PodCastle 157: As Below, So Above
As Below, So Above
by Ferret Steinmetz
Up at the shimmering edge of the sky, where the water met the air, Son spread his tentacles out beneath the terrible shadow of his father. They were waiting for the ships. Son felt the approaching heart-thrum bouncing off the coral-crusted hulls below as the ships crested the painwall.
Are you sure you should do this, Father? Son thought. He twisted his mantle around to gaze at the scarred stumps of his father’s tentacles. You’ve trained me well. There’d be no shame in letting me take this harvest.
My name, thought Two-Father, his beak clacking shut with the finality of a ship’s hull crunching into stone, is Two, formerly One. It is a name I earned, one murder at a time. And I will carry out the harvest until Dysmas decides I am no longer worthy. He flexed his tentacles experimentally, then added: Perhaps He already has.
About the Author
Ferret Steinmetz
After twenty years of wandering desolate as a writer, Ferrett Steinmetz attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop in 2008 and was rejuvenated. Since then, he’s sold stories to Asimov’s Science Fiction (twice!), Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, among others, and otherwise has a marvelous collection of very personalized rejection letters. He lives in Cleveland with his wife, a well-worn copy of Rock Band (“Painkiller,” Expert, four stars), and a friendly ghost. Should you want more of Ferrett Steinmetz, he blogs about puns, politics, and polyamory at The Watchtower of Destruction (http://theferrett.livejournal.com).
About the Narrator
Norm Sherman
Your narrator is the the King of Kitsch, the Sultan of Strangeness, the Odin of Oddity, the Nadir of nonNormalcy, Mr. Norm Sherman. You’ve probably heard Norm over at our sister podcast, Escape Pod, where he is Editor. And if not there, you’ll surely have heard him over on his own podcast, the Drabblecast, strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners, such as yourself. And if not THERE, well, just about anywhere in the genre pod-o-sphere.
