by An Owomoyela

Read by MarBelle (of the Directors Notes podcast)

Originally published in Eclipse Online. You can read it here!

Colonel Gabriel met him in a circle of canvas-topped trucks, in an army jacket despite the heat of the sun.  he stood a head taller than Benine, with skin as dark as peat coal, with terrible scarring on one side of his jaw.  When his gloved hand shook Benine’s bare one, he closed his grip and said, “What do you see?”

Benine was startled, but the call to listen in on the memories of things was ever-present in the back of his mind.  It took very little to let his senses fuzz, obscured by the vision curling up from the gloves like smoke.

He saw a room in a cottage with a thatched roof, the breeze coming in with the smell of a cooking fire outside, roasted cassava, a woman singing, off-tune.  He had to smile.  There was too much joy in the song to mind the sharp notes.  This must have been before the war; it was hard to imagine that much joy in Mortova these days.

The singing had that rich, resonant pitch of a voice heard in the owner’s head, and his vision swung down, to delicate hands with a needle and thread, stitching together the fabric of the gloves.  Neat, even rows, and as the glove passed between the seamstress’s fingers, he could see the patterns of embroidery on the back.

Benine banished the vision and pulled his hand back.  ”But these are women’s gloves!”

Colonel Gabriel gave him an appraising look.  ”So you can do something,” he said.  ”Not just superstition and witchcraft.”

Rated R. Contains war.

by T.A. Pratt (Find out more about Marla Mason here!)

Read by M.K. Hobson

Originally published in Witches: Wicked, Wild, and Wonderful, edited by Paula Guran.

Dr. Husch slid the panel over the window shut as the beast continued battering against the door. “Don’t worry, it can’t get out. The interior of the room is lined with rubber, reinforced by magic. We used to keep a paranoid electrothaumaturge locked up there. There are no electrical outlets or light fixtures, either—when we found the creature in Barrow’s room, it had smashed the light bulbs, and was suckling at the outlets like a hamster at a water bottle.”

Marla took off the glasses and rubbed her eyes. “What is that thing?”

“Barrow calls it an arc-drake. The live in the haunted mountains called the Lightning Peaks, north of the Sea of Surcease, a vast lake of liquid suffering.”

“You sound like the trailer for a bad fantasy movie,” Marla said.

“Appropriate, as Barrow was a fantasy writer. Though he wasn’t a particularly bad one, especially by the standards of his time. He was a pulp writer, mostly, published alongside the likes of Clifford Simak, Doc Smith, Sprague de Camp, Marsham Craswell—did you ever read much science fiction and fantasy, Marla?”

“Not really. I was too busy smoking and having sex with boys. I was always more interested in this world than in imaginary ones.”

Husch sniffed. “As a sorcerer, you should be ashamed. Magic is the act of imposing your will on reality. But without imagination, what good is even the strongest will? So what if you can do anything, if you can’t think of anything interesting to do?”

Rated R. Contains, well, Marla Mason. Also violence and profanity.

by Gene Wolfe

Read by C.S.E. Cooney and Dave Thompson

Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

“There’s something about this island—“ Muriel began.

Liza shook her head.  “I don’t like it either.”

“I didn’t mean that.  I didn’t mean that at all.”  Muriel put down her piña colada.  “It feels, well, welcoming.  It keeps telling me I’m home, that it’s where I’m supposed to be.”

“You’d better quit drinking this pineapple stuff.”

“I’ve only had one,” Muriel protested.  “This is my second.  You’re on your third.”

“Kirk drank my first one.  Can’t you feel the hostility?  The terrible loneliness?  It’s like – I don’t know.  It makes me think of a haunted house fifty miles from nowhere.”

Rated R. Really, this pretty well straddles the line of dark fantasy/horror.

Dave’s review of Gene Wolfe’s The Land Across audiobook for the AudioBookaneers!

by Desirina Boskovich

Read by Dave Thompson

Originally published in Realms of Fantasy. We miss you!

“We’re on a journey,” Radley says.

“We have a map,” Audra says. She speaks quietly, barely above a whisper, but I have no trouble hearing her, even in the noisy bar.

“Yeah,” Radley says. “We have a map.”

“But what we don’t have…” 

“Is a car,” Radley finishes. 

I’m amused, but not surprised. Artists—this is about all you can expect. “So exactly where is this map leading you?” I ask.

“Somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico,” Audra says. “A beach.”

“There’s one outside, you know.” 

“We need this particular beach.  Because of the sand,” Radley says.    

“What?”  

“Because we need it,” Audra says. And they won’t say anything more.

Rated R. Contains some drug use. HELLO, COLORADO!

by Anne Ivy

Read by Elizabeth Green Musselman

Originally published at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Read it here!

By dawn, the house of Eyr Eth Lun had fallen. Dead soldiers and laser-cauterized pieces of soldiers littered the stairs and bridges into the palace. The sun rose slowly over the spires, flushing the sky pink and pale blue, gleaming off broken glass, bringing color to the gore. Anubises, wading into the midst of the detritus, carried the bodies away. The dead, victorious and defeated alike, all went to the crematorium together.

The metal gates into the house hung warped and melted on their hinges. The inside echoed, empty, threatening. The first to set foot on the foyer’s metal floor had been electrocuted.

Eyr Eth Lun and his liege, the fugitive prince Ben Tur Ibren, were long gone. Some of Karnon Nameless Dae’s followers hoped their quarry—Lun and Ibren—was hiding somewhere in the house, sure to be flushed out. Most knew better. Lun’s soldiers had fought with the desperate furor of those who knew themselves dead. They’d been fighting to buy their masters time to escape, not to save their own lives. They’d succeeded, and their ranks—brave, loyal, and dead—lay in unflinching testament to the cost of Lun’s contingency plan.

Rated R: Contains some violence and sex.

Dramatis Personae:

Eyre Isri Esth: The finest scryer on the planet, and the wife, or former wife, of Lun.

Eyr eth Lun: Esth’s former husband, head of a royal house, and protector of the fugitive prince Ibren.

Ben Tur Ibren: The fugitive prince, who is being hunted down by Karnun Dae.

Karnun Nameless Dae: An alien bent on revolution, and overthrowing the prince and his supporters.

by Ken Liu.
Read by Aki Gibbons, of the website Okinawa Blue.
Originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

February 1943

Rated R for violent content, specifically war atrocities.

by Kat Howard

Read by Amal El-Mohtar

Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Read it here!

The first time I used a blade to defend a point of honor, both the blade and the honor were mine. I was perhaps eight, and Rosamaria Sandro had accused me of copying her mathematics exam. The next time we were in the salle, I told her I would prove her a liar with my blade. She stopped laughing at the idea when I hit her for the third time with the blunted end of my sword and made her tell our mathematics instructor the truth. The pomp and ceremony of today’s events have nothing in common with that juvenile scuffle but the blade.

The blade, of course, is what matters. It is as sharp, as edged, as fatal as truth.

The subject of this Arbitration stands to the left of the dueling grounds, tiny white teeth sunk so deep into her lip that it, too, whitens. Her fiancé hovers close by, as if to shield her from the events or perhaps from their consequences. I wonder if he will put her aside if I am defeated. I want to think that he will stay with her, that his protective posture is a sign of genuine attachment rather than a signal of possession. Laurelle is beautiful, and wealthy. The things that have been whispered about her would never have been said so viciously if it were otherwise. So it is possible he stands at her back because of reasons other than love, but I do not wish to believe in them.

Rated R. Contains swords, which are sharp, edged, and fatal.

by Peadar Ó Guilín

Read by Rob Haines

Originally published in When the Villain Comes Home.

Ah, Borquil, lucky Borquil. Many the balconies of his gilded mansion: north over the spice market; east where he sipped tea at dawn; west for opium. And south? Great Borquil _never_ looked south.

The sun shone on the Northern capital as it did every day. Borquil had seen to that. Had grown rich on it: the famous Sunshine Baron! By night, a gentle rain would patter over the fields and fill a few cisterns before sliding gently seawards on the Farg River, sweet-natured these days, ‘though its name meant “angry” in the old tongue.

“I calmed it all down,” muttered Borquil. “Me. They should be more grateful.”

The northerners _had_ shown gratitude at first. The king loved him. Whole provinces voted him honours and over the years, as Borquil grew plump and the nightmares disturbed him less and less, aristocrats welcomed him into their homes. “A foreigner no longer!” they said amongst themselves. “He is truly one of our own!” Sure, they found it odd how he refused to travel more than a day south of the Farg river,
but they too were rich enough to have ghosts they’d rather avoid. As the saying went: “no man lies in his own poop.”

But now, how inconvenient for poor Borquil! Revolution had come to the Kingdom of the North. His aristocratic friends were losing their heads in the streets outside. And the mobs had come for his blood too. The double doors leading to his courtyard splintered and buckled under a battering ram. He had perhaps an hour to live.

Rated R: Contains violence, disturbing themes and situtations.

by Alisa Alering

Read by Amy Robinson

Originally published in Clockwork Phoenix 4, edited by Mike Allen.

We steer clear of the mines–that’s Fixer territory. The Wanderers are dangerous, too, ever since they came fighting back around Day 30. But there’s always been less of them–less in all, and less because they scatter through the woods on their business instead of fixing to the towns and mines.

We step along to the city, fitting the crown on all we come across. We sleep in the darkest part of the day when the sky dips to dark blue. At first, in the country, there aren’t many heads to try. But we come up on the city, and we slow. We even try it on Fixers because Pansy says the King is the King and it doesn’t matter whose body he’s in. “The King is for all,” Pansy says. “Anyone can carry the King.”

Rated R: Contains Disturbing imagery and violence (welcome to the apocalypse!)

by Amal El-Mohtar

Read by Tina Connolly (of Toasted Cake). Check out Tina’s upcoming novel Copperhead, the sequel to Ironskin!

Originally published in the Glitter & Mayhem anthology, edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damien Thomas, and John Klima.

Dear Paige,

So, I’m here, but Anna’s not , and I awesomely left Memoirs of a Space Woman at home in spite of knowing I’d have two hours to kill, so I figure I’ll just keep writing to you.

Cabaret! I have no idea what to expect. Have you ever been to a cabaret show? I wasn’t sure how to dress for it either—when I asked Anna she just laughed and told me to use my imagination—so I’m wearing the red top you gave me, the button-down one with the sleeves that flare out and curl from the elbows. I can’t believe I still have it—it’s been, what, ten years, three moves? It’s not fitting so great now—since I started taking derby more seriously (I’m EMILY THE SLAYER now! Strong like Buffy!) my arms have gotten huge, and you should see the butt on me—but it’s still pretty and I love it, and it still matches my favourite earrings best.

I should probably tell you more about Anna, since obviously there’s more to her than being trans and my co-worker. She’s really great, and really cute—she just cut her hair short last week and dyed it bright orange-red, so she looks kind of like Leeloo from The Fifth Element. She’s vegan(sometimes I swear she likes the fact that I’m not, because it gives her an excuse to play “Meat is Murder” on loop in the cafe for the duration of my lunch break, which no one notices, because it sounds like every other Smiths song except the good ones, which she refuses to accept no matter how many times I explain it), an amazing cosplayer, and getting into burlesque. She hasn’t performed in public yet, just for friends in her living room, but she’s been developing this number that involves a chef’s hat, mixed greens, and oversized serving implements.

We’re not dating or anything. I’ve only known her for about a month, though it feels like way longer—and I refuse to entertain a crush, because she’s been in a closed poly triad for a while and they’re kind of going through a rough patch that she hasn’t told me much about. So I’ll tell you more about this cabaret thing instead.

Rated R: Contains Cabaret, Roller Derby references, and F-bombs. Let’s dance!