Fantasy Scroll Magazine Issue #13 by Iulian Ionescu

Author:Iulian Ionescu [Ionescu, Iulian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC028000, FIC009000, FIC015000, FIC003000, dark fantasy, fantasy, fantasy magazine, magazine, novelette, science fiction, science fiction magazine, short stories, short story
ISBN: 978-0-9968891-8-6
Publisher: Fantasy Scroll Press, LLC
Published: 2016-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Lian hissed as I pressed the compress to her wound.

"It burns."

"That's how you know it's working." I bound her arm with strips of linen, trying to swallow my grin. I'd used more nettles that were necessary. Lian had a baby to think about; maybe memory of the pain would give her pause next time she decided to do something stupid.

We stood to pick our way past the roots of a stand of swamp willow, gnawing on smoked salmon and hardcakes. To our right, the estuary gurgled seaward. I didn't recognize the surroundings, but that was to be expected. Nothing lasted long in a tide marsh.

"Is this where Father died?"

Lian's question startled me, and I looked around. There was milkweed growing through the cracked flagstones, and a ragged fringe of bottlebrush crowding the murky water of the reflecting pool, but this was the plaza where I'd first met Arigh. He'd been among those begging for alms, dressed in patched, woolen robes of a coastal trader, but set apart by his pale eyes, beardless cheeks, and long, braided queue. I couldn't believe the drill abbesses had let him into town—foreigners were always suspect—but they'd passed him by with barely a glance. That, more than anything, should've made me wary.

Arigh had smiled as our fingers met over a crust of old bread, his grin quiet, tentative, and a little bit sad. I wonder now if he'd tried it on every novice who crossed his path, or if I'd been his target from the beginning.

"Was it here?" Lian asked again.

"No." My reply was the rattle of a dying crow.

Rasp. Click.

"You never told me what happened," she said.

I pressed my lips together, afraid of what might spill out. How could I tell her about the screams that had chased me from the temple, and the shame of watching my friends unwound into skeins of bloody thread. All by the throng of clicking, crawling monstrosities that had burst from the hole Arigh had torn in the universe when Heruar finally came to claim what was his.

"We should go," I said.

Lian cast an irritated glance over her shoulder, then nodded.

The temple's great iron-and-bronze doors were scabbed with rust. Lichen skirted much of the gate, the vague outline of protective filigree just visible beneath. Lian approached, but stopped when I raised my hand.

"Wards." I pointed to the lichen around the gate, which shifted as if something crawled beneath it. I scraped some away to reveal the gold and copper wire set into the stones. The filigree had slithered near the edge, bunching like a coiled snake in preparation to cut my daughter to ribbons.

I bowed my head, feeling doubly a traitor as I pressed a hand to the slick stone of the wall. The Cants came as if it had been days rather than decades since I last spoke them. Gold and silver threads crawled up my arm, and for a tired, resigned moment, I hoped they would take me. But they only brushed across my skin before withdrawing back into the stone.

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