Cut Uncommon Time

Veysim leaned backwards off the top bunk. With an undignified wriggle, he maneuvered his upper body to hang upside down, with his feet lodged under the opposite edge of the frame. A deep breath, to get it through to his pounding heart that he wasn’t going to fall, and then, slowly, he eased the paper-wrapped …

Tally V: THERE BUT FOR THE SILENT MAJORITY

Previous Kipper was thrown aside, pushed more than simply released, and any objection to that fact left him as he crashed against a bench, staining it. He cracked his head against its leg as he slumped to the floor, failing to catch himself with his bottom, badly wounded arm. When he reached up to the …

Tally IV: DEAD RECKONING

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Tally III: THE HERESIARCH

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Tally II: THE REVANCHIST

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Tally I: PRIME

The room’s atmosphere was unseasonably hot, and silence reigned over the assembly of officers and their hangers-on. Anyone who entered during that brief interval, unaccustomed to the disposition of the brass and without the context of the presentation, would have assumed the mood was funereal. No one would enter, of course, without those prerequisites and …

The Landrace Rabbit

Across the continent, or, perhaps, across the world (each time Havel had been told the story, it had changed) there had been founded an academy of mages greater than any other. — I won’t repeat the story, Havel said. He aimed a look, then, at first the man and then the woman, sitting at the …

The Times Medieval

The handcart rolled through the outlying streets of the butcher’s district, the wheels grinding and bouncing on the beaten cobbles, pushed by a small, sodden man who relied as much on gravity as strength to propel it forward. One hand, jittering with the tremors of the cart’s bounces and a youth spent beset by disease, …

Sunbathing Somewhere Semantically Identical to Mexico

Let it be resolved that we, the undersigned (Oleg 1, 2, and 3) agree to the following: The Oleg Council will prioritize safety.The Oleg Council will operate by the spirit of the rules, and will refer to exact wording only if a dispute arises and no majority can be found.No disputes will intentionally be created …

Of Salt and Silt

The tube connecting Dan to the surface is thousands of feet long. Every morning, as he climbs down the ladder, the winch spooling out his lifeline through the muck, he frets at its length.  Every evening, ascending, his limbs weary, he curses the stops he must take at prescribed points along the ladder. He is …