His Robot Girlfriend is no longer available in paperback. Remember, it is still avaialble as an ebook at Apple Books, Kobo Books, and Barnes and Noble, and best of all, it’s absolutely free. Pick up your copy today.
My new video intro debuted this week with the re-release of my book reading of Astrid Maxxim and the Electric Racecar Challenge: Chapter 1. I still need a bit of work with my outdo. Take a look and be sure to leave a like on YouTube. Thanks.
Hello,
At the beginning of the year, I announced that I was planning to publish five books this year. That is still the goal. It looks like the first will be the first book of a new series. The series title is “The Greywater Adventurer’s Guild.” It is a story of a group of adventurers in a fairly typical fantasy setting. There are some twists and turns to the story that I think you will enjoy..
So, wait! That was not one of the five books promised. Right. Well, it’s taking the place in the lineup of The Destroyer Returns Book 2. That book my wait a while, as there aren’t a huge number of people clamoring for it. (Let me know if I’m wrong and you are eagerly awaiting the story.)
The other four books planned for this year are still on track: Knights of Amathar, The Return of the Sorceress, RO110: Time Traveler at Large, and Astrid Maxxim and her Hyperloop Hovertrain.
I’m feeling pretty confident. I’ve been getting a great deal of writing done, and I still have twelve work days before my retirement begins.
Thanks to all of you for being readers. If you would like to offer more support, visit my Patreon page and become a supporter.
“Welcome to Schwarztogrube, Mr. Halifax,” said Sergeant Halser, saluting.
“Thank you. No need to salute. I’m a civilian after all.”
Mr. Halifax held out a hand and Sergeant Halser helped him out of the small boat and up onto the shaped stone dock on the lowest section of the ancient castle. He was a short, rotund man wearing a white suit, the shirt of which was still stained with his lunch, eaten aboard the ship that had brought him. Halifax led him up the stone stairway to the upper levels.
“Can you explain to me what happened? The Judge Advocate General was rather vague in his description.”
“As far as anyone can tell, it was some kind of disease. It could have been brought here by one of the guards returning from leave. They were all killed. Most of the prisoners. A few of the boys. The boys might have been less affected because of age or because they were all down near the water. No one really knows.”
“I have no doubt it was due to mismanagement of some form or another,” opined Halifax. “That’s why operations were taken away from the Ministry of War and were given to us.”
They reached a fork in the passageway.
“The north wing is this way, sir. It’s where the offices and kitchen are, and most of the prisoners.”
“How many prisoners are there?”
“There are twelve surviving prisoners in the north wing; one in the south wing.”
“Only one?”
“Yes. Prisoner 89 was segregated from the others. There’s no record of why. Perhaps it is because she is the only woman.”
“A woman? Here?” Halifax frowned and licked his lips.
Halser nodded.
“Take me to her cell.”
Halser led his new superior up another set of stairs and down the stone hallway to a door with a single small, barred window. Halifax had to stand on his tiptoes to peer through. He could see a blond woman inside, dressed in rags, sweeping the floor of the cell with a broom.
“Open it.”
Halser unlocked the door and followed Halifax inside. The woman immediately stopped sweeping and stood demurely with her head bowed. The room was clean but Spartan. Only a single window high up on the wall let in a square of sunlight. Halifax glared accusingly at Halser.
“It was worse, when I got here, sir. I had the cot brought in and a chamber pot, and a broom so that she could clean the place up.”
“It’s true, sir. Sergeant Halser has been very kind.”
“Still, it seems poor treatment for a young lady, regardless of your crimes. What is it you are here for?”
“I used magic without approval, sir. And when they tried to arrest me, I fought back. I may have injured a wizard, sir.”
Halifax’s expression said all too clearly that he thought the injury or death of a wizard to be a relatively minor offense. “Well, you can’t do any magic here, so we don’t have to worry about that. And what is your name, my dear?”
“Zurfina, sir.”
“Zurfina. Like the daughter of Magnus the Great?”
“Yes, sir.” Zurfina curtsied.
“Is there anything you need right now?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, sir, I would appreciate a bucket of water so that I could bathe. And if a needle and thread could be had, and some scraps of cloth so that I could make myself something to wear.”
“Sergeant Halser, see if you can find a bucket of water and some soap for the young lady, and a washrag too. You can leave the keys with me. I’ll lock up.”
“Yes sir.”
After the Sergeant had left, Halifax stepped close to the woman and reaching out, brushed the hair from her face.
“You are not unattractive.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Things are not going to be like before,” he said, pacing first toward the door and then back to her. “There will be better food and cleaner conditions. Maybe we could have some decent clothes brought from the mainland for you, and perhaps an occasional sweet.”
“That would be most delightful, sir.”
“When my duties allow, I could come to your cell here and visit with you. Would you like that? Would you be… cooperative?”
“Oh, yes sir.”
He reached out and brushed her hair back again, this time caressing her temple with his thumb. “You do understand what I mean when I say cooperative, don’t you?”
Zurfina looked up from the floor and into his eyes. She reached up and pulled his chubby hand from her face, moving it down to rest on her breast.
“I’m anxious to be cooperative,” she said. “Very, very cooperative.”
Zurfina smiled as the dead grey tentacles caressed her.
“Now I will leave and now I will lay my vengeance on this stony prison and this little kingdom and this world!” She raised her arms and began her final incantation. “Uuthanum…”
At that moment a thin streak of light entered from the small window high up on the wall. It was so tiny that it might have gone totally unnoticed, had it not stuck the first and largest of the grey arms moving around the cell. But the tiny sliver of sunlight burned through the tentacle like a hot ember through a slice of bread. The great tentacle jerked and thrashed about the room and the other appendages did too, one of them striking the woman and throwing her halfway across the floor. More sunlight entered through the window and all of the unearthly, unholy members were yanked back through the portals that shimmered where the walls of the cell had once been.
“No! No, I’m not finished!” screamed Zurfina.
“I make a hundred and fifty feet,” said Lieutenant Arthur McTeague, without taking his eyes from the binoculars.
“Decrease elevation two degrees,” called Lieutenant Augie Dechantagne.
“Ready!” called Corporal Worthy from the centermost 105mm howitzer.
“Fire!” There was a long pause and then a distant explosion.
“Oops. You’re long,” said McTeague. “I mean, longer.”
“Kafira damn it!” yelled Augie. “I said decrease elevation! Decrease!”
“Sorry sir! Ready sir!”
“Fire!”
“On target,” said McTeague, after the wait.
“Lay down a pattern of fire!” The five guns began rapidly firing, only to be immediately reloaded and fired again.
McTeague lowered his binoculars and pulled his earplugs from his pocket. Stuffing them into his ears, he walked over to stand next to Augie.
“Why are we shelling this village again?”
“I didn’t ask,” Augie replied.
“Do you suppose they’re going to counter-attack?”
“It’s not my job to worry about it. It’s theirs.” Augie pointed to the line of Royal Marines, their red coats and white pith helmets clearly visible halfway between the guns and the lizzie village that was rapidly becoming a flaming hell.
“Well, I suppose they needed to be taught a lesson. Put the fear of God and his Majesty into them.”
“This will certainly teach them something,” said Augie.
It was a large spider crawling across his face that woke Nils Chapman up. It tickled his right nostril and then continued on its way down his right cheek and over his right ear. He turned his head and watched it as it went over the edge of the mattress. He didn’t want to get up. He wanted to count—one thousand nine hundred seventy-nine… No! No, he wasn’t going to do that. He felt sick to his stomach. He had felt sick to his stomach ever since he had seen the impossible undulating movement of the wall in Prisoner 89’s cell. He hadn’t gone back to the cell since, but the uneasiness, the slowly creeping nausea did not go away.
He turned over and looked toward Karl Drury’s bunk. The sadistic guard was not there. On the one hand, this made Chapman happy, because he found that he was increasingly happy whenever Drury was not around. On the other hand, if he wasn’t here and he wasn’t on duty, he was probably in 89’s cell, abusing her. Chapman shuddered. He had become increasingly sickened by Drury’s treatment of women in general and this one in particular, but now he felt even more ill at the thought of the cell itself, and the wall, and the strange writing, and the undulating movement… He shuddered.
He sat up and rolled out of bed. Taney was the only other guard in the bunkroom.
“Where’s Drury?” he asked.
“The filthy bastard’s got duty at the loading dock,” came the reply. “I wouldn’t want to be one of the boys working down there.”
“Somebody should stop him.”
“Go ahead,” said Taney, “if you want a knife between your ribs.”
Chapman didn’t want a knife between his ribs, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he went down the ancient spiral stone steps to the docks. Six boys were unloading a skiff, but Chapman didn’t see any guards. But as he stepped out into the open, he noticed something strange. There was a shadow in the middle of the dock where a shadow had no right to be. As he stepped closer, he realized it wasn’t a shadow—not in the real sense of the word. It was a man-shaped blob of shadow, occupying the same area that a man would occupy had he been standing there, but with no mass and no substance and completely translucent.
“What is that?” he asked.
The boys stopped and looked at him.
“What is that?” he asked again.
“What is what?” asked one of the boys.
“Where’s Drury?” he asked, his voice rising.
“He’s standin’ right in front of you, you great tosser,” the boy replied, pointing at the shadowy blob.
“That’s not Drury! I don’t know what that is!”
Turning, Chapman ran up the stairs, oblivious to the open-mouthed stares of the boys. He ran past the bunkroom and down the corridor to the north wing. He ran into the door of Prisoner 89’s cell, banging it with his fist, as if she could open it from the inside. Finally he rummaged through his pockets for the great key and unlocked the door, rushing inside.
Chapman screamed. Karl Drury was hanging, naked, upside down from the ceiling. His neck had been sliced open and his blood had been drained into the piss pot on the floor beneath him. His gut had been sliced open and long lengths of bowel and a few internal organs hung down like ghastly wind chimes.
Chapman screamed again, as he felt the feather light touch of the woman on his shoulder.
“I needed more ink.” Her sultry voice cut into his soul like a knife cutting through pudding.
She stepped past him and picked up the bucket of blood, tip-toeing like a ballerina to the north wall of the cell, where she dipped her fingers into the gore and began painting strange images onto the stone blocks. As she drew, she spoke to herself. Chapman didn’t need to hear what she was saying. It had been bouncing around in his head since he had gotten up.
“One thousand nine hundred seventy-nine days.”
“Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it! Stop counting!”
The woman turned toward him and grinned fiercely. “Not much longer now— just a few more days. Go on back now. Don’t want to draw suspicion.”
He crept out of the chamber like a dog that had been beaten. He didn’t go back to the south wing though, instead climbing the stone stairs until he found an alcove with a small opening to the outside world. Here he dropped to the ground and curled up into a ball and wept.
City of Amathar 