Space Bound: A Dragon Soul Press Anthology

by J. E. Feldman

  My heart burnt at the memories that flashed through my head. I still wouldn’t look at her. “It started a year ago,” I said quietly. “Mother fell ill then.” I paused, trying to find words that would explain the situation clearly and quickly. I didn’t want to dwell on my past for too long. “Father desperately searched for a cure. We, Fywin and I, we supported that. We wanted to help her too. We started to take odd jobs in the village whenever we weren’t taking over the work on the farm, but it wasn’t enough. We ran out of money without ever having found a cure. That’s when my father arranged for me to marry Tykon.” At Lucia’s slight frown, I added, “The man who attacked your companion. Tykon promised to use his wealth to look after our family. To help mother get better and make my life better.”

  A lump had formed in my throat and I fought against it, not wanting it to send tears to my eyes while I finished my story. “But then, when mother died, and father willingly followed her only a night later, we were left on our own. Tykon didn’t come near us, not until I was of age. We only got by thanks to the kindness of our neighbors, Syanton and Myari in particular. I still did odd jobs, helping wherever I could. But then Tykon came to claim me…”

  I couldn’t suppress a shudder as I trailed off, remembering how forceful he had been. How he had reminded me that I was promised to him in exchange for his help. How I owed him my hand. I was young, scared, and wanted to protect Fywin, so I had given in.

  Lucia gently put an arm around my shaking shoulders and drew me close. Her gentle pressure and warmth was comforting, so different to Tykon. She waited patiently until my breathing had calmed down and then let me sit up again.

  “Today was my wedding day,” I told her, a sad smile lingering on my lips as I finally looked at her. “And your bird made it possible for me to escape. I think he tried to kill my brother.”

  Anger rose in my stomach as I remembered Fywin lying so still in the field, a bludgeoning wound on his head. I grew silent again. There was nothing else to say.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucia offered eventually. “I guess you can’t stay here after all, huh?”

  I shook my head. No. My time in this village had come to an end. I needed to find somewhere that would provide safety for Fywin, so he had a chance of growing up and becoming a man. Somewhere we could be happy.

  I pushed the thought away for the moment and tried to think of something more cheerful. “And why are you here, wizard?”

  She grimaced at the last word. “I’m not a wizard.”

  I grinned teasingly. “You live in a giant silver bird,” I reminded her.

  “It’s a ship,” she argued, and I almost laughed out loud.

  “Ships go on the water. They don’t fly!” I giggled.

  “It’s a spaceship,” she said, but she left it at that, probably realizing anything else she said would only give me more points to strengthen my argument. “We’re here on a mission,” she admitted. I raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. “Back home, there are too many people, and too few natural resources to look after them. We are something like scouts, looking for other places that can be inhabited by people. Though we didn’t expect there to be people here already.” The frown on her face made me feel as though I was a major inconvenience.

  “I’m sorry?” I offered, confused. She shook her head.

  “No, it’s… It’s just that it means we’ve failed in our mission.”

  “Because there are already people here.”

  She nodded. “We’d need to terraform the planet to make sure it suits our people’s needs perfectly, and that would destroy all of you.”

  Again, she was using words that made no sense. “Terraform?” I repeated. “Planet?”

  She smiled apologetically. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’ll find another place.” She drew me back on my feet. “Want to check up on your brother?”

  I couldn’t nod fast enough.

  Fywin had woken up. He seemed terrified when we came into the room, sloshing around the water while Marcus yelled at him, but he calmed down the instant he saw me rush to his side. I saw his mouth form my name. I let mine form his.

  We smiled at each other, only happy that we were both safe. I turned to Lucia.

  “Is he healed now? Can you let him out?” I asked, as she studied some blinking slates with strange, everchanging symbols. After a moment, she nodded, and pressed one of the mounds on the board.

  The blue slime in the cylinder around Fywin was drained, slowly, but before long, the box opened, and Fywin threw his arms around me. I immediately checked his head, but Lucia had been right. The wound was gone. Entirely. Not even a scar was left. The only thing indicating that there might have been something was his hair that was lighter in that place.

  “You didn’t… He didn’t make you…?”

  I shook my head to answer my little brother’s question.

  “I didn’t marry him,” I told him. “You weren’t there, so I knew something was wrong.”

  His little face darkened. “He’s not a good person,” he said. I held him tight.

  Marcus shrugged and walked to the board at the other end of the room. Lucia frowned, looking after him, but I was too busy with my brother to watch Marcus.

  “Who are they?” Fywin whispered to me.

  “They’re wizards,” I whispered back.

  “Not wizards,” Lucia cut in. “Just people.”

  I snorted. “So she keeps telling me.” I smiled at my brother. “They saved us.”

  Fywin measured up both of them from head to toe. “I could have saved us too. And you could have as well,” he claimed, though from where he took the confidence, I couldn’t say.

  “Of course,” I agreed with him.

  Some beeping sound interrupted our reunion, quickly followed by a rumble that went through the entire floor. Fywin grabbed my arm, eyes wide with terror.

  “The bird,” he hissed. “It’s coming again! It was spitting fire. It was… heading right for us!”

  I guessed he must have seen it before he lost consciousness.

  “Don’t worry,” Lucia mumbled. “We’re inside the bird.” She seemed distracted, still watching Marcus.

  “Hey,” she suddenly bellowed, the sternness in her voice making me flinch. “What are you doing?” She strode over to Marcus, anger portrayed in every step.

  Marcus shrugged. “Taking flight.”

  Wait, what? I shouldn’t have been surprised after everything I’d seen, but the thought that they could force the dead bird back into the air was terrifying. Fywin held onto me tightly.

  “Why? We’re not done here!” Lucia yelled.

  Marcus turned to her, annoyed more than anything else. “Obviously. We still need to terraform it.”

  Terraform. There was that word again.

  I let go of Fywin and strode forward.

  “But that will kill everyone!” I interject. Both wizards turned to me.

  Marcus grinned. “You’re smarter than I thought!” he said brightly. “But hey, you’re safe. Everyone else was so happy to sell you out, so now they get what they deserve.”

  I shook my head in incomprehension. “You promised them protection. You promised you wouldn’t harm them!”

  Marcus shook his head. “Technically,” he said, smiling self-satisfied, “I promised nothing. That bastard of a guy just presumed that’s how it worked. And even if I had agreed, it would have been in exchange for your hand, right? But aren’t you Lucia’s squeeze now?”

  “Marcus!” Lucia’s thundering voice made both of us freeze for just a moment.

  “I’ve had enough of backwater planets,” Marcus hissed. “I want to go home. I don’t want to have to look for another stupid planet only to find there’s already life or that it’s inhabitable even after terraforming. I. Want. Home.”

  “There are people down there.”

  Marcus shrugged again. “Not very good people, according to the pipsqueak over there. What did you call them? Primitive? How is i
t any different to squashing a mosquito or an ant?”

  “You can’t,” I pleaded. “They might not be the best of people, but they’re not that bad!”

  Marcus rolled his eyes and pushed up a lever. The world around us suddenly made a jump upwards. I lost my balance, tumbling to the ground. Lucia met the same fate as I did, as did Fywin.

  Pressure increased on my head, making me feel dizzy and sick. Only Marcus was still standing, though I could vaguely see through my swimming vision how Lucia got back on her feet as well.

  Marcus was still hammering at the board, making lights appear and disappear with each tap.

  “Marcus!” Lucia tried again. “You’re breaking intergalactic law right now. You can’t do this!”

  Marcus sighed exasperatedly. “Whoop-di-doo. No one’s going to know.”

  Somehow, from somewhere, he had pulled out some strange bent stick that he was now pointing at his companion. Based on Lucia’s sharp intake of breath and freezing of any movement, I gathered it was used for some kind of attack spell. With his free hand, Marcus pressed on the board again and I was lost in the moment. What I had thought to be a black wall changed to let light in. The outside light. What I saw were the villagers, the remains of the church, and the houses around which I had spent my life shrinking smaller and smaller, as we rose higher in the sky.

  The bird was flying again. With us in its gut. My vision was still blurry and my sense of balance completely off, so I stumbled more than stood or walked towards the sight. The horizon came into view – a line of light, bright orange and blue, gleaming as though the world were on fire.

  Had it started already? Had Marcus begun to destroy my home?

  “Marcus,” Lucia said his name again, calmly this time. “You can’t do this. You know you shouldn’t. You’re not a bad person. I get that you miss home, that you want to go back, but this isn’t the right way to do that. We can go back right now, and we’ll explain to them that they’ll need to send someone else. That the mission was too long. I get it.”

  “Shut up,” Marcus laughed. “You don’t get anything. You have your little souvenir.” He glanced at me, the same look he had given me when we first met. “But maybe I should take her for myself.”

  His thumb moved and I heard a click. Lucia gulped, but her eyes remained steady on Marcus.

  I needed to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and watch as he did something terrible to my people, as little as I wanted to be among them anymore. The time to act was now. Marcus pressed some more buttons and the bird halted in the air. My head cleared up. He continued along with the bleeps and lights. All my hair stood on end as a low humming sound rumbled through the bird. My skin tingled all over and I knew something big was about to happen. Something bad. Unless I could stop it.

  Lucia was the key. She would know. Once Marcus no longer pointed his attack wand at her. I used the fact that Marcus barely paid me any attention and lunged at him, pulling his arm up, so his wand no longer pointed at Lucia.

  “You need to stop!” I yelled in his ear as I clutched onto his back, desperately keeping hold of his arm. He struggled, and within seconds, he had thrown me onto the floor hard enough that the breath was pushed from my lungs. Gasping for air, I only saw the other side of his wand pointed at my face, and an annoyed glance on his face, standing above me.

  Then something tackled him outside of my field of vision. No, not something. Someone. Fywin was wrestling with Marcus, quickly aided by Lucia. I used the chance to scramble to the side to grab hold of the wand Marcus had dropped. I didn’t know how to use magic, but maybe I could learn? Like, really, really fast?

  I tried to hold it like I had seen him do and pointed it at the three people wrestling on the ground.

  “Stop it now!” I yelled. “Lucia, make it stop! Please!”

  I couldn’t stop a hint of fear sneaking into my voice, but it was enough to stop her from pinning down Marcus and leap to her feet at the board. Marcus glared at me as he pushed Fywin off.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing,” Marcus growled, slowly getting to his feet. He ignored Lucia entirely.

  “I really don’t,” I admitted, still training the wand on his face. “But I’m dying to find out how it’s going to turn out.”

  He laughed. He actually started laughing.

  “It’s too late anyway,” he told me. “There’s no way she can stop it from happening now.” He jerked his thumb at Lucia, who grinded her teeth.

  “Byanka,” Lucia called me. I didn’t move my eyes from Marcus. Fywin came to my side, giving me strength and confidence. “He’s right, I can’t stop it like this.”

  My heart felt like it was exploding. No. We had to save my home. Tykon was a terrible bully, but he didn’t deserve this any more than anyone else there did. They deserved to live. All of them. But we couldn’t save them anymore. We had lost.

  Marcus lifted a cocky eyebrow.

  “See?” he said, smirking.

  I wanted to use the attack wand right then and there, whatever spells it facilitated. But Marcus was right; I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know magic. I didn’t know how to set this off.

  “There’s one more chance,” Lucia interrupted my desperate thoughts. “Remember the place we went earlier?”

  The forest?

  I nodded.

  “There is a panel in the floor that opens where we were sitting. Open it and pull out all black wires you see there.”

  Marcus shot him a confused, but alarmed look.

  “That’ll ruin our mission!” he screeched. “It’ll destroy the ship!”

  With one hand, Lucia drew out a wand of her own, and I recognized the shape. It was the lightning sparkler Marcus had used on Tykon. She used it on Marcus now. No sooner had he collapsed, than Lucia looked me in the eye sternly.

  “We don’t have much time. If you’re too late, we will blow up alongside the planet.”

  I didn’t fully understand what she meant, but I understood enough to know it was bad. Fatally bad. I didn’t hesitate any longer and pushed the wand into Fywin’s hands. I ran through the hallways we had taken earlier, wracking my brain along to way to remember where we had turned.

  All doors I approached opened magically when I steered toward them. I barely even had to slow down. Lifting up my dress as I moved, I tried to go as fast as I could. This was hinging on me now.

  Finally, somehow, after a few incorrect doors, I made it back to the forest. The smell hit me like a beacon of hope. Along with the light came the bird sounds and breeze. Still, I didn’t slow down.

  How much time was left? I had no idea. I scurried through the growth, pushing it aside as I made my way toward the seat.

  The ground, Lucia had said. There was only earth though. I knelt down, starting to dig. After only a few inches, I reached a hard surface. The real ground! I tried to hurriedly clear more of it, concernedly noticing that the humming was becoming louder, and the ground appeared to vibrate alongside it. My teeth had begun to tingle as well.

  I found a ring to pull the floor open, but when I touched it, I was hit with a shock. I flinched back at the pain and the tiny lightning, but scrambled forward again immediately. No matter how much it might hurt me, I had to do this. A defense spell was nothing I couldn’t handle. Probably.

  I grabbed the ring--no shock this time--and yanked it up. It gave after only a moment, revealing around twenty thick strings, half of which were black.

  I didn’t have a knife, so I would have to do it by hand. I reached forward to grab them, but was stopped in my tracks.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Marcus stood not far from me, holding his wand to Fywin’s temple. Lucia was nowhere in sight.

  “Lucia’s a fool. Always has been,” Marcus said, grinning. “Now, if you don’t want to see your baby brother die, I suggest you step away from the wires.”

  I glanced at Fywin’s face. He seemed determined. He knew what was at stake and with a single l
ook, he told me to go ahead with it. The strings were already in my hand.

  I glared at Marcus. He seemed to sense my intent because he let go of Fywin and trained the wand on me instead. That choice brought about his downfall. Fywin and I acted in the same moment. I pulled out the strings, throwing my entire weight to the side to yank them out, as Fywin tackled Marcus again. All I heard was a thundering blast, and the lights vanished. Silence followed, only disturbed by Fywin and Marcus’s grunts as they fought. The bird sounds were gone, along with the humming.

  I threw myself toward the sounds of fighting. I located Fywin and took his place, shoving him behind me so he was out of harm’s way.

  But I was no match for Marcus.

  He had learned how to fight, that much was clear. I had not. I was only surprised he didn’t try to use any magic, but perhaps he didn’t have any wands on him anymore.

  Any time he pinned me to the ground, I wriggled out from underneath him, trying to move in ways that he wouldn’t expect, even if they made me uncomfortable for a moment, or even painful. I tried to use the darkness to my advantage, knowing he had to feel me to be able to guess what I was going to do, and to coordinate his own attacks. Moving as quietly as possible, I tried to evade him however long I could, trying to delay him until Lucia had brought the situation under control, and she could come to my aid.

  It didn’t take too long. Marcus had pinned me down again, his entire weight on top of me, so I could barely move at all, when sudden tiny lightnings sparks with a buzzing sound in the air above me flared to life. The body on top of me became limp and I did my best to shove it aside. Then the lights came to life again, revealing Lucia standing beside me, reaching out a hand to me, like earlier in the day.

  I didn’t hesitate this time.

  I took it and let her pull me to my feet, looking down at Marcus.

  “Did you stop it?” I asked, fearing the answer.

  She nodded and we both smiled.

  Fywin ran over to us, and I pulled him close to me, a heavy burden suddenly dropping off my chest.

  Letting go of my hand, Lucia went to Marcus’s side, and tied his hands and feet together with hard, white string.