The End Has Come

Karron tore her eyes from the map and looked at Oni. “History repeats,” she said softly.

“Marta, the woman you call Jill, she stole us. Said a baron would pay for us. She killed the others, but not before Sandy, the woman from Sanctuary, gave me the map and told me how to find it.” Oni leaned back against the piled blankets with a pained sigh and carefully rolled up the map.

The stew started to boil over. Karron turned away from the kids, from the map to an impossible place, and settled for dealing with dinner.

Later — her belly full of spring roots and rabbit — she stood at the edge of the river and watched lights smear across the darkening sky. Ishim came up beside her, making no attempt to hide his approach.

“Do we take them to this place, this Sanctuary?” he said.

“Tarik is yours,” Karron said. She turned and looked at her friend. Her real words were unspoken. Don’t make me decide.

“We been on the river a long time,” Ishim said. “Drifting up and down. Been a long time since I did anything but sail with my grief and try to outrun old memories.”

“We are alike,” Karron said, her mouth twisting into what felt like a smile. At least on the outside. “I like the river. Sanctuary is a dream, nothing more.”

“Maybe it’s time we stopped drifting,” Ishim said with a too-casual shrug. “Can’t just leave two kids on their own. But if you don’t want to go, we’ll set them down in Ria. That boy is smart as ten men. He’ll figure his way and take care of his sister.”

Karron nodded and looked back to the sky as Ishim moved back toward the camp. She walked to the very edge of the river. Water soaked through her boots, her toes going numb as she stood on the muddy bank. Oni and Bee. Children like she had been. Like she still was, in the bright moments she couldn’t quite seem to escape.

“Water, water, everywhere,” she murmured. Bending low, she dug her fingers into the mud and squeezed, feeling the gritty earth slide over her skin.

Sanctuary meant healing, meant being free of insanity, free of the things in her head. Myth. Myth like War Children were becoming a myth. Another generation, and they’d be as forgotten as most of the texts and histories from before the Ring, as much legend as the Archive was legend, as the great Wars would become in thirty or fifty more years.

Ishim was right. She had been drifting on the river. But now she had a brother and sister again. And they had a map. A map to a dream.

Karron bent down and let the river wash the last traces of grit from her hand.

Maybe it was time to dream again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Annie Bellet is the author of The Twenty-Sided Sorceress and the Gryphonpike Chronicles series. She holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh. Her short fiction is available in multiple collections and anthologies. Her interests besides writing include rock climbing, reading, horseback riding, video games, comic books, table-top RPGs, and many other nerdy pursuits. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and a very demanding Bengal cat. Find her on her website at anniebellet.com.

CARRIERS Tananarive Due

2055

Republic of Sacramento

Carrier Territories

Nayima’s sleep had turned restless as she aged, so the rattling from the chicken coop outside woke her before her hens raised the alarm. The intruder was likely either feline or human, and she hoped it was the former. A cat, no matter how big, wasn’t as dangerous as a person.

Nayima ignored the sharp throb in her knee when she jumped from her bed and ran outside with her sawed-off in time to see a hound-sized tabby scurrying away with a young hen pinned in its teeth, a snow globe of downy white feathers trailing behind. The army of night cats scattered in swishing bushes and brittle leaves. The giant thief paused to look back at her, his eyes glowing gold with threat. The cats were getting bigger.

Nayima had been saving that hen for Sunday dinner, but she was too winded to chase the thief. Now both knees throbbed. And her lower back, right on schedule. She fired once into the dark and hoped she’d hit him.

Fucking cats.