I’d been working in Alethia for almost two years when I received the order from my father. I came to the gateway to the real world, worked through the perfunctory locks, and emerged to greet a young maga sent to act as my aide. She stared at me in shock, which she could not disguise. “It’s all right, Augusta.”…
Read More
The Wild Things, The Kith of the Elven Folk
I’m off on paternity leave, but I just struck a wonderful faerie description in a story by Lord Dunsany and wanted to share. So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights through the windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of the organ went roaring over the marshes. But…
Read MoreMirarion: where to from here?
When I started the Mirarion, I was trying to write something similar to the war diaries that were left by Australian participants in the First World War. Generally, they did not see the great turning points of the War. They don’t describe things which they think are obvious to the people reading the diary. Generally their…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 20
I didn’t have time to run. I tried, but the thing that had been Apophany swelled enormously in an instant. It reached out a great, clawed hand for me, and grabbed my leg. The hand was covered in dark scales that reminded me of the carapaces of the pseudoscorpions that defend the Library of Durenmar. It…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 19
Things had advanced further than I’d hoped. The island was a small pocket of Hell already. Illusionists are more sensitive to some thing than other people, and the sickliness in the air radiated out almost to the ship. The seawater was, as Apophany had hinted, clear of the taint. Everything else was more yellow than it…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 18
We had few allies for the final battles in Stonehenge. The Tytalus and Flambeau were shaping up for war over the spoils in France and Germany, so few of them crossed the sea. House Ex Miscellanea was actively mopping up sympathetic hedge magi, but their Primus had fallen, or been assassinated, and so their strongest…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 17
While we were fighting the Diedne, House Tytalus had seized its moment. Branugurix fell the day after the Battle at Durenmar. The Tytalus opened the Mercere Portal, and my family were invited through. Our mixture of necromancers and tricksters used the vis that had been won in the battle to make the covenant look as…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 16
The Battle of Durenmar never officially happened. Be aware of that before you discuss what I say with anyone else. This is what didn’t happen. The Diedne leadership were never apprehended, as you know, so we can only conjecture as to their tactics from what we observed. They found it difficult to amass force in…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 15
My little team had no name initially, although our commanders began to call us the Foolish Fires. We went out into the area through which our enemies would approach and filled it with inexplicable phenomena. The sillier the better, in some ways. We did rains of fish, talking scarecrows, ghosts, dreams leading to treasure, black…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 14
I knew the war was turning our way when my father handed me a necklace, from which depended ten tiny pearls. Its presence seemed so incongruous I asked him “What is this?” “It is Imaginem vis.” he answered. “The War Council thought you could make the best use of it.” Then he dropped it into my…
Read More
Games From Folktales 