"Reading the 'Ralewing' issue of Fantastique Unfettered is like resting your face
against the smooth side of a mountain. Immediately you realize three things. Inside
this mountain is a palace. It is a beautiful palace, dark and vast, but not
kindly. This is where the soul goes when it dies.
Set your ear to the stone
more firmly. What do you hear? A thunderclap built of human voices. A slither, a
whisper, a restless shiver of wings. Press your eye to a fissure in the stone.
What do you see? Monstrous angels, horned harlequins, coyotes and cowboys, a
gleam of cabochon amber, a thing of patient patchwork waiting for the
lightning. Sniff what wafts from an aperture. What is that smell? A hint
of carrion. Something pickled in brine, vaguely green. Witch ash. Sulfur. New
rain.
There is poetry
here, keen as starlight, that prowls the dark like a wolf. Be careful
how you consume it. Like the first fruits offered in an underworld, the poetry
in this issue is both a rite of passage and an invitation to stay."
-- C.S.E. Cooney
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Fantastique Unfettered #4, coming Dec 26
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