Fantasy & Science Fiction March-April 2010 by Spilogale Authors

Author:Spilogale Authors [Authors, Spilogale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magazine, sci-fi, 2012
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2011-09-02T13:08:28+00:00

Short Story: EPIDAPHELES AND THE INSUFFICIENTLY AFFECTIONATE OCELOT by Ramsey Shehadeh

Ramsey Shehadeh splits his time between writing software and writing stories. His fiction has appeared recently in Weird Tales and Strange Horizons. His blog at www.doodleplex.com includes recent posts about Cthulhu fortune cookies and a hypothetical job interview by the 2008 Republican candidate for Vice-President.

The commission came to Door, as so many of these commissions do, in a dream. But not his own dream. Door was a chair, an invisible chair, and thus a very practical creature, more concerned with the workaday challenges of everyday chairhood than the frippery of somnambulant phantasm. No: the dream belonged to his master, the ancient and decrepit wizard Epidapheles, who had an accidental talent for extroverted dreaming. Nearly every night, Door was hauled unceremoniously out of sleep by the id-parade of Epidapheles's dreams, marching noisily out of his head and into the world.

Usually, the actors in these dreams consisted of buxom women in various levels of clad, ranging from scantily to un-, whose happiness depended exclusively and entirely on their ability to please the old wizard. There were times, however, when Epidapheles's external dreamscape intersected with another of his accidental talents—clairvoyance—and Door found himself witness to events in far-flung lands. It was in this way that he stumbled onto the affair of the insufficiently affectionate ocelot.

The scene: an opulent throne room, in a beautiful palace, in a verdant and happy kingdom. The players: a handsome king, a wise old advisor, a beautiful queen, an ocelot. The mood: grim. The king sat slumped in his throne, his handsome features sagging under the weight of a great sorrow, staring disconsolately at the ocelot that lay curled up on a plush lavender cushion at his feet.

All of which was superimposed in ghostly splendor on the fetid sewer in which Door and his master were passing the night. They were in the process of fleeing from an angry group of mercenaries, whose prized siege engine Epidapheles had transformed into a cheese-making device, rather than—as the commission had specified—a “hellish apparatus of agony-infused death."

The wizard slept uneasily throughout the dream, no doubt discomfited by the absence of his usual retinue of harlots. Door, however, watched, transfixed.

"My lord,” said the dream's wise old adviser. “She is simply fatigued. Or perhaps ill. I am sure that her present disposition is in no way a reflection of her regard for You."

"But it's not true, Victor,” said the king. “Kitty doesn't love me. That's all there is to it.” He placed his hand over his forehead. Presently, his shoulders began to shake, and a small, mewling, sobbing sound emanated from his Person.

The court, as one, looked tactfully at its shoes.

The adviser exchanged a quick, furtive glance with the queen, then cleared his throat. “Perhaps,” he said, “it would be best to send Kitty to the Kingdom of Drameter. The Animal Trainers of Drameter are renowned for their..."

The king surged off of his throne and strode to the edge of the dais, his umber cape billowing fetchingly behind him, and glared at his adviser.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.