Black Gate

The Blue Pilgrim, last seen in the Lords of Swords tale “That of the Pit” — which Todd McAulty said “could stand alongside the work of the masters like Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, or Karl Edward Wagner” in his review in Black Gate 8 — returns in a dark tale of ancient empires, brave villagers, and sorcery most dire.

“Discern!” the village father said, approaching at a heavy, puffing run. “The Vale is accursed! The great mill-house in Lambhop Dell has been visited now! Not a soul survives.”

“Get me a horse or a pony.”

From any of the hills surrounding Lambhop Dell the mill-house looked like no great structure. Only once you went down into the Dell did you appreciate the three levels and massive stones and timbers that went into its construction. Judging from damage to door and windows, an elephant and a hauling chain and hook had been at work here.

Rumor had proved wrong in one respect, however. A boy still lived, the grandson of the miller. He’d been found hiding among the gears of the water-wheel.

“Scarecrow-man!” the boy said. “The scarecrow-man came in the fog.” After that they could get nothing from him but tears.

E.E. Knight is the author of the Vampire Earth series, which began with Way of the Wolf, and the six-volume Age of Fire books. He is a frequent blogger for Black Gate.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by John R. Fultz, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Terror in the Vale” is a complete 9,400-word novelette of heroic fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

The great playwright Artifice the Quill, who freed the city of Narr from the grip of the dread Sorcerer Kings with but a single performance in “Return of the Quill” (Black Gate 13), returns in a tale of magic, mystery, and the power of performance:

The haunted city lay sleeping at the feet of the mountains, a gray collection of antique architecture encircled by a granite wall. A monolith rose from its central plaza, crowned by a crimson orb that refracted starlight, painting the streets with bloody shadow. Pale ghosts wandered along the avenues, silver phantasms gliding through vermilion, while the living stayed locked inside their shuttered houses.

Three brightly canopied wagons descended the ancient road to Mornitetra. Artifice sat on the driver’s bench of the lead wagon. As the confining walls of the mountain pass fell behind, he looked down upon the shunned city at last. He watched spectral shapes swim through the avenues.

What would the ghosts think of his play?

John’s first first story for Black Gate was “Oblivion is the Sweetest Wine” in Black Gate 12, a classic sword-and-sorcery tale of spider-haunted towers and a terrifying secret. His contributions to our pages also include “Return of the Quill” (in BG 13) and “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15).

His epic fantasy novel Seven Princes is available from Orbit Books. Seven Kings, the second book of the Shaper Trilogy, will be released on Jan. 15, with the concluding volume, Seven Sorcerers, coming in Jan. 2014. Read an exclusive chapter from Seven Kings here.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye” is a complete 6,800-word novelette of heroic fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

Gallery Hunters Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh, last seen in “The Daughter’s Dowry” (published here on October 14), accept  a dangerous commission to investigate a deadly island:

Herrion’s eyes gleamed. “I’d like for you to return to where you found that book, and search the area for signs of the vine.”

“I’m not a botanist,” I objected. “You’d be better off hiring someone who is.”

“You make a good point. I’d like for you to escort my apprentice, Kemp. He will identify the vine.”

“The forests of Candelon are dangerous,” I said, uncertain. Herrion smiled.

“Ah! I see you are learning your craft!” Herrion laughed. “You will be well compensated.”

“No,” I objected, “the woods really are dangerous. There’s some sort of creature –”

“The Walker of the Woods,” the man said. “I’ve heard the tales. Have you seen this creature?”

“Well, no, but –”

“It’s settled, then. I’d like to hire you for three silver every day.”

I tried, unsuccessfully, I’m afraid, not to goggle. I had not seen a Silver Eye for longer than I could admit. Herrion, to his credit, closed his eyes, sipping once more.

“Drink up,” he said.

Of “The Daughter’s Dowry,” Tangent Online said, “A story such as this deserves a world of its own and more adventures from its hero.” We’re more than happy to oblige with this latest exciting installment.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Tea-Maker’s Task”  is a complete 9,000-word novelette of heroic fantasy offered at no cost, with original art by Aaron Bradford Starr.

Read the complete story here.

We’re slowly capturing all the online fiction we’ve published here over the past 12 years as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction series. This week we present the complete text of Alex Kreis’s “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying,” one of the shortest tales to ever appear in Black Gate.

I am very sorry about seizing the throne of Falland and establishing a dictatorship based on terror and intimidation. As ruler of Falland, I enforced a number of highly unfair and immoral policies for which I now feel very badly, including putting all orphans raised by any forms of wildlife to death, and ordering the execution of all wandering bards (although I must say in my defense that that decision was not entirely unpopular).

Alex Kreis is a graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop and a member of BRAWL, the Boston SF/F writing critique group. He lives with his wife and two children in Massachusetts. “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying” was his first fiction sale.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying” originally appeared in Black Gate 14.  It is a complete 960-word short story of satirical fantasy offered at no cost. Art by Bernie Mireault.

Read the complete story here.

Gemen the Antiques Dealer undertakes a dangerous quest for a mysterious stone, in the opening chapter of a thrilling new adventure fantasy series:

“Whatever happens,” Gemen said, “stay close.”

“What is this place?” Velori asked. “What are we dealing with –– and what are we looking for?” A mist loomed ahead, but not chill and cool, nor even white; it was warm, vaguely yellow, and stank with all the putrid force of recently rotted flesh.

“We are about to violate the final resting place of an ancient monarch, Cleon Cryptlord. The elders of his time would not suffer him to be buried anywhere near the city. Inside is a chamber, half-flooded with water, with a great keystone. I need that keystone, my friends. It is for that that we have come.”

Ahead lay a clearing devoid of plant life, centered on a great earthen mound the size of a tumbledown barn. Part way up the naked slope was a gap, not so much a cave as a mouth, and from this hole poured the fog through which they walked. It emerged in gasps and billows as if blown from the lungs of something both vast and immeasurably sick.

“No,” said Velori. “I’m not going in there.”

“We are going, and we are going now. Corvaen and his mad companion agree on one point: whatever lies beneath is not especially alert. If we are quick about our business, we may never encounter what they did.”

Mark Rigney is the author of the plays Acts of God and Bears, winner of the 2012 Panowski Playwriting Competition, as well as the non-fiction book Deaf Side Story: Deaf Sharks, Hearing Jets and a Classic American Musical. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Black Static, The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, Not One Of Us, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and many more. His contemporary fantasy novel, A Most Unruly Gnome, won the 2009 First Coast Novel Contest. Two collections of his stories (all previously published by various mags and ‘zines) are available through Amazon, Flights of Fantasy, and Reality Checks.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Trade” is a complete 7,000-word short story of weird fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.