“John, listen,” Trish said, a sudden new joy in her eyes. “She says that She can’t speak to you directly.”
“What?”
“Our Sky Mother says Her voice would melt your mind to mush in moments. She wants to use my voice.”
John’s breath caught.
“What?”
“Eons ago,” Trish said in her own voice, but with a strange accent that calmed him in seconds, “I brought people back at will, but, to my regret, I cannot reward your service with that.” She shook her head, a look of apology in her eyes. “The organ that I used to bring souls back and forth is now”—she paused and seemed to ponder for a moment—“my womb.”
“Sky Mother?” John asked. Trish, or rather their Sky Mother, nodded and closed Her eyes.
“John!” Trish shouted in her own voice. “Oh, John, you should see it! My father’s here, your father’s here, in Her womb, all of humanity we”—she nearly jumped in her excitement—“we are all together, John.”
She calmed herself, and John could tell that the Star Mother was about to speak again.
“When your people are ready, like that of my servant Tamokameses, you will leave into the cosmos together. Until then, you live in my womb. For this reason, I cannot bring her back. Even bringing her out of my womb again for this conversation is drawing more power from me than Shangri-La takes in a decade. It cannot be done.”
John’s mind spun, and he had to fight to keep himself up on his feet. In all of humanity’s history, he hadn’t heard of a single occurrence of the Sky Mother speaking as directly as this. He wanted to record it, to study it, to tell the world. But most of all, he wanted Trish back.
As though reading the look in his eyes, she bowed her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
As Trish beamed into a smile, he sensed that their Sky Mother had gone. Trish stepped forward and took his hand.
“This…” she said. “After what She’d spent to bring me back to fight Nafarin, this is really hurting Her, John.”
John didn’t want to care, but he did. He wanted to stay here, forever, to sit, here on this hill, nowhere else. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with his wife, simply looking at her. But, every moment they shared now was agony to the Sky Mother. It wasn’t that She didn’t want to spend the power, he knew that now, but after all that had happened, She simply didn’t have it. He thought about begging to join them, but what about Lizzie?
Trish sighed, and John found he’d leaned forward to kiss her before he realised it. She kissed him back, and the feel of her warmth shot up and down his body. He shuddered.
“It feels like a lifetime,” she paused and smiled, “and for you, it will be, but I’ll see you again before I know it.”
He couldn’t think of anything to say. He didn’t want to cry, not here: he wanted Trish to see him happy, and despite the soul-shattering pain in his chest, he forced himself to smile back.
“I love you,” he managed to croak.
Trish started to fade. “I love you too,” she whispered back.
Ali Nouraei
Ali Nouraei is a Persian-British writer who blends history, philosophical debate, and cultural paradigms from East and West in his writing. He is a qualified Barrister, a practicing Mediator, and has written fiction for fifteen years. His passions include history, literature, and cake. He tweets as @AliNouraei.
Magic, Michief, Love and War
It is the Year of Our Lord 1601. The Tuscan War rages across the world, and every lord from Navarre to Illyria is embroiled in the fray. Cannon roar, pikemen clash, and witches stalk the night; even the fairy courts stand on the verge of chaos.
Five stories come together at the end of the war: that of bold Miranda and sly Puck; of wise Pomona and her prisoner Vertumnus; of gentle Lucia and the shade of Prospero; of noble Don Pedro and powerful Helena; and of Anne, a glovemaker’s wife. On these lovers and heroes the world itself may depend.
These are the stories Shakespeare never told. Five of the most exciting names in genre fiction today – Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Foz Meadows and Kate Heartfield – delve into the world the poet created to weave together a story of courage, transformation and magic.
Including an afterword by Dr. John Lavagnino, The London Shakespeare Centre, King's College London.
www.abaddonbooks.com
GENESIS OF A MONSTER
Vlad III Drăcula. A warleader in a warlike time: brilliant, charismatic, pious. But what became of him? What drove him to become a creature of darkness—Bram Stoker’s cruel, ambitious “Un-Dead”—and what use did he make of this power, through the centuries?
More than a hundred years after the monster’s death, the descendants of the survivors piece together the story—dusty old manuscripts, court reports from the Holy Roman Empire at its height, stories of the Szgany Roma who once served the monster—trying to understand. Because the nightmare is far from over...
Five incredible fantasy authors come together to reveal a side to literature’s greatest monster you’ve never seen before.
www.abaddonbooks.com
Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories was one of the first true children's books in the English language, a timeless classic that continues to delight readers to this day. Beautiful, evocative and playful, the stories of How the Whale Got His Throat or How the First Letter Was Written paint a world of magic and wonder.
It's also deeply rooted in British colonialism. Kipling saw the Empire as a benign, civilising force, in a way that's troubling to modern readers. Not So Stories attempts to redress the balance, bringing together new and established writers of colour from around the world to take the Just So Stories back, to interrogate, challenge and celebrate their legacy.
Including stories by Adiwijaya Iskandar, Joseph E. Cole, Raymond Gates, Stewart Hotston, Zina Hutton, Georgina Kamsika, Cassandra Khaw, Paul Krueger, Tauriq Moosa, Jeannette Ng, Ali Nouraei, Wayne Santos and Zedeck Siew, illustrations by Woodrow Phoenix and an introduction by Nikesh Shukla.
www.abaddonbooks.com
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