The Apprentice’s Tale

by Rudi Dornemann

Unlike the rest of the apprentices, who swan about in dark-colored and inevitably muddy-hemmed robes of plasticky synthetic velvet, Eyve Aerial knows magic and fashion are inextricable. Thus the macrame Mobius scarf. Thus the jester’s motley diamonds she inks all over her jeans with antique ballpoints. Thus the six-button waistcoat covered in mirrors etched with tiny warding hands that she always wears under the Anorak of Power. Only her gloves are purely practical, worn because things tend to catch on the Medusa-cursed iron of her left hand’s fingertips. The clothes make the magician — and a good magician, thinks Eyve, makes her own clothes.

It’s not like the other apprentices don’t dismiss her out of hand anyway. They’re all from named houses or ambitious parents at least, while she used to live on the street and work as a courier, and there are whispers she should have lost that job after losing a valuable parcel. They don’t know that Eyve’s seen a couple dozen glimpses of the future, and even remembers some of them.

So when, on an inauspicious Thursday, the apprentices are ambushed by a pack of husk-zombies, and their tongues are all tripping over the syllables of the repelling chant that they’re trying to repeat as many times as possible, none of them expects Eyve to step forward and push her gloveless hand into the chest of the lead zombie.

“You used to be somebody,” says Eyve, “somebody who doesn’t deserve this.” She snaps a spark from her rusty fingertips. The zombie is all flames above the waist as it stumbles after its fleeing companions.

“Let’s find out who sent them,” says Eyve. She’s bouncing on the toes of her monkey-boots.

Huddled in a nearby doorway, her classmates just stare at her.

“The lines of power will be faint,” says one, and another adds, “We can’t see them anyway.”

“You can’t,” says Eyve, as she zips up her anorak’s snorkel hood. She’s embroidered eyes on either side of the hood and woven charms and amulets into the fur of the opening around her face.

Delayed Appearance of the Monkey God

by Luc Reid

Here was how it was supposed to happen: every forty-nine years, we march down the Sacred Avenue from the temple to the Grove of the Holy Fools, then to the cliffs over the ocean, and we’re supposed to walk on across the sky and into Paradise. But instead, the Monkey God sends a stampede of water buffalo across our path and we have to turn back. Then we go to our homes and eat the New Year’s feast, and we have music, and all the unmarried girls dance the coin dance, and everyone has a wonderful time.

This year there was more mischief to be done than usual, and the monkey god was busy. The Americans were visiting, and the monkey god had to teach them humility. The university had started courses on atheist philosophy, and the monkey god had to teach them that even seemingly well-built university classrooms can be overrun with army ants sometimes. And there were all the perfect kisses to interrupt and haughty civil servants to bring low and all of the many things the monkey god normally does, and I suppose he just got busy and didn’t notice the time. When he arrived, he was more than three hours late, and the only one left in the city was me, because I was too sick to be moved farther than the roof garden.

The Monkey God found me on the roof garden and stared at me as he wandered through, irritably eating flowers. Finally he spoke, which he doesn’t like to do.

“And?” he said.

“You’re too late,” I said. “They went over the cliff.”

“And what happened?”

“I couldn’t see from here. You’ll have to go look for yourself.”

He said he didn’t want to. Then his eyes went wide and he pointed past me to the Grand Square. “There they are!”

I looked, but nobody was there. There was a lurch, and I fell to the ground. When I looked back, the Monkey God was gone, and so was my bed.

I hope some of them decided not to try the cliff. It will be getting cold in a couple of hours.