Deep magic second coll.., p.1
Deep Magic - Second Collection, page 1
part #2 of Deep Magic Collection Series
SECOND COLLECTION
Staff:
Brendon Taylor, Charlie N. Holmberg, Jeff Wheeler, Kristin Ammerman, Steve R. Yeager, and Dan Hilton
We’d like to thank our First Readers:
Susan Olp, Ashely Melanson, Mike Abell, Greg Garguilo, Elicia Cheney, Junior Rustrian, Tyson Dutton, Crystal Fernandez, Krysia Bailey, Melissa McDonald, Loury Trader, Hollijo Monroe
The stories in Deep Magic are works of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 Jeff Wheeler
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Steve R. Yeager
Deep Magic logo & cover design by Deron Bennett
Copyediting by Wanda Zimba
E-zine design by Steve R. Yeager
www.deepmagic.co
CONTENTS
JUNE 2017
BAD DOG
By Patrice Sarath | 3,000 words
THE BLACK IRIX
Terry Brooks | 13,000 words
METAMORPHISTRY
By Jeff Wheeler | 7,500 words
THE WAXING DISQUIET
By Tony Pi & Stephen Kotowych | 6,000 words
DREAMS OF A RADIANT SENTRY
By Christen Anne Kelley | 5,700 words
AUGUST 2017
LEVI'S PROBLEM
By Brendon Taylor | 9,300 words
MONGREL
By Maria V. Snyder | 4,800 words
THE MOST REASONABLE HOUSE IN FAERIE
By Dafydd McKimm | 7,000 words
WHAT HE OFFERED THE RIVER
By Aimee Ogden | 3,100 words
IF A MAN FALLS IN THE FOREST
By Tyler A. Young | 4,600 words
DECEMBER 2017
PAWPRINTS IN THE AEOLIAN DUST
By Eleanor R. Wood | 3,800 Words
DESTINY OF THE CHOSEN
By Alexandra Balasa | 4,500 Words
LULLABY FOR THE TREES
By Sarina Dorie | 10,000 Words
THE COWARD'S QUEST
By Sam Muller | 5,500 Words
SPLINTER
By Rysa Walker | 8,500 Words
SPRING 2018
MURMURS
By Micah Hyatt | 5,300 Words
HANGING TREES
By Christoph Weber | 4,400 Words
VANYA AND THE RUSALKA
By Christopher Baxter | 17,000 Words
DRAGON BOND
By T.E. Bradford | 8,200 Words
THE TEN SUNS
By Ken Liu | 6,500 Words
SUMMER 2018
THE TIME PIECE AND THE PERFECT DAUGHTER
By Aimee Ogden | 6,000 Words
POISON MAIDEN, OPEN SKIES
By Laurie Tom | 6,200 Words
AN EMPTY CUP
By Jeremy A. TeGrotenhuis | 8,100 Words
THE PAWNSHOP OF INTANGIBLE THINGS
By Margery Bayne | 1,500 Words
THE FRONTIER
By Kyle Malone | 17,000 Words
BONUS MATERIAL
THE WAR AND THE RIDDLE
By Charlie N. Holmberg | 1,800 Words
THE WIZARD’S HAT
By Steve R. Yeager | 3,500 Words
ORTHODONTIST FOR HIRE
By Dan Hilton | 3,800 Words
TIME PIECES
By Kristin J. Dawson | 6,700 Words
INALIENABLE RIGHTS
By Brendon Taylor | 6,700 Words
STARMAN AND ZUKI
By Jeff Wheeler | 5,500 Words
FIRST COLLECTION
Welcome back for more!
We seriously love our readers. Our First Collection was such a hit that we had to bring you seconds. In fact, we were tempted to call this issue “second breakfast” but you get the drift.
Don’t you love it when you can curl up by the fire, plunk down on the couch, and dive into imaginary worlds? We are always impressed with the vast imaginative stories that our authors come up with. And we’ll bring you points of view that you might not have considered before – like a dog during an alien invasion. Or an entire story written in 2nd person. It totally works.
In this, our Second Collection, we bring you just the best stories we’ve published from June 2017 to our Summer 2018 issue, which includes a series of writing challenges that our readers gave the Board. Those turned into some pretty fun stories that we have included as bonus content at the end. We hope you enjoy this issue, even if Viggo Mortensen isn’t tossing you an apple along the way.
Enjoy!
The Deep Magic Board
JUNE 2017
BAD DOG
By Patrice Sarath | 3,000 words
BEFORE HE DOES the Bad Thing, the world Dog knows is a good world. Runs in the park, food to fill his belly, and a bed to sleep on at the foot of the people. It is a good cave, with good fire.
After the Bad Thing, the people take him to the cage place. Dog huddles at the back of his concrete box, desperate to shut down the incessant barking and scents of fear, madness, chemicals, death. He loses track of time.
A new thing comes. Dog hears a roaring in the sky that is so loud it drives him deep inside himself, and then things gets more quiet than ever before. The cage people don’t come, and the cage place stays dim, unlit.
Dog hears a skittering sound. This is not a rat, come after the rations of kibble. This is a different sound. This skittering has too many legs. Dog presses himself into the back of his cage. Another dog barks, then yelps and yelps, then is silent. The skittering thing passes Dog’s cage, pauses, then goes on.
Dog waits one more long day, unable even to mark his cage, desperate for food and water, and the next morning, he noses the cage door, and it opens.
Dog knows he is to blame for this too.
* * *
The good smells of his old world, and the smells of the prison (urine, feces, fear, chemicals), are replaced with a new world of smell that overwhelm Dog’s nose. Dog picks his way through burning rubble, creeping around smashed cars. There are people, but they are the wrong people. After the Bad Thing and the cage place, Dog doesn’t trust people anymore. He isn’t sure he would be welcome at his old cave, so he doesn’t try to go back there.
When the people call to him, urging, “Hey, buddy! Hey, dog! Come on, we’re not going to hurt you!” He sidles away, galloping fast when they throw something at him, skirting trouble. His belly is hollow and he needs food, but he can’t trust people.
There are bad smells along the river, and there is a fire all along the top of the water. Dog can tell that is wrong. Thirsty, he laps a little at the water in a small cove along the shore, but the taste burns his tongue. This is bad water. There’s a dead turtle and a pile of dead fish wedged against the roots and mud, but Dog can tell they won’t be good to eat. He doesn’t even want to roll in them.
He finds an old wrapper with the scent of burger on it, and he eats that. Even if he vomits it up, the smell is strong enough to make him pretend that he is eating something.
At night, he finds a den in a pile of rubble and curls up nose to tail there.
He dreams of the Bad Thing. He growls in the dream. It is just a warning growl. Go away, he tells the eyes. Go back. But these eyes challenge him. The people are barking and no one is listening to his growl. The eyes get closer, and the not-person reaches out and touches Dog, even though Dog has clearly warned it away. Dog barks another warning.
The hand slaps at Dog, stinging his nose, and Dog loses control, snaps, his teeth biting flesh, catching the soft face just below the eyes. Coppery blood fills his mouth, and he jumps back. There is silence, a drawn intake of breath, and then screaming.
* * *
He wakes, his sensitive ears and sensitive nose pricked up and alert.
He smells a person. All the person smells are there without the strong smells of soap and food and clean clothes that usually cover them. The person scrambles over the rubble, coming toward Dog’s den.
Dog tenses. The person moves around, and then stops. Dog hears whimpering, and then sniffling. Dog imagines the person curling up nose to tail. Dog knows exasperation. This person is being too loud. If he is not a predator, he needs to be quiet before he draws predators down upon them.
Maybe the person knows that because the whimpering stops, the rustling stops, and Dog dozes, half-alert for danger.
* * *
The gray light comes. There is silence except for wind. It drones over the rubble of Dog’s den in the crumbled concrete. Dog uncurls, fully awake, and sniffs the air. The person is still there, whimpering again.
Prey. His mouth fills with saliva. Sometimes the cousins are strong in Dog. Both aspects of Dog struggle inside him, the wolf and the cave, the pack and the pact. He gives a low woof that is part howl, but Dog doesn’t know which call he is answering.
Dog rises to his feet, yawns and stretches, and saunters out of his den. The person is tucked in his own den under a triangle of concrete, and he looks up when Dog approaches.
The person is small. His eyes are low, right in Dog’s eyes, and the same fearful aggression rises inside Dog. He growls, despairing. If the small person comes near him, he will bite, and more bad things will happen. He will go back into the cold cage, and the world will become even
He looks back once. The small person is following him.
* * *
Dog follows the food smells, picked out by his nose from the scents of burning fuel, twisted metal, and dead bodies. He follows the scent to a smashed car, its persons hanging half out of the seats. The bodies are dead and Dog will have to scavenge sometime, but for now the pact is stronger than the pack, and he noses around to the passenger side, half climbing in. There’s a sack of groceries. The milk jug has burst, spewing rotten milk everywhere, and there are two plastic-wrapped steaks that have also turned. Dog paws at the steak, clawing away at the plastic and tearing into the meat, bolting it down in huge chunks. Dog hears the small person come up to the car, and he gives a growl. This is his find.
The small person ignores his clear warning and climbs up into the car next to Dog. He doesn’t look at Dog, just goes straight for a box of cereal, prying at it with scratched and dirty fingers. Since he doesn’t go after Dog’s find, Dog relaxes. Side by side the small person eats and Dog eats, and when Dog finishes the steak and noses around for something else, the small person holds out his small hand with a few bits of cereal in it.
Dog stops. The pact of the cave and fire is strong in him now, responding to the offering the small person makes. Dog forces himself to look at the small person, crouching despite himself, because he is afraid of what he himself might do.
Dog knows this person is a young person. His clothes are torn and dirty, and he smells of feces and urine, and he has dry cereal on his breath. He is skinny and scratched. Holding his breath, Dog accepts the offered gift with delicate tongue. The small person plunges his hand back into the box and pulls out a few more bits. Dog takes the cereal and gives the boy’s hand a tentative lick.
In this way the boy feeds Dog, alternating between giving Dog and himself handfuls of cereal.
A hurtling roar makes them jump apart. Dog growls and the boy shrieks, throwing the box down and scrambling to hide in the footwell of the passenger seats. He cries and cries, and Dog doesn’t know which way to turn. The Bad Thing has come again, and Dog doesn’t know what he did wrong this time. He gives in to his fear and he bolts.
There is a great explosion, yellow flame and white light and black and gray smoke, and Dog is rolled over by the energy of the blast. He rolls and hits his head, yelping in pain. He is left unconscious in the middle of the broken road.
* * *
When Dog comes to, yelping and whining, he gets to his feet. His ear stings, and his hind leg drags. Gentle hands pat him and he snaps at the hands. He doesn’t want hands. He wants a den to hide in until the pain stops. He wants to go away. But the small hands keep tugging at him, and dimly he recognizes the smell of the boy. The boy’s face is wet and he shows his teeth, and he tugs hard at Dog. Dog can’t hear anything because of the blast, but he knows the boy is barking at him.
Dog gives in and stumbles after the boy.
This den isn’t bad. It’s barely big enough for the two of them, but that’s good. Dog crawls inside, his bad leg throbbing, and snaps at the boy when he crawls in after him. The boy pats him again and curls up next to Dog, away from his bad leg. The boy opens his hand and tries to give Dog another bit of cereal, but Dog just turns away dully. He doesn’t want food right now; he wants time and a dark place. Dog lays his head on the boy’s belly, taking comfort from the warmth. The boy strokes Dog’s ruff with one hand, and sucks his thumb. Dog and the boy doze.
* * *
Dog doesn’t know how long the whisper of too many legs has been going on. He wakes to hear each reaching step, a long pause between every sound. His nose is blind. The thing does not smell, so Dog can’t see it. He can only hear the slow, skittering footfalls of too many legs.
The small person hears it now too. He lifts his head, his thumb in his mouth. Wet comes down his face and drips on Dog’s back, but he doesn’t make a noise.
Step. Pause. Reach. Step.
Something long pokes into the den, unfolding angularly, and taps almost at Dog’s feet. Dog feels a growl come up in his throat, but he remembers the bark and the yelp and the silence. He remains still.
After a long moment, the leg retracts and they hear the awful sound of its slow scraping retreat across the rubble.
Dog and the small person stay still for a long time.
* * *
It’s night again, raining. The rain sizzles when it hits the concrete rubble. They hear the rumble of machinery, and the slab of concrete, the roof of their den, trembles and shifts. In the face of this new danger, Dog freezes. Somehow the boy understands. He lifts his head, and there is something, some resolve, that Dog recognizes.
“Up, Dog,” the boy commands, and the words pull at Dog’s muscles as if with a string. Dog knows “up,” “sit,” “leave it,” “come.”
He follows the boy out of the den, struggling to move his injured leg. He yelps once, but quietly, forlornly.
The boy stops to look behind them and Dog follows the direction of his gaze. He sees lights on a big machine breathing fire and smoke, its giant tracks coming down over the pile of rubble. The boy scrambles and runs, and Dog follows, the machine chasing them.
Dog has seen big machines before, but he has never seen a machine like this one. He sees another and another, and the machines point their long whiplike arms at Dog and the small person.
A roar overhead makes the machines jerk their arms around and point them at the sky. Dog and the small person scramble off the broken roadway into the shallow woods along the highway. Dog is relieved to be in the woods. There are good smells, like bugs and small animals, and there are old markings that make Dog feel almost normal. He wants to lift his leg to mark a tree, but his bad leg won’t support his weight and he can’t lift it. So he piddles on the ground, and throws the scent as best he can. It feels good to have something he knows to do.
“Bad, bad,” the boy says, his sobbing like Dog’s yelps. “Bad machine. Go away.”
There is a small dead furry animal. Dog bites into it, tearing away fur and crunching the bones. There is some meat and delicious marrow, and he eats. The boy crouches and watches him. Dog growls at the boy. The meat is his. The cousins have reared their heads inside him.
A distant explosion lights up the night sky, and for an instant the light is emblazoned on Dog’s eyes. A whiplike arm rises upward from the highway, and catches a big machine, flinging it out of the sky.
Dog smells a new person before he sees him, and before the boy sees him.
“Hey,” the person says. Dog knows “hey.” “Hey” is like a bark. Look at me. Pay attention. The boy turns around and freezes.
The man is a dark shape in the night. The man smells like the boy—urine, feces, sweat, and dirt—and overlaid with that, fear. And something more—Dog smells craft, desperation, sourness.
“You got food?” the man says. The little boy stares at him. The man laughs, a dreadful bark. “Yeah, you don’t got food. You got a dog, though. That’s food. Come here, buddy.”
The man picks up a stick, drops it, looks around, and picks up a rock. He hefts it. He is so intent on Dog he cannot see what is behind him.
Dog feels the growl start inside him. It’s soundless at first. He quivers with it, and his hackles stand up on his thin neck and shoulders. His head goes low and his eyes bore into the space behind the man where the thing is coming. The boy hears it; the man doesn’t. All the man’s attention is focused on Dog.
