Ginger and garlic overwhelmed Drey as he entered the flat. “That smells great.”
“You said you would get dinner out.” Sevasstar paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “I grabbed it from a corner vendor. It’s nothing fancy.”
“Yeah, I ate.” Drey noticed the rest of the rooms of their flat were dark. Vaguely disappointed, he kicked off his boots and flung his paper on the table. “But speaking of fancy, have you been passing yourself off as an explorer?
“Right.” Sevasstar snorted. He looked up, swallowed his food, and frowned. “What, are you serious?” He turned pale as Drey described the air-raider.
“Why are they after you?”
Sevasstar shrugged and went back to his food. “They can’t be. Got the wrong name. There’s probably some explorer named Sevasstian or Sebasser or something like that.”
But he purposely avoided Drey’s gaze. Drey sighed. Dammit. He crossed the room and yanked the bowl out of Sevasstar’s hands. “What have you done?”
“I—” Sevasstar huffed. Drey narrowed his eyes and bored the demand for a truthful answer into Sevasstar’s head.
“Okay. I ran up a little gambling debt—”
“To a kinship?” Drey’s knees turned to water. He backed across the room and collapsed into a chair.
“Oh, hells, no!” Sevasstar gaped at him. “I wouldn’t play with air-raiders. I’m not stupid!”
Past experience taught Drey that not to let his guard down yet. “What did you do?”
Sevasstar sighed, stood, and reclaimed his dinner. He ate a couple of bites. “It was a little debt. No big deal. I needed some cash. So… well, I went to Festyan and Sons.”
Drey blinked. It took a minute to connect the name with the business. “The cartographers?”
Sevasstar nodded, still not meeting Drey’s gaze. Drey narrowed his eyes. “What could you possibly—” He bolted out of the chair. “Sevasstar! What did you sell them?”
Sevasstar shrugged. “One of grandfather’s stories.”
Drey crossed the room and yanked the bowl of food out of Sevasstar’s hands. “Grandfather never worked on an explorer. He spent his entire life on a regular trade route. One that has to be mapped a hundred times. What route did you sell them?”
Sevasstar sighed and shoved away from Drey. “Corvidae, okay? I sold them the story of how to get to Corvidae!”
Too nauseous to do anything else, Drey watched his brother pace the room. Sevasstar was an idiot. His stupid kid brother. That’s why he stayed here, to watch out for him, to keep him out of trouble. Everyone knew not to trust Sevasstar with a secret. Why would grandfather have told him… Drey sighed softly. He knew why. If there’d be any chance the gifts that seemed to skip a generation or two would manifest in his great-grandchildren, Grandfather didn’t want anyone left in ignorance of what to do. But couldn’t he have trusted Drey to help get Sevasstar’s offspring to safety if needed?
“How could you do that to those people? Do you realize what you’ve done?”
Sevasstar rolled his eyes. “I sold a story—”
“You sold out a sanctuary! Betrayed all those people to air-raiders!”
“Telepaths?” Sevasstar snorted. “It’s just a story. They don’t exist.” Drey stared at him. He loved his brother. Truly, he did. He needed to remember that.
“I’m not stupid,” Sevasstar spat.
“You could have fooled me,” Drey muttered. He crossed the room to the icebox, chose a beer, and drained half in one swig.
“I didn’t tell them everything! No one could follow that map and actually get anywhere.”
Relief washed over Drey. He knew the same story as Sevasstar. The story was the easy part to remember. The great-grandmother who fled for her life and was granted sanctuary on a hidden cove. The directions themselves were in a code, woven into a long and rambling poem threaded through the story. There was no key to share. Only family would understand the symbolism.
Grandfather worked with Drey until he’d memorized the tale, word for word. His little brother had never managed it. He’d sold an outline, at best.
“Because that’s all you could remember of the story?”
Sevasstar glared at him over his reclaimed dinner. He shoveled a chop-stick-full of veggies into his mouth.
Drey grinned and felt the tension spill out of his shoulders. Okay so the map wouldn’t lead—oh shit. “Sevasstar, when did you sell that story?”
Sevasstar shrugged. “I don’t know. Month ago maybe. Maybe more, maybe less.” He crossed the room to wash his empty bowl off in the sink. He snagged a beer from the icebox and turned with a grin. “It’s nothing to worry over. Even if they track me down, I told Festyan all I—”
He staggered. His hand shot to his throat. Blood spilled through his fingers. Around a crossbow bolt sticking from his throat. He might have made a noise, but Drey didn’t hear it over the clatter of the chair he knocked over in his race to reach his brother. Sevasstar was dead before Drey pulled him into his arms.
A soft noise. Drey looked up and froze. Two people materialized out of the night. Both wore tattered lace and leathers with goggles on shaved heads that identified them beyond a doubt as air-raiders. However, neither the woman nor the man bore lightning bolts. Instead, dolphins curved around their left eyes.
Drey knew that mark. Everyone knew that mark. The Klace Kinship didn’t consist of merely air-raiders. They were a huge, old and powerful crime syndicate with airships, seafaring vessels, and submarines. They lived not just on the jutting cliffs with most of the world’s population, but on hidden islands in the sea miles below. The greatest treasures in the world came from their finds. And today they’d killed his brother.
“Stand up.”
Why and No both hovered on Drey’s lips, but knew they wouldn’t explain and defiance would get him hurt. He was outnumbered and they were fighters. He was a clerk in a trading house—the same house his grandfather had crewed on an airship for.
The man took a step towards Drey, and fell over, a tufted dart protruding from his neck. The woman spun and inched a step backwards before she too crumpled to the floor.
Drey gently lowered Sevasstar to the ground and rose unsteadily to his feet. Absentmindedly wiping Sevasstar’s blood on his pants, he frowned at the fallen raiders and looked around his seemingly empty living room. His heart skipped every other beat.
A rustle of fabric drew his attention. Drey straightened and watched a man step out of the shadows of the room’s single window. Not an air-raider. The man wore his grey hair to his chin, and a neatly trimmed beard, not a tattoo, covered his cheeks and chin. He wore pressed tweed slacks, a cream colored shirt and chocolate-brown suede jacket. Aside from the blowgun in his left hand, he looked like one of the bosses at the trading house.
Even the expression on his face seemed to say he had a problem with the figures Drey had turned in today, not that he’d just killed two people.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” He nodded at Sevasstar’s body.
Heat flushed over Drey’s face. How long had the old man been standing there? Surely only seconds passed between Sevasstar’s death and the air-raiders’. He could have killed them first. He could have killed them before they killed Sevasstar.
The man cocked his head to the side. “We can take care of this, but you’ll have to come with me.”
“Take care of what?”
“The bodies.”
“Whoever you are and whatever you want, just go. I don’t care, okay? I’ll call the Watch. They can deal with this. Just go. Get out of my house!” His eyes burned. Dammit, he didn’t have money saved for funeral rites, but he wasn’t going to allow this stranger to “take care” of his brother. Sevasstar wasn’t garbage to be disposed of.
“Son, I can’t do that.”
“I am not your child. I neither know nor care who you are. You let them kill my brother.”
The man bobbed his head in acquiescence. The move stunned Drey speechless.
“I heard your fight. You understand what he did. How many lives he put at risk. What he put at risk.”
Though already guessed at, the admission that the man had been here since before Sevasstar’s death hit Drey like a punch to the gut. “And so you let him die for that?”
“I am charged with protecting Corvidae. Not idiots who choose to betray it.”
“Sevasstar is not—” Drey winced. Was not. And really, how to deny it? “He didn’t tell them the entire route. He didn’t know it!”
“He knew enough. Every raider in the skies can follow his map to the right part of the world.”
“I remember the story. Finding the right part of the world isn’t going to help that much. There are other landmasses in that area. People fly those skies all the time.”
“You know the way.”
Drey shrugged and looked down at Sevasstar. He looked so small now. The little brother he was supposed to protect.
“If the Klace Kinship already found you, others will shortly. We haven’t time to sit here and argue.”
“What?”
“The map isn’t complete! One needs more than physical directions to find Corvidae and you know it. Every raider out there knows that now, too. You think Festyan’s going to keep quiet about where he got that information? He’s already told the Klace. He’s not going to risk his life to protect a sale. Not from some kid who doesn’t fly and will never come back with another route.”
“Sevasstar was expendable. I think that lesson’s been adequately expressed.”
“Drey, I am sorry. You and your brother possessed this information for one reason. You have kin on Corvidae, and you’re now a threat to those people.”
“So now you’ll kill me too.”
Drey turned his back. He needed the man to believe what he nudged him to believe. Couldn’t risk an expression crossing his face that contradicted his projection.
“No!” The man sighed. “I have no need to kill you. You have no intention of betraying us.”
“I don’t care about you. Corvidae is nothing to me. I’ll never speak of it again.”
“When you’re tied up on an airship having fingers removed one at a time, I’m sure that resolve will keep you quiet.” Drey winced.
“Your blood earns you the right to sanctuary, even if the gift never manifested.”
“I don’t want your safe haven! I have a life here.” Drey ran his hand through his hair and calculated quickly. He knew he couldn’t stay here. Sevasstar had made that impossible. “I will not disappear on Phelan.” The man frowned.
“We’ve been together for nine years. I’m not disappearing on him.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s a pilot. Out on a run. He’s not due back for a week.” He glared over his shoulder at the old man, demanding he hear the lie as truth.
“And you think he’d come with you? That he’d give up that life?”
Drey rubbed his forehead. “I’ll leave with him. His company has depots on half a dozen cliff-sides. I can hide out until he returns. No one will ever find me.” Something tickled in his nose. Dammit. He snorted and rubbed the nostril, hoping to keep the blood from dripping down his face. Why was the man still fighting him?
“Corvidae will be safe. I’ll disappear. Relocate to another cliff-side where no one knows me. I’ll never speak of Corvidae and the air-raiders will never connect me to Sevasstar.” He pressed a bloody finger to his nose. Dammit, man, listen! He rubbed his nose on his sleeve and hoped he wasn’t smearing blood on his face. Hiding the stained hand, he turned around to make eye contact.
“Corvidae is safe. No one will find it through me. You need no longer worry about this slip. Your work is done. You can go!”
The man’s eyes looked a tad unfocused. He nodded. “That’s—that’s a good plan.”
“It is. It will not tax your resources. And everything you want to keep safe will be. You can send your men to clean up here in the morning.”
Though he frowned, the man nodded. “Tomorrow. We’ll clean up. You’ll be gone.”
“Forever and always. No will find me. No one will find Corvidae through me.”
The man left through the front door. Drey felt no reason to compel him to do otherwise. He leaned against the door to keep himself upright, and listened until the man’s footsteps faded away. The sides of the room blackened. He’d pushed himself past his limits to manipulate someone trained to stand against his kind.
The compulsion might not last long. Drey had never been trained to use this power and seldom bothered with it. One sentence and look and he’d gained a confession from Sevasstar. Drey reeled to the sink and threw up. Blood continued to drip from his nose.
Mind-abilities didn’t show up until puberty. Drey’s kicked in right about the time their mother lie dying. No one noticed. He’d already met Phelan and hadn’t wanted to lose him by being shipped off to Corvidae. So he made sure no one noticed. He’d never told a soul.
And he intended to keep it that way.
Once the room stopped spinning, he hurried to the bedroom and packed what he’d need. What Phelan wouldn’t want to do without. As he stuffed items into bags, he came up with a story, mostly truth, that Phelan would accept. He’d never allowed himself to use his gifts on his partner, but would, this one time, if that’s what it took to make Phelan accept his story without question.
He’d have to leave his brother here. He had no choice. Not if he wanted to preserve his own life. His freedom.
They’d leave Gulls Rest in the morning, relocate somewhere the man from Corvidae would never find him. They’d start a new life together. Just him and Phelan. And no one would ever need know his secret.
* * *
Lynn Rushlau
Lynn Rushlau graduated from the UT Austin with a degree in Anthropology and minor in Sociology—which seem like awesome planning for a life creating worlds, but she admits she wasn't thinking that far ahead. She lives in Addison, Texas with two attention-needy cats, and is on Twitter @lrushlau.
THE MEMORY MONSTER
Joseph A. Lopez
The 1968 Mustang, only two years old, easily traversed the rugged road despite its design as a sportscar, and its compact size made for a more intimate setting. Keith pressed against Doris, occasionally taking his hand off the steering wheel to run it down her bare black legs, or to comb his fingers through her long curly hair. With each touch, he remembered the first time they’d met in a Manhattan nightclub where his band played gigs, her hips gyrating in time to the rhythm of his drums.
Doris lived in an apartment in the Bronx, and even if she could’ve afforded a car she probably wouldn’t have bought one because public transportation was the preferred method of getting around in New York City. But for Keith, living as he did in the picket fence pastures of Northern New Jersey, a car was a necessity. So he chauffeured their trip into the dense woods, where the sin they were about to commit would be as hidden as anything possibly could in and around New York.
Keith folded up the map as they turned onto the dirt path. They’d needed it to navigate the side streets after exiting the Garden State Parkway, but now they were heading into the Pine Barrens where the roads were unmarked. If they were going to find their way back out of the woods, then they’d need to maintain their own sense of direction. Which was fitting since this was uncharted territory, both of them searching for something they’d lost but weren’t quite sure they could recover.
Keith rolled down the window and his hair, almost as long as hers, fluttered in the wind. He blew out smoke from the joint, then tried to ash it only to have one of the cinders fly back in and singe his sideburns. He cursed and slammed on the brakes.
“What’s wrong?” Doris asked.
“Got burned,” he said.
“Here, let me look.”
She took his head in-between her hands and turned it towards her. While she inspected him for injuries, he admired her body, from the contours of her neck down into th
e unbuttoned top of her blouse. They both knew what they had come here for.
Doris covered her mouth and made that little girl giggle.
“You burned a hole! It’s a tiny little speck but your sideburns got this charred ring around it.”
He took her into his arms and kissed her. It seemed right while she was laughing, but she suddenly pulled away with wide-eyed panic.
“What about your wife?” she asked. “And my husband?”
He’d been prepared for this. It almost seemed like a formality, as if they had to go through these motions before consummating the affair.
“You know it’s just going to end in divorce,” he said. “Both our marriages.”
Every time they’d hung out after a gig, each conversation where they’d shared with one another the burdens of their failing matrimony, they’d taken another step in this direction. She stared into his eyes as if trying to gauge the authenticity of his response, and at some point must have accepted it as she returned the kiss.
Keith opened the door, pulled her out of the car, and threw her down into the grass. Their clothes came off and she yelped as he entered her, the sounds of their lovemaking echoing against the trees.
When they were done, Keith reached over and removed a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his discarded jeans. He lit one and passed it to her, then he lit another one for himself. They lay upon their backs and stared into the night sky. Removed from the air and light pollution of the city, the stars littered the heavens like illuminated grains of sand.
“Do you remember how to get out of here?” she asked. “To be honest, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Keith pointed with his cigarette at the great swirling trail of lights in the sky.
“We can just navigate using the stars,” he said. “That’s how the explorers used to do it back in the day.”
“Okay, Christopher Columbus,” she laughed. “Those people were on boats out on the water, we’ve got a car and a dirt road. I hope you remember where we put the map.”
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