Steles of the Sky (62 page)

The sky broke black, it was so indigo. The stars in it burned with a hurtful beauty. A light … flared.

Flared and shattered, scattered. Samarkar thought of a dropped ember splashing sparks. They blazed brighter, though, rather than dimming, seeming to settle into the darkness and there make nests.

The dozen bright stars and two dozen less bright twinkled mostly in shades of gold and orange, but three near the leading edge of the pattern were ruby-red, and one near the bottom was sharply white.

They flared once more and made an outline, if Samarkar squinted right: a man, on a racing mare, head turned and arms raised to bend a bow. Then they faded and were just bright stars once more.

A bell tolled that none had rung. Hsiung startled in his chair. The indigo night shivered and blew away like a veil stripped by a breeze. One vulture spiraled on an updraft, wings gleaming like beaten bronze in the strong, red, rising sun.

TOR BOOKS BY ELIZABETH BEAR

A Companion to Wolves
(with Sarah Monette)

The Tempering of Men
(with Sarah Monette)

All the Windwracked Stars

By the Mountain Bound

The Sea Thy Mistress

Range of Ghosts

Shattered Pillars

Steles of the Sky

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

E
LIZABETH
B
EAR
was the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005. She has won two Hugo Awards for her short fiction, a Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Bear lives in Brookfield, Massachusetts.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

STELES OF THE SKY

Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Bear

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Donato

Map by Ellisa Mitchell

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Bear, Elizabeth.

Steles of the sky / Elizabeth Bear.—First edition.

    p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN 978-0-7653-2756-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4299-4768-8 (e-book)

I.  Title.

        PS3602.E2475S74 2014

        813'.6—dc23

2013029676

e-ISBN 9781429947688

First Edition: April 2014