Writers of the Future Volume 31

  Mankin was bewildered. For the first time he had a clear look at what was poured into the encampment. He saw huge machines being unloaded. He saw that they were already at work with some of them. Beams were playing across the plains and at each place one struck, puffs of smoke rose. Others were drilling into the earth and sending up high plumes of exhaust. Mankin suddenly realized that they must be reoxygenators replacing humus, injecting heat under the crust. A faintness came over him. He could not believe what he saw and he could not hope.

  Lars turned to him. “I could not tell you, I could not promise you. But truly, I did nothing.”

  Collingsby interrupted with a sharp, “No, he did nothing. He came and sang us old ballads and told us the hero tales of Earth; he reminded us of the heritage we had behind us; and of what we owed the mother planet. She was drained of her blood for our sakes. He made us see the quiet ocean and the green hills where our fathers lived. And then, having shrugged and said it was no more, he moved on.

  “He went all through space and told his tales. In the empires everywhere school children formed subscriptions, governments formed expeditions, scientists worked, on what had to be done—but here, certainly, President Mankin, you can see how this would be. After all, Earth is the ‘Mother’ of all the stars. And somewhere in the heart of every man in the empires lurks a fondness for the birthplace of his race. For our histories are full of Earth and all our stories, all our great triumphs, contain the name of Earth. Should we then let her die?

  “And so we have come here, these combined forces, to make the old land green again, to replace the oceans, to rebuild an atmosphere, to make the rivers run, to put fish in the streams, and game in the hills.

  “We’ll make this place a shrine, complete and vital as once it was, where Inter-Empire councils may arbitrate the disputes of space. Here we can meet on the common ground of birth and, in the halo of her greatness, find the answers to our problems. For in the long run the problems and the answers change very little. All the fundamental questions have been asked and solved on Earth before; and they will be again.

  “But come,” said Collingsby. “We have less than a week to repair all. It is,” he asked Lars, “just a week to July fourth, is it not? And that was the anniversary of the launching of the first expedition to Earth’s moon, wasn’t it?”

  “But come into my ship where we can have some refreshments. There will be time enough to stand around in the sun when all these fields are green.”

  They looked at Lars and he smiled at them. Mankin swallowed back a lump of emotion in his throat.

  “Lars, why didn’t you tell me you had saved Earth with a song?”

  A Revolutionary’s Guide to Practical Conjuration

  written by

  Auston Habershaw

  illustrated by

  SHUANGJIAN LIU

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Auston Habershaw has always wanted to tell stories, and so he always has, for as long as he can remember speaking. The only question was what kind of stories he ought to tell, and that was settled by fate: on the day he was born, Skylab fell from orbit. It was pretty much destiny that he found himself writing science fiction and fantasy.

  In his quest to be a professional writer, Auston has worked as a lifeguard, swim teacher, dog walker, video game tester, slum lord minion, office temp, theme park performer (he dressed like a pirate), coffee barista, waiter, SAT tutor, and pedicab driver until eventually settling on English professor. Now he teaches at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

  Auston has published stories in Analog, Stupefying Stories, Sword and Laser Anthology, and other places, too. His debut fantasy novel, The Iron Ring, was released on February 10, 2015 by Harper Voyager Impulse. Its two sequels will be following along shortly. You can stalk him on his blog if you are thusly inclined. It’s okay—he likes attention.

  Auston lives, writes, and works in Boston with his wife and two children.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Shuangjian Liu was born in 1992 and raised in Guangzhou, China.

  At eighteen, he moved to California and started college. He loved playing video games, so he played them a lot, and as he did, he gained an appreciation for the wonderful computer graphic illustrations in them.

  So, when he went to college, he started to teach himself how to draw digital art, and got his first freelance drawing job while in school.

  He’s always excited while drawing because as time passes, he gets to see the picture grow more and more vivid. He enjoys creating new art from abstract ideas. Even though he has been working and studying toward this career for many years, Shuangjian still loves it and hopes to create his own video game.

  A Revolutionary’s Guide to Practical Conjuration

  The man with the crystal eye could peel the skin off a camel with his glare, and Abe struggled to meet it. He couldn’t determine which eye to look at. The crystal one was alien, yes—it glowed with a sort of half-light, as though a candle flickered somewhere in its glassy depths—but for all that it was inanimate. Looking at it felt like gazing at a lantern, and the idea that it peered back was unsettling. The other eye—the man’s human eye—was dark and sharp, like a bird’s, and it didn’t blink as it darted up and down Abe’s body. It wasn’t an improvement over the crystal eye at all. Abe tried to hold still.

  “You are not a practitioner of the High Arts,” the man announced finally. He took up the mouthpiece to a water pipe and took several introspective puffs.

  Abe glanced over his shoulder reflexively. Nobody in the tooka-den seemed to have noticed the man’s comment. It was late, and the evening shadows were deepened by the sweet, heady smoke that bunched around the ceiling lamps. The other patrons, scattered about on deep pillows and separated by muslin curtains, were too deep into their own smoking to even look up.

  “Relax, boy. I would not have chosen this place if it were dangerous.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” Abe asked, hands balled into fists.

  The man laughed, his bird eye never wavering from Abe. “You do not. You cannot know; this is life. Please sit … or run. Whatever you do, stop acting like a spooked rabbit.”

  The man motioned to a chartreuse cushion across from him, and Abe sat. The cushion practically swallowed his bony frame, pulling his feet off the floor. A sickly sweet perfume—a mixture of tooka smoke and stale sweat—puffed up around him. Abe gagged.

  The man with the crystal eye nodded. “Much better. Now for introductions: I am Carlo diCarlo, and you are?”

  Abe tried to prop himself upright in the huge cushion, but couldn’t quite manage. “I’d rather not tell you my name.”

  Carlo sighed. “Obviously not, but you could make one up. I just did, after all.”

  “You did?”

  “You didn’t seriously think my name was Carlo diCarlo, did you? Come now, I need something to call you besides ‘boy.’ Spit it out.”

  Abe spat the first thing that came to mind. “Oz—call me Oz.”

  Carlo nodded. “So far, so good. Now, Oz, would you like any refreshment? They don’t serve drinks here, but perhaps some food? Tooka? Ink?”

  Abe pulled himself to the edge of the cushion. “I’m no ink-thrall.” He growled.

  Carlo puffed his pipe and shrugged. “You didn’t have the look, but you never can tell. It’s only polite to ask.”

  “Do you have what I need?” Abe said, putting a hand on his purse.

  Carlo shook his head and closed his real eye. The crystal one glowed more brightly. “You aren’t accustomed to having illegal dealings with black marketeers, are you? Never mind—a silly question—of course, you don’t. When I received your message, I assumed you were some Undercity alley wizard looking for an edge, or perhaps an alchemist or thaumaturge looking to expand his business down semi-legal avenues, but I see now that you’re just an angry young ma
n with an axe to grind.”

  Abe frowned, trying to fashion his stare into something icy. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  Carlo tapped his crystal eye. “I see a lot more than you realize, Oz. Now, to answer your question: yes, I have what you need. To answer your second question: you cannot afford it.”

  Abe tossed his purse on the carpet before Carlo’s feet. It clanked loudly. “There’s 50 marks in silver crowns. I can get more.”

  Carlo sighed. “What exactly do you think this peculiar eye of mine does, anyway? I know how much silver you have in that purse—I counted it when you came in. I am telling you that you don’t have enough and that I find it unlikely that any additional amount of money you can secure will be sufficient. You’re out of luck, boy—go home. Honestly, I’m doing you a favor.”

  Abe felt his face flush. “I need that book, Carlo. I’ll pay anything.”

  “Go home, Oz. Get a job, if you can. I recommend thievery—you appear to be good at it, judging from that robe you are wearing that you clearly couldn’t afford, and all those coins which are not the product of your diligent scrimping. Forget you ever came here and live a much longer, happier life.”

  “You don’t understand! My life … all our lives are …” Abe stopped and took a deep breath. “I will pay anything—anything, understand? I need that book.”

  Carlo puffed his pipe for a few moments and began to blow smoke sculptures. Birds and serpents swirled out of his mouth and danced with each other in arabesque patterns until they vanished into the cloudy ceiling. It was a simple glamour, nothing more. He supposed Carlo was doing it to prove something, but he didn’t know what. The black marketeer, for his part, simply watched the creatures unfold from his lips in some kind of tooka-induced trance before finally speaking. “Very well, boy, I will make you a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “One you will have to accept, of course. It goes like this: I give you the book, but under a particular condition. In ten days I will find you and, at that time, you will give me two thousand marks in gold.”

  Abe stiffened. “That’s impossible! I could never—”

  Carlo held up his hand. “You will have the book, remember? Don’t think I am unaware what you wish to do with it; two thousand marks seems a reasonable sum. Now, if you do not have the money in ten days, I will reclaim the book and go on my way. This is the deal.”

  “What makes you think you’ll be able to get the book back from me?”

  Carlo shrugged. “I strongly believe that you will be dead in ten days, so it should be a relatively simple matter. Do we have a deal?”

  “I have a counteroffer.”

  “Not interested. This is the deal, take it or leave it.”

  “But—”

  Carlo’s face narrowed into a glare. “If you are as desperate and angry as you appear, you know as well as I do that you are going to say yes, so stop wasting my time, please. I am running out of patience.”

  Abe sighed. “Deal.”

  Carlo pointed at the floor. “Spit.”

  Abe spat.

  The black marketer spat as well, then sighed. “There—was that so hard?”

  “The book, Carlo.”

  Carlo diCarlo shook his head, muttering about Illini manners, and produced a large, leather-bound book wrapped in string from a belt pouch obviously too small to contain it without sorcerous interference. He extended it towards Abe and Abe snatched it. It was heavy and smelled like mildew and stale air.

  Abe fiddled with the knots holding the string around it until Carlo slapped his hand away. “Fool, boy! Don’t open that here! Do you want the mirror men on us? Go, go—begone! Back to the wretched Undercity with you, understand?”

  Abe nodded. “Thank you.”

  Carlo snorted. “Don’t thank me, Oz. I’ve just killed you.”

  “See you in ten days.” Abe shot back. Taking the rejected bag of silver and tucking the book under one arm, he walked into the smoky recesses of the tooka den. When he glanced back, he saw no sign that anyone had been there, let alone anyone named Carlo diCarlo.

  The strangest thing to Abe about Illin’s Upper City was the street lamps. They were ten feet tall and made of iron, their heads glowing with sun-bright crystals the size of large melons. Even now, in the dead of night, they cast sufficient light on the broad, white streets that Abe could read the numbers on the houses from twenty paces away. One of those crystals would fetch enough money to buy a large house in Abe’s neighborhood, yet none of them had been stolen or damaged. Abe found himself glaring at them as he made his way to the public lift terminal. “Lousy toppers.”

  As Abe got close to the edge of the Upper City, the houses and businesses gave way to defensive structures—minarets and parapets, trapezoidal barracks, and huge, black war-orbs hovering over pyramidal control loci. A patrol of ten mirror men, their mageglass armor gleaming beneath sunny streetlights, marched toward Abe in perfect formation, their firepikes bobbing and flickering as they reflected their bearer’s even gait.

  Clutching the book tightly to his chest, Abe looked at his feet as he shuffled to one side, letting them pass. He felt as if he were glowing somehow—as though their foreign faces were studying him as they passed. He tried to keep his breathing even, but his heart wouldn’t cooperate. It pounded like a war drum, announcing to every part of his body that it could all end here. The mirror men just needed to ask “Say, what’s a scrawny teen doing out alone at this time of night?” He’d be whisked into one of those trapezoid barracks in an instant; no one would ever see him again.

  The men didn’t stop, though—just marched past. They were just common soldiers, their sergeant more interested in keeping security than recovering contraband.

  Heart still racing, Abe made it to the terminal—a small, colonnaded dome perched on the very edge of the Upper City, overlooking the Undercity beneath and the ocean beyond. A few mirror men gave him a cursory glance before letting him aboard the night lift. The basket, made of wicker, was large enough to carry perhaps four people—much smaller than the daytime gondolas that could haul dozens of people and livestock. Abe tipped the lift man at his winch for a speedy descent, then said goodbye to the white paved streets and well-lit avenues of the toppers’ domain.

  The basket plummeted from the edge of the terminal, causing Abe’s stomach to flutter. His tip had been appreciated.

  Almost immediately the darkness that blanketed the rest of Illin for most hours of the day swallowed the light of the Upper City. The Undercity was named so literally: it rested directly beneath the Upper City on a flat pan of dry ground in the midst of an endless maze of marshy reeds and slow-flowing estuaries that brought trade and disease from the troubled regions to the south. Though it was twice as large as the Upper City and was home to four times as many people, the Undercity was dark and seemingly deserted. Abe could see only a few fires from his basket—bonfires lit by gangs or religious fanatics or worse, all of whom used the night to gather numbers and strength.

  The public lift terminal at the bottom was the vandalized, scorched mirror-image of its wealthier sibling. A group of cheap sellswords in worn black leather and rusty studs were employed to stand guard here, but really spent most of their time dicing and boasting in the guttering candlelight. They didn’t even look up as Abe’s basket landed, which was good. He didn’t have any money to bribe them.

  “Did you get it?” Krim’s bony frame separated from a shadow and she fell into step beside Abe. She lit a candle with a match. “Let me see!”

  “Not here.” Abe hissed. “I’ll open it at home.”

  Krim cuffed him. “Dummy! How’d you know you weren’t cheated if you didn’t open it, eh? You lost our money for nothing, betcha!”

  “I’ve got it, don’t worry—see?” Abe held the book up to the candlelight. It looked older and blacker than it had in the too
ka den. Though without design or device, something about the cover made his skin crawl.

  It seemed to have the same effect on Krim. In the dim light, Abe saw her dark eyes widen. She stepped back and made the sign of Hann on her heart. “I’ll tell the others.”

  “Don’t tell them yet. I still don’t know if I can use it.”

  Krim scowled. “Don’t give me that! You can read, can’t you? Isn’t that all it takes for books? Monda will bust your ankles if he gave up his purse for nothing.”

  “You don’t understand—these things are very compli— ”

  Krim slapped Abe across the face. “No, you don’t understand, Abrahan Anastasis! We’re counting on you, and you don’t get to let us down, right? You read the book, you work the spells, and we change the world—that’s the deal.”

  Abe nodded. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Krim.”

  “Should be. The topper take all fifty?”

  “Uh …”

  Krim cocked her head. “What’s it?”

  Krim was lighter than Abe, but he had no doubts about the danger she posed. He’d seen her cut a throat for a sovereign. “Yeah, he took all fifty.”

  “Somethin’ else?” Krim’s weight shifted to the balls of her feet. Abe saw a hand dart inside her tunic.

  Abe shook his head. “No, just the fifty.”

  Krim waited, as though sniffing for a lie, and then relaxed. “Fine. Take the book back to your Mama and read or whatever. I’ll call for you tomorrow, take you to see everybody and report, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Krim vanished into the shadows like a rat darting into a bolt hole. The hairs on Abe’s neck didn’t relax. She was probably still watching him. The rumor was that Krim walked around with a shard of mageglass in her tunic wrapped in leather, sharp enough to cut right through bone. Cut a man’s head open like a barrel-top once, or so Monda said. The image of her with blood on her face, her dark eyes grinning at Abe, kept him up at nights sometimes.