Instead of Briars, the Myrtle Will Grow

By Alana Bleness

The Tanu are a mighty empire. They conquer and civilize, and are not afraid to display their accomplishments. They alter their environment to suite their tastes. Their laws are sacred, their king revered to the point of worship.
When the boy Iskander arises as a prophet, he does little and says less. And the might of the Tanu crumbles before him.
Set in a fictional world not too different from our own, this thought-provoking short story by A. Bleness offers up a complex range of social and environmental themes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alana Bleness
• Release date: Jun 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005524630

Alana Bleness

A. Bleness is a native of Planet Earth and a resident of East Tennessee. She enjoys gardening, watching movies, and getting involved in projects that require waaaaayy to much research. She is currently working on a science fiction novel, to be released in 2023.

Book preview

Instead of Briars, the Myrtle Will Grow

by A. Bleness

Copyright 2022 A. Bleness

Smashwords Edition

Other titles by A. Bleness:

Ave: The Battle of Agincourt

The Psychopomp

In the time before Iskander’s birth, the mad prophets roamed the land, crying out the mysteries of God. Men and women alike, they wandered from city to desert and back to city, wherever their holy fervor led them. Kings vied to house them, consulting them for signs and employing scholars to record their ravings. Townsfolk would approach them in the fields to beg a blessing. Some refused to eat, too caught up in their visions to require food; others took vows of silence, of sleeplessness, of nakedness, becoming living manifestations of their prophecies. In Iskander’s own town, he had heard, there was a man who spoke only to carrion animals, and a woman who would sit motionless for days before rising to dance a frenzy to unheard music.

Exactly a year before Iskander’s birth, the Tanu arrived with their armies. They overthrew the great cities; they dragged judge-kings from their seats and priest-kings from their alters and beheaded