The Castle Between Madness and Magic: Uncollected Anthology

By Stefon Mears

Ian Carter, a young man stalked through the streets of Sunnyvale, California.

 

Stalked … by a castle.

 

Today the castle forces the issue. Today Ian must go inside.

 

His sanity may not survive.

 

"The Castle Between Madness and Magic" -- a contemporary fantasy short story full of subtle magic and driving questions. From Stefon Mears, author of the Spells for Hire series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thousand Faces Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393044673

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The Castle Between Madness and Magic

The Castle Between Madness and Magic

Stefon Mears

Thousand Faces Publishing

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Uncollected Anthology

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Also by Stefon Mears

The Castle Between Madness and Magic

I figure the castle was stalking me for about a week before I finally did something about it.

At first, of course, I’d thought it was my imagination. I mean, I didn’t live in some fantasy land, or some old European country or something. You know, the kind of place you might expect to see a castle.

No, I lived in the Bay Freaking Area. Sunnyvale, California, to be exact, which was smack dab in the center of what was starting to get called the Silicon Valley and just about the least likely place I could imagine finding a castle.

I mean, Sunnyvale in those days was chock full of apartment complexes, strip malls and low-to-medium chain restaurants. Even without considering the earthquake-country factor, from what I’d seen in my time living there, I’m pretty sure the building code must’ve mandated cheap sheetrock and weak foundations.

Stone and mortar would’ve been against code.

Besides, I was twenty-four and burning the candle at both ends, to quote my father. Working days clerking in a law office and nights trying to build a studio career as an audio engineer. When I wasn’t doing those things, I was either running around with my girlfriend Becky, or playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends.

Little sleep and lots of D&D sure sounded to me like a prescription for seeing a castle that wasn’t there.

Hell of a castle, too. Had to have stood five hundred feet tall, at least. Built from huge, solid-looking stones in shades of gray and black, fitted together without need for much mortar. Four round towers in the corners, and three taller spires over the main block of the keep itself, with a series of bridges connecting the spires as they ascended.

No outer walls, which I’d thought was a little odd, nor any guards visible atop those towers. I mean, if my imagination was going to show me a castle when I was walking home from the drugstore with a sack full of Diet Pepsi on a spring afternoon, I didn’t see why there shouldn’t have been massive walls protecting the keep itself. Or at least elves or orcs or somebody manning those towers.

Kind of reminded