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PodCastle 759: INDIGENOUS MAGIC – Anu and the Vetala

PodCastle 759: INDIGENOUS MAGIC – Anu and the Vetala is a PodCastle original.

Content Warnings for references to sexual assault

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:33 — 74.0MB)

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Show Notes

PG-13

Anu and the Vetala

by Srikripa Krishna Prasad

 

The marble-tile floor of King Vikramaditya’s throne room is cold against Anu’s forehead. As she prostrates herself before him, body curled into a ball as her forehead meets the point of her hands, she can’t help the contempt that rises in her throat like vomit. Such riches, while she has to beg in front of the court for a chance at life.

“Rise,” intones the king.

Teeth clacking as she fights back shivers, Anu painstakingly lifts herself to her feet and meets his eyes.

“What brings you here?” he asks, courteous.

Anu breathes in deeply, taking the opportunity to look around the throne room. The marble walls are gilded with gold and tall, carved pillars support the ceiling, which is painted with figures of the king in various battles. Cushions and mats surround the throne where the ministers and court musicians would usually sit — once a week, the king banishes them from court in case they are the subjects of a civilian’s complaint. The throne itself is just how the stories describe it — carved into it are the figures of the thirty-two apsaras, the virtuous spirits who recognized King Vikramaditya as the most noble of kings. The king’s wives are absent; Anu wonders if they are even allowed to be present when the king holds court.

Allowed to. Anu’s mouth curls, and she quickly controls herself. You need him, she reminds herself. He is the most generous of all kings.

“Your Majesty,” she begins at last. “I come at the behest of the many stories told all around the nation of your grace and benevolence. Tales of your generosity and courage have been recited loudly enough to reach even my small village, far in the south.”

The king smiles, pleased. Anu swallows, then continues. “Your Majesty, I have journeyed for one month to bow before you and make a request. You see, I am very ill.” Anu curbs the roll of her eyes as the guards conspicuously move away from her. “The physicians in my village could not find a cure, nor could the ones in the cities around me, until one finally revealed my condition is one that can only be cured by great magic.”

“This is truly unfortunate,” the king says. “What ails you?”

“Intermittent fevers,” Anu replies. “They used to come on every few months, but now they have been occurring weekly. I fear for my life, Your Grace.”

“I see,” the king says, thoughtful. “What is it that you seek from me?”

“I have heard that you employ a sorcerer.”

The king’s eyebrow arches. “Indeed, I do.” He gestures towards a man standing in the far corner of the throne room, who comes forward. He carries a wooden staff and is dressed in a plain, white dhoti. Something about him reminds Anu of a coiled snake about to pounce.
“Speak, sorcerer,” says the king, “and tell this woman if you may assist her.” (Continue Reading…)

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Indigenous Magic Month

 

PodCastle is very proud to present Indigenous Magic, our special month of stories featuring Indigenous themes by Indigenous authors. Every week during November 2022, we will be bringing you a new Indigenous Magic story, and we can’t wait to share them all!

We have five fabulous stories coming up:

“Anu and the Vetala” by Srikripa Krishna Prasad, narrated by S. B. Divya

“The Tree Whisperer” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe, narrated by Somto Ihezue

“The Bone Pickers” by Kelsey Hutton, narrated by Laurie McDougall

“The Witching Hour” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, narrated by Shingai Njeri Kagunda

“Dying Rivers and Broken Hearts” by Gabriella Buba, narrated by Vida Cruz

We’re also delighted to be featuring this beautiful artwork by Cindy Fan, an illustrator and night owl who specializes in bringing stories to life in a dreamy and thoughtful manner for print and digital media. When she’s not drawing she loves walking slowly and aimlessly admiring the textures around her. Her work can be found at www.cind.ca

Our cover art design is by Matt Dovey.

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PodCastle 758: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – The Half Dark Promise

First appeared in Shimmer Magazine. Read it here!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:32 — 45.2MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R

 

This episode is a part of our Tales from the Vaults series, in which a member of PodCastle’s staff chooses a backlist episode to highlight and discuss. This week’s episode was chosen by associate editor Sara S. Messenger.

“The Half Dark Promise” originally aired as PodCastle 387

The Half Dark Promise

by Malon Edwards

The first thing Bobby Brightsmith told me when I moved to the South Side of Chicago from La Petite Haïti with Manmi was to run like a scalded dog if I ever saw zonbi la in the half dark on the way home from school.

See, when Bobby was eight years old, a little girl and a little boy were snatched from the half dark not far from home. They were never seen again. Bobby said because of that little girl and that little boy, timoun yo in Chicago now walk home from school in groups, in the half dark just before nightfall. The half dark comes fast this time of year.

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PodCastle 757: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Harlequin Moon

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:14 — 55.7MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

 

This episode is a part of our Tales from the Vaults series, in which a member of PodCastle’s staff chooses a backlist episode to highlight and discuss. This week’s episode was chosen by associate editor Hamilton Perez.

“Harlequin Moon” originally aired as PodCastle 393.

Harlequin Moon

by Jennifer Hykes

The man called Dirt was a master of riddles. It was his only gift.

He was not a riddler himself. From the time he could speak, he always called things exactly what they were and nothing else. He had tried, once or twice in his childhood, to craft a joke or to weave a pair of clever words together. But every time he tried to twist something sideways, he found that his tongue would not cooperate. So he stopped trying to be clever and went on his way, moving through his life in a straight line from day before to day after. He worked the fields on his family’s farm, he carted vegetables to market, he paid his respects to the temple gods at all the appropriate times. He grew tall and broad of shoulder, but even in the prime of his youth he moved with the deliberate calm of old age. He was not a riddler.

But he was a master at solving riddles.

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PodCastle 756: O Cul-de-Sac!

Previously published in “And the House Lights Dim”, from Luna Press

Content Warning for postnatal depression

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:15 — 103.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

O Cul-de-Sac!

by Tim Major

 

O neighbours! If only we might speak!

Do you feel as I feel? Do you think as I think? Here we are, all crouching in our circle, so close to one another. It is maddening.

I see your people come and go. I hear snippets of their conversations. They are happy, your people, are they not? It is healthy, all this coming and going. But we remain rooted, facing one another implacably.

We are so young: sixteen this coming year. How many people have we had between us?

Recently I have paid less attention to your people than to mine, I confess. But in those early days, in those first glimmerings of consciousness, I was empty and I watched you all with intense fascination. There seemed so much to learn, and the opportunities for my education so few. Your people hurried to and fro — on what errands I had no way of imagining — and when they returned they appeared so grateful to see you. I came to distinguish between adults — more direct in their routes across our cul-de-sac, bustling into the cars on your driveways — and children, who dallied and bickered, whose movements were a joy to me. The children belonged to the adults and the adults belonged to you. When your people were nestled within you I gazed at the sky and the fields. I tested the radius of my attention, peering as far beyond my walls as possible. I perceived the disturbances of animals in the long grasses and swooping above me, I saw trees bending with the force of an unseen hand, I saw the rust-coloured roofs of the village that is tied to our cul-de-sac by an umbilical lane. I called out to you. I beckoned to your people. I was alone.

I was unoccupied. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 755: Aurum & Indigo

Previously published by Queer Blades Anthology 1

Content Warning for violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:38 — 61.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R

Aurum & Indigo

By LP Kindred

 

Aurum sits on a wooden stool, hunched over the oakwood bar, stained darker by shellac and low lights. In spite of them, he stares into his book while a second lies closed atop the bar. His feet dangle, kicking softly. Eyes rake over words but their meaning never reaches his mind. The barman doesn’t offer a mug of ale as often as the skulking leches whose eyes scrub his body in hopes of finding interest in his eyes.

Aurum manages to avert his eyes — the book — when they come calling, but his heart triple beats each time the door opens and Shikaakwa cold invades the warm dark. After scouring the door, he draws his book closer.

There is a gentleman caller for whom Aurum journeyed from the Deep South to City Center. The nightmare of crosstown travel hastened Aurum to leave with abundant time to arrive punctually. Consequently, Aurum arrived one hour and one quarter before their arranged time to meet. Should anyone be this nervous about a man he’s already inundated?

(Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 754: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – The One They Took Before

First appeared in Shimmer Magazine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:31 — 39.7MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

This episode is a part of our Tales from the Vaults series, in which a member of PodCastle’s staff chooses a backlist episode to highlight and discuss. This week’s episode was chosen by associate editor Tarver Nova. “The One They Took Before” originally aired as PodCastle 388.

The One They Took Before

by Kelly Sandoval

 

Rift opened in my backyard. About six feet tall and one foot wide. Appears to open onto a world of endless twilight and impossible beauty. Makes a ringing noise like a thousand tiny bells. Call (206) 555-9780 to identify.

Kayla reads the listing twice, knowing the eager beating of her heart is ridiculous. One page back, someone claims they found a time machine. Someone else has apparently lost their kidneys.

The Internet isn’t real. That’s what she likes about it. And if the post is real, the best thing she can do is pretend she never saw it.

After all, she’s doing better. She sees a therapist, now. She’s had a couple of job interviews.

She calls the number.

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PodCastle 753: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Piety, Prayer, Peacekeeper, Apocalypse

Content warning for suicidal ideation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:21 — 55.9MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

This episode is a part of our Tales from the Vaults series, in which a member of PodCastle’s staff chooses a backlist episode to highlight and discuss. This week’s episode was chosen by associate editor Andrew K. Hoe. “Piety, Prayer, Peacekeeper, Apocalypse” originally aired as PodCastle 449.

Piety, Prayer, Peacekeeper, Apocalypse

by Rati Mehrotra

Soru Khara had been hunting her death for many years before she arrived at the crumbling old port of Tyron. She camouflaged her skimmer and stalked up to the rusty gates as the sun set over the citadel, the fishy tang of the sea sharp in her nostrils. The smell of childhood—the smell of things best left buried. It was why she usually avoided ports. This time, though, she had no choice. She was to deliver a letter, like a common messenger. She had not questioned the inanity of her assignment. One did not question the Voice of the Star Emperor; one merely obeyed it.

“Halt!” Crossed spears barred her way into the passage under the city walls. A man with the insignia of the Umnia falcon stepped up to her. “No one enters the city between sunset and sunrise.”

Soru Khara swept her gaze over the company. A captain and ten guards, and they expected to take on a death-hunter. Possibly they did not know who she was. She withdrew the letter with the seal of Yimri and waved it front of the captain’s stony face. “A message for Queen Lariel from her master. It cannot wait till morning.”

The captain held out a gloved hand. “Give it to me and I will deliver it.”

“No,” said Soru Khara, feeling her patience crumble. “I must deliver it myself. Do not delay me, Captain. I have skimmed six days across the continent to reach your little village. Is this how you treat messengers from the Star Emperor?”

“Village?” said the captain, affronted. “Tyron is the capital of Umnia. Watch your tongue, messenger.”

“Umnia is but one of the eight realms on Earth, and Earth is but one planet under the Star Emperor’s authority,” said Soru Khara. She slipped the letter back into her pocket and allowed her voice to gain an edge. “Get out of my way. I have no wish to shed blood tonight.”

“You threaten the Umnian Guard?” The man whipped out a scimitar from the scabbard at his waist. The curved blade glinted in the flickering light of the oil lamps that hung on both sides of the gate. “Leave, before I separate your swollen head from its pitiful body.”

He meant to frighten her, not to kill her. Also, she was a guest in Tyron, however unwelcome. Soru Khara took these things into consideration and summoned Piety, her least lethal weapon. A sudden drain of energy, heat above her palm, and Piety appeared: a blue ball crackling with electricity.

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PodCastle 752: The Music on the Hill

First published in 1911 in “The Chronicles of Clovis”

Content Warning for an outdated racial term

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:35 — 31.5MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

“Traveler’s Guide to the City of Intrigue” advert voiced, scored, and produced by Eric Valdes.

 

The Traveler’s Guide to the City of Intrigue is an expansion book for the 5th edition of the world’s most litigious roleplaying game, about a city ruled by a council of bizarre and fantastical aristocrats: The people-eating ghouls of the Grave Society, the brutal, feudal aristocrats of the Galloway Orcs, the austere and sinister Church of the Blood Pentarchy, the fey-aligned circus of the Carnival Occultus, and the cruel dark elves of House Evnesh. Find out what they’re up to and how you can stab them in the back by looking for the Traveler’s Guide to the City of Intrigue on Kickstarter now or DriveThruRPG in the future.

Previous books in the series can be found here: https://chamomilehasa.blog/chamomile-has-adventures

The Music on the Hill

by Saki

 

Sylvia Seltoun ate her breakfast in the morning-room at Yessney with a pleasant sense of ultimate victory, such as a fervent Ironside might have permitted himself on the morrow of Worcester fight. She was scarcely pugnacious by temperament, but belonged to that more successful class of fighters who are pugnacious by circumstance. Fate had willed that her life should be occupied with a series of small struggles, usually with the odds slightly against her, and usually she had just managed to come through winning. And now she felt that she had brought her hardest and certainly her most important struggle to a successful issue. To have married Mortimer Seltoun, “Dead Mortimer” as his more intimate enemies called him, in the teeth of the cold hostility of his family, and in spite of his unaffected indifference to women, was indeed an achievement that had needed some determination and adroitness to carry through; yesterday she had brought her victory to its concluding stage by wrenching her husband away from Town and its group of satellite watering-places and “settling him down,” in the vocabulary of her kind, in this remote wood-girt manor farm which was his country house.

“You will never get Mortimer to go,” his mother had said carpingly, “but if he once goes he’ll stay; Yessney throws almost as much a spell over him as Town does. One can understand what holds him to Town, but Yessney . . . ” and the dowager had shrugged her shoulders.

(Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 751: Flash Fiction Extravaganza – Mortality

“On the Corner of Fulton and West” is a PodCastle Original!

“The Stars That Fall” was previously published at Flash Fiction Online.

“No Blood of My Heart, No Breath of My Lungs, But Love” was previously published in Lamplight Magazine.

Content warning in “The Stars That Fall” for infant death.

Content warnings in “On the Corner of Fulton and West” for suicide, death, and terrorism.

Content warning in “No Blood of My Heart, No Breath of My Lungs, But Love” for themes of human sacrifice.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:31 — 43.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13.

“Traveler’s Guide to the City of Intrigue” advert voiced, scored, and produced by Eric Valdes.

 

The Traveler’s Guide to the City of Intrigue is an expansion book for the 5th edition of the world’s most litigious roleplaying game, about a city ruled by a council of bizarre and fantastical aristocrats: The people-eating ghouls of the Grave Society, the brutal, feudal aristocrats of the Galloway Orcs, the austere and sinister Church of the Blood Pentarchy, the fey-aligned circus of the Carnival Occultus, and the cruel dark elves of House Evnesh. Find out what they’re up to and how you can stab them in the back by looking for the Traveler’s Guide to the City of Intrigue on Kickstarter now or DriveThruRPG in the future.

Previous books in the series can be found here: https://chamomilehasa.blog/chamomile-has-adventures

The Stars That Fall

by Samantha Murray

 

When Sara asks me if I want to go doom-spotting I say yes. Of course I say yes. The Edge Lookout is dark and rocky and romantic, and I usually say yes to anything Sara suggests. And I’ve been addicted to doom-hunting ever since I was nine and got my first telescope.

“Why do you need to see it? You know it’s up there,” Ibu says, as I lug my viewing gear out to the car. All of my aunt’s once-dark hair is grey now.

“It’s meant to be lucky, if you find it,” I tell her.

“Mmpffh, lucky,” she says in her dry voice. Ibu does not believe in luck, only unluck.

(Continue Reading…)