Fiction Vortex - June 2014

  "I pulled you." Liam seemed to notice his soggy crotch for the first time.

  "Why?"

  "Because I could." Liam scowled, cursing as his face burned scarlet to the tips of his ears. "I should be able to push you back."

  "Just not yet," Cayden murmured.

  Liam stood and cleared his throat, preparing to recite the incantations that had come to him in a dream on the night of his thirteenth birthday — or so he claimed — when suddenly he doubled over and clapped a hand to his ear as if he'd been stung by a hornet. He drew back his palm with blood upon it.

  "What did you do to me?" He stared first at his hand, then at the trollgre. The ear lobe on the right side of Liam's head was missing a bite-sized piece of flesh.

  "Open the doorway," Brawnstone repeated, now with a sense of urgency in his tone.

  "I will! You don't have to—" Liam lurched backward with a wild shriek, hands flying to his scalp as a chunk of it, complete with straw-colored hair, disappeared.

  Cayden couldn't help it. She let a small giggle escape.

  Brawnstone turned on her. "Is this your magic as well, child?"

  She stared back at him. Raising her chin a smidge, she nodded, and as she did, she felt something powerful surge inside her. She'd never been so in control of anything in all her life.

  "Don't try and stop me," she warned.

  He glanced at the solid hide on his arm as if he knew that what she gave, she could just as easily take away. "I only wish to return to my world."

  She frowned. "But you said it wasn't a nice place at all. No sun, no children—"

  "It is where I belong. Where I am needed."

  "I need you here." She'd blurted out the words before she realized she even meant them. But she did. And she wouldn't take them back. She'd never had the courage to hurt Liam like this, like he'd hurt her and so many creatures before, without Brawnstone here to make the man-boy wet his pants. "He would've killed you, if he could."

  "You?" Liam raged at her as he bled. "How?"

  "You think you're the only one with real magic in our family?" Her hand jerked on the sketchbook. She watched Liam drop to the ground, his leg broken in half, and she relished his screams.

  "You have been biding your time," Brawnstone observed, his deep voice rising above the sounds of Liam's agony.

  "Why?"

  "Isn't it obvious, brother? You remember my doe, of course. And my hair." She paused. "But the best reason is simply because I can." With another jerk of her hand on the page, the sketch of her brother's face lost its nose, and Liam released a strangled shriek as he writhed in the dust.

  "Your hair?" Brawnstone eyed her without expression.

  "He cut it off with that knife of his. After he killed my pet. And it hasn't grown back, none of it." She gave the bonnet a tug to make sure it was still in place. Her gaze remained fixed on Liam's broken form. "It's time for his comeuppance, Mr. Brawnstone."

  The trollgre inclined his massive head to one side. "You could not have waited until after he sent me back?"

  Cayden had to giggle at that.

  "Damn you straight to hell!" Unable to rise, Liam cursed with murderous intent, his face now crimson-wet and his eyes as wild as she'd ever seen.

  "He is human," Brawnstone said in an even tone. "He is your brother. In my world, as imperfect as it is, that would mean something."

  Cayden narrowed her gaze. "Send him back," she commanded her brother, her left hand poised over the sketchbook. "Or I'll end you at the waist."

  Liam stared back at her. There appeared to be no doubt in his mind that she meant what she said. Quickly, he spat to the side to clear his mouth and began the incantation, reciting it shakily at first and then with more feeling as he went along. Brawnstone turned sharply as a void opened behind him with a ripple, as if the air between the trees had turned into a pool of standing water. Whatever lay beyond, however, could not be seen.

  Glancing at Liam, the trollgre moved to enter the doorway without another word.

  "How can you tell?" Cayden stepped forward, halting him with her voice. "How do you know that's the way to your world? My brother has opened doorways to many and taken all manner of creatures for his games. What if this one isn't yours?"

  "In my world, poison rains from the skies because of ... magic. Because none could live at peace with their brothers." Brawnstone eyed her squarely. "Fighting evil with evil helps no one, child. In this Wyoming, I have seen a different poison, and I would sooner leave in favor of worlds unknown than remain in such a place." He stopped, staring down at his hide as it suddenly cracked across the surface in jagged lines.

  "Then leave." The last thing Cayden wanted to hear right now was a lecture.

  Brawnstone stepped into the void. It swallowed him up like a pond would a big rock, only without a splash, and once he was through to whatever lay beyond, the rippling doorway vanished with a flash of light. Cayden found herself alone with her dear brother — or what was left of him.

  "Go on. Kill me." He scowled up at her. "If you don't, I'll tell everybody in town what you are. A damned witch! Then we'll see what they do about it."

  Cayden could have easily killed him right then and there. He looked so much like the creatures his gang had tormented and left for dead, crumpled on the ground and bleeding out. But she also could have made him whole. It was within her power, after all.

  She found herself in complete control of his fate for the first time in her life. Liam had taken her doe and her hair, and no doubt he would have taken her sketchbook from her if he could, but none of that really mattered right now. She held ultimate power over him at this moment, and the effect was dizzying.

  "Open a new doorway," she said, retracing the drawing of his broken leg but leaving the damage done to his nose, scalp, and ear. He would have to be able to walk — and run for his life, more than likely — where he was going. "Now."

  He stared first at his healed leg, then up at her. "Where the hell to?"

  She almost smiled at the thought of it.

  "Africa."

  ~~~~~

  ~~~~~

  Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by night. When he's not grading papers, he's imagining what the world might be like in a few dozen alternate realities. He is an active SFWA member, and his work has appeared in more than 70 publications, including AE SciFi, Cosmos, Daily Science Fiction, Nature, and Shimmer. His novel Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the Space-Time Displacement Conundrum is forthcoming from Every Day Publishing.

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  Words of War

  by Guy T. Martland; published June 10, 2014

  The small group of so-called "war poets" was touring. Some of them, like Valin Hussein, had seen some real action in space. His last tour of duty had ended when the stolen Ifrit class enemy ship he was captaining had encountered a mine, splintering its spine. The dying ship and his experiences aboard it had informed his last slim volume and garnered him considerable praise in the process.

  When he was recovering in a military hospital orbiting Titan, writing the series of interconnected poems had served to thwart the insidious tedium. Now, months later and almost fully recovered, the fighting seemed to have ceased, although for how long was anyone’s guess. In the lull he had somehow found himself persuaded to tour Earth and recite his graphic representations of war.

  "The ever-present cannibalistic desire. Is that really based on personal experience?" someone slurred at him over the table. Valin nodded, describing the dwindling stores aboard the Kalima XI with the possibility of rescue distant, the remaining crew wondering how long they would be pushed before...

  "As the poem stated, it wasn’t an idea we took lightly. They were dark times for all of us. Especially the injured, like myself. It was assumed we’d be the first to go, being the biggest drain on resources."

  Wide-eyed, enraptured, almost sycophantic, the bustling table continued to question him. Wine flowed freel
y, smoke blowing gently on the warm breeze that passed through the bar. From where Valin sat he could see across Cala de Deia, the small bay lit by the glow from the boats and small shuttle craft. Waves splashing on the rocks below provided background music to the poets’ voices, and the occasional ripple of applause carried out into the hills beyond.

  He’d already done his bit in the recital and was basking in the afterglow, people clapping him on the back as they wandered to the bar. Being one of the first on was something he relished — usually at these kind of events he wasn’t able to enjoy the other acts, being consumed by nerves. He found it ironic that he felt no such terror when he was storming an enemy hideout, but reading poems wasn’t something he’d trained to do in the army.

  The buzz of the place quieted as Rachael took to the stage and began to speak:

  Your call to prayer

  Resonated through subspace

  Lighting up beacons

  With the Muezzin’s wail.

  For a few moments

  As battle ceased

  Warships appeared through rifts

  Lining up with Mecca

  And as the prayers ran out

  It began again

  Explosions littering battlespace

  Calling us back to arms.

  As he stood up, despite being near the back, Rachael watched him leave. Her heavy brown eyes spoke more to him than her words did, but they didn’t speak disapproval. She knew he’d heard her poems many times before.

  Outside, he felt the oppression of the throng lift. The place had been a bit too cramped, a bit too like the remaining life-support cubicles aboard the Kalima XI. He took a deep breath and felt better. His side was aching where plaskin had replaced the burned fetid flesh; it felt tight and too new, sweating oddly under his linen top.

  He decided against heading back inside. Instead, he’d retreat to the village above, where he’d heard there was a good bar. The walk would do him good, and besides, they were all due to meet up there later.

  "I liked your poems," said a voice in the night. Valin squinted into the gloom, his eyes happening on a shock of white hair that seemed to glow oddly in the moonlight. As the man approached, his weathered face beamed a welcome.

  "Oh, thanks," replied Valin, continuing his passage up the hill. Lemon trees and cacti lined the path.

  "You seemed to capture the truth. More so than your friends anyway," the man continued. Valin thought his voice seemed to hark back to a distant age, its crisp English tones suggesting a man of bearing. The stranger seemed to be hovering at his side, keen to talk.

  "That’s very kind of you. Can I sign anything for you?" Valin asked, halting in his tracks. The cicadas in the surrounding trees chirruped loudly at the night.

  "There’s no need. Are you heading up to Deia? I’m heading that way too."

  It seemed the man wouldn’t leave. Valin sighed inwardly to himself: He’d been looking forward to some time alone. He turned back to the path, negotiating a steep turn.

  "My name’s Robert. I used to write poems, you know."

  "Oh really?" Valin said, disinterested; the eager poets who had shown him their doggerel, expecting gleaming praise, layered cynicism over his enthusiasm for the written word. He noticed the man had pulled out a black hat, its place on his head framing his face.

  "Yes. War poems, too."

  "Oh right, which war?"

  "War was return of earth to ugly earth..."

  "You can say that again..."

  "War was foundering of sublimities, extinction of each happy art and faith..."

  "Are you quoting someone?" asked Valin, slowing to allow his companion to catch up.

  "Just one of mine."

  "It sounds good. I like it."

  "Well, it is one of my better..."

  "What did you say your name was?" asked Valin, stopping again to examine the man more closely. His was an intelligent face.

  "Robert. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hussein."

  "Are you from here?"

  "I live nearby. Up there on the hill. Have done for years."

  "I can think of nothing I’d rather do than live here for years, writing poetry. But I will, in due course, return to the battlefield," Valin said.

  "I stood in your shoes once. But no longer. It may be a cliché, but war is a young man’s game."

  "That it is, indeed."

  "Well, I turn off here," Robert pointed left up the hill.

  "It was nice to meet you, Robert."

  "Likewise. Keep, writing Mr. Hussein."

  And with that, the man disappeared into the darkness, his white hair visible for a few moments before it became lost behind a thicket of gorse and rosemary.

  Valin shook his head, trying to make sense of the encounter as he plunged up the slope to the village. Above, he noticed one of the orbiting Unified Churches of Christ passing through the heavens, its illuminated cruciform shape dimming the stars beyond. By the time it had disappeared behind the mountaintops, he had reached the village and was winding his way through small cobbled streets to the bar he’d been told about.

  Sa Fonda was busy but had yet to receive most of the visitors from the reading below. He recognized a poet he knew, reading quietly to himself in the corner, and thought he’d interrupt. After a brief and overcomplicated negotiation with the barman in pidgin Spanish regarding the procurement of a beer, he wandered over. Some ancient reggae blared from a speaker concealed somewhere in the vines that were strung over the patio.

  "Valin!" the man exclaimed, leaping up and shaking him warmly by the hand.

  "Nice to see you, Purtice. You escaping the madhouse for a bit then."

  "Yeah, just been sitting here, reading."

  "What’s that?" Valin said, nodding at the book. It was an old hardback edition, bound in leather.

  "Poems. Have a look," Purtice replied, handing the book over. "They were written a poet who lived locally; war poems, actually."

  Valin placed his beer on the table, sat down, and flicked to the title page. The writer was a man called Robert Graves. He turned to a poem entitled Recalling War, a stanza leaping out at him:

  War was the return of Earth to ugly Earth.

  The book shook in Valin’s hands and he almost dropped it. Instead he placed it delicately back on the table, taking a sip of the cool beer as eerie thoughts slotted into place.

  Robert Graves had lived in Deia — how could he have not realized? Had the whirlwind of shore leave, travelling around on this impromptu reading tour, softened his edge so much? It had surely been the reason they’d stopped here. Was Robert Graves this man, the poet he’d just met on the path? It had to be, but then again — how could that be possible? Robert Graves had died centuries ago – so then it had to be some kind of impostor. He wanted to run back down the hill, find him, but knew he’d be long gone.

  He looked up at Purtice, his face pale.

  "What’s the matter Valin?" his friend asked him. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost!"

  ~~~~~

  An annoying beep thrilled through his dehydrated cerebral cortex, forcing him into consciousness through the fog of hangover. He was back aboard his shuttle, which was a relief — although he couldn’t remember getting there. He blinked away spectral remnants of dreams that flickered at the edges of his consciousness. But one ghost wouldn’t disappear – the lined, well-worn face of Robert Graves.

  After shouting at it a few times, it dawned that this holo unit wasn’t going to respond to voice commands. He flung a pillow at the receiver, which did nothing to quell its incessant bleating. Eventually, he forced himself to stand up, knocking over a glass of water in the process. He located the remote and tapped it.

  Rachael’s face appeared on the screen, scattering light over the bedroom.

  "I didn’t wake you did I? You look terrible."

  "Well, you know, a man has to enjoy his shore leave sometimes. What do you want at this ungodly hour?"

  "Did you have fun last night?" Racha
el replied.

  "From what I can remember, yes. Where were you?"

  "Busy. I’m working on a project at the moment."

  "Right. Good for you. Well, I’m off back to sleep then."

  "How did you enjoy meeting Robert last night?"

  Valin sat bolt upright in bed. "How do you know? Did that barman tell you?"

  "I wasn’t there last night. But apparently you were freeversing some stuff about a ghost."

  "Yeah, this strange thing happened."

  "I know."

  "What do you know?"

  "Robert is one of my A.I. constructs."

  "Ah, so it was a wind up! Great. I might have guessed — thanks for freaking me out." Valin hit another pad on the side of the bed, flicking up the filters on the diamond composite window of the shuttle. He winced slightly.

  "Sorry. But it is a serious project. We need the war poets. We need them alive, now more than ever."

  Valin shook his head, used to this kind of overbearing enthusiasm from his friend. "But he isn’t alive, he’s just a construct."

  "Assembled from what we know of his personality. You can learn a lot about someone from their poetic output."

  "Hmm," replied Valin, thinking about the never-to-be published semi-erotic verse he’d written about Rachael. He looked up into her magnified deep brown eyes.

  "And where better to set him free, than where he died? When they appear, they aren’t too unfamiliar with their surroundings."

  "Apart from the fact that they are dead. I imagine that is a bit of a shock to a being when it wakes."

  "Ha ha. Bit like you now!" Rachael said. "Listen, can you do something for me?"

  "Why?"

  "I can’t make the next leg. I left you something on your porch. Instructions are embedded in your holo."

  "All very mysterious. What do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to grow me a war poet," she replied, an impish grin spreading across her face.

  ~~~~~

  It wasn’t far from Athens – a quick hop across Evia and part of the Aegean Sea. He’d been on the mainland for another reading and was now fulfilling his promise to Rachael. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and he piloted his small shuttle manually.

  He pulled up the craft on a road near the plot, scrabbling down the dusty scree slope to the olive grove below. Nestled amongst the trees was a grave, penned in by four white pillars of marble and black ironwork. He wiped his brow in the heat as he stood beside it, admiring the view. The valley stretched down to the sea, framed by austere orange rocks that made up the place.