Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #161

SWEET DEATH

by Margaret Ronald

In the usual course of activities—in as much as murder can

be considered usual—I am the one to call my friend Mieni for
assistance. This time around, though, she was the one who had

contacted me (by pelting my window with detritus, rather than
sending a brass sparrow as was my preference). Despite

Mieni’s opinion that my own investigative faculties are
adequate though untrained, I knew very well that I had not

been asked in that capacity.

It was an ugly scene. The alley was a narrow one in the

refugee districts, so cramped that two grown men could not
easily stand abreast. The owner of the property abutting the

alley, a kobold so young her claws were still gray, stood
unwilling to look at the Patrol officer who was questioning her

in a hectoring tone. Between us slumped a huge, shaggy form
that a careless glance could have mistaken for a human in a

heavy coat. But the size, the fur, and most of all the head
smashed by a heavy clay pot told me that this was a worse

situation than I’d expected. A low drone permeated the entire
scene, setting my teeth on edge, and the smell of the pot’s

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contents mixed with the trace of cold blood to create a heavy,
sweet stink.

Mieni beckoned to me from where she stood by the corpse.

“You see my difficulty, Mr. Swift,” she said quietly. Her breath

clouded and hung in the air, lingering after mine had
dissipated. Koboldim body temperature is considerably higher

than humans’, and her skin fairly steamed, though that might
have been from consternation. “Zio found the body this

morning, but because she came to me and not to Patrol, it is
not looking good for her.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I answered softly, crouching next

to her so that we were at the same height. “But this is a hell of a

problem, Mieni.”

“I am very aware of it. Look.” She stepped back, pointing

at the ground. The damp earth had frozen overnight, and while
Patrol’s clumsy feet had eroded some of the evidence, I could

see only the heavy, clawed prints of the victim. Blood and
honey from the shattered pot merged in florid swirls. “You see?

And the pot bears the mark of Zio’s family. Beekeepers,” she
said as I glanced at her. “Here, as they were back in Poma-

mél.”

“Seems simple enough to me.” The Patrol officer on duty,

Fries, tramped up over the frozen prints. “Bear gets into the
goblin’s honey, goblin drops a pot on ‘im.”

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Mieni shook her head. “We are koboldim, not goblins. And

Zio’s family attests her presence among them till this morning.”

Fries’ eyes narrowed.
“That’s not a bear,” I said to draw his attention.

“Looks like a bear,” said Fries, a City boy who’d probably

only seen a bear in storybooks.

I scratched my chin—unshaven, because Mieni had woken

me before my morning ablutions—and sighed. “You weren’t in

the war, were you?”

He hunched a little under my gaze. “Cried off to take care

of my mum.”

“It’s an Ursa Davala,” I interrupted, not caring what his

reasons were. There were a lot of good reasons to have stayed
out of the war, starting with common sense. Which I had

lacked, then and now.

Few enough of us had returned from the war, and few of

those had experience of the Ursa Davala, so his reaction was
not unusual. The varied races of Poma-mél had taken sides in

the conflict, and we humans were simply unlucky that the
greatest warriors of that land had allied with the Usurper. They

were among the most feared denizens of Poma-mél, and I have
a number of dents in my ribcage that attest to the prowess of

even one lone Davala.

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Though the war was over, our City was still very clearly in

opposition to the Usurper, its refugee population and all, and

the Davala were known for their loyalty to clan and Usurper
both. I would have sooner expected to see a palug prowling

through the river district than an Ursa Davala outside the
boundaries of Poma-mél.

“So?” Fries said, interrupting my thoughts. “Still looks

bearish enough.” I drew breath to point out the differences—

the shortened snout, the narrower torso—but Fries sniggered.
“Got its head in the honeypot, too. Or the honeypot in its

head.”

“Fries—” I stopped and sighed. “Have you ever actually

had honey from Poma-mél?”

His mustache lifted in something like a sneer. “I take my

tea clear, me.”

“It’s... different.” The honey had been a delicacy since long

before the war, with its taste almost like distant music, the
closest that most humans could come to the magic that

permeated Poma-mél. I sometimes wondered if my sweet-
tooth since childhood had been part of what had drawn me to

fight in Poma-mél. “There’s a reason that their land is named
half after honey. A Davala wouldn’t seek City honey; it’d be

several steps down in quality.”

“Still don’t explain—”

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“Send a sparrow to the Quarter, Fries. I want a proper

wagon-team for the body, and they’re to do it with respect,

mind. Mieni,” I added, turning as Fries muttered away into his
sparrow, “can you translate for me if I ask Zio some

questions?”

“I fear it would do no good,” she said, turning to look at

the smaller kobold. Zio’s young age was apparent from the lack
of tufted white hair that Mieni, a grandmother several times

over, bore in abundance. In contrast to Mieni’s smart if
diminutive suit, she wore a human child’s clothes, several

owners away from new. She stared at the body as if afraid it
would get up and attack her. “Zio has told me nothing, and

would tell you even less.”

“I thought the other koboldim in the City told you

everything.”

“I hear what I hear—but truly, Mr. Swift, do you tell your

own grandmother everything? I would be surprised if you did,
though no less so than she, I suspect.” She sighed and jerked

her head towards the scrubbed-stone wall. “And Zio has
refused to let your Patrol search her yard.”

Now I could hear koboldim voices on the other side of the

wall, muffled further by the heavy drone of bees. “Mieni, this

really isn’t good. I can’t prove she didn’t do it.”

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That struck a rare anger from Mieni, and her eyes actually

flared a brighter gold as she looked up at me. “I can, Mr. Swift,

and if you would use your faculties, you too—”

“I can’t prove it to a judge’s satisfaction,” I interrupted.

“Not a human judge.”

Mieni closed her mouth so sharply I feared her fangs

would cut her lips. “Just so, Mr. Swift,” she muttered, looking
away, then frowned. A lone bee, moving drowsily in the cold,

crawled out from under the shattered honeypot and stood on
the Davala’s broken eyesocket, waving its antennae as if lost. It

turned a half-circle, then stopped, wings twitching. “Odd,” she
said. “Very odd.”

“Seeking the honey, maybe?”
“A lone bee? I do not think so. You impute more initiative

to them than they truly have.” She shook her head, then bent to
scrape a little of the bloody honey into a glass jar.

“Mieni!”
“Evidence,” she said, rising to her feet. “Had I all the

information... no, there is something I am missing, and Zio will
not tell me.”

A new Patrol officer hurried up. “Inspector Swift,” he

began, then stopped, staring at the body.

“That was quick,” I said.

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“What?” He dragged his gaze back to meet mine. “No, sir.

The Quarter sent me—Crighton asked for you specific, and your

downstairs neighbor said you’d been called out to the gobl—the
kobold streets.”

“My shift doesn’t start till ten. What does Crighton want

with me?”

“He said you’d be best prepared to deal with our visitor.

It’s—” The Patrol glanced behind me again and swallowed. “It’s

an Ursa Davala.”

* * *

The first misconception that many people make when

meeting an Ursa Davala is to assume that because they are

somewhat bearish in appearance, they carry some of the same
traits that we assign to bears: slow, taciturn, graceless in

movement and manner. These are all false; the Davala are large
and strong, but they move quickly, often pinpointing an

opponent’s weak spot before the fight has begun. Few humans
have the chance to correct that impression. I am very fortunate

to be one.

Crighton met me at the gates of the Quarter. “Took you

long enough,” he muttered as I fell into step behind him. “And
what the hell is that doing here?”

Mieni gave him her usual sunny, flat smile. “Your pardon,

good Inspector, but I overheard the summons for my good

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #161

friend Mr. Swift and thought I could be of some use. I, too,
have some knowledge of the Davala.”

Crighton snorted.
“She has at least as much experience as I, sir,” I said

quietly as we crossed the yard and ascended to the upper
cloister. “And it couldn’t hurt to get another opinion from

Poma-mél.”

“Right now we’ve got a surplus of Poma-mél opinions.

With ambassadors’ immunity, no less—and why the council
saw fit to grant that, I’ve no idea.” Crighton yanked a door open

and stomped into the hall, not waiting for either of us to catch
up.

“Sir?” I quickened my steps. “What are Poma-mél citizens

doing in the City?”

That got him to turn around. “Read the damned papers

once in a while, Swift. The Usurper’s trying to make nice with

the council, now that we’re on the outs with the Ageless.”

I grimaced. The Ageless were the reason we’d gotten into

the war, and though we’d failed to liberate their lands from the
Usurper, they had settled here in exile. Only recently had that

become a problem, and I’d had something to do with it. Mieni
nodded. “It is like the masca, to jump on such a chance—but

why here?”

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“You tell me.” Crighton sighed. “This damn visit is the last

thing I need.”

A Patrol officer hurried around the corner, then skidded to

a stop as she saw me. I noted Fries’ sparrow in her hand.

“Actually, sir, I think this message is the last thing you need.”
Crighton shot me an irritated and puzzled look. “Exactly what

do you want me to say?”

“Just find out what the hell they’re doing here.” He waved

over the Patrol, then stopped and turned back, leveling a thick
finger at Mieni. “And that goblin stays out of the conversation.

You can eavesdrop like the rest of us.”

Mieni curtseyed as if she’d received an actual compliment.

“I would be honored to do so.”

The Quarter receiving-room barely deserved the name,

being mostly where we stowed visitors until they could be
shunted in the right direction. It did, however, have a decent

tea service. The Ursa Davala at the far end of the room turned,
a delicate cup held carefully between thumb and foreclaw. Seen

close and in life, the resemblance to a bear was passing, less
important than the piercing green gaze, the expression like a

smile on a snout blunted for speech, and the posture that did
nothing to diminish height and bulk.

“Ah,” it rumbled. “Arthur Swift. I am called Isto of the

Three Claws, first of my ranking and clan. I understand you

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stood challenge to another of the Three Claws; therefore I may
speak on equal footing with you, without my colleague as go-

between.”

“Equal may be an overstatement,” I said, and gestured to

the largest of the chairs. “After all, I did lose.”

It ignored my offer and settled instead on one of the

benches, elbows propped on knees. It wore three blue sashes
wrapped crossways round its—her—torso, indicating both

gender and rank, and the loosest of these sagged as she sat
forward. “Lose, win. You are alive. That puts you ahead of most

who face the Davala. I know few enough names in your City
who may speak on such footing.”

I nodded and settled onto a chair, aware of the wall behind

me that was mostly paper and lath. It allowed eavesdroppers to

hear much of what was said in this room, and undoubtedly
Mieni and shortly Crighton would be behind it. “What brings

you here?”

Isto took a lingering sip of tea, vapor condensing on her

bristles. “Opportunity alone. The White Queen thinks that
reconciliation may be possible between your City and our

lands.”

“I doubt it.” From behind the wall I thought I heard

Crighton curse. “However, I didn’t mean the City so much as
the Quarter. Why visit us, specifically?”

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She bared her teeth a moment, an unsettling sight even

though I knew it was meant as a smile. “Personal curiosity. My

co-envoy does not much care for your methods of keeping the
peace, but I find the Quarter’s honor-pattern intriguing.”

Porcelain rang as she set down her teacup and reached into her
sash. “Here. In recognition of the knowledge I seek—and the

position I have put you in—I offer mead of our making.” She
brought out a small clay flask, then frowned.

I hesitated—the mead-offering was a gesture of respect,

but I wasn’t sure whether I merited it. “Have I offended?”

“No, this....” She raised the flask, stamped with the Three

Claws’ sigil. “My brother Ayio gave this to me at the border, as

his new endeavor. If I gave approval, he would produce it for
the rest of our clan. I would have done you the honor of the

first taste, had it been unopened. But—” She turned it around
and showed the broken wax. “Odd.”

That was all we needed, for someone to mess with a

Davala’s mead. “I know clan leaders carry many flasks,” I said

hesitantly. “Is it possible that you—”

Isto whuffed a laugh. “You think I would not know my

brother’s mead? For all the trouble Ayio has given me, it is a
temptation. But no, my co-envoy and I shared another flask

last night but did not open this one.”

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“If your co-envoy is a Davala,” I said slowly, “perhaps he

partook of it?” I had no gift for subtlety, but that seemed a fair

way of inquiring whether she was the only Ursa Davala in the
City.

Isto’s snout lifted in a laugh. “Ah, no. No, two Davala on a

mission? The honor-patterns would be impossible to untangle.

Why do you ask?”

I cursed inwardly. “No reason.”

“Of course.” Isto pulled the broken seal away and sniffed at

the clay. “Smells just like yesterday’s plain mead. Ayio’s

estimate of his skill has gone downstream. Too poor to share, I
am afraid.” She put it away with a disgusted snort. “May I

speak frankly?”

“If you don’t mind being overheard.” I nodded to the wall.

From behind it came a noise very much like Crighton
strangling himself and Mieni stifling one of her belly laughs. I

ignored them; there are a few things that go along with having
survived single combat with the Davala, and one is respect

enough to tell the truth.

“If I did, I would not have come here in the first place.”

She leaned forward, lacing the claws of her hands together in a
gesture more human than ursine. “My co-envoy believes that

the current state of affairs harms both our societies. The green

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land misses those who left. This is a city of men; it is not meant
to hold so much of the green land.”

There were those who agreed, certainly. But those same

who deplored the presence of koboldim would often in the next

breath lament the lack of able-bodied men to perform the jobs
that our new refugee populations had taken. “I think you

underestimate our City.”

A shrug on a Davala is something to see, very much like a

furry ripple from nape to waist. She rose in the same motion,
all nine feet towering over me. “I reserve judgment, myself.”

I rose as well, moving close to Isto, closer than I would

stand with most humans—a challenge, if not a spoken one. “Are

you truly the only Davala in the City?”

“You have seen more?” she said, quickly and quietly. Her

gaze shifted to over my shoulder, and she stepped back. “No, I
think you are mistaking rainclouds for bears.”

I started to speak, then paused, aware that someone else

had joined us. A young man, delicate-featured and handsome if

not for his scowl, stomped into the room, or would have
stomped had he more weight. “Where have you been?” he

demanded of Isto. “Do you realize I had to talk to their
representatives to find you? And not even the council—their

servants, of all people. I can’t believe you’d willingly spend
more time with these fanga—”

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“I had conversation,” Isto said calmly. “With my honor-

mate, Arthur Swift.”

I bowed, unsure what gesture of respect to make to this

envoy. “Of the City Inspectors—”

The youth flapped one hand at me as if I were only a fly.

Something on his back blurred, and I realized that the

shimmery blue mantle that I’d mistaken for a jacket was a
carapace, covering wings like those of a beetle. With the

realization came a visceral chill and the knowledge that this
was no child.

When the war began and City men like me volunteered,

this young man was what we’d expected to face—angies, what

the vulgar call “flower-fairies.” We did so, but to our sorrow;
they were many, and they were vicious. Even a Davala might

yield to one, and as for me, it took a effort of will not to check
that my pistol was in place.

Luckily, the angie took little notice of me. “You think I like

having to wander all over this sham of a city, this jumped-up

parody of the green land?” he snapped at Isto. “We have work
to do in this sterile ground, and I can’t do my job if you’re off

playing honor-games.”

This last came out with such contempt that I thought

surely Isto would call challenge—but the angie’s rank must
have been considerably higher than hers. Instead she simply

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folded her hands. “Your pardon. I was seized with curiosity as
to how order is kept here, in this as you say sham.” She inclined

her head to me. “Good cover to you, Arthur Swift.”

The angie’s eyes narrowed at my name, and he turned a

scornful glance on me as Isto strode out. “The White Queen
may see some value in speaking to the likes of you,” he hissed,

“but only because she’s never seen how stunted this place is. A
blight on you and your City, ironblood.”

I said nothing, only drew myself up, imitating Isto. I had

two feet and at least a hundred pounds on the angie, although

that would mean very little if it came to it. The angie spat—not
at me, or I would have lost my resolve and flinched—but on the

floor. The wood sizzled faintly as he glided out, the sound
merging with the drone of his wings as he glided out. I exhaled

slowly.

Crighton was already out from behind the listening-wall.

“Of all the—What was the purpose of that, Swift?”

“To be honest, I have no idea.” I picked up one of the

napkins and mopped up the spittle, careful not to touch it. “If
she wanted someone who faced the Davala before, there are

many more respectable candidates.”

“Respectability was not the question.” Mieni emerged,

hands clasped before her as if she were a professor. “The
Usurper’s ambassadors have no real reason to visit the

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Inspectors. So the Davala must have hoped to glean some
information from you that only Inspectors would have, and out

of her companion la flor’s hearing.”

“Well, yes,” Crighton said, running a hand through his

thinning hair. “That’s obvious.”

“It is?” I asked.

Both ignored me, though Mieni smiled very slightly.

Crighton continued. “The only problem is that I don’t see what

Swift here could have told him, aside from how crap he is at
diplomacy.”

“It is not clear? Perhaps my grasp of your tongue is not as

strong as I thought.” Mieni grinned, and I knew she meant

“command of language,” but something about her grin made
Crighton put a hand to his mouth. “First, she determined that

the war goes unforgotten—small news there, to be sure.
Second, she determined the limits of our—of Mr. Swift’s

knowledge, and therefore that of the Quarter. And last, she
knows there is another Davala in the City. Though I think she

knew that before.”

“Then why ask?” I said. Crighton, to my surprise, nodded

instead of telling her to go away.

“Because by waiting for you to ask, she found that you—the

Inspectors—had cause to know of the other Davala. And where

you have cause, there is often trouble. I wonder...” She walked

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to the far door, the one opening out onto the gallery and the

Yard. “Mr. Swift, I think we had better return to the alley.

There is more here than I quite understand—”

She stopped, staring out the window into the yard, gold

eyes widening. Crighton and I followed her gaze to see two
Patrol escorting a small, wilted figure. “Mieni—” I began.

Too late. In true kobold fashion, she discarded the stairs in

favor of the window, prying the latter open and jumping down

to the ground. “Quite the goblin you have there,” Crighton said.

“Kobold,” I corrected, and hurried out.

Mieni was in full force when I reached her, explaining in

great detail why the Davala could not have been killed by a

kobold and certainly not by poor Zio. Zio drooped listlessly
between the two officers, and I realized that she hadn’t

expected any other outcome.

“Stands to reason, ma’am,” the Patrolman said with an

inflection that turned “ma’am” into something just short of
‘goblin.’ “She got the bear with the honey jar. Simple as that.”

“Simple? There is nothing simple—” Mieni said hotly.
“I’ve been on scene,” I said, raising my voice. “It’s unlikely

that Zio could have thrown that pot with such accuracy.”
Unlikely, but not impossible—but someone had to speak for

her, and they’d listen to me before they listened to Mieni.

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Not that that would stop Mieni. “That is not even the first

of the reasons! The prints, the wound, the time of the death—

do you no longer even bother to look at the evidence?”

I turned to Crighton, who had finally made his way down

to the yard. “Sir, there has been a mistake. You know we can’t
just sweep this onto her.” I gestured to Zio, who flinched

reflexively.

“I don’t know anything of the sort, Swift.” But he stood

with arms crossed a moment, gazing not at Zio but at Mieni.
“There’s one too many damn bears around this City, and I’d

like to find out why it’s not two too many. You think you can
get something I can give the council without it blowing up in

our faces?”

I hesitated. “I can get something,” I said finally.

Crighton snorted, but he was still watching Mieni. “Egg on

you, then, if it falls. You, Patrol: Take this—kobold—back where

she came from. Put a watch on the whole block.”

“A watch will not be necessary,” Mieni said quietly. I

glanced at her; it was the kind of quiet that often preceded
trouble. “With Patrol like this on the street, we koboldim will

be staying indoors.”

Crighton shrugged and turned away, and the Patrol took

Zio back the way they’d come. Mieni remained, hands closed
tight into fists. I hesitated, then knelt next to her. “It might be

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best if we took a moment away,” I said quietly. “Patrol will be at
the scene for a good while longer; we’ll go back to investigate

after.”

“After,” Mieni agreed, or simply repeated.

There are a few tea-houses that cater to the Quarter,

though there are more pubs and smoke-houses. None of the

latter establishments look kindly on our city’s refugee
population, and so I brought Mieni to the Yellow Bell, an tea-

house of such mediocrity that no one could be bothered to care
what the clientele was like.

To my surprise, Mieni headed straight to the back,

claiming a table and a stool so that she could sit close to my

height. “Two of the kitchen staff here are koboldim,” she said at
my raised eyebrow. “If they know I am here, we shall have

better food.”

“I was thinking just a cup of tea.” I nodded to a server. “Zio

looked—well, she looked like she’d lost hope.”

“She may be right to do so—but truly, if she only would

speak to me!” She glared at the table while I ordered a pot of
tea and biscuits. At last she shook her head. “She is trying to

cover for her family, which is foolish because it is obvious what
they have been doing.”

“It is?”

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Mieni’s white brows furrowed as she looked up at me, then

with a laugh she straightened up. “Ah, Mr. Swift, sometimes I

think you are a flatterer. Why else would you entice me to
speak of what must be clear to you? I know you have a brain, if

only,” and here she leaned across the table and tapped my
forehead with one clawed finger, “if only you would let yourself

use it, Mr. Swift!”

“Thank you,” I said dryly. The server placed a pot of tea

and two cups on our table and left without saying more. “But in
truth, all I saw was an impossibility: one dead Davala, no

footprints, no reason for him even to be in the City.”

“The last should be obvious, I think, from Zio’s reticence if

nothing else.” The server brought a pair of honey-pots to the
table, and Mieni gestured to them. “She and her family were

smuggling honey to the Davala.”

“But—the quality—”

“Is irrelevant, Mr. Swift. Even the Davala occasionally seek

novelty, and as a connoisseur of wines might sample a fine

vinegar to taste what had once been, so a Davala might sample
City honey.” She dragged a cup over to her and ran a claw

around the edge. “But there is more strangeness here, and I
cannot see a way to it. Perhaps what the Davala paid was more

than money; perhaps there is espionage here...” She shook her
head.

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“It leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” I said at last. “It’s too

close to the joke Fries made about bears and honey.”

“He also thought Zio guilty, and I believe—I know she is

not. Pour, please? The cooks may be koboldim, but the teapot

is not, and my hands are not proportioned to it.” I did so, and
she took the cup between her hands. “But even all this does not

explain the death. If I knew why, I would know who... perhaps
if I knew the smuggling routes, as I did back in Poma-mél...”

She moodily stared into her cup, lapsing into faint koboldim
mutters.

I gazed at her a moment. Mieni, and all her kin and kith,

were not just refugees but exiles, cast out for siding against the

Usurper. We humans may not all have returned to the City, but
those who did return had a home to return to. I pushed the

little jars across the table. “Here. Have some of the Poma-mél
honey. I’m paying, so don’t worry about the extra cost.” I

smiled weakly. “I’d always assumed it was a surcharge for the
special flowers.”

Mieni’s spoon clattered against her teacup, and I glanced

up from my own tea to see her staring at the untouched jar.

“Mar de sang! I am a fool three times over, Mr. Swift, a fool.
What is it the Davala told you? Mistaking them for

rainclouds?”

“I—yes,” I said. “It’s an expression, I think—”

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“An entirely accurate one! Come!”

* * *

Mieni’s concept of an explanation is lacking in several

regards, and I’m afraid I was no less in the dark as I stood in

front of Zio’s home for a good forty minutes, waiting for an
answer to my sparrow.

The street itself was quiet; the koboldim were staying

inside, and the other inhabitants were scared off enough by the

presence of a City Inspector. I shivered, wishing I’d had any of
that tea.

The Davala move quietly, but they are more suited to

wilderness than an urban setting. I saw Isto well before I heard

her, a great shadow in the fading light, gliding soundlessly
between the buildings. If I had been doing this properly, I

would have stepped out into the street and announced both her
name and mine; instead, I waited until she had reached Zio’s

front door. “Isto of the Three Claws,” I said, and gave her the
salute of soldier to opposing soldier.

“Arthur Swift,” she rumbled. “I tell you true, I did not

expect this.” She opened one hand to reveal my brass sparrow

balanced on her palm. “I understood that calling challenge
within the City was forbidden.”

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“It is,” I said. The back of my shirt was damp with sweat,

despite the cold. “I could think of no other way to bring you

here alone.”

The slow change of expression was very much like the

shifting of snow on a steep hillside. “A false challenge is a stain
on both our honors, Arthur Swift.”

“I’m well aware of that,” I said, hoping that Isto didn’t

decide to treat it as a real challenge regardless. I retreated a few

steps, not turning my back on her but leading her down the
walk that separated Zio’s home from the next, toward the yard

behind her home. “You know there is another Ursa Davala
within the city.”

“Of course,” she said, a bright flicker of amusement in her

voice. “Honey is honey, mead is mead. Though that you asked

told me that you had not caught him—perhaps that will be
enough for me to convince him such trips to your City are too

risky even for us—”

She paused as we reached the corner, and her snout lifted.

Her lips drew back from teeth hard and yellowed. “I smell my
family’s blood, Arthur Swift,” she growled. “I will break your

sad human neck.”

“Indeed,” a piping voice answered before I could protest. I

turned to see Mieni standing in the middle of the yard, an open
glass jar in her hand. Around her stood hives—or the remnants

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of them. The boxes had been smashed, combs and honey
strewn about, and even though Zio’s family had worked hard to

salvage them, the damage was clear. A hum of spared bees now
came from smaller hives in the corner, but most had been

crushed beyond repair, as if by a giant’s hand.

“Indeed you could break Mr. Swift’s neck,” Mieni went on

with more composure than I thought strictly necessary. “But
you would not do so without giving your name in challenge, or

without warning.”

Isto raised her snout. “No. I would not.”

“Not all are as honorable.” She held out the jar—the same

into which she’d scraped honey and blood that morning, the

latter of which had clearly caught Isto’s nose. “There were no
footprints around your brother’s body, Isto of the Three Claws.

He was alone, perhaps he saw a shadow, he looked up—” She
tapped her head as if to imitate the blow. “You know what this

means as well as I.”

I didn’t know myself, but there are times when it’s better

not to interrupt.

Mieni made her way across the broken hives, the drone

from the rescued ones seeming to hush as she did so. “He was
killed by that which he sought to smuggle out, by the same

honey.”

Isto’s eyes narrowed.

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Mieni went on as she reached Isto, standing nearly toe-to-

toe with her. “It was a blow he did not expect, since he was a

trusting soul, and he had not yet gotten the honey he’d come
for.” She held up the jar again. “This is your answer.”

“Honey?” I said before I could think. “The murder weapon

was a honey-crock, but—”

“Honey from Zio’s hives,” Mieni said, never taking her eyes

from Isto. “Honey made in the City. Honey that made the mead

you would have tasted and approved—had someone not
loathed what it was and stolen it, smashed where it came from,

and then left to prevent any taste of it leaving this City of men.”

Isto was still a moment, then dug one claw into the jar,

coming away with red-smeared honey. She put it to her mouth,
and if I had thought she was still before, this was the stillness

of a stormcloud before the thunderclap.

I risked sidling close to Mieni. “I don’t understand.”

“Taste for yourself. Or, if you are squeamish, taste from

the hives themselves.”

Squeamish or no, there are limits. I cleared away a few of

the dead bees from a shattered hive and got a drop on the edge

of my pocketknife. I put it to my mouth, tasting raw sweetness
—and more than that. The faint tingle of Poma-mél’s magic

shivered through me, the echo of a land far from here, the note
that could only translate itself in my head to a sweet wordless

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singing. And yet it was manifestly not Poma-mél honey but City
honey, with the harsh tang that I’d known from boyhood. “This

—the honey must be mixed—”

Mieni shook her head. “Unmixed. Or do you distrust your

own abilities, Mr. Swift? Has someone mixed it between your
hand and mouth?”

I stared at the gold smear on my knife. “The bees can’t be

going so far as Poma-mél.”

Isto raised her head, snout questing at the air. “ No. They

cannot.” She turned to face me, and I knew with a chill

certainty that my false challenge would go unmet. There was
something worse here now.

“Honey on its own, that is nothing special, is it?” Mieni’s

gaze flicked briefly to me, then back to Isto. “But honey of the

City, honey that has changed as we exiles have changed the
City, honey that seems to echo something once thought

exclusive to the green land—well, that is troubling. Particularly
when a Davala plans to give mead of that honey to his clan.

That is cause for Zio to remain silent. And that is cause, by
some reckonings, for worse actions still.”

The bees’ hum suddenly intensified, with a new note on

top of it: a different hum, of larger wings. I looked up in time to

see the angie drop to the ground before Isto. “Running off

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again?” he demanded of her. “You can’t just drop everything
when challenged—”

Wings, I realized. The angie had them—all angies did. The

lack of footprints around the body was suddenly clear.

“Bon flor, attend,” Mieni said softly. “Have you tried the

honey here in our city? I think you would find it—interesting.”

The angie glanced at her, fine features contorting in a

frown—and then, as he saw the bloody honey, froze. It was not

an admission of guilt, but it did not have to be.

The Davala move quickly when they want to. I did not see

Isto move, but I heard the crack and thump, and I saw the
angie hit the far wall, carapace shattered, one delicate wing

torn in half. He blinked at the sky, stunned, then gave a slow,
bubbling gasp as the pain hit. I knew that expression. I had

worn it or one like it once. “Isto,” I began.

“I am not sure you are authorized to do anything, Mr.

Swift,” Mieni said calmly. “Envoys are untouchable, after all.
Such a carefully sought status, I am sure, not thinking it would

therefore apply to them both.”

“I can’t just stand by!”

“Nor will I make you.” Isto moved to stand over the angie,

then pulled him upright by one arm. The angie whimpered. “I

believe I have recalled an urgent reason to return to Poma-
mél,” Isto went on. “And I will have some news for my clan

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when I do.” I began to speak, but Isto held out her free hand.
“Because we were on even footing, I am following the rules of

your City, Arthur Swift. But do not presume more.”

The angie gave another whimper as she slung him across

her back and walked off. I hesitated, one hand going to the
whistle that would summon Patrol. But after a moment, I let

my hand drop. “How did you know?” I said finally.

Mieni shivered, the first sign of cold I’d seen in her that

day. “The bee, Mr. Swift. A lone bee does not go out in search of
honey, not in this cold. Its presence spoke that the hives had

been damaged, at the very least. And Zio would admit normally
to smuggling, but the honey itself worried her—that was why

she would not speak even to me. We are perhaps a little
sensitive to traces of our home, we koboldim.” She shrugged, a

single rise and fall of narrow shoulders. “Only la flor would
find it so distressing that blossoms outside their jurisdiction

could begin to carry the echo of Poma-mél.”

“Enough to kill over it?”

“More than enough.” She glanced sidelong at me. “You still

do not quite understand how tied those of Poma-mél are to

their natures, Mr. Swift. The Davala are bears in certain ways,
the flor—” She shrugged. “The flor navigate by their own

knowledge, by the flowers of the green land. You saw how
angry he was at having to search rather than knowing where he

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was right away; with the City flowers changing, and the flowers
of home a memory—perhaps he did not even realize we were in

the same place as his rampage. They, too, are blossoms, and
jealous ones.”

“Deadly ones.” I looked at the gold on my blade, thought of

how the City’s long relation with Poma-mél had changed so

precipitously in recent years, thought of the strange taste still
on my tongue. “Do you really think the City flowers are

changing so much?”

“Perhaps. One never can tell with bees.” She looked into

the little pot of bloody honey, then ran a finger around the
inside and sucked on it. “You and I never did have that tea, Mr.

Swift. Come; I will tell the koboldim who work at the Bell to
make you something comforting and warm. And, I think, more

savory than sweet.”

I turned my knife again, then wiped the honey from it and

licked it from my finger. The angie had been right in a way -
this was a city of men, and not meant to hold as much magic as

must come from Poma-mel. But, I thought, tasting the singing
sweetness cut with murk of the City, that didn’t mean the

changes were all bad. Mieni nodded as I put away my knife,
and we walked on to the Bell.

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Read Comments on this Story

on the BCS Website

Margaret Ronald’s short fiction has appeared in such venues
as Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and

ten times in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, including a series of
stand-alone stories set in the same steampunk world that

began with

“A Serpent in the Gears”

in BCS #34 and includes

“Salvage”

(BCS #77) and

“The Governess and the Lobster”

(BCS #95) along with four others, as well as a ongoing series
of fantasy mysteries beginning with

“A Death for the Ageless”

in BCS #134 and continuing in “

Sweet Death

“ in BCS #161 and

“Murder Goes Hungry” forthcoming in 2015. Soul Hunt, the

third novel in her urban fantasy series and the sequel to
Spiral Hunt and Wild Hunt, was released by Eos Books in

2011. Originally from rural Indiana, she now lives outside
Boston. Visit her website at

mronald.wordpress.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #161

WE WERE ONCE OF THE SKY

by Yosef Lindell

The plague is coming. It spreads on the whispering

tongues of the tavern-folk and on a breath of dry wind over
dead grass.

I sit at my table in the Bureau. Sunlight pierces the narrow

windows on either side, illuminating the books in front of me.

Euclid’s Elements and Ptolemy’s Almagest—the building
blocks of an ordered but sterile world. Shelves full of leather-

bound volumes surround me like a scaffold, smothering me in
their eternal solitude.

I grab the desk with spindly birdlike fingers and push

myself up on squat legs. From the window to my right, I can

see smoke rising from the chimneys of Frampton-on-Severn.
That is the human village, where Beta like myself are not

welcome. The humans don’t trust our long tongues, our
mottled papery skin, and the round holes just above our

foreheads. But the plague kills us just the same. Out the
window on my left, the Beta colony sits beyond the river Severn

and the rolling hills. That is where I grew up, but I will never be

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at home there. It has been a long time since I could believe my
people’s myths.

Instead, I am caught in between the village and the colony.

So I stay at the Bureau, collecting books and waiting for the

plague.

* * *

My earliest memory is of my third birthday. Father put me

on his shoulders like he had seen the human fathers do, and

took me outside. He pointed to a star, and touched his long
tongue to mine. I heard his voice in my mind, which is what

happens when we Beta touch tongues. I shivered, even though
the night was warm. Kev, he was saying, do you see that star,

just to the left of the crescent moon? See how it shines brighter
than the rest? Well, that is where we came from. Someday, to

there we will return.

Oh, to have come from a distant star! At nights I would lie

awake, dreaming of the sky and its limitless possibilities. But
every year, when Father took me outside, he pointed to a

different star. So Father doesn’t really know what star we came
from, I thought. Maybe we didn’t come from the stars at all.

Eventually, I stopped believing him. So I didn’t complain

when I got too big to ride on his shoulders and we didn’t go out

anymore on my birthday.

* * *

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Thrita shows me maps. “Wotton-under-Edge,” he says in

his sonorous voice. He points at the map with a long, oily

tongue. “That’s where it was first reported. I reckon it’s coming
due north. Dursley is next in its path. Then it will reach

Frampton-on-Severn, then perhaps the colony.”

I nod numbly, pretending not to care. From reading Galen

I learned that disease spreads because of bad air, or miasma.
That’s why it tends to fester in the cramped quarters of cities

and towns. We are out in the country. Perhaps we are safe. I
tell that to Thrita.

He stares at me with those pale lamp-like Beta eyes. Thrita

has unusually oily hair which grows only in sparse patches and

tufts. “The Beta are never safe,” he says.

Thrita knows that better than anyone. As an orphaned

child, he often went hungry. One night, a human patrol found
him outside the colony after curfew, foraging for food. The

Baron’s men ordered him put in the stocks for two days. They
warned him that if he broke the curfew again, they would have

him hanged as an example. Zelhorn found Thrita while he was
still in the stocks, dying of thirst. Thrita had one very important

skill most Beta didn’t have—someone, somehow, had taught
him to read. So Zelhorn convinced the Baron’s men to free

Thrita on the condition that he work for the Bureau. The
humans like Zelhorn’s Bureau for the Societal and Literary

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Advancement of the Beta. They allow us to collect taxes and to
help enforce the King’s Law. Perhaps they think we keep the

Beta out of trouble. Also, the humans like Zelhorn because he
worships the Christian god.

“We always die,” Thrita was saying, in that slow, mellow

voice of his. “Either the plague takes us, or the humans think

we were spared because of some witchcraft. Then they kill us
anyway.”

I don’t say anything, because I know Thrita is right.

* * *

Once a month, my family went to see the relics. They were

housed in the tallest building in the colony, a gaunt structure

capped by a solitary spire twisted like the horn of a unicorn.
The relics, sixteen metal pieces arranged on both sides of an

aisle, were viewed silently and in single file. Father went first,
then Mother, then me.

The unmarked metal coiled in strange, skeletal shapes.

Some relics were dark as obsidian; others shone like pale steel.

Mother instructed me not to touch them. She told me that old
Bilus had touched a relic, gone mad, and died within three

weeks. I wasn’t sure I had ever needed any convincing on the
matter, and I certainly didn’t after her story. Still, Mother held

her arm out behind her and squeezed my hand when we passed
between the relics. Her hand trembled, and I wondered who

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was really holding who. Sometimes she cried when we got
home.

Father told me that the humans once tried to destroy the

relics. Although they ruined the building, they couldn’t even

dent the metal.

“Why did they want to destroy the relics?” I asked.

“They called them heathen idolatry.”
I didn’t understand what that meant, but there was little

about the humans that I understood. “What are the relics
anyway?” I asked.

“I’ve told you before.”
“Tell me again.”

“They are fragments of a great vessel that sailed the stars.

They are pieces of the ship that brought us here.”

“Why do we have to look at them? The ship is broken. It

can’t sail anymore.”

“The past is important.”
“Then why does Mother cry?”

Father looked troubled for a moment. I think he wasn’t

quite sure of the answer. “Do you know those woodcuts of

Mother’s parents that I made for her?”

“Yes.” Mother often gazed at them in the flickering light of

the fire after she put me to bed. I never fell asleep that quickly.

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“Their pictures are only carved in wood, but the likeness

reminds her of what she’s lost. I figure the relics are much the

same.”

I thought back to the stars. “Sometimes,” I said, “I think

we pretend to remember things that we are not sure we ever
had. And that’s why Mother cries—because she doesn’t know if

there ever was a ship, or if we came from the stars.”

Father looked at me sadly and said nothing.

* * *

Zelhorn approaches. I am still in my library, cataloguing

books, inscribing them, constructing a meaningless shrine to
eternity. I know it is Zelhorn without turning around. The

stench of rosewater and charcoal follows him everywhere.

“Kev,” he says, “I need a favor.”

I face him. He is wizened and old; his braided white beard

hangs in strands knotted with jade beads. He wears a cross,

and he taps incessantly with a stick. Today, he bears strange
parcels: tan masks with dull glass eyepieces and tapered

conical fronts that look like beaks of implausible birds. I worry
that he has devised yet another experiment.

Zelhorn continues: “I need some things from Frampton-

on-Severn. Lavender, camphor, mint, maybe a touch of cloves.

No rose petals—I have too many here already. But do make
sure we have a good deal of straw.”

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Now I’m certain this experiment concerns alchemy. No

matter, Thrita and I do all of Zelhorn’s real work for him

anyway. Still, I eye him suspiciously. “What for?”

“For the doctors of course! Bubonic plague spreads by

miasma. To prevent the doctors from contracting plague, the
incense goes in the front of the beak and the straw serves as a

filter.”

“Doctors?”

“For Wotton-under-Edge. The town needs doctors, but its

own are either stricken or fled. I think some of the Beta might

be interested.”

“The Beta are not doctors.” They can’t even read.

Zelhorn waves his tongue dismissively. “It matters little.

We can teach them the procedure. Make a poultice. Lance the

buboes. Avoid breathing the foul air.”

“Avoid breathing the air—how?”

Zelhorn comes so close that the stench of rosewater is

overpowering. His beads and cross jangle in my face. “The

costumes will mitigate the miasma, of course. And behind
these masks, humans and Beta look the same. So Beta can be

doctors without the humans knowing. Humans will let Beta
doctors treat them. The plague will be contained, and the Beta

doctors will be paid. Change, not plague, will soon be in the air.

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This is, after all, the Bureau for the Societal and Literary
Advancement of the Beta!”

I draw back. It is just like Zelhorn to try to find some silver

lining in the plague. To use it to our supposed advantage. “I

suppose the Beta will die quicker this way,” I say. “But perhaps
it is for the best. There won’t be any witch trials afterwards.”

Zelhorn’s eyes are like smoky lamps. “In all your time here,

what have you actually done to help our people?”

“You are not helping them either. These doctors will die.”
“Only without the proper precautions. That is why I need

the herbs. The sweet smell in the nose—” he taps the bird mask
— “dispels the miasma.”

I make no acknowledgment.
“Do what you wish,” he says eventually. He hangs the bird

masks on my shelves. “I will send Thrita instead.”

I think back to a time when I trusted Zelhorn. When it

seemed that he alone taught a truth of which others were afraid
to speak. Perhaps he is right. I have done nothing at the

Bureau. My literacy project is a failure. The Beta have no
interest in learning to read. Going to Frampton-on-Severn

couldn’t be any worse than remaining here. “No, I will go,” I
say.

Zelhorn looks at me approvingly. “Good.”
I will go, I tell myself. But this will not stop the plague.

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* * *

It was night. I awoke to the familiar sound of distant

tapping. I crept silently from my bed and lay at the foot of the
crafting table, watching wax drip between its slats and wood

shavings flutter down to meet the sticky mass forming
underneath.

When I raised my head, there was Father, a candle

clenched tightly in the hole above his forehead. His tongue was

taut as a bowstring and glistened silver in the half-light. An
iron nib quivered on its edge. Tap. Tap. Ta-Tap. Father

chipped away at the wooden block on the table, creating
delicate patterns with the nib attached to his tongue.

Father was a block cutter. He said that each block of wood

was full of stories waiting to be discovered. Sometimes, the

wood yielded valleys and the rivers that ran through them;
other times, I saw great mountain ranges with waterfalls

tumbling into canyon-beds far below. Often I imagined
dragons wheeling upon the peaks, scorching the mighty

mountainside with flame. Yet this time, there were no dragons
or mountains. Instead, all I saw were scratches, marks that

curved and curled in an unknown dance.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Words,” he replied.
“I like dragons better.”

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“Words can become whatever you want them to be, even

dragons.” Father offered me his hand. “Come, let me take you

back to bed,” he said.

Later, Father explained to me that these woodcuts were

templates that could be smeared with ink and pressed onto
parchment. This was how books were made.

I became fascinated by books of all kinds. Words were an

intricate wonder, but since I couldn’t read, I could only pretend

their meaning. Father must be a master of words, I thought. So
I begged Father to teach me.

It was quite a shock when I learned that Father couldn’t

read either.

“He has a strong tongue,” said Mother, “and an eye for

copying the strokes. But he doesn’t understand what he

copies.”

“The Beta don’t need books,” Father said, “when we have

our stories.”

I was crestfallen. Unlike my parents, I knew the world was

changing, and that books would be more important than old
stories. And if I could read, maybe I could find the truth about

the Beta and where we came from.

So I insisted on learning to read. Father made me what he

called an alphabet primer. Each letter of the alphabet was
carved in a flowery script and inlaid with what looked like

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silver. The whole alphabet was encircled by reliefs of dragons
and unicorns painted scarlet and amber. It was beautiful.

But who could teach me?

* * *

It is a long time since I have been to Frampton-on-Severn.

The marketplace is awash in smells of manure, salted fish, and

a peppery stew. It is still better than the hushed and stale air in
the Bureau. I see a human with a shrill voice; his wooden leg

drags across the pavement. He yells “caps for sale!” and waves
the caps in the air. Other humans mill around near shabby

stalls. After all these years, I am still fascinated by the way they
drink. They tilt back clay bottles or cups held directly to their

lips. It seems so much easier just to use my tongue.

But then again, I am Beta.

I once accompanied Father to this market in a horse-

drawn cart, surrounded by his woodcuts and crates of pears

and apples that smelled sickly sweet. As we reached the square,
he placed a hand on my shoulder, gently but with a

determination that made me wonder if I should be afraid, and
told me to stay close, for we were among humans.

I ought to heed his advice still.
I seek out Zelhorn’s supplies. I find camphor in little glass

bottles. Near the stall selling dried lavender, two men whisper

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urgently. Apparently, the plague is still spreading north. It has
reached Dursley. It comes closer.

When I have bought most of what I need, two rough-

looking men approach. They leer at me with unshaven faces. “A

Beta,” they say.

I wonder if I should answer them. I back away. “My name

is Kev.”

They come close. I can feel their hot breath. “You don’t

belong here.”

They are right. I don’t belong anywhere. “My pardon. I am

running an errand for the Bureau—” I don’t want to mention
anything about the plague. What if Thrita is right? What if they

think we are witches?

I don’t think these men have heard of the Bureau.

One of them grabs my neck and tightens his fingers.
My throat constricts. I cannot breathe. “Medicine!” I

squeak. That’s what I was getting.

I flail about, waving my birdlike arms helplessly. With my

fading sight, I see muscles rippling in the human’s arm.

I see a flash of metal. Please, not a sword, I whisper

wordlessly.

Not a sword. A blunt metal pipe. In the haze, it could have

been a relic.

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I am on my knees. My head is throbbing. Dark blood runs

down my face.

The metal pipe rattles like old bones.
Then I black out.

* * *

A traveling alchemist came to our colony twice a year and

put on a show for the children. We sat cross-legged on the grass
as he waved his arms and his twirling and shifting fountains of

colored smoke enveloped the sky. The scent of sulfur hung
heavy in the air.

The alchemist always asked us what we wanted to see. I

wanted him to conjure a golden dragon spouting crimson fire

and with a tail like a thunderbolt. But someone else had already
asked him for a dragon that night. So instead I asked for a great

ship.

“To sail the seas?” the alchemist asked.

“No,” I said. “To go to the stars. A ship large enough to

take all the Beta home.”

He leaned closer to me, and I caught a whiff of rosewater

and charcoal. The strands of his white beard were braided with

jade-green beads. “No one can sail the stars,” he said. So
instead he made a sailing ship, its prow dipping and rising on a

glassy blue sea.

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But I knew the ship was only an illusion. I thought: if this

alchemist, with all his magic, can’t take us to the stars, then no

one can. We never came from the stars, and we will never
return there.

When the show ended, I asked the alchemist if he would

teach me how to read. His name was Zelhorn, and he agreed.

* * *

Zelhorn and Thrita tend to my injuries.

“It could have been much worse,” Zelhorn says gently.

“Two broken ribs. You lost a lot of blood. Your nose was

smashed. It will never look quite the same. But you will live.”

Until the plague takes us all, I think.

That night, I take a candle and creep down the winding

stair to the library. I put on a bird mask and its matching dark

cloak; then I quietly descend the stair again. The disguise
covers my disfigured face. I will wear it, but I will not be a

doctor. Instead, I will run far from the humans and from the
plague.

At the bottom of the stair, I see Zelhorn sitting in the dark

by glass bottles of medicine under a torn canvas. His eyes are

closed. He is rocking back and forth slowly; perhaps he is
praying. He does not appear to notice me.

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What does Zelhorn pray for anyway? I wonder. What good

could it do? No god will save me. I must save myself. That’s

why I must run away.

I reach the threshold. I touch the door.

“Where are you going Kev?” Zelhorn asks.
My hand jumps in surprise. I do not answer him.

He eyes my cloak and mask. “While I admire your desire to

treat the stricken, you are still too weak. I must insist you

return to bed.”

I ignore him, and open the door. The scent of

rhododendron and rotting hay fills the night air.

“Kev,” says Zelhorn again.

I waver on the threshold. I think of all that Zelhorn has

done for me, and the truths he has taught me. I think of my

parents in the colony who still need my help, even though they
do not want it and no longer trust me.

I close the door. I remove the mask and hurl it at the wall.

The bird nose crumples in ruin and the glass eyepieces shatter.

“Do you know what I think about the doctors?” I say. “It’s

a farce. A carefully choreographed tribal dance. No town wants

to seem like it is giving up on its own. So it hires medicine men
for a show with elaborate rituals that signify nothing. Everyone

dies anyway, but they die with a clear conscience, thinking that
they tried.”

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Zelhorn sighs. He does not sound angry, even though

those masks must have been expensive. “You may be right. But

the towns are desperate to try anything, and becoming doctors
gives the Beta a chance to fit in. We need such a chance. Maybe

then, the humans will stop hating us.”

“The humans detest us because of who we are, no matter

what we try to become,” I say. “They fear our birdlike
appendages, our lizard tongues, the ghastly nooks above our

foreheads, our pale faces. Those are things we cannot change.”

“Kev my boy, on this sphere, everything is subject to

generation and corruption. We were born under the sky and
stars, just like the humans. Change will come, in God’s own

time.”

I care not for whether there is a God. I think only of the

unchanging stars, from which we did not come, and to which
we can never return. “Under the sky and stars,” I reply, “there

is no hope and there are no gods. Not at least for the Beta.”

Zelhorn crosses himself. “Spare me your heresies,” he

mutters, “and please go back to bed.”

* * *

The night before I left to become Zelhorn’s apprentice,

Mother told me that she had touched the stars.

It was late, but I couldn’t sleep. I was practicing my

reading with one of the texts that Father had copied. Mother

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approached quietly with a candle above her forehead and her
knitting still in hand. She touched her tongue to mine before I

could withdraw. The Beta need their traditions as much as
they need the new learning, she was saying.

I tried to resist her; I wanted to shut her out of my mind.

But I could not. Such is the strength of the bond between

mother and child. “Talk to me,” I insisted. “Use words. Why
must we always be different?”

Because we are different. I know so. I have touched the

stars. I have heard their song. Someday I hope you will

understand.

I just stared at her twisting tongue, her shaking hands, and

the candle clenched above her forehead. She was alien to me.

Never forget, she pleaded, that we were once of the sky.

Yet how could I remember, when long ago we had

forgotten what it meant?

Mother’s tongue retreated, her face a mask of calm. “Good

night, Kev,” she said. “I love you always.”

I said nothing as she left.
When I was sure my parents were asleep, I slipped outside.

I needed to be alone with the relics. I needed to touch them, to
know the truth.

So I sat all that night in the cool darkness of the reliquary.

In the dark, the relics did look otherworldly, like ancient

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dragons. As it grew later, their serpentine faces dripped with
the blue light of the predawn. Perhaps in my excitement I even

imagined a faint, tingling hum coursing through the cool
flagstones.

But then the sun rose, as it always does. Light cascaded off

the tall spire and glittered among the drab metal parts. The

dragons breathed no fire. The relics were just old broken metal
and no more.

I got up. My joints were stiff and numb. I reached out and

patted a relic shaped like a trident. Nothing happened of

course. Mother had been wrong. There was no way to touch the
stars. “Goodbye,” I said aloud, perhaps to the relic. “I doubt we

will meet again.”

Then I went home.

* * *

Scores of Beta flock from the colony to the Bureau—a sorry

lot of rolling tongues and babbling voices.

“Adjust your mask like this,” says Zelhorn, helping a small

female Beta with the strap.

“Burn the straw just so,” says Thrita, lighting a match.

The Beta listen attentively. They are learning how to be

plague doctors.

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I can stand it no more. I groan and sink to the floor,

holding my tongue rigid in the air. “And then die like everyone

else,” I say.

Silence. Everyone turns to me.

I get up and dust myself off. “Bubonic plague has no

victors,” I explain. “Especially not its doctors. It spreads

silently in the foul air. Few of you will survive, if any.”

Zelhorn and Thrita stare at me but say nothing to

contradict me.

I ascend the winding stair. No one stops me.

But no one heeds me either. In three days, we give away

seventeen costumes.

And the plague is still coming.

* * *

It took some time before I finally had the courage to tell

my parents the truth about the stars.

I showed them the Almagest.
“What’s that?” asked Mother, eyeing the figures and

diagrams suspiciously.

“It’s about the celestial spheres,” I replied.

Neither of my parents’ expressions gave any hint of

recognition.

“It’s the structure of the heavens,” I explained. “We live on

the terrestrial sphere. That’s the only sphere subject to

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generation and corruption—which means birth and death,
being created and destroyed. Above our sphere is that of the

moon. Then there’s a sphere for each of the planets, and one
for the sun. Last is the sphere of the fixed stars. All of the

spheres rotate, driven endlessly by the Prime Mover. The
Christians call him God.”

“There’s no birth and death among the stars?” Mother

asked.

“No,” I replied. “There can’t be. The stars aren’t made of

matter—what we call the four elements. They are ethereal,

made of quintessence.”

“Then how did we come from the stars?” she asked.

“The stars are not made of matter,” I repeated. “Imperfect

terrestrial beings can’t exist in that sphere.”

“So the Beta never sailed the stars?” asked Mother, her

voice quavering a little.

“Of course not,” I said.
Father started tending the fire with a poker even though it

didn’t need tending. The years had been unkind to him.
Gutenberg’s movable type had replaced relief printing. There

was no more demand for woodcuts. Sometimes he sat alone in
the shadows, caressing old woodcuts with his tongue as if

feeling out the shape of the letters somehow helped him

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understand. “If we never came from the stars,” Father asked,
“what are the relics?”

“Every Christian village has a relic, be it a fragment of the

True Cross or a lock of Mary’s hair. They want tangible proof. It

helps them keep the faith. Our relics are much the same.”

“I don’t think it’s the same,” said Father. “But I suppose

you won’t believe anything unless it’s written in a book.”

Perhaps Father was right. I looked down at the Almagest

again. Perhaps it was just like a relic to me. Yet unlike the Beta
relics, I knew it told the truth.

* * *

Someone is knocking at the Bureau door. I am upstairs,

stacking crates of ripe apples and tins of salted pork. We are
not expecting any visitors this evening. “A minute,” I say as I

descend the winding stair.

It is a Beta from the colony. He sells food. I think his name

is Mika.

“Sorry Mika, we don’t need anything today,” I tell him.

But something is wrong. Mika just stands there. Then I

notice that he is shaking.

“What is it Mika?” I ask.
He tries to answer, but he coughs, and blood dribbles from

his mouth. He holds out his fingers. The tips are black and
flaky. They smell of death.

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Then I know that the plague has reached the colony.
I draw back behind the door and finger the handle. “I’m

sorry Mika,” I say, almost in a whisper. “But the colony will
need us more than ever when the plague is over. We must be

here to render aid to the living.”

Zelhorn and Thrita stand beside me now, nodding sagely. I

feel a twinge of anger. It is Zelhorn who brought the plague.
Zelhorn and his schemes; Zelhorn with his bird doctors. But

then I sag, and all the anger sails away. The time for
recriminations has passed. I know that the plague would have

come anyway.

Mika does not move.

I shut the door anyway. I think I can hear Mika clawing at

it with his blackened fingers.

I hold my head in my hands.

* * *

“You must teach me to read,” said Father. “Perhaps I can

work in the printing press.” Outside, gossamer dew glistened

from new spring leaves.

In the shed, I found my alphabet primer, the one with the

dragons and unicorns. Paint peeled from it in chunks of scarlet
and amber.

“Are there truly dragons?” Father asked when he saw it.

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“Far to the east,” I replied. “Marco Polo says so. But not

here.” I paused. “But I wish there were.” Somehow I could not

imagine that the Beta would suffer so in a world of dragons.

“Me too.” A shadow momentarily fell across Father’s face.

Then he laughed. “But what am I saying? I have my family and
my faith, and that is all I really need.”

Father hugged me awkwardly, and I wished that family

and faith was all I really needed too.

* * *

“We are leaving, Lawyn and I,” Thrita tells me. His things

are all packed. The bedroom we shared looks bare.

The rain had come at the end of summer, washing away

the withered grass, drowning the plague and its miasma,
banishing life and death together. Lawyn is one of the survivors

who came to the Bureau after the plague. The plague made her
an orphan. Thrita spends a lot of time with her now, even

though she is half his age. I see them walking in the small herb
garden, holding hands, touching tongues, laughing at private

jokes.

“Where will you go?” I ask. I have forgotten there is a

world beyond the Bureau.

“The others talk of founding a new colony further east,

near Ruscombe. Lawyn and I are going with them.”

“I guess you will need to discover some new relics.”

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Thrita laughs. I have never heard him laugh before. It is a

throaty, scratchy sort of sound. “You know I don’t believe in all

that. I’ll leave it to the others to carry on with the worship and
the stories.”

Then how can you go with them? I say with my eyes. How

can you go if you don’t believe?

Thrita is serious again. He puts a thin hand on my

shoulder. He is worried about me. I can see it in his eyes.

“Kev,” he says, “come with us. There is nothing left for you
here.”

“I must wait for my parents,” I lie. By now I am sure they

are not coming. I too am an orphan.

I hear Zelhorn muttering from the other room. “A mixture

of mercury, horse manure, pearl, white alum, sulfur, clay, hair,

and a couple of eggs,” he says. “What will I get?” Then he
pauses, and I hear him clap his hands. “A good silver! But one

can never be quite sure.”

He has been going mad for some time. “If I go,” I ask,

inclining my head toward Zelhorn’s door, “who will take care of
him?”

Thrita looks at me sadly. “He is beyond help.”
I know Thrita speaks the truth.

“We need to live our lives,” he adds.
I am sure he is thinking about Lawyn. She is his life now.

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“Kev,” he says, “you need to live too.”
I think instead about the Almagest. Ptolemy and Aristotle

are hard masters and bitter lovers. But they are right. The stars
do not move. “My life is here,” I tell Thrita. But what do I have

left to live for?

I watch them and the others depart, a drone of voices

against an autumn-washed sky. There are strains of music—a
flute, and a mandolin. Some Beta bear parcels wrapped in fine

cloth. I think they are relics—meaningless relics of a past that
never was.

* * *

Father never found a job at the printing press. I regularly

sent my parents money from my earnings at the Bureau. But it
never seemed to go very far.

Then I found the bottles under Mother’s bed, jumbled

among the woodcuts of her parents.

Father just stood there, rolling his tongue from side to side

helplessly.

“How come you never told me?” I accused.
“I didn’t want to upset you.”

“But it’s my money!”
“It’s also your fault.”

“What do you mean?”
“You killed her hope, Kev. She lived for the stars.”

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“So she turned to human poison.” The irony was potent.
Father made a resigned motion with his hands. “We live

among humans.”

Mother entered. She stood at a distance. I clenched my

hands.

“Father’s wrong,” she said. “I never lost hope.” Then she

smiled. “The stars still sing. I hear them all the time.”

She came close and put her hand against my cheek. I could

smell the whiskey on her breath.

“They tell of broken promises. They call to me from

beyond a wall of glass. Don’t they call to you too?”

I unclenched my hand, and reached upward to lay it on

hers. “I’m sorry, Mother.”

She took my hand. “You are learned. Tell me, what does

Beta mean?”

I didn’t understand. “It’s our name.”

“No my child. The word. Where does it come from?”
“It is the second letter of the Greek alphabet.”

Mother gave me drugged smile. “See? We don’t even have

our own name anymore.”

I said nothing.

* * *

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I find Zelhorn in bed and unfinished alchemy on his table.

His beard and beads are askew. He is perspiring, and his face is

contorted in pain.

“Water,” he gasps.

I give him water to drink. He sucks it out with his tongue,

now nothing more than a yellowish-gray lump.

He grabs my arm. His grip is strong, but his fingers shake.

“It’s time to go home,” he says, and he points toward the sky.

When he dies, I close his eyes.
I don’t know whether it was the plague that took Zelhorn.

As a precaution, I decide burn his body anyway; it is the only
sure way to stop the spread of the miasma.

I wrap his body in a musty sheet and take it outside. I

cannot find kindling, but I need something that will burn.

I gather several books from my shelves and arrange a

funeral pyre. I place Ptolemy’s Almagest on top. Then I light it.

I sigh just once as the flames take hold. I think I will not be able
to watch, but somehow I stand transfixed as flesh and paper

alike singe, blacken, and blow to ashes beneath the autumn
sky.

Thrita was right. I also need to live.
I do not weep for Zelhorn, or for my parents, who I am

certain are dead. Instead I turn my mind to the immediate
issue of survival. Supplies are running low. Perhaps I can

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scavenge something from the colony. In any event, I cannot
stay at the Bureau now that Thrita is gone and Zelhorn is dead.

Now my books are gone too. The emptiness will drive me mad.
So I take a large sack and set off for the colony, for what used to

be my home.

* * *

“We need a plan,” I told Father.
Mother had been getting worse. Her eyes always shone

with the fire of drink.

When Father didn’t reply, I continued, “Zelhorn is an

alchemist. He must have some remedy that will help her.”

Father’s tongue shook, and he pounded his fist on the wax

stained table scored by years of making woodcuts. “I will not
have that Beta in my home! I should never have let you study

with him. His teachings have brought nothing but grief.”

“But his medicine might heal Mother.”

“Unless alchemy can set the course of the stars and mold

the shape of the heavens, it will be of no help to her.”

“There is still a chance.”
Father turned to me. “Not this time, Kev.” I saw the

despair and rage in his eyes. “You cannot undo what you have
told us. So go! You do not belong here.”

I was stung by his words. “I will go,” I said quietly.
I did not return. I never saw my parents again.

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* * *

The colony burns. Even as I approach, I can see the smoke

beyond the line of trees. The humans have scoured the
countryside, sacking and burning in their rage. With a sinking

feeling in the pit of my stomach, I see that the colony did not
escape their wrath.

I enter by the rotted gate. I lurch upon the charred

cobblestones as the stench of putrefied flesh threatens to

overtake me. Smoke rises like dark curtains, and steam erupts
from fetid pools. A once gaudy sign reading “Provisions” flaps

unhinged in the breathless wind. I crawl upon the hot ground,
collecting what few supplies are left.

I find my parents’ home. It is warped and tilted, blackened

and broken. I try to locate the bodies of my parents—or what is

left of them. But I cannot. My insides revolt and I vomit on the
pavement.

Then I cry out to whatever deity will have me.
My nausea passes. I make my way to what is left of the

reliquary. Its unicorn-like spire has toppled and crushed the
roof, and thatch and straw burn red-orange amid the ruined

cobblestones. Then I see a piece of metal shaped like a trident,
burning a sorcerous green.

I find a sliver of driftwood and push the metal from the

fire. It must be one of the relics. Remarkably, it is still as pale

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as ever, burned but not consumed. It is covered with strange
markings that I have never seen before. I cannot read them.

I put out my hand to touch the relic, but I hesitate, held

back momentarily by the old superstitions. Banishing such

thoughts, I feel the relic gingerly with my hand. It is the same
as before. Nothing happens.

Then without thinking, I insert my tongue into the groove

of one of the markings and let it run the length of the crevice.

Everything changes.
There are a thousand voices pounding inside my head. Or

is it more—tens of thousands, even millions? Each one is
different, yet all are the same. It seems like they are chattering

across a great distance. Frightened, I try to lift my tongue, but I
cannot. I feel like I am being drawn upward through a great

fissure—as if the sublunar sphere has cracked and I am
ascending to the moon or beyond. I try to concentrate, or to

breathe, but there is no way to focus.

The pounding grows tolerable. I breathe normally again.

The voices. I cannot isolate them because they do not belong to
individuals, but to a chorus. To understand them, I must make

out the whole song. I concentrate. I note patterns, I discern
harmonies. I think they are talking to me.

Images populate my mind. At first they are just a blur,

appearing all at once, washing over me like a wave. Then the

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voices grow quieter, slower, almost melodious. The images
flicker and still. I am drawn toward them.

Contact. I am standing on firm ground. The first things I

notice are the trees—like alders, but full of dark fruit as heavy

as eggplants. I look up. The sun is a deep, fiery crimson,
dominating the entire sky. I know it is dying. We had to go, the

voices say, it was time.

The picture changes. A fleet of silver ships adrift in inky

blackness. Ten thousand vessels sailing in different directions,
each headed for a different star. I hear the voices whispering: it

was a splintering, a fracture. Most fell victim to the void. Only
some made their way to other worlds.

I understand now. The voices are those of my people, but

they are somewhere else, far away.

Where are you? I ask.
Scattered. We are of many worlds. What is your world?

Earth, I reply. They call us Beta.
We are always searching. The pieces of each ship still

carry traces of our collective entity. We find each other by
linking minds. But why have so few of you made contact?

We were afraid, I respond.
There is nothing to fear.

Will you come find us? I ask.

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Now, there is no path. There are no more ships. But

someday, we will come.

Then contact is terminated. I lift my shaking tongue and

collapse on the burnt earth.

I writhe in and out of waking dreams. I ride a silver dragon

through the ruined Aristotelian universe, darting in and out of

shattered celestial spheres. Epicycles elongate and pulsate;
planets are flung from their orbits like projectiles. The fixed

stars escape into darkness; the Prime Mover travels backward
and evaporates. I say a lament for the Almagest and its lies.

Then I am a block cutter. I chisel away at my greatest

creation, only to discover when I am done that it is Father’s

face jutting from the wood. “Tell me about the great ships and
stars,” I beg of him, but the wooden face is mute. I ride on past,

grasping vainly at nothingness.

Mother is here too. “Mother,” I say breathlessly, “I too

touched the stars. I heard their voices. We share a great secret.
We need not be afraid.” I want to touch my tongue to hers, to

share secrets like we once did. But Mother does not listen. She
weaves a thread so long that it could rein in the moon, and she

hangs herself upon it. While her body dangles from the very
heavens, her tongue grows long and dark and fat, then flies

away on crystal wings.

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Zelhorn’s face appears out of the gloom. “Kev, my boy, we

were wrong. Alchemy was the answer all along. Its masters

teach us that nothing is immutable, and no substance is as it
seems. With the proper reagents, we can even remake the stars.

Everything is subject to generation and corruption, both in this
sphere and beyond.” His face begins to shift and dissipate,

pulled apart by an unseen vortex. “See, even I am immaterial,
subject to the winds of an ever-shifting fate.” As Zelhorn fades

to nothingness, I hear him shout, “You must have faith in the
future, although it is yet unseen.”

I try to follow, but I do not know where I am going.

Instead I hear music, and I ride toward it. The Beta are singing

among the remnants of the spheres. It is a great chorus that
transcends distance and time, encompassing all the

generations. I sing with them too, my voice rising and falling
with the shattered stars. I think Mother, Father, and Zelhorn

sing as well. Perhaps a part of them grazed the tip of the
beyond and joined the mighty chorus. I do not know for sure,

but I must have faith. For the first time, I feel like I belong.

I come to in the ruins of the colony. The day is ending; the

red sun shines a path through smoky haze. As I sit among the
dead and their ghosts, I finally allow myself to cry. I shed bitter

tears upon what might be the ashes of my parents, until the
tears and soot are mingled as one.

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I clutch the relic to my breast, and voices rustle in my

mind. Here of all places, amidst the dead, I have found new

life. The relic carries with it a future yet to come, and I will be
part of it.

I wrap the relic in the folds of my cloak. I pack water skins,

salted meat, and pickled vegetables that I recovered from the

colony. As I prepare to return to the Bureau, I look up at the
sky. Twilight reigns in purplish grandeur. Then slowly the stars

come out, like a carpet unfolding. I shoulder my pack and do
not look behind, for the stars are all that I have left, and they

will have to be enough.

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on the BCS Website

Yosef Lindell is a lawyer and writer. Although he has

published history articles in scholarly journals, this is his first
fiction sale. His turn to speculative fiction is probably related

to his childhood interest in taking tea with hobbits who lived
in a golf course. Now he lives near Washington D.C. with his

wife and son, and is a member of the Codex Writers’ Group.
You can follow him on Facebook.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #161

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #161

COVER ART

“Golden Age,” by Juan Carlos Barquet

Juan Carlos Barquet is an artist from Mexico City. He has
done illustrations for books, album covers and tabletop games

for clients such as Fantasy Flight Games; concept art and
matte paintings for short films supervised by DreamWorks

Animation and ILM, and exhibitions at Art Takes Times
Square (New York, 2013), Parallax Art Fair (London, 2012),

Euskal Exhibition Center (Bilbao, 2012) and more. View more
of his work at

jcbarquet.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #161

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

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