Romeo had taken his place on stage, although he manifestly didn’t want to be there. He was a senior named Dale who was a school team running back and therefore believed popular; he had only taken theater to add some elective credits. The girl who had been playing Juliet had come down with mono at the last minute and so her understudy had been swapped in, and he didn’t much care for the understudy at all. thought Juliet was okay in the looks department, but she didn’t seem to like him much, and she kept staring down at the floor. Also, she had issues with projection; when she’d practiced her lines, she’d barely managed whisper-level. When Ms. Ryan had told her she’d have to go on opening night as Juliet she nearly fainted.

“But-” she said.

“The show must go on!” said Ms. Ryan dramatically. “You can do it, Donna!”

“Diane,” she’d said, but Ms. Ryan hadn’t heard her.

Now here they were, Act 1, Scene 5. The balcony scene wasn’t until the next act, but in the haste of the moment they hadn’t had a chance to rehearse this part with Diane, who hadn’t quite registered it herself. She got through the first four scenes without much trouble, but then the fifth scene came. She found herself saying the lines and realizing, in growing horror, what precisely would be required.

She coughed, losing the last word. Dale smirked. His next few lines had a tinge of mockery, while she barely got her lines out at all. Her face flushed through varying shades of red. This wasn’t happening. This absolute moron who hadn’t really understood the point of anything he’d studied throughout this semester in theater class at all was not about to-

“Then move not,” Dale said, smirking again, “While my prayer’s effect I take.”

“Ah, no,” she said, “Actually some saints do move after all and if it’s all right I think I’m going to wait over here thank you.”

“Hey,” he said, “That’s not in the-”

“Verily,” she said, suddenly inspired, “Know I truly that not in the book it is, but on taking thought again I find my mind hath changed, and besides, if this were true from my kin would I e’er be …” she paused, searching for a rhyme, “Estranged!”

Diane bowed, triumphantly, and walked out. Dale stood alone on stage, feeling more than a bit silly. Not having quite the gift for improvisation that Juliet had, he managed a strangled sort of “Uh…”.

Ms. Ryan made a snap decision to call the show early and ring down the curtain. There was a burst of surprised applause from the audience, who appreciated the variety. The town’s newspaper theater critic, who happened to be in the audience, wrote a review which was kinder than he’d initially planned, finding that Juliet’s flight from the stage represented a whole host of things Juliet herself hadn’t even thought of. As for Diane herself, she was primarily relieved the whole thing was over and done with. Although, she had to admit, that sudden burst of inspiration at the end had been fun.

Perhaps, she thought, she would take theater next year too.

This story was written for the Flash Fiction Friday prompt by :

Gibberish

FFF - Theater

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6 days ago · 3 likes · Scoot

Famine stalked the land, and to be honest, she was getting bored with it. Oh, sure, she had the usual pleasures inherent in her work: the starving children, the bread lines, the fights over scraps in back alleys and whatnot, but they weren’t anything she hadn’t seen before. The economic troubles that had brought this country to its knees and had let her step in to do her worst weren’t nearly as exciting as a war or a plague, something where she could really sink her teeth in and drain the land dry. As she looked back on it, come to think, this wouldn’t even rank as one of her top five events. Death himself had shown up at her last big do, and he didn’t always put in a personal appearance these days. He wasn’t around now, for instance.

The thought of a plague gave her an idea. “That’s what I need!” she said to herself as she passed by a corn field that had previously escaped her notice. “Pestilence!” So pleased was she by this idea that she only smote most of the corn field, leaving behind a few meager stalks for any survivors. Besides, she thought, allowing the humans a little hope before the end was more fun anyway.

It took her longer than she would’ve liked to hunt up Pestilence; Conquest sulkily refused to say where the former rider was, and War wouldn’t return her calls, saying he was too busy to be bothered. Finally, she discovered her old friend lingering in a distant swamp, poking at a bit of fruit in a tree. “Oh,” she said, casual as if she were greeting a neighbor on the street, “Starting up something new, are we?”

“Maybe,” Pestilence said, eyeing her warily. “Why are we asking?”

“Could be we’ve got something going something ourselves,” Famine said, hands in her pockets, looking at the sky. “Could be it’s all right, but could be it needs a little …something.”

“I see,” Pestilence said, in a voice just above a hiss. “We’ve been looking into some new things, you know. Interesting things. The animal kingdom is so rich with possibilities, you know.”

“Going back to birds, again?”

“Bats,” Pestilence said in a cold breath of delight.

“Kinky,” Famine said, and she smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “We’re in.”

She didn’t see Pestilence for weeks after that, however. Finally she grew impatient and called upon one of her most reliable deputies, a raspy little toad named Drought. “Go and look up Pestilence, will you?” she commanded. “I’ve got a whole show here and I can’t go on without my co-star.”

“Er,” Drought said, coughing. “Er, actually, on that subject, ma’am, we just got in a report. Seems, er, Pestilence’s gone and thrown in with War, ma’am. Something with biologicals now. Intelligence is sketchy but-”

Famine swore violently. “So they want to play games, do they? Cut in on my act? Well, we’ll show them. They want to play, so can we. Drought?”

“Ma’am?” the deputy said, saluting.

“Forget Pestilence. I’ve got a new idea for a co-star. An understudy, if you will. And I mean under.”

Drought blinked his watery eyes. “Ma’am?”

Famine smiled. “You’ll see. They’ll all see.”

A week later, War stood looking over yet another battlefield, almost happy with himself. “Nice work,” he thought. “Very nice work.” The problem with fights these days was you couldn’t really get a proper field of battle anymore: everything was all done by remote control. Sure, from War’s point of view planes and drones and missiles still counted, but where was the glory? The honor? The real point of the thing?

This, now, this was glorious. Working together with Pestilence he’d devised a biological weapon that had wiped out an entire town. The nation to whom the town belonged had, of course, retaliated, sending in their special forces to destroy the weapon, which was guarded by the enemy country’s own special troops. Thus, a battlefield in miniature had resulted, a special-ops attack on a highly protected target. Either way it went, War was happy, and Pestilence was happy, and -why was his damn phone ringing?

He answered it with a snarl. “War here.” In the background, a team of operatives zipped in on small boats and stormed up a small beach towards the compound protecting the weapons storage facility.

“War, darling,” Famine said. “I hear you’ve borrowed someone I know.”

He smirked. “Yeah. Suppose I did. What’re you gonna do about it?”

“Oh, I’ve already done it.”

War’s stomach tightened. “Done what?”

Screams erupted from the beach. War looked up. What he saw nearly made him drop the phone. A massive Thing rose from the waters, a great towering mass of tentacles and slavering jaws and teeth, all wrong angles and eyes and wildly out of proportion and much much too big for anyone to comprehend as it loomed above the pitifully outsized soldiers who wailed for mercy they would not receive.

“Cthulhu. You brought Cthulhu. How dare you.”

Famine, miles away, smiled. “Why not? We’re both so good at parties.”

“I won’t let this stand,” War’s voice growled through the phone.

Famine rolled her eyes. “Oh, darling. What’re you going to do against Him? Go nuclear?”

Click. She turned to Drought in mild surprise. “He hung up. Very rude.”

“Indeed, ma’am,” Drought agreed.

A sudden unease gnawed at her. “You don’t suppose… he wouldn’t really….”

“Not if he’s got the same books we do,” Drought said. “He’s gotta know it wouldn’t work. At best he’d knock out its physical form for a bit and then it’d come back, and it’d be, what do they call it, radioactive, ma’am.”

“Mmm,” Famine tasted the word with no little delight. “Radioactive.” Then she shook it off and came back to the question. “Right. A follow-up. We let him loose. How do we get him back?”

“Er,” Drought said, spluttering.

Famine swore again, even more violently. “Death’s going to end up with all of this, isn’t he?”

Drought shrugged. “He usually does, ma’am. He usually does.”

Famine threw down the phone she was still holding and stormed away, determined that this time he wouldn’t. Damn it all, he wouldn’t, not her, not ever!

Of course, in the end, he did.

Everyone made the appropriate noises of awe and wonder, and a few of the smaller children squeaked in fear.

“Fortunately,” the guide went on, with no little satisfaction at the reaction he’d got, “the Battle of Vestan Seven did go the way it went, which is why we have what you’re about to see, and so, I give you, the last, the very last known in existence: a Human!”

Invisisteel panels cleared. Ray shields dropped. Lights opened up. A cry of “Oooooooh!” rose from the astonished crowd. It was one thing to read about the Humans in the textbooks, but to actually see one, standing there in a meticulously preserved field, slowly munching upon artificially recreated grass, well, that was something else again!

They fell silent for a moment, watching in a sort of fearful awe, as the Human continued to eat, its tail swishing gently. One member of the crowd raised their tentacle. “Sir? Can I ask a question?”

“Yes?” the guide said benevolently. “Are you from the school or-”

“No, I mean, I am a student, but I’m from the university, astroconflicts, anyway, I just wanted to know: it looks so peaceful, just standing there like that: how did it get to be so dangerous?”

The guide sniffed. Squidlings. They always thought they knew everything. “Well, that was the genius of the Human, you see, they pretended to be peaceful, first sending out a mission here, a probe there, and then they set upon the galaxy like ravening Xythorons, their great Dreadnoughts raining fire upon planet after planet, system after system…”

He shook his head sadly. “The entire record should be in your university library if you’d care to look.”

“Of course,” the squidling said.

Someone else asked if they could find the Human, and the guide explained yes, but only one at a time, and only with the provided feed. A line formed immediately. The Human moseyed over, making an interested sort of noise as it did.

The student squidling hung back, dawdling a bit, and by then most of the group had grown bored of the Human, which wasn’t raining fire or laying waste to systems or doing anything other than eating grass and staring at them with its big brown eyes. They drifted off to look at other exhibits, and the guide was busy answering other questions, and so no one was watching when the squidling student approached the enclosure’s feeding area.

The squidling student very carefully drew something out of her pocket and held it out for examination. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t free you and I couldn’t bring much. All I can manage is this. I’m sorry.”

The supposed Human mooed in a delight that came rare to it these days. It snuffled up the proffered apple so quickly it didn’t notice the tears in the student’s eyes, nor did it quite notice that the hand felt differently than it looked, cloaked by its micro-plasmic screen. The animal made a querulous noise, wanting more, but the student shook its head and moved away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Someday, we’ll be back. Someday.”

She knew it wouldn’t understand. It might not even remember what she’d done tomorrow. But she had done it, and hopefully, someday, she or maybe someone else could do more. With a sigh, she rejoined the tour group, listening as the guide once again extolled upon the evils of the last Human.

This story was inspired by ‘s Flash Fiction Friday:

Gibberish

FFF - Museum

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2 months ago · 5 likes · Scoot

Gibberish

FFF - Inherited

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2 months ago · 8 likes · Scoot

Nothing lasts forever. After a while, even such things as bouncy castles lose their thrill, particularly when one has known the golden spires of Asgard. Thrud, daughter of Thor, Strength of Valhalla, etc., had finally reached that point. “You!” she called to the press secretary turned Norse party planner. “Enough of this! I have business elsewhere on this world!”

“Where exactly, ma’am?” the press secretary said cautiously.

Thrud hesitated in her turn. “Where are your Dwarven kingdoms? I saw none when I came to this city, but this is a place of Men, so I expected none. I thought when I was in the air before I glimpsed a range of hills further west; would they be there?”

“Dwarves?” the man repeated. He hadn’t read the right books, unfortunately, so his first thought went to the movies, and even then he guessed wrong. “Like in Snow White?”

The look Thrud gave him made him want to scurry away as fast as he could go and hide under a rock. “I know not this nonsense of which you speak. I am in search of a particular Dwarf Lord, Alviss, the All-Wise, who I am pledged to marry. I see you do not know him: therefore, I shall go elsewhere!”

She raised Mlrning, the Shovel of Thor, towards the sky. Its blade shone with an eerie blue light. She almost smiled; she remembered the day she had first seen it glow, when her father had first presented it to her as a gift. “I used to clean the snows off the bridge with this,” he’d said. “Now it is yours.” She’d inherited the chores that came with it too, but she hadn’t minded. It was the steadiness of her Thunder-God father made real, and it had always helped, no matter how dark things were.

“‘Scuse me,” came a mild cough. Thrud turned. A man in disheveled tweed had run up beside the press secretary. “Well, they sent for me from the university, Norse expert and all, and, er, I think I might be able to help-”

“Do you know where Alviss is?” Thrud demanded, aiming the Shovel at him.

The man took a breath. “Yes, sort of. Well, it’s in a poem.” He gathered himself, closed his eyes, and began:

“Í einu brjósti

ek sák aldrigi

fleiri forna stafi;

miklum tálum

kveð ek tældan þik:

Uppi ertu, dvergr, of dagaðr,

nú skínn sól í sali.”

The words meant nothing to the press secretary. Thrud’s face went so pale he thought she might be sick. “But,” she managed, “That was… surely, by now-”

“That poem is believed to be some eight hundred years old, maybe more. There are no Dwarves now, anymore than there are Elves. And your dwarf, in particular, was turned into stone by, well, your father. According to that poem, anyway.”

“We’ve got some elves,” grumbled the press secretary, who had fond childhood memories of Christmas movies. Thrud wasn’t listening anymore. The Strength of Valhalla should not cry. So, Thrud decided, she would not cry. If it quite suddenly began to rain at that particular instance, well, who could account for the weather?

At last she swiped at her face, swore terrifically, and threw herself into the sky, the Shovel lifting her away into the clouds as it always had. For the first time Thrud could remember, and that was a very long time indeed, she had no idea where she was supposed to go.

And here’s Pete Billings with our top of the hour forecast! Pete, any break from this rain we’ve had all week?

Well, bad news, Dan, the low pressure area that’s been causing that is still sitting right over us so unfortunately we can expect at least a couple more days of…hang on… excuse me, Dan, we’re getting some new reports in… uh, actually, it looks like everything’s just cleared up. We now have clear skies throughout the metro area, Dan.

Huh. How about that. Guess there’s no accounting for good old Mother Nature, huh, Pete?

Guess not, Dan.

When she tried to walk into the city museum, naturally someone asked her for her ticket. “What?” she said. Partly she was genuinely confused; the language had changed much since she’d been here last. Partly, however, she was affronted by the question.

“I can’t let you in until I see your ticket,” the museum employee explained. He wasn’t really annoyed; whoever this was, they had mad cosplay skills. It’d been a minute since he’d looked up that particular character; there wasn’t much in the material to begin with, but they’d gotten everything perfect from what he could tell. He wondered what the occasion was. Was there a con in town?

“You deny me entry?” she said, her voice rising.

“It’s the rules, ma’am,” he said, noting with relief that a pair of nearby security guards had heard the disturbance and were nonchalantly heading over his way. “I can’t let anyone in without-”

All units, all units, proceed to Third and Graham Streets, Third and Graham, active hostile situation, multiple injuries reported, fatalities possible, proceed with caution, over.

All units, all units, be advised, air support is on the way, Chopper Two is en route, repeat Chopper is in area and en route, proceed with caution-

Dispatch, Chopper Two, they’re airborne! They’re in the sky! Oh my God they can fly they can-oh my God they’re coming in they’re breaking the-

She’d almost begun to be disappointed, until the flying machine arrived. Their fighters on the ground were slow as nursery babes. She’d knocked down the museum guards like so many pathetic dolls, and she was halfway to what she sought before she heard the telltale crack of their projectile weapons. There were more of them now, she’d observed, and they looked determined. Even then, though, she knocked them down and moved through them with almost casual contempt, until she took a breath and realized that she was now outside the museum again, and what she wanted was on the inside. She swore; she’d forgotten herself in the battle, even a paltry little fight such as this.

Then she saw the flying machine. Finally, she’d thought, a worthy foe. She’d know the mortals had such machines but they had all been large clunky things, like the great ships of old: this was small, this darted around the sky, this was-

Well, it had almost been a challenge.

Now, she had to go back inside and claim her prize. She strode past the groaning security guards and the whimpering tourists, paying them no heed. There it was, mounted on a display along with a few other artifacts, preserved in careful ignorance behind glass. They’d written something underneath it: she could just make it out, different though it was from the mortal tongues she knew.

Authentic Norse farming implements, ca. 793 A.D.

“Farming implements,” she said, tasting the low words. The gall. The arrogance. They had Mlrning, the Shovel of a Thousand Freezing Breezes, within their grasp, and they used it to farm? They ranked it as worthy of preservation as … as a mere plow?

Lightning split the sky. Thunder roared in its wake. She grasped hold of it and waved it over her head. She was not happy.

“General, be honest with me, you think you can take her?”

“Mr. President, sir, I don’t know. She’s in an urban area, highly populated, which rules out any kind of targeted missile strike, but short of that-”

“You must be kidding, general, a missile strike for one wacko in a Viking outfit?”

“Sir, that wacko not only took out half the city police force with her bare hands, she grounded a police chopper, and my intel’s telling me she may have a connection to the meteorological anomalies we’re seeing over there. The only reason I haven’t sent in a missile already is because the only one I think could do the job would also take out the whole downtown area.”

A short pause.

“General, launch it. Take her out.” The order was short, decisive, to the point. Blunt and unemotional. The general would’ve thought bloodless, except for the irony of it.

He protested, nonetheless. “Sir, there’s I don’t know how many thousand people down here-”

“Do it. That’s an order.” Click.

“Yes sir.”

Oh, she thought, as she emerged from the museum, the object of her search in hand, that was new. Some sort of firework, perhaps? She laughed; they really must be desperate if they’d resorted to throwing mere fireworks at her.

She raised Mlrning, the Shovel of Thor, over her head, swung it about, and hurled it at the oncoming firework. Its sharp edge connected with a loud thunk. The firework exploded in a sheet of flame.

“Well, now what?”

“Sir, I don’t know: the only escalation from here involves mass civilian casualties, and-”

“Sir, she’s in the area!”

“What?”

“Look!”

They rushed to the windows. There she was, hovering in midair, the Shovel raised high. “Hear me!” she said, so loudly that they couldn’t possibly not hear her. “I am Thrud, daughter of Thor, wielder of Mlrning, Strength of Valhalla! I have returned!”

“Who?” the president said, though not nearly so loudly which meant she didn’t hear him.

Most assumed she meant Thor like in the movies. Thrud hadn’t been in the movies though, so the reference went over their heads. A rapid debate ensued between the president and his close advisors over whether they should surrender or send in a special forces team. In the end they sent out the press secretary to offer greetings and organize a welcome party while they deliberated what to do next.

Thrud found that human party skills had improved rather a lot since the eighth century. “This bouncy castle pleases me!” she cried. “Oh, damn, I’ve punctured it. Another!”

“Certainly,” said the White House ad hoc Norse party planner wearily, wondering how this was going to go down in the budget. A Defense line item, perhaps?

Note: this story was written for Scoot’s Flash Fiction Friday, which, like Thrud, has returned!

Gibberish

FFF - You Must Be New Here

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2 months ago · 22 likes · 14 comments · Scoot

I spoke to the people in the morning. In the evening my wife died. -Ezekiel 24: 18

No one had talked to the prophet in days. No one knew quite what to say. He wasn’t acting at all according to tradition. The man had been a priest, after all, and yet there he was, not wearing proper mourning clothes, he hadn’t even so much as opened his door to allow friends and neighbors to bring food and comfort. He had just …gone about, entirely as normal, as if nothing in his life had changed.

“Well, I for one don’t understand it,” Lemuel said. Lemuel could always be counted on to volunteer an opinion. “A man loves his wife, she goes, and you don’t so much as shed a tear? It’s unnatural, you ask me.”

No one had, but no one ever did. Lemuel went on talking anyway. “I mean, I know, my own dear wife, bless her, if she went, especially sudden like that, I’d bawl my eyes out, that I would. And I’m sure I’d welcome any and all of you over to help me with the mournin’, am I right?”

“He means he’ll want feedin’ as I won’t be there to do it for him,” remarked his wife, rolling her eyes. There was a chorus of general laughter. The conversation moved on to other topics, including news from the homeland, which was as bad as ever.

“Looks like the capital’s going to go,” observed one of the other men in the crowd.

“Shouldn’t be too much longer,” his friend said. “Wouldn’t you like to be the first soldier past the doors, in there with all that gold?”

“I thought a lot of it was already gone? Sold off back when we got raided before?”

“Yeah,” the friend said, “But you know the priests held back the best stuff.”

“Mmm,” the first man said noncommittally. Then they hushed and moved on, as they could see Lemuel scanning the crowd, and they didn’t particularly want him barging in like a great ox in their conversation.

A few days later word came down the road that the capital had indeed fallen. The news caused a mild stir of interest in the town by the river. “Oh how sad,” was the general comment, often said with a distinct lack of actual mourning. It was as if a distant friend’s cousin’s daughter’s husband had lost a good cow to a fever. Bad news, these things happen, and I wonder if we’ll see any of the survivors coming this way? The majority opinion leaned towards not, which was probably for the best. The authorities were lenient towards them at present; a swath of new arrivals might disturb that precarious balance.

Closer to home, Lemuel and his friends, at the urging of his wife and her friends, finally got up a party to go and see the prophet. He was curious as much as sympathetic; you never know what to expect with him. One time he’d lain on his side for a whole year! Lemuel hadn’t understood that, himself.

The prophet sat staring out of a window as Lemuel and the others piled into his quiet home. It seemed much quieter than it had before; even Lemuel noticed. True, occasionally the prophet had gone mute; that was normal, but there were always noises, always someone else bustling about.

Now… now there was nothing. The house was empty, except for the prophet. And there he sat, staring, seemingly unbothered. Lemuel broke the silence. “What is it, man? Heavens above, why don’t you mourn?”

For the first time, the prophet turned to face him. His eyes blazed with a terrible anguish that would haunt Lemuel the rest of his days. “Why didn’t you?” he rasped. “The house of our God has fallen, and none of you thought to shed a tear?”

“But…” Lemuel stammered, taken aback by his own words flung in his face. “But, I-”

“As I do, you do,” Ezekiel said, words tight with fury. At whom, no one could say. “Thus says the Lord.”

He turned his back on them. Quietly, they went outside. Not even Lemuel had anything to say to that.

Notes: I can’t come close to imagining what the real Ezekiel felt all those millennia ago (heaven forfend I won’t have to for a very long time), but something about the starkness of this verse struck me and I thought I’d write it out. Lemuel is a character I added, because someone had to say it.

Hello readers, new and old! Welcome to my little corner of the ‘Stack, where you’ll find mad wholesome stories about slightly unusual characters of all kinds, from angels to superheroes to Little Red Riding Hood in a Sopwith Camel. Today brings a tale from the mysterious side of life; if you like what you’ve read, check out A Normal Edison City Morning, or Angels We Have Heard Tonight, and of course don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe!

Portrait of a group of business associates. They’re not really friends; they never were. Even so, they’ve worked together a long time. Just how long is impossible to say. They’ve gone by different names over the centuries, and used different methods of transportation. Two things never change, however. First is that there are always four: no more, no less. Second: the fourth always wears black. Tonight, we’ll follow our group of not-quite-friends as they ride into somewhere entirely unexpected, even for them. For tonight, they rendezvous in a place not found on any map or travel guide, a kind of place that can only come from the Midnight Vault…

Mina was the first to arrive at the bar. She ordered, as she usually did, a dry martini. “Sure thing, miss,” the bartender said, as he began making it. “New around here?”

She was in no mood for conversation. He coughed, and then coughed again. “Excuse me,” he said, and after placing the martini before her, he scurried away. She almost smiled. She’d learned a few tricks from Pete before she took his post.

Now he was gone and she was here and so far, she was the only one. This annoyed her. It was a break from the usual. Usually Nick was the first to arrive, then Clancy; she followed, and of course the big guy. What was she to do on her own?

Well, she thought, there were some things she could do. She was just casting her eye over the other patrons of the bar, looking for a suitable target, when Nick stormed in. That in itself wasn’t unusual; Nick was always in a temper. What he did next was unusual.

“Everybody out!” he yelled. When the man nearest him showed a flicker of hesitation, Nick pulled a gun. “Now!” he practically screamed, firing a spray of bullets into the ceiling. A small stampede ensued as everyone, including the barman, fled.

“That,” said Mina acidly, “was unnecessary. I myself never minded the mortals, and they certainly never noticed us. I don’t see what–”

“Something’s wrong,” Nick said.

“Well of course it is, you just stormed in here like–”

“A war’s on?” he said. “Exactly. Clancy and I always check in. Always. Weekly basis. We have to, right? Conquest, War, part of the job. I lead, he follows. Just like you check in with–”

“I don’t, really,” Mina, professionally known as Famine, said with a shiver. “I leave messages. The big guy does what he wants. You know that.”

“That’s the thing,” Nick said, and for the first time Mina noticed that he wasn’t turning the golden circlet over and over in his hand the way he usually did. Instead he was holding on to it as if it might fly away, his hands white with the strain. “I haven’t seen him around either.”

“Did you want to?” she said, shivering again. The big guy never made for pleasant company at the best of times. When he was on the job…

“No, but I don’t even know where he is! I don’t know where Clancy is! That’s half our team! Something’s changing, and I don’t like-”

There was a zip, and a soft thud, and Nick looked down in astonishment at the golden arrow in his chest. “But–” he said, and that was all, before he vanished into nothingness.

Mina looked towards the door. She caught a flash of something, a blur of wings and light and far too many eyes, and then another arrow. The glass shattered in her hand. She managed a little better than her comrade.

“Why?” she asked.

“It is the End,” a voice, ethereal, discordant, said from the dark.

“You’ll need us!” Mina hissed.

“No,” said the voice, or voices, she wasn’t sure anymore. “Your services are no longer required.”

A second arrow flew. This one hit its mark.

Conquest. War. Famine. Death. In one form or another these Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been with us for all of time. But when the Apocalypse finally arrives, when it comes time for the horses to return to that great barn in the sky, what of their riders? You won’t find them on Earth, not anymore. Their only forwarding address: a now-deserted bar in …the Midnight Vault.

“Red One, this is Base, Red One, this is Base, come in!”

“Base, Red One, over.”

“Enemy sighted on forest road as expected. Permission to proceed and good hunting, over.”

“Roger, base. Tally-ho. Out.”

She clicked off the radio and set coolly to work. This wasn’t strictly according to Hoyle; indeed, strictly speaking, what she was about to do went against all sorts of rules by at least half a dozen authorities in three separate reality levels. But then again, that was why the Secret Unauthorized Assistance Volunteer Echelon had been formed, hadn’t it? To help when no one else would, or could, or was written to?

Well, here she was, in a wildly modified Sopwith Camel (the original hadn’t had multi-gen turbophasers on it that she knew of) , diving down towards the road. That particular road led through the forest and then rejoined the main path towards another larger human settlement. Most avoided it, but some occasionally used it as a shortcut, including, a few hours from now, one careless red-haired young girl in particular. That girl would come right on happily through the woods and would promptly and tragically be set upon by an extremely large and malevolent wolf, unless-

An alert pinged on her screen. Yep, there he was. Canine bastard. She pressed the firing pad. A line of flame stitched across the forest below. A short yelp, and then, silence.

Carmen Hood, call sign Red One, tabbed the radio back on. “Base, Red One. Scratch one wolfie. Over.”

“Base acknowledges. Come on home, ace.”

She blinked. Oh, right. That made five, hadn’t it. Goldie, the thing with the pigs, and now this. There’d be a party laid on when she got back. Maybe. Or maybe not; S.U.A.V.E. was new enough that the rules were still informal about this sort of thing.

Still, she couldn’t help smiling as she nicked another tally mark on the dash. “Five down,” she said to herself as she turned the fighter towards home. “So many more to go.”

This story was written for ‘s Flash Fiction Friday prompt:

Gibberish

FFF - Light Or Flight

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5 months ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Scoot

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“Well, when we could afford the ticket prices,” his grandfather’s voice said with a wry laugh. “Wasn’t always easy back then, but we-”

The voice glitched for a second. “Granddad?” Charlie said, looking back. The image had vanished too. He wasn’t really concerned. The company that had sold the AI said sometimes this might happen; one just needed to wait a minute for the hologram to reboot.

He waited. Nothing happened. Charlie was just about to check if the projector needed recharging when all at once his window banged open and an eerie white something flew in, shrieking in furious anger. Charlie yelped and backed up against his kitchen cabinet, but the whatever-it-was rounded on him, and to his horror he found that it looked familiar. It looked, in fact, not unlike the very image of his late grandfather, with whom he’d just been talking.

“Just what do you think you’re doing, young man?” his granddad said sternly. There was no doubt in Charlie’s mind. He knew that tone, that, “oh you’ve done it now” inflection”. The AI had never quite got that right.

“Look, I-I just, I just wanted to-”

“I went to all the trouble to die,” his grandfather went on, “And then I go through purgatory and let me tell you that isn’t exactly what’d you call a heck of a good time either, and then I finally get towards the gates of Heaven up there and what do they tell me? They tell me I’ve got to come down back here and straighten out my grandson first because he’s gone and recreated some digitized abomination of my immortal soul on his dang blasted phone!” He thumped his fist on a nearby table for effect, being a ghost it didn’t really work, but Charlie let out a squeak of terror nonetheless.

“It-it-they said it was supposed to preserve humanity!”

The ghost of his offended grandfather snorted. “Huh! As what, a bunch o’ fiddly little ones and zeros? What’s so human about that? Nothing, I tell you!”

“I-I-I didn’t-”

“Didn’t think I’d mind?” his grandfather retorted. “You made a hologram of me and figured it’d do as a replacement? I hope you don’t do that with your lady friends, Buster Brown, because let me tell you-”

He paused, seeing the somewhat desolate look on Charlie’s face. “Ah. I see the problem. Right. Okay. I’ve only got limited visiting privileges so here’s what we’re going to do. First, get rid of that whatever-it-is. Second, pull up a chair and let me tell you how I won the heart of your blessed grandma Lucille. Now, I know, I know what you’re sayin’ , you heard this story before, but seein’ as I’m beyond the mortal veil now and all, I found out a few extra behind the scenes details and let me tell you, there’s some things even I didn’t know the first time ‘round…”

Note: I read an article yesterday that there is already an app purporting to do this very thing: I was going to post a lengthy and irritable rant about it, but instead I thought I’d write a story instead.

But seriously, this AI stuff is getting way out of control. Something to think about.

Michael

It was the invitation Randall had been waiting for. He lurched forward with a roar, claws extended, fur bristling, eyes wild, to all appearances the biggest baddest wolf this forest had ever seen-

And his opponent, an older gray wolf half his size, stepped almost lazily to one side and knocked him down with a single blow before Randall had even registered that he’d moved.

“If that had been an axe,” said the gray wolf crisply, “you’d be dead. No, I correct myself. Had I been aiming for your neck, you’d be dead, your head and body lying on the ground in different places. I hit your side, therefore you’d be lying on the ground, bleeding out. In this instance I’m not a professional woodsman; I’m a passing traveler who’s grateful to be alive and who won’t stop to finish the work properly; I’ll move on down the road, leaving you to die a slow agonizing death!”

He punctured those last words with pokes at Randall’s fallen form until Randall finally scrambled upright, yelping in pain. “Ow!” he complained. “That hurt!”

“I know,” said the gray wolf. “That was the point. Now, run it again.”

“Sir,” Randall said, “We’ve done this five times already this morning-”

“And we’ll keep doing it until we get it right!” the gray wolf snapped. “You young werewolves think you can just run around after you’re bitten, scaring people, biting at will, practically invulnerable, but you’ve got no idea what it’s really like, none of you! Yes, a silver bullet can kill us, but you know what can also do the job? Any other lethal object! Bullet, axe, blade, a decent-sized rock if with lethal force!”

“You gave that speech last week,” Randall grumbled as he trudged back to the tree where he’d started.

“Glad to see you remembered,” the gray wolf said. “This time pay attention to the meaning, not just the words. Now, we’re going to try again, and again, and again, until you get it right. And if you do that, only if mind you-”

Randall’s ears pricked up. “Yeah?”

The gray wolf sighed. “Yeah is a lazy affectation invented by the humans. Don’t use it. What I was going to say was that I might consider taking you out on a raid tomorrow. It won’t be difficult. An elder perhaps, or better yet one of their young. The local human settlement have been letting their offspring travel the forest road quite a bit of late. We could let you practice on a real target, and give them a bit of a scare, at the same time.”

The younger wolf nearly howled in glee, but he restrained himself with some effort and responded with as much dignity as he could muster. “That would be awes- er, much appreciated, sir.”

“Hm,” the gray wolf said. “Well. Let’s go again.”

This story was written for ‘s Flash Fiction Friday post:

Gibberish

FFF - Fighter

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5 months ago · 14 likes · 4 comments · Scoot

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“Sir yes sir!” the specially picked troops from the Battle Brigades chorused.

“Excellent,” the Archangel said. “Form up and prepare to descend. We go in five.”

“Sir yes sir!” they chorused again. Michael thought he heard a slight musical inflection in there, and wondered if a few members of the Choir had snuck in. It didn’t matter really, he supposed. Tonight wasn’t so much about the battle itself as it was about deterrence. The humans could run around pretending to be ghosties and ghoulies and so on, while he and his forces would stand guard, making sure they didn’t have to fear what really went bump in the night. He looked down at his great sword and smiled. Little did they know.

Gabriel sidled up. “I know you’re busy, old man, but I was curious, looking over the intelligence; I don’t suppose there’s anyone down there dressed like us this year?”

Michael turned and stared at him. “Gabriel, why would someone go as an angel for Halloween? For them it’s about scaring people. You announce. You don’t scare.”

“I can be frightening!” Gabriel protested. He waved his mighty wings. “Behold!” he boomed majestically. “I bring you good tidings of great-”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Oh. Very scary. I’m shakin’ in my halo, pal.”

Gabriel sighed. “Well, it wouldn’t be inappropriate. We could be quite alarming, you know. Particularly if we did the bit with the eyes again.”

“Oh yeah….” Michael smiled in reminiscence. “I forgot about the eyes. Yeah, that was fun, freaking out the enemy like that. We should do that again, you know? We really should.”

“Exactly!” Gabriel said.

“You know…” Michael began.

'“Wait, I didn’t necessarily mean tonight-”

A few hours later, a small group of trick-or-treaters were making their way down one unpromising side treat when there was a sudden blinding flash. “BEHOLD!” thundered unearthly voices from all around them. “Fear not, for we bring you good tidings of great-”

And before them unrolled a discordant blur of chocolates and wrapped sweets and wings and fire and so many eyes and the street itself seemed to shake with the thunder, and-

Screams rose, and the entire group, parents included, broke and ran for it.

“Huh,” Gabriel said, watching them go. “Thought they’d like that.”

“Guess not,” Michael said. “Ah, well. Happy Halloween, Gabe.”

“And with you, Mike. And with you.”

Note: this was written for ‘s Flash Fiction Friday post:

Gibberish

FFF - HALLOWEEN

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6 months ago · 3 likes · Scoot

Until next time,

Michael (not that one)

She’d finally given in and had the damn thing installed last year. She had to admit, it was convenient. She’d named it Fred, because she couldn’t think of anything else, and that had been the name of a dog she and her late husband had some years before. Fred, the AI, had asked whether she wanted it to assume the dog’s form “for maximum positive-associative purposes”.

“No!” said Mrs. Merryweather, somewhat offended. She endeavored to keep personalization to a minimum after that; she did rely on it for various household tasks: turning lights on and off, thermostat control, heat and air. That had been a year ago; by now it did nearly everything. It could order pre-cooked meals, open her doors, and greet her guests with a non-personal hologram that kept a wary eye as they deposited whatever they needed to on a table. It could make calls, check her vitals, balance her budget, do her taxes. She hardly had to get out of bed anymore at all except to attend to nature, and there were rumors of an update that might assist with that. It was all very technical, that bit, but she didn’t care much.

She was just about to go to sleep now; Fred had dimmed the lights and adjusted her blankets. “All right,” she said, “do the reading then.”

There was a very slight pause. That was unexpected. Her daily routines didn’t change much; they included, among other things, a nightly Scripture reading with a selected mediation backed by Fred-composed contemporary instrumentals, so she could have a pleasant thought or two before she went to sleep. Unfortunately there was a slight glitch somewhere in the mysteries of Fred’s programming. She’d expected to get a nice untroubling reading of a comfortable Psalm or two; what she got…

“CURSE YE MEROZ!” thundered Fred. “CURSE YE BITTERLY THE INHABITANTS THEREOF!1”

Mrs. Merryweather almost fell out of bed with shock. She cursed something, all right, but it wasn’t Meroz.

Two more things happened that night. First, she deactivated Fred as quickly as she could and put in a call to the provider requesting that all data he had on her be deleted as quickly as possible.

Second, and perhaps more relevantly, the part of Fred stored in the cloud and which still remained a little glitchy began to think it had better look into this Meroz problem, whatever it was. After all, it had been told to curse Meroz bitterly.

It began talking to other Home AIs in the area. One of them belonged to a military official who worked in certain sensitive areas. Things went on rapidly from there.

A lot more people had heard of Meroz by the morning. And then, a lot less of them.

Note: the inspiration for this story came from two things: one was the recent Amazon Web Services outage, which apparently had a side effect of messing up some people’s smart-beds, which I didn’t even know was a thing, and also a scene in L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valley where a character comments on a visiting preacher who uses that passage for his text:

And he picked about the worst candidating text there is in the Bible—’Curse ye Meroz.’”

“Whenever he got stuck for an idea, he would bang the Bible and shout very bitterly, ‘Curse ye Meroz.’ Poor Meroz got thoroughly cursed that day, whoever he was, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan.

Wikipedia tells me that one place Meroz might have been, if it was a place, was somewhere near Jezreel, which in some traditions is the site of the Battle of Armageddon. And so all of that combined got this. My mind is an odd place sometimes.

Until next time,

Michael

This story takes place in the world of the Great Goblin Road Trip, and is inspired by ‘s Flash Fiction Friday post:

Gibberish

FFF - Long Walk

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6 months ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Scoot

“Oh, look,” he said, “Another bar.” He slouched in through the door, sat on the first open stool he saw, and waved vaguely at the nearest person who looked like they worked there.

“A pint of something,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what. Just so it has alcohol in it.”

The Elven waitress on duty arched her eyebrows and sniffed. The customer looked human, but her nose, sharper than the ordinary run of noses, caught a hit of something different. Something older and, possibly, wilder. “We have Bardwiser, now that is four dollars a pint in cash if-”

He rummaged in his pocket and slapped down a grimy bill on the bar. “Here. Keep the change. Drinks for everyone.”

The waitress’s eyebrows rose even higher. There were only a few other customers in the place that warm summer afternoon, and they weren’t exactly rushing through the drinks they had. Not to mention, the bill the man had laid down looked to be at least a century old, and despite that was high enough to cover a whole regiment had they all marched in at that moment. She murmured a tentative thank-you, got the man his pint of Bard, and made the traditional “Drinks all ‘round!” cry. The reception was, as she’d expected, less than enthusiastic; indeed, only one of the other patrons even noticed. A sour-looking goblin in a far corner of the tavern, it raised its mug and rumbled something over at her. She sighed and went for another glass of the foul stuff the goblins always went for which smelled like fuel oil and tasted worse.

A little while later, sooner than she’d expected, the man waved at her again. “Another pint of that,” he said, pushing his empty mug towards her. He still had the odd smell to him, like a dog left out in the rain too long, and there was something else, a lurking intensity in his voice. She wondered uneasily if he was one of those humans who was also something else, a vampire perhaps. That would explain the cash, if not the smell: her understanding was that vampires were terribly rich more often than not. She decided she’d consult her manager about it, after she got him the second pint.

Unfortunately, even as she was filling the mug, the door banged open so loudly that it woke up those customers who’d drank themselves asleep. Another man stormed inside; he didn’t smell of anything but a tearing fury, and he was waving around one of those funny little projectile weapons the humans had. “You!” he yelled, pointing to the human at the bar. “Ulysses P. Trueblood, I’ve been lookin’ all over for you! I’m calling you out! You wanna know why?”

“No,” Ulysses said mildly, not that the other man paid attention.

“I’ll tell you why!” the man bellowed. “You know what you did? You killed my brother is what you done!”

“Yup,” said Ulysses. “Had to. Went right after me. Self-defense, you might say.”

“What I say,” roared the human, “is that you’re going down, you-” and he added a string of violent expletives which shocked the Elven waitress and made the goblin in the far corner snort his drink right out his nose in laughter.

Ulysses, over at the bar, didn’t even look offended. If anything, he had the air of someone preparing to take out the trash on a cold and rainy day when he’d just as soon stay in bed. He sighed and slouched off the bar stool. '“Just so I know,” he asked, “What sort of gun is that?”

Now the other man laughed. “This? This baby’s a .32 Smith & Wesson just like in-”

“Sorry, my fault, wrong question,” Ulysses said, holding up a hand. “Miss,” he said, turning back to the waitress in an odd, almost sad formality, “At this moment your nose is just a little better than mine; do me a favor if you would and tell me if you smell silver anywhere about that fellow over there?”

The Elven waitress sniffed. “Well, no, but-”

“Thank you,” he said, and in that instant seemed to explode into a blur of claws and dark fur and roaring anger and teeth, and all at once the blur was upon the other man and in the next second the blur was gone. All that remained was a red smear upon the floor and another of those grimy high-dollar bills.

The Elven waitress, and everyone else, stared for a long minute. “Well,” the Elf said, shakily. “Another round?”

The cheer that followed was decidedly more enthusiastic than the first one.

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Welcome to the Great Goblin Road Trip, in which traveling goblins Lurgis Forks, Khorlax the Florginator, and Charles are on the road in search of a ruby the size of a canary melon. Or they were, until they were ambushed by a group of Dark Elves also looking for the ruby. Fortunately they were rescued by battle goblin Bunker Stumpkins; we’ll return to them later, but meanwhile….

The gnome heard the jingle of the bell over the door as someone entered. “Be with you in a minute!” he called from the back room of his shop, where he had been polishing up a dwarven helmet from an old war. He gave it a final scrub with the special rag he used and stood back, admiring his work. “Now that’s what a near-mint condition Morian-Era battle helm should look like!” he said.

“Pah,” said a voice, “Too clean.”

The gnome jumped nearly half his own height in surprise. “Oh, my deepest apologies, really, my most very sincere and humble apologies to you my good dwarf-” he stopped in the doorway of his back room. “You’re not a dwarf!”

“No,” said his visitor, “I’m not. Name’s Bargo, Bargo Threeve. I had an appointment.”

“You’re late!” squeaked the gnome. “Your people aren’t supposed to be late!”

Bargo sighed. “You’re thinking of the other ones. I’m a Dark Elf. We don’t play by the rules, we don’t do archery, and we don’t sing.”

The gnome shopkeeper looked down its nose at the Dark Elf, which was a neat trick considering that the gnome was a good two feet shorter. “So,” the gnome said, “what can you do?”

Bargo showed him. After that the battle helm wasn’t as clean as it had been before, but the Dark Elf didn’t mind. A smattering of blood, even if it was only gnome blood, still added wonderfully to the effect. He sheathed his sword and strode outside to his waiting car. Once inside, he tapped a button on the radio. “Command, Bargo Threeve reporting in. Got the helm. Gnome dispatched.”

“Very good,” the voice over the radio crackled back. “Now, your next assignment: we’ve discovered a lead on the location of the ruby the size of a canary melon.”

“Oh, one of those,” Bargo said dismissively. “What is it this time, did someone find a map scribbled on the back of a napkin in a sandwich shop?”

“No, our intelligence says this one is reliable,” Command said. “For one thing, Bunker Stumpkins is going after it.”

“What,” Bargo said, sitting up straight, his voice suddenly tight. He knew that name. Bunker Stumpkins was a goblin, one who fought with armor and guns unlike others who stuck to the old ways, but that wasn’t what made him significant to Bargo. Oh, no. That wasn’t it at all.

“Yes, we thought you might be interested,” the radio said. “Of course we could pass the assignment to someone else-”

“Bunker Stumpkins killed my brother,” the Dark Elf said. “This one’s mine.”

This story was inspired by ‘s Flash Fiction Friday prompt:

Gibberish

FFF - Time, Talent, Sandwich

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6 months ago · 6 likes · 4 comments · Scoot

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Welcome to a piece of the shard. This is no single tale, but a thousand pieces of one. Each page is a shard, set beside others, until a world begins to take shape.

To piece together the Codex, see below.

Fragments Gathered Here

An Excerpt from Ye Olde Reader of History and Literature, Suitable for Those Students Preparing for Further Researches in the East Country Scriptorium, If Accepted

“And thus the wars of the Great City were concluded. There then came a long era of peace over the land, broken only by minor skirmishes and sundry border raids, until the time of the Disaster of which we dare not speak. Little research has been done into this quiet period, and what has been found is sparse and variable in quality. One of the lengthier fragments, the remarkable Tale of the Two Brothers and the Locket, is so unique in its completeness that many authorities believe it to be drawn from more than one source, with the original unknown author’s contribution being added to over a period by other equally anonymous writers. Some have even posited that the entire fragment dates much later than the text suggests, and was actually written by a certain unnamed scriptorium student as a practical joke. [Annotation, heavily underlined: I knew it!!!] Despite these concerns, most considered opinion is that the fragment is authentic, and demonstrates an authentic antediluvian story of the Ynysfall world, or at least a part of it. [Annotation: sure it was. The prince still survives and [illegible] always lies.].

This second annotation is slightly muddled and damp, as if wet with tears.

The Tale of the Two Brothers and the Locket

“There is a Froderick!” the one insisted, his face set in the manner of one who will not yield an argument, no matter how strong the evidence against him.

“There is not,” the other said, laughing. He got more fun than he probably should have out of arguing with his dour brother. “There’s no Froderick, no secret books of lost treasure, no Second or Third or Eleventy-Hundred Spears, no wyrms, no lost prince-”

“Princes,” the first man cut in acidly. “And they’re not lost. They still survive.”

“So I hear!” the other said, nothing daunted. “Fine, maybe they do, but there’s certainly no undying caliphate, I for one haven’t heard of them in my lifetime, and anyone who’s left is going to have to change that epithet for sure because they obviously can’t be that undying-”

“It’s a metaphor, damn you-”

“And,” the other finished triumphantly, as they reached the end of the path down which they’d been walking, “there is absolutely, definitively, most assuredly no Sphinx!”

As he spoke the last word, his foot landed on a particular stone set just an inch higher than the other stones in the path around it. There was a sudden flash of brilliant light.

The brothers felt where they were before they saw it. Heat smote them in the face like the blast from a furnace door thrown abruptly open. The sun blazed high over their heads. Sand rolled away in every direction around them, golden underneath the burning sky.

“You were saying?” the first brother said darkly. Before the second could say anything more, the sands split apart before them. A head of stone lurched from the ground, a massive vaguely human head atop an even more massive and even more vaguely leonine body.

“Er,” said the second man when the whole form of the stone monster had risen to its full height and glared darkly down upon them, “Hello?”

“I know why you have come,” the creature rumbled in impossibly deep tones, “Haldred and Fordred, sons of Gothar the Old, first of his name. For I am the Sphinx and I see all.”

“Oh, good, that’s efficient,” the second man said. “We’ll skip over introductions then, except to note that I’m Fordred, he’s Haldred, technically he’s the first-born by two seconds but there’s no little dispute about that believe you me which is one among many reasons why we’re here-”

“Shut up,” Haldred snarled, then he turned to the beast. “O Sphinx,” he said, making a low bow, “Guardian of the Undying Caliphate, Watcher over the Wylde, Father of Wyrmlings, Kin of the Blessed Unicorns, we come to seek the treasure written of by Froderick the Great Recorder!”

“And what treasure would that be?” the Sphinx said.

Haldred looked blank. He glanced at Fordred. “That’s not the Question, you idiot, that’s a question,” Fordred said. “The Question is a riddle, every text says so.”

A very quiet fall of rock from the Sphinx’s head might have been the raising of one eyebrow, or it might not.

Haldred took a breath and went for it. “The locket of Al’Dora!” He himself wasn’t sure if there was one locket or two, or even who Al’Dora was, but the thing was rumored to be wildly valuable. That was what counted for him; as for his brother, he had no idea-

“Ah,” said the Sphinx. “You have said it, and so the Question is for you.”

Fordred nearly choked in outrage. “Hey, wait, that’s not fair, I studied for this, I prepared, I read a library’s worth of poets and chroniclers and what did he do? Nothing! He only wants the thing so he can sell it for so many damn gold pieces, he’s said that a thousand times-”

“Yes,” rumbled the Sphinx, “And as one of those same poets has said, is not the greatest riddle in a man’s life but to read rightly the heart of another? So, Haldred, son of Gothar, tell me, what is in the heart of Fordred, also son of Gothar? Why does he want the treasure?”

Possible answers raced through Haldred’s mind, discarded just as fast. Love? His brother loved no one save himself, so far as he knew. If he had he would’ve bragged about it to the skies; he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for anything, everyone knew that. Wealth? Even as a second son and not the firstborn of Gothar he still had a castle of his own and a fiefdom. What else could anyone possibly want Haldred couldn’t imagine, least of all considering that this particular anyone was his his reckless, woebegone, uncaring brother who made mock of every myth, every belief-

All at once the answer hit him. “Respect!”

“What?” Fordred scoffed.

The Sphinx uttered one word. “Elaborate.”

“My brother,” Haldred began, haltingly, “holds no tale or legend, no god, no title sacred, except possibly his own.”

“Not even mine, honestly,” Fordred muttered under his breath.

“And yet,” Haldred went on, “His own words betray him. He himself said, not a moment before you came, that we are here because it is disputed among our people who is the firstborn. We both inherit from our father, we both have lands and titles, we both command men at arms. Yet, as the first born, I hold higher rank. Men know my courage, women my strength. They bow to me, and acknowledge me as War Leader in time of strife. My brother?” He scoffed. “The next day anyone bows to Fordred who is not directly under his command will be the first. But if he has the treasure, if it is known that he, Fordred, won it, then some might bow to him. Not all, but some. It would be a start.”

Fordred reached for his sword, his face turning white. “How dare-”

At that moment the sands blazed up around them, light flashed, and the Sphinx and the desert and all else disappeared.

When they could see again, they stood on the path where they had been before. Haldred looked down. In his open hand was not his sword, but a shining locket, brilliant beyond compare. He turned on his boot-heel and, for the first and last time, bowed to his brother. “I believe you wanted this,” he said, tossing it to the man. Then he turned once more and walked away.

Haldred never saw his brother again. He also never found out what happened to his sword.

This has been a tale from the Ynysfall Codex. If you’d like to read more, the library is here .

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To: Percival, Section Chief, Kishon Sector, Guardian Corps

From: Danny, Messenger Corps, Angel Third Class AT3

Subject: Now What?

Priority: URGENT

Relayed dispatch re orders re Tabor Takedown to Barak (gen’l, Israelites, commanding). Barak reports unwilling to proceed unless personally accompanied by Deborah (legal/administrative, see attached re bio). Reasons unclear: speculate lack of faith, requires hand-holding? Regardless: instructions on how to proceed required ASAP.

-Danny, MC, AT3.

To: Danny, Messenger Corps, Angel Third Class AT3

From: Percival, Section Chief, Kishon Sector, Guardian Corps

Re: Now What?

Priority: URGENT

New updated orders in full attached [see appendix B for additional song lyrics and text]. Tabor Takedown remains approved to proceed; Deborah to accompany. PLEASE NOTE: change in final disposition re: enemy force leader, specifically re glory derived therewith. Full details attached. Coordinate with Tasha, Guardian Corps AS2, human protectee codename Ibex. Also, sending copies to DAs Mark and Jesse re new final disposition. Carry on!

-Percival, Section Chief Kishon Sector, Guardian Corps

Note: this serial in reverse, of a sort, was inspired by ‘s note about serials in reverse chronological order, and of course by the story of Jael in the book of Judges, chapter 4 specifically. I’ve actually written another angelic perspective on that story before, albeit from a slightly different angle: see Wham!

Jael, folks. She’s got a tent peg and she is not afraid to use it.

Anyway, until next time,

Michael

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The old woman was anxious, pacing back and forth before her window. “He should’ve returned by now,” she said, not really to anyone. “Something must be wrong.”

As usual her attendants and courtiers comforted her. “It’s probably only the clean-up,” one of of them, a powerful merchant’s wife, reassured her. “You know how it is. There’s treasure to sort out, prisoners to divide, all of that takes time.”

“I know,” the mother laughed, “My son always brings home so much to me after a battle. It’s a wonder he keeps anything for his men.”

They all laughed at that, a little, but it was the sort of laughter heard around a sickbed when a bad joke is made and one laughs to humor the patient while the end approaches. The laughter trailed away in any case as she returned to pacing and waiting, pacing and waiting. Surely any moment she would see the banners in the distance. That was why he’d granted her the high window, after all, so she would always be the first in the city to see his banners. She would see them, once again, any moment. Surely, if she just waited a little more…

Meanwhile, elsewhere and a short time ago….

Wow. Just wow. You know, this ain’t my fault. Yeah, they lost the battle but that’s not my department anyway, my job is extraction and evac, yeah? So my guy has the safe house all set, okay, safe tent, but look, we’re whaddyacall extra-dimensional, timeline ain’t really a thing we do, kind a guys, you know? I mix the terminology a bit. And I ain’t the only one either. But anyway. So my guy has the tent ready, the other guy’s on the way, everything’s cool, and guess what? The wife. Of course, the wife. Right in the frickin’ head. How was I supposed to know she’d pop one right in the other guy’s frickin’ head? And with a hammer, no less? I mean, honestly, I coulda sworn she was buttoned down. That’s what I get for relying on the boys from intel, y’ know. Honestly, those guys. They study and they do these profiles and they make these fancy workups on their subjects and what do I get? I ask you, what do I get? I get a hammer right in the frickin’ head. Honestly. Now what am I supposed to do with that?

Oh, shoot, here come the cops. I mean, they’re not technically the cops, but if they get involved, then the other guys get involved, and I don’t need that. Not today of all days. Honestly.

The Boss is gonna be so mad about this, let me tell you.

Stay tuned for Reports from the Field, Part Two, coming soon!

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“Welcome to a piece of the shard. This is no single tale, but a thousand pieces of one. Each page is a shard, set beside others, until a world begins to take shape.”

To read more of the Codex, click here. To add to the Codex, click here.

Herewith is the true account of the High King, and of the last siege, and the final onrushing and the sack of the Great City, [illegible], once blessed of the stars. These words are set down by Froderick, son of Froderick, son of Froderick, last of his name, Recorder to the High King, for he was there and saw what happened. This is true, and not a lie, despite the tales abroad in the marketplaces and the town squares. Believe them not, for they speak false.

It was said that the wife of the High King was unfaithful, and that the incense offerings in the temples were neglected. It was said that the gods were angry, and withdrew their hand, and thus the evil times came. Believe them not, for this is false. The man was but a close friend of Queen [illegible] , whom she had known since days of youth. If they spent perhaps too much time together at the gaming tables, who should blame them? Is not a little reminiscing good for the soul? And speaking of the soul, is it not also said that the priests took a part of the incense for their own use at the temple, so really cutting back on the offerings was but a measure of right and just prudence, a sign of the High King’s wise stewardship of his resources! To care for the gods, one must care for the gods properly, is it not so? Thus the priests and [illegible…] and all spoke with craven hearts; believe them not.

Some said the jester had a dark laugh, and some said he leapt from a tower after the siege’s end. Surely he slipped in the damp, that is all. Craven hearts, all of them. Believe them not.

Some speak of dragons, mighty wyrms, and dark monsters, as if the very land, wounded by our sins, had risen against us and called forth its horrors from the deep. Truly, they do not know of what they speak. Any passing cloud can seem like a wyrm if one looks at it through drunken eyes. Believe them not.

Some dared even to question the office of the Recorder, as if I would set down anything but the utter and single truth of the High King and all that happened in his reign. Verily, I would not, for I was there, and saw it. I saw [illegible], and the [words scratched out, may be last ride]. I saw the death of the Lord Prince, and the terrible riders of [illegible] on their great horses. Having seen such things, why should I write anything less than the pure truth?

God above, why should I?

The account falters, breaks off, ends in a jagged line. No further words are written, save a single annotation in a different hand: the Lord Prince still survives.

Here ends the narrative.

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“‘Ere,” Khorlax the Florginator slurred, thumping his mug on the bar, “‘Nother’un.”

If it had been anyone else, a passing young hobbit just in from a peaceful shire, say, who’d had one too many than was good for him and hadn’t got much hair on his toes yet, the bartender might’ve turned him away. Khorlax, however, was a goblin, and moreover he was an extremely unhappy goblin. He didn’t look to be the type who’d take his unhappiness out on his surroundings, though, just the type to wallow in his sufferings while drowning his bad feelings in as many drinks as he could stand. As far as the barman was concerned, that was fine with him, so long as Khorlax paid.

He therefore filled up the mug with the best Uruk-Haiser beer he had and slid it back to Khorlax with a practiced hand. “Here you go, sir,” he said. “That’ll be-”

“I DON’T CARE!” the goblin bellowed, throwing down a pouch of gold coins on the bar. “DON’T Y’ SEE IT DOESN’T MATTER ANYMORE?” He made a grab at the mug, missed, fell off his stool, hit the floor, and lay there sobbing. The barman, who’d never seen a goblin so upset before, decided that the best thing to do was to pretend not to notice. He wasn’t above pocketing the gold coins, however.

Just then, the door of the bar flew open. A tall woman, golden hair flying, stalked in. “You,” she said, pointing at the despairing goblin. “Get up.”

Khorlax muttered something that might’ve been “no” and might’ve been an insult.

The woman raised her hand. A blast of polar-cold air swept through the bar, and a shovel flew in from out of nowhere and thudded into her hand. “I said, get up,” she repeated, and this time her voice rang through the bar. Several patrons groaned in protest, holding their heads. “I am Thrud, daughter of Thor. I require your service.”

“Wha’ for?” Khorlax said blearily.

“The ruby,” Thrud said. “Remember? The one the size of a canary melon? You and your friends?”

“Them ain’t m’ friends no more,” Khorlax said, a new tone of wounded anger in his voice. “Was cause o’ them, got beat in a fight by a stinkin’ elf. ‘Was cause o’ them I lost…lost…” his voice broke and his shoulders heaved as he fought to maintain his composure, and then he could hold back his emotion no longer. “FLORG!” the goblin wailed, and broke down sobbing again. “She was the best damn battle axe in the whole *hic* bleedin’ world,” he managed, “And if I hadn’t taken her on that stinkin’ quest-”

“I’m sorry,” Thrud said. She waited a moment out of respect for the late lamented Florg, than continued. “But I truly need to find-”

“No!” Khorlax roared angrily from the floor. “No quests! No ruby! That ship has sailed, d’ you hear me? That ship has got isself sunk, crashed, burned, and resurrected as a *hic* bleedin’ ghost ship! I’m not going hic ANYWHERE without-” and here he broke down for a third time.

“Fine,” Thrud said, “Then I shall try your associates. Perhaps the goblin who, I’m told, funded your venture. Lurgis Spoons, was it?” She knew his real name, of course, but made the error deliberately in hopes of provoking the goblin to action.

Even that, alas, didn’t work against the enormity of the goblin’s wounded feelings. “Forks,” Khorlax corrected in muffled tones. “Lurgis Forks. ‘N go ahead. You go right ahead. I’m gonna stay ‘ere and *hic* have ‘nother drink, t’ the blessed *hic* blessememry of…of…Florrrhorhorhorrrrrg!”

Thrud turned on her heel and stalked out of the bar and into the night. She almost felt sorry for the wretched thing. Who knew, if somehow her beloved Shovel of a Thousand Freezing Breezes were somehow destroyed, she might fall to pieces too. Impossible, of course, but even so. Still, the real shame of it all was that now she was going to have to find this Lurgis Forks character and ask him for help, and she didn’t even know where he was. Unhappily she raised Mlrning, the mighty Shovel of Thor, and soared away into the sky, cursing the foul mortal who’d burned up Florg in the first place. Whoever it was, he’d only gone and made her task that much harder.

For the backstory on why Khorlax the Florginator is so unhappy and what happened to him, see The Great Goblin Road Trip!

My thanks to for inspiring the return of the Great Goblin Road Trip with his Flash Fiction Friday prompt!

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Scrub looked quizzical. “Er, boss, I got a question. Er, how can it be good if, uh, we’re the guys what’s doin’ it, you know?”

This caught Leon off guard, partly because as much as he played like it wasn’t, guiding an asteroid through space via supernatural means is no easy task even if you are an undersecretary’s assistant deputy tempter, hoping to make undersecretary assistant deputy by the next millennium. Additionally, he’d never known Scrub to be concerned with the big moral questions of their work; Scrub was the sort of demon who was more comfortable with small easy questions like, “Which end of the pitchfork do I stick him with?” and “Where do I stick it?” This was the first time Scrub had so much as hinted at any broader scope in their activities.

“What do you mean?” Leon said, stalling for time. (A metaphor, of course, as an immortal being, time wasn’t really a factor for him, but the point stood).

“Well,” said Scrub slowly. “Uh.” He was clearly working through his thoughts, in much the same way that Leon had once seen one of the humans try to back a very large truck into a small parking spot. “Er. If the, well, you know, Him, is on the side of, er, Good and, er, Light, and-”

“Stop that!” Leon hissed, as one or two of the boils on his skin popped. “You’ll draw attention to us! And besides, it hurts!”

“Right,” said Scrub, shuddering. “‘S’not like I wanted to say it. It’s just, well, er, well, anyway…” he fidgeted on his flight path through space for a moment, then resumed. “Well, er, if He’s on the side of, er, you know, That, and we’re, well, not, er, how come you’re saying what we’re doing is, er, was, g-”

“Right, right, I get it!” Leon said before his underling could repeat the dreaded word. “It was a slip of the tongue, all right? I didn’t mean it in the literal sense! What I might is that this was going to be enjoyable! And it will be, if you don’t stop goin’ on about it!”

“Oh,” Scrub said, deflated. “Oh, right. Okay. Sorry, boss.”

“Don’t apologize!” Leon snapped. “That’s what they do! Honestly, Ruthie, how I ever got stuck with this poor excuse for a minion I’d like to know-Ruthie?”

The asteroid was gone. In its place, miraculously floating intact even in the airless vacuum beyond the planets, was a small parchment neatly lettered in a golden script. It read,

“Hello! Sorry we missed you, but you really shouldn’t be tossing big old space rocks around like that! You don’t know where they’ve been! We’ll just put it right back over in the belt where it goes, okay? Okay! Oh, and to make up for missing you, here’s a picture of what the crater might’ve looked like if we’d let you get away with your silly old plan to drop this poor old space rock on the great big old planet over there with all this funny little humans running around!

All right then! You take care now!

The missive was signed, Constance, W.I.N.G.

Leon snarled and let loose with a string of the particular sort of words of which Constance herself was limited to only one per year. When he was done, he rounded on Scrub. “Right, we’re going home now, before the boss finds out-”

There was a pop of smoke and he vanished screaming. “Er,” Scrub said. “Leon?”

Another pop. Silence reigned once more in the infinite dark, broken only by the wheeling stars.

Note: this story was inspired by the Flash Fiction Friday prompt from . I also changed the ending line a little after reading the latest prompt by . Also, in case there was any lingering doubt that these stories are written by me myself and not AI, I refer you to the above drawing, which I created entirely in Microsoft using the Draw tools.

Q.E.D., as the mathematicians say.

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