“My Lady,” said the Duke of Baria, his silver fork speared with venison poised in the air before his mouth, “I am informed that you attended the Aldermen’s Ball last week without me.” The Duchess did not look up from… Continue Reading
The sand felt warm, the way it usually was on Saturday afternoons in Seaside Heights; face down on the beach under a hot July sun that burned my back and shoulders while Jenny was getting cheese fries and Cokes from… Continue Reading
When Prince Mynes of Lyrnessus came seeking Briseis’s hand, he brought many gifts for her father: jars of oil and sweet perfumes that burned Briseis’s nose and made her sneeze; swaths of shining cloth, and, of course, caskets of jewels… Continue Reading
He filled his seat at the table as though poured into it. Sprawled out in front of him was a book of crosswords. At 8:45 every morning he sat at his place and pondered over a crossword while the coffee… Continue Reading
“The helplessness I felt when the bombs exploded, and mustard gas crept like ground fog into our trenches is hard to describe,” my Great-Uncle Leo said as we painted his barn red. After I dropped out of college, I became… Continue Reading
Every household has at least one bag of bones they try to hide under a pile of winter clothes. On the other hand, my family is so pleased with our fleshless corpse that we proudly display the skull, femur, and… Continue Reading
From a distance the statue looks like a giant marine in full tac-armour, helmet on and faceplate engaged so you can’t tell gender. There’s a rifle, looks like a Xenon Mark Two, propped against one knee and they’re sat with… Continue Reading
General Rasa tilted the battlefield 36 degrees. This made the violet particles representing her army appear liquid, pouring across the holographic basalt to clash with the enemy units pooled below. Victory as subject to gravity, like a shell spine falling… Continue Reading
The front moved every night and with it moved the war. Shimmering and impenetrable, the front advanced and receded at eleven o’clock, sharp. Without care and concern it crossed birch forest and rivers alike, and split homes where it stopped.… Continue Reading
We held our breaths as we stood in the field. A moment of agonizing silence, and then: The explosion ripped through slate skies. The Marh’uil megalith shuddered. Above, its master engine, the Chromatic Eye, teetered. The grey and grim world… Continue Reading