Faithful Servants

by James L. Sutter

Chapter Four: The Greatest Gift

Salim slipped through the pools of shadow cast by branches and shrubs, trusting to his robes to break up his outline and make him invisible. Around him, the sounds of the night creatures were sporadic and tense. Expectant.

Connell slid along beside him, still wearing his peasant disguise. Salim had to give him credit—the eidolon was surprisingly graceful. Ahead, the manor house stood huge and whitewashed at the end of the drive, its windows cavernous and dark save for three in an upper corner, which glowed with dim red light.

As welcome as the shadows were in hiding their approach, Salim would have preferred to come during daylight. Yet he had wasted too much time trying to convince Father Adibold that Salim and Connell would do better alone than with his assistance.

It was utterly stupid. The priest's little mob of peasants would likely scatter at the first sign of a walking corpse, and those who stayed would be slaughtered. Worse, if this Lord Mirosoy had advanced to making ghouls, then every farmhand who fell would rise again shortly to add to his army.

The old priest and his son might have been more useful—the man claimed to have some magic yet, and the boy's armor was solid. Yet Salim had seen enough in the priest's eyes to know that it wasn't worth it. For all that Adibold talked of the Pharasmin Penitence, that hopeless splinter sect of ascetics and self-deniers, it wasn't religious fervor that made Adibold cut himself, or so eagerly throw himself and his only son into harm's way. It was grief for his dead wife. Perhaps even a desire to join her early.

Salim understood that all too well. But the boy still had plenty of years left, and suicidal warriors were a liability.

In frustration, Salim had even attempted telling the old priest part of the truth: that Lord Mirosoy wasn't acting of his own accord, but rather had been enchanted by a cursed magic item.

The priest would have none of it. "I've seen souls corrupted by a shiny coin, or a bit of bare thigh. The nature of the temptation is unimportant."

At last, once it became clear that even the prospect of killing a potentially innocent man wasn't enough to dissuade the priest—"sorting good from evil is the Lady's job, not ours"—Salim had given in and agreed to join them in their attack at dawn.

Which is why he and Connell were out here in the dark, with the sun still hours below the horizon.

Salim caught the eidolon's eye and nodded. The eidolon had given him the layout of the house, and they'd decided on the servants' entrance around the side rather than the grand double doors that faced the drive. It was time to break with the road and circle left.

Something shot out from the brush near Salim's feet.

Without thinking—because in combat, acting was always faster than thinking—Salim drew his sword and slammed it down, pinning the scurrying shape to the earth. The creature squeaked once and expired.

"Mouse," he whispered, and withdrew his blade, rodent still clinging to its tip. He started to scrape it off against his boot, then stopped.

The thing's ribcage was hollowed out, the flesh rotted away from tiny bones. Salim's sword had spitted it neatly, yet its back legs still kicked feebly.

Another tiny form catapulted itself from the bushes. Before Salim could move, Connell leaped, springing forward with the grace of a cat and coming up an the undead rat in his hands. The eidolon popped it into his mouth, bones crunching, then looked back at Salim and smiled.

Perhaps the eidolon would be more useful than Salim had expected. Connell swallowed and asked, "Scouts?"

Salim nodded. It seemed Mirosoy wasn't totally without defenses. He slipped the twice-expired mouse from his blade and ground it under his boot heel before continuing on.

The servants' entrance was unguarded. From the tree line, it was a solid hundred feet of open lawn to the steps up to the back porch, and then the door. Salim covered it at a run, body bent almost double, sword under his robes to avoid reflecting the moonlight. Connell paced him. At the door, they paused for a moment, listening. When nothing revealed itself, Salim nodded to Connell and thumbed the latch.

Beyond lay a long hall, its wood-paneled walls lit only by the feeble shaft of moonlight from the open door, quickly disappearing into utter black.

Salim smelled it first—the charnel stench of putrefaction. He thrust out an arm to stop Connell, but the eager eidolon had already bounded into the corridor.

A hand reached from the darkness.

Salim moved. There was no time to let his eyes adjust, so he closed them and let his ears and nose guide him past the struggling eidolon, deeper into the dark.

Something rose up in front of him, grave-wet and stinking, and he brought his sword out and down, feeling it cleave through cheese-soft flesh. The thing gave a sigh and fell heavily into him, knocking him back into the wall and what felt like a tall table or stool. His free hand closed on a smooth, heavy object, and he brought it down hard on the thing in front of him, then spun to skewer a new attacker to his right. Back toward the entrance, Connell shouted something.

They were stuck. Salim might be able to keep this up indefinitely, but there was no telling about the eidolon, and they needed to move fast if they wanted to retain the element of surprise. Gritting his teeth, Salim reached out and touched the goddess.

It was only a second, but it was enough. The Lady of Graves flowed through him in a black rush, as grotesque and violating in its own way as the creature putrefying on his feet. The energy passed through him and into the blade of his sword, and cold steel flared with ghostly incandescence, lighting the hallway.

There were only three zombies, all dressed in the rotting finery that had probably once been the best clothes the little town could offer. Two lay at Salim's feet, his sword having severed the fragile magic that kept them animated. Down the hall, Connell struggled with the third. The eidolon had dropped his disguise, and the long neck of his true form snaked around the back of the zombie's futilely chomping head, wrapping it like a boa constrictor. Long jaws locked around the undead creature's skull. There was a twist and a pop, and the last corpse dropped to the floor and lay still.

Salim looked down at his off hand. The object he held was a stone bust of a young man, handsome in a vaguely arrogant and pupilless sort of way. He held it out toward the eidolon. "Your boss?"

Connell nodded.

Salim let the stone drop onto the corpse it had clubbed, then wiped his sword on the tattered linen shirt. He gestured down the hall.

"You know the house," he said, "but don't leave my side unless I tell you to. Are we clear?"

Connell bobbed his head in what appeared to be genuine contrition and led the way deeper into the house.

The manor was a shell. Though the pair passed several well-appointed sitting rooms, with plush armchairs and walls of bookshelves or big bay windows overlooking the moonlit grounds, the layer of dust at the entrance to each argued that no one had bothered with them in some time. Connell avoided the showy front half of the house, with its hangings and sculptures like the one Salim had appreciated, and instead led them through a series of narrow, more utilitarian corridors and staircases. Salim kept the light from the sword carefully banked and focused by a fold in his cloak, yet nothing stirred in the dead house. If it weren't for the slight but ever-present scent of decay, Salim might have thought the place a summer home, packed away for storage while the lord was away.

At last they came to a door whose bottom edge was limned with the same red light they'd seen from the road. The eidolon's barely existent lips moved, and after a second Salim realized Connell was attempting to mouth the word "workshop." Salim nodded, and the eidolon turned the knob. The door swung open.

The room was large, the kind other lords might put to use as a ballroom or formal dining room for parties. The huge set of windows they'd observed earlier cast moonlight on the hardwood floor, yet this illumination was overpowered by red lights that floated like swamp fire at the room's far end. The glow from these flying lanterns was soft, and cast a flattering glow over the guests. No doubt that generous lighting would have kindled more than one midnight romance among the figures standing in a knot on the dance floor. Except that the guests were dead.

As one, the corpses turned to observe the newcomers. These, too, were still dressed in their funeral finery, some in the clothes of peasants and merchants, others in simple shrouds marked with the symbol of Pharasma. There was no pattern to their features—young and old, male and female all stood with the awkward stances or constricted limbs of rigor mortis. A few had clearly been magically preserved for their funerals, and even now were only beginning to show the first signs of decomposition. Others were little more than fleshy skeletons, their bones tied crudely together with twine where tendons had fallen away.

Behind them all, a man stood in the center of the lights, obscured from the chest down by a long dining table repurposed as a workbench. Stacks of books and bubbling alembics cluttered every surface, along with stranger implements and silvery surgical tools with whose use Salim was thankfully unfamiliar. Though the man's face was the same as that on the stone head in the servants' hall, this version was older, and so drawn and haggard as to resemble his zombie subjects. Above the face, a black crown of long thorns and vertical spikes pierced and pricked at his brow, holding back long, dark hair.

Lord Mirosoy looked up from the book he'd been studying, yet his face barely registered the newcomers' presence. With one finger still marking his place in the text, he flicked his hand toward his uninvited guests.

"Lord Mirosoy appears to have embarked on some
significant life changes of late."

"Kill them," he said, and went back to reading.

The undead convocation shuffled forward.

Connell growled—a deep, resonant rumble in surprising contrast to his usual excited tenor. Three-fingered talons flexed.

"No," Salim said, and put a hand on the eidolon's shoulder.

Connell looked at him in puzzlement, but Salim simply squeezed once and then released him. He stepped forward and drew his sword.

The eidolon might be better in a fight than he let on, but that wasn't the point. Salim had seen enough to tell that these people were no ghouls, no vampire spawn or vengeful wraiths. These were just farmers, their corpses denied the slow transition into the same dirt they worked, forced to walk again at the whim of some spoiled lord.

This wasn't a fight. Nor even an execution.

It was a funeral rite.

The zombies approached, and Salim flowed like a river to meet them.

The undead fought silently, and Salim did the same, the only sounds the swirl of his robes and the wine-glass ring of steel sliding free of flesh, punctuated by the thumps of corpses hitting the floor. They moved to surround him, and he let them, whirling like a dervish, blade kissing them lightly in the only blessing he knew how to give.

Rest, he thought as a child's body slid from his sword, crumpling to the fouled floor. Rest.

And then he stood alone. Around him, the hardwood was covered with bodies, splayed once more in the posture of death that, while undignified, was so much more than they'd had a moment before. He looked down at the corpses and wished them well.

At last they had Mirosoy's attention. The lord looked at them as if dazed, struggling to understand the mess of bodies staining his ballroom floor. "Who are you?" he asked.

"It's me, Master!" The eidolon's voice was the whining, eager tone of a dog hoping to regain its master's good graces. "I've come back to help you! Please don't be angry!"

Mirosoy ignored his creation, instead focusing on the dark-eyed man moving toward him, sword drawn. The lord's voice didn't waver. "And you?"

"Just a friend," Salim said. "One who's come to do you a favor."

His sword lashed out.

"No!" Connell's scream was grief bordering on pain. The eidolon leaped for Salim's back, talons outstretched, but it was already too late. Salim's upward slash carved a shining arc toward Mirosoy's face.

The blade missed the man's cheek by inches. With a tiny clink of metal on metal, Salim's sword caught one of the black, curving thorns of the crown and tore it free from the summoner's head. Mirosoy gasped at the sudden absence, or perhaps at the furrows the embedded thorns carved through his scalp. The crown fell to the table, and Salim followed it down, sword hilt gripped in both hands. Blade met crown with Salim's full weight behind it.

There was a flash that wasn't so much light as its absence, and a high, keening wail that might have been a word, or a name. Then there were only two halves of a crown, the metal seeming to shrivel and fold in on itself like burning briars. The newly rusted slag clattered to the floor and lay still.

"Master!" Connell was past Salim and gripping Lord Mirosoy's shoulders. The noble stood with head hung on his chest, looking ready to fall face-first into his workbench. Slowly, he raised his eyes. "Connell?"

"Yes. Yes, Master." The eidolon was weeping in earnest now, huge tears rolling down the reptilian face. Above them, the rune on his forehead glowed brighter than ever. "I'm back now. I knew it was the crown that sent me away, not you. And now you're free!"

Mirosoy straightened, shrugging off the eidolon's steadying hands. "Yes. Well." He looked over to Salim. "You do realize that's a priceless artifact you just destroyed?"

Salim marveled. Even half-dead and surrounded by his own failure, the man exuded entitlement. Salim looked down at the corpses on the floor, then back at the noble.

"I'm sure we can arrange an accounting of debts." His voice was soft.

The summoner followed Salim's gaze down, then swallowed. "No, that won't be necessary. Clearly, the crown needed to be destroyed. You have my thanks."

Salim inclined his head, unconvinced. Perhaps the crown wasn't as responsible for these atrocities as Connell wanted to think. He opened his mouth to say something—then stopped.

There was a new sound. Salim saw the other two pick up on it as well: a low, muttering hum.

Voices.

Salim moved swiftly to the window. Out in the darkness, a line of torches snaked down the manor house's long drive.

"Damn." Apparently Father Adibold was no longer interested in waiting until dawn.

Salim turned back to Mirosoy. "We need to get out of here. In two minutes, their families"—he gestured to the corpses on the floor—"are going to burn this place to the ground. And you're going to let them."

"Oh?" The noble's lip twitched toward a sneer.

Salim raised his sword suggestively.

"Oh," Lord Mirosoy said again, this time with considerably less vigor. "Well, you see, that may be something of a problem." He raised a hand and gestured to his waist.

"Oh, Master!" Connell's voice was horrified. "What have you done?"

And now Salim saw it. The various beakers and sealed containers on the worktable didn't stand alone. Below the rumpled blouse, several thick tubes snaked out of Mirosoy's abdomen and into the vessels and retorts on the table, steady streams of black and red fluids cycling through them.

Once more, the summoner ignored his servant and spoke to Salim. This time he looked almost embarrassed.

"The crown," he said. "It had several suggestions as to how I might...improve my longevity."

"Lichdom." Salim understood now why the man looked so hollow. He almost spat, but stopped himself for fear of hitting one of the corpses. "You were trying to turn yourself undead."

"Not me—the crown!"

Salim didn't care. "Can you stop it? Reverse it?"

"Almost certainly," Mirosoy said. "But it'll take time. Days."

Behind Salim, the villagers were drawing closer. He could hear individual voices in the rumble of the mob. "We don't have days."

Lord Mirosoy ventured a tentative smile, greasy and anxious. "If you'll allow it, my manor has certain defenses which—"

"No. You've done these people enough harm already." Salim thought hard. "Can you teleport? Move this whole setup somewhere else with magic?"

The noble grimaced. "My studies of late have been focused on other matters."

"Clearly." Salim sized up the various tubes that nosed into Mirosoy's clothing like hungry worms. "And I were to just pull those out?"

"Then I would die. Likely in excruciating pain."

Works for me, thought Salim, but he knew the eidolon would never stand for it. Besides, there was no telling what sort of backlash the expiring spell might generate.

Beyond the window, dozens of feet crunched on gravel.

"I have a suggestion."

Both Mirosoy and Salim turned to look at Connell. The eidolon was holding up a hand, as if waiting to be called on. Salim nodded.

"I have a suggestion," the eidolon said again. With one three-fingered hand, he reached up and touched the amulet hanging from his serpentine neck.

And then there was no Connell. Only a second Mirosoy.

Salim understood immediately. "Connell—" he began.

"They're looking for the master," the eidolon said firmly. "If we give them one, maybe they'll go home."

"They're a mob," Salim pressed, throat suddenly tight. "Even if they think Mirosoy's gone, they'll burn this place down anyway."

"Then you'll have to stop them." The eidolon held out a hand. "Goodbye, Salim. Thank you."

The hand hung there, unmoving. After an eternity, Salim stepped forward and took it. They shook.

Connell looked to Mirosoy.

"It's good to have you back, Master."

Then the eidolon walked out of the room and was gone.

Silence reigned as the two men stood looking at the door where the second Mirosoy had disappeared. Finally Salim spoke.

"If you lived a thousand years," he said slowly, "you would still be unworthy of that love."

"What?"

Salim's glance flicked sideways to the noble.

"That sacrifice. For you."

Mirosoy seemed genuinely puzzled. "It's an eidolon," he said. "I made it to protect me. When it's gone, I'll make another."

Salim stared at him.

Outside, the crowd roared.

∗∗∗

Three empty cups stood at parade rest on the wooden table. A fourth, only halfway drained, stood before them, the officer addressing its troops.

Salim took another drink. Around him, the familiar buzz of the Clever Endeavor continued as usual, a dozen conversations that never happened, between people who were never here and had never met. This time, no one was looking at Salim. That suited him fine.

The wood between his elbows was stained dark with spilled wine. Salim grimaced and set his mug down on top of the splotch, but the cup wasn't quite big enough to hide it from view.

Connell hadn't screamed. He hadn't made a sound at all. By the time Salim reached the front door of the manor house, passing corpses which lay motionless without the crown's animating touch, the worst was over. The bravest of the mob was still hacking away with hoes and scythes, while others shouted encouragement. At some point, someone tore away the amulet to reveal the eidolon's true form, which Father Adibold loudly proclaimed a sign that the noble had been a monster all along.

And then, finally, it was over. With a last gasp from the crowd, the eidolon's body disappeared. Only the bloody stain on the gravel drive remained.

Still giddy with the ease of their victory, the mob might have indeed charged the manor, had Salim not chosen that point to reveal himself. Stepping forth to address Father Adibold by name, Salim announced that the evening's festivities were over, and that he'd dealt with the rest of the lord's creatures himself.

A few of the mob, drunk on blood, had yelled abuse. Salim raised his still-glowing sword, and the newfound bravery dissipated. With Father Adibold at its head, the crowd turned and made its way back toward town. In no time at all, Salim was alone on the driveway. Just him and the stain Connell had left behind.

A single torch, dropped by a villager, still sputtered in the dirt. Salim bent down and picked it up. He looked up toward the manor window, where the red lights still played.

He could finish things. Mirosoy had perverted the corpses of innocents, and attempted to do the same to himself. Salim had executed men for less. He could set the torch against one of the tapestries in the entrance hall and let the whole place disappear.

Instead, he had opened his hand and let the torch drop.

And now he was here.

Salim drank deep, draining the last of the mug. The wine at the bottom had an unpleasant copper taste, and he looked down to see blood pooling there, mixing with the dregs. He put fingers to his nose, and they came away red. He sighed.

"You have a terrible way of announcing yourself, Ceyanan."

The creature across the table was neither male nor female, its pale skin as smooth and inhuman as an alabaster statue. Behind its shoulders, great wings that were half feathers, half shadow flexed once and then furled tightly in the dingy confines of the bar. Gray cloth like funeral shrouds wrapped its waist and chest.

Salim wiped his bloody upper lip with the back of his hand. "You want to tell me why you sent him to me?"

The angel smiled. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play coy." Salim put down his empty mug and leaned back, crossing his arms. "Your boss deals with more complex judgments than Mirosoy's little change of heart on a daily basis. If you hadn't sent me in, the mob would eventually have made it through those zombies and killed him, thus removing any reason for the Lady of Graves to take an interest."

"Many innocents would have died," the angel observed.

"And since when does your mistress give a flying fig about that?" Salim held up two fingers to the barman, who appeared almost immediately with two more mugs.

"Thank you," said Ceyanan, "but I don't drink."

"Who said one of these was for you?" Salim pulled both drinks close.

The angel watched him. "You're an excellent hunter, Salim. Your skill does you credit. But you still have much to learn." White lips twitched higher, the smile becoming almost beatific. "Connell did something very brave today. Out of love and devotion to his friend."

"Who didn't deserve it," Salim growled.

"Does it matter?" The angel's big eyes bored into Salim's. "Is the eidolon's sacrifice any less admirable because of it?"

Salim laughed sharply.

"Is that what this is all about? Teaching me to take pride in my work, even if I don't have any choice in the matter?" He showed his teeth. "Haven't I learned enough about duty? About sacrifice?"

Ceyanan shook its head, half sad, half bemused.

"Maybe not," it said at last. "But don't worry. You will."

"Just what—" Salim began.

But the angel was gone.

Salim stared at the chair where the angel had been. Then down at the stain on the table.

A mug in either hand, he began to drink in earnest.

Coming Next Week: A brand new romp exploring the perils of bragging in Lucien Soulban's "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!"

James L. Sutter is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, author of the novel Death's Heretic (also starring Salim), and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Starship Sofa, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, and his anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous Pathfinder supplements, including City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.

Illustration by Carmen Cianelli.

Faithful Servants

by James L. Sutter

Chapter Three: The Penitent Man

There was the usual moment of darkness and cold, the terrible feeling of being drawn through space like a fish on a line, and then the light was back and the amulet deposited them safely.

Right in the middle of an angry mob.

Salim looked quickly to Connell, but the eidolon was already holding his own pendant. Before Salim could say anything, the eidolon’s disguise as an axiomite melted into something less suspicious. The pointed ears were still there, but shorter. Gone was the inhumanly perfect skin, replaced by a moonscape of old pockmarks. The cowl of the robe he wore—now old and tattered, stained as much by the road as any dye—came up to cover the glowing forehead rune.

It was a good job. The peasant closest to the new arrivals blinked, peered at the two of them as if he trying to remember something, then visibly gave up and returned his attention to the shouting man at the front.

They were in the central green of a modest town, a ring of shops and public houses encircling a muddy patch of grass long since chewed into submission by the hooves and jaws of livestock. Beyond, Salim recognized the dark and craggy peaks of the Hungry Mountains rising ominously on all sides. Even now, at midday, the fog that shrouded their dark forests was thick, and moved in strange ways just beyond the valley’s last farmsteads.

The mob was barely worthy of the name—perhaps forty men and women in varying states of disrepair—yet Salim had seen such groups before. The deciding factor for mobs wasn’t in their muscles, or their makeshift weapons, but in their eyes. These folk were afraid. And where there was enough fear, something could break, and turn even the most timid housewife into a killer.

The man trying to catalyze that change stood at the focal point of the loose semicircle, perched precariously on an overturned wheelbarrow. He was middle-aged and almost completely bald, with only a few wisps of white hair scrambling to cling to and cover his shining pate. From beneath voluminous black robes similar to Salim’s own poked stick-thin arms, gesticulating wildly. At his throat hung a large silver spiral on a chain—the holy symbol of Pharasma.

"Too long have we suffered the monster to remain in our midst!" the priest cried. "Far too long! You, Silva," he pointed at one of the women near the front, "was not your husband’s grave torn up, just weeks after his passing? And you, Tam"—this time a fat man in a flour-stained apron—"your uncle’s grave as well. No wolf digs so deep, or so thoroughly."

He returned to addressing the whole crowd.

"Suffering is our lot! Yet that doesn’t mean the Goddess desires us to lie down and let monsters roam the night, taking our loved ones. As your priest, I should be leading you—yet I am old, and my hands shake with the palsy." He raised the offending appendages high. "Thus I must pass the burden to my son, Sir Percinov. It is he who will lead you to glory."

The crowd shifted slightly, and Salim glimpsed the figure that stood at the old priest’s knee. The plates of its armor were all in black and silver, the chest embossed with Pharasma’s spiral, and a businesslike bucket of a helm obscured the face. At the figure’s waist rested a long sword in a matching scabbard. All in all, a suitably imposing sight. Yet something about the way the warrior stood gave Salim pause.

"When?" a voice from the crowd cried.

"At dawn," the priest said. "Mirosoy and his creatures are things of darkness. We will bring them the cleansing light."

"That’s my master," Connell hissed, and Salim tapped his arm to quiet him.

The crowd shouted its ragged approval, and then the church bells began chiming. In twos and threes, the people shuffled off to be about their errands, or perhaps just to rest up before the lynching.

The priest had stepped down from his wheelbarrow and was talking with the knight. Salim approached.

"Excuse me, Father. May I have a word?"

The priest turned. Above his beak of a nose, hard little rat eyes crawled up and down Salim’s length, taking in the black robes and sun-darkened skin, the short beard and strangely melted-looking sword hilt. His eyes lit upon the amulet, which Salim had left hanging prominently against his chest, and the hard mouth softened almost imperceptibly.

"A fellow clergyman?"

"Something like that." Salim drew the spiral of Pharasma in the air between them.

"Yet not from around here." Salim’s southern skin, so much darker than the sickly pale Ustalavs, kept the words from being a question.

"No," Salim agreed. "My companion and I have traveled far to offer our assistance. It seems others in the church have learned of your situation."

"Hum," the priest said, a sound that wasn’t altogether pleased. "Very well, then. My name is Father Adibold, and this is Sir Percinov. My rectory is just over here—please, allow me to welcome you properly." Without bothering to wait for a reply, the man turned and began stalking toward a little house attached to the church, the armored warrior just behind him. Salim and Connell followed.

"A child in armor is still a child."

The house might better have been called a cell. Though the walls were still painted white, they’d clearly been neglected for some time. The outlines of less-faded regions suggested that, at one point, there had been more furniture in here—a bureau, a couch—yet now the room contained only a stove, a cupboard, the roughest of wooden tables, and two chairs. Salim accepted the priest’s invitation and sat in the nearer chair, then immediately wished he hadn’t. He’d interrogated men in more comfortable chairs than this.

Father Adibold took the opposite chair. Connell remained standing next to the door, while the armored figure took up a respectful position behind the priest’s left shoulder. For the first time, the metal mountain spoke.

"Da, may I—?"

"Yes, fine!" The priest waved a hand. With an audible sigh of relief, the warrior removed his gauntlets, then reached up and pulled off his helmet.

It was a boy, brown-haired and skinny. His bobbing larynx didn’t even come close to touching the steel gorget meant to protect his throat. Salim bet that if he struck the breastplate, the teenager would rattle around inside the armor like the clapper in a bell.

The old man spoke first. "You’re not a priest," he said bluntly. "The sword tells me that much. So what are you?"

"A hunter," Salim said. "A problem-solver for the church, specializing in the sort of thing you now face. Or have I heard wrong? It’s undead creations that your people fear, is it not?"

The priest grunted. "Indeed." Reluctantly, he got to his feet and went to the cupboard. He returned with two cups of water and a cob of bread, which he set between them. "Please," he said, gesturing. "Eat."

Salim tore off a chunk of bread and bit into it. It was hard, and old, but blessedly weevil-free.

"I’d apologize for not offering better fare," the old man continued, not sounding the least bit apologetic, "but we of the Kavapestan branch don’t believe in southern niceties."

Aha. Suddenly both the ostentatiously poor hospitality and the deliberately uncomfortable furniture made more sense. Salim’s eyes twitched toward the man’s sleeves, which had fallen back when he proffered the food. The priest caught the look and deliberately pulled the cloth back down, but not before Salim caught the telltale lines of dozens of thin white scars on his forearms.

"So you follow the Penitence, then."

The old priest thrust his jaw out pugnaciously. "The Lady of Graves judges us not only on what we do, but what we endure. Those who suffer in this life are rewarded in the next. We Ustalavs have known this for generations."

"Very admirable," Salim said.

The priest searched for any sign that he was being mocked, and upon finding none, slowly nodded. "Yes, well. It’s rare to find a southerner who understands the value of forsaking worldly pleasures."

"Believe me," Salim said, "I’ve forsaken plenty. But I didn’t come here to discuss theology. Tell me of Mirosoy."

"Bah!" the priest said, and spat on his own floor. "A magician and minor noble who lives in a manse at the far end of the valley. He’s been there for years."

"It’s disgusting," the armored boy put in helpfully. "Using magic to avoid honest sweat and labor."

"Shut up, Percy," the priest said, yet he nodded at the sentiment. "It’s true, we have no love of wizards and witches here. Yet it’s still not a crime, and his business helps keep the village alive through hard times. Of late, however, the lord has turned to darker arts. Graves have been disturbed, even within the grounds of the church."

Now it was Salim’s turn to grunt. Grave robbing from a church of Pharasma was bold, if not outright suicidal. "And his creatures. You’ve seen them?"

"Not personally. But the villagers who cart out his provisions or used to work in his house speak of moans, and shambling forms, and the stench of death."

Salim nodded. "And you’d send a mob of villagers to handle things?"

The priest bristled. "Not alone! I would offer what magics I have, and my son would lead them!"

"Ah yes, your son." Salim turned to the would-be warrior. "Show me your hands, boy."

Confused, Percinov did as he was told, holding them palms out. Salim nodded.

"That’s a fine suit of armor, boy. It’ll serve you well one day. But not yet."

"Now wait just a minute—!" the priest began.

Salim silenced him with a raised finger. "Calluses."

"Pardon?"

"You may know penance, Father, but I know war. And the calluses on this boy’s hands are from chopping wood, not a sword hilt. The pattern’s all wrong." He glanced back at Percinov. "You can put your hands down now, boy."

Percinov did. His father glowered. "The boy will be fine," the old priest growled. "Any wounds he suffers, I’ll heal. And his pain will buy credit with the Goddess."

As it happened, Salim knew precisely how little credit such suffering earned. Yet he set that sentiment aside and decided to test out a suspicion that had been building.

"And what would the boy’s mother think if he were killed?" he asked.

"Don’t you talk about his mother!" Tiny drops of spit flew from the priest’s lips to land halfway across the table. "Serafina is with the Lady now, assisting in the judgment of souls. We should all be so fortunate."

"But, Da—" Percinov began.

"Shut up, Percy!"

The priest put his head in hands. For a moment, no one said anything. At last, the priest looked up, his lined face appearing older than ever.

"What do you propose?" he asked.

Coming Next Week: Confrontations with a summoner gone bad in the final chapter of "Faithful Servants."

James L. Sutter is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, author of the novel Death's Heretic (also starring Salim), and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Starship Sofa, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, and his anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous Pathfinder supplements, including City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.

Illustration by Carmen Cianelli

Faithful Servants

by James L. Sutter

Chapter Two: A Walk in the Park

"So talk."

The two men—for Salim had returned the eidolon's amulet, and the snake-man once more looked like an axiomite—walked shoulder to shoulder through one of Axis's many parks. To either side of the cobblestone path, trees and bushes of a hundred different varieties stood in a riot of color, each with a neat little placard giving its name and world of origin. Several were surrounded by decorative fences, and one of these quarantined plants shook and hooted as the pair passed by, its spherical fruit opening to reveal sucking lamprey mouths.

"My name is Connell," the eidolon said. "My master is Gatis Mirosoy, of the nation of Ustalav. More than thirty years ago, he called me forth from the aether of the Cerulean Void and gave me form, shaping me into his constant companion."

Salim nodded. He didn't know much about the practices of the so-called summoners, but he knew that the spirits they used in their magical creations were drawn from the Outer Planes. They weren't true souls—otherwise his own master, Pharasma the death goddess, would have something to say about the poaching—but they were close enough to provide the necessary animus. If Connell were a product of the chaotic Maelstrom, then it explained his appearance—and the disguising amulet. The serpentine proteans native to that plane were despised everywhere, but Axis had been at war with them since the universe began.

All of these thoughts passed by in the time it took Connell to draw breath and continue.

"For three decades, I served my master faithfully, protecting him from enemies, researching incantations, and managing his household affairs. He made this amulet specifically for me, so that I might treat with the local villagers on his behalf without unduly alarming them." One slender axiomite hand came up to caress the object, where it hung on its repaired leather thong.

"Sometimes, perhaps once every few years, his research would take us beyond the manor, to some forgotten library or dusty tomb where valuable knowledge lay languishing, waiting for the master to rescue it. It was on one of these excursions that he found the—the crown." The eidolon's voice caught, and for a moment he was silent.

"Crown?" Salim prompted.

"It's terrible!" the eidolon wailed, then reined himself back to a more reasonable volume. "We found it in the burial chamber of Arachyx the Ghoul-Handed. The master had brought us there in search of an ancient tapestry, but as soon as he saw the crown, all thought of the original mission went out the window, and he had to have it. It's a sick thing, an evil thing—a twisted band of iron with thorns that jut out in all directions, even back into the wearer's scalp. The whole thing has a weird, slick feeling to it, not like iron at all, but like oiled or decomposing flesh. And when the thorns prick you, the blood never drips—the thorns suck it up. I hate it." With this last pronouncement, a single tear welled up and rolled down the eidolon's disguised nose, dropping to the dirt.

"Missionary work is hardly Salim's forte."

"After the master put it on, he...changed. Before, he'd been a quiet man, and stern as any good master, but not without a sense of humor. After that, he became something else. He lost all interest in summoning lesser servants from the distant planes, which before had been his greatest joy, and even quit experimenting with my form. Instead, all he wanted to do was research death. He became obsessed with creating undead things, from rat skeletons and dog zombies to more... substantial works." Connell paused, embarrassed. "I dug up graves and brought him the remains of the townsfolk. He said we were just borrowing them."

"Right."

Connell shrugged, helpless. "He was my master. If he wanted to study necromancy, that was his prerogative. An eidolon doesn't question."

Salim nodded, but trained ears had caught the verb tense. "Was?"

All at once, the eidolon's composure broke, and the face he turned to Salim was a caricature of anguish.

"He sent me away," Connell whispered. His tone made it sound like a death sentence. "In all my life, I had never been more than a mile from his side. But he had changed so much. He had never been over fond of travel, but now he never left the manor. He quit eating hardly at all, and would go for days without sleep. He ignored the clean clothes I left out for him. He tore down the shrine to the magic god Nethys, and built a new one to Urgathoa, the Pallid Princess. The old one was wood and paper, beautifully made. This one was made of parts from his—experiments."

Salim had seen plenty of such shrines, and could well imagine the decomposing limbs and reanimating scramblings it entailed. The Pallid Princess was a sick bitch, and made Salim's own goddess look downright warm in comparison. Where Pharasma was, for all her faults, at least even-handed and devoted to perpetuating natural cycles, Urgathoa was devoted to undeath and gluttony, her necromancers filling the world with perverse beings that refused to die. Needless to say, the two ladies didn't get along.

"You said he sent you away."

Connell wrapped thin arms around himself. "It was that stupid crown—I know it was. After a while, he didn't even take it off to sleep, and didn't notice when the wounds from the thorns got infected. I tried to take it off him once—just for a minute, to clean them out!—and he threw me halfway across the room. And that was when he said he didn't need me anymore." Another slow tear. "That—that he had plenty of new servants. Better ones. And then he cast a spell, and I was somewhere else."

The eidolon went silent, and Salim gave him his space, recognizing in the set of his shoulders how hard this must be for him. After a moment, Connell continued.

"He'd sent me back to the Maelstrom, the chaos plane he'd drawn me from. Except it didn't feel like home anymore. I was awkward, and lonely, and everything I met was either terrified of me or trying to eat me. But worse—I could still feel him. My master. The thread was faint—so faint—but I could still feel him." The eidolon pointed to the rune on his forehead. "I'm still my master's creature."

"That's when I realized how much danger he was in. He had his undead things, but they were still weak, and sooner or later someone was going to get fed up with the grave robbing and try to do something about it. And I wouldn't be there to protect him."

Salim was starting to get tired of the eidolon's puppylike devotion. He attempted to hurry the story along. "And so?"

"So I went to see Pharasma."

Salim stopped walking so abruptly that Connell almost tripped and fell over onto a flower whose blossoms were shaped like tethered hummingbirds, petal-wings buzzing frantically to pull them away from the clumsy eidolon.

"You went to the Boneyard?" Perhaps Salim had underestimated the creature. Though the goddess of death wasn't the sort to slay anyone out of hand—quite the opposite, in fact—there were plenty of other beings around the Gray Lady's realm who were less discriminating, and the journey there was hardly easy.

"It took a while," the eidolon agreed, "but I got there eventually. Some nice crow-vulture-things in masks led me in and showed me to one of her servants, a black-winged angel called Ceyanan. I think you know him?"

"You could say that," Salim said wryly. In the same sense that you know your master, he thought, just without the hopeless love. But he didn't bother confusing the eidolon with his own problems.

"He was very nice," Connell said. "I simply explained the situation as best I could, and he agreed that it would be in Pharasma's interest to help me." Here the eidolon grinned, and despite the amulet's illusion, Salim could easily imagine the serpentine smile beneath it. "See, it's not just the necromancy—I know the goddess hates undead, but that problem will take care of itself when someone eventually comes along and kills him. The real issue is the crown. It's what's changed him and made him do all these evil things—I'm positive. And if it's the crown, that means it's not his fault. And if it's not his fault"—here the eidolon raised a triumphant finger—"then it shouldn't affect the final judgment of his soul. It's a tricky situation. If my master dies while the crown's magic is making him do bad things, does that count against him? Does his soul go to Urgathoa, or to Nethys? At the very least, it seems like a long and complicated judgment is in order."

Now Salim understood. "And Ceyanan sent you to me."

Connell nodded enthusiastically. "He agreed that such a judgment would be needlessly complicated and take up the goddess's valuable time, and that the best thing to do was remove the cursed crown and let my master's soul cleanse itself. Then he gave me your description, and the name of a bar, and transported me to Axis."

"Of course he did." Salim had to admit, the eidolon's logic was sound. And it would be just like Ceyanan to send Salim on a job that was, in essence, missionary work. Soul saving. That would tickle the angel's sense of irony.

"So will you do it?" the eidolon asked eagerly. "Will you help me help my master?"

As if he had a choice. "Ustalav, you said?"

"Aton's Field, a village near Kavapesta."

Salim reached into his robes and produced an amulet of his own. The size of his thumb, the stone was a perfect, lightless black, save for an iridescent spiral that seemed to shimmer and move of its own accord. Cupping the stone in one hand, he offered the other to Connell. "Let's go, then."

The eidolon took it.

The world twisted.

Note: This story is also available in free audio podcast form at StarShipSofa!

Coming Next Week: Angry mobs and broken men in Chapter Three of "Faithful Servants."

James L. Sutter is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, author of the novel Death's Heretic (also starring Salim), and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Starship Sofa, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, and his anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous Pathfinder supplements, including City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.

Illustration by Eric Belisle.

Faithful Servants

by James L. Sutter

Chapter One: Down at the Clever Endeavor

The Clever Endeavor wasn't the best bar on Axis. Nor was it the cleanest, or the cheapest—and definitely not the friendliest. It was a bar you went to when you didn't want to be seen.

Not that there weren't always customers. The place had a pretty decent crowd of regulars, and new folks stumbled in from time to time as situations warranted. But everyone there knew the first rule of the Clever Endeavor: even if you saw someone you recognized—you didn't see them.

Which is why it was so immediately obvious that Salim was being followed.

The bar was roughly half full, which meant that it was as full as it ever got. Wrought-iron lanterns filled not with flickering flame but with smooth phosphorescence glowed softly between tables, casting enough light to see by but not so much as to make anyone feel exposed. The bar's shape was different than most, with a wide-open center and tables positioned around the twisting outer wall, each set in its own scalloped hollow. It was hardly the best use of space, but the sort of folk that frequented the Clever Endeavor appreciated the fact that the odd layout gave every table a wall to put one's back to, plus a clear view of the entrance and the stairs leading up to the street. Directly across from the doorway stood a long wooden bar without any stools, and behind it lurked a rack of hundreds of bottles of all shapes and sizes—some clear, some opaque, and some jumping and jittering of their own accord.

The bar's unusual shape, however, was nothing compared to its clientele. As far as Salim could tell—and such things weren't always obvious—he was the only human present. To his right, a cluster of hive people—this particular group composed almost entirely of the flying variety, which resembled seven-foot-tall, black-shelled wasps—used deft proboscises to scrape thick red fluid from long, fluted glasses. Thanks to their telepathy, the only sound from their alcove was the steady brush of feathery appendages on crystal, yet the way they occasionally whirred their wings or crooked their limbs suggested an argument. Or as close to an argument as creatures with a hive mind ever got.

To Salim's left, several of the plane's native axiomites were going over documents with a winged, green-skinned man that Salim had pegged as an angel, hammering out some sort of agreement. Each time one of the elflike axiomites moved to point out a particular clause, the illusion of its flesh broke and scattered, revealing the cloud of glowing symbols that was its true form.

Across the room, another axiomite pulled her companion, one of the fox-headed vulpinals, as deep into the shadows of her alcove as she could. Salim couldn't say whether the gesture was one of modesty or fear of judgment by her fellows, but it had little effect either way. Each time the fox-man touched the flawless skin of her thigh, a blaze of runes drifted up from the caress like golden dust, broadcasting her excitement to the room. The axiomites were living mathematical abstractions, but apparently even abstractions had needs.

And those were just the groups. Far more common in the Clever Endeavor were the singletons—folks who didn't care to bring companions, and were even less interested in making new ones. These solitary drinkers were scattered around the place, each lost in his or her own thoughts. A flame-haired ifrit, the half-breed offspring of some genie and a mortal, sat nursing a brass goblet at one of the flame-retardant tables. Beyond him, a contract devil with a pointed beard and wire-rimmed spectacles which were almost certainly just for show sorted through a pile of scrolls. Closest to the bar was a blurry, vaguely humanoid distortion in the air which Salim took to be one of the shae, the aristocratic residents of the Shadow Plane. The shadow people had long ago traded physical forms for regions of coherent probability, and had been insufferably smug about it ever since.

In other words, nothing out of the ordinary.

Salim shifted so that his back was to his uninvited guest. He leaned over the table, propping his head on his hand and looking down as if staring into his drink. In reality, it was the glass that concerned him. In its warped reflection, the rest of the room behind him was clearly visible.

The solitary axiomite two tables down was staring at him. Not the careful, peripheral-vision study of someone used to the Clever Endeavor's rules. The eyes fixed on Salim's back were blatant in their gaze. Though the man's nondescript robes, pointed ears, and inhumanly perfect features were no different from any of a thousand other axiomites, a large rune that glimmered with its own light sat between his eyebrows.

A glowing forehead tattoo was an interesting choice for someone trying to pass unnoticed. But then, this was Axis. As it was, the rune told Salim nothing except that he'd never seen the man before.

Salim set down his glass and looked to the bartender. Lahan was standing in his usual place behind the counter, a rag over one narrow shoulder and a vacant expression on his face as he stared off into the distance. As Salim's hand twitched up in the three-fingered signal, however, the barman's eyes snapped into focus. He met Salim's gaze and nodded slightly.

Good. Placing one hand on the battered surface of the table, Salim shoved himself to his feet. He stood there for a moment, wobbling slightly as if from too much drink, then began weaving his way toward the back of the establishment. Past the bar, he turned left and staggered into the hallway leading to the jakes.

As soon as he was around the corner and out of sight of the rest of the bar, Salim flattened himself against the near wall, willing his black robes to blend into the shadows. His right hand crept to the twisted hilt of his sword, then moved away. Lahan wouldn't want any blood if he could help it. Salim waited.

The axiomite came around the corner. Salim sprang. One hand wrapping around the man's neck, the other forearm hitting sideways across his chest, Salim slammed into his follower, jamming him up against the far wall of the hallway.

Instead of flying apart into a cloud of symbols, the man hit the bricks with a meaty slap. Not a true axiomite, then—a disguise. The fake axiomite's mouth opened, and Salim squeezed his windpipe shut before he could make a sound.

A hand came up, crabbing toward the man's chest, and Salim batted it away easily. Searching within his opponent's tunic, he found the hard knot of the pendant the man had been reaching for. Salim closed his hand around it and pulled, snapping the thong easily.

The man shifted. Where one moment Salim had been holding an axiomite, now he was holding something else entirely. Gone were the axiomite's lithe limbs, replaced by green scales and clawed, three-fingered hands. A pair of stumpy wings, ludicrously small for such a large creature, fluttered ineffectually from slits in the shirt's shoulders. The biggest difference, however, was the head: a cross between a dinosaur and the long, toothy grin of a dolphin. The creature's new face rose on a serpentine neck that was suddenly several feet longer than it had been. The glowing rune that had emblazoned the man's forehead was still there, but now it sat between two eyebrow ridges of thick horn.

"Whoever made this particular eidolon had a weird sense of humor."

A nice trick, but it made little difference. Salim choked up on the ludicrous neck until his fist rested just beneath the overlong snout, then pulled the head back down to eye level.

"What are you?" he asked, loosening his hold on the creature's windpipe.

The creature coughed and sputtered. "I...I don—"

Salim squeezed a warning. "You don't know? I find that unlikely."

The creature shook its head, gasping, and tried again. This time it managed to rasp out a single word.

"Eidolon."

An eidolon. Interesting. That explained the glowing tattoo—eidolons were created creatures, and the rune would undoubtedly be a sign of its master. The thought of a third party made Salim suddenly aware that his back was exposed, and he dragged the creature farther down the hall toward the privies. He trusted Lahan to give him a signal if someone else came their direction, but there was no guarantee that the eidolon's summoner couldn't turn invisible.

"Who do you work for?" Salim demanded. "And why is he looking for me?"

The creature shook its head again. Though Salim still had it pressed up against the wall, he could feel its body relax.

"He's not. I came on my own."

That didn't make sense—eidolons didn't do anything without their masters' consent—but Salim left it alone for the time being. He was starting to get irritated. Before he could ask another question, the eidolon answered it.

"Ceyanan told me you could help me."

Ceyanan. The name was like magic—as soon as Salim heard it, everything became clear. He sighed and released the creature, stepping back as it stretched out its serpentine neck, curling and corkscrewing it to work out kinks.

"So the angel sent you."

The creature nodded, a more expressive move than any human could hope to make. "He told me how to find you."

"Of course he did." Salim's black-winged chaperone was fond of jokes. Never mind that the angel's sense of humor had nearly gotten this particular emissary killed. What did a single life matter to a herald of the death goddess?

Salim turned back toward the bar, motioning for the snake-man to follow. "Come on."

"So you'll help me?" the eidolon asked. Its muzzle was still frozen in the idiot smile that seemed more appropriate now than when it was a just a breath away from being choked to death.

"I didn't say that," Salim said. "First we'll talk. But not here." He glanced back over his shoulder.

"Now are you coming, or aren't you?"

Coming Next Week: The lamentations of a servant betrayed in Chapter Two of “Faithful Servants.”

James L. Sutter is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, author of the novel Death's Heretic (also starring Salim), and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Starship Sofa, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, and his anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous Pathfinder supplements, including City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.

Illustration by Carmen Cianelli.

Death's Heretic Sample Chapter

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

by James L. Sutter

In Death's Heretic, Salim Ghadafar is a problem-solver for a church he hates, bound by the death goddess to hunt down those who would rob her of her due. Presented below is the first chapter of the new Pathfinder Tales novel by Paizo Fiction Editor James L. Sutter!

Death always smelled the same.

After all this time, it wasn’t the stink that got to him—the reek of excrement, of putrefying flesh and organs never meant to see daylight. That was expected, easily imaginable by even the greenest killer. No, what stuck with Salim was the insufferable sweetness of it, the fact that behind the stomach-churning stench was the saccharine ghost of fermentation, cloying and coating the insides of his nostrils. It was impossible not to respond to it. Somewhere in the back of his brain, the part that was little more than animal, he knew that smell meant a kill, and that a kill meant success. That part of him wanted to crow, to roll in the filth until it covered him like a badge. On its own, the stink was tolerable. Combined with that sweetness, it made him want to vomit.

The undead had that smell, too. With some it was musty and old, others mixed with the heavy scent of wet earth, and still others—those that walked among the living without notice—so faint that the lightest perfume could cover it. Yet it was always there.

The ghouls had it in abundance, their dry, stretched flesh never quite sure if it wanted to heal or slough off completely. Without looking down, Salim stepped carefully over the nearest corpse and pressed up against the wall, studying the doorway.

He’d killed most of the pack, though not before they’d glutted themselves on the parishioners. It hadn’t been difficult. These weren’t civilized horrors like the monstrous citizens of Nemret Noktoria, but rather the newly risen dead, as naive in their own way as the rural farmers they fed upon. They were strong, and hungry, but knew nothing else. They’d never been hunted. Fear was something they inspired in others, and by the time Salim taught them otherwise, it was too late.

Still, it was the easy prey that surprised you, and there was no point in taking chances. There were still three of them beyond the door, waiting like cornered rats to rend and tear. It would only take one scratch from a poisoned finger-turned-claw to stiffen his limbs and leave him paralyzed, helpless while they fed—or, worse yet, let the infection in their bite spread through his veins like wildfire, burning out his flesh until he became one of them. No, this was no time to get cocky. Taking the ghouls might be easy, but there was no room for error. The execution had to be flawless.

The glow of his torch was barely enough to light the antechamber in which he stood, its flickers seemingly swallowed up by the black void beyond the archway. Fixing that was the first order of business. If they went for his light—and they certainly would—the burns they’d get trying to take it would be nothing compared to the disadvantage his human eyes would be in the tomb’s darkness.

Salim glanced around the crypt, silent save for the crackling of burning pitch. It was humble, little more than a brick-walled pit with steps leading up to the church, but it was this village’s holy of holies. Each of a dozen narrow wall niches held a cloth-wrapped form, most still thick with dust—the ghouls hadn’t bothered feeding on these mummified husks when the church graveyard bore riper, more putrescent fruit. Hands folded, covered with the withered threads of what were once flowers, the honored dead might have continued their dreamless sleep undisturbed, were it not for the two ghoul corpses that fouled the gray stone floor.

They were exactly what he needed. Without a second thought, Salim moved to the nearest niche and took hold of the corpse’s homespun burial shroud. A single pull sent its contents spinning to the floor, leaving Salim holding several yards of cloth, which he promptly put to the torch.

Flame caught the simple embroidery and raced up its edges. As he let the flickering tongues writhe over the sheet, Salim glanced down at its former occupant. A young man, and not recently dead by the look of him—tendons showed through withered flesh, but they still held the sack of bones in the rough shape of a man. The body’s relative cohesion gave Salim an idea, and he set down the torch, wrapped the now merrily blazing cloth around the blade of his sword, then leaned down to scoop up the corpse with his other arm. With the grisly parcel clutched to his chest like a lover, he moved along the wall toward the doorway.

No time like the present. With a flick of his sword, Salim sent the burning shroud sailing into the room, the fabric flapping open to light the sepulcher. Something hissed in the darkness, and he followed the light with his other prize, swinging the corpse around the corner and into the room at shoulder height.

The ruse worked. Thinking Salim had charged in after the blazing blanket, two of the ghouls pounced, dropping from the walls and ceiling to rend the corpse’s brittle flesh. In the second it took them to realize their mistake, the real Salim was among them, sword flashing.

The ghouls’ leathery hide was stronger than human skin, but it still parted easily under the edge of his blade. Salim’s initial thrust caught the first one in the center of its back and slid in smoothly, the flat of the blade kept parallel to the ground to avoid getting stuck between the creature’s ribs. His recovery gave the second ghoul time to face him, but not enough to get its glistening claws up. Salim’s swing didn’t take its head clean off—his sword was light, and that sort of thing was more for storybooks and campfire tales than real battles—but it did the job, sending the creature slumping backward, head lolling to one side on a thin strand of flesh. Salim ignored it, withdrawing to a defensive posture with his back to the wall next to the archway, waiting for the third ghoul’s attack.

It didn’t come. Heartbeat after heartbeat went by as Salim’s eyes darted back and forth, but the expected attack failed to manifest. The room was silent, save for his own heavy breathing. Then the blood pounding in his ears calmed, and he heard a new sound—a low, dry whimpering. Sword at the ready, he stepped forward and kicked the crackling shroud farther into the room.

The third ghoul was curled up in the back of the burial chamber, hunched over into a fetal position in order to pull itself as far as it could into an empty wall niche. It clutched its knees and moaned again as Salim advanced.

“Please,” it whined. Coming from the twisted form, the voice was shockingly human. It strained to shape the words with its grotesquely overlong tongue. “Please don’t kill. I’ll go. No more hunting. No more brothers. Just graves. Please.”

In its fear, the ghoul came closest to resembling the man it had once been. Had the creature’s previous incarnation made a similar plea, as farmer to ghoul? Salim said nothing, but the ghoul nodded anyway. Chin to knee, it curled tighter and closed its eyes.

“Hungry,” it whispered. From behind bruised-black eyelids, a tear welled and slid down the creature’s face. “So hungry.”

This time Salim did respond.

“I understand,” he said.

Then, with both hands, he lifted his sword and brought it down.

In the aftermath, Salim recovered his torch and let the light of it and the blackened, sputtering shroud show him the room in all its meager glory. It was as humble as the outer chamber, but it was clear that the room had been both crypt and funereal preparation chamber. A long stone slab that was almost an altar sat to one end, surrounded by the mundane implements of embalming, while the walls held more spaces for bodies, unlit lanterns, and fine tapestries showing the glory of various gods, from stag-headed Erastil to the Lady of Graves herself. Clearly, these villagers worshiped an array of divine beings, pooling their resources into a single church.

And hedging their bets, Salim thought.

Setting his torch down on the altar, Salim moved over to the baptismal font in the corner and looked down into its shallow basin. The holy water was still clear and unsullied—either the ghouls hadn’t had time to soil it properly, or one of them had accidentally been splashed and the rest had learned to keep their distance. Salim’s eyes, hooded and tired, stared back at him from the water’s reflection. The rest of his face—dark hair, dark skin, and thin, dark beard—all blended together into the chamber’s gloom. The splashes of black ghoul blood didn’t help, either. Balancing his sword along the stone where the font emerged from the wall, he leaned over and splashed his face, then began scrubbing his hands vigorously, setting clouds of black filth blooming like ink through the water.

And not just black, he realized. There was red in the water as well. He glanced quickly down at his robes. Had one of the ghouls managed a lucky scratch without him realizing it? If so, he needed to move quickly to avoid sharing their fate.

But no—he was unharmed. Looking down at the basin, he realized that the blood was welling up from beneath his fingernails, his hands slowly weeping red into the baptismal font. The realization was followed immediately by a telltale tickle on his upper lip.

Oh. Of course. Salim dipped his hands back into the icy water. From behind him came the soft flutter of wings, as of a flock of doves suddenly startled into flight.

“Hello, Salim.”

"Ceyanan has an interesting way of announcing itself."

“Ceyanan.” Salim waited a moment, hands gripping the font’s stone lip, then collected himself and turned.

The angel was floating in the chamber’s center, its toes pointed like a dancer two feet above the floor. The robes that flowed around it in an undetectable breeze were gray against worm-pale skin, and combined with the black hair they made the figure look like a charcoal sketch. Its features were too perfect to be truly beautiful, like a marble statue, and androgynous enough that not even the sheer fabric revealed a gender.

More arresting than all of these were the black-feathered wings that sprang from its back. Even half-folded, they were clearly not normal appendages. More shadow than form, they gave the impression that if they spread, they would not so much unfurl as bloom, the way the ghoul’s filth had expanded in the water of the font. Yet the angel’s floating seemed to have little to do with them, and they remained still, the individual feathers flickering in and out of visibility. It looked around the room.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Ceyanan said.

Salim ignored the apparition and instead located a clean patch of sleeve, which he used to wipe his nose, succeeding only in smearing the blood around.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked, gesturing at bloody lips. “Every time?”

The angel laughed, as innocent as a child, and spread its hands.

“Consider it a gift, Salim. What better way to know that you’re still alive?”

Salim let that one pass, but the angel wasn’t finished.

“Besides,” it said, motioning toward the floor, “was that necessary?”

Salim looked down. He was almost standing on the corpse that had acted as his decoy. The young man’s arms and legs, once locked tight in the stately constriction of the dead, were now sacks of shattered bone, flesh tattered by ghoul claws and the rough landing. Salim shrugged.

“He didn’t object,” he said, but he was still careful not to kick the corpse as he stepped over to one of the ornate tapestries and began systematically cleaning his sword. Ghoul blood had already dried along its length, crusting both the shining blade and the twisted, melted-looking hilt with filth.

“They rarely do,” the angel acknowledged. “But that’s neither here nor there. You know that I come bearing tidings.”

“And here I thought this was a purely social visit.” Salim sheathed the blade. “But please, Ceyanan, don’t keep me in suspense—pray tell me what the bitch-goddess wants from me now.” He turned to lock eyes with the angel. “Is there a vampiric orgy in Caliphas that I’m to break up? A mummy that needs unwrapping? Or did someone forget to dig a grave deep enough, and a coyote ran away with some bones?”

The angel frowned.

“You should learn to show proper respect,” it said.

“And you should know by now that I only give it where it’s due.” The mocking politesse was gone now, replaced by a cool, smooth anger. “If your lady wants to win my love, she’s got a long road ahead of her.”

The angel waved its hand as if shooing a fly, refusing to be baited. It was an old game.

“Have it your way,” it said. “You have the opportunity to work great justice in this world, but you’re welcome to see it as an order if it pleases you.”

Salim waited.

Ceyanan sighed. “No undead this time. Rather the opposite, actually—something uniquely suited to your skills. A kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?” Despite his resentment, Salim couldn’t quite keep the curiosity out of his voice. “That’s hardly my usual fare. Or yours, for that matter. How do I factor in?”

“In this case, the victim is already dead.”

The angel paused a moment to see if Salim would say anything. He didn’t.

“The merchant in question,” Ceyanan continued, “was the target of a routine assassination—nothing special there. But after his death, his soul was stolen from the Boneyard before it could pass on to its final reward. Not destroyed—stolen. The local clerics have been unable to raise the body, and now the kidnappers are offering to sell back the man’s spirit. Naturally, the church is more than a little upset. We’ve already got the local clergy working on the problem, but we’d like you to step in and handle things. You might consider it a nice change of pace.” The angel’s hand swung to encompass the crypt and the already decaying ghouls.

“Makes sense,” Salim said. “Letting a soul go missing hardly reflects well on the church. But why me? And why don’t they just pay the ransom and be done?”

“The situation is in Thuvia.”

Thuvia. The name hit Salim like a blow. That was too close. Far too close. But if the kidnapping were in Thuvia—

“The sun orchid elixir,” he said.

“Precisely.” The angel looked pleased.

“Stealing a soul and selling it back for a shot at immortality. No wonder the Gray Lady’s pissed.”

“Now you understand,” Ceyanan said. “You’ll depart immediately.”

Salim gritted his teeth. “You know I don’t like being that close.”

“As you so eloquently pointed out, winning your affection is not my first priority. Your familiarity with the region and its customs will make you that much more efficient. And you might even enjoy your time there.”

“Not that I have a choice.”

The angel smiled down at him again.

“You did, once.”

Salim opened his mouth to respond, but the angel had already grown transparent, its voice a whisper that receded into the distance.

“Enjoy the desert, Salim.”

Purchase the whole novel here.

Coming Next Week: A brand new, standalone adventure featuring Salim, Ceyanan, and even stranger characters!

James L. Sutter is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, author of the novel Death's Heretic, and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Starship Sofa, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, and his anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous Pathfinder supplements and City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.

Illustration by Eric Belisle.

Illustration by Kekai Kotaki. Widescreen version here.

Death's Heretic Wallpapers!

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Death’s Heretic, the planes-hopping, soul-stealing new book in the Pathfinder Tales line (and the only one written by yours truly), releases in just three weeks. To help celebrate, Crystal’s used Kekai Kotaki’s awesome cover art to make Death’s Heretic wallpapers.

As I’m sure you can imagine, these will shortly be the backgrounds on every computer I own, and maybe some that I don’t. Wes is currently out of town—perhaps his monitor could use a little sprucing up? Or better yet—he’s always complaining about the glare from his big office windows, so I’m sure he’d prefer to have all that glass covered up by some nice color printouts...

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

Pathfinder Author Chat Next Monday!

Thursday, September 21st, 2011

Hey there, fiction fans! This coming Monday, September 26th, Pathfinder Tales author Dave Gross has set up an awesome Pathfinder Tales round table discussion in the Paizo chat room. Starting at 6:00pm PST, this is your chance to catch all of the current Pathfinder Tales novelists in one place, to offer your opinions and ask your burning questions (such as the all-important “Who would win, Elyana or Ellasif?”). The floor will be entirely open, and your questions will determine what we talk about, so drop by http://chat.dmtools.org/ on Monday night to chat with Dave Gross (Prince of Wolves, Master of Devils, Winter Witch), Elaine Cunningham (Winter Witch), Howard Andrew Jones (Plague of Shadows), Robin D. Laws (The Worldwound Gambit), and yours truly (Death’s Heretic, Fiction Editor). (Once you get there, be sure to type /join PFTales to enter the side room hosting the discussion.) It’s guaranteed to be a riotous, educational, and undeniably literary affair.

I’ll be there—will you?

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

Illustration by Kekai Kotaki

Pathfinder Fiction News and Podcast!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

It's always a good day when we get to announce the next Pathfinder Tales novel, but today is especially important for me, as today I get to announce the November release of Death's Heretic, the new Pathfinder Tales novel by—well, me!

Death's Heretic is the story of Salim Ghadafar, a desert warrior forced against his will to work as an agent of Pharasma. When a powerful merchant in Thuvia is assassinated on the eve of receiving the sun orchid elixir, an elixir capable of reversing aging, few people are surprised—after all, immortality is a risky business. Yet when the merchant's soul goes missing from Pharasma's Boneyard and a mysterious note offers to ransom the man's spirit back to his family in exchange for the elixir, it's time for the church of the death goddess to step in and find out who would dare steal from the Lady of Graves herself. With his unique skill set, Salim should be perfectly suited to the mission. There's only one problem: The investigation is being financed by the murdered aristocrat's daughter. And she wants to go with him.

Illustration by Lucas Graciano

Along with his uninvited passenger, Salim must unravel a web of intrigue that will lead them far from the blistering sands of Thuvia on a grand tour of the Outer Planes, where devils and angels rub shoulders with fey lords and mechanical men, and nothing is as it seems...

This book has been a long time in coming, and I'm obviously pretty excited to finally be able to talk about it. Yet rather than ramble on the blog (there'll be time for that closer to the release date), I'd like to direct you over to the brand new, all-Pathfinder-Tales episode of the Atomic Array podcast! In addition to talking with me about Death's Heretic and the line as a whole, Ed and Rone also interview Pathfinder Tales authors Dave Gross, Robin D. Laws, and Howard Andrew Jones. It's nearly two-hours of hard-hitting fiction questions and anecdotes regarding Pathfinder Tales, so check it out, and feel free to ask your own questions in the comments thread below!

Last but not least, we've also unveiled the final cover art for Master of Devils and Death's Heretic, painted by Lucas Graciano and Kekai Kotaki, respectively. That's all from the Pathfinder Tales front for now, but stay tuned next week for the beginning of an all-new story from Robin D. Laws as part of our free weekly web fiction!

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

Misfit Monsters Podcast

Monday, December 13, 2010

A few weeks ago, I got the chance to speak with the folks at Know Direction, a monthly podcast devoted entirely to all things Pathfinder, brought to you by the folks from 3.5 Private Sanctuary and the Tome Show. We talked at great length about Misfit Monsters Redeemed (which I had the privilege of developing), as well as the Pathfinder Chronicler fanfiction contest and Paizo's recent hires from the Pathfinder community. If you're curious about what exactly went into Misfit Monsters, head on over to the episode's webpage to listen. (The interview takes up approximately the last quarter of the show.)

For the record: That high, goofy quality to my voice is just my cell phone. I sound way manlier in person, kind of like a young James Earl Jones. Just ask Wes! (On second thought, don't ask Wes.)

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

Illustration by Tyler Walpole

Paizo Fight Song

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

If you know anything about me (and I'm not saying you should), you probably know that I'm Paizo's fiction editor as well as one of the developers. What you may not know is that, in addition to working on the campaign setting and making sure authors like Dave Gross are fed and walked regularly, I'm also a musician involved in various extracurricular bands and projects. Usually that doesn't affect my job at Paizo much, save for that one time when Jacobs and I, in the first and only performance of Operation Banjo Thug, ambushed Wes with some impromptu talkin' blues. (An experience from which he's never entirely recovered and which, without witnesses, he can't verify as having actually happened.)

A while back, however, Jacobs and I were sitting around after work talking about what a Paizo theme song would sound like. We decided that it would really need to have two distinct elements: a big industrial section like Nine Inch Nails' "Just Like You Imagined" (300 had just come out), and a classic, Conan-style orchestral piece. And of course, no soundtrack would be complete without an homage to The Omen's big choral theme, which we in the office will forever refer to as "Sawhorse Middle School," for reasons I won't go into here.

The idea never quite left my head, and a few months ago I sat down on a Saturday and decided to do something about it. The resulting track was received with much hilarity at the office—which was really what I was going for—and people ended up liking it so much that they voted to use it as the theme song for Paizo at the ENnies this year.

While it's hard not to be proud of the awards we won—Best Publisher? Best Game? It literally does not get better than that—in my secret heart, my favorite part of Gen Con this year was hearing the fight song blasted over the PA every time someone from Paizo went up to accept an award.

Now that we're home, it occurs to me: why stop there? Hopefully some of you reading this blog would be equally amused by the track. As such, I give you my attempt at a Paizo fight song, "Pathfinder Est Domine."

James L. Sutter
Fiction Editor

Before They Were Giants Now Shipping!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

They say you always hurt the ones you love, and now that Before They Were Giants is shipping from the warehouse to subscribers and bookstores everywhere, I've looked back over the last few months of the blog and realized that I've only blogged about it once. Which is astonishing when you consider that this might just be the coolest product I've ever worked on in my life.

Illustration by Kieran Yanner

Allow me to elaborate: With Planet Stories, we've published a lot of science fiction and fantasy that we felt was both fun and significant to the history of the genre. Which is why, about two years ago, I went to Erik with a proposal: what if we got together 15 of the coolest, most important SF authors alive—with an admitted bias toward the folks at the top of my own bookshelf—and convinced them to let us publish their first-ever SF short stories. In addition, we'd get new interviews from all the authors in which they would critique their own work, explaining what they know now that they wish they'd known then about writing, and giving advice for aspiring authors. It would be both an insightful look at the origins of my favorite authors (appealing to the fanboy in me) and a treasure trove of invaluable authorial advice (for which I remain a total sucker). Without question, it would be a lot of fun to put together. The real question was whether or not it was possible.

As it turns out, it was possible. Within a few weeks of beginning my quest, the anthology had expanded into an absolute powerhouse roster. While we already had good relationships with a few folks—preexisting friends of Paizo like China Miéville, Ben Bova, Nicola Griffith, and Piers Anthony—I was amazed to find just how generous and enthusiastic many of my favorite authors are. Cory Doctorow? Larry Niven? Mr. William "Invented-Internet-Culture" Gibson? Just seeing their names in my inbox was a childhood dream come true.

And now here's the result: an anthology full of advice and encouragement for writers, as well as rare early stories from your favorite authors—many that you may never have seen before, as they've lain fallow in out-of-print magazines. (For instance, when I first asked China to join the anthology, he sent me back not "Looking For Jake," which I had expected, but a bizarre post-apocalyptic short story that had been published when he was still just a kid, and which as far as my Internet research was concerned did not exist. That's the sort of discovery that can really make an editor's day.)

But I've rambled long enough. Below is the full table of contents, and I couldn't be prouder of it. If you decide to pick up a copy, be sure to head on over to the product discussion and post about it—I can't wait to hear which stories (and interviews!) are people's favorites!

• Piers Anthony: "Possible to Rue"
• Greg Bear: "Destroyers"
• Ben Bova: "A Long Way Back"
• David Brin: "Just a Hint"
• Cory Doctorow: "Craphound"
• William Gibson: "Fragments of a Hologram Rose"
• Nicola Griffith: "Mirrors and Burnstone"
• Joe Haldeman: "Out of Phase"
• China Miéville: "Highway 61 Revisited"
• Larry Niven: "The Coldest Place"
• Kim Stanley Robinson: "In Pierson’s Orchestra"
• Spider Robinson: "The Guy with the Eyes"
• R. A. Salvatore: "A Sparkle for Homer"
• Charles Stross: "The Boys"
• Michael Swanwick: "Ginungagap"

James L. Sutter
Fiction Editor

The Fabled Appendix – James L. Sutter (Part 2)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Here follows Part 2 of my interview with Editor James L. Sutter, in which he discusses his influences for Golarion's solar system, monster ecologies, and the island nation of Hermea.

James: For Golarion's solar system, I wanted to include elements of real science, because there are so many phenomena in different scientific fields, such as astronomy, that are already so bizarre as to seem magical. Erik and his love of the pulps made it a given that we'd include classic versions of the Red and Green Planets as homages to sword & planet fantasy, but for the rest of the solar system I was given more or less free reign to introduce more science fiction elements. My goal was to create a wide enough variety of worlds that you could have wildly differing SF-feeling settings without ever leaving Golarion's system. Some of them were inspired primarily by setting concepts (Liches in space suits? Try Eox. Lovecraft-esque planet of mystery? Aucturn, baby!), but others came straight out of Astronomy 101—what kind of society would evolve on a planet that's tidally locked (meaning one side always faces the sun), or one that's tidally heated? What about a planet with an eccentric orbit—could an ecology or society grow up around seasons that last not months, but years? For me, the conditions that create a crazy setting are often as interesting as the setting itself.

Similarly, when writing monster ecologies, I like to figure out how a monster could have evolved into its ecological niche in a realistic fashion. The explanation that "this monster was created by a wizard's experiment gone wrong" is fine for classics like the bulette, but it's been done way too often. When writing the entries for lizardfolk in Classic Monsters Revisited and the rust monster in Dungeon Denizens Revisited, for instance, I tried to make their ecologies as plausible as possible. There are good reasons why rust monsters don't actually exist, of course, and I'm not averse to a little magic here and there, but it's easy to let magic be a crutch if you're not careful. (I should also stress that I'm not a scientist, by any means—I just know a lot of them, and enjoy listening to them explain how my proposed ecologies butcher biological and physical laws.)

Another big influence for me is the concept of moral ambiguity—to me, the best villains are always the ones who passionately believe they're doing the right thing. The island nation of Hermea, for instance, was born out of my desire to see how a fantasy society would tackle the dicey question of eugenics. One of my roommates is a geneticist, and eugenics is a real topic of concern for him. It seems like every week or so we end up in complicated debates and thought experiments with friends about the morality and wisdom of actively seeking to "improve" humanity through science. It's an extremely touchy subject, because the word "eugenics" reminds a lot of people of the atrocities of the Holocaust, in which the concept was thinly draped over hatred and genocide. Yet at its base definition, eugenics is happening every day in commonplace medical practices like amniocentesis. So where are the lines drawn?

The question of whether or not eugenics can be used for the greater good became the core concept behind Hermea, and led to some heated inter-office debates and jokes (at some point in the campaign setting outline, someone penciled it in as "Codename: Dragon Hitler"). But in the end, the idea saw light: in Hermea, a nominally good gold dragon, in all of its wisdom, is trying to guide humanity to perfection by selectively breeding the best and brightest volunteers for their desirable traits. Whether or not this goes against his alignment is up to each individual GM to decide. Personally, I believe that eugenics happens every day, as we continue to wipe out diseases and detect genetic disorders early on. Evolution and natural selection didn't stop with the rise of civilization; the only difference is that we're now beginning to put ourselves in the driver's seat. It's an exciting time to be a human.

All in all, my inspiration comes from a little bit of fantasy, a lot of science fiction, and a lot of hard science.

Thanks for reading, Paizonians! Stay tuned for more of Paizo's Appendix N in the near future!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – James L. Sutter (Part 1)

Monday, May 18, 2009

Paizo's Appendix N returns! Now that the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook is out the door, things at the Paizo office have become just a little bit less hectic. Seizing the lull in the workload, Editor James L. Sutter generously took the time Friday morning to speak with me about his most important sources of inspiration. Just as James Jacobs's love of horror in literature and film differed greatly from Erik Mona's unquenchable thirst for pulp novels, Mr. Sutter's influences are unique within the office. Read on to find out the fantasy authors that most influenced James's game design, and learn why he enjoys mixing the peanut butter of science fiction with the chocolate of fantasy.

David: As the creator of Kaer-Maga, the notorious den of thieves, and the person most responsible for envisioning Golarion's solar system, it is clear that your influences are pretty diverse. What are your biggest sources of inspiration when creating the world of Pathfinder?

James: As far as fantasy authors go, I'd have to say that my biggest influences are China Miéville, Joel Rosenberg, and Richard Knaak. I really enjoyed Miéville's vision of a fantasy world—it's not steampunk, but more like industrial revolution fantasy. I was particularly inspired by Perdido Street Station, and how he seamlessly blended a mishmash of cultures and created a believable and vibrant city. In fact, New Crobuzon served as the primary influence for Kaer-Maga, the city I created for the module Seven Swords of Sin; it's a city of outcasts that have come together, a place where a lot of different cultures all intermingle but still manage to work.

Among other books, Joel Rosenberg wrote the "Guardians of the Flame" series, in which the main characters are literally pulled into the game world of the RPG they're playing. Those books were my first introduction to the concept of roleplaying, and as a result the world created by Rosenberg is pretty much the archetypal setting I envision for fantasy roleplaying games. Richard Knaak's "Dragonrealms" series was also very inspirational for me early on, as The Crystal Dragon was the first adult fantasy I picked up (mainly because it had a shiny holographic dragon on the cover).

More than fantasy, though, I'm primarily influenced by science and science fiction—possibly more so than anyone else at the Paizo. I think I've learned more about world building from Dan Simmons than any other author. I especially like blending magic and science, the line where one transitions into the other. When we were first creating Pathfinder, James Jacobs handed me a mostly blank outline for Varisia and told me to run with it. At first I included a lot more science fiction elements; Crystilian was originally the magical equivalent of a particle accelerator, Spindlehorn an ancient space elevator used by long-lost astronauts, and Mundatei was basically a forest of Tesla coils. We ended up working together to change most of that, which was of course the right decision, but some science fiction elements were still retained—Ember Lake, for instance, essentially functions as the place in Varisia where UFO sightings occur, with its phosphorescent, underwater bugs that form strange patterns which can only be seen from the sky.

This concludes Part 1 or my interview with James Sutter about the sources of inspiration he would include in Paizo's own Appendix N. Stay tuned for Part 2, where he discusses how hard science and science fiction continue to influence his fantasy game design, and explains how the nation code-named "Dragon Hitler" would eventually become the island of Hermea.

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern