Price of Alicorn

Price of Alicorn
by
Bobby Derie

Near the headwaters of the river Esk in the Eskdale, on the border with Faerie, was the village of Baddon-on-Esk. It was a goblin market town, where twice a year the sidhe came to trade elf-silver and elf-shot for freshwater pearls and sea silk combed from the bearded mussels of the River Esk. Strange trade brought queer customs to the people of that place, whose homes never faced the west, nor allowed their dogs to drink from a hoofprint.

It had come on the old king to establish an embassy with the elves, and so he chose the Elfhouse at Baddon-on-Esk, where the sidhe were wont to stay on the nights of market-day, for there were certain bargains they could only make under moonlight, and certain wares that vanished with the sun. In the Elfhouse, Elf-Law ruled, and they brought forth strange yellow wines long forbidden by church and state, and men and women sometimes came there in curiosity and left weeping and hobbled. As a commemoration for this new status, one of the Elf-Kings gifted Baddon-on-Esk with a unicorn.

It was a gift the village could not refuse, even if they dared. The unicorn stalked the woods during the day and the village streets by night, carved its sigil into the wood of door frames and ancient oak, and by that sign no one was ever again lost walking in that forest, nor did any pig or dog miscarry a girl-child, nor was any woman ever subject to rape by mortal man. Such were the gifts of the unicorn to the people of Baddon-on-Esk.

So they suffered in silence as one by one the boys of the town went missing, called forth by sweet songs and sweet scents to that field where no window faced, there to satisfy the lusty guardian. Mothers wept and fathers kept stoic when their boys returned, trousers stained with blood, and in time they would be called again and again, until they did not return. All this the daughters of the village had watched, and all they knew is that it happened, and not why.

One hot summer the king sent an envoy to the Elfhouse, for there was war to be had with Spain and he wanted elf-shot for his cannon, and with that ambassador he sent a small court of clerks, scribes, guards…and the Elf Cup, for the king was wise in the ways of elves. The Elf Cup for her part paid a call on the village whores, a brother and sister, who had learned enough from their mother and her mother’s sister the ways of elves to satisfy in at least a small way those merchants who came to the goblin markets. On the threshold of their house the Elf Cup saw the sigil that the unicorn had carved there, and she frowned but said nothing.

Yet she had frowned, and one of the brotherless sisters had seen it. She told her friend, and the other hers, and soon all the girls in the village waited before the door until the Elf Cup emerged. As afternoon gave way to gloaming, she emerged, and saw the girls gathered there—and said no word but looked out west where no window or doorway faced, and passed through the crowd to the edge of that field with the two grasses and the broken bones of brothers long lost but not forgotten.

There was a glimmer of white on the edge of the field, and a strange snickering jeer that sounded from where it met the edge of the wood. The Elf Cup’s face was set and impassive as a merchant, and she fingered a bracelet of golden thorn wrapped about her wrist until it drew blood, then she turned to the girls who followed her and told them what must be done, and her price. But she did not tell them why, for she needed that innocence a little while longer.

In the hour before cockcrow, every daughter of the town between twelve and fifteen summers quietly took up their father’s swords and their mother’s shields, and met on the field that faced nearest to Fairy, where no window or doorway in the village faced. It was sward of grasses earthly and unearthly, for some grew by sunlight and others by moonlight, and on the earth were the bones of their murdered brothers.

The beast came to the edge of the field from the Faerie-side, drawn by the massed virginity. Its coat and eyes were the color of white metal, and it moved with the bulk of the draft horse and the grace of a lion, and it crept forward on cloven hooves where the dew gathered like mercury. It sniffed the air and flashed its sharp teeth as it trotted toward them, and between its legs bobbed and danced that great vulgar horn of ivory and muscle that so many chroniclers misplace.

It danced across the field, shaggy coat shining, and lowered its head to sniff at the lap of the youngest of the girls, who could scarce lift a sword and had made do with her mother’s sharpest kitchen knife. She sat down, and the beast lowered herself to all fours to snuffle at her crotch. The girls of Baddon-on-Esk brought their knives down on that shining white hide, and in less time than it takes to tell it soon they were all splattered with that fabulous blood, which pooled and puddled like mercury on the earth so that the earth-grasses blackened and died where it touched, but the elf-grass grew strangely luxuriant, and that girl who still had its head in her lap worked the blade of the kitchen knife back and forth as she sawed through the great neck.

The eldest of the girls, who was not too young to use the gelding knife, cut off the Elf Cup’s prize and brought it to the house where the king’s envoy was staying. And when the Elf Cup accepted the thing, the girl asked the questions that had not been asked.

“The beast itself acted in accord with its nature, for there is ever only one male to the herd, and it will only mate with the dams and never with his daughters, yet neither will he long permit a son to remain for long, and will kill them ere they can take his daughters’ virginity. Left here alone from his people, his duty remained and yet his lusts turned strange, and that is why your brothers died.”

The Elf Cup hesitated as she ran a hand down the soft skin and ivory barbs of her prize.

“Yet there is another thing, for the elf-king well knows the nature of unicorns. I think perhaps he gifted it on purpose, for the elves have a great craving for virgin-milk, and that is always in short supply.”

###

Planet of the Lightsabers

Planet of the Lightsabers
by
Bobby Derie

The Memory of Alderaan was three weeks out of Mos Eisley on the Old Corellian Run when Eiven Task once again caught the blinking shadow of a pursuit craft on the ship’s scanner. He cursed his mother for giving birth to a foolish and unlucky bastard, then began calculating the vectors for possible routes of escape. Task was used to being a nameless, faceless drifter, one more spacefaring rogue that minded his own business and surfed through the galaxy in pursuit of his own goals, and the endless hounding of the last few weeks was grating to his nerves.

On Tatooine one of the Hutts had arranged a secret tournament, a bloody death-match where seven Force-users from across the galaxy had come together, lightsaber matched against lightsaber in brief, brutal combat for the entertainment and betting of the crowd—but the Jedi and Sith themselves fought for higher stakes. Seven holocrons, as far-flung and disparate as the adepts that had bid them in that contest, containing centuries of wisdom from the Jedi, the Sith, the Jensaarai, the Imperial Knights, and other stranger and more obscure Force traditions. A wealth of knowledge that Eiven Task could use to complete his own aborted education in the ways of the Force, bought and paid for in the blood of six masters of lightsaber combat.

Not that Eiven Task had come away unscathed from the tournament. Thick bandages still wrapped his right hand where, for a moment, Task had been able to grasp his final opponent’s lightsaber blade, opening her up for his own killing blow. Yet his mastery of the technique was imperfect, and though the hand was healing it had been severely burned. Other injuries healed with more grace; the dark blue-black bruises on his ribs and right arm were already paled to a sickly yellow at the edges, and the lightsaber graze on his right side itched fiercely, a good sign that it was healing under its bandages as well. His cybernetic left arm he had managed to repair, but his characteristic armor was ruined during his matches so that he was forced to face his last match unmasked.

Now every bounty hunter and crime lord in the sector knew his face, the curly brown hair flecked with gold, and the brown eyes whose trace of silver spoke of some slight alienage in his otherwise typical human appearance. Eiven Task hadn’t even managed to make it out of the spaceport without a fight with a trio of Mandalorians that wanted nothing more than to kill him and take his holocrons for themselves. For three weeks he had been dogged, dropping out of hyperspace randomly and taking dangerous side routes through remote systems, pushing his ship to its limits.

Now on his emergency fuel tank and down to eating three-week old bundi rice, Task was tired, had barely begun to consult the holocrons, and there was a disturbing rattling noise from somewhere down in the engine room. It was time to head for port.

*

The Imperial starcharts called the mudball Bolos, and the entry in the Imperial guidebook hadn’t been updated since the Battle of Yavin. Eiven flew over walled cities sheathed in the smoke and lights of post-colonial industrialization, where blacksmiths could work alongside small grav-lift factories and locally produced foodstuffs were more available than vat-grown protein. His destination was Yasmella spaceport, which had formerly been home to an Imperial fuel depot and was Task’s best shot at getting the parts he needed to repair his ship and his kit.

Skirting the outskirts of the city which had outgrown its stone walls, Eiven mingled with the local air traffic and finally set his ship down at a discreet and illegal hangar. The owner was human or near enough, and older gentleman with muscles going to fat, no neck to speak of—it almost seemed that the back of his head was resting on a great fold of flab—and what looked for all the world like a lightsaber handle hanging from his belt. The proprietor addressed him in Galactic Basic and quoted a price in Imperial credits. Task spent a few minutes getting the particulars, and discovered that Bolos was technically a part of the Imperial remnant.

“One more faction among the Republics,” the old Bolosian said with a sneer, flapping his ears and resting a thumb on the lightsaber at his belt. Still, the old man gave Task the name of a dealer in used Imperial equipment and directions to his place.

Stepping into the street, Eiven Task found that despite being under the Empire for decades Imperialization had touched Bolos but lightly. The streets were crooked, narrow, and paved with cobbles, while overhead stretched a forest of cables from one building to the next, sometimes supported by tall, narrow pyramidal pylons, and all around him shuffled vast herds of humanity in brightly-colored artificial fabrics. Task himself was dressed in little more than he wore for exercise, a close-fitting pair of pants and a threadbare, sleeveless shirt. All that he had added was a pair of thick-tread running shoes and a dark cloak with a hood, and carried with him his lightsaber pike—but in this brightly colored crowd he would have drawn less attention if he’d painted himself pink and slipped naked through the throng.

More worryingly, every man and woman above the age of a child seemed to be carrying a lightsaber at their hilt, though he never saw any of them actually ignite one of the devices. Task shook his head and pushed through the crowd, keeping to the old man’s directions. It simply wasn’t possible for everyone here to have a lightsaber; he must be mistaking what the devices were actually used for. Something about the situation gave him a very bad feeling.

The crowd thinned and he entered the alley where the repair shop was supposed to be. Behind him, he heard the shuffle of feet and then the familiar crack and hiss as a lightsaber ignited.

*

Almost at the same time, a pimply-faced, no-necked youth with a shock of tall, spiky black hair stepped out of a doorway in front of Task, brandishing a three-section staff. Holding the weapon by the two end sections, the Borosian flicked a pair of switches and a pair of thirty-centimeter red lightsaber blades flicked out at the ends.

Eiven couldn’t suppress a smirk. It had to be the single most ridiculous weapon he’d ever seen; boy would probably cut himself in half. The human turned, which put his back towards the wall of the alley and presented only a narrow profile for his attackers. Risking a glance to his right, he saw another teenaged Bolosian, a broad-hipped, stubble-headed, no-necked young woman that was holding a sputtering, full-sized crimon lightsaber in front of her with both hands, thin metal bangles on both her arms and eyes painted with something dark and glittery.

“Yer credits or yer life!” the girl said.

“Okay, take it easy…” Task said.

With exaggerated care, Eiven dipped his eyes towards the ground and rolled the cloak off his shoulders, keeping his right arm up and on his unignited lightsaber pike. The sight of his prosthetic left arm caused the boy to shudder, and with his left hand Task moved towards the pouch at his belt.

Task was never good at telekinesis, and he’d lost a lot of his ability in the accident that had cost him his left arm. For a while he feared he’d lost his connection with the Force for good. It was only much later he had found he could still use the Force, when he instinctively reached for something with an arm that wasn’t there…and grabbed it.

With a mental flick of a switch, Task’s lightsaber pike ignited. The sudden shine of the silver-white blade caught both is assailants by surprise. Eiven task pulled the small holdout blaster holstered in the small of his back with his left hand and pumped three shots into the boy on his left. As he fell, smoke pouring from the holes in his face and chest, the girl gave a start—and saw Eiven aim the blaster at her.

“Kill the blade,” he said. She did. “Drop it and run.” The lightsaber handle hit the cobbles with a clank, and she turned away from Eiven. Task half wish he had a final charge to empty into the back of her head as she made herself scarce. He didn’t like leaving people who tried to kill him alive.

Eiven turned off his lightsaber pike, holstered the now empty blaster, and set to searching the body. The only items of value where their weapons. Task examined them with a practiced eye, noting the crudity of the workmanship. Coming to a decision, he hooked the girl’s heavy lightsaber at his belt, and folded up the boy’s weapon beneath his cloak.

Leaving the bodies where they lay, Eiven Task made it to the dealer in used Imperial goods without further incident.

*

The dealer had about half the Imperial armory in stock. Decommissioned TIE fighter engines and shielding—no ion cannons, Eiven asked—and over a hundred sets of Stormtrooper armor, blaster rifles and pistols, uniforms, the works. The two found a mutual interest in variant Imperial designs and spent an hour talking about slight differences between the different troop and ship types, and segued into prices while keeping the same conversational tone. The dealer estimated fifty thousand credits for the parts and kit Task wanted; Eiven thank him for his assistance and promised to return later when he had the credits.

Fifty thousand credits, and those bounty hunters already hot on his trail. Eiven Task didn’t know if he’d make it off this mudball alive before he could afford those repairs. The bad feeling had him again, like a full-body bout of indigestion, and this time Task wasn’t going to ignore it.

He focused on his breathing, let the noise and smells of the streets wash into him. Felt his heart throb in his chest, the pulse he could feel in his neck, his temples…and in a counterbeat to that pulse was mental beat throbbed in his prosthetic left arm. There was an artifact buried in there, a bit of history and power he’d stolen from the tomb of a Prophet of the Dark Side. It focused his foresight, sharpened his reactions; in battle he let it guide him to start countering an opponent’s move just as they were making it, keeping him a split second ahead. Now as he opened his Force senses to the crowd, he felt the same little mental tug, guiding his attention to…there.

Task’s vision focused on the alley where he’d killed the boy. A gaudily-dressed man with a frilled collar was standing over the corpse, the girl beside him clutching at the wall, looking sick. Eiven Task didn’t move as the man walked over to him.

There was money in his clothes; splashes of gold thread on an electric purple doublet, and bright aurodium buckles on his knee-high blue leather boots made from the hide of some reptile, the kneepads of which were set with slabs of lapis lazuli. He was cleaner than the girl, with a dusting of powder on his face and around his eyes, and his teeth were some sort of ceramic faced with little gems that glittered when he smiled. The lightsaber at his belt had purple pearls for switches.

Eiven Task did not smile back, but nodded his head in greeting.

“I am Malarkov, though that name must mean nothing to you. You’re an outlander here, and know nothing of our politics or causes, and you have cost me a soldier. The Revolution is nigh, and I need fighters such as you. I can pay. What do you say?”

Eiven Task considered.

“How much?”

“A thousand credits per head.”

Task nodded.

“I hope you have enough enemies to make this worthwhile.”

The bad feeling continued. Malarkov led the way. Task followed.

*

The battle was scheduled for the next day, in a level grassy field outside the city walls, both sides lined up in formations. Eiven still didn’t know the politics, and Malarkov didn’t have time to enlighten him, but the Bolosian had advanced him enough to fix his armor. Task took to the field in the plastic and ceramic armor of the Royal Imperial Guard, but where the Emperor’s defenders had been crimson or black, his own armor was stark white like a common Stormtrooper. For the battle he had taken on a lurid purple sash trimmed with gold—the colors of Malarkov’s side, which would distinguish him as one of his supporters.

There were perhaps three hundred people on the field, the numbers more or less equally matched, and everyone had a lightsaber. Task had disassembled the weapons of the young people in the alley the night before, and that basically told the story. Lightsabers had caught on early on Bolos as weapons of the nobility, crude enough models used mainly for dueling and as examples of rank. Then came the Republics, and the lightsabers became the weapons of the people—mass produced, shoddily designed and with cheap synthetic crystals. As dangerous to the untrained, Force-blind users as they were to other people, but ingrained in the culture and only really used for mass battles like this one. Task had even heard some of the surgeons consider them humane, since the wounds rarely caused infection.

Malarkov placed Eiven at the forefront of a Longblade detachment on the left flank; about a dozen wiry veterans whose job it was to lead the way against a lightsaber pike regiment. Task took his place as the opening formalities were held. There was a speech…the sun rose in the sky and Eiven started to sweat within his armor…and then the blare of a klaxon and the two lines on either side of the field started to move towards each other. Malarkov and his opposite number sat on wooden stands at either side of the field, shouting instructions through megaphones.

At Eiven’s word, his Longblades spread out as they closed in on the lightsaber pike regiment. Four ranks of pike leveled their burning blades and marched resolutely forward as each of the Longblades ignited their own weapons—longer than the average lightsaber, nearly two meters of burning plasma on an extended handle—and began moving them in figure-of-eight patterns in front of them, building up speed. Eiven did much the same with his short-bladed lightsaber pike, hoping his phrik alloy would hold while the Bolosian pikes’ own would not.

The clash was sudden, jarring, and brutal. Task swept aside the pikes and moved in closer. Men and women screamed as burning blades veered off and struck their comrades. One or two found their mark and Eiven’s line wavered, but by then Eiven was in the thick of it, stabbing and swirling his blade, and in a few minutes the remains of the lightsaber pike regiment dropped their weapons and went into retreat.

The Longblades pursued, and Eiven didn’t bother to chase after them, but stalked through the field toward the main body of troops, who had broken into a general melee at a small rise in the center of the field. He had a number of heads left to collect.

Mentally thumbing to the hidden ignition, the lightsaber blade built into Task’s prosthetic limb crackled into life, a short bloodshine blade powered by the ancient Sith artifact erupting from his forearm over the back of his palm. Grasping his lightsaber pike in the middle, he moved in, stabbing, slashing, and moving on. The infantry couldn’t touch him as his Force-driven instincts and combat training led him to dodge or parry nearly any blow, and the armor took care of the few near misses. There was none of the delicacy or art of lightsaber dueling in this mess, it was only a slaughter as men and women waved deadly wands at one another and limbs and heads fell bloodless and smoking from torsos. A lucky man to Eiven’s right lost the tip of his nose from a sloppy blow that should have taken his head off, to Task’s right one of Malarkov’s men misjudged his swing and took off three of his own toes—and collapsed in shock on top of his own blade, turning a foolish self-inflicted injury into a glorious suicide.

By the time the klaxon sounded again and the sides moved apart, Eiven estimated at least seventy-five troops were dead. Horrendous casualties for a skirmish, but the sergeants and captains were lining the troops up again…

Malarkov descended from his high perch and trotted out into the field. He didn’t get any blood on his shiny blue boots, but he did have to step lightly where a few of the dead and dying had voided their bowels.

“Excellent work, my boy, simply excellent. You must have accounted for nearly a dozen all by yourself!”

Eiven grunted. It wasn’t enough to pay his bill with the dealer.

“I’ve had a word with my opposite number,” Malarkov jerked his thumb towards the other side of the field. “And we’ve agreed to settle this with a Trial of Champions. I’d like you to stand in for me. Forty thousand for their champion’s head, on top of the dozen you’ve already brought in. What do you say?”

The bad feeling flared. Task ignored it.

“Bring them on.”

The middle of the field was cleared, and Eiven Task examined his opposite number. It didn’t surprise him to see the black T-shaped visor of the Mandalorian helmet, or the battle-scarred green armor. Bounty hunters went for where the money was too.

“…no blasters, poison, or explosives.” Malarkov called out, reading the rules of the match. “Salute!”

Task raised his staff in front of him, then swept it in an arc until the tip of the blade almost touched the grass. The Mandalorian bounty hunter made a similar gesture with a heavy curved, single-bladed sword.

“Begin!”

This was a dance. The Mandalorian kept the sword close to her body and rushed in; Eiven swept low with the blade of the lightsaber pike but she jumped over it and crashed into him, causing him to drop the weapon. Her weight behind the blade gave it tremendous cutting force, and as they rolled on the ground she sawed it back and forth through his armor, toward the meat. Task brought up his left arm and punched the side of her head with all his cybernetic strength, hard enough to rattle the brains in her helmet, and shifted off.

Both of them regained their footing, and Eiven ignited his left-hand lightsaber blade once again. They both moved in close; Task’s blade was shorter than her own, and she kept to the same brute-force style as before. The lightsaber flashed and crackled as it swept against armor and blade, both of which were barely scratched by contact with the bloodshine blade, and Eiven knew they must be made of Mandalorian iron. Finally she attempted a left-handed swing, and Task took the opportunity to grab her wrist with his right hand—just as he felt the spikes of her crushgaunt grind into his left forearm.

With their arms locked for the minute and neither willing or able to give way, the fight moved to a kicking and shoving match. Eiven got a couple good kicks to her groin and gut, but then she hooked her left leg behind his knee and drew him in for a Mandalorian kiss, her helmet cracking against his. They fell, still grappling. On the ground, each tried to roll and gain the dominant position. Mud spattered over them both, so anyone watching in the crowds might have been hard pressed to tell them apart.

Then Eiven mentally flicked off the lightsaber blade on his left arm. For a moment, he imagined, she must have been confused. Then his prosthetic left hand swiveled about at the wrist, an impossible angle for a biological human hand, and grabbed her wrist. Then he simply pulled.

There are limiters to cybernetic strength. However much force you exert from a prosthetic limb applies to your body as well, and Task’s body had to be severely reinforced just for the rigors of normal combat. So she screamed as he pulled her right arm from its socket, and she screamed some more as the flesh began to tear away from the bones as he kept pulling. And when his arm was at full extension and hers was half again as long as it should have been, he let go.

The bloodshine blade flared back into life. The T-shaped visor, it turned out, was not made of Mandalorian iron.

*

Malarkov was good as his word, if only to hasten Task’s departure from his planet. The Force user himself spent the days as his ship was getting repaired popping painkillers in his meditation chamber, getting to know the gatekeepers of the holocrons, testing to see if any of them would teach him something useful to deal with his pursuers. Some were more open than others, most agreed he was in little shape to train until he had healed. In the end, after much argument and cajoling, the holocron of Darth Modas spoke.

“Your skills are woefully incomplete. Still, there is a piece of Sith magic that even an apprentice might learn, to cloak themselves with the Force…”

“What must I do?” Task said, keeping his tone respectful.

“Korriban.” The holographic gatekeeper said. “You must travel to Korriban, the ancient home of the Sith race, where life has long been twisted by the Dark Side…”

###

A Lesson in Evil

A Lesson in Evil
by
Bobby Derie

Young firm flesh painted in blacklight colors writhed to the music that shook the walls under the ultraviolet lamps, by turns frenetic and languorous as the speed and the booze kicked in. Bright young things have the energy and metabolisms to party all night, but rarely the money to afford it. So at the edge of the stage and in the dark corners were the sugar daddies and mommas, watching their sweetmeats shift and gyrate, ready to dole out the next bump and measuring whether the chickens were ready to take home yet.

I worked my way into a corner, where the music was quieter and something older and stranger than this dance was watching the action. From a distance it looked like an astronaut in full space-walk suit had squeezed itself behind a table for two. It wasn’t until you got closer that you could make out the burnished chrome skulls, the rubber tubing simulating ribs, the deaths-heads and scarabs worked into each rivet, and the fishbowl helmet that look like a sphere of black crystal you could check your reflection in. Yet if you stared through your reflection, you could make out the shadowy sockets and bony cheeks of a skull…

The Necronaut was wearing a bright orange Hawai’ian shirt over his suit today, and had the fishbowl open a few inches so he could sip his umbrella drink through a twisty straw.

“Detective,” he said, flashing me a smile of steel teeth set in wrinkled gums. “What can I do for you tonight?”

I laid the evidence bag down with a clink. The Necronaut’s thick gloved fingers examined the amulet through the plastic. A skull-headed snake or dragon wrapped in a figure-of-eight around a pole inscribed with rows of cuneiform, the snake eating its own tail.

“Not good. I take it you have found an atrocity?”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

“Tell me, detective…do you believe in evil?”

“Only what people do.”

The Necronaut hissed. It was like a hyena’s aborted laughter.

“Yes. In this world, we do not see good or evil rewarded or punished. Not by supernatural agency. Believe in whatever gods and devils you wish and sin as you might, and no bolt will strike you from the heavens, no gold will fall from the sky. Except…”

His stubby finger traced the serpent’s head.

“Humans think that because of this, good and evil are subjective. A matter of cultural values, reasoned philosophy, or, more alarmingly, of personal taste. In certain empires long dead where rape was once a tool of judicial punishment, and thus considered a public good, for example, instead of the rather commonplace evil it is known as today. Heroes murder discriminately and are lauded, while villains who may have less blood on their hands are booed on the screens of the world. Such is the capriciousness of humanity!”

“Yet…imagine a world where this was not so. Where there were supernatural forces or entities with well-defined morality, and the power of cosmic laws. A world where an act of rape, or murder, or theft in the right place, in the right way, could cause a black miracle to occur. I do not, as a general rule, mean a single spontaneous event, though that is undoubtedly how it started. Nature itself gives rise to all manner of death, necrophilia, and incest as a matter of course, and early humans in this world would perhaps trace back their taboos to the dark things that followed after some particularly heinous act.”

“That, of course, was the problem. Imagine you were a young person back in the days of tribes, and you had witnessed or experienced your share of rape and bloodshed, and seen the horrors that came after—the spirit-torn corpses, the haints and ghouls, the blood running down the wall of the cave. Imagine the sudden flash of black inspiration at the idea that this could be reproduced, if only the circumstances and the crimes could be done over, exactly again.”

“So there arose the first scientists, of a kind. You can scarce imagine the will required, the methodology. Ten thousand variations on rape, incest, mutilation, murder, bestiality, cannibalism, necrophilia…and those are just the common, simple acts, void of any real depravity. Sole practitioners gave way to cults, the cults came together as an empire founded in blood, semen, and sin. This was science that needed no industrial revolution, only the keeping of careful records, and the kind of creativity that would earn a lethal injection or a place on the best-seller list in these modern times.”

“The first emperors were corpse-born, fetuses expelled from their mother’s wombs for three generations. They are the ones who first began to divine the names of the entities, testing syllables with each murder until the correct combination had been found. A wasteful, brute-force approach, but with each bit of knowledge their power grew… and they became black saints, ascetics in a way, building machines of pain and violation, exploring the moral laws that underwrote the universe.”

“It did not last, of course. We shall perhaps never know what savage alliance shattered that first unholy empire, what corruption and betrayals fueled its collapse. Yet its members escaped with what tablets and scrolls they had…incestuous clans that continued on their experiments in secret, recording their discoveries, perhaps meeting in dark hours and places. These were not the sabbats of Europe, but perhaps the memory of them inspired those more tepid and silly gatherings.”

“This,” the Necronaut tapped the amulet. “Is one of their devices. A thing of baby bone and virgin blood, sanctified with murder and violation. I will not go into the details of its construction, but if you have it then you have no doubt seen the results of one of their experiments.”

Clacking his steel teeth together, the Necronaut’s lips closed on the silly straw and sucked loudly.

“How do I beat them?”

The Necronaut smiled. “With fire and sword.”

###

Jack Satan

Jack Satan
by
Bobby Derie

"Give it up, Jack. You can't save her this time."

Her eyes sought mine, but all I could see was the knife she was holding at her own throat. Faint luminescent veins shifted and twirled under her skin.

My hand twitched. My world was muffled by the bark of the gun. The side of her neck exploded; a red splash with rivers of glowing green. Those pale lips spat blood, eyes dark accusing islands afloat in glowing seas. I couldn't hear myself speak, but I felt the rumble in my throat so I knew I was talking. I hoped they could both hear and understand me.

"I'm not here to save anyone."

I looked around for witnesses. It was the kind of nice suburban kitchen after ten years of hard living. Little cuts in the counter, the odd dent or spackle of food on the wall, dirt built up in the hard-to-reach places, but basically clean. No roaches or ants. But there was a dog by the door. A mutt, but one with a lot of dachshund in it, low and slinky with short fur the color of dutch cocoa. Eyes like grapes in a skull you could fit in the palm of your hand.

I shot the dog too. Then I took off my jacket, closed the shades on all the windows, and dragged the bodies into the living room.

It was a rental property, and the managers knew enough not have carpet in here. Linoleum sealed under layers of wax, probably one for each set of tenants that had been in and out of here. Shoddy work too; there were flies and bits of food trapped there, little hard bits you could hardly see underfoot.

A spatula from the kitchen helped me draw the circle and the sigils. The knives were shit; cheap steel that wasn’t terribly sharp to begin with and really dull now. I picked out the best of the straight-edged ones and took the whetstone to it. From outside came the jingle of a passing ice cream truck, a warbling pathetic version of “Yankee Doodle Dandee” which somehow segued into something from Wagner.

It was the middle of a school day. Perfect time for bored, fat, lazy housewives to hook up with their Craigslist fuckbuddies or get stoned while watching the plasma televisions they bought on installment. But if anyone had heard the shots, nobody called the cops.

When the knife was sharp enough, I got her undressed—not an easy task when a body is dead weight—and took off the dog’s collar. I wasn’t sure what to do with the dog, so I improvised, curling it up by the side of the body. A couple minute’s rummaging turned up a pack of oat bran muffins and birthday candles, and for the first time in hours I smiled as I set them up at the five corners and flicked the little wicks to life.

“Ia! Lilitu, ach nem, ach sudanem, no me ra no te me se…” I began the old chant.

In the circle, the dried green slime glowed again, began floating upwards. I watched it curl in on itself, like a fetus, drawing its substance to itself. A dangling green cord dangled down to her belly button.

I didn’t know its name. It mewled, an animal sound, and lifted its great ponderous head, opening those vast dark eyes to stare at me. No, not at me—at the knife I held in my hand. It rippled and rolled, a monstrous green cloud coiled like an infant, lightning flashes beating like a slow heart inside its breast.

With the blade in my left hand, I cut the thin green line of smoke holding it to the body. It looked surprised. I jerked my thumb at the nearest wall.

“Get out.”

It stayed there for a minute, unsure. Then it must have made a decision, because it bunched itself up and shot straight outside, leaving nothing but a nasty green scorch mark I don’t think the renters would ever quite be able to cover with paint.

I turned back to the business at hand when there came a knocking.

Staccato raps started on the dining room table, then built up through the wooden studs in the wall. Complex patterns interweaving, long and loud and soft and short, until the crappy composite and particle board kitchen cabinets were shaking themselves to pieces. I could hear the chords build toward a single pitch…and in that moment, a piece of fire and light stepped in to the dingy apartment, a gossamer figure with a sword-shaped sliver at the end of one too-long arm that left ghostly light-trails. It reminded Jack of the time he’d tried to out-stare the sun.

“Why do you do this, Jack Satan?” It said. I noticed that the dainty feet hovered a couple inches above the ground, unwilling to tread the same earth as the rest of us. “Why do you hurt her?”

“I’m going to bring her back. I always bring her back. I love her.” I said.

“Your love is pain, Jack. How many times has it been? How many times have you hit her too hard? How many times has she not even been able to run away before you ply your filthy magics on her? Let her go, Jack. Let her go home.”

“You,” I leveled the knife at her. “Don’t get to talk to me about how I treat my fucking wife. I always take care of her. Always make it up to her.”

“Yes,” the burning creature said, wisps came off its skin as the heat in the room grew, burning away. I heard the air conditioning kick in. “Your gifts. Artifacts, powers, knowledge. Never enough to equal yours, of course. Oh, and larger breasts. Were those for her or for yourself?”

“She liked them.”

“I’m sure,” it said, and the sword grew brighter. A wave of hot, dry air hit me, like I was staring into an oven, but I didn’t turn away. “Yet every time…every time she runs away. Turns her gifts against you. Finds some one to try and protect her. A lover. A demon. An elemental. Will you keep at this until one day she succeeds?”

“That’s not going to happen.” I said. “This is just a game we play. She knows it makes me jealous. She knows what she does hurts me. The things she says. She just wants a reaction. She wants me to show her that I care.”

“You are a broken thing, Jack Satan. Let her go, and perhaps you too can heal.”

“Piss off, clip-wing.” I said. The insult hung in the air, and I tightened my grip on the knife, wishing I had my gun. But the fire dimmed and died, and blinking back the afterimages of its blazing sword I knew it had retreated with the grace intrinsic to its kind.

Calling Abba back took time. There was a lot of work to be done, even if her spirit hadn’t flown far. The jaw was a tricky bit, all those teeth going everywhere—she’d always had trouble with her teeth, they didn’t heal like tissue did. Maybe it was time for some dental implants. I played around with the old scars too—rougher work, before I’d really got my hand in at it. Soon enough, she’d be up and about again, and wouldn’t remember a thing. I’d just tell her she had one of her episodes, like the last time, and the time before that.

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Story Doctor

Story Doctor
by
Bobby Derie

The path to her house was strewn on either side with moldy bread and orange peels, and the house itself half-sunk into the tall grass, with a sloping roof covered with moss that went straight to the ground, so of a spring day it was not strange to see her cow or one of her three goats had wandered up on top of it. There was always tea in that house, though it was not proper tea, but made from roots or tree bark that she knew the names too, and more often than not she’d pour a measure from the corn-still in there as well, so that you couldn’t put any milk in it or it would curdle right up.

A man came to her with his complaint, and he was a forthright man for he gave no excuses and did not dither about but told her what was the matter. So she set the tea and fetched a bit of bread with some mold on it from out the house, and under her gaze he ate and drank and she told the story.

For there had been a young man some decades gone and three villages over who lived on a far farm, and before his fifteenth birthday his parents were both in the ground, and for some time then he lived alone. Now he was not a bad-looking young man, but he lived on a small farm far away and seldom went into town, and there were no others about. So it was he took to his husbandry, and was content in his lot, and none knew of it to tell him if he sinned or did not.

Yet in time he hankered for other things, and on one trip in town he stopped for ale which was better than he could make himself, and heard the talk as the boys and men in taverns talk. He was a clever enough lad and asked no questions nor joined in on their laughter, but stared into his cups and paid close attention. Then when they were done he settled his bill, and sought out a certain house with a blue door with a red scarf on the sill, where lived a wise young girl. He was very earnest in his talk, and she was very glad of it, for even as young as she was she might weary at games, and this would not be the first time she was to school a young man. So money changed hands, and they spoke the language of sweat and tears, and quite content he returned home.

In time the cows came sick, and then the pigs, and even the goats. Now he was not the cleverest man, but he was clever enough, and he noticed one day when all was not as well about himself as it should be. He bethought himself ill, and through his actions he had spread the illness to his farm. Yet he did not grow wroth with himself, but resolved on a course of action, and so walked back to that town, for the poor horse had come ill as well. There he once more sought out the house with the blue door and the red scarf. She was not displeased to see him again, but grew concerned as he relayed the symptoms that had befallen his animals and himself, and as the gloaming came out she lit a candle and told him the tale.

“But for that,” said the woman in the half-sunken house, where the cow had wandered onto the roof and lowed a little, “You must come back tomorrow, and I will make you some more tea and give you some more bread, and as you eat and drink I will continue the tale.”

The man with the complaint had been lost in the story, which while not his own was not unlike his own in parts, and he knew well the reputation of the woman in the house and the power of her stories. As he left he thought of how her door was a faded blue, and how there was a threadbare scarf in the corner of that house that might have been red, and wondered what she might have looked like those years ago and three villages away, and what healing tomorrow’s tale would bring.

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