Selected Stories

Cover image by Jason Zerrillo

"Nothing lasts! The faun sleeps, / Smiling, mute, remorseless." — Ludmila Jevsejeva, Autuna Melodio

In St. Petersburg, amidst an uneasy truce with the revolution, there exists a secret trade in looted ikons. But who are the dark strangers seeking for the Gate of the Archangel? In the small town of Tzern, news arrives of the death of the Emperor; meanwhile a postmaster, a priest, a prophet and a war-wearied soldier watch the dawn for signs of the future. Constantinople: A quest for the lost faiths of the former Ottoman Empire leads a French scholar to believe that the strangest may also be the truest. On the edges of Europe, exiles and idealists meet in a café to talk of their hopes—while sinister forces begin to march. These stories, exquisitely told by Mark Valentine, are about individuals caught up in the endings of old empires—and of what comes next.

Contents

• A Certain Power
• The Dawn at Tzern
• A Walled Garden on the Bosphoros
• Carden in Capaea
• The Bookshop in Novy Svet
• The Autumn Keeper
• The Amber Cigarette
• The Ka of Astarakahn
• The Original Light
• The Unrest at Aachen
• The Mascarons of the Late Empire
• Acknowledgments

Dustjackted Hardcover