(Part 2 of 2)

Josh’s face peers out from the partway-opened door. A look crosses it. Surprise? Disgust?

“What the hell, Kevin? I thought your family left town days ago. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hah! As if I would go with those fools.” I say, my mouth full of wool as I wrench off the second mitten. I spit it onto the floor between us.

His eyes, those hateful, hateful beady eyes, glance down and then back up to me.

He sighs. “That’s too bad. I really think it’d be better for y—… anyone to be around loved ones at a time like this.”

I don’t dignify that drivel with a response.

“What do you want, Kevin?”

“I want revenge.”

Another sigh. “I’m not going to help you with one of your petty grudges, man. The world’s ending in”—he peers at the watch on his wrist—“seven and a half hours, in case you forgot.”

“Hah hah ha ha! I don’t need you to help me, you simpleton. Because you are”—I sneer to strike the fear of God (or maybe the devil?) into him—“my target.”

“You have to shit or something? What’s with that face?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Look, normally I’d let you in to use my bathroom, but Amelia’s here. If you need to shit there’s a public restroom on the first floor.”

“Don’t ignore me! I’m here to kill you for ruining my life, you stupid bastard!”

His eyebrow shoots up. Yes, that’s right. Feel the terror running through you. “For ruining your life? When did I ruin your life?” He leans on the door as he says it, now too awash in fear and adrenaline to even stand up straight.

“Don’t worry. I’m only going to kill you. I’ll let Amelia live. I’m too much of a gentleman to hurt a woman.”

“Yeah, sure, right, great. But what did I do to ruin your life? Can we start there?”

“Don’t act like you don’t remember!”

“Not acting.”

I can’t hold myself back. I slam my fist into the wall next to the door. Let him see how I’ve been restraining myself all these years, when I could have killed him at any moment. Let him fear! My hand connects with a thud. The wall does not break, and I bite my tongue to stifle the sudden shock of pain.

That doesn’t make any sense. There are so many holes in my basement room from when my dad really pissed me off. Why didn’t this one budge?!

Josh clears his throat. “That looked like it hurt. You want an aspirin? You can have the whole bottle if it’ll get you out of here quicker. Not like we’ll need it.”

“It didn’t hurt at all, stupid.” Okay, great. It doesn’t want to move. It feels numb. How am I going to grab the gun from my right pocket with my left hand? That’s going to look so awkward.

“If you say so. So, how did I ruin your life? I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t know.” He says, trying to pretend that his agape mouth is a yawn and not a barely suppressed squeal of terror.

“Three years ago.” I say through gritted teeth.

“Three years ago? I dunno. You’ve lived three years since then, and I didn’t notice anything different. You don’t seem ruined to me.”

“But it could have been different! I could have finally been happy, but you took it all away from me! You took away my one chance! And I’ve dreamed of this day ever since.”

“I’m sure this is all very clear to you, but you’re going to need to be more specific. I must have ruined a lot of lives without realizing it, since nothing’s really coming up.”

My hand rises up of its own accord to slam the wall again, and I barely restrain it. I’m losing control of my demons. I can feel the uneven press of fillings grinding under the pressure of my rage.

“Jess—i—ca.” I barely manage to get out.

“Jessica? Oh, you mean that girl who was on our team before she transferred over to Devops? I remember she was nice, wicked smart too.”

“And she was mine! You turned her against me!” I can feel spittle flying past my lips. This is it. This is the moment. Did I take the safety off? What was a safety again? How do you take it off if it’s on?

“Oh, I remember now.” He raises his shirt up to wipe his face, revealing his stupid fake toned stomach. “She asked me if I’d sent her a picture of a dick from your Slack account as a joke, and I told her I hadn’t.”

“And if it weren’t for that, she’d be my wife right n—”

I don’t know what happened. One moment I’m getting on with the preamble of my speech, and the next moment I’m sprawled against the opposite wall. My jaw hurts, and everything tastes like pennies. My vision finally settles, and I see some red splotches on my pants. I wipe my mouth. It stings.

And there’s Josh, looming over me. Ready to take advantage of a cheap shot to put one over on me and hold me back from achieving my destiny, like he always is.

He shakes his fist before rubbing his temple. "You know what? I’m not even going to apologize for that. You’re a real piece of work, Kevin. You always have been. I just hoped that one day you’d wake up and figure it out.

"I did my best, you know, I really did. I helped you get that job, I put you on my team. I fucking shielded you from the consequences of your shitty work, apologized for your goddamned outbursts. I even kept you from getting fired.

"I should have listened to Amelia from the start. She told me you were a lost cause, but I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know what the fuck happened to you in middle school, but that smart, nice kid I knew is fucking dead, and I guess he has been for a long time.

"The world’s not out to get you, man. I’ve been in your corner, your mom’s been in your corner, our teachers liked you—they worried about you. Don’t even get me started on what your dad did to get you through college.

"You have so many people doing their best to help you out, and you’re always so pissed off. About what? For what? What fucking reason do you have?

"And let’s talk about this ‘revenge’ for a second. I ruined your life… because I didn’t lie to cover your stupid tracks? I ruined your life because I convinced Jessica that you were socially awkward but harmless, and wouldn’t it be nice if she moved to a team with more upward mobility by the way? I ruined your life by risking my career for you?!

"Did you ever think that maybe it’s your fault for sending a picture of your penis to a coworker who you’d only ever talked to during morning meetings? Did you ever think that maybe you had some control and responsibility for the way things turned out? That maybe people would have liked you more if you hadn’t wasted so much air insulting them? That you would have had better luck dating in college if you hadn’t only approached drunk women at bars? You got a reputation for that, you know.

"People used to like you, man. And even when they stopped liking you, they still loved you. Even though you did the best fucking job you could to be unlovable.

“You’ve got seven and a half hours left. Maybe you can figure something out before the world ends, but I guess it doesn’t fucking matter. And since it doesn’t fucking matter, I don’t want to see your face again. I’m going to spend the last few hours I have with the woman I love. I want to say that I hope you can spend yours growing up and realizing the world isn’t—wasn’t—as ugly as you wanted it to be, but I frankly don’t care. Fuck off.”

The door slams shut, and I hear the sound of a deadbolt slamming into place.

I’m staring at my boots. Something warm dribbles off my lip.

After a few minutes, I push myself to my feet. I wobble over to the door and lean down to scoop up my mittens. Fuck you, Josh. I’m going to kick that goddamned door down, and we’ll see who’s fucking responsible for fucking what.

I tug the mittens onto my hands, and start towards the stairs. Turns out that going down is easier than going up.

(Part 1 of 2)

The Mayans were right. The morons who believed them were also right. It was the aliens who had fucked it up. Apparently—and it was very nice of them to let us know this—the alien technician in charge of setting the alien reminder in their alien calendar had fat fingered the tens digit, and what was supposed to be entered as 2012 ended up as 2032.

But that, very soon, is about to be water under the bridge.

It’s been five days now since their saucers darkened the sky and announced that all those bastards would finally get what they deserve—I mean, in their words, the beginning of the end that they were so regretful had to come to pass, but the budget had been approved and there was a lot of potential profit riding on the successful harvest of the byproducts of carbon-based life left to run amuck so, you see, their hands were tied.

Just like mine are. I rub my hands together and breathe on them, a humid mist forming in the frigid January air. Maybe I should have picked thicker gloves, but these are my coolest black gloves—I think they’re real leather—and, to be honest, I didn’t expect it to take so long to find his apartment.

The last thing any electronic ever played was the aliens’ crocodile-tear-filled message, and then everything had gone dark. My town feels alien without Siri in my ear to tell me where to turn or to suggest a better route. Guess they designed this town with GPS in mind way back when, because none of this makes any sense. Why do all of these fucking signs have N or W or S or E written on them? What is that supposed to mean? I know that Josh’s house is on the east side of town, but how am I supposed to figure out where that is without the compass app?

And it’s not like I have any friends here I can ask, and I’m definitely not going to ask a fucking stranger. Condescending pricks.

I should have asked Mom, before she left. She went with my dad (ugh) and Veronica and Charlize (double ugh), my sisters, to spend their last few days on earth with family. Can you believe she asked me to go too? Why? What’s the point? Why would I want to spend time with people who’ve always hated me?

No, I have something better in mind. Revenge.

But my hands really are cold, Jesus. No, it’s fine. These gloves are great, they go with my outfit, and I’ve always been tough—tough as titanium nails. What’s a few more hours of absolute blistering agony compared to my life. If I can cap this miserable existence off with the perfect revenge, then it’ll have all been worth it. I’ll bear this like I’ve borne everything.

I screw my face up with determination, tip my hat brim down, tighten the cinch of my trench coat, and bravely tuck my hands into my pockets.

It takes a few more hours, but I finally find it. Who knew it takes seven hours to walk two miles? God, life without a car sucks. I passed a whole bunch of losers on my way here too—some freaking love birds sitting at the park, stupid show-off dinner spread in front of them, big bottle of (I’m sure) cheap-ass wine, tears in their dumb, fake eyes; a family parked on their roof, telescope ready to watch the show, kids running around while their parents looked on with empty expressions to match their empty heads; some dumb-ass kid wailing about his mom his dad his mom wah wah wah, shut up! At least there was a store on the way that still had a pretty good unraided stock.

A world of fakers and nuisances. And it’ll all be over in—I look up to the sky—a few more hours? They said the world engines won’t start harvesting until the 6^th. I’m not exactly sure how long from now that’ll be, but I think I have a couple of hours at least after it gets dark. Which it isn’t yet.

I really want to wrap this up right when they start to tear everything apart. I think that’d be most poetic. I look at the watch on my wrist—one of my dad’s, seems expensive; he’d left it behind along with his guns. Its brand is some stupid foreign word, but it’s still ticking along. Maybe it uses a battery the aliens couldn’t deal with? Problem is, I have no idea what the digits and ticking hands mean. One of them seems to tell seconds, since it moves around pretty quickly.

But I don’t need to know seconds. I need to know hours.

I spin around and plant my back against the wall, sliding down it dramatically (too bad nobody’s watching), until my ass hits the concrete. I’ll just wait a few hours after it gets dark, and then I’ll take care of business. That’s good enough.

Having my feet so close to my butt like this is actually super uncomfortable. I don’t know the right way to describe it, but, like, it’s really tight in my top and bottom leg? Like something’s stretched to a breaking point?

It’s obvious that humans aren’t meant to sit like this, so I stretch my legs out—carefully. I don’t want to scuff the polish on my black, calf-high boots.

I reach my thick brown (look, they didn’t have any black left, okay!) mittens into my pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. It takes me a while to pull off the cellophane wrapper, and even longer to figure out how to get the lighter to work, and longer still to actually get the cigarette correctly lit. I’m sure I could do a better job with practice, but I was too busy looking after my health my entire life to try to look like a cool bad boy, alright? It’s not my fault.

Turns out that was all wasted time. Cigarettes are disgusting. They make you choke, they burn your throat, and they taste like ass (not that I’d ever eaten ass, and I never would, because that’s gross). Alright, well, the cigarette’s not going to be part of my final scene. I flick it into a nearby tree lawn.

I have a much easier time with the contents of my other pocket. It pops open easily under my dexterous fingers, and the taste of its perfect blend of sugar and caffeine helps calm my nerves.

A long time later, I look at the watch again. The big hand’s made almost a full rotation since I checked it last. The little hand hasn’t budged. Does it measure days or something? Anyway, it’s been long enough. Time to take care of this, and then take a piss, and then welcome the end of this shitty world.

The entranceway to the apartment complex is unlocked. I climb up the stairs, taking a break after each floor to make sure I won’t fumble my big speech at the top. I walk up and down the sixth floor hallway three times before I realize the odd numbers are on the left, and knock on the door to number 623.

I can hear muffled voices from beyond the door.

“Who the fuck, now of all times?”

“It’s fine, honey. It’s probably Ms. Gere from 602. She probably forgot which apartment was hers again.”

“And that all of this is going on too. Never thought I’d envy her.”

A woman’s voice and a man’s. My hand tightens around the grip of the pistol in my pocket.

Shit! I forgot to take off the mittens. Fuck shit fuckity shit fuck! I slip my hand out of my pocket and grip the mitten with my teeth… and the door cracks open. Man, fuck you. I just needed two more seconds, and now you’ve made me look like a fucking tool.

Nice. A story that’s almost all good, natural-sounding dialogue, and the only description is also the climax. I think the lack of description really makes it feel immediate and snappy.

This is also definitely a fantasy that everyone who’s struggled with negative thoughts can relate to.

This was great! I really like the way the whole thing reads, mechanically and in terms of structure. The sentences have a rhythm to them, and there’s a buildup to the reveal of “this is his power, and this is how he uses it to help people” that keeps you reading.

I also like how you created a character who’s mature and experienced with their power, because you’re answering questions like “How would someone grow up if they had this power?” “How would people treat them?” “Can they use it for anything useful?”, and it’s more interesting than just “How would it feel to have this power?”.

My favorite part, though, is how the narrator only gives a superficial description of the woman at first. And, only after experiencing her most painful memory, does he actually give a detailed description—as if he doesn’t really look at people until he’s looked into them. I’m not sure what that says about his character, but I feel like it makes a lot of sense.

This was good. A good, complete story in a couple dozen lines. Character intro (not the brightest but has actually pulled off jobs before), setup with some dramatic irony (for other readers, not me: I didn’t know what the Elgin Marbles were), small action piece, followed by the drop.

Nice stream of consciousness that really matched the kind of character who would do something like this and miss a major (but seemingly obvious) prep step along the way.

I was originally going to ask why he feels like he’s so fucked, when it kind of just seems like they can go through with their escape plan with no payout, but I think that’s mostly on me. On a second read, he’s just upset that he and his boys were so dumb, and they’re not necessarily about to face any impending doom in the marble hall.

(Part 5 of 5)

--

Hsar’gl sighed, an impossibly long breath, tinged with sparks and embers. He lounged atop his horde, a mountain of gold greater even than the Great Wyrm hordes his father had spoken of. His tail flicked discontentedly, and Kobolds scattered out of its way, desperate not to lose the reports they carried to and fro in the castle’s main chamber.

Immortality was always going to be boring. There is only so much that is new and fresh and exciting.

After centuries of being in a rut—of spending weeks asleep atop his meager (it seemed to him now) horde, of waking occasionally to assault a caravan, raid a town, or raze a kingdom (just for the fun of it)—something interesting had finally happened.

It was a man, he thought now (he wasn’t sure, and it wasn’t important; he did remember that they were slender and gamey, however). Hsar’gl had grown bored with the idea of razing a nearby village halfway there and returned to his lair find someone crawling among his treasures.

He had given them a fair shot, about two minutes of struggling, before he nailed them to the cavern floor with his talon. It was a shame, really. He’d never seen a human move so deftly, even though it wasn’t close to enough.

Later, when he was picking a rib bone from his teeth, he had noticed a pack the human had been carrying. Unusually, it didn’t contain alcohol or gold, but books.

Hsar’gl had never been one for reading. Human letters were too small, and they never had anything interesting to say anyways.

Maybe it was because he was particularly bored that day, or maybe he’d absorbed some of the human’s spirit when he consumed them (an old superstition among dragons that Hsar’gl didn’t subscribe to, usually), or maybe it was out of some respect or curiosity for this most capable of humans—in any case, he made the decision to take a look at the books.

It didn’t hurt that the thickest among them was titled, “The True Wealth of Kingdoms.” It dealt with ideas that, at first, were—and it pained him to admit this—above Hsar’gl’s head. It dealt with this concept of the ‘economy’ and ‘prosperity’ and ‘people as capital’ and ‘monetary velocity as a vehicle for growth of the GDP’.

His horde had been growing painfully slowly these past few centuries, and he had never considered adding people to his horde, and he had certainly never considered that there were things you could add to a horde that would then grow your horde for you. These ideas were intriguing—more importantly, they weren’t boring.

He had been excited the day he flew four hundred miles to this castle, collapsed it with one swipe of his tail, and swallowed the piss-smelling man with the golden headpiece. He had been excited as he worked on optimizing the horde-generating capability of his new horde-members—as he lowered the taxes on the poor to increase the ‘velocity’ of their money; as he ordered the mass of Kobolds his presence attracted to dig out ‘irrigation systems’ and build ‘schools’; as he tore through the orc and goblin hordes that lingered outside of the city (that had, admittedly, been quite fun); as he learned to manage and delegate and trust the pieces of his horde whose goals aligned with his.

He had been excited. It was a project, a new idea. But now it was over. He had implemented it. His horde was larger than it had ever been and grew day-by-day at an impossible rate. The other kingdoms in this land were just more treasure to his horde in all but name, as they adapted to his reforms as not to court his wrath.

He had done and conquered more than any dragon before him. He had slept less and dreamed bigger. And now there was nothing.

A man stood before him, patiently waiting to speak. Hsar’gl remembered this one. The tattoo on his bald skull indicated that he was more fervent than most in his worship.

Hsar’gl swung his head around, and fixed the man with one eye.

“Speak,” he rumbled.

The man unrolled a scroll with trembling hands, tears of joy in his frantic-looking eyes. “I have here the report on the Westlands that you asked for, my great and terrible Lord of All There Is Was And Will Be.”

That was not one of his official titles. But, he had to admit that he didn’t hate it.

(Part 4 of 5)

--

Roland sighed, and took a careful drink from the cup in front of him. It was called “coffee,” and it was a recent import from an island nation to the far east. He still wasn’t quite used to it (it was too hot, for starters), but many of the young men under his command swore by it.

He was awkwardly seated on a wooden chair at an outdoor table, his helm carefully placed next to the steaming cup, his sword laid carefully across the chain mail that draped his legs. He was on a break, and he liked to enjoy his break out of the garrison, where he could see the people walking by, even though that did mean he had to pay for his own food.

A small price to pay, though, to see the happy, smiling faces moving in the bustle.

Roland was old now—old for a guard, at least—but, for the first time in his life, he felt fulfilled.

He had grown up the youngest of seven brothers. Of them, he was the only one who’d made it to his fifth decade. Most of his brothers had died young, in their teens or earlier, from disease or accident. Two had become adventurers, and they had died like most adventurers had, in combat with goblins or orcs at the frontiers of the kingdom.

One had allied himself with a corrupt noble, and it hadn’t been a fun day when Roland brought him to justice.

Especially since Roland himself hadn’t then been convinced of the justness of the King’s Guard and his own work. He had always been a stickler for rules, even as a child, and very hardworking, so it was only natural (his parents had effused to any neighbor who would listen) for him to become a member of the King’s Guard—the elite group that maintained order and kept the people safe.

Unfortunately, as he had come to see, the “order” that was kept by the King’s Guard was heavily slanted to the maintenance of the position and wealth of the King and his… he hated to use the word, but… cronies. He found himself again and again being tasked with the detention of people whose only crime had been to be poor and desperate.

But the rules were the rules, and he was only a cog. What could he do?

Nothing, not until fifteen years ago. He twisted the magic rings on his fingers that marked him as a member of the Dragoons. Those had saved his life, and changed this kingdom for the better. They were his mark of office, the tools of his trade, and his lucky charm.

Fifteen years ago, he had been called to the castle (still then being rebuilt from the ruins it had so suddenly become). He had met directly with Commander Hsar’gl. He had stared into those lambent eyes, pools of unfathomable depth, a foot across each, and incomprehensibly alien. And those eyes had stared back into his, and wrested from the depths of his mind every secret thought and desire, and he had trembled—cried even—as that thundering voice pronounced him worthy.

He had been named First Dragoon, and tasked with assembling loyal soldiers who were loyal first to the Emperor, and then to the people. Early on, their work was to secure the frontiers (but that was quickly handled, as word spread of Hsar’gl’s reign); then they moved to the cities, to root out the devils, demons, and fey creatures that sowed discord with their lawlessness and disguises; then they were tasked with removing (gently) the landed gentry with evil intentions and selfish hearts; and finally, the task that would likely occupy the rest of their lives was providing for the safety and prosperity of the common folk, making sure they were not being abused by their employers, and rounding up the odd thief or other criminal.

This kingdom had been rotten, and the people had languished. But a great savior had struck out that rotten core, and now the people thrived. And Roland could again look his wife in the eye when he donned his armor each morning.

--

The Great Lord Barbaro sighed, and pushed the pages to the edge of the desk. His eyes hurt, and it was fruitless to continue looking at them.

He and his advisors had spent years spying, collecting information, and drawing up these plans to invade their neighbors. And they were reasonably confident things would go well. The Westlands would be united under Barbaro’s iron fist, and he would bequeath that great gift to his son, and finally, finally, he could retire, his legacy safe.

And that was all for nothing.

The kingdoms across the Eastern Sea were united in all but name under some lout named Hsar’gl.

There had been little trade and even less military conflict between the barbaric Eastlands and the enlightened Westlands. It was a place that once had only held sway in his mind as a dream, that his son’s sons could bring order and stability to that barbaric land, and so the Barbaro family would rule all of the known world. But over the past decade, trade had increased apace, and the types of ships and commodities that had been coming over had him and all the other Westland kings worried.

At first, they had laughed at the adamantine horseshoes, the mithril plows. Some foolish king investing untold resources in trying to fool his betters on the other side of the sea. Nobody could have such wealth!

But the goods kept on coming, and coming, and coming. An endless stream of commodities made of the most precious of metals that here were only worked by a handful of smiths, trained in the metallurgical and magical arts, and beholden to and favored by kings.

How could he think on an invasion, when there loomed now the Eastern Darkness, an apparent economic powerhouse ready to swallow the world? What if that in the Darkness should rouse? How could he—how could all the kingdoms together—fight against an economy that uses mythical ores for PLOWS?

The Great Lord Barbaro did not feel, indeed, very great. He hadn’t been sleeping well recently. His foolish dream had become a recurring nightmare. The bags under his eyes were heavy and gray.

A knock at the door.

“Milord, your carriage is ready,” his servant called to him.

Barbaro ran his fingers through his greasy hair. He shoved the chair back, sending it toppling, and scooped up the papers on his desk in a crumpled sheaf.

He leaned over the crackling fireplace, and felt his heart pounding in his chest. It’s too late. There’s nothing he can do. One dream must die, so that his people could live.

He tossed the papers—the intel, the plans, the maps, years of labor— into the fire, and watched as they blackened, burned, and rose up the flue. Now just another half-forgotten memory of a dream.

It was time to ride. To show weakness where he wanted strength. To parlay with his fellow rulers and figure out how to deal with—if indeed there was any way—this monster in the east.

(Part 3 of 5)

--

Agatha sighed as her dirt-encrusted talon dug out a splintered finger bone from between her molars. She flicked it onto the refuse pile and spat, saliva mixed with black green blood sizzling on the damp stone.

The taste of goblin did not agree with her, and their wails and pleading were so much less musical than the humans she had grown accustomed to in her long centuries in that city previously called Saril, then Burthar, and now finally (and she well imagined it might truly be finally) Hsarton.

She felt the rage well up in her. It was less often now, but it takes long for the desires and habits of an age to fade.

She slammed the stone wall of her underground lair, the stone pulverizing under her mottled, wrinkled fist, the sinews of her arm taut like the roots of a tree. The crying of her chained prisoners stopped a moment, and she realized that her aim had been poor—this wasn’t the section of wall next to the goblin leader’s head, it was the section of wall behind the goblin leader’s head.

She licked her now slimy fingers and winced. This one was definitely not good enough to eat so shortly after eating another. Perhaps she could turn it into a potion or at least give its meat to her wargs. Be a shame to let even such low quality meat go to waste.

Life here in the mountains—in this mediocre and long forgotten dungeon—was challenging, and as a young hag she had never imagined she would have to rough it like this. She had been raised in a tight-knit coven in one of the most rotten cities in the world; a city where there was too much scrabbling by the rich to worry about laws for the poor, and too many assaults by orcs, goblins and foreign powers for the formerly poor (adventurers) to worry about problems at home.

It was a wonderful place where a girl could disguise her warts, her humps, her fangs and claws, and find a new, fresh meal every day. A place where, there was a child to fool as the kindly grandmother, a mother to fool as the sage herbalist, or an adventurer to fool with swaying hips and buxom illusion. Her and her sisters prided themselves on never eating the same meat twice in a week.

But that dream was dead and gone, along with her two sisters. One of them, Kalgra, had sought to bargain with the kingdom’s new lord. Surely, not being human, he would want to come to a deal with the Wicked Three who ruled the seedy, dark underbelly of the kingdom’s capital. Surely, he would see reason.

Agatha had warned her not to go, not until they knew more of this new king, and she had watched through their shared eye as the king’s maw—deep thundering laughter escaping from it—closed over her sister, and the connection was forever severed.

Her other sister, Niessa, had been caught by one of the so-called Dragoons, elite guards outfitted with magical rings that let them see through all illusions and all pretense. She had taken four of them with her, bless her black heart.

And now she was all that was left. There were no games here; tricking goblins was no fun. The meat was sparse, spare and gamy. This was not home. She was trapped in this frozen hole, forced away from the dark kingdom that was her right by birth.

“Curses be on thee! Thou thrice-wretched usurper!” She snarled, as another goblin’s head popped beneath her grip.

Oops. She hadn’t even realized she’d grabbed that one.

--

Beata sighed dreamily. She was small for her age, and her legs still kicked the air futily as she sat at her desk, pencil twirling languidly in one hand.

She was staring off into space, over the heads of the dozen or so students in the rows in front of her. Mr. Fil was standing on a stool and scratching characters onto the board, the chalk held clumsily in his talons. They were Drag’thildenese characters, and she already knew them.

Twice a week, Mr. Fil visited their school to give them a lesson (from a native! Ms. Gilt explained, her eyes wide, and her accent always so bad and awkward in Drag’thildenese). Beata didn’t need the lessons—her best friend, Thilda, was a Drag’thilden, and they had basically grown up together on her parents’ farm.

But her parents said it was important, if she wanted to work for the government (work with Mr. Hsar’gl!), not only to be able to speak Drag’thilden, but to have graduated from a prestigious school that taught it.

“The degree is half of the point,” her mother would say. “That’s an expensive piece of paper!” her father would joke. She didn’t understand, she was only eight, but she understood that she needed to listen to Ms. Gilt and Mr. Fil explain things she already knew so that she could work for Mr. Hsar’gl one day.

So, she spent those periods dreaming about him; about the blonde hair, blue eyes, wide shoulders, kind voice and gentle smile that he surely had. Thilda had explained to her that Mr. Hsar’gl (Thilda always called him Lord Hsar’gl, though) was a mighty beast, born in the form of the divine, and that he could take any form he wanted, human, noble beast, or even Drag’thilden or goblin!

Beata didn’t like to imagine him as a goblin, but she did sometimes imagine him as a dog, the noblest of beasts. And in her imagination she would give him scratches and they would play and he was her best friend.

She had never seen Mr. Hsar’gl. In fact, almost nobody had. But they said he was out there in the city, disguised as a shopkeeper, or a beggar, or a guard, so you should always be nice to everybody. And she was, mostly, except for Bobby, because he was a jerk and ugly and Mr. Hsar’gl would never disguise himself as somebody ugly.

“Ms. Beata. Ms. Beata?”

Her reverie was interrupted by Mr. Fil rapping on the board with his claws.

She shook her head and focused on the board. Apparently nobody else had managed to answer Mr. Fil’s question, so it fell to her to save the day yet again.

(Part 2 of 5)

--

Marta sighed as she shaded her eyes to gaze over her family’s greatly expanded holdings, over the fields of green shoots and orchards of trees young and old. She had been doing that a lot recently. She wasn’t unhappy. Things were better now, and in many respects easier, but they were different than she’d expected.

When she’d been a child, her mother had told her and her aunts had told her and her older sister had told her how life was going to be. It was going to be simple. She was going to grow up; marry a nice local boy; work a small patch of land; have as many kids as the gods allowed; and they would grow up and work the land with her before they eventually either joined someone else’s family or started their own.

That had always sounded hard to her, the toiling in the fields and the baby making (she had been present for her little sister’s birth, and oh boy did that not look fun), but it had been simple, and the path had been clear. As she grew up and learned more about the work of planting and cultivating and living, she even managed to see some dreams in it. Maybe her family could have a few more acres, which would make it easier to live off of the 10% they were allowed to keep by the local lord; maybe they could even, and this was truly a flight of fancy, have enough land that they could grow a second type of crop just to have something a little different to eat every now and again. Sometimes she even dreamed about having a bed just for flowers, some of the pretty red ones that grew up wild but would look so nice in a patch. Little dreams for a little life, but dreams.

What was she supposed to dream of now? They had fields of potatoes, squash, cabbage, and tomatoes (an import from the Westlands!); orchards replete with apples and pears; and small, experimental patches of vegetables that didn’t even have a name in Common. The front of her home was decorated in vibrant hues of yellow and red, tastefully and painstakingly arranged. There was always enough for her, her four sons, and her husband to eat; and she rarely made the same dish twice in a week.

Things had been so simple before. You worked in the fields so that you could eat. If you didn’t work, you couldn’t eat. Working was living. But now? Most of the crops they grew were exported to towns whose names she’d never heard of, and the only digging in the dirt she did was in her garden, so she wouldn’t forget the feel working the earth with her own hands.

Most of her work was managerial now. She directed the small, scaled creatures—they used to be called Kobolds, but she did a good job now calling them Drag’thilden (their own name for themselves)—that did much of the work now. She worked with the larger among them (for some reason the larger ones always seemed to have greater responsibility) to plan out expansions to the fields, what crops to plant, how to extend the irrigation system, how to get a permit (!) from the city for increased water usage.

This work fell to her, because her husband had never quite gotten the knack for their tongue. Maybe it was because she had been a few years younger than him when the change happened (they say that its easier when you’re younger); maybe it was because she’d always thought they were kind of cute (in a scaly and offputting kind of way), while she suspected her husband was afraid of them; or maybe it was because her husband had never seemed to master even their own native language (the way men mumbled and just expected you to understand them!).

Her husband had given up on tilling the earth. At first, he had been out to prove that this “irrigation” and “kobold employee” business was a distraction, and that nobody could work the land like a man who’d grown up on it. But reality eventually caught up to him, and, after a period of listlessness, he changed gears. He had always supported irrigation; he had always supported the inclusion of the Lord Emperor’s vassals; and he had always intended to leave the running of his considerable fields to his wife, so he could focus on the business of selling and making deals—of bringing home the coin (he still said, though any coins he received ended up in the treasury in exchange for paper money).

It was a little funny, his turnaround—his stubborn desire not to face up to the fact that he had changed with the world. But he was happy, and their children were happy, and she was… she had to be happy too.

She had more than she could have ever dreamed about, anything she could have ever wanted. But when she looked out, she could only see. She couldn’t imagine anything better.

--

Viko sighed as he slunk further into his well cushioned chair, the fire crackling a few feet away, warming his handsomely soled boots. A half empty bottle of wine rested on the side table.

He had never been better rewarded, and he had never been so bored. As the Head of the Royal Household, he had always had more power than one might expect. He commanded, and the servants obeyed. He requested, and the soldiers acquiesced. He talked, and the king had listened.

Servants had quaked in his wake; nobles had greased his palms; businessman had sought his advice and favor. He had taken a salary a provincial noble would have envied, and he had taken so much more.

He hadn’t needed the money, but it was the carefully managed risk that enthralled him. Will this noble betray me? Will this or that would-be usurper manage to connect me to the shadowy figure who’d offered them a chance at poisoning the king, for the right price? Would this family of the royal foodtaster start to wonder how poison slipped by me so many times? Could this noble have the balls to try to blackmail me?

He stroked his white beard and wiped a bit of dribbled wine onto his pants. He had served this castle for forty years. He had survived three kings and one short lived queen. He had been responsible for two of those changes of power, and another week would have seen him responsible for a third.

But it was over now. It had been over for a long time. The Lord Emperor, Our God and Protector may he live forever (though he certainly didn’t need our prayers for that) was never under threat. No nobles vied for his position through treachery and politicking. He was unassailable, untouchable. His kobold vassals politicked amongst themselves and stabbed one another in the back (literally and figuratively) but were perfectly loyal to their king, and Viko imagined no thrill in participating in their petty squabbles.

Certainly, there were still risks. He could, for example, throw his lot in with the sputtering resistance (nominally loyal to the ostensibly surviving prince). But that wasn’t a calculated risk, it wasn’t manageable. There was no chance of success and every chance of the Emperor’s otherworldly eyes wresting that secret from him.

To play games now meant not only to court death, but to invite it in through the front door with a smile and a wave.

Viko knew that he was too old and twisted to adjust to this new life of doing his job and only his job, but he also knew he was too attached to the pleasures of this life (ash as they may now be) to give up on it all.

He poured another glass of wine, his hand trembling, and held it out in a mocking toast to the empty air. “To our most terrible king.”

Only the fireplace crackled in response.

(Part 1 of 5) [Can’t seem to get the entire story posted in one comment.]

Lan sighed wearily as he thumbed the bills out carefully, he had never been one for counting, and this fiat currency required a lot of it. It had been fifteen years now since its introduction, which, he had to admit, was more than enough time for him to have gotten proper used to it.

He slid the bundle of bills into the drawer beneath the desk and nodded gruffly. “Payment’s all accounted for, sir. Wait one moment, I’ll have your order brought out.”

He pushed open the employees-only door behind him, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted to be heard over the din of hammers on anvils, of bubbling, molten metal, of finished product being roughly dumped into wooden boxes (with serious-looking apprentices carefully checking off items on their clipboards).

“One 100 piece set to bay five, for the revered gentleman!”

“Aye!” a thickset lad called back, “100 good-lucks for the well-to-do at five!”

Lan rolled his eyes. He didn’t understand his apprentices—all young and ‘educated’ (as they called it now)—desire to make up names for their small array of products and their perhaps smaller array of customers. But, he supposed he couldn’t begrudge them anything that made their work more palatable.

He let the door swing shut behind him, paused a moment for the ringing in his ears to settle, and told the well-to-do before him that he could wait with his cart, and the delivery would be brought out to him.

After the tinkling bell announced the customer’s departure, Lan leaned heavily over his desk and rubbed his head with his large, rough-callused hands. This wasn’t how he’d imagined he’d end up as a boy. He hadn’t hated blacksmithing—in fact, he’d been told on multiple occasions that he had quite a knack for it—but it had never been intended as anything more than a stepping stone in his journey.

He was doing it again. Lorra had told him a thousand times that ruminating was only making things worse for him, and that this was a better world for their son to grow up in. But, godsdammit, he couldn’t help it. And was it really a better world for their son? A world where a boy can’t dream of adventure? What sort of boy dreams of this?

On the walls, the product displays mocked him. Hung here and there, tastefully arranged (his wife’s handiwork), not only burnished steel, but glittering adamantine and twinkling mithril. There was no pig iron, no copper, no bronze here—none of the metals he had trained with in his youth. There was only the stuff of dreams, forged in magical flames via processes that few understood.

And he hated all of it. There was no spark in any of it, in the adamantine horseshoes or the mithril plows. It was all so boring, and it represented nothing to him but broken promises and a wasted life.

He had apprenticed to Halrth, the local smith, at the age of eight. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but the closest thing there had been to an adventurer’s apprenticeship was following one’s father out on quests, and unfortunately neither Lan’s father nor his father’s father had been an adventurer. But it had been a well considered choice, especially for a young child: blacksmiths were strong, so were adventurers; blacksmiths worked with swords and shields, so did adventurers.

And Halrth had been the blacksmith of choice for Terrel, the provincial lord and legendary adventurer. Terrel had been tall and wiry. An adventurer first and a lord second, his gold rings were always smudged with dirt, and he never did seem to be able to get the rust-colored stains completely out of his doublets.

If there was trouble at the border, Terrel was there first—twin blades in hand and a crop of rough adventurers at his heels. The people had trusted Terrel, and Terrel had done good by his people. Lan adored Terrel, and Terrel had humored him.

Lan wanted to be like Terrel, which his mother had told him meant he needed to learn how to read, and only nobles were ‘lettered’ (that was the term for it in those days) so he should give up on that orcheaded idea and focus on making enough copper for them to eat meat once in a while. But Lan had, he had thought, seen clearer than his mother: Yes, Terrel could read, but most adventurers couldn’t. He could be just like Terrel (the cool parts of him anyhow) without worrying about that at all.

He remembered the last time he had seen Terrel. It had been very exciting. Lan had been at the forge, hammering out his dozenth horseshoe of the day. Halrth had promised him that once he’d forged ten thousand horseshoes, then they would work on the swords and axes that kept the city safe and made up the bulk of their sales.

His hero—the province’s hero—had come in unexpectedly. He had looked excited. A dustcloak slung over his shoulders, a bulky pack (which Lan knew to be full of books) puffing it up like the hunch of a hag’s back, and his two trusty swords sheathed at his hip. He had spoken hurriedly to master Halrth, sparing Lan a small wave.

He was sorry, but he was in a rush. He needed two new wheels for his cart, a dozen horseshoes—just in case, it was a long journey—and the dents knocked out of his breastplate (last week’s goblin extermination had been particularly hard). He needed this all as soon as possible, because this mission was, perhaps, the most important he’d ever had and would ever have. He was off to parts unknown, to where it was rumored the silver dragon Hsar’gl resided, to recover a cache of magic items the dragon had stolen from a heavily-armored caravan (after eating all but one, it seemed, of the caravan’s guards). The king had offered him an audience—one hour—and to listen sincerely to his ideas, about governance and the economy and… some other stuff (Lan hadn’t really understood most of the words being thrown about at this point, though neither did most people), if only he would recover these magical items.

Lan had piped up at that point. Was Terrel going to fight a dragon? That was so cool.

Terrel had laughed. No, that was impossible. Dragons were forces of nature. He was going to find its lair, sneak in when the dragon was out, and recover the cache from its hoard.

That had honestly sounded almost as cool to Lan. He remembered that he had opened his mouth to say more, when master Halrth cuffed him across the head, snarling that it was time to get back to work.

Terrel had departed shortly after, and that was the last time Lan saw him. It was some small comfort, and counted a measure of pride, that there was a very good chance the horseshoes Terrel used on his final adventure had been made by Lan’s hand.

He just wished that he had had the chance to make a sword, even if he never got the chance to swing one at a goblin neck, but things had changed so quickly and so completely that there was no longer enough demand for weapons for a blacksmith in a backwater province to make a living doing it. And, like his mother had always said, making a living was the most important part.

There was a tinkling at the door, and he straightened his back, set his hands firmly on the desk—as if that could keep him from slipping away—and forced a smile. “Welcome to Lan’s Pots, Pans, and Assorted Other Items, what can I do for you today?”