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PodCastle 887: “The Cuckoo of Vrežna Mountain

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


The Cuckoo of Vrežna Mountain

by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

 

I realised I was in love with Ivor the day he went up the mountain to speak with the goddess.

We were at that age when the affectionate ease of childhood tips over into something different, when every touch could be the casual brush of friendship or something more and I would never know in advance which was which. There were many times, in those days, when Ivor would take my hands in his, larger and warmer and smooth with the orange-blossom oil he rubbed into them; and I would jerk away with some hasty apology and adjust my trousers while he was not looking. To this day, I find the smell of oranges arousing at the most inopportune times, of which, in a town known for its citrus trees, there are uncomfortably many.

Which is to say that it was not entirely unexpected, this matter of my being in love with him, except insofar as I had never considered the option until it was upon me; and if we had been boys further up the coast, away from the Oracle and her mountain, perhaps this would have been a cause for celebration: the sort of slow exploration of love and youth that ends, mutually, in a friendship deeper than it was before. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 886: Houyi the Archer Fights the Sun

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


Houyi the Archer Fights the Sun

by Cynthia Zhang

 

“I,” Houyi the Archer says one bright August afternoon when the thermometers hit 103 and the teenagers crack eggs on the sidewalk to see if they’ll fry, “am going to fight the sun.”

“Husband,” says Chang’E, three thousand years into immortality and long past reacting to these types of statements, “please do not fight the sun. We only have the one left, and most people would not appreciate having it gone.”

“Some might, though.” Above them, the ceiling fan whirls, valiantly trying to assuage the heat. The maintenance company, when Houyi called, gave the next available date for fixing the air conditioning as Monday, which — while not too far away — is crucially not today. “The tanuki pack in Arlington Heights or all those hipster vamp kids in Logan Square, I’m sure they’d come down to personally thank me. Besides, I didn’t say I was going to kill the sun. Just rough it up a little, teach it a few lessons about respect.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 885: Prisoners

Show Notes

Rated PG


Prisoners

by Si Wang

 

The fortress was as large as a city and empty as a dried-up well. During the days, I followed a tattered map annotated by many hands and took many wrong turns through cramped hallways, treacherous stairways, and rusty gates. At night, I couldn’t sleep. Resting on the cold, stone floor, I clutched a delicate metal ringlet weighed down by heavy keys, worried I might lose it.

After five days, the claustrophobic ceiling finally opened up into a courtyard. The air was cold and fresh. The full moon illuminated a cloudy sky. At the center of the courtyard, a rusty cage hung a few feet off the ground — just enough distance so that the man’s feet couldn’t touch the stone floor. The man was as gaunt as the cage. They were one and the same with the way he sat: motionless, his thin arms wrapped around the bars, his thin legs protruding from the bottom. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 884: TALES FROM THE VAULTS: All of the Cuddles With None of the Pain

Show Notes

Rated PG


All of the Cuddles With None of the Pain

By J. J. Roth

What is a Reborn?

A Reborn is an artist-enhanced baby doll that looks and feels lifelike. Artists create Reborns as one-of-a-kind collectibles, often from ordinary play dolls transformed into art suitable for hands-off display—or hands-on cuddling.

While reasonably durable, Reborns are not children’s toys. Rough play may damage them.

(Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 883: Redo

Show Notes

Rated R


Redo

by Brigitte Winter

 

3.

In our third timeline, I met you on New Year’s Eve.

I had slept off a migraine half that day, so I wanted nothing more than to spend the evening by the fireplace cuddling with Jamie and our ancient basset hound. But New Year’s Day would be my fifth wedding anniversary with Jamie — our “wood” anniversary — and he had gotten tickets to a burlesque show because he thought he was hilarious. Predictably, he insisted that it would be wasteful to skip the show because the tickets were fifty dollars each. Plus, booze was included. Plus, he could watch women dance out of their clothes, which was significantly more interesting than watching me sit around all night in the oversized sweater and leggings I’d been wearing since Christmas.

“Plus, Mary,” he said, “maybe you’ll surprise yourself and have fun for once.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 882: How to Steal the Plot Armor – PART TWO of TWO

Show Notes

Rated PG


How to Steal the Plot Armor

by Luke Wildman

PART TWO of TWO

 

Something was obviously wrong from the moment we entered the great hall. Too many folk milled about, too many by far. Logs crackled in the firepit. The tables groaned under a weight of food and drink too profuse for the number of retainers who abided here while the Lord of Omlath was absent, and something was wrong with their eyes . . . a sort of dull light. They moved in a jerky, mechanical way, as if someone had wound them up and set them to clanking from task to task. Disconcerting, to say the least.

The explanation soon became apparent. In a flower-carved throne at the head of the hall, the Lord of Shadows presided.

The Master of Darkness swung his gaze to us when we entered, and his obsidian eyes seemed to pierce all hopes and disguises. “Ah,” he said, “entertainers. Come! Play a song for your great lord.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 881: How to Steal the Plot Armor – PART ONE of TWO

Show Notes

Rated PG


How to Steal the Plot Armor – PART ONE

by Luke Wildman

 

The day before it started, I had to chase off three more heroes with a stick. I swear, winter is the worst season for them. You get a few enterprising farm boys during the spring and summer, and fall’s the time for disinherited princes looking to reclaim kingdoms that their uncles stole from their murdered fathers, but winter is when the big ones arrive. There’s nothing worse than sitting down in front of the hearth, a tome on your knee and a tankard of ale at your elbow, all cozy while the blizzard howls outside — and hearing a knock at the door.

You’ll have no peace till you open it. When you do, you’re greeted by the sight of a hulking, smelly barbarian, snow clinging to his fur cloak, sword bigger than your leg strapped over his back, with a story of an omen-prompted journey into the mountains to seek one who will tutor him in magic, or guide him to hidden paths, or interpret runes on an ancient map, and might you be that one? And, of course, you are. Try to deny it and he’ll point out that the prophecy specified the man he sought would be holding a tome and a tankard, and would be venerable of years, knobby of knees, bearded of chin, and dark-skinned as the night. Really, they might leave out the knobby knees part, just once. Do they think I have no feelings? (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 880: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Kiki Hernandez Beats the Devil

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


Kiki Hernández Beats the Devil

By Samantha Mills

Kiki Hernández, rock legend of the Southwest, had seven devils on her tail.

They scurried through the roadside scrub, not even trying to sneak. She could hear their scrabble-claws and clacker-tails, their dripping maws and teeth. If they were trying to round her up for a crossroad deal-making, they were going about it all wrong.

That’s what happened when devils got hungry. They made mistakes.

Kiki hummed as she walked, watching eddies of dust form tornadoes on the road ahead. It was a swagger of a walk, born of a perfect record: Kiki 72, Devils 0. She would have been bored, if she hadn’t been so eager for an encore.

“Come on out!” she hollered. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 879: The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead

E.M. Linden

 

The living have been leaving Tawlish for centuries; this evacuation is only the latest and last. There are good reasons for it: the freshwater spring gone brackish; the water, always encroaching; the colicky, relentless wind. No schools for the children. No doctor. We should have seen it coming, but sometimes we forget what the living need.

We cannot cross salt, so we watch from shore. Our loved ones and descendants wade into the sea. The men strain to hold the boats steady against the waves. Everyone’s weighed down by possessions, a village crammed into sacks and lifeboats. Spoons, spindles, fish-hooks, balls of yarn. A clothes-peg doll in a twist of old apron. Seabirds’ eggs wrapped in blankets: habits ingrained by generations of scarcity. They’ve even dug up their potatoes.

Katie Zell’s mother is already on the boat. The songbook is tucked inside her jacket. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 878: The Carving of War

Show Notes

Rated R


The Carving Of War

By Somto Ihezue

 

Odili was a child when Nkeala, her grandmother, died. All she remembered of her were her braids, a tangle of clouds that reached for the floor. She remembered her eyes, how they swallowed her face. To look into them was to be lost in a vastness. It was to find eyes — owl eyes, bold eyes, brown eyes — staring back at you. Most of all, she remembered her kindness, an unending sea.

Nkeala had been dìbìā — keeper, to Idemili; the roaring python, they who drowned oceans, mother of mothers. At the birth of time, Idemili, like beads dancing on a fragile waist, had wound herself around the clans of Obosi. Out of her mouth, the Eke River poured, its brooks and streamlets giving sustenance to the corn in the farmlands, the antelopes of the wild and the Irokos that split the sky. Odili’s family was bound in perpetuity to Idemili. With her grandmother’s passing, the fanged staff fell to her mother, Adaugo. In the past, a few keepers had met their fate with defiance. Odili’s great-great grandfather, Agbadike, had refused the staff when it passed to him. Setting the shrine of Idemili ablaze, he invoked the ritual of blood in a bid to sever the bond that tethered his life to the deity. Three days after, a breadfruit fell from a tree and split his skull in half. (Continue Reading…)