...The bottle-battle, Tears un-numbered,

Poorness, Nothing, Waste encumbered...

Chained you are unto a barstool,

The mountain calling, it calls your name,

Nothing ventured, nothing lost,

Losing all you have this game...

“Skunked”

If ever in your wildest nightmares – er, dreams – you should encounter a bottle similar to the one on the left, I advise you to waste no time in leaving the area where you found it. Should this prove impossible, then rest assured that the bottle in question was sent for you, and you alone – and when it is time, there is but one thing left for you to do.

In the old and dead tongue called Latin, this action was named 'Hic Bibitur'. If I recall correctly, it means 'Drink up'.

It is the same way with the series of books that shall begin showing here. My hope is that they may one day be published, and thereby, I might be able to pay my debts – and, perchance, earn a living. I've lived far too long on borrowed time and sweat as it is, and that by necessity.

Click on the chapter headings to read the chapter in question.

Book one: The beginning.

Chapter 1: Fall was the chilling time, with the heat of summer leaving like an accursed thief, and the rain foretelling its coming descent by the sullen gray roiled clouds overhead and marbled dampness of the pavement below.

Where I worked, however, was always chilling in its labyrinthine ways, and once my meeting had finished, I hurried...

Chapter 2: I awoke from a sound sleep refreshed and relaxed. I first noticed the cold I felt, and then the fact that I was not in a bed...

Chapter 3:As we walked further toward the end of town, I discerned a lack of people in the houses I was passing. Faintly on the gentle wind, I could smell an accumulation of horses, and a few minutes later, I could see them – all of them clustered in a huge yard in front of an even larger single-story building set by itself at the end of town.

Chapter 4: I had been afraid to go to church in that old hell, for fear of rejection. Here, so far, that manifestation of hatred had been absent, and there were a pair of people who seemed to like me. The next morning – Sunday – I had but two sets of clothing, one of which was in tatters, and another which fit badly...

Chapter 5: Anna went inside with the meat once we were home, and while Hans and I brought in the wood, I noticed the 'herb garden' had been cleared off and laid with stones.

“Did that place once have, uh, herbs?” I asked.

Chapter 6: I had no idea as to how to respond to Albrecht, both as to his apparent knowledge and his seeming attitude, and my feeling 'lost' was such that I felt as if I no longer knew how to speak...

Chapter 7: This time of dreaming took over after a period of unconsciousness...

Chapter 8: Georg did not show the next morning, and while I worked on the now 'usual' things – there was a definite pattern to what I did, at least at the start of the day – Johannes spoke of what Georg was doing.

Chapter 9: I continued gnawing stick after stick of meat, and as I did, I again wondered how much Anna had put in the bag.

Chapter 10: At dinner that night, the 'soup' was unusually tasty, and as I finished a second helping, I asked, “why was that one piece of salt meat as large as it was?”

Chapter 11:We stopped at the first town on our route home to service the buggy, and while I wondered about grain, the steadily dropping sun made for wonderment, so much so that before I got in the buggy after the first stop, I took out the needle and adjusted the thread.

Chapter 12: Hans had the buggy ready to travel but a short time later...

Chapter 13: 'Construction' commenced after getting the dishes done, and here, I was astonished...

Chapter 14: Again, I wondered as to where Georg was...

Chapter 15: I thought to feel the nail-sack carefully, and found there to be a few nails remaining in it. I picked out one of the odd things – mottled blue-black finish, roughly square cross-section, slightly tapering to the blunt-seeming point, and a lumpy head – and tried bending it.

It bent in my fingers as if made of tin.

Chapter 16: Dinnertimes normally made for earnest devouring of food intermingled with talk, but in this instance, the order was reversed.

Chapter 17: The thrashing of the dream communicated into wakeful screaming, and when I came to myself I heard steps coming up the hall at a dead run. I was afraid I would be cut to pieces, or shot with one of those...

Are you all right?” yelled an anguished voice. It was the voice of the sacrifice calling faintly, that person who had died unmourned and unmissed. She had come back to haunt me.

Dim echoes in my minds of the chants, the suffocating datramonium fumes, the murdering...

Augh!” I shrieked. “Help! They want to kill us all!”

“Now who is this they?” asked the voice of seeming reason.

“The witches!” I screamed. “They went hunting, and killed dozens because of their inclination of the moment.”

Chapter 18: After the second batch of mash was dribbling 'firewater' into the charcoal, I thought to ask a question about Geneva. I had already suppressed a desire to 'chant' the doggerel speaking of being 'overly dry'.

“How does one make Geneva here?” I asked, as I recalled Paul speaking of the stuff that first night.

“The most common way,” said Hans, “needs a jug, a funnel, a clean pot or bucket, a clean cloth to strain it, and then the berries and herbs.”

Chapter 19: Anna was waiting in the kitchen, and as the two of us set our lanterns down, she asked, “what happened?”

“He was right,” said Hans, “and we got there none too soon. That witch showed after we fetched out the first of those things, and then he rigged the front door and we went out into the back area of the place.”

Chapter 20: Once inside, I laid out the rifle on the workbench, and began to clean it thoroughly. I soon had Hans watching me, and as I slipped off the three barrel bands, he whistled again.

“That is a lot faster than with those pins,” he said. “Now how does the lock come off?”

Chapter 21:I came to myself walking with two beings at my sides, with one of them holding my arm as if guiding the blind.

Chapter 22:The leather and its stitching continued until dinner...

Chapter 23: Within the next hour, three more semi-familiar faces showed...

Chapter 24: After dinner, I ran the extractor for its 'maiden run'. I noted two things: Firstly, it confined the odors astonishingly well. I did not get the dry heaves...

Chapter 25:After a bath, I wandered to my bench, and when Anna finally showed – she came in through the front door, with a sizable cloth bag – I thought to ask if she'd used the sled.

Book Two: “Now what do I do..?”

Chapter 1: A faint aroma, one that reeked of peace, seemed to suffuse the air around me upon awakening.

Chapter 2:After dinner, however, I felt especially tired, and I asked for a small cup of beer.

Chapter 3: The 'third ditch' – I knew nothing about the first and second ditches – was where I had taken my stand...

Chapter 4: I vaguely recalled the taste of the widow's tincture, only this was vastly stronger, and when I looked at Hans through bleary eyes, I asked, “what was that I just drank?”

Chapter 5: I went home early that day – at the same time as the others – and once home, bathed, and in clean clothing...

Chapter 6: Anna helped me with a few more drops of the tincture, and as the sense of calm clearheadedness increased,

Chapter 7: Hans looked at me, then at the road again before asking, “what did it look like, then?”

Chapter 8: The instructor uncorked the jug, and within seconds, the reek of distillate...

Chapter 9: The next morning, I arrived at the house proper about an hour after true sunrise...

Chapter 10: The rest of the class came in minutes later, and as I stood thinking, I noticed that several of them seemed to have faint chalk-marks on their clothing.

Chapter 11:The two wicker baskets in the corner of the basement were topped by a thick bundle of what seemed at first to be rags, and as I knelt to feel the bundle, I asked, “why would I want the sword of a witch?”

Chapter 12: Hans continued east, and I looked toward the north, as I recalled the location of Mandelbrot's.

Chapter 13:I finished the sword by bedtime.

Chapter 14: “One of you, go fetch someone to clean him up,” said the king.

Chapter 15:“Th-that's...” Gabriel nearly choked on his tongue.

Chapter 16: I suspected the party had been planned at some length, for within minutes of our arrival, a pie showed.

Chapter 17: I continued on with Koenraad's head through the trees at a steady trot, not stopping until I had passed the Oestwaag and left it several hundred yards in the rear.

Chapter 18: “They'll start working on that new forge tomorrow, and I need to...” The recollection of the effects of trowels upon my mind was enough to induce a headache, and I began moaning.

Chapter 19: Georg left for elsewhere minutes later, and I followed him out of the shop shortly thereafter once I had fitted the handle fully. Once home, I sharpened the scraper, then began using it.

Chapter 20: That evening, I fitted up the remaining lock to the fowling piece, and as I stoned and polished the bearing surfaces, I found I had something of an audience – in addition to three sets of revolver parts.

Chapter 21: As I began servicing the engine – it needed its lubricant drained and refilled once disconnected, as well as 'dosing' here and there – I heard faint screams on the wind, followed by occasional gunshots. The booms of muskets seemed a counterpoint to all that I was doing, even if none of them were particularly close.

Chapter 22: “That's...”

Chapter 23: Now was the moment, I realized, and I slowly stood up from my chair. I walked to the left of the table, then slowly walked up the aisle between the backs of the chairs to my right and the wall to my left.

Chapter 24: Our long trip of six stories with three limp-as-wet-dishrag stretcher-born men made for my stumbling on the stairs and falling face-down to the floor on more than one landing.

Chapter 25: The spurts of dung did not cease, even as the mule occasionally assayed galloping, and its brief grunting spurts of a hundred yards or so seemed to recall the tale I recalled reading – as the lethargy of the mule vanished then, and its speed, while not that of a comet, was enough to make for a wide berth on my part and mumbling on the part of the hostler.

Chapter 26: “That's as good as anything I've heard yet for ones this bad, short of having them gone over by a wheelwright,” said the farmer.

Chapter 27: Throughout that day, I labored steadily upon buggy parts, and by noon, I had both of the arbor shanks and the cutter ready to harden. As I ran the bellows, I wondered for a moment if I would use the pieces again; and when I saw a shadow in the doorway, I nearly fell down.

Book Three: The Pendant

Chapter 1: I packed away the fryers and 'dutch oven' in my 'bag of tricks', and went home without my apron.

Chapter 2: The morning dawned early, and my awakening preceded it.

Chapter 3: Our pace remained the same boredom-inducing walk as the sun slowly slid to the east for what seemed an eon, and only when we came upon the long narrow fields that surrounded a town did I 'wake up' and come to myself.

Chapter 4: As we headed south, I wiped my eyes with a small rag, and drained my mug of cider. I had filled the water bottle, and munched some more dried meat.

Chapter 5: A 'flagon' was passed to me, and I grasped it carefully with one hand while praying silently that it 'become more desirable'. Those were close to my exact words,

Chapter 6: Resumption of travel minus the marmot made for wondering on my part, for 'breakfast' had not been secured.

Chapter 7: I now had a quandary, so much so that I stood and left Kees where he lay 'inert' in the dirt.

Chapter 8: The next town announced itself by another bluish-gray cloud of burning charcoal,

Chapter 9: As Hendrik put up the three weapons, the men began to mill around slowly,

Chapter 10: The comments I heard did not make for calm,

Chapter 11: Our slow walk back to the room had all three of us lost in our own thoughts,

Chapter 12: Bedtime approached quickly once we had finished eating,

Chapter 13: The first intimation of change as per attitudes came when we reached the 'gateway' to the plateau.

Chapter 14: The creature was finished regarding its spicing, and as it was smeared heavily with a grainy whitish substance,

Chapter 15: With another helping of meat and flatbreads, I began to slow down enough with eating to notice something other than what I was eating.

Chapter 16: Our packing continued, and as each man's load finished up, it went out into the buggies.

Chapter 17: I awoke with a sudden start to look up at cold white stars amid a bone-chilling black night.

Chapter 18: At the next stop for water, a postal buggy rolled past at a trot,

Chapter 19: A doorway stood but feet away, and from within its dim outlines I heard voices,

Chapter 20: Bagging up all of our purchases made for three heavy-laden horses,

Chapter 21: Our trip to the High Way was relatively uneventful, save for two massive flights of quolls winging overhead as they poured forth deafening cries.

Chapter 22: The jug had a light mottled blue background, and inch-tall purplish-red letters of strange shape, with smaller green letters underneath the main inscription.

Chapter 23: The waiter's return some twenty minutes later with the first of our dishes surprised me, both at the quick service and also the nature of the food itself. This last was ample as to quantity, plain as to palate, and overall, quite edible. After half of a bowl of soup, I asked as to the nature of the meat.

Chapter 24: As I resumed looking at Brumm's corpse,

Chapter 25: I took a fresh dose of the tincture before we resumed travel, and I found myself feeling as if impaired to no small degree.

Chapter 26: I noticed it was midmorning when we resumed southbound travel. To left and right were more 'estates' similar to the one at which we stopped, with the largest of all such labeled as 'Blomfels'.

Chapter 27: There were fewer people laying prostrate than there had been prior,

Chapter 28: I came slowly from around the corner, heart in mouth and rifle in my hands.

Chapter 29: Morning arrived with the smell of cooking food and an omnipresent sensation of warmth and moisture.

Chapter 30: “We'll need to have people ready to deal with the witches and pigs we flush, then,”

Chapter 31: I had to carry half of the traps, and the woman carried the other four

Chapter 32: The narrowness of the river's passage – perhaps twenty feet wide at the most, with most sections half that – and its tall brushy banks seemed to provide a haven of peace amid the sounds and smells of the city.

Chapter 33: Of a sudden, a long-drawn mournful howling split the night air, and gunshots roared their challenges skyward.

Chapter 34: Awakening was slow amid yawns and other strange noises that took nearly a minute to recognize as the sounds of escaping gas.

Chapter 35: Liza left her laundry to its steaming once she'd spoken to the two other women, and once out of the 'laundry area', she vanished as if made of vapor and smoke.

Chapter 36: Liza and the cooks plied me with more than merely beer once I'd staggered to the kitchen.

Chapter 37: I was followed outside, and while Jaak followed me readily, the other horses seemed a trifle disinclined to leave their 'refuge'.

Chapter 38: The bottom of the current ravine seemed to stretch on for what seemed an age

Chapter 39: After the horses drank their fill, I continued boiling and cooling water

Chapter 40: I fell asleep once I'd eaten, and when I awoke it was nearly dark. For some peculiar reason, Lys awoke within seconds after I had done so, and softly called, “Gisela. It is time.”

Chapter 41: A glance upward spoke of a moon just east of zenith, and when I looked beneath where I sat, I saw definite traces of a 'deserted road'.

Book Four: The Abbey and the Sea.

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