by The Awethors
AWETHOLOGY LIGHT
The #Awethors
Published by Plaisted Publishing House Ltd
New Zealand
COPYRIGHT 2015 THE #AWETHORS GROUP
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from all the authors in the #Awethor
Anthology, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in reviews.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Organisers D M Cain & Rocky Rockford
Book Cover Illustrator - Travis West
Editors
Chris Hayes
Rebecca P McCray
Chess Desalls
Pam Elsie Harris
L E Fitzpatrick
Christie Stratos
William Frank Lloyd Jr
Travis West
Stephanie Stacker
Proofreaders
L E Fitzpatrick
J B Taylor
Pam Elsie Harris
Travis West
D M Cain
Anita Kovecevi
Publisher
Plaisted Publishing House Ltd, New Zealand
Contents
Modern Mythology
Beginnings – Protectors of the Elemental Magic
Thunder in the Sky
Dylan
A Neophyte’s Tale
Queen of the Small Seas
A Strong Tower
Sweet Dreams – Remember
Big Climb
A Martian Folk Tale
Passage
Seven Years’ Time
Kristen – Witch Hunter
The Dreaded Birthday
The Falstaff Vampire Werewolves
Writers Block
Little Bird
Nina
Enchantments
She was like the Island
Eternal Arguments
The Bridge
The Valley of Tears
The Amulet
Modern Mythology
Keanan Brand
Copyright 2015 Keanan Brand
All rights reserved
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the fellow writers and editors who provided feedback and encouragement on this story: L.S. King, C.L. Dycke, Lyndon Perry, and Jennifer Easter.
Dedication
To Suzan, who has walked with me through many “valleys of the crazy,” one of which inspired this tale.
Modern Mythology
I slide behind my other self and smile. There are many of me. We are equidistant, fractured, slightly askew. Today I am professional me, dispensing information, smiling, laughing at inane chitchat, refusing to feel the pinch of my high-heeled shoes or the odd gummy-dry sensation of lipstick worn too long.
The hotel lobby is polished, vast, filled with light and the constant hum of voices. Hotel Aspyrion rises higher even than the engineering marvel that is Don’Ayghel Ionic Energy, and from the roof, one can see across the city to where a dark smudge is all that marks the Hinterland and the edge of civilization.
Travelers claim to have been to the Hinterland, but I am never sure if their stories are true or simply a modern myth. Here There Be Dragons.
Yet people who have been to the Hinterland and then come home to Spectra tend to wander back into the wilderness, and rarely return to the city a second time. Some returners who remain in Spectra either are so frightened they eventually live out their days in a hospital, or they build their homes on the very edges of the city and tell their stories in books, songs, bars, and coffee shops. There is a melancholy to them, as if the returners wish they could leap over their own invisible walls and find whatever they left behind in the Hinterland.
The round clock hanging above the reception desk reads four o’clock. Name tag gleaming in the ambient light, a young woman in an elegant grey suit and a string of pearls approaches, greets me with a smile as robotic as mine, and immediately takes over my duties.
Out of sight of customers and supervisors, I pull off my shoes and hobble on aching feet to where my single-seat craft hovers in its mooring.
Air-sea-land craft overtook automobiles sometime in my parents’ childhood, just as the crano-aural transceiver implant overtook the telephone and many other sources of sound communication.
My implant is on permanent “off”. My mother’s transceiver is always busy. She cannot talk enough, but I find most speech unnecessary. That’s no impediment to our time together, because Mother will fill the void whether I’m listening or not. She has friends so numerous I cannot recall their names or faces, especially since my accident a year ago, and Father has so many business acquaintances his transceiver is rarely out of use. It is modified, in fact, to allow the transmission of great quantities of information, and I sometimes wonder how he can keep such massive wads of data in his brain. No wonder there is so little room for remembering anything — or anyone — else.
Stepping into the craft, I sink into the cushioned seat and close my eyes. The city is a mass of noise, grinding my ears, berating my stillness. I touch a small sphere. The glass shield hisses shut, sealing me in silence.
After a few moments, I open my eyes again, lean forward, and tap a screen to plot my route through the city.
I flinch as something slaps against the left shield.
It is a crude map, and behind it is the shape of a hand, fingers splayed to hold the paper flat.
It probably isn’t really paper, though we still call it that. When my grandparents’ grandparents still lived, a synthetic reusable material was invented to replace all plant-produced fibers used in the manufacture of papers. That’s why there are so many trees now, the eco-scientists say, and so few environmentalists.
My heart lurching back into normal rhythm, I click the release toggle and hear the mooring lines snap away from the craft.
“Wait!” The voice is sharp, with an elderly quaver. “Wait!”
I want to go home, change clothes, and collect all my selves into one being for a few hours. Yet I hesitate.
“Please?” The map moves aside to reveal a vaguely familiar face. An old man from the lobby.
I let the craft settle back into its slip, and open the shield a little.
He squints as if trying to find my name tag, but it is in my locker in the personnel lounge. “Professor Quarlton Pathington Shinnegal.”
He offers his hand, and I shake it briefly before withdrawing once more behind the half-open shield.
“You were not in the hotel lobby.” Professor Shinnegal tilts his head like a curious bird, his squinched-up eyes examining me. “You stood there, but you were elsewhere. I’m always looking for someone who isn’t there.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” His voice sharpens again. “Someone who isn’t there.”
“Listen, Professor, my shift is over, and I really want to go home—”
“This is home.” He thrusts the map at me. It waves in his trembling grasp, but I can see the rough shapes of trees and mountains, and curving lines that might be rivers or roads. “This is where you’ll find what’s lost.”
He pauses as if this is significant to me.
“But I’m not looking for anything.”
“No?” Again he studies me.
“No.”
“How long has it been since your soul went missing?”
I tap the sphere; the shield closes. Professor Shinnegal stumbles backward as my craft lifts smoothly from its slip and enters the stream of traffic.
All of my selves, except the lethar
gic or distracted ones, burst into simultaneous complaint. I try not to listen, but a few voices push through the clamor:
“We were poor representatives for Hotel Aspyrion.”
“Speak for yourself! I don’t represent anyone.”
“You didn’t have to be so rude. It’s not like we’re in a hurry to keep an appointment. We could have listened to him.”
“We don’t owe him anything.”
“Who does he think he is?”
“I’ll tell you what he is. He’s crazy!”
“He wants something from us, and it has nothing to do with that map.”
“He wants nothing from us but the truth.” This self is intelligent, observant, apt to see what all my other selves cannot. I trust her, but I do not always understand her. “Truth is what we fear.”
What? Fear truth? I’m a fairly honest person. I think.
I negotiate the bobbing, hovering traffic along the metroway—although craft are equipped with wheels, they are rarely used except when the solar panels fail—and veer toward a tall, elegant building with a blue glass façade. After mooring my craft in the slip beside my balcony, I wait a few moments while the security system scans the vehicle and identifies me as the legal occupant of the locked apartment.
The shield slides back with a gentle sigh, and I step out of the craft and onto the balcony. Locks snick open on the apartment door; the glass glides silently aside. My feet sink into the deep carpet, and tension eases in my neck. Tossing my purse on to the kitchen counter, I pile my earrings and watch beside it, then turn toward the bedroom to deposit my shoes.
Anchored by a wooden carving in the shape of a twisted tree, Professor Shinnegal’s map lays on the dining table.
Tapping my finger on the bone behind my right ear, I activate my transceiver. “Scan residence.”
The emotionless asexual voice of the home security system replies, “All secure.”
“Display security log.”
A holographic block of text hovers in front of my right eye. There is no record of anyone entering or leaving the apartment between the time I left for work this morning and my return two minutes ago.
“Scan objects on dining table.”
With a soft whir, a line of white light passes back and forth over the paper and the figurine. “Antique paper. Fibrous content. Linen. Tree pulp. Unknown ink. Archaic writing form.” The security system pauses as if thinking then continues to scan the carving. “Aboriginal motif. Ash. Hand carved. No correlation to items in Spectra Museum of Ancient History.”
But how did it get here? “When did the objects appear on the security grid?”
The holographic report reappears before me. Lines of text and numbers scroll so quickly they are only blips and flashes—until they come to a sudden halt: a year ago. Surely it doesn’t take a year for a girl to notice what’s sitting on her dining table. Maybe the system needs a tweak. Been a while since operations were upgraded.
“Scan objects for fingerprints. Cross-reference with police database.”
Now blue, the light broadens to include the surface of the table. “Fingerprints found. Jaysha Don’Ayghel.”
My prints.
The voice drones on, but I’m staring at the carving and only hear phrases: “…accident report, 23 March…14 June…left university…revived on scene…”
I turn off the transceiver, leave my other selves standing around the dining table, and go to my room.
Like uninvited guests at a formal party, old sturdy boots made of synthetic leather lurk behind the rows of designer shoes neatly shelved along one side of the closet. Shedding my suit, I pull on faded jeans and a holey T-shirt stretched and stained past redemption, then rummage for socks. I find orange ones, at odds with the fire-pink shirt, but—in a blaze of fashion defiance—I put them on with the boots.
I sit on the edge of the bed for a moment, sensing I have done this before, and not very long ago. Shaking off the feeling, I begin packing a suitcase. Bypassing my selves still arguing with one another, I go to the bookshelves, pull down a few volumes, and tuck them among the folded garments. I toss in toiletries, no makeup; paper, writing utensils, no computer. I look around for other items to pack: a few framed early family images, a couple of leather-bound books, an antique flute my grandfather gave me.
The flute is ivory, made from elephant tusk. I have seen pictures of elephants in books, and the skeleton of one in the museum. The flute is older than even the experts can tell, its finger holes no longer perfectly round, its sides concave from the touch of unknown generations of players.
There. The suitcase is full.
I pick it up, bracing for the weight, grab my purse, and then drop it again. I leave the watch but take the earrings, stuffing them into a pocket of my jeans.
“Pardon.” I lean between two of my selves to grab the paper map and the wooden carving.
My selves stand staring at me, transparent faces concealing neither thought nor emotion.
“Where are you going?” one demands.
“Wait for us!” commands another.
I slam the balcony door shut, locking it just as the selves run to catch me. I almost feel the shudder of their impact. They press their faces, soft and translucent, against the pane.
“Goodbye.”
Why do I say that? It is an archaic farewell, deriving in ages past from a religious saying, wishing the departing one to go with God’s blessing. Nevertheless, I say it again. “Goodbye.”
I secure the suitcase in the hatch of the craft, step aboard, and release its moorings. Giddy and daring, I lift my hands from the controls to let the craft go where it will, and I laugh.
What do I fear? Being alone? Misunderstood? Unliked? Unloved? Unemployed? Homeless? Dead? Forgotten?
I am already forgotten.
I smooth the map, tracing its crude lines with my fingertip. The unknown. That’s what I fear. But I also fear existence. I want to live. I want to believe. I want to know.
I want to be known.
A siren wrenches my attention from the map. Red lights flash. A police horn blares. “Jaysha Don’Ayghel, you are hereby ordered to cease acceleration and withdraw from the metroway.”
I look around. My craft is bobbing along in the wrong direction. Others are swerving, ducking, leaping to avoid mine.
With one glance at the police craft and another at my energy gauge, I tap in a code. My craft spurts upward, then forward, hurtling toward the dark rim of the Hinterland that I cannot yet see but know is there.
The police craft follows, and the message repeats, ordering me to cease acceleration.
My skin tingles. My heart surges. I cannot stop smiling. I zoom past my father’s building — Don’Ayghel Ionic Energy — and wave at the topmost window where I imagine my mother is lounging in the penthouse, her transceiver humming with gossip.
Goodbye.
The Hinterland rises across my vision in a leafy arc. Freedom.
The bright orange bars on the energy gauge falter, then fall. My craft bucks — decelerates.
The police craft looms behind me. “Jaysha Don’Ayghel…,” and the police bot drones the message again.
My dizzy excitement plummets like my craft, and I fight to stay aloft, ahead of the grapnel line that will bind me to the police craft at any moment. My fingers fumble as I type codes into the computer, engaging the auxiliary energy cell and slicking the bottom portion of the craft with a thin layer of lubricant to discourage the grappling hook.
Something bangs against the hull and slides across the hatch. The craft jerks sideways. My head slams into the shield. Blood slurs down my face.
If I release the hatch to disengage the hook, my suitcase and belongings — the trappings of myself — are lost. If I don’t release the hatch, freedom is lost.
There is a jolting pause as the towing action of the police craft opposes my craft’s forward motion.
With the auxiliary energy cell wide open, I set a course for the Hinterland, then
release the controls. I unlock a small toolkit, unscrew the panel between the hatch and the forward pit, pull the suitcase into the tiny space of the pit, then brace myself and switch the toggle that controls the hatch door.
Propelled by the sudden release and the surge of power, the craft tumbles forward, end over end. My stomach roils. My head spins. Wind tugs at me. The old map is sucked through the gaping hatch. The carved tree — I don’t know where it is.
Contorting around the suitcase and the seat, I grab the control sphere and tilt the craft upright again. The police craft resumes pursuit.
Trees delineate, rising in gilded green spires and umbrellas against the western sun. Towers and metroways become less frequent, and the city crumbles at the edges until it flattens, populated with old-fashioned surface dwellings and other small buildings so ancient they seem held up by little more than memory.
“Jaysha Don’Ayghel, you are hereby ordered to decelerate immediately and await arrest in the name of the Spectra Judiciary and Civilization Loss Prevention Unit. Repeat, decelerate immediately!”
My craft scrapes along the tops of trees. Wiping blood from my eyes, I plead, “Up! Up! Up!”
It obeys. I am borne a little higher, perhaps by a sudden wind now tossing the tree branches.
A wide circle opens in the green expanse. I look back — it is the last time I do — and see the police craft hovering as if in indecision, but there is no human pilot at the controls. At the bounds of its power, it wavers, turns, still blaring its orders at me. The words become a decreasing whine on the wind.
Trees surround my craft, pummeling and tossing it like a ball in a game. I wedge myself between the seat and the suitcase, cover my head with my arms, and wonder why I chose today to die.
The sensation is familiar. Have I been in a headlong fall like this before?
There are no splintered selves, however, to rail at me — to chide or sneer or question — for this is a doom of my own choosing.
My bones jar with every crashing bounce of the craft rolling awkwardly across the clearing, punching holes in the earth, cracking the shields.