MCM's Blog, page 28

WFSN?

Today, 1889 Labs author Greg X. Graves (Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes) proposes to us a way of cataloging web fiction, and keeping us from, and I quote:

'Murdering the shit out of history' by electronic editing.

So, exactly what solution does he offer us?

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Consider this: you're the biggest fan of Wings that the world has ever known, and you've lived each day since 1981 in gut-wrenching torment because that is the year that their music died.  Reality has failed to dim your enthusiasm.  You wear your Wings shirts to work every day and after an exhausting day of rocking out to Wings, you slide in between your Wings bedsheets.

In a town on the far side of the globe, a fellow by the name of Saul McBlartney has founded a band named Feathers and it is the heir apparent to Wings.

But you never hear about it.  Because you are in one of your fits of ennui caused by a world that has had its Wings clipped, you are sobbing as you cross the street and whammo, you're hit by a bus.

If only you'd had the latest album by Feathers, you'd be very alive and very happy.

There are directories out there that cover webfiction, including the fantastic Web Fiction Guide.  But to the best of my knowledge, all of them include some component of editorializing.  And that's not a bad thing, but I want to consider the model of the International Standard Book Number or, more analogous to what I'm about to propose, the International Standard Serial Number.

To be included in the IS*N directories requires no claims of quality. To Kill a Mockingbird and Uncle Horace's Junkyard Journal share catalog space.  You register and you're set.  Then you're in directories of published fiction.

Web fiction needs a similar system, the Web Fiction Serial Number, or WFSN.  An author could submit their series, novel or story to the website and be issued a serial number for their work.  The serial number would encode significant data, just like the ISBN.  Here is a suggested schematic:

1234567890-123456-greg_x_graves-123-1-123

raw serial number (billion-digit number space)

author id

author slug

language code

webfiction type (single story, series)

edition

Searches against the database could be done by any of the criteria.

One of the major benefits would be that editions could conceivably be tracked.  As an author myself, I constantly struggle with the power of editing.  When I stumble across one of my stories on my site, it is completely unlike a print author finding one of their books in a bookstore.  While they can flip through their book and shake their head at their past mistakes, I can open up my fiction to live editing and make lots of present mistakes.

Example: "Man, if I switched this character from being an elderly autistic survivor of World War II to being a gregarious just-hatched space lizard, then the story would make soooo much more sense!  Sweet!"

I refuse to edit my stories, because one of the obligations that I've put on myself to reign in my limitless editing power is to add an addendum to every story that I've edited (beyond the hour just after publication) and I don't want to crap up the page with edits.  But I also want to avoid driving my readers crazy.  The clever turn of phrase that was their favorite part of the story might be, in my estimation, the crappiest coupling of words I could ever conceive.

The system would be able to support editions via a web standard named XML-RPC, the same technology stack that powers trackbacks and pingbacks in standard weblogs.  Ideally, there would be no plug-ins necessary as trackbacks are baked in to most blog platforms.

As a web fiction community, we'd suddenly have a powerful tool at our fingertips.  An appealing part of music is being able to chart a musician's improvement over time, especially if they release updated versions with time.  Consider how the mono set of the Beatles is considered valuable by Beatles fans.  Under the current web fiction paradigm, those editions would have been stamped out forever.

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Thoughts? I know some of you out there generate them.

 

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

- George Bernard Shaw (1919)

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Headline image by maletgs

All I Have

Dragan sighed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Twelve years. Twelve hard seasons.

"There were years I loved it, I can't deny that. Loved it, in the early days. We were indestructible. There was nothing to fear out there because we had nothing to lose. I fought hard and stayed alive because I didn't consider the possibility you might get hurt. Now, I can't think of anything else. And I don't want to go back out there."

She frowned, her face aching as she strove to read the complex lines of his expression. There were too many implications hidden in his words, too many terrors, and her heart was flogging her pulse hard up into her temple and kicking her stomach. Lurching to her feet, she strode to the balustrade and threw herself double, retching up bile, straining against the cold stone railing. Convulsions surged through her again and again, until her legs buckled and she folded down, shaking, onto her knees.

Strong hands pulled her back, turning her easily. Shaking her head at him as he squatted in front of her, Freya wiped a trembling hand across her mouth, and said, "Let me get this straight. You won't re-sign for this campaign because you think you can't cut it, but you'd send me out there to trust my luck with a new partner, alone."

"You don't have to go." His eyes were pleading now, but his logic, if there was any, was way too illusive for Freya to catch a grip.

Closing her eyes, she rested her head back on the carved stone of the balcony and coughed away the bitter taste in her throat. "Don't I? Okay, so you tell me how I break my contract three months early, stay out of the brig, live as a civvie without my payout, and live down the humiliation of failing at the only thing I can do." She opened her eyes and they filled with angry tears. "And tell me quickly because I'm due at Roll Call, yesterday."

"Get yourself discharged. Medical. Use your shoulder. Just stall them off, dodge them. Hell, stay to train the new intake if you have too; it's only ninety days. At worst they'll keep you here while you argue the point. That way you'll get your pay-out same as everyone else." His explanation had become urgent; his hands were open, pleading, or measuring a place for her between life and death.

She looked at his hands as if to gauge their capacity, and shook her head. "I can't. I can't run away now. I can't make my whole life a lie. I can't choose to fail."

"You can choose to live. As for failing, or disgrace, this is not all you can do; it's just all you've ever known. You know how many ways you can lose, but you have no idea how many lives there are to live.

"Every off season, while you stay here, training up, celebrating with the girls, and playing with the boys," he stepped back from the words, turning to pace, "I go back to the mountains. I check the vines, I sit on the slopes with the sheep, and I think about the way this whole empire works."

"You're not the only one who can think," she interjected. "But I decided long ago not to do it. You think too hard, you freeze up. Better to keep moving and don't think about it." She rested her head back again, closing her eyes on his agitation. Her stomach was settling, her body overriding the cocktail of dread, washing it down with resignation.

Ignoring her, he kept on his thread; he hadn't finished and his point was too important. "How long have we been at war? Two hundred years? Three? Every year there's a new threat. We need to take more land. We need to defend land against someone else. Every year another group of kids come through here, just like we did: poor, starving, never thought about doing anything else because that's what the sons of poor men do. They go to war.

"Meanwhile, the merchants get fatter. Trade goes on across the front lines; the economies grow. The rich get richer, the poor breed up kids to go and fight. Nice little system of attrition. And what do we get? Shit to live on, trying to get to the day we're paid out. Fifteen years, for what? And how many of us get there? How many of the cavalry girls you trained with are still alive?"

He paced his narrow circuit and came back to stand in front of her. "Freya, how many people have we killed?"

There was no answer to that. She had no intention of holding onto gory receipts for the cost of her profession. Answers like that made nightmares. "I don't want to listen to you anymore." She held up a trembling hand for help to her feet, grasping his wrist as he pulled, and crying out involuntarily as her weight tore at the misalignments in her shoulder.

Her left hand flew to the scar and she tried to turn away, but he refused to release her right hand, stepping sideways to hold her attention. "You can do this. It will work. It's a solution that means your life."

Rounding on him, pulling her hand back sharply, she snapped, "This is my life! This is all I have. You have a family, some rocky shit heap of a farm, and some ugly, fat-ass farm-girl waiting for you. Look around you. This is what I have.

"You're right. I couldn't wait to join up. I had no family and no food. Back then my choice was this or prostitution. It still is. You know those girls. Have you looked into their eyes?

"You can't make this life and all I've done a lie. What I do is important and I'm good at it. I made myself someone here and you can't take that away from me. You don't have the right to do that, not to me, not with what we've been through together." She tried to walk away, but the balcony was small and the fear and anger in her gut were too big to burn in silence.

Her voice rose as she strode back to confront him. "You spend the off season away. You go back to the hills and fuck your sheep. This is my home. It's the only home I've ever had."

He stood for a moment in the wake of her indignation, his silence pleading. Then he turned away, lumbering wearily in toward the washroom as the horn sounded Roll Call.

Freya dropped onto her pallet, straightened and relaced her boots. From the shelves, she took her greaves and fastened them tight around her calves, cinching the buckles up tighter than she intended, acknowledging the pain as the first of many. She threw the gauntlets down at her side, rifled through her pile of clothes for a cloak clip, then strode back out to the wooden box, and pulled out the brass buckle. It would do.

When she looked up, Dragan stood in shadows by the doorway, dressed, slouching crookedly, hands on his hips. A last long breath blew over the stubble on his chin.

"There is no 'fat-assed farm-girl'," he said quietly.

He dropped stiffly into a squat, pulling his boots on, taking greaves from the pile beside him, and buckling them into place. She wanted to stop him, to hold him still and make him explain himself, but she was paralyzed by hope and fear.

"My father is old. I go back each year and try to work enough food out of his 'rocky shit-heap of a farm' to keep them going 'til I can get back again. It's not enough, I know. But I always promised them I'd be back for good. Every year, I tell them again, things will soon be better."

He stood, pulling mail over his tunic, and settled the cuirass into place over it, buckling it in at the shoulders and sides. "They have my pay-out. It's not enough to live on, anyway." This was an explanation that told her nothing she wanted to hear. She wanted to stop him; she wanted to thank him. She was too ashamed to move.

He straightened the cloak over one arm, under the other, shoving the cloak clip through the rough fabric, and paused to face her squarely. "You figured on dying out there, anyway, didn't you? You just didn't want to do it alone."

Tears burned up into her eyes and down, running over her cheek like he'd opened a vein. There was no rubbing them away this time, and no way to answer his bluntness. No room for denial. She shook her head at him again, wishing they could start over, from the beginning. He had taken away the only thing she could trust, and now he was giving it back broken.

These were things she had refused to acknowledge for herself, and here he held them up before her like an accusation. He couldn't do this. It was unfair. "But I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid." Her voice broke. "Until now."

If she went back to the front, he would go, too.

It was all she had wanted. He was ready to die beside her and now, stripped of brutal glory, cold and tactless, it was too much to ask. She had never considered the need to ask. He'd just always been there. Nausea resumed its gnawing, but there was no room in her consciousness for it now. It was just too unfair. Trembling had seized her body. She was hot and cold and her stomach lurched and threatened. Her hands were too weak to clench and her breath came in sobs. "This is too hard," she whispered. "Why didn't you give me time to think?"

"I only decided last night. You were busy, so I got drunk instead."

A fist pounded on the door behind him, and a voice demanded, "Assembly, soldier. Fall in, now!" This was not how it was supposed to be. Nothing was as it should be. There was nothing left to trust.

"One way or another," he said, "we walk out this door together, now. I'm asking you to trust me. For the last time, come home with me. Come be a fat-assed farm girl." He smiled again and the room slipped sideways as she fought to breathe. Everything had shifted

Swallowing hard over dust and acid, she whispered, "Don't smile. You don't know how terrified I am." If her feet had moved, it would have been to follow the life she knew. It was all she knew and the only happiness she'd ever known. But no part of her would move; even her hands were no longer her own.

"I do." He walked to where she stood, weak and frozen by too many loaded choices. "But I'm scared of any life without you in it and scared to follow your stubborn ass knowing we'll die out there for nothing. If this was combat, you'd sure-as-shit know which way to go."

He was standing too close, too near to the fire; sweat was blistering across her lip and clamming in her palms. Her heart was going to stop, or choke her on its rush.

"Okay." Her stomach lurched again, her own voice echoed.

"Yes?" His hands were on her shoulders, his eyes searched hers.

"I don't know what else to do. I don't…." Tears kept running down her cheeks and he tried to wipe them away. She felt so damned small beside him, she always had. Some things, at least would not change. "I don't know how to be, Dragan. I don't know what to be."

"You will be fine."

"But…." How could she put into words fears she could not even name. Out on the field, death might come. It was there as it always was, in the places she knew and understood. An end. But this, this choice he brought was a vast unknown, and it had no end. "I don't know how to be a farm-girl. I won't know what to do."

"You'll learn." He ducked his head, leaning in close so she could not look away. There was no way to avoid his eyes or the question she was fleeing. "Will you do this? Will you try?"

"All right. Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes." Her head went light, spinning and she stumbled forward. If she fell against him, she was unsure, but he caught her and held her still. She pressed her cheek against the cold hard leather on his chest, closed her eyes and let the howling black panic rush like a tornado, until at last it exhausted itself, and her, and leaked away. It left behind weakness – pitiful, soul sapping weakness, and she leaned on his strength.

It was no way to start a new life.

"Okay, let's do this. Yes?"

She nodded, trying to draw deeper breaths. She had no idea what she was going to do. She had no thoughts she could call her own.

"You want to sit?"

She nodded again and stepped back, opening her eyes to find the bed a few steps behind. She sat staring at the fire without seeing it, and he sat beside her.

"There's no hurry now," he said quietly. "When you're ready. The world will wait."

Flapper

"Forgive me, Father. It's an imposition on you, I know, but I don't know where else to turn. She's completely out of control."

The chapel was bathed in shades of dreary grey, and the three of them were the sole, quiet occupants in the gloom. The priest shifted from foot to foot, unsure of how to proceed. He was sure this wasn't the right course of action for a parent to be taking, especially when the wayward child in question was long past the age of discipline. This sudden, unexpected arrival of domestic unrest had ruined in his plans for the evening, and he hated having to re-regiment his timetable. Of course, this should have been expected, but he hadn't learned to give up trying to understand the motivations of these creatures. Though on the surface every detail seemed so important to them, their constant, ethical dilemmas forever proved to be nothing more than an annoying whine in his consciousness.

This parent, for instance, had long known the troubles his child caused, and yet he was here, asking the help of a near stranger to guide her in the proper way, as he saw it, that her existence should be conducted. Where he came from, there was no need to ask these questions. One followed a path that was clearly set out and any deviation from it would be swiftly dealt with.

"I'm no child," the girl, who was actually a young woman in her early twenties, reminded her father. But he kept his grip tight on her arm, her silken pearls dangling near her waist as she struggled to break free.

"You act like a spoiled brat, so that's what you are. A tiny, childish little trollop. I should never have listened to your mother. A good whipping from a belt never hurt no one in their lives."

"Not one from you," she sneered. "Like you ever had the strength to lay a hand on anyone. You and your wheezing and your soft little bones."

Her father coughed shakily into his fist, his watery eyes fixed in a plea on the robed man before him. "I'm at my wit's end, Father," he admitted. "It's true, I'm not a strong man. Never saw a healthy day since I was born. My lungs, they aren't working properly, and my blood is thin. But I've done my best by my family, and I have a good job, not the best job, but one that keeps us comfortable." He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and shakily wiped his nose with it before shoving it back into its usual place, deep in the worn lining of his suit jacket. "I don't understand how this happened."

The priest nodded at him in what he hoped was an adequate approximation of sage understanding. "We cannot chose our burdens."

"No, we can't. And we've got plenty, my Martha and I. What with my bad lungs and watery blood and… and this." He fixed a glare on the lazy posture of his daughter, who had finally broken free of his grip to sink into a nearby pew. "It doesn't do us well to have her like this, not at all. Martha has a terrible heart, and this one has no qualms over breaking it day after day. She's a wayward girl, obsessed with parties and the devil's drink. We may not have much, but I assure you she comes from a good, God-fearing home. My Martha and I, we've given her the world, little that we could offer of it. And this is how she repays us, by tramping around like some common whore!"

"I wouldn't say I was 'common'," she replied, arching the drawn line of her brow.

Her father took his kerchief out again, wiping the sweat from his neck, his laboured breathing bobbing his Adam's apple in a choked, uneven rhythm. "You've been a right disappointment, Clara."

"I've been a disappointment?" she spat, incredulous. Her eyes, dark green and heavily ringed in kohl, studied the man in the black robes standing before her. He fought the urge to step back, a sure sign that he had already lost ground. He had to be tough in her presence, if only for the benefit of her long suffering father. "Priest," she said, her ruby red lips licking along the edge of the title. "You're no priest. No white collar, no crosses, no bells, books, or candles to hold the devil at bay. Fancy people calling you father, Father. I know you never had one."

"She's full of the drink," her father sputtered through his handkerchief.

"Please, I'm sober enough to know when there's a lying dog standing in front of me." She played with her pearls, her lips capturing a trio of them and staining them before she clenched them carefully between her teeth. Her voice was muffled childishly as she spoke. "He's just some crazy imposter, Daddy. You shouldn't believe a word he says."

Her sickly father clasped his hands over his soiled kerchief, his voice weak and trembling as severely as his shoulders. "I am a man of faith. You'll cast this evil out of her, in one way or another." He pulled the priest to one side, his breath coming in foul gasps as he whispered to him. "She was always a bit wild, a bit difficult, even as a young child. She…. There were things she did that were very, very wrong, but one doesn't think nothing of them. An unkindness to a neighbour's child who was younger than her. A cruel thing done to her cat. I can't speak of it, you have to understand. I promised my poor wife. Her heart would give out that I even suggested…."

"Daddy, are you waiting here all night or are you going to go home and get your rest?" She rose from her seat and staggered over to them, her long arms reaching out to rest heavily on her father's shoulders. "Go home daddy," her moist, painted lips said, their sultry shape oddly demure in their delivery of care. "I'll be fine here, you know that."

He continued to wipe at his sweating neck with the kerchief. "Yes, yes I do. This is a good choice, my dear. The good Lord will prevail, you know this."

"Sure, Daddy," she said, and left an imprint of her hoary lips on his cheek. She patted his shoulder. "Go home to Mummy. Make sure she has her medicine."

"I will," he said, smiling and nodding at her in feeble, weak hope. "You are a good girl, Clara, under all that painted rot." He nodded at the priest. "You listen to what the Father has to say. He'll steer you right."

With that he left them, his wheezing breaths following him into the alley, a thin layer of steam rising from the manhole near the entrance to the chapel. It obscured him in a smoky mist, and the priest needed only to blink twice and the thin, shaky outline of the girl's father was gone. Outside, the loud revelry of party goers rose up from the secreted basement of a nearby speakeasy, the one she had been turned out of. A brown bottle smashed against a wet brick wall. Laughter, cruel and contagious, echoed after it, followed by running footsteps, choked pursuit and fists meeting bone.

He turned on her, his black robes skirting his ankles. "You have put me at a great disadvantage by coming here."

"What choice did I have? Daddy saw the light on in the chapel, and he dragged me in here. It's your fault." She placed a white pearl between her teeth and gently chewed it as he paced before her. She kept it hovering against her ivory grin, her long, painted nails edged around its circumference. "The party only just started, too. You should come by. The folks in there will get a hell of a shock seeing you being a man of the cloth."

"I chose this guise for a reason," he tersely reminded her. "It affords me anonymity."

She scoffed at this. "Not by much. You were a murdered bastard not two weeks ago, and frankly, death looked better on you." She narrowed her black rimmed eyes, and he had the eerie feeling she was peeling his borrowed skin back, revealing the monstrous creature he was beneath the atrophied sinews and flesh. "You don't look right." She let her pearls fall to her waist. "You look kind of sick. It's not catching is it? Not some alien disease that'll wipe out humanity or some such like that? Ugh, it gives me shivers."

"Hardly," he said, wiping his borrowed brow with the long sleeve of his religious garb. "I'm hungry, is all."

"Not hungry," she smiled, and it was a predatory sneer, one he had grown to dislike immensely. "Not for proper food, anyway. Don't worry, just hold on a little longer. You'll get what you need, I promise."

He bristled at this, his real, inner body shifting beneath his disguise, the pain of it making him wince. "You tell me lies."

"I never."

"One right after the other. I've never known a creature to be so fast and loose with the truth. I can't trust anything you say. When you say you have what I need, I know it means you are dangling an empty promise."

"Does this look like an empty promise?" she asked, and pulled a small, familiar can out of her purse.

He hated the way just the shape of the object made him feel. A creeping, longing pulse that ricocheted throughout his being, making the scales on his borrowed skin chip and flake as they painfully rubbed against the black robe. He shouldn't take it, for nothing was offered by Clara without a serious price to pay for it later. But he was tired, and it had been two weeks already. He couldn't bear to suffer more than he had to.

He snatched the square metal can from her grasp and quickly tucked it away beneath his robe. He would enjoy this later. In peace.

"You're welcome," she said, shrugging.

He ignored her, and instead turned his attention to the small window that allowed a good view of the establishment next door. A plaintive wailing from a trumpet meted out a death march to the swooning crowd, glittering dresses and polished pearls swaying to its funereal rhythm. Langley, as the musician was called, was in a strange mood this evening. He rested his head against the cold glass of the window, taking the slow, miserable notes in. There was nothing like this where he came from. None of this spontaneous sadness that invaded palaces of joy.

He couldn't quite articulate the feeling it gave him, his chin resting on the cold glass, Langley's horn full of the souls he'd slain. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to be lost in its ethereal hypnosis, the long, harrowing notes dragging him back to his home. Time meant nothing, no clocks ticking, no minutes counted in meagre seconds. Just an endless stream of sad, misty tones of ghosted moments.

"I didn't even have that much to drink," she said, ruining his reverie. She sprawled out onto the pew nearest him and rested her head on an open Bible. "Langley broke up with his latest catch. Caught him doing the local parish–not you, of course. Listen to those whining notes. Like no one ever had their heart broke but him. Like somehow the rest of us idiots are immune." She pulled her pearls back to her teeth, the click of their white circumference echoing into the dark shadows of the chapel. "Still, poor Langley. He'll have to blow his own horn for a while now."

Another brown bottle flew out of an opened door and into the alley. It exploded against the brick wall opposite, the layered shrapnel of revelry piled high against the cracked concrete street. "They'll be shutting it down," he said to her. "It's getting too obvious."

"As if the coppers haven't been paid off," she sneered. "I have to wonder if the place isn't full of them. Every truncheon on the block is in there having their fill of the devil's transfusion. I ought to be in there myself, but sadly I find myself here, being bored. With you."

Her face was pale in the near darkness of the chapel, her dark but glistening eyes giving her the appearance of a ghost. She was a living spectre who smiled at his discomfort, pearls dancing against her midriff as she shifted where she sat. Her manner gave off a sensation of unease, one wrapped in a persona that was both shiny and luminescent. She wasn't made of the usual terrestrial materials, he thought, for surely she was constructed from cold, damp marble rather than human skin and bones. There was nothing soft about her. He knew she could be a monster, pieced together in harrowing extremes. Even when he first met her, he'd had the impression that if he passed his touch across her neck the fingers he'd borrowed would suffer through an icy breeze, or a sudden, immovable shoulder of chilled stone.

"It's still in full swing," she said, nodding towards the partially opened window. Langley had given up his plaintive cry, the horn placed in its sacred place behind the bar, where none dare touch its polished brass sadness. A staccato drum beat now reigned over the party goers who whooped and hollered in time to the hammering beat.

"I've heard rumours," she promised him, her voice sickly sweet in the dank, damp confines of the cloister. She bit down on her finger, her eyes brimming with the excitement of bloodlust. "There's a stranger in their midst."

She'd caught his interest. He tried to keep the eager hope out of his voice, but it was to no avail. In this he couldn't remain secretive. "What kind of stranger?"

"An odd one out. Like you."

"Take me there."

"Not so fast." She draped herself over the pew, the silk feathers of her gown falling to the left, revealing the pale, polished gleam of her bare shoulder. "It's just a rumour, that's all. No hard, cold facts, those things you like best. But still," she gave him a half hearted shrug, "you haven't exactly been successful lately, have you? I'd say you need all the rumours you can get."

Could it be true? He held his breath, deep in the soft well of his borrowed form's belly. He'd been trapped here for what felt like a millennium and yet he knew this was an illusion. His former life of stretched minutes and infinite hours was as far from him as the dawn of creation was to this moment. She understood this, in her own ignorant way. He'd explained it once, the gleam of her knife glinting against her eye as it measured out the seconds of her acts of murder. Minutes meant hours and hours meant years. The soft waning of a heartbeat as the blood seeped out of the body was the closest she would ever come to understanding timelessness.

"Are you sure this time?" he couldn't resist asking.

"I told you, I'm not sure of anything. Don't you ever listen?" She curled her legs underneath her, now perched on the pew like a contented cat. "I could use a drink."

"No," he insisted. He wrung his alien hands, his feet pacing before the partially open window as the party began winding back up into a frenzy that would end in various acts of violence. "It's not worth the risk."

"I don't know what you're worried about. Sure, I joked about it, but you don't look like him any more, you've gone and shifted his face around with your swimming in there. You'd have to squint sideways and upside down to see him, and everyone in there is blind drunk by now anyway. Just go in and have one."

"I'll go in, but I'm taking nothing."

"You can't go in there and not drink," she told him. "It's not just rude, they'll look at you and think you're there to convert them to sobriety. And by this time, no one knows what that word means."

"I don't understand why you people imbibe what you aren't permitted to," he said.

"Oh?" she questioned him, her pencilled on brow highly raised. "And what about that tin box with its black goop, hrm? Are you so much a prohibitionist over that?"

"It's not the same."

"I've seen the way you act after a few gulps. It's like you're under the shade of a poppy."

"I'm not under its influence."

"Give it back, then."

He hesitated, the square shape of the can against his side a comfort he didn't want to release. Her hand was outstretched, a cruel smirk marring her otherwise attractive face. Angry, he took the can out from its hiding place and returned it to her. Victory was his.

Or so he thought. She only shook her head and placed the small can of motor oil back in her bag, that infuriating smirk all the more pronounced. She stood up and smoothed out her dress. "I don't know about you, but I'm thinking I've had enough soul saving for one evening. I'm heading back in. I'll meet you at the table near the back. You know the one."

A sense of panic rose within him, for he knew what was going to happen the minute she left the dark chapel for the even darker tidings across the street. "You can't," he tried to warn her, but she was already on her feet, pearls dangling at her waist, a fresh application of lipstick being expertly painted on her pert, puckered lips.

"I don't know what you're so worried about," she said, her tiny hand-held mirror held aloft as she painted on a thick line of burgundy crimson. She pressed her lips together, smearing the shade into an even deeper hue. "You've been in there before. They know you by now, you won't be hassled."

"That's the problem," he said. "I don't want to be known. I want only to do what I'm supposed to be doing: taking care of my target and leaving." He was annoyed at her, and he stood to his full height, as best he could within the tight flesh, and painfully pushed his shoulders back. This was a posture of pride, he'd learned. It was uncomfortable and daunting to his own skin.

"I'm not going on a fool's errand," he said, resolute. "You have tricked me too many times, Clara, and I won't allow it again."

She snapped her lipstick compact shut and put it into her beaded purse. She kept her back to him, her neck gracefully bowed as she rummaged through the contents of her purse. She gave a relieved sigh when she found what she was looking for.

A chill coursed through him. He knew the cold instrument she'd laid her equally frozen hands upon. He closed his eyes. Though his people couldn't dream, he wondered if it were possible, after being here all this time, if he could somehow will her away.

"The regular table," she reminded him. "Right by the rear of the stage. I'll give Langley's trumpet a kiss for you."

What's Ahead?

There are a lot of things in store for the month of June; quite literally, actually.

For one, I begin studying for my MCATs, which I've been putting off for the entire beginning of my summer because I'm convinced that if I deny its existence, the date of the test will somehow never come. However, I'm beginning to think the phrase 'mind over matter' is false advertisement.

Anyhow, what else?

Oh, well a new neighbor moved into the apartment above me, and this is rather disheartening. You see, my last neighbors were atrocious, and they had barking dogs that never shut up. And just when I had come up with a flawless plan of murdering them and getting away with it, they moved, leaving me in three wonderful months of peace and quiet. But on the brighter side of this, our new neighbor does not have any dogs, and chooses to stomp around during hours when I am not sleeping.

And now that I have revealed myself to be a procrastinating, potential murderer, this only leaves us with the upcoming book releases 1889 Labs has in store for the month of June.

Drumroll, please.

 

Kit Iwasaki's second entry of the Vampire General Series is scheduled to come out on June 30th, 2011. Those who have bought the first book, be sure to keep up with the sequel to this not-so-ordinary hospital drama.

 

From the mastermind MCM himself, comes Rollbots: Endgame, based on the Rollbots television show seen on Canada's YTV. Man, this makes me miss both living in Canada and my youth. I remember watching YTV's Reboot. Does anyone remember that? The "My name is Bob; I come from the Net" show? Anyway, Rollbots comes out June 21st, 2011. I know we've got quite a few Rollbots fans out there, so be sure not to miss this.

 

Last but not least, Polarity: Dustrunners Book Two comes out on June 14, 2011, which is the sequel to Typhoon, where Kani struggles further through the ever-changing world of asteroid piracy. Don't miss this.

 

And, of course, be sure to check out the other releases in the BOOKS section if you haven't already. No, seriously; do it. I'm a potential murderer, remember?

Today I will close this article with a rather unsettling quote by Friedrich Nietzche:

"When you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

-'Beyond Good and Evil' (1886)

This quote has actually been used numerous times in different media, one being 'The Broken', a psychological horror movie starring Lena Heady (also one of my favorite movies to this day). But, this quote also invokes a sort of inspiration to me and my writing. What exactly is the definition of an abyss? A vacuous, never-ending space? A prison? Is it physical, or is it in ourselves? I suppose the latter question is completely subjective, though I'd like to think of it this way.

If it is in ourselves, then the quote therefore represents an internal struggle. Of darkness, or evil. We analyze our inner demons, while they do the same to us. Sort of like walking on thin ice; and those brave enough to face their inner fears–their inner flaws, had better be strong enough to battle against them as well, lest we lose ourselves to darkness, the abyss, or evil. The actual long-form quotation from this is:

'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.'

How many stories does that sound like? It seems this theme (which I have derived from Nietzche's quote) has inspired many.

Alright; my philosophical blathering is done. Until next time.

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Headline image by Michael McCollough

Memories

Sudden cold dreads crowded into her chest, rioting against her gut and shoving her heart up into her throat. Not going? Forcing a hoarse whisper around the congestion, she asked, "And there's a reason?"

"A few." He held her eyes for a moment, then looked into his mug of tea, bringing it up to sip, needing something other than words in his mouth.

"Right. A few reasons. A few reasons that you just came up with this morning? Nothing you could have told me about last week, or last month, or last friggin' season?" Her hand trembled so it splashed a slop of hot tea over her knuckles and she swore again, sitting the mug onto the flat back of the bench. Her throat went dry, and a cold rash of fear grew with realization. It spread up her neck and across her cheeks as the blood left her face.

"I've been thinking." He watched his own hand intently as he settled his mug with deliberate care. "Not just about going back to the front this season. About everything. About why we're here. Why we're fighting. Whether we've got any hope of coming home this time." Still studying his hands, he rubbed at the scars that crossed his knuckles. Softly, he said, "I want to know what you're going to do if I don't go."

He said if, and she dived on the faint hope. Trusting her voice not to break, she cleared her throat. "I'm going. What else can I do? Spend my last months in lock-up; make my life up to now a disgrace; every damn thing I've done a waste, and then starve in a ditch begging for coppers? Of course I'm going."

"You can't go without me."

"Damn right. But are you offering me a choice? I haven't got one. You go; I go. You don't go; I have to go alone. New partner. And not a lot of hope." Her throat tightened, screwing tears up close behind her eyes. "I might make it back; I've only got three months of service left."

"They won't send you back in three months though, you know that. You go out there and you're fighting 'til the season ends. On top of that, they'll have you in the front line; there are too many raw kids in this new rotation. They'll hold them back and send veterans up to the front." He spoke softly, his eyes were closed again and his hands were still, fingers laced like a prayer or a promise of inaction.

"Is that meant to make me feel better?" She would have stood to pace, but her knees were weak. She felt sick. "Why didn't you give me some warning about this? By all the gods, Dragan, this is my life we're talking about. Didn't I deserve a hint?"

He pushed himself into a stand, reluctantly, as if all of his decisions came at a cost and Freya gagged on the thought that he was leaving. Walking back into the cold shadows of the room, from the soft gold of sunrise into the red echoes of firelight, it seemed he carried burdens no man was built to endure. But if he left now, if he walked out the door, she would never see him again and he would leave with far more than her answers and the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He filled a second mug of tea, pouring unmeasured sugar into the dark liquid and stirring sluggishly. When he turned back, he had the little wooden box in his free hand and he held it out to her as he approached. "Shove up," he said and she made room on the bench beside her.

Staring numbly at the box in her hands, she watched him tap the lid with a callused finger. "Want to look through my things?"

"Your thing. This is it. Where is all your stuff?" Dull realizations were forming, clearing and drawing the nausea closer. "Oh hell, Dragan, you already packed everything up, didn't you? Sent it home." Why hadn't she seen this coming? Solid rock was buckling, slipping underneath her.

"No. Open it up."

The little box offered its treasures humbly. Not quite a foot long and completely unadorned, its pale wood had been carved out by an unskilled hand. Freya lifted a wide brass buckle and a cock's tailfeather from among an array of small things: a broken spearhead, pebbles, some squares of bloodstained cloth. Some were familiar, some weren't. "Why am I looking at this? I have to get ready."

"No you don't. They won't go without you. There'll be pounding on the door long before then. Do you recognize these things?"

The hollow, sickening distance in her head was making it hard to concentrate. It was irritating, and this box of bits was not answering any of the questions she needed to ask. "Why am I looking at this?" Her words were louder this time, more urgent. "Is this a little pack of mementos for me to remember you by? Or for you? Is this my epitaph? A little box of 'I remember when…'?" Anger was clearing the fog, but the sickness remained, the terror.

Dragan laughed; if her hands had been empty she might have hit him. "That's my life, or ours, same thing." Gently he took the feather from her fingers, curving its silky length across his lips. "This is everything I kept; all the rest is burned."

He slid the feather over her mouth, just as he had done his own. "Do you remember the year you wore these? All stitched up your shoulders and around like a collar." His lopsided smile was still there and she looked from the feather into the foolishness of her youth.

"Yes. I remember." She couldn't smile, but the touch of the feather brought the past crowding back around her like someone else's ghosts. "Vain. Stupid. How did we ever survive?"

She had been twenty, fresh from two years in light cavalry, when the ranks were redesigned. Someone somewhere decided there would be a Dyad force, pairs fighting as a single guerilla unit, and she had been first in line to enlist for the change. Cavalry had been fast and fearless; a sisterhood of warriors who held the lines at the front, all speed, skill and adrenaline, and wagging your smartass tail at the boys on the ground. But all these years later she still dreamed the screams of horses run onto pickets.

So she'd made the change and met the partner she'd live or die beside.

She picked a brass stud out of the box and held it beside the buckle. "I had to make something spectacular. You were wearing a ton of black leather and brass. All long hair and bare chest. And I kept cutting mine down, remember. Each season wearing less, 'til I had that cut away leather thing; just a bustiere with capped sleeves and studs, a segmented kilt, gauntlets and greaves."

"It looked good too."

"Well yes, as long as I didn't mind freezing to death, and I parried every single slash."

"And we did, didn't we. Every single slash, or nearly." He didn't look at her shoulder when he spoke; he moved his thumb absently across his own chest, tracing a ragged scar that crossed his ribs.

"And look." He lifted out a small lock of her hair; darker than his, tied with a long silver thread and glass beads.

"Where did you get that?" She looked directly at him for the first time since he'd sat, but he didn't meet her gaze. She faced him squarely and tried to imagine the man she'd known so long collecting all these tiny souvenirs. This was a side of him she'd never seen.

He shrugged. "When you cut it short."

"I remember that day. Or night, actually. It kept falling across my face, tangling up. Plus we had lice, remember?" It had been a hard campaign, and the images and smells of a battlefield filled her head.

"Yes, I do. You were tired and cranky, so you just took the knife and cut it all off."

Freya nodded and twitched a smile in remembrance. "I had to." Until then her hair had always been long, and yet she'd never had a second thought about cutting it. She couldn't remember the year, things like that blurred together after a while, but it must have been then that she first started to consider the risks. "When does common sense start to cut through the adrenaline and bravado?"

"When it starts to hurt." His answer was a simple truth: age, experience, mortality; and with them the knowledge of how many ways you can fall.

"You didn't even want me with you, at first, did you?" She kept staring at his face, and just as carefully, he studied the contents of the box.

"It wasn't you; it was being a little girl. Cavalry is the best place for women. You're fast, light, and agile; at least that's what I thought. But you trained beside me until you puked. You just wouldn't quit." He smiled. "And I did sort of hope we'd make a good team."

"Why won't you look at me?" She moved a hand up to the rough stubble of his beard, turning his face toward hers, but he kept his eyes down. His thick lashes were fair; his eyes deep and wide-set under knotted brows. His nose really was too big, and the green of his eyes, though she couldn't see them, were flecked with golds and browns like pebbles in a stream.

He closed the box, sighing and looked up. "I don't want you to go."

"I don't have any choice." There was a plea in her voice she didn't like, but her options were too awful for pride. "You've always said you'd finish with me," she reminded him. "I know your contract's ended, but you promised me one more season. I wish you'd told me when, and why, you changed your mind."

"I changed my mind when I carried you back from the front last year. Because I thought you were going to die. And after all these months of healing, and watching you train back up to fit…" he paused amid an unfamiliar stream of words.

His gaze was too intense to hold, livid with the remnants of excess and emotion. Hot blood rushed into her cheeks on fires of humiliation, as she readied herself to hear him to say she was no longer good enough. Not good enough. Suddenly she wished she had not asked for answers.

When he spoke again it was barely a whisper. "You are, without a doubt, the finest, surest–" he smiled "– most fearless soldier I have ever known. I never had to guess where you were, I just knew you'd have my back.

"We had an understanding of each other in a fight. A trust. I never thought you would get hurt. I did what I had to do and I knew you'd be behind me." He stopped again, rubbing his palm slowly over the surface of his box of treasures. If he'd thought so long about this, he had failed to find all the words he was going to need.

Riding the rise of returning nausea, sure of his next words, Freya hurried him. "And now my shoulder is shagged and your back is open. Now I'm a liability?"

"No, that's not it." He took her hand. It wasn't the soft dough-white hand of the camp followers; it was brown and calloused, marked across the knuckles with scars, like his own. And hers wasn't the hard, grime-grained hand of the farm girls he'd grown up among. It was a strong hand, lean and certain. "It's what I said before; you only stop to count the cost once it starts to hurt.

"I thought you were going to die, and I had never considered what I would do if you weren't out there with me."

An Introduction of Sorts

Behold—;

The very first blog post (well, second, but who's really counting) on the new and improved 1889 Labs website! It is my pleasure to bring you, dear readers, entertainment from this day forth, beginning with this rather flamboyant opening paragraph!

Without further delay, allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Terra Whiteman, author of The Antithesis, and now also a textual slave for 1889 Labs. Despite this being my first gig in the e-lit community, I'd like to sincerely say that I've always admired everyone taking part in it, and now I would like to as well. Though I must admit that I am quite nervous, so if I write something awkward or nonsensical, that is because I am metaphorically peeing in my pants at this moment in time.

Well, I suppose that was awkward, but at least I warned you in advance.

In the short time that I have been working with 1889 Labs, I've come to realize that MCM and Anna have formed a truly brilliant thing, here; an independent publishing company whose sole purpose is to bring its readers quality fiction by authors who, albeit are not traditionally published, are just as talented (if not more) and capable of telling wonderful stories.

Yes, I am among these authors. You will come to learn that I am unbelievably modest, really.

Anyhow, the ultimate goal is to expand our horizons and reach out to all e-literature communities, whether they are web fiction authors, independent authors, and of course readers of either group. These groups are already like an interconnected web; we would just like to wind it a little tighter.

This e-zine will showcase weekly serialized web fiction from the ever-talented authors Letitia Coyne and M. Jones, along with flash fiction every Fridays, and Tuesday and Thursday articles by yours truly in the form of interviews, guest posts, and other forms of insanity strictly depending on both my mood and how well my day has gone.

So, let the games begin.

On a final note, any authors interested in submitting a flash fiction story (1000 words or less) please send your inquiries to me (tl.whiteman@gmail.com). They can be any genre, so long as they fit nicely under the umbrella of awesome. Also, make sure to take a look at the current list of books 1889 has available for sale, and keep your eye on those coming soon. Though I am here to entertain you, I am also here to persuade you to buy things.

So, buy things!

Those who know me, also know that I am passionate about philosophy. So, from here on out, all closing words in my articles will be in the form of philosophical quotes from idealists and 'enlightenists'; some of whom inspire both me and my writing tremendously.

"The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge."

- PLATO (380 BCE)

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Headline image by cote.

WINNERS! And something's different…

What could it be? Hmm, let's see… it's not my hair, it's not my shoes… wait! I changed my shirt earlier! Yes! That must be… but no, no that's not it either. What's different…?

Ah, right. The site. Forgot about that.

Welcome to the new-new-new 1889.ca. There are many exciting things to explore, but before I get into that, I want to do something exciting: I want to recap the Party Like It's 1889 event!

We had tons of comments across tons of posts all over the place during May, and we met lots of exciting people who may or may not be as insane as we are. Although Anna will claim to have received the most comments, she's only counting the VISIBLE ones, so obviously she's incorrect, and I have in fact won. I believe my prize is a month of horrendous bugfixing, so the joke's on me.

There's some kind of prize thing, too, right? Hmm… I can't put my finger on it. Let's come back to that later, then.

What's new with the site? Well, aside from the multitude of glitches (oh, how I love glitches), we have some fun new features. There's a series page! Yes! And do you know what that's for? Series, dummy!

Starting today, we're hosting two new web fiction series! "Touchstone" from Letitia Coyne and starting next Tuesday, "Gangster" from M Jones! The series will run for a few months, but I've already seen what's coming, and I have to say, HA HA HA SUCKERS YOU HAVE TO WAIT!

That wasn't nice of me. Hmm. I apologize. I need to learn to be kinder to people, like for instance not teasing the identity of the winner of a Kindle but refusing to reveal it for a very long time. That kind of thing is downright scummy, it is. Goodness!

Here's another big change at 1889: we've got us an ezine! The old blog is being upgraded and overseen by the genius Terra Whiteman (of The Antithesis fame), who will be bringing you exciting information from all over the place, and wrap it all up into posts so informative, my brain will explode. No really, it'll explode. Grab a spoon, it'll be awesome.

Everyone say a big happy welcome to Terra. Go on, there's comments. Do it. I'll wait.

Well done. I'm misty, honestly. That was beautiful.

Okay, let me head off some of the more common questions you'll have about what you're seeing here, because I know they're coming:

Yes, I know the search function is broken. I'm gettin' there.
There are funny characters in posts. I think I have a UTF problem, and the ointment just ain't doin' what it's s'posed to!
Certain books, like The Pig and the Box, are not showing up. Most other books are missing metadata, and more importantly, the ability to read them online. I'll get that fixed soon.
Blog archives are inaccessible. That may or may not be on purpose…

Now. If you find things that are broken, feel free to tell me in the comments below, but please don't email them to me, because I quite literally have 900 emails in my inbox that I haven't responded to already, and if I get another 900 bug reports, a different part of me will explode, and you'll need a fork for that one.

By the way, if you've sent me an email in the last few weeks and I haven't replied, that's why. I'll get to it soon.

Wait, no, I have to finish prepping Polarity. Okay, you'll have to wait until next month.

RIGHT.

SO.

Let's look at the magic random number generator, shall we? Who do we see?

In THIRD PLACE, getting an advance ebook copy of the next title we'll publish this month… the winner is Bonnie Sparks!

Now then. In SECOND PLACE, nabbing a VIP ticket, granting them access to advance copies of every ebook we'll publish this year, before anyone else gets ahold of them… the winner is Jaidis Shaw!

Wow, you guys must be really excited. I would be excited too except Anna is reminding me I'm behind on my deadlines, and she has that whip with the barbed wire tip and please make the hurting stop! Please! Ohhhh…

Sorry, I got distracted there.

Finally, the one you've all been waiting for. The big cheese. The head honcho. The… yeah, the winner of the Kindle, really. It's exciting, it's dramatic, it's really quite…

Wait, hold on. Before I go on, I need to thank a few people for making this Party what it is. First of all, Anna, because she thought the idea up, and really, she ran the whole show. She's insane, but she does it well. And speaking of insane, I also want to thank Greg X Graves, who thinks I'm The Man and keeps throwing salmon at my head, but he's otherwise quite wonderful. And also wonderful is Kit Iwasaki, who writes about vampires and mermaids, so she can't be all that bad.

But really, I want to thank YOU. It's been a great month, and I think next month will be better, and the one after that even better… and it's all because of you.

Let me tell you a bit more about how great you are.

You're…

Right, sorry, the Kindle.

The winner of the Kindle (and all that other stuff too) is…

Drumroll please.

Louder, dammit, louder!

Okay, that's good. Hold it like that for a few more seconds…

And…

The winner is…

(how do you open this envelope?)

It's…

Hold on, this is my water bill. What's going on here? Oh, sorry, wrong envelope.

The winner is…

James R!

Confetti, champagne and hippos falling from the sky! Winners, please send me an email at mcm@1889.ca so I can get you hooked up, and congrats again, and be sure to check out the new site! Woo!

Roll Call

A chill rode the breeze that rose with the sun, tearing shreds of fog from their billows across the tarn and tugging them toward the high stone porticos of the fortress.

Freya stretched, yawning, and bunched the furs up closer around her chin as she watched the young soldier's movements: strong, confident, unashamedly naked. Youth gave him no cause to hide. His skin was perfect gold, unmarked, moving smoothly over clean flat muscle as he gathered his clothes together. The hard training of the past months had polished away any adolescent softness, showing the man he had become, and fitness left him clenched, eager for action.

As a lover he had been exactly as she'd expected. Keen, athletic, persistent. What he'd lacked in finesse, he'd made up with enthusiasm, and the memory brought a small smile as she studied him in the growing light.

Seeing her awake, he smiled, quickly tying and belting his cloak around his hips, intentionally low so his abdominals were shown to their best advantage. He moved to kneel beside her pallet. "Good morning." He leaned to kiss her. "Are we going down to eat? We're mobilizing this morning; we need to get to the dining hall."

"You go." She stretched again, yawning as she spoke. "I'll be down shortly, there's time. I promise you, they won't go to war without us."

"But…." He hesitated, looked uncertain, childlike for the first time. "I thought we would team up now." Petulance and doubt crept over his tongue. "I want you with me. I watched you for so long, I never thought I'd… we'd… you know. Will I see you again?"

She reached for his cheek, stroking a finger down its faultless plains and across his soft, full lips. "This campaign will be long, and cold, and bloody. We'll be huddled in wet tents, sleeping on rocks, and hacking our way through flesh and blood for months. If the gods are kind and you see me anywhere, chances are it will be a long way off and you, like me, will be fighting to stay alive." She leaned across to kiss his cheek. "Don't wait around for me. Live. Live fast and live well, because there's no way to know if you'll live for very long."

He stared hard at her, a frown spoiling the smooth brow, and she met the plea in his eyes with calm conviction. At last he stood, snatched up his things, and stalked from the room without a backward glance. Young hearts bend far before they break, or love and lust would cause more carnage than wars.

Cold ached into the scar on her shoulder, stabbing and burning deep inside the joint where the tissues had fused roughly. Rolling over flat, she twisted her spine slowly, letting the cracks and pops ease some of the stiffness from her back. Mornings, cold damp mornings, just weren't as easy to shrug off as they'd used to be. Sighing away any curses she might have uttered, she swung her feet onto the flagging and pushed back the tangled mess of her hair. It needed cutting.

Behind the stonework of the fireplace was a small washroom, its cistern filled with water heated overnight by the fire. It had cooled as the fire died, and Freya worked the hand pump, drawing water warm enough to bathe into a narrow stone trough. She lowered herself in carefully, lying back so the meager warmth covered her shoulder, and let it work the knots out of gnarled flesh.

Eventually she sat up, pushing hair and water back from her face, then pressed her left hand onto her shoulder as she tried to move her sword arm through its full range of movement. No amount of warmth was going to free the jag and tear or the crunch of cartilage in every rotation. Neither was the liniment she poured into her hand to rub over the scar, but she did it anyway, rubbing until a snarling altercation in the corridor outside dragged her out of her tub.

She slipped into a soft flannel tunic and moved through the door, searching the gloom for the source of the noise. Dragan sat against the stonework, knees drawn up, his head down, resting on crossed arms. He looked up as she approached, and then put his aching head back down into his hands.

"Did someone trip over you?"

He grunted, lifted his face and rubbed his forehead, but gave no answer.

"You look awful. And you smell dead." Freya almost smiled. All the red from the wine flagon beside him had pooled in his eyes, and his whole forehead flinched as he squinted through the dim light. "You'd better come inside and get cleaned up."

Slowly he twisted, supporting himself against the wall as he stood, stooped, then forced his cramped back to straighten. At full height he towered over her, seeming to fill the passageway of the ancient citadel. Resting a hand on her shoulder, he limped painfully into the room, cursing the glare, looking for a shaded place to sit.

"By the gods, what did you do last night?" This time Freya did smile. In all the years she'd known him, she had never seen the big man in this state of devastation.

"I don't remember. I started out at the graduation feast for the new recruits. I thought you were there." He rubbed at raw eyelids, clearing his vision or smearing away memories.

"Yeah, I was there a while." She moved back to the washroom, using the privacy first to pull on her soft suede breeches, cinching her belt in tight over the tunic. Then she called, "I'll see how much more hot water I can draw for you to wash." Her used bathwater had cooled to tepid and hauling up and down on the pump topped it up to little more than half a tub of barely warmer water, but it had to suffice. She clutched out a handful of salts, throwing them, fizzing, into the water, then thought again and emptied the rest of the pot in as well.

"That water's none too warm; I'd get into it now if I were you." Kneeling at the fire, she fanned the embers until they caught, then lowered the kettle to the flame. "I'll go down to your quarters and get you clean clothes. Want me to bring your armor up too? We might as well go down from here."

He nodded, mumbled unintelligibly and stumbled toward the washroom.

* * * * *

Working down through the rabbit warren of the old citadel Freya passed a few stragglers, but most of the company was at breakfast by now. She crossed the open foyer of the main keep, past the doorways to the vast dormitories, and set off upward again in the second wing, tracing familiar steps to her partner's rooms.

Inside his quarters, the bedding was unmade, but apart from a few clothes folded on the shelves, there was nothing in the room to mark its occupancy. Moving quickly, she threw his cloak open on the pallet and tossed his clothes — a jerkin and breeches, his hauberk, cuirass halves, gauntlets and greaves — into a pile and then checked the washroom.

On the washstand beside the tub stood an empty wine flagon and the remains of a bread and cheese meal. There too, was a small wooden box which she picked up and carried out to the main room, shaking it and listening to the rattle as she did. Gathering up the corners of the cloak and hanging it easily over her good shoulder, Freya carried the sum total of this soldier's life back to her own rooms.

From the washroom door, swinging her bundle down onto the floor and holding the small box against her side, she said, "If you want to eat, we'll have to go down there soon."

"I don't want to eat."

She smiled. "You want some tea? It'll ease the head. And if you're feeling anything like me, it'll ease the neck, the shoulders, the hips and the knees."

He snorted, the laugh a little close to self-pity, and called back, "Yeah. Strong. Lots of sugar."

* * * * *

Sitting on the balcony palisade, turning his back on the cold beauty of the early morning tarn, Dragan sipped the mug of bitter tea. It needled at his gut, but after a few moments the soothing effect of the opiates seeped though cramped muscles and cooled the hot pain behind his eyes. The only concession he made to the cold was holding the mug up near his face so the steam curled gently under his chin and across his cheek. Bare-chested he sat, the rough cloth of his cloak tied and belted at his hips, broad back proffered as a single defense against the elements.

Freya paused in the shadows. After twelve years of teamwork, her partner's formidable physical presence could still check her stride. She watched him sitting, silent and still, like part of the stonework on which he balanced, as hard and solid and impervious as rock.

There was nothing in him small or mean: the spirit of the man was what you saw. He was in all things constant. Stable. Firm. Immovable. She smiled; after so many years she had relied on that strength too many times to recall, or chaffed at his stubbornness, or thanked the fickle gods for his patience. He was everything she knew she could not be, and that was good. It served them well. It always had.

He didn't change, or changed so slowly the small erosions went unnoticed. In a world where nothing lasted, where there was nothing she could hold that would always remain, he was her one sure thing. In this world, he was the only one, the only thing she trusted without question.

His hair too, would have to be cut. It fell forward like a wreath of rusted wheat that knotted around his ears and bunched into ringlets on his shoulders. When they'd first met it was long, hanging halfway down his back in a thick, sun-bleached swathe over dense auburn curls. It had been the first thing she noticed, the beautiful hair. Then the shoulders. Then the butt; wrapped in black leather with easily twenty pounds of studs and buckles. Unnecessary weight in battle. Even now she smiled at the vanity. Back then it didn't seem to matter as long as it looked good.

Shaking her head at small regrets, she silently wished for days like those days again. Days when her knees did not crack when she bent and her joints moved without complaint. Her hair had been longer then, too, and the poppy tea she sipped as she walked didn't wreak such havoc on her gut.

"You need a haircut." She threw a sheepskin onto the bench and sitting, adjusted it up behind her shoulder, her own small concession to the cold of the stone. He didn't answer, didn't even open his eyes, so she continued. "Are you going to tell me why you're sitting here like a shipwreck, sipping dope instead of eating at the mess and getting ready for Roll Call?"

He lowered his mug to between his knees, raised his face enough to look at her straight and said, "I'm not going."

It's Zombie Christmas!

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28 Days Later

This was the last week of Party Like It's 1889 — only a few more days until the Kindle winner is announced. This week has seen us partying with the zombies. You've had guest posts, giveaways, discussions on the mechanics … Continue reading →