A Mosaic of Stars: Short Stories From Other Worlds Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Fantasy

  Turning Pages

  Beauty Amid Brambles

  A Mosaic of Stars

  Swallowing Lies

  Pale Wings

  Shades of Loss

  Black Cat

  Lies Like Honey

  The God of This Hillside

  Love That Never Lived

  Straight Poker

  Counting Coup

  The Making of Meredith Brown

  Betting Big

  Secret Sinners

  All's Fair in Hell

  Counting the Spoils

  The Gorgon's Gaze

  Lady Joanna's Guests

  Holes Through the World

  A Pinch of Sorrow

  Stay With Me

  A Matter of Skin

  Teeth and Tatoos

  History

  The Muqanni's Tale

  After Londinium

  Ruina Montium

  Cousin Isaac is Missing

  Unto the Breach

  By Starvation or by the Sword

  The Shoeless Cobbler

  Botany Bound

  Steampunk

  Not All Hands Tell the Time

  Smog

  A Flash of Power

  The Clatter of Dishes

  Three Thousand Horses

  A Hard and Hollow Sound

  Dreaming Skies

  Mech Seventeen

  The Brass Samurai

  A Railway to the Moon

  Broken Rails

  Tick-Tock

  Science Fiction

  As Cool As Elvis

  Sweetpeas

  Quarantined

  My Origami Heart

  The Computer Whisperer

  Sunflowers in the Snow

  Broken Phones and Empty Bellies

  Faces

  Friend / Not Friend

  The Price of Living

  The Suit

  Davey in the Machine

  Songs of a New World

  Divided by a Shared Language

  Last Sunset

  Afterwords

  About the Author

  Dedication and Thanks

  A Mosaic of Stars

  Short Stories From Other Worlds

  by Andrew Knighton

  Copyright © Andrew Knighton 2016

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  Fantasy

  Turning Pages

  Grabbing hold of the sill, I heaved myself through an upper window in Lord Stavernley’s tower. It was a warm night, and Old Grob, the librarian, had left the shutters open to air the books. He was good at his job, but not as good as I was at mine.

  Grob looked up as I emerged between the stacks.

  “Hello, Alina.” His smile buried his eyes in wrinkles. “Did the guards let you in?”

  “Not exactly.” Whispering a charm, I flung a handful of grave dust in his face. The air sparkled for a moment, and then he slumped across his desk. When he woke he wouldn’t even remember that I had been here. My debt to Mad Sal would be paid, my cover still intact, and I could finally settle down.

  I left Grob’s lamp on the table. I knew the layout of the room blindfold, had practised crossing it that way while re-shelving tomes for him. I might not be a writer or engraver, but I was still an artist of sorts, plying my trade within the world of books.

  “Who’s that?” One of the portraits of past librarians blinked, staring through the gloom at me. “What are you doing?”

  His voice was rising, and if he kept talking the guards would hear. Around him, the other portraits were waking - every librarian in the history of the castle, except for those who had failed their lords. Those ones did not keep their heads, never mind being immortalised on canvas.

  I pinned a small square of banshee skin to the frame. The incantation on it was crudely sketched, but good enough for now. The painted face froze. I pinned charms to the others for good measure, and then returned to the shelves.

  Creeping to the back of the room, I approached the cage housing Stavernley’s special collection. The lock was simplicity itself to pick, and I knew exactly which tome I needed. It was heavy, the iron binding cold as I carried it back to the desk.

  Grob snoring beside me, I slid a long knife from my sleeve, along with a bundle of papers to replace those Mad Sal wanted. If Grob was lucky then the difference might not be spotted until after he was gone, though the odds weren’t good.

  Opening the book to the gathering I was after, I laid my knife carefully against the threads binding it in place. The art on the pages was beautiful. Even without the spells recorded there it would have been worth a fortune. No wonder both Sal and Lord Stavernley prized it enough to threaten violence over its possession.

  I hesitated, glancing from mild mannered Old Grob to the book and then back again. One of the portraits twitched as my charms started to wear off.

  Still I hesitated, looking from Grob to the book and then to that line of portraits, the absent faces as significant as the present ones. I took my knife from the binding, placed it there again, drew it back once more. At last I pressed against the strings until one of them gave way.

  The snap of the string was like hearing a tiny heart break. Something inside me snapped in response.

  I put away my knife, closed the book and returned it to its cage. As I reached the window I hesitated once more, contemplating the terrible things Sal did to those who failed her.

  Never mind. I always left town in the end. This time it would just be a little sooner.

  I took a moment to memorise Grob’s wrinkled and genial face, the replacement pages lying beside him - a memento of a close call he would never know he had. Then I slid from the window and out into the night.

  Beauty Amid Brambles

  Every day for a month, as she walked through the palace gardens, Lady Elana looked up at the high balcony where Prince Novak sat, his handsome face as pale and sorrowful as old bones. She had read the books of poetry he wrote before his mother’s death, and so knew that there was joy and beauty in him, such joy and beauty that it had captured her own heart. But she had come to court too late to meet the man with whose words she had fallen in love. Now he sat alone behind locked doors and his father’s guards, slumped in sorrow.

  Elana was determined to change that.

  It took her weeks to identify the brief moment each day when the guards did not watch the wall below the balcony. She waited another month for the perfect blue rose to emerge in the garden, just as it had in Novak’s poetry. At last her moment came.

  She plucked the rose, grasped it between her teeth and scrambled up the ivy. Stone scraped her knuckles red raw, and thorns drew blood from her lips, but at last she reached the top and held out the flower to Prince Novak.

  “I found beauty amid brambles.” She recited the first line of her favourite verse, and the smallest of smiles flickered at his mouth.

  “What is this?” The King was furious as he stomped out onto the balcony. “I keep my son here to protect him from harlots like you, preying upon his weakness as you scrabble to become queen. I will have none of it!”

  “Please.” Elana trembled as she bowed low before the King. “Please, I just want to make him happy. The flower made him smile. Surely that is worth something?”

  The King looked at his son, and for a moment his expression softened.

  It was only a moment.

  “Any courtly lady can make a young man smile,” he growled. “It is what you are trained for. Make me smile, and then I will let you
see him again.”

  Every day for a month, Elena was allowed into the King’s presence and given one chance to make him smile. At first she sang songs and told jokes, but his expression remained stern. Then she tried stories of glory and heroism, which she had been told he loved in his youth, but still no smile. She brought bouquets of flowers, fine artworks, beautiful and exotic birds, but not a hint of happiness touched the King’s lips.

  Determined to succeed, Elena learnt new skills. Every month for a year she would dedicate herself to a new entertainment, perfecting some display before bringing it before the King. She became an acrobat, an illusionist, a high wire ballerina. Courtiers were dazzled by the spectacle of her displays, but the King continued to glare.

  At last came the day when Elena could do nothing more. Every muscle ached from endless training. All her money was gone, spent on experts and tutors. So many crafts filled her mind, ideas and information cramming up against each other, that she could barely sleep at night from keeping them all in.

  She bowed low before the King, her last threadbare gown sweeping the floor.

  “I have failed, your majesty,” she said. “I am penniless, and must now leave court. But if my example inspires another, and one day they make Novak happy, then every moment of this has been worthwhile.”

  With all the dignity she could muster, she turned to walk away.

  “Wait.” The King’s voice was soft.

  Elena turned to see a tear rolling from the corner of his eye.

  “It amazes me,” he said. “That you could care for my son so much that after all this you are happy just knowing that he is too.”

  He waved to one of his guards.

  “Take her to Prince Novak.” At last a smile appeared on the King’s face.

  Every day for a month, Elena visited Prince Novak on his balcony. They read stories, admired the garden, and wrote poetry together. Slowly but surely, the Prince’s smile returned. It became fixed forever when, the very next year, they were wed.

  A Mosaic of Stars

  I staggered through the broken gates into the great hall, the armoured weight of Elania almost dragging me to the ground. I was weary beyond belief, my arms aching from a battle that had lasted all through the night.

  That weariness was nothing next to my terror at the sound of Elania’s broken, rasping breaths. She stumbled, her arm slipping from around my shoulders. I got her as far as the guards’ empty bench before she collapsed.

  “We won.” She opened her eyes, streaks of purple and silver swirling as she smiled. “The city is safe. You’re safe.”

  Trembling fingers brushed my cheek, the tips of her gauntlet cold on my skin.

  “But you’re dying,” I said, looking around for any sign of help. The whole palace was deserted, every last servant gone to the walls. Those who still lived would be looking to their own wounds, or sleeping where they fell. “What can I do?”

  I knew little of human healing, none of that of the elves. Why had she ever chosen such a dull creature as me?

  Blood dripped from between the plates of her armour, each droplet glowing like sunlight. It fell upon the tiny black and blue tiles of the floor, gleaming against their darkness.

  “Nothing, my love.” She cast off her gauntlet with a clang and took hold of my hand. Our intertwining fingers, which had always brought summer to my heart, now moved me to tears.

  “I’ve stained the floor.” She looked down at the blood-spattered tiles. “Such a shame. It was a beautiful pattern, and-” She coughed, doubling over as more blood speckled her lips. “And elf blood will never come out.”

  “You can’t do this,” I said. “You were meant to live for millennia. I’m the one who’s supposed to…”

  “To desert me for death?” There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye. How could she be like this, even now? It made me love her more, a love that made the world more beautiful, and that made my pain even worse.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m being selfish. I just… I never thought that I would have to go on without you. I don’t think that I can.”

  I glanced at the sword by my side. I would wait until she was gone to fall upon it. I could manage the courage to last that long.

  Her gaze followed mine and she shook her head.

  “What we did today will never die,” she said. “Not as long as anyone remembers it. The same is true of our love. As long as one of us is here to treasure those feelings, it will never be gone.”

  I looked away guiltily, but she took hold of my chin, turning me to look at her.

  “See.” She flicked her hand, her face crumpling in pain at the effort. Bright droplets sped across the room, spattering tiles all the way to the foot of the throne. Each tile the blood touched shone brightly against the darkness, like a mosaic of stars. “Now I will always be here with you. In every ceremony, every council, every tedious meeting, my beauty will be here to lift you up.”

  From somewhere beneath the weight of my grief and exhaustion, a glimmer of our old light returned.

  “Who said you were beautiful?” I asked, raising her hand to my lips.

  “Your eyes,” she replied with her final breath.

  Years have passed since then. I have lived a lifetime, with all the pain and the joy it brings. But every time I see those tiles shining on the floor of the hall, I hear her voice once more, a whispered wonder amid a mosaic of stars.

  Swallowing Lies

  ‘Lying is an art,’ Falling Leaf said, pouring from the small earthenware teapot. ‘I do not go to such lengths for those I despise.’

  Aoandon’s clawed blue fingers reached across the low table and closed around her teacup. Her lips parted, revealing a flash of teeth as sharp as her horns. Falling Leaf shuddered and fought down the instinct to flee. After all the pains and preparations to reach this point, she could not give up now.

  ‘Lying is as much my realm as any other story,’ Aoandon said. ‘It would help you little today.’

  Falling Leaf straightened the folds of her second best kimono.

  ‘Is something wrong with the tea?’ she asked, noticing that the oni had not yet taken a drink.

  ‘Lying is one thing,’ Aoandon said. ‘Poisoning another. A matriarch will do much to rid her village of a menace.’

  Falling Leaf inclined her head.

  ‘You are wise,’ she said. ‘My tea is just the same as yours.’

  She took a sip from her own small cup. This was the finest tea she had, the freshest young leaves from the tip of the bush, harvested and dried under moonlight. But today even this tasted bitter.

  She drained her cup and poured another. The oni smiled, drank, and held her cup out for another serving.

  ‘What does it benefit you to haunt us?’ Falling Leaf asked. ‘To traumatise children, frighten old people to death, make men so scared that they will not go into the fields for the harvest?’

  Aoandon smiled. In any other face that smile would have been a thing of grace and beauty, but it sent a shiver through Falling Leaf.

  ‘Your people’s fear is to me as rice or fish or fine tea,’ Aoandon said. ‘It sustains me. It invigorates me. It makes my life worthwhile.’

  ‘You lived in the shadows for so long,’ Falling Leaf said. ‘Showing yourself in only in the moments after ghost stories had ended, feeding off the fear of those moments. Is that not enough?’

  ‘Barely.’ Aoandon held out her empty cup again. ‘And one can never have too much. Your people told so many stories, so many lies, I no longer needed to hide from the light. Would you stay in others’ shadows, given the choice?’

  ‘I raised seven children.’ Falling Leaf filled her own cup too, enjoyed the soft scent of the steam. ‘One of them is head man, as his father was before him.’

  ‘Half truths are still truths, but I am the devourer of stories, I see through the gaps. You are trapped, just as you have always been. You come here reluctantly, the village’s pet story teller sent to bargain with a demon. But all yo
u really want is out. Please, deny any of it – I will know if you are lying.’

  Falling Leaf looked down at her own trembling hands. The creature knew her better than her husband had, better than her children did, better than she had even known herself for many years. All that time forcing herself to be good and diligent, until it was too late to follow the craving for freedom she finally recognised. Until she was as scared of her own broken heart as of the oni that plagued her people.

  She looked up, tears running from her eyes.

  ‘This is good tea,’ Aoandon said, reaching out and pouring for herself. ‘But you cannot have hoped to persuade me with just tea. So tell me, why should I seek out the life that you yourself cannot accept? What words can possibly persuade me?’

  ‘None,’ Falling Leaf whispered.

  ‘And what lies could possibly trick me?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘So you see, I am going nowhere.’ Aoandon tilted back her head, raised the teapot and poured its contents straight down her throat. The finest tea in the village, gone in five long gulps. She slammed it down on the table so hard that the pot cracked. ‘Delicious.’

  With a click and a small thud the teapot fell in two, spilling damp green leaves onto the pale wood of the table. Tiny black berries stood out amidst the debris. Aoandon stared at them, her face crumpling in outrage and then fear.

  ‘The fruit of the drifting tree,’ Falling Leaf said. The trembling had spread to her whole body now. ‘I traded my best kimono for them.’

  ‘These will kill me,’ Aoandon said. She jerked to her feet, staggered and fell shaking to one knee. Her terror finally made that blue face beautiful. ‘But you… It will kill you too.’

  ‘Yes.’ The tears had turned to blood now, and Falling Leaf’s vision was fading.

  ‘Your people asked you to do this?’ Aoandon’s words were turning into a rasping wheeze. ‘Yet you would die for them?’

  ‘They did not ask me,’ Falling Leaf said. ‘They never would.’ The world was black now. She lay down. The floor was soft and warm. ‘I told them I had come to make peace.’