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Cast of Wonders 133: A Well-Lit Dungeon

Cast of Wonders 133: A Well-Lit Dungeon is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:27 — 8.6MB)

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Show Notes

Starburst Magazine’s Bookworm Podcast.

Can We Watch It Again podcast.

Emma Thompson’s Donor’s Choose project.

A Well-Lit Dungeon

by Mark Mills

Lord Hanvord of Proustof was for a very short time one of the richest men in the world. A load of gold of monumental proportions was discovered in the southern part of his kingdom which increased his treasury a thousand-fold.

Lord Hanvord’s first act after hearing the news was to arrest the owner of the land for treason and confiscate the mine. There was much grumbling of the eight remaining noblemen in Proustof and Lord Hanvord began to have doubts over condemning the man to die.

The night before the beheading, he visited the condemned man in the dungeons. At this point, the castle itself was a disheveled mess, with moss growing in the royal bedroom and three families of foxes who dwelled between the cloak room and kitchen. The dungeon, as one might expect, was the pits.

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Cast of Wonders 132: The Collector

Cast of Wonders 132: The Collector is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:36 — 26.2MB)

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The Collector

by Jameyanne Fuller

Maddie died that night fifty years ago. Car accident. Drunk driver. Fifty years and worlds ago, Maddie Collins died, and the Thief couldn’t think about her, not tonight, not ever again.

The Thief stopped in the shadows on the corner of Maple Street and Brookdale Road. He was tall and graceful, carrying himself with absolute certainty. This was the role he’d chosen for himself, after all, when he agreed to become Death’s assistant. The assistant before him was traditional, black cloak and hood, bloody scythe, shrieking as he swooped down on his victims and chased them towards Death itself. The Thief was quieter, modeling his actions on the books he liked to read as a kid. He liked that he’d added his own personal touch to the job.

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Cast of Wonders 127: Learning the Game

Originally published in Sidekicks! (2013).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:54 — 21.0MB)

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Learning the Game

by Michael Haynes

The man sitting at my left, Parl, groaned a curse while the stool to my right cooled. I’d be cursing, too, if my luck had been as bad as his. The stack of five-khorr coins he’d started with had shrunk to half its size in the short while we’d been sitting together.

I glanced over my shoulder. No one was walking our way through the bar—one of dozens like it in the frontier towns of the Jandar nations.

“That your whole bankroll?”

He shot me the “stupid girl” look I knew far too well. “Of course not.”

I nodded and pulled out a handful of twenty-khorr coins. As Parl’s eyes widened, I took another quick look around the room before leaning in toward him. “Here’s what we do. If I’m playing heads, I’ll cover the coin with both hands. Tails, with just one.” I mimed covering a coin with only my left hand. “Got it?”

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Cast of Wonders 126: The Perfect Prom

Cast of Wonders 126: The Perfect Prom is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:45 — 17.2MB)

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The Perfect Prom

by Kat Otis

Everything was going perfectly.  My prom dress was a shimmery hunter-green ballgown that matched my eyes and I’d spent over an hour at the salon, getting my usually frizzy red hair tamed into elegant ringlets.  Theo’s jaw actually dropped at his first glimpse of my transformation from scruffy tomboy to fairy-tale princess. We were officially going together as friends, but he was as flatteringly attentive as a real date all throughout dinner and the dancing that followed.  A few people even proclaimed us a “cute couple.”

In short, it was as magical a senior prom as any girl could want, right up until the moment the prom queen spontaneously combusted.

Chaos ensued.
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Cast of Wonders 123: Taxidermy and Other Dangerous Professions

Originally published as “Heaven’s Lot” in Not One of Us.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:17 — 16.7MB)

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Show Notes

Theme music is “Appeal To Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

Taxidermy and Other Dangerous Professions

by J.R. Johnson

By late afternoon the day was hot, hot and hot, my feet burning up through flimsy red canvas shoes. My skin too, even with its built-in mocha café au lait sunscreen, out all day with no protection but a nondescript outfit topped with my stifling jean jacket. I kept that between me and prying eyes, always.

The last of my water went down warm and barely dented the void in my stomach. A police chopper flew overhead but I didn’t look up, just hunched deeper into my jacket before turning into the Joe’s Hot Dog Heaven parking lot. I was scared and running, sure, but the cops weren’t looking for me. No one was.

Aging picnic tables crouched at the edge of the lot were splintered and stained, but still looked more welcoming than the street. Crumpled napkins and used cups littered the gravel under my feet but the place felt safe enough. We used it as an after-school refuge when classes were on. The owner kept the place free from the worst trash; you wouldn’t step on a needle here. I needed shelter and this place, surrounded by dust and wild day lilies, was as close as I would get. Settling against the shaded wall at the back of the lot with relief, I closed my eyes against the day. Lord, my feet hurt.

“Come with us.”
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Cast of Wonders 122: Sundae

Originally published as a Kindle eBook.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:37 — 36.3MB)

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Sundae

by Matt Wallace

The old woman in the wheelchair has a brutal face and hands as soft as the mother of all children.

“You will be more than a warrior, little one,” she whispers in German, her delicate and wrinkled fingertips sewing a pressed metal button into his left ear. “You will be a guardian. You will protect more than tender flesh and frail bodies. You will be the sentinel that stands between the darkness and innocence itself.”

With eyes made of glass and wood he sees her thin, withered lips form the words. He cannot hear her; his ears, even the one with the signature button, were not made to hear, just as his mouth was not made to speak. However the small stuffed bear finds he understands her; the meaning of her words, if not the words themselves.

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Cast of Wonders 121: Little Wonders 5 – Trope Twists

Cast of Wonders 121: Little Wonders 5 – Trope Twists is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:08 — 31.3MB)

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Show Notes

This is Little Wonders, our collection episodes featuring flash fiction and poetry centered around a theme. This episode we bring you the conclusion of our flash fiction month: Trope Twists!

 

The Hero
By Jessica Holscher

Down a desolate and lonely dirt road, a young man walked toward the horizon.  With a sword at his back, he traveled for destiny. The famed fortune teller of the town he’d just left, Madam Mystic, told him he would defeat the three headed dragon and save the princess.  Without a moment’s hesitation, he headed for the beast to save the missing damsel.

Suddenly, a rustling caught his attention.  Surely, he couldn’t have already reached the monster.  He readied his sword and stood firm. The rustling grew louder and a female child emerged from the bush.

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Cast of Wonders 120: Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man

Originally published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, issue 29 (May 2012).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:09 — 13.9MB)

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Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man

by Scott C. Mikula

I tried to shut out the crowd’s roar, but the thunder of a thousand feet pounding above us in the arena stands rose until I could feel the breastplate of the mechanical swordsman vibrate beneath my touch.  Master Madrigal gestured with his palsied hand for me to replace the automaton’s helmet, but I hesitated to examine the delicate inner workings. Just one small adjustment

A cuff to the back of my head arrested my motion.  “We have spoken of this, Cetta,” said Madrigal. “There is no problem with the balance.”  He crossed his arms, tucking his useless right hand out of sight beneath his sleeve.

I persuaded my mother to send me to her uncle Madrigal after his illness, when I was just twelve years old.  The word apprentice was never used. Girls did not apprentice to craftsmen like Madrigal, and I don’t think he would have taken an apprentice in any case.  He referred to me as his hands. My deft fingers did the work his no longer could.
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Cast of Wonders 117: Pignus

Cast of Wonders 117: Pignus is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:01 — 12.9MB)

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Pignus

by Jez Patterson

Like most things in life, Ekram had discovered, the ways of getting it wrong dwarfed the ways of getting it right. It therefore paid to go with what you knew. Paid quite well, he hoped, as he travelled across town to check out the pawnshop Shami had told him about.

Times were hard. Shami’s mother had gone to the shop with a silver picture frame her mother had left her. Shami didn’t know how much his mother had got for it, only that the weird owner had forbidden her to take the photo out, insisting that leaving it in increased the value. The picture was of Shami’s dad, taken before the cancer stretched him about every which way and then discarded him: skinny and boneless.

Shami just had his mother now and government benefits definitely didn’t stretch every which way. Ekram had known him since primary school and they still crashed at each other’s places: Ekram grateful for a decent meal, Shami for a space on the bedsit floor to get away from his mother’s tears and complaints.
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Cast of Wonders 116: The Feathered Cloak

Cast of Wonders 116: The Feathered Cloak is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:35 — 18.0MB)

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The Feathered Cloak

by Edward Ahern

The trouble began when Rhys found the oak wardrobe. He stood barely four feet tall, but the free standing closet was twice that high. Its hinges were beaten brass turned brown with age. The carved wood was riddled with little worm holes. Rhys had never seen a piece of furniture so big and heavy, and he knew that if it fell on him he’d be squashed.

The wardrobe rested in a corner of a large, open attic. The attic was a jumble clutter of his grandfather’s collection of magic equipment. His grandfather had been a professional magician who had starred in New York and Paris and even Moscow.

The key to the armoire doors stuck out of the lock. It turned with a dry rasp. When Rhys opened the doors piles of theater costumes, tablecloths and curtains spilled out onto the floor. Their colors, once shocking bright purples and pinks, had faded over time into pastels.

I’m in trouble, Rhys thought. He pulled out the rest of the clothes so he could restack them and try and shut the doors. Under the cloth worms had eaten through one of the base boards. Beneath the rotted board he could see the shape of a box.

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Cast of Wonders 115: Bad Poets Society

Cast of Wonders 115: Bad Poets Society is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:35 — 16.2MB)

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Bad Poets Society

by James Aquilone

Kilgore Birch never thought a bowl of thin pea soup would be his undoing, especially since he stole it from a blind vicar, but here he was in the poet-king’s dungeon.

He still wasn’t sure how the vicar had identified him. Kilgore wondered if he smelled guilty.

His wife, Martha, was always harping on him to stop breaking the law and get an “honest job.” But honest jobs were still jobs, and Kilgore treasured his sleep more than his integrity.

Of course dungeons weren’t great places to catch up on one’s sleep. And as dungeons went, this one was particularly dungeon-y: full of oily shadows, moist stone walls, and anguished cries. The worst part, though, was the food; namely, the fact that there wasn’t any.

But when the guards came for Kilgore, his thoughts weren’t on food but poetry. They were the kind of thoughts one has just before one starts talking gibberish and foaming at the mouth.
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Cast of Wonders 111: The Giant Who Dreamed of Summer (Staff Pick 2013)

Cast of Wonders 111: The Giant Who Dreamed of Summer (Staff Pick 2013) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:38 — 25.4MB)

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Show Notes

As our longtime listeners know, Cast of Wonders takes the month of January off each year, so we can recharge our batteries, and get out in front of the next year’s production schedule. And this year is no exception. However this January instead of leaving you with an empty playlist, Cast of Wonders is proud to present our Staff Picks!

Graeme, Barry and I (Marguerite) have selected our personal favorite story from 2013, and even further back in one case. Each of us will introduce the story, and talk a bit about we found so memorable about that particular tale.

But “Ahhh!”, I hear you say, “January has four weeks, and there’s only three of you! What are you going to do the last week of the month?” Well I’m glad you asked, because we’ll re-play our Small Cast, Short Form Parsec award winner, “Now Cydonia” by Rick Kennet, to transition you into a new year of what we hope to be even more award winnings stories, week after week.

And since I’m here, I guess that means I get to go first!

Barry and Graeme invited me to become the Editor of Cast of Wonders right before Christmas in 2012. I had just moved to the UK a few months prior, and the shorter days and significantly colder weather was starting to affect my mood. In January, while juggling a crushing course load in law school and frantically reading slush to be ready for the February episodes, I read the first submission that made me cry.

Jess Hyslop’s wonderful first-person narrative of a frost giant yearning for the touch of summer cut straight through my winter blues and reminded me of how good, how life affirming that first truly hot day of summer feels. Not just spring and rolling forward the clocks, but summer and that prickly, sizzling sensation on the tops of your shoulders when you wear a tanktop outside for the first time each year. Maybe, if you’re lucky, on the way to spend a day on the beach.

“The Giant Who Dreamed of Summer” is also the first story where the choice of narrator wasn’t really a choice so much as a lightning bolt of inspiration. I’ve been a fan of MK Hobson as a guest host and reader on Podcastle for years. I backed “The Warlock’s Curse”, the sequel to her smash hit debut novel “The Native Star”, on Kickstarter. The giant’s sense of humor, the gentle way it scolds as well as instructs the child, and the sensation of wisdom immediately brought MK’s warm and rich-yet-worn-around the edges voice to mind. I was thrilled when she accepted my request. Thanks MK!

The Giant Who Dreamed of Summer

by Jess Hyslop

What’s this–another visitor? How tiresome. I thought I had seen the last of you when the guards departed. I thought I had finally been left to meet my end in peace.

Wishful thinking. I thought I was beyond that, too.

Well, you must excuse me if I do not get up. These chains, you see…

What is such a tiny thing as you doing here all alone, anyway? Do your parents know that you are up here? I doubt that they’d approve. The hillside is steep and treacherous, and there are all sorts of dangers for a little flake like you. How your mother will scold if you tear your skirts! How your father will tut if you scrape your dainty ankle! How they will weep if you tumble from a bluff! And, my, how they will curse and stamp and rage if you end up in the belly of a starving frost giant.

I jest, child. Despite what you have been told, we giants do not eat people. It is only in your stories that such loathsome things occur.

Nevertheless, you should run along. Your parents are doubtless sick with worry, and I do not want to be blamed for your disappearance. Your King has made me miserable enough already. The last thing I need is to suffer more of his so-called justice.
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