PodCastle

Escape Artists Foundation
PodCastle

PodCastle is the world’s first audio fantasy magazine. Weekly, we broadcast the best in fantasy short stories, running the gammut from heart-pounding sword and sorcery, to strange surrealist tales, to gritty urban fantasy, to the psychological depth of magical realism. Our podcast features authors including N.K. Jemisin, Peter S. Beagle, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jim C. Hines, and Cat Rambo, among others. Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.” Tune in to PodCastle each Tuesday for our weekly tale, and spend the length of a morning commute giving your imagination a work out.

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    PodCastle 871: Homes for the Holidays

    * Authors : Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt * Narrator : Alasdair Stuart * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Devin Martin * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 871: Homes for the Holidays is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 This episode is dedicated in loving memory of Orion Adey (October 4, 1989 — September 28, 2023) Homes for the Holidays by Heather Shaw & Tim Pratt   I stood on the slumlord’s doorstep and took a deep breath — one of the last I would take in this body, which had served me well despite being treated badly. It’s not the body I was born with — I don’t think I started with a body at all. I don’t know what I am, or where I come from, just that I need a human body to host my own consciousness. My current body wasn’t totally worn out yet, but sometimes I switched for strategic reasons, like now. Even if I want to settle in, I’m forced to take a new host every twenty years or so. Maybe that sounds like a lot compared to a human lifespan, but since I’m immortal (so far), twenty years is a fraction of a fraction, and it feels like I’ve barely settled into a new skin before I have to go looking for a new one. Even when I pick a young, healthy body, something about hosting me puts unusual strain on the brain, and they usually pop an aneurysm, even if I take good care of them. I hadn’t taken such good care of this latest body. But I was trying to do better. You can only hover on someone’s doorstep in a suburb for so long before you attract trouble, so I knocked on the door. Someone shouted something garbled and hostile from inside, and then an old man awash with gray stubble and wearing a misbuttoned cardigan opened the door and glared at me. He didn’t even ask if he could help me. “Marvis Sims?” I asked. “Who wants to know?” His voice was raspy and his breath was heavy. I briefly felt guilty for making him come to the door. Then I reminded myself who he was, and why I was here, and straightened my spine. I could have jumped right into him . . . but I needed to be sure this was Sims, and not his elderly father or something. “I’m —” I began, and then a woman in her thirties approached, her expression more curious than hostile. She was wearing a headband with reindeer antlers on them, the antlers festooned with little blinking lights. It wasn’t Christmas yet, but it was coming. Ho, ho, ho. “I need to find Marvis Sims,” I told her. “You found him,” she said, nodding towards the man. “What can we help you with?” The old man turned to scowl at her, and opened his mouth to say something that wouldn’t have been in keeping with the holiday spirit, so I jumped into him, and let my old body crumple dead on the steps. I know. That’s not in keeping with the holiday spirit, either. But here’s why I did it: Listen, I’ve been around a long time, and I used to be fairly callous about my whole deal. Yes, when I take a body, the original inhabitant seems to vanish, or get overwritten, or whatever. And it’s no picnic for their loved ones, either, since those people are meaningless to me. I usually cut all ties with them via faked head injuries, amnesia, religious conversions, midlife crises, or just straight-up ghosting (though I do keep the bank accounts). I realize that living as I do seems reprehensible. But what am I supposed to do? Gazelles don’t much like lions, but lions have to eat.

    56 min
  2. DEC 17

    PodCastle 870: Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold – PART THREE

    * Author : S.B. Divya * Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny   Content warnings for fire, violence (including domestic violence), references to rape, and parental deaths. Rated PG-13 Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold by S.B. Divya I was hidden in a tree near the mill when the Duke of Bavaria arrived in Talgove. I had never seen the man before, but the coat of arms matched the hangings I’d seen in Salzburg. The sizeable retinue stopped by the water wheel. Blasius emerged from the building, staggering and red-faced from drink. “My lord,” the miller said, his face wrinkled in confusion, “the steward’s house and the inn are —” “I’m here for Trudy of-the-mill,” the duke interrupted. “Your daughter, I presume?” Balsius’s befuddlement deepened. “Yes, but —” “I hear that she can spin flax into gold, that she has a special instrument from a witch who used to live in these parts. I wish to witness this skill for myself.” The duke grinned. The miller executed a deep, sloppy bow. “My lord, indeed she is a talented spinner and weaver. Beautiful, too.” “Then let us see this lovely and gifted creature.” Still bent at the waist, Blasius went inside. I held myself as still as wood and waited. What was he up to? Trudy had never learned how to make gold thread from my mother, and she certainly couldn’t magically transform flax. I could. Had someone discovered my gift and mixed up their stories? A sharp cry sounded from inside the building. Blasius emerged, holding Trudy’s wrist in one hand and one of my mother’s spindles in another. “See here!” He thrust Trudy forward and gestured at her head. “She made the golden thread for this embroidery. This ring, and the chain about her neck, too. Those used to be silver. She learned from a witch who used to live near our village. Take her! She will do well in your household.” My stomach twisted with rage and disgust. Trudy’s wimple came from one of my mother’s fabrics. She wore my mother’s wedding band and necklace. How had they obtained the jewelry except from my mother’s body? How dare Blasius abuse my mother’s memory like that? And why would he lie about it? He’s desperate to see her married well. With Ilsebill secured to Konrad, there was no good match in the village for Trudy. Her looks — the golden hair, the womanly curves — had always attracted attention from men. A flush covered Trudy’s round cheeks. She kept her gaze fixed on the ground, and her hands trembled. I sat in my tree, frozen with indecision and fear. I could think of nothing in my power that would help her without revealing my secret. “Quite attractive,” the duke murmured. Then, louder, “I will take her to Salzburg with me. I wish to have some gold thread made for my wardrobe. If she succeeds in her witchcraft, I will take this young lady to Regensburg and keep her safely with my treasury.” The men in the duke’s retinue snickered. Trudy’s flush crept down and across her neck. “Yes, good,” Blasius said. He bobbed his head and swayed. “And if she fails, she will be burned.” At that, Blasius fell to his knees, his face pale. “But, my lord —” “I am your duke, and you will not deny me again or else you will hang for the crime of consorting with witches.” Trudy put a hand on her father’s shoulder. To my surprise,

    47 min
  3. DEC 10

    PodCastle 869: Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold

    * Author : S.B. Divya * Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny   Content warnings for fire, violence (including domestic violence), references to rape, and parental deaths. Rated PG-13 Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold – PART TWO by S. B. Divya Walter and his small gang visited as promised. Taking my mother’s advice, I told them I had failed. They delivered a beating, which I accepted while curled into a ball on the ground beside my mother, my hands tucked into my armpits to protect the cloth wrapping. Some of them stood apart and watched. I gathered from their words that they had come mostly for sport, including Konrad stewards-son. Walter had debts to the elder Konrad. He’d allowed too many of his pigs to sicken, and he hadn’t given the vassal his due share of ham. “Do better by next week,” Walter said as they left. They came back again and again, and I gave the same excuse and earned us the same beating, but over time their numbers dwindled. “We should leave this place,” I told my mother as we tended each other’s wounds. “I’m nearly a man now. We can travel again, buy a wagon and a horse once we get far enough from here.” “You might be close to a man’s age, but you don’t yet have a man’s body. Your father faced worse men than Walter during our travels, and with your hands . . . you can’t fight them off.” “I could turn Walter into gold and sink him to the bottom of the Salzach,” I grumbled. “Don’t you dare!” My mother grabbed me by the chin and forced me to meet her gaze. “Never use your blessing to commit murder . . . or any other crime. You are better than that.” I nodded, but there are days when I regret resisting that impulse. The next afternoon, two days early, as the setting sun cast long shadows over the field, Walter stumbled into our hut alone and very drunk. “I’ve had enough of you both,” he roared. He pointed a trembling finger at my mother. “This is all your doing, witch! You cursed my swine, I know it, and now you’ll pay.” He wrapped one hand in her hair and yanked her off her feet. Without thinking, I launched myself at him. “No,” my mother cried. “Ram, run away!” But I didn’t heed her. Walter swatted away my pathetic attempts to strike him, then thrust a fist into my gut. I fell to the ground. As I gasped like a fish out of water, he stomped his booted foot once on my right arm, once on the left, and, over my mother’s screams, once on each leg. “Be still,” he roared and flung her next to me. He grabbed a piece of firewood and struck my mother’s head as I watched, helpless, unable to move or cry out. She slumped, unconscious, and began to bleed. Taking a flint, Walter dumped our entire supply of cooking tinder next to the straw hut’s walls and set it on fire. He waited until the flames caught well and smoke started to fill the small space. As he ducked outside, he muttered, “Those who do the devil’s work must burn.” I remember getting my wind back along with a lungful of smoke. I crawled to my mother and tried to grab her, to pull her out of our hut, which was now our pyre. I couldn’t work any of my limbs in a useful fashion. The sharp pain from my broken bones overwhelmed the sensation of searing heat, but the fear is what I can never forget. A terror not only of dying but of living with hands...

    37 min
  4. DEC 3

    PodCastle 868: Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold – PART ONE

    * Author : S.B. Divya * Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny   Content warnings for fire, violence (including domestic violence), references to rape, and parental deaths. Rated PG-13 Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold by S.B. Divya   My parents taught me to lie as soon as I could speak. Before I knew the meaning of the words, before I understood heat or fire, and long before I felt the pain of singed flesh, I learned to tell strangers that I burned myself by grasping a hot iron pot. Once a day, my mother would pour water over my bare hands, then bandage each one down to the wrists, first with cloth of gold, then plain muslin. She had a technique for winding them in a way that left each finger separate but fully covered, and at no point would her skin come into contact with mine. When I was old enough, she taught me how to wrap them myself. By then, I also understood the danger that she had put herself in. My parents allowed me to transform small items and only rarely, usually before we approached a large city where people would ask fewer questions about our wares. They let me play with other children, never roughly. After all, if I had burned myself, I would find it painful to use my hands. Other boys my age would wrestle and scuffle. I always ran from a fight. I was happiest when we were on the road. I could relax around my parents. I was often clumsy because of my bandages, but I could perform basic tasks. My mother, Niraja, taught me how to slice vegetables and boil grains, how to groom our horses, and how to whistle like a bird. My father, Padmanabhan, showed me how to construct a simple bow and arrow, how to mark time by the sun, and how to navigate by the stars. They both shared their tricks for accounting. “We are not so weak-minded that we need a ledger,” my father would say. “And our memories are safe from rain damage or theft.” At night, they would take turns telling me stories from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Panchatantra, and point out the names of the constellations. I knew which stars pointed the way home — to my parents’ villages — and I knew the names of everyone from my great-grandparents onward; every cousin, aunt, and uncle, though I had never laid eyes on a single one. We passed through many cities and countries. The great metropolis of Constantinople made a strong impression with its buildings decorated in golden domes and intricate tile mosaics. It bustled with people, some whose skin didn’t darken from the sun, others with eyes that gleamed blue or green like a peacock’s feathers. People came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, including those with missing limbs or eyes. No one cared about my hands. I wanted to stay there forever, but my parents would not hear of it. “Too dangerous,” my father said. “What if someone discovers what you can do, Ram?” And so we moved on, as we did for years, never staying in one place longer than a few days. I had no friends except for my golden fox. Just before my first birthday, my father returned from several months on the road to the place my mother had stayed since her labor. He arrived a few weeks before the monsoon, the same rains that had trapped him a year earlier. When my mother began to experience birthing pains, my parents were in the land of the rajputs,

    35 min
  5. NOV 26

    PodCastle 867: The Witch of Endor

    * Author : Karim Kattan * Narrator : Amal Singh * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Artist : Iasmin Omar Ata * Discuss on Forums Previously published by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Rated PG-13 The Witch OF Endor by Karim Kattan   There remained, in the mountains of Endor, a scattering of the elder people. Most of the others — the handfuls left — had moved to the cities of the south decades before. These people of mountains and hills, of ice fields and pine trees, now dwelled in seashore havens and desert cities, resort towns and neon oases. The few families who had remained, huddled in the mountains surrounding Endor valley, lived in a half-dormant, savage state. He was acutely aware of their presence, hiding in the snow and behind the pine trees. Their half-closed almond eyes burned with a wildness he knew well. He was himself descended from these elder people; this mountainous terrain was his original land, this cold, this smell of pine trees. Yet the wind bit his flesh; the mountain suffocated him. He was only from here in imagination. In reality he was from an oasis of the south. His world was one of gurgling springs, swaying palm trees, and the bustling black market where anything — including eyes, diamonds, livers, rifles, children — could be sold and bought. His was the world where the hot winds wrap the body in a gentle, insistent caress. Here the wind was a slap in the face. He had been invited to the ball. It was an honor reserved for a happy few, the richest and noblest of the kingdom of Summerlands. They, obviously, never invited any of the elder people. Yet he had received the invitation — in formal gold lettering on a piece of paper that was most likely worth many stalls in the market. He had worked for this, pugnacious man that he was. He had taken advantage of the unique color of his eyes, clear like river streams; and of his skin — alabaster, they said. He had practiced day in and day out how to pronounce the vowels perfectly, where to lilt, where to pause; how to use fully his throat to produce sounds as foreign to him as the snow. He had lost, gradually, the raw and hoarse words of the elder people to adopt the light language of the Summerlands. He had moved from the deepest south to the middle ground, the capital city, and he had smiled like they smiled and bowed like they bowed and worked like they worked. And here he was. Endor. The snow was falling softly all around the castle. It snowed in the kingdom of Summerlands perhaps once every three years. “Once in an apricot’s bloom,” was the consecrated phrase. But here, in the mountaintop realm, it never stopped. The flakes, unfamiliar to the guests who hailed from the shores and the desert, swirled around them. The castle was enmeshed in darkness; only its tiny oval windows gave a little light, a little gleam reflected in the snowflakes. It trembled in this ocean of dark. Music, loud and boisterous, gilded and ornate, resonated in the castle, around it, and echoed deep in the mountains. So, this was Endor. This, the valley of sinews and anise, the silvery mother earth. And today was the night of Endor, the loveliest and most magnificent of nights. Men and women, in twos and threes, crossed the massive stone bridge that led to the castle, their hair bound with crowns of flowers and gold,

    38 min
  6. NOV 19

    PodCastle 866: Palestinian Voices – Badia’s Magic Water

    * Authors : Maya Abu-Alhayyat and Yasmine Seale * Narrator : Mahtab Chenevix-Trench * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Devin Martin * Artist : Iasmin Omar Ata * Discuss on Forums Previously published by The Book of Ramallah   Content warnings for death, cultural misogyny, stillbirth, and references to murder and infanticide. Rated PG-13 Badia’s Magic Water by Maya Abu-Alhayyat, translated by Yasmine Seale   Badia walks into Ramallah Hospital like she owns the place, unhurried, greeting everyone and taking in their greetings. Stories fly to meet her in a brew of caution, curiosity, and fear. From Samira the receptionist (recently married, keen to please) she wants to know if the tranquillisers had their effect on her husband, who makes love to her like a bull. To Said the errand boy she promises a special treatment for his spine, which keeps him up at night. Now handsome young doctor Sami, whom the nurses like to stop and ask ridiculous questions about the weather and incurable diseases, is running towards her, reverently kissing her hand in the way of old movies. “God keep you from harm,” she says with a laugh and asks about his mother, Sitt Fikriyya, who devoted her life to his becoming a doctor. On Badia walks, swinging the orange carrier bag whose contents no one dares to ask about. The soft headscarf slips from her loose red bun as she totters down to the basement, fighting back a cheeky smile at the memory of the young doctor’s kiss and repeating to herself, “Keep you from harm.” She opens the door of the autopsy room with her blue-beaded key and swaps her coat for a white gown. Her mobile rings. It’s Umm Salama, calling to say she has sent her a girl with psoriasis from Haifa. She had spotted her with her mother at the Khalaf perfume shop, told her that Badia would be able to cure her with her magic water, and directed her to where Badia worked. Badia is annoyed with Umm Salama (she tells this story to everyone) and worries that her workplace at Ramallah Hospital will turn into a shrine or, God forbid, a clinic. She was wrong to have told her about the water, and how it cleared her own hands of the eczema that had plagued her since Osama’s death. Not to mention the woman who once snuck into the autopsy room to steal some of the magic water that had spilled off a girl’s corpse, to use it for some spell or ritual, who, when Badia tried to remove her, had bent down to where the water pooled on the ground and tried to lick it up. Samah, the nurse who makes the journey from Tammun every day, takes in the day’s death schedule. The first corpse is a woman from al-Bireh, near eighty. The second is a woman in her fifties who has to be prepared for transportation to Nablus. The third is a young woman of twenty who has spent three days in the morgue. A long day awaits, but Badia does not begin work before brewing a glass of tea with her special herbs and smoking a cigarette. Badia does not like to wash younger women, the mothers least of all. She prefers the elderly, whose corpses everyone is in a hurry to get rid of and few will miss. Their daughters and the wives of their sons slip her a bit of money. It helps them shed their sense of helplessness in the face of the decline and inevitable death of an old mother,

    31 min
  7. NOV 12

    PodCastle 865: Handala. The Olive, The Storm, and the Sea

    * Author : Sonia Sulaiman * Narrator : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Devin Martin * Artist : Iasmin Omar Ata * Discuss on Forums Previously published in the collection Muneera and the Moon: Stories Inspired by Palestinian Folklore, 2023. Rated PG Handala. The Olive, the Storm, and the Sea by Sonia Sulaiman   The little boy raised an umbrella over his head and looked out over the sea. His clothes were tattered, loose stitches of what had been a carefully sewn tunic and pants. His hair was like a bird’s nest. His feet were torn and blistered. The rain swept down in sheets that shimmered and waved across land and sea alike. The boy walked on, down a long winding road of stones and sticks. It climbed limestone bones and terraces with trees aflame and broken. He stopped to look at these, his face to the fires, his back to the sea. Water and fire warred together, and the sky was brightened by the flashes of lightning coursing through the clouds that hung low like a shroud on the land. It was half-light, either dawn or dusk. The weather was wrong and unnatural. The boy looked on with ageless eyes in a face that had the freshness of only ten years under the sun. He went where his tired feet directed him. If there were three gods following his step, that was not his concern; they could offer him no blessing he did not already possess. If they chose to throw obstacles in his path, he would climb over them step by painful step. He had faith not in gods, but in himself. These gods were not the Fates, but it wouldn’t matter if they were; he would defy them too. It wasn’t that he was proud, that he thought himself special from the rest of humanity. He defied because he had to survive. One of these gods ruled the sea, while the other claimed all under the skies, and the third was said to hold the honor of embodying the virtue of wisdom. He had been ten for a very very long time now. He was ten years old when he was born, and at the same moment, he lost everything. He fled his home — he had no choice — and became a refugee. He would remain ten years old until he returned home again. Some fine day the rain would end, and he would grow up. He grimly carried on, allowing joy to steal in despite the harrowing path of his tender feet. Now, let me tell you something, before we go any further. It’s an old story that you should keep in mind when you hear about this boy’s adventure with the gods. In the old days, a city rose to look down at a rich land and a deep and dark sea. They used to believe it was the first of all cities, but that wasn’t true; the residents only wanted to believe they were the first to solve the problems — and create more — that we call “Civilization.” And although that city was thriving and their king (a man who was also a snake) had created many firsts that were the bedrock of their way of living, they had no patron god. Don’t ask why they needed one; the story doesn’t say. It comes from a time when everyone had a patron god and so it was only natural that in the First of all Cities, they yearned for a god to complete them. It was all very neat: first city, first customs, first marriages, and first patron. Simple. Elegant. And way back when, the gods that came to that city were eager to compete with each other. Two came forward: an uncle and niece.

    42 min
  8. NOV 5

    PodCastle 864: PALESTINIAN VOICES – Al-Kahf

    * Author : Beesan Odeh * Narrator : Zeina Sleiman * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Artist : Iasmin Omar Ata * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Lightspeed Magazine Content warning for the death of a child Rated PG-13 Al-Kahf الكهف By Beesan Odeh   There once lived a man who was stolen from the sea. Rare and magnificent, he lived in his cave, rising to the surface every so often to pluck the strings of his violin for the birds before retreating into the water to play for his kin. They spent their days enthralled by the doleful songs of the man who lived in the littoral cave. But there came a day when the songs ceased and the people stopped going and the man was nowhere to be seen. His people first forgot his face. Then they forgot his voice. And then his name. Until they remembered only the sweet music he played to keep himself company in the cave day and night. Talub had experienced much in his thirty years, including heartache at the loss of others like him, rare and magnificent and stolen from the sea. Few existed, living in trenches and corals and caves, each possessing an instrument chosen in youth, forever playing a song that kept them alive — a song that was theirs to play and only theirs. Adored for their sublime skill, they were also hunted by men from the surface who sought their music’s healing properties. It was rumored that the rich notes of a horn or a few strums of an oud could cure injury and illness, but mankind could not leave rumors as rumors, nor could he forsake the opportunity to benefit. Though friendly with most, Talub had just one close companion, Boutros, who lived out in open water near the sea floor shrouded in red sponge and algae. Sometimes Talub made his way to the sponges. Sometimes Boutros wandered into Talub’s cave. They would eat and drink and tell tales until the sun set and the moon gleamed and the water turned black like the night sky — starless. They made music and sang songs, but one evening when the moon was full and Talub yearned to play, Boutros did not show. Talub went looking, thinking Boutros might have been by the monolith he liked so much, carving stories into limestone or deciphering hieroglyphics on the sunken tablets of the old pharaohs. It wasn’t until Talub found the riven reed of Boutros’s ney flute behind the aged anchors he collected that he realized what happened. Despite this, he visited every day and night for weeks after in hopes of finding Boutros lounging in the arms of a large statue or cross-legged in the algae fingering the ney he always played from the side of his mouth. But Boutros did not return. The day it happened to Talub, he threw out both arms to grab hold of the violin and bow that slipped his fingers when rough netting descended and folded around him like new skin. He held them close, and he held them tight. As he was dragged up through cold waters, splitting deep indigo with his body, he wondered what awaited him on the other side, wondered if his kindred stolen throughout the years rose to the surface as he did in that moment and if they felt the same weight in their chests. The knotted net cinched around him, drawn up, up, up, and up until he caught a glimpse of the vermillion Mediterranean sun and rolled over the side of a purse seiner boat. Talub hit the deck hard,

    30 min
4.6
out of 5
496 Ratings

About

PodCastle is the world’s first audio fantasy magazine. Weekly, we broadcast the best in fantasy short stories, running the gammut from heart-pounding sword and sorcery, to strange surrealist tales, to gritty urban fantasy, to the psychological depth of magical realism. Our podcast features authors including N.K. Jemisin, Peter S. Beagle, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jim C. Hines, and Cat Rambo, among others. Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.” Tune in to PodCastle each Tuesday for our weekly tale, and spend the length of a morning commute giving your imagination a work out.

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