Clovenhoof

by Heide Goody

  Justine sighed at that. The chances of her owning a dress like this were nil. She really wanted to enjoy it for a little while longer.

  But this was the only one. She looked down at it again, and considered the laptop in front of her. She could borrow it for a little while and then give it back. It would be helpful research for Serge. She quietly closed the laptop and picked it up. Serge was still making expansive gestures over the rooftops. It had to be now. Justine padded quietly from the room and then scuttled down the stairs without looking back.

  To read the rest of The Million Dollar Dress please follow the link:

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Million-Dollar-Dress-ebook/dp/B008GE3KRW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343371752&sr=8-1

  The Machine By Tom Aston

  THE MACHINE by Tom Aston, is an adventure thriller - a stunning page-turner starring the unlikely Professor of Peace, Ethan Stone.

  Stone is ex-SAS turned peace activist - a cool customer, with a hard, sarcastic edge. But under the laconic exterior, Stone is a troubled individual, constantly forced to face up to the demons of his violent past. Sceptical, radical, contrary – but with the eyes of a man who has done terrible things.

  Steven Semyonov is a 29 year-old tech billionaire. But that’s not why everyone wants to meet him. Billionaires, after all, are commonplace. They want to meet Semyonov because he is the cleverest man alive.

  So when Semyonov gives up his billions in California and defects to China, never to return, there must be a reason. That reason is something called the Machine.

  Ethan Stone now runs an anonymous leaks web site, called NotFutile.com. When a mysterious video clip appears through the site, Stone believes he has stumbled on Semyonov’s secret. He flies to Hong Kong in pursuit, but the dark forces around Semyonov are ready for him, and he finds himself hunted for murder. He is forced to use every ounce of his cunning to survive, and his resolve to put his violent past in Special Forces behind him is tested to the limit. Stone goes undercover with a spiky Chinese dissident woman, travelling deeper and deeper into China to evade the Gong An Public Security Bureau, and track down the truth about Semyonov and the Machine.

  Read the opening chapter here and if you enjoy it, the novel is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Ethan-Stone-Thriller-ebook/dp/B008BUHC1Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340967139&sr=8-1

  Chapter 1 - 4:04pm 21 March, San Jose, California

  The conference hall was overflowing with journalists. Junko Terashima had covered some big stuff in her short time as a reporter with Global News Network, but she’d never known a press conference build so much excitement, so much buzz. All the big guys were here - MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News, BBC, Washington Post. Junko felt like what she was – a rookie reporter, a small, willowy Japanese girl. But this was her moment. She was there to make the news, not just report it. Her stomach fluttered with nerves.

  The VP of Communications for SearchIgnition Technologies looked tiny in her neat grey suit as she rose to introduce The Man. Steven Semyonov, billionaire founder of SearchIgnition – loved, admired… revered. Four-metre TV screens at either side carried her image as she read a short introduction.

  ‘Steven Semyonov is well known to everyone here...’

  Not as well known as you think, Missy, thought Junko.

  ‘One of the three founders of SearchIgnition, Steven Semyonov is the brains behind the world’s most powerful search system, now used by all four major search engines in the US and countless others across the world. I’ll give you just one statistic today, ladies and gentlemen. Steven Semyonov’s technology is used daily by over ninety per cent of web users across the globe...’

  The screens were now showing a close up of The Man, Semyonov, seated beside the diminutive VP. The intro was superfluous, of course. Semyonov’s face was known to everyone in the room and to billions more besides.

  ‘As Chief Software Architect of SearchIgnition,’ said the VP, reading from an autocue, ‘Steven has been a driving force in taking SI from start-up to a corporation valued at eighty billion dollars in just seven years...’

  The big screen zoomed further in. Semyonov’s features were indeed familiar to everyone. Because they were unique – his face and head entirely smooth and hairless – like an overgrown baby. The hi-def screen showed his wide, fleshy face had no jowl or wrinkle. The word was “sleek”, thought Junko, forming her next chunk of copy in her mind. Like a sleek, overgrown piglet, babyish and pink, with intense, red eyes... There was no stubble on his chin, just pale, downy hair. His teeth looked small in his big face, but what caught the camera were his eyes. The TV screens zoomed in on his preternaturally red eyes intimidating the throng with his intelligence, like an inscrutable Buddha of white jade.

  ‘It is with great regret that I tell you…’ The spokeswoman’s voice was cracking with emotion, and it wasn’t an act. ‘That Steven Semyonov is stepping down from SearchIgnition, the business he did so much to create...’ She went on for a few more sentences, but she looked as thunderstruck as anyone in that room, and by the time she sat down, she was dabbing at the corner of her eye.

  Before the words had sunk in, Semyonov himself stood up to speak, looking suddenly huge beside the tiny spokeswoman. Behind him the four-metre screens were filled again with his pink face and penetrating eyes. Not a wrinkle or stress line, thought Junko, for the second time. Half the world knew that face, but no one else knew what she did. She’d done nothing for three months but dig up details on Semyonov. She’d nearly lost her job over it. After today, she almost certainly would.

  The predictable questions rolled in from the journalists. ‘What drove you to leave the firm you loved?’, ‘Does this signal the end for SearchIgnition?’, ‘Is this a new phase for the Web?’, ‘What new technologies excite you?’

  Junko felt her heart beat faster as she raised her hand to ask a question. He’d see her and pick her out, she was sure of that. He had an eye for attractive women. He’d pick her out, but he’d never guess what she was going to ask. There was a prickle of sweat on the nape of her neck.

  Semyonov’s answers to the journalists were smooth, articulate, delivered with a knowing smile in his relaxed baritone. Even predictable answers sounded surprising and witty. There was laughter, occasionally some applause. A bravura performance. Not for the first time, Semyonov had hardened journalists eating out of his hand.

  What about the fights with his co-founders? The fundamental disagreements? Even with the most searching question, Semyonov seemed honest and disarming. The slender Japanese girl felt intimidated by his intelligence. Everyone believes him, Junko thought. Everyone believes him. But will anyone believe me?

  Junko stood with a set smile and her hand raised. She’d never felt this nervous. It was the unknown that scared her. So much had been written about Semyonov, but so little was known. How had he done all these things? As well as SearchIgnition, he’d built his own super-efficient electric sports car. He was testing a high-altitude jet engine to fly planes into space. And the eyes – those eyes seemed to scan the room like an alien intelligence.

  Junko’s heart thumped hard as finally Semyonov’s red eyes found hers across the room. He nodded, expressionless, to take her question.

  ‘Junko Terashima, GNN News Network, Washington DC...’ she began, sounding breathless. Semyonov’s gaze lasered her as she spoke. But he had no idea what was coming. Her question was going to land in front of Steven Semyonov like a red-hot hand grenade.

  To read the rest of the Machine, please go to Amazon page:

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Ethan-Stone-Thriller-ebook/dp/B008BUHC1Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340967139&sr=8-1

  A Gateway Made Of Bone by Iain Grant

  Coming in 2013...

  The Seelie Court controls an empire of a thousand suns, each world linked to the next by the black oneirium gateways of the Sacred Guild of Gatemakers. While the empire plunders the conquered worlds to stave off its own destruction, Edenist rebels fight for independence. Caugh
t somewhere in between is Celandine Brey, orphan, apprentice gatemaker and key to a treasure of untold wealth.

  Chased by imperial agents and corrupt soldiers, Celandine is aided in her quest by Mr Sukh, mute veteran of the Engine Wars, Orlando Swaan, Edenist and naïve schemer, and Ana Zanbir, a clone on the run who has made an unbreakable vow to protect Celandine.

  From the narcotic grasslands of Aphid to the ancient temples of Nachista, from the high-rise cityscape of Termagore to the junk world of Immonda, A Gateway Made Of Bone is a fantastic journey through the conflict and chaos of a civilisation on the verge of collapse.

  Read the opening chapter here and then go to www.pigeonparkpress.com for details on how to get the complete novel.

  A Gateway Made Of Bone

  IDIX

  Celandine Brey, Disciple Cleric of the Course of Divine Liminis sat alone in the café at Bayan Street Station and waited for Barbegris’ guests to arrive. A can of Sula Soda, half-drunk and now flat, sat on the table before her, next to it a small stone statuette of a squirrel, carved from glassy black oneirium. A fan turned sluggishly above her head, too slowly to do anything about the stiflingly hot air.

  Out on the platform, people fought each other for a seat on the last train out of Idix. Even before the steam locomotive had come to a halt, the crowd surged towards the doors, hands outstretched and shoulders hunched. Young men climbed onto the roof or attempted to squeeze through the small sash windows. Children were held aloft, either to be offered to those closer to the train or to protect them from the suffocating press of bodies. The weak, the elderly and the simply polite were pushed aside or trampled underfoot.

  Suitcases became shields. Trunks became barricades. Elbows and feet became weapons. People cried, shouted, screamed and bled.

  The window pane between Celandine and the platform muffled the noise of the crowd and made their frantic struggles seem less real, less tragic. She watched the people with as much concern as she showed for the Seelie soap opera playing silently on the teleoptic screen on the corner of the bar. It had no more meaning than a dream.

  She wasn’t a heartless or unfeeling person but in Idix, in recent times, everyone had to find a means of coping with the hardships of life or else simply break down in despair. When the gatemakers diverted the Largesse River into Agrium, the people coped. When the floodwaters did not come and the crops failed, the people coped. When the gatemakers began closing the gateways between Idix and the rest of the empire claiming that Idix was no longer a profitable enterprise and the rare oneirium gateways were needed elsewhere, still most people coped.

  Most people. The people on the platform were trying to escape the dying world. Few of them would make it. Those who did probably wouldn’t get any further than Junction or Facto.

  Celandine put her hand in her pinafore pocket, withdrew the crumpled note that Father Aldiss Barbegris had given her and read it again.

  1230. 3 Rectors. Bayan St Station from Junction. Bring to Dv Azerro’s ASAP.

  There was no sign of the men yet. Barbegris had given Celandine five rouples to pay for a motorcab for the journey back to the church. Celandine had already spent one of them on the Sula Soda. The waiter had given her change in Idixian cents. The worthless coins clinked as she stuffed the note back into her pocket.

  The waiter came by her table for the third time in ten minutes and tutted openly when he saw that she still had not finished her drink.

  “You can’t sit there forever,” he remarked.

  Celandine took a tiny sip of her drink to show that she was at least drinking it and gave the waiter a dirty look.

  “What’s that thing?” said the waiter, nodding at the oneirium statuette.

  Despite his smart uniform and carefully waxed hair, the waiter was probably no more than a year or two older than Celandine, eighteen at most.

  “Do you talk to all your customers like that?” she said, raising her head so that he could clearly see the blue tilak powder on her forehead, the tilak mark of a Cleric.

  “Just asking,” replied the waiter tartly. He wore no tilak mark, had not been to church recently, but he was probably a member of the esclave class, a merciant at best. “So what is it?” he said.

  “He’s called Ardilla,” she replied. “And he’s mine before you ask.”

  She held her hand out flat and the stone squirrel twitched into life, coming down onto all fours and crawling across the table top and into Celandine’s palm.

  The waiter pulled a face and shuddered.

  “You’re a gatemaker?”

  “Apprenticed to one. Can’t actually make gateways yet myself but…”

  Celandine concentrated and Ardilla ran up her arm, down onto her lap and snuggled into the folds of her dress. The waiter was torn between amazement and revulsion. He raised his chin haughtily.

  “Well, gatemakers aren’t so popular around here anymore,” he said and he strode swiftly away to rearranged the cruet sets on the other tables and stare at Celandine from a distance.

  “Yeah,” she muttered. “You’d know all about popularity.”

  Eventually, unhurriedly, the train pulled out of the station once more. The carriages were filled far beyond capacity. Other people sat on the roofs, hung on the outside of doors and even balanced precariously on the buffers between carriages. There were tears and howls amongst those left behind as hopes were dashed and families were neatly ripped apart.

  Some stumbled after the train but were very quickly left far behind. Ultimately, those left at the platform or standing bewildered on the tracks had nowhere to go but back into the crumbling and dusty city of Casario. The crowd slowly dispersed. Many items of luggage had been left behind by those lucky few on the train. A few opportunists scavenged for valuables amongst the baggage, hoping to recoup some small amount from the disappointing day. But even they departed eventually.

  Celandine looked at the clock on the café wall. It was two minutes after half past twelve. She finished her soda and went out onto the platform.

  Three men stood around a fourth fallen figure at the end of the platform. A third of a mile beyond them was the gateway to Junction. The gateway was a tall, pointed arch of black oneirium through which the gatemakers had punched a hole between this world and the next. It was nighttime in Junction and through the gateway, Celandine could just make out the blue and orange twinkle of electric street lighting.

  As Celandine walked down towards the gathered men, she could see the gatemakers in Junction swiftly closing the gateway to Idix for good. The aperture of the gateway gradually folded in on itself, the streetlights going out one by one. Then the arch itself caved in too, shrinking down, losing its shape until finally the last of the oneirium was pulled back into Junction and the gateway had vanished completely, the only evidence that it had ever existed being a set of railway lines that now came to an abrupt end in front of the twisted sticks of a dried up mangrove swamp. It hadn’t been the last gateway in Idix. The last was now the gateway to Scylla, a seagate beyond the harbour wall of Muchmiel and over three hundred miles away.

  The three men stood at the platform end were identically dressed, shining black boots, dark frock coats with twin rows of polished gold buttons worn open on account of the heat. Celandine saw the sabres and pistols that hung at each of their belts. The man lying unconscious on the ground was a local. He had a deep gash in his forehead and one of his arms hung awkwardly over the platform edge. His shirt was ripped open and one of his shoes was missing.

  “Fell from the train as it set off,” said one of the uniformed men.

  “And then someone stole his wallet, sir,” said a second, a swarthy man with a poorly shaved, bristle covered chin and teeth the colour of ripe Idixian bananas.

  “And one shoe,” said the first, finally turning to face Celandine. She immediately noted the tattoo on the back of his hand, a shield design executed in Rector red and depicting a serpent impaled upon a lance. He was a slim man, maybe thirty-something, maybe forty-somethi
ng but with the white skin and milk blonde hair of a child. Intelligent looking and quite handsome, Celandine decided.

  “You’re Barbegris’ lackey?” he asked.

  “I was sent to fetch you,” she conceded. “And I’m a disciple cleric, not a lackey.”

  “My apologies, madam cleric,” he said sarcastically.

  The third man, the tallest of the three, giggled at this, his ice blue eyes dancing with laughter.

  “Shouldn’t we do something for him?” said Celandine, indicating the comatose man.

  “With pleasure,” said the third man, drawing his pistol and aiming it at the fallen man’s head, his hips thrust forward in an aggressively brash stance.

  “Wait!” cried Celandine. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Didn’t you?” said the tattooed man. “Then I’m not sure what else we can do for him.”

  “Perhaps we should just go.”

  Tattoo indulged in a self-satisfied smile.

  “Indeed. Do lead on.”

  They did not tell her their names. They did not talk to her. Sitting in the back of the wagon they spoke freely to one another, mostly to make disparaging remarks about what had become of the once green and fertile world of Idix but they did not talk to Celandine.

  Divine Azerro’s church was some miles from Casario, in an abandoned town on the other side of the Largesse. They crossed over via the Marquez Bridge. In the middle of the wide, dry riverbed beneath them sat the beached paddle steamer Missy Lou, its hull and paddles buried deeply into the rock hard earth like the foundations of a small wooden castle. It was currently home to dozens of displaced plantation workers and their families. Children played on its upper deck. Men dismantled its railings to sell for scrap. Women hung washing on lines that ran from the ship’s prow up to its single smokestack.