Free Stories 2018

by Baen Books

  Father Avenir fumbled with his buckskin jacket and touched the hand-carved wooden cross that hung on a leather thong around his neck. It gave him strength and he would need it to face the demons ahead. Avenir had once intended to purge the demons from the land, to show the power of God and convince the tribes of the power of Jesus. Now, he just hoped he would survive this ordeal. He reached for the rosary strapped to his belt so he could count the beads as he walked.

  “Ave Maria, gratia plena,

  Dominus tecum.

  Benedicta tu in mulieribus,

  et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

  Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

  ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

  nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

  Ámen.”

  Hora mortis nostrae, Father Avenir muttered to himself, and sighed. He hoped indeed that Mary and the Angels would be there to receive him at the hour of his death, but sometimes he worried. Maybe the things he’d done—small acts from his small magic to avert death or to convince a tottering believer, had damned him already. Or maybe Heaven itself had changed with the Sundering.

  He could do nothing but continue. He’d been told the Mother of God was Grátia pléna, and he would have to trust in her Grace to intercede with her Son on his behalf.

  He found his own trail toward the cursed valley, his feet carrying him along before he could let any doubts assail him. All his life Avenir had conquered his questions and survived persecution. From the Natives who considered him a stranger, from the whites who considered him a Native, from the pagans who considered him mad, from the Protestants who considered him evil. He remained strong, though.

  Just because America had been severed from the rest of the world did not mean he was in any way cut off from Jesus, Mother Mary, or the Holy Spirit. Surely God was stronger than any magic he could imagine.

  The air was chilly, the sky gray with clouds. The tall, feathery larches swayed back and forth whispering in a sound that was not a threat, but like a frightened child whispering a prayer.

  Far ahead on the other side of the valley, a geyser gushed with a loud hiss, shooting a plume of steam and boiling water high into the air. The sound shattered the silence, and Avenir flinched, but he forced himself to continue, to face his test. He heard other gasping fumaroles, exhalations of poisonous gas belching from the ground. A slurry of mud and ash bubbled up like some witch’s cauldron.

  He closed his eyes prayed more loudly and kept walking.

  He had known of the valley of yellow stones, or at least his mother had told him of it. The ominous place had existed since before the Sundering, with its thermal turmoil and its natural wonders, but after the return of magic, it had become something else.

  Near the edge of the valley, he paused to make his preparations. A shallow, half-hearted stream trickled down the hillside. He knelt on the soft bank, where a thin scum of chemical residue had collected. The wildlife in the forest around him had fallen into a hush.

  Father Avenir removed his pack and opened it, withdrawing his empty bowl used for cooking and also for washing himself, even shaving when he felt so inclined. For now, it would serve as a basin to hold the water. He dipped the bowl in the stream and went through the motions of blessing it.

  For a battle such as this against arcane demons and the minions of Satan himself, it would have been far better to use holy water blessed by the Pope himself, but no drop of that precious fluid remained any longer in all of the Americas. But every priest, who had been ordained by another priest in a line stretching back to the apostles, had been given the power to cast out demons.

  Setting the holy water aside, he prepared himself. Wrapped in a clean handkerchief, he carried wafers purchased from a house in St. Louis, whose proprietor claimed to make the consecration bread in a way acceptable to the Church. Father Avenir doubted it. Over the years, whenever he went back to replenish his supplies, he found the wafers were yellower and contained more seeds, but they would have to do . . . as would the wine he poured from a small bottle to a willow bark cup.

  Fifteen years ago, bright with the potential of his mission, he had set out with French wine and a silver cup, but neither had escaped the rapacity of the first Native tribe to whom he’d preached. Now Avenir used some kind of berry wine he obtained from the tribes in exchange for furs, and he had made the willow bark cup himself.

  It didn’t matter. By the words of the consecration, they would become the body and blood of that most powerful act of sacrifice that had redeemed the world.

  Continuing, he spread a clean piece of suede on top of a large lichen-covered rock, balanced the offerings on it, donned his cassock and started the holy service.

  He didn’t need to open the Bible. He remembered the readings for the day, and as he boomed the holy words in Latin from memory at the wild land, it seemed that the hush deepened, as though the land itself listened. And why not? Hadn’t St. Francis preached to the fish? Not that Avenir was a saint, by any means. He performed the whole service and consumed the flesh and the blood of the Son of God, willing himself to become one with Him, possessed of His strength.

  He returned his implements to the pack and folded up the clean suede piece. He pulled out the wooden cross and let it hang proudly on his chest. He ran his fingers through his beard and his tangled hair, as if to make himself presentable, but he was not going to a debutante’s ball. Moses himself wandering through the wilderness had looked no worse. When Jesus was tempted by the devil, he had not fretted over his appearance. What mattered were Father Avenir’s heart and soul.

  With the newly blessed water in the bowl, he filled his battered but serviceable old aspergillum. He took his battered old copy of the Holy Bible and pressed it against the black tunic at his chest, then he raised himself to his feet from the bank of the sluggish stream. Prepared and with a strong heart, he looked ahead into the smoke and fumes as another angry geyser blasted not far away.

  “I come to pray.” His voice was soft, but the challenge was clear. “Fire demons, you will bow before the word of God.”

  He had no doubt the supernatural forces lurking in this raw wound on the landscape would hear him. If they bowed before his faith, he might let them live. Avenir could be generous. Even angels themselves could fall from heaven, and creatures such as these, which manifested the superstitious beliefs of the unconverted, were all part of the universe that God created. If they could be brought to heel and made to give their service to the Holy Word, perhaps they could be useful. Father Avenir had seen countless inexplicable things in these arcane territories. It was not his purpose to question the wonders of the Sundered world, and he didn’t dare question his faith.

  Leaving his pack and his fur coat behind where he could retrieve them if he survived this confrontation, or where scavengers could find them if he didn’t, Father Avenir strode ahead, one man alone carrying the strength of God. He walked out into the blistering valley of fire and smoke. He could smell the bitter brimstone in the air and the fumes stung his eyes, but his tears were those of joy and determination. In defiance, he inhaled deeply of the sulphurous fumes, knowing he was about to enter Hell itself.

  The tribe had called themselves the Snake People, or in their own language, the Shoshone. They had once been a large tribe with many villages and much trade throughout the mountains, but in recent years, with the growing evil force that had corrupted the magic in the land, many Shoshone had been possessed, their minds stolen away and placed in thrall of the dark controlling force. Many of their villages had been burned to the ground, destroyed by incomprehensibly evil attacks, fiery demons summoned by the black spirit himself.

  Now, the Shoshone were scattered and desperate, packing up their possessions and moving from place to place as if hunted. Their strong warriors were forced to form raiding parties to seize food and supplies from settlements even weaker than their own.

  Just a few weeks earlier in his wanderings in the wilderness, searching for other children of God, F
ather Avenir suddenly found himself confronted by two sturdy warriors with long black hair and fierce-looking spears. On horseback, they rode in out of the trees like bandits, confronting the priest. Father Avenir had found himself in many such perilous situations before, but he had his faith as a shield and a calm demeanor, as well as the fact that he had no possessions anyone would want to take, except for some dried meat and old acorns. Father Avenir had smiled a welcome at the dour-faced warriors and said a Latin prayer for them, offering greetings in English, French, and several local Native tongues.

  The lead warrior straightened, cocked his chin. “You are a priest? A shaman of the White God?” He sniffed. “And how strong is your God?”

  Father Avenir showed all the confidence he could summon. “My God is strong. He created the world and the whole universe.”

  The warrior let out a gruff laugh. “All gods say that, but at least our god, Coyote, admits that he sometimes plays tricks on us.”

  Father Avenir formed a stern expression as he clutched the cross at his chest. “My God does not play tricks.” Though, really, who but a God with an odd sense of humor would create a child half-white and half-Native, then give him a religion whose leader had been removed from this reality?

  The Shoshone warrior gestured with his spear. “I am Cameahwait. Ride behind my companion. We want you to speak with our shaman. The Snake People need strength now. Perhaps you can succeed where our shaman failed.”

  The two warriors rode as he walked, and they led him to a small and sparse new village. The people had cut down saplings and built new huts, covering them with tattered old skins. To Father Avenir it looked as if they had salvaged their possessions and moved often from place to place. They built up camp fires in the village and Cameahwait loudly introduced their guest, calling for the women to cook and share their food, which consisted of a few rabbits, squirrels, and trout from the streams.

  Father Avenir accepted their hospitality, although the people looked at him with both fear and suspicion. When he made the sign of the cross, the Shoshone flinched as if he were summoning some great magic. But Avenir smiled at them and gestured his blessing. He sat on a log near the cookfire as they brought out food, still not certain why he was here, but as always he welcomed the chance to spread the Word. He had an acceptable familiarity with their language because his mother had been captive among the Shoshone as a young woman, and he knew enough similar words in other tribal tongues that he could patch together ways to explain even the more esoteric concepts.

  But the women who served him were not his audience, and the few rambunctious children running among the trees avoided him. Cameahwait and several other warriors from a scattered raiding party also kept their distance.

  Father Avenir ate alone until another man emerged from an isolated structure, a wiry man with a weighty presence about him, clumpy, scrabbly hair, and a feral demeanor. He prowled forward, hunched over as if he couldn’t decide whether he was a man or an animal. He wore a loincloth, stained moccasins up to his ankles, and the rich, silvery pelt of a coyote wrapped around his shoulders with the head still intact, lolling to the side. The shaman came forward, his eyes locked on Father Avenir’s, and took a seat immediately across the fire, staring at the priest.

  Something about the shaman’s presence changed the movement in the air, and the acrid smoke from the campfire drifted about and burned Avenir’s nose and eyes. He blinked away and gestured, made the sign of the cross, and the smoke drifted off in a different direction.

  The shaman grinned as if that had been a test of wills. “My name is Dosabite. You are a priest of the white men. You bring their bible from across the great water, long before the Sundering.”

  “I am a priest,” Avenir admitted. “I follow the word of God, the traditions of the apostles, and the dictates of the Holy Father from Rome.” He held up his Bible, knowing that none of the Native tribes had any written language. “God’s word is preserved here forever in these pages. It is great magic.”

  “So you say,” said Dosabite. “But if your God is so strong, why hasn’t he defeated the evil spirit that drains these lands, steals our warriors, and raises revenants from the dead as his minions?”

  “Perhaps the fight is just beginning,” Avenir said.

  “We shall see how strong your God is.” The shaman picked up the coyote head and placed it firmly on his own, tugging it down as if it were a helmet. The sharp teeth stood out across Dosabite’s face. The flaps of fur hung over his ears with pointed canine tufts of their own. The dead eyes of the coyote were like dark holes, but the priest stared at them, undaunted. The spirits of the world had no power over the eternal.

  Father Avenir had been trained by other priests in St. Louis when he was just a young man. He had learned how to read and how to preach, and he had become passionately convinced in the truth of the Word. He had been born long after the comet came and after the magic shifted. He knew that many spells and folk magic worked, and that some people exhibited great powers, most prominent of whom was probably the great wizard, Benjamin Franklin.

  Father Avenir had some small ability with magic himself, though he preferred not to learn spells, because learning spells was admitting there was a magic greater than God’s power, and he would not do that. Instead, he told them about Jesus, or David and Goliath, or how Jeremiah stopped the sun in the sky, or how Moses parted the Red Sea. These were stories greater than any Native myths, and they were true.

  As he faced the shaman over the campfire, Father Avenir made his case, told his impassioned tales to Dosabite, who listened to them without sign of skepticism. When he was finished, the shaman reciprocated by telling of the trickster god Coyote, a powerful spirit whose works could be seen every day in the natural world, manifested in incomprehensible coincidences, unexpected problems, but also miracles.

  “Only God creates miracles,” Avenir said. “The rest is just magic, which is lesser. My mother told me all those tales when I was little.”

  “Only fools insist on one explanation,” retorted the shaman.

  As they both ate and talked, Dosabite spoke of the tribulations of his people, how the Shoshone had been driven from place to place by the evil spirit abroad in the land, by fire demons who burned villages, of giant river serpents infesting the waters. Then he told Father Avenir of a place in the mountains to the north where the anger and evil bubbled forth from beneath the ground, where it cracked open the land of the yellow stone, where true evil could be confronted. “But go there only if your God is strong enough,” Dosabite warned.

  Something about the shaman’s words intrigued Father Avenir. “I would see this for myself. My mother spoke of it, but she told me nothing of spirits dwelling there. My God is strong enough to purge them.”

  “I do not doubt your stories or your God,” said Dosabite. “In these days with magic saturating the land, and the beliefs and fears of all tribes feeding it, one would be ill-advised to doubt any god.”

  With a flare, sparks swirled up from the campfire, and Father Avenir reeled back as he crossed himself. The smoke drifted in front of his eyes again, and the sparks died away to a low glow of embers. He looked across at the shaman, shocked to see that the coyote skin covering Dosabite’s head had changed. The jaws were longer, settled into place. The eyes were fire with a golden glow.

  He was Coyote, and the head had become part of him. The shaman’s tongue lolled out between long, sharp teeth and he made a chuffing, feral sound before he leaped up from the log and bounded away from the campfire, leaving Avenir alone and clutching his Bible.

  Now, around the steamy, smoking basin, Father Avenir saw towering evergreens, rolling hills, mountain peaks. During his long trek from the village of the Snake People, following the directions Dosabite had given him, the priest had headed into the lush wilderness, far from where even the remaining bands would go.

  Avenir feared the looming evil presence that supposedly was engulfing all of the uncharted lands beyond the Mississippi an
d the Missouri. He fought for strength within himself, knowing in his heart and soul that he himself might be the warrior to defeat that presence, and he was an inadequate warrior for such a great battle.

  He’d fasted and prayed, and he sang the old hymns he’d learned in the church in St. Louis. Now, his voice echoed strong off the landscape and rang a strange susurrus from the local magic.

  “Pange, lingua, gloriósi

  Córporis mystérium,

  Sanguinísque pretiósi,

  Quem in mundi prétium

  Fructus ventris generósi

  Rex effúdit géntium.”

  Let the spirits and magics hear of the king born of a virgin, who’d shed his blood for men. Let them tremble.

  As he moved through the hellish landscape of curling steam and foul-smelling smoke, he could feel the power simmering within the earth, an angry strength that was fierce, independent. He slowly silenced his voice and continued forward, his right hand wrapped around the cross. The Bible was tucked snugly between his arm and his side, giving him comfort and strength. The brimstone stench swirled around his face, but he breathed deeply, showing no fear.

  When the comet had exploded and sundered America from the rest of the world, that event could have swept the remnants of Eden along with it, but perhaps this land also held the gates of Hell. Hadn’t Jesus himself said they would not stand against the Church? Even if all that remained of the Church in this desolate place was Father Avenir, he had been ordained by men who were ordained by the apostles who had broken bread with Jesus. And Avenir had sanctified himself for this battle.

  The hollow breathy roar of a fumarole broke open to his left, gushing fumes and hot gases, like the laughter of a monster. The priest could feel the pull of his enemy ahead, a strength that made the ground throb. Despite the surrounding tall pines in the hills, the chemical exhalations in the basin had bleached the ground, covered it in white powder, killed off many of the trees so that they stood bent and brown from the poison within the soil. Another geyser erupted, spouting hot steam and a jet of water high overhead.