Hearsay Horizons

"Thousands of years ago, our great God brought us to this land. He told his prophet that here was a place where Evil might finally be defeated. The great God made this place from pieces of all lands--a place where we might fight the wicked of all realms without concern for collateral damage or morality; here, Evil could not hide. We, the heroes' descendants, still work toward the God's grand victory--though others grow complacent and over-familiar with Evil." -- Siraj vec Ampaad,  Ylattish commandant-cleric "Thousands of years ago, a powerful entity plucked chunks of land from all corners of the cosmos, slammed it together in a patchwork continent-world, and populated it with "evil" likewise stolen from across the multiverse. A chaotic prison, but the designated criminals have come together to flourish despite the entity's plans." --Rosewill Bellmane, runaway Waterweald alchemist "Thousands of years ago, a god snapped--and w...

 The author is dead; long live the story. When Wilde dies, when George Bernard Shaw dies, when Samuel Beckett dies, then the pieces begin to live. In his 1967 essay “Death of the Author,” Roland Barthes tells us “the birth of the reader” only occurs when we disregard the writer. Attaching significance to the author in criticism means making a puzzle of the author’s text—something to be dissected, its meaning hung up on a cork board with pins, a butterfly of art turned into a trophy. When the reader obtains the “victory” of piecing out the intent of the writer, it means moving on to the next piece to destroy it in biographical content and intention. This victory, however, is hollow. Storytellers, writers, and performers do not practice their arts for their own selves. They give the audience their children, their works, and instead of studying what the children go on to do, the audience turns its eyes away from the text and to the writer’s interpretations.     ...

Alia’s giggles cut off in a low gasp; Daline froze, and she stared down at the little girl pinned beneath her. They’d abandoned dolls and playing dress-up in favor of this tussling, but if she’d hurt her, it would be too easy to hurt her—             “Whassat?” Alia reached for the silver pendant at Daline’s throat. Daline strained away from those chubby fingers.             “It’s not for children.” Alia’s eyes darkened and her mouth drew into a hard line. She squirmed out of Daline’s grasp and threw herself at the woman’s neck. Daline retreated, crawling on all fours across the toy-strewn ground. Alia’s face wrinkled and reddened; her hands balled into fists. Alia pulled, hard, on her own blonde hair. The child opened her mouth to shriek, and panic bloomed in Daline’s chest. She glanced at the door.           “If I take it off, I’...

The elders said to stay away from the hole in the mountain. They called it a mouth--a gaping, dark thing that boded ill for those who disobeyed. Those who strayed. But the elders remembered a different age, a harder age, and they lacked the gifts of the young.              Mirelle waited for the rope to go slack; she heard Opan's boots scuff on the stone below before he said, "Alright!" Mirelle tested the rope--though it'd already withstood four people--and dropped herself down. Even a foot or two below the lip of the mouth, the air here was heavy and still. Dust swirled around Mirelle as she twisted her way down the rope. She landed with the same scuff of feet as Opan. His torch burned in the feeble light that managed to enter past the mouth's ragged opening; their friends were already glimmers in the distance.              "How big is this place?" Mirelle asked. Op...

Even if there were not threats clamoring to tear down the golden walls, our society could not withstand realization of the truth, or the breaking of the pact. The mechanical caretakers sustain the folk, and the land provides without anyone shedding sweat or blood. Even we of the First Estate know little of true manual labor. The bountiful trees are picked by the caretakers. Fields never need plowing; most people do not know what a “plough” is.               The masses that are the Second Estate would perish to a man if they had to fend for themselves. We of the first detest their inane existence, and yet we envy their innocence and ignorance. They regurgitate mindless beauty because they know no different, nor can they ever know. Lacking true souls, we create dazzling emptiness. Small living dragons made of metal with amethyst eyes and pasteboard trees with leaves made of pages from another time; why is it we only emulate...

The lack of biting cold woke her. Her cabin’s heating coil had been out for some time, and the lack freezing sensation was an alarm. The coil was out, her breath fogged the air, but she didn’t feel it.            There was no cold in her extremities because she was losing them. Her fingers--always shadowy, like the rest of her--were evaporating. Diffusing. The woman’s shadowy fingers went to her throat. There was no sound, no rasping of her palm against the hollow of her throat. She watched tendrils of darkness drift up from the contact of skin-on-skin--or shadowy, sort-of-skin.            Remora kicked her way out of her cocoon of clothes and thermal blankets and heaved herself onto her hands and knees; she rifled through the blankets and groped over the cold floor she could not feel, but her fingers didn’t find what she was looking for. Matte black eyes sliced through the darknes...