International Pixel-Stained Techno-Peasant Day

For International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, I decided to put up "Masks." (I'm putting it up tonight because Mondays are a busy day for me, plus it's my birthday so it'll be even busier.) This is one of two short stories I wrote that's set in the same world as Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm. The other one, "Kin," sold to Sword and Sorceress XXI, but this one never sold. Last spring, I put it in the Wyrdsmiths' anthology.

The protagonist, Domenico, is Eliana's violin teacher in Fires. The story is set years earlier, and the idea came from a slash fanfic story that Lyda Morehouse wrote after reading one of the later revisions of Fires. You do not have to have read Fires and Turning for this story to make sense, and it includes no spoilers for the novels. Also no seriously naughty bits. It's work-safe except inasmuch as your boss may get irritated with you for reading fantasy short stories instead of doing your job.

Masks

Some other stories of mine you can find online:

Comrade Grandmother
My WWII / Baba Yaga story, published at Strange Horizons. This was translated into Hebrew and reprinted in an Israeli webzine.

Brother Mac, You Are Healed!
This is about a college student who faith-heals computer equipment. Originally published at the now-defunct Planet Relish.

The Devil's Mailbox / Faust's SASE
This was my first published work. It's very short. It originally appeared in Scavenger's Newsletter. If you're an SF/F writer and submit to some of the big U.S. SF/F markets, you'll probably find it a lot funnier than other people will.