"A Mask of Flesh"

Sitting alone in the green heat of the forest, far from the road and any observing eyes, Neniza began to craft her mask of flesh.

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I have a bit of a personal crusade to open the fantasy field up to a broader range of cultures, but I've long been aware that there are hurdles in the way of that. One of the ways around those hurdles involves poking readers' minds a little bit further open with short stories, until there's enough space for you to cram a novel in.

Which is an abstract way of saying: Mesoamerican fantasy may go down better in small doses, at least to begin with.

So here's the first dose. The setting is based on some research I did a few years ago into Mesoamerican folklore; no one in it is precisely human. They're all roughly human-shaped, but there are different races/species locked into a rigid caste system modeled on pre-Columbian Mayan and Aztec society. This means I'm tossing around words like quetzalcoatl and ocelotlaca. Don't say I didn't warn you.

"A Mask of Flesh" can be found in Mike Allen's lovely anthology Clockwork Phoenix. That's the first volume of an ongoing series; my story "Once a Goddess" is in its successor. To whet your curiosity, here's the table of contents:

• Catherynne M. Valente, "The City of Blind Delight"
• David Sandner, "Old Foss is the Name of His Cat"
• John Grant, "All the Little Gods We Are"
• Cat Rambo, "The Dew Drop Coffee Lounge"
• Leah Bobet, "Bell, Book, and Candle"
• Michael J. DeLuca, "The Tarrying Messenger"
• Laird Barron, "The Occultation"
• Ekaterina Sedia, "There is a Monster Under Helen's Bed"
• Cat Sparks, "Palisade"
• Tanith Lee, "The Woman"
• Marie Brennan, "A Mask of Flesh"
• Jennifer Crow, "Seven Scenes from Harrai's Sacred Mountain"
• Vandana Singh, "Oblivion: A Journey"
• John C. Wright, "Choosers of the Slain"
• C.S. MacCath, "Akhila, Divided"
• Joanna Galbraith, "The Moon-Keeper's Friend"
• Deborah Biancotti, "The Tailor of Time"
• Erin Hoffman, "Root and Vein"

I'm pleased to say "A Mask of Flesh," along with eight other stories from this anthology, received an Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois' twenty-sixth Year's Best Science Fiction.