The Thorn Boy Read online

  The Thorn Boy

  And Other Dreams of Dark Desire

  Storm Constantine

  Stafford England

  The Thorn Boy and Other Dreams of Dark Desire

  © Storm Constantine 1999, 2002, 2010

  Smashwords edition 2011

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people, or events, is purely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. The right of Storm Constantine to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  http://www.stormconstantine.com

  Cover Artist: Ruby

  An Immanion Press Edition published through Smashwords

  http://www.immanion-press.com

  info(at)immanion-press.com

  Immanion Press

  8 Rowley Grove, Stafford ST17 9BJ, UK

  Contents

  Introduction

  The Thorn Boy

  Spinning for Gold

  The Nothing Child

  Living with the Angel

  The True Destiny of the Heir to Emiraldra

  My Lady of the Hearth

  Night’s Damozel

  The Face of Sekt

  The Island of Desire

  Blue Flame of a Candle

  The Heart of Fairen De’ath

  Introduction

  ‘The Thorn Boy’ has seen a couple of incarnations in print – this is the fourth, and its second to include other stories. As I am republishing all of my stories through Immanion Press, and the rights to ‘The Thorn Boy’ collection have reverted to me, I wanted to bring out the definitive edition.

  Quite often, I write stories as presents for friends, and several of the pieces in this collection fall into that category. The first, ‘The Thorn Boy’, was originally created as a birthday present for someone, and I produced it as a self-published booklet in an extremely limited edition – one for my friend and one for me.

  ‘Spinning for Gold’, ‘Nothing Child’, ‘Living with the Angel’, ‘The Heart of Fairen De’ath’ and ‘The True Destiny of the Heir to Emiraldra’ are reinterpretations of old fairy stories. These were written in the late Eighties for a friend of mine, and are retold with his fantasies in mind.

  For a long time, none of these stories existed in print other than in the privately-published chapbooks I’d created for my friends. But in the late Eighties I visited a convention in Australia, where I met the editors from Eidolon Publications, who were interested in any novellas I might have unpublished. ‘The Thorn Boy’ appeared from them in 1999, with great cover artwork by Rick Berry, who coincidentally had created the jacket art for my original Wraeththu books for their TOR American editions.

  I rewrote and expanded ‘The Thorn Boy’ greatly for publication. It quickly went out of print and is now one of the most sought-after of my books by collectors. Publisher Greg Shepard had distributed the book in the States and in the early Noughties, suggested that his family’s publishing company, Stark House, should republish the novella. There was still a big demand for the book, and to make it even more collectible, Greg and I decided that we should include other stories, both previously published and unpublished, set in the same world: that of ‘Sea Dragon Heir’, ‘Crown of Silence’ and ‘The Way of Light’, collectively known as the ‘Chronicles of Magravandias’.

  Even though the Magravandias trilogy had been published fairly recently then, I’d written stories set in its world for a long time. ‘Spinning for Gold’ and its companion stories were produced while I was writing the first Wraeththu book. As with ‘The Thorn Boy’ I re-edited them thoroughly for the new collection.

  Over the years, I’d set other stories in the same world, in particular involving the land of Mewt, which is a fantasy interpretation of Ancient Egypt. Three of these later stories had been published before, in various anthologies and magazines. For one of them, ‘Night’s Damozel’, I had collaborated with Eloise Coquio. Although I actually wrote the story, we came up with the plot between us. ‘The Island of Desire’ was an unpublished story I began writing about five years earlier. I’d never got around to finishing it, but completed it so it could be included in the collection.

  ‘The Heart of Fairen De’ath’ was left ouf of the Stark House edition of ‘The Thorn Boy’, because it was scheduled to appear in another collection of my stories (in the event, that book never saw light of day, since the publisher who was going to publish it went out of business), and for contractual reasons I couldn’t then publish it in a different book. However, it can be part of this new edition, thus collecting together for the first time, all of the tales set in the world of Magravandias. The other story new to this edition of the collection is ‘Blue Flame of a Candle.’

  Although most of the stories in this collection can be found in other anthologies of mine produced by Immanion Press, I wanted all the Magravandias Chronicles stories to be published together in this edition, as it made for a neater and more comprehensive collection.

  If there is a theme that links these stories, other than a shared world, it has to be that of the darker aspects of desire and how, when we indulge our passions, there can be unpredictable results. Most of the stories involve the protagonist lusting after a character who is in some way ‘other’, alien or bizarre.The compelling allure of ‘otherness’ leads the protagonists into shadowy dangerous territory, where sometimes their lives, if not their souls, are put in jeopardy.Often the landscape of the tales is almost like a character itself. I’ve dreamed of the sensuous, secret-shrouded lands of antiquity, where the nights are filled with perfume and the tantalising slither of silk against skin. In these places, the incubi and the succubae of the imagination wake up and walk. This book can be seen as a travelogue of the exotic landscape of the imagined realm. Travellers’ tales.

  Storm Constantine, February 2010

  The Thorn Boy

  This story is mentioned by one of the characters in the second book of the Magravandias trilogy, ‘The Crown of Silence’. It is regarded, during the time in which the trilogy is set, to be an early legend of that world. I wrote ‘The Thorn Boy’ a long time before I even thought of the idea for the Magravandias books, but when I came to write the trilogy, found I wanted to set it in the imagined world I’d created for several of my early stories. I wanted, in particular, to explore the land of Mewt in more detail.

  Originally, this piece was written as a birthday present for a friend, but I expanded it considerably for its first publication by Eidolon Publications in Australia. I saw it as the first of a series of linked stories. Each story would feature a ‘Wonder’ of this imagined world, an astounding edifice of some kind. The ‘Wonder’ in ‘Thorn Boy’ is Phasmagore, the temple of the goddess Challis Hespereth.I saw this as a gargantuan hollow statue of the goddess, the head of which would be lost in the clouds. Inside it was a warren of chambers, shrines and corridors. Strangely enough, I read recently that somewhere in India an enormous statue of Buddha is being built, along roughly the same lines.Another of these Wonders features in the story ‘Blue Flame of a Candle’ (published in The Oracle Lips collection, Stark House, 1999)
, and that is the Pyramid of Mipacanthus.

  I see this story as a tragedy, but with a hopeful resolution. I certainly don’t think Darien’s story is by any means finished, and one day hope to continue it.

  The first time I saw him he hung screaming in the clutch of two white-sheathed knights. They had prised him from the corpse of Harakhte, the dead, enemy Khan, brought him straight from the battle-field to present to the king. Now, his skin was lathered with the sweat of fear and the dead warrior lord’s blood.

  The Khan’s boy; a prize of war. He had been a slave to Harakhte; why now did he wail the lament for the lost and the loved?

  He was almost naked, his young, slim body filigreed with cuts and bruises. The blood of his dead lord mingled on his skin with his own. A muddied plait of fairish hair hung to the back of his thighs. It was impossible to tell whether his face was beautiful or not, because it was disfigured by the grimaces of grief. The knights, in their thin, milky scales of armour, held him as if he were an animal. They paid no heed to his screams, but then most of his exclamations were in Mewtish; a foreign, incomprehensible tongue.

  King Alofel sat beneath his canopy of white muslin, which was fringed with gold. They had brought for him a throne, all the way from the palace in Tarnax. I knelt beside it, looking at the Khan’s boy, my heart full of disdain and hate and, even then, the more subtle atrocity of envy.

  The King summoned his chief concubine, Porfarryah, who accompanied him everywhere, even to the brink of death. She too was clad in scales of white, but she never lifted a sword. Alofel would not allow it, and I think that secretly she must have been grateful, although she swore she was equal to any man in strength and valour.

  Alofel gestured with distaste at the captive and spoke to his concubine. ‘Have someone make the boy comfortable, and see to his wounds.’

  As Porfarryah bowed her head, she caught my eye. We had long been conspirators; it was essential at court. Queen Mallory was dangerous. Full of envy for those who usurped her place in her husband’s bed, she reigned over a clutch of gossiping cabals. We had to keep our wits about us.

  The boy continued to wail his ghastly requiem. I could tell it offended Alofel’s ears, which enjoyed only the tinkle of faint music, the play of the fountains on his marbled terraces, the sweet voices of love. ‘Is there nothing we can do to calm him?’ Alofel asked his company, and Porfarryah gestured for the herbalist’s assistant to come to her.

  Presently, the herbalist himself came swaying between the ice-coloured hangings of the tents, bearing a box of dark metal. At the sight of him, the boy screeched only louder. I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes, feeling, with satisfaction, the brief pressure of the King’s fingers upon my head. Then, I heard a series of strangled, terrible sounds and had to open my eyes, even though I was not that eager to see. The herbalist had inserted a row of medicinal thorns into the flesh of the boy’s chest, beneath his rib-cage, designed to bring a floating euphoria to his mind. For one endless moment, his eyes met mine. I shrank before his pain and bewilderment, suffused with an unbearable sense of pity. This was most unlike me, and I felt uncomfortable with it. Pity translated to despising in my heart. Presently, his noise subsided and he hung there, limply, his breath sobbing, his head lolling.

  I felt the King’s relief. It brightened the air. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now we must be charitable.’

  They dragged the boy away, his feet trailing in the churned dust as if his ankles were broken. I felt an absurd sense of anger for the way he’d affected me, and again caught Porfarryah’s eye. We sneered in complicity, and I thought the matter closed.

  I had been with the royal army for three months, for my lord, King Alofel, had ordered my presence. I had no love of war. Noblemen who once had glided about the court, talking in hushed voices of high and philosophical ideas, now relished wallowing in the blood. They even seemed to take pleasure in their own injuries, boasting about the fires at night of the hurts they had received and inflicted.

  The King, my Lord, as ever an acetic presence, commented little. He rode silently among his men, never courting danger, but never shying from it. His sword flashed redly with the rest of them, but I knew he took no pleasure in it. It was his duty as guardian of the land, nothing more.

  Mewt is a hot, arid country, and we had harried the Khan to the foothills of Sessalia; a crop of unforgiving, rocky spikes where water and food were scarce. Here, the war had been ended. It had begun over a dispute concerning the xandrite mines in the mountains of Lorgh Hash that swept down into both our countries from Elatine. Cos and Mewt each claimed ownership of the mines - although technically they must belong to Elatine. The meek Elatinians, however, would side with whoever seemed strongest and never dare to claim ownership themselves. Harakhte, the Khan of Mewt, recently-crowned, young and ambitious had decided to end the centuries of bickering. The answer was simple. The mines belonged by sacred law to the holy land of Mewt. Naturally, the Cossics objected to this and what began as a territorial skirmish escalated into full-scale combat. Allies from other lands were recruited, and the fighting ranged long and bloody throughout the reaches of two years. Now, it was ended, and Harakhte lay dead, taken by an arrow through the throat - which unhorsed him - followed by a barrage of dismembering sword-thrusts. There would be little left to display to his grieving people. His armies had lost heart after his death, and soon a puppet lord would sit upon the Bull Throne in Mewt. People speculated that Alofel would woo Menefer, the younger brother of Harakhte - it was rumoured he could be bought. Harakhte’s remains had been placed in a regal sarcophagus by the conquering king and delivered to the generals of Mewt along with praises for Harakhte’s courage. A strong party of our own generals and their men accompanied the sarcophagus, surrounding a slyness of Cossic advisors, who would arrange the new government.

  I did not see the Khan’s boy again until we reached home, the city of Tarnax, capital of Cos. I rode behind the army on the beautiful white pony that the King had given to me for my last birthday. At my side, Porfarryah sat astride a lean, black destrier. Citizens lined the street and keened in our victory, throwing us flowers, lucky coins and painted feathers bound with ribbons. The atmosphere was intoxicating. I was glad to be home.

  The Queen waited on a balcony of the palace. Its balustrade was draped with golden tapestries and garlands of flowers. She was surrounded by a horde of young concubines - all of whom she loathed - and the three little princes, two of which were her own children.

  There was only one Queen, but she resented having to share her husband. In her country, Kings were allowed only one woman, officially. Theirs had been a marriage of convenience, a mating of land rather than souls. Of course, she loved Alofel, for who could not? He was a slim, tall man, with a flag of bright gold hair, and a noble face. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. He gave the illusion of feyness, but everyone was aware of his power and his strength. I, as his favourite, knew him the most intimately. He would confide things to me he would never speak of to Porfarryah or her sisters. Sensitive to how this state of affairs could provoke trouble for me, from the day of my arrival at court, I had curried favour with the women. I counted all of the concubines as my friends, and we were united in our suspicion and dislike of the queen.

  More importantly, I had ingratiated myself with several members of the King’s Council, which on my seventeenth birthday had resulted in me being voted into an honorary seat. The position was not secure, and although I could speak whenever I wished, there were only certain, inconsequential matters on which I was allowed to vote. I could be removed at any time, should I fall from the king’s favour. Still, I had strong allies among the Council, for they knew I had Alofel’s ear, at times when he was most amenable. Mallory too had friends on the Council, and occasionally official meetings were little more than a game of wits. The Queen wanted to have her own place there, but Alofel would never grant her that wish. I do not think he was concerned about her having more power, but rather that he was a traditi
onal man, and expected his wife to enact the domestic role played by generations of royal women before her. Under other circumstances, I might have supported her ambitions. Despite our mutual animosity, I admired her strength and intelligence and recognised that, given a free rein, she would have been an asset to Cos’ government. Still, even if there was grudging respect between us, there was no chance of alliance or friendship.

  Our party entered under the great arch of the palace and ahead of us, the sky was dominated by the monstrous temple of Challis Hespereth, queen of heaven and earth, mother of all the gods. The fane was constructed as a titanic likeness of its deity. Clouds of vividly-coloured birds circled the mass of stone, released from on high by rejoicing priests and priestesses. The army had veered off towards the barracks, so only the members of the royal household who had accompanied the King on campaign, and his generals and advisors, were left in the group. Once the soaring gates had closed behind us, we all dismounted and a crowd of stable-boys and servants ran up to attend to our mounts and our luggage. Porfarryah complained of thirst.

  There would be a formal reception to welcome home the King, but first we would all repair to our chambers to refresh ourselves in private and bathe away the stains of travel and war.

  Porfarryah and I walked into the palace together, past the knot of grieving ladies who had realised, by now, that their husbands were not among those who had returned home.

  The palace is white, but its great halls at ground level are very dark inside. Dark and cool, their grey flagstone floors covered in red carpets. The love I felt for the palace was physical. I looked about me at the familiar, massive marble columns, grey in the gloom, the glint of old gold, where gigantic urns stood on plinths among the columns, the sweep of stairs with their thousands of shallow steps, swaying this way and that towards the galleries on the first floor. Muted white, dull gold and deepest crimson; these are the colours of the halls of Tarnax. The air smelled sweet and clean, as if fresh hay had been strewn everywhere. It was the odour of a special incense, blended in the monasteries in the hills behind the city.