The Emp Test: Tharassan Cycle, #0.5

By J. Scott Coatsworth

Jey awakens to find himself in the care of a handsome stranger - a cheff from one of the mouuntain tribes, enemies of his own people. Afraid for his life, Jey has no choice but to let the man take care of him and his broken leg.

 

Avain is on his Aud'ling - his coming-of-age test that requires him to spend a couple months alone, away from his own people. When he finds the steader trapped under his aur with a broken leg, he knows he has to help. But not being allowed to speak during his test makes things... difficult.

 

The two of them will have to come to an understanding if they're not going to kill one another. And Avain has a secret to share with Jey, one that that will change his life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Other Worlds Ink
• Release date: Sep 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201795399

J. Scott Coatsworth

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Book preview

The Emp Test

The Emp Test

J. Scott Coatsworth

Other Worlds Ink

Published by

Other Worlds Ink

PO Box 19341, Sacramento, CA 95819

Cover art © 2021 by J. Scott Coatsworth

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

The Emp Test © 2021 by J. Scott Coatsworth and Other Worlds Ink.

Originally published in a shorter version as Autumn Wind in the Poplorish Journal in Fall, 2014.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution by any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Other Worlds Ink, PO Box 19341, Sacramento, CA 95819, or visit https://www.otherworldsink.com.

This short story is dedicated to my friend Angel Martinez, who has taught me so much about life and community and writing, and to my husband Mark, who waits patiently for me to pen that mythical, bestselling novel that will let us actually pay the bills.

Contents

Foreword

1. Tempest

2. Stranger

3. Pain

4. The Emp

5. Shared Warmth

6. The Test

7. Aftermath

8. Decisions

About the Author

Also by J. Scott Coatsworth

Prologue

Chapter 1 - The Three

Foreword

I originally wrote The Emp Test in the 1990’s. It has a strange, circuitous history. Originally titled Autumn Wind, it was intended as the coming out story of a young, gay cowboy, who broke his leg and spent a couple months recuperating in the care of a young Native American man.

This was long before we learned about something called cultural appropriation - the idea that it’s not okay to steal parts of someone else’s culture to sell a story, especially if you don’t do your homework to get the details right.

And although I sold the story in 2014 to a Pacific Northwest journal called Poplorish, I grew increasingly uncomfortable about this fact. Not that there was anything particularly racist about the tale. That’s just not my style. But it does lean heavily on some stereotypes about Native Americans, and was drawn mostly from my osmotic knowledge of the culture drawn from growing up in Tucson, Arizona.

So when I started thinking about rereleasing this story, I decided I had to tackle the issue head-on. But rather than researching Native American cultures and modifying the story in that way, I decided to take the issue off the table entirely.

I have been working on a new world called Tharassas, one that I first visited with The Last Run. I decided to recast this story on that world, shifting it from the American Southwest to the Highlands of Tharassas. The dynamic between the two protagonists remains the same, but the culture and the story details have changed.

The emp in this story - a symbiont that plays a key role - laid the groundwork for a lot of what is still to come in the trilogy I am working on that’s set on this unique world.

So sit back and enjoy. And take note. There’s more Tharassas coming soon!

1

Tempest

Lightning flashed hot across the green and gray Tharassan sky, sending Critter into a ka-thumping gallop through the waist-high purple trine grass toward the Redflight range to the south, erasing all the hard work that Jey’Lyhn had taken to calm it. "Slow down, Critter! He scratched the soft ridge between auracinth’s bony neck ridges, but she refused to heed him.

The rain-smell was strong, sharp in the air, the bitter-sweet smell of the oils the purple, three-bladed trine grass let off that always portended rain in these high climes.

Breaking out of the grass, the headstrong aur smashed right into a tall mud orinth nest, shattering it into a million chunks of dirt and covering Jey with dust. Orange and green insects burst