The Invisible Net

by Roderick T. Long

[Either late 1980s (Ithaca) or early 1990s (Chapel Hill).]

A lord sold half his wealth to buy an invisible net built by the smiths themselves, but intended for catching birds.

Stringing it between the towers of his castle, the lord caught a smith tangled in his net, and had his men cut the smith’s wings off.

Then he set him to work making weapons and engines of war, in a high tower room where the smith could gaze longingly out at the sky and sea.

Back to Juvenilia and Other Offenses