Tap and Die is a 90’s action story full of characters like Dövë who use wands and staves instead of guns on the set of an epic fantasy world. I’m releasing it serially over the course of 6 months — the first 25% is FREE and the rest requires a subscription: if you subscribe for at least 3 months, I will send you a hard copy before the book releases even if you don’t finish the story.
“Jack?” a woman said behind him.
He turned, his girl in hand, and barrel-carried her, flailing and giggling, up the two steps to meet his wife.
“Frey,” he said. “You clean up good, young lady.”
She smiled curtly. “The job.” She looked at his boots.
He expected scorn.
What he got was, “I would sooner accompany you on the trails than these others.”
“Why don’t you?” he asked.
“Because, Jackson Daweson, on the trail it grows difficult to notice when your wife and daughter have need of your help more than some stranded traveler.”
He winced.
An elder statesman walked up with skin tinged green.
Frey said, “Jack Dawes, my boss, Krif Hemē Kraswa.”
“Good to meet you, you dog,” Jack said.
Frey blushed. “Jack!“
But Hemē smiled. “You know Klūhman culture better than your wife?”
Frey looked between them both.
“Nah, I just ask different questions,” Jack said. “What’s the name mean?”
Frey looked between the two of them again, out of her depth.
“Kraswa is a season. Hemē is warm.”
“Summer?” Jack asked.
“Yes, but as a name—”
“A Great Fien. Hot weather dog. Big dog,” Jack said. “Stately and great for hunting. Good to meet you, Great Fien.”
Hemē grinned and looked at the muddy wear of Black Jack Dawes. “That wisdom for a foreigner… yes, I sense that would make you not Krif, but Trulas U. Wolf of the Sun.”
Jack felt a mild shock. “But there’s only one?”
“One white wolf. But to be a dog of Sister Wild is a great honor. To be born a dog outside the city, with a pack, and to see other dogs for who they are. This is to be a wolf of honor. And you are hunter of men and hunter of deep ideas and of the lightweaver. I will file the forms to make you Wolf of the Sun. Trulas U.”
“Trul… Trul like music?” Frey asked, desperate to get a handhold in the sea of diplomacy she had been thrown into by her husband.
“Trul means music, yes. As for the best…” The music of the ball almost overwhelmed Hemē’s words, and he grimaced at it. “The best music is a wolf—U—Trulas U—in the wild on the hunt, patter of paw on the plain in search of sweeter prey. Shall we go somewhere we might hear better?”
They walked the river-shaped walkway on the forty-second floor, the long ramp-shaped walkway that carved a white arc across the back of the ballroom—one step up, five steps forward, one step up. The bank of administrative offices overlooked the pageantry and meetings and tables.
Hēme opened the door to Frey’s office, revealing Sfòne. He was seated in her office chair, his open palm on fire, his eyes rolled back in his head.
Frey gasped.
Hēme cleared his throat.
Sfòne snapped to attention and threw the fistful of what remained of the methaqualoin into the galvanized steel trashcan.
Frey and Hēme had already entered the office, but Jack stood in the doorway and kept Dövë at his back to spare her the sight.
Sfòne stood and extended his still-smoking black palm to Jack. “Sfòne. Nice to meet you.”
Frey blushed at his name.
Jack never used honorifics. Never. But something boiled in his chest. “Captain Black Jack Dawes, first division of Storyweaver Private Council, tier one Archive, privy counsel to Nerari.”
He did not take the proffered hand, but glared at it instead.
Sfòne turned to Frey. “Did you show your husband the bracer I—we, the office—gave you?”
“No,” Frey said.
“Show him.”
“No.”
“You’ll love it, Jack. Golden inlay. Made for this tap. An anti-gravity bracer, good as any collar. Keeps you from falling up to your death on the surface if you find yourself outside the wall or stuck in a shaft.” He nodded toward the floor and the lift shafts outside the office.
“I’ll talk with you later,” Hēme said to Sfòne, pointing with his pinky out the door.
Sfòne left, tail tucked.
“Apologies,” Hēme said. “Wonderful negotiator and salesman. Terrible at tending himself. I presume you have extra dignitary clothes that will fit your husband?”
Jack pursed his upper lip so as to block his nostrils.
“Of course,” Frey said, grinning.
With a nod, her boss departed, closing the door behind him after waving Dövë inside.
“Sfansòrsiʡ?” Jack said.
Frey didn’t move.
“You put Sfansòrsiʡ as your surname on the manifest in the atrium.”
Frey said, “Can you stay with me? The kids would love that.”
“Please, dad?” Dövë begged.
Jack grimaced at his daughter and turned back to Frey. “One second. When did Sfansòrsiʡ become a thing?”
“It’s an Aruöfian office. I needed an Aruöfian name.”
“And an Aruöfian boyfriend?”
Frey didn’t answer that.
Jack noticed the edge of the old commissioned painting poking out from behind the bookshelf. He looked for, but could not find, the love letters he’d painstakingly composed for her. His lettering wasn’t too good, so writing them took forever.
Frey’s sleeve fell to her elbow to expose the bracer the addict had given her.
Jack scoffed at it.
“Daddy…” Dövë said, looking between the two.
“Change into something presentable,” Frey said.
Black Jack grumbled. “For Dövë. For tonight.”
“I must give my policy speech,” Frey said. “Dövë, come.”
“Can’t I stay?” she pleaded.
“Daddy must change. Then join you at table.”
“Oh, good.”
“On what?” Jack asked.
“Brimstone shortages,” Frey said. “And water rights for Forayn.”
“They don’t dig on off years?”
She smiled. “Not everything comes down to sex rituals, Jack.”
He glanced at his daughter.
Who seemed none the wiser.
Jack looked at his wife while pointing at his daughter. “Kay.” He watched them pass through the smoked glass door and, in blurry silhouettes, walk down the walkway in front of the big bay window. The shadow of his daughter’s hand waved as the rest of her form was pulled ahead.
Jack then turned to the doom his bride had deemed: a closet full of fabulous men’s wear in every shape and size and color.
“Save me. Save from this hell,” he prayed to the Author in whom he most certainly did not believe.
If you are enjoying Tap and Die, subscribe to get every chapter in your inbox as soon as they post. If you subscribe for at least 3 months, I will also send you a hard copy of the book before it releases.
Catch up on all chapters here.
There are eight ways you can help Tap and Die flourish and continue:
- Preorder your copy of Tap and Die.
- Review Tap and Die on Goodreads.
- Share this post about Honorifics widely with your friends.
- Share the entire story widely.
- Get a subscription.
- Gift subscriptions.
- Comment below \/
- Share your perspective in the Discord.
Comment early, comment often, keep it civil: