Review of Robert Minto, “The Moneylender’s Angel”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 296, January 30, 2020, Read online, Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.
Gareth and the story’s unnamed narrator are dockworkers sharing their lives in a bleak, violent town named Siltspar. Each has had a difficult past filled with violence neither feels able to atone for. To pay off a large debt owed by his father, Gareth was coerced into using his healing touch to torture people. The narrator, given by his parents at an early age to a cruel priesthood, was made to slit a hundred throats in ritual sacrifice. Both quit these gruesome practices as soon as they were able, but the guilt each feels is unrelenting. When, completely by chance, a magically powerful necklace used in the priesthood’s ritual slaughter falls into their possession, a very different kind of sacrifice is called for. Done out of love, this sacrifice, too, brings guilt, but also the hope of a brighter future for at least one of the two main characters.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies is one of my favorite magazines. Evocative stories like this are one of the reasons why.
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