Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #56, May 2023
“Red-Autumn Seeks His Father” by Jonathan Olfert
“Pagan Fires” by Rev. Joe Kelly
“The Blade’s Bargain” by Robert Luke Wilkins
Reviewed by Seraph
“Red-Autumn Seeks His Father” by Jonathan Olfert
Eldritch spirits and long-dead kings haunt the stones of cursed tombs in this tale of woe and vengeance. Red-Autumn’s father could have taught him to make beautiful things, had he not been betrayed by the very king whose tomb he constructed. Of course, to hear the undead king tell it, the father was the betrayer, and the one who cursed the king. The brutality of the road to vengeance is powerfully present, as are the many eldritch elements that ride the line between horror and fantasy, but the final lines reveal the true heart of the tale: a son who really just wishes he had gotten to spend more time with his father. It is a heart-warming element to an otherwise dark and gory story.
“Pagan Fires” by Rev. Joe Kelly
Holding with the eldritch theme of this issue, Conor is a man whose family is old Irish blood, and has made many a deal with old gods. But times have changed, and those gods are forgotten in favor of a new one. So, now he hunts Demons… with blade, with bullet, and with berry. As with many of the stories about those who hunt the supernatural, no one around Conor believes that the monsters in the shadows are real, and are more a hindrance than a help at nearly every turn until the monster faces them down. Rob is a young man who made a deal with an eldritch creature and squandered it on vices, namely lust, and raped and murdered his way all the way to transforming into an Eldritch horror. Caroline is the final remaining object of his lust, and after Rob kills the hunting party sent to bring him to justice for the rapes, he kidnaps her from under the watch of Conor and her father who hired him. As Conor rushes to rescue the girl and slay the beast, there are all the classic elements of the conflict between good and evil, new religions and old, monster and monster-hunter… all mixed in with Irish myth and legend. It’s a fairly entertaining and well thought out tale.
“The Blade’s Bargain” by Robert Luke Wilkins
Making a deal with the devil is one of the oldest and most cross-cultural stories of the supernatural. Of course every culture has a different name for the creature responsible, but the Faustian bargain goes about the same: in a moment of weakness and desperation, an offer is made to grant that deepest wish if only some payment be made in exchange. Savandar is a master swordsman, blessed not only with perfect physique but magic powerful enough to crush another man in an instant. Unfortunately, in an odd twist, that perfect physique is his problem. Magic in this tale consumes flesh, and a perfect physique has no un-needed flesh, making the use of that magic a possibly fatal endeavor. The most powerful Magicians are blessed with an abundance of flesh, and the ability to put more on rather rapidly. Despite being an honored commander of soldiers, and quite literally supernatural Gifts, he wishes only to be able to put on abundant weight and become a Magician. So of course the deal he is offered would grant him this dream, for the low, low price of betraying and slaying another Magician. It’s a topsy-turvy tale where being overweight is magically desirable, the fever-dream in fact of an otherwise enviable and perfectly fit man with a blessing most would kill for. Otherwise it is a fairly straight-forward take on the Faustian bargain.