Hearsay Horizons

It wasn't working. Worlds are best when they feel heard, and this--wasn't. It wasn't the distractions around her--the dishwasher, her game in another monitor, a novel open on her phone, although those obviously weren't helping. It was just that every word felt strained. Every sentence came out twisted and wrong on the screen, and she was no closer to a draft than if she hadn't even bothered. Shae stared at the blinking cursor; her lips creased. The current song ended, and Shae glanced up to read the next before it started. The laptop almost toppled from her lap, but Shae caught it. Something else had caught her, though.             Gail Cooper stood in front of the TV. The living room was too small for them both; she was too close. Shae shook her head to dislodge the sandy whispers filling her ears; her eyes did not leave the spectre in front of her. They could have been siblings: plump cheeks, tall, wide hips that led into thick legs. But Gail's eyes were...

Sarah's parents weren't home. This was nothing new. They'd often gone touring, or gone to more stable shows in places like Vegas or New York. Places that, as a ten-year-old, Sarah was not permitted. Or welcome. And that was fine. It was fine, too, that in the weeks since the church collapse they'd been going out more often. They left money for pizza and they didn't care who she had over and who cared if they went out and left her here? She made the house her horizon.          "Sarah?" She froze where she hid behind the couch. "Sarah? I know you're in here." Something thudded, and Ben lisped a curse she didn't know he knew. And then he sniffled. Sarah darted out from underneath the couch. Ben had his chair hooked on the side table; a few weeks ago he would have knocked over the pictures there, but they weren't there anymore. Sarah frowned for a moment, but then Ben made another sound, and she looked far, far up at him. The girl shook ...

Two people on horseback rode over a dirt lane. By the look of their clothes, it had been a dirt road for some time. Through the dirt, the marks of quality were visible: the broad man’s well-made but plain, and the woman’s ostentatious from her wide-brimmed hat to the kidskin boots with a coat of arms embossed in the leather. To either side, cows and sheep looked at them without particular interest. A village that had been a brown smudge an hour ago was drawing closer. With each yard they moved, the woman’s expression grew more sour.              “Filthy peasants,” her companion heard her growl. “The stench .” The man reined his horse in; the woman followed suit.              “They are our countrymen in need.” he said sharply. “You told the inquisitor you could manage cowpats and pigsties. If not, you can turn back now and I’ll handle whatever it is we’r...

In the year 2525, man is still alive. Woman has survived. But our world has suffered for the human race's longevity. We make ourselves better able to withstand an environment we could not save. Air filters in our lungs let us breathe polluted air, we replace our cancerous skin with metal, and we convert our stomachs to process fuels that replace the cattle and greens that have gone extinct. The electric car, the wind turbine, and solar energy: myths that failed due to funding limitations or wars men fought to control the very things their violence destroyed. Smog hangs in the stagnant air, and soot rains down in iridescent flakes onto hardened skin and metal eyes that have no impetus to blink it off. This is how the world dies: not with a roar, but with a cough. << First     < Previous      Next >

Giant’s Mane. The city of quarrymen, of miners, of raw materials and hard work. The city of steep roads and canted gaits, whose citizens were known in nearby towns by their drunken walk. The city of the Bellmane Bounty. The world of Rosewill Bellmane, who currently stoops at a shelf where she adjusts glass bottles and figurines. She glances at these wares, and at the more utilitarian goods around them. A shadow passes before the broad shop window. Rosewill ducks behind the shelf, her layers of skirts and her braids clinking, and then sneaks toward the counter. She flinches at the bell over the door. The dwarfling tucks and rolls to cross open space.                “Hello?” the potential customer calls.                “Hi!” Rosewill pops up from behind the counter. She grins too widely at the human, who has already stepped back a few paces. Rose pu...

"I was their mouse. But not actually their mouse. The tunnels and old droppings where I lived said there'd been a real mouse there before, but it was a long time ago. I lived alone. Whatever seasonal pests came in, they always left. Then I heard something moving in the dark. It clawed through the old tunnels the other mouse had left behind. I had to stay awake at night and listen. It rustled past as it paced inside the wall and out. One night the mouse might crawl into my den and sink its teeth into me in the dark.           "Every morning, after they were both gone and the mouse's pacing stopped, I left my den. I went out in the corners, and I climbed into the cabinets. The mouse went everywhere. They might notice it. They might notice me; I had to hide it as much as I could. The droppings it left were bigger than three together of the old ones, the ones I kept finding in my den no matter how many I cleared out. I thought the sound of movement in the walls wou...

"'Coati, fox shifter, of age. Auburn hair, pale green eyes, roses-and-cream complexion. Short, average, verging on slender. Theatrical background.'" Coati scrunches her face. “‘Of age’? ‘Roses and cream’?" The shifter sitting with her shrugs his shoulders when she glances at him. Coati sighs and returns to reading. " 'As a fox shifter, theme yourself around trickery, sneakiness, and appeal. Wear your hair down, for once. But with your hair down, people won’t see your ears; hybrid form required at all times. Included is a stipend for clothing and gear; wear gowns, not that ragged coat and those awful, washed-out tunics. Be sexy; you are a vixen.' " Coati folds the letter, and then folds it into smaller squares. She gives her friend a solid stare. "Kite. You’re comfortable with this?" The man shrugs.             "I guess. It gets us out to see the world, you know?" Coati sighs again.             "Says the male—who g...

My essence steamed and flaked off. With each step, her scream grew louder. She had been screaming for so long, and the twisted forces inside sustained her at a note human voices couldn’t reach. It was a wet finger on a glass, but the finger and the glass and the concept of water were going to break. I pressed through the smoke in the doorway. Where my body pushed the smoke, it stayed. I fanned—scooped—it out of my way.              The smoke had been frozen, but behind it stretched a chaotic tableau: dirty light and smells unknown on any plane exploded from the hearth. There, tendrils twisted and oil belched. Shapes, creatures, burst from the primordial mass. They managed a squawk or mewl before they dissipated into gas or incomprehensible words, making way for new things. It was formless to me, but I narrowed my eyes and saw it as she did: cephalopodic, ancient, unknown and unknowing. Within the roiling force, a great eye stared unblinking into hers....

Dagon stood in the city’s garden quarter. It was less humid here than in other portions of the city-garden, and clematis and ivy thrived and twined around the door on which he knocked. Dagon listened to the whispers behind the door. They were too faint to understand, but the tone of argument pricked his sensitive ears. The faded blue door was divided into two sections three-quarters up from the ground. This was the sort of affair favored by mixed households of halflings and tall folk. The slender, white-skinned elf who opened the door should thus not have surprised him—but he’d expected a halfling. At least, a halfling shape. Dagon’s thin lips creased into a polite smile.             “Good day,” he began. He accompanied the words with a bow. There, while he bowed, Dagon’s nostrils flared. He straightened up, and his smile was a little warmer. “Good day,” he repeated. The woman looked at him. Her gaze glanced off his bronze skin. She met his silver eyes, a...

You found her in an alley. You thought this was a sleeping child. By the time you’d lifted her body, you realized the halfling was a woman. And she was dead. You look at her in the light spilling in from the road: a thin, pinched face, ashy skin, brown eyes dark and lifeless in the dim illumination. Her corpse is clothed in tattered grays and washed-out blacks. She has small packets of silvery cloth--they smell faintly of incense--woven into her braids alongside small keys of white stone and... coins. This close, you can see a spot of decay at the corner of her mouth. How long has she been dead?                You carry her like a bundle of clothes into a smaller, darker alcove. You set down her lifeless body and draw your knife. You have your blade set at the root of one braid when the halfling blinks her eyes.                “Excuse you?” she says in a rough, low voice. You stab yourself in surprise. ...