Archive for "Archive"
The Lie
Even as Baska's eyes registered familiar market stalls, vendors, and the glimpse of customers and goods flashing past in a blur, he felt the initial stabs of pain in his lungs. His feet slapped at the cold ground, no longer the lithe running legs of the shadow boy he had been. Still, he knew these streets, corners, and alleys better than the man that chased him, and he had an incentive to speed his legs: he ...
A Slight Danger
The wind was blowing straight up the Coldwell, and carrying a fine mist that soaked everything it touched. Tethered to the pier by a single line, the barge shook as irregular waves battered the hull. The deck hands, overburdened with cargo, had no time to steady the gangway for the few passengers boarding. Some of these hardy travelers threaded the bucking plank with relative ease. Others were not as practiced. One such person had almost reached the relative safety of ...
Dargonzine 24-2 Editorial
The city of Dargon has always been thought of, by the authors, as a somewhat rough region. It's a backwater town located hundreds of leagues (miles) from the capital city of Magnus. As the northernmost point on the continent, and protected by the Darst Range of mountains, it is difficult to access by both sea and land. As such, The Law is a combination of both the King's Rule, and what men make of it. This ...
Facing Fears
"How have they driven away their fear?" Cefn an'Derin paced back and forth in his small library. His gaze swept back and forth across his collection of books, scrolls, tablets, and other documents. He knew that the answer he was looking for was in one of his many manuscripts, but which one? Cefn had witnessed a man dying in the street, right before his eyes, apparently from sheer fear. He had also witnessed very unusual behavior from a number of the city's ...
Undercurrents
Nilson kicked a piece of wood the size of his fist with his right foot as he made his way along Main Street. It flew several feet forward and nearly hit a bulky man walking in front of him. When he reached the piece of wood, he kicked it again. This time it hit a tree by the side of the road. "Watch it!" a voice behind him called out, but Nilson paid no attention. He kicked the wood again when ...
Dargonzine 24-1 Editorial
Welcome to Dargonzine's new website! As you can see from the "Pardon Our Dust" post to the left it is still very much a work in progress. Or, if you're reading this editorial as part of a full-text email or RSS feed of this issue, you have no idea what I am talking about, and might feel inclined to scroll right past this to get to the great new stories in this issue. If that's the case, I would encourage ...
Dargonzine 23-4 Editorial
Welcome back, readers! It's a new year, 2011. And this year, I want to start by talking about leadership, specifically the leadership of this Project. No, I'm not talking about me. As the Editor, my job is quite simple -- I arbitrate over any issues that arise, and I help determine which stories go in the print queue, although I haven't had to perform the latter task since I took the helm: Liam Donahue is the ...
The Far Patrol
The village of Marrack's Crossing was aptly named. It amounted to little more than a gathering of houses at the meeting of two roads: a large trade road that led southeast from Dargon to Narragan and a smaller road that crossed it. Cael regarded the village from a hill he had just ascended. It sat nestled in the small valley between his hill and another, beside a large pond. This was his first glimpse of the place where he ...
Hubris
Tanbry Cortinas walked across the yard outside the retired stables being used by the Esoterics as their base of operations and living quarters. The morning was fresh and carried an excited energy on the northern wind coming in from the Valenfaer Ocean. Dyann Taishent, Dargon's preeminent mage, was walking with haste the opposite side of the courtyard to meet her. "My dear Tanbry, are you alright? Kalen sent a guard to my house this morning and told me you had returned to ...
8 Must-Have WordPress Plug-ins for a Fiction Blog
If you manage a fiction blog in Wordpress, you know the challenges of getting the right plug-ins to get the functionality you want. I work for a non-commercial e-zine, DargonZine, and we recently decided to make the move from a custom-built PHP/HTML system to a more robust environment (ie Wordpress). While doing so, we realized that we had some specific needs that Wordpress didn't offer out of the box. Enter Plug-ins, Wordpress' way to extend functionality with a simple click. ...