LOST QUARTER BOOKS

In A Flash: The Flitcraft Effect

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Clint

Musaira Deshu lived an unremarkable life as such things were measured. She worked for a company that provided the processed food and other supplies for several planetary and asteroid mining conglomerates. When she was introduced to people they invariably commented on how interesting her job must be, associated with such interstellar daring. Space travel, with all its attendant consequences, was still a novelty for most people, who would never so much as think of leaving the planet surface, except to visit a thermospheric resort.

Musaira was in fact one of these. Her job was in payroll and compliance. The closest she came to space was when she calculated the taxable benefits for those off planet, who had different exemptions than those on. She was completely fine with this. The job was not what one would call exciting, but she took satisfaction in it and considered herself quite good at it. She was married and had a young daughter, and much of the joy she found in life came there.

One day, on her way to work, she was nearly hit by a falling pane of glass as she walked by a tower that was under construction. Workers had been installing the windows above and had left one resting against the ledge on the roof. Somehow a gust of wind caught it, lifted it up, and sent it tumbling down to the ground. The police, when they investigated, said it was just poor luck that it had happened, though they expected the construction company to be fined for failing to take the necessary precautions.

For Musaira the incident was a revelation. The glass landed right beside her as she walked by the tower. She could feel the brush of the wind as it passed by, and had actually looked to see if someone was reaching out to get her attention. She turned in time to see the glass shatter and let out a scream, jumping back. In spite of the shards of glass spraying in all directions around her, she wound up with only a small cut on her left hand. People farther away than her ended up with cuts and bits of glass embedded in their flesh. One man even lost an eye.

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In A Flash: Blossoming Hearts

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Clint

In springtime the nobles of Nazagul would gather in the finer districts of the city, or, for those of particular fortune, in the court of the Emperor himself, to watch the blossoming of the baha flowers. Such an occasion, which came but once a year and lasted for only a week—two if the season was truly favorable—was an opportunity to observe the ephemeral splendor of nature. Life itself was transient and fleeting, a moment that passed and disappeared without a thought. A beauty that could never be captured and held.

Genha felt herself to be in such a moment now, an exquisite perfection that she would spend the rest of her days seeking to replicate, all to no avail. Everything stood on the precipice ready to collapse, but it yet stood, all in balance. The flowers bloomed, and though she knew the day would come, not long from now, when the blossoms would fall and scatter to the winds, they seemed so alive that she could almost believe it was impossible that they should perish.

The moment of her realization came during that year’s baha festivities. She and her husband attended the celebration of one of the Emperor’s viziers in the hills above the imperial city in the park the Emperor had set aside for the nobility. The group of them—the vizier and his wife, Genha and her husband, their children and retainers—sat beneath one of the baha trees, five trees from the Emperor himself. Two trees further yet was the family Leiy’s celebration, and sitting with them was their firstborn son and his wife and their children.

They spent the afternoon beneath the trees contemplating the baha blossoms, amidst laughter and joking , eating and drinking,. The moment that Genha would remember, that she would treasure for the remainder of her days, came as the sun’s descent became obvious. The shadow’s began to lengthen around them, the air seeming to change, as if to announce that night would not be held at bay for long. As she sat at the edge of the vizier’s blanket, watching her second–born son play with the vizier’s firstborn daughter, she felt the eyes of someone upon her and glanced up to see the Firstborn Leiy staring at her. Their eyes met for an instant, and they both looked away before anyone noticed. It was in that instant, that exquisite glance, that Genha realized she had never known such happiness.

The day went on and the blankets were folded up and the Emperor led the procession back into the imperial city. As they descended from the hills, down the wide imperial avenue, everyone could see as smoke began to billow from the Xavin District near the city walls. A quiet murmur passed through the crowd, as various parties speculated about the fire and its cause, as well as its location, so near the army barracks. The Emperor made no comment and gave no sign he even noticed the blaze, leading the procession below with his head held high.

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In A Flash: All That Remains

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Clint

I emerged, crawling upward from the bowels of unending, the grime thick and the smoke spreading.

What lay there, I hardly recall. My thoughts were not my own then. They are barely my own now. I am not who I am, you see. I am all that remains.

Here is what I remember of that dark time. The memory of that caustic smoke, acrid tasting, stings my eyes still. The dim phosphorescence provided by the braziers stationed on the walls at various junctures left everything shrouded, so that I made my way through the boweled earth by feel as much as by sight. It mattered little for I trod the same path each day, the hours of my waking passing with a regularity that provided its own kind of timekeeping. I knew when to sleep. I knew when to eat. I knew what to do at every moment of every day.

My tasks I barely understood, only that they were ancient and immutable, part of a vast undertaking involving those thousands of us who lived below. I knew nothing of them and they nothing of me. Our existence was tied solely to what duty required of us. Hour after hour, day after day, we moved through those tunnels and byways, in service to those who had gone. Our chants and songs, incantations and prayers, filled the air, clouding it as much as the smoke, never falling silent, easing me to sleep when my time came.

What we did defined us and I remember so little of it now. Every step, every gesture of my hands, every intonation, all so precisely done, in spite of the obscurity we existed in. The meaning of it all escapes me. I am not who I was.

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In A Flash: The Hunted

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Clint

Chest pumping, hands clenched into fists, arms jerking oddly in the air, she runs down the street, heedless of any destination. She cannot hear anything but her own frantic gasps for air as she careens around corner after corner, but she knows her pursuers are there.

They are just behind and they are coming. They will not stop.

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In A Flash: Love Conquers All

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Clint

One of us has to write if anything’s to be said. It is a fool’s game even in our most lucid moments of passage. Better to admit that we are feeble, tired and pathetic things, no matter where we stand, no matter how time happens to sift. But maybe, maybe I can speak the words to make it stand still.

You tie me in knots, still and almost latent, hushed with anticipation and the heavy weight of knowing. You are the breath of morning sunshine upon my face. Your eyes are like quicksilver to my bloodstream. The Spanish will declare a monopoly on that careless glance, sending ships across the ocean, peering steadily beyond the waves. They will desire conquest and ruin, claiming you for all time.

I want to steal but a moment and make it eternal. As you brush the hair from your eyes, those stray glancing strands, they whisper and I remember what they are saying about the nature of eternity. Eternity is not forever, it just feels that way, if you’re lucky.

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In A Flash: The Servant

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Clint

A flash of lightning on the horizon as dusk settles upon those vast peaks that spread in all directions. It forms a haunting visage of a land torn apart, uprooted and broken, seized by unspeakable forces in days long ago. Ves slides down a snow-streaked road that winds into the town below, his journey interrupted from time to time by the surge of lights from a vehicle making an ascent. The town is quiet, the streets nearly empty, but for a few revelers gathered at the foot of a stairway leading up to a tavern. There are shouts from within and the promise of warmth, drink and women, but he passes on. His day is not yet done.

The town is built upon a mountain with streets that slant here and there, coming together at odd angles, or sometimes ending abruptly. It is one of these that Ves finds himself on, the road coming to an end at a cliff, the gulf below stretching on into a darkness that seems to know no bounds. At the precipice of this awful vastness sits a mansion, spreading across the cliff so broadly that it gives the impression it might teeter over the brink at any moment to what lies below.

When he announces himself at the door servants scurry to rouse the Master. Ves is taken through the building and brought out onto a veranda overlooking the precipice. The air is cool and he can see his breath forming under the lights. He does not have to wait long until the Master emerges from one of the doors to join him. He is unremarkable to look upon, small and thin, with fine features that somehow leave him undefined. Ves can rarely call up a picture of his face in his mind.

“So you found her, did you?” the Master says.

Ves nods. “She has a message for you.”

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In A Flash: Gambler’s Fallacy

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Clint

The ripple of the cards upon the table, the shifting of everyone upon their chairs, the thumbing of glasses and clothes, the shuffle of money and hands: Burgess can hear it all. His eyes are closed and there is thunder in his mind, but he can hear it all. The air is redolent with the stench of rotgut whiskey, sweat and the wood burning in the stove they are all huddled near to keep out the winter cold.

Burgess opens his eyes at the sound of the door opening and sees Pederson returning within from the outhouse. A gust of frigid air makes them all tremble. Pederson takes off his coat, his breath still staining the air in clouds around his head. Everyone watches as he returns to the table and picks up the deck.

“Sorry boys,” he says with a smile. “Where were we? Five card draw?”

There are grunts of assent and the cards go out. Burgess does not touch his until they are all dealt, his eyes intent upon Pederson’s hands. His face feels hot in spite of the chill in the room, and his gaze goes blurry and then steady with each blink of his eyes. There is the sound of the ocean in his ears as someone stands to refill the glasses and someone else asks a question about Maggie Garneau. He thinks about saying something witty, but decides not.

The cards are dealt and he looks at them. Trip fives. He looks around the table. Everyone is looking at their cards. The bet comes to him and he throws in five dollars.

“Spending all your winter funds,” Pederson says, not glancing up from his cards.

Burgess bristles. “We’ll see where I stand at the end of the night.”

“You’ll be standing because you’ll have nowhere to sit again.”

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In A Flash: Mirror, Mirror

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Clint

Mariel awoke in the embrace of a dead man, his body cold and rigid. It took her some effort to disentangle their limbs, and when she finally did she threw herself from the bed shuddering in horror. She lay on the floor for a time hyperventilating and weeping, even as she cursed herself for this loss of control. She had nearly regained command of her emotions when she caught a glimpse of her hands and saw they were covered in blood. As were her arms and much of her body.

She stumbled into the bathroom, retching in the toilet, refusing to look at what came up. Resting her head against the cool porcelain she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, on being mindful of anything but the corpse on the bed. When she felt ready she got to her feet and washed her face in the sink. She tried to get some of the blood off her hands and arms but soon gave up. Only a shower would solve that problem.

Before she went back into the bedroom to face what was there, she looked up in the mirror. There was no reflection staring back. That steadied her, and with new resolve she walked into the bedroom to assess the aftermath of whatever had taken place the night before. The man lay in a contorted pose, the result of her efforts to free herself, his face darkened with bruises. There was blood everywhere, staining his flesh and the sheets. She felt her stomach tremble again and had to look away.

Her eyes fell upon the tangle of their clothes at the foot of the bed. It told another story, a prologue to whatever else had happened in the depths of the night. Mariel remembered none of it. Her head ached and her thoughts were foggy, as though from a hangover. There was a bitter taste in her mouth from bile and blood. She closed her eyes, sick at the thought. What had gone so terribly wrong?

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In A Flash: Voyage’s End

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Clint

A ship, alight upon the sea, surging upon the waves as it’s crew stands watch, eyes straining forward, alert to the horizon. This was the image that came to her mind as Ance whiled away the interminable hours in this desolate place. A ship coming to take her home.

She had long ago stopped counting the days, it had grown too depressing by far. No matter how many she marked off her calendar or in her diaries, the remainder still loomed ahead, the weight of them the same, as backbreaking as the work of the porters who carry her belongings up and down the mountains of this cruel and barbaric place. Her greatest fear was that her husband would arrive at one of their homes, on one of his occasional acknowledgments that they were in fact married, to announce that the Viceroy had extended his term and they would be remaining for another five years.

It was a thought beyond bearing. Every day she was surrounded by hundreds of people, most of whom could not speak more than a civilized word or two to her. Their disdain was evident in every gesture they made, in every expression when they thought she was not paying attention. They were doing things to her food as well, she was certain. She always felt weak and ill, though perhaps that was just the abominable climate, so frigid and damp.

One day, as she spent another afternoon lost in pointless reverie, it came to her that it did no good to idly dream of such things, she needed to make chance bend to her will and act. Her husband spent most of his days pretending she did not exist, it could be easily done. She called her porters and had them gather her belongings and set off from her home in the misty highlands.

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In A Flash: The Contraption

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Clint

Jules Amostel had been tinkerer all his days, from his youth when his parents gave him a chemistry set to play with, through his time at university in the engineering department, where he was constantly toying with circuits in the lab or in his dorm room, and later as he found himself a job working for the city’s transit department. The first thing he did upon the purchase of a house, after marrying his longtime girlfriend, was to turn the unfinished basement into a lab space for the various projects he embarked on.

Jules had never been particularly social, and while he enjoyed going out and meeting with friends, and got on well with all his co-workers, he needed time to himself to do as he pleased and found it in the basement. His wife Amy was a patient woman and recognized it as a release of sorts from the stresses of day to day living. Every now and again she would notice him spending too much time alone down there and would remind him that he needed to spend time with her and his friends. She did not ask much about what he did there and he volunteered little, showing her the odd device he built, but they mostly confused her.

Soon they had children and their lives became busier still. Jules found time when he could for his work in the basement, though admittedly less now. It did not bother him, his daughters were far more intriguing than anything he might work on down below. As they grew into their teens and became more independent, he found he had more time that he could devote to his work and he returned to it with a renewed vigor. Sunday became his day dedicated to his devices and he would descend below after breakfast while Amy and his daughters entertained themselves.

Finally, after twenty five years of intermittent work, Jules finished what he had begun so long ago in his university dorm room. The individual devises that had so confused Amy were but a part of a much grander whole—a vast contraption—that, when he finally assembled it, took up much of the basement. It was capable of traversing time and space, perhaps even the fabric of the universe itself.

It was his life’s work, his grand design, but for many weeks he did not engage the contraption, would not enter it. Fear stopped him short. What if he turned it on and he was sent somewhere or sometime and could not return? Worse, what if nothing happened at all? It was difficult to say which of those possibilities scared him most.

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