Tag: Free Fantasy

High Fantasy Serial Fiction

Malodorous Charms — Echoes & Orisons Part Two

Threehill was, as Harkital said, a quaint fart of a town.  They passed fields of grain that took up hundreds of acres, then homesteads and gardens of unimpressive design. Off in the distance, there stood the belltower of the Temple of the Heart—not quite grand, not quite proud, stretching just above the eastern quarter of the approaching settlement. Harkital noted that most Biluranian towns were built around temples of that clumsy faith, “like piss pooling ‘round a giggling baby.”  Strange wooden signs rose on either side of the road as they approached, displaying an odd collection of carved symbols: a…

Serial Fiction Steampunk

A Spider for Aemilia — Part Two

A wet snapping of branches from behind interrupted them as a beast thrashed about in the swamp. Balthasar spun, half-expecting to see the hippoguarox, head lowered and charging. Instead, Aemilia emerged from the dense trees on the other side of the fen. Her sweaty horse splashed through the mud and the shallow water, struggling to keep its feet.   How reckless, Balthasar thought. One wrong step and the horse will break a leg, throwing her into the muck. Miraculously, Aemilia crossed the fen without harming herself or her mount and drew up panting beside them.   “What are you doing here?” Balthasar…

High Fantasy Serial Fiction

Transmutory Declensions — Echoes & Orisons Part One

When the sexton returned from digging the poor man’s grave, moonlight carved a thin sickle of white through the shed’s window. In the pale light, the corpse’s fingernails still looked wrong: grey-black and dry, almost earthy, splitting with web-thin fractures that exposed the dead flesh beneath.  With uneasy huffs and muttered curses, the sexton set his shovel aside, wiped his hands at the basin, then brought a candle to the table and lifted the corpse’s hand up to the flame’s spectral glow.  He gingerly pried at a hairline crack on the corpse’s right index finger, watching as the material crumbled…

High Fantasy Serial Index

Echoes & Orisons

In a land of secret histories and deadly stones, prayers are the least of an archivist’s worries. On the continent of Felagren, history itself is a well-kept secret. It is in Felagren’s northern reaches that Ollis, a young member of the mysterious Waithen Order, must investigate a deadly Artifact. It’ll be his first step toward becoming an archivist—unless the object kills him, of course. Desperate for approval and unprepared for the trials awaiting him, Ollis travels from his scholarly home in the Waithen State to the small town of Threehill, where a band of other archivists, haunted mentors, mysterious strangers,…

Historic Fantasy Short Fiction

Witches

Sylvia drew a square on a piece of parchment.  She and Lisl gazed at it by the light of the room’s one lit candle.  In a way, Lisl thought it was silly, but she wanted desperately to become a witch.  Fourteen was too old to start over.  If she failed she would have to go back to her foster family, and be a servant all her life. Her gaze grew intense.  You will see the shape change, Sylvia had said.  When it changes, tell me what you see.  She had called this a test for mind reading, though what changing…

Serial Fiction Steampunk

A Spider for Aemilia — Part One

A tale in the world system of Steam & Stars. For more airships and dragons, check out Moore’s award-winning novel, Children of Solo! The dirigible cast a chill shadow across the coffee field as it passed between the distant sun and the fecund plants. Balthasar looked up from his notebook. Squinting into the glare created by the backlit balloon, he recognized the winged, blue hammer of House Bronzewater. His cousin’s betrothed had arrived. Balthasar’s stomach rumbled. Tonight, his relatives would host an exorbitant feast in honor of the impending nuptials.   All summer, his graduate student stipend had afforded him only…

Dark Fantasy Serial Fiction

SOIL — Part Five

FIVE Sweet Child of Summer, I mourn for your skin Your cold fingers and Chillblained toes. Mother of the Autmn, When you fell in love You tumbled with the earth And snared its acrid bounty. Hellish Bastard of Winter, Blanch before your betters And return to us our warmth Which you’ve forever stolen. Hard Father of Spring, You stood tall as an oak Sentinel before our home Your leaves soaking up all our woes. Ithica (b. 413). Journaled Year 433. I It is a good night to hunt.  He bounded across the dusky trails round the pathetic Village in the…

Editor's Pick Mythic Fantasy Short Fiction

A Clash of Wind and Lightning

Throughout its history, mountains in this region were more for the hardy and less for the fashionable. Spirits claimed the high places, and durable men and women claimed the places in between. Settlers of the upper valleys eked out a living and raised their families in splendid and harsh isolation, vaguely but persistently aware of the forces above. Few there were who ventured up the steeps though it was known that the highland meadows were good for grazing. Every so often, however, the high fever seized upon a restless, earthbound soul, and up past the crags he would go to…

Dark Fantasy Serial Fiction

SOIL — Part Four

FOUR The bairns speak trilling voices in the night, harsh echoes dancing, afright of the hoary and weighty squalor of unending sleep. Messages delivered nigh, grasped in sharp talons of ravens, crows, pigeons; whether the cock-crows or refuses to show. May our dreams stay safe; for our sleeps are fraught and the days, so dark, as the sun burrows deep, quaffs the Devil’s draught, As if the accursed swill were as naught but cool, clear water, a gentle man’s drink, atop the Great Mothers’ hill. Ithica (b. 413). Journaled year 442. I After living in the temperate embrace of the…

Dark Fantasy Short Fiction

The Talekeeper

The weight of old words, pages unread. I carried it with me in those days. Close to my breast I clutched it under my cloak as if holding myself together. I was filthy-faced and rough-bearded, seldom speaking to another living soul. Carriages steered in wide arcs around me on the road; lanterns dimmed in windowsills when I passed. If I came across a group of children they would scatter upon seeing me. When I left a town, tales sometimes spread of a witch’s thrall shambling by night or a bogeyman carrying a sack of bone and gristle on his back.…