Torsade Literary Space 
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-eight)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Ten Crafter Becomes Maker (part ninety-eight) I explored the garden’s squares-within-squares, thick-needled shrubs outermost, their branches appealing to the heavens, their hearts chopped. These were Lord Ei’s supply of firewood. Tracing the path to the very wall, I found that […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-six)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Ten Crafter Becomes Maker (part ninety-six) I was given to Noakale to entertain, or be entertained by. Please allow me, I told her, to share in the needlework. For as Shenath’s visit will have had you guessing, the household prepared […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-five)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part ninety-five) He answered with a long sober silence. Then: “I will want Wosogo. I should summon Lord Ei as well. Wosogo has told me not to speak to you, that if the god Lotoq favors […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-four)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part ninety-four) “And because you are persuasive, he will surrender his city to the Emperor. We avoid bloody war.” “Why, I ask you back…Why war at all? Let me answer. I can live peacefully with my […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-three)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part ninety-three) “No, I won’t rush you.” He had made to rise, sank again. The fingers of a hand began to tap. “I ought to find the educated ones, the lawyers. And the talkers, the courtiers…convene […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-two)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part ninety-two) “What, again, do I not believe, my subtle young friend?” I felt I had caught myself, for opening my argument from a place within my thoughts. “If you had brought your household to me […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety-one)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part ninety-one) This fulsomeness of nature I would not have suspected. She took me up the steps with little pats and chuckles. I thought Jute had risen in fortune, that she was an intimate now of […]
The Totem-Maker (part ninety)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part ninety) What sort of home made a border stronghold in these lands? The clan of Ei had built theirs on a promontory, perched in good defense, the winding way up unsuited to a large company. […]
The Totem-Maker (part eighty-nine)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part eighty-nine) I held my familiar to the sunlight, to have it shine prettily. I was shy of the face, allowing that one could be deluded… That, having the ambition to succeed, I might invent my […]
Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (conclusion)
Sympathy for the Torturer (part six) As soon as Anton sank into an upper-tier seat, close to the steps, he was joined by a uniformed officer. So it had…his badge, traveling on his person, signaled his violation. “If I don’t get off. If I only ride, and come back […]