IGMS Issue 10

  Issue 10 - December 2008

  http://www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com

  Copyright © 2008 Hatrack River Enterprises

  Table of Contents - Issue 10 - December 2008

  * * *

  Sweetly the Dragon Dream

  by David Farland

  The Fort in Vermont

  by David A. Simons

  The Tile Setters

  by Ami Chopine

  A Heretic by Degrees

  by Marie Brennan

  The Absence of Stars

  by Greg Siewert

  Pi

  by Mette Ivie Harrison

  The Robot Sorcerer

  by Eric James Stone

  Art is a Matter of Taste

  by David Lubar

  InterGalactic Interview With Harry Turtledove

  by Darrell Schweitzer

  Sweetly the Dragon Dreams

  by David Farland

  Artwork by Julie Dillon

  * * *

  Life finds a way. We dropped planet-killers on Mursadoni, scorching all three continents, and when I returned forty-two years later, the land was covered with green ferns that provided food for clouds of lightning moths.

  So I have searched the heavens further. On Remiseas, nine hundred years after its immolation, I found forests and birds and lizards -- all which should have been decimated -- and I discovered new life forms rising from the ashes of the old.

  On Danai, the infestation was much worse. A few of the higher life forms were gone, but after six thousand years I found wide variations in the flora and fauna. Included among the survivors is a thriving population of humans led by a hive of skraals. My supply of planet-killers and sunbusters has been exhausted. I will drop flash-heads into the hive with the hope that the resultant nuclear contamination will wipe out the skraals' queen. Further steps will be required to eradicate the biological contaminations. . . .

  -- final transmission from the cycor drone ship Death's Head

  In the dry days on Danai, the moon lures the damselfly nymphs from the slow-flowing waters. Soft of flesh they come, minute hunters from the marsh, climbing ashen stalks of cattails or perchance some slender green reed.

  At the rising of the sun they settle at the base of a frond, letting the light take them and transform them, until their old bones crack and their new form breaks free.

  For a moment they will hesitate, poised, their new wings still wet, waxen and thrumming, as they examine their own glory.

  Soft new carapaces shine in the sunlight -- glimmering like cinnabar or rubies, or the green of dappled leaves.

  That is how young Tallori found them that summer morning as she waded along the shores of the marsh. The rising sun hung like a golden shield upon the shoulders of the world, and the young damselflies just seemed to be waiting for her to pluck them from their perches.

  She had caught nearly a hundred in a dozen different hues, and placed them in a reed basket. She was happy to be catching them. One silver penny for every five damselflies Tallori was to be paid. She could make a small fortune in a few weeks.

  Tallori was a bright child, but not bright enough. She had not been found worthy of schooling. She was a mere human, and thus far inferior to skraals that ruled Danai.

  The damselflies were to be food for the Holy Maiden Seramasia, and Tallori was grateful to be of service, for not only would she make more than she had ever dreamed, she would also be assisting a goddess.

  Tallori was large of bone for an eight-year-old girl. Her hair was as bright yellow as the sunlight, and her eyes, set deep beneath her brow, were greener than the sea. She sang a rhyme as she picked the damselflies from the stalks:

  "A blue one to ease my lady's cares,

  "A red one to make her grow.

  "A white one to match her skin so fair,

  "A gold one to make her glow!"

  That is when she found the monster. Tallori tiptoed over a break in the cattails, a space less than ten yards across, when she noticed how rough the ground felt beneath her feet. The dark water was as brown as her father's beer, and one could not see through it. But sometimes she could feel clams in the mud with her toes, or find small freshwater crabs to eat. But the rough surface made her wonder.

  She stopped for a moment to pick a scab from her knee and eat it. That's when she looked down, saw a vast eye, and let out a scream.

  "Over here!" Tallori shouted, dragging her father Angar to the edge of the wide river. At the child's insistence, he'd brought a huge ax, and now he stopped, unwilling to wade out and muddy his sandals.

  He suspected that this was all some plot on his wife's part to get him to do some work. When Tallori had come with her story about a monster in the bog, Angar's wife had said in a businesslike tone, "Bring back some reeds, and I'll weave some baskets."

  So he was skeptical of Tallori's motives in bringing him. He was a fat man with fondness for strong drink. Rather than wade off into the mud, he squatted in some reeds and rubbed his temple, wishing that the sunlight did not aggravate his hangover so much.

  "Come quick!" Tallori shouted. "The monster is over here. You can see that it has big teeth!"

  Only when Tallori tugged his arm and became frantic did Angar pull off his sandals of woven reeds and dare wade into the mud.

  Twenty feet from shore, he saw it there, beneath four inches of tawny water: a huge round eye as large as a platter, reflecting the golden sun. It was set in a serpentine head that looked to be some nine feet long, and four feet tall. The whole of it lay in the water, staring out.

  Mankind had been living on Danai for over a hundred thousand years. From time to time, something odd turned up in the bog -- petrified men, or ancient tools.

  But this was too good to be true. "I know what this is," Angar said, trying to convince himself of his fortune. "It's a dragon"

  A "dragon" was a flying reptile, one of the first biologically advanced beings that mankind met when they had first ventured to the stars. In some ways, the dragons were even superior to the godlike skraals, and had been friends and counselors to the skraals back in the days of Bliss -- before the cycor began their great war and turned the heart of the galaxy into a great void.

  The last dragon had been expunged more than six thousand years ago in an attack that had left Danai a wasteland.

  Angar inspected the remains. There had been a flood last winter that stripped mud from the banks of the river. It must have uncovered the creature.

  "My, look at those teeth," Angar said. The beast had great teeth as long as a man's hand. Each was stained yellow from millennia in the mud, and the cutting edges were serrated. "I'll bet folks would pay nicely for one of those," he mused. "Maybe I could even sell one to the holy maiden. I seem to remember hearing that even now, the goddesses take a peculiar interest in the remains of dragons . . ."

  Yet he had to wonder. Three months earlier, a cycor scout ship had come to Danai and rained flash-heads upon the capitol. The supreme mother had been killed, the holy maiden wounded, and though the scout ship was destroyed, it was only a matter of time before the enemy returned with greater weapons. Now the Holy Maiden Seramasia had gone into hiding, preparing to meet the cycor threat.

  Yet Angar suspected that he could find the holy maiden: all he had to do was send a message through the boy who was buying damselflies.

  That night, deep in a forest called Shadowfest, a twelve-year-old boy named Anduval inched along the limb of a boa tree covered in white spirit fungus. The tree was large so close to the ground, perhaps four feet in diameter. Boa saplings tended to snake along the forest floor, rising and dipping at random, until they sensed a hole in the canopy high above, and then the trunk would twist upward, seeking the heavens. Thus for long stretches the trees sometimes formed a path
above the forest floor.

  Twenty feet below, a sounder of wild pigs lay asleep half-hidden, having rooted beneath patches of wild fungus and plates of spongy lichens. These were colossus boars that weighed as much as three tons each and stood eight feet at the shoulder. A full-grown boar had a mouth large enough to swallow a man whole; their enormous tusks were as sharp as sabers. The boars were savage hunters, fiercely protective both of their young and the patches of mushrooms in their territory.

  An old sow grunted curiously and opened her eyes. Anduval halted, heart pounding. He could not move. With each step, spirit fungus dislodged from the log, and rained down on the wild boars.

  He couldn't see exactly how the tree twisted ahead. He was guided only by the light of a jar filled with tiny glow beetles whose green luminescence carried only a few feet. But Anduval had memorized the trail over the years. The glass mushrooms were about ninety feet ahead, where the boa tree dipped down and touched the forest floor.

  Anduval wrapped his hand around his jar, obscuring the light, and waited for the sow to return to sleep.

  He dared not move. One slip and he would fall to the forest floor. The ground was spongy, covered with layers of leaves and old lichens that had rotted here for forty thousand years. He'd probably survive a fall, but not an attack by the boars.

  So he held tight. Stars shone in the night sky overhead, but the boles of the boa trees twisted crazily in a tangle, and their foliage in the canopy blocked out the stars, so that even in daylight the forest floor lay in perpetual gloom.

  The only sound was the dripping from above -- sap falling in an ever-present mist, spiders falling lifeless from old age. A huge growler swept overhead, uttering a soft rumble as it sought for flying insects. The air smelled of ten thousand varieties of mold.

  After long minutes the even breathing and occasional grunts of pigs assured Anduval that they were dreaming contentedly. Morning was coming, and the pigs would soon awaken. Time was short. Anduval would have to sprint back to the palace when he got his prize.

  Breathlessly, he inched along in the dark, feeling his way across the log until he felt bones crack beneath his feet. He pulled out his light. A small lizardlike creature lay dead on the log, having fallen from the canopy, its wings sprawled akimbo. Fungus was growing over the body in colored patches, reclaiming the moisture and minerals.

  Ahead, water tinkled down the boles of several trees, forming a pool. At the water's edge, ghostly mushrooms rose up like spears, some to a height of three feet. Anduval raised his light, inched forward, and spotted a mushroom dripping with its own sugary dew. It looked to be newly sprouted, for it was still the color of tinted glass. He pushed his way past older mushrooms, those that had been trampled by pigs or had dried out, and examined this one closely. He reached into a pocket, drew a harvesting scythe, and slashed through the mushroom's stalk. Using a wet cloth to lift the mushroom so that it would never have been touched by human hands, he placed the mushroom into a pouch woven from twisted leaves. It was a good harvest. He suspected that the mushroom weighed a good seven pounds.

  He glanced up, searching for a second mushroom, when he heard a startled grunt at his back. A boar scrambled up from the detritus and let out an angry squeal.

  Anduval had been found.

  He whirled and raced back toward the bole of his boa. A huge black boar rushed from the darkness. Anduval leapt aside. The boar barreled past, went splashing into the shallow pool.

  Anduval lifted his light. The boar at his back squealed in outrage, whirled, and gave chase.

  Anduval sprinted where the bole angled up gently. The boar charged but it could not see in the dark, and it had to take care not to slip.

  It had to be following his light. The bole veered left, then right. Below him, wild pigs squealed in anticipation. Seldom did they get much fresh meat beyond the occasional insect or worm.

  The huge boar grunted and redoubled its speed. Anduval could feel its breath at his back. He reached out and held his light far to his right.

  The boar veered toward it -- and slid from the damp bole of the tree, just as Anduval had hoped.

  Wild pigs squealed in delight at the fresh meat that rained down around them.

  In a subterranean palace deep beneath the mountainous trees, Anduval arranged his funguses on a platter.

  He had three spears of yellowcap, firm and meaty, set beside a clump of ruffled young brain fungus, all in shades of gray with blue fringes. A dozen "black buttons" took up the center of the platter, while his single clear glass mushroom as long as a baby's arm curved around the platter's rim. Sprinkled over the glass mushrooms were tiny "blue dot" mushrooms no larger than grains of sand.

  When he felt certain that the arrangement would be pleasing, he carried it through the arched alcove and into the dining hall of the Holy Maiden Seramasia.

  Other attendants had arrived earlier and set their offerings upon the table. The offerings included a wide variety of funguses, but Anduval felt certain that they would not please his mistress. A pile of dark green "swamp lettuce" looked too stale to be appetizing. A single white sweet globe was overly large, and thus its dark center would be flavorless. Others looked more palatable.

  Anduval thought to shove the central platter aside, but he knew that it contained the offering of the kitchen steward, and he did not want to get a beating.

  Anduval's offering was last to the table, as he had hoped. His would be the freshest of the fare. But he had to take care to leave soon, for ancient custom dictated that he could never occupy the same room as the maiden or pass within two hundred feet of her.

  He set his platter upon the outer edge of the table, hoping that if the holy maiden chanced to circle once, she would be tempted by his offering. The other attendants had all put their platters near the door to the maiden's meditation chamber, hoping to be first to be seen. But there on the far side of the table, his platter stood alone.

  He took one last second to turn his platter, just so, to better display his rare and succulent glass mushroom as he prepared to flee.

  The scuffling sound of footsteps issued from the maiden's entrance, and he glanced up.

  Terror took him. The holy maiden stood beneath a white marble arch, glorious and resplendent, not twenty feet away. At each side, skraal guards flanked her.

  The guards were taller than men. At eight feet, their height was imposing enough, but it was the guards' reputation that most frightened him: in their zealousness to protect the maiden, they sometimes got rough. A skraal was far more powerful than a human. The least touch of a skraal could leave a bruise. Should one of the creatures grasp him, their slender fingers would rip through flesh as easily as rice paper, and would shatter bones as if they were made from straw.

  Trembling, heart pounding, Anduval dropped to his hands and knees and prostrated himself. "Have pity on me," he cried, "for I am but a foolish child."

  He closed his eyes. He had seen the princess up close, which was forbidden, and he relished that instant. She was naked, for skraal nymphs rarely wore clothes.

  She had been beautiful. Little had seemed human about her. Though she stood upon two legs, her similarity to humans ended there.

  She had no breasts or hair.

  Her face had been as white as the petal of a swamp lily, as white as the lining of a cloud, and fleshy around her silver eyes. Her legs and arms were slender. Her abdomen, shaped like an inverted pear, was full and fat.

  She had a gracefulness to her, like the elegance of a crane or a roe deer, and in the way of skraal nymphs her oral-dactyls, the finger-like appendages that shoved food into the vertical slit of her mouth, were clearer than crystal.

  He could see little evidence of the wounds she'd received in the cycor attack. She had nearly been killed when the drone ship dropped its flash-bombs and then crashed into the capitol, smashing so hard that debris flew up from the far side of the world. Seramasia had been a hundred miles from ground zero, yet the radiation burns had left a part of
her exoskeleton pitted.

  Anduval's heart pounded, but not from fear. He had seen the holy maiden up close, and he hoped to savor the image.

  Then she spoke, her mouth-fingers playing rapidly, and her voice was deep and mellow, like a woodwind. "Have no fear, frail one," she said. "Your presence here pleases me. And though you may be young, I believe that you are wise beyond your years -- perhaps wise beyond all understanding."

  Anduval did not trust his ears. Humans were never allowed near skraal nymphs. In all of his life, he had never heard that the maiden spoke to a human, except to Magus Veritarnus, a mysterious man who strode through the palace in black robes with his head hunched in thought.

  "Now," she said, "stand before me, and do not avert your eyes. I have questions for you; choose your words well, for I will permit you to continue in my presence only if you speak perfect truth."

  Perhaps at no time in his life had Anduval felt more frightened. Tears flooded his eyes, and his stomach clenched alarmingly. Though he had not eaten since yesterday, he felt that he might vomit on the floor. When he managed to stand, his legs quivered, and it was only with great effort that he stilled them.

  He looked up, and peered steadily upon the holy maiden. She strode toward him, and her guards became alarmed. Their breeding demanded that they protect her, and like dogs they wished to lead the way, stand between her and Anduval, but she brushed them aside.

  "My lady, please," a guard begged. "The danger . . ."

  "There is no danger from this one," the Holy Maiden Seramasia declared. "I sense only . . . devotion."

  As a skraal maiden, Seramasia had powers of the mind that no human could match. She was not mature, and had not therefore transcended, but she could still see into a man's mind as easily as a child might gawp at tadpoles at the bottom of a clear pool.

  Anduval gazed into her eyes. Hers were not like human orbs. She had four of them, two large ones that peered forward, and two small ones upon her temples. The large ones did not have whites. Instead, they were silver, like the eyes of a fish, and deep in the center was a dollop of light blue, as if from summer skies. The eyes upon the side of her head were dark, like bits of onyx.