THEN, STARS, by Michael Meyerhofer, Art by Simon Walpole   I know nobody cares about a squire’s dying words, but Eli Ben-Sodr insists it matters, and he’ll write down whatever I say just as I say it, so I guess I’ll humor him. Gods know he’s been kind to me, even though he could have […]

A FISTFUL OF SPELLS, A Spellslinger Story, by Zach Chapman, artwork by Ben Terdik   I threw the two Striga bodies on Sheriff Hickman’s desk, knocking over a dozen half-empty potion bottles. Glass crunched and Hickman flinched. “I—I don’t need the bodies!” He scrambled from his desk, barely avoiding a purple liquid that streamed to […]

SWORDS, by Colleen Anderson     Torn from the earth with hard edged tools biting into its mother’s belly hammered, chiseled, pulverized until it no longer recalls its long slumber A sword begins the chaotic journey of which it is forged Without love nor comfort nor the still acceptance of nature it enters a fiery […]

The Last Tale, by Jennifer Crow   The last tale you told ended in a forest: dark, foreboding, full of shadows and hungry beasts. The scent of pine, the crunch

THE SONG OF BLACK MOUNTAIN, by Darrell Schweitzer, artwork by Gary McCluskey   I will make the song of the Black Mountain. Hear how it begins: It was because dragons still lingered above the peak of the Black Mountain that the King of Kings, Emperor of All the World Worth Ruling called together into his […]