L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future 34

by L. Ron Hubbard

  “That’s—yeah. That’s the spirit. Hey, thanks for not, you know, doing that thing where you explode my mind with your voice.”

  “Sensitivity training.” Nya flipped the switch on the coffee maker. “I am told that mortals lose their grip on reality when I speak directly into the depths of their soul. The trainer said your kind finds it ‘unnerving.’”

  “Something like that,” Marty said. “Anyway, see you at the diamond.”

  Nya stood watching the dark coffee drip down into the pot, slowly filling the carafe with its bitter caffeinated bounty. He could wield nearly infinite power, and yet still he was at the mercy of this gadget taking its time with gurgles and bursts of steam to produce the nectar he needed to get through a long afternoon.

  “I can’t believe you talk to him,” a soft feminine voice said from around a nearby corner. She spoke softly, but Nya’s ears were far keener than most humans realized.

  “Hey, Angela,” Marty said. “He’s a little odd, but he’s not a bad guy.”

  “Have you seen Daryl?” Angela said. “He can barely feed himself anymore. I’ve been waiting for him to fix my email signature for weeks, and all the man does now is mutter about ‘vagaries of infinite blackness’ and some nonsense about panpipes.”

  “So maybe Nya went a little overboard. Tell me you’re not annoyed by the IT guys every once in a while.”

  “Annoyed, maybe, but not enough to drive a man insane.”

  “He’s a really good first baseman,” Marty said. “And we’ve still got a chance to catch IT in the standings.”

  Nya filled his “I Heart NY” mug. Without putting the carafe down, he took a deep drink of the scalding hot coffee. The sensitivity trainer had also told him that drinking coffee that was obviously so hot that it would burn his coworkers was another “unnerving” trait. He frowned and added “wait for coffee to cool” to the list of things with power over him.

  He raised the mug to his lips and blew on the surface of the coffee, gently dispersing the delicate tendrils of steam.

  “Fine,” Angela said. “Just tell me that at least you didn’t tell him that we’re going to Finnegan’s after the game?”

  “No, I figured the rest of you would want to ditch him, so I left that out.”

  Enraged, Nya hurled the carafe into the floor without regard for the scalding coffee or the broken glass. He stormed around the corner of the cubicles that separated him from Angela and Marty.

  Angela’s face paled and she backed away. A cubicle wall prevented her escape. Marty’s face blanched. He looked as if his bladder might fail him—just as Daryl’s had.

  “MY EARS HEAR ALL THINGS! I AM GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE HITTING OF DINGERS FOR YOUR SOFTBALL TEAM, BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MUTUAL CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL?”

  The Howler on the Sales Floor by Sidney Lugo

  “It’s not like that, Nya,” Marty said as he backed away. Angela cowered.

  “ANGELA, PREPARE TO CONFRONT THE DEPTHS OF THE UNSPOKEN PROPHECY.”

  Her eyes widened as she stared into the visions of dark inevitability he placed in her mind. With each passing second a chorus of unending pain—the majestic howls of souls lost to an eternity of torment—forced the sales floor from her vision. To Angela’s fraying consciousness, each moment passed at an agonizing, languid pace. Nya allowed her to wallow in her despair and forced her into the embrace of an entropic universe in which all she had ever held dear withered into the void.

  Angela’s pupils dilated further, until they consumed her irises with inky blackness. The sweet cadences of her screams filled the office, lending the afternoon a peaceful calm.

  Nya smiled and laughed. He cared not who might be unnerved by the earthly expression of his delight.

  “Nya,” Bob shouted over Angela’s wailing as he came upon the scene. “Come on, man. We’ve talked about this.”

  The manager knelt by Angela’s side, trying to comfort her, but Nya knew that she would never truly recover from the things he’d shown her.

  “Perhaps if she underwent sensitivity training,” Nya offered, “she’d know not to exclude a family member from recreation.”

  Marty slipped away around a corner of cubicles. Nya surveyed the office. People stood up, peering over cube walls with hesitant but implacable curiosity. He offered them all a glimpse of the darkness on the other side of the veil, for deep down, all wished for such visions.

  “I’m going to have to write this up,” Bob threatened.

  Nya smiled. Angela’s madness sustained him. It was time to test his strength against his most fearsome foe. “I long to join battle once more. Summon me the devil from human resources!”

  The Minarets of An-Zabat

  written by

  Jeremy TeGrotenhuis

  illustrated by

  Brenda Rodriguez

  * * *

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jeremy TeGrotenhuis is a writer from Eastern Washington State, where he grew up playing make-believe in the same desert that houses the most polluted nuclear waste site in America. He has lived in Beijing, where he studied Mandarin, and in Taipei, where he and his wife Hannah taught English. Currently he lives in Spokane, Washington, where he is pursuing a master’s in teaching at Whitworth University, his undergraduate alma mater.

  The first story Jeremy remembers writing was a mash-up of Moonraker and Brian Jacques’s Redwall, which he wrote when he was too young to be watching Moonraker, and he has been writing ever since. His fiction has appeared in two anthologies from TWG Press, Peak Heat and Night Market, as well as in Weird Sisters: Lilac City Fairy Tales Volume 3 from Scablands Books, Pirates & Ghosts from Flame Tree Publishing, and in Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine. He is currently revising a fantasy novel set in the same world as “The Minarets of An-Zabat” and finishing the first draft of another, and has half a dozen short stories out on submission at any given time.

  You can follow Jeremy online at jeremyteg.wordpress.com and twitter.com/jeremyteg.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Brenda Rodriguez was born in Mexico, but moved to the US before her first birthday and has been here ever since. She started drawing as a child and has never stopped loving it. Brenda attributes her passion for character creation to her interest in video games. Her favorites include The Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy. She recalls being inspired by them at a young age as a child, and on throughout her life thereafter. To this day, she can thank Nintendo and Square Enix for fueling her aspiration of getting into the entertainment industry as a character artist.

  Brenda graduated in spring of 2017 with a degree in Computer Graphics Technology from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. She is now working as a freelance artist and polishing her portfolio to officially break into the industry.

  The Minarets of An-Zabat

  1

  A lattice of silver whirlwinds spiraled up the minarets of An-Zabat. Each minaret was a narrow column holding up the dome of heaven. They numbered in the dozens and jutted from the earth at the heart of the city, rising above the rooftops of its tallest structures. Red banners, emblazoned with the Imperial tetragram, fluttered from the tips of those gilded spires. Each banner served to remind the people of An-Zabat, conquerors of the desert and the sky, that they had been conquered in turn.

  I could never have imagined, at my first sight of An-Zabat, how the city would change me. Nor that I would cause those minarets to fall.

  Crewmen struck all but the steering sail as the Naphena’s Blessing coasted on its runner blades and into the elevated harbor. The ship’s Windcaller breathed deeply and planted his feet wide apart. The whorled tattoos that covered his arms rippled as he worked his magic. He pushed the wind up and around into the steering sail, guiding the Windship to its moorings.

  I tried and failed, not for the first time, to analyze the wake of power le
ft by the Windcaller’s magic. Like the sorcery I wielded as Hand of the Emperor, it was elegant and subtle. Yet where Imperial sorcery was filtered and transmitted through the Emperor himself, Windcalling was raw and wild like the Nayeni shamanism that my grandmother had taught. I was arrogant, and fully aware of my arrogance, to imagine myself unraveling the mysteries of Windcalling over the course of a single voyage. The Windcallers had, after all, shrugged off the Empire’s every attempt to steal their secrets.

  Perhaps that should have daunted me.

  It only piqued my fascination.

  A palanquin carried me toward the Imperial Citadel at the heart of An-Zabat. I craned my neck out the window to soak in the sights, smells, and sounds of my new home. The people were bronze-skinned and amber eyed. Their hair had been tinted yellow by the sun, a shade that I had never seen before. Gawkish, hunch-backed dromedaries carried luggage and pulled carts through the crowds. Rich spices and heady perfumes filled the air to mask the smell of so many people and animals crowded beneath the desert sun.

  Every few blocks we passed a building blown apart by chemical grenades, or a home scored and blackened by Sienese battle-sorcery. An-Zabat was a vibrant city, but it bore the lingering scars of conquest.

  At the center of the city stood a statue of Naphena, the winged goddess of the Great Oasis, carved in sandstone and gilt with silver, rubies, and sapphires. Water that sparkled in the heat of early afternoon cascaded from an urn cradled in her arms. It splashed in the basin of the oasis at her feet, where children played in the clear, cool shallows.

  Around the oasis, merchants hawked goods imported from throughout the Empire: shimmering silks and brightly feathered birds, sparkling gems and luxurious wines. Customers haggled with merchants in quick, clipped phrases while tumblers and magicians performed to thunderous applause and a rain of coins. The largest crowd surrounded a woman who spun and leaped in stunning arcs as she sent a pair of scarves fluttering from hand to hand.

  I watched her for a dozen heartbeats. As she danced, power rippled from her fingers to pull the wind along the length of her scarves. Their silver embroidery caught the sun as they fluttered through the air.

  The Windcallers, it seemed, used their magic for more than war and Windships.

  My palanquin left the bazaar and approached the high sandstone walls of the citadel, which were scarred in places by the fractal gouges left by Sienese battle-sorcery. Guards walked the battlements carrying heavy crossbows and wearing bandoleers of grenades.

  I had never seen a grenade in use, but my grandmother had told me stories. Trees shattered into splinters that whistled through the air, homes and temples reduced to piles of ash. My father had hired Sienese tutors to provide my education, but my grandmother had taught lessons of her own. She never let me forget how his people came to her country.

  All in the past, now. Here I was, successful beyond my father’s most fervent wish, transplanted to a foreign country in the service of the Empire. I resolved to focus on the present, and on the future, not on the stories of an old woman who filled my mind with nothing but confusion.

  A guard waved my palanquin through the heavy stone gates. The citadel had once been the palace and pleasure garden of An-Zabat’s merchant princes. Its new residents had altered it to suit their taste.

  Winding canals flowed through the courtyard, feeding shallow ponds. Wooden pavilions in the Sienese style stood throughout a sculpted landscape of grassy hills, bamboo groves, and porous limestone boulders dredged from distant lakes. Pink-plumed herons imported from Southern Sien waded among lilies. The faintest echoes of the bazaar drifted through the air, but deeper into the garden there was silence. After the noisy, dusty, crowded streets of An-Zabat, the pastoral quiet of the garden put me off balance.

  A steward led me to the Pavilion of Soaring Verse and announced my arrival. Three men lounged on couches around a narrow, artificial stream that spiraled through the pavilion. An-Zabati servant boys waved fans of peacock feathers while others filled cups with mild plum wine. These they floated on paper rafts down the stream. The lounging officials plucked them from the waters to sip at their leisure.

  I knew of these men by reputation, and introductions were swiftly made. Hand Cinder wore dark-blue robes embroidered with gold thread meant to imitate plates of armor. Despite his militant posture and thick jaw, he had an easy smile. Hand Alabaster watched me coldly from behind brass-rimmed spectacles as I lowered myself to a fourth couch. He wore his hair long and unbraided in a style that was fashionable in the Northern Capital, where I had first landed on the mainland after leaving my island home.

  Voice Rill wore robes of Imperial Red, undecorated, and his head was shaved. The Imperial tetragram that scarred my left hand and Cinder’s and Alabaster’s right had been branded above the bridge of his nose. It glimmered like fractured glass. Power rippled from it continuously, maintaining the link between the Emperor and our far corner of his domain.

  “Welcome to An-Zabat, Hand Alder,” said Voice Rill as I took a seat. “We have been composing poetry in turns. A bit of idleness in the heat of the afternoon, and an opportunity to flex our literary muscles.”

  “Not that there is much demand for court poetry in An-Zabat,” said Hand Cinder. He grinned at Alabaster. “One has to keep the dream of reassignment alive, eh, young Alabaster?”

  Hand Alabaster rolled his eyes and adjusted his spectacles.

  “I believe it was your turn to recite, was it not?” said Rill.

  Alabaster straightened. As he gathered his thoughts, Rill explained the rules of their contest. Each man recited a poem in turn. If the others approved of the poem, they took the next cup to float by on the artificial stream. If they did not, for whatever reason, they let the cup pass.

  I began to question the reasonableness of spending the afternoon at a drinking game, but shut my mouth. My career depended upon working with these men. As the first Hand of the Emperor descended from Nayeni blood, the path to success and power would not be made easy for me. I told myself that they were making a minor festival of my arrival, and that I should be flattered.

  A paper fan snapped open in Alabaster’s fingers. Fashionable poets always performed with their faces obscured. Cued by Alabaster’s fan, the servants set about preparing the cups and paper rafts while Alabaster began his recitation:

  The heron leaps from his pool, taking flight,

  Broad wings flash silver in the sun,

  My hand skips across the page, smearing ink

  I dip my brush with thoughts of home.

  He snapped the fan shut. Rill took a cup. I reached for one as well. The poem derived some of its imagery from the classics, but it was evocative.

  Alabaster frowned at me as I brought the cup to my lips.

  “You use your left hand,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “And it is sealed instead of your right. Why?”

  Paranoia bubbled up, but I tamped it back down. Instinct—hammered into my skull by my grandmother’s constant warnings—told me to keep my scars hidden from anyone who might know anything of magic. But I had learned.

  The Sienese had felt the bite of Nayeni shamanism wielded against them, but they had never learned its secrets. Shamans hid their own corpses from prying Sienese sorcerers by self-immolation or by veering into the shape of a beast as they died. If I used shamanism around these men, they would see the rippling patterns of magic and know my secret. But they would not recognize the mark of power my grandmother had carved into my palm.

  “It is a disfigurement from my youth,” I said. “A teacup shattered in my hand.”

  Alabaster leaned forward to examine my scars.

  “The Left-Handed Easterling,” Cinder said. “You’re notorious. The first Nayeni to rise to Hand of the Emperor.”

  “Nayeni on my mother’s side,” I said, trying to sound flippant, but conscious as I had always been of the reddish tint to my
skin, the wave in my hair.

  “I fought in the conquest of Nayen,” Hand Cinder went on as though I had not spoken. “Voice Rill tells us there are still skirmishes with bandits in the highlands. Ha! Is it really that hard to put down a few gangs of belligerent savages? Voice Golden-Finch and Hand Usher have bungled that province, haven’t they?”

  “The rebels are resilient, it is true.” I struggled to keep my face bright, though shadowed thoughts came unbidden to my mind. Thoughts of Oriole, of our campaign into the highlands, of how I had led him to his death. “Though ‘bungled’ seems an unkind word.”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Rill said. He inclined his head, as my tutor Koro Ha had often done when chiding me. I became painfully aware of my own anger, the savagery in my voice. My hands curled in my lap. Hands tinted red by savage blood. Easterling blood.

  “Hand Cinder,” Rill went on, “you did not take a cup.”

  Cinder frowned at the sudden change of subject. “It was his third composition in a row about homesickness.”

  “You oppose the theme?” Alabaster peered over the rim of his glasses.

  “Yes. And the imagery was overwrought.”

  Alabaster glared at Cinder, then looked to Rill for support. The Voice bobbed his head thoughtfully from side to side.

  “I don’t agree, Cinder. I thought it was lovely. What did you think, Hand Alder?”

  Alabaster struck me as a self-indulgent ponce, but Cinder was a boor. I had to work with both of them.

  “If I had heard two similar poems already, I might share Hand Cinder’s opinion.” I kept my voice calm and my tone contemplative. I had lost composure for only a moment. It was still possible to save face. “However, I thought this composition stood on its own quite well.”

  “Pfa!” Hand Cinder waved a hand. “You’re only saying that so you won’t insult him!”

  “Oh, he couldn’t possibly think it had real merit!” Alabaster frowned icily at Cinder, then smiled warmly at me. “Thank you for the compliment, Hand Alder. Would you like to recite next?”