IGMS Issue 44 Read online

  Issue 44 - March 2015

  http://www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com

  Copyright © 2015 Hatrack River Enterprises

  Table of Contents - Issue 44 - March 2015

  * * *

  The Oath-Breaker's Daemon

  by Rob Steiner

  Look After Your Brother

  by Holliann R. Kim

  Broodmother

  by Jakob Drud

  A Good Mother

  by Andrea G. Stewart

  The Crow's Word

  by Stephen Case

  The Last HammerSong

  by Edmund R. Schubert

  At the Picture Show: Extended Cut

  by Chris Bellamy

  Vintage Fiction - A Place for Heroes

  by Myke Cole

  InterGalactic Interview With Myke Cole

  by Darrell Schweitzer

  Letter From The Editor

  by Edmund R. Schubert

  The Oath-Breaker's Daemon

  by Rob Steiner

  Artwork by Scott Altmann

  * * *

  I had many challenges being the only real magus in downtown ancient Rome. One of the biggest was drawing the attention of powerful patricians. So when you're trying to get back to the twenty-first century like I am, you can't be too picky when it comes to jobs.

  I was walking back to my flat on the Aventine Hill through the cramped, close, and crowded streets of 6 BC Rome carrying my dinner for the night: a circle of emmer bread, some dried pears, and a small wedge of cheese. When I got to the rickety wooden stairs to my second floor flat/office, I saw a man standing there waiting. I'd been stuck in ancient Rome for a year, so I was pretty good at identifying patricians. He was young, clean-shaven, with close-cropped black hair. While he didn't wear a toga, his tunica was white and unwrinkled, his sandals recently oiled, and a sheathed gladius hung from his leather belt.

  He certainly wasn't an off-duty Legionnaire. Those boys never dressed that well. This guy was an officer or a patrician's lictor. And he was looking right at me.

  My gut churned. I hated getting involved with patricians and their political games, especially when they tried to recruit me into their patronage. But patricians had the money to pay me, and I hadn't had a job in over a week. The urge to run gave way to my yearning for home, so I continued walking toward him.

  "You are the one they call Natta the Magus, correct?" he asked in the accented Latin of the upper classes. He glanced at the baseball cap I was wearing, which stood out in this century, to say the least. Not only did it have the yellow-on-black colors of my favorite professional baseball club, the Detroit Wolverines, but it was also lined with copper threads and enchantments to keep nasty spirits out of my head.

  "I am. And you are?" My Latin had improved over the last year, but sometimes my modern English accent made me sound like a German to Roman ears.

  The man frowned slightly, probably because I did not address him with the customary dominus that patricians reserved for themselves.

  "I am Vitulus. I represent . . ." He looked around at the crowds. "Can we speak somewhere private?"

  "Sure, let's go to my office."

  I led Vitulus up the rickety stairs to my second story flat. I tried to step quietly past the first doorway on the second floor, but the patrician's heavy feet made that impossible.

  "Natta Magus!" came a woman's cry from inside. A small, dark-haired woman a few years older than me whipped open the flap of cloth on the door and said in mock scolding tones, "You know better than to sneak past my home without a salve."

  I tried to hide my wince, and then turned around with a chagrined smile. "I didn't want to disturb you, domina Ben-Asher. Salve to you and your family."

  She smiled brightly, then pulled her teenage daughter Esther from around the corner and gently pushed her toward me. Esther smiled shyly, lowered her eyes, and handed me a small yellow textile with the Detroit Wolverines "W" logo woven in black in the center.

  "I made this for you, dominus Magus."

  "Oh. Thank you, Esther. That was very thoughtful." I took the textile from her hands and held it up. "Excellent craftsmanship. You're very talented."

  Esther blushed slightly while the Ben-Asher matriarch beamed at me. Before the domina demanded that I get down on one knee and propose, I said, "Forgive me, but I must speak with my client." I nodded to Vitulus, who frowned impatiently.

  "Of course, of course! Come by later for dinner, we have plenty to share with you, Natta Magus." She gave me a knowing grin and then retreated into her flat.

  Number two on the challenge list: Every other family in Rome trying to marry off their pre-teen daughters to me. Beyond the obvious ick-factor, it was my intention to leave this century as soon as I gathered the right spell components to get home. Marriage was just an oath that would magically tie me to this century more securely than iron chains in a prison.

  I hurried to my own flat next to the Ben-Ashers and held open the cloth flap for Vitulus. My ball cap tingled with the implied invitation; if it hadn't, the wards I had placed on the doorframe would've made Vitulus suddenly forget why he had come here and he would've hurried off to more important duties elsewhere. I had accumulated some pretty rare spell components this year, so I couldn't be too cautious with security in a city where padlocks were a patrician luxury.

  With my door and wards opened, Vitulus stepped into my flat with a barely contained curl of his lip. My 100-square-foot, one-room flat served as my place of business and my home. I had a warped table in the center of the room covered in parchments and spell components; my bed, a foot too short for me, sat in the corner to the right; my "kitchen" was in the left corner (and by "kitchen" I meant a clay water basin next to a charcoal brazier). I had to use the public lavatory downstairs, but at least the flat had hypocaust heating built into the walls. It was all lower-middle class by ancient Roman standards.

  I motioned Vitulus to a stool in front of my table and then sat on the stool behind it. "This is about as private as it gets."

  Vitulus frowned again, and said, "I represent Publius Salvius Aper."

  "The new Praetorian Prefect? Wow. Why does he need me?"

  "He has lost an item that is very important to him. I am told that you have . . . skills that may help Salvius Aper reacquire this item."

  "I know some spells that might help."

  Vitulus narrowed his eyes doubtfully. "Indeed." I could see the indecision warring on his face. He exhaled sharply through his nose, and said, "This information must be kept in the utmost secrecy. Can we count on your discretion?"

  "Of course. I could be disbarred for breaking the attorney-client privilege."

  Vitulus gave me an uncomprehending stare. I know it's juvenile, but saying things like that to people in 6 BC Rome, and watching their reactions, was one of the things that made my abandonment tolerable.

  "Yes, I swear to Jupiter that I will keep this secret."

  Vitulus nodded once. "As you've obviously heard, Imperator Augustus recently appointed Salvius Aper as Praetorian Prefect. As a congratulatory gift, the Imperator gave Aper a purple and gold breastplate and asked him to wear it during the inauguration ceremony tomorrow morning." Vitulus paused. "When Aper went to try on the breastplate this morning, it was missing."

  "You sure he didn't leave it under his bed?"

  Vitulus's ears reddened. You could only push patricians so far before they stick you with their gladius and claim self-defense. I was getting dangerously close to that line, so I quickly added, "Sorry. Did you ever touch the breastplate?"

  Vitulus put a hand on his gladius. "Are you implying --?"

  "No, no," I said, holding up my hands. "It will help me find the breastplate if you've touched it. And since you're here and not the Prefect, I assume the Pr
efect would rather not deal with me."

  The young patrician stared at me a moment longer, then took his hand off the gladius. "Yes, I have touched it. And no, you will not meet the Prefect." Vitulus visibly calmed himself and said, "This is a very delicate matter. If Salvius Aper does not wear the breastplate tomorrow, it will be seen as a great insult to the Imperator, and a sign that the gods do not approve of Aper's selection. It would ruin him and his gens."

  This was why I tried staying away from patrician jobs. When they started talking about insults and gods and ruined gens, it made them crazy. Crazy enough to start civil wars or begin pogroms that destroyed entire generations, with plebeians caught in the middle. Or an innocent magus trying to get back to his own time.

  As if sensing my hesitation, Vitulus said, "You will be well-compensated for your services if you find the breastplate before dawn." He reached for the leather pouch tied to his belt and took out a small slab of silvery metal with gold flakes on it.

  I felt my jaw drop open. Aurichalcum. I could feel its arcane hum as a small vibration in my teeth. Of all the components I needed, aurichalcum was the rarest. Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.

  I struggled to keep my face impassive, but I don't think I did a good job. Vitulus grinned. "I understand this trinket is something for which you've been searching. Salvius Aper took this as a souvenir from Egypt when he marched with Augustus against Marcus Antonius."

  Wow, this guy did his homework. He must've heard that I had asked about aurichalcum at every religious relic kiosk in the Forum and every temple across the Seven Hills. I'd been laughed out of each one of them. "Aurichalcum doesn't exist," they'd said. Or, more commonly, they'd try to sell me an obvious counterfeit.

  My heart thumped as I stared at the aurichalcum. It was just a breastplate, I thought. It's not like he was asking me to assassinate anyone, or draw up a love potion, or curse a rival gens. And that aurichalcum could get me home today.

  I looked back at Vitulus. "When do you want to start?"

  He put the aurichalcum sliver back in his leather pouch and tied it to his belt.

  "Now," he said.

  While I'm competent in all forms of magic, finding things has always been my specialty. I had apprenticed under the great finder William Pingree Ford, who himself apprenticed under his great-grandfather Henry Ford the Watch-Maker. In other words, if I had access to someone who had touched the missing person, object, or animal, I could find said missing person, object, or animal in my sleep.

  I held my hand out to Vitulus. "I need your permission to look for the breastplate in your mind."

  "What?"

  "This is how I find things. If you give me permission to look into your mind, take my hand."

  Vitulus looked as if he'd rather face down a cohort of Persian Immortals than take my hand, but he slowly raised his right hand and put it in mine. "Do what you need to," he said.

  "Don't worry," I said, "you won't feel a thing."

  I turned my ball cap around so that the bill and logo were facing backward, concentrated my magic into my lungs, and then exhaled slowly at Vitulus. My breath reached out to Vitulus and was drawn into his lungs when he inhaled. With my eyes closed, I directed my breath to work its way from his lungs into his bloodstream and then up to his brain. Crossing the blood-brain barrier was tricky for novices, but I wasn't a novice. My breath molecules slipped through the barrier (thanks to his permission) and I was in his mind.

  His thoughts and memories inundated my mind's eye, but I quickly shut off the deluge and focused on the breastplate. I found the memory and did a spiritual fist pump: Vitulus stood at Aper's side as he accepted the breastplate from Augustus. Aper thanked Augustus with a bow and then handed the breastplate to Vitulus. Vitulus not only carried it back to Aper's home, but he had also studied it, taking in every detail of its master-crafted etchings and purple and gold painting. It was a beautiful piece of art that I could imagine as the prized possession of a twenty-first century museum, sitting in a glass box illuminated by spark globes.

  I withdrew from Vitulus's mind and back to my stool in ancient Rome. I turned the bill of my ball cap around so that the logo was facing Vitulus again. He stared at me with raised, questioning eyebrows, so I gave him a triumphant smile.

  "Let's go get your breastplate," I said.

  Once I had the breastplate's look and feel firmly set in my mind, it was simply a matter of walking to where it was hidden. I could do a finding based on one sense, but it was hard. This time I had two senses to work with -- sight and touch -- and I had never failed with two senses.

  Vitulus and I set out immediately from my Aventine flat. He seemed doubtful that I knew where the breastplate was, but he followed me nonetheless. It was still a cultural shock for me to be surrounded by people who doubted the workings of magic. But, ironically, that made it easy for me to set up shop as a magus: most people saw me as a quirky foreigner at best, an insane foreigner at worst.

  But the people I had helped knew differently.

  I kept my focus on the breastplate and didn't speak to Vitulus as we walked south along the Via Ostiensis and down the Aventine. As any finder will tell you, I don't see the lost object's actual location in my mind; I simply follow my feet. My feet know where the object is, and I never really know the location until my feet stop.

  Which was why I ignored Vitulus when he constantly asked me where the breastplate was.

  "Seriously, I don't know," I finally said after he asked a third time. "But I will when I find it."

  "That makes no sense at all," he grumbled. "In fact, nothing you say makes sense." But he continued to walk beside me through the Roman crowds.

  "Magic is not meant to make sense. It's meant to be felt."

  Vitulus glanced at me curiously, and not for the first time today. "Just where are you from, exactly? You look Roman but I cannot place your accent."

  "I come from an alternate timeline over two thousand years in your future where magic is ubiquitous. I got stuck here because I was dumb enough to help a friend."

  He gave me that "insane foreigner" look I knew so well.

  "You asked," I said.

  "Well. I don't care where you're from, so long as you find that breastplate before dawn." Vitulus looked up at the setting sun. "Night approaches. How much longer before we arrive?"

  "You ask me one more time and I'll --"

  My feet had stopped walking in front of an archway into a cemetery. Beyond the archway, old sarcophagi, mausoleums, and tombstones cast shadows in the setting sunlight.

  Ah, crap. I hated Roman cemeteries. In my time, we had wards and enchantments that kept all the nasty things away that fed off the dissipating energies of the dead. However, those wards were beyond the Romans of this century, so this cemetery could be infested by a host of things I'd rather not encounter.

  But my ticket home lay in there, so I really had no choice but to go and get it.

  "This is it, I guess," I said.

  "Finally," Vitulus said. He started toward the archway, but I put a hand on his forearm to stop him.

  "Um, just so you know, I tend to . . . attract things because of my abilities."

  "What kind of things?"

  I shrugged. "Hard to say. Just keep your eyes open, okay?"

  "Why would I shut my eyes?"

  I shook my head. "Just an expression. Let's do this before the sun goes down."

  I let my feet guide me through the arch. We passed ancient sarcophagi from Republican times -- though Imperator Augustus would argue Rome was still a Republic -- and mausoleums that held the remains of entire patrician families, some going back hundreds of years.

  The sun had already set beyond the hills to the west, and the cemetery was cast in darkness beneath a red sky. My feet took me through the cemetery along a sandstone walkway. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw wisps of gray mist peeking at us from behind large tombstones. I sensed their curiosity and, more disturbingly, their hunger for my magic. I prayed my feet wouldn'
t take me off the sandstone path.

  My feet stopped abruptly at an old tomb built into a hill at the very back of the cemetery. It had a brick walkway and walls carved into the hill that led to a heavy wood door beneath an ornate archway. "Aemilius'" was inscribed above the door.

  "The tomb of the Aemilii," Vitulus said. "An ancient and wealthy gens. Is it here?" His hand rested on the hilt of his gladius, and his eyes darted from side to side. He looked as nervous as I felt. He couldn't see the hungry wisps, but he clearly sensed them.

  "Yes," I said, "and it appears to be unlocked."

  There was no lock on the door, and the fading light showed recent scratches and dents where a padlock should've been. We both stared at the door.

  "Aren't you going in?" Vitulus asked quietly.

  "I was waiting for you."

  "You're the magus."

  I sighed. "Fine."

  I urged my feet toward the unlocked door. I stopped in front of it, ensured my ball cap was securely fastened to my head, and pushed the door open. It made that creaking noise all doors make in horror movies, which raised the hairs on my neck and arms. It was pitch black in the tomb, so I snapped my fingers. A little spark globe popped into existence and floated above us, illuminating the one-room tomb.

  "Gods!" Vitulus cried, staring at the globe. "You're . . . you're a real magus?"

  I looked at him. "Well, yeah. If you didn't think so, why did you come to me in the first place?"

  "Because Salvius Aper is my patron and wished it so," he said, as if I'd just asked if water was wet. He looked from the light back to me. "What else can you do?"

  "A lot of things," I said, "but right now I'd like to find that breastplate and get out of here. I don't know about you, but this place gives me the creeps." I felt more shadows and wisps gathering behind us. I hated feeling like a suckling pig on Saturnalia.

  "The 'creeps'?"

  "Scary, uneasy. Creeps."

  Vitulus nodded, looking around. "Yes, I too have creeps."

  The tomb was about twenty feet deep and ten feet wide, and smelled like how you'd expect a tomb to smell: moldy and decayed. Shrouded, desiccated bodies lay on stone alcoves built into the walls near the back of the tomb, with only their feet visible. Cremation was in style now, so the front of the tomb had shelves lined with ornately painted clay urns.