It was supposed to be a harmless teenage prank. Break into the abandoned church and nick something. He expected her to return with a rusty candlestick or rain-soaked hymnal. If she didn’t chicken out. He hadn’t expected her to creep out of the ruined abbey dragging a four-foot long sword behind her.
“Where’d you find that?” He really hadn’t expected her to stare at him, then raise the blade like it was weightless.
“I was chosen,” she said. Then her expression hardened. “And I can see what you truly are.”
“Oh,” he said, scrambling away from her. “Hell.”
Fiction: The Break-In
November 11, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Drabble, Fantasy, Fiction, Free Fiction Leave a comment
Fiction: Capturing Light
November 4, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Drabble, Fantasy, Fiction, Free Fiction Leave a comment
“Where are the flowers?” I looked up from the painting.
“They’re on the table.” I said, gesturing to the bouquet.
“But you haven’t included them. And the vase is wrong. That looks like a perfume bottle!”
“I can’t draw what’s really there,”I said. “Have you ever heard the idea that taking a picture captures your soul?”
“What nonsense.”
“Inauspiciously worded wish. Now I can’t paint anything alive without capturing it.”
“That’s bullshi….”
I finished adding the tiny figure inside the jar. It was a fairly good likeness of him.
“See what I mean?” I asked, but he was gone.
Fiction: Her Monstrous Bridegroom
October 7, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Her Monstrous Bridegroom, Monsters, Wedding Leave a comment
“I don’t know about the shroud,” Princess Audra said, glaring at her reflection in the glass. She reached up and fussed with the stiff, white embroidery. A bony hand slapped her on the wrist, as quick and sharp as a whip.
“It is a veil,” the matron corrected.”And it is traditional.” She had a habit of stressing that last word. Tradition. Everything had a tradition, everyone needed to follow the traditions, always remember the traditions. Tradition, tradition, tradition. The invaders had so bloody many of them, and she had been forced to learn them all, ending with the wedding, the most horrifying Tradition of all. “You only need to cover your face until the end of the ceremony.” The princess wanted to weep, but she refrained. She couldn’t cry in front of the matron. She had made it quite clear the consequences of that behavior soon after the invasion.
But it was a shroud, no matter what she called it. It was her death, the death of her people. When the strange invaders came with their machines and their armies, they hadn’t stood a chance against them. And it had been made quite clear that their continued existence was a sufferance. Their enslavement was a mercy. Their tortures an ‘education.’
And yet, what greater horrors would the monsters inflict if they didn’t conform to their rules. If they didn’t allow themselves to be ‘civilized.’ If she didn’t lay back and let their general take her, like an apple from a tree.
‘It is time, let’s get you out there, and remember your manners. He isn’t wedding you for your beauty.” The matron yanked her roughly to her feet and adjusted the veil around her. The skeletal old woman showed surprising strength when she wanted to. Grabbing her so that the fabric of the strange gown wouldn’t tear, hitting her so that the marks wouldn’t show, that was the matron’s way. Audra pulled herself together, and reminded herself that this was for her people, that this was all she could do, for now.
An honor guard waited outside the door. Their horns were gilded, and their claws tipped in jewels for the occasion. She couldn’t bear to look at them as they marched in formation around her. She clutched the roses Matron shoved into her hands tightly, ignoring the little thorns she had neglected to remove. She tried to remember the vows, all the things they expected her to say, all the surrenders they would demand of her. She looked at the rich carpet, imported from the invader’s country, rich and red as blood, and so different from good grass under her feet.
After the ceremony, there would be a feast, and she would be forced to smile and wave as the general’s troops came and congratulated him, made little gifts of their fealty. And the air would be thick with the smells of liquor and blood. She wouldn’t be allow to gag. And after that, would be the wedding night.
She considered the possibility of killing him then, while his guard was down, after he took what he wanted. It was possible he would do nothing to her. He had seemed as disgusted with her shape as she was with him, after all. But the tradition must be maintained, and he would probably take her, just for the form of it, even though there would be no one there to watch. She prayed there would be no one there to watch.
She could smother him to death. She could press all her weight against him with one of his soft pillows and crush the air from him. She could claim it was an accident. They might believe her. But there would be others. Cutting off the head wouldn’t kill the serpent. She needed to be patient. She would to play their games, their politics. And she knew something would be irrevocably lost, but it was the only way to preserve what she could. When fighting monsters, one must think like a monster. Her father had refused. He had clung to his honor like a branch in a torrent, and they swept him away. She couldn’t make the same mistake.
They reached the doors of the chapel. They opened, and strange music, a chorus of bellowing iron beasts rose around her. She marched forward, staring straight ahead at her monstrous bridegroom. He waited next to their priest, his gleaming armor polished, his jeweled dress sword at his side. He stood tall, but he stared at her with impatience, his face all hard angles and bristling mustache.
She took slow steps, as though she could wait out destiny. But she reached him, and he pulled the veil back from her face. It caught briefly on her horns, as gilded as her guards’. He wrenched it free and looked up at her. It was strange, she thought, that this man, this human, stood a foot shorter than her, weighed a hundred pounds less. But he and those like him conquered them so utterly. She would learn his secrets, and she would turn them against those that had taken her kingdom. She would make herself a monster, if that’s what it took.
Cover image by Lori Greig
Fiction: Monster Hunting
September 30, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Fiction, Horror, Monster Hunting, Originally on The Melting Potcast, Pokemon Go Leave a comment
Monster Hunting
Shauna wakes up with a start. It’s dark in the cell-like dorm room. She hears her roommate snoring in the bunk above her and realizes it must still be the middle of the night. She raises her head and looks for her phone. It sits charging at the foot of the bed. Its diffuse screen is the only light she can see. Shauna is sure something just bit her. She brushes a hand down her leg. She feels a welt, but no bug. She listens in the dark for the whine of a mosquito, but all she hears is Kara snoring above her. Maybe she dreamed it, she thinks. She spent all day outside playing “GO Monster Hunting.” She must’ve gotten bit by something earlier and just noticed it now.
“GO Monster Hunting” is the hottest Augmented Reality game out there, and Shauna is addicted. So is the rest of the zoology department. So is half of campus, from what she can see. What she really likes about it is the game’s sense of realism. Not the monsters themselves, of course. They’re all Saturday-morning-cartoon kid friendly, with big, glassy eyes and toothy smiles. But the behavior and physiology of the monsters is actually quite advanced. Every kind of monster has its own territory, its own preferred food, its own habits. And they were getting more refined and realistic with every update.
She feels another bite. This one is sharper, more painful. She draws her leg up and grabs it. She doesn’t feel anything, but something’s there. Maybe a spider or an ant got in. She reaches for her phone to use as a flashlight. She prays that the dorm hasn’t been infested with bedbugs.
In the harsh glare of the flash, she sees a pair of small, circular welts above her left ankle. There is no sign of what made them, though. She moves to get up see if she can’t flush the thing out by shaking out the covers. She’s bit again before she can stand up. There is a stab of needle-sharp pain on her right thigh. She’s instantly on it with the phone, but there simply isn’t anything there. She doesn’t see anything, doesn’t feel anything but the sting. She watches as the welt rises as if by magic. And then she notices the flashing green light and the forgotten notification.
‘An app has just updated! Tap here for more information!’ She taps.
‘GO Monster Hunting Update #13!’ the update reads. A tiny blurb underneath brags that the engineers have added ‘a whole new level of realism to the game. Interact with your favorite monsters in all new ways!’ She knows she should be getting up, running all her bedclothes through the wash, and try and find the bedbugs or whatever it is, but Shauna decides to load the app first, just for a second.
The camera activates the second it loads. There’s a monster nearby. There’s another little bite on her leg, and as she’s trying to find it, she lets the phone fall on her leg. Which is when she sees it.
“Mos-ki-ki!” A synthesized voice chirps from her phone speaker. There’s a monster on her leg. It looks like a mosquito, although it has a pair of huge anime eyes and an improbable, goofy grin. She almost thinks it’s looking at her. “Mos-ki-ki!” It calls again, and cheerily plunges a needle-tipped proboscis into her thigh.
She feels the bite.
Shauna shrieks, brushes her hand down both legs in panic, but there’s nothing there. Not in the real world, anyway. Onscreen, the monster chirps again.
“Mos-ki-ki!” She backs away from it, and nearly falls off of the bed in her panic. A day-lit, rational part of her brain is screaming that it can’t be real. That the game has no way of hurting her in the real world. The cartoon bug turns and looks at her, the big compound eyes furrowed in animated annoyance. It hops towards her. Her thumb accidentally clicks on it, bringing up a helpful description from the game.
“Moskiki. Insect Group. This small, blood-sucking monster is easily defeated individually, but known to travel in swarms.” It hovers towards her, undeterred by the bed’s topography, and settles somewhere offscreen. She feels a bite on her arm and finds it again.
Shauna knows this can’t be real, is sure that she must still be dreaming, but can think of only one solution. She pulls up her inventory screen and selects a net. Drawing a quick circle around the monster with her finger, the net appears over it, and it cries out before being engulfed. The net shakes a few times in cartoon struggle before a tinny fanfare plays. ‘You captured a Moskiki! Battle Power 16!’ A text box informs her. She breathes a sigh of relief. The thing is gone.
She tenses again when her phone beeps with a new notification. There is another monster nearby. She recalls the behavior tip the game just gave her. Moskiki move in swarms.
Trying to remain calm, still hearing nothing but her roommate’s snores, she raises her camera phone and sweeps it across the dark room. Over the bed, the two matching desks, the closets, the knee-high brown dorm fridge. Dozens of cartoon eyes stare back at her through the screen. She sees a whole microcosm of small monsters: Insects, mice, plants. They are all newbie fodder; low-level and hardly threatening. But they are all carnivores, and they can all see her.
She spends the next hour defending her position. She runs out of nets twice, but makes use of the handy online store until it stops accepting her credit card. Finally, with all her in-game resources exhausted, the tide of tiny, biting monsters subsides. She is covered in welts, scratches, bites and sores, but none of them are life-threatening. The first rays of dawn peek in through the gap between the dorm blinds. The nocturnal creatures retreat. She heaves an exhausted sigh. Maybe now she’ll have a chance to figure out how this happened, and if she can stop it.
And then her phone beeps excitedly. EPIC MONSTER DETECTED! It exclaims. The speaker lets out a digitized roar.
“Dragocorn!”
It stomps in through the wall. The game runs off of GPS data. Construction means very little to it. The dragon is huge. It takes up the entire screen no matter how she retreats. There is something decidedly cute about the design, but the zoology student is more worried about the massive horn, huge fangs, and wicked talons reaching out for her.
Shauna is out of nets.
***
Shauna’s roommate Kara wakes up around ten. She pulls off her sleep mask, takes out her earbuds, (she can’t sleep a wink without the sound of ocean waves cranked up to eleven) and climbs down from the top bunk. She looks around for her roommate, but doesn’t see a sign of her. They usually catch a late brunch on Sundays at the good dining hall on the other side of campus. Her area of the dorm room looks a bit more rumpled than usual, but there is no sign of her.
“Must be off chasing monsters in that dumb game of hers again,” she mutters as she gathers her towel and supplies to take a morning shower. She doesn’t notice Shauna’s phone, still nestled half-hidden in the covers of the lower bunk. Onscreen, a huge, full-bellied dragon snoozes happily on top of the satellite map outline of their dorm building. She doesn’t see it open a single red eye and follow her out of the room.
Cover image by Faris Algosaibi, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
Fiction: She Swings the Hammer
September 23, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Drabble, Fiction Leave a comment
Outside, the wind howls.
Inside, she swings the hammer.
Outside an impenetrable darkness covers everything.
Inside, the fire is bright and warm.
Outside snow falls silently, building in endless drifts, covering a lost world.
Inside, he tells her she is wasting her time. Wasting her strength. Wasting their resources.
Outside, crunching steps leave prints in the always fresh snow. Some prints resemble boots. Others are bare, their owners having long since stopped caring about the cold. Other are different.
Inside, she ignores him. She swings the hammer again and again.
Outside, fists fall on reinforced doors.
Inside, She stops hammering.
Fiction: Angel of Secrets
September 2, 2018
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Angel of Secrets, Fiction, Flash Fiction Leave a comment
I am aware of the moment of coalescence, of incarnation. It is the point where I cease to be a facet of Creation and am embodied. I was at once everywhere, and thus, nowhere. I was a part of the grand design, as significant and invisible as Air, Gravity, and Love.
Now I hang suspended above the ground, formed and held in this reality by concentric rings of mystical runes inscribed in stone. A lone figure, small and so fragile, kneels below me, reverent in his supplication. I need no unearthly knowledge to be certain that every detail is perfectly executed. I would not be here otherwise.
My wings are still. I do not need to beat them here. My feet will never touch the base clay. I am here for a purpose, and I will fulfill my function, although in this moment, before the bargain is struck, even I, with my wealth of infinite information, do not know if it will for good or ill. I open my mouth, and my voice, full of power and majesty, issues forth, nearly unbidden by my own will.
“I am Raziel, the Angel of Knowledge and the Keeper of Secrets. There is nothing that is not known to me. I will answer one question, mortal. Think carefully, for not all wisdom is meant for human ears.” My voice reverberates through the chamber, and when it dies away, the figure slowly, cautiously raises his head. He is not the first sorcerer to seek out my knowledge, and though they risk their souls to secure it, I have been known to grant this wisdom. Even I do not understand the whims that govern my actions at times. I am myself merely the instrument of a greater power, after all. I wait in anticipation, although I remain perfectly still. I wonder what this human will ask of me.
In ancient times, philosophers asked of me the very building blocks of reality and the shape of the heavens. I told them, although their planet would not have the science to understand the answer for thousands of years. I have been asked many questions, whose answers shook the foundations of empires. My every utterance may shape the future of humanity.
Finally, in a soft voice, the sorcerer makes his request. And I blink at him.
“I beg your pardon?” I say, certain I somehow have misunderstood him. He repeats it, perfectly exact. He embellishes the request with a vague threat, as though the form with which he has caged me is held in his sway. I cross my arms.
“Access to the infinite knowledge of creation, and that is your question?”
He emphatically agrees that it is. I sigh. A promise is a promise.
“Fine. The item you seek is hidden in stage one dash three. At the end of the level, there will be a turtle standing on a suspended white block. Defeat the creature and crouch on platform until you fall through. You will now be in the background of the level. Proceed to the right, and the whistle you seek will be yours. I trust this answer is to your satisfaction.”
My knowledge shared, I can feel the spell unravelling, and I return to the fabric of Creation from which I came. My last thought before my sense of self dissolves into selfless awareness of all creation is, ‘Lousy wizards can’t learn to look this stuff up online?
Photo copyright Catherine Todd, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 license.
Fiction: The Halloween Gig
October 31, 2017
Free Fiction, Uncategorized Fiction, Halloween, Sci-Fi Leave a comment
“What the p’nong is this?” I said, slamming the plastic crate onto polished a synthsteel table. Amy, the bartender, turned around from where she was hanging some kind of banner.
“It’s your costume for tonight, sweetie.” She went back to the hanging, a pattern of orange circles, white ovals, and black crescents, each with a crude printed face. The shapes vibrated gently in station gravity.
“Costume for what?” I picked up the box with my lower arms and riffled through it with my upper ones. It was a length of cheap black plasticloth. I examined it for a minute before figuring out it was a sort of cloak, with holes for my head and all six appendages. The sleeves were all tattered and trailing, and the hood was so deep my head wouldn’t even be visible. It seemed a terrible choice for a musician.
“It’s Halloween, silly!” She didn’t even turn this time. “You agreed to play holidays.”
“Proper holidays,” I said, grimacing. “The Eclipse Festival, Harmonics Night, Harvest of Poetry.” I knew I was being petulant, but I made an attempt. Humans expected it from their musicians.
“It’s a big party night on Earth, we’re expecting a lot of traffic, so wear the costume.” That was when I noticed her face paint. It was a vivid shade of green. She was wearing an impractical black gown instead of her usual ship suit. A pointed black hat rested on the bar.
“Then why haven’t you cleaned properly?” I asked, taking in the room for the first time. The counters and corners were covered with wispy strands of white plant fiber. The stage was dusty, and the edifice of a ruin had been left there.
“Those are decorations, Ch’Brun.”
“They’re unsettling.”
“I was going for spooky.”
“Just what kind of holiday is this?” I asked. My elders thought I was crazy to run off to human space chasing gigs. Sometimes I agreed with them.
“For some humans, it’s a day of remembrance for the dead, but for others it’s a day for dressing up, eating candy, and getting scared.”
“Wait, your civilization frightens itself for fun?” I wasn’t surprised. Humanity seemed to have a collective fetish for destructive behavior. But since I was already working in an establishment that served weak poison as a recreational activity, this didn’t seem out of character for the species. “That’s so human. Give me a few standard hours to research and I’ll see what I can do.”
A few hours later, I took the stage. It was dark, it was grimy, and the house was full, just as she said. There were humans in all kinds of costumes, mostly mythological archetypes like Amy’s witch and a variety of living corpses. Humans have a ton of hangups about death, I guess. There were also costumes based on characters from popular entertainment programs, historical figures, and even elaborate jokes. It was all very weird, but it made a kind of sense. The humans came from a world with only one sun, which meant they had as much darkness as light. They lived in a world that developed scientific understanding of the universe relatively late, and was delayed by a few notable collapses of civilization. They had a talent for stories. So they found ways to laugh at the darkness. They practiced scaring themselves so they wouldn’t be afraid.
I fluttered my robe dramatically as I sat down on the fake step and pulled out my instrument. It was a fretted, stringed instrument similar to human ones, but it had multiple resonating chambers and was meant to be played with all six hands. Amy nick-named it the Ultra-Cello, and it kind of stuck, although my music teacher back home would probably have fits if they heard. In deference to the holiday, I had placed a representation of a human skull over the pegbox.
I flourished my arms, waiting for silence, then began to perform an ancient traditional hymn I discovered in my afternoon’s research. I sang out, a voice shouting against the darkness. The crowd cheered in recognition and glee, and sang along with religious enthusiasm.
“I was working in the lab late one night…”
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Cover photo by Derek Hatfield, used under a Creative Commons, Attribution license.
Patreon Fiction: Mapmaker
September 27, 2017
Free Fiction, Self-Promotion, Writing Fantasy, Fiction, hugh, Patreon Leave a comment
Hello Readers! If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that I’ve been making some upgrades to my Patreon feed lately. This includes weekly flash fiction and other goodies. You can visit patreon.com/hughjodonnell to have a look! Today I’m releasing a story here to give you a sample of what is going on every week in my feed for the low, low price of $1 a month! That’s like, a quarter a story!
Mapmaker
It has been a long time since Mapmaker was taken. He does not know how long. He has not seen the sun since then. He does not know where he is being held. He has only seen stone walls, dull, smoking torches, and the undead soldiers of The Necromancer.
Mapmaker prepared to return to the capital as soon as he heard of the invasion. He expected to be called out of retirement to help defend the kingdom. He had surveyed and drawn every inch of the land, and knew her down to the smallest detail. He had never married. How could one devote love to another, when all his energy went to his maps. He traveled to the palace, to lay battle maps for the king. The Enemy caught him first.
They tortured and interrogated Mapmaker regularly since he was brought here. The Necromancer’s generals and strategists, the ones he kept alive, wanted maps. Fortifications, barracks, ports. They wanted military targets, but those were not the maps he drew.
Mapmaker is a proud man. He never made a map he knew to be false, and he refuses to start now. Instead, he wastes the generals’ time. He maps peaceful villages, gave directions for forest paths far from the front lines. For every useless map, they punish him severely, but it another day lost to the Necromancer’s forces. It is all Mapmaker can do for his country.
Once, he stole a piece of chalk and tried to keep track of the days. He made a mark for every time the guards took him, each time he ate the strange food, each time he slept. He gave up when he ran out of chalk. Most of one wall is covered by the little tally marks, like a map backwards in time.
The guards never speak. Mostly, they are dead things. They move awkwardly, like puppets, and stare with sightless eyes. Occasionally, one is a living man, who watches his companions with mute horror. The price for failure in The Necromancer’s army is self-evident. He begs these living servants for information. How fares the kingdom, the war, and his apprentices. They dare not answer.
He was traveling with a pair of students when his coach was ambushed. He does not know what became of them. When he sleeps, he dreams. Sometimes he dreams they are killed in front of him, as a punishment. Sometimes they are pressed into the Necromancer’s service, and come to his cell as unseeing, stumbling things that do not recognize him. Sometimes he dreams they have all escaped together. Those are the worst ones. Mapmaker sleeps poorly.
His cell opens with the tooth-gritting noise of metal on stone. Two armored zombies enter to escort him. Mapmaker guesses they were made about two weeks ago. He has been imprisoned long enough to learn the cycle of the zombie guards. With so great a supply of bodies on hand, The Necromancer does not bother to prevent his guards from rotting, and they last about a month before they fall apart. These two are halfway through the process. Although they are covered in plate mail, he can tell by the stench.
The old man shrinks back from their outstretched arms. He is running out of safe places to map. He has drawn every safe place he can think of, and does not know what they will do. If they torture him today, perhaps this is the day he will break, or the day they will finally kill him.
The corpses lift him to his feet and march him out of the room. They are neither rough nor gentle. They move with a rote, measured steps. When he was a young man, under the old king, An inventor brought a mechanical elephant to court. It marched, trumpeted, and even bowed. It was decorated to almost look alive, with a hide covering and glass eyes, but there was something too precise about its movements. As horrific as they are, The Necromancer’s soldiers remind him of the elephant.
As they march him down the hall, he wonders what happened to the elephant. He has not seen it in many years. Perhaps it broke down, or is sitting forgotten in a dusty store room somewhere underneath the palace. It takes his mind off of what is to come.
To his surprise, they take him somewhere different today. After a few minutes of confusing twists and turns, he finds himself in a huge circular tower. The stone floor is marked by a chalk circle. Inside, soldiers are building something. Some set colored stones into the floor, Others lay down planks and spread papers on them, almost haphazardly. Others light candles at fixed points outside of the circle. Mapmaker tries to get a closer look, but the rotting guards push him towards a staircase ascending to a platform. Like a bucket on a chain, they guide him up.
The stairs spiral a long way to the top of the tower. By the time he reaches the platform he is winded and sweating. He aches from a thousand pains. He was frail when they brought him here, and this is the most exercise he has gotten in months. The Necromancer, in his black robes embroidered with gold thread, is waiting for him.
This is the first time Mapmaker has seen the leader of the enemy, but there is no mistaking him. He cannot tell how old he is, or even if he is truly still alive. Fear claws at the old man, and he simply wants to flee. The other guard stands on the stairs and prevents his escape. The Necromancer looks him up and down, purses his thin, dry, lips, and asks a question.
“Have you ever heard of sympathetic magic, Mapmaker?”
Mapmaker has not.
The wizard smiles. It does nothing to put Mapmaker at ease. “Sympathetic magic is one of the oldest forms, but quite powerful. Observe.” He take a little object, about an inch tall, out of his pocket and sets it on the railing. The doll made of wax and brass. A bundle of brown hair sticks out of the top. It reminds Mapmaker of a candle. The Necromancer picks it back up and without effort snaps it two. One of the guards blocking the stair collapses without making a sound. Mapmaker feels sick to his stomach. The Necromancer’s smile widens.
“If you wish to control a man, or learn his secrets, or kill him, there is a simple method.” The Necromancer recites as though they stand in a classroom. “Make a figure of him, fill it with his blood, or his hair, or the clippings of his nails. “Say his secret name, and he is yours, to do with as you wish.” The mapmaker trembles. He thinks of how much hair he has lost, how long his nails have grown, how often they whipped him until he bled. The Necromancer could have made quite a large doll of him, by now. Mapmaker finds his courage. He is a servant of the Kingdom, and he swears he will die before he gives up. He looks the Necromancer in his colorless eyes.
“Why are you telling me this? Are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you? Why, you are my best and most trusty servant! Look below you!” The Necromancer gestures out over the railing to the ground below. The old man turns and sees what the servants are doing. A new nadir of fear and horror strikes at him, filling his belly with ice. He understands immediately what they are making.
At this height, the circle takes on meaning. The red, black, and gray stones resolve into mountains. The green and brown become forests and fields. The blue stones become lakes and rivers. And set among them are the papers. From their locations he knows what them must be. He has been making them all of his life.
“Lovely, isn’t it? Your greatest work. We milled the paper from the trees of your forests. We made the ink from plants and stones we gathered here. We hewed the very earth of your little country to remake mountains. If you want power over a man, build his likeness in a doll. Bind it to him with his hair and blood. If you want power over a country, draw a map. The principle is the same.” Mapmaker stares in horror. He cannot look away.
“I never mapped a military target. Never once since you captured me.”
“Commendable. But you drew these instead. And they will serve me just as well.” The Necromancer spreads one hand out over the map. The candlelight catches on gold rings.
“What are you going to do?” Mapmaker whispers.
Below him is the most detailed and beautiful map he has ever seen, and it terrifies him. The Necromancer doesn’t answer.
A ball of poisonous green flame appears in The Necromancer’s hand. He holds it out over the pit for a moment, then lets it drop. It falls for a long time.
Podcast-WotB: The Ungreat Escape
August 29, 2017
Podcast, Uncategorized audio fiction, Fiction, Podcast, Renee Chambliss, Siobhan Gallagher, The Way of the Buffalo, wotb Leave a comment
The Way of the Buffalo is proud to present “The Ungreat Escape” by Siobhan Gallagher!
Click HERE to listen online!
Visit the author’s website HERE!
Today’s story was narrated by Renee Chambliss!
Hugh Likes Fiction: Rencor
August 2, 2017
Hugh Likes Fiction, Review Fiction, HLF, Hugh Likes Fiction, Matt Wallace, review, Sports, Wresting Leave a comment
Rencor: Life in Grudge City
Written by Matt Wallace
Published by From Parts Unknown Publications
“Rencor: Life in Grudge City” is the Luchador Superhero Detective novella you didn’t know you needed in your life. The eponymous setting is a U.S/Mexico border town founded in the 1950’s as a sort of hometown for luchadores. But like all things, time moves on.
Ten years ago, Technico El Victor III and Rudo Mil Calavaras III fought their last, epic match in the ring at Coleseo Rencor. The climactic battle saw the defeated Calavaras banished from Rencor, a place where the rules of the ring and the rule of are one and the same, forever. It was the beginning of the end for Luchadores in Rencor.
Now, El Victor is scraping by in a world that doesn’t hold the enmascardos in the same esteem anymore, and Mil Calavaras works as a ‘reformed’ consultant to the FBI, successful but denied his home and revenge. But an unusual break-in at Museo Rencor will bring El Victor back to hero work, and Mil Calaveras back to his hometown. Will the former rivals solve the case, or kill each other first?
Rencor: Life in Grudge City is another fast-paced, inventive, and supremely entertaining novella from Matt Wallace. Steeped in the unique lore of the lucha libre and populated by his usual eccentric and elegantly sketched characters, the book draws in the reader and gives them everything they need, even if they’ve never heard of the likes of El Santo before. Wallace’s deep knowledge and abiding love of old-school wresting shines through in every page, and the work is elevated by it. His embrace of the super-heroic and mystical bits, in a graying world that is leaving such things behind makes for a not only entertaining read, but a moving one.
While Wallace’s action scenes are outstanding and for the most part easy to follow, I think a glossary for some of the more technical moves and terms would have been helpful. I was never really lost, but Wallace throws out a lot of wrestling terminology throughout the book. That’s honestly the only criticism I can say, although I will add that the novella ends on a hell of a cliffhanger. Hopefully Matt will return to Rencor soon.
Rencor: Life in Grudge City is available in print and ebook. You can buy it via Amazon, or order it from you local bookstore.
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 