“Are your eyes not a pittance for the sake of your kingdom?”

I wrote a fantasy piece that would make my knighted ancestors proud — a misanthropic old wizard nurses a brave knight back to health after she is wounded in a joust. The shattering of a lance is the fulcrum upon which the fates of a kingdom turn in “Eyes or No Eyes” and all will be tested. Except for the wizard. He hates that kind of thing.

Kat Deggans is the artist who contributes an illustration to the tale; it’s always a pleasure to have a story illustrated by an artist and I’ve been fortunate in having several stories graced by the talents of my fellow creatives. We need art in this world, and I thank Kat Deggans for being able to give this story more impact with the visual element than it would otherwise have.

Adrian Simmons is the editor and he was great to work with on this one; there’s no doubt he loves what he does, and authors can’t ask for much more than that kind of respect for the creative work we all toil at.

Give Heroic Fantasy Quarterly some love, their whole issue 30 for November is online and I’m looking forward to giving the issue a read between researching the Yakuza. While primarily I’m known for horror and the dark, my first love was fantasy when I found “The Book of Three” by Lloyd Alexander, when I was young. Every now and again, I return to it, and it nourishes in turn like mother’s milk.

Enjoy.