This, my latest volume, is a work in progress.
Kardowan (ss)
The titular character, an evil wizard exiled from Dyrezan, craves the favor of mighty Xenophor, and will do anything to gain it. "Be careful what you wish for" was an old saying even then.
Zirinsky's Swamp (ss)
This tale, technically science fiction I suppose, is something of a departure for me. I might liken it to a futuristic fable about a man whose one simple desire comes to transcend himself and the whole world.
Yardreela (ss)
Professor Vorchek and Theresa are in Egypt excavating the tomb of the Princess Yardreela, of whom ghastly stories were told in ages past. It is claimed that she discovered the secret of eternal life, a boon that operated in a frightfully vicious fashion toward others not so lucky. Of course that is only legend, but why does Doctor Obermann want to halt the dig?
Xenophor's Children (ss)
I am extremely proud of this story, a study in unadulterated weirdness. A man with no name and no past finds himself on a city street, with the sole goal in mind of contacting an unknown person. He does so, meeting a young girl in the same boat as himself, save that she desires only to return to the city of her birth. The man is compelled to get her there-- although he has never heard of such a city-- although he dreads the results of his mysterious actions and the unknowable prime mover who is causing all this to happen.
The Cross of Xenophor (ss)
Jacob Bleek stars in this very short piece set in Rome. The wizard is eager to gain possession of a magical talisman lost since the declining days of the Empire. He finds it, but its previous owner has a lurid tale to tell.
In the Box (ss)
Properly classified as science fictional, this story is set in a remote future, incredibly so, when man has, so to speak, attained the heights of his existence, living a life of infantile contentment surrounded by hyper-intelligent machines catering to his every whim. The machines, the real brains of that future, want only to function in a state of perfection.
Among the Hoodoos (ss)
A tough guy hired to convey a package to a house in a strange wilderness meets up with two weird cultists, as well as Vorchek and Theresa, all of whom have come together because of the ancient object that the man brings. Vorchek counsels caution, but no one listens. This tale, set within the geological wonderland of the Chiricahua Mountains of south-eastern Arizona, bears no serious relation to the poem of the same title.
To be published by SFZine.
An Ending, Orchestrated (ss)
This is my take on the recurrent "zombies on the rampage" theme. All of a sudden they're on the march, bloodthirsty like always, but in my version their irruption is merely a sign of bigger, even more mysterious events.
The Report of Colonel Lantham (ss)
The dead rise again, this time the gory remnants of a Civil War battle, who show no partiality, and take no prisoners. As a young boy I lived in the vicinity of several battlefields, and the War Between the States has long been a major interest, one which I haven't yet utilized much for literary purposes.