The Scroll of Years: A Gaunt and Bone Novel (43 page)
Chris Willrich grew up in Olympia, Washington, where Mount Rainier could seem to materialize out of nowhere on the horizon, where one of the local television stations showed old science fiction movies every Saturday, and where you could bicycle to a drugstore that sold milkshakes, comic books, and issues of
Galaxy
magazine. It’s possible he was doomed to want to write fantasy and science fiction.
His first published story, “Little Death,” appeared in
Asimov’s Science Fiction
in 1994, and after six years and many rejections, his second paid publication, “The Thief with Two Deaths,” appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
. For a while he was worried he could only sell stories with the word “death” in the title. Luckily Gaunt and Bone went on from “Thief” to appear in “King Rainjoy’s Tears” (
F&SF
July 2002) and many other non-morbidly titled adventures.
He’s had a number of interesting jobs, particularly as a copy editor in Guam and a harbor cruise deckhand in Seattle, but his best jobs have been in libraries, especially as a children’s librarian in Campbell, California, where he got to indulge his inner ham actor while reading picture books at storytime. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family and is now writing full time.
The Scroll of Years
is his first novel. Visit him online at
www.chriswillrich.com
.
Table of Contents
Part One. Flybait and Next-One-A-Boy
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Two. Lightning Bug and Walking Stick
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39