Issue 8 of Whetstone Now Available!

 

Whetstone Issue 8 is now available for free. You can download it HERE (Issue 8). This issue includes several great stories. Thanks to Chuck E. Clark (Associate Editor), Nils Hedglin, Stef McCoy Clark, and Grey Cashwell (First Readers) and all the great contributors for helping us release this issue. We hope you enjoy it! -JRC (Managing Editor)

You can access our previous six issues here as free PDFs:

Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3 Issue 4 Issue 5 Issue 6 Issue 7

Whetstone Retrospective: B. Harlan Crawford's, "Undulations," a Tale of Revenge and Dark Sorcery

Art by Geraldo Marinho

Whetstone Retrospective: B. Harlan Crawford's, "Undulations," a Tale of Revenge and Dark Sorcery

By Jason Ray Carney, Whetstone Editor-in-Chief

In all the commotion involved in preparing Whetstone issues for publication, I rarely get to slow down and simply enjoy some of the fiction we are fortunate enough to publish. This is why I want to write a few essays, something of a retrospective, about a few great stories published in Whetstone.

The first one I want to write about is "Undulations" by B. Harlan Crawford, published in Whetstone 7.  It's an excellent sword and sorcery tale set in Ancient Greece of myth.

First, a summary (plot spoilers throughout): King Crantor, the lord of the City-state of Epirus, has been betrayed by his chamberlain, the cowardly and traitorous Terpsion. Terpsion helped kill the bodyguards of King Crantor and his wife, the mysterious Queen Audata, who is whispered to be a witch. After committing this heinous act, Terpsion, not confident enough to rule the City-state himself, proceeds to help the warlord, Abbryas of Passaron, invade Epirus in its moment of weakness. Abbryas attacks the city with his army and very nearly conquers it, but Queen Audata and her bodyguard, the Aesir swordswoman Sigyn, prevent this. How so? Audata gets her loyal bodyguard Sigyn to behead her. How does this help, you might ask? Although it is unknown to Sigyn, this beheading is part of a dark magical ritual that will transform Queen Audata into a six-armed serpentine monster who will avenge her and her husband against Terpsion and Abbryas. Eventually, Abbryas' forces are thrown back by this horrible monster, and while pressing his attack into the city, Abbryas is violently killed by an avenging Sigyn. At the very end of the story, there is an intriguing moment where Sigyn learns of Audata's dark magic and her role in the ritual that transformed her friend into a monster.

My summary doesn't do the story justice, and it's even more impressive that Crawford was able to tell such a compelling, multi-faceted story in under 2500 words (our hard limit). At no point in the story do you feel rushed, or that you are reading neutral exposition (although there is a lot of exposition that happens but in a seamless, dramatic way). Moreover, the form of the story is clever. It begins with a creepy and mysterious event, the beheading of a queen by her friend and bodyguard. You can't help but be confused by this inciting incident and must read on.

In addition to the rich and complex plot, Crawford is able to create a rich, immersive world of ancient myth. He intersperses his characters' dialogue with several allusions to Greek mythology and ancient Greek history. For example, characters swear by Zeus, come from recognizable locations in antiquity, and speak in an appropriate antiquated way. Here's an example: Queen Audata, transformed into a monstrous serpent, sibilantly whispers the following to Terpsion in response to his many insults (just before she crushes him): "Let [your insults] comfort you as you bargain with Charon for passage into hell." There are other references that bring the Greek mythology milieu to life. For example, Sigyn is described as a pale-skinned warrior woman of the Aesir. Audata has bargained with Hecate for her transformation. There are several more allusions skillfully embedded into the narrative, making the world feel visceral, full, and ancient.

In addition to the plot and setting, Crawford creates intriguing characters. Even a character who isn't part of the story, the tragic King Crantor, is interesting, and he is only characterized through the narrow perspective of his hateful enemy, the traitorous Terpsion. Of Crantor, Terpsion says, "The chamberlain had long despised Crantor as an effete, henpecked tool of the scheming witch-queen Audata. That Crantor had produced no heir reinforced Terpsion’s opinion that the king was incapable of impregnating the queen due to some unknown physical shortcoming." You get a sense that Terpsion the traitor hates what he sees in Crantor, and this is outlined by the ridiculousness of the insult: nobility, heroism, and equipoise. I am not quite sure how I know, but I got the sense that Crantor was a noble king, beloved by Audata, and the fact that he was betrayed and killed by a worm like Terpsion makes the traitor even more fun to hate. 

There are other compelling character dynamics. For example, the relationship between Audata and Sigyn is very fascinating. For example, Audata feels guilt for having her beloved bodyguard participate in such a dark ritual without the Aesir's knowledge; Audata knows that by asking her friend to kill her, she is asking a lot, asking her to work against her bodyguard instincts. Later, after Audata's magic is revealed, there is an intriguing dialogue wherein Audata, transformed into a serpentine demon, apologizes to Sigyn, who, in killing Abbryas, has just avenged her and her husband. Audata's apology to Sigyn is worth quoting at length: 

What I have done to you is unforgivable, but it is the least of my sins. I had hoped to die once my vengeance was complete, but that is not Hecate’s will. Until she allows me to die, I will remove myself from the sight of men. Remember me as I was, Sigyn, not as I am. Look upon all this as a nightmare from which you will awake to a fresh new day. Farewell!

There is more I can celebrate about this story: the way characterization happens through dialog and flows indirectly through point of view, the excellent and economic descriptions of action scenes and battle, and the overall theme that the pursuit of vengeance, the poison of hate, causes us to become monsters, a lesson Audata learned. 

"Undulations" is truly an accomplishment in sword and sorcery fiction, and we were fortunate to publish it. 

You can read this excellent story for free here: Whetstone Issue 7.

What do you think of this story? Share your thoughts in the Whetstone Discord.

Art by Geraldo Marinho
Instagram: @oldsky.art
Email: geraldinho.art@gmail.com

Flash Fiction, "The Dogman," by Christopher Rowe

THE DOGMAN

1016 words

By Christopher Rowe

Art by Carlos Castilho

When he left his holdfast on the Heights, Dafid took along two of his wolfhounds. His wife, Calla, chose them. The twins, Job and Kit, fiercest of their litter. For a parting kiss, Calla bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. “Go and get yourself killed,” she said, “and I’ll never forgive you.”

Dafid believed her. She was an honest woman.

It took two weeks of walking to reach the wooden stockade on the Marches where his old comrogue, the Fink, held command. Dafid approached close enough for the men on the towers to see him, but not shoot him. He sat on his heels. The dogs gamboled a bit, but settled down when he clicked his tongue.

After a while, one of the gates opened. It might have been designed to swing on a hinge, but it had settled. It took four men to shove it through the mud while the Fink sat his saddle and watched.

Finally, the brown gelding crossed the killing ground burned around the fort. The Fink pulled reign a few yards short of where Dafid crouched scratching Kit’s ears.

Dafid wasn’t much for talking, but the Fink was as wordless a man as had ever breathed, so he started it.

“The Fink,” he said.

“The Dogman,” said the Fink.

“You sent a bird,” said Dafid.

“Did,” said the Fink.

“Told you to never send a bird,” said Dafid.

“Did,” said the Fink.

“Calla read what was wrapped around its leg.”

“Always smart,” said the Fink.

Dafid did not know how to read. The last he knew, the Fink did not know how to write.

“I was to bring a sword,” said Dafid.

“Was.”
“Don’t have a sword anymore.”

The Fink looked down on him, his expression unreadable. The he drew the broadsword at his belt and tossed it over. Dafid caught it by the hilt, old reflexes kicking in.

“Something you can’t do?” asked Dafid.

The Fink kicked and the gelding turned. As it cantered back across the field, Dafid barely heard what his friend said. 

“Something I won’t.”

***

There had been five of them.

T’jool the Old, the woman who found them all, rescued them all, fed them and armed them all. The 

woman they then watched slowly die as the purple wen on her neck grew big as an apple.

Dafid, the Dogman, had been the first gathered up. Then Calla Farshot with her arrows. Then the Fink with his blades. 

Then Syndra.

Syndra with her demons.

T’jool had discouraged them from pairing off, but they were young. Dafid saw that the Fink had his eye on Calla but Dafid was just that much more glib, just that much prettier a man. That’s what he told himself, anyway. Later, when he knew Calla better, Dafid knew it hadn’t been his choice.

So. The Fink and Syndra. 

It was never going to end well.

Syndra was… Calla said she was voluble, and then explained that that meant talking so much was an important part of her. 

Dafid wished that so much of the talking hadn’t been directed at the demons endlessly fluttering about her.

But it was, and she talked to them more and more, and to the rest of them, even to the Fink, less and 

less. After T’jool died, she hardly talked to anyone else.

Dafid learned some of their names in their travels. Choker. Smoke. Little Heart. They each saved his life at one time or another. Syndra was the deadliest of them, in her way. She was the softest of them, too.

When they’d done all the killing Calla could stand, they parted ways. Dafid followed Calla up to the Heights. The Fink joined the army.

Syndra went mad.

***

Madder and madder, it seemed. The Fink, loving her, couldn’t go and kill her.

He expected Dafid, loving her somewhat less, or somewhat differently anyway, to go and do the job.

“Three villages,” said the Fink.

“You know it was her,” said Dafid. “Couldn’t be anybody else.”

“Couldn’t be anything else,” said the Fink, and Dafid caught the change. Caught the fact that the Fink 

had strung four words together, too.

***

Job and Kit tracked her and treed her. 

When Dafid caught up, he quieted them down. Their howls disturbed him. They didn’t sound bloody. They sounded mournful.

He couldn’t see her. She had climbed high.

“Syndra,” he said. “It’s me. It’s the Dogman.”

It wasn’t a voice that answered him, but voices. Syndra’s might have been in there, might have been one of the eight or nine or ten saying in unison, “Dogman. Not Iason? Not the Fink?”

Dafid made a sign with his hand, directing the hounds away. Job gave him a willful look, but then broke for the edge of the woods with Kit.

“The Fink couldn’t come,” he said.

“Wouldn’t,” said all those voices. “The Fink wouldn’t come.”

Dafid shook his head and drew the sword that he’d been given. He’d not examined it closely until now, now when he needed his eyes to be looking anywhere but up in that tree. It had some words etched in the blade. He wondered what they said.

There was a chorus of hisses. The branches trembled.

“Put it away,” said the voices.

“Oh,” said Dafid. He understood, then, what kind of blade the Fink had given him.

“Don’t put it away,” said just one voice. One tired and frightened voice.

Then they dropped down from above and he was fighting for his life.

***

“You knew,” said Dafid.

The Fink did not answer.

“It didn’t touch the demons,” said Dafid.

The Fink did not answer.

“It just…sliced her right up,” said Dafid. “Then they were gone.”

“Three villages,” said the Fink.

***

“Here’s my Dogman come home,” said Calla. She put her hand to the torn flesh where his right eye had been.

“Come home half blinded,” he said. “Half blinded and sorrowful.”

She took his face between her hands and looked at him straight. “He’s home,” she said.

___

Author Bio: Christopher Rowe has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Neukom Institute, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. His stories have been frequently reprinted, translated into a half-dozen languages around the world, and praised by the New York Times Book Review. His short fiction was collected in Telling the Map from Small Beer Press. 

He also co-wrote the Supernormal Sleuthing Series for middle grade readers with his wife, novelist Gwenda Bond. He is a graduate of the Bluegrass Writers Studio, serves as a founding board member of the Lexington Writer's Room. He lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and their many pets. You can learn more him here: https://www.christopherrowe.net/

Call for Submissions: Whetstone (Issue 8)

Submissions: OPEN (Issue 8)

• Submission deadline: Sunday, September 17th, 2023, 11:59p.
• Editorial decisions: Sunday, October 15th. E-mailed at the end of the work day.
• Publication of Issue 8: Friday, December 15th, 2023. Published digitally at the end of the work day.

Length: We prefer short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives (1500 to 2500 words). These limits are firm. No more, no less. Stories over or under the limit will not be read. We mean it, friends! This limit serves two functions: (1) the limit is an artistic challenge. It takes skill to tell a compressed, punchy story. (2) We are an amateur publication and only pay a token honorarium, so save your longer works for better paying markets.

Style: We prefer "dialog light, action heavy" fiction with vivid imagery that is unselfconsciously literary but nevertheless takes joy in an occasional old word that gives the breath of antiquity. Please eschew typographical emphasis and variation--e.g. bolding, italicizing, underlining (there are more artful ways of rendering verbal timbre).

Questions? Join our Discord, the Whetstone Tavern and ask questions to the Whetstone channel there.

Publication, payment, and rights: Issues will be published as .pdf files. If work is selected for publication in WHETSTONE, authors will (1) be paid an honorarium of $10 and (2) will be asked to provide, by contract, "First North American Serial Rights." In our opinion, this means that copyright is NOT transferred. All copyright stays with you, the writer; however, you will have sold/transferred a form of "exclusive use rights" called "First North American Serial Rights" (FNASR). This is the right to publish your unpublished work for the first time, and ONLY the first time, no more. The important thing to remember is that some professional publications may ask for FNASR upon acceptance of a specific work; you are not legally permitted to provide those for that specific work after publication in WHETSTONE, for you have already rendered their use to us. In other words, once you publish a work in WHETSTONE, that works' associated FNASR have been sold/transferred. You CAN publish your previously published work elsewhere as a reprint but only as long as that publication does not require FNASR. This is a long way of saying that WHETSTONE is an amateur publication, meant for showcasing emerging talent for the consideration of professional markets (which is why we kept the word count so low). In essence: save your best work for higher paying markets!

Submit: Proofread standard manuscripts should be sent to the publisher at spiraltowerpress@gmail.com as .doc or .docx attachments. Please name your file your preferred last name: "Smith.docx". Include the following subject line: "WHETSTONE: [Last Name]." Please keep cover letters brief. A story title and a one- or two-sentence bio is sufficient.  If you have sold a story as a semi-pro or pro-rate, we appreciate the support but please refrain from submitting. We particularly encourage those who have not already been published to submit. 

Issue 7 of Whetstone Now Available (Free)

 

Whetstone Issue 7 is now available for free. You can download it HERE (Issue 7). This issue includes several great stories. Thanks to Chuck Clark (Associate Editor), Luke E. Dodd (Associate Editor), Colin Goodpasture, and Grey Cashwell (First Readers) and all the great contributors for helping us release this issue. We hope you enjoy it! -JRC (Managing Editor)

You can access our previous six issues here as free PDFs:

Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3 Issue 4 Issue 5 Issue 6

Cover for Whetstone 7

Here is our cover for Whetstone (Issue 7), to be published as a free and open access pdf this Saturday, July 17th. Original art by Geraldo Marinho.

Calling All Whetstone Contributors: Database of Serial S&S Characters

To all Whetstone Contributors,

We received this interesting e-mail from the author Christopher Rowe. Christopher is putting together a list of "currently active" sword and sorcery serialized characters. Many of you have published the adventures of active sword and sorcery serial characters in Whetstone. If so, you might consider contacting Christopher. His contact information can be located on his website (linked below). Here is the e-mail we received:

Dear Editor,

I’m writing to let you know about a webpage I’m building to list all the “currently active” sword and sorcery series characters. You can look at what I’ve got up so far here:

https://swordandsorceryreviews.blogspot.com/p/contemporary-sword-and-sorcery-series.html

What I’m hoping is that you can forward this email to any of your writers who are currently writing series characters, asking that they write me at cvrowe@gmail.com with the following information.

Their byline

The name of the character (or characters in the case of duos or whatever) name

One paragraph about the character—this can be pretty much anything: inspiration, plans, a character bio, whatever

Most importantly, a list of all the stories or novels in which the character has appeared, with links to where those appearances can be read or purchased.

For the last, I want the stories listed in order of publication. And for stories that appeared in collections, I want the individual titles, not just the collection name.

Hopefully this all makes sense, and hopefully we can together build a good resource for the community.

Sincerely,

Christopher Rowe