by Baen Books
Moss spun, staring up, and there, silhouetted against the rising flames, Sally stood on the topmost platform of the giant slide, looking out over the confusion, illuminated and then cast into shadow by the dancing flames.
The fire was everywhere, now. The pile of sawdust at the bottom of the slide was afire. The Moon Ride was hidden in smoke, and long threads of flame licked out of the entrance into Noah's Ark.
Moss threw himself at the scaffolding, starting to climb.
"Sally!" he yelled.
"Moss!"
"Climb down!"
"The slide!"
"The sawdust is on fire! Climb down!"
His chest was burning, which wasn't a surprise, with everything else on fire. He hung onto the scaffolding and looked up. Sally was climbing down. That was good. Sally climbed like a cat; he didn't worry about her falling, but if the scaffold got too hot to hold. . .
"Hey, you kids! Get outta there! Charlie! We need the hose!"
Water began to fall though the cloud of smoke. Moss clung and coughed, and watched Sally climb closer, and finally come to rest next to him.
"Why are they spraying us with water?"
"To keep the fire off of us," Moss gasped. "C'mon, we gotta get outta here."
It was gone.
They'd stood there, all together, their arms around each others' waists, watching the amusement park burned.
Around ten o'clock Noah's Ark screamed like a live thing, foundered and collapsed in on itself, flames shooting out of the crater left behind.
Soon after, Jack 'n Jill, girders and slide all soft and black, sagged, crashed to its knees, and tipped over onto its side. The Moon Ride was gone by then, and the White Way was nothing more than ash and glowing timbers.
More fire trucks had arrived from the towns nearby, and they mostly concentrated on keeping the fire from reaching the Pier. They ran hoses into the sea, sprayed down the charred entrance ramp, and managed to keep the fire on land. There were people on the Pier, stranded for now, though Moss thought they'd be able to get off fine—tomorrow, maybe, after they'd gotten boats in and the last of the fire had died.
For now, he was tired. His chest ached, a little, his throat was raw, and his eyes streaming. At last somebody—maybe it was Bonny, maybe it was Phyllis—got them moving, away from the destruction, down Grand, to Bob's.
The place was jammed, even more than usual, no place to sit, and Moss finally leaned up against the wall, feeling empty and sad. It was so crowded, it was hard to breathe, and his head was thumping hard, in an irregular rhythm that was making him sick to his stomach.
Air, that was what he needed. No, more than that. He needed to go back to his place, his little piece o'land, and sit down under the broken apple tree. Maybe take a nap. . .
He pushed away from the wall, but—funny thing; his knees just wouldn't hold him and down he went, hitting a chair and making a big noise, an even bigger noise than what was happening in his head, and --
"Moss!"
Felsic, that was; Felsic picking him up and holding him like he didn't weigh nothing at all.
"Gotta get home," he said—or tried to say—"I don't feel so good."
"Where's home, Mossie?" That wasn't Felsic, that was Bonny, and it was Bonny's hand, he thought, that came cool across his forehead.
"Down on Walnut, little place, old apple tree. . ."
"That place?" Phyllis sounded startled, but from a long, long ways away. He was so tired. . .
"Easy, easy. . ." Felsic murmured.
He felt a little jolt of cool peacefulness, and things come nearer again, though there was something funny happening with his eyes.
"Boy's accepted," Vornflee said, and Bob's voice came in over that, with --
"The kid's dying, Bonny. . ."
"Perhaps not," Bonny said. "Felsic?"
"I'll carry him." He felt himself lifted and shifted and put his head against something firm and soft.
"You stick with me," Felsic whispered in his ear, or maybe straight into his head. "Stick with me, Mossie; I'll get you home."
Might've been he blacked out, 'cause the next thing he did know was the welcome of his own place, rising up into him. He smiled, and he was so very tired. . .
"Moshe, listen to me." That was Bonny again, calling him by his right name, which he'd rather she didn't. He was Moss now, and he belonged to this place.
"That's right," Felsic said. "But you gotta choose it, brother. The land won't take—you gotta give."
"Dying," Moss said, remembering Bob, and his heart, and his promise to his Momma, that he'd be careful—but he had been careful, just not. . .careful enough.
"Dying," Felsic said; "but not dead. If you choose it, the land will have you. But not even the land can cure the dead."
"Moss --" Bonny again. "Open yourself up to the land. It knows you, this land; it loves you. Give yourself to it. I'll tell you; I knew the lady who lived in that apple tree; I was only a sapling myself when she bent down to disease, but I remember her. She was a stickler, and she didn't love easy, but once she did, her heart never closed. If what's left of her in this land chose you, then you can't do any better."
"How. . ." The thumping, and his breathing. . .
"Felsic," Phyllis said. "Let him go. It's his choice now, and you've kept him overlong, if his choice is to go."
Go? But he never wanted to go! He wanted to stay right here, here with this sweet place that loved him and kept him safe—that he loved and would shield with his life and more—he'd promised!
"And I promised," said a voice that he knew better than his own.
He opened his eyes, and there she was, the grandmother of this place. She opened her arms, and he walked into her embrace.
He felt the welcome rise in him, like the tide; he smelled fresh green leaves and sweet apples, pine, and leaf mold, and it seemed, for a minute that his heart stopped beating altogether, and he didn't need breath at all. He felt the weight of the apple tree; knew the flowers like they were his own fingers, and the stones like they were his toes. He was Moss; he was the lady of the apple tree; and the little brown bird—the skylark—that sung him awake every morning, so he'd be on time for work. He was all of the pieces, and the perfect sum of everything. . .
"Here he comes back to us," Felsic said.
Moss opened his eyes, and smiled; feeling his land smile through him.
"I'm not going to die," he said, like he was comforting Felsic.
"Not for a good, long while, I'm thinking," Felsic answered, and all around him he heard an exhale as if a roomful of folk had suddenly sighed at once in relief and pleasure.
"Are we all. . .like this?" he asked, looking from face to face around him.
"We all have taken service with the land," Bonny said briskly. "Each in our own way."
"'cept Sally," said Vornflee.
"Sally's a cat," Moss said. "Even I know that."
"That's right," Felsic said. "Now, how're you feeling, brother Moss?"
Moss laughed, and sat up, full of energy and delight. He felt a chipmunk run light over the land, pine cone in his mouth, and grinned.
"Thank you," he said, to all of them gathered, and those others, who were listening in through their own connection to a piece of land, or a slice of marsh, or a rock, or a tree. He could. . .almost. . .see them all, behind his eyes. Soon, he'd sort them out.
"You okay with this, Moss?" Felsic asked him, and Moss laughed again.
"I'm home," he said; "and I ain't never leaving. Hard to be any more okay than that."
Long Nights Moon
by David B. Coe
December’s full moon is known among some of the tribal peoples of North America as the Cold Moon, or the Long Nights Moon. Living in Chandler, Arizona, a suburb in the desert sprawl of Phoenix, I can’t say that “Cold Moon” has ever had much meaning for me. But as a weremyste I know all about full moons and long nights.
For three nights out of every moon cycle, the night of the full, and th
e nights immediately before and after, weremystes go through what’s known as the phasing. That probably sounds innocuous enough. Trust me, it’s not. Our magic strengthens, but our minds weaken to the point of temporary insanity. At the very moment when we most need to have control over our thoughts and our runecrafting, we have none. The barriers between reality and delusion melt away. Some of us retreat into our minds, enduring the dark hours in quiet desperation. Others turn violent, lashing out at those we love, or turning our fear and rage inward so that we harm ourselves. I’ve experienced both: resigned withdrawal into my own addled mind and violent eruptions that nearly ended with me putting a bullet through my head. I couldn’t tell you which is worse. They both pretty much suck.
Not surprisingly, these descents into madness eventually cause our minds to deteriorate. One doesn’t meet many sane old weremystes. They don’t exist. My father, who’s also a weremyste, and who, like me, lost his job on the Phoenix police force because of the phasings, is in his sixties, and he’s nuts, just as I will be.
There isn’t much that could make the phasings worse than they already are, but this year’s calendar was doing its best. The next full moon, only two days away, fell on Christmas, which meant that the phasing would begin on Christmas Eve. Joy to the world.
Forty-eight hours shy of the full, and several hours before even today’s moonrise, I could already feel the moon tugging at my thoughts, like idle fingers pulling at a loose thread. Sooner or later, it was all going to unravel.
Right now, though, I was in the Z-ster, my 1977 silver 280Z, following the Piestewa Freeway through the city, on my way to meet with a new client. Mitchell Sullivan owned a car dealership over on East Camelback Road, the heart of Phoenix’s automobile trade. Sullivan hadn’t told me much over the phone, but I gathered he was having trouble with one of his employees.
I’m a private detective -- owner, president, and principal investigator for Justis Fearsson Investigations -- and since I used to be a cop, many of the clients who come my way are business owners trying to manage problems that straddle the boundaries of the law. They avoid going to the police because they don’t want the negative publicity, but they also know that they’re out of their depth. More often than not, I’m a compromise who can make the issue go away quietly and discreetly. Or so they think. Sometimes it seems like I can’t do anything without drawing the attention of the police, the press, and the entire magical community of the Phoenix metropolitan area. But I try not to mention that to potential clients.
“Ohanko.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the voice. The car swerved, taking me perilously close to the minivan in the lane next to mine. I swore. The other driver yelled something I couldn’t hear.
“Damn you, Namid! I’ve told you not to just appear in my car like that! Not when I’m on a highway.”
The ghostly figure in the passenger seat stared back at me, his expression maddeningly tranquil. Namid’skemu was a runemyste, one of thirty-nine spirits created centuries before by the runeclave to be guardians of magic in our world. He was essentially the ghost of a Zuni shaman from the now-extinct K’ya’na-Kwe clan, the water people, as they were also known. And true to his heritage, he appeared to be made entirely of faintly luminous waters. He was tall and broad, like a warrior, but right now his face and form were as clear as a mountain lake. As his moods changed, so did his appearance, so that he could be as roiled as the ocean in a storm, or as hard and uncompromising as ice. Only his eyes remained unchanged. They always gleamed as bright as stars on a winter night.
For years now, since he first revealed himself to me during one of the darkest phasings I’d ever experienced, Namid had been my mentor in the ways of magic and, enigmatic though he was, my friend. Mostly. He called me “Ohanko,” which, roughly translated, meant “reckless one.” I guess I had earned the name over the years.
“I am sorry if I startled you,” he said, in a voice like a tumbling stream. “Should I leave?”
“No, you’re here now. What do you want?”
“It has been some time since last you trained. Your skills as a runecrafter need work.”
“And you think I can train while I’m driving?”
I found it alarming that he appeared to consider this. “It would be an interesting exercise in concentration.”
“It would also likely get me killed. I meant the question as a joke.”
The runemyste frowned. He had never been fond of my sense of humor. “You need to practice. Honing your magic and your mind is particularly important when we are on the cusp of the moontime.”
The moontime was what he called the phasing. And I knew that he had a point: improving my skills as a weremyste would actually make me more resistant to the long-term effects of the full moon. But despite his interest in testing my powers of concentration, this was not the time.
“You do realize that I have to eat, right? That I have a mortgage, that I need to earn a living? Being a weremyste doesn’t pay any bills.”
“Being a weremyste has been a boon to you in your work as an officer of the law and an investigator. You know this.”
“Fine,” I said. “Practicing doesn’t pay bills. Is that better?”
“Practicing keeps you alive.”
I hated arguing with Namid, because he had the annoying habit of always being right, and because it was like arguing with the world’s oldest know-it-all, or maybe the world’s most persistent four year-old. Either way, I wasn’t sure why I bothered.
“You’re right, it does. I need to practice more. But I have to work now, and I don’t know when I’ll be done.”
He let out a low rumble, like ocean breakers crashing on a rocky shore. Then he faded from view, slowly, glaring at me the whole time. When at last he was gone, I felt both relieved and guilty.
I exited the freeway at Highland Avenue, took Sixteenth up to Camelback Road, and crept along the street past lots filled with new cars gleaming in the Sonoran sun, until I came to Sullivan Toyota and Lexus. I pulled in and parked near the showroom.
A salesman in charcoal gray slacks, a white dress shirt, and a red and blue striped tie, stood near the entrance, smoking a cigarette. He was the only salesperson I saw who wasn’t with a customer. The lot was hopping. I wouldn’t have thought that many people bought cars so close to Christmas, but it seemed I was wrong.
He nodded to me as I got out of Z-ster.
“Nice car,” he said. He dropped the rest of his cigarette into one of those plastic receptacles that look like upside down lollipops, and walked to where I stood. He shook my hand, but he was focused on the car. He walked around it once, nodding at the detailing.
I ate it up. I’m a car guy, and having another car guy admire my wheels . . . Well, the only thing that would have made it better was if he was a she. A pretty one.
“You looking to trade her in?” he asked. “I mean, she’s in great shape; I know we could give you a good deal.”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but there’s no offer you could make that would convince me to trade her or sell her.”
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “I figured. Gotta ask, though, you know? So then it’s a second car you’re after.”
“Actually, I have an appointment to see Mister Sullivan.”
To his credit, he didn’t show any disappointment at learning that I wouldn’t be his next sale. He crossed to an intercom panel near the showroom door, pressed the white button, and said, “Sarah, can you send Mitch out here? There’s someone to see him.”
I couldn’t make out what the woman on the other end said in response, but the salesman thanked her and told me that Sullivan would be out shortly. He came back to the Z-ster and after ogling her for a few minutes, asked if he could see the interior.
“Yeah, sure.” I got out of his way.
He lowered himself into the car and just sat, the door open, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the stick shift. “Nice,” he said, drawing out the word. “M
y Dad had one of these, but he never let me drive it. Where’d you even find it? It’s gotta be older than you are.”
“I found a listing in the Republic classifieds about six years ago. It had maybe forty thousand miles on it, and had been babied its entire life. I was lucky.”
“No shit.”
A white-haired man emerged from the showroom wearing a beige Western cut suit with black piping, a bolo tie secured with a mammoth piece of turquoise, and a stetson that matched the color of the suit. On most people the outfit would have looked ridiculous, but somehow this guy -- Mister Sullivan, I assumed -- made it work. His face was tanned and deeply lined, so that he looked like the old sheriff in every Western I’d ever seen. He was tall and hale, and he flashed a big smile at me as he strode in my direction, his hand outstretched.
“Jay Fearsson, right? I’m Mitch Sullivan.” He spoke in a loud voice that sounded like it had been roughened by a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. I swear the guy was straight out of central casting.
His grip was crushing.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“You Lee Fearsson’s boy?”
I felt my smile slip. I always grew wary at the mention of my Dad’s name. He didn’t interact with many people anymore. He lived out in a tiny town called Wofford, in an old trailer on land that most people who didn’t understand the desert would call desolate. But he’d left the police force under a cloud of scandal, and there were still some folks around who remembered. It didn’t help that I’d left the force pretty much the same way.
“Yes, sir. You know my dad?”
“I met him a few times when he was still on the force, and I was workin’ a security job over at the airport. That was back when it only had two terminals -- that’s how long ago I’m talkin’. Anyway, he was a good cop and a good man. Always thought he got a raw deal.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“He still with us?”
“Yes, sir. He lives out in Wofford.”
“Well, next time you see him, you tell him Mitch Sullivan says hello.”