The Hollow Files

We’ve all heard tales of the moon being made of cheese, but what if it were made of bones? Bone fragments. Bone dust. Partial skeletons from animals we have no name for, no knowledge of. What if the moon were made of bones? I confess that before the expedition I would have regarded such a question as the childish fancy of an unstable mind, and perhaps it would have been better for me had I remained ignorant. There are truths which do not enlighten mankind but diminish it, truths so vast and malignant that the human intellect recoils from them as flesh recoils from flame. I know this now. I know it because I have walked upon the moon, placed my hands upon its ancient white soil, and discovered that the pale dust clinging to my gloves was not dust at all. There were seven of us aboard the Orpheus when we descended into the crater designated Marius-17, a nameless wound upon the far side of the moon where orbital surveys had detected a cavern extending farther beneath the surface than our...

Princess Elara broke Lord Varick’s nose at the midsummer banquet after finding him behind a marble pillar with his hand around a young laundress’s wrist. Elara asked him once to release the girl. When he laughed, she struck him hard enough to send his jeweled signet ring skittering across the ballroom floor. King Aldren rose from his throne and accused his daughter of shaming the Crown, but Elara calmly replied that she had only struck the man who did. Three days later, the king announced her punishment: she would marry Lord Tomas Vale, a low-ranking noble from Greyfen, the poorest duchy in the Imperium. Greyfen had no gold mines, famous vineyards, or grand armies. It had failing barley fields, peat bogs, crumbling bridges, and an ancestral castle whose western tower leaned dangerously to one side. The court laughed when Elara departed, confident that hardship would finally crush the stubborn princess. Greyfen received its new bride beneath a cold and miserable rain. Lord Tomas waited ...