1 - 20 of 68 Works by duskpeterson
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Summary
"Have you ever heard of a place where the custom is for friends not to touch each other?"
Adrian knows that friendship is a fundamental custom of all mankind. Or so he thinks, until his closest friend discovers a mysterious journal.
This story can be read on its own, but it does have spoilers for the chapters of Law Links that I have already posted.
Series
- Part 7 of The Three Lands
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Summary
"Sometimes I feel that he is as mysterious as the gods, and that he is hiding something of vital importance from me. Something that would transform my life."
Few events are more thrilling in a young man's life than a blood feud between two villages. Or so Adrian thought.
Torn between affection toward his traditional-minded father and worship of his peace-loving, heretical priest, Adrian finds himself caught between two incompatible visions of his duty to the gods. Then the Jackal God sends Adrian a message that will disrupt his world and send him fleeing to a new and perilous life.
Boilerplate warning for all my stories.
I'm serializing this novel weekly, but it's completely written and edited.
Series
- Part 1 of The Three Lands
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Summary
"'You have committed a vile and savage act, one that any other nation would punish with death. Our punishment, on the other hand, will only be to give you what you want. You have sought to live in a world without boundaries of civilization, and such a world shall henceforth be your dwelling place.'"
A cold-hearted murderer. A vicious abuser. A young man hiding a shameful secret. A bewildered immigrant. A pure-minded spy.
All of these men have found their appointed places at Mercy Life Prison, where it is easy to tell who your enemies are. But a new visitor to Mercy is about to challenge decades-old customs. Now these men's worst enemies may be hiding behind masks . . . and so may their closest allies.
Formerly posted as "Life Prison." Includes an illustration by Everybery in the end notes. This novel was a runner-up in the Gay Fantasy category of the Rainbow Awards 2014.
Series
- Part 1 of Life Prison
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Summary
"He tried to keep his voice calm, though his pulse was racing."
Time is running out.
Vito de Vere has ten days to prepare for his performance in the Eternal Dungeon's first play. He may have fewer days than that to fight for his career and to save his prisoner's life.
As the Eternal Dungeon prepares for the greatest change it has ever undergone, Vito must prove his worth by breaking and transforming a criminal. Nobody else is likely to manage it. And nobody but himself cares so passionately whether his prisoner survives.
As an actor, Vito portrays the qualities of courage, love, truth, and trust. Now he must find the strength to take those qualities into the breaking cell.
Series
- Part 7 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"It's all about torture. That's what I didn't understand for a long time. The High Seeker has been seeking out and punishing those of us who wish to show greater mercy to the prisoners than the Code allows. Those of us who question whether it's right to torture prisoners."
The Eternal Dungeon is no longer a prison. It's a battlefield.
Split apart from their closest loves and friends, a small group of prison-workers seek to abolish the use of torture against prisoners in the queendom's royal dungeon. Time is running out, for the deadly High Seeker has already flogged and executed prison-workers who oppose his policies.
Do the reformers have enough time and skill to bring about radical change in the dungeon? Will they be able to overcome their mistrust of one another?
Boilerplate warning for all my stories.
I'm serializing this novel weekly, but it's completely written and edited.
Series
- Part 6 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"Fairview was the finest friend a man could have, and the finest battle-companion. I dared not risk doing anything that might break our friendship."
On a hot summer's day, on a high hill surrounded by the enemy, the best battle-companion can turn out to be the truth.
Rook and Fairview have worked alongside each other for years, first as officers in the navy, then as officers on a steamship, and finally as colonels in an invading army. Members of a nation where tiny differences in rank are considered all-important, the two men defy convention by treating each other as equals.
But now their life-long bond is about to meet its greatest strain, when they are ordered to seize and defend a hill whose landscape is unknown, in the company of soldiers who may be incompetent or treacherous. Will Rook and Fairview's friendship remain by the end of the battle? Or will their lives take an unexpected detour as they struggle to survive on Spy Hill?
Series
- Part 1 of Commando
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Summary
"This is the right place for you, boy. They'll school you here to be a right-standing man, one who can keep control over his actions, like any good man should. You just got to keep yourself open to learn and to grow."
How far can trust grow, when you're in a place you despise?
Arrested for a crime he doesn't regret, Bat ends up handcuffed to a group of fellow city boys and sent on a long journey into the countryside. He knows that he is being transported to a prison for delinquent servant boys, but what form will his imprisonment take?
Tattooed with the rank-mark of servant, Bat must learn how to keep from losing his temper with the men who carry the keys to his freedom. But in the unbelievable world where he has been deposited, in which a genial master orders strict punishments and a servant acts like a master, will Bat be able to locate the door to his release? Which of his fellow prisoners can he trust to help him?
And will he survive long enough to find out?
Inspired by true events at a turn-of-the-century reform school, this novella (short novel) is set in an alternative version of the Chesapeake Bay region during the 1910s.
Series
- Part 1 of Young Toughs
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Summary
"Images came, like flickers of a candle: Dark stones. Dark metal. Faint fire. A spoon in his hand, as someone urged him to eat. A stinking pit that he knew he was duty-bound to fill. A loom nearby that he vaguely remembered he had once known how to work, but which now stood as silent as the rest of his world."
He can't speak. He can barely see. He experiences only fear and the faint whispers of something he had once known.
But an intruder into his secure retreat from danger will pull him into awareness of what stands before him. What stands there is renewed danger . . . and the hope of something more.
Series
- Part 3 of Life Prison
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Summary
"They always held their breaths when the soldiers passed by, but so far, no battles had been held anywhere near Doughoregan Manor or any of its quarters. And sometimes a posse set out with the hounds, to hunt down the quarry."
Civil war is tearing apart the land. Again.
For centuries, the Kingdom Vovim to the northwest and the Queendom of Yclau to the southeast have fought each other for the border territory of Mip. Sometimes the Vovimians are lords of the land. Sometimes the people of Yclau are.
The only Mippites whose lives don't change are the slaves. Young Sling knows that his own life's work has already been determined: he is to be a house slave, serving his master's son. But secret meetings in hidden places with his master's son make Sling uncertain of what will happen next.
When news arrives of a proclamation that will allow Sling to leave his hated master, Sling faces a difficult choice: whether to flee to safety or to stay and face the dangers of an unknown future.
"Emancipation" is loosely inspired by events at a border-state manor during and after the American Civil War. This is a Juneteenth holiday story for my readers.
Series
- Part 2 of Life Prison
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Summary
"The High Seeker surely could not know in full what Vito was thinking and planning. If he'd known, he'd have ordered Vito strapped to a rack."
It was his duty to transform the prisoner's soul. But which one?
When Vito de Vere is assigned a prisoner who is not quite what he appears to be, Vito must penetrate the mystery of his prisoner's unexpected appearance in the Eternal Dungeon, arrested for a crime that is no crime.
But Vito himself is hiding a mystery from the other members of the dungeon. Increasingly filled with tenderness toward his vulnerable prisoner, can Vito accomplish his secret mission without sacrificing his prisoner?
Boilerplate warning for all my stories.
Includes an illustration by Everybery in the end notes.
Series
- Part 5 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"The beginning of the end for him (or so it seemed at the time) came in the moment that he stepped into the shadow of Capital Mountain and was assaulted by a stranger."
In the battle-weary lands of the Great Peninsula, only one fate is worse than being taken prisoner by the Lieutenant: being taken prisoner if you are the Lieutenant.
As the world's most skilled torturer struggles with his change of fortune, he finds that his fate is intertwined with the destinies of an idealistic army commander, an affectionate prisoner, and a protégé who reveres the Lieutenant's art . . . but is on the wrong side of the conflict.
Boilerplate warning for all my stories.
This story is also available in free Braille and DAISY editions.
Series
- Part 6 of The Three Lands
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Summary
"Vito was beginning to wonder whether this dungeon's prisoners were questioned in pitch darkness. That was a matter of some personal concern to him."
Walking into a trap may be the only way to create one.
Danger runs high for Vito when he arrives at the Eternal Dungeon, escorted by guards. In this royal dungeon, prisoners are "searched" for their crimes, by torture and by more subtle means.
Vito knows that he will be searched. But he has his own searching to accomplish, and to do so he must undergo the scrutiny of the queendom's most accomplished torturer.
Series
- Part 4 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"Layle had spent most of the afternoon attempting to figure out how to revise the Code in a manner that was unlikely to draw the wrong sort of attention from the High Torturer."
The Eternal Dungeon's youngest torturer has a special talent. He's about to discover what it is, at the worst of moments.
Series
- Part 11 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"During the dawn hours at the Eternal Dungeon, as the day shift yawned itself awake and the night shift yawned itself to bed, the talk turned, as it always did, to the injustices of being a guard."
Three guards and a mysterious substance provide a temptation too great to be missed . . . especially when two torturers add their skills to the mix.
Soon three very different men – a married man who is committed to respect and honor, a bachelor harboring secret desires, and a soldier with an unfulfilled ambition – will find themselves caught in a trap. Their rescue will come from an unexpected quarter.
Series
- Part 18 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"In the past, he would gladly have accepted the death sentence for his crimes – indeed, he had pled for it then, in the name of justice. But now he had another person in his life to consider."
A prisoner meeting his fate. A torturer meeting his demons. And between them, a man whose bonds are on the point of shattering.
As the head torturer of the Eternal Dungeon sets out to terrify his subordinates in a horrific manner, his junior guard seeks a way to rebel against orders. But deep within the drama lies another man, and the fate of the dungeon may be determined by whether that other man steps forward.
Series
- Part 3 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"The trouble was, he could still think."
He expected death. What arrived was worse.
Series
- Part 21 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
After his love-mate had been escorted weeping from the great entry hall, nothing was left to distract his mind from what was to come.
Ten minutes left to contemplate what lies ahead, before the end begins.
Series
- Part 20 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"'Shall we allow criminals to roam the streets at will because we're afraid to take the chance of harming an innocent prisoner?'"
A bloody knife from a crime scene becomes a mystery to be solved and a foreshadow of trouble to come.
The ties forged between the noble-minded Eternal Dungeon and an abusive foreign dungeon have set off an unpredictable chain of horrific events, in which the love between two of the Eternal Dungeon's Seekers (torturers) will be tested to the straining point. Caught in the middle of the struggle are Barrett Boyd and Seward Sobel, loyal guards who will find themselves questioning their most fundamental beliefs about the royal prison's ideals.
Barrett must help his Seeker determine whether their mild-mannered prisoner is an attempted murderer. His friend Seward has pledged to guard his own Seeker against an assassin . . . or should Seward be protecting the dungeon inhabitants against his Seeker? But when the guards' two Seekers fall into a lovers' quarrel, that is when the real danger begins.
Series
- Part 2 of The Eternal Dungeon
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Summary
"Lying on my stomach in the passage, I held my breath. Knowing the man who spoke, I had no doubts as to what he was suggesting."
When an endangered slave visits an imprisoned spy, she discovers that she has more options in life than she had thought.
Life is not easy for Serva, the bastard daughter of the King of Daxis. Alternately treated as a slave and as a princess, she is distrusted on all sides . . . especially by her old rival from the nursery, her cousin the Prince.
When the Prince begins to hint that she is a threat to his ambitions, Serva must make a decision that will determine the course of her life. And that decision will determine the fate of a spy who is due to be hanged. . . .
Series
- Part 5 of The Three Lands
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Summary
"There was trouble here. He was determined to find and break the troublemaker."
Midwinter's god is as cold as cruelty and as warm as a loving heart.
Winter solstice begins the sacred season of Hell's Fast, when Hell's worshippers sacrifice food for the sake of the underworld god. But the High Seeker of the Eternal Dungeon is in no fit mood for holy rituals; duty has deprived him of the presence of his new love-mate.
Then comes trouble, in the form of an invader to the High Seeker's privacy and comfort. . . .
This story is a 2016 holiday gift fic for Dusk Peterson's readers.
Series
- Part 12 of The Eternal Dungeon