Cabal and Other Unlikely Invocations of the Muse

• In "Aztlan: Speaker of Verse," a prequel to the Aztlan series of 21st-century Aztec Empire murder mysteries, a young Maxtla Colhua investigates the murder of a highly regarded educator. • In "Behind Every Great Enhanced Being," the mothers of teenage interplanetary heroes clash as only mothers can. • In "Floaters," a man discovers there's more to his annoying optical problem than meets the eye. • In "Flame's Hole," the bearer of an ancient ring finds it's not the only terrible burden he has to endure. • In "The Wall"...yeah, that Wall...we scale a possible future in a reality you just might recognize. • In "The Scales of Justice," an untested advocate tries to right an old wrong in The City of A Thousand Gods. • In "Cabal," a group of ordinary men try to take down a super-hero only they know to be a monstrous killer. In these seven, never-before-published stories, bestselling science fiction and fantasy author Michael Jan Friedman presents his purest and most original visions—the stories he's been meaning to tell you for the longest time.