Magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies 154 (pdf)

Issue #154 • Aug. 14, 2014

“The Angel Azrael Delivers Justice to the People of

the Dust,” by Peter Darbyshire

“Make No Promises,” by Stephen V. Ramey

For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

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

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

THE ANGEL AZRAEL DELIVERS JUSTICE TO

THE PEOPLE OF THE DUST

by Peter Darbyshire

The angel Azrael rode through the dust storm for three

days. He figured it to be three days, anyway. It was hard to tell
for certain, because the storm turned what little of the world he

could see into night, and then into nothing at all. He closed his
eyes and let his dead horse take him where it would.

Sometimes he heard voices crying out in the storm, but he

wasn’t sure if they were a trick of the wind or his conscience.

He couldn’t understand what they were saying regardless, so he
figured it best to pay them no heed. He wrapped himself tighter

in his coat, more to protect the guns around his waist from the
elements than anything else. That’s what he told himself,

anyway.

He had to stop every now and then to tighten the saddle

around what was left of the horse. The storm scoured chunks of
its rotting flesh away, and the saddle kept slipping. Soon

there’d be nothing left of the horse but bone. Sure, he could
raise another horse from the dead that would be more

comfortable, just like he’d raised this one. But he had been

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through a lot with this horse. Too much, when he thought
about it. Like the events in the last town, which he’d ridden all

the way out here to forget.

He’d seen the storm coming across the scrubland, but he

hadn’t tried to avoid it. Azrael wanted to get lost. He wanted to
put the world behind him and come out the other side of the

storm somewhere else. He wanted to find a land with no more
churches, no more people, no more Fallen. He was weary of it

all. He was weary of himself.

But when he eventually emerged from the dust, into the

burning sun of noon, he found the same old world still there.

The horse was following a worn road Azrael hadn’t seen in

the storm. It went past a farmhouse off to one side and
disappeared into the horizon. Azrael could make out the spire

of a church shimmering at the vanishing point, like a mirage. It
wasn’t what he wanted to see, but he didn’t turn around. There

wasn’t anything better the way he had come.

Azrael nudged the horse toward the farmhouse. He’d spied

a pump in the yard, and he was thirstier than usual after three
days of drinking nothing but dust.

He studied the place as he rode. It looked to be in danger

of falling in on itself, and there were two wooden crosses

planted in the ground to one side.

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When he got off the horse by the pump, a woman holding

a shotgun stepped out onto the porch. She held it like she knew

how to hold all manner of guns.

The buzzards that followed him everywhere came out of

the sun then, circling overhead. He thought maybe they’d lost
him in the dust storm, but it appeared they weren’t about to let

a provider like him get away.

“You here to deliver us or damn us even more?” the

woman asked.

Azrael hadn’t thought anybody would have been able to

make out what was left of his wings under all the dirt. Hardly
anything of them remained now.

“I’m not that kind of angel,” he said.
“Well, what kind are you then?” she asked.

“The thirsty kind,” he said, nodding at the pump.
She didn’t shoot him, so he took that for an invitation to

drink. He pumped for a spell, until a trickle of water came out.
He lowered his mouth to it and drank. It was the first time he’d

had water in longer than he could remember. After all this
time, it was almost as good as whiskey. Almost.

When he was done, he straightened back up and saw a

man standing behind the woman. As old and weather-beaten as

she was. He stared at Azrael, but his eyes were glazed white, so

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Azrael imagined the old man didn’t see him. If he saw anything
at all.

Azrael looked around the farmyard once more. When he

settled his eyes on the barn, he caught the woman raising the

gun a little more, trying to take aim without alerting him to it.

“Why don’t you keep on riding,” she said.

Azrael could have drawn and shot her down before she

even thought about pulling the shotgun’s trigger. In the old

days, he would have blown the doors to the barn open with a
gesture and razed the entire farm with a few words. But he was

tired of the old days.

He got back on the horse. “I don’t have any money,” he

said, nodding at the pump.

“Who does?” she said.

“I’ll say a prayer for you,” he said.
She laughed at that. “I ain’t yet seen a soul living or dead

that prayer’s helped.”

Azrael rode on without saying anything else, because there

was nothing to say to that.

* * *

Azrael followed the road toward the church because there

was nowhere else to go. Nothing but wasteland to either side of

him and damnation behind him. It was the way of the world as
usual.

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The church solidified out of the day as he rode, rising up

into the sky. Buildings grew out of the ground around it. He

couldn’t tell if it was the beginnings of a town or the end of one.
There often wasn’t much difference between the two out here.

He passed a couple of wagons abandoned in the middle of

the road. Both had bloody handprints smeared down the sides,

as if someone had been dragged away but hadn’t been willing
to let go. But then he knew from experience no one ever wanted

to let go when it was time.

He didn’t see another living soul until he rode into the

town. The main street was full of dancing people. Like a
drunken mob, only they were throwing curtsies and bows to

each other instead of punches and kicks. Men and women in
their Sunday night finery. Toasting each other with bottles and

glasses in their hands, and then toasting him when he reined in
the horse at the edge of their party looking for a place to get a

drink himself.

He didn’t understand their words. It was a tongue he’d

never heard, and he knew as many tongues as the world had
forgotten. It sounded as if they were talking around mouthfuls

of dirt. He nodded at them anyway, and they didn’t seem
offended by his silence. A man in a black suit pressed a bottle

of whiskey into his hands, and a woman in a black dress ran a
hand up his leg and patted his belt buckle before spinning away

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with a wink, into the arms of a man in a high hat and
spectacles. Some things didn’t need words.

Azrael glanced up again at the sun to make sure it was still

there and he hadn’t somehow ridden into the night without

noticing. The middle of the day wasn’t the usual celebration
time for mortals. But they were a long way from anywhere out

here, and the farther people got from civilization, the more they
tended to make up their own rules.

He took a long drink from the bottle. It burned in all the

ways he desired. He went to hand it back, but the man had

already wandered back into the crowd and rejoined the dance.

The music was supplied by a handful of folks scattered

throughout the merriment. A man in clean and pressed pants
and shirt played banjo while riding the shoulders of a woman

wearing a purple dress. Another man sat on the front step of
what looked like the general store and bashed on pots and pans

with a wooden spoon. Someone Azrael couldn’t see blew on a
harmonica. Together they managed some sort of dancing tune,

even though none of them were watching each other as far as
Azrael could tell.

And then there was the singing. At least Azrael thought it

was singing. The men and women were all bellowing

something that had the makings of a song, but it was just as
incomprehensible as the rest of the things they said.

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He took another pull from the bottle and noted that the

church in the centre of the town was empty, its doors hanging

open. The structure occupied the only hill in sight, which
should have made it a natural gathering place, but it looked as

if it hadn’t been used in some time.

When he looked back down, he noticed the children in the

crowd. Standing here and there, where they wouldn’t get
trampled by the dancers. A couple of girls holding hands

behind a watering trough, one of them clutching a doll to her
chest. A boy sitting on a hitching rail. Another couple of boys

on the roof of a shed beside the store. They all watched the
proceedings with expressions that didn’t say anything. That in

itself signified something.

Azrael nudged his horse around the edge of the crowd,

trying to steer clear of their celebration. He didn’t know what
cause they had for celebrating, and he didn’t care. He just

wanted to find a quiet place in the town to kill the rest of the
bottle and maybe acquire a few more bottles for the road.

But the townsfolk wouldn’t let him go. They pressed in

around him, grabbing him and trying to pull him down to join

their dance. They were packed so tight, the horse couldn’t move
through them. Instead, it was pulled deeper into the crowd.

They were leading him somewhere, but Azrael wasn’t sure
where.

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Before he could ascertain what mischief the townsfolk

were up to, the skeletons attacked.

They came the same way he’d come, rushing out of the

wasteland and into the town like some stray memories that had

finally caught up to him. They were human in shape, but he
knew from his first glance their way that they hadn’t ever been

human. The bones of these creatures were thicker and longer
than human bones, and they had hooks and spurs that no

human had ever sported.

Moreover, none of them looked alike. Some were the same

rough shape and size as regular folk, but others were stunted
and hunched over. A couple were lopsided, with one leg longer

than the other. Some had full ribcages while others had a
jumble of misshapen bones holding them together. It was as if

they’d been assembled into the shapes of humans using bones
that had never belonged to anything human. But they carried

the tools of humans: pitchforks and axes and shovels.

Azrael turned to watch and put his hands on his guns, one

forged from the unnatural metals of Hell, the other ripped from
the grasp of a particularly troublesome ghost. But he didn’t

interfere. He’d learned too many times about getting involved
in the quarrels of others.

The skeletons went for the children. They rampaged

through the crowd, shoving the dancers out of their way,

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stabbing and hacking at them with their weapons or slashing
and snapping at them with their unnatural claws and teeth. A

couple of the dancers went down, their blood soaking into the
parched ground. But the other townsfolk fought back,

punching and kicking and swarming the skeletons, all the while
continuing to sing their song and take long pulls from their

bottles. The musicians kept on playing, although the banjo
player swung his instrument down on the head of one of the

skeletons like an axe. Azrael had seen stranger scenes, but not
many.

The people of the town managed to keep the skeletons

away from the shed with the boys on the roof, but they couldn’t

stop them from grabbing the girls at the watering trough or the
boy sitting on the hitching post. The skeletons dragged them

free of the crowd, back toward the edge of the town and the
way they’d come.

Azrael went to take another drink but found the bottle

empty already. He sighed and tossed the bottle aside, using the

same motion to draw the ghost gun. He just couldn’t help his
nature.

He wasn’t sure what manner of entities these skeletons

were, but the ghost gun had always served him well against the

spectral and the things most people called undead. He fired off
a couple of shots, and because he had an angel’s eye, they

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found their marks through the mayhem of the crowd. The
skeletons dragging away the girls blew apart, showering the

scene with dust. The bones lay where they fell, finally dead.

The other skeletons clustered around the boy as they

dragged him away. Azrael sighted in on the mass of them but
then lowered his gun. It wasn’t for fear of hitting the boy,

although that was a cause for concern. The ghost gun’s shells
were crafted for the spectral, and they did terrible things

indeed to the living. But the real reason he didn’t shoot was
because there was something wrong about this scene.

Before he disappeared into their midst, the boy hadn’t

fought the skeletons. Neither had the girls. The adults and the

dead seemed to be the only ones inclined toward violence here.
But the girls didn’t look too relieved to be snatched from the

hands of the dead by the living either. They just watched the
skeletons head back out of town with their prize. They lifted

their hands like they were thinking about waving, but the
townsfolk holding them just slapped their hands down.

No one made any move to pursue the skeletons, including

Azrael. He noted the way those bone creatures clustered

around the boy as they spirited him away. Like they were
protecting him.

Now the townsfolk carried the girls past Azrael, in the

other direction from the way the skeletons had come. They

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grabbed the boys off the roof of the shed as well, who looked
about as happy at their situation as the girls did at theirs. They

all went the way the dancers had been trying to force Azrael.

They left Azrael alone now. A few of the townsfolk looked

at him as they passed, but none of them so much as nodded a
thank-you. They just kept on babbling to each other in their

strange tongue as they dragged the children down the street.
The only one who spoke anything comprehensible was one of

the girls he’d rescued, the one holding the doll. She turned her
head to look up at him as the woman who’d felt his leg carried

her past, holding her under one arm.

“You should have let them take us,” the girl said.

And then the townsfolk went down the street and

disappeared around the other side of the hill, leaving Azrael

alone on his dead horse except for the shattered bones lying in
the dust.

He considered things for a while, then got off the horse

and went inside the building that looked like it had the best

shot of being a bar. He needed a drink more than ever.

* * *

The day was falling into night when Azrael finally

staggered out of the bar. The street was just as empty as when

he’d walked inside. His horse was still there, waiting for him. It

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didn’t look like it had moved. It probably hadn’t. The buzzards
had settled on the church steeple to wait for him.

He thought about getting back on his horse and riding out

of here. It would have been the easy thing to do. But he

couldn’t get the little girl’s words out of his head.

He sighed and made his way up the hill to the church. He

reloaded the ghost gun as he went. He wondered what had
become of the boy. He knew he’d failed him and the girl, but he

didn’t know how he’d failed them.

Nothing new there.

The inside of the church was a ruin. There were only

shards of wood left where there’d once been pews. He figured

they’d been broken up and used for firewood, as there was a
burn mark on the wall where a cross would normally hang and

the floor underneath it was charred, as if someone had lit a
bonfire there. The missing bibles had probably been the

kindling.

It didn’t matter. He hadn’t come up here for solace. He

just wanted the high ground.

He could still hear the townsfolk singing that damned

song, although it was as faint as words on the wind now. He
went back outside and looked around, but he couldn’t see

anyone. He climbed up the side of the church and pulled

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himself up the spire for a better view. The buzzards took wing
and disappeared into the fading sky.

The road ended around the other side of the hill, at a hole

in the ground shored up with timbers and lined with torches. A

mine shaft. Azrael couldn’t see anyone in the entrance, but the
strange song of the townsfolk drifted up to him, along with the

sounds of a girl crying. And the steady noises of pick axes
striking rock.

Then the sounds of the digging stopped, as did the

weeping of the girl. But the singing didn’t. It grew even louder.

And then there was a sound he’d only heard once before. When
he’d fallen from Heaven. The sound of him being ripped from

his rightful place and cast down here.

He felt a wind on his face, originating from inside the

mine. A few seconds later, a geyser of dust erupted from its
entrance, billowing out into the night. Azrael hung on to the

church spire and waited to see what came out next.

But it was just the residents of the town again. They came

up out of the earth singing and dancing some more. Azrael
thought maybe they had done something to the children down

there, perhaps spilled their blood in the mine, but the little
boys and girls were dancing and singing along with the rest of

them. Holding the hands of the adults and speaking in that
strange tongue.

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None of them looked up at Azrael on the spire. They just

danced their way back to the town and continued on with their

festivities. Celebrating whatever it was they were celebrating.

Azrael still didn’t move. He had all of eternity to wait. And

after a time, something else came out of the mine.

More of the skeleton creatures. Four of them. They looked

just as misshapen as the others, as if they had been assembled
from random bones. They had the same hooks and spurs as did

the ones that had attacked the town. But these bone creatures
were smaller and moved more tentatively than the others. Like

children. They looked at the town for a moment, and then crept
out into the night. They headed across the scrub in the

direction of the farm where Azrael had stopped for water.

Then he was falling once again, as the spire snapped under

his weight, and darkness claimed him.

* * *

He woke to find a handful of people from the town

carrying him into the mine, including the man wearing the

spectacles and hat. The fall from the church would have killed
an ordinary man, but Azrael was an angel, so it had only

stunned him for a time. Besides, it wasn’t the first time he’d
fallen.

He could have torn himself from their grasp and gone for

his guns, but he wanted to see where they were taking him.

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There was something going on here. He’d encountered many
an abomination before in underworlds but not usually right

underneath a town. Then again, the people of this particular
community weren’t like most townsfolk.

The tunnel went straight down for a spell, then began to

twist and turn. The walls were scored with the marks of pick

axes everywhere, and rocks and piles of dirt lined the sides of
the tunnel. After a few more minutes of descent, further

tunnels began to branch off the main one, disappearing into
the darkness. Only the main tunnel was lit by torches, though,

and the group carrying Azrael remained on that path.

Azrael received his answer when they came across the

bones. Bits of them scattered across the ground. The men and
women carrying him took care to step over them. Then they

passed a few larger spiky bones just lying there, as if the
skeletons that had emerged from the tunnel had forgotten to

include these bones in their unnatural bodies.

And then the tunnel ended before them in a wall of bone.

Skeletons were embedded in the earth in a mess of grand
proportions. They were jumbled together, as if they’d all been

killed and broken apart and then tossed in a pile and buried.
Maybe they had, Azrael mused, but now they were being

unburied. The pick axes he’d heard leaned against the wall,
amid piles of freshly chipped rock and clods of dirt. A couple of

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skeletal arms hung out of the wall nearby, as if reaching for the
tools to dig themselves out. More of those hooks and spurs on

them. And there were more bone pieces scattered everywhere
here, covering the ground like ash in a fire. And dust. The dust

was everywhere.

But it hadn’t covered the doll yet. It lay amid the bones,

half-buried. Azrael looked at it for a moment, then back at the
skeletal wall. He’d seen a lot of the dead in his time, but he

didn’t recognize any of these remains. They looked ancient, like
they’d been down here for millennia. They looked older than

him.

The townsfolk dropped him to the ground, so he figured

that was as good a time as any to stand up and draw his guns.

“I don’t know what your particular superstition is,” he

said, “but the sun has set on it now.”

They didn’t show any signs of understanding him, which

didn’t surprise him any. Instead, they just grinned at him like
they were the ones holding the guns, not him. Then the man

wearing the spectacles and hat reached out and took hold of
one of those arms jutting from the wall. He snapped it free of

the wall, like he was breaking a twig from a tree.

A cloud of dust erupted from the bone, as dark as the night

in the unlit tunnels they’d passed. It engulfed Azrael, flowing
into his mouth and nose, grinding against his skin. He could

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feel something residing within it. Not a soul, not exactly what
he’d call life. But whatever had once animated these bones

wasn’t fully dead yet. And now Azrael understood.

The townsfolk weren’t the townsfolk anymore. They’d been

taken by whatever ancient beings were trapped in these bones
buried deep in the earth, forgotten until the miners had dug

down here and discovered them.

But Azrael was no mere mortal to be possessed by spirits

lost to time. He was one of the Fallen, who were few in number
but made up for it in destruction and despair. He let the form

he took these days slip just a little for a second, so the bone
spirit could glimpse his true nature. It abandoned its attempts

to seize him. The dust swirled away, forming into a whirlwind
that howled its way back up the mine shaft and out into the

night. It left the others coughing in its wake, stumbling away
from Azrael.

He didn’t let them escape. He delivered wrath and

judgment upon them with his guns, and they fell amid the

bones. The wind blew away to nothing, and the dust it had
disturbed drifted back down to cover the ground once more. He

couldn’t see the doll at all now.

Azrael reloaded his guns and headed back to the surface.

He needed another bottle, but that was going to have to wait.

* * *

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Azrael emerged from the mine into the continuing party in

the street. He didn’t know why all the townsfolk hadn’t

accompanied the others into the mine with him, like they had
with the children. Maybe it was because he was an outsider

here, or maybe it was because he was an angel. Or maybe it was
because they were too busy celebrating the additions to their

dance, the children who had come up out of the mine. But
Azrael knew these children were children no longer.

The closest townsfolk turned to welcome him, reaching out

their arms for an embrace, but then they paused when they saw

it was him and not whoever or whatever it was they’d been
expecting.

He shot them down and opened up a path to his horse. The

girl who’d been holding the doll earlier came at him. She didn’t

seem to be missing her doll at all now. He shot her down too,
plus a few more of the dancers in his way. Then he rode out of

town before they could swarm him.

At the abandoned wagons in the road, he encountered the

old woman from the farm. She was running, dragging the man
with the white eyes behind her. They appeared to have run the

entire distance from the farm to the wagons. Or at least she had
run. She was without shoes, and her feet were bloody. But the

old man looked to be in worse shape, given he was more or less
lying on the ground, with her hauling him along by the collar.

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His pants and the back of his shirt were torn, and his blood
streaked the ground behind them.

Azrael stopped to warn her, but then saw from the way she

looked at him that she wasn’t the same person anymore. Her

eyes just moved over him, like he was so much air. She was
humming a tune. The song the dancers had started up again,

behind him.

Azrael looked at the empty road behind her. Now he knew

where the entity in the whirlwind of dust had gone. He put a
bullet from each gun into her, one in the head and one in the

heart, and left her for the man to bury if he wished. The
buzzards had enough sense to leave her alone as he rode on.

* * *

The sun was easing into the sky by the time Azrael reached

the farm. The door to the farmhouse hung open, but he didn’t
bother looking inside. Instead, he went straight to the barn. He

pulled the doors open with his hands and looked into the
gloom on the other side.

The barn was full of skeletons. It was the mob of them that

had attacked the town. Although he knew now that they had

actually been trying to save the children. Fifty, maybe sixty of
them. About the same as the number of townsfolk. They turned

to look at him as he stood there, and then they grabbed
whatever they could off the ground. Pitchforks and axes, a

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couple of shovels, a few lengths of wood. The ones that didn’t
have any weapons hung back, clustering around the children

who’d been sleeping on piles of hay in the middle of the room
until Azrael had intruded. A couple of boys and three girls. And

the smaller tentative skeletons that had crept out of the mine
the night before.

He drew his guns but he didn’t fire.
“How many more children are there?” he asked.

For a few seconds, none of them moved. The skeletons

didn’t speak, but he didn’t expect them to. Then one of the boys

got up and stepped forward. The one these bone creatures had
dragged away, when he’d first ridden into the town.

“There’s just us,” he said. He looked at Azrael in a way that

said he didn’t seem to be any happier here than he had been in

the town. “The dust people got the rest of them.”

Azrael nodded at that. He didn’t know what the things

buried in the earth were, but “dust people” seemed as good a
name as any.

“These are the people from the town,” Azrael said, looking

around at all the skeletons, and the boy nodded back at him.

“They’ve taken pretty much everyone,” the boy said. “They

got the lady in the farmhouse during the night.” He didn’t say

anything about the old man, but he didn’t have to.

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“Which one of these are your kin?” Azrael asked, studying

the skeletons. They weren’t advancing, but they weren’t letting

down their guard either.

“I ain’t got no kin left,” the boy said. He brushed some

straw from his clothing. “You shot them down when everyone
came to rescue us the other night.”

Azrael dropped his guns back in their holsters. He

understood what had happened, even if he didn’t quite

understand how. The people of the town had unearthed the
dust people, and the dust people had repaid them for the favor

by possessing their bodies. But they hadn’t just taken them
over. They’d switched places with them. So the people of the

town now inhabited the bones, and they’d somehow managed
to cobble together their skeletal bodies out of those bones.

Maybe there was a way to reverse the whole process, but if
there was, Azrael didn’t know it.

“You should keep moving,” he told the boy. “Get as far

away from this place as you can, and maybe those dust people

will forget you were ever alive.”

The boy looked past him, at the world outside. “Some of

the last people tried that a few days back,” he said. “The dust
people sent a storm after them and brought them all back.”

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Azrael thought again about the storm he’d ridden through

to find himself in this place. The cries he’d heard. The

abandoned wagons on the road.

“I seen all the bones,” the boy said. “I snuck into the mine

one night. There’s too many dust people. There’s not enough of
us in the town for all of them.”

Azrael looked away from the skeletons. The boy was right.

There were many more of the dead still waiting down in that

mine. Who knew how many? Maybe just a town’s worth. But
maybe more. “I can’t help you if you stay here,” Azrael said,

turning and walking back to his horse. “But if you come with
me I might be able to protect you.” He had an idea. He wasn’t

sure if it would work or not, but he had to do something.

The children and the skeletons followed him out of the

barn, looking in all directions for signs of the dust people.

“Where are you going?” the boy asked, standing in the

doorway.

“Back to the town,” Azrael said, and the buzzards took

wing from the roof of the barn.

* * *

Azrael rode back into the town, followed by the skeletons.

They still carried their weapons, and they trailed behind him,

but they came. The ones who weren’t holding farm tools or
improvised clubs carried the children in their arms. The

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children didn’t say anything, just clung tight to the racks of
bone.

When they passed the abandoned wagons in the road,

there was no sign of the woman he’d shot down or the man

with the white eyes. Azrael couldn’t give it any more thought.

The people in the town didn’t falter in their dancing until

Azrael rode into their midst. They reached out to him, as if to
welcome him back. But then they stopped when the skeletons

came into sight and halted at the edge of town. The two groups
eyed each other, and the song died away, replaced by the sound

of the wind blowing down the street from the direction of the
mine.

Azrael shot down the man with the banjo and a woman

holding a bottle of whiskey in either hand. They had more than

enough numbers to take him down if they so desired, but he
imagined from everything that had taken place that they

desired even more to live. He was right, as they scrambled to
get out of his way, leaving the dead man and woman lying in

the dirt.

Azrael rode down the street to the mine, leaving the

skeletons and children behind. But not the dust people. They
followed him, and now they pulled out knives and guns. They

were too late, if his idea worked. If not, well, it wouldn’t be the
first time one of his gambles hadn’t paid off.

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He got down from the horse at the mine entrance, but he

didn’t go down that tunnel again. Instead, he stopped there and

shook his wrists a little, loosening up. It had been a while since
he’d done what he was about to try. The dust people nearest

him stepped back a little, as if they thought he was getting
ready to open up on them again. But he holstered the guns

instead. And then he slammed his hands together and said the
words in the forbidden tongue that he hadn’t uttered in

centuries. He wasn’t sure if they’d still mean anything or not.

They did. The air itself rent open before him, splitting with

the force of the power that flew from his hands to the mine.
The walls of the tunnel exploded, earth and rock and wooden

support beams erupting and crashing into each other. A giant
cloud of dust billowed out, engulfing him and everyone behind

him, but it was just dust.

Azrael uttered a few more words that were damnation to

hear and slammed his hands into the ground. He heard the
ceiling of the tunnel collapse, and felt the earth tremble under

his feet. He stood back up as the dust settled around them all.
He surveyed his work. The entrance to the mine was so much

rubble now, the tunnel collapsed. The dead were buried again.
He bowed his head for a moment, feeling the exhaustion all the

way in his bones. He was glad that had worked, that the words
still had power, because he didn’t have another plan. He’d been

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working on faith he didn’t know he still had. Or maybe didn’t
want to admit he still had.

One of the torches outside the mine entrance somehow

still burned. He took it and then turned and made his way

through the crowd, which was now a mix of the dust people
and skeletons. No one tried to stop him. No one touched him

now. They’d seen his wrath and wanted none of it.

He went up the hill to the church. He stood on the front

step and surveyed the crowd. The skeletons and the dust
people and the children stared up at him. They waited for his

words.

“I could have destroyed you,” he said, pointing the torch at

the woman in the purple dress among the dust people. “I could
have smote you down,” he said, pointing the torch at the man

who’d given him the bottle when he’d first ridden into town. “I
could have razed this town and turned even the memories of it

and all of you to ash, to be scattered on the winds.”

No one said anything, because what was there to say to

that?

“That mine, it’s sealed forever now,” he said. “Even I

couldn’t dig my way down to those bones now. But I ain’t
taking any more sides than that. What’s dust is dust.”

He went inside the church, his boots echoing in the empty

room. He knelt down before that burn mark on the wall. It had

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been a long time since he’d kneeled, and it didn’t feel as natural
as it once had. Nowhere near as natural.

He said a prayer for the woman from the farm, like he’d

promised. There was no sign it was heard, but that was nothing

new. Then he said a prayer for the entire town, with the same
result. When he was done, he touched the torch to the wall. If

there was someone listening to his prayers, he wanted to make
sure there weren’t any misunderstandings over the way he still

felt about things. When the flames caught he went back outside
and pulled himself up on his horse.

The boy who had spoken to him back at the farmhouse

stepped forward. Azrael had figured he would.

“What are we supposed to do now?” the boy asked, looking

at the townsfolk. Azrael wondered which of their bodies had

been home to his parents.

“This is a hard land,” Azrael said, as the church burned

behind him. “You can keep on killing each other. Or you can
learn to live together.” He saw the man with the white eyes in

the crowd. He couldn’t tell if he was still human or one of the
dust people now. “That’s up to you to decide,” he added. It was

the sort of judgment that he’d been riding away from all these
years, but he’d come to realize that sometimes there was no

other kind of judgment.

“What kind of fate is that?” the boy asked.

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“Your fate’s your own now,” Azrael said. “Make it what you

will.”

He rode through them then, the skeletons and the dust

people, back down the road and out of the town. He didn’t look

back.

At the farmhouse, he stopped. He found some pieces of

bone in the barn and used them to make a couple of crosses.
He planted the bone crosses on either side of the wooden

crosses. He didn’t have any bodies to bury, but sometimes it
was the gestures that mattered.

Then he got back on the horse and rode out into the

wasteland beyond the farm. There was another dust storm

growing on the horizon, and he headed toward it.

As always, the buzzards followed.

Read Comments on this Story

on the BCS Website

Peter Darbyshire is the author of the novels The Warhol Gang
and Please, which won Canada’s national ReLit award for

best novel. He has published short stories in numerous
journals and anthologies, including previously in Beneath

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

Ceaseless Skies, and his last weird western received On Spec’s
Best Story of the Year award. He currently lives in

Vancouver, Canada, where he is working on a collection of
stories about the end of the world. Visit him at

www.peterdarbyshire.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

MAKE NO PROMISES

by Stephen V. Ramey

Mist blanketed the Tsoi River. The clink-clack of the

towing elephant’s harness became an eerie rattle from both
banks, the gurgling chuck of water against the towboat’s hull

were lips sucking flesh from chicken bones. A shiver went
through Rahami Honra. She rubbed her forearm, careful not to

scratch the spider-bite welts that marked her as Web Seer.

The Mother Oracle’s summons had surprised her,

especially at this busy time of year when farmers relied on her
prognostications to plan spring crops. It had provided no

details beyond ordering her to leave at once.

An uncomfortable mix of anticipation and dread twisted

Rahami’s stomach. Did this summons portend something
good; an assignment closer to home, perhaps? It could as easily

be bad news. Maybe an elder had complained about having to
host a low-caste seer in the village. Her clients were content

with her, but who knew how authorities saw the situation? No,
it had to be more than that. The Mother Oracle would not

summon her simply to change her assignment. But what?

“...beyond the divide.”

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“Pardon?” Rahami twisted on the bench. The passenger

closest to her frowned before resuming his stony gaze. Rahami

tugged at her travel cloak’s sodden hood. Hallucinations were
not uncommon in seers, but she had not experienced them

before this journey. It was discomforting.

The first of Hatsi’s weathered silk warehouses emerged

from the mist. “Pier a’coming,” the boatmaster grunted from
his perch. Men carried poles to the rails. On shore, the elephant

trainer backed the beast, letting its chains go slack while the
pole men prodded the boat into position. Others hopped the

narrowing gap to secure ropes. Rahami took her place in the
disembarking line. She had hoped to visit her mother before

meeting the Oracle at Matsomsa Spider House, but the boat
was arriving a day late.

Young men crowded the landing. “Kashi!! Kashi!! Best

deal here.” Some kashi were plain carts with two wheels.

Others were festooned with low quality silks. Rahami spied a
familiar red banner and a driver whose attention was fixed on

the inside of his removed shoe. The tight brown curls of his
hair were unmistakable.

She smiled. “You’ll not find a fare in there.”
“One mo—” Jonji Ingras looked up. “Rahami?”

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“Tell me you were not expecting me.” Rahami had known

Jonji since they were toddlers, his hut a stone’s throw from

hers.

“Sorry to delay you, Madam Seer.” Jonji slipped his shoe

on and helped Rahami onto the padded seat. “To your
mother’s?”

“No, the Spider House.”
He lifted the kashi’s handles and started off at a trot. He

remained silent as they passed the Green Leaf Tavern and
Wayward Inn and turned inland onto an uneven path. Spring

rains had left puddles, but Jonji seemed not to notice.

“How long have you worked the kashi?” Rahami said.

“Three years.” Despite his exertion, Jonji spoke firmly.
“Have you married?”

“Yes.”
A pang went through Rahami. She recalled a couple

holding hands on the boat. Lower castes married for love,
whereas it was a process of social mobility for higher castes.

Seers never married at all. Who would want a disturbed soul
wrapped within a poisoned body?

A chipped-stone path carried them through groves of

leafless trees and dispirited people. These were spinners

traveling to the Spider House to begin their day’s work. Being
Ashim, they could not walk on the path, only to its side.

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“What is the gossip about my arrival?” Rahami said.
Jonji slowed. “Some say the Oracle will have you unmade

for indiscretions and you will become Ashim-una again.”

Rahami nodded. It was possible. She wondered who would

be more devastated, herself or her mother.

“What do you believe?” she said.

“It is not my place to guess an oracle’s motive.”
“I suppose not,” Rahami said. She remembered sneaking

down to the docks with Jonji to watch men unload crates they
imagined to be from all over the world. He had been

comfortable with conjecture then. Those were the days, before
apprenticeships and social expectations.

Forest gave way to trimmed gardens surrounding a

stacked-stone building large enough to contain most of Hatsi.

The Spider House’s roof was pounded copper, green with age.

Jonji walked the kashi to the main entrance, lowered the

handles, and extended his palm. “Please, Madam Seer. Two
tenths for the ride, an extra tenth if you found my service

satisfactory.”

Rahami withdrew four tenth-standards from her purse.

Her fingertips brushed Jonji’s and a vision bloomed into her—
an elderly man presenting a platter of charred lamb chunks

atop a bed of carrots and greens. The platter transformed into
her father’s face, flesh-white with waterlog, eyes like dark wells.

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Caste is no excuse to hide from life’s challenges, he said
through bloodless lips. The head rolled over, submerged, and

was gone.

Rahami clenched. She missed her father more than she

could say.

“Is something the matter?” Jonji said.

Rahami caught herself and dropped the coins onto his

palm.

“That is most generous, Madam Seer.” He would not meet

her eyes.

Rahami steadied herself. “Jonji, talk to me. Were we not

friends? Did we not watch off-loaders and dream of exotic

places? Tell me at least that memory is true. So little of my life
is solid.”

Jonji closed his hand. “That was long ago, a different

time.”

“The future is what we reach for,” Rahami said, “but it is

the past that forms us.”

Jonji’s expression softened. “Come with us, Rahami. After

all, you will be one of us if the Oracle unmakes you.”

“What are you talking about?” Rahami said.
“We’re going over the mountains.”

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A chill blew through Rahami. She had heard rumors that

the Ashim were plotting, but to attempt a crossing of the Spine

of the World? It was a desperate, dangerous idea.

“Think this through,” she said. “You have a stable

profession, a family to provide for. I know the prospect of war
is frightening, but you cannot let fear lead you to a rash

decision.”

“I’m not afraid,” Jonji said. “This is the opportunity we

have waited for all our lives. Have you forgotten what it means
to be Ashim?”

“Of course not,” Rahami said. “But even the most

experienced climbers fear the mountain passes.”

Jonji shook his head. “Forget I said anything, Madam

Seer. Forget you ever knew me.” He lifted the kashi handles

and trotted away.

Rahami stared after him, wanting to call out. How could

she? The gulf dividing them was as real as the stones beneath
her feet. She gazed beyond Jonji to snow-capped peaks turned

blue by distance. Surely, it was bluster. No one in their right
mind would truly attempt to cross the Spine of the World.

* * *

Bands of black hexagonal plates girded the Spider House

door. For a heartbeat, Rahami saw a man within the design:
square shoulders, nose sharp and straight, dimpled chin. It was

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an unfamiliar face, stern and resolute, and yet she felt as if she
knew it intimately.

Another phantom. She shook dew from her travel cloak,

wishing she could clear her head so easily. Weaver, she prayed,

if you have a care for my spirit, please do not let the Oracle’s
purpose be my unmaking. Unmaking would remove her ability

to enter trance but not the spider toxins from her body or the
welts from her arms. It would not restore her past life.

She grasped the iron pull ring. “It is an honor to be called,

Mother Oracle,” she practiced. Despite the door’s great size, it

swung open easily.

Steps angled down into a cavernous chamber holding

thousands of glass webberies in hexagonally arranged rows,
each housing a single spider. Light washed down from windows

high on the walls, where women balanced on crossbeams
shooed leather-winged fliers and opened or closed vents to

manage the day’s heat. Too much heat and the webs become
flimsy, her mother had explained when Rahami came here to

clean webberies at fourteen years. Too much chill and spiders
go dormant. When Rahami had continued to stare, her mother

added, The job’s not suited to girls. Leave the rafters to young
men.

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Rahami smiled at the memory. It had been the boys that

interested her, not the job. Now women minded the rafters

with so many men in the militia.

She started down the wooden steps, treads as familiar to

her feet as if it had been only yesterday she walked them.
Difficult to believe that three years had passed since she left the

Spider House, and ten since she started her labors here. So
much had happened in that time, her father’s and sister’s

deaths, her brother moving to Asoman, her mother’s ongoing
problems.

Sweet liquid smells mixed with a heavier tang of hickory

smoke. Rahami savored the scent.

She paused at the stairway’s base to remove her travel

cloak and tuck a curl beneath her headscarf. Ashim-una women

wheeled carts loaded with buzzing fly boxes to keep the spiders
fed, while Querca-debo workers in blue caftans made their way

methodically from web to web, checking strand tensions,
removing those to be soaked and spun.

Rahami navigated the busy chamber and pushed through a

tapestry wall into a smaller section housing blue orb spiders.

Unlike black orb spiders, bred to spin and spin, blues rarely
rebuilt their webs. And unlike black orbs, they were fed Harrow

bugs, striped beetles with a potent toxin. Ingesting that poison
rendered the spiders deadly to all but seers.

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A few paces within, the Mother Oracle tended a webbery.

She was cloaked in alabaster silk robes, veils, and skirts that

hid all but her sky-blue eyes. Even so, she was an imposing
woman with a tall, sturdy frame.

Rahami cleared her throat, and the Mother straightened,

becoming even taller. Rahami swallowed. Until now, she had

been in the Mother Oracle’s presence only during Solstice
Celebrations, and always at a distance.

“It is an honor to be called, Mother Oracle,” Rahami said.

Her voice trembled despite her rehearsals.

“The honor is yet to be woven,” the Mother said. She

extended one hand, palm down.

Rahami touched her forehead to a flesh-colored glove and

backed two steps, head bowed.

“I am intrigued by many things I hear from the villages,”

the Mother said.

“What things?” Rahami nearly bit her tongue trying to take

back the impudent question. Your arrogance will do you in

someday, Sister Mathe cackled from memory. A common
laborer is what you are, and shall always be.

The Mother sniffed. “It has been reported that you reveal

more than the thickest strands to your clients. Is this true? Do

you tempt them toward less than likely outcomes?”

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Rahami went cold. “In small ways,” she said. What seer

did not allow some speculation? “There is little enough hope in

the south without dire predictions.”

“There are reasons for our rules,” the Mother said. “They

protect seer as well as client.”

“Yes, Mother Oracle.” Rahami knew in a foggy way of the

balance between Family leaders, merchant castes, and seers.
Politics interested her less than people. “I will restrain myself

in the future.”

“I trust that you will,” the Mother said, “but that is not why

I summoned you. I am sending you to Matsomsa Manor.”

Rahami’s heart skipped. “I do not understand, Mother

Oracle. Matsomsa Family employs private seers, specially bred,
specially trained. I’m not even a Sister.”

“Morshimon Matsomsa asked for you by name.”
“Why would he ask for me?”

Creases framed the Mother’s eyes. “Do not test my tolerant

mood, Rahami.”

“Apologies, Mother Oracle.” Rahami cast her gaze down.
The Mother lifted her chin. “The Manor Sisters report that

Morshimon does not trust their seeing. He wants more of the
future than it is willing to grant.” Ice-blue eyes bore into

Rahami’s. “An unfortunate power dynamic has taken root. You
are to perform the duty you were taught, without conjecture,

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without twisting the Weaver’s design. When your reading
confirms what the Sisters revealed, it will put an end to this

nonsense. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mother Oracle.”

“Good. I will have a room prepared. You leave in the

morning.”

“I would prefer to stay with my mother in Hatsi,” Rahami

said. “If that is acceptable.”

The Mother hesitated. For a heartbeat her presence was

anything but intimidating. As if in the throes of some distorted

vision, Rahami saw through veils of silk and skin to the
woman’s core, a writhing webwork of certainty and doubt

warring for dominant pattern.

The Mother glanced away, then back. “Very well, Rahami.

Tonight, you play the dutiful daughter. Tomorrow, you will
perform your duty to our people.” She indicated the webbery.

“I have chosen a blue for you. If the Sisters are content with
your seeing, you will receive double your normal fee.”

“That is most generous,” Rahami said. Madam Seer,

Jonji’s voice echoed in her mind.

The Mother Oracle’s eyes narrowed. “Do not disappoint

me, Rahami Honra. Much depends upon this thread.”

Rahami cast her eyes down, and backed two steps. “Yes,

Mother Oracle.” What is she not telling me?

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

* * *

Rahami gripped the goat cart’s bench, trying to retain

dignity and her seat at the same time. The driver, a boy of
fifteen or sixteen years, had not spoken during their bumpy

ride through sycamore forest. Just as well. What would they
talk about besides the impending war, or the task that lay

ahead of her? Her nerves had already worn so raw with worry
that she wanted to jump from the cart and run into the forest.

The lead goat veered. Rahami clung tightly as the cart

shuddered into the brush and wedged between saplings. The

driver hopped down. “Stubborn animals.” He rocked the cart
free.

Rahami glimpsed movement through the trees. Deeper

within the forest, women tended a fire near dun colored tents.

She caught a whiff of meat smoke. Her mouth watered. She had
eaten very little at morning meal, not wishing to deplete her

mother’s limited stores.

The driver pulled the lead goat back to the road. The

others followed grudgingly, and the cart turned. Rahami still
smelled meat smoke, but the tangle was too thick to see

anything now.

“Who were those people?” she asked. Another

hallucination?

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The driver remounted without acknowledging her

question. Perhaps he hadn’t heard.

The cart gained momentum. Rahami’s thoughts returned

to her impending task. She had heard tales of Matsomsa

Manor, mortared walls as high as trees, extravagant halls
bedecked with silk, that Morshimon Matsomsa was a man of

such height he must stoop through even those doorways; his
strength so great he might lift an elephant. With a flush, she

recalled another story whispered in the privacy of a women’s
chamber, never to be mentioned in the presence of children

and husbands.

“Ashim,” the driver muttered.

“What?”
“The people in the forest. I bring them supplies

sometimes. The goats must have remembered.” A weight lifted
from Rahami, a small weight but nonetheless welcome. The

people were real. Maybe the delusions had ended.

“Where are they from?” she said.

“Runaways from Chindra and Ashoti, a few from the

militia camp. They plan to cross the mountains.”

Rahami thought of Jonji. “Without supplies and proper

clothing, they will surely die.”

The driver shook his head. “The Weaver will watch over

them. The Lost City—”

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“That’s a children’s story,” Rahami said.
“For some people a story is truer than life.”

Rahami had no reply for that.
The driver chewed at his lip. “Weren’t you once Ashim,

Madam Seer?”

Rahami nodded.

“Then you must understand. If you report them—”
“I will keep your secret,” Rahami said. What would she say

in any case, that a handful of Ashim women glimpsed from a
road she did not know planned to kill themselves in the

mountains? It took no imagination to guess a high-born’s
reaction to that. Fewer mouths to feed.

The driver relaxed. “Thank you, Madam Seer.” The goats

settled too, pulling together, their low bleats less plaintive.

Rahami listened to the cadence of the wheels turning.

Spiny berry thickets gave way to a row of whitewashed bee

hives. She smelled honey and imagined the Mother Oracle’s
lips moving behind her veil. You are to perform the duty you

were taught, without conjecture, without twisting the
Weaver’s design.

Why would Morshimon Matsomsa believe me over

Sisters bred to the task?

The road turned along a ridge, and the view opened onto

Matsomsa Manor sprawled along a peninsula into a vast lake.

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Three wings protruded from its central tower. Chimneys rose
from blue slate roofs.

South of the peninsula, a militia camp numbered more

gray tents than Rahami could count. Men practiced swords or

bows or pikes, the ring of metal upon metal nearly constant.

As a child, Rahami had believed war would never reach

Querc. A rugged coastline with few natural bays protected them
from attack by sea. Invasion from the south would mean

defeating a tenacious Amaali people and braving the Decid
Plain, where ghosts intent upon bodily possession ruled the

night. Now she knew better—the Amaali were not the warriors
of legend, and it was said that certain magics could mitigate the

ghosts of Decid Plain. Still, it was difficult to accept that the
local militia, some of them young men she had grown up with,

would soon leave for the front.

The road descended. Dried mud yielded to manicured

river stone. The great manor rose before her like a foreign land.
Rahami sat forward as the cart traversed a plank bridge. A boy

not much older than her driver stepped from a guard shack,
pike in hand. Interlinked hexagonal chest plates depicted the

Matsomsa spider crest. Bulky shoulder protectors extended
from his neck, making his head look too small.

“Who wishes entrance?” he barked.
No one, Rahami thought.

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“I bring a seer for Morshimon Matsomsa,” the driver said.
The boy-guard pointed his pike. “She is to enter through

the Elephant Gate. Take care to mind your goats. They may eat
rotted apples, but nothing recent fallen.”

Clicking his tongue, the driver started the team along a

row of apple trees. They passed statues of robed men holding

scrolls and uniformed men with swords or pikes. These must
be Morshimon’s ancestors.

Wheels clattered on cobblestone as they entered a

courtyard featuring a water fountain. Girls spilled from a

doorway, followed by a pregnant woman in exquisite blue silks,
whose uncovered head marked her as Querca caste.

“I am Reuda Anch, Mistress of Women,” she said. Up

close, she looked younger. “You are Rahami Honra?”

“Yes,” Rahami said. A girl brought a hand-cart, and helped

the others load the webbery and Rahami’s satchel while a

mustached guard watched. Not so much to protect my goods
as to catch every detail of girls’ bodies moving within loose-

fitting garments. Rahami remembered fondly when boys had
watched her like this. Few seemed to notice her gender now.

“I am to show you to the seer residences,” Mistress Anch

said. She motioned to an older girl, who scampered inside.

Rahami followed into a busy kitchen bulging with

delightful smells: onions, pressed garlic, vinegar, mustard

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spice. Pots hung amid ropes of dried herbs. Blazing hearths
dominated one wall where women worked dough on a

lacquered table.

Hunger twisted Rahami’s stomach. They crossed a dining

room with tables enough to seat fifty, ascended a flight of steps,
passed a number of closed doors, and arrived at an arch

decorated with river stones and shell and hung with layers of
heavy silk. Rahami admired the material. Curtains of this

quality, with dense weave and shining surface were rare in the
countryside. To live amid such splendor must be wonderful.

Mistress Anch parted three outer layers: gold, yellow, and

white. Colors to blind the spirits.

“I can escort you no farther,” she said. “The Sisters have

been informed of your arrival.” She parted the three inner

curtain layers: burgundy, blue and black. Colors to trick spirits
into believing they return to their own world.

“Thank you,” Rahami said. Stomach churning, she stepped

through the opening into a small hexagonal chamber with a

mosaic floor depicting a blue orb weaver in a geometric web.

Three ivory-robed women entered from the opposite

archway. They moved in unison, blue-eyed faces identically
gaunt, blond hair pulled back in braids. Rahami breathed and

released. Manor seers were said to breed like spiders. Maybe it

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was true. She could imagine these three emerging from an egg
sac.

The first Sister extended her hand. “I am Armyni.”
Rahami touched her forehead to bony flesh. “I am

honored, Sister Oracle.” The hand withdrew, and Rahami
straightened. Armyni was clearly the eldest of the three, the

skin of her brow and temples hinting at creases.

“It is unfortunate you must leave your village duties,”

Armyni said. “I am certain they are pressing.” The corners of
her mouth ticked upward. “But take heart. Your stay here will

be brief. Have no doubt of that.”

Rahami forced a polite smile. Her year of training with

Sister Mathe’s acid tongue had taught her to tamp emotion
down.

“Thank you, Sister,” she said. “I am indeed needed

elsewhere, yet the Mother Oracle has determined my duty is

here. Perhaps, when we have solved this problem, she will send
you South to aid me in settling a farmer’s dispute.”

Armyni’s jaw clenched. She turned on her heel and walked

from the room.

“Come,” another Sister said. “I will show you to your

quarters.”

* * *

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By the end of the third day, Rahami began to question

Armyni’s understanding of ‘brief’. She had already endured too

much idleness in the seers’ quarters, a collection of alcoves
surrounding a common area. With no books to read and no

sewing to occupy her hands, she spent her days gazing upon
the lake and her nights dreading. She had heard of seers

tortured when their reports displeased a powerful client. Of
course, there were consequences for such abuse, but fines held

little sway over people with vast wealth. That Morshimon had
requested a minor seer, one with Ashim roots, was troubling.

On the fifth night, she woke to peeling thunder. Flood! was

her first impulse. Again she saw Father slip from the sandbag

wall he had helped erect. Her younger sister, Owabe, reached
out and was gone too, lost in a current stronger than her will.

Lightning flashed. Rahami sat up, brow slicked with sweat.

A figure in white hovered by the common room windows.

Ghost? Rahami pulled a silk sheet over her head for protection.

The figure resolved into the youngest Sister, Tifan, and

Rahami relaxed. Of the three, she liked Tifan best. Where the
others evaluated and dismissed, Tifan showed a spark of

curiosity.

“I did not mean to startle you,” Tifan said. She entered the

alcove. “The storm keeps me awake. Armyni says I am foolish
to fear the weather.”

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“Fear is a healthy response to powers greater than our

own,” Rahami said. She removed her makeshift headscarf.

Tifan knelt onto the sleeping mat. “Armyni claims we are

well protected within the manor, yet I often feel the hair rise

from my skin.”

“I’ve felt that too,” Rahami said. “I believe lightning causes

hair to lift as it energizes the air.”

“You are not afraid?”

“No,” Rahami said.
“Then Armyni is right. The Weaver has blessed us with an

ability to see beyond his veil. We have no cause to fear nature.”

“Perceiving a future is not the same as controlling it,”

Rahami said. “I may not fear lightning, but I fear other things.”

Tifan edged closer. “You do?”

“Floods,” Rahami said. “My father and sister....” She

stopped. It was not like her to blurt personal details.

“I’m sorry,” Tifan said.
“It was a long time ago.”

Lightning flashed, and Tifan leaned forward. Rahami’s

arm went around the younger woman. She remembered

holding Owabe after they were caught sneaking to the
slaughterhouse to watch an elderly elephant put down. Rahami

remembered Owabe trembling, tears shining in her eyes. No,

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that direction was not where this conversation needed to go.
Diversion was a better antidote for fear.

“I also fear love,” she said. “A man who pulls at my heart

as lodestone draws metal filings.”

“Oh, yes.” Tifan sat straight. “We all dread that.” She

cocked her head. “Have you met such a man? Your travels

surely present more opportunities than we have here.”

“Once,” Rahami said. A thrill ran through her. She had not

thought of Jankol in months.

“What was he like?” Tifan said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rahami said. “I forget.” I hoped I had.

She had danced with Jankol at Solstice celebration, knowing

even as their hands touched—hers shielded behind kid skin
gloves—they would never kiss or cuddle or whisper sleeping

mat secrets. Only a man with seer blood might mate with her,
and even that was risky.

“Tell me about Morshimon,” she said to deflect the subject.

“What does his future hold? What choices did you see?”

“We should not speak of such things,” Tifan said. Lines

creased her brow.

“I cannot help but wonder what I am expected to report,”

Rahami said. “Armyni seems worried I will contradict her.”

Tifan sighed. “Armyni believes you will not stand up to the

Honorable Morshimon. She believes you will tell him what he

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wishes to hear. It is no secret that you were not born to the
craft.” A low rumble sounded. The storm was passing.

“I will do my duty,” Rahami said. Without conjecture,

without twisting the Weaver’s design.

“I believe you,” Tifan said. She paused. “There is

something else you should know, Rahami.”

“Yes?”
Tifan looked into her lap. “The Honorable Morshimon

went to Chindra, to recruit.”

“He’s not here?” Irritation surged through Rahami, a

storm all its own. Who was this Morshimon, to toss her about
like thistle seed? “I cannot remain here forever. People depend

on me—farmers, fishermen, town elders.”

“Armyni understands this,” Tifan said. She pressed a coin

pouch into Rahami’s hand. “Ten standards. We do not possess
enough for the Mother Oracle’s fee, but Armyni wanted to

compensate you at least.”

“Compensate me for what? I have not undertaken the

seeing.”

Tifan looked up. “You are not the first person the

Honorable Morshimon has abandoned. Armyni says he
discards people as children discard torn kites.”

“Surely, he wouldn’t trifle with a seer dispatched by the

Mother Oracle,” Rahami said.

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“This is a difficult time,” Tifan said. “War threatens to turn

the world upside down.” She lowered her voice. “Armyni knows

what she is asking of you. You dare not return to the Mother
Oracle, who would as like have you unmade as listen to your

side, but.... Perhaps this is an opportunity too?”

“How so?” Rahami asked.

“This calling we share, is it not also a burden? When we

open our eyes onto the Weaver’s tangle, it is his domain, not

ours. We are constrained by forces beyond our control. Would
you not wish to be free if you could?”

Rahami found herself nodding, even though she had never

considered gaining her freedom in this manner.

“Accept this payment and leave Querc,” Tifan said. “In

time the poison may fade, and you will have your old life back.

Armyni says that you are not bred to be a seer.”

Rahami thought of Jankol. Rid of the spider poison, she

might find love. She might even find a way to use her natural
talents for something more meaningful than reading futures

for farmers.

Tifan squeezed Rahami’s hand and stood. “Sleep, Rahami.

Perhaps your dreams will convince you. I cannot help but to
put myself in your place. For me it would be an easy choice.”

She strode to the exit.

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“Wait,” Rahami said. “You haven’t told me why

Morshimon doubts his Sisters’ readings. Why was I

summoned?”

“The Honorable Morshimon believes we withhold

something. He will not let go of his suspicion.”

“Is he wrong?” Rahami asked.

Tifan looked away.
“What did you see?”

“His destiny, of course,” Tifan said. “His death.” And then

she was gone, another shadow in the darkness of the common

room.

* * *

Rahami’s dreams did not help. Again and again, she

witnessed her father’s swollen corpse returned to the village for

burial, her sister’s face disappearing into angry black water a
final time. The grief seemed as fresh as ever. Her Mother had

been healthy then, which only made the tears more cutting.

Each time Rahami woke, she thought of Tifan’s suggestion.

Leave Querc. In time the poison may fade. And then she would
whisper “no,” close her eyes, and eventually fall asleep only to

have the cycle repeat, until, finally, she was too tired for even
that to wake her.

Morning brought sunshine streaming through the

windows. A coin pouch lay rumpled beside the mat like the

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bean bags some children kicked for sport. She should be glad
that Tifan’s offer had not been another hallucination, but she

could not get past a feeling of impending doom. Had
Morshimon truly abandoned her? How would the Mother

Oracle react? She gathered up the coin pouch and went in
search of Armyni.

The passage from the common room was lined with

tapestries depicting forests and lakes. Dark blue silks trimmed

in gray draped from the ceiling.

A man groaned.

“Hold him,” Armyni’s muffled voice said from a side

passage blocked by silk.

Rahami moved closer. Why would a man be permitted in

the Sisters’ quarters? Even the female servant had been

specially purified.

“He’s spent,” Tifan said.

“Do you think I will not know when he spends his silver in

my inn?” Armyni said.

Rahami worked her fingers through the curtains. Across

the room, Armyni straddled a naked man on a mound of

pillows. Tifan held his hand while Orinda, the third Sister,
leaned onto his shoulders. His breaths came as shallow grunts.

“He’s not well,” Tifan said.

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Armyni snorted. “Oh, do not worry, precious Sister. He

claims his mother comes from seer stock.”

The man choked. Spittle erupted from his mouth.
“You’re killing him,” Tifan said.

“She may be right,” Orinda said.
“Imagine that,” Armyni said. “A man who lies about his

heritage. Well, I suppose his lesson is that lies return to roost.”

“But—”

“What concern is his death to us?” Armyni snapped. “He is

Ashim.”

Rahami swept the curtains open. Rage clouded her

thoughts.

“What are you doing here?” Armyni said. “Do you want a

turn?”

Rahami threw the pouch. Instead of striking Armyni, it

landed on the man’s chest and skidded into his chin, drawing a

startled grunt.

Eyes stinging, Rahami fled through a surreal landscape of

fake forests, fake mountains, fake lakes. Nothing here was real.

“Wait,” Tifan called. Rahami ran faster.

The passage emptied into the hexagonal room where

Mistress Anch had abandoned her. She crossed the mosaic

spider floor and paused at the curtains.

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“It’s not as it seems,” Tifan said, from the inner corridor’s

mouth.

“It never is.” Rahami pushed through clinging silk into the

hallway beyond. Stately paintings punctuated the walls as far

as she could see.

Tifan’s shadow moved behind the curtains. “You are one of

us,” she said. “Return with me, and Armyni will not punish
you.”

“No,” Rahami said. “Come with me, Tifan. We’ll report her

cruelty.”

“If Armyni is cruel sometimes,” Tifan said, “it is only

because of the pressures of her station.”

“And the man?” Rahami asked. “Does the Honorable

Matsomsa tolerate murder in his manor?”

The curtains parted. A blue eye peered through. “Murder?

He is only Ashim.”

The words hit like a splash of scalding water. Rahami

turned and sprinted through the corridor, listening for sounds

of pursuit that did not materialize.

A stairway led down. She took it.

Girls in brown shifts replaced sconce candles from a cart.

A pair of guards chatted by an archway leading to a room filled

with tables set for breakfast. Only the farthest table was
occupied.

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Rahami willed her speeding heart to slow. The way outside

was through the dining hall.

“What is your business?” the older guard said. The

younger one was the mustached man Rahami had seen in the

courtyard.

“I am needed in the kitchen,” she said.

“Use the servants’ passage.”
“Thank you,” Rahami said, pretending to misunderstand.

She strode between the men.

“Are you deaf?” the older guard said.

Rahami continued walking, though every nerve in her

body screamed at her to run. The dining hall was as high as it

was wide, with skylights placed along the ceiling. No rafter
women here.

A hand grabbed her. “Don’t touch me.” She spun, lifting a

sleeve to expose her spider-bite welts. Her heart thudded.

The older guard drew back. “Spider-witch.”
“She’s the woman from the goat cart,” the mustached

guard said. “Morshimon sent for her.”

“I doubt that,” the older guard said.

“One way to find out,” the mustached guard said. He

nodded toward the occupied table.

“You will take the consequences,” the older guard said. “I

want no part of this.”

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The mustached guard grinned and shook his head at the

other before leading Rahami toward the table, which hosted six

balding men and a soldier in partial armor. The soldier’s face
was broad-browed, nose sharp and straight, a dimpled chin.

Thick, dark hair topped his head, more than enough to make
up for the others’ lack.

Déjà vu washed through Rahami. She had seen this face

before. The Spider House door.

“What is it, Kapren?” His voice was resonant and deep.
The mustached guard came to attention. “I found this

woman wandering the halls, Honorable Morshimon.”

Morshimon? Rahami touched her bare head. She felt

naked.

“Ah, the seer from the south,” Morshimon said. “The

Mother Oracle promised you days ago.”

“I have been here nearly a week,” Rahami said. “The

Sisters said you were away recruiting soldiers.”

“Is that so?” Morshimon sighed. “I shall have to educate

the Sisters concerning my itinerary. These miscommunications
grow tiresome.”

Rahami swallowed. “I am sorry to interrupt your meal,

Honorable Matsomsa, but when I saw that man, I didn’t know

what to do.”

“A man?”

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“An Ashim man in the Sisters’ quarters. They were....

Armyni....”

Morshimon’s jaw tensed. “Kapren, instruct the Mistress of

Women to find a suitable room for our guest. You will stand

guard at her door tonight.”

“Yes, Matsomsa-born.”

Morshimon started to drop his lap napkin to the table but

tossed it to Rahami instead.

“Thank you.” She positioned the cloth over her hair.
Morshimon stood, and Rahami suppressed a gasp. He was

at least a head taller than the guard. Massive arms strained the
seams of his sleeves. Hexagonal plates of silk-bonded armor

covered his chest and shoulders.

A giant if ever one existed.

“I mean to pay a visit to the Sisters,” Morshimon said to

the other men. “Anyone care to come along? They have invited

one man into their quarters, what are a few more?”

“Your father will not like it,” one of the men said.

“There is much that annoys my father these days,”

Morshimon said. “I doubt this will make the first five.” He

nodded to Rahami. “Go with Kapren. Tomorrow you will
undertake my seeing.”

Rahami averted her eyes. “Yes, Matsomsa-born.”

Tomorrow I will see your death. A shadow passed over her, a

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chill of deep dread. Maybe she should have accepted Armyni’s
payment and run.

* * *

It was nearly noon before Kapren escorted her to

Morshimon’s sitting room. Three windows overlooked the lake.
To one side, a table was strewn with maps. Across the room, a

hearth warmed two stuffed chairs and a floral-patterned sofa.
Morshimon drowsed in one of the chairs. The webbery stood by

the other.

Kapren cleared his throat. “The seer is here, Morshimon.”

Morshimon jerked but recovered smoothly. “Thank you,

Kapren. You may leave.” Kapren withdrew.

Morshimon stood. “Rahami Honra is an interesting

name,” he said. “You hail from a Hashin Village near the

river?”

“Yes, Honorable Matsomsa, that is where I am currently

assigned.”

“Trained by the Oracle Mother?”

“A Sister.”
Morshimon nodded. “My militia captain recommended

you. He is Hashin by blood, and claims that you reveal truths
beyond the politically expedient.”

Rahami cast her gaze down. “I do my duty, Honorable

Matsomsa.”

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“As do I,” a new voice said. Armyni bustled into the room,

the hem of her ivory robe clutched in one hand. Rahami

adjusted her head-covering to hide her surprise. She had not
expected to see Armyni again.

Morshimon snorted. “The Sister arrives at last.”
“As you requested,” Armyni said.

“As I ordered,” Morshimon corrected. “My father insists

that one of you vermin be present.”

“He is wise, Matsomsa-born.”
“He is old fashioned,” Morshimon said. “Now, be silent or

I will have you replaced with another spider-witch. I may have
to tolerate your presence, but I will not tolerate your tongue.”

“As you wish, Matsomsa-born.”
Morshimon returned his attention to Rahami. “Scarred

warriors have crossed Alenja River. They will reach the Decid
Plains soon and push north. If we do not defeat the Ubi army at

Apatsoi River, Querc will fall. This is what my Sisters tell me.
All well and good, but it is what they hide that interests me.”

“We hide noth—”
“Silence!” Morshimon shouted. Armyni looked away. “We

will begin when you are ready,” he said to Rahami.

“Yes, Matsomsa-born.”

“I want a full reading,” Morshimon said. “A true seeing, do

you understand?”

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“Of course,” Rahami said. She met Armyni’s glare. I will

see this man’s futures. I will know what you know, and more

if I am able. She removed her head-scarf. “If something has
been hidden from you, Honorable Matsomsa, we shall soon

know it.”

* * *

Rahami sat on an oval rug, shoes removed, toes touching

Morshimon’s naked back.

“I summon the spider,” she said. She removed the webbery

plug and extended wooden tongs through the opening. A blue

orb spider, starved for days, pranced across invisible strands of
its web. Rahami got it on her first try. Catching a hungry spider

was not as difficult as catching flies.

She withdrew the flailing creature. “And now, the bite.”

She pressed the spider to her wrist. This was the most difficult
part, much harder than seeing futures.

When the spider did not immediately bite, she moved it

elsewhere, lifting and lowering, pressing its mouthparts to her

skin. The spider bites where the Weaver wills.

She felt a pinch and resisted the instinct to squeeze. A

convulsion of her grip and the spider might be damaged, or
worse, escape to bite the client.

“The spider has chosen,” she said. She dropped it into the

webbery and re-plugged the glass.

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“We begin,” she said. Morshimon slouched to make his

spine more pronounced. She positioned her hands and

forehead along his back.

The poison was already taking hold. Rahami’s heart raced.

Heat coursed through her, sweat beaded on her face, breathing
became as difficult as pumping air through damaged bellows.

Be calm. Be calm. As many times as she had undergone this
process, she still feared she would die. It was ironic in a way.

Once, she had wanted the poison to take her, and it had not.

Her consciousness seeped through Morshimon’s skin, into

his spine. Breathe, she thought. Breathe with this man. See
with this man.

Heat dissipated in a rush, leaving a warm residue of

knowing. A web opened within her, thousands of strands,

possible futures, entangled futures, a pattern. Not all strands
appeared equal, thicker, brighter ones being most probable.

A sexual encounter with a dark-haired woman. A river

forded by militia. A forest camp. Meetings with war leaders.

Angry disagreements. A forced march through mountain
passes. Bone-biting cold. A highland meadow. Approaching the

enemy from behind. A successful surprise. Invaders repelled.
Death from infection.

A second strand. Marching, camping, a surprise attack.

Death.

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A hundred strands. Marching. Fighting. Death.
A thousand strands. Death.

I cannot continue, Rahami thought. The Sisters were

right. This man has only death in his future.

A hundred more strands. Death. Death. Death.
Then, a small thread, barely visible. The militia leaving

under seven banners. Morshimon remaining at Manor, hunting
fliers in the northern forests. Ubi warriors invading, Ubi adepts

controlling the Spider House. Villagers enslaved. Morshimon’s
father and brother murdered. He weds a woman of Ubi

heritage, has four sons and dies an old man.

A second thin thread. Morshimon remains at Manor. Ubi

warriors invade. Morshimon’s life is spared. He does not marry
or father children.

Others. Morshimon remains and lives.
Futures faded into the dark gauze of Rahami’s exhaustion.

She struggled against it, searched for other threads, other
options. She had never seen a clearer pattern. Morshimon’s life

meant Querc’s death and vice versa.

Sadness overwhelmed her. This is what Armyni fears. For

a heartbeat she felt sympathy for the Sister. To guide this client
to his most promising future would require Querc’s

destruction.

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Feeling returned to Rahami’s fingers. She felt

Morshimon’s muscles, the interlocked bones of his spine, and

recalled her father’s body, so bloated she could only recognize
him from the copper necklace embedded in his neck. Would he

have chosen to sandbag the river if a seer had warned him he
would die?

She disengaged. The Sisters had revealed that Morshimon

would lead the militia to victory. They had clearly not told him

he might choose instead to live. What do I say? Life radiates
from this man.

Silk slid down Morshimon’s back. “The seeing is finished,”

Armyni said. “Seer? Can you hear me? You are finished.”

Acid pushed up Rahami’s throat. She swallowed it down,

unwilling to grant Armyni the satisfaction of seeing her vomit.

“Village seers are not bred for this, Matsomsa-born,”

Armyni said. “Now you see the toll of it. She probably

remembers nothing.”

I have seen, Rahami thought. Her face throbbed, her skin

burned. Something was wrong. The Mother must have chosen
an unusually potent blue.

“Poison clouds her mind,” Armyni said. “She requires time

to recover. I will return her to the seers’ quarters.”

“My father may trust you,” Morshimon said, “but I harbor

no such delusion. You are excused, Sister. Rahami will remain.”

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“She requires attention.”
“I will attend her,” Morshimon said. “Now, get out!”

“As you wish, Matsomsa-born.”
Rahami tried to speak but only managed a croak. The

spider poison was not dissipating. It was too potent. She
clutched at Armyni, and the world tilted sideways.

Armyni’s breath tickled her ear: “You had your chance to

leave.”

Rahami heard her mother’s voice—The job’s not suited to

girls—and the world went dark.

* * *

Water flowing, heart thudding, breath in her ear. Rahami

opened her dreaming eyes onto a surreal world, trees fuzzed
with glowing green, a blue sky too intense. The river clucked

for her attention. It was slick, too wide to cross, clogged with
death.

She remembered the spider and opened her fist. There it

was, huddled on her palm, legs kneed up around its pudgy

body.

“Curse you,” she spat. It was supposed to bite. She had

taken it from the Spider House, sneaked into the blue orb
section and snatched it from the nearest webbery. It was

supposed to bite. It was supposed to take her down into the
depths with Father and Owabe, down there where her Mother’s

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grief lived. If she made it to the river, all the better. She would
throw herself in and let the toxin take her.

Well, here she was at the river, and it hadn’t bitten. She

squeezed her fist until the spider’s body deformed like clay in

her hand. Still, it would not bite. She tried to fling it. It clung to
her palm. She prodded with her finger until it turned its

bulbous back.

Rahami considered jumping into the water. She did not

trust herself to die. She was too strong a swimmer, and the
river had lost its rage. Exhaustion came over her all at once.

She sagged to the ground. She closed her eyes and cried.

A pinch. The spider had bitten at last. A dull heat spread

from the wound, soothing her to relax, to calm, to listen. All
around her the world went silent. She watched, fascinated, as

the creature spun its web from her arm to her shoulder, her
chin. She watched it skittle along strands too fine to see,

watched it dance upon the air.

Rahami woke with a start. She was wrapped in blankets on

a sofa facing a crackling fire. A cinnamon scent infused the
room. She tried to sit, but only managed to lean heavily on the

sofa’s arm. A vomit stain marked the rug by her feet.

Morshimon sat at the table across the room, mug in one

hand, a book in the other.

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“The spirits have released you,” he said. “For a time, your

skin was so blue I feared you might not return.” He set the

book aside. “The herbalist said your life was in the Weaver’s
hands. I dismissed him. If a man is not going to help, why keep

him around?”

Rahami rubbed her forehead. “I apologize for my

weakness.”

“The weakness was not yours,” Morshimon said. He came

to the couch and tilted the webbery bottom-up. There, etched
into the glass, was a flower and three bees. “This is not a Spider

House design, but the Manor’s. You were poisoned.”

Armyni, Rahami knew at once.

“The Sisters will answer,” Morshimon said. “Now, tell me

what is so important that they were willing to kill you?”

Rahami gazed at the carpet stain.
“The Weaver spared you for a purpose,” Morshimon said.

“Please, Rahami Honra, tell me my truth.” He took her hand
between his.

Don’t touch me, she thought.
“Why does no one trust me with my destiny?” he said. “It

is mine, is it not?

Rahami stared into the fire.

Morshimon sighed. “Will you horde the future, or return

the power to shape it to we who must live out your visions?” He

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released her hand and flexed his fingers. It’s the poison,
Rahami thought. It’s me.

“I do not create the strands,” she said. “My duty is to

convey your most probable path.”

“I have heard enough of duty,” Morshimon said.
“I’m merely a village seer,” Rahami said.

“What we are born,” Morshimon said, “and what we

become are two very different things. I could say ‘I am but the

second son’. Does that mean I must live in my brother’s
shadow? Can I not love him as he loves me and do the best I

can to serve our people too?”

“That is your choice,” Rahami said.

“Do you not also have to choose?” he said.
Rahami frowned. “The Sisters have conveyed your most

probable futures.”

Morshimon shook his head. “The Sisters assure me I am to

become a hero if I follow their instructions. I have developed
strategies for my captains, but it will not do if I am held

responsible for butchering a thousand Matsomsa warriors. I do
not trust the Sisters’ motives. I must know that my plan is the

best possible approach. Am I leading my men into danger? Is
this what the Sisters withhold?”

Rahami breathed deep. “No,” she said quietly. “Not that.”
“Then what?”

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Rahami met his gaze. “What the others did not tell you,

what I should not tell you, is that the major threads lead

inevitably to your death. If you go south, you will die.”

Morshimon did not look away.

“Circumstances vary,” Rahami said, “but your death is

certain. It’s rare to find such a clear nexus. It is as if the Weaver

has woven your destiny into the Web Beneath the World.”

“And the war?” Morshimon said. “The Ubi threat? What of

that? Could you see?”

“I cannot be certain,” Rahami said, “but they are routed in

nearly every thread before you....” She looked away. “It seems
unlikely they would return.”

“My life for the land I love,” Morshimon said. “A fair

exchange.”

“There is more,” Rahami said. She could feel the tension

building in her chest, a sense of unwanted revelation. “Remain

behind, Matsomsa-born, and you will live a full life.”

“And Querc?”

“Querc will be enslaved, our Spider Houses destroyed,

families broken apart to serve Ubi overlords.” Rahami could be

certain of these outcomes since he would be alive to witness
them. “Sons will be born to you in many strands. You will know

happiness.”

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“Ah,” Morshimon said. “The stew thickens. But, tell me,

little flower, how could I possibly be happy in such a future,

with Querc in ruins, all I care about destroyed?”

“It is possible,” Rahami said, “for I have seen it. The

strands are fragile, but there is hope. You have but to remain
behind. This is what the Sisters fear.”

Morshimon erupted in laughter. “Spider-witches. How

could I live among them all these years and they not know who

I am?”

Confusion replaced Rahami’s dread. “You will go willingly

to your death?”

“Of course,” Morshimon said. “I know that must be

difficult for you to understand.”

“No,” Rahami said. “I understand what it is like to want to

die.”

“You?”

Rahami gazed into the fire. “It was a time ago. My father

and sister had drowned, my mother was sick with grief. I stole

a spider from the Spider House, and it bit me. I thought I
would die, hoped I would die.”

“But you did not.”
“No,” Rahami said. “Villagers found me. The Sisters could

not deny the miracle, much as they would have liked to, and
sent me south for training.”

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Morshimon whistled low. “And that is how an Ashim

became web seer. The Weaver truly does watch over you.”

“If so, he must be laughing,” Rahami said. “The Mother

Oracle shuffles me between assignments like hand-me-down

clothes. I might as well be invisible.”

Morshimon chuckled. Rahami’s lips turned down. It was

not funny to her.

“I’m surprised you would wish to die,” she said. “It seems

to me that a man with your privilege and position should want
to live forever.”

“I am the second son, not the first,” Morshimon said. “My

demise does not much matter in the larger scheme. I only hope

that our people will recall my sacrifice.”

“They will,” Rahami said. That was beyond her seeing, but

how could the world not remember such a deed?

Morshimon stood. “You are welcome to stay as long as you

wish. I would like nothing more than to personally show you
the grounds.”

“I’ve been here too long,” Rahami said. “I will leave as soon

as I can make the arrangements.”

“As you wish.” Morshimon paced to the table. “It is

probably best that we do not let emotion cloud our resolve.”

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

“Yes, of course,” Rahami said. She watched him sit, his

eyes going blankly to the closest map. For the first time in her

presence, he seemed defeated. She longed to comfort him.

He did not look up as she exited, but she felt his attention

on her like a strand of spider silk stretched to its breaking
point.

* * *

Rahami mounted the goat cart sent for her return to the

Spider House. She was pleased to see the same driver as before.

“You look well,” she said as he took her satchel. The

Mother Oracle’s webbery had already been loaded.

He hopped onto the bench. “I brought a different team. It

should be an easy ride.” He shook the reins, and the cart began
a slow turn. Rahami looked to Reuda Anch, who stood

alongside several serving girls, hands on her bulging stomach.

“Uh oh,” the driver said. The cart skidded as a towering

man bent through the doorway. Serving girls scattered.

Rahami’s face warmed. A tingling sensation wriggled in

her gut. She hoped it did not show in her expression. This was
a time for professionalism, not girlish lust.

The driver tied off the reins, jumped down, and bowed so

low his forehead nearly scraped. He went to tend the goats.

Rahami nodded. “To what do I owe this honor, Matsomsa-

born?”

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

“I could not let you go without seeing you off,” Morshimon

said. “Will you resume your duties in the south, then?”

“The Mother will probably assign a new region,” Rahami

said. “I am nothing more to her than an uncomfortable itch she

must scratch from time to time.”

“You are not alone,” Morshimon said. “My father sees past

me whenever I enter the room. And yet, we will soldier on and
do what we can to make the world better, yes?”

“Of course,” Rahami said.
Morshimon took her hand.

“Careful,” Rahami said. She felt the poison leeching from

her pores. It would be days before she recovered.

Morshimon laughed. “It seems to me we should both

welcome a little numbness.” He kissed her fingers. “I owe you a

debt, I wanted you to know that, before.... You have given me
hope.”

Rahami felt a surge of shame. She wanted to throw her

arms around Morshimon and keep him here. She wanted to lie

with him and give him the sons he deserved. How could he
speak of hope, knowing that he would die in the coming

months? And here she was, complaining about petty politics.
She diverted her gaze to the goats. The future she longed for

would never be, could never be.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

Morshimon released her hand. “Safe journey, Rahami

Honra. May the Weaver watch over you.” He started to leave

but stopped after two strides. “No, there is more I must say.”

Rahami held her breath. Had he changed his mind and

decided to live?

His steady eyes met hers. “We have reached an important

juncture for Querc, Rahami. Once the militia marches, my
father will no longer possess force sufficient to control our

Ashim caste. Many of them plan to leave Querc for the Lost
City.”

“The Lost City is a myth,” Rahami said. She thought of the

people in the forest, the driver’s worry, Jonji’s offer to take her

beyond the divide. She dared not admit these things to a
Matsomsa.

“Perhaps not,” Morshimon said. “One of our ancient texts

describes it vividly: ‘A white city built of the bone and sinew

and blood of the pilgrims within a green valley so hidden from
nature that the snows dare not intrude.’“

“Is the flying elephant also real?” Rahami said. She forced

a smile.

“The exodus must succeed,” Morshimon said.
Rahami’s mouth fell open.

Morshimon chuckled. “What? You never thought a high-

born could think in this manner?”

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

“Why would you?” Rahami said. “Ashim are to serve the

higher castes. That is not a myth.”

“You do not believe in castes any more than I do,”

Morshimon said. “I have argued with my father’s advisors for

years. We waste precious resources—talent, intelligence, people
like you—by continuing this outdated system. War brings an

opportunity to prove it. The exodus must succeed, Rahami.”

“How can it?” Rahami said. “Without supplies, maps, a

knowledgeable guide.”

“I know the perfect guide for them,” Morshimon said.

“He will need to be more than perfect to find a city that

does not exist,” Rahami said.

“I was thinking of you,” Morshimon said.
Rahami stared. “Me? I’m no leader.”

“Ashim will trust your guidance,” Morshimon said. “Not

only were you one of their own, you are truthful, resourceful...

passionate.” He smiled gently. “There is more quality in your
character than the three Sisters combined.”

“It’s impossible,” Rahami said. “I’ve never climbed a

mountain in my life.” And yet, the idea sparked an ember

inside her. “How would I find the Lost City in any case? An
obscure reference in an ancient book hardly constitutes a map.”

“You have your sight,” Morshimon said.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

“A seer cannot know her own futures or the futures of

other seers,” Rahami said. “The poison masks us from

ourselves.”

“You are not like the others,” Morshimon said. “You see

the hidden things.”

“I see what the Weaver—”

“No,” Morshimon said. “If the future is fixed, what need

have we for seers? No, we play a part in our destiny, even you,

Rahami. This is an opportunity to make a difference. Did you
not say yourself that the Mother does not want you?”

“I say a great many things I may not fully mean,” Rahami

said. Still, she felt uncomfortable. Caste is no excuse to hide

from life’s challenges, her father said from the depths of her
memory.

“My station entitles me to command you,” Morshimon

said, “but I find that I cannot send you unwillingly into

hardship. Your safety is as dear to me as the whole of Querc. I
have never encountered such a woman as you. Never. In

another time and place, I would ask you to come away with me.

Rahami gaped. She wanted to run. She wanted to stay. A

world took form in her imagination, green vegetation and
golden skies, the spider poison gone, Morshimon beside her

each morning as she woke. An ache pinched the pit of her
stomach.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

Morshimon sighed. “Yet, I must ask this of you, or perhaps

you must ask it of yourself, Rahami. You offered me a choice,

and so I offer one to you. The journey will be dangerous and is
uncertain to succeed. You may perish.” He touched her arm,

and time seemed to slow, the breeze, the goats, everything.

Rahami bowed her head, and the ground clarified into

bedrock infused with glowing strands. A city bloomed within
the glow, buildings with pristine white walls, a courtyard where

many people gathered. First portion for our beloved Watcher,
an elderly man said. The platter in his hands became her

father’s face, no longer bloated-white, but red-cheeked,
laughing. Fireworks splashed the sky.

Morshimon’s voice brought her back. “Will you undertake

this quest, Rahami Honra? Will you lead our Ashim to their

promised land?” Rahami felt his skin on hers, his hope
entwined with hers.

The Web throbbed once, twice, thrice. What do you think,

daughter, do you want to find a city above the world?

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

Stephen V. Ramey is an American author of contemporary
and speculative fiction. His short stories and flash fictions

have appeared in dozens of places, from Microliterature to
Daily Science Fiction. His first collection, Glass Animals, is

available from Pure Slush Books. Visit him online at

stephenvramey.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #154

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 #154

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

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