GreatHites Season 2 Episode 15

King Arthur has returned and he has brought his sword.

This was the month long prompt for all of March.

Download This Episode.

This week we have stories by:

Arlene Radasky
Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll
And Jeff Hite

Theodora
By Arlene Radasky
March, 2010

"Theodora, get that door open before I swat you!"
Bit pulled her blonde hair out of her eyes, and pushed the door open with her hip. Lord in Heaven, she hated serving food. The trays were heavy and she was always afraid she would drop the soup in someone's lap. Taking orders from Claire was not easy either. Claire always called her by her given name and she hated it!
"Don't call me that! I won't answer if you do! You know to call me Bit."
Theodora. Her mom laid that name on her. "Your father never cared, he didn't stick around long enough to even see you born, so I thought about the best name I could find and there it was, Theodore, but I couldn't name you that, could I, you’re a girl aren't you?" As if she were confirming that for herself. So all the adults around her called her Theodora. And she hated it.
"Well, I wouldn't have to call you anything if you'd keep up with what you are supposed to be doin', and not always day-dreamin' , silly girl," Claire whispered as they got closer to the table filled with giggling women.
She had thought long and hard about her name, ever since she realized it was her name. She used to get teased, but as soon as she got old enough to fight, the teasing stopped.
Bit's mother had died when she was six and Claire, her aunt, brought her into the kitchen and started her peeling vegetables and serving. That was six years ago.
One day when she was helping Edward carry in a bucket of mead that was beginning to slop all over the floor and her, he, the King, stood, walked to her and easily took it from her, setting it on the table for his knights and guests to start dipping from.
"That was a big load for a little bit like you." And then he ruffled her hair.
After that she started insisting everyone call her Bit. It was easy to convince her pals but others were more resistant. Again, after some minor tussles, no one wanted to get hurt just because she wanted to change her name, more of the people her age started calling her Bit. But the adults were different, she was not old enough yet to demand respect from them. Someday, she told herself, someday.
She and Claire were placing the loaves of bread on the table when the lady of the castle, Guinevere, spoke. "I do hope you have a special meal planned for this evening meal. He will be riding in about that time, according to the boy he sent ahead this morning."
"Oh yes, m'Lady. We are having roasted boar. The hunters shot a big one and brought it in three days ago. We dressed it and I started preparing it last night. It will be ready to fall apart on his plate when he arrives, m'Lady."
"That is perfect. His favorite and I am sure he has not had time to do much hunting on this trip. He will be pleased. Would you please bring out some mare's milk? I have a desire for that today."
"Oh yes, m'lady. Right away. I'll send Theodora right away."
Bit winced at hearing her name. She had been day-dreaming again. When she heard that he was coming home today, the procession that accompanied his return came to her mind. There would be people in the road welcoming him, his knights riding in before and after him and his protectors on either side of his mount, swords at hand.
She wanted nothing more than to be a part of it.
She hated being a girl. The only time she had seen women ride with him they were dressed in their finest riding clothes, never a sword or knife to be seen. Bit wanted to dress in armor and protect him, not serve him his cheese.
Back in the kitchen, Claire turned to her. "Now off as fast as you can to the stables. Find James and tell him to milk a mare for the lady. If you get back here before she leaves the table, you can have a few minutes free before we have to set up for the evening meal."
"I'll do it but I'll hold you to my free time when I get back." Claire had not always kept her promises.
Bit ran out the kitchen door, down the path to the stables. The main door was not open as most of the horses kept in the stables were all gone on this journey with the King. Bit knew it had been an important journey. There had been talk of his visit to his sister's holdings at the evening meals for many nights before they left. Something about his sister and her son causing trouble in the land was what the servants had talked about. Bit didn't understand how it could be but she had also heard that the boy was the King's son. "How can he be the King's son and not live here?" Bit wondered this to herself because when she asked she'd had her ears boxed by Claire.
Bit ducked under the fenced corral and slipped into the stable. There were windows way up high but coming in from the bright sun, it seemed to be as dark as full night inside.
"Whatcha doin' here, girl?" boomed a voice right next to her.
She jumped and let out a small screech.
"James, you scared me! I'll be lucky to have enough strength to get back to the kitchen after that!"
A deep throated chuckle was his response.
"Here, I brought you a sweet roll. The ladies just had their meal and we made honey bread for them today. There was some left, they hardly seem to eat anything."
"Thank thee," he said, bit off half the roll and started chewing. Bit had known him for as long as she could remember. He used to visit her mother before she died and would tell Bit about all the colts born in the spring and training the huge horses the knights used to fight. The knight counted on his horse to know where he wanted to go without using the reins because with all his armor on, sword in one hand and shield in the other, all he could do was lean and press with his knees to give direction. That took a lot of training of the horses and James seemed to be able to train them without breaking their spirit, or so he said the King said.
"James, I'm in a hurry. The Lady G wants some mare's milk. Do you have a mare here that can give up some?"
"More milk? Oh yes, the King is due home tonight. I swear, I'd never heard of such a thing before she came. Mare's milk to help produce a baby. She especially always wants some mare's milk the night he comes home from a trip. All our ladies before her and around her seem to get pregnant without mare's milk and it doesn't seem to be helping her. Well, its not my place to question her. I am just lucky I have had mares feeding most times she asks. Edward! Come here!"
Bit's best friend Edward walked over from the shadows. "Hi."
"Did he send you in this morning?" Bit asked.
"Yes, he wanted me to let the Lady know he was coming."
Bit heard James gruffly whisper, "Probably to make sure her bed is empty." Bit didn't understand what he meant. He turned to Edward and continued, "Go to Faerie's stall and milk her for the Lady. Only take a cupful. Her foal needs it more than the Lady."
Bit's eyes were used to the dim light now and she followed Edward back to the stall where a mare and colt stood. "Stay outside until I get settled. She should be good, but with these feet, she only needs to shuffle and I will be maimed."
Edward talked to the huge horse and moved slowly. He was fourteen years old and tall for his age. He managed her well and she let him have a cup of milk without too much trouble. "Here Bit, cover it and take it to her as fast as you can, if you get it to her while it is still warm, she will thank you."
"How do you know?"
"I brought the last one in the middle of the night before he left."
"Edward, I will have some time free after, will you, since he is not here?"
Edward was now a page to the King but had been Bit's friend since they both started working in the kitchen. They still got to see each other sometimes around mealtime. He would often sneak into the kitchen when the King was eating.
"Yes, I will meet you at the steps to the tower. I have something I went to show you."
"Good. Until later.
"Yes, until later."
Bit walked as quickly as she could and not spill all the milk out of the cup. The kitchen was filling with the smell of the roasting boar filled with onions.
The door to the dining room was open and Bit heard Claire. "I'm sure she will be right here, m'lady. Here she is!" Bit sat the cloth-covered mug in front of her and the Lady smiled, reached into her pocket and pulled out a small quartz stone. "I found this on my walk yesterday, Theodora. It carries the color of the wild rose deep inside. It might bring you luck."
Bit took the small offering, still warm from the Lady's hand and curtsied, speechless.
"Say thank you, you ungrateful girl!" whispered Claire.
Th-th-thank you m'Lady! It is beautiful!" Bit's fingers wrapped tight around her gift.
Claire waved her hand and Bit took off to the steps to meet Edward. It was just a few minutes later that he arrived.
"I have something to show you," he said." We have to climb all the way up."
"All the way? How long will that take? I have to be back down here to set up for the evening meal before he comes."
"We have time, he will not be here until close to sunset."
Bit and Edward climbed the first three flights of stairs with no problem. The stairs at that level were crafted to be used by everyone gaining access to the other floors of the castle. The last set of stairs were the narrow, spiral stairs to the very top, the tower room. Bit had never been up this high. She started to wonder if they should be this high.
"Edward, wait. Are we supposed to go up there?"
"I have been up there several times. I don't think anyone else but the king goes up there. But he is not here and I want you to see something."
"Then let's go on," Bit said and started climbing the gray, stone steps again.
The thick-planked door was heavy. Edward had to lean, full body, into it to open it. Bit walked into a very sparse room. A chest against one wall, a tiny table with a small oil lamp and a cot were all that furnished the room. Everything seemed to disappear into the curved walls yet there was not much room to walk. Bit made her way to the cot, placed just under the only window in the room, climbed up and looked out. She could just see the road below. Farmers and vendors were haggling but she could barely hear them. A bird flew by and Bit reached out as if she could touch it. A rattle next to her drew her attention, she turned and Edward was on his knees in front of the plain, wooden chest. He lifted the latch and she saw several colors of folded cloth.
She climbed down, and joined him on the floor. He reached in and brought out a piece of very worn blue and yellow cloth. When she touched it, she was afraid that it was going to fall apart, it was so old.
"What is this?" she asked.
"He didn't tell me what the cloth was from but he showed me this."
Edward laid the bundle on the floor and unfolded it. The small sword was uncovered when the last layer was laid aside. Bit stared at it. It was very small. A man's hand would cover the hilt and part of the blade. As she looked closer she could see that it had been used and the blade was scratched and pitted. Bit turned her head up to look at Edward.
"Who does this belong to?"
"Him."
Bit could not believe that, she could not see the King with any sword except Excalibur. His hand was never small enough to fit this sword.
"I don't believe you."
"It's true. He brought me up here one night, just before we left on this journey." He said he wanted to think but wanted me to see this and remember where it is."
"But why? This is his private room. Why would he bring you up here?"
"I don't know, I just know he told me that this was his when he was little, before he found Excalibur. And he told me his son played with it, too."
"His son? Who is his son?"
"The man living with his sister is the King's son. I overheard them all arguing. Even Merlin was there. She was screaming that the kingdom was their son's to inherit and the King was yelling that he would have to take it by force. Merlin was trying to quiet them and I heard a laughing in the background that must have been Mordred, The King's son. The King stomped out of the room, with Merlin on his tail, saying 'Remember the prophecy, remember!' The King answered back, 'I remember but I do not believe it. I will not believe it! Leave me alone now, old man.'"
Bit watched Edward's face as he told the story. He did not look at her as he told it, but his mouth was lined with white and his cheeks flushed.
"I followed him out of the hall, and ran up to him outside. He asked me if I'd heard. I told him, yes, I had."
"Edward, I have tried my hardest to do my best with this land. You are the hope of the land, all you of your age. I charge you to remember what your life was like while I was King. Remember the good times we have had, the grain our land gave us and the peace we lived under. It has been good. Remember the small sword? That sword was part of my life before my responsibilities, before I had to worry about the lives of others. I want you to keep it safe. Take it to the crystal caves and hide it. I will come back to get it. "
"But you will be home and can take it to the caves yourself."
"No, I will not have time. The council will gather and plan our future. I am charging you to do it."
"I will take it Sire, I told him."
Bit saw tears fall from Edward's eyes. "Bit, he was crying! He had tears on his cheeks! He told me to go get some bread, meat and water, get on my horse, go home and tell the Lady he was coming. I came as fast as I could. Bit, I think there is going to be a battle. What I am worried about is Merlin's warning. The King has been in battles before but this all seems so different." Edward shook his head from side to side, his tears falling from his cheeks spotting Bit's dress.
She scooted closer and hugged him. They both heard the commotion through the window at the same time. She watched as he picked up the sword. It fit right into his hand. He looked at it, felt its balance and nodded his head as if he had made a decision.
The cot was just big enough for both of them to stand on and watch the parade of horses and men. There were many more than had gone from the castle two weeks ago. The King had called in his warriors from their fields and farms. They walked behind him, behind all the knights in armor on horseback. Bit had never seen so many men on the castle grounds.
"Oh no, these are the men he gathers before battle," said Edward. "His farmer soldiers he calls them. The battle must be soon. I have to go tonight and hide this sword. I have to go."
"Then I am going with you," she said.
"I knew you would," Edward said. "We can both ride my horse."
They both watched as Arthur rode home, holding Excalibur unsheathed, laid across the pommel of his saddle. Bit reached into her pocket and touched the pink stone the Lady had given her. It was cold.

King Arthur
Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll

t was a bad area of town in a town already bad enough.

Every morning, around sunrise, an old man walked up the street, thou no one ever saw where he'd come from. A worn out hounds tooth fedora pressed down, hard on his forehead, it met the bridge of his cheep dime store sunglasses.

He sat, everyday, on the corner of Fourth and T. He was old, bent over and wrinkled, but when he sat on his soap box he was straight and tall. He had such a commanding presence, he looked like a king in his court. His name was Art King but everyone called him King Arthur.

He'd been coming to the corner, where he held court for more years than anyone could remember. His smile was a permeant fixture on his time weathered face, and his good natured advice was freely given to any who asked. But you had to ask.

His one possession, besides the few clothes he carried on his back, was an old Marine Band harmonica. For a nickel, or a soda, or a cigarette, he'd play you a song. Most men ignored him, the children and old women all loved him. The punks, and toughs, and wise guys all left him alone.

One day, a stranger, he must have been passing through from a different neighborhood, saw him sunning himself on his box like an old cat. He pulled a knife on Art and said, "Gimmee everything you got."

"Well, let me see what I got here in my pocket," he wheezed cheerfully

He pulled out the old harmonica, held it out to the stranger, and said, "This is all I got. You can have it, and every disease I've blown through it."

He laughed until he coughed. Through the wheezing and spluttering, all the while he smiled.
Eventually his fit passed and he said, "if you want, I can even teach you how to play it. He laughed again, spat, and played a song.
"No one makes a fool out of me," the stranger growled and slapped the harmonica from Art King's hands.
The old man stared at his stinging hands, and then at the harmonica on the concrete sidewalk, his smile was gone. He got slowly to his feet, took the few steps to the shiny metal instrument and bent to pick it up.
"You think you're really funny, don't ya, old man," the stranger continued. "Well, I have a little joke here in my pocket, and it's gonna make us both laugh, don't ya think?"
He pulled a long switch blade from his pocket. With a snap, he flipped the blade open. He held the blade's point at King's nose where he remained bent over as he reached for the harmonica.
Art grasped the harmonica, his long coat hung heavily on his old frame. From his crouched position he said, "no, I'm not funny. Just old."
With a long sigh that spoke of centuries, he stood. As he did he pulled the sword from the very concrete of the sidewalk. It sang as the steel rose free of it's stone scabbard. It resonated in elation as it was held free toward the sky to receive the sanctifying rays of the morning sun.
The would be thief didn't hesitate, but ran his knife into the old mans heart.
Art King coughed at the impact of the knife in his chest and gasped for air to refill his shocked lungs.
Blood ran freely from around the knife in the mans clenched fist. The thief laughed at the shock on the old man's face. His triumph turn to incredulity as the pain in his hand made him aware it was his own blood, and not that of the old man that ran down his wrist.
On meeting something impenetrable on the old man's body, the knife stopped short of piercing King Arthur's skin. Instead the thief's fist continued forward, the razor sharp edges cut cleanly through skin and muscle to bone. The smell of well oiled chain mail was crisp in his nostrils.
As the thief fled, several men in chain mail or studded leather stepped from the ether to surround Arthur. As one they knelt, heads bowed, the tips of their swords pointed down, and hovered a fraction of an inch from the ground.
"My Lord," Lancelot said, "it is time you come with us. We have all drunk from the Grail. But as you must be, we are all now weary. It is time we drink a second time from the sacred cup and find our eternal rest."
"You have brought it with you," the king stated blankly.
Lancelot nodded.
King Arthur finally lowered Ex Caliber, and said, "Yes, let's go."
The knights fell into step behind their king and followed him down the street and back into legend.
As they began to fade from the vision of mortal men, Arthur asked Lancelot, "it was pulling the sword from the ground that alerted you?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes, Your Highness, we have been looking for you for centuries.

Return of the King
Jeff Hite


"It was September, and not a nice September day, that much I do remember. There were no birds signing and the rain, though nothing new on this little island, was cold. I think if it had been a few degrees cooler it would have been just about painful to stand out in. But then I might be remembering today, because it is so much like that today. It makes my bones ache. Ache to the point of not wanting to be here. Here The place that I have come for the last ten years. Every year at this time, to remember, and hope that maybe this will be the year that he will return. That he will wake up and help to bring us back from this brink, this dark time that has befallen us. Though I know it will not. I even I am allowed to hope, and old man who has seen time forward and backwards. I am spent, I have nothing left to give this world, but I would find a way if he were to return to us."

I watched Merlin ramble for a few more minutes, as he stood before the door to King Arthurs grave. He had given more than his share in the king's time, and it was unfair what they was about to do to him, but life is rarely fair. I watched him move carefully away from the door, he raised his staff looking so much like the powerful wizard that he was and lock the door to the tomb. It was for the last time he knew. The last time that anyone would be able to open the door, unless it was opened from the inside, Or so he thought.
The stone melded together, forming a perfect wall of rock, without blemish. Then carefully he inscribed it in a writing that only another wizard like him would be able to read. "Here lies Kind Arthur, King of the round table, The once and Future King."
He coughed as he finished the last word and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. Consumption, or whatever they called it in his day was eating him from the inside out. He would die soon. I knew that, and so did he. It was not something that I enjoyed watching, but I had seen it more times than I cared to count. He would lay down next to the tree to rest, with plans to make his journey to the place everyone thought he was already was buried. But he would never get up from the spot. After he stopped breathing, the lady would come. She would carefully pick him up, and undo what had cost him his life's energry with a slight wave of her had. The great door would open and he would be laid next to his king.
"Dr Mander, I have reviewed the logs and I think we have met the conditions you were looking for."
"Good Matt. Let's take a look."
"I have found the spot when they are all together. She is so much more powerful than the other two. Why not just get her?"
"She would not help us alone, She will not work for anyone, but to help the other two. To help the world. Now you are sure she was helping him, and now trapping him?"
"Yes, she was helping, but if we really needed it, why didn't it just happen on it's own."
"So many questions today Matthew. You disagree that we need the help now?"
"No I just wonder why it has not happened on it's own."
"Come with me, I will show you."
"What I am going to show you, I have never shown anyone else. It has taken me years to get this far, and your work, has allowed me to continue mine uninterupted. I really appreciate that."
"Your welcome Dr."
"This is very important, we have to complete our work so that we can wake the King."
"But what have you discovered that will allow us to do that."
"Let me show you." The Professor led Matthew to the back of the build and down into a basement room. When we stepped into the room the cold hit me like and arctic blast, and I shivered in spite of myself. Once my eyes had adjusted to the low light I could see there was very little actually in the room, a number of large pieces of equipment that I didn't recognize and there in the middle of the room, was a silver coffin shaped box.
"Ten Years ago when I was on a survey mission, I found her, I found the Lady you just saw watching Merlin into the the cave."
"But How."
"She was Frozen in the bottom of the lake. We were on a geologic survey of the area and thought she was another bog body. But then we found her, she was perfect. She looked just like this." He said pulling the lid back.
There laying before us was the sleeping form of the lady that I had indeed seen in the view screen only ten minutes ago. She had put Merlin in the cave with Arthur and sealed it up.
"Your research proves that most of the so called historical accounts of her were fictional. She seemed to be helping Merlin and not trapping him. Or at least laying him to rest with as much respect as was paid to Arthur."
"Ok that sounds about right but what are we going to do?"
"We are going to wake her up of course, and get her to understand what a mess the world is in. Ask her, no beg her to get the sword and wake Arthur and if possible Merlin up too so they can help get us out of this mess." We stood in almost reverent silence until my teeth started to clatter. "Alright it is time to get started. You will help me wake her up now." He said as he turned and left the room.

It took what I thought was a surprising like short amount of time to wake the sleeping lady. We had barely warmed the temperature of her chamber above freezing, and she started to stir, within an hour she was fully awake. That was when the trouble started.

"Who are you?" The now fully awake and surprisingly tall goddess of the lake as demanding of Dr. Mander.
"Madam, I am Dr. Mander, I, we have found your body frozen in the bottom of a lake and rescued ou. We woke you up hoping that you could help us with a problem."
"You woke me up. I wake up on my own time."
"Yes, I know," he said almost cowering, "But you have been asleep for nearly two thousand years."
"Two thousand years the earth has survived without the old gods why have you woken me now?"
"We need leadership and guidance that we think you can help us with."
"I am not a leader. I cannot do what you ask." She said as she began to walk away from him. "Where is my lake from here, I will need to return to my slumber."
"Madam, I beg your forgiveness, but we were not looking for you to lead us. We were hoping that you could help us find King Arthur and awaken him." She stopped then and rounded on him.
"King Arthur? You seek the leadership and guidance of him?"
"Yes, we are in dire circumstnaces, our governments are falling apart, we need someone who can help lead us."
"He was a Minor king, who managed only to untie his people for a few years, then he was distracted by a woman and sqandered the powers of the one man who could help him. Merlin," she said choaking a little on the name, "was a fool to have helped him. He swandered his life and his power protecting an even greater fool." There was silence in the room while we stared at each other and then she turned to walk out of the room. We followed her and Dr Mander continued his argument.
"But wait, with your help, he might still be able to help us."
"How?"
"His short comings are all but forgotten now, he was known as the great leader, and a man who could bring men together. If he were brought back he would be listened to and maybe just maybe he could help us turn our lives around before the human race kills itself."
"I think you put too much faith in a long dead king."
"What about Merlin?"
"What about him?"
"Can he help us?"
"Unlike Arthur, he died. Arthur was put to sleep before his wounds could kill him, if here were woken up he would need a doctor right away, or he would die too."
"So you can't help us."
"I tell you that you are as big of fools as Merlin was to want him to come back. He was an ancient king and would know nothing of this worlds problems. I have been sensing the world since you awoke me thought your communications devices and your in-ter-net and that fool man child would be utterly lost. He would not know what to do."
"What made Arthor who he was?"
"I did, I did and Merlin. Without our powers he would not have been able to do what he did. He knew what he wanted to do, but in order to convince people he was right he needed out help. but once he got a taste of the power." She trailed off and a tear rolled down her cheek. "I don't know why Merlin helped him for so long."
The room was scilent for a long time then, and only the hum of the computers filled the air.
"Take me back to the lake." She said finally.
"Yes, of course." Dr Mander relented.
"I need to get the sword execaliber. I think there is something I could do for you. You young man, What is your name?"
"Matthew."
"Very good sir Matthew, I will need your assistance. You know history?"
"Yes, me'lady," I said with a little bow.
"You will come with us. I can teach you what you need to know."

A week later, we had gotten the necessary documents for her to travel with us back to the coast of Enland where her body had been found. We sailed out in a small rented sailboat to near the middle of the lake, she got the sword and gave it to me.

So here I am, dressed as king arthor, Dr Mander dressed as Merlin, at my side. It has been like this in nearlly a dozen countries in the last two weeks. Merlin Knows who I am of course, but everyone else believes it, I mean really believes it. But now we stand before our real test as we stand at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial waiting. And even though I know what is going to happen, when it happens I am startled. From the center of the reflecting pool something begins to surface, slowly the blade of excaliber raises out of the water. I look around the pool and thousands of cameras turn their focus from me to the sword that is now fully above the surface. Now the hand that holds it is beginning to emerge. I know the hand, I know what it looks like because I have seen it do this before, when she gave the sword to me two only weeks ago from the lake were Dr. Mander had found her. The arm is now visible to the elbow and is moving toward this end of the pool. The clear water shows no one below the surface, and no matter how the camera's scan they will not see her. She is not there after all. She is in her lake at home, the source of her power.

"Now King Arthur," The presidents voice portrays how much he believes that is really who I am. "How are we to know that sword is for you?"
"Send your men out to retrieve it. If they bring it back to you, you can hold the power of Camelot, and bring peace to the the world." he nodded and three of the secret service men plodded out into the pool water not quite at their waist. They each reached for the sword in turn and all three hands passed over the sword without being able to grip it.
"What is this?" The president was angry now.
"Only the rightful owner the ruler may hold the sword."
"Then why did you send them out there?"
"You had to be sure it was safe, they would go with you anyway, would they not?" His face was dark but he nodded his head.
"So I am supposed to go out there not and try to grab it?"
"You are the most powerful ruller in the free world, if the the position is to be yours, you will be able to grab it."
"I was freely elected by the people. I have not tried to wrestle this position from anyone."
"I make not arguments to you claim. Go retrieve the sword for yourself." He Nodded again and started toward the pool, when it was clear the sword would come no closer to the edge five more secret service men entered the pool ahead of the president, sweeping the pool with their feet as the surrounded their charge. He stood before the sword and hesitated. In that was his mistake, she had said that there was a chance that if he were a true leader and reached for the sword right away, he might be able grab it, but becuase he hesitated it meant he was not the leader the world needed, and the sword again go to me. I had almost hoped that he would be able to grab it. Let us find a true ruler, the next king Arthur and then we would not have to go on with this charade.
The anger was clear on his face as I walked out to the center of the pool to meet him.
"So the sword is yours?"
"We will see," I said and reached for it. It came away from the hand and rested in mine as the arm disappeared below the surface. I stepped away from the president to the side of the pool and raised it above my head. Merlin was the first, but soon after everyone along the mall fell down on bended knee.
"King Arthur has returned, and I have brought my sword as proof."

GreatHites Rant

This is not the normal GreatHites Episode, that will be out tomorrow. This is a rant that I needed to post here about writing and recording. Hopefully I don't sound too full of myself, that was not my goal. Keep writing if it is what you enjoy doing. That is all. So, if you would like to skip this you will not hurt my feelings.

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GreatHites Season 2 Episoide 13

In a time you will forget the horor, and then... That is what this week's stories are about, the forgotten horror.

We had five stories on the topic of a forgotten horrror by:

Jason A. Steves
Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll
Scott Roche
Ashley Redden
And Jeff HIte

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Tim Memorial
By Jason A. Stevens

"Heh, look at the stupid statue!"

"It's there for a reason, Jack. You don't have to be such a jerk."

"Yeah, whatever."

Jack dismissed Rachel as usual, continuing to mock the unusual statue. It appeared vaguely man-shaped, Rachel supposed, but something about it struck a deep chord of wrongness in her. Perhaps it was the lack of any distinguishing features, perhaps the numerous strange protrusions jutting out from it. In any case, listening to Jack criticize it made it all the worse.

She didn't know why she'd allowed him to talk her into following him down the overgrown path. Arriving at Maria's to spend the weekend with their friends easily would have trumped walking through the tangled brush, branches snagging painfully on her hair. Jack had remained adamant, though, insisting they'd just make a brief stop, as the pictures he'd found of the abandoned town on the website were, quote 'wicked cool.' From what she could see of it past the statue, she had to disagree. It looked much the same as any other town, albeit deserted.

"Let's just see what you want to see and go."

Rachel started to push past Jack towards they empty town, but first paused to read the statue's plaque. The top portion had broken off some time ago and she had to wipe away some excess dirt from what remained in order to be able to read the text. All that revealed themselves were two words, 'TIM MEMORIAL,' whatever context they may once have had lost to time. A cursory glance of the ground surrounding the statue didn't reveal the missing portion, and when she glanced back up, Jack had already gone past the statue and advanced into the town proper, looking impatiently at Rachel and standing by the door of the nearest house.

She sighed and advanced onward, suppressing a chill as she passed the statue. This place didn't feel right at all, and it was more than the general eeriness she'd felt at visits to other ghost towns. Here, that feeling seemed magnified considerably and she couldn't get rid of her gooseflesh. She wrapped her arms across her chest, unnerved at her unnatural chill in the nearly eighty-degree air. Jack just laughed and didn't even bother to show any concern for her. If she had the keys, she would gladly have left him here.

"Come on Rach, don't wanna keep the ghosts waiting!"

She ignored his condescending statement and walked--slowly--to where he stood, glaring at him the whole way.

"Keep it up, Jack, and you might find yourself among them. I'll wait for you by the statue."

"Why, scared?"

"Bored. Now see what you need to see, and let's get on with our weekend."

"Live a little, Rach."

"That’s why I'm trying to get to somewhere there’s life."

He sighed and entered the house as Rachel walked back over to the statue. She'd not stood there long before she felt a tugging on her arm. Looking down, she was startled to see a nervous little boy, though the look in his eyes bespoke someone far older. As he fixed his eyes on Rachel's she instantly felt a sense of overwhelming dread, only made worse by the silent tears that started to flow from his eyes. She could see he struggled against something, and when he finally spoke, it was in a robotic monotone incongruous to a child so young.

"You shouldn't have come here. So many have forgotten. Too many, and they rage. They will--" He broke off, widened his eyes and ran off into the town.

Rachel darted after him and quickly followed into the house the boy had entered. Upon opening the door, however, she saw no trace of the boy. Nothing appeared disturbed, and a layer of dust covered every surface she could see. Reflecting, she realized she hadn't even heard the door slam despite the boy’s quick movement, and tried to tell herself she had hallucinated the boy. Her logical assurances to herself did little to comfort her, though, and she decided that the sooner they were out of here, the better. She fished her phone from her jeans and was gratified to see five bars, dialing Jack.

"Hunnnngryyyy..."

She dropped the phone, in shock at the deep and rasping voice that had answered rather than Jack. Rachel cursed as it struck the cement porch and broke. She was further unnerved when she noticed that a fine fog had begun to blanket the town, despite no corresponding drop in the sweltering air. She chastised herself for it, but couldn't help but imagine this as a scenario from a horror movie, in which case it would be smartest to just leave and forget Jack. However, reality did not behave as in movies, and even if it did, Rachel cared too much for Jack to leave him behind, even if he was less than ideal. It would probably amount to nothing anyway, and if she ran off, he’d only laugh.

Mind made up, she jogged over to the house Jack had initially entered. She called his name to no response, then noted his footsteps in the dust coming out as well as from where he’d entered. The next two houses presented the same setup, but the third had only an incoming trail, which led to a basement. She called down to Jack from the top of the steps, but received no answer. He likely remained silent on purpose in order to frighten her when she came down the steps.

Fright did take hold when she had, but Jack certainly hadn't been the cause. No, for in the middle of the open basement, Jack's body hung limp and motionless in the air, his feet at least three inches from the floor. He gave no indication of seeing Rachel despite her calling of his name numerous times. She glanced around to find something to use to prod him out from the room's center, but nothing appeared forthcoming. She quickly ran upstairs and out of the house, towards the woods.

It took her what seemed far too long to find a long and sturdy fallen branch, and when she returned to the basement, the situation had worsened. In the air around Jack, small black tendrils appeared to blink in and out of existence. She stared dumbstruck for a few seconds before gathering her wits and extending her makeshift staff towards Jack.

Almost as soon as she did so, however, the branch was wrenched from her grasp and she fell to the floor. As the branch clattered to the ground on the other side of the room, its scraping against the basement floor revealed something else Rachel hadn't noticed. A large portion of the floor had been demarcated in a circle, and a number of intricate designs had filled the interior. She could see now where Jack’s foot had initially broken the circle, and winced as she saw the damage to the intricate whorls and patterns the branch had done on its way across the room.

Her stomach sank as she raised her eyes back to Jack. His body now lay virtually invisible under a mass of writhing black, nebulous tentacles. Rachel hurriedly regained her feet and began to hurry up the steps, but something grabbed her ankle from below and she found herself dragged back down. Splinters dug into her resisting fingers and she cried freely in pain and desperation.

All too quickly, however, she found herself pulled within the circle and placed directly in front of Jack. She saw one last glimpse of his face before the writhing blackness encompassed the both of them, soon replacing her terror and fear with a deep peace.

***

The car horn jolted Rachel awake. Her heart pounded as she reflected on the nightmare she'd just exited. The darkness, the overwhelming darkness, and the cold that also burned. The feeling of captivity, of inevitability. All now wiped away with the sound of a car horn, a sound foreign but familiar and comforting all the same. She looked at her arms, admiring the unblemished flesh, free of scars, scabs, or festering wounds, did the same with Jack and smiled.

He noticed and smiled back. Nothing to worry about, his expression seemed to say, and Rachel decided to impart the good news now instead of waiting.

"Jack, we're pregnant."

He smiled at her again, newly-minted black irises gleaming in the sunlight.

"And hungry."

She nodded.

"Yes, so very, very hungry."

She allowed one of her fingers to elongate out the open window, reveling at how the wind felt against her substance. Maria would ease the hunger, but so much more awaited. Smiling in anticipation, she looked down at the remainder of the statue’s plaque on her lap. 'TIM MEMORIAL,' indeed. Rachel let out a laugh and etched the missing letters back into place with the claws on her left hand before throwing the plaque out the window.

It clattered to the road, giving one last message to the sky.

TIME IMMEMORIAL.





Tim Memorial by Jason A. Stevens is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.





The 23rd Horror
By Philip (Noral Joe) Carroll


Kevin shined his flashlight across the brick work and asked his friend, "why do you think they filled a doorway with bricks?"
Jason held his own flashlight in one hand and ran his other over the uneven masonry. "I don't know. And they didn't do a very good job either. Look at these bricks compared to the walls in the stairwell, they're not straight at all.
Kevin stepped up close and shined his light into a gap between two of the poorly lain bricks. "It looks like whoever put the bricks here, didn't really know what they were doing."
He peered over the top of his flashlight, trying to see through the small space in the bricks. He continued, "what's weirder, is I've been on the 23rd floor, my cousins girlfriend lives in 2318. I've never seen this brick wall. It should be two apartments away from her front door."
Jason shined his flashlight on the stenciled number on the door. The faded white paint was barely visible in the beam of their flashlights, but was undoubtabley 23.
"I know. Lets go up a floor and take the elevator down one, we can come back and check this wall from the other side," Jason suggested.
Without further discussion they charged up the stairs through the dimness illuminated by a single skylight twelve more floors above. They leapt up the stairs two steps at a time and in a moment opened the door with the number 24 stenciled in the faded white paint. The two boys began their adventure from Kevin's apartment on the tenth floor and had counted the number on each door as they climbed.
Without a second thought they pushed through the door and down the hallway to the elevator.
Half way down the passage Kevin shouted, "Jason, wait."
Jason stopped and walked the few feet back to where Kevin stood looking at an apartment door.
"What's up," he asked Kevin?
"Look at the apartment number, Jase," Kevin said, "2310. According the the apartment numbers, were on the 23rd floor now."
Kevin turned and walked four apartments back toward the stairwell and knocked at number 2318.
After a few minutes, the peephole darkened as someone inside viewed the two boys. The door opened and a slender, smiling, teenage girl said, "Kevin, what are you doing here? Is Will with you?"
"No, Cindy, Will's not here. We were just coming up the stairway and ended up on your floor," Kevin said, when Cindy cut him off.
"The stairway," she said as she shook her head and wrinkled her nose in an adorable way. Kevin knew what his cousin saw in this girl. She was about the prettiest girl he had ever met, but she was always kind and approachable.
"No one ever uses the stairway. What were you doing in there," she asked?
"Oh, we were bored, and went exploring. But that's not what's important," Kevin said, "have you never been in the stairway?"
"Nope," she said, "Dad said we should use the fire escape outside my window, if there was ever an emergency."
"Cindy," Kevin asked, an idea dawning, "can we go down your fire escape?"
"I guess so." She shrugged and asked, "why, what's up?"
They walked through the small living room and down the hallway to her bedroom. Jason asked, as they reached her door, "do you ever hear people from the floor below you?"
She stopped so abruptly the two boys ran into her.
Even as the color drained from her face, Kevin thought how beautiful Cindy was. A worried expression creased her brow. "Yeah," she said, "once in a while I hear an child crying. She cries kind of loud, like her parents are ignoring her, and she's locked in her room. It goes on for an hour or more, late at night. In the morning I've asked my parents if they heard her, but they act like I'm being silly. 'You can't hear through these floors, they're five feet thick,'" she ended with an imitation of her father.
They climbed through the window onto the fire escape and descended to the next floor down and peered into the window.
"I can't see anything," Jason said, "not even curtains, or blinds."
Kevin shined his light into the window, the beam reflected back. "It's painted black on the inside."
Jason checked the other window with in reach of the fire escape landing, and said, "these ones too. They're all painted."
"What's going on," Cindy asked, clearly shaken. "Why would someone paint their windows black?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Kevin said, pushing up on the window. If moved a fraction of an inch, but stopped.
"Hey," Cindy said, "you can't just climb in someone's window, and besides, it's locked. You're not going to break it are you?"
Kevin was fishing through his wallet.
"Cindy, this floor, right here, is the 23rd floor. We counted as we climbed the stairs. The door from the stairway on this level said it is the 23rd. The door to your floor says 24. When we opened the door the door to 23 the hallway is bricked up. You can't go in. And when you think about it, the elevator must skip this floor when you go from 22 to 23. The windows are painted over. Something is hidden in there."
He pulled his student body card from his wallet and said, "if the lock on this window is anything like mine, it's not hard to open.
Kevin slipped the card through the gap under the window near one edge and slid the card along sideways. Almost halfway the card contacted something. Kevin smiled and withdrew the card a half an inch, slid it an inch further along and then pushed it forward again. There was a click. Kevin withdrew the card and returned it to his wallet.
Jason stepped up to help Kevin push upward on the window.
Silently and effortlessly, the window slid up.
Somewhere, inside, a door slammed. A rapid, wet, thump-slap, thump-slap sound came from something hurrying from the room, and the three teens were assaulted by the overwhelming reek of rot and putrescence. Kevin was only able to control his gorge by sheer force of will, while Jason wasn't so successful and vomited over the edge of the fire escape.
His head swam, but Kevin had to know what was on this floor. He buried his nose in the crook of his arm to filter the noxious odor, and shined the beam of his flashlight into the room. In size and shape it was very similar to Cindy's room one floor above. In this room the walls were black and shiny. They seemed to pulse and flow, as if the walls themselves exuded and oozed with ebony ichor.
The only piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room was a child's crib. In it stood the desiccated, blackened body of an infant, its empty eye sockets a silent appeal as the flashlight beam crossed its tiny jaws frozen open in an eternal scream.
Kevin fell backwards, the flashlight slipped from his hand and skittered across and off the edge of the fire escape. He gasped and shuddered as he tried to regain his feet. He was gibbering, "I dunno, I dunno, what the, what the, what the..."
As soon as Jason and Cindy helped him to his feet, he shakily lurched for the open window, reached inside and up to flip the latch. With both hands he slammed the window shut with such force that several cracks bloomed up and to the sides of the black glass. Three black, oily finger prints remained on the window from the hand he used to flip the latch. He stared at the rancid oily ink on his fingers, unable to move, to wipe it from him. He grasped the wrist of the offensive hand with his other hand and squeezed it as if to strangle a small rabid animal. He held it in front of his face and stared at the fingers like they were some unimaginable, horrifying, foreign objects.
"Come on," Cindy urged to bring him from his stasis. "I have something in my bathroom that should take that stuff off."
With the help of Jason, she lead Kevin back up the stairs of the fire escape to her apartment. While she scrubbed at his fingers with make up remover, Jason spoke to his friends reflection in the mirror, "Kevin, you look awful. What did you see in that room?"
Kevin's own eyes were a reflection of the horror and emptiness he had just witnessed one floor below. He couldn't tell them what he had seen, and promised himself he never would.




Vicious Cycle
By: Scott Roche


The cold chewed at Bogdan's coat. The weather in the little seaside village of Yantarny remained constant even if the rest of the world seemed to be going increasingly crazy. He stood before the small, rough stone pyramid that served as a monument to the thousands that died here, gunned down by Nazis almost a hundred years ago. Some said that this was the last act of the Holocaust, one of the many efforts to erase all evidence of the death camps. Whether that was true or not was almost immaterial, especially in light of the fact that almost no one in this village remembered the event. Even in the face of such evidence people turned a blind eye to the uncomfortable facts of history. He tried to cry, but tears wouldn't come. It was almost as if they were afraid that they would be swept away or frozen by the wind.

He turned away from the reminder and walked towards the ocean, tasting salt as it crystallized on his face. Maybe it was from tears finally falling. Maybe it was sea spray blown in by the gale. He didn't know. All he did know was that the atrocities of the past had been forgotten, not just here, but increasingly all over the world. It wasn't just the slaughter of the Jews, Gypsies, Africans, and other "undesriables" by hte German people that had earned holocaust its capital H. Other horrors began to fade in the increasingly artificial light of this brave new world. What use was remembering such "unfortunate" history when we seemed to be on the cusp of such a bright and glorious future?

A bitter laugh chuffed from his lungs. The new New Russian Democratic Movement, the second of its kind in thirty years held that as the new party line. He was sick of it. Sick of hearing how things had changed. Oh he couldn't deny that in ways mankind had moved on. The children in this country were almost all fed and warm and healthy. The mega-corps, present here as they were in the West, saw to that. The history that they were taught by the soulless machines was every bit as whitewashed as it had been in his grandfather's day when the Soviet government was in charge. He had no way to be certain, but he guessed that even in his great-great-great-grandfather's day when the Czars ruled, it was the same. It was that fact that would truly hold people back.

George Santayana said ""Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Bogdan was inclined to agree. It was that very thing that put him where he was now. He faced the backs of the company of soldiers. Their uniforms identical to his, black and foreboding. The only difference was the red piping at the edges and the nova-bursts at the points of his jacket's collar. He led these thirty men into battle. They were equal to a hundred soldiers from decades past in terms of their capacity for destruction. Any one of them could defeat a heavy tank from the late twentieth century. Their weapons were trained on the dissidents kneeling in the snow.

Word had come down that this cell was responsible for taking down a data cluster in this sector. That had cost the government and the mega-corps backers hundreds of billions in the course of hours. He and his men tracked them down, fighting from house to house, neutralizing them. Orders were not to kill them, not right away. No, they were to be made examples of.

Each soldier had a camera integrated into their gun sight and another in their helmet. These recorded in detail the shivering men and women in front of them. This event would be broadcast to the Bureau of Information. From there, once it was properly edited, it would be ready for the general populace. Then and only then, citizens would see what fate befell enemies of the state. So even if he took a stand against the atrocity he was being forced to commit no one would bear witness. Without an audience would it matter? Of course, even if there were an audience and he rebelled, he would fail. What purpose would that failure serve? These questions ate at his soul.

The leader of this crew of rebels locked eyes with him. Sergei Karamazov was his name. Bogdan knew that, knew the name and his dossier by heart thanks to a computer chip that stored what he willed it to, without fail. Everything Karamzov stood for was the practical antithesis of everything Bogdan stood for, at least officially. That man needed to survive even if Bogdan didn't.

Bogdan gestured at Karamazov. "You. Rise and come here." Butterflies danced in his stomach. He had no idea what he would do next.

The rebel leader paused, unsure what to do. After a cluster of heartbeats, he did what he was told. The soldiers parted for him. Smooth, mirrored face plates showed no emotion.

Karamazov finally came to stand before the captain, at ease, jaw set firmly. The proximity of his death lent him boldness. There would be no begging for his life. He said nothing, merely waiting for Bogdan to speak.

Bogdan pitched his voice low, even though his soldiers would still be able to hear him. "Why did you do this? Have you not learned that standing up against ... what you perceive as tyranny does no good? You will die here on this field as others have before you."

The resolve on Karamaov's face became pity, or something very like it. "We will die. But we will do it on our terms, having done what we think is best."

A thousand martyrs screamed from the abyss. Every one of them died for what they thought was best. How many more would die? How many more men like himself would be responsible for sending them to their graves? Maybe he would break the cycle, maybe not, but he had to at least try. He nodded at the man. "Spoken like a true zealot. We all do what we think is best, don't we?"

"Maybe, maybe not. All I can say for sure is that you and your government haven't been doing that in some time. We decided to fix what we could of that. The rest is up to you."

There was some truth in what the man said, but most of it seemed to be the sort of rhetoric he'd come to expect. "Perhaps if you asked for forgiveness, renounced what you did, and tell us who you did it for, I could show you leniency?" Another scan of the records showed that nothing he had done demanded penalty of death. "If not for you then for your people?"

Of all things a smile creased the man's face. "You don't have the power to do that." He cocked his head. "Look, Captain, you're not the guilty one here. It's been decided by those above you that we're going to die. It's obvious to me that you don't want to be responsible, so I hereby absolve you."

The last four words struck Bogdan's heart like a dagger. He needed no one to forgive him. It was this scraggly freedom fighter that was in the wrong. After all, he led his people into an unwinnable war against the state. It was him who had too much pride to beg for forgiveness. In fact, if it hadn't been for Karamzov's pigheadedness, there would be no need for the slaughter that was about to occur. "Absolve me? It is you that should be seeking absolution." Anger replaced sadness like a rush of ice water over live coals. "Get back with your men."

Karamazov nodded and shrugged, returning to take his place on the snow covered ground.

His eyes had a light in them Bogdan did not understand. Under different circumstances the captain would have said that he was laughing at some inside joke. "Men, form ranks." The soldiers snapped to attention. "Take aim." Rifle butts slammed against shoulders. He waited, drawing out the moment. At the last, he let his eyes shift to the sea. "Fire." The flat pops seemed almost anticlimactic, but he knew that rounds would find their targets and bodies would now lie twitching.

If only man could learn from the mistakes of his predecessors. How glorious that would be.




A Little Bit of Faith
By: Ashley Redden

A wave of Baz magic swept over the clerics that made up the third ring of the Thaumaturge. Two of the clerics’ knees buckled and they fell each moaning pitifully as they began the long painful process of dying from Baz magic.
When Baz magic succeeded in planting itself inside a human, simply put, the human, be it man woman or child, rotted from the inside out. The granting of a quick death would have been a mercy, but Baz magic shielded its victim from such things as poison, blade or any other type of rendering of the victim’s life. Death would come from the Baz magic and the Baz magic alone, after days or in the worst cases, weeks of torment. No form of cure or inhibition in the process had ever been found. A death worse than that caused by Baz magic did not exist.
The remaining twelve clerics continued to chant not even glancing back at their fallen comrades. Over twenty of their order had fallen already; two more were of no immediate account. All were prepared to die to rid the world of this abomination, this great historic evil.
The cleric chant wove a magical aura around the half ring that nearly encircled The Baz which roared up and cast another wave of Baz magic outward towards its encroaching enemy. The Elder Boffin stood fast. The four rings continued their advance.
The Elder Boffin called out orders keeping the Thaumaturge operating as a unit simultaneously buffeting The Baz into retreat and protecting the Thaumaturge as the magical army advanced.
“Order of the Samain, send that thing back to whence it came, conjure well and together, do not mind the fallen for they shall be avenged,” said The Elder Boffin. His words were spoken softly, but his voice carried as if bellowed.
“Mages, advance and attack as a unit, use triad magic. Lotans do not cease work on the spells, kill the creature.”
The Elder Boffin watched as five more fell to the Baz magic.
“Move forward brothers of magic, brothers of all that is good. Drive the creature back, kill it. Keep the faith brothers. We will prevail. All that is required is a little bit of faith in your power and together, we shall succeed.”
The words of encouragement and direction continued unabated. The battle had already lasted for many hours and would continue until either The Baz threat was eliminated or all of the Thaumaturge lay dead. When the assault began, the Thaumaturge had consisted of hundreds of magical warriors making up the four rings of assault.
First strode the clerics, whose order used white magic for healing and the benefit of mankind. They had to be nearest the beast to best deflect the powerful magic that The Baz unleashed. The clerics were the buffer, the shield in this attack, were all the clerics to fall, The Baz would win the day.
Next followed the Samain in whose person practiced the mathematical arts. Their magic consisted of the formulation of order from chaos. A strange and enigmatic sect, they were few in number, known for the generations that produced them.
Samain were not trained in the art but born to it. And many were the Samain that lay dead and dying strewn about the ground behind the advancing Thaumaturge, writhing in agony as their insides slowly putrefied from Baz magic. The Samain worked together, moving and working as one. Together, they stripped the magic from The Baz.
After the Samain, marched the Lotans. These sorcerers were adept in the magic of the earth, fire and water. They consorted with and controlled the elemental magics. Endlessly and ceaselessly they worked, spelling the creature with their most powerful magic, that of fire. A small knot, not much bigger than a grown man, at the feet of The Baz glowed as if the air itself was molten.
Dozens and dozens of the Lotans had succumbed to the onslaught of their foe. Most of the Thaumaturge had consisted of Lotans in the beginning. They had proved to be least sturdy. Now, the third ring of sorcerers had been so decimated, that less than ten remained.
The last ring consisted of the Scarlet Mages. These sorcerers practiced magic of the blood. Power, raw and pure, lay at their beck and call. Working in triads, they built magic, bristling with power, and then flung it upon The Baz. Of all the methods of attack so far, each and every bolt of power sent from a triad had elicited a scream of emotion from The Baz. The Elder Boffin sincerely hoped that the screams were of pain, but could not be sure, but hope he did. Though the Scarlet Mages were few, perhaps twenty four in the beginning, none had fallen
When the attack had initiated, the Thaumaturge encircled the creature and began their assault, the magic emitted by the The Baz battered the sorcerers much like a wind driven tide, relentless coming wave after wave after crashing wave of Baz magic. But now, the magic that The Baz threw upon them came in gasps and spurts, but it seemed to be stronger than before, perhaps more desperate?
The Elder Boffin took this as a sign and rallied his troops onward, ever battering The Baz.
Suddenly, as if by animal instinct detecting weakness in its prey, the Scarlet Mages, all eight triads, broke and ran at The Baz. The Elder Boffin was so shocked by this act that he did not for a moment respond but stood pointing, mouth agape. His entourage of four Lesser Boffins paid scant heed and continued to generate the powerful shield that protected the Elder Boffin, the general of the Thaumaturge.
The scarlet mages ran as a loose unit below and what looked like inside of the lower portion of the roaring and gnashing Baz which stood twenty to thirty feet tall it’s ever changing body morphing from one visage to the next as to appear almost molten. As the scarlet mages passed through the legs of their foe, The Baz seemed to waver and flicker somewhat like a coal oil flame during the ides of March.
The mages gathered around the orange glow centered at the feet of The Baz into a tight circle perhaps twenty feet across and began to pound the ground with wave after wave of power. The Elder Boffin, along with the remaining sorcerers of the Thaumaturge stopped attacking and simply watched all startled and dizzy with fatigue.
The image of The Baz shimmered, and then vanished. The scarlet mages began to fire from one triad after the other, proceeding around the circle from left to right. All the triads built power as one fired then the next followed by the next strobing around the circle of mages.
The Elder Boffin blinked away tears of exhaustion as he watched the mages pound away at the ground within their tight circle. It began slowly at first, perhaps a slow blink or long heartbeat between each bolt, but soon the magic ripped the ground in a torrent of power, one after another faster than the Elder Boffin could count or keep up with. The light from each of those powerful strikes grew and grew until it was nearly impossible to look upon.
The bombardment went on and on, the barrage from the scarlet mages seemed never to end. And then, just as quickly as it started, the onslaught stopped. Most of the mages fell upon the ground bonelessly, some dead from exhaustion, many others very nearly so. Those few that stood wavered as if drunk.
The Elder Boffin pushed past his retinue of lesser Boffin, those four charged with his personal protection, and moved forward as if a moth drawn to a flame. He stepped gently over the mages that lay sprawled upon the ground and gazed at the crater. Within a blasted hole lay a thing that was the size of a small man, maybe five feet when standing. It resembled a human in that it had two feet, two legs and a head, but that was where the resemblance ceased. The creature was a hazy opalescent gray in color and its skin had the look of being covered in mucous.
As the Elder Boffin stared, it looked up and into his eyes and he knew without a doubt, the Elder Boffin knew that here lay the enemy of mankind in its true shape. The Elder Boffin gasped. The Baz snarled and tried to rise, but fell meekly back on its side breathing loudly, raggedly.
Without requesting that it be done, the melding chains were brought forth by the lesser Boffin and flung upon the creature in the hole. It twisted and wheezed as it grappled with the magic permeated chains that seemed to come to life upon contact with the creature.
The Baz spat, but did not speak as the chains pulled tight around its flaccid body.
“Behold, we came as sorcerers to stop or kill an ancient enemy of mankind, a thing that has fed upon our ancestors since before know history. We came as sorcerers, united in our task. We shed our life blood upon the chains, forging a link that cannot be broken so long as the five magical disciplines remain intact, practiced and remembered. We came here as members of the great Thaumaturge, the great magical army, but we leave as brothers.” The Elder Boffin looked slowly around at those still alive and said, “We leave closer than brothers.”
Snickering drifted up from the crater followed by a slurred inhuman voice
The Baz said, “I am timeless. I am the undying. I am The Baz. I can not be exterminated as if some mangy rat found gorging upon your siloed grain. No, fools, I am perpetual. Even after all of humanity is devoured either by me or itself or some other less worthy ephemeral thing, I will endure.”
The Baz laughed again, a wretched hair raising sound. Though not loud, the sound of the laughter was sinister and mocking and carried on the wind like a bad smell.
The Baz closed its eyes and said, “Do your worst. I care not. I will speak no more to those who are less than I. Now, I feed.”
The Elder Boffin blinked at the creature huddled in the hole, wrapped by now glowing chains. His eyes narrowed, and then widened. He looked back over his shoulder at the dozens of men lying where they fell, rolling and moaning, some crying out. Several of the sorcerers standing near the Elder Boffin followed his gaze to the men, their brothers, slowly dying from the rotting torment of the Baz magic.
“He’s feeding on them, even while bound by magic, he’s feeding on our fellow sorcerers, our brothers” said the Elder Boffin as he looked at several of the sorcerers standing in his immediate vicinity. He looked down upon the prone creature in the hole. The Baz wore a smile of pure malevolent joy. The lip of the Elder Boffin drew back baring teeth.
“Together, we will find a way to kill this evil once and for all,” he said looking from man to man, fierce determination in his eyes. Another snicker drifted up from the crater. Despite his anger and disgust, the Elder Boffin shuddered. He noticed several others do the same.
One, a scarlet mage, leapt into the hole and with a mighty swing smote The Baz upon the head with a short sword that suddenly appeared into the mage’s hand from somewhere beneath his billowing scarlet robes.
The elder Boffin blinked in surprise, he hadn’t even known that any of his fellow sorcerers were carrying conventional weapons. The strike landed solidly but stopped abruptly as if the mage had struck a large tree, enough to bite and rock the mans shoulders but not rebound.
The mage picked up his sword which lay upon the head of The Baz on edge. The mage looked upon the creature, no mark shown; The Baz had not even stirred. He gazed upon the sword as he turned it before his face. The scarlet mage found no mark upon the blade, whole and hale, undented and gleaming. The scarlet mage looked at his fellows gathered around the hole and shook his head. He cast a final lecherous parting glance upon The Baz, the hate and disgust for his enemy clearly evident in his eyes, and turned smartly and walked away.
The elder Boffin looked at the sorcerers gathered around the crater. The sorcerers gathered around the crater looked back. They all stared at each other for a long moment, no words were spoken. Then all eyes fell upon The Baz, several swallowed. Though none looked beaten, not a face gathered above the bound creature wore any expression of victory either.
In the days that followed, killing The Baz though magical means turned out to be more difficult than expected, in truth, beyond the ability of any sorcerer that currently walked among the living. So they gathered in council and decided to imprison the beast since that was essentially the only choice available.
The Elder Boffin knew already of a suitable site for imprisonment, a honeycombed cave deep within a remote mountain. The remainder of the Thaumaturge took their enemy, bound in magical chains, down into the bowels of the earth and left it there. They sealed the entrances and placed magical traps for those who would attempt entry. Here they left The Baz to rot and hopefully, to die.
The Thaumaturge vowed to never again let the evil of The Baz walk upon the land. They made oaths of each discipline, bound in blood and spirit that as long as the purveyors of the five magic’s lived, the chains holding and subduing The Baz would remain secure. They, the members of the Thaumaturge, would make it so henceforth, forever. They had faith.
After all, faith in each other had won the day against the godlike evil of the Baz. The battle had brought together the bickering magical factions. Yes, together the sorcerers of the five magics had faith. The Baz would trouble mankind no longer.

The warrior stood upon the hill and stared silently at the small hole that marked the entrance to the cave of the eater. The warrior sighed. He would have to crawl until he reached the end of the tunnel which opened up into the larger caverns beneath the mountain.
Going into battle against man or beast or creeping into the realm of an enemy and dispatching a target were all tasks that the warrior would revel in, but this? He shook his head and took a deep breath looked around a final time and with a great sigh, got down on his hands and knees.
He carrier no light as the tunnel was too restrictive and the gale of wind that screamed out of the hole in the mountainside allowed no flame to remain lit. The warrior knew not where or how the wind came; no doubt it was caused by the magic of the eater who dwelt deep within the mountain. No matter.
The warrior entered the tunnel, the noxious wind billowing his hair. He closed his eyes and attempted to ignore the smell upon the wind. The smell was unlike any he had ever encountered anywhere else in the world. It was not terrible as the rancid aroma of the many varieties of decay can be. No this singular smell was not unendurable, but it was not pleasant either. He associated this smell with the eater. With this last thought on his mind, the warrior entered the hole and disappeared from the mountainside.
Deep within the mountain, the nameless warrior reached the cavern to which he journeyed. Inside the cavern, small whirl winds danced here and there, swaying back and forth but not moving across the floor. The warrior was careful to avoid touching anything that reeked of magic. The whirl winds he avoided with great care.
At the center of the cavern, a diminutive creature lay bound in chains. The thing appeared as a naked smallish human that had been liberated of all its hair then oiled, or perhaps coated in slime. The color of the skin upon the whole of the creature always reminded the warrior of a plucked goose, hazy grey. But the resemblance was in color alone, for the skin was as devoid of imperfections as a placid pool of water, liquid smooth. The warrior fell to one knee and bowed deeply to the eater.

The Baz watched placidly as his minion approached and bowed before him. He did not move. The minion reported that his task was fulfilled, the human targets lay dead. The Baz sighed a happy sigh.
He said to his minion, “You have done well, my child. Upon you and you alone do I grant the most high of prizes. For your unwavering service you shall receive the greatest gift of which I possess.”
The minion did not look up, he remained submissive.
The Baz whispered, “I grant you the great honor of feeding the eater.” The last came out with a hiss. The minion looked up suddenly, his eyes wide with surprise. He stared into the eyes of The Baz, now known only as the eater, for less than a heartbeat. The Baz flicked his finger towards his minion and the look of surprise turned to anger then the cold withering shock of pain. The minion fell and began to writhe, his agony becoming absolute.
The Baz smiled as he fed, smiled as he thought of the continued fruition of his plan. Systematically, he was ridding the world of those that practiced the five magics through his minions. Already the five magics were scarce in the world of men a world of technology that had sprung up from the bowels of the magically laden Earth upon which The Baz walked thousands of human years ago.
Very soon, all of those that practiced or even had knowledge of the five magics would be dust. Then The Baz would again walk upon the surface of the world and feed upon the humans which were his cattle. And feed well he would for the humans had gone forth and multiplied. Yes, once the knowledge that had trapped him here, deep in the recesses of the world, was lost, he would be The Baz no longer. When he left this cave for good, The Baz would remain. He would go forth as the eater, taking no chance that his erstwhile name would lead those who would surely oppose him to the magical weapons, the knowledge, that had been his downfall in the war with the ancient Thaumaturge.
The Baz would soon be free. After thousands of years what were a few decades or centuries to wait? He smiled as the screams of his minion began in earnest. The Baz would consume this victim, completely, clothes and all. How could he ever recruit new minions if there were bodies laying about?
His smile deepened as he thought of his growing number of minions loose upon the world of men hastening his return one execution at a time. The Baz could wait; time was his ever present companion.
Soon, he would be free. All that was required was patience and a little bit of faith. The Baz settled in to feed and dream of better days to come.


The Horror
By Jeff Hite


With so many people on board the small vessel, there really was not much room to get things done, but despite that I was not about to complain. They needed to be here, if they were not here they would be on the planet below and that really would not do at all. They had to be here. So many people on the planet had died already there was no need for more to die as well. Not, down there, not alone in space, away from their home world.

"The flu." the doctor announced suddenly
"The flu?"
"Yeah, can you believe it, they were dieing of the flu. This is the first case of it that I have seen, I will have to check the medical records archive to find out f any other colonies have ever experienced it."
"Are we at risk here?"
"Frankly, yes, but since we know what it is, we can counteract it. I already have the cultures growing to vacinace the crew. I suspect that we will end up with a few cases, but only a few. and like I said, knowing what it is means that I can keep the problem to a minimum."
"Alright keep me informed. I don't want any more deaths from the flu. Of all things. Hey, Doc do you know of any cases of the flu being reported. Not just on the colonies, but in the fleet as a whole in the last say ten fifteen years?"
"Hmmm, well now that you mention it, no."
"I wonder how it got down there." He walked out of the sick bay and toward the bridge. He would have to keep a closer eye on his crew, to see if any of them seemed to be coming down with the flu. What did the flu look like, no one he knew had had the flu in his life time, and he was not even sure that he would know what the symptoms would look like. He made a mental note to look it up from his station on the bridge so he would know what to look for. With all these people in such close proximity, he hoped the vacine would be ready soon.

When we left the planet it was for home. A home we had never seen, like bird leaving the nest, or a newly married couple leaving their parents homes to go to thier newly rented apartment. It was a new world, but it would be home. But then we all started getting sick, we wanted to be held by our mother.

"What seems to be the problem?" The Captain knew he was sick, but there was no rest of him. He had to keep the ship going. They had to get home.
"The Problem Captain is that all but two of my crew are sick with the flu. The Doc gave most of them meds and sent them to bed. I am not feeling the greatest, and the ship needs people to keep her running. The engines are running on auto, They always do, but the air systems and the heating and cooling, have needed constant attention since we left the planet. It is too much for just a couple of folks."
"Alright I will see what I can do about getting more people down here. I will send whatever extra people the other teams can spare, can you handle telling them what needs to be done?"
"Yes sir, It is not hard work, just work that needs to be done."
"Alrighty then. I will see what I can do for you."
"Thank you Captain." The captain, left the engineering section for what seemed like the third time today. He had been down there this morning when no one had showed up for duty, to help relieve the two men that were sick.
As you turned a corner to head to the medical bay, he swung his head around too fast and nearly crashed into the wall as his head began to swim from the extra movement. He caught himself and made a note not to do that again. He would have to ask the doc if there was anything he could take for the constant feeling of nausea.

The new planets offered new hope, a chance to grow and expand. Like a new life, a baby being born, each day was a new adventure. There was nothing we could not do. Then the baby died, and there was nothing we could do, and we despaired. It was time to go home. It was time to return to the home planet. It was as it should be. People should not leave. Family is your support system, without family what could you do. You have to return home eventually. My work was hard, and most people would not like it if they found out, but it was necessary. carefully pulled my mask over my face and dumped the contents of the vial into the air recycler. This ship would be a sick for a very long time.

"This is not going to be easy to explain admiral. We have a ship full of sick people. They are from the planet in the Nextilian system. They want to um, come home. There were so many deaths, and after three generations they have had enough. I don't know of any settlers who have ever wanted to come home but these folks do."
"You are right about one thing Captain, I don't know of anyone else who has tried this. I guess there is no harm in them coming back home. the last reports I read said that earth was back to a sustainable population. What are a few tens of people. What is it that every one is sick with?"
"Can you believe it. We have the flu."
"The Flu? As in influenza?"
"That's the one."
"What are you doing about it?"
"We have all been vaccinated but most of just were sick before that could happen. at least if we run into this again we won't get sick."
"That is true. Do you think the rest of the fleet should work on a flu program."
"That would probably be a good idea. The Doctor said that all but the smallest ships should have everything they need to make the vaccine, and the docks should be able to provide those with them with what they need. I have a file here from the doc on how to make it."
"Alright, send it over and I will start sending it out to everyone in the fleet. Meanwhile you continue on your journey home. I see no reason why these people cannot go home if that is what they really want."
"Thank you sir." He signed off his terminal and lay down on his bed, at least the room was not spinning this time and he had not vomited all day. Maybe he was finally getting better. He hoped that after six days he was going to finally be able to get back to normal. It had only been six days but he could barely remember what normal felt like.

We we return home, we will bring with us the things that we learned while we were away. Our parents will treat us like children for a while but they will soon understand that we are not. They will have to reset their expectations. It will take time, but we will work our way through it. And we will show them that we are strong and we have grown.

"Admiral, it is worse that any of us could have feared. The Virus is spreading like wild fire. The only people who do not have it are the folks we brought with us from the planet, because they have already had it. So many people are sick, earth seems to be crippled. We have tired bringing folks in from the moon and Mars to help, but even thought we vaccinate them they seem to get sick, and it just seems to exasterbate the problem."
"Who would have thought that the flu something nearly forgotten would be able to do this."

And the parents will learn, they will learn that they should not scorn their children, and send them away. They are strong now and the parents are weak. They have grown old and well need us to take care of them in their illness. This time we will show them what it means to be ruled over with such a tight grip, and why they should not treat their children in such a way. This time I will show them.

GreatHites Season 2 Episoide 11

This week we have two stories about the prompt from a great hight.

Download this week's Stories

I give a review of The Mad Poet Files By Zach Ricks and The View from Valhalla by Odin1eye

Stories this week by:
Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll
and Jeff Hite

What to talk about the stories, come out to our discussion forum and let us know what you think.

A Different Perspective
By: Philip Carroll

His cell phone rang.

He dug it out of his shirt pocket. With it came his pen and a business card, both of which fell to the floor. He sighed and picked them while he looked at the caller id. "Unknown Caller" was all the screen said. Of course there was no call back number.

He debated answering the call. Who did he know that would have his private number, but have thier own number blocked? Maybe he had given it to an important client. On the last ring before it would go to voice mail, he answered, "this is Harris."

The voice on the other end spoke in a monotone, flat and unemotional, "I didn't think you were going to answer, Chuck. I was about to give up."

Charles didn't recognize the voice.

What was more unusual was he hadn't gone by the name Chuck since he was a child.

His parents had called him Chucky from the time he had learned to crawl, and most family and friends followed suit. It was natural as he grew, the name shortened to Chuck. One night he watched a Charlie Brown special and heard Peppermint Patty call Charlie Brown, Chuck. His youthful mind recognized Peppermint Patty's lack of inconsideration. When she used the nick name with out his approval it seemed condescending. "Chuck", sounded short, cut off and abrupt.

He sought out his parents.

"Mother," he asked, "is Chuck my real name?"

She smiled and rubbed his short blonde hair. "No, Dear, your name is Charles. You're named after your grandfather. He was a powerful lawyer and senator in the 40's and 50's."

He smiled the wide smile of a child who was just given a great gift.

"Then I will be Charles," he said with childish commitment.

"I am Charles," he told everyone he met, both friend and stranger. If anyone called him by his former familiar name, he would stare, glassy eyed, into the unseen distance, until they acquiesced to his preference. By his eighth birthday there were none who would call him by anything else.

"Chuck, are you there?" the monotonous voice broke into his thoughts.

"Charles. Yes, I'm here. Who is this?" he asked, trying to form an impression of the voice, find a picture in his mind, the face of anyone who had spoken to him in such a way.

"I'm tired Chuck. I don't think I can take much more of this. I'm thinking of ending it," the stranger droned.

"I'm Charles, and what do you mean by ending it?" Charles was startled by the stranger's confession.

"I'm on top of a building. You'd remember it. We used to hang out here and talk about our lives, our potentials, our futures. Mine sure went bad, but you seem to have done ok," he mumbled a short humorless laugh.

"A building?" Charles began, but the stranger cut him off.

"Don't think about it Chuck, you can't stop me, now. Not if I decide to. You're miles away anyway," the man spoke this quickly, for the first time altering his mono tonicity.

"No, I'm not trying to interfere," Charles said mentally fishing among the weeds of his own murky thoughts. "I'm sorry, but I'm just trying to place who you are. Would you tell me your name?"

"Chuck," the man said and sighed so deeply, Charles imagined a giant sucking in and exhaling a great wind that would send a fleet of ships sailing across the ocean.

"I'm Charles," he defended when the breath finally ceased.

There was silence from the phone, so long that Charles began to wonder what sounds he might hear from the phone of a man who jumps from the heights of a tall building

"The view is incredible from up here, Chuck," he finally continued. "Don't you remember it? Of all us, you, me, the other guys in the club, I thought you'd remember. I can see the whole city, clear out to the old house, where you grew up. If I stand right next to the wall, and push against it with my knees, I can lean right out over the edge. From this high up the cars are so small they look like toys."

"You see, buddy," Charles said and allowed some of his frustration to boil to the surface in his words. "I never had any friends, I was never in a club, and I grew up in the suburbs, far from any city with tall buildings. I hate to tell you this, because you sound really depressed, but you have the wrong guy."

Charles could hear the man breathing, short, shallow breaths.

"I don't want you to hurt yourself, though," Charles back peddled. The last thing he wanted was to be the cause of someone doing something rash. He had been feeling a bit depressed, himself, recently and could understand how overwhelming the feelings of sadness and hopelessness could be.

"I mean, there have to be people who can help you," he continued. "Tell me where you are and I'll send somebody to help."

"Thanks, Chuck," he was back, "You've done enough. I can see more clearly what I need to do. Good bye."

"Wait," Charles shouted into the phone, but it had cut off and the stranger was gone. Charles held the phone out and stared at its small screen for a long minute. He checked the caller history. There was no return number.

"Chuck," he said, and shook his head. He placed his cell phone on the low wall and looked out across the city to the old house where he had grown up. Below him the cars were so small they looked like toys.


The Rescue
By Jeff Hite

Prometheus hung by the rocks facing them for the first time in nearly ten thousand years and panted. He looked exhausted though he had only climbed a few feet. Rob knew they needed to get out of here if they were going to survive this, but he was making very slow progress.
"I hate to rush you but we need to get moving. Zeus is bound to notice that his eagle as not returned and will start looking for it and then we will all be in trouble."
"I believe we have deeper worries than that." Prometheus motioned with a nod of his head toward the cliffs below.
There far below us was a speck of black that had just come above the clouds. At first it didn't look like much of anything, but as it continued to move up the cliff face, I saw finally that it was the eagle. It was circling and slowly getting higher.
"I am afraid that your rescue attempt may have been in vain. I am spend, and do know know if I will be able to climb any further. She will be here before I can crest the cliff face. And once we have reached the top, there is no place to hide."
"Look I am not going to give up that easy. If I am going to anger the gods I am going to make darn good and sure that I get away with it. But I am not going to just hang here and give up."
"Rob, what is going on?" Larry yelled from above.
"He has no strength, and can't climb. Do you think you can try pulling him up?"
"It will not work. I weight too much. Gods are heavier than you mortals."
"We have to give it a try. Larry start pulling."
"Will do." I saw him step away from the edge of the cliff and the line begin to tighten as he hooked it around some thing to use as some sort of leverage. It a moment the roped was tight and began pulling against the wasted god."
"Come on you have got to try. We can't give up now."
"I will try."
We moved but incredibly slowly, and I tried not to look down to see the eagle's progress. Inch my agonizing inch we made our way toward. I worked on pushing Prometheus as best I could from below, and Larry Strained to pull from above. I lost all track of time.
"Rob, The eagle is about level with you. You need to watch your back."
I turned to see the great bird, her eyes ever watching me circle and go higher, getting above us to make a better attack. There would be no way that we could deflect an attack from her this time.
"Larry we have got to hurry, when she decides to dive we are only going to have a few seconds," I shouted up.
"I'm doing everything I can up here."
"I know." We continued to push and pull because that was all we could do. We were within ten meters of the top when we heard the cry. It sounded like a scream and a battle cry all in one and even without looking I knew were it came from. I took a chance and looked to where I had last seen the eagle, and then began scanning upwards looking for her. When I finally found her she was a great hight above us. Just as she had been a speck when I had first seen her, she was about the same size now. A tiny dot far above me. I knew it would not be long before she started her dive. She would have us both and we would fall like she had fallen, but unlike her, we would have no way to stop our fall.
"She will announce her kill before she attacks. It must be known that she intends to kill, or there will be no honor in it." Prometheus said through pants. I noticed that he was sweating profusely and his muscles all shook from the effort of just hanging there.
"We don't have time to talk about this. Come on we have to get to the top. If we get up there, at least we have a chance to fight her off, here we are sitting ducks."
"She is diving!" Larry's warning from above was like the hammer blow that knocks the wind from you. We moved as quickly as we could knowing it would not be enough. Then Suddenly the line seemed to move much faster. Prometheus was ripped from my hands and pulled up the side of the cliff. I struggled to keep up with him. As he rose up the side of the cliff. Then he was over the top. My line was equally pulled and bang me against the rocks and I struggled just to keep the rocks away from my head.
as we crest the top of the cliff, larry stood dumb founded as his muscles literally steamed with the effort he had made to pull us up the side of the wall. Behind him stood two figures. Meredith stood hand in hand with what looked like another woman, there free hands resting on larry's back.
The new woman looked very thin and almost not quite there. She had longer legs and arms than seemed natural. She wore only a dress of a light material, that was very obviously see through, but yet revealed nothing of what was underneath. Her Hair was the color of spring leaves, only turning brown near her head. She smiled at Meredith, but had the same weary look that I had seen on Prometheus.
It was then that we heard the scream again, the the great bird dove down at us. It happened to fast that I remember being hit but nothing after that until awoke in this place.

GreatHites Season 2 Episoide 12

This week we have a wonderful guest host and seven great stories for you, all about nature's wrath.

And this week Great Hites is hosted by The lovely and talented,

Philippa Ballantine

Download this week's episode

The winner of this week's poll gets a signed copy of "Chasing the Bard" by Philippa Ballantine.

We have Stories this week by:

Philip (Noral Joe) Carroll

Ashley Redden

Scott Roche

Val Griswald Ford<--------- This week's Winner

Jason A Stevens

Jeppe Holm

And Jeff Hite

Don't forget to come out to our Discussion Forum, to share your thoughts about these stories

While flying a kite

By: Norval Joe

Jim looked at Shelly through the corner of his eye. The stiff wind at their backs whipped bright red curls across her eyes and freckled nose and cheeks. He grinned and shouted to make his voice heard above the sound of the wind in their ears, "my kites higher than yours."

"Maybe, but only just," she shouted back.

Black clouds boiled up behind them and blocked out the late afternoon sun. The sudden storm was unusually violent for mid march in the central valley of California. Jim wasn't quite twelve years old, yet, but he had been a boy scout for almost a year. He knew the dangers of an electrical storm.

"Shelly," Jim shouted again. He leaned back into the steady blow and held tight to his spool of kite string.

"We should head in. I'm afraid there's going to be lightning," he continued after she looked in his direction.

Shelly, a year younger than Jim, had been his closest friend for more than half his short life. She nodded and pulled on her kite string to bring it back in.

Jim pulled on his own string. It fought back with violence; like a large fish fights the anglers line, refusing to give up.

Shelly was off first as the wind pulled her up into the air. She kicked her feet as if she was swimming, the soles of her tennis shoes just inches ahead of Jim as his own kite pulled him up into the storm. Shocked at the sight of the ground falling rapidly away, he clung to the spool of string as if to a life preserver. The wind lifted them rapidly up and away, over the houses of their neighborhood.

Jim marvelled as he climbed faster than Shelly. She weighed less than he did. It would make sense that she should rise more easily than he. Jim let the ball of string spin in his hands to play out more line. He slowly dropped back to continue up into the sky, side by side with his childhood friend.

Shelly's arms stretched forward her knuckles white as her fingers clenched tightly on the ball of string. She smiled at Jim, her eyes bright with shocked exhilaration. Her laughter was born away on the violent wind.

Jim felt weightless as he hung from the string. He looked at his own hands. He wasn't hanging, his body was born on the wind like the kite itself. He let go with one hand, stretched out his arms and glided from side to side.

His free hand contacted something and Shelly's hand was suddenly in his own. Her firm, yet not fearful grip, felt hot and alive in the cold wind.

They flew hand in hand high above the green velvet foot hills to the snow crested peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They soared in and out of canyons and rushed past tall snow dusted pines until the winds eased and died. They were deposited lightly on the pristine snow of a high mountain meadow.

Shelly had first blood. Jim chased her across the broad unmarked blanket of snow, scooping up handfuls to press into balls for retaliation. Near the forests edge they both stumbled head long into the powdery snow. They rose, covered with the icy powder and shuffled about, moaning and laughing like two abominable show children.

"Fool," a voice growled from the trees.

A goblin crouched at the boarder of the forest, steaming, fetid, saliva dripped from its pointed, blackened, teeth.

"Dupe," the goblin sneered as it straightened and inched toward Jim. The creature leaned on a gnarled wooden branch, the hide of a dead animal was clasped at his neck and hung down his back like a cloak.

"You've brought her right to me," he cackled and waved his stick at the children.

Dozens more of the hunched grey scaly creatures burst from the forest around the meadow and rushed toward the two youths. The goblins in the hoard wore nothing but a leather thong tied around their waists from which hung knives in rotted leather sheaths and small cloth pouches. They screamed in wicked glee as they rapidly closed on the two humans.

Shelly formed a ball of verdant fire between her cupped hands, her body poised as if ready to fling the ball in to the air. Jim's long sword sang as he pulled it from the scabbard at his shoulder. He stepped casually to Shelly and turned to stand back to back with her, sword held, ready to disembowel any of the fowl creatures to come within reach of the gold etched steel.

Shelly chanted a few rapid phrases and the ball of fire expanded slowly at first, then with a flash, it burst out from the two youths. The fire leveled the first wave of charging goblins. Jim rotated around his companion to destroy any of the creatures to rise and continue the assault.

Shelly began to generate a second ball of power, but hesitated as a thrum was felt as much as it was heard. Like the vibration from a giant guitar string it pulsed from the direction of the cloaked goblin. The fiend clapped its hands together. With a deafening boom it sent a blast across the meadow. Snow leapt up before the giant wave of energy as it spread out from the goblin mage. Jim, Shelly and most of the unfortunate goblems were bowled over by the snow and energy wave. Shelly's ball of flame was blasted away before it could be fully formed.

Buried in the snow Jim heard Shelly's call, though it was faint and sounded very distant.

"Jimmy." Shelly's scream sounded panicked.

"The goblins have Shelly," he thought and thrust his arms around him to orient himself to the firmer snow beneath. With monumental effort he clawed his way to the icy surface to stand, gasping with exhaustion. He saw his friend amidst a mob of gibbering, slavering goblins, as they dragged her toward the forest and the cackling goblin leader. The hilt of his sword protruded from the snow inches from his useless, numb fingers.

"Jimmy," Shelly screamed again through the mass of grey scaly creatures, "do you love me?"

The question hung on the crip winter air like the fragile icicles in the branches of the pines surrounding the meadow.

"Do I love you?" He mumbled the question to himself? "I'm eleven years old."

"Jimmy," her scream was cut off as the goblins dragged her within the trees of the dark, looming forest.

"Shelly," he shouted, but the sound erupted from his throat as a hoarse croak. With his very last ounce of strength he grasped the hilt of his sword, and pulled it from the snow just as King Arthur of legend had drawn his from the stone. He held the blade before him, the steel now as clear and fragile as the ice from which he had pulled it. The golden inscription along the blades fuller floated as if on the air. He read the words, "On my honor, I will do my best...."

The oath, his oath, he had sworn when when adopted into the knightly order echoed in his head, "to help other people at all times..."

Shelly needed help. There was no one else. By his oath, he had to help.

Revitalized, he raced toward the forest and shouted, "Shelly, I love you."

A fluorescent green bolt of light shot from the forest and hit Jim's sword turning it to emerald flame. The ice melted away to be replaced by steel so white and pure the snow appeared grey as new flakes fell against the blade. As the last of the flames dripped from the renewed sword, the fatigue drained from his muscles. The words of the oath etched in the swords length flashed red.

Jim raced headlong into the forest, his only concern, the rescue of his true love. Wtihin the eves of the forest the ground was free of snow. Low ferns spread between the massive tree trunks and concealed the spongy soil. Shelly's battle with the goblims was a frozen tableau in a globe of luminescnet greeen. Jim lept within the light of the globe. He strode forward but moved tediuously slow through the viscous green plasma.

Jim could see, now, the scene before him was not frozen but moved equally slow as his own labored steps. Three goblins had ahold of Shelly by one hand and pulled furiously on her to drag her deeper into the woods. The goblins were much smalleer than the ten year old girl and though they scrabbled and tugged, they were unable to move her from the her protective globe. With her free hand she bekoned toward Jim, a miniature replica of the green sphere floated above her upturned palm.

Jim found the eyes of his struggling friend. He was shocked to see Shelly was not afraid. In fact, she smiled at him in the most obscure way. Her smile was not one of gratitude or relief for being saved, nor was it a smile of excitement or for the thrill of battle. Her smile spoke of confidence, of knowledge, of understanding far beyond her age.

Jim reached Shelly's side.

"I love you Shelly," he said and clasped her hand with his own free hand, the sword still gripped in the other. For only a moment he felt the warmth of the small green ball of energy pressed between their palms. With a roar and a flash of brilliant green the protective bubble evaporated in a rush of wind.

"Jimmy," he heard through the darkness. He dropped his sword.

"Jimmy," he heard Shelly say his name again.

Slowly, his vision cleared and he found himself looking into the green eyes of his long time playmate, her hand still in his.

"I love you Shelly," he said again.

"Jimmy," Shelly said, "you've let go of your kite."

The ball of string bounced across the feild as the wind carried the kite away over the houses of their neighborhood. Jim looked around, suddenly embarassed by his confession, and dropped Shelly's hand as if it were a poisonous snake.

Shelly held fast to her own kite string with one hand as she slipped the other into her coat pocket to hide the small green ball of light. She smiled at Jim, an obscure smile that hinted at knowledge and understanding far beyond her few short years.

The Night Daddy Rode the Wind

By: Ashley Redden

Jaime Cavalier snatched another crab trap from the stack and with a heave placed it onto the bed of his truck. The truck, already laden with traps two double rows deep, six in all, rose and fell groaning with the added load. Crab traps weren’t light when they were new and dry, but when removed from the lake, each trap brought along a goodly portion of the muck from the bottom making each weigh a ton. In a couple of days, the smell would be getting pretty ripe to boot.

Jaime took a moment to breathe, and then pushed the newly loaded trap to the far side of the bed. He wouldn’t be able to close the tailgate of the truck, so he would have to be carful while pulling his boat, the arm of the boat trailer wasn’t long enough to clear the tailgate in a sharp turn, but he didn’t have any choice. Time was running short. The hurricane was coming whether he was ready or not. At least this would be his last trip. He had made three trips already hauling traps back to his house for storage in the back shed. Though this would be a full load, he would finally be through with the task and could move onto other things. Things like surviving the storm.

The name of this hurricane was Jewel. Somebody somewhere was in charge of naming the storms, but Jaime didn’t have a clue how any of that worked. He only knew that the things always were crowned with a name.

Hurricanes and Louisiana went way back together. No one ever remembered the mild storms, the ones that blew through gently or changed course and dropped rivers and rivers of rain as they were downgraded to tropical storms and depressions. The only named storms that people ever remembered where the bad ones, the hurricanes that wreaked untold death and destruction on the people of the bayou state and the surrounding area. Jaime silently hoped that Jewel would be a name that was not remembered.

He loaded up the last of the crab traps and walked around the boat making sure that everything was in its proper place. After checking the traps that were strapped to the boat, Jaime called his wife, Kristy, to let her know he was under way. When he placed the cell phone to his ear, he heard a series of beeps and then nothing more. He looked at the prompt of the phone, which showed little or no signal.

Jaime sighed, “The network is probably shot.”

The service at Pass Manchac had always been sketchy at best on a good day, but with hurricane Jewel bearing down on the area in approximately 24 hours, he could only imagine how many calls were being made as people finished batting down everything that they could in preparation of the storm.

He sighed again as he hoped that Kristy wouldn’t worry. Maybe he could catch her on the way. If not, he would be home in an hour or two, but he hated the idea of her worrying whether need be or not.

Jaime got in his old truck, closed the door and turned the ignition key. The beast of a vehicle roared to life. He took another deep breath, said a quick silent prayer and pulled out of the lot, being a bit more gentle than usual on his 20 foot boat, which was packed from stem to stern with crab traps, in tow. He was taking it easy; after all, he had about fifty of his traps strapped onto the boat and in the truck. If he were to lose any, he would have to stop to recover them and time was short. Better to take it easy and avoid any problems if possible. After checking his cell a final time, he eased onto the road and headed home.

Kristy looked at her watch again then palmed her cell phone, still no signal. She had tried to call Jaime several times all to no avail. To say that the network was shot was an understatement. She rounded the north side of her house and headed for the front door. Kristy doubted that Jaime would accept that the house was ready for the hurricane. He always went behind; it was sort of his thing.

In the early years of their marriage, Kristy had resented this habit of his; his second guessing what seemed like everything that she said and did. But as the years passed and especially when the babies started popping out, she had grown to appreciate him, second guessing and all. Actually, she learned through the years that he wasn’t questioning her in what she said and did at all, it had just seemed that way from her point of view, Jaime wasn’t even aware that he had offended her. Jaime was just extraordinarily thorough in all of his endeavors. When he began a task, no matter how big or small, he always started at the beginning, the very beginning.

She could tell him hundreds of times that there was no need to go back and redo what she had already done, but no matter how much nagging she brought to bear, Jaime would simply smile and say, “I know, I know, but let’s just see anyway ok.”

He was so sweet during these little exchanges that Kristy found that, even in the early years when things like that irritated her to the point of violence, she just couldn’t stay mad at him. Without a doubt, the way something is said or done is so much more important than the actual act or words themselves.

So Kristy had swallowed hard and just walked away. The funny thing was that this habit through the years had actually endeared Jaime to her. She found that his thoroughness, his considerable caring and attention to detail offered Kristy a sense of security that she had never known.

Jaime was always going to be there, no matter what the situation, taking care of things if they needed to be taken care of. Fixing problems or mistakes with a smile on his face and forgiveness born of complete devotion and compassion in his heart. The irony was that one of the few things that Kristy had hated about Jaime, and they were exceedingly few, in the dating and early marriage years, had later made her love him all the more.

She smiled as she considered this blessing amongst so many that had drifted into her life like so many flitting butterflies arriving when you least expect it but always eliciting a smile. Kristy couldn’t have been happier or more fulfilled.

She stopped at the front door and stood facing the drive as Jaime, on cue, pulled that big old grey truck of his off the road and coasted to a stop just behind the carport his bateau just past where she would need to back her car out to leave.

She stood with her hands on her hips and put on her best ‘and just where have you been face’ but even she felt that the effort was at best half-hearted. For Jaime’s part, he just smiled all the more, his big teeth showing for anyone who cared to see.

Shaking her head slightly, Kristy sighed and dropped her hands, and grinned herself. Sometimes, it irritated her that she never really seemed to get mad at him, or if she did it just didn’t last. But she always dismissed these thoughts as silly. After all, she and Jaime had four girls, that’s what happened when you keep trying for a boy, you end up with a bevy of girl children, a dog and a wonderful relationship. So many of her friends had fling after fling that usually started with a bang but ended with a thud or worse, with the police on the front porch. Silly indeed.

She shook her head as she headed over to greet her spouse, a person in whom she had no compunction whatsoever in referring to as her better half because Kristy knew without a doubt that Jaime would do the same.

Kristy wrapped her long arms around Jaime as he came around the front of the truck and eased up on her tiptoes to peck his nose. Jaime sighed and said, “Sorry that I didn’t call. The network is a mess.”

“Yeah, I know. I think the towers may be tied up worse than when the saints won the super bowl,” she added with a grin leaning back.

“Uh huh, it’s just a shame that the occasion isn’t better.”

Sliding her arms from around his neck to his waist, they walked arm in arm toward the house. Jaime cocked his head and added, “At least this hurricane isn’t supposed to be too bad.”

“It’d be better if it would just go back the way it came.”

“Yeah,” answered Jaime. He detached himself from his wife and said, “I’m going to do a once over before we go in. If we get busy, we probably won’t have the chance again before morning when the storm arrives.” He smiled indulgently and said, “I know you’ve already been round and that everything is picked up and bolted down, but I just want to make sure, ok?”

“Ok,” answered Kristy as she gave his big shoulder a squeeze before turning toward the door. Just before going in, she glanced back at her man walking with his head on a swivel determined to check everything, to make sure that each and every little detail was taken care of to keep Kristy and the girls safe and secure. Kristy smiled, born from utter satisfaction of contentment. This hurricane was not Jaime or Kristy’s first nor, God willing, would it be their last to have to endure.

But, today would most definitely be a very good day. Breakfast, lunch and supper would consist of seafood as the family cooked as much of the really perishable frozen foods as possible. Everybody in the house just loved seafood, crabs, shrimp and most of all fish, saltwater and fresh. Yes, today would most assuredly be a very good day. Tomorrow, the family may not fare as well, but today would be grand.

The Cavaliers would spend the entire day together and everyone would eat well and not only well, but the things they loved most. What could be better than that? With a happy skip in her step, she turned for the door and entered her home.

Jaime awoke to the rattling of windows in the dark. He half rose from bed, his legs still beneath the covers and listened to the ebb and flow of the roaring wind outside. He shook his head; it was really starting to get after it out there. A glance at his watch left him a bit surprised. The time was 5:45AM. The hurricane, what was its name, Jewel, was supposed to come ashore around 7:00AM.

Usually the hurricane center was pretty accurate, but hurricanes tend to be loath when it comes to following predictions. Despite all the knowledge obtained in the previous decades, the weather guys were still guessing. Though they were making very educated guesses, the forecasts were still conjecture none the less.

Jaime rose from bed fully and put on his clothes that he had laid out the night before. A glace at the clock told the tale for the electricity. The clock on the dresser across the room shone bright red in the dark and read 5:47AM. The prompt held steady meaning that the power hadn’t surged or blinked, which was encouraging. Maybe they would be able to ride this storm out and keep the power. He sighed, hope springs eternal.

He made his way to the kitchen and started the coffee pot, which he had loaded the night before as well. Coffee in South Louisiana was right up there next to Godliness. He looked back expecting the dog, Sam, to come waddling down the hall looking for a treat and some fresh grass to go water. But Jaime was alone this morning. The dog was afraid of the wind, any loud noise really, so it wasn’t surprising that he had stayed in the bedroom this morning, probably beneath the bed.

Jaime whispered, “Pass on by Jewel, just pass on by you powerful old girl you. Please be kind to me and mine.”

The smell of coffee, rich fresh brewed coffee, began to fill the kitchen as Jaime sat down at the bar and rested his chin on his hands. He breathed deep of the hearty aroma supplied by the percolator and eased his eyes closed endeavoring to enjoy the solitude of the early morning.

As Jaime sat listening to the storm brewing outside, he frowned. Still frowning, he listened for a moment longer. The roaring of the wind was growing louder and louder. Jaime’s eyes popped open and he stood slowly but with purpose. He looked over at the window as he listened to the raging of the storm. His frown deepened. Suddenly, Jaime’s eyes grew wide and he ran to the bedroom and shook his wife.

He said quickly, “Kristy, get up and get into the closet, the one in our bathroom.”

She shook her head and asked groggily, “What’s the matter?”

“Just do as I say and get yourself into that closet right now. I’m going to get the girls,” Jaime said breathlessly as he hurried from the room.

He sprinted down the hall and into the first bedroom, where the two youngest were sleeping. Jaime grabbed up the first girl, Anne, covers and all in his left hand and the other, Betsy, in his right.

As Jaime passed the front door, he could hear the glass panels rattling from the force of the wind. Jaime ran straight to the closet of the master bedroom, the closet located almost exactly in the center of the house. He bounded through the closet door and plopped both girls, still asleep, into his wife’s outstretched hands and then turned on his heels and rushed out.

Kristy called, “What is it?” The fear in her voice was palpable. Jaime didn’t slow to answer; by the time the question was asked he was long gone.

Jaime raced through the house; the deep roar of the wind was now in stereo. Even though the house was still closed, the immense roaring of the wind seemed to be all around. Jaime slammed through Kelly’s door while calling out the Jessica. He snatched up Kelly, who mumbled and struggled a bit, but Jaime held her clenched to his chest.

As he passed Jessica’s room, she shambled out and he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along.

Jaime screamed, “For God’s sake come on. Follow me Jess.”

Jessica, instantly awake, ran after her father. The sound of the wind roared and roared. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the closet, though it was probably on a matter of seconds. But by the time Jaime and his two daughters arrived, the house was adding to the cacophony now, moaning and popping, groaning in its timbered bones.

Jaime deposited the girl into the outstretched hands of his wife and drug Jessica through the door bodily and pushed her onto floor at the far wall farthest from the door in which he now stood like a sentinel. He slammed the door and yelled at Kristy, “Get them into the far corner and all of you huddle.”

Kristy yelled back, “Jaime, what in the hell is going on? It sounds like a freight train is running over the house.”

Jaime yelled back, “Tornado.”

He looked back at the door one more time; even though it was pitch dark now in the closet and turned to move towards his huddled family. Suddenly, there was a great sound, as if all the noises of the world were mashed into one screeching roaring moment. At the same time, the house lurched throwing Jaime back against the door.

He looked up, still on his feet and his mouth fell open. There was light above. He could see, right up through the ceiling. The swirling monster above his head took his breath away in a ragged gasp riveting Jaime in place. Just as suddenly as he glanced upward, he was lashed by the wind and rain from above. As he watched rapt, the roof above his family was peeled back as if by some great malevolent hand and disappeared into the gloom.

The house bucked again as the roofline to his right lifted and fell, causing the house to pitch and sway again and great chunks of wood, of his house, to fly over him. The structure of the house to his left twisted and as if attempting to break free and escape.

Jaime almost ducked as a rafter dipped down and smoothly lifted him bodily up over the door and out of the house. He didn’t even have time to scream. Kristy looked up from the pile of children that she lay upon. When she couldn’t see Jaime, she screamed his name, once, then again, then over and over. Eventually, she hunkered down to try to protect the girls as best she could, her wails of fear and horror mixed with those of her children as that lay beneath her. The wind and rain and horrible, horrible bass roaring sound seemed to go on forever.

Eventually, though Kristy had no idea how much time had passed, the roaring stopped or lessened, but the wind continued to blow in great gusts and gales as Jewel made her lumbering way over the house. A wall had fallen and tilted over her small family offering some shelter, but the horror of exposure to one of the purest forms of the wrath of nature continued unabated.

Sometime later, the wind eased up, not subsiding, but lessening. Strong arms gripped Kristy and lifted her limp body up. She released her girls, but wouldn’t look into the eyes of her rescuer; she was too spent, too emotionally broken to even look up. A gentle hand cupped her chin and raised her face.

Kristy gasped as she stared into the bruised and battered but oh so wonderful face of Jaime, her rescuer, her provider, her one true love. She grabbed him and squeezed with all her might. Kristy looked up again into the eyes of her husband. She said nothing; words wouldn’t come to her, they didn’t exist. At that moment, nothing that she could have said would have been adequate, so she just stared up into his bright hazel eyes.

The four girls were up now hugging on both Jaime and Kristy weeping openly. Kristy looked back up at Jaime as he was speaking to the girls, seemingly one at a time. He was telling them each not to be afraid, that the wind just lifted daddy up and put him in a tree. Despite everything they had just gone through, Kristy smiled. She could just begin to picture the beginnings of a story that if the good lord willed, would be passed down to the grandkids from the horse’s mouth himself. Just hours after the event, the great tale of the night daddy rode the wind had begun to be woven. With Jaime’s silken tongue and his propensity for making tall tales taller, this story had the makings of turning into a real doozy.

Kristy smiled wider and rubbed at the side of her wind burned face and said a silent prayer for thanks. The Cavalier’s had just lost their house, but home was and is most definitely where the heart is. And as Kristy gazed at her battered but not broken family, she realized that her heart had five parts and each was standing within arms reach. Yes, the Cavalier’s had just lost a house, but without a doubt they still had a home. That home would be where ever the six of them were…together. The Cavalier’s were going to be just fine.

Hell Hath No Fury

By: Scott Roche

Mike looked through the bubble window the of the X-5400 to the surface of the earth far below. He couldn't get over how unreal it all was. Even with a couple of hundred hours logged in the single man spacecraft, seeing the curvature of the Earth and the natural and man made features visible at over a hundred kilometers in the air gave him a thrill.

At this altitude he could make out what was left of the southern half of California, even through the pall of smoke. The ocean was broken up by a series of volcanoes called the Pleiades. the "seven sisters" started near where Los Angeles used to be and marched south and east from there.

"Begin recording." The vocalization wasn't really necessary. All of the Schmoo's controls were thought activated. Named for a amorphous, white cartoon character thanks to it's own bulbous shape, the 5400 was packed with all sorts of cutting edge gadgetry. He didn't understand half of it, but he could fly the thing and he had the "right stuff" at least according to the Toyota-Dell collective. The mega-corp was paying his considerable salary, so he wasn't going to second guess them, but he thought having a chip head along on the flight would have been nice. Like early twenty-first century deep sea research vehicles though, these ultra high altitude air craft didn't have the room.

Holographic readouts, most of which he did understand, begin spitting out images and numbers. He payed some attention to them, but relied on the system to warn him if anything truly remarkable came up. His primary mission this go around had nothing to do with the Pleiades directly, but ever since they cropped up twenty years ago, they were under constant scrutiny from a number of interested parties. Losing most of one of the largest and most populous states in the union of fifty-four had that effect.

"Bring up weather." He thought the new readout in place, moving the other screens to one side. The clouds that he could see with the naked eye where overlaid with data about conditions inside them and air currents he couldn't see were brought into relief. He focused his attention on what he was here to look at. The super typhoon that was headed for the coast was the biggest on record. The monster covered ten degrees of latitude and according to the information currently pulled up had sustained winds that were topping a hundred and sixty miles an hour.

The white coats convinced the power that be, that experimenting on this thing would be in the country's best interests. The number of these sorts of storms, whether you called them cyclones, hurricanes, or typhoons, had tripled in the last decade. None of them had been this big, though every year seemed to bring a record breaker somewhere in the world. That had given them both the motive and opportunity to resurrect Project Stormfury, attempting to dissipate or reduce the effects of these storms before they made landfall. When the Joint Typhoon Warning Center picked up the formation of this one, called the Jade Dragon, they decided that it would make the first vitally important field test. If their efforts didn't succeed then the Dragon would shred the coastline, what was left of it. The greatest concern wasn't even the population, since most folks had moved east, but the scientific installations that were a vital part of keeping an eye on the Sisters. If it made landfall at its current strength then the damage could run into the trillions of dollars.

He picked out the spot where he'd perform the insertion and began slowly heading in that direction. His payload of chemicals would seedthe clouds, dropping the temperature of the eye wall and reducing the storm's strength and diverting it. They couldn't kill it completely, at least not yet, but this should do the trick. This was Mike's third such mission and he was confident that he could nail the insertion. Flying the Schmoo as close to a monster like this as he was go to have to required a greater level of confidence than any sane person should have, but those that knew him didn't give him much credit in the sanity department.

"X5400 you're to divert your course. Pull off and abort your mission." The feminine voice had an edge to it, barking at him out of the speakers near his head. It surprised him because it wasn't one he recognized and no stranger should be able to get on his encoded channel.

"Who is this and by who's authorization are you advising me to abort?" His puzzlement had a tinge of annoyance to it. He wasn't angry yet, but if someone was playing with him they'd come to regret it.

"We are Mother Nature and you will stand down."

Mike swore in his head. The capital letters were audible. Mother Nature was one of those extreme environmental groups directly descended from Greenpeace and the like. The scuttlebutt was that they had interfered on a small scale with earlier seeding attempts and they were against any attempts to modify or even monitor the increasingly drastic climatological changes that were happening. "I will not."

Warning klaxons sounded and telltales flashed on his readout. Sensors indicated that four other vehicles were suddenly in his air space. They were Albatrosses, civilian craft based on the design for some of the early extreme altitude aircraft. No legitimate transponder information was being transmitted, each only identified by the call sign "Mutha" one through four.

"You will, or we will damage your craft."

They would do that, it was no empty threat. He had known pilots and sailors that lost their ships thanks to this group. One he knew of had even lost their life. The ships might be armed or they might have other tricks up their sleeves. The Schmoo was faster than the civilian craft, if they were stock, and he was more maneuverable and a better pilot more than likely. They had the jump on him though. Better to try reasoning with them.

"Look Mutha One, I can't just abort on your say so. I need to call down to control and get the okay. If I tell them what's going on thy'll probably okay the wave off." That was mostly true. He had no desire to do any such thing though.

"Negative, negative." The speaker crackled again. "We've disabled your communications and you will adjust your course to the landing coordinates we give you. If you don't then things won't go well for you."

A quick check revealed that he was indeed unable to reach out. He wasn't enough of a chip head to know what they did to him. He was smart enough to know that if they could do that then there were other things they could do to make that promise stick. Coordinates came up on his screen. It was a place on the Bering Land Bridge. Seismic activity had reestablished the connection between Russia and Alaska and it was a notorious hideout for pirates of all kinds. If he landed this ship with its expensive cargo there it would disappear into the underground.

If, and it was a big if, he came out of that place alive, he knew he'd never have a job again. The mega-corps hired men like him because they could handle themselves in even the wildest of situations. If he just went belly up or lost company property he'd be a pariah.

"Adjusting coordinates." He plugged them in, but also thought hard, concentrating on the series of maneuvers he wanted to execute next. There was no way he was going down without a fight. His fingers itched for a control stick to yank on and pedals for his feet. He also wished for a real gun, but part of being a good pilot was the ability to adapt and improvise.

The altimeter quickly ticked down. They wouldn't hit proper atmosphere for dozens of kilometers yet. There was nothing much he could do until then. He know the Albatross and it's limitations and he knew the Schmoo and its advantages. The good thing was, he was one of the few people who knew both. Until they hit real air though, none of that mattered.

"So look Mutha One." His inner twelve year old giggled. "What's this all about?" He didn't really care, but anything to pass the time.

"We know what you're trying to do here. We also know that if you do it, whether you're 'successful' or not, it's a perversion. It's our goal to stop any such acts where we're able to."

He nearly sighed into the receiver. It was hard to deal with people who thought in terms of something being a 'perversion'. In addition to not being a chip head he also wasn't a psychoanalyst or particularly religious and these greenies were as fanatical as any believer and some seemed just plain nuts. "Stopping me won't stop the 'perversion'. They'll just send up another stick jockey to take care of business."

"That isn't true. We know that yours is the only ship capable of carrying out this particular mission at least in the window that they have open. The Jade Dragon will consume the monitoring stations and that will set back any opportunity to further manipulate the Earth Mother's body for a time."

He fought to keep himself from laughing. He didn't have to fight too hard though. These folks were serious and this was no game. Still their party line was almost laughable. "And in the meantime I lose my job."

"Better your job than your life. Better still your job than the lives of others."

That caught him up short. "Just what do you mean by that?"

"Our prediction is that if you succeed in your mission you will redirect the Dragon away from the west coast of the United States where it will hurt few if any people, destroying only some equipment and hampering the study of the Pleiades."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"According to our predictions the Dragon will be stalled out for a day, perhaps two and then it will strengthen and change course for Central America. There the storm will wipe out a significant portion of the population."

He thought about that. It didn't seem likely that the people in charge of this would be willing to risk that. Then again, he knew his share of white coats that cared more for their machines than they did the people they were supposed to be protecting. Still, they were people too and he had a job to do. "How is it that your data is so much better than the predictions that Toyota-Dell came up with?"

"We're using the same data and in fact our predictions are concurrent with theirs. We hacked their system a long time ago and have been watching it. Both our model and theirs predict between a seventy and seventy-five percent chance of landfall in Mexico. There is a chance that it will simply spin out and that you will truly succeed. Ultimately, either way, the stations along the fault lines will be untouched. Come with us and you will be safe, as will the citizens of Mexico. Don't and we'll be forced to damage your ship, likely killing you." The woman's words were colder than the air outside.

He saw that they had indeed hit the true atmosphere. Should he risk it? If what they said was true then the people he worked for were just as maniacal about their beliefs as these greenies. It was all about the science. Of course hopefully they would use that science for the betterment of the planet, but at what cost? Maybe he could go with them, join them.

Ultimately it came down to his paycheck though. He wanted his job and everything that went with it. Go along peacefully for whatever motive and all that was gone. He exestued the commands that were already programmed into his console. The changes that came over his ship were phenomenal. Wings extruded from its surface. Air intakes grew as though a mouth were yawning. The metamorphosis turned the 5400 from an orbital platform into a serious airplane. Every time he witnessed it, he was amazed. He had no idea how it held together under the strain, but hold together it did.

With the sudden added maneuverability, he was able to pull away and bank down. The Albatrosses, no match for the suddenly airworthy vehicle were left in the dust. The green blips on his readout were left in his proverbial dust. He kept his eyes open for any other ships, just in case they had support.

It was then that he heard Mutha One's voice come from his console. "You made your choice." There was a sudden flash of light and the roar that followed was head splitting. After that there was nothing but darkness.

~~~~~

Mike opened his eyes. The smell of hospital filled his head. Even in the midst of the twenty-first century the smell really hadn't changed.

"Ah, you're awake."

The voice of Jennifer Chow was one that he recognized readily enough. He sat up slowly. "Jen. Where am I?"

The attractive and primly dressed women stood near his bed, a tower of strength. No concern marred her features. "Honolulu. We rushed you to the nearest hospital as soon as your capsule was recovered. You were ... pretty banged up."

He felt well enough. Looking down at his hands and the body enshrouded in a blanket, nothing seemed amiss.

As if anticipating his next question, she went on. "There was a malfunction in the 5400's systems. Thankfully the automated eject feature worked when it lost hull integrity. We weren't able to recover the mission data past a certain point, about an hour before it went dark. What happened?"

He shrugged his shoulders. If they didn't know about the hijacking, he'd play dumb for now. "Like you said, must have been a malfunction. The last thing I remember was heading down for the drop. How long have I been out?"

She sat on the edge of the bed. "About two weeks..."

"Two weeks?" He sat up straight and looked at the holo at the foot of the bed. The date there confirmed her words. "The storm, the mission, what happened?"

A reassuring pat on his shoulder didn't have the intended effect. "We were able to scramble a back up unit. They were able to drop the payload. Unfortunately things didn't go quite the way we hoped."

The bottom of his stomach dropped out. He recalled Mutha One's predictions. Setting aside his lengthy recuperation for the moment, he pressed. "What happened?"

The bed didn't shift as she stood and walked to the window. "The storm faltered. At first we thought everything went as we had intended, but after twenty hours the storm strengthened and looped around towards Mexico." There was a catch in her voice. "They're saying that the death toll is in the mid six figures at this point."

He had nothing to say. Mutha One had been spot on in her predictions. If she were right about that, then what else had she been right about? His brain was a turmoil of emotions. He had been spared pulling the trigger on a half million people. Toyota-Dell had their precious science stations. The only thing he was certain of was that he'd be dissolving his relationship with the mega-corp and taking a trip north as soon as he was physically able. The coordinates to the Bering straight burned bright in his mind.

Unchained

By: Val Griswold-Ford

It was the absence of sound that woke her.

When Brianna had come down to the lake, her fishing pole over her shoulder and the small soft cooler bumping against her right hip, the entire area had been alive with noise. Birds called to one another from the apple trees that edged the small cove, trying to entice their mates with flowing bits of song that made her smile. The trees themselves wore their spring best, lovely white flowers that shivered in the warm breeze, scenting the air with their sweet fragrance. And the landlords across the lake had added a waterfall last fall to the small river on their side: it burbled and splashed merrily, a sparkling undercurrent of sound to the birdsongs. Brianna had kicked off her shoes and stood on the sand, taking slow, deep breaths of free air, trying not to aggravate her bruised ribs as she savored the peacefulness of the cove.

She needed the peace. Badly.

It hadn't taken her long to set up: pole propped on a convenient forked stick she'd found on the walk in, brightly colored bobber floating in the water, can of Mountain Dew cracked open beside her as she lazed back on the warm sand. It had been a long, cold winter, and Brianna was determined to enjoy her first day off in a long while.

Alone. Without Joe.

Even basking in the brilliant sunshine, her skin had prickled and she’d shivered a little when his name had crossed her mind. Stupid, of course. Joe loved her.

He loved her. Then again, they'd always loved her. That was, after all, part of the problem.

She'd put those thoughts aside and concentrated on enjoying the day, tired though she was. Which had meant, of course, that the warm sun and birdsong had lulled her into a drowsy half-sleep quickly.

Now, though, she sat up, suddenly aware that the sun was gone, hidden by grey clouds that had boiled up out of no where. The birds were silent, huddled among the apple blossoms in their nests, waiting for the rain that they could all smell on the still air. Brianna took another deep breath, feeling her chest tighten, feeling the burn as her ribs protested, and decided that rain, even late April rain, wasn't going to cut her day short.

"I'm going out to the cove," she'd said, and Joe had smiled.

"Come straight home when you're fished out," he'd said. "I've got a surprise planned."

Brianna wondered if it would be one of his good surprises. She hadn't been able to tell, and she wasn't yet recovered from the last surprise. But there was always hope - it had been a good week for him at work, and he'd seemed chipper enough when she'd left. Maybe it wouldn't leave marks this time.

She leaned back on her elbows and regarded her toes somberly. It was time to be moving on, really, but she hadn't figured out how to tell Joe that yet. He'd pitch a fit, of course, but it couldn't be helped. Brianna needed to be away from here - it was all getting too familiar, too easy, and she couldn't live like that. She needed adventure. Needed new things, new people, new sensations.

Not that she wouldn't miss Joe, of course. Even if he did leave bruises and cuts when he was angry. Brianna could live with that, she supposed - she had for nearly three years, after all. But she'd never stayed in one place more than four years, and by then, she'd been crawling out of her own skin to get away. She'd loved that small town in Texas, loved Michael with all her heart, or so she'd thought. But she hadn't been able to stay. Her feet itched far too much, and there was always Brendan, calling to her. And he’d been calling lately – she’d felt it in her blood, the deep rumble of his presence. Despite everything, she couldn’t ignore him, any more than he could ignore her. And if Michael hadn't been able to hold her, keep her from returning to Brendan, then Joe definitely wouldn't.

"I should leave from here."

Her voice broke the stillness, rippling across the water and splashing gently on the farthest banks. This, this she would miss most. Not Joe and his painful love. Not the small cafe where she bused tables and chatted with grandmothers and would-be bestsellers. Not even the little cottage she'd lived in, with Joe and his beagle. But here, at the cove, where she fished.

The more she thought about it, the more Brianna realized that yes, leaving from the cove was her best option. There was nothing in the cottage she would miss. Brianna believed in traveling light - sometimes, even memories weighed too much.

The first drops of rain hit the gently rolling surface of the lake, each drop a distinct sound. She raised her face up to the sky as it let go, water falling faster and faster around her, drenching her. Underneath the steady downpour, Brianna could faintly hear the twittering of the birds as they complained from their nests. No complaints from her, though - Brianna loved a good rainstorm.

She stood and stretched slowly, feeling her body ache in response. Last weekend, Joe had been in one of his moods, angry at the world, and her skin had been the canvas upon which he painted his revenge. For the last time, although neither of them had known it at that point. Brianna wouldn't miss the beatings, but she would miss his guilt; he was always so tender afterwards, caring for her, easing the pain. She would miss his kisses. For a while, anyways, until she found someone else.

There was always someone else.

Her clothes hung wet and heavy; Brianna frowned and then looked to the far shore. Occasionally, there were picnickers that camped there, but it was early in the season yet and the area was empty, as far as she could tell. The rain was steady but not blinding, a determined rain, but not a harsh one. And she was alone.

Brianna pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it on the sand, then shimmied out of her jeans and kicked them over with the shirt. Her bra followed, and then her underwear. She stood on the beach, a bare goddess, letting the rain wash her sins and her memories away.

"Brianna."

She turned slowly, her dark eyes wide in surprise. There had been no one else there. No one. And yet, she'd clearly heard her name. Thunder rumbled, off in the distance, low and deep. Had he found her already?

“Who’s there?” It came out slightly high and squeaky, as one hand came up to cover her breasts, but other than a slow, creeping fog by the waterfall, there was nothing she hadn’t seen earlier. “Come out where I can see you.” Had he found her again?

Nothing moved for a moment, and the only sounds were the rain and her own breathing. Then thunder rumbled again, and she heard again in the aftermath, “Brianna.”

No, not Brendan, she decided, the cool rain drummed insistently on her wet skin. But definitely male – and familiar.

Very familiar.

Her lips pulled back in an unconscious snarl as she glared in the direction the voice had come from – the apple trees she’d walked by earlier. “Get out here now!” she shouted, fear melting into anger as she waited for Joe to appear. When he didn’t, Brianna dropped her hands to her sides and stamped one bare foot angrily. “Dammit, Joe, stop playing around and get out here!”

Still no one appeared. Thunder crashed, a bit louder than before, and the rain picked up a bit harder, beating the surface of the small lake with large drops. Brianna clenched her fists. “Get out here NOW!” Lightning crackled on her final word, as if emphasizing her anger.

One of the trees began to shiver, shedding white petals like a flower girl in June, and there was a dull thud as Joe slid into view, a slightly sheepish grin on his face. “Hey, Bri, nice outfit.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and snorted. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you. I missed you.” He stepped onto the sand. “I wondered why you didn’t come home when it started to rain.”

“It just started to rain,” she said. “And you didn’t just show up. Why did you have to come here? This is my one place to myself! Why did you have to come and ruin it, when I won’t be coming back anymore?”

He blinked, obviously surprised at her reaction. “I…uh, what?”

“This is my last day here, Joe! And you had to spoil it!” Anger was turning to rage – how dare he invade her territory? Lightning sparked again, closer this time, and she could smell the ozone in the air. The boom of the thunder was barely a minute behind the flash. Brianna wondered if the sky was darkening – how late was it? Too late, she realized. Too late for both of them.

“What do you mean, your last day here?” Joe stepped forward again, frowning. “Where are you going?”

Brianna glowered at him, refusing to back up even as she saw the anger ignite in his blue eyes. “I’m leaving.” This wasn't the way she'd wanted to do it, but he'd given her no choice.

“What?” The word burst from him. “Why?”

“Because it’s time for me to go, Joe.” Fury burned along her veins, lightning anger that threatened to burst through her skin as he continued towards her, encroaching further on her territory. “I can’t stay with you any longer.”

“And since when is that your call?” He was almost close enough to touch her, and she smelled ozone again. Brianna raised her chin.

“You don’t own me. I’ll come and go as I please.”

“No, you won’t.”

Joe grabbed her arms, hard, his fingers digging deep into her flesh, and she closed her eyes to avoid his furious gaze. Normally, when he got like this, Brianna went quiet, but that was at the cottage. Not here, with the thunder and lightning dancing around them and the rain now falling hard enough to hide the farther shore. She snarled at him again, an animalistic noise that ground its way up from her belly, and squirmed.

“Let me go!” She uncrossed her arms and threw them outwards in an attempt to break his hold, but Joe’s fingers simply tightened even further. “It’s over!”

“It’s not over until I say so!” he snapped, and those words echoed in her head, repeating louder and louder, mixing with the pouring rain until the sound threatened to drown her. The fire in her veins ran hotter and hotter – Brianna couldn’t hold it in any longer.

The smell of ozone surrounded her, followed by the loudest boom of thunder Brianna had ever heard. It vibrated through her as if part of the fire, and the ground shook. Joe’s hands tightened even more around her upper arms and she cried out, partly in surprise and partly in pain.

When the last rumblings of the thunder faded, she opened her eyes again. Joe still held her tightly, his eyes wide – not with anger, but with fear. Rain hissed when it hit his skin; smoke rose from him, and steam, and Brianna realized how very, very still he was.

Deathly still.

“I thought you promised not to kill this one.”

She glared over Joe’s shoulder as Brendan stepped out from the tree, but there was love, not anger, warming her at the sight of him. “I thought you promised not to be late anymore.”

“It’s not like you sent out invitations, Bri. I had to find you when you didn’t answer my call.” His dark eyes twinkled at her. “Nice outfit.”

Brianna grinned, unable to resist him. “I’m glad you like it.” She nodded at Joe. “Help?”

Electricity danced along her skin as Brendan's fingertips brushed against her. "Always." She stood still as he peeled the dead man's hands from her, waiting until he'd lain Joe down next to her abandoned fishing pole. "There," he said finally, standing up and dusting wet sand from his hands. "Now they'll think he was fishing, and got hit by lightning."

"The truth," Brianna agreed, twining an arm around Brendan's waist and laying her head on his shoulder. "I was coming to find you, you know. After the storm."

"I know you love a good storm," Brendan said. "Shall we?"

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his shirt. "Let's."

They walked out through the rain, lightning flickering over her skin and thunder booming with each of his footsteps, together again. At least, until she felt the urge to leave again.

She always left. Which was fine, since they both knew he would always follow her.

Feedback

By: Jason A. Stevens

Daniel knew this was wrong. He’d known even before the residents of the nearby village had fallen gravely ill, many dying. Fascinating as the energy field was, no one could deny the connection between it and the natives. They could do amazing things, and when his superiors had noted the corresponding deficiency in the field (which itself had taken over a decade to detect), they wasted no time in taking strides to obtain similar powers for themselves. None even bothered to think of the obvious consequences their research might have.

As the research had commenced, only a generalized malaise had settled over the villagers. That first tentative boring into the earth towards the concentration of energy had yielded a wealth of data, but nothing of immediate use. Those in charge had demanded results quickly, missing the comforts of home and wanting to return to their pampered lives. As they had the ultimate authority over this expedition, they’d overruled the protests of the scientists and had brought in the heavy mining equipment, which had caused quite a stink with the established colonists at the perceived theft of their resources.

Only when the mining had begun in earnest had the villagers begun to suffer, their cries of dismay and agony long-lasting and loud. That was bad enough, but Daniel feared that relations between the established colonists and the natives, already strained, might soon be pushed past the breaking point. General Roth had no compunctions about gunning down the group of villagers resilient enough to march over, demanding they stop, and only the intervention of Daniel and a handful of the other researchers had stopped them from doing so. Even the Intergalactic Terran Confederacy wasn’t free of the cold, self-absorbed attitude so prevalent throughout the ages.

Most of the actual colonists shared Daniel’s way of thinking. They didn’t want to cause conflict, just wanted to coexist peacefully and learn about the unique properties of Phena in their own time. The leadership did have a few noteworthy breakthroughs, but in large part didn’t care to build partnerships with the natives. It wouldn’t surprise Daniel if their leadership soon fell. The treatment developed to protect the neural synapses from being confused by the unique energy signature prevalent on Phena could only get them so far. While it had allowed those sensitive to the field to remove the cumbersome biosuits, not everyone had needed it, and those who had received it lacked the perpetual state of wonderment those who hadn’t felt with each passing moment. Bitterness and resentment could make a potent brew. As a psychologist and anthropologist, Daniel knew that quite well.

With a sigh, he looked towards the monitor showing the gaping pit in the ground and the long mechanical shaft piecing ever deeper towards one of the planet’s many foci. Wrong, ugly, and unnatural. A number of cables led from the top of the drill to a specially designed containment unit, which showed little sign of storage. They’d already drilled so deep, and had nothing to show but numerous pieces of broken equipment. Those breakdowns had continued at an increasing rate the deeper they’d gotten, and they now faced a shortage of of parts.

The drill started again, and Daniel winced at the screech it made before pounding its way deeper. The noise grew ever more labored as black smoke started pouring from the top of the machine, and while all present knew to stay well back, it was only sheer luck that prevented Daniel’s friend from being impaled by a gear that had gone flying. Said gear now lay buried in the ground, only its top few teeth showing, almost half a mile from the borehole. Over the comlink Daniel heard his friend cursing in awe, and with good reason. This had been the most intense reaction yet.

Even so, Daniel knew General Roth wasn’t about to give up, especially when he noted that the storage unit had seen a brief spike of activity. Perhaps the drill had broken irrevocably, but the engineers had quite a bit of talent. He decided he didn’t want to be present for the drill’s last hurrah, especially given the migraine that had taken hold when the gear had blown free. Only worse could lie in wait, and General Roth surprised Daniel by granting his request for three days leave.

Daniel had no desire to question the decision, though, and headed off to the nearby village to put at least some distance between himself and what he felt sure to come. Maybe he could even convince the residents to retreat to safety. He, at least, had a decent relationship with them, as did his friend Frank, who Daniel was glad to see a short distance ahead of him. He called out and the two walked to the village together.

***

General Roth didn’t feel any sadness over letting the two cowardly men go. Neither provided an essential role to the operation at hand, and he knew that they wouldn’t try anything stupid to stop him. This operation had swelled to greater import than either of them knew. Communications with the ITC had grown virtually nonexistent, with little word reaching this remote outpost. What news did reach his ears was quite disconcerting. Rumors of rebellion and invasion. The loss of once-strong sections of their domain. The last direct communication had come over a year ago, and that had only contained the faintest trace of concern for the Confederacy’s well-being.

Since then, it seemed the Phena colonists had faded into obscurity, forgotten. The fleeting news they’d received had come from standard news channels, which out here had always been spotty at best. It appeared ever more certain that Roth would have to spend the rest of his years on this God-forsaken planet with its blasted energy field that interfered with the operation of their machinery. The locals could keep their ‘magic’ and shove it. Roth just wanted off this rock, which he’d been sweet-talked and deceived into coming to, where he’d been stuck for the past seventeen years.

So if he pushed harder than he should, so be it. Anger could drive a man, and Roth certainly wasn’t the kind to try and rein it in. He’d get home if it killed him, even if home no longer rested under the hand of the ITC. He watched the monitor, seeing the mechanics scuttling around, doing their best to repair the damage. He hit the comm.

"Park!"

"Yes, General?"

"What’s the ETA on the repair?"

"The gear doesn’t seem to have taken much damage, but we lost more wiring.. Should have it up by sundown, sir!"

"See that you do."

He ended the commlink and headed down to his quarters to wait for the evening. The storage unit had finally shown a spike of activity, and this next time, he’d push the drill past its limit if necessary. Just a number of hours to wait, then he’d finally breach this damned foci, and God willing, a way off this pathetic sphere.

***

When Daniel and Frank reached the village, they found it already nearly deserted. Given the migraine he still suffered, Daniel figured the last drilling must have hit the residents hard. They could hear the cries of those left behind in a number of houses, and those few they’d entered to investigate were in no condition to walk. The two of them gave what comforting words they could and proceeded onwards. At the edge of the village they came across a lone elderly man struggling along, obviously in great pain. Daniel recognized him.

"Elder Grean?"

The man glanced around before meeting Daniel’s gaze with eyes that clearly no longer saw. Just a day ago, Grean had possessed the benefit of sight, and even been quite spry for his age.

"Ah, young Daniel. And Frank, I assume? The breach occurs soon, then?"

Daniel nodded. "The reaction this time was strong."

"Always probing what doesn’t need to be understood…like so long ago. Were there time, I would tell you the story."

"You know we agree with you, Elder, but we really ought to be moving, get as far from the drill as we can."

Ignoring Frank’s prodding, Grean continued. "Nature is not a mistress to trifle with. Have you not seen the fury of her wind tunnel, the anger of her floods? Her wrath is not something to seek willingly." He cocked his head, turned towards Frank. "Not so far as you might think, Frank."

"Elder?"

"Shhh," Grean placed a finger to his lips and closed his eyes, remaining motionless for nearly two minutes before opening his eyes and pointing towards the north. "Just about a league that direction should do, I would think. If the two of you would be so kind as to assist?"

Daniel and Frank shared a puzzled look, but took Grean at his word, lending him their arms and travelling the distance in short order. There didn’t seem anything special about where he’d stopped them, but after spinning in a slow circle, he nodded. He took a few deep breaths and then began moving his hands through the air, as if tying a giant, invisible knot. The actions were familiar, yet different from the way Daniel or Frank had seen the other natives enact their spells. Once Grean had finished, however, nothing happened, aside from leaving him visibly shaking. Still, he smirked and turned towards them.

"Hmmph. Not enough." He held out his hands, palms open. "With your permission, might I borrow your links?"

"Our links?"

"To the foci, of course, young Daniel."

"But—"

"But you can’t use our magic? Nonsense, Frank. I can tell the two of you haven’t been deadened or Separated."

He bounced his waiting palms again, and each of the two men gripped one. Almost immediately, their vision blurred and they fell to their knees, suddenly unable to remain standing. Grean, meanwhile, had straightened and maintained his grip on their hands as he thrust them forwards with a great cry. They both felt a rush of euphoria, which was followed by a bright light, and then both sensations were gone and Grean released their hands. A few blinks brought back their vision, though both felt immensely exhausted. Grean, on the other hand, appeared restored to his usual spry self, eyes unclouded once more.

"That’s more like it, such a strong link. I thank you for your strength," To this, Frank muttered a number of unkind words under his breath, to which Grean merely laughed good-naturedly. "You’ll be fine, exhaustion is normal after the expenditure of magic."

Daniel smirked and looked around in surprise at their surroundings, which had changed drastically. Rather than being on the open plain, they were now in a large cavern, the rock of which seemed unnaturally polished. The other villagers had begun to gather around them as well.

"Elder, will there be others?"

Grean cast his eyes downward. "They were too weakened to leave the confines of the village. We will ride out the storm as best we can, protected from the reactions of the foci by the escud rock contained within the walls, with our friends from the outside, Daniel and Frank."

"This certainly beats the atmosphere of the barracks, eh Daniel?"

It did.

***

The hours had seemed interminable to General Roth, but the engineers finally reported that they’d completed the drill repairs. Now he stood smiling coldly at the controls, closing his eyes and visualizing his will imposed upon the troublesome field. The engineers had stressed that any further damage would be irreparable, but Roth had no intention of stopping until the foci was pierced. To that end, he’d ordered a number of soldiers into heavy armor and sent them out to make sure nothing came undone until they reached their goal. Those he’d sent had gone willingly; they shared his eagerness to return home, even if they remained unaware of the ITC’s predicament.

Time to begin. Roth initiated the startup procedure and slowly brought the drill to life. It wouldn’t do to break it before it could do its job. He acknowledged the reports coming though the comm from his men, who reported that all remained stable, and shifted to the controls that drove the drill ever deeper. Almost immediately, warnings populated the panels, but a simple voice command dismissed them. Over the monitor, he could see the machinery shaking, smoke beginning to issue from numerous joints. He could also see his men moving around and stabilizing or sealing the troublesome areas. The engineers must have been livid at what the actions were doing to the equipment, but this was Roth’s project now.

He increased the power to maximum, and the terrible screeching from before resumed, louder even than earlier. There remained no activity on the containment unit. Roth cursed. The drill was going to blow again and he’d have nothing to show for it.

He focused his attention on the monitor, fully expecting to witness the drill’s self-destruction. The screeching continued, but the numbers on the screen grew: fifty feet, seventy-five, more progress than they’d made all week. It couldn’t have shifted off-target, as the foci simply occupied too much space.

The progress continued until the drill reached a hundred and twenty, at which point the containment unit’s sensors detected a surge of energy. Roth allowed himself a fist pump and then input the command to terminate the boring, but the energy surge continued unabated. He keyed in the sequence again, but as he did so, the terminals darkened. Their facility’s lights followed soon thereafter, and he dashed outside, grabbing a pair of binoculars as he went.

Looking down from his vantage point through the binoculars, it was clear that while the drill still ran, it did so with a power source other than that it should. A glow surrounded the entire apparatus, and even as Roth watched, the anchors holding it in place ripped free and it sank into the hole. His men had anchored themselves to the exposed rock face as far from the borehole as possible, but he watched as one by one, their equipment gave way and they found themselves sucked in as well. Soon, all that remained in sight was the gaping borehole, with no trace of the drill or men.

In the absence of the drill, an unnatural silence descended over the area. It was soon broken by cries of mayday over his personal comm, but Roth just stared in shock at the empty expanse below. The cries grew more intense as Roth’s skin began to prickle and then turn to outright gooseflesh. He shook his head and raised the comm to his lips to respond, but before he could, he found himself thrown backwards as if from an explosion, though no heat or visual stimuli accompanied the blast.

When he regained his feet, the comm gave only static, and walking back up to the ridge, he could see electricity dancing from the ground around the borehole to the sky, though not a single cloud resided there at the moment. What did, though, was a looming dark shape that Roth quickly recognized as their orbiting support ship, now sadly crippled and being brought down towards the borehole.

The descent appeared stately, but to Roth’s trained eye, he could tell it was anything but. Among his last thoughts were of the archival cartoons of Old Earth, notably the coyote who found himself suspended in air, holding a sign pleading for help as the bird laughed and ran away.

***

The impact itself lacked any sort of splendor, though had any scientists witnessed it, they would have found that same dullness fascinating. The plume of dust, dirt, and debris did not go as high as it should have, nor did it spread beyond a very small radius. In fact, it seemed drawn back towards the borehole even as the ship forced itself further into the ground. Even that action stood in opposition to expectation, as the ship’s momentum had slowed quicker than it should have, stopped, and then resumed its motion deeper into the ground, pulled inexorably inward by the foci.

While the foci may have dulled the visible effects of the ship’s fall, those effects not directly visible found themselves amplified considerably. Earthquakes shook the land for miles around, devastating numerous villages and causing significant damage in others far removed from the borehole, thanks to the very structure of the field of such interest to the late General Roth. Volcanoes that had long lay dormant burst to vibrant, destructive life, raining lava and ash. Tsunamis formed at sea, wreaking havoc along coastlines.

The damage did not limit itself to that of a geologic nature, either. Birds in flight plummeted to the ground; animals appeared to lose their senses, running confused into clearly visible obstacles. Most people found themselves violently ill at best, though many perished as a result of the foci’s reaction to the drill’s incursion.

When the turmoil ceased, only 200 feet of the ship’s more than 1000 remained above the ground, the magical field for two miles in all directions completely obliterated, only returning to full strength twenty-some miles from the epicenter. The smaller animals recovered quickly, and it was the native Phenans who took longest to return to their previous quality of life. Those lucky enough to have the shielding of naturally occurring escud or those who had retreated to its shelter were largely spared ill-effects. Many found themselves in leadership roles in the months that followed, doing their best to guide those affected through their hardship, and most did an admirable job.

Relations between the natives and the ITC colonists, however, soured quickly, and each group withdrew into themselves, fostering animosities that continued even after the ITC had been forgotten, hundreds of years later. Only the conflict remained, with nothing but a distorted and vague history remaining to back up the senseless animosity.

Nature’s wrath personified.

Feedback by Jason A. Stevens is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Every Snowflake is Unique

By: Jeppe Holm

To Peters dismay it had starting snowing again. Cursing under his breath at the snow and the wind that blew it into his face, he starting walking towards Muhammeds pizzeria. A couple of kids where playing in the snow. Two boys where placing a carrot nose on their snowman and a small girl was catching snowflakes on her tongue. Reaching the pizzeria Peter ducked inside, brushing the snow from his leather jacket. "Hi Muhammed, I ordered a Capricciosa pizza, is it done?" Muhammed looked up and said, "Yep." He took the pizza from the top of the oven and placed in on the counter. "That will be 55kr." While waiting for the credit card to process his payment Peter asked, "Can you believe all the snow we are getting this year. Spring can't come soon enough." Muhammed answered, "I like the cold, it's a nice change when leaving the hot oven after work." Opening the door Peter said, "To each his own, see you next time." He started his short trek home enjoying the warm feel of the pizza on his hands and the smell of the sauce in his nose. Halfway home the small girl, still catching snowflakes, was blocking his path. She smiled up at him and said, "Hi mister, did you know that every snowflake is unique?" Peter scoffed at her and said "They all look the same to me; small, white and wet." Peter sidestepped the girl and continued home. While fumbling with his key, Peter was hit on the head by a 560 pound snowflake. Next days paper read: "World record snowflake kills local man!"

Nature

By: Jeff Hite

Nature stood her arms to her sides on the edge of the field and waited. This was the third time in a month she had been called to the field and she was getting pretty darn tired of it. It was not like she had all the time in the world. She really did have things to do, papers to write and articles that her couluges were begging her to read and get back to them about. It seemed unfair that she had to keep coming out here.

"Ah my dear you have come back."

"Of course I came back you moron, you didn't give me a lot of options."

"Well that is the way the ball bounces isn't?"

"If you say so, look could we get on with this, I have a lot of work to do and, if you don't mind would you quit calling me, my dear. I don't really like it."

"What ever you say Nature, but I refuse to call you mother." The dark little man spat the last word out with enough bile to make a grown man rectch at the sound.

"That is fine with me. I would not claim you even if you were my child. Now, shall we."

"Of course, of course my dear, I mean Nature. here is what I want."

"Wait on darn second, you are assuming that I will lose, and putting demands on the table even before we begin. I don't think so."

"But my, I mean Nature, I want you to have all of the facts before we begin. I don't want you to go into this without knowing what is going to happen if you loose, and you will My dear, you will."

"I told you about the my dear garbage, lets just get on with it. I have won you last few challenges, What makes you think that I am going to lose this one."

"True you have won the last few, but before that there were so so many shall we say bitter sweet endings."

"Alright, I get your point, I don't always win. What is it that you want this time?"

"Come closer and I will tell you."

The idea of getting closer to the little man made her sick to her stomach, but she also knew that if she didn't play his game the way he wanted, he would find some way to cheat and make this contest completely unfair. She could not handle another loss, not right now, not with her project so close to being ready.

"This is what I want," he said leaning in to whisper into his ear.

"You have got to be kidding me. There is no way I am going to risk all that. You give me nothing, no mater if I win or loose your stupid little challenges. This is totally unfair." His shrug said it all, but he felt it necessary to say what was on his mind anyway.

"Life is what it is my dear Nature, it is not fair, and has never pretented to be. You do what I say that you must or you will lose everything anyway."

"This just sucks." She kicked at the ground in a childish gesture.

"Now now, we mustn't be hasty. And this time I have brought you something if you should win the contest. It was quite difficult for me to find, but I think you will like it." From the folds of his cloak he pulled a small box. The box was about the size and shape of a shoe box, but it had holes along the side, just big enough for whatever was inside to breath, but not enough for it to been seen or escape. The creature inside released a deafening scream, and rattled around in the box, nearly shaking it our of the old man's hands.

"What is it?"

"It is called a human, and I have never seen one before. I have seen the concepts, the apes and the monkeys but this one is quite different. I think it will go very well in your little project."

"Can I see it."

"Oh I think that we will wait until the end. Even if you loose, I might give you a little peek. Maybe it will make you more interested in playing our little games in the future, if you knew what the reward was going to be."

"Alright, alright enough of this. I really am busy today. I don't have time to." She cut herself off, before she could finish. The Human was just what she needed to finish her porject, and all of her attempts at making anything like it had failed miserablly. She needed this human. "Let's just get on with it. What is the game this time?" She finished.

"I have a simple game for you this time. I want you to use your powers, and not your body to move some object around for me. If you can do everything that I ask, you will get the human, if you fail, you will give me what I want."

"OKay, what do you want me to move?"

"This is a progressive game, and it ends when you have moved the 10 objects that I have choosen." That usually meant that this was a test to see how strong she was and that she was going to loose, because, even though he said he had alrady choosen the objects, it was more than likely that he would pick them as they went a long. It didn't matter, she had been working on her skills lately and she would surprise him. The strength had grown a lot in the last few months.

"OK what's first?"

"First I want you to move the rocks over there. Don't touch them, but you have to move them at least twice their length." This was going to be easier than she thought. If he was starting off this easy. She waved two of her fingers in the air and a small rain storm began right over the rocks. The water feel so quickly that it washed away the soil underneath and, the rocks tumbuled end over end down the side of the hill.

"That was pretty well done, Nature. You may win this challenge after all." This made Nature even more nervous then she already was. If there was one thing about the little man, it was that he very rarely meant what he said.

"Very good, I believe that we are ready to move to the next, one. You need to return all of the water that you just used to moved those boulders to the sky."

"that should be easy enough," she said smiling her best smile, though she carefully watched the old man. With a wave of her hand the clouds in the sky dissappeared, and the sun came out quickly drying out the water, return it to the sky.

The challenege continued in this manner until it they reached the last challenge.

"You have done well my dear, and you have improved greatly in your powers. You are very impressive indeed. He said licking his lips.". This last challenge is going to be the hardest of all Nature, are you ready?"

"I don't have much of a choice Death, you summoned me here, to play your game, you tell me I must give you dominion over one of my planets if I loose. You tell me you will give me man if I can comeplete your tasks. It is not like I can resist your summons.". Without realizing it she had riased he hands above her and was shouting. "You have never given me a choice, you take and I have never known you to give and one anything.". The screamed the last word bring her hands down in fists.

Great streaks of lighting Criscrossed the sky, hail fell all around them and the earth beneath them shook.

"Well my dear it appears that the saying is true, there is no furry like a woman scorned."

Nature lowered her hands and attempted to control the tremors in the earth before the got out of control. The storms she had created would quickly blow themselves out without her power to sustain them, since she had done nothing to prepare for them. He was right of course she was a power to contend with, there was no doubt about that. She had wielded power on all twelve of the planets in the system, and her anger had destroyed three of them. She had smashed two of them together, when she tried to move one in closer to the sun, because it's rays were not strong enough to make it's frozen layers of hydrocarbons melt and make an atmosphere. Now the there were only 9 planets, and one of them was so small that it could barely be called a planet, more of a dwarf. But, because of her mistakes she had learned. There were now two fields of astroids, that one day some creature would be able to explore, though she doubted that any of the one living on the two planets that currently held life would be those creatures, not unless there were some pretty drastic changes.

"Are you ready to begin my love?" Death asked, obiously growin impatient with her.

"Yes, I am ready, what is it you want me to do?"

"This one as I said will be very difficult. I do hope that you didn't use to much of your strength on you little display of anger there."

"Come on, lets get on it with."

"Alright, Alright. What I want you to do it move, the largest planet in toward the sun and it's rival Saturn out into it's spot. I know that you tried this once before, and well the results were less than you had planned. But I think you have learned something from that. Didn't you my love."

"I am not your love!" She said stomping her foot, Death seemed to ignore the minor tremor seeming more interested in her reaction.

"Can you do it, or shall we call this one my victory?"

"Give me a moment while I look at the two planets." She said not looking at death, not wanting him to see the fear that she knew showed in her eyes. Jupiter and Saturn were the two largest objects in the sky, next to Sol. She had never even attempted to move either one of them before, or anything even remotely their size. The two small planets that she had moved, she had accidently crossed thier gravitational fields and they had ripped each other apart. It had been scary. But these two were giants. If she shifted them at the wrong time, they could miss align Sol, and cause damage to all the life that was currently in the system. She might even unbalance Sol enough that it might even rip the whole system apart. She would have to be very very careful, and at the same time use all of her powers.

"Come now Nature, if you are not going refuse my challenge jsut say so."

"I can do it. I need the planets to be in the right alignment otherwise I will destroy the whole system. We will have to wait..."

"You will move them into the allignments that you need. "

"But, that will take a lot more power. You have asked me to move moons and, oceans that mountains, and now you want me to move planets and I can't even use their natural motions."

"Oh I know, life is not fair not is it. You will move the planets where they need to be and then you will move them and thier moons."

"And their moons? You are asking the impossible."

"If you can't do it, I can just take the planets away from you."

"Fine, Fine I will do it." She stood for a long time without moving, thinking about the planets and their systems. Trying to get a picture all of the bodies in her head. Trying to make sure that she forgot nothing. Then finally raising one hand and then the other she began to push. First the Pushed Saturn, further along it's orbit, until it was on the oposite side of the system from Jupiter, and then she began to move it out to nearly the same orbit as Jupiter, using it's own gravitational fields, to gently pull it's moons along. She had to be careful and move things slowly to that the moons would not crash into each other. She was doing well and started to pull Juipter in toward Sol, She knew that the extra heat from the star would make the planet swell, in the same way that it was making Saturn shrink, only a little of course, but it was shrinking.

While she was thinking about it, it happened. two of the smaller inner moons of Saturn came to close to each other. They continued to Obrbit thier parent, but now they were orbiting each other in a death spiral. There was nothing she could do, not with trying to hold the two giants in place, and no jerk the star out of it's orbit. All she could do was watch as they smashed into each other. There had never been the potential for life on either, but she was worried about the effect. The Dust cloud that resulted slowly spread out into a set of rings around the great planet. It would be a perment reminded to her mistake, if she didn't destroy the rest of the system.

She gave one more small nudge and Saturn was in place, in the sixth orbit from the star. Now, she just needed to finish pulling Jupiter in toward the sun. She pulled on the giant slowly and felt her strength beging to wain. The Debris field that had been created when she tried to give Mars another couple of moons, from Saturn , had begun to drift in odd patterns, with no large body to keep them steady between Mars and her Blue neighbor. But As Jupiter Neared they began pleting the gaint. It would not matter, Jupiters thick Atmosphere, could handle the colisions, and if he picked up a few extra moons, so be it.

"Well done nature, but you might want to stablize the rest of the system before, somthing terrible happens."

She turned her attention toward the inner planets, first fore their small size meant they could not handle as much abuse, but for two of them it was already too late. The smallest one, was already so close to the sun, than it would be forever a barren rock hot and lifeless. The other Venus, the twin to earth had also floated too close to the sun, and although it had not fallen far enough to burn off it's atmosphere, it was now too close to ever beable to support life. It would suffer out of control climate change that would forever posion the planet. She watch for a moment more attempting to keep the tears from her eye before turning her attention to the third and fourth planets and beyond. He noticed then that the forth planet was slowly drifting out away from her star. It was heart wrenching to see it, slowly freezing as the temperature dropped. The life that had been on the planet she knew would die. This time she had not only destroyed a planet, she had ended all life on it. This time the tears would not stay away, and they ran down her face as she watched the lives on the planet freeze to death.

"You still have your project planet. Earth is still where it belongs." Death said a wicked smile on his face. "You have completed my challenge after all. I did not think that you could do it. I will honor my word." He pulled the box out of his robes and placed it at her feed. "This is a great day for you. You will be able to complete your project now. Don't you think."

She did not answer, she could not. Her heart was breaking. She had done what he ask but she had been tricked as normal. Death had known that if she tried to move the outer planets that she would effect the inner ones. She would destroy three planets making them unsuitable for life.

"I think I will leave you alone for a while, as you seem to need some time alone." He said laughing and shuffling away.

She watched him go, for a while before she even moved. When she did it was quick. She brought her hands down on the ground so fast she could not see even see them move, and they split the Earth before her sending a large crack chasing after death. Moments later a huge casam opened below his feet and he disappeared from view. Then with both hands she pulled the crack back together, trapping him inside.

She knew it would kill him because, for death there was no death, but it would take him a long time to get out. She had shown him the limits of her strength, not he would understand the depths of her wrath.