by Escape Artists Foundation
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April 15, 2025
<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * Author : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/filip-hajdar-drnovsek-zorko/">Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko</a><br /> * Narrator : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/yaroslav-barsukov/">Yaroslav Barsukov</a><br /> * Host : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/kaitlyn-zivanovich/">Kaitlyn Zivanovich</a><br /> * Audio Producer : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/eric-valdes/">Eric Valdes</a><br /> * <br /> <a href="http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?board=57.0"> Discuss on Forums</a><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Previously published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies<br /> <br /> <br /> Rated PG-13<br /> The Cuckoo of Vrežna Mountain<br /> by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko<br /> <br /> I realised I was in love with Ivor the day he went up the mountain to speak with the goddess.<br /> We were at that age when the affectionate ease of childhood tips over into something different, when every touch could be the casual brush of friendship or something more and I would never know in advance which was which. There were many times, in those days, when Ivor would take my hands in his, larger and warmer and smooth with the orange-blossom oil he rubbed into them; and I would jerk away with some hasty apology and adjust my trousers while he was not looking. To this day, I find the smell of oranges arousing at the most inopportune times, of which, in a town known for its citrus trees, there are uncomfortably many.<br /> Which is to say that it was not entirely unexpected, this matter of my being in love with him, except insofar as I had never considered the option until it was upon me; and if we had been boys further up the coast, away from the Oracle and her mountain, perhaps this would have been a cause for celebration: the sort of slow exploration of love and youth that ends, mutually, in a friendship deeper than it was before.<br /> But Ivor was a scion of the city Vrežna, and his mother Silva was a devout woman. Her ways were the old ways, and that was why I awoke early one morning to climb a mountain with Ivor and wait out the dew, wait out the dawn, wait out the moment he emerged from the goddess’s temple a betrothed man.<br /> The temple stood facing the sea, the bulk of the mountain shielding it from the town below. It was a simple structure, columned and open to the elements with a tall pointed roof. Inside, the floor was given over to a shallow pool of water that was a hand deep at most. There was no altar. The Oracle did not accept gifts.<br /> Ivor splashed through the water like a man born to the task. Silva and I remained outside, but the demarcation was immaterial. The Oracle’s temple was curiously small. It was easy to see everything that went on inside. Vrežna’s people claim that only those born within sight of her mountain could see the Oracle’s physical form. I do not know if this is true. I do know that until that day, until I looked at the thing slumped at Ivor’s feet, I had never seen anything in the temple.<br /> It was a woman, slumped against the shallow steps rimming the pool. Her skin was the same light brown as Ivor’s but mottled with pale splotches, like someone had spilled ink that sapped colour rather than granted it. Her open eyes were an even grey. She looked as though dead, I thought, until her lips opened around an indrawn breath.<br /> “How strange,” Silva said to me, and it took me a moment to realise that she was not looking inside the temple, not speaking of the woman lying there, “to stand with one of the Godless on the Oracle’s mountain. Or perhaps three dead gods is not enough for you? Would you strike down our Vrežna, given the chance?”<br /> She said it as if she had not herself stamped the permission form that allowed a non-Vrežni access to the mountain.<br /> “Two dead gods,” I murmured. “The third survives.”’<br /> “Even worse! Yours are not the only people to suffer the death o...
April 8, 2025
<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * Author : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/cynthia-zhang/">Cynthia Zhang</a><br /> * Narrator : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/curtis-c-chen/">Curtis C. Chen</a><br /> * Host : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/shingai-njeri-kagunda/">Shingai Njeri Kagunda</a><br /> * Audio Producer : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/eric-valdes/">Eric Valdes</a><br /> * <br /> <a href="http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?board=57.0"> Discuss on Forums</a><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> PodCastle 886: Houyi the Archer Fights the Sun is a PodCastle original.<br /> <br /> <br /> Rated PG-13<br /> Houyi the Archer Fights the Sun<br /> by Cynthia Zhang<br /> <br /> “I,” Houyi the Archer says one bright August afternoon when the thermometers hit 103 and the teenagers crack eggs on the sidewalk to see if they’ll fry, “am going to fight the sun.”<br /> “Husband,” says Chang’E, three thousand years into immortality and long past reacting to these types of statements, “please do not fight the sun. We only have the one left, and most people would not appreciate having it gone.”<br /> “Some might, though.” Above them, the ceiling fan whirls, valiantly trying to assuage the heat. The maintenance company, when Houyi called, gave the next available date for fixing the air conditioning as Monday, which — while not too far away — is crucially not today. “The tanuki pack in Arlington Heights or all those hipster vamp kids in Logan Square, I’m sure they’d come down to personally thank me. Besides, I didn’t say I was going to kill the sun. Just rough it up a little, teach it a few lessons about respect.”<br /> “A truly terrifying prospect. Gods and men tremble at your approach, naught but the bravest of heroes can dare but stand when you draw near.” On her Sudoku puzzle, Chang’E pencils in a seven, frowns, and then erases it. “Humans have lived thousands of years without air conditioning, Houyi. We can survive a few days.”<br /> “Aiyah, but that was thousands of years ago, before we had electricity and coal and acid in our rain. This sun’s been getting far too bold, I say. In the old days, I would already have a fast mount and a full quiver to chase the whelp down.”<br /> “If you are mulling over old battles,” Chang’E says, “perhaps it would be better if you had something else to occupy your mind.” Placing her Sudoku book on the coffee table, she stands up. “I have a task for you, my husband.”<br /> The effects of these words are instant. “A task, is it? Well! Let’s have it. What is it you need, my best beloved? The first fallen feather from a newborn phoenix, a sprig of new buds from the world tree, the last dried slices from this millennia’s crop of divine peaches on Kunlun Mountain?”<br /> “Something like that.” Chang’E takes her purse off the wall hook, smooths down an errant wrinkle in her dress. “We are in need of groceries once more, my beloved. I would appreciate your help in seeing this task to completion.”<br /> “In this weather? Do you care so little for your husband that you would have him roasted to ashes?”<br /> “I care enough for my husband that I would not have him starve, yes. Besides, we’ll be spending most of the time indoors, and the stores have air conditioning.”<br /> “The trials we must brave in this cruel world,” Houyi says, sighing as he reaches for his cane. “To think that after all our years of service, this is how the world repays its heroes of lore: with broken air conditioning and technicians unavailable until Monday.”<br /> “Don’t forget to put on sunscreen,” Chang’E says, checking her sunhat in the hallway mirror. “You may have bested his brothers before, but the sun is still a formidable foe.”<br /> <br /> Houyi, dutifully trundling their shopping cart across narrow sidewalks and cracked asphalt, is sweating by the time they reach Tai Hwa Market. On instinct,
April 1, 2025
<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * Author : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/si-wang/">Si Wang</a><br /> * Narrator : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/shingai-njeri-kagunda/">Shingai Njeri Kagunda</a><br /> * Host : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/matt-dovey/">Matt Dovey</a><br /> * Audio Producer : <a href="https://podcastle.org/people/devin-martin/">Devin Martin</a><br /> * <br /> <a href="http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?board=57.0"> Discuss on Forums</a><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> PodCastle 885: Prisoners is a PodCastle original.<br /> <br /> <br /> Rated PG<br /> Prisoners<br /> by Si Wang<br /> <br /> The fortress was as large as a city and empty as a dried-up well. During the days, I followed a tattered map annotated by many hands and took many wrong turns through cramped hallways, treacherous stairways, and rusty gates. At night, I couldn’t sleep. Resting on the cold, stone floor, I clutched a delicate metal ringlet weighed down by heavy keys, worried I might lose it.<br /> After five days, the claustrophobic ceiling finally opened up into a courtyard. The air was cold and fresh. The full moon illuminated a cloudy sky. At the center of the courtyard, a rusty cage hung a few feet off the ground — just enough distance so that the man’s feet couldn’t touch the stone floor. The man was as gaunt as the cage. They were one and the same with the way he sat: motionless, his thin arms wrapped around the bars, his thin legs protruding from the bottom.<br /> He slept with a shallow breath, now and then shuddering and whimpering. His eyes fluttered open, and he groaned.<br /> “Who’s there?” he said weakly in an accent I had not heard in a long time. Although his hair was jet black and his face free of wrinkles, the frailty of his words made him appear a hundred years old. He straightened up and said more firmly, “What do you want?” The illusion broke, and he looked like a much younger man. He looked familiar, like a childhood friend.<br /> I tried to control the excitement in my voice and hide the reason I was there. “When I heard about you, I had to come see for myself.”<br /> “Who are you?”<br /> “I’m the Queen.”<br /> His face was impassive. “Is that so? Come closer — I can’t see very well.”<br /> I stepped forward, a breath away from his reach.<br /> His eyes studied me. My red silk gown flowed as smoothly as ocean waves, the jewels in my hair gleamed in the moonlight, and the perfume on my feet smelled of petrichor. The chaos priest had painted the penumbral edge of judgment on my forehead. The heavy set of keys hung on my belt.<br /> “Are you going to free me?” he said and laughed bitterly.<br /> “That was my intention, but first, I have some questions for you.”<br /> “You would have brought guards if you intended to free me. I’ve had this conversation countless times with countless people. I don’t know the answer to what you’re looking for. You’re wasting your time.”<br /> “You’ll find it hard to believe how much time I’ve already spent trying to find you.”<br /> “Your forebears wanted the same thing. Whatever means they used, it always ended the same way: they died, and I am still here, locked up in this cage.”<br /> “They were not my forebears.”<br /> The man’s eyebrow arched. “A revolution then? That must be quite a story.”<br /> “Allow me three questions. That is all I ask.”<br /> He looked tired. He shifted his legs and grimaced. “And you’ll free me afterward?”<br /> “That depends on your answers.”<br /> The man sneered and nodded. “Of course.”<br /> “Why were you put into this cage?” I asked.<br /> “I stole a piece of bread,” he said, “Next question.”<br /> “I was told you didn’t need food to survive.”<br /> “The bread wasn’t for me.”<br /> The man’s eyes were like dark pools of water where the depths were deeper than the ocean, and I couldn’t see below the surface.<br /> “Please, tell me more.
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