"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.”

Knocker

It was cold outside.  Snow coming down hard.  Not much warmer inside.  Television flickered.  He was in the armchair, awake.  Last can in the six-pack.

There was a knock at the door.  He paused.  Hauled himself up.  Staggered over.  Opened it.

Nobody there.  Snow swirling around his slippers.  Colder than it should have been.  Somehow sad.

He went back inside.  Slumped down in the blue-green radiation of the television screen.  Why would anyone visit him?  Empty house, full of ghosts.

Outside in the dark, slowly at first, a patch of snow began to swirl against the wind.  Dancing.  Leaving.

At last.

---

Part of the Advent Ghosts annual microfiction event.

Dominos

There was a knock at the door.  “The circle is divided,” the man in the crimson hat said dolorously.  “It waits only to be devoured.” 

“Time is but an illusion of the flesh,” came the response.  “Who can say whether it has been a day or ten thousand days since the world began?”

“Though the wind is chill, warmth remains for a time.”

There was a rustle of paper.  “A sufficiency meets what is needful.  All beyond is but waste and vanity.”

“One compelled to serve can never make a truly free choice.”

The door closed.

“Cheapskate,” muttered the deliveryman.

Expert Consultant

“Invasive species,” said Bloughton.  “Like… well, I’m sure you know.  They get brought in, some by accident, some on purpose, God save us from well-meaning idiots.  They start breeding and nothing can stop them.  No experience, aye?  No natural defenses.”

“Right,” Felton nodded.  “And once the population hits a certain level, you get a boom.  The damn toads push everything else out, eat all the resources, make more toads, and move on.  Bloody exponential growth.  And then we thought, hey, why not ask someone who’s had experience with that sort of thing?”

Dracula frowned thoughtfully.  “Haff you tried biting them?”

Seeming and Kind

Three others were already inside when he finally wriggled through the broken window.  He saw them huddled around the dark fireplace.

“Sorry,” he grunted.  “Didn’t know this squat was taken.”

“No, come on in,” said one, a woman whose hair might once have been blond.  “Warm yourself up.”One of the men held out an empty hand.  “Have a sandwich.  We’ve got plenty.”

He approached cautiously.  “There’s no fire, though.  No food.  It’s just empty and cold.  There’s nothing here.”

“That’s okay-eay,” the woman said, her voice skipping and slurring as her image fuzzed into static.  “Kind of appropriate, really…”

The Shape of the Future

Ellory waved a hand as they entered the dome.  Above them, a vertical sea of white rectangles shifted and turned in odd patterns, as if blown by intangible winds.  “Fifty thousand decks of Tarot cards, charged and polarized, coated with our proprietary polymer,” she said.  “The cards are sensitized to the shape of the future, and by watching the patterns approach, we can offer not only the most accurate but the most distant foretellings on the market.  As you can see-“

The gasps of the tour group made her pause.  Overhead, row by row, the cards were turning face down.

A Tragedy in Three Acts

The phone rings seven times.  The woman stares at it.  She picks up the handset.  She puts it down.  The phone rings again.

The phone rings and rings.  The old man comes in from the left-hand side.  He shuffles in slippers.  The phone begins to creep away.  He will never catch it.  He is too slow.

The phone does not ring.  He has stopped at the last number.  The line clicks and goes dead.

The phone rings.  The house is a ruin.  Dust coats everything.  There is no handset.  There is no cord.  The phone rings anyway.  It cannot stop.