AN OCEAN AND A TIDE, INTERTWINED, by Joel Glover<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Fifth Realm is a beach which stretches<\/p>\n
From a horizon which cannot be touched to one which cannot be seen<\/p>\n
There is an ocean somewhere,<\/p>\n
An ocean and a tide.<\/p>\n
There is an ocean somewhere,<\/p>\n
An ocean and a tide.<\/p>\n
Grains slip between \u00c1sgeirr’s toes, making them itch.<\/p>\n
He has a blanket, ribbed and thick, made of cast off clothes.<\/p>\n
He spreads it<\/p>\n
On the ground, so he can sit.<\/p>\n
There is no breeze in the Fifth Realm<\/p>\n
So no sand impairs his enjoyment of the cheese and onion<\/p>\n
Stuffed into a light but crusty bread.<\/p>\n
In the Fifth Realm sands and dreams entwine<\/p>\n
Winding around each other<\/p>\n
Dancing a gavotte, braiding<\/p>\n
Into threads which can encircle the unwary throat<\/p>\n
Tugging.<\/p>\n
\u00c1sgeirr slips out of the noose of tragic reverie and into a place of reminiscence instead<\/p>\n
He is, if not the Master of this Realm, at least<\/p>\n
Adept<\/p>\n
In its ways.<\/p>\n
The killing thoughts are of his mother;<\/p>\n
The song she sang whilst kneading the dough,<\/p>\n
The sound of it stretching from his childhood to now;<\/p>\n
The slap of the ball on the slate of the table;<\/p>\n
The smell of the oven;<\/p>\n
The warmth of the love in every mouthful he took.<\/p>\n
The Fifth Realm is not malign<\/p>\n
Nor is it kind<\/p>\n
You cannot anger time, cannot charm it, cannot make it fear<\/p>\n
Time is, time was, time will be.<\/p>\n
A wanderer who sets feet unwary on this space<\/p>\n
Between shore and the sweep of the real<\/p>\n
Could walk until their tongue dried in their mouth<\/p>\n
Fall<\/p>\n
Unseen<\/p>\n
Unheard<\/p>\n
Forgotten.<\/p>\n
\u00c1sgeirr takes a small sip of water from his flask<\/p>\n
A gift from the starkin<\/p>\n
It tastes of glass and moonlight<\/p>\n
Enchanted to stay cool.<\/p>\n
He scoops up a handful of the surface of the beach<\/p>\n
And lets it flow through the spaces between his fingers<\/p>\n
Each grain a moment, as unique as can be<\/p>\n
Tumbling back to join its fellows in an indistinguishable mass.<\/p>\n
He pinches one, snatching it from the stream and holds it up to the sky.<\/p>\n
There is no sun, of course<\/p>\n
Because suns are stars and thus trapped eternally in the Third Realm<\/p>\n
(But for the Evening Star, the Gardener’s first Creation, which lights the way),<\/p>\n
But there is light above<\/p>\n
If only to distinguish up from down.<\/p>\n
The light splinters on the prism of sand, under \u00c1sgeirr’s scrutiny, reds and blues<\/p>\n
Diverging.<\/p>\n
He has a tiny red bottle<\/p>\n
Into which the blue light flows<\/p>\n
And a much larger blue one to hold the red.<\/p>\n
His coat makes the sound<\/p>\n
Of hail falling on slate<\/p>\n
As he slips his new finds inside.<\/p>\n
Nothing lives in the Fifth Realm<\/p>\n
But some things exist there<\/p>\n
Pressed into being by needs urgent or accretive, the calcification of requirement<\/p>\n
Around crystalised moments.<\/p>\n
One such thing claws its way from beneath a shingled patch<\/p>\n
In which \u00c1sgeirr had noted a sprinkling of small shells<\/p>\n
Scattered loosely.<\/p>\n
The shells scatter like scree<\/p>\n
Sliding from the surface<\/p>\n
In swirling slicks.<\/p>\n
A claw bursts from below, long as a naust<\/p>\n
Red as raw steak<\/p>\n
Curved and hungry.<\/p>\n
It drags the defender forth in a cascade<\/p>\n
Another claw, and six spined limbs, steeple tall and barbed like war arrows<\/p>\n
Follow, its eyes, eight like its limbs, whirl their sockets<\/p>\n
Diamond bright.<\/p>\n
It is beyond tall, beyond large<\/p>\n
If a crab is a pebble, it is a furious mountain.<\/p>\n
In the Third Realm \u00c1sgeirr would use his sorcerous skills<\/p>\n
To make time flow back and forth<\/p>\n
Dance<\/p>\n
Tumbling grains through an hourglass shaken<\/p>\n
Splitting sundials and rebuilding them<\/p>\n
So shadows make pained marks<\/p>\n
In the souls of his foes<\/p>\n
But in the Fifth Realm, just as there is no breeze,<\/p>\n
There is no time.<\/p>\n
There is an ocean somewhere, an ocean and a tide.<\/p>\n
But no time.<\/p>\n
The Realm’s creation surges forward<\/p>\n
Carcine weapons ready to impale, to trample, to sever.<\/p>\n
It screams soundlessly, within its mouth another mouth, teeth biting teeth<\/p>\n
Whirling like angry millstones<\/p>\n
In a storm in spate.<\/p>\n
Before \u00c1sgeirr was an Adept, before he travelled above the belly of the world<\/p>\n
Across trackless plains,<\/p>\n
Before he was admitted to the School of Righteous Thought<\/p>\n
And trained his mind in mystic arts,<\/p>\n
He was a huscarl<\/p>\n
A warrior on the waves<\/p>\n
Spitting defiantly in the face of death<\/p>\n
Through bared teeth,<\/p>\n
Killing with axe and sword.<\/p>\n
So even without magic he is far from helpless.<\/p>\n
Swift \u00c1sgeirr strikes strongly<\/p>\n
With star iron and yew wood<\/p>\n
Axe rising, axe falling<\/p>\n
Sword stabbing, blade cutting<\/p>\n
With thews quickly burning<\/p>\n
He circles and dodges<\/p>\n
The claws which are seeking<\/p>\n
His lifeblood’s red spilling.<\/p>\n
Crab feet churn sands beneath<\/p>\n
From hard packed to furrowed<\/p>\n
Tripping brave \u00c1sgeirr, his<\/p>\n
Sandaled soles slipping and<\/p>\n
Turning. The grasping claw<\/p>\n
Snatches his sword and shears<\/p>\n
It in twain.<\/p>\n
\u00c1sgeirr’s axe is clever, though, flickering<\/p>\n
Taking teeth and barbs in fast blows.<\/p>\n
They called him \u00c1sgeirr Smilemaker<\/p>\n
When he was aviking, for a skull-splitting<\/p>\n
Reaving.<\/p>\n
The crab does not smile as it chokes on a hatchet<\/p>\n
Its sobs are quiet, it trembles as it expires on his blade.<\/p>\n
Death is not known here<\/p>\n
Not on this branch of the World Tree.<\/p>\n
But stasis, stasis the beast can find.<\/p>\n
There is an ocean somewhere, an ocean and a tide<\/p>\n
Which might rise up and sweep this fallen protector<\/p>\n
Into a new place, a new form.<\/p>\n
\u00c1sgeirr Snakequick, \u00c1sgeirr Blue-Eyed Nomad<\/p>\n
Scribes a circle in blood and makes a gate<\/p>\n
Through which to step<\/p>\n
Back to the Third Realm<\/p>\n
Carried by the smell of brine to<\/p>\n
An ocean somewhere,<\/p>\n
An ocean,<\/p>\n
And a tide.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n Joel<\/a> is an English speculative fiction writer. Grimdark Magazine described his self-published debut as “tantalisingly dark and brutal<\/a>“.<\/span><\/p>\n His short fiction publications include pieces in the Space Wizard Science Fantasy anthology \u201cWhere No Man Has Gone Before\u201d, the Air and Nothingness collection \u201cOur Dust Earth\u201d, Nature:Futures, \u2018Big Smoke Pulp vol 1\u2019, Pulp Lit Mag, Wensum Lit, & Altered Reality.<\/span><\/p>\n His wider repertoire includes satire (PULP Lit Mag), Creative NonFiction (Epistemic Literary), poetry (Radon, Limerick in Chains), and cultural commentary (Swords and Sorcery Magazine, The Drift).<\/span><\/p>\n This poem occurs in the Nine Realms of Reality setting, which includes a novel, three novellas, and a short story collection. Another poem in this world was published by SpecPoVerse.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AN OCEAN AND A TIDE, INTERTWINED, by Joel Glover The Fifth Realm is a beach which stretches From a horizon which cannot be touched to one which cannot be seen There is an ocean somewhere, An ocean and a tide. There is an ocean somewhere, An ocean and a tide. Grains slip between \u00c1sgeirr’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-67-archive","category-main","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4606,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581\/revisions\/4606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}