Novelette: The Swallowfalls Spinecaster (2015)
It was high summer, a season inexplicably translated by the environmental lunacy of Fogrise into thick, meandering mists, a fine coat of rain dust and the sort of chill you only get when a small handful of snow is suddenly deposited in your underpants. Everyone was miserable, but arguably no one more so than visiting Princess Envy of Rappohallodran.
'This place makes me weep,' she said, staring despondently from the windows of Fogrise Keep at a village square that, judging by the clutter of ugly architecture, it seemed several different builders were to blame for. Even the ornamental well looked ready to collapse, but this hadn't stopped the local children from playing a variety of difficult and dangerous games around it. The one going on now involved two of the bigger, more rotund teenagers trying to dangle a skinny ginger one over the side without dropping him. A short scream signalled that they had failed.
Short Story: Lair of the Leviathan (2014)
Sunlight washed over the southern island of Lick, lending a terrible scene the sort of sharp contrast most of the observers could have done without.
It was like some sickening jigsaw of a man: all the pieces were there, they just didn’t quite fit together in the right way. This was mainly because the edges were wrinkly and, in several places, enthusiastically chewed.
Hieronymus Blush, journeyman magician and newly initiated outreach merchant for the southern islands, stepped between the two grizzled fisherman in order to get a better look at the corpse.
He’d seen a lot of tragic accidents in his five years as an apprentice at the Magician’s Proving Ground, but these mostly involved the victims disappearing without a trace. For some reason, the look of complete shock on the face of the corpse was particularly unsettling.
Nevertheless, Blush made a valiant attempt to pull himself together: something the poor native on the beach would never get another go at.
He focused on the sand, drawing a small circle distractedly with his big toe while pointing a thin finger at the body. ‘I don’t understand why he’s…complete?’