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As soon as Rhadmin saw the interrogator, he knew this was serious. Not because she was intimidating, but because she wasn’t. She was maybe forty, on the plump side, with silver-streaked dark hair and the kind and guileless face of a kindergarten teacher. She was sitting at a little round table in the interrogation room, between the unshaven, disheveled chief constable and a scowling old attorney that Rhadmin knew had previously worked for his father. She greeted him with a smile that was clearly meant to be disarming. “You must be Mr. Rhadmin Cephlex, Jr.” By her accent, she wasn’t from around here. “Quira Halbrex, professional interrogator. I’m on retainer from the Cerrion constabulary. This is Chief Weshterthyn, and I believe you know Attorney Murthex. Please, have a seat.” Yikes. So the Gramphborough constabulary had sent for a interrogator from one of the Aulm Confederacy’s three biggest cities, over 2500 miles east-northeast of here—and both wind and current made east-to-west

“What do you see?” “I haven’t even—” Opôikhe Sivin decided there was no point trying to get his partner to show patience, and raised the spyglass to his eye. “How many of them are there?” “Give me a moment.” It was midnight, when the shadow of the world blotted out the largest part of the arch of heaven, leaving only twin sabers of archlight rising above the eastern and western horizons. The sky was deep indigo, the brightest stars just barely visible. In short, it was the worst possible time to be looking for potentially hostile strangers in the middle of the desert. “Are they a border patrol?” “Who in their right minds would bother patrolling this border?” Sivin waved an arm, trying to indicate the Plain of Glass to the east and north, and the sand and rock and widely-spaced thorncone trees in every other direction. “It’s the only border they’ve got.” That was true. The Aulm Confederacy was a huge archipelago of islands that girdled the south pole. Byrex’s Land was the only landmass

Talk to an old bouncer. He won’t be on duty—bouncers tend to retire young. He’ll be at the bar, or at some private table where he can take in the whole room at a glance without drawing too much attention to himself. Force of habit, really. And you never know when the working bouncer might need backup. Old bouncers can look at a crowd and figure out who just wants to drink up and go home, who might need a little help getting out the door, and who was looking for a fight before he ordered his first beer. They know what to expect when the bikers come to town, or the duckhunters, or when those two families with a history start fighting again (yes, family feuds are still a thing in some places). Most of all, they know how to stop serious trouble before it starts. None of this is book-learning. Ancient gods, rituals, invocations, the power in the blood of grape and grain—even the most experienced bouncers don’t know anything about any of this. And some of them are devout Christians who

Of the few true monsters the Eastern Shore has produced in its history, by far the worst is Patty Cannon. Tall and strong as a good-sized man and mean as the devil with a toothache, she was a highway-robber, kidnapper and murderer, leader of a gang of outlaws both white and black. For a time, the authorities turned a blind eye to her when she stole free black children and sold them south, or waylaid travelers who didn’t have family in the area. For a time in the Nanticoke Valley, fear had a name, especially if you were black. When H.L. Mencken said there was no law south of the Choptank, he might have been remembering the stories of her. Those stories lasted a long, long time. It wasn’t until people started finding the bones of her victims that the law finally took an interest in her. There were limits after all to what they would tolerate. So you don’t have to be afraid of Patty Cannon. She died in prison in 1829 and has been killed several more times since then. Don’t be afraid of

The first sightings of the “Chesapeake Bay Monster” were in 1936. If that seems a little recent for genuine monster folklore, especially in a place where written history goes back almost four hundred years and Native Americans were fishing these waters for thousands of years before that… well, yeah. Someone in a position of power in the region looked at the tourism industry at Loch Ness and Lake Champlain and decided the Chesapeake Bay needed a monster of its own. It was the Depression. Money was tight. Don’t judge. It wasn’t the first time people in this part of the world had conjured up a local legend out of whole cloth ***coughcoughChestertownTeaPartycough*** But how do you arrange sightings of a monster? Pay somebody to claim they saw it and hope they stick to their story in the face of derision? Take the Scooby-Doo approach, building something out of papier-mache and wire, towing it through the water, and hoping everybody’s too scared to take a closer took… but not scared enough

Chorus: We have some tragic news for boys and girls throughout the land The enemy is on his way and soon you will Be under his command Hello, America, do you know me? I’m the tyrant that you could not overthrow I’ve been making plans to take you Get you in my hands and break you Since you slipped outside my grip so long ago You tell the world I have no power You forget the secret bargains that we made Those who walked this land before you And the blacks who labored for you And the poor when they implored you You abandoned them to me as tribute paid Chorus: We have some tragic news for boys and girls throughout the land Your parents went and sold you into slavery Please don’t be mad How could they understand The life you took for granted was fragile as a dream One day you’ll all wake up and it will fade away And all be gone And it won’t come back No matter how you scream [guitar-bass duo] Our merry chase is almost over You should know by now there’s no escape from me Very soon