The Canopic Way

The Canopic Way runs five miles from the Gate of the Sun to the Gate of the Moon. My bearers rocked their way around statues and temples, colonnades and arcades, fountains and sphinxes while I, cruising high above the ox dung, welcomed the warmth of the rising sun on my back.

Once we reached the  western end of the Canopic Way, we stopped where the ground was baked into hard, sun-stricken fissures, but at least the reek of salted meat and sour blood was swallowing up the stench of the canal. Accompanied by the drone of flies, a big-boned, pear-shaped matron stood in the dusty path to her mudbrick shop under a coil of dark hair and a weathered signboard. Its paint peeling like dead skin, its patches of wood long since silvered, it had probably once read “Cheap Meats.”

“The Betrothed” was just published in Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder, an anthology magazine that will take you to the darkest corners of your imagination. To find out more about the story, click here. To find out more about the magazine, click here.