath iron hooves and iron barrels they paved a new territory for themselves with the bodies of the old.

But so many of the natives of these northern plains clutched futile to their old ways, as if somehow their drums and their stones could hold back the invasion.

Pacal knew different. They were unstoppable. For even if every ghostman and woman was slain—and their skulls collected for the great racks—they left behind their armor, their weapons and their ways. Nothing would be the same. Either one learned to use their tools or they gave themselves up to the darkened halls of Xibalba. May as well just lay before the jagged knives and pay the blood debt of the vicious Nahua Ajkin then to try and resist the change that came on the tempest’s winds.

Not that there was home to which he could return. So he wandered and he came to the lands of these strangers to see for himself that which had brought about the end of the world. What he found were a people so frightening in their strangeness and curious familiarity. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t these petty, distrustful, ignorant men.

He walked towards the well, canteen in hand. He adjusted the rifle on his shoulder. Let them come if they so choose. He was so tired of remembering.

Clockwork Caterpillar – Laure Bastien

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Last week I introduced you to the rapscallion Schroeder. We continue with the crew of The Clockwork Caterpillar by looking at one of the more quiet members but a vital one nevertheless. The Clockwork Caterpillar occupies the same world as Thyre so it still contains the steampunk mechanists who add an element of technological anachronism to a time period that otherwise feels achingly familiar. Unlike Thyre, however, there is less focus on the competition between magic, technology and faith. This doesn’t mean that technology doesn’t have a dramatic impact on the people’s lives, however. One thing I love about the science fiction genre is its ability to investigate how we as individuals are shaped by the tools and conveniences we develop. It can change the very way we think about ourselves on a fundamental level and the thing that excites me about steampunk is that you can incorporate that conversation about technology in a genre that usually devotes itself to harsh moralistic stances of good and evil. In such a way, Laure explores the freedom that advanced technology can allow for oppressed individuals. As those with power often capitalize on outdated structures, they grow more and more reliant on younger minds able to comprehend these new powerful machines. And the mechanists pride themselves on drawing from any citizen capable of understanding the new scientific lens from which they view the world regardless of social or economic station. Though not all members in The Clockwork Caterpillar may seem like your typical brigands, this merely demonstrates that the lawless life entices many people due to circumstance just as much as it tempts others scruples.

Laure Bastien

Fire the boilers. Stoke the embers. Release the steam gauge. Watch for flarebacks. Shovel the coal.

It was a dance held in the narrow pits of iron and steel lit only with the swinging flame of a hooded lantern. Fire. Stoke. Release. Watch. Shovel.

Again and again in the wavering air and insufferable heat. The clatter of metal and whistle of boiling water was the orchestral accompaniment. The room shook with the performance deep in the belly of the machine. Clatter. Clank. Shovel. Spit.

It was a space few dared to visit, so dark and hot with everything smeared in coal dust, oil and grime. The boiling hot pipes overhead, the grilled furnaces blasting heat and the constant smell of carbon completed the transportation to the untamed Mawqith. Things came in here to be burned and consumed. Anything that survived had to be harder than rock.

It was tough, gruelling work. It was thankless and often forgotten work. It was a place people went to disappear.

And it was perfect for Laure.

Not that her crew knew her by that name. She was simply Jean, a young destitute eager for work and curiously possessed of enough mechanical know-how and spit fire to brave these bellies where older men were loathed to enter. It served a two-fold function. It helped shield her from discovery, protecting her from the discrimination of her ancestry and gender. It also paid handsomely for even brigands needed to keep their vessels running.

And Jean was certainly good at that.

They were called pirates. They were called thieves. They were called murderers and rapists. Some of it was even true. It didn’t matter. Magistrates and sheriffs would use what they could to hang them. Anything they couldn’t prove they would fabricate. It was the sort of work no one in their right mind would wilfully partake. But then none of them were in a position to negotiate anything better.

Some of her colleagues were mad men. She had no delusions about that. She would overhear their braggart claims about in-numerous atrocities performed against the savages, slaves and kuli. For some delighted in the debauchery that came hand-in-hand with this profession. But the boastful weren’t the ones worth concern. The loud were typically the cowards, trying desperately to live a life they heard from their mother’s apron strings. Ride the rails long enough and you learned that most the stories were little more than pure fancy.

They were the greatest nuisances, however. Fragile egos are in a constant struggle to prove themselves otherwise. Entering the engines was a sign of grit. Cutting down the engineers proved their own strength. Invariably, they barged into these blasted sanctuaries seeking approval or validation of their fortitude. Or perhaps they simply needed some audience to reaffirm their bravery. But if any were to intrude, it was those ill-equipped to handle the heat.

They never stayed long. They could usually be chased away with requests for assistance. It was easy enough to play on their arrogance—to appear frail and incapable of one’s own duty. It was no secret that the engineers received an oft times unfair distribution of pay. And every braggart jumped at the opportunity to flex their prowess and show just how good they could be.

They always failed.

Sometimes they managed to escape before receiving a frightening burn. Laure preferred that they did otherwise their foolishness would become a badge of pride as they attempted to spin misfortune into grand acts of heroism.

No, it was the quiet ones that worried her. The ones that watched her closely when she emerged for sustenance and sleep. There was always at least one in every crew. A dark, brooding individual that seemed suspicious of any and everyone. Sometimes they were the outcast, kept only for their particularly frightening viciousness. More worrisome were the left hands of the chiefs: who held his ear and counsel. They were the ones Laure watched most closely.

They usually only visited once. Most were content to stand by the door and watch, their eyes drinking in everything as the puzzle of their mind formulated unknowable thoughts. Sometimes they wouldn’t even announce their presence; Laure would just be working and turn around to find them there, leering.

They were the ones that put her on edge. They were the reason for her hypervigilance. For, until that moment they did their inspection, she couldn’t feel safe in her haven. But once she passed whatever test they held, it was a simple matter of learning their routine. They always had a routine. One they wouldn’t break. So you could find peace in holding opposite time.

And then when left to her own devices, she cared little or what busied the crew. The engines were her world. They were a woman’s world. Here was the heart of the machine that kept them going. While outsiders looked and saw a rattling, fiery contraption of metal and heat she saw something tender. These cries of steam and rumbles of trapped gas were the valves and pipes calling for attention. They were fussy. And if they didn’t receive proper care, they had a tendency for blowing out at the most inconvenient times.

It was the poor engineer that swore and slammed. Too often her fellows solved issues and troubles with the hard end of a hammer. Her very first job was obtained after rushing to the aid of an unfortunate pressure gauge that her predecessor had decided need a sledge hammer rather than a loosening of its restraining bolt. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d entered the engines to find the telltale signs of past negligence. Odd dents, bent pipes and cracked containers were the hallmarks of a talentless tradesman.

But it was understandable even if Laure disagreed with their methods. Engineers were notorious for tempers that matched the furnaces they worked alongside. In the heat and the dirt, it was easy for frustration to take the reins and drive the tools unrelenting against their charges. Twice, Laure herself had lost her own poise and both times she’d regretted it. But while it was understandable, it was also inexcusable. And each strike of frustration did irreparable damage to the very thing they were in charge of safeguarding.

And all the things that made the job miserable could be used to one’s advantage. The dirt and heat kept others away. It peeled off the disguises that people adorned, revealing them for who they really were. In the fire and the smoke, Laure could unbutton her shirt, roll up her sleeves and take off her cap. She could stop being Jean, the vagabond Prisian and be the caring Laure once more. She could keep that doll with the torn arm and missing eye nearby, it’s eternal winking smile reminding her of all that she worked for.

But when she left, she had to put on the short jacket and cap again. She dressed herself in the grease and the coal dust, masking her face behind thick black smudges. No one looked closely at her scratched fingers when she hungrily tore into her bread. No one examined too closely eyes rimmed with the imprints of goggles. The engines cloaked her as best they could and when she returned, the steam and sweat would begin to melt it all away.

Course, the other perk was that she never needed to accompany the crew on their outings. She was far too valuable to put in the line of fire. Engineers were hard to come by, even for honest vessels, and finding a skilled one was more valuable than any chest of gold bars or whatever it was that busied brigands. She was always left alone with the train; she was it’s sole keeper while the others rushed off to further their ill-repute.

Those moments were when she liked to roam its corridors. She inspected her charge like a general would inspect his army. It was important to identify trouble spots that could endanger them later. Weaknesses were noted and marked. Repairs that could be done were performed. But sometimes she would just sit in its cold gizzards, listening to the rumbling of the pipes and the rush of water overhead. It was the peaceful quiet of a living construct: the breathing of a metal giant.

Laure hadn’t always been this way. She hadn’t always been Jean. There was a time when machines were little more than fascinating trinkets and baubles. Curious adornments for the rooftops that told her parents mysterious messages like the approach of a storm. She couldn’t see what they saw; she had eyes only for their bewitching tinkles and the captivating way they spun.

And when the boys were sent to school, it was her duty to stay at home. She assisted with the farm and the housekeeping. Her education wasn’t in letters and numbers. It was in needles and thread, seeds and roosts. A woman’s duty was to house and husband. That’s all she was taught. It was all she expected.

But what’s a woman to do when she no longer has husband or home?

As Laure, she would have never been taught mechanics. That was for men. Only women of loose morals or Thyrian indulgences would ever consider such things. Even when the revolution shook the home country—bringing liberty and fraternity came across the seas—it was in no uncertain terms that these were the fields for men. All men were created equal before the eyes of the Lord. Women were still expected to serve and toil. Those that spoke otherwise were ostracized.

Course, like the rest of the Old World aristocracy, Thyre was quick to bring an end to the Little Emperor’s show and reinstate their old bloodlines on the throne. They brought back the courts and the shackles. And the Prisians rejoiced. But for the colonies, those ideas had taken a more hideous form. They had buried deep their roots and there was no titles or throne to award in order to curtail the change they wrought. Instead, only fire and guns could hope to stamp out those dangerous ideas.

So much was lost in that time. Laure hadn’t understood any of it. She just remembered her mother packing a sack for her and shoving her out the door. Her only instructions were to run. Run from the redcoats. Run for the fort. But it was dark and the woods were thick. The only light she had was the growing flames behind her. She didn’t look back but fled into that night and into that darkness.

But what the soldiers never realized was that bodies and buildings burned, not ideals. In her bitterness, she learned her letters if only to understand the word that came from overseas. While the throne had been restored, satisfaction had not. And it was with great pleasure that a new wave of resentment swept across the Old and into the New. Ideas returned with their own flames and their own guns. The monarchy of Pris fell for the last time.

And the southern colonies were turned over to the restless natives. One force fell to be replaced by another. Yet somehow damnable Thyre held on. Held on because of innovation. They would have been overwhelmed had it not been for the great iron war machine. The throne exerted its dominance not only on its own people but those abandoned by the Prisian throne until even the magnates money couldn’t send the redcoats north enough to route the rest. New lines were drawn and borders were made where railways ended.

Where once Laure had lost a mother and father to ideals, she now gave up a lover as well. It would have been easy to hate the very machine that enacted their downfall. Others did. But Laure had a fondness for the curious contraptions from that earlier time. And she knew if she didn’t study them then she was just as doomed as the savages being driven further and further into the plains beneath the grinding gears of the Empire.

Fortunately, it seemed, she had a knack for it. And when she saw that fateful engineer about to demolish that pressure gauge she stepped in, preserving what she could. And her employer saw potential in her. He had the engineer teach her all that he knew before dropping him off at the next fuel station and leaving her to figure out the rest.

So she did. Every time the crew left she prowled the halls, watching, studying and learning what she could. She mended when she had to. And in the brief respites she sat deep in the bowels and simply listened.

Clockwork Caterpillar – Walton Samuel Schroeder II

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Do I have something exciting to share with you today. So, a few weeks back in one of my How to Write rambles I gave a tip for developing a writer’s concept of their characters. This involved an exercise wherein the writer creates short scenes that would highlight or star that character. Well, starting today and leading up to the launch of my brand new novel The Clockwork Caterpillar, I will be sharing these character shorts with you! This should give a teasing introduction to the cast of characters that make up the brigade train crew of one Felicity Metticia – dreaded pirate of the Artemisian plains. This story takes place half a world away from the twisted, smokey streets of Thyre and follows a brand new cast of characters in the wild frontier of the New World. So it is with great honour that I introduce you first to Felicity’s right hand man, Walton Samuel Schroeder II. As the disgraced son of a wealthy rail magnate, Schroeder has led a much different life than his colleagues. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and only moved to the edges of good society due more to stubbornness and conceitedness rather than necessity. It’s a charge many are quick to leverage against the fallen fop. But like everyone in Felicity’s employ, there’s more beneath the well tailored vest of the rascal than meets the eye.

Enjoy!

Walton Samuel Schroeder II

“If you ain’t holding aces and eights, it might be high time you backed down son.”

A twitch of whiskers and puff of smoke was his response. The two men passed daggers across the table. A sizable bounty lay between them but neither feigned to pay it attention. Their focus was more on the read of the opponent. They searched for some unforgiving tell.

Neither could be more dissimilar. Bradley Meyer was likened to a tough bite of roughened leather. The plains and sun had worked hard his body, creating thick skin cracked and split from the toiling years. A shaggy mane spilled beneath this crooked derbie—a mess of black and silver caked with the dust of the trails. A great matching moustache bristled beneath a bulbous nose that flared anytime the man’s ire rose.

Which, if his epitaph were accurate, was quite often. The Untamed Meyer had as fearsome a reputation at the table as he did on the plains. He took no prisoners and he gave no quarter. Few dared to take his challenge and those that did had to pass sound judgement to the wind in favour of the bulging wallet at his side.

Almost all paid in the end. If careless words were truth, either with their pockets or their souls.

But every caravan needed its blind mule and the pompous smile on the young dallier across the carved mahogany seemed like tonight’s.

And Walton Samuel Schroeder II certainly looked the fool.

He lounged amongst a throne of silken cushions, his left arm hanging loosely around the shoulders of some exotic creature. With painted eyes and woven black hair, she leaned crimson lips to whisper in his ear but Schroeder merely smiled before waving with his right.

On cue, a second exquisite creature slipped to his side, a cup held in her petite fingers. Schroeder raised the wine in salute to his adversary as his pet leaned into him, her fingers playing amongst the carved ivory buttons of his stylish silken vest. It was adorned in the elegant curving patterns of the western peoples, depicting stylish clouds and waves on a soft sea of deep azure.

Or were they Eastern styles? If there was one thing that blended on this great smoke spewing paddle boat, it was the cardinal points. Red paper lanterns swung from their nailed lines with strange symbols adorning their crisp sides rather than any alphabet. It was a world where tight clasped cheongsam dresses blended with ribbed bodices and puffed sleeves. On this polished wood deck, the lion and the dragon entwined in a chaotic and dizzying dance that melded them both into one grotesque creation.

Schroeder breathed it all in. The dry husk of smoking tobacco and sickeningly sweet opium filled the evening sky into an intoxicating perfume. The chatter was a mish-mash of two old languages struggling against one another but the laughter was all the same. At the height of nauseating drunkenness, it always washed away to the same tides.

And with the tailored legs of his pants crossed, Schroeder bounced an impatient polished shoe in the air. This was his world and while Untamed Meyer may rule the wild open plains, these painted rails and puffing smokestacks were the younger man’s. And its king was getting restless.

“Begging your pardon,” Schroeder intoned in an accent only found by those wishing for the airs across the sea, “but this voyage is not getting shorter. You will be putting down that hand either way but if you are parading their pretty little faces, I want to see you shine this deck.”

He patted the tabletop with a pristine white glove.

Untamed Meyer’s nostrils flared.

He bent the tips of his cards. It was his fatal mistake. Schroeder could see that flicker of doubt, the nervous flinch in his prodding thumb. The man held nothing. Perhaps he had hoped to strong arm the young man into submission like the empty chairs around the table. He seemed more adept in staring daggers than dealing cards. But his attempt to address the pistol handle by leaning forward and adjusting his jacket was only an effective method to those that felt they had more to lose than their coin. And in a game less about playing cards and more about playing the people, it was a disastrous assumption.

“I do not intend to wait until this wine turns better.”

Untamed Meyer grunted. Then he did something quite extraordinary.

He played his hand.

With dismay, Schroeder watched the traitorous face of Machabeus overturned with a matching pair of nines. It wasn’t a decent hand but that bearded prince held a far more dangerous sword. For Schroeder had dealt to himself a pair of princes that certainly beat Meyer. Regrettably, it too included the darkly painted one-eyed idiot. The unfortunate thing about frontier justice is that it held little love for cheats.

And yet, that was a lot of money to be had on the table.

Schroeder set down his cup.

“How modest but the world is not made by small hands.” Schroeder revealed twin aces from his hand. He stood, offering his foe an apologetic shrug. “Perhaps next time.”

The young man began to collect his ill-gotten gains.

But Bradley Meyer burst from his chair, a wicked knife appearing in his hand and slamming into the wood mere inches from Schroeder’s glove. The ladies on the couch gasped at this sudden ruthlessness and the din around the two men began to quiet.

“I want to see the rest.”

“You’ve been beat, my fellow. Perhaps it’s best to accept your-”

Meyer snatched the young man’s pinned cravat, lifting him roughly from the ground and upon the table.

“Show me.”

His lips snarled, revealing a set of yellow and rotted keys protruding from diseased gums. The decayed stench of whiskey and lawlessness wafted from his mouth. Eyes narrowed beneath thick, bushy dark brows.

Schroeder gagged.

“Very well.”

The hand released his throat and he stumbled to the ground, rubbing his neck softly. He coughed to clear his airway, motioning to his hat with his eyes while his head was turned and he could see one of his girls. She merely cocked her head.

Schroeder turned to Meyer, smiling. He bowed dramatically, holding his right hand at the small of his back and pointing frantically at his resting chapeau. With his left, he displayed the first of his three remaining cards. He slowly turned a seven of swords.

“And the next.”

Schroeder wiggled his right fingers before turning a grinning red Hector.

“One more.”

At last he felt the brim of his cap pressed into his waiting hand. Schroeder slowly picked the card from its place upon the wood. He held it before him, staring deep into the dead warriors’ eye and musing if, perchance, that were not some mischievous twinkle captured upon the card. Trickery was no more a foreign mistress to the field of battle as it was to the playground of confidence.

“The coup de grace!”

Schroeder snapped the card at Meyer’s face. In one broad stroke he swept his arm over the pot, raking as much of the clattering coins into his awaiting cap before mounting the table. His polished shoes squeaked over its surface as he stepped towards his enemy who rubbed at stinging skin before he looked down to see the duplicate grinning back. When next he turned to his rival, Schroeder’s polished shoe was connecting with his temple.

“Ladies, as always, it’s been a pleasure!”

He tossed a handful of denarii at the cushions before leaping from the table and dashing across the deck. Moments later, the familiar crack of a pistol gave chase after him.

“I’ll split you from nose to navel you weasel!”

The party gave a gasp as the gentleman burst through them. Coins and bills fluttered from the cap clutched with a corpse’s grip, leaving a valuable trail as he duck and wove amongst the dresses and dress coats lining the paddle steamer’s deck. This was not a jaunty two-step nor was it an unfamiliar dance to Schroeder’s feet.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he offered as he burst through the side door and nearly collided with the serving girl holding a delicate platter in her hands. “Rough day at the tables.”

She stared back from a dark, uncomprehending face as he bound down the stained wood corridor. Shortly after, the crash of the platter informed Schroeder his pursuer was hot on his tail.

A lady of delicate fortitude gave a shriek as he skidded around the corner, nearly colliding with her great bustle. The gentleman at her neck quickly disentangled himself, puffing up his chest in indignation. Schroeder gave a raise of his hand in poor substitution for a tip of his hat. But the offered condolences were cut short as a crash of broken glass and ripple of thunder announced Meyer’s volley.

Schroeder took to his heels once more.

Doors opened as unsuspecting patrons investigated the noise. With surprising agility, the gentleman twisted and bounded about the protrusions, bursting upon the deck of the great, red steamer. He leaned over the bannister, gauging his best route of departure. He spotted an escape boat dangling from its ropes just off the port bow.

The cries behind him was all the motivation he needed. Raised voices echoed out the corridor and Schroeder put shoe to rail and dropped from the second story deck, landing roughly on the floor below. Guests shouted and men stood from their tables. A few enterprising individuals took the distraction to pocket a few of their own earnings, Schroeder noticed. He stood, brushing his suit and sighing at the scuffs on his knees. He had just purchased these trousers.

He cast a quick look skyward.

Meyer burst from the cabins, slapping his palms against the rail. His six shooter clattered against the wood as he leaned over, scanning the crowd for his quarry. Schroeder gave the man a cheeky wave.

The ruffian raised his pistol, unloading a round at the scampering man.

But now things had gone too far.

Several patrons turned to their own coats, retrieving their pistols to bear against the unprovoked shooter. Meyer was hardly the first man to consider a show of force an acceptable tactic at the table. With circumstances unclear, these free men were not going to let some outlaw disrupt their perfectly pleasurable night of cards.

Meyer ducked behind the bannister, screaming bloody indignations. Tables were overturned to the shrieks of hysterical women. A firefight erupted as a horn blared in a futile attempt to wrestle back some civility. The crew of the steamer emerged, looking on in horror at the disruption of their business but unsure whose side they should support. Schroeder made to the deck, crawling on gloves and knees towards his blessed escape.

Bullets sang, splintering debris in worrying close proximity. Schroeder paused before one still upright table, his hand snaking to its surface and patting its way until he caught the slim crystal stem of the forgotten glass. He brought the wine to safety, sampling its heady scent before raising it to his dry throat.

He awaited a pause in the stray fire near him but caught the distressed look of one gentlewoman with a glove pressed against her heaving bosom. Schroeder offered a congenial smile, passing the crystal to her surprised hand before raising fingers to his forehead and presenting a flourish to his departure.

The lady was quick to quiet her nerves.

A stamping of boots and shouts signalled reinforcements and Schroeder peered over the lip of a table. A man in crisp Thyrian military garb shouted over the din, hefting a mighty rifle to his hands. He cried for peace, letting out one great shot into the air for attention. A brief respite was bought.

“This disturbance is over by decree of her majesty!”

Alas, the great tributaries of the Misi Ziibi were far afield of the eastern coast and the iron influence of the loyalists. There was too much bad blood that had washed down its waters. Blood of men who held more vitriol for the crown and Queen than to the strange foreigners with their long moustaches and trailing hair knots. Here were waters far from the steel fingers of the railworks, running down the spine of that unbridled land where only the wild and the uncivilized chose to dwell.

The soldier would have been better served sticking to his room and his whores. That bad blood burned an older fire that was far brighter than any cheated cards.

It was seconds before some embittered patriot cried out at the man, leveraging his gun and anger at the well-to-do redsuit. At least the soldier had reflexes to match his senses and he sought cover as a hail tore the ship about him.

And it was all perfect for Schroeder. He made a dash for the life raft, tossing his hat in with a jingle before going to work at the pulleys to lower the craft. Unfortunately, the rope was wound tighter than a lady’s bodice at spring fair. His gloves slipped against their damp cords.

A bullet fired past his head as he threw himself to the deck. A quick glance back confirmed pure pandemonium reigned over the preceding. Turning back to the reticent life raft, Schroeder rolled onto his back, kicking at the support keeping the boat anchored to the steamer’s side. Each pound of his shoe caused the boat to slam against the deck.

Eventually the wood cracked beneath his insistence. He stood, testing the rope and finding it give beneath his fingers.

As he turned to the other side, he smiled as some pretty creature rushed to the rail. She wore a sleek dark black dress with a great deep purple bustle that shimmered in the glow of the paper lamps. A frilled bonnet framed a rather beautiful, if exasperated, face. After pulling on the rope for a few moments, she turned to her matching satin handbag and produced an extraordinary long knife.

“May I?” Schroeder offered with a bow.

The woman turned, as if noticing the gentleman for the first time.

“You may, good sir.”

She placed the handle gently in his outstretched palm. Holding his left hand aloft, he assisted the lady onto the rail and into the raft.

“Take this end. I’ll loosen the other,” Schroeder smiled, unwrapping his cord from the fractured support. He moved to the second restraint, plying blade to reticent rope. The cords snapped beneath its sharp edge and he clutched it tightly as it began to fray.

“You are quite the gentleman,” the lady smiled, standing from the wooden bench as bullets flew by. She held out her hand and Schroeder returned the knife with a smile.

“Perhaps we shall meet again someday.”

“Why delay?” Schroeder asked, stepping to the rail. She placed her hand on his chest.

“’Tis only proper. I’m afraid I must bid you ado.”

She waved the knife at him, but only customarily as she took the rope from his hands.

“It has been most pleasurable, good sir.”

And with that, she let the ropes release, plunging the raft into the churning dark waters below. Schroeder pressed up against the rail as she fished out a paddle and pushed herself away from the steamer. He watched as she worked, the dress shifting like sweet nectar in a decanter about her shoulders as she dumped his gains into her purse before holding the hat up in a farewell salute.

Schroeder afforded a brief moment to watch her go.

“My boy, you’ve got to stop falling for every pretty face with a delightful smile.”

But then she tossed his hat casually into the waters and whatever remorse he felt immediately evaporated.

“That was custom fitted!”

A smash of metal into wood brought him back to reality. Schroeder glanced at the mayhem that had overtaken the gambling ship and looked back at the dark waters churning beneath the grand wheels of the steamer. Without anything truly to lose now, he mounted the rail, took a deep breath, and plunged into the waves.

Where Goes the Snow Beneath the Lights of the Boreal

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Accessed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Borealis_(painting)

Aurora Borealis by Frederic Edwin Church (1865).

So it’s been some time, hasn’t it? The astute amongst us will have noticed that it is December now. Which means we’ve just come through November. As such, I have finished the NaNoWriMo Challenge. For those unfamiliar with NaNo (short for National Novel Writing Month), it is an online self challenge to try and write a whole novel in a month. I participate in two of their events: the official NaNo challenge in November and Camp NaNo which is a practice month to work on just about anything.

It’s a great little experience and the official version is pretty serene. You have a set target of 50,000 words in one month which works out to 1,666 words a day. It’s reasonable even for those with busy schedules but still a feat so you feel accomplished at the end. Over my time doing the challenge, I’ve found that I’ve become quite adept at it and that the original 50,000 target isn’t particularly onerous to meet. This year I did a bonus 11,000 words or so. But more than that, I choose to make the April Camp NaNo more challenging by setting a word target of 90,000 which is still quite a sprint for me.

At any rate, as a celebration of my return to regular posting behaviour, I thought I would share a random snippet from my story: raw and unedited. I just plucked this from my word document without rhyme or reason since I’m still a little confounded by the work. Usually my feelings about a project immediately after completion is a dizzy mixture of relief, disappointment and confusion. I’m never quite certain how I ended up where I did or even whether I like what I’ve just done. That’s why I put a couple of months between drafts and editing so that I can let the project simmer on the back-burner and all my failed ideas that didn’t make it or work like I planned can fade from my thoughts so I can see the results for what they are.

And since my NaNo stories are typically more experimental since it’s only a modest 50,000 target, I rarely have much planning going into the venture so the results are usually very unexpected.

For this story, I wanted to write some general fiction about a woman going missing in the far Canadian north. The story doesn’t really focus on the woman herself but the three people affected the most about it. Their reactions to her disappearance are quite varied but they each have their own convoluted story to tell about her life. I wanted to give that sense of how it’s impossible to predict the impact we have on each other’s lives and, in the case of these three individuals, the impact a person can have even without meeting them.

So we’re going to take an early peek into the troubles the investigating officer faces when the story of the missing tourist Yuki Ogasawara first starts to break.

—

Charlie had never seen a press conference. Well, he’d never seen one in person. He’d seen a lot on tv. He’d even given a mock one at police academy. Course, the expectation was that the media correspondent would take care of them. Whiteriver wasn’t large enough to warrant a media correspondent. Janice seemed quite happy to take the position however.

One person who wasn’t happy with it, though, was Sergeant Sheppard.

“Didn’t I tell you that I thought there was no warrant for raising alarm!” Sheppard growled from his desk.

“Yes, sir.”

“But you went ahead and called for one anyway? This was supposed to be a simple case, Charlie. Now you’ve bunged it all up!”

“I’m sorry, sir. But I felt, given the information presented to me, that it needed escalating.”

“But you didn’t want to share that information with me?”

“I… tried!” Charlie gulped. He knew he was in hot water. He felt like he was in hot water. He wasn’t even certain why. Though he had more sympathy for the frog in the pot. He pulled on his collar aware that no amount of airflow would cool his neck.

“This will instill paranoia, Charlie. And for what? We don’t even know that the woman is missing. There’s been no contact with a relative. No confirmation that she isn’t home safe and sound. We don’t even know where her home is!”

“She’s from Japan, sir.”

“Japan! Not even a resident. You’re going to get people all worked up about a kidnapping over someone that probably just went back to her country!”

“I… never thought it was a kidnapping,” Charlie muttered.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think the evidence points to a kidnapping.”

“Why is that?”

“Well there was no ransom…”

“And why would there be if she was a tourist?” Sergeant Sheppard asked. “Certainly if they were posting it to her address it would be all the way over in Japan, now wouldn’t it? And who would go so far to kidnap someone half a world away? And in Whiteriver no less? You know how many people live here-”

“Twenty-five thousand, sir.”

“-twenty-five thous- yes, that’s correct. There are deer herds out there larger than our community.”

“Is that true, sir?”

“What?”

“That there are larger deer herds?”

“I don’t know. I assume so. Probably out in the Maritimes. The point is, Charlie, we’re a quiet and civic little community. We like our tranquillity. It’s what draws people to come visit us. They want escape from the chaos of city living. And you’re disturbing their much deserved peace with these fanciful big city crime theories.”

“Well, it is a fact that Ms. Yuki has gone missing from her room where all her belongings were left,” Charlie said.

Sergeant Sheppard dismissed his point. “All we know is some foreigner skimped out on the bill. Could have forgotten to pay it. Maybe she swiped her phone at the door on the way out. Who knows with tourists sometimes. It’s possibly she thought she could pay online. How old did you say she was?”

“Forty, sir.”

“Forty? Hm…” Sergeant Sheppard chewed his graduation certificate on the wall with his eyes. “Regardless, the fact still remains that I’m chief officer here and I didn’t give you permission to assign Janice to-”

“Janice thought it was necessary too-”

“Janice isn’t lead on the investigation!” Sergeant Sheppard said. “And you trotting that poor girl before the press when she hasn’t had proper time to prepare-”

“I gave her all night to get ready.”

“One night? We haven’t set up a task force to deal with a missing person and you’re already assigning specific roles to people in the office?!”

Sheppard shook his head. He stopped Charlie short with a raised hand.

“More than anything I’m disappointed, Charlie. I had such high regard for you. You were such a promising officer with a lot of talent and much to offer-”

The soul burning moment was ended by a merciful knock at the door.

“Yes?”

“Sir, it’s about the Coast Fraser case.”

“Yes, we’re currently discussing that,” Sergeant Sheppard said, looking at Charlie. But Bradford didn’t leave.

“I think you might want to see this.”

He held up a paper. Charlie turned in his seat. In bold typeface was the name The Whiteriver Rapids. The leading story was quite an eye-grabber though the accompany picture of the Coast Fraser Hotel was hardly glamorous.

“What’s that?” Sergeant Sheppard asked.

“Today’s paper. The front story is about our investigation, I think. Titled Woman Missing from Whiteriver Hotel. I think it’s a little redundant. Why would the Whiteriver Rapids write about a woman missing from another town? Plus, you’ve got the Coast Fraser on the front but don’t mention it in the lead-in for the story. Seems like sloppy journalism.”

“How is this possible!” Sergeant Sheppard bellowed. “We haven’t even run our press conference!”

“Oh, they mention that,” Bradford says, pointing at font far too small for Charlie and Sheppard to read. “Said they reached out for comment from RCMP. Janice told them she would be making an announcement to the community shortly. The Rapids do really seem on top of things, don’t they?”

“Ok, ok,” Sergeant Sheppard waved Bradford from his office. He leaned back in his chair and let out a protracted sigh until the door closed. He looked at Charlie long and hard. Then he shook his head. “Well, guess it’s good that you went forward with this. Makes us look on top of things. So… good work, officer!”

“Thanks, staff sergeant.”

Sergeant Sheppard leaned forward in his chair. “But if we’re upgrading this to a missing persons, it’ll take high priority. I’m going to have to oversee your investigation, you understand. Run everything by me and I mean everything, understood? We can’t have wasted resources on fruitless searches. I need to sign off on it all.”

Charlie tried to keep his teeth from grinding.

“Yes, sergeant.”

Sergeant Sheppard thrummed his fingers on his desktop. “You’ve got a report of all developments so far?”

“It’s been one day.”

‘I’d like to see one by this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sergeant Sheppard nodded to himself. “Alright. This can work.” He smiled. “I’m sure you’ll do great with this expanded responsibility.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Well, what are you waiting here for? You have work to do, don’t you?”

Charlie stood. “I’ll get to it right away.”

Sergeant Sheppard led Charlie to the door then closed it behind him.

I Typed a Thing Part 4

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Sorry for the absence last week. It was our crazy Thanksgiving and, alas, I was too busy to post. That’s on me and for that, I apologize. I would have said something sooner but then this weekend was the venerable birthday of our very own contributor, Kait, so I was busy getting ready for that, to varying degrees of success. What turned into a day celebration became a weekend celebration and now, here we are.

But I see that we got a book review up so it’s not like the week was a total waste. Just a partial one.

So let’s continue on with my first draft of the aforementioned untitled story.

I have a rather love/hate relationship with titles. Sometimes the inspiration for story will come from its name. Mary Creek’s Blood, for instance, was something I had to wring out from its label. Other stories, however, never get a proper title until I’ve wrapped the project mostly up. Then I languish forever trying to give it some moniker that befits it. Usually I fail. So for this little short, it’s a bit of an ill omen that I don’t have some snappy name to bestow it. I may never come up with one.

Bit of a tragedy, really. But then, so is the tale.

Chapter the Third

“I simply must apologise. We don’t get a lot of people passing through. Oh, here let me get your cloak for you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh. Yes. Well, come on in, come on in!”

Keirn waited for her to turn before stepping from the schlammraum. It was awkward walking with a bit of a stoop so his cloak dragged on the ground. He looked back at the discarded shoes and hoped that perhaps she wouldn’t notice he hadn’t added to the collection.

He followed the lady into the adjoining sitting room. A small fire crackled in its stone pit. A pot rested over it and the scent of cooked pork and turnip made both his mouth salivate and his stomach roll. The matron waved towards a chair around the fire and puttered into the kitchen.

“I simply must know what is happening in the world,” she called, a few dishes clattering. Keirn gave his arms another anxious examination but nothing about him seemed too peculiar. He fell into the seat with a long, well deserved exhalation. He let his cloak drape over the back of his chair as he rested his eyes and held his feet close to the flame. “We’re so reliant on foreigners in these parts to bring us the word. But with the cold winds blowing off Freyr’s spine, few make the journey. Can hardly blame them. We don’t have much to offer off the season and we’ve already sent the hertig our share of the tax. Ygrimm was rolling out the last we could put to market and without any good forest we can’t even grow moss like some other villages to supplement our season.”

“Perhaps for the best,” Keirn said. “I’ve heard those make hardly palatable dishes.”

Accessed from http://www.wga.hu/art/f/friedric/1/102fried.jpg

Dolmen in the Snow by Caspar David Friedrich (1807).

The lady – Helbera by name which seemed a touch too fitting giving the encroaching season – returned with a small bowl balanced on the edge of a long, curved wooden plate. In her other hand she held a steaming cup and she presented both to Keirn in her calloused fingers. He licked lips at the sight of the dried meat and even drier bread beside the stew. But he took the cup, politely waving the rest off.

She looked at him with that practised motherly eye of reproach.

“Not right for a wanderer to turn down a warm meal. I swear with Freyra as my witness that it’s the best thing you’ll find within a thousand leagues of Skaneling’s Hollow.”

Keirn raised a brow. “And what’s in the Hollow?”

“Oh, a juniper and cranberry pie to die for!” Helbera sighed. She finally accepted Keirn’s neglect and sat across from him to eat the meal. “Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s rude to reject a host’s food?”

“She did. She was a wonderful caregiver. I’m afraid it will upset my stomach is all. I had a big meal before departing.”

“Thought there’d be nothing in the Hinterlands, eh? Get lots of folk like that,” Helbera said, dropping her bread in the broth and watching it sink. “Course, we also get the rare soul come out that’s been higher than Wotan’s watcher’s looking to find some Arrowcup mushrooms.”

The matron looked Keirn hard in the eye. It took a second for him to catch her meaning.

“Ah,” he said, adverting his yellow pupils to his drink. “I understand if you have no wish to entreat me.”

He stood but she clucked her tongue and motioned towards the chair. “So many folk think we are a bunch of know-nothings. Couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re just kindly souls. I noticed the signs the moment we spoke. I was willing to take you when you had no coin to your name, I’ll still accept you and your failings.”

“I appreciate that, Mum.”

“Oh, hush with that. You sleep off that dreadful haze as long as you want. And you get that pile of wood out back split and we’ll call ourselves even, you hear.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, what’s the word out there,” she asked, picking into her broth and fishing long, soggy strings of bread from its murky depths. She raised dripping pieces to her mouth and slurped them down.

“Truthfully, I haven’t spent much time in this land,” Keirn said.

“Good. We can get old Rangvaldrsun’s movements when Torben comes through selling his pots and bad advice. What this old caribou wants is word of the world. That alone is worth a night’s stay in the world’s emptiest inn!”

She cackled and wagged dripping fingers at the small feast room. Keirn couldn’t help but smile.

“If it’s the movement of the spheres and the petty dealings of the wider nations that interests then I have much to say but little flair with which to say it. I’m afraid I’m no bard, though I travelled with one for a spell.”

“You think I can afford a storyweaver out here?” Helbera laughed. “You could list off some petty lord’s tax collection and it’d be far more interesting than listening to Snolla recount to me one more time about her old sheep’s pregnancy with twins.”

“Well, I wouldn’t rightly know where to begin,” Keirn said. “Nations war. People suffer. And the gods play out their genocide beyond the wishes of us mere mortals.” He heard a snicker but not from the matron. “There’s crime and death and pain. But still people push on in their petty little plots with hope things will change though they fear any that truly comes.”

Helbera snorted. “You’re right. You do not have an entertainer’s spirit. If I wanted to hear about the world’s end, I’d listen to Geirren. And no one wants to listen to that cracked pot. From where did you come for surely you can share that even if you’re reluctant to say where you’re headed.”

“I… don’t rightly know,” Keirn confessed. He shifted awkwardly on his chair as such a truth was uncomfortable for him to bear. The implications were unsettling and he felt his nape tingle with unwanted glee. “I’ve been through New Vannin, walked the mountain paths of the mysterious Far Wa, delved the dungeons of Norigr and been lost along the streets of the City of Doors. I’ve wandered through untold petty counties and kingdoms and seen far more between.”

“Quite the treasure,” Helbera said. When Keirn shrugged, she gave him a light chuckle. “I too was a bit of a wanderer myself in my prime. Oh, don’t look so surprised. You are hardly the first soul to be unsatisfied with their tiny village prospects and struck out on their own. Truthfully, I miss it though the quiet life on this frozen teet of land has treated me well. And my knees would hardly support such travels anymore.

“But I know a thing or two about distant fortunes. I’ve tasted the succulent peaches of T’dm. I’ve carried the undying flames of the Malla between sanctuaries and wrapped myself up in the multicoloured weaves of the Parsa peoples.” Helbera’s eyes twinkled with memories. “I’ve looked upon a field of glittering diamonds and seen the fabled Caverns of Silver full of their brilliant wheat. You speak of misery and war while ignoring the beauty which balances it.”

“And here you are.”

“Here we both are,” Helbera corrected. “I’ve also seen my fair share of refugees. So which are you? Plunderer or exile?”

Keirn watched the cinders crackle. “Perhaps both.”

Helbera lifted the cup to her mouth and slurped at the broth. “I suppose we all are.” She finished the last of her bowl and pulled at her meat. “I fear the Hinterlands aren’t particularly welcoming to either. Been many that come out here to lose themselves. Can’t help but think that more are found than not.”

“Perhaps they simply aren’t trying hard enough.”

The matron laughed. “I like you.”

Keirn bowed his head but did not confiscate his smile.

“Let an old thief steal some of your secrets then. It’s hardly like I’ve a market to sell them here, regardless, and it would make an old timer happy to try her hand one last time at the trade.”

“I was not being coy when I said I know not from where I come,” Keirn replied. “Directly, I mean. You cross enough roads and they all blur together. You stumble into inns typically in worse wear than not. After awhile, the uncomfortable beds are indistinguishable. There is little meaning in distinguishing between languages when all seem meaningless. Faces are unrecognisable. I rest my head in Dzakar and I awake in Ys. I speak to the shades of people no longer here or others I have yet to meet. I’m lost on the road that I mapped. Any one of those lands I may have set out from to come here. Or perhaps I have yet to leave them in the first place.”

“It’s the arrowcup,” Helbera clucked. Keirn was silent. “If these memories are a plague upon you then surely exorcising them would be the cure.”

“They are not a plague,” Keirn said. “They are my stolen treasure. But how typical is it for plundered loot to be cursed?”

“Far too common.”

“Had it not, however, I wouldn’t be here now,” Keirn said. “I had… friends, at a time. They were with me for many of my travels. They are not now. They had their fun and quit while they were ahead. Not unlike you, I’d imagine.”

I Typed a Thing Part 3

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Part of the reason I enjoy my little D&D series is the enjoyment of crafting an expansive narrative of events and developments that occur “off page.” The stories revolve around a rather core group of individuals and follows them on their journeys. But quite frequently, the stories that are told are small personal affairs wedged between major occurrences. One technique I try and use to date and chronicle the narrative is through certain “key events.” I envision these as rather epic narratives that could encapsulate a full novel but ones that likely won’t ever happen because I don’t have the time to write them. Instead, they’re used as time landmarks to keep track of where a short story occurs in respect to others.

So, often when I start into one of these stories, the first question I ask myself is usually “When does this occur?” This particular piece I wanted to throw further in the future than anything else I’ve done. That’s why I was toying with all the comments on age in the first chapter. It also means that I typically need to establish quickly what has happened recently as well as lampshade any prominent absences.

And if the tone didn’t give it away in the first chapter, the D&D stories are usually aimed at being bittersweet.

The one thing that stuck out to me when envisioning this project as a realistic examination of fantasy tropes and structures was that all the fun elements of the heroic quest were simply unsustainable. There’s really no way an individual could commit to a life of an adventurer. The whole genre is predicated on an unsustainable lifestyle. Thus, the motivation for the adventurers to strike out on their quests was always one of selfishness and avoidance. They were looking to escape their problems rather than address them. But the problem with ignoring is a fire is that it doesn’t make it go away. So invariably the problems they wished to avoid would rear their ugly heads.

Course, even with this overarching idea of chronology I have no assurances that I’ll keep my original plans so things end up being vague anyway.

Accessed from http://www.wga.hu/framex-e.html?file=html/a/abbati/abbati2.html

Country Road with Cypresses by Giuseppe Abbati (1860).

Chapter the Second

“Where do you see this heading?”

Keirn paused, taking a moment to look at his feet. Even with the coarse hair, they were turning a disquieting shade of blue. He took a moment to climb upon the face of the sheer slate jutting from the cracked earth like a nail of a buried giant. He bent his knee, inspecting the soles of his feet. The skin was cracked but leathery: not unlike the pad of a hound’s paw.

It was a little strange but, as he picked stones from the folds of his skin, he could hardly deny its usefulness now that he lacked good boots.

“I’d rather hoped to come across a helpful cobbler or peddler but that, mayhaps, was a tad optimistic.”

He leaned against the stone, exhaling a slow breath and taking a moment to drink in the scenery.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, I expect it’ll be at the Alfather’s Cradle. But there’s an intersection in Shorweld that we can’t miss.”

Keirn’s leg began to shake impatiently. He tried to hold it steady so rest could last a little longer.

“That’s not it either.”

“For being the Unquenchable Scholar, you don’t really seem to know much.”

Keirn felt a cold tingle run down his spine. He frowned at the weak attempt at showmanship.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve had to do this.”

“If you’re looking to address any perceived concerns weighing my conscious, you’re about five years too late.”

Keirn’s leg dropped to the ground and tried to propel forward but he simply leaned back and kicked his feet into the air.

“I know you, Keirn of Gault. I have peered inside your mind and seen the doubts that fester in the darkest corners of your soul.”

“Oh? And they are?”

“Predominantly hunger.”

Keirn grinned. “And how does that make you feel?”

“It sickens me.”

Keirn’s body convulsed in protest and with a long sigh he finally slid of the rock. His feet were happy to return to the road, padding along the short grass. Keirn pulled the cloak tighter around him as he saw a small caravan rolling in the distance.

“But I have also seen your kin and colleagues. I know your straying thoughts. Even you must recognise this would be easier with them.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I never am.”

“You don’t know them,” Keirn said. “You know my perception of them. And that’s as flawed a judgment one can ever have.”

“Are you to say you don’t have a measured view of those closest to you?”

“They’re not here now, are they?” Keirn asked. His feet slowed as he turned his nose to the air. He closed his eyes, smelling scents invisible to all man. He craned his neck, looking over the shattered rock and clinging scrub. He bent to the ground, running a hand across the dirt. He couldn’t see it but it smelled as clear as a roasting hog.

He stepped from the path.

“So why are you?”

“You already know that answer,” Keirn said, tapping his temple. He needn’t travel far. The remains of the campfire were near suffocating in the air. He approach with such wary steps that he expected to find them still resting in their cots.

He rounded a small ridge of raised earth. It provided just enough cover from the road that a small party behind it could remain unseen. There wasn’t anything there. They had broken camp some time ago. But he could smell them. The heavy scent of sweat and alcohol lingered in the air and clung like a bad memory to the stones. As he sniffed, he caught more though. There was the hint of passion amongst the rock and he made a short circle of the overhang. With each step came a shift in odours and he leaned close, pressing the earthy aromas from his mind as he took in the rest.

A man and a woman had spent an intimate moment. But they were not the only lovers. That could serve his purpose should they meet. Sentimentality was always an easy wedge to drive between a group. Especially one that was clearly as clandestine as what he sensed here.

“But they have each other.”

“I am hardly alone,” Keirn said, adjusting his cloak. “I have you.”

“I’m touched.”

“And the Hound. And a half dozen others. Forgotten all and desperate for that which they barely recall. I know, oh Tattered King, how solitude can drive one mad. It can even turn a fearsome figure into… well… a dotting father.”

“Perhaps even a surrogate to one that was never had?”

Keirn laughed. “Feeble. I have no need for such misplaced sentiments.”

“You must have wondered. Even when your sister found hers.”

“The one thing you never understood was trust.” Keirn poked amongst the ashes of the camp. The cinders were long cooled. They likely left at daybreak. Only some charred bones of their meal remained. “And I trust my mother had good reason to never share the information.”

“I could learn it for you.”

“Ah, and now comes the bargaining? This is hardly my first dance at the ball and that shouldn’t surprise, Eventide Stranger, for very few attempt to look behind the pale mask anymore. Very few indeed.”

Keirn stood and turned towards the road.

“It must gnaw at you. Like worms.”

“Not especially.”

“Did you never once question why you stood out from others? Why you alone never felt like you belonged?”

“Terribly,” Keirn said. “Then I realised many felt that way. I can’t even be remarkable in my loneliness.”

“But yours was different.”

“Everyone’s is different.”

Keirn clutched the corners of his cloak as the waggon rolled near. He turned his face earthward, adverting his stark yellow pupils while making his misshapen appearance less obtrusive. This was hardly the worst he had to hide.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten his feet.

“Hold, traveller!”

Keirn kept walking until he was called again. Reluctantly he turned.

“How fare thee?”

“Adequately,” Keirn replied, still not meeting the driver with his eyes. He could hear the huskiness of the man’s voice. This was one of those weathered locals that had spent their entire life within a few safe, comfortable villages. He was one of those good, Aenir fearing men with a small home, unhappy wife and despondent children that wished to see the world but were instead locked into raising their own families a mere league or so away from where they were born.

His greatest trial was to keep food on the table and tend the crops as best he could during their growing season. He had seen his own hertig’s men but twice in his life. He always remembered how their metal had gleamed beneath their tunics and how he had filled with a sense of pride to see his hertig’s forces marching boldly through his village.

But more swam beneath those thoughts. Dark waters gathered even in the clearest ponds. But before Keirn could explore those, he shifted on his feet and turned to leave.

“Need you a lift, stranger? Don’t get many coming out this way so close to coming winter.”

“I shall manage,” Keirn replied, his legs twitching in protest to the thought of inactivity.

“Awful lot of road.”

“Wouldn’t wish to inconvenience.”

“It’s no bother.” The driver leaned in his seat. “Alfather’s mercy, where are your shoes?!”

Keirn tried to pull his cloak in the way. “I should really be going.”

“Now hold up…!”

Keirn hastened his steps as laughter rang in his ears. “It is useless.”

Keirn could hear the cart turning behind him. His heart beat and he could feel the muscles of his legs tighten. He had to consciously hold himself back and struggle against his body from entering full flight. He had no doubt that he could outrun the man in his waggon but leaving such a disturbance wasn’t his aim.

It was better to leave a story behind of a queer man with no shoes than one possessed.

He turned off the road, deftly scaling over the cracked land that the cart could not follow. Once he’d put good distance between him and the farmer, he found a patch of dirt to squat behind and wait for the man to give up.

“You could have dealt with him.”

Keirn frowned. “Not even once.”

“I’d be willing to indulge the Hound just this time.”

Keirn’s foot twitched. Obstinately, Keirn grabbed a fistful of dirt and shoved it in his mouth. His body shuddered in protest to the filth but he forced it down through sheer will. He was panting and sweating by the time he finished.

“How could you?!”

“Don’t forget who is in control here,” Keirn warned. “You are a guest and little else. Your time has passed.”

“This is why you have no friends,” the ground hissed.

“You would never be one,” Keirn replied. “Not that I’d expect you to understand the word anyway.”

“And you would?”

“I have friends.”

“While you fail to be one?”

“Yes,” Keirn said after a moment. “Perhaps you think I unwilling to acknowledge my flaws but I am a bare soul. There is nowhere for you to hide. It is why I won’t succumb like others before me. Go on with your whispers, they are nothing just like you.”

“Or you some day.”

“I have courted death long enough to know it does not want me,” Keirn said.

“Such hubris. If only you believed that.”

Keirn peeked from his cover. He did not see the waggon or its driver. He stood, brushing himself off as well as he could.

“Worrying over the Frozen Queen’s heralds is a futile past time. They will come when they are ready and no later. Even you with all your knowledge and sight do not know their passage. So what does that speak of your abilities… or obsession?”

Silence, for once, was Keirn’s companion and he relished it as he returned to the road. He knew, then, that darkness would be his friend. Its shadow would conceal him from eyes and ensure he wouldn’t have any further complications. He could rely on the Hound’s strength and easily cover the distance of his quarry in time that would make even the most wizened magus scratch his head. He needn’t worry so much about maintaining appearances or normalcy.

And Keirn shook his head.

“It won’t work.” When he received no response, Keirn continued. “I know full well that my prudence keeps the chains in place. One measure restraint can reel in twice its value.”

Still he walked in silence.

“Now you’re being childish,” Keirn chided. But when he was denied a response, he shrugged. “Have it your way. My loneliness is self enforced. Yours is not. I can at any time seek her out and reconnect. I could scamper back for that idyllic life with a squat farmstead and my own little patch of dirt constantly interrupted by the simple prodding of tired neighbours. But when our pact ends you will have nothing but long waiting with the ever gnawing doubt that no other will make contact. I did not struggle with the rites due to difficulty. Contrary to your belief, some things can be truly lost.”

Petulance persisted. So Keirn continued on his way, whistling a merry tune while contemplating all the lovely meals that his sister could cook.