by IGMS
Qoress could not pinpoint the moment at which he accepted that the realms they moved through truly were different worlds, but the cause was clear enough. He could not travel across so many of them and not accept it.
It wasn't merely the people -- short and tall, slender and fat, pale and dark, sometimes with different numbers of eyes or arms, sometimes nothing like men at all. It wasn't merely the changing number of suns and moons, the abrupt transitions from sweltering heat to icy cold as he stepped over an invisible line in a street. It wasn't merely the architecture, the sounds of the languages, the plants and the animals and the colors of the skies.
Something lay beneath all of these surface changes, however unnerving they might be. Walking from world to world with a troop of guards protecting the palanquin of the dying king, Qoress sensed an irreducible otherness every place he went. Some perversion of the natural order brought these places together and made it so he could travel to and within and across them, but it did not make him belong there. He came from another world, and these places were not his.
Last's services, he came to see, extended beyond merely speaking the necessary languages and knowing the safest path. Whether the guide understood this or not, he aided Qoress by thinking on the councillor's behalf, making pragmatic decisions while Qoress' mind gibbered and twitched under the realization of where he was. In the normal way Qoress would never have conceded such control to another, but he had no choice -- a fact never far from his thoughts.
There was no way to track how long they had been traveling, with night and day each seeming to follow the rules of the world they were in, not aligning with each other across boundaries. But they had to stop occasionally to rest, and using that to define a day, they had been traveling for just over a fortnight from the place of the cinnamon-skinned people when Qoress asked Last a question.
He had observed, as they traveled, that the realms they moved through were getting smaller, and now they were nothing more than neighborhoods, areas of a few square blocks that held to a single reality before shifting to another one. They had passed through cities in other worlds, but now it seemed there was nothing but a city. This brought to mind the carpet Last had used as a map, and the things he had said then.
"These places," he said hesitantly to the guide. It was evening where they were, though it had been morning in the previous neighborhood; Last had bargained for a large shed they could sleep in for a time. Now the guide was on the front step, watching the city's life go by, and Qoress had joined him. "They are all worlds."
"Yep," Last said. He was filling an oddly-shaped pipe with a scarlet leaf Qoress no longer expected to recognize.
"Worlds which have . . . come to an end."
"They're in the process of it." Instead of lighting the pipe, Last carefully dripped a little bit of water into it, then sucked on the stem with evident pleasure.
Qoress thought of the myriad places they had traveled through. "All of them?"
Last shrugged. "Every world ends someday. Or maybe I'm wrong; who knows? If a place doesn't come to an end, it doesn't come here. But Driftwood is where worlds come to die."
"Driftwood. That is . . . this place."
"The whole place, from the Crush right out to your home." Last gave him a sidelong look. "People out on the Edge usually deny it; you've got enough of a world left that you can. But it's fading -- have you noticed that? Shrinking. Bits just vanish. People die, or vanish with the bits, and though maybe you're still having kids -- some worlds do, some don't -- your population shrinks with your world. One day there's a place on the other side of you, where before there was only Mist. They've had an apocalypse, too. Different then yours, probably, but the result is the same; there's a fragment that survives, a fragment that isn't done dying, and it came here like all the rest of them. They fade like you do, and as you fade you move inward, because the worlds that lie Crush-ward of you are doing the same thing. Eventually you're just a little ghetto, hardly anything left. And then you reach the Crush, the heart of Driftwood. The last bits vanish -- and then there's nothing."
The utter nihilism of the thought was unendurable. Qoress knew why the center of Driftwood was called the Crush; he felt that force bearing down on him, threatening to undo him entirely.
"Our prophecies," he forced himself to say, "tell us otherwise. Our king will guide us through our tribulations, and lead us to salvation in the paradise of the Agate God. And then will begin the reign of the Amethyst God, and a new birth for the world."
Unimpressed by this information, Last merely shrugged again. "Could be you're right. I've been around Driftwood for a long time, but I don't claim to be an expert on anybody's gods. There might be another world waiting for you all. But it'll be waiting for you on the other side of the Crush."
They checked the king's health regularly; it wasn't good, but he still lived, and that was reason enough for hope.
But the people of Aalyeng -- not people at all, more like serpents with forked and dexterous tails -- could not heal the king, and so they moved onward to Grai-ni-tar.
The guards knew who they carried, as did the physician accompanying him. All had been bound to secrecy in the same manner as Haint. The criminal himself was, Qoress hoped, still waiting in the world of the cinnamon-skinned people, to guide them home when they returned. But Qoress wondered how much good that secrecy would do. Fully a score of people had now disobeyed the king's decree, by order of the Councillor Paramount; they had traveled through other worlds and felt the truth of Driftwood for themselves. They were heretics all, now, and what effect would this experience have on them?
Save the king. Nothing else mattered. He would worry about other concerns after the king was well. And if he was executed for his own crimes, then so be it.
Last guided them through the Shreds in an arc that skirted the Crush. Qoress had no desire to see it with his own eyes. They were attacked by some kind of large bird in one world; the guards' arrows bounced off it, and Last led them at a run over the boundary into the next Shred. Someone killed one of the guards while they were resting, and stole everything off the body, including the clothes, without anyone else hearing. They learned from these lessons and adapted. Qoress, like all councillors, had lived from his birth in the palace. He often wondered if his peers on the council would recognize him when he came back.
At last they came to Grai-ni-tar.
The people there, with skin like ink and eyes like stars, did not want anyone to accompany the king's palanquin into the ramshackle building that, even to Qoress' eye, was obviously a makeshift replacement for a temple now lost, decorated with crude approximations of sculptures and murals. Last, seeing Qoress' distress, argued vehemently with the priests. In the end, the two of them were permitted within, while the guards and physician remained outside.
The priests carried the palanquin down a large, dark archway, through a series of three curtains in black, grey, and white, and into a courtyard open to the sky.
There one of their number drew back the palanquin's drapes, murmured over the king, turned to Last, and said a short phrase.
The guide snapped something back, receiving the same phrase in reply, and strode forward to the palanquin himself. Qoress, his stomach in knots, saw the moment Last's shoulders slumped.
"I'm sorry," the guide said, his voice low and defeated. "He's dead."
Qoress woke on a hard, narrow bed, with only one lamp casting a dim light. There was no blessed period of confusion; he knew instantly where he was, and what had happened.
The king was dead.
He rolled over and found himself not alone. Last sat on a low stool nearby, hands working an intricate puzzle of interlocking wooden pieces.
"I'm guessing he was someone important," the guide said softly, not looking at Qoress. "Your king?"
Qoress' words came thickly, from a mouth that no longer saw much point in speaking. "The last of his line." Perhaps this was his punishment for heresy. But why did his world have to be punis
hed alongside him?
"Who was supposed to lead you all to salvation. I remember." Two pieces slid out of the puzzle. Last laid them aside, the dark gloss of his fingernails gleaming in the lamplight. "Can you choose another?"
Qoress' laugh was despairing. "You don't choose a king. The gods do. His family was sacred, but they all died when -- when the --" His throat closed off. Horror enough, to have lived through the end of the world; he could not tell that tale to this stranger, while lying in a bed worlds away from home.
Last's eyes were still on the puzzle. "Everything comes to an end someday. That's what this place is for. But it doesn't make the end hurt any less." The pieces came apart in his hands, without warning, and the puzzle dissolved into disconnected fragments.
Tears blurred Qoress' vision. What would this mean to his people? Suppose this man was right; suppose that Driftwood was the ultimate truth of the end, and that their prophecies of salvation, paradise, and rebirth were a lie. They were still a lie his people could cling to. Without that to hold them together, they had nothing. Anarchy would tear them apart.
"I do have one possibility to offer you." Last's voice stopped the downward spiral of his thoughts.
Sitting up on the edge of the bed, Qoress brushed feebly at his hair, as if his fingers could mend the disarranged braids so easily. There was little hope in his heart, but still he said, "Tell me."
"Two Shreds widdershins of here, there's a place called Rosphe. They can do this trick -- it's like a permanent shape-shifting. They can do it to other people. And once it's done, it's done, like the language-magic we performed." Last's long fingers were manipulating the pieces once more. Qoress watched them dance. "None of your people know yet that your king is dead."
The puzzle came back together again, as it had been before, and Qoress realized what Last meant.
He surged to his feet, torn between sickness and murderous fury. "How dare you suggest such blasphemy to me? To prey on me when you know I am vulnerable -- you calculated every step of this conversation, didn't you? Even down to that puzzle, an elegant illustration of your point. I am a heretic and a traitor to my king; I confess this beneath the foot of the Agate God. But even I, fallen man that I am, would not presume to such a masquerade."
Last was undisturbed by his outburst. "It's up to you," he said easily, studying the reconstructed puzzle. "Since there was no healing, the priests here have not taken their fee. You could pay it to the people in Rosphe instead. But if this is your decision, then I'll lead you home, as agreed."
Finally he looked up at Qoress, meeting his eyes for the first time since the councillor awoke. "I take my services very seriously. I'm not just a guide, not just a translator; I help people survive in Driftwood. As much as I can, against the breakdown that eventually claims it all. So I offer you what help I can. Whether or not you take it is up to you."
He stood and set the puzzle on his vacated stool. "When you're ready to come out, the priests will prepare a bath and food for you. I'll wait in the courtyard. From there, I'll take you wherever you want to go."
Then he departed, leaving Qoress alone with the delicate puzzle of wood.
A wave of noise surged up from the open plaza before the holy palace, as if the crowds assembled there spoke with one roaring voice. Gold and copper, studded with jewels, shone from the platform where the councillors stood in their vermilion robes.
A guard stepped forward and lifted a spear. Spiked on the end of it, brow still bearing the mark of his office, was the head of the former Councillor Paramount. No one knew the specifics of his crime, but his accomplices had been spared; all the guilt lay on Qoress, and he had died a heretic's death.
So it was, by order of the king.
At the border with the tunnel-world, Last hefted his pack onto one shoulder. No one had paid him for this trip out to the Edge; he'd come of his own will, to see what happened.
The man at his side did not wear the heavy, ornate robes of the king. They drew too much attention, and he was not accustomed to them anyway.
"I am damned for this," the king said.
Last shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. But you have a chance to help your people, and that's got to count for something. You're the king now: heresy will be what you say it is." He grinned, a brief flash of silver teeth. "Maybe you'll be the last, best heretic."
The jest made Qoress flinch, but Last might have been right. He smoothed his expression and gripped Last's hand. "May all the gods smile on your journey."
He stood at the edge of his world and watched until the guide vanished into the tunnels, his own words echoing in his mind. Whether their paradise lay beyond the Crush or not, they could not ignore where they were. At least now his people would face Driftwood with their eyes open, guided by one who, if he did not understand it, was willing to learn.
If heresy could lead to salvation, then he would find a way.
The Absence of Stars
by Greg Siewert
Artwork by Anselmo Alliegro
* * *
Part One (Part two is in issue 11.)
A hand gripped commander Trevor Kimberly's shoulder and shook him violently awake. "Pluto is gone."
"What?" Trevor asked as he removed his eyeshades and squinted in the blazing sunlight that shone through the canopy of the shuttle's cockpit.
"Pluto is gone," the voice repeated. It was Gretchen. Still holding his shoulder, she spoke in a slow, deliberate, and forceful manner. "Pluto is gone!"
"I didn't take it," he replied.
Gretchen's face registered no awareness of the joke. She appeared drawn and her eyebrows were deeply furrowed.
"Okay, what's Pluto?"
"Pluto, the ex-planet."
"Where'd it go?"
"No idea."
With that, Gretchen vanished from the cockpit. Trevor's scheduled sleep period had been delayed because the protocol written for his space walk was wrong, causing him to spend an extra hour and a half replacing the optics package for the station's on-board observatory. He was only an hour into his sleep and his fatigue amplified his bewilderment.
Reluctantly, he unclipped his sleeping bag from the commander's chair. He had his choice of bunks on the space station, but he preferred to sleep in the shuttle. Following Gretchen's path, he made his way through the weightless atmosphere of the shuttle and into the International Space Station, where he'd been living and working for about 48 hours.
Most of the rest of the crew was crowded around a video monitor in the service module. The screen showed a field of stars. Gretchen pointed at it: "That's the Webb telescope's view of Pluto.
"Where am I looking?" asked Trevor.
Myrtle, a systems engineer, used her forefinger to trace a small circle of empty black space on the screen. "Here."
"I don't see anything."
Nikolai rolled his eyes. "Keen observation. We will make an astronomer of you yet!" Nikolai was the chief science officer and a close friend of Trevor and Gretchen.
"Okay seriously, what the hell is going on?" The crew wasn't above the occasional prank, but the looks on their faces made that seem unlikely.
Nikolai and Gretchen merely shrugged, but Myrtle spoke in her usual, slightly-bored monotone. "Yesterday morning at 13:25 GMT, students at the Lowell observatory in Flagstaff were going to calculate Pluto's rotation by observing fluctuations in its light intensity. Unfortunately, it was missing."
"Missing?"
"Just missing."
He made his way for the phone. "Who's on CAPCOM?"
"Edward."
He picked up the phone and held down the send button. "Houston, this is Space Station Alpha, Commander Kimberly speaking."
"This is Edward at Houston center. How are you this evening, Commander Kimberly."
"Good, just fine, Edward, thanks. Look, have you guys heard anything about Pluto being uh . . ." he stole a glance at the crew to check for smirks and finding none he continued, ". . . missing."
"That's affirmative Trevor. P
luto is whereabouts unknown."
"Seriously?"
"Yes sir. It's gone."
"Anybody know where it went?"
"No. In fact, we're all a bit perplexed. The only working theory so far is that an unknown object blew past it and was big enough to pull it from its orbit and we just haven't found it yet."
"Huh."
"Yeah."
"Alright, thanks. Let me know if any other orbiting bodies vanish."
"Will do, Alpha. You have a good evening."
"Good night Edward." He turned back to the crew and shrugged.
"I talked with Rosaviakosmos," offered Nikolai. "They said pretty much the same thing. Pluto's on the very outer reaches of our solar system. There could be another large orbiting body we haven't discovered yet. Maybe they came close enough to send each other spinning off track."
Aside from Nikolai, Gretchen was the only trained astronomer. Trevor turned to her. "This sound plausible to you?"
"They taught me in grade school that we have nine planets. Of course, they changed their minds about Pluto, but regardless, one of them just vanished without a whisper. None of this sounds very plausible."
"But could it have happened?"
"I guess. But it's hard to imagine why we haven't found it yet. Every telescope on Earth is looking for it."
"Yes," objected Nikolai, "but Pluto is extremely faint. Only world-class observatories would stand a reasonable chance of finding it. It wasn't even discovered until 1930."
"True, but there's quite a few world-class observatories nowadays."
"Well," said Trevor, still exhausted, "I never planned on visiting Pluto anyway. I'm going back to bed." With the sound of intense conversation fading away behind him, he pulled his way back to the shuttle's cockpit, climbed into his sleeping bag and clipped it to the seat. But he did not sleep.
After forty-five minutes of blinding sunlight, the orbit of the station created a rapid-tempo sunset, as if the universe had recorded the event and was playing it back on fast-forward. The windows of the shuttle framed the action and Trevor watched as the disappearing sun became a field of stars. He removed his eyeshades and stared into the heavens. Ever since he had been a child, this black and white panorama had served as an invitation to explore the universe. He tried to assure himself that the disappearance of Pluto was nothing more than an astronomical oddity that would soon be fully explained. As he looked into the night sky, though, he suddenly felt that the stars around him were filled with hidden danger.