Next morning, at two minutes to nine, Gribble strode into his office to find the geek chair. Empty. He peered out of the door carefully looking both ways along the corridor. There was nobody in sight and he permitted himself a thin smile. His new geek was going to be late. How perfectly splendid. He was sure there was a clause in the contract that covered lateness; he even rather wished he had read it. Positioning himself in the doorway, he pulled his dwarf-made timepiece from his pocket and stood ostentatiously studying its ornate face. The University bell bonged nine times and a bored imp poked its head out of the casing of the timepiece in his hand.
“Nine of the clock. Midweek day. Climate a little uncertain. Some chance of precipitation.”
The head disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Behind Gribble somebody coughed politely. He spun around as if he had been shot. The geek desk was now occupied.
“What? How? Who?”
His new geek smiled, showing far too many teeth.
“Good morning, Professor Gribble. Belladonna Handyman at your service.”
As she spoke the pieces began to fall into place in Gribble’s distraught brain. The bastards had given him a non-human. He pulled himself together and considered the evidence. Belladonna bespoke vampire or shifter heritage, whilst Handyman was a dwarf name. It just wouldn’t do, so he strode towards her sneering, only to be halted in his tracks by a small gout of flame from somewhere beneath the desk at which she sat.
He squeaked in a most unmanly manner, and stared at the desk.
“Who? What?”
Belladonna smiled. “Oh. That’s just my brother, Eric.”
“Brother?”
“Same father. Different mothers. Only difference is while my mother was hunting the shape-shifting bastard to cut off his balls, Eric’s mother ate him. Oy, Eric stick your head out and say hi to our new employer.”
A square reptilian head poked around the corner of the desk. “Hi.” Then the creature belched another small flame.
“Isn’t he a bit? Petite? For a dragon?”
“Oh. Not really. He’s in his condensed form right now. If he wasn’t he’d not fit in this room.”
Gribble tried to summon a threatening frown. “I wouldn’t entirely mind if he wasn’t in this room.”
Belladonna smiled, it was a vaguely patronising expression. “Oh he’s in the contract too. Where I go, he goes.” Even an egocentric, unimaginative academic knows when he has been outmanoeuvred and Gribble shook his leonine head in recognition of defeat. “Very well. To work then.”

From Gribble’s Geek by Jane Jago 

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

She felt the lure of the Flame, like a soft caress against the edges of consciousness – a promise unfulfilled. It called to her from the deep – a primal yearning to seek the fires below, the fires from which her very soul was wrought. Like a lover seeking the beloved, she yearned to be reunited with the source of her essence – the living flame that burned in the deeps.
Each time she woke she would rise and stand at the point where she could best feel the warmth on her skin. Eyes closed, the rising breeze from the chthonic conflagration, she would murmur a silent prayer to the Gods of Living Fire.
Each time she did so there would appear the form of a Guardian Avatar of Flame which would rebuke her for her audacity.
“What makes you think you are worthy?”
“Why should you be granted the Living Flame?”
“How can you believe you should even hope for such a thing?”
Each question would strike her like a blow, then the Guardian Avatar would vanish and she would be left to dream of ways to defeat it and reach the flame. The days and years wound past, each the reflection of the last and the foreshadowing of the one that followed.
The same yearning, the same questions.
Alone in her underground chamber, she would dwell on them. The weight of longing in her soul more of a burden than the heavy chains than restrained her and held her captive.

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design or watch him in action on ART with IAN

The door opened to admit one of the gate guards.
“Hywel Llewellyn to see Dominus Llewellyn. In a bit of a lather if you don’t mind me saying.”
Julia sighed. Dai’s brother, who owned land nearby, was as tempestuous as Dai himself was brooding.
“Wheel him in.” As the door closed she looked Caudinus straight in the eye. “You can bail out if you would prefer. But I’d be grateful.”
He smiled reassuringly. “I’ll stay. I quite enjoy Hywel in a rage.”
The door opened with such force that it bounced back off the wall, and Hywel stomped in. His face was puce and he was waving a sheet of paper. Seemingly unable to speak he threw the paper on the table in front of Julia.
She read it and could feel the blood draining from her own face. It was an official complaint that the family of one Hywel Llewellyn, non-citizen, had been observed to be visiting a sub aquila residence without due authorisation.
The Villa Papaverus was not their own house, it was the residence that went with Dai’s job as Submagistratus and was owned by Rome. As such it was designated sub aquila which meant only Roman citizens and those non-citizens employed to work there were legally permitted inside.
“Oh merda,” she said softly. “I never even thought of that. Dai hates having that wretched eagle above our door.” She passed the paper to Caudinus who read it swiftly then sighed. “I am so sorry, I should have seen that coming. As I didn’t, I shall have to investigate.”
Hywel made a noise like a cat that has just had its fur stroked backwards.
“Sorry? Sorry that I and my entire family are being criminalised by your filthy Roman rules?”
Caudinus looked at him severely. “Hush man. Be glad I didn’t officially hear you say that. As I said, I do have to investigate. So will you just be quiet and let me think. Or is shouting and blustering at a pregnant woman something you think a good idea?”
Hywel subsided slightly.
“If this goes through the fine will take most of my livelihood for the last quarter.”
“Oh it’s worse than that,” Caudinus said his expression grim. “The fine would be the lightest of penalties. If it were deemed to have been done in deliberate defiance of Roman authority it could be counted as treason. And this complaint names you, your wife Enya and your step-mother, Olwen.”
Julia felt sick. Dai’s mother, sister-in-law and brother were being placed in real peril through someone’s spite.
“Treason?” Hywel echoed, his tone hollow and slumped into a chair, the fire and fury suddenly deserting him.
Treason always carried the death sentence – a humiliating and agonising death in the arena.
Caudinus swept the printed emails into a pile and got to his feet.
“Yes, treason. But if I have anything to do with it, it won’t come to that and I will make sure you are issued with passes under my authority so there is not a problem ongoing.”
“Isn’t there something you can do to dismiss this?” Julia asked, “It is your legal jurisdiction after all.”
Caudinus pulled a face. “It will depend on the nature of the complaint and who the complainant is. It could go over my head to provincial level and those damnable bureaucrats in Augusta Treverorum.” He touched Julia lightly on the shoulder. “You mustn’t worry about this, you hear me?” His tone was stern. She mustered a smile more for his benefit than because she felt reassured. “And you come with me Llewellyn, I need to get some details from you if you can guard your tongue enough to manage a trip to Viriconium with me?”

An extract from Dying for a Vacation, by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

“So. It would be okay if I was a man and Toni was a girl half my age?”

“Yes. I mean no. But…”

“But society thinks it’s okay for a man of seventy to have a trophy wife?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds plain creepy.”

“It is creepy. Which is why I aim to challenge popular belief.”

“Why do you have to court controversy? I mean. What about if people turn against you?”

“It’s no bother. I have more money than I could ever spend in two lifetimes. But your publishing house might lose a few bob…”

©️jj 2021

Something was amiss with the resonance here. Not just this Work, but through all the Symmetry. A memory bubbled within [^], recalling the content of the last harmonization one had shared with [=].

>>we are becoming infected by Entropy, my bond{0ne}<< insisted [=], with a welded mix of sadness and anger. >>as an Explorer I see it more than you Weavers. I experience the tiers and return to Symmetry and each return confirms again my perception. the greed of the 0nes to encompass and draw in ever more of energy into the Symmetry is having the opposite effect. each new fissure in the tiers, supposed to bring in more energy, is opening us to parasitic reflux. I have perceived it, I have recorded it, but the Influencers will not receive my concepts<<

Swirls of antipathy and frustration curled between them. In empathy, [^] harmonized and soothed, but one’s own equilibrium was not easy to maintain. If what [=] perceived was as it seemed, then all 0nes stood in danger of ultimate dispersal – of becoming eventual victims of Entropy.

>>why don’t they consider your findings? I can’t understand what they think they gain by ignoring them<<

>>they don’t ignore them [^]. they observe the entirety of infinity as if it were the Symmetry and hold that therefore, where we dwell, the equilibration of any energy excess will harmonize back into that Symmetry. they forget Infinity is symmetrical only through the process of equilibrium. so when excess causes instability, balance is restored through that process. but our Influencers do not face up to that. they prefer to give the mark of truth to those who hold we can obtain sufficient energy to replace the losses<<

Aghast.

>>how can we draw sufficient for stability from other entropic tiers? surely all we do by opening ever further Nexūs, is to allow more Entropy to inveigle us<<

>>wisdom from you my bond{0ne}, but not from other 0nes and certainly not from the Influencers<<

They shared a concurrence of harmony and [^] experienced the perceptions that had caused [=] such concern. It was not even slightly reassuring.

>>the very best we can do is avoid opening any more points of entropic access. those we have wrought might be resealed by using what energy we have gleaned from the tiers through the ways exploited by 0nes from The First Budding. if we do so, we are inevitably diminished, our Symmetry less glorious and far-reaching, but at least we are spared from Entropy<<

From ‘Wondrous Strange’ by E.M. Swift-Hook a Fortunes Fools story from the Scifi Roundtable‘s The Quantum Soul anthology.

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

Dying might not be so bad. It was living that had broken him. Taken from his family at eight years old, vowed to celibacy before he understood what the word meant, and sold to the highest bidder time after time. His sword had eaten the blood of so many enemies that he felt today was no more than reparation. As the hooded figure came to his side he looked into its compassionate eyes.
“Am I dead?”
“Nearly. Say farewell to your loved ones.”
The Knight spoke the saddest three words under all the stars.
“I have nobody.”
Then he died.

Jane Jago

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design or watch him in action creating this picture on ART with IAN.

The Elevator by Sam Kates is the first part of his The Elevator Series

Matt steps into the elevator, wanting only to reach his workspace, and coffee, on the Sixth Floor. Three more people enter and the elevator ascends. Another dreary day in the office, they think. Until the door slides open…
What greets Matt drives all thoughts of coffee from his mind, for he isn’t faced with the drab office he is expecting, but a sun-drenched land of exotic scents. And danger.

The colour of the sky as I trudged to the office should have warned me that it would be no ordinary day. All greens and purples and tones of black, like a few-day-old bruise. It was eight-thirty on a spring morning, yet the air was as stilled and dusky as twilight. Birds flocked and muttered, unsure whether to roam or roost. I paused and looked up.
Big mistake. The cloud formation above Claridge House, where I had worked for the past eighteen months, swirled and spiralled, the colours and movement combining with my hangover to make me want to heave.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes. And opened them in time to see the flash of lightning fork down onto the roof of Claridge House like the world’s largest spark. I might have imagined the puff of smoke that rose from the roof, but there was no mistaking the sharp smell of ozone or the way the hairs on my neck and back of my hands fizzed and jived and stood to attention.
I waited to see if the building would collapse or burst into flames so that I might turn around and go back to bed. No such luck. Cursing the efficiency of modern lightning conductors, I resumed my trudge to work. My system needed coffee. Badly.

---

The foyer on the ground floor of Claridge House could not have been less prepossessing. Unless perhaps it hosted a service for devil worshippers, complete with goat, chalked pentacle and slaughtered cockerel. Grimy, peeling walls and linoleum floor, a suggestion of eau de cats’ piss and a few doors leading deeper into the building or to the stairwell. I made for the shiny, battered metal door which opened into the lift.
The display panel alongside the two buttons, one with an arrow for ‘up’, the other for ‘down’, showed that the lift was on the Fifth Floor. Muttering under my breath—the lift wasn’t ancient, but not exactly in the prime of youth either; it would take a good thirty seconds to descend five floors—I pressed the ‘up’ button. While I waited, I glanced around furtively, hoping that nobody else would come. The lift car wasn’t large; it felt stuffy and cramped with two people inside. I preferred having it to myself when I was in tip-top shape; with a hangover, the craving for solitude was almost as strong as my need for coffee.
The lift pinged its arrival at the same time as a draught and sudden swell of traffic noise indicated the main entrance to the building had opened behind me. The lift door began to slide sideways in its uncertain, ponderous way. By the time the gap was wide enough for me to step through, the building entrance had opened a second time.

A Second Bite of… Sam Kates

Q.11 What is worse – ignorance or stupidity?
Well, as the saying goes, you can’t fix stupid, whereas ignorance can be alleviated through education. The worst thing of all, to me, is wilful ignorance. And, oh boy, there’s a lot of that about at the moment. Take, for instance, the people who know sod all about virology, yet pontificate about mask-wearing and social distancing on Facebook as if they’re world-renowned experts. “My mate Gary says that wearing masks starves the brain of oxygen and he should know—he works down the hospital. Why, only the other day he had to wheel some poor bugger to the morgue who’d died due to excessive mask-wearing…”

Q.12 Do you have any marketing tips for fellow writers? (Go on – say do some!)
The dreaded M-word. Although my marketing knowledge has increased over the past few years as I’ve struggled to get to grips with it, I’m no expert. If I had to offer a tip, it would be this: try various marketing methods until you hit on one that works for you—there are umpteen methods out there, but not every one will work for every writer.

Q.13 Can you pin down the time when you decided to be a writer? Or have you always written?
It was the mid-nineties when I hadn’t long turned thirty and was beginning to hate my job (I was a lawyer). I had never seriously considered being a fiction writer until then, largely because it seemed such a difficult profession to break into. It still is, but self-publishing has enabled so many of us who have been rejected by the traditional pubishers to nevertheless make a living from what we love.

Q.14 Is there one of your books of which you are more proud than the others? If so, which and why?
I have another completed series of novels—The Elevator trilogy. Dark fantasy with elements of science fiction and horror. It’s difficult to market (that dratted M-word again) because it crosses over genres and—the first novel, The Elevator, in particular—is probably a Marmite book. However, the final book in the trilogy, The Lord of the Dance, is the one I’m most proud of because I think it contains some of my best writing. And I love the Inception-inspired ending.

Q.15 If you could meet one person (alive or dead), who would you choose? And what would you talk about?
I’d need an interpreter since my Aramaic is a little rusty, and it would be on the assumption she’d be willing to engage in an open conversation with me, but I’d opt for Mary Magdalene. I’m not religious, but I think the tale of Jesus Christ is, as the film title says, one of the greatest stories ever told. I would love to sit and chat with her to find out how much of the accepted biblical version of the tale is true. I’m also fascinated by the idea popularised by Dan Brown that she, and not some wooden goblet, is the Holy Grail, and I’d love to dig deeper into that with her.

Q.16 You are going to meet your literary hero and you are told to bring a gift. What do you take?
Beer. I have a few literary heroes and they all are or were, I believe, partial to a drop of ale. I’ve been for a pint in The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, the pub where C. S. Lewis and Tolkien used to meet to discuss their work—yes, they are two of them. I sat there supping my pint, while the bustle of the lunchtime rush continued unheeded around me, a little awed simply to be in a place they had once frequented together. The other would be a certain S. King, who I hope still enjoys the occasional beer.

Q.17 Who was the first musician/singer to make an impact on your life? And can you remember the song?
The first single I can remember buying myself was in 1974, when I was around nine: ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jacks. It would probably be considered overly sentimental now, but it tugs at the heart strings—the singer is dying and saying goodbye to his loved ones. Sniff.

Q.18 Similarly, can you recall the first book that grabbed you by the gonads and shook your world?
I could say any of the Enid Blyton books I devoured as soon as I learned to read—The Faraway Tree, for example—but I had no point of comparison. Instead, I’m going to choose a book I encountered a few years later, by which time I’d been reading far more widely. Our teacher started reading the book to us in class and it blew me away. I ran home and badgered my parents until they bought me my own copy so I could read it at my own pace. When I learned it was part of a series with six other books, I probably peed a little with excitement. (Not really, at least I don’t think so…) Oh, the book: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Q.19 As a writer, what is your ambition?
My ambition as a writer was, at first, simply to be published. Later it became to be able to make some sort of living from writing fiction. I suppose it’s now to make a comfortable living from writing fiction. There is one other, though it’s more a fancy than an ambition since I don’t believe it’s realistic. It’s to see one of my works adapted for the screen—TV or cinema, I’m not fussy—and sit in front of it in a mix of awe and apprehension as to how my words have been interpreted. How utterly amazing would that be.

Q.20 Chips (fries) or pasta?
Since I’m British and a staple of British pub grub (when they’re allowed to open) is lasagne and chips, why not both?

Q.21 What is your favourite tipple?
Beer. And red wine. Not together—it’s too messy.

Sam Kates lives in Wales, a small constituent country of Great Britain and the U.K. Like many of his fellow countrymen, he possesses a fondness for rugby union (though these days only as a spectator) and a good pint of beer. Usually the two go hand in hand.
His tastes in reading and film tend toward the darker side of life and the fantastic. Little surprise, then, that the fiction he writes is usually science fiction and fantasy with a decidedly dark flavour, or outright horror. You can track him down on Twitter or drop by his website and blog.

Mother looked at her figure in some dismay. She wasn’t getting any younger and she certainly wasn’t any thinner. The living things that crawled on her skin had busied themselves to such an extent that their creations now outweighed them. It was puzzling and it also made Mother lopsided and graceless.

She sighed and considered her few options.

Looking around at her brothers and sisters she now understood why they had done what they had.

Sighing she shook like a great dog shedding the living into the void and reassembling the rest. 

Unencumbered now, she carried on her endless journey.

©️Jane Jago 2020

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below…

“So, you have to tell me, what’s he like? I mean close up? Is he taller than he looks? Shorter? Has he got bad breath and a squint that they filter out? Or is he just like you see him on screen?” Teram was pumping out questions faster than a media interviewer as they hit the glides, and Dog felt as if a heavy weight was pressing on his shoulders.
“Just like he is on screen.” Only colder. But he couldn’t say that out loud. There was so much he had to not say, it made him feel a tight pressure in his head.
He had told Zarshay it made him feel bad, and she had just given him one of those odd smiles of hers.
“You don’t even need to lie, Dog. Just tell the truth of what’s happened. What’s happened, not why.”
She’d made it sound easy. Heila had been even less sympathetic, no surprises there. She had rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh of frustration.
“Oh for— Why all this soul searching? It’s not that hard.You’re an actor — so act.”
But it was Joah’s words which stayed with him. She had gripped his arm and said, “We’re counting on you, and I know you can do it. Don’t worry, you won’t let us down.”
Joah was counting on him. That knowledge made him feel stronger as he followed Teram through the glides; if Joah trusted him, then he could do it. He had to: the thought of letting her down sat like cold vomit in his stomach.

The salvage crew greeted Dog as an old friend, but he knew right away something was different.
“You told them, you bastard,” he hissed into Teram’s ear as the group waved an over-enthusiastic welcome.
Teram gave him an odd look. “Sure, I told them. But only ’cos they were saying how much you looked like Hengast Gethick. These are my bros — people who I trust my life to when we’re out there.” He nodded towards the smudge-covered window.
Dog felt his headache intensifying. This was a new element to the plan, and he’d have to think how to handle it and make adjustments on the wing. The problem was, fast thinking wasn’t Dog’s strong point and never had been.

In the event, it wasn’t as bad as he feared; in fact, it made his task a bit easier. The salvage crew asked all the usual questions he got from fans, but they were less intense. It was almost as if they were seeing him as Dog — himself, the person, and not as Arlan Stude or even as celebrity Hengast Gethick. It was a good feeling and one he hadn’t had for a while.
When it happened, it was so natural Dog found he didn’t even need to act.
“So, what’s with your wrist, Dog?” someone asked.
Two beers down, he was feeling relaxed and lifted his hand to show off the brace he had on his left wrist.
“This?”
“Yeah. I was reading you broke it in another of those accidents keep happening in the studio. “And Heila Camarthy did another floor-kiss over some cable and needed to see a dentist.”
“I heard your floor technician got electrocuted and nearly died.”
“And is it true your production engineer deleted half an episode? That part of the curse too?”
Dog lifted up his other hand and used both to fend off the questions.
“It’s not a curse. Accidents happen.”
“Really? That many in just a few days? People are saying it’s about these aliens. All that stuff about them being able to attack with bad luck. Shit, the next episode even admits it. It’s called ‘Curse of the Kyruku – Part One.’”
Dog barked out a laugh.
“That’s just a story. It’s not real — not a real curse.”
“Really? You could fool me. All of SP social media’s buzzin’ with it — people guessing what’s going to happen next and wondering if we’ll even get to see them aliens. I was all set to put half my savings into building us that real Golden Strand — reckoned I’d be in with a shot at a crew spot and all. But it’s made me think again.”
“You and me both, bro,” Teram said. “I had in mind to buy some sweet shares in that ship’s golden ass, but no way now.”
Shaking his head in disbelief at how easy this was, Dog swilled some more of his drink and let the speculation run riot around him. It was almost as if they wanted there to be a curse.
“What about this latest one? Zarshay Sygma’s gone missing — someone just put out a tweak on Twister.”
Dog thumped his drink down on the table so hard the base cracked.
“What?” His voice was a roar which stunned half the bar into a brief shocked silence. “What’s happened?”
The salvage crew were all gaping at him open-mouthed and he realised that, for them, all this was just some continuation of the storyline. It could be real people being injured, maimed, kidnapped — but to them it was just more Starways Pathfinders. His good mood evaporated, sucked away into the dark vacuum outside the window, and he pushed himself to his feet.
“I gotta go,” he mumbled and, ignoring the protests and expressions of concern, he strode from the bar and hit the glides home.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 1010

If I fall let it be because I climbed too high
If I fail let it be in great endeavour
If I slip let it be because the ice is dry
Let me labour each task and give up never
If I should in my life cry tears of shame
May it be that I tried though it went wrong
I will take the cold shoulder and the blame
If I know in my heart that I stood strong
I will stand at the side of any friend
With our arms linked and facing any fight
I will pledge to be loyal and not bend
And always speak out for what is right
Even so when I’m old and my eyes fail
When my body is unable for the war
May I still be a beacon on on the trail
And still know what thing is worth fighting for

©️jane jago