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2026 Claymore Award Finalist for Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy |
PRELUDE
From the Songs of Taliya, Daughter of Dust
A Fragment from The Lament 0f Gebal, Age of the Giants
The hills still smoldered when the sun rose. They had descended upon us during the night like locusts, shattering homes, burning fields, and annihilating my people. I had run to Father’s house to rouse him and my brother and urge them to flee with me. We ran toward Gebal, but when Father’s limp grew too painful to keep pace, I told Siken not to wait, to run as fast as he could. I hid with Father in a cave above the ravine through the night, where he sat huddled in the shadows, his eyes glazed and eerily numb to the terror outside. The earth shook beneath their savage fury. I closed my eyes as mortal screams mingled with the giants’ sardonic laughter, until, at last, the world fell silent.
He had been away from the village last night.
Had he been there, they would not have dared. If he returned to discover me missing amid the massacre… I did not finish the thought.
At dawn, I pulled my cloak tight around my father’s shivering shoulders. “Wait for me here.”
Approaching Gebal, I crossed fields strewn with corpses. I entered what remained of the city’s southern gate, shouting my brother’s name into the empty plaza. The shattered ruins of the city’s walls surrounded me like the jagged, gaping fangs of a decrepit hyena, the streets reduced to rivulets of fractured, blood-stained stones. A gust of wind blew the bitter fumes of charred cedars down from Mount Hermon, stirring a layer of fine ash that had once been flesh.
Beneath a fragment of the temple’s roof, a priestess prayed, lifting her trembling hands toward the heavens with the juniper smoke she burned in place of incense. I shrank behind a fallen pillar as a cloaked shadow slid behind her. The priestess turned just as he buried his blade beneath her ear. She sank without a sound. He plundered the sacred relics and fled.
When his steps faded, I crawled to her side and closed her eyes.
“Siken!” I called. Among the rubble, my brother crouched beside Ziya’s motionless body, tears streaking the dust on his cheeks. Ziya’s right side lay crushed beneath a toppled pillar, his limbs splayed unnaturally. I ran to them just as Ziya’s mother reached him. She pulled her son to her chest and sobbed. His shallow breath stirred her hair.
Together, we carefully lifted his broken body onto the wooden offerings cart. I winced as his splintered bones grated beneath my fingers.
Then his mother turned to me. Her face darkened. “Was it not you, daughter of Ahiram, who first drew the Watchers down from the heavens?”
I did not deny it. “Was it not their knowledge that relieved Ziya’s trembling spells?” I countered.
“Part of me longs to curse your name,” his mother admonished. Then Ziya moaned, and her reluctance vanished. She caught my hand. “I know you alone can save him.”
“I must return to the village. Bring Ziya to me,” I implored her. “Keep him awake for the journey home.” I turned to my brother. “Siken, haul the cart and retrieve Father from the cave.” My brother nodded solemnly, but his eyes hardened at the mention of Father.
I raced toward the slopes just as dark clouds rolled over them, carrying the scent of wet stone. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Just before I reached the second ridge, the first drops began to fall, hissing upon the warm rocks.
Perhaps, at last, the heavens had begun to weep with the earth.
He had been away from the village last night.
Had he been there, they would not have dared. If he returned to discover me missing amid the massacre… I did not finish the thought.
At dawn, I pulled my cloak tight around my father’s shivering shoulders. “Wait for me here.”
Approaching Gebal, I crossed fields strewn with corpses. I entered what remained of the city’s southern gate, shouting my brother’s name into the empty plaza. The shattered ruins of the city’s walls surrounded me like the jagged, gaping fangs of a decrepit hyena, the streets reduced to rivulets of fractured, blood-stained stones. A gust of wind blew the bitter fumes of charred cedars down from Mount Hermon, stirring a layer of fine ash that had once been flesh.
Beneath a fragment of the temple’s roof, a priestess prayed, lifting her trembling hands toward the heavens with the juniper smoke she burned in place of incense. I shrank behind a fallen pillar as a cloaked shadow slid behind her. The priestess turned just as he buried his blade beneath her ear. She sank without a sound. He plundered the sacred relics and fled.
When his steps faded, I crawled to her side and closed her eyes.
“Siken!” I called. Among the rubble, my brother crouched beside Ziya’s motionless body, tears streaking the dust on his cheeks. Ziya’s right side lay crushed beneath a toppled pillar, his limbs splayed unnaturally. I ran to them just as Ziya’s mother reached him. She pulled her son to her chest and sobbed. His shallow breath stirred her hair.
Together, we carefully lifted his broken body onto the wooden offerings cart. I winced as his splintered bones grated beneath my fingers.
Then his mother turned to me. Her face darkened. “Was it not you, daughter of Ahiram, who first drew the Watchers down from the heavens?”
I did not deny it. “Was it not their knowledge that relieved Ziya’s trembling spells?” I countered.
“Part of me longs to curse your name,” his mother admonished. Then Ziya moaned, and her reluctance vanished. She caught my hand. “I know you alone can save him.”
“I must return to the village. Bring Ziya to me,” I implored her. “Keep him awake for the journey home.” I turned to my brother. “Siken, haul the cart and retrieve Father from the cave.” My brother nodded solemnly, but his eyes hardened at the mention of Father.
I raced toward the slopes just as dark clouds rolled over them, carrying the scent of wet stone. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Just before I reached the second ridge, the first drops began to fall, hissing upon the warm rocks.
Perhaps, at last, the heavens had begun to weep with the earth.
Gebal (Byblos), Lebanon