Tag: October
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Bright Young Thing
by J. A. Prentice in Issue 81, October 2018 Faraj beheld Death and was unafraid. She could feel its breath upon her neck. It was in the cloying curls of sweet assaji, the dream-flower, drifting through the tent in an intoxicating cloud. It was in the great fans rising and falling like the wings of hunting…
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And Sleet Engenders Flame
by J. B. Toner in Issue 81, October 2018 1 Only the dead are safe, and Death’s Lane was a well-lit street in a prosperous part of town. Hanging lanterns, redolent of myrrh, lined the cobbled avenue that led to the Final Temple; grave and dark-clad companies of pilgrims came and went. The moon was…
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Count Three Stones
by Melanie Bell in Issue 69, October 2017 Through the door of the cave dwelling, we were watching. Demet had nudged the leather aside just enough to see and just little enough so we wouldn’t be noticed. Aunt Alay’s back was to us as she bent over the stone table, curved down towards the bread…
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Mordant and Mast
by Alexander Leger-Small in Issue 69, October 2017 Big bellied ships blocked the sky above Braten-town harbor. Every morning Ysma woke to their shadowing promises. When tasks brought her to the water – receiving a shipment of raw-cloth or some other errand for Mistress – she knocked barrels and crossed fingers two times two, a charm…
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Ephemera
by David Bowles in Issue 57, October 2016 In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Emperor Axayacatl, his wife Asako cajoled him into reinstating Tanabata as an imperial holiday. The Star Festival was the perfect time, she suggested, for his subjects to implore the gods for the skills they needed to maintain the glory…