The merchant’s lawn looked straight out of a catalogue. A driveway wound over hills of short grass. Maples shaded the road all the way to the mansion-sized house in the distance. Open yards, patches of garden, and small ponds stretched for acres before ending in a wall of pines. In one such garden, there was a squat table for luncheons. At that table sat at short woman in a sharp suit. Most times of the year, that table would have been a pleasant place to wait for a meeting. Today,

Elora had already exhausted herself by the time the harpy found her. A half-mile swim through a chilly lake left her gasping. Thick fog hid the shoreline in all directions. Elora’s frantic strokes sent lonely ripples across otherwise glasslike water.




Above, heavy wingbeats faded in and out as the harpy searched. Suddenly, the wingbeats grew louder. Then, a second of silence as the harpy dived. Two talons slammed against E

Unicorns
are Magnificent Creatures
Grick
Bug
spray and hair gel invaded the mountain air in alternating puffs over
Toby’s spiky black head and sweating tan neck. Hunched on a
mushroomed stump in the light shade beside a glasswater spring, the
29 year old car salesman fiddled with his signal-less cell phone as
though touching it could make him feel at least a little less out of
place. His girlfriend had dragged him off camping plenty of times,
but always to well established grounds always (a

A
Rare Treat
Grick
Davia
cursed as the machete slipped from her hands and clattered down the
rocky slope into the thick brambles below. She knew to always
sheathe her blade while climbing, but with the bluff’s peak so near
she let impatience get the better of her. For a moment, she
considered clambering back down to retrieve the precious thing, but
she doubted she could the thick wall of thorns without it. It hardly
mattered, anyway, she had seen plenty of smoke from just ahead.
Though it

Holly
Hog
Grick
Holly
adjusted the strap of her bikini bottom uncomfortably. It was fine,
she chided herself. Sure, she felt just as naked as she had in the
shower an hour ago, but that was normal. Wasn’t it? It must be.
A pair of women only a little younger than her—college age, by the
looks of them—had strutted by only moments ago wrapped in thin
straps far more revealing than Holly’s fruity orange swimsuit. If
they could do it, then so could she! Brushing stray strands of
bleac

The
Golem of Half-Table Hill
Grick
Ringed
by braziers that crackled around their low chanting, seven druids
gathered on the barren hilltop. Moonlight reflected off their
powdered pale bodies and their swirling patterns of woad as they
writhed and twisted in communion with the goddess of the earth.
Pressing their ears to the ground, lapping at the dirt, etching runes
into the soil with their thumbs, they mumbled their dissonant ritual.
To
the side, Ceana lay supine upon a stone tablet at the p

Mating
Habits of Temperate Harpies
Grick
In
almost all corners of the world, harpies count among the most loathed
of the bestial races. Obligate thieves and marauders, they make
their living raiding and pilfering along the fringes of civilized
societies. Humanoid in size and shape, harpies differ from their
primate counterparts by their avian features. Most notably, their
arms each extend into broad wings each twice the length of a human
arm with scaly claws protruding from the crooks in the

Stowed
Away
Grick
Beneath
a crooked column of moonlit coal fumes, the cargo ship Eurayle slid
through the calm waters of the eastern sea weary with travel and
glutted with cargo. Swaddled in cast iron, the vessel’s principle
hold sat laden with all manner of crate and container. Innumerable
sizes and shapes fitted miraculously together behind bursting meshes
of thick rope, leaving only narrow causeways between them. Sacks and
barrels hung in layered nets on the walls and ceiling, all fixed

Coney
Supper
Grick
The
ranger knelt at the pebbled bank of the stream. Shallow, chilly
water dampened the frayed fringes of his faded green cloak. Cupping
his gnarled hands, he splashed clear water over his shaggy face,
rubbing away the worst of the grime.
A
branch snapped, and he whirled nearly fast enough to tumble, grasping
the hilt of his sword. Relieved, he saw not a bloodthirsty orc
charging from the brush, but rather the white tail of a deer bounding
away in surprise. Five days deep

Lady
Terthwip’s Peacock
Grick
Bloated
with dazzling colors dancing in the refraction of summer’s noon
sun, the royal gardens typically calmed Olvara’s spirits, but today
her scalp sweated over more than the air-wobbling head. Lady
Terthwip, esteemed mistress of the house, walked beside her with an
uncharacteristic smile on her grim-lined face. Garbed in a sunrise
orange riding dress, the Lady stood a head taller than the adolescent
Olvara, whose faded green work shirt marked her as a pal

An
Unconventional Catch
Grick
Though
new to the hunt, the harpy maneuvered with expert agility. A mix of
pale-brown feathers, she wove through the canopy in a blur. Locked
in a tight controlled V, the harpy’s oddly jointed wings contoured
her arms and then stretched another half meter past her wrists. Tail
feathers fanned widely from her hips, twisting and adjusting to her
many arcs and banks. A clear membrane shielded her emerald eyes from
the wind that fluttered the white down covering

Grick
Pardon
my interjection good sirs and madam, but I believe I may be of some
insight to your deliberations. For you see, I have in private
encountered the subject of your speculation, that motile sellsword of
still-rising infamy Stekka Split-Lance. No, it was not that
sort of encounter, so quit that red-faced giggling! I am on a
mission of charity, and I’ll not see myself driven off by the
childish chortling of those most in need of my wisdom. Of course I
am serious! What, you think

Another
Day in Lake Spalic
Grick
Seventy
four years ago, Lake Spalic swallowed 112 square kilometers of low
farmland and thick forest. The three year fill snaked and branched
through the snappy-hilled piedmont until the glutted trench that was
once the Kepsing River sprouted dozens of oak-leaf-like waterways
twisting out into the surrounding hills. Over decades, the lake
transformed the land now buried beneath forty meters beneath the
water. Drowned and sun-starved in the wet black, grass an

Cultural
Exchange
Grick
The
oak tree sprouted from the glaring white tiles like an arrow exiting
a Styrofoam board. Four particularly perceptive observers noticed a
sapling in the slight crevasse between two cracking plates, but for
the rest of the crowd the adult tree entered as quickly as a flash of
lightning on a sunny day. New-formed branches grasped up then out
like the arms of a breast-stroking swimmer, shuddering to
motionlessness at the end of their growth. Pristine sheets of white

Past
The Teeth
Grick
Dew
splashed in a shotgun shower as the sprinting scout crashed through
barrier after barrier of waxy leaves. Hard boots left heedless
depressions in the rain-softened earth and snapped the reclining
stalks of underfoot ferns. Etta saw no farther than four paces
ahead, but past the whipping branches and over the clinging roots she
could hear the crashing roar of her next checkpoint. Fair weather
and good fortune had brought her two leagues farther than she thought
the su

The
Blue Ribbon Special
Grick
Stephanie
could never fully understand “trendy” restaurants. From the
moment she stepped through the glass-door entrance she found herself
bombarded by colors and textures in nonsensical arrangement. Rough
wooden walls as would be found in an Alpine cabin were flanked by
bright blue shelves bearing innumerable varieties of spirits. Squat
rectangular tables with pillows in place of chairs intermingled with
tall circular towers reachable only by stools that, fo

Looking
Three Ways
Grick
Travelers
passing through the jagged cliffs of the Western Reaches follow three
simple rules: First, always look down lest your feet slip over the
cliff edge, second, always look up lest a rock fall on your head, and
third, always look forward lest a bandit get the better of you.
Unfortunately for Alria, a tan, black-haired woman at the latter edge
of her youth, she looked down at the sharp rocks waiting in silence
below rather than the young witch waiting in ambush ah

Witch
Hunt
Grick
There
exist more or less three kinds of witch coven.
The
first comes from quaking children’s dreams of dank caves and
grizzled hags churning bubbling pots of goat eyes and snake tongues
with the ends of their broomsticks. While some witches do in fact
practice this first form of coven, they do so without good judgment.
Wicken fires and cackling laughter attract enterprising monster
slayers like trolls to pig offal, and in civilized lands these sorts
of coven never last l

Hard
Lesson
Grick
The
wagon rattled lazily along the muddied path, pulled by a grey-haired
and dreary-eyed mare and driven by a grey-haired and dreary-eyed
coachman. A dense phalanx of trees flanked the path on either side,
and ferns groped inward with their green hands only to be brushed
back by the wagon’s wheels. A steady rain drizzled over the valley
as the northern winds squeezed clouds against the mountains between
Skyrim and Hammerfell.
A
single passenger sat in the back of the wa

Mrs.
Weathers’ Place
Grick
A
low, blue sedan cruised past the community’s gate, slowing for a
moment for the pass to scan. It proceeded through a tangle of
streets and drives all wrapped chaotically around the large and
irregular properties with houses that looked more like small
mansions, and then pulled into one of the driveways. Out stepped a
short brown-haired woman from the driver’s seat and a young couple
from the back. The husband, a tall man with tangled blond hair,
opened the

The Followers of the Way of Nature

Grick


The clearing had been prepared for the night's event. No less than two dozen men and women dressed in daily clothing stood in a wide circle around a grassy patch of earth with a tall pole stuck in the middle of it. The pole had been carved with the features and faces of many animals, some of them predatory and all of them fearsome. Crudely carved fangs and beaks and muzzles jutted from the idol like short, stubby branches. At the base of the st

Room for Dessert

Grick


5:00 PM, it was dark already. The nearly full moon cast a strong light onto the wooded landscape, casting crooked shadows off the naked, leafless trees. The air was a sort of calm cool, cold enough to frost one's breath but not enough to evoke a shiver. The forest was silent; disturbed here and there only by the yelps and howls of a passing pack of coyotes and the occasional hoot of an owl.

Out of a quiet part of the woods, there came a hoot much deeper and