novel

Invoke the Bloody Mouth (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

When the Year is not Kept

And the Bloody Mouth is Invoked

The Scion of the Salmon Run was set to return to Compassleaf for a sojourn. The height of the fishing season, when the river would be more salmon roe than water, was just around the bend, and naturally he had to take first honors so the others of the region could then acknowledge him and eat their fill.

Krakodosus had been on the coast investigating washed up kelp forests as a food source, so the mountain-stump city was in the middle of his straight path from the shore to Blueguts. The great black grizzly had been meaning to stop there for some time now, as it was getting embarrassing to muddle his way through conversations that praised a storyteller he owned but had never actually seen perform. Continue reading →

Invoke the Bloody Mouth (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 13 Comments

It is the age of the beity.  The animals of the world have grown in size and intellect, and in their wake humanity is reduced to meek servitude.  They say the humans did it to themselves, shying away from the chaos they created.  Loric Shelvtale says that, and much more in the course of his duties as a storyteller in the court of the great bear: Krakodosus the thundercoat, Scion of the Salmon Run.

Until one evening, during a key performance, he violates one of the ultimate rules, meant to keep his kind in check.  Fleeing for his life, he seeks the only human power left, a secret reserved only for dentists, who are still allowed to forge metal to keep the giant teeth of their masters clean.  That secret is the Bloody Mouth, an oath that turns a dentist into protector and warrior, and the tool of their trade into a weapon.

And so begins their struggle, to flee the beities, and perhaps learn how the world could have reached such a state, though they would be shocked to find it all started long ago, on a place called the internet, where their forebears could not stop obsessively staring at photos of adorable animals…

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 17 minutes)

(estimated reading time for entire novel: 13 hours, 43 minutes)

Invoke the Bloody Mouth

Bloody Mouth logo

by

Blaine Arcade

When the Year is not Kept

And the Clutch of the Sig-neagle Fails

A beity is not failed by their talons out of nothing. There was an attack, and it had come out of clear skies no less. That is how the Sig-neagle was caught off her guard, for countless seasons had passed since last she suffered such craven disrespect. Even for her the skies were not without their threats; sometimes she did battle with hurricane winds and lances of lightning. They were challenging foes, eluding the steely traps at the end of each leg.

Lightning’s nature would’ve protected it completely in the seasons of old, but not now that the twin forces of life both ran in the river of animal blood. When bolts struck around her flight path they had be wary, despite their speed. More than once she had been witnessed under the dark clouds with a bolt caught up in her claws, those that saw it testifying to the indignity of the long-untouched lightning which turned out to flop just like a fish plucked from a lake when captured. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 17 minutes)

November 7th

2008

Our Nemesis

The artist’s retreat was over, and most of the last weren’t worth saying goodbye to. Long Odd Silver only sought out one of them, not meaning any offense to the rest of her band of course; it was just that none of them other than their lead singer had spoken a word the entire time. Perhaps she was the only one who could.

How the artists left was never actually witnessed, with the passengers assuming they vanished when there was nobody to observe them, as often happened with things in probable space that were either unsure of themselves or too sure of one aspect of themselves. Roxy Clink was likely the latter. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part four)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 51 minutes)

October 13th

2008

Plunge

The window’s getting tight now. Not much year left in our year long voyage. It’s clear what Dry and Roman want: the 1to1. They’re still looking forward to the regularly scheduled programming. But what about Sonny? He’s still here even though his vengeance is complete and there’s nobody to wed.

He has plenty of artists to choose from still, but says they’re not his type. That means they’re not our type, that they won’t fill the captain’s shoes unless they trip into them. That’s not their purpose here, so it still belongs to a passenger. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 34 minutes)

September 22nd

2007

Tell the Ice Floes to Hold that Pose

The chill in the air had less to do with the time of year and more to do with the waters they had entered: Rivulet M14. At times across the year they had seen other ships passing, many of whom signaled them with flashing lights and flares, their crews and passengers practically hanging over the side as they waved. There were likely radio broadcasts as well, but the Viper True made sure no machine aboard received them.

Sometimes someone on another vessel saw it as their only chance to interact with the legendary ship, jumping overboard and attempting to swim the distance. They never made it, and though the Viper True’s pace was too swift to tell, Silver doubted they all made it back to their original vessels either. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

November 7th

2007

Big Shoes to Fill

“And just what do you think you’re doing here!?” a woman in a scarlet coat asked. Her thin gloves were just as red, and so were her painted lips. Her heavy coat had a hood lined with what looked like the fur of a snow leopard, each spot the number 2. If it actually came from an animal that meant its odds at the time of death had been 2to1, and people like her wouldn’t dare wear anything more likely than themselves, so she must have been that close to reality as well.

She had dark darting eyes like panicking tadpoles and a stance that suggested she would try to repel a mudslide with pure indignation rather than flee from it. Her glossy brown hair was done up in a frazzle like an electrical cable chewed on by a raccoon. Roman recognized her voice, and by the slight chill in her pallor he guessed she had been on that iceberg no more than 3 hours ago. Continue reading →

Planet in Theory: Riverboat Without a Captain (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 6 Comments

In 2006 poor Pluto suffered a demotion, from planet to dwarf planet, unwittingly causing a version of it to appear in probable space: the realm of planets that were only ever theorized and people who have to track their own likelihood as much as their food and water intake.  Pluto arrived with a full population of adults, suddenly responsible for their own lives, and thus began the Planet in Theory series.

In Pluto Takes the Stage we covered its crashing the party, and from there journeyed to the theorized counter-Earth Antichthon and dealt with its many ghosts in Funeral March to Gothic Rock.  Now we follow the wild 8to1 scoundrel Long Odd Silver and the former prince of Pluto as they crash-land on Vulcan, likeliest of theorized worlds, and right to the deck of an autonomous ship crewed by a handful of the shiftiest figures who all share the same goal.  They say the ship is headed to the 1to1, back to the reality Pluto dropped out of…

(estimated reading time for part one: 1 hour)

(estimated reading time for entire novel: 6 hours, 12 minutes)

Planet in Theory

Riverboat without a Captain

by

Blaine Arcade

November 7th

2007

Not Much Spit Left

Over 3,000,000,000 lonely miles separated Earth from Pluto. The dwarf planet was too far from the sun to have much of a bright side, but it hoped for one nonetheless when it was demoted, knocked out of the solar 9 like a back row billiard ball, held responsible for impacts several spheres away.

No longer a planet, but perhaps in a friendlier neighborhood? Only in the sense that it was emptier, so there were fewer threats to come screaming out of the darkness and smash into it. The people that had the privilege of existing went on, after an all too brief bout of complaining over Pluto’s loss, talking about all the other planets, how they were feeling, whether they were in retrograde, never to collectively turn their minds back to the downgrade. Continue reading →

Night Skier (finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 15 minutes)

Ghosts Broke Down my Door

The soup wasn’t doing the trick. Diamond stared down into the paper cup of swirled orange tomato broth. There was some kind of tiny pasta in it, but they’d all sunk to the bottom. It was still steaming, so she played with it, chasing the end of the trail with the tip of her nose, but she couldn’t feel any warmth there.

Half of it was inside her, but she was still the coldest she’d ever been in her twenty-six years of life. She’d only been in the game of playing Dr. Pox Morbisha for a year, and they’d already run out of ideas for her gimmick. This time they’d just dropped her into a tiny black bikini. Continue reading →

Night Skier (part three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 29 minutes)

Sharks of the Murder Dimension

They couldn’t think of anything to say for a while. Watermelon Peak was doing all the talking. It was red in the face all over the wall, all over the side of the building, all over the other sides too by the sounds the slump had made. They had to call it a slump; it certainly wasn’t an avalanche.

“Why didn’t it break the glass?” Toni asked, shocked along with Diamond and Percy that she was the first one to speak. Continue reading →

Night Skier (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(back to part one)

(reading time: 1 hour, 29 minutes)

Open Season on Man

Micah really only needed one other person to help him attach the chair to the lift, but he knew Charlie well enough to know he could never amount to one whole unit of helpfulness. He was the kid who always veered off the trail on his sled. Threw his bowling ball into the next lane. Got the wrong order at a restaurant and ate it without a word of acknowledgment or complaint.

He’d seen the boy, at several different ages, wander in from the trails with various bloody scrapes and contusions, a smile on his face, no idea how it happened but certain that it didn’t even hurt, not one little bit. Continue reading →