“Are you Raonal?”

I looked over my shoulder at a hulking brute leading a bevy of other brutes.  “Who asks?”

“I am Immanhov, the estate’s sineigs.  I am to escort you to your quarters, where you will have the peace required to finish your commission.”

I quirked an eyebrow at that statement.  “I was unaware that boarding came with the bargain.  I have already made arrangements for -“

“Tell me where, and arrangements will be made for your rent to be canceled and your coin returned.”

“Why would I wish to stay in a flea-infested inn?  The stars are roof enough for me, and the breeze a better companion than any amount of groans and screams through thin walls.”

Put a wolf in a cage, and all you get is an angry wolf.  Is this a cage, or are they really being polite?

“Then it is settled.  You will stay at the castle.  We have a large tower room reserved for those who prefer light and air to damp and dark.”

“And I am certain you expect me to live on … Pray tell who the special order is for?”

“Her Eminence, Seonase, our Prince’s consort.”

With a sigh, I rolled my carpet.  What a tangled path I walk.  How did I find myself caught up in this sun-blighted, web-spawned mess?  I was free just a few marks ago, now I am expected to stay in one place until when?

I followed Immanhov into the castle and down more corridors than I could count.  How I missed the flat smell of an undead when the commission was made I could not guess.  Even with my sensitive nose, the scents around the market must have masked it, and I had been too eager to get some real coin.  Now, all I could smell were the vampires that lived in this pile of stone.

When Immanhov opened the door to my quarters, I stopped and stared.  Compared to the Courts, the heavy wood and gilt highlights were mere tawdry trinkets.  Compared to the quarters I had while traveling with Master Gil, these quarters were fit for royalty-something I knew I was not.  I looked at my guide, mouth working but not making a sound as I tried to ask if these luxurious quarters were for me.  I cannot if the brutes that accompanied us thought I was refusing, or simply stalling.  Two hands-one on either shoulder-gave me a hard push through the door.  As my heel cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut and I heard a heavy bar drop across it on the other side.

Just great.  Not only am I going to be forced to be in one place for ages, I will do so as a prisoner.

With a groan, I dropped my pack to the floor, forgetting that I had not properly stored my wares.  A “thunk” made hitting the stone proved to be phials I kept from Master Gil’s stash breaking.  Their stench soon overpowered the room as I tried in vain to open a window.  The window finally swung open enough that air could seep in around it, and some of the stench could seep out.  When I felt the first tentative wisps coming in, I stuck my nose into the crack and dragged in a lungful of the uncontaminated air with as much gratitude as I could muster.

I hope I can wash that stench away.  I do not look forward to living in it until it fades.  Knowing what it did to the vixens at Court, I can only imagine what it would do here.  I will not survive those encounters, no matter what my stamina is.

After a few breaths to clear my lungs, I forced the window open even further, creating a hand’s width gap between the upright and the sill.  Knowing I had to get everything out of my storage pocket before the scents permeated the thin barrier between here and there, I searched through the quarters until I found a semi-empty room I could use for a workroom.  As quickly as I could, I unloaded everything I had stored through a secondary access I quickly created.

I wish those phials had not broken.  The more accesses I make, the more likely I will lose something I do not intend to.  I cannot move the access from the bottom of the pack to comfort level without reaching through the spilled perfumes, and I know how long they will take to wear off my skin – more than five anni.

Whew, that stuff smells good.

With everything piled up on the floor – my worktable, the hides and fae linen bolts, thread, spare clothes, and other miscellaneous items, the room had the appearance of the most organized lady’s bower in the world.  I shuffled through the pile, looking for my curing frames so I could finish curing the rest of the hides I needed.

To read more, check out K. Caffee’s Amazon page or the Followers of Torments series blog.

Q1: You write about Pukah a lot, who are they and how do they effect your world?

The short answer for “what is a pukah” is that they are mischievous little faerie cross breeds who enjoy inspiring others, bringing laughter, love, and humor into the lives of all who cross their paths. They also are wonderful little helpers, so long as you remember to tell them when to quit – otherwise, they don’t realize when enough is enough. The long answer can be found here.

As for how they affect my world? Again, there’s a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer – I can’t get away from them. From making sure I can’t find things that I need (pranks) to ensuring other things I forgot, or left behind, are at hand (helpful) I get the entire spectrum. At times, they’ll even make sure I stay cool with nice breezes or light mists when I’m out in the heat, or warm with pockets of warm that hang around when I’m out in the bitter cold.

The long answer – I don’t live with Murphy’s Law so much as I live with a pukah’s prank. I’m sure Murphy figures in to an extent, but when things go really wrong, or really right, I first have to look to myself and what I have/haven’t done for the pukah recently. They aren’t so much finicky around me, as picky. If they pull a prank and I don’t react I can guarantee they’ll pull another one with worse results before too long. If they help, and I don’t give thanks – it’s a guarantee they’ll be back to let me know their displeasure.

Since the pukah have taken up permanent residence in my life, I’ve discovered there isn’t much that I can unconditionally qualify as “coincidence” any longer. About the only thing they haven’t done (yet – and I’m hoping this doesn’t give them too many ideas) is to take up physical residence as well as spiritual. Right now, I just don’t have the extra room to accommodate a wolf/lynx/horse/lizard/human body alongside the ones that already inhabit the house. Nor do I have the capacity to explain to the neighbors why a house just popped up overnight in my yard.

Q2: What do you think is it about darker aspects of human nature that makes them so compelling to you as a writer and to your readers?

Not sure about my readers, to be honest. I know that when I’m reading something on the darker side of the spectrum, it’s because I have something bothering me that I want to demolish – and those stories have a nice, safe place to do that.

For my writing, it’s similar to when I read. Writing through the darker aspects allows me to purge a bad day, a bad client, or anything else that manages to grate on my nerves. It also is a safe place to explore what, and how, someone may react negatively in a safe way. After all, going out and killing someone just because they said “no” in reality is not a safe (or healthy) thing to do. I’ve also discovered that writing on the darker end of the spectrum lets me really look at various social injustices from the inside out. Not just
the ones we hear about constantly-such as racism, bigotry, or general injustice-but also things like speciesism, slavery, and self-suppression.

I keep trying to move over to the lighter side, but I keep getting pulled back into the darkness. At some point, there will be a middle ground, though likely that won’t happen until the world no longer needs the mirrors showing just how ugly the darkness can be and that there’s hope for that darkness to be dissolved.

Q3: If you could have an expert understanding of any area of human knowledge, which would it be?

::Soft chuckle:: This one is personally rather ironically funny. I’ve always been someone who has to know why – why do I have to do something; why does this work, but that doesn’t; why anything? To that end, I’ve shaped my schooling for a career in a psychological field. I’ve always been “that” person who seems to be everyone’s listening ear. Sometimes I’ve had the right words to say, other times I’ve just been the one to listen without judgment. However, I almost always have the same questions rattling around in the back of my head – why is this happening to you and not me? Or, at times, why did this happen to both?

At times I get caught in what I call a “holding pattern” – when I know I’m on the cusp of a knowledge breakthrough, or a life-related change in understanding. Breaking out of that, in most cases, comes with answering that critical question – “Why?” Once I can do that, I start moving again. Because of this, having more knowledge about psychology, and the way people think helps shorten the waiting period. Any idea why that is?

You can catch up with K. Caffee on Facebook, Twitter and her Website.

Desert

“The hell is your problem?” A snarl leaves Jacob’s lips as he takes a sharp step forward. The searing heat of the day washes over him in waves. His shirt clings to his sweat-soaked skin. It begins to dry almost immediately and the man flexes his hands, feeling his palms both cracked and slick all at once.

The other man does not back down, however. He merely raises his head, pale grey eyes narrowed in protest. He refuses to speak, though, intent on keeping his eyes locked on the other man. Jacob can see the sweat that trails down his temples, sticking his hair damply to his dirty face and neck.

“Oh, so you’re giving me the silent treatment now, man? How fucking mature of you.” It is at this point that Jacob shoves his friend. His hands collide with hard, toned muscle and the smaller man stumbles back a step. The sun’s reflection on the sand makes it hard to focus on his face.

Still, he can make out the way the grey eyes light up at the suggestion of taking their rather one-sided argument to the physical level. His friend runs a hand through his short locks so that they no longer cling to his face and coughs into a clenched fist.

Jacob takes another step forward but, before he can raise his hand again, the other man slams a fist into his gut. Hard.

Refusing to be so easily toppled, he swings another punch at his friend’s jaw.

The fight begins.

It is a rough, unconventional tussle marbled with the skilled strikes of soldiers. The desert air is oppressive around them as the sun sears the skin beneath their clothes. In their messy scrabble of cloth on flesh, sheer strength is the victor. Sand rains down upon them as the grey-eyed soldier is pinned against the wall of a tent, the smallest sliver of shade. He watches Jacob shake the grit from his sweat-soaked hair, teeth bared all the while. Sand covers the side of pinned man’s face, lines of sweat breaking through as they trail down over cracked lips, mingling with blood. Sand everywhere, as if it will forever be a part of them.

In the shadows, Jacob’s violence melts into something else as he catches a strange emotion in the grey eyes that steadily avoid his gaze. He releases his hard grip on the other man’s shoulders, though he refuses to reduce their proximity. Gazing steadily, searchingly, at his friend’s expressive features – he frowns.

When he finally speaks, his voice is a low husk. “What are you so scared of?” he asks, watching blood drip slowly from the pinned man’s lips. A drop falls from his chin and soaks into the ground below, becoming part of the desert.

For a moment, the grey eyes flicker and the man’s mouth opens. He stops himself quickly, seeing no point in answering with the generic ‘nothing’. He glances at the ground for a few moments before raising his head suddenly to meet Jacob’s gaze.

Then, he looks behind the man. Jacob can hear it, too: the low drone of something mechanical clogged with dust and grit. Something to take them deeper into the heat and the suffocating dryness.

When finally he answers, his friend’s voice is barely a whisper, carried off by the thick desert air. “Everything…”

Brhi Stokes.  From Out of the Darkness & Into the Night.  Sign up to her newsletter to receive a free copy.

I am old, and I don’t give a shit
About gravity’s work on my bits
I’m not some humble dame
Who can be ‘body shamed’
By a halfwit with silicone tits

© jane jago 2017

From…The Seeds of Dissolution by William C Tracy

In the Dissolutionverse, maji can alter the Symphony of the universe with their notes to create physical changes. Only rarely do they fight this way…

Rilan plunged her fist down, but it hit nothing. She blinked, realizing she was tumbling to the ground. Her notes came back with a snap that almost made her eyes cross. The edge of a dark cloak brushed past her vision.
She rolled, coming up on her heels, hands out. Vethis was on the ground, cradling an elbow out of joint, pale white and deep blue misting around the fingers of his other hand, his face pasty. In front of him was a smaller figure, clothed all in black, with its cowl pulled down. The figure raised its head enough for Rilan to catch a flash of light on predatory teeth.
“I look forward to dancing against you,” the figure said, sibilant. “This, I have long been waiting for, to show the Nether maji their weakness.”
Rilan flicked her eyes once more to Vethis, and then all her attention was on the newcomer. “So be it, Snake,” she said, trying to goad the Sathssn.
It didn’t work. She feinted forward with a wrist strike to the cloaked head, intending to follow up with a reverse punch augmented by her song. Neither strike landed. Arcs of sapphire blue and a dark, bruised purple swirled around the Sathssn’s feet and he was out of her range. She moved again and he was behind her, slipping past in a waltz-step. A strike to her kidney staggered her and she grunted.
Rilan whirled, barely catching Nakan’s arm with her fingers before he could slip away. Shiv’s dagger, he’s fast. She added notes to the melody of her fingers, turning major chords to minor, fixing her fingers in claws, dragging herself along with the Sathssn.
He moved a step, then spun, tilting her off balance. She felt a knee buckle when he kicked, and turned piano to forte, strengthening the tendons.
Must get on the offensive.
No time for her mental tricks. This would all be physical, and she had to make changes to Nakan, not herself. She recognized some of his steps, had fought against them before.
“Zsaana can’t have taught you all his tricks,” she said. Her fingers were still on his arm, giving her a connection, and she burrowed into his music, turning solid measures into trills, loosening his tendons in a flush of white and olive. Nakan stumbled, but his aura pulsed against hers, blue and purple against white and olive.
“Old Zsaana, he was my teacher as he was yours,” Nakan said. His movement was drunken with his loose tendons, but he used one arm as a whip, flicking the fingers of his glove out to her temple. She stepped back, looping an arm around his attack, but he stepped in with a strike from the other side. “He recounted your matches many times. This, I have been excited to see for myself.”
Rilan countered with a double arm block, and muted notes, intending both his arms to go numb. Not enough time to grab my knife. Something went wrong when she did and Nakan snapped upright, stable again. She shook tingling fingers, eyes wide. There were extra notes in her song. He had made her reverse her change to his tendons. She didn’t know the House of Grace could do that.
Her foot came up to knee Nakan in the gut, but the Sathssn moved fluidly around it in a flash of blue and purple, flipping over her head. His hands caught her shoulders, pulling her backwards. She made quarter notes into eighth notes, then sixteenth notes, adjusting the curvature of her spine. She accelerated his motion and slammed him into the floor with a crash. Rilan rolled over, pinning his arms across his neck, choking. The majus growled as blue and purple fought against her white and olive, but she locked the joints in her elbows, shoulders, and fingers, pressing down.
“How’s Zsaana’s training going for you? The old bigot must have forgotten a few things.” She breathed into Nakan’s face.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacewizard/the-seeds-of-dissolution-a-dissolutionverse-novel/

Q1: The world is about to end but you can be sent back in time to live out your life in any era before the 20th Century. When and why?

Hard question. My first choice would be somewhere I didn’t get killed too quickly! But pre-20th century, your chances were pretty bad wherever you were, dying from disease, infection, or war. That said, I’d love to meet the great minds of the Renaissance, when a person could actually know everything there was to know about a subject of study. One of my “have to meets” Would be Leonardo da Vinci.

Q2: What do you think is the biggest ‘What if…?’ of history and why?

For recent western history, probably the crusades. If they hadn’t happened, our civilisation since then would have been vastly different. There was a massive loss of life and confusion as noble people and commoners alike traveled, got lost, resettled, and died. They were also responsible for bringing back the bubonic plague. However, they brought new ideas about trade and commerce from the more technologically advanced middle eastern regions. They also consolidated control from the Catholic church. One could explore this question for a long time, as to whether the centers of modern power would be in different areas, or whether more people would be alive today, whether some advances would have come earlier, or later… It’s a huge factor in our history today.

Q3: Which three historical figures would you most want to invite to a dinner party and why?

Well, I’ve already said I want to meet him, so Leonardo da Vinci would be one pick. For the other two I’d pick Benjamin Franklin and Socrates. I’d throw a topic out there like “what makes a perfect society,” let them argue about it, and take notes. I’d also love to find out what they thought about modern technology, and see how long it would take Franklin to figure out how to use a smartphone!

Bill’s novel, The Seeds of Dissolution, is raising funds on Kickstarter

The King now old and paper thin
With marching wrinkles in his skin
Who on his deathbed silent lies
With failing breath and fading eyes
His son, the prince, is pink and smug
And quite as charming as a slug
Inside he smiles, but hides his eyes
While outwardly he cries and sighs
The tall princess in silence stands
And carefully regards her hands
The doctor looks and shakes his head
Then baldly states ‘the King is dead’
The prince looks up with gladsome face
At last he gets to rule the place
His sister pours him golden wine
He savours it and takes his time
‘This truly is a wine of note’
But then he coughs and grabs his throat
The princess laughs and makes no bones
‘That’s how you play the game of thrones’

© jane jago 2016

Father brought Alib to the Temple, where the boy sat cross-legged on the floor and watched a procession of sweet-faced young nuns making their obeisance to the Idol. As each passed she dropped something into a huge glass jar.

Alib felt the torment of the girls as they dropped their offerings into the shining vessel. Each gift made a high, sweet note as it passed the neck of the glass.

He touched Father’s sleeve.
“What do they offer?”
“Time, my son, each offers a moment of her life.”
“And why do they look so sad?”
“The pain of rending a moment from yourself.”
Alib nodded.
“May anyone make such an offering?”
“They may.”
“Then may I?”
“If you will. I cannot say no.”
Alib made his obeisance to his father and joined the line of worshippers.

He looked very small, but his back was straight, and his eyes were clear, and the priests let him pass. As he approached the bottle of time his lips could be seen to be moving as if in prayer.

Instead of dropping something into the bottle, Alib threw himself through the wide neck of the glass. For a nanosecond nothing happened, and then the vessel burst, filling The Temple with shards of glass and high keening music.

A voice from the very earth lamented. And then there was silence. Alib walked back to his father, with glass sparkling in his hair and the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes filling his eyes.

Enemy of my Enemy:  Present Your Gift

The High-Mother of the Libta-Thra clan emerged from her tent clenching her fists, her face twisting with anger evident even through the tattoos around her eyes, nose, and mouth.  Her clan, sitting outside of the firepits eating their dinner talking about the day’s events and the following day’s chores, fell silent in respect.

I tapped my foot in the shadows, bowing my head, holding Weelin’s bridle, calming him by stroking his nose and whispering in his ear, my arm aching, wrapped in bandages, my stomach fluttering. Two other prospective grooms, Laja and Ukana, waited with me in the dark, clearing their throats, their breaths quivering.

The High-Mother, alone, without the High-Father by her side, stomped down the path between the firepits, scrabbling up into her dragonbone throne without the High-Father’s assistance, grunting with the effort.  Straightening her beads and clothing, regaining her regal attitude, she lifted her hands.  “We will receive the gifts of Betrothal.”

“Without the High-Father?” someone whispered, the whisper shushed to silence by the rest of the clan who shifted in their seats, readying themselves for the ceremony to begin, hoping to celebrate after.

“Laja the Saddler, present your gift.”  The High-Mother sat down, her face grim.

Laja limped forward hunching his shoulders, his horse by his side, a white ceremonial sheet laying over the horse’s back.  He knelt before the High-Mother.  “Forgive me, High-Mother. I killed three pheasants for your people, but as I dressed the carcasses, a ferocious warrior attacked and subdued me.  The thief stole my kills.”

Beyond the firepit, the clan hooted at him, laughing and mocking him.  I swallowed.

“If you cannot protect yourself and your kill, how can you protect my clan?”  The High-Mother shook her head, sighing in disgust.  She leaned forward, pointing at him.  “Begone, useless man.”

Laja took his horse and skulked away.

The High-Mother said, “Ukana the Fisher, present your gift.”

Ukana stepped forward walking beside his horse, his bandaged head hanging low, his arm in a sling, a white sheet laying over his horse’s back.  He knelt before the High-Mother.  “Forgive me, High-Mother. I caught a great perch as tall as yourself, but as I cleaned it, a cunning warrior ambushed me.  The thief took my catch and left me by the river to die.”

The clan’s laughter rose, people stomping their feet, clapping their hands.

“Great Father in the Sky, why do you punish me so?  Do my daughters not deserve strong men?”  The High-Mother gazed skyward, raising her hands in supplication.  She sighed once more, glaring down at Ukana.  “You are of no use to me, little man.”

Ukana took his horse and slinked away.

The High-Mother said, “Neeko the Woodsman, present your gift.”

Head bowed, I marched forward leading Weelin, my heart pounding.  The clan, sitting on their seats beyond the firepit, grew quiet, their murmuring fading with each step.  I knelt before the High-Mother.

“What have you under your sheet, Woodsman?” the High-Mother asked.

“High-Mother, I killed for you a prong buck, but as I cleaned my kill, a warrior attacked me.”  I gulped, my throat dry.  “I killed the man and took the fish and the pheasant from his horse, adding it to my gift.”  I stood, whipping the ceremonial sheet from Weelin’s back revealing the meats there along with the human corpse.  I shoved the corpse off Weelin’s back, letting it fall to the ground, to bounce.

The clan gasped, muttering, “The High-Father?”

One hand on my sword, I peeked up at the High-Mother.

She smiled, and said, ”Gift accepted.”

Q1: What should take priority duty or friendship and why?

I guess, it depends?

When someone is your friend, you have certain duties and responsibilities to them and they have certain duties and responsibilities to you.  Depending on how close a friend they are and your history with them, those obligations may be quite different from friend to friend and may change over time even for a single friend.

For example, I have a friend who is a recovering drug addict.  I have, at times, gone out of my way to get this guy clothes and food, to help him try to find a job and move , and other things.  At a certain point, I had to draw the line and stop helping him, because I wasn’t helping him anymore, I was enabling him.  I still consider him my friend and I think he’s gotten back around to thinking of me as his friend even though he considered me a traitor for a few years.  I don’t feel the same about what my duties to him are as I do to some of my other friends, or what I thought those duties were before I dedicated my time, energy, and money to trying to help him.

Every person prioritizes their duties and obligations depending on what is important to them, and not just what is important to them now, but what is important to them at the time they have to make the decision.

Personally, my highest priorities are to my wife and myself and our marriage.  If I had children, I have no doubts they would be my highest priorities.  After that come my duties and responsibilities to other things, my friends, my work, organizations I belong to, promises I’ve made, etc.

So when you ask about prioritizing “duty” or “friendship”, I interpret that as prioritizing duties.  I have some friends I would give my life for but for most, I wouldn’t.  I have some ideals I would give my life for but for most, I wouldn’t.  Whether I give priority to my duty to some institution or to some friend, depends on too many factors to easily say.

Q2: What bends your mind every time you think about it and why?

Almost everything is nothing.

Take the solar system.  You’ve got this ball of mostly hydrogen blazing away and then all these little specs caught in its orbit.  And in between and around all this is almost entirely empty space, and there’s a lot of that empty space and the gaps between things are mind-bogglingly vast.

Democritus, the first philosopher we know of that hypothesized that all matter was composed of atoms, but he expected them to be little solid balls of stuff, not little bits of geometric probability full of not much of anything.

But atoms are mostly nothing, interacting internally and externally on a quantum level so small that the human mind really can’t conceive of it according to laws that frequently make no sense on the non-quantum level.

Whether you’re thinking about very large scales or very small scales or very medium scales, almost everything and everywhere is empty space.

I was a teenager when I first thought about that and it seriously weirded me out and made me feel very small and insignificant.  Now that I’m older, I realize just how amazing and special it is that any of this exists.

Q3: What would you most like to have named after you and why?

I had never thought about this before.

I’d love to have some pithy observation about people or society named after me and I’d like for it to be a quote from one of my books that becomes viral, something like Murphy’s Law although I’d be happy with a Pascal’s Wager or a Zeno’s Paradox even though those are intrinsically flawed concepts.  Watson’s Law or the Davis Dilemma would be awesome.

And now, it’s my life’s goal.