Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #226

by TTA Press Authors

  The sailors laughed. Sahr, though, glared at Amber. “Where's his name?” he demanded. When Amber didn't respond, Sahr pulled her right arm out and searched through the blue-fire letters for Angus’ name. When he didn't find it, he pulled up Amber's shirt before she shoved him back, causing the crew to laugh even harder. Knowing she had only one chance to take control of the situation, Amber pointed to her right breast. “You're name is right there,” she told Angus as white-hot letters suddenly burned through her shirt. “Your name is written in the bullet which hits you in the chest, and knocks you into the sea to drown."

  The laughter stopped. Amber turned to another sailor. “You are Robert Allen,” she said, pointing to a new name which suddenly flared up on her leg and scorched her pants. “You will die gasping for breath in a storm-tossed sea.” She turned to another sailor. “You are William Douglas-Home. You will die when you fall overboard after drinking too much rum."

  As the sailors stared, Amber walked among them naming their fates. She had never been around men whose deaths burned so clearly. She knew everything about these men. Knew how desperately they yearned to escape their fate. Knew that despite all their prayers and pleas, the only thing awaiting them at sea was cold and depth and eternity.

  Finally, she stepped back to David Sahr. “As for you,” she said, a massive name igniting around her neck in the purest of white light. “The sea's been waiting a long time to take you. Once it gets you, your death will make all the other deaths seem pleasant."

  Sahr smashed her in the face, sending her sprawling across the deck. “We're not slaves to this bitch's skin,” Sahr yelled.

  "True,” Amber said, blood gushing from her split lip. “Billy was also fated to die at sea. But I saved him and he's no longer named on my skin. I can save all of you. But hurt me, and you're dead."

  Sahr smiled, and for a moment Amber saw him as he'd first appeared—the handsome, unconscious sailor who seemed at peace with the world. Then his face churned back to anger and he yelled for his men to lock her in the cutter's storage hold.

  * * * *

  Sahr sailed for two days with Amber locked in the dark hold, her only light a single porthole and the names burning on her body. Sahr alternated between bribery and threats to convince her to remove their names from her skin. Amber, though, noticed that Sahr never carried through on his threats. That, combined with how his crew treated her, bringing her food and water and unburned clothes, told her his power over the sailors was limited. As long as they feared her, she would be safe.

  On the third night, the cutter sailed under a clear sky, the moonlight pushing the sea down as if a child had coated everything in the smoothest of milk. The sailors were silent as the cutter chased a fishing trawler through the night. Amber knew what was about to happen—Angus McPhee's name had been burning white fire for the last hour—but she kept quiet until the ship pulled alongside the trawler.

  Suddenly, gunshots raked Sahr and his men. Through a porthole, Amber saw several constables on the fishing trawler shooting at them. Bullets exploded through the cargo hold and ricocheted around Amber, who felt a sense of calm as she watched moonlight pour through the new holes.

  After a few more shots, Sahr yelled for his men to cast off. The cutter sliced through the seas, racing downwind as the constables continued to fire. Finally, after a half-hour of chase, the trawler's gunfire stopped.

  One of the sailors smashed open the lock on the cargo hold and pulled Amber out. Several sailors were wounded, and Amber saw that Angus was missing, no doubt hit by a bullet and thrown overboard, just as she'd foreseen.

  She walked across the deck to where two sailors held down William Douglas-Home, who screamed and cried from a bullet in his leg.

  "Is he going to die?” one of the sailors asked.

  Amber nodded. “Yes, but not from this bullet wound. And if you do what I say, none of you need die for many years to come."

  At that, David Sahr ran screaming at her with a pistol in his hand. But before he could shoot Amber he was tackled by the other sailors. “Let me go,” he screamed. “She's done this to us. Her. Just her.” But the sailors ignored Sahr and hog-tied him beside the main mast.

  * * * *

  Amber landed the sailors fifty leagues to the west of Windspur, with each man swearing a solemn oath by her skin never to return to the sea. As the men waded to the beach, Amber felt most of their names disappear from her body with a kiss. However, the name of one sailor remained, although he no longer burned as fiercely. Amber knew that man would one day break his vow and return to the only life he knew, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  Amber turned the cutter back toward Windspur and ran with the wind. She had never piloted a cutter before, but had learned a lot from Miles and her other sailors. As long as good weather held, she shouldn't have much trouble. David Sahr—still tied up beside the main mast—critiqued her every move. When Amber almost swamped the cutter by taking a wave sideways, he laughed.

  "That's what happens when you let a woman captain,” he said.

  "You should be respectful,” Amber said with a smirk. “Maybe the judge will take your respect into account before he hangs you."

  Sahr spat at her feet. “You ought to do it yourself. For once, actually kill someone, instead of fating them to die."

  Amber resisted the urge to hit Sahr, or to pull the pepper-box pistol tucked in her belt and shoot him.

  Once Amber had the cutter on a solid heading, she tied off the wheel and walked around the ship, dropping and raising sails and tightening ropes. When that was done, she was hungry. She asked Sahr where he kept the food.

  "There's hardtack in the cabin,” he said. “The wood chest under my bunk."

  Amber found the chest and carried it onto the deck. However, there was no hardtack inside. Instead, a handful of daguerreotypes lay there. Some showed her in the exact same shirt and pants she now wore, standing on the bow of this very cutter, with Sahr dangling from the yardarm. Other daguerreotypes showed Amber hanging from the yardarm. Amber stared at her swollen, broken neck, and the rope that had ended her life.

  "Where did you get these?” she demanded, shoving a daguerreotype in Sahr's face.

  "That picture will be taken when you arrive in Windspur with me dangling from the yardarm. If you have the guts to do the deed, that is."

  Amber glanced at a daguerreotype—in it, her skin was free of the names, and Sahr hung dead. She threw the picture at the mast, shattering it to dust and shards. She grabbed another daguerreotype, this one showing her spinning in the wind with a rope around the neck, and threw it at Sahr.

  "Who the hell are you?” she screamed.

  Sahr shrugged. “I'm a child of Windspur. And the gods have screwed us both."

  As he said that, a blazing white name erupted from Sahr's skin—Amber Tolester. Her name ringed his neck, screaming in union with the letters of Sahr's name burning her own body. However, the pain didn't come from Sahr's foretold death. Instead, she gasped as she saw—in the purest of fire and heat—Sahr's life flooding into her.

  * * * *

  My father was a sailor. When I was ten I woke one night to my father's name burning into my chest and the pain of knowing he was dying. I ran to my mother's room and told her. Begged her to save him. Instead, she slapped me for lying

  But in the morning, she learned I was right. She ripped the clothes off me and saw the names and screamed “Witch, witch” as she beat me bloody.

  We left Windspur—left my friends and family—to live in London. Foggy, stenching, hateful London. All I had known was Windspur. Now all I had left was knowing when one of Windspur's sailors flared and died.

  At twelve, I ran from home and hired on a ship. Became a cabin boy, a cook's assistant, worked my way to able seaman. The sailors all saw the names, but thought them good luck, not being from Windspur and knowing them as real people.

  One day a Windspur sailor joined our ship. I tried to hide myself, but he recognized me, said
he used to sail with my dad. For days all I could taste was the man's coming death as he fell from the main mast during a sudden wind storm. I feared what the other sailors would do when they learned what the names on my body meant.

  So one night, while walking the alleys of London with my father's friend, I hit him across the head with a belaying pin. His name disappeared from my skin with the gentlest of kisses. I'd denied the sea its rightful death.

  So I learned to change the fate of the men on my skin. I learned to read what the names told me, to track them down. The only difference was that when I met another Windspur sailor, I always killed him the first chance I got. Just to show the sea that there was no fate it could decree which I couldn't change. One by one the names vanished from my body. Eventually, there was only one left: Amber Tolester.

  I knew right away this name wasn't right, as if the sea was playing a trick on me. A little girl of Windspur who had recently lost her parents, and was now carrying the burden of names as I once did. I felt the names on her body echoing to where the names had once been on me.

  Then the pictures began appearing. Each time one of the sailors named on Amber's body died, a daguerreotype would appear on my bunk. Some showed Amber as a young woman; others myself. Some showed me dead. Others her. I knew the sea was taunting me for defying its will, but I didn't care. I refused to be fated by anyone.

  As I caressed my link to Amber, I prayed she would learn—like me—that we weren't fated to suffer this damned lot in life. That once she learned, I would no longer be alone.

  But instead, Amber merely watched as the men sailed away to their deaths, never knowing the pleasures to be had in changing their fates.

  So I decided to teach her.

  * * * *

  When the story finished running through Amber's mind, she pulled the pistol and held it to Sahr's face, remembering her fear when he'd held the same pistol to her own head. His name burned red around her neck as Sahr's memories of murder polluted her with their touch.

  But instead of pulling the trigger, she sat down on the deck beside Sahr. “So you think the sea has cursed us? And the daguerreotypes are a warning?"

  "You have a better explanation?"

  Amber glanced at one of the daguerreotype shards on the deck beside her. The silver halide which had fixed the image of Amber's body to the glass fell away before her eyes. She watched the image disintegrate for a few moments before throwing the shard overboard.

  "It doesn't matter,” she said, reaching into the box of daguerreotypes. “Doesn't matter if the sea did burn these names into us. Only matters what we do with them."

  As Amber stood up, she glanced at the waters all around them. Sahr's name burned white hot on her body. The sea screamed for Sahr—begged Amber to throw the vile man overboard so it could have its way with him. Amber dragged the bound man to the railing and leaned him over the water. The suddenly choppy waves threw spray at them, almost as if the sea reached for Sahr.

  For the first time, Sahr looked afraid. “Don't give me to it,” he said. “I only wanted you to learn. To free yourself like I was freed."

  Amber nodded. She grabbed one of the cutter's sets of block and tackle, threw a rope over the yardarm, and tied the rope in a noose around Sahr's neck. He thrashed and kicked, but he was still tied hand to foot and couldn't stop her.

  Once everything was ready, she asked Sahr if he had anything else to say. He cursed at her, but he also smiled as she tightened the noose, as if pleased that Amber had finally learned what he'd been trying teach her. He continued smiling as she pulled the rope through the block and tackle, the pulleys whining to the cordage, his smile never ending even after he hung limp from the yardarm, spinning right then left as the wind howled in anger at Sahr's death not being given to the sea.

  Only with Sahr's final kick did his name vanish from her body with a perverted kiss.

  * * * *

  When Amber neared Windspur's harbor, she dropped the cutter's sails and drifted until several ships, including the Andercoust, approached. Miles jumped onboard and helped steer the ship into the harbor. Miles asked several times if Amber was well, glancing from Sahr's body hanging from the yardarm to the names still visible on Amber's skin. She assured him she was fine.

  Amber stood on the cutter's bow until they docked, then walked through the stunned crowd on the pier. She noticed Richard Beard near the dock with his daguerreotype camera, where he'd been taking landscapes of buildings. She started to ask if he'd taken a picture of her on the ship, but stopped, already knowing the answer.

  After all, two different versions of the picture were now burned into her life.

  * * * *

  The following Sunday, Amber and Billy married. Billy was still recovering from his injuries and could barely speak, but he croaked his “I do” and kissed Amber in a long, tight-hugging embrace. All of the sailors and townsfolk cheered, tactfully ignoring the names pulsing a deep blue through Amber's white wedding dress.

  Amber continued to captain the Andercoust. Miles and the other sailors taught her all they knew and soon she could out sail the best of them. She sailed the Andercoust in storms which drove lesser captains to port, but none of her crew were ever injured or killed. Sailors spoke of her uncanny knack of stopping accidents before they happened; of arriving in time to save drowning sailors from other ships. Soon she was known as the luckiest captain in the fleet and every sailor begged to join her crew.

  Occasionally people who weren't from Windspur would board the Andercoust and ask Amber about the rumors. Of the names which still circled her body. Whether those named men were still fated to die at sea.

  Amber would shake her head and say she hoped not. If the visitors persisted, Amber would point to a silver-framed daguerreotype hanging on her cabin's wall. She'd ask if they noticed anything strange about the picture. The visitors would stare at the image of Amber on the ship. Her body free of the names; Sahr hanging from the yardarm. While the missing names always puzzled visitors, if that was all they noticed Amber simply nodded and said that was indeed the truth.

  But sometimes a perceptive visitor would see a picture of Amber hanging from the mast, her body still covered in the names, her neck bent at an impossibly strange angle, and Sahr alive and laughing as he piloted the cutter.

  The startled visitor would ask how this was possible. Was this some trick of the sea—angry because it had been denied Sahr's death?

  Amber always laughed at such questions, but if the visitor pressed for an answer she'd point seaward and say the answers lay out there. All the visitor had to do was let the sea add his or her name to Amber's skin.

  "Perhaps we can seek the answers together,” she'd whisper as the visitor stared in fear at the names swirling her skin.

  So far, no one has accepted her offer.

  Copyright (C) 2010 Jason Sanford

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  HIBAKUSHA—Tyler Keevil

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  Illustrated by Mark Pexton

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  Tyler Keevil is an award-winning author and filmmaker from Vancouver, Canada. His speculative fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, On Spec, Neo-Opsis, Solaris, Dark Tales, and Jupiter SF. His first novel, Fireball, is due be published in the autumn of 2010. He currently lives in mid-Wales with his wife Naomi.

  * * * *

  They make us wait, as usual. Beneath these flickering lights, upon a jaundiced lino floor, in the foyer of what must have been a school at one time, they make us wait. Standing for this long aggravates the pain in my shins, my joints, my spine. Like tiny slivers in my bones. To take my mind off it, I play that old kid's game: think of something else. I think of you. I think of getting caught out in that thunderstorm near Pompeii—the way you laughed and spun on the spot as rain slapped down on your sunburned face, your bare shoulders. I think of that night in Whistler, overflowing with alcohol, when you took issue for some imagined sl
ight and tried to punch me. And I think of your studio, of the way you held your charcoal, moving it across the canvas like an orchestra conductor. Vigorous and elegant.

  Time passes. The line moves forward.

  At the front three weary officials stand behind a counter, dressed in the crisp grey uniforms of the new government. They question people, scan ID cards, clear us for volunteer service. Or that's the way it's supposed to go. When my turn comes, and my card gets swiped, the young man's machine makes a little beep of protest.

  The man frowns, tries again. Beep.

  "You've been to the zone over a dozen times already. Do you know—“

  "I know."

  He studies my ID, checks it against my face. Suspicious. As if I might be some kind of infiltrator trying to slip into the zone, or a Hib intent on returning home. In a way, it's not far from the truth. I doubt my outfit—baggy jeans, hoody, baseball cap—does me any favours. I wait for him to come to the inevitable conclusion.

  "You'll need a referral,” he says.

  "I know."

  * * * *

  Two soldiers lead me down a corridor to the office where they question referrals, and lock me inside. I take a seat in the wooden chair, across from a small desk with a computer monitor and keyboard on it. A bare bulb dangles overhead. The windows are closed, the curtains drawn. Behind the flowery odour of air freshener the room smells stale, musty. I've been here before; the tomb-like atmosphere is almost comforting.

  Five minutes later the doctor arrives—a thin woman with masculine features. Square jaw. Bony cheeks. Hair bristling up like a wire brush. Dressed in a wrinkled white smock.

  "Hello there,” she says.

  I smile, being careful not to show my gums, which have a tendency to bleed. “How are you, doctor?"

  "I'm fine.” She checks the name on my ID card as she takes it from me. “I'm fine, Mr Kellman. Thank you."

  She swipes the magnetic strip down the side of her monitor—the mechanical motion reminding me somehow of a clerk at the supermarket. I see the reflection of the screen in her glasses: columns, stats, a headshot photo. My life in digital. Then her eyes widen slightly.