Black Gate

A young woman makes a dangerous journey across a fantastic desert landscape in a desperate attempt to save her childhood friend:

He heaped down beside me on the sharps of his knees and stared into the murky slime of the pool. “Do you have another lace?”

I felt him there beside me, all along my right side, every thin bone of him. Whenever he twitched, I expected him to rattle like verdy branches. I untied my other sandal and handed over the lace.

“I’m Ro,” I told him.

“Jaks.” He nodded at me. “Your parents are dead?”

“Pretty much dead, yeah,” I agreed. “Buried down in Paupers’ Grave on the corner of B’ihbrid and Nilzi. I live with Great Aunt Irlingard who hates me.”

“I live with my father and sisters,” he said, “in my Mother’s house.”

After a pause, he added, “My Mother is eating my father. Very slowly.”

C.S.E. Cooney’s fiction has been reprinted in Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (2011 and 2012 editions). Her poems and short stories have appeared in Clockwork Phoenix 3, Apex, Subterranean, Strange Horizons, Podcastle, Pseudopod, Ideomancer, Goblin Fruit, and Mythic Delirium. Her collection How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes was released by Papaveria Press in May, and her fairytale-with-teeth novella, Jack o’ the Hills, was published by Papaveria in January. She was the recipient of the Rhysling Award in 2011 for “The Sea King’s Second Bride.”

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

“Godmother Lizard” is a complete 16,000-word novella of weird fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

This week, we present the epic conclusion of Donald S. Crankshaw’s short novel, A Phoenix in Darkness, as Seth, Aulus, and Nathan discover the breathtaking scope of the Necromancer’s plans, hidden for generations in their underground lair in the Hollow Hills.

Nathan shivered. He was trying to figure out whether it was the threat in Kulsin’s eyes or the chill air, when he realized it was neither. The chill came from inside, like an icicle impaling his chest. Aulus and Kulsin both looked around, feeling the same thing and searching for the source, but Nathan knew. He didn’t know how a sensation he’d never felt before could seem so familiar, or how he could understand its meaning so instinctively, but he did.

Nathan straightened up, trying to get their attention, and felt a weight slap against his chest. That thing the Necromancers had placed around his neck was still there. He could feel the chain now, but there were more urgent matters to worry about. “Wraiths!” he managed in a hoarse whisper.

They were coming.

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

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

A Phoenix in Darkness is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge, published in three parts. The story began with Part One, here.

Read Part Three of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

This week, we bring you Part II of Donald S. Crankshaw’s epic short novel, as young members of a secretive Order of wizards track a sinister group of Necromancers to their underground lair.

The corridor opened into a wide, circular room, the smooth, polished stone of the walls gleaming from the light that hung from the ceiling on a chain. It was like no lamp that Seth had ever seen; it appeared to be a sphere filled with an steady, harsh white light. Someone moved across the wide floor with a sluggish limp.

It took Seth a moment to realize what he was looking at. The man wore dark pants and a black, short-sleeved shirt, leaving pale skin visible. Unnaturally pale, even for someone who lived in this darkness. Patches of it showed through where clumps of his limp black hair had fallen out. His hands hung slack at his sides, and his feet dragged forward step by lurching step. His whole mode of movement hinted at some terrible deformity hidden just beneath the skin. The mouth was sewn shut, and the wide-open, glassy eyes stared straight ahead.

Seth tightened his grip on his sword. “What the Shol is that? We should kill it.”

“It’s already dead,” said Aulus.

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

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

“A Phoenix in Darkness” is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge. It will be published in three parts. The story began last week with Part One, here.

Read Part Two of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Young members of a secretive Order of wizards investigate a series of strange kidnappings, and discover a sinister and ancient conspiracy:

“Nathan, who do you think has the ability to turn a person into a puppet like that?” Aulus asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t think of anyone in the Order — ”

“Exactly. In the Order. What about outside the Order?”

Nathan looked at Aulus hard. “You’re not talking about a renegade Dominus, are you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking about a different society altogether.”

“But the only other society would be the Necromancers. We wiped them out centuries ago!” Nathan said.

“What if the Order is wrong about their fate?” Aulus stood up and began pacing in the tiny room. “What if there were more of them, and better hidden, than we thought? Nathan, that man today was dead and walking. He was undead, a Soulless.”

Nathan did not want to admit that the Necromancers might still be around. If they were, the world was a lot more dangerous than he wanted to believe. “But, Aulus, how have they remained hidden all these years? They would have died out years ago… unless you think they’ve finally discovered the secrets of immortality.”

“Who says they haven’t?”

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

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

“A Phoenix in Darkness” is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge. It will be published in three parts.

Read Part One of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

A famous explorer relates one of his earliest adventures, an exciting sea journey to a sunken tower where a legendary treasure awaits:

I inserted the key into the lock, amazed at how free of corrosion or accumulated grit the inner mechanism was. Yr Neh cocked his ears forward in surprise as well. Our eyes met, and we smiled to each other as I turned the key.

It didn’t open. I felt the tension in the key, then its complete freedom of movement. Puzzled, I put an ear to the side. It was ticking softly. Yr Neh backed away warily, and I had begun to do the same when the box jumped into the air before me.

Flashing and turning, the box changed shape as it fell, landing again on the floor completely transformed. It was now a complex faceted spike of brightest gold. The point pounded into the floor and continued through the stone.

I lunged for the rope, diving through the shallow water on the floor. There followed a moment of silence, broken only by the squeak of the rope from which I still clung, soaked to the skin. Yr Neh sighed in relief, and I joined him. Then the shattered floor collapsed.

Aaron’s first published story was “Mortal Star” in Black Gate 8, which SF Site called “complex and fascinating in design… A very fine story that is impossible to predict.”

You can read the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including last week’s 25,000-word novella of dark fantasy “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan, and Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist,” here.

“The Daughter’s Dowry” 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.

One of the most popular pieces of short fiction we’ve published in Black Gate magazine was Harry Connolly’s first fiction sale, “The Whoremaster of Pald,” which originally appeared in Black Gate 2.

Since that early sale, Harry has become a celebrated fantasy novelist, with titles including the Twenty Palaces novels Child of Fire and Game of Games. Featuring a brilliant and resourceful merchant in a corrupt and violent port city, “The Whoremaster of Pald” has all the hallmarks of his later fiction, and is filled with mystery, surprising twists, and great characters. Here are the opening paragraphs:

My prison cell stank like a bird cage. It was terribly dark, and I listened for the sound of rats. I despise rats. I lay down on the wooden plank that would serve as my bed for the night. My bruised back throbbed, but at least I could still breathe. It’s always nice to breathe after a beating.

In the morning a sweet little sparrow of a girl would testify against me. The charge was murder, and she had seen me do it. It had started only the evening before, when I decided that something had to be done about the new Warden.

RPGNet called the story “remarkably rich and textured,” and Locus magazine said:

[“The Whoremaster of Pald”] was one of my favorites. Harry James Connolly’s unlikely hero is a fat master of a whorehouse who cringes before bullies; not your usual fantasy hero at all. His story is told with smooth, vivid prose that is strongly reminiscent of Jack Vance, Connolly’s Zed gradually engages reader sympathy as he veers between bullying protection racketeers, a new worker who decides she can’t really stick to prostitution, a conniving rival, and the mayor’s lout of a nephew… an unputdownable tale. Connolly works the twists and turns so cleverly it’s impossible to guess what will happen. It’s hard to believe this is Connolly’s first published story.

Several years ago, we published the story in its entirety on the Black Gate website; we’re proud to offer it again here as part of the new line up of Black Gate weekly Online Fiction.

Read the complete story here, and the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including the adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel and Sean McLachlan’s novella of dark fantasy, “The Quintessence of Absence,” here.

Art by Chris Pepper.