☇ ☈ ☍ ☊ ☩
You have been invaded by the freezine of fantasy
and science fiction. You no longer need to sub-
scribe, for we are already subscribed to you.


Tuesday, July 28, 2009

SKY PIRATES:Part14

by John Shirley




An endless rolling of drums…a rushing sound...

"Jann?" A voice in the darkness. The voice spoke again, and this time he recognized it as Moss. "I think he's coming around..."

He opened his swollen eyes and saw the dimly lit confines of what passed for an infirmary on Gangtofen's plantation. A bare room with a few cots in it. Plaster walls. A single barred window--beyond it a driving rain pounded away much of the daylight: the first flush of the monsoon. Moss and Ivan were seated on stools beside him, and Dribney was lying nearby, still asleep. His neck was purple with bruises.

"Is there...water?" Jann asked, his voice raspy.

Moss nodded, and handed him a plastic cup. "Been trying to give it to you all morning. You kept pushing my hand away."

Jann sat up, grimacing at the pain in his head and neck. Nothing seemed broken but he was horribly bruised. He drank deeply.

"They are going to call us to morning-work in a moment," Ivan said. "I myself spoke to the Lady Delphine, and asked if we might come to tend you before going to work." He grinned with blocky yellow teeth. "I thought that Gangtofen would turn purple and explode when I spoke up, but she persuaded Gangtofen it would be a waste of a slave if you were to die. She convinced him to let us see to you for a time." His smile faded and he went on more gravely, softly. "You are perhaps insane, Jann-- but you have now my deep respect. You did what I longed to do--and I did not have the courage."

Moss nodded. "I too..." He looked away. "Anyhow--the slapgrip was finished when it hit the ground. You seem intact but I'll bet you feel like the breathing dead."

"I don't know that expression, but that seems right. You heard anything of Derv?"

Both men shook their heads slowly, as one.

Jann saw then that Dribney had awakened, was lying on his side looking sleepily at him. "You...saved me. It was going to tear off my head--and drink from my neck." His voice was as hoarse as Jann's.

Jann grunted. "Stupid of me, really."

Dribney gave a sickly grin. "Yes. Because now I will follow you forever--I am your friend, your protector. I will be around you so persistently you will be maddened by the sight of me. You will beg me to go away. But I will mercilessly serve you!"

"No, thanks," Jann said.

"Ah but that is how it will be. It is now your inexorable destiny. But I promise this--if you have a honeymoon, sometime, I will not enter the room. I will only sleep on the doormat, outside."

Jann sighed and looked out at the rain.

"We must make our move as soon as you're well, Jann," Moss said.

"I say we break into the main house and kill them all in their sleep," said Ivan, relishing the idea. "Cut off the head and the body will run blindly."

Jann shook his head--and the pain made him regret it. "The woman...Lady Delphine..."

Moss snorted. "Ivan fantasizes that she cares what happens to you--but she is as bad as the others! Worse! She amuses herself tormenting us with her tales of the new slave collars!"

"I think," said Jann thoughtfully, "that she was warning us. It was her way of saying that if we hope to escape we must do it before the collars are attached to us."

Ivan sat back in surprise. "Do you think so?" He rubbed his chin--and winked. "I thought to see her perusing me, after I spoke up...Perhaps she is in love with me!"

"Could be..."

Then the door burst open, and Blust entered, followed by the Id, and the towering, pallid form of Drumm who held a stropp at ready in his hand. "So!" Blust shouted, waving a crackling electronlash. "The Stumper and the Russian lazing like gutworms in here! You dared to speak to the Lady--did you think we wouldn't punish you for that? And now you contrive an excuse to sit about gossiping! Get out to the square and join the lumber troop! We'll conceive your punishment later!"

Moss and Ivan turned to Jann, and waited--Jann realized they were waiting for a cue from him. He nodded, and they got up and hurried out into the downpour.

It occurred to Jann that because of the slapgrip incident the others had decided he was a leader of some sort. The thought saddened him--he doubted he could live up to it.

Then Drumm, pallid and reeking of sunblock, was glaring down at him. "You disobeyed a direct order and damaged Meister Gangtofen's property!"

It took Jann a moment to realize that by property Drumm meant Jann a Grelle himself. "Sorry," Jann rasped, playing for time. "Instinct."

"You will learn to control your instincts! Were it up to me you'd be shot with the Writher! But the Lady Delphine has insisted that your questionable abilities as a laborer not be wasted--therefore we will give you a chance of surviving. You will be hung by your wrists for three days, with no food or water. Then you will be given thirty electronlashes. If you survive that--and a weakling slumnik like yourself will probably die--why, you may return to your work crew in the forest."

"No!" Dribney said, jumping to his feet. Drumm swung a great snowy fist hard, back-hand into the boy's chin, knocking him flat on his back, out cold.

Drumm nodded at Dribney. "As for the imbecile who likes to play with the local fauna, let him remain here one more day, then send him back to work, Blust. Those are Meister Gangtofen's orders."

"Aye, sir."

"Now, Blust--take this highly instinctive individual to the stake..."


#


The first day, hanging by his wrists in tough plastic restraints, Jann was lucky--the sky was overcast, though the rains had paused for a time, and he kept drifting in and out of consciousness; sometimes, standing tiptoe, he could just manage to put a little of his weight on the stake he was bound to, and he was almost able to rest. But he was dangling so that his toes just barely reached the ground and by midnight the pain in his arms and shoulders was almost beyond endurance. Only the thought that his dignity was all that remained kept him from shrieking. Sometime after two in the morning, another deluge began down, nearly drowning him. He drank sparingly from the rain. The pain in his shoulders seemed to combine with a gnawing hunger in his belly, till it grew to fill all the cosmos, leaving no room for consciousness. He sagged into a dozing delirium.

Just before dawn, as the rain lashed at him, he woke shivering, thinking he heard a woman's voice. His mother's voice? Was it his mother Sena, telling him she thought him brave for what he'd done, wishing she could help him. "I would help--but I'm too closely watched…." said the soft feminine voice. Why would his mother say she was closely watched? Was she shadowed by some malevolent spirit in the land of death? He looked to see her spirit but saw only the endless gray drizzle, the silhouettes of plantation out buildings around the courtyard, the hulking shape of the main house beyond them. Then there was a soft touch on his shoulder--not exactly a caress, more like a tactile expression of compassion.

Compassion. Had the Lady Delphine been there? He turned his head--thought he glimpsed a hooded figure slipping into the shadows. Perhaps not. Perhaps it had been delirium.

He slipped into a state that alternated dozing with spasms of pain. He could no longer feel his wrists--the pain was mostly in his shoulders and chest and in his calves.

He woke more thoroughly about an hour after dawn--to his great regret.

That second day there was another break in the monsoon. The sun shone brightly, evaporation calling up ghostly wraiths of mist from the stones of the courtyard--and with the sun came thirst, and then a return of delirium. The sunlight seemed to sear over him in molten waves and in his mind's eye multicolored hieroglyphics danced in rhythm with solar pulsations. The hieroglyphics became recognizable shapes. He saw Vonn a Vleet dancing a minuet with the A'taranda, his mother dancing with Gangtofen, and he saw Delphine...Delphine dancing alone...

The hours rolled slowly by. Then, of a sudden, he tasted something beautiful, exquisite, velvety soft. He'd never tasted it before.

It was water. Someone had pressed a sponge full of water to his lips--and it was as if he tasted water for the first time.

He opened his eyes to see Dribney beside him. "Drink, Jann!"

"Get...out of here...you moron..."

"What treachery is this!" snarled Drumm, striding up. "A direct contradiction to my orders! Why aren't you in the forest? You shall pay, boy! You will hang beside this oaf, and the two of you will get sixty lashes for..."

Drumm broke off, looking up as a shadow fell over him. Something in the sky blotted out the sun.

Jann raised his eyes--and smiled grimly. There was a warship in the sky--and its sub-cannons were swiveling to target the plantation's main house.

"The Veln!" shouted Drumm, running to the armory. "The Veln attack!" The massive albino turned and darted into the cover of the forest, shouting for Blust. Other guards were running, shouting. No one was paying the least attention to Dribney and Jann.

Dribney saw his chance. He drew a length of roughly sharpened metal from his belt and sawed through the restraints at Jann's wrists.

Jann fell in a heap, with a cry mingling relief and agony. He forced himself, groaning, to rise enough to lean on Dribney...

And he watched in bleary disbelief as the main house exploded, flying apart like a blown dandelion, its foundations erupting in flame, in a double blast from the sub-cannons. The ground shook, the air thundered--as he and Dribney stumbled into the fields, making their way to the cover of the woods.

The Veln warship's shadow rippled over them; there was cannon-fire from the ground. Air-to-ground hoppers descended from the ship to the plantation storehouses, to begin their looting...

Delphine, Jann thought. What of Delphine? Had she been in the house?

If she'd been in the house, then she had died like his mother…blasted from above. Smashed like a rodent under a boot.

You don't know she was there. She could be alive...

"Where now, Jann?" Dribney asked.

Now? He felt woozy, stunned. The Veln ship drifted over, looking for a landing place. A great plume of smoke arose…

Jann forced himself to think. "The armory--we need weapons. If the Veln don't bother to blow it up…that way! We have to get the others and get to the armory!"




Click Here for Part 15 of SKY PIRATES,
by John Shirley

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for dropping by, Susan. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

    ReplyDelete

Archive of Stories
and Authors

Callum Leckie's
THE DIGITAL DECADENT


J.R. Torina's
ANTHROPOPHAGUS


J.R. Torina's
THE HOUSE IN THE PORT


J.R. Torina was DJ for Sonic Slaughter-
house ('90-'97), runs Sutekh Productions
(an industrial-ambient music label) and
Slaughterhouse Records (metal record
label), and was proprietor of The Abyss
(a metal-gothic-industrial c.d. shop in
SLC, now closed). He is the dark force
behind Scapegoat (an ambient-tribal-
noise-experimental unit). THE HOUSE
IN THE PORT is his first publication.

Sean Padlo's
NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW

Sean Padlo's
GRANDPA'S LAST REQUEST

Sean Padlo's exact whereabouts
are never able to be fully
pinned down, but what we
do know about him is laced
with the echoes of legend.
He's already been known
to haunt certain areas of
the landscape, a trick said
to only be possible by being
able to manipulate it from
the future. His presence
among the rest of us here
at the freezine sends shivers
of wonder deep in our solar plexus.


Konstantine Paradias & Edward
Morris's HOW THE GODS KILL


Konstantine Paradias's
SACRI-FEES

Konstantine Paradias is a writer by
choice. At the moment, he's published
over 100 stories in English, Japanese,
Romanian, German, Dutch and
Portuguese and has worked in a free-
lancing capacity for videogames, screen-
plays and anthologies. People tell him
he's got a writing problem but he can,
like, quit whenever he wants, man.
His work has been nominated
for a Pushcart Prize.

Edward Morris's
ONE NIGHT IN MANHATTAN


Edward Morris's
MERCY STREET

Edward Morris is a 2011 nominee for
the Pushcart Prize in literature, has
also been nominated for the 2009
Rhysling Award and the 2005 British
Science Fiction Association Award.
His short stories have been published
over a hundred and twenty times in
four languages, most recently at
PerhihelionSF, the Red Penny Papers'
SUPERPOW! anthology, and The
Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. He lives
and works in Portland as a writer,
editor, spoken word MC and bouncer,
and is also a regular guest author at
the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.


Tim Fezz's
BURNT WEENY SANDWICH

Tim Fezz's
MANY SILVERED MOONS AGO

Tim Fezz hails out of the shattered
streets of Philly destroying the air-
waves and people's minds in the
underground with his band OLD
FEZZIWIG. He's been known to
dip his razor quill into his own
blood and pen a twisted tale
every now and again. We are
delighted to have him onboard
the FREEZINE and we hope
you are, too.

Daniel E. Lambert's
DEAD CLOWN AND MAGNET HEAD


Daniel E. Lambert teaches English
at California State University, Los
Angeles and East Los Angeles College.
He also teaches online Literature
courses for Colorado Technical
University. His writing appears
in Silver Apples, Easy Reader,
Other Worlds, Wrapped in Plastic
and The Daily Breeze. His work
also appears in the anthologies
When Words Collide, Flash It,
Daily Flash 2012, Daily Frights
2012, An Island of Egrets and
Timeless Voices. His collection
of poetry and prose, Love and
Other Diversions, is available
through Amazon. He lives in
Southern California with his
wife, poet and author Anhthao Bui.

Phoenix's
AGAIN AND AGAIN

Phoenix has enjoyed writing since he
was a little kid. He finds much import-
ance and truth in creative expression.
Phoenix has written over sixty books,
and has published everything from
novels, to poetry and philosophy.
He hopes to inspire people with his
writing and to ask difficult questions
about our world and the universe.
Phoenix lives in Salt Lake City, Utah,
where he spends much of his time
reading books on science, philosophy,
and literature. He spends a good deal
of his free time writing and working
on new books. The Freezine of Fant-
asy and Science Fiction welcomes him
and his unique, intense vision.
Discover Phoenix's books at his author
page on Amazon. Also check out his blog.

Adam Bolivar's
SERVITORS OF THE
OUTER DARKNESS


Adam Bolivar's
THE DEVIL & SIR
FRANCIS DRAKE



Adam Bolivar's
THE TIME-EATER


Adam Bolivar is an expatriate Bostonian
who has lived in New Orleans and Berkeley,
and currently resides in Portland, Oregon
with his beloved wife and fluffy gray cat
Dahlia. Adam wears round, antique glasses
and has a fondness for hats. His greatest
inspirations include H.P. Lovecraft,
Jack tales and coffee. He has been
a Romantic poet for as long as any-
one can remember, specializing in
the composition of spectral balladry,
utilizing to great effect a traditional
poetic form that taps into the haunted
undercurrents of folklore seldom found
in other forms of writing.
His poetry has appeared on the pages
of such publications as SPECTRAL
REALMS and BLACK WINGS OF
CTHULHU, and a poem of his,
"The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner,"
won the Rhysling Award for long-form
poetry. His collection of weird balladry
and Jack tales, THE LAY OF OLD HEX,
was published by Hippocampus Press in 2017.


Sanford Meschkow's
INEVITABLE

Sanford Meschkow is a retired former
NYer who married a Philly suburban
Main Line girl. Sanford has been pub-
lished in a 1970s issue of AMAZING.
We welcome him here on the FREE-
ZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


Owen R. Powell's
NOETIC VACATIONS

Little is known of the mysterious
Owen R. Powell (oftentimes referred
to as Orp online). That is because he
usually keeps moving. The story
Noetic Vacations marks his first
appearance in the Freezine.

Gene Stewart
(writing as Art Wester)
GROUND PORK


Gene Stewart's
CRYPTID'S LAIR

Gene Stewart is a writer and artist.
He currently lives in the Midwest
American Wilderness where he is
researching tales of mystical realism,
writing ficta mystica, and exploring
the dark by casting a little light into
the shadows. Follow this link to his
website where there are many samples
of his writing and much else; come
explore.

Daniel José Older's
GRAVEYARD WALTZ


Daniel José Older's
THE COLLECTOR


Daniel José Older's spiritually driven,
urban storytelling takes root at the
crossroads of myth and history.
With sardonic, uplifting and often
hilarious prose, Older draws from
his work as an overnight 911 paramedic,
a teaching artist & an antiracist/antisexist
organizer to weave fast-moving, emotionally
engaging plots that speak whispers and
shouts about power and privilege in
modern day New York City. His work
has appeared in the Freezine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction, The ShadowCast
Audio Anthology, The Tide Pool, and
the collection Sunshine/Noir, and is
featured in Sheree Renee Thomas'
Black Pot Mojo Reading Series in Harlem.
When he's not writing, teaching or
riding around in an ambulance,
Daniel can be found performing with
his Brooklyn-based soul quartet
Ghost Star. His blog about the
ridiculous and disturbing world
of EMS can be found here.


Paul Stuart's
SEA?TV!


Paul Stuart is the author of numerous
biographical blurbs written in the third
person. His previously published fiction
appears in The Vault of Punk Horror and
His non-fiction financial pieces can be found
in a shiny, west-coast magazine that features
pictures of expensive homes, as well as images
of women in casual poses and their accessories.
Consider writing him at paul@twilightlane.com,
if you'd like some thing from his garage. In fall
2010, look for Grade 12 Trigonometry and
Pre-Calculus -With Zombies.


Rain Grave's
MAU BAST


Rain Graves is an award winning
author of horror, science fiction and
poetry. She is best known for the 2002
Poetry Collection, The Gossamer Eye
(along with Mark McLaughlin and
David Niall Wilson). Her most
recent book, Barfodder: Poetry
Written in Dark Bars and Questionable
Cafes, has been hailed by Publisher's
Weekly as "Bukowski meets Lovecraft..."
in January of 2009. She lives and
writes in San Francisco, performing
spoken word at events around the
country. 877-DRK-POEM -




Blag Dahlia's
armed to the teeth
with LIPSTICK



BLAG DAHLIA is a Rock Legend.
Singer, Songwriter, producer &
founder of the notorious DWARVES.
He has written two novels, ‘NINA’ and
‘ARMED to the TEETH with LIPSTICK’.


G. Alden Davis's
THE FOLD


G. Alden Davis wrote his first short story
in high school, and received a creative
writing scholarship for the effort. Soon
afterward he discovered that words were
not enough, and left for art school. He was
awarded the Emeritus Fellowship along
with his BFA from Memphis College of Art
in '94, and entered the videogame industry
as a team leader and 3D artist. He has over
25 published games to his credit. Mr. Davis
is a Burningman participant of 14 years,
and he swings a mean sword in the SCA.
He's also the best friend I ever had. He
was taken away from us last year on Jan
25 and I'll never be able to understand why.
Together we were a fantastic duo, the
legendary Grub Bros. Our secret base
exists on a cross-hatched nexus between
the Year of the Dragon and Dark City.
Somewhere along the tectonic fault
lines of our electromagnetic gathering,
shades of us peel off from the coruscating
pillars and are dropped back into the mix.
The phrase "rest in peace" just bugs me.
I'd rather think that Greg Grub's inimitable
spirit somehow continues evolving along
another manifestation of light itself, a
purple shift shall we say into another
phase of our expanding universe. I
ask myself, is it wishful thinking?
Will we really shed our human skin
like a discarded chrysalis and emerge
shimmering on another wavelength
altogether--or even manifest right
here among the rest without their
even beginning to suspect it? Well
people do believe in ghosts, but I
myself have long been suspicious
there can only be one single ghost
and that's all the stars in the universe
shrinking away into a withering heart
glittering and winking at us like
lost diamonds still echoing all their
sad and lonely songs fallen on deaf
eyes and ears blind to their colorful
emanations. My grub brother always
knew better than what the limits
of this old world taught him. We
explored past the outer peripheries
of our comfort zones to awaken
the terror in our minds and keep
us on our toes deep in the forest
in the middle of the night. The owls
led our way and the wilderness
transformed into a sanctuary.
The adventures we shared together
will always remain tattooed on
the pages of my skin. They tell a
story that we began together and
which continues being woven to
this very day. It's the same old
story about how we all were in
this together and how each and
every one of us is also going away
someday and though it will be the far-
thest we can manage to tell our own
tale we may rest assured it will be
continued like one of the old pulp
serials by all our friends which survive
us and manage to continue
the saga whispering in the wind.

Shae Sveniker's
A NEW METAPHYSICAL STUDY
REGARDING THE BEHAVIOR
OF PLANT LIFE


Shae is a poet/artist/student and former
resident of the Salt Pit, UT, currently living
in Simi Valley, CA. His short stories are on
Blogger and his poetry is hosted on Livejournal.


Nigel Strange's
PLASTIC CHILDREN


Nigel Strange lives with his wife and
daughter, cats, and tiny dog-like thing
in their home in California where he
occasionally experiments recreationally
with lucidity. PLASTIC CHILDREN
is his first publication.