Downstream, a flashlight winked between the trees. My pulse quickened. They’re here.
I leaped from the shelter, dragging my bloodstained coat behind me. Rain hit like cold, hard bullets. I ran into the wind and up a ridge, jumped over roots and crashed through every fern and huckleberry, lashing the foliage with Michail’s surgery-stick. By God, if those dogs couldn’t follow this mess they were useless.
Miss Smokey by Anthony Moravian
Bays soon turned to keening barks. Branches snapped as the hounds gained behind me. My heart lurched. Not yet! I veered down a steep slope. Adrenaline surged through my body and spurred me on like some sort of daredevil mountain goat. I gasped for air. Wet dog hit my nose.
A huge mutt angled into my path, teeth flashing. I yelped and changed course. In my panic I smacked into a tree. I went ass-over-tea-kettle, bouncing off rocks and plowing down saplings, until my leg caught a boulder. Something crunched and pain exploded across my senses.
I screamed. Or vomited. Not sure which, but something definitely came out.
Agony throbbed through me, kept me on the ground until the hounds came. Hot breath and warm noses snuffled over me. One mutt kept barking in my ear. I just kept my eyes shut and gritted my teeth against the pain until somebody shined a flashlight in my face.
“Holy shit,” Dawson said. I groaned and blocked the glare, squinting between my fingers. His jaw hung slack. “Lily?”
While Kelsi juggled and sang to the kids about recycling, I sat in my own personal hell, claws twitching as I endured the twelfth day of Itch-toberfest. Dawson wasn’t able to replace Smokey and I needed to eat, so I’d agreed to heal up as a grizzly and had the cast applied in bear-form. I stifled a whimper. Stupid move, really. Fur took the itching from “torture” to “Circle of Hell,” and my painkillers weren’t doing squat. My ears flattened. The only plus to it all was that Dawson and the hunters had dragged me back to the visitor center, canceling the hunt until an ambulance showed.
I glanced out the visitor center window, slumping like a fern in the rain. Hope you’re in better shape, Michail. It’d be another five months before I knew. A Law Enforcement Ranger, reeking of cheap cologne and gun-oil, loitered by the stuffed deer, examining Kelsi’s glue-job. I sighed and held up a recycling bin, doing my best to ignore him. And that’s if I can ditch my escort.
When Dawson had asked how I’d wound up in the woods covered in blood, I’d made something up about not having readings during heavy rainfall, slipping out, and running into the “Big Bad Bear.” She’d been a mother with cubs, bloodied by her earlier run-in with the “hikers,” so she’d attacked and chased me until I’d crashed down the hill and broke my leg. I stifled a huff. Dawson smells a rat, though. Officially Ranger Cheap Cologne or one of his buddies were here so I didn’t sneak off and get hurt again, but a twenty-four-hour-shadow was less “caring” and more “surveillance.” Doubly so when you added in cold glances and high-caliber side arms. The whole affair had left me with whiplash; I’d been looking over my shoulder constantly and Michail’s warnings haunted me like a perpetual swan song.
Kelsi pitched her cans into my bin one by one, punctuating her act. A few kids clapped. The rest popped up despite the protest of the teacher and swarmed me to croon get-betters and sign my cast with crayons.
“Aw, thank you, kids.” I wriggled in my seat, trying to relieve my aching rump. Turns out bear-butts aren’t designed to sit on wood crates all day. Who knew?
A girl with orange and black hair shouldered through the crowd. A faint scent of tiger wafted from her, spicy and sharp. Her yellow eyes were bright. “Miss Smokey,” she said.
The weight on my shoulders lifted. Finally.
“Smokey’s a boy, Whiskers,” one of the kids snapped.
Tiger-girl put her hands on her hips and shot them a withering glare. “Smokey’s a boar. She’s clearly a sow.”
“That’s right,” I said, surprise creeping into my voice. She knows her animal terms. I smiled and cocked my head. “Did you have a question?”
She nodded. “Well, you said fires were bad, but—”
A blond boy, tall for his age, stopped signing my cast. His face pinched as he studied me. “You’re a shifter?” Disgust marinated every syllable. He flicked his head toward tiger-girl. “Like her?”
My muzzle wrinkled. How do you think I’m talking, kiddo? “Yeah … And?”
Kelsi shook a bag of candy and shouted over the buzz. “Who can name a native fish?” Chocolate proved more exciting than talking bears. The locusts moved to Kelsi, squealing “pink-eye salmon” and other imaginary species. Only tiger-girl remained, glowering down at her sandals and clenching her coloring book, knuckles white.
My chest squeezed. God, how many times had I been in the same position? At her age I’d wanted to run away, hide from it all like Michail. Stones filled my gut. Of course she doesn’t have that choice. Tigers weren’t exactly local wildlife. “What’s your name?” I asked.
She sniffed and glanced at me. “… Antimony.”
“So, Antimony, what was this about fires?”
Dark clouds faded from her vision, letting some sparkle back in. “Well, Douglas-firs and fireweed need fire for their babies to grow …” That was an oversimplification, but she was in what, fourth grade? I nodded. Her posture slowly straightened. “And different animals need them for food and homes, right?”
“Correct.”
Antimony’s brow furrowed. “So fires are good.” She frowned and chewed her lip. “Well, sometimes.”
“That’s true,” I said, voice upbeat. “In fact, that’s part of my research.”
Her mouth formed a tiny little O. “Shifters can do that?”
Hearing her disbelief, the raw strength of it, made my throat constrict. “Of course!” I leaned in conspiratorially and braced my paws on my knees. Bad move, really. Fresh pain shot through my leg. I grimaced. Antimony’s eyebrows rose, but thankfully she didn’t change the topic. I let out a slow breath and transferred all my weight to the other knee. “Some people told me that I can’t do research, or that because I’m a shifter it won’t go anywhere, but you know what?”
Antimony leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “What?”
“I do it anyway.”
Her lips twitched with the start of a smile. She jabbed a thumb toward the rest of her class. “So when they say I can’t be a scientist ’cause I’m a shifter …?”
I plopped the Stetson on her head. It seemed the right thing to do. Kids were obsessed with that hat. “You can be anything, Antimony, fur or not.”
She grinned so big I caught a glimpse of fangs. Pain, sweet and sharp, filled my heart and washed away the days until spring. I smiled too. This, Michail … this is why I stay.
All Light and Darkness
written by
Amy Henrie Gillett
illustrated by
Duncan Halleck
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy Henrie Gillett lives in Texas with her husband and three kids. She was raised by a book-loving father and a word-loving mother, and she received her first personal rejection at nine years of age thanks to a loving grandmother. All three ignited her lifelong need to write and her dream to publish. Amy received her BA in sociocultural anthropology and Middle East studies at Brigham Young University–Provo with an eye toward international development. Currently, she employs those studies in her writing. She hopes that by producing stories that kindle people’s hearts and minds, she contributes a little light to a world that sometimes seems so dark.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Duncan Halleck is an illustrator and concept artist working in the entertainment industry and specializing in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. He began his journey as an artist at a young age, copying cartoon characters and superheroes from books he found around the house
and spending hours studying movie stills from The Lord of the Rings. As he grew older, he developed a deep passion for science fiction and fantasy literature and devoured the works of authors such as Ray Bradbury, Ian M. Banks, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Always an avid doodler, his love for the arts never ceased throughout his school career, his notebooks attesting to his ceaseless drive to create and explore new ideas.
After graduating high school, several yearlong stints in cities across the US and a close brush with architecture school, Duncan settled down in Belgium with his wife and aged English Pointer. Shortly after the birth of his first daughter and a time as a landscape painter, Duncan decided to pursue a full-time career in digital art and illustration and began in earnest to study the fundamentals of art and improve his skills as an image-maker. His passion for the fantastic carries through to this day and finds an outlet in the alien landscapes and future metropoli that populate his hard drive. Currently he freelances for small publishers and developers out of Brussels, where he can be found hiding from the rain with a cup of tea, a good book, and a photon blaster.
All Light and Darkness
I crest the hill, panting, sweat trickling through the filthy coils of my blue hair and down my dark face. The monochrome of the Dustlands pains my eyes—yellow and brown below and yellow-brown above. Dust cyclones rain down slivers of salt and sand, a fine powder that coats the throat. The blue moon, a mercury smile, waits for her red sister on the horizon. Strauch trees, short and knotted, speckle the rolling dunes, and the Traege River winds through them, a gash in the redundant landscape.
“Hell’s sandbox,” I murmur, remembering a description my Da favored. This is my past and our future, a wasteland. But if it means leaving the Wahren Reich behind, I’ll take it.
Refugees pass me, heads and shoulders bowed against the wind and sand. They trickle south from the Kaltstein Mountains to the port of Rettung. Rettung, “deliverance” in Ancient Deutsch. It’s the largest city in the Dustlands, and the only city on the continent unspoiled by the Wahren Reich, the grasping empire north of the mountains.
I clasp a scarf across my mouth and nose, but briny dust catches in my throat regardless, tasting like blood. Wind claws at my clothes, and sand stings my skin between the rips. I tug at my sleeves, trying to cover my wrists, but my arms are too long for the grimy sark, my legs too tall for the trousers. My wrists and ankles protrude like reptilian scutes, hornlike. I’m a starveling—a boy who grew to a man without fodder.
I feel the strike of sand through my bones as grains bombard the Titanite nodes in my arms, legs, and torso. Each node, none larger than the head of a nail, peeks from the center of a puckered scar. I hide them as best I can. Luckily, my scarf covers the Kog Port in the back of my head.
A refugee glances at me, his reptilian eyes sharp and hard like obsidian. I look away, pulling my scarf tighter.
A solitary wagon draws my attention. It sits a few kilometers off the trail and out of sight except from this vantage. Three figures outfitted in black leave the wagon. They walk a few meters into the Strauch trees. Then, with a sudden flash of white light, they disappear.
Familiarity tightens a cord of anxiety in my gut. Anzug combat suits flash like that when the user triggers the camouflage mechanism. It momentarily blinds opponents and obscures the rendering delay. Many of my former comrades in the Wahren used them.
I stagger down the slope, feet sinking ankle-high in sand, satchel slapping my side. A part of me begs to put as much distance between me and the anzug users as possible, but I know too well that I need to identify the threat. I don’t want to run if I don’t have to.
At the bottom of the hill, I strike out toward the wagon. I scour the trees for movement. My skin prickles with sweat and salt, dust and nerves.
Wood snaps.
I dive into a thicket of Strauch trees and slip a pocketknife from my satchel. I keep the blade low, away from the sunlight, and watch. The crack of branches and snapping twigs crescendos only a few meters away. Then silence.
I still my breathing, listening.
Suddenly, a man stands up not a meter away from me, his back turned. He’s short and muscled, gray streaking his greasy black hair.
I shift for a better view, and a twig snaps under my heel.
Without a backward glance, the man charges through the trees in the opposite direction. I growl in frustration, shoving my knife in my bag and lunging after him.
A winter hiding in the mountains has whittled my physique down to matchsticks. My bones ache and my muscles burn. Dry air tears at my throat. I struggle to catch up.
We reach a fork and the man takes one ravine and I take the other. I know mine is shorter. Just as I reach the end of it, I see the man pass my exit. I launch at him, knocking us both into the sand. Thankfully, my weak muscles still know how to move. I pin him, a knee in his back and arms leveraged painfully.
“Get off me, ya browned fec,” he screams. His city cant jumbles his words, over-enunciating the “t” and dropping other consonants.
I wrench his arms. “Who are you and what were you doing by that wagon?”
“Wha’t wagon?” he growls.
I wrench his arms again and shove his face into the sand.
“Lights Above, lay off! I saw it out there and went t’ see if they needed help,” he shouts.
“How very chivalrous of you,” I reply, twisting a finger.
“Gods save me, y’ill rip it off!” he says. “I went t’ see wha’ I could steal,” he finally answers, his voice shrill. “Solitary wagons is easy pickings.”
I release his finger. “And what did you find?”
“They’re dead,” he replies with a whimper. “They’re all dead.”
Fear cords the tendons of his neck like a noose, and panic rims his eyes. I release him and step back. The man grumbles, lunging to his feet and stumbling away. He rolls his shoulders as he turns to face me. A scar spans his face from hairline to jaw, turning one eye milky and twisting his lips. He spits to the side and wipes sand from his face.
“Fractured schist,” he snarls at me. “Piece of work, ain’t ya?”
I fake a lunge at him, and he flinches, bringing a cold smile to my face.
He snorts, makes a rude gesture, and walks away.
I head toward the wagon again. I smell it before I see it, burning flesh and blood. A middle-aged man, his skin dark and hair steely gray, lies on the ground. A woman, probably his wife, rests nearby. Blood clots the sand around them, but the blood is not all theirs. The corpse of a half-butchered draft herp contributes most. Its tail and most of its belly are gone, and swarms of bloodflies crawl over its scaled back and reptilian head. The wagon huddles behind the carnage like a frightened animal, empty and broken.
I think of the scar-faced man searching the wagon and frisking the corpses. My fists clench. He didn’t kill them, but still … bastard.
I turn to leave since nothing here tells me what I need to know. Who were those men? What did they come for? Did they come for me? I grind my teeth in frustration.
Then the silver-haired man’s hand twitches. I almost can’t believe it, but his hand twitches again. Hopeful, I turn him over.
The stench of burned flesh fills my nose. My stomach heaves. Peeling white and gray skin covers his chest where an ion cannon blasted him. I see blackened bone and cauterized blood vessels. He’s dead, but his body hasn’t realized it yet.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
His lips move, but I can’t hear him. I lean my head down, and my ear brushes his lips. “Daughter,” he whispers.
Daughter? The attackers were slavers then, and they took his daughter for the brothels.
“Daughter,” he whispers again, his voice grating. He says the word once more, weakly pointing to the east.
I take my water and scarf and try to cleanse the wound while I sort my thoughts. If the slaver
s left on foot, they would be perhaps only twenty-five kilometers away. If they had an auto, they would be much farther. Either way …
My hands go still. Either way, what?
Either way, I won’t save his daughter. Even when I can.
I look down at my arm. A glinting node peeks from beneath my sleeve. I scowl and pull the sleeve down.
The Wahren Reich gave me a way to save her; they cut into my flesh and gave me a secret weapon. But using that secret comes at a cost, and I won’t exchange my life for hers. There is a place worse than in the hands of slavers, a place worse than death: being in the hands of the Wahren Reich.
“Sorry,” I murmur as I dab his flaking flesh. “I’m so sorry.”
He groans and pinches his eyes shut. A tear trickles down his cheek, cutting a clean track in the dust. I rinse his face and pour a little water into his mouth. He coughs, spitting most of it out.
“Daughter,” he says again, slipping into unconsciousness. He dies a few minutes later, and I walk away.
Who’s the bastard now?
That night, I build my fire and warm my too-thin limbs over it. I stare at the yellow flames as they consume the salt and wood together. I prod the embers with a stick. Smoke curls into the cool night like ribbons and carries the scent of charred Strauch tree sap. The smell reminds me of children’s toys and vanillekipferl cookies—of a canary yellow kitchen and musty couches that billow dust—the home my mother raised me in; the home I left in another land in another life.
Sometimes, I see that home in my dreams and wish I could stay there, find that place and never leave, find a place where no one ever leaves. But such a place doesn’t exist. It never has.
I sigh, flicking the stick into the fire. It catches and bursts into flame. Then, just as suddenly, it turns to embers and ash.
Freude looked striking in his cap and blue uniform. The emblem of the Wahren Reich emblazoned his right sleeve and the lapels of his jacket. The blue against his auburn hair turned his hair to copper and flame.