Ephemeron Read online

we were too slowed with shock to stop him. We hoped that he would bargain for peace, or knowledge, or safety.

  He sold the world for twenty quid and a case of beer.

  The Princess of the Frozen Realm

  Once there were three queens who ruled over a frozen land. Every river was bedecked by ice, and nothing stirred below the snow. Everything slept in their realm, except they and the wind and the twinkling stars in the heavens.

  They had one child between them, a daughter. The princess was the liveliest thing in all the realm: her bright laugh and shining eyes never failed to bring joy to the three queens, and each of them was glad to watch her at her play. In the eyes of the child the snow was no glittering shroud but a thing of wonder, to be shaped however she wished. She built castles from it, and packed hard clumps of it together to fling at her mothers; and once she even sculpted it into a little girl just like herself, except that she was white and still and shone in the moonlight. But the snow-girl never moved nor spoke, and did nothing to ease the princess' loneliness.

  “Why is the world so empty?” she asked her first mother. “Why is everything still, and cold, and silent?”

  “Ah, child,” said the first queen, “long ago we put this realm to sleep. Ice and snow are armor and shield: our lands are safe now, as are you.”

  So the princess went back to her play, and was glad that she was safe; but still she wished she could find a little more life in the snow.

  She grew no less lonely as the years passed, and in time even the snow began to lose its wonder. She still built castles in the courtyard, big and small, strong and beautiful: but soon every snow-castle began to look the same to her. They were all of them white and cold and glittering, and no different from all the world around them.

  “Why is the world so white?” she asked her second mother. “Why have I never seen color in the snow, except from my own bright cloak?”

  “My child,” said the second queen, “the world was full of color once, and of scent and sound and life, and of danger. It sleeps now, and we are safe, and so are you. But we could not lay the dangers to rest and yet save the colors.”

  And the princess went back into the snow, thinking that it was a great shame what had been lost, and wishing she could see the world as it had been before. The glittering snow held no more wonder for her. No longer would she play in the courtyard: instead she took to walking through the frozen lands, and wondering what lay beneath the ice.

  The queens saw that the joy had gone out of their daughter, and feared for her. The cold of their realm cut deeper now, and their sadness and hers lay thicker than the snow.

  At last the princess went to her third mother. “Where has all the life of the world gone?” she asked. “Is there any way it might be rewoken? I would rather face danger than cold, I think.”

  “Dearest child,” said the third queen, “the life of our realm sleeps below the snow. You have only to melt it: call down the sun.”

  And so the princess went into the highest tower, and called down the sun. The snow melted and the ice cracked, and the rivers swelled, and all the living things in all the realm awoke at last from their slumber; and there beneath the snow were scent and sound and color, and warmth, and danger.

  There was no more peace to be found in the queens' realm, then, and no more safety. There was pain, and there was hardship, and there was bloodshed. Often they feared for their lands and their daughter. Sometimes they feared for themselves.

  Still, they never again called down the snow.

  The King's Gifts

  Challenge #13: write a fantistorical story with elements of satire featuring four elephants and a turtle.

  On the boy's first day accompanying the king about his duties, the king's councilor came to them with a sheaf of scrolls. “My lord,” he said, unrolling the first, “the Ambassador of Zazir desires a token of your goodwill. The Zazirian army is mounting, my lord. We must buy them into peace or prepare for war.”

  “Ha!” snorted the king. “Send him a white elephant: that ought to please him.”

  “The Ambassador of Zazir will be honored by the gift of a sacred elephant,” agreed the councilor, and unrolled the second scroll. “Do you recall the carpet-merchant who decorated your palace? He must yet be paid.”

  “He was rude to me at the last feast,” said the king. “Send him one too.”

  The boy frowned at that. Why should one who dishonored the great king be granted so sacred a gift? But he said nothing, for the king's word was law.

  The councilor unrolled his third scroll. “Then there is the matter of the rebel they call the One-Eyed Pheasant. He threatens trouble, my lord. We cannot simply arrest him without rousing the people, but if he remains free he may lead them to revolt against you.”

  “Send him two white elephants,” said the king.

  The boy could hold his tongue no longer. “My lord,” he said, “forgive me, but the One-Eyed Pheasant is surely undeserving of such a sacred gift! He cannot even care for them, my lord – he is poor, and they will require feeding –”

  “Yes,” said the king. “That's rather the point.”

  “And then, my lord,” the councilor went on, unrolling his fourth scroll, “there is the matter of the potter: the one who sent you those urns some days ago. He wishes to know if you are pleased with them.”

  The boy waited, dreading the answer that would surely come.

  “Oh, he's all right,” said the king. “Send him a turtle.”

  Jeanne's Miracle

  Challenge #14: write a story whose wordcount is a multiple of 31, featuring a multi-headed entity and incorporating each of the following words: celery; moon; forgiveness; excelsior; judgment; dauntless; terminus; amorphous; barbarian; flabbergasted; pulchritudinous; twinkle; ennui; anagnorisis; ethanol; skank; defenestrate; moist; summoned; chiaroscuro; legend; elemental; eldritch; unfurling; ending; cicatrize; catalyst; codpiece; facetious; carrot; google.

  Jeanne stared, flabbergasted. She had looked out of the window expecting to see a lovely gibbous moon. She had not expected to see a two-headed barbarian in a codpiece.

  She tried to speak, realized that there was nothing she could possibly say in this situation (not to mention that the barbarian wouldn't hear her through the glass), contemplated turning back to the carrot she was meant to be peeling, and instead went right on staring.

  The barbarian winked at her with both his heads and walked up to the window, where he stood in stark contrast to the black night behind him. The word chiaroscuro utterly failed to cross Jeanne's mind, along with a great many other words: she was still grappling with the concept of speech in general.

  He knocked. She opened the window.

  “Greetings, Jeanne, most pulchritudinous of maidens,” said the barbarian's left head. “As you have summoned me, so have I come. What wondrous adventures we shall –”

  “I didn't,” said Jeanne, finally managing to move her tongue.

  “Of course you did,” said the barbarian, and carried on, dauntless. “Your life of tedium is ending. Together, we shall roam the earth and visit judgment upon those who have done you ill, save those who do what they must to earn your forgiveness –”

  “Say, is that celery?” said the barbarian's right head, peering at Jeanne's abandoned salad. “Can I have some?”

  Jeanne attempted to defenestrate the vegetable without breaking eye contact with the apparition. Her hand collided with the wall.

  “This,” said the barbarian's left head with a grand gesture, “is what I mean. Not for you this life of meaningless salad and fists smashing into walls. But its terminus has come: join me, and we shall do whatever you dream of.”

  “You mean –” Jeanne licked her lips and tried again. “You mean I'm to go gallivanting with some two-headed skank in a codpiece?” She had meant it to sound rude, but couldn't manage anything beyond bewildered. Her hand hurt. She let go of the celery: there was blood between her unfurling fingers, and a wound that would surely cicat
rize.

  It needed cleaning. She couldn't bring herself to leave the window.

  “You want to go gallivanting with some two-headed skank in a codpiece,” said the left head, with a disturbingly deliberate-looking twinkle in its teeth.

  Jeanne sloshed some white wine over her hand, and a great deal more of it into her mouth. She vaguely recalled hearing that cleaning wounds with ethanol wasn't actually recommended, but she was beyond caring. Maybe it would help her assert herself, at least. “I didn't summon you.”

  “Certainly you did! Are you not a disenchanted young maid with a dull, quiet life and excelsior dreams? Did you not wish for something more?”

  “Well, yes, maybe, but –”

  “Were you not plagued by ennui? Did you not google things of an eldritch nature?”

  “You're here because I googled something?”

  “More or less,” said the right head. “Here, the celery's all bloody now. Can I have some of that wine?”

  Jeanne handed it over silently. She did an admirable job of not dropping it, given that her hand was not only moist with nervous sweat, but in fact positively drenched with blood and wine.

  “Your googling was merely the catalyst,” said the left head. “Allow me to elucidate. Here is your anagnorisis, Jeanne: every legend you heard took seed in your mind, and all your longing for a world of adventure and excitement and muscular codpiece-clad barbarians formed what was, at first, a mere amorphous blob of – potential, let us call it. It took