Альетт де Бодар «The Citadel of Weeping Pearls»

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The Citadel of Weeping Pearls

Published as an ebook in 2017 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

Cover layout by Maurizio Manzieri

Interior layout by Aliette de Bodard

The right of Aliette de Bodard to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without similar a condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Originally published in Asimov’s, 2015

ISBN 978-1-625672-54-4

ALSO BY ALIETTE DE BODARD

OBSIDIAN AND BLOOD

Servant of the Underworld*

Harbinger of the Storm*

Master of the House of Darts*

DOMINION OF THE FALLEN

The House of Shattered Wings

The House of Binding Thorns

XUYA UNIVERSE

On a Red Station, Drifting

The Citadel of Weeping Pearls*

SHORT FICTION

Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship

* available as a JABberwocky ebook

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Also by Aliette de Bodard

Acknowledgments

The Citadel of Weeping Pearls

About Aliette de Bodard

Excerpt from On A Red Station, Drifting

Acknowledgments

My deepest thanks to the Villa Diodati Workshop in La Pommeraie (Grayson Bray Morris, Jeffrey Spock, Ruth Nestvold, Nancy Fulda, and Sylvia Spruck Wrigley) for slogging through the first confused opening words of this, and special thanks to Sylvia who stuck around for the rewrite. Haralambi Markov and Juliette Wade read the entire manuscript and provided very detailed and useful notes.

Thanks to John Berlyne for shopping this around, to Sheila Williams at Asimov’s for publishing such a long and convoluted story, and to Maurizio Manzieri for giving it such great cover art.

And to Rochita Loenen-Ruiz for the constant support and abiding friendship: you are my inspiration.

And to my husband Matthieu and my sons the snakelet and the librarian, for reminding me the world is ever full of wonders and grace.

The Officer

There was a sound, on the edge of sleep: Suu Nuoc wasn't sure if it was a bell and a drum calling for enlightenment; or the tactics-master sounding the call to arms; in that breathless instant—hanging like a bead of blood from a sword's blade—that marked the boundary between the stylised life of the court and the confused, lawless fury of the battlefield.

“Book of Heaven, Book of Heaven. ”

The soft, reedy voice echoed under the dome of the ceiling; but the room itself had changed—receding, taking on the shape of the mindship—curved metal corridors with scrolling columns of memorial excerpts, the oily sheen of the Mind's presence spread over the watercolours of starscapes and the carved longevity character at the head of the bed—for a confused, terrible moment as Suu Nuoc woke up, he wasn't sure if he was still in his bedroom in the Purple Forbidden City on the First Planet, or hanging, weightless, in the void of space.