Monologue by an unnamed mage, recorded at the brink of the end

December 21, 2018 10:22 AM

I wanted to tell you, in case opportunity absents itself forever, that it doesn’t matter. That your magic is algorithmic, that mine is an abstraction of reality. That yours demands cartographic soliloquies, every verse a phrase and a phase of mathematics and momentum, every word you speak a part of the map, and you build the rules as you recite them. That mine is raw sensation, synesthesic, sinewy as sex, worthless with context, worth everything on the ledge at the end of time.

Hold.

We have to hold the line.

A short story by Cassandra Khaw.

posted by Etrigan (19 comments total)

gulp
posted by wellred at 10:43 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

And that's how you write a fucking short story.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:57 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

I think it might be salt-silver raining in here, or else I have something in my eye.

Thank you for this.
posted by tempestuoso at 11:24 AM on December 21, 2018

Her “Hammers on Bone” was a fun take on Lovecraft. Tor released it in a novella four-pack caled Reimagining Lovecraft, which is excellent all the way through.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:33 AM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

I realized I was holding my breath after the second or third paragraph and literally gasped at the end. That's some writing, there.
posted by elmer benson at 11:38 AM on December 21, 2018

Just bought "Hammers on Bone", thanks.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:30 PM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wow. Thanks for posting this.
posted by metaBugs at 2:10 PM on December 21, 2018

Magic. That's what's going on here.
posted by happyroach at 4:35 PM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

As cups of tea go, this is one of mine
posted by Redhush at 5:34 PM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Okay, I like the backstory, but you forgot to fill out the rest of your character sheet.
posted by runcibleshaw at 7:39 PM on December 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

I wonder if this is going to be a super-polarized thread, with half of us gushing about the beauty of the prose and the others scratching our heads and trying to figure out what's going on.

For the record, I'm in camp, "Pretty, but who are they and what's happening to them?"
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:57 PM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

What matters is the night when I first met you and how cold the air was, and how the ice needled my breath, and how you stood there with your hangdog smile, your hair rough-tangled, and the light in your eyes, sacrosanct in its shyness, was better than anything the heavens could stitch from the suns.

I could talk all night about my favorite passages from literature on love and longing. I have so, so many good ones. This one reminds me of one of my earliest and first favorites, which was from Shakespeare, discovered when I was a teenager/young adult - a time when heartache and longing always felt so immediate and so intense.

I'm not a teenager anymore, so reading things that can bring back that same kind of rush which makes my heart pound heavily in my chest and my head feel light is kind of a joyful gift for me. This is gorgeous. Thank you for sharing.
posted by triggerfinger at 10:03 PM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

For those who seem to have lost the plot:

Two lovers left to fight the Revelation of Returning Gods. Each from a different school of magic. Opposed in nature and practice, united by love, their orders offer them an insane choice, one that should be no choice at all. No doubt each is powerful beyond the mean of their Orders. They should return to their place and put the passion behind them as a folly. Their love is no folly, or if it is neither will leave it behind them. They are sent to a war outside the normal bounds of the world. They join or are joined by a variegated band of companions. Eventually their names, like the names of their now lost comrades, are taken from them, probably in a battle more metaphysical than one tied to an identity can comfortably understand. They are fighting a battle where victory comes not from the fight but the tales of the fight. This implies that they are fighting both a physical but also a semiotic war. Their last stand may be the Alamo of their war. The tragedy of their defeat is not lessened by the unrealized dreams of their relationship.

Also the word-smithing is amazing and this story should be read aloud, if only to oneself, to hear and feel the prosody.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 10:05 PM on December 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

Breathtaking! Actual goosebumps. Wow, wow, thank you, Etrigan!
posted by E. Whitehall at 12:32 AM on December 22, 2018

Or, for a shorter, more concise version: two lovers from separate tribes/sects/groups who were not allowed to mingle have been condemned to an impossible task because of that love, it was that certain death, or choose to be separated.

They are at the end of the task. They are still in love. The power of their love might well be enough to see them through, or, more darkly, might give them the power to keep fighting a losing battle long past a time when they would have given in without the other.

One is saying to the other, do not despair, I am with you, and you are with me, so I will not despair. You, me, we can do this.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:51 AM on December 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

To be read aloud.

Thank you for that.
posted by mule98J at 7:52 AM on December 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Goodness.

I used to read L'Engle, Tolkien, others, looking for *this*.

Thank you.
posted by allthinky at 8:45 AM on December 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

What matters is that I love you and that I will always love you, and I won’t let them have you, even if I have to husk myself of all that I am ...






posted by otherchaz at 9:08 AM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Jesus, otherchaz. I mean I should have realized from the words you linked that on, but Jesus.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 6:29 AM on January 14, 2019 [1 favorite]