by Anthology
The captain tucked the zephyr next to his rodcaster, checked his splintersword, and marched from the armory to the aft hold. He led his team down the boarding ramp to the asteroid’s rocky surface. He allowed them a moment to adjust to the odd gravity and erratic light. Then he put them to work.
A short march brought the pirates to the rise that formed Nakvin’s sign. She herself pointed out a dark spot at ground level where the three ridges met. Seen up close, the shadow was revealed as a small recess carved to a depth of about ten feet. The alcove only looked wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Its far wall featured a plain stone door that Jaren felt sure marked the point of no return.
“Through here,” the captain said as he moved toward the small undressed slab. Normally, Jaren would have proceeded with greater caution, but premonitions of disaster pressed upon him so heavily that he just wanted to be rid of them—for good or ill. He unsheathed his sword, grasped the hilt in both hands, and thrust its point forward. The reciprocating blade sank into the top of the stone door, and Jaren drew its edge downward, bisecting the slab down the middle. A firm shove sent both halves collapsed inward. The impact of stone striking stone sent streams of dust cascading down from above; then all was still.
Jaren imagined the yawning passage before him as the throat of a predator that stalked lightless ocean depths. He stood still for a moment, waiting for the hammer to fall. When nothing happened, he led his team through the door.
The passage under the ridge ran arrow straight. Jaren led the way while the starlight trickling in from outside lasted. When the light failed, he turned to Nakvin. “What do you see?” he asked.
“It keeps going for about a hundred feet,” she said. “Then the floor just ends. I think it's a stairway.”
“Give the men a little help. We don't want them breaking their necks.”
Nakvin’s silver eyes reflected the dying light. Jaren thought he’d witnessed a double eclipse when she closed them. The Steersman chanted a gentle melody. Her song echoed through the pirates’ mingled synthetic-smelling atmospheres, calling to mind halcyon summer days. A sourceless mellow radiance surrounded them as the canticle reached its climax.
Jaren had grudging respect for most Factors, even though he wasn’t inclined to become one himself. He found Nakvin’s method of fashioning all the more intriguing for its beauty. She admitted that reliance on song limited the variety and strength of her Workings, but singing was far subtler than the Compass.
In the conjured light, Jaren led the expedition forward with newfound confidence. Nakvin was soon proved right about the stairs, which spiraled into the abyss. After testing the first few steps, Jaren started down the declining gyre. The others followed.
Jaren descended several dozen feet before the shape on the stairs made him stop so quickly that Nakvin almost walked into him. The rest of the men barely avoided colliding like game tiles.
“What is it?” one of the pirates whispered.
Jaren pointed to a jagged sheet of rock lying broken on the steps. The fragments had a uniform grey-brown color and shared the same ridged pattern. “Looks like a wing carved from stone,” he said. “Probably fell off a statue.” He scanned the shaft above, but the smooth walls were devoid of ornaments. “Keep moving,” He said, drawing his sword before continuing downward.
The spiral stair finally let out on a landing hundreds of feet below. Jaren passed through an arch at the foot of the stairwell and entered a great octagonal hall, its ceiling lost in the gloom above. Tall arches in each wall opened on corridors beyond. Some residual atmosphere must have remained, for the musty tang of age-old decay lingered.
Jaren split the party into teams, the last composed of Nakvin and himself; and assigned each to one quadrant of the great transept. “Be thorough,” he said. “But don't lag behind. Keep your weapons handy, and report anything unusual.”
***
When the expedition reconvened in the great hall four hours later, Jaren could tell by the men’s frowns that they'd come back empty-handed. Questioning them confirmed his fears: the fortress of the thuergs had been picked clean.
Nakvin placed her hand on Jaren’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But there are other ways to get weapons. Dan might know some arms dealers who work on contingency.”
Jaren barely heard Nakvin’s words. His inhibition against outside contact gave way to the shrieking alarms in his head, and he touched the sapphire stud at his ear.
“Deim!”
“I hear you,” the junior steersman said from the Shibboleth's bridge.
“Put a call through to Tharis,” Jaren said in a voice that brooked no argument. “Get Teg on the line.”
Nakvin’s hand fell to her side. Though excluded from Jaren’s two-way conversation, the look she cast at him shifted from irritated to anxious as the seconds passed. Finally, Deim spoke two words that sent Jaren charging for the stairway. “No response.”
The others asked no questions before joining their leader’s sudden retreat.
“What's wrong?” Nakvin shouted as she ran beside him, her robes hoisted to her knees.
“We're going back to Tharis—maybe even in time if Deim breaks the speed record.”
Jaren sprang past Nakvin. Mounting the steps three at a time, he’d reached the middle of the spiral when someone screamed. He glanced over his shoulder and started.
Something had latched onto the last man in line. It resembled a giant bat, but its flesh was living, moving stone. The monster's fossilized talons gripped the underside of the steps above. Its ribbed wings enshrouded its thrashing victim. Dark runnels flowed from their serrated edges. Jaren stifled a cry when stalactite teeth sank into the man’s face, piercing his eyeball. A screeching growl issued from the rock bat's throat, harmonizing with its victim's cries.
“What the hell is—” was all Nakvin could say before the roar of Jaren’s rodcaster drowned out her voice. The blast of light and heat that accompanied the sound left a mash of glowing pebbles and steaming flesh strewn upon the stairs.
The stench of lightning and burned meat stung Jaren’s nose. He met his Steersman’s wide-eyed glare and ejected the spent shell with a flick of his wrist. “Keep moving,” he said.
Jaren’s men parted around him like a rock in a stream. He didn’t break eye contact with Nakvin until she gathered herself up and bolted past him.
When he was sure that the thuergs hadn’t left any other surprises, Jaren turned and leapt up the stairs. He burst through the ruined door, sprinted across the field, and cleared the Shibboleth's gangway mere seconds behind the others. He and Nakvin kept running.
“Take us up, Deim!” Jaren snapped as he charged onto the bridge.
To his credit, Deim didn’t hesitate. The Shibboleth leapt skyward, sending the vessel's crew and cargo teetering backward. Every color inverted as the ship plunged into the ether.
“Never transition so close to a celestial body!” Nakvin said.
“We’re going for the record, right?” asked Deim.
“Take us into the deep ether,” Jaren said.
While Deim focused on flying, Nakvin turned to the captain. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“We’ll get home faster.”
“Or a stray spark will blow us apart.”
“Right now, I just hope there’s a home to go back to,” Jaren said.
Wendy Nikel
http://www.wendynikel.com
Rain Like Diamonds(Short story)
by Wendy Nikel
Originally published by Daily Science Fiction
The queen hoarded the barrels of seed, keeping them locked within her coffers among the diamonds and gold and strings of perfect pearls, remnants of the former days of prosperity and excess. The seeds would receive neither sun nor water nor nutrients from the soil until unlocked by the shining key strung around her neck. Day after day, she sat upon her throne, and the villagers lined up before her, pleading. It was only her loyal guards, with their sharp swords glim
mering in her peripheral, who kept the villagers from severing her neck to get at that key.
"Have mercy!" They cried as though their tears might change her mind.
"Our children need nourishment!" They shouted as if she, too, hadn't been watching her own son grow thin and wan and dull.
"Just one barrel! One barrel will keep us alive for a few days longer!"
She held her chin high, her eyes downcast and sorrowful. "I cannot."
Thought it broke her heart, she spoke the truth. It was true, the meager meal would sustain them for a day or two. But that would be one less barrel to plant when the famine ended, when those that remained stood a chance.
Nothing had grown for many seasons, till all the people's cupboards barns and storehouses and cellars were empty. All that remained within them were empty jars, dust-lined shelves, and—if one breathed in deeply—the haunting memory of the scent of food.
Yet even if the queen had throw the seeds to those standing beneath her balcony, had given the seeds to the kingdom's best farmers, it was futile. Nothing would grow, and their hunger would not be satiated. Nothing would grow until the dragon-scorched earth was healed.
A messenger burst into the throne room. His gait, once like a thoroughbred's, was now the spindly stumble of one whose legs were too thin, whose ankles too prone to turn.
"My queen! The sorceress has spoken!"
The queen rose from her throne, for this news was long-awaited. Since first the crops refused to grow, the sorceress had been locked in her tower, spending countless hours staring into her scrying pools and crystal balls, searching for an answer.
"Well? What is it?" the queen demanded.
"You must see her, in her tower."
The queen climbed the spiraling stairs to the castle's dreary north tower. Though winded, she pressed on, for the task of climbing a staircase was so small compared with what her people had already suffered.
"Sorceress!" she called as she entered the chamber. "Sorceress! What am I to do?"
The sorceress's voice echoed through the chamber, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. "One shall weep at the foot of the tree, and the rain shall fall like diamonds on the earth."
Throughout the kingdom, the queen sent the order, and on the following morning, every very man, woman, and child arrived at the palace gates. The captain of the guard barked out directions, and the queen led the procession. The feeble and sick were carried or slung into carts. Their loved ones pulled them along, for throughout the entire kingdom not a single horse or donkey remained that hadn't been made into soup. The queen led the mourners from tree to tree, pausing at each one to tearfully recall those who had succumbed to the famine, until they'd traversed the entire kingdom and their eyes were as dried-out as the parched earth. Yet still, the rain refused to fall. Defeated, the queen turned away and locked herself up in the palace.
That night, the men—restless with no fields to tend—gathered at the tavern, though they'd long ago brewed the last of the hops. They muttered and grumbled against the weather, the fields, and even the queen herself.
"The dragon," Thummander said, raking his hand through his beard. "The dragon was the beginning of this trouble; nothing has grown since it scorched our fields."
"Let's do away with it," Leverett said. He slammed his fist on the table. Their voices, hoarse with thirst, rose in agreement and they conspired together all night. The dragon, they agreed. There was nothing else for them to do, nothing else they could do, except to kill the dragon.
Though the hour was late, the men requested an audience with the queen. They told her of their plan, and she reluctantly consented.
"It'd do no good," she warned, but allowed them to proceed through the once-lush forest that now stood like an oversized bramble-bush, full of thorns and prickers. At least, she considered, this quest would make them feel useful.
In the inky blackness of night, with their torches burning brightly, they crept to the dragon's lair. The beast exhaled smoke with each sleeping breath, and if the villagers could only overlook its enormous size, they might have seen how the creature was really quite peaceful, like the cats that had once dozed at their hearths, before the rats had all been killed and the cats became more valuable for their meat than for their ability to hunt.
The men had disguised their scent by carrying pine branches, native to the hill near the dragon's cave. Carefully, they dropped the branches and the strongest of the men clamped a iron band snugly around the dragon's snout. The dragon woke with a start, its pupils like coals in its fiery eyes, but the men held tight to the chains and together dragged the creature down to the castle.
The villagers' triumphant cries rose with the morning sun, and golden light trickled through the brittle branches of the rosewood. The queen looked out from the balcony at the crowd below her.
"We've captured the dragon!"
"Come, watch it die!"
The queen felt the heat of their anger and shivered at the coldness in their voices. The enormous eye of the ensnared dragon stared at her, knowing. Yet what was she to do? She raised her scepter to give the command, but at the last moment, a small boy rushed forward and fell upon the beast. The queen gasped. It was the prince.
"Please, mother," he begged. "Please, don't kill it. Will there ever be a more wonderful creature? Please, spare its life. Send it away from this place, if you must, but don't kill it. I beg you! Please, show it mercy."
Glistening tears crept down his face and landed at the base of the tree. They darkened the soil as the roots soaked them in. The crowd stared as green life burst forth from the tree. First, tiny specks of color, then long, lush leaves spread across the tree's outstretched branches. They were so startled by the transformation that they loosened their grasp on the dragon.
Seeing its only opportunity, the beast lunged forward, flapped its wings, and launched itself skyward with the prince still clinging to its back.
"My son!" the queen called, but the dragon rose into a dark, heavy cloud. Just as they disappeared, the sky burst open and rain poured down. The crowd cheered and danced about, splashing in the puddles and laughing, seeing only the rain. They rushed to the castle and broke into the queen's coffers, but she made no move to stop them, for she saw only the final glimpse of her son, her son who had saved the kingdom. The son she'd never see again.
And her tears fell like diamonds on the earth.
The Tea-Space Continuum(Short story)
by Wendy Nikel
Originally published by AE
Professor Lynette van Houten reached for her tea, her eyes still fixed on a paperback copy of The Adventures of Señor Valentine. Her arm extended across the side table until it bumped a lamp. Lynette turned away from the daring escapades of her favorite fictional hero.
The tea was gone.
"Interesting."
She grabbed her research notebook and recorded her observations: the shadow of a ring still visible on the coaster; the taste of chamomile on her tongue; the tea kettle on the stove, still warm to the touch. At the bottom of the page, she wrote, "Disappearance. 10pm. August 16. Home. Sleepytime chamomile."
***
"It's happening more often, Frank," she explained to her department supervisor. "I've lost three cups this week. They have to be going somewhere."
Frank Gardner frowned, his gray eyebrows bristling. "I've never noticed any disappearing tea before."
"That's because you drink water."
"And other tea-drinkers?"
"Tea-drinkers tend to be intellectual types. We pay more attention to what's in our heads than what's outside them, so when something goes missing, we tend to assume we've simply misplaced it."
"So…you want the university to fund a study about…people losing their tea?"
Lynette frowned. It was like the man had never done scientific research before, had never questioned anything in his cigar-smoking, tweed-jacket-wearing life. It was as if he'd forgotten what it was like to be a scientist, instead
of just playing the caricature of one in a classroom.
"Forget it." Lynette gathered up her books. "I'll do this on my own time. I'm not crazy."
"No one said you were."
"You sure implied it."
***
"Professor van Houten!" someone called.
Lynette recognized the frazzle-haired undergrad from her tea study, which consisted of over a hundred student volunteers, tea aficionados willing to keep track of their tea consumption in meticulous journals. They'd dived all-in as only college students do, creating Tea Club mugs and t-shirts and even their own blend of loose leaf to commemorate the study, much to Lynette's delight and Frank Gardner's befuddlement.
"Do you have a question about the tea study, Miss…?"
"Jennie Parker. It's about the disappearance phenomenon."
Lynette kept her face expressionless. She'd downplayed the disappearance phenomenon, casually remarking that if the students were unable to find a cup that they had brewed to mark it in the appropriate column of their journal.
But within weeks, three different groups of students had approached her, making one thing clear: the disappearances were becoming more frequent.
"Yes, there have been other students who have noticed an influx in the disappearance of their tea."
"I wasn't talking about tea. I was talking about Christopher McCoy."
Christopher McCoy was a sophomore who had gone missing a week earlier. According to his roommate, he'd just settled in for an evening of studying for winter exams in his room. No one saw him leave.
"What about him?" Lynette asked.
"Christopher had made himself a cup of green tea that evening."
***
When the students arrived back from Christmas break, Christopher McCoy was still missing, and Lynette's lab was filled with dozens of mugs of various teas, all laid out in lines and labeled according to steep time, tea variety, temperature, volume, and mug type. Some had cream, some had sugar, some had both. She'd called in a substitute teacher for her classes, but that didn't stop the members of the Tea Club from pounding on her door at all hours of the day.