Clarkesworld Magazine - Issue 40 by www.clarkesworldmagazine.com; Peter Watts; Megan Arkenberg; Brian Trent

Author:www.clarkesworldmagazine.com; Peter Watts; Megan Arkenberg; Brian Trent
Format: mobi
Tags: science fiction, magazine, clarkesworld, short story, fantasy
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Hunger did not scream last night, and this morning he sits quietly on his mattress. He reaches for the straw sometimes, not as though he is going to play with it, but as though it is hiding something.

The guards are agitated. They chatter in their brittle language, the sound like metal on metal. She is nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps I am mad, but I think I heard her voice last night. It sounded like she was singing.

There is something I did not tell Grief; Uri sang, the night he was captured.

Old King Folly sat on a wall, Old King Folly had a great fall,

and all the King’s monsters and all the King’s men

could not put the King back together again.

“Children’s rhymes,” I said, kissing his forehead. “Hush, love. They’d kill you for less than that.”

He laughed, drawing me down into his lap. “They’d have to find me first.”

“You’re so certain you can beat them.”

“They’ve given me my greatest weapon.”

I wrapped my arms around him, pressing his face against my chest. His lips lay against the skin that rose and fell with my heartbeat. “You can’t trust them, love,” I said.

“Them?”

“Whoever’s telling you these things — your greatest weapon, the names of the King’s monsters, these foolish children’s rhymes. The King’s monsters, Uri. You have to remember whose they are.”

“I’ll steal the King’s monsters away from him,” he said.

I shook my head. “Who wants to own a monster?”

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