He stalks the night on silent paws
From shadow to shadow like a wraith
Obedient only to his own laws
Glossy and midnight from tail to face
Astride the fence defiance calls
To any who dare his wrath incur
And stands atop the garden wall
Malice hid in silken fur
He walks alone yet has no fear
Of anything the dark may hold
Bright of eye and sharp of ear
Moonlight only makes him bold
Throughout the day he cushioned sleeps
And twitching dreams of silver moons
His human servants fawn and weep
And bring him food on a golden spoon

©jj 2021

At about the time Bill was calling his parents, a man went into a pub in Edinburgh. He was broad-shouldered, bulky, exquisitely tailored, and obviously deeply annoyed.
“Where is she?” he snapped at the skinny little man behind the bar.
“She’s in the snug. Says to go in. But your goons stay out here.”
“I go nowhere without my bodyguards.”
“So fuck off then” the little man said without any particular heat. As he spoke he brought a sawn-off shotgun out from under the bar, and pointed it at the biggest of the ‘goons’ who had his hand inside his jacket.
He smiled, showing a mouthful of very bad teeth.
“I’m no a very good shot, and I’m worse if I’m nervous. So just keep  your hands where I can see them. I’m sure nobody wants a nervous man blasting around with a six-gauge in this confined space.”
Whether or not he would have been obeyed became immaterial as the man with his hand in his pocket gave a queer cough and collapsed. His companions looked down briefly to see a dart sticking out of the side of his neck.
“Double top,” a jeering voice said. As one man they turned their eyes towards a raddled-looking whore and a couple of beefy young men who had moved their attention from the dartboard to the entertainment at the bar. One of the men cracked his knuckles, and the sound it made fell loudly into the now silent room.
“Well then, big man. Are you going in to see herself? Or are you leaving? Choice is yours.’
For a moment the besuited man’s reaction hung in the balance. Then he shrugged.
“Wait here” he snapped then walked through the half glazed door into an almost dark room, where a woman sat nursing a large drink.
“You decided to be sensible then,” she said in a husky half-whisper.
The man ground his teeth together as he visibly fought for control.
“I have business with you.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“My principal is not pleased. We paid you for protection. And what happened?”
She spat accurately between his highly polished shoes.
“You paid me so that the local plod would look the other way, and so that nobody from Edinburgh would interfere with you. I kept my end of the bargain. If you were stupid enough to piss off people from elsewhere who play very rough, that’s your problem.”
“Why you…”
He took a step forward and found himself literally looking down the barrel of a very businesslike gun, held in a perfectly steady hand.
“It’s a Glock. And at this range it would actually shoot off your face. I’d quite like to see that.”
The man stood very still. His companion laughed harshly.
“Whatever possessed you to think you’d get away with it?”
“Why not? It was only some Rom kid whose father had annoyed the wrong people. It would have made a change to mix business with pleasure. The little bastard would have screamed for a very long time.”
He licked his lips, then shrugged his heavy shoulders. His hot eyes met the woman’s cold gaze, and he flinched, but he spoke with undiminished arrogance.
“We aren’t here to talk about some brat. I’m here to tell you that my boss isn’t pleased with you. And to explain what the consequences will be if you fail him again…”
“Don’t bother yourself. I have absolutely no interest in anything you might have to say. You are actually here because I have something to say to you.”
The man tensed.
“If you move, I’ll shoot off your testicles. Now. Back off, sit in the chair behind you, and listen.”
He sat, more than a little unnerved by the unwavering eye of the big, black pistol. For a moment there was silence, and the man had to fight an urge to break and run. His tormentor must have seen something in his eyes as she laughed again.
“Testicles” she reminded him. “You are here because there are some people who need to learn what is and is not acceptable. Torturing wains to death comes under is not.”
He opened his mouth and the Glock swung unerringly towards his crotch.
“Unacceptable. Intolerable. So. An example needs to be made. It looks as if you just volunteered.”
He surged from the chair, only to be caught and held fast by two pairs of iron hands.
“Take him away, and do to him what he was going to do to that wee lad. I’ll be interested to know how long he screams for. And when he can scream no more, bleed him out. We’ll be sending his remains to his boss in a body bag and we wouldn’t want it leaking would we?”
“No boss,” the voice was deep and cold, and seemed to be barely masking huge anger.
“We’ll see he feels the full benefit before we tidy him up for transportation.’
“You do that.”
As he was being dragged away the bulky man screwed his head around to look at the woman by the bar.
“You are a dead person walking,” he hissed.
“Aren’t we all you evil bastard. Aren’t we all?”
When the door closed behind her unpleasant guest, the woman at the bar went grey under her make-up, and she seemed to sag on her barstool.
“I’ll have a wee sniff of that oxygen now, if nobody minds. It was a bit of a strain not shooting that creature. Only the knowledge that he needs to suffer stayed my hand.”
A younger woman in a nurse’s uniform came out from behind the bar an put an oxygen mask on the face of her suffering patient.
“Dead person walking indeed… Here, let’s get you back in your wheelchair you stubborn fool.”
A big soft-footed man came quietly into the room. “Bodyguards deceased. Mister X is being taken somewhere where nobody can hear him scream. Now. Will you please go home and rest?”
His boss lifted her oxygen mask.
“Aye. I will. But I want to know how long bigmouth lasts.”
He smiled grimly.
“Me too.”

From The Cracksman Code by Jane Jago

I must go down to the beach again, to the crowded beach and the sun
And all I ask is a wide-brimmed hat and a towel to lie upon
And an ice cream van playing nursery rhymes and sand in the sunshine baking
And a deckchair for Auntie Clair and the sound of the donkeys braying.

I must go down to the beach again for a walk on the promenade
Is a wide prom and a clear prom which is seen in every postcard
And all I ask is a sunny day with no grey clouds a-trying
To spoil the queues of endless folks, cold drinks all a-buying.

I must go down to the beach again to the chippy by the pier
To taste the salt – and the vinegar – just like yesteryear.
And all I ask is a seafront pub called ‘The Wild Rover’
To welcome us in with beer and gin when the sunbathing day is over.

E.M. Swift-Hook

My dear Readers Who Write,

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV at your service, author of the science fantasy classic (or SciFan as we cognoscenti prefer to say) ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. Mummy was the one who identified the genre for me when she had been sipping on her fourth pernod and organic Greek yoghurt smoothie. “Moons, if you think that anyone is ever going to call that poop science-fiction you are living in a frigging fantasy.” I recall she spat the stone of an olive she had fished out from the bottom of her glass with the final words, so they impacted me deeply.

Today mes estudas, after our brief plunge into the murky pond of reviews and reviewing, we will return to the primrose paths of prose preparation.  To those of you who have had the supercalfragilistic fortune to be winnowing worth from my words of wisdom I say welcome back, and to those who have only just discovered my delightful calligraphy I say sit quietly at the back of the class and be sure to revise later.

And thus, my happy followers, my RWW, I propose to you the finest flora and bejeweled gems of my inestimable intellect. Read carefully, learn assiduously, and ingest intestinally that you may benefit from the experience of one whose writing skills are superior and sans pareil.

How to Start Writing a Book –  The Write Character

When creating fantabulous fiction, one of the building blocks one should consider perspicaciously is the characteristics of one’s characters, the pontification of one’s protagonists, and the mentality of one’s mendicants.  May one humbly suggest the ritualistic dismemberment of the dichotomy of despair is the first essential in the realisation and roundaboutification of perfect protagonists.

As we are fast becoming closely intertwined, one feels comfortable in sharing some of one’s own little ritual-ettes for the construction of credible character traits. Place upon the table a virgin sheet of the most beautiful of papers and upon its sensitive surface inscribe certain informations about the person growing in one’s psyche. Once you have these facts inside your cranium attempt to dress your shrinking physique in the insubstantial anatomy of your putative creation. Once having assumed this physical envelope, model it as carefully as if you were a supermodel on the catwalk and allow it to permeate every pore of your being. Only then can you begin to set it down with its contemporaneous companions inside the delicate framework of your histoire. Tread gently and allow each one of your persons to speak in their own tones, to walk in their own shoes, to listen with their own ears, to feel with their own hearts, and to expostulate to you of their hopes, dreams, passions and personalities.

Never, mes enfants, permit yourself to press your own expectations upon the psyche of those who inhabit your writings. Rather let them fly on their own wings and listen with your inner ear as they speak to you of their lives and their loves.

Ah mes estudas, quel excitement, quel bonheur, as your little people walk the pages of your magnum opus and clamber around in the canyons of your consciousness. Let your creativity be as verdant as the grass, and allow your imagination to be impregnated by the words of those persons who have grown up to inhabit your worlds with the organic ossification of their beings.

And there we will leave the characterisation of Calliope and her sisters until next time when we shall consider the impact of those most precious people of our imaginations on the mundane and dour dross of everyday life.

Ecrit bon!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

Get a grip!
Friday the Thirteenth is just another day. It is no more unlucky than any other day.
To illustrate: I met my late and unlamented spouse on a Friday. Only it wasn’t the thirteenth. And I couldn’t blame luck. Nope. I wound up married to the louse because of the effects of rough cider not the friggin’ date….
So. Get out from under the bed. Get your legs down the appropriate holes in your trousers (or pants if you are a bloody colonial), and try to act like you have a brain cell.
Superstition is crap. It will never be anything but crap. It is designed to sell crap. And to allow the feeble-minded to blame their inadequacies on a higher power.
Again I say crap.
If I see anybody surreptitiously turning their money in their pocket, or avoiding their reflection I shall be kicking ass…

Masked killers tore down tapestries, ransacked cupboards and dressing chests, and urgently questioned the few servants to be found in the family wing of the palace. All to no avail, the princess appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth.
As the massive battering ram began to take effect on the brass-bound outer doors, the leading killer gave a low whistle and gathered his men. ‘It’s no good, the bitch is gone, and his fancy lordship didn’t pay enough for any of us to get dead.’ There were nods of agreement and the group vanished swiftly into the tunnels from which they had emerged just as the outer doors gave and the heavily armed palace guard surged into the apartments.
The carnage that met the gaze of the largely ceremonial palace soldiers had more than one falling to his knees and retching helplessly. One grizzled veteran held the head of his commanding officer as he deposited his breakfast on the shining marble tiles of the antechamber floor. ‘Come along son, there are messages to be sent’, the sergeant said in a steady voice as he hoisted the young aristocrat to his feet.
‘Messages?’
‘Yes, sir, you’ll be wanting to send an eagle to the Sanctuary of The Sky, and as many pigeons as you can get hold of to the northern kingdoms. All hell is going to break out here very soon, and we’ll need all the help we can get’.
‘All hell? Why?’
‘Emperor dead. Imperial family dead. No successor. There’s going to be one almighty scramble for power, and we’ll be right in the middle of it.’
The officer may have been young, green, and a political appointee, but he was no fool and quickly grasped the reality of what his sergeant was saying.
‘We need to hurry then. Is there anybody steady we can leave in charge here?’
‘Bilwil’ the sergeant bellowed, and a short, bandy corporal with acne-scarred cheeks bustled forward. ‘Take charge here, and try to make sure nobody makes this mess any worse.’ Bilwil snapped a salute, and, casting a sardonic eye over the group of assorted idlers, pensioners, and green lads still vomiting began to bawl out his own set of orders. The sergeant and commander left at a flat gallop heading for the signal tower at the northern corner of the palace complex.
It is a sad comment on human nature that Sergeant Gandy’s prediction proved to be so accurate. Within twelve hours of the royal hunt setting out from the palace, the city had become a virtual war zone.
Gangs of armed men prowled the streets, while looting and casual violence became the order of the day. The city seethed with armed and dangerous dangerous people, from paid assassins reducing the size of the pool from which a new emperor would be chosen, through career thieves, to groups of noblemen’s sons seeking to avenge imagined slights. The ordinary populace stood little chance against armed toughs and mostly chose to retreat behind closed doors and wait out the worst. Those who had no doors to wait behind fared very badly indeed, prey to casual violence and with no help forthcoming from any direction: the temple guardsmen and the members of the watch, the very men charged with keeping the peace in the city, having prudently retired behind the sturdy doors of the temples and watch-houses leaving those on the streets to survive, or not, as best they might.
Thus matters stood until just after dawn on the tenth day after the palace massacre, when a force of about five hundred men entered the city from the east. The Church had taken a hand. Seasoned soldiers, in scarlet cloaks and bronze breastplates, flooded the streets and the ordinary citizens breathed a collective sigh of relief. A few of the less intelligent among the younger sons and roaring boys who had terrorised the city weren’t fast enough to make themselves scarce, and a number of messy object lessons were handed out before order was restored.

From The Long Game by Jane Jago.

Because life happens…

If you start from your own garden gate
Then run for a hundred days straight
At ten kay a day
You’ll be quite far away
And for dinner you’re gonna be late

Jane Jago

Dense morning fog cloaked the vast mountains that flanked Madelyn Lawrence’s wooden hut. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and drew a long breath of the Peruvian air she had grown to love. In her eleven years as a cultural anthropologist, she had never known a more peaceful place than the Ashaninka village.
Moving to the edge of her hut, where one facing was open to the world, she looked out upon the landscape. From her location on the outskirts of the village, she could see the dozens of huts similar to her own that spackled the lush valley she had called home for the last two years. A profound sense of contentment made her smile. Early morning was her favorite time of day. Nothing but nature’s rhythmic song to accompany her thoughts. Would she ever be willing to leave this place once her research was completed? It wasn’t altogether uncommon for someone in her profession to remain living amongst the people they studied. Many cultural anthropologists had done so from the earliest days of the discipline.
A shrill dinging sound ended her musings. She glanced over at the tablet she kept on a stand next to her bed. The screen flashed once, then went dark. Madelyn frowned—the one piece of modern technology she had brought with her; it was as foreign here as her hut would have been back in Seattle. A small blue light near the top of the tablet blinked on and off in short intervals, leading her thoughts down a difficult path.
Moments ago, she had contemplated staying here with the Ashaninka people, completely disregarding the promise she had made to finish the work she needed for her ethnography and return to her fiancée, Jonathan, within three years. What would he say if he knew? Guilt constricted her throat. He had been nothing but supportive of her taking the trip that would steal three years of their relationship.
Sure, they had realtime chats at least once a day, but that wasn’t the same.
She made her way over to the tablet.
“Check messages.”
“You have one message from Jonathan.”
“Play message.”
The hologram of a well-built man projected from the screen. “Hey, Maddie, I know you don’t really want me to bother you about calls you get while you’re in the field, but I think the message I got last night might be really important. It was from some guy named Mathew Hodgson with the International Space Federation. He said he’s been trying to reach you via email for weeks. He didn’t say what he wanted, but it sounds like the Federation is really interested in contacting you for whatever reason. You might want to inquire. Love you.”
The message ended and Madelyn stood still, her eyes fixed on the tablet. Someone from the International Space Federation was trying to contact her? Why on Earth would they want to contact a cultural anthropologist? She played the message again, more to buy herself time to think than anything. After it ended, she decided to research the man.
“Search Mathew Hodgson of the International Space Federation.”
“Mathew Hodgson is an aerospace engineer and physicist who is best known for his work on the ground-breaking efforts that sent the first satellites into interstellar space in 2174. He is also known for his—“
“Dismiss.”
A famous engineer and physicist was trying to contact her? It had to be a mistake. She put the thought out of her mind and busied herself with fixing breakfast.
Sitting down to a plate of sliced fruit and mixed nuts, she noticed there was still a blinking light on her tablet. Had she somehow managed to miss her realtime with Jonathan? She checked the time. It had only just turned 8:00 a.m. He was two hours behind her time zone, so it was only 6:00 a.m. there. He wouldn’t take lunch for another three hours. It wasn’t like him to contact her while he was on the job.
Curious, and a little concerned, she said, “Check message.”
“You have one message from unknown contact.”
“Play message.”
The hologram of a man she didn’t recognize materialized above the screen. “Hello, Miss Lawrence, my name is Mathew Hodgson. I apologize for this intrusion, but I feared I would not reach you in time if drastic measures weren’t taken. I have been trying to contact you for several weeks now. Please respond to this message as soon as you can. I would love to offer you a brief amount of information about my motive for contacting you, but the information is sensitive, and I would much prefer to relay it to you on a private stream. I hope to hear from you soon.” He finished by giving his private stream code.
The projection retreated into the screen, and Madelyn was staring at the place the man’s image had been. Had she even blinked? What the hell was going on? Words like ‘reach you in time’ and ‘the information is sensitive’ made her uneasy.
How had Hodgson gotten her stream code? She’d given it to Jonathan and her best friend Ashley, no one else. She could hardly fathom the idea that either of them had given out the code.
Mind still churning, she made a small fire under her clay burner so she could brew a cup of tea with the hopes of easing her anxious thoughts, but that did little to help.
It wasn’t long before she gave in to the inevitable.
“Contact Hodgson on the number he left me.”
A holographic loading symbol appeared. “Contacting—Mathew Hodgson.”

From Contact (Instinct Theory #1) by Ian Bristow

Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

Queuing in the sunshine for an ice cream. The place has about forty flavours and a strict queuing system. Today’s flavours are displayed on a blackboard. Beside this there is a notice saying.
‘Please choose your flavour before entering so that other people aren’t kept waiting any longer than necessary.’
There’s also a little girl popping up and down the queue asking people to please choose their flavour from the blackboard.
I know the two women in front of me are too busy blethering.
In they go.
“What flavours have you got?”, one says brightly.
Read the fucking notice, assholes.

They had set out for Alfor many days later than the last of the other caravans that had wintered in the city, guarded by a scant force of children and old men, with a woman caravansi and no trade goods aside from the caravan’s own. It was not surprising that the good citizens of Ratzal were laughing behind their shutters as the caravan passed by on its way through the gates.
In the eight days that followed, only one thing had occurred to lift Alexa’s spirits and that was the discovery that Caer, for all his youth and apparent inexperience, was superb at his job and kept the caravan in better order with his ill-assorted, under-strength company, than her father’s captain had managed with a full complement of experienced Zoukai. Indeed, they had already made up over a day of lost time in distance on the road.
At least that had been the only thing to lift Alexa’s spirits, until last night when she had heard the roar of thunder overhead and seen the dark bulk of the spaceship come to rest on the mithan plateau only to explode soon after.
If the samples Caer had brought back were anything to go by, the plunder they could scavenge from the wreck would be worth at least five times as much as the entire caravan – all its goods, wagons and livestock and her own personal possessions included. With such wealth she could afford to pay rates that were she a woman, a man or a talking pony, she could still attract the best Zoukai. And then she could afford to ignore the bigoted merchants and expand the caravan to carry more and more of her own trade goods. It would make her self-sufficient and as rich as the wealthiest caravansi on the roads. Then let them laugh behind the shutters if they dared.
All she had to do was to collect the treasure and deliver it safely to the Alfor Fair.
Except, of course, it would not be as simple as that.
Quite apart from the bands of brigands and outlaws which were the scourge of the wastelands, other caravans would also have seen the explosion and sent their own Zoukai scouts to investigate. For such a prize she did not doubt that almost any caravansi would think nothing of attacking – and Caer’s small troop of Zoukai would be a poor defence against them.
Then there was Caer himself. Although the Zoukai brethren were renowned for holding to a high code of honour, such wealth could easily turn the head of one as precocious as her young captain – and that was something Alexa was not prepared to allow. The brigands and other caravans were an unavoidable hazard, but with Caer, she could be more certain.
The two girls had finished their work and she sent them to find her favourite robe, whilst she anointed herself with a rich, musky perfume. Her eyes narrowed critically as she examined her face in the polished metal hand mirror, and then she smiled. Caer would think her beautiful, of that there was no doubt and for herself, the thought of Caer was not unpleasant. He was unbearably arrogant, but young, healthy, strong and if not exactly her ideal of good-looking, he was very far from unsightly. At need, Alexa could make a virtue of necessity, but in this case, necessity linked hands, pleasantly, with her own inclinations.
The girls brought the robe and helped her to dress. It was of fine gauzy crimson stuff, almost transparent, woven with threads of gold and belted with a tasselled girdle. Alexa added the finishing touches to her make-up and shook her hair, letting it cascade unchecked down her back. One of the girls brought her jewellery box and she selected a gem-studded comb for her hair, several costly rings and a necklace of precious stones.
Satisfied at last Alexa assumed her place on the couch and allowed the flimsy robe to fall open around her legs to reveal the luxuriant inner curve of one thigh. The two slave girls stood staring at her, their eyes wide. She scowled at them in annoyance.
“By the lost gods,” she snapped. “Stop gaping like imbeciles the pair of you. Mari, fetch wine and two goblets. Rissa, go and find the Zoukai captain and tell him to come to my pavilion.”
The two girls scurried to obey their mistress and Alexa’s scowl turned itself into a secret smile. Her mind was looking forward to seeing the expression on Caer’s face as he came into the pavilion – and her body was looking forward to what would follow.

From The Fated Sky part one of Fortune’s Fools Transgressor Trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook