Episode 15, at which Kate explains her revelation. They return to The Sheridan.

Yup- here it is. All of the rest of WAR, 1 hour and 25 minutes of it. The Heaven series is done. I’m rather numb.

I thank you profusely within the audio file, and will have a more well-thought-out blog post in the future. For now, take this and enjoy, and know your support means the world to me.

[private]

War Episodes 15-Epilogue

[/private]

Visible for subscribers on Oct. 10; visible to Inside Story members now.

[private]

Daniel and Kate meet Morrigan at last, and one other unexpected person.

War Episode 14

[/private]

Regular subscribers will get 12 today, 13 next weekend, and 14 the following.

In which the group in Leviathan City deal with a number of surprises.

Kate, Daniel and crew enter Leviathan city, find Barris and Ishmael, and prepare to meet the queen.

In which Barris meets a new friend and Kate, Daniel, and crew hit the water and formulate a clever plan that cannot fail.

The complete intro, the whole tragic story up to now, is done by the talented James Melzer, author of The Zombie Chronicles: Escape.

Thanks for your support in making this a thrilling series to develop!

[private]
Episode 9 (pt 1)

The lethargy, the drug, the weakness, the self loathing, the gnawing addiction, they all sloughed off Barris as he launched himself into the sky, the power from the sun returning to him in a rush that felt as if he’d been punched with something glorious.

He reflected that his earlier vow to lay off the ideas had apparently amounted to nothing, as he was still covered in refuse from the rubbish bin. He grimaced and concentrated briefly, his skin heating to hundreds of degrees to burn off the foulness.

Ash floated from his skin as he climbed higher, aiming for the underside of Meridian, dancing between the massive cables that anchored it to the ground that refused to let it rest upon it. Clouds always coalesced on the underside of the city, the moisture drawn to the mass of the buildings. Tendrils of cloud whirled around as he broke through them, his heat evaporating the water droplets immediately.

Barris paused underneath a tower on the outskirts of the city. He was tuned to all of the divine powers of the city: the founts of power that were Kate and Daniel, Fabrique and Prosper, both formerly imprisoned in Lathe, and Gamma, who had been imprisoned in the tower right below him for aeons. But now there was a new presence, and he tried to remember what he had seen when his power had been stored in the sun.

There. Right above him. The power radiated strongly female, intense hatred, and seemed to, unlike the other gods in the world, to represent two things instead of one. Very curious.

Barris left the underside of Meridian and climbed higher, eager to meet this new goddess, to see if she was like him, unknown to the others, recently freed, and in love with her own power.

The nighttime lights of Meridian caught a flash of white, and Barris persued. She was in the shape of a bird, a large white crow. Persi was the only other goddess he knew of who could fly, and she always did so in dinosaur form. Kate didn’t shapechange. Gamma traveled via weapons, and Fabrique would sooner build a flying machine. Who was this woman?

She left the lights of Meridian and flew south, with Barris behind her. He quickly caught up with her, but she closed her wings and dropped, missile-like, and pulled up a hundred feet below him. He nearly pulled up in surprise, but grinned and followed.

She turned on a wing and headed west toward the ocean, climbing as she went. He put on a burst of speed and caught up with her.
He was faster than her, and she knew it, relying on quick changes of direction and altitude to evade him. He relished the game, his burning fingers nearly closing on sooty tail feathers more than once.

The crow glanced at him once, clearly irritated, and dove again, skimming the marshlands closer to the ocean. Barris had no problem following, and gouts of steam rose from the swamps as he neared the water.

At this point he didn’t want to catch her; the chase was too much fun. He let her gain a bit of a lead, climbing again and heading southwest. He stayed under her, admiring her strength and speed. He just wanted to talk to her, why did she run away?

The ocean glittered under the TK MOON as they neared, and Barris put on some speed to end up right under her. He shot upward, then, with the intention to catch her by surprise and grab her, make her talk to him.

His fingers closed around feathers, but feathers nearly as big as his hand. He plowed into the soft feathery breast of the crow, and her now-massive wings closed around him suddenly, trapping him.

He struggled against the prison, but feathers were everywhere and he couldn’t move. He tried to increase his skin’s temperature, to burn the crow, but she grabbed his leg with her talons and sank in deep. The hotter he got, the tighter she held him.

In his panic, he didn’t realize if she held him in her wings and talons, she was no longer flying, and they hit the ocean with a massive splash and hissing steam. The crow flailed in the water, her talons dragging him under.

The dull, stifling feeling was nothing like he’d felt before, even during the day when his power had to go into the sun. His fire went out, the water clogged his pores, his eyes, his ears, his nose. He opened his mouth to scream and the water rushed in. Cold water seeped into his very bones, and he became only dimly aware that the crow had let him go, and was gone.

His waterlogged wings beat once under the waves, and then were stilled.
[/private]

[private]
Episode 8

The kids in Meridian assumed that James was the luckiest kid around. He had lived a life of excitement, true. He had been placed as a hand on his mother’s airship when her crew had either died with his father in a pirate attack, or died when they had escaped the firey fall of Dauphin.

The escape from Dauphin had been very exciting, true. Terrifying, as well. What the other kids didn’t know was that when they had fled in his mother’s signature airship, The Sheridan, two gods had stowed away aboard, taking control of the ship and ordering his mother, Alicia, to take them to Meridian, where his father had died.

James had had further adventure when he was appointed guide to the god Daniel when he visited Lathe for the first time and had to save him from the enraged goddess Fabrique. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he accompanied the gods into the Dark to fight air pirates.

And he was only ten.

James was lucky to call the god Daniel a friend. He was lucky to have the god’s blessing on him as a reward for saving him. And he was lucky to be an able crewman to his mother’s airship.

But the times when he missed his father, he didn’t feel so lucky. And the times when he missed his home in Dauphin, and his friends.

And the times when his stupid big sister, Connie, tried to pull rank on him.

Connie had done so this night. He had wanted to go into Meridian; he’d been so bored staying on The Sheridan, waiting for the gods to need transport somewhere. But Connie said that they needed an able crew member to be alert at all times, and tonight was his night. She got to go into the city with their mother to check on, oh he didn’t know. Or care. Supplies. Find out what the gods were up to. What did it matter?

The Sheridan docked at a tower in Meridian close to the central temple, but still had to be on the outskirts of the floating city. If he looked over one side, he could look into the city. The city glittered in the twilight as people began turning their lights on. The gondolas and lifts ferried people home to their gleaming tower apartments, or took them to restaurants and theaters. They went about their lives, living in the sky, with no idea what was going on around them, without realizing the gods were among them.

James didn’t like looking over the city. He preferred to turn his back to it and stare over the barren land below, into the hills and the Dark. He hoped if he looked far enough into the dark, he would see where the moon had run off to and he could find her and convince her to come back.

Being able to watch the skies had been his favorite part about flying. He had spent his allowance on books about the heavens, learning about the constellations of Fenrir, the Diving Mother, the Big Rock Candy Mountain, and Kate’s Heart. He had been amazed to meet Barris, the sun god, and was disappointed to say the least.

He still hoped that they would meet Cotton, the moon goddess, and wondered why the moon had been gone these many days. The ground had rumbled when it had left, something he’d heard instead of felt, as he’d been in the air when it happened. The hint of ocean he could see to the west did not gleam as it once did, as the tides had ceased. He wondered how the animals were faring.
The moon had been his favorite, and he missed her terribly. She had waxed and waned like him – crushing blows and huge excitements, being treated like a kid and being given airship crewman responsibilities, getting to meet the gods who created you and then learning they had as many flaws – maybe more – than you did.

James sighed, longing for the moon, and stared into the Dark as night fell. A large, soot-smudged bird landed on the railing a couple of feet from him. It looked like a crow, only it was white. He frowned at it.

“Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The crow opened its wicked beak and cawed once, loudly. James winced at the sound.

“You wont find any food here. My sister would kill me if she found me feeding the chicken gun ammo to a crow. Go away.” He waved his hand half-heartedly at the bird.

The bird didn’t spook, but just hopped about six inches toward him on the railing and cawed again.

James squinted at it. The bird cocked its head and ruffled its feathers. It fixed its eye on him, and he was astonished to see it wasn’t beady and black, but white and luminous. Its eyes actually glowed in the shadows.

“What…?” asked James, still staring at the eye and relaxing against the airship railing.

The bird took another hop closer.

#

The boy was gorgeous. Morrigan had not had much experience with men – she knew the sun was male, and had longed to meet him, as she was the sole person who could see his true form at night, and reflect that beauty back onto the world. But she had never met him.

The lost souls in the underworld had flavors of male or female, but none had become a companion, a friend, or lover. The loneliness of captivity had been stifling to the goddess, but now that she had her freedom, the barriers raised by her disfigurement were maddening.

This boy, however, looked at her with curiosity. Interest. His eyes were a warm brown, bright and intelligent. His face was round, innocent, and complimented by a beautiful mouth. His skin was a dark brown that you commonly found in Dauphin, not Meridian, and she wondered where he had come from. Why he lived on an airship, and why he seemed to hold himself with more confidence than other boys she’d seen.

This boy would understand her. This boy would listen. He would curl up in her lap during the day, and be her servant and right hand man at night. When he became a man, he would be her lover.

But first, to join her in her new home, he would have to die.

Morrigan let him watch her, captivated, for a moment more, and then she took flight, spiraling up and up, ignoring his pleas for her to return.

#

As the sun dipped low, the rare rays touching the glass and metal buildings of Lathe, a voice groaned from behind inside a rubbish bin tethered to the rear of a grocer.

Sewer and trash issues were not discussed in Meridian and Lathe. Meridian residents paid a great amount of taxes that went toward the creation of machines to transport or transform their trash, and a year of tax revenue had gone toward the huge water cleansing building, where all waste water from the city ran through for purification. The waste collected was also transformed by some of the better tinkers. The upper class snobs of Meridian joked that the waste was transformed into bricks that Lathe residents used to build, but no one really knew.

Barris knew, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone. Secrets were all he had.

Well, secrets and a massive idea hangover.

He was planning on using one idea to take the edge off, and save the rest in case Daniel and Kate wanted to drag him off on another ridiculous rescue.

Unfortunately the second bad idea was, “To fully experience something it is best to consume all you can at once.” That one blew his mind to the extent that he stumbled for the nearest place to hide to consume the other three ideas, and was out for the day. Now, with the great fireball that was the focus of all his power ebbing, he stood shakily in the bin, rotten vegetables dropping off him. He clutched his head, too full of ideas to comprehend any of them, and wondered what day it was.

The sun slipped below the horizon at that moment, and Barris transformed.

[BARRIS AND THE MOON FIGHT] [/private]

This is a premium podcast until June 1. If you are not yet an Inside Story subscriber, then check out the benefits here, and you can register for the site and pay through Paypal all in the right hand sidebar. Handy, huh?

For Inside Story members, to subscribe to the podcast, you need to log into the site (at right). If you’ve paid me money for an Inside Story subscription, you are already in the system as a Member. After you log in, you will see “Your Profile and Custom RSS Feed”. Follow that link to the RSS feed that will work for you and ONLY you. It’s your very own! Yay!

Did I end it on a cliffhanger? You bet I did.

[private]Miss the earlier PDF?

War V .02[/private]

This is a premium podcast until June 1. If you are not yet an Inside Story subscriber, then check out the benefits here, and you can register for the site and pay through Paypal all in the right hand sidebar. Handy, huh?

For Inside Story members, to subscribe to the podcast, you need to log into the site (at right). If you’ve paid me money for an Inside Story subscription, you are already in the system as a Member. After you log in, you will see “Your Profile and Custom RSS Feed”. Follow that link to the RSS feed that will work for you and ONLY you. It’s your very own! Yay!

Previously, in Heaven…

[private]
The group of Kate, Daniel, their airship crew, and the new gods Barris, Fabrique and Gamma, had survived a battle with airship pirates. During the battle in the wasteland, known locally as the Dark, they discovered that their divine powers don’t work as well in the raw chaos energy that is the Wasteland, but also that the Wasteland is a path they can take to return to Heaven and Hell to free the places from the otherworldly beast’s siege.

They return to the temples in the floating city of Meridian (that floats above the mad city of Lathe) in order to make a battle plan. In this episode we learn something startling about Barris, the sun god, who is developing a little too much liking for the ideas sold below in Lathe…

War V.01[/private]