Fantasy Scroll Magazine Issue #2 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: 978-0-9916619-1-6
Publisher: Fantasy Scroll Press, LLC
Published: 2014-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

© 2014 by Ferrett Steinmetz

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Ferrett Steinmetz has published over thirty short stories since rebooting his writer-life at the Clarion Writers’ Workship in 2008. In 2012, he was nominated for a Nebula for his novelette Sauerkraut Station. He lives in Cleveland with his wife, a barky black dog of indeterminate origin, and a friendly ghost. He blogs entirely too much about puns, polyamory, and politics at www.theferrett.com.

The Unworthy

J.W. Alden

"Rise, oh God of Creation," they sang, and so I did. I rose and called the sea. The waters came and washed that place clean as I swept my arms east to west, delighted at the bewildered sounds they made. I bore the tiny priests no ill will, despite the inconvenience their little ceremony had caused. Troublesome vermin are never worth one's enmity, though one does not abide their gnawing presence when it can be helped. So I washed them away, smiling.

I found more of their kind to the north, living on top of one another in piteous shambles of clay. The sound of my approach drew them out of their holes in scurries and staggers, some fleeing in terror, some falling to their knees in reverence like those at the temple. In a moment of charity, I weighed the fates of these a heartbeat longer than the last, nevertheless reaching the same end. The sea could not find that place on the hills, so I called to the heavens above, raining hail and lightning between each mirthful heave. Soon their earthen abodes were but dust on the wind, and those still living spent their last breaths begging for mercy as the maelstrom of my will took hold and ground the life from them.

All but one. One stood in brazen defiance of my wrath as the ashes of her home billowed about her. One dared look up at my form with malice in her eyes and fire in her heart. She stood at the center of the ruins, boiling with a fury so palpable I could taste it on the breeze. In my merriment, I set aside the desire to extinguish the stubborn light behind those eyes and decided to indulge this fleeting curiosity.

"Speak, insignificant one," I said, half expecting the sound of my voice to cleave her in two.

"And what would I say to a beast who laughs at the scattered lives of the ones I love?" she said. "I will not play at your mercy, destroyer. I can see it would be of no use."

"A fool's bounty has been sown, and I am the reaper. I destroy but for the good of these lands, to purge them of the ignorance that brought me here. Only the unwise would invoke that which can summon the likes of me."

"Were they not doing the bidding of their creator? Was it not your sigil carved into the very face of the mountains? They followed your commands. They called out to you, seeking guidance, and you reward them with death."

My laughter shook the hills and stoked the flames in the woman's eyes.

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