Judgement Eve Verse 7 Ducaleon is now posted.
In which the Exemplar of the Will gives the verdict of the stars, that Ducaleon alone of all flesh is held worthy of life; and the son of Ducaleon must doom himself to heaven or earth.
This may be the first time in five years I’ve forgotten to post my Wednesday episode of an ongoing serial. This is peculiar, because I remembered to post the week before, despite being a hectic day when two of my boys were off to college, one for the first time; and remembered the week before that, when I was on vacation.
Judgement Eve Verse 6 Urael is now posted.
In which passion and fury impels mad tumult as a man of earth and a man of the stars clash in fiery conflict for love of a dark-eyed woman, shattering and burning the surrounding towers and shrines.
Judgement Eve Verse 5 Mehujael is now posted.
In which Idomenes comes to the splendid mountaintop city of those found worthy of life: and finds empty the golden streets.
Judgement Eve Verse 4 Crimptyphon is now posted.
In which the beautiful daughter of the evil scientist is abducted by a dark angel. Idomenes, albeit innocent of the sinful instincts of base mankind, learns the meaning of wrath.
Judgement Eve Verse 3 Harlequin is now posted.
In which Idomenes discovers his lover is pregnant with a child not his own. Away in wrath he strides, seeking murder, and is aided in his hunt by one disguised as a harlequin clown.
Judgement Eve is now posted.
In which the love of a Promethean is offered to a fair and scornful daughter of Typhon, whose beauty is beyond peer.
Note that this tale first appeared in Engineering Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris Books, London (2011)
It is reprinted in ALL MEN DREAM OF EARTHWOMEN AND OTHER AEONS, and made available here in preview, as a courtesy to my readers.
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Judgement Eve is now posted.
In which the deadly mirth of the Sons of Typhon is described, on the final day of a condemned globe, and the Invigilators of the Will, whom the vulgar call angels, hover above the carnage on wings of light.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 7: My Last Day of Light is now posted.
I aimed at the golden satellite more carefully this time, picking which whorls in the design I thought might be the electromagnetic accelerators. I fired again, and again. The unseen ray sliced neatly through the golden sphere, and the release of energies were causing blue incandescence — maybe this was what fires looked like in zero gravity.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 6: Wormwood, is now posted.
I was standing on the white diamond roof of a tower above the edge of the stratosphere. In the same way I could, by an act of will, eliminate the sensation of cold, I made it so the near-vacuum did not disturb me. My skin gleamed with some strange, luminous coating.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 5: The Dancers of Utopia, is now posted.
In the center was a vast open space, paved with crystal clear as air. Underfoot was a ballroom on whose roof I stood. Here an endless congregation of nude figures, male and female, all of perfect form and physique, all adorned with crowns and rings and countless winking gems, were dancing in a long and sinuous line.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 4: The Spiral Tower, is now posted.
It was the work of titans. It was a spiral tower of bronze and black metal, bright as a looking glass, easily half a mile across at its base, twisted like the horn of a unicorn, rising course upon course. Like an aqueduct, there reared arch after black arch, holding gates wide enough that an army eager to storm heaven could have emerged.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 3: I Could Not Catch Her, is now posted.
Fast as I trotted, I somehow could not catch her. She always was just out of reach, and in the blustery wind, just out of earshot.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 2: I Opened my Eyes with Joy, is now posted.
I opened my eyes, overwhelmed with a sense of joy. Eyesight had been restored to me. Light was mine. I was afraid that if I blinked, surely the sight would turn out to be delirium, and unending darkness would return.
Eventually I turned my head. I was lying, naked, in a bright chamber larger than a ballroom.
Scepter of Nowhere, part 1: It Happened So Quickly, is now posted.
It happened so quickly. We used to be human beings, you see. When I heard the bomb go off, I ran to the door at the end of the corridor.
Choosers of the Slain, Event Relic 3, The Land of the Young, is now posted.
As with all event relics gathered into the Great Museum of Man by the Time Wardens after the final extinction of mankind, this is only the current redaction.
What later chronomancers will add or alter, is, of course, a matter of speculation, based on those contemporary records of future events which our posterity allows to stand.
What makes this relic unusual is its stability. The Curator has yet no record of any variant timeline in which Prince-Chancellor Penthane displays a different character.
Some may be tempted to adduce from such illusions of stability that there are qualities of the human spirit which remain the same across all variations of time, which form a limit to the power of the Museum to edit history: but such speculation offends the dignity of the Time Wardens, and must be avoided, lest we be redacted ourselves by our own future.
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A new tale from another aeon, near or far, will be posted in this space next week.
