Short Stories
“The Long Fall”
I've chosen to post this as a website extra because it is, in essence, authorial fanfic. It's set after the end of Turning Darkness Into Light, and contains MAJOR SPOILERS for that novel.
“The City of the Tree”
The tree dominated everything. The sky above, the sea below, the earth on which it stood, and the city that sheltered beneath its leaves. Its branches stretched out over the streets and houses of Cahuei, rope-twisted as if by wind, but a century of hurricanes would not have been enough to sculpt the wood of […]
“This Is How”
This is how a valravn is made. The genesis of this story is rather roundabout. It began with a tabletop role-playing game I was in, and me trying to imagine what a love interest for my PC would look like if it were the sort of game that involved romance. Later on that idea morphed […]
“Sankalpa”
In those days men lived for centuries, if they were not killed. I could die as many times as necessary. However long it took, Bhishma would still be there. For a long time I thought “La Molejera” would forever hold the record of Most Egregious Research-to-Product Ratio. I read a 480-page ethnography for that story, […]“On the Impurity of Dragon-kind”
A short story in Lady Trent’s world, set between In the Labyrinth of Drakes and Within the Sanctuary of Wings. Contains a mild spoiler of a scholarly nature for In the Labyrinth of Drakes.
“Vīs Dēlendī”
The Masters file into the high-vaulted chamber with its ceiling of clear, faceted crystal. The rainbow light cast by the sun finds its echo in their robes, fine silks in all the shades of their titles, sky-blue, steel-grey, rose-red, blood-red. The thrones upon which they seat themselves are carved from impossibly large blocks of the […]“Serpent, Wolf, and Half-Dead Thing”
With his fangs still buried in the thick meat of his own tail, the great serpent says, “I wondered when you would come.” This story was born from a chance comment made by the author Marissa Lingen. I can’t recall any longer what she said, but it was something about Loki’s family in Norse mythology […]
“The Genius Prize”
There are abundant records of the Twentieth Annual Metzger-Patel Genius Prize championship in 2131. Everything from the entry forms for each Contestant Team, to the judges’ notes on each creation, to the home videos filmed by proud parents, to helicopter footage of the aftermath. In the taxonomy of my website, I have chosen to list […]
“Into the Wind”
The tenements presented a blank face to the border: an unbroken expanse of wall, windowless, gapless, resolutely blind to the place that used to be Oneua. Only at the edges of the tenements could one pass through, entering the quiet and sunlit strip of weeds that separated the buildings from the world their inhabitants had […]“At the Sign of the Crow and Quill”
Even before Stepan Jedlička slit open the third envelope of his morning post, he knew to dread its contents. The seal told him that his enemy had sent it, and that alone was cause for apprehension. But even with a spike of fear to rouse him from his usual morning stupor, he did not notice […]“The Şiret Mask”
Dangling from a rope two hundred feet above the rooftops of Râu Tare, I find myself questioning the decisions that have led me to this point. I keep raising the bar on how long a story idea sits around before it turns into an actual story. In this case, I don’t even know how […]
“Love, Cayce”
Dear Mom and Dad, The good news is, nobody’s dead anymore. Though I’m very much a gamer, at the time I wrote this story, I had never played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. Pretty much my only experience with it was a friend’s Forgotten Realms game . . . and then a second game […]“Once a Goddess”
For eleven years Hathirekhmet was a goddess, and then they sent her home. I hope this story never loses the distinction of having the longest idea-to-draft lag time in all my writing career, because it took its own sweet time — more than seven years, in fact. In the summer of 2001, I was working […]“A Mask of Flesh”
Sitting alone in the green heat of the forest, far from the road and any observing eyes, Neniza began to craft her mask of flesh. I have a bit of a personal crusade to open the fantasy field up to a broader range of cultural inspirations, but I’ve long been aware that there are hurdles […]“Beggar’s Blessing”
Snow had fallen the previous day and had already turned to grey slush, but flakes drifting down from the sky promised to gild the dreariness with a new layer of white. To Enhardt, it was an unwelcome sight. The first snow of the year was a sign of winter’s beginning, and every subsequent one reaffirmed […]“But Who Shall Lead the Dance?”
If fate is kind, I shall never see the likes of Elsara Reen again. I’m not usually the sort of writer who experiments with language a lot, and really, by the standards of such writers, my prose in this story isn’t that strange. It is, however, one of the more linguistically artful things I have […]
“The Damnation of St. Teresa of Ávila”
They were on the road from Burgos to Alba de Tormes when she fell ill. The men who escorted her were careful not to mutter where she could hear; they knew she would chide them for it. She had suffered worse than the rain which poured down on them unceasing, worse than an archbishop who […]“Letter Found in a Chest Belonging to the Marquis de Montseraille Following the Death of That Worthy Individual”
My dearest darling Madallaine, It is presumptuous of me, you must be thinking, to use such terms of affection in addressing you, for we are at best passing acquaintances, such as would nod and mouth an empty greeting were we to find ourselves at the opera together. I pray you, have patience with me, for […]