Alina dragged herself into the bathroom, deeply thankful for a double-wide shower stall, big enough to accommodate her burgeoning belly. She heard Joran return to the bedroom walking softly and felt him enter the shower behind her. He supported her carefully while she soaped and rinsed.
“Won’t be long now…”
She turned and kissed his cheek.
“Thank you.”
Joran helped her out of the shower and dried her tenderly on a big fluffy towel.
When she was dressed in a loose flowing gown with her hair properly imprisoned in a silken net, she took both his hands in hers.
“Has your father returned?”
“Aye. But he had no luck.”
With her last hope gone, Alina heard her own cry of agony as if from afar. She held her husband’s eyes with her own, aware that the misery in his expression was mirrored in her face.
She dropped his hands and placed her own palms on her stomach.
“There are two lives in here Joran. We only have a licence for one.”
She thought his face was the bleakest thing she had ever seen.
“I know. And how do you think I feel?”
“I don’t think I can begin to understand. Will you have to kill one of us?”
“Yes love. I can only leave the delivery room with one extra life. The Numbers prohibit any more. My family has only lost one member since the last child was born a decade ago.”
“Then you must kill me.”
He fell to his knees and buried his face in her white gown.
“That has already been suggested to me. I will not rip out my heart.”
“Then will you rip out mine? I have grown two lives here inside me. I cannot allow one to die.”
Joran stood up and they clung together like children. Caught in the toils of intractable law and unable to see a way out, all they could do was hold on and perhaps pray.

By the time of the family meal they had collected themselves enough to behave with propriety, and they even managed to ignore the spuriously sympathetic looks cast their way by those family members who had lost out to them in the childbirth lottery.
It was a long day, and the heat and humidity of the air in the place of the women all but brought Alina to her knees. But she had sufficient pride not to give in, and she was sitting tall and straight when Joran and his Grandfather entered the room.
They came straight to her side. Joran’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, but he smiled at her through them. Grandfather spoke directly to her.
“The Numbers have changed. Both your children may now be welcomed. Old Grace went to the God today. By her own hand. This was her gift to you.”
Alina thought she might faint, but managed to hold firm.
Joran took her hand.
“We will call our daughter Grace…”

© jane jago 

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

I am old and my teeth are old too
There are things they do not like to do
Like toffee and chews
And in today’s news
I coughed and they fell down the loo

© jane jago

There were two other men in the hot bath, lazily reclined and talking in low voices. They were both, Dai could not fail to notice, wearing heavy Patrician rings so even when naked they were still marked out as superior beings, paunches and all.
“It is incredible who they allow in here nowadays,” one said, his eyes flicking contemptuously over Dai. “Shouldn’t be allowed.”
“I didn’t think natives were allowed in these baths – never seen one before, anyway,” his companion agreed. “I’ll have a word with the curator, we can get it removed.”
Dai was grateful the heat had already made his skin very flushed or his reaction to their words might have been visible, as it was he decided it was not worth creating an issue that might fall back on Julia to deal with as she was the one who had signed him in as her guest. That was the only way any non-Roman would be allowed in a public premises deemed ‘sub aquila’ – where you had to walk under the eagle on the portico to get inside, and it meant she was personally responsible for his behaviour. So, instead, he curtailed his bathing and pulled himself out of the pool on the far side from where the Romans lounged.
He had to walk past them to leave the pool room and as he did so, one made a crude gesture with one finger, his patrician’s ring glinting gold. Dai froze mid-stride and turned back, fists balling as he did so.
“At least,” he said tightly, “I have a real dick and not just a picture of one on a ring.”
The water beside him erupted and he decided not to wait whilst the two heaved themselves from the water like bull seals onto a rock.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago & E.M. Swift-Hook

They said she was too young. Too inexperienced. That she was an untried Wiccan who would never succeed in such an endeavour. But they underestimated her determination to carry on her beloved grandmother’s work. 

A single tear ran down her face as she  picked up grandmother’s wand and stroked it lovingly. She closed her eyes and drew the necessary serenity about her.

Lifting the wand to her face she opened her eyes and blew gently.

The air about her filled with the delicate beauty of hope, joy, laughter and happiness. The bubbles flew gently away, bearing dreams for sleeping children.

©️jj 2020

Inspired by original artwork from Ian Bristow

At last.
It had been longer than he ever believed he could endure. Soraya had not endured it. She brought him food, that last day and sat watching him eat, the child asleep in the crib, sucking her thumb.
“She’ll need a bigger bed soon,” he said, knowing from her eyes that was not going to work. Normally, anything he said about the child would turn her mind from other things. But not this time. So he tried again. “And the new child will need that crib.”
“I don’t want to have another child,” she said, her face set into determination. “The result will be the same, we both know that and I don’t want to condemn another life to… to this.” She moved her hand to indicate the cavern.
“I am working on that,” he told her, knowing he probably sounded sharp, as sharp as his sister. “Without the kind of state-of-the-art tools we had in the lab, we can’t grow what we need, we will have to use live samples. And from the results of those tests, it can’t be done from our own offspring. Only a new mix, a new generation. Another child would give more chance of that.”
He could never forget the expression on her face in that moment. As if something grotesque and hideous had reared out of the ground and slid into his clothing.
“Live samples?” The horror and disgust she put into the two words made Yris afraid. “Our children are not live samples. What kind of monster are you?”
He struggled to understand her anger and shook his head wanting to clear it.
“You don’t understand. Without it, we are trapped here. All of us. Unless we can change the coding in my genes, wherever I go she will hunt me down and take me back and she will destroy you. Our grandchildren – maybe our great-grandchildren – can save us from that.”
“And how would it affect them to save us?” she demanded, her whole body trembling. In the crib, the child had woken, disturbed by its mother’s raised voice and sat up, clutching the side with pudgy fingers.
“I don’t know. That depends on how much I can harvest–”
“You would kill your own children to keep yourself alive?” The child started crying then, great gulping sobs, face made ugly by the process. It was pulling itself up on the side of the crib and wailing.
“Of course. I am the only one who can do this. I am needed so much more than they are. My knowledge, my experience, my–”

The child gave a loud cry, cutting across time.
“You ‘urt me, Gran’pa.” The dark eyes and black hair framed the soft-featured characterless face, which was set into a frown.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I did. But that is all for now. You can read your story.”
The test was quick to run and as he checked the results, matching mark for mark against his own DNA he felt as if the sun was rising within him. No, it was not perfect, but it was adequate. More than adequate. It was the key to unlocking his captivity. If he could harvest enough from the small source available.
With trembling hands, he unlocked the storage box which held the final dose of his life. He had been putting off taking it for the last decade, knowing it would serve no purpose until he had both the tools he needed to defeat his sister and the means to escape her long enough to make use of those tools. He took the final vial from its cradle, each precious drop refined from the stem cells of the embryo Soraya carried under her heart. He had lifted it from her as her heart was still beating, before he stilled that from its useless task and let his sanity roll deep into the wells that sank below the habitable levels of the caverns. He remembered the words she left on the small tablet gripped in her hand: I am sorry, but I can’t live like this any longer.
He used the intravenous clip and felt the life of his unborn infant flow into his blood.

From ‘Tongueless Caverns’, a Fortune’s Fools short story by E.M. Swift-Hook. It is one of the stories in Tales From the Underground, an Inklings Press anthology.

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

I am old, there’s no need to remind me
That a lot of my life is behind me
But I will just resort
To my own blanket fort
Where sorrow and bailiffs can’t find me

© jane jago

Rise and Rescue – Volume 1 is an anthology of LitRPG stories is being sold to benefit WIRES, which is an organisation working desperately hard to rescue Australian wildlife caught in the current bushfire crisis. There are twenty-one stories for you to enjoy, with a second volume to follow soon. The book was the brainchild of Stephen Landry, and he has been the driving force behind its creation…

An excerpt from one of the stories in the anthology, Star Divers Burst and Bloom, by Stephen Landry

…When I was young I fell hard against a sharp piece of broken asphalt that splintered upward and into my knee. My father picked me up into his arms and carried me inside while my mother took a small pair of tweezers and picked out the small pebbles that had embedded themselves in my flesh. In that moment I thought the bleeding would never stop. My mother stitched it up with the last first-aid kit they had brought with them from the raft. After it was all said and done, my leg scarred over and to this day I carry the scar with me.

When I created my avatar I copied all of the scars. Surface details. Small things that meant something that I carried forward into the virtual world. My memory of falling has since faded but not the memory of my mother and father taking the time to care for me to carry me through the mud and darkness and put me back together. Their reassurance that I was going to be alright. My scars, new and old, and those to come, all of them carry me, a reminder that even in a cold world there is still hope.

It was the beginning of spring and for the most part there were dozens of events taking place across all 76 quadrants. Each event varied, from gathering resources, racing, arena-beast battles, to hunting large alien monsters as each world held their own different celebration. Flowers, sunshine. The real world wasn’t what it use to be but the seasons had started to return to normal. Even in a world as cold as Bane this was something of a surprise. Many players called it the Spring Festival while others called it ‘the Gathering’. Celebrations were to be held on the streets with fireworks in the sky. Even the Corpse Divers were planning to gather for a large festival near the Spire. A short armistice had been called between many of the major guilds though that didn’t stop raiders from preying on the weak. Many guilds were taking extra security work to defend the less fortunate and guard high traffic areas in Quads 1-5.

It would have been nice. Taking a break from the action. Damien had been right. After the new year began and the Winter Festival ended I was leveling up faster, taking higher risk missions, and gathering more loot quicker than ever. After a few trips to the black market on the Spire, I even made a few extra scrip for myself. The black market wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. There were no guards planning to crack down on us and most of our business was held in shops or by vendors on the street. Overpriced artifacts and weapons. I bought a few mods the first time we went and some small cosmetic items I thought looked cool. A chalice with a skull that I kept in my room on the Ibanez. I also bought a kendo stick and began training in melee again. I also bought a baritone guitar. It provided a nice break from hunting, gathering, etc. I had been playing Bane for almost two years and was not a stranger anymore. I even started to feel like I had really started to make friends. Never sure if I liked all of them or not but I had become a part of a family. I was a professional player and this spring that meant no breaks, no shortcuts, no easy way out. When we got an SOS and reports of an echo in an unexplored area of Quad 6 I was one of the first called up….

Stephen Landry

This excerpt from Stephen’s afterword explains rather neatly why you should stop reading this and go buy the anthology:

I have three rescue animals in my home. One of them is completely blind with severe medical problems. I remember when she was given to us as a hospice foster. Staying awake long into the night, helping her become familiar with the house. Training her to respond to the sound of my voice. They told us she only had six months to live. It’s been over two years now and she’s alive, healthy, and happy. Sometimes the small things you do make a huge difference.

When I started this project a lot of people told me that I was wasting my time, that this wasn’t going to make a difference. Between work and writing my own stories when would I have time to put together an entire anthology? Together we are stronger. Myself and over twenty other authors answered the call and have come together to give back.

You can pick up Rise and Rescue – Volume 1 now and help support Australian wildlife as it recovers from the fires – and enjoy some thundering good GameLit stories too!

He took the ring from the dying finger of she who made him and carried it always close to his heart.

The day he lost it was beyond horror, and he felt himself diminishing as he searched. He had lost hope when a voice spoke from behind him.

“Lost something?”

He turned, quick as a whip, to see a woman with floating auburn hair holding the ring in the palm of her hand.

He snarled at her and snatched it.

She laughed, like cracked silver bells, and a hot wind roared about him as the Master took back his own. 

©️jj 2020

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…

His skin looked grey in the stroboscopic brilliance and his eyes were sunk deep into his skull, mere points of reflected light, flickering like a candle just before it might gutter and blow out. And his skull itself seemed to be barely covered by flesh at all. The soft parts of the face, like the cheeks which connected the jaw to the rest of the skull, were fallen in. The outline of his teeth could be seen. His lips had blackened and looked withered, his nose sharp and beak-like. Only his hair seemed to retain its magnificence, long and lustrous.

Jessica felt her mouth open into a silent O. The same sense of paralysis that had gripped her when she encountered the youths by their fire, now seemed to seize her again. As if knowing she would not move, Annis let go of her hand and stepped in front of her. For a moment she thought Roald was actually recoiling from the child. Then he seemed to gather himself and stood his ground.

“There is a human woman here, she is mine. Have you seen her?”

Annis shook her head.

“Not yours.

“Well, she’s not much use to you, is she?” Roald sounded almost contemptuous. “This place is very clever, I’ll give you that.But -”

“You go. Old One smell you. Blood Eater comes.”

Roald looked sharply to one side as if he had heard a specific sound over the noise of the fairground rides. Then he laughed, only it sounded more like the grating of sandpaper than his usual rich baritone laugh.

“You are lying. That thing is just a myth to scare the neonates. The Old Ones are long gone, or hiding deep in the earth. And you have seen the woman I can smell her on you. She is not what she seems – don’t be fooled by her looks, she has an ancient power rooted in her soul, enough to flambe you and your unfunny friends here.”

It was obvious, then, to Jess that in this dream, she was invisible to Roald. It made no sense, but then what dreamlogic ever did?

“Then why you want?” Annis was asking.

The creature called Roald smiled and a row of shark-sharp fangs could be seen as the withered. Black lips pulled back.

“I have an old debt to repay,” he said, the breath condensing from his mouth as if it was clouding into freezing air. One bony hand reached out and grabbed at Annis.“Now, tell me where – “

The cats had not been there and then they were, ears flattened, low growls and calls. Roald stepped back quickly.

“I don’t need your help anyway. She’s only human, she can’t hide in a place like this for long.”

“You go,” Annis said again, almost sounding urgent, as if she truly feared for him. “Old One find you. Blood Eater comes.”

“There is no -”

Somewhere below the earth something moved. Jessica could feel it through her feet, like a shock wave passing up through her body.

“No!” Roald said again, only this time in a very different tone, like a man waking from nightmare to find he’d dreamed true.

Then the world erupted around her and Jessica found herself falling.

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Part 10 of Maybe will be here next week…

There’s poems writ and paeans praising
A lover’s eyes or deeds amazing
Songs have been sung or chants recited
For landscapes that have souls delighted
And here and there a verse may tell
Of a flower that is blooming well
But no extolling words before
Addressed a slug on a kitchen floor.
No hymns do clamour to acclaim
This refugee from the garden’s domain
The dappled flanks and saddled back,
That somehow slip through any crack
The gentle way it tastes the air
Stalks aloft, and not eliding 
The silence of its graceful gliding
And silver path it trails behind
That glitters in the morn’s sunshine
Revealing where the night before
A slug did grace my kitchen floor.

E.M. Swift-Hook