BARDIC DREAMS, by Deborah Guzzi   Bold warriors and women, shield mates, sat wrapped in the darkness, sheltered between knees warmed by their lovers and heat of kettle fire.   A bard regaled with tales and love song Bold warriors and women, shield mates, sat toasting their fallen friends with ale and tears.   Mist […]

A SEA-MONSTROUS HĂI GUÀI ATTACKS CHING SHIH’S PIRATE SHIP, by Kendall Evans, with artwork by Simon Walpole I. Hand-carved, a distinctive figurehead perched High upon the prow of Ching Shi’s Chinese junk: Proud wooden dragon, ready to breathe fire Eyes scanning for foes, teeth long as short swords Green scales like markings upon turtle’s shell […]

Fall has clamped down hard on our part of the world, bringing relief from the summer’s relentless heat. And now, HFQ brings you relief from the long nights to come in the waning of the year!  Four stories, three poems, artwork, and audio!  A literary feast, spread before you in our electronic pages.  Behold the […]

PREROGATIVE OF GODS, by Nathanael Green     The gods are all of them gone to ashes. Some sent there by my own hand. Once, though, they were Twelve, often among us. That morning, the first time I met the god I would serve, was sharp with the frost of autumn when I went to […]

RAFT OF CONQUISTADORS, by Raphael Ordonez   Zisz the god-diatom skimmed the pelagic zone of space. The crystal vessel, both shell and ship, that housed Zisz’s tender self described a zigzag path across the abyss until it fell at last by chance into a spinning star-whorl. Planet-fields flung from white-hot sparks as from potters’ wheels […]