NONE- Nine Hours After Dawn

Alyse stepped up to the frame of the Loom and bent forward, her left hand busy rotating her Infinity beads to shield her body from the temporal radiation. With her right hand, she drew the Infinity symbol over her heart to calm her mind and open it to the sight. Flanking Alyse on eight other sections of the Loom, her sisters chanted in unison as they wove images of future probabilities into the Tapestry. Alyse joined the chant.

“Lead me through the Loop.”

A diffuse warmth spread through her chest, down her arms and hands, into her hips and legs. Her eyes, closed under the blindfold, filled with spirit- light. Bright masses, unresolved into intelligible forms, fluttered like flames through her mind. She tightened the focus of her mind’s eye.

“Move me along my journey.”

Her awareness joined the flow of time, and she floated above the stream of the near past. This was the threshold; after her memory synced with the view, she’d see the future. A hole appeared, slicing through the Tapestry. The Excision had been cut. Alyse followed the threads.

“Carry me above the danger.”

Her uncle, Efran, appeared. He was sitting in the cloister. Alyse moaned in agony when she saw how much he’d aged. She should have given him more beads. She projected the fingers of her will, plucking the threads on the Loom to change his fate, but the warp was as immovable as steel cables. Uncle Efran’s death was immutable. She could only weave the future. Alyse’s bones sagged from the weight of her discovery and the creeping effects of temporal radiation. She was not protected with only eight beads.

“Today, tomorrow, and forever.”

Alyse watched a monk share Efran’s last minutes, then he found her ninth Infinity bead.

When would he come looking for her?

She watched them say a funeral mass for Efran while her tears fell onto the Tapestry. Efran’s death meant nothing if she didn’t complete their plan. Their world was in Grignor’s chains, and she had to break them. 

“Blessed is Infinity.”

The hole in the Tapestry would be discovered soon. Alyse pulled new yarn to the heddles, lowered the treadle, and with a vengeance threw the shuttle across the threads. With warp and weft, she would weave a new future. One to replace Grignor and the Codex, if she had enough time.

#

Stefen stood in the scriptorium, motionless, waiting. Every monk in the room was watching him, their eyes hidden below lowered brows and eye shades. He didn’t fear them. Tomorrow they wouldn’t remember his visit, or even his name.

With a glass paddle, Master Reader lifted the Excision from the glass box. The faint pink of Master Reader’s cheeks grayed.

“It was in Efran’s cell,” said Stefen.

“What have you brought upon us?” asked Master Reader.

Then he roared.

“Blasphemy.”

Master Reader rose from his desk, reached up to grab a hanging stirrup, and hauled down on the emergency advance lever. Throughout the monastery, a juddering groan rose from the gears and pulleys as they hastened to bring the damaged section of the Tapestry to Master Reader’s desk. Excess loops of the Tapestry overflowed its channel and piled up on the scriptorium floor. The monks scrambled to cover it with glass panels.

Master Reader found the site of the Excision, five hundred and five yards into the future. Two angled cuts made a triangular hole, severing half the warp threads. The gap’s shape matched the piece of Tapestry inside the box from Efran’s cell. Stefen waited, counting the seconds, in the stunned silence.

Then the questions started.

An encoder staggered forward, wobbling with shock. “Who did this?”

 “What should we do?” Another covered his mouth and ran toward the toilets.

 Under the barrage of questions, Master Reader returned the Excision to its box and ran with it to the Abbott’s office. Stefen followed, his fingers tapping his palms as he plotted his response. His program blocked direct interference, but he was their survival agent. How could he save Faith without revealing his true nature?

#

The Tapestry (part 5 of 9)

Previously in The Tapestry: The Excision is discovered and the threat to Faith becomes tangible. Stefen is forced into a difficult decision.

The Tapestry is a science fantasy featuring hidden truth, secret identity, and last minute rescue. Set in a clockwork world, it follows Alyse as she as she uncovers a break in the tapestry that runs her world, and Stefen — who isn't quite who he seems — racing to stop her before it all comes apart.

Ann Cudworth (also writing as A. C. Worth) is the author of short fiction in Metaphorosis Magazine, Exterus, and Sci-Fi Lampoon, and the anthologies Score—An SFF Anthology, Radicle, and Sages of Metaphorosis. She writes science fiction and urban fantasy, shaped by workshops at Odyssey Writing Workshop and the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, as well as Futurescapes and the Juniper Writing Institute.

Copyright 2026 Ann Cudworth. All rights reserved.
Read more at https://www.acworthwriter.com/