Putting Your Work Through the Mill: The Submissions Grinder

“Arriving in Tabat: A Visitor’s Guide,” being Pamphlet #12 of the second series of A Visitor’s Guide to Tabat, Spinner Press, author unknown.

No traveler notices the same thing about the city of Tabat when they first see it. For one, it may be the sparkle of sunlight on the harbor and the way the great ship’s shadows glide beside them in the water. For another it may be the lines of the Great Tram and its companions, the vast iron baskets that, suspended from cables, carry passengers up and down the city’s terraces. Or the tiles that adorn most of the roof, a vague gray purple or green in color, made from clay from the marshes to the east of the city.

But how you enter the city will affect your view. You may come by ship, from the Old Continent or the Southern Isles, or even farther aboard, and your first view will be the city’s terraces, sloping down to the harbor’s protected bowl.
If you come from the opposite side, traveling down the Northstretch River and arriving at the river docs, you’ll see the terraces from above, marked with the silver lines of the trams and the green stripe of the Heart Garden cutting across them.

A few come on foot across the marshes on Tabat’s eastern edge, but they are haunted by water-horses and crocodiles, and dangerous for any who do not know the tricks of surviving there.

Of late, experiments with demon-powered dirigibles have provided a new vista to the city, although available only to those who hold the Duke’s favor. Who knows what new sights the city will present from that angle?

But no matter how it looks to you, know that you have come to Tabat, the most wonderful city in the world.

***
Love this world and want to spend longer in it? Check out Hearts of Tabat, the latest Tabat novel! Or get sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, snippets of work in progres, and more via Cat’s Patreon.

• Hearts of Tabat on Amazon
• Hearts of Tabat on Baen Books
• Hearts of Tabat on B&N
• Hearts of Tabat on Kobo
• Hearts of Tabat on Powell’s
• Hearts of Tabat on Smashwords

#sfwapro

This is the steampunk world (Altered America) I’ve been writing in lately, and I’m pleased to say Beneath Ceaseless Skies just took another of the stories set in it, “So Little Comfort.” The title of this story is “Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, Where Do You Wander?”

She was awake. She jolted upright, disturbing Laurel, who said something drowsily. Jemina stroked her hair with her right hand, settled the child back into her lap. Her heart still hammered uncomfortably.

She looked out the window into the darkness and could see only the reflection of the car’s interior for a moment. Then as her eyes picked out detail, she saw the stars hanging far overhead, the blaze of the Milky Way, a curdle of starlight spilling over the plains that rolled out as far as the eye could see.

Chuggadrum, chuggadrum, the sound of the wheels underfoot, the everpresent vibration working its way through her body as they hurtled through the night towards Seattle.

They’d promised her a laboratory of her own. A budget. Assistants.

Things she could do without interference. That was worth a lot, for a woman in a field that held so few other of her sex.

“I have nightmares sometimes too,” Laurel said.

Jemina’s hand sleeked over the curve of Laurel’s skull, cloth sliding over glossy hair.
“We all do.”

“What are yours about?”

“The war. What about yours?”

Laurel lay silent so long that Jemina thought she had gone back to sleep. But finally she said, “How my parents died.”

Jemina’s fingers stilled as though frozen. She waited.

“We were in the house and they came,” Laurel said. “My uncle said they were supposed to stay on the battlefield and no one knew they went the wrong way.”

Her voice was subdued, thoughtful.

“It would have been all right, but papa heard them at the door and he went and opened it. That was how they got in.”

Jemina saw in her mind’s eye, despite her attempt to force it away, the scene: the man mowed down, devoured with that frightening completeness that zombies had, before they moved on to the rest of the house…

“How did you get away?” she asked.

“I jumped out the window and ran away. I tried to get my brother first, but it was too late, so I ran.”

“Your brother?”

“He was just a baby. He couldn’t run.” Laurel moved her head in slow negation. “Too late.”

Jemina closed her eyes, feeling the story wrenching at her heart.

These things happened in war. They were sad, yes, but unavoidable.

The wheels screeched as the train unexpectedly slowed. Both of them sat up to look out the window.

“Whose are those men?” Laurel asked.

“I don’t know.” But she suspected the worst, given the fact that the group had their bandanas tugged up around their faces, that many had pistols or Springfield rifles in their hands.

“They’re bandits!” Laurel’s voice was excited.

“Yes,” Jemina admitted.

They waited. Around them, everyone was abuzz, but stayed in their seats.

The front door of the car swung open and two men entered, both holding pistols, red cloth masking everything except their eyes. Both were hatless, their stringy hair matted with dust and sweat.

“We’re looking for a fellow name of J. Iarainn,” one called to the car at large. “You here, Mr. Iarainn? If not, I’m going to start shooting people one by one, cause according to the manifest, you’re in this car.”

Jeminia held up a hand. “I am Jemina Iarainn.”

Her gender astonished them. They squinted at her before exchanging glances.

“You’re headed to Seattle and the War Institute to work? Some kinda necromancery?”

“Yes to Seattle, yes to the War Institute. No to necromancy. I hold joint degrees in medicine and engineering, specializing in artificial limbs.”

Exasperation kept her calm. Why should these dunces not believe a female scientist could exist? And necromancy — she was, by far, tired of that label. She worked with devices for the products of such technology, but she wielded the forces of science, of steam and electricity and phlogiston.