Tag: fantasy

FP390 – Coffin: Weakness, 5 of 6

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and ninety.

Flash PulpTonight we present Coffin: Weakness, Part 5 of 6
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Bothersome Things!

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, his roommate and apprentice, discuss the unfortunate history of nymphs.

 

Coffin: Weakness, Part 5 of 6

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

It was noon, and they were at Denny’s.

“####,” Bunny was saying, around a mouthful of pancake, “so she couldn’t stop doing it? The incubus thing kinda makes sense then, I guess.”

Turning from the window, Coffin winced. “Not a nymphomaniac, a nymph. Way back in the toga days they were a sort of nature spirit who’d live in rivers, streams, tributaries, fjords – basically every wet place you figure’d be worth taking a vacation photo at would have one.

“Generally they manifested as shapely naked ladies, in their early twenties, who’d come ashore to sing and dance when visitors or worshipers arrived, but otherwise they maintained a dwelling within the depths of their swimming pool for privacy.”

Lifting another wad of syrup and batter to her mouth, Bunny asked, “sounds like they’d be pretty popular, so where’d they go?”

“Well, see, the nymphs were pretty into free love. They didn’t need it, like Valentine, but they were, uh, very welcoming to friendly shore-side visitors. The more civilized folks got, though, the less their spouses appreciated it.

“Nymph culture was slow to change, mostly because they were so localized, and their reputation went from something akin to a regional deity to the mess dumped on sex workers.

“I should be clear though: Their interest was really only in natural beauty. They danced because of the elegance of grass swaying in the wind, they rutted on the shore because that’s the way of the wild, and they sang because it called beasts and birds of all shape to their banks and kept them there in peace.

“Still, as things got worse some of them tried to go clean – the lady who supposedly lobbed the sword at Arthur was probably a nymph – but I think they hoped pants and religion were fads.”

“Me too, me too,” answered Bunny.

Will shrugged, taking advantage of the interruption to sip at his coffee. Despite his best efforts to be patient, his eyes wandered to the window.

There was nothing of note in the tightly stuffed parking lot.

Frowning, he continued. “You’re familiar with the old ‘I read it for the articles line’? In those days sneaky husbands and unsatisfied wives would claim they were just ‘going to hear the nymphs sing.’ Maybe that’s what started the trade – whatever the case, there was no Top 40 back then, and the medieval nobles, sick of having their trophy spouses sneak off, began to improvise jukeboxes.

“The real problem was that the nymph’s mystic song couldn’t help but bring a sense of soothing, even if weepily sung after having had their limbs clipped and being entrapped in tiny caskets.

“Now, this isn’t something just anybody would know about, this is the sort of secret treat rich people like to save for their most special guests. You’d be lead into a well sealed room by a deaf servant and your host. and there’d be a decorated box with what looked like a fairly heavy trashcan upside down on top.

“Your host would invite you to lie down on a lounge chair, priming you the whole time about what a wonderful surprise you were about to have, and the servant would lift the iron lampshade to reveal a young woman who’d lay out a tune so lovely it was like taking a mouthful of rave pills.

“When the allotted period was up, the servant would drop the shade. The attendants were also in charge of punishment for lack of performance, but we don’t need to get into the abuses you can inflict on a head in a cabinet.

“Immortality can be a rough gig like that, but even occult beings need to eat.

“In the end they all starved to death.

“Jenny though – Jenny was a fighter. Jenny gave up her home, the hardest thing for her kind, and set herself loose in the wilds; Let her hair grow long and tangled, let the muck of the river bottoms cover her skin, let decay and fish guts cling to her teeth. She hid like that for years, until even the memory of the slaughter of her people was forgotten, and her rage simmered.

“She started trying to avenge herself.”

“#### yeah,” said Bunny, “I’d go Rambo over that #### too.”

Will nodded, but replied, “consider the flip side though: You’re strolling by the river and you hear a whisper. You stop and there’s a woman – or is it a woman? She almost looks like nothing more than a collection of lily pads and stones – a face hovering at the still surface. Maybe you don’t listen at first. Maybe you’ve got a strong aversion to getting wet, maybe you’re smart enough not to talk to entities speaking from ponds, maybe you just have no sense of curiosity.

“Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter, because that slight, cheerless face begins singing, and suddenly everything is beautiful and calm. Suddenly you have no interest but in relaxing in the cool damp. Suddenly you’re drowning.

“Beloved family pets taking a drink, children roaming alone, lovers skinny dipping – anyone that would make others share some of the pain.

”Eventually she gained a new reputation: As a killer. Even the mystical and the immortal need the occasional human disappeared.”

Leaning back to bask in her victory over the forces of dough, Bunny asked, “so she’s some kinda supernatural hitman now?”

“Basically.”

In truth, however, Bunny already knew all this – she’d read the same texts Coffin was reciting from – but, even with his neck-cramping turns to peer out the window, it was the calmest she’d seen him in days.

She did not mention that the tale explained nothing of the missing phantoms.

The real question she wanted answered involved what exactly was in the worn leather messenger bag he’d taken to carrying. Before she might ask, though, a blur of movement to her left caught her attention. Beyond the dusty cream shades six dozen cats sat atop the sea of sun-baked cars.

Noting her gaze, they began to wail.

It was time to go.

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FP387 – Coffin: Weakness, Part 2 of 6

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and eighty-seven.

Flash PulpTonight we present Coffin: Weakness, Part 2 of 6
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)
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(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Every Photo Tells…

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, his recently sober apprentice, discuss a midnight encounter with a gasket baroness.

 

Coffin: Weakness, Part 2 of 6

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

The labyrinthine house smelled of potpourri and pine, and the deeper into its architecture that Bunny ventured, the surer she became that the smileless man who’d answered the door was, in fact, undertaking an elaborate prank.

“We off to see Barnum’s Egress?” she asked, but Will was too distracted to bother faking a chuckle and the doorman didn’t slow in his navigation of the hardwood sea.

Dining set islands gave way to shorelines of couch, then the couches themselves were crowded by towering library cliffs. Finally, they came to a stop in a land of Persian rugs.

The gray-haired woman at the room’s center wore her wingback chair like a throne, but her only subjects seemed to be the multitude of oil paintings that covered the walls. No image was larger than six inches wide, and there was no buffer greater than a thumb’s width between them. Thousands of tiny faces stretched in uneven rows to the vaulted ceiling.

As if playing his entrance in reverse, their guide disappeared backwards through the doorway, leaving his retreating heel taps and the tick of an out-of-sight grandfather clock to fill the void.

“Ms. Flores?” asked Coffin, but Bunny was already busy inspecting the surroundings.

“Rosanna, please,” she replied, her slender fingers dropping from a steeple to brush away the nonsense of formality.

“Okay, Rosanna,” nodded Will. “Our mutual friend, the talking owl, has informed us you have a story to tell?”

Coffin: A Skinner Co. Fantasy PodcastTheir hostess’ deeply lined face pulled into a soft chuckle, and Bunny couldn’t help but think that there’d likely been a time when droves of men had swooned over her smile.

“It happened a month ago,” began Rosanna, with a warm but firm tone. “I sleep lightly these days, and steps at the foot of my bed is enough to bring me awake like a rooster’s song.

“I was expecting it to be Curtis, but, oh, how I was wrong.

“There was a man – a baby face at forty, or a rugged gent at thirty-five. Either way, I’ve always been a sucker for a strong jaw and needy lips. I told myself I was likely dreaming, but somehow knew I wasn’t.

“Still, there was a burning between us from the moment I opened my eyes and I had no interest in denying it.

“I’m eighty-four, but a lifetime of hard work and harder play has left me strong. I’m in no danger of falling and breaking a hip or cracking a rib, and I knew exactly what his eyes had in mind. I’m not ashamed to say I invited him beneath the sheets, nor to divulge that I treated him like a rodeo bull.

“We were both sweating by the time dawn broke, but it was only because I had an early art gallery opening to attend to that I sent him away.”

Rosanna paused in her telling, and Will could read by the set of her knees, and the heat in her gaze, that she was briefly lost in memory – then she shrugged.

Clearing her throat, Ms. Flores finished her tale.

“He didn’t use the door when he departed. He climbed out my bedroom window, but I doubt he even required that much effort – there’s a twenty foot wall around the estate, as you no doubt saw when you entered – and he was gone by the time I pulled back the curtains.

”A couple of weeks later I received the note, and the photos. He must have had a tiny camera hidden in his crumpled heap of bedside clothing.

“The letter indicated a drop off point and warned me of what it would mean to my business and reputation if such images were leaked to the press. It wasn’t signed, but it smelled like him.”

“How did you respond?” asked Coffin, but Bunny already had the answer.

“She told him to go #### himself,” she replied.

As Will had listened, his apprentice had been exploring the paintings and their inhabitants. Where he’d seen just canvas, she’d found a multitude of tiny lusting figures, each in a position that might have left the creator of the Kama Sutra blushing.

“That’s about right,” said Rosanna with a smirk. “I did not build an empire on rubber gaskets by lacking an understanding of rough business. It wasn’t the amount though, it was the notion. I’ll plow a thousand miles for a carrot, but I won’t budge an inch for the stick, and that’s the way it’s always been.

“I sent a note implying that my dating life could use the exposure. I kept the pictures though – I looked good in them, and so did he.

“That was the last I heard of the matter until a few nights ago when a ragamuffin named Pendleton came by and asked that I join together with a few of his other clients in turning the tables on my visitor. I refused his offer too.”

Coffin did not mention the corpses he had recently swam with – instead he simply gave a second nod, tucked his fingers into his pockets, and said, “thank you for your honesty. It seems we have an incubus with a money problem to locate.”

As his feet chased his racing thoughts towards the exit, it was his accomplice who thought to turn and shake hands.

In that lingering moment, Rosanna asked, “if you do find him, will you pass on that I would consider negotiating? I won’t pay his blackmail, but I’d gladly hire him to the house staff at twice the price.”

Bunny’s mind struggled under the weight of four damp cadavers, but she’d come to like Rosanna.

She said, “sure,” then left before the lie could linger.

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FP384 – The Scarred Man: a Blackhall Tale

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and eighty-four.

Flash PulpTonight we present The Scarred Man: a Blackhall Tale
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp384.mp3]Download MP3

(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Glow in the Dark Radio

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight we join Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, as he encounters an undying combatant by a lonely northern lake.

 

The Scarred Man: a Blackhall Tale

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

Blackhall met the immortal on the edge of a lake known by the few who occasionally wandered its shores as the Blue Sip. He’d seen naught but the intermittent chipmunk in his last three days of journey through the heavy undergrowth, and, in his stop, he’d been seeking nothing more than a moment of cool respite from his westward campaign to retrieve the dancing corpse of his dead wife.

The immortal, however, had been seeking nothing more than Blackhall.

Thomas had been considering the state of his preparations to break the hold of the hag who led Mairi through the shadowed wildwoods when the lumbering titan arrived.

He had dealt with giants and their ilk in the past, but never while standing naked in three feet’s water. Still, though the man was tall, and his musculature so over-large to be almost a caricature of human form, Blackhall soon realized he was no giant.

The stranger wore a cloak and carried a shotgun at his shoulder, which Thomas felt likely to be heavy and hot gear for the depth of the timber and harshness of sun. The interloper was in apparent agreement, as his first action upon arrival was to drop both.

“I was born as Nikanor, some three millennia past,” he said as he laid aside a sheathed blade too big to be a knife but too short to be a modern sword.

The sight of the weapon, even in being set aside, did little more than remind Blackhall of the distance to his own silver-edged sabre, which lay among his gear on the shoreside. It was too far – and the shotgun too close – for the frontiersman’s liking.

“I was born Thomas some few dozen years ago,” was the best the could find for an answer.

For a moment Nikanor looked puzzled, then a slow smile came to his ground sausage lips. His face appeared to have suffered and survived a half-dozen cleavings, and his skull was roughly misshapen with the scar tissue that had grown across the wounds.

“I know who you are, shaman,” he replied. “I have marched from the coast to meet you. Funny that it should be here, for my journey began, in many ways, in a very different bit of water – the Styx. My mother was a proud strumpet and a glory of her age. She was also a genius at the bargaining table. The gods of the time on the other hand, were naught but letches, and there came a day when Zeus himself came to our door.

“She turned him away a full three times, then offered herself up under two specific conditions.

“That is how her only child, a lowly army footman of sixteen, came to find himself dipped, much like Achilles, in the Styx – but Mother was well aware of the tales, and so demanded I be held by my hair. I have been bald since, but my heels are in grand order.”

As he spoke, the Greek had stripped back the loose cloth of his shirt to reveal a form that reminded Thomas most of a picture book knight. Instead of the gleam of full plate, however, the man was a mass of cratered sinew and flesh grown deep from the brutality of ten thousand traumas. Wound had healed atop of wound until the layering was so thick it stood tall from the bone and took on the aspect of a natural leather armour.

The thick cords of his neck, though still showing signs of damage, were considerably less worn, and it was to a long white defect that Nikanor pointed as he sat upon a fallen tree and said, “this was one of my first, a battle with a raiding warlord coming in over the northern border. I laughed every moment of the march, thinking I was invincible. Not quite – I am perhaps immortal, but I am still penetrable. I’d caught a ragged sliver of metal the rabble were calling weapons before I realized the difference. It hurt too – enough so that I killed at least fifty on the field as my reply.

“It healed in a day, but that day was agony.

“We patrolled again that spring, and for many seasons on – until we met the Laconians on in open meadow and I learned that I alone could not turn the tide of battle. Every man I had admired or dreaded, every friend I’d made in my brief career, every idiot I’d bickered with, was wiped from the Earth in a single encounter.

“Left for dead, my butchered body was only capable of standing two days after the scavenger birds had arrived to pull their dinner from my comrades’ cheeks.

“I could not return as the sole survivor of a massacre without being accused of cowardice, but I knew just one life. It did not take me long to create a new identity and reenlist, and the evidence of my wounds acted as all the biography I required. The cycle has repeated itself many times since.

”Every pot of boiling oil, every flight of arrows, every dagger gash acted to toughen my skin. By the time I fought with the Scots against your countrymen I needed little more protection than to leave my flesh bare, for it took a man with a true arm of steel, and a clear opportunity, to pierce my scarred disfigurement.

“I rarely met the first, and I was too well practiced to allow for the second.”

No longer was Blackhall concerned about the proximity of his blade. The turn of the tale had set his mind casting ahead in search of its conclusion, and he did not like what he’d found.

http://www.skinner.fm/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Blackhall.jpgThe tone was too heavy, the setting too inevitable. He had killed before, and would again in self-defense, but his own time under the King’s command had long washed a taste for violence from his mouth.

“Niko,” he asked, “what was the other condition?”

Turning his gaze from a cloud on the horizon, the deathless man answered, “the other what?”

“You said your mother had two conditions, and that your immortality was but one of them.”

“Oh – the other was that Zeus remain human in shape. She was well read and had no interest in the legends of beasts and fowl.”

“The gods of antiquity truly were perverts.”

That got another smile from the old soldier, but it could not stop his momentum.

“None of the kings I helped rise to the throne remained,” he continued. “Their names are as forgotten as their kingdom’s borders. The maps shift like sands, and my travels have proven to me there is little more difference between peoples than the foods they have at hand and the god they pray to before eating it.

“Yet I’ve killed them all.

“Many things happen in such a span as mine. Many mistakes are made in rage or fear or a moment’s reaction. My condition allows no release from those errors, simply more opportunity to compound them.

“I have lost count at points – I am sure I have lived more than three thousand years – but it is in just these last twelve months that my agony has taken hold. Hired on to lay low some sheep thieves while waiting for the summer’s march, I set my shot into a figure in the dark and killed a boy of sixteen. It was meant to be just another victory, but – well, perhaps it is only because I have come so far from my youth that I can no longer remember its exact image, but I swear his face was my own at that age.

“Even before the arcane began to flow from the world I had come to the realization that there was little point in continuing. There is no end to the fighting, and all I’m left with is confusion. Please, do you have a method by which to end my misery?”

The words moved over the water with the weight of a voice that had seen the worst of three thousand years, and Blackhall found the damp suddenly all too chill.

Thomas’ mind landed in the streets of Ciudad Rodrigo, then flew to the death of his own wife, and finally came to rest on his growing guilt at the distance between he and his child.

If he was ever to be forgiven, could not, too, the evils of a being whose mettle might achieve so much good?

“Could I end you?” asked Blackhall, “yes, probably.

“Will I? No.

“I’ll instead come ashore, and we shall plan you a new life between mouthfuls of jerky. This existence I promise will provide remittance from your guilt if you are strong enough to manage it.”

“To what purpose?”

“To what purpose any birth? You say you are confused, well, so too are all bairns. I will say, though, that what I have in mind will be a truly great purpose – but, to begin, you will construct and stock a homestead of some size.”

“I have no idea how to farm.”

“Well, we are in luck in that regard, as your condition allows us plenty of time for you to learn.”

The conversation carried well into the night, and it would be but the first of a long acquaintance.

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FPSE23 – The Myth of the Big Game

Welcome to Flash Pulp, special episode twenty-three.

Flash PulpTonight we present The Myth of the Big Game
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FPSE023.mp3]Download MP3

(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Nutty Bites

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight we relate to you a most dangerous urban legend from the sick beds of Capital City and beyond.

 

The Myth of the Big Game

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

A Skinner Co. Network Podcast
For more on this urban legend visit the Flash Pulp wiki!

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FPSE22 – The Queen's Measure

Welcome to Flash Pulp, special episode twenty-two.

Flash PulpTonight we present The Queen’s Measure
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FPSE022.mp3]Download MP3

(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Nutty Bites

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight we digress briefly from the universe we know so well to tell a tale of personal and universal truth in the lands of Sofia Esperon, Queen of the Hundred Kingdoms.

 

The Queen’s Measure

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

The signing of the final peace treaty enacted to unite the Hundred Kingdoms under the long reign of Queen Sofia Esperon took place on the tiered balconies that surrounded her castle atop the Mountain of Glass.

Though she’d chosen the location amongst the gossamer spires to limit the number of spectators, penny chiselers, and scoundrels, the tradition of an open-air signing, before any who could make their way to attend, still drew forth such throngs that many would eventually claim to have slept along the translucent roadside who had, in actuality, made no effort to even depart their front door.

However, the monk was one who did pass through the crystal gate.

The self-proclaimed holy man was a wanderer who had trekked from the country of Quabbin to preach his doctrine of honesty, austerity, and fealty.

Sofia saw him first from the shadowed depths of the humble carriage she used when it suited her purpose to move through her lands unnoticed. As the Queen and her handmaid, Ida, took the mood of the crowd and judged the rate the barley was flowing from the tent and barrel dwellings that had been erected as makeshift ale houses, they noted the monk’s thick voice cutting through the din of the multitude.

He stood on the lip of the eastern fountain, and his waving arms shook his gray ecclesiastical robes as he spoke.

“… for the cur, Mulhand the Colossus, was so brazen as to declare war against our one and true Lady, and though I would never speak against her decisions, Bargoth, God over all he surveys from his throne in the heart of the Sun, is clear that we should be honest in every way: Both in comment and action. Those of us who have always supported the Queen feel honestly that the Colossus does not deserve life, and Bargoth does not understand her mercy in allowing him to keep his head.”

Though Esperon felt no pull in his philosophies, there was something in the nature of his statements that caught her ear and left her wanting to correct his misconception. She found herself reviewing his words even as she returned to the cool depths of her stables and the unassuming passage she used for discreet entrances.

FPSE22 - The Queen's measure: A Skinner Co. Network PodcastHer first order of business upon stepping from her conveyance was to dispatch Ida to invite the monk to the feast at dusk, so that she might briefly converse with him between cups, then the regent set the matter from her mind and began to prepare for the afternoon’s ceremony.

* * *

The galleries of Queen Sofia Esperon’s castle held a thousand wonders collected from across the Hundred Kingdoms or constructed within the very walls themselves. The singing topiaries of the Blood Earth Garden were certainly well renowned; and many bawdy tales were told of the Crooked Feast Hall, whose floor would rise at its corner as the hour progressed so that even the most stubborn guest would tumble out its low-lying door by the chime of midnight.

Still, there was perhaps no greater marvel than the Forest Ballroom, whose ever-lush grasses somehow offered footing as firm as any hardwood, and whose dimensions stretched far beyond the boundaries of the chamber that contained it.

On that evening the orchestra had been instructed to climb to the glass walkways that stretched between the room’s massive sequoias, so that their instruments would reach as deep into the great woods as possible. Sofia knew that on an occasion of such size their melodies were often the sole method by which farflung partygoers might find the center of the room, and thus the exits.

It was also often true that the Queen found the attentions required by the endless stream of diplomats and nobles exhausting, but she knew too well the need for direct consultation when ruling so vast and varied a kingdom.To better endure the hours of glad handing and political jockeying she had had several nests constructed amongst the trees, each accessible only through a combination of depressible knots set in the base of their respective trunks.

It was atop one of these refuges that Ida found her ruler peering down from the edge of her leaf-cloaked perch.

Ida, unencumbered by reputation or title, was free to dance her ears over the debates and scandals that spilled from wine-loosened tongues, but the tray-toters flowing through the crowd knew to be quick about nudging her in the direction of anything worthy of note.

It was at the end of her recounting of wars probably only declared in jest and marriages probably only declared in drunkenness that the handmaid came to such an item.

“Finally, Akulina and his orchestra seem quite agitated with the monk you invited. Apparently the fellow started in on the conductor with a lecture regarding the inappropriate nature of some of the forgotten meanings behind the songs you selected for the evening, which shifted into a larger sermon on the unnecessary extravagance of the party, and how Bargoth would think us all idiots for not standing in an actual forest.”

Sofia sniffed. “Bargoth has never had to deal with rain on a high holiday, I suppose.”

Burying her smirk, Ida replied, “I think it was the monk’s apparent intoxication that annoyed Akulina most. Hard to take speechifying on austerity seriously when you’ve nearly drowned yourself in another’s vineyard.”

Nodding, Esperon moved to the couch at the rear of the platform. “I shall speak with him as soon as I rise. What hour are we?”

“The sixteenth now,” answered Ida. “The Western delegation has retired, but the central kingdoms have yet to arrive. They know to leave plenty of cushion to prevent another incident.”

The Queen hated to allow any interval to pass without her watch, but she found herself as weary as she had been after many a battle. The guests would simply assume she was at the far side of the party until she was rested enough to return.

“How much do you have left in you?” she asked her attendant.

“Oh, my excitement carries me nicely. I’ll be up till after the midday feast, at least,” replied the girl.

Finally, Sofia gave her instructions with eyes already half-closed, “wake me if you tire or when they start laying out the cutlery. I’ll need a moment to bathe and effect a wardrobe change,” then she slept.

* * *

Four hours later the smell of roasted mutton wafted between the trees, but not so deep as to reach Ida and the Monk.

They stood beside a fast moving brook, his back to the meal and his bulk surrounded by a cloud of sour grapes. With slurred insistence he alternated between demanding she do her best to make him most welcome in the absence of her lady and apologizing for his drunken state and forward behaviour. The rotation had kept Ida in retreat, but, with her spine against a drooping oak and his broad arms before her, she had no more ground to give.

With sweat on his palms, the monk placed a hand upon her shoulder.

Still, just as the revellers had been too hungry to note their absence, the pair were too fixated on their own concerns to notice the approach of their queen – and Sofia was glad she’d woken when she had: Though she appreciated Ida’s diplomacy and tact in not spilling blood on a treaty signing day, she knew the girl carried a well-honed stiletto beneath the cufflets at her delicate wrist.

Striding through the meadow across which she’d spotted them, the Queen cast aside the hushed tone of festivity and unleashed the voice that had commanded her warbears and ballistas during the western campaigns.

“You utter bile at the Colossus, and yet I can say this about the man I fought to a stand still amongst the poppies of the field they’ve since dubbed Esperon’s Boneyard: Whatever may happen between he and I in the future, Mulhand has been naught but obvious regarding his intentions at every step. I never asked for war, but he was always clear on enumerating his reasons and the consequences he foresaw.

“All in moderation, you claim, but at the first opportunity your goblet overflows and you beg forgiveness for the spill. I have seen Mulhand drink as well, during the negotiations – as might be expected in a time of defeat – and he makes no claim he would not back up while sober.

“Even when a lesser man would drown in his cups I have seen the knowledge that it is best to stumble to his pillow enter the Colossus’ eyes well before any mistaken statement has entered his mouth or errant thought has landed steel in his hand. He kept his promises of violence, and I expect he’ll keep his promises of peace.

“You, however, are something even lower than an enemy. You speak sunshine and move your hands in darkness, and always with quick justification, be it divine or fermented. No, I can have no such close – I exile you sir.”

She had closed the distance as she’d delivered her judgement, and she was now close enough to see the horror in the monk’s face.

“M’lady!” he whispered in the cloying tone of practiced repentance, “all lands are yours – there is naught beyond the Hundred Kingdoms!”

“Perhaps then Bargoth will be so kind as to provide you firmament upon which to land when we toss you from a pier and into the eastern salt,” she replied, drawing Ida to her side.

The arrival of five of her Royal Guard acted as both the Queen and Ida’s final consideration of the matter, though no longer would the regent dare slumber until the doors were barred.

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Intro and outro work provided by Jay Langejans of The New Fiction Writers podcast.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FP318 – Pinch: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 1

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode three hundred and eighteen.

Flash PulpTonight we present Pinch: a Blackhall Chronicle, Part 1 of 1
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Shadow Publications

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight, Thomas Blackhall, master frontiersman and student of the occult, is confronted by a one-handed man with a tale of loss.

Pinch: a Blackhall Chronicle

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

Thomas had risen before dawn, eager to see an old friend and return to his hunt, to discover that a visitor awaited him in the great room of the inn at which he’d taken up temporary lodging.

As the stranger flagged Blackhall over, the woman who ran the establishment – a mother of four who’d been left too soon by a soldiering husband – stood sleepy eyed at the fireplace, trying to will the embers into a greater flame. Thomas briefly considered ignoring the newcomer’s summons and to instead wander hastily out of the sleepy scene, but the handless stump with which the man signaled was difficult to overlook.

Working off the straps he’d just finished arranging and then setting down his baggage and rifle, Blackhall sat.

Sensing the frontiersman’s aggravation at the delay, the round-faced caller raised his early cup of hops and said, “oh, I assure you, this digression is worthy of your time, Mr. Blackhall.”

“Name’s Meriwether Tristram. My cousin in Perth wrote to tell me of you once he’d caught wind of my – situation.

Thomas Blackhall“You see, one Sunday I’d arisen to breakfast only to realize my meager cupboard was empty. Worse still, I’d spent the last of my coin on quenching Friday night’s thirst, and, though I laboured greatly at the Mill in New Branston, there was no hope of fresh pay till the Wednesday following – anyhow, hunger and a long sleep drove me from bed that morn, but I still had plenty of shot for my musket. It was my search for venison, north of the cluster of shanties that make up the so-called town, that lead me to a stretch of spruce that I did not recognize from previous expeditions.

“I could hear a stream on the far side of the stand and I was considering spending a period amongst the foliage to see what passed when I noticed a set of white stones arranged in a strange pattern upon the ground nearby. A closer examination, of course, presented the fact that they were not rocks at all, but the skeletal remains of a foot. There was no sign of the rest of the body, but I did spot a trinket resting in close proximity to the detached ankle.

“I assumed it to be silver, though I now highly doubt it. Its surface is engraved with curious care, an arrangement of loops and strokes that seems to deepen as you look them over, and its sizing – well, you shall see.

“Now, let me make it plain: Other than the scrollwork, the dimensions were not outside of the ordinary for a thick ring – that is why I kept it. For my distant girl.

“Well, I mean, I may have attempted to sell it first, but even then the proceeds were to be obtained with my intended in mind. The few I inquired with, however, had little interest, and I knew that there were others nearby who would be quick to call for the bauble against debts owed – unfortunate pinches about the dice table have left me with more creditors than friends. As such, I dispatched it to my wife.

“Or, truly, my would-be wife; even previous to our betrothal I worked the camps in hopes of collecting adequate funds to purchase a plot large enough for a cow and a field of corn, and so my intentions continued though my empty-pocketed status kept us apart.

“Anyhow, I parceled it up and sent it, by trusted courier, homeward.”

Thomas cleared his throat while Meriwether took a moment to wet his own.

“For what period have you been in search of your fortune?” asked Blackhall.

“Well, at this and at that for the last dozen months.”

“- and how much have you garnered for your farm?”

“You must understand, I’ve yet to find the gambit that will truly make my name. Currently, sir, my possessions extend only to the small traveling case of clothes that resides in my room, and the willingness to put my back into future labours.”

“Seems a shame to expend such effort without a result to show for it. Perhaps the dice are not your friend.”

“I have had some bad luck, it’s true – though it hardly matters now. She called the wedding off. A month after my missive I received a note, with my love token returned. I thought at first that the issue was impatience or another fellow, for the attached explanation made little sense to me at the time. It spoke of a curse – both on the ring, and on our love. Half was true, at least.

“My sole consolation was that the news came on a Friday. As it happened, I’d changed occupation from miller to lumberman, and, as my new position came with a week-ending payday, I was flush enough to hold the head of my sorrows below a steady flow of ale.

“It was a night of singing and weeping. It was the sort of occasion on which friendships are made and broken, sweeping oaths are professed then forgotten, and many mugs are broken by accident or design.

“The ring remained in my pocket throughout those hours of lament, but, on my stumbling route back to my bunk, my fingers came upon the accursed thing.

“My memory is piecemeal at best, but I recall noting with some amusement that the metal seemed to stretch about my stocky fingers. It was with some amazement, then, that I found myself able to expand it so wide that it might act as a bangle around my wrist, but my experiments were cut short by the attentions necessary to capture a few hours sleep in a company bed after having ditched a scheduled day’s labour.

“Despite my circumstances the foreman had no pity for me – admittedly, it may not have been my first such sabbatical, although it was certainly my most justified. Whatever the case, my call to rise was an unpleasant one. It did not help, I suppose, that I appeared more attentive to the sting in my arm than the bull-mouthed man’s words. Still, there was no time to investigate the source of my affliction before I was tossed up on a wagon bound for town.

“I am not unfamiliar with slumbering through an unexplained ache, and the rocking of the wheels quickly pulled me back under. Besides, although persistent it had not yet grown so painful as to be all encompassing.

“Not, that is, until I awoke in a heap on the ground, with the cart trailing away in the distance. Stevenson, the driver, had gathered a dislike for me after a misunderstanding, on an earlier occasion, regarding the number of aces in a certain deck of cards we’d been, er, inspecting.

“‘You were howling in your sleep, it was scaring the horses,’ he shouted back, but he was gone before I could collect myself enough to make a reply.

“At least he had the decency to drop me at a signpost that indicated my position in relation to town. I wasn’t within sight of the local pub, but I was in the proper county.

“Realizing my recent gin soaking would hardly win me friends amongst any decent folk with functioning noses, and feeling as if I’d perhaps injured my arm in my tumble, I crept into a nearby barn with the intention of continuing to nap away the last of my wobbling remorse.

“Now, understand: Come into town looking rough and smelling of cow dung, they’ll assume you’ve been hard at work, but, come in looking rough and smelling of the lower shelves, they’ll assume you’re a roustabout who’s never held a shovel in his life.

“Anyhow, I could not rest. In attempting to reach the upper loft I came to realize that my right hand was not just numb from the fall or the spirits, as I’d assumed. I had no control of my fingers, and no sense that there was anything attached beyond my elbow.

“Working back my jacket and shirt sleeve, I found the ring, just as thick but now approximately the size of a malnourished crab apple. I note this because, as you can see, I carry the weight of my drinking habits with me, and my arm is considerably meatier than an apple’s width.

“You see, the damned thing had contracted while I was sleeping. It’s ever tightening circumference had cinched my flesh like a corset, then worse, and I’d accidentally anesthetized myself against the procedure.

“There was no blood, but the agony increased with my sobriety. In short order I was weeping in the corner of a swept pig pen, with only the sound of snapping bone and grinding metal to keep me company.

“I pawed at the ever-tightening band, but I could not even rise to take up the woodpile axe at the edge of my vision – and a good thing too, as, in my state, I would’ve just as likely displaced the entirety of my arm.

“I was come upon the following day by a maid come to milk their Bess. I’d become senseless in my uncomfortable position, and the family’s sheepdog had taken to gnawing on my now detached extremity – a fact that was discovered as the gal’s father carried me house-ward.

“It was the same fellow who located the blasted ring, again the size at which I’d originally discovered it, and slipped it in my pocket for safekeeping.

“Since then I’ve dared to touch it only to bind it more securely.”

Having concluded his tale, Tristram’s remaining fingers went to his jacket front to retrieve a small bundle wrapped in a well-used handkerchief.

Blackhall raised a brow at the parcel, but said nothing.

Tristram did not let the silence hang long.

“I was hoping,” he said, “ that you could perhaps return my hand – for surely, if there is magic enough in this world to remove it, there is also ample to form another?”

Thomas exhaled, considering his words. Finally he replied, “many things are possible, but what you ask is not one of them.”

Without pause, as if he had already guessed at the answer, Meriwether pressed on. “Then mayhaps it would be worth some coin to you?”

Pulling apart the hasty knot, Blackhall exposed the charm in question to the still morning air.

“I recognize this piece,” he said, “It was constructed for – er – softer meats. Not to pass through bone.

“At some point in the distant past it no doubt amassed a hefty purse for a medicine man wandering about sod-hut farms, but, though it cost you much to carry, I’m afraid it will earn you little. I, for one, will give you nothing worth more than a freshly filled stein and the safety of not having to deal with it further.”

Tristram frowned, saying, “I do not understand.”

“In the days before this enlightened age – well, let us simply say that not all bulls are meant to breed.”

There was a silence between the men, then a nod from the one-handed visitor. At the sign, Thomas collected the ring, laid payment across the bar, and made note to the proprietress that there was enough extra to make it worth tapping a keg for his peer.

Even as Blackhall moved towards the exit, the next of the day’s patrons stumbled across the threshold.

“Too my future fortune then,” smiled Meriweather, as he waved down the newcomer and reached for an empty cup in which to set his dice.

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FPSE13 – Another Rescue

Welcome to Flash Pulp, Special Episode 13.

Flash PulpTonight we present Another Rescue, Part 1 of 1

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(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Strangely Literal.

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight we return to The Hundred Kingdoms, and the perils that lie within its fantastic borders.

 

Another Rescue

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

In the depths of the Ogre King’s inkiest cave, Duchess Lilian Mildred was weighing the stench that filled her nostrils against the idea of enraging her guards to the point of shortening her life – and thus her current captivity.

It was not a serious thought, but her imprisonment amongst the brute lords had been nothing if not dull, and her mind had begun to wander.

She’d stood in the cell some twenty hours, with arms pulled high by hanging chains affixed to the rock wall.

Skinner Co.Despite the ache in her limbs, she considered the accommodations melodrama implemented only to heighten the price of ransom once a remote seer was engaged to determine the veracity of her captors’ demands.

This was a frustration, as her uncle, Archduke Mildred, was something of a miser, and would no doubt hold the debt against her till she repaid it or died.

She had not intended to have her caravan hijacked – there was no other route home from the capital but the Queen’s highway, and there was no choice but to take it when the court season had ended. Her party had been no different in size or composure than the Archduke’s own daughter’s, though she’d made her way north to tour instead of heading directly to her father’s keep.

Lilian sighed at her fate, but it simply forced her to draw in another lungful of her watchers’ reek.

The tedium ceased, however, when another of the twisted-faced ruffians approached. This one was little more than a youth, and, though she could not translate his grunts, her two ripe guardians departed briskly at his words.

Within moments, the sounds of bragging and clashing steel could be heard from the corridor beyond.

A man appeared, leading a band of stout-armed warriors. The newcomer wore a patch over one eye, and his hair swept back in a tight top knot. The chain-mail across his belly had been breached, but his mouth carried a wolfish grin.

His blade dripped with the tale of his handiwork.

“Duchess?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “The Archduke sent you?”

She rattled her chains gently as she spoke, with the notion that her saviour might free her as he explained – his reply was, “not quite.”

She could see he had the key in his hand, and yet he stalled.

It’s meaning was clear to the bound woman: Whoever had financed her rescue – whoever would garner the praise for her heroic recovery – would only enter once the area was proven safe.

As she waited, she set herself to hoping that the impending Prince, or Duke, or – Gods forbid – Merchant Lord was seeking reputation and renown, and was not of an appropriate age for marriage. The Duchess had come by her title by inheritance, and, regardless of her recent waylaying, she looked forward to wearing away some of its shine before she was forced to carry its full weight behind the tall stone walls of Baldenkirk, her home.

Finally, a thin-faced boy in velvet garments entered the room. It was obvious he made some attempt to mute his trumpet’s note, but, in the tight space, its sounding still left a ringing in Lilian’s ears.

It was to this accompaniment that Prince Cornelius Galen filled her view. He now held the cuffs’ key in his palm.

“Milady,” he said, “even under the duress of this terrible calamity, you are striking.”

Cornelius was but one of the thousand younglings that stood within the shadow of the crown, and Lillian’s few interactions with his house had left her cold – and yet she knew that, even now, he likely had minstrels, out of sight, composing odes regarding the perils he’d faced to win her.

It would be her own people who would pay highest coin for the swollen tales of his gallantry, and she knew the songs would likely arrive at her borders before she did. She would have to weight the purses of many crooners if she hoped to counteract his nuptial narrative.

“It seems your uncle has claimed his coffers are bare,” continued the prince, “but, do not fear, your peasants have gathered quite a bounty in their temple bowls.

“That said, I’m not here for the silver – I hope to collect a greater reward.”

Lilian could not deny her gratitude at the rescue, and it was this, and the fact that she remained chained, that kept her tongue steady.

“Truly this is too rough a place to speak of love, milord, “ she replied.

He hadn’t spoken of any such thing, of course, but she was released from the wall nonetheless.

The Prince and Duchess’ ascent was a stroll behind a threshing screen of steel, as the hired arms made short work of any rotund brute who was sleepy-eyed enough to stumble from the burrows that branched from the shaft’s main column.

A second force of mercenaries and balladeers greeted them at the tunnel’s mouth while scanning the surrounding hills and fingering the tools of their occupation.

All were soon mounted, but the ride was a harried one.

The Ogre King had hastily mustered his troops, and their legs held fury enough to them keep apace with the fleeing stallions.

It became plain that combat was imminent by the time they made Cannibal’s Hollow, a mountainous protrusion at the bottom of a wide rimmed valley that was known largely for its desolation.

As Lilian climbed the path to the bottleneck that marked their only chance of organizing a defense, she took some solace in the knowledge that a premature death would at least save her from a premature marriage.

Dying a martyr would also make for much better songs.

The patch-wearing captain strode the line, slapping shoulders and lifting spirits, as Lilian and her unwanted Prince watched from a nook above. Their perch also gave them a clear view of the approaching horde, although she found their battle chants more than sufficient warning.

She guessed them at ten leagues – then five. Then two.

Her husband-to-be’s voice became like sugar, and the duchess soon realized he sought a kiss to lessen his sense of peril. She’d bussed worse, and yet she withheld her lips with indignation – her greatest danger in her cell had been her escort’s stench.

“I am pleased, at least, that my last sight shall be of you,” he said.

Wincing, she replied, “ease your words, it’s more likely we’ll both be soon held against ransom.”

He coughed. “Well, I might, but your uncle has already turned down the offer, as I’ve mentioned. Still, I will stand and fight for you – should it be necessary.”

“Oh, certainly not – the cost would be too high.” Lilian’s gaze held on the writhing mass of clubs and poorly concealed flesh. They were no further than a half-league.

Cornelius smiled. “Perhaps you might make some down payment then? With an embrace?”

His brazen phrases were cut short, however, by the shadows of a hundred kites breaking over the vista’s edge: They were frames of the Royal Contrivers, the Queen’s engineers.

Under their gliding shade came on a host so immense it stretched the horizon, and at its lead cantered the warhorse Gwelmere, who had once pulled straight the crooked tower of the sorcerer Al’Min.

On the beast’s back rode the woman who’d broken him: Sofia Esperon, Queen of the Hundred Kingdoms.

Though not but the fury in her eyes was visible behind her plate and mail, it was obvious she was displeased.

With a raise of her onrushing hand, the wicker and canvas structures let loose from the marching strings that made up their only earthly bonds, and, catching the wind, their creaking and pondering passage carried them into the ranks of the surging ogres.

Each impact delivered an explosive wrath.

Holding high her ebony spear, the queen summoned ten thousand arrows, then ten thousand more.

Behind her, the roar of the Royal Guard’s war-bears was enough to drown the wild drums and chorus, which had now shifted to a rhythm of retreat.

As the savage multitude moved up, and beyond, the distant crest, Sofia Esperon did not follow.

Instead, she turned her attention to the prince, and his supposed prize.

Removing her helm, the monarch strode through the untested line of hired swordsman.

For the first time that day, Lilian felt true relief.

Cornelius only smiled and waved at his regent.

Sofia Esperon’s voice easily cut the distance to their airy post, and the hired singers and sword-arms averted their smirks to avoid risking their pay.

“Oh,” said the queen, “quite pleased that you’re out of danger, are you?”

The prince ceased his greeting.

“Has he made overtures?” Sofia asked the former prisoner.

Lilian nodded.

“I did not come,” continued Esperon, “to deal with those foul-mouthed gluttons. I unfurled my banners because I knew such blue-blooded scoundrels would be skulking about, looking to capitalize on a hostage’s distress.”

“What sort of man seeks to bind the hand of a woman while her wrists are still aching from the manacles of her kidnappers?”

It was the duchess’ turn to grin – and well she might, as the queen’s poets would be profoundly inspired by her tenacity for months to come.

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

  • Car Door Slam by sdfalk

    • Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

    – and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

    FPSE12 – The Princess’ Long Ride, Part 1 of 1

    Welcome to Flash Pulp, Special Episode 12.

    Flash PulpTonight we present The Princess’ Long Ride, Part 1 of 1

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulpSE12.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

    This week’s episodes are brought to you by Nutty Bites.

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, we find ourselves riding with Sofia Esperon through a fantastic land of blades and bewitchment.

     

    The Princess’ Long Ride, Part 1 of 1

    Written by J.R.D. Skinner
    Art and Narration by Opopanax
    and Audio produced by Jessica May

     

    Sofia Esperon was a Princess of The Hundred Kingdoms, and the mount beneath her was a chestnut stallion at the full height of its power. The horse was hard at its pace, its breath pounding the air as much as its legs beat the turf.

    Behind her lay a turmoil of upturned grass and men.

    The trouble had begun when the Princess had found herself caught between the mire of the damned and the western spout of the madman’s trough – a river widely reputed to scatter minds and leave behind muttering husks.

    Skinner Co.She’d known it to be a poor choice for travel, but she’d deemed the expediency a necessity, and the alternative – a week’s travel down the king’s highway, followed by a diplomatically long celebration in the bridge town of Webling – was beyond consideration.

    A day’s ride later, however, the man-sized bats of the malignant swamp were quick to support the argument for taking the safer route.

    Their broad wings and bone-shivering screeches were enough to drive back her retinue, but not the princess herself, who’d broken from the pack of nobles – hand-selected by her father – to drive further into the cattails and mud.

    Sofia had been in sight of the marsh’s end, some two nights following, when the muck’s guardian, Kark, overtook her.

    Kark had little respect for any sovereignty other than his own, and no interest in conversation but the whispering of his black-eyed horde.

    Esperon’s captivity amongst the reedy fortress was spent with damp boots and annoyed shouts, both ignored by her jailer. Kark’s focus was far too absorbed in the mystic concoction he’d set about preparing: An elixir whose major component – only to be added at the moment of apex – was an inordinate amount of still-warm blood from a true princess.

    The citadel, which had been grown, through occult means, from the white cedars of the bog itself, was frustratingly slow in igniting under Sofia’s flint and tinder, and, by the time she’d thoroughly judged the winds and stoked the flames, the banner flags of a local noble had arrived upon the scene.

    The thick limb she’d taken up as her defense was hard pressed to fend off the howling sorcerer’s leathery minions, but it was with some surprise that she found herself landing in the arms of the Duke of Somdak after vaulting the smoldering outside wall of the compound.

    He was quick to explain that the smoke had drawn him, and that, in truth, she’d done him a favour, as he’d been tracking the fiend who’d fouled his game grounds’ water supply – a crime easily laid at Kark’s feet. It was the extent of their discussion, as Somdak was eager to conquer the remote bastion, and so Sofia was made to wait with the Duke’s serving eunuch while the men of the column unsheathed their blades.

    The Duke’s guard, a half-thousand strong, had little trouble dealing with the blight upon their hunting lands, and, after a brief exchange of arcane lightning and crossbow bolts, the wizard’s head was adorning a pike at the ruin of his gate, and the host moved again to the fen’s edge.

    Given their easily rusted chain and plate armour, Somdak and his swords were eager to be beyond the moisture – at least such was their excuse when denying her requests to palaver with the Duke, though she could see him, even at her distance, holding open conference with his flask of stout.

    She was left to ride the eunuch’s tired mare.

    When they finally encountered solid ground, and the hunting party’s followers – set handsomely amongst their caravans and extravagant campsites – Sofia knew she was once again bound by the tedious politics of court.

    Within full sight of his supporters, and at the perfect dramatic moment, the Duke dismounted.

    He began loudly, “My dearest Princess -” only to find his mind drawing a blank.

    “Damn, my apologies,” he whispered, as he leaned close. “While I recall your title from our first encounter, your father’s name and house escapes me at the moment. Your beauty seems to have wiped it from my mind.”

    Boasting bravado, and a copious amount of victory ale upon the march, were more likely amnesiacs by Sofia’s considerations, but her own perception had remained, as ever, clear.

    “My lord, you do not recall even my name?” she asked.

    The Duke looked to his closest lieutenants for assistance, but the woman’s annoyance at being disregarded had prevented her from disclosing details of her position to any other amongst the company.

    “A shameful, admission, true,” said Somdak, with some urgency, “so speak it quickly, and ease my heart’s dismay.”

    Standing in the yellow light of the grassy plain, she briefly watched the beseeching Lothario sway under the weight of his well adorned plate, and considered her response – then, with the determination that would one day unite the kingdoms beneath her, Sofia raised high her palms and gave a mighty shove against his iron chestplate.

    Before the Duke might be righted, Sofia took to the saddle of his stallion and laid in her heels.

    There was no time for idle romance – she had a prince to save.

     

    Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

    Freesound.org credits:

    Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

    – and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

    193 – Support: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 6

    Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and ninety-three.

    Flash PulpTonight we present, Support: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 6.
    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)
    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp193.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

    This week’s episodes are brought to you by View From Valhalla.

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, master frontiersman and student of the occult, Thomas Blackhall, encounters a reclining concern while visiting whisky-soaked civilization.

     

    Flash Pulp 193 – Support: a Blackhall Tale, Part 1 of 6

    Written by J.R.D. Skinner
    Art and Narration by Opopanax
    and Audio produced by Jessica May

     

    Thomas BlackhallBlackhall had been adrift in the western districts for some time, the route to his missing wife, Mairi, having been temporarily hidden from his scrutiny. It was with the hope that he might once again take up the trail that he’d set his ear towards any happening which seemed to be of an occult nature, and this tact is what lead him to the workshop of a cooper named Harold Bowman.

    Perth was a bustling settlement, filled beyond capacity by farmers looking to supply, and inbound transplants waiting out various legal necessities before being allowed to claim their muddy plots. The same river that brought settlers, also carried whisky, and Thomas had heard it boasted in the Bucking Pony that they arrived in equal amounts, but it was only the drink that quickly found its way to the dirt.

    Chronic unruliness necessitated authority, and, as such, the town was further bolstered by a strong military presence – as often cited as the cause of trouble as its solution – and, while bunking within their purview, Blackhall had walked a straight line, with his hat brim low, in hopes of remaining below notice.

    It was at having avoided a well-decorated officer of his former acquaintance that Thomas wore a smile as he entered the saw-dust strewn works, a grin which was at first mistaken by Bowman as the token of a pleasurable encounter.

    “In need of barrels, sir?” said the carpenter, “I make the strongest in these parts. Plenty tough to send home a trove of pickled fish, or a gold strike cleverly labeled as a barrel of pickled fish, or even yourself, should your dreams of a gold strike, or pickled fish, have been a bust. Let me know how many you lack, and I’ll let you know how long you can expect to wait.”

    Thomas did then smirk in honest enjoyment, but it was short lived.

    “While I may yet require such a stingy homecoming, I’ve not come for your labour, but, instead, your lad.”

    The barrel-smith flattened his grin.

    “What would you want with that layabout?” he asked.

    “I believe I might help him.”

    Ripping a crescent of nail from his index finger, the father spat the paring onto the floor.

    “Fine,” he said, pushing aside a frayed green and white blanket which had been hung as a curtain across a darkened opening at the rear of the room.

    To Blackhall’s first glance, the space appeared little more than a large closet, with a knitting woman in the corner to his left, and a ragged honeycomb of floor-to-ceiling shelves running along the wall to his right.

    “Ms. Amelia Burton, once the sluggard’s intended,” said the establishment’s proprietor, by way of introduction.

    The needles continued to clack as she gave a nod at their approach, but, as she finished her row, she set aside her work to curtsy from her stout furnishing, and Thomas felt compelled to provide a small bow in return.

    “Mr. Bowman, I again request that you do not speak as if Christopher has passed. He may perish, surely, but I may also marry him yet, and I’d rather you not pass pronouncements till it’s come to one or the other.”

    The target of her admonishment simply harrumphed in response.

    “I do apologize at the interruption,” said Blackhall, “I’m no minister, but I believe it within my skills to help see you to the aisle. I’m here on the matter of your betrothed, and his condition.”

    “Any solutions you might provide are welcome,” she replied, “but it’s been many a quacksalver and charlatan who’s given my Chris a thorough prodding, and none have yet brought him awake. After several hours of sweating, the last fellow claimed we’d a corpse equipped with a bellows, and declared the whole thing a fraud – which seemed quite the affront, as he had arrived in town with the intention of retailing a dysfunctional ointment claiming to cure baldness and syphilis.”

    Her voice softened as she continued. “If only it were artifice – truly, my days are spent on the verge of joy or sorrow, with never a resolution. Despite his lack of nourishment, he does not die, but neither does he stir.”

    A silence fell then, and the distant din of the street beyond drifted through the kinks in the building’s rough-hewn planking. Finally, Thomas broke the still with an inquiry.

    “If it’s not too impertinent, I might ask as to where the lad is laid up.”

    “Why, amongst yonder rack,” replied Amelia, pointing towards the motley array of slabs and brackets that dominated the opposing side of the room.

    Following the line of her finger, Blackhall discerned an immobile forearm resting below a rusted saw, and a boot set askew upon a short piling of lumber scraps, salvaged for their fine grain and possible use as trim in future projects.

    By squinting, and stooping slightly, Thomas began to see the outline of the enduring sleeper, as buried beneath a stacked grave of carpentry flotsam.

    “How did it happen?” he inquired of the woodworker.

    The ragged curtain taut in his fingers, Bowman scowled, shook his head, and remained mute.

    “I’ve watched the structure rise around him,” said Ms. Burton, turning from the curmudgeon. “The longer it seemed he would slumber, the less concern Mr. Bowman was prone to show – and it was a decrease from an already short supply. Once this room had only a low bench for adornment, and it was upon it that they laid Christopher when they carried him here from the woods. Mr. Bowman constructed the first tier of storage atop it, during a period in which I was away soliciting assistance, and by the time I’d returned – empty handed – there was already a rickety tower overhead. As the months wore on, he continued his construction, and my pleas have changed nothing. I feel as if a life of accusing his son of laziness has driven all sympathy from his heart – as if this were simply another Sunday on which Chris has slept through the pastor’s sermon.”

    “- and has he had nothing more than the ministrations of mountebanks then?” asked Thomas

    “I’ve done my best, but, unmarried, I am barren of assets with which to obtain the services of a skilled physician. In truth -” she broke off with a glance to her intended in-law, then cupped her slender hand to Blackhall’s battered ear. ”As in the fairy stories of my youth, I have tried on more than one occasion to wake him with a kiss. Despite the sincerity of my efforts, I’ve seen little result. Hopefully you will not think less of me for the silly notion, or the impropriety, but I felt as if it were my responsibility to test all avenues.”

    Rubbing at the three-day’s growth at his chin, Thomas squared his shoulders, and shrugged off his ashen great coat. Offering the crook of his arm, he escorted the premature dowager into the main room, and returned to his position, so that he was now speaking past the reticent craftsman.

    “Perhaps if his father had not been so rushed to lose his child amongst his business, you would have had the opportunity to properly examine him.” Damning himself for the notion, Blackhall removed a fat sack of coins, and dropped it at Bowman’s feet. “Take what I’ll owe for the damages, and leave me what change you think your boy’s life is worth.”

    Giving no further warning, the frontiersman grabbed up a heavy-headed mallet, which had previously rested five askew platforms above Christopher’s sternum, and swept the majority of the contents near to the lad onto the floor.

    The work was not so different from wielding an axe, and with a series of deft strikes – each one accompanied by a gasp issued from the bloodless face of the senior Bowman – Thomas was able to free the slumberer from his timber-cocoon, all while avoiding the total collapse of the lofty storage.

    Draping his snoring load on the heavy chair’s backing, Blackhall lay a hand forcibly upon his shoulder, and began pounding at him as if the beating alone would be enough to rouse the boy.

    “Come now, sleeping beauty,” he muttered.

    It was the third blow that brought up the desiccated fruit – after a spit, and a pop, what appeared to have once been a bite of crab-apple arced across the room and landed with little bounce at the threshold to the adjoining workspace.

    With a snort, Christopher gave a yawn, then stood, his face contorted as if in a daze.

    Blackhall steadied the boy with a firm hold on his shoulders.

    “Was it the old woman then, offering you a snack?” he asked.

    “Yes,” came the yawned reply, “Do you know her? A strange crone, that one.”

    “Which way did she go?”

    “I don’t know – I must have fallen asleep?”

    Winded from his exertions, and his disappointment, Thomas steered the awoken to the seat that had so recently constituted Amelia’s post, and eyed the elder Bowman.

    The man kicked back the sack of coins, and Blackhall stooped to arrange it in his pocket, as well as retrieve his coat, before exiting the establishment.

    He was carried out on the sound of Ms. Burton’s joyful tears.

    The following evening, as he sipped a cup of ale at the Bucking Pony, and made effort to think little of his woes, or his missing Mairi, Thomas wondered if he’d been too hard on the man, and if he’d possibly taken the girl’s words regarding callousness too close to heart without provocation. He dismissed the concern, however, when a pair of uniformed Corporals arrived, and informed him of his detainment under considerations of property damage, as levied by the town’s respected cooper.

     

    (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6)

     

    Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

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    Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

    – and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

    182 – Coffin: The Book Worm, Part 1 of 1

    Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and eighty two.

    Flash Pulp

    Tonight we present, Coffin: The Book Worm, Part 1 of 1.

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp182.mp3]Download MP3
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    This week’s episodes are brought to you by Garaaga’s Children.

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, Will Coffin, urban shaman, and his roommate, Bunny, receive an unexpected letter regarding an avid reader.

     

    Flash Pulp 182 – Coffin: The Book Worm, Part 1 of 1

    Written by J.R.D. Skinner
    Art and Narration by Opopanax
    and Audio produced by Jessica May

     

    CoffinCoffin was staring out onto the apartment’s balcony from behind the sliding-door’s glass.

    In the kitchen, Bunny was operating a blender and shouting explanations between bouts of ice-breaking.

    “Yeah, I know they’re kinda lady-like, but sometimes I get feelin’ a little festive. Besides, how else am I going to get my vitamin C?”

    It had been her idea to stay in for the evening.

    “Flintstones vitamins,” he responded, only to have his words blotted out by renewed thrashing.

    As the racket paused, it uncovered Bunny’s voice, mid-tune.

    “…and getting caught in the rain.”

    Then there was a knock at the door.

    Will was mildly surprised to discover the mute standing in his hall. With an extended arm, he offered entrance to the newcomer, but the man shook his head in friendly refusal, and, instead, removed an envelope from his pocket and set it in Coffin’s palm. Nodding, the messenger then departed.

    As the codger had lost his tongue early in life, the shaman was used to this being the extent of their conversation, but he couldn’t help but feel that the old bull had seemed shaken.

    There were two slips of paper within the delivery, a single handwritten page, and a photocopy of scraps torn from the margins of what appeared to be fantasy novels. Beside a paragraph regarding the claiming of something called the Sword of Dawnswood was a woman’s name, Shirley Hartley, and a string of numbers. Along a bit of text describing an elven forest was another pairing – Cynthia Mayfield and a different set of digits – but also an apology. It read simply, “I’m so sorry.”

    Scanning the accompanying notes, Coffin entered the kitchen.

    “Forget the cocktails, we’re going out,” he said, but Bunny was already packing down a brimming thermos.

    * * *

    As they awaited their bus, Will muttered the letter into his roommate’s ear.

    It read:

    William

    I have a matter which I believe requires your attention.

    A kid I once knew was raiding his local used-bookstore for fiction, and came across the scrawl beside the bit about the sword. He’s a bit of a morbid little bugger, and he recognized the name from the news. He spent an afternoon tossing the shop, and he came up with the other. I have no idea if there are more – they may have been bought or missed.

    Rather than find himself involved, he turned his discoveries over to me.

    Those second-hand places have no real transaction records, but I got lucky – in the top right corner of the first page of both novels, the scribbler in question had signed his name: Neil Murray.

    The missing both disappeared downtown, and, as you probably suspect, the numbers are GPS coordinates. As I write this, there are already uniformed men with tents and tiny brushes setting up in the woods at the edge of town.

    I did some poking around just after I called in the blues. Neil is a security guard, and very fastidious. I talked to his boss briefly, and the harshest language he’s ever heard from his employee is the occasional “gosh.” All he does is sit around a waste treatment plant, watching cameras, and periodically walking the fence. He reads constantly. I’ve been inside his place, and there are books stacked up on every available surface.

    None of them held any further scrawls though.

    I even got my hands on a little of the patrol footage from the plant, just so I’d know Murray to see him. I had to go back and ask for some older stuff to be sure, but you can definitely make it out on the tape: he was changing. Becoming sort of – bulbous. His skin was stretching and rounding. By his last shift he was like a walking sausage with arms, right down to the translucent skin.

    What I’m banking on them not finding till tomorrow is his parent’s house. When Mr and Mrs. Murray died in a car accident, he closed it up as sort of a shrine. I only know about it because of my, uh, direct investigation methodology, and hopefully it’ll take a bit for the boys to properly make their way through the paperwork.

    I realize it’s a long run down the bus-line, but you need to look into 279 View’s garage.

    Smith

    It was deeper than Will was used to seeing the former lawman incriminate himself on paper – unless he was at hand to see the sheet burned – and by the time they were done reviewing the dispatch, Coffin was cursing every impeding stop before his own.

    After an hour of swaying with regular halts, and nearing the end of the public-transport’s route, the pair found themselves deposited in a sparsely lit, but well treed, neighbourhood. It was a ten minute walk to the driveway they sought.

    The pavement was cracked, but the yard was trim, and the light-blue house looked as if it might still have been lived in. There was an external side-door to the garage, and Will was pleased to find it unlocked.

    A moment’s careful fumbling brought his fingers against a plastic faceplate, and he flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights. Bunny was close behind as he stepped into the open space.

    In the corner furthest from the entrance, above the wooden rafters, was a massive white cocoon. Although many tendrils detached from the main body to keep the thing in place amongst the roof’s beams, the bulk of the nylon-looking weave was in a ten foot cylinder, pressed across the plywood walls at the web’s center.

    “Holy ####, it’s Mothra,” said Bunny.

    “Sort of,” replied Coffin, “he’s undergoing a metamorphoses. He’s becoming a moth-man.”

    “Like with Richard Gere?”

    “No.”

    The both took a tentative step towards the silken structure, and Will found himself surveying the collected yard tools that lined the nearest wall.

    He cleared his throat.

    “It takes a long time for this sort of thing to happen. Months of collecting the proper nutrients – mostly pilfered from cracked braincases. I’ve known some imps who specialize in this sort of bargain, offering to turn them into a unique butterfly and all that. You need to slip off the map of reality pretty far to start seeing those hooligans though. I’m surprised he wasn’t caught talking to himself.”

    “If anyone had given a ####, they’d-a noticed this ####er turning into a ###damn man-erpillar,” replied Bunny. “I’ve seen these guys lurking in the corners of laundry mats and cheap coffee shops. Poor #######s are usually too awkward to even hold their end of the conversation if you do them the favour of making small talk. I’ve always figured it was probably their upbringing.”

    “Not a bad guess – might also explain why he only caved after his Ma and Pa died. At least they raised him well enough that he had some guilt about what he was doing. He’s got another week in that thing, but he likely thought his confessions would go unnoticed until well after he was beating his wings against the night sky.”

    “So,” said Bunny, after a long sip from the lip of her silver canister, “what do we do? Call in a hundred-foot-tall bat?”

    “Nah,” said Coffin, digging out a jerrycan. “We give him what most moths are looking for. I saw a gas station back on the main drag, let’s hustle before Smiths’ friends arrive.”

     

    Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

    Coffin’s theme is Quinn’s Song: A New Man, by Kevin MacLeod ofhttp://incompetech.com/

    Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

    – and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.