What you have opened—I assume in anticipation of high fantasy in the vein of Tolkien or Martin—sprouted from deep frustration. I do not write fantasy. Please don’t let that admission scare you from this work. I find myself thrilled with the final product. The entirety of my adult writing could be categorized among a jumble of sub-genres in literary fiction. I have steeped for decades in modern, contemporary stories along the tradition of Hemingway, Robert Stone, Jim Harrison, and Russell Banks. 
My endeavor to infuse anarchist idealism—a thing which inevitably lands in science fiction or utopian/dystopian forms of literature—into a more realistic form of storytelling has taken me on journeys into heist stories, crime thrillers, and family drama. I toiled and fought every word for symbolism and rhythm. I buried analogies and themes meant for maximum effect. I burned thousands of words in aspiration of literary voice. I have received positive feedback from people I trust on all of my work in the genre. However, success in literary fiction requires either (or both) a strong academic pedigree or special access to the people who guard the gates. I possess neither of these things. All I have is a pile of writing which I am confident stands as tall as most contemporary writers in the game. The exchange rate for confidence in the world of literature amounts to pesos to the dollar.
My novel previous to the piece you hold in your hand took three years to complete. I am very proud of it. I self published and have only performed mild fits of promotion in its name over the years. As my family grew, I assumed my next long project lay decades in the future. I am not a young man. Having kids in my early forties prognosticated a new novel by my mid sixties. This didn’t exactly break my heart, however, I knew my mind could not keep from dreaming up projects that I could never complete.
So I indulged in shorter works. Very short works akin to micro/flash fiction and they satiated me to an extent. Some of them I eventually revisited and retooled into bonafide short stories. Yet my imagination could not stop dreaming bigger stories.
As you may have surmised, I do not sell my writing, or more precisely, my writing does not sell. I have a career in the real world. Bills must be paid. By circuitous route, I have arrived in a profession which provides twenty to forty percent of free time on the clock. Unaccustomed to such freewheeling time management, I initially spent much of this time watching movies or television shows, solving crossword puzzles, or reading books on history or political theory.
A pair of my fellow employees know of my writing. One has read several of my stories, even contributed artwork to some shorter pieces. The other proved an avid reader in his free time. As a pair, they read many of the same books, mainly science fiction and fantasy. I remained on the periphery of these conversations. I had not read much in either genre since my teens. Once I had resolved to spend time and effort honing a voice as a writer, my interests settled firmly in a semblance of reality. My chagrin that most great anarchist fiction swims in the waters of the sci-fi and fantasy genres still haunted me.
Nevertheless, eavesdropping their discussions sparked a sense of nostalgia. The Iliad occupied my library from the age of ten. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and a compilation, Farmer Giles of Ham, arrived earlier than that. Around age fourteen, I discovered that Conan the Barbarian not only debuted in the 1930’s (not in a 1982 movie) but was authored by the intriguing Robert E. Howard. I read and adored anything by Ursula K. Le Guin whose work straddles the worlds of both fantasy and sci-fi as well as fostering my coming “no gods, no masters” attitude toward the universe. Science fiction filled my library in those years as well. I marveled at Phillip K. Dick, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, the strange and pulpy Robert Zelazny. My first attempt at reading Dune ended in failure when I was twelve, though I revisited it in my thirties and have read it at least seven times since. I have always and continue to be a fan of science fiction more so in film. I consider myself more of a Star Wars fan than the average person. I owned thousands of comic books of every variety. In short, between forty and thirty years ago, I owned a love of a certain styles of stories from which I strayed due to my desire for a pursuit of idealism and contemporary form in my own writing.
In any event, these conversations set tiny inklings to ping against my imagination. Most of the time, I brushed them away. I didn’t have the time to concentrate on such ideas. Again, it took me three years of dedicated writing sessions to complete my last novel. Still plot ideas and situations pestered me. Then, for no apparent reason, during the downtime I mentioned earlier, I allowed myself to write a few pages of a science fiction story. It became evident, I had nowhere near the time required for the immense amount of world building high science fiction required. No matter, another idea lay nearly ignored in some dark mental bin next to it. A fantasy story about a young king who makes an ill fated bargain with a god. 
Once I began writing and allowed the words to simply appear as any random thought in my mind, the world built itself as if my subconscious provided a textual description of a place and time that already existed somewhere all along. Within a month and a half of intermittent writing, I had an astonishing 25,000 words of worthy material. By eleven months I stood on the verge of 135,000 words and a preconceived, satisfying ending for the first installment of an epic tale.
I began this introduction with a reference to this book’s inception from my frustration. This now seems somewhat out of sequence. My frustration stems from several avenues. First, I began this book with a certain amount of disdain for the genre. I knew if I began a book meant to follow my preferred style, I might spend years on something that might never see completion so I chose to “play with this goofy fantasy story.” Second, the aforementioned time I’ve spent wrestling with themes and characters, allegories and symbolism in modern settings left with only enough strength to perform minimal effort in promoting the work grated on me. Then after those years of struggle (a word I generally use with positive iteration) I stumbled into a story that has flowed without effort and by mere existence contains many of the themes and ideals my conscience required in my previous writing. Third, I apparently possessed the wherewithal to create a fantasy epic for decades yet my obsession with modern anarchism and denial of my proclivity for more escapist settings kept me from such an indulgence. Perhaps frustration is not the correct word, though I fail at the point of writing this introduction to think of a more precise description of what brought this book into existence and how I feel in the aftermath. Perhaps what I am experiencing is bewilderment with serendipity.
All this said, I am proud of what this book became and the ease with which it developed portends future installments might evolve as easily and possibly at a faster pace. As one of the fellow readers/employees pointed out when I described my progress, “I know you enjoy a good fist fight but when you really enjoy the work, it comes across in the finished product.” I hope this truth is as obvious to anyone who reads this book.
  
​

My last bit of blog writing is music related and it proved damned therapeutic. So what the hell, let’s do it again. This time regarding something contemporary as well as something in a far different hemisphere of genre.


I discovered Fust on the All Songs Considered list of best songs of 2025. With anything that is truly good, it took a a couple of listens for me to hear what is actually good about “Spangled,” the first track on Fust’s newest collection Big Ugly.


When I did finally hear what makes it good… damn it’s really good.


When one speaks of the songwriting behind Fust, one is speaking exclusively of Aaron Dowdy. I don’t know from what Faulknerien/McCarthyien Appalachian mud hill this cat rolled down to get here but he’s got the makings of genius.


At first listen, “Spangled” struck me as a throwback track, sounds layered in the mimic of ‘00s alt-country, a genre that produced (along with metric tons of unmitigated garbage) some of today’s greatest folk rock tunes and songwriters, Jeff Tweedy and Ryan Adams among them. If you had played this tune for me and fibbed its release at around 2006, I would have believed you, shocked that I had never heard of it.


To be sure, I am hyper-jaded with such sounds. When I performed and wrote songs in this vein, the genre went by many names, Texas Country, Red Dirt Music, Alt-Country, etc.. With very few exceptions, the cookie cutter lost its edge and eventually lost its shape. Which is one of the reasons I waxed skeptical on my first run through “Spangled.” Sonically, there’s nothing groundbreaking here. The vintage amp accompanied by twin melody fiddle work. Tight high-hat vs quiet snare snap beats. Understated but solid bass flow. All hallmarks of the better examples of the genre. And all of it—to my relief—executed to perfection, nevertheless, recorded in way I am generally unfond of, crisp, flat, and void of ambience. Yet the caliber of the songwriting craft displayed here makes me forget that I hate this style of engineering.


Aaron Dowdy—whose voice comes in as if José González moved to Appalachia solely to become a hillbilly alcoholic—has written a song that had to creep around in my head before I truly recognized just how exceptional “Spangled” is as a composition.


There lies a disjointed narrative within “Spangled.” Wrought with alcohol, death, euphoria, desperation, yearning, injury, aimless religiosity, this song bleeds everything Southern plus a healthy dose of things American in general, including the title, a word not generally used unless announced between the words “star” and “banner.” And Dowdy drives that point with continued hammer strikes in somewhat random places in the lyrics. It’s utterly beautiful in context.


The other constant in the lyrics is the number(s) 3-0-5. Once it refers to a hospital room, then a Virginia highway, and then a state (or municipal) precinct. The way Dowdy uses these three syllables is a wonder to behold, constructing a frame of reference across three different scenes, using the mantra as a through line.


But what is the line? What is the story? Are we jumping forward and backward, backward and forward? It seems each listener can design the story for themselves. We have a hospitalization (or is it the memory of one? a birth? a trauma?) then an incident on a bridge (vehicular accident or maybe a suicide or even still a simple drunken appreciation of the view from it) then we’re in a drainage/septic ditch wishing the rain would take us away. It’s a clinic in angular psychedelic poetry like nothing I’ve heard in music since songs on Joe Henry’s album Trampoline.


Even as Dowdy’s relaxed delivery and top of the beat phrasing sets up a certain mood, he has moments of sheer lyrical gymnastics, which—once one dives into other offerings in the Fust catalog—seems to be a staple of the writer’s art. Some lines stand out as flourish against chords and changes. Such as “I feel like a sparkler/That’s been thrown off the roof.” Or “Wondering who’s the god of that sky?/Who’s the god of memory?”


In closing, I have to say this is as perfect a rural rock tune as any that could be written today, especially in a genre that has been left for dead by most intellectually curious listeners. At one point in time, we thought James McMurtry might have a shot at dragging this corner of “country” away from the low intelligence and transparent cynicism of the twenty-first century record industry. Alas, he had his shot and missed. I’m by no means claiming that Fust might save Southern music. But it certainly sounds as if Aaron Dowdy and crew are having a good time frolicking in what’s left of it.

A minor hobby of mine is crafting on drift wood. I should not have used the gloss finish on this piece but I’m new at this. I have found the work highly therapeutic and hope to do more in the future.

I haven’t written about music since the failure of a weekly entertainment magazine called SPREAD that I founded and ran nearly single handed back in the early ’00s. Music and I have a strained relationship for myriad reasons. Musical performance produced my only experiences with transcendence, as the term is commonly defined. However, nothing else can so thoroughly sour your love of something as striving to pay your bills with said something. Let’s leave it there.


Now to the subject of this writing and my first real essay on anything musical in over two decades. Are you familiar with a Nashville, TN band named All Them Witches? Not many people are if not connoisseurs of obscure rankings of metal/hard rock bands, which is ironic in that All Them Witches are generally regarded as a multi genre/genre busting group.


First allow me to preempt my praise for this band with what I consider their weaknesses which truly boil down to a single weakness. The studio. The aforementioned genre buster label stems from their songwriting craft for sure but their studio work highlights the variability of their interests—including songs recorded with country artist Caitlin Rose and folk artists Erin Rae, fellow members of the Nashville music scene. In a studio setting, armed with all the individual tracks and controls, All Them Witches are a mediocre band at best. Seriously. Their discography is unimpressive, self indulgent, and flat. If I had to describe them in a single word: hollow. Even with the meandering history of personnel which includes some talented multi instrumentalism, even though scaffolded by eclectic influences such as multi national folk music, within the depths of each album, at the core of each collection, lies a cold blank space. I suspect the very diversity of weaponry offered by the studio hinders this band’s actual genius.


This actual genius is on full display in a single, COVID forced live performance recorded in 2020, the year live performance was sacrificed on the alter of lockdown mania. The title of this collection testifies to my previous complaint about All Them Witches being a tad boring. The title isn’t as lazy as it first sounds. It’s an inside-baseball nod to lyrics from a previous album, Sleeping Through the War, “Guess I’ll go live on the internet.” Live on the Internet, in my once-but-no-longer professional opinion, is one of the greatest displays of mood and groove in the history of hard rock. I am cognizant of the hyperbolic tone, trust me. I am 53 years old. A lifetime of listening stands behind this statement. This live recording—sans live audience—provides a clinic on what a band in this era of retro over saturation can achieve in a single moment of time.


As mentioned previously All Them Witches—a primarily hard rock entity—has employed keyboard, violin, harmonica, etc. over the years in an effort to claim their genre bending status. Not here. Live on the Internet is performed as a traditional three piece. Michael Parks, Jr. on bass and vocals, Ben McLeod on guitar, Robby Staebler on drums. If you’d like see the band play these songs, the entire video of this show is available on YouTube, however, my suggestion is to stick with the audio only version. My argument for greatness here is anchored in sound, nothing to do with sight which is an intended salute to Mikey Allred who engineered, mixed, and mastered this performance.


This is not an album review. I will not go song by song stretching for high shelf adjectives to describe these tunes. What I want to do here is spotlight what is missing in music today, what has been missing in music for several decades, and how an almost effortless move on any band or single performer’s part can breath energy back into modern music.


The basic move here is one toward honesty in expression. I defy you to find a more honest live performance—in this broad genre—anywhere over the last decade. What we have in Live on the Internet becomes a trio of musical personalities soaring within the sweet spots of their capabilities. This isn’t the mechanical regurgitation of rote phrasing and beat counting perfection. The band creates life on this recording. Without overzealous intent to showboat or dazzle. Each of the players conveys a perfect understanding of each piece and their part within the superstructure of the performance as a whole.


McLeod’s basic trinity of whah, delay, and amp born distortion elevates his choices of flourish and rhythm to virtuosic proportion. McLeod has become one of my favorite guitarists of late with his talent for restraint. It is his restraint, his decisions on what not to play versus what he could play or what another player in his position might have chosen to play that has won my awe. At no point on this recording do I ever think, “That was uncalled for.” Full disclosure alert: one of the reasons I am enamored with McLeod’s tools lies in the fact that whah, delay, amp distortion were the foundation of my own sound when I played. After years of crowded pedal boards slowly dropping in population as each do-hicky and whatchacallit died for whatever mysterious reason, the revelation that these three stalwarts were all any true guitar work required became doctrinal for me. McLeod’s use of slide in a hard rock setting also attracts me as I too relied heavily on that tiny brass pipe to illicit my favored sounds.


Staebler, with the help excellent sound engineering, has created what is an absolute fortress of consistency behind the beats on Live on the Internet. Any falter in his timing comes as a welcome reminder that he is a living, breathing human source of the percussion. His dynamics are flawless throughout, an achievement rarely accomplished in the modern era of triggers and electronics. His willingness to rely on five or six variable fills is nothing short of glorious revelry in the groove, the mood of the show.


As the other half of the rhythm duo, Parks somehow injects soul into a tone so thick one might think he’s a sorcerer of a flavor found only in cheap fantasy novels. A majority of bass sounds in this genre—especially in a three piece configuration—rely so much on a narrow portion of low end that the subtleties required to emote much, if any mood lies out of reach and yet Parks’ playing here paints a fresco across this confined canvas, one that bellows and brawls in it’s beauty and simplicity.


Parks’ vocals are the true gem amongst the music, in part because what he does can barely be described as singing at all. His monotone delivery strikes one as if they’re hearing a bygone Jim Morrison who, so weary from working his day job as ditch digger, is simply too exhausted to grant you anything more than the his ultra cryptic, quasi-religious poetry in stilted off kilter cadence. It is absolute genius to hear. It flips on its head the notion that vocals must be the spearhead of the performance. Parks proves that not only do vocals not require outlandish, hamming up but they don’t even need to be musical, per se.


In all my declarations that this performance conveys honesty of an overall mood and groove, the songs presented here do in fact meander in sentiment. From the sweeping bleakness of Blood and Sand/Endless Waters to the back-to-basics rock fury of tracks like Saturnine & Iron Jaw, 41, Charles William and Enemy of My Enemy to hypnotic blindsides like Alabaster and Rats in Ruin the songs themselves seem to yearn to break free from the focus of the greater project. Yet the band keeps the entire menagerie on the rails with an iron will. Every tune contains that vein of collective honest intent.


Even the farthest off genre wanderings keep the mood when one would think it impossible. The Marriage of Coyote Woman is concrete delta blues that should clash in every way with the majority of the set list. Still, with the simple commitment to clothing the song in the same honesty as the others, the tune melts into the cauldron. In the same way, Open Passageways and Everest, two un-rock tunes, lacking in distortion or drive, become tasteful fringe on a cloak of darkness. Everest, incidentally, stands out as a breather, a guitar solo instrumental in the vein of sweaty 70’s bands who dreamt of Vikings and forest elves.


By all accounts this band should not be able to make this recording. In a world where the average attention span has corrupted the artistic output on a global scale, this album should not exist. Even bands who claim to have stuck to their principles—Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, etc—have caved to protocol. I’m not saying that on a certain scale All Them Witches is more musically moral than any other band. What I am willing to state without any doubt is that this work, as a whole, is as honest and true to the the craft of performance as any band could be and is most certainly what every band should strive for. This collection, recorded in one sitting, is an achievement. I commend them, even though my adoration is three years overdue.

A hovel leaned against a tree whose unripened fruit hung covered in frost. A thin ribbon of translucent smoke twisted above the opening in the roof. A draft beast stood stomping grumpy stomps on the leeward side of the structure, random gusts tossing the ball of hair that hung over his eyes.


Gartisix, four of his men, and two young priests brought their horses to a halt near the entrance where a thin blade of light cut through the leather flap. One of the clerics led an additional pony, the saddle small and vacant. A stout bearded man, sickle in hand, appeared in the gap and stood for a time while Gartisix and his party approached. The priests spoke with him for a long time while the general and his guards listened. This farmer, whose stance was at first defiant and aggressive, eventually slunk at the shoulders and allowed the clerics into his abode.


When the priests emerged again, they escorted a girl, teenager. They had wrapped her in a wooly hide. As they moved past Gartisix toward the horses, her young face turned back at the family that had stepped out as a globule of arms, legs, tattered clothes, and soiled faces of various ages. Tears dripped. Audible sorrows.


Gartisix went to the farmer and handed him a gold chain. The runes and symbols on the ovoid pendant attached to the chain declared this man and his family now members of the Durancerot, the cherished and exalted providers of sacrificial virgins to the lord of gods, Hartem. The treasure in the farmer’s hand would forever ensure that his children and their children and on and on would be cared for by royal decree. They who gave a life would never suffer for food or home. And yet as most members of the Durancerot came to understand, no amount of royal generosity could buy back the guilt one gained following the yield of innocents for slaughter.

For many years, King Zutophax ruled the lands of the mighty Gustah Mountains and The Vast Plains below them. He possessed the further southern forest kingdoms of Welki and Telki. The dusty lands of Vanzylt and Rymsalsi to the east paid tribute to Zutophax and relied on his protection from the Empire of Onquesta and the kingdom of Poortemta. These two waning powers participated in unending conflict between themselves hence any mustering of the Gustah armies proved rare. North of the mountains, stretching into the eternal unknown of the arctic wastelands, lay the Oliane Steppe, populated by mysterious nomadic tribes and beasts of dark origins. To the west churned the sea.


Integral to the king’s legend was his devotion to the god Hartem and Hartem’s wife, Demnasa. The story told across the far reaches of his influence and beyond placed a young, newly crowned Zutophax in the catacombs beneath Hartem’s temple carved into the dark rock of the Gustah convening face to face with the boisterous deity, the god of both war and peace, and the undeniable lord of his fellow gods. Zutophax pleaded to Hartem’s vanity and promised the god many wars in exchange for years of calm and prosperity. In an additional appeal to Hartem’s wife, Demnasa, the goddess of the harvest and childbirth, purveyor of the energy of all life, Zutophax presented a plan to provide exuberant amounts of what the gods most desired—the worship and sacrifice that roiled the cosmic realm to fuel their strength and magic.


The shining armies of the Gustah conquered what remained of the borderlands between the plains and Welki and Telki. He subjugated the twin forest kingdoms and decimated the wild lands of Vanzylt and Rymsalsi. He installed his brothers as princes there. He annexed waterways and fertile lands from the faltering Empire of Onquesta. He attacked Poortempta and removed the kingdom’s mad boy-king from power. Then for decades he played the two nations against one another in order to keep the peace he had promised Hartem and Demnasa. This peace provided much wealth and happiness for the people of The Gustah. Zutophax and his subjects recognized the chief god’s approval as the source of their prosperity and performed endless sacrifices to his name.

The king of Gustah achieved a number of feats in his travels and wars that established his legend beyond his borders. Hartem’s assistance in many of these achievements spawned jealousy and angst amongst the ranks of the gods. Many of these triumphs involved the destruction of other gods’ plans, creatures, or favored heroes. Zutophax and his armies exterminated the Glorm, forest trolls beloved of Xelshas, God of the Trees and Swamps. Hartem sent winged minions to drink dry the catches of water below the forest, starving the Glorm from their subterranean fortress. Zutophax’s warriors slew them to the last female and cub. In the deserts of Vanzylt, Zutophax and his brothers bested a family of giants after Hartem cheated their goddess, Shamkai of the Sand, in a game of chance in which Hartem won the total of the giants’ armory. Hartem blinded Golgorahm’s favorite dragon in order that Zutophax could slay him on the shore of the River Onquesta. Hartem revealed to the king the secret passage through the mountains in Rymsalsi that led to the Sanctuary of Viltide where Fowmyar, The Storm God, hid the magic shield, Artimah. These and many other victories raised Zutophax to unprecedented fame and power as well as making him the subject of ridicule and jealousy.


During his march to the River Onquesta, Zutophax fell in love with a maiden named Sermaina. She travelled in the company of rebel barons from the now dethroned royal family of Poortempta. Zutophax’s warriors captured the party and brought them before the king. Zutophax was struck with love for Sermaina the moment she looked into his eyes and he took her for his wife. By ancient law, only women of the Gustah could wear the queen’s crown and Zutophax held loyal to the law. Sermaina would never be queen or wield the formidable powers afforded the title. To Zutophax’s despair, Sermaina proved barren of ova and could not bear children. Zutophax sacrificed and pleaded with Demnasa to repair his beloved and provide him with heirs. After heated congress betwixt Hartem, Demnasa, and her priestesses, the goddess relented and gave Zutophax two sons and a daughter, Selmaina. Under the arrangement, to Sermaina’s lasting sorrow, Demnasa took Selmaina as her own and stole her away for secret machinations known only to her.


The sons of Zutophax, Aphax and Siliphax, grew strong in the years following the disappearance of their sister. Tutored by Aniskartool, Gustah’s royal wizard and High Priest of Hartem. Aphax stood tall and golden, the very reflection of his famous father. From the time he could stand, Zutophax’s warriors bade lavish affection upon Aphax. Their love for him vexed the king for he worried it might soften his heir and curdle his lineage. In frustration, Zutophax gave standing orders for floggings if any of his men coddled the prince. His intervention and the loyalty of his soldiers indeed preempted any possible spoil of the boy. In his teens, he could best many of his father’s elite fighters in the endless duels in which his father insisted he partake. Aphax took command of his father’s cavalry in his nineteenth summer, performing decisive maneuvers in battles against the unified armies of Vanzylt. Aphax and Siliphax stood at their father’s side as he tumbled the severed head of the hated Vanzyltian queen down the steps of the Irpnaqi Pyramid.


On that white morning, with the haze of human steam obscuring the cheering multitude of the liberated Vanzyltian people gathered below them, young Aphex discovered his love for glory and victory, an emotion destined to ruin him, destroy his kingdom, and scar the entire world of Kem.


In recent years, Zutophax’s eyes kept further south than the forest lands, into the rich trading empires who exploited greater access to the oceans and the prolific rivers laced through the Gustahnian plains and all the lands between. As a man, Zutophax suffered few weaknesses but as ruler, the king lusted for control and subjects. He knew the trading realms in the deeper south enjoyed unsurpassed flavors of such control. Only in his later years had he discovered the usefulness of gold as a weapon instead of a simple spoil of war. With patience true to his legend, Zutophax plotted and spied against them for years.


*


One of Gustah’s essential religious pageants came in the spring. Demnasafyax celebrated Gustah’s devotion to Demnasa and her continued blessing of the harvest. The festival involved thousands of people from every vein of Gustah culture with special attention and duties assigned to the farming families. The Demnasafyax of Aphax’s twenty first year held particular importance as the first celebration of the festival in a year of absolute peace. The lands were calm and subdued, the subjects of Zutophax scattered across his vast realm satisfied and healthy.


At the height of Demnasafyax, when the maidens of the court tossed their bouquets into the green fires of the ritual vessel and the kingdom’s highest ranking warriors bowed at the feet of the elected members of the farming families, a cry of anguish halted the music and laughter. Those members of the court most familiar with the voices of the royal family knew at once that shrill scream belonged to King Zutophax’s wife, Sermaina.


Aphax, Siliphax, and their closest confidant, Gartisix, bounded from the floor of the ceremony to Sermaina’s side on the royal platform. Dark blood speckled her screaming face. Her sons grabbed and prodded in attempt to find her wounds until Gartisix shook them from their frenzy for he tracked Sermaina’s unmoved gaze. There in the shadow of the royal dining table lay King Zutophax in a creeping pool of blood, his throat open, his eyes affixed in subdued horror.


Aphax ordered the hall sealed and gathered the guard about the table in defense of his mother. He climbed atop the table, sword drawn. He demanded the culprit found. He vowed grave tortures for the murderer and stomped his feet against the table which scattered the feast and hushed the terrified assemblage of nobles into cowering huddles.


Old Aniskartool approached with his slender staff held high. The warriors tightened the gap before him, prompting reprimands from the wizard.


“Aphax!” he bellowed. “Tame these buffoons so that I may tend to your father!”


“Your master is dead, wizard! And the assassin is here in the hall!”


“Damn you, boy! Let me through! His wounds may reveal the fiend! If you and your brutes haven’t already ruined our chance with this ruckus!”


Aphax gave the guards the order and they sidestepped just enough for the old man to push through. After a forlorn glance at Sermaina, he bent into the space above the king’s seeping wound and sniffed. He pushed his fingers into the glaze of blood on the stone floor then shot to his feet, banging his head against the edge of the table as he went.


“There!” He pointed his staff over the helms of the guardsmen. The room shifted concert in the direction of his insistence.


“Where, old man?” Gartisix said as pounced to the tabletop.


Aniskartool struggled his crooked body to Gartisix’s side. “There!”


A pair of glassy eyes stared back at them, a servant girl, her hand drenched in blood.


The room gasped.


Before Gartisix could move, Aphax leapt past him, over the ring of soldiers, stamping across the backs of cringing nobles.


“Aphax, no!” the old man yelled.


Even as the words left The High Priest’s lips, Aphax slung the wide blade down into the girl’s shoulder and clove a quarter of her body away in an explosion of gore.


The room had stalled, transfixed by the speed of it all.


“Impulsive clod,” the wizard whispered. “Gartisix, get down there and find the blade the child used on our king. Bring it to me after. Hurry!”


In a precaution against further conspiracy, Aphax removed his mother’s regular guard and replaced them with six of his most trusted cavalrymen. He then requested the High Conclave of Demnasa—the seven priestesses sent from far flung regions for the festival—to treat his mother in her quarters.


*


Deep in the bowels of Gustahphax Castle, amidst a slow dance of torch shadows and the heavy osmarah of mildew and sweat,
Aphax and his brother received counsel from their father’s advisers. A steady parade of slaves and servants escorted in and out of the meeting brought them no closer to a motive for the king’s assassination. More than once the older, wiser men extinguished the grieving Aphax and Siliphax from brutality born of their loss. To Aniskartool’s surprise, only one of the wretches had suffered mortal wounds before his arrival.


“Sons of Zutophax,” he said as he made his way to the table in the center of the room, “men of the King’s Council, it appears we have suffered a mystical crime.”


“Mystical?” one of them replied.


From some hidden pouch beneath his robes, Aniskartool produced a leather rag and dropped it to the table with authoritative flourish. The rag rolled open to reveal a common kitchen knife, crusted with the blood of their dead king.


He motioned Gartisix forward. “My boy, with which hand did thoust touch this blade when I asked thee to retrieve it?”


Gartisix glanced about the room with reticence then he showed the High Priest his right hand.


Aniskartool heaved a heavy wet breath into the soldier’s palm and then examined the hand front and back, all while peering down his nose as if assessing some jewel or fine fabric. Finally, he patted the man’s arm and shooed him aside.


“This blade has been tampered by magic. A dark spell. A very difficult spell.”


“You’re suggesting that knife possessed that girl to murder my father,” Aphax told himself as much as relaying his deduction.


“I’m not suggesting anything, prince. This is a statement of fact.”


“There are but a select number of magic wielding people this far north,” one of the older men commented.


“I can think of only three individuals in Gustah proper with the expertise to craft such an incantation,” Aniskartool said, “One is a fellow member of my Circle, one is a ranking priestess of Demnasa, and the third is sitting at this table.”


Aphax perked in shock. “This priestess—?”


“Not to worry. I have just left your mother’s quarters. Ruyadsaftooli is the priestess in question and she is beyond suspicion, I assure you.”


“Then pray what is your conclusion, Aniskartool?” Helbalifex, the dead king’s chief general, asked in weary cadence.


“Beyond the Gustah’s ancient borders, the number of capable sorcerers climbs. And the further south one goes, the greater those numbers increase, exponentially.”


“We need to send envoys.”


“We could do that, Helbalifex, but to whom? Imperial courts well aware of our late king’s meddling in their affairs?”


“Men who,” Aphax said with a finger pointing into the tabletop, “wish our nation ill.”


“Political postering,” Aniskartool said. “Fiery rhetoric. Diversions.”


“Murdering a king is a bold diversion,” barked Siliphax.


“Give us counsel, wizard!” Helbalifex shouted. “Gustah demands swift revenge!”


Aniskartool banged the foot of his staff against the floor. “Have you given any thought that hot blooded, unthinking revenge is the fruit our antagonist hopes to reap from this atrocity?”


“What is our play then?” Aphax said. “Where do we look and how do we proceed once we know our enemy?”


The old man tapped at the knife with his long fingernail several times then gathered it back into the rag.


“Our foe is indeed south of Vanzylt and Rymsalsi. You will be sending messages to your uncles with news of Zutophax’s murder. They will announce the deed to their subjects. We will send instruction on how to read the ambassadors from Vashar and Jemhway. The southern empires are wily and quick. Their foreign agents will prove difficult. We must not act rashly. Our window of opportunity is minute and any ballyhoo will foul our efforts. Aphax,” he reached out to touch the young man, “you are Zutophax’s heir. You are our king now, regardless of the coming ceremony to make it legitimate in the eyes of the people. I beg you to follow my every instruction.”


To a man, the weight of the kingdom seemed to have traveled through the catacombs and stairwells, past the servants and the guards as some phantom serpentine creature hunting them by scent of their anxieties, constricting them and holding them captive in the silence of the moment.