Dive into the world of the surreal and fantastical. Included in this anthology are seventeen short stories, each brought to life through dream-like prose that pushes the boundaries of the English language to create vivid, sensory experiences.
Immerse yourself in provocative tales that blend elements of fantasy, horror, and realism:
In âThe Flutist of Sinraat,â Torosh the pipe player is banished from the royal palace after asking for the kingâs daughterâs hand in marriage. Left in an impoverished position, he enters into a spectral contract with an insidious spirit from another realmâŚ
In âThe Pool of Lost Memories,â General Thragan marches his army over the mountains on a return journey to his homeland. Along the way, he drinks from a mysterious pool and becomes acquainted with his past selvesâŚ
In âXarthon,â the King of the Xarthonian Empire, having grown old and shriveled, reminisces over the carefree days of his youth. After waking up from a strange dream, he is filled with an inexplicable longing to see his childhood lover again, in spirit or fleshâŚ
Dive into the world of the surreal and fantastical. Included in this anthology are seventeen short stories, each brought to life through dream-like prose that pushes the boundaries of the English language to create vivid, sensory experiences.
Immerse yourself in provocative tales that blend elements of fantasy, horror, and realism:
In âThe Flutist of Sinraat,â Torosh the pipe player is banished from the royal palace after asking for the kingâs daughterâs hand in marriage. Left in an impoverished position, he enters into a spectral contract with an insidious spirit from another realmâŚ
In âThe Pool of Lost Memories,â General Thragan marches his army over the mountains on a return journey to his homeland. Along the way, he drinks from a mysterious pool and becomes acquainted with his past selvesâŚ
In âXarthon,â the King of the Xarthonian Empire, having grown old and shriveled, reminisces over the carefree days of his youth. After waking up from a strange dream, he is filled with an inexplicable longing to see his childhood lover again, in spirit or fleshâŚ
Amroseâs fingers clenched the sands while he coughed and spewed salt water. After emptying his stomach, he flopped like a fish onto his back and panted. He stared teary eyed at the sky which appeared to have an unusual green color. Even as he blinked away the tears until his vision became clear, the sky remained jaded, coated by a thin veil of mist behind which the sun shone with a pale and obscured light.
Amrose sat upright and glanced around. He found himself on the shore of an island. The trees of a dense forest loomed nearby. Beyond the shore, an ocean stretched to what seemed like the worldâs rim. Nothing could be seen on its still and empty waters, not even a wave or a ripple.
Where am I?
His brain swam in his head as he pieced together his memories. He remembered manning a merchant galley carrying goods to be delivered to the king of Ithrahim. An unexpected storm had struck during the night. The vessel had tossed and turned, and he was flung overboard. He floundered in the raging waters until something heavy hit his head. He could not remember anything else . . . nor was he any closer to determining his whereabouts.
He attempted to recall the shipâs last known location on a picture of a map in his mind, but his head ached and throbbed upon attempting to do so. He cast the thought aside for now.
The cold and windless air caused him to shiver in his damp clothes. He wondered if any civilized folk inhabited the island and whether or not they would be willing to provide him with food and shelter. He resolved to search for them. Should they be barbaric and violent, he would still rather face them than sit and starve.
Amrose clambered to his feet and entered the woods. The shadows of the trees almost seemed to weigh upon his back. The frail silence broke to nothing but the sound of his footfalls. For whatever reason, he felt as though no man had ever set foot on this island before, and that his presence disturbed some sort of primordial peace.
He stopped to rest now and then, but his grumbling stomach and parched throat impelled him to keep going forward to find relief for his hunger and thirst. Thus far, he had seen no sign of man or critter.
Along the way, he brooded over the fate of his shipmates. He doubted they had halted the trading expedition to look for himâassuming they had survived the storm and had not washed up on a remote island either.
He had given little thought to the jaded sky and the stillness of the ocean before, dazed and disoriented as he was, but now, as he groped through the thickets, he coupled them with his mounting paranoia and reckoned the region must be under the influence of a spell.
Or am I dreaming . . ?
The sound of running water interrupted his thoughts. He followed it and came upon a small stream. He felt as though his hands sullied the water as he dipped them into it to draw a sip. The lukewarm liquid trickled past his dry and cracked lips and soothed his throat. He drank until his thirst was quenched. Still, he needed something to ease his hunger.
The shadows of the trees lengthened as the sun, sheathed in the mists, slid down toward the horizon. Nightfall fast approached. Amrose picked out a wide clearing to camp in. His forage of the vicinity yielded nothing except materials to start a small fire.
The first stars of the night flared up in the sky. Amrose sat below, hunched over an unlit pile of dry vine roots, twigs, and branches. He hesitated to light them despite the shivers crawling under his skin. The darkness coiled around him like a snake from whence he felt the stares of phantom eyes fixed upon him, watching his every move. At last, he summoned the courage to ignite the tinder. Flames sprouted and the darkness receded, fleeing in a sudden and almost audible motion to the outer perimeter of the light.
Amrose laid down by the warmth of the fire and closed his eyes. He reopened them again and again throughout the early hours of the night, thinking each time that his ears had caught the sound of something or someone lurking in the shadows. Eventually, he held them shut long enough to fall asleep . . .
Amrose stood in the hold of a ship surrounded by pots, casks, and sacks. The floor rocked back and forth to the waves in a way that he was all too familiar with. He could hear his crew members conversing above him along with the splash of their oars and the rumblings of the sea.
The cargo consisted of silver lamps, exotic spices, gold plates, bowls and utensils, sheets of parchment, jewelry, wool, and lavish silks, among other valuablesâall in abundance to be delivered as a gift from one king to another. Amrose often wondered what need one man could possibly have for so many material possessions. Nevertheless, overseas trade between the ruling powers of the world is what allowed him to earn his living.
A black iron-cast figurine of a cat sat atop one of the caskets. From the rumors Amrose heard amongst his shipmates, he recognized it as an object belonging to the cursed treasure horde of Queen Setaramene, who had ruled over the Karkeshian Kingdom centuries ago. Her reign was marked as a period of great wealth and prosperity for the Karkeshians. In the final years of the kingdom, invaders had sacked and plundered the capital city of Karkesha. In the catacombs beneath the royal palace, the tomb of Setaramene was said to have been overflowing with riches. A plaque at the entrance warned anyone from even pilfering a coin, âlest the wrath of the gods and goddesses be invoked by her majesty upon you.â This, however, did not deter the invaders. They looted the place and the rest of the buildings before razing them to the ground. Over time, the treasure of Setaramene dispersed across the lands, with the black cat figurine passing hands and ending up in Amroseâs.
He examined the artifact and admired the craftsmanship. For a moment, he sympathized with those who desired such trivial and impractical things. It would look nice on the mantelpiece at his house. His little daughter might even enjoy using it as a plaything.
But was Setarameneâs curse real? What had happened to the previous holders of her loot? Drowned, forever lost in the depths of the sea, unburied and unaccounted for, according to his sea-faring companions when he had asked them. They answered with serious faces yet in a jibing tone, as though trying to scare him. Initially, he had waved off the story of the Karkeshian Queen's cursed treasure as being nothing more than a fireside tale at the tavern. Given recent events, a shadow of doubt lay over this belief.
The eyes of the figurine lit up and glowed with a red light. Amrose stared, mesmerized by the catâs glare, when a large wave knocked the ship from the side. He lost his footing, crashed against the timbers, and jolted awake on the forest floor.
His heart raced in his chest and thoughts rushed through his head. A cold, clammy sweat clung to his skin. The ground seemed to sway underneath himâa sensation he always felt when returning to land after a long voyage at sea. He was back at the clearing in the forest. The fire smoldered beside him with a thin tail of smoke that drifted up toward the hazy star-lit sky.
When his heart and thoughts settled, he squinted at the stars in confusion. He did not recognize the constellations they formed, despite being a seasoned sailor who relied on them to navigate the world. Long he gazed at them while lapsing in and out of broken and dreamless intervals of sleep. At times, the haze lifted enough to give a clearer view of the stars and for new ones to appear. Still, he could not distinguish any of them.
Where am I . . ?
The hours slogged by, yet before Amrose knew it, the stars had vanished. The sky brightened with a somber green hue, while the mists regathered and stretched like long disjointed fingers.
After relieving his thirst at the small stream, he foraged for food. His hunger had intensified since yesterday. His stomach felt like the cave of some grumbling beast. He searched as far and wide as his legs could carry him, but the trees and bushes bore no fruits or anything that even looked remotely edible. It did not surprise him then that he had come across no wildlife, let alone another human. He found nothing to eat but grass. He plucked handfuls of blades off the ground and gulped them down his throat. The grass did little to alleviate his hunger but served as his only source of nourishment.
Throughout his wandering and idling in the woods, he mused over his dream and sightings of the mispositioned stars from the previous night. He thought about the cat figurine and could not help but believe that the Karkeshian queenâs curse had whisked him to this godless island which, judging by the stars, lay beyond the known world. He had been there for no more than two days, but the time felt like an eternity.
I need to get out of here, but where is here?
Amrose returned to the shore where he had initially woken up. He gazed across the waveless ocean. Light shone through its clear waters and into its fathomless depths. With the tap of his foot, he sent ripples across its surface, which resettled shortly after.
What were the odds of him being spotted by the crew of a vessel traversing this uncharted corner of the earth? However slim they may be, he felt it was his best chance at escaping the island and surviving. He would have waded out to the oceanâs end on a raft, using his arms as paddles if he had to, but despite spending most of his life on boats, he knew not how to construct even a small and simple one, having grown up in the comforts of civilization without the need or desire for such a skill until now.
Taking his own life to rid himself of the loneliness and suffering had also crossed his mind, but he never contemplated this choice for longer than a brief moment. Whenever he did, a picture of his wife and daughter clenching their hair, tears flowing down their cheeks, appeared vividly before him. So long as they lived, he was determined to escape the island and survive in the hopes of holding them in his arms again.
Amrose gathered bundles of sticks and branches to light a beacon. By late afternoon, he lay sprawled on the sands near the crackling blaze. His limbs burned from exhaustion, and his muscles felt tight as cords. He wondered whether his time and energy would have been better spent continuing his ventures inland. Or perhaps all of his efforts were doomed to be in vain.
Although he longed to sleep, he kept himself awake out of fear of falling into an endless, dreamless slumber. Soon, however, darkness filled his vision, and he became unconscious . . .
The winds whirred in Amroseâs ears and whipped his hair. Rain pelted his back, and brine sprayed his face. He and the rest of the rowers plunged their oars into the turbulent sea.
Thunder split the earth. The darkness gave away to nothing but the slivers of light of the moon and stars, which peered between the gaps in the clouds, along with the frequent flashes of lightning.
Amrose could just hear the shipmasterâs commands, who shouted over the din of the storm. The waves rocked the galley from every direction and sometimes rose as high as the railings. Water pooled on the deck, up to the sailorsâ ankles, despite the best efforts of the man tasked with using a bucket to throw it overboard.
âWeâre too heavy!â someone yelled.
âDrop the cargo!â roared the shipmaster.
Two men obeyed. One of them passed the goods from below the deck to the other, who tossed them into the sea.
âWe are almost there, keep rowing!â
They made headway to a point where the clouds above tapered, but the waves kept pushing them further away from it.
Amroseâs arms and fingers were cold and numb. He gripped his oar as tight as he could and paddled against the waves, all the while trying to keep himself from falling off his seat.
A series of waves crashed on top of the deck. Amroseâs eyes and ears filled with water, and he held his breath each time they did, with the taste of salt stuck to his lips. Some of the rowers sitting in front of him disappeared. He and the remaining rowers rowed frantically.
The vessel cracked and creaked beneath them. Another wave fell fast upon them and dragged Amrose into the waters. He clawed upward until his head bobbed above the surface, only to be submerged by the waves again.
He caught a glimpse of the sky outside of the stormâs edge where the clouds had cleared. Even as he floundered for life, he discerned the starsâthey looked both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He had seen them before, but where?
The strength in his limbs failed, and he sank into the depths of the sea. The world seemed to slow and become silent. His chest and throat tightened.
A black iron-cast figurine of a cat floated in front of him, which he had not noticed, for whatever reason, until now. The eyes of the figurine flashed red and engulfed him in light.
Amrose awoke in a coughing fit and flailed on the shore of the island. It took him a while to fully realize that he was no longer dreaming and drowning underwater, though his breathing still felt heavy and hindered. He glanced around at his surroundings and the fire crackling beside him.
His eyes widened at the stars in the night sky, and his mouth hung agape. They held the same positions and formed the same constellations as those in his recent dream.
He scratched his beard. What could this mean? Along with being perplexed, he could not shake off an uneasiness about some vague, impending demise. The shadow of death loomed in his mind.
He sat restlessly, cross-legged, and pondered the meaning behind his dreams while also trying to contrive a way to get off the island and out of that godless realm. His thoughts led nowhere and spiraled into dismay and despair.
None of this makes sense!
He clenched his hair and panted uncontrollably. âWhere am I?â he muttered, his voice thin and scratchy. âGet me out. Get me out!â he screamed at the stars until his throat felt as dry and coarse as the sands upon which he now laid.
He wheezed while staring up into oblivion. His manic outburst passed like a storm, and his thoughts became a little clearer. He recalled the cat figurine, last seen in the depths of the sea beneath the stars, perhaps the same ones shining above him at present.
He sat up and gazed at the flat, limitless expanse of ocean before him. The wildest inkling against all rational thinking urged him to dive into the waters and retrieve the cat figurine.
Aside from the peculiar stars, he had no reason to suspect the thing was underwaterâlet alone anywhere near or on the island. Even if his suspicion was true, would it not have sunk into unfathomable depths, out of reach? Nevertheless, he had an intense compulsion to swim in search of it, as though his life and salvation depended upon him doing so.
Amrose made a mad dash to the ocean and splashed in headfirst. He swam toward no peculiar spot, just straight in the direction he had leaped off the shore. He scoured the depths below, whose vastness and emptiness were illuminated by the starlight.
His heart jumped at the sight of an object submerged some fathoms deep. The black cat figurine! It did not sink further down or move whatsoever, as though frozen in ice.
Amrose dove until it was within his grasp. At his touch, its eyes flashed and blinded him in a brief wave of red light. He blinked, and the black cat figurine disappeared.
Something else happened. He knew not what other than that the waters had brightened ever so slightly. He felt dazed and confused, as though waking from a dream, just as when he had awoken from the others before. This time, however, his senses seemed keener and sharper, and the world more vivid and lucid.
He swam up to the glistening light and emerged above the surface, sucking in big gulps of air.
The gray and dark clouds of a storm fleeted across the inky black sky. The stars shone bright like ivory flames and formed constellations that Amrose had known how to trace since the days of his youth. The sea stretched in all directions with small rolling waves that rose and fell, again and again, like the crests and peaks of a mountain range. The island was nowhere to be seen.
Amrose spotted the shadowy shape of a galley drifting within his sight. Mustering the scraps of strength left in his limbs, he sliced his arms and kicked his legs into the waters in one last desperate swim.
The people onboard the galley noticed his approach. A few oars extended from the vesselâs sides and paddled.
Once near the ship, Amrose latched on to an oar, and his shipmates hoisted him up onto the deck. He laid on the rickety timbers, wet, shivering, and sore to the bone. The rest of the survivors looked just as tired and miserable as him. The initial crew of a little more than a dozen had been reduced by almost a half.
For the time being, he refrained from telling them about his surreal episode on the uncharted island, which had already begun to feel like a distant dream. They had much to sulk about in the next couple of days, as further hardships and struggles at sea were ahead.
The masts of the galley either had snapped off or were beyond repair, leaving them without sails, and although they had fewer mouths to feed, their food supplies were scarce, a significant portion of which had been soiled during the storm. Furthermore, they would have to explain to the king of Ithrahim why most of the cargo was lost, assuming they even survived to inform him.
Amrose still had a long and uncertain voyage to endure before he could return home to his wife and daughter.
Short story collections can be very varied; Iâve never met one yet where I loved everything, or hated everything. The Flutist of Sinraat & Other Fantasies by Rafique Shabbir is one of the better collections Iâve read - I tore through it in a day - with a collection of 17 short stories that blur the line between reality and the surreal. This collection will delight lovers of evocative, dreamlike prose, with stories that will linger in the memory and phrases you will find yourself using in every day life.
The stories manage to blend fantasy, horror and realism in ways that shouldnât work, but do. The landscapes may be otherworldly, but the dilemmas are human and everyday. Itâs fitting that the author writes under the name Scheherazade, the famous narrator of the Arabian Nights, as these stories contain magic from all around the globe.
Shabbirâs prose is simply gorgeous; his descriptions are both poetic and well balanced with the action, leaving us well able to picture the stories without being overwhelmed by description. I could see and hear these stories, which doesnât always happen for me! Some readers wonât enjoy the short stories, preferring a longer tale, but for those who like some variety in their reading, this is an amazing selection. There were a couple of stories that I felt stopped rather than ended, but in general, they were just the right length for what they were saying.
The stories in this collection feature timeless themes - love, loss, ambition and the desire of every human to transcend their limitations - placing them in settings that are both fantastical and everyday, in settings that stretch the imagination with every word.
Recommendation: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu would be a wonderful companion piece to this, featuring a similar mix of the everyday and the amazing. The collection features stories that first appeared in other media, many of them winning awards.
Movie Recommendation: If youâre looking for a more visual story with this same kind of feeling, Panâs Labyrinth (2006) by Guillermo del Toro is the one. Dark fantasy and imagination weave together in this story of love, love and bravery.