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Raven’s Fall

  Alycia Christine

  www.purplethornpress.com

  Contents

  Raven’s Fall

  Meet the Author

  Also by Alycia Christine

  Bonus Material

  Copyright

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmitting of this book, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than brief passages excerpted for review and critical purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Raven’s Fall

  Raven sat stone still watching light ripple and flow along the banks of darkness. She clutched the cattail reed tightly in one gray talon and pondered the light’s myriad weavings through shadow into the world beyond the Falls. Could a world of dawn be so much better than this domain of dusk? The red cattail could give her the answer, but did she dare use it?

  “Well, what have you decided?” cried a voice behind her.

  Raven’s black feathers ruffled in irritation. “That this is some of your usual subversion, Wolf.”

  The gray canine spirit’s tongue lolled out with his yipping laughter. “I cannot hope to trick one so wise as you, Raven.”

  The great bird spirit said nothing, but continued to stare at the light winding its way out of their world into the world of light.

  “I know you tire of this shadow realm as do I, High Spirit. Would it not be a great adventure to see beyond the darkness?”

  “Dawn light has no place for us, Wolf. We rule the night as is proper. Only the foolish would wish otherwise.”

  Wolf nodded. “Oh, indeed. I merely suggested you visit the world of light to better understand the contrasts between black and light. The red cattail will allow you to come back whenever you like.”

  Raven’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know your words are true?”

  Wolf’s eyes were soft as he replied, “Because you know that I would never wish you harm.” She stared at him a long while until he lowered his gaze.

  “I have made my decision, then. I will go and see what is to be seen. Will you wait for my return?”

  Wolf nodded and stepped back to give Raven proper room for her dive into the river of light. Raven stretched out her lustrous black wings and pumped them hard to hover over the sparkling eddies. She then swooped to grab a surprised Wolf before banking toward the river. Into the rolling light they both plunged. The waves washed away their darkness as they tumbled over the Falls together.

  As they rushed into the frothing sea below the Falls, the light branched out in all directions until at last they tumbled in water instead of light. The currents were so tumultuous that Raven lost hold of the red cattail. She tried to swim after it, but her waterlogged feathers weighed her down and she began to sink. She swallowed water when a sharp pain lanced through her left wing. Panicked, she tried to strike Wolf as his teeth pierced her flesh.

  As Wolf pulled her to shore, Raven screeched, “What have you done? Now I cannot fly!”

  “I have done nothing but save you from drowning! It was you who dragged me across the worlds’ boundary and then lost the reed!”

  “Why did you save me instead of the reed? Neither of us has a way to return to our world now!”

  “You are worth more than worlds, even with a broken wing.”

  Raven began to cry and the tears soaked through her feathers to drip into the sand underneath. The feathers then began to drop into the mud at Raven’s feet. It was from this mass of Raven’s feathers and sand that a great clam sprang. Wolf broke open the clam to retrieve its pearl, which bubbled with laughter as Wolf held it out to Raven.

  As Raven reached to cup the mollusk gem in one featherless wing, her outstretched bones refined into a five-digit hand. Her talons then became feet and the rest of her body became that of Woman.

  Wolf yelped both in delight and embarrassment for he had never before seen her featherless form. “Dry your tears and behold this great beauty. Your body now shines as bright as the Light’s end held in this world’s orb,” he said.

  Instead, Raven could only stare at her lost plumage and sob all the harder. Wolf sighed and took off his own fur so that he could cover her nakedness. Once the deed was done, Wolf’s body became that of Man and he too felt shame at his bareness. Raven blessed the broken clamshell and used both halves to cover Wolf’s bare skin. She then planted the blessed meat in the sand along with her discarded feathers and tears.

  “Wolf, I will set this gem in the sky opposite the existing light orb as a reminder of what we have lost and what we have gained. I will call the yellow orb Sun. What shall I call the white pearl?”

  Wolf gazed at Raven’s reflection in the sea gem with utter longing. “Call it moon.”

  Raven nodded and then threw the laughing pearl into the sky where it remains today. “It is so.”

  And so the dawn world became one of dark and light with the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. As the moon’s first light struck the burial mound of clam meat and feathers, Raven and Wolf heard laughter under the sand. Carefully, Raven delved into the mound only to screech in surprise as she discovered Otter bounding out of the sand toward the water. That first nightfall heard Otter laughing among the waves of the sea, Raven constantly searching and crying for the lost red reed, and Wolf singing longingly about the moon-maker’s beauty—just as their animal ancestors do today.

  Meet the Author

  Alycia Christine, also known as Alycia C. Cooke, grew up near the dusty cotton fields of Lubbock, Texas. She fell in love with fantasy and science fiction stories when her father first read Gordon R. Dickson’s The Dragon and The George and Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit—Will Travel to her at age ten. Her love-affair with fiction deepened when Alycia took a creative writing course while attending Texas A&M University. After that class, she was hooked as a writer for life. Her subsequent B.S. degree in agricultural journalism not only helped to hone Alycia’s skills with a pen, but also with a camera. Today she uses her skills as a photographer to capture the beauty of the world around her and add additional perspective to her fiction and nonfiction writing. Find her at AlyciaChristine.com.

  Also by Alycia Christine

  Fiction Anthologies

  Musings

  Short Fiction

  “A Song for Naia”

  “Chosen Sacrifice”

  “Of Kelpie Lullabies”

  “Raven’s Fall”

  Find out more at AlyciaChristine.com.

  If you enjoyed

  Raven’s Fall,

  look for

  Musings

  by Alycia Christine

  “My train of thought derailed somewhere in the wilderness of my daydreams and Musings is the result. With short stories gathered from every corner of my imagination, I hope this fantasy and science fiction collection proves uniquely entertaining and thought-provoking.” –Alycia Christine

  An excerpt from

  “City of Twilight”,

  a short story exclusive to the Musings collection

  The setting sun peeked through the gray clouds, illuminating the cracked concrete with its wan light. Darkness would soon overtake the city and once again release the Nightmares, but for now the sunlit ruins were relatively safe.

  “I hope so anyway,” Carn murmured.

  The shaggy black werewolf sat quietly at his post on the grassy hill and surveyed the shattered buildings closest to his fo
rest home. His hazel eyes constantly darted from shadow to lengthening shadow as he searched for movement among the ruined streets while his nose continually sampled the damp air for unnatural odors.

  He could still make out the architectural details of the crumbling building nearest to his section of forest—a stone virgin stared at him with blackened eyes as she knelt beneath the remnants of a cracked cross. There was little left of the structure’s steep roof and even less of its flower-shaped, stained-glass windows. What had the church looked like when it was whole? How manicured had Carn’s forest been when it still acted as the central park to this enormous American metropolis? The Human Plague had reduced the city surrounding Carn’s home to a necropolis. Then the subsequent 40 years of Nightmare Wars had twisted it further into a ruin. It was a pity that so much beauty had come to such spoil.

  “A pity, but not unexpected. As my father always said, ‘Pride goes before destruction.’ And the human scientists had more pride than even the worst angels,” Carn said and shook his head. “If the fools hadn’t tried to kill us off with the Henbane Virus, most of them would still be alive to threaten us today. How ironic.”

  Carn’s tongue lolled out, but his silent laugh quickly faded as a cold tingle suddenly crawled the length of his spine. Frowning, he checked the nearby underground cache of Henbane Catalyst that he and his packmates used to bolster their shape-shifting abilities. Carefully he pulled out the black rubber stopper of one of the glass vials with his fangs and took a small sip before resealing the container. His laugh returned as the warmth of the formula spread out from his stomach to his extremities. He flexed the muscles in his limbs appreciatively as the serum took full effect. He would be ready to shift from a wolf into a human and back again in a few moments’ time if the need came.

  He took a quick inventory of the full vials as he stashed his brew once again. More than enough to last the month. Good, he thought. We’ll not have to run to the Sinai Ruins for more until the next full moon, then.

  And speaking of running…

  Carn’s ears perked at the sound of fast footfalls. His eyes followed his ears to the corner of a half-shattered apartment complex and spied a frantic human female sprinting across the broken pavement toward the safety of the trees.

  Her eyes and voice were filled with terror. “Help me, someone, please!”

  The werewolf growled in surprise. He knew of only two human families still living on the outskirts of his forest territory. His pack held protection pacts with both of them, which allowed their members to come to the forest on hunting and bartering trips. This female belonged to neither of those clans. Carn howled a warning to his scattered pack as he ran to intercept the stranger…

  Musings coming June 20, 2014! Find out more at AlyciaChristine.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  “Raven’s Fall” first published at Confabule.com, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Alycia C. Cooke

  Excerpt from Musings copyright © 2014 by Alycia Christine

  Cover illustration and design by Alycia Christine

  Cover copyright © 2014 by Purple Thorn Press

  Purple Thorn Press books may be purchased for educational, business, or for sales and promotional use. Please contact Purple Thorn Press for more information.

  Purple Thorn Press logo designed by Alycia Christine.

  Alycia Christine

  https://www.AlyciaChristine.com

  Purple Thorn Press

  https://www.PurpleThornPress.com

  ISBN 978-1-941588-14-7