Costi’s
fiction has appeared in Canada, the US, and Europe. He has sold 5
books and over 50 stories for which he has won 24 awards. He was
three times a finalist for the Canadian Aurora Awards.
His
latest sales include the anthologies Tesseracts
17, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk,
Dark Horizons, Street Magick, Water, and
Alice Unbound.
His
bestselling novel RecipeArium
has won three awards (Kult, Nemira, and Vladimir Colin) and was a
2018 finalist for the Aurora Awards.
His
second novel, “Servitude” was published in October 2022. And his
latest novel “Green Corrosion” is book 1 of the “Corrosion”
series, and was published in September 2023.
To
find out more about Costi Gurgu visit
https://costigurgu.com/
Website
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The Silkers
The sky was the color of moldy cheese. A upside-down, frothy swamp hanging so oppressively low, some of the decaying towers pricked its purulent belly.
Geo always felt sick after looking at the sky, but he inevitably looked every time he observed the Golden Tower, or the Silkers Tower, as people called it. The only high-rise structure in the city still in use. All the other high-rises had been abandoned long ago, after entire floors collapsed with the tenants inside. They rose, derelict, their windows clotted, in a ghostly jungle. The Silkers Tower, though…it supposedly had been consolidated and adapted to the new conditions. The golden structure gleamed like the only source of light in a city of eternal mist and green reflections.
Geo breathed deeply a few times to calm himself. The unwholesome effluvia of corroding bodies coiled through the air. He shut his eyes and ignored the fetid damp creeping through the rebreather. Then he looked around and felt a pleasant thrill, an ever-present fear, and lust, all at once in a bubbling, poisonous mixture. Lately, that had been the marinade his brain floated in.
He was part of the Silkers procession that had traversed the city from its port to their Golden Tower. Ninety Silkers soldiers had disembarked and took to the streets of the city to be next to their brothers in the most celebrated event of the year—the Water Passage.
The people of the city filled the streets, eager to glimpse the glorious army. And Geo was at its head, in the lead. Next to Prince Boris and his court, surrounded by Boris’s elite guard of Luna Warriors, atop the royal wheeled platform of rust-red water-silk.
He was thrilled to be in such dangerous company. He lusted for the kind of attention this display of power attracted. And the fear was ever-present, fear of the Silkers’ reality and their way of life, their values and ever-shifting interests. Fear that today he was at the center of their attention and tomorrow he might wake up discarded. Fear of what being part of the Silker Court implied and what not being part of it meant for Geo’s clan.
The mayor and his Blue Officers watched the passing procession from the central balcony of the City Hall. It was supposed to show the people that the procession was for him, for the ruler of the city. But Geo knew that in reality it meant that the mayor was not invited to be part of the procession and was not invited to watch the Water Passage Ritual, as he, Geo, was. Geo, the prince’s special guest. Last year Nimesh of the Bones Clan, who had mysteriously vanished; this year, Geo. Prince Boris’s special guests and friends. The Silkers’ ever-shifting political interests.
The City Hall was a two-storey building lined with waves and waves of mortar to keep it from collapsing under the continuous attack of the water. It looked like a thick, monstrous candle, the wax melted in ripples from years of burning. Its balcony was the only thing moved forward so it remained on the outside, overlooking the Mayor’s Square and the Golden Tower. Prince Boris said that they had decided to rehabilitate the Golden Tower as a sign of respect for the City Hall.
But Woodman the Elder, Geo’s grandfather and the leader of his people, had a different opinion on the matter—that Prince Boris wanted to rub the mayor’s face in the fact that they had the knowledge to actually convert an old structure to survive the vicissitudes of their times. And that the Golden Tower of the Silkers looked a thousand times more royal than the City Hall. And that all the people could see it, because the two buildings faced each other.
The procession stopped in front of the Golden Tower. The mayor waved formally and the prince nodded elegantly. The crowd gathered in the Mayor’s Square burst into cheers. The three detachments of the prince’s three armies took their places around the royal platform and waited. The Luna Warriors secured the tower’s entrance and took up position as a guard of honor.
Geo shuddered. He was about to enter the infamous tower for the first time. He was about to pull his clan into history. They were about to go public. Official. Known of. Dangerously exposed. Thrills and fear.
This sounds like an interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
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