Daikaijuzine

The breathless heat grows no cooler as I climb, but at least on the mountain I have not the bones of the lost to look upon. Only gray rock around me, endless sky above. There is some fragment of a memory taunting me from the edges of my mind, but it keeps itself well out [...]

I apologize for not telling you in person, but it’s a lot easier for me to write this down than talk about it. I hope you understand. You can’t read the statement I made at the time, it hasn’t even been released to the general public here in Australia. Even if you could, there were [...]

Yldri’s sister never did anything without careful consideration. Runa walked as if every movement was planned and each sentence that left her lips seemed to have been composed in advance. She was always sensible, ever wise. The last thing she would ever do was to walk into the arms of a stream devil. So, as [...]

Back from the hunt with two rabbits hanging limp in hand, Rhona the Wild Axe looked south over the curvature of green hills and smiled. Strands of tangled dark hair blew across her face, propelled by the wind at her back. Her tunic bore proudly mended rents where she had once been run through, and [...]

The first time the Chinese tallow spoke to Quinlin it said nothing of the shadows; that subject would be explored later, after they become better acquainted. Initially, the tree—speaking through the convoluted knot of bark created by the loss of a bough by lightning years before—simply inquired about his health, which was recently compromised by [...]

Jim didn’t pay any attention when the first pig flew past the window. It had been that kind of a day. When he saw the third one, he figured maybe he should check it out. He flipped the “open” sign to read “back at,” then set the clock hands to half an hour. It shouldn’t [...]

“Sara! Have you seen Buddy?” Seven-year-old Sara perched on the top step of a footstool, knees drawn up under her chin. She was listening to the clock on the wall above her mother’s head, to the tick-tick-tick counting off the minutes until the cookies could be taken out of the oven. Sara chewed her lip [...]

January 1828 Finnegan never imagined winters in the south could be so wicked. He paced the perimeter of the Fort on cold-stiff legs, his rifle slung across his back. Apart from training, he had not fired the thing but once since joining the Army and that was to shoo away a wild dog. He brought [...]

The first time I saw Nick Page, he was pointing a shotgun at my head and telling me not to move.  He wore a pith helmet and the khaki uniform of an old British explorer that day.  A bandoleer stuffed with sharpened wooden stakes hung over one of his skinny shoulders.  I placed him at [...]

His name was Alfie and he’d sworn to slay the dragon. His full name was Alphimenoös Stoneacre Athelwight of Lesser Blossommere, but most people called him Alfie. He was short and proud and petty in the way of small-but-pretentious shopkeepers. Not a bad man, as such men go, yet he cared far less for the [...]

Niko doesn’t believe I can’t dance. Get up, he demands, and show me what you can do. He pulls my arm. Not only am I known as the emperor of invention, he says, the genius who lit the world, the patron saint of modern physics, but I am a very talented dancer. Not many people [...]

“We’re not freezing our baby!” “Margaret, you’re being old-fashioned.” Chad guided his wife away from the Hologram TVs. She glanced back over her shoulder at the looped video display of a baby grabbing and stuffing a toy in its mouth. “Cryonic technology,” he continued, “has been approved by the FDA. There’s no danger.” “No?” She [...]

They’d been circling the neighborhood in the pounding rain for half an hour before Kevin slammed on the brakes, sending the car to a jerking halt. “What the hell are you doing?” Elaine yelled as she ripped her hands off the dashboard. Her witch’s hat had flown off and landed in the back seat. “I [...]

Even over the endless thunder of the pouring rain, Salir could hear the girl crying. She stood in the shadows, as still as the statues that surrounded her, oblivious to the rain that had soaked her white hair and dress, weeping, and it made Salir’s heart ache to hear it. He took a step towards [...]

Where I’m from, West Virgina ways, everybody know Prissy’s a witch. I mean, she live in this little house outside of town, out on the mountain where it’s all dark and spooky, kinda like a shack but not fallin’ down, and she do things for people. Make them better, make them worse. Make them more, [...]