The Storm-God's Lover

After she had cleaned up the floodwaters and chivvied the snarling clouds back into their pen, she returned to the bower, where her lover sat, hangdog and fuming.

“I didn’t mean to ruin it,” he said, before she could speak.  “I wanted to make a beautiful storm for you.”

“I didn’t ask,” she answered.  “But tell me, since you bring it up: why?”

“Because I’m not divine.  I’m just a man.  I wanted to do something.  To be something.  Why would you love me otherwise?

“Silly,” she said, wrapping her arms around him.  “You are special because you are mine.”

Clickjack

He finished the e-mail and paused to reread.  He was disconcerted to see, instead of a polite request to be removed from the course, nothing but “FEAR IS WHAT THE PREY CAN CATCH FEAR IS WHAT THE PREY CAN CATCH FEAR IS WHAT”

He hit control-A and delete almost instinctively.  The page was blank, and he was suddenly unsure what he’d seen.  Control-Z.  Nothing.  He pressed a button experimentally.  “B” floated peacefully on the screen, as expected, black on white.  He started retyping the e-mail.

The letters appeared one by one, not at all matching his busy keystrokes:

“E-H-I-N-D Y-O-U”

Aftereffects

It was the one hundred and fortieth day in the bunker, and the sixtieth straight day of rain.  Today, the head-height clouds were charged with electricity, and your hair stood up on end if you walked through them.  Gigi had a red mark on her cheek where a wee lightning bolt had earthed itself.  The tiny droplets pattered down, already half an inch deep.

As a miniature waterspout formed over Kathleen’s bowl of cereal, sucking up Cap’n Crunch pieces with its tiny, terrifying windspeeds, Kathleen shrugged.  “If it’s this bad in here, just imagine what it would be like outside.”

Already Here

We didn’t find out about the invasion for a while.  They said on the news the aliens looked like us and talked like us and were generally exactly like us except they came from space and we didn’t.  They came down and lived among us, infiltrating every country, every institution, every life.  But there was a test, they said on the news.  And they started bringing people in, one by one.

The news has gone quiet since the tests finished.  Every last one of us tested, and now we know who the aliens are.  They’ll make the announcement any minute.

Stonebones at BCS

Stonebones is currently available at Beneath Ceaseless Skies for Science Fantasy Month!  Hooray for dead dragons and guns that don't work!

One for Everyone

The bowl was full of Death, individually wrapped.  The skeleton sat on the porch with the bowl between its knees.  A sign taped to its ribcage read, “One per person.  No exceptions!”  The huddle of plastic be-masked elementary schoolers huddled at the end of the sidewalk, unwilling to move forward.

“No one wants to go?” said Mike, who had been unhappily drafted into trick-or-treating duty.  “Well, then let’s get to the next house.  C’mon, chop chop.”

There was a cough from behind them.  “The sign,” said a hollow voice, “is clear.  One for everyone.”

And that’s the way it was.

"Silver and Copper, Iron and Ash" at Pseudopod

My contribution to the Coins of Chaos anthology, "Silver and Copper, Iron and Ash," is now a lovely podcast from the lovely crew at Pseudopod.  As ever, I hope you all enjoy it.

"Sticks and Stones" is at Crossed Genres!

I have a real fondness for this story, just because I personally love the high concept of it.  (Well, I mean, obviously I like the ideas in my stories or I wouldn't have written about them, but I particularly like this one.)  It's an older tale and is definitely on the highest number of "almost but not quite" responses I've gotten for any story.  (I haven't crunched the numbers, but I know it's up there, if not actual top dog.)  I'm not going to talk more about it so as to avoid thpoilerth.  ;-)

The link is here.  Go and enjoy, please! 

Burt Never Returned the Leaf-Blower He'd Borrowed Last Fall

- Morning, Burt.

Morning, Dave.

- You know your cat, Burt?

My cat's name isn't Burt, Dave.

- 'Course not, Burt.  But he is your cat.

Sure.

- You know how you said yesterday that his tongue was like sandpaper?

Did I say that?

- I believe you did, Burt.

Well, and it's true, now I come to think of it.

- It might well be, but as it happens, your cat was behind you at the time.  I could see him because I was standing facing you, like I am now.  He seemed... interested.

Interested how, Dave?

- Well, to be blunt, Burt, my belt sander is missing.

Changing the topic, Dave?

- Not at all, Burt.  And it seems someone was trying some amateur carpentry in your backyard.  Looked like a rough ladder to the bird feeder.  Or half of one.  Not coincidentally, your cat is behind you again today.  I'm sure you can hear the belt sander warming up.

The cat's belt sander?

- My belt sander, Burt.  Let's be clear.  To return to the topic: your cat.

What about him?

- He looks angry, Burt.  Mighty angry.  You might want to skedaddle.

I don't follow, Dave.

- I'm saying, Burt, that he looks about as angry as a cat with splinters in his tongue.

"Enginesong" Podcast on BCS

Enginesong is officially in the Beneath Ceaseless Skies podcast.  They do very solid work there; go check it out! 

What You Make of It

"I do not understand aesthetic concerns about disfigurement," said Hawkins, sawing diligently.  Flecks of red spattered his chin.  "By definition, scars are something imposed upon you, something you had no control over.  Why be ashamed of them?"

"Yet is it not so," the demon answered from its perch on the Tivo box, "that one's will exerts influence upon the universe, and so anything you receive is your responsibility in the end, regardless of its source?"

"That's true."  Hawkins set down the saw and leaned forward.  His new knees bent the wrong way.  He dropped to all fours, smiling.  "That's very true."

Fame and Fortune

"Just one picture, Mr. Woodson!"

Bobby ignored the paparazzi and pulled his ratty blue bathrobe closed.  His mismatched slippers flapped on the sidewalk.  Flashbulbs went off with a machine-gun chatter.  Bobby opened his mailbox and dumped the fan letters onto the pile of overflow.  He retrieved his Lego collector's catalog and turned back to the house.

"Mr. Woodson!  Please!"  The cries were growing frantic as they began to realize he wouldn't speak today.  Bobby slammed the door behind him.

The genie was hovering over the kitchen table with a smug expression.  Bobby narrowed his eyes.  "Don't even start," he warned.

Skin

They pass the dead forward.  He slathers mortar down and adds them to the wall.

He doesn't mind the work.  He knows it is necessary.  Dimly, through the cracks, he can see another walled city scudding on the cold winds.  But today it does not draw near to smash and crash, breaking the dead of both away to oblivion.  Such things happen, too regularly to be only chance.

There are always more of the dead.  Sometimes the wind blows hard or fester-demons come to pound on the shell and the walls grow thin.  Other times he must push the wall out himself and listen to the dead outside fall away, their sacrifice wasted.

Somewhere far away, somewhere so distant that it might as well be a different country, his cousins and fellow citizens work to keep the city alive, work to build the ships that will carry the exploratory teams outward, perhaps to found new cities where they land.

He smears another layer of mortar.  His joints creak.  Soon he will climb up and sink into the mortar, join his wall and protect the city himself.  But not today.

Today, they pass the dead forward, and he adds them to the wall.

Epic Eats, Where Every Meal is an Adventure

Welcome to Epic Eats!  Today's special is glazed salmon, and I particularly recommend the chicken cordon-bleu..."

Well, yes, that part of the menu is... unique to Epic Eats.  But the chicken is excellent today, I assure you.  It's the chef's specialty-

All right.  One dragon's-egg omelet.  I'll just go... put the order in.

*      *       *

Here... we are... Sorry... for the delay.

No, no, I'll... put those out... on my way back to the kitchen. 

Oh, I'll be... fine.  Don't worry... about me.

*      *     *

Welcome to Epic Eats!  Can I interest you in the chick-  You already know what you want?  Ah.  M...manticore stew? 

Yes, ma'am.  Right away...

Whatever it Takes

He kept an eye on the speedometer, but it was holding steady at 100 kph.  It didn't take much to keep up speed out here, anyway, but the air conditioner had to run full blast, and that was sure to impact his mileage.  he had protein bars and bottled water filling the backseat, and a spare gas can.

Outside the windows, the stars were coming more clearly into view as the overwhelming glow of Earth slowly faded behind him.  Let them have it.  he was done with all of it.  He was on his way.

Six months to the moon.

"Enginesong" at BCS and a belated "The Alchemist's Children" at Cast of Wonders

Enginesong is available for viewing at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  Remember: Trains ain't got legs.

And if you need something a little more light-hearted after that, The Alchemist's Children is available at Cast of Wonders.  Featuring common-sense solutions for common problems such as werewolfism and draconic tendencies.  D3STROY ALL HUM4NS!

Ambush

He stayed late at the bar, as was his habit.  He generally took the same route home every night – or more properly early morning, when he could be bothered to remember to make it so. 

These things had all been noted.

They were waiting for him down the darkest of the alleys.  No one could have said how long they’d been there, but they’d come prepared.  Handheld video games.  Internet connections.  Long, heavy novels.  Streaming television.  Decks of cards.  Even a set of jacks and a rubber ball.  It was over before anyone knew it.

They’d come to kill Time.

No More, and No Less

 The goblet glowed like the fires of creation, lighting the hero’s face and giving it the cast of a man grown instead of a boy pressed into service too young.

“Speak, Arnol!” commanded the great mage Battresin.  “After all our travails, now is the moment!  Your words will reshape the world and drive the Shadow back to perdition, perhaps forever!”

“I just… I don’t want anymore unfairness,” Arnol quavered.  “Everyone should get only what they deserve.”

The lights went out.  Battresin sighed.  “You weren’t to know, I suppose,” he said, as the first of the shadows rose up behind him.

And the Answer Like a Stone Upon His Heart

The demon had an extensive collection of highly detailed statuary, mostly fine marble, accented with precious stones and gold.  “This woman wished to be young and beautiful forever,” he said, chuckling.  “This youth asked never to know the touch of want or hunger again.  Ah, and the prince over there requested that he never make a wrong or foolish choice again.”

“You seem to be suggesting that humans are always better off dead, or at least in oblivion,” I protested.

The demon waited, watching me with dark eyes.

My gaze fell.  “I have come to make a wish,” I said.

To See What He Could See

On the first day of the new year, we always liked to visit the Stairs and listen to the souls of the damned. 

“Better off without it.”

“Oh, yes.  Just weighing us down.”

“I felt so much better afterward.”

“Joyful, that’s what it was.”

“So freeing.”

I tapped one of them on the shoulder (or what was left of it).  “Why are you going down?” I asked.

He looked at his feet (or what was left of them).  He looked at the ceiling.  He looked down into the wailing darkness below and ahead of him.

“Well, obviously I’ve been up.”