BETWEEN SEA AND FLAME, by Evan Dicken Hummingbird ran. Branches whipped across her arms, the shouts of her pursuers eclipsed by the huffing gurgle of the thing tearing through the forest behind her. There was a loud crack as one of the Sea People fired his weapon, the shot tearing through the leaves nearby. Hummingbird […]

I AM BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS, by Raphael Ordonez     Upheld by glee over an abyss of dread, the audacious, black-and-white-painted sacred clown raced up the big slope where blue grama and sagebrush waved beneath a turquoise sky. This night he would win the acclaim of his brother-clowns for generations. He would prank […]

RAKEFIRE, by Jason Carney   This was after several secret meetings in smoky roothouses, where whispered secrets were swapped for more secrets couched in cryptolects and allegories. With them I had been shadowing Qwayas for several years, my erstwhile lover and son’s father, who I had questions for and possibly slow death, depending on his […]

COLDER THAN MARS, by Andrew Crabtree   Mars is a god who loves the taste of it The bright red racing mortal taste of it So in his ring of iron he makes a war. In fields beyond the seven marble hills His men take arms to force strange kings to kneel. His sacred camp […]

THE PIRATE QUEEN CHING SHIH CONFRONTS HER DOPPELGANGER, by Kendall Evans   The sound of bells; swells of brackish water The harbor stench a dead-fish atmosphere— A bearded would-be pirate slight of build Standing on the dock in dreary overcast Applied one dawn to join the Red Flag Fleet   And take training on The […]