Dust of Dreams

choose from.
    Badalle crawled off, trailed by Saddic, and she sat staring into the night. She threw away words. There. Here. Then. Now. When. Everybody had to cut what they carried, to cross this desert. Toss away what wasn’t needed. Even poets.
    ‘You have a poem,’ Saddic said, a dark shape beside her. ‘I want to hear it.’

‘I am throwing away
Words. You and me
Is a good place to start
Yesterday I woke up
With five lizards
Sucking my fingers
Like tiny pigs or rat pups
They drank down
You and me
I killed two of them
And ate what they took
But that wasn’t taking back
The words stayed gone
We got to lighten the load
Cut down on what we carry
Today I stop carrying
You
Tomorrow I stop carrying
Me.’

    After a time of no words, Saddic stirred. ‘I’ve got it, Badalle.’
    ‘To go with the silent pages.’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘The blank ones. The ones that hold everything that’s true. The ones that don’t lie about anything. The silent pages, Saddic.’
    ‘Is that another poem?’
    ‘Just don’t put it on a blank page.’
    ‘I won’t.’
    He seemed strangely satisfied, and he curled up tight against her hip, like a ribber when ribbers weren’t ribbers but pets, and he went to sleep. She looked down on him, and thought about eating his arms.

Chapter Nine
    Down past the wind-groomed grasses
In the sultry curl of the stream
There was a pool set aside
In calm interlude away from the rushes
Where not even the reeds waver
Nature takes no time to harbour our needs
For depthless contemplation
Every shelter is a shallow thing
The sly sand grips hard no manner
Of anchor or even footfall
Past the bend the currents run thin
In wet chuckle where a faded tunic
Drapes the shoulders of a broken branch
These are the dangers I might see
Leaning forward if the effort did not prove
So taxing but that ragged collar
Covers no pale breast with tapping pulse
This shirt wears the river in birth foam
And languid streaming tatters
Soon I gave up the difficult rest
And floated down in search of boots
Filled with pebbles as every man needs
Somewhere to stand.
     
    C LOTHES R EMAIN

F ISHER

     
    I
’m stuffed,’ said King Tehol, and then, with a glance at his guest, added, ‘Sorry.’
    Captain Shurq Elalle regarded him with her crystal goblet halfway to her well-padded, exquisitely painted lips. ‘Yet another swollen member at my table.’
    ‘Actually,’ observed Bugg, ‘this is the King’s table.’
    ‘I wasn’t being literal,’ she replied.
    ‘Which is a good thing,’ cried Tehol, ‘since my wife happens to be sitting right here beside me. And though she has no need to diet, we’d all best stay figurative.’ And his eyes shifted nervously before he hid himself behind his own goblet.
    ‘Just like old times,’ said Shurq. ‘Barring the awkward pauses, the absurd opulence, and the weight of an entire kingdom pressing down upon us. Remind me to decline the next invitation.’
    ‘Longing for a swaying deck under your feet?’ Tehol asked. ‘Oh, how I miss the sea—’
    ‘How can you miss what you’ve never experienced?’
    ‘Well, good point. I should have been more precise. I miss the false memory of missing a life on the sea. It was, at the risk of being coarse, my gesture of empathy.’
    ‘I don’t really think the captain’s longings should be the subject of conversation, husband,’ Queen Janath said, mostly under her breath.
    Shurq heard her none the less. ‘Highness, this night has made it grossly obvious that you hold to an unreasonable prejudice against the dead. If I was still alive I’d be offended.’
    ‘No you wouldn’t.’
    ‘In a gesture of empathy, indeed I would!’
    ‘Well, I do apologize,’ said the Queen. ‘I just find your, uh, excessively overt invitations to be somewhat off-putting—’
    ‘My excessively overt
what
? It’s called make-up! And clothes!’
    ‘More like dressing the feast,’ murmured Janath.
    Tehol and Bugg shared a wince.
    Shurq Elalle smirked. ‘Jealousy does not become a queen—’
    ‘Jealousy? Are you mad?’
    The volume of the exchange was escalating. ‘Yes, jealousy! I’m not getting any older and that fact alone—’
    ‘Not any older, true enough, just more and more . . . putrid.’
    ‘No less putrid than your unseemly bigotry! And all I need do by way of remedy is a bag full of fresh herbs!’
    ‘That’s what you think.’
    ‘Not a single man’s ever complained. I bet you can’t say the same.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to