Release date: September 1, 2022
Subgenre: Epic Fantasy
About The Gods Awoke:
Excerpt:
Illoe’s mind was calm, prepared for the walk through the city, contemplative, like the minds of the laborers carrying burdens across the high square. A row of pillars prevented draft beasts from befouling the temple mount and everything the temple ordered from the city had to be carried by men.
The cobbles of Penitence follow a covered streambed; the water that once flowed overland now swept through masonry vaults underfoot. At the narrowing of the road, where it dipped sharply to the plaza below, the underground passage narrowed as well, to force the water through a wheel that powered Chagrin City’s primary uphill transport, called the Water Car.
I could feel it—the tense water squeezing its way under stone in its passion for down. I felt it in a way none of the people walking above it could. A few were aware of the vibration under their feet,some excited by it, but most had traveled this road often and had long since stopped noticing. The water was powerful and dangerous. I felt the edge it gave even to unnoticing minds. I was moved to be passionate. I recalled the hunger for touch the girls had felt, unexplored cravings for untested flesh. I was hot with impatience and impotence. I wanted to touch, move, change. Was I a god or not?
I felt myself pressed on all sides, tight and fast and narrow. I brushed Illoe’s cheek. The down of his young skin bent against my briefly-formed fingertips. The world froze in that moment, and I could count the hairs I’d touched (twenty-six) and I had had two fingertips. It was the briefest, gentlest touch.
Illoe toppled like a broken reed, the rough pavement tearing cells from his skin.
The sting of injury, however minor, drew Illoe into an unreasoning rage, jerking his limbs to strike imaginary foes. Bluster kept the tears back. He swore on “Revestre’s Golden Tits” to beat the twelve bodily humors out of whoever had bumped him. He wanted, desperately, for someone to come forward, for a reason to hit and hurt. No one was near him. No one but me, and his fists passed through me without impact on either of us.
People were staring. He stood out on Temple Mount, in his secular clothes. It wouldn’t take long for someone he knew to hear about him swinging at air and yelling at nothing. He wished the ground would swallow him whole.
But I’d touched him!
He stomped his way down to the market, feeling more embarrassed and less angry with each step. I had touched him. It just took focus. I flew with this new knowledge, expanded like steam. All the city was mine. I could touch things!
I poured myself back toward Illoe, who was bumping shoulders through the plaza to get to the water car. A woman “accidentally” brushed his leg, a subterfuge neither of them believed, and I was reminded how he’d fallen, and hurt—his wounds still smarted on his palms.
I should try someone I liked less, first.
The cobbles of Penitence follow a covered streambed; the water that once flowed overland now swept through masonry vaults underfoot. At the narrowing of the road, where it dipped sharply to the plaza below, the underground passage narrowed as well, to force the water through a wheel that powered Chagrin City’s primary uphill transport, called the Water Car.
I could feel it—the tense water squeezing its way under stone in its passion for down. I felt it in a way none of the people walking above it could. A few were aware of the vibration under their feet,some excited by it, but most had traveled this road often and had long since stopped noticing. The water was powerful and dangerous. I felt the edge it gave even to unnoticing minds. I was moved to be passionate. I recalled the hunger for touch the girls had felt, unexplored cravings for untested flesh. I was hot with impatience and impotence. I wanted to touch, move, change. Was I a god or not?
I felt myself pressed on all sides, tight and fast and narrow. I brushed Illoe’s cheek. The down of his young skin bent against my briefly-formed fingertips. The world froze in that moment, and I could count the hairs I’d touched (twenty-six) and I had had two fingertips. It was the briefest, gentlest touch.
Illoe toppled like a broken reed, the rough pavement tearing cells from his skin.
The sting of injury, however minor, drew Illoe into an unreasoning rage, jerking his limbs to strike imaginary foes. Bluster kept the tears back. He swore on “Revestre’s Golden Tits” to beat the twelve bodily humors out of whoever had bumped him. He wanted, desperately, for someone to come forward, for a reason to hit and hurt. No one was near him. No one but me, and his fists passed through me without impact on either of us.
People were staring. He stood out on Temple Mount, in his secular clothes. It wouldn’t take long for someone he knew to hear about him swinging at air and yelling at nothing. He wished the ground would swallow him whole.
But I’d touched him!
He stomped his way down to the market, feeling more embarrassed and less angry with each step. I had touched him. It just took focus. I flew with this new knowledge, expanded like steam. All the city was mine. I could touch things!
I poured myself back toward Illoe, who was bumping shoulders through the plaza to get to the water car. A woman “accidentally” brushed his leg, a subterfuge neither of them believed, and I was reminded how he’d fallen, and hurt—his wounds still smarted on his palms.
I should try someone I liked less, first.
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About Marie Vibbert:
Marie Vibbert has sold over 80 short stories to places like Nature, Analog, and F&SF.
Her work has been translated into Vietnamese and Chinese, and has been
called “..the embodiment of what science fiction should be…” by The Oxford Culture Review. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was longlisted by the British Science Fiction Association for 2021. By day she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio.
Marie is also a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, SFPA. She was nominated for their Rhysling Award in 2015, 2021, and 2022, won second place in the Hessler Street Fair poetry contest, and once sold a rhyming poem to a magazine that had “no rhyming poetry” in their guidelines.
Marie is also a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, SFPA. She was nominated for their Rhysling Award in 2015, 2021, and 2022, won second place in the Hessler Street Fair poetry contest, and once sold a rhyming poem to a magazine that had “no rhyming poetry” in their guidelines.
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