Paul Danesen

It is the end of all days and a collection of Principals and Ciphers inhabit the Tower Inexorable, a vast gothic ruin rising hundreds of miles into an empty sky. They attend to their daily round of duties and ceremonies, unaware that something deadly is in their midst, something that snatches individuals at random, carries them away to its lair, and devours them slowly at its leisure. Sir Ulian, the Blue Knight, and his young squire, Serge, are set the task of solving this puzzle and defeating the monster. Meanwhile Princess Madelena overhears the flowering of forbidden love, and is nearly murdered for her pains. She comes into conflict with her aunt, Grand Inquisitrix of the Tower, and must disappear, whether she wants to or not. 

     “I am at a loss, majesty.” said Sir Ulian. “The artefact appears to have been formed by hanging a man up the ankles and wrapping him in two or three layers of a cellophane-like substance which then shrank close upon him. There is a perfection of detail...”

     “Cellophane?” murmured the King.

     “By the ankles?” added the Archduke. “How by the ankles?”

     “And early polymer, Majesty, popular in the first half of the twentieth century,” explained the knight, and to the Archduke. “Merely a conjecture on my part, Excellency. The pointing of the toes indicates he was not standing when this artefact was made and the shape of the buttons indicate they were dangling in reverse. But the real mystery, of course, is how the body was removed.”

     “Exactly!” rumbled Prince Prandiavol, his voice deep and sweet like treacle. “A shrink-wrapped corpse-wrapper without a corpse. A toffee-apple toffee without the apple.”

     “The form and layering of the wrapping suggest the casing of an insect in its pupa stage, a cicada, perhaps, or a moth.”

     What a grisly notion.” murmured the Prince…

He crossed to the curtain and held it aside for Sir Ulian to go through. The double-doors of the grill had been locked, presumably by the Archduke.

     “No doubt you’ve heard of skeleton keys.” said the Prince. “Well, this one is more of an invertebrate. It will lock and unlock anything at all as long as it has a key-hole to put it in.”

     He inserted the glass key into the massive lock. There was a slight hum, like sound of a tuning fork. He turned it and the lock snapped back with a click. He turned it back and the lock clicked shut.

“You try it.”

     Sir Ulian was speechless with amazement, but he took the key and put it into the keyhole. There was the same hum as before, and the lock clicked opened.

     “And it opens any lock?  No matter how big or small?” he said...

     “Wake up, you fool. She’s here.” hissed a voice, close to his ear. “The Jittergoth!”

     Sir Ulian was instantly on his feet, nearly knocking Lord Kasimir flying.

     Somewhere in the darkness above, he caught a movement and heard a chittering sound. He threw back his cloak and checked the Sten gun was on automatic. 

     “Down on your belly!” whispered the knight. “And don’t make a sound.”

     Kasimir would have argued, but he lifted him by the scruff of the neck, kicked away his feet, and dropped him on the floor, planting his foot on the small of his back.

     “Lie still, or you’re a dead man.”

     He slowly leaned back and shone the lamp cautiously up into the dark cone of the bottle.   At first he could make nothing out.  Then he noticed several claws hooked at intervals around the rim of stonework, twenty feet up. 

     There was a soft chittering noise, uncertain, tense. Then a sudden movement like the heave of a jellyfish. A long-limbed spiny black flower blossomed out of the darkness. The spokes of the flower were legs, thick and black, tufts of spines at their joints. They radiated from a hideous hairy orb. It had glittering eyes for a face, a long shining spike for a mouth...

The convolutions of Binary Gothic are by turns horrific and hilarious, mundane and subtle, brutal and dreamlike, nightmarish and delightful. Sample its text at your peril! Open its pages with care! Once you gain its attention, Binary Gothic is impossible to put it down. You find yourself, like Madelena, falling into a dream, eccentric and inexplicable, that cannot be shaken off. 

In days gone by, there was a saying that “Whoever was born a fool was bound to be lucky”. People still think it a fine thing to be lucky, but they don’t respect it like they used to, which is a sad showing of how things have changed. For today it’s brains they look for (and look up to), and think nothing of luck, which, to my mind, is like talking three legs off a table when whistling a tune would make it dance.

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Denmark there lived a born fool and his name was Lucky Piet. What a rattle‑brain he was! He couldn’t read. He couldn’t write. He only knew his numbers up to seven, and counted himself lucky not to know more. You see, he was not sorry to be so stupid, no indeed! He was a cheerful sort and very happy with his lot, and that is a sure sign he was a wonderful fool indeed…

Full of light-hearted nonsense and rich in wit and wisdom, the Numerous Fairy Tales offer us story-telling at its joyous best.  

Suddenly the stairway opened out into a huge underground cavern, so vast that Poppy could see straight down for a mile or more to a castle, glowing like a ruby in the depths of the earth. The stairway spiralled round and round, and down and down. She could see the nine sorcerers shuffling along ahead of her, no bigger than a line of glow-worms.  She crept after them, and the dark crept after her...

Poppy  was trembling from head to foot and hardly dared to breathe as she peeped in at the keyhole. Inside, the first sorcerer was stirring a huge cauldron, over the fire.  The sorcerer spied her at once.

“Ah! A little girl!” he cried.  Quick as a wink, he made a magic pass, and turned her shoes to stone. She couldn’t move! He put down his spoon and came and drooled over her.

“MMmmMMM, little girl! You look good enough to eat!” he said. “Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to fry you in oil, and then I’m going to gobble you down in three bites!”

Poor Poppy couldn’t get away. Suddenly she whisked out her duster, and tickled it under his moustache.  Puff! A little cloud of dust flew right up his nose. His wicked eyes watered, his brow contorted, and all of a sudden he sneezed and snorted! Ker-tishoo! Out popped his soul in the shape of a little bird. Then the black furry shape of a cat came whizzing from behind and snatched it away into the darkness.  The sorcerer had just time to shriek before his long sorcerer’s robe dropped to the ground – empty!

Full of light-hearted nonsense and rich in wit and wisdom, the Numerous Fairy Tales offer us story-telling at its joyous best.   Available on Amazon: Search "Danesen".

Ah, Beauty! They do say it lies in the eye of the beholder, the which I doubt, unless our senses be in miraculous accord.  Nay, ’tis pretty affection havers there: Beauty’s a shade more subtle and beholden to the eye of none. It is a thing made out of inspiration, if you like, and like all things inspired, it is a mystery.

When the good Lord toiled on the world those six long days and sat back on the seventh, why ’twas Beauty gave Him joy and made Him marvel: He couldn’t think how in the world He’d managed it! What? And do you think that God can’t marvel? Well I’ll never believe Him plagued with boredom, and what else would He be with no cause for surprise?

...’Twas the night of the full moon and all the village  dogs  were  baying  with  excitement.   Snow had fallen and lay like a folded napkin on meadow and hill, bright as linen in the moonlight. The Faeries were gathering for a dance on the woodland pond. Like a swarm of fireflies they came, fleering and frolicksome, and who should they find when they arrive but Jamie seated on the ice, sepulchral as a judge. He was reading from a great old book, the pages of which he turned with care, as if they bore the wise weight of the years. He himself was disguised in a long grey beard of twine (against any unfortunate Faery acquaintance). In the moonlight he looked like Father Time.

The Faery Queen flits up to him herself, she whose fair lost face is seen by none, but those who are mad. And if Jamie did not swoon away, it was only because of that tickling beard that kept him from giving way to her horror.  "What are you reading, Father?” said she, and her voice tinkled inside his head like sugar‑fine grains of glass.

“’Tis the book of the Future and the Past,” says Jamie in a voice like a gong.

She laughs and he bites hard on his tongue to keep from laughing too, or shrieking like a lunatic outright.

“And which do you read?” she asks.

“The Past.” says he, with the book before his face. “If I had a glass now, I could read the Future too, for what’s the Future but the Past turned back to front?”

The Queen nods at this and looks about with smiles to show her favour. (Sure, ’twas a piece of novel invention and foolish enough to beg indulgence for a while.)  “Lend him my glass!” says she. “He’ll read to us our Futures, if he can!”

Already the rabble have taken it up! Oh, they are ever ready to turn upon their betters! All over Paris, you hear it the same, with winks and nods and ghoulish tittering, as if burnt flesh were a fitting subject for witticism and jest. I have even heard young children repeating it word for word as a nursery tale, all innocent of irony. These same will grow up and think it merely a romantic fairy story, invented of an idle hour, and pass it down to their children and their children’s children as a kind of sugary miniature of the truth, a tableau of icing figurines upon a cake of horror. 

Cinderella, poor simple child, she was my younger sister. I remember her as a happy little thing, despite her misfortune. She was slightly ‘touched’, which is to say childlike in her mind – not an idiot, you understand, only she had no power of speech. Even so, she was wonderfully affectionate, and smiled and wept as much as you or I…

You should have seen how, from one heartbeat to the next, Cinderella learned what cannot be learned – how to be captivating.  She looked an angel, of course, and giggled and simpered exactly as laid down for the ingénue in every book of etiquette.  Our young swain changed colour fifty times – I dare say that is wearing to even the callowest of lovers – made his excuses and took an early departure, though begging to be allowed to improve the acquaintance. Cinderella bestowed on him a parting smile – who knows if it were approbation? – a glorious smile. The young Compte was conquered on the spot and left the house a condemned man. 

From that hour forward, Cinderella’s progress was extraordinary. There were no more heedless games, no more running to the chimney corner, she studied day and night how to behave, using us as models, her sister and I, as well as the old dame. 

Actually, it was extremely mortifying. She would observe some thoughtless action, the putting on of gloves perhaps, and immediately copy it herself, except that she brought such natural grace and style to the action that her repetition would surpass the original. My sister and I found all our little conceits and mannerisms reflected back at us in an irritatingly perfected form. I suppose if we ever were the envious Ugly Sisters, then it was during this time. We were made to feel like sketches of ourselves, rough draughts, approximations of what we ought to be. 

The de Merciers were a strange clan. They had a streak of malevolence towards their own kind that could be traced from generation to generation. Inheritances often turned out to be ‘unlucky’, striking from beyond the grave to wipe the smile from the faces of ‘those that had lived to laugh last’. The practice had evolved to such an extent that any bequest, no matter how small, was regarded by its recipient as a kind of death trap laid by the deceased.

The young nephew of late Bishop Tamarliss de Mercier had been in the habit of shouting in the narrow vestibule hall of his uncle’s palace to hear the echoes in the high bell-topped gallery above, a practice deplored by the old man, who, as an invalid, had a horror of all disturbance. When he had finally succumbed to Death, the nephew had received preferment to the Bishop’s inheritance ahead of his older and less boisterous relations, though he was only fourteen. He had ridden his horse straight into the palace to his favorite spot and triumphantly shouted “Mine!”, whereupon the entire edifice, whose structure had been cunningly weakened beforehand, fell in upon itself, killing both horse and rider.

This example may well have been in Lars’ mind. None knew better than he, the depth of contempt in which he was held by his Grandfather...

The cave chamber he was in was called Oreiyb Saddhr, the Ear of Saddhr, death-chamber of the Sethren.

There they placed all whom they caught within the hallows, miscreants and thieves, adventurers who wished to pilfer from the treasury, men. After a suitable period of reflection, regret, and it was devoutly hoped despair, they were devoured alive by the wasps. The sisters had gone to great trouble to explain it all to him. They had even paid hire for a translator so that there should be no doubt in his mind, no gap in his knowledge. 

“Death will be slow. The Sethren speak with authority. They have seen it many times. You will know pain beyond pain. You will writhe till the bones of your skeleton gleam white and clean in every part of your body.” The translator looked rather green as she repeated it. She hadn’t dared to meet his eye. “White and clean. They ask me particularly to make this clear. It is because of the oil, you know the oil of the wasps? It prolongs  life. They also say they will faithfully note down your cries and pleadings. These offerings are wholly acceptable to the Ear of Saddhr.”

How much longer would they give him? He guessed it was probably yet awhile. The sisters had thoughtfully placed him so that by stretching out his arms he could just reach handfuls of water from the passing stream. He would not suffer from thirst. He had tried to reach it with his face, but the sisterhood had thought of that – drowning would be too easy.

Perhaps they were hoping that his spirit would break. He wondered whether that time would come. Few can face death – even without torture – without humbling themselves. He imagined himself begging for life, and hoped he would not succumb. He knew that there was no hope of mercy.

Hours passed. A torpor settled on his brain. Perhaps it was best that it was so. Thinking was only anticipation. The dark around him was like a cold black drug, dulling his senses.

“D-darkness, my friend...”

Probably there would be light when they released the wasps. They would want to see the teeming swarm, the twisting blood-raw flesh, the screams. They would want to see his skeleton show through “white and gleaming in every part of his body...” 

“Darkness, my friend...” he thought, and tried to relax. After a moment or two he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he noticed the glimmer. It was so faint, he couldn’t tell from whence it came. Was this it, the end? He strained for the buzz of wings, neck muscles rigid, his eyelids drawn back in horror. His mouth was dry, his bowels weak.

Suddenly it was very bright. He rammed his fist into his mouth to stop the scream.

With eerie silence, a warm glow glided into the chamber. It was a candle, floating on the stream. He stared at it, expecting any minute the angry swarm to appear. Nothing. The candle floated nearer, a lovely thing, its flame reflected in the water. 

He groaned. Was this a new twist to their torment? A trick to break him down? It touched against the sill of the ledge on which he lay, curtseyed slightly, and started to drift off.

With a lunge, he caught it in his hand. He held it dripping, but still alight. What did it mean? There was no sound at all, no sign that the sisters were at their post.

He rolled on his back and passed it before his face. Above him, he could see the cord about his ankles. Quickly he reached up and held the flame against it. For a second there was nothing, then a thin curl of blue flame spread along it. There was a sharp burning sensation, then a snap and his legs collapsed. The candle was knocked aside and went out. The darkness was instant.

He swore and rolled over, weak as a baby, to rub his legs and feet and restore the circulation. As he did so, he felt the same eerie shimmering begin again. Two more candles appeared on the mirror-still pool. He flung out his arm and lifted them up. As he did so, a whole cluster came bobbing in at once. It was as if an armada of tiny fire-ships had set sail and were voyaging to his rescue.

“Man, man, you’re not dead yet!” he muttered to himself.

Getting painfully to his feet, he stretched and swung his arms. Then, before any could mark his escape, he slid down into the water, baring his teeth with grim humour.

“My thanks, dear sparks! Now show me where you came from.”  

Gently, so as not to disturb their motion, he started swimming against the current, guided by the uneven line of flames that could be seen extending into the distance along the flooded gallery...

Read the rest!   Click  Prisoners of the Sethren to find it on Amazon.

One of the Legends of Sílthrea is Asfoörn and the Mighty Murdyew:

In dreams sometimes, you see waves rise like mountains, so high you cannot see their top. Slow they are, with the slowness of their size. The tide of Murdyew was still ten miles off, and yet its monstrous wave rose higher than the mountains beyond. The reek of it filled the air. And all around he saw that it was rushing towards him with great speed and all its creeping stealth was merely the effect of size.

The Patchcloak Chronicles include the Riddles of Pierpol:

“The way is far,” replied the minstrel. “Far is the way. Could the road but walk, you might ride it on foot and never have need of your cattle. To return to the riddlin’, now, I'll propose a bargain. Unravel the meaning of this, and if you do, I'll point out the way like a pelican! 

The stones do not move, yet the castle has gone,

Deep in the forest, a new glade has grown.”

Sonja Furiosa:

“Great one,” said the wise-woman more gently. “I see into your heart and a fathom into the ground beyond. I do not wish either to daunt or to deny. There will come a time when you will be tempted. Remember then your words, and be not found wanting. So then to my third warning. Do not seek out Sonja. If you do, it will be her death and yours. You will find her, yes, yes, but not by making search.”

Murgringoth:

There, on the far side, was his destination: the fortress of Murgringoth. Murgringoth! It stood upon the distant hill like a great stone ship that had run aground. The massive double gate-castle faced toward him and from it issued a wide gravel road that cut down the centre of an avenue of pasture for a couple of miles or more. On either side, twin towers rose like the horns of a beast. There were no windows in its lofty walls, but they were dotted with hundreds of slits, irregularly placed, like the eyes of some all-seeing monster. From the top-most turret there streamed the red silken banner of Cor-Drelljen.