Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

I want to ask, as a favor, that if you liked Witch’s Daughter you leave a review. Amazon is still showing nothing but one non-review rating! I figure they’re playing games. AGAIN.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witch’s Daughter (Empires of Magic Book 2)

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM BETH HOMICZ: Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July: A rollicking, lighthearted, timeless story for Americans of all ages

Imagine: Charlotte’s Web and The Pushcart War meet National Treasure!

SOME THINGS SHOULD NEVER BE BOUGHT — OR SOLD.
When ten-year-old Allie Campion wins a finalist slot in the Friendly Family Freedom Franks national Fourth of July essay contest, she and her dad, Dan, depart their small Virginia town, embarking upon a zany whirlwind adventure in the nation’s capital. During their week in Washington, Allie and her spirited fellow finalists discover a conspiracy of crony corruption in high places, and – inspired in part by a curmudgeonly American bald eagle – gallantly set about revealing the truth and righting the wrongs, all while navigating betrayal, defamation, and their own growing desire for independence.

Intelligently and charmingly written by a former licensed D.C. tour guide, Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July™ offers readers a heartwarming, wholesome, laugh-out-loud tale of the indefatigable American spirit.

“A bedazzling book! A fun read for all freedom-lovers… Former D.C. tour guide, Beth Homicz, takes readers on a rousing ‘tour’ of the capital that includes political chicanery, vile villains, an eloquent eagle, and some very smart, determined children.”
— Claire Wolfe, author of Hardyville Tales and other books

Children’s / Middle Grades / Young Adult
American patriotic adventure fiction
Suitable for independent reading by ages 8 and up. Family-friendly, educational, enjoyable entertainment.
Highly recommended for helping young readers to build vocabulary and civic knowledge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beth Homicz is a national award-winning former local reporter and a co-author of AMC’s Best Day Hikes near Washington, D.C. (Appalachian Mountain Club Books: 2011, 2017, and 2023). As a licensed professional tour guide based in the nation’s capital for many years, Beth hosted more than 15,000 travelers from all walks of life – primarily student groups – on their own memorable Washington adventures. She now lives in the mountains of Virginia, where she is at work on several other stories. Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July is her first novel.

FROM MAX COSSACK: Deep Fakery (The Wilder Bunch)

When the State of Minnesota arrests and charges Ojibwa City local Aaron Fishel with murder, his defense lawyers Sam Lapidos and Jacob Laghdaf face an impossible task—the single security camera video shows Fishel murdering his victim in gruesome detail. As trial approaches and his lawyers try and fail to protect Fishel, they recruit help, and everyone involved begins to ask tough questions.

What is a crime?
What is justice?
What is reality?

Will this ripping suspense tale answer any of these questions? Only the reader will find out

FROM J. MANFRED WEICHSEL: Action Girls: Triple Threat

The Action Girls are a trio of wannabe Hollywood starlets whose failed movie shoots send them on absurdist pulp adventures. This omnibus collects all three novels (Jungle Jitters, Into the Bush, and Space Escapades) into a single volume, allowing new and returning readers to experience the complete Action Girls saga.

Jungle Jitters: The Action Girls are trafficked into the Congo by a cult of mad scientists who want to create a new race of hybrids by mating humans with apes.

Into the Bush: The Action Girls try to shoot a movie on the body of a 300-mile-tall giantess whose pubic hair forms a jungle ecosystem teeming with monstrous mites, crab-like beasts, and human-sized bacteria.

Space Escapades: A space witch teleports the Action Girls across the galaxy and into a fight for survival on hostile planets, lawless space stations, and worlds beyond imagination.

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Another Word for Magic (Family Law Book 6)

Fleeing the Solar System after an attack by North America, the three Home habitats now have to seek their own fortunes. Heather, Sovereign of Central on the Moon saved them but now has to make certain the USNA can never threaten them again.
What was a tentative research partnership with the Red Tree Clan of Derfhome becomes a full alliance of equals. Lee finds she has to grasp authority and act for the Red Tree Mothers and herself to repossess the planet Providence she and Gordon discovered. The Claims Commission on Earth has collapsed without the leadership of North America. Explorers like her are cut off from their payments and the colonists on Providence are left in the lurch too. To do that she needs these powerful new allies.

FROM GIULLIANA LOCAY: Pemberley and Pastelitos

A Hot, Laugh-Out-Loud Pride and Prejudice Inspired Story in Sunny Miami
Lizzie Benitez is Miami’s undisputed queen of efficiency. She’s this close to landing the career-defining project that will finally give her the financial security she’s worked her entire life for… until the infuriating, far-too-handsome Mr. Pemberley shows up to see if she’s really worth it. He’s rude, condescending, and seems determined to undermine her at every turn. Lizzie’s confidence is unshakable—except now she’s counting down the days until she can escape his judgmental stares without causing her to lose the project or her mind.
Enter her chaotic Cuban family: her influencer sister who thinks every crisis needs a TikTok, her no-filter Abuela dropping truth bombs over cafecito, and the sudden appearance of charming Mr. Wick with his easy smile and confusing signals. As deadlines tighten, family meddling intensifies, and the holiday season arrives just in time to cause maximum mayhem, Lizzie begins to wonder if the biggest obstacle to her perfect life isn’t Pemberley at all… but her own stubborn heart. A modern, multicultural enemies-to-lovers romance packed with Spanglish banter, pastelitos-fueled chaos, workplace tension, over-the-top Cuban family love, and enough sazón to thaw the coldest professional pride with one bite.
Tropes: Enemies to lovers • Workplace romance • Big, loud Cuban family • Holiday chaos • Pride and Prejudice retelling
Heat level: Spicy
Setting: Vibrant Miami

BY ANTHONY GILMORE, HARRY BATES AND DESMOND W. HALL, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING : Space Hawk: The COMPLETE Hawk Carse Stories: The Retro Pulp Space Opera Non-Classics!

In 1931, Harry Bates, the editor of Astounding Stories, was dissatisfied with the quality of the fiction he was getting from writers. So he, along with his assistant Desmond W. Hall, rolled up their sleeves and created a protagonist, and antagonist, and wrote four stories to show the other writers “how to do it right”.

The result, Hawk Carse, and his nemesis, the diabolical Ku Sui, are certainly memorable. As critic Schuyler P. Miller put it, “Hawk Carse was so bad, he was almost good.”

This iktaPOP Media collection of the original stories includes, for the first time, the fifth and last Hawk Carse story, “The Return of Hawk Carse”, written by Harry Bates alone, and published in 1942 in Amazing Stories rather than Astounding.

  • This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the stories genre and historical context.

EDITED BY DAVID BADURINA: Crashed Landings: Stories of First Contact, Strange Arrivals & Cosmic Adventure (Raconteur Press Anthologies)

Ten writers. Ten crashed landings. Zero warnings.
In Crashed Landings, editor David Badurina has assembled ten all-new stories inspired by the group-adventure films of the 1980s and ’90s —The Goonies, Explorers, Stand by Me, The Sandlot–where a strange event throws mismatched kids together and nothing is ever quite the same afterward.
A boy and his bully chase a fallen meteorite through the woods — only to find out it belongs to someone else. Three friends on prom night stumble onto a robot that fell out of the sky, and have to put it back together before the town pays the price. A fungal alien heart crash-lands in the forest and starts rewriting the wildlife. A teen grief camp gets an unexpected visitor from a crashing seed-pod. A space trucker with a time-traveling rig and a trunk full of contraband coffee recruits a girl with a slingshot and a very good reason to disappear. A boy in Kansas realizes the thing living in his skin isn’t quite him anymore. Bird-like aliens help a crash-landed human pilot evade an enemy patrol on a planet that isn’t Earth. And more.
These stories share a DNA: emotion, banter, wide-eyed wonder, and the kind of friendship that only happens when the world gets weird enough to need it. Good guys and bad situations. Stakes that feel real. Characters you’ll root for. Endings you’ll remember.
If you grew up watching kids on bikes outrun something impossible, and you’ve been waiting for that feeling in prose, Crashed Landings is for you.
Ten stories. One anthology. Infinite crash sites.

FROM PATRICK K. MARTIN: Threads

Science tells us that there are an infinite number of possible universes and nearly as many versions of you. Imagine if you had to be all of those lives. Imagine all the things you could ever be, good, bad, lover, fighter, benevolent or evil. Imagine if all the possible threads of your life became roads you had to walk. . .

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: All Precious Stones and Peoples (Timelines Universe Book 11)

Once, a million years ago, a water world populated with dolphin-like beings, the product of gene-alteration by their Progenitors on the Earth-like world one orbit closer to the sun, was flung into the cold and dark of interstellar space by the passage of a rogue star.

And four thousand years ago, its engineers were awakened from suspended animation to bring the world into a new orbit around a giant, blue-white star, where the waters of the World Ocean could thaw and life could continue to flourish.

This is the story of the A’ka’pa’i’ka’ti, and their Foretold Saintess, Speaker to the Dry Ones, born to communicate with the Progenitors when they finally arrived to reclaim the lost . . .

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Starlight Running

Eight lives depend on Kyle’s desperate trek across the Moon to get help. But someone — or something — intends for him to fail. Can he defeat it in time?

FROM JOHN BAILEY: THE AFFAIR OF THE SILENT TERRAFORMER (The Detective Stories)

On a world where machines breathe for an entire planet, one silent failure could mean catastrophe.

When Chief Atmospheric Engineer Dr. Lucien Korda is found dead inside a sealed control tower at the Helios Atmospheric Control Complex, the case appears straightforward: a disgruntled technician, a history of safety complaints, and a system breach that triggered a dangerous storm over the colony’s capital.

But Inspector Matthias Veyron does not believe in obvious answers.

As he walks the towering machinery that governs the air itself, Veyron uncovers a deeper and more unsettling truth. The terraforming network—designed with perfect redundancy to prevent failure—has been quietly drifting from its intended balance. Calibration shortcuts, corporate pressures, and buried decisions have created a system no longer entirely understood by those who operate it.

And someone knows.

Someone with intimate knowledge of the system.
Someone who staged a failure precise enough to alarm—but not destroy.
Someone who needed a scapegoat.

As political pressure mounts and the colony demands answers, Veyron must unravel a mystery where the weapon is not a blade or a gun, but a planetary machine—and the motive may be buried in years of compromise.

Because on Rigel 5, the greatest danger is not that the system will fail…

…but that it already has.

AND JUST IN CASE YOU’VE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK: FROM SARAH A. HOYT: NO MAN’S LAND

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: FRIGHTENING

70 thoughts on “Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike”

  2. Don’t know how I managed it, but reading Witchfinder got interrupted about a quarter through it. So, after getting Witch’s Daughter, I had to re-start and just finished Friday. Soon, M’lady.

    Like

    Reply

    1. [Puts current re-read in progress on hold, and cues up Witch’s Daughter.] Will read as soon as able. I’ve been interrupted by Life and Chores, and the ever-frightening Projects, all of which are taking away reading time. Sigh.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    2. I’m thinking of various college teams with Fighting X in the name. s/Fighting/Frightening and you get some interesting ones:

      Frightening Irish (perhaps in a bar after a game)

      Frightening Illini (History/legend says they were the losers at Starved Rock, so maybe not so frightening…)

      Frightening Gamecocks (If you’re a gamehen?)

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

        1. One imagines the cheers at a ‘pods game. “Eat their souls, defense!” Frightening Cephalopods, ayiiieee!

          Like

          Reply

        3. And the Fighting Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz!

          Their old Fencing Club logo was a slug wearing a feathered Musketeer hat and wielding a foil.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  3. Taylor took a long sip of his coffee. “It’s a frightening concept, I agree.”

    “That Lovecraft was a happy and sunny optimist? That we’re only thirty years from the fundamental superstructure of universe going wobbly enough to let Elder Gods and the things that live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot sets into our particular place in the universe? And that conscious thought is pretty much what they eat, and there’s over six billion souls on Earth that are tasty and good with chips?” Inessa paused, sighed, and looked at Taylor. “You wouldn’t be telling me this without having an answer.”

    “There is a narrow window, about two years, before things go completely wrong. In those two years, opening gates to other worlds will become incredibly easy. We need to find at least one-hopefully more-that is outside of the TSTP, habitable, human survivable, and won’t be going into a TSTP or Black Swan event in next few centuries. And after that, getting colonists there as fast as we can funnel them through with equipment and supplies.” Taylor replied and looked down at his almost empty cup.

    “When does this window open?”

    “The first exploration teams can be sent in about a year. We have three years, as big a ‘black’ budget as we can get away with, minimal oversight, and lots of motivation to make this work.”

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. An aide rushed in, panicked. “The Democrats have filed an injunction! They demand a complete environmental impact study on every world before anyone is allowed to transit. They’ll delay our timeline by at least 12 years!”

      “You did tell them the Great Old Ones will devour the minds of every thinking being on this planet?”

      “They either don’t believe it, or don’t care.”

      “Hmmm. Could it be, they’re so stupid the Old Ones can’t take anything from them?”

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  4. The rails groaned beneath their wheeled burden. No other living thing but Alois was near enough to hear – the ground was bare sand and stone for miles on either side, and his cloak concealed him well enough.

    He slowly unstopped the flask and crawled closer to the wains; he sought a bit of the umbra surrounding each one.

    For this was the kingdom’s pride and happiness, the transport of all its fears past its borders. It was the Royal Fright Line, and Alois had some frightening to do.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. You remember William Penn, elder (D 1718) and younger, yes?

        WP Senior had several sisters; while WP was wealthy, his sisters not so much, and they had to resort to commerce.

        They chose a bakery, and it became known for its very reasonable prices. William Junior would visit them often.

        Their success and business practices were memorialized by Gilbert and Sullivan, in their opera the Pie Rates of Penn’s Aunts.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

          1. “Continue the operation. You may carp when ready.”

            …

            “Target the Punster. Target the Punster! Target everyone! Somebody carp!”

            Like

            Reply

  7. “I shall send messengers to the city.”

    “And what shall you tell the messengers to do?” said Princess Katherine.

    “To use their best judgment,” said Prince Aurelius. “Better that they bring news back than fall into peril delivering my message.” His eyes narrowed. “Who is hiding what, and from whom?”

    Like

    Reply

  8. Remember, o Readers, that you can be FORCE MULTIPLIERS!

    When you read books, you can rate and review them.

    Even short reviews are of aid to the writer, because sheer mass helps. (And if you really can’t review, still rate.)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. The pen isn’t mightier than the sword. Pens don’t win battles, and swords don’t write poetry reviews. But mighty is the hand that knows when to pick the pen & when to pick the sword.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  9. “The new cursed tax rates will impoverish your people, Qil-ys-bhf-n-ting”

    “Then we must put all our energies into working around this new threat from the humans”

    “F-right, nTing!”

    Like

    Reply

    1. “Send for the Carp Ark!”

      “Boss, isn’t that the CARP Arc, like the Arc-Light stuff from the First Vietnam War?”

      *Points with paw to large ship filled with piscine punishment* “That Carp Ark.”

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  10. Aia had swung her dagger blindly at the bandit, but she must have hit something important. It only took a moment for the brute to die, but oh, so much blood.

    Then she turned around and expelled what little was in her stomach. The experience hadn’t been frightening, just sickening.

    Like

    Reply

  11. Buckler knelt beside the narrow seam as Katana began inching her way out of it. When Katana’s arms were more or less free Buckler pulled the rest of her out and waited for the senior Warrior to get to her feet.

    “I’m sorry I had to put you through that,” Buckler said. “I know It must have been frightening.”

    Katana’s helmet tilted as she put her gauntleted hands on her hips. “No, it wasn’t, actually,”

    she replied, her voice desert-dry.

    “No?”

    “It was terrifying.” Katana paused. “And you had better have a good reason for bringing me here.”

    Like

    Reply

  12. Time for me to shut down for the day, think I’ve been out in the sun too much. For some reason, I read your reading tastes as “electric and craving LSD.” I’ve read that correctly a couple hundred times before, too.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  15. Canned soup warmed over an old oil heating stove wasn’t Alice’s idea of supper, but with the power out, she couldn’t open the fridge or use the electric range. Already daylight was fading, and the glimmer of flame at the bottom of the stove’s firebox seemed awful faint.

    The younger kids were singing “Let It Snow” for the twentieth or thirtieth time. Although they were trying to make it sound like Christmas cheer, if only a few weeks late, Alice could tell they were scared.

    You’re the adult here, Alice reminded herself. She couldn’t afford to worry about whether the roads would be cleared in time for her to get back to Minneapolis for spring semester at UMinn, when her younger siblings were worried about how they would get through the night with Mom and Dad gone.

    As she scanned the kitchen, her gaze rested on one book. There, beside the cookbooks, was Great-grandmother’s copy of Luther’s Small Catechism. “Let’s make believe we’re pioneers and the only books we have in the house are the Bible and the Catechism.”

    At once they all perked up.

    Like

    Reply

  16. “That would be hard to tell apart,” said Edur. “Or judge the danger. They would have used anything to protect themselves, and Heaven alone knows what lurks there. Honor could remove the taint, but ordinary spellcraft will remain. Still, we need only avoid that, since people live safely around it.”

    Like

    Reply

  17. “They finally ordered food. They all want the fish fry special.”

    “How many?”

    “Two ordered two, one ordered three, but they all usually order an extra piece a bit later. So fry ten, Ning.”

    “Ten it is.”

    Like

    Reply

    1. Savors the moment, then presses the “shoot ” button enabling the combined fleet massdriver batteries to carp-et bomb the planet.

      Like

      Reply

  18. “Dammit.”

    Karl sighed as he climbed the stairs. All the leads dead ended here. At the last minute. Just like he intended, no doubt. Atop the lowest crumbling tower on the East side, in the middle of the burnt out slums where not even the desperate would go.

    Human- and dwarven, elven, and all sorts of whatnot no doubt- nature was a funny thing. Superstition and habits were stronger than any laws. Word was, the tower was haunted. Cursed. Bad luck and like to give you boils on your unmentionables or worse. Stories of drunks and children taking the chance and never being seen again still resonated with the lowest of the low.

    Aged wood trembled underfoot. Wouldn’t hold for long. Freeclimbing. He hated climbing. Up the stone wall, at least that was sturdier. Boots off, because a sure grip beat a chancy toehold. Sweat dripped into his eyes.

    Outside, the sounds of revelry echoed even down here. The Longest Night held a history longer than the written word. Everybody celebrated. And inebriated. The party would not end until dawn’s first light. Even the priests were getting lit. Through a head sized gap in the wall, he caught sight of two such celestially anointed persons going at it with dueling tongues.

    Craziness. Normally, there’d be talk. Mother Green and the Vorn didn’t see eye to eye all that much. But perhaps the gods’ eyes were elsewhere.

    Nearer the top the stone shifted. Karl cursed, jamming a foot into a gap and swinging wide to let it drop. Close didn’t count. Not close to the top, not close to- best not finish that thought. Superstitions. Everybody had them. The next path up was harder. He’d wanted that stone to stay still.

    The rooftop, what was left of it, was empty. Because of course it was. No mana signatures stood out from the usual muddy haze of the city.

    But that was the problem. The chaos was too bland. Not uniform, but without the sort of eddies and random spikes that happened even in the deadest of corners. The effect was subtle.

    But subtle wasn’t enough to throw off someone with his particular blend of skills and training. Down the chimney. That narrow, still standing bit of masonry, hidden but not well enough. Karl grunted and shimmied his way down.

    The wards started halfway in. He should have gone down headfirst, but all that blood going to the brain couldn’t but be a bad thing, he thought.

    Disarming them would take time. But there was an easier way.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Karl hit the basement feet first in a messy explosion of spectral aspect tinged with space and time. Dust kicked up in a choking cloud, then settled abnormally quickly. Glowing runescript covered every surface. The dust avoided the runes.

      There was no reason for him to avoid them, though.

      Down through the basement, down deep into the bedrock the city was built on was the source of power that made everything possible. Lines of power buried deep in the earth occasionally rose to nearly touch the surface in places. Ley lines, some called them. Others, dragon veins. Still others called them the rivers of the first Ur. They only appeared at certain times. Sometimes, centuries would pass before they returned.

      “Hello old friend,” came the voice through the haze of charging runescript. A familiar voice. “I had hoped no one would find me here.”

      “Yeah. I figured that. What with the traps and all,” Karl replied.

      At the lowest level, the air thrummed with power. Spontaneous manifestations lit off and died like fireflies in the mist that covered the rough cave floor. Ahead on a raised dais stood a thin man. His salt and pepper hair hung long and wild. His beard still had a bit of fried dough left in it.

      But his face was calm. His hands steady. His magic danced through the air like a well trained troupe following a practiced form.

      “Not going to stop me?” William’s voice trembled ever so slightly.

      “No,” Karl replied softly. “What would be the point?”

      “What indeed. What indeed…”

      The spell was massive he wove was massive. Titanic in scale, in power, and scope all combined. The kind of thing that would take hundreds of normal mages working in concert to attempt, and even then with a high chance of failure.

      Because exactingly precise coordination on that scale was a fool’s errand. That was just plain common sense.

      Karl sighed and let loose the restrictions on his source. It was like finally being able to take a full breath after having to fight for every teeny scrap of air.

      “I don’t know how you do it, mate.”

      “Practice,” he replied.

      “Practice and bloody minded stubbornness most like,” the older man shot back.

      “That, too.”

      “Two of the last siege magicians in existence meet up in a cellar in the slums. Tell me that’s not a joke somewhere,” Karl muttered, feeling out the structure of the spell’s matrices. Enough power was already feeding into it to damn a city. Or save it. And it wasn’t even close to complete.

      “Won’t be but one, soon,” William said. Karl tensed involuntarily.

      “No need for that young man. I’m just dying is all.”

      “Oh.”

      Like

      Reply

      1. They wove magic deep into the morning. Karl smoothed out the snags in the finicky bits, his greater control stabilizing them as he fed more raw power into the hungry bits that needed firmer foundations. William patiently wrestled the larger sections into place.

        By the time of Darkest the older man was already fading.

        “What’s it do?” Karl asked, slotting another into place like a master mason fitting a block in a wall.

        “What should’ve been done in the first place,” William gasped. “Protects. Maintains. Keeps the flows stable. Prevents un-” he hacked a cough. “-scrupulous characters from parasitizing the flow.”

        “Easy now,” Karl helped his old friend down from the dais. He shifted his mana to the next troubled section, tweaking it and massaging it into proper shape.

        “Time was- time was we could just do this with just more power. Just shove it into place. Hah…”

        “Yeah. Back then there were more of us, though.” Karl’s face darkened in memory.

        William did not respond. Karl watched the hairs of his beard quiver as the old man fought for breath that barely came.

        Throughout the Darkest hour he kept working. Kept talking to William about the spell. About the old days. About his cases, his trouble with keeping his magic small and contained.

        William Cooper, siege mage and friend, loved by few and feared by many, died without seeing the dawn. The hunt for siege mages would never let up. But for one, at least, he slipped through the net.

        Hours later, Karl climbed back up to the light. William rested by the Ley line. Children laughed and played. Groaning revelers attempted to sober up. The last siege mage left in the city packed his source back in. Clambered down the tower with even greater care than he climbed it. His bed was calling.

        Future generations would barely know what the two did to protect them. Bad actors from ambitious necromancers to power hungry pact sorcerers were frustrated before their grand plans even got off the ground.

        But those in power already knew something had changed. And deep down, for those old enough and world-wise enough, some part of them found something that frightened them. For power wrought on such a scale caused ripples. And few beings could survive such waves, let alone wield them.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  19. Completely off topic: I was scrolling through the Sarah Hoyt page on Amazon, and discovered that there is an old (2008) three-volume series published — in paperback only — by Bantam: the Magical British Empire series, which includes Heart of Light, Soul of Fire and Heart and Soul. Someday, Sarah, when you finally have a little time between all the other books clamoring to be written — not that I’m complaining, you understand, given how many volumes of yours have joined my electronic shelves recently, I feel entirely spoilt — can I vote for a reissue or a rewrite of these to be made available in ebook form? I realize you may be tired of me asking for things when you are already preparing other things that I discover to be equally delighted by, but there it is. I’m greedy. My thanks, many years (and books!) in advance.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Yes. My assistant, through the mess of the last few years is trying to fix these. They were extensively… um… “politicized” and I no longer have the originals. So, she’s trying to clean them up. By the by. Meanwhile, I’ve got Rhodes to Hell to finish. :D

      Like

      Reply

      1. On a slightly related note, my Kindle copy of Witchfinder seems to have been mugged. Not enough to make it unreadable, but … lots of very strange line breaks, and little artifacts like a notation at the end of a chapter Chapter X, and then on the next page, it is headed Chapter X+3

        None of that in Witch’s Daughter.

        Publishing must be such fun.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. My Kindle copy of Witchfinder has similar problems, but I have a Nook copy that seems to be OK.

          Mind you, I don’t know if B&N still has Witchfinder available.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  20. I saw a news story this morning about how airline personnel find lithium batteries frightening. Seems there was a walking humanoid robot whose owners had purchased a ticket on a certain airline’s flight to Chicago. Said flight was much delayed because of the robot’s batteries, which are (naturally) lithium ion (and perhaps other considerations). The airline seized the battery pack. The robot would still make his next show; they were having the batteries overnighted.

    Perhaps the batteries are coming on a cargo plane (being lithium ion they probably will). Otherwise, I might as well start reciting the nonsense poem: “One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight….”

    Like

    Reply

  21. Other blogs, I think I am seeing some drive by trolls, so for now people think the info war is productive.

    Aimed at this congressional cycle, because of Iran and China, I think. Aim is to intimidate TRump I think.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a reply to Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard Cancel reply