Rated G
Zera packs lightly for her journey: rose-petal rope and dewdrop boots, a jacket spun from bee song and buttoned with industrial-strength cricket clicks. She secures her belt (spun from the cloud memories, of course) and picks up her satchel. It has food for her and oil for Misu.
Her best friend is missing and she must find out why.
Rated PG
On de largest beach of de smallest island in de Tania archipelago in de Caribbean Sea five shoreside metamorphic beachrocks sit chatting, as dey have done for de last hundred and sixty-odd years.
“Hey, allyou. I leaving soon. You hear me? Dis place ain’t gon’ be de same,” Craggy Dan, de boulder of de bunch, announce, as he has done every sunrise for de last four days.
“CraggyDan, don’t start wid dat again, mehson,” Cuber say, always quick to want to fight. “You been here, most of we, been here, since we get push up from de self–same sea in front of we right now. You ain’t going nowhere.”
“Huh? Somebody callin me?” Shayla, all de way in de front, can’t see anyting but de bay in front of she. She forever telling everyone ‘bout de color of de water, de shape of de waves, de fish she see jumping and when Hundred Year HardBack coming to crawl ‘pon dem for a sunning and a catch up. She had de best shape and position for vigilant surveillance, nestle as she was in front of CraggyDan, but she don’t hear dat good, what wid de waves always running down she cracks, so she always yelling. De only ting dat does shut she up is snails. Shayla say she have to sit quiet when de snails telling dey silvery secrets else she can’t make out what dey saying. She say de snails mostly does complain dat she allow she dribbles and drool to run over dem while dey trying to make dere way up she front side. Shayla say she tired explain to dem dat even doh she big and hard she ain’t got no control of de sea or de waves and don’t even start wid she about de rain neither.
“Nobody ain’t call you, Shayla.” Cuber voice rough and loud. Every generation of flies and mosquitos learn to veer ‘round de jagged stone lest de erratic vibration of he speech alter dere flight. “I just saying,” Cuber scratchy voice go on, “I tired hear CraggyDan talk. You know how he been lately, Shayla, running on and on ‘bout he leaving. Someting dat never gon’ happen.”
“You don’t know dat, Cuber,” Shayla creak, trying to turn. She can’t, though. She a rock. Alla dem is rockstones, doh sometimes dey does forget.
Rated R
On the clock outside the gate to the Manticore Wing of the library, the little blue flame was just floating past the symbol for high noon when Laszlo and Casimir skidded to a halt before a single tall figure.
“I see you two aspirants have chosen to favor us with a dramatic last-minute arrival,” said the man. “I was not aware this was to be a drama exam.”
“Yes, Master Molnar. Apologies, Master Molnar,” said Laszlo and Casimir in unison.
Hargus Molnar, Master Librarian, had a face that would have been at home in a gallery of military statues, among dead conquerors casting their permanent scowls down across the centuries. Lean and sinewy, with close-cropped gray hair and a dozen visible scars, he wore a use-seasoned suit of black leather and silvery mail. Etched on his cuirass was a stylized scroll, symbol of the Living Library, surmounted by the phrase Auvidestes, Gerani, Molokare. The words were Alaurin, the formal language of scholars, and they formed the motto of the Librarians:
RETRIEVE. RETURN. SURVIVE.
Rated G
Originally aired as PodCastle 260
Frankie watched, open-mouthed, as the cats soared up into the sky.
All he could think of was Dali’s photograph, that crazy one where the
cat flew across a stream of water while Dali perched on a chair. He
ran outside.
In that little space of time, yet more cats had lifted off from earth.
They floated like furry balloons, orange and gray and tiger-striped.
Some looked scared, their claws extended to full panic, like a kitten
caught in a tree; but there was nothing to grasp in the sky. The
clouds didn’t seem to slow them down.
Others looked mildly interested, their whiskers drooping in curious
contentment. Still others seemed entranced with possibilities,
stretching their claws to snag unwary birds as they soared by.
Frankie gaped at the spectacle of cats dotting the sky like a flock of
migrating birds. As the felines swarmed through the air, he glimpsed a
familiar gray leg. By instinct, he reached up to grab the striped
appendage, just as he might have done to spare the china. The skinny
leg jerked taut, and he found himself looking up into the startled
blue eyes of his Maurice.
Unfortunately we don’t have the full text to this one!
Rated R
The mermaid barely slowed her breakneck pace as she approached and ran herself halfway up a yellow beach, belly-down and arching her back so her torso was almost upright. At the same time, she flung Cassandra casually upon the sand, half-knocking the breath out of her. Cassandra gulped for air, then scrambled as best she could up the beach, out of reach of the mermaid’s grasp — or so she profoundly hoped.
The mermaid watched her and made no move towards her, a nasty grin on her face.
“I’ll find the tea, and you’ll make us a party,” she said. “Then, maybe, I’ll bring you some food.”
Cassandra stared. Then the import of the creature’s words struck her and she looked around, beginning to panic. The island was perhaps a mile around and very flat, save where white ridges were raised above the surface. A large wave would have swamped it. A few trees she recognized from picture books as palms clustered off-center, a green haze underneath them. There was not much else.
Nothing to eat, certainly.
The sand clung in a fine film to her dress and bare legs, and itched. Miss Murchinson would have been scandalized.
PG-13
i. detection
When protesters take out the power at her Silicon Valley office, Chaya is at home, watching a golem pull dandelions.
The morning air is clear and cold. Chaya can hear her computer pinging alerts at her from inside her farmhouse. As soon as the dandelion patch is gone, she wraps her knee-high figurine in satin, pressing the cloth against its soft clay midsection. She lays her golem gently down by the riverside. A single tap on her phone activates the preprogrammed subroutine that wipes the alef from its forehead, leaving only the letters mem and tav — every instance in its code of emet, truth, becomes met, death.
She slips the bundle into the water, watching the satin flutter away in the current as the golem returns to the wet sediment. All that is left of Chaya’s creation are smears of ochre on her fingers and lines of code on her hard drive.
Chaya wipes her hands on her jeans and heads back to her daily bug tickets, ready to find out the day’s fresh disaster. Working from home has its perks, but maintaining her plot of land would be impossible without the help of her golems.
There is a man I am meant to love. He is the son of a sea-merchant, wealthy and well-connected. A friend of Karikalan, the Chola King.
And this man is my husband and a wastrel.
A sin it is for me to say these words, think these thoughts, but what else do you call a man who has pulled you from the sea and married you, only to then leave you for a courtesan?
Who bears a child on that courtesan, only to then leave her on the suspicion of her infidelity and come crawling back to you for forgiveness?
“Please, Kannagi. I was wrong to leave you — I know this now. The gods have punished me and left me destitute. I know now that I cannot live without you. Will you take me back?”
Left him destitute?
“Please. I cannot go back to my family penniless. I cannot bear that shame.”
What of my shame, Kovalan? Does that mean nothing to you?
But my mouth smiles, the expression warm and genuine, a beacon for this beleaguered cretin.
“Of course I will take you back; you are my husband, are you not?”
I reach down, unclasp the anklet around my right leg, and hold it out to him.
“The Greenhouse Bargain” is rated PG
“Shattered Pearls of Celadon” is rated PG
“War Doesn’t Know What It Wants” is rated PG-13
He sent my mother’s ghost to deliver the terms of the bargain.
I accepted; there was no choice. When I asked what to expect, she said, Ten good years.
The Whipstitch Man had visited me twice, once to take my sister and once to collect my mother. The second time, he caught me tucking my fingers into the cold pocket of his patched-metal coat. His pinch-hold on my mother’s elbow tightened as he gave me a choice: I could keep the silver I’d tried to steal, but I would also have to keep my mother’s ghost. She would never journey to the underworld. And when I, too, passed, we would stay and watch all the sunsets and sunrises together, forgotten and scavenged by whatever horrors lived in the night.
Or I could trade places with him. He would steal time from my human life, and then he would give me eternity.
Either I damned my mother and myself, or I damned myself to become a thing of metal and darkness — how was I supposed to choose?
But the Whipstitch Man had no patience for my begging. The dead cannot survive in the world of the living and my mother’s ghost was already beginning to sag. I shrieked that I would trade with him; I would take his place when my time came.
Rated PG-13
The boy stands at the edge of the forest, bare toes digging into the cold loam. Mist curls between the trees like the breath of a living thing. As if the woods are alive.
Monsters live in this forest, so it’s said. Demons of scales and teeth and fur, creatures that will rend a child asunder until only the smallest bones remain. The thought wraps chilly fingers of fear around the boy’s nape. It’s hard not to be afraid of what everyone says is real.
But there are other monsters too, monsters that he knows are real. He thinks of bared teeth and flying spittle, a face gone red with rage, a poker gone red from sitting in the hearth. The boy’s hand creeps to the shiny patches of skin on his bare forearm, scars where his flesh has thickened into silver scales. There are more on his legs, his back: places his clothes always cover. The monster grew more careful after the first time, when people noticed and she had to make excuses.
He was playing with the poker. He tripped and fell.
Rated PG
Episode 785 is part of our 15th Anniversary special and includes an interview with Ann Leckie, the first assistant editor of PodCastle.
It is true that I had not accepted Prem Ramasson’s offer of employment — indeed, that he had not seemed to find it necessary to actually ask. It is true also that I am a man of letters, neither spy nor bodyguard. It is furthermore true that I was unarmed, save for the ceremonial dagger at my belt, which had thus far seen employment only in the slicing of bread, cheese, and tomatoes.
Thus, the fact that I leapt through the doorway, over the fallen bodies of the prince’s bodyguard, and pursued the fleeting form of the assassin down the long and curving corridor, cannot be reckoned as a habitual or forthright action. Nor, in truth, was it a considered one. In Śri Grigory Guptanovich Karthaganov’s typology of action and motive, it must be accounted an impulsive-transformative action: the unreflective moment which changes forever the path of events.
Causes buzz around any such moment like bees around a hive, returning with pollen and information, exiting with hunger and ambition. The assassin’s strike was the proximate cause. The prince’s kind manner, his enthusiasm for plausible-fables (and my work in particular), his apparent sympathy for my people, the dark eyes of his consort — all these were inciting causes.