Artifice & Craft

By C.E. Murphy, David B. Coe, Edmund R. Schubert and 15 more

Would you kill for your art? Would it kill for you?

A painter who kills with blood-tinged pigment. A tattoo artist with a dark past who treats with demons. A sculptor on Venus who carves his life’s history into ice at the cost of his sanity. A ceramic vase that might avenge the life of a murder victim. A haunted song that drives listeners to kill. Art surrounds us. It entertains and nurtures. And for some it can do far more. It can protect a family over generations or bridge the boundary between the realms of the living and the dead. It can be a curse or a boon, a path to riches or to damnation.

In Artifice and Craft, speculative fiction authors Lyndsay E. Gilbert, Laura E. Price, Adam Stemple, Brian K. Lowe, James R. Tuck, Briana Una McGuckin, Jordan Davidson, James Maxey, Madeline Dau, Joel Armstrong, C.E. Murphy, Mark Painter, Alex Bledsoe, Alethea Kontis, Gerri Leen, and Jelena Dunato craft tales of art and artistry that are shaded with the supernatural, tuned to the fantastic, and glazed with the unexpected. So listen, watch, admire. But don’t touch, and don’t turn your back. Because these works of art are far more than they seem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zombies Need Brains, LLC
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781940709574

Book preview

ARTIFICE & CRAFT

Other Anthologies Edited by:

Patricia Bray & Joshua Palmatier

After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar

The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Temporally Out of Order * Alien Artifacts * Were-

All Hail Our Robot Conquerors!

Second Round: A Return to the Ur-bar

The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Solar Flare

S.C. Butler & Joshua Palmatier

Submerged * Guilds & Glaives * Apocalyptic

When Worlds Collide * Brave New Worlds * Dragonesque

Laura Anne Gilman & Kat Richardson

The Death of All Things

Troy Carrol Bucher & Joshua Palmatier

The Razor’s Edge

Patricia Bray & S.C. Butler

Portals

David B. Coe & Joshua Palmatier

Temporally Deactivated * Galactic Stew

Derelict

Steven H Silver & Joshua Palmatier

Alternate Peace

Crystal Sarakas & Joshua Palmatier

My Battery Is Low and It Is Getting Dark

David B. Coe & John Zakour

Noir

Crystal Sarakas & Rhondi Salsitz

Shattering the Glass Slipper

David B. Coe & Edmund R. Schubert

Artifice & Craft

Steven Kotowych & Tony Pi

Game On!

Artifice & Craft

Edited by

David B. Coe

&

Edmund R. Schubert

Zombies Need Brains LLC

www.zombiesneedbrains.com

Copyright © 2023 David B. Coe, Edmund R. Schubert, and

Zombies Need Brains LLC

All Rights Reserved

Interior Design (ebook): ZNB Design

Interior Design (print): ZNB Design

Cover Design by ZNB Design

Cover Art Artifice & Craft

by Justin Adams of Varia Studios

ZNB Book Collectors #29

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions of this book, and do not participate or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material.

Kickstarter Edition Printing, June 2023

First Printing, July 2023

Print ISBN-13: 978-1940709567

Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1940709574

Printed in the U.S.A.

COPYRIGHTS

Rings for Their Fingers copyright © 2023 by Lyndsay E. Gilbert

"An Oral History: The Dead Queen at 1223 Murchison Row" copyright © 2023 by Laura E. Price

Contrapuntal copyright © 2023 by Adam Stemple

Our Lives, the Pages of Our Lives copyright © 2023 by Brian K. Lowe

The Mark copyright © 2023 by James R. Tuck

His Cup of Tea copyright © 2023 by Briana Una McGuckin

Weave, Wove, Woven copyright © 2023 by Jordan Davidson

Clockwork Melting copyright © 2023 by James Maxey

The Artful Assassin copyright © 2023 by Madeline Dau

The Price of Magic copyright © 2023 by Joel Armstrong

Matroyshka copyright © 2023 by C. E. Murphy

The Gilded Sting copyright © 2023 by Mark Painter

The Castle in the Pines copyright © 2023 by Alex Bledsoe

Twinkle copyright © 2023 by Alethea Kontis

Raku: Recipe for Revenge copyright © 2023 by Gerri Leen

Isabel in Red Lake copyright © 2023 by Jelena Dunato

RINGS FOR THEIR FINGERS

by Lyndsay E. Gilbert

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,

To see a fine lady upon a white horse;

Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

And she shall have music wherever she goes.

-traditional English rhyme-

My grandfather’s court travels the world. We go from town to town, ride through tunnels in time and space to cross seas in a single hour. We avoid cities. There’s far too much iron in the cities and it makes us sick. Besides, we don’t want to draw too much attention. When people go missing in cities everything gets out of hand, and when bodies start showing up mauled and mutilated it gets bad. Jack the Ripper bad. Grandfather can’t have that.

So here we are in Richmond, a beautiful English village in Yorkshire. My father’s people drive the vehicles and lorries that cart the circus and fairground into the car park of an old, renovated train station. They all belong to my grandfather now. Not just the rides and stalls; the people. A band of carnival folk, happily earning their living on the road until my father ruined everything for them. You don’t seduce the daughter of a faery king. You especially don’t get her pregnant.

The carnival folk hop out of the lorries and caravans and get straight to work erecting the fairground and setting up the tents. I’m travelling in my father’s caravan, and I peer out the back window as we turn into the carpark and pull up behind the other caravans. The fae court travel behind us in old wooden horse drawn caravans, avoiding the iron.

People eating ice-cream at the old brick train station point them out. They think it’s quaint to see the beautiful, painted wagons.

A little girl hops from foot to foot, tugging on her mother’s arm. I know she is asking if she can go to the fair and spin on rides between mouthfuls of fluffy candy floss. Her mother smiles and nods, lifting her daughter into her arms.

They don’t know that demons ride inside those pretty wagons and to them the guts of little girls taste better than candy.

* * *

I have been rude. I haven’t yet told you that my name is Anna. Or that I’m seventeen. It’s a very ordinary name for a girl who exists on the threshold between two worlds, accepted by neither.

My father doesn’t expect me to leave him or marry. He treats me a little like a son, one who doesn’t get to stay up late and drink beer, but still. He teaches me his jeweller trade, the one that drew my mother’s attention. We spend our days twisting silver into elaborate designs. We make rings for their fingers and bells for their toes. Crowns and tiaras, too.

I don’t get to see my mother, for like me, she is stuck with her father. He didn’t manage to stop her from staying up late and drinking, and we are all paying for that now. My father’s defense is he thought she was his wife in the making.

The moral of the story is any normal girl can turn out to be a faery princess.

* * *

The stalls are up and the rides spinning. It’s trial time, making sure they don’t come crashing down on people. That would take the fun out of everything for grandfather’s courtiers. They are preparing themselves, and the mead flows heavy in their corner of the camp site, as far away as possible from the metal of the rides. A bonfire blazes in the center of their circle of tents and carts. Their tall, skeletal bodies sway to the haunting music of a piper and a fiddler. They raise their twisted goblets and toast each other’s beauty and cruelty.

I can see the leftover humans they still have from the last town we visited. A young woman stares vacantly into the fire, her frail body cowed away from the cloven-footed woman with goat’s horns who trails a forked tongue along her shoulder. There’s more than mead in her goblet. If not for the spell cast upon her, the young woman would throw herself into the flames. At least she might save her soul that way.

Anna, my father says. Stop staring at that debauchery and give me a hand with the stall.

I obey, telling myself I can’t help the girl. I’m not welcome among the fae, and I don’t want to be. They’d as soon make me their prey as her.

Coward, says a voice in my head. My voice.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, filling my lungs to the brim. My father thrusts a box full of jewelry into my arms, forcing the air back out. I open my eyes and he raises his thick eyebrows. Set it all out, he orders, voice gruff. Then he turns away, rubbing a hand over his ten-day-old salt and pepper beard.

I shuffle to our stall and drop the box on the table. As I unload it, I realize something has changed. Most of these things have been made by me. The intricate Celtic knots on the rings and the fine-cut gemstones in each set of earrings are my work. When everything lies glittering on the table, I see that barely a handful are my father’s creations.

If he can’t keep making what my grandfather demands, they will dispose of him and the burden—the capricious, ever-changing desires, commands and punishments—will all crash down on my shoulders. He hasn’t taught me enough for that. He rarely lets me work on orders for the fae. Perhaps he’s afraid the enchanting jewels and fae-touched silver will awaken my own greed, my own desire. Good girls don’t desire anything they aren’t supposed to.

* * *

Father is drinking steadily when darkness falls and the carnival explodes in a burst of fireworks and colored lights. Speakers boom out popular music and voices entice people to line up for rides and amusements. I am busy at our stall. We’ve had a steady flow of customers since opening and with no help from father, I can only hope I’ve been doing all the counting right. Numbers were never my strong point.

I wrap two small silver friendship rings in purple tissue paper and hand them to a pair of giddy girls. They thank me and start tearing open the tissue paper as soon as they turn away from the stall. There’s no one else in line. A lull, thank God. I open the money tin and think about taking it into the caravan for a quick count. Father has already gone inside. He won’t like me leaving the stall unattended. I close the tin and set it back on the table. When I look up, fear jolts through my veins like electricity.

Good evening, my grandfather says. His smile is thin and cold, his cheekbones sharp as scythes, like a picture-book villain. I guess that’s the way faery kings are supposed to appear. He is tall and elegant, with black hair that falls in gentle waves to his shoulders.

I curtsy. It feels awkward and unsteady and I stumble a little. Manners are important to the fair folk; my father drummed that into me a long time ago. My legs shake. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken to him. Before now, my father was the only member of the camp he ever conversed with. Shall I bring my father to you?

His gray eyes flash and he smiles wider. No, stay. He reaches out a black gloved hand and takes hold of my face. Hard to believe we are kin. He turns my face to the left and right. I see nothing of my daughter in you.

I have only ever seen my mother from afar. I have no clear idea what she looks like.

What do you think, Demelza? he asks the fair-haired lady at his side.

My attention has been so fastened on him I barely noticed his companion. Demelza. My mother.

I have imagined this moment since I was old enough to learn of my heritage. I gaze into her eyes, gray like her father’s and colder still. Her ruby red lips curl in disdain. No, father, I can’t imagine it ever came from my womb.

It? My cheeks burn, and my throat seizes up. I swallow back tears. I will not give these wicked creatures the pleasure.

How can I serve you tonight? I say. My voice cracks a little, betraying me.

Grandfather observes my handiwork on the table. Very pretty. For a moment I feel a swell of pride, but I puncture it. I want nothing I make to please this monster.

We ride out on the Hunt tonight, as I’m sure you know. However, we are eager to hold on to a mortal we found on the last Hunt. If we take her with us, I’ve no doubt she will die of exhaustion. If we leave her as she is, however, she will not survive, either. She is too full of the Other.

I say nothing. If I open my mouth, I might offend them. My disgust does not yet outweigh my fear.

My mother reaches down and clasps a necklace I made several months ago. She holds it up toward the lights of the fairground. It’s a locket made of twisted silver branches and leaves. She pops it open and murmurs a little oh of delight. Inside, I have secreted a tiny silver angel.

Look, father, how perfect!

He takes the locket in hand and examines it. Indeed, this should do. He sets the locket back on the table and I reach out to wrap it. He slaps my hand away. Not yet, I must see if it can withstand the spell.

Magic. A shiver of involuntary excitement shames me. I am desperate to see this. I have dreamed of having my own magic for so long, told myself that the strong emotions trapped in my heart were an untapped power, eager to burst out of me. I’ve dared not tell my father of all the times I made a drawing move by daydreaming, or a lightbulb shatter with my anger.

My shame deepens when my grandfather removes his gloves. He wears a ring on every finger. All of them my father’s work or mine. He clicks his fingers, and two faery guards form out of the dark on the outskirts of the fair. They pull a girl into the light with them, the girl I was watching earlier. Up close I see she is no older than I am, perhaps the same age.

I know immediately why they are reluctant to part with her. Despite her faraway gaze—no doubt courtesy of a faery spell—she is captivating. My heart beats faster every second I stare at her. She wears a long red dress, a prom dress, which accents her dark skin and large ebony eyes. The Wild Hunt must have stolen her on her way home from a school dance. Her gaze meets mine and suddenly her eyes are alert, terrified. She pleads with me to help, but I don’t know how. She doesn’t realize that the moment they touched her, she was already dead.

I look down at my stall and begin to rearrange the jewelry. I am a coward. When I dare to raise my head, my grandfather has picked up the locket again. He closes his eyes and holds it up, rubbing it with his thumb in a circular motion. Then he puts it to his lips and whispers, "Athru."

The girl screams and I jolt forward, knocking the stall into my faery kin. The jewelry scatters on the ground. The scream stops as suddenly as it began.

The girl is gone.

My grandfather opens the locket and holds it out for my mother to see. My stomach gives a violent lurch and I retch. The little angel has transformed. Now it is a tiny likeness of the girl.

My mother sighs with delight as grandfather secures the locket around her neck.

I retch again, this time bile burns my throat. What have you done? I choke.

Grandfather slides his arm around mother’s shoulder, and I take in all the rings he wears with a new-born horror. He leads her away, flanked by the two guards.

We’ve preserved her, he calls back to me.

My legs give way and I sink to the grass, trembling.

* * *

It’s midnight and the carnival is a cocktail of flashing lights, whirring engines, and spinning tea cups. Screams pierce through the pounding music as the taller rides whoosh high into the air and plunge down again. Teenagers stand in crowds, passing large glass bottles of alco-pops, hiding them when the police pass by. The boys of our camp join in, safe in the knowledge that their sisters are asleep in their beds. The boys know not to stay out too long either. They shoot nervous glances toward the edge of the camp. Only campfolk can see that particular party; to everyone else they are invisible, their terrible laughter only leaves rustling in the wind when the music stops.

The stalls close one by one except for those selling hot-dogs and chips. I hide the money I made in the safe at the back of our caravan and load the wares back into their boxes. Inside, my father’s snores are like thunder. The air is sour with his breath and empty beer cans litter the counters. My anger is impotent. I want the power to turn beer into water. No, I want my rage to make each can melt in supernatural fire. A judgement my father will understand and fear. I close my eyes and imagine I am full of magic, that my emotion is its essence. I envision it flooding to my fingertips, then spread my fingers wide, releasing it. The caravan shakes under my feet. I open my eyes as a breeze lifts my hair and my skirt. The empty cans roll and clatter to the floor.

Pathetic.

Something is missing, some key I must discover. My magic is here, but it is muzzled and weak. My anger is drained but my mood is now heavy and dark. I think about taking some beer myself. I reach for a can but change my mind and grab a Coke instead. I want my faculties about me tonight. I take a large gulp. It is flat and tasteless. I go to the sink and pour some of it out. It has turned to water.

Excitement tingles in my blood, as though I’ve absorbed the bubbles from the can. I take another drink. I want to get high on this success, but my heart sits stubbornly in the back of my throat and no amount of swallowing will force it down. I can’t banish my fear or revel in my growing power knowing the Wild Hunt will set out soon. The people of this town have no idea what’s coming for them.

I can’t sleep for thinking about the girl trapped in a locket of my making. She would probably rather be dead than spend eternity there.

The music stops and the rides go quiet. The lights of the carnival go out one by one as cars pull up by the old station. Concerned parents pick up their sons and daughters and take them home. They are the lucky ones. Large groups of unlucky, drunken kids stagger toward the town’s center, laughing as they go.

I sit on the sofa at the front of my caravan and wait.

* * *

Shortly after the boys count and store the night’s earnings and make their way to bed, the Wild Hunt rides out. I watch from my window, my can of water long finished.

It starts with a deep rumble. The earth moves under us, like the beginning of a disaster movie. A hundred horses and their colorful riders appear, galloping from their camp.

The King goes first, his red cloak billowing out behind him. His smile is carnivorous, set aglow by the wings of flower fae and various insect-like creatures that whirl around the Hunt. They illuminate each face, the beautiful and the grotesque. Their devilish horses, too, with blood and foam dripping thick from their gaping mouths. Their teeth are needles.

Behind the horses, a pack of rabid dogs, barely distinguishable from the black of night. The Hounds of the Wild Hunt. How many bodies will they feast upon tonight? How many changelings will wake up in human beds tomorrow, pretending to be someone’s son or daughter? I wonder for a moment which fate would be worse. To disappear into Faerie, carried away as a prisoner, or to disappear into death, torn to pieces by the hounds.

At least the hounds make it quick.

* * *

I wait until the Wild Hunt have been gone for half an hour before I step out of my caravan. The steps creak as they always do, but my father does not stir. His snoring continues unbroken. It’s muggy outside, a close sticky warmth that seems to turn my T-shirt soggy within minutes.

I scurry toward the empty wooden carts and burning campfire left by my grandfather’s people. There will be no one there. It is a grave mistake to decline an invitation to the Hunt. My father told me this when I was a child, when he still thought my questions about the fae innocent and harmless.

The heat from the fire makes the summer air unbearable. All around are the scattered remains of a great feast. Glass bottles and goblets still half-full release a honeyed scent that thickens my tongue with every breath. Platters of mouth-watering fruits and sweetmeats make my stomach groan, but I know I cannot eat them. To eat their food is to become their slave. I don’t know if this applies to me, but I don’t care to test it.

I shouldn’t be here, but my mind is full of the girl trapped in my mother’s necklace. In all likelihood my mother has taken it with her, but I wonder what has become of the other humans. Is it possible they are not dead, only trapped in a keepsake, like precious jewels fixed forever in a ring? Taken out and admired before being secreted away, far too precious to wear every day.

I turn away from the food and the fire and make my way to the traditional wooden caravans. It is easy to see what belongs to my grandfather. An emerald-green wagon, so long and grand it needs many faery horses. Gold and silver paint curls in delicate symbols across the green. Sigils and spells and glamours to keep the truth hidden from mortal eyes. But I am not mortal, so I see all. No ordinary horses could pull this thing.

I grip the golden door handle and close my eyes. I am an intruder, so the spells may do me harm. I pull the handle anyway.

Nothing happens as the door swings outward. I release my breath and unfold a set of ornate wooden steps. I climb them, but as I take a step through the threshold I hit an unseen barrier. A cloud of black smoke fills the opened doorway, hands form from the smoke and shove me back. I fall down the stairs, air leaving my lungs as I slam on to the ground. The hands reach out and a complete body formed of smoke emerges and descends the stairs to stand over me.

A sword appears in its hand. It too is made of smoke, but as the shadow lifts it above my chest I have no doubt it will run me through as sure as steel. I close my eyes, but instead of preparing for pain, for death. I channel the fear, and I fling my arms out, releasing my terror and my will to live.

An icy wind rushes over me and I dare to look. The shadow sword is shot through with ice, the ice spreads up the arm of the shadow guard and through his whole body. I slide out from under the sword point. I can feel my grandfather’s power around me, it makes my blood feel thick and slow. My heart beats like an executioner’s drum. But I have gotten the better of him. This spell is surely an old one. I feel its weakness. I shove the frozen shadow in the chest and his shatters into shards of dark ice. The smoke at the door dissolves and I go inside.

The interior of the wagon is lavish in ways I could not have imagined. For several moments I can do nothing but stare. A large wooden bed-frame dominates the first floor, protected by layers of silk draping down from the canopy like a silver waterfall. I walk farther in and pass a table and six chairs. A board game with jeweled pieces rests on the table.

There are shelves and shelves of books and ornaments. I recognize a silver chime hanging by the staircase. My father sold it the week before. I brush it gently as I ascend the stairs. The second floor of the wagon clearly belongs to a woman, to my mother. The bed is smaller and the canopy made of gauze as fine as spider webs. I caress it with my hands, almost certain it will break in my fingers. It is cool and soft.

There is jewelry everywhere: strewn across the bed sheets, hanging from the ceiling on various hooks, and overflowing from several large boxes on the shelves and on a beautiful dark wood dressing table. Most of it is done in my father’s distinct style. Many pieces I have never seen before, so I know they must be older than me. I never forget a piece of jewelry.

What if every ring, every locket, every bracelet or anklet is a prison in which some human sits forgotten?

A glint of glass catches the ever-burning candles that swing in chandeliers from the ceiling. I walk toward it and find a snow globe. Dust has settled on the glass and I blow it away, rubbing the globe against my top. Inside is a broken carousel, each horse and carriage filled to the brim with children. I focus on their faces; each one is unique and painstakingly rendered. They are frozen in time, their eyes red with tears. Others scream, their faces twisted in fear, mouths forever open. In one carriage, an older girl cradles a baby in her arms, holding it out as if to someone outside the ride, someone who might save it.

My stomach is full of acid butterflies. I set the globe back on the shelf for fear it will slip through my trembling, sweat-soaked fingers. What would happen if I smashed it? Would those children reappear? I fear they will never survive in the human world again. They will always need to be near a faery. Tales abound of men and women gone mad or disappearing only to reappear hundreds of years later and turn to dust and ash.

But what would be worse? To remain on that hellish ride, or to die? And worse still, what if breaking it does not free them? Surely magic is needed, the same magic I witnessed when my grandfather charmed the locket.

I reach for the necklace at my throat. It’s a cast-off from my father, a small gold heart that came out slightly twisted. I lift it over my head and hold it in the palm of my hand. What if, what if, what if? Two of the most powerful words I know.

I will not use a living creature. Instead, I turn to my mother’s dresser and slide one of the overstuffed jewelry boxes closer to me. Spells are just wishes, my father once told me. Just prayers, except instead of giving all your worries over to God, you must accept your own responsibility. I know that emotion and intention are even stronger components. But there is a word too. Perhaps it is the key, the thing that gives my wishes a focus. I close my eyes, imagine the box is in the golden heart.

"Athru," I whisper. Grandfather’s word.

I feel nothing. Disappointment sweeps over me, and strangely on its heels, the smallest dash of relief. Of knowing I’m not responsible.

I open my eyes. The jewelry box is gone. My heart skips a beat. Then another. I scrabble with the necklace, turning it over to see if there is any change. Sure enough, a small engraving has appeared. I hold it close to my face and see the exact likeness of the jewelry box.

How can such