Metaphorosis March 2016

By Jack Noble, Sabrina N. Balmick, Octavia Cade and Gerald Warfield

Beautifully written speculative fiction from Metaphorosis.

All the stories from the month, plus author biographies, interviews, and story origins

Table of Contents

• La Belle Dame – Sabrina N. Balmick
• The Sea Bank of Svalbard South – Octavia Cade
• The Heresy Machine – Gerald Warfield
• Spoiler: She Leaves Him – Jack Noble

• Language: English
• Publisher: Metaphorosis Publishing
• Release date: Feb 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640760622

Book preview

Metaphorosis

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March 2016

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edited by

B. Morris Allen

ISSN: 2573-136X (online)

ISBN: 978-1-64076-062-2 (e-book)

Metaphorosis

Neskowin

Table of Contents

Metaphorosis

March 2016

La Belle Dame

It came from Sabrina N. Balmick

A question for Sabrina N. Balmick

About Sabrina N. Balmick

The Sea Bank of Svalbard South

A question for Octavia Cade

About Octavia Cade

The Heresy Machine

A question for Gerald Warfield

About Gerald Warfield

Spoiler: She Leaves Him

A question for Jack Noble

About Jack Noble

Metaphorosis Publishing

Copyright

March 2016

La Belle Dame — Sabrina N. Balmick

The Sea Bank of Svalbard South — Octavia Cade

The Heresy Machine — Gerald Warfield

Spoiler: She Leaves Him — Jack Noble

La Belle Dame

Sabrina Balmick

The scribe met the knight on the old stone road. The castle was a couple of hours away. Three, at the speed his donkey was trotting. He’d meant to deliver his news of no news and stumble off to a bath and, if he were lucky, into a warm bed with a warm wench. Instead he found himself conversing with a knight who hunkered in a smear of blue-violet twilight. Cloaked in shadows, he looked like Death himself, waiting to claim unwary travelers.

But that was foolish. Death certainly wouldn’t bother sitting in the road. And He would likely smell better. No, this was definitely a man. Why he lurked here, half-rotting, Tom could hardly guess.

Tom’s lips opened to greet the knight, but his jaw snapped shut when he recognized the dirty surcoat. Of gold and scarlet, it was: the king’s colors. He urged his donkey closer for a better look. In the dim light, the coat looked roughly the color of mud, but beneath the mud glinted the king’s eagle emblem and within the eagle’s mouth dangled a rose, the sigil of the king’s champion. This was no ordinary knight.

Sir Thomas? said Tom. We’ve been searching for you. Shortly after Sir Thomas disappeared, the king had dispatched knights and scribes all over the countryside carrying letters inquiring after his most valued knight, and the queen’s own brother, besides. He was also betrothed to the king’s cousin, Lady Enid. And here he was, right under Tom’s nose. Where had he been for the last seven months? What had he done to find himself on this lonely road looking half-dead?

The knight scarcely stirred at the sound of Tom’s voice, as though no sound reached him but the evening wind whistling through a scattering of shabby trees. Tom dismounted from his donkey and approached the knight.

Was he truly dead, then? It would be Tom’s questionable luck to find Sir Thomas and lose him in exactly the same moment.

Sighing, Tom reached for the wine skin in his cloak pocket and pulled a long draught and then another. Red wine sloshed around the half-empty skin as he drank, his mind filling with blood as he filled his mouth with wine. He cringed and stoppered the skin, shoving it roughly inside his pocket. He’d never liked the sight of blood. It was why he had become a scribe instead of a knight—that curious sense of self-preservation others might have dubbed cowardice.

Tom nudged the man with his foot and, expecting him to tip over, nearly wet himself when the knight’s head turned and he spoke.

Why are you kicking me? Summer blue eyes bored through Tom, barely seeing him, searching the sky, the far corners of the world for goodness knew what.

Tom, unnerved by that bright blue stare, gathered his wits. I thought you were dead, he explained. Obviously you’re not. Honest mistake, really. Are you hurt? Why are you sitting here? Don’t you know the king’s been searching for you all this time?

The knight sighed. That, he answered, is a relative question. A golden harp lay beside him. He reached for it to pluck out a languid tune.

Which question? All of them? Or just one? Tom slumped down next to the knight, half-listening to his song. Pleasant it was, like a snatch of summer wind.

The knight shrugged. One. None. All of them. It doesn’t matter. You should go. There’s nothing to be done here. His fingers stilled and his song faded.

Tom studied Sir Thomas with interest, now that he was certain the knight wasn’t dead. He appeared well enough, though pallor clung to his cheeks. His lips were stained with blood, but his face, the same face ladies all over court and creation swooned over, remained unharmed. Golden brown hair fell over his brow in greasy hanks, skimming a nose that had been broken years ago in a fight. His jaw was shadowed with beard.

If Tom was truthful, and often he was, he’d admit to being more than a little jealous of the knight. He should have disliked him thoroughly. Only Lady Enid’s indifference to her betrothed endeared him to Tom. The scribe clung to her indifference, rather. Would she be indifferent to Sir Thomas now, if she saw him? She had a weakness for a lost cause.

They were as different as two men could be, thought Tom. The only thing they shared in common was a name. A name and Enid.

The scribe snorted. Sir Thomas, knight of the realm and collector of hearts. Tom, scribe of the realm and collector of wine tankards. Even Tom’s surname, Rhymer, mocked him. He lacked talent for verse, the first of his name with a tin ear for meter. For this reason, he’d ended up a mere scribe instead of a bard, as his father and his father’s father and countless forefathers had been. Great shame of the family, it was. The knight, he’d heard, had had a gift for music once. Pity to waste it, but that was knights for you. 

Reaching into his pocket, Tom fetched out his wine skin once again and pulled the stopper out with his teeth, handing the skin to the knight, who accepted it with the faintest nod. He raised the skin to his lips for a long drink, driblets of purple trickling down his chin and throat. He returned the skin and wiped his mouth with the back of a grubby hand. Tom stoppered the skin and placed it back in his pocket. "Are you Sir Thomas?"

I don’t know who I am anymore, drawled the knight. "But, once, I did answer to