Lanni froze in place, his eyes dark and wide. “Selkie, you have a right to be angry, to think that Ben and I are trying to swindle you. I'll admit I am greedy—perhaps as greedy as your clay. But it isn't your money or your pottery I would take. I want your fire.” Lanni's eyes pleaded with her. “You starve me, yet you let the clay devour you."
Meg sucked in a breath. Her head throbbed. Why didn't he leave? “I have nothing to give you. And you have nothing I need,” she said through clenched teeth.
Lanni stepped forward.
"Don't.” She pulled the knife from her pocket.
Lanni grabbed her hand that held the knife. His eyes sought hers. “You may think I have nothing you need, but take this.” His free hand shoved something into her jacket pocket. Without looking she knew it was his talisman.
Letting her go, he quickly stepped back, out of knife range. He was sweating, his brow as lined as an old man's. “You're right, you need time to think, to be alone.” He hesitated as if he wanted her to tell him not to go.
Meg closed her mind to him. She stared past him, beyond the stream, at the gaudy gypsy wagons. He would finally leave. He had to leave now, before ... She swallowed back words that she could not even bear to think.
Lanni turned toward the river, and walked away from her. Above, the sky crackled from gray to yellow as thunder rumbled up the narrow valley. With his back to her, it was easy for Meg to pretend he was a stranger, a gypsy she should be wary of. But why wasn't he riding his horse? Why wasn't he taking the path to the shallows? The water was too high.
Lanni's long strides took him straight down the clay pit toward the pools—the shortest route to the cluster of gypsy wagons on the further bank.
"Good,” Meg said, clutching her skirt. She wasn't stupid; she knew what Lanni had meant when he said she starved him: he was saying she was unfeeling. If he only knew how much she felt right now. How her heart pounded and her legs trembled until she could barely stand. Her workshop, she should go there, sit at her wheel, and let the clay form what it would from this avalanche of feelings. But first, she would steal one last look, one last memory of Lanni.
He stood there, where the clay overhung the stream, his head bowed, watching the swollen water.
Why had he come home without coins? He knew she wanted them. A sick weight gathered in her stomach and a wave of grief bubbled up. Lanni had given away the jugs, and each one had been formed from the fire of her heart. She was their mother, they were her babies. She had let Lanni give her babies away. If you don't have need for her, there are plenty of potters in Burslem wanting a healthy girl. Why had her mother let her father take her to the pottery? She had been a child.
Meg dropped to her knees, her face in her hands. She sobbed so hard it was as if the ground beneath her quaked. The thunder boomed and the wind changed directions. Behind her the door to the pottery banged open and she could hear the whir of the wheel.
Again the earth vibrated.
Meg's face jolted from her hands. The ground was shaking.
At the top of the pit, where the ground water bubbled up from the earth and joined with the runoff, the clay undulated. It broke loose, sliding in a sheet toward the stream, toward Lanni.
Meg screamed.
Lanni turned. His eyes widened. He yelled as the bank under his feet gave way and he fell backward into the river, the landslide of clay rippling over him, the stream churning red.
Meg ran across the yard. Like quicksand the clay pulled at her feet. The shallows. The caravan. Running down the path, she shrieked for help. From the caravan a boy saw her. He dashed between the wagons as she started to cross the stream. The shallows seemed endless. Icy water numbed her legs. The short climb up the bank and back down to the pools was steeper than she recalled. The water pulled at her as she waded across the stream to where the clay fanned into the water. To where she thought Lanni had fallen.
The thunder detonated. Hard drops of rain pelted her. Though the downpour, Meg saw Lanni laying face up under the water. His legs and hips invisible under the silt, his eyes were crazed with fear and bubbles streamed from his mouth as his arms flayed in an attempt to push himself free.
Behind her, Meg heard splashing and shouting as the gypsies forded the stream. She glanced back and yelled, “Hurry, he's still breathing."
Ben stopped in the middle of the river, his outstretched arms signaling the other gypsies to halt. “We can't come closer,” he cried. “Look at him, it is not natural—the clay consumes him, yet his eyes are open, he breaths and forms words."
"You have to help.” Meg reached Lanni. Only one arm, a shoulder and his head were visible. Under her feet the clay writhed like a serpent. She could see it slick, and red, cleaving open like a mouth. She grabbed Lanni's arm. With all her strength and weight she pulled.
He did not budge.
"Does he have his talisman?” Ben asked, his voice penetrating the raging rain.
Meg's breath froze in her throat. She reached in her jacket pocket, and grasped the little jug. She pushed the talisman into Lanni's palm and then curled his limp fingers around it. She held his fist closed.
"Call his name,” Ben said.
His name? “Lanni?” Meg whispered, her heart knowing that the gypsy meant something deeper.
"His true name.” Ben waded closer, but when he reached where the sand bottom met the clay the current thrust him back. “Use the name you call him when you are alone together. You are his woman, aren't you?” he said.
With a tight hold on Lanni's fist, Meg sank to her knees. The frigid water rushed around her shoulders.
"Lanni,” she yelled as she leaned forward, snagged his shoulder with her free hand, and yanked. As she tugged, the suck of the clay increased, stealing Lanni from her grip and drawing him deeper.
"Lanni.” What other name was there to say?
"Lanni,” she sobbed as his head disappeared into the bed of the river. The only thing she could hold was his hand, and she clung to it with both of hers.
"Call it! Use his name. It is magic, the fire of it will burn him free of the earth,” Ben shouted.
There were no bubbles in the water. Lanni's fist slid from her grip. She held only a finger. His ring slipped off...
That first morning he had called her his selkie bride, and in return she had called him ... nothing.
Meg took a breath and went under the water. She could hear the suck of the clay and beyond that the drum of the rain, and still further in the distance other voices: her mother crying, her father crying, and for an instant she saw Mr. Clews looking away as he handed her the bonus.
In the swirl of red clay a gold ring glittered.
Meg clawed at the clay. She held onto rocks and pressed her mouth to the streambed. With the last of her air and all the fire of her heart she cried, “Husband."
The clay moaned.
The throb of rain pattered to a stop.
And in a frenzy of bubbles, Lanni's hand pushed up from the streambed. Meg gripped it, and pulled until she had his arm. She yanked again.
Meg was above the water, her legs braced against the current. “Husband,” she screamed, and Lanni's head and shoulders surfaced.
The gypsies were all around her. They hauled Lanni out of the water, dragged him to the shore and laid him down, with his head to one side.
Meg's teeth chattered and she shivered as she watched Ben put his fingers in Lanni's mouth.
Suddenly strong hands clamped her arms.
"Lanni, I want to stay with Lanni.” Meg struggled against the gypsy women as they dragged her up the bank to a smoking fire. But once close to the damp warmth, her exhaustion took over and as if entranced she surrendered to the women's care.
Two of the gypsy women held up blankets to form a wall, others stripped off her clothes, and rubbed her with warmed wool. Meg could not understand the language they chattered as they wrapped her in a quilt, brought her tea and compelled her to sit next to the fire.
Finally the men app
eared, carrying Lanni in a makeshift stretcher. They set him down—it seemed almost too close to the flames.
He did not move.
Meg pushed the women aside and went to him. She crawled under his blanket. He was as cold as clay in winter. Her breath caught in her throat. But then, she felt the rise and fall of his breath against her hair...
How long she slept, Meg did not know. But when she woke and they both could stand, Lanni took her by the hand, and before the orange fire he pledged himself to her for the second time. And then Meg looked in his eyes and pledged herself to him for the first.
* * * *
Eight months later, when they traveled to Montreal for the winter, Meg Smith and Lanni Gry were married at the Church of Notre-Dame. The Priest who officiated never mentioned the bride's widening belly or the clay talisman that each of them wore.
* * * *
Pat Esden can be found at her country store in northern Vermont designing with flowers and selling anything that holds still long enough to bring in a coin. When no one's buying, she is either cavorting with her husband and dogs or is in the attic working on her current project, a series of short fantasy stories about women artisans.
* * * *
I want a society where a parent would react to seeing violence being portrayed on a tv screen with the same repulsion as he/she would to seeing defecation being portrayed on a tv screen—where the programme would be turned off instantly, without hesitation, not as censorship but out of genuine deep revulsion. I want a society in which someone who finds violence interesting and desirable is considered mentally ill and in need of medical treatment.
—Suzette Haden Elgin, “The Profession of Science Fiction, 53: Towards a Society of Non-Violence” in Foundation (Summer 2000, Vol 29 No 79)
[Back to Table of Contents]
Upcoming Issue—Number 24
The Dao of Stones Yin Xi had been a teacher of the Way for many years. When the shi-ren approached him, his interest was piqued—he'd never had a student who was an alien before. “The Way that can be spoken is not the true Way,” Yin Xi said. The shi-ren scuttled away, but he would be back...
* * * *
The Little Cat in the Attic Window, the Blue House on the Corner Jess saw the cat in the window every morning and evening on her way to and from work. Lately she found she was anticipating the cat, as if they were old friends. And she was even dreaming about the cat. One day the cat meowed insistently at her, and she knew that something was wrong...
* * * *
Jhyoti Cadet Jhyoti was working on her final field assignment for exo-anthropology. She broke into the bashravi to find the secrets of the body washers. But she tripped over a dead body, and was found by the yighsilchi. Who would leave a dead body like this, and who killed the woman?
* * * *
Camouflage The hermit finally heard something over the radio—music. But it wasn't in any language he had heard. So it wasn't their rescuers—in fact, it was coming from the third planet, which they had always thought to be lifeless. He raced down to the canal, dry these million years, to tell the others...
* * * *
The Chermasu Alia ground blue corn in the traditional way, using the same three stones that her Mother and her Mother's mother used before her. She was interrupted by a stranger's singing. She invited the visitor in for lunch. He turned out to be an old man from a distant clan, but he seemed familiar somehow...
* * * *
Freya's Flight Today Freya would become a priestess in the service of the Huntress. She had rejected the wealth and power of the family business—she wanted truth and meaning. She would walk up the steps of the Temple to the top, and then she would fly. Unfortunately, she didn't know how to fly...
* * * *
Like Water in the Desert Max was riding the rails in search of employment when he met George. George had a job for him, but he only spoke of it cryptically. He seemed like a nice guy, though—he even shared his food with him. They jumped off the train and headed off to see a man named Robert Goddard...
[Back to Table of Contents]
Print Back Issues
Number 1
+ Stories by Tim Reid, Timothy Dyck, Terry Thwaites, Douglas M. Grant, Charles Conrad, and Gord Zajac
+ Reviews of the Blade Runner books and movie
* * * *
Number 2
+ Stories by Michael Mirolla, D. Sandy Nielsen, Paul Benza, Greg Bechtel, James Schellenberg, and Stefano Donati
+ Reviews of Isaac Asimov's books and movies
* * * *
Number 3
+ Stories by Bonnie Blake, Erik Allen Elness, Tom Olbert, Hans Albanese, and Robert Arthur Vanderwoude
+ Reviews of Stanislaw Lem's books and movie
+ Interview with James Alan Gardner
* * * *
Number 4
+ Stories by Timothy Carter, Bonnie Mercure, Carl Mills, Nicholas Pollotta & Phil Foglio, and Erik Allen Elness
+ Reviews of Frank Herbert's Dune books and movie
+ Interview with Tanya Huff
* * * *
Number 5
+ Stories by D. Sandy Nielsen, Anne Louise Johnson, B. R. Bearden, Mark Leslie, Carol W. Berman, and Hugh Cook
+ Reviews of Arthur C. Clarke's books and movies
+ Interview with Robert J. Sawyer
* * * *
Number 6
+ Stories by Leah Silverman, Nicholas Pollotta, K. G. McAbee, Hugh Cook, Stacey Berg, and Daniel Pearlman
+ Reviews of books by and about Philip K. Dick
+ Interview with Julie E. Czerneda
* * * *
Number 7
+ Stories by D. K. Latta, Hugh Cook, Kate Tompkins, Stefano Donati, K. G. McAbee, and Michael Mirolla
+ Reviews of feminist science fiction books and movie
+ Interview with Robert Charles Wilson
* * * *
Number 8
+ Stories by James A. Hartley, Ken Rand, A. R. Morlan, Vincent Sakowski, Kelly Howard, and James Viscosi
+ Reviews of feminist science fiction books and movie
+ Interview with Phyllis Gotlieb
* * * *
Number 9
+ Stories by J. S. Lyster, Kate Burgauer, D. K. Latta, Shelley Moore, Joe Mahoney, and Chris Reuter
+ Reviews of The War of the Worlds books and movie
+ Interview with Charles de Lint
* * * *
Number 10
+ Stories by Hugh Cook, David Chato, Nye Marnach, Matthew J. Reynolds, Chris Webb, and Karina Sumner-Smith
+ Reviews of New Wave SF books and movie
+ Interview with Candas Jane Dorsey
* * * *
Number 11
+ Stories by Peter S. Drang, Mark Anthony Brennan, Karl El-Koura, Hugh Cook, Harrison Howe, and Diane Turnshek
+ Reviews of books that Judith Merril wrote and edited
+ Interview with Guy Gavriel Kay
* * * *
Number 12
+ Stories by Carl Sieber, D. K. Latta, A. R. Morlan, Justin E. A. Busch, Rudy Kremberg, and Hugh Cook
+ Reviews of books and movie about Mars
+ Interview with Nalo Hopkinson
* * * *
Number 13
+ Stories by Ilsa J. Bick, Christopher East, Hugh Cook, Erol Engin, Nye Marnach, and Donna Farley
+ Reviews of Alice in Wonderland book and movies
+ Interview with Jim Munroe
* * * *
Number 16
+ Stories by Uncle River, Vincent W. Sakowski, A. R. Morlan, Ken Rand, and Michael R. Martin
+ Reviews of time travel books
+ Interview with Alison Baird
+ A Survey of SF & Fantasy Art (Part 3 of 3)
* * * *
Back issues are available online at www.projectpulp.com or through the mail. If you're ordering through the mail please make your cheque out to Crystalline Sphere Publishing and send it to:
Challenging Destiny
R. R. #6
St. Marys, Ontario
Canada N4X 1C8
* * * *
Back issues are $7.50 Canadian, $6.50 U.S., and $7.00 International (in U.S. funds).
[Back to Table of Contents]
Visit Our Web Site
On the Challenging Destiny web site you'll find previews of upcoming magazines, as well as guidelines for authors & artists.
* * * *
You'll also find lots of reviews from James Schellenberg that aren't in the magazine—reviews of books, movies, soundtracks & games.
* * * *
The web site is here:
challengingdestiny.com
* * *
Visit www.crystallinesphere.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Challenging Destiny #23 Page 15
