I will never be bored, thought Liaei, and took the box and opened it anyway, not in curiosity, but to test herself, because she knew exactly what would be inside.
Wrapped in fine shimmering fabric lay a pendant on a chain, a replica of an antique hourglass, with two glassoid compartments, one of them filled with granules of some shining bluish substance.
“Yes,” said Liaei to herself. “That was exactly what I thought it would be. But it no longer applies.”
She wondered now, what were those bluish granules, those substitutes for real sand.
Because out there, many kilometers beyond Edge City, it lay, sand and dust. And the River flew in the air, and alongside it ran the old paved road. And after the River faded out of sight, the road still continued.
Liaei was going to find out where the road ended, even if it meant following it past the horizon.
But for now, she simply flipped over the hourglass, observing the falling grains, the simple mystery and beauty of its self-contained circular motion.
So easy to simply break the glass. . . .
The curious difficulty would be to preserve the hourglass whole and yet manage to learn what is inside, merely by observing its function.
In her mind’s eye, hurtling through time, the Clock King laughed.
About the Author
Vera Nazarian immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at the age of 17, and since then has published numerous works in anthologies and magazines, and has seen her fiction translated into eight languages.
She made her novelist debut with the critically acclaimed arabesque “collage” novel Dreams of the Compass Rose, followed by epic fantasy about a world without color, Lords of Rainbow. Her novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass from PS Publishing with an introduction by Charles de Lint made the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2005. Her debut short fiction collection Salt of the Air, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe, contains the 2007 Nebula Award-nominated “The Story of Love.” Recent work includes the 2008 Nebula Award-nominated, self-illustrated baroque fantasy novella The Duke in His Castle, science fiction collection After the Sundial (2010), and humorous Jane Austen parodies Mansfield Park and Mummies (2009), and Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons (2010), both part of her ongoing Supernatural Jane Austen Series.
After living 35 years in Los Angeles, Vera recently moved to a small town in Vermont. She is working on a number of book-length projects including Lady of Monochrome, a sequel to Lords of Rainbow, a new Compass Rose milieu novel Gods of the Compass Rose, the Airealm trilogy, and medieval-gothic Cobweb Bride. She uses her Armenian sense of humor and her Russian sense of suffering to bake conflicted pirozhki and make art.
In addition to being a writer and award-winning artist, she is also the publisher of Norilana Books.
Official website:
http://www.veranazarian.com/
Norilana Books:
http://www.norilana.com/
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Norilana
Original Publication
The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass, with an introduction by Charles de Lint, was originally published in a limited edition signed hardcover and trade paperback by PS Publishing, UK, in October 2005.
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Table of Contents
The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass
Midpoint
About the Author
The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass Page 13