Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes Read Free

my offering, and the first stars peering out of the ashy sky.

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    I left the remains of the rest of the people where they were—the domes would be their sepulchers—and took up my old place in my godmother’s house. Her bones I left where they were, too.
    I awoke at midnight that first night, weak and delirious. I’d set my trophy on the floor near the door, and it was leering at me. “What is it?” I asked.
    What are you going to do? You’re Phylarch of Nothing now.
    “I’ll wait,” I replied.
    Wait? Wait for what? New subjects?
    “The seraphim can raise up a new Arras from the stones of the earth.”
    Is that what you think? You think they’ll restore Arras just for you?
    “The world is the garden of Arras.”
    If the world is a garden, why did the seraphim blight its wells? If Arras is so much in their minds, why did they smite its members?
    “They must have trespassed while I was gone,” I mused.
    Ah, but perhaps it’s you who trespassed. Have you thought of that? Maybe it’s you who died, and they all wonder what’s become of you.
    I had no answer for this, and soon drifted off to sleep again.
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    The next morning I went out, hopeful for the day’s doings. But I soon found that I had little to do. What end was there for me beyond my own life? So I became restless as the sun rose high in the sky, having nothing to set my hand to.
    I went into the Palace and searched every corner of it. My uncle’s body was nowhere to be found. But I came upon the Garnet Crown in the royal apartment, and laid it upon my brow, and slung the Serpent Robe about my shoulders. I erected several dried bodies in the Phylarch’s Court and looked over them from the throne.
    After a few minutes I climbed down and put the things away. I went through the Court of Women to my mother’s room. Her wardrobe stood in the corner. It was made from the wood of a tree that had vanished from the earth ages ago. I opened it. All her clothes were there, save what I had buried her in. I ran my hand over them. They still held some of her life.
    I put on a gown of gold sea-silk, an heirloom of the House. It smelled like her, and I hugged it close. I laid her gold necklace about my throat and set the Jade Tiara on my head. There was a hematite mirror in her apartment. I caught my eye in it, and hastily disrobed and went out, trying to blank my mind. As I stepped into the sunshine I started at my own shadow. It seemed a demon there waiting for me.
    It was the middle of the afternoon. I scanned the dancing distance and descried a solitary figure against the sky. So I sat on a rock and waited. The sun slid down toward the west as the figure drew near. It was Gyges, my uncle.
    Madness lurked in his eyes. He had wandered far from the songlines, listening to false voices. The poison from the wells had caused the flesh of his gums to shrink back from his teeth. He was like a skin-wrapped skeleton, and his face was a living skull.
    “Do you disturb the land of the dead?” he demanded.
    “Is this the land of the dead, then?”
    “So it would seem. All are dead in it save you and me.”
    “What happened?” I asked. “I came back, and it was like this. The wells are foul.”
    “A storm swept in from the north soon after you left. For three days after it passed the wells ran high. And then they flowed with poison. The people drank and died.”
    “And you fled?”
    Gyges’ eyes glinted but he smiled his death’s-head smile. “How have you spent your time here, Nephew?”
    “I laid my mother to rest. Nothing else.”
    “So! You haven’t climbed the Pillar yet? It’s your right, you know. Your Walking is over and done. You are Phylarch now.” A look of cunning stole into his face. “But perhaps you don’t know how to break open the seals. Only I know their secret, as shown me by Astyges my brother.”
    “You