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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PodCastle 426: Sweeter than Lead
by Benjamin C. Kinney
read by Jen R. Albert
A PodCastle original!
I stood atop the wall and stared at the shifting black towers of the Nameless City, as if this time I might spot the shadows of its bygone masters. I flexed my toes against the rampart’s top, the basalt as cold and solid as ever. Only the wall and my vigilance held the City in check, but one of those would not last. Two months remained until my mandated retirement: the end of my prophecies, the end of my power.
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Rated PG.
Benjamin C. Kinney
Benjamin C. Kinney is a neuroscientist by day, speculative fiction writer by night. He has left the business of creating cyborg monkeys, and contents himself with scanning and stimulating mere human brains. He lives in St. Louis with two cats, while waiting for his wife to return from Mars. 2016 marks his first year of professional fiction sales, and his stories have already appeared twice in Strange Horizons, forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online, and now here in Podcastle. He’s a member of the Codex writers’ group, a graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop, and a slush reader for PodCastle’s evil twin, Escape Pod.