Issue #315 • Oct. 22, 2020

“Girls with Needles and Frost,” by Jenny Rae Rappaport

“Degeneration,” by Dominic Wright

For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

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GIRLS WITH NEEDLES AND FROST

by Jenny Rae Rappaport

        They destroy the berry bushes first. Then the red cabbages at midsummer and the grape vines before the frost comes. The darker irises and the daylilies are dug up and thrown on great bonfires, burning away in their fragrant beauty. They would dig up the very roots of the cherry trees, too, but they are wary, not stupid. The cherry brandy made from the fruit is too valuable an export.

        We learn to live without sweet berry jam, cabbage cooked with apples, and wine. We train ourselves not to miss the flowers, and we toe the line. We always toe the line. When the soldiers ransack our homes, collecting any purple item of clothing, we hand it over. We also are wary, not stupid; our lives are worth more than a scrap of cloth.

        But our country is worth a great deal more than our lives.

        We stitch the violet stars in secret, our needles flashing faster at the thought of being caught. We dye scraps of fabric with forgotten berries found deep within the forest. We hoard it carefully under mattresses and behind bureaus, as we wait to make tiny beacons of hope. One for each family, each home, each window that needs to light the way. We sew for months.

        When the soldiers come with their black boots and their swords and their pistols, we are ready. Polina and Elzbet and I hold hands as they question Madam Kovalski. She stands before them, spine straight, hands folded neatly before her—the perfect posture for a dressmaker. She has trained us in it; long hours of her rapping our heads with her knuckles when we dared to slouch.

        “I don’t know what you’re looking for,” Madam says.

        “Useless purple things,” the first soldier says, slapping her across the face. Madam stays as still as a statue. “Because of that ridiculous legend.”

        “They’re not—” Polina begins, but I elbow her hard in the ribs to silence her.

        “She was dropped on her head as a baby,” I say. “Please don’t pay her any attention.”

        This makes the other soldier laugh, the one who looks barely older than us. The sound of his laughter is infectious, and I fight the urge to giggle.

        “It’s a load of rotgut,” the first soldier growls, and backhands the other soldier across the ear to make him stop.

        “Roza, I just wanted to—” Polina says, and I jam my elbow into her yet again. The young soldier looks liable to break into laughter again any minute. He catches my eye and grins, like we both know the same secret.

        The soldiers tear the dressmaking shop apart, but they find nothing. We are smarter than them; our work has been moved to even more secure hiding spots, in secret compartments under floorboards and behind walls. All across the country, this scene is surely being repeated countless times—soldiers harassing women, soldiers searching halfheartedly, all because their leaders insist that this is for our protection. Oh, how foolish it all is.

        Except it isn’t.

        When they came, they knew. When they conquered us, they knew. When they took most of our men away to labor for them, they knew. They knew, and still, they came.

        There will be violet stars in the sky, and we will thrill to the sound of dragon wings beating. We will rejoice when the cold crackles across the night. We will cheer, and they will die. And it will be enough.

        Because it has to be.

* * *

        Three times—in the distant past—the dragon has come before. Three times, when others have tried to destroy us. Three times, it has spread its dark wings and beat ice across the sky. Three times, it has saved us.

        “Three times,” Madam said, when I was too small to do much in the shop but sit at her knee and learn. When I was still young enough to let her brush my hair at night and tell me tales. “Three times.”

        Three times, when we placed a violet star in every window in the land. Three times, when we lit its way through the winter night. When we regaled it and prayed for it and hoped that we would never need its help again—because there is always a price.

        Always.

        The dragon does not forget, and neither do we.

* * *

        Polina and Elzbet and I run errands together while Madam lies in a dark room and rests her eyes. She has been up too late again, writing letters in an everchanging code and sewing with the rest of us by the light of one dim candle. When she swayed on her feet this afternoon, we made her shut the shop early. She protested, but she always protests.

        “Stop taking care of me,” she said, but she has always taken care of us. She is the one who found me at the workhouse, the one who taught me to read, the one who has been more of a mother to me than the mother that abandoned me. Hard times call for hard measures, but working herself to death will help no one.

        None of us want to go out by ourselves. The soldiers who searched the shop always seem to be waiting for us. They loiter across the street, smoking cheroots and ogling the women passing by with market baskets.

        Today, the older soldier spits at Polina’s feet, and the younger soldier winks at me. He is handsome, which does wonders for his appeal. Like all men, the impression will probably be ruined whenever he opens his mouth

        “You know how to sew? Good with a needle, little misses?” the older soldier says, pointing to his chest and leering. “How about you tell Olaf about it?”

        “Many women know how to sew,” I answer.

        “But they know how to really sew, don’t they, Maksim?” he says, clapping a hand on the younger soldier’s shoulder. “They’re good at making things. What things have you been making lately?”

        “Only dresses,” Elzbet says, and we politely push past them. As we walk by, Maksim bumps into me, and I feel something small and folded in his hand as it brushes against mine.

        We’re not alone in the constant surveillance; each dressmaker in the city has been assigned their own pair of soldiers. The army leaders are clearly getting restless and grasping at straws.

        “They’re horrible,” Elzbet says, running a shaking hand over her dress after we’ve scurried several streets away.

        “You should ignore them,” I say.

        “It’s not easy to ignore evil,” Polina says.

        “Maybe they’re not all evil,” I say, shoving the note that Maksim passed me deep within my skirt pocket.

        “They took my brother,” Elzbet says, and the half-sob in her voice hurts something deep inside me. “I want him back.”

        I want to wrap my arms around her; she needs kisses and cuddling until the pain is gone, but we are on the open street, and all the love in the world will not bring her brother back. The things we do in our bedchamber are a poor substitute for the people missing from her life. So, I look at her and she looks at me, and we keep walking with Polina through the city streets.

        “I want my father back, too,” Polina says, after a while.

        “Madam says soon,” I say, and we link arms, our shopping baskets dangling from our elbows as we make our way to the market square. She always says soon. Except it never is soon enough.

* * *

        Two things happen almost at the same hour: I sneak out to see the young soldier, and Madam Kovalski goes to a secret political meeting in the cellar of a nearby wine store. Only one of us returns home to the shop that night.

        I meet Maksim underneath the Western Bridge, where the riverbank joins the water’s edge. The stone of the bridge above us is green with moss, and the winter grass under our feet is sparse. We stand in the shadows and stare awkwardly at each other.

        He’s polite, as polite as a foreigner can be with his clumsy pronunciation of our language. We shake hands, and I feel only the slightest bit of worry at his touch.

        “I know,” he says simply, once our hands drop.

        “You know?”

        “You’re an intelligent girl, Roza.”

        “You know that the sun rises in the east?”

        Of course, he knows. Someone was bound to find out what we’ve been doing, despite our best efforts to conceal it. There are too many threads being woven together, too many people involved; there has always been the risk that someone would find out about the violet stars. We sew them anyway.

        “Try again,” he says, taking a step closer to me.

        “You know that being a soldier is a thankless job?” I say, surprising a harsh laugh out of him.

        Maksim takes another step toward me, reaching out to tilt my chin upwards so that I’m forced to look him in the eyes. For a second, I’m frozen—tethered in place by the feel of his hand on my face. Suddenly, he is no longer just the young soldier who haunts our movements outside the dressmaking shop; his eyes are harder, and an expression that scares me flits across his face. Just as quickly, the friendly soldier is back.

        “You know what I mean,” he says.

        “Yes,” I say, despite my better judgment. His touch burns against my skin, and I am not sure whether I like it or not.

        “Then, we are on the same page, at least,” he says, his thumb tracing the outline of my jaw. “What do you think I should do about it?”

        I stay still and say nothing.

        “I could turn you into the authorities. It would be easy to destroy you,” he continues, his hand hot against my face.

        “You don’t want to do that.”

        It would be foolish for him to give up the advantage that the knowledge grants him. But two can also play that game. His hand on my face is almost tender.

        “I want information. Names, times, meeting places,” he says.

        Things to smooth his path to promotion, to get him away from his oafish partner; maybe things that will get him away from our country. He must have a life, a home, somewhere else he wants to be. We are only seamstresses, after all.

        “Things you can give your superiors,” I say.

        “Smart girl.”

        “And if I don’t?”

        His hand stills on my face, and we stand there staring at each other again. If I give him information, inevitably, someone will be betrayed. All the artifice and confusion in the world will mean nothing if some of what I say isn’t backed up by truth. If I don’t give him the information, he can just as easily turn us into the authorities. Except he probably has no proof. And without proof, he’s just spinning tales. But that may not matter.

        Maksim brings up his other hand, and cups my face between them.

        “Do you really want to do that?” he says

        “Do you really think they’ll believe you without proof?”

        A shadow of doubt flickers across his face, and then he’s back to bluffing.

        “Who says I don’t have proof?”

        “You wouldn’t need me otherwise. I want information in return.”

        “Why?”

        “It’s a fair trade. Tell me where Elzbet’s brother and Polina’s father are. Give me something in return for betraying my friends.”

        “I’m giving you your life.”

        “That’s not worth much.”

        “Foolish girl.”

        “You could kill me now. It would save time.”

        “You sweet, foolish girl.”

        I follow my instincts and lean forward to kiss him. God help me, I both like it and hate it. His mouth tastes nothing like Elzbet’s. There’s nothing tender about the kiss at all, just two people saving each other from drowning for a moment. When we eventually pause for breath, he pushes me away, and my back bumps against the damp stone of the bridge.

        “I don’t want a whore,” he says.

        “Are you going to shoot me now?”

        “We are going to meet again three nights from now. Same place, same time,” he says, and I watch him stalk off into the darkness, one hand raised in farewell.

        What a sweet, foolish boy.

* * *

        When we wake in the morning and Madam’s bed is empty, we know. When Polina runs to the wine store and sees the shutters nailed shut, we know. When customer after customer comes into the shop, all of them clucking like biddy hens, we know.

        We would have to be fools not to know. But knowing is not the same as being able to do something. We are girls with needles, not swords.

        I pack a basket full of cheese and apples, a shawl for cold nights, and a flask of warmed cider. There is only one place that they could be holding Madam. Elzbet crowds me into the back room to kiss me good-bye before she gently ties my hood under my chin and whispers, “Please bring her back.” I can only squeeze her hand in response because if I open my mouth, I worry that the wrong words will come flying out.

        I leave the two of them measuring a customer for a new midwinter dress. Elzbet shows the woman samples of braided gold trim, and Polina mentions that we stock a wide variety of fabric colors.

        “Do you have deep blue?” the woman says. “Or indigo? Or better yet, purple?”

        “No,” Polina says. “Never purple. Never again.” I watch her lock eyes with the woman, and something akin to understanding passes between them. There are others of us out there, just as surely as the soldiers are trying to stop us. The chance of success is so small, but the reality of living under occupation is too large. There is no easy in-between.

* * *

        The soldiers at the city prison are just as bullying as Maksim’s partner. They lift my skirt and run their hands underneath, checking for weapons. I want to smack their filthy paws away, to tell them what they can do with themselves; I hold my tongue. They finally let me pass, through the gates and the bars and the stinking stone hallways. I follow the guard and try not to touch anything.

        When we arrive, the matron rifles through my basket, slinging the shawl over her shoulders and drinking deeply from the flask. She takes out a knife and begins to peel one of the apples.

        “Can I give her any of it?” I say, after a wait which seems interminable.

        The matron digs through the basket again and pulls out the smallest piece of cheese. She tosses it through the bars of Madam’s cell, and says, “You have five minutes.” I watch her walk a short distance away; close enough to intervene, not quite close enough to hear what we’re saying.

        “Smart girl,” Madam says, when I squat down near the cell bars. I try not to think about the muck touching the hem of my skirt or the rat droppings scattered about. Madam sits on a pile of dirty straw, as close as she can get to me.

        “You taught me.”

        Madam reaches out her hand to grasp mine and says nothing.

        “Polina and Elzbet are minding the shop,” I say.

        “Do you remember what I taught you to do, in my place?”

        I do, as much as I don’t want to admit that I do. There are names written down in code, lists of people, the makings of a complex calculus of distribution. I’m not sure whether Madam has told the others as much information as she has told me, but—

        “You want me to do everything?”

        “Absolutely everything.”

        “So, you’re not coming home soon?”

        “What do you think, my smart little Roza?”

        That I want her to come back. That I’m not sure her contacts will trust me. That I’m not able to balance being me and being an informant for Maksim and not telling Elzbet anything and sewing violet stars and leading a silent revolution. That I’m not sure I can see it through to the end alone. That all of this may be the price that the dragon demands, even if it isn’t here yet and may never come. That maybe the only way forward is to let the pressure chew you up until there’s nothing left, and that’s how you win.

        “That you were foolish to go to the meeting,” I say instead.

        “We all make foolish mistakes. Even you.”

        “Time’s up,” the matron calls, coming forward to hurry me away.

        “Thank you for the cheese,” Madam shouts, and that is how I remember her: pressed against the bars of her cell, holding the piece of cheese like it is more precious than the finest diamond.

* * *

        He kisses me this time.

        When I arrive at the Western Bridge, Maksim reaches out a hand to catch hold of mine. He drags me under the bridge’s shadow, his arms wrapping around my waist. We are both wet from the winter rain, and our breath forms tiny clouds of mist in the air. The heat of his mouth on mine feels like fire.

        I do not quite know what game we are playing tonight, but I have spent the days since Madam’s capture writing coded letters, trying to interpret her plans, and trading heated glances with Maksim that speak more than words. I have avoided Elzbet as much as possible, pretending to be asleep each time she comes to bed. If I am not careful, my traitorous mouth will say something, and all of the games I am playing will crumple to ashes.

        It’s a relief to give in to the purely physical; to kiss and to touch until I no longer have to think about what I’m doing. Maksim’s hands are warm on my body, and we are human and we are breathing, and for one blissful moment we are on the same side. But that ends. It always ends.

        “I thought you didn’t want a whore,” I say, my hands still in his hair. His uniform cap is somewhere on the ground, growing damp.

        “I don’t.”

        “But you want this.”

        “I didn’t necessarily say that.”

        I smirk at him, but he only laughs and takes a step back from me. I watch as he bends down to retrieve his cap, shaking the wetness from it before he jams it on his head.

        “What do you have for me?” he says, and now it’s business, all business.

        “What do you want?”

        “Not to play this game again, Roza.”

        “There’s a dressmaker, two streets east of the Grand Cathedral, that you may want to investigate. Another near Karolin Street, if you take the second alleyway on the right,” I say carefully, naming only those locations that have hopefully been evacuated. If the people in Madam’s circle are smart. If they are heeding the advice in my coded letters. If. If. If.

        “And?” he says, pulling a small oilcloth pouch from his pocket and removing a flint and touch-paper. I wait until he strikes the flint against his knife and ignites the touch-paper.

        “You want more?”

        “Always, darling,” he says, lighting his cheroot. The smell of tobacco wafts sweet and woody, the smoke illuminated by the light of the full moon peeping through the clouds.

        “And if I don’t have more?”

        “Then I know you’re lying.”

        Of course, I’m lying. I spend every minute of every day lying. When I avoid Elzbet out of guilt, when I kiss Maksim, when I try to fill Madam’s place: lies, all of it. By the time the dragon comes, I’ll be an empty shell, filled with nothing but lies.

        But I won’t get any of the information that I want, if I don’t feed Maksim more breadcrumbs. So, I tell him about a millinery shop in a village on the city’s outskirts and a tavern in another village, two days’ ride from here.

        “Good,” he says, when I’m done.

        “What do you have for me?”

        “I don’t have to give you anything.”

        “But you will.”

        I lean forward and take the cheroot out of his hand, dancing away from him with my prize. He follows, trying to get it back. I dart out into the rain and back under the bridge again; Maksim runs after me. We play like two children, slipping on the wet grass, running and giggling at the same time. Maksim manages to back me against the bridge, caging me in with his body, and takes the now-extinguished cheroot out of my hands. He tucks it into his pocket and kisses me again, his mouth a riot of tobacco.

        I’m a bad person, a bad friend, a bad lover for Elzbet because I enjoy all of this way too much. The stone against my back is cold, Maksim’s body is a furnace against mine, and the juxtaposition of the two makes the back of my neck tingle. I am in danger of losing myself like this; of confusing the purpose for why I am here and what I need to do. I gently push him away from me.

        “Where are they?” I say.

        It takes him a moment to catch his breath, before he answers, “Polina’s father is in the northern forests. At a logging camp. According to the records.”

        “And Elzbet’s brother?”

        “I couldn’t find him.”

        “That’s a lie.”

        “I swear to God I’m telling you the truth.”

        Of course, that’s a lie too. He knows that I know he’s lying. His army is full of meticulous record-keepers; somewhere, locked in an office, there is a document with the name of Elzbet’s brother. But pushing him on this would be like trying to get blood from a stone—painful and fruitless. There’s only so much of me left, and I must ration it carefully.

        “Why are you here?” I say instead. “Not under the bridge. But here, wearing that uniform?”

        “Money, fame, the usual glory?”

        But he is lying again. And somehow, this lie bothers me more than the other ones do.

        “That’s also a lie.”

        “It’s better that it’s a lie, Roza,” he says, and the expression on his face is a little boy’s—hurt, confused, unsure who to trust. I lace my fingers through his and say nothing. Because sometimes, there’s nothing you can say.

        I should hate him; I should hate all of them. I should have a burning fury toward them, a hatred that doesn’t die—I should want them all dead, like Elzbet and Polina do. I should be sewing my stars and writing my coded letters, and praying for their deaths. But what I should do and what I will do have never been quite the same.

        I lean my head on Maksim’s shoulder, and we stand listening to the rain together, long into the dark winter night.

* * *

        Elzbet is waiting.

        “Where?” she says, as I pull off my wet boots. The kitchen is lit only by the dying embers of the fire.

        “I—”

        “Who?” she says, stabbing the star she’s sewing with her needle.

        “I can explain.”

        “Try me.”

        “I’m being blackmailed.”

        “Try again.”

        “Why do you assume that—”

        “Who. Is. She,” she says, each word as sharp as a knife.

        “Elzbet, please, it’s not—”

        “I know what you look like when you’ve been kissed.”

        My knees go weak at that, and I sink into the nearest chair, banging my shin on the leg of the kitchen table. I can’t tell her the truth because telling her destroys my only potential source of information about her family. She would ask Maksim, and he would be forced to report us to his superiors. I would be a fool if I thought that kisses outweighed Maksim’s chances for a higher rank, as pleasant as they are. And we are close, so very close to summoning the dragon.

        “You don’t know them,” I say. “You don’t want to know them. It’s safer that you don’t.”

        Elzbet stares at me for a long while, and I see tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She is proud, so very proud, and I have managed to wound her. I am a mess of contradictions, wanting to collapse into her arms and tell her everything and wanting to run far away before I hurt her further. I am so very bad sometimes at playing games.

        “You sleep in the sitting room tonight,” she says at last, standing to hide her half-sewn star behind the hollow carvings built into the mantelpiece. I watch her check that the fire is banked before she climbs the stairs that lead to the bedchambers above the shop.

        “Please let me explain,” I say, as I follow her, sticking my foot in the bedchamber door so that she can’t shut it in my face. “It doesn’t mean anything. If you only—”

        “Be quiet!” she says, motioning across the hall at Polina’s small bedchamber. “You’ll wake her. Wait here.” I move my foot aside to let her close the door.

        I am quiet because the words coming out of my mouth are lies and the words I wish that I could say are dangerous. There is no easy way to explain that I have spent half the night kissing a man who will likely betray me.

        A minute later, the door opens, and Elzbet shoves a pillow and blanket in my arms before closing it again.

        I spend the rest of the night face-down on Madam’s uncomfortable settee, the musty scent of its horsehair stuffing lingering in my nose. I quickly learn that tears only make the smell worse.

* * *

        Two weeks later, we start handing out the violet stars, sneaking them deep inside customers’ corsets and stitching them to their petticoats. A steady stream of women fills our shop as word spreads, whispered from one mouth to another. To an outsider’s eye, business is booming, despite Madam’s continued incarceration. We are girls with needles, after all, and dresses wear out, no matter who is currently ruling the country.

        Maksim and Olaf search the shop several times more, continuing to find nothing. Olaf pushes us around and looms over us with his bulky body; Maksim merely mutters “Sorry, it’s orders,” and keeps his head down. We are skilled at hiding, but I begin to suspect that Maksim is equally skilled at misdirecting Olaf away from the more obvious hiding places. There is a moment when our eyes meet over the top of a curio cabinet, and I am left feeling that everything I have been doing is instantly visible to him. The fact that I like this is not reassuring at all.

        There are more secret meetings and there are more kisses, and there are more people’s names that I betray to my enemy. I am caught in a spiderweb of lies, and I cling to Maksim, because he is just as covered in the spider silk as I am.

        Elzbet refuses to speak to me, conveying all her requests through Polina in an elaborate game of hurt. I don’t blame her; I am clearly wrong here, and yet what I am doing also feels strangely right. I move into Madam’s bedchamber, and that also feels both wrong and right. At the very least, it is a bed to sleep in and a small writing desk to use as I write coded letters.

        Every night, my dreams are full of the sound of great wings beating.

* * *

        They hang Madam on the day the true snows begin.

        We cram into the central square, the copper-covered onion domes of the Grand Cathedral looming above us. The army has built a platform with a gallows in front of it, obscuring the entrance to the cathedral itself, as if they can block what they are doing from the heavens above. It feels like the entire city is standing with us, herded like cattle into the square to watch. Soldiers line the perimeter, preventing anyone from leaving. Maksim refuses to meet my eyes.

        There are audible gasps when they bring the prisoners out. Madam looks horrible—her ankles shackled, her hair stringy and lifeless, her dress gray with dirt. Whatever hope I have crumples inside me at the sight of her hands tied behind her back and the defiant set of her head.

        Some of the dressmakers who I have told Maksim about are also in the line of prisoners. I do not know whether they ignored my coded letters or whether they were tracked down separately by the army. All I know is that I bear responsibility—of course, I bear responsibility—and that knowledge alone is enough to make my stomach sour.

        Polina starts to cry before they’re even done reading the charges aloud. Loud sobs roll through her body until she is doubled over in the middle of the crowd, shaking like a leaf.

        “Make her stop,” Elzbet says, speaking directly to me for the first time in weeks.

        “How?”

        “I don’t know how.”

        People start to stare because Polina has begun keening like a broken whistle. It is loud and annoying, and more importantly, it is drawing the attention of the soldiers.

        “You hold her back, I’ll hold her at the front,” I say. “She needs to be quiet.”

        Elzbet and I bend down to pull Polina into a more upright position and sandwich her between us. She is still loud, still shaking, but I have her mouth pressed into my chest which is muffling the sound. I can’t see what’s happening near the gallows, but the officials are still listing the supposed crimes of the accused. For crimes of high treason, of rebellion, of overt acts against the army and the country that has conquered us—of all these things, they are guilty. Madam will die, and the others will die, and there is not a thing I can do but hold my friend as she collapses.

        “They’ll shoot us, if we try to leave,” I whisper across Polina.

        “Yes,” Elzbet says, tightening her grip on Polina’s back and shoulders. “Even your friend.”

        “He wouldn’t,” I say, deliberately not rising to her barb. Elzbet is smart; she was bound to figure it out. I don’t know how, but clearly she has.

        “He would,” she says, and I don’t want to believe her. But all the bitterness and hurt in Elzbet’s voice can’t hide the fact that she is likely correct.

        Polina’s sobs cannot drown out the sound of the trapdoors on the gallows opening, nor the raucous cheer of the soldiers around the square as the “traitors” are hung. They cannot cover the noise that the crowd makes, a cry of resigned dismay that ripples and moves throughout the square. They can only exist in their own bubble of sound, as Elzbet and I stare at each other and fat flakes of snow start to turn the square white.

        “We see this through to the end,” I whisper to her, as if I had a choice in the matter. Madam knew what was required, and so do I.

        Elzbet nods, the slightest movement of her head in the falling snow, and it is enough.

        We have stars to sew.

* * *

        The snow is falling in vast clouds when Maksim and I meet again under the bridge. My hood is icy and has barely managed to keep the snow out of my eyes. Maksim is huddled under the bridge, his leather-gloved hands tucked into his armpits, stamping his feet to keep warm.

        “My mother,” he says, when I get close enough to hear. He’s brought a lantern this time, its small shuttered light making a glowing circle at his feet.

        “Your mother?” I say, stepping into the circle of light as I let my hood fall backward onto my shoulders.

        “My mother is why I’m here. You asked me once, and I never answered.”

        “Maksim—”

        “My father drinks and she’s sick and the little ones—”

        “Maksim,” I say again, putting a hand on his arm, and something in my voice makes him stop. “Your army just executed the woman who was the closest thing I had to a mother.”

        He stares at me and I stare at him, trying to fight back my tears. Madam died for something that she believed in; it would be dishonorable to cry over that. She left me this revolution to run, and to give in to tears would be weak. Cowardly. Revolutionaries are not allowed to weep.

        But girls with needles are, and when Maksim gathers me into his arms, the tears come. I bury my face in the crook of his neck while he rests his cheek on top of my head. I sob and sob, as he strokes my back and murmurs things softly to me in his own language. I don’t know how long I cry, only that there are so many tears in me, all fighting to escape. My nose is dripping cold snot, and my eyes are red by the time I manage to stop. Maksim holds me at arm’s length and brushes my hair away from my face.

        “When?” I ask him, as he hands me his handkerchief.

        “When what?”

        “When is it my turn to die?”

        At this point, I see no way that I’m getting out of this alive. The army will find me, will track me down, will string me up like they did to Madam. The only question is whether we can summon the dragon before that happens. It is a waiting game, it has always been a waiting game, and as much as I care for Maksim, I know that I’m living on borrowed time.

        “When do you tell them about me?” I say, wiping my nose. “When am I the one dangling from the gallows?”

        “Never.”

        “When do you stop lying to yourself about that?”

        “You’re not allowed to die,” Maksim says, closing the distance between us and kissing me. His mouth is gentle, and it feels like a prayer as much as a kiss; something tender and ineffable passing between us, as if we were always meant to be in this place, in this time, under this snowy bridge with one another. It is a kiss that says fragile things that we dare not speak, too afraid that they will shatter.

        “Roza,” he says, his hand on my cheek. “Run away with me.”

        “Run away, with you?” I say slowly, as if that will make the words any more logical.

        “Yes.”

        “Where?”

        “The forest. The northern sea. Across the great ocean. Anywhere but here.”

        “I could sew,” I say, because the fantasy is tempting.

        “And I could farm. Or hunt. Or even chop wood.”

        “We could have a home.”

        “And children. Lots of children.”

        “Maksim—”

        “Please,” he says, and I kiss him because there is nothing else I can do. In another place, in another time, perhaps. But then we would never have met, and this would never have started. And whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I cannot say.

        I break the kiss and take a step back.

        “I can’t,” I say.

        There are too many people depending on me, too many lives that I am trying to save; my own life is not worth a fraction of theirs, when all is said and done. All our work with the violet stars would mean nothing.

        “Roza, please, I—”

        “Don’t say it,” I say, placing a finger on his lips. “If you don’t say it, we can pretend. That you don’t really care. That it’s fine that you’re going to lie to me about the whereabouts of Elzbet’s brother yet again, when I ask you. That we’re just two people who know each other, and we meet occasionally to trade secrets. That you never wanted this.”

        And now I’m crying again, the tears rolling down my cold cheeks, because the look on Maksim’s face is breaking me in two. If I was another person. If I had any choice. But there are no choices; there are never any choices.

        “I’m sorry,” I say, and step away from the lantern light. I pull my hood over my head and tie it tight against the snowfall. I turn my back on Maksim, check carefully for patrols, and start down the path toward the main part of the city. I am still holding his handkerchief.

        Over the noise of the storm, I hear boots crunching in the snow, and when I turn my head, he is running after me. I stop walking, and he skids to a stop, wrapping his arms around me from behind. We are terribly exposed, but only fools are out tonight, and we are both that.

        “Wait,” he says, kissing the small amount of uncovered skin on the back of my neck, between my coat collar and my hood. “Please.”

        I stay still, as the snow blows into my wet face. Maksim’s arms tighten around me, and then his voice is in my ear.

        “Elzbet’s brother is in Dublensk, a city just past the eastern border. They have him working at an iron foundry. And Roza?”

        “Yes?”

        “I’ve always wanted this. Don’t you ever dare doubt that.”

        I search for his hand and hold it for the space of one heartbeat, for the time it takes the two of us to say none of the things that really matter. There is only the storm and the snow and the moments that cannot last.

        I drop Maksim’s hand and walk into the night.

* * *

        We place the violet stars in the windows at sunset, two days later.

        “Quickly,” Elzbet says, and she and Polina hurry, affixing stars to the window glass with small drops of paste. I dart out the shop door, my boots slipping on the snow-scattered cobblestones, avoiding Maksim and the other soldiers on patrol.

        There are stars in all the windows. More and more stars in more and more windows as I glance up and down the street. I run to the corner, and in windows everywhere, I can see women placing them.

        Fresh snow begins to fall, and the bells of the Grand Cathedral ring out for evening prayers. The soldiers I pass in the streets are gaping at the stars and shouting angrily amongst themselves, their hands on their sword hilts. It’s a relief to run back through the shop door and slam it behind me.

        “Everywhere?” Elzbet says, and I can only nod as I catch my breath. “Truly everywhere?”

        “Every house and shop, as far as I could see,” I say.

        “It’s working, isn’t it?” Polina says. She is quivering with excitement, and tears of hope glisten on her cheeks.

        “We’ll know soon enough.”

        Elzbet and Polina have spent the days since the snowstorm accelerating the distribution of the stars; I have spent them writing even more coded letters, holding meetings with other coordinators, and not sleeping.

        I have refused to close my eyes because when I do, I am back in the snowstorm and I am pleading with myself to find Maksim. Except there are wings beating above my head and breath that is colder than ice and I am alone, battered by the storm. And then I wake screaming.

        I always wake screaming.

        Polina and Elzbet and I hold hands as we watch through the window, the shop lights dark behind us. The wind starts to howl like wingbeats, slicing through the air in great icy gusts. The snow falls harder, coating the street, until the cobblestones are lost in frozen white. As the twilight darkens, there’s a bang on the shop door.

        We don’t move.

        We ignore the banging, we ignore the shouts, we ignore it all. There are only the soldiers hurrying in groups from building to building, demanding entry, and still the wind and snow come. The air that leaks in around the edges of the window is bitter; colder than any winter I have ever known.

        There are stars in all the windows, there are stars in the sky, and as true darkness falls, all of them start to glow with a violet light. We stand there, painted in purple through the windows, and bear witness.

        The wind turns the snow into great swirling clouds, the icy breath of the dragon roars across the sky, and the soldiers keep coming. There are more and more of them on the street, rushing about in confused groups, and we watch as their boots slip in the snow. They fire shots at people’s windows, and we hear glass breaking.

        The soldiers scurry to form a firing line, pointing their guns towards the sky, and as the wind howls even harder, they stumble even more. They are slower—seeming to fumble with even the basic task of reloading their guns. The snow moves and swirls, half-hiding them from our view, as they break ranks and huddle together, clusters of men trying to fight an enemy they cannot touch.

        The dragon is coming, and there is nothing that they can do. I hear the wings beating, we all hear the wings beating, and I know my time is soon.

        Our enemies will die, and we will be free, and perhaps in time we will remember what that actually means. I should stand with these girls and feel my heart sing. But instead, when I hear the knocking on the kitchen door, I know. Because you always know.

        And so I pull Maksim inside to safety, because even I am not that cruel.

* * *

        The dragon comes with the dawn.

        I do not think anyone has truly slept through this night; there are children’s faces in the upper windows and shopkeepers peeping from shutters down below. They shy away from the dragon as its shadow descends over the entire city, but they stare at it anyway. The edges of its wings are purple tipped with gold, and its claws crunch over the corpses of the frozen soldiers.

        It lands with a great rumble that rattles all our windows in their panes and knocks the bolts of fabric off their shelves. One great foot, as big as a house, settles in front of the cobbler shop three doors down; the opposite one seems to be resting on the next street over. The dragon’s neck towers above the buildings, stretching higher than the spire on the top of the Grand Cathedral’s onion domes, and its head is hidden in the clouds.

        Its tail trails over the houses and stretches through the streets toward the river, so massive that it should be toppling chimneys and flattening buildings, yet it’s not. If I squint into the distance, I can see nothing but purple and gold scales, seeming to overlap with buildings and streets.

        I hold my breath when its neck bends down, its great head swooping low to the ground, and then it’s staring through the shop window with one great, gold eye. The dragon’s eye is so broad that only the bottom sliver of it is visible, and it looms so close to the window that it seems to be inside the shop with us, as if the eye is melting through the window itself.

        I search for Maksim’s hand. He is dozing, his head leaning against my shoulder, as we sit together on the shop carpet. He opens his eyes when I grab at his hand, and he stares at me, confused.

        “Look,” I say, and point to the window.

        He looks. So does Elzbet, who has spent the night watching over us all. Polina still dozes in Madam’s good shop chair.

        “Roza,” he says, and I feel him grip my hand more tightly. “It’s real.”

        “Yes.”

        “You really summoned—”

        “It was never a legend,” I say softly.

        I feel the immense eye pulling at me, drawing me closer and closer. Like metal drawn to a lodestone, I cannot escape the dragon’s pull, and I am not sure that I even want to.

        Part of me is already outside the window with it. It is as though the life I had before is blowing into pieces. If the others cannot hear it, I certainly can: the dragon is waiting. All these months of preparing, of putting the pieces into place, all of it has led to this moment—to this massive eye staring at me, staring into me, and the knowledge that this is the final thing I have to do.

        Absolutely everything, Madam had said in that dingy cell, and I know, as sure as the snow falls, what she meant for me to do. What I must do.

        I hear the thunderous huff of the dragon’s breath and the click of its claws on the corpses. I have to go now; I must go now.

        But I’m selfish still, and I cling to Maksim’s hand for a minute more. There is only the feel of his fingers in mine, the warmth of his body against me, the way that his breath hitches when I run my free hand down his cheek. Everything that could be and never will.

        “I need to go,” I say, and I make myself get to my feet.

        “Where?” he says, still holding on to my hand.

        “Out there.”

        “No, Roza,” Elzbet says, scrambling to stand. “Don’t go near it.”

        “I have to.”

        “You’re being foolish.”

        “No, I’m doing what Madam would have done.”

        “What is she talking about?” Maksim says.

        “You’re not Madam,” Elzbet says, a panicked edge creeping into her voice.

        Of course, I’m not. I have never been her, although God knows I have tried. I may not be Madam’s daughter, but she has taught me well. Nothing comes for free in this world. Even freedom itself has a cost.

        “Polina, wake up,” Elzbet screams, running across the room to shake her awake. But the dragon is growing impatient; I can tell, even if the others can’t. They have not dreamt of wings coming; they have not known what must be done.

        I start to open the shop door, but Maksim stops me. He pulls his gloves from his pocket and puts them on my hands, dressing me as if I was a child. Or a doll. Or someone he loves too much to let go.

        “For the cold,” he says, and his mouth is soft and sweet as I kiss him back.

        “Thank you,” I say, blinking back tears.

        “Come back,” he says, and I do not have the heart to tell him I can’t. I can only nod when he opens the shop door for me.

        The cold air from outside blows in, and when I reach reflexively for his hand, I feel nothing. I look down, and my fingers pass through his, intersecting but never quite touching. Maksim grabs for them, trying to interlace his hand with mine, but the same thing happens again.

        “No,” he says, and if his voice doesn’t break me, the sadness in his eyes does.

        “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and I walk out the door.

        The dragon is before me, above me, around me; it fills the street and the sky and the city itself. It smells like the forest, like leaves ground underfoot, like the damp earth scent that comes with the first drops of rain.

        I stare at it, and its great gold eye stares at me.

        The dragon snorts, a thunderclap that knocks tiles from the roofs along the street, and extends its foreleg to me. I start to climb it, even though I hear shouts from the shop. Hand by hand, foot by foot, I scale its leg and crawl onto its back; I clamber along its spine and between its great shoulders until I am able to perch on its neck. The shop doorway, and the people I love who are standing in it, look so small from up here. And the city looks so very large.

        If we stay another moment in this place, I will be tempted to go back.

        “Go,” I tell the dragon. “Go now.”

        And we go, rushing through brick and stone in a manner that should not be possible. All around me, I hear the crunch of the dragon’s claws and I see the streets and squares blur by. Faster and faster, until the dragon spreads its wings and we are flying.

        We soar together—above the gleaming copper domes of the Grand Cathedral and over the river bridges that are clogged with fleeing soldiers. The city and its people look like nothing more than children’s toys dusted with snow. The dragon wheels towards the east, and we pass through clouds that are still lit with the pale pink of winter sunrise.

        And Madam comes to me. Her dress is clean and her hair is in its perfectly braided bun, but she is just as insubstantial as I am. She sits on the dragon’s neck, surrounded by the others: the dressmakers who were executed alongside her, and all of the women who never answered my coded letters. All of them waiting, all of them here.

        All of us, who lived and fought and made the dragon come.

        Madam smiles and reaches out a hand to me, and when I take it, her grip is solid in my hand. I sit next to her, next to all the women, and together, we hold each other’s hands as the dragon flies onward.

Copyright © 2020 Jenny Rae Rappaport

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Jenny Rae Rappaport has been published in Lightspeed, Escape Pod, and Daily Science Fiction, among other magazines. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and holds a BA in Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University. In the past, she has worked as a literary agent, a marine sciences field guide, and spent a semester observing monkeys as an intern with the Pittsburgh Zoo. Jenny lives in New Jersey with her family, where she divides most of her time between writing and herding small children. She can be found online at www.jennyrae.com and on Twitter at @jennyrae.

Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

DEGENERATION

by Dominic Wright

Being an Account of Grief Inconsolable and of the Sorrowful Decline of the Ang-Shyu-Fhal Dynasty, written by the Esteemed Calligrapher-Beaurocrat Pyat-Nyar-Khun, in the Four Thousand and Thirty Second Year of the God-Emperors of the Eternal City.

        I have chosen to commit my thoughts to paper at the suggestion of Hyo-Zhar-Hyo, my colleague of the Academy of Letters. This suggestion was meant as a slight, a subtle diminishing of the kind that Hyo-Zhar-Hyo is so adept, intended to draw attention to the smallness of my existence. However, I shall feel perverse pleasure by taking his mocking at face value and in perceiving what he could not: that in the great sweep of history even the words of a lowly official may attain value for Men of Letters not yet born.

        This is especially true in such times as these. An archaic glyph from the war-torn Southern Provinces is brought to mind. It takes the marker for wishfulness, rendered with an Imperative, and the symbol derived from a scroll, typically signifying history. It is usually translated as a curse: May you live in interesting times.

        The Barbarians have reached the outskirts of the Eternal City. Our own Ever-Victorious Army wins victory after victory under the command of the infallible General Lha-Lho. Yet somehow their Horde inches ever closer. The Summer Palaces, wonders of the Empire Without End, have been burned to the ground, and the Royal Court has retreated to the Winter Palaces and the Inner Court in the heart of the Eternal City. Those of a weaker disposition have begun to flee the City, I am ashamed to report. In His wisdom and benevolence His Worshipful Radiance the God-Emperor Ai has barred the gates and decreed that anyone caught fleeing will be named Traitor, to die a thousand deaths at the hands of the Imperial Inquisitors. The Inquisitors, needless to say, have no peer when it comes to baroque and imaginative torments.

        And so, with His iron will and unshakeable conviction, the God-Emperor Ai lends his people the courage they lack. For it is unthinkable that any Barbarian should set foot in the Eternal City or that any foreign eye should behold the wonders of the Inner Court, fulcrum of the Empire Without End. All are agreed in this: the gutters will overflow with the blood of our people before this happens. It cannot be long now before the God-Emperor bestirs Himself, and when he rides forth to do battle the Barbarians will turn and run like dogs before the Sun.

* * *

        Syu-Sha-Sol praised my brushwork today. He said it was perfect, a word not bandied about at the Academy of Letters. For a few moments I was elated... until he lavished praise on Kyu-Yah-Boh also, whose brushwork he described as beautiful. Is beautiful higher praise than perfect? It should not be. Something can be beautiful yet not perfect. And something that is perfect must also be beautiful. And yet... this is not what Syu-Sha-Sol’s words conveyed. My compliment withered into faint praise next to the effusion offered Kyu-Yah-Boh.

        Now, as I write this, I ask myself why I should care what praise Syu-Sha-Sol bestows, or what words he might choose? After all, he is only an Aspirant, whereas I have been Confirmed these many long years. But of course I know why. It is because next to Syu-Sha-Sol all these words are rendered impotent—worthless scrawls, scratched by beggars in the dirt. The shape of his mouth exceeds any line that I, or even Kyu-Yah-Boh, might put to paper.

        In actual fact Kyu-Yah-Boh’s brushwork is full of errors and imperfections. He often exaggerates the tails and accents in illiterate and infantile ways. He never mixes his ink properly or loads the brush as often as he should—whether from laziness or impatience I could not say. In consequence his Finials fragment and the strands of the brush are shamefully discernable. No two characters are ever the same. And yet somehow—inexplicably—despite all these flaws the entirety is improved. I cannot pretend otherwise, much as I would like to. His Curals remind me of the Great Master himself, the Poet-Calligrapher Nan-Soor, the true father of our craft: effortless, sweeping, and bold.

        I hate Kyu-Yah-Boh with a cold intensity that shames me. In every personal interaction he is pleasant, even humble—unlike Hyo-Zhar-Hyo and his cronies, who hide their deficiencies behind unwarranted arrogance. Yet it is Kyu-Yah-Boh who torments me. It is Kyu-Yah-Boh whose humiliation and disgrace I devise in idle daydreams and trap in byzantine plots. It is Kyu-Yah-Boh’s face I dream of, smiling genially, my hands wrapped around his throat. I am ashamed to feel this way; I am a despicable human being.

* * *

        At home, in our small house not far from the Square of Everlasting Joy, my Honourable Mother deteriorates daily. She shrinks before my eyes, even as the tumor in her side expands as though it will absorb her. When I picked her up for her servant to change the bed linen, she was as light as a child in my arms. I wept to see her withered hands; hands that once lifted me aloft now barely able to clasp a cup. The pain worsens. Each day she asks if she is dying, and each day I lie to her and say that in the Spring, when the Blossom returns, we will walk together in the Gardens of Peace and Symmetry. She nods, knowing it to be a lie. Yet she is comforted by it, I think, as am I.

        Despite all my accomplishments I have disappointed her. I can list all my achievements; my great learning, gaining entrance to the Academy at a significantly young age, bringing her from our village to the Eternal City, giving her status and a servant. And yet despite all this I have remained a disappointment. This fact has vexed me for many years. But of course she never wanted any of these honours, and never asked for them. All she really wanted was a family to fuss over and grandchildren to spoil. And this of course was the one thing I could not give. She has never reproached me. Nevertheless I know I am the origin of all her dissatisfaction.

* * *

        Last evening I stopped by the Garden of Pleasant Relaxation to sip rice wine and listen to the Court gossip. Hyo-Zhar-Hyo was there along with others from the Academy. He had drank too much, and because he likes the sound of his own voice he spoke loudly and unwisely. He maintained that the God-Emperor Ai is in thrall to His favourite Concubine, the Winter Orchid, who alone holds the secret of His erotic release. The Court has become a nest of vipers, as the Concubine and various factions of Advisors and Ministers plot and intrigue against one another. The God-Emperor himself is now so fat He cannot stand and is carried everywhere on a litter. As Hyo-Zhar-Hyo spoke all this, and many other calumnies besides, I listened and wondered who amongst those gathered was an Informer for the Imperial Guard. I saw no need to inform on Hyo-Zhar-Hyo myself, despite the satisfaction it might have brought.

        Sure enough, he was not at work today. There is an archaic glyph from the Court of the Ninth God-Emperor, which is derived from the two characters for self-reproach and satisfaction and is translated as: Shameful joy at a rival’s despair.

        General Lha-Lho and the Ever-Victorious Army have won another great victory against the Barbarians, driving back wave after wave, slaughtering countless and decimating their ranks. Unfortunately this has not stopped them advancing to the City Walls. Surely this is where they will meet their end. The seven concentric walls of the Eternal City have stood for ten thousand years and have never been breached. This tide of savages will break itself against the mighty stones, I have no doubt, as the sea crashes against the cliffs, full of rage and fury yet utterly impotent.

        My Honourable Mother has expressed again her intention to be buried in the Catacombs beneath the Temple. Luckily I had bought the wood for a casket many years ago at a very reasonable price. However, finding a tradesman to effect its manufacture has proved more difficult. All the artisans are employed in the machinery of war. In the end I was able to find some, and they seem skilled enough. They complimented me on the quality and grain of the wood and informed me that to buy such at the present time would cost more than four times what I paid. Even in such troubled times, this comforted me not a little.

* * *

        Rice has grown scarce and meat is so expensive only butchers and Emperors may afford it. With the city under siege nothing enters or leaves (except a trickle of cowards and malcontents). A Provender was lynched by a mob made up of the Lower Castes when a rumour spread he was hoarding bread and salt. Thankfully I had the foresight to lay a little extra aside so we are not reduced to eating millet just yet. Besides, Mother will only take broth now, and only a few spoons at a time. The Doctor called again and impressed on me it would not be long; a matter of days. He gave me the last of his Opium and told me to use it sparingly.

        I had to remonstrate with the Artisans over the coffin. They wanted to apply only four layers of lacquer, arguing with great impudence that it would suffice. I informed them with no uncertain terms that, though the Barbarians were at the gate, this was no license to degenerate to the level of savages ourselves. Seven coats of lacquer should be considered a bare minimum, and for the quality of wood I have supplied and the cost of the preparations, some might consider seven coats sparing. I have started to regret engaging them.

* * *

        Syu-Sha-Sol encountered an archaic form today, and knowing it to be my specialty he sought me out. It was a particular favourite of mine—a glyph from the Second Century of Provincial origin. It is derived from the ear of wheat that meant farming in those areas where rice had not displaced it, together with a derivation of the accent that means joyful singing. It can be loosely translated as: They shall come singing from the fields, for they have provided for their own.

        It is one of those instances where the sentiment is as touching as the character is visually appealing. Syu-Sha-Sol was enthralled, as I was myself when I first encountered it. His hand brushed against mine. For a few blessed moments I shared that fortunate pocket of air, inhaling as he exhaled, drinking in sweat and perfume like a starving man sniffing a bowl of Gok-Sui. I can only hope I maintained my outward composure. How I live for these moments of joyful despair.

* * *

        As I passed by the courtyard this morning I witnessed our neighbour standing with a bloody cleaver calling to his dog. The cur cowered—it could smell the blood and see the freshly butchered carcase of its companion. The man raised an insistent voice. I stopped, transfixed by the grisly tableaux. In the end the beast went to its master meekly, scraping its belly on the cobbles and whining. How could it do otherwise? I wanted to shout out and send it scampering away. Instead I stood paralysed as the cleaver was raised. I wonder if in those final moments the beast realized its true place in the world. That it was not, in the end, a member of the family but food.

        Mother does not speak and cannot hear me. Each breath comes more fragile and ragged than the last, and the gap between them lengthens. Each time I think: This will be her last. She moans when the pain invades her dreams. That is when I know to take a few grains of opium and mix a tincture, which I trickle into her mouth from the small blue bottle. I wonder if I should use the last grains and hasten her to a dreamless sleep. Is that what a dutiful son would do? Would it be an end to suffering? Are her dreams peaceful and content, or nightmares of mute agony? I cannot know, and so I take the coward’s path and do nothing.

        The coffin has received the first and second coat of lacquer. I was not impressed with its quality and was forced to complain to the Artisans again, demanding that they only use the highest quality for the remaining coats. I am wearied beyond words by their sullen indifference, so common in the Lower Castes. I should have made them scrape it off with their fingernails and start again.

* * *

        At the Academy we are reduced to half our number. None can say what happened to our colleagues, and no one can ask or even draw attention to it. One can only speculate as to their fate. There is much anxiety about the drafting of Civil Servants into the Ever-Victorious Army, but our superiors have reassured us we are more valuable to the God-Emperor as Men of Letters and that the written word travels farther than the arrow, as the Proverbs have it. I have taken some small comfort in this, being singularly unsuited to the task of slaughter. This is despite the fact that my Venerable Father was a great soldier in the Ever-Victorious Army and his sword hangs accusingly on the wall in our house. This causes me no small amount of shame.

        I am finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my work. When I was first tasked with transcribing the complete works of the Venerable Yai-Nn I was ecstatic and took it to be a great honour. He was the greatest historical scholar of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. I have since updated my opinion of him. His plodding and detail-laden texts circle endlessly round the point, if in fact they ever reach it. Every sentence is a procrastination; every paragraph is constipated. I now grow physically sick as I approach my desk.

        I inspected the third and fourth coat of lacquer and found it satisfactory. It is still not the quality that one would normally expect, but these are troubled times and I must be realistic. In any case I was too weary to remonstrate with the craftsmen again.

* * *

        This morning I saw Syu-Sha-Sol talking quietly with Kyu-Yah-Boh. I can only hope they do nothing regrettable. I am ashamed to confess that for the rest of the day I contemplated informing on Kyu-Yah-Boh to the Imperial Guard before finally putting aside the idea. I have always considered myself to be an honorable person, but in my own way I am as mean-spirited as my former tormentor Hyo-Zhar-Hyo, whose name can no longer be uttered. Worse even, since I hide my vanities and petty jealousies beneath a veneer of pleasantries.

        At the Garden of Pleasant Relaxation the talk was of the war, as always. The siege is soon to be lifted, there is no doubt. The Barbarians cannot maintain it for long. They are mindless brutes, all agreed. Their speech consists of grunts and barks. Many asserted that they have horns sprouting from their heads and the hair on their backs is as thick as a goat’s. Others have tails like lizards or forked tongues. It is also said they have a taste for eating babies and raping women... or possibly it was the other way round? They are not without a certain low cunning, it was allowed, and use dark sorceries to defeat their enemies. Many believe that the Infallible General Lha-Lho has enticed them to over-extend themselves. There was a long and tedious discussion concerning the speed that fully laden oxen can travel over mountainous terrain, which nevertheless developed into a heated argument. At one point a member of the Lower Caste was dragged from the street to serve as an Expert Witness in the matter, but the old man could only stare blankly at the animated questions until he was ejected with a great deal of irritation. In the end the consensus was unchanged: the Savages’ supply lines, being now too long, are prone to attack from a rear assault. I have no doubt the final stroke will come soon and wipe this plague of locusts from the sacred ground.

* * *

        Today I passed a corpse on the way to the Academy. It was not a casualty of war, as I first surmised, but someone from the Beggar Caste, or an Indentured, who had died of natural causes. On my way home the body was still there, though it had been worried by dogs or rats. There is no one left to clear it, I realised.

        Now that the Savages have infiltrated the outer two walls, the Infallible General Lha-Lho has devised a new stratagem. He has assembled a Children’s Army, not one soldier older than twelve. In his wisdom he saw that the ignorant Barbarians would baulk at the slaughter of innocents and reveal that they do not have the stomach for war. Though this philosophy runs counter to everything we have learned about the Barbarians thus far, I do not doubt the Infallible General Lha-Lho in his analysis. I watched from Mother’s window as the columns passed beneath—so many ragged boys, attempting to march in unison, with heads held high. I saw the tears on their faces, so joyful were they to be given the chance to lay down their lives for the protection of the Eternal City and the God-Emperor Himself. How proud their parents must be.

* * *

        Alas, although the proud Children’s Army won a great victory, it was not enough to stem the flow of the Barbarian locusts that now swarm over the Third and Fourth Wall. It is said the children’s blood ran like rivers in the streets and the bodies piled up as though to shore up the Sacred Walls. The cunning and cruelty of the Savages cannot be underestimated, it seems.

        From my window I can see columns of smoke.

        The final coat of lacquer was applied to the casket today.

* * *

        This morning I was summoned to the Inner Court. Due to the shameful loss of staff, the Chief Secretary Qyu-Hya-Wo needed a Calligrapher to record the God-Emperor’s Divine Audience. I made it clear to the Chief Secretary that I was not the fastest in the art, being rather known for my meticulous transcriptions. Nevertheless he was insistent, relaying that I had been recommended personally—no doubt by some secret enemy I have accrued. Of course it is a great honour to be invited to work for the Chief Secretary in this way—at any other time I would have been overjoyed—but the rumours surrounding the Court at the moment caused me rather more anxiety. Yet there was no way to graciously refuse so I followed the Chief Secretary out of the Academy. Syu-Sha-Sol watched with concern as I left. I wondered if that would be the last time I ever saw him.

        We crossed the Academy’s Courtyard, with its fountains and intricate ceramic tiles, where Syu-Sha-Sol would often come to read and where I have spent many contemplative hours in happier times. We passed through gate after gate. All the while the Chief Secretary instructed me in the etiquette of the Inner Court: I was not to look the God-Emperor in the eye, nor say a single word to anyone unless personally addressed, for I was there to record only. Even in the unlikely event that I would be spoken to, I was to make sure to agree with everything, he asserted, as Great Men only want to hear their own words reflected back at them.

        At last we passed through the Gate of Divine Imperiousness (the first time I had ever done so) and arrived at the Inner Court where the Winter Palaces, the Imperial Harems, and the Ministries of Court are found. I can now confirm with some authority that the Winter Palaces are indeed the most resplendent of the Seasonal Palaces, save for the gardens and pools of the Summer Palaces, which of course have now been utterly destroyed. They surpass the Spring Palaces, which offer only cloying over-abundance, and of course the Autumn Palaces are an abomination, as all know. The Winter Palaces are fashioned from a white stone transported to the Eternal City from many thousands of miles away. The decorations and ornamentations on the outer walls are breathtaking. Inside the effect is even more dramatic, the Master Masons having carved the stone as thin as porcelain in places, so that light is absorbed and scattered in every direction. The floor also is a polished white marble. The effect is of an immense ice cave, like those fashioned by the seal-hunting savages of the Far North. Accents of colour are provided by the rich tapestries and carpets and the antiquities of immeasurable value that adorn every surface and fill every nook.

        We crossed many courtyards, each larger and more magnificent than the last. Some contained fountains of exuberant joyfulness, others tranquil pools of Giant Carp and water lilies, one a shady copse of winter birch. Another courtyard contained an intricate model of the Winter Palace itself, complete with living miniature trees. As we passed it I caught a glimpse of the very courtyards we were hurrying through, though I failed to note whether the model was reproduced within itself.

        Finally we came to the Chamber of Divine Audience. Here was assembled the entirety of the Inner Court and the Imperial Retinue, including all manner of officials and servants and hangers-on. I noted also the Chorus of Sycophants whose job it was to murmur agreement with those currently in favour or mutter sarcastically as those out of favour were speaking. Also assembled were a good number of Dignitaries and Ministers, many of whom I did not know. However, I was able to recognise General Lha-Lho, dusty from battle, as well as the Minister of Truth, Jho-Vyar; the Minister of Peace, Yai-Phal; and the Minister of Coin, Zhu-Kyo. Each of these had their own Retinue of course, including their own Sycophants. These were already engaged in elevating their Master’s private conversations, so that a low murmuring echoed around the chamber, with ripples of admiring mirth breaking out after some witticism was offered. I was led to a small desk and cushion near the front where I was able to set out my tools and prepare. After an excruciating wait, I was at last rewarded by the entrance of the God-Emperor Ai Himself.

        When I was a barefoot child, no more than four or five, a Shadow Play came to our village to enact the great cycles of myth. When the great Dragon Sool appeared breathing fire and smoke I ran wailing to Mother, believing it would devour me along with the hapless hero Fun-Shal. Afterwards, when I was led behind the curtain and saw the toothless old man with his sticks and candles and cymbals I felt very foolish, of course, but also sad—as though the world had been diminished somehow. A long forgotten character from the Far Eastern Provinces takes the sign for wisdom but places it within the Codex of the Pejorative Class. It has been translated as: Disappointment on discovering the true nature of things.

        The Worshipful God-Emperor Ai was carried on a litter, supported by twelve huge Eunuchs. He was grossly fat, it couldn’t be denied, a vast whale of pink quivering flesh—but it must be a symptom of His illness, which has been widely discussed, and is no doubt exacerbated by His confinement. How noble, I thought, that He still persists in the day-to-day business; how He must love His people. He was accompanied on the litter by at least half a dozen concubines, both male and female. However, it was difficult to be sure of their exact number as their bodies were entwined and constantly writhing. I averted my eyes in shame when I realized that some were in the act of congress, though I could not prevent the gasps and moans of pleasure from reaching my ears, nor the various smells from reaching my nostrils. There was semen and fecal matter, and something else I could not place that had the salty earthiness of sweat and yet was not sweat. Looking around, however, I noted that none of the Divine Audience seemed in any way perturbed, so I surmised this spectacle was not out of the ordinary. Not wanting to appear prudish I composed myself accordingly. The God-Emperor is not a normal man, I reasoned, and so normal standards of decorum do not apply. Not for the first time I chastised my provincial sensibilities—who was I, after all, to censor the Divine with rustic notions of modesty?

        As I raised my eyes again, I was greeted with a sight that will stay with me always: the Winter Orchid herself, rising from the nest of cushions beside the God-Emperor, unfurling as a cobra raises its head. She was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes upon, even when surrounded by the most nubile courtesans. Her face was innocent and bewitching, her eyes were wide and dark, her painted lips mocking and insolent. Yet it was her body—half naked, half glimpsed beneath transparent wisps of silk—that seemed to exude erotic promise, with wide hips and full breasts and skin as white as the walls of the Winter Palace. Though I have never looked on a woman with carnal interest, I was nevertheless greatly impressed by her presence. In the same way as one may admire a great statue, I could not fail to appreciate the artistry with which the Gods had composed the wantonness of her flesh. Her eyes alighted on each in turn—many could not hold her gaze, others stared with open malevolence. When at last those flashing eyes came to rest on me, I met her stare and held it. After a few moments she seemed to realise her seductive charge was wasted on me. She did not seem perturbed; rather she seemed to make a mental note of the fact and moved on.

        The God-Emperor Ai Himself, though magnificent in every respect, seemed half asleep, no doubt exhausted from His illness or its treatments. His eyes wandered around the room, half closed. He spoke so softly that only the Winter Orchid could hear Him, so that she acted as His translator, and all His council passed through her.

        I would not have time to relate all that I heard in the Chamber of Divine Audience, though it caused me no small amount of anxiety. At one point, the Infallible General Lha-Lho announced that the Barbarians had been driven back to the Outer Walls. I knew this to be untrue—they were now at the Seventh and Innermost Wall, and if that were breached there would be nothing between their Horde and the Inner Court itself. The Infallible General’s new stratagem was to release the animals from the Imperial Menagerie, so that the tigers and wolves and bears would strike fear into the Barbarian’s primitive hearts. This was applauded by all—even the General’s most bitter enemies were forced to concede approval, followed closely by their murmuring Sycophants. Though it seemed to me that wild animals loosed in such a way were as like to attack the Ever-Victorious Army as the Barbarians. The Chief Secretary noticed my hesitation and impressed on me with his expression that this was no concern of mine. I held my tongue.

        The Minister of Peace urged total war, arguing that every citizen of the Eternal City would rise up and fight to protect their beloved Emperor. The Minister of Coin argued that with enough gold the Barbarians could be persuaded to return to whatever God-forsaken wilderness they came from—though it seemed this had already been tried multiple times. The Minister of Truth urged the God-Emperor to flee, something I found so shocking that a gasp escaped my lips, though thankfully no one heard it over the muttering of the Sycophants behind. The God-Emperor, or at least the Winter Orchid, was equally appalled; for at this point she descended from the litter in all her extravagance to scream obscenities into the face of the Minister of Truth, questioning his manhood with spiteful eloquence. Only the mewling of the God-Emperor Himself drew her back up to the litter, having become visibly upset when He realised she had left His side, thus saving the Minister from further inflections.

        At one point the God-Emperor seemed to stir and roll slightly. I thought for a few glorious moments that He would at last arise, sweep aside the bickering advisors, and call for the Armour of His Ancestors. At last, I thought, He will take up the Sword and Spear of the Warrior Kings of Antiquity and ride out to battle the Barbarians Himself. However, my optimism was wholly misplaced. It became clear that the contortions of the Concubines had aroused Him in other ways. The Winter Orchid was obliged to interrupt the heated discussions in order to caress the God-Emperor intimately, at His insistence. To her credit, The Winter Orchid was able to continue the Audience undiminished in between pleasuring Him with her mouth. The scene reminded me of an irritated mother trying to eat a bowl of rice and breastfeed at the same time.

        However, I must put my misgivings to one side and trust in the methods of our beneficent rulers, however opaque they might appear. In fact, it gladdens me to know that the God-Emperor is well cared for in these turbulent times, for He bears an immense burden for all of us and suffers it with great dignity.

* * *

        My Honourable Mother has passed into sleep everlasting. So agonizing and prolonged was her end that I find I have no more tears to shed. The casket looked pristine as it was brought into the courtyard, and I laid a few gifts beside her before they closed the lid: her tortoise-shell comb, a silhouette of my venerable and long departed Father, a lock of fine black hair from the daughter—my sister—that was lost in infancy before I was born. For myself I placed a small watercolour I had painted in my youth, depicting the view of mountains from our village, which she had hung on her wall for many years. The Acolytes from the Temple performed the necessary rites with the utmost serenity, even as the sound of battle drifted overhead. The fighting was no more than a few streets away by then, perhaps at the Inner Wall itself, though the reports insisted that the Barbarians had been pushed back. The procession to the Temple was limited to a few hours only, and there was not the usual gathering of friends and neighbours. Though I understand that there are more pressing matters at hand, nevertheless their absence was humiliating and the offenders have been noted.

        The trip down into the Catacombs could not be circumscribed, however, as the ways are narrow and hard to navigate with any dignity. The Catacombs are a mirror image of the City, stretching for miles in each direction. There are main thoroughfares where the wealthy are laid, lit with torches and decorated with frescos. Many of the Mercantile families have entire galleries dedicated to them and large mausoleums carved from the rock. Some are in good repair, others have fallen into ruin, as dynastic fortunes have waxed and waned through the ages. Still, there is a place for all—these spaces give way in turn to warrens of narrow, low-ceilinged corridors, where the bones of the Lower Castes are packed like salted herring; crowded together in death as in life.

        Our destination was the far end of a recently opened gallery, where a newly carved shelf had been prepared. I noted grimly there was space above it for myself, which I had purchased at the same time. A prime spot, and not inexpensive. The casket was raised into place, and then the hole was filled in with the plain red earthenware tiles on which I had painted the details of her life, not trusting the Tilemakers in this task. It was not my finest work, I am ashamed to report. My hand had shook, and I had struggled to find the words—the irony of which did not escape me. In the end, I had been reduced to bare facts, so unequal to the enormity of a life: a name, an age, a date, a marriage, a son. Reading again my sparse and insufficient words as the Acolytes murmured the Final Liturgies, I felt a wave of nausea and had to steady myself against the rough rock wall.

* * *

        Syu-Sha-Sol approached me at the Garden of Pleasant Relaxation, visibly relieved to see me alive and well and not disappeared. Of course I was unable to tell him the nature of my new assignment, though I assured him that it was a great honour and I hoped I would return to the Academy when the Barbarians were at last brought low. He had heard of my Mother and offered his condolences, at which point I was barely able to retain my composure. He was drinking rice wine, which was not his usual habit, and his hand was shaking.

        Finally I discovered the reason. He confessed that he was planning to flee the Eternal City that night, together with Kyu-Yah-Boh and some members of their families. Though the gates were barred, there were tunnels and escape routes operated by vagabonds and scoundrels, who profited from the enterprise by no small degree. If I could raise a small sum, he said, then I would be able to accompany them. So it seemed my earlier suspicions were not unfounded, though I was not ignorant of the fact that he was taking a great risk in talking to me.

        At this point he took something from his sleeve and passed it beneath the table. I reached forward, feeling his shaking hands groping for mine; upon finding them, he deposited something in my palm and pressed my hands around it: a small note, folded over many times. I unfurled it in my lap with some trepidation. It had been written hurriedly on cheap rice paper—tissue-thin and waxy. Though the technique was not up to his usual standard, I could not fail to recognize Syu-Sha-Sol’s own hand. It consisted of a single character, an archaic form that few would recognise, being much out of fashion. It was used most often by the poets of the Coastal Provinces. It takes the form of the encircling symbol which can mean hands but also prayer, and the simple runic signifier for soul, or love, which are considered equivalent. It is the votive offering to the Beloved, the object of longing: I have laid my heart in your hands.

        The meaning was clear to me. For half a heartbeat I allowed myself to believe, and though it was night the sun flared bright in my eyes, all the world was washed in colours, and a life of simple happiness stretched out before me. But all too soon the mocking voice of reason intruded. It was a trap, I realised. An obvious and clumsy attempt to test my loyalties by the Chief Secretary or the Imperial Guard, perhaps due to my recent elevation to the Inner Circle.

        Syu-Sha-Sol’s eyes were fixed on me, wet with tears, no doubt yearning for me to see through the plot. No doubt he had been coerced into this entrapment and would feel lifelong shame if it were to bring me down. Still, I had to proceed cautiously. Of course, only a traitor of the highest degree would flee the Eternal City in its most desperate hour; there was no question of accepting the offer. However, I perceived a subtler snare—that out of my friendship for Syu-Sha-Sol I might neglect to inform the proper channels. I realised that the only way to prove myself was to go straight to the Imperial Guard. This is what a true son of the Eternal City would do. And of course, I reminded myself, I wouldn’t actually be informing on Syu-Shal-Sol because there was no actual escape—it was all a fabrication designed to ensnare me. The more I thought on it, the more sure I became.

        I excused myself politely, saying to Syu-Sha-Sol that I would think long and hard on what he said. Afterwards I went directly to the Inner Court—fearing that any delay would be interpreted as indecision—and recounted everything in full. After several hours I was allowed home. I woke some time before dawn, wet with terror, having dreamt of that wretched dog, scraping its belly across the cobblestones to its end.

* * *

        The unthinkable has come to pass. The Eternal City has fallen. The Barbarians have overrun the Inner Court. The Infallible General Lho-Lhar was killed heroically defending the Inner Wall, and the Ever-Victorious Army has been destroyed. It is said they fought to the last man, though I saw with my own eyes a great number of them running through the streets tearing off their uniforms and casting down their swords. The Winter Palaces were burned to the ground. From the window of Mother’s room I saw myself the great black cloud. Thankfully the wind was from the West and the smoke was carried away.

        The Barbarians themselves turned out to be disappointingly ordinary and marched down the streets in well-disciplined lockstep with neither tails nor horns. They look much like us, in truth, though their armour is plain. The last remnants of the population looked on with the sullen indifference so common in the Lower Castes. There was no great battle in the streets. The gutters did not, in the end, overflow with our blood as had been promised. This is a shame and humiliation on a scale beyond all imagining.

        It is claimed that His Worshipful Radiance the God-Emperor Ai was captured by the Barbarian’s encircling army as He tried to flee the Eternal City, though I think this is spiteful propaganda. When the populace was called to the Square of Everlasting Joy, the assumption was that He was to be executed, along with His Ministers and even the Winter Orchid herself. There was a great deal of speculation and unpatriotic curiosity as to the methods of torment that would be employed by the Barbarians. We underestimated them again, it seems, for in the end they had something far worse in mind. He was given a speech to read. This He did, though with great difficulty from his litter (now free of concubines, I was thankful to observe). Though his voice was soft and child-like and did not carry far, He proclaimed that He was not in fact divine but rather a man like any other. He bore the humiliation with great serenity, though I saw many faces in the crowds wet with tears and suffering for Him.

        The General of the Barbarians spoke afterwards, not in barks and grunts but in passable dialect, of liberation not conquest. The Ang-Shyu-Fhal Dynasty is at an end, it was proclaimed. The Ever-Victorious Army will never march again, nor bring tyranny to neighbouring lands. The Empire Without End will be broken up into its many Provinces, each with their own rulers and forms of government. The Eternal City and its environs are to be governed by a Council of Scholars and Bureaucrats. Trade, long resisted by the Ang-Shyu-Fhal, is to be opened up with the rest of the world. In time it is expected that the Indentured would be lifted out of their appalling poverty and the Lower Castes would rise with the tide of wealth. On and on it went, each phrase measured and reasonable. Rather that we had all been slaughtered then and there.

* * *

        I have returned to the Academy to continue my work, though I have had to set aside the transcription of the Venerable Yai-Nn for there are a great many changes, and Proclamations and Edicts are published daily.

        The note lies before me as I write, creased and prematurely aged through much folding and unfolding, as I have folded and unfolded my memories of that night. And with each folding and unfolding, my heart grows as thin as the cheap rice paper on which it is written. I have not seen or heard of Syu-Sha-Sol since that night in the Garden of Pleasant Relaxation, which leads me to an inescapable and harrowing conclusion.

        There is a sigil employed often by the Poet-Philosophers of the Jai-Jo Prefecture, who were fond of Tragedies and sexual transgression. It takes the familiar Root for soul, or maybe will, but adds short Invectives that can mean “opportune” or “timely” and combines it with a long forgotten Abstract, meaning static or frozen. It could be rendered as: Paralysis of the soul at the moment of rapture.

        I remember puzzling over it at the time, thinking it mere euphemism for sexual impotence. Unfortunately I am now able to grasp its full unhappy resonance.

        A door was left open for me, that evening in the Garden of Pleasant Relaxation, as a scrap of paper was passed beneath the table and pressed into my unworthy hands. That door stood ajar, shafts of sunlight spilling through, with sounds of birdsong and the breath of wind-stirred leaves. It was so simple—such a small thing!—to reach out and step through... but at that final moment of rapture my recreant heart deserted me.

* * *

        The Doctor has visited several times. He fears I am falling into the grip of Melancholia. Today he brought his daughter with him, a plump moon-faced girl who could not lift her eyes from the ground. The Doctor proclaimed: What this house needs is children. The laughter of children is better than any medicine. He grinned at me expectantly.

        I smiled painfully back and said nothing. What I thought was: If that is your honest medical opinion I shall have to engage another Doctor. I have always found the laughter of children grating and irritating beyond endurance. It was only later that I realised what he was proposing—no doubt I am entirely illiterate in these matters. I confess I even considered it, at least for a few moments. In the end however, I could not in all conscience condemn another to join me in this cell, despite the comfort and companionship it might offer. No doubt this will be interpreted as a slight. No act of kindness ever goes unpunished, as the Proverbs have it.

* * *

        I am ashamed to confess that last night I stood upon the Bridge of Sighs and gazed unblinking at the churning waters below, as have countless others on that dismal spot, contemplating self-slaughter. The meanness of impending years stretched out before me, the days of quiet turmoil followed by the inevitable and humiliating degeneration of the body. And who would there be to spoon broth into my mouth? Or trickle a tincture of opium onto my lips? And in my extremities I could not even curse the Gods, since they are innocent in this, if little else; all my agonies are self-wrought.

        I am not sure what turned me away in the end; perhaps that final act demands some small degree of courage that is beyond me. I have heard also the accounts of those unfortunates who stepped out into the void yet changed their minds on the way down, which seems too appalling to contemplate.

* * *

        Rice and salt flow once more into the City. A great many who fled have now returned, and with them the voices in the street, the vulgar sound of commerce and industry. Prices have normalised and in fact are now lower than in living memory.

        Today I walked in the Gardens of Peace and Tranquility, as in happier times. To my astonishment, though Spring is many months away, some Winter-blossoming trees were already budding. My mood was lifted, imagining the impending burst of colour. No matter what befalls us, the world continues, oblivious. The ivy that climbs the wall, the moss that furs the stone, the breeze that stirs the grass, the trees that turn their leaves to the pitiless sun and send their roots feeling blindly through the clotted wormy earth: these things are unburdened by the rise and fall of Empires or the torments of a solitary man. I take some small comfort in this.

        Afterwards I visited the Temple, and made my way through the Catacombs, and wept freely at the shrine of my Honourable Mother, and begged forgiveness for this most undutiful son. I gazed unhappily at the empty space that lay above her, waiting to be filled. What brief and callous epitaph would be written there, I wondered, and by what indifferent hand? No doubt some barely literate Tilemaker’s Apprentice rushing through the afternoon’s work. I resolved to take the matter in hand myself and have already ordered the tiles, which I will inscribe when they arrive.

        I have in mind a simple inscription, originally written for me in the Garden of Pleasant Relaxation, on a scrap of paper as thin as skin, creased from much folding and unfolding:

Copyright © 2020 Dominic Wright

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Dominic Wright lives in Liverpool, England, with his family. When not mangling sentences into something approaching coherency he spends his time reading, looking on with disbelief, and wondering if this is the darkest timeline. He makes video games for a living and tells everyone who will listen to go and play “What Remains of Edith Finch.” “Degeneration” is his first published story.

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COVER ART

“Colossus,” by Vladimir Manyukhin

Vladimir Manyukhin is a digital artist based in Moscow. He has been drawing since childhood and started drawing professionally ten years ago. He currently works as a concept artist and doing freelance work and work for the soul. He has worked with Creative Assembly on the series “Total War.” His digital illustrations are suggestive and full of realism, capable of engaging those who observe them into an intriguing reality. View more of his artwork at his gallery on Art Station.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

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