Short Story: A Veil, A Meal, and Dust
The time has come for the Catechist of Yeratet to choose a new spouse.
Parteeka Ren Sussu is determined that she will be the Catechist's wife. All that stand between her and that exhalted position are the other two remaining candidates. Now all must tell their stories. Only one will be chosen. The others will die.
Extract
"In Serinda, on the other side of the world, the flame-spike trees flower for fourteen months a year, and the blossom is as thick as oil in the air. At dusk, the sky is filled with silver bats flickering among the towers. Some have said that it is the most beautiful city in the world. Perhaps they are right. It did not seem so to Dorat.
"Those who say it was beautiful have not seen the hanging square where crowds gathered to cheer the death of their neighbours, nor the way Serinda treated those who seemed different. There was beauty, yes, in the flowing water and the trees and the flowers and the golden temples, in the syrupy smell of figs and the dry spices, but a homeless child cannot appreciate that beauty when the militia are hunting him down."
- From A Veil, A Meal, and Dust. Read the story on Ideomancer.
Free Online
Read A Veil, A Meal, and Dust free online in Ideomancer.
Publication Details
First published in Ideomancer, May 2004.
Reviews
A fine fantasy.
- Rich Horton.