His Robot Girlfriend has dropped down below 50 on the free ebooks chart at iBooks, but it is still number 2 in the Free Science Fiction and Fantasy category. What’s more, Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess is number 15 on that chart, Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress is number 18, and Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0: Brechalon is number 27.
Today, in celebration of two years of continuous daily blogging here at City of Amathar Blog, you can pick up the ebook editions of any or all of my books absolutely free. That is today only!
First, go to my page at Smashwords.com.
Select the books you want and use these codes at the checkout:
Princess of Amathar: Use code SL38U.
His Robot Girlfriend: No code needed.
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess: No code needed.
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress: No code needed.
Brechalon: No code needed.
The Voyage of the Minotaur: Use code FR94M.
Tesla’s Stepdaughters: Use code PC63M
The Dark and Forbidding Land: Use code LN95X
The Drache Girl: Use code SJ55A
Again, this is for today only and will not be posted (by me) or advertised anywhere else. Thanks again for reading my daily blog. Fin.
“Mr. Burbage,” I said, as I tossed a coin to a stable boy to have Hysteria taken care of. “I heard about what happened to our lead actress. Have you put the understudy on in her place?”
Burbage rolled his eyes. “You know she’s not right for the part. She’s too dark and too tall.”
“What matters that?” I cried. “She knows the words! The words are the important part! The show must go on!”
“My dear Buxton,” said he. “Fret not. The show will go on. The show has gone on for more than a week since I saw you last. Fear not. I have hired an actress for the lead role, and she is perfect if I do say so myself.”
“I hope you are right,” said I.
“I am right. I believe that I am right, and more importantly the audiences believe that I am right. Attendance has been up every day since the unfortunate tree incident. That didn’t hurt either. You know there really is no such thing as bad publicity.”
“You know better than me,” said I. “And that is something I almost never say.”
I took the side door entrance into the theater and found a comfortable seat in the upper gallery so that I could watch it along with the throngs of my many fans. I didn’t have long to wait for the lights to dim and the curtain to rise revealing the stage decorated to resemble the streets of the great city of Illustria. The actors playing the parts of street venders wandered around on stage, among the citizens, singing their lines. Then came the first bit of excitement: Penny the thief cuts the purse of the apple vendor and leaves the stage. Then the new actress playing the lead part stepped on stage. She was tall and striking and moved just as a sorceress should move. She sauntered across the stage and delivered her lines.
“I am Cleveland Normandy and I am here to put an end to your days of steeling young women.”
“-‘s hearts,” said I.
“What?”
“-‘s hearts. You are going to put an end to my days of steeling young women’s hearts. That’s what you meant to say.”
“No it isn’t,” said he. “I am here to put an end to your days of steeling young women’s bodies.”
“I’ve never… almost never stolen a body in my entire life. Seven, eight times at the most. And why would you care anyway?”
“I care because I am Cleveland Normandy, and I am Megara Capillarie’s true love.”
“No you aren’t,” said Megara, having successfully refilled her lungs with air and climbed back to her feet. She tossed back her hair and struck a pose. “You are my father’s one true love.”
“What?” Cleveland and I both said at the same time.
“He is the one my father has betrothed me to, but I don’t love him, don’t want him, can’t stand him, and don’t want to look at him.”
“She sounds pretty emphatic,” said I.
“I don’t know what that means,” said he.
“It means that she has strongly expressed her desire with great emphasis or…”
“I don’t care what it means.” He jumped to within sword-reach of me. “You are standing in the way of true love.”
“I don’t think we have the same definition of ‘love’, or of ‘true’, and probably not of ‘way’,” said I. “I guess we’re okay with ‘standing’. I guess it all really hinges on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”
The three of us rode down the road to Oordport: myself, the lovely Megara Fennec, and my valiant steed Hysteria, which is to say my horse. Night had fallen, and while one could caution that it is a very good idea not to set out from one city to another in the dead of night, but to take a room at an inn and start instead the next day, I have seldom been one to follow a good idea. It was a day and a half ride from Antriador to Oordport and I wanted to make it there and back within three days. My play was no doubt in difficulty without a lead actress, though she did have an understudy, and I wanted to put things right, and maybe even settle with Myolaena Maetar before Ellwood Cyrene returned from Auksavl in five days.
“So what gave you the idea to act in my play?” I asked the lovely young woman who was pressed up against my back. “Other than hearing that my actress had been turned into a tree, I mean.”
“I read a review of The Ideal Magic in the local broadsheet.”
“Really? What did it say?”
“Well…”
“Come on girl, and tell me. We writers are a thick-skinned lot.”
“It said that your play was made of big words on small matters.”
“What a most excellent review,” said I.
“It is a terrible review.”
“No, it is a wonderful review. Big words on small matters. Why, that is exactly how I write.”
We rode all through the night. Hysteria having been well fed and watered the previous day was more than happy to clop along at a leisurely pace. After a while our conversation lagged however and I dozed off in my saddle. You might wonder that this is possible—falling asleep and sleeping while riding. I do it all the time. In fact, it is probably my single best equestrian skill, which is to say thing I can do on a horse. Unknown to me at the time was that Miss Fennec had dozed off as well. While no doubt far less skilled than me at horsemanship, she was pressed against me so tightly and had her arms wrapped around me so well, that she didn’t fall off either. Neither of us even knew we were asleep until we were awakened by a shout.
“Stop knave, and prepare to meet your maker!”
“The plan in thus,” said I. “I will fetch from the apothecary a dram of a potion that is known as living death. You will go home and make peace with your parents and then take this potion. It will make you fall into a coma, a semblance of death itself. From you there will be no evidence that you still live: no breath, no heartbeat, and no body warmth. You family will think that you are dead and place your body in the family crypt. In the meantime, I will send a message to your beloved in Oordport, telling him the entire plan and he will rush to your side, to reach you just as you return to life, having experienced nothing more than a pleasant sleep.”
We reached Hysteria’s side and I turned to smile at my lovely companion, but she was frowning.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Your plan seems fraught with unnecessary problems,” she replied.
“How so?”
“If the apothecaries of the area are wont to sell drams of ‘living death’, won’t someone suggest that perhaps I have been given ‘living death’ when I appear to die of unknown causes.”
“Living death is pretty secret,” said I.
“How secret?”
“Really secret.”
“But not so secret that just anyone can purchase if from an apothecary?”
“No, not so secret as that.”
“What if, when I die, they decide to burn my body instead of placing it in the family crypt?”
“Why would they do that?”
“To save space.”
“You are a member of the family, are you not?”
“Yes, but I’m just a girl, and I’m young. I haven’t had a chance to do anything grand or impressive that would warrant entombing me in a place of honor. Our family has had that crypt for at least a dozen generations and there have been a lot of us. It’s getting pretty full.”
“But you are Lord Capillaries’ only daughter.”
“I am the only child of his current wife, true. But my mother is his fourth wife and I am his sixteenth daughter.”
“I see.”
“Now that I think about it,” she continued. “I don’t think that I would want to wake up in that crypt anyway. It’s got to be pretty rank in there, and there is always the possibility of zombie attacks.”
“Yes, I forgot about zombies.”
“It so happens that I already have all the actresses that I need to portray the characters in my play,” said I.
“You are one short,” Megara said, tossing her hair back. “Two days ago, the Sorceress Myolaena Maetar arrived at the theater just after the performance and turned your lead actress Angelletta Seedling into a tree.”
“Oh bother,” said I. “I suppose though, that with a name like Seedling you have to expect that sort of thing. I guess I will have to find someone who can change her back.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see the locals are in constant need of firewood, and well…”
“They didn’t.”
“I’m afraid so,” she said.
“I find myself in need of an actress then,” said I. “But I could not claim the names of Buxton and of Eaglethorpe, which is to say Eaglethorpe Buxton if I were to take advantage of your unfortunate predicament, which is to say your situation, for my own gain. Before you settle for the life of the stage we must see if we cannot reunite you with your lost love.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I am Eaglethorpe Buxton, friend to the friendless, protector to the defenseless, finder of lost children and reuniter of lost lover. And I have a plan.”
“Wake up, Master Buxton, wake up.” I felt a gentle slap upon my right cheek and then my left.
“Here. Drink this.”
The mouth of a small bottle was pressed between my lips and cool sweet liquid flowed over my tongue and down my throat.
“Is that an antidote?” I asked.
“Antidote to what?”
I looked into the face above me. It was one of the most beautiful faces that I had ever seen. Very large brown eyes, like cow eyes, but in a good way, which is to say large and brown, and with long lashes. A cute little nose. Perfect lips.
“I’ve been poisoned.”
“How?”
“You are the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen. Kiss me quickly before I die.”
“What poisoned you?”
“Quickly, the kiss.”
“I don’t think I had better kiss you if you’ve been poisoned. I might get some of the poison on my tongue.”
“Don’t use your tongue. Just use your lips.”
“Well, that’s not really much of a kiss, is it?” quoth she.
“I like the way you think,” I said, sitting up. “If you didn’t know I was poisoned, what was that liquid you just gave me?”
“That was water from the well outside. It’s supposed to be naturally healthful.”
“I feel much better, but ‘naturally healthful, does not quite equal ‘antidote to poison’.”
“I ask again. With what were you poisoned?”
“That pie over there.”
City of Amathar 