It’s funny. You grow up in Balkirk with stories of philtres, but unless your an Oli, that’s all they are. The potions that define the Oligarchy, granting power and prolonged life beyond the imaginations of us serfs. And mostly, the stories are right. Embellished a little, but right. What they don’t tell you about is […]
The Black Wall-Prologue
“Guilty.” The Grace’s word reverberated through the Hall. The Grace of Fom, an angular, thin woman with hair and eyes the color of unpolished iron, waited for the echo of her verdict to die before continuing. “General Albertus Mann, you are condemned to the Pit for public viewing until dead, for sedition, treason, and the […]
The Black Wall: Chapter One
The Invasion: Six Months Before the Verdict Bodies lay strewn, pale against the rich brown ground. Blood muddied the soil between the trunks of massive trees, churned until its hue matched the broad, fern-like leaves grasping the sky. Long-beaked scavenger birds, red breasted with gleaming black wings, hunched in the lower branches, silent and waiting. […]
Within a Name-Chapter 1
(Way back in 2011 I took part in the 3 Day Novel competition, and won… well, nothing, but it was a great experience anyway. Just for the hell of it, I decided I should post it here, chapter by chapter. I’m going through it to clean it up a bit, but it’s otherwise as written […]
The Kalis Experiments-Prologue
(This is the prologue of Book 1 of the Tides Trilogy, originally picked up by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. Unfortunately I was forced to part ways with them, and so am looking for a new home. In the meantime, it can live here, a little bit at a time.) Prologue: The Death of […]
The Kalis Experiments – Chapter 1: The Beginning
It was strange that Ormo had asked Syrina to meet him in his suite instead of his Hall, and it pricked at her thoughts as she crossed the broad courtyard toward the Palace where the fifteen towers of the Syndicate crowded together like a bundle of blunt, loosely bound spears. The northern sky was thick […]