Complete Short Fiction – Lillian Stewart Carl

The slight figure of the chaplain stepped forward and began intoning a prayer of thanksgiving. Everyone’s head bowed. Proserpina slipped away, and only William, peeking from below his brows, saw the gleaming form vanish well before it reached the curve in the road. Holy, yes, he thought wryly, but in another guise than virgin. “Amen,” said the chaplain.

“Amen,” the crowd repeated with a happy sigh. This had been the best show they’d seen in ages. Above the lists the sun was slanting into evening. Great golden clouds billowed out of the west, catching the sun, sifting it into shafts of gleaming light. Light compartmented like a honeycomb. Margaret glanced at William, no longer pretending shyness. Some spark in her eye made him wonder if she liked the taste of honey.

He imagined her pink lips polished by the amber syrup, her breath scented with wildflowers. Surreptitiously, in the folds of her skirt, he took her hand. Her fingers pressed his. Strange, he could still hear the buzzing of bees, a resonance faint but undeniable in his mind. William left the horses with the groom halfway up the mountain—no need to risk their hooves on the jagged rocks. And it seemed more polite for him to walk the rest of the way to the ruined temple on the mountain’s crest, to thank Proserpina for the change in his fortunes.

Next Sunday the first marriage banns would be read. The wedding was set for Michaelmas. How quickly the summer had gone, in a blur of light and tales of miracles. He’d made a reliquary for the samite sleeve, reflecting ruefully that before long the popular imagination would claim that he himself was the black knight. Proserpina would no doubt tell him his new life was of his own making. Be that as it may, he wanted to see her one last time.

But the temple was deserted. Even when he found his way to the circular colonnade above the sea and stepped into the rock-carved chamber he couldn’t find her. The stone table was empty, and the herbs on the bed only desiccated stalks. And yet the song of the bees still trembled in the salt sea- wind.

It was her song, and surely if he turned around he’d see her watching him. But all he saw was the statue she’d mended. It was already beginning to weather, its features no longer recognizable as hers. He followed a bee to the crevice in the back of the cave and set his eye to the crack. In a stone chamber just beyond his reach hung a giant honeycomb.

A shaft of sunlight, focused through some aperture, struck it, swirled around it, held it suspended in air with an almost perceptible note of music. The gold comb he had made— had she concealed it in the real one?

2026 by Jerry eBooks No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced in any form and by any means for any purpose without any prior written consent of anyone. 1kitap1.com/en 1kitap1.com/en Complete Short Fiction Lillian Stewart Carl (custom book cover) Jerry eBooks Title Page About Lillian Stewart Carl Bibliography: Novels Bibliography: Collections Bibliography: Nonfiction Short Fiction Bibliography Fiction Series The Borders of Sabazel The Rim of the Wheel From the Labyrinth of Night Upon This Shoal of Time Where is Thy Victory?

The King Under the Water Pleasure Palace Out of Darkness The Blood of the Lamb The Test of Gold A Rose with All Its Thorns Wild Honey Cold as Fire The Eye of the Beholder The Muse A Mimicry of Mockingbirds The Rag and Bone Man A Dish of Poison Sardines for Tea A Stake of Holly The Necromancer’s Apprentice Over the Sea from Skye Way Down in Egypt’s Land The Diamonds off Golkonda The Avalon Psalter An Offer You Couldn’t Refuse 1kitap1.com/en Lillian Stewart Carl was born in 1949 and grew up in Missouri and Ohio.

She has lived for many years in the North Texas area. She has work as an engineering aide, a librarian, a newspaper columnist, and a college history teacher. Her husband Paul is a retired geophysicist and they have two sons. Before turning to writing fiction full-time, Carl wrote reviews and critiques for a variety of fanzines.

Her first published work of fiction was “The Borders of Sabazel” for the fantasy anthology Amazons II. In a career spanning over thirty years, she has published nineteen novels and twenty-six works of short fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery and historical fiction genres.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 0e886b20759fde2d
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 4,330,301 bytes (4.13 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 664
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 851.29 minutes
• Total Words: 170,258
• Total Characters: 974,228
• Average Words per Page: 256.41
• Average Characters per Page: 1467.21

Most Frequent Words

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