Far Fetched Fables

"“By Appointment to the Throne” by Alter S. Reiss (Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #155.) Getting up early enough to open a kitchen hurts. Leaving a warm bed before second watch makes your head ache, and you can feel the chill going from the cobbles through your feet and into your soul. When it's wet on top of the cold, it's the nearest thing to hell. But once I'm there and I'm in the rhythm, it just moves. I check the carcasses as they come in, kick up a fuss if they try to give us short weight or diseased animals, and then I lift them up, bring them in, and take them apart. Hook and cleaver work for two, sometimes three hours. A lot of the Xac refugees working at the Mountain Pine are Sisori, so the hour before dawn, they'll do their prayers out in the garden. I don't mind, even though it slows us down when we need to speed up; I'd rather work with people who stop for prayers and stagger through fast days than with children glittering on juice, or gangs, or spirit. Just after the Sisori