Arden Waithe never wanted to be on the boat. Or any boat. His experience had taught him that sailing was misery cubed. The rolling of the ground that never stopped, rising and falling, clenched his stomach inside an iron fist even as it spun his conscious…

I was left with a choice. I could go back and use my skills to get the rest of the family safely to the caldera to find out if they were worthy of entry, or I could give up and enter the caldera myself. Operations dealt with 'leaders' who couldn't do the …

When my eyes grew too heavy, I listened.

My contact with the stone made a tiny scraping sound whenever I shifted weight. Small brush and greenery rustled beyond the confines of the climbing road. Above my head what once felt like a claustrophobic cloud b…

At the broken rail, I stopped.

My head spun, it was difficult to focus. I could not stand. My tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth. Thirst was a constant fire in my chest.

I sat, took off my sandals, crossed my legs, and waited.

From the start, I had…

By the third day, or at least after my third extended rest, I knew something was wrong.

I woke as usual to the appearance of lighter fog, but discarded the idea as wishful thinking. The light never changed here. Slinging my bag, I set my foot upon the ne…

Without confidence, I judged that it was my second day on the stair, and I was running low on food and water. Many of my supplies were sinking somewhere down in the valley mires. I shuddered at the memory of my escape.

When the twilit grey dulled, I rest…

After the Shadowed Valley, at the foothills of Mount Piru, I first saw the Ten Thousand Stares.

That is the literal translation. It is in fact a staircase, older than memory. Starkly simple yet curiously elegant grey slabs of stone, with matching baniste…

I was sitting on a bench. It was cold. The weather, not the bench. Though because the bench was made of a thick, stone slab, it too was cold, not that it is worth noting.

This was a strange place. Lights, people, strange writing that I had never seen bef…