A Plague of Butterflies

Anthology edited by Card

"A Plague of Butterflies" is a short story by Orson Scott Card. It appears in his short story collection Maps in a Mirror. Card originally published this in an anthology he was editing called Dragons of Darkness. His short story "Middle Woman" appeared in the same book under the pseudonym Byron Walley.

Plot summary

This is the story of a man named Amasa. One day a bunch of butterflies came to Amasa to take him on a journey to Hierusalem – the land of the dead. On the way he met a man who told him the key to getting into the city. The man explains to Amasa that Hierusalem was built and sealed off from the rest of the world to keep an evil dragon from going out and killing people. The man also warns Amasa that if he kills a butterfly he will live forever. When Amasa arrives at the city he finds out that the people who live there expect him to kill the evil dragon and save the queen. Amasa says that he is done with quests and then kills a butterfly. Soon after that, the evil dragon goes to the queen and impregnates her. When the child is born, the butterflies tell Amasa to kill it but he cannot because the child is so beautiful. When it grows up, the dragon woman begins mating with Amasa creating many new dragons to send out into the world. Amasa tries to kill himself to stop her, but discovers that he cannot die.

The comic

The short story "A Plague of Butterflies" was made into comic in which appears in the January 2008 issue of InterGalactic Medicine Show. The art for this comic was done by Lance Card and the script was written by Jake Black, who also worked with Card on the comic book mini-series Wyrms.

See also

• List of works by Orson Scott Card
• Orson Scott Card

External links

• The official Orson Scott Card website
• A Plague of Butterflies comic at IGMS