 
### Divide and Conquer Volume One

Sean Sandulak, Editor

A Shift in the World – Copyright 2014 Heather Baver

The Survivor – Copyright 2014 Jacob Lawrence

The Pet Salesman – Copyright 2014 Cory Martinson

Crossed – Copyright 2014 Denise Winters

Prophecy? No Thank You – Copyright 2014 Sean Sandulak

The Heaven Gate – Copyright 2014 Jon Jefferson

AD EYES – Copyright 2014 Gord McLeod

A New World – Copyright 2014 Lou Gagliardi

Nothing Special – Copyright 2014 Sophie Anderson

The Dragon, Nitusomin – Copyright 2014 D. Bryant

All titles used by permission

Published by Foil & Phaser at Smashwords

ISBN 9781311214522

### Contents

Introduction

A Shift in the World

The Survivor

The Pet Salesman

Crossed

Prophecy? No Thank You.

The Heaven Gate

AD EYES

A New World

Nothing Special

The Dragon Nitusomin

Acknowledgments

Introduction

### by Sean Sandulak

In early 2013, the Sword & Laser book club and podcast announced that they were taking submissions for a short story anthology. On the group's Goodreads forums, a discussion began about what could be done with all the entries which wouldn't make the cut. A community blog, where authors could submit their writing and have it read and critiqued by their peers, was suggested by me as a solution for some those stories that didn't make the cut. The site, Foil & Phaser, is intended to be an opportunity for developing artists to hone their skills and network with other writers and readers.

This collection of short stories is the product of a workshop where a group of authors collectively tried to complete the 2013 National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing 50,000 words in the month of November. The goal was to have the group submit their stories, and then they would peer edit to critique and offer suggestions to improve their writing. As a reward for their efforts, the finished stories were gathered into this volume to be published online.

While ultimately we didn't meet our goal of completing NaNoWriMo, we managed to get over 38,000 words down which is an accomplishment in itself. Foil & Phaser will continue to offer online writers workshops for beginning to intermediate skilled authors, so look for more of these volumes in the future.

Visit us at http://foilandphaser.wordpress.com/

These stories may contain coarse language and content intended for a mature audience. Discretion is advised.

A Shift in the World

### by Heather Baver

Evenings, after dinner time, were the worst. Most of the retirement community was "plugged in" in the lounge. An electronic bingo game was in progress in the back corner. A tall, silver-haired man presided, his wife by his side. Two rows of boisterous participants hunched over their screens, knobby fingers sweeping to mark the board each time a letter and number combination was called.

Anna paced the lounge, sneakers softly padding the carpet. _Hush, hush._ The tennis balls on the back of her walker whispered against the short-pile carpet. Her left leg dragged behind every few steps, making its own protest. She frowned down at it as though it were a naughty child.

Big puffy armchairs and sofa held counsel around an electronic fireplace in the center of the room. Tonight these were filled with an assortment of gray-haired men and women, their e-readers cradled tightly in their hands. Anna could see the reflections of the screens in their curved glasses. She walked on, half-tempted to go back to her own apartment. In an empty corner she stopped and reached into a deep pocket of her sweater. Her bent fingers caressed the cool object nestled within the fuzzy blue knit. Anna shook her head and pressed on for one more lap around the lounge. Then she headed down the dim corridor past the elevator.

Anna hated the noise of the silence within her dim apartment. She opened the door and inhaled slowly, looking in the darkness for the faint sounds of neighbors on the wind. Sometimes she could hear a few dampened voices through the thin walls. Some of the residents liked to chat online with children in their own apartments, rather than in the lounge. It was more private that way.

Anna exhaled with a sigh and wished for someone to call, but the only remnants of her family were a few cousins even older than she. With clicks of knobs and grasps of pull chains, she turned on every lamp in the living room. Then she proceeded to the bathroom. Down the hall of brushed navy carpet to the bedroom. _Shhh. Shh,_ the walker whispered, as if it were trying to tell her to slow down. Anna pushed the silver frame into a soft corner by the window. She pressed her ear to the wall by the dark, carved wood of the headboard.

ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ. Pound. Pound. Clang! ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ.

Anna jumped back from the gray cream wall, her ear burning. The sound of metal biting metal ripped into her ears.

No, George. Her lips moved silently against the smooth paint. Anna pressed her hands up and down the wall, searching for a heartbeat. Her ear journeyed along, only to hear some faint buzzes deep in the insulation and Clarence's daughter asking him about what he had eaten for dinner that night.

With shuffling steps, Anna reached out for her walker and glided into the hall. She stopped at the kitchen sink for a glass of water.

ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ. Pound. Pound. Clang! ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ.

Fainter this time, the sounds were muted by the splash and gurgle of water dancing against the stainless steel sink. Anna rested her knotted hands against the glossy countertop.

No, George.

ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ. Pound. Pound. Clang! ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ.

Why did you have to, George? Couldn't there have been some OTHER way?

ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ. ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ. Pound. Pound. Thump.

Anna's shaking finger punched the start button of the dishwasher. She took a deep breath and held it, the air pushing against the hearing aids tucked in her ears. She exhaled, the air curling away from her trembling lips. Only a few glasses and plates jumped under the spray of water in the dishwasher, but it was enough to blot out any other sounds.

Reaching inside her sweater pocket, she gave it a squeeze. The metal pressed cool waves against her sweating fingertips. They embraced for a few seconds. Anna slid her hand out of her pocket and reached for the buttery brass door handle. She pushed the door open into the dim hallway and followed behind her walker. The lights in the apartment cast weak beams of light into the gray night. With her good right leg, Anna pushed the door. It closed with a muffled click. She padded down the hall to the elevator.

The elevator doors slid open as Anna glided past them. She turned right to go back to the lounge. Her left leg began to drag, pleading that she stop, turn back to her apartment. She looked down at it, encased in the thin worn jeans, so tired. No, I'm not turning back now. Come on. Come ON! With a jolt, she propelled herself forward, and the silver walker plowed right into a young girl.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Anna felt the heat surrounding her face, the wrinkles burning hot trails along her cheeks. She looked into the young girl's glittering brown eyes, the pink-red mouth open and startled.

To her horror, Anna heard a dull thud at her feet. She could almost see a smooth, rounded object spinning across the carpet and hiding in its tangled floral forest. Her fingers clutched empty air inside the blue sweater cave.

"Good evening." The young girl smiled, remembering her training.

"Good evening." Anna forced herself to look at the young girl's eyes. Talk to her. Distract her with words. You can look over every inch of this abominable carpet after she's gone. On your hands and knees, if necessary. "So clumsy of me," she continued, picking up the stitch of conversation. I should have been looking where I was going."

"That's okay. Don't worry about it." The young brown eyes bounced around the hallway.

"You work in the restaurant, don't you? I think you have waited on my table?" Anna looked for the girl's name tag, but it was hidden under a worn olive drab jacket.

"Yes. I'm Kat. My nametag says Katrina, but everyone calls me Kat." The curly dark eyelashes flickered, scanning the hallway. "Aha! Found it!" Kat walked over to a corner of the hall and reached under a dusty fake plant. She picked up a dull metal ball. Her pink fingertips scampered over the cloudy metal. "Hey, this is a—"

"Please. Give that back to me." Anna spoke in a hushed whisper. Keep calm. Don't sound like a crazy old lady. She took a deep breath and continued. "Thank you for finding that, Kat." Anna held out her hand, the warped fingers trembling.

Kat held the metal ball up to the flickering fluorescent light. One of her soft fingertips traced the pattern etched in black. R-1-3-5 and down to the second row: 2-4. She handed it back to Anna. "Cool shifter knob."

"How did you know?" Anna's white brows flickered with surprise. "And keep your voice low, please." She looked up and down the dark hallway. "Even though most people around here don't hear well," she added with a smile. Anna gave the cold metal knob a squeeze, feeling it warm up in her hand. Then she tucked it deep into her pocket.

"My Gramp." Kat tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "He used to draw pictures for me and my sister when we were little. He loved to draw cars best. But my mom was always hiding the drawings away. I once heard her tell my dad that she should have burned them up, but she couldn't do that to Gramp. So she'd put the drawings up on a high shelf at the back of the closet. My sister and I would sneak up there sometimes and look at the car pictures."

"I wish I had known your grandfather. He doesn't happen to live here by any chance?"

"No, he took a cross-country transport a long time ago. I think I was about nine when he left." Kat shook her glossy black ponytail. "And he refuses to be 'plugged-in.' We do write letters back and forth, but it takes a long time."

Anna sighed. "Now I really do wish I knew your grandfather. He sounds like a kindred spirit." She glanced down at the digital clock glowing on Kat's arm. "It's getting late. Your mother will be worried."

"No, sometimes I stay late and help wash dishes in the kitchen. When we're short handed."

"Well, in any case, we can't stand around in the open talking about this anymore." Anna's fingers gripped the silver handles of her walker. She extended one hand, her dry white fingers closed around Kat's warm pink ones. "Thank you for helping me. If you ever want to talk more, come visit me sometime." Without looking back, Anna shuffled down the hallway to her apartment. Shh. Shhh. The walker whispered on the thin carpet. Behind her, she heard the door to the outside open and then close with a sigh of cold breath.

Anna opened her own door and looked around at the glowing lights. Silence covered the walls and the cold spaces between windows and thick curtains. She sat down on the couch, thinking of the sparkle in young Kat's eyes. Like metal flake paint on a street rod of old. She lay back against the velvet blue couch and looked over at the lamps winking back at her. Again she breathed in the silence. No neighbors could be heard. They must all be in the lounge, asleep, or possibly reading. Anna looked at the large bookshelf covering the wall across from her couch. Maybe somebody out there was turning paper pages instead being washed in the blue light of an e-reader. Anna sighed and felt her hands relax. Her eyes slid closed, and a blanket of memories covered her.

"It's over, Anna. I'm sorry." George stood behind her, his hands stroking her shoulders. The grease blackened tips of his fingers made swirling patterns on her lilac shirt.

"No, George." She paused, touching the words with her tongue. "No."

"We knew this day was coming. It was only a matter of when."

"It doesn't make it easier." Anna leaned her head back, feeling the crisp field of her husband's beard. Her car's round headlights blinked at her in the sun. A few red curled leaves floated down to kiss its lemon paint. The square-jawed plastic bumper gave her a shy smile. The car still looked hopeful, feeling the dust and driveway pebbles beneath its tires. It knew no past or future. Just an unending present. A road that stretched and curved, stopped, waited, and stretched some more.

"No more?" Anna shook her head, the skin creasing between her chestnut eyebrows. The day that never should have come was here.

"They are coming tomorrow morning. I just got the call. The car must be disassembled and ready for recycling when they get here." George sighed, his face burrowing into Anna's hair.

Pushing away from him, Anna spun around. "Why? They should do it themselves then. If they're in such a hurry." She looked over at her smiling car, waiting patiently in the driveway, unaware of the black words swarming on the horizon. Fingers of tears began stretching and closing around her throat.

"We're lucky, actually." George stepped away and patted the car's golden fender.

"Lucky?" Anna's tight throat could barely squeeze out the word.

"Because we live in such a remote location. Everyone else had to turn their cars in at dismantling centers in the bigger cities and towns. Months ago. Years ago, in some cases." George sighed again. He pulled Anna into his arms and they both leaned up against the warm metal door.

"But how can we just give up? Like this? I can't believe you don't want to fight back." She looked down through the dusty window at the black steering wheel.

"I do, Anna. Believe me, I do. I've spent many nights sitting out on the porch in the middle of the night. Thinking. Making plans. Tossing them back. Making new plans."

"We could just get in the car and start driving. Run away."

"There's nowhere left to run to. This is it. We've got the last gasoline pump in the county. And it's almost empty. And what about spare parts? Tires? Oil?"

"Okay. Okay. I don't want to hear anymore." The tears pushed up and up and began spilling out of her eyes.

"Hey. Hey." George held her tight, his blackened fingertips wiping the tears from her cheeks. "I don't have to start right now. I'll wait until after dinner. Why don't you go for one last drive?"

Anna found her hands gripping the silver door handle. She brushed past George with a half-embrace and fell into the waiting arms of the worn, black seats. The engine cleared its throat with a growl. Anna pushed the accelerator, scattering stones in the gravel drive. She turned and twisted up the farm paths, not sure where to go.

She slowed down as the path became narrower, her hands dancing over the steering wheel. The remaining leaves of the trees above made freckled patterns on the dashboard of her car.

After tonight it would all be different. They would walk to town during the daytime, and take a public transport if they wanted to go farther. Bikes and skateboards were permitted, but few people wanted to use them. They were a lot safer now, though, now that the roads were nearly deserted. Most people in town didn't care to go anywhere anyway. They could sit in front of the big screens in their homes and video-call instead of visit, or order food supplies and have them delivered on the next big transport.

The trees lifted their heads away, and she came to an open section of the path. The paved road was just ahead. Lifting her left foot, she pressed the clutch to the floor. Under her right hand, the shift knob pressed warm, polished metal to her palm, kissing the map of lines on her skin. She shifted up, her left foot slowly floating up as her right foot drifted down to press the gas. The car galloped forward, tires outstretched, ready to embrace the road. Again Anna's feet and right hand went through the movements of the dance. She shifted up another gear. They leaped onto the road. Anna could hear the delighted cries of the engine as it spun faster, faster, wait—still faster...then release. Float, down with the clutch, and slide into the last gear. Anna put both hands on the wheel. The curves of the road came running to meet them like eager children.

It had always been that way: the road, the car, her body, hands and feet inside, all parts of the dance. There had been fuel shortages, wars, but life continued, wheels spinning away the months and years. Sure, she knew that eventually the world would use all the oil. But not yet.

Then they lost the war. So simple to say in so few words. Two years ago she heard things would change. But she did not believe. No, not yet.

ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ. Pound. Pound. Clang! ZzzzzzzzZZZZZ.

Too soon the darkness came, and the little car was parked for the final time. Anna stood at the kitchen sink, burying her hands in the dishwater. She turned on the sprayer to mute the sounds of George working in the garage below.

The little yellow car, glowing like a firefly under the swinging fluorescent lights of the garage ceiling. With a hacksaw, George slicing the lemon paint skin, cutting, pulling, tearing—No. No. She had to block out the sounds. Anna dried her hands on a dishtowel. She turned on the TV in the living room. Walking down the hall, she climbed into bed in the back bedroom. Piling pillows and blankets over top of her shaking body, Anna closed her eyes.

The last cries of the car pleaded on thick, moist air. The vibrations of death shook and rumbled beneath her.

In the morning she opened her eyes to the motionless pattern of flowers on the sheet over her head. She waited, breathing the silence, watching the sun march along the floor. Hours slid along the polished wood, up onto the fluffy white rug, and up the dark wood of the dresser. A metallic gleam pricked at Anna's eyes. There in the middle of the dresser, between the cranberry glass of her Grandmother's lamps, lay the silvery polished shifter knob from her car. She pushed her cramped legs across the room and picked it up, her fingers trembling. As she held the little knob in her cupped hands, Anna heard a faint plastic buzz outside. She bowed her head and traced the black engraved gear pattern on the knob:

R-1...She heard George's voice answered by a low rumble.

1-3...a thick metal scraping sound as the workers loaded up their prey. She hoped George did not have to help them.

3-5...the click of the electric jaws, chewing, chewing, chewing. That's what they did with tires and seats, or so she'd been told.

2-4...the thunder of air being forced out as the recycling truck closed its giant mouth.

"That everything?"

"Yes, that's it." George answered, his voice warm, steady.

"We got it all?"

"Yes. All taken care of." George's voice slid over her hands. Anna tucked the shifter knob deep into her pocket. The ghost of a smile echoed around her eyes.

Anna opened her eyes. The clock on the wall ticked softly murmuring to the gears behind its creamy face. Ten minutes after midnight. She swayed to the brass music of the pendulum. It played alone in the silence. Everyone in the retirement community would be asleep by now. Her wrinkled hand slid off the couch arm and into her sweater pocket. She took out the shifter knob. The polished metal winked at her in the lamplight.

"Thank you, George. You did what you could, my love." Anna pushed herself up from the couch and into the arms of her walker. Shh. Shh. She pushed herself over the ocean of navy blue carpet and over to the window. Parting the thick curtains, she pressed her hand to the cold glass. By the light of the moon and stars, far below the tall apartment building, she could see it, a dim outline curving away in the dark. The old highway. The concrete sides looked like bleached bones. The road between, a yawning canyon full of bottomless black, slumbering. Only an occasional transport floated over it now. Somewhere, far at the other end of that sleeping creature, lay Kat's grandfather. Did he still dream? Did he still draw?

Anna sat down at her desk in the corner of the room and began to write a letter.

The Survivor

### by Jacob Lawrence (Writing as Henry Jakubs)

Fires raged all around him, the smoke drifting out onto the streets, enshrouding the lone man as he blindly made his way through the ruined city. Cautiously, he stepped over rubble, downed power lines, and whatever else had found itself on the smoldering asphalt he now tread upon. The improvised head-wrap he wore, a salvaged shower curtain he had found in an apartment two blocks back, was one of the few things he had come across that had escaped the onslaught unscathed, and now it served a purpose for which it had never been intended; it protected him.

After slicing holes into the thick plastic and wetting the canvas that backed it, the man fashioned something that made the harsh journey slightly bearable. It was poorly designed, ineptly created, but he had tried his best to protect himself from the smoke that constantly surrounded him, and the poisons he could be admitting into his body with each breath. Unfortunately, there was only so much that one could prepare for. The destruction that had been unleashed upon this city, the ash that blanketed the very street he walked on, was evidence of that. The cowl did nothing to stave off the ruination of his lungs, but its presence was a comfort he could not go without.

The concrete shifted beneath his feet, almost as though it was trying to drag him down into the depths, to join so many others that had found themselves lost, entombed in the forgotten civilization that lay below the city, to rot where no one would ever find them. Just as he had held on to the past, the city did as well, yearning for what had been, even as it withered away.

Explosions sounded off in the distance. Maybe a broken gas line had finally succumbed to the fiery temptation that danced around it, or a building had collapsed upon itself, embracing the painful demise it had been fated to. While those possibilities were terrifying in and of themselves, the man had learned there were greater things to fear.

Carnage was always close behind. His very presence ensured the destruction of anything, or anyone, he had come in contact with, and the chaos that followed in his wake was an unfortunate reality, one that he could not ignore.

Heat rushed over him as steam erupted from a nearby manhole, shaking him from his reverie. He turned, mouth agape, already shouting a warning before the emptiness reminded him he was alone. The faces of the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people he had failed, some he had known for years, and others he had only met when this hellish nightmare had begun, flashed through his mind. How long had it been since he'd last heard the sound of another? Since someone had said his name? Acknowledged him, if only in passing? Although he questioned it, he knew, he could never forget the last time he had seen someone else.

Calling him a lost soul, a wayward son, destined to eternally search for what he truly desired, would be an understatement. He could accept such a label, because, inherently, he knew he was something far worse, a coward. There was a single truth that he did not want to succumb to, the possibility that there was no one else, and that he was the last of his kind. The isolation he now suffered had been forced upon him, and the devastation that surrounded him was a constant reminder of how truly frail humanity was. Escaping the truth allowed him to steel his will as he aimlessly wandered the city, searching, over and over, for something he might have missed, a clue that may have gone unnoticed, one that could lead him down the path of redemption.

As he reminisced of what had been, he stepped on something, sinking into it with an audible squelch. He froze. Stumbling back, his body swayed dangerously, balance in question, as his breathing became ragged.

He couldn't see it, the smoke was so thick that it was a miracle he could even walk upright, but he had honed his other senses during the weeks he had spent amongst the flames. He knew the best way to determine what it was, but he was hesitant to touch it. He had seen things, atrocities committed against the people he had cared for, and those images, those deaths, haunted him every time he closed his eyes.

Shaking, his mind racing, he began to imagine what this poor soul had gone through. Even after everything that had happened, there were no bodies, no evidence that those people had ever lived. It was only the moments he remembered, the fleeting conversations, the bitter ends, that reaffirmed their existence; they allowed him to hold onto his sanity. He had no idea where the bodies had gone, why they had vanished, but here he was, with something lying before him, and he could feel that spark of hope reverberate deep within him as it flared back to life.

There was never anything left of the victims, but here, here was something he could touch, tangible proof that he had never been alone, but even as he dropped to his knees, searching, he could feel cold despair seize hold of him. There was nothing but the concrete he had walked upon so many times. Whatever it was, it was gone, vanished into the smoke and mayhem like everyone else that had come before.

Desperately, he groped about, blindly searching for what he was sure had just been there. Even the smallest clue would satisfy him, prove this wasn't some insidious hallucination, a creation of his mind merely to alleviate the ever-growing sense of dread he felt with each passing moment. He knew it was futile, it always was. He searched the entire block, to no avail, hoping, just this once, that he'd be wrong.

Finally, he left. The ground steadily became level, and the difficult terrain fell away, progressing into a well-traveled path. How many times had he walked this same road? Dozens? Hundreds? Like always, the confusion set in, and he couldn't remember if he had created this, or if it had been there all along, leading him on this endless journey. It didn't matter, he continued on, experience and intuition guiding each step as he avoided anything that may have barred his way. He knew this path better than he knew himself, and still he followed it, hoping to find something else at the end, something different.

With each passing block, his paranoia grew stronger; the doubt and negative emotions that plagued him began to eat away at his resolve as he withdrew into himself. His instinct screamed as he felt the presence of others all around him, hidden from view by the very thing that had protected him for so long. His hair began to stand on end as he felt them drawing nearer. Something was wrong. There were sections of the city he didn't dare pass through, but this route had always been safe, and yet his gut told him otherwise now.

Blindly reaching out, his fingertips brushed against the brick buildings that ran beside him, the coarse material scraping against his scarred flesh. He moved forward, waiting for the breach he knew was coming, an opening into a home he had found days ago, part of the ever-changing landscape that surrounded him. Finally, he felt the jagged edge of the portal he had been searching for, and slipped inside, dropping to a crouch as he hid himself within a place that had once been a home, for people who had once lived.

Long moments passed as he waited there, listening. Sweat beaded upon his brow as he strained his senses, but there was nothing, only the single constant he had become accustomed to, the crumbling of stone as the buildings wasted away around him. It had to be some sort of sick joke, he had felt it, the inherent knowledge that he was being pursued, and yet there was nothing. Then, just as he came to his feet, he heard it, faint but unmistakable. A cry for help echoed throughout the city.

That mere sound, the voice of another, burned away his need for secrecy and caution. Barreling out of safety, he found himself running down the debris laden streets, drifting into the alleys that lined the concrete forest that surrounded him, snaking his way through the maze of ruined homes, shops, and apartment buildings with a grace that could only be attributed to the recklessness the situation had forced him to embrace.

With each step, the cries for help grew weaker, more distant, and the need to find them, whoever it was, only grew stronger. The very thing that had protected him was now a hindrance, and just as he burst onto an unknown street, the smoke was gone, and the sun bore down upon him, its radiance blinding.

The towering buildings that surrounded him were created to block out the harsh rays, and had they been restored to their former glory, they may have succeeded, but what was once beautiful, titans that had risen up in hopes of touching heaven, were now desiccated husks, shredded beyond recognition. Some had been reduced to piles of rubble, others had toppled into one another, but many were just leaning, threatening to crumble beneath their own might.

The cries for help were gone, and as he spun around, searching, his eyes fell upon a small cafe, the storefront blown inward. He raised his hand, blocking the cruel light that was quickly disappearing as the clouds that blanketed the sky overwhelmed it. He saw movement beneath the rubble, a slight shudder as bits of concrete tumbled from the mound that lay inside the shop.

There was no hesitation as he threw himself at the pile of stone, metal, and wood, searching for whoever lay beneath. Even the largest pieces were easily tossed aside as an almost frenzied strength surged through him, and fiction shattered reality.

"Help," he could barely hear it, the voice was frail, feminine, the word drawn out, but it was real, and an almost fanatical sense of determination took hold of his pale blue eyes. Effortlessly, he dragged a large slab of concrete out of place, revealing ashen, torn, flesh. Digging through the debris, he began to expose more of her, delicate fingers trembling as the woman began to sob beneath him. She was growing quieter, weaker with each second, and as her strength faded, his seemed to flourish. He was going to save her, no matter what.

Wrenching a rather large, and entrenched, light fixture from the pile brought about a horrifying discovery; a speaker, labored breathing coming from it, had been buried there. As the realization consumed him, there was suddenly an explosion, and as he turned, he could see one of the skyscrapers clearly through the gaping hole, falling towards him.

There was no time to react as his fingers coiled around the cold, dead, flesh that had been planted there. The man watched as the high-rise came crashing down around him, and the skyline lost another of its beloved giants.

As the dust settled, and force rippled through the dying city, the clouds darkened, and rain began to fall, almost as though the very sky mourned the loss of this lone stranger that had walked beneath its grace.

Then, something began to move inside the storm, a swift, unnatural, motion that belied anything man had come to know. A drone descended from the clouds, lording over the graveyard of stone. Just as the first had revealed itself, others followed, until they riddled the sky, hundreds of machines poised above one of humanity's greatest metropolises.

Their engines roared, dancing upon the currents and updrafts that the flames so lovingly created. Hatches opened along their underbellies and turrets began to extricate themselves from the machines, barrels whirling, before they suddenly opened fire upon the downed building. The bullets shredded through concrete, and as dust wafted up into the air, the drones did not stop their onslaught even as the intense heat began to warp their weapons, mutilating their own bodies as they sought to cleanse the man from the face of the earth.

It wasn't until the Gatling gun clicked empty on the first drone, the apparent leader, that the seemingly endless torrent began to abate.

There was nothing left, the entire block had been demolished, and only a knoll of rubble remained. As the drones flitted about, sensors buzzing, searching for any signs of life, the leader made its way down to the street, investigating the carnage they had wrought.

Just as it reached the buildings it had so cruelly cut down, the drone began to shudder, metal shrieking as the hardened blast shielding began to crack, before suddenly folding in on itself, crashing to the ground. The other drones hovered there, waiting, as the debris slowly rose up to meet them, floating high above the leveled block as the man revealed himself.

Although his clothing was torn, even the shower curtain he had so pitifully modified had been reduced to nothing, his body was perfect, pristine, there wasn't a scratch on him. As his body began to shake, and hatred twisted his features, the earth shuddered in rage as his gaze fell upon the machines that hovered so nonchalantly above the city they had so eagerly destroyed.

The rubble suddenly stilled before raining down around him, entrenching him, as one of the drones opened fire, unleashing hell upon the man they had so desperately tried to kill. As the rounds slammed into him, the ammunition collapsed upon impact, falling inert upon the ground, useless against him.

Then, without warning, he was gone, only a plume of smoke erupting at his feet betrayed any sign of movement. He had disappeared faster than the drones could process, but they did not idly sit by, waiting for him to show himself again. The entire swarm began to buzz about, whirling, like a murder of crows forced from their perch, as they searched for him.

The surviving spires began to quake, their walls collapsing as an unseen force slammed into them. Dust rose from the buildings, a momentary indication of where he was, and the machines could only react. There was no way to predict where he may go, no algorithm that could account for his insane abilities. As the assailants began to fire indiscriminately, the concrete giants that humanity had created, which had housed their dreams and aspirations, were destroyed not by their fateful enemy, but by the strength of the lone survivor that had sought solace in their shadow. The weakest of them began to fall, girders screeching as it toppled down, taking its own revenge as many of the drones fell with it.

They were cannon fodder before the might of a man that was in no way ordinary, that didn't seem to be a man at all. The drones were never meant to succeed, that was never a possibility, and yet they remained, fighting a foe they could never equal. It was a battle against the impossible, fending off the improbable, but still they fought, not because of their coding, or the orders sent from above, but because something had to.

Each of them met the cruel fate of the first, their components shattered, crushed to pieces, as their lives were viciously terminated. The man danced amongst them, his power passing through the very armaments that made them so deadly, rendering them impotent, before sentencing them to the harshest of fates. They weren't just destroyed, the machines wasted away. Their composition rapidly aged in his mere presence.

It was all conjecture of course; no one truly understood this man's limitations, what he could do, nor did the machines care. They had but one objective in mind, that he, like all other humans, had to be eradicated.

They fell in droves, joining the rain that was now eating away at the stone forest that they had been reigning over. Hundreds fell, and even as the last one began to fire indiscriminately, hoping for a lucky shot, to wound this invisible adversary, they too joined the trash that littered the city.

As the final corpse fell, the man appeared, standing once again in that ring of rubble, his fingers clutching that dead, rotting, arm, the evidence that he had so desperately sought. Like the rest of humanity, she had fallen prey to something that no one had anticipated, a force that had laid waste to their cities, and heralded them into the age of extinction. As he looked down upon it, rain masking the tears streaming down his face, he didn't notice the blur moving towards him, not until an earth-shattering blow slammed into the side of his head.

Engines roared as the android moved at an alarming, unimaginable, speed, closing the distance between them instantly. As the man flew through the air, the machine vanished from sight, just before something slammed into his gut, rocketing him down into the earth.

The small crater resulting from the blow cradled his body, and as he lay there, stunned, his nerves screamed with an unfamiliar sensation, pain. With that jarring introduction, the Hunter revealed itself.

There had been rumors, back when resistance still meant something, of androids that took on the appearance of humans, programmed to infiltrate and take out specific targets. Some had called them Dolls, because of the porcelain-like skin that was draped across their face.

"Subject 36009," the Hunter said, its disembodied voice cutting through the mental fog that had fallen over its target. The man couldn't tear his eyes away from its lips, watching them form each word with morbid fascination. "You have been designated a priority threat. Do not resist, do not postpone the inevitable, it is futile."

As that odd, metallic taste filled his mouth, the man stared at this thing, this abomination. His mind tried to make sense of it. Never had he seen anything like this before, never had he faced anything this powerful, and as this reality sunk in, something began to awaken inside of him. Maybe, if he was normal, he'd be afraid, or anxious, but instead he felt something else, excitement. Even as the blood seeped down his throat, he couldn't help but laugh, his head thrown back as thunder raged down around them.

The android, a machine that had taken the lives of so many others before this fateful encounter, was not amused by the disrespect this mere human was showing it, and as it sped forward, flashing out of sight, its blow met only air. The Hunter, a killer without peer, stood there, trying to comprehend what this meant, as the man's fingertips effortlessly pierced through its exoskeleton, penetrating armor that no man-made weapon had ever been able to breach, and severed its arm, just as the automaton had begun its retreat.

Darting back, the Hunter moved with a fluid grace, one that a machine, a culmination of hydraulics and pistons, should never have been able to achieve. For all intents and purposes, the Hunter was the machines' answer to humanity; a better, more evolved and designed, version of the people that they had sought to destroy. The Dolls' strength, reflexes, everything about them had been created for this, to topple a people that did not deserve to rule. As the Hunter stood its ground against this man, the machine's doll-like face twisted with pure hatred, before springing forward, body rotating, as it lashed out with a perfect, textbook, spinning back elbow.

Had it been anyone else, it surely would have connected, but the target, 36009, effortlessly slipped beneath it, his arm sweeping downwards in a beautiful arc, as his hand, fingers pressed tightly together, forming a knife, severed the Hunter's weight-bearing leg, cleaving through it as though he was parting water. As the two warriors passed one another, it was the Hunter who fell.

There was no hesitation in its actions, and as the android crashed into the ground, concrete cracking under its immense weight, its remaining leg was already opening, revealing the repulsor that was housed there. As the engine flared, preparing for the machine's swift retreat, the man was there, glee plastered on his face as his foot came down on the Hunter's remaining leg. The machine roared in simulated rage as it tried to drag itself away from the beast that was now tormenting it, metallic fingers digging into the asphalt, as it plowed through the street.

The hysterical laughter that rang out behind it caused the Hunter to pause, to look back, staring in disbelief at the severed leg it had left behind, and the monster it had been sent to kill. The man was on it instantly, wrapping his hand, the delicate hand of a human, around the Hunter's throat, lifting it from the ground as though it was nothing.

The Hunter pulled back its arm, prepared to fight until the end, and as the fist hammered into the man's jaw with the strength that could topple buildings, the power that had destroyed so many others, the android's arm collapsed in on itself, the metal coiling, like a spring about to burst; as it screeched, the appendage snapped, flying off into the distance.

Blood dribbled from the man's mouth, coating his chest as it streamed down his body, and he smiled at the unmistakable look of fear that now seized the Doll's face. There were so many monsters in this world, some that had been born, and others that had been created, but no matter how great one became, there was always something stronger, and like every encounter before, 36009 had shown the disparaging difference between him and the machines. He had not wanted this fight, he had never wanted any of this, but still he couldn't help but relish in the feel of overwhelming power. The ability to survive was his, and while he was not the greatest enemy the machines had faced, he had grown into something they couldn't help but fear.

"What are you?" The Doll asked, its eyes pleading, oddly human, but all the man did was smile, that sad, demented, smile, as his hand thrust into its chest, the armored plating parting before his very touch, and his fingers encircled the Hunter's heart, a micro-fusion reactor that was hidden within. The abomination began to thrash about, trying to escape, struggling to survive.

Pale blue light began to emanate from the reactor, eradicating the dust that covered them both, shredding through the dirt and grime that had shrouded the man's face. He was weary, the dark circles that hung beneath his eyes revealed far more than their fight ever had.

Just as the light had appeared, it began to fade, vanishing entirely before erupting within the man's flesh. Unbridled radiance streaked through his veins, speeding towards his heart, as he drew power into himself, stealing the android's very essence as it watched, as those that controlled it watched. There was nowhere for it to go, nowhere for it to hide, its eyes began to glass over as its systems failed, and it fell before the very being it was designed to destroy.

Lifelessly, it slipped from his arm with a flick of his wrist, as the tired warrior extricated himself from another kill. Standing there, his face turned towards the sky, he allowed nature to wash over him, to pacify the tragic memories that were storming their way through his mind, taking him away from this place, even if only for a moment. He could feel it setting in, the nausea that flared up inside him, the darkness that threatened to take control of his body, compressing his organs, as his vision blurred. Weakness, it always followed such a display of strength. The need to manifest his abilities began to overwhelm him as the hunger, the need for that power, set in.

It was always like this whenever he used his gifts, there was a risk that it would consume him completely. It didn't matter how powerful he became, there was always a debt that needed to be paid, and he gladly sacrificed the pound of flesh that seemed to satisfy the power that allowed him to survive.

Dropping to his knees, his arms wrapped around him, the man could feel everything rushing back, everything he had pushed away during that brief moment of sublime violence. Shivering, the tattered rags clung to him, weighing him down as he knelt, feeling the stolen energy mix with his own, tainting him. Reaching out, he grabbed that rotten arm, clutching it to his chest before struggling back to his feet, not even sparing a moment to steady himself as he stumbled into a nearby alley, back into the land of smoke that concealed him from his enemies.

He had survived, again, even if he didn't want to, and as he walked those sullen streets, he prayed he would find someone, anyone, before he paid the ultimate price, and lost himself. It had been 4 months, 23 days, 16 hours, and 19 minutes since he had last seen another living person. The machines had attacked him hundreds of times, trying to kill him, but today, today was the first day he had bled.

The Pet Salesman

### by Cory Martinson

"This is pretty good," Ted announced around a mouthful of casserole. "What is it again?"

"It's called Tater Tot Hot Dish. I got the recipe from the Historical Cooking Society cookbook," beamed Ann. She clapped her oven mitts together, very pleased. Her hair was done into a sweeping dome atop her head, tips curling up from the sides of her cheeks. She wore a white cotton apron over a smart red sweater with white lapels. A pearl choker adorned her neck. She glanced at the holoimage above the cooktop and straightened her posture, mimicking Betty Crocker.

Everyone seemed to be getting into the spirit for the Tricentennial of July 4, 2076. Citizens were encouraged to examine and portray an iconic period of American history during the month of July, and Ann had enthusiastically taken part. Ted enjoyed seeing her so happy and decided to play along. For the month of July, their household, dress, diet, and recreation were straight out of the 1950's.

"It's one of the more interesting recipes," Ann continued. "It's got cow's meat and two kinds of cow milk products, fungus bits, high-sodium high-fat potato cylinders--"

"I'd really rather not know the specifics. Between eating like this and smoking a pipe this month, I'm going to need a dozen procedures at Medical."

Ted leaned back in his chair and opened his "Newspaper", a stack of flimsy folded paper with the events of the previous day printed in just two dimensions. Ted found it novel that people used to live like this. He'd spent the last two days of June instructing the OmniMaker in the garage to print out such oddities as "glasses," a "mail box" for in front of the house, several odd and uncomfortable items of clothing, a "Jell-O mold," and the tobacco pipe, for which he'd developed a growing fondness.

"Well, honey," Ted said, setting down the newspaper and buttoning his special shirt over the white cotton undershirt, "I'm going bowling with the boys."

This garment was another keeper once the Tricentennial was over. Embroidered with the nickname "Tedster" over the pocket and a 1950 Mercury gasoline-powered car on the back with "Fazio's Service Station" sweeping across the top in antique script, the bowling shirt was a work of art.

"Sorry, dear, but tonight's the night the pet salesman is coming by. You need to stay for his pitch," said Ann, delighting in the lingo.

"That's cool, dolly. I'll hang out here," replied Ted. He'd gone over the terminology several times and felt it was one of his strong suits. Ann giggled in response, and Ted gave her a wink.

Ding...Donggg.

The "doorbell" Ted had installed outside sounded. Ted printed a plastic panel to cover the holotouch, leaving in its place a round button set in a rectangular box. Thus far, no-one seemed to know what it was for. And without the cameras, Ted and Ann didn't even know who was at the—

"Pet salesman!" cried the young male voice from outside.

Ted chomped his pipe between his side teeth and opened the door. A young man stood on the porch, holding two suitcase-sized sample cases with metal corners. He displayed both rows of very nice teeth, and wore a dark blue blazer and slacks, a white shirt with a red tie, and a slate grey fedora cocked at a jaunty angle. The salesman set down one case and shot out a hand in greeting.

"Nice ta meetcha! I'm Simon Anders from Darling Forever pet company!"

"I'm Ted Pearson, and this is my wife Ann," said Ted, grasping Simon's hand and giving it two firm pumps. Ann smiled and waved an oven mitt from the kitchen. Ted motioned Simon into the house. "So pleased to see another man of my vintage. And come inside, make yourself at home."

Simon evidently had done his homework and picked up on the 1950's theme. Ann popped out from around the corner, now holding an aluminum tray with an arrangement of "chocolate chip cookies" and a pitcher of "lemonade" on it. Ted could tell she was in her glory.

"Have a cookie and something to drink, Mister Anders," said Ann.

"Please, Mrs. Pearson, call me Simon."

"Very well, Simon, call me Ann."

"And call me Ted. Set those cases wherever you like."

Ted raised his left wrist and glanced down at the "watch" strapped there; a device which just told time without a great deal of accuracy but had a certain charm to it as it ticked away.

"Well, let's get down to brass tacks here young man," said Ted, "If we can wrap this up in half an hour I can still get ten frames in down at the Bowl-O-Rama."

Simon winked and took a knee, unfastening the clasps on the larger of the two cases. Inside was a dog, about 35 centimeters tall, embedded in molded foam. It had scruffy, sandy tan fur with lighter markings on his chest and darker around his eyes, snout and ears. Simon curled a hand under its chest and pulled it free of the padding. He set it neatly on the floor. It appeared to be a lifelike stuffed animal.

"This," announced Simon, "is the 2077 model Forever Darling Border Terrier. It's one of twenty-six small dog models offered this year."

Simon pulled a palm-sized object from another void in the case's padding.

"You'll have to excuse the technology, folks. This is a modern-day marvel. Space age, to be sure." Simon winked again, setting the object on the coffee table. "This is your imprinter and control module. It starts or pauses the dog, allows you to name him or her, and lets you modify parameters as you so desire."

Ted pulled out his tobacco pouch and tamped a portion into his pipe. "Is this one...working? Err...alive?" he asked.

Ann settled into the love seat across from Ted and pulled up a basket of "knitting" to fiddle with pointlessly. She hadn't gotten the hang of it.

"Yes sir. His name is Fido, he's a demo model, and right now he's on pause. Would you like to see him awake?"

"Oh yes, very much," said Ann. Ted lit his pipe.

Simon shined his smile and laid his hand on the control device. "Wake up, Fido."

The dog's eyes opened, then squinted while he shook himself as if he were wet. He looked briefly at Ted and Ann, then sat and turned his focus to Simon. His mouth opened slightly, revealing little white teeth and a pink tongue in a friendly expression. He barked once, then shuffled his front feet before returning to focus on Simon.

"You can call him if you like," said Simon.

Ann clapped. "Come here, Fido!"

The dog padded over to her, sniffing. Ann scratched his ears and Fido leaned into her hand, wagging his tail rapidly.

"That sniffing feature is real," Simon stated, dropping the 1950's attitude in favor of a precise and scientific tone. "This dog has acute and effective senses throughout the spectrums. Chemical sensors which identify people and events before he can see or hear them, whether he's in another room or if they've been there earlier in the day. He can sense your mood and your health from smell alone. He's able to diagnose 117 different diseases, can tell you if there's danger of a fire or electrical problem in your home before it gets out of hand. Even compounds undetectable by human senses like carbon monoxide. In outdoor environments, he can alert you to problematic particulate, chemical, or allergen levels.

Fido licked Ann's hand. "Oooh, his tongue is wet," she said.

"The new model comes with some very impressive optical improvements. We've upped the resolution and increased the spectrum. Fido now sees everything from U.V. to I.R., and has enhanced capability in low-light conditions. He can tell if you have a fever, and even sense your mood from galvanic skin response and flush level. He has macro down to the nanometer level and long-range vision better than an eagle."

As Simon continued expounding upon Fido's technical upgrades, Fido enjoyed Ann's attention. Ann was back over four decades ago, recalling her one real dog. Rover, a beagle, was her companion as a toddler. He'd taught her that dogs loved ear-scratching. His nose was cold and wet, and he'd been killed by a car before cars were finally outlawed. Then came DMBV, the Domestic Mammal Bubonic Variant, and the choice had to be made: risk the health of all mankind or eliminate living pets. As pet-loving as people claimed to be, the choice was made quickly and carried out with finality. Ann had never had another dog after Rover. And then there were no more dogs...

"He's responsive to your touch and requires an amount of attention that you can vary by command," Simon went on. "This includes daily walks which can range in length and speed as you wish. He has tracking that will guide him home from literally anywhere, or to any other location you speak to him."

Fido trotted over to Ted and sniffed. He barked twice and sat at Ted's feet, wagging his tail. Simon reached down and tapped the top of the control device. A holoimage sprang up, scrolling paragraphs of data; identifying tobacco smoke, particulate levels, carcinogen content, and so on.

"The module will interpret Fido's observed data into any language and format. Anything he sees or smells, anything he experiences, you can look over in easy-to-understand reports."

"Not to be negative, Simon," said Ted, cradling the bowl of his pipe, "but it sounds like Fido here is an appliance. And a redundant one, seeing as our house has many of the features you're mentioning."

"Oh, Fido's so much more than that. He's a mobile security system. He'll follow commands ranging from sentry to lethal response."

Simon turned to the dog.

"Fido, guard! Report activity," said Simon in a firm tone.

Fido bolted to the front door and sniffed the threshold. Nose down and snuffling, he continued along the wall into the dining room, the kitchen, and disappeared from sight. The information scrolling by on the control module holoimage began to display a schematic of the house's floor plan. Alongside this appeared several parameters in green, such as electromagnetic radiation levels, heat signatures, vibration frequencies, and more data as Fido went about his business.

"So he's what, a weapon?" asked Ann, sounding a bit alarmed.

"Oh, hardly ma'am," Simon assured. "Fido is a primarily a lover, not a fighter. Fido, come!"

Fido returned and sat attentively in front of Simon. Simon swept his hand over the control module and said "Pause." Fido rose, assumed a perfect show-dog stance, and froze there. The life that sparkled in Fido's eyes vanished; he was a stuffed animal again.

"Please, Mrs. Pearson. Slide your hand over the control module."

Ann gave Ted a brief glimpse. Then she did. Fido shook, then scampered to Ann's side, sat and placed a paw on her leg. "Well hello again mister Fido," said Ann in lovey-dovey talk, scratching the dog's head. Fido squinted in delight and wagged to beat the band.

"At Darling Forever, we've distilled a pet's relationship with his owner to its essence: dedication and reliance. Fido will be devoted to you, Ann, and you, Ted, for as long as you live.

"I could go into a long-winded explanation about his predictive empathy programming, and the advanced proactive altruism he's embedded with, but suffice it to say Fido loves you now as much as any pet ever would. Ever could. He senses your moods and will lift you when you are sad, celebrate with you when you are happy, and cower when you are angry. He doesn't need food or water but will respond with real affection to your attention and contact. Studies have shown that this is not only gratifying to humans, but an effective stress reliever and coping mechanism for many psychological maladies common to society.

"People who own Darling Forever pets live longer and more fulfilling lives, that's a fact. Little Fido here is a life-quality improver."

"What's in the other case?" asked Ted.

"A cat." Simon reached for the case. "Would you care to—"

"Oh, we're not cat people. Thanks just the same," dismissed Ted.

Ann, meanwhile, had picked Fido up onto her lap. He was sprawled on his back, lolling his tongue contentedly as she rubbed his belly.

"I want one, Ted," said Ann.

"Fine and dandy. How much we talking here, Simon?"

"You're in luck, Ted. A promotional special we're running today only will allow me to deliver the small breed of your choice for well under the listed price." Simon exhibited his smile at full brightness.

"And that is..." prompted Ted.

"Right now, we can make you a lifetime pet owner for only one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars, plus tax and the incidentals."

Ann's hand paused on Fido's belly. Fido nudged her arm with his nose.

"Whoa there, Lone Ranger. That's a chunk of change!" said Ted, raising an eyebrow.

Simon's smile faltered a moment, but then regained strength. "Let's talk financing!"

"I don't know. Really, it's a bit steep for us. We're early retirees, only two years into paying for the house, there's expenses..."

"Mr. Pearson, I have an option for you to consider."

Ted set his pipe down. "What do you have in mind?"

"This is a new program. There are advertisers, corporations, who would be willing to subsidize your purchase in order to have access to certain metrics, telemetry, and other data. With the right authorizations from you, your pet's purchase price could be reduced by up to seventy percent."

"I'm not sure I follow," said Ted.

"The dog tracks some of your activities and preferences, does some limited reporting back to a few sponsors, and they use that data anonymously to create better products and advertising. It's minimally invasive. Plus, it can be helpful to you. Allow me a quick demonstration," Simon said, then waved his hand over the control module. "Data collection authorization 017443 temporary. Fido, collect data. Report items of interest."

Fido hopped up and ran off again. Reams of information scrolled up the holoimage. Ted caught a few details, including the make and year of each piece of furniture, the wall paint colors, the contents of his e-reader, his DVR, and his net history. Also, what looked like the contents of his refrigerator and cupboards. Even the identity of people in pictures on the walls. The image scrolled and scrolled, until Fido returned and hopped back up to Ann's lap. A message blinked in red on the holoimage.

"See?" said Simon, pointing at the display. "There's a recall on one of the cleaning products in your bathroom. It should be disposed of due to...it says here 'carcinogenic potential'. Fido just found that out for you."

"Seems like he found out an awful lot," Ted grumbled.

"Oh, It's just like anything else, Ted. It's not like our data isn't tracked every day anyway," said Ann. The dog now relaxed, eyes shut, on her lap.

"Sure," said Ted. "Sounds like a deal to me. I mean, it's not like we could get a real dog. They've been gone now for what, twenty years?"

"Twenty-two now since DMBV, sorry to say." Simon gently reached for Fido. Ann offered him up, and Simon packed him away with practiced efficiency. "I'll leave you my card and this catalog. You can view it on your holocenter at your leisure, and select the breed and other particulars of your pet. Just call when you're ready to order. Thanks, folks."

Simon snapped the clasps shut on his case and made his exit, again stopping to engage Ted in another firm handshake and grace both Ted and Ann with his blazing smile.

"What a nice young man," said Ann, fussing with her knitting. "Want to help me pick a dog, Ted?"

"You pick your top three and I'll weigh in later," Ted said across his pipe, grabbing his new fedora from the hat rack. "I'm going bowling."

Crossed

### by Denise Winters

Hannah skidded to a halt. Her bike stopped, but her heart beat a thousand miles an hour. She tried to calm her breathing. She was getting too old to be scared of haints and demons, of monsters that lurk in the shadows. It didn't take her long to realize this had all the beginnings of a story she would keep to herself. Not because she could swear up and down this man had appeared out of nowhere, had just up and been standing in space that was once nothing but the intersection of a much used bike path cut in the grass and a not often used dirt road. And not because she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be on her way to somewhere she wasn't supposed to go.

She knew she would keep this story to herself because if she told anyone what she saw she would take a trip to one of the hospitals over in Pensacola or Mobile, one of the hospitals that people rode too in a drugged stupor so heavy they drooled and usually didn't often come back from. Two cloven, furry feet were obscured in shadow and smoke that snaked from the ground beneath him and swirled around her like the elongated fingers of a grasping hand. Hannah dropped her bike and tripped over it trying to get away. She scuttled to her feet and tried to turn and run. The smoke scared her more than the creature. Hannah kept her balance well enough to move a few feet, sure that if they touched her she would be dragged down to wherever that thing had come from.

"Just a minute sweetheart." It doffed its hat to her and executed a slight bow with all the finesse and sincerity of a carnival barker. "You don't have anything to fear from me."

Hannah kept running, forcing herself to look back in front every few steps. She wished she had held onto the bike. But in her defense, those were demon feet. And the smoke, good Lord up above, the smoke. Her skin crawled with gooseprickles at the thought of it. The only thing that made her slow down, made her take more furtive glances over her shoulder, was that the beast was not giving chase. Instead, it stood as though glued to those crossroads.

Hannah stopped and turned around, her arms tense at her side and her heart still beating against her chest like a woodpecker. But she slowed her breathing enough to keep from passing out, and the smoke hadn't spread any further.

"In Jesus' name what do you want?" It was what her mudea had always told her to say if she ever saw a haint or demon. Those words were supposed to make it speak any message it might have and be on its way without trying to harm or scare nobody.

The demon tilted its head and studied her, a faint smile drawing its thin lips up into a wicked little half-moon. Hannah took a step back, and went to turn around but found she couldn't bring herself to do it. She wanted to know what was happening, even though fear became a lead ball in her stomach and caused her legs to hollow.

"I just want what you want Hannah." The half-moon mutated into a Cheshire grin that caused the lower half of the demon's face to disappear. "And I know you don't want any harm to come to yourself." Its smile widened and it held the hat to its chest in a mockery of offering condolences.

Hannah raised an eyebrow. This did not seem like no Prince of Lies, or even a Baron or Knight of one. The insincerity and coniveness was as plain as daylight in the creature's every move. Hannah relaxed a little more, enough that her stomach didn't feel like it had shifted the weight of her gravity, enough that she thought she could run without her legs shaking and her feet tripping over themselves. "Or your grandpappy."

There went the calmness. The knot of iron in her stomach returned like an anchor dropping and brought her to her knees, her throat constricting from air struggling to get in and bile struggling to get out.

"What you want with him." She felt her whole body convulse and she felt coldness pass over her from the inside out. "Whatever you think you get me to do," she shook her head and tried to stand.

"You misunderstand little darling. " The creature spread its arms out in front of it and made a patting motion with its hands. "I'm offering you a chance to save his life, and maybe his soul." The thing put its hat back on top of its head and placed its arms akimbo. Leaning forward and speaking just loud enough to be heard over the distance that separated them, it said, "And it won't cost you nothing."

"Nothing." Hannah gulped down air, trying to calm her stomach and keep her breathing steady. "I ain't gonna have no kind of dealings with the devil, so you right, it won't cost me nothing." Saying that was like a balm to her forehead. Getting it out there made her less afraid. She was sitting out here in the middle of a field, chatting with the devil, and he wa'n all that scary truth be told. She knew better than to let him trick her into a deal, and didn't seem like he could hurt her any other way.

The thing leapt in the air like somebody had lit a fire under its feet. "You be careful what names you go throwing round." It looked around the field, its head swiveling from side to side and even up in the air. "I ain't what you said I am, not exactly. Well, not at all actually. I'm a little lower down in the hierarchy."

Hanna got to her feet. She looked at her bicycle, laying there within arm's reach of the demon. She decided she wasn't so unafraid of the creature as to try and get it back, not today. Not while that thing was there, and likely not ever. She would tell her grandmother that she had been out here and had a tumble. Better to take the whuppin for being out here than to try and go anywhere near that little crossroads by herself. She turned to go.

"Wait girl Don't you even want to know what I got to say." Hannah could recognize how guile sounded by the lack of it in the creature's voice now. Gone were the hoity-toity inflections and accents. Instead the demon sounded like a used car salesman at the end of a bad day in a bad week, or a child suddenly convinced its parents would leave her in the store if she didn't stop showing out. "I mean it, I know where you was headed. You just win back something I gave away and your granddaddy will live and I promise that his soul won't end up down below." Hannah stopped in her tracks and snapped her head around. "Plus, you just try and win it back I promise he'll live, and beyond that his soul will be in his hands."

She should keep right on walking. Nothing good came of making deals with devils or demons or any type of creature that popped into existence out of nowhere at a crossroads with goat's feet. But she didn't keep going, instead she turned around and strode back towards the demon, just out of reach of the oscillating tentacles of smoke,

"How you so sure he gonna die?"

"We know who on their way. And trust me sweetheart, that no good granddaddy of yours is on his way." The demon sounded a little bit relieved but tried to cover it up. His words were like the baby steps of a stalking predator trying not to scare away its prey. "But it don't have to be that way. Not if you just do what you planned to do anyway."

"Which is?" Hannah crossed her arms, going for indifference, reluctance, and interest tied together. Instead she felt as though she just looked nervous, wary, scared, and worst of all resigned.

"Girl, you win that fiddling contest."

"Fiddling contest?" Hannah threw her hands in the air and stepped back. She stomped in a tight circle before facing the demon again. "What business you got in a fiddling contest?"

The demon bowed its head and rubbed the back of its neck."Well, I gave away something that wasn't 'xactly mine to give away. If you win that contest little girl, you get it back for me, and your granddaddy keeps his life and his soul."

Hannah's mouth dropped and she was almost knocked flat out on her back with the realization of what the demon was saying. "The golden fiddle. You mean you want the golden fiddle?" First prize in the contest got to win a genuine gold fiddle. "You, you the one who lost to that boy over yonder in Georgia."

Smoke billowed from the creature's nose, but the way its face fell Hannah guessed it was frustration and embarrassment more than any kind of anger. The demon dug its hairy hoof into the red-brown dirt.

"It's not the losing so much as what I lost. Like I said, I wagered something that wasn't mine to give."

She stood looking at the creature, sweat bubbling on its neck and rolling down the collar of its shirt. Hands worrying with the tan hat and toe twisting a hole in the dirt. Even with it standing there talking about my granddaddy's life and soul like they was poker chips, she couldn't feel fear of the thing anymore, or anger for that manner. Wasn't 'xactly feelin' pitiful for it, what with having lost the fiddle trying to bring a soul to damnation and all, but couldn't feel scared of it either. The smoke billowing around him was still somewhat terrifying though,

"How I know my granddaddy's life or soul is yours to grant?"

The demon looked up and grinned like it knew that her leg was inching towards the snare. "I'm the one he sold his soul to, that's how."

She tilted her head. "Why'd he do that? And why'd anyone even want to accept it?" Everything she'd seen and heard seemed to suggest he was hell-bound anyway. At least that was what the preacher, and her daddy, and her grand aunt all said. She had never put much stock in it, her granddaddy was a good man as far as she was concerned. Always quick to smile and even getting her to her fiddling lessons after her ma had said she couldn't be taking no more lessons from Mr. Davis on account of him being a heathen. She couldn't care less who did what kind of drinking when, or laid with what kind of woman where. Truth be told, she knew all their denouncers, granddaddy's and Mr. Davis' both, didn't have any kind of trouble running to this and that hoodoo man or women when things looked tough.

"It's always good to sure up a deal, who goes where ain't exactly decided how you may have been led to believe." The demon's smile faltered. "As to why he would do it, well, your grandmamma's new man was awfully bad to her, But she wouldn't leave him, you see." The demon waved its hand, " Still felt bad about leaving your granddaddy she did, and couldn't bare to be a twice divorced woman."

"I don't believe you."

It shrugged. "You don't have to. But it's the tyrant's honest truth. Your granddaddy knew she wasn't gonna up and leave him, so he made the man disappear. And I made sure he got away with it."

It sounded too right, no matter how hard she tried to disbelieve it. Everybody in town thought her granddaddy had killed that man out of jealousy. Everybody. Didn't even try to hide their suspicions from him. But there had never even been a trial.

"And you can give him back his soul?"

"Gladly, if you win me that fiddle."

"No. No, you give him back his soul if I agree." She licked her lips and tried to stop her legs from jimming. They had started up again the minute she made up her mind, the minute she knew how she would change the deal. "You only gotta extend his life if I win."

The demon sneered, its lips parting slow and unnerving like a snake peeling its skin. "Now, why I'm gonna put myself in a position like that. Girl, you up and lose that contest and I'm outta a soul and still out the fiddle."

I shrugged. "Reckon you talking to me because you think I'm the only one got even a chance of winning it for ya. Plus, what if I get it for you another way?"

A dark hiss squeezed from between its teeth and slithered onto the ground. "You got some kinda nerve, you little..."

"Whatever nerve I got come from granddaddy. And that don't answer my question. What if I don't win it, what if I get it for you another way?"

"I don't care how you get it truth be told, just get it for me."

Hannah nodded, wondering what it meant that the fiddle didn't have to be won back fair and square.

The demon reared back and sneered. Hannah stumbled back a few steps before realizing the demon had started laughing. "Okay girl, okay. It's a deal. You just agree to try and win that fiddle back for me, and he gets his soul back. You win, and it's his life."

"I agree to," Hannah brought her hand to her chin. Her nervousness was returned, and she struggled to not let it show. She could still be tricked, and she had to make sure the wording was right. Say what it wanted, she still didn't trust this creature as far as she could throw it. "I agree to do my best to get that fiddle and for that you will give William T. Freeman back his soul. If I get the fiddle to you, you will ensure that William T. Freeman lives, with no complications from his illness, and dies of old age and in comfort."

"Done." The demon snapped its fingers and Hannah jumped back as it went up in a puff of foul black smoke. She was worried about how quick he had been to accept. Hannah bent down and picked up her bike. She could see no remnants of the demon's presence, not even an after-smell in the air. She was more certain than ever she would tell no one of this. She couldn't even be sure it had happened herself. The only thing giving her faith she was in her right mind was the fear and disgust memory of the fog brought up. She was more sure than anything that no one could imagine anything that would make them feel so off, like terror itself was riding after them. Hannah needed to get on over to Mr. Davis' house.

"You sure you wanna do that girl?" Mr. Davis sunk deeper into his couch. He picked at a hole in the olive green cover, pulling out pinches of yellow fluff while his cigarette dangled between his teeth.

"I'm sure, my momma and daddy would whip me raw if they found out I got up there on that stage." Hannah leaned forward in the wing-back, her feet just touching the ground. "Mr. Davis please?" She elongated the word and clasped her hands in front of her. "I have to get in this contest."

He waved his hand at her, letting a cluster of fluff drift to the scuffed up floor. "Okay. But I find it awfully funny you did not seem to care about all that before." He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, "But I guess even you can get some sense scared into you from time to time."

He shook his head as he hobbled over to the kitchen table. Mr. Davis didn't look to have eaten at the table in years. It was covered in yellowed newspapers and phone books, old bills stamped with "Past Due" in big red letters faded to the color of old blood, and big photo albums. The albums were the only thing on the table that weren't faded and hadn't been there so long the disappeared into the surroundings. Well, the albums were the next to only thing.

Mr. Davis lifted his fiddle case from the table and motioned for her to follow him into the den. Hannah relaxed the moment she entered the space. Being in what passed for the old man's music room always left her in high spirits and capable of seeing the positive in everything.

He motioned for her to sit down across from him. Hannah bent down and got the practice fiddle out of the case. It was smoothed by years of use and dozens of hands. Mr. Davis had been teaching the fiddle for a long time, even to those so broke they couldn't afford their own. After her parents made her stop spending so much time with her granddaddy, Hannah had paid the cost of continuing to learn with raked yards, washed dishes, and folded laundry. Until her parents found out about that too.

"I got an awful lot that needs doing before tomorrow."

I nodded. "Just a warm-up then."

Mr. Davis nodded and listened as I started on my scales. I stayed to the simple pieces and tried to ignore the mistakes and stumbles along the way. Mr. Davis' face was as impassive as ever, betraying nothing with regards to what he thought of my music.

"That's enough."

I nodded and put away the fiddle. "Are you going to be playing?"

"Girl hell no. What I need a silver-plated doodad for?"

"So, do you know why the under 16 category gets the golden-covered and not the silver?"

Mr. Davis stared at me over his glasses and leaned back in the chair, hands crossed over stomach. "No. Something the contest organizers decided."

"But you are one of the organizers."

He shrugged. "it's shinier. You younguns like shiny."

I opened my mouth but clamped it shut. Mr. Davis wasn't one to converse with most of the time.

I listened for the sound of my parents puttering around in the kitchen, my heart in my throat. But they must have went straight to bed, and would likely stay there for a while. It was always like that when they worked the night shift, but if they were going to pick a morning to not go straight to bed, it would be just like my luck for them to choose this one. I inched up the window, stopping every time it caught and the glass rattled. It was a hard sound to make out over the sound of the blood in my ears roaring like the sound of the ocean in a sea shell. I got the window up just enough to squeeze through before I slipped out and lowered it back down behind me.

The evening was cool, in the way an oven is cool a half hour after it has been turned off. I looked back at the house over my shoulder, then cut cross the yard at a crouch. I wasn't sure what that would help exactly, but it seemed like the right thing to do when sneaking away.

She hesitated at the entrance to the path. Large bushes flanked the narrow path. She took a deep breath and stepped forward, ducking beneath the branches of the short trees and turning sideways to avoid being scratched. Stepping into the field felt like entering a new world. The ordinariness of the field in the morning light felt like a betrayal, a false conveyer of comfort and familiarity in light of what she had seen here earlier in the day. As a matter of fact, the normalcy seemed exaggerated: the sunlight brighter, the grass greener, and the path less defined so that the field appeared unmolested. It would be easy to turn back, sneak back in and climb into her bedroom, but her granddaddy would die then. He would die and that good-for-nothing, no-count demon would have his soul.

Hannah kept moving, her hands in her pockets and trying to ignore the itch between her shoulders. She was glad she was alone. She ran as fast as she could, even closing her eyes for fear she might see something she could do without seeing. All of a sudden, her plan felt foolish and not a little bit ridiculous. But she was more sure of where Mr. Davis kept that fiddle, and who Mr. Davis really was, than she was sure she could have won that contest. Or at least she had better have been, because it was an awful big gamble to have taken.

She crouched at the edge of the field closest to Mr. Davis' house. All the lights were off. She crept closer, trying to pick up on any sounds. It was a rare day that no music drifted from the house if he was there. If he wasn't playing, or teaching someone else too play, then he was playing this or that record as loud as that stereo could make it. But there was nothing, nothing but silence.

Hannah took a deep breath and ran off across the tall grass, the tips of the blades stinging her bare legs and her breathing heavy from exertion and fear. She ducked under his bedroom window and listened again, just to be sure. Nothing, nothing but a silence as unnatural for his house as well, as the thing she did not want to hold in her head.

She reached up and cut around the screen with her pocket knife. When she felt it loosen, she pulled it out and jumped back as it fell to the ground bringing a rain of rust and paint chips with it. She pulled herself up onto the window ceiling and clutched on to the top of the lower window pane with one hand. Her legs shook but kept just enough purchase on the bottom of the window ledge for her to use her other hand, wrapped up in one of her old t-shirts, to punch through the window pane. Two things came at once: a crash loud enough to raise the dead and the realization she should have used a rock.

She reached through and unlocked the window, her hand dripping blood onto the top of the window. Hannah jumped down and pushed the window up and crawled in. The house had looked dark from the outside, but inside it was hard to tell that the sun had not already set, let alone that it would not be setting for another hour at least.

There was only darkness and shapes and shadows in the room. Hannah flitted forth, pinching her nostrils shut by pushing up her top lip. The room smelled of alcohol and rot, and the smell that accompanied snakes and moldy leaves in graveyards. The thought of a graveyard focused Hannah and she crept over to the tall book case. She felt her way in the darkness, trying to shake the itching between her shoulder blades and the fear that every time she reached her hand forward, she was going to feel something reaching back for her from the darkness.

Hannah's hands caught the edges of the plywood bookcase. Standing on her tiptoes and knocking from the top to the bottom, she listened to every sound and echo, looking for one that might sound different. The knocks resounded through the room, the emptiness swallowing them as they floated more than a few feet. Hannah stopped. She tapped that space again, and then again. The echo sounded less muffled.

She bent down and felt beneath the bottom of the case, trying to see if she could get enough purchase to pull away the side panel. She felt something furry brush against her knuckles and yanked her hand back. There was no time for this, she needed to move fast, no matter the cost. She knew kids who had been to juvie and the stories scared her, but she was sure she could be okay. Her granddaddy would be okay, and right now that meant more than anything.

Hannah's hand still dripped blood, plus she thought it would be a lot harder to knock in wood than a window. She backed up, right to the edge of the cluttered bed and drew back her leg, bringing her knee into her stomach. She kicked as hard as she could and felt as much as heard the wood splinter and crack. She drew back her leg again and drove it forward, harder and faster this time. Her right leg and left hand now made a matched pair. She ignored the sting and approached the broken panel.

She took a big breath, noticing the small sounds that filled the room now that the loudness from the kicks were gone and the pounding of her heart had slowed. A clocked ticked in the background, and the scurry of feet could be heard between the walls and rustling the papers scattered around the wound.

Hannah pulled away the splintered wood as much as she could, dust irritating her nose and throat, making her scratched up hand and leg burn even worse. Smoke wafted from the panel, a deep gray fog that made her gag. She started to cry. There was a great deal she had been prepared to deal with, to risk, but having to put her hand in there, to have to touch that fog, let it touch her, crawl into her was almost too much. Almost.

She slid her hand inside and her hands found threadbare velvet. She let her hand roam over the bag until she found what should be the fiddle's neck. She pulled it out and held it at arm's length. The bag seemed to pulse and the fog fit itself to the contours of her arm. Hannah felt as though she was about to faint, as though her knees were about to buckle. But she fought through the nausea, fought through the dizziness of her vision.

The front door seemed too far away, and would involve walking through the rest of the house. She staggered to the window and fell more than climbed out, falling to the ground on her knees and rolling to keep from breaking the fiddle. The cooling air was a relief and chased away her queasiness. Hannah got to her feet and started out at a trot, then a run, and last a sprint.

Her balance was off, trying to run and hold her right arm out in front of her to avoid snagging the fiddle on branches that lined the path, trying to keep the pulsating, vibrating device as far from her as she could. She burst from the wooded path into the field.

Her lungs burned and her scratches ached. Her vision was blurred by tears and fear, and she felt worse laying still at the crossroads than she had while running. She laid with her head low, trying to keep her entire body below the height of the grass to make sure she could not be seen from the dirt road, just in case a car decided to choose that moment to come rolling by. The dirt caked up in the rivulets of her drying blood, and the grass stung like ant bites. Hannah raised her head just high enough to talk and not take in mouthfuls of the brown dirt.

"Hey you," she whispered, figuring that shouting wouldn't be much use. Where this thing was coming from, it would either hear a whisper or it wouldn't hear nothing at all. "I got what it is you want. You come on up to these crossroads and you can get it."

There was nothing but the deep croaking of bullfrogs and the high--pitched chirping of crickets for a few moments. But then, the air shimmered, right where she had seen the creature before. And he was there. Cloven feet, pale tan hat and overcoat, and black shirt. Hannah stood up and crossed the dirt road, staying out of the reach of that damn fog.

"You got it?"

Hannah held out the bag in answer. It occurred to her that it was odd she had never even checked to see what was in that bag, but it had seemed so unnecessary at the time. What if the fiddle wasn't in here? And she had already taken her name off the lists for the contest. Would begging to get back on look suspicious? She shook her head, shaking away the doubts. Even if she doubted that this was what she had been sent after, she did not doubt the demon's reaction.

It cackled and jumped in the air doing a turn and a jig. "Damn girl, you came through. Now come on over here and give it to me, and then that little deal you and me done made is good and done."

Hannah felt the fiddle beating faster in her hand. "I can throw it to you."

The demon frowned and bit down on its lower lip. "You have to hand it to me. Come on, I done made a deal and I ain't gonna go back on it. You just make sure you don't renege on your part. Now just step on over here and hand me that fiddle."

"Why? Why do I have to hand it to you?" She looked down at the fog. The grayness lapped at her feet, coming just short of touching her. She took another step back.

"Because, whoever owns it has to give it back to me freely."

"I don't see how that make much sense. Why does it matter? If you just want the fiddle back, how does it matter how you get it back?"

"Listen." the demon's nose steamed in the growing darkness. "You just listen here girl. You want that deal we made about your granddaddy, then you get over here and you give me that fiddle. Just hand it off to me, that's all you got to do."

Hannah brushed one of her braids back behind her ear. "Please, just take it." She drew back her arm and started to throw the fiddle at the demon.

"Stop." The demon held out its hands in front of it in the sign for stop. "Stop okay, just stop. Don't you dare throw that fiddle." It brushed down its blouse and then rocked back and forth from heel to toe. "Is it the fog? You don't have to be afraid of that, it's just a side effect that's all. You give me that fiddle, and I promise you that it will be the last you see of this fog."

Hannah gulped, her heart and stomach fluttered in unison. She took a step forward, and then another. She let out one single sob when her feet were enveloped by the fog but she kept moving forward, and forward, and forward. She kept the fiddle out in front of her, her arm outstretched. It felt like moving a mile through molasses, but she came to within grabbing distance of the demon.

It smiled wider than Hannah thought possible and then clamped down on her arm. Hannah dropped the bag and screamed but the demon drew her closer, its mouth widening and widening. She pulled on her arm, she kicked at its leg. She bit at its arm and she screamed some more. She clawed at its eyes and tried to stomp on its hooves, but the grip got tighter and tighter.

"Please stop. Let me go. Please let me go."

"No, no, no, the devil always collects his due."

Hannah sobbed. "The fiddle. You said you came for the fiddle."

"I lied."

Hannah kept pulling until her head swam, until her knees buckled and she sank into the soft ground. Until the fog crawled up her legs and scurried up over her chest and neck. She looked up and opened her mouth to scream but the fog snaked into her open mouth and down her throat. The demon spoke in her voice, "Oh sweetheart, you lucky in a way. I mean, just think about how easy you will be able to trick some hapless kid into coming to you. Why, I been working this here crossroads for years and just now found out the more complicated you make a request the more a human child will trust you." She glared at the bag on the ground and the demon shrugged and scrunched up her nose.

"Oh this?" The demon with her face chuckled her chuckle and Hannah watched as the bag was absorbed into the fog. The demon tapped its head and then its mind. In the distance Hannah saw a bright red apple, a golden fiddle, a bright white harp and a dozen other shapes. "You will find that humans are masters of seeing what they want to see and finding whatever they think it is they need to find."

"Granddaddy?" Hannah coughed out.

The demon stepped onto the dirt road and bounced up and down. Hannah rolled over onto her back and tried to sit up, but her body was heavy. Her body was so heavy that it felt as though she was sinking into the dirt, the fog, her fog, digging the ground out from beneath her body. She heard a voice that was her voice, singing in the distance, and she felt legs that were her legs, growing heavy with coarse matted fur.

Prophecy? No, Thank You

### by Sean Sandulak

Cravan idly swirled the last bit of his beer around in the bottom of his flagon. It was a weak brew, wholly unsatisfying, but it also represented the last of his coin, so he had been nursing it for almost an hour. Adventuring was not always the profitable endeavor that he'd imagined in his youth. With a little luck however, that would soon change.

He stroked his beard as he debated whether to ask his companion for yet another loan. On his left, Mor stared into one of his musty books, entranced by a world only he could see. He would sit like that for hours sometimes, lost in his own thoughts with his nose buried in some obscure tome. Cravan mulled that he would have preferred the company of a young woman of questionable morals, or even a bog troll to slay — anything to cut through the boredom of sitting here waiting. He tossed his head back to drain every drop from the cup before bringing it slamming down on the wine-stained tabletop.

"Dammit, where is she?"

"Right behind you."

Cravan turned toward the voice and frowned. It was Rieki, the mysterious elven thief and vagabond. She wasn't the girl of ill-repute that he had been hoping for, but at least with her arrival there was finally hope of some excitement and, more importantly, profit. As she slipped into the chair across the table from the two men, Mor continued to stare down at his book. Cravan snorted and turned back to the girl.

"Did you find her?" asked Cravan. "Are we in business? What took you so long?"

"One question at a time, my friend," she answered. Her voice had the lilt and musical quality that all of her race possessed, but she added a sarcasm that was all her own. "I have located a girl who bears the Mark. She works as a milkmaid on a farm on the far side of the next valley."

"A milkmaid!" His outburst filled the common room and heads turned in his direction. Rieki flashed him a stern and mocking glare, but he had already realized his mistake. He leaned in close to the elf and whispered, "Not a warrior? Or even a mage? Just a run-of-the-mill, gods-damned milkmaid?"

"So it would seem," said Rieki. She tipped the empty flagon towards her and peered inside. Frowning in disappointment, she set it back down.

Cravan folded his brawny arms across his chest. "Maybe Mor has missed the mark again."

"The prophecy is true," said Mor without looking up. "The girl is our salvation. She will slay the beast and deliver us to prosperity. It is written."

"Oh, decided to join us in the real world?" asked Cravan, but the wizard just ignored him. Cravan grunted and turned his attention back to the elf. He held out his arms and looked up at the ceiling in his best imitation of a travelling preacher. " _It is written_ ," Cravan repeated. "You can't argue with that."

"Now, now," she said. "You know as well as I do that the wizard's aim leaves something to be desired, but when it comes to interpreting dusty old scrolls there are few who can match his skill."

"Aye, I'll give you that," he said. "But a milkmaid?"

"Sometimes great destinies are born from humble beginnings. Who can say what the fates hold in store for each of us." Rieki stood up and moved behind Cravan to whisper over his shoulder. "Speaking of humble beginnings, I assume you bought the supplies we need before you drank your purse dry?"

"I did."

"Then let's be off," she said. "I want to be back at the farm before the sun gets too low."

"Oh? Good-looking was she?"

"On the contrary, she was rather plain and smelled of the stables." Rieki paused for a moment and then smiled. "However, with the right lighting and a good bath..."

"You'll never change," said Cravan. "Need I remind you that's how you nearly ended up in the gallows in Homelyn."

"How was I to know that she was the magistrate's daughter?"

"Your lusting will be the end of you," said Cravan. "I swear you'll hump anything that moves."

"That's not true," she said. "I would never touch the likes of you, for instance."

"Fortunate am I to be spared the plague between your legs." He gave Mor a rough shove to roust him from his daydream. "C'mon. Let's go before Lady Firecrotch starts groping the innkeeper. We've got a dragon to slay."

They collected their horses from the stable, plus the two extra nags that Cravan had just bought - one for supplies and the other for the girl. It was a long walk to the dragon's lair, and the time until the alignment was short. The stars would not be in this particular pattern again in their lifetime. Not that such things mattered to Cravan, but Mor was the expert in things mystical. If they needed to spend all their money on a couple of mangy ponies to get there on time then so be it. Besides, it would make hauling away all that gold that much easier.

They made good time across the valley. The roads were practically empty and the recent lack of rain had left the trail hard-packed and dry. Rieki led them to a place where they could hide and watch the farmhouse. She had seen only the farmer and his daughter, the one with the mark. There were usually three other men around explained Rieki, but a neighbor had told her that the two eldest sons were in the next town selling their extra cheese, and the youngest was sick in bed. The wife had died of a fever years ago.

From his vantage point in the bushes, the girl sweeping the porch seemed unremarkable. Cravan studied her for some hint of a great destiny waiting, but all that he saw was a farmhand with a dirt-stained, sackcloth dress and greasy hair tied up in braids. She could have been any of a thousand farm girls he had seen in his life. "Are you certain she's the one?" he whispered.

"If there's one thing I know, it's women," answered Rieki.

"Aye, and men," he said. "And probably dogs and horses from what I gather."

"Jealous?" she quipped. "Look there, the five pointed star on her neck poking out above the collar."

"Looks more like a rash than a mystical sign of prophecy," he said.

"She is the one," said Mor. His monotone pronouncement was apparently meant to end all debate. He strode forward from their hiding place directly towards the girl. Rieki looked at Cravan and shrugged before following the slender man towards the farmhouse. Cravan felt stupid sitting alone in the bushes, so he had no choice but to go after them.

The girl leaned on her broom as the three approached and she frowned. "Good evening to you," she said politely. "What business do a dwarf, an elf, and a mage have on our little patch of dirt."

"I'm not a dwarf," insisted Cravan.

"Oh gods, here we go again," Rieki muttered at Mor.

The milkmaid looked perplexed. "I'm sorry...what?"

"I'm not a dwarf," he repeated. "I'm five-foot-two. That's a respectable height for any man, if a wee bit on the lower side of average."

Rieki turned to Mor again and whispered, "Aye, but four inches of that is in his boot heels." Mor broke from his usual taciturn expression to giggle at that one.

The girl continued, "I'm sorry, but what with the beard and the axe..."

"Now that's just racist," said Cravan. "Let me tell you..."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Mor, "but we are on a mission of some urgency. It seems you have been selected by the Fates to perform a sacred duty and rescue the land from its torment."

She looked at Rieki and asked, "What's he saying now?" The elf just shrugged.

Undeterred, Mor went on, "We need you to come with us and slay a dragon."

She burst out laughing. "No, I don't think so."

Cravan's face turned an even brighter shade of red. "What do you mean, 'No'? It's a bleeding prophecy! It's like it has already happened. You can't just say, 'No, thank you. I'm a bit busy at the moment. Could you come back next week?' You're the chosen one, for gods' sake!"

"Your gods, not mine." She resumed sweeping the porch, purposefully pushing the clouds of dust towards the three adventurers. "Me, I've got a decent life here with a loving family. I've caught the eye of the blacksmith's son Torn, and he's likely to propose any day now. Why would I want to give up all that to go tromping through the forest with you lot and get myself killed?"

"She makes a good point," said Rieki.

"Quiet, you," said Cravan. "You're not helping."

Mor stepped forward and pointed at the red, raised patch of skin on her neck. "In the time of Tragain, when the Lands were at war and the mystical beasts first walked in our world, it was written that a woman who bore the Mark of Cilandil would free the world from a great evil."

The girl pulled up her collar to cover the blemish. "What, that? It's just a birthmark. It doesn't mean anything."

"The stars are aligned, and the Mark is revealed. It only remains that you accept your destiny for it to be realized."

"Bloody hell, this one's going to talk me to death," said the milkmaid. She pushed her head in the open doorway and called out, "Hey, Poppa. There's another bunch of religious nuts at the door."

In moments, a large, burly man emerged from inside the home. Brandishing a huge meat cleaver, he stood between the trio and his daughter. "Clear off you lot. We don't worship snakes or spiders around here. Nobody wants any part of your silly cult."

Cravan, still flustered, was looking for a fight. He twisted the shaft of his axe in his hands, feeling the weight of it. Rieki drew her bow and nocked an arrow, ready to let fly if things went bad.

But Mor was still determined to solve the situation peacefully. "Good sir, I assure you that we have no such intentions. We merely bring word that your daughter is needed for a quest..."

"There's not going to be any quests," the man bellowed. "Nor adventures, nor missions neither. Now get of my land before I carve you up and feed you to my pigs."

"I'd like to see you try!" Marching forward, Cravan stood only a few paces from the enraged father, close enough to see the rage in the man's eyes. He was just about to charge when his knee gave out under him and he fell to the ground. Cravan spat out dust and curses before trying to get up, but the lithe form of Rieki climbed on top of him, pinning him to the ground. As he started to protest, a wave of purple mist passed above them. He recognized Mor's handiwork and stopped struggling, keeping his head low to the ground. The cloud engulfed the farmer and his daughter who both collapsed on the farmhouse's porch, fast asleep.

"Dammit, Mor," said Cravan. "I had it under control."

Rieki was already on her feet offering her hand to help him up. "If by under control you mean about to have your ass handed to you by a man twice your size, then yeah, I'd say you had that one."

"Killing these people will not help us," said Mor. "I suggest we gather up the young lady and be off before they wake."

Cravan slapped Rieki's hand away. "Go and get the horses. I don't want to have to carry her all the way to the wastelands." She waited until he was half-standing before she put a boot to his rear. Cravan lost his balance and fell face first into the dirt again. Grunting and panting, he managed to stand back up using his axe as a crutch. Rieki had already vanished so he turned to Mor to vent his anger. "And you. Your aim's getting worse all the time. You almost hit me with your sleeping spell again."

"If you don't want to get hit by my magic," said Mor, "then stop blocking my line of fire. We needed the girl alive, not hacked into pieces. When we have a horde of orcs or some firewood to be chopped, I'll call you. Until then try to contain your enthusiasm."

When Rieki had returned with the horses in tow, Mor and Cravan lifted the sleeping girl up onto a horse, and Rieki tied her to the saddle so she wouldn't fall off. For good measure Cravan gagged her with a wad of cloth torn from the hem of her dress. It was going to be difficult enough smuggling the girl out of the valley without her calling out for help. When they were confident that she was secure they left the farm and headed west, sticking to animal trails and unused back roads to avoid attention.

It was almost nightfall when they came to a small clearing in the woods where they could camp. The girl had woken an hour or so before and had immediately tried to get free of her bonds. Mor couldn't cast his spell on her again without knocking out the horse as well, so they left her to struggle in vain. Rieki knew a thing or two about tying people up; the girl was not going anywhere soon.

Cravan made a passable stew from the supplies they had brought. He did all the cooking, not because he had a great love or even skill for the culinary arts, but because he didn't trust either the thief or the mage not to put something unpleasant in his food. While he believed that they wouldn't poison him outright, both had an expert knowledge of plants that could knock him out or make him soil his britches, and they were not above pulling pranks.

Mor and Rieki had pulled the girl down off the horse and were guarding her. When Cravan approached her with a bowl and a crust of day-old bread, Mor pulled the gag from her mouth. The wizard took the bowl from Cravan and set it on the ground beside him, tossing the bread on top to soak in the juices.

"When my father and brother find us, your skulls will decorate our fence posts. Let me go now and there's a chance you might get away with your skin intact."

"Brave words, but unnecessary," said Mor. "I apologize for the manner in which we came to be here, but if you'll give me a moment to explain..."

"I don't want to hear it," she said. "You're all crazy. Just cut me loose and I'll find my own way home."

"I first would like to point out that calling the people who are holding you hostage 'crazy' may not not be the best strategy. But that aside, once I have had my say, I will cut you loose and you can do anything you choose."

"What kind of trickery is this?" she asked.

"No tricks, my dear," he answered. "Only truths. As I was saying before your father interrupted, there is a prophecy that the one who bears the Mark of Cilandil will slay a great beast at such and such a time and such and such a place. That much you know. What I didn't get to say is that there is a great sickness sweeping the Lands, and its only cure requires the blood of a dragon."

"I don't see what any of this has to do with me," she said. "I'm no dragonslayer."

"Then many will waste away and die," said Mor. "If you cannot complete this task, I'm sorry to say that your younger brother will be one of the first to perish."

"What? Not Jerald!"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," said Mor. "It would seem that you are left with an impossible choice. Either you do nothing and watch your brother, possibly your whole village, die from a plague, or you accept that there is a higher power that has a plan for you." He pulled a knife from his belt and cut the ropes on her wrists and ankles. "I leave it to you to decide which is the worse fate."

Mor stood up and walked towards Rieki and the cooking fire. She leaned close to him and whispered, "Was any of that true?"

"Well, dragon's blood is a powerful curative in skilled hands."

"And her brother?"

Mor hesitated. "Probably has grave rot from watching the pagans dance naked under the full moon. It's a common enough affliction in boys his age. He should be fine in a few days if he stays in bed. The witches are occasionally spiteful but rarely cruel."

She flashed him a wicked smile that went from pointed ear to pointed ear. "Is that wise to let her go like that?"

He turned his head to look back at the farm girl. She was quickly devouring the bowl of stew that he had left next to her. "She's not going anywhere. She thinks she's the savior of her entire village. Still, keep an eye on her. If she tries to run, tie her up and put a bag on her head until we need her."

Mor scooped a helping of stew and handed it Rieki before taking one for himself. Cravan, already having finished his portion, was reclining against a fallen log and picking his teeth with a twig. "You're a devious bastard," he said. "Lucky you're on our side."

It wasn't until the next afternoon that they reached the scorched earth that marked the edge of the dragon's territory. While it would range over a hundred leagues when hunting, it always kept to the fire-blasted crags of the wasteland while it slept off its last meal. From the sightings by the nearby villagers, Mor had concluded that it was a newly matured adult, probably a male. That meant it would hunt every fortnight, on the new and full moons. Last night's moon was two days past full, so the timing was perfect. The beast should be fast asleep.

The lair was easy to find, marked by the charred bones of the monster's previous meals. The horses would go nowhere near the place, so they were forced to tie them to the remains of a tree a mile back down the rocky trail. As they approached, the smell of brimstone grew stronger, and the ash that was stirred up by their steps stung their eyes. A cluster of boulders overlooked the flat plain in front of the cave entrance, so they took cover there to plan their next move.

"So what happens now?" the girl asked.

"Now you go down there and kill the dragon," said Cravan.

"What?" she protested. "I'm not going down there alone. I'll be killed."

"Trust me," he said. "It'll be fine. Mor says he's asleep. Just sneak in and stab him in the eye."

"With what?" she asked. "I don't even have a knife."

Cravan looked around until he saw the remains of an unfortunate previous adventurer. He pried the sword from the skeleton's grasp, shattering a few of the finger bones in the process. He forced it into the girl's quivering hand. "Here you go, lass."

"Uh...thanks," she said. "That didn't do him much good though, did it?"

"He wasn't the chosen one," said Mor. "You have destiny on your side."

"If it makes you feel better," said Cravan, "you can dress the part." He turned back to the skeleton and grabbed the poor soul's chainmail armor by the shoulders and shook it until the dead man's arms and rib cage fell out of the bottom and rolled down the incline.

The girl covered her mouth with her free hand. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"What? It's good armor." Cravan held it up in front of him to model it like it was a debutante's ball gown. "It's nice, isn't it? I wish I'd had this when I started adventuring."

"I think that might be too heavy for her," said Rieki.

"Hmm...maybe you're right," he said. "How about the helmet though?" There's always falling rocks and low-hanging stalactites in caves." Cravan reached into the headpiece, pulling out the skull that was still inhabiting it. He tossed the grinning head over his shoulder before shoving the helmet down on the milkmaid's head.

The brim came halfway down her nose, so she leaned back and squinted from underneath. "I can't see a thing in this."

"Trust me," said Cravan. "I've been in many battles and you're far better off not knowing what's going on around you." He picked up a fallen, half-burned shield from the ground and strapped it to her arm. "There you look like a proper warrior princess now."

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Just think of all the lives you'll be saving," said Mor.

"And we'll be right behind you," added Rieki.

"All right. Here I go."

They watched as she slid down the embankment to the flat ground in front of the cave. After taking a few steps forward, her nerve seemed to fail. She looked back to see Cravan, Mor, and Rieki giving her encouraging smiles as they motioned for her to continue. The girl took a few more steps before there was a hissing and a deep rumbling growl from inside the cavern which made the ground vibrate.

"Forget this," she said. "I'm getting the hells out of here."

She turned to run, but this time the three adventurers were crouched down behind the rocks with only the tops of their heads showing. A shadow rose up leaving smoke and ash in its wake. She slipped on the loose gravel and fell hard to the ground. When she sat up, she was looking straight at the monster. Its body was the size of a house; the head alone was bigger than a carriage. The dragon eyed her hungrily. The beast's serpentine neck drew the its gaping mouth back before the monster came rushing down at her. The girl's screams were abruptly cut off as the wyrm swallowed her up whole.

"Okay that didn't work," said Cravan. "Anybody got any more bright ideas?"

"I don't understand," said Mor. "The prophecy was true. I'm sure of it."

"What a waste of a perfectly good farmer's daughter," said Rieki.

"Poor...did anyone catch her name?" asked Mor.

Below them the dragon began to cough and spit fire, seemingly at random. After a few moments it started to thrash violently, knocking over piles of rocks and smashing bones. It bucked like an enraged bull and then spread its wings out to their full extent before it finally collapsed on the ground in a heap and was still. The three adventurers clung to the side of the rock until they were sure it wasn't going to start up again.

"What happened?" asked Mor.

"I think it choked on the milkmaid," said Rieki. "Let that be a lesson to always chew your food, Cravan."

Mor rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. "Well technically she did kill the dragon, so...prophecy fulfilled?"

"The fates can be cruel," said Cravan, "but they can also be hilarious."

"That blacksmith's son that she was going to marry is going to need some consoling," said Rieki.

"Leave that poor boy alone. Hasn't he suffered enough already?" said Cravan. "But I think we're forgetting the most important thing. There's an unprotected dragon hoard down there somewhere. Tonight the drinks are on me!"

The Heaven Gate

### by Jon Jefferson

Locked. The blasted things were locked. George had told Eric to meet him here, even mentioned stepping inside the gates because the neighborhood wasn't the best. "Doesn't always go your way though does it?" Eric thought.

Eric rattled the bars again, just for good measure. He was at George's mercy and couldn't change anything. Eric needed a favor, a huge one. The odds of this going his way were slim. Sitting outside the gates to the warehouse like this though, well that took the cake.

Eric paced in front of the gates. The winter air cut through his thin coat. The pacing kept his blood circulating, kept him warm. He hated to think what might happen if he sat down for too long in this weather.

The headlights came around the corner, alerting him to a car coming soon. With any luck it would be George. Bastard needed to hurry his ass up and get here soon.

The car passed by. The dash lights reflected off the two occupants, girls from what he could tell. Still no George. Eric knew he was playing a power trip now.

"You coming in or what?" The voice came from behind Eric, the other side of the gate.

Eric gripped the .38 in his jacket pocket. "What the fuck dude? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"I thought you were meeting me inside?" George pushed the gate open so Eric could join him.

"Gate was locked," Eric said.

"Thought you had a key," George said. "I've been here for an hour waiting for you. What was this favor anyway?"

"Let's get inside. I've been out here freezing my ass off."

On the surface, George ran a building supply business. Hidden behind that, he laundered money for several "businesses" through the warehouse. Low key work really, but there were risks. Accurate books for the warehouse were a must.

They sat in George's main office, not the one the regular customers saw. They were in his business office in the subbasement. A hatch leading to this office was covered by a filing cabinet upstairs. He kept accurate records in this office too. The books could put quite a few people in jail for a long time.

"What's so important we had to meet here?" George asked.

"They found it. I don't know how, but they did."

"Found what? You're speaking in riddles."

Eric looked him in the eye. "The package we buried a few years ago."

George went white. "How did they find it? We lost that shit."

"Eddie the Mouse called me this morning," Eric said. "Said they were digging around where they shouldn't be."

"How do you know they found it though? Just because they were in the area doesn't mean they found it."

"He described it to me. The Mouse never saw it."

"Shit, fuck noodles," George said. "What are you going to do?"

"Dammit George, that's why I came to you." Eric smacked his fist down on the table.

"What do you expect me to do?"

Eric released a heavy sigh. "You are going to have to pull some strings. If this gets out I won't be the only one that goes down because of it."

"Let me make a couple calls. I'll get in touch with you tomorrow."

"Keep me in the loop."

* * *

Eric popped the door locks with his slim jim. The Volkswagen wasn't his car of choice but it was better than driving his own car into the neighborhood. After fiddling with the ignition wires the car fired up. He pulled onto the street, on his way to the garage where his car was parked.

This late at night, the deserted streets were a blessing. With no traffic to fight, he would be home in no time. He flicked on the radio and fiddled with the stations till he found some Motown, his dad's music. James Brown and Aretha Franklin were always present in Eric's childhood home. Even now, he thought of his dad when he heard it.

He parked on the far side of the garage, away from the cameras. They could catch him getting into his car though he didn't want to be placed with the Volkswagen. He found his Impala right where he left it. Didn't expect anything different, but it could happen.

A life of paranoia taught him a few things. A big lesson, he never got into his car without doing a quick sweep. Placing car bombs in the past taught him to be cautious. The distributor cap was in the trunk, left there before he went to meet George. Nice thing about these older cars, it was pretty easy to disable them and deter thieves. He swore by the adage, you can't steal a car you can't start.

The beast fired up with a roar. Sure, the car was old, but the modifications to it ensured he would never get rid of it. The armor plating built into the body did little for the gas mileage but the protection was worth it.

Eric gunned it through the garage, Aretha Franklin blasting through the speakers. The Impala's tires squealed as they tore into the pavement. After a short drive, he pulled into his private garage and locked the beast up behind him.

"Where ya been?" Jessica woke up when he opened the front door. She slept on the couch, never was able to sleep without him. She had moved in two years ago, adjusted to his schedule no questions asked.

He hung his coat up, removed his shoes, sat on the edge of the couch. "Needed to meet with George," he said. "Took the bastard forever to get there." He brushed her hair away from her eyes. "You didn't need to wait up."

"I didn't, fell asleep watching TV." She pulled him in for a kiss. "I missed you."

"Bedtime?"

"Yep."

* * *

She was gone in the morning. Jessica's job pulled her out of bed early every morning. Eric never noticed her leave, but he woke up every morning grasping for her only to find the empty place on her side of the bed.

His cell phone rang, random ringtone. A while back he learned to set ringtones for individual people, saved his hide a few times already. He felt around on the night stand for it as it vibrated away from his hand.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Droopchak? Sorry to wake you." He didn't recognize the voice at the other end.

"Well, you did. Who is this?"

"Inspector Hernandez. I am investigating the disappearance of a Mr. Federov."

Eric sat up. "Eddie Federov? What do you mean disappearance?"

"His wife filed a report recently. She hasn't heard from him in three days. She mentioned that you two were acquainted."

"I know him," Eric said. "He found buyers for me."

"Have you heard from him?"

"We talked on the phone about 2 days ago," Eric said. "But I didn't have anything for him then. Haven't heard from him since."

"Was the conversation any different than normal?"

The box. Eddie had called about the box. He couldn't say anything about that. "Not really, we try to talk at least once a week to keep merchandise flowing."

"What kind of merchandise?"

"I retrieve rare art pieces. Eddie was always good at finding discerning clientele."

"This phone call, the only contact you've had with him?"

Eddie disappeared, crazy to say the least. It was only yesterday that Eddie brought up the box. If he's gone to ground then he probably has the box with him. The thing was too big to leave to chance.

Eric knew the places The Mouse liked to hole up. In their last conversation, Eddie mentioned a tradeoff. It wasn't blackmail. Their relationship was stronger than that. They'd known each other for far too long to play the games of two-bit crooks.

Eric fired up the Impala and pulled it out of the apartment complex. He wasn't going to go directly to the meeting spot. He knew better. The tail he picked up only confirmed that he needed to make some side stops on the way.

After the second stop the car was still with him. He turned down an alley. He stopped his car about halfway down the alley and watched his tail drive past. A quick shift into reverse, he gunned it and pulled back onto the main road. Time to turn the table a little.

He found the car two cars ahead of him. Eric didn't bother with tailing the car. He announced his presence. After cutting through traffic to pull in behind the car he tapped the gas and kissed the cars bumper.

The black focus didn't have the balls of Eric's Impala. The thing was little more than tin with no weight to back it up. The Impala asserted itself with no problem. The focus pulled into a strip mall parking lot with the Impala right on its heels. He blocked the focus into a parking spot.

Eric shoved his .38 into the pocket of his hoodie and stepped out of the Impala. The driver of the Focus hadn't moved. "Mind getting out of the car?"

"Fuck you." He couldn't make out the speaker but it was a woman's voice.

He moved up on the car and caught the driver's face in the side mirror. "Jessica? What the fuck are you doing?"

She opened the door and got out of the car. "You've been acting weird. I thought maybe you were seeing someone else," she said. "I... I just wanted to make sure..." She burst into tears.

"Oh baby, I wouldn't do that to you." He pulled her into his arms. "It's all work baby. I just been busy with work lately."

"Sometimes it's hard to tell," she said. Her bottom lip quivered as she caught her breath.

He wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Just some big shit going on right now. Eddie's missing," he said. "Who's car is that?"

"Janette from the office," she said. "It was her idea to follow you."

"You should know better than to trust some bimbo. You should have talked to me, baby."

He left her there. She would head back to work, a little distraught but at least she wouldn't be following him anymore. Eric pulled out into the flow of traffic, eager to find Eddie.

He pulled the Impala into a carport, attached to a single-story brown stone. The place was one of the few residential neighborhoods still in the warehouse district. He thought it was a bit too obvious as a safe house. Eddie always told him that was the simplicity of the thing. Who would expect the place in the most obvious of locations?

The dark house bode ill for visitors. He laughed at the thought. Bode, who uses words like bode? But there was a feeling he couldn't quite shake looking at the place. It could be the lack of light coming through the windows. Hell, the place looked like it was still sealed from last winter.

He knocked on the front door; no answer. Didn't really expect an answer but it was worth a try anyway. It was locked too. Why was it everywhere he needed to be lately locked him out? Didn't matter, Eddie kept a key in a safe rock near the back door. This wasn't Eric's first time at this place.

The key, right where it was supposed to be, allowed him into the back door. The place looked like Eddie hadn't done work back there in months. This wasn't his only safe house, but with the proximity to the warehouse district it was the one easiest to get to.

Eric slipped the key into the locked and pushed the door open. A funk wafted out the door with a whoosh. The mustiness of an old basement, it was the only way that Eric could describe it. Not dirty, but with a dampness that he felt when he breathed the air in.

The place used to have a dehumidifier working full time. This close to the docks could damage much of the stuff in the houses around here. He hit the lights beside the door, nothing. Maybe it had been a while since Eddie was here. People would notice someone coming and going from a derelict house.

Light filtered in through the grime-encrusted windows. A layer of dust covered the floor and counters, undisturbed for some time by the look of it. The dust near the front door had been brushed aside. Upset and then resettled, someone had been here recently.

Tracks in the dust came into the house, nothing going out. Eddie must be here. "Eddie," Eric said. "Hey, you here?" There was no answer. There was a stillness in the air, almost unnatural. Eric followed the footprints in the dust into the hall leading toward the bedrooms.

"Hey Eddie, I don't have time for this. Quit fooling around dude." He pulled the .38 out of his coat pocket and pulled the hammer back. The path ended at the end of the hall. Closed door cut off the prints.

Eric held the .38 at the ready with his left hand on the door knob. "Eddie, you in there?" No answer. He slammed the door open. It banged into the wall, and kicked up a cloud of dust.

The room was furnished: a bed, desk and chair, and a couple dressers. The layer of dust and grime in the air choked him. But the room, Eddie went into the room, how the hell did he leave the room?

The box on the bed, he knew that box. They had sealed it with several layers of tape before they buried it though. The tape was cut at the seam. "Eddie, you fool," he said. "I told you to stay out of the box. But you never listen."

Eric assumed he tried to open the box. Scorch marks on the bed beside it told a tale of their own. "What the hell were you thinking?" He gathered the box, holding the lid closed tight. It was time to go. He put the .38 back into the pocket of his hoody, both hands were needed to ensure the box stayed closed.

The air pressure in the house changed, then re-equalized when he heard the backdoor slam shut. Eric froze. He couldn't set the box down, but he needed his .38. Whoever followed him here would be looking for the box. He couldn't let it get into the wrong hands.

"Eric?" Jessica's voice cut through the dust in the air. "Where you at baby?"

How the hell did she follow him? He watched for it. No one came this far with him. Did she know about the box?

"Come on out baby," she said. "I know you're here." Was she in the living room now?

He slipped the box into the closet. "I'll be right out."

Jessica stood in the center of the living room, a Beretta in her hand. She held the gun relaxed but still pointed at chest level. No way he could dodge that bullet.

He should have known better. _Never trust a woman,_ he told himself. _They always find a way to make your life difficult._

"How did you find me?" He asked, looking for exits. He could always come back for the box. He needed to live through this to make it back for it.

"I wasn't the only one following you baby."

She had an accomplice. Who would help her and why? Only a couple people knew about the box to begin with. Hell, only a couple people even knew about this safe house. "You can come out George."

George stepped out of the kitchen, unarmed. "Give it up Eric," he said. "I have a buyer."

"I told you before, this thing can't be sold." He shifted his weight. He might be able to drop and roll with his .38 if he timed it right.

"This isn't for you to judge," Jessica said. "We've been looking for the box for quite some time."

"That thing torched Eddie," he said. "It was never meant to be found."

"The daughters of Pandora feel differently," she said. "We have a use for it. Besides it's our legacy."

Eric dropped and rolled, the .38 in his hands. Two shots, one through Jessica's throat, dropped her. The other shot caught George in the left shoulder, he fell back into the kitchen.

"You still alive, George?" A groan from the kitchen confirmed it. "Let me get Pandora's Box out of here. You know it can't be opened just as much as I do."

"Take the damn box," George said. "Thing's brought me enough trouble as it is."

Eric holstered his .38 and grabbed the box. "Need me to get you to the hospital?" he asked.

"Nah, just get rid of the box. I don't want to know anything else about it."

He flicked the switch and the lights of the Impala cut the darkness. When he pulled out onto the road his phone beeped, a text message from George. "Call me tomorrow. Need an item picked up at the airport."

AD EYES

### by Gord McLeod

"Would YOU like to live a carefree life of—" CLICK.

Terry grunted in disgust and turned off the advertisement with a much sharper tap than was necessary. "Damned ads are everywhere," he groused.

"All this fancy living we do these days has to be paid for someho-" his mom's voice chided him from the other end of the vidcall before yet another ad broke in and cut her off. With a muffled curse, he poked at the screen and dismissed that one as well.

"I understand that, but this is just _ridiculous_!" he exclaimed.

"Terry dear, are you coming down with something? Your voice is very rough," she said. He realized that his throat was feeling a bit scratchy. _It's a wonder they haven't already shown me an ad for lozenges_ , he thought.

"I must've caught something at the office. I have to go, mom. I'll talk to you again soon. Love you." He fumed silently as the call terminated and yet another ad floated up where his mom had just been. As if in answer to his thoughts, it was proclaiming the benefits of some sort of name-brand cold syrup.

She was right, he knew. The world of the early 21st century was a world of wonders beyond imagining, convenience and luxury such as nobody in history had ever experienced, at least if you lived in the right parts of the world. In exchange, you just had to deal with marketing. Endless streams of marketing.

It was a bit like the lives of celebrities throughout history, applied to everyone all at once.

It was such a small price to pay. And it was, nonetheless, inexpressibly maddening.

He grabbed the milk to add to his coffee; the dairy's jingle began to play as the carton sensed the temperature of his hand. "Damnit, I already bought you! I'm already your customer!" He gritted his teeth as he poured the milk. The audio ads were the worst.

He got through breakfast with no less than five more ads before he'd even gotten around to checking the news. He quickly lost count after that; his feeds were more ads than actual articles.

He quickly did the dishes, and just as he was finishing them up, he felt a sudden itchy, scratchy tingle in the back of his throat. He broke out in a coughing fit.

Once it passed, he checked the cupboards, but found only a tiny dribble of cough syrup remaining. He grabbed his tablet. It came to life with the same ad for cough syrup he'd seen earlier. He sighed.

"May as well get some value from them, I guess." His throat wasn't too bad now, but he knew what to expect. He hated wasting a weekend on shopping, but give it another day or two and he might not be able to leave bed.

He bundled up against the late-fall cold more than he might have otherwise and headed for the nearest bus stop. It felt like just about every available surface in the city had some sort of ad posted on it; he did his best to ignore them.

The bus ride was strangely silent. He was dimly aware of the sound of the engine and the tires, and the murmur of the other passengers' conversations, but he couldn't focus on them. The ads were too loud. How had he never noticed that they were so loud before? _Have they gotten louder? No, it's me. Must just be me._

Maybe it was the bug he'd caught, playing with his perceptions. His head was beginning to swim a bit, and he felt like he was losing his ability to tune the ads out. He almost wished it was an older fossil fuel-burner model; the electrics had no acrid smell to distract him from the buzzing in his brain.

By the time the bus pulled up he was so entranced by the ads that he almost missed his stop. Shaking his head to clear it, he shuffled up the aisle and out to the street in front of a small but well-appointed strip mall.

The trip across the parking lot took a shocking amount of his energy. He found his attention drawn inexorably to screens showing ads in each shop's window; it was almost enough to drive his purpose from his mind. _Cough Syrup_ , he reminded himself firmly, and punctuated the thought with a string of coughs.

A brightly lit pharmacy awaited him at the center of the mall, the ads along its windows grabbing at his attention. Why can't I look away? he thought as he approached the doors. He almost walked straight into a distracted family of three as they emerged from the exit; mumbling an apology, he wrenched his eyes from the ad panels.

Inside the store was worse. Every end-cap, every sign, every advertised price crowded in front of his eyes. Nausea welled up from the pit of his stomach, and he forced his eyes closed to shut out the assault, fighting waves of dizziness.

"Excuse me, sir? Are you alright? Do you need help with something?" A young man's voice said near by.

"Cough syrup..." he croaked before another coughing spasm wracked him.

"Right this way, sir," the voice said, hesitantly. "You look like you could use it."

"Why are all the ad panels turned up so bright?" he asked after the spasm passed.

"Sir? I don't know what you mean," the young man said, a note of confusion in his voice.

"Never mind." He opened his eyes, and to his relief there were only a few small tags in the aisle the man had led him to that tried to dominate his attention. "I think I'm fine now, thanks."

"My pleasure. Hope you feel better soon!" The young man, reed-thin and with a teen's awkward poise, beat a hasty retreat.

_What the hell is going on? First the bus, now this?_ He'd never experienced anything like this before in his life.

He paid for his purchase, avoiding anything that even held a hint of advertising, and was able to keep his vision reasonably steady. He left the store with trepidation, dreading the inevitable bus ride home.

* * *

The phone was actively drilling a small hole through his skull and into his brain via the ear canal. At least, Terry assumed that was what was happening; opening his eyes to actually verify his suspicions only made the pain worse. He rasped his throat to clear it and groaned out "Pick up." His voice was too mangled for his cell to understand him; he had to repeat the procedure three times before it finally connected the call.

"Terry? Where are you? Is something wrong? You haven't picked up in two days!" His mother, her voice pressing him bodily into the memory foam mattress that usually comforted him but now felt so very prison-like.

"I'm fine," he rasped, sounding anything but. "I just—I picked up a bit of a bug somewhere. Probably the office."

"A bit of a bug? You sound horrible! You barely sound human! Have you been to the doctor?"

"I'm fine," he repeated. "I got cough syrup—" he started before the jingle interrupted him. His head swam; it felt like the whole bed was moving. His stomach surged. If he had fed himself at any time in the last day, he'd have lost it. "I-I got that," he finished when the syrup ad was done.

"A fat lot of good it's doing you. Terry, don't be such a stubborn fool! Listen to yourself! You need a doctor. I'll be over to drive you up in an hour."

"But I—" he started before the call disconnected with a tone of finality.

* * *

Five weeks later, Terry stared in disbelief at his family doctor. "What do you mean you've never seen anything like this?"

"I've never even heard of anything like this. It's definitely unique in my experience, and as far as I can determine, nobody anywhere has seen it before."

His mother, meddling as she was, had been right. It had taken several visits over the first week, but they got him on some more powerful medications that at least allowed him to function. He still felt a general malaise that intensified whenever he was exposed to ads; as the days and then weeks passed, he'd started noticing patterns about which specific ads would trigger an attack. Anything that he thought of as an advertisement in any sense would grow to dominate his mind, and the effect was devastatingly strong with some ads. After two weeks he'd had enough, and had insisted his doctor run more in-depth tests.

"It doesn't respond to the antibiotics I put you on initially; not surprising. The lab results are in, and though I'd have sworn it was a bacterial infection, the lab reports indicate that it's actually a virus." The report itself was in the doctor's hands, various imaging results they'd run the last time he'd stopped in.

"A kind you've never seen before?"

Doctor Goodman gave him a half-smile that didn't hide the puzzlement and concern in his care-worn eyes. "On its own, that's not so surprising. New viruses pop up all the time. Usually they're new strains of viruses we're already familiar with, but entirely new ones aren't completely unheard of." He sighed and looked at Terry with open concern. "What bothers me about this one is the symptoms you've described. We're going to have to keep you isolated for a few days while we run more tests and scans." He sighed. "This virus is accumulating throughout your brain, Terry. But it's concentrating on a specific region called the pre-frontal cortex. It seems to be stimulating the attentional spotlight. Maybe even focusing it somehow."

Terry's mouth was very dry. He nodded mutely. "How much testing will it take?"

Dr. Goodman tapped his report tablet off and slipped it into a pocket, gesturing toward the door. "Like I said, a few days..." he paused. "At least a few days. Is there someone you can call to pack a few things? We should start as soon as possible."

Together they walked out into the waiting room. A newspaper lay out on one of the tables, open to an inner page. The ads on the page immediately grabbed his attention, but not before a headline right out of the tabloids caught his eye; _Viral Marketing - Top Tips From the Experts_. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he followed Dr. Goodman out to the already-waiting ambulance.

A New World

### by Lou Gagliardi

Luke was checking his appearance in the mirror. Tonight was an important night, both professionally and personally. It wasn't every day, after all, that one got to date the boss' daughter. Jeff worked as a experimental lab assistant, but he felt more like a crash test dummy sometimes. He hoped that if he made a good enough impression that he'd get promoted to actually doing his own research. For now though, he did a quick check of the whiteness of his teeth, one hand searching the pockets of his black dress slacks. Jeff adjusted his tie and smiled in the mirror.

"Wallet with extra cash...check. Comb, check. Breath mints, check. Big, purple whirlpool of doom in the bathroom door...chec...wait..."

Luke would have screamed if he could, instead he stood, frozen in fear, worry, and fascination!" When he did finally scream, feeling himself being sucked into the vortex, Jeff couldn't help but feel a little disjointed.

* * *

Luke got up from the position he fell, not understanding what he tripped over. The last thing he remembered was being in the bathroom when this big, purple vortex sucked him up. So why was he now hearing sounds typically found in a forest? Unless, that's where the vortex left him. It would also explain the disoriented and off feeling that Luke felt.

As he walked, trying to find away out of the trees, Luke began to do a medical, cursory check of his body, noting the two arms and the two legs. He got a little higher, noting the wide hips and thick thighs but didn't think of anything except maybe the person he was now was a runner, or just had muscular thighs. He ignored the voice coming out of his mouth, assuming that the body must have a cold or something. Luke kept his hands sliding up from the hips to the belly. He could feel the plushness of it, finding this odd especially as he moved to the chest.

"Legs, check. Arms, check. Huge breasts, check...wait...WHAT!?"

Luke gave his body a closer look, as best as he could. He was feeling very nervous, but Luke knew that panicking wouldn't help anything at the moment. He--she?--had to find a mirror. That is definitely priority, Luke had to see what he looked like. Right now all he could see was a mess of red hair. His ears perked, hearing noise--perhaps civilization? That caused him to start to run through the trees towards what he thought was the sound of cars and people. He got right to the end of the forest, as it turned out it was a forest that they had converted into a citywide park. It was at that point that he ran into a low hanging tree branch head first and fell back, hitting his head off of a rock.

"Ow..."

* * *

Luke held his head as he sat up for the second time in the day. The pounding in his temples told him--her? Luke couldn't decide how he wanted to go from here--that the body was definitely alive. The constant beeping told Luke that he was in a hospital. He settled on him for now, until it was confirmed that the body was female. Of course, the walls had to be that drab grey color that made people want to go crazy. Getting up from the bed, Luke definitely felt the weight shift, especially on his chest.

"Hello? Nurse? Doctor? Anyone?"

Being a bit off, he forgot to press the button to call a nurse. Right now, he just wanted that off feeling to go away. It was after getting up that the constant, unrestrained bouncing told him what it was. Sighing, Luke sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the nurse call button.

Shortly after, a little rat girl--the nurse judging by her outfit--came in holding a tray. When she saw that he was up, the tray dropped and she became flustered, "y...y...you're awake, welcome back to the land of the living, Madam." Luke rolled his eyes, waiting for her to gain composure. Once the rat girl did, she walked over to the patient and began to take vital signs and check that everything was correct. "You've been here for the past couple of days, after being found in the forest passed out." The woman moved over and looked at the instruments, "well, all your vitals seem normal." The woman smiled, "Do you remember what you were doing all the way out there or who you are? If not, your Identification tablet is on the table next to you."

Luke blinks "madam?" Then he looked down. "oh...right...I...wait...Identification tablet? What's that? ...Forest? Yes, I was in a forest, then I hit my head and ended up here." Luke shook his head, only able to remember what she said and finally sees the deep, rich red hair with a hint of gold in it. Luke still felt off. Like all of this was a dream that he couldn't wake up from. Luke especially thought this true considering the weights that were on his chest.

He tugged on the hair, pulling some down into his vision. Luke winced as he tugged a little harder, confirming that it is not a wig. His eyes opened wide at this, his jaw going slack before he recovered. "I'm...I'm not a woman, though! The last thing I remember was getting ready to go on a date...in...ummm...Philadelphia? No. Balti...no...Pittsburgh!" He nodded, following the bounce of his--her--hair and trying to stop the gentle sway of her chest from tall the shaking and bouncing she had done so far. "I was in Pittsburgh in the year 2013...I was getting ready to go out on a date with the boss' daughter. My name is Luke Black." He grabbed his chest this time, definitely nothing lewd but for emphasis. "And I am definitely NOT female!"

The nurse blinked, not expecting this. She knew some amnesia patients would think or 'know' they were someone else but she hadn't expected this much. "No, dearie, It is 2061. You are at Royal Melbourne Hospital, City Campus on Sol-three. The world war is over...don't you remember the war? It was only a few years ago!" She tsks. "I should get the doctor." The rat turned back to Luke. "But you're going to be okay...Lisa...oh your glasses are the table. You're free to take a shower because it'll probably be a bit before the doctor gets here."

Luke nodded again, it was really all he could do--this was all too much! Grabbing the glasses, he had no idea why he was brought to this place or this time, unless it was a mistake, sitting back. "Oh! Miss? Before you go, can I get a hand mir..." Just sighed as the rat had left already. "Never mind then, I'll take that shower then." Luke started to take off the hospital gown, closing the door to the bathroom behind him, hoping for a little bit of privacy before the doctor came.

"World war? Anthros? Come on! Geez, Luke, what have you gotten yourself into? How did you get yourself into this? That vortex...but was it magical or scientific in nature. I'm guessing scientific since she mentioned some 'IDTab'..but it could be a mix too..wait, what the hell am I saying!?"

Looking into the mirror that hung on the wall, after entering the bathroom, Luke was happy. He left out a sigh of relief. He wasn't disfigured. Definitely female but not disfigured and alive—that's all that matters. The girl's face in the mirror was pretty. She had the hard lines of a feline female athlete with the softness contrasting that well. Her nose was small on her short muzzle but fit her face and her cheekbones were high. She stared back at he from the mirror with ocean blue eyes that showed a mischievous nature. Her plump, bow shaped lips seem to have a slight smile permanently on them. It was still odd to see that midnight black--or was it purple, it was hard to tell in this light--fur with that feline face. She had the look of a mature, sexy woman. She was classy but older looking--he had to guess about mid-thirties.

"Not bad. I guess. I wonder what I'm doing in Australia though. Maybe a vacation?"

She wore little, frame-less glasses he noticed, that stayed on her face by a little, invisible wire . He--she--was also now a redhead—a mane of deep, rich red that contained hints of gold. It had the eternal bedhead look. Luke liked that style, on women that weren't him, it was bouncy and fun. It was also nice to run his fingers through. Her neck was long and muscular in a feminine way. If his face was any indication, he could be a model. Luke knew he had lost some height, down from six foot five inches, as a human of course, judging by much larger everything looked. As he walked over to the small shower, Luke hoped that this "Lisa's" family or friends had called.

She looked good even if a little on the plush side. She wasn't fat nor was she muscular. What she was, he noticed, was big in all the right places--and it made for a very attractive figure. Her breasts were high and perky but very huge. He'd just hate to see the bras he'd have to buy now that he was her. Running his hands over those wider than average hips, her long, thin tail flicked over top that huge backside behind her.

"... Oi! Stupid tail! Now I know why they call girls 'bootylicious'. Geez, she works out or something, talk 'bout buns of steel!"

Luke stopped his inspections realizing that his thighs were going to be pretty much like the rest of him--not too muscled, not fat just big in all the right places. Before jumping in, he went out of the room real quick and grabbed a towel from the hospital closet to dry off.

"Well, now. This is interesting. So it seems that I'm in this body for the long haul for whatever reason...guess I better make the most of it." he shook his head. "Stranger in a strange land indeed. Well, the IDTablet or whatever she called it from the limited usage and understanding I have it said her--my-- name is Lisa Black...hmm...how odd. Anyway, she's thirty-six years old..not bad fer that age. I guess that's who I am..."

Walking out of the bathroom, Luke couldn't help but look around the room thinking that her clothes might be on a chair or in a closet. Sighing, she picked up her IDTab and managed to start a game. Getting into the game, the panther female never noticed when the small, young looking male mouse walked into the room. He stood there for a moment or two, before finally grabbing her attention.

"Ahem..."

Lisa jumped a little bit and almost broke the phone sized device. Turning with a red blush under her black fur, the tail behind her went rigid as she finally noticed him. Rubbing the back of her head, the former human let out a soft, embarrassed chuckle.

"umm..what's up, Doc?"

The mouse moved to the area of the room with the chair. He pushed the orange, plastic chair to the bed and sat down. Next, he pulled out a tablet and pressed down on the screen presumably opening some kind of application for note taking or to show her some readings. The newly created, for lack of a term, feline just watched in fascination.

"My name is Doctor Alex Maus. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Black. My area of expertise is neuromagical studies. Basically, I study wavelengths of the brain to determine if a person has had something magical done to them."

Lisa could only nod, still a little dumbfounded. She was more surprised, still, at the idea of a talking mouse than at the idea that magic existed and lived side by side with science in this time and dimension. Motioning the doctor continue, the female lead back to take some of the pressure of her back.

"Now the nurse, Millie, told me that when you woke up you did not remember being born Lisa Black but instead made mention of Luke Black. You also said that you were human. Is this true, Miss?"

"Yes, Doctor Maus. It is. The last thing I remember, as I told her is getting ready for a date.." The barely concealed exasperation could be heard in her voice. "then I was sucked into a purple whirlpool or vortex. I'm assuming, based on what you said, that someone was try..pardon me.." She chuckled a little bit, "a spell for a lack of a term.." It sounded silly the moment it left her mouth--a magic spell! But here she was as proof.

The mouse sat back in the chair and scribbled down notes as fast as his fingers could clack the digital keys on the screen. Then he pulled up something else with a flick of his finger. Turning the seven inch tablet around, Luke--Lisa, he should get used to that, scrolled through the information.

"These are a side by side comparison of the old Lisa's brain wavelengths versus your wavelengths. Do you notice anything odd about them?"

Lisa squinted then pulled on the frameless glasses, having nearly forgotten about them. Looking between the doctor and the screen, the feline peered in a little harder. Her degree, as a human, was in law not medicine. Taking a moment, she finally cleared it up for herself, though it was in the most simplistic of ways.

"Hers are shorter and abruptly stop. Mine are longer and keep going?"

The mouse nodded, a slight smile showing on his face. Putting the tablet down for now, Doctor Maus took her paws into his and squeezed. Sighing the mouse closed his eyes for a moment, both of them deeply breathing before the doctor opened them.

"Yes, that is correct. You are in a new world, m'dear, as a new person. It seems that someone accidentally used magic to gain access to your dimension and unfortunately or fortunately it brought you here and into her body. We can't take you back, but we can help you get clothing and contact friends and family to explain what happened. I've left a pair of pants and a shirt in the upper left drawer for you when you didn't pay attention to me walking in. Do you want us to contact your--Lisa's--family and tell them the news and get them to take you to their home?"

Lisa nodded and sighed, trying not to cry or look at that doctor. Emotions flooded her as the doctor left the room. She sat there for a moment too before closing her eyes and laying back.

Nothing Special

### by Sophie Anderson

I wasn't anything special, just the middle child of a middle-class family in the middle of America. That's why it was beyond my wildest dreams that one hot afternoon in August I'd find something that would make me special.

Now, as I sit here bundled in my jacket on top of my apartment complex's roof, staring at the night sky and waiting for them to come, I look to my side where my constant companion of the last ten years is sleeping. He knows they won't be here until the small hours of the morning, but I am impatient and insisted on waiting outside the whole night. As with so many silly things I've done in the past, he just smiled and said, "Do as you will."

We met for the first time one day when I was walking home from high school at age fifteen. The cicadas were clacking and rustling around me and I saw a glimmer ahead of me near the ground just off to the side of the road. At first I thought it was a heat shimmer from the pavement, but as I got closer, it became more distinct, not less, as heat shimmers usual do. I stepped off the road and crouched down next to the shimmer. It was mesmerizing in a way. I looked around for a stick, growing up in the desert, I knew better than to touch anything with my bare hand first. Who knew if it would bite you, burn you or skewer you. Finding a suitable stick, I poked at the shimmer. It wobbled around and the end of my stick disappeared a bit, but when I pulled it back out, it reappeared.

Shocked, I stood back up for a moment. This was way too weird, like something out of a science fiction novel. Nothing made things disappear like this. After a few moments, I gave an internal shrug, threw caution to the wind and reached for the shimmering. I saw my hand disappear a few inches before it stuck something. Feeling around what my eyes said wasn't there, I could tell it was some sort of metal shaped like a wedge. I got a grip on it and lifted. It wasn't unbearably heavy, but I had to steady it with my other hand as I hefted it. I stood there staring at my hands lost in a shimmering light and wondered how this could be happening.

Suddenly, the shimmering light disappeared and I could see what was in my hands. It was a metal construct, it looked like a giant metal slice of cheese. It had a bit towards the wider end of the wedge that expanded out for a couple inches and on the opposite end from the point had there was a weird glowing to the metal. I turned it over a couple times in my hands. There were no seams or lines that I could see. No place where the metal pieces were welded together and it was too light to be carved from solid metal.

Deciding it warranted further study, but somewhere out of the heat, I carried it home with me. The second weird thing I noticed, and almost missed the first time was that when I set the thing down on my desk in my room, it was actually floating a few inches above the desk. I had even started to walk away before a glint of light made me look back and I saw it hovering. Of course, I had to test the theory, so I ran a ruler under it; nothing was holding it up. That justified my immediate attention. I sat down at my desk and started running my fingers along the metal, trying to find a clasp or anything. Nothing. It was entirely sealed throughout the entire length, top and bottom. I kept at it for an hour before finally getting frustrated, so I put it aside on the floor beside the desk while I got down to homework for the night. At eleven-thirty, I turned off the lights and went to bed.

At three AM, I was awakened by a humming noise and blinding white light. Turning over, I saw it was coming from beside my desk. The object! I ran to it and discovered a seam had opened in the top, where it bulged out larger, and it was slowly coming open like a clam-shell. I crouched down beside it and held my breath as my eyes adjusted to the light streaming out from inside it. When it was open enough that I could see inside, I saw a tiny creature about six inches tall, staring up at me from what I thought must be some sort of a pilot's console.

We stared at each other for a few long moments and then I heard it speak, directly into my mind in a flutey voice. "Hello Kristy." My jaw dropped.

"You know my name?"

The alien nodded. "I know about you now. I have been listening to your thoughts as you sleep. I have chosen you."

"Chosen me?"

Again the flutey, musical voice in my head. "My name is Jiskira." The alien said and I was suddenly overwhelmed by the impression that he was a male. "I am from a planet far from here." He said gesturing at the sky.

"You're an alien?" I asked, just to clarify.

He nodded. "Indeed." The voice seemed amused. "I came here in advanced of our diplomatic envoys to study humanity; its customs and beliefs, its language. To know what humanity is really about."

I thought about that for a second. "Are you saying you chose me to be first contact?" I asked in a small voice.

"I did not choose. I was guided here by..." Jiskira paused. "It is hard to translate." He apologized. "It is the power that we believe guides the universe." He started to explain. "We call it Shy'ther, but loosely translated it would the 'The Oneness'." He gave a whispery laugh. "But that is a lesson for another day."

"How long are you going to be staying?" I asked sitting down next to his ship.

"I am here ten years. That is when the others arrive from my planet."

"Ten years?!" I exclaimed.

"How else am I to know your species well enough to be a guide for my people when they make contact with your world leaders?"

"And I'm the human you're going to learn from?" I asked nervously.

"Among other ways, but you will be my primary source of observation."

I sat a moment to think about that.

"But why me? I'm nobody, just a high school kid from a boring family in a boring town."

"Exactly." was the response. "You are a normal, average human, and that is who we wish to know."

I thought about that. "I guess I can see the reasoning in that. But what will I have to do? Keep a journal? Or, like, report to you every day or something?"

I got another musical laugh in my mind. "Oh no. I will be with you."

"Um..." I hesitated. "I don't mean to burst your bubble but, people are gonna notice if I start walking around with an alien, even one as small as you, and I assume you want keep this on the down low, right?"

Jiskira looked at me in confusion for a minute. "The translator processed all your words, but I think some of them must be colloquialisms, because they did not make sense."

I rummaged in my memory for the meaning of colloquialisms; it came to me in a minute and I laughed nervously. "Oh. Yes. Sorry. Um..." I thought about what I said and rephrased. "I don't mean to tell you you can't live with me, but if anyone sees you then we won't be able to keep it a secret that there is an alien living with me."

"Aah. Yes. I have a way to fix this problem." Jiskira said and rummaged in a little compartment, pulling out what appeared to be a watch-like device and strapped it to his wrist. He pushed a button and disappeared from sight in a shimmer of light similar to what the ship was doing when I found it, except after a moment the shimmering stopped and he was simply invisible.

"Amazing!" I exclaimed. He reappeared moments later, having climbed out of his ship to stand on top of it..

"This is how I won't be seen."

I took a closer look at him now that he was outside the ship. He was humanoid, with two arms, two legs a torso and head. He was covered it what appeared to be short, light blue fur, with slightly darker splotches of color at random places on him. his face was triangular, with a pointed chin, full plum colored lips and a button of a nose, but it was the eyes that held my attention the most. They were placed on stalks that extended above his head on antennae. They were a lovely green opalescent color and they could look independently of each other too. His arms were about the same length as a humans proportionally, but his hands had only three fingers each, two main fingers and an opposable thumb. He was dressed in a full body jumpsuit of some sort of metallic cloth that left just his hand and head bare.

We studied each other in silence for a moment, the weight of what he was asking of me finally sinking in.

Then he spoke. "Do you accept this role as my guide to humanity?"

I hesitated for a moment and then responded with conviction, "Yes. Yes I do." Jiskira responded with a brilliant smile. "Then Kristy, it is my pleasure, on behalf of the planet Ash'shy'or, to be the first to greet you." He said and made a triangle symbol with his hands in front of him.

And that's how I met Jiskira. From that day, everything changed. I had a constant companion with me for the next ten years. He was with me when I took my driving test two months after we met; quietly congratulating me in my mind when I passed. He was with me when I had my first kiss, sitting in the movie theaters. He was with me when I graduated high school, sitting on my shoulder as I walked across the stage to get my diploma, my proud parents beaming at me from the stands. He was with me when I received word that I was accepted into the University of I had chosen, clinging to my belt loops as I danced around the house with excitement.

He was there during my triumphs. But he was also with me during my failures, my embarrassments, my disappointments and my heart breaks. He kept me from panicking when I got into my first car accident, a slight fender bender driving home from school one day. I had a friend with me the first lonely nights I spent in the college dorm rooms, where I knew no one and was homesick for my family and home a thousand miles away. He was there the day I failed my first college test because I hadn't studied at all for it. He was there the night I turned 21 and went out drinking with my college friends. And the night four months later when for the first and last time ever I got so drunk I was in the bathroom for hours, vomiting up my stomach contents. He was there to comfort me when my mother called to tell me that my favorite grandfather had died. He was there when my boyfriend of three years broke up with me because he found someone hotter; and when I found someone new in my life to replace the ex-boyfriend. I never really stayed with anybody long though. I already had a man in my life, I liked to joke with Jiskira, and I was usually pretty busy concentrating on school or work to keep a steady boyfriend.

Through it all, he never judged, never said things like you shouldn't do that or why did you do something that incredibly stupid, even though I'm sure he should have at times. He would give me advice if I asked for it, always with the caution that he only had a limited knowledge with which to form an opinion. I found that despite that, if I could swallow my pride enough to ask for advice, he had an incredible insight into situations and people.

Of course, there were days where the secret weighed heavily on me. I wanted to tell someone about this other person that I was living my life with, but the consequences would be too great to take the risk. So I held my tongue when my friends discussed life on other worlds, or made up some excuse when my parents wanted to know who I was talking to when they heard me by myself in my bedroom at night. I held my tongue and hoped they would forgive me when the truth came out at the end of the ten years.

I'm fairly positive having Jiskira in my life influenced my decision to study world politics and get a degree in Global Studies in college. I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen when the rest of the envoys from Ash'shy'or' arrived, but I had the vague hope that I would be a part of it. I know he has saved my life at least once by having me turn away a guy at a bar one night in college; all Jiskira would say is that the man gave him 'the creeps' and that was good enough for me. Days later that same man was on the news for kidnapping and raping a girl that looked a lot like me.

In those ten years I also learned a lot about his people as well. His species came from the fourth planet in system with a blue star. One time when I had the opportunity to look through a telescope, he pointed out to me where it would be, but he explained that no telescope I had access to would be powerful enough to see it. It had a green sky and blue grass, which is where his people got their coloring from, adapting to blend in and camouflage with the grass.

On his planet, there were actually two intelligent species that developed; his people, the Kalayin, and another, much bigger race, the Shy'Dra. The other race was very willowy and tall; usually at least six feet tall but could grow to seven or eight feet tall. They didn't have fur like Jiskira's species, but smooth scales, like a snake or lizard. They were mostly different hues of opalescent greens and green-greys, but some could be different shades of brown. They walked upright, on two legs like humans, but had tails to help them balance. Their arms had two elbows so that they were incredibly flexible when reaching for things or gesturing and their fingers were tipped with claws. Jiskira said they were the most incredibly beautiful dancers he had ever seen. Their heads were long and narrow ovals and they had perfectly round eyes with slit pupils like a snake or cat.

And while there was peace between their peoples now, there had been devastating wars a thousand years ago that people still talked about in hushed whispers. Jiskira's people had developed telepathy, and had no vocal cords, their mouths were used strictly for consuming nutrients. It brought a whole new meaning to talking with your mouth full. the Shy'Dra, however, had developed vocal cords and spoke out loud. Jiskira was both envious of them and not. Speaking would be an interesting experience, however, the Shy'Dra were having to learn to speak a new language out loud, and that meant learning to move their mouths in new ways, whereas all he had to do was know the words.

Jiskira had volunteered for this mission, but the final choice of which candidate to send had been decided by the council of elders, three of each species and one elected Elder that could be of either species whose job it was to break ties during votes. Ours was not the first planet they had initiated first contact on, but the first time they had, it had gone horribly wrong, hence the reason Jiskira was here, when they had sent someone ahead to integrate with society ahead of time, the process had gone much smoother. He had left behind a mate on Ash'shy'or, her name was Jiskassa, but she was to be coming on the ship with the envoys. I could tell that he missed her very much. I sometimes felt bad for him, being stuck on an different planet with only humans for company. I asked him once, if he was ever lonely on such an alien planet and he replied with a smile, "Sometimes I am lonely, but it is no longer an alien planet to me, and that helps."

During the summer between my junior and senior year of college, I interned in Washington D.C. with the Foreign Services Office and when I graduated, I applied for and was offered a job there as a low level aide. I am a senior aide now, and if tonight doesn't change everything, which I'm sure it will, I'm sure I would be promoted to a full Foreign Services Officer in the next year. What a crazy journey the last ten years had been; I went from being a nobody to being a representative for humanity, it was still a little crazy to think about even now.

I came back to the present when Jiskira stirred at my side, he sat up and then carefully climbed onto my knee to stand facing the north. He looked at me before pointing off into the night sky. "They are here."

The Dragon, Nitusomin

### by D. Bryant

Dragons do not speak with tongue or mouth. To do so would be impossible, though the reality is almost as difficult to explain. I suppose I must be bothered with such explanations if you are to have any chance of understanding what I will narrate. So let us both gather what patience we can and clutch it with every tooth and claw for a few moments as I try.

Our pride is more than a feeling. It is a force as powerful as our fire and crafty like our wit. Casting subtle enchantments as our infamy grows or dies, twisting the perceptions of those around us like a candle alters shadows. If we are proud, then we are given an inner voice. One not summoned from our throat, but from the soul. This voice becomes clearer and more persuasive if a drake or draka holds themselves in high esteem.

We may pretend to form words, to deceive you and protect ourselves from abuse against such quirks. If we approve of our appearance and think ourselves handsome or a marvel upon the eyes, as a beggar in a fresh cloak. Then we generate a glamor that gives a disarming glimmer and tint to our scales. While a scar-ridden dragon who sports in war, like a child in mud, will carry a fearsome and chilling presence. If we were not plagued with an overwhelming hunger for perfection and praise, all creatures would likely grovel before us in awe. Unfortunately this is not the case.

In spite of these gifts, our magnificence is often ignored. For when others speak of dragons, they praise little beyond our wealth. It is tangible and easily admired by the simplest of minds. I'll admit a mound of gold comforts the mind and adorns even a vast lair, but there is so much more to us than a delight in precious metals. But I might as well start there and dispel what lies you've poisoned your thoughts with. If you were to scorn our avaricious nature, we would only snort in agreement. We do not loathe greed while secretly lusting for it. We see it as the motive it is, not a vice. And if you called us ravenous in our pursuit of riches, we may even grace you with a "too kind", though who or what is too kind we will likely not reveal. We gather such hoards because we desire what others envy and reducing a kingdom's fortune to nothing more than a mattress, is the sort of mockery that would amuse almost any dragon.

So if you have grasped what I've said so far, you should understand only one trait would be less appealing in a drake than being stringy, frail, and weighing more in his scales than everything they hold. This is of course being a coward. I may have been lean as rope from nose to tail, but I was not a coward. I was however greatly sickened by blood which many mistook for a weakness of cowardice. They were fools, but a coward I remained.

When cornered by the substance, I become light headed. My legs tremble, my wings sag, and my tail goes limp as a drowned worm. I would stumble away as I struggled to breathe before collapsing into a coiled heap. Remaining there until the malady fades and my strength returns. More than a basin of the dark fluid and my flesh becomes pale beneath my ruffling scales. A hollow expression shadows my face as if my soul has fled far from the horrors of mortality. And these reactions occur without exception and no warning will aid me. I have suffered this curse so often, that I can not help but describe them as more than honest facts as I'd prefer.

While under such hardships, it was more than difficult for me to be a dragon of glory and riches. As well as entirely impracticable when I surrendered my time to scholarly desires for the distractions they provided. My name would never be immortalized by infamy or even familiar around a hearth like Ritmore or Celeranis. Yet through efforts of a less dangerous nature than of my kin, but no less grand, I kept a respectable heap of treasure. One that until recently, I would have been proud to say weighed closer to thirty pounds, than the even twenty-five it appeared. I had small ambitions true, but I was content. A truth few dragons can speak. However I had hoped the privileges of bearing the name, Nitusomin, may yet get another addition to its admittedly brief list. The day's start would suggest otherwise if I'd been superstitious.

"Tivina." I hissed and closed the cloth package. "You wouldn't happen to know whose foot this is, would you?" A younger green draka poked her head up from behind an accumulating wall of tomes. Her scales flickering various shades of green in her distress and asked.

"Again? So sorry, I didn't smell anything odd."

"On your next trip up above, remind those whelps this is Records and Translations, _not_ a morgue or pantry to store leftovers."

"Was it at least an interesting foot this time? I suppose not. If they insist on such pranks, they should at least send something different each time. A well preserved head perhaps. So much can be learned from just a head. You have the brain and most of the sensory tissues reside there. From the teeth alone you can tell-"

"I fear must disappoint you. All I have is a foot, a man's foot and it seemed like a completely unremarkable one during our short meeting."

"I'm sorry." she repeated. "Are you well? You look ill, but you aren't. Should I go for the smelling salts just in case or just dispose of it right away? I should have asked about a pail first, but-"

"I'm fine. It was dry as paper. Unfortunately, I seem to grow cold now if I only expect to see blood. I just want it taken to Flesh and Bones, see if they want it for any reason. And see if they have anything that will express my gratitude to the Contributions and Acquisitions."

"Happily, but that parcel was sent to you directly. Perhaps they just sent it on its way with no knowledge of it contents. They wouldn't have needed your name to get it here and why dry it out." She took the package and being who she was, peeked in and looked at the foot with interest and sniffed. "Cotton, salts, and Rosemary. Cheap but effective preservers."

"They would have sent it fresh. It makes a poor insult otherwise." I agreed, but still seethed. She was right. I had been jumping to conclusions, expecting someone was taking another bite of what bits glory I'd managed to meld together. She tore her eyes away from the old flesh and examined the cloth instead.

"The note was small and the writing wasn't very good, but it said _Nitu_ then _Bewafot_ or _Bearfot_. Do you know who-, here it is." She displayed a slip of paper held to the cloth with some sparse drops of wax. As I took the salt filled package, she kept the foot returned to her examination. It was cramped writing, but I read something different despite this.

'Nitu, Beware-fot.' and I reasoned a second 'O' had been left off to spare the 'T'. My anger fled and I read it again. My name hadn't been abbreviated, we cherish our names and a respectable dragon would only write the name if room didn't permit. But I had never completely hated this nickname, because only she would dare use it. But I couldn't decide why she'd send me a foot. She had never attempted such trick before.

"There's a tattoo on this side." She said, turning it in her claws and showed me the mark. I studied the symbol for a moment, searching my memory then nodded in approval.

"So that's what she wanted. She's curious what the tattoo means."

"What who...." her eyes widened and then her mouth closed before she hesitantly continued. "Should I go and fetch her."

"I'd be grateful, and take this to Flesh and Bones anyway. Tell them its a genuine mark of the Bilmos Cult and I wasn't sure if they had one. If they aren't interested, tell them I could find a use for it if they can save it."

"Should I come back....at once?" I stared back at her, momentarily puzzled then uncomfortable.

"Yes, and when you do my friend can explain to you that you're courting pitiful dragons if they think sending you someone's feet is romantic. Even if they're for eating. Even if you find them interesting."

"But jewels are so tiresome. What does one do with gems?" She sighed, then began her journey to the surface above.

I was surprised and nervous to be blunt. For few things would prod me to leave this vault of treasures and records within the caverns of the The Solitary Spire. Caverns known vaguely yet widely as The Archivists' Hoard or The Spire Archives. A trove of historical wondrous relics that dragons had gathered and overlooked for lifetimes which we displayed to those with the means to appreciate our collection. We hosted celebrated scholars, musicians, and artists, who came looking for lost works they could study or revive. Even nobles in their many forms, cut out their bloated dignities and begged entrance while seeking out their lineage, lore and the histories of their lands. They may not have uncovered what they desired to learn, the unwanted truth, but the quality of our collection has never disappointed.

Beyond this, it was a safe place. One where my affliction was no concern and my lack of brawn was overlooked for my understanding and mystical talents. Despite spending days without any company but shadows. Engulfed in a seldom disturbed silence that would smother a more social creature. I worked with true dedication and as little rest as I could endure, while I sorted, translated, documented, then stored antiquities deep within the mountain. A life I was happy to continue and hoped to eventually become a fully privileged member and a master historian. An Archivist.

However Karma's visit was a disturbance to this routine life which I was content, even pleased to suffer. Admitting to youthful desires I confess I would have been glad just to linger in her presence. She was was a mysterious and curious draka, even to the powers of my unraveling gaze. In anticipation of her visit, I found continuing in my duties had diminished in appeal. So instead I rearranged and cleared away the piles of crates, leather wrapped bundles and stacks of newly delivered tomes, scrolls, or tablets. This needed to be done regardless, but I found Karma's opinion the small space dedicated to my work, more dire than my own, which I was an uncommon sort of discomfort for me.

She emerged with drawn out dramatics, as her slick black hide slipped out of the darkened tunnel and approached in a roundabout way. Creeping along the edge of the chamber with quiet grace. I kept her within the edge of my sight, but remaining just as silent and feigned ignorance of her presence. Even forgetting her as she entered the unseen space to my far left. A moment later I felt her leathery hide brush my scaly one as she stepped up on my right. I could not turn both eyes to see her with pressing my snout against her, so I settled with only the one. While hers saw only the slab of wood before me that served me as a workstation and the parcel there.

"Someone has terrible taste in gifts, they didn't even use yarn. How very tatty." I didn't respond, I never lasted long in this game once I starting chatting away. Talking of nothing but meaningless things was fine, but if I addressed her directly first, I lost precedence. It wasn't so much about winning or losing, but establishing a position of authority in a group. With only the pair of use, it was more a game than a contest, but one we would play regardless.

"It occurs to me that a draka who has heard she frightened her dear friend, would be like wish to amends, despite any pretense of superiority, for it is her duty to do so." She talked because her voice was her greatest method of bending me to her will. She tried to force a reply from me and she was succeeding. I could feel my agreement struggling to escape, but I forced it down with some effort. If I submitted too quickly, it would make me look weak. On an instinctive level that we can not fully ignore no matter our desire to. Karma was honest, but she'd be disappointed in me regardless.

So I pressed on, making what eye contact I could. It was the only place I held any advantage, for the stare of a dragon are fueled by pride of intelligence and some of the most cunning minds I knew had complimented mine. Indeed, I saw its effect on Karma as her own eye flickered to mine and away increasingly. When I had suffered under the gaze of my teacher for the first time almost a decade ago. I learned what men fear of gods. She had stared down on me with overwhelming distaste, as if she knew everything of me and every stupid or unworthy thought I'd every conjured. Yet I was desperate to gaze back as if her eyes would reveal all knowledge until I fled from my own shame.

It was keeping my eyes on hers that was the difficulty. They wanted to wander and I wanted to let them. So rarely had a draka stood so close and just as rarely had I seen Karma so young. A statement I'll explain shortly. I had never seen her in any form younger than myself. I was intrigued by these small differences. However I wander from the story, so I will withhold the progress and outcome of this contest and be brief on the rest of the meeting. To be plain, her greeting was affectionate and apologetic and having appeased my affronted ego, she proceeded to the meat of her intention. Not only inviting me to linger, which I would have presently found slightly degrading, but to join her on an expedition. A term we use to civilize the notion of sacking some town or castle with little prejudice.

Unfortunately, as well as delightful, she was also decorated with exotic white stripes that vaguely resembled bones beneath her glossy hide. These marked Karma as death-touched, dragon who foresaw ends yet to come. Giving her the opportunity to harvest the belongings of those soon to pass from this world with no struggle or complaint. And the deaths that attracted her attention were those where the looting was plenty, as well as the corpses. Blood spilling in ways will not dare imagine.

So I made the obvious choice and declined her invitation as always, fabricating some task that needed completing within the deepest reaches of the archives. We were more than acquaintances but not devoted to one another. Affections I was then reassured were not wasted when she interrupted this excuse with a frustrated snort.

Reassuring me that she only required, "a prodigious, vehement, and demoralizing dragon to assist in transporting the soon to be acquired wealth. While supplying interesting conversation during the journey, who is also affordable." She finished by fluttering of her wings so very slightly. A gesture that could be compared to batting her eyelashes I suppose, a gesture you'd likely find as odd as I find the other. It was both mortifying and alluring. I quickly agreed for the opportunity to escape this embarrassment.

Do me the curiosity of believing it was the convincing argument and her use of ambitious words that formed my decision, and not her manipulations. I took it as a challenge to make some contribution and prove her flattery not a complete lie. Though this would likely only amount to some dropped coins or a potted flower of an odd color. But when she asked how soon I'd be ready to leave, I realized the flaw in my decision.

"I can not say." I admitted. "I am awaiting the assessment of my latest discovery. A famous helmet worn by-, well I won't bother with the details. But if I'm right, it should be enough for my promotion." She tried to be encouraging, but she was only second to myself in her knowledge of my past submissions and how they had been found, not disappointments but lacking in novelty. She departed soon after sharing what news she'd discovered during her adventures in the outer world. I watched her go with some disappointment, expecting she would not lounge about the caverns for long and that I had seen all I would of her for at least a few days.

I briefly entertained the idea of forgetting the helmet and pursuing her. But I worried I would look desperate and lacked the courage to do so. Not from normal fears of rejection, for I knew she had favor for me as well. Even if I couldn't understand those feelings or what I'd done to merit them and so feared that I may lose that attention just as easily. There was romance between us at times, but that may be a passing thing. I've spoken of what she is and only hinted at what she is capable of, for there is more to those white markings than grim visions and grave robbing. Karma was practically immortal, immune to aging as you understand it. For she aged, but in both directions. The details can wait for now.

So despite being a few years into my second decade, I might have looked like a child to her. How old was she? How many partners had she taken in that time? Did such dragons take partners or were brief visits what she considered an affectionate relationship? Could I even ask that without seeming too bold, needy, or immature? No, I decided again and again. So our attitudes were often nothing more than friendly towards each other in public. We had our own lives that sometimes crossed, and though I wished such meetings happened more often. I needed some sort of authority in name since I had none in body before I'd investigate such questions. Until I held the title of Archivist, no gift would conceal my failings. I hoped my discovery of the helmet would aid me in this. Perhaps then she could say my name without sympathy.

Despite my fears however, she returned the next day without appointment or expectation and asked as she had many times before, if I could spare the time to teach her something. So I narrated my thoughts as I sorted through surviving items of the Nortis Empire, wondering if she was perhaps so old that she had lived through that time of madness. She seemed interested at least, on the occasion I glanced at her as I tried to understand why she bothered with me.

"What sort of dragon can't tell four karat gold from fourteen," I sneered after tasting the flatware's decorated edge. I took the ceramic plate gently in my jaws and climbed to the higher shelves in the rock wall. "As if the fact that it could be no other than a dish from the Emperor Finkun's table wasn't proof enough. A man like that wouldn't let less than eight karat taint his food."

"The ledger says it belonged to his son." she noted.

"And we know that's complete and utter nonsense why?" I asked.

"Because....because the son was selling everything from his silver belt buckles to the gilded trimming on the throne as soon as he rose to power. Using them to fund his conquest of Tilsada. So you believe it is very unlikely he missed disposing of a gold platter."

"Those are my thoughts exactly." I replied as I inspected the nook's contents for other flaws. "But you don't sound convinced."

"I understand your reasoning, but I can't say I accept it as truth merely on that point."

"But neither can you say it isn't truth or can you? Did you ever dine at his table or pillage his pantry?" She only gave a sort of shrug with her wings. Not a denial to my question, but a refusal to answer. I had to earn answers about her past, that was another game we played. I returned the shrug before continuing. It had been an unlikely hope. "There are many truths. All you can do is accept that which is closest to reality at each moment."

"Unfortunately your truth is lacking a few details." A voice said and I craned my head about and looked down to see an old draka with familiar dull blue scales. A younger dragons scales shift colors constantly as their personalities mature and change. But her scales had likely held no other hue since long before she began teaching me years ago. Isionu was more than a teacher, but a Head Archivist who supervised Records and Translations among her other duties.

"For example," she continued, "your perspective is flawed by your species and so you don't understand what the plate signifies."

"Men and the like, use them to protect their food and stomachs from dirt." I replied dismissively.

"And they wear clothes to keep warm where they would normally freeze, but most do not settle with rags or leaves do they?"

"No, but-" I stopped as her meaning fit into place. It had been such a stupid mistake. "They're both symbols of status. He would keep his fancy plates to deceive dinner guests into thinking that he wasn't about to run his empire to financial ruin over his obsession."

"Correct. So, though we don't have proof that plate belonged to him, we do have reason to believe he would have kept it. Do you accept that truth?"

"Yes." I said reluctantly.

"Good, now once you've returned that plate and corrected the error in gold quality and its new place, I'd like to talk with you." I finished quickly and moved to sit beside Karma, eager to hear her news. As one of the eldest archivists, Isionu would have reviewed my submission with the others.

"I meant you in the singular sense." I bristled and felt my fire stir in my chest. There was no reason for it. No reason unless it was bad news. And there was no reason it should be bad news.

"If-" I swallowed my disappointment and anger, then forced my eyes to meet hers and tried again but calmly. "If you and the other masters have declined my request again, then just say it. I have work to do and I've suffered such failure before and lived."

"Nitusomin, there is a difference between failing to impress and putting yourself in a position to be embarrassed by choice." she stated and my legs trembled. I held her gaze stubbornly for another moment, then shuddered and gave in.

"Excuse me." I said then hesitantly followed as she led me farther into the caverns. My anger settled as we walked but was replaced with a chill and I gathered my wings more snugly against me to no success of warmth. When we were far enough, I sighed out a "thank you."

"I care about my students. Which unfortunately means I have to tell them unpleasant things instead of simply what they want to hear. And it also means I have to protect you from yourselves."

"So what do I not want to hear?"

"Your submission was a forgery." I couldn't find the words to speak. It wasn't that I couldn't believe I was in error, though I didn't. I had been so certain because there would have been little reason to reproduce it. The owner of the helmet had been a symbol of idiocy to men everywhere by the time he performed his one act of kindness and died. No profit would have been found in such a forgery.

"The Battle Crown wasn't made for the High Lord, it was made to destroy him. Two fakes were made for enemy knights so they could impersonate the tyrant in battle and shock his forces who already thought him beyond madness. It quickly became ineffective but those knights terrified his troops for a time. I'll assume you trust our methods enough to believe our claim. If you had used your own talents, you would have known it as well."

"But then it is still a treasure, because of its brief and important history." I said this in a desperate hope and with some truth. I had never heard of these helmets, so the helmet would be a fresh composition to a very old book.

"Oh yes-" she agreed, "and we'd be glad to have it, but it is a fake."

"I don't understand."

"I know, this is where it gets complicated. If you brought us a priceless sword, but claimed it was an ax, a boot, or a painting we could not promote you to Archivist." I cringed at the word, priceless. It most certainly did have a price and not one the Archives would match. "It is a title given to knowledgeable and the wise. Not to someone just because they found something shiny. You have the opposite problem. I can bring you practically anything and you could probably give more accurate information about it than most of others here. Some already Archivists themselves." she said, muttering that last bit.

"At least, when you're actually thinking and not just spouting clever words for attention. Its been stumbling upon the pretty thing that you haven't had the luck of doing until now. In this case, you gave us a dagger and we called it a knife. It can be used as both that doesn't stop it from being a knife."

"That is too great a difference." I said, but she must have mistook my frustration for a question, for she asked.

"Is it? We don't know. That's why I'm here and why I wanted to talk to you. Convince me its an error to overlook and we'll consider it worthy of your promotion."

"I'd sound like a fool if I did." I replied.

"Because you made a mistake?" she asked with a restrained hint of mockery.

"I'd sound like a fool because we're historians. We portray and translate the past to others. Through what we discover and record is how the dead and forgotten will be remembered. I could turn Frederick the Holy into a monster if motivated. Turn his miracles into massacres, his virtues to vices. With a careless claw and ink I could make the causalities at Malto Gate from two hundred to two thousand. Make an overwhelming victory a disastrous defense instead. When you hold power like that, when isn't any error too great?"

"True, but an Archivist must understand that history is never perfect. That errors will be made and that our records come from flawed individuals who were in favor of one person or another when they wrote it. Even when they tried to display only the facts, they likely filtered the facts against or for another. That is why we need Archivists. As you said, there is no truth to an Archivist, just what the current evidence tells us, and that is why we'd like you to be one."

I wasn't shocked, well perhaps I was, but I'd had suspected something. We're too fond of and familiar with trickery not to see it coming over the hill. For a moment I couldn't speak, and then came forth a stream of words that so perfectly expressed of how I felt. Unfortunately it was also so ill-mannered that I feel no need to repeat them on a page where they can be read again and again. (If incurably curious, I quoted Baron Vilcost as he raged without restraint in the satirical, _When Cows Cry_.) I then proceeded like so:

"I will not become the youngest Archivist in history because my casualty rate was acceptable. I take enough pity from those I envy, I won't take it from those I respect! Give me a few months, a few weeks even, and I'll find you an artifact that I can present such an accounting of, that the gods will take notes. As for my _priceless_ helmet. I'll take metal not credit if the archives want it."

I turned and trotted away, pleased, bitter, and full of vigor. It wasn't until I reached where I started and saw Karma's expression that I realized that I had all but roared most of my refusal which had surely echoed so far as this, and farther still I would learn. Still burning with exhilaration, I couldn't find the humility to be embarrassed when she too failed to speak. So I did instead.

"I'll regret tomorrow, I always do. But now that matter is resolved and I'm at your disposal to lug luggage and whatever else you had planned. We can discuss it over dinner, after you apologize for calling me cheap. I could suggest sums of silver that would make your tail twitch and that would only be a small portion of what I spent acquiring that useless helmet."

"I am so very impressed."

" I'm already seen as a coward, but being a cheap coward is far too insulting for any dragon, even one with my tattered reputation. So I waste disgusting amounts of wealth to insure no such rumors form." I said and her amusement almost made it seem funny. Not quite, but almost.

"The word I used was _affordable_. Which is completely true because you are more interested in secrets than gold and I have plenty of those. So you are by definition, _affordable_. As for eating, dinner is too distant to make good time, but how about breakfast instead." I stared, then glanced about the dimly lit caverns, looking for some clue before giving up.

"What day is it exactly?"

* * *

"So... where am I to make my claim?" I asked, considering a list of reasonable targets as I gnawed quietly on a tender leg joint. She had not only snared a nice boar while I prepared to leave, but cleaned it too. I normally just fed on the archive's supply of salted meat or burned my kills and cooked the blood out, leaving little more than charred jerky. The change was wonderful. "Should I menace the orphanage while you pursue more aspiring riches?"

"And do what?" she replied with a thrumming laugh. "Snatch their socks after you lull them to sleep. Lecture them on the economics behind the cotton shortage of thirteen-fourteen. That will bring lids to their eyes. I know it inspired me so strongly. Awake however, I fear they'd outnumber and overwhelm you. I can imagine the sight of you fleeing out the doors as you try to pry their tiny hands and giggling bodies from your horns and tail."

"Hardly," I replied. "I'd be forced to surrender immediately. Their children are so small...and soft. I worry I'll step on one when they're around and squish them into a meaty...mash." I swallowed and shook out my fore-claws distastefully.

"You aren't so much larger than they. I almost worry they'll step on you." I glared. "Luckily I had no orphans in mind for my plans-" her forked tongue curled in amusement for just and instant before she continued. "And I know the difficulty you have with the elderly."

"Widow Katherine," I bristled and spat fire to the side. "Oh the things I'd do to that vile woman if my morals weren't etched in iron."

"More like brittle leather. I know what you did to her house as you flew over. Or is your bladder not as strong as your morals."

"On her dog actually." I corrected after a moment of sputtering confusion. "That was my intention at least, but it was as spiteful as it was an unlikely attempt. It had barked and bit at my tail endlessly while I was focused on the vile hag, then had the nerve to stand open and yip at us as we flew off." Karma only snorted once more. A long drawn out huff of air that said all she thought of this discussion before she finished with the vague assurance.

"What I have planned is much safer than either of those. It is even an expedition of completely legal means." I'll admit, I was a little surprised.

* * *

After a short but exhausting flight, we came to the town of Hertos. Where I was literally led about on a tether, while Karma raided stalls and vendors with a coin-purse instead of dragon-fire. Except she, from a gift of family and fate was practically hidden among the two legged races. Able to alter her form, yet leaving her original slitted eyes, faint markings on her skin, and clawed fingers to reveal her true species.

Remnants that were concealed beneath a veil and gown. Alas, I had abilities of a different sort and was forced to follow her in scales and all, under the ruse that she was some foreign merchant and I her pet and protector. There was little I could do but to depend on her guile or my teeth to make the arguments my mouth could not. The latter was almost as useless as my voice.

I was not a proud dragon, as I've certainly made clear. For what sort of dragon fears battle? Fears to bleed by protecting what is his? I could not imagine a dragon that was less a dragon than I. This opinion was not improved by my small confidence in the affairs of haggling. So my inner voice was just as unintelligible as what sounds my throat produced. Aside from other dragons, I could only hiss and snarl as I struggled to be understood and even this failed to invoke fear. Instead I was crowded unless my eyes were upon them and became constant victim of children who came over to pet or grab at me like I was some dog to torment. The leash was no help I am certain. If I swatted or snapped at them, they did not scream, they laughed. So I ignored them as Karma distracted me by quietly teaching me the secrets of the market.

Her voice was smooth no matter her form or audience, and perhaps more so in the arena of commerce. So I carried the bags, and tried in vain to look intimidating, while she haggled, teased, and argued over every half-iron penny. That isn't entirely accurate. I was also called upon to appraise merchandise, but I resisted, for I did not believe my help was actually needed or if the distance look in my eyes revealed my excitement.

Eventually I took the bait if only to please her and soon I studied the offered wares with eyes that had been abused, strained, trained, and sharpened for years. Looking away briefly to ensure this merchant had no intention of clubbing my snout as a previous had, in the absurd fear that I might devour him. I hadn't even considered it, though I have been pressed to such a task once or twice. Men are a bland and bitter sort of meat and certainly not a meal worthy of us. I suppose we are all curious at some point and this curiosity likely formed the belief that his ale rotted liver would be tasty and not a punishment to swallow.

I would have liked to make an exception if my attacker had dislodged a scale in his fit. It would have been crushing if I had bled and exposed my weakness to the ridicule of men even smaller than I. Thankfully I lost no scale and Karma spared me further considerations of revenge by seizing the attacking cane and shortly expressed her own opinion in a rare display of anger, before approaching the next stall in line. Satisfied, I followed.

Presently I examined a collection of foreign relics spread out across a tattered rug. It felt wrong for them to be casually spilled across the ground. It wasn't that they weren't protected, I could see the engraver's marks binding them to the man. It was that they had no priority, no privilege. Others think that we do not value what we take, and simply desire everything. We are not sympathetic to those outside our kin and only rarely even then. So we do not think twice or even unkindly towards the concept of theft. A mindset likely brought about by having an intelligence worthy of respect, yet having nothing but clumsy claws and teeth to touch the world with. But this only makes us value what we can not produce all the more. The mounds of treasure we accumulate are more than just piles. We know and desire every piece in it personally or else we would never have taken it. You could consider these collections shrines to ourselves. Arranged with a delicately that intruders have called obsessive, if they can be bothered to notice before blindly groping everything that sparkles.

Karma's reputation as a dragon that could be trusted is all that contain the impulse to right this evil. The merchant's lack of respect was only surpassed by his lack of understanding for what he possessed. Waving his hands dismissively as Karma inspected a tool with a man, a forgotten deity as the handle and a fan shaped blade at the end. He took it from Karma's hand and demonstrated its assumed purpose. I was struck dumb then wheezed uncontrollably when the man pressed the blade to his forehead and pretended to shave the receding hair from his scalp. He looked at me, confused or offended by the response. I hoped the latter.

"Should I tell him?" Karma asked as she focused her voice upon me. "It is a priest's ritual knife, yes?"

"So proud you make me." I said and tried to nuzzle her shoulder, but she jabbed me away with her stolen cane. I ignored this rebuke and continued, "Why not, it may encourage him to bring the price to a more profitable amount. It's a nice piece if you don't care about it's purpose. And it was made by the Ostens. No cost was too great when it came to religious toys."

"Yes, the five-eyed man forming the handle made the Ostens' influence quite clear," she noted. "From the third dynasty? The gems are also nice even if a few have been stripped. They don't appreciate Moonstone this far south, probably didn't think they were worth stripping. However if I were to fly some northward and across the sea..." She pondered and I finally realized why this place looked familiar and peered about in wonder.

"The third or fourth dynasty," I agreed, then looked upon the man and gestured at my neck with a claw. He blinked and tried to mimic shaving with the blade but quickly discovered it too large. Karma proceeded to enlighten him that he wasn't using the correct angle to slit his throat, as was the knife's purpose. Intended for divine rites and the sacrifice of animals and probably a good number of people. The Ostens offered the life of an especially successful military leader to their god. It was probably a lack of leadership on the mortal plane that was caused their eventual destruction. Which was a shame in my opinion, being they had been one of the few societies with ability to appreciate a whole and living dragon and not just certain pieces of one.

The merchant's dark skin lightened as Karma exaggerated in great detail, the tool's use to one of black altar rituals. I offered a few colorful details, before the image became too colorful and I looked for distraction in the remaining items. All the while she displayed a few ways the knife could have been put to work before the man could end the conversation with another procession of desperate waves. As hoped, he was eager to negotiate its release which Karma was eager to accept.

She wrapped it in cheap linens and dropped it into the filling saddle bags strapped to my sides with a very dragon-like grin, then danced her fingers up my neck and almost giggled into my ear, but maintained her dignity. "I could stand to do that once or twice more." Then her hand paused and she asked. "What?"

"Just a tingle of guilt. After all I've fallen victim to that showmanship before." Then looked at the street and scratched at a paving stone as I quietly added, "I also feel like I betrayed the Ostens." She laughed, pressed her tiny nose to mine while I struggled to keep from trembling or worse, slumping head first into the road and crushing her between us.

"A victim? I would not betray you. I only amuse myself. Do not think so poorly of us and compare his folly to our sport. As for the Osten, I can promise you the dead are far more free with laughter than many of the living."

I nodded and took the lead, wandering the wide marketplace for a short time before admitting wearily, "They've moved everything, but I think I was here when you spoke to me. It wasn't such a popular spot back then and I'd had only come this way to avoid the crowds. Your tent was set up right over there. With all the sweaty men about, I wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't called to me from beyond the screen. The sign said, _The Foretelling Dragon. Learn your fate. Good with children._ "

"I'm flattered." she said and did seemed pleased.

"No, you're Karma, or Karma the All-Knowing as you titled yourself then." I teased without pity, though I shake my head now.

"And how did you respond after introducing myself, Nitu? You all but ignored me once your surprise had settled then tried to creep away. ' _That is an interesting name_ ', is all you said. I must say that I've met lesser drakes who were far more charming at first glance."

"Those were bad times for me and avoiding the attention of others was just second nature to me. Especially when those others are a certain insidious draka offering you refugee or as you put it, _'Caution does not suit a young drake. I offer you my company and the wealth of advice I hold. Be bold and accept it.'_ "

"Your impersonation is entertaining but far less commendable. Insidious or not, you just kept trotting along and muttered, _'Caution suits me.'_ You're lucky I don't care for being ignored or things would have gone much differently for you."

"Have you been blessed with visions of pasts never to be? I was not aware such a talent existed."

"No, but I'd seen your future the moment I looked upon you, at least the distasteful color of it. Speaking of pasts, are you cheating?" she accused.

"I do not need prophetic visions to recall those moments." I said, offended. "I suppose I was not so memorable, for I was cautious and trying to avoid notice. But you were determined to make an impression on me and your response to my refusal succeed quite well. 'You would do well to heed the death-touched, Nitusomin, and to ignore the advice of any draka who would offer it when your line is so thin is worse still. You stagger onward to nothing but a lonely grave beneath a solitary mountain."

"I was only curious. You were not so forgettable once I caught your attention. You then produced some teeth, 'Am I to be mocked by a draka that evades time, while struggling desperately to catch it? Owning nothing but a false name and a debt she can not fulfill'. Yes, you had my attention then, but when I was sure you would lumber on, you surprised me again by finally approaching." I looked away from the patch of dirt.

"Karma, I can not bear it any longer. Why of all the places we could have traveled, why here?"

"Don't you like visiting the past?" she asked

"Yes." I confirmed.

"Well, then think of this as a holiday of reminiscing. I'd had hoped to catch your interest with something new, but the life of a merchant is not so desirable to everyone. You love your caverns with a passion I can not, and though I can not see our shadows walking the streets as you can. I can share in such memories at least."

"You do not understand. It is not that I have no interest in such a life." I explained..

"You already dedicate yourself to other ambitions, other dreams."

"Well yes, but I do not tire of you or your trade. I tire because I haven't slept in two days and the flight here burned away what little strength remained. I had already refused you once, I couldn't do it again."

"If you had only spoken-"

"You would have returned, but when and for how long? I was depressed and eager to be gone. It couldn't be helped, but now my thoughts are hazy and my mind wanders." I said and coiled up in the patch of dirt. "Give me the rest of the day and the night as well and I think you'll find me far more eager. Its about time that I got the chance to doze off during one of your lectures."

"You can not sleep there." she said, exasperated. But I already had. There were perks to being ignored.

Acknowledgments

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