The Blackthorn Orphans

Sachiin was born a smiling, sloe-eyed idler before Siddhārtha Gautama was an infant in the mountains of Burma or Tibet: he is not certain which. He is a chimera, but isn't sure what that means. His people were raised into being by termagant witches to serve as familiars; this much he does know. Sachiin is a lover, the most accessible of romantics, too much so for the good of all concerned; an occasional fighter, but it must pay well and not conflict with May Eve or Samhain. Or drinking bollchu, smoking a bowl, picking up women, men, or lying on his face into the afternoon. But there are no snakes in his simplicity, and behind the libertine lies a guileless ingénue. Of no fixed address and no visible means. He runs with a bad crowd; the worst of them is his brother.

Kãla'amãtya knows he was born in the white wastes of the Tien Shan because no pariah or scapegoat can forget where the first blow fell. He wears disgrace like something chained around his neck, meting out the cruelty so long accorded him and harrowed by all that he has lost. If he wished, he might converse in any language spoken between Edo and Land's End, though he barely says a word. If he is troubled by the lethal amorality of his profession or by the military industrial complex pursuing their exotic materia, it is impossible to say. Until he finds someone who sympathizes.

Susan is an English girl who blew her holiday cash on the minibar and decided not to go home after all. That entails feigning domesticity for a nominal wage in a house held upright by the bee nests in the walls and the prevailing wind. She does not care for her monosyllabic employer and remains unmoved by his brother's disturbing habits and acquaintances. In their arcadian obscurity she might have enjoyed the peace and solitude if she had not counted Sachiin's fingers.

Contains adult content. Not suitable for children under 18 years.