The End Did I succeed in my efforts with The Raiselig Dossier? An interesting question to think about, for me. A lot of my intent was to play around in a world, to take a specific “what if” and drag it to its logical conclusion. What would a magical fantasy world be like, if magic were legislated to near extinction? Because that’s what became obvious, as I wrote. More and more the magical beings and spells of the ancient times faded away, not because “the world has moved on,” but because the laws of magic themselves became too onerous.

After a goodly time, Raiselig sat on a rock. The rock was beside the road. It was a diversion Raiselig had not given themself in some time. Nevertheless, the road and the rock. Down and up the road lay in different directions than either down or up. Indeed, their only relation to each other was direct opposition. It had always bothered Raiselig, more-so that it didn’t seem to bother anyone else.

February 15, 2015 Facebook successfully acquires Twitter in the largest tech merger in world history. Before the end of the business day, the number of Facebook accounts passes the two-billion mark. Researchers guess that of the two billion accounts, only 1.2 billion users actually exist. The rest are duplicates, dummy accounts, or inactive. April 6, 2015 The Jericho Hack strikes the Internet. Two million people find their names, addresses, family trees, place of work, salaries, blood type, allergies, favorite foods, medical histories, and sexual preferences posted to the Internet.

The Kingdom of Tyw stood tall and proud against the white hills. From atop the king’s tallest tower, the whole of the horizon was his to call his own. There were no other rulers who dared challenge his might, nor who chafed too harshly under his rule. The people of Tyw were hearty and strong, and unified in their delight of the one thing that was their birthright; life itself.

Time passed, as it ever did. It is a joke — or perhaps if not a joke, a shared understanding — between the Scriveners that the world was like a scale nested on by an indecisive bird. The seasons changed, the herds migrated, wars and festivals were held with equal amounts of enjoyment and obligation… And then the bird hopped to the other side of the scale, and it all began again.

The letter was written on dry leather. It was written with black ink taken from the glands of a deep-sea monster. It was shaped with a pen carved from the finger-bone of a dead god. It was dusted with the sands made from ancient cities long since crumbled away. The wax of the seal was made from the blood of a man who had been hanged for killing his lover in fear of what she had birthed, and mixed with the rendered fat of a stillborn horse.

July 2, 2012 MIT and University of British Columbia scientists develop a new method of treating disease using tiny capsules containing DNA and other biological machinery for making a drug. The nanoscale production units are tiny spheres encapsulating synthetic RNA like that found in living cells. The resulting nanoparticles produce active proteins on demand when the researchers shine a laser light on them. August 3, 2012 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants approval for “ingestible sensors” invented by Proteus Digital Health.

Raiselig was walking before they even felt the tug. Their feet were moving once more before they even knew which direction to go. It didn’t matter, their feet knew. They had only felt such a pull some time before; a darker time in their life. They had hoped to never feel it again. A small piece of their mind was grateful they had not been studying some finer point in case law or researching important precedent, lest they had been forced to leave important documentation behind.

Hollis set his youngest down and handed his spade to his eldest. “I will be back before dark,” he said. “Keep working the rows until they are clean, and then help your sister feed the cows.” His eldest nodded, taking the spade with reverence and not a little fear. His children had learned from a young age not to touch their father’s tools. To be given the responsibility, even though it was not the first time, held weight.

When Hollis was a young boy, he wanted to work with his father in the fields. He saw men and women both young and old toil in the rich earth, growing green plants and roots that became delicious and nourishing meals. In his young mind, farming was what his people did, and he wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to join in. He didn’t know that was what he wanted, he just knew he wanted his own spade, his own hoe, his own water-pail.