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Perfect Statues and Their Broken Shapers

by Adrian Ward

My domain is one of beauty, of brightly colored statues and their dark inhabitants. On the bench before me figures form, carefully cast from molten glass.

At the other workbench Aki lords over a domain of hammers, sends glass-shards spinning with each cracking blow. The glass at his feet whispers murder as he stamps down, iron-booted, and grinds its inhabitants to dust.

Across my workbench, the day’s labor waits: a line of plaster molds, each holding a fortune-frog’s glass-cast facsimile. Statues meant to bring prosperity, the sort that can be found on shop counters or for sale from roadside peddlers.

Curiosities, all. False magic, sold only to the desperate and the gullible.

Ours are no mere baubles. (Continue Reading…)