What do I mean sings? Well, I can animate it, but unfortunately not attach sounds….

However, these videos do have songs.

This first one, for those who read the e-arcs or who are waiting for Volume 3 of No Man’s Land, this Erradian Lullaby features prominently in a very emotional scene in it. Therefore I thought it should be shown off.

The next one doesn’t appear in the book, and obviously it’s not an ERRADIAN song (though arranged differently it could be.) I was just thinking of the magicians in their blue cloaks. They march off while the battle shield is still down to try to help the wounded and fix the shields, with the cloaks both a help, because other magicians can find them, and a major liability because people try to kill them.

And it’s been two rough days and I have a headache, so I went ahead and did the song and video.

Lately I keep hearing things like “England is lost” and “Europe is lost” and–

Keeping in mind that they were never like us — NEVER — and that their system will always be closer to socialism, because it started from monarchy and it’s easy to convert from “subject” to “the happy citizen of Brutopia.”

I actually can’t watch their news when I visit because my head breaks, and then I start screaming at the TV, and then Dan has to grab my arm so I don’t throw shoes through the screen. It’s the little things “The government has decided more slots for pre-school are needed throughout the country. These are the numbers they’ll be building.” I THINK that was Holland. Might have been Spain. Or “the grand pubbah” (I don’t remember the designation) “of housing is ordering the construction of more housing units.”

It’s not real socialism, because they still have food, but I keep running into “Bro, do you even free market?”

But given that they’ve always been like that and got worse over the twentieth century, they’re not as bad as the news portrays.

Look, we keep buying what the news say. And OUR news, which you can’t hate enough, are still way way way more accurate than European news. Because among other things, Europeans believe that the state has the right to control the news. (Remember the French gigolo who commented here ten years or so back? When we told him the government did NOT control our news, he kept telling us “Then who does?” “How can they have news if no one tells them what to say?” Or words to that effect. They really, really, really think that makes some sort of sense.)

And part of the problem is that they assume OUR news too are controlled to paint a rosy picture, so they keep trying to “unspin” our news, which means what they get has… not resemblance to the US in ANY vague way. If you wonder why they think we’re Nazis.

The problem is, we also have no idea what is actually going on over there, because 90% of what we get is their elites planned narrative. Which might not even have a waving acquaintance with the truth.

So, for here, for instance, during Covid(iocy) a lot on our side were traumatized by “They did all this sh*t and people LET THEM.” But… granularly, on the ground, it wasn’t even close to universal compliance. Heck, it wasn’t close to mostly compliance.

Colorado was locked pretty tight, wasn’t it? Well, in the big cities it was, but as we drove out to my MIL’s funeral, we kept going by BILLBOARDS by the road side saying “Our town is completely open, no masks. Please come and shop.” And most restaurants and diners on the way ignored the mask stuff. The hotels we stayed in had signs that said everyone must wear masks, but no one did, really. Etc. etc. And this is in one of the most compliant states.

The other states? Yeah no. And I hear from friends that even in places like Iowa compliance was “by city.” And heck, even in CO, as bad as it was, someone got arrested for walking his fish. Yes, only in Polisland would a policeman think he should arrest someone for that, but OTOH think of the magnificent bastard who heard you could be out if walking your pet, then filled up a ziploc with water, got his goldfish out of his bowl….

But you didn’t hear about these things except under “see how draconian they are!” Only they were only draconian in a case in ten, and the rest of the people were pushing, pushing, pushing all the time.

Don’t forget that. Remember all the cashiers with the mask UNDER their nose? Who would pull the (untied) mask up so you could lip read? They were heroes too, and no, it wasn’t stupidity (I started doing it, when forced to wear masks at the doctor or whatever, because otherwise I had asthma attacks.)

Sure, it was horrible, and they managed to enforce the horrible just enough to tank the economy and steal the election, but our compliance was so so to not at all.

Well, the rest of the world is kind of like that, without the covidiocy. It’s just their priorities aren’t ours, so they don’t automatically foam at the mouth at “The secretary of affairs between middle aged married people will decide who your affair partner is this week.” (I made that up. Probably.) BUT they have their own trigger points.

The British really aren’t happy with the elites attempt to lock up their ability to take the piss out of politicians and tell the truth as they see fit. And no one in Europe is happy with the invasion. Remember the French yellow jackets?

If you get the image of a quiet European populace just going along with everything, remember they’re more like Colorado in the Covidiocy. They have just enough control and compliance to screw things a lot, but it’s nowhere near universal. And there is a point where even the European switch will flip.

The rest of the world is more unfathomable, because frankly we can’t understand them without it breaking our minds. It’s like the mating rituals of the people of Proxima Centauri: If you knew them, it would only disgust you.

However, about the press and its associated mass-entertainment industries: drinking leftist ink poured out in these mediums is how people end up believing nonsense like “fifty percent of the US population is black” let alone all the other bilge routinely poured out like “All blacks are natural communists.”

Look, don’t drink their ink. You know precisely where it’s been. It will only drive you insane.

Instead ALWAYS test everything they say. Always, always, always.

No, not everyone is going along with the invasion of Europe. Because never in the history of ever has EVERYONE gone alone with ANYTHING, including “you must eat to live.”

How big is the resistance? Well, you can tell by how they keep escalating threats and penalties. you remember what they did here, during the Covid lockdowns, right? They kept trying to enforce more and more, because more and more people were walking right up to the light and putting a toe across.

Western civilization isn’t lost. Benighted as it always was (don’t push me now) Europe isn’t lost.

And we? We are certainly not lost.

Let the left guzzle their ink by the bucket full. All it will do is make them crazier, and surely we’re approaching a singularity on that any minute.

Meanwhile, come along and roll up your sleeves. We have work to do. The future ain’t gonna build itself.

And the future always comes from America.

I’m sorry, guys, I had a post started, but my brain has been hijacked by dealing with the unbelievable stupid of foreign bureaucracy.

In the aftermath of dealing with mom’s estate the Portuguese government has decided that I HAVE to be a dual citizen, even though I’m no way a dual citizen.

To wit, I followed the procedure at my naturalization ceremony, of mailing back my passport with a letter renouncing citizenship. I don’t know of any other procedure to do this.

Also so far as I know the US does NOT recognize dual citizenship except for minor children, though we turn a blind eye to it.

To make it perfectly clear: I haven’t had a Portuguese passport in 37 years. My marriage is not even registered in Portugal, nor did I bother to notify them of my name change. My kids were never registered in Portugal and therefore not dual citizens. All my entries into Portugal since 1988 have been on my AMERICAN passport. I couldn’t be more of a non-Portuguese citizen if I had never set foot in the place.

However for inscrutable reasons, possibly having to do with idiocy and taxes, they very badly want to claim this.

I’m very, very close to leading a Hun raiding party to hit them with dictionaries till they get over their illusions. And only because I’m informed a private citizen cannot declare war on a country.

At this point, I want a document saying “I was never Portuguese. You took advantage of my being an infant to falsely imprison me for 25 years.” But they’d probably refuse to get THAT too.

I’m going to try a notarized letter politely (AH!) informing them I renounced the citizenship. (Should I also include some sand I shook from my sandals?)

If it weren’t for the fact that I’d like to see dad once more, and therefore don’t want to be persona-non-grataed before the end of October, I’d turn Heinlein’s picture to the wall, roll up my sleeves and tell them exactly what I think in this post.

Since I can’t, I’ll try the… polite way.

Post tomorrow.

I spent the day going over the copyedits for No Man’s Land 3 which shouldn’t be so incredibly tiring.

This is by way of being, basically a state of the writer post. I still haven’t managed to do any real writing since mom died, and…. well…. sometimes I even come up blank on blogs. (See today.)

So I thought I’d share with you another of the …. snippets from Elly.

For those who haven’t read No Man’s Land (if you’re waiting for the omnibus, it will be electronic only and probably only in December, just on having time to do it… This year has turned super-interesting) it is a lost colony of bioengineered hermaphrodites. I chose to use masculine pronouns, mostly because the breed has no breasts, and using “she” immediately brings up a woman’s figure. Also, to be honest, using “she” seems to call for some kind of feminism, which this isn’t, really.

Anyway, this story takes place between book one and two (not volume one and two, but No Man’s Land and Orphans of the Stars.)

The characters are Selbur Deharn, who is technically (but not really) a Brinarian nomad and who had a child by the king. Since the child is Brundar Mahar’s sireling, he’s technically the heir to the throne, so they make the poor critter move to the royal palace, where he’s like a fish out of water.

Another — er — fish out of water is Nikre Lyto, who is Brinarian born and the adopted child of the former king and (still current) archmagician and legally crossibling of the king. Who is also a bit of a fish out of water in the palace, and also extremely shy.

To add another layer to this, Nikre is the most powerful person in the Brotherhood of Magicians (it’s not real magic, but… bear with me.) And Selbur is the head of eighth circle, a circle known for illusions and mind manipulation, but also the lowest power in the brotherhood. (The circle assignment is a “bend” of the power as well as amount. It also involves personality.) 8th circles “snakes” are generally looked down upon/distrusted by all the other magicians.

Oh, and this is about as “sexy” as the book gets. Actually, there’s more sexy talk in this than in the book. (And it ain’t much.)

Jewels

Nikre Lyto:

I don’t remember when Selbur – Eerlen insisted that since he was now related to the royal family we should all call him by his first name – started to come and sit by the koi pond while I sat there and Missa played by the low wall to the pond.

There was no danger to the child, not even when he leaned over to look at the colorful fish.  Years before my birth some magician had set a safety spell over the pond. You could dip your finger or your feet in the water, but you couldn’t actually dive in.  Unless you were an adult and fully conscious.  Since the water was at most two feet deep, there was no way a conscious adult could die in it.

I’d loved the koi pond my entire life in the palace, and little Missa, now almost two years old, seemed to love it just as much.  It was a vast, tiled pond surrounded by an ornamental low wall, inset in an ocean of well kept lawn, surrounded by shrubs and a wall.

You could get access to it from the family quarters of the royal palace via a long staircase down, or via portal if you were related to the royal family or had been granted access. There was no other way in.

Missa and I were part of the family, if strangely and on the edge, and had spent many hours in this green, shaded oasis, he and I, as I pointed him at the bright spotted koi which were my favorites, some of which I had named when I was not much older than he.  I liked Missa. He was a bright child, with a taking personality, but unlike his sire, my crossibling, Brundar, King of Elly, he was also restful.  He would laugh and run and play, but he could also sit for hours quietly watching the fish, while his nursemaid watched, and I sat on the low bench and sewed or read in peace.

I didn’t pay attention when his birth parent started coming along, and sitting on the long stone bench, at the other end from where I sat.  It took me even longer to see what he was doing.

I’d thought he was sewing. He had a neat, round, about-knee height work basket, of the sort people carried their sewing around in.  It seemed to have a lot of other little baskets inside, which was also normal for sewing baskets. And I’d never looked.

It struck me all of a sudden that sewing of the sort that required a basket was a strange occupation for a nomad, much less a Brinarian nomad.  And I’d seen something glinting between his fingers. So I turned to look.

He was twisting silver wire with a very small pair of pliers. No. The wire was so thin as to be almost thread, and he was weaving it into a band, using a small pair of pliers.  I think the words “What in the Maker’s—” were out of my mouth before I thought them. Though I stopped myself before finishing it.

Selbur looked up and grinned. He has a face like a cat’s. Um…. That sounds strange. No, he doesn’t have whiskers or muzzle or even vertical-slit eyes.  He just has an impish face, with eyes a little too large, and a tendency to look as though you amuse him greatly, no matter what you’re doing.  Which is an improvement over when he was first forced – coerced? – into living in the palace.  As the parent of the only descendant – sireling – of the king of Elly, he couldn’t be allowed to roam Brinar on his own with his child and a bed roll. Not these days with mercenaries of various worlds passionately interested in us. So he’d had a choice of living in the palace or utterly relinquishing custody of his child, little Amissar Deharn. He’d chosen to keep Missa, but spent his first six months in the palace glowering at every one from the king to the servants.

I didn’t realize till that moment that his expression had changed recently. He didn’t precisely look contented, but he looked at peace and faintly amused at everything.

There was nothing faint in his amusement at me.  “Bracelets,” he said. “And necklaces.”  He held up the woven strip of silver wire, with a crystal entangled in it.

I frowned at it, then cleared my throat. I knew – none better – that it took time to get used to being part of the royal family and to the immense hereditary wealth of the Mahars.  Also, to be fair, I’d never had much interest in jewelry, though I had a few good pieces that my sire, the last king of Elly, had given me. But still…  “You don’t have to make your own!” I said. “I mean, I know you won’t ask, but I can hint at Brund you’d like some baubles and I’m sure he’ll give you a choice from the not-bound-to-the-line jewelry box.”

He laughed at me. Delightedly and openly. And no, there was no denying he was laughing at me, though he did it in a way that wasn’t mean, just amused, as though I were being very odd.  “No, silly,” he said. “Not for me. And Brund has already demanded I pick jewels from what appears to be a vast chamber in the basement. Because he thinks I dress too plainly for my connection with him. Apparently Brinarian nomads are supposed to be better dressed. I threatened to pick toe rings.”

I blinked at him. Toe rings was a Brinarian thing. Displayed on bare or sandal-wearing feet, at festivals, they meant the wearer was not picky about whom he’d take as lovers.  Selbur blushed as I blinked. “Not that I meant it,” he said. “But it got him to stop.” He shook the strip of woven silver wire at me.  “These are not for me. I sell them.”

My blinking intensified. It’s a bad habit when I’m trying to understand what I see. “You sell jewelry?”

He nodded. “At festivals and gatherings. And parties.”

I understood he didn’t mean gatherings and parties in the palace, but those he’d be asked to as an eighth circle.

In case you’re an outer worlder and I need to explain eighth circle. They’re weavers of illusions.  Which means at parties and gatherings, they’ll recreate or create stories about past figures, or invented ones.  You know, Amissar Mahar leading the slaves out of Draksah. Or Irt and Eefahan’s romance. Or—

That sort of thing, vividly, happening before your eyes.  Eighth circles get hired to create such shows, and usually paid handsomely, but selling jewelry seemed a weird endeavor.

As I continued staring Selbur huffed.  He dove into his basket and brought out a leather strap, the simplest of necklaces, with a crystal on a woven silver cage hanging from it.  “Here,” he said. “Hold it. I … made this one for you.” He blushed, as he said it, but scooted close anyway, and handed me the thing.

I was both shocked, and somewhat puzzled. I had jewelry. I rarely wore it, but surely he’d seen me wear it when I was required to be at public functions.

And I couldn’t understand why he’d have made something for me. But he had, and he was trying, so I slipped the leather loop over my head, and let the crystal hang at my chest. “It’s very pretty,” I said.  “Thank you.” It was pretty, the seemingly random silver threads letting the crystal shine through.

He smiled and shook his head. “Yes. But—” He sighed. “Put your hand around the jewel and let it open.”

“What?”

“Just…  Put your hand around it. Hold it.”

I obeyed.

Suddenly and inexplicably, I was submerged in water.  Okay, it was visual only, and a sense of coolness. I could still breathe fine.  Around me, colorful koi swam, weaving near me as though I were a particularly interesting reef.  My hair moved as though in wind, and they “swam” through it.

It was… once I realized what was happening, both delightful and restful. As I thought this, a bright yellow koi swam towards me and nibbled gently at the tip of my nose. I dropped the jewel, and turned to Selbur, as the illusion dissipated.  “That was you!” I said. “The yellow koi.”

He laughed delightedly. “Yes. That was me, inserted in the illusion.”

“You make illusion crystals?” I asked.

“Most eighth circles do. Only it’s expensive, food wise. It takes a lot of energy for us low-circle.  Normally I could make one or two a week. I thought since I was living in the palace and have unlimited food, now I’m no longer nursing, I could do two or three a day. And I’ve been trying for more elaborate settings.”  He picked up the silver strip, and brought the two ends together, then handed it to me.  “Would you fuse the ends for me?”

I gave the thing a burst of energy, neatly fusing the ends together. “How do you do that normally?” I asked. It’s not that eighth circles couldn’t expend that energy, but it would probably cause him to sleep for two days.

He grinned at me, looking exactly like the yellow koi, even if not. “I get a high circle to do it for me. Thank you.” He took the circle back. “Usually my sire, to be fair. He’s only sixth circle, but high enough. But Brund will do it without thinking. And I once got Eerlen to do ten in a row, before he realized what he was doing.”

I grinned at him. “You’re used to getting your way with a smile…” I said.

“Yes. The last months have been a lesson to me that there are things I can’t get my way on, smile or tantrum.”

He looked so wistful, I tried to distract him, “What are the other crystals?”

He shrugged, “Song performances, or quiet forest glades, or gardens. I do one for children that has butterflies flying around. It can keep toddlers amused for hours.”

“Do they sell well? I’d think—” I stopped. I’d been about to tell him that surely nomads had enough of quiet forest glades and butterflies they didn’t need to buy them. But I realized he probably didn’t sell to nomads, not at gatherings, but to crafters and merchants in cities.

However he curled his lip and his face looked sullen as it hadn’t in months. “Those!” he said. “I don’t do those.”

I had absolutely no idea what I’d said wrong, or why he looked like that and then he said, “Yes, erotic illusions sell much better, at least at large gatherings and to nomads, but I can’t do them. And I wouldn’t even if I could.”

He looked so angry, I tried to appease, “I didn’t mean—”

“First,” he said, still angrily, “The illusion either comes from our own experience or from–  We can take from people’s memories, but I don’t do that without permission, and not—Not that kind of memory.”

“I didn’t mean you should do that,” I protested. “I was thinking something silly about nomads and forest glades.”

He stopped. “Oh.”

“But now that you started, I’d like to know your reasons. Because I suspect if illusion gems are a way that your circle makes money, that is the most likely way to do it, and I’d like your reasons.”

He hesitated. He opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again, then sighed. “Well, I can’t do erotic illusions because I simply don’t have the experience on my own. I mean… twice with Brundar, but how do you think Eerlen would take to my selling the experience of sex with his sireling, the king of Elly?”

“Not well?”

“Which is a funny way to say ‘he’d cut you to ribbons.’ Though Brund himself might laugh, I’ll note. But also, second, my experience with Brund is not what people pay for.” He looked up, blushed. “Look, I know it sounds stupid. You’d think that nomads would pay for any sex illusion. Particularly Erradian nomads. I understand it gets lonely in the ice and snow. But most people who buy erotic illusions buy for the…. Exotic. I have heard the talk among those of my circle. To have the experiences people buy, you need to go out, find perfect specimens and do… well, fairly strange things with them.” He was blushing very dark. “I am not…  I will not do that. I don’t … I don’t trust easily. I’d hate to be that intimate with a stranger, much less to ask him to do… things…”

I was less experienced than he, but I had heard about “things” and also read some in the old palace diaries and memoirs. “I don’t blame you,” I said.

He inclined his head, “And also even if I could have or steal the experiences, I’m only an eighth circle, and I can’t put protections on those, so only adults can use them.” He looked up and his gaze met mine. “My parent had four of them. I knew they did something, because he’d put one on at night, and he acted funny, in his hammock.  So one day, when I was eight and he was hunting and I was minding the littles, I tried one of them—” He looked down and was silent a long while. “It was horrible. I threw it into the river. And later—” He shrugged. “Call it why I’ve only had two experiences and with Brund whom I was friends with. Still am. I couldn’t–  There were people who tried—I talked about it with my sire, when next my parent dropped me at the farm to … well, because it was cheaper than feeding me, and my next oldest sibling was old enough to watch the children.  And he explained everything to me, and also that what I’d experienced wasn’t normal. But it still left scars.”

I felt incredibly sad. For Selbur. For his sire. His parent… Well, his parent was known to the brotherhood as trouble. He didn’t have power, himself, but he tended to get involved with magicians. And predatory and insane were not misapplied to him.

I’m not, as a rule, easy with words and feelings. I wanted to cheer him up, to tell him it would be all right. But I couldn’t reach through time to console little Selbur, and my gathering him in my arms and holding him might be taken amiss.  So I said, “You said you can make jewels with other people’s experiences.” As he turned, as though to protest, I said, “Not that. I mean, what kind of experiences? Do people commission them?”

He looked divided. Then nodded. “Swearings,” he said. “And watching their children play. And sometimes a really good hunt or something.  They ask, and they remember the moment intensely and I capture it into an illusion in a crystal. Those are more expensive, because, you know, they’re one person, tailored.”

I nodded. “Selbur? You do realize as parent of the heir, or even, should Brundar have another child, one of the heirs in potentia, you’re entitled to a stipen—”

He was shaking his head. “No. I don’t take money or gifts because I had a child. My parent was always bleeding my sire dry, and telling him I’d starve to death if he didn’t support all of us, my parent and I and my siblings lavishly. All because my sire can’t have children and I’m his only descendant. And he’s vulnerable. I won’t do that to Brund. Missa happened, and I’m glad, and I love my child, but he’s not a money-tap. I am a magician, even if I must seem like a small-power to you. I can support myself. And if the magic fails, I spent enough time on my sire’s farm, I can hire as a farmhand.”

He was glowery again. I liked him better when he was mischievous. I reached out a hand and touched his wrist. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Selbur Deharn.”

He looked up my arm, to my face, then shrugged, and the storm calmed. “No, you probably didn’t. I’m sorry.” He reached into his basket, and brought out a spool of silver thread. “I just… Most high circles or non-magicians who first find that I can and do make these jewels for sale assume—”

“I wouldn’t,” I said. And it was true. Most people would assume things about Selbur because of his parent, but even Eerlen had come around to realizing Selbur was nothing like his parent, and that he wouldn’t – so to put it – wear toe rings, though he might threaten Brund with doing just that. “I’ve come to know you. I wouldn’t assume that of you. Not that it’s… If people want to make those jewels, and if people want to buy them, it’s their problem, but I didn’t think you were the type to do either. And I know you’re absurd about wanting to pay your own way.”

He slanted his eyes at me. “It takes one to know one.”

I laughed. “Yes, Lord Deharn. I do spell stasis boxes and portals for money. But don’t assume I’m as noble as you. I do live in the palace for free, and eat at the family table most nights. I donate most of my earnings to the King’s Children.” Which is the orphanage that gathers unwanted babies into a farm owned by the Mahars.

He nodded. “I heard. Everyone knows.”

There was a long silence, while he worked at the silver to start another bracelet. Then he set it aside, and sighed.  “You know when I said I don’t take other people’s experiences without permission?”

“Yes?”

“Well, sometimes people are quiet and are relieving things so vividly that an eighth circle can’t help but live them.” He was quiet a long time. “If you’ll not challenge me to a duel. It wasn’t done out of evil…”

I was thoroughly alarmed, “I beg your pardon?” I raked my memory for some off color experience I could have been reliving. I liked this area for a reason, and yes, there were things I relived, but they weren’t that.

“You won’t challenge me?”

“No, but what…?”

He sighed. “I meant to give you this, but not yet.  Like the koi, I made this for you.”  He dove into his basket and brought out a rosy crystal, rough hewn. It didn’t have a setting, yet. I reached out and took it in my palm. He nodded at me. I closed my hand.

In the illusion, a portal opened in the middle of the garden, and through it stepped my sire, alive and well, and looking huge. I realized I was seeing him through my very young child eyes, probably no more than six. And that Brundar was there with me, aged maybe two.

Myrrir Mahar was tall, and broad shouldered, blond and blue eyed, and in my memory-illusion, wore a fine knee-length linen tunic, and his blue magician cloak. Which probably meant he’d been on a healing call, as a third circle healer magician, I now realized.

He looked tired as he stepped through the portal, but grinned wide as he saw me and Brund, and chuckled at us. “Ah, my two trouble makers,” he said. And stooping, he gathered each of us into one arm, kissing first Brund’s forehead, with “My warrior.” And then mine, with, “And my Archmouse.” He hugged us close, asking, “What have you done today besides bothering the fish?”

He was warm and solid, and I could hear his heart beat. He smelled of herbs and firelight, and it made me feel utterly loved, utterly safe.

I took a breath, two.  I opened my palm, realizing my face was wet with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Selbur was saying. “I’m sorry. It was such a strong memory, and I thought you might like it. I didn’t realize—”

“It is a strong memory,” I said.  My voice wobbled. “And I like it. I think Brund might like its twin. Maybe for harvest feast? From me? I’ll pay you.”

Selbur, who had gotten up and looked like a forest creature about to bolt, asked, “You’re not angry?”

I laughed through my tears, patting my sleeves for a handkerchief. “I’m very not angry. Thank you, Selbur Deharn.”

He took his handkerchief from his sleeve, but instead of handing it to me, took two steps close, and mopped my face, gently. “You’re very welcome Nikre Lyto.”

It is entirely attributable to insanity that I chose to capture his hand then. And inexplicable that he did not pull away.

After a while, I pulled back and he pulled away. He talked to Missa’s nurse, then walked away.

When he was not at dinner, I thought I shouldn’t have held his hand. What was I thinking? We weren’t even friends, much less … anything else. Besides, which, I shouldn’t even aspire to anything else, regardless of what my idiot mind and heart conjured.

What they conjured was the feel of Selbur’s hand, surprisingly calloused, and an image of his toes, adorned with tiny silver rings. Not that he had any cause to wear toe rings, but the image stayed with me. For all the good it did me. He wasn’t in the garden the next day, and I told myself that I had overstepped badly, and was lucky he’d not decided he needed to cover it in blood. He was a nomad, after all.

Eerlen had taught me to duel – fortunately, as I’d had to do it twice in my life – but I didn’t think I could strike out at Selbur. Even if I didn’t like him – and I did – he was Missa’s parent. I couldn’t orphan Missa. Who came to get me from my bench that afternoon, and led me to the koi pond, to point at fish and demand I tell him their names and stories. He couldn’t yet talk, but he was insistent in pointing at each of the fish until I told him the name and what I thought was the origin of the fish, and who his offspring looked to be.

When he was tired, he pulled me by the hand to the bench, clambered on my lap and fell asleep there, thereby ignoring his nursemaid. Who just smiled.

Unable to work, I was almost asleep, myself, when I heard Selbur’s voice, in front of me. “I see you have been sweet-talking my line-child, Archmouse!”

Anyone else, and I’d have protested the pet name my sire had given me, and which only my sire had ever used for me. But there was a gentle arching smile in Selbur’s face as he said it, a teasing challenge in his eyes that made the name entirely appropriate on his lips.

I rumbled, my voice sleep-thickened, “More like he’s been sweet-talking me.”

Selbur dropped by my side. He was wearing, I noted, a fresh linen tunic, ankle length, and practical work boots. His hair was taken up and pinned in a messy bun. If he were an upper circle, I’d assume he’d been called away on an emergency. He leaned over and caressed Missa’s dark hair. The child moved in his sleep.  “That is a feat,” he said. “For someone who can’t speak a word.”

“He points and grunts very eloquently.”

Selbur laughed. “Does he ever. Normally it means “I too like that food on your plate.”

“In this case,” I said, adjusting the child’s position on my lap. “It was a request to tell him stories of the koi.”

“I should make him a jewel like yours. Will help him sleep. He does love those fish.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Perhaps it’s something about growing up in the palace?”

I shrugged. “In my case, I think it was because I missed the fish.”

He looked puzzled.

“I came from a fisher village. I mean, you know I’m not Eerlen’s and Myrrir’s natural offspring.”

“I know the story,” he said, and looked away into the middle distance. “Among my many not favorite things of living in the palace is how everyone gossips.”

I laughed. “No. But …  fisher children and certainly I, since I was often unsupervised, play in shallow pools, where there’s often tiny fish. Here–  Well, the koi were fish, and they were bright and colorful, and interesting. Eerlen used to bring me to see them.” I paused. “I didn’t speak for a few months after they brought me here, and Eerlen did anything that seemed to make me happy.”

“Couldn’t you speak?” he asked, curiously.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all clouded in my mind.  I think I could? But … I’d been feral for a year. I understood language. I understood Myrrir telling me I was his sireling now. But I don’t know if I understood I could talk to people.”

He tilted his head looking at me, but didn’t say anything.  Instead, he took off a bag I hadn’t realized he was carrying on his shoulder. It was a small, leather satchell.  At that moment, I heard steps behind us, and turning back saw Missa’s nurse walking towards us, carrying a tray.

“I asked him to get us tea,” Selbur said.  “And some of the raised bread from the kitchens.” He moved away from me, and the nurse set the tray between us, then bent back to retrieve Missa from my lap.  I must have hesitated, because Selbur said, “Let him take my little troublemaker. He’ll sleep better in his bed and be in a better mood at dinner with his royal sire.”

I let the nurse take Missa. Not that Missa ever misbehaved at dinner. Well, not by being angry or loud. He did get in a mood, though, where he would hop from one lap to the other and disrupt everyone’s dinner. Unfortunately unlike Kitten, Eerlen’s child, or Irid, Lendir’s child, Missa’s presence at the very public dinner table was needed to reassure people there was an heir, even if not a child of Brund’s body.

Selbur brought cheese out of his bag and set it on the tray. Several small wedges. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he smiled at me, “I brought you cheese, Archmouse. You’re too skinny. No one will want to tumble you if you don’t put some weight on.”

I made a skeptical sound, as he poured tea into one of the two clay cups next to me, and another in front of him.  He added a tablespoon of honey to mine, having somehow known my preferences. 

“How would you know no one wants to tumble me?” I asked, taking up the cup.

He gave me a delighted cackle at my rising to the bait. “Gossip, remember? Gossip is many have wanted, none have succeeded. Both here.” He made a gesture encompassing the palace. “And in the brotherhood.”

“People have strange ideas of what is interesting gossip,” I said.

“Archmouse, you’re the Archmagician’s body child, the sireling of a king.” He gave me an up down look so obviously evaluating that I almost dropped my cup. “And don’t appear to have an extra head, be missing a limb, or have a tendency to smell bad. What is shocking is that no one has knocked you on the head and tumbled you before you realized what’s happening.”

“I have protective spells.”

“I wonder if that is the truth or a joke.”

“A joke,” I said. “My true defense is that Eerlen taught me to duel. And Myrrir taught me sword play.”

“Mmm. Your family’s fascination with bladed weapons is either admirable or insane.”

“I suspect yes,” I said. He’d cut the cheese into little slices, with his ankle knife, and I took a small piece not bothering with the bread. It was…. Extraordinary. Strong, but buttery and rich. I’d only tasted something like this…  I swallowed.  “Calenir? You brought me Calenir cheese?”

He waggled eyebrows at me. “Better than knocking you on the head, yes?”

When I didn’t dignify that with an answer, he smiled. “My sire is Calenir of Calenir. Didn’t you know?”

I shook my head. “I think… around Missa’s birth, a servant said you were at the farm, but I thought… Calenir of Calenir?” I must explain what that meant and why I was staggered. To begin with, I knew that Selbur wasn’t pure Brinarian, though that was the place he identified as his home. And his parent was a Brinarian nomad. Selbur was too tall, lighter skinned than even I – and I was light for a Brinarian – and had blue eyes, even if they were so dark you only noted the blue when the light caught them. Also his features weren’t quite Brinarian, though don’t ask me to explain that. They just weren’t. They were too delicate, too fine. I had heard that his sire was Lirridarian, which explained the features. Lirridarians are as tall as Erradians, and as blond, but the resemblance stops there. The joke is that if there were enough Lirridarians at a gathering, no one else would be picked up. As a breed–  Well, we suspected they’d been refined by the Draksalls for being pretty and having facial features that most resembled the Draksall female features.

But Lirridarians and even dairy farmers are one thing. There were many, many dairy farms in Lirridar, but there was only one Calenir.

Calenir was a line name. At some point, a couple hundred years back, the first Calenir had started breeding his cows and perfecting his cheese process in the deep, wind-swept sea-caves near his farm. The farm had grown and was now a network of farms. His clan had grown along with it, and the central line which owned most of the farms and hired most of the clan, had become ridiculously prosperous. One of the few farmers – crafters, I guess if you consider cheese and butter making were crafts – whose wealth rivaled that of the lords of the land. Their products sold for double what other cheese, milk, cream and butter sold.

They deserved it, too. Brundar sent for their milk, cheese and cream, though not for all of the palace needs.

The Mahars owned two Lirridarian farms, themselves, so it would be wasteful to get all from Calenir. But for special occasions, and guilty pleasures, that’s where we sent for dairy.

Why the line child of a Brinarian nomad would be sired by the wealthiest dairy famer in Lirridar was a mystery.  But the bigger mystery was why that child would choose to be a nomad?

Selbur took another slice of cheese, and stretched his feet in front of him, looking towards the koi pond.  “I’m his only, you see?”

“His only sireling?”

“His only descendant of any kind.”

The mystery deepened. “But then why…?”

I presume he hopes you’ll give him your second chil–” I cleared my throat and said, “Pardon me. Your sire’s line decisions are not mine to question.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laughter. “Yes. He does hope I’ll have a second child and give him Calinar as a line name. Because I refuse to take his name for myself and little Missa. He would prefer to adopt me as his line child.”

“But you… owe it to your parent…?”

He hunched a shoulder. I said, “I beg your pardon. Truly none of my business.”

“I owe nothing to my parent,” Selbur said. His voice was slightly hoarse. “Without my sire, I’d not even be alive. I understood he left me with my sire at days old. My sire hired people to feed me. I lived with him till I was five, when my parent came to get me, because he had two younger children, and thought I was old enough to watch them while he hunted and while we did a nomad route. He was right. I was old enough. I stayed with him until I was twelve, when he thought—” He paused. “People were starting to notice me. Not that I wished to be noticed. But it took attention from him. And my next older sibling, Terid, was old enough to watch the littles. So he dropped me at my sire’s farm.” He paused. “Then when I was sixteen, he demanded I become a nomad, or he would duel my sire for kidnapping me.”

I was speechless. “I’d heard of Verit Deharn, but—”

“You didn’t know the extent of it?” Selbur’s voice was hard.

“I didn’t realize he’d treat his own child that way. I’m glad you had your sire.”

Selbur sighed. “So am I, but the thing is, I can’t promise my parent won’t try to kill my sire, if I let my sire adopt me. My sire says he wouldn’t mind. He miscarried, when he was very young, in a way that made it impossible for him to conceive again.  And healers say he’s unlikely to produce sirelings.” He gave me a brittle grin. “I’m unlikely.”

“Miraculous, I’d say,” I said. “But surely your sire can afford security and stay safe? Your parent is not supernatural.”

“Madness is its own power,” Selbur said. “But yes, my sire says that too. That he doesn’t care what my parent threatens, he can stay safe. But…”

“But–?”

“He doesn’t deserve that sort of hassle, Archmouse. He doesn’t deserve to be hunted and live with a threat on his life.”

“I think,” I said, eating a slice of cheese. “You have rats in your head, sireling of Calenir of Calenir. I can’t imagine you’d prefer nomad life to living at Calenir.”

“I don’t.  Not that it’s–  It’s where I was, you know? These few days? My sire still works hands on, on the farms. And it’s calving season. He asked me to come help. I know—I grew up…  They call me young Calenir.”

“Well, young Calenir. I’d take his name and give it to little Missa.”

Selbur sighed. “For the longest time I didn’t even wish to have children, because they might—They might be like my parent. Missa was an accident. But I don’t think he’ll belike that.”

“That… I understand,” I said.

“Oh, is that why they’d have to knock you on the head, Archmouse. Terrified of bearing a wild Erradian nomad?’

I shook my head. “No. My sire.”

The eyebrows climbed. “Myrrir Mahar, king of Elly, my child’s grandsire? The person you still miss so intensely I could read the impressions without trying?”

I shook my head. “My birth sire. The one who seeded me.”

“Oh, the one who tried to kill you? And might have killed your parent?”

I shook my head. “No, my real body sire, not my parent’s sworn.”

Selbur gave me a troubled look.

“Selbur, you’re an eighth circle, not a small power. You’re head of eighth circle. You can read the pattern under the adoption pattern.”

He frowned at me, and I realized while he could he needed to make an effort and he’d honestly never tried. I thought that it was gossip in the brotherhood, but I guessed fear of Eerlen, and possibly Brundar, had kept them quiet.

I saw Selbur’s eyes unfocus as he looked at my pattern. I saw his lips purse.  I saw his jaw drop. I waited for the startled leap away from me, for something to reestablish distance. I picked up my cup of tea and sipped, ready to pretend to be unaffected.

He didn’t leap away.  Instead, he closed his mouth with a whistle.  “Does—” he said, then shook his head. “Who knows?”

“Everyone, I assume. At least everyone in the inner circles. I’m surprised it’s not gossiped about.”

He shook his head. “Never. How? I—I mean, he wasn’t—”

“My parent was sworn, and his swearing wasn’t broken, so it wasn’t consensual.” I sighed. “When I figured it out, when I was apprenticed as archmagician and saw the pattern that looked like mine, under the adoption, I was … curious. I found the village I came from…  I could trace the patterns Eerlen had opened, from my memory, you see. And—”

“And?”

“They knew. My parent was sixteen. I think his sworn, the same age, was not very good from beginning. My parent was on the beach, mending the nets, alone, after everyone had gone home for the night.”

Selbur sighed. “Drahy liked them young. And Brinarians are small. I mean, it was before my time, but there are stories…”

“Yes,” I said, drily. “It certainly explains why I have an archmagician pattern, from a village without even a single small power… So, my parent caught. But he hadn’t called rape. No one knows why. He had no power, so he couldn’t realize he’d caught early. Perhaps he was scared his sworn would be upset? As I said, I don’t think it was a very good relationship. So he—” He shrugged. “Didn’t cry rape. Not even after it was obvious he had caught. Not even when I was born. If he’d cried rape and left me on the beach for the tide to take, no one would say anything. But he didn’t.

“I don’t think my parent’s sworn killed him, except by not helping him at all, and not letting him have more of the food while he was nursing. The whole village said he was very thin and weak at the end of the year of nursing. Then he got sick and died. My legal sire couldn’t expose me by then. But he could try to kill me if it looked like an accident. He tried harder after he swore again.” I was quiet a while.  He was very close, separated only by the tray. “Eerlen never told me. He never asked me if I’d seen my own pattern.” I sighed “But I don’t rightly blame my legal sire. And I am not sure I wish to pass the legacy on.”

Selbur’s hand grasped my shoulder and squeezed hard.  “Speaking of rats, Archmouse, you’re badly infested. We are all descended from rapists. Maybe not as close, but all of us are. And that is something none of the gossip says about you. Unattainable, yes. Rapist, no.”

“Yes, but—”

He took a slice of cheese, brought it to my lips, popped it in. I had no choice but to chew.

“Archmouse,” he said, very seriously. “Someone is going to keep feeding you cheese until you’re so confused you let him drag you off and tumble you.”

“Someone,” I said, in a grumble. “Thinks very highly of his cheese.”

He laughed. “Well, it’s Calenir, you know? I use the best for my seduction attempts.”

“Does that always work?”

“I don’t know. It’s the first time I’m trying it. But I think with persistence, it might.”

As much as I wanted to hold on to my fears, my isolation, my sense of owing both to the parent I didn’t remember, as I looked at Selbur’s little cat face, the challenge in his eyes, I started to suspect he might just be right.

Where are the arrests? Where are the arrests? Where are the arrests?

Weirdly — ah! — the same accounts pushing that are also the ones who want us to “shoot back” or of course like the charmer yesterday to just go ahead and shoot all elected representatives. (Yeah, because they and not the bureaucracy are the “real” problem. Seriously? Also way to attract good people to government. what the heck is wrong with people’s minds, actually?)

Look, I know we saw the frauding of 2020 in person, in real time. I know we had our faces rubbed in “we can make you do things, and you can’t hit back.”

I understand being angry, and I understand how great that anger feels. And I UNDERSTAND how much you want to hit out and put all the smug smiling bastages in the pokey.

Something you should always remember about someone pushing your emotional buttons to get you to do what your emotions are telling you to do anyway, is that this is how they manipulate you. Because it works.

The other thing you should do is ask yourself “who would win if we did that?”

Look, Comey and Schiff and…. I get why you’d want their malfeasance exposed and them locked up. I DO.

But that’s not the way to do it. Not going forward.

The left did this stuff and largely got away with it, because they have the power of propaganda. They still own a substantial part of the information industrial complex. It’s not working as well as it used to, but it’s working better than our non-existent one.

So they can do things like make BLM a thing and George Fentanyl a poor victim by repeated propaganda. (The lockdown helped with that.) BUT we can’t do that. We can get word out to the extremely online, and some trickles out to normies, but not that much.

Don’t believe me? Go and ask some of your not-online co-workers who Comey and Schiff even are. Much less Eric Swalwell. Much less his online name of Fang Fang Bang Bang.

Also understand in our hierarchy of needs what we NEED is for the left’s malfeasance to be EXPOSED in the light of day. It doesn’t matter if we actually get them in jail or punished, but it is vital that what they did gets exposed for all to see, that they get discredited and reviled.

Yes, you want them punished. Well, I do too. But in the long run, for the principles of history, that’s not as important as their being THOROUGHLY exposed and discredited, and everything bad and illegal they’ve done laid bare.

If I had to choose only one, I’d choose the second.

Because the first, given their still superior hold on the machinery of propaganda, would make them martyrs for the cause, and give the left — and the foreign opinion, which shouldn’t matter but still does as far as the world is complex — the “certainty” that Trump is a dictator and evil. (No, they didn’t hear about Biden’s abuses.)

While the second makes it impossible for them to do it again.

So, do I know what the Trump administration is doing? No. I also don’t know how much deep state landmines they’re contending with, but I can guarantee to you 100% that the answer is “A lot, a lot”. BUT what I hope they’re doing is exposing the evil, the crimes and the corruption, and not moving legally till they have everything tied up.

Even our founding fathers, before moving onto their just cause had a “decent opinion for the opinions of mankind.”

We too need to have that. Because it would be stupid to paint ourselves as the real threat while struggling to save the nation.

OF COURSE you’re allowed to hope we get both AND. I too want it all exposed and the evil bastages in jail.

But I’m willing to give those doing the work elbow room to do the work. Because the alternative is worse than their doing nothing. And exposes us to worse than Biden.

So, sit back. Take a deep breath. And remember revenge is best served COLD.

Hold to the 48 hour rule, on the events this weekend. We don’t know precisely why there were two very strange shootings, both by US Marines. And of course, times we live in, I’m suspicious. You’re suspicious.

Ladies and gentlemen, when Powerline blog, one of the most milksop blogs on the right sounds like wild eyed conspiracy theorists, everyone is suspicious.

Mostly, though, the shootings were weird. As in, it would be hard to divine why those victims were picked, and what in heaven’s name anyone would do that for: anyone, left, right or polka dotted. This by itself is a beat of a feat in an age when the left has tried to — and largely managed — make EVERYTHING political, up to and including the color of your skin (often erroneously) and who you sleep with.

Even given that, the atrocities this weekend beg the question of: What sense does it make?

I want you to consider — other than possible activation by mysterious behind the scenes forces, to change the national conversation, and note I’m not laughing at this, which means “ten years ago Sarah” is staring at me in horror from the back of my mind — that 2020 broke people. It broke people BADLY. I see it in my own family. I see it in my circles. And I see it in myself.

Mind you, a lot of us broke in the sense of “I’m now full blown introvert, and will just glare at people if you take me out, and spit like a cat if I’m forced to be around strangers for a full day.” But other people broke in other ways. And I doubt very much there are any of you out there, who don’t know what I’m talking about. In fact doing impromptu, small mental health adjustments has become a thing in everyone’s friendship circles.

Terms I used for my own mental health management (keeping in mind that I’m a raging depressive) have escaped and are now in the wild, seemingly everywhere “out of spoons.” “Reality testing” and of course “kicking the black dog.”

There are reasons this happened. The lockdown itself was quite literally mind-breaking for many of us. We thought, you see, we had some amount of control over our own lives and that we could prevent catastrophic nonsense like a whole-country lockdown (close enough) from being enacted. We thought/felt “it can’t happen here.” The lockdown stripped that illusion, and unfortunately that was a load bearing illusion, at the bottom of our certainty we could deal with life.

Then it was followed by a train of horrors (which were the real reason for the lockdowns, of course. Starting with the stolen election (any lefty reading this and taking offense can put it where the sun don’t shine. You have to be mathematically illiterate to think those numbers and that spike made sense. Your ignorance and illusion are not our fault) and then the Biden administration heading the plane of the economy straight at the ground and taking off all safety restraints, including borders. (A country without borders is not a country. Culture is not that easily acquired by crossing a border, particularly when you come in bearing the flags of your country of origin. What it was was war with a mass of people being used as weapons.) And then pissing down our necks and telling us it was raining, while even those of us who no longer have kids in the house, and who are doing relatively well were feeling pinched.

Then there is the fact that those of us on the right, religious, whatever form of dissent from the crazy cakes left felt under pressure in various ways, including being afraid of being debanked and/or having our instruments of monetization online taken away at the drop of a hat. Heck, even putting fiction books up on Amazon became a matter of “beat the harassment gauntlet.” (Like when I had to prove I’m myself and wrote my own books (Note not even the pseudonymous ones) including writing a contract with myself. Which they then rejected because the signatures were both the same. (Well, dur.))

And then there were the deaths. Dear Lord, the deaths. Some of this is perhaps because those of us who were “the kids” looked down upon by the boomers are now at a time when it’s not unusual (even if, unlike in the village when I was growing up) to have someone just up and die. Or get some horrendous, galloping cancer. And of course, all of us had boomer friends and/or siblings, not that much older than us.

But there seems to also be a link between the Covid vaccines and cancer. I thought, even five years ago, my friends who kept talking about that were being nuts. I thought the vaccine would be ineffective and disastrous for someone with my bizarre immune system, but I didn’t think it was carcinogenic. I’m now at the point of cautiously saying “Well, perhaps.” And also, of course, there were all the delayed checkups, the postponed routine health stuff so many of us STILL HAVEN’T GOT BACK TO. (We haven’t had a proper full exam that we used to do annually since 2020. Because we’re trying to catch up on all the rest of life.) And the fact that many people who are now working from home are single and live alone, which means less chance of catching “You’re looking odd.”

Oh, maybe it’s been just my experience, but it seems like every other week I lose a friend, a family member, a childhood ducttape relative. To the point I’m now afraid of reaching out to someone I haven’t heard from in a few months.

All of this to say that people who have lost a lot of people, and who have slipped their moorings in real life/community can crack in weird an unexpected ways.

So, yeah, maybe people are being activated. Or maybe they’re just cracking wide and becoming bizarre and lethal in ways that are unfathomable from the outside. And yes, this would seem to apply to the leftwing shooters, including Kirk’s assassin. Yes, we know why he did it, he pretty much told us by engraving the bullet casings (honestly, the decline in literacy from, say, the unabomber, is palpable. I mean, murderous nutcases used to write pages and pages, not goofy one liners.) not to mention his texts to his light o’love. But let’s face it, outside the airless chamber of leftwing insanity, it didn’t make any sense either. Because labeling Kirk an “extremist” should be enough to have you put in a straight jacket. “There’s this “extremist” who insists on politely debating the other side” is not a thing. Not in any sane reality.

That a lot of the people cracking are trans is not a surprise, either, because regardless of the fact that the left makes a concerted effort to convince them we want to kill them (this is bizarre) there is the fact that you don’t get to that point, particularly as a young person, rightly or wrongly, without some fairly traumatic stuff leading you there. So you’ll already be particularly vulnerable. And then transing, let’s face it, will carve a huge slice out of your family and friends support. So you’ll be ripe for cracking wide, and your support net will be gone.

And… It could be that’s all that’s going on with the violent events of the last month. In which case, it’s going to get worse. Much, much worse, because the number of people still holding together with spit and bailing wire that will lose it at one more incident/one more event/one more death is high.

On the other hand, yes, we do know the left is cheering on the violence — sorry, for the lone lefty reading this. Yes, it’s your side. No one on the right cheers when lefties are murdered. I confess to having received the news of some deaths with pleasure, but they were mostly foreign and horrific. The one that comes to mind is Yasser Arafat — and in their groups trying to dare each other to do the unspeakable.

Which means that a lot of the left-violence that can be identified as such is part “they cracked” and part “yes, it’s intentional.” Though of course, the cracking matters because it’s the most vulnerable actually going murderous. (Kind of like Hamass strapping suicide vests to disabled kids.)

But guys, the point I want to make, and please, if you listen to anything I say, listen to THIS: This is what civil war would be like. A very mild form of what civil war would be like, in these United States in 2025.

For the last few weeks, on Twitter I’ve been smacking bots, trolls and people who believe the bots and trolls saying “How long are we going to let them shoot us down before we shoot back?”

And I tell them over and over “you might think you want civil war. You don’t want civil war.”

And they shout back we’re already in a civil war. We’re just not shooting back.

Because in their heads, somehow, there’s “sides” and “one side” is shooting at the other.

Let’s grant that Charlie Kirk was broadly on our side and that his assassin was very much on the left’s side, sure. Let’s also grant that the left has wound up people against, say, Catholics (Anyone remember “rosary extremists?”) for the last five years. Still, what sense does it make to slaughter a bunch of kids at mass? Or to shoot up a religious school? In “political” terms. even with the left making everything political?

Note, I’m not disputing those were terroristic acts by the left. What they weren’t is strictly speaking acts of war. (Excepting killing CK which was done to silence him. But even there the targeting is weird, because there are people on our side that should be more annoying to them. Heck there are a few that are more annoying to me, even if I’d never hurt them.)

I’m also in no way approving of or condoning all of these terroristic acts. Or excusing them.

What I’m saying is “as acts of war, they make no sense.”

Which is the problem of a civil war amid a population where the sides are not just distributed but emulsified, so that one side is penetrated by the other, often by stealth and in silence because the penalty for uncloaking has been cancelling and character assassination for over fifty years. (Meaning our side is distributed among them, btw, not so much the other way around. Yeah, lots of teachers and health professionals being lefty loons, but mind you, we by and large knew who they were.) Oh, and one side — the left — controls the propaganda war and claims vast swaths of people, completely disregarding their actual thoughts and opinions.

I’ve said for decades that the right has lousy targeting, because I’m often regarded as the enemy because I’m tan (depending how whether I’ve been living inside for months), have an accent, and dress like a hippie (or like someone who can’t be arsed to go to the hairdresser, much less wear makeup.) And I have friends who also tend to be miss-assigned for various such ridiculous reasons.

But now I know the left is equally blinkered as to choosing the enemy. Because, frankly, yeah, killing religious-school-children is always wrong. Hell, I believe killing children is always wrong. BUT I also read the messages left in the Catholic school memorial, and they were notable for “let’s get rid of all guns” etc. The left still thinks of the Catholic church of the early twentieth century, not the “penetrated by leftism and liberation theology” Catholic church that often had me going two hours away for mass where I didn’t get CNN repackaged as a sermon.

The thing is, for the type of civil war this would be — kindly remove from your head the idea of two ranks of fighters, and territory falling this way and that. That’s not what the nation looks like, and that’s not what it would look like — this is exactly the type of thing you’d see.

You might be able to tell “which side” the killer thinks he’s on, but you might not be able to tell by the victims he picks, because that might only make sense in his very fractured mental map.

So when you say “they’re shooting at us” — define us — and “we should shoot back” — define at whom.

Even if you go by “those who did us harm” during the lockdowns, and decide, say, to kill all health professionals who told you you should have the vax: do you know how many of them were told they had to do it or lose their license, and be left with life-crippling debt? Do you have any idea? (I’m going to guess off the top of my head at least half. My doctor at the time, in tele health appointments, kept looking like she’d taken up day drinking and refused to mention the vax which I’m sure hurt her career.)

And if you decide to cull the teachers teaching bad stuff, again, do you know how many of those are our people, embedded with the enemy and just trying to stay hidden, so they can at least make a small difference? Because unless you know these people personally, how would you know? From a game of telephone of “someone said they said?” (Remember the left thinks Charlie Kirk called for dragging gays to death. Because soundbites, highly edited with no context can say whatever you want them to.)

Self-defense is always right, but self-defense means defending yourself against someone attacking you right now, not deciding that your neighbor who is flying a weird flag is “part of them” and therefore I should take him out. (And the flag turns out to be a one-off, custom for his book club which meets at the house.)

The truth — and if you look at histories of civil wars throughout the centuries, it was always like this to an extent, even in civil wars that had territories and armies — is that most such violence will end up being directed at whatever pisses off the shooter and make absolutely no sense outside their own heads.

In the American revolution, there were a lot of people killed and homesteads burned to the ground because someone THOUGHT they might be loyalists/revolutionaries. The civil war was even worse that way.

And in our time, given the multitude of characteristics the left has claimed as “on their side” and the number of people who are completely submerged on the left while being very much on our side, either for professional, personal or even heroic reasons, my guess is that each side would mostly hit their own, or random bystanders.

Now, if you want to live in a country where wearing jeans, say, will cause you to be shot down in cold blood, or attending church is an exercise in courage, or simply BEING slightly tan is reason to be wary, then yeah, maybe you want a civil war.

But if you don’t like any of those scenarios? Maybe consider that the people telling us we have to resort to violence and “shoot back now” are not our friends, or frankly friends of the republic.

At a time when we’re winning, inch by inch, legally (look, there’s a post on that tomorrow. On why we can’t have half assed indictments or arrests because they’re not in our best interests, but progress is being made, slowly) and when we’re dismantling a lot of their finances, the people who think violence is necessary are almost all on the left. Or those who want to incite you to give the left what they want.

Be not afraid, but be not a fool.

And keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

Book Promo

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, by clicking through and buying (anything, 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.– SAH

FROM TALEENA SINCLAIR: Everything Beautiful In Its Time

Everything Beautiful In Its Time

A Collection of Poetry

In Everything Beautiful In Its Time, the ancient rhythms of nature interweave with timeless spiritual wisdom to create a contemplative journey through both calendar and conscience. This collection moves from the observable world—spring’s capricious winds, summer’s dappled light, autumn’s memory-harvest, winter’s patient stillness—into deeper territories of the heart where biblical wisdom meets personal experience.

Drawing inspiration from Ecclesiastes’ meditation these poems explore the appointed times of human experience: birth and death, planting and harvest, mourning and dancing, silence and speech. Through intimate narratives of family, marriage, and faith, the collection traces how divine purpose unfolds in particular moments—a child’s escape from garden labor, the forgiveness cycle walked along Pacific Northwest cliffs, the gamble of loving deeply.

Rich with sensory detail and anchored in place, these poems speak to anyone seeking meaning in both the sweetness and sorrow that come to every table life spreads before us.

FROM TOM ROGNEBY: Battle Buddy

An old friend came to visit when Anna least expected him. On a rainy day, a cup of coffee and conversation leads to what she needs most.

Pilgrims are washed ashore on a small island, interrupting their journey to change history.

Space Marines fight a battle to secure a derelict space station.

All this and more, from sword and sorcery to space shootouts to ghost stories.

BY GEORGE WASHINGTON OGDEN, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Trail Rider (Annotated): The classic pulp western

In the heart of Kansas, Texas Hartwell arrives seeking a fresh start, only to be drawn into a web of deceit and danger. Hired as a trail rider, Hartwell’s life takes a dark turn when he is framed for introducing infected cattle onto the range. As accusations fly and tensions rise, Hartwell must fight to clear his name while navigating a landscape rife with betrayal and unexpected alliances.

Amidst the chaos, Hartwell finds solace in his love for Sallie McCoy, the dedicated schoolteacher who sees the truth in his eyes. Yet, his path is complicated by Fannie Goodnight, a woman caught in the crosshairs of the cattle rustlers, who harbors a secret affection for him. Uncle Boley, the loyal bootmaker, stands steadfast by Hartwell’s side, offering unwavering support in the face of adversity.

Hartwell must confront his enemies, unmask the traitors, reclaim his honor and protect those he loves.

Join Texas Hartwell on a journey of redemption and resilience, where the line between friend and foe is blurred, and the true measure of a man is tested.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the novel historic and genre context.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion and the Darkness (Timelines Book 4)

The Long-Awaited Sequel to The Lion in Paradise

At long last, Ariela Rivers Wolff begins her mission to the Simulated Worlds.

As the Martyr of Sardristra, she finds herself in the position of a Joan of Arc, burned at the stake for preaching a sermon of love to a very violent race of . . . blue, four-legged, four-armed, sort-of-horse analogs. Five hundred years later in their history, she finds a totally-reversed welcome as “Saint Ardreyelya” in the country in which she first appeared. Will she be able to prevent the rest of the world from destroying “her” people before she can convert them, too?

As the Goddess of Mahoukai, she finds herself the deity of a world religion in a world governed by magic. And like all worlds with magic, inevitably there is a Demon Lord. She’ll have to deal with that Demon Lord before the world of Mahoukai can be realized into the True Universe . . . but in the event, the Demon Lord is an infiltrated agent of the very enemies she is sworn to fight in the real world. Can The Lion of God take on a Darkness, single-handed? If not, it may spell doom for the inhabitants of Mahoukai – and for herself.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: The Hartington Inheritance (The Hartington Series Book 1)

Almira Hartington was heir to the largest fortune in the galaxy, amassed by her father during his time as a director of the Andromeda Company. But when Sir Josiah commits suicide, Almira discovers that she and her siblings are penniless. All three of them must learn to work if they wish to eat, and are quickly scattered to the far reaches of the universe. Almira stubbornly remains on-planet, determined to remain respectable despite the sneers of her former friends.

Sir Percy Wallingham pities the new Lady Hartington. But the lady’s family will take care of her, surely? It’s only after he encounters Almira in her new circumstances that he realizes the extent of her troubles and is determined to help her if he can. He doesn’t know that a scandal is brewing around Sir Josiah’s death and Almira’s exile from society. But it could cost him his life, and the lady he has come to love.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Light Up the Night

Dane Crockford is tired. Tired of the green energy crapping out and leaving his wife Rose gasping for breath when their air conditioning dies, tired of trying to hide his use of his own solar panels from the nationalized electrical company, and tired of worrying about his daughter and son-in-law, trapped in an abusive indenture program to pay off their student loans. He’s not the only one, either. Everyone in his home town is in a similar situation, many of them with their children doing dangerous jobs without pay to offset crippling student debt. So when his grandson Toby accidentally discovers an energy generation method that isn’t wholly owned by the federal government, he jumps on the possibility of building something that works, in spite of and around the federal monopoly.

But what the monopoly doesn’t realize is that their grip on Dane, and on his home town, is far less secure than they think. When they disconnect his house from the power grid, they have nothing to hold over him, to force him to work for small rebates on his monthly bill. The utility has unleashed the power of a cranky old man with a rare skill, and they’ve got no idea that they’ve tossed the pebble that starts an avalanche.

FROM CAROLINE FURLONG: The Guardian Cycle, Vol.1: In Dreams and Other Stories

A man whose debts must be paid by vengeance. A woman desperate to save her husband. A grieving father finding a young enemy soldier on his veritable doorstep…

These fantasy and soft sci-fi stories wonder whether or not heroes need families. Are we not told that families slow the hero down? Is it not typically implied that they get in the way of the adventure? Are they a burden, or truly the greatest strength from which the hero and those he loves can draw?

Six tales in this collection center on family, faith, and self-sacrificing love as men and women fight for the ones whom they hold most dear. Whether the enemy is inner turmoil, a nightmare, or a demon really does not matter. If the threat seeks to harm a member of the family, it is going to pay dearly.

FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: Live, Love, Level

In a world where virtual reality gaming lets players shape their own stories, Nick desperately wants to join the beta test for Omen Galaxica’s revolutionary AI update. There’s just one catch – he needs a partner who’s never played before. Enter his mother Amanda, currently on bedrest during a difficult pregnancy. Together, they must rebuild the destroyed village of Donner’s Beck while defending it from a notorious griefer intent on wreaking havoc. But as virtual and real worlds blur, both Nick and Amanda discover that games aren’t just about escape… they’re about connection, growth, and finding your place in a rapidly changing world.

A heartwarming tale of family, friendship, and finding meaning in unexpected places, perfect for:

• Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z (and boomers who know)
• parents and teens and people in-between
• gamers and people who love but are baffled by people who game
• dragon, AI, and pizza enthusiasts

FROM C. CHANCY: Seeds of Blood

Welcome to Intrepid. Where Halloween brings tourists, turning leaves – and demons.

Over two decades of bloody murder, Steven Savonarola carved a sorcerous Demongate into the heart of his own hometown. With less than two weeks to disarm it before Halloween, Detective Church and the IPD are running out of time.

Lucky for them, they have an edge: Myrrh, a hell-raider with over a thousand years’ experience shattering dark magic, and Aidan, a half-demon fire mage with a very personal grudge against evil.

The plan is simple: Find the tainted sites. Purify them. Try not to die.

They’ll need all the help they can get. Steven may be gone, but shadows in the mountains are determined to see the Demongate open – even if they have to slaughter half the city to do it. And when it comes to killing shadows, even hell-raiders don’t know everything.

If they’re going to make it to All Saint’s Day, they’re going to need hot lead, cold mead, and a weapon that’s out of this world.

And a little praying wouldn’t hurt….

Welcome to Intrepid. It’s a hell of a Halloween.

FROM JAY MAYNARD: Reflections in Crystal (The Crystal Therapy Chronicles Book 1)

Magic fixes people the world cannot touch.

Alex Sullivan isn’t crazy — just angry. Angry enough to get arrested. Angry enough to be given a strange choice: prison, or an experimental magical program at a private facility in rural Missouri.

They claim to fix broken people not with medicine or therapy, but with silence, service, and a skintight suit of latex.

Inside the suit, Alex is cut off from the world — unable to speak, eat, or even cry in the ordinary way. Inside the crystal, time flows differently. There, guided by someone who seems to know him better than he knows himself, Alex must face his deepest wounds… and either heal, or shatter.

But this is no simple treatment. Alex finds himself on a journey into a hidden world where redemption is earned, the broken are made whole, and some choose never to leave the suit again.

Previously published as Foundational Laminate.

“One of the rare novels I hope becomes reality—a hard look at how to turn the antisocial into good neighbors.”
— Karl K. Gallagher, author of The Fall of the Censor and Torchship

FROM KAREN MYERS: King of the May – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 3)

Book 3 of The Hounds of Annwn.

MORE VALUABLE AS A WEAPON THAN A KINGMAKER, HE MUST MAKE HIS OWN CHOICES TO SECURE THE FUTURE.

George Talbot Traherne, the human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, had hoped to settle into a quiet life with his new family, but it was not to be. Gwyn ap Nudd, Prince of Annwn, has plans to secure his domain in the new world from the overbearing interference of his father Lludd, the King of Britain.

The security of George’s family is bound to that of his overlord, and he vows to help. But when he and his companions stand against Lludd and his allies at court, disaster overturns all their plans and even threatens the Hounds of Annwn themselves.

George and his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, must survive a subtle attack that undermines them both. Other gods and gods-to-be have taken an interest, but the fae are divided in their allegiances and fear the threat of deadly new powers in their unchanging lives.

George and his companions must save themselves if they are to persuade their potential allies to help. But how can they do so, attacked on so many fronts at once? Will he put his family into greater jeopardy by trying to defend them?

FROM SARAH A. HOYT (VOLUME 2 NOW OUT, VOLUME 3 OUT TUESDAY AFTER NEXT): No Man’s Land

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.

Volume 2

Skip thought he’d figured out the rules of survival on Elly.

He was wrong.

Now his potential allies from the Star Empire are turning up dead, one by one. Spies and saboteurs have infiltrated every level of Ellyan society, and Skip is running out of people he can trust.

As he races to save the king and archmagician—his only remaining allies—disturbing secrets about Elly’s culture emerge alongside buried truths about his own family’s past. One moment he’s explaining the bewildering concept of binary gender to confused Ellyans, the next he’s making impossible choices that could strand him on this world forever.

His last gambit is reckless. The odds of success are slim. And failure means losing everything—his mission, his allies, his only way home.

But some fights are worth the risk, even when the deck is stacked against you.

Sometimes the most dangerous enemy is the one you never see coming.

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: STUPENDOUS

Look, sad I was, unable to word I was. So I tortured the clankers for a traditional Ellyan Ballad “A swearing before battle.”

For those of you who HAVE read the book, the two mugs above (and in the interlude in the video) are the Lords of the Land of Karrash (the little one who frankly depending on what he as wearing could look like a woman if an unusually flat one) and the Lord of Erradi, who is tall and rough hewn anyway.

I’d apologize for stealing their likenesses, since they had a very normal swearing, not before battle, but I couldn’t get the clanker not to render horrors, then remembered I had made images of them. I couldn’t get it to make them both silhouettes, but that’s something else. Also I can’t get one to turn away at the end, without the clanker giving him…. a newspaper? That one I had to show Dan, because it’s inexplicable. (And it made him laugh.) In current state of play I couldn’t edit the newspaper out, so….

And because my mind isn’t QUITE right, I of course immediately realized that some glitzy singer in Britannia on High would get hold of the song and make her own to play in concert.
And so, A Swearing Before Battle, Britannia, Folk.

And now I do promise to leave the clankers alone and go work, like a good writer should. Words have been…. difficult. I don’t think I’m sleeping well.

Life is weird. But I’m going to try.