One Message Remains

Pageantry, pomp, pretense, and peril—"The General's Turn," originally published in The Deadlands, drew readers into the dark world of a ceremony where Death herself might choose to join the audience... or step onto the stage. Award-winning author Premee Mohamed presents three brand new stories set in this morally ambiguous world of war and magic. In "One Message Remains," Major Lyell Tzajos leads his team on a charity mission through the post-armistice world of East Seudast, exhuming the bones and souls of dead foes for repatriation. But the buried fighters may have one more fight left in them—and they have chosen their weapons well.

In "The Weight of What is Hollow," Taya is the latest apprentice of a long-honored tradition: building the bone-gallows for prisoners of war. But her very first commission will pit her skills against both her family and her oppressor.

Finally, in "Forsaking All Others," ex-soldier Rostyn must travel the little-known ways by night to avoid his pursuers, for desertion is punishable by death. As he flees to the hoped-for sanctuary of his grandmother's village, he is joined by a fellow deserter—and, it seems, the truth of a myth older than the land itself.

Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for numerous other awards, including the Hugo, Ignyte, Locus, British Fantasy, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Crawford. In 2024 she was the Edmonton Public Library official writer-in-residence. She is the author of the Beneath the Rising series of novels, as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.