 
### SHAOLIN VS VIKINGS

### and other stories

### a speculative collection

### by Ahimsa Kerp

Copyright © 2016 Ahimsa Kerp

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 9781370586370

Front and Back Cover Image: © Wind Lothamer

Cover Typography by Leslie Lothamer

Hi everybody! Thank you for downloading this book. You are welcome to share it with your friends, and it may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided it remains in its complete original form. If you enjoy it, please leave a review somewhere. Thanks for your support.

### Artists

Thank you to the wonderful artists who contributed to this book.

Nahid Taheri

Gord Sellar

Jihyun Park

Rebecca Isbill Davis

Wind Lothamer

Jeanette Jensen

Julie Visaggi

"The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" first appeared in Fiction Vortex, July 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Ahimsa Kerp.

"On the Quest of the Crow King" first appeared in Dead Harvest Anthology. Copyright © 2014 by Ahimsa Kerp.

" _Ekdíkisi_ " first appeared in The Eschatology Journal. Copyright © 2011 by Ahimsa Kerp.

"A Faint Drumming, A Red Flame," first appeared in Tales of the Talisman. Copyright © 2014 by Ahimsa Kerp.

"Turning on, Tuning in, & Dropping Out at The Mountains of Madness" first appeared in Cthulhurotica. Copyright © 2010 by Ahimsa Kerp.

"The Beginning of All Things" first appeared in Origins Anthology. Copyright © 2012 by Ahimsa Kerp.

### Table of Contents

### FANTASY

The Save Game Scroll

The Virgin and the Dragon

### STEAMPUNK

The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists

The Natural State of Civilized Man

A Faint Drumming, A Red Flame

### LOVECRAFTIAN

Die DJs Aus Bremen

Ekdikisi

Song of the Whippoorwill

Turning on, Tuning in, & Dropping out At the Mountains of Madness

Full Service Town

Shaolin vs Vikings aka The Reavers and the Serpent

### FLASH

Santa's Turn

A Long Way From Tokyo

Contrived Acumen

### NEAR FUTURE SF

Holiday Kinetic

The Speed of Dark

The Beginning of All Things

### HORROR

Mr. Potato Head

Antediluvian

On the Quest of the Crow King

### AFTERWORD

### ABOUT THE AUTHOR

### FANTASY

### The Save Game Scroll

Art: Nahid Taheri

Everyone knew that I killed the dragon. True, it was the cold-blue steel of Arax's sword that severed massive head from body. Also true: Omy's hex-fletched arrows half-blinded the thing, giving us all a chance to survive its terrible claws and doom-bringing tail. But it was my magic that stopped its molten fire, that protected us all. Moreover, it took my spells to weaken it, to slam the mighty beast to the ground and puncture its organs. Given time, I would have ended the beast's life myself. It was already dying. But Arax was a grandiose fool, and he leaped onto the beast's writhing neck. His spell-enhanced strength (You're welcome, Arax!) and cold-forged blade were mighty enough to severe scale, sinew, muscle and flesh.

The dragon was dead. It was a moment of relief, of joy. The five of us looked at each other, laughing or sighing as we saw fit. I jumped down from my perch and joined those who had fought in melee range of the beast. All the magic had taken the best part of my resources, and I would have to wait some time for my fingernails to grow back.

"Naturally, I want the treasure," I said. There were gems and coins aplenty, of course. Enough to keep us in ale and food and sex for a year, if we weren't too particular about the ale we drank, or the special relations we courted.

"Ha," Arax said. His muscles quivered as he spoke; his enhanced strength was departing. He remained tremendously strong. "My kill, my treasure."

"Feck you, barbarian," I said, looking to our companions for support. "I had already exploded his heart, melted his lungs. You didn't need to do anything." I held up the nubs of my fingernails to demonstrate how much power I had used. In the silence, the stench of dead beast and metallic blood was almost too much to bear.

"It was moving until he chopped off its head," Omy put in, looking up from were she knelt, collecting her arrows from the dragon's body. Hex-arrows were uniquely expensive, and she sawed at the cooling dragon flesh with her small dagger to retrieve them.

"That's what I saw too," Jamuth added, quite unnecessarily. He had done nothing this time, though his healing spells had helped us all in the past.

I looked to our fifth, my final hope. Cyl just shrugged. "Bit late now, mate," he said. The pale man had a very specialized skill that rarely came in handy, but he was a great cook and very generous with his money and heatherwater. We were all happy to have him in the gang.

Arax had his freakishly big hands around a gnarled wooden chest. Once it had been painted but now it was all but unrecognizable from dust and age. The big man grinned victoriously. "Ha!"

"Scodding hell," I sighed. "Every time this happens to me. I'd like to see what you all would do without a spellcrafter. Maybe I should go out on my own, leave you all to fend for yourselves."

No one said anything; I had threatened to leave many times before. Too many times, perhaps. They were all watching Arax.

I could spell the chest open, Omy could pick the lock, Cyl could get inside as many ways as he could think of. Arax, of course, smashed it open with his gauntleted hands. It took him six great crunching strikes until the wood gave way. I winced every time his flesh slammed into the container; thinking of valuable elixir held in delicate crystal, of whispery shadowgold, of shattered feathergems.

"What the scod is this?" Arax yelled. He stomped over piles of gold toward me. _He's going to hit me_ , I thought, and, bit the last stub of my yellow thumbnail to release a defensive spell.

Maybe he saw my hand twitch, or maybe he never was going to hit me. But Arax stopped, and threw the chest at me. Not to me. At me. At _me_.

The air sizzled as my hastily erected shield stopped it. I reached out and caught the chest as it fell. It was far too light. Empty? I lifted the lid and looked inside.

Not empty, but I understood Arax's anger. The treasure he'd so forcefully claimed was useless to him. And perfect for me.

"What is it?" Cyl asked, as the others gathered around me. Arax was piling treasure into a heavy cloth sack.

"A scroll, naturally." I said. "I do not know the alphabet, cannot read the language." This troubled me. Magic had sharpened my wits; I speak a dozen languages reasonably well and know all the major languages of the world. There was an easy solution, but before I could explain the rabble interrupted me.

"A tongue of the dragons?" Jamuth asked. His piggish eyes gleamed with interest.

"A forgotten language?" Omy ventured, the last of her arrows retrieved.

"A scodding piece of scod," Cyl said. He turned on Jamuth. "Your raids always fail, mate. I grow tired—"

"Stop! I said, ripping out some of my hair and used a flame glamour to burn it. I didn't only have to use my nails to create magic. "The only thing worse than Jamuth's raids is your moaning. I swear, I'm leaving the group if this continues." The hair burnt to nothing and I stared at the now comprehensible letters.

A long pause.

"What does it say?" Omy asked.

Still, I hesitated.

"Feck, man. Elucidate us," Cyl said.

"It says 'Save Game Slot 1 of 3," I said, hesitantly. What could that mean?

Light shimmers through the cave as I speak and I am assailed by an overwhelmingly strong sense of deja vu. The others feel it too. Even Arax pauses, his loot bag half full.

"What just happened?" Jamuth asked.

"I feel so strange," Omy said.

Screaming filled my head and my eyes shut against the pain. I had no answer for them, and so I did not speak.

"Get the feck out of here!" Cyl said. For once, we all in agreement. We were all glad to follow him out of that dank mountain cave. But only after we each filled up our treasure bags. Naturally.

### §

We were all staying in Forestend, a resort town featuring day walks, thermal springs and, until recently, a dragon. Jamuth came to us with his new plan, some weeks later. I was reluctant; we had already vetoed one suggestion of his that involved joining a garrison in a besieged city to the south. That was desperate work, and we were not desperate people

"We only work when we need the money, Jamuth," I reminded him.

"And we don't need any money now," Cyl said, sipping from his heatherwater.

Arax put it more eloquently. "Feck off."

"Listen, this mission can secure our futures. Not just a year, or two, or five, but for the rest of our lives." His piggy eyes were as open as they'd ever been, and his jowls shook with earnestness. "And the best part is it's easy. Far easier than killing that dragon, or the froggers. Even easier than the woodboars."

"It sounds too good to be true," Omy said. She sat fletching more of her black and green arrows; a pile of wood carvings and feather fragments grew at her feet. When she had a pile of fifty or seventy of them, she would leave for a week or two. When she returned, her arrows would have the most powerful hexes upon them; strong enough to penetrate a dragon's defences. Whoever did her hexing was as powerful as they were secretive, and she would not share their identity. Omy went through gold faster than any of us.

Jamuth was used to this pestering and he paid us little heed. "The Molemen have a—"

"The scodding Molemen?" I interrupted.

"They don't have anything worth stealing," Cyl said.

"Feck. Off," Arax said, slowly and deliberately.

"They have a great treasure. Of the Deep. How they stumbled onto it, no fecker knows. But they have it, that's a fact," Jamuth said.

"Just how great is great?" Omy asked. The pile of completed arrows grew before her.

"I think we're a little above fighting Molemen," I added. "They weren't even threatening when I was starting out, and naturally I only knew a small portion of the mystical knowledge I know now."

"You're not listening. They will only have the treasure for three more days, and then it will descend back into the deep," Jamuth said, all in one breath.

"I hate time crunches," Cyl said.

"Not interested," I added.

Before Arax could add his predictable sentiment, Jamuth added one more sentence. It was what he should have led with, were he not a complete fool.

"The treasure of the Deep. They have a Rainstone. I swear it by the almighty Basely."

### §

We left less than two hours later. Perhaps none of us believed him, fully, but the chance to acquire one of the seven stones was far too tempting. The stones had been lost for longer than memory, but the stories of the Scorchstone Lord were still told to scare children. The Rainstone would give its possessor the power over all things wet and liquid. Only one of us could possess it, but per our usual rules the one who slew the beast (or in this case, the most beasts) would have the claim to it.

Each of our comrades had their own skills, but for mass death no one could match a spellcrafter. The Rainstone would be mine. They must have known this. After the fight, perhaps Arax or Cyl would attack me, but I had contingencies for them too.

We arrived in silence at the grassy field, each of lost in thought about how to obtain the stone.

"I like dragon caves better," Omy said. Though they involved the scaling of mountains, digging ice caves for shelter at night and oft suffering from gale-strength winds, the caves were often wondrous. Glacial caverns glittering with diamond-like ice and sometimes with actually diamonds too. You know that kind. Molemen caves, contrarily, were slimy, muddy, and cramped. We would have to worm our way through miles of their tunnels, hoping not to get trapped, before descending to their strange subterranean chambers.

We had not searched long before Omy found the entrance. I won't bother describing the long, muddy descent we suffered through. Half-a-dozen times the tunnels grew too narrow, particularly for fat Jamuth and the muscled Arax, but always my spells got us through. My spells. Always my spells.

We were all of us filthy. I had soil everywhere; my nostrils were filled with dark loam and sandy grit piled between my teeth. We couldn't speak, of course, and I know all of us continued to plot how to gain the Rainstone. Cyl had the best claim to it based on his strange powers. Jamuth had learned of it from his petty godling; he had a strong hold as well. Omy was perhaps the person best suited for sheer power; the one I trusted the most. Arax would kill us, smash us all into unrecognizable bits, for it. But it was me, the under-appreciated spellcrafter, who would end up with the Rainstone.

If it was really there. If not, we had gone through a lot of trouble for nothing. Jamuth would probably not survive our wroth should the treasure be less than satisfactory; divine Basely or not.

We crawled deeper into the ground, until at last we reached a cavernous hall. I had led most of the way, but Cyl was our best scout and he skimmed past me. He looked for what felt like ages. I was too aware of the filth I burrowed in, of the crawling worms and beetles that trudged across my skin, to think of anything else but the warm bath I would take when this was over.

Cyl hissed in alarm and dropped from his perch.

"Are the molemen there?" I asked, crawling ahead to see the cavern better.

" _Be quiet_ ," Cyl commanded. His normally pale skin was much more pallid than usual. He pressed himself down deeper into earth. I followed his glance. There were molemen aplenty, more than I had ever seen before. An army of them, neatly arranged in battalions. But I had no doubt that we could kill them all. I could do it myself, naturally. But then I saw what he saw, knew what he meant.

My blood went cold. My plans withered and died. My dreams collapsed. My bladder emptied. "Of all the scodding, fecking." I hissed, driving myself deeper into the ground. Behind the molemen, at the back of the cave, strode Sideways Emily.

"Get back," Cyl hissed to us. "Retreat."

"Feck off," Arax said, rising to his knees. "We didn't belly through mud and worms and filth for five hours just to—oh feck." He had seen it, but far too late. For now it had seen us.

It saw us. Sideways Emily, the shadowy, nebulous badger-creature that ruled the deep caverns of the earth, and the disembodied head it carried—a godling, a denizen of the deep, another Emily, or maybe just part of the eldritch creature. The eyes on the head opened wide and its mouth opened in a croon of anticipation. Sideways Emily did nothing save poke her long snout toward us; but the molemen all turned, in eerie silence, and stared at us. Her black and white stripes shone with darkness.

We were already dead. Omy slipped past us and loped up the tunnel on hands and legs. Her bow was forgotten and arrows spilled from her quiver. She did not stop to collect them, and that fact scared me nearly as much as anything else. Turning around, Arax pushed at Jamuth, who was in the rear. "Get the feck out, fatman." It was as panicked as I'd ever seen him; but my own fear was soaring on wings of apprehension and terror and I noted it only briefly.

Jamuth stared in incomprehension. "Don't tell me there are too many," he said. "They're _molemen_!" That was the last thing I heard him say as we rushed past him, our bodies slipping and sliding in the mud.

I enhanced my muscles, my night vision, and change my hands into claws. It took an enormous amount of power: they were not the magic I had prepared to use. I cared not—there was only one chance I could survive, and that was if I separated from the others.

Jamuth, I knew, no longer walked in this realm or any other. And then I heard Omy scream, _from ahead of me_ , a long wail of pain and terror. There was no time left to lose. Biting at my bleeding red and purple pinkie nails, I created a side cave and dug with my new claws. I tore through the earth frantically and quickly, within seconds, left the large tunnel.

I cast a spell to erase any sign of my passage. I stilled the beating of my heart, erased my scent, vaporized my body heat, and cleared my mind of thoughts. I did not know how Sideways Emily hunted, but I left nothing to chance. This tunnel led straight up, and high above me I could see a nimbus of light. With my clawed hands, it was easy to scamper up.

I reached the top and though my eyes shied from the bright light, I breathed a long sigh of relief. And then, as my eyes adjusted, I pissed myself again.

Sideways Emily, clutching her horribly shrunken, sentient head, stood before me. Her shadow covered me, coating me in withered darkness. I cast nine spells at once, but they were not enough, not nearly enough. She reached out with one withered claw and I fell, dead before I hit the ground.

### §

A long pause.

"What does it say?" Omy asked. We were in the dragon cave. I held a scroll in my hand. I knew what I must say, and still, I hesitated.

"Feck, man. Elucidate us," Cyl said.

"It says 'Save Game Slot 2 of 3," I said, hesitantly. _What could that mean?_

Light shimmers through the cave as I speak and I am assailed by an overwhelmingly strong sense of deja vu. The others feel it too. Even Arax pauses, his loot bag half full.

"What just happened?" Jamuth asked.

"I feel so strange," Omy said. She looked at her body and seemed surprised at something.

Screaming filled my head and my eyes shut against the pain. I have some idea now, but only rudimentary guesswork, and I did not speak. I too checked my body and there were no wounds.

Cyl looked around us, as if just now noticing our location. The dragon's body was still warm, its blood poured in steaming cascades onto the dark cave floor. We all looked around us, and then at each other.

None of us wanted to say it. Cyl licked his lips and asked: "Does anybody else remember Side-"

"Don't say it! Don't say her name," I warned, though I did not think she could reach us here. "My magic was nothing to her., and her darkness swallowed me."

"She ripped me open," Arax said, his voice numb. "From my arsehole to my brain. I watched her do it."

"The pain," Omy said. She had her hands clasped around her knees and rocked slowly back and forth.

"I turned into a cloud," Cyl said, his voice swimming with disbelief. "A scodding cloud, and she reached up and ripped my heart out."

Jamuth said nothing, and he would not meet any of our eyes.

"This cave. It's too close to her. I keep seeing shadows. I can't help but feel that she's watching us," I said.

"Get the feck out of here!" Cyl said. For once, we all in agreement. We were all glad to follow him out of that dank mountain cave. We did not stop for treasure, nor for anything under the sun or sea.

### §

We were all poor and growing desperate. None of us could face the dark, or even deep shadows. The town of Forestend was too expensive, and now that the dragon was gone prices were rising everywhere. I hadn't had a drink of heatherwater since our first night back, which was doubly harsh as we were staying at the inn with the finest drinks in town.

"We need coins, Jamuth," I said, as we had all gathered for dinner three weeks later. "Not from that dragon cave, naturally. Not from any cave. But we need it."

"And we need it now," Cyl said, slamming his hand on the oak table.

Arax, as always, put it most eloquently. "I'm fecking hungry."

The priest still wouldn't meet our eyes. We were all frightened, but he was dangerously despondent. I would have stepped in to cheer him up, if I liked him at all. At last he looked up, nervously meeting my eyes.

"Listen, I didn't tell you all what happened. When she, you know. I am a priest of Basely. I serve him, and in return he grants me powers. Powers of healing. Powers of augury. Some priests, the highest and eldest, can summon him. I had never dared try, of course."

"Naturally," I put in.

"But when you all left me, pushed me into the mud. I looked up and she was there. Without thinking, I prayed to Basely, and he was there. In an instant, he was there."

We exchanged glances. Summoning a godling was impressive stuff, not a feat we'd guessed our chubby friend capable of. When I looked back at Jamuth, he was looking me in the eyes. For the first time, I saw how red they were, how ravaged they were. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper.

"He came to me, and he confronted her, and he was a mighty and shining god, and she killed us both. She killed my god. I have nothing left."

He turned then and left us. We should have followed him, consoled him. I actually felt guilty that I didn't. That was new. But it was growing dark outside, and I could not face the long shadows that stretched throughout the evening light.

We found his body in the morning, lying just outside the inn. His mangled corpse lay at an awkward angle and his fat face looked more resentful than ever.

"It's her," Omy said. Though the morning sunlight was warm, she was shivering. "She's found us."

"Nonsense. We'd all be dead," I said. But I was talking to myself. A cloud appeared where Cyl had been, and he floated into the sky on a subtle morning breeze. Omy hadn't bothered fletching new arrows, and had stopped carrying around her bow and quiver. Thus she had nothing to encumber her as she fled as fast as her long legs would carry her down the road south. The front door slamming at our inn signified the exit of Arax, and I heard the heavy tables being moved as though he was preparing for a siege.

I looked at the ruin of our priest's body more closely. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I stood in the daylight shadows, but I forced myself to remain there and examine his body. The wounds looked frost-bitten, though it was too warm for it to freeze. If I didn't know better...and suddenly I did know better.

I moved to the inn with furious power coiling within me. The door was locked and blocked, but I bit my fingernail and spat it at the entryway. Wood shards exploded as my minor craft blew apart the feeble barrier.

Arax was ready for me. "You're coming for me too, eh?" He stood in the middle of the room, weapons drawn. The cold-forged sword that had disembodied the dragon, that had cut Jamuth into mangled pulp of piss and blood and strips of frozen flesh, was raised toward me.

The confrontation I had dreamed about for so long was before me. And I was afraid. I bit at my green middle fingernail: a bone net appeared above Arax and dropped down upon him.

He sliced it easily with his blade. I couldn't stop thinking about how many things I had seen him kill with his sword. "Jamuth was fat and useless, but he didn't deserve to die," I said, quietly. "Not like that."

He frowned. "The priest attacked me."

He had paused and it was all the distraction I needed. I tore out some of my beard and blew it at him. The hairs became razor darts, too many of them for Arax to deflect them all. At least three sunk into his meaty chest; red blossoms sprang upon his white tunic.

"That wasn't nice!" he yelled, charging at me. I scrambled back, another spell ready, but he was too fast. His sword was too powerful and his body too strong.

The blade ripped into my neck, and then, with a savage jerk, he pulled it down. So much blood spilled out of me that I began to laugh. And then I knew nothing at all.

### §

A long pause.

"What does it say?" Omy asked. Naturally, we were in the dragon cave. I held the scroll in my hand. I knew what I must say, and still, I hesitated.

"Feck, man. Don't leave us in suspense," Cyl said.

"It says 'Save Game Slot 3 of 3," I said, confidently. That's what it means.

Light shimmers through the cave as I speak and I am assailed by an overwhelmingly strong sense of deja vu. The others feel it too. Even Arax pauses, his loot bag half full.

"What just happened?" Jamuth asked.

"I feel so strange," Omy said.

Screaming filled my head and my eyes shut against the pain. I had an answer for them, at long last, and so I spoke.

"We had three tries, three saves?" I stumbled a little over the unfamiliar use of the word. "The first time we died, plotting against ourselves as greed overcame us. Greed, and great evil, naturally. The second time, we fractured, split and again we died."

They were all looking at me. I hoped it made sense. I hoped I made sense.

"Friends, this is our last try. Our last save, if you will."

"Feck that!" Arax said, and spat on the cave floor. "I'm off to garrison duty. I'll take a besieged city over a moral lesson anytime."

"If you're trying to convince me," Cyl added. "That this was all some scodding lesson, to teach us love or solidarity or fecking humanity, well, I have to agree with Arax."

"There's no scodding lesson," I said. "Why would a scroll owned by a dragon we killed have anything to do with improving us? I'm just saying we were not on a path that would have kept us alive for long. This item, the savegame scroll, allowed us to survive. Twice."

"All I learned," Cyl said grimly. "Is that if I want to live, I need to be far away from you all." Again, he shifted. His skin and body fell away, turned to mist and a white cloud filled the cave from a moment before it shifted out and away.

"As of now, I'm retired," Omy said. "I'll go back to my children. They complain too much about making my hex-arrows, anyway. This will cheer them up." She threw her bow into the pile of gold before her and strode out.

"What do you think?" I asked Jamuth, who had stood there so silently. "Shall we stay together?"

I knew his answer. I was scodding well counting on it. But the despair in his voice almost got to me. He'd always been a well-meaning fool.

"Since we found that scroll, I've seen my god destroyed while trying to protect me, been marginalized ever more by my friends, and when Arax came out to taunt me, I attacked him and he killed me. No, I have no need of companions. Not now, or perhaps ever."

I watched him stumble out of the cave. When they were all gone, I picked up the chest. The wood was ancient, and quite valuable. Also quite destroyed, thanks to Arax's brute strength. But it would have been worth a fortune. The fool. He'd been so angry upon finding the scroll that he hadn't though to look for treasure at the bottom of the chest—the real lesson.

I slowly pulled open the false bottom.

It wasn't a Rainstone. No crafted ring, feathergems or shadowgold sat in the box. It was another scroll. And it read simply: _High Score_ ; Wizard, 1,000,000 points. Only then did I realize I had no name.

Story Notes:

Unpublished

Written Jan 2014

I thought of this story while walking with my sister on old castle walls in South Korea and wrote it almost a year later, all in one go, in the common room of a hostel at the Milford Sound in New Zealand. It was late at night and everyone else had gone to sleep and the clattering of the keys sounded ominous and loud. I had been reading a lot of China Mieville, which probably shows in the calculated weirdness. It has accrued some of the nicest rejections I've gotten.

### The Virgin and the Dragon

Art: Jihyun Park

The sweat rolled off Dimitri in waves as he fled deeper into the forest. He was on a small path, more of a deer-track than proper road. It was not, as these things go, an especially large or ancient forest, though it was currently dark, smoky, and hot. Somewhere nearby, a fire roared through the dry underbrush, leaping into the slender elm and tall oaks. Huge tracts of the forest were blackened and shriveled. Deep gaps in the earth appeared intermittently.

They looked almost like the tracks of some giant beast, but were far too large. Perhaps they were wagons that locals brought in to combat the fires. Dimitri believed only the weak cursed their fate, but he certainly regretted the circumstances that had led him here today.

Squinting most of the sweat out of his right eye, he peered ahead. Trees were everywhere, none of them burnt yet, but there were no signs of humanity. Where was the bloody village? Forestend was said to be one of the most livable cities in the realm, a popular resort town that only the wealthy could afford and truly enjoy. Nothing had indicated that it would be difficult to locate. But three hours after entering the forest, all Dimitri could find was hazy ash and a dull heat that threatened to overwhelm him.

His arm ached, his lungs burned, his eyes were singed, and he needed rest. He had not slept for three days and sanity, never his best friend, grew ever distant. Dimitri lost track of time and his mind wandered as his sore muscles pushed him ahead one step at a time.

Much trudging and some time later, the trees cleared. He had lofty expectations of Forestend and at first glance he could tell it did not live up to them—it exceeded them. Like an oasis in the desert, the town consisted of beautiful stone buildings, gardens, and ponds.

As he strode through, he noted there were no few people lying in parks, walking the streets, and in general enjoying themselves. Artists, in several prominent places displayed their art, musicians plucked at string instruments—some of which Dimitri had even never seen before. A pretty young woman smiled at him. It felt strange, especially when a second and then third woman smiled at him, in a very deliberate manner. Most of them were pregnant. It was a beautiful place, with beautiful people and it seemed an extraordinary haven, but there was something odd about it.

The people of the village were well-dressed and Dimitri, in his smoky, sweat-stained tunic felt conspicuous. Because of this, and sheer exhaustion, he checked into the first inn he found. It was a solid stone structure with the Slayer star on the wooden sign outside. A young girl seated on a stool by the door greeted him. She was pretty, though he guessed she must have been no older than fifteen. Probably. The older he got, the harder it was to gauge the age of young women. Whatever her age, her smile was brilliantly white and her eyes: sparkling blue emeralds. Her flowery scent was the breeze on a warm spring morning.

She instantly sized him up as a new arrival. "Welcome to the Inn of the Star, the finest in all of Forestend. I hope you enjoy your stay." She said it warmly, leaning towards him and gazing upward into his eyes.

"I'm enjoying it already. Tell me...." He paused.

"Jenpher," she supplied helpfully.

"Tell me, then, Jenpher, are all of the women in Forestend as beautiful as you?" She didn't even blush. Her answer, however, was drowned out by a belligerent roar.

"Get out of here! You know the rules. Safety first." A thin, determined man strode out from behind the bar, towel in his hand. Dimitri looked at him, one eyebrow raised. The young girl scurried out the door, her perfume lingering in her absence.

"Not you sir, but, they don't need encouraging. And the fine is not worth considering." The man took a long look at Dimitri, as if he had just noticed him for the first time. "Having a bad day, then sir?"

"The damn forest is on fire. I had to race here and...." he trailed off. The strangeness and incongruity hit him. He knew what he had seen, but in this town of seductive charm it seemed almost a dream.

The thin man smiled, his face stretching grotesquely. "I'll let you in on a secret. The damn forest is always on fire. It's part of the charm—arriving here implies you have the skills to survive the trip."

Dimitri stared at him. "I'm not sure I follow." His voice was steel, but the warning was missed by the innkeeper.

"Did you ever see any fire? Of course not. You were never in any real harm."

"So there is no fire?" Dimitri said.

"Oh, that is to say strictly speaking, there is but we're perfectly safe here. We have four major magicians casting anti-burn spells 'round the clock." The innkeeper, absorbed with civic pride, crossed his arms.

"I see," Dimitri said.

Dimitri paid him for a week and climbed to his quarters. The room was cool—stone walls were good for more than just sturdy protection. It was not perhaps as fancy as the prices would warrant, but Dimitri had seen worse. He toweled off the worst of the smoke and ash and settled in for a much-needed nap. The secret to surviving a war, a man long dead had once told him, was to sleep at any given chance. His war instincts were kicking in.

### §

He was being pursued. He had not seen them, but he knew they were there. Two men were eternally behind him, following him unto the ends of the earth. One was nearly a demi-god, with powers no other mortal had ever had—nor ever dreamed of. But it was the other man who was truly dangerous.

He awoke a few hours later. A vestige of disturbing dreams plagued him, but his body felt rested and his muscles were stretched and rejuvenated. Weeks of sleeping on the ground had taught him new appreciation for beds. The wan sunbeam shining through the curtains showed it was almost dusk. Good. There was still time to explore the city, and he felt a new person. As he collected his short sword from under his pillow, he checked the room to make sure no one had entered and removed his belongings while he slept. It all seemed to be in order.

The common room was starting to fill up as he left, meaning to explore more of the town. Now that the sun was setting, the town was sure to change character, and Dimitri suspected it wasn't so squeaky clean come nightfall. Surely there must be a sordid underside to this overly ideal paradise.

He noticed her immediately. She was curvy, with wavy brown hair and sparkling green eyes. She was dressed in light, flowing, colorful clothes and she came to him, a goddess floating over clouds. She was young, but she surely she was a woman.

Her name was Lezbeth, though before she said much else she took him by the hand and led him deeper into the city. They'd walked for maybe fifteen minutes, with Lezbeth managing to bump her soft curves into Dimitri not infrequently, when the city began to change.

It was a different, less impressive part of town. While some of the buildings here were built of stone, it was an old crumbling stone. Other buildings were ramshackle wooden structures. It was a slum and it was perfect. He led her down a dark alley, quietly chuckling at the clichéd nature of his actions. High buildings surrounded them on either side, but the alley ended not with a wall of stone but a wall of nature, replete with flowers and deep grass. Her lips were on his before he knew it, driving away the last vestiges of his bemusement. Her hands followed, everywhere at once. For all her youth, she kissed like her life depended on it.

His shirt was half off and hers was completely removed when loud footsteps intruded upon their tryst. Dimitri recognized the complacent sound of officials, and instinct made him paranoid. He had to remind himself he was doing nothing wrong.

Lezbeth, however, had frozen. "Hide!" she hissed. She gathered her blouse to cover her pert breasts and part of him died on the inside.

"Why? Surely it's not illegal to couple with a woman here."

"I'm a virgin"

"What does that have to do anything," Dimitri asked, suddenly wanting her even more.

She looked at him sadly, her youthful eyes suddenly full of heartbreaking wisdom. "If I had known, I wouldn't have approached you. No more arguing—hide now!"

She turned and dove into the grass. Dimitri stood there dumbly, staring at the disappearing girl, when the two uniformed men found him. With a shout they ran down the alleyway. Experience had taught Dimitri that the best way to prove his innocence was to not have to prove it at all and he leaped up and grabbed the overhanging roof of the building to his right. From there it was an easy scramble to the roof and he knew there was no way the two men could catch him now, though he thought he heard them following behind him.

Then he crashed through the roof.

He was in an attic of some sort. There were mouse droppings around and it had the stale, musty smell of the long uninhabited. Light shone through from the bottom and the low buzz of conversation filtered upward. Knowing only that he felt hideously exposed, Dimitri gingerly crept to the dark corner of the attic. His ankle throbbed—he hoped it was not broken.

Loud footsteps sounded on the rooftop above him. Dimitri pressed his face into the cold, rough wood, hoping he was cloaked in darkness enough to avoid a cursory glance. He still was not entirely sure what law he had violated but at the best it would take a hefty bribe to secure his innocence, and he needed all the finances he had. He was running out of people to steal from.

The footsteps boomed over his head and he heard the clink of chain mail. Dimitri awaited the shout of discovery. From far away, he heard a girl's muffled cry and then something heavily hitting the ground. Lezbeth. They had caught Lezbeth. That was regrettable, but still preferable to the alternative; he was still free. The footsteps overhead moved away, quickly heading back the alley.

Dimitri followed soon after, trying to digest everything that had happened to him since arriving in the bizarre town. He had dinner sent to his room and drifted off well after midnight, his senses tingling and heart racing.

### §

He awoke an hour before dawn to a knocking on the door. Caution urged him not to open it, but curiosity declared war on caution and emerged victorious. He crept to the door, sword in hand. The knocking seemed soft, almost tentative, but Dimitri was ready for angry innkeepers or city guards. He opened it softly, his sword tip raising in defense as he did so. He was not ready for who stood there.

It was a girl, a young girl. She was clad in a velvety nightshirt that was twice her size. It certainly did not cover her nubile breasts or soft pink nipples, Dimitri was quick to notice. She may have been sixteen, but if so she was a young sixteen. She was trying not to cry. "I-I don't mean to intrude, sir, but can I please come in?"

"No." Dimitri closed the door on her. He was not sure what was going on, but he did not see how it could result in anything good for him. It was time to get what sleep he could. He realized though that he was still at the door. He waited. No further knocks sounded but the faint sound of sobbing crept through the wooden door.

Dimtri sighed loudly before opening the door. She stood there, large tears now dropping steadily from her pale blue eyes. "They'll kill me!" she half-cried, half-snarled. "If you don't fuck me I will die tomorrow." There was nothing for it. Dimitri opened the door and let her come in.

Some time later, she could speak again. She lay in a sweaty mess beside him. Dimitri asked her a question.

She seemed surprised. "You don't know why? Truly? And you still did what you did to me?"

"Well, I'm a humanitarian at heart."

"I am—was a virgin. They were going to feed me to the dragon tomorrow."

The past day clicked. "That's why every woman in this town is hell-bent on humping anything that moves! The ones that don't end up dead." Dimitri exclaimed.

"Abstinence kills," the young woman agreed sadly. He realized he didn't even know her name. He realized he didn't care.

"And the men I saw on patrol earlier? The ones in the grey uniforms?" he asked.

"Grey uniforms? The vice squad. They ensure that no one deflowers virgins. The penalty for such an act is terrible."

"It is?" Dimitri asked, conscious that he had just committed such an act. Thrice, if truth be told.

"Yes but you will be safe. You're a visitor and can leave town at any time. That is why I sought you out."

"Ah, and here I had thought it was my smoldering good looks." Dimitri laughed.

"That didn't hurt, silly!" The naked young woman punched him playfully. "You weren't the only visitor that arrived today after all."

"I'm sure I wasn't."

"Just before nightfall, two men arrived at my father's inn. I thought about approaching them, but I think I would have rather been eaten by the dragon." She leaned on her elbow beside him, playfully running her fingers across his chest.

Dimitri was half-asleep and not truly listening, though he was amused at her now callous attitude when less than an hour ago she had been sobbing. Images of burning forests and beautiful young breasts filled his mind. Her voice was seductively soporific.

"One was tall, taller than any man. He didn't have any ears. The other wore strange robes, unlike any I've ever seen in Forestend. He—"

A surge of alarm surged through Dimitri. He was suddenly completely awake as adrenaline coursed though his body. He sat up so suddenly that the young woman was dislodged.

"They're here? Already? That's impossible."

"Oh do you know them?" She smiled, not quite understanding.

He completely surrendered to his panic. Some time later, he realized he was under some sort of plant. Cold earth pressed into his nostrils and his arm ached from having been pressed beneath his body. He had taken almost nothing with him and as far as he knew the girl was still in his bed. If so, she was already dead.

The two men who had pursued him so effectively were an odd pair. The one who typically wore robes was a spellcaster of incredible strength. His power was unrivalled; he could challenge the gods were he so inclined. However, the gods, perhaps sensing this potential threat, had robbed him of common sense. Nudnce was, in other words, a simpleton. He would never have left his cell if it weren't for the other man.

Bitter, twisted, cunning, mean, and deadly were all words that could describe him, except that none captured the true bestial nature of the man. No one knew much about him, other than three months ago he had appeared in the city of Vilmish far to the south. Dimitri had been living there, working as a captain to a local baron. It had been an easy assignment and good money, until the man who called himself Mul arrived. He murdered four city guards and a priest the day he had arrived. The Baron had then sent the City Watch, who had been trained especially to capture errant criminals. A squad of thirty men left the city barracks. Five had returned, and three of them died of their wounds in the following days. Next up were the Forest Watch. They were skilled in snares, traps, and stealth. They fared similarly. Finally, the Golden Legion was sent. It was a veritable squadron of heroes: each man was a veteran of a hundred battles; each belonged to a noble name and noble lands. Each died with astounding ease.

A crisis was declared. Mul had established a de facto immunity to the law and was killing, looting, and raping to his heart's content. The sleepy city of Vilmish was suddenly a war zone, hit by the natural disaster that named itself Mul. A reward had been posted that was too high to resist, and Dimitri had had no choice but to try to save the city.

He did not play fair, and Mul was taken within three days at the cost of only two lives. Mul was scheduled for a public execution the next day, to the delight of the surviving people of Vilmish. It was never to be.

Dimitri had since wished he would have slit his throat, though at the time the Baron's argument about the necessity of a public execution had made sense. Somehow, and Dimitri had never established how, Mul had started speaking with Nudnce. Their subsequent escape was the stuff of nightmares. Nudnce created sheets of power that destroyed all life before them. Lightning cracked from the skies. Great gaping holes of fiery death opened before the fleeing populace. Mul, for his part, had appeared relaxed, merely whispering to his tall companion at times. Dimitri had witnessed their escape from the cells and had immediately fled. A mercenary who had survived as long as he did understood the fine line between bravery and suicide.

Dimitri had fancied that for a time that he was safe. He had ridden for two nights until he reached the coastal city of Fog's Point. There he sold everything he had, cut his hair and trimmed his mustache, bought new clothes and a new horse. Selling his sword had been the hardest decision, for the blacksmith who had sold it to him claimed it to be enchanted. He did not want to risk being magically traced, however, and knew his life was worth more than his weapon. Twice more he did this, just to be safe. From the Point, he rode north. He rode faster than rumor, so fast that the fate of Vilmish was not yet on the tongues of the merchants and innkeeps he bartered with. He appeared to be safe.

Then, a month ago, they had found him. He had been in Central Point, a barren high plains town, for nearly a week. He was mostly beginning to believe that he was safe when, by chance, he spied Mul in the city baths. The man was distinctive and unmistakable. Spinning away from the entrance, he had bumped into Nudnce. A look of surprise had crossed his stupid face.

"It's you!" the simpleton had cried, before crumpling to the ground. Dimitri had kicked him hard between the legs. The street was not empty, and many people had objected to his seemingly harsh treatment. Escaping the town became messy, and Dimitri fled, leaving his few belongings and great wealth behind, along with corpses of innocent people. Without a horse, he was slowed but used this to his advantage. He crossed through briar patches, deep gullies and ravines, high crags, and, as of yesterday, burning forests.

Now he lay in the dirt on the edge of town, realizing that once again he had nothing. He might, were he lucky, continue to evade his enemies for many more years. It would not be much kind of life, however, a life of continual suspense and fleeing from death. It would be, he supposed, better to end it all here in Forestend. He thought of the young woman in his bed and what she had said to him. The small acorn of an idea began to blossom into a great oak. Above him, the city woke as the sun rose. Dimitri sighed. Life was always better when you had a plan.

### §

His plan worked so well that it nearly killed him. Dimitri leapt through the forest, cursing his own brilliance. His feet flew over the mossy undergrowth. Here on the west end of the valley the forest was foreboding, ancient, and threatening. Dimitri noticed very little of it. He was looking for more of the vast rents in the earth he had seen yesterday. He had realized what they had meant and had planned accordingly on being able to find them.

Perhaps he had made a mistake. In the chill hours of the early morning, bravado had come easily. Not as easily, perhaps, as desperation, but easily enough. And with that strange air of frantic bluster, sustained by three shots of stringent liquor obtained from a sleepy stable-boy, he marched into the city center.He had known his foes would quickly find him, but had once again underestimated them. No more than one or two minutes had passed before he saw two people striding through the crowd.

"You've led us on a merry chase, prajat," Mul called to him from across the town square. Demitri did not know the epithet but it was one of Mul's favorites. "Congratulations. Without the powers of my friend, even I would have never found you." A sense of impending doom hung over the square like a bird of ill omen.

"You still haven't caught me, you bastards," Dimitri thought as he sprang away. That had been just a few minutes ago. The rest of his plan had been less defined and hinged upon his discovery of the local beast. It hadn't seemed difficult to his bravado-addled brain, but now he was worried. The occasional lightning bolt blasting from overhead added to his discontent considerably, but for now he remained alive.

Dimitri stopped suddenly. Before lay the deep chasms that assaulted the earth. The dragon had been here. Dimitri altered his course and followed the three-pronged path to salvation. He passed through the straggling edge of the forest and started uphill towards rocky crags that lay southwest of the city. Here the signs of the dragon were numerous, from the scorch marks that marred the cliffs to the rotting bodies and skeletons that littered the path.

His lungs burned as he hiked uphill. Without the protection of the forest, he worried that he was too out in the open, but it did not take long before he came to the lair of the dragon. The dark cave stretched across the sky and the scent of death hung heavily over the rocky landscape.

It was exactly as he had expected, with one exception. There was no dragon to be found. Dimitri poked his head into the cave. It was large with shadowy recesses, but there was nowhere a large dragon could have lurked. A hot, coppery wave nauseated him. Much blood had been spilled here.

"Interesting choice of scenery, prajat." Mul was behind him, smirking confidence written across his face. His powerful comrade stood beside him. He was staring in fascination at a bird egg clutched in his pale, long-fingered hands. Dimitri felt a strange sense of calm descend upon him.

Swooping in from overheard, in a thunderous entrance, came the dragon. The wind from its wings nearly knocked Dimitri, as did the sulfurous reek that accompanied the beast. Dimitri was ready, and he dove into the opening of the cave.

The Dragon unfurled its razor sharp claws and hissed at the two marauders. Its hide was a scaly grey-green with red veins that bulged throughout his body. The wings were large, thirty feet across. Its eyes were red and glazed with bloodlust. The dragon's snout was all toothy grimness. He could have eaten each of the men in a single bite.

Mul whispered in the ear of Nudnce. The robed man made a casual gesture. The beast before them exploded in a gory shower of flesh and bone. Dimitri was shocked. The possibility of the dragon losing had not occurred to him. He was well and truly fucked and there was only one chance left to him. There was a fine line between suicide and bravery, but sometimes one had to cross that line.

He jumped from the cave and leapt to the attack, nearly skidding to the ground as his feet hit smoldering dragon guts. He sprang into the air, misjudged his landing, and sailed over the cliff face. The ground rushed up to him and he knew no more.

Dimitri awoke to excruciating pain and a spray of lukewarm water. His ribcage was shattered and at least one of his legs was broken. Two demons stood before him, one with a bucket dangling from his left arm.

"I give up. You can kill me," Dimitri gasped.

Both men shared a long hearty laugh. "Did you really think we couldn't have killed you all this time?" Mul asked.

"Well I tend to be fairly lucky," Dimitri said somewhat sulkily. Dying was one thing, but he never liked being made fun of.

"This was not luck."

Dimitri did not need to look at his broken body to understand. "I believe you."

"We have an offer for you. Join us—I have the might, he has the power, but you, you have the smarts. I still haven't figured out how you caught me in Vilmish. Tell me your secrets. Become our leader." The look of sincerity on his ugly face was almost the most bizarre thing that had happened yet. Almost.

Dimitri leaned up, his broken rib aching. So much blood flowed into his mouth he had to spit out a bloody gob before speaking. "I'm not teaching you anything."

Mul laughed again, this time without humor. "I expected nothing else. You should not worry. We plan no betrayal, not when we could kill you now. But our offer expires when we can no longer hear you."

He turned and strode away. His companion followed, shadow-like. Dimitri looked again at his broken body. He was, after all, a mercenary. And it was hard to imagine a higher bidder. He would not survive out here, not with broken ribs and a broken leg, not with the scent of the dead dragon drawing predators and carrion eaters alike. The two were still well within earshot, but they were walking quickly. It was now or never, Dimitri knew.

Keeping his mouth shut as the two men passed into the forest was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Story Notes:

Written 2007?

Unpublished

Another premise story: If a town sacrificed virgins to the dragon, wouldn't that make everyone really keen to get some action? I think my writing has improved since this story, and I've long thought about rewriting it, but it does capture where I was pretty well. This was an early attempt for me to use an anti-hero protagonist and I wish I'd done better with it. It also was written at a time that I thought started with a lone character on the run from some unspecified danger was the default opening. Other things I wish I'd done. Not include Mul and Nudnce . They're not really part of the dragon story and their presence dilutes the dragon's impact quite a bit. Two other things really bother me about this story, too.

Why didn't I explain why he didn't join them? If he's an anti-hero, there's really no reason for him not to. And what was the trick he used to capture Mul? Why doesn't he do it again at the end? That would be a solid, Wrath of Khan like ending but then again the bleakness of this one matches many of the rest in this collection (SPOILER ALERT!)

### STEAMPUNK

### The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists

Photo: Ahimsa Kerp

The train chug-chug-chugged past the wild jungles and verdant tea plantations as plumes of steam drifted into the blue sky. Josephine and Olivia Anson sat side-by-side in the front car. The surrounding view was incredible; karst cliffs rose high above the lush green valley floor. Above and behind it all, mist-clad and snow-topped mountains soared like mighty emperors. It was nothing like the Kent countryside, but all the beauty was wasted on the two observers. Josephine was bored, and her mother didn't even notice the outside world.

There was only one thing on her mother's mind, Josephine knew, when her eyes glassed over like that. She was thinking of father. He had left in April of 1899, a year ago almost to the day, and they hadn't seen him since. As England's leading Confucian scholar, he had been hired to do translating at an historic site. It was an irresistible opportunity, and he had leaped at the chance, but his letters had stopped months ago.

And so the Anson women left from London, just like that. The dreadful boat ride had lasted forever, and things only got worse when they reached China. Here they had acquired two man-servants and guides. Her mum had tried not to tell her, but Josephine knew both carried guns. They were scary. She wondered what Peter and Elizabeth would say about it? She missed her friends.

The train was climbing into the mountains, and it began to suffer from the steep grade. It came to a near standstill as the steam engine fought against gravity. Though she couldn't understand the language, and her mum didn't notice, Josephine thought that the Chinese on the train were worried. There was something in their tone that made her nervous.

Before she could speak to her mother, the train stopped with a hideous jolt. Josephine was thrown forward as the low hum of conversation flared with bright panic. The world shifted as, ahead of them, the train tracks disintegrated.

The lead locomotive crumpled into pieces like wet paper as fragments of the pilot plow at the tip of the train flew high into the air. Josephine, just rising, was thrown into Olivia and the two fell from their seats as the train rocked back from the explosion. Josephine hit her head hard on the metal floor.

The door opened with a smoky blast and the car was full of sweaty, shirtless men. All had circular tattoos on their chests. The man in front, a small, middle-aged man whose bare stomach bulged over his trousers, scanned the car. When he saw the two white women, he strode toward them purposefully.

Josephine's mum struggled to rise. "Please," she said to her porter. "Save us. I'll pay you triple, give you anything you want. Just save us from these bandits." The Chinese on the train had moved toward the back of the car, as far away as possible from the foreigners.

The porter paused, consulted with his friend via a rapid succession of syllables, then nodded grimly and drew his gun.

"Yes, Miss Olivia. I will do this thing."

The pudgy man was only five feet away when the porter fired. Somehow, even at that range, the porter missed. The leader of the shirtless men laughed, his belly jiggling. He said something in Chinese that even to Josephine's ears sounded mocking. The other porter fired his pistol. The bullet hit the man's bare skin, just below his tattoo.

The bullet bounced off the man, his skin unbroken.

Olivia screamed. Josephine found it hard to breathe, hard to see. Her heart beat so heavily she could feel it in her throat.

The second porter dropped his gun. Several of the shirtless men came at them with drawn knives, and both porters were killed quickly.

The pudgy man looked at the two women. "Kill the Guizi," he said. He turned his back on them as three men with bloody knives advanced. Josephine could see their tattoos more clearly now, a half circle of gold mashed with a half circle of black. She'd never been more afraid in her life, not even when she'd been stuck in the attic for two days and none of the servants could find her.

"I am an Englishwoman," her mother said bravely. "I will gladly pay you some money, however, I need some to reach my husband in Kiuh Fow."

"Your husband is long dead. You will meet him again soon enough, perhaps," the pudgy man said, without even looking at her.

The men drew closer, their daggers dripping dark blood.

"In the name of Queen Victoria, please. You can kill me," she pleaded. "But let my daughter live. She is so young, she has done nothing."

The man sighed wearily. "She died when she entered our country. We did not ask or want her to come. As to the old hag you call Queen, well, the world she clings to is no longer hers," he said. His tone was mild, but Josephine had never heard such words, and she felt as though she had been slapped.

"Please," Olivia begged through her sobs.

Josephine thought of something her father would say. "Set your heart right; put the world in order."

The man motioned to the three killers to stop. "What is this? You speak words you do not understand. How do you know this in English?"

Her mother was staring at her in surprise too. Josephine frowned — she had to try to remember the words more clearly.

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right," she said. She hoped she had spoken the words correctly.

"If your heart is right, you will not kill a defenseless girl," her mother added.

"I do not know where you learned such words. But we of the Righteous Fists of Harmony respect the truth. Your bargain is accepted." He made a small gesture with his hand.

"My bargain?" Olivia asked.

"Not yours. Hers. A life for a life."

One of the Fists stepped before Olivia and cut her throat. She fell in an inelegant heap, making a terrible mess on the floor. Then one of the men hit Josephine on the head, and she knew no more.

### §

Josephine could not tell if she was awake or dreaming. The ground felt strangely stable, without the motion of the ship or train that she had grown accustomed to. The porters were missing, and her mother was gone. The back of her head was bandaged. Perhaps she was in Kiuh Fow, and her mother must be talking with her father.

She sat up. In front of her was a small, chubby man whose piercing dark eyes stared right into her. When he saw that she was awake, he handed her a wooden bowl brimming with dark liquid.

"Drink," he said. He did not speak loudly, but her head ached fiercely as he spoke.

She sniffed at it. An awful scent assailed her nostrils. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's medicine."

"It doesn't smell like any medicine I've had before," she said.

"You've never had Chinese medicine. This is ginseng, mint leaf, tang gui root, and skullcap." They sat at a table in a crude wooden hut; behind the man she could see several dark rooms. He gestured at some of the other bottles.

"Some of these are like magic. This one will turn you invisible. And this one will make your skin immune to fire. This one — a favorite of mine — is good for prolonging your, ah, energies. But the one you hold will simply make your head feel better."

She downed it. It didn't taste as bad as it smelled. After she'd put the bowl down on the table, she felt much better. "Where am I? Where is my mother? May I speak with her?"

The man before her stood and bowed deeply. "We are the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. I am Zhu Hongdeng. You can call me Red Lantern Zhu."

Josephine stood uncertainly and curtsied in answer. "My name is Josephine Anson. Pleased to meet you, Red Lantern. You are the leader?"

He smiled, but there was little humor in it. "No, no, no. Our leader is Prince Duan, but we have permission from the Dowager Empress herself. We are located in a province where few Guizi, foreigners, enter." It was a strange thought to Josephine that she could be considered a foreigner. Foreigners had dark skin, funny languages, and strange customs.

Didn't they?

"What kind of doctor are you?" Josephine asked. "You're not like any I've seen before."

He smiled at her. "Many years ago, I was a wandering doctor. My people were peasants, farmers. I helped some white Christians and learned English. Then the rains stopped and no food would grow. None could afford to pay me, at first, and then none could afford to eat. We fled to the cities, only to find that we were less welcome than the Westerners who poisoned our people with drugs and religion. The diplomats and missionaries wished to carve the melon, divide our country and rule it in pieces."

"I don't understand. You're fighting against the West? Why? We bring peace and order. In a word, civilization."

"Peace and order? Do you know why the ancient order of the Fists has risen again? A German Baron attacked a Chinese woman, killing her, and when a boy tried to stop him, the German man beat him to death too. He was not punished. That was a beginning; there were others."

"I don't believe it," she said. But she had heard her mother and her friends talking, and she knew they didn't trust the Germans. "May I see my father and mother now?"

"Come with me," he said.

She stood up and almost fell over. "Oh dear. I feel quite uneasy," she said. Her hands grasped the table in front of her.

He looked at her kindly. "You had a serious blow to the head. And some of the herbs in that drink, as well, will be new to your body. Move slowly and try to look straight ahead."

He led her toward the back of the hut. On their way, they passed several doorways, but most had tapestries that hid the rooms beyond from her sight. She saw one with bundles of paper gathered into precarious piles. A machine that looked like an ancient printing press was churning out yet more paper.

Red Lantern led her past that room and into one that was cluttered with books, shelves, and tools. The heavy layer of dust was visible in sunlight that came through slats in the wooden wall. Pools of dark and glossy liquid covered the bench and the floor. On the main table were boxes full of gears and springs. Everywhere Josephine could see, there were piles of sharp bamboo sticks. There was one symbol that was everywhere — two intertwining half circles with a gear in each half.

"I know that picture," she said. "My father had a book with it on the cover."

Red Lantern followed her gaze. "This? That is the Yin Yang, a powerful symbol of balance."

"Yin Yang," she repeated. "Yes, he said that." She looked around the cluttered room. "What are all these things?"

"You can think of it as technology, though it's really no such thing. We have more than any government in the world could guess. We are not barbarians. Some people do understand this. The American writer Mark Twain wrote that 'The Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success.'" He paused and looked at Josephine with his dark eyes. "Do you understand what it means, to love your country?"

"Of course," Josephine said, without thinking. "I love England ever so dearly."

He fixed her with his intense eyes. She counted the wrinkles in his forehead as he searched for the right words.

"I suspect your father is dead, Josephine. I know your mother is. We killed her. She traded her life, and her knowledge, so that you might remain alive. Yin yang. This was the bargain you made."

Josephine leaped up. "What? Is this some kind of joke?" It rang all too true, however. She'd been kidnapped. Suddenly the portly man across from her didn't seem wise and kind. He looked ominous and cruel.

Red Lantern remained calm, of course. "I have saved you, healed you, and am protecting you now. You are far away from any others who could help."

"They'll come looking for me," she said. "They'll kill you for what you did." She was almost screaming now. She knew it wasn't the proper way to behave, but she couldn't suppress her wrath.

"Your mother was caught in something greater; it was her misfortune to represent those who enslaved us with opium, with ideology. The English Empire will continue to expand, or another will take its place. Technology is growing, and as it grows, hope and wonder are lost. Westerners come to China and bring steamboats, telegraphs, and mining equipment, without understanding the need for balance. Her death is regrettable, but it will be balanced by the good that comes to China. Yin Yang, once more." His calm voice was infuriating.

Tears leaked down Josephine's cheek. "Murdering people is never good." she said through her tears.

"We are eliminating the Guizi, the negative influences on our government. It will be a country for farmers, doctors, peasants; no land barons will grow rich from our labor. China is a troubled place. The people are afraid of officials, the officials are afraid of foreigners, and the foreigners are afraid of the people."

"I don't understand how you follow yin yang and yet you can just kill people," she said, still not looking at him.

"Josephine, the yin yang is everywhere. Life and death are different aspects of the same thing. You British think of yourselves as civilized, but you bring warfare, disease, and slavery to those you aim to civilize. You are an unbalanced country, and you spread your chaos everywhere you go."

"You're lying," she said. "You're a killer and a liar."

"I would like to show you something," Red Lantern said.

She didn't look up.

"I can carry you if you insist. I would rather you walked."

She stood, and Red Lantern led her out of the room and to a large door.

They stepped into the bright sunlight. Josephine winced, temporarily blinded, and her head pounded with needles of pain. At last she opened her eyes, and gasped. It was a beautiful landscape, wild and green with more of the rocky hills she had seen from the train. That was all background, however.

There were men everywhere, more than she could count. Most were shirtless and wearing loose cotton pants. In front of the hut, several were whirling swords or long, spear-like weapons in complex patterns while chanting. Others were stretching themselves into impossible positions down by a mossy, bubbling creek. The last group was on a bare hill to the side of the hut, where they assembled heavy machinery that looked like the cannon batteries she'd seen on Fort Halstead, back at home.

"What are they doing?" Josephine asked, wondering what this had to do with yin yang.

"Preparing," Red Lantern said.

"Preparing? For what?"

"Everything. The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come," the pudgy bandit leader said. His voice had a tone like her teacher's when he read Homer to them. "As you said, they will come looking for you. I have perhaps been unwise to risk the life of all my men for yours. Perhaps I should be more ruthless, like the British. Do you think they would risk all for one little Chinese orphan?"

Josephine thought she knew the answer to that, but the use of the word orphan angered her and she clamped her mouth shut, refusing to answer. A shadow over the sky caught her attention, and Josephine was amazed to see a man floating through the sky.

"Is he flying?" she asked, stupefied. "How?"

"All of our powers come from our ancestors. They seek to restore the balance."

The flying man landed gracefully and bowed to Red Lantern. As they spoke, in hushed whispers, she noticed he had a tattoo of the yin yang with gears that she had seen in the workroom, but the golden half of the circle had wings on either side.

The two walked away, heads together in quiet conversation. Presently, the man nodded and leaped into the sky. Red Lantern turned to her.

"Our cause is just, we have the spirits themselves as allies. When the time is right, millions of soldiers will descend from the heavens and assist us against whoever tries to oppress us. Maybe in time, we can help liberate those who are downtrodden in other countries. Your England, perhaps."

"You truly have an army," Josephine said, understanding beginning to grow. "But you don't seem, beg your pardon, like a general." Pain flared in her head again, and she shut her eyes as she fought against it.

Red Lantern laughed loudly. "You mean Red Lantern Zhu is a middle-aged fat man. That is true. But they follow me for three reasons." He started pacing, and as he talked he looked over his soldiers training. Josephine followed his glance. In the distance she could see something glinting, but as she tried to get a closer look it disappeared.

"First, because I am a learned doctor. I can heal those who are hurt in battle; even better, I can aid them so that they cannot be hurt. With my wisdom, and the blessings of the spirits, I can turn men into weapons. Secondly, they follow me because of my blood. I am of the Ming family, the ancient rulers of China. But most importantly, I am a humble man; it takes such a person to understand the needs of the people."

She nodded understanding.

Some of the men down by the creek shouted. Red Lantern frowned and, moving his hand above his eyes, scanned the horizon. They could see plumes of smoke or steam that were steadily advancing toward them from the valley below.

"Wenshen," he muttered. "I did not expect them so soon." He shouted something and the men at the creek leaped into the air and slid away through the sky, as graceful as dolphins gliding through the sea. Josephine gaped at the demonstration, still finding the sight hard to accept.

She watched them fly away, over the hills and down toward the valley. The figures had receded to small, barely visible dots when suddenly streams of smoke and something like fireworks launched into the air. The dots in the air fell to the earth or disappeared entirely. A thunderous boom sounded simultaneously.

At that moment, Josephine would later think, something changed. Surprise and fear rippled across the faces of the Harmonious Fists. Many jumped into the air and flew to Red Lantern. As they landed, she saw that all the men had tattoos of the yin yang symbol — some had wings; others had additional pictures she didn't recognize. Many were young and quite obviously frightened.

Red Lantern spoke sternly and decisively, and the Fists regrouped. Some of them scrambled back to the hut and emerged, seconds later, carrying rifles. Others ran or flew to the small hill beside the creek, where the Krupp artillery was set up. Red Lantern led the girl around the back of his hut, where a ladder led them to the roof. From there, they had a commanding view both of the valley below and the snow-capped mountains behind.

Then Josephine saw what was coming and her heart skipped a beat. Multicolored monsters with wings, long tails, and reptilian snouts were inching up the steep trail. They looked different than the pictures she had seen, but she knew what they were. Dragons. There were at least a dozen of the creatures. Impossible, Josephine thought. Even after all she had seen today, the appearance of these fabled legends was hard to accept. As they drew closer, she realized they were glinting in the sun. Metal. And the wings were made of thin paper. They weren't alive, she realized with relief. That didn't necessarily make them less dangerous, however. Behind the dragons was something else; a silver, rectangular box that looked like a train but had no track.

Three of the Fists landed in front of the vehicles. The metallic leviathans stopped. One slowly opened its jaw and, before Josephine could blink, a plume of fire leaped from the jaws. The men melted like wax.

Red Lantern drew in a ragged breath, but his face did not change expression. He waved to the Fists on the hill and they began to fire the artillery. More of his men flew into the air, but some of the dragons in the back raised their heads. Rockets launched in an explosion of color, like deadly fireworks, and more Fists disintegrated in the air. The dragons rolled on slowly.

More of the artillery on the hill was firing now, and when they hit, the dragons blew into pieces. Some of the Fists, armed with rifles, swords, and halberds, were dismantling others of the great metal beasts. Red Lantern closed his eyes and began chanting.

For a moment, a blast of winter covered them. An ethereal mist appeared, stretching like spider webs across the sky. Josephine could hear the booming of the artillery, augmented by the lyrical chant of the man beside her. The dragons were slowly being destroyed. They were coming for her, she knew, but she felt excited watching as one crumbled from simultaneous artillery hits. The mist was slowly, reluctantly, forming into human shapes. Ghost warriors, Josephine remembered. Even under the late afternoon sun, she shivered.

The long silver vehicle that had been trailing the dragons reached the battlefield. The Fists moved back warily, awaiting whatever attack it summoned. The vehicle puffed a long jet of steam and the doors opened from the middle. Soldiers that looked like men, only stiffer, slowly lumbered out. They moved mechanically, with a jerky rhythm that baffled Josephine. As the full force emerged from the transport, she caught a glimpse of clockwork gears on their backs.

Beside her, Red Lantern stared in stupefied astonishment. "Bingma Yong. The legendary Terra Cotta Warriors! They have not been seen for thousands of years."

The clockwork soldiers advanced dreadfully, inevitably. Swords and rifles had no effect on them. Hits from the artillery staggered them, knocked them over; but they always rose and continued their inexorable advance. Even the ghost warriors half glimpsed in the mist were not able to damage or stop the massive Terra Cotta warriors. Red Lantern stopped chanting and the air warmed. The spirit warriors slipped away like forgotten dreams.

The Harmonious Fists were left on their own, and even with their enhanced powers they were outmatched. The golem-like warriors used their hardened clay weapons as blunt instruments, and beat any Fists who resisted them into the ground with inhuman force. Quickly, far too quickly, few were left to oppose the clockwork warriors. The Terra Cotta men reached the hill and destroyed the artillery there with brutally efficient force.

"No, no, no," Red Lantern whimpered. He jumped from the roof, landed with an awkward thump, and charged toward the open vehicle. He dodged one of the mechanical soldiers, and then another, but the third caught him with a hard fist to the man's head. The bandit leader crumpled like a paper lantern in the wind.

Several men emerged from the vehicle. Most were Chinese, but one was white, dressed in a scarlet, double-breasted uniform with golden epaulettes. He wore long gray mustaches that wisped upward toward his ears, and his head bore a large black hat with a gold seal and large white plumes rising into the air. Josephine instantly knew he was British. She remained crouched on the rooftop, unsure whether she should make herself known to the victors.

The man scanned the field. "Josephine Anson," he called. "Are you here? You can come out now. You're safe. No harm will come to you."

Josephine stood up and waved, a little hesitantly. When he saw her, he strode quickly toward the hut. She climbed down and met him in the front. Behind them, the Chinese generals were collecting the Terra Cotta warriors.

The officer looked at her with curiosity. "I'm Lieutenant Smythe. You came from the train to Kiuh Fow?"

"Yes, that's right," Josephine said. "My mum and I. We were on our way to see my father —" her voice broke and she breathed deeply.

"Do not worry, you will be safe now. We'll get you back to civilization soon, where you can get a decent meal and a cup of tea. And you're not going to be troubled by these anymore." He motioned to the handful of prisoners who were being rounded up. There were less than ten Fists left alive, Red Lantern among them. They were being blindfolded and bound with strange-looking cloth.

"Are the Fists broken now?" Josephine asked. She found she wasn't sure what answer she wanted to hear. If this was her rescue, why did she feel so empty?

"No, not from this. This was just a small band; we'd never have known about them if they hadn't attacked your train. Even then, it took the kidnapping of a British citizen to mobile weaponry of this sort. I fear the Boxers are going as strong as ever. There's trouble in Peking; we'll probably have to fight them there. Why anyone cares is beyond me. It's the filthiest city in the world." Behind him, Red Lantern Zhu and his surviving men were marched toward the trackless train. The bandit leader's face was masked, but she recognized him.

Smythe caught her look and misunderstood. "There's no answer for what they did to you, to your family. Look at their pitiless, yellow faces. No good, any of them. They are lucky to have us to run their country for them; they have no understanding of international economics or strategic world policy. And instead of thanking us, they kill innocent women and children."

Josephine was only half listening to her countryman as she watched Red Lantern disappear into the metallic vehicle, surrounded by the clockwork clay soldiers. She didn't know if she found him noble or pathetic. Perhaps, she suddenly understood, he had some of each in him. She thought that she could understand why her mother had died.

"Yin yang," she said softly.

"I'm sorry. What was that?" Smythe asked.

"What's going to happen to them?" she asked, more loudly.

He was silent for a few heartbeats, and she knew he was doing the thing adults do when they weren't sure they could tell you something. So she added, "They're going to die, aren't they?"

He smiled uneasily at her. "Let's not worry about that kind of thing. Come, time to get going. You get to ride in our steamtank."

She hesitated. "I need to get my things from inside."

He smiled. "Of course, but hurry. We'll destroy this hornet's nest soon. Hop to it, and see you in Peking!"

She ran into the building, where she quickly found what she was looking for. She numbly walked out and into the metallic coffin, feeling the blue sky and sunshine shut away from her. All she could see was an image of Red Lantern, crumpling from the blows of the golem warriors. She did not even look at the eight or so men who worked the contraption as they welcomed her with blankets and smiles.

The trackless train crept out from the wild mountains, away from magic and dreams. The vehicles stopped twice, both times for privy breaks. When at last they had arrived in Peking, Josephine Anson was nowhere to be found.

Story Notes:

Written 2011

First Published in Fiction Vortex July 2013

This was my first attempt at Asian steampunk. I'm not sure where the ideas came from, but it is a world I'd like to return to (and expand upon) someday. I have kind of an idea for a novel, where Josephine helps Red Lantern escape and joins the Boxer Rebellion, creating (perhaps) a very different result from the history that we know.

### The Natural State of Civilized Man

Art: Rebecca Isbill Davis

It was dusk on the third day of what became known as the Hanoi riots when she entered my life and my tuk-tuk, dragging a daughter who looked eerily like a miniature version of herself. The woman smiled at me in that manipulative way westerners have, never guessing how little power it would have on me.

"Drive," she said. "Out of the city. I'll tell you more when we get clear of this mess." Riots were not uncommon in Hanoi, and the mess she referred to was invisible everywhere but around the lake. Still, there was something in the air today, a restless energy like unspent lightning that we could all feel. I was not unhappy with a customer who wanted to leave the city.

I reached over and switched the meter off. "It'll cost you."

"That won't be a problem." Her face showed me how little such mundane concerns mattered to her.

"I like this one," her daughter said, looking at my rickshaw. She patted the vehicle affectionately but absently, like one would greet a pet whilst absorbed while reading the daily dreadfuls. The two of them climbed into the back.

Young as the daughter was—no older than seven, surely—she had a good eye. My rickshaw was top of the line. It was not like the electrical Chinese trash many drivers cruised around in. This one was of Burmese manufacture, from Mandalay itself, and used the latest technology. No fewer than three steam engines powered the glittering transport, and the top was covered in solar panels that absorbed enough energy on one sunny day to last at least eighteen hours. Of course, I had lights strung across the vehicle and the latest in Kpop and Bpop blasted out of the speakers.

The mother had found me out near the south of the city, close to the embassies. The streets were more empty than usual. Perhaps the riots kept people busy, or made them adverse to leaving their homes. I turned on the flashing lights and music and after three or four songs we had escaped the city and were driving through fragrant jackfruit tree plantations. I pulled over and picked three of the enormous spiky fruits. Like many in the Burmese Empire, I was Buddhist and forbidden to eat animal flesh. The young jackfruit was a the perfect substitute.

The woman didn't even bother to hide her impatience, but to her credit she said nothing. I handed one to her daughter, thinking she'd enjoy the rough texture of the outside, but the look of impatient aloofness in her eyes mirrored that of her mother. They both sat behind me, and the jackfruits slid to the floor. I opened the large storage trunk behind them and placed the fruits in them. It was nearly big enough to fit a person, but it was crammed with mangosteens, rumbutans, Sapa apples, and now three big jackfruit.

The evening air was warm, oppressively warm. Any day now, monsoon was coming. Monsoon was both a blessing and a relief, but in the sticky hot days immediately before the rains came, I always looked forward to it.

"Well?" the mother said, after I had settled back in. "Any more stops?"

"I can drive all night," I told her. "But it might be faster if I know where you are going."

She sighed. "Just keep driving. It's better for you not to know."

"In that case, I'd like to see some money first."

The dark skinned woman handed me a pile of kyat. I quickly counted the stack of colored notes. Not a fortune, exactly, but it was as much as I'd make on a busy night if I got a bit lucky. A bit of luck was exactly what I needed right now.

"It's a start."

"That much again, every three hours. Now drive."

Part of me wanted to let her out right then. Shuttling around people like her, who imagined their lives were full of drama, was not a favorite part of my work. But I looked at the kid and did not want to face that kind of karma. It wasn't unsafe here, precisely, but with the political unrest and army patrols, it wasn't a place for a mother and child carrying so much cash either.

I released the break lever and the engine started pumping again, steam cooling as it hit the air. She had me turn so that we drove north, and soon the groves of jackfruit gave way to farms of tea and cardamom. Lao Son, my village, was not far from here, and I frowned at the thought that I needed to return there. Excellent reasons to visit battled with equally valid reasons to avoid it.

We drove north for many hours, passing a field full of molding dirigibles. Once thought to be the future of travel, the environmental toll of hydrogen extraction was too high and now only the very rich or very selfish used anything but steam or solar powered land transportation. It took longer but fast travel had become as unfashionable as fast food. The music of my tuk-tuk was the only sound as the dark sky was brightening to a soft blue glow. Then I saw the barricade ahead of me.

"Keep driving," the woman behind me said. "Whatever you do, do not stop." She handed me more money, and I half-considered her request. But then I saw who was manning the roadblock. They were unmistakable.

"By Mother Rice!" I swore, pulling the break lever. The tuk-tuk slowed, cruising to a stop.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked.

"Look at the guards!" I snarled. "They're wearing thanaka."

"That's a problem?"

"Damn right it's a problem." My tuk-tuk had stopped, and three of the guards were walking over. Not exactly friendly, but not entirely bellicose either. We can still get out of this, I thought. It would take a steep bribe and some luck, but with the deep pockets my fare had, it wouldn't be impossible.

And then the woman bolted. She was out and sprinting before I had even voiced my objection to stop. The three guards drew their solar pistols.

The woman ran not up the street toward the guards, and not down the street back the way we had come. Instead, she sprinted for the surrounding forest. Without a single warning, three shots of solar light bore into her from the guards. Each shot hit her in the upper back, with enough intensity to burn holes all the way through the other side. She died without a sound, body slumping softly into the red clay earth.

You do not fuck with the Burmese.

I turned back to face the girl, wondering how I could comfort her, what I could say. My hands fumbled for an extra bamboo tube full of rice and coconut. Small comfort, but all that I had to offer.

She was not crying. Instead she looked sharp and focused. "I have money," she said to me in a low voice. "Listen to me and we can still get through this."

And then, as the three Burmese guards, clad in camouflage longgis, sauntered to us, she burst into tears.

### §

They could have imprisoned me. They should have killed me. Instead, they listened to my story and took all the money she had paid me. It was the little girl. Trained killers or not, a foreign seven year old girl is more is more difficult to kill than a middle aged Vietnamese taxi driver.

And so, after paying with tears and money and apologies we were allowed to return back to Hanoi. I had never had one of my fares die before, and panic was settling in. Events had swallowed me up and—no fatalist—I yet knew that I was merely jetsam bobbing on the surface of a deep, deep ocean.

"What's your name?" the little girl asked me. Her voice was hard.

"It's Trinh Van Bay," I told her. "You can call me Mr. Bay. What's yours?"

"I'm Vanessa."

I stumbled at pronouncing the strange name. She noticed. "It's common enough where I come from," she said. In answer to my unasked question, she added "The New World. City state of New Athens. It's important that you listen to me."

I nodded, marveling at her command. She was like no other seven year old girl I had ever met.

"It is vital that I get north. Is there another way you can go?"

"Listen, young one. It's over, do you understand? I am sorry for what happened to your mother but it's over."

In a voice almost too quiet to hear, I heard her say: "She wasn't my mother."

"Sister. Aunt. I don't care. I have friends and family I need to see, and I lost all the kyat I made tonight. I can't afford this goose chase with you."

"We've come so far already. If you can't take me, who can? I'll pay for information."

"You are a very smart little girl. But you need to get better at listening."

This did quiet her, and the sun rose and cast long warm rays from the east. We trundled along toward Hanoi, on roads that I now understood why where mostly empty. Vanessa leaned forward and tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention.

"Those people back there. Who were they?"

"They were Burmese special forces," I said, confused. "Elite soldiers of the Bagan Guard."

"What does that mean?"

"What does that mean? You came to the Greater of Kingdom of Burma this shit ignorant? Don't you even read the dreadfuls?" Years and years ago, they had come over from England with stories and articles and illustrations. But here they'd morphed into a daily news and public relations paper.

"I am both older and younger than I look. Explain to me. Please. Give me a history lesson."

I sighed. "Well, history is not my best subject. Where to begin? You must know the Taungoo Dynasty is the longest continual line of royalty in the world, and King Tabinshwehti III the last great monarch in the world."

I glanced back to see a blank, expressionless face.

"Well the Taungoos emerged in, I believe, the mid-16th century from the wreckage of what the Mongols had ruined. And they raised Burma to hitherto unforeseen heights. The Bagan Empire was reunified, the Shan States to the north captured, Siam brought under subjugation, and, hell, they conquered Arakan, Manipur, Assam, Malaya, Vietnam, Tenasserim, just about everywhere. We're talking the largest Empire in the history of South East Asia."

Her face was intent with concentration, so I continued. This was all basic stuff and I found myself warming to the task.

"It wasn't long before European powers began to probe at the burgeoning Burmese Empire, but the armies of the King were continually victorious. Some say this was because of a secret weapon; early versions of the Chinthe guard. Portugal signed a treaty in 1613 and the two countries became trade partners and close allies. Any of this sound familiar?"

She slowly shook her head. What did they teach them in the city states of the New World? A bleak place it must be. I continued.

"At last, by the beginning of the 20th century, all of Southeast Asia was consumed by the Burmese Empire, save for one small pocket of Khmer resistance centered at Siem Reap. We're at war with them right now, and taxes are high. That's why we have riots in Hanoi, and throughout the Viet province."

She nodded carefully. "I see. Burmese citizens have special rights?"

"We're all Burmese citizens, but yes, those who can show their heritage belonging to the Burma proper have special rights. The inner circle of the King, his spies and his assassins and his warriors, are all pure Burmese—the highest caste. They are the only ones allowed to wear the honored thanaka, and they pretty much can tell the rest of us what to do."

"Fuck," the little girl said. "Fuck her for leaving this to me."

I was too surprised by this outburst to say anything. But she continued, this time addressing me. "We—she—didn't really let you know how important it was for me to get to where I'm going. What can I do to convince you?"

"You'd have to perform a miracle," I told her. "No amount of money is worth fighting the Burmese army. I'm sorry. I'll let you off in the city and you can try to find some other fool."

"That's not going to work," she said. "I don't have time to return to the city. I'll be dead in less than a day."

These foreigners were certainly dramatic. Everything was life and death for them.

"Where is it that's so important for you to go? If you want to go to Sapa, you can just take the train."

"I'm not going to Sapa. There's a hidden monastery in the hills not far from here. You've heard of it."

I slowed my cart to a stop once again, pulling over onto the red clay beside the tarmac. Her face was grim and terribly serious. "The Temple of Innumerable Women. You're telling me it exists?"

"Oh it exists. I was there yesterday. Part of me."

"And it's a Khmer stronghold, right? That's why it's so important. Why the army stopped us."

Little Vanessa laughed bitterly. "No, the Khmer have nothing to do with us. The temple is run by ascetics above such petty political concerns. They're trying to, well, fix the world I suppose."

That piqued my interest. "But what do you want me to do? If we go back, they'll kill us."

"Don't you know side roads? You are from here, yes. You must have resources."

"I might," I said. There was in truth someone I could ask. She would do it, if I wanted.

"It will be worth your while," Vanessa said. "The Burmese took my money, but in the monastery is a fortune. You can retire a rich man."

"I don't take promises as payment," I told her.

She sighed. "It's no idle promise. You've seen the money I had. The Temple has much more. You can name your price. 50 million kyat, or more."

"You are willing to part with such amounts?"

"Not willingly, but yes. It's worth my life."

### §

We had already been driving toward Lao Son, my ploi, my village, and so it didn't tak long to reach. It was like every other such settlement; maybe three hundred people lived there, all told, but never was everyone there at once. They left, working in the city or trading with small villages situated further from the coast. The houses were basic wooden one-room structures, with utilitarian steamworks installed by the Burmese for heat in the winter. In front of each house was a small milpa, where things like cotton, jackfruit, papaya, sugarcane, mulberry, or job's tears were grown. I couldn't remember the last time I had worked in mine, and it was full of weeds.

The hour was early, but everyone in the ploi was awake and busy doing their daily chores. Chickens and goats and buffalo wandered the dirty mud streets as grey clouds gathered above to replace the brief morning sunshine. This was a village descended from the Xinh mun, and the men still wore traditional garb: elegant turbans, bright vests, indigo-blue loose trousers.

"What are we doing here?" Vanessa asked.

"My lover lives here," I said simply. "She can help us get in."

She sighed. I parked my tuk-tuk on the edge of the ploi, next to some rusting electro bicycles. "You want to come with me or stay here?"

She jumped out of the tuk-tuk in answer, her black curly hair blowing in the wind. The smell of mulberries was in the air, and her dark feet were bare in the red clay of the earth. A lot was on my mind, but it occurred to me that this girl was a large part of my uneasiness. Not just her request, obviously, but her very presence. Normally I would invite her in to my house, make tea and serve rice snacks or dried fruit. But we each, for different reasons, wanted to be out of the village as quickly as possible.

I had left the ploi the last time just after the last full-moon, and no one had expected to return, at least not so soon. Some bobbed their turbaned heads at me, but most looked away, as if my mere presence implicated them.

I led Vanessa along the main street, and we had just reached the center of it, the large communal house in the middle of the village. It was made of metal. Scientists in Norway had perfected a process that changed glass to metal, and so used bottles had been collected and most villages now had one metal house that could withstand the elements where the elders lived. I was about to explain this to Vanessa when she found me.

Trinh Thi Cam stepped out of the communal house, still carrying bamboo that she was pleating into baskets.

"You're back," she observed. I could see faces watching from inside the houses. Mindful of the audience, I nodded to her.

"Do you have an answer for me yet?" Her hands idly worked the bamboo, twisting and pulling. She pointedly did not make eye contact with me.

"I'm working on it."

"What does that mean?"

"This is Vanessa. She and her sister have hired me for a job that will give me a lot of kyat."

"A little girl?"

"A job is a job. You know how I feel. Nothing has changed."

"You think I wanted this? You think I wanted Trinh Van An to die?"

The mention of my brother brought me up short. "I don't know what you want. That's part of the problem."

"You could talk to me. That's one way to find out."

So she had said before. I couldn't take this. Not right now and especially not right here. I looked to Vanessa and nodded to her: Let's go, my eyes said. She followed me through the village, toward the forest that surrounded on three sides like a lush banana. I could feel the eyes of the village, of Trinh Thi Cam, burning into the back of my skull.

"Just going to walk away? That's what you're good at," she called after me, but in her voice was more sadness than anger and my heart felt heavy. We dodged an ungainly buffalo family running down the trail and when we had gotten out of sight and earshot of the center of the village, Vanessa looked at me very seriously and said, "I don't think your lover is going to help."

"That wasn't my lover. That was my wife," I told her with a sigh.

"I see," she said, drawing out the vowels in her last word. "And how can your lover help us?"

"She is a powerful Thay Mo Sorcerer," I said. "A Taoist Shaman who harnesses the power of the earth and sky genies, Mother Rice herself, to make our ploi successful."

We slipped through some dense bamboo into the hidden grove where the most sacred village ceremonies took place. Normally I wouldn't have dared bring a stranger—let alone a foreigner—here, but I found myself not caring at all what the village prescribed.

I stopped, briefly inhaling the musky scent of bamboo and loamy smell of wet earth. Less than half a year ago, we had sacrificed a water buffalo in order to have a good harvest. My elder brother had been beside me, still alive, still married. Then, as now, the sound of cicadas filled the forest.

Kieu Thi Cara was there, as I knew she would be. Her real name was Siamese of course, and "her" and "she" weren't precisely the correct terms either. They were the ones she preferred though and that was good enough for me.

She looked up from a wooden carving of a tiger ruai. It was large, a block of wood a meter across, and copied from an open prayer book written in Nung Demotic script. She smiled at me. I had not seen her for weeks and had nearly forgotten how beautiful that smile was.

"I thought you would appear today," she said. "If you remained alive. I wanted to protect you but strange energies have collected around you." Then Kieu Thi Cara saw little Vanessa standing just behind me. Neither of them said anything, nor even changed their expression, but I had the strong feeling they had well taken each other's measure.

"Interesting," Cara said at last. "I have heard of this, but not seen it myself. I have a good sense of who she is, what she represents. They've known about me for years."

"Who?" I asked.

"The day draws long," Vanessa said, ignoring me. "Soon it will be midday and I will be dead before tomorrow." Her tone was very matter-of-fact.

"I see. If we must be hasty, tell me what happened." Cara said.

I quickly explained what had happened since I had first picked up the two sisters. She understood completely.

"Yes, I see why you came to me. I think I probably can get us past the Burmese bastards," she said. She had the typical Siamese disdain for the Empire. "Did you see her?"

I nodded assent, following the shift in topic and subject.

"With the money you make from this, you'll be able to solve this problem," she said.

I nodded again, barely able to hear her voice over the cicadas. Not wanting to, perhaps.

"Let's deal with one problem at a time," I said hoarsely, taking one last look at the bamboo grove, wishing Trinh Van An was still beside me. It was hard to be here without my fallen brother.

"Ah, Vanessa," I murmured. "What did you and your sister drag me into?"

"I told you I wasn't her daughter. I'm not her sister either. She created me in Hanoi yesterday morning—it's why she left the monastery. The Bagan guard was following us and we barely escaped with our lives. Our cloning facilities are destroyed," she said.

"She created you?" I asked.

"Indeed," Vanessa said, almost cheerily. "I'm her clone."

### §

We left the village and the three of us climbed into my tuk-tuk. After being driven all night, it felt sluggish and heavy, as if there were more than just three people in it. I made a note to get it serviced in Hanoi as soon as I could.

Kieu Thi Cara sat beside me. Her skin felt cool and good next to mine, and the breath escaping her nose inadvertently made the hairs on my arm rise. As the steam engine warmed, I turned and kissed her hard on the mouth. Her potential help aside, it felt good having her beside me. I had never loved a woman before. I had never kissed a woman before. In truth, sex was not that important to me, but when I needed it I found the straightforward nature of other men less challenging. Perhaps the fact that Kieu Thi Cara had once been a man is what made me love her, but that wasn't the only reason. She was that one-of-a-kind special that didn't even know how different she was.

She'd left both the unfinished tiger and prayer book back in the grove, but clutched her wooden Neak ta, an effigy of a guardian genie. I didn't know anything about it other than it was among the most powerful of her treasures. It was both comforting and worrying to know that she was taking this so seriously.

Kieu Thi Cara watched me in that careful studied manner of hers as I merged onto the highway. It was raining again, just a pre-monsoon drizzle, but the road grew wet and I drove more slowly than I would have liked as we slipped past fields littered with young pineapple bursting from the earth.

"Trinh Van Bay?" she said, making a question of my name.

"Yes?" I didn't take my eyes from the road. But in the rearview mirror I could see that Vanessa was sleeping, or at least had her eyes closed. The solar panels overhead gave us shelter from the rain, but tiny droplets blinked their way in, like tears.

"I'm afraid to die," she said at last.

"Well, then don't," I said, taking her hand and reassuring it with a squeeze. "I'll protect you."

She smiled at me. "I know you will." She stretched dramatically, like a tiger and then her vulnerable side slipped back in the shadows to hide. "But first I have to do my share," she said. So saying she began chanting softly, under her breath. The Neak ta began to glow.

"What are you doing?" I asked, after we had driven several kilometers to the chanting of my lover. Her voice was soothing and melodic, and though she spoke Burmese it was with the high pitched tones of Siam. I personally couldn't recognize the Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya accent, but she had told me that it was distinctive.

"Keep driving," Cara said to me. "When you get to the barricade, go slowly and carefully. The Bagan Guard will not see us."

I looked carefully at the rickshaw. It was as visible as ever. Neither of us were hidden from view. In the back, Vanessa had awoken and was lost in thought, staring at nowhere. I patted Cara on the thigh; an ambiguous gesture of reassurance, support, and admonition. Her powers were mighty and yes I believed in her with my life—more than that, with my heart, and yet. And yet.

"Cara," I said.

Trust me, her eyes said back to me.

Indeed, it was not much longer before we reached the Burmese barricade. I hadn't really looked at it in detail that morning. There was a long line of thorny branches five feet high across the road. Some gaps existed, but these were manned by the camouflaged longgi wearing, thanaka-faced Bagan Guard. The gaps were small enough for my tuk-tuk, but it would take some careful driving.

The guards in the light of day looked young, boys really, but I could not forget their lethal potential. I slowed and we all held our breaths. It was ridiculous to think that we would remain unobserved, and yet there was no cry, no sign of our existence registered by any of the usual means.

Did they look different? Out of focus, perhaps, like viewing them through glass. Once, I had to swerve to avoid a young officer crossing the street. He had a scar running from the bottom of his left lip down to his neck. He heard us. I know he did. He looked up, concentrating hard, as if trying to remember something from a book he'd read the night before. But we rolled on and he, head shaking, went on his way, none the wiser.

The last check point was manned by two young men. Once past them, we would be clear, but they completely blocked the exit. I slowed, looking askance to Cara. She held up one hand in caution, and I slowed to a stop. She leaned in so close that her lips brushed my ear. Even beneath my fear I registered how good it felt to have her so close. Wait, she whispered.

I glanced back and mouthed a warning to Vanessa, but it was unnecessary. She was quiet as the grave. We waited for three, maybe four, of the longest minutes of my life. The youngest of the guards chewed betel. He spat large red globs of the stuff onto the brown dusty road before him.

Beside me, I could feel Cara shaking. Her face was drenched with sweat. She shook her head at me: I can't keep doing this. I hadn't turned off the engine entirely, and so on impulse I pulled off the road to go around the thorn barrier. The road was rough, but I thought my tires could take it. They were made of the finest Malayan rubber, after all.

We eased gently away, the shadow of a whisper floating on a soft summer breeze. I couldn't hide my smile—this was going to work! And then something in the back of the tuk-tuk started banging.

### §

I looked to Vanessa, but the look of shocked alarm on her face mirrored mine. Tapping into the stored solar energy to boost ahead, I sped up as quickly as I could.

The guards could hear the sound, and they were looking around with focused interest, perhaps even concern, but not yet alarm.

The tuk-tuk gained speed as I rounded the thorn barricade. The banging grew louder, and the top of the compartment flew open. And I saw the last thing in the world I expected popping out of the container that I still thought held my haul of jackfruit.

The sweaty, disheveled head of my wife.

The guards were pointing now, bringing weapons around to bear. They could see her, alright.

Their mouths fell open, half-chewed betel falling in scarlet flowers as they saw the rest of us. I put everything I could into speeding away, even as dozens of men ran after us. With a quick glance, I saw the scarred officer who had nearly sniffed us out aiming a solar rifle at us, and I swerved like mad to make him miss.

He did not oblige, and, finest Malayan rubber or not, the first tire was shredded by concentrated heat and energy. On three tires, we were much slower but still going forward, desperate for escape. A few moments later and then the remaining back tire was erased.

And now they could catch us at a leisurely walk.

"Run!" Cara called.

"No," I said, putting a restraining arm across her lap. "That is the surest way of death."

"What," said Trinh Thi Cam, my wife, "have you got me into?"

Before any of us could answer, the Bagan guard had us surrounded, guns ready,

### §

We were in restraints on the side of the road in moments. Of course they recognized myself and Vanessa. Of course they beat me and whipped me with garlands made of thorns. Of course they threatened to do things to Trinh Thi Cam and even Kieu Thi Cara, though perhaps they did not know her secret.

Of course that would not be allowed.

Three hours passed and the cloudy brightness began to dwindle. The guards radioed their superiors, who in turn contacted theirs, and eventually it reached the circle of King Tabinshwehti III himself. It took some time, as we learned, because large parts of Hanoi were in flames. A large part of the Third Royal army had arrived on dragon and turtle ships just this day to quell the riots.

Vanessa had scarcely moved or registered the world around us. But now, her head raised and her eyes focused.

"Trinh Van Bay," she said, making no attempt to be quiet. The heads of the guards snapped up at the sound. "You must reach the monastery." One of the guards stomped toward her now, his feet booming like cannons. He brandished a small rifle with careless ease. "Let them touch you. They will understand. They will reward you. Please."

The guard reached her then, ready to smash the butt of his gun onto her skull. He was too late. Her head lolled, like a steam construct running out of fuel.

Vanessa was dead.

Even without her Neak ta, which had been left in my rickshaw, Cara had powers. She had been murmuring for the last minute, using Vanessa's last moments to cover her actions. She struggled to her feet, her hands tied behind her back, and called out a string of syllables in no language spoken by man or woman

The wind whipped around us, summoned by the Thay Mo Sorcerer. As quickly as it takes me to tell you, a Yang Hroi stood before us. Twenty feet tall, amorphous; a protective genie found in the mountains or the water but rarely on the plains, unless the need was great.

The Bagan guard were well-trained and unafraid even of the supernatural. Several already shot at it, into it. Behind them other guards rushed into formation. The Yang Hroi flowed at them—I know of no other way to say it—and a river of air washed them away. The guards were many meters away, painfully piled together. Some were surely dead. Others tried to rise but were battered back to the ground.

"It won't last long. We go, now!" Cara said. I helped Trinh Thi Cam, my wife, to her feet. Wind swirled behind us and our bonds were gone. We raced to the rickshaw, still on the side of the road by the last roadblock. I drove us away from there without looking back even once. We plodded on slowly, missing the back two tires, but the wind buoyed us and we were getting away and it was enough.

### §

I recounted the bizarre happenings of the previous day to my wife. It was an incredible tale, but not so hard to believe after what she had seen. She, in fact, accepted my words without so much as one herself. Her knees were pulled up to her chin and she couldn't stop shaking. Cara remained silent as well and she looked entirely drained. I worried about pursuit, but there was no sign. Not much later, the monastery found us. The trees moved and acting on instinct I drove down the path. Behind us, they closed again, hiding our passage.

Surprisingly, after all we had been through, we arrived at the monastery before dark. The Temple of Innumerable Women was made of ancient teak, tumbled down and fallen halfway to ruins. There were twenty women of various ages waiting outside it, in a small garden with a moldy green pond on one side. I looked to my wife and my lover, unable to believe my eyes.

Every single one of the women had dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. They looked exactly like Vanessa. One of them, an awkward looking girl of fourteen, approached us. Her expression was weary, resigned.

"Where are your passengers?" she asked.

"Gone," I told her, adding "We've been through a lot." My wife and my lover were greeted with cups of tea, while the young Vanessa disappeared into the monastery.

A Vanessa that looked much the woman who had initially commissioned me appeared. "Let me feel your hand," she said. When I hesitated, I for the first time saw fire in her eyes. "We don't have much time before the army comes here. Not just the Bagan guard either. No, this is the Belu Guard. If all the death is to be worth anything, we must hurry."

The Belu Guard was fictional, as far as I knew. Elite commandos with magical powers. One of them could be sent to topple an Empire. It was supposedly one of them that had killed Elizabeth II of Greatest Britain when she was just thirty-two, though I have always thought the official story that she had died of ill-health not unlikely.

Regardless, this was not a time for hesitation. I gave Vanessa my hand, and she closed her eyes. All I could hear in that little garden was her breath, her exhales and inhales.

At length she said, "I see. That doesn't help us much at all, I fear." She turned to her sisters. "We have stuck our neck out for nothing. Better be ready to go."

"What were you hoping for?" I asked.

"The little girl with you had a special mission. Either she failed at it, or it died with her."

"Special mission?"

"She didn't know it, but she was made to get captured. To be taken, hopefully before the King. To, perhaps, cut off the head of this writhing snake of an Empire. By holding your hand, I could see your memories of her. But we failed too many times, at too many points. It was probably not a very good plan."

"She made me certain promises," I said.

She paused, her eyes reading mine. "I know what you're thinking. Money wouldn't help you, not when you remain divided on what you intend it for. Growth or excision—both valid options if your heart and mind are positive. Yours are not, and I fear you are beyond wisdom. If you must have something, it's this: In neither of your relationships will you find happiness, and the reason is because you don't know who you are. Learn the answer to this before seeking to merge yourself with someone else."

"You think I don't know that? Give me something." Only now did I realize how much I wanted—needed—there to be something here for me. My problems were that dire; I needed a magical salve. As I spoke, I saw Kieu Thi Cara and Trinh Thi Cam following a black-haired priestess into the dilapidated building.

She raised her wide brown eyes to stare directly into mine. "Listen, Trinh Van Bay. I live in a soon-to-be-destroyed monastery with two dozen copies of myself. We have worked for nearly ten years to provide answers to problems you—and most people—could not even comprehend, but now it's all come to a crashing stop. Do you really expect me to have any answers that you don't?"

The very earth rumbled, forestalling my answer. Vanessas of various sizes scurried in alarm.

"They're here!" My Vanessa said. "Well, that makes it simple." She sat down upon the ground, legs in lotus position. Around us, all the cloned acolytes I could see were doing the same, sitting peacefully as the ground shook with ever-increasing force.

Without looking at me, she said, "I advise you to peaceably surrender."

I ran into the building, looking for the two women in my life. Behind me, warriors in steam-powered Chinthe constructs, King Tabinshwehti III's personal elite guards, strode through the forest, blazing flames and shooting solar rays. The half-lion, half naga suits covered the men within save for their faces, which peered out with expressionless concentration.

With great and skillful precision, they slaughtered each of the priestesses. We found their bodies later, each with a hole through their head or chest. Inside the teak building, we heard only faint cries and thumps. "Get down," I hissed. "Don't fight back and we may yet live, by Mother Rice." Again, I did not yet know of the death haphazardly strewn outside or my advice would have well been different.

One of the attackers found us. It was a woman, her face clear behind the shield of her Chinthe suit

"Rise," she commanded and we did so. She led us out to the back, where a handful of Vanessa prisoners stood, arms in the air. The ground was littered with corpses of Vanessas. All had been seated, relaxed, and their expressions were peaceful.

The woman joined another in a Chinthe suit and they spoke in voices too low for us to hear. Most of the army that had come here was in the forest, rounding up the few who had fled. Two soldiers in Bagan uniforms emerged from the woods on the side of the monastery. One of them was the scarred officer from the checkpoint, dried blood smeared on the left side of his face. His left ear was missing.

He glanced toward us, casually and his eyes grew large. Many things began to happen at once.

Scarface reached for the rifle on his back as he shouted to the armored guards. Cara chanted beside me. My wife broke and ran for the covering forest. And I?

I fell to my knees, ready to accept what may come. Maybe I was starting to learn a little wisdom, after all.

A genie of the earth grew out of the ground before the Chinthe guards. It loomed massively, rocks and moss and stone and earth. One of its massive hands crashed down onto the helmet of a guard, splintering the hard glass shell. It picked up the other guard, the one who had found us, and, with one hand on her legs and one on her arms, began to stretch her into two.

And then the rifle fired. Hot light pierced the eye of Kieu Thi Cara and she collapsed. Without her, the earth genie crumbled into a mound of inert matter. You can still see that mound today, I hear, though I have not returned and never plan to. The body of the armored soldier flew toward me and landed only a few meters away.

My mind was ready for anything, for the end, for death. But my body acted. I was up and racing toward the fallen Chinthe guard. The scarred soldier strode toward me, solar battery collecting more light for his next shot. I had only seconds.

He was only a meter away as I reached the body. The scarfaced man said nothing but there was a savage smile on his face as he lifted his light rifle at my head. I had never seen this armor, or anything like it, but technology is technology and I knew steam. With mere seconds to live, I ripped off the hose at the back that connected to hydraulics. It had been weakened by the stretching and the falling or else I would have never had the strength. Hot steam coursed out and though it burned my hands I turned the tube to the Bagan guard before me and shot boiling water into his face.

He screamed and dropped his rifle as his face began to melt. He fell to the red earth, writhing on the ground with his hands clasped to his ruined face. Feeling miserable, for I had to respect this man, I picked up his rifle and blasted through the back of his skull.

For the moment, I was alone in the clearing.

My wife had not gone far into the forest for fear of finding the rest of the army. I found her huddled beneath a tall jackfruit tree.

"It is a bad custom," I said, reaching for her hand and pulling her up. Did it excuse the past few weeks? Everything I had done, and more to the point, everything I had not done?

"Perhaps, but it is custom," she replied. To her, that was enough. To her, that was everything.

We found the tuk tuk, avoiding the crushed bodies and held our noses against the scent of death. My rickshaw had not been disturbed and we climbed into it. It was slow going, driving on wheels with no tires. I directed the excess steam downward and it gave us enough lift to hover just a bit off the ground. Slowly, we followed the trail the soldiers had made until we reached the road. Only then did we begin to breathe normally.

Trinh Thi Cam took my hand. "If I had been free to choose my next husband when your brother died, I would never have chosen you. But we must obey the laws of our society, whatever our personal preferences are."

"If I'd had another brother, you would have married him. I never asked for you. You were the first woman I was with," I told her. "True woman, I mean."

"I know," she said. "And it was merely bad luck that the one time we had sex it made me pregnant. But that's what life is—bad customs and worse luck combining to make our lives wretched. Being human is ignoring all that and living anyway. If you won't live for me, consider the child."

"That's the way of it, then?" I asked. I am not ashamed to admit that the man I was then would have preferred the other option. That I had wanted the money not to raise the child but to eliminate it.

"This morning I wasn't sure. Now I am."

### §

The man finished his story, sipping on a now-cold cup of ginger tea to ease his overworked throat. The small girl nodded intently.

"Do you understand now? I always said I would explain to you on your seventh birthday."

"I do, father. I do. I'll never complain about my name again."

"Good. Now let's go pick up some customers," the man said. "We'll stop and see your mother if she's still in town." He grabbed the little girl's hand and led her out to the tuk-tuk. She was excited to see her mother, but the man was thinking about visiting the new boyfriend he'd met in Eastern Hanoi. Each lost in their own thoughts, Trinh Van Bay and Trinh Cara Vanessa quickly rumbled off into the humid night.

Story Notes:

Written 2013

Unpublished

I bought a book on Vietnamese ethnic groups in HCM City and read it front to back, taking copious notes. It took months to write and in the end, I probably crammed too much into this story; it would perhaps be better served as a novella. The protagonist was inspired by Harry Canyon from Heavy Metal. The somewhat esoteric title comes from a speech by Aung San Suu Kyi. If you think you can figure out why, contact me and let me know. If you're right, you will win a prize!

### A Faint Drumming, A Red Flame

Art: Nahid Taheri

I think every city in the world must have places for misfits, rogues and half-breeds; places that no respectable person would ever consider stopping or even looking too carefully at. They must, for those who aren't accepted by others always band together. That is why I found myself drinking in one of the many dockside hotels in Dunedin. It was a dingy place where temperance was a wisp of a rumor and cheap grog was dispensed with few questions. I was lucky to be there; I wouldn't get another chance like this maybe ever. But I should've left when they killed the penguin.

I had been invited by my cousin Maaka, who was a throwback to the Maori warriors of old. He had just returned from another sea voyage, on a new ship, though I'd seen him sail on the old Alert many times before. Just after the big earthquake he'd sailed away, and when he came back three weeks later he had three more scars on his hands than before and none of his usual crew. He did not wish to discuss anything with me, but I kept asking and he relented, telling me if I came with him that night, I could learn some answers, if I really wanted to. The way he'd said that, I wasn't sure that I did.

Despite all that happened, he wasn't a bad man. At least, he hadn't always been. We'd all lost friends and family in the Great War. Maaka had lost more. He'd lost himself. A brave man had left, and only a distant and cold shadow had returned. It hadn't helped anything that there had been no jobs in the last four years, not since 1921.

I was trying to act as if I belonged, though I was younger than most of the others and didn't know any of them save for Maaka. The thing is: it felt good. It was a relief to be with others of my kind. They called us waterfront scum, mongrels, kanakas, and worse. When I had been a child the names and the scorn had bothered me, but no half-caste lives without developing a thick skin.

It was then that one of Maaka's friends, a pale man (he had a Scottish father) with a full moko covering his face, had just arrived today on the steam train from Oamaru. He had stolen something, and when he pulled off the black cloth of his mysterious bundle to reveal a little blue penguin us we had all laughed. It had been a mascot of sorts. Penguins are half-castes too, both of the water and of the land.

But then Maaka had started showing off. He revealed one of his sharp knives and smiled darkly. It was a metal knife, the kind that all Pakeha sailors had. Those knives. He was incredibly talented with them, and when he threw them he could make a pattern around the bird in its little blue jacket.

I don't know. Maybe the penguin panicked, or perhaps Maaka was drunker than he let on. But he hit the fucking thing in the wing and it brayed in pain. When I saw the scowl on my cousin's face, I jumped up and quickly moved to his side.

"Let the little korora go," I said. "It's served its purpose."

"Sit down, huipaiana," he said. He had used this term, meaning hoop iron, an item of trade, since we were children. But he did not now sound affectionate. I looked into his eyes, and I saw relent. He might have let it go there, I still think that. And then someone else shouted at him. "Kill it," a Cook Islander yelled. Others took up the chorus.

I winced as I saw decision descend upon Maaka. He moved with careful precision to the penguin.

"Leave it," I said gently, hopefully, uselessly.

Maaka pulled the knife from the wing, patted the bird on the head, and then, with a quick slash, gutted the thing from beak to legs. The penguin didn't even make a sound as its guts fell onto the floor. The penguin fell to the ground, as dead as a moa. Cheers and whoops filled the inn. He coolly cleaned the blood from his knife. "Come, little cousin," he said. "The night is just beginning."

### §

We were on a train, the ten of us. I had lost all hope of understanding the night and was now just hoping to survive it. None of the others talked to me, though we were all crammed into one small compartment. What does it mean when you are rejected by the rejects, I wondered.

Maaka motioned for me to come over.

"Amiri," he began, and I knew he was serious. He never used my real name. "There's something I need you to do."

After he told me, I stared at him and then looked at the others in our compartment. "Why me?" I said. "These men are all more experienced."

"Any of them could do it," Maaka agreed. "I want you to. You need to prove that you belong with us."

He pulled one of his sharp knives from somewhere on his ankle and handed it to me, blade first.

I grabbed it carefully and shifted it so that I could grasp the hilt. "Easy as," I said. And then I walked out of our compartment, on my way to kill a man I'd never met.

I'd seen him earlier, though, when we'd boarded the train back in Dunedin. We use the word Pakeha to denote Europeans, but some of them have lived here for generations. This man was the real thing; he had a foreign air about him and I guessed he was from Austria or Switzerland. I walked numbly, the cold blade pressed to my thigh. It seemed so easy—kill this man and I would, finally, belong.

The train was slowing down by the time I found his berth. I burst through the door, willing myself to emit hatred and anger. He was sitting on the lower bunk, across from an impossibly large suitcase. He looked up and smiled, a bit uneasily. "Hello, my friend," he said in heavily accented English. "Guten Tag. How can I help?" He slipped his hand under his jacket.

My palm was sweaty around the blade. His wire-rim glasses and honest face gave him the look of a genial owl. The train rumbled to a stop.

I told myself to pull out the knife, to finish him quickly. Instead I blurted out "They're going to kill you. Leave the train now."

He frowned. "They already know I'm here? Impossible." He belied his words by standing. He placed his hat upon his head and turned to me. "I owe you a great deal, young man. Thank you."

I said nothing. I still wanted to stick the knife in him, but my hands believed themselves wiser than my mind and refused. He moved to his improbably large suitcase, a small white button on each side. He whooshed both of them and I could feel air rushing from the case.

"It is very heavy," the man explained. He grunted as he lifted it with both hands. Outside, we both heard the train whistle. "Goodbye," he said, and rushed out of the room. I sat down on his bed, feeling his warmth. I'm not sure how long I sat there—an hour maybe, or perhaps half that. At last, though, I made my way back.

I entered the room with a heavy heart. There were only five others of his band in the room now. My eyes found Maaka's; his knowing expression said everything and nothing.

I flung the knife to him. "I'm done," I said.

He caught the knife easily and set it down beside him. "You've killed him?" His voice was soft and full of regret.

"I said I did, didn't I?" Then, to change the subject: "When did you kill your first man? Was it as hard for you?"

He stared at me. I could feel the hard eyes pressing in on me from all sides.

"What did he do, anyway? Why did I need to kill him? Why won't you tell me what's going on? It would be a lot easier to help if I knew what I was going on!" I was nearly shouting.

He stood. "I wanted to trust you, huipaiana. I really did. I thought you were ready. I'd hoped you were ready." Of course he'd known the whole time. I didn't even wait to see him reach for his knife before I fled.

There was nowhere to hide on this train. That meant only one thing.

I had to jump. I didn't know how likely it was that I'd survive, but it had to be a better chance than if I stayed on the train.

I don't remember how I found the door. I don't even remember jumping. My next memory is landing on my back, my head hitting the ground as a bright flare of pain seared my mind. The pain was intense, my ribs ached and my head felt worryingly fuzzy, but it was not important. I had survived! Just as I started to rise, I saw two dark forms leap off the back of the train.

I rose and ran, my body filled with life-giving fear. It was dark, but I thought I knew the area. I was close to a township I had lived for some years in my youth. When I saw a large dairy factory, I knew I was in Whataroa, a small place famous for its large cattle auction. More importantly to me, I knew the Whataroa River was nearby. With the memory of those dark figures dropping from the train, I hoped I could swim and lose the pursuers.

I stumbled to the rim and dove into the cold water, swimming downstream. It took all my energy merely to stay afloat and even then I was getting dangerously cold. At last I saw a white beach and I swam to it. Had I ever felt wearier? I did not think so. I must have fallen asleep, shivering in my wet clothing. The gradual brightness in the sky awoke me. I stood, captured by the music of the dawn. And then I saw them.

They were the rarest, most beautiful of birds: the kōtuku. They flew over the verdant green forests with a majestic, inhuman grace and I envied them. I loved seeing their shadows dip over the rainforest, like dolphins in the sea.

I was watching them too intently, for I became aware of the footsteps all too late.

I didn't even look behind before I sprang forward, but hands grabbed at me. I struggled but each was stronger than me, and together they had no problem. "Mete Pokokohua!" I swore at them, adding it in English to emphasize my point. "Fucking bastard, let me go!"

I realized one of them was the man who had brought the penguin to Dunedin. It had only been last night, but it already felt like another era. "Let me go," I begged. "He'll kill me, like that penguin."

He said nothing. They bound my hands and led me away. The less I say of that weary, dark day, the better, but suffice to say that I knew I was being led to my death, a ritual slaughter that had something to do with the position of the stars.

We marched to one of the large glaciers, maybe thirty kilometers from where they'd captured me. My feet ached, my mouth was dry as sand, and my eyes ached from lack of sleep. They'd marched me through emerald fields and jade rainforests, to keep us out of sight from others. Not many people lived on the west coast, but they had taken no chances and we'd walked through the morning, past the afternoon, and well into the evening. Now we had caught up the other seven warriors.

Maaka leaped up, seemingly delighted to see me. He shook an admonishing finger at me. "That was quite the escape attempt," he said. "It really is a shame." His eyes were blood-shot and I realized that he was drunk.

Behind him was Tuawe O Te Moeka, or, as the Pakeha more prosaically say, Fox Glacier. We marched over large stones and through icy glacier melt. I wondered why I didn't just force them kill me now. Why climb the glacier, just to die? And yet hope did not die easily.

Just as I thought this, one of the men shouted and pointed behind us. I craned my head but could not see anything. Whatever it was, the men holding me were not taking any chances; I saw them draw knives and brandish clubs.

And then I heard the man beside me curse and mutter "Poua-Kai." This was a mythical monster, a cyclopean moa possessing terrible rending talons and a thrusting beak. I turned around—no one was guarding me anymore—and gasped as I saw an enormous Moa striding toward us. Part of me knew that the last Moa had died a hundred and fifty years ago, but a much more alarmed part told me to run.

Run I did. But in my haste and fear I fell, and with my hands still clasped behind my back, I landed hard on my face. My front tooth cracked and my nose burst with blood. I noticed neither at the time, as I rolled onto my back and witnessed a sight I had never expected to see.

The half-breeds and half-castes, my people, were bravely assaulting the three meter high monster. But they could not hurt it; their weapons chipped off it with clanging reverberations. In the darkening sky, I could see smoke or steam rising from the thing's head.

A stone dug into my back as I saw the foot of the beast rip open a man. Two more already lay on the ground in growing pools of blood.

And still the men danced death against their foe. It took the death of two more before Maaka had had enough. He turned and fled, his men with him, toward the glacier. I could taste only copper as my nose leaked blood into my mouth.

I was the only one alive. Its head swung toward me and it took two great steps toward me. I heard the sound of a train climbing a hill, and with a rush of smoke the side of the moa swung open.

But the real surprise was yet to come. A man was walking toward me, and it was a man that I knew.

"You shouldn't be here," he said. He helped me stand up and moved behind me. He struggled with the knots, trying in vain to untie me. At last, he found a broken dagger and cut through my bonds.

"Thank you," I gasped, wiping the blood from my face and feeling my teeth for damage. My front incisor had been chipped off. It was a small price to pay for life.

"I would advise you to go home," the man from the train said. "But I suspect it's too late for that. And you're here because of me, of course. Come with me." We walked to the side of the Moa, which I was only beginning to realize was a machine, and entered it. The side slid shut after we sat down, and he turned the Moa around and we bounded away from the glacier.

### §

I realize that this story has grown hard to believe. I feel uneasy writing it down, and I am running out of time. But it's important to understand—this is all truth, as much truth as mere words can capture. And the truly incredible things have yet to come.

### §

The name of my savior (as I had been his before) was Sava Kosanović. He was thirty-one years old, slight of frame, and the Ambassador of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. His mother was the sister of a man named Nikola Tesla, and it was on his behalf that Kosanović was here.

This man Tesla was a genius by all accounts. He read the stars, and understood that now was a very dangerous time. When the March earthquake had happened, he had known several men whose very dreams were affected by it. He had received signals from space warning him and had contacted his nephew, who travelled with diplomatic immunity, several months back. Tesla had even invented this bird, which I had seen in its suitcase form back on the train.

I learned three vital things, as we rode in the metal bird back to civilization. First, there was an evil so ancient that it was beyond our kin and it was awakening. Secondly, Kosanović had been sent to stop it; this man Tesla was working on a death ray to combat it. Thirdly, and most damning, my cousin and his friends were trying to aid the evil. Ah, Maaka. I cannot think of you without remembering the times we swam in the river; you teaching me to swim, protecting me from those who mocked my pale skin. Loving me. That boy is long dead. I know this.

But it is hard.

We traveled a long time, and Sava told me much of multiphase electric power, of alternating current, radio technology, rotating magnetic fields and much more that I did not understand. He said that Tesla could cut the planet in half, could set the sky on fire. He was even, Sava told me, referred to as "an old wizard."

I had seen—was seeing—his magic at work, but it was his largesse that was most commendable. "He hates war, and killing," Sava told me. "He knows men will always fight wars, but he wants to help them covert it into a mere spectacle of machines."

Sava moved to a small box with control levers. "I can take this out, but then I have to walk and follow it," he explained.

"It's a teleautomaton," he said to me conspiratorially. "It responds to radio signals and is powered with an internal battery."

I must have gaped at him, for he laughed and clapped me on the back. "Not to worry; there are few in this world who yet understand. Someday this will all be as normal as a train or a telegraph."

We rode along in silence then for a long time. It was difficult to sleep in the jolting creature, but nothing could have prevented me from slumber at that point. My eyes closed and my battered body found oblivion at last.

I dreamed and I knew I was in the past. Or perhaps the past had come to me.

He was known as the Māngai, the mouthpiece. He had a kōtuku on each of his shoulders, and a shark oil lamp burned behind him. We were in his house, but also on the beach, and in the rainforest.

He held a nguru in his hand. It was a small flute made of soapstone, with pāua shell inserts. He lifted it ceremoniously to his lips and when he played, I felt my fear and worry drain away. The song lasted only moments, but they were some of the sweetest of my life. When he stopped, he handed the instrument to me.

"I have been dead for many years, I know this," he said. "But you are my family and must know. All must know. There is great evil and the spirits of Aotearoa are stirring. The Patupaiarehe climb down from their hills, the Turehu glide out of the forests, the Ponaturi swim in from the sea, and the Ogresses are leaving their caves. I'm not certain that they oppose what the cultist are trying to awaken. I'm not certain that they could. But they serve as a warning."

"What cultists? What are they trying to awaken?" I asked. "What can we do?"

"When the moon is full, and the stars are right, they will awaken the Dreamer. They have failed with the Tentacled One, now they will bring the Shepherd God back into this world. You must stop them."

"Where? I asked. I knew with the inescapable logic of dreams that I was waking, and I felt fear and panic returning. "And how can I stop them?"

"When one finds a shadow, look to the source from that shadow came. Life can be found. Remember not to trust words. The Pakeha never should have written language down. That caused men to think there was truth in words, and there is no more truth in them than there is in shadow, in the foam of the sea."

He was gone, and I could feel the soapstone instrument hard in my hand. Hot water burned my feet. Flags of steam rose unsteadily in all directions. When the acrid stench of sulfur hit my nostrils, I knew where I must go.

I awoke, light hitting me from an aperture in the Moa's eyes. Sava was asleep next to me. I looked at my hand, half-expecting and fully hoping to see the nguru. But my hand had closed around a rock in my sleep. It looked just like a river stone, like one of the many from the foot of the glacier, though I did not remember taking it with me. Still, I did not doubt that the dream was true. There was no room for doubt left in my world.

I looked out and saw that we were in a lush, green forest glade next to a river. Something big moved in the grey blue water. I knew stories of the Dark Continent, knew of crocodiles and alligators. But there were no such things here and never had been.

And yet.

The thing crystallized before me. I felt my body filled with sickness and putrid death as a horrible monstrosity climbed from the river. "What?" I cried, and shook Sava awake. "We must go."

It was a taniwha, a legendary monster that lurked in deep dark pools or deeper, darker caves. It could trample men to death or swallow them whole. It looked something like an enormous, sea-green huhu grub; one segmented body part after another. Its long face, however, brought a single word to mind. Dragon.

It rose impossibly high in the sky, casting a shadow that blocked out the morning light. Suva pressed a button and with a grating sound and an emission of steam, the door to our metal moa slid open. "Run," he said. We both leaped out, and ran from the creature.

Behind us, the taniwha fell upon our vehicle. It should have been impossible, but its mouth opened with galactic width and then the mechanical moa was gone.

It turned to face us. I have never been so afraid in all of my life. It was only with the greatest effort that I did not shake. The taniwha did not move so much as slide through the very air and suddenly it was before us. Again it reared up, its long shadow covering us as it blocked the sun.

"Goodbye," Sava said.

"I'm sorry," I said, though I didn't know why.

I realized I still held the river stone in my hands. It was a laughable weapon to use against this monstrosity, but a weapon it was. As the creature fell upon us, I cast the stone. Perhaps I would hit it in the eye or chip its tooth. Winning wasn't as important as that very act of fighting back.

It didn't touch the beast. Instead, my smooth grey river stone rose in the air and stole its shadow. The taniwha shrieked as the rock sucked up its dark outline. Neither of us could later say what happened, but perhaps we saw a ripple in reality itself. As our eyes adjusted, the taniwha was gone. The moa was gone. Only my stone remained, sitting innocently in the sunlight beside the sparkling river. I picked it back up and put it into my pocket.

### §

And now Sava Kosanović has left, to catch the long boat back to the United States. He says he must tell Tesla of what we've seen, and I agree. We cannot trust the telegraph with news of this magnitude. But there is another, unspoken reason. Only one of us needs to remain, and it might as well be the half-breed. I don't expect to live past this night—it will take a large dose of luck, be it good or bad.

### §

My dream has not lied, and I walk through the hot pools of Rotorua. In the distance, I hear a faint drumming; can see the red flames of the cultists' fires. They have chosen their location judicially; it is a beautiful vision of hell. Steam rises from the pools, which are colored bright blue or dull grey or the orange of marigolds. Geysers launch into the sky, though I am carefully skirting these. Vents in the earth emit sulfur, which coats my face and body and tongue. This is the Ring of Fire and I suddenly wonder if some thing is causing the land to act this way.

I know Maaka is here, amongst the hundreds of others. How will I stop him? How will I stop any of them? I pat the rock in my pocket and hope it can save me once again. It is a fool's hope, but then I am a fool.

I creep closer, and the drums are pounding in my head. The beat is primal and depraved, as are the cultists. Some kill themselves as I watch, others mate indiscriminately. Men fuck other men, cutting their own throats as they climax. Women are mounted by brutes and beasts alike. I am beyond shock, and I walk through their writhing ranks without stopping. I am not even surprised when I see two kōtuku fly by, even though they do not live on the North Island at all. I feel confident, focused.

And then the very stars change over my head. I feel seasick and fall clutching at the earth. My guts spew out of my mouth as I retch uncontrollably. The light of the stars and moon fades as Something big rises in the sky.

I look up and Maaka stands before me. Behind him is fire and smoke and steam and the end of the world. His shadow looms large, like a vigilant demon. He grins insipid lunacy.

He reaches his hand down to help me up. I rise, wiping the sick from my sulfur-coated lips.

"I am glad you are here, little huipaiana. In the end, we should do this together. We will be the first to see the Unspeakable One."

"I'm here to stop you," I say. I grab the knife from his ankle, perhaps the same one he sent me to kill Sava Kosanović with, and brandish it at him.

He doesn't try to stop me. "You still don't see? This world belongs to the Pakeha. It is an insane world of war and greed and sickness. No one knows their family, or how to live with nature. You can't imagine the things I saw at the Great War. This is a chance to end this. To cleanse the world of the poison of man."

I stop still, certain that he is right. But the words of my dream, the warning against the inherent lack of truth in words keeps me going. I can see the shadow behind him and it makes me want to vomit again, want to die. Death is no solution at all, so I stab my cousin in the stomach. I try not to think of his boyhood delight at jumping from high places into the water as I do so. But he only smiles at me.

His body slumps to the ground. I see the cultists are all dead around me, and I realize that I have done my cousin's work for him. If this Unspeakable One needs so much death to come to life, it cannot be allowed to live.

I take my river rock from my pocket. It is warm, as though lying in the sun. The shadow above me is devouring the sky. It is vast as the horizon and growing ever larger.

Unbidden, the words come to me: When one finds a shadow, look to the source from that shadow came. There is, in fact, a tether on the shadow that comes from the largest of the bonfires.

I cast my stone without thinking. A thunderclap shocks its way across the sky and I am cast once more to the roiling earth. A scream that only the edges of my consciousness can process rips through the air and even this shadow of an echo causes blood to pour from my nose and ears.

And the malevolent darkness is gone. The stars shine, back in their usual formation. The moon sits above me as though it hadn't at all just been eaten. I am alone, in a scene of death and carnage few could contemplate without madness. I wonder if madness is simply knowing something of what reality truly is. The earth shakes below me and I ponder again if something is imprisoned there. Does that not make me mad?

I shiver as I look up at the moon. As children, we all learn the story of Rona, the woman who insulted the moon and was doomed to live there for eternity. None of us really believe those old stories. But I am no longer so sure. After what I have seen, the old stories are no longer so hard to believe.

Story Notes:

Written Jan 2012

First Published Jan 2014 at Tales of the Talisman

The title is from Call of Cthulhu. As much as I love his work, it's no secret that Lovecraft was a bit of a dick. I thought telling a story from the perspective of the " misfits, rogues, and half-breeds" might tilt the balance back in the right direction a little bit. I classified this as steampunk; it just as easily could have been Lovecraftian, but since the protagonist survives I decided it was maybe a bit more the former.

### LOVECRAFTIAN

### Die DJs Aus Bremen

Art: Julie Visaggi

There once was a man whose entire life consisted of hard work. In the morning, when the stars still shone in the blue sky, he rose and toiled at the mill until the sun had set and the stars once again risen. The old man had no one in his life, for he had never married, save for an old one-eared tomcat he called, naturally "Tom." He would sit in his cottage until late in the night, over the meager fire of dried dung, stroking old Tom's head until both nodded off.

Tom, for his part, kept the cottage clear of mice, rats, and other vermin. He also served as his master's best and only friend. But as seasons blended and time passed, Tom grew lazier and new generations of rodents found a home in a place where their ancestors had died by the score.

The old man noticed this, but said nothing. Until one rainy night, when a sodden traveler appeared on the doorstep. He had to knock several times before the old man rose to let him in.

Over the most meager of dinners—a thin broth with onions and a handful of millet,—the two men ate in silence. Tom lay in the corner, asleep but aware of everything in the manner that cats have.

When both empty bowls lay on the straw floor, the old man turned to the traveler.

'What brings you to my home on this rainy night?" he asked.

"I am traveling to Bremen," the traveler replied. His name was Anders. "I left my town of Linwood many days ago and should have reached Bremen by nightfall, but I lost the trail this morning and wasted many hours."

"Bremen, eh? Never been there," the old man said. Bremen was not far; less than 20 leagues away. But the man had worked at the mill his entire life, and had not left the forest where he had been born.

"Yes, the new ruler is having an electronic festival upon the full moon," the traveler said. "I am, you see, a raver and have come far for this party." The full moon was yet three nights away.

These words could not have had a greater effect upon Tom, for he owned a Technics 1210 turntable. In the time when his master was working, Tom would creep out to where it hid in the forest and practice all the day long. Inside the hollow of one of the trees lay a select few albums that Tom had acquired over the years, mostly by means not entirely ethical.

"Ah," was all the old man, who cared little for the outside world. He would have soon been asleep, but the guest quite unexpectedly changed the subject.

"You have a cat I see, and yet I hear the scrabbling of rodents in your walls."

The old man nodded.

"It's true, they get too old. Only one thing for them then," the traveler said. He gestured toward the cooking pot.

Tom's keen eyes saw the gesture as the old man hoarsely whispered.

"In the pot?"

The traveler nodded sagely. "Good eating, for a couple of meals. And every village is giving away kittens. Get a new one, a better one."

The old man thanked him for the advice and they both curled up in their skins next to the remnants of the fire. The sound of the rain on the roof did not desist throughout the night.

When the two men awoke in the morning, Tom was gone—never to return.

### §

Though the gloomy, grey sky continued its deluge the entire morning, Tom's thoughts were even bleaker than the weather. When he'd left, stopping to pack up his precious turntable and album collection into a small wagon, his mind was full of escape, of freedom. Something better than death I can find anywhere, was his thought as he fled the ill wind of his master's newly awakened hunger.

But he missed his master, at least the nightly petting, and wondered if he'd perhaps been too hasty. He was just considering a return when an enormous cry ripped through the rainy morning. Tom blinked, trying to locate it when the ear-splitting cry sounded again.

Before him stood the biggest cock he'd ever seen. He stood resplendently erect in the rain, chest swelling with air as he cried. But that was, to Tom, far less interesting than the gunmetal grey Allen & Heath XD 53 headphones around the rooster's neck.

"Cease your crying a moment, friend," Tom cried. "I wish to speak with you."

"I cannot! I will not!" the cock cried. "For these cries are my last! I am for the mistress's soup pot tonight, and so I voice my complaints against the uncaring world!" He began to crow again, each louder than the last.

Tom, who understood this existential crisis all too well, said nothing merely stood in the rain and watched. Just once, he peaked back at his little wagon, but the turntable was dry under the leaves he'd wrapped it in.

When at last the rooster was finished, deflated and fatigued, it turned to Tom. "I see you yet await my company. What is so pressing?"

The cat told him of his escape, and his plan to journey to Bremen to participate in the electronic festival. The rooster's name was Regine and he'd been born in the far pastures of Alcase-Lorraine, though he had been busted for drugs too many times and had to flee. He was delighted at the idea of escape, and of the festival.

"Oui, I have heard that the Techno Viking was now King of Bremen. But I did not think to escape. I owe you much, my friend," he told Tom.

Tom shrugged. "Something better than death we can find, anyway," he said.

### §

They walked in the rain all day, speaking of sets they'd like to play and favorite DJs. Regine told him of the man known as Techno Viking, who legend had it had once been a raver himself but had risen to leader and recently ascended to the status of King of Bremen. The full moon festival marked his inauguration, and would be undoubtedly one remembered for all time.

The sun never escaped from its cloudy prison that day, and the wan light was fading when Tom and Regine crossed paths with a panting Jagdterrier. He was black and tan, with a rusty colored muzzle. Like them, he was drenched and he had a face like a thunder cloud.

He looked up at them with pleading eyes. The cat and cock stopped, and the Jagdterrier panted, "Where go you two?" His voice was deep, and trembled with age. Tom noticed that his claws were worn with age and his face had deep wrinkles.

"We go to Bremen, to play for King Techno Viking's electronica festival," the rooster cried proudly. His Allen & Heaths clung wetly to his neck.

"I am fleeing from my master," the dog said. "I was a good dog. I caught rabbits, badgers, foxes—sometimes even a raccoon dog or boar. No more faithful hound was there than I. But time passes, and my body grows weary and dumb with age. Now my master says it costs more to keep me than I make for him. I fear he planned to... well food has been scarce this year."

The two in the road nodded. No more needed to be said.

"You can join us," Tom said hesitantly, for he had no love of dogs. "If you know how to play an instrument."

"Do I?"

The dog, whose name was Martin, rumbled off into the wet bushes. Such was his speed and grace, even at his age, that the two observers found no reason to doubt his prior prowess.

It was but a moment before Martin returned, a pair of Beheringer B208D speakers in his mouth. On his back rested a single powered Peavey P118D subwoofer.

"These are my travel speakers," Martin said, enunciating carefully with full mouth. "They're active speakers, so I don't need an amp."

"Oiu, there is much to be said for traveling light," agreed Regine, who had been forced to help Tom drag his wagon out of the mud half-a-dozen times that day.

"You think this festival will be grand?" asked Martin. "I have always wanted to meet King Techno Viking." He had, in fact, only learned of his existence at that meeting.

"It will be the greatest party the world has ever seen," Regine said.

"It's something better than death, anyway," Tom added.

### §

The three of them had not traveled far when they heard a pounding on the road behind them. Tom, ever cautious, wanted to hide but Regine puffed himself up for a confrontation and Martin started panting in excitement, his speakers falling into the wet grass.

Each of the trio expected to see their master, or some human come to claim them. Instead they met a dark furred goat, who skidded to a halt at the sight of them. His horns were small but sharp and on his back was a Pioneer SVM-1000 Audio/Video Mixer.

Each of the three sighed in appreciation. An SVM-1000! Now that was a piece of equipment! Built to last for eternity (the rain offered it no problems whatsoever), filled with features and effects, outputs for every applications; it was the key to unlock creative performances. And the last bit of equipment they needed to have a real DJ set.

"It is great luck that brings you to us," said Tom.

"No luck at all," replied the goat, whose name was Walter. "I heard tales of the three would-be DJs traveling to Bremen and I knew I had to join. I too wish to see the kingdom of the Techno-Viking, and also to drop some mad beeeats." The last word he blurted out in excitement in a very goat-like manner.

"Luck or plan," Tom said with feline equanimity. "It shall surely be better than the death that awaits us all."

The four companions rejoiced and set off together, but darkness gathered around them and the rain redoubled as the cold of night set in.

At present, Walter said, "Ten leagues or more remain to Bremen. I suggest we take cover in the woods, at the nearby hamlet of Ziegewald. There we can perhaps find food and certainly will have a dry roof over our heads. Tomorrow we can make it to Bremen in plenty of time for the fullness of the moon."

The others—each more wet and hungry than the others—happily agreed and followed Walter on a path into the dripping forest that none of them, even Tom, had spied before the goat led them onto it.

The forest cover kept some of the rain off them, but in the dark they stumbled over roots and into brambles. Tom's wagon, small though it was, proved a major hindrance and at last Walter collected the records and turntable and carried them in his mouth.

Soon thereafter, a halt was quickly and wordlessly agreed upon. The rooster, dog and goat lay down in a blanket of moss beneath a large tree. Tom climbed up into the tree, relishing the idea of escaping the cloying wet earth. But no sooner had he climbed near to the top when he saw a light shining in the distance.

He called down to the others, and, none too comfortable, they agreed to assay forward once more. The four companions discussed bones and hay and corn and mice and other delicious meals they fancied as they quickly covered the distance.

Soon even the shortsighted cock and somewhat oblivious dog could see the bright light shining through the forest. There was a small cabin there, on the edge of the forest In the distance were the muted lights of Ziegewald. Of far more interest: in the clearing before the house, was something the likes of which none of them could claim to have seen before.

It was a fifty foot pylon, made of strange metal, with a large convex lens surrounded by mirrors. Though the companions were intrigued, it remained a curiosity, for all could smell the food that awaited them within the house

Tom bid the others wait in the shadows beneath the pylon. He crept carefully to the bright window, feeling the thrill of the hunt again. Leaping to the windowsill, he peaked in.

"Well, what do you see?" cried the cock.

"I smell trouble," sniffed the Jagdterrier. "And meat."

The goat said nothing.

Tom rushed back to his friends. "What did I see? Only a feast the likes of which I have never contemplated, let alone beheld."

"Are there bones?" Martin asked.

"Or corn?" Regine asked.

Walter remained silent.

"Yes, and grass too!" Tom said. "The table is set with all the delicious things of the world, and there is sparkling water and milk and fruit juice to drink."

"Let's go!" cried Martin.

"But there are four men, cooking and setting the table. They are big and strong, with bushy beards and all have the look of villains," cautioned Tom.

"Ah," said Regine, as if he had been expecting a catch.

"We can lure them out with our music," Martin suggested. They all liked this idea, but were not sure how to proceed from there, until Regine added the perfect refinement.

### §

Boom! Ba-Boom! Ba-Boom! went the base of Martin's Beheringer B208D speakers and Peavey P118D subwoofer. Beside him, his black form almost invisible in the night, Walter had hooked up everything through his SVM-1000. Tom had his records unpacked and two of them on his Tec 12's wearing the borrowed headphones from Regine. The cock flew to the window, and with his wings he covered and uncovered the light giving a strobe effect to the entire forest.

The robbers, for such they were indeed, rushed out of the house at the sound. The rain had not stopped, exactly, but it had been reduced to a fine mist. Just as they came out, Tom began scratching as only a kitty can.

Taken by the music, the outlaws began to dance. One of them, muscled and mohawked, began to strut with a vigor that rivaled Regine himself. The other three jumped and danced and swayed and sweated even into the night air.

DJ Tomcat, for such was his nomenclature at this moment, outdid himself. He played a set that rivaled that of an DJ who ever lived; he built great beats and dropped great beats and faded great beats and then proceeded to build great beats back up again. Walter added braying vocals at the perfect times, and Martin's howls were as good as ever was any moog. But the plan hinged on the cock, and during a moment of darkness he flew into the house and emerged with four cups full of sparkling water.

Reaching deep into his feathers, where his most valuable treasures lay next to his skin, Regine dosed each of their drinks with a sheet of pharmaceutical grade acid He then passed out the drinks, one at a time, to the thirsty ravers.

### §

Soon the robbers had wandered into the forest, and balls they were tripping. It was a shame to end such a perfect set, but the way to the table lay open at last. The animals carried their equipment with them, shut and locked the door, and all met at the dinner table together.

"Let's eat," they cried in unison. At least half of them had been destined to be meals themselves

The four animals demolished the meal with the twin hungers of dancing and all-day walking, and even the bones were gone within minutes So ravenous were the original three that none heeded Walter's lack of appetite. In fact, he might not have eaten anything at all. When they were finished, the turned off the light and each fell asleep. Martin fell asleep behind the door, where he had slept for many years as a good guard dog. Tom slept by the hearth, missing the presence and warmth of his master. Regine flew to the rafters and perched himself there. Walter left the house, for his warm coat made him less susceptible to the night chill. Or so he said, but there was something strange, nearly ominous about his voice.

They shut out the light and went to sleep.

### §

All three of the animals awoke to bright light that pounded with the intensity of a hangover. Only all of them knew, with animal instinct, that it was still night. They had been sleeping for less than an hour.

"Gah," cried Martin, still half-asleep. "Put it out."

Tom rolled over, away from the light, but it permeated the building.

"Cock-a-doodle do!" cried Regine reflexively.

"Where's Walter," Tom asked. At the same time, Martin's eyes snapped open.

"The mirror pole," said the Jagdterrier. "With the lens. That's where the light comes from. I knew I smelled trouble."

The cock flew down to join them and together they opened the door into blinding light.

It was like staring at the sun. The only shape they could make out was that of Walter, the black goat of the woods, whose darkness had grown so cold and absolute that he stood as an eclipse against the light from the moon lens.

"Walter?" Tom asked hesitantly.

"Come. Here," Walter said. There was no resisting his voice, no question but to obey that deep and primal order.

And yet they tried.

"Don't listen," the cock said.

Tom looked at the equipment. If they could assemble it, perhaps the beats would protect them, would serve as buffer. But before he could move, that terrible voice sounded again.

"COME. TO. ME."

Martin, ever the obedient hound, was the first to break. He looked at the others with an abashed expression and then sprang from the house. He entered the light, a small dark shadow, and crossed to the Black Goat.

With Martin next to him, it was clear that Walter was much larger than he had been. He leaned down and in one quick snap, swallowed the Jagdterrier forever.

"Oh my," Tom said in a very small voice. It is very difficult to terrify a cat, but this scene had certainly done just that.

"JOIN ME" the Black Goat of the Woods ordered.

With a squawk, Regine flew from the house. The Goat opened his mouth impossibly wide and swallowed the cock instantaneously.

"HERE KITTY KITTY KITTY" cried the creature they had known as Walter. But it is extremely difficult to force a cat to do something against its will. Tom dug in his claws and turned his head.

"Why?" he called to the goat. It had only just now occurred to him that he would miss the DJ fest in Bremen.

The goat closed its mouth and seemed to shrink back to regular proportions.

"I need blood," it said simply, in an almost conversational tone. "Souls and blood. Talented blood, the blood of artists and musicians and outcasts and dreamers. I can eat humans, but the souls of animals are much sweeter." The goat began to swell in size again.

"NOW COME TO ME, TOMCAT."

There was no resisting the raw power of that voice, not for Tom nor any cat who ever climbed a tree or chased a ball of string.

Step by unwilling step, Tom walked from the cabin, his body feeling old and worn as the light engulfed him. The darkness of the black goat froze his skin, made his hackles rise, and he mewled his most challenging warning. It was all for naught, and the dark creature opened its mouth wide and swooped down for him.

"We were mistaken, utterly mistaken.," the cat said sadly. "Death would have been far better." And then the goat swallowed him.

### §

And that cabin, filled with orphaned turntables and moldy speakers, littered with forgotten promises and broken dreams, lays there in the forest yet unto this day, for all that I know.

Story Notes:

2014

Unpublished

I always thought The Musicians of Bremen was quite a well-known fairy tale but many people I've talked to don't remember it or never read it. The juxtaposition of medieval elements with modern German culture seemed funny to me, as did the inclusion of one-time internet sensation Techno Viking, but this kind of story is a hard sell.

### Ekdíkisi

Photo: Ahimsa Kerp

On any other day, Piraeus would have been the same as any port city in the ancient world. The crowded, meandering streets were swollen with people, goods, and animals from the world over. Piraeus bordered Athens, of course, and acted as its port, but instead of shining columns and beautiful structures, it featured swaggering sailors, drunken barbarians, and grubby wine shops. The great docks were busy during all hours of the day as grain shipments from Egypt, camels from Africa, and spices from the East flowed in; while amphorae of wine or olive oil, along with an abundance of fish, were shipped out. There was art, almost, in the chaos.

### §

This was not, however, a day like any other. Xenophon drank deeply from his kylix and slammed a few drachma onto the table. He was late. The tide was already flowing out, and with it would go the doomed old man. Standing up too quickly, he stumbled as he misjudged his steps. He rarely drank unmixed wine and it was affecting him already. But his sobriety was finding it hard to to overlook his anxiety.

He stepped into the streets and felt somewhat invigorated by the salty breeze. He hardly knew his way around Piraeus; but he made it to the docks after a few false steps. He had made it in time; the old man was still on dry land. There were people everywhere, waiting to witness this ultimate ostracism. It was supposed to have been kept secret, but something this momentous could never have been hidden from so many people.

Xenophon slipped closer to the docks, pushing through slaves and citizens alike. Finally, he stood at the front, next to three large, blond warriors who reeked of butter. Xenophon wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant warriors and then forgot all about them as five phroureo, city guards, nervously herded their prisoner onto the ship. He did not appear to need so many guards. He did not appear to need any guards.

The old man wore a filthy toga. His feet were bare and blackened with dirt and red clay. His muscles were frail and, though otherwise lean, the paunch in his stomach bulged noticeably. His beard was long and untrimmed and, like his hair, was too dirty to be called white any longer. He had no strength and even from several meters away Xenophon could see the gleam of madness in his once shrewd eyes. The only bit of pomp about him sparkled around his neck. It was a glowing, cloudy crystal of unusual angles that made up a trapezohedron, of sorts, though it was difficult to count the sides. There were an additional five phroureo on the ship; it seemed strange that the frail old man would warrant such precautions.

He needed them all, Xenophon knew. The old man was so dangerous, in fact, that an unprecedented step had been taken. For the first time, a trial was to be held outside Athens. His power had been demonstrated too potently for the citizens of Athens to forget. Too many had already died. Reluctant as he had been to admit it, Xenophon knew now: Socrates must die.

The old philosopher was on the plank now, and Xenophon hurried after him. The guards greeted him as he came aboard the sturdy trading ship named the Conium. The old ship had been in use for a generation and likely would last another. Four men could sail it and, fully loaded, it could transport more than four hundred amphorae. Today the hold was filled with a bounty of another nature. The ship was loaded with books, papers, and pamphlets. Every copy of everything Socrates had ever written, or so they had said. Xenophon thought surely some must have escaped the net. There was no denying, however, that it was an impressive collection. It was almost a pity that it all had to be destroyed.

The ship held fourteen men; Socrates, the ten phroureo, Xenophon himself and four sailors led by Anytus. Anytus had discovered their destination and was the chief accuser of Socrates. Xenophon had the privilege of chronicling the madman's trial. It had been an honor to be chosen, but now as he stared at the cold, uncaring sea he wondered if he'd ever see Athens again.

### §

The island had no name, not that Xenophon knew. It was an ancient place, long uninhabited. It had only recently been discovered by Anytus and he remained the only man who knew how to sail to it. It was an utterly strange place, but Xenophon understood now why it had been chosen.

There had been a city here once, and it had been built not by Atticans or Phoenicians but an older, forgotten people. It was a place of sepulchers and mausoleums, an ode to another time. The buildings were strangely shaped and reminded Xenophon of the stone around Socrates' neck. They shared its lack of angles. It was spooky, alien, and strange, to be sure, but it didn't seem to be dangerous.

"Why am I here?" the old man asked suddenly. He was looking directly at Xenophon. His eyes were clear, and his confusion genuine. Xenophon hated these moments of clarity.

"We are arrived, Socrates" he said to his one-time mentor. He was not sure how much he was able to say. The last thing he wanted to do was awake the philosopher's insanity. He was powerless without it.

"That's nice," the old man agreed amiably. He walked away, his blackened and leathery feet clacking against the brown stone. Together, they walked through the abandoned city, all ten phroureo ringing Socrates and alert for any danger. Their footsteps intruded upon the silent streets, until they reached a large temple. The trial of Socrates was to begin.

Anytus stood before the assembled group, on a dais of sorts in an enormously large chamber. There were guards by the door, four on either side. Two remained by Socrates. He sat on the floor, his leathery fingers playing with the stone around his neck. A snail of drool slipped from his open mouth. The three sailors and Xenophon sat on heavy slabs that were strangely cold.

Xenephon diligently wrote everything down, but there was little new to be said. Anytus detailed how the impious acts of Socrates corrupted the youth, namely Critias and Alciabiades, with asebeia. He mentioned that Socrates followed his daimonion to the point of madness.

Xenophon reluctantly agreed. He had written extensively of madness. He knew that some madmen feared nothing, others had no sense of decorum, and others completely lacked respect, even for temples and god. Socrates, he feared, fit all three descriptions.

"Socrates, you deserve death for those crimes. But your deeds grow far fouler," Anytus boomed, his deep voice echoing in that vast chamber. The cold marble pressed into Xenophon's flesh. "In the war against Sparta, you unleashed He Who is Not to Be Named. One man in four lay dead, including Pericles himself, after The Tongueless Void strode through our city. At the time, we blamed your pupils Critias and Alcibiades; and they were put to death. We know better now. "

Xenophon felt his blood run cold. It was still hard to believe. He had lost a sister and his last living brother to the plague some thirty years ago. He had himself been in Sparta with army or he too would doubtless be dead. The only thing that made war look civilized, he thought, was something truly indiscriminate. Like a plague.

Socrates looked up. His eyes flickered wildly and his voice sounded strange, distracted. "I will obey the god rather than you," Socrates said. " I would have you know that, if you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me," he said.

The sound of the sea filled the room, crashing to the shore with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Anytus looked troubled. He paused and glanced at Xenophon and the sailors before continuing. "Recently, we discovered an ancient tome in your possession detailing matters too horrible to speak of. You not only refuse to acknowledge our gods but seek to introduce new, terrible replacements—"

Socrates started laughing and stood up. He suddenly didn't seem so old, so frail. "New gods? New gods? Ha ha ha. These beings are older than Greece, older than Olympus, older than time itself. New gods? You Athena lovers and Zeus buggerers are the only guilty of worshiping new gods."

"As I say, you admit to the guilt yourself," interjected Anytus. His voice was shaky and he had grown pale. The tension in the room was at pre-storm levels. "You are sentenced to death."

Socrates laughed again. "You have doomed me to death? Is that what you think? We are all of us doomed to die. All of us" He laughed harshly as he strode toward Anytus. His body moved with a macabre rhythm.

Something wet splashed at Xenophon's leg. He looked down, uncomprehending, at the vast stretch of steel-cold sea water filling the room. There was something wrong with the murky liquid; it was dark and oily and frigid beyond description.

Anytus moved to block the madmen's advance and something happened. Socrates hand blurred and Anytus fell gasping into the dark water. He did not rise again. The philosopher moved back into the shadows of the chamber. What happened next, Xenophon did not know; he leaped from his seat and splashed out of the temple, no longer interested in the madmen's trial. His parchment fell unheeded into the water.

Xenophon stopped at the entrance to the temple, stunned and shaking. His mind refused to accept the hideous reality before him. The stars were bright in the day sky, shifting as if they were the plaything of some cosmic being. The entire island was sinking, quickly sinking. Buildings crumbled or sank sideways into the sea. The air reverberated with an amusical tone that rung heavily in his ears. Strands of whip-like darkness writhed through the churning water. They looked like ethereal tentacles, composed not of matter but of nightmares and insanity.

The scribe fell to his knees and wished desperately that he had made a sacrifice to the Olympians before this voyage. He was shoved in the back as he guards pushed past him. They stopped as they realized it was only water before them, water for as long and far as they could see. The sailors and several of the guards jumped into the greasy, broiling water and swam towards the ship, but Xenophon knew better. Their fate had been written the moment they'd stepped foot on the island. _This_ , he thought, _this is something indiscriminate on a scale meant for the stars._

The water was up to his shoulders now. His body was numb and dying, but it was his mind that truly suffered as a repugnance so great and so vast crawled jaggedly from the temple and spread over the island. Xenophon felt something in his mind snap. Bizarrely, he thought of the books still on the ship. Who would know of Socrates and his great menace without the repugnant record of his writing? Then the cold sea water reached his neck and drove all such thoughts away. Doomed, he thought. We were all doomed when we set foot on this island. No, when we arrested Socrates. No, not that either. We were doomed the moment we were born into this cold, uncaring world. His last thoughts were of his long-dead brother and sister.

### §

After consuming the Greeks, the horrible isle R'lyeh and its horrible creature sank horribly back into the sea. It was not seen again for many generations. Left only with the works of Socrates' pupil Plato, the wicked prophet received an undeserved reputation of greatness. The puzzled Athenians sent out search ships but nothing save for a few waterlogged timbers from the Conium were ever found. It was then that the island of Atlantis acquired a mythical reputation.

Story Notes:

Written Jan 2014

First Published as "The Trial" in The Eschatology Journal, 2011

Reprinted in History and Horror Oh My, Dec 2014.

I was on a major Lovecraft kick when I wrote this and several other stories (some of which are also in this collection.) I had always thought there was something suspicious old man Socrates and his "old gods." The original draft of this had much more history, including whole passages from Xenophon, but I cut most of it in favor of some pulpy cosmic horror.

### Song of the Whippoorwill

Art: Gord Sellar

The trees were old, mossy, impossibly big, and scattered on the jumbled hills outside the town. Light from the newly crested sun had begun to shine, but did not warm the night-chilled air. Patches of dirty snow lay in shady patches along the trail. The broad-shouldered man stopped for breath and smiled. He wanted to yell, to shout out into the still morning air an affirmation of life. He felt increasingly less at peace at home and at work. Madison was a pleasant city, but these days he needed to escape ever more. Until he was outside, in nature, he wasn't able to be himself at all. The moments he had out here were like the best poems; indescribable moments frozen in time.

A sound that was no sound at all settled over the tangled trees. Suddenly, he was enveloped by fear. Something felt wrong; he knew these woods better than any man alive and some primitive instinct told him to run, to flee. He fought it back with effort; his leg twitched with harnessed adrenalin. There was nothing to fear, he slowly breathed his body back to stillness.

An unseen bird called from with the forest. He knew the call well enough, and it made him more uneasy. "Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will," the song rang out. Derleth remained silent and unmoving. He was no fool. He'd read—and written—enough stories to know what the whippoorwill signified. He couldn't tell where the bird was, but the call trilled out loudly. Strange. He had walked through these woods a hundred times and never heard them before.

He laughed and the bird immediately quieted. A good omen, he'd decided. Death was just another word for change, after all. Today was a day that would see much change, after all. In fact, he'd claim today's vision as his own. He nodded to himself unknowingly as he walked back down to civilization. This had been exactly what he needed: a good walk, and a good omen.

### §

"You can't do this to us," Ted said. "You've been here forever. We need you—hell, I need you." Ted was dressed as always in a shabby shirt and a stained tie, but he always got his stories finished on time. He'd won some awards a few years back.

"Near twenty years," August Derleth said. He'd arrived at the office without showering, sweaty even in the wan morning sunlight. The hike back to town had taken longer than usual today. "It's time for a change. The whole world is changing, Ted. I'm a single man again. Elvis is back in America. Ike is going after the commies in Viet Nam. And I'm leaving Capital." Since its merger with Wisconsin State Journal over ten years ago, The Capital Times had been Wisconsin's biggest newspaper.

Ted sighed. "We can make you stay, of course. But what will you do?"

"We talked about this," Derleth said.

The older man blinked in surprise. "That Hawk thing? Jesus, Derleth.You know Madison isn't a big enough town to support a goddamn poetry magazine. And publishing a magazine takes work, lots of work," Ted said. He sat up very straight in his chair.

"I'm calling it 'Hawk and Whippoorwill,' now," the other man corrected gently. "I've got my books, too. And I can write fast; a million words a year. I'll be fine." He stood up, wondering who would replace him. "Look, I'll still see you on Wednesdays. Bring your new board." He and Ted had been playing chess for three or four years now.

"Hell, let's play tonight," Ted said. "If you're not scared."

"Sorry," August said. "I've got fencing tonight."

The door slammed very loudly behind him as he stepped into the street. He was thrilled, excited to have closed that door both literally and figuratively. His good omen had rung true so far. Now to see what the rest of the day would bring.

### §

That same evening found August coming home with a smile. His children were at his ex-wife's this month (though they remained in his custody.) He wore a fencing sword on his hip that he had purchased that day to celebrate his new venture. It was an epee, much heavier than the saber he had worn for years.

He was growing more powerful as he grew older, but admittedly was less quick than he had been. The new bade was v-shaped and the cross-guard was larger, vaguely bell-shaped. Hardest of all was that there would be no "right of way," but now that he was done with the paper he should have more time to train. Everything was going perfectly. That bird call from his morning's hike resonated still in his mind, and the idea of changes for their own sake was an intoxicating one.

He was almost home, walking alone in the twilight air along a dirt path outside of town. Trees—birches and pines mostly—lined the path. A very tall man stepped from the shadows. Lithe and swarthy, he moved into the light but brought the darkness with him. Shadows wreathed languidly about his body. His face was dark save for his eyes and mouth, which shone with an awful, joyous light. He wore a tailored suit, but on his head was an almost rectangular headpiece that immediately made August think of an Egyptian pharaoh. He clutched an ivory white instrument, like an elongated flute. It appeared to be made from a hollow reed, with several finger holes along the shaft.

The man was very beautiful. The man was very wrong. Noticing August's interest, he smiled. "Do you like my ney? It plays a song like you have never heard before," He raised to his lips. August was terrified for reasons he couldn't understand. "Let me demonstrate."

The sound filled the woods. It was a haunting tune that trilled, August thought, rather like the call of the whippoorwill. Fey, wild music may have lasted seconds or hours; it transcended beauty, and spoke directly to the soul. It was over all too quickly. The world itself seemed to have changed, to have been destroyed and clumsily rebuilt in an instant.

The strange man spoke into the sudden silence. "I am being rude. Good evening to you, le Comte d'Erlette," he said.

August stiffened. His fingers reached reflexively to the blade at his hip. He looked around for help, but the trail was empty. His house lay a half-mile ahead in the deepening gloom. Town was just as far behind him.

"The man who called me that has been dead for twenty-five years. Who are you?" he asked.

But he knew. Either his imagination had sprung to life (bad), or this tenebruous specter was real (far, far worse). Though the term "person" was not correct—not at all. He drew his blade with his right hand. His left hand reached by reflex for his rosary beads though they were not there. He made a cross instead and muttered fervently. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

"Toy swords and prayer? How amusing. So you do know who I am, do you, August Derleth?" The man's voice swam with dark joy. He was beautiful, more beautiful than any who had ever lived. "Some call me the destroyer of souls. Others refer to me as a ripper of flesh. I have a thousand other manifestations; forms so hideously maddening your mind would crumble from a glimpse. Today, however," he brushed at his immaculate suit. "Today I look pretty bloody good."

As a newsman, August always tried to establish the five questions. He now had the "who," and the "where" had been clear from the start. "What" the man wanted, "why" he was here, or "how" he could exist at all were questions he couldn't answer. But it was always "who" that was most important—that's what most people never understood.

"Chaos," August said slowly. "You are the Crawling Chaos." A light breeze blew through the treetops.

"Excellent!" the swarthy man said. "That saves me from having to convince you. Put your sword away." His smile was fierce and radiant. August found himself wanting to reach out to him, to worship him. His sword slid into his belt beside him.

Nyarlathotep looked at him and his shining eyes read the desires of August. "Yes, come with me." August sighed and couldn't tell if he could hear himself exhaling or the wind blowing through the trees.

Afterward, August would not remember the rest of the walk back to his house. He memories were abstract images; swimming in beauty, basking in rapture. It was sacrilegious to think, but the closest he had ever felt to this was at church.

The creature known as the Crawling Chaos stopped next to the grape arbor in August's garden and unzipped his pants. His ebony erection sprang into the cool night air with a life of its own. With his free hand, Nyarlathotep raised his flute high into the air and a sensual song filled the air.

August surprised himself by dropping to his knees into the grass and grasping the other being's member, wrapping his lips around it and filling his mouth. It was much bigger and harder than he'd realized at first. What he did next surprised him almost as much as his own pleasure at giving it.

### §

His mouth tasted of sulfur and ash. His stomach ached with a dull acidic, burn. The glorious radiance he had felt was but an echo of an echo. Nyarlathotep was lying on his bed, indolently nude.

"You used me," he said to the being. He sat down on the bed beside him, still drawn to the creature's magnetism.

"Did I?" asked Nyarlathotep. His voice was tinged with amusement and surprise. "Does a beautiful woman use the men around her just by existing? Does a majestic mountain use those who are inspired by it? No, August, I compelled you with nothing more than what I am. Your actions were yours."

August spat. His stomach was feeling steadily worse and his head felt curiously light. He knew what the demon said was true. He just didn't like it. "Why me? Why tonight?" he asked.

"You are going to have to die, you know. I'm killing all of you," the eldritch being told him. He was still stretched out naked beside him. His flute was on the ground, under a heap of a jacket. "I gave one of the Howards cancer in '36, but the other one, the man in Texas. He was a fighter. I had to kill his mother to get to him, and then visit him at the hospital. Oh, he tried to kill me, but I was faster. Smith was easier; they called it a stroke. I was coming for you next, and then it will be that Wandrei fellow. You never should have lived, nor should Arkham House. The tales of our existence were never meant for the public."

It was all so matter-of-fact. They all must have known these creatures weren't consigned to their imaginations. "I didn't know Clark was gone. It must have been recently. But Bob—that was almost twenty-five years ago. Why didn't you kill me then?"

Nyarlathotep snarled. "Ever we must watch him, the demon sultan. It fell upon myself to play the music of containment, the song of sleep."

August was emboldened at that particular mention. He'd written stories about him. He knew his ground, suddenly. "Azathoth? The blind idiot god? If such is your master, I pity the servant."

Nyarlathotep grinned at him. "You address an Outer God. No mere servant am I. But should Azathoth awake, your life, your planet, your universe will be no more. Thank me and the others who keep him asleep. Though it must be said these concerns shall not be yours for much longer."

"It won't be that easy," August said as he sprang up. He grabbed the ney, raised it high into the air, and swung it down onto the floor with all his strength.

Nyarlathotep watched him calmly. Nothing happened to the ney at all, though the floor splintered from the impact.

"A worthy effort," Nyarlathotep said dryly. He was getting up now, rising from bed as lean and lethal as a blade.

August raised the instrument to his lips and blew. A horrible sound came out, but nothing else happened.

"That instrument predates the fall of Babylon. It's not going to break now. This isn't one of your stories, man. There's no magic solution to slay the villain." He was almost upon August now. Murder was in his eyes.

Falling on his fencing instincts, August spread his feet apart and moved his left foot forward. Nyarlathotep was impossibly large before him, mouth open with dark destruction.

August screamed at him "I am not afraid of you. I will never be afraid!" He thrust the ney into the being's chest.

It slid into his dark skin with an easy precision. Nyarlathotep stopped with sudden shock. His glowing mouth opened into a circle of surprise. August slid it in even more, all the way to the mouthpiece.

The scream that emerged was louder and more awful than anything August had ever imagined. He fell to the ground, battered by the sonic assault. His hands went to his ears but the sound remained; needles piercing his eardrums. It stopped abruptly.

Nyarlathotep was fading; his dark body fading away like so much smoke. His face was a rictus of rage and hatred. "What have you done? I'll kill you still. My servants are everywhere. You think I am fool, dreaming away eons like Cthulhu? Or getting fat on stars like Hastur? My seed is a poison in you that will not fail—you shan't live another decade."

He shrieked again, less horribly and much briefer, as he disappeared. August would never forget the look on the creature's face.

"There's no right of way with a ney, you bastard." August said as he passed out.

### §

Though he resisted both the agents and the poison of Nyarlathotep for another decade, August Derleth died in 1971 of a massive heart attack. The Outer Gods always win, in the end. However, he raised awareness of the pseudo-mythology known as the Cthulhu mythos; an act so glorious it leaves all humanity in his debt. Next time you make it through a day without being chopped by a cultist, impaled by an Ithaqua, or swallowed by a Shoggoth, you know who you can thank.

Story Notes:

Written 2010

Unpublished

Ever wonder why all the pulp writers died so young? This story offers an explanation as to why. The follow-up story Turning on, Tuning in, & Dropping Out At the Mountains of Madness(which comes next) I wrote was accepted by the Cthulhurotica anthology, but it never would have been written without this one coming first. In my mind canon, Nyarlathotep manifested in that story right after this one.

### Turning on, Tuning in, & Dropping Out At the Mountains of Madness

Photo/Art Ahimsa Kerp

"You are such a drag. You just need to split," Euphoria told him. She had just been woken up and felt really spaced out. She moved her hand to slide the van's door closed, but his body blocked her. Tim had found her napping and had come in uninvited. He knew she didn't like it when people came into her bus without her blessing.

"Mellow out, Euphie, please" he pleaded. His voice was whiny, as it always was when he wanted something. "Don't be like this. We were good together." Tim was lean and lanky. He wore, as always, grungy jeans and a battered leather vest, complete with raggedy fringes on the sleeves. His chest was otherwise bare and mostly hairless.

"Good together? " she asked. That just wasn't true. She'd never liked Tim. She had just shacked up with him when she got to town because he had good weed. They'd dated for two or three weeks and then she stopped seeing him. The message should have been clear enough. "Since when? You are being a major square, man. You will get bad karma. Now, flake off. My friends are coming over," she said.

"Fine, I'll split. You never treated me right, anyway." Tim's eyes grew crafty. "I have new friends now. I don't need you. I'll go. But I want my star back."

The star he referred to was a beautiful rock she wore on a hemp necklace. It looked volcanic, but was heavier than pumice and not as purely black as obsidian. Tim said it was from the Soviet Union and had come from outer space in the forties. He thought it looked like the sun when you were stoned, with squiggly rays of light ringing the bottom half of the sphere. Euphoria had always though it looked like an octopus.

There was no way she was giving it back to him. "That was my birthday present. What's your bag, man? Don't be an LBJ."

Tim's eyes flashed anger. "I want that fucking star back, Euphie. I only gave it to you because I thought you would steal it if I didn't." She was surprised. She in fact had been planning on stealing it, but she didn't know that he had known. Truth be told, stealing pretty things was kind of a habit for her.

Euphoria looked around at her microbus. It was in pretty good condition, considering the long drive from Iowa, but it hadn't been cleaned for a while. Scarves, bracelets, rings, and her rags covered the floor, her bed still was out, and some macramé needles and pins she had borrowed in Kansas City were scattered all over the place. It was a mess and there was no way she was going to look for the necklace right now. Not for him.

"Tim, I don't even know where it is. Now is not a good time. My friends are coming over."

"It never is, Euphoria," Tim said. His voice was strange and he came further into the van. His eyes were wild and bloodshot.

Fear crawled lightly up her neck. Tim was a peaceful man, but something had changed. He suddenly felt dangerous.

"Hey," a voice called from outside.

Reinforcements. She nearly melted with relief. Outside stood a man and a woman; some of her best friends. One of them was the big Indian guy everyone called "Lazy Horse." He didn't ever say much of anything, and he was always smiling, but he was also really big. Her friend Diane stood next to him.

Tim glared at her. "This isn't over," he hissed. He jumped out of the van, nodded to the duo, and strode off. Euphoria followed him out, closing the sliding door to the Volkswagen with a satisfying thud.

"Tim," she called. As he half turned around, she raised her middle finger in the sky. "Climb it, Tarzan!" As he turned away, scowling, she realized she had been wearing the necklace the entire time. Trippy. Euphoria turned to her friends. "Am I glad to see you guys. He was really wigging out."

"Sq-uare," Diane sang. Lazy Horse didn't say anything; he just smiled at her. He was nice, but Diane was the coolest person Euphoria had ever met. She looked just like Twiggy, only shorter. She was always dressed in the best threads too. Today she wore a suede mini-skirt with a groovy chain belt, a French polo-neck top, and square-toed boots. She often wore a beret, but today she had a rose in her hair.

Euphoria didn't know how it stayed there. Whenever she tried the same look, the damn flower always fell out. Instead, she was wearing a beaded headband that Lazy Horse had given her. That with a billowing blouse (no bra) and some embroidered jeans made her feel like she'd pass for someone more hip than herself, if no one looked too closely. She was no fashion star like Diane, but her breasts were bigger and her hair longer. They'd met a month ago, the day Euphoria had arrived in Ashland and they'd hit it off immediately. Diane was from Portland and was new to Ashland as well. She said she had made up the "Let's make love, not war," slogan three years ago, back in sixty-five at an anti-war rally in Eugene. That was majorly bitchin', if it were true, and if it wasn't, it was another sign that Diane was more fearless than Euphoria would ever be.

"What are you doing right?" Diane asked, but didn't wait for answer. "Come on out to Lithia Park. It's really happening today; all the freaks are there. Who knows, you might meet a nice guy."

"Diane," Euphoria said, scandalized. "I am not on the make, okay?" She wondered if that was true. She'd been with Tim a few times, true, but he'd never really scratched that itch.

"That's okay. You might find something you like."

### §

Ashland was a town of college students and their moneyed parents, filled with duck ponds, hiking trails, wild blackberries, and plenty of culture like art exhibits and free theater. Mt. Ashland frowned in the sky above the town, and lesser hills flowed by like water. Towards the Pacific, to the west, rolling oaks covered the foothills. And at the epicenter of it all was Lithia Park, where the free people gathered. Euphoria looked out at a sea of color as pinks, blues, yellows, and greens walked by. It was a world of bell bottoms, tie-die, ankle fringes, flower patches, beads, bandanas, buck-skin vests, flowing caftans, Mexican peasant blouses, gypsy-style skirts, halter tops, and granny glasses.

"Far out," Euphoria said. It was just her and Diane; Lazy Horse had gone off looking for dinner. She was focusing on a beaded peace sign belt buckle. Next to it were a series of Smokey the Bear stickers. The big brown creature was smoking a joint, holding the jay delicately with his enormous bear paws.

While the vendor was talking to a couple of guys playing Frisbee, Euphoria slipped a couple of stickers into her purse. Diane tisked softly. Euphoria ignored her. What was a girl with no money supposed to do? Her karma was generally still pretty good.

The vendor turned to them. "I love this place," Euphy said to Diane, covering. "It's not like Iowa." She didn't miss the place she'd grown up, but occasionally she wondered about calling her parents. Her father's birthday had been last month.

"Iowa. Ha," the guy selling the stickers said. "I'm from Akron—same shit, sister."

"Yeah, it's a real scene," Diane agreed. She seemed bored.

"Right on," the guy said. "Hey, you two got a guru? There's a new dude in town, and he is way far out. He can tell prophecies, that kind of shit. He's camping here in the park."

"The soul brother?" Diane sounded surprised. "I, uh, yeah I know him."

"Sounds like fun," Euphoria said. She needed some guidance in her life. "Let's beat feat."

### §

It took them almost two hours to find the camp. They had to wade through the creek, walk up through a forest, and past something that looked like a giant hamster wheel. Once they were close, though, they could hear the drums beating and smell the smoke of the bonfire. The sun had set and the summer sky was filled with waning, streaming light.

There were already twenty or thirty people. Lots were getting high, some were playing drums or strumming guitars, and plenty were just chilling out. "There he is," Diane said. She didn't need to say it though, he stood out.

Lithe and swarthy; he stood by the fire but was wrapped in darkness. Shadows wreathed languidly about his body. His face was dark except for his eyes, which shone with an awful, joyous light. He wore camouflage fatigues and a combat vest with lots of pockets, with black leather sandals on his feet. His beard was curly and neatly trimmed. On his head was an almost rectangular headpiece that immediately made Euphoria think of an Egyptian pharaoh.

He clutched an elongated ivory flute. The instrument appeared to be made from a hollow reed or a bone, bleached white, with several finger holes along the shaft. The man was very beautiful.

"Look at that dude," Euphoria whispered to Diane. "He is seriously far out."

As they watched him, he lifted his flute into air and played. The sound filled the air. It was fey, wild music that may have lasted seconds or hours. It transcended beauty, and spoke directly to the soul. It was over all too quickly. The world itself seemed to have changed, to have been destroyed and clumsily rebuilt in an instant.

Her was beating fast and her head seemed to be swimming. She found herself approaching him.

He looked at her. His smile was smoldering, but cruel.

"Where ya' from, man?" she asked.

"Hard to say," he answered. His voice was low and gruff.

"My name is Euphoria. What's yours?" She pressed her breasts into him, slightly, as she leaned in to talk with him.

"I have many names. You can call me Nyarlathotep."

"That's a trippy name. Are you, you know, from Egypt?"

"I've been there. Amongst other places."

"Like, where?"

He paused. "It might be easier to tell you where I haven't been. I have looked on sights which others saw not. "

"You've been to Kathmandu? Kabul? Benares? Ceylon?"

He interrupted her. "That's not the kind of traveling I do. Think more celestial."

She understood all right. She wondered if she could bag some acid off of him.

"Do you want to get out of here?" he asked her. There was no mistaking what his invitation entailed. She was thrilled at his directness. She glanced over to Diane, who was chatting with a guy who looked like Jesus.

When she saw Euphoria, she nodded. "Go," she mouthed.

### §

When Nyarlathotep took his vest off, Euphie gasped. Hanging on a dull metallic thread was a stone like the one Tim had given her. Instead of an octopus, however, this one was wide and triangular, like a pyramid.

"Far out," she said. They were in a house that bordered the park. It was nice, like one that her parents might own, but Nyarlathotep had walked in as though it belonged to him. It wasn't empty—there were a few other couples and lovers in various states of intercourse, but to her relief they were in a private room. She wasn't ready for orgies just yet.

His hands were around her, and her shirt was over her head and on the floor before she knew it. He leaned in and lightly licked her right nipple. She felt a flood of warmth fill her, then she giggled as his beard tickled her breast.

Something was wrong. He had stopped and was staring strangely at her breasts.

"Is everything okay?" she asked.

"This necklace. Where did you get it?" He wasn't looking at her breasts at all.

"From the cosmos, man," she said. She really didn't want to talk about her ex right now.

"I know of this. I didn't realize how... important it was." His hand was before her and it flexed as though he was suppressing some deeply hidden emotion. "Never mind. We have an entire night before us," he said. His mouth moved to her other nipple and surrounded it with a soft wet kiss.

Her jeans were off, then. And she was lying in his bed as he filled her from above. It was like being high, but somehow so much more. She screamed, having lost total control of her inhibitions and feelings. At the end, as he pumped his essence into her, she felt she was watching herself; a disconnected observer of her own pleasure.

### §

She awoke to the sound of knocking. Nyarlathotep slid out of bed and, fully nude, flowed to the door. His erection hadn't subsided while they had slept.

"I've been looking all night. I can't find it," the voice from outside said. The man sounded whiny.

No, she thought. Impossible. Not here.

"Never mind," Nyarlathotep's deep voice answered. "I don't need you anymore."

"That's a real drag, man. I just spent hours."

"Tim," Euphoria asked. She knew it had to be. "What are you doing here?"

Tim stepped into the door so that he could see the bed. When he saw her, his face collapsed, like it was melting. Then it was replaced by a mask of rage.

"What the fuck, asshole!" he half-screamed at Nyarlathotep. "You told me if I got the necklace I'd get her back."

"You didn't get the necklace," the dark man said. He moved to close the door.

"Fuck you, man!" Tim swung a fist at Nyarlathotep's face. Moving faster than humanly possible, Nyarlathotep caught his fist with his left hand. He squeezed and a horrible crunching sound filled the room. Even in the dark, Euphoria could see red pulp oozing out of Nyarlathotep's fist.

Tim screamed for a half-instant, but almost instantly passed out from the pain. His body crumpled to the floor.

Euphoria was out of bed; she too was naked and her nipples were hard in the cool night air. "I think—I'll be going now." She was panicked, out of control. Her hands reached for her clothes as she tried not to look at the door.

She felt him behind her, that most terrible phantasm of the night.

"You mortals always amuse me," he said. His voice was soft. " You work so hard for your miserable survival. Why fight for such drivel?"

"What do you want from me?" she asked. Her voice quavered. She knew she was going to die and thought suddenly of her parents, and felt sad that she hadn't talked to them for so long.

"Not much more than I've already gotten," he leered at her. He was so beautiful, yet so masculine, she thought, that even now she half-feared him, half-craved him. "But I'd really like your jewelry." He reached out his long, slender hand.

Her fingers were too shaky to try and untie the knot. She slipped the star over her head, and gently placed it on his palm.

"Just so," he said. "I will be back—there's never been a better time to be a messiah. But for now, I must go. He waits for no one."

"Wait," she asked suddenly.

He turned and looked at her. Her knees shook; he seemed on the verge of destroying her.

"Can I get one more kiss?"

Nyarlathotep smiled a huge glowing smile. His teeth shone. "You were energetic. Much more so than your friend Diane. I can reward you, yes."

He leaned down, grabbing the back of her head while his lips pressed to hers. "Diane?" she wondered, then forgot. Her hands, much more still now, were clasped around his neck as her body flushed once more with desire. She moaned as his tongue slipped into her mouth. Her fingers worked busily and then her left hand clenched. He half dropped her, stepped away and then, surrounded by a thousand stars, he disappeared.

She pulled on her blouse and jeans and followed him. She stepped over Tim and his bloody hand, not even feeling bad. That's karma for you. Nyarlathotep was gone, and the revelers were all asleep. She walked out into the street, and smiled.

She opened her hand and examined the contents. Not a bad trade, she thought. The pyramid wasn't as cool as the octopus, maybe, but the new chain was cool and she had a groovy story now. Best of all, she had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to do with it.

Once it was morning, she needed to find Diane and say goodbye. It was time to get out of Ashland. The sunshine of California would be nice, but might be better to cruise up the I-5, head to Yellowstone, and then back out to Iowa. After all, she had one hell-of-a late birthday present for her father.

Story Notes:

Written 2010

First Published Cthulhurotica 2010

Audiocast on Tales to Terrify 2015

I was playing Beatles Rockband with my Mom and thinking about Lovecraft and the germs of this story sort of appeared. When I first sold it, I walked around thinking I was Ernest Hemingway for a good couple days. This was the first story I ever wrote set in a place I knew or had lived, but after this many of my stories would return to Oregon. The hippy element does bother some people, but many of the characters are influenced by people I know or my parents' friends when I was growing up. The photo comes from a composite of photos I took at the Hope Mountain Barter Fair.

### Full Service Town

Art: Jeanette Jensen

The brown, beat-up van actually had a sign attached, with haphazard rectangles of duct-tape, that read "If the love van is rocking, don't come knocking." It took up two lanes in the grocery store parking lot. It was not currently rocking, which Isobel found vaguely disappointing.

She and Mariam walked past the van numbly, all heavy backpacks and sore feet. Mariam snorted, half in pleasure, half in disbelief. "I can't believe you went to high school here."

"That's right," Isobel said. "Mammoth High School Huskies." She was limping. her right foot sported some egregious blisters.

"Shouldn't you have been the Mammoths?" Isobel asked.

"Good question. It's a weird town," Isobel said. "And not much of one, really."

"Why is it so bizarre?" Mariam asked. "It looks like no one has ever heard of zoning laws." She indicated the mix of mansions, condos, and art-deco buildings that made up the place.

"It's ridiculous, I know," Isobel said. "But the buildings don't matter. Look at the mountains. I don't think I could ever live in a place where I couldn't see the mountains."

They sat down at a white plastic table outside the market, leaning their dusty backpacks next to them. Mariam went to the vending machine and bought two Cokes. She handed one to Isobel and they solemnly clinked the cans together. As they did so, a well-dressed teen dropped a few coins into the machine.

"Cheers," Isobel said, looking at Mariam's brown eyes.

"Kesak," Mariam replied.

"Hey, what does that mean?" The teen had noticed them, was approaching them with a cold Mountain Dew in hand. Without waiting for an answer, he noticed their dusty backpacks. "You two through-hikers?" he asked.

Mariam didn't respond. Isobel knew that she, in fact, wouldn't.

"It means cheers in Lebanese. And, yes, we are hiker trash," Isobel said. It was a term on endearment on the trail, but not always in the towns they stopped in to rest.

"You're not the first I've seen this season," the teen said, smiling. "But you're the prettiest." Isobel cringed.

Mariam placed her can down with a delicate precision. "Fuck off," she said.

"Ah come on," he said. "Talk to me for a little while, just while you finish your drinks and I'll give you a ride to your hotel. Where are you staying?"

"The Motel 6," Isobel said, before Mariam could say anything. Mammoth Lakes was known as a full-service town, meaning it had everything a hiker could need, but it was spread out to an unfortunate degree. With her blisters, he couldn't have made a better promise. She slapped at a mosquito. They'd become the bane of their existence. Tens of thousands lived in the high mountains, and the buzzing and slapping of them had become as much part of their lives as aching backs and unwieldy blisters.

"A pair of classy ladies like you?" he asked. Mariam said nothing. Isobel knew that her feet were sore too, even if she would never admit it.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, kid. We are too old for you, and too in love for you, too," Isobel said. "Besides, it's cheap and they have laundry and hot showers. You can't know how much that means after..." she paused, momentarily forgetting where they were.

"900 miles," Mariam said. She was their map reader and guide when the trail disappeared.

But he wasn't listening any more. "Wait. You're real lesbians? Can you tell me how to pick up on chicks? I try complimenting them but it never works."

Foolishly, quixotically, he walked up to Mariam. "That's a very interesting necklace," he said. "It brings out your eyes."

It was an amber necklace surrounded by prayer beads. Although striking, it did nothing for her deep brown eyes. She had owned it for as long as Isobel had known her and never once had she taken it off. Hell, she'd never even let Isobel touch it. Mariam had made her promise never to touch it before the first time they'd ever gotten naked together. Once, when nefariously drunk, she had become scared and confessed it had magic powers, but she had denied it the following day and never mentioned it again.

The boy was reaching for her neck and Isobel winced. "Don't fucking touch me," Mariam said evenly. She stared the teen in the eyes and slowly said, "And you can start by not defining people by their sexuality. You can start removing labels from people. You can try treating people like living beings and not objects. Does that sound reasonable?"

At that moment, the sound of screeching tires drew their attention to the parking lot. The van had pulled out and bounced its way into traffic.

"Dan the man," the kid said, the disgust obvious in his voice. "He's been in this town as long as I can remember. He still fucks teenage girls, even though he's old. Twenty-five at least."

Isobel, who was the same age, said nothing. She wondered if she'd ever sounded as naïve as this kid. Still, his hatred for the "old-man" who seduced the girls warmed him to her. "You never told us your name?" she said, slapping again at a mosquito. Seriously, she thought. Having them in town seemed almost too cruel.

"It's Jeremy," he said. "And I need to get back before my Mom gets mad. If you still want a ride?"

"I think I'd prefer to walk," Mariam said.

Isobel's feet panicked. "Come on, Dew," she said softly. "Any walking we avoid is a good idea. Please." She hated to use the trump card, but there it was. They had agreed early on only to say that word when they really meant it.

Mariam rose. "Of course," she said instantly.

Isobel smiled and grabbed her pack. It felt so terribly heavy.

"Dew?" Jeremy asked, turning his head back around. "Is that your trail name?"

"Yup," Mariam said with a grunt as she hoisted her pack up.

"Do you drink Mountain Dew too?" he asked.

"That's not it," Isobel said. And before he could say anything else, she added. "Don't ask."

### §

The car pulled up to the Motel 6 a few minutes later. Mariam and Isobel both climbed out gingerly, stretching sore muscles. As they grabbed their packs, Jeremy leaned his head out of the window.

"Um," he said. "There's a big party going on tonight. Out at Hot Creek. You guys should come. It starts at ten."

Isobel laughed. "Sorry, Jeremy. Hiker midnight is nine o'clock. We'll be asleep, and we need our zero day tomorrow."

Jeremy did not try to hide his disappointment. "It will be fun. There will probably be other hikers there. I saw a few others arrive earlier this afternoon."

Mariam nodded her head. "We'll go. Come pick us up at ten."

Jeremy smiled. "Alright, I am. I mean, I will! Thanks!" He drove away quickly, as if he was afraid they would change their mind again.

"I'm a little surprised," Isobel said. "You hate parties."

"I don't hate parties. I hate assholes," Mariam said. "They just usually end up being the same thing. But you were the one who sold me on this hike."

She slung her backpack on and they walked toward reception.

"We are hiking from Mexico to Canada. It's supposed to be transcendent, supposed to open us to new experiences. Well, this will be a new experience."

"Hot Creek is nice," Isobel said. "At least it used to be. You know, the whole geothermal hot spring thing. It will help for our town day tomorrow. No walking."

They were the only ones at the desk, and Mariam rang the bell three times.

"Besides," she added, as a droopy looking man emerged from a back room. "You grew up here. I want to know more about it."

She turned to the man at reception. "What's your discount for hiker trash?" she asked.

### §

They sank into the waters of Hot Creek a few hours later. Neither had their swimsuits, so they wore dress long t-shirts over their undies. Mariam, of course, wore her jade necklace under her shirt.

It had already been a fantastic night. They had napped, eaten a large pizza each at a place called appropriately called Giovanni's and showered twice, once to wash away the hiker funk, and then, more romantically, once together. The warm water they currently soaked in, however, felt more restorative than all the rest of it. Isobel sighed as she relaxed. Every day her back and neck ached, and ibuprofen could only do so much.

Jeremy, blessedly, had been subdued on the way out there and he was now talking to his friends by a small campfire. They were the only ones in the springs, which was surprising until she remembered it was quite early for a Friday night.

She looked over at Mariam, and smiled to see her looking so relaxed. The dark-haired woman had her eyes closed and head raised to the dark sky. Coming out here had been a good idea, she thought.

As she slapped at a mosquito buzzing in her ear, a scraggly blonde dude who looked a bit like Kurt Cobain splashed into the pool. He held a bong, keeping it out of the water with meticulous care. When he saw Isobel watching him, he gestured with it in her direction.

She shook her head no, and then despite herself explained. "I'm a through-hiker," she said. "Got to stay fit." She laughed a little. Part of her could herself speaking, and hated herself for sounding like a little girl trying to please her parents.

"Cool, man. Hiking up to Alaska?"

"Just Canada," she said. "You know, 2600 miles is kind of our limit."

"Cool," he said again, taking a hit. He looked up at her a few seconds later with glazed eyes. "You guys see bears out there?"

"Bears, coyotes, cows, pine martens, deer, mosquitoes..."

"You have any good bear stories?" the guy asked. "Any of them attack your tent or anything?"

"Bears aren't the monsters you see in movies. They demand respect, but not your fear." Isobel said. She'd heard a ranger in Yosemite say that last part.

"Your body breaking down is a much bigger worry than getting mauled by bears," Mariam put in. Her eyes were still closed and Isobel hadn't been sure if she was listening. Or awake, for that matter.

"Fair enough," the guy said. "I just really want to see a bear. I came up from Santa Barbara two weeks ago and I still haven't seen any."

He sighed and looked up. "Holy shit," he said. "It never stops. Something is looking at us right now."

Two luminous eyes stared down at them from a tall pine. "Jesus," Mariam said, ducking her head. "It's an owl. Don't look or you'll be cursed."

Isobel laughed. She had never met anyone so superstitious in her life. So far she had learned that placing your shoes upside down meant someone in your family would die. That picking food off the floor would make you sick because the devil had licked it. That eating eggs in hot weather caused pimples. And that dreaming of watching yourself sleeping meant that you had already died.

Still, she loved Mariam so she ducked her head too. As she did so, the bumping sound of a heavy bass emerged. The owl hooted once, slightly mournfully, and winged away.

Isobel was only a little surprised to see the van they'd noticed earlier pull up. She was very surprised, however, to see the man who climbed from the vehicle.

His hair had grown longer and he was a good deal plumper, but she knew him. She could even somewhat understand his appeal to women. Or, rather, to girls.

"Fuck's sake," she said. "It's Daniel McDuffie. He's Dan the man?"

The young man nodded, not realizing she was talking to herself. "Yeah, that's Dan the man. I met him out here last week. Good guy."

Mariam watched her from the side of her eyes. "The pervert with the van? He's here?"

"Listen. I didn't know before. But we dated in high school," Isobel said. She hoped Mariam knew how long ago that felt. "I was young, not sure what I wanted. Actually, that's not true. I was sure, but I didn't believe in myself. We weren't together for long. I think he took me to a Homecoming."

"Did he have the van then?"

"No, thank God."

She watched him high five a few of the partiers around the fire and then shotgun a beer.

His eyes fell on her and he did a double take. He seemed to teleport to the pool.

"Isobel," he said, suddenly beside her. His eyes were bloodshot and his round face scruffy with unshaven beard. "You're back in town?"

"One night only," she said. "We're hiking." She indicated Mariam, whose blank expression gave no idea what she was thinking. "The PCT."

"No shit? The whole thing? You weren't too into sports, back in high school."

And you didn't drive a van around trying to bang underage girls, she almost said. But it was too nice a night for fighting. Instead, she shrugged. "I couldn't do it without her," she said, indicating Mariam. "She's my navigator."

"Cool," Dan said. "Hey, do you guys need an extra water filter? I bought one last month thinking I'd hike the John Muir trail but I couldn't get a permit. It's yours if you want."

"Sure," she said. They had a water filter, of course, but it clogged more than it filtered and they thought they'd have to buy a new one before Oregon anyway. "Thanks."

She followed him into the van, her wet skin feeling cold in the night air.

There was no sign of his hand-made sign, but she could still see the sticky resin where the duct-tape had been. Dan slid open the big door and jumped in. She peered in from behind. The van was even sleazier than the outside indicated. There were several empty Dominoes boxes, a few Hustlers, and in the back was a dirty mattress. Some soiled black velvet sheets were messily piled over it. She could smell the remnants of sex and pizza marinating in the van and she tried not to think too hard of all the girls who would grow to regret their sexual experiences here.

"Nice place you've got here," she said, trying to hide her tiredness. An image of her hotel room appeared, oasis-like in her mind.

"You know, it's not much but I call it home," he said, his back to her as he dug through a milk crate between the passenger and driver seats. "Not sure where I left it," he said, moving closer to her. He lowered his voice. "What do you think?" He indicated the mattress. "We got pretty far, but I know I'm not the only one who thought about going all the way. I'm pretty good at sex, now, too."

"I really just want the filter," she started, but then he was kissing her. His sour lips and Budweiser breath revolted her, and without thinking she brought her knee up into his groin.

His body fell to the carpeted floor.

"Goddamn it," he moaned.

She fled the van, trying to find Mariam. On her way, Jeremy ran up to her and high-fived her. Her hand stung from the force of his slap.

"You just kicked Dan the man in the balls! Do you know how awesome you are?" he effused.

She was shaking, she realized. She glanced back at the van. A couple of guys were there already, laughing at the fallen Dan, the fallen man. Suddenly Mariam was beside her, wrapped in one of the towels they'd brought from the hotel. She wordlessly handed the other to Isobel. "Can you give us a ride back?" Isobel asked Jeremy. She looked to Mariam. "We need to go. Please."

Jeremy's gaze flashed across them. "Already? I mean, sure. I was planning on sobering up first, but I'm a pretty good drunk driver." He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and dropped his beer by mistake. "No problem, no problem," he said.

"Never mind," Mariam said. "How far back is it to the highway?"

"I don't know—two, three miles?"

"We'll walk and catch a lift," Mariam said.

"You can't walk!" he protested.

"Relax," Isobel said, smiling wanly. "It's what we do."

There was at least ten minutes of silence, as the sounds of revelry faded and the oppressive quiet of a forest at night settled around them. Then Mariam asked "What happened?"

"He kissed me," she said, fighting back tears. "Fucking asshole."

"It's okay," Mariam said. "I never should have accepted the invitation. I thought it would be funny to tease you about the hicks you grew up with. I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Isobel wrapped her arms around her.

"I can't believe we're walking again," she said, half-laughing, half-sobbing. "We're supposed to be relaxing."

### §

It was so dark. They had reached Highway 395, but out here there were no streetlights. A few cars had gone by in the opposite direction, killing their night vision with their headlamps

The two of them walked along the embankment, as there was a steep drop-off on the other side. The forest was some twenty feet above them, and they were of course accompanied by blood-thirsty mosquitoes. The two of them had started a Helm's Deep like competition to see who could kill more. So far Mariam was winning, with fifteen, though Isobel thought she might be cheating.

"You totally looked at the owl, didn't you?" Mariam said.

"I didn't" Isobel protested, laughing. It was the kind of thing she would normally do.

They rounded a bend and faced more darkness. She was constantly surprised at just how dark it got at night, when there were no lights around.

"We should have yogied a ride at the party," Isobel said. Named after the bear of the same name, a yogi was way of getting food or rides without really asking for them.

"Fuck that," Mariam said. "It was time to go. Besides, his friends wouldn't have been any better."

"Thanks, Dew," Isobel said.

Mariam shook her head in disgust. "I really did think it was dew. How'd I know a deer just pissed there?"

"Dew isn't yellow, for one. And even when it isn't, you usually don't drink it."

"I'm not exactly an outdoorsy person," she said, trailing off as headlights and the screech of brakes signaled a car coming around the bend. In the silence of the dark night, it sounded oppressively loud. Both women stopped walking and stuck out their thumbs.

The headlights were high enough that they belonged to a truck of some sort. That was good; truck drivers made for much better hitches. Something about owning a truck just made people nicer, it seemed. Or less afraid, at least.

The vehicle didn't slow down. In fact, as the long rays of the headlights settled on them, the car sped up and turned at an angle, aiming right at them.

Isobel felt her heart beating quickly as her instincts told her to fight or fly. With the embankment behind them and a heavy vehicle coming at them, neither was an option.

She panicked as she recognized the brown van. At the last second, the van slammed on its breaks and it began to slow.

It was far too late.

He's coming for me, Isobel realized. She shoved Mariam, and the unsuspecting woman stumbled away.

At the same time, the rapidly slowing but still mortally fast van swerved to the left.

With a screeching of tires, the fender slammed into Mariam. It seemed to happen in slow motion. The headlight shattered as it drove into her body. Her chest and arms took the full force of the collision, and her body was flung backward into the embankment. The van came to a stop off the road and itself a meter away from the rocky wall.

Isobel stood dumbly, untouched, just two feet away. Her mind had shut down with even consulting her. Completely numb she dropped to the ground and found Mariam.

She had been obliterated. Her left hand was puffy and was already swelling. Her skull was cracked open, and her orbital and nose were broken, pouring blood everywhere. Her open mouth revealed two shattered teeth. The skin had been scraped off her leg and the top of her femur stuck out at an awkward angle.

Isobel laughed, the shocking nightmare too much to believe. This was a joke, a prank, a dream; a reality she could not face with her sanity intact.

Dan was beside her, staring at Mariam. "Oh my god," he cried. "I just wanted to scare you two! Why the hell did you push her into me? Fuck!"

"I was trying to get her out of the way!" she screamed.

"You killed her," he said. His eyes were wild. "I was going to miss you, I swear."

It was too much. Isobel dropped to the ground and put her head to Mariam's bloody chest. "She's breathing. She's alive! Call 911." She lifted her head up, bright blood dripping from her hair.

"I haven't paid my bill for a while," he said. "We'll have to use yours."

"We're hiking for fuck's sake! We didn't bring phones!" She sighed, breathing deeply once, twice, and three times. "We have to take her to the hospital." She breathed deeply again, fighting to retain control.

"What? It's miles away, and I'm in no shape to drive."

She punched him, in the chest, as hard as she could. "Stop fucking around."

"Dammit, I'll go to jail," he said. "I've already got a DUI, and now this? Unless you want to tell them that you killed her?"

She punched him again, even harder. She thought it might have hurt her hand, but couldn't tell anything under the surreal cloak that encased her.

"Daniel," she said, proud of the calm in her voice. "For once in your life, do something right. Help me get her into the van."

He hesitated, but then nodded and leaned down to pick up her body.

"Be careful," she said. "Her head is hurt. I don't think we're supposed to move her at all, but we don't have any choice." They moved slowly, out of the blinding headlights, to the side of the van. He jerked the door open, one hand still grasping her legs.

"Don't put her on the mattress," he said. "I don't want it to get all bloody."

She stared at him.

"Alright, alright. What do I care? I can be a nice guy." They carefully lowered her broken body onto the mattress. Isobel hoped Mariam wouldn't catch anything from being on the foul thing, and then realized she hoped that Mariam did, if it meant she lived through this. The van jerked to a start and they were on the way.

Isobel leaned down next to Mariam, wrapped her in her arms and prayed to all the gods she could think. Out of the corner of her eye she saw, still in its new packaging, an MSR water filter. It made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Her mind could only form the most basic of words and whispered to Mariam. "Don't die. Please don't die. Please... please. Oh please please please please fuck please please."

Mariam's eyes opened and Isobel felt her heart swell with an emotion too strong for words.

Mariam tried to speak, wheezed into a coughing fit, and then spat a gob of blood onto the mattress. She opened her mouth and whispered softly.

Isobel leaned in as close as she could.

"My necklace," she whispered. Every word was a struggle, but with her ear just above her mouth Isobel could just understand her. "I know you think I'm crazy, but there's power there, old old power. I'm sorry, but I need you to take it. Take it, lau samaht. Take it, please."

Her eyes closed softly and Isobel knew they would not open again. Her body was rocked with sobs and she lost track of time until the van came to sudden halt. "Are we here?" she cried, not taking her eyes from the ruined woman's body. She owed her that much.

She heard the van door slam open. She wanted to go with him, to get the paramedics, but he could do it, and she couldn't leave now. Not now.

She'd have to call Mariam's parents, whom she'd never met. She'd have to find her brother in Lebanon and tell him. Her other friends. How many people's lives would be affected by this?

The van door opened and Daniel stepped back in.

"Are they coming?" she asked.

"Who?" he asked. She could hear the sound of a can being opened. "We just stopped at this gas station so I could get another beer. If I'm going to jail, I'm doing it the McDuffie way—as drunk as I can. Make my old man proud." He started the van again and veered back onto the highway.

Isobel felt her fingers close around Mariam's necklace. They operated independently of her mind, grasping beads. It was tight on her neck, a choker really, but the blood lubricated it and she tore it off with a strength she'd never known.

She stood, taking an unsteady step toward the front. As she did so, her hands dug into the amber beads. They were startlingly soft and she crunched each one, like a pea pod or packing popcorn. She felt energy fill her and she gasped. She didn't know what she had expected, but not this. Certainly not this.

She felt her consciousness flee, up through the roof of the van and still higher, into the dark night sky. She was above the world, though still in the van as well. She was super-sentient, no longer relying on the senses of the body alone. She could see the dark road winding through the mountains, see the thousand-year old trees fighting for water and resources, the nearby sea sloshing against the landmass, and the pockets of light that indicated the mark of humanity.

The fools, she thought, giving away their location without any fear at all. She felt icy cold as she realized the thought had not been hers, had not belonged to anything that had ever human.

She could see the van weaving through the dark forested roads. She could see the hospital, less than a mile away in a refuge of city lights and sounds. She could see the empty vessel of flesh and bones that had once been her lover. But most of all, she could still see Dan, in front of her. A distant ringing whined in her ears and the sharp smell of ozone filled her nostrils.

She felt her body, or the body that had been hers, or perhaps the body that was now the least part of her, twist and warp. Her face stretched and sharpened to a ludicrous degree. Her back split and stretched, dropping in two segments below her back. Her eyes swelled to a hundred times their size, whilst splitting into compounded segments. Antenna grew from her forehead and another pair of slender legs popped out of her chest.

She could smell so much blood.

Her consciousness remained in the cosmos; at the same time she sank her proboscis into the shoulder of man in the front seat. He screamed and the van swerved and crashed into the same rocky wall it had, minutes earlier, forced Mariam into.

The creature that had been Isobel was so big now that the van rocked as she drove the tip of her face deeper into Dan's shoulder. She could feel his hot blood filling her and his body flopped spasmodically as the urge and ability to fight fled him. The blood was really flowing, but it wasn't nearly enough. She continued to suck even when the blood was gone, his body a white sodden lump. She took his soul, his essence, with the same relentless fervor she'd claimed she blood.

The cosmic part of her consciousness watched the monstrous mosquito-being suck out the man's spirit, and she understood why Mariam had apologized. As sure as the other two in the van, she was dead. Isobel. Isobel. She had been Isobel, and now that name captured as much of her as a pebble captured the Sierra Nevadas, as a raindrop captured the Pacific Ocean.

She had one long look at the gently rocking van, and then her mind was expanding too much; it was too grandiose and immense and then words themselves become far too confined and parochial as something much greater than mere consciousness stretched towards infinity. Her last vision was a hazy, dreamlike image of seeing herself sleeping.

In the vacuum of space, in the particles of her mind, and through the emptiness of both, one word was softly echoing, forever. _Please, please, please, please, please, please._

Story Notes:

Written 2011

Unpublished

More cosmic horror, this time set on the Pacific Trail. This was another story that has been rejected over fifteen times, including once for not being Lovecraftian enough. I have hiked sections of the PCT but never been to Mammoth; in my mind's eye this story takes place in Cave Junction, Oregon. My high school had a guy named Dan the Man who owned a Van and somehow he emerged into this story as the antagonist.

### Shaolin vs. Vikings aka The Reavers and the Serpent

Art: Wind Lothamer

The Roskilde, that dependable ship that had defied odds and Gods, lay askew on the black sand beach. It burned; greedy flames devouring the ash wood, climbing ever higher into the grey sky. Treasures and shields and armbands and golden cups were buried deep beneath the sand. Far above them, perched on a rocky cliff, sat a distant temple rich with the promise of destruction and spoils.

The seventeen Norsemen crept from the beach into a verdant, clinging jungle that fought them every step of the way. Thorfinn sweated in the tropical heat; his mail and furs clung to him. Three men went ahead and they climbed and climbed and climbed.

Thorfinn's axe hacked through slender wooden trees with bright green leaves that grew in great clusters. They were hollow on the inside but no easier to chop through for all that. Gunnar and Vidarr, the other axe-wielders, were beside him and with corded muscles from a lifetime of rowing they inexorably rose higher from the sea and burning ship. At last, after many weary hours, they reached an open hilltop and Thorfinn fell to his knees. He panted with sheer exhaustion and removed his water skin from his belt.

Asger shouldered him aside. "Stay out of my way, níð" The water skin sailed to the ground, spilling its valuable cargo upon the parched, rocky earth. Thorfinn scrambled to grab it and glared at Asger. The man had always been mean-tempered, and after so long at sea he was worse than ever. Even Bjorn feared Asger's rages, but the dour man was a bear in battle and could behave as he wished.

Thorfinn sipped at the last remnants of his water and contemplated the others as they reached the top. Each of them were more ill-humored than usual. The long voyage, longer, Thorfinn suspected, than any voyage a Northman had ever made, had drained them all. They had began in the land of the Rus, along the Volga trade route, laden with beaver hides, the pelts of the black fox, honey and swords with walrus ivory hilts. Dark skinned merchants met them and exchanged spices and carpets carried on the backs of camels all the way from Baghdad.

No sooner had the Norse sailed away than the fog had set upon them. Unlike any other fog, it stayed for days. The winds came then, and they were lost at sea, unable to chart by sky or stars. Three men fell off into the icy waters. Two more died of wounds and one wretch was claimed by hunger. They found themselves encased in a land of ice that was foreboding even to these men of frigid climes. A Hel on earth.

Through it all, Bjorn had kept them rowing. Charged them with ice breaking. Rationed their small stock of dried meat. Their leader was a grizzled veteran of many campaigns; he'd been one of the first Varangians, serving the Emperor himself. With his leadership they at last emerged from the ice into a strange new world. Much of it was incomprehensible; the people, the buildings, and the landscape were nothing they had ever seen before. They understood only one thing: it was a land ripe for plunder.

This climb, with their axes, their spears, their shields, their swords, their mail, and their cloaks, through impenetrable vines and sharp plants up a sheer cliff in a heat none of them had experienced, only made a surly, violent bunch more so.

And so Thorfinn said nothing. Asger hated him for what he was. Hated him for his youthful, slender body, for his lack of experience, and for his relationship with Bjorn. He was not the only one. Hard eyes met Thorfinn from all around. He had no solace from his shipmates. All of them gathered there, wiping sweat from their faces in the dense, humid climate. The specters of dismay and defeat hung almost visibly in the air.

Bjorn stood. His long brown beard was tinted with ginger and his Ulfberht steel sword rested at his hip like a promise.

"Men. Listen to me. We have all seen the temple," Bjorn said. "And we all know the only good monk is a dead monk."

Harsh, appreciative laughter.

"These men have no weapons. Their gods deny them that right. They know not of the might of Tyr, of Heimdall and Frey and Father Wayweary. Nor do they know of the flesh-eating Jesu that have provided us with so much plunder."

Bjorn chewed and spat a blade of tall grass. He used silence like a beacon and waited until all eyes were on him once again.

"These weaponless, luckless fools worship a little man who sits under trees. I have met other followers of this fat fellow before, in Constantinople. They are comical and harmless. We shall have our way with them. We will take their gold, take their jewels. Take their heads, take their arses. Burn their books and their homes. They will be ours! We will have our way with these fat, unarmed, cowardly monks!"

More laughter, some coarse hollering. Thorfinn marveled at Bjorn's casual ability to motivate the men. Sweaty, exhausted explores had been transformed into battle lust filled reavers with the magic of only a few words.

The men rose and, hewing and clawing their way through the jungle, continued toward the monastery. The progress slowed and Bjorn-induced fervor faded. Night fell quickly though it provided no respite from the sweltering heat.

Thorfinn pitched his furs next to Bjorn. Both were married to women back in Greenland, but for now their relationship warranted little comment. In the morning, the party rose and wended past groves of carefully tended jade and teak. Several footpaths worn into the earth bespoke a continued human presence.

Within a few hours, they saw the temple itself. It looked nothing like the Irish or French monasteries they had looted and burnt in the past. This temple was much taller, with several identical layers rising into the sky. Each layer had dark windows, stiff support pillars, its own roof, which against known wisdom and custom, slanted up. The entire building was the color of blood. The Vikings drew blades with silent precision and crept with practiced stealth through a small grove of thorny trees to a vantage point. It sat at the end of a rocky precipice, an aerial peninsula, surrounded by cliff walls on three sides.

Almost two score monks filled the clearing in front of the multiple storied building. They were completely bald, lacking even the characteristic tonsure the monks they had encountered in the past wore. Their skin was dark brown, somewhere between a Moor and a Sicilian. Some wore broad conical hats to protect their bare heads from the sun and they were dressed in simple robes of white or orange. A few sat with legs twisted into strange positions, but most were attending simple chores; washing clothes in a small stream, picking stones from their small gardens, and tending a small coop of thin and squawking small chickens. Everything here was much smaller than they were used to.

"Now," Bjorn said. His body pressed into a tall tree with red leaves. "I don't need to tell you what comes next. Let's make this long voyage worth it!"

The Norsemen charged forward. Thorfinn was next to Bjorn in the front but someone—he never saw who—pushed him hard and he fell to the ground. His axe clanged against a stone set in the hard ground. It wasn't a bad fall; he landed on his knee and was right back up on his feet. But now he was several steps behind the other warriors. He had to race to catch up with his countrymen and he reached them just as they emerged from the treeline. Together, they burst forward.

If the emergence of so many burly and well-armed warriors alarmed them, the monks showed it not at all. They stood with preternatural stillness. The one in front moved his hands as though casting magic and the attackers slowed. They braced themselves, unsure of the strange motions.

Nothing happened. Bjorn roared and the Norse reavers charged forward again.

The monks were agile, quick, and disciplined. Their hands were hard as stones and they struck with surprising fierceness. But they had never encountered scale mail before, and their robes deflected not at all the axes and swords of the attackers. Finn and Skuld and Atli brought their kite shields to bear. They formed a wall and pushed the monks back. At the sounds of war, more monks poured from the monastery.

Thorfinn slashed one monk in the arm with his axe. It was a good, deep cut and the man would surely lose his arm even if he lived. The slim Viking charged another man who sprang away with the quickness of a cat. Thorfinn growled and charged him only to miss by a very wide margin again.

"Stand and fight!" Thorfinn muttered in frustration. The man slipped away, joining the greater melee. Thorfinn was for the moment reduced to important observer. He glanced down and saw a drop of several hundred feet. Far below, he could see the ocean and the beach. It looked tiny from this distance.

The monks were far from toothless. Some sprang in the air, launching powerful kicks that knocked over their armored opponents. Other used rocks and branches to bludgeon the helmets of their attackers. One wily old man, beard longer and greyer than a Norse Huscarl, jabbed his fingers into Eirik's eyes. He reached in and ripped the eyeballs away. The Viking collapsed to the ground while the old man danced away, cackling. His smile lasted until Gunnar split his head open with a mighty axe blow. Eirik's eyes rolled from his lifeless hand onto the dusty, blood-soaked ground.

The death of the old man spooked the monks. For the first time, they showed an emotion other than quite calm concentration. They fled now, as one, flowing back into their temple. Twenty-three bodies lay lifeless on the ground, and none of them belonged to the Vikings, though a few picked themselves off the earth and Eirik writhed and clutched empty sockets where his eyes had been.

They left him there. The remaining warriors gathered and strode forward with grim purpose. The temple lay before them, unguarded and vulnerable.

Half-visible dark waves extended from the temple, washing over, sickening them. A deep chanting rang from the temple as dark images and impure visages filled the air around them. The words and rhythm were foreign and unintelligible but Thorfinn could hear one sound repeated. Again and again. Slowly the syllable took on a life of its own, and it seemed the sound the monks were making was the only sound in the world.

Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig. Yig! Yig! Yig! YIG! YIG!

The sound chilled them all, filled them with a sense of portentous doom. Bjorn led them by half-a-step and together they surged forward once more. He stopped of a sudden and threw his hand before his face, as though shielding himself from a bright light.

"Ayeeee!" cried Gunnlaug. Thorfinn stared in horror and disbelief at the tall temple. It no longer looked like a building to him but a face, one with many eyes and a dark grim mouth. The dark waves grew stronger and each of the sixteen men of the North felt their stomachs twist in pain and heads cloud with overwhelming force. Behind them, the dead bodies of the monks soaked up the dark waves and then, dreadfully, their bodies rose. Those obscene puppets with jerky uncoordinated motions so unlike their graceful movements in life crept toward the Norsemen.

Bjorn saw it, of course. They all did. Every Norseman was familiar with tales of draugar and they did not panic. The reavers, however, did not even have time to speak before a loud roar filled the air. Thorfinn felt his heart fill with raging panic.

The temple shattered like a child's sandcastle hit by a catapult. Pieces of wood flew in all directions and Finn and Skuld and Atli raised their shields once more, somewhat protecting them all from flying.

An enormous dark green snake, black leathery bat wings extending from its back, slithered from the ruins. It was big as a dragon and so terrible that the very monks who had summoned it fled in mindless fear as it manifested. A strong wind blew, almost enough to blow a man off. The mail-clad Northmen lowered their heads and struggled, but many of the much lighter monks flew from the cliff to the rocks far below.

Bjorn's mouth had not closed for some time. "Jörmungand," he muttered. "Never did I suspect we would face Thor's bane, here in the in fiery lands so far from home."

Thorfinn took several steps backward. All of them did. The comfort and shelter of the woods was not far off; nor was it nearly close enough to safely reach. The massive serpent slid toward the reavers without moving at all, as though it erased the space between them rather than moved across it.

Bjorn dropped his sword. The others gasped at this cowardly, unprecedented move from their vaunted leader. The mighty warrior looked at them helplessly and slowly shook his head. He had no words of steel and iron for them now, when they needed them most. Not against this enemy.

The first of the shambling Shaolin reached them. This threat they knew, and intuitively these men of violence showed the draugar how to die once more. Still, Njal and Gunnlaug fell to their mindless assault. The monks were still animate, still writhing, but had been cut into pieces by the Norse blades. A few of the slower yet struggled against the wind, but they remained out of melee range.

The serpent Yig drew forward again. Thorfinn felt his bowls loosen. Three men broke and ran for the woods. Bjorn was among them. This was it then. The long voyage was for naught. The climb was for naught. Their ship lay in smoldering embers for naught. Their entire lives: for naught.

For naught wasn't good enough for Thorfinn. His body slowed with an immense force of will.

"We stand here!" he cried. "Vikings, we fight here."

A few men gave him pitying looks. Something had changed for Thorfinn, however. He could feel courage fill him like sexual desire. He grabbed Asger by the shoulder and held him. "Do you flee the Midgard Serpent? Is Asger not warrior enough to face the fell foe?"

In his fear, Asger was hardly recognizable. His wild eyes roamed and he was moaning in low fear. Thorfinn slapped him. "Are you a man? Even I am braver than you." He grabbed the fallen Ulfberht blade and charged the mighty, slithering behemoth.

Asger dropped his spear and howled. The warriors next to him shifted away with habitual caution. Berserkers made no distinction between friends and foes. But something about the reaver's bloodlust filled them with a familiar confidence and their hearts steadied.

Thorfinn did not battle alone for long. Asger was at his side, fighting with tooth and nail. Bjorn and the others who had fled returned, and they held mighty blades and strong shields and pitted their human muscle against the supernatural, as all Norse understood would happen upon Ragnorak. The mighty serpent, Yig or Jörmungand or whatever it was called, was too big and slow to effectively fight the multitude of swarming attackers. It relied on its innate fear-generating, on worshipers and Shaolin cultists. This manifestation was not prepared to face the fearless warriors of Odin. And so they cut at it, rending and tearing like wolves.

When they were done, the winged serpent lay in hundreds of pieces. It had crushed Vidarr and Grelod and Ogn and swallowed Hlif entirely. Asger would die of his wounds before the sun set and Bjorn would never regain the full use of his shield arm. The others had fiercely hacked at the creature, just as they had done against the undead monks, until it could hurt them no more.

Panting with exhaustion, the dozen men surveyed the wreckage. The monastery was in pieces and no treasure was found. They looked in every hidden cranny, years of expertise on their side, but they did not find so much as a single coin.

"What are we going to do," Thorfinn wondered. Bjorn pointed his borrowed axe at the pile of snake segments.

"It would fetch a good price if we sold the blubber for oil," Bjorn said. The creature had been large as a whale and it could fetch a great chest of coins. But none of them truly considered carrying the dismembered bits of monster back down that steep mountain, to where their ship no longer existed.

"With this monster on our side," Bjorn said in a different voice. "None could oppose us. Not Henry II, not Oslac of York, not Rollo himself." The moment Bjorn spoke, it was as though a thick fog settled upon the minds of all who heard him. It was a spell that could not be broken.

"We could rule the world," Thorfinn agreed.

"The Serpent cannot die," Bjorn said. "We will bring him back and he will fight for us."

The Northmen begin rebuilding the monastery that afternoon.

Story Notes:

Written 2015

Unpublished

The title story, at last. This came from a stray thought: What if the monks that Vikings were fighting were not helpless European friars but intrepid Shaolin masters? And how would the dour and doomed Norse react to a Lovecraftian nightmare? With grim acceptance and nonplussed courage, naturally.

### FLASH

### Santa's Turn

Photo: Ahimsa Kerp

Christmas always left Santa surly and cross. He yelled at the elves and kicked the reindeer on their fuzzy bottoms. His wife, in particular, was frequently accused of never doing anything right. One night, on the eve of Christmas, he threw a present down in a fit of swearing and a showing of his teeth.

"This holiday let's change our work. I'll go out with the sled and the presents, and you shall mind the house at home," suggested his wife as she stared at the shattered present. Santa quickly agreed.

Early next morning, Mrs. Claus took a bag over her back, and went out into the stable with the reindeer. Soon she was off, taking presents to the good little children of the world.

Santa went into the kitchen and began to churn the butter; but he quickly got thirsty, and went down to the cellar to for some ale. No sooner had he tapped the keg than he heard an elf come into the kitchen. He knew they liked to sneak butter when they could. Off Santa ran, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he could. When Santa saw the elf, mouth and hand dripping butter, he got so wild with rage that he ran at the elf and gave it such a kick that the elf fell dead on the spot.

Santa realized he still had the tap in his hand and that he had left the keg running. He rushed back downstairs, but when he got down to the cellar, every drop of ale had run out of the cask.

There was no time to morn the spilt ale. Their milking cow was still shut up in the byre, and hadn't had a bite to eat or a drop to drink all the morning. Mindful of the greedy elves, he stopped in the kitchen and took the churn on his back. He put a large pot of eggnog on the woodstove and then opened the door. It was cold outside and the wind was blowing hard and insistently. The cow's bucket stood next to the well, and he stooped to take up a bucket to draw water out. But the churn on his back tipped and all the cream ran out, down into the well.

Santa was furious. He brought the cow up onto the thatched roof, so that it could nose in the snow for the grass that grew there. Worried that she could fall, Santa got up on the house to secure her. He tied one end of the rope to the cow's neck and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round his thigh; and he had to make haste, for the eggnog began to boil, and he had still to make the candy canes.

So back to the kitchen! But down fell the cow off the house-top, and as she fell, she dragged Santa up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast; and as for the cow, she hung half-way down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she could neither get down nor up. Santa was too angry to curse or cry and he sat there for several hours in the cold.

Eventually Mrs. Claus returned, beaming and happy from a job well done. When she got there and saw the cow hanging there, she ran up and cut the rope in two. But, as she did this, down came her husband out of the chimney; and so she found him standing on his head in the porridge pot, eggnog spoiled and no butter to be had.

"Next year you'll go back to being Santa. And leave the hard job for me."

And, after that, Santa didn't curse at her or kick a reindeer for many a long year.

Story Notes:

Written Dec 2013

Unpublished

This is a mere re-telling of an old folk tale, with a slightly more modern sensibility. It was challenging mostly because it's just over 500 words. The photo is one of mine, taken of a grass roofed house in Drammen Norway.

### A Long Way From Tokyo

Art: Nahid Taheri

Akari cursed as her scooter sputtered to a stop. She was a long way from Tokyo, and the tropical lush nature of Kyushu was filled with sounds and a darkness the city never attained. Her childhood fear of the dark remerged, as strong as ever. Out of fuel, and only kilometers away from Mt. Aso. There were people at the train station who could help, but she would have to push her Suziki along the road. No moon lit that dark sky, and even the stars seemed hesitant to shine.

She had just started to push her bike when she realized that something was behind her. She turned, expecting it to be her imagination. But it was really there, silently padding after her. A black tosa, a dog bred for fighting, killing, maiming. This one was smaller than some she had seen, but its eyes glowed like burning coals and smelled of decaying meat, dead places, forgotten graveyards.

This was no wild dog, but an okuri-inu, a spectral beast that preyed on lone travelers. She dropped her scooter and ran wildly, irrationally. The hellish creature was at her heals, terrifying and bewildering and imminent as death itself. Twice she almost tripped, but she kept her footing as headlights appeared before her. She ran straight at the car, wildly waving her hands.

The young couple helped her into the car with murmurs of care, but they winced visibly at her scent. They reached Aso station half-an-hour later. Akari never saw the okuri-inu again but she smelled of death and rancid meat, and would forever more.

Story Notes:

Written 2012

Unpublished

Another piece of flash fiction. I myself tried to go to Mt. Aso a few years back, but it was closed due to being too volcanic. I didn't encounter any okuri-inu but I did find a whole troop of monkeys, which also smelled quite bad.

### Contrived Acumen

Art: Ahimsa Kerp

When Haruto turned ten, Ken and Yuki joined the soccer team. Yuki scored the winning goal against Lost Valley; athletic Ken was the sweeper. Haruto had no time for such reindeer games. He spent his time reading—works by authors like HG Wells and Tim Powers. He rarely smiled, and no had ever heard him laugh.

Haruto dreamed.

When Haruto was fifteen, Yuki had a steady girlfriend. They had already screwed, Yuki said. Ken was still a virgin, but as starting goalkeeper, he was the apple of many a girl's eye. Most girls didn't know that Tom went to their school. He neither noticed nor cared; now devouring the books of Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Fritjof Capra.

When he was twenty-two, Haruto read mostly unpublished works, scholarly articles and obscure treatises. He didn't drink alcohol, and turned down requests from Ken and Yuki to go to the bar. He didn't show up for board game night anymore, not even for RISK or Settlers.

Haruto planned.

When he was thirty, he missed both his old friends' weddings. There was nothing new for him to read now; he wrote. Few people on earth could have understood his notations and formulae.

Haruto obsessed.

By the time he was fifty, Haruto, still a virgin, had missed out on family, career, love, children, and success. He had drive though; he had ambition. He had not spoken to Yuki in fourteen years, and he heard that Ken had died climbing in the Hindu Kush.

Haruto tinkered.

Haruto was in his late sixties when he laughed for the first time. Now he knew he had happiness. His lifelong dream, his very raison d'être had at last been realized.

Haruto rejoiced.

The time machine was finished. Almost as hard as building it—almost—was choosing where to go first. Go take photos of Ankylosaurus in the Cretaceous? Visit Hammurabi in ancient Sumer? Discover what had happened to the temples of Bagan?

He thought of his friends. Yuki would want to go kiss Cleopatra or hump Helen of Troy, and Ken would have gone back to watch Pele in his prime. Haruto laughed again, and his laugh was bright as a spring morning, wild as a soaring hawk. The laugh of a little boy.

There was only one choice to make. Sixth century BCE Indo-China, where Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu taught, was too enticing, too ripe with wisdom. Ready to go, Haruto double-checked the machine. But something was wrong.

Haruto despaired.

Despite preparations that had been methodically meticulous, there was a flaw. His energy supplies were not renewable, and the time machine would only work once. If he used it, he would live the rest of his life there. The irony was savory: time was getting away from him. Suddenly, crashingly, he realized that it had been for all too long.

There was no decision to make at all.

He set it for forty-four years ago, and upon arriving immediately called Ken and Yuki and invited them out for a drink.

Story Notes:

Written 2013

Unpublished

Almost invariably, my stories are more based on big ideas and less on personal feelings. This one might be the exception.

### NEAR FUTURE SF

### Holiday Kinetic

Art: Nahid Taheri

I am drawing when Lisa suggests we go to the Fewsa for our holiday. She's just returned from work and I can see the excitement in her eyes, lighting up her circuits like only an infectious new idea can. I know it is folly to stand firm against that avalanche, but try I must.

No way, I say. It's too dangerous.

She laughs, as though my ignorance is amusing.

That's not what I've been hearing, she says. The war ended six years ago. Now's the perfect time, before everyone starts going. All the package tourists are in Taxilia or Northern Hamal. We won't go to any of the rad zones of course.

You went before I knew you, but you know where I want to go, I say.

And where is that?

I take a piece of paper and write in block letters. Very dramatic, and hopefully curtails her sheer enthusiasm. I hand it to her and she reads it aloud.

New Babelon. It's spelled with a y, actually, she tells me.

Whatever, I say. Spelling isn't my strong suit. You know how long I've wanted to see New Babylon, or any of the historic cities in Greater Kurdistan.

We can go there anytime, she says. And it's so touristy there. How many pictures of the Hanging Gardens have we all seen?

Too many, I admit. But pictures aren't the same thing as being there. That aside, I say, flying to Fewsa is far too expensive. Why not just head somewhere closer—I'd love to see the city of lights.

Aberdeen, she says, nostrils flaring. Get real. Just because they still have enough oil to light the city doesn't make it a cosmopolitan city. And the flights are more than made up for the low cost of living once we're there.

Fine, I say. I stand by my initial statement. It's too dangerous. The rad zones. Even for us, those could be problematic.

Use some risk analysis. We risk more every day we reseed the parks and gardens, she says. She is not wrong.

Well, what about all the poverty, I add. It's depressing. Who wants to see people that desperate while on vacation?

Plenty of people here live in poverty, she counters. It's illogical to object to it merely because it is more overt. Besides, the economy needs your help. Those people can use every bit of currency we bring.

It's become clear that she's thought this out, anticipated my counter arguments. Worse, she doesn't argue with me so much as dismiss me. We're all too human, much of the time.

Like I said, we won't go near them, she continues. All we'll miss is old New York and Fernandopolis. We've have megacities here in Great Britain. No big loss.

I have to add something she didn't expect, didn't prepare counter arguments for, can't just dismiss.

I'm not going, all that aside, I say.

Why ever not?

EYM, I say.

Richard, she says, we have people like that here too.

Not roving the countryside with guns, abusing their fellow humans.

Not that extreme no. But we won't have anything to worry about. They only hurt humans. They can't hurt cybes.

Maybe, but I don't like the little bastards.

Come on, Richard. Your arguments are bland and predictable. There's no better time: NATO and the UN have taken them off the no-go list.

You are right, I say. Of course everything you say is true. But for the last three years I have been picturing this vacation, what we will do when our service ended. I have thought about New Babylon, Antarctica, West Luna—just never the Fewsa.

Well, she says brightly, it's high time you start.

### §

The flight is long, the longest of either of our lives. Full humans are able to transport, but no one has worked out how to shift inorganic matter yet. Ironic that we superhumans are, in this one aspect, at a disadvantage. The flight is not unbearable—I read three magazines and the Vance Markely book. Lisa watches season four of Danger Fauna.

The first thing I notice as we step off the jet is the noise. Old vehicles—cars, trucks, vans, and jeeps, all of them gasoline or diesel, and the horn is just as integral to the driving process as the wheels or engine. For Lisa and me, with our enhanced aural capacity, it is a nightmare. I tone down my hearing to its lowest setting and still the reverberations shake me to the core.

Lisa has no such misgivings. It is so exotic, she says. Like stepping into a movie.

I agree. The dusty roads, the lack of neon, projected videos and power at all—it all adds up to a simpler, earlier world. Even the touts that immediately mob us are full of banter and charm.

Come to my brother's guesthouse, one balding man says. His teeth are black with tobacco, which I had forgotten was still legal here.

Room, cheap cheap. Good room, another pot-bellied, shifty eyed fellow says.

Stay with me and my uncle. Nice view, good breakfast, blurts a young lean bloke.

I like the look of the shifty-eyed fellow, and I grab Lisa's hand and follow him through the crowd of broiling locals. We climb into a wooden wagon attached to an old tractor and rumble away. I see the handful of other tourists still negotiating with the locals and smile in victory at our quick escape.

The next thing I notice is all the wild animals. Dogs and cats, sure, but also goats, sheep, cows, alpacas, pigs, and so many horses. They exist in a kind of subservient harmony with the humans, eating trash and filling up the few spaces left unclaimed by homosapien.

The animals are not fixed, and it is strange to see swollen nipples and dangling testes on the brutes. Lisa is blinking quickly but even at that rate she cannot take enough photos. I suspect she is taking tactile and aural captures as well. This bumpy ride will long live in our memories, but much longer on her internal drives. The noise of the horns does not desist, but I am growing inured to it already.

The road has not been repaired since maybe the country fell apart, and it takes far longer than we expect to travel a short distance. Finally the tractor growls to a halt—still outside the city—and the pot-bellied driver runs away, down the street.

Should we follow him, Lisa asks.

I trust this fellow. He'll be back.

We watch a dog wander in the dust for some time, and then a mother duck lead her babies across the street into a marsh that is more manure than wetlands. There isn't much traffic, and the few locals that pass us pay no heed whatsoever. We don't see any other tourists.

Let's just walk, Lisa says. Good time or good story, right?

I am thinking: we have no idea how far it is. Getting lost is not a good story, it's foolish and unnecessary. What I say is: Let's give him ten more minutes.

He takes twelve, but just as Lisa has jumped down from the cart, a small car pulls beside us and our friendly driver re-appears in the passenger seat.

This my cousin, he says, by way of introducing the driver. Come come.

We climb into the car, and with a shuttering start we take off again. It is a long time before we reach the city center and I am glad not to be meandering the hazy, broken streets. Lisa, for her part, is mesmerized by the ruined buildings, the plants growing through structures, the sheer poverty that is shamelessly on display. She is truly as happy as I have ever seen her.

We check into the hotel of our driver's cousin; it is equally eclectic and withering under dingy rot. After some bargaining, we get a very cheap price. It only takes twelve books, and the first three seasons of The Forefront of Feelings.

We shower and lubricate, and then as it is only late afternoon we head out into the streets.

The third thing I notice is that there is trash everywhere, collecting in tattered, smoldering piles. The price to the environment is staggering, but no one here seems to mind it. And the fourth thing is the great number of beggars. We have no few on our cobblestone streets at home, but those here are the truly deprived. They are all healthy, physically of course. Even in the latter days, the Fewsa had food and medicine for all. But spiritually they are utterly empty. Nearly all of them who are old enough have the wide-eyed stares of the un-entertained.

Look at them, I say. Lost in their own heads. No books, movies, or shows to give their thoughts a structure. It's barbaric, to be stuck with primal imagination, one unshaped by authors and showrunners.

I shudder at how primitive it feels.

No social context for them at all, Lisa points out. They aren't truly human without understanding the most recent shows. What would they even talk about to their friends?

How could they even have friends at all, I ask. I have heard stories, but the existential horror of it truly troubles me.

A young lady walks past us, mumbling to herself. When she sees us, she holds out her hand imploringly.

Richard, Lisa asks.

I nod assent.

Lisa touches a button on her wrist. The young woman stands there expectantly. Lisa frowns and touches it again, harder.

I don't understand, Lisa says. Then it clicks. Fuck, they don't even have Snapfax. I can't send her anything wirelessly.

I laugh in a monosyllable, unable to put my feelings into words.

Here, I say, tossing her a USB. She opens another part of her wrist and plugs it in. Her eyes close as she manages the transfer.

How are you doing, I ask the beggar in the empty silence that has begun. Anything you want in particular?

Her eyes are so big. Her lips part just a fraction. Please, please she pleads.

Lisa finishes and tosses the USB to the young lady, who smiles in thanks and scampers off.

Did you copy or cut, I say.

What do you think? The fines are too much—don't want to be jailed for piracy.

Good call. What did you give her?

She tells me and I groan. Three of them we'd watched together, were among my favorite films.

Did I like them, she asks. I must have picked them for a reason.

You liked them. I liked them. We watched the remake of Excalibur on our first date.

Now we can watch them again, she says. It's a gift to her and to me.

I hope it helps her more than hurts her. You can't just give your life away to every beggar you meet.

She says nothing, and we walk some more, taking captures of the tree-filled ruins and sampling from the many fruit stands. I've never had apples and pears so fresh, so big. The marionberries are the real prize though—large, juicy , and sour-sweet.

I even find several places that sell paper and pens. This old-fashioned stuff is usually hard to find and is an unexpected bonus to traveling in the developing world. I buy several sheets and two new pens and only have to trade 3 albums I don't even listen to for them.

The apples only make us hungrier, and so we join some poor locals and other tourists in a grungy café. We are in for another surprise. The menu is physical—paper laminated with plastic. Oh the waste. I hate to touch something that so many other people have fingered, but Lisa has no such compunctions and I sift through the massive waste of resources.

The food is cheap, I'll admit that. A book or magazine per entrée. But it is so old-fashioned, unhealthy. It is swimming with grease, fats, sugars, and other substances that are banned in the developed world. Worse still is the company.

We sit down in what someone has thought a quaint manner—next to three or four other tourists we don't know. No problem, I run FRIENDO to tell me what their likes, dislikes and how many online friends they have.

FRIENDO doesn't work. Lisa, I say, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. She has already caught on.

So live a little. Try talking to people before you know anything about them.

No way. What if they like the newest teen idol Loribell? Worse, what if they vote for the Republocrat party? I have never had to speak with people IRL who had divergent tastes, and the very prospect of it makes me feel uneasy.

Let's go, I say. Back to the hotel. I can't handle this.

She stares at me with an expression more eloquent than words. I am shamed into staying, and I order a hazelnut beet soy burger that comes with soggy potatoes that have been fried into submission. It's not all bad: there are marionberry milkshakes and I order two of them.

The tourists at our table are chatting. They speak English, and sound as if they're from Oceania. A bloke with a beard keeps looking at us, trying to draw us in, but I keep my eyes focused on the menu and give him no chance to socialize. Lisa talks to one of the young woman; she with the blue hair and very little cybernetic enhancement.

I am ashamed and cannot watch. Were I more human, my cheeks would be burning red. I can't stop thinking about New Babylon and how much I'd rather be there. It is so embarrassing to speak with people when I do not know their tastes.

The food comes and I can barely stomach the fattiness of it. I only drink part of one shake and I feel sick.

Not feeling well, the bearded man asks. His eyes are smiling at me, but I am in no mood. The food here takes some getting used to, eh, he adds.

I won't really get sick. The hunger is more psychological than physical. Early models did not eat but complained about not feeling human enough. Since then, we've been equipped with human appetites. Along with programming that enhances our love of culture to human levels, it has equalized unmodified humans and us.

Just not hungry, I say, eschewing the chance to share any part of my inner monologue.

You liking it here so far, he asks, thrilled to have an opening.

I look to Lisa, but she is deep in conversation with her blue-haired counterpart.

Do you like Zeppelin, I blurt out.

Beardy blinks in surprise. Nah, I don't dig that old stuff. More of a FeastforFamine kind of guy. New Prog, you know.

I knew it! I can't have this conversation. I can't be tainted by this crazy mindset, these malformed opinions.

I stand up. Let's go, I say.

Lisa's eyes tinge red and I am ready to leave without her. But a major hoopla is happening in the streets. People are running away, all the vehicles disappear, and shops are sliding down their iron doors. No dogs lie sleeping in the street and the fruit stands have all disappeared.

I stare stupidly. Beardy stands beside me, pointing down the far end of the street.

It's EYM, he says. They come through here every month or two. The locals try to bribe them but the rates keep rising. One of them gets a burr up his arse and they attack, pillaging and plundering and raping. Modern day pirates, I suppose.

Are we safe? The assurances I felt before we left have all disappeared, a penny sinking into an endlessly deep pond.

Of course, he laughs. You're like us, a cybe. No one will fuck with us, mate. Still, better back up and let them shut the door.

I realize the locals are nervously waiting beside me. I take a step backward, and as the corrugated iron curtain comes rattingly down, I narrow my eyes in telescopic view.

The EYM are not far away, and they each ride an old-fashioned kind of scooter. All of them have automatic weapons, the kind that can't hurt cybes but can devastate unprotected humans. They're all men, with ages ranging from twenty to fifty, and all have smart haircuts and expensive-looking clothing. That they are robbing these poor, kind people feels outrageous. I am filled with a righteous anger, but then Beardy grabs me by my arm. The door slides shut.

Don't get involved, mate. We all feel that way, at first, but it's not our place to interfere.

And so we spend three hours in that dingy café. I am at the table hunched over a sketch (on actual paper) when Lisa looks over. She has been chatting to Beardy about fuck-knows-what.

Good pic of the rooster, she says. But why did you spell it F-E-W-S-A?

That's where we are, I say. I have a horrible feeling that it's not.

Criminy, didn't you read anything I sent? Don't you know how to spell?

It's not my strong suit, I remind her. It's all so arbitrary anyway. I mean, phonics isn't even spelled with an f.

I am trying to hide the fact that, as a kind of protest, I didn't read any of the files or blogs that Lisa kept snapfaxing to me. They're all there, waiting to be read, but after moving them to a folder on my drive I never looked at them again.

It's F-U-S-A, she says. The former United States of America.

Sure, potayto potahto.

Do you even know where in the FUSA we are?

I admit my ignorance and learn much this night.

Since the revolution or civil war, the name depending on whom you talk to, the United States has split into several smaller ones. Old New York and Fernandopolis were obliterated, nuked. Strangely, so too was Madison Wisconsin, though no one knew exactly why. The federal government crashed, and was quickly followed into failure by state and local branches. Social support from police to ambulances to road maintenance quickly dissolved. It was a very real return to the dark ages and three in five people died in the ensuing chaos.

The area we have flown into is now called the Theocracy of Cascadia; once upon a time it was a land famous for coffees, pine trees, and omnipresent rainstorms. It was the second country to reappear after the USA fell (the first was the Lonestar Republic, formed largely of Texas and Oklahoma, but the area was quickly reclaimed by Mexico.) Order here, in Cascadia, was slowly cobbled together by a pony-tailed former casino owner First-Nationer named Brian Bartlet. He quickly became a deity and began to rule as the Tamanamus Llama. Humans can be pretty stupid. But the Theocracy is, by all accounts, recovering more quickly than the rest of the FUSA. The poor people are still wretchedly poor, of course, but there is now a middle class of the entertained, and the wealthy, mostly First Nationers, are as rich as anyone in the world.

The one serious blight is EYM, a splinter group of a pre-splinter political party. Like fleas on a dog, they have burrowed into the recovering country and take what they want. Their hedonistic ideology grants them whatever they desire. With their money and guns, they are effectively outside the law.

It occurs to me that I don't much like these guys.

### §

We finally return to the hotel and after re-watching one of the films Lisa has given away, we fall asleep. I do not sleep well—the noise of autos and animals outside our room never stops. My dreams are plagued with un-entertained beggars and marauding EYM, and I don't know which is worse.

We are both up early, bleary-eyed and grumpy. As with food, we don't need sleep, but we are accustomed enough to it to feel the lack. We stumble outside to the fruit and toasted carb breakfast buffet.

Let's go see Multnomah Falls, Lisa says. It's rainy season and there is water there again.

How do we get there, I ask, my mouth full of red berries.

Take a tractor. It's an hour ride out there. Before the splintering, it was very popular amongst locals. Now it's only tourists who can afford to go.

Did somebody say EYM was active out there? I ask, half-remembering a conversation from the previous night.

Yes, Marcus said they've moved east of the city now. Have taken over the Gresham area entirely. Again, they won't attack us, but it is sad for the people who live here.

Yeah, I guess so. They let their country fall apart though.

What choice did they have, Richard?

The same that all of us do, I think, but I realize I am perhaps speaking from lack of sleep, and instead I reply: You're right. And I think the waterfall sounds great. You've uploaded the captures from yesterday?

She frowns. The photos were easy. But everything here is so slow. The smell and motion captures will have to stay local until we get back.

I feel uneasy at that. Cloudless information feels so vulnerable. But what choice do we have?

And so we emerge from the sanctuary of our dingy room into the gloomy chaos. As before, legions of data-less beggars roam the streets, poor old men and women have set up impromptu apple stalls, and countless gas guzzling antiques, horns blaring, splutter down the jagged road.

I sigh and try not to think of the famed luxury electropools of New Babylon.

Our shifty-eyed fellow is outside the hotel, seemingly waiting for us. We greet each other and end up riding in the back of a different tractor with him. There are some older tourists, fully human, sitting across from us. One still has a digital camera, for what I can only presume is nostalgia's sake. I try to run FRIENDO, but am not surprised to find that it still does not work. One of them mentions a particularly stupid television show, and we do not chat with them the entire trip out there.

The ride is certainly pretty. Stark green pines rise skyward, and it's early enough that wispy patches of fog are still riding along their tops. A green river that would be lovely if it weren't so full of trash roars along side us. This road seems more goat track than actual artery, and we bump along admiring the view for almost two hours. There is no sign of anyone from EYM.

The waterfall is a disappointment. I don't even take my pens and paper out of my pocket to sketch. An old sign tells of millions who came every year, but I cannot fathom it. A limp trickle of water sliding down dirty, graffiti-covered rocks is not a worthy tourist destination. There are several young boys and girls selling water, beer, coffee, fruit, and cheap souvenirs. As most of the cheap things in the UK are already made in FUSA, I don't give any of them a second glance.

I do buy a cola from a young man who has set up shop with his grandmother. I have always wanted to try one, and they have been banned for longer than I have been alive. As I pay him with a book, receiving two magazines in change, a red dot appears on the boy's head. Although I understand the significance, I cannot believe it. A moment later, his head implodes, a bursting ripe melon overfull with pulp. Brian and bone hit me while his body crumples to the ground, ruined head leaking dark red fluid. The old woman screams, high and miserable.

I turned at the distant sound of whooping and cheering. Three young EYM stand about two hundred meters back on their stupid-looking scooters. One has a military grade sniper rifle on his shoulder. He lowers the gun and high fives his mates.

And so I lose it.

With my German-engineered metal legs, I close the distance far more quickly than any human could. Before any of them can possibly react, I punch the shooter in the face. The force of it lifts him off the ground and he is gone, leaving only the red spray of surprise behind him. Something stings my hand and I look to see parts of his teeth imbedded in my fist.

I turne to the other two, rage in my heart and hands, to see them clapping.

I knew you guys were strong, but Rand's sake, I didn't have any idea you could do that, the shorter one says.

Amazing, the taller, curly-haired one says. Just amazing.

I stare at them in surprise. Their friend is unconscious or dead, his gun lying beneath his still body. And the two of them stare at me, admiration blooming in their eyes.

I just killed that fucker, I say. Or as good as. Why the hell are you applauding?

You are stronger than him, the tall one says. Howard deserved it. The weak deserve whatever the strong give them. And you are the strongest.

That's why you kill and rape the less fortunate? I snarl. But I am confused. It's hard to be angry at people who are so filled with awe, who look at me as though I am some kind of demi-god.

Rape? That's a strong word, the small one puts in.

Just because we didn't win the genetic lottery doesn't mean we don't deserve to have sex as much as the good looking guys, says the curly one.

Lisa is at my side before I can respond. She looks down at the broken man, his mouth and nose oozing dark blood, and then she stares at the two talking to me.

Unf, she says. I think it sums up the moment nicely.

### §

I can't stop thinking about the EYM. It really is E-Y-M, that I got right. Lisa says it stands for "entitled young men" but it is a pre-splinter, dated acronym—not many of them would even know that anymore.

They are lodged in my head because I cannot refute their logic. Might makes right seems overly-simple, but it is the way of the natural world. Like the Mongols, the Vikings, the Romans and any other successful culture, they understand that it is a world that rewards those who take. A kinetic world, one that I want to be a larger part of.

Lisa is reading when I confess to her that I am staying in the FUSA. I can see the surprise in her eyes, blocking her circuits like only a new idea can.

Staying? Are you serious?

She laughs, as though I am making a joke.

I am staying here, I repeat slowly. Going to explore with the EYM, see if my strength can help them to reach new heights. We'll scour some rad zones, make a new world.

I can't believe I'm hearing this, she says.

It was your idea to come here.

It wasn't my idea for you to fucking stay!

I walk out on her, leaving her in the dingy hotel room with purple and green pillows. I know that there are two young men with stars in their eyes waiting for me, for a cybe to lead them and show them what strength truly is. Compared to that chance at apotheosis, what chance does Lisa have?

We're all too human, much of the time.

Story Notes:

Written 2014

Unpublished

The idea of the US as a third world country isn't far-fetched to people from other developed nations. But I had fun thinking of future forms of currency, and critiquing the entitlement of certain sections of modern society. This story possibly reveals my personal politics more than anything else I've written. (In case you're wondering: the end is meant to be a tragedy, a complete breakdown of character. But that's just my take--feel free to interpret it how you like.) A lot of it was informed by my two-and-a-half year vagabonding trip around Asia.

### The Speed of Dark

Art: Ahimsa Kerp

Orson walked into my house almost four years since I'd seen him last. He was awfully thin and intensely tan. According to the last faded postcard I'd received, two years ago, he had been in Chilean Patagonia buy there was no telling where he'd been since.

I put my book down and paused for a second, hiding my shock at seeing him.

"Wells, wells, wells," I said, playing it casual. It was an old joke, and he smiled in acknowledgment, if not amusement.

"We've got to go. We aren't safe here, not safe at all." Classic Orson.

I hurried over to the door and closed the purple curtains. "Are you in danger?"

"I am," he admitted. "But stop, please. The state of your drapery, open or closed, will not help."

"Okay. What can I do?" I was starting to think I might not get back to my book anytime soon.

"I should tell you that if you listen to what I have to say, your life will be in danger." His brown eyes stretched wide. "If you don't ask me to leave right now, and never see me again, you may not survive."

Here's the thing about Orson: he wasn't kidding.

He had been unschooled by documentary-making, Peace Corp parents, and his social skills were not highly developed. But he was the most honest person I knew, and the most intelligent. I believed him. I always believed him.

"Go on," I said.

Orson took a deep breath. "I can't tell you here. I have somewhere to take you, but not until tonight. We need to find someplace safe in the meantime." He leaned back onto the door, as though blocking entry with his body.

"Wait. You not going to plaster all the angles out of my room are you?"

He stopped, considering. "It shouldn't come to that." His voice was thoughtful. Then his stone-faced visage cracked into a wan smile. "No hounds or protoplasm for us, I shouldn't think. But the truth is worse. Much worse."

Here's the thing about me: I believed him.

"Okay, now I am officially freaked out."

"Good. You should be more scared than you ever have been before. You got a bike?"

"Sure do." I had three, of course. One mountain, one fixed gear, and one road bike. I do live in Portland, after all.

It was four in the evening and it was much darker than I expected. Orson caught my eye and glanced upward. "Notice anything?"

The moon was, ever so gradually, being gobbled up by the sun.

"Is this related to your big secret?" I asked. The eclipse had not been on the calendar. Nor had anyone had mentioned it on Facebook.

He mumbled something. All I heard was: "Too soon, too soon."

He had ridden an old BMX over, and my road bike was on the porch. We strapped on our helmets, and quickly were breezing along the streets of Southeast Portland. Many of the people we passed on the sidewalks were staring up at the surprise eclipse, using homemade papers and other impromptu gadgetry to view it.

"Where are we going?" I asked, as we waited at a light. Rush hour was catching up with us. A pretty girl in a yellow sun dress came to a stop next to me and I smiled at her. She smiled back, warming my heart, but something was strange. Even under my helmet, I could feel my hair rising as though I was holding a Tesla coil.

Orson saw her too. I saw him start to speak, and then his mouth closed abruptly, a bear trap snapping closed.

My nostrils filled with the scent of ozone; a lightning strike on a dry summer day.

Orson's face erupted with fear. He wasn't pedaling, but his bike was taking him away, wheels spinning and spoke turning. "Go! Ride!" he called to me.

I did not understand, but there was no arguing. I too took off through the intersection, though we didn't have the light. A young dude in a Subaru Outback, accelerating on his green, slammed on his breaks as we shot by him. He honked futilely as we escaped. The girl did not make it around him.

Several blocks later, Orson regained control and skidded his bike onto a sidewalk. The golden light cast eerie shadows across the stately old houses and manicured lawns. There was very little sound, as if the large oaks and pines that grew on the sidewalk had gathered it for themselves.

Bursting with questions, I glanced behind me. There was no sign of anyone following us.

"What just happened to you? What are we running from? Who was that lady on the bike?"

He ignored me. "Where can we go that's safe?" he asked.

"I can go to work." My office was across the river, downtown, but not far away on a bike. This time of day the building would be almost empty.

He cut me off. "Not now that they have seen you, no. We need somewhere... more random."

I looked up at the street sign. We had been riding east, and the street numbers were rising as we gained distance from the Willamette River. I thought of the eclipse and all I could see in my mind was a red smear against black nothingness.

"Let's ride onto 82nd." I suggested. It wasn't a bad stretch, as far as world cities go, but it was the underbelly of Portland; filled with strip clubs, meth labs, unlicensed brothels, and, worst of all, countless karaoke bars. "It's kind of a rough neighborhood; we might escape that way."

"Dude, they come from a region in spacetime so powerful that LIGHT can't escape. I don't think a dodgy boulevard in Portland is going to faze them."

That of course raised far more questions than it answered, but Orson had jumped onto his bike and was pedaling away. I followed him. I always followed him.

### §

Riding on a busy street, without bike lanes, was taxing and by mutual unspoken assent we decided the best place to hide was in a local pub. We only had an hour before we had to meet his mysterious somebody, and we both wanted a drink. He remained truly paranoid—insisting we hide our bikes in the back, unlocked, and then led us into the pub through the rear door.

Apart from the mutton-chopped bartender, there were only half-a-dozen people in the place—it wasn't quite five o'clock yet, and we weren't exactly in a popular area of town. An old dude in a blue baseball cap was drinking lager, four seats away from us. A man and a woman who had the wrinkled, used-up look of long-time regulars were shooting pool. And three big farm boys were drinking tequila at a booth beneath a faded Sierra Nevada poster. Though nobody seemed particularly dangerous, or even vaguely ominous, both of us remained on edge.

"Tell me what's going on. Please," I insisted, after our beers arrived. I was a boring IPA man for life, but Orson swore by Belgian Farmhouse Ales, the harder to pronounce the better.

"It never occurred to you, did it, how much the human race has gone through? We take it completely for granted. War, plague, inflation, genocide, organized religion, reality TV—you name it, we've run the gauntlet of horrors. It's a wonder we're still here."

"What are you suggesting?" I asked. I had to admit: reality tv had been getting much worse.

"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm telling you: Something has actively been trying to crush humanity ever since we crawled out of the primordial goo."

"The devil?" I said, my voice modulated with disapproval. "Come on."

"Not the devil. Nor Rumpelstilskin, nor the Bogeyman. I'm not talking about fairy tales here, Arlo."

"Nor do you need to. Man's innate selfishness is a reasonable explanation for—"

"No it isn't," he scoffed. "That's a myth. Across all cultures, people are overwhelmingly altruistic. Why do we have to reprogram our soldiers? Even then they're capable of great altruism, such as falling on grenades to save their friends. That's definitely not it."

He paused. "You know: 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

"Sure, that's elementary. But what are you saying?"

He hesitated. "I'm worried this might sound a little crazy."

"And everything you've said so far is entirely sane."

He ignored that. "Okay, you remember how in Dune, both Arrakis and Salusa Secundus were the harshest of environments? And the point was, largely, to create super soldiers?"

"Of course." We'd both grown up reading everything of Herbert's we could find. Orson had even owned the Dune board game, though he'd traded it for a box full of X-Men and Cerebrus the Aardvark comics in high school.

"That's what's happening here, man. It gives corruption a whole new meaning."

"How so?"

Again he paused. It was clear that big ideas were working through his head—normally he did not have any problems communicating his thoughts. Not to me.

"You remember the Fremen in the Wheel of Time books?"

"They weren't called that, but sure I do."

"Remember how they originally were tinkers, pledged to non-violence? The holistic hippies of their time. Well, they were us! They are us. Corrupted on a, a global scale. We are innately peaceful and harmonious, but against our enemy we stand no chance."

"I don't know that I follow you," I said.

"There is so much truth in spec fiction," he said, frustration evident in his voice. "Our unconscious minds intuitively grasp what our waking selves will never accept. That's what Lovecraft was all about!"

I had almost lost him, but we were old school friends and I picked up a thread. "So either we're being wiped out by something, or deliberately cultivated to become brutal heartless bastards... by something."

"Yes!"

"Which one? And why?"

His smile could have sold shag to a Moroccan carpet salesman. "I don't know!" The smile faded. "I don't think it much matters, either. But I do know the something. You're not going to like it though."

"I have to tell you, I feel a bit like my house has just been demolished and you're about to tell me you're an alien who will hitchhike around the galaxy with me."

His eyes lit up. "Yes, that's a prefect comparison. In fact, here's your guide."

As I groaned at the pun, he reached into his pocket and threw me a battered notebook. "Read this." I recognized Orson's handwriting immediately and I read it aloud, slowly.

"The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often."

I sipped at the beer as my mouth dried, and then continued. No one in the bar seemed to find me reading aloud very interesting at all.

"We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better thing," I continued slowly. Orson's handwriting was not good.

"See?" Orson said. "It's good stuff. I copied this down from an email forward a couple of years back." I smiled; only Orson would still get chain emails.

"Not finished," I said.

He invited me to continue with a flourish of his hand. I noticed that the bartender was now half-listening.

"Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. And always remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by those moments that take our breath away."

"It's very pretty. Where did you get it from?"

"It's from a speech by George Carlin."

"Rufus?!" I could not hide my surprise.

"Yes, Rufus." Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure had been another of our favorites. "He's connected to all of this."

"I cannot wait to hear how George Carlin relates. But first I want to know how you got involved."

Orson leaned in close, speaking in a stage whisper. "Last January, I started WWOOFing in the Torres Straight islands, just outside Bamaga. Listen, I know it's not fashionable to glorify poverty, but as far as an ethos goes, the Aboriginals got it right. Dreamtime is the closest to Capital T truth any known people have achieved."

I suddenly remembered his college obsession with Bruce Chatwin. When I reminded him of this, he nodded impatiently.

"Sure, maybe that's what brought me there originally. But Dreamtime was much more than I ever could have guessed. I learned more than I can ever explain, more than words themselves are capable of explaining. But ignorance can truly be bliss. It was through that insight that I began to see... the enemy. And look how abject the Aboriginals are! Miserable, by our standards, if not always by theirs. And remember the Fremen. The comparison is apt, I think. They are being punished for their insights." He paused as people walked behind us. The three lumbering farm boys were leaving. Now there were only three others, and the bartender.

"It sounds like you've got kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy here."

"The face that you see it that way shows how well they've been doing."

"Who the fuck is this they?" My mind grasped at what Orson might claim—a new world order, a cabal of bloodthirsty sorcerers, a fallen god. What could have that kind of power?

Again he dodged the question. "You won't believe me."

"Try me."

He stared at the speckled, faded bar top before him and took another sip of his porter. "We've known about them for a hundred years now, if you go by the discovery of Cygnus X-1. Hawking thought we could use them to travel to the future. There's nothing in the universe that we understand so poorly, and it could cost us everything."

"Hawking! You're talking about black holes." The regulars had finished their pool game and were heading outside. I realized that the old dude, the one with the hat, was nowhere to be seen.

Orson nodded somberly. "That's one word for them. I'd use others."

"Elder beings? Great Old Ones?" I pressed him.

"Look, old HP was a misogynistic racist cyclopean hack of a writer. But he stumbled onto something meaningful—maybe too meaningful, if you look at how early he died. How else could explain his lasting popularity?"

"I might just say certain things get popular, without rhyme or reason." I said. "Besides, if we're talking Lovecraft, we're talking tentacles and stygian darkness, right?"

"Perhaps to the latter. Certainly not to the former. You have to remember that in the early 20th century, a tentacle was shorthand for the hideously exotic. It was a manifestation of that which cannot be manifested. You really think Cthulhu would look part dragon, part man, and part octopus? All things that we already know? No—our human understanding is too puny, too insignificant to began to understand."

The old dude came out of the bathroom and walked out the front door. We were alone. The face that this was unusual at 5 pm—drink o'clock—did not occur to me.

"I guess this all sounds pretty crazy," my friend said.

"It does." Seeing his face, I added: "Relax. I believe you."

He was dumfounded. "You do? Why?"

"Hey, we read all the same books. Everything I read, people doubted their friends until it was too late. I always vowed to be ready for something like this. I'd rather be crazy for believing you than not and suffer something terrible. There's no way I'm going to Edmund your Lucy."

"That's great. I hoped I could count on you. That really saves us some time."

"Can the black holes reach us? What can they do?"

"Their agents can."

"Agents?"

"Yeah, material that leaves the black hole. We've guessed it was radiation. Or dark matter, anti-matter, what have you. It's not any of those things. There are agents all over the earth, and have been maybe forever."

"And nobody's seen them?"

"They're not in the visible spectrum, unless they want to be. But I suspect people do at times see them; they just credit the visions to ghosts, angels, aliens, that sort of thing. More worryingly, they can take over people, like Agent Smith in the Matrix. You can tell when they are around because the normal rules of physics bend. That's why my bike slid away; Newton's laws weren't working in that particular bubble."

"How did they find you? How did they get here?"

"That eclipse we saw—it was clumsy; they must be spooked—but that was their agents landing here. For me. And you too now."

"Why?"

"The black hole doesn't want anyone to know about it. Those who glimpse its nature are crushed or driven insane. Those who spread word of its existence—even vaguely, like old HP—are hunted down and killed like dogs."

"But that eclipse just happened. Even at the speed of light, it would take some time to get here."

"Arlo," my friend said sadly. "They're faster than the speed of light. They travel at the speed of dark."

"So you're saying you've put me up against the only true malevolent and evil force in the universe?" I asked. "It can travel faster than comprehension, and it has a deadly vendetta against both of us?"

"That's about the size of it," he admitted.

"Thank you," I said. He understood why. Even if we died, this—at last—was life. The life promised to us by Herbert, Mirrlees, Tolkien and L'Engle.

The bartender ambled over. "Another round?" His voice sounded strangely hollow; and our beers were still more than half full. I hesitantly sniffed at the air and was dismayed to have the sharp, acrid scent of ozone once again fill my nostrils.

Orson's mouth opened in surprise and I followed his gaze. The hair on my head jumped for the ceiling. Our glasses slid across the bar, as smoothly as if they were sliding across ice. When they reached the edge, they continued to float, just as though there wasn't and had never been any such thing as gravity.

I didn't need Orson to tell me to run. I was out the back door just behind him, and we grabbed our bikes and hit the street. The sky was the normal muted golden of a summery autumn day and there was no sign of the eclipse.

"That was stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." Orson berated himself. He didn't look back at me as he rode through the purple light of late evening. My bike should have been much faster than his, especially as we climbed uphill, on the flanks of Mt. Tabor. But I could not reach him, and his lead grew by half-blocks and blocks.

Once he had reached the top of the hill, he stopped. It was still light enough to see the city spreading before us, the Willamette River some fifty blocks away, the high rises of downtown across the river, and the jagged intersection of Hawthorne Boulevard that cut through a city that from above was indistinguishable from forest. The once-beautiful reservoirs had been emptied, but otherwise the picture presented to us was perfect. I found Orson admiring it, leaning on his little bike as he stared at the city below him.

"I forgot how nice it is here," he said.

"Orson," I said. "Where are we going? I can't just keep fleeing willy-nilly with you. If there's somewhere we can go, we need to get there." I stopped my bike next to his, leaning it on the pine-needle covered bench.

His voice sounded distracted, distant. "We're going to see the people who represent the opposite of what we face. There's a group, a quasi-religion you might say. We are meeting with the high priest of this organization."

An organization dedicated to fighting agents of black holes? This was staggering stuff, and although I wanted to believe him my mind was growing fatigued from all the new information. "We're off to see the wizard, is that you're saying?"

His smile was embarrassed. "I didn't believe it all at first either, and I had longer to get used to it. And as luck would have it, she lives right here in Portland. Same as you. Now you know why I had to get you involved." Two bikes pulled over at the bench next to ours. I eyed the ladies who climbed down, but they didn't seem any more suspicious than the dozen or so people playing Frisbee, reading, or having picnics on the very top of Tabor.

"She?" I had been picturing a shaven, red-robed priest, a long-haired wild shaman, a bearded professor.

"I know. Gender is such a clumsy construct when you're thinking on a cosmic scale."

"So who is this lady? How can she help us?"

"Think of her as... sort of the unofficial High Priest of Taoism?"

"Refresh my memory. Comparative religion was a while back now."

"Easy. When Americans speak of Buddhism or Zen, they really mean Taoism. The way that can be called the way is not the way. Interestingly, Zen just means Chinese Buddhism in Japan—"

"And there is a priest?" I interrupted. It was hard to keep Orson on track sometimes.

"Unofficially, yeah, I guess so. The position was held by the Chinese since Lao Tzu, then Bruce Lee brought it to America. When he died, the mantle was assumed by George Carlin." The two ladies locked up their bikes, and pulled out yoga mats from their packs.

"Aha, that's how he's connected. That explains your notebook, at least."

"Indeed. He was the social gadfly, the one who strove to change society. When he died in aught-eight, the position, such as it is, passed to the current holder. Keep in mind that these terms and concepts are so vague as to only be loose approximations, but, you know, language... what you gonna do?"

"Is she famous too?" The two yoga ladies were still standing by their bikes. I eyed them nervously, but the world was behaving normally; nothing was floating away. I couldn't be paranoid about everyone, and Orson, more concerned than me, did not look at them.

"It is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them."

"Orson, is all this just a ploy to bring me to an Ursula K. LeGuin signing?"

"I wish, Arlo, I wish."

One of the ladies stretched while the other walked toward us. We both watched her, fear and caution blossoming in our hearts. We waited, like rabbits ready to spring away.

False alarm. Nothing floated away; the laws of physics continued to remain in force. She was slim, tattooed and had blue hair. A typical Portlander, in other words. She smiled at us, and her pink lips opened.

"Namaste. Do either of you know a good yoga studio? I just moved to town and I'm looking for something fun."

"No," Orson said. "Not from around here, sorry."

I was suspicious. "Just moved here? How recently?"

"About an hour ago," Blue-hair said, and her voice was full of dark triumph. She opened her yoga mat and the world began screaming at my head. Light, shape, sound, smell, texture, and substance all slid into that blue vinyl mat, disappearing so quickly that their very existence was no longer certain.

"It's an event horizon!" Orson said, pushing me behind him. His voice sound so, so distant. "Nothing, not even light, can escape. Go find Leguin!" he said. Then he too slipped—not sucked in so much as having the information about him much more evenly distributed around the mat, around the world, around everything. He wasn't gone, per se, but as an observer, I could no longer see his initial condition information.

The woman turned to me, her yoga mat held before her like a sucking leech. I thought I might have a chance to run, to hop on my bike and fly down the mountain. But what would I be running back to? I knew not where the high priest lived.

And who knew what lay down this rabbit hole, through this wardrobe? Even immediate oblivion was preferable to the decrepit reality I had consigned myself to. And my best friend was already there. There was no choice to be made. I stepped toward the mat, into the absence—and totality—of all things.

I followed Orson. I always did.

Story Notes:

Written 2013

Unpublished

This story began as an attempt to write hard scifi. Hardish scifi anyway. You can see how well I did. It morphed into something very strange; I consider this story my love letter to the spec fic field. Despite what the end suggests, these characters do survive to appear in Cthulhu Kaiju.

### The Beginning of All Things

Photo: Ahimsa Kerp

Ladji opened the door and flung his messenger bag aside. "Is he here?" he asked. His face was covered by a sheen of sweat conjured by the early April heat and his eyes shone with fevered excitement.

"Not yet," Nami said, walking in from the kitchen. "He's not scheduled until three, and you know how rarely a Govi shows up on time."

Ladji sighed. "I know. I just can't wait. Marcus let me go early today, even." Ladji never took time off, not even when he was sick. It had enabled him to save quite a large amount of money, which was currently held by a local credit union. He sat down on the dirt floor and sighed.

"Jesus, it's hot. I remember when summer didn't start in March. When April didn't always hit a hundred degrees."

"Relax," Nami said. "We attended the best classes we could have. We got our license within the last three months. And we have five years of negative carbon footprint. Surely this time..."

"Surely this time," Ladji echoed. "If they don't accept us, we'll have to wait another five years."

"Stop it," Nami said. "You'll stress yourself out."

"Five years from now I'll be 41—too old. My dad was only 23."

"You know that was before," Nami said. "Things are different now. As they should be."

"I know it's as it should be, dammit. Let's not rehash that. Not now," Ladji said. He stood up and stretched. There was a sweaty remnant from his butt on the dirt floor where he'd been sitting.

"I haven't been this nervous in years," he said with a laugh. "I've been living this moment for weeks, for months. I keep wondering what is going to go wrong."

Nami wrapped her arms around him and gave him a wordless hug. Ladji hugged back, but he was too preoccupied to lose himself in the moment. He glanced out the front door.

At that moment, at precisely three o'clock, Ladji saw a man ride up on a bicycle. He had the homespun clothes that most government workers wore. His long hair and somewhat matted beard attested to his high station with the Department of Birth. He parked his bike next to Ladji's own and walked up to the door.

"Well," he said. He held a notepad made of papyrus, which had become very popular. "You have dirt floors. Good. Let us see what else you have done."

He walked throughout their home, making notes and mumbling to himself. Ladji watched him, willing himself not to interrupt. He couldn't help but admire the man's clothing though. It was made of hemp, and naturally colored. He clearly had some skill at weaving as well—the clothes looked functional and sturdy.

The Inspector sat cross-legged on the ground and took more notes. Ladji exchanged another hug with Nami. His stomach was filled not with butterflies but with growling weasels, clawing and ripping their way through him. He'd never been so nervous!

The Inspector rose.

"You have a garden?" he asked.

"We do," Nami said.

"Of course we do," Ladji added. "And we don't use a mower. Or sprinklers." Ladji added. "We let everything grow naturally and rely on the rain and grey water for our crops."

"We grow lentils, beans, some herbs, and tomatoes. We use soybeans to create our own milks and cheeses, of course," Nami added. "We haven't been to a restaurant for many years."

"Good," said the Inspector, making a note. "Good."

"We're thinking," Ladji added. "Of getting a goat. It can dispense with our organic waste, and we can use it for milk and dairy."

"There have been an increasing amount of caprine based decisions this year," the Inspector said. "Of course, better still not to waste anything organic, and your compost will do something similar, but one could make a worse choice."

He scratched a few more notes in his little book.

"Well, I have to admit... I have rarely seen as neat a ship as you two run. I'll have to check your flight and driving records, but assuming they are what you claim... well, Congratulations." He hesitated. "I am quite thirsty and I've given up water bottles until they make them out of neither plastic nor metal. Do you think I might try some of your soymilk?"

"Of course," Ladji and Nami said together.

He opened their small refrigerator. It was a luxury, but this model was green-certified and used only the energy their solar power panels provided.

"It is so hot tod—"

The Inspector stopped speaking mid-word, and stared, horrified, at something in the fridge.

Ladji realized that he hadn't used it for weeks; nor had he thought to check it.

"Oh no," the Inspector said. "Oh no no no."

Nami had drained of color.

"What is it?" Ladji demanded to know.

The Inspector snapped his hand in and withdrew a package of red meat.

"I don't believe it," he said in a strangled voice. "Is this lamb?"

Ladji lost the ability of speech for a few moments.

"It is," Nami said miserably.

"Where did this come from?"

"Easter is coming up, and—"

"Where did it come from?" he asked again.

"The supermarket," Nami, miserable, confessed. "I'm Greek, and we traditionally—"

"I don't want to hear it!" The Inspector said. "I can't believe you wasted my time. Lamb has the highest carbon footprint of all foods. Do you know how much methane sheep create? At least cows have more edible meat! You might as well have stored bottled water in here! This is blatantly a failure of the inspection."

Ladji felt numb with shock. "Surely," he stammered. "You understand. We don't own a car, a computer, or drink coffee. I try not to bike on paved roads. We haven't eaten at a restaurant in six years. With everything else, you can overlook this one small thing."

"Overlook?" the Inspector said. He turned so that his bearded face was very close to Ladji. "It's not a crime to have such environmentally damaging foods, not yet, but if I had my way you would be imprisoned for this. Good day to you."

He left immediately, striding through the door with great haste. He stopped to pick up his bicycle and pedaled away. Ladji watched him pedal away until he was out of sight and then he collapsed onto the ground.

Nami sat down next to him and stroked his hair.

Long moments of silence passed. Ladji was breathing deeply, creating a blanket of tranquility he could wrap about himself. In his mind, all he could see was the govi Inspector pedaling away.

"I'm so sorry," she said at last.

And with that the blanket disappeared.

"What the fuck?" Ladji said. He sprang up, away from her touch, and turned to face her. "Now I'll be sterile for another five years, at least! The first forty years of my life gone, and I can't fulfill the basic function of humanity. When did you buy that? Why did you buy that?"

"I said I was sorry. I don't know what else to say."

"I guess you've got five more years to think about it. So do I."

"Five years isn't so long," she said. "Next time.

"Next time? Five more years of classes? Of educational training and not being able to drive or fly to counteract the damage bringing a human into the world? And what's to stop you from sabotaging it next time? You never wanted kids like I did."

"That's not fair. I was dedicated. I never keep eating meat, to keep going to bars and restaurants. The cost of having children isn't fair, but I've gladly paid it."

"Not fair? Let's not talk of fair right now," he said. Like a balloon deflating, Ladji took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "It's just. I really thought we'd be some of the lucky few. That I could get the operation, and we could have a child of our own. I thought this time we would do it."

She looked at him, and her sadness brought tears to his eyes.

"I'm going back to work," he said. "Marcus can use me today."

### §

They did not speak again until late that night. Ladji came home and picked some lettuce and kale from the garden. With fresh tomatoes and basil, it made for a meal that was healthy, quick, and green in more ways than one. He finished chewing absent-mindedly and wandered into the bedroom. It was dark outside but still far too warm. The house had never had air-conditioning, of course, and they had gotten rid of fans when they went off the grid.

Nami was asleep on the floor. They had gotten rid of their bed four years ago. But they had used recycled clothes to create quilts and their sleeping area was very comfortable.

Ladji lay down next to her. He could smell her sweat faintly in the stifling room.

He wrapped his arm around her, wondering if she was asleep.

"What do you think," she asked, clearly very awake. "About the other option? About the Gadflies."

He didn't say anything.

"Isn't it worth discussing?" she asked.

"It's all I've been thinking about all day," Ladji said. "But we've discussed it. We don't know if their drugs really do undo sterility. Even if they can, we'll be outlaws. We'll have to raise our baby in secret."

She said nothing.

"Maybe it is a price worth paying," he said at last. He was getting too emotional, was on the verge of tears. Nami never said anything, but he knew she hated his tears. He had never seen her cry, not when she had fallen from her bike and broken her arm. Not when her own father had died. He took several deep breaths and slowly found sleep in a room that echoed with silence.

### §

"I don't know," she said the next morning. "We were so emotional last night. I don't feel comfortable about seeing them anymore."

"I do," Ladji said, laughing. She clearly needed more reassuring. "We have done more for the earth than any of our friends. But for a twist of fate, we'd be able to officially have children. This will work. This must work."

She sighed and said nothing, looking at him for a long time.

"I know where they live. Outside the city limits of course, so only the Fed govis can do anything about them. And I'm sure they've issued them a thousand and one citations." There was no branch of federal government that could enforce laws anymore, not since the state and local rights campaigns of the 2020's.

"Do you have any idea of what you're getting into?" Nami asked. "What do you really know about them?"

Ladji hesitated. He imagined the Gadflies were like the mob had been in the 20th century. Everyone knew, or thought they knew, something about them. But it was all rumors and supposition.

"I know they can make our dreams come true," he said, rising. "I don't know when I'll be back."

It was another scorcher of a day; it seemed summer came earlier and earlier each year. Though he was accustomed to riding his bike everywhere, the Gadflies were far enough out of town that his legs quickly ached. It took almost three hours of uphill pedaling before he got to his destination.

The Gadflies lived in old-style houses, blatant resource wasters that were illegal in the city limits. He couldn't find the bike rack, which was odd. There were several cars parked on the paved driveway, however, and he left his bike standing there. With a deep sigh, he walked up to the house.

The doors were automatic. Ladji couldn't hide how shocked he was at such a blatant misuse of power. He hadn't even seen an automatic door in at least ten years. Even more shockingly, he saw as he came further into the house, they were eating cheeseburgers. He had nearly forgotten they existed, though every now and then he did miss them. His mind knew that eating one was the equivalent to driving 1500 miles in a car, but his stomach didn't seem to understand nearly as well.

There were electric lights on everywhere and he thought he heard the hum of air-conditioning.

"What is this place," he murmured, half to himself. It was like stepping back in time. The sheer opulence shocked him, offended him, but it also caressed him with decadently soft fingers. The air conditioning was a blessing cast by a benevolent god.

One the men, a half-chewed bit of burger in his mouth, saw him and stood up. He walked up to Ladji, looking him up and down with pointed interest.

"Nope, too risky," he said at last. "Get out."

"What?" said Ladji. "I've got money. I was lead to believe I could receive help here."

"You were lead to believe wrong," a tall brown-haired man said. He, too, stood up from the table and approached. "Name's Bausi," he said, extending his hand to Ladji. "If Abimbola here doesn't like the look of you, and he doesn't, then you need to go."

"What the fuck," Ladji said, his customary good humor evaporated. "First I get rejected by the govis, and then the Black Market follows suite." Abimbola wandered away, outside of the building.

"That's exactly the point," Bausi said. "We live here not because we can't live without air-conditioning or cheeseburgers, or washing machines. We have chosen, ideologically, that it's not the government's place to take those things away from us. You, on the other hand, try to live according to their dictates. You see us as a last-case scenario. So, on behalf of last-case scenarios everywhere, fuck off."

"That's not true. We live different lives, but I don't disapprove of you at all."

"You don't disprove of me? Well that's the best news I've heard all day."

"That's not what I meant."

Abimbola returned from the outside. "Hey, nice bike. Maybe next Christmas you can ask Santa for training wheels."

"None of you have bikes? They're all we have, in the city."

"No shit. We drive—in cars—when we want to go somewhere. And we can go anywhere. Even to the airport. Now, it was a pleasure to meet you, but it's time for you to go."

"I'll pay you 15,000 dollars," Ladji blurted out. It was all of his money, and then some. But he had never wanted something so much in his life.

The two men before him exchanged a glance. "Maybe we can talk after all," Bausi said. "Care for a beer? It's imported."

### §

The ride back had been all downhill, and he felt as though he were flying. He walked in through the door, wishing for just a moment that it would open for him. He thought he could still smell cheeseburgers; the impact of meeting those men would clearly stay with him for some time.

Nami was in the kitchen, hunched over their small table.

"I'm going to do it," he said. "It wasn't easy, but they accepted me."

She turned to face him. She had been crying, and held half a burger close to her mouth.

"Nami, what are you doing?"

"I'm eating a fucking burger," she said. "I'm sick and tired of not living the life I want to." She put the last of the burger in her mouth and chewed furiously.

The floor fell out from under Ladji and somehow landed on his head. "What, what are you saying."

"The first thing I did when you left was ride my bike to McDonalds. I ate three burgers there and brought another home."

"That processed crap?" he asked. "Eating there is like cutting down a rainforest yourself." He could suddenly see wasteful packaging all over their house.

She stood up to face him. "I know. But nothing has ever tasted better in my life," she said.

Ladji grabbed his head with both hands. "I can't believe what I'm hearing."

"I can't do it, Ladji. I just can't. I know it was my mistake, but five more years of living like animals...I just can't do it."

"The earth suddenly isn't important to you?" he asked.

"Of course it is," she said. "But I am important to me too. If we don't have a child, we can eat meat, drive, or fly. Why must we give up so much?"

"You always wanted children," he said.

"I always wanted to enjoy my life too," she said.

He stared at her. "You bought the lamb on purpose, didn't you?"

She looked away, unable to meet his grey eyes. "I don't know. Maybe."

He wanted to scream as frustration and regret filled him like dark bile. But he suppressed the impulse, turned it to a heavy sigh. So much had gone wrong.

He bit his upper lip, pondering. "I'm going back tomorrow. They are going to remove my sterilization. They have false certifications too. It's even better than we thought."

"Ladji, if you do this... you'll do it alone. I think I like you better sterile." Her voice sounded different than he'd ever heard before.

He ground his teeth. "I will do this. On my own, if I have to. Once they've made me potent again, I can propagate with anyone."

"Anyone but me," she said softly. He saw then that she was crying.

Story Notes:

Written 2011

First Published: Origins Anthology 2012

This one is a sister to Holiday Kinetic, in that it uses the near future to explore issues of today. I do suspect that soon the issue of children will become very important, and it's possible future generations will look back on our fertile years the way we look back upon racists of yesteryear. Or maybe I'm wrong. Either way, it's fun to speculate about how future generations will see us.

### HORROR

### Mr. Potato Head

Art: Nahid Taheri

Suffer the Demon failed for the final time. The demon goddess Quzan was angry, and banished him to the mortal plane until he claimed one-hundred lives. Because the demon was a loudmouth bully, Quzan added a twist. Each time Suffer killed, he transformed into something more innocuous than before. He'd had his true powers for his first kill, by kill fifty was reduced to a rabid dog, and he'd made kill number ninety-eight as a hummingbird. That had been thirty years ago, as the mortals reckoned them. Suffer was stuck, one kill short of returning to his planar existence as an all powerful, cyclopean entity. Quzan sensed his impotent rage and delighted in it. So she changed the rules a tiny bit.

### §

Harry jumped into his new Volkswagen Fox and turned up the radio. Huey Lewis blasted through the high-fi speakers. Harry scrambled for his new Rick Astley tape and popped it in as quickly as he could. That had been close. He couldn't stand Huey Lewis or the News. The tape player had come with the car and it sounded amazing. Eight-tracks could never sound like that!

He hummed along, driving through the dark, nearly empty streets while on his way to visit Clare. Clare was cool, different than the chicks he'd dated in college. She wasn't a hippy, for one thing. She had a kid, for another, which was weird but not as bad as he'd expected. Sometimes it was fun to play matchbox cars or Lite Brite with the little guy. They'd been dating for two months now, and it was going well.

He pulled up to Clare's house a few minutes later. Her car was on the street, but all the lights were off. Odd. It was after ten, but she knew he was coming over. She was probably watching TV. He walked up to the door and opened it without knocking, a recent liberty. Despite his best efforts, Huey Lewis was in his head. It's hip to be square.

Something was wrong. The house smelled of sulfur and copper. It was dark, too; darker than Harry had ever seen. An active, malevolent darkness, rather than a mere absence of light. The light from outside could not penetrate the barrier of dark that existed in the house.

"Clare?" he called, taking one careful step into the house. "Brian?"

There was no answer. Harry's hand reached for the light switch but in the dark he could not find it. He could hear something, though. Something was dripping within that dark hollow house.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Every part of Harry's soul told him to get out of the house. He could call the cops or come back tomorrow or do something other than this. He took another step in. The coppery smell grew more intense. His hand, still scrambling for the light switch, brushed against something sticky.

He felt a warm breath on his neck as the dripping continued. The black darkness increased manifold. Harry was not sure if his eyes were closed or open. Drip. Drip. Drip. Whatever was dripping was falling into a puddle.

Fighting the urge to scream, Harry turned and ran back to the door. But he could not find it. Nothing was there; it was too dark to see. He slammed into the wall and suddenly, mercifully there was the light switch. He flicked it on and blinked in the sudden cessation of darkness. The light was weak and seemed wrong, as though it didn't belong.

Harry was at the end of hallway, looking into the living room. No one was there; nothing was there. It seemed normal. Brian had left his Mr. Potato Head in the middle of the floor, right on the woven carpet Clare had brought back from Mexico. By coincidence, the toy's eyes were scrunched up, as though the light were blinding it too. Harry checked behind the couch and around the room as best he could, but whatever had been dripping was not in here.

Harry checked the kitchen and the bathroom. Nothing was dripping in either, as far as he could tell. He checked Clare's room; no one was in there. There was no sign of a struggle or anything. His mind grasped for a plausible explanation for this. Where had she gone? Only two places were left, and one he didn't want to think about.

He opened Brian's room. Nothing strange in here, except that Brian had left another Mr. Potato Head toy on his bed. The face on this one seemed angry; frightfully angry.

You're going to die something whispered in Harry's mind. He slammed the door shut and returned to the living room. He smelled the tangy, coppery smell of blood, stronger than ever. He was shaking.

Harry was out of options. He grabbed a flashlight from the top of the fridge, and walked out the backdoor down into the basement.

The basement smelled of mold and rotting fruit, dust and death. It was warm too, almost hot. Harry unbuttoned his top collar and shone the light around.

A voice that sounded of cold stone spoke in his head. Death, death, death it said. Harry's mind countered with: I want a new drug. Damn that Huey Lewis. He really didn't want to die with that song in his head.

To his surprise, Mr. Potato Head sat in the basement on the card table Clare brought up for parties. There was something on the table, sodden lumps of red and pink. The ceiling above dripped blood. With a sudden, sick shriek, Harry realized exactly what had happened to Clare and Brian. The potato's face was complete, utter evil. Blood was on its lips.

Time to Suffer the rocky voice in his head whispered. His flashlight went out.

Harry screamed and screamed.

### §

Later that night, Mr. Potato Head disappeared from the house forever.

Story Notes:

Written 2008

First Published in The New Flesh, 2010

Audiocast in Tales to Terrify September 2013

This story came from a prompt that required the use of a childhood toy in a horror setting. A few members in my writing group the Wordmongers submitted stories, which we used to do with some frequency. I think Craig Comer or Garrett Calcaterra actually won, but this story found a home a few years later. I think it was the gratuitous Huey Lewis references that really helped it.

### Antediluvian

Photo/Art: Ahimsa Kerp

Splash.

He wore a very good shirt. Anders did not like to spend money on many things, but he made an exception for shirts like this. Even his jeans and shoes only cost a fraction of the value of it. It had been one of the things he hated the most about military service—dressing the same every day, looking the same as everyone else. Now as a night watchmen, he could wear any wardrobe he liked, as long as it was dark colored.

Splash.

He paced outside the dark building again, measuring his footsteps. The Valhalla Security Firm paid him to guard the Nobel Peace Center in the heart of Oslo. He arrived at 20:00 and left the next morning at 8:00. It was a position he was lucky to have, just one year out of videregående and most of his friends only now going to university. But nothing ever happened here and, yes, it was nice to be close to the Oslofjord and the waterfront, but he wanted to do more than fend drunk Finns away from the famed building. It was a safe city, so unprepared for crime that Munch's "The Scream" had been stolen from a museum. Twice.

Splash.

His heart started beating quickly as his mind suddenly became aware of the noises he had been hearing. He took several steps forward, scanning the dark quay. It was April and still very cold. Few people were out and those who were had bundled against the cold wind.

Anders knew with an intuition he never doubted: someone was in the fjord, perhaps climbing up into the city and trying to be very quiet. The same intuition also told him who it must be.

He strode forward. The Swedes had found evidence of Russian submarines in Stockholm recently and common sense revealed that Oslo would soon follow. His hand found his radio. Though not allowed a weapon or even handcuffs, Anders had utter confidence in his ability in hand-to-hand combat, even against a presumed Russian commando. He had not ever lost a fist fight in his life.

There was only one problem. No one was there. He looked again, along the wooden docks and now closed, upscale restaurants. His eyes scanned the dark water of the fjord, looking for bubbles or ripples or any sign of life.

Anders frowned in stubborn unhappiness. Some part of him refused to believe the sounds he had only half heard were innocuous. His sister had always said that once his mind was made up, there was no changing it.

Splash.

He sprinted toward the sound. It was further down the walkway, deeper in the darkness. Anders stopped, midstep, as a dripping figure climbed onto the boardwalk. It was darker than the night itself, and smelled of sewage and rotting centuries. Bits of it reflected the lights of Oslo back toward Anders. Once it was on the dock, it did not move.

"Stop," Anders called. The word was more or less the same in Russian and English and Norwegian and he felt safe using it.

The still figure moved toward him. The smell grew worse and Anders coughed uncontrollably, resisting the urge to retch. He looked closer through watery eyes. It was too dark to see details, but Anders was certain of one thing.

It wasn't a Russian. It wasn't even human.

"What are you?" Anders asked, his voice still firm. Whether faced by alien or mutant or monster, Anders remained confident in his ability to handle this situation. He hadn't had a good fight since leaving the army anyway.

The thing eased forward and appeared instantly before Anders. The young night watchman did not hesitate; he punched it twice in the stomach and then roundhouse kicked it hard in the chest, with enough force to knock it back into the fjord. The shadowy thing did not fall. It responded by reaching two murky arms forward and ripping Ander's head from his body. The man didn't even have time to register his surprise before died.

His corpse sunk slowly to the ground, blood flowing across the boards, onto his very nice shirt, and ultimately into the sea. There was a lot of blood. The dark creature, human head still clutched firmly in its hands, slipped unseen into the city.

### §

Karoline hung up her phone and walked out of the library, too stunned to even tell her coworkers or manager that she was leaving early. She was not crying. Her heels clacked on the long set of stairs as she scrambled in her purse for her phone.

She would have preferred to speak with her mother, but mum was vacationing in Malaysian Borneo. with her new husband. So Karoline rung her father, Henrik Børstad. Børstad, for so even his friends called him, was an erect little man with formal manners and as a rule preferred handshakes to hugs. He was more proud of his surname, which went back to ancient times, than anything else—including, Karoline had realized at an early age, his children. But he was her only father. She sat down on an empty bench just outside the library as the phone rang.

He answered at once. A curt "Yes?"

"Børstad, it's me," Karoline said. "I have just received a call from the police." She paused, hoping perhaps that he had already heard.

"The police?" His voice was slightly distant, as though driving through a tunnel. "What have you done?"

She smiled at his familiar bluntness as the cold wind blew through her hair; her cheeks remained dry. "Nothing. But Anders, he." It was too ridiculous to say, and she could not risk making it true.

"What has he done?" Børstad snapped. "I cannot bail that unnatural little pervert out every time he falls in love."

"It's not like that," she said. Her voice was very flat as she told him what happened. His body discovered by an early morning jogger. His head missing and presumed to be floating away somewhere in the Oslofjord. Børstad was still spluttering denials when she hung up. Her feet carried her away while her mind spun.

I am probably in shock, she realized and instantly felt a little better. Diagnosis always improved her mood. Once something had a name, it was less terrifying, more manageable. A small part of her brain saw the National Gallery on her right and she realized what that meant.

Memories of Anders she had not known still existed flooded her. She was four years older but they had been best friends growing up on the west coast of Norway. She had taught him how to ski, how to downhill bike ride, and later, though not much later, how to drink Aquavit and homemade apple brandy. If he'd been so inclined, she would have introduced him to one of her girlfriends.

Before she knew it, Karoline was at the Nobels Fredssenter, known to the world as the Nobel Peace Center. The place where her brother had spent the last moments of his life and now a small crowd had gathered to watch an English busker juggle swords while riding a unicycle. She stopped at the café Alfred and bought a locally sourced, sustainable bowl of fruit and berries and a mineral vann to wash it down but this was the last form of procrastination she needed.

She found the walkway where he had died on her third try. She knew it was the right one because they had not been able to wash all the blood from the wooden slats. Oh, to anyone else it just looked like oil or weathered wood, but she knew. They couldn't wash it all away.

On the bus ride back to her apartment in Gronland, the central, multicultural neighborhood in Oslo where mosques rubbed shoulders with Opera Houses, she looked at her phone and realized her father had called her four times. In one day. That had never happened. Of course, her little brother had never been murdered before either. She giggled a little at the inappropriate thought and received dirty looks from the stern old women who traveled to Gronland for the cheapest fruits and veggies in Oslo.

She walked into her second-floor studio still only half-aware of the world around her. She did not eat that night. Instead, she sat on her bed and stared into space for many hours, a full glass of red wine untouched on her bedside table, until at last sleep claimed her.

She awoke sometime later, still dressed, in the dark. Something was scratching at her door. The smell of dust and rotting fish filled her nostrils as she lay there, breathing softly, trying to regain full awareness.

The scratching sound continued. It was meticulously ominous and her heart began to beat in fear. Karoline did the only thing she could think of and pulled a blanket over her head. It was like being eight years old again, and she wanted nothing more than to have Anders snuggle next to her. Even as a boy, nothing had ever scared him. She did not fall asleep, not exactly, but when she opened her eyes again the sounds had stopped. Indeed, every sound in the world had stopped and she held her breath, listening intently.

The surety struck her.

Something is in my house.

The rotting smell of the sea was stronger than ever, even through her blanket. She peeked out, ever so slowly.

There was still no sound in her house. No movement, no shadows playing on the wall.

And yet Karoline became convinced that something stood close to her bed. Something was staring at her. Watching her sleep.

Panic filled her even though she knew she was being silly. Slowly she exhaled and pulled the blanket down. Her eyes strained in the dark, but street light from the big window next to her bed added just enough brightness. She almost gasped when she saw two things at once.

Her door was open.

A dark shape was only a meter away from her.

She was up and out of bed, running for the door before she had taken another breath. A slimy hand grabbed her arm and pulled at her with incredible force. She had the sense of seaweed drooping, of bits of machinery and plastic grafted into the chest and part of an arm. The head was vaguely fishlike. These were the vague impressions, instantly acquired and lost nearly as quickly as the thing squeezed.

Her arm splintered in pain as the bone broke in several places. Karoline's scream shuddered into a gasp as the overwhelming rotting sea stench assaulted her. She retched, dry-heaving, while the creature's' fingers dug into her arm.

Her other hand reached back to her bed and clasped the blanket. She threw it at the invader; luck was with her, and the blanket covered the thing's head. The painful grip did not lessen, but she grabbed the only other thing she could reach—her wine glass—and drove it into the thing's head with all of her force.

It made no sound but released her, both scaly hands reaching for its face. Karoline bolted for the door and down the street. Only then did the pain set in.

### §

Karoline shakily emerged from the hospital late the next day. The evening sky was darkening and the smell from a waffle cart filled the air. She was tranquil from oversleep and painkillers.

She couldn't go home. That she knew. How the creature that had killed her brother—and she had no doubt that it was so—had tracked her to her home was a question for later. The immediate problem was one of place: where could she go?

She did not have many friends in Oslo. The price of being an introvert now showed itself. The only ones she could ring were Cato and Anna, and they were currently doing something sciencey in the States. Her father lived far away and would not welcome her. Or, perhaps, she did not welcome him.

There was only one choice, really. Karoline slowly walked to the safest place she knew.

It wasn't far from the hospital. The library was mostly empty this late on a cold weeknight, and the closing hour loomed. Thomas and Malin were working at the circulation desk. When they saw her arm in a sling, both gasped.

"Where did you go on Tuesday? The boss is worried," Thomas said.

"What happened?" Malin asked.

Karoline told them about her brother and said the same thing she had said at the hospital. "I fell down the stairs and landed on my arm. I didn't even think I was drunk until it was too late." She laughed self-deprecatingly.

The doctor at the hospital had eyed the dark thumb-shaped bruises on her arm and frowned but had said nothing. Thomas and Malin could not see the marks of her attacker and so the story was more easily swallowed.

"Can I help?" Malin asked. "I can make extra dinner and bring some to your flat."

"That would be nice," Karoline said, though she had no desire to ever return to that apartment. "But I am actually here to see Magnus."

Malin swallowed her surprise. "Oh." It was a question, asking for elaboration, but when none came she added. "He's up there, last I checked."

Karoline said goodbye and made her way up to the rare books room.

Magnus sat behind a battered desk cluttered with the weight of a thousand tomes. He looked as though he spent much of the year living in a grass roofed hut north of the Artic Circle, which he did, and as though he spent much of that time battling Trolls, which he probably didn't but Karoline would not have wanted to place a large wager on that. If anyone she had ever met was born and capable of fighting Trolls, it would be the burly and bearded Magnus. A small collection of sharp knives resting on homemade displays on each of the four walls of the room added to his capable aura.

He didn't ask her about her arm, or even seem to notice it. He just looked at her, eyes steady. "Hi there," he said. "What's wrong?"

In a rush, Karoline blurted out everything that had happened to her. Halfway through, she almost stopped talking, realizing how ridiculous it all sounded. But Magnus nodded at her solemnly; a mute request for her to continue. She did, finishing with the attack in her home and her near escape.

Magnus frowned. "I read a lot. Not all of what you would call is fictional. I probably know more about legends and conspiracy theories than most people."

"You can help?" she asked.

He frowned. "It depends on what you mean by help. But your description of this invader, and the overwhelming sea smell, they suggest something to me."

"Yes," Karoline moved some books and papers—written in old Norse—off a chair and sat down. Her arm throbbed beneath the cast.

Magnus paused. "This all sounds mad of course. But," he shrugged expansively, "if you are willing to believe a fairy tale I have one to tell you."

"Tell me."

"Long ago, and we are talking the late 4th millennium B.C.E," Magnus said. "There was a man called Gilgamesh who lived in Sumeria. He is the first recorded hero, capital H."

She nodded her familiarity.

"Gilgamesh had a friend Enki. Also known as Akkadian, or Ea. His function was to establish culture for mankind. Develop civilization from scratch. To help him do so, he created the seven sages. These were depicted as fishmen, and they did much on behalf of man, developing not only crafts and arts like writing, law, and agriculture but also the first moral code."

"I have not heard that part of the story," Karoline admitted.

"It is ancient mythology," Magnus said. "These seven Sumerian sages were known collectively as the Apkallu. They convinced a young humanity to adopt culture and continued to serve behind the scenes, as advisors to kings, important ministers, and so forth. They are referenced in cuneiform and several myths, and first referred to in the Erra Epic."

Without meaning to, Karoline yawned loudly.

"I apologize. I find this all so interesting. I forget that not everyone shares my enthusiasm. Long story short, the Apkallus each had their area of specialty. Uannedugga was the wisest of them all." He paused, steepling his fingers together.

"I mention him because I believe that is the one who killed your brother. The only one left alive."

Karoline struggled to assimilate all this. He had warned her that it would sound ludicrous, but now that she heard it aloud it was worse than she had imagined. Had she not known Magnus better, she might have thought he was teasing her. But Magnus was the first to tell you that he did not have a sense of humor.

One thing bothered her, and she asked him about it.

"Assuming all this is true, it sounds like these Apkallus were forces for good. Why would they try to kill me?"

"Indeed. Once they were good. But they were systematically hunted. Six of the seven sages were ruthlessly killed. I have good guesses as to five of them and I'm working on the sixth. That's what the Mongol invasion of Europe was. And both World Wars. Why disease was brought to the new world. Eventually Uannedugga, the last survivor, went insane."

"Where did you find all this information?" she asked.

His smile was cryptic. "Let's say I spent some time in dark places on the internet. I have also found books forgotten by the outside world. It doesn't hurt that I can read eleven languages."

"Okay," she said. "It's a lot to process. Who was behind killing the sages? And they were immortal?"

Magnus' eyes focused behind her. "I can only guess," he said. "If I am close to being correct, its something far worse even than this rogue sage. Anyway, it's not relevant to your problem. As to their divine status, well there is no true permanence, even if from our perspective it could seem that way."

"Hmm. What you're saying is that my house was broken into and I was almost killed—my brother was decapitated—by a Sumerian demigod?"

Magnus laughed. "One that has been out there since before the flood. Capital F. It sounds mad. But that's why you came to me, isn't it? You knew this was beyond the pale of day-to-day life." He paused. "It sounds like you are being hunted by a manic beast, with the sum of all human goodness and knowledge hidden behind those murderous eyes."

"Can I borrow one of your knives?"

"You can't just walk around Oslo with a knife. The Viking age is over."

"I can hide it in my cast. No one will know."

His eyes were sad. "They are very sharp, but I fear it will not help you should the monster find you again, not if even half the things I have read are true."

"It will regardless make me feel better."

He shrugged. "Well, at least there's that." He waved lazy acquiescence and she stood and claimed a small dagger with a dragon hilt. There was not a lot of extra room in her cast, but enough for the slim blade to fit in. The handle was small and quite unobtrusive.

She left the library only slightly less shaken than she had entered it. Evening had fled to onset of full night and it was dark and cool. Karoline shivered.

She wasn't really surprised later that night when it found her again. Karoline had caught one of the last busses to Gronland. It must have been midnight and few people were out. She noticed a streetlight flicker out just as the faint scent of the sea reached her. The light behind her died and she was alone.

Footsteps shuffled behind her. She whirled, eyes straining in the dark as her hand reached into her cast and clutched the knife hilt.

No one was there. She was alone. The briny scent that had filled the air was gone and perhaps had never been there at all. She didn't know what to do. Her enemy had a name, Uannedugga the Apkallu, and that had only made it more terrifying.

### §

She found a cheap hotel near the Gronland T-bane and actually slept quite well, apart from repeated dreams of tsunamis and tidal waves. But her phone rang around eleven in the morning. She groggily reached for it, even as a sixth sense warned her not to answer it.

It was the police. Her mother's body, dead for several days, had been found in a remote village in Borneo. Karoline started to laugh, unsure why she found this amusing but unable to stop.

"It's worse, Miss Børstad," Captain Andersson said. "We found this out yesterday and tried to contact your father. When we didn't hear from him, we sent a constable out to check on him."

Karoline giggled again. The idea of anything happening to old Børstad was ludicrous.

"I am sorry to tell you that your father is also dead. Murdered. Given what has also happened to your brother, we need to talk to you."

"Am I?" With an effort she stopped her laughing. It was all coming into deadly focus now. "Am I a suspect?"

There was only the smallest hesitation. "I don't think so. No, you're not. But you are clearly in great danger and we would like to know more about why. We know you have been in hospital and are not presently at home. Now, where can I find you?" Andersson asked.

She numbly told him and went outside to wait, stopping to pay her bill. It was a misty morning and she stared into the fog without really thinking about anything at all. Her brother's death had been a tragedy but all of this at once was too much to deal with. It didn't take more than five minutes for a car to arrive and she climbed into the back.

Andersson, a chubby man with close-cropped light brown hair and his partner, a slim blonde woman name Arnesen with a face like that of the puffin, greeted her as they drove away. "Oslo's best. We're the A-team," she joked, and Karoline thought she heard a Swedish accent.

"What happened to your arm?" Andersson asked her. His tone warned her not to dissemble, and she instinctively dismissed her falling-down-stairs story. He turned down a side road, away from the fjord and city center toward a regional police station while she thought.

"I don't know what to say," Karoline said at last. Something splashed on her cheek and she realized that for the first time, she was crying.

"The truth," Arnesen prompted at once.

"I don't think you'll believe me." The tears were really coming now; the dam had burst, the river overflowed.

"Wait a minute. What is this shitbag doing in the middle of the street?" Andersson slowed and pulled the cruiser over. They were alone; a crumbling stone wall three meters high on one side and half-abandoned warehouses on the other. He honked once and then, a few moments later, honked again.

Karoline rubbed her eyes blearily. She was glad to have some time to think.

When Andersson opened the car door, the rotting smell of the sea washed in.

"The devil in hell!" Andersson swore as he climbed out of the car.

"Don't!" Karoline gasped. She felt herself go icy cold. She could not see through the tinted window well from the backseat and the back windows did not roll down. She lowered herself down but only saw glare reflected on the windscreen. "What's out there? Does it have broad shoulders? Does it look like a fish?" It did not even occur to her how strange she must sound.

"How do you know that?" Arnesen asked. "Yes, some cosplayer or Troll lover. How did you know that?" Her voice went low and numb. "Oh no. Oh no no no. Oh god no."

"What?" Karoline asked. Even in her fear, she could not stop crying. She saw the blonde officer unlock the car's pistol and run out of the car.

The gun shot four times and then something hit the ground with a thud. Karoline, aware that the car was still running, scrambled out of the back seat and into the driver's. She pulled the knife and put it between her teeth while her one good hand reached across her body and found the gearstick, jamming it into reverse. Not for a moment did it occur to her that either of the police officers were still alive. She was just backing away when something slammed into the windscreen.

### §

In the rare books room at the library, Magnus turned pale. "The sixth sage," he whispered as his eyes scanned the scroll. "It led the Moors into Sicily; it meant to spread civilization and medicine and science into medieval Europe. And it was killed by the Varangian Guard, made of Norsemen. Their commander had been Harald Børstad. The Apkallu was hunting, alright. Hunting the descendants of its enemies." His fingers dropped the priceless, useless scroll to the desk. Magnus ran out to use the circulation desk phone, but in his heart he already knew he was too late.

Story Notes:

Written Apr 2015

Unpublished

Antideluvian was actually commissioned by an editor I'd worked with before, but ultimately it didn't fit his vision. The character of Magnus is pretty much just a re-imagining of Hans from Trollhunter, tis true, and the end is a bit of a downer, but the mythology was fun to develop. You may have noticed a slight connection with my book Cthulhu Kaiju. The art is mine, based on a photo I took in Oslofjord.

### On the Quest of the Crow King

Photo: Ahimsa Kerp

Orange fruits clung to the branches of the leafless tree. Three crows sat like winged gargoyles in the bare branches. Natalie leaned her head closer to the window of the bus and stared at starkly autumn landscape. The trees were bare and piles of browning leaves gathered at their roots, though further into the mountains, there would be scarlet and yellow aplenty from the oaks and Japanese maples.

"What are you looking at?" Dylan asked, from the seat next to her. It had been his idea to come down to see the autumn leaves at Jirisan, South Korea's tallest mainland mountain. It was her first holiday in Korea, and a four day weekend was a much needed break from eight hours of teaching six-year-olds each day.

Dylan turned to the seat behind them and offered their friends a beer. Marcus, a well-traveled Englishman, gratefully accepted one. Brian and Lisa, who were from Toronto and Vancouver, did not. Beers or not, they were the only foreigners on the bus, and were getting stared at from the adjummas, the permed, floral-print clad women just shy of old age. These were women who had entire sections for themselves on the subways but never felt shy insisting a foreigner rise to give them a seat, or to cut in front of one in line at the market. Dylan had said the discrimination was a lot worse in South Africa, but Natalie was from San Francisco, a city tolerant of all colours and creeds. It took some getting used to. She ignored the pointed stares from the woman across the aisle from her, and slowly fell asleep.

### §

Jirisan was nothing like the Sierra Nevadas, but it abstractedly reminded Natalie of childhood summers under the stars. They were sitting outside of their pension in Jiritown, on a deck above a bubbling creek, and eating a much-anticipated dinner. Natalie added more of the peppery hot sauce to her bowl and stirred it into her bibimbap.

"You're mad," Marcus said. "That stuff is really hot."

"It's okay," said Natalie. "I'm from California. We eat spicy food all the time."

Marcus shrugged, indicating that he would not be responsible for her poor life decisions.

"It's my goal to eat some of that before I leave," Lisa said. She had been in Korea for four months and would be there for another eight. "It's so hot though."

Brian's smile signified surrender. "Not me. God already invented the perfect food, poutine, and if it ain't spicy, nothing should be."

Marcus stood up and banged his beer bottle with his chopsticks.

"I have something to say," he slurred. "From here on out, no one shall refer to perfect food unless, I emphasize unless, it comes from the place that started life in all your countries. Chips are nearly the perfect food. Tea would be the perfect food, if it was food. But the best food of all is shepherd's pie, with mutton, like my mum in Rainford used to make. My mum was a saint—"

That was as far as he got. Brian walked behind him while he was speaking and dropped on all fours. Acting on that cue, Dylan rose and almost gently pushed Marcus in the chest. Marcus stumbled back, into Brian, and completely lost his balance. He ended in a heap on the wooden floor. His bottle fell beside him, spilling liquid onto the ground. Natalie couldn't stop laughing.

Marcus rose gingerly. Brian was laughing so hard that he couldn't get up, and Dylan had tears streaming down his face.

"You bastards," Marcus said, but he was laughing too. "You don't want to hear about my mum, yeah? I've taken your point."

As he sat back down, Lisa asked, "Do you think we'll see moonbears?" Moonbears were small, big-eared bears native to the area.

"Very unlikely," Dylan said. "There are less than a hundred still alive in the wild. Most of them have been harvested for their gall bladders."

"That's horrible," Natalie said.

"People are disgusting," Lisa said. She put her empty glass on the table and yawned dramatically. "I hate to say it, but I'm going to turn in. I'm getting old."

The others rose. Natalie did not feel like sleeping and she gave Dylan a questioning look.

He slid behind her. "Would you like to take a walk?"

"I could be persuaded," she smiled.

"Don't stay out too late, you two. We've got a big hike tomorrow," Brian said. "Korean mountains aren't like walks back home. They're not as high as the Rockies, of course, but they don't believe in switch-backs. The shortest distance is always the steepest distance."

"We also," Marcus announced, "might have to queue. On a bloody mountain." With that denouncement, the group walked up to their hotel room. It would be one room, sans beds, for them all. But there were blankets aplenty, and the floor itself heated up; the room was surprisingly comfortable.

As Natalie and Dylan waved goodnight to their friends, Dylan leaned in close. "Let's get some more beer," he said.

It didn't take long to find a 7-11. Even in this tiny town, there were three convenience stores within five minutes of their pension.

They emerged from the store with cold cans of beer in hand—one in each hand, in Dylan's case.

"Where shall we go?" He opened one of his beers and drank deeply.

"What about up there?" she asked.

He followed her gaze and frowned. "Up there? That's the Buddhist shrine."

Rising from a small hill on the edge of town, a large statue of Buddha sat serenely. They had seen it on their way in; it was high enough out of town that, this late at night, it would be unlikely for other people to be there.

They walked toward the shrine, up to another metal staircase. It was steep and seemed to last forever. Trees and loose rocks covered the hill on either side of the staircase.

"Fuck me. If this is the town, I'd hate to see the mountain," Dylan joked.

Something rustled in the trees above them.

"What was that?"

A large black bird burst out of the tree, past them and up toward the moon. It hung above them for several moments before flying out of sight.

"Hectic," Dylan said. "That was one big raven."

"I didn't think they were nocturnal," she said.

"Well, they're as black as the night. It kind of makes sense."

She frowned but did not argue further.

They reached the concrete platform a few moments later. The Buddha statue was at least twenty feet high, and it stared down at them impassively. They had not seen any more birds, and the only signs of life came from the town below.

"Over there," Dylan said.

She followed him across the platform, crossing past the Buddha. At the edge of the circle were a couple of mats.

Dylan spread the mats out on the brown earth next to the platform. It was slightly slanted, as the hill stretched below them. But they were mostly out of sight from the stairs, should anyone come up, and the ground was warmer and softer than the concrete platform.

"At last we're alone," Dylan said. "Well, if you ignore the Buddha." He sat down on the mat.

"Finally," she said, slipping into his arms. All she could feel was his warm body against hers. Their mouths met and as his hands found her breasts she found herself melting into sensation.

She was on her back, her tongue in his mouth and her hands wrapped around him when he suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Shhh," he said. "I hear voices. Someone's coming."

"Who cares?" She tried to kiss him again but he leaned his face up. On her back, she could not see anything, so she rolled out from under him and onto her stomach. Dylan was lying on his stomach next to her. The lip of the platform cut off most of their view, but she could see what he meant.

There were three dark shapes coming from the stairs. One was an old man, and the other two were disheveled looking women.

The trio stopped before the Buddha. The man stood with his arms out and legs spread. The women, who looked more like mythological harpies than living people, began wrapping him in rags. They began at his feet, and worked quickly up his legs. Throughout it, the man stood stoically in the moonlight.

Both women were chanting softly as they worked.

"What are they doing?" Natalie whispered.

"I don't know. They keep saying jerye. I don't know what that means."

The two continued to watch. The hags continued to wrap the man in long bandages. They had his chest covered, and his arms soon followed.

"Why are they making him into a mummy?" she asked.

"I have no idea what they are doing," he said. "I've never heard of anything like this."

"I don't think we're supposed to be here for this," Natalie asked.

"I've never heard of anything like this," he repeated.

The woman on the right, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight, finished tying the rags around the man's head. He was completely covered. She was chanting like crazy now, and moving in an arrhythmic dance. The other one reached to her hip and suddenly had a knife in her hand. The slim metal blade was clear in the night sky.

"What the hell?"

"It's okay," Dylan said. "They will cut the bandages, leave, and then we can get back to what we were doing." He took a discrete sip from his beer.

The haggish woman with the knife was chanting too. The women's voices hung eerily in the air. They moved together, with sweeping steps, and stood before him. Natalie took a deep breath.

The woman plunged the knife into the bound man's throat. The bandages blossomed crimson blood as the man sank to his knees. The woman pushed the knife further in.

The man's body slumped onto his knees. His neck and chest were coated with blood that looked black in the moonlight. The women continued to chant and sing, dancing around his dying body with macabre grace.

Natalie held her scream, but could not stifle her horrified gasp. Her voice cut through the silent night with sharp clarity.

Both women turned toward them. Moving with the same eerie unison, they took a step toward Natalie and Dylan, and then another.

"Let's go," Dylan said. He sprang up, pulling Natalie with him.

As soon as they were in sight, the hags hissed and moved toward them urgently.

"We can't reach the stairs," Natalie said. The women were between them and the exit.

"Who needs stairs?" Dylan said. They turned and fled down the stony slope.

She heard something crash beside her.

"Shit!" Dylan said.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. My beer, however, has fallen to a tragic death."

"You—"

They moved quickly down the hill. Natalie could not look back. She imagined a bony hand grabbing at her, ripping into her shoulders. When they had reached the bottom, just yards away from the paved road, Natalie risked a look behind her and instantly relaxed.

"It's okay. Look," she said.

Dylan stopped and turned. He laughed.

The women were still at the edge of the platform, looking down on them with blunted rage.

"Not so good at running down a mountain, are you?" Dylan called up to them.

"Let's go to the police," Natalie said.

Dylan's answer was drowned out by a low, menacing growl.

"Is that what I think it is?" Natalie breathed.

"Hectic," Dylan said.

A creature stood before them, as if by magic. It was a moonbear, with squirrel-like ears and a short muzzle. It growled again, lowering its head in challenge.

"What do we do," she asked.

"We can go around it," Dylan said.

Other bears emerged from the forest, surrounding them in an ursine ring of snarling and growling. They weren't big like in movies, but there were a lot of them. And their manner was as aggressive and threatening as a rabid dog. The lead bear snarled at them and moved closer. Natalie couldn't look away from its sharp teeth.

"We're going to die," she said, voice flat with shock.

The snarling bear charged them. Natalie closed her eyes. The sound of wings and a loud caw brought them open again.

The bear had stopped. Within the ring of bears was another dark ring—a circle of black birds. There were crows everywhere. They were all big, but the bird before her was impossibly large. It was as tall as her, and even more freakishly, it had three legs.

The sight of the large crow seemed to spook the ursine beasts, and the bears turned and ambled away. Within seconds, they had disappeared into the darkness. The crows—the normal sized ones, at least—rose in the air, cawing noisily.

The three-legged crow stood facing the two teachers.

"I'd think I was dreaming, but even my nightmares aren't this scary," Dylan said.

"What happened?" Natalie asked.

"I just saved your life," said the crow.

Natalie had never been so close to fainting in all her life.

She and Dylan stared first at each other and then at the crow.

"There is not time for this," the crow said. "We have only a brief time, and the Buddhists will try to kill you again."

"Who are you," Dylan asked.

""Ah, that question would once have never been asked. But the times have changed. I am the King of the Crows."

Natalie laughed.

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes, it is actually."

"Do you not live in an age of science? Do you not trust what your senses report to you?"

"Look, mate, you've been the strangest part of a strange night," Dylan said.

"Why do the Buddhists want to kill us?" Natalie asked.

"You know why, Natalie," the Crow King said. "You saw what should not have been seen. They want to kill me, too, if for different reasons. I have battled—and largely lost—with the Buddhists for a long time now."

"But...Buddhists are friendly and peaceful," she objected.

"No religion ever spread through peace," the Crow King said. "Religion is an inherent violence, an alien system that controls the way you see the world around you."

"Aren't you a religious figure?" Dylan asked.

The Crow King cawed, in something that sounded like laughter.

"Perhaps at one time. Now I am merely folklore. Being a myth gives you the advantage of perspective. And the only word left for me is shamanistic. It's such an insufficient term."

A thousand wings lifted into the air as the crows in the trees stirred and rose. The Crow King cocked his head sideways, as though he was listening to something. At last he spoke to the two teachers.

"We haven't much time. Please, pull this feather from my wing."

Natalie looked to Dylan. His expression reassured her—he was as shit-scared as she was.

"Any part of me is a weapon that can be used against them. Take it, and take it to the heart of Buddhism in Korea. There is a large temple on the mountain known as Bukhansan. You will be followed. Do not allow them to stop you. Take it there, and I can do the rest."

"Why don't you do it?" Dylan asked. "We can't exactly fly."

"It's impossible. I can only appear on a night such as this, a full moon. Even now, you are only seeing the vaguest shadow of what I am."

"Why us?" Natalie asked.

"I would not have picked you if you had not already made yourselves a target. Accepting my mission might increase your danger, but either way the Buddhists will be coming for you."

"That makes sense," she admitted. "But it's really hard to believe a gigantic bird talking to me."

"You don't have to believe me. Maybe no one wants you dead. But isn't it worth listening to me in case I'm right?"

She nodded and pulled a feather from the Crow King's wing. It was long—a yard at least—and shinier than any bird feather she had ever seen, even in the wan light of the moon.

The King flew up into the air, though it seemed to Natalie that part of him was still there. And then both parts, or all, of him were gone. They didn't fade so much as stretch and dissolve until he had simply become the wind, the sky, the trees, and the ground. She reached out and grabbed Dylan's hand, needing to feel connected to something material. With her right hand, she took the long feather and slid it through the middle of her bra. It slid down to touch her navel. The feather seemed unnaturally warm, but not unpleasantly so.

She cried out a little in surprise. "It's really heavy," she said.

"Well it's a feather from a bird as big as a man," Dylan said. "It's a little odd to be jealous of a feather, I have to admit."

"What are we going to do?" she asked him, ignoring his rakishness.

"Ask me again tomorrow," he said. "For now, I need a drink and some sleep."

They retreated to their pension. Natalie kept wondering what she would tell her friends. "Come on," she heard herself telling them. "Wake up. A giant talking bird told me that Buddhists are coming to kill us." That didn't sound convincing –let alone sane—to her, and she had lived through it.

"What are we going to tell them?" she asked Dylan as they ran through the hotel door.

"First we have to figure out what's happening. Then we explain it to them."

The dim hallway seemed longer than before, and far spookier. They moved through it quickly.

"Good, the door is already open," Dylan said. "They must still be awake."

Natalie felt a thrill of dread flash through her. She stopped. "I don't want to look in there."

"Don't be silly. Worst case, they'll be asleep. Best: they'll be awake, with beer."

Dylan stepped into the door. "Yo!" he shouted.

His face drained of color instantly and his body slumped into the side of the door.

"What's wrong?" Natalie asked. She already knew, though.

"What the fuck?" he asked tonelessly.

Natalie stepped forward, heart pounding in her ears.

Her first thought was that somebody had spilled spaghetti sauce everywhere. As her brain began to comprehend what her eyes were telling her, she felt the world spinning.

"No," she said.

Marcus, Brian, and Lisa were strewn in bits across the room. They had been chewed up and spat out. The walls, floor, and their bags were splattered with blood. Their backpacks and clothing were likewise torn apart. The vision of the sharp bear teeth appeared again in Natalie's memory.

"Natalie," Dylan said, his eyes fixed on the scene before them.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I think we take that fucking feather to that fucking temple and fuck these fucking fuckers up. And we fucking leave now."

### §

The sun was coming up in Seoul when Natalie woke up. She looked out the window of the cab and saw the familiar skyscrapers and neon signs. Her sleep had been fitful and full of dark dreams. They had been driving for several hours now, though she had no idea what time they had left. Even in as small a place as Jiritown, they hadn't had any difficulty hailing a cab. The driver had not quite understood their request to go to Seoul, but they had pooled their money and offered him three hundred thousand won. I've never paid 300 dollars for a cab ride before, Natalie had thought. It was a night of firsts, it seemed.

As soon as she'd sat down on the cold vinyl of the cab, she had started shaking. She had been reliving the night again and again and tears streamed down her face. She could tell that Dylan was disturbed, as he hadn't even made any jokes since they had found their friends. He was looking out the window now as well. She checked that the feather was still in place. It still seemed warm, imbued with an energy she could only vaguely grasp. It still felt strangely heavy.

"I'm confused about what happened last night," she said. "About everything."

"That reminds me," Dylan said. He flourished his Galaxy smartphone and tapped away at it. After a few minutes, he said, "Ok, I think we might have witnessed a Buddhist Death Ritual. They're not that common anymore, but for serious Buddhists it's a necessity."

"But why would they try to kill us?"

He typed something else into his phone. "I'm not sure. But it does say very senior Buddhists have utterly private ceremonies, preferably when the moon is full. We may have violated a sacred ceremony."

"Do you think the Crow King was telling the truth?"

He laughed. "I really don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say he was playing his own game, and he just happened upon us. But I don't think he was lying, and at least he saved us from the bears."

"Crows and bears are both totem animals for the Shasta Indians," she mused. "I wonder if they are pawns in this game as well, or if what we saw are even animals at all," she said.

"You mean... they might be manifestations of a deeper, older force, something like that?" Dylan asked. He shook his head. "That's deep. Maybe too deep for me."

"I don't know. It's hard to think of a spirit older than Buddha, who sees him as an uppity new-comer. If they are real, however reduced, what does that mean for all the other myths we know?"

"Stop," Dylan said. "Please. I am overwhelmed enough by our problem without applying it to the greater world." As he spoke, he looked out the window and his eyes lit up.

"Yogi-yo," Dylan said abruptly, telling the cab driver to stop where he was. As the car pulled to the side of the street, Natalie looked at the grey city.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I don't know, but we are close to the subway."

"Why not take the cab all the way to the mountain?" she asked. Bukhansan was in the north of the city, surrounded by high rises and greasy from the fingerprint of man.

"I'm not saying we were followed, or were in danger," he said. "But let's assume it's safer to throw off anyone who might be following us." He got out of the cab and Natalie followed. "Besides," he added. "I'm thirsty. We can get some beer on the way."

They climbed down the stairs into the subway and beeped through the gates with their cell phones. They grabbed more money from an ATM and Dylan purchased some fish-shaped baked bread filled with red bean paste and a tall can of beer.

Natalie made a face at the bread.

"Don't you like these?" he asked, mouth half-full.

"It's not that I don't like red bean paste," she said. "I just think it could be anything else and it would taste better."

"It grows on you," he said. "Now I think only most things would taste better."

They went down more stairs, and checked the board showing the next subway's arrival. It was coming in two minutes. Natalie looked around. Something unpleasant crawled through her stomach. Though she didn't see anything unusual, she was beginning to feel nervous.

Due to the holiday, there were less people than usual in Seoul. Most had gone out of the city to visit family. But there were still several people staring at her.

"The Crow King said we might be followed," she said. "But even though we are taking his feather to the temple, I keep thinking it must have all been a bad dream, or an elaborate prank."

"It could have all seemed like a joke," Dylan said. "But we know it's not, not after..." He didn't need to finish the sentence. Neither of them would ever forget what they had seen the previous night.

A triumphant fanfare announced the coming train. Within seconds, there were people everywhere. They formed a neat line with relatively little jostling. The doors opened, but something made Natalie turn around and look behind her. She gasped.

A man had just come down the stairs. He looked like a monk, with his simple clothes and bald head. There was something vaguely ursine about his face, and his body shone with a hidden energy. When he saw Natalie looking at him, a predatory grin appeared on his face and he moved toward them.

She stepped onto the train, hissing to Dylan to look behind them.

He saw the man coming, too. "Fuck me, bro," he said.

The subway doors would close any instant, but the man was only moments away.

He took long strides, his eyes never looking away from the pair. Against her will, Natalie saw the strewn carnage of the night before. She could feel her insides being ripped apart, and she stifled the urge to cry.

"We have to go," she screamed.

"Where?" Dylan asked. The only place off the train was even closer to the advancing man. He was close enough that Natalie could see his long, bloodstained fingernails. They looked like claws, and again she could feel her flesh being torn apart by them. Behind the man, a group of adjummas was rushing to the subway as well.

The man was three steps away, and then two.

One step away.

His foot was up in the air, aimed at coming down onto the subway itself, when he was shoved aside. The four adjummas had hurried into the car, and they knocked him aside in their haste to beat the closing doors. They hit him hard enough that he was pushed aside. The last adjumma had to jump, and as she landed the doors closed.

The man with the shaved head looked through the glass at Natalie and Dylan. His dark eyes burned with frustrated murder. The subway pulled away and Dylan grabbed Natalie and held her close to him until she stopped shaking.

### §

Even in early October, the mountains resonated with the shrilling of cicadas. There were thousands of the ugly critters in the trees, and their sound rang through the forests and craggy hills. It being a holiday weekend, there weren't too many other hikes around. A summer weekend would see thousands of people in one day, marching like ants along the mountain trails.

The absence of people was a boon, but a small one. Both of them were exhausted from lack of sleep, and the trail was straight up and littered with broken stones. "I'm already tired," Dylan admitted, looking in dismay up the rocky track.

"At least we get to go onto a hike this weekend, after all," Natalie said. She started walking up, into the chirping forest. Dylan sighed and followed her.

After climbing a particularly grueling section, the two of them stopped to catch their breath. They stood on a flat rock that overlooked a steep drop. The sound of cicadas here was loud enough that they had to speak to each other with raised voices. A smiling woman stood beside them. She held a bag of oranges in her hand.

"We'd need guardrails if this were America," Natalie said. It was at least a fifteen foot fall to the rocky trail, and from there it would be nearly impossible not to roll much further. If falling from here wasn't fatal, it was at least a very close relative.

"The rest of the world tends to rely on common sense a bit more than you all seem to," Dylan said.

"That's actually kinda true," Natalie agreed. She'd come to accept the bashing she received as the token American. Besides, most of the things they said were not wrong. "But it is a long way down." She felt butterflies in her stomach as she looked back down onto the steep climb they had just ascended.

"You can tell we've come a long way because there aren't many people left," Dylan said. The trail was atypically empty at the moment. "And I'm beginning to think we should have brought water."

"I'm beginning to think we should have brought beer," Natalie answered, earning a big smile from him.

The Korean woman stepped toward them, offering each of them a small orange.

"Kamsamida," the two teachers said, thanking her in unison.

As Natalie peeled off the thin skin from the orange, the woman's eyes flicked behind them. The woman stepped past them, offering another fruit to someone who had come up behind them.

Natalie glanced behind her and gasped.

Her body took over as she ducked, dropping to the ground on pure reflex.

The bald man leaped over her, snarling. The woman screamed as the man slashed his long nails across her throat. Bright blood bubbled from a messy gash beneath her chin. Her body slumped to the side, rolling partly off the rock. Her oranges fell to the rock and rolled away in an assortment of directions.

Natalie scrambled back to her feet. The bald man had turned its attention away from her, toward Dylan, who punched it as hard as he could. It hit the monk squarely in the chest, without doing anything.

"Fuck me, it's like punching a rock," Dylan said, cradling his injured hand.

The monk swung a fist back at Dylan, who raised his hands into an X of defense. The claws tore through his skin as well, and he screamed in pain.

Natalie knew then that they would die there. The Buddhist killer was too fast, too strong for them. Maybe it would better to jump and take her chances. She glanced down again at the drop.

And then she knew what to do.

Blood dripped from the bald man's fingers as he advanced on Dylan. His back was to her. She ran and dropped to her knees behind him. She didn't even have time to hope, but Dylan was ready.

He stepped forward and swung again at the long-nailed man. At the last second, his fist relaxed and he shoved the creature as hard as he could. Like a rock, the man barely moved, but it was enough to send him into Natalie. His knees buckled, and he flipped back, nearly off the rock.

But as he fell, his fingernails dug into the stone and he arrested his fall. The sound was excruciatingly painful.

"What do I fucking got to do?" Dylan asked.

Natalie stood again. Her ribs felt sore from where the man had hit her with his heels.

"Let's start by trying this," she said. She moved over to the edge of the rock and stomped as hard as she could onto his hands.

The bald man stared at her with his furiously dark eyes, and then fell off. He landed with a thud and rolled, painfully, down the steep incline. When he had at last come to a stop, his body lay in impossible angles.

They both watched for a long moment, making sure the body didn't move. It seemed as though light was escaping from the man's body.

"That was mighty clever," Dylan said, turning away. "If I had any skin on my arms, I might hug you."

She hugged him anyway. The dead of eyes of the woman stared at her from the side of the rock. One of her oranges had been stepped on in the fight and the pulp glistened there, accusatorily.

"That poor woman," she said.

"It's not our fault. We're trying to stop them, remember?" Dylan said.

"We've got to reach the temple before another of those guys finds us," she said.

"Another?" Dylan asked. "Wasn't that the guy from the subway?"

"Not unless he grew different eyebrows and changed his mouth. There are more than one of these men coming after us."

They got back on the trail, and started up the calf-killing ascent again. Both knew they were almost there. They could see the temple ahead of them, up one more steep incline. Her legs ached and she'd never sweated so much in her life. She hoped that the feather didn't get drenched by her sweat. For several long minutes, she concentrated only one putting one foot ahead of the other.

They reached the top at last. Her legs burned and her throat ached for water.

"Why isn't anybody here?" Dylan asked. "Surely Buddhists don't leave for holidays."

Natalie looked around and saw that he was right. The temple, built into the mountain, looked similar to all such temples in Korea. Most had been destroyed during the war and rebuilt, so that centuries-old temples all had the same, vaguely sixties, appearance. There was room for at least twenty monks to live here, and even on a holiday there should have been a few hikers visiting.

"Look at that," she said.

It was beautiful. Rock formations and huge stone boulders formed the foundation of the monastery. Above it all was a fifty-foot tower with a wide base covered with carvings of Buddhas and strange creatures.

The emptiness was eerie. The cicadas were still singing in full-force however, which felt oddly reassuring. She pulled out the feather; despite her sweat, it remained completely dry. They walked to the tall statue.

"If this isn't the center of the temple, I don't know where is," Dylan said.

"It seems kind of anti-climatic," she said.

As if on queue, they heard footsteps. From seemingly nowhere, a bald man walked toward them. His feet were bare. There was something strange about his gate, and there was a vulgar nimbus of light surrounding him. Natalie wished she could have felt surprised.

"Not again," Dylan said. "Is that a different one too?"

"I think so. His nose is much bigger, and so is his chin."

The man with the shaved head walked to them with slow, steady paces. The first two men had been feral and savage, but this one smiled with a serene sadness that nearly broke Natalie's heart. She wanted to sit on his lap and have him absorb all her melancholy. He held out his hand to her. Imploringly.

"You're not getting this feather," she said.

He looked at her again, his dark eyes compelling her. She looked down at the feather, wondering how important it could possibly be. She raised her hand, ready to proffer the black burden.

The man reached his hand out for the feather. She noticed his long fingernails, crusted with dried blood. Blood. She shut the image of the bloody room out of her head as quickly as it appeared, but the spell was broken. She yanked the feather back and held it protectively with both hands.

And then it began growing. The bald man leaped back warily, and suddenly he was a predatory animal. The feather doubled in size once, and then did so again. It felt like a baton or a sword, and her hand tingled from the energy it held. The man snarled and stepped toward her.

Moving with instinctual action, she swept the feather down at the bald man. He sprang away and growled at her. His black eyes swam with the promise of dark menace.

"What are you doing?" Dylan asked. He watched open-mouthed and unbelieving.

"I'm not sure," she said. "But it feels right."

The thing stepped at her, and she held the raven feather before her as part talisman and part weapon. But the Buddhist spun and sprang at Dylan. Dylan moved back, but he wasn't quick enough. The man's clawed right hand slashed into his chest, ripping through clothes and skin.

"I'll be goddamned," Dylan said in a soft voice. There was already so much blood.

Natalie brought the feather down on the man's elbow. The feather was as sharp as a razor and it cut through the man's arm with precise sharpness. The bald man yipped in pain and moved back. The hand fell out of Dylan's chest and hit the ground. Within seconds, it had changed into a bloody bear's foot. Even in the light of the day, there was a stream of wan moonlight escaping into the air.

The same light was coming from the man's arm now, streaming out of him as though he were dissolving. The mask of humanity was slipping, as his features looked more ursine than ever, and his body sprouted bristly dark hairs.

The bearman roared and rushed Natalie. His one hand was raised in a claw and his open mouth revealed far too sharp of teeth. She swung again and lopped off another hand. The surprise in its eyes was unmistakable. Natalie stepped forward, unsure if her feathery blade was responding to or causing her actions. She held it tightly with both hands and swung as hard as she could. It was a simple as popping a Lego man's head off; the man's head fell off with ease. It rolled away, toward the tower, and the handless, headless body dropped.

She felt fatigued beyond reason. There was a wet sound and, turning, she saw Dylan was coughing up blood but laughing nonetheless. She rushed to him. His chest looked like it had been mauled by a tiger.

"Don't laugh. Don't say anything. We'll get you out of this," she said.

"How's that for non-attachment, bitch?" Dylan spoke with noticeable effort at the body before them. He sank to his knees. "Sorry, I couldn't resist," he said to her with a half smile, and then fell face first onto the ground.

Too exhausted and drained to do anything else, Natalie slumped to the ground next to him. The feather floated from her hand, rising into the wind. Except that there wasn't any wind.

That's nice, she thought dreamily.

A shadow fell over her. She looked up, ice in her veins. Oh, shit.

The man they had evaded in the subway stood before her.

"Oh for fuck's sake," she shouted. "Just kill me and get it over with!'

But he wasn't looking at her. He was looking past her, toward the tower.

She wearily craned her neck to follow his gaze. The feather had floated higher and higher into the air, until it was a high as the top of the tower. The feather must have grown even more, as it was quite visible, even if it seemed only a small dark ribbon next to the Buddhist tower.

The man made a sound that sounded like a whine. She couldn't take her eyes from the ribbon, though. As it hit the stone, it cracked and splintered as easily as ice or glass. Bits of the top were falling down as the splitting ripped through to the tower, descending to the base. Imploding in seconds, the tower crumbled and dissolved upon itself.

She looked in front again and the man was gone. In his place was an out-of-place moonbear. It seemed to want nothing to do with her anymore, and it turned to leave. Then, from the surrounding trees, came dozens of crows. They swooped in on the bear and pecked it and clawed at it. The bear stumbled and then it was covered with crows. It didn't take long, though Natalie couldn't watch. In less time than it had taken the tower to crumble, the bear was killed. His tasty eyeballs were snatched from their sockets by the cacophony of crows.

Dylan's body was growing cold. She felt her eyes closing but fought off the urge to sleep. There was no way she could lug his body down. Her eyes were closing. She could her the flapping of crows' wings all around her.

### §

"It's okay," said a voice. "I think I can walk." She looked up and saw Dylan standing above her. His face was pale, there were nickel-sized punctures in his chest, and his arms were covered with drying blood. "I mean, I've felt better, but it's got to be easier going down than coming up."

She rose and helped him to his feet.

"Can you really walk?" she asked.

"I don't know what happened," he said. "But I dreamed of a black feather, floating in the wind, and then I woke up feeling much better."

"The Crow King?" she asked.

"Who knows?" Dylan said, as he rested his arm on her shoulder for support. "Anyway, those birds were cool and all, but I was just about to wake myself up. It's almost noon and I haven't had any beer since this morning."

She laughed and led him slowly to the trail. They moved gingerly down the trail. The two of them limped down the mountain as the cries of crows and buzz of cicadas filled the air around them.

At the top of the mountain, a thousand crows descended upon the crumbled remnants of the Buddha statue, looking for a single black feather.

Story Notes:

Written 2012

First Published: Dead Harvest Anthology, 2014

Of all the stories I've ever written, this one is the most closely based on things that actually happened to me.

###

### Afterword

The original title I intended for this book was "Not A Horse." Not the greatest title, (as my friends liked to point out) but it was a reference to Nick Cave, when he turned down an MTV Teen Choice Award. His exact words were: "My muse is _not a horse_ and I am in _no horse_ race." It perhaps sounds a bit pretentious, and I am no Nick Cave, but the sentiment struck me.

For a long time, I have been doing what writers do. Writing stories, sending them out, collecting rejections, sending them out again, collecting more rejections, until either the story gets retired or finds a place that publishes it. It's actually a good system in that it weeds out those who aren't serious or able to deal with rejection. It creates better writers. But it has slowly been dawning on me.

It's not the system for me.

And here's why: I'm not writing for money. I've never been a very good capitalist, and frankly, I find it a little distasteful to demand money for everything one does, writer or not. Stories existed before capitalism and they'll exist after. People who write primarily to make money, people who think they deserve money for their works, are probably a bit too neoliberal for my tastes. Secondly, some people write for awards. The award process, even before recent controversies, has always been wonky and prone to cliques and favoritism. Plus the main benefit of awards is more sales, which few writers would complain about but to my eye shouldn't be the primary goal of writing.

So if I'm not writing for awards or money or fame then I'm just having fun. And writing is (usually) fun. This book is free because I enjoyed writing these stories, researching them and seeing where they took me. Written from 2000-2015, at best guess, they were recorded in at least eleven different countries (The US, NZ, South Korea, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Vietnam, Norway, Denmark, Indonesia, and Laos.) I'm not yet as a good a writer as I want to be, (starting to suspect I never will be) but this collection sums me up pretty well so far.

Thank you for reading these stories. I appreciate it.

Ahimsa Kerp October 2016

### About the Author

Ahimsa Kerp is a peripatetic language mercenary and spec-fic writer who is fond of rambling hikes, RPG/ board games, and tofu tacos. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he has lived on four continents including various parts of Asia since 2009. He wrote Empire of the Undead, Cthulhu Kaiju and Beneath the Mantle for Severed Press, has contributed to many anthologies including Cthulhurotica and Dead Harvest, and co-authored the mosaic fantasy novel The Roads to Baldairn Motte. You can find him on twitter or G+.

### Other Works:

The Roads to Baldairn Motte

Empire of the Undead

Beneath the Mantle

Cthulhu Kaiju

The Chaos Gods Come to Meatlandia RPG

Trancers RPG

Edgar Rice Burroughs Adventures RPG

