by Yoon Ha Lee
We made love, the three of us, our bodies stretching and clinging and melting on top of the glass case. After, as sweat cooled on our skin/etc, Gwen and Artie covered us in beauty. She, with her clever hands, teased ether-smoke from the salty droplets; he caressed my shoulder with his tongue then blew out the ether smoke as rings and clouds. We became constellations in a vibrant sky, and in that moment I wasn’t myself, or a Courier, or even a piece of the Shalott. I was part of them. I was perfect. And I was happy.
There is no maze inside the Palace. Just one grand room, its ceiling vaulted and covered in glass that shows the sky roiling overhead. In the center of that room is a small table, and on that table is the package. The Palace is large, but the distance from its entrance to the table is not so large even as the distance from the gate to the steps, let alone the length of the ether-roads from the shore to all the places you were before. The air is cool, comfortable, and the eternal moonlight reveals the last stretch of the path.
It is silent inside the Palace of Abandoned Dreams. Your footsteps don’t echo. They don’t make a sound. You cannot disturb the silence of that place because it is ancient and eternal and you, small as you are, are nothing inside of it. Gods may float in the roiling clouds of the sky above, losing themselves in the moment and each other, but, inside the Palace, that is nothing. I am nothing. Just a Bright Courier, the first who will succeed, because I left them without word or warning and I’ve never looked back.
Gwen kept her promise, and I kept mine. No other had ever touched the Shalott, but I taught Gwen’s clever hands to find the flap of her hatch and pull it aside. Only I had ever shared her breath, until Artie sucked it in, pulled ether-smoke from the humidity, released it as a golden blossom that shimmered, then faded.
“You are here with me,” Shalott whispered in my ear.
“These are my friends,” I told her, one hand on the flesh of her wall, the other clasping Gwen’s shoulder.
“Hello, Shalott,” Artie said.
“It’s good to have you here,” my ship whispered to me. Then she unfurled her sails and slipped onto the ether-roads. The planet fell behind us and space stretched out before. All three of us fell into the Shalott’s cocoon, and with the full depth of the true ether surrounding her hull, we built castles in the clouds.
We completed an orbit of Gwen and Artie’s world, then followed the ether-road back to their shore. My ship clung to us when we tried to peel away, but we were firm. That night, in their rooms, Gwen and Artie collapsed together, but I couldn’t sleep. Instead I paced the edges of the main room, obsessed with the display at the center, overcome with the perfect mystery that the Palace of Abandoned Dreams should come to be fashioned here.
And then I saw it, the tiniest sliver of a crack along the top edge. The glass was broken, and soon the ether smoke would escape. Gwen and Artie’s perfect world couldn’t bear up under the weight of its new constellations. Our weight. In that moment I recognized what was happening. This was my first test, and I was dangerously close to failure. I fled without another thought.
I open the box at the center of the Palace with steady hands. The hinges make no noise as I raise the lid. This box which has been here for ages looks fresh, perfect. I hold my breath with the lid open, brace myself, then look inside. The sides and bottom are lined in claret velvet, rich against the ornately jeweled chalice resting therein.
“What is this?” I ask aloud, the first sound since I entered.
“It is the package,” a voice echoes back. It is my ship’s voice, and Artie’s, and Gwen’s. My own voice, answering my own question.
I slam the lid shut. “I don’t understand.”
“You are not the one,” the voice answers. “You’ve carried them with you, brought your dreams to me, and you will rest here, nurturing me on them for eternity.”
“No,” I insist. “I’m the one. I gave up everything. I passed the tests. I will deliver your package!”
“But you can’t,” the voice answers, lush and loving and all too familiar. “This place is nothing without the package. If you were willing to shatter paradise, you would not have fled. You would have turned back.”
I turn and run, footsteps making a silent patter across the floor. The doors to the palace are closed, a flap grown over and I with no means of slicing it open again. I bang my fists bloody against them, scream for Shalott, for Artie, for Gwen. The walls close in around me, the palace shrinking until it it is snug as a cocoon. “But I’m the one! I’ll answer the challenge.”
“Oh, little dreamer,” the voice answers. “Some challenges are not there to be answered. My shores have no tests, only warnings.”
I never looked back.
I severed my attachments.
I... I severed all my attachments.
The truly unattached will never find their way.
Copyright © 2016 Anaea Lay
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Anaea Lay lives in Seattle, Washington where she sells real estate under a different name, writes, cooks, plays board games, takes gratuitous walks, runs the Strange Horizons fiction podcast, and plots to take over the world. Her work has appeared in a variety of venues including Unidentified Funny Objects 4, Lightspeed, and Apex. You can find her online at anaealay.com or as @anaealay on Twitter.
Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies
COVER ART
“Research Lab,” by Sung Choi
Sung Choi is a concept artist who specializes in world design and illustration for the entertainment industry. Born and raised in South Korea, he later moved to Los Angeles and attended Otis College of Art and Design where he majored in digital media. He studied environment design and has been broadening his visual library by going outside and studying nature. Throughout his challenges, Sung has focused on simplifying the subject and creating readable and compelling designs. View more of his work at www.sung-choi.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1046
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Copyright © 2016 Firkin Press
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