Story Time With Crazy Uncle Matt Volume 2: Never Meet Your Heroes

By Matt Spencer, Bill Hilburn and Laura Lavajin

Hello there, friend. Been here before? Then welcome back. First time? Well, that's fine too. Make sure not to step in anything juicy, and whatever you do, don't feed the local wildlife. We take no responsibility for your safety here.

 

Crazy Uncle Matt has returned with eleven more tales of back roads menace, otherworldly swashb

• Language: English
• Publisher: Back Roads Carnival Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218231217

Book preview

STORY TIME WITH CRAZY UNCLE MATT

VOLUME TWO

NEVER MEET YOUR HEROES

by

Matt Spencer

BACK ROADS CARNIVAL BOOKS

mattspencerauthor.wordpress.com

ISBN (Print): 979-8-218-23120-0

ISBN: (Ebook): 979-8-218-23121-7

Old Haunting Grounds first appeared in Broadswords and Blasters: Issue 9 © 2019

The Radiant Abyss first appeared in Broadswords and Blasters: Issue 12 © 2020

The Family Business first appeared in Red Sun Magazine: February 2020 © 2020

In the Bowels of the Theatre first appeared in Cirsova: Fall Special © 2020

Our Friend in the Cellar first appeared in StoryHack Action and Adventure, Issue Six © 2020

My Family of the Hills first appeared in Lovecraftiana: Candlemas 2021 © 2021

A Place of Fellowship first appeared in Savage Realms Monthly: July 2022 © 2022

Never Meet Your Heroes first appeared in Broadswords and Blasters: Futures That Never Were © 2023

Prayer Group first appeared in Schlock Webzine: December 2023 © 2023

Copyright © 2023 by Matt Spencer

Cover image © 2023 by Rebekah Newman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written consent from the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Printed in the USA.

OTHER BOOKS BY MATT SPENCER

The Night and the Land

The Trail of the Beast

The Blazing Chief

Changing of the Guards

The Renegade God

Story Time With Crazy Uncle Matt

In Loving Memory:

Laura Janisieski (1979-2023)

Bill Hilburn (1948-2021)

For their love, support, friendship, inspiration, and assistance, much thanks goes out to: Marissa Ashmore, Ian Bigelow, Joseph Citro, Matthew Gomez, Jennifer Greene, Amber Griffiss, Coy Hall, Bill Hilburn, Laura Janisieski, April Kelly, Kay Lemay, Emyli McGrath, Olivia McNeely, Jodi Meehan, Cameron Mount, Rebekah Newman, JennaRose Nethercott, Sydney Simpson, Anna Smith Spark, and Katie & Stuart Ward.

Author’s Note

Of these eleven tales, eight were first published over the last few years in assorted magazines, anthologies, what have you. I threw in an extra one as a bonus. It’s with heavyhearted bittersweetness that I’ve included two other entries. One was a collaboration between myself and Bill Hilburn, one of my best friends. The final story wasn’t written by me at all, but rather by my great love Laura Janisieski, aka Laura Lavajin, a yarn she spun as a direct sequel/response to her favorite of my short stories. These two amazing, one-of-a-kind people left this mortal plane of existence far too soon for my liking, but they’re both still very much here with me, every damn day. Funny enough, those two respective tales were both accepted for publication by the same magazine, on the same day no less, but never saw print until now because said magazine went out of business for reasons related to the pandemic. Go figure. It felt fitting to honor their memories by including those stories in this volume, with the blessing of their respective families. You’ll find more details/context in the notes at the back of this book.

The Family Business

One

Tia and Ketz raced along the steep, half-overgrown hillside trail, between soft, shaggy patches of bright green ferns, then over shiny rocks in a babbling downhill brook. The twins hopped and glided like lemurs, lean and limber in their twentieth spring, clad in knee-length britches and vests of leaf-spun cloth and low-strapped leather sandals. Their skin was a swirl of shades, dark and bright, in hues of green and gold, brown and ashen, blending with their garments and the surrounding forest. Hempen cords tied their longish, dusty brown hair back from their faces. Only Ketz’s fancy Ghestruland sword stuck out incongruously, in its scabbard of hardened black leather, with its gilded hilt. A long, curved knife, locally forged, swung at Tia’s side in a rawhide sheath.

The twins emerged onto a hillside clearing a few miles from their mountainside village. They’d struck out early on the day’s scouting run. Late-morning sun cast glimmers off the dewy grass and jutting, crystalline rocks. They caught their breath and drank in the clean, bright sweetness of the air. Their ears perked up at some far-off commotion. Probably just some big animal, chasing down its prey. They still exchanged quick, silent glances. Not many big predators hunted near the Northwest Trade Pass this time of year, but these woods weren’t tame, either.

The crash sounded again, louder and closer. Heavier crashes followed, as though in pursuit. To the twins, such sounds were unmistakable. There were animals nearby chasing down prey, alright, but not the kind that belonged out here. Tia and Ketz darted toward the sound. They parted some branches and looked out past a rocky drop of twenty or thirty feet.

Downhill, an old man came tearing through the brush. He had graying, loose-skinned limbs, a round belly, and silvery hair that dangled from either side of his shiny bald pate. His eyes gleamed with terror and despair. He wore long brown britches, a brightly colored vest over a white shirt: clothes tailored to look respectable to outsider folks…or they had been, before his run through the mud and brambles. The shades of his skin were those of a Nagga Mountains Schomite, though not of the nearby villages. He reached the rise and clawed for handholds. He scaled a few feet then slid back down, pulling out clods of soil and loose rock that spilled all over him.

Four more shapes emerged from the trees, ruggedly dressed in the heavy, compact garb of well-supplied travelers. None of their clothes matched—trousers from one continent or merchant-caravan or bordering province or another, shirts and coats from others, weapons and gear from wherever. Two of the guys were Schomite, though not Nagga, likelier from the far Southwest Schlogmire territories. Another was a Spirelight, the other a Ghestru. Such a group could have walked right out of some bad joke the twins or their friends might tell around a campfire. Except these guys were no joke.

Ketz darted to the left, toward the clearest downhill dash. Tia went straight down, crashing forward through the brambles that lined the ridge. She partly slid and partly free-fell. As she neared the bottom, she grabbed low-hanging branches and swung the rest of the way down onto solid footing. Her path reconnected with Ketz’s as they closed in around the old man. Up close, he looked even older and wearier. He was missing some teeth, and not all of them from age. Some of them had been freshly knocked out, the gums still bloody around jagged shards. As the twins closed in, he drew back, gasped, and fell over on his ass. His eyes grew more watery and petrified as he stared up at them.

Ketz gripped the old man’s shoulder. Hey, whoa, easy there, buddy.

After a moment, he seemed to realize they weren’t his enemies. His pursuers stepped out from between the trees. One of the Southwest-Octosphere Schomites took the lead and motioned the others back.

Ketz held the old man steady. Tia stepped toward the party. Her limbs swung loose at her sides. What brings you out this way, fellas?

The leader pointed at the old guy. No trouble of yours, unless you come lookin’ for it.

Well, as scouts of these hills, it’s up to my brother and me to decide what’s trouble or not. Now I can see you ain’t from these hills, so it’s okay that you didn’t know that.

We ain’t in need of scouts, said the leader. We got our local guide there, see. Now y’all two is standin’ between us and him. Now go on, step aside and get along on your little patrol. He stuck out his hand and made an insolent, limp-wristed wave.

Sure, said Tia, just as soon as you tell us what you’re out here lookin’ for. Could be we’d make better guides than some scared, run-down, pants-pissin’ old man. Or it could be, it’s time you boys turned around and guided yourselves on back to the Northwest Trade Pass.

From the leader’s left, the Ghestru let out a whistling hoot. Oh, wow, you guys listenin’ to this bitch? He swaggered forward, splaying his arms wide. She think she the Great Nagga War Goddess or somethin’? Sure looks pretty enough to be. He licked his lips.

Tia batted her eyelashes. Oh, I don’t think you wanna talk to me like that, not with my brother standin’ there listenin’. See, he gets protective of his darling sister.

The Ghestru gaped past Tia at Ketz. Oh, what, that little bitch-boy back there tryin’a make out with the old man, givin’ me the stink-eye? Oh, don’t worry. He looks pretty, too.

The Schomite leader put out an arm in front of the Ghestru’s chest, smacking him to a stop. I tell you to talk, you meatskin asshole? The Ghestru shut up. The leader looked back to Tia. He said, almost diplomatically, My meatskin buddy there’s a moron, little lady. He ain’t kiddin’, though. You want some punishment? Baby, you got it. He stalked toward her.

The leader talked and the moron salivated, while the Spirelight and the other Schomite moved off silently in either direction. Tia pretended not to notice them flanking her and Ketz. She glanced back at her brother. He’d stepped away from the old man, who still cowered against the hillside.

Tia’s shoulders slumped, as though resigned to her fate. When the leader reached for her, she wasn’t there anymore, because she’d voided to his side like lightning. In the same motion, her curved blade seemed to leap from the scabbard into her fist. Her other hand caught him by the shoulder, spun him about, and yanked him backwards. One of her knees went up into the back of his, so he spilled over, right onto her sword. She shoved it through his back, all the way through, so the red point punched out of his chest. He crashed to his knees and his weight nearly pulled her over with him. She yanked her blade free, the serrated edge tearing out strands of ragged meat. He fell flat on his face across the wet sward.

The Ghestru, the Spirelight, and the other Schomite all gaped in disbelief. Then they sprang. The Schomite tried to catch Ketz in his blind-spot, his blade descending in an icepick grip. Ketz drew the long, glittering Ghestruland blade and flicked it out to the side. The man howled as his hand flew away, along with his knife.

Meanwhile, the last two enemies closed in on Tia. Her blade swooped up in a rainbow-arc, so both their wild downward strikes chimed off it. They redoubled and lunged in faster than she’d expected. Her next wild thrust drew blood across the Ghestru’s arm, but it didn’t slow him down, not enough. She twisted and voided as their blades swished and gouged. The Spirelight’s next swipe took a notch out of her shoulder. If she hadn’t made that lightning-swift pivot right when she did, she’d have lost an arm. Before he could try again, Ketz closed in, almost got the drop on the Spirelight, but the sonofabitch heard him coming. Their blades clashed in a glimmering blur, as their shifting feet kicked up dirt and leaves, scraping little trenches through the mud.

The Ghestru got behind Tia. His arm circled her waist and tightened. Gotcha, girly!

She crouched, twisted free, and drove her elbow full force into his balls. She rose and turned as he reared up, heaved, and folded. She grabbed him by the hair while she whipped her blade around. The serrated edge thudded with a meaty crunch in his neck. His body sagged heavily on the sward beneath her outstretched arm. Blood rained all over them both, so a dark lake formed around their feet. Tia gave his neck three more whacks. The body dropped. The head dangled by the hair from her fist.

She glared into the glazing, rolling dead eyes. You talk too much, asshole.

Ketz kept tangling with the Spirelight in a furious whicker of blades that showered sparks across the sward and brush. He hadn’t finished it on the initiative like he should have, so now the damn glowstick was doubling down on him in a last-ditch fury. Ketz made a quick uphill retreat. Tia ran up behind the Spirelight and slung the severed head like a rock. The two skulls shattered against each other. The Spirelight thudded on his side. His brains flowed out over the rocks and dirt in pulpy, purple-gray tendrils like rotted vegetables leaking from a ripped sack.

Thanks, said Ketz.

The cut on Tia’s arm stung and throbbed. Panting and snarling, they took a quick look around, just to make sure all their enemies were dead. The second Schomite, the one whose hand Ketz had chopped off, lay moaning weakly, clutching his bloody stump, nearly bled out. The twins cleansed and sheathed their blades.

The old man was back to scrambling along the rocky hillside, trying to find a place to climb up. They walked over to him. His boots peddled the dirt, like he hoped the hill would open and swallow him into safety. When he saw them coming, he turned his head away and squeezed his eyes shut.

Please, please…I’m sorry …

You can relax, said Ketz. Those assholes are dead.

Why were they chasin’ you? said Tia.

The man tried to answer, but kept babbling unintelligibly.

Take a deep breath, said Ketz. Yeah, that’s it. When you’re ready, we’ll walk you back to our village, get you washed off, get a hot meal in you, then we’ll figure out—

You guys don’t get it, the old man panted. I…Please, just…don’t kill me. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. They told me to do it, or they’d…they’d…

No, we won’t kill you, said Ketz. We promise. Right Tia?

Tia folded her arms across her chest. No, old man, we won’t kill you. We look out for our own in these parts. You’re a Schomite of the Nagga Mountains, ain’t you?

Y…y…yeah?

What’s your name, anyway? Ketz asked.

I’m Goshan. It’s just, you don’t know, it’s all horrible, now there’s no… His eyes narrowed on them. Hey, I know you! You’re Tia and Ketz, ain’t you?

The twins glanced at each other, as though to make sure.

What, don’t neither of you know me? No, I guess, why would you remember ol’ Goshan? Well, just look at you.

"What did that Schlogmire prick mean, when he called you their guide?" said Tia.

I…I… Goshan hung his head and clutched at his stringy white hair. Those guys weren’t chasin’ me. I was leadin’ them, to your village. They made me do it.

Tia sneered, placed a hand on her pommel, and looked at Ketz. Guess we better find out what this is all about, before we decide whether or not to kill him.

Yeah, said Ketz. Let’s go for a stroll along the side of this ridge first, though, huh? Like away from all this stinky dead meat, maybe to the brook where we can wash off.

Tia wiped some of the clotting muck from herself, so it landed with a thick splat on some brush. Good idea.

Two

The sun beat hotter through the treetops, higher along on its daily course. Already, the gore on Tia and Ketz’s skin thickened rancidly. They led Goshan along, steadying him by the arms, and circled the hill ’til they reached the brook. They set him down on a log, then waded into the babbling stream, where they splashed themselves clean. The old man sat there hugging himself, bobbing back and forth, chin pressed to the top of his chest. Once the twins stepped out of the stream, the sun through the trees dried them quickly enough.

Okay, said Tia, start talkin’ and talk fast.

The old man looked back and forth at them hesitantly.

Ketz knelt next to the old guy. Man, you’ve had all the time you could ask for to pull yourself together. We can only help you if you help us.

I run a little roadside place, a couple miles to the northeast of where the River Road turns into the Northwest Trade Pass. I sell and trade dry goods mostly, a few other supplies. There’s a little kitchen, where we brew up a big dish that lasts all week from whatever’s seasonal, plus a few local sap-wine and ale brews. He twisted his hands together and stared at the ground. "There’s a nice little parlor out front, one my wife fixed up real pretty when she was alive, where travelers can rest for a while. Just to, y’know, have a hot meal and a drink. Don’t matter to me, which side they’re on. That’s how the family’s always done its part for these hills, puttin’ on the friendly smile for whoever rides through—Imperial or no—that us Nagga Mountain folks ain’t worth makin’ trouble over. We let out a few rooms upstairs for travelers who need to rest for the night. My wife’s family run it for three generations. Since she passed, it’s just been me, my son and daughter.

He looked up and smiled hopefully. You was both once there, back when you were little kids. You played with my kids, in the dining room. My boy’s a couple years older than you. My daughter’s a few years younger…Yeah, you oughta remember, right? Your daddy, and his buddy Lehirn, they come over and down the lowland hills, helped my wife and me out with some repairs. They brought you along sometimes. Lehirn, he still comes to visit me some, not as often now that he’s chief and all. He come driftin’ in just a few months back, asked how I was doin’.

Ain’t that sweet, said Tia. "So far, I ain’t heard shit about why you were sellin’ us all out to a pack of bandits."

I’m gettin’ to that. He grimaced while the twins peered at him skeptically. "Look, ever since the occupation of Trescha, these parts has gotten crazier. The Spirelight Police been crackin’ down on the roadways across the river, so all the no-goods swarm into these hills. Now it’s just a matter of time, before the phantoms of the misty borders ain’t enough to keep the Spirelight Police away anymore. Then that’s it for all the stayin’ out of the trouble. Last Lehirn visited, he just wanted to see how my family was holdin’ up, in the middle of all that. At that point, we hadn’t really seen anything so bad, the kids and me. Then me and Lehirn, we sit and drink for a spell, chewin’ over old times. Well, of course he tells me all about how things really went in Trescha. So I ask him to tell me all the stories, about all the hidden wonders he saw within those city walls.

"Seen the place, says he, we ain’t just seen it. Some of us who made it out of there alive, we got us some nice plunder, too! I asks him, what kind of plunder? Of course, straight off, he’s keen to talk about some fancy Spirelight weaponry and jewels and art, shit he can trade to all the vagabond merchants, along with some other fancy implements of metal-work, things the Spirelights with the help of all their fancypants priests and gods figured out how to forge, that we ain’t yet. I asks him, so what else? He tells me about some fancy tale-leaf seeds."

Ketz cut in, "Wait, what do you mean, tale-leaf seeds?"

"That’s what they’re called, right? Magically manufactured seeds…manufactured, altered, however you say it? Throw ’em in the right soil, they grow instantly, sprout into all sorts of vines and pods that grow up quick and move together, makin’ faces that talk, showin’ you other shapes, the news of whatever lands you gotta find out about and such?"

That’s about how it works, said Ketz. It was Schomite blend-ladies who came up with that, y’know, not Spirelights.

"Yeah, well, Lehirn told me the Spirelights got it for themselves now. Told me, y’all found out they been up in their spirit-science labs, makin’ all sorts of new cross-pollination kinda tale-leaves, the kind got their latest discoveries, will tell you all about how to cast their latest spells, ain’t I right? So the Spirelights stole that knowledge from us, and now they’re usin’ it, off in their big gleamin’ temples, mixin’ it with all the weird, evil magic their gods taught ’em. Word goes, y’all stole back a lot of what they done with it, and now your village’s blend-lady’s got herself a fresh plate of magic to play with, no tellin’ what kind of knowledge to impart in what she’s workin’ with."

Maybe that’s true and maybe it ain’t, said Tia. Keep talkin’.

"So Lehirn, he talks of some new spell your blend-lady’s learnt, somethin’ called the High Glamour, a mental exercise or somethin’, so someone can throw an illusion around themselves, so they look like someone else, so you can fool anyone. Silisha, that’s your blend-lady’s name, ain’t it? That’s the name all them bandit boys kept sayin’. They wanted to sneak through the town and make off with your blend-lady, along with the tale-leaves with the secret of the High Glamour."

So you were leadin’ those assholes straight to us, said Ketz.

Goshan hung his shiny bald head. Shit, what am I gonna do now?

Tia stood up and loosened her blade in its scabbard. "Probably die, unless you come up