“I’m sorry and I fully realize that you have traveled for many weeks to reach Celephaïs, but the King is not receiving any visitors at this time.” Most people would have wilted under the furious visage of King Babacar of Thalarion, but Chamberlain Mikhail of Celephaïs remained unmoved. In fact, in addition to responding to […]

Klar always wanted to be a Dreamer. Ever since he was a little boy he would focus on an ant, a leaf, a pebble, willing it to change into something else. At night before he slept he would stare into the darkness, willing a light to shine, or a sword. Nothing ever came of it, […]

Chapter 1 The alarm bells clanged her awake. Fire! Sergeant Jabari leapt to her feet, her hands pulling on her leather jacket and boots automatically. She rushed out of the barracks, joining a dozen other women awakened by the alarm in the pre-dawn gloom. Rasha called down from the tower: “It’s over near the Boreas […]

– 1 – “My usual, please, Master van der Kerk.” “Mistress Chuli, good to see you again,” replied the man behind the counter. “That’d be a block of Gouda and a block of my own Ambroli, right?” Chuli smiled, white teeth bright against dark brown skin. “Yes. I love your Ambroli… can’t find it anywhere […]

Bortras wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm, the clean one. Over the years he’d learned how to keep one section of one forearm relatively dry and clean, especially for that purpose, even though the rest of him was usually wet and covered in filth. He no longer bothered with […]

Celephaïs, the royal city of King Kuranes, features in the periphery of many of my stories, but as so many important people and things are found there it obviously deserves a book of its own. These stories help explain how some things work in the Dreamlands, flesh out the city and a few nearby places, […]

Thibby bent over until his cheek touched the dirt, carefully checking the alignment of his thumb and the red marble. With his left hand he reached out and pushed a tiny fragment of something out of the way, then lifted his head again. He straightened up, steadied himself with his left hand and both knees, […]