Archive for "Archive"
The Far Patrol
The village of Marrack's Crossing was aptly named. It amounted to little more than a gathering of houses at the meeting of two roads: a large trade road that led southeast from Dargon to Narragan and a smaller road that crossed it. Cael regarded the village from a hill he had just ascended. It sat nestled in the small valley between his hill and another, beside a large pond. This was his first glimpse of the place where he ...
Hubris
Tanbry Cortinas walked across the yard outside the retired stables being used by the Esoterics as their base of operations and living quarters. The morning was fresh and carried an excited energy on the northern wind coming in from the Valenfaer Ocean. Dyann Taishent, Dargon's preeminent mage, was walking with haste the opposite side of the courtyard to meet her. "My dear Tanbry, are you alright? Kalen sent a guard to my house this morning and told me you had returned to ...
8 Must-Have WordPress Plug-ins for a Fiction Blog
If you manage a fiction blog in Wordpress, you know the challenges of getting the right plug-ins to get the functionality you want. I work for a non-commercial e-zine, DargonZine, and we recently decided to make the move from a custom-built PHP/HTML system to a more robust environment (ie Wordpress). While doing so, we realized that we had some specific needs that Wordpress didn't offer out of the box. Enter Plug-ins, Wordpress' way to extend functionality with a simple click. ...
Dargonzine 23-3 Editorial
Through a bizarre series of connections, I found myself at an interesting wedding last weekend. Very posh, very well-to-do, and very expensive. Among other notable faces in the mid-Atlantic region, I had the pleasure of speaking with the editor of Style magazine for a bit, and we hashed on challenges of the publishing world, though from differing perspectives. The most notable contradictions were based on the difference between a profession and a hobby.
A Second Chance
The marketplace in Dargon was swarming with people. Not one seller needed to shout to attract buyers; every one of them had their hands full, dealing with their customers and haggling over the price for merchandise. Unusual as this was, the sellers were as excited as their customers. Among the people in the marketplace were three friends, two men and a woman, who were trying to make their way through the crowd. Their progress was slow, and more than once they ...
Hogtied
Kiev brought his head around, trying to pry his leaden eyelids open only to have his eyes stabbed by the angry sun. The forest along the path leading him back to Dargon at long last, he couldn't tell what was going on or what had happened the past few days, but he knew he was being brought back to Dargon. That much he remembered. He took a closer look at his situation and found himself strapped down to crossed timbers in ...
Essart and the Lady
I should start by saying that I have not always been a nice man. In fact, there are times that I have been quite the scoundrel. I have stolen, lied, cheated, and otherwise been the kind of person with whom you hope your children never associate. I have never killed a man, though I have also been fortunate never to have to. Somewhere in the year of 1013, prior to the King's Birthday Ball, I met three characters of interest. The ...
Levy
T he sight could have been described as beautiful if not for the screaming, the flying guards and the carnage. A handcart full of fresh produce rose slowly to a zenith in a mesmerizing arch only to tumble down and get batted across the market by a large claw with an angry, scared crab connected at the end. In a relatively short period prey had turned to predator due to an over-zealous fishmonger.
Dargonzine 23-2 Editorial
DargonZine, like its precursor, FSFNet, was founded on the idea of helping writers to improve. Our mission statement is exactly that. In fact, I am a shining example of it. When I look back at my early texts, and see how amateurish they are to my own eyes, sometimes it takes me a few moments to realize that I have actually improved my writing over the past two decades.Why were my earlier stories published? Why were they allowed to see ...
Spirit’s Journey Home
I am a warrior. It's the legacy that my father gave to me. Standing here in this hard and cold tower, I could only wonder if it would be the legacy that died with me. The thick log walls of the room seemed more of a stout prison wall than a protector from the elements. The windows were small and a metal bar ran through the middle of them. A stone wall built with old, chiseled blocks started the tower at ...