Magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies 153 (pdf)

Issue #153 • Aug. 7, 2014

“Five Fruits I Ate in Sandar Land,” by Michael

Haynes

“Make No Promises,” by Rachel Halpern

For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

FIVE FRUITS I ATE IN SANDAR LAND

by Michael Haynes

Bitter Apple

The bitter apple is fatal. Only in large quantities, though,

and its offensive taste makes it nearly impossible to eat enough

of them to kill a man. As the sun dips below the horizon, I eat
one my first night in Sandar Land, barefoot and sweatsoaked.

The juices sting my chapped lips and give no comfort to my
throat. It’s the first food I have eaten in three days. While I

chew, I try to imagine it as something less noxious, but with
each bite I nearly retch and lose it all.

Swallowing the last, I hold up the slender core, stem

poking out the top, seeds near the heart of the fruit, and nod at

the man who had dared me.

His friend nudges him in the ribs. “Make him eat the core,

too, eh?”

The man hesitates a moment, looking me over. I will eat

the core if that is what he demands. I have come too far not to
keep going; have yielded what little I was born with except my

honor in my attempt to rescue Rose, whose father betrayed her.
If I stop now, I will retain nothing.

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There’s a flash of something in the man’s eyes—pity, most

likely, though I prefer to think of it as sympathy—as he reaches

into a soft cloth pouch and tosses three coins at my feet.

* * *

Sweet Melon
Further into Sandar Land, I come to a village at a

crossroads. I have been told to wait here for news on where to
proceed but not how soon the news will come. I take work at an

inn. The innkeeper is old and gruff, and the fare her staff are
served is rarely better than that slopped to the pigs she keeps.

But I have a place to sleep and food to keep my body alive while
the days pass by.

One night a female merchant dines with her traveling

party. From the corner of my eye, I see her gaze at me several

times as I serve the food and keep the guests’ glasses full. By
the time of evening when I pour the cheapest wine, she acts as

drunk as all the rest. But I know I haven’t filled her glass since
before the food was served.

I pass close by her and she reaches out an unsteady hand,

placing it on my thigh.

“You’re quite the young man,” she slurs.
I hesitate, unsure what to say. She continues, saying: “You

have a healthy look to you. Like the roses I’ve seen in the
capital city.”

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My heart quickens at the mention of Rose’s name. “I have

never been to the capital.”

“But surely you have seen a rose?”
She drops her spoon to the floor. I bend to pick it up and

as I do so her lips brush my ear. “My room,” she says, in a voice
totally sober. “After midnight.”

I hand her the spoon and she reaches out with a morsel of

sweet melon between her slender fingers. She pushes the fruit

to my lips. I accept it and let its sugary taste fill my mouth
before giving her the slightest of nods.

When I arrive at her room, moments after the midnight

bells have tolled, I find her naked on her bed.

“You’re quite the young man,” she says again. “Now close

the door.”

I hesitate, but only for a second. Surely Rose would forgive

me.

Afterward, the merchant tells me what I need to know.

* * *

Jangofruit
The jangofruit is grown today only in one Sandar valley.

There used to be many orchards, when the land was still ruled
by the Kaglamen; they viewed the fruit as holy. But that was

centuries ago. The valley where jangofruit is still grown is home
to one of the last communities of unassimilated Kaglamen.

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I go to one of their prophetesses, and she breaks open a

jangofruit as I sit at her table. Together we pick out all the

seeds and place them in a cup. Then we eat the fruit, and when
each of us has consumed our share she places her hand on top

of the cup, shakes the seeds, and spills them across the table.

“You have traveled far,” she says. No great insight there;

my rust-colored skin marks me as an outsider throughout
Sandar.

“You are losing hope.”
I stay silent. The prophetess runs fingers, bent with age,

over the seeds. Then she looks at me.

“But you are on the right path. If you turn back now, you

will regret it.”

I wait, hoping for more, but she sits back with a deep sigh.

“Is that all?” I ask.
She smiles. “Yes. But it will be enough.”

“More prophecy?” I ask as I pull coins from my leather

purse to pay for her time.

“No. It’s what I see in your eyes.”
As I shut the door behind me, I think I hear her softly say

“Good luck.”

* * *

Spirit Oranges

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In the capital city, where I have lived now for six months, I

wait for my brother to arrive. I had called for him as soon as I’d

confirmed that Rose was indeed here, that day when I heard
the Baron’s odious assistant bragging about his master’s

newest concubine—her hazel skin, her grey eyes. And all the
rest, all that she had sworn would be ours alone.

The room I rent is above a tanner’s shop. Across the street

a fruit vendor sets up every day, and each morning I buy a

spirit orange from his stall.

My brother was to have been the first attendant at our

wedding. My father accepted the offer of a minimal dowry from
Rose’s mother and uncle. But before the wedding day her

wretched, drunken father returned from battle alive. Rather
than give even the two horses and twenty gold pieces Rose was

to bring to our marriage, he spirited her off in the night and
sold her to a man two towns over while my father and brother

and I were away on a hunt.

I went after her as soon as I returned home and heard the

news. The man in the other town, I found, had sold her to
another man who had, in turn, sold her to the Baron.

I eat my spirit orange each day and stow the large central

seed away in a pouch. The fruit’s color reminds me of the

central color from my family’s crest.

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The pouch bulges from all it holds. Soon, when my brother

arrives, I will hire a young boy out in the street and have him

deliver the pouch to the Baron.

* * *

Starberries
The starberry is not native to Sandar Land. I acquired

three of the berries, red with bright white stars at the spot
where they had been plucked from their vine, in Puran, before I

even made it to the Sandar border.

I stand under cover of darkness outside the cabin along

Lake Sandar where the Baron and Rose are sleeping. Eight men
guard the cabin, four outside and four within; enough that the

Baron surely thinks himself safe.

I take the three berries and pop them into my mouth. They

are the sweetest of all the fruits I have eaten in Sandar Land.

Within seconds, I feel their power well up inside me. My

pulse beats heavy in my head and my breaths come fast as I
sprint toward the cabin. The lapping of waves on the shore has

slowed to a low murmur and the trees’ leaves barely rustle. The
guards outside the cabin look as if they are almost standing still

as I tear across the field. My lungs burn and I feel the skin of
my feet flay against the ground.

My brother waits among the trees; to him I must look like

a blur.

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I burst through the door with a bang that echoes lazily off

the walls, past the inside guards who are playing dice at a table.

Clack... clack... clack.... The cubes bounce only thrice as I run
across the room to the inner door.

Inside, my fiancée lies in bed, asleep. I take just a moment

to crush the Baron’s neck before I scoop Rose up in my arms

and hasten for the outside, my heart going faster with each
step.

Beyond the trees, gasping for what breath I can still take

in, I place her at my brother’s feet.

My vision blurs and I fall to my knees. Then, with a hot

rush inside me, everything is back to normal pace.

I topple the rest of the way to the ground, next to Rose, our

faces only inches apart. Her eyes are open and I see fresh tears

in her eyes.

“I love you,” I whisper with the last air in my lungs.

My chest explodes in pain, and I close my eyes.
The starberry is fatal.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

Michael Haynes lives in Central Ohio where he helps keep IT
systems running for a large corporation during the day and

puts his characters through the wringer by night. An ardent
short story reader and writer, Michael had over twenty

stories accepted for publication during 2012 by venues such
as Intergalactic Medicine Show, Nature, and Daily Science

Fiction. He is the Editor for the monthly flash fiction contests
run by Kazka Press. Visit him online at

michaelhaynes.info

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

MAKE NO PROMISES

by Rachel Halpern

My sister Lydie and I often walk in the hills when our

morning lessons are over. We take our lessons separately—I am
the younger by three years, so the history lessons that give me

such trouble my sister has already mastered. Fencing is even
worse, where besides my lack of training, I have also my

shorter reach and my weak left eye to contend with.

She will always be the better swordswoman.

Today was mathematics, my favorite subject. Numbers are

logical, trustworthy, unchanging. I can set variables into a

system of equations and find clear and certain answers—better
yet, I can know why. I know what the people around me will do,

but their motivations baffle me.

When I finish with my tutor, my sister is just getting out of

her own lesson, and we meet in the fortress library as we leave.

“It’s too fine a day for chess,” I tell her before she can

speak. We’ve just learned the game from our mother, and now
Lydie only wants to play chess, while I would rather enjoy the

cool weather.

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“We can at least bring it along,” she says, quickly enough

that I know she anticipated my protest. “The rocks in our usual

clearing are flat enough for a game or two.” I hesitate, and she
widens her eyes at me pleadingly. “I’ll even let you win a game

if you like.”

That startles a laugh out of me. “You will absolutely not. I

believe you to be fundamentally incapable of losing at
anything.”

Lydie gives me a tragic look. It’s mostly theatrical, but I

can see her real disappointment, and I relent. “Then you have

to carry everything,” I say. “And pack up all the pieces when
we’re done, and go pack the case up now while I change into

better shoes for walking.”

She’s laughing now. “I will, I will, I promise you. I won’t

even complain about how heavy the pieces are on our way up.
And I might let you win, you know, just one time.”

“Make no promises,” I say.

* * *

I put my books away and change clothes, throwing a scarf

over my head to keep the sun off; putting on thick-soled

sandals to bear the sun-heated stones. When I am finished, I sit
by the window and wait for my sister’s return. There are two

flights of stairs between our rooms—it will take her some time
to pack away the chess pieces and come to fetch me.

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My rooms look out on the back courtyard, so if I turn my

head I can see everyone passing through. Just now, it’s the

stable boy my sister has been pining after. Looking at him, I see
our futures etched in the air between us, the courtyard filling

with echoes of what will come. My sister will wait for him to
approach her, careful of the power difference between them,

but they will court for a time.

I will be fond of him for my sister’s sake, and for his

kindness, and he will be almost like family for a time, though
too in awe of our mother as god-prince of our small city to ever

truly join us. I understand—my mother has ruled our people as
god-prince since long before I was born. She controls the

storms, bringing bitter hot wind and sand to burn our enemies,
and sometimes draws down rain when even the summer brings

too little water—killer and life-giver in one. And she is
centuries old, and half the myths and legends we tell in our city

are about her or people she knew. It is intimidating enough to
be her daughter; I can barely imagine how frightening she must

be to an ordinary servant of the fortress.

They will separate a few months after that, and within a

year or two, while my sister is away at school, they will both
have moved on entirely. He will fall in love again and get

married, to a tall farmer’s daughter who sells vegetables in the
town below.

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I visited her stall yesterday, just to meet her; this girl my

friend will someday marry. I wore a scarf over my hair and

half-covering my face, so she would not recognize me as Prince
Rienna’s daughter. Before I returned home, I left three gold

coins hidden under the long mesquite pods. She has not found
them yet, but she will soon, with no obvious connection to me.

She and the stable boy will be happy together, I think. Past

the point when my sister leaves for university, they fade from

our family’s lives, and so from my awareness. I could press the
point, but I have no need. I am not known for my sense of

humor, but the farm girl made even me laugh, and the stable
boy has always been—will always be—kind to me. They should

suit each other well.

* * *

“Mandeva,” my sister says behind me, and I turn, startled.
She took less time than I expected—my vision is clear, but

the depth of my perception is poor, in my sight of the future as
in my daily life.

My left eye has always been weak, where I will lose it

fighting to defend the fortress, and my mother, against my

sister’s return. My sister has always been the better fencer—she
will be faster than I, sure and swift, her blade striking before I

can even unsheathe my own sword. She will fall short, though,

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misjudge the distance, and though I will lose the eye, I will not
die as she intended.

Lydie smiles, apologetic, at my surprise. “I did knock,” she

tells me. “Not loud enough, I guess. Thinking dark thoughts?”

“Nothing important,” I tell her. And it is true. She never

falls truly in love with the stable boy; it will not hurt her badly

when he leaves. Away at school she will find someone new, a
young man from across the ocean.

They will be together until she dies, which will be sooner

than I ever expect, in the dungeon where I will throw her when

I take back our city.

* * *

We walk into the hills together, Lydie keeping to my right

so I can see her clearly. In the sun, her clothes are bright

against the warm dark brown of her skin, making the walk feel
particularly festive, a celebration of the weather turning slowly

into the cooler season of the year.

The paths are familiar, and my feet are sure on the sand

and stones for all that my vision has never been whole.
Someday I will give up on being prince and go wandering,

telling stories and seeing the world. I will always miss this,
though—walking with company. When I travel I will travel

alone.

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“How was mapmaking?” I ask my sister, and she groans

theatrically.

“If Master Kinan has children, he needs no lullabies to put

them to sleep. He drones on at me about how small our city is

compared to the vast and beautiful city-states across the sea,
and lectures me about the different kinds of farmland and the

perils of the unmapped deserts until I never wish to travel
again.”

“So has he persuaded you yet to stay home from

university?” I ask. The college where our mother has secured us

a place is a week or two away by sea.

“Not on your life,” she says, and as always I listen for some

hidden tone, to know whether she sees, as I do, what is coming.
But she sounds so careless, throws my life around so easily in

her words, that I think she cannot know.

“I don’t understand how you bear it here,” she tells me.

“The closed walls of the castle, the endless stretches of sand
and mountains, the string of tutors who know little more of the

world than we do.”

“I’m certain you’ll meet many fascinating people while

you’re away,” I tell her, because I am certain.

“I hope so,” she tells me. Perhaps three years older means

three years better at pretending not to be omniscient, but it
seems ever more likely that I alone will bear the burden of her

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violent return, of our mother’s blood on her hands. Of her
blood on mine, as I lock her away to die.

It isn’t a long walk to our usual clearing. By the time we

reach it, my sister is already involved in recounting the most

interesting pieces of her lesson, for all that she would claim to
have learned nothing of value, and we gaze at the familiar stony

land, as if we can see the tropical beaches of another land if we
only look hard enough.

I can, of course, in glimpses, if I follow my sister’s path,

but the farther away she is, the less I know. I have seen the

beach where she lands on her return but nothing of what
changes, what takes us from friends to enemies while I sit at

home and wait.

“And inland there, the ground is rich and easy to farm,”

she tells me, as she finishes setting up the pieces. “So much
that even where no farmers work, the land looks green with all

the plants. And trees twice the height of ironwood trees grow
all around!”

I laugh, because the image is absurd, but I see from her

face that she really believes it. “Too much green,” I say, playing

along. “I prefer the greys and browns of desert land, and all the
shades of stone. And so many trees—how do they see the sky?”

Lydie waves a dismissive hand and moves a pawn forward.

“Of course no one would want to live there forever.” I shift a

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pawn of my own, and she moves again immediately, and we
settle into the game. “But what a thing to see. And from what

I’ve read, the university library is three times the size of our
collection. I think I will never want for anything, as long as the

other students can play chess.”

I smile and move my bishop and do not let myself wonder

whether all this chess we play means she is already thinking of
revolution. She has asked me, once or twice, whether I mind

that our mother will be prince for centuries more before we
gain any kind of power, and though she has stopped asking, I

suspect the resentment continues to fester.

“I will be along to join you in three years,” I say. It’s a lie:

Lydie will return before her fourth year begins, and after that I
will be prince and will have no time for traveling. “That means

at worst you only have three years to wait for a proper game.”

“A proper game,” Lydie says, amused, and takes the bishop

I had just moved. “I suppose if you spend the intervening years
studying hard enough, you may be able to challenge me. At

least, if I find no one else to practice against while I’m there.”

“I doubt you will miss me at all, then,” I say, and though I

mean to sound light my voice comes out strained and hard. I
move a piece at random to cover my reaction, and I only realize

afterward that I have left my king wide open.

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“Mate in three moves,” she says, not unkindly. “And don’t

be stupid, Deva, I shall miss you terribly.” I frown, and she

says, “I promise faithfully to miss you every day, little sister,
until my return. Is that enough, or must I swear to you by the

moon and stars?”

“Make no promises,” I say, as always. I force myself to

smile, though, when she looks concerned. “Come, let’s return. I
grow weary of losing to you. Besides, Samil will be done with

his rounds soon. You would not like to miss passing him by
accident in the stable yard.”

“Mandeva!” she protests. “Often it is an accident, you

know, lessons do get out late some days. Oh, don’t give me that

look,” she adds, as I watch her with the knowing smile of a
younger sister who has found a weak point. “We may as well

head back, though, I suppose.”

My smile feels more natural now, and I help her pack away

the chess pieces with a lighter heart. I let my shoulder bump
hers on the way down several times, as if it is my right eye that

cannot see, and instead of growing exasperated she throws an
arm over my shoulders and pulls me in, and though it is too

warm to walk so close, we stay tucked together the rest of the
way home, arms around each other with easy affection.

* * *

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Her parting with Samil is easy and amicable, and Lydie is

already moving on in the weeks before her ship leaves for

university.

“I am going away to school,” she tells me. “Nothing can

hold me back.”

“Samil is already working a trade, and just took on a

second apprenticeship to learn another,” I point out, and she
grimaces.

“Yes,” she says. “As would I, if mother thought any work

were suitable for the prince’s daughter. She thinks she can keep

us living as children forever, but I will not stay home and marry
the local stableboy.”

“He’s going to become a healer,” I tell her, a little defensive

of him, for though he is her lover he has also been my friend,

one of the few people remotely my age who work at the fortress
where we live, one of the few willing to trust me once I

promised that no one in my mother’s household would ever
find out. She laughs at me.

“One of your fancies, Deva?” she asks. “Perhaps he will

tend to wounded horses, but nothing more. He is as trapped by

his birth as we are by ours.”

“I do not feel trapped,” I say uncertainly. While Lydie is

home, I am always content to be the younger sister. I do not
look forward to the day I become the prince.

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She waves this off. “You are still a child,” she says easily.

“Still taking ordinary tutoring. Not even your first lover, yet.”

She speaks as if reading down an imagined list. “You will
understand when you are older.”

Make no promises, I think, but do not say. If growing

older is what makes my sister betray us, it is something I do not

want to understand.

* * *

A year later, I sit on the rocks jutting out of the shoreline

as my sister rows out to the ship that will take her away to

school. The weather is cooler here, a full day’s ride from our
city, and I shiver in the damp breeze.

Lydie does not look back until she reaches the ship, and as

I wave to her she only lifts a hand in farewell. Then she climbs

the ladder they’ve lowered over the side and does not look
back. I wave anyway, until the ship begins to recede into the

distance and no sign of Lydie is left on deck. Then I let my
hand fall wearily back to my side.

Behind me, my mother stands tall, her horse’s reins held

with easy authority in one dark hand.

“I know you’ll miss her, Mandeva,” she says. “But after all,

she will only be gone four years, and you will join in her in only

three.” My mother cannot see the future—I have always known
this. She has always been kind to both of us, distant but always

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loving, but I have seen her righteous anger, and if she knew of
my sister’s coming rebellion I doubt my sister would have

survived her first year. It was why I never wanted to tell her, as
a child, and now I suspect it is too late—I have mentioned the

future in passing, and even when my predictions come true,
she waves it off as luck. I cannot imagine her believing me now.

“Of course, mother, it is only four years,” I say, and look

back at her when she huffs impatiently. “No, truly, I will focus

on my studies and try not to pine.”

She touches my braids, lightly, like she isn’t sure she is

allowed, and I let myself lean into the touch and take comfort
from it. She laughs, a little, soft and self-conscious, and pulls

away. “We should return home,” she says. “The ship is almost
out of sight already.”

I look out to sea. It’s true, the ship looks small and far

away, silhouetted against the pale sky. I can feel the future

riding with it, my sister’s life unfolding outward, flowing
toward that horizon and past it, until it too fades from sight.

* * *

My mother and I speak little on the ride back to the

fortress, and I picture our supper in my mind, the four courses
we will eat in my sister’s honor. The particulars are blurry—I

do not usually bother with such small details—but I can make

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out roasted oryx and some kind of fish and a goblet of watered
honey, crashing to the floor.

Surely this is a small enough thing to prevent. As we eat, I

keep careful watch over my own cup and prepare to catch my

mother’s if it should fall. It is strange to eat with her one on one
—always my sister has been there, more willing to laugh with

me, more willing to challenge my mother’s ideas, more willing
to argue. Alone with each other, my mother and I are awkward,

stilted.

I drink my dessert quickly, the sweetness almost choking

as I swallow it down. As soon as I finish, I excuse myself,
almost lightheaded with relief, both goblets still unspilled. As I

rise, a servant enters the room a little clumsily, and the door
shuts with a crash just as my mother reaches for her drink.

Honey spills like blood. The ringing of the goblet striking the
floor sets off echoes of clashing swords that only I can hear.

* * *

It is not the first time I have failed to change the future.

Often, in the coming days, I watch our people closely out my
window, watch the echoes of their lives unfolding outward.

Sometimes I watch for a very long time, just to see if one of

them might prove me wrong.

I told a thief, once, that he would be caught; left a note in

neat lettering by his bedside. He could have waited a day—I

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could see that his family had enough to survive another three
days. But he only tried to be more clever; burned the note and

set off with determination on his face. I will never know what
his plan was going to be, only that it all unfolded exactly as I

had foreseen, down to the house he chose and the hide wall he
slit as his point of entry.

I visited him in prison and raised his wife’s wages with a

few words to her employer of their misfortune, making what

recompense I could for my failure. My warning changed
nothing that I could see. Perhaps I had always been going to

interfere.

* * *

My sister has been away almost two and a half years, and

my mother demands that I study ever harder, to prepare myself

for university. I do the work, more obedient as her death draws
slowly closer. It is always hard to tell, but I think she cannot

have more than a year left to live—more likely only a few
months.

I go to bed each night weary even of mathematics, sick of

geography and literature. My focus is on the chessboard these

days, on military history and books of strategy, on defending
and retaking a fortress. I study fencing, desperate to become

faster, sharper, more deadly with a blade. When my lessons are
over, I explore every inch of our fortress, learning the hallways

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until I can find my way through them blind. My sister will
attack at night—I must be able to pursue her even where there

is no torchlight.

Today is a sword day, so I spar with my instructor for a full

hour, and my arms and legs ache from effort and bruises. I pass
my mother as I return from training and see her mouth tighten

in disapproval.

“Fencing lessons again?” she asks me. “They will be of

little use at school.”

“I’m going to need them,” I say, and she loses interest as

she always does when I speak of the future.

“Keep training, if you enjoy it so much,” she says. “But you

are in no danger here. Our soldiers are strong, and I have
centuries yet to stand between you and any harm.”

“Make no promises,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to hear

me.

* * *

That night, I am so weary from training that even reading

by candlelight is exhausting. I put the book aside. The candle is
beginning to gutter in the melting wax. Absently I check on the

futures of the villagers—marriages and thefts and funerals spill
out into the future, some soon and some years away,

disorienting in their multitude. It gets harder and harder to see
the when of things, now, as if the approaching loss of my eye

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makes my sight weaker, the depth of my perception worsening.
The future echoes around me until I can barely see the candle,

and when the visions fade I have missed the candle going out.

* * *

I wake to the tromping of feet outside my door and the low

ringing of voices and steel. My chamber is in total darkness,

and I start awake disoriented, not sure when I am, whether I
somehow miscounted the months so severely that my sister can

be already outside, my mother dead before I can even try to
warn her.

As I scramble out of bed, my legs tangle in the sheets and I

fall, hitting the stone hard. I cannot see, I cannot drag my legs

free, and I panic, gasping for air and thrashing, hitting a flailing
arm painfully on the bedpost. I get one hand on my sword

where it lies beside my bed and finally pull a leg free. I stagger
upright, bruised and aching, then move to the door.

In the hallway, the dim light of torches in the corridor

seems painfully bright. There is a flash as the light catches on

chain mail, a soldier in the hallway turning to face me. I see his
eyes widen as he recognizes me. He signals some alarm around

the corner, then comes at me. I drag my sword clumsily free
and move to face him. Two of his fellows come to join him, but

the hall is narrow enough that they must approach me one by

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one. I kill the first two, then crouch and thrust my blade
upward as the third makes to leap over their bodies.

I leave him there gut-wounded, a slow and bitter death. I

have my family to find, and I cannot be bothered with my

sister’s pet traitors. If the fight ends soon enough, a healer
might even reach him in time.

I do not look ahead to see if one will.
By the time I reach my mother’s bedroom, the rush of

panic has faded to leave the ache of fighting on sore muscles,
and my body feels distant, clumsy with exhaustion. I move

carefully, quietly, entering my mother’s chambers with my
sword extended, until I hear a voice whisper my name.

There is a muddled shape on the floor at the center of the

room, and as I stare it moves slightly and calls my name.

As I hurry closer, I can see the pool of blood spreading

darkly under her. “Mother?” I say, and cannot help how my

voice rises, thin and helpless.

She draws a wet, ragged breath, and gasps, “Lydie never

did learn patience.”

For a moment I think she means the way Lydie left her,

not waiting to see her die, and I think she might yet survive. I
feel a surge of relief and reach for her wound to see what I can

do, but she shakes her head. “We are long-lived, but...”

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Of course, she means Lydie’s attack, although Lydie was

heir and would surely have been prince eventually. My mother,

centuries old already, can’t imagine what three hundred years
of waiting feels like to those of us who have been alive barely a

fifth of a century.

I say none of that; only grip her shoulder firmly, lean down

to kiss her damp forehead. “I won’t let her rule,” I say. “I will
take our city back.”

I speak of facts, but she answers as if it were only a

promise. “You must try,” she orders, her voice rasping. “When

a kingdom is torn from its rightful prince, the land withers and
the people sicken with it.”

I have read about that danger in the books of family

legends, but my sister was never fond of history.

“She will fall,” I say. “And I will imprison her in the lowest

dungeons.”

My mother lifts her hand to my face; touches my bruised

cheek with surprisingly gentle bloodied fingers. “You will

destroy her,” she says, low and rough, like she has just begun to
believe it.

Then she dies, without fanfare, her hand falling back to

her chest. Her face goes limp, a little blood spilling from her

mouth. I shut her eyes and arrange her against the wall as
neatly as I can, laying her out like she is only sleeping.

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I’m having trouble breathing, my chest constricted with

fear and grief and anger. I rise stiffly to my feet, my knees cold

and aching from the flagstones. I wipe blood off my shaking
hands and steel myself to seek my sister out. If I am to stop her

taking the fortress, as I have seen her do; if I am to save myself
and the country from the six hard months of her rule as I

prepare to recapture my own fortress, I must fight her now. If
my foreknowledge is any use at all, if there is any chance the

future can be changed, this is the moment.

I turn toward the door only to see it shoved wide, hitting

the wall with a crash. My sister stands in the doorway, sure and
dangerous, hair cropped short for battle and skin lighter from

the loss of the desert sun. The torches behind her cast her face
into shadow.

I reach for my sword, but I am too slow, and hers is

already drawn. She makes one swift, certain thrust with a

trained fencer’s elegance. For a choked second I can appreciate
the grace of her movement, her smooth step back, sword

lowering before I can even feel what she has just done, and
then the pain hits and I forget everything else.

It’s like my world has cracked open, jagged, until only

fleeting impressions reach me through the agony and shock. A

voice shouting from the hallway; my sister turning away to
listen. Her shoes ringing against the floor as she leaves. I am

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sprawled on the ground, though I do not remember falling, and
I feel her footsteps echo through my bones. My hands clench

spasmodically, and my eye is gone, and the pain is shattering,
everything coming apart with the burning, blood running thick

and warm down my face to puddle choking in my mouth, and
with one eye I can see myself return, see myself take back the

fortress, see the patch over my eye and remember when I will
be well again but it seems impossible, and I gag on my own

blood and sob into the floor.

I think I hear my name and then one of our soldiers is

there. Her face is outside of my half-blinded sight, but I can see
the bright buckles on her boots, fortress-issue, one of ours.

She carries me from the room, but I do not see how we get

out of the fortress, fixated on the slow dark trickle of my blood

that runs down the back of her uniform, streaking it in long
dark lines. I see the future spin and sway dizzily between me

and the floor, so that instead of flagstones I see the stable boy
my sister once danced with waiting for us in the home he

shares with his wife. I see him turning to face the door as we
enter—as we will enter. We will come in the door and he will

welcome her, the farmgirl-turned-soldier who has saved my
life, and I wonder if she recognized me after all, if she knew the

gold in her basket came from me or if she had only found in
soldiering a sense of purpose.

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His face will turn from panic to relief when he sees her

face, and then twist to horror again. I cannot hear the words

she will say—the world is slipping at angles, and all I can
concentrate on is their small house and the bloody patch on her

tunic and the dark red pain in my eye.

* * *

The local soldiers are trained in field medicine, though

they have had little cause in the past to use it, and my rescuer

sets me down on a low bed as her husband fetches bandages
and medicines. I suppose they do not want to risk the fortress’s

attention by calling in a real doctor; it is possible my sister will
have noticed I am gone, though she may only think me lost

among the dead.

She hisses when she sees my eye; touches my bruised face

with cool fingers. Her touch is gentle, but it drags me back
from the future where I have been hiding, darting between

memories of the days of my rule and the days that come after,
when I will let the fortress rest and the town rule itself; when I

will leave to wander the world. My travels are long and weary,
and though each town gathers eagerly to hear my stories, I will

never be asked to stay; will never find company for the roads.
My eye will be only a scar by then, and the pain will be gone,

and I wish I did not have to suffer the road in between.

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“You’re lucky to be alive,” she murmurs, already brushing

the skin around the wound with the thin cold salve that will

freeze the pain away. I shiver with relief as the burning starts to
fade, the present finally reasserting itself. I slip away from my

sister’s funeral into the small house here, crowds and coffins
fading to reveal tall wooden poles and rough skin walls and the

soldier who saved my life. “Very lucky—you came very close to
death.”

“We are all lucky,” her husband says, kneeling beside her.
Their names are a fragment of my past, and I do not have

the clarity necessary to find them. She must see that I am lost,
because she touches my arm carefully, almost reverently; a

subject to her prince. “My lady,” she says. “I am Riven, one of
your family’s soldiers. My husband, Samil, once served you in

the fortress stables. You are safe here.”

My agony has faded to a dull, nauseating ache, and I am

able to find my voice, though it comes out hoarse and painful,
as if I have been screaming. I probably have. “I am honored by

your service, Riven,” I say faintly, and I see her stand
straighter; see both their faces ease a little. “And Samil,” I say

roughly, tilting my head so I can see him from my one
remaining eye. “Of course, your kindness has ever been known

to me.”

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He bows his head but does not smile. They know, then, not

only who has died but who led the invading army. I try to

convey my sympathy with a look, but my face is bruised and
numbed and I doubt my expression is reassuring.

The pain has receded for now, and though I know it will

return, its power over me has faded. My mother’s death,

though, is still a fresh wound, and I feel helpless and aching
with my grief; heavy, as though exhaustion and sorrow have

pinned me to the rug on which I lie.

The future is no comfort. As far as I cast my mind forward,

my mother is still gone.

* * *

Months pass as I heal enough to return to sword practice,

sparring with Riven; enough to receive visits from a few trusted

soldiers. The usurper who was once my sister has forbidden
them from congregating, but they come alone or in pairs to

hear me speak; to swear their service.

It is the most I have spoken with those outside the fortress.

Samil has grown since he courted my sister, and I see it in
small ways. He still shares his water ration with children and

wounded soldiers, but he talks back to me now. I remember
when he was frightened of my mother, but though he addresses

me as his prince, he is not shy of me.

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Which is particularly annoying sometimes, as I try to push

myself beyond my slowly healing abilities.

“You didn’t eat any breakfast,” Samil calls as I am halfway

out the door. “And barely any supper. That means no sparring.

You’re still healing, you need your strength.” I freeze guiltily,
sword in hand, and see him watching me a little sardonically.

He works primarily healing animals, but since my sister left
him he has become a doctor’s apprentice, and he is familiar

with restless patients.

“I had plenty of water,” I tell him. “And plenty of rest.”

He makes a scolding sound as Riven comes in. We spar

only in the evenings, tucked behind their small house. Though

it is far from the fortress, she always goes out first to be sure no
one is watching.

“Is something wrong?” she asks me, and I scowl.
“Ask your husband,” I say, more childishly resentful than I

would like, and she clearly recognizes the exasperation on
Samil’s face, a healer with an unruly patient. She stifles a laugh,

and quickly schools her expression into something more
befitting a soldier addressing her prince.

“Ah, my lady,” she says, trying to sound apologetic and

mostly sounding entertained. “You would not expect me to

send you into danger undefended? So you cannot expect my

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husband to defy his own instincts. Still,” she adds, giving him a
stern look. “I hope you recall exactly who your patient is.”

“If she would just eat a little bread,” he says testily and

turns back to me. “Truly, my lady, you know you cannot afford

to weaken.”

“I bow to your medical authority,” I tell him, with

exaggerated weariness. I sink back onto the couch and wave an
imperious hand. “You may bring me more bread and fish,” He

rolls his eyes but goes to obey, as Riven laughs in the corner. I
have not seen her laugh since that day by the stalls, I realize,

and am pleased to have caused it. I watch her fetching bread as
Samil roasts a piece of fish, and they are easy now, laughing

together, teasing. It is a relief to see that though I have brought
difficulties with me, I have not ruined this for them.

* * *

As the summer rains pass, the rivers briefly widening to

make irrigation easier, it comes time to harvest the trees and
the small patches of irrigated land, and talk of war fades beside

the talk of farming.

“My family has less than half of our usual nypa crop,”

Riven tells me. “And my cousin’s farm lost their oldest
mesquite trees to blight.” She holds up a shriveled pod, twisted

and black with dry rot. I force myself not to lean away from the
musty, bitter smell of it.

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“The land knows,” Samil says. It is old superstition, for the

townsfolk as well as for my parents. Murder a prince, of

however small a city, and the land itself rejects you.

Even I don’t know whether it is true. I have no cause and

effect in my visions of the future; I never know the why. I do
know that the crops will do better in the next few years, and the

flourishing mesquite trees will draw more animals to the city to
be eaten. I know that over the next few decades, irrigation will

improve, and the town will grow so that I am no longer needed,
and I will hand over the reins to elected officials and begin my

wandering.

I do not know, though, whether the blight has anything to

do with the usurper’s treachery or whether the crops improve
because of my own rule. I only know that the people believe in

the old superstition, and that means I can use it.

More soldiers come to visit the house now, the dying trees

pushing the more reluctant into action. They are loyal and they
are angry, but they are also frightened.

They might have served their whole lives without warfare,

and now sister fights sister and they are caught in between, and

the usurper’s guards are strong and well-armed and prepared
to do battle.

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I gaze at these soldiers when they come and thank them

for their loyalty; praise their honor. I promise them victory, not

with rousing speeches but with certainty.

Sometimes as they leave I hear them speaking to each

other, whispering that I should always have been my mother’s
heir. Her power came to me, they say; they can hear the truth

in my voice. Their devotion grows stronger, and their hope
rises, and I have my army by the time the trees have grown

bare with winter.

* * *

The usurper has not been as cautious of late. Her guards

are from far away, and many have returned to their homes; the

others have grown unwary in the quiet after the uprising.
Meanwhile my people bow and scrape and stay quiet, and I can

see, when she stands above the town to speak to the people,
that she believes in their loyalty. She imagines herself the

rightful prince, speaking from the prince’s balcony where my
mother once stood.

“And soon you will have a new lord,” she says. “To join me

in my reign. My consort is sailing even now across the sea. His

ship lands in three days, and there will be a public feast in
celebration.” She makes the announcement proudly, as if the

people will be glad to have a foreign lord. They murmur

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politely, exchanging dark looks, and report back to me when
night falls.

“She will expect us to attack when his ship comes in,” I tell

Riven. With no one to unify my people, they might well have

done so –seized a moment when the fewest soldiers could do
the most damage. But we have been waiting and planning, and

we have enough troops to take the fortress if her guards are
unwary. “If we strike tomorrow instead, she will not see it

coming.”

“Tomorrow night?” Riven asks, ready to spread the word,

and I shake my head.

“The usurper attacked in the night, as if the darkness could

cover her transgression.” I have grown used to speaking as a
prince to an audience, and I choose my words deliberately. “We

will enter in the light of day. We will march in while she is
making speeches to the people. Her guards will be with her, the

fortress halls unguarded. We will walk in through the southern
gate. It will not be hard.”

Riven hesitates. Samil says, out of sight in my blind spot,

“I mean no disrespect, my lady, but there is no southern

entrance to the fortress.”

I turn so I can see them both at once. “I know the fortress

as no one else does.” This is true—I have seen the southern
entrance since I was a child, seen myself entering at it. It took

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me all the years Lydie was gone at school to find it, but I am
sure of its place now. “The door is just wide enough to enter

three abreast. I will lead our soldiers in and take them
unaware.”

Riven says, “We will be honored to follow,” but Samil does

not look convinced.

“It will not be hard,” he says, echoing me. “Does that mean

none shall die? That none shall be wounded? Over and done

within an hour, and a feast to celebrate after? You cannot
promise us this.”

I have known Samil since I was a child, and he and Riven

saved my life, so I do him the courtesy of taking a moment to

see the true death count. “We lose one man,” I tell him, and
pretend I do not see his disbelief. “Three more are wounded in

battle, one badly. Riven is not among them,” I add, and I can
see the relief in his face, his desperate need to believe.

“I would be honored to die for you,” Riven tells me fiercely,

and I realize she is embarrassed by our concern.

I smile at her; turn so that she has all my eye’s attention. “I

make no promise that I will keep you safe—I will rely on you in

battle as if you are my own right arm.” To be a prince’s right
arm is neither safe nor comfortable. “But I am glad that you are

to survive, for I will still need your help when the fighting is
done and the usurper has fallen.”

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She bows to me, and I touch her palm lightly in

acceptance. “Let the others know,” I tell her. “We gather

tomorrow an hour before the usurper’s speech, behind the
fortress. We will retake it and then, indeed, there will be a feast

of gratitude, and funerals for the fallen on both sides, and next
year the crops will flourish.”

Riven and Samil bow to me and leave, to spread the word

among the other soldiers. I am left alone to sit and watch the

future. I look upon the coming battle, beyond it to my sister’s
death, and sharpen my sword.

* * *

We take the fortress.

It is almost uneventful, to me; I have seen it so many

times. I open the door and we enter, and together we strike

down all those in our path. When we reach the balcony, the
guards are outnumbered, and we take them easily. The usurper

comes in to face us herself. When she sees me, she hesitates,
surprised that I am alive. The look on her face is familiar from

our sparring, running, our many games of chess, the old fierce
determination not to lose. Still she is slow to draw her sword.

Then she sees my soldiers and knows it is hopeless, her

expression going blank, and she surrenders with rigid grace.

We walk out onto the balcony with her in chains. She kneels at
my feet and I raise my sword and the crowds below us cheer. I

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take the usurper’s crown and hand it to Riven, bow my head for
her to crown me. When the crowds have finished cheering, my

soldiers take the usurper and her remaining guards down to
the dungeons.

Riven smiles cautiously at me. “You are prince now, Your

Highness,” she says, and I force myself to smile back.

“You have all served me well today,” I say. “I am honored

to have your loyalty.”

She bows. “What more can we do in your service,

Highness?”

“The usurper had planned a feast,” I say, and think

through my words carefully. This is the moment that will

define my rule for those watching—Riven, her fellow soldiers,
the townspeople. “Surely she stockpiled food for it, probably

taken from the people as part of the monthly taxes. The traitor
was owed no tax; it is only proper that the food be returned to

the people in celebration.”

“I will see to it,” Riven says, and begins to give orders, and

I leave it in her capable hands and head to my rooms to find
something more regal to wear.

I have seen these moments a thousand times. I always

expected to feel—something. Some triumph, some joy, some

vindication in vengeance against the traitor who killed my
mother. But all I feel is worn, grieving; my parents dead and

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soon my sister as well, leaving me alone with a lost eye and a
well-defended fortress.

The first day is spent in celebrations and mourning. My

people approach me to offer fealty and then turn their attention

to the food, and one another. I stand apart, watching, thinking
of the usurper, trapped in the dark prison cell where she

belongs.

I return to the palace when the feasting is over. My

chambers were untouched when I entered them, as if my
mother had died only yesterday. I visit them briefly now, to

ensure that I look every inch the prince and as little as possible
the wounded younger sister.

Then I walk down the stairs to the dungeons.

* * *

The usurper’s captured guards watch me with wary eyes as

I pass their cells. I ignore them; they will face my judgment,

but not today. Today I am here only to visit their leader.

She sits in her cell with stiff posture and no expression. As

I come within sight of her she glances swiftly toward me and
then just as quickly away. I reach her cell, stand directly before

her and wait, tall and proud, for her to speak, to defend herself,
to finally give me a reason.

I know she will not. She never has before. We have waited

here in silence a thousand times, and I have left her here to her

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fate, and I never hear about her fever until she is already dead.
It feels as though I have years, but I know it must be less, or

how can I miss it; how can I not know? My future will be built,
as my past has been, on silence, on the emptiness of never

knowing why.

I tried to change a thief’s future, and my mother’s, and

there is no reason to believe this time will be any different. But
I have waited so long for an answer, not the minutes I have

been standing here, but a whole lifetime. I still ache from the
battle, and even my good eye feels sore and stinging and dry,

and my mother is dead, and I am bitterly sick of it all.

“You couldn’t wait?” I ask her, my voice cracking out of

me, harsh and pained, and she looks up at me startled, as
though she had not imagined I would speak. Even I am startled

—I have never spoken before.

“You were her heir,” I say. I had not meant to say anything,

but I have years of silence pressing on my lips and I cannot
stop the questions spilling out. “Now instead of centuries you

had only a few months—did you really think you would be
allowed to keep the throne? Did you never listen to the stories?

The land rejects every usurper, and so do the people. You were
mother’s heir, and you murdered her, as you tried to kill me,

and for what?”

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She stares at me, and for a bleak, horrified second I know I

will never find out, that she will never tell me. Speaking has

changed nothing, and I am embarrassed to have let myself
hope for an answer, even for a moment.

Then, to my surprise, she breaks her silence.
“She had centuries to rule,” she says, and where my voice

was hoarse and broken, hers remains clear and smooth and
familiar. “As for you—if you had not challenged me, if I had

thought you could accept me as your prince, I would have let
you live.”

“You did, however unintentionally,” I tell her bitterly. “I

survived.”

She says, “Obviously,” with scorn and no relief.
I touch the patch that covers my ruined eye, and her gaze

flicks to it, then away, the first sign of guilt she has shown. It is
more than I ever expected, and I gain some control over my

anger.

“Why now?” I ask her. “Even if you could not wait

centuries—what made this so urgent?”

She does not answer.

“You do not think you owe me this much?” I ask her. “A

few answers in return for my mother’s murder?”

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She stares at me for a long second, then finally shakes her

head, and for a moment I see the exasperation of a pedantic

sister in place of an enemy’s hate.

“What answer can I give you?” she asks me, and her tone is

as much lecturing as bitter. “If I say that, unlike our mother, I
wished to live with my mortal husband at my side, and not to

outlive him—would that be enough?” I see her mouth twist as
soon as she says it, and she hurries on to distract me from the

fact that he is on his way, as if I might forget. Perhaps she
worries that if she seems fond of him it will give me more

reason to kill him.

She continues, faster now, more forcefully, as if willing me

to understand. “What if I say that I doubted my own
immortality? There is no way of knowing that you and I will

live even a tenth so long as our mother—we might well die long
before she would relinquish her crown. What if I say she was a

tyrant, and I only intended to liberate our people? She certainly
kept us under control—no job suitable but to someday become

prince, and that day never in sight.”

She sounds bitter, desperate, and I remember her fighting

with our mother, her desperation to finally leave home and no
longer be a child.

“If I say I had a plan, if I say I was desperate, if I say I

never meant to kill her at all—Mandeva, you want some

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justification so you can forgive me, or for me to say something
so monstrous that your hatred can be simple. But there is no

justification that will be enough for you, and there is no
motivation that is worse than the crimes I have already

committed. So what does why matter?”

Her question hits me like a blow. It’s true: I wanted so

desperately to have some reason good enough that I could have
her back, that she could still be the sister who explained my

feelings and joked with me and always wanted to play chess.
Her explanations are even plausible. She has always been

impatient, defiant; always wanted to prove her own worth.

But what she says is true. There may be traces of the Lydie

I remember left, but though I see enough to make me ache, it
isn’t enough.

“You’re right. I cannot forgive you,” I tell her. She inclines

her head in acceptance, calm as if she had already known, her

bitterness and her affection both gone behind a look as blank
as a mask.

I turn away from her and walk down the row of cells, back

straight, feeling miserable and young and not at all like a

prince. I have finally gotten my answer—and another glimpse
of my pedantic sister, a hint of all the love and fear and anger

behind her indifference—and it still is not enough. I thought, in
the moment that I finally spoke, that I had somehow changed

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something,, that I had finally broken the pattern. Yet even this
small change is meaningless. I could not save my mother and I

could not save my eye and I cannot save Lydie, who has chosen
her path and will die on it.

As I approach the dungeon stairs, though, the walls fade

under an overlay of images, the future echoing back, spilling

out before me; this prison fading under the next time I come
down, and the next.

Tomorrow, instead of sending my guards, I will go

personally to meet her husband at the docks and offer him a

choice, and, to my surprise and hers, he will choose to join her
in prison. She has taught him chess, and in a year I will unbend

enough to bring them a chessboard, and in two years I will
even join them for a game, and in three or four or five years,

when my sister grows ill, I will know and I will bring Riven and
Samil down with fresh water and medicine. By then Riven will

be the captain of my guard, and Samil one of my councilors,
but they will tend the traitor personally because they are the

only ones I trust with my sister’s health. Not long after that, my
sister will even be allowed out of the dungeons for more than a

few hours at a time.

In thirty years Samil will die of old age, and Riven ten

years later, and I will no longer be tied to the city by my
affection for them, and Lydie’s husband will be dead as well.

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And in just over half a century Lydie and I will leave the palace.
We will wander the world as I had always intended, but

together instead of alone.

I am not yet ready to forgive her. As in the moments after I

lost my eye, I cannot imagine the path that takes me to the
future I see; cannot imagine a time when I can think of her

without the gnawing bitterness and pain I feel now. But
somehow I have broken the silence that I thought would linger

until her death. I stand shocked for an instant, the new future
hitting me in waves. Perhaps this time I changed my own mind,

my own actions, instead of trying to change someone else’s.
However it happened, I have seen her now, seen the glimpses

of my sister she was hiding. I have seen her love for a man I
have never met; seen even what love she still has for me, and

someday, it turns out, that will be enough.

It takes all that I have, furious and grieving, not to walk

away and leave her alone with her fear, but I have centuries of
living with my sister yet to come. We have to start somewhere.

I turn back to where she sits, still straight-backed and

proud, dreading what I will do to her, to her guards, to her

husband when he comes.

“Your husband,” I say, this truth the only gift I can bring

myself to give her. “You don’t have to worry—I will not have
him killed.”

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

I turn away before she can answer and leave the dungeons,

still weary, but with new purpose. I have a household to run,

and a city to rule, and a chessboard to buy for my sister’s next
birthday.

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on the BCS Website

Rachel Halpern is a graduate of Grinnell College and the
Alpha Writer’s Workshop, currently working on an MFA in

creative writing through the University of Southern Maine.
Her stories have appeared in venues such as Daily Science

Fiction. She was co-editor-in-chief of Grinnell College Press
for three years and is currently the editor-in-chief of

Inscription Magazine, an online magazine of science fiction
and fantasy for teens. Visit her online at

rachelhalpern.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

COVER ART

“Pillars,” by Tomas Honz

Tomas Honz is a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in

Prague, who believes in the traditional approach to art. To
him, painting is a science that is necessary to acquire in order

to make an art of it. He has years of experience in the
entertainment industry as a concept illustrator, but his desire

to create his own work, as well as a serious trauma–one of
those things that make you reconsider your whole life–led

him to leave that career, to open his eyes and soul to the
fascinating world around him and shift his attention to

traditional painting. View his work at

tomashonz.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #153

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

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