![]() Twisting in his arm, trampling for balance on his thigh’s familiar warm solidity, I got upright enough to see over the table edge.Īt its head my mother was just ready to speak: high-boned Amberlight nose leveled, brandy-brown eyes narrowed, rampant curls escaping a Crafter’s single plait. Then she scanned the table, scooped up and dropped me in my father Sarth’s lap, growling, “Take care of this.” Catching the back of my smock, she grunted again as Two sparked at her, however mildly. I ducked between her shin and the swinging door and she grunted as she mis-stepped clear of me. The council-room latch was beyond my reach, but Zuri, Trouble-head and hence perpetually belated, was the last person in. So she had pushed us into the council room after that mirror-signal came: double urgent, passed up from the River at Marbleport, triggering a full council, Telluir House and Iskarda village both. Learning to speak, my word-hoard already a prodigy, though Two understood far more than I. I tried to explain that to my father Sarth, when in human time I was just three. ![]() So for our first five years in human time, Dhasdein to me remained some fabulous insect empire, ruled by the most glorious flying creatures of them all. When I was old enough to place the word, Two gave me an image to match: insects like jewelled daggerettes darting, hovering above water, glittering scarlet, glistening lapis lazuli, and the gauze shimmer of their wings. “Prince? The man’s a blighted dragonfly!” more to a prince than that?” My father Alkhes’ plosive consonants, clinching home the broad Quetzistani “a”: It comes first in a rare snippet from within my cradle: my mother’s quick, slightly burred Uphill Amberlight accent, its vibrations familiar from the womb. And even before we could speak aloud, the recollections of this flesh involve that name. But I need human terms to measure space and interval, to divide Two’s memories from those of my own flesh and blood. Small wonder, since my mother estimates Two’s memory runs for seven centuries and more, back to the founding of the oldest House of Amberlight. I say human time, though Two grows impatient with such words as “years” and “human,” especially where we are concerned. Yet when the crown prince of Dhasdein first crossed our path in the flesh, by human time I was already twelve years old. His nickname is woven through my life’s oldest memories. Many more thanks to the ever-patient Carla Coupe, a model among editors, and to Chris Howard for matching patience over the cover art. McKillip.Cover art copyright © 2017 by Chris Howard There are some stylistic similarities to the works of Patricia A. ![]() Her critical interests cover: Feminist Theory and History, Gothic and Horror Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Women's Writing. Kelso's novels are densely descriptive, the worlds complex and minutely constructed, the environments, lush or bleak, brought alive with poetic force. She has a Creative Writing MA built around one science-fiction novel using alternate North Queenslands and she earned her Ph.D. Sylvia Kelso is an author of both fantasy and science fiction, usually set in analogue or outright Australian landscapes.
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