Raymond St Elmo

Rayne Gray awakes in the morgue, tag upon his toe. It's not even the sensible dead house of his sane and smoky 19th century. This is the morgue of the far future. And so Gray becomes a castaway upon the streets of a monstrous city of glass and steel, rushing mechanisms and blinking lights. Not a sword in sight. No horses, no dogs, no crows. No hats. No hats? Where the blast are civilization's hats? The change would crush most. But a spadassin must be optimistic, not to mention quick on his feet. And Gray is the world's last spadassin. He'll find his way home, though dragons guard the door. From the book: The yellow eyes met mine, read my contemplation of his neck bones. For a second the curtain slipped, I beheld another man. Not the amiable old thing in the basement sipping tea. No, I saw Fulgurous, lord of storm, master of a mad family that extended from star to sea, from mountain cave to forest hollow. And angered as I was, I stepped back.His turn to stand. Put hands to the table, leaning across the chessboard as if it were the world, and he a beast risen up from the sea to overshadow it. When he spoke, the words came as deep stone rumble."The doors of Time are closed to you, Rayne Gray. Your wife lies in Widegate cemetery, in the vine-covered mausoleum of the Gray family. She lived long years honoring your memory as hero. Your descendants honored you as well, and in their turn lived long and interesting lives. And they now rest as well, in what peace they deserved. Surrender your hope. You cannot return to the days of their sunlight by any door but Death itself. Your game ended upon a tavern floor ages past. A hero, a corpse, and done."'The Scaled Tartan' is the exciting conclusion to Quest of the Five Clans.

Time is a mocker worse than strong wine. It leads you through a door to find yourself facing enemies long slain, friends long lost. Reveals a face in the mirror that you aren't ready to be; plays for you a music of silence you aren't ready to hear. Rayne Gray is lost in time, wandering the magic doors of the Clockmakers. Sword at side, and obituary in his pocket.

Centuries ago a mysterious family of mad geniuses split into five clans; feuding, hiding, hoarding their secrets of fighting and art, magic and science. Now at the dawn of the mechanical 19th century, only the five clans united can hold back the blood-red tide of industrial apocalypse.Unless they dive into it laughing. I did say 'mad'

A research team and a blind old sailor slyly spar over the truth of a long-ago shipwreck, a mad island of dead gods and the mystery of a lost manuscript. Neither sailor nor interviewer is what they seem; and both must learn to work together to find what they seek. Seemingly, Clarence St. Elmo sits old and blind in the Sailor's Safe Harbor Home. A patient interviewer sifts his wandering memories for details of the wreck of the Unicorn, a cargo schooner lost long ago in the South Pacific. But Clarence St. Elmo is also a young man who finds himself on a cursed ship with a cargo of dead gods destined to be sunk in the Sea of Time. His love waits for his return, while mad voices in his head slyly pry for clues to a lost book. And always beyond the words and the memories, the dreadful storm circles closer. A romance of memory, across the sea of time. From the book: The girl stopped dancing at the first bird chirp of dawn. The ruined walls pooled the remainder of night like a hollow on a beach when the tide draws away. Exhausted, I stared up at a patch of coloring on a tree-top. My heart beat for a drum. The girl looked at the sky, then regretfully towards the dark entrance to the crumbled house. She wasn't a bit tired. But she intended to retire for the day, no doubt taking me and Cut-Throat with her. She could do it, too. In the faint light her face was hungry and pretty and determined as a tiger's. If I bolted she would be on me before I made the archway. I crossed looks with Cut-Throat. He shook his head slightly, telling me the same. I tried not to look at the other fellow, who had no eyes to meet. He just stood there in rotting sea-man's clothes listening for the clap of her hands.But our Cut-Throat had taken the girl's measure. He'd noted what rhythm and time made her feet stamp, made her toss her ropes of hair. Now he began a slow sad dirge for the dying night. She turned to him, hands raised to clap an order. But I took her left hand and bowed and stepped forward my right foot and she had no choice in her perfection of movement but to step back and then half turn as I did and we stepped forwards together two steps, then turned together as I placed my left hand on the small of her back and we skipped left three steps as the fiddle slyly slipped from dirge to a laughing tune that ran faster and faster till we were whirling and turning over the cold stones.

Clarence St. Claire is a programmer who cherishes an orderly life. His motto: 'work is important; people, not so much'. His determination to be The Most Serious Person on the Planet is threatened when he becomes haunted by a mysterious manuscript from his past: 300 pages of possibly random bird tracks. Risking his career and self-possession, St. Claire dares to pursue the manuscript against the opposition of hackers, the NSA, the ghosts of famous writers and doubts of his own sanity. Lost in a maze of bird-prints and their possible meanings, St. Claire determines to summon the late writer Jorge Louis Borges to help with the translation. He will dream Borges into existence, exactly as Borges wrote of doing. But this act stirs the opposition of a secret order of past writers, who may, possibly, have their own agenda. The duel between St. Claire's reality and theirs leads to a final encounter in The Dark Library, before the dread conclave known as The Tribunal of Dreams. 'Origins' is a book about books, about magic realism and artificial intelligence, virtual reality and languages, and how sensible people wind up in strange situations by strangely sensible steps. It is built of the words books whisper to each other alone after the library has closed. From the book: There is a secret society of dead writers who live in the wall spaces between realities, in the silence of empty rooms, in the Schr dinger-uncertainty of unopened books. They call themselves the Tribunal of Dreams. Often they appear as birds. They peek out of mirrors and walk the shadows of libraries. They are old and sly and are not retired. They have vast plans. They have me barricaded in my bedroom and they painted my windows black. They are listening at the door now. Send help.

Two strangers aide one other on a dark country road; and vow to meet again at the local Renaissance Fair. To do so they must learn to see beyond their own masks. And united, to win past a host of fairy glamours, crazed role-players, angry jugglers, sinister bikers and the secret of the ancient charter of Strawberry Fair itself. I will find you at Strawberry Fair, will win you a lion, a tiger, a bear. I will buy you ices, electronic devices And give you a kiss for finding me there. A romance in masks.

In the quiet town of Angelica, Texas a street of quaint old houses attracts amused week-end tourists. And sometimes a family feels drawn to move within the circle, finding a home that echoes some need or truth within their lives. Because the homes of Circle St. are the Stations of the Angels; houses of fire and madness, clowns and lions, ghosts and dreams. Clarence lives in a burning house. It's just home, interesting as white socks. He's fascinated by the haunted house across the street. In the windows the face of a mysterious girl appears, smiling. For years she waved at Sinclair, who lives in the Fun House, a home of mirrors and whirling floors. Not that Sinclair ever laughs. Granted, Shannon from the House of Sorrow is always upbeat. Anastasia lives with a lion; but takes things calmly. Perhaps the houses don't define the families; only present them with their choices of who to be, how to look at life.Then again, as Nancy from the House of the Moon realizes after escaping from an asylum: everyone in Angelica just might be a bit crazy. Mason: my parents run a bed-and-breakfast: The Mason's Due. The name was 'Le Maison Dieu'. That's French for 'The House of God'. Doesn't market well in Baptist country. So dad relabeled it, me already being Mason. It's a family name. Besides, God doesn't have all the house, just half. It's a duplex. He gets in and out from the stairs in the back. When He wants, I mean. I suppose He can get in any way He wants. There is a big door on the third floor connecting our side of the house and His. It's kept locked, part of the lease agreement. Anastasia: people ask, what is it like to live with a lion? They seem disappointed to hear the answer 'nothing special'. The creature keeps to himself on the third floor. Except for the faint cat-smell, the occasional thump of heavy paws, you could live here a week before realizing you share a home with a lion. Sure he roars in the mornings, but in a lazy way around ten, after yawning and stretching. By then we are long up, dressed, and off to school. ."Invisible Cities" and "Wayside School" meet in Central Texas.