Far Fetched Fables No. 86 Martha Wells and Aidan Doyle

Far Fetched Fables

Flash Fiction: “Remembering the Dragon” by Aidan Doyle

Do you remember me? I was once a great adventurer, journeying to distant lands, exploring lost ruins and chronicling momentous events. Now I’m trapped in a decaying ruin. If I show any weakness, my fellow prisoners will try to take everything from me.

“You’re sitting in my chair, Henry. I reserved it because it has a view of the driveway and I want to know when my family arrives.”

It was the anniversary of your mother’s death yesterday. Alice used to get annoyed when I told my stories, but now they’re all I have left. Most of my captors assume that because I’m old I must be stupid and torture me with cruel games.

“Residents are reminded that bingo starts at two o’clock.”

Aidan Doyle is an Australian writer and computer programmer. He has visited more than 90 countries and his experiences include teaching English in Japan, interviewing ninjas in Bolivia and going ten-pin bowling in North Korea. His stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Fireside.

His website is at aidandoyle.net.

“Remembering the Dragon” first appeared at Every Day Fiction on September 16, 2015.

Main Story: “The Potter’s Daughter” by Martha Wells

The potter’s daughter sat in the late afternoon sun outside the stone cottage, making clay figures and setting them out to dry on the flat slate doorstep. A gentle summer breeze stirred the oak and ash leaves and the dirty grey kerchief around her dirty blond hair.

Someone was coming up the path.

She could hear that he was without horse, cart, or company, and as he came toward her through the trees she saw that he was tall, with dark curly hair and a beard, with a pack and a leather case slung over one shoulder. He was unarmed, and dressed in a blue woolen doublet, faded and threadbare, brown breeches and brown top boots. The broad-brimmed hat he wore had seen better days, but the feathers in it were gaily colored. Brief disappointment colored her expression; she could tell already he wasn’t her quarry.

Boots crunched on the pebbles in the yard, then his shadow fell over her and he said, “Good day. Is this the way to Riversee?”

She continued shaping the wet clay, not looking up at him. “Just follow this road to the ford.”

“Thank you, my lady Kade.”

Now she did look up at him, in astonishment. Part of the astonishment was at herself, that she could still be so taken by surprise. She dropped the clay and stood, drawing a spell from the air.

Martha Wells has written well over a dozen fantasy novels, including the Books of the Raksura series (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths, Stories of the Raksura Vol. I, Stories of the Raksura Vol. II), The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, and the nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasies, short stories, and non-fiction. She has had stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, Lightspeed, and in the anthologies Elemental, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, The Other Half of the Sky, and The Gods of Lovecraft. She has also written the media-tie-ins Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary, Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement, and Star Wars: Razor’s Edge. Her new book in the Raksura series, The Edge of Worlds, will be out in April 2016.

You can find her online at marthawells.com.

About the Narrators:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, has written the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is now available on Audible.com. For further information on creative projects go to Quillhammer.com.

Diane Sieverson has been involved in the SF Poetry Scene (yes, it’s a thing) since 2010, is a staff blogger for Amazing Stories Magazine, and is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She contributes the audio feature Poetry Planet to StarShip Sofa, and narrates stories for it and Tales to Terrify. The best place to find her is on the web because she tends to pick up and move to another country at the drop of a hat. She and her family currently reside in Germany.

You can find her online at divadiane.eu.

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