MAFT

Snippets and ideas:

  • Minutes of the Royal Chronological Society
  • Home Ain't What It Used To be
  • One over the threshold
  • Childbooth
  • Waxworker
  • Untitled dream-peace about Johan Vaust

Prose

Drafts

Waxworker

The thing was eight feet tall and moved with the calm self-assurance of a tectonic plate. Enner watched in mute horror as it drifted steadily from shelf to shelf, dancing lights flitting around it like fireflies – it was humanoid, or near enough, but its armour was drenched in tallow-white rivulets and its faceplate stared out through painted eyes.

It was getting closer. The alcove he’d pressed himself into was an architectural façade, a small dent the depth of a shelf, barely big enough to conceal him and certainly not big enough to conceal his satchel. He breathed in, trying to arch his spine with the painting that hung behind him. His fingers ached from bracing against the wall, and every shift of his body rang like a churchbell. He could feel his feet cry out in pain as he lifted himself up on tiptoes, shuffling back for those precious extra centimetres of camouflage.

Time passed slowly. The thing was in no hurry, and lit each candle it passed with geological patience. Enner was amazed by how little sound it made; there was the hiss of each burning wick, the occasional snap of dried wax, but no clank of armour. No footsteps. There was an element of jealousy there; Enner prided himself on being quieter than most, but it seemed less impressive when confronted with a silent behemoth like this. A suit of tarnished silver armour, with the stance of an elephant and the grace of a swan, just didn’t seem fair. Like it was cheating somehow.

Enner could feel the heat radiating from its body now. A dull, low warmth, like forgotten coals. If it had noticed him yet, it wasn’t letting on. Its devotion to its task bordered on the fetishistic, pressing each stump to the bulk of molten wax on its shoulders, drawing new candles with wicks that appeared from its palms like magicians’ coins. He clenched his teeth, strained muscles begging him to go. Three candles to go. Now two. He had to run.

He ran.

There should have been a noise. A book left carelessly on the carpet, a pencil that would snap underfoot. Maybe, if the gods of comedy were having a particularly bad day, a banana peel. But there wasn’t. He shifted perfectly, pivoting on the alcove’s corner with scarcely a creak from the floorboards. It was as quiet an exit as anyone could’ve made.

Which made the thing’s response even more depressing.

It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t sudden, and it wasn’t harsh. It was reasoned and patient, though Enner couldn’t have been moving for more than half a second and there was hardly enough time to speak. There was no malice behind it, no venom, no barbs.

Thief. That was the word, and it was right. Enner felt his legs fall out from under him as his heart leapt into his throat. He rolled over and scrambled backward, the monster leaning over him with its head tilted askance. He opened his mouth to speak but found the air stolen from his lungs.

Why? The word echoed on its own frequency, a subsonic wavelength that his ears were only now picking up. Why indeed. Why was he here, right now, being stared down at by a creature one missed polish away from a monolith. He went with the default.

“I- I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

The creature cocked its head further, its neck clicking. You deny it?

“I didn’t mean to. I mean, I did, but it wasn’t… It was only…” Enner paused. “Who are you?”

The thing was silent. Enner crawled backward, and it took a step forward. He shifted to one side and its head turned slightly to follow him. He pulled a paperback from a shelf and tossed it lightly down the corridor. The creature didn’t move a muscle. Well, there was only one thing for it. He didn’t like using the Words Of Power, but they were remarkably effective – a one-way ticket to perfectly feigned self-importance. He’d be mixing himself further up in the tricky business of thievery, but it would at least put him in contact with people, and Enner was good with people. Relatively speaking, anyway. Relative to this thing, he was bloody convivial. It was risky, but he’d considered the future and found it worryingly lacking in future to consider.

He grinned sheepishly. “Can I speak to your manager?”

The creature shrugged, picked him up in hands the size of coal-shovels, and disappeared.

On Salasar

Adder

Home

Librarians

Legionaries

Two Over The Threshold

Heimveh, Ch. 1: Intake

Heimveh, Ch. 2: All Dead and Just Resting

Canned Person

Tablets

Memory Lane

Paper Paper Forest

Footsteps on Cobbles on Woodwork on Night

Untitled (oracle)

Flighty Writ

Wrong End of a Blunderbuss

On Wrilfeth Pier

Some Warborn

More than 300

Complete drafts

Black Market Magic

"Creatures of the Deep", with Ipsum Factum

Warborne


Poetry

A gift

Suicide Couplet in AB,AB:


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