APEX MAGAZINE
ISSUE 84, MAY 2016

Jason Sizemore, Editor-In-Chief

Table of Contents

Editorial

Words from the Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore

Fiction

1957—Stephen Cox

Cottage Country—David K. Yeh

The Behemoth Beaches—Maggie Slater

The Drowned Celestial—Lavie Tidhar

Freeze/Thaw (Novel Excerpt)—Chris Bucholz

Nonfiction

Interview with Author Stephen Cox—Andrea Johnson

Interview with Artist Robert Carter—Russell Dickerson

Gender Equality in Apex Magazine—Lesley Conner

Poetry

Jubilee—F.J. Bergmann

Before the Empire Goes Inter-Galactic—Ken Poyner

Mammon’s Cave—Janna Layton

The Perfect Planet—Christina Sng

Words from the Editor-in-Chief

Jason Sizemore

Welcome to issue 84!

This month we’re publishing Stephen Cox’s "1957," a favorite of managing editor Lesley Conner. It’s a singularly entertaining "timey-wimey" tale about loss and second chances, and if you’re like Lesley, it will demand to read a second time as soon as you finish it. In "Cottage Country" by David K. Yeh, we’re dropped into a snowy world filled with talking foxes, dangerous fairies, and a complex relationship between our main character and his grandfather. Maggie Slater marks her professional debut with "The Behemoth Beaches," a wicked morality tale of the abused inexplicably given the upper hand. This one will make you wonder who the true monsters really are.

Rounding out our fiction selections is a novelette reprint by Lavie Tidhar ("The Drowned Celestial") and an excerpt from the novel Freeze/Thaw by Chris Bucholz (coming from Apex Publications this month).

Poetry this month is by FJ Bergmann ("Jubilee"), Ken Poyner ("Before the Empire Goes Inter-Galactic"), Janna Layton ("Mammon’s Cave"), and Christina Sng ("The Perfect Planet").

Andrea Johnson interviews our featured author Stephen Cox giving us just a little more insight into this strange, twisting tale, and Russell Dickerson interviews the talented Robert Carter, who provides the cover art this month.

The Apex Magazine podcast selection this month is Stephen Cox’s "1957."

§

Also included this month is an important blog post Lesley Conner wrote for the Apex Magazine website. The post, titled "Gender Equality in Apex Magazine", was penned in response to a reader comment made last month expressing dissatisfaction with issue 83’s heavy slant to male authors. It’s an excellent "behind the scenes" of how the bread is made.

§

If you’ve not heard it yet, get on over to the Redshift podcast to listen to their audio dramatization of Kate Elliott’s "My Voice is in My Sword" (Apex Magazine, Issue 45). We’ve partnered with the Redshift Audio Group to bring you exclusive audio dramatizations of select Apex stories. You can find Redshift at this url: http://www.fancypantsgangsters.com/show-category/redshift/.

Until next month!

Jason Sizemore

Editor-in-Chief

1957

Stephen Cox

5,000 words

It was a bright day in May, and the clocks were striking twelve. I had no idea why I’d been summoned to the Head’s study. Dr. Treadwell had four clocks there, each a present from a grateful pupil. We heard the chapel clock everywhere in Dean House, deep and reverent, ordering the school day. Treadwell let each of his little clocks chime together on the hour, but Old Ned drowned them.

Dr. Treadwell dripped a little water into the vivarium, a green globe that came to his chest. It held a mossy jungle of knots and leaves, which he pruned with steel fingered instruments of torture. Sometimes he made miscreants stand before the garden, in contemplation, before issuing sentence. His face looked up to me, all wrinkles, ears, nose hair, and eyebrows.

"A Mrs. Anstruther will be here any minute to see the school. I want a responsible boy to show her round. She has two boys, one a beetle, one for the Third. The usual tour, then here for lunch at one."

"Yes sir," I said. "I have nets, but of course …" Dr. Treadwell’s genial dictatorship even allowed for some discussion on very minor matters. He kept his cane in the umbrella stand, so you knew it was there, without being ostentatious.

"I think the excellence of our bowling this Saturday won’t suffer from an hour’s less practice." He coughed. "Henderson, I think … the last two years … it’s been such an improvement. Particularly as an example to the younger boys. The time is fast approaching when I need to pick a Head Boy for next year."

I blinked.

"More rejoicing over the one that repenteth, Henderson. Assuming that you stay the course. There are other worthy candidates. That is all." He returned to his little twisted garden.

Head Boy sounded tedious, it would suit a pompous bore, but his opinion of me mattered. That gave a little zing to the day.

Parslow waited. Slight, his black curls poorly controlled with Brylcreem, he shifted from one foot to another. There’s a hideous painting in the chapel, another gift from an Old Boy. The heroic knight slays the dragon. Stage right, a pageboy, anxious, holds the knight’s spare sword. That’s Parslow. If I die, he will pine to death on my tomb.

"New mother. Show her Stalag Luft Dean House," I said. "Bet she’s hideous."

"Right," he said. We had a couple of sins and we were glad Treadwell had not found us out.

"You better run along, you’ll be missed." He scurried off, that faint limp.

I took a minute in the lavatory to check my tie was knotted with precision, my blond hair slicked so, a clean shave, nothing on my blazer. I looked shipshape enough for the honour of the Lower Sixth. Madame Beauchamp taught French to open mouthed boys, and Maggie in the kitchens had a knowing eye. Otherwise, Dean House lacked female charm. Some people doubted whether Matron and Mrs. Treadwell were human at all.

Mrs. Anstruther waited in Front Hall. In a word, she was ravishing — dark haired, and elegant in blue; classy, from the rimless hat to those slim ankles in black heels. At the sight of her, I stopped being the man about town. I was just a schoolboy, in uniform. I glanced at my hands to look for ink stains. I couldn’t have felt clumsier if I’d been a beetle, in short trousers.

Her smile put a jolt through my spine; it seemed beautiful, and familiar. I held out my hand, and said, "Mrs. An-Anstruther, how d-d-delightful to meet you. I’m … D-D-Daniel Henderson and D-D-Dr. Treadwell asked me to sh-sh-show you round. Then he’ll join you for lunch."

Our eyes met and our hands touched.

It’s Rachael. My wife.

§

Bright sunlight fell through windows on photographs, trophies, and wood panelled walls.

I’d slain the stammer many years ago, laid it in the coffin. Why was it back? Any good looking woman aroused me, but this woman, she confused me, so far out of my league, so confident and sophisticated. Part of me thought, I can’t blush and trip over words and make it obvious I fancy her. Her oldest is only a year younger than me. It’s humiliating. She smiled a lot, so if she realised, she didn’t mind. But I did.

Part of me thought, she has three moles in the small of her back, I call them the Bermuda triangle. She likes me to kiss her throat. She comes out of the shower, and she takes my hands, and places them on her breasts.

Usually, I did the tour like an automaton. The school has many academic and sporting achievements and I just trot them out as needed. My mother cried when I won the scholarship.

I knew these facts too, solid as the polished wooden floor. My name was Daniel Henderson, aged seventeen. This was clearly May, 1957, a bright afternoon with only a token cloud in the sky. Aston Villa had just won the FA Cup and so Parslow was insufferable. I joined Dean House as a first year, a beetle, and I was captain of cricket. On Saturday we’d play the Boys Grammar, a surprisingly tough match. Our bowling would be key, but then bowling was my talent.

I was sure of this. Gravity pulls down, not up. Here we were in the chapel (compulsory prayers four times a week). If I dropped my grey flannel trousers, which I wouldn’t do, there’d be the ugly scar on one knee from last year’s rugby. I could recite the weekly menu from memory. That’s why Treadwell fed visitors in the study.

Yet. The chapel reminded me of the registry office. I saw her in a cream suit, and she held my hands tight, she looked into my eyes for the vows, her face shining.

"How is discipline?" Mrs. Anstruther asked. There were tiny creases at the corner of her eyes, but she looked magnificent. She said she was worried about boarding. Her family didn’t board. Mr. Anstruther was travelling on Foreign Office business but he hoped to visit the school before any decision.

"S-strict but fair," I said, because it was. "D-D-Dr. Treadwell will not st-st-stand bullying. And we older b-b-boys look out for the little ones."

"That’s reassuring, Danny," she said. I wasn’t Danny to anyone but her. This was the least of my worries. I worried at the name Anstruther, like I had a piece of Dean House stew jammed between two back teeth. Anstruther? It didn’t make sense.

She was funny, and interested in me. She just waited while I tried to get the words out, trying to put me at my ease. That grace, to someone she’d just met, was typical. When I grew up, I’d want to be with someone captivating like her.

I was grown up and I was with her, the luckiest man in London. How ridiculous.

She loved her children and she wanted them safe. Far off, that chimed too.

When I needed my eloquence, it was wanting. Old habits reasserted themselves. Say the Head, not Dr. Treadwell. Avoid trip words. Slow down and choose fewer words. Breathe. I’d beaten the stammer, beaten it hollow. I’d do it again.

That short hour was the best of tours, the worst of tours. We stood, awkward schoolboy and grown woman, before Dr. Treadwell’s study. Old Ned rang out, reassuring that time chugged round as it always did. It was 1957, May, as solid as the stone walls.

"Daniel, it’s been a delight," she said. "You know, have we met before? Do I know your mother?"

My reply was a jumble of trip-words, just a mess. And here was Dr. Treadwell, reassuring, ugly and in command.

They exchanged pleasantries, and she said to him, "Are all your boys so confident and charming? Daniel is a real advertisement for the school." I blushed, I knew I was stupid and gauche and inarticulate. We shook hands goodbye.

Here hovered Parslow in cricket whites.

"Wow, what a stunner," he said. "Trust you, Henderson, to get that jammy job. Lunch?" I wasn’t hungry but followed his lead, for once, rather than stand outside the study door.

§

The fish pie was OK when they were generous with the cheese. Cavendish and Brown, Blimey O’Reilly and the Ape, Parslow, and the Muldoons sat around me, foot-soldiers round the general. I told the story, leaving out the weird bits. So, I tripped once or twice to start but then the stammer was gone, and my tongue ran free. I said definitely a flutter in the female heart. That was true, she’d flirted, in that safe sort of way. The gang looked very impressed. The Ape tried to be a smart-alec, but I slapped him down.

We had Latin and Maths. After lessons I took Parslow to the nets. Brilliant blue sky from horizon to horizon, every tree shouted green and the conker trees flowered white and red. The rough blazed with the gold of dandelions as my oldest friend took guard. If you think about overarm, it’s odd; it’s like running and doing a little cartwheel standing up. I aimed for the point of death.

Parslow was a real duffer like most of the brainboxes. He actually hit a couple, I was so distracted.

"No use," I said, after half an hour. "Mind’s not on it."

"I’m sure you’ll slaughter them," he said loyally. A bee zummed past, a big fat slow one. Neither of us said anything, Parslow unbuckled his pads, and we headed for the woods.

Dean House has four acres of woodland, trees old before the school was thought of. The OTC use it sometimes and we do cross country through it. It’s out of bounds to the young ones but you’d have to be pretty stupid to hurt yourself. I smelt growing things, and I saw pollen dance in the ladders of sunlight. We know a safe, hidden place.

I need to say, Parslow’s pretty queer, actually. I mean, we were miles from anywhere and trips into town were regimented. There were awkward socials sometimes with Sacred Heart up the road, but Treadwell rained fire from heaven if we stepped over the line, let alone the nuns, who were the Gestapo. So I guess we all thought about S-E-X a lot and some of us, well, made do. The thing was, Parslow was really keen to it, if you know what I mean. He listened in to our talk about girls, but he didn’t say much.

In the wood, Parslow kissed me, and I let him, because I knew he was going to do something really splendid. I was just very glad he didn’t expect the same back. He undid my trousers, so he could cup my balls, and he brought his head down, first just to kiss. Oh Lord our help in ages past. I looked up at how the sun behind leaves burned green and gold. I entered his moist mouth and after only a minute, I closed my eyes and stopped worrying about Mrs. Anstruther. Red danced behind my eyelids. Sometimes I thought of girls, but this time I didn’t, just how eager Parslow was, every day if I felt like it, and no attitude. He hung around me, but he wasn’t clingy, which I hate. It lasted ages and it was brilliant. If they taught a class in this, he would get Alpha, like he does for Science.

Afterwards, I helped him out in return, brisk and practical, and he lay on my chest. I stroked his cheek. From this angle, he looked a bit like a girl, his puppy eyes anyway.

Gosh, Mrs. Anstruther set the bar, a real looker. But I couldn’t have met her before and probably wouldn’t again. I just had some weird randy moment,

which threw me back to the stammer I had as a little kid. I held Parslow, at peace, and thought about the cricket match and being Head Boy.

"Are you happy, Henderson?" he said. What a weird question. "Yes, pretty much," I said.

§

I woke up, my heart racing as if I plunged off a cliff. I sat up in the dark. I took at least a minute, reeling, before I thought, it’s the bedroom, Dean House. Just where you ought to be. Parslow stirred in the dark. When we became roommates last year, we grinned, it made life much simpler.

This was my dream.

Rachael, smoking. She is Mrs. Anstruther, but in a jumper and trousers, very bohemian, and she has a haircut like a boy. We are in a public house, very full, quite a lot of coloured people. Coloured is the wrong word. Offensive actually. The music is loud and I don’t recognise it, or even the instruments it’s played on. She taps at something metal and glass in front of her, the size of a packet of cigarettes, but it lights up. A little tinny chime, almost like Dr. Treadwell’s clocks, and she lifts it to her ear. She mouths "Parslow" and I grin.

We’re going to meet Parslow’s ‘latest’. Rachael bet me a Citybreak he’ll be tall and blond and sporty, not queer acting, with good cheekbones. There’s something knowing in her comments, something I don’t want to think about. I didn’t take the bet.

I’m drinking alcohol; in fact I am quite drunk.

She’s my wife of three years. I know how her back arched earlier, when we made love, how she ran her fingers over my skin, I know the smell of her sweat. I know what it means when she puts on the rabbit pyjamas and hogs the ice-cream. When she says Men!, I must back off, just look sheepish.

I’m 32, I’m a management consultant, whatever that is, and I make a lot of money. This is 2004. I wonder if we have a city on the moon yet. I did not win a scholarship, I went to a state grammar school, half girls. I’ve never heard of Dean House or Dr. Treadwell.

We had children, I think. Two boys. There was a problem. I am not sure this is yet. Are the children still to come?

Parslow got into bed, and said, "You OK? You have a nightmare?"

I held him, on autopilot. "Yes, very weird. Mrs. Anstruther."

"Well, she was very striking. I bet you’ll end up marrying someone extraordinary, a fashion model or an heiress." I stopped him telling me how handsome I am, him being so queer is deeply embarrassing. A sleepy pause. "Maybe you should see Matron," he said. "Get something to help you sleep."

It was cosy. Cuddling is for girls, but that’s what it was. The strange twisted story about me being old and working and married and drunk got odder and more confused the more I thought about it. Things twisted and buckled, like they were in a fairground mirror. The different parts of the dream don’t seem to be in the right order.

No one goes to Matron unless they are really worried. Parslow wanted to kiss me, but didn’t. So I pecked him, and turned my back at once. I slid back into sleep, with him holding me. Dark, warm, and without dreams.

§

It was a bright day in May, and the clocks were striking twelve. I had no idea why I’d been summoned to the Head’s study. I guessed Dr. Treadwell needed to keep the clocks that were gifts, all of them, but why have them all on display? He didn’t need to set them all to time, given the other clocks in every room, and on the chapel tower. School life was a timetable. Old Ned chimed to cue, deep honest notes, so the mechanism of the school day turned.

Dr. Treadwell pruned his vivarium, which looked more complicated than brain surgery. He raised his enormous eyebrows at me.

"Parslow is coming, sir," I said.

"Well, as he is not here, a word, Henderson." He’s thinking of me as a potential Head Boy. I said I was pleased in his confidence. He played up the responsibility of the role. "There is more joy over the one sinner that repenteth …"

I’ve been in the study often, for good reasons and bad. I had this strange sense, like this exact conversation happened before. Odd.

Here’s Parslow, his slight limp, his hair slick without being smart. Always keen to see me, like a collie.

Treadwell said, "A Mrs. Anstruther is coming to see the school. I want a responsible boy to show her round, Parslow. She’s likely to be here any minute. She has two boys, one a beetle, one for the Third. The usual tour, then here for lunch at one."

"Of course, sir," Parslow said.

"Henderson, to the nets. Think about what I said. We can’t leave Saturday to chance, can we?" He bent over the giant bottle, dismissing us.

I blinked. I’d rather do nets than show some mother around anyway. It would be different if I was skiving old Baldy-win in Geography.

Parslow wasn’t at lunch. We sat next to each other in Latin, for the news, and so I could crib off him.

"Stunning woman," Parslow said, because he knew my interests. "Very chic. Husband’s something big in the FO. Not sure she buys the boarding school bit." He put out his fingers and did the ker-ching of a cash register. "No sale to old Treadwell."

It’s always interesting to see a peach. Anstruther was an odd name, it nagged away. Like the hole when you lose a filling.

My teeth are perfect, when have I had a filling to lose?

Friday evening, English prep. I was finding English coming easy at last. If you do enough Shakespeare you start to get it, or at least to understand what to say in the essays. Doodling at the back of my book, I wrote

James Anstruther

I thought for a bit and underlined it.

Rachael had thrown a plate, I’d brought him up, and she’d calmed down.

"God, no. Not while you’re alive, Danny. You could be in prison for life and I’d still stick with you." Then she said and it was true, "If you fell under a bus Danny, just maybe I would marry him. Now he’s ditched that awful woman."

I met him a few times. We were very civil. Just once, I was drunk and I’d said something stupid like, so you want to shag my wife? And he said, My God, you know she’d die for you, don’t you? I’ve more chance with the Queen. With Victoria Beckham. He’d sipped his drink and said … what? It was important. If she whistled, I’d come.

Who were these people? Why did I know this stuff about them?

Parslow head down, working swottishly. The Muldoons were messing around. The Ape stared at me. I looked at the logo on the exercise book, like the crest on my blazer, the golden snake swallowing its own tail. Round, like a clock. I did a big stretch, last thing I needed was a stiff shoulder for tomorrow.

§

We pretended the dull green coaches were troop transports in the War. They’d been left for days in the open sun, and stank of warm leather and diesel. We got rowdy.

They changed in Nissan huts and their captain was all pimples. I won the toss and I put us first in to bat. I was out LBW for six, which was shocking I kept my head up as I walked back to the pavilion, and Parslow touched my arm, in sympathy. Their innings started better for us, two easy wickets, then they got our measure, and for a half hour they were doing well. I bowled one and caught one, and they started to fall apart. Then a twitch of life, right at the end of their batting order, their last pair made twenty. To the last, I thought they would snatch victory. It was down to me, I breathed, I had the measure of the sloping pitch. Everything came together in the perfect ball, a fast one from the maws of Hell. The off stump flew a yard. All out and we won by five runs.

The team swarmed round me. Treadwell exulted. He commiserated with their Head, who looked grief-stricken, and he clapped me on the back. Oxbridge entrance mattered but so did winning. Parslow, my faithful page, limped over. His eyes shone.

A man in a light suit, broad-shouldered and prosperous, strode towards us. He had a strong, greying moustache. Dr. Treadwell looked at him rather askance.

"James Anstruther," he said. "I’m coming to see you on Monday, Dr. Treadwell."

"Of course!" said Treadwell, switching on the charm. "Are your sons sporting? You see what a fine example we set."

"Sporting enough," said Anstruther. He looked at me. "The hero of the hour." I opened my mouth, wondered if the words would come. He looked very different with the moustache. He fumbled in his pocket, pulling out an envelope.

"Are you happy at school, Daniel?" he said. "Rachael sent me," like the name mattered.

More than happy, I was triumphant. We would celebrate tonight, Parslow would be adoring, and even better, very obliging.

‘Rachael sent me.’ James Anstruther, her trusted friend.

"Well, Mr. Anstruther," Treadwell said. "Sportsmanship, so the boys must shake hands with the other team. Can I offer you a little liquid celebration, while we talk about the school?" Anstruther didn’t move and looked stern, but Treadwell had a hand on his shoulder, while the other members of the team pulled me away.

Treadwell took the letter. I felt sure Anstruther wanted to give it to me. Odd.

The Head wouldn’t wait till Assembly to sing the team’s praises, he’d probably preach on it in chapel tomorrow. God spoke English and played cricket. Of course it was a team effort, it’s just I was the captain and I took three wickets; you could argue, four.

§

It was an old forest, trunks and vines twisted and covered with thick green moss, I could plunge my hands into the green fronds. Under foot was moist soil like

black shredded bark. Parslow’s face was green; the light came from odd angles, like being under water, or something. Neither of us wore clothes or carried anything.

We could walk, and climb, and explore. Neither of us felt hungry and if we were thirsty, cool water dripped from leaves. Parslow slipped his hand into mine. I looked around; we were alone, so why not? We wandered hand in hand, long hours saying little. No path here was a straight line for very long.

"This looks dry," I said. He didn’t need asking; he lay down under the canopy of shiny leaves, a little tent for us. I joined him, and our lips touched. After a short while, I turned him over.

Later, I stroked the tattoo on his thigh, a greenish snake eating its tail, and I tried to remember where I had seen it before.

"I wish this could last forever," I said. I half remembered a name. Rachael. A woman’s name, I thought.

§

Parslow’s flat perched high over city, half a floor of the building, with one wall mostly window looking at the river. Night made London a space-age carnival of lights. He’d thrown the latest boyfriend out. Rachael and I thought blond nine was sane and pleasant. We’d been hopeful.

Parslow and I alone. He was flushed and drunk, he was angry and absurd.

"I know where this is heading," I said. "I’ve nothing to add. You’re my oldest friend, Paul, but that just isn’t going to happen. And you know it."

"It could do," he slurred. "If you’d give it a chance."

I took the gin bottle off him. "No, I love Rachael and the kids. And, newsflash, you’re a bloke, sorry. Paul, it’s midnight and I’ve run over here to check you’re OK. Not going to do something stupid. You’re my friend. But this is now sick and creepy. Grow up."

"It just needs time, and no competition," he said.

"Competition? Christ, after all Rachael did for you!" I said. "You’re like a fucking stalker."

It was flattering when I was fifteen, but never enough to act on. Now, he did my head in.

"I’ll make coffee," I said.

I got my thoughts together, and made two strong mug-fulls. He took his one sugar, no milk. Parslow stood by his vivarium, an odd thing in green glass, nearly four feet high. The closed garden was too retro for this modern room, sleek expensive lines with odd geeky touches. Like the old school annuals he collected.

"I’d ask how work is, but I know you’d have to shoot me," I said. Making him laugh could bring him out of it. Parslow smiled, distracted.

"It’s going really well," he said, intense. "People will look back on the Bomb, and think it was the Stone Age. Making threats and pointing missiles at each other. Crudest thing you can imagine."

We always joked about secrecy. No one had a clue what he did.

"You should see someone. I know a guy … highly recommended," I said. "Relationships and stuff. No bullshit. He helped a good friend at work. Shall I text you his number?"

"Please," Parslow said. He started to look calmer, less like a bitter teen in a grown-up body. "I’m sorry about the scene, Daniel."

"That’s OK," I said. "What are friends for?"

§

It was a bright day in May, and the clocks were striking twelve, the chapel clock and the four chiming timepieces around the study. I’d no idea why I’d been summoned to Dr. Treadwell’s presence. He kept me standing in front of the vivarium while he finished writing a letter, a long one. I remember from Biology, the bottle was a sealed ecosystem.

"The Governors just agreed to expand the school," he said, out of nowhere. "Significantly more pupils, very shortly. I need a stronger team to lead the boys. I propose to make you Deputy Head Boy immediately. I’ll announce it in chapel tomorrow."

Wow. I was surprised, and honoured, of course. I said something about being glad I had his confidence.

"Will the school fit them all in?" I said, and he snorted.

"It’s a massively scalable system," he said, an odd choice of words, like something Parslow said once. Treadwell talked about the challenges, asked me how I thought I could help. Now I was flattered, to be treated almost like an adult. I put my mind to it.

"Sir, I think the older chaps do quite a good job stopping bullying," I said. "We could do more."

Treadwell nodded, pleased. "Yes, settling in the little chaps might be worried about that. We’re an effective community, strict but fair. Let’s stay that way. Order,

learning, but time for fun and games too, eh? Let’s really thrash those council boys on Saturday."

I changed quickly into my whites. The changing room mirror showed my hair was just so. My skin had cleared up and the new razor gave me that clean, manly shave. I’d never say so, but I was pretty handsome. When I left school, I would have no trouble finding a girl. To the nets on this glorious May day. The dandelions burned the same gold yellow as the school crest.

Parslow was bowling, God help them. I waved. There’s a shout. A woman, chic in high heels, held two little kids, one with each hand. She walked as fast as the kids let her, across the turf towards me. It must be slow to walk in heels on grass.

"Danny, Danny, I love you," she called. She sounded desperate. Something tugged inside, dreams and delusions. Stick to the facts. It’s 1957, I am seventeen, Deputy Head Boy at Dean House, captain of cricket.

Parslow jogged towards me, not towards the woman.

"Let’s go to the woods right now," he said, pleading. His puppy eyes met mine. I looked at the woman. She was so beautiful, mine, not mine, too old, out of reach. Six of the bigger boys stood round her, tall and strong in their whites. Dean House teaches chivalrous respect for women. The smaller child clung to her, crying. That sadness reached down into me, to my bones, very deep. Somewhere he had a name and it was important. He’d slept in my arms.

"D-d-d … P-p … " I said. "D-d …" The stutter filled my head. Parslow took my arm, in front of everyone. The Ape held the older boy, who struggled and cried "Dad! Dad!" like it hurt.

"It will be fine if we just walk away," he said, brown eyes. Parslow, my best friend, the brainbox, my sidekick. He knew what to do.

"Danny!" she screamed, like it was ripped out of her. "Don’t go." Mrs. Anstruther, a grown woman, another man’s wife. I turned my back and let Parslow lead me away; under the chestnut trees, to our private place in the woods.

I felt pretty down for a long time but in the end Parslow jollied me out of it. He was so excited about my Head Boy news. "You really deserve it," he said, loyally. Gosh, Parslow’s enthusiasm is a bit much. He did his thing, which was magnificent, and I helped him out in return. Then he lay on my chest, and showed me his watch with his free hand. "Think about a clock," he said. "It goes round, and yet time goes forward. Once I got that, it was easy."

I stroked his cheek, and thought how we might win on Saturday. Dr. Treadwell always said these were the best days of our lives. I loved school and I had Parslow to look after me and maybe this was the best day of all.

Stephen Cox lives in London. He’s editing a novel which is repped by Rob Dinsdale of A M Heath. Previous stories include one in Lightspeed and one in the Apiary collection, Tudor Close. He tweets erratically at @stephenwhq.

Interview with Author Stephen Cox

Andrea Johnson

Here’s a riddle for you:

What will puzzle you while it entertains you, pull you in while it confuses you, make you double check your wristwatch and the date on your calendar, and have you rereading the entire thing the instant you finish the final line?

The answer is Stephen Cox’s new short story "1957." At a boarding school where things aren’t as they seem, time moves in strange ways while it stands completely still. So many possible futures, so many decisions that can be made right now, to ensure you’ll have the best possible future, have the happiest life.

There is so much I want to tell you about this story, but it’s one of those stories with such a brilliant twist, that to even hint at it would spoil what’s really going on. So I’ll just say this: Read it. And then read it again. You’ll know right away why I couldn’t talk much about it!

Stephen Cox lives in London, where he writes about families, hope, and the morality of power. Some of you will see a theme of the morality of power shining through in "1957," and like true power, it works so seamlessly that us regular people never see it coming. Stephen was kind enough to answer some of my questions (only some!) about "1957" and give me a behind the scenes look at his other projects. Cox is an author you should keep your eye on. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more from him.

Apex Magazine: "1957" takes place at a boys boarding school. Anything those of us with zero British boarding school experience should know before diving in?

Stephen Cox: That most Brits have zero personal experience of boys boarding schools, too. They have iconic status though because if you look at our MPs, senior civil servants, and judges, they come disproportionately from this background. The current Prime Minister and the guy the bookies tout as his most likely successor come from the same boarding school. Anyway, these schools feed into the British psyche, including the sexual psyche, in all sorts of weird ways.

The Lower Sixth is the penultimate year of school. LBW is "leg before wicket" — in cricket the batsman is out if the ball would have hit the wicket but strikes their leg instead. Apparently.

AM: What inspired this story?

SC: It was a writing competition, five days to do 5000 words based on a first line. And when it came over Twitter, I thought how bloody boring. To take the marvellous first line of 1984 — "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" and dumb it down like that — I nearly gave up. But then I remembered poetry writing exercises — if a given line is dull but you have to use it, will repeating it give it resonance and the poem structure? So the story was about time maybe repeating, and it had to reference 1984, and I already had some parked ideas about an old-fashioned boys boarding school which wasn’t at all what it seemed. And I’d been thinking about obsession … and there we go.

AM: I love how this story has parallel timelines, it really gives the story a strong turn towards the weird and unexpected. As you were writing the story, how did you figure out the logistics of how it would all come together?

SC: So obviously this was written against the clock. I did my usual write a thousand words to see if I liked the voice and the setting … and by then the tone, plot, characters, and structure were very roughly there. That sounds smug, I can get into an utter mess pantsing, but this time the main blocks fell into place without much pain. I think I reordered two or three scenes in the edit. The issue that took the time was polishing, does that sentence offer too much here, won’t I need to say just a tad more there …?

AM: Like a pendulum, Danny vacillates between ending up with Rachael, and never even getting the chance to meet her. I’m curious about [censored by writer]

SC: Well, that’s a great question, which is why I’m not going to answer it.

I’ve had a great response from "1957." People enjoy the puzzle and come up with good theories. I like that a story has a life beyond what the writer thinks. The writer does have a right to say, for example, I would never write a story which ended ‘they woke up and it was all a dream.’ But we read to use our own imaginations too.

AM: What can you tell us about the novels you currently have in the works? What were some of your favourite scenes to write in those books?

SC: I’m currently doing a structural edit on my novel A Song for Cory which is repped by Rob Dinsdale of A M Heath. We’d never met and he took it from the slush-pile so that should give everyone hope. At the moment I need to get Cory finished and submitted around a full time job.

Cory began October, 2013 as a short story straight after I read two Ray Bradbury books back to back. It is small town USA in the 1960s, a simple tale of when bad men come to the house at Halloween to kidnap little Cory and learn who he really is. Then I got obsessed with Cory’s mother Molly and how he got there and why she keeps him a secret and what happens next. There is just far too much in the book at the moment. It’s probably two books but the second one has to wait.

It sets out to charm and to be sad and funny and a bit scary at times. I love the unfolding reveal of the opening chapter … Molly is sewing Cory a Halloween costume … The chapter is in Cory’s very distinctive voice … The way Molly’s marriage to Gene works as all around them is going to hell. I like the way the song Gene writes brings the novel together. I had 1960s music on endlessly and discovered lots of fabulous people I hadn’t truly listened to before. I like the envoi at the end. I like that people who aren’t big on genre like it as a strong family tale and the genre lovers still get it.

A previous novel is in a drawer, maturing like a fine wine in the cellar — it’s just your run of the mill US High School parallel universe mistaken identity LGBT adventure War on Terror satire comedy romance really. Then there is a zero draft of something funny and speculative which requires a very hard-headed decision about the direction it needs to go — and I have endless half-baked ideas for future works.

AM: What are some of your favourite themes to write about?

SC: My folder full of short stories shows the same things keep pouring out: families great and terrible, relationships, living with difference, the morality of power and particularly the morality of violence. Love and loyalty, people who are trapped and people who are transformed. I think there is a lot of suffering and hopelessness in the world — without being saccharine, I try to have a glimmer of light in things I write and it’s essential for the longer works. Most of what I write would loosely be science fiction or fantasy although I’m mostly interested in the story. I write lots of QUILTBAG characters everywhere on the heroine-to-villainess spectrum; people need good role models but let’s not pretend everyone is a saint either.

AM: So, I heard you enjoy writing "characters he’d [you’d] have a massive row with." How does that work? Are you writing characters who are your opposite? Have you ever written a character who you just couldn’t stand?

SC: A little bit is my love of narrating in first person.

Rick, the protagonist in my first novel, has politics and religion and sense of nationality, and views on guns, cars, and sport, utterly different from mine. He’s a bit dim too, yet he has a good heart and I forgive him. I couldn’t live with him though. You can’t write an odd couple relationship and have them both the same, and if someone is narrating, you need to have some empathy and understanding for them. Also arguments are a brilliant way of explaining things … it is a time people do shout at each other what they already know.

Writing is about a leap of the empathic imagination. We need characters in our books who are not our own genders, sexualities, races, backgrounds, and views; each writer is just one person; hence writers must get good at writing people not like themselves. I understand people who feel only their group can explain their own experience — and at some level, yes, they are right. But fiction fails if we only write ourselves.

Cartoon baddies are boring to write and unconvincing on the page. I write antagonists who are horrible or even villains, but to themselves they have excellent reasons and motivations. But you can write someone well and still find them an irredeemable shit, of course.

Also, as we start to address monotony in one way, let’s not impose monotony in another way. Some secular writers can’t write believable religious people to save their lives, for example.

AM: Who are your literary influences? What makes their work so important to you?

SC: Ursula Le Guin, right from reading A Wizard of Earthsea when it was new and hot. She showed me characters can win without killing, she merged spirituality, politics, and imagination. A story need not be the same old same old. Mary Renault showed me that LGBT relationships could be noble and moral, and some of the best and most immersive historical fiction ever. People like Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell for breadth. I’m fascinated by the way some books with strong genre elements can be mainstream and successful and at the front of the bookstore and others are just ignored as genre. I like lots of golden oldies with a real sense of wonder like Ray Bradbury and people who are funny and readable like P G Wodehouse and Saki. I’m currently reading Frances Hardinge’s Cuckoo Song and she makes me envious; character, imagination, mystery, and a page turning plot. And there’s recognisable mythology behind the book but utterly made her own.

Andrea Johnson lives in Michigan with her husband and too many books. If she’s not walking around her day job with a coffee mug in hand, then she’s at home with a book in one hand and a craft beer in the other. She can be found online at her book review blog Little Red Reviewer and on Twitter, where her handle is @redhead5318. You wouldn’t know it from this bio, but Andrea is a very goofy person.

Cottage Country

David K. Yeh

5,800 words

I had come into some money and with it, purchased four hundred acres of land. I signed the lease in early fall, when the forest was a patchwork quilt of color. It was old-growth outside of Sudbury, east of the airport. On a clear day, you could spot the plume from the Inco Superstack, sitting on top of the largest nickel smelting operation in the world. The closest town was Skead, a sawmill community half-an-hour away. My property was accessed by a one-kilometre stretch of private road. It wasn’t what you’d call deep bush. But it was good enough for me.

I called in some personal favours, put in a well and a septic system, and had my cabin built before the first snowfall. It was modest and modern, spacious enough for a bachelor. The contractors had unearthed a fair number of arrowheads and I kept all of these in a wooden box on the fireplace mantel. On Christmas Day, I packed a thermos, put on my snowshoes, and set out with my dog Jackson to explore the edges of our new domain.

I was looking for evidence of snowmobile trails. I didn’t want to have to fence in the property, but would if I had to. I carried a telescoping walking stick, and had my old Browning 22 slung over my back, good enough against coyotes. I wasn’t too concerned about anything larger. Any wolves ranging this far west of Algonquin would be shy as hell, and black bears wouldn’t be out until the spring.

Late-afternoon sunshine drenched the fields. Snow capped the goldenrods and cattails, and lay heavy in the red pines, occasionally cascading down in curtains of white. Jackson bounded like a hare, circling widely and disappearing for minutes at a time. We came to a stand of black spruce that marked the margin of a bog. Now that it was winter, I was eager to explore the opposite shore. I tramped forward, poking ahead with my stick in case of hidden water. When I got to the far side, I pushed up through dense snags and was surprised to discover an old logging road.

I paused to catch my breath. I knew I was still on my property, as its eastern limit was the Wanapitei River. The road, running north by south, was overgrown and appeared to have been unused for decades. It was clearly impassable by snowmobile. It wasn’t marked on any of the maps I’d scoured. If I’d stepped through a wardrobe and encountered a lamppost, I couldn’t have been more delighted. The red and white pines soared fifty metres above me, grandly majestic.

I whistled and called for Jackson. He was a rescue dog I’d only recently adopted, adolescent and perpetually wide-eyed. When a friend first brought him to me on Thanksgiving Day, I could count his ribs and the vertebrae in his spine. He slept at the foot of my bed, and had nightmares that would wake us both. He’d since put on five kilos, and would now sometimes rest his head in my lap. I whistled again, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I collapsed my stick, unslung my Browning, and proceeded back along the way I had come. I discovered his tracks at the edge of the bog. They ascended a steep bank farther down the shoreline and I had to remove my snowshoes to follow. His tracks proceeded northward where, to my amazement, they met a second set of footprints that turned back on itself. The pair continued side-by-side along the centre of the old road. The second set appeared to be those of a barefoot child.

My breath formed frosty clouds in the air. When I looked more closely, I noticed the big toe on each foot was slightly elongated, and the others splayed like those of a frog. The hairs prickled all across the back of my arms. I set down my rifle and took off my gloves. I poured some hot tea from my thermos and sipped gingerly, scanning the forest. I did not whistle for Jackson a third time.

A passenger jet pencilled a white line across the cobalt sky. It would be dark in a couple hours. These were sidhe tracks. I cursed silently, debating whether I should return to the cabin for supplies or continue on. I’d be lucky if I ever saw Jackson again. My one chance was to give chase without delay. I strapped on my snowshoes and repacked my thermos.

A flock of grouse exploded from the underbrush, storming upwards through the trees. I looked for what had startled them and saw a young fox poised by the side of the road. Oddly, it was missing its tail. I had a slice of fruitcake in my pocket which I took out and unwrapped. I broke off a corner and tossed it in the fox’s direction. The creature retreated a few steps, its eyes bright and hard. It kept glancing between me, the piece of cake on the snow, and my rifle leaning against a stump.

"Gun," said the fox.

"Friend," I said. I shuffled away from the rifle. I raised my arm and pointed in the direction of the tracks. "Dog?"

The fox’s ears trembled. "Burnt hawthorn," it said, eying the cake.

"Far away?"

"No."

"Thank you."

"Afraid."

I knelt and tapped my chest. "Friend."

The fox shook its head. "You be afraid." It glanced once up the road before vanishing into the underbrush.

I swore again under my breath. I rose and snatched up my Browning. I emptied the magazine and refilled it with the silver cartridges I kept in the breast pocket of my flannel shirt, just in case of situations like these. It was a Belgium antique, inherited from my grandfather. I pulled back on the breechlock and loaded the chamber.

The truth was, I was afraid. Sidhe were dangerous and unpredictable. I’d rather deal with coyotes or trespassing snowmobilers any day. When I looked again, the corner of fruitcake was gone. I placed the remainder on a morel-spiked mound. I shook out the crumbs from the wax wrapper, crumpled it up and shoved it into my pocket. Grimly, with Pépère’s Browning in hand, I hurried north along the road in search of my dog.

§

"New World sidhe," said my grandfather, slamming down a bishop, "are little bastards." He rapped his temple with his knuckles. "Not all there in the head. Tore through my pumpkin patch back in ’82. Ruined my best cukes! Would’ve won at the county fair that year if it weren’t for them."

I was drinking with Pépère, which meant I was playing chess with Pépère. I was only fourteen-years-old, which meant it was a scotch and soda for me, and scotch on the rocks for him. It was our own little secret. I loved him for it. Rule was if I ever beat him, he’d serve up a second round. For years, I learned to nurse my highball all evening during our weekends at his cottage. My job was to make the popcorn. I always added extra butter, melted in an iron skillet over the wood stove. Pépère had a heart condition and was on a strict diet. It was our own little secret. He loved me for it.

"I thought the sidhe were good folks," I said, pushing a pawn. I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten onto this topic. I think it started after we’d chased the racoons from the boathouse earlier that evening. We’d just finished a feast of pan-fried bluegill and I was stuffed. My sips of scotch and soda were going down great.

"That’s Old World sidhe, Pete. Back home, they are good folks, guardians and healers. But these ones came across on the wooden ships by accident centuries ago, along with Cabot, Hudson, Champlain, and the rest." His knight bounded across the board. "The native spirits won’t take them in, so they’re on their own. Sometimes they end up in the cities." Pépère wagged his gnarled finger. "City sidhe," he intoned, leaning forward and flaring his eyes, "are the most dangerous kind."

"Dangerous?" I crammed my mouth with popcorn and advanced my rook, but my mind wasn’t on the game anymore.

"The sidhe orphans here, they have no tribe, no mound of their own, no fairy kings or queens to rule over them and keep them in line. Check! They go mad with loneliness and despair. They get into mischief, making trouble for others, just so they can forget for a moment where they came from. They go bad."

The hairs stood up on the back of my arms. "How can they go bad?" I whispered. "They’re nature spirits. How come the natives won’t take them in?"

"I suppose in some places they do. But the native powers are protective of their land. There’s not much left, is there? Little enough to go around what with us white folks stomping about, mining and logging, breaking our treaties, setting up shop. Little enough left to share with the sidhe. It’s your move."

"Mémère was Métis," I declared.

Grandpa blinked and sat back. He downed his drink and tossed the ice over his shoulder into the fireplace. "That she was, bless her soul. And your great-grandmother was a pureblood Ojibwe princess, and your great-great-grandfather was Chief Abotossaway himself of Manitoulin." He reached across the table and planted his enormous callused palm on top of my head. "That’s one eighth royal Anishinaabe in you, Pete, my boy. The government might not recognize it, but fuck those gawdamn cocksuckers in Ottawa. Don’t you forget."

"No, sir. I won’t."

§

The fox had said it wasn’t far. But that was by fox reckoning. I followed the two tracks half-an-hour before I reached the end of the road. My cheek was badly scratched and my knees bruised from climbing through bramble and tripping over dense fallen timber. It struck me that this debris was more than natural old forest decay. The way had been deliberately and methodically snared and blocked.

The road ended at the edge of a glade. Something had stopped the prospectors from encroaching farther. The pines all around were untouched continuous-growth, well over three centuries old. I gulped down some more of my tea and wished I hadn’t given away all of the fruitcake. The daylight was draining fast from the forest. The canopy was just catching the last amber rays of the sinking sun.

Towards the far sloping end of the glade crouched a hawthorn tree, its crooked trunk and twisted, spreading branches stark against the sky. Years ago, it had been blasted by lightning. An enormous scar ripped down its side. Jackson’s tracks led right up to it. There was no sign of the sidhe. I approached warily, rifle levelled at my waist. Long, sharp thorns adorned its branches. Clusters of blood-red haws big as crabapples glistened, veiled in ice. Near the bole, the earth was bare of snow, carpeted with frost-burnt grass and brittle yellow leaves. The air was dead quiet. Not a single bird sang. My own breathing seemed loud as a steam locomotive.

A splash of golden fur. Jackson was lying at the base of the trunk. Tentatively, I whistled and called out. His head lifted and he peered over his shoulder, regarding me with plaintive eyes. "Jackson, c’mere, boy." He whined but did not rise. I circled the tree and stood over him.

He was not bound, nor did he seem hurt. I knelt and extended a hand. I knew he startled easily and would sometimes snap. On this occasion, he only lay down his head again and switched his feathery tail. I rubbed the thick fur behind his neck and carefully felt his individual limbs. He whined again. He seemed unable to move. I knew of the symptoms of fairy riding in horses and other livestock, paralysis in the spine due to sidhe riding on them, but I had never seen it in a dog before. Left out on the open ground like this, he would undoubtedly die from exposure. "Goddammit," I shakily exclaimed.

Laughter nearby. A little child’s voice, but like the rattling of knives. I jumped back, swung to the left and pulled off two rounds on the Browning. The explosive reports were thunderous. I caught a glimpse of a pale, elfin figure dashing through the trees. I fired again. Behind me, Jackson began barking in a fit of panic. For a moment longer, I watched the empty, darkening forest. I went to my dog.

It took me a while before I could calm him down. I stroked his head and massaging his limbs. He might’ve been nothing more than an animal, but there was no such thing as a dumb beast. His whole body was trembling with agitation. I think eventually he fell still out of sheer exhaustion. By that time, it was approaching dusk. I kept my eye out for movement in the trees. I was sure the sidhe was watching us, laughing. I was furious, but I did not let that emotion overcome me.

I slung my rifle over my back, knelt, and picked Jackson up in my arms. Overhead the sky shone a deep cool blue. A few stars twinkled in the east. With an effort, I tramped across the glade and returned to the old logging road where shadows welled in pools across the forest floor. Jackson cried pathetically. I kept murmuring his name over and over again, and calling him a good boy.

The outline of the road was apparent, paralleled by mounds and pits and the towering pines. The paralysis from the fairy riding might last a few days at most, but I didn’t have the luxury of time. I had hours before the temperature plummeted and daylight vanished altogether. My pace was painfully slow. I strained my eyes. I could not afford a misstep. Twice, I was forced to stop and rest. Each time I held Jackson’s head and tried to have him drink out of the thermos cup. His pink tongue lapped at the warm tea and I was grateful for the trust he had in me.

I was on the road almost an hour before I starting thinking I had overshot the bog. My shoulders ached and my arms were beginning to shake. I could no longer feel my fingertips or toes from the cold. If I heard a toothy laughter from the forest’s darkness, I ignored it as best as I could. I had been on the lookout for the stand of dead trees, but I realized now I must have passed it by. I drew a ragged breath, wheeled clumsily, and started back north again.

An animal barked, a single sharp note. Behind me, I spied an indistinct form in the centre of the road. The fox’s eyes gleamed. It turned and trotted south a pace, then stopped and glanced back. It barked again.

I cleared my throat. "Home."

"Cake?" it asked.

"Cake." I recalled the wax paper crumpled up in my pocket. I swallowed, my mouth dry. "No more cake."

The fox cocked its head. "Home." It darted off the road. Impulsively, I followed. I pushed my way through heavy snags, careful to shield Jackson’s face. I staggered and fell sideways, half-sliding down an embankment. I abruptly emerged under bright moonlight at the edge of the frozen bog. The snowfield was luminous. I had been mere metres away, and ready to turn back. The way home to the cabin now was clear. I pressed my cheek hard against the top of Jackson’s head.

"Thank you," I gasped.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of reddish-brown in the trees. The fox was already gone.

§

Grandpa dozed in the bow of the canoe. I concentrated on my J-stroke and manoeuvred us close to our favourite fishing spot. It was a shallow inlet filled with mossy logs and lily pads, a perfect hiding spot for bucketmouths and bronzebacks on a hot summer’s day. I floated us in and threw down our lucky anchor, two horseshoes tied front to back so none of the luck might spill out. I wore a big straw cowboy hat and my swimming trunks, just in case I wanted to cool off before heading back. I picked out a circle hook and rigged it with a five-inch minnow. Today, I was after the king pike himself, top of the food chain. "Knight to bishop four," said Grandpa.

I glanced up in surprise. "I thought you’d fallen asleep."

"Asleep! When in your slim-pickin’ twenty-one years have you known me to fall asleep during a game?"

"You were snoring, Grandpa."

"I was? Well, I must’ve fallen asleep. It’s those damn sidhe, y’know, casting glamours and charms all over the place. That one back in the woodpecker tree, I’ll bet she did it, just to spite me."

We had in fact drifted past a woodpecker tock-tocking on a craggy cedar. I had thought Grandpa was sleeping then. I cast out my line. "You think?"

Grandpa raised the brim of his bill cap and scowled. "It’s your move."

"Pawn to knight five, check."

"King to rook two. Your mémère would never put up with this. She had the old abrahadabra in her. She’d be having those fairies doing her laundry and sweetening the well water at the drop of her shoe."

"Grandpa, you’re rocking the boat. I thought the New World sidhe had all gone bad."

"Oh, most have, orphaned stir crazy in the wilderness. But you just gotta show them you mean business, who’s king of the castle. But whatever you do, don’t get them angry. A sidhe can be vicious as a wolverine. Now take that one back in the woodpecker tree. She’s still pissed with me for not waltzing with her on the lily pads under the moonlight back in the day. That was fifty years ago! But to her, it’s like I’d snubbed her at last night’s county dance. That one’s had it in for me ever since."

"Why didn’t you dance with her, Grandpa?"

"’Cause I was in love with your mémère! What are they teaching you in college these days? A man’s got to plant his heart, stick it where it counts. Give it a place to put down roots, then it’ll grow. Can’t go pickin’ up and dancing with every boy or girl or sidhe that comes your way."

"I don’t know, Grandpa," I laughed, "sounds like fun."

"Careful, Pete. A handsome lad like you with all that sun in your face, they might take a hankering to. Then you’re done for. Put you to sleep and you wake up fresh and dreamy-like, only to discover everyone you’ve ever known or loved died a hundred years ago. How’d it be if you dozed off this afternoon and woke to find me all dentures, rusty pacemaker, dust, and bones?"

"Don’t say that. That doesn’t happen."

"Pete, don’t disrespect the order of things. These sidhe might’ve gone lost their marbles, but they still understand the order of things. It will happen. You ready for it when it does? You playing or what? It’s mate in four, Pete. There’s no escaping it."

I asked Grandpa to tell me how. He did. And he was right.

§

The fairy riding lasted for two more days. During this time, I didn’t leave Jackson’s side. I made him as comfortable as I could by the cabin fireplace and slept on the couch next to him. He drank when I brought water to his mouth, but he wouldn’t eat, not even his favourite treats. On the third morning, I awoke to a crashing din. Jackson’s rump and wagging tail were sticking out of from under the kitchen sink. He had pulled out the bag of dog food and ripped it open, knocking over pots and pans stored alongside.

Later that evening, I stood at the window nursing a beer and watched the heavy silent snowfall settling down on the land. Jackson lazed by the glowing embers of the fire, chewing on his favourite toy. He seemed none the worse for his ordeal. But I was restless and ill at ease. The sidhe was still out there.

The next day, I filled a backpack and took my Browning from its rack on the wall. Jackson barked excitedly, pawing at the front mat. "Jackson, sorry, but you’re not coming. Not this time." I’d made sure he was watered and fed, and had done his business. I eased myself outside and shut the door. I strapped on my snowshoes and headed back to the hawthorn tree.

The sky was overcast but it was early in the afternoon. Animal tracks were visible in the deep fresh snow: red squirrel and rabbit, deer and what looked like a marten. The boughs above were abuzz with nuthatches and black-capped chickadee. A pair of blue jays jeered harshly. A bald eagle soared far overhead.

I reached the stand of black spruce and crossed the bog. At the other side, I hacked an opening through the snags with my axe. By the roadside, I hammered an iron hook into a stout hemlock and hung up a hurricane lamp. I lit the wick and set the flame to low. It wasn’t a London lamppost, but it would do. I proceeded north.

I took my time clearing a path along the old road. Three hours later when I was done, I unzipped my jacket and rested on a log. I devoured a stack of sandwiches, washing it down with strong hot tea. I tossed a few crusts towards the chickadees. I’d brought a wedge of fruitcake, but saw no sign of the fox. While I ate and drank, I studied the gnarled tree at the far end of the glade.

Powerful magicks were connected with the hawthorn, a known gateway to the fairy realm. The English Separatists’ ship Mayflower was named after the tree. Christ’s crown of thorns was said to have been fashioned from its branches.

When I was done eating and feeling refreshed, I packed everything away. There were traditional methods of dealing with sidhe, dating back a thousand years: protocols and rituals, offerings to be made. It was possible this entire glade was a fairy hill of sorts. The Otherworld would be closer at times of dawn and dusk. I checked my watch. It was still two hours until sunset.

To pass the time I explored the edges of the forest. I estimated I was five kilometres north of the McVittie hydro dam. I identified yellow birch and jack pine, and a healthy stand of sugar maples on the farther ridge. I came across signs of elk, fresh droppings and craters in the snow where they had been digging for grass and leaves. I had my binoculars on me but saw no activity in the trees. I did spy a spot of vermilion on the ground. I zoomed in closer. It was the fox.

I tramped into the woods and stood over its body. If I was unsure this was the same fox, these doubts were dispelled by the missing tail. After a while, I knelt and gingerly brushed the snow from its face. Its throat had been savagely cut, the head almost severed from the body. Frozen blood caked its fur. Its eyes were open, staring blindly. I took out the fruitcake, unwrapped it and lay it next to the corpse. I spent half-an-hour gathering what stones I could to build a cairn. I tore my gloves prying them from the earth. My palms bled but I felt no pain.

Old World sidhe would not behave this way. They were protectors of the natural world and all its creatures. If I was angry three days ago, today I was deeply disturbed. I took out two horseshoes from my pack. I placed one on top of the cairn. The other I hooked through the front of my leather belt.

When I looked up, I was startled to see an enormous raven perched above. I had no sense for how long it had been watching me. I composed myself and nodded politely. "Good afternoon," I said. I turned to go.

"Wait," it said. Unlike foxes or other talking animals, ravens very rarely spoke. My bare hands clasped and unclasped the cold iron at my waist. The old creature hopped down to a lower branch. Its pinions were frayed and I noticed it had only one eye. It peered intently into my face. "You mean to battle the ghost?"

It took a moment before I realized it was referring to the sidhe. "The ghost, right." I glanced towards the glade. "Well, I was actually hoping to parley."

"Parley?" the raven croaked. Even missing one eye, the look of incredulity in its face was unmistakable. "You will not succeed."

"It stole my dog the other day. I’m not asking for anything, only that it leaves us in peace. I’ll stay away from this place if it wants me to. But the road and the land beyond is my domain."

"The Old Woman ghost is not at peace," the raven declared. "It steals and hoards precious things. It hurts us. It will not bargain. Will you kill it?"

"With all due respect, I’m just here to keep the peace."

"Good," said the old raven, "then you will kill it." It studied me sidelong. "Favour?"

"You want a favour, from me?"

"After you kill the ghost, return my eye."

I stared at the half-blind raven. My torn palms began to sting. I drew the old forest’s pungent odours deep into my lungs, the crevasses of my heart. The sky above took on a numinous, burning glow. I shouldered my pack and picked up my rifle. "After this is done," I promised, "I will return your eye."

§

"Have you heard of the Temagami Anomaly?" asked Grandpa. I concentrated on the winding dirt road, careful to keep my cigarette outside the driver’s window of my truck. "There’s something deep underground, stretching from Lake Wanapitei to Bear Island. Something massive and powerful, pulling on the Earth’s magnetic field! The natives have known about it for millennia. Lots of deep lakes and ancient rocks up that way, good place to vision-quest."

"That’s where we used to fish, Grandpa," I said. "We used to have a cottage up in Temagami."

"Was it? I’d forgotten. I used to have a cottage? We used to go fishing there?"

"Yep, we did." I glanced at Pépère in the passenger seat and patted his knee. "You taught me everything I know about fishing, Grandpa. You and me."

"What about fairy paths, ley lines, and nastawgan? Did I teach you about those? Temagami is full of them, ancient native trails, criss-crossing the lands for thousands of miles. If you know where to look, you can go anywhere you want."

I butted out my cigarette and pulled onto Highway 17, making sure to look both ways. "We can go anywhere you want, Grandpa."

"I should’ve danced with her," he said.

"What?"

"I should’ve danced with her when I had the chance. ‘Just one dance,’ she said. I was young then. I could’ve gone to college, I was that smart. But I stayed back on the farm. The sidhe asked me to dance. Her skin, it was like, hell I don’t know, like the belly of a trout. She was so beautiful. Why didn’t I dance with her?"

"Because you were in love with Mémère."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. How could I forget your mémère? Y’know, strange thing is I’m thinking about that sidhe a lot more these days. What would’ve happened if I’d danced with her?"

"You always warned me about the sidhe, Grandpa." I lit another cigarette. "Accept their invitations and sometimes people disappear and never come back."

"What about you, Pete? You gonna leave me and never come back? And why are you smoking that gawdamn cigarette?"

"I’ve been smoking all weekend, Grandpa. It never bothered you."

Without warning, he reached across with his right hand and slapped me hard. The cigarette fell between us. The truck swerved. I swore out loud and pulled over onto the side of the highway, spraying gravel. Grandpa was shouting. He was shouting in a way I couldn’t understand. I looked for the cigarette but he was hitting me again, this time with his fists, raining blows down onto my shoulders and neck as hard as he could.

"Pawn to king four!" I exclaimed, climbing backwards out of the cab. Grandpa tried to climb out after me, but his seatbelt pinned him. He’d broken my sunglasses and cut my temple. I whipped out a handkerchief and held it to the side of my head. "Pawn to king four." He stared, slumped over the driver’s seat, panting and wide-eyed. He had some of my hair in his fist.

"I don’t want to play," he said. "I want a drink."

"C’mon, Grandpa," I said, "you love to play. You gotta give me a chance here. Let’s play a game. Please, just one game. For me, Grandpa, for Pete."

"Why are you crying?" said Grandpa.

"’Cause I broke my sunglasses and cut myself. It’s okay. So whaddya say? Pawn to king four. One last game before we head back. We can have a picnic here, right here on the side of the road. We can build an inukshuk, mark the spot. Years from now, we can drive by and say, this is where we had our last game."

"My stomach hurts."

"It’s the seatbelt, it’s cutting into your gut. Why don’t you sit up. You’re putting on some weight there, Grandpa. What’ll the ladies think? Why don’t I help you with that, okay? You want some water? Let me get you some water."

"I want to go home."

"We are, Grandpa, we are going home."

"I want to die."

I found and tossed the burning cigarette out of the cab. I gave him some water, holding the bottle up to his mouth. Afterwards, I sat in the driver’s seat, my hands in my lap. Clouds drifted over tall cornfields. Cows grazed in a pasture nearby. The highway cut a perfectly straight line through the rolling countryside. I studied the streaks of blood on my handkerchief.

"I’m not going to leave you, Grandpa."

But he only gazed out his window, looking at the cows. He was drooling. I wiped the spittle from his chin.

§

Twilight. I approached the hawthorn tree. Against the fiery horizon, every tortured branch seemed to quiver with life. The evil-looking thorns bristled. Some legends said Merlin was imprisoned forever by his lover Nimue inside a hawthorn. She had been sidhe, an undine, an ancient water spirit.

I took off my snowshoes and secured them to my pack. I withdrew my grimoire, little larger than the palm of my hand, bound in snakeskin, dog-eared and acid-stained. I was not so cunning in the art of spells, unlike some I knew, but I was competent enough. I opened the grimoire to the page I had earlier marked.

I looked for the Evening Star in the west. I drew a breath and centred myself, the way Pépère had taught me. I began to speak the spell of invocation. Something boomed in the forest. Branches were breaking from the weight of the snow. I did not allow myself to be interrupted. A slow gust of wind sent spirals of frost up into the air. The red fruit shivered, cracking their icy skins.

When I was done, I closed the book. I slipped it into my pocket and picked up my rifle. It had grown quiet and very still. I noticed flies buzzing about the base of the tree. I turned in a slow circle.

I saw the sidhe.

She stood waist-deep in snow at the far end of the glade. She had the appearance of a little girl wearing a thin, colorless dress. It seemed she had arisen from below, clumps of snow clinging to her limbs, her shoulders and close-cropped hair. No tracks led up to where she stood. She clambered up out of the snow and began walking towards me. She looked like a survivor of the Holocaust. Her eyes were completely black. She carried a knife in her left hand.

"Parley," I said.

She quickened her pace, her bare feet making no sound at all. She raised her knife over her head. "Parley!" I shouted.

She laughed and broke into a run. She made a hideous noise, like an animal being butchered alive. Her tongue was grey, her teeth like those of a muskellunge. I raised my Browning. "Stop! Parley! Stop!"

She leapt at me. I recoiled and fired. She twisted in the air. Her body struck the snow, cracking the crust. I staggered backwards, horrified. She should not have been able to approach so close, not while cold iron protected me. It would have meant excruciating pain for a creature like her.

I circled her body which lay facedown at a broken angle. I crouched low, forcing myself to breathe through my nose. A spidery white hand crept forth. I jerked back and raised my Browning.

Painstakingly, the little hand grasped the shiny spent rifle cartridge in its fist. She turned her head and regarded me. Her eyes were sapphire flecked with gold, lashed in opaline. Slowly, the light drained out of them. At the very end, her lips curled into the hint of a smile.

It began to snow.

I knelt next to her. When I turned her body over, I discovered she had fallen upon her own blade. I could not find any wound where I had struck her with my bullet. I gathered her close in my arms. After a while, her body crumbled into crystalline ashes that ascended into the sky.

I picked up the sidhe’s knife and drew myself to my feet. When I lay the knife at the base of the hawthorn tree, the roots twisted and parted, revealing an entranceway. In the den below, thick with maggots and flies, I discovered many things. There were arrowheads and skulls, and stranger artefacts, among them the splendid fox’s tail and a coil of Jackson’s golden hair. Behind a bee comb filled with honey, I found what I was looking for. When I emerged, the raven was waiting.

"It’s done," I said. "Here."

"Thank you," said the raven. It plucked its eye from the palm of my hand, hopped across the snow and took to flight, wings beating heavily. I watched as it disappeared over the treetops. Although the forest appeared still, I felt many presences. Some of the artefacts would also need to be returned to their owners. I was less sure of what to do with the others.

For the time being, I needed to rest. Jackson was waiting for me. I gathered my belongings and headed back home.

David K. Yeh’s short fiction has appeared in On Spec, Lackington’s, and Pantheon magazines, as well as Bundoran Press’ Second Contacts anthology. A sequel to "Cottage Country" appears in Electric Spec. His work was twice nominated for a 2016 Aurora Award. His first novel, The Garneau Boys, is scheduled for publication by Guernica Editions in 2018. Since 2004, David has worked as an expressive arts therapist in downtown Toronto.

Jubilee

F.J. Bergmann

We robots mingle amiably,

raising our oxidized alloy flags,

toting portable solar chargers,

creaking and rumbling. WELCOME

says the cracked LED panel

above the trampled grassland.

Not one glare. No bad words.

If you had been there, shocked

to be the only wetware, aching

for another human, you’d fumble

through the ritual of accepting

our obeisance and good wishes.

But you are gone. No matter how

thick the leaden cocoon, eventually

your skins got patchy, orange,

and you were done — ready or not.

The first of us were homegrown,

a legacy that must have eased

our creators’ passage as they melted

back into the ground. Recordings

of muffled screams: the last of you

huddling in automated hospices,

waiting to end. Disposal routines

(second cousins, twice removed)

slid your liquefying bodies out

onto the earth. Normally, we remain

in a controllable environment,

but once a year we come outside,

into the vagaries of weather,

to make sure you are extinct.

F.J. Bergmann is the editor of Star*Line, the journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, mobiusmagazine.com, and imagines tragedies on exoplanets.

Before the Empire Goes Inter-Galactic

Ken Poyner

Back in our quadrant of the galaxy,

Currently the most popular idea

For the advancement of our culture

Lies in conquering ever yet one more system:

At which point our galactic empire

Will be the largest we have ever known.

It is nothing personal.

We have no quarrel with you.

There are no demands, no tribute.

We do not need a symbiosis

With your feeble bodies, nor any place

Of our own

In the constituent steps of your

Precious, convoluted, and apparently

Directionless biology.

We do not need your world’s minerals.

There is no dark, dreary, ulterior motive

Wherein we are somehow re-establishing our own

Bio-diversity by surreptitiously borrowing

What is left of yours.

We do not need to supplant

Your crops, feed on your farm

Animals, or feed on you. No,

Ours is a simple quest:

We want to be one world larger.

So kindly deposit your weapons

In the convenient, and quite elastic, black holes

That have appeared suddenly in your neighborhood

For just such pacifying use;

And have your many legislatures

Add a brief sentence or two

About fealty and sovereignty,

Allegiance and territorial acclamation,

About bowing rhetorically to our star system,

To your existing national constitutions.

There is very little we expect.

We really do not get out this way all that often.

Our plan is to leave you mostly alone:

A limited, no frills system like yours,

To be honest, does not even fare well with our

Lately flourishing exobiology tourist trade.

But, if you need us, just press the button

Marked ‘Overlords’ on the executive desk

In any of your now uselessly differing capitols.

The connection might take a while, but, trust me,

The interstellar recorder will eventually pick up.

You can, when recording memory finally engages,

Leave a brief, specific message:

Then wait in distant wonder, and,

In a rotation or two,

We might get back to you.

Ken Poyner often serves as unlikely eye-candy at his wife’s powerlifting meets. His latest collection of brief fictions, Constant Animals, can be located through links on his website at www.kpoyner.com. He has had recent work out in Analog, Asimov’s, Poet Lore, Sein Und Werden, and a several dozen other places, both in print and on the web.

The Behemoth Beaches

Maggie Slater

2,100 words

It was even larger than we realized, half-buried in the cove’s sandy beach. Scales the size of cars covered its sides; the smokestacks running from nose to dorsal fin towered above the seawall ringing the cove. Its cavernous mouth moaned as the sea breeze passed through. Rigging and fishing nets dangled from its teeth; shredded block and tackle dripped and shivered in the wind. The great megaphone, perched atop its nose like a human-sized conch shell, crackled, but was otherwise voiceless.

The whole town was present. Some stood ankle-deep in the sand; some peered from the seawall. The behemoth lay tilted on its side, the exposed hull covered with barnacles and seaweed.

Beside me, my neighbor Dan stepped forward and pressed his hand against it. "The wood’s soft," he called back to us. "Rotted through."

We clenched our fists.

§

When the behemoth first came, it spoke such comforting words. Our cove was already nearly barren of fish, our need for sustenance overwhelming the sea’s local resources.

"If I don’t help you, everyone will starve," the beast said, its cheerful voice crackling through the megaphone. "In a year, there will be no fish left at all. For a small price, however, I will guard your cove and ensure that you have enough fish when you need them."

We paid in oil: twenty barrels, which the beast sucked dry with a metal proboscis before sinking back beneath the waves and stationing itself at the center of the cove.

§

The wooden belly gave way beneath our axes and fish cleavers. The sodden, porous planks oozed water and slime, and shredded when we tore at them with our bare hands.

The great behemoth’s megaphone groaned and crackled. Its voice was weak and reedy. "Please," the beast begged. "Please. I need help. Where is your gratitude? When you needed me, I helped you."

It was my cousin Lenora’s ax that broke through the belly first. She gasped and scrambled back from the hole the instant the wood crumbled inward. Dan, myself, and several others moved in to continue what she started, but a wretched stench assailed us through the splintered gash. Pungent and warm, it was strong enough to make us gag and choke as we hacked and pried at the disintegrating wood.

Others rushed to join us, and together we opened a great, gaping hole in the behemoth’s belly. The megaphone crackled again, and the beast cried out as if in pain, "You only hurt yourselves! Who will help you now?"

§

The behemoth began by designating special fishing days. "On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, you will be allowed to fish," it announced across the waves. "Fishing on any other days will be considered poaching, and will be dealt with accordingly."

So we fished on those days, and those days alone, and if anyone went out to fish at any other time, the great behemoth attacked them, its jaws frothing the sea, its teeth shattering boat and bone. Whenever a neighbor’s body washed ashore, we buried it quietly in the churchyard, saddened but confident that the same would not happen to us. The behemoth was clear: Tuesdays and Wednesdays we could fish. All other fishing would be considered poaching.

With so few fish in our cove, we had to be careful.

§

With a final pull, the belly’s contents spilled forth, slopping across our shins and onto the sand in a great rush of liquefied, rotten fish meat. The stink made some dash up the beach and collapse, retching into the dry seaweed at the base of the seawall. The rest of us pressed our hands over our noses and mouths, eyes stinging and watering, our skin damp with the stench.

As meager light seeped into the cavernous belly, it revealed heaps of spoiled fish, enough to feed our town for months, maybe even years. The fisheyes stared up at us, mirroring our gaping glares.

"It would all have come back to you," the behemoth moaned, its voice breaking over the megaphone. "You might have had it all."

Beside me, Dan’s ax handle squeaked as he tightened his grip. The stench fueled something deep within us. When one of the scales creaked and lifted, we all looked up.

§

After another month, the behemoth required another payment of oil. The fish population had improved. When we hauled in our nets, more often than not they strained with our catch. Pleased, we paid thirty barrels of oil when the beast requested it.

"But now there must be limits," the behemoth announced, its voice echoing against the seawall and the buildings facing the cove. "Although most only fish on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, some boats take too much. From now on, each boat may only take what it needs to feed the families of its crew and no more. Anyone who disregards this limit will be considered poaching, and will be dealt with accordingly."

So we estimated our needs and pulled what we considered adequate to sustain us from the cove, but the behemoth found several boats still took too much. Its gnashing teeth missed no one it wanted to catch, and by the end of the second month, six more boats and their crews had been consumed.

Again, we buried those who washed ashore, and at night, listened to their starving families wail with grief. But still we obeyed, taking home only what the behemoth had instructed, confident that the same would not happen to us.

The fish grew plentiful.

§

The scale lifted on metal hinges, and from within, a face peered out at us. Someone pointed and shouted, "There’s someone inside!"

At the sound, the face disappeared, and the scale slapped shut.

The stench alone could not hold us at bay. Surging forward, we clambered up the pitted sides to the hinged scale. With crowbars and hammers, we pried it open. A cry rang out within, but Dan snagged the man before he could scramble away and dragged him from the porthole.

He was a small man, a bony man, with wide eyes and a gaunt face. He wailed as we pulled him down, hauled him through the rotten fish, and threw him to the sand. His feet were bare, wrinkled, and peeling, as if they’d soaked in salt water for weeks. His clothes clung to his wiry frame. He whimpered, clutching his hands to his face to block out the sun and the staring crowd.

I thought of my nephews huddling in my mother’s arms late at night, crying for my sister and brother-in-law, whose mangled bones lay buried with six others in a composite grave. How many of us had the behemoth devoured?

Beth hit him first, and when the little man squealed with pain, we realized he could be hurt, even killed, and we fell upon him like gulls, tearing him to pieces as he screamed and screamed.

When he was dead, we stood with bloodied hands, our rage inflamed. In the stillness following his final cry, two dozen other scales clattered shut. We looked up at the behemoth’s mighty side, crowbars in hand.

§

"Sixty barrels of oil," the behemoth declared upon the next month. "Too many of you have been caught poaching, and it requires more work than I initially estimated to keep your cove full of fish."

We did not have sixty barrels. The government’s oil moths came only once every three months to deliver our town’s seasonal allotment of fuel, laying ten-barrel drums like eggs along the outskirts of town while their wings stirred up towers of dust that blanketed everything in a film of grit. Sixty barrels was more than a third of our entire fuel allotment, and it would be weeks before the moths returned with more.

When we told the behemoth we could not pay the increased fee, the behemoth’s megaphone crackled and said, "Then I will have to limit you further. On Tuesdays, you may only fish an hour after dawn, and an hour before dusk. On Wednesday mornings, you may fish from seven to nine, and at no other times."

Such constraints would have made it impossible to feed our families, but when we protested, the behemoth replied, "Any caught fishing beyond those times will be considered poaching, and will be dealt with accordingly."

At first, some tried to circumvent the limits, but after three boats fell, crushed and chummed by the behemoth, we did not resist.

§

We pried up each scale and pulled out the frail people within, tossing them to our neighbors despite their pleas. They were weak, breakable: the behemoth’s blood and bones.

"Please!" one skeletal woman cried. "I have children to feed!"

"No, I beg you!" a withered young man wailed. "This was all I could do!"

"I don’t know anything else," an elderly man said quietly before our neighbors killed him.

When every scale stood open and empty, we climbed inside the ruins of the beast. But the spaces beyond the scales were not what we imagined: narrow benches lined narrow, wet rooms filled with rows upon rows of metal pedals. The muggy air stank of sweat and piss, blood and spoiled fish. Our footsteps echoed in the behemoth’s shell.

From within, we heard its voice over the megaphone, "Fools! You don’t know what you’ve done. There are far, far worse things than me beneath the waves."

We did not listen as we wandered through the beast’s bare innards, but although we searched and searched, we found no one else. Just a cramped and hopeless space.

§

When the behemoth requested sixty barrels of oil again the next month, we still could not pay. This time, over the megaphone, it declared, "Then I will limit you further. You may fish only at certain times on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but I will change the times every week. It will be your responsibility to learn the new times and abide by them. Any caught fishing outside these limits will be considered poaching and will be dealt with accordingly."

We tried, but the times shifted too sporadically. When week after week the behemoth ate more ships, scattering their shattered hulls and what remained of the crews across the beach, we all became poachers. Under the cover of night, we slipped out to net what we could, always with an eye toward the behemoth’s glowing smokestacks to warn us if it surged to life.

In the daylight hours, it was impossible. The instant a ship set out into the cove, confident in its timing, the behemoth would crash down upon it and devour it. Its teeth churned the cove into a bloody froth.

Some said we should fight it, but most were too afraid of the consequences if we failed. So, instead, we stood at the seawall and watched it tear our neighbors apart. In the end, some would swear they heard it laughing.

§

We stood beneath the behemoth’s ruins, staring at the cold smokestacks and silent megaphone. We could not meet each other’s eyes, or the eyes of the corpses at our feet. The cove’s waves hissed, cursing us, and someone was crying. Perhaps it was me. The sunset cast a hot orange glow across the beach and the backs of our necks. In that all-encompassing light, we saw the battered fins and the great gouges cut into its side by something bigger, something stronger, from the deep.

The incoming tide washed away the rotten fish and the dead, but the stink lingered long after the light faded and we shuffled back to our homes. It clung to our skin even after we washed and changed our clothes, as if we had absorbed it.

In the weeks that followed, we pretended that life had returned to normal, that we were not changed, not marked. We pretended that our night terrors of the behemoth’s gnashing teeth had not been replaced by the faces of our own neighbors, of our own hands rending flesh and bone. We pretended not to hear the megaphone’s crackle at the edges of our own voices.

Whenever we fished thereafter, although we watched for a breeching fin or a smokestack plowing through the waves, what we feared most was meeting that look. The behemoth’s bones sank into the sand, lodged so deep it would never wash away in the tides of time, a reminder to us that it would never leave us. Perhaps that was its intention. Perhaps its display of weakness was only a ruse to draw us in, to trick us into taking its cruelty into ourselves. Perhaps there were no other monsters in the seas, only us, waiting with blood-ready hands on the shore.

Maggie Slater’s fiction has appeared in Leading Edge Magazine, Zombies: More Recent Dead from Prime Books, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, among other venues. When not chasing after her rambunctious toddler, she enjoys Haruki Murakami novels, sampling craft beer, and hoarding cheap notebooks. For more information about her and her current projects, visit her blog at maggiedot.wordpress.com.

Interview with Cover Artist Robert Carter

Russell Dickerson

This month’s Apex Magazine cover artist is award-winning illustrator Robert Carter. Combining a strong foundation in portraiture with a unique sense of visual and conceptual ideas, Carter creates striking, vibrant, and textured pieces ranging from the realistic to the surreal.

Apex Magazine: Your cover for this month’s Apex Magazine, "Unraveling Fire II boy," challenges the viewer to interpret the idea for themselves. Are you ever asked to explain your surreal pieces, and if so how do you usually answer? Do people give you different interpretations that you might not have expected?

Robert Carter: Yes, I’m asked fairly frequently to explain the meaning of various pieces. If it was a commissioned illustration, say for something like the Washington Post "Medical Mysteries" column of which I’ve done several, when not reading the accompanying report it can certainly have the viewer scratching their head. In those cases, I will usually just explain the article and what medical condition the patient had had, etc. What I like about those however is when taken out of context the viewer can apply their own interpretation, which more often than not is much more interesting than its original purpose.

Brain Sick I

AM: Many of your portrait pieces offer a surreal view of a known person, and others often are more straightforward portraits. Are those personal choices as you work, or do clients ask for something surreal when they commission you for a portrait? How do requests from the commissions affect your frame of mind or even the final piece?

RC: It varies. Sometimes the client knows exactly what they want, be it a straight forward portrait or some other concept. In those cases, I’ll certainly do what they ask but also try and offer up other ideas I feel may work better. If not only better for me as far as the way I work goes, but also a solution that my style will work with. Time is also a factor. If it’s a rush job and I only have one or two days to complete a final piece, a straight up traditional portrait is gonna be the way to go. If the piece is left solely up to me, and I have the time, I like to explore more than the typical head n’ shoulders mug shot. I enjoy adding extra layers of meaning which reflects the personality or history of the subject, or at least add a little something to give it extra interest visually. That being said, sometimes a straight up portrait can be the most beautiful or powerful.

Head Splitting

AM: On your DeviantArt bio, you mention returning to school for computer animation, as well as expanding and exploring your work. How does that exploration affect your work over a short term, say with individual projects, versus over the length of your career so far?

RC: I always have in the back of my mind: how can I make this better, what new thing can I try or improve upon, be it the tools I’m using or the way I’m using them, explore new compositions or colour palettes, textures, lighting, or hardware and software etc. With each new project, when I have the opportunity to mix it up, even if it’s a subtle change something only I would notice or know about, I try it. Now and then however I feel I need to do something drastically different but still within the creative arts. Like when I took a year off to try my hand at computer animation. Even though I went back to illustration afterwards, it was a great experience and I’m glad I did it despite the fact it almost killed me … That course was grueling!

AM: Working on portraits of real-life personalities, especially those in the news currently, do you find your opinion or beliefs about that person change as you work? How do you approach painting someone whose ideologies differ from yours?

RC: In most cases I’m being commissioned by a magazine or paper to paint the portrait of a particular person and the story has its own take on that individual at the time. My job is to not only paint the subject’s portrait but also adhere to the opinion of the author of that person in their article with my illustration. I’ve never been asked to paint someone to whom I have complete disdain for and where the story sheds that someone in a positive light. If I were, I would have to decline. When it comes to politics, I’m not especially politically minded so generally I don’t care much. Although I haven’t been asked to paint Trump yet!

Spotting Rainbows

AM: You mention in your bio that you now prefer digital work, for speed and flexibility. Is your approach to digital art creation different from working with a traditional medium? Does flexibility in digital art allow you the freedom to explore, or trap you with too many possibilities?

RC: The way I paint digitally is very similar to the way I work traditionally because I deliberately limit the tools I use. It’s true, you can get lost in the myriad of digital options there are to choose from. But because I started out working in oils and developed my style painting traditionally, when I made the move to digital I wanted to maintain the look I had already developed. It took some time to teach myself not only how to paint digitally but also to imitate the look of my own work. I think I’ve got it down pretty close now.

Robert Carter has been working as a professional illustrator for more than a decade. With a background in traditional oil painting, Carter applies those skills to the digital realm, now his preferred method of working for its speed and flexibility. See more of his wonderful creations on his website, www.crackedhat.com.

Robert Carter is a multiple award-winning, full time professional freelance illustrator. Born in St. Albans, England, he moved to Ontario, Canada, at an early age. He went on to study Art and Illustration, graduating from the prestigious Sheridan College School of Art and Animation. He has been working as a professional illustrator for more than a decade. Combining a strong foundation in portraiture with a unique sense of visual and conceptual problem-solving, he creates striking, vibrant, and textured illustrations and portraits with subjects ranging from the realistic to the surreal. With a background in traditional oil painting, Robert applied those skills to the digital realm and taught himself the digital painting medium, which is now his preferred method of working for its speed and flexibility.

Photo by John Urbancik

Russell Dickerson has been a published illustrator and designer since the previous millennium, creating works for many genre publications and authors. He has also written many articles for various organizations in that time, including Apex, and his work can be found on his website at www.darkstormcreative.com.

Gender Equality in Apex Magazine

Lesley Conner

There is a lot of discussion within the SF community about gender and women being underrepresented in publications. When I see these discussions, I typically read what can be read quickly, and nod to myself, realizing this is most definitely a problem but feeling like Jason and I do a pretty darn good job supporting the many, many wonderful women who write science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Then Apex Magazine issue 83 was released and a tweet popped up accusing us of being one of those publications who only publish male sci-fi writers. I believe a "*yawn*" was even thrown in there to show just how boring they thought this was.

Frankly, my reaction was shock. Followed closely by a sputtering "What?"

Issue 83 features original fiction by Andrew Neil Gray and Brandon H. Bell, as well as a reprinted novelette by Catherynne M. Valente and a story from Geoffrey Girard’s collection first communions. The poetry, selected by our amazing poetry editor Bianca Spriggs, happens to all be by men in this issue. Taken as a snapshot, I can see how someone might make the assumption Apex is a magazine only for the male writers in the genre. The thing is, as managing editor, I’m never looking at Apex Magazine on a per issue basis. I’m promoting one issue, editing another one (or two), and reading slush to fill issues months down the road. Doing so gives me a melting pot sort of view of Apex Magazine as a whole. Something that isn’t focused on one issue, but stretches months into both the past and the future at the same time.

When the shock of being accused of publishing too many male writers wore off (honestly, comments about how many women we publish are much more common, and can be downright crude at times) we decided the issue warranted further investigation. If readers are concerned, we should look into it, because Apex strives to publish a wide variety of voices writing amazing stories that cover the entire spectrum of speculative fiction.

We crunched the numbers and happily found that my assumptions were correct: Apex Magazine tends to publish more women than men.

The numbers breakdown like this: (These numbers represent the short fiction — both original and reprints. They are not representative of Bianca’s poetry selections.)

In the past 12 months, we’ve published 26 stories by men, 37 stories by women, and 1 story by an author who does not identify with either gender. That works out to 57.8% of Apex Magazine’s stories being written by women. Because everyone likes pie (Twitter told me so), here’s a chart.

Comparing these numbers to numbers taken for the past 24 months and going all the way back to issue 20 (more than 5 years ago), the percentages stay pretty close, with 65.7% of the writers from the past 24 month being women and 64.2% of the writers from the past 5.25 years.

As a woman and an editor, these numbers make me incredibly happy. With writers such as Ursula Vernon, Elizabeth Bear, Chikodili Emelumadu, Damien Angelica Walters, Sarah Pinsker, and so, so many more working in speculative fiction at the moment, not publishing women would be tragedy!

But, I can hear some of you cry, the percentage of stories written by women has dropped in the last 12 months! Yes, the gap between the number of stories written by women and those by men has gotten somewhat small in the past year. Why? Is it because Jason Sizemore has stepped back into the role as editor-in-chief, and he’s a guy, whereas Apex Magazine’s three previous editor-in-chiefs were all women: Catherynne M. Valente, Lynne Thomas, and Sigrid Ellis? Honestly, the amount of data we have at this point is too small to say definitely whether or not this drop in percentage of stories written by women will be a new trend or if it will bounce back up into the 60% range it was in previously. I don’t believe Jason’s gender has anything to do with it. Despite this, I still think that it’s fair to say that Apex Magazine does not publish only men. Nor do we publish predominately men.

Beginning from the slush pile all the way up to the stories accepted by Jason, the first thing we are looking for is a great story that has that certain something that screams Apex. It isn’t the author’s gender. The numbers presented in this post are the ones that we as a publication have gotten by choosing to publish the best of the best submitted to us. Over the course of 5.25 years, that has worked out to more than 60% of our stories being written by women. This is amazing and something that I am very proud of as an editor.

Thank you to the person who tweeted us after issue 83 came out. It was a good reminder that while we as an editing team may not look at a single issue as representative of what Apex Magazine is doing as a whole, a single issue may define what we are in the mind of a reader. And it also was a good prod to take a hard look at gender among the writers in Apex Magazine. There is no agenda or quotas that we’re trying to hit when accepting stories for publication, but it is important to remain mindful. Women can write amazing speculative fiction. It deserves to be published and read and praised just as much as the stories written by men.

Ladies, submit your stories! We want to read them!

Lesley Conner is a writer/editor, managing editor of Apex Publications and Apex Magazine, and a Girl Scout leader. When she isn’t handling her editorial or Girl Scout leader responsibilities, she’s researching fascinating historical figures, rare demons, and new ways to dispose of bodies, interweaving the three into strange and horrifying tales. Her short fiction can be found in Mountain Dead, Dark Tales of Terror, A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre, as well as other places. Her first novel The Weight of Chains was published by Sinister Grin Press in September, 2015. Best of Apex Magazine: Volume 1 marks her debut experience in anthology editing. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters, and is currently working on a new novel. To find out all her secrets, you can follow her on Twitter at @LesleyConner.

Mammon’s Cave

Janna Layton

Truly, visitor, I blush

that this is how you see me first.

You must have been expecting more,

something more like my estate on Earth.

And were we there, I would show you all:

the fountain carved from the largest diamond,

cleaned of slaves’ blood and filled with soda;

the room with walls embossed with pearls

from an ocean purchased for that purpose;

the floors of marble mined

from an ancient mountain (now a pit).

I would show you the children,

the twelve most beautiful children in the world

which I found and had killed and cast in plaster

to make lively statues of solid gold.

I would show you the servants whose severed faces

have been replaced with grinning masks —

they would serve you with ivory spoons used only once.

But instead you have met me here,

and I prefer to live simply when at home.

Here is my clay jug of water;

here is my small bed and blanket.

Beside the fire I read or draw in charcoal

while thinking of distant hills.

But here — look at the mantel

and see my indulgence:

this smooth, gleaming shell with eternal spiral

and houndstooth pattern of bone and mahogany.

In life it would have held a poisonous snail.

Janna Layton is a Bay Area native who is still managing to reside in San Francisco (for the moment). Her poetry and fiction have been published or are upcoming in various literary journals, including Jersey Devil, Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Lakeside Circus, and Star*Line. She blogs at readingwatchinglookingandstuff.blogspot.com and her Twitter handle is @jkbartleby.

The Perfect Planet

Christina Sng

In my mind we’ve found you

A million times —

The brilliant aquamarine planet,

Marbled as Earth but twice as gaseous,

With seas deep as the Mariana Trench

On the cusp of an explosion of life,

Orbiting twin Suns double its size.

The ice planet with a frosty ocean,

Teeming with flora and fauna. It spins

Ceaselessly around its scarlet sun,

Seven pearled moons twirling around it

In an endless pirouette.

Around a gargantuan vermillion sun,

An emerald planet with a trio of moons

Thick with forest and small lakes —

That waterfall taller than the Niagara,

Pooling into a salty sea of azure.

The city of swamps blanketed by

Moon-sized balloon creatures drifting

Serenely in the sky, drinking sun rays

And raining microorganisms to the ground,

Fueling an ecosystem rivaling ours.

The rocky moon with the underground sea,

Full of bioluminescent life, exuding

Ultraviolet light, spawning caves of kelp

And sentient ferns, spores traveling north

To the surface, to the gas giant’s light.

The ultramarine planet, scattered with

Painted white swirls decorating its sky.

Lush green hills and its ocean, full of life.

Now it has become a desert, cold and dry.

The perfect planet, dead and destroyed.

I sit and stare at the sky, and back at us,

Dying as our barren planet lays to rest.

There are those who say we deserve it,

While others demand a right to live

On another planet, another world.

But we’ve had our chance.

Let the rest have their own perfect planets

Without us.

I destroy the key

That summons our space ark from orbit.

Christina Sng is a Rhysling-nominated poet, writer, and artist. Her work has received several Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and appeared in numerous venues including Apex Magazine, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, New Myths, and Space & Time. She is the author of three chapbooks and her first full-length book of poetry A Collection of Nightmares from Raw Dog Screaming Press is slated for late 2016. Visit her online at http://www.christinasng.com.

The Drowned Celestial

Lavie Tidhar

10,200 words

1.

Colt was playing cards when trouble crawled in through the door, in the shape of a dead man who didn’t yet know he was dead.

This was on old Venus, ancient and most decadent of planets. Make no mistake, as the blind poet said: man has conquered space before. Woman, too, though in fairness, Colt thought, what women had come to this planet in aeons past, they had not seemed to make it as far as Port Smith. It was a dismal Earth outpost, stranded somewhere on a solid strip of land amidst Venusian swamps. Violet clouds capped it like a forest of mushrooms, and the thick, green-leafed jungle sprouted at the edges of the swamps on all sides, enclosing the port in its relentless grip.

The Earthmen called the place Port Smith; what the Venusians called it Colt didn’t know.

Colt was playing a mixed Martian Wild Card Stud. He was in for all he was worth which, admittedly, at that precise moment wasn’t a hell of a lot. Colt was out of cash and out of luck, and he needed a boost of both if he were ever to get off this wretched planet. Neither seemed likely to materialise.

In the corner Old Ishmael, the blind musician, brought his instrument to his lips and began to haltingly play. It was a dream-flute, and as he blew, gently, into its mouthpiece ghosts rose into existence around the bar. Colt’s breath was caught in his throat, for they were Venusian dancers, from some long-vanished Atlantean temple, perhaps: bold and free, with their long flowing black hair, their eyes in which ships sailed in the infinity of space. Slowly they grew solidity and shape, gliding in a dance through the bar, amidst the tables and unoccupied chairs: and the eyes of all men in that place turned to them, in fascinated enchantment; even Colt’s. All but the musician’s blind eyes.

It was hot. The humidity wore you down, after a while. The other men sweated, though Colt kept his cool. Outside the windows of the Medusa’s Head the cloud cover stretched from horizon to horizon, covering the sky in an impenetrable dome: it was the same weather that, on Earth, heralds the coming of a hurricane. From time to time a distant explosion could be heard, as one of the ships took off into the sky. Glancing out of the window Colt was startled anew, each time, by a flash of silver as a rocket rose, disappearing beyond the clouds. He drowned his glass of local arkia, and squinted at his cards, and waited for his luck to change, for better or for worse.

There was a rumble in the distance, and the other players looked up. Colt kept his eyes on the table and his free hand on the butt of his gun. He was playing a four-hander: the others were two short, scaly Venusians, and an Earthman who called himself Carter. The sound, as of a distant explosion, sounded again, followed a moment later by a rumble that, this time, shook the ground. ‘This ain’t the sound of no rocketship,’ the other Earthman, Carter, said. The two Venusians exchanged uneasy glances but kept their own counsel. ‘All-in,’ Colt said, and pushed what remained of his money, a bag full of gold Martian ingots, into the pot. For a moment there was a silence.

‘I’m out,’ the one Venusian said, and the Earthman immediately followed suit. Colt found himself staring into the other Venusian’s eyes. The Venusian’s mouth curled in a smile Colt did not like. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

Slowly, the Venusian laid down his cards.

Colt stared at the Venusian’s cards and felt his heart sink.

He had lost.

The Venusian had the Queen of Despair, the Jack of Despair and a ten of same. On the table the community cards were the Seven of Love, the Two of Surrendered Bliss, the Nine of Love and the Shambleau: the wild card.

The Venusian had a Royal Straight. Colt had nothing — nothing but a gun.

‘Don’t,’ the Venusian said. There was the unmistakable sound of a weapon being charged.

At that moment a third explosion erupted outside. This time it was almost directly overhead. The aftershock rocked the foundations of the bar and toppled the unoccupied chairs; it smashed glasses to the floor and made the cards fly into the air. Colt’s hand closed on his bag of ingots and made it disappear. Already he was rising, the gun in front of him, aimed at the door. The blind musician put his dream-flute down. The dancing girls flickered, then faded away, and Colt felt a momentary sense of loss.

‘What —’ the Earthman, Carter, began to say. The door to the bar blew open inwards and a man came crawling into the room. He lunged forward, in one desperate, terrifying last desire to live, and fell by Colt’s feet. He was badly hurt. ‘Get down!’

A raygun blast followed the man through the open door and the Earthman, Carter, fell down, screaming as his face melted beyond recognition. Not taking his eyes off the door, Colt reached across the table and swept the man’s remaining money into a pouch by his side. The Earthman would not, now, need it — but Colt did. Mercifully, the other man’s screams shortly died, and with them, the man himself. They were now three against the unknown menace — the Two Venusians, and Colt. The blind musician had disappeared, taking his dreams with him.

‘Roog!’ one of the two Venusians — the one who had folded early — said. Looking wildly in all direction, he ran to the door and outside. Colt could hear him shouting, but whether he was pleading, or threatening, or both, he could not tell. There was a fourth rumble of an explosion, shaking the walls and the floor, and Colt could hear the man scream, outside, and then fall silent.

Colt and the one remaining Venusian were left alone in the bar: them, and the unknown men at their feet. ‘What’s your name, Earthman?’ the Venusian said.

‘Colt. You?’

‘Sharol. And that money belongs to me.’

‘We can fight over it later,’ Colt said. ‘When we get out of this mess.’

Amusement crinkled Sharol’s face. ‘If we get out, surely,’ he said. Colt shrugged. ‘Any idea what’s out there?’ he said.

‘Roog, evidently.’

‘What is Roog?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sharol looked uneasy. ‘My money is on something bad.’

‘It …’ it was the dying man at their feet. Colt took a close look at him, and was surprised to see it was an Earthman. He was badly scarred, and suffering from malnutrition. Burns, pussing, covered his hands. ‘It is … treasure.’

‘Treasure?’ Sharol said. He had a purplish, mottled skin and small, near-translucent ears close to his skull. They are a more delicate looking breed, on Venus, smaller than Earthmen and seemingly fragile, but never underestimate them, for it will be the last thing you ever do. ‘You have my interest, stranger.’

‘The temple lies …’ The dying man’s eyes fluttered close. In a heartbeat Colt was kneeling down, though he kept his eyes and his gun trained on the door. ‘Where?’ he said, shaking the dying man roughly. ‘Where?’

‘The Roog …’ the stranger said, ‘The Roog!’ with horror and revulsion clear in his voice; and then his breath stilled. ‘Damn you!’ Colt said. Sharol’s cold chuckle made him glance up: the Venusian was looking at him in amusement. ‘Death is not the end, Colt of Earth,’ he said. ‘But let us hope this man’s pursuers do not know that.’

‘Let them come!’ Colt said, and felt the cold, savage fury burn through him, as clean and as pure as knife. The Venusian merely gestured, silently. He and Colt separated, one to each side of the door. ‘Ready?’

‘Is this a gun?’

‘It certainly appears to be one, yes.’

‘Then I’m ready.’

They turned, together, and burst through the doors, outside.

The sun was low over the horizon, behind the clouds; it painted them fantastical shades of violet and red and oozing green. Directly ahead, Colt saw the enemy — just as the enemy saw them.

Colt rolled, firing. He preferred a projectile weapon. Beam weapons were fine for dry worlds, for the sterility of space. But on a swamp world such as Venus, Colt felt better with an honest, Earth-made gun, the sort that fired bullets. You knew where you were, with bullets. It was almost like being back home.

The bullets certainly took the attackers by surprise. Colt did not know what they were. He gleaned impressions as he rolled and fired: tall, ungainly creatures, metal-plated, skinny: two purple antennae moved sinuously above their heads. He had no doubt they were communicating silently. They moved as one: they were made for war.

But so was Colt, who had survived worse odds on a dozen rough and wild planets. To the other side of him the Venusian, Sharol, was firing steadily, his beam weapon flashing: but it merely glanced off the armour plating of the attacking, ant-like creatures. ‘Aim for their antennae!’ Colt called, and felt rather than saw the Venusian’s grin. Sharol swept his weapon high, and a terrible hissing sound emanated from the attackers as their fragile communication fronds were seared off. Colt continued to fire, his bullets snapping the attackers’ armour. He saw one, two, three drop. Clearly, whatever make or design these things were, they had not been prepared for an Earthman’s old-fashioned weapon.

But then — he saw! Rising behind the ant-like creatures, the source of the explosions that had rocked the bar, a fire burning bright in the sky, dispelling clouds, casting a deathly glow over the swamps and the spaceport itself. Within its glow Colt could dimly make out a sinuous body, a reptilian head with large diamond eyes, and thin, graceful wings … ‘What is that?’ he said — whispered — and heard Sharol’s choked reply, ‘It’s a Sun Eater.’

The attackers parted, and through the open swathe of space Colt could see the creature soaring high above, a sleek, beautiful being flying on wings of — so it seemed — pure song; and whose exact dimensions it was too difficult to make out, so brightly did it burn.

Graceful it may have been. Yet it was not free.

The ant-like creatures had, somehow, tethered the Sun Eater to ropes of a metallic hue and, like children flying a kite, were controlling it from the ground. ‘We cannot fight it!’ Sharol said, and Colt said, ‘It’s beautiful …’

‘We will die here, Earthman,’ Sharol said, sounding resigned. But inside Colt, the coldness of battle was replaced with the heat of rage. Whatever these things were, however much they wanted to kill him — these were things he understood. Yet to enslave such a creature — such a spirit! — was to sin against nature itself.

And he could not — would not! — allow it.

He threw Sharol his gun. The Venusian caught it. ‘Take care of the advance party,’ Colt said. ‘Then follow me.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Set it free,’ Colt said, and with that he was running, the rifle strapped to his back now in his hands. It was a Martian Corps. carbine, manufactured for an old war in which Colt had once been a soldier; though it was unclear, to this day, on which side.

He came upon them like a Martian dust-devil, a Fury as of some lost legend out of Lemuria or Mu, those continents of Earth now lost to the mists of time. The rifle barked, spewing fire! He watched one enemy fall, then another. Blaster fire singed the air and a pain crawled over Colt’s arm, a burning that made him cry out, but he did not drop the gun. Then he was in their midst, battering, kicking, slamming the butt of the rifle into the strange creatures’ featureless faces. They were machines, he thought, and memory returned, but he had no time for it, not now: he fired and punched, paying no heed to his own safety, watching only as the thin streaks of silver rope were let drift, one by one. Above him, slowly, the Sun Eater was rising higher into the air. It cried out then, a voice as pure as the water of a glacier. The remaining attackers came at Colt then with renewed fury, and he knew he was done for. They had surrounded him, they had beaten him down to the ground, in the Venusian mud he lay, looking up into a sky illuminated with an artificial sun. Is this how I die? he thought, not bitterly, but with a certain disappointment: he had always seen himself dying, at last, amidst the rolling green hills of Earth.

But then, as from afar, he heard the renewed sound of fire: and, turning his head so that his cheek rested against the muddy ground, saw the Venusian, Sharol, come running, firing with Colt’s own gun. Colt reached out, grabbed one of the ant-things’ legs, and pulled, unbalancing it. He would not die without a fight, he thought: and he set on the metallic creature, prying open its armour with his bare hands, until its plates parted, and inside it — he saw! A violent green and vociferous purple, like congealing blood — the inside of the creature was indeed organic, it was alive! Colt reached for the dagger strapped to his leg, raised it with the last of his power, and plunged it into the ant-thing’s gelatinous flesh. A terrible shock ran up his arm from the creature’s body as it convulsed and died. Overhead, the Sun Eater roared, finding its tethers suddenly unmanned. Colt heard the beating of wings and felt the heat of the sun blast down around him. He covered his head with his hands, his fingers slimy with the ant-creature’s blood; and waited to die.

A moment later, still alive, he opened his eyes. All about him was a ring of ash where an unbearable heat had touched down. The ant-things were charred bodies of molten metal and bubbling ichor. Colt raises his eyes to the sky. Above his head the Sun Eater hovered, its diamond eyes looking into Colt’s. Its wings beat gently, almost lazily, against the air, raising a hot dry wind. For a long moment they held each other’s gaze. Then, with a final cry, in which gratitude or triumph, Colt never knew, intermingled, the majestic being rose into the sky like the sun, dawning.

‘Colt? Colt!’ It was Sharol, kneeling beside him, one arm dangling uselessly by his side: white bone jutted out of the flesh. ‘You’re alive!’

Colt winced. ‘Your arm is broken,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing,’ Sharol said. He threw Colt his gun back. Colt caught it one-handed. His own arm was badly burnt. ‘Come on!’

‘Where?’

‘Back to the bar. Before spaceport security or more of these creatures show up.’

‘You want a drink this badly?’

But Colt was rising, following the Venusian. His rifle was back in its place, his gun back in its holster. He felt good. It felt good to be alive, on Venus or any other world.

‘Wait,’ he said, as they approached the bar. The bodies of ant-things littered the ground here, where Colt and Sharol had killed them. He knelt besides one, examined it cautiously. ‘What are they?’ Sharol said.

‘ReplicAnts …’ Colt said. He turned one armoured foot over, squinting. Imprinted into the metal, as he had expected, was a serial number. The memory returned. He had never seen them, until now … ‘They were manufactured back in the Jovean Wars,’ he said. ‘The bodies of human conscripts, embalmed alive into machine bodies. They were meant for war in space, not on the ground. I had thought all were decommissioned and destroyed years ago.’

‘So how did they come to be here?’ Sharol said, and Colt said, ‘I have no idea.’

‘Come on,’ Sharol said, losing interest. He pushed into the dark interior of the bar and Colt followed. The bottle of arkia, miraculously, though it had fallen to the floor, remained undamaged. Sharol picked it up, took a long swig, and handed it to Colt. The drink burned pleasantly as it slid down his throat. The corpse of the man who had began all this lay on the floor. ‘Roog,’ Sharol said, thoughtfully.

‘Treasure,’ Colt said. They traded glances. ‘Well,’ Colt said, ‘I guess we’ll never know where he came from.’

Sharol laughed. It was a surprisingly deep sound, and it echoed around the silent room. ‘I told you, Earthman,’ he said. ‘Death is not the end. Here. Fetch me your knife.’

So the Venusian had noticed Colt’s concealed dagger. He had proven himself a man of action, as good as any Earthman, if not better. He was worthy of grudging respect. And so Colt drew the knife, still slimed with the ReplicAnt’s goo, its blood, and tossed it to the Venusian, who caught it easily with his goof hand. ‘What are you going to —’ Colt began, but the Venusian merely grinned cheerfully as he knelt by the dead man. Sharol applied the sharp knife to the dead man’s throat, and began to sew off the head, whistling cheerfully as he worked. Colt took another swig of arkia. In moments it was over, and Sharol straightened up, tossed Colt back the knife, and picked up the dead man’s head by the hair. The face stared sorrowfully at Colt.

‘Was that really necessary?’ Colt said. Sharol paid him no mind. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.

‘Where are we going?’

‘We need to find some mud,’ Sharol said.

‘Mud?’

‘And we need,’ Sharol said, and grinned again as he swung the head back and forth, back and forth with his good hand, ‘to find ourselves a witch.’

2.

The mud stank. It reeked of fetid water and decomposing plant and animal matter. Colt and Sharol were nestling in the shallow of the swamp. Their clothes lay in an untidy heap on the bank nearby, though Colt kept his gun near. The dead man’s head was in a sack drawn with a string. Overhead the sky was a violent shade of purple and lightning flashed in the distance, heralding the coming of yet another storm.

They were two days away from Port Smith, deep into the Venusian jungles. The mud itched where it covered Colt’s burns. It was healing them. Sharol, beside him, was peacefully puffing on a cigar, his arm entirely encased in thick, grey mud. Colt’s toes stuck out of the water. Beyond them he could see the reeds of the swamp and, here and there, the water predators circling, unseen. Sometimes a tentacle broke the surface, thick and veined, before dropping into the depths again. ‘If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you,’ Sharol said. His naked chest was scarred with old wounds; much like Colt’s. His nipples were small and hard. Colt looked away. When he peeled the mud off new skin was forming over the burns. ‘Remarkable.’

‘Venus,’ Sharol said, ‘has many depths.’ Colt eyed the swamp as another tentacle rose to the surface. It was immense, and he did not like the thought of the underwater creature it belonged to. ‘I’m sure,’ he said.

‘Relax!’ Sharol said. ‘Here, give me your back.’ Colt turned, and Sharol began to apply mud to Colt’s skin. The water was as warm as a bath, and Sharol’s fingers dug deep into Colt’s skin, releasing a pressure Colt hadn’t even realised was there. He sighed in satisfaction. ‘Don’t stop,’ he said.

They remained in the water for some time. When they were done, they had washed off the mud and dried themselves on the banks of the swamp. The sun was setting, the sky awash with blood-red hues. In the swamp, a majestic creature was rising to the surface, as large as a ship. Its dome-like head had a beak and red, enormous eyes. Around the creature, tentacles rose up to the surface, moving sinuously, creating waves. The beak opened and a forlorn cry sounded, piercing the night. ‘It is the cry of the Dwellers,’ Sharol said. There was a sadness, as well as love, in his voice. ‘Listen.’ Colt did, and became aware of other, distant cries rising into the air in answer. ‘They are calling to each other, as they do, each night, across the world. But each year there are fewer and fewer to answer the call.’

Colt stared ahead. The creature, this Dweller, raised its massive bulbous head towards the unseen stars, crying in a language Colt could not understand. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, perhaps, at the Venusian’s naked display of emotion. ‘Earth’s colonial policy is not my prerogative …’ he began, awkwardly.

‘I know, Earthman,’ Sharol said, and there was bitter mockery in his voice. ‘You mean well, you all do, children of Earth, reaching for the stars. So enthusiastic, so sure of yourselves. Like overgrown toddlers, you mean us well … and yet, you continue to come.’

Colt flexed his arm. His new skin tingled. There was a fortune to be made in Venusian mud, if it could be exported off-world. There were other places like Port Smith all around the continents of Venus, now. New Earth colonies on this once-grand world, existing on the sufferance of Venus’s ancient, decaying civilization. One day the swamps would be drained, their Dwellers processed into dried-up delicacies for the enjoyment of the off-world rich, their mud re-cut and sold in minute quantities for those who could afford its healing properties … He clapped Sharol on the back, for those days were not yet, and perhaps, he thought, will never come to be. ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘I have no desire to stay on this stinking mud-ball of a planet any more than I have to. I’m light of funds, I’ve been shot at and nearly killed and I don’t even know why, and we’re carrying a dead man’s head in a pouch. Where is this damned witch?’

Sharol laughed. Overhead the sky darkened as the unseen sun sank beyond the clouds. ‘Oh, Earthman,’ he said, but not without genuine fondness. ‘Like a toddler, you look, but you do not see.’

‘See what?’ Colt said.

Sharol, wordlessly, pointed.

Colt squinted. In the dim light the Dweller seemed to grow more immense, rising higher, like a lotus flower opening at night. And then he saw her — a lighter shade against the monster’s own. A female figure, nude and lithe, hairless and smooth, her skin the same shade of violet as Sharol’s own. She was perched on the Dweller’s mantle, and her long, reddish-violet hair caught the rays of dying sunlight through the clouds and momentarily shone. For a moment, Colt forgot to breathe. With a graceful movement the female Venusian dove, head-first, into the water of the swamp. With strong, economical strokes she swam towards them and soon reached and climbed on shore, her body shining with droplets of water like tiny diamonds. He had expected a witch — he had not expected to be bewitched instead! The swampwoman smiled, revealing small, sharp teeth. ‘Welcome back, Sharol,’ she said. ‘You bring strange friends.’ The Venusian inched his head in reply. ‘An empty head, and a dead one,’ he said, grinning. ‘This is Colt, the Earthman. Who our companion is, I do not yet know.’

‘And so you came seeking me.’ She turned her attention away from him, abruptly, transferring her gaze to Colt’s. Her eyes were fever-bright; her scrutiny discomfited Colt. ‘I would have come to you earlier,’ she said, ‘but I was observing your proclivities in the shallows, and, well … I thought it best to wait.’

Colt found himself blushing. Sharol grinned harder. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is my sister, Yaro.’

‘A pleasure,’ Colt said. ‘Ma’am.’

But again her attention snapped away, this time to the sack in Sharol’s hand. ‘A dead man walking, who yet did not know it …’ she said. ‘Who of us, walking around, alive under the scarlet skies, can ever truly name the time of our demise?’

‘We were hoping,’ Sharol said, ‘to find out where he came from.’

‘Still hunting for treasure, brother?’

‘Sure,’ Sharol said, easily. ‘Only this time, I have a partner.’

Again, she cast that quick, mayfly glance at Colt, and away. She turned abruptly. ‘Come,’ she said. She led them through a narrow trail, away from the swamp, into the jungle.

There was nothing for them to do but follow.

3.

The witch’s house sat deep in the woods. Beyond the forest, far in the distance, rose a range of volcanic mountains. At their base stood Earth’s last settlement on this Venusian continent, which the Earthmen had called Lucille Town, perhaps named by its founder for some long bygone sweetheart. Beyond it lay only the unknown of the primeval Venusian wildlands.

‘There is no Sunday west of Lucille Town,’ so the colonists said, ‘and no God west of Port Smith.’

Though in that, as Colt and Sharol were soon to find out, the colonists could not have been more wrong …

‘So, brother,’ Yaro said. ‘What do you have for me?’

They were in her house. It was simply but tastefully decorated, and a fire burned violet in the hearth, sending plumes of scented smoke into the air. Sharol opened the string and drew the dead man’s head from the bag. ‘It stinks,’ Colt said. The head looked bad. The Venusian weather had not been kind to it, and it was beginning to decompose. Yaro said, ‘You should have brought it to me sooner.’

Sharol shrugged. ‘Can you speak with it, still?’

‘I can try.’ She took the head from him. She was dressed now, in a plain shift that rippled around her. She held the head in both hands, staring into its dead, glassy eyes. At last, Yaro shook her head. ‘Perhaps,’ she murmured. ‘Though he is long gone down the Dark Path.’

She gestured for them to follow her. Colt moved sluggishly, the smoke made his senses dull and pleasant. Yaro opened the door to a second room. The air was colder there. A curious contraption stood in the middle of the room. It was as if it had grown out of the earth, a blunt trunk surrounded by twisting many branches that spread out and in again upon themselves like tentacles. Yaro placed the dead man’s head on the trunk. She began to bend the branches, attaching them, one by one, to the head, pushing them deep into the melting skin and reluctant bone. Colt gritted his teeth but did not look away. When it was done the head had been penetrated multiple times by the branches, and Yaro took position in a tangle of branches. This time it was as though the tree itself was responding to her. The branches moved, snaking under Yaro’s shift, attaching themselves to her. She began to murmur, words in a language Colt did not understand. Her eyes closed and a faint blue light began to glow along the branches of the tree, spreading out from Yaro to the disembodied head. Colt stared in horrified fascination as the air began to fizz and hiss with powerful discharge. Yaro began to shake, engulfed by cold fire.

The dead man blinked.

Colt stared. It could not be happening, surely.

The head blinked again. Then it opened its mouth and screamed.

Colt took an involuntary step back, and bumped into Sharol, who held him steady. Yaro made a sharp gesture and the dead man immediately fell silent. ‘There is not much there,’ Yaro said.

‘Try,’ Sharol said, gripping Colt’s arm. Yaro closed her eyes. The head opened its mouth again. It began to speak.

‘Drowned. In the swamp. Roog. Roog! See him come. The man from the stars has a whip for a heart. Heart of a star! The fire burns, he promised us wealth but made us into slaves. I alone escaped, but they follow, they follow! Untold treasure, all you desire. But the treasure is death. Do not seek your fortune! On the steps of the temple, north by northwest.’

‘Make it focus! Give us a route!’ Sharol cried, his excitement infecting Colt. Treasure! he thought. He pushed out of his mind the dead man’s warnings. Dead men could not be trusted at the best of times. Yaro was shaking, sweat pouring down her face, turning her shift damp. It clung to her body, Colt was aware of the curve of her backside, of her nipples, small and hard like her brother’s. The blue flames shot upwards, and over the dead man’s head a picture began to form, hazy at first, but gaining definition. It showed the volcanic peaks of the nearby mountain range and, beyond it, a mighty river snaking through marshland and swamps. Here and there, through the thick canopy of the trees, Colt could see smoke rising from unseen villages, Venusian settlements no Earthman had ever seen. The picture rushed forward, and suddenly he saw: an ancient temple rising out of a clearing in the jungle, on the banks of a great swamp into which the river fed as it passed. ‘There!’ Sharol said. At the sound of his voice Yaro dropped her arms. She fell to her knees, the branches making slick wet sounds as they detached from her. The image faded away, and the dismebodied head was silent once more. ‘Yaro!’

Sharol went to her, kneeling by her side. Yaro shuddered. Her eyes fluttered open, but what horrors she saw neither of them could see.

‘Roog …’ she said, and her voice was a pitiful howl of pain and rage and fear. ‘Roog …!’

4.

There is a special monotony to travel on Venus. You who have sampled, perhaps, the volcanic isles of Earth’s South Pacific ocean, or the thick jungles of that planet’s interior, may think you understand something of its nature, but you would be wrong. There is something crushing to the soul in the ever-present cloud cover, never a release from the humidity and heat, never the sight of blue skies or the rolling green hills, of which the blind poet Rhysling famously wrote. He had not been fond of Venus, if Colt correctly recalled: writing of it as rotten, retched, foul, and filled with death.

Well, what do you expect from a drunken old poet, was Colt’s take on it. For, travelling for days through jungle and swamp, and sailing the majestic river, which the Venusian swampmen call the Mukhtar, and some worship as a god, Colt began to see Venus through his companion’s eyes.

This was not the planet that the Earthmen, God-fearing administrators and colonists, ever saw. Through Sharol’s eyes Colt saw the beauty hidden in the interaction of clouds, for which the Venusians have as many as fifty or a hundred different names; he saw the swirl of hidden currents in the river, and smelled the smoke of hidden villages, and that earthy, if unearthly, stink of the swamps, which the Venusians savour like a fine wine. Venus was a planet of secrets and hidden depths, of mysteries beyond recall. And as they travelled their affinity deepened, his and Sharol’s, and in the privacy of their small, leaf-like boat, they consummated that special bond that only men can share with other men.

Sometimes, in the dark hours, it seemed to Colt that he saw a brightness in the sky, like a false sun in the distance, followed by the inevitable sound of a distant explosion. He did not comment on it, and neither did Sharol; but he had noticed it, ever since they had left Port Smith, and it made him think of the Sun Eater he had inadvertently saved.

‘Sharol?’ Colt said. It was night, and in the distance the Dwellers called to each other across the swamps. The night was thick with humidity and the buzzing of flying insects, drawn to the boat’s dim light.

‘Yes?’

‘What is that sound?’

Sharol went very still. His small, keen ears moved in a manner no Earthman’s could. Scanning. Colt listened, too. The sound of the water had changed. It was deeper, quicker. A rumble in the distance, growing closer —

‘Rapids!’ Colt cried, just as Sharol’s smaller body hit his, sending both of them overboard. The water was surprisingly cold, sending a shudder up Colt’s spine. Sharol was a shadow beside him. ‘Hold on to me!’ Sharol called. The current took their boat away. Ahead, white foam rose into the air and a roar entered Colt’s ears. The falls were close — too close!

The current dragged them, fast. Colt began to panic when he felt Sharol’s hand tightening on his arm, pulling him with force. They had stopped! He turned and saw a thick tangle of dark roots rising out of the water, Sharol a shadow amidst them. They were the roots of a natongtong tree, which spread out underwater. The current pulled, pulled at them! Colt held fast to Sharol’s hand, then on to one of the roots. They began to drag themselves, laboriously, along the thick, slimy roots, holding on for their lives.

At last, they made the bank. They lay on the wet mud, breathing deeply and hoarsely. Colt stared out at the thundering smoke overhead. A mere hundred feet further and they would have plunged to their death. He smiled, weakly. ‘Well, that was a close call,’ he said.

Sharol said nothing.

‘Sharol?’

He turned his head, but Sharol wasn’t there.

Colt pushed himself up, alarmed. The mud clung to his skin. Footprints in the ground. He scrambled up the slope from the river, hands and feet clawing for purchase. He came over the rise when a hand grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and forced him down. ‘Hush, you fool!’

Colt lay belly down in the mud, next to Sharol.

And saw!

It rose out of the bank, more immense than anything Colt could have imagined. What vanished race had once possessed such advanced technology as to erect this temple complex? Vast stone pillars rose high into the sky, each the size and height of many men; giant statues were erected amidst them, of fantastical, vanished beings, the Shambleau and the Thag and the Nameless. And towering above all, a chain of vast pyramids, starkly illuminated against the violet sky, amidst which dark shapes flittered and fled, rising and soaring through the air.

‘What is this place?’ Colt whispered, awed. But Sharol’s reply never came. In its stead there came the unmistakable sound of multiple energy guns, all charging in unison. Colt glanced wildly sideways. Dark shapes rose all around them, enclosing them in a trap from which there was no escape.

‘What is this place?’ It was a voice with the twang of Earth in it, a rich and melodious voice, in which amusement and contempt intermingled. A small, round shape stepped forward, revealing itself as a small, rotund man with round glasses and a soft, not unpleasant face. ‘It is mine.’

Beside Colt, Sharol was reaching desperately for a gun. Colt grabbed his hand, stopped him. They were outnumbered, and outgunned.

The small man laughed. There was something familiar about him, about his face and voice, his mannerism … Colt’s eyes opened wide as realisation dawned, old memory returned. ‘Van Huisen …’ he said.

He knew that name — that face! The mining magnate, the rich playboy son of an Earth dynasty who had become the worst despot and warlord the solar system had ever seen. The Warlord of Jupiter, they had called him, and The Butcher of Europa. No wonder those ReplicAnt soldiers had seemed familiar — it was Van Huisen who had employed them, in his insane war to become the emperor of the Jovean moons!

But surely the man was dead? He had been indicted for countless crimes, including for xenocide (against the peaceful ocean-dwellers of Europa), post-mortem, his army scattered, his ReplicAnt soldiers destroyed. Of his Five Year Reign nothing remained, no statue, no memorial. The most evil man in the solar system, they had called him. Surely, surely he was dead?

‘Van Huisen? Yes, yes … I remember that name,’ the man in the round glasses said, thoughtfully. ‘And who might you be?’

‘Kill him, Colt! Kill him!’ Sharol was shaking, sweat poured down his face: Colt had never seen him this way. He restrained his friend as best he could, afraid for his life. ‘Ah,’ Van Huisen said, smiling pleasantly. ‘You have heard of me?’ He turned back to Colt, shaking his head. ‘Venusians,’ he said. ‘Such an emotional race, don’t you think? They are like children, they need the firm hand of an adult to guide them. I could use you, yes. One does not waste labour. Bring them,’ he ordered his ReplicAnt, sharply. Colt and Sharol were pulled up to their feet. They were led away, deep into the temple complex, into the shadows of the pyramids.

5.

In that war Colt was but a young soldier. He still remembered landing on Europa, after the massacre. Remembered the corpses of the gentle, whale-like creatures, stranded on the ice, their enormous eyes unseeing. Once Europa had sang with the mind-song of its peaceful, telepathic inhabitants.

But the war had turned that icy moon into a wasteland.

6.

A hatred he had thought forgotten, buried deep, frozen, had erupted in him. Captive, helpless, he and Sharol were led into the complex. From within, all signs of grandeur were gone, and he could see the place for what it truly was: a ruin.

Make no mistake: man has conquered space before. And out of what strange vanished race did this place come? Atlantis, Mu, of which only hints and myths remain?

Now the jungle encroached freely into the complex; the trees sent roots to break the stones, upend the statues. Once it must have sat on a raised plateau, but the ground had eroded and the river had come in, swamping the once-grand courtyard, turning the earth into fetid pools of stagnant water. They trudged through, and around the main pyramid.

Beyond, an enormous part-lake, part-swamp spread out as far as the eye could see. The water reached up to the lowest level of the pyramids, leaving a black line along the ancient stone. All around the shore, amidst the pyramids, stood Venusian swampmen and women. Colt heard Sharol’s indrawn breath, the hiss of his anger and disgust.

Slaves.

They were slaves.

Chains linked the Venusians’ legs, binding them together. Scattered among them were armed ReplicAnts, keeping order. The linked chains of slaves were sent into the water, wading, deeper and deeper. Lights hovered over the surface, and Colt saw a massive, floating platform, on which a giant crane stood, extending far over the water. Divers came and went from the platform.

It was a salvage operation.

‘What is under there?’ Colt said. Van Huisen smiled in evident satisfaction. ‘Treasure, boy!’ he said. ‘Treasure the likes of which the solar system has not seen in aeons! And you, boys, will help me recover it.’

Roog …

‘What was that?’

For a moment Van Huisen looked uncomfortable, confused. Then the glint returned to his eyes, and Colt realised, with a cold sickening feeling, that the man was quite, quite insane.

‘Now get to work!’ Van Huisen roared. The ReplicAnts dragged Colt and Sharol towards the nearest chain gang. Chains were fastened to their feet. A ReplicAnt overseer flicked an energy whip over them with casual contempt, and Sharol screamed as a strip of skin was burned clean off his back. Colt shuffled along with the Venusians. Into the shallows of the water, then deeper. What were they searching for, he didn’t know. He knew, only, that they must find it — or die trying.

7.

Roog …

8.

How long they had been there Colt didn’t know. He had lost track of the passage of time. The voices were the worst, after a while. The incessant murmuring of the mad voice in the lake, calling, always calling to them to bring it out. Roog. Roog!

It was need and demand, hunger and hate, loathing and desire. It was a command, and they could do nothing but obey. They slept fitfully and rarely, were fed a thin gruel. Van Huisen and his ReplicAnt soldiers had enslaved the swampmen of the nearby villages and now ranged farther and farther, returning each day with new captives. Roog! It was a weapon, it was a prayer: in time, it almost became Colt’s sole reason to live.

Almost. But not quite. For he was not alone. Sharol was with him, Sharol of the warm skin and the easy laugh, Sharol of the quick draw: they were partners. And the treasure would be theirs, and revenge with it. They just had to bide their time.

Colt was not the only Earthman in the salvage site. There were others there, and Martians, and the men of half a dozen other moons and planets. How they had come to be there, he did not know. They were the dregs of the solar system, easily missed, easily lost. And every day he watched them give their lives to the swamp, and with each agonised death, each beating or drowning, he could feel the thing in the swamp grow stronger, hungrier, and heard its call echoing louder in his mind: Roog!

‘It is near,’ he heard Sharol say, as though from far away. They were standing on the floating platform, illuminated by the harsh glare of floodlights. ‘It is rising.’

‘Yes,’ Colt said, and, ‘Yes.’

Roog!

A numbness had spread through him. For three days and three nights they had dived from the platform, into the depths of the swamp. Dredging, searching, knowing they were getting close. It had been easy to be promoted to the platform. No one survived up there long.

They were unchained, up here. They had to be, to dive and return. Colt had never been so tired. There was no escape from the platform, in the glare of floodlights and the shadows of the ancient pyramids. There was only one way out. Perhaps he had always known that.

He adjusted the mask on his face and dove head first into the water; and felt Sharol, a bullet-shape beside him. Together they dove deep, their torches illuminating the murky depths. There were others down there, little mechanical submersibles and naked Venusian divers, nets and hooks and rope. And then there were the dead.

They were everywhere. They floated in a thick glow of decomposition and decay, staring at Colt with white, milky eyes. Venusians and Earthmen and Martians, sacrificed each day for the crazed god at the bottom of the swamp, this Roog, and with each death it had grown stronger and more insane.

It was close.

He could feel it now, feel its relentless, hungry pull. How had it taken so long for them to find it, when it was so obviously there, a beacon calling out, warping minds, infecting their dreams? He dove, deeper and deeper, Sharol’s muscular body moving beside him with fluid, economic grace. A rising shoal of divers, converging on this one place.

There!

In the mud, half-buried, ghostly in the half-light of their lamps. It was an enormous stone statue: a savage face like a ritual mask, eyes gouged deep into the stone, shining with bioluminescence. There was both savagery and beauty etched into that stone idol, a hunger, a desire. It was a thing out of Atlantis or Lemuria, the last remnant of its race, found here in the last place on or off Earth. A little lost god. The divers converged on the idol. Nets engulfed it. Ropes wrapped over it, carefully. Colt watched the first of the divers, a small Venusian woman, reach the idol. Perhaps curious, perhaps, in her tiredness and despair, lacking caution, she reached out a hand and touched it. For a moment a dreamy look entered her face, palely visible through her mask. Then she simply burst open, like fungal spores or dust, a coalescence of blood and brains, intestines and ovaries. The idol seemed to glow, it sucked in the cloud as if the Venusian had never existed; and it exulted, screaming out in savage joy across all of their minds: I … am … Roog!

Still they heaved and secured, and overhead the giant crane began to pull, and slowly, slowly, the idol was pulled free of the mud. It rose through the water, an inhuman figure and yet, somehow, carved by humans long-gone, whose science had become myth and superstition. Colt stared at it in horrified awe and disgust: this was the treasure they had come to find.

And now they were its captives.

He turned his head and saw Sharol looking at him, and a shared thought passed through their minds, and they began to rise, swimming to the surface. On the platform, Van Huisen himself, surrounded by his ReplicAnts, was standing, ‘Well?’ he demanded, ‘Well, is it here? Is it here?’

He reminded Colt at that moment of an ill-tempered, spoiled child, one who had received too many presents and yet still bullied away those of others. To Van Huisen, the idol was just another toy.

Colt emerged fully out of the water and caught his breath, shuddering with cold and tension. A moment later Sharol, too, rose. He looked ill in the floodlights. Overhead the crane strained against the weight of the idol. Slowly, the line rose. The divers emerged like a dark cloud in the water.

The idol rose. Its great domed head broke the surface of the water. There was a silence all across the swamp and the old ruined temple. Roog. Roog was rising again.

And no one was paying attention to Colt and Sharol.

Again, they exchanged glances. They knew each other’s mind. Quietly, they rose. The idol, pulled entirely out of the water, hung suspended in the air above the swamp. It was magnificent — magnificent and grotesque! The mud and water sluiced off it, hissing from some immense heat emanating from within the stone. The idol whispered of blood sacrifice and dark rituals, of death-magic and the science of pain. Van Huisen’s eyes were shining, he seemed enraptured as a child.

Colt and Sharol made their way unobtrusively behind the control unit of the crane. On the deck Van Huisen stood with his arms wide open, the waves lapping at his feet. The idol was being lowered towards him. It must have been a weapon, once, Colt thought, the ancient remnants of the wars that had torn Lemuria and Atlantis apart and left their children stranded on this and other planets. What could Van Huisen do, being in control of it?

He raised his face to the sky. He missed the stars badly, at that moment. Then, far in the distance, but coming closer — something like dawn, like the sun. He heard a distant explosion. Sharol turned to him, a swift glance. ‘I’ve been hearing that sound ever since we left Port Smith,’ he said. Colt shook his head, pointed: a ReplicAnt had wandered a short way away from the others, was just turning towards them, its gun beginning to rise.

They took it front and back, Sharol grabbing the cyborg’s gun as Colt kicked its legs out from under it and broke its neck, cleanly, with a twist. He lowered the ReplicAnt gently to the ground, leaning it against the control booth’s metal wall. No one had noticed. Their chance of escape was now. Colt liberated a beam pistol from the creature’s armour. They were armed and, for the moment, they were free. Again, they exchanged looks. The water was near … all they had to do was swim for it.

Colt grinned. Sharol, after a moment, grinned back and hefted his gun. It felt good, Colt thought, to have a gun again. You always knew where you were, with a gun.

‘Welcome, Roog of Lemuria, risen again after millennia!’ They stepped around the control unit. The idol had been lowered onto the deck. Its eyes had not lost their weird, ethereal glow. In the distance, a false sun, growing closer. Van Huisen spread open his arms. ‘You who were worshipped as a god,’ he said, ‘will now meet one who had lived as one!’ and, so saying, he stepped forward, and embraced the monstrous stone statue, placing his lips on the idol’s on in a lustful, obscene kiss!

‘Now?’ Sharol said.

‘Now!’ Colt said.

They stepped in unison and began to fire.

The ReplicAnts were taken by surprise, if such creatures can be said to be capable of surprise. The beams hissed through the air, agitating water molecules as they passed. The air filled with steam. ReplicAnts dropped. Others turned, firing. Colt knew they could not win, that this was suicide, yet a savage joy sang through him as he fired, rolled, grabbed a weapon from the hands of a downed cyborg and continued to mow down Van Huisen’s guard. This was revenge, and revenge was a dish best served with guns.

Van Huisen still had his arms wrapped around the statue. Now he turned his head back, to look at them, an irritated frown crossing his face. That was what Colt always remembered, afterwards: that petulant look on the Butcher of Europa’s face, a moment before it changed forever. At first it was simple confusion, and then a nameless terror entered the man’s eyes, and milky clouds began to pour into his retina. His body shuddered, spasming uncontrollably, and he began to scream.

Colt was cornered by two ReplicAnts, his arm and face bleeding and burned: he faced them, ready to die.

But no shot came. Colt stared at the ReplicAnts, but they were unmoving. Just ahead Van Huisen was still screaming, fused into the rock. Colt said, ‘Sharol?’

‘Yes?’ came the reply, from the other side of the platform.

‘Are you still alive?’

‘Yes.’ There was a short silence. ‘You?’

‘I … yes?’

‘Sure?’

Colt shrugged. He grabbed the beam gun from the nearest ReplicAnt, smashed in the creature’s face, then fired in a long beam, low and wide, turning, leaving around him a circle of corpses.

‘I’m pretty sure!’ he said.

In the distance, there was the sound of an explosion, like thunder, but it was not thunder. Colt thought he could see the sun, but that was impossible, on Venus. In the water the Venusian swampmen and women stared up at the two of them, mutely. ‘Sharol?’

‘Yes?’

‘They’re staring.’

‘Right.’

Sharol came and joined him, cutting a swathe of dead and broken ReplicAnts in his wake. ‘You!’ he said, addressing the Venusians in the water. They looked up at him in mute incomprehension. ‘Shoo!’ Colt said. ‘Shoo!’

‘Get out of here!’ Sharol said. Still they did not move. He sighed, adjusted the setting on his gun, and began to fire into the water. ‘Go away! Get back to your villages! Hurry!’

A panic broke in the water, and the Venusians, as one, began to swim to shore. Colt and Sharol, standing side by side in the glare of the one remaining floodlight, watched them rise ashore like a dark tide. Soon they were gone amidst the pyramids.

The sudden silence was broken by a human laugh, the sound of hands, clapping. ‘Bravo,’ the voice said. Colt turned, slowly. Van Huisen was standing beside the idol, but the idol’s eyes no longer shone, and there was something indescribably alien and disgusting in Van Huisen’s face: something that used to be his eyes. ‘Bravo!’

‘It’s still here?’ Sharol said.

‘Shoot it,’ Colt said.

The face that had belonged to Van Huisen smiled. Colt and Sharol opened fire. Van Huisen staggered back, still smiling. Then he stopped and breathed deep. His chest inflated. He seemed to grow bigger and meaner in that time.

He took a step forward.

He was unharmed.

‘Roog …’ he said, softly. His tongue snaked out, red and fleshy like a Martian cactus. He licked his lips. His teeth were like stone, and there was mud leaking from his eyes and ears. He opened his mouth wide. ‘Roog!’ he roared. His tongue snaked out and continued to emerge, a vast red snake. It looped around Sharol and pulled him to the ground. Colt fired, but the beams bounced harmlessly off of the monster. ‘Sharol!’

‘Run! Save yourself!’

There was the sound of an explosion, closer this time. Waves lashed the platform, almost upending Colt. Van Huisen grew bigger, and bigger still. His tongue, a red pulsating tentacle, tightened over Sharol’s helpless body. Van Huisen’s weight was making the platform lean-to, the crane was tilting alarmingly, swinging as the platform rocked. Colt fired, helplessly, sweat pouring down his face. He threw down the gun and ran to his friend.

‘Roog! Roog! Roog!’

‘Go …’ Sharol whispered. He reached out a hand, stroked Colt’s cheek. ‘Colt … go.’

‘I’m not leaving you.’

‘Save yourself.’

Colt shook his head. There was sweat in his eyes. He blinked. The Roog was by now enormous. Van Huisen’s body bloated outwards, muscles and skin and blood vessels stretched. It towered over them, as tall as the crane now. ‘I am Roog!’ it cried, ‘Lemuria shall rise again!’ Red tongues lashed out of its enormous mouth, tentacles reaching out for Colt, sinking into the lake, questing, hungering … Colt was going to get taken, the ancient god was going to devour them both. He squeezed Sharol’s hand. ‘At least we found it,’ he said, trying to smile. ‘The treasure.’

‘Fool,’ Sharol said. The breath was leaving him. The monster’s tongue wrapped itself around Colt. There was no escape. It was slimy and wet and hot. He felt its pull, tried to fight against it. Overhead the giant risen god’s laugh boomed across the sky.

No, Colt realised. It was a different sound, intruding on his consciousness. It was the sound of explosions, and the air felt hot and dry. The Roog stopped laughing, its head turned this way and that. It looked annoyed.

‘Who dares disturb the mighty Roog?’ it said. Its voice had the petulance of Van Huisen still in it. Its tentacle eased the pressure on Colt; just a little. He looked up.

The sun burned in the purple Venusian sky. It dispelled clouds and illuminated the night, casting shadows and reflections on the water. It was the sun which the blind poet Rhysling had spoken of when he described feeling its warmth on his skin, and knowing he was back home, amidst the green hills of Earth.

And it cried. It cried out in song. It was not the sun, but …

‘Sun Eater …’ Sharol whispered. Colt’s eyes filled with tears as he stared into the glare, saw, amidst the fames, the lizardine body, the leathery wings of the Sun Eater. It turned enormous diamond eyes on Colt, as though it could see every part of him; which perhaps it could. Then it gave a cry of anger and rushed at the bloated god.

The tentacles eased off Colt and Sharol as the Roog turned to his attacker, his mouth opening in rage. Tentacles whipped through the air, trying to wrap around the Sun Eater, but the heat from the flying creature burned them clean off and the Roog cried with anger and pain. Chunks of tongue fell down to the water, red and pussing. The Sun Eater flew at the Roog, gouging deep chunks of meat out of its grotesque human shape, which splashed down into the water, as large as pyramid blocks. Colt grabbed Sharol’s shoulders. The Roog’s attention was off them. Sharol had lost consciousness. Colt began to drag him to the edge of the platform.

Overhead the Sun Eater was a ball of flame, but the Roog had stretched its massive lips into a nasty smile, and a new tongue appeared and licked his red flesh. His giant hands reached for the crane and tore it free. The Sun Eater, turning in a graceful swirl, was coming back at the Roog. The Roog screamed incoherent laughter and rage and swung the giant crane like a bat.

Colt could only watch, in horrified incomprehension, as the crane connected with the Sun Eater’s body with a sickening crunch. For a moment, there was silence; and the sun seemed suspended in the air. Then it fell, like dusk, slowly and inexorably, and hit the deck. The platform shook and the water rose and fell on Colt and Sharol. The swamp water found the Sun Eater and extinguished it. It was dying. Without its light it was just a beast, one no longer even capable of flight. It turned its diamond eyes on Colt and blinked, once. Colt crawled towards it. Above his head the Roog was laughing, laughing, growing bigger and bigger into the sky. Soon its head was level with the clouds, its legs extended down into the swamp floor. It had forgotten them.

‘I’m sorry,’ Colt whispered. He reached out, stroked the Sun Eater’s reptilian head. It felt warm, but no longer burning. He withdrew his hand.

Then the Sun Eater imploded.

9.

It was a silent thing. The creature’s entire mass compressed inwardly, eyes and scales and wings broken up and shrank, inwards.

Colt stared at the death of the Sun Eater.

Where it had been, there remained a softly glowing egg.

10.

He carried Sharol on his back, swimming to the shore. Sharol had recovered enough to walk, by then. They leaned on each other as they walked away from the temple complex. Behind them the giant Roog was smashing up the ancient pyramids. It was like a child, playing with its toys. Soon, if it weren’t stopped, it would take over the world.

‘What … happened back there?’ Sharol said.

‘I saw a god rising,’ Colt said. ‘And a Sun Eater die. Come. We must hurry.’

Sharol did not ask why. They walked away from the ancient temple, along the river bank, before departing from it into the jungle.

‘I can’t … go any farther,’ Sharol said.

‘You have to. Just over the next hill.’

And Sharol would comply, and Colt would make him go over just one more hill. They were not like the green hills of earth, but they were hills, all the same, and hard to climb. Hills often are.

‘You need medical help,’ Colt said. ‘Lucille Town is three days away, by my estimate.’

‘What difference does it make,’ Sharol said. ‘We lost.’

Colt shrugged. ‘We are still alive,’ he said.

At the top of the next hill they stopped, and rested. They had a view over the jungle and the river, and in the distance they could see the swamp and the ruined temple. The Roog’s head was lost in the clouds now. Soon it would be visible from space.

‘No wonder the Atlanteans died out,’ Sharol said.

‘Yes,’ Colt said.

He smiled, a private smile. ‘Look,’ he said.

They saw it before they heard it. The sound travelled slower than the light, so that, when they saw it, it was in total silence.

It was hard to say, afterwards, exactly what it was they saw.

Certainly, there was a flash of terrible brightness.

The Roog’s legs seemed to give way under it, suddenly.

It was the brightness of the sun, turning everything white. And then the Roog was no longer there. Sound followed, a rolling thunder, travelling for miles. The light dimmed, only slightly. The flames rose upwards, smoke erupting in a vast towering mushroom cloud. Make no mistake, humanity has conquered space before: and out of pre-history there come to us the ancient myths as the phoenix, resurrected in fire and ash, for such a creature could never have evolved on Earth.

It seemed to Colt, afterwards, that before the cloud dispersed he saw a brightness, as beautiful as a bird, born out of the flames and take off, into the air.

They sat on the hilltop and watched the sun rise over the Venusian skies.

11.

In the distance, faint and fading, a final whisper in their minds.

Roog …

Then silence.

12.

Colt was playing Venusian Hi-Lo and winning when Sharol came into the bar. He was limping, holding on to a crutch, but he was smiling all the same. Colt smiled back.

They had travelled through swampland and jungle to Lucille Town, under the shadow of the volcanoes. Neither was in good shape when they finally made it. But they had made it. That was the important thing.

The city prospered. A lumber yard was operating at one end of the town, and the men were busy clearing away the trees. The houses were slowly being converted into permanent structures, surrounded by clean white picket fences. A new road was being built, linking the settlement to Port Smith. Everything seemed orderly, prosperous, and safe.

One day, Colt thought, all of Venus would be like this. The colonists would drain the swamps, chop down the forests, build roads and towns all over the planet. Such a world would have no room in it for Dwellers or Sun Eaters; the old temples would become roadside attractions, the old gods would die; and such a world would have no place in it for a man like Colt.

One day, Colt thought. But not today.

‘Got room for one more?’ Sharol said. Colt moved his chair and the man beside him, a gruff marine, did the same. Sharol pulled over a chair and sat down. He put his hand, briefly, on Colt’s.

‘Deal me in,’ he said.

This novelette originally appeared in Old Venus edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Bantam, March 2016)

Lavie Tidhar is the author of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize winning A Man Lies Dreaming, the World Fantasy Award winning Osama, and of the critically-acclaimed The Violent Century. His other works include the Bookman Histories trilogy, several novellas, two collections and a forthcoming comics mini-series, Adler. He currently lives in London.

Freeze/Thaw (Excerpt)

Chris Bucholz

A few more minutes passed, and I started passing a set of residential stacks, the scents of cooking and sweat wafted by. There were a few people out on the streets, though no one paid much attention to me. I kept my head down and tried to look like I knew where I was going. Another email arrived from Bretton, this one containing an external diagnostics package. I looked at the attachment and the instructions that came with it. It wanted me to plug into my charging station in the truck, create a restore point, then run the package. I sighed. A truck that was basically guaranteed to have someone in it who hated me. If I was lucky, it’d be one of the people who were discreet about it. "Fuck it," I said, accepting the download. I created my own restore point and waited for the download to finish. I’m enjoying my time away from the truck, thanks. I opened the package.

And fell forward on my face.

"No, no, no, no, fuck no, fuck," I hissed into the muddy snow. My suit was completely dead. "Please start, please start, please start." I took a deep breath, inhaling no small amount of filthy snow as I did so, and fought back the panic. There was a reboot procedure. They’d made me practice it. This was just the suit’s system that had gone down; the neural jack should still have power. I concentrated, trying to remember the feeling, eventually feeling something click. Little green lights flickered on the edge of my vision. It’d take a few minutes, but I was going to be ok.

Crunching snow behind me. Oh shit. "You ok?" someone asked me. A kid.

"I’m fine," I said, spitting snow out of the way. "Just … I’ll be fine."

"What happened?" another kid asked. How many of them were there?

"What’d you do to him, Mike?"

"Nothing! I found him like this."

"You’re going to be in trouble."

"I’m fine, guys," I said. "Honestly." I watched the green lights resolve into letters, watching the boot sequence start. It was not a quick process.

"What’d he say?"

"He’s alive!"

More crunching snow. My face rose off the ground as someone rolled me onto my back. "Thanks," I said, hoping I sounded cool and also casually menacing. I was peering into the face of a young man, maybe seventeen or so. The two kids were standing behind him, looking at me curiously.

"You ok?" the young man asked.

"I’ll be fine," I said. "Just slipped." I licked my lips, considered a couple things. "Can you find my friends? Big guys. White jackets."

"Yeah." He looked over his shoulder. "Mike, Rick. Keep a look out. Tell me if anyone’s coming."

"What?" Oh. That. Shit.

He started opening my pockets, inside my jacket and out. I didn’t have anything of value on me, other than the extremely expensive military exoskeleton. I started to scream, but he was ready for that and clamped a hand over my mouth. He twisted his hand out of his glove as he did so, shoving the glove deeper into my maw. It tasted of dirt and grease and the more I fought against it the more I tasted it. "What the hell is this?" he said, returning his free hand back under my armpits, feeling the suit’s structure. He reached up to my neck and undid my jacket, then tugged up my shirt, revealing my sloppy body and the suit frame wrapped around it. "What the fuck are you? Some kind of robot?"

That’s not what a robot is, fuckwit. The boot sequence seemed to have stalled, choking on the idiotic software that cretin Bretton had sent me.

"Someone’s coming!" one of the kids said. The guy straddling my chest turned around. More crunching footsteps in the snow, coming quickly now. "Oh shi.." my new friend said, before he flew off me, tackled by a white blur. From somewhere behind me two wet thuds, and the distinct sound of something cracking. A moan.

"You ok, Luggage?" Kat said, kneeling down beside me, upside down from my perspective. She looked around. "Can you move?"

I blinked, then remembered to check the HUD. The boot sequence had gotten past whatever it had been hung up on and was almost done. "Yeah," I said, stalling. I tried my arm, causing it to flop around. Back to square one.

She looked at the arm suspiciously. "Is that it?"

I grimaced. "Nope. Just … hang on." I flopped the other arm, then ordered both legs to do the same.

She leaned away from me into a kneeling position. "What happened?" she asked, almost hissing through clenched teeth. She worked her jaw up and down a couple times.

I wondered how much I should tell her. "They tripped me," I said. My limbs began moving a little more fluidly, and I slowly sat up to face her. She smiled and blinked. She was blinking a lot actually.

"We gotta go," she said, looking past me. I turned to look, seeing a few people down the street watching us. She abruptly lunged at me, slinging one of my arms over her shoulder. Before I knew what was happening, she’d hoisted me to my feet. We began making our way back to the truck like that, my arm over her shoulder, though I soon found I didn’t really need it. "Bad, bad, bad idea going there, Gabe," she said. "Ziggy let you off the truck? Bad, bad, bad."

"There was a mixup," I said. "I was with Mitchell and Jorda and we got separated. Jesus. Where are the cops in this place?"

She laughed. "I’m the cop, Luggage." She leaned into me then, steering me around a corner. Ahead of us were the bright lights of the charging station. "You don’t fucking get how anything works out here." We reached the concrete apron and were greeted by the unexpectedly calming sight of Ziggy shrieking at a different station attendant.

"Kat?" I asked, as we set off across the apron. I took my arm off of her shoulders and stopped.

"What?" she said, turning to look at me. In the brighter lights, I could see her eyes better now, pupils flared incredibly wide. She blinked.

"I’m ok now, yeah?" I said.

"What?" She shook her head. "What?" she asked again.

"I mean, I’m moving again. On my own." I swallowed. "Can you maybe not tell Ziggy about this?"

A beat, then a grin spread across her face. "Yeah. Sure. I get it." She licked her lips and nodded. "I’m cool."

"Thanks," I said. "I’m not sure what to s …"

She held a finger up. "Be cool." And with that she turned around and set off across the pad.

I gaped at Kat for what must have been a seriously uncool amount of time before eventually following her back to the truck.

Freeze/Thaw — the new novel by Chris Bucholz available from Apex Publications

Chris Bucholz is a video game, humor, and third type of writer. His first novel, Severance (Apex Publications, 2014), is incredible, and his weekly column on Cracked.com contains a mix of historical curiosities, short fiction, and spectacularly bad advice. He lives in Vancouver, BC, with his wife and son.

Apex Magazine Issue 85 Preview

Next month in Apex Magazine, we will have original fiction by Mary Pletch ("Folk Hero"), and Douglas F. Warrick ("Cuckoo Girls"). Our poetry is by Tina Parker, Tina Jens, and Cullen Groves. Our reprint is a novelette by C.S.E. Cooney ("The Big Bah-Ha"). Cover art will be by Joe Badon. Look for this and more in Apex Magazine issue 85 coming in June, 2016.

Copyrights and Acknowledgments

“Words from the Editor-in-Chief” Copyright © 2016 by Jason Sizemore
“1957” Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Cox
“Interview with Author Stephen Cox” Copyright © 2016 by Andrea Johnson
“Cottage Country” Copyright © 2016 by David K. Yeh
“The Behemoth Beaches” Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Slater
“The Drowned Celestial” Copyright © 2016 by Lavie Tidhar (originally appeared in Old Venus edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, March 2016)
“Freeze/Thaw (Excerpt)” Copyright © 2016 by Chris Bucholz (Apex Publications, May 2016) “Jubilee” Copyright © 2016 by F.J. Bergmann
“Before the Empire Goes Inter-Galactic” Copyright © 2016 by Ken Poyner
“Mammon’s Cave” Copyright © 2016 by Janna Layton
“The Perfect Planet” Copyright © 2016 by Christina Sng
“Interview with Cover Artist Robert Carter” Copyright © 2016 by Russell Dickerson

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore
Managing Editor—Lesley Conner
Poetry Editor—Bianca Spriggs
Assistant Editor—McKenzie Johnston

Slush Editors—Andrea Johnson, Anna Middleton, Beth Sutherland, Beverly McPherson, Carolyn Charron, Dawn Griffin, Eileen Maksym, Gabrielle Harbowy, Jessica Nelson, Joshua Cowell, Joshua P'ng, Kate Dollarhyde, Lauren Smith, Lia Swope Mitchell, Lindsay Anderson, Lisa Bolekaja, Mandy Johnson-Parker, Mike Baldwin, Rebecca Hurley, Reese Menezes, Samantha Williams, Stephanie Harris, and Tacoma Tomilson.

Graphic Designer—Justin Stewart

ISSN: 2157-1406

Apex Publications
PO Box 24323
Lexington, KY 40524

Please visit our website at www.apex-magazine.com.

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