Beneath Ceaseless Skies #423, January 9, 2025
“Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh” by Marie Croke
“Half Drowned” by S. L. Harris
Reviewed by Seraph
“Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh” by Marie Croke
Whispers on the wind, telling of secrets and wistful past, haunt Embri and her brother Vambrit. Once, in times only whispered of by the ghosts that inhabit the Whispermarsh, their tribe was strong and did not fear the waders that stalk through the waters. For their part, most of the tribe favored the unspoken and frail non-conflict that had become the norm. But Vambrit dreamed of a time when the tribe did not cower on the shores, away from their ancestral land. The story is told in retrospect, as Embri is interrogated for hiding away his body in violation of the command not to enter the marsh, and although it doesn’t feel like a murder-mystery at first, the story manages to bridge the gap between both that and fantasy. It is a slow, slow burn for the length of the story, but it was enjoyable all the same.
“Half Drowned” by S. L. Harris
Tragedy is but a moment in retrospect, but what it leaves in its wake is devastation. As ingrained in humanity as the will to live is, so too is the despair that grips us when everything around is destroyed and home is only a memory. Do such things transcend death and haunt us even in the spaces between? For Temeral Barr, the answer is yes. Death changed very little other than ravaging his flesh, refusing to claim the former Knight who so deftly had served her. How we as people face despair is something that he knows intimately, having sought relief from it in the depths of the water, but when his obstinate niece is taken by the monsters in the water, the fire that once burned within him sparks anew. That spark slowly builds into a flame that sees him wrestling the Queen of these monstrous water-dwellers, and his flame sparks a fire within his niece that similarly brightens into life. One fire lights another, until the path home is clear. It is the fire that lights our way back to life, through that space between life and death we call despair. I’d like to add that it is a pretty impressive thing when a story manages to convey such depth without ever actually addressing it as such, and happily add my recommendation.