Shadows & Sorcery #30
Welcome to a very special edition of Shadows & Sorcery! Another milestone reached, and so this one’s free for all to read. And read I hope you do! This one took on a theme as I generated names, and I stuck with it, and I think you’ll like it.
But before we get to the fiction, I have three short but important announcements to make regarding this newsletter.
First off, the opening story of every issue from now on will be free to read for everyone. I believe in creators being paid for their work, artists put a lot of effort into their creations, time and energy, and deserve at least some recompense. But the audience needs its reassurance, because an artist needs an audience, you and build an audience with trust, and with delicious free samples. So free readers will always be getting something to whet their appetites, and something substantial to entice them.
Secondly, and this ties somewhat into the above part, the pricing of this newsletter is going DOWN. At the moment it’s $5 a month, which I personally felt wasn’t too bad for 20 stories a month, but you know what looks a lot better than five bucks? Two bucks. That’s pocket change. You can just find that on the street. And I’ll still be having sales and give-aways here and there, too! As a creator, I wanted to find a balance between decent pricing and not underselling my work, and this seems pretty fair.
Now, lastly, and this is the real reason I’m taking so long, this newsletter is getting new content. In the coming weeks, it isn’t set in stone, I’m going to be writing and releasing a serialized, on-going story called THE PATH OF POISON. It’s set in my own extensive world-building project, and is going to serve as both a travelogue and adventure, focusing on a young apothecary and secret apprentice to a poison-using magician, whose village life is upturned during a border conflict. Fleeing with a few survivors, our young poisoner will venture further and further north, through foreign lands and beyond, into the Dark…
As of right now, I am planning for this to take the place of flash fiction every so often, or perhaps short chapters will fit alongside a few less pieces, we’ll see! But the flash isn’t going anywhere.
Also, I lied, four announcements, very quickly, right now there’s an 80% off sale on lifetime subscriptions - you can sub for $1 for life until the 7th of April, so get on it!
Now we return you to those sweet bon-bons of fantasy flash fiction.
This week took a decidedly funerary turn, and so this edition is going to deal with burial grounds of all sorts and kinds, from mountaintop tombs to grave-infested castle interiors, and perhaps something even stranger…
This week’s stories are:
Graveyard Serpents
Altar of the Graveyard
Castle of Graves
Tomb Wilderness
Dragon’s Graves
Graveyard Serpents
In the farthest reaches of the Dunmharu clanhold, where steel-grey skies hang heavy over vast stretches of wind-blasted ice, there lies a single, small settlement, nestled under the shadow of a sharply rising ridge. It's shielded from the worst of the white squalls which descend from the lifeless north, where night falls eternally. The nameless little town is half-abandoned and manned, rather than inhabited, by a dwindling number of families who came here two hundred years ago to establish a new outpost for the Dunmharu elder kin.
The stone is brittle, the ice perpetual, game rarely passes through. By all rights this land should be forgotten, but something has kept these grim folk in place. Like all Dunmharu settlements, it is primarily a catacomb in which the living reverently guard and honour those granted eternal sleep by the nameless Death God, making sure the divine gift is not disturbed. But alas, this is the problem, and the reason why these clanfolk have sworn and been issued solemn duty: the dead may yet sleep, but their graves are not quiet.
The average daily rounds of an oath-bound keeper of corpses here looks like this: woken gently from sleep by a loved one for the guard change, assessing any delivery from the capital should it have even survived the trip, taking a quick meal on the go while being briefed, donning arms, and then spending hours patrolling the stark black graveyards above ground, and descending, after another quick moving meal, into the shadowy tunnels underground. At a point this clansfolk is relieved and retires to a fireside before sleep.
During this, at any moment, the call to combat might be sounded, and the folk will gather to dispatch another one of the graveyard serpents. This plague is the reason for the abandonment of the town as a settlement, and also why these people must stay. It would be unwise and blasphemous to leave the dead to be defiled in their sleep by the things which seem to spawn within the very vaults of the ancestors.
What they are, or why they are, none can guess. They resemble massive snakes in basic form, but their hides are dark and far rougher than natural serpents. This general resemblance ends near the head, which is short and uncomfortably resembles that of a distorted human face. The clanfolk employ polearms to cleave and spear the things, and hammers to crush them. Yet they return constantly, worming their way from within the graves and out into the open.
The families are slowly dying out from this war of attrition. Dunmharu elders have convened and surreptitiously hired sorcerers and banished scholars to find an answer, and through all the years, only one magician gave a hint, and even then the elder kin knew he hid something. It was too far north, it was said, too far beyond human places. The world isn't quite right up there, that's all that needs to be known, and likely it'd be worse had the old families decided to strike out farther, into the dark. That they are born from the tombs and not the bodies within is telling, said the old wizard.
Altar of the Graveyard
Somewhere in the middle of a grand old city, lies an even older graveyard. Beset on all sides by life and modernity, by tall, neat spires and minarets in the popular blended style, by the flowing of a dozen or more tongues through the air, by the virulence of vine and weed, it has sat here, this wide, undulating and uneven patch of land, since the city called itself a village. Graves upon graves have been dug here, little settlements of mausoleums have been built, obelisks and square monoliths jut from the awkward land in profusion, small weathered, flat-topped headstones spread themselves from wall to wall in no particular order.
And somewhere in the middle of this ancient burial ground lies an even older altar. A pile of rounded, vaguely shaped rocks have upon them an irregular table of stone, and upon that there appears to be a repurposed headstone, smoothed, and this entire chest-high structure is buttressed with four pillars in the corners of relatively recent make (though that is somewhere between one hundred and five hundred years, as the artisans of centuries past were fond of dredging up antiquated styles).
One can tell it is an altar thanks to the countless objects left upon and around it, from mouldering flowers and small marked stones, to wooden and paper talismans deformed from the weather, as well as a profusion of small idols made from bones or precious stone, prayer beads, entire clumps of incense sticks, and a great number of melted candles. The altar was in continuous use for entire epochs of the city's existence. But the graveyard is nigh hidden now, its existence of import only to scholars, historians, priests, and occultists. Every so often the member of an old family will pass through and spend some short moments at a small grave before leaving something at the altar. No new bodies are interred here. The tomb has itself become a tomb.
Even the college people who sometimes come in little groups to this place have no idea just how old the altar is. The lowest stones of the pile, more than half submerged in earth, predate the oldest foundations of the city. It was lain by a primal people for the sake of communion with their ancestors, who lived alongside their descendants in other forms. The altar was the locus of a community that grew mighty on this spot, strategic and endowed with a fierce spirituality. Venerable rites now found across the entire region were created and performed at this very spot.
But, too, were stranger things done here throughout the murk of millennia. As the walls and towers grew and overshadowed the graveyard, as new burial places became available, less savoury figures with less savoury practices made the old graveyard their base of operations, and the altar was at the center of every single one. Dark though these folk were, they knew secrets, and could feel the potency of this place of old communion, where spirits sometimes still gathered in vigil. It wasn't always necromancers, but lone sorcerers seeking primal secrets, or college antiquarians attempting to call up the past they held so dear, at any cost. In truth, it is these occult figures the altar owes for its maintenance.
Today, few besides the aforementioned people even give it a side glance. But certain moonlit nights may see a shadowy form pass through the fine old gates and stand before the altar, and the ancients who slumber far below stir, and see that the city holds firm, as per the old accord.
Castle of Graves
It looms out of the perpetual fog, surrounded by a deep forest so thick and impassable that no walls have ever needed to be erected about it. The sky always seems dimmed here, not hidden or even veiled, but somehow weakened. As one ascends the long, low slope to the damp, darkish stone of the castle, they must avoid the perilous pits of the moor, hidden by virulent growths of thickets. The castle has no moat nor bridge, being almost perfectly protected by the sheer inhospitable nature of the land about it. Only once in its history has it ever been attacked.
If the traveller can pay attention on their struggle to the castle, a few scant but telling signs reveal themselves. More than half-rotten piles of mossy wood, with worn but worked edges, and small and terribly decayed rusted iron plates or sections jutting from the earth. Bones, and fused lengths of what might be maille. To the trained eye it's clear an invading force once made its way up this hillside, but even the amateur or totally ignorant can tell these are things which do not belong.
Inside the castle reveals the truth. It can be seen even in several places outside, clustered around the massive black wooden gates. Gravestones jumbled together in little growths. They descend in number the further from the gate one goes, around the vast sides of the brooding edifice. But inside, the graves continue. In fact, there is quite literally not a single hallway or room in the entire keep, from its murky cellars to the dusty high chambers, that does not house at least several headstones, and more often than not, attendant cairns or small mounds. They sometimes creep up the sides of the walls, looming over those who wander through the passages.
The keep is home to one family, whose name is passed from parent to child, a family into which others marry, rather than sending children out. Every son and daughter holds the name, and even if they leave the castle, should they be called back to these shadowy halls, they will return as heir once more. Three generations, and about eight different branches of the family, each holders of the name, live in the bleak stretches of the keep, and are united entirely in duty.
Centuries ago, this castle was the final fortification holding back any advancing force from fully invading the holy capital. It housed not only a noble family, but a man-at-arms, his extensive standing army, and two knightly retinues in service to the lord of the house. A sorcerer is said to have also been housed here, likely a necessity in a land such as this. This prodigious body was what met the invasion from Khosz, who had elsewhere penetrated deep into the realm.
The battle took two days, bloody and swift. It was fought to a standstill inside the very halls, where noble and soldier held their ground and were cut down, but took the enemy with them. The siege was not successful, and it was by way of the castle's drain on the Khoszan army did the high king rout the exhausted forces from the land with a last valiant push.
But the castle had seen more bloodshed, desperation, hatred, and cruelty in those two restless days than the entire realm had seen in the past two years. Bodies populated the very passages and chambers they fell in, makeshift cairns and shrouds crowding about the entirety of the castle. Rooms of rest and frivolity had become charnel vaults. An entire wing was little more than a snaking open catacomb. And they dared not be moved, for the dead did not rest here - they waited. They crouched just beneath their graves, they lurked in the shadows of alcoves and under walls when the meek sunlight sent hazy shadows across the ragged floors.
The family who live there now exist to soothe the spirits in some fashion. There was a time for some months after the battle, when the keep was abandoned. Only certain bodies could be removed by workers before they couldn't stand it anymore, and the rest were left where they fell, graves built around and under them. But certain visitations bade the high king himself have the bodies returned, and the castle semi-converted to a burial ground, and have a new reigning family take residence there.
A grim lot, these people are perpetually haunted, but they know their duty is to an honoured dead. Yet there are times when the daily glimpse of a dead form creeping around some corner takes its toll. Excursions from the keep are common, and very few of the family members reside there full time. But it is never empty, it cannot be empty. As lords of the manor, the king bestowed upon them the solemn power and rites to call these shades up should some new enemy take the foolish role of the Khosz invaders. A castle of wailing, vengeful horrors await the next army to ascend the perilous moors.
Tomb Wilderness
One day, a traveller, lost and seeking high ground for guidance from the sun, stumbled upon a strange sight. Descending into what might have once been a gorge, now filled with lush vegetation, the traveller sought the tall mound which rose a short ways from the far end of this small valley. One side of the gorge was steep and stepped, with many small, jutting shelves of mossy rock. The other was less steep, but the land was strewn with boulders and various sheer faces of earth that made traversal daunting.
Right now, it was greatly shielded from the sun, and the air was chill and the rich dark grass damp with dew, but it was not unpleasant. It seemed quite alive, serene, and breathing. Growths of vegetation were to be seen all about, short and hardy, with purple flowers. As the traveller walked through it, the mind imagined this gorge when the sun shone upon it, the grasses tinged with gold, the heather glowing, the shadows dancing playfully across the rocks. There came the vision of it at night, too, as mists flowed like the ghost of the river that once carved its path through this place, the moon making the dew into silver droplets, a star reflected in each one, the heather the hue of a lord's robe.
It was strange then, in such a vivacious place, to find amongst the high grasses, not one or two, but several dozen things that could be mistaken as nothing other than tombstones. The traveller naturally assumed it was the remains of some ancient village that dwelt here when the river flowed, taking sustenance from it and dwelling amidst this pleasant vale until the river dried up, and either the people went with it, or they settled elsewhere, perhaps becoming the people of today. Yet, upon examining these stones with due reverence, there didn't seem to be a discernible face to them. No writing, no symbols, no markings of any particular kind. Time may have seen to that, but in such a sheltered place, it didn't seem quite right.
Of the many that were examined, the traveller could find no trace of a name or date in any tongue of history. The stones did seem quite strange, though. They were rough, in fact it seemed they were wholly unworked, or ever had any plaque or other such thing attached to them. And there was no order to their placement, and the traveller wondered if perhaps houses once stood where they are now, these perhaps being hearth shrines. Examining one headstone a fair ways in, the traveller almost stumbled and fell down what was undeniably a tunnel - with rough, wide, shallow, and very irregular steps, but steps nonetheless. It had sat just behind the grave slab, or perhaps in front of it, and the traveller now felt compelled to descend and pay quiet respects to the clearly ancient folk who slumbered within.
Striking a torch, a rush of excitement came to the traveller's chest, one of childhood adventure and discovery. The tunnel was pure rock, damp like the outside, and remarkably well carved. Smooth, it undulated or had low waves in many places. The steps were more irregular than first thought, and the floor was smooth at points, too. It must have taken months to make such a tunnel, especially with the odd technique the traveller now noted.
At last, the burial chamber was reached after a few minutes of descent. It was quite small and low, the traveller had to hunch over slightly examining it. Assuming the interred was set into a far wall or perhaps the middle of the floor, the torch was thrust forward...but nothing was found. No inset in the wall, no low cairn or hollow. Nothing at all, save the dry, desiccated remains of something at the far end, near the floor, that made the traveller immediately think of a very large cocoon.
A moment of silence passed. Utter, profound, and pregnant silence. The realization came quickly, but quietly, and crept in from every angle. The traveller did not scream or grow faint, but began to back into the tunnel and turn around, with sharp, shallow breaths. The second the outside was gained, the traveller stopped. The valley seemed now dark, murky, with all kinds of rises, shelves and boulders - cover from which behind things might be watching. If a quick pace was kept, the gorge might soon be exited.
The traveller's boots upon the grass seemed now like drumbeats that called and summoned. The torch was extinguished. The traveller could not help but count each footfall, each pad upon the earth, counting the way to the end of the gorge.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The walls of the gorge fell away quick just ahead.
Thump-thump.
The count was interrupted. A step was taken.
Thump-thump.
The traveller's entire body went rigid. Hearing was strained in the ringing silence.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Feet heeded not rock or root in the flight from the tomb wilderness. Only a single glance was thrown back. Nothing had given chase, but the fall of boot on earth had given away the traveller's position. Had instinct not taken over in that moment, the grinning, grasping thing which had burst forth from the earth behind a headstone would have been far too close for comfort. The traveller didn't stop running or gasping until a village was gained in the deepening twilight, and a mug of ale offered to the panic-stricken wanderer. "They aren't graves!" said the traveller. "They don't rest, they awaken! From beneath the earth, grown in their graves, birthed from entombment!"
Dragon’s Graves
When the group returned from the peak of the holy mountain, they spoke in fevered whispers to all the folk they passed of what they glimpsed far below the sheets of ice. Called in dream-infested sleep, they had come together over many nights and spoke in the dark of what each vision had held, and resolved to ascend the peak which had appeared in each mind.
Upon the shrouded summit, they learned of power, and their dreams burned brightly and came incessantly. They spoke words from their dreams, and the sounds drove away serpent, wolf and ape-man, and nothing burdened their path on the journey down from the mountain. The people asked of these dreams and these words, but the group didn't speak of them - they must be seen and heard personally, and they showed now, how anyone could see and hear.
The pilgrims had brought down with them a brilliant green stone, unlike anything found in the cold marshland which clung to the vast, languid river that leaked constantly from its banks. When the people of the marsh looked upon it, they saw that the stone had been fashioned, albeit crudely, into the images of what the pilgrims called Those Beneath. They were as great reptiles, greater than the lumbering behemoths or the trees which scraped the clouds, and they had wings which soared to the sun and the moon. The shaman who guided the pilgrims had but glimpsed them before he perished.
In the shadow of the mountain, the pilgrims gathered about the smoky, communal fires and spoke of what they learned, while the marsh-folk beheld the licking fire light send shadows cascading through the green crystalline idols. Those Beneath had shaped the world in their wanderings in a time before there was night and day, spoke the pilgrims, and all life was but a maggot that had crawled from their flesh. They were given to bogs when the mountain was as flat as a plain. But they did not die like we did, they only slept, and changed. The marsh-folk looked from the idols to the fog-obscured mountain peak in the dim distance, and felt their stare returned from somewhere out of time.
The pilgrims gathered the marsh-folk, the bank-dwellers, the plainsmen, and the hill-people, and said that in an age to be, distant beyond reckoning, Those Beneath would awaken and reclaim the world. But if man worships them the right way, we would get to feast upon them again like our ancestors did, and like our ancestors, it would change us as it did them, and we would be lords over that which will crawl anew from the flesh of the Dragons. And so a cult was born that would never die. It crept from the tribes and across the southern mountains, through the valleys and plains, down the rivers, beyond the seas, and into the cities of new and raw civilization.