Beneath Ceaseless Skies #75 Read online

  There is a crunch as the bone shears cleave the articular process in my shoulder. The agony is indescribable. I have threatened my slave with death, but soon he will understand how free he is. I sag down, hear voices call out in horror behind me. Let them know at last what I have done for ten years. Let them see the ultimate source of their wealth.

  My foramen cleaves free, and the feeling of the bone being tugged from my back is sickening, wrenching. I am a bag of sticks and meat. Silver lights flash. I am barely conscious to hear my slave shouting out the diamond in my clavicle, holding it for all to see.

  I slump against the stone plinth, and I see the crowd before me transform, their bodies blooming into safram shoots, long stalks bursting up through the market, spreading and stretching until before me is only a field of the waving pestilence weed.

  Behind me is Allory, still hot with fever. I realize that at last I can save her. Joy fills me. The safram is so beautiful around us, I can smell the heathery scent of it in the air. I take a step forward, feel it enfold me, and know that I will be with her again.

  Copyright © 2011 Michael John Grist

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  Michael John Grist is a ruins explorer and science fiction & fantasy author who lives in Tokyo, Japan. His stories can be found in Aoiffe’s Kiss, Shelter of Daylight, and Something Wicked, and he is currently writing an epic fantasy novel. He runs a website on the ruins or ‘haikyo’ of Japan; filled with photographs of abandoned theme parks, military bases, and ghost towns. See more at www.michaeljohngrist.com, or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/michaelgrist.

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  COVER ART

  “Mushroom Forest,” by Geoff Trebs

  Geoff Trebs is a twenty-seven year old artist based out of Orange County, Southern California, who specializes in concept art and character design. His free time is spent working on an unpublished original action comic. Contact him for studio or freelance work at [email protected], and view more of his artwork at dinmoney.deviantart.com.

  Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  ISSN: 1946-1046

  Published by Firkin Press,

  a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

  Copyright © 2011 Firkin Press

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