Down in the Dim Kingdoms
The airship’s spotlights played off the vast rocky sides of the shaft that plunged deep into the Earth’s core through the lithosphere and eventually to our destination: the Center of the Earth! I yawned. We fell so slowly, the sides of the shaft several hundred feet away, and it had been a long, boring day of this. There’d been a boy, earlier, t...
Maskwork Saltman Giftbox
I’m only doing maskwork until I find better, but there aren’t many physical jobs to go around in Schrödinger City. Most get done by gleaming machines, by hop-along bots and drone swarms. Luckily, maskwork needs a human touch—and supposedly, village folk are better at it than the folk who grew up here. Could be. I always liked masks.
We Are All Strange Ones Here
By Sally Sultzman in Issue #462 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine —then this child wearing Jen’s clothing, with Jen’s hair pulled into tight braids that she hates, smiling with Jen’s face is running toward me, laughter ringing from her like a bell, clear and bright—a sound I’ve not heard before—and as she gets closer she cries out, “Mot...
Sous Lumière Aigre
By Jonathan Louis Duckworth in Issue #466 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine He had neither the energy nor the interest to argue. Nor to talk at all. With a grunt, Guy got behind his cart and pushed it forward. The night would only get darker, and he had a long way to go to the valley where a maison de potage and a nice fireplace awaited...
— PAGE 1 —