Tag: Barsk

An historian who speaks with the dead is ensnared by the past. A child who feels no pain and who should not exist sees the future. Between them, there are truths that will shake worlds.

opens in a new windowBarsk takes place in a distant future, where no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. The Fant are one species of humanity’s genius-animals that were uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings.

Anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk, the Fant develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets. To break the Fant’s control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. This threat leads one of the Fant to unearth a secret that the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever. Please enjoy this excerpt.

CHAPTER ONE: A DEATH DETOURED

RÜSUL traveled to meet his death. The current had carried him away from his home island as if it understood his purpose. He lost sight of the archipelago before dusk, as much a function of the falling rain as the southerly wind that pushed him onward. In the days since, the sun had risen and set unseen, a slightly brighter spot that eased itself across the overcast sky. Nor had it cleared at night to permit a glimpse of the heavens. The clouds changed color as the rain ebbed and flowed, and the wind drove him across the water of its own accord toward an unvisited destination. Rüsul didn’t care. He had no need to hurry. He could feel the increasing proximity in his bones and that was enough. More than enough. An aged Fant on a raft alone and at sea, the wind filling his makeshift sail and carrying him toward the last bit of land he would ever stand upon. His father and mother had each left in the same manner, and their parents before them. That’s how it had been, going back generation upon generation to the very founding of Barsk.

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