Three Fantasy Short Novels

By Michael Canfield

From a medieval kingdom to a forgotten land, and to secret world next door, come three short fantasy novels of mystery, magic, romance, and suspense.

Little Plum:

The young and clever queen has a job to do. She must conceive an heir. The future of not only her new husband's kingdom, but also of her own native land, hang in the balance. But will her husband, the aging king, live long enough to do his part? Not that he remained fully present even now. Even a young woman as innocent of the ways of the world as the queen knew that conception required some sort of contact between wife and husband, didn't it?

When a mysterious stranger arrives at court claiming great knowledge and pledging great loyalty, the queen find a possible solution. But can she trust him? Dare she? A tale of magic, of court intrigue, and of the people it touches.

The Ambit:

Arn Stanhope had life down cold. A good career, and a carefree life based on mastery of the ins and outs of serial monogamy. Once a cataclysmic event thrusts Arn and a select few others into a different world - perhaps even a different kind of world, from which escape seems impossible, Arn must find a new way of surviving, one that includes people who depend on him.

Then, just as he begins to believe he understands this new world, and his place in it, a darker threat emerges. One that not only endangers everyone he knows, but forces him to question if can ever truly have a place in this new world - in any world - at all.

Welcome to Luan:

For this intelligent and eager young surveyor, the Merchant Road merely represented a prosaic way to pass from one interesting country to another. He travels it every season with little thought of what lay off its well-trod path. And certainly no thought at all to the village of Luan, and its denizens with their baskets of small, hard, sour fruits.

No thought at all, at least, until disaster strikes, and the surveyor finds himself cast aside, left to die at the shoulder of the road.

Now he will find that the Luan people have secrets not even hinted at and, to survive, he will have to choose: accept the conditions they place on him, or betray his own word.

Michael Canfield writes about monsters, superheroes, couples, bank robbers, babies, astronauts, paranoids, background artists, hobbyists, and other people. He has published mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror, or just-plain-odd stories on StrangeHorizons, futurismic, EscapePod, M–Brane SF, in dead-tree magazines including Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, Black Gate, Flytrap and other places. His novelette “Super-Villains” was republished in the prestigious Fantasy: The Year’s Best series, edited by Rich Horton. Born in Las Vegas, he now lives, works, plays, writes, and watches television in Seattle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vauk House Press
• Release date: Jul 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476416427

Michael Canfield

Michael Canfield writes about monsters, superheroes, couples, bank robbers, babies, astronauts, paranoids, background artists, obsessives, and other people. He has published mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror and just-plain-odd stories in the magazines Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Realms of Fantasy, Black Gate, Flytrap, and others.His novelette “Super-Villains” was republished in the prestigious Fantasy: The Year’s Best series, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books). Born in Las Vegas, he now lives in Seattle.

Book preview

Three Fantasy Short Novels

Michael Canfield

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 Michael Canfield

Published by Vauk House Press

Cover background photo by sofamonkez

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

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Little Plum

The Ambit

Welcome To Luan

About the Author

Little Plum

The First Chapter.

The Pie.

The king applauded, and the young queen, as much as the herringboned corset would allow, exhaled.

The dozen cooks brought the pie forward, on a construction of planks. Its crust was goldened to perfection. The queen rewarded the beaming chief cook with a nod. And he bowed deeply. All would be well, she prayed.

The court applauded after the lead of the King, and when he stopped, they stopped.

The cooks kneeled. The king leaned forward.

"Oh, we do hope it’s not one of these trick pies with a four and an score blackbirds in it. That would disappoint us.

The queen felt faint.

Color drained from the cook’s face. The king was still looking at the pie, and the court were all looking at the king. The cook started to edge toward the curtain, behind which, he would surely run to the kitchen, then out to the stables, where he would have already bribed someone to have a horse ready.

She let him go. The last cook, it was told, had managed his escape that way, but she was certain that her husband had taken measures to see that it did not happen again. Or perhaps the current cook had anticipated this, and had devised some other plan to attempt his survival. She hoped so. For his sake. No reason he should die, as he had only done as she had asked.

The king called for a sword. ‘We think we’ll cut this lovely, ourselves, he said.

While the sword was brought, the queen ventured to remind the king of something he had said, not so long ago.

We have sometimes heard Your Grace wish for a pie like the one in the song.

Have you? No, no, no. We want a proper pie. What’s in this one/ Strawberries? Oh, we do hope it’s strawberries.

They are not in season, said the queen.

The court hushed. The queen swallowed, and everybody heard it. She had spoken very rashly, impolitic. However, she was new at court, and perhaps he was not quite so intemperate in public as she had heard.

In private, he had seemed less terrible than his reputation. No worse, really, than any other man. Loud and demanding, but, at least, so far, he made no more demands than a father. He had never attempted the thing that her maids had warned her of. Congress. This evidently was the way that babies were made, but she was certain that was not true. Couldn’t be the only way. Perhaps it was different for kings and queens. Then it made sense that her maids had got the information wrong. She certainly couldn’t imagine her mother and her father doing that thing, and herself coming into existence from it. It couldn’t be that princesses were made by the same grunting scheme as dogs and pigs.

But then again, men lived by eating and drinking, and as a consequence, shat and pissed, just like dogs and pigs.

No! She would not think of it.

At any rate there had been no congress.

However, the king’s bette noire was public humiliation, it seemed. All his previous queens had been executed over something or other that had happened in public.

Now the king turned to her. His face remained placid, though his eyes burned. She had not seen this before, at least not directed at herself. She had made a statement about strawberries being out of season. A simple statement of fact. It was not a direct contradictions of what the king had just said, but perhaps it had made what he did say, sound impossible or stupid. Oh, if only the pie contained some miracle of strawberries, rather than the stupid blackbirds. How had she gotten that wrong? She was sure he had said he wanted a pie that would break open and burst forth with singing birds, just like in the silly rhyme.

Preserves, said the king.

Yes, my Lord?

Strawberry preserves. He narrowed his gaze, and leaned on his elbow, toward her. How wonderful they are."

The sword arrived on a pillow presented by the footmen. The king reached out for it without looking at it, and without moving from his position. The footmen fumbled around maneuvering the hilt toward his outstretched hand.

Trembling, the queen said, Might we ask that the cooks cut the pie. That is too noble an instrument for so prosaic a task.

However bad it was going to be, the end of this tableau, it could not possibly be improved by the sound of screaming birds, sliced by the king’s sword.

Think you so? said the king. Perhaps you’re right, madam…

The queen gathered her fortitude to breath a sigh of relief, but she soon found out that she had prepared herself prematurely. The king had not finished his thought.

"…however, I already have it out. The sword will have to do.

Rising tall, he thrust the sword through the crust.

The queen heard no bird shrieks, but put this up to them being drowned out by the delights squeals, cheers, and applause of the court.

The king bent his old back into the job and started to drag the blade back toward himself. The golden crust split, flaking apart like hard clay walls breaking under cannon fire.

The birds ought to be dying now, flapping their wings, and thrusting out their beaks. There ought to be feathers…at least in the ruddy, thick gore that bubbled around the blade.

The court continued to cheer, and the king continued on his sport, what grue-loving barbarians she found herself among!

It took her a moment more to understand what she was really seeing. The others saw it easier, because it was what they expected to see. Strawberry pie. Not gore, not doomed blackbirds at all, but a pie of strawberries. The very thing the king wanted!

A miracle.

The king set the sword aside, and scooped in with his naked hands. Ah ooh, piping hot, just the way we like it! he cried.

He took a (surprisingly) gingerly bite. Mm. That’s the stuff! He licked his lips and then smacked them. He smiled broadly, as if the taste of his gray whiskers had improved the flavor. He turned to his queen.

A marvelous dish. The king thrust his hands toward her. Will you have some.

If it pleases Your Majesty. She raised her hand to call for plates.

No madam, like this. Who wants to wait? The pie is cooling even now!

The plates are at the ready, said the Queen, and indeed, forty attendants stood by with plates and cutlery for all the court. It’s but the job of an instant.

You’ll spoil all the fun, madam. Very well, you have a plate. As for the rest, he said scooping his hands in again, and this time continuing on into sinking his arms, burying his sleeves as far as the elbows. As for the rest of you…. He then brought a mass of the jelly up, and flung it toward a group of ladies. They squealing in delight. Eat up!

The ladies and lords of the court did as their King commanded, and the presentation of the pie, started to look like some scene out of antiquity. The kind of thing she’d only see on painted tiles.

There would be much rejoicing in the quarters of the fabric-sellers she supposed, as every lady and her maids would be engaged in making new dresses in the morning. Even some of the fussier men would want new clothing, after this.

The court gorged themselves on pie. The queen could not find it in herself to join in, and she hoped that even this king would, upon reflection, see that it would be unseemly if she had. But for the moment he paid her next to no attention at all. Merely one side-long glance, the meaning of which, because of his lack of expression, she could not fathom.

The queen still had no idea how the exchange of pie filings had happened, and the baker had not returned. The cooks seemed as perplexed as did she, but she dared not call one over, for fear that the King would find this curious and suspect something amiss. She would have to bide her time, and go to the kitchen later.

A plum! cried some lady. She was so covered in strawberry preserve that the queen could not recognize her. And the queen was so new at court that she did not know enough of the ladies to identify this one by the sound of her voice.

Hold! cried the King.

He stood in the pie, up to his knees, His boots came a little higher than that fortunately, but he still had difficulty wading through to the middle of the pie. However, he had taken up the sword again, and now, wantonly using it as walking stick, wade through he did.

The lady who had spotted the plum, was dead center in the pie. The crust and the filling were fully mixed now, the whole mess like reddish, soggy brown. The plum, which bobbed near the lady’s waist, stood out round and purple and full.

The king address the plum. What are you doing in my pie, eh? He raised the sword, and aimed the point at the errant fruit. Let’s have you. Steady on. I aim to eat you!

The king thrust the sword, thrust it in before the plum, hoping, it seemed to bring it up balanced on the tip.

The king brought it up, the plum, and a healthy heaping of preserves underneath it too, it seemed. Again he licked his lips, and raised the sword with both hands. He held the hilt near his mouth and lifted the blade. Mouth open, he evidently planned to see if he could roll the plumb down the length of the blade and past his gums.

It might have gone well, or it might have rolled off to one side or the other, short of the King’s gullet, but it did not happen that way. The plum did not roll, because the plum was no plum at all, but a miniature plum colored helm. A helmet upon the head of a very small, very strawberry-doused, little man.

Good heavens! cried the king.

The lady fainted, and no one had the presence to catch her. She might well have drowned in the pool had not the queen ordered several footmen into the pie to fish her out.

The little man on the tip of the king’s sword drew his rapier, held its hilt to his forehead, and bowed deeply. Your Majesty, he said.

The king sputtered. We’ve never seen such a thing in all our life, how did you come to be in my pie?

I put myself there, of course.

"Of course? You say, of course? How is it of course. It seems a singular thing to me."

Oh, in your long experience, you’ve never found a prize in a pie? Some might say it’s no pie at all, worth the name, if it not contain a prize.

Are you a prize? Whose prize?

Why yours, Your Majesty. To whom else would your good queen offer such a precious thing as me?

A prize for me? said the King. He nearly jumped up and down, an action that caused considerable movement in the sword tip, which the little man handled nimbly and gallantly.

Oh, you are wondrous, said the king. I shall call you Little Plum.

It suits me, Your Majesty, for many reasons. The tiny man bowed deeply. Not the least of which is, that that happens to be my name.

Court lasted many hours more. The king was so fascinated with his new plaything, he took no notice of anyone else, even long after the novelty had worn off for every single member of his court, and every lord and lady would have given up a summer to be allowed to slip away to slumber in his or her own bed.

Little Plum, for his size proved remarkable strong. And his voice was reasonably loud. Too loud a voice for lungs so little observed the king.

It takes a loud voice to be heard in this hall, said Little Plum.

The king enjoyed that, and indeed every little thing the little man had to say. And do.

Not that he would do all.

He refused to ride a cat.

One of the ladies suggested it. And someone threw in a cat. The king liked the idea very much, and commanded Little Plum to catch the cat, and then to ride it.

Little Plum caught the cat easily, by racing after it, and gripping its tail. The court laughed and clapped. The cat hissed, and swiped at Little Plum, who bravely held on, ducking the claws with ease, and grace. He released the cat, which, spooked by all the commotion, and finding no ready way out of the hall, made for a far corner, hunching and ready to protect itself.

Bravo, said the King. Now mount it, and ride about, waving to the ladies.

No, your majesty, said Little Plum, bowing low. Though his demeanor communicated the most sincere respect for the king, this was not a court where refusals often appeared. Some of the courtiers gasped.

Then all were hushed.

What mean you? said the king.

I must decline. The animal has been treated cruelly. It is frightened, it would be unmanly to exploit it further.

What rot you talk, Little Plum. It’s only a cat. Are you afraid? Is that it?

No. I am exceedingly brave. It is not my habit to rides cats, and I see no reason to acquire such a habit at this date. Certainly not at the expense of this poor frightened creature.

But it is only a cat, said the king.

"To us it is a cat. To the mice who scurry about this keep, it is a ferocious beast. Were I to subdue it, I might very well be thought the king of mice, and as I am a man, this is not a office to which I aspire. I propose to leave the hierarchy as God has seen fit to set in the first place. Cat