Katya

By David Goodner

            Keep moving.  Find some people, a crowd.  Where is everyone?

            “Justine?  Where are you?”  Her voice is sickly sweet, falsely friendly.  “You’re not scared, are you?”

            The mall is right up ahead, open late on Friday nights because of the club and the movie theatre.  The automatic doors slide open for me.  The mechanical voice says “Welcome to Nolan Pines Mall.  Please come inside.”  It offers me no protection.  But there are people inside.

            I’m down on the end with the arcade and bowling alley.  Loud music blares out of the opening, different than the not quite so loud music blaring from the mall’s speakers.  Should I go in?  No.  There’s no way out but the emergency exits.  I have to be able to slip away unnoticed, to get far enough ahead that she can’t follow me, then to get into a house.  I’ll go to my brother’s.  We don’t get along, but he’ll let me in, and he’s never invited Katya over.

            I pause for just a moment, scanning the crowd.  Are any of the others here?  They love to play games.  Did they just heard me this way?

            The department store at the other end of the mall has three exterior exits.  Can I make it?  It’s late.  A lot of stores are closing up.  Steel cages roll down from the ceiling, most only pulled half-way down so far.  The crowds are thinning out, too. 

I shed my jacket and stuff it into a trashcan.  I pull my hair out of its ponytail.  If I can change my appearance enough, maybe I can throw them off.

(In my heart, I know it won’t work.)

Just a few more minutes, just keep walking.  My breath thunders in my ears.  I can’t believe everyone isn’t staring at me.  Somehow, I keep it together, keep walking at a pace faster than normal but not so fast I attract attention.

Is that Katya up on the second level?  Is she waiving to me?  No, some other redhead, in a different outfit, even.  I’m jumping at shadows. 

I’d saved my cell phone from my jacket pocket.  I can’t call the police.  They can’t stop her.  No one can.  But a cab.  If I can get a cab to meet me at the mall, we can get away.  Katya and the others are on foot.  They couldn’t keep up with a car, could they?

“Metro Personal Transport,” says the bored dispatcher on the other end.

I try to control my breath.  “I need a cab.  I’m at Nolan Pines Mall, and I need a ride as fast as possible.”

“We have a limo in the area.  We can pick you up in five minutes, but there’s a $50 dollar minimum.”

“FINE, that’s fine.  I’ll pay it.  I’ll be at the tire shop entrance.  On the south side.”

Something flickers behind me.  I turn, nearly drop the phone, but there’s nothing.

“Did you hear me, miss?  I need to know how you intend to pay.”

I’d left all my money in my bag at the club.  Thank god I knew my credit card number.

“Credit card, Amex.  Is that okay?”  If this was one of the places that didn’t take American Express, I was going to die.

“That’ll be fine.”

I give the guy my number while trying to keep my eyes on everything at once.  As I pass the food court, there are more people, more smells: grease from the burger joint, meat-smell from the little Mongolian style grill, sin incarnate from the Cinnabon.

Actually, I’d learned what sin incarnate really smelled like tonight, a little musky with the hint of apples: Katya’s perfume.

They don’t seem to be following me.  Maybe I really had lost them.  The smells from the food court might slow them down.  I duck down an employee only isle.  I’d worked here once.  The tunnel lead back outside, but only a few yards away from the department store’s tire section.  Some guy in a hairnet says “hey…” but doesn’t try to stop me.  I wouldn’t have tried to stop anyone, either, not for minimum wage and a free burger a night.

I get to the store.  There’s no limo.  The night is cold without my jacket, and in my short skirt.  It’s dark.  The streetlamps don’t illuminate much beyond isolated circles of pavement. I stand by the door, locked at this hour, and try to figure out where else I can run  now.

A white limo pulls up in front of me.  The window rolls down.  “You call for a ride, miss?”

Ohmygodi’mgoingtolive, I think.  “Yes!  Yes.  I need to get over to Farmington.” 

I reach for the door, but the driver is already getting out to let me in.  It seems to take forever.  I sink into the seat, which is the most comfortable leather upholstery I’ve ever felt.  The limo drives off, headed for the highway and safety.

Air

By David Goodner

            When the end came, it wasn’t with a bang, but with a sigh.  The Knarv tried conventional warfare, but humanity has been fighting and scrapping for thousands of years.  Even with their better technology, we fought on.  We murdered them by the thousands as we died by the millions.  Then we stole their technology and murdered by the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands.  And we did what we have always done.  We out-bred them.  The Vorgull tried orbital bombardment, but by then we had mastered kinetic shields, stolen from the Knarv. 

            But the Jax destroyed us.  They killed us with the least of things, something more fecund than we were.  It was a virus, introduced to the planet on a rock too small to merit disintegrating.  The plague ripped across mankind, but we stopped it.  We came up with a vaccine.  It mutated to our livestock, and that was bad.  The myriad strains each required a different cure.  But by then we were growing yeast cultures for most of our food anyway.  Our ships hunted Jax ships, harried them from our space.

            But the virus mutated again, and again.  Then it mutated some more.  By the time we noticed the final form, it was too late.  Transmitted by air, it silently infected its host organisms for years before we understood.  It rewrote their DNA.  In a way, it made them stronger, more robust.

            But there was one crucial change.  Infected plants… all plants… no longer turned oxygen into carbon dioxide.  They started breathing out methane, just like the Jax breathed.  Millions of species, too many to cure.  Day by day, the earth poisons her children.  The plants die, too.  They still need oxygen, and every hour there’s less to breathe.

            We could try leaving.  We will try.  But only a fraction of us will make it.  Earth is dead, and with it dies the beating heart of the human empire. 

            But we’re not going to die alone.  Our scientists learned from the Jax metavirus.  They learned to make a virus that turns methane-breathers into cyanide-producers.  There are twelve major worlds in the Jax cluster.  We have twelve ships armed and ready to go.

            Humanity will fight to the last breath.

The Secret Name

By David Goodner

            Part way to Ilius, I was forced to stop at a wayhouse by torrential rains.  I knew better than to go to Ilius in the spring, but some errands can’t be put off.  The wayhouse was a large example of its kind.  By the lines, it was a defunct barracks, sold back to the civilian population after the Legions moved their primary base to Cartis Majorica.

            The stew was good.  The bread was fresh.  The libations were reasonably priced and better than I’d expected.  Then again, Ilius is barley country.  A minstrel provided some entertainment for the occasional denarius or mug of beer. 

The rest of the guests were a mixed lot.  A group of pilgrims shared a big round table and seemed to be determined to earn their money’s worth on the forgiveness available at the Shrine of the Maidens.  There were the usual farmers and merchants who stayed too long at the market and were trapped by the rain, as I was.  And there was one man sitting by  himself in the corner.  He wore a tattered tunic and surcote that bore markings I didn’t immediately recognize.  Because of my work, I would have said I was familiar with every Legion and Free Company’s badges.

He sat as if he was alone in the room, taking no notice of the other travelers, or, indeed, anything else around him.  A bowl of soup sat in front of him, untouched.  A mug of something sat, unsipped.  His eyes held only a vacant stare into nothing.

When the housemaid came by to refill my drink, I asked her about the man.

She was busy, and only replied shortly, “That’s Pallas.  Leave him alone.”

The name jogged my memory: Gaius Pallas Maximus, leader of the Black Hawk Company.  Their badge had been struck from the registers, which was why I had not immediately recognized it.  The Black Hawks were one of the great scandals of the Free Companies for the sack of the Holy City of Therica.  No one knew exactly what had happened or why they destroyed the city and put out its temple fires.

As a historian, I had to know.  I moved over to his table and realized that he was mumbling to himself.  His mouth hung slightly open, and his lips barely moved.

I sat down and introduced myself, but he took notice.  I said his name, but he seemed not to hear.  He just kept muttering, and try as I might, I could make no sense of what he said.  It was not merely that the words made no sense.  I could not recognize them as words.

As I speak fourteen languages fluently, and am passable in six more, I found this surprising.  So I leaned closer, hoping that if I heard better I could understand.

A crash behind me startled me almost out of my chair.  The housemaid had dropped her pitcher, and not even pausing to see to the mess she charged across the common room and grabbed me roughly.

“I told you to leave  him alone!” she yelled at me.

Now we were the focus of all attention in the wayhouse.  I had no idea why, but I apologized profusely.

My hostess calmed enough that I could ask “Please, madam, tell me how so great a warrior came to this pass.”

“After the supper,” she said. 

So with quite a bit of impatience, I waited until everyone had eaten and most had gone off to their billets.  She came to me where I sat by the fire with a mug of beer.

“You know his history,” she said.

Of course I did, up until Therica.

“He is my… great uncle.  I am the only family he has left.  He’d been a bit better lately, so I let him out into the common room.  I’m sorry for what I did, Sir.  But I couldn’t let you speak to him while he was like that.”

At length, she told me of the fate of Gaius Pallas Maximus.  The Black Hawks had gone to Therica because Pallas believed that the Oracle there could answer a question.  His wife and only son had died the previous winter, and Pallas himself had suffered the blue fever, after which no man will ever sire a child.  He blamed God for his misfortunes, and had determined to challenge the Almighty himself.  And the Oracle of Therica, it was said, knew the true name of God.  So Pallas lead his Black Hawks there, together with various common mercenaries, to hold the city hostage against the Lord’s true name.

“And the Oracle would not give it?” I asked.  “That explains the sack of the city.  Gaius Pallas Maximus was not known to bluff.”

The housemaid laughed.  “Oh no.  They sacked the city after, for revenge.  She DID tell him the name.  It broke his mind, and breaks it still.  Some days he’s almost lucid, but then something he sees or hears will remind him of the name.  Everything reminds him of the name, because the name of the Lord is everything.

“And if you listen to him, he’ll tell it to you, too.” 

Be Careful What You Wish For

By David Goodner

            I picked up the ring at an estate sale.  It was tarnished and gaudy, and went for a song because nobody else realized it was the real deal. I hadn’t been sure, but it looked a little different than all the other costume jewelry in the lot I bought.  The band was wide, and marked with something that could be Hebrew of Sanskrit.  I couldn’t really tell the difference.  I knew the ring was real because of the weight.  Real silver is pretty heavy.  I figured it might make a nice prop for something.  If ever there’d been a magic ring, this was it.

            So naturally, I did what anybody would do.  I tried the ring on.  There was an immediate blinding flash of light.  I blinked away starbursts, and when my vision cleared there was a woman standing in front of me, wearing a red dress with silver bangles all around her waist.

            I’m enough of a history student to know that the traditional harem outfit is actually a late addition to middle eastern culture.  So I didn’t find that all too surprising.  I mean, face it, my threshold for surprise had already been met and exceeded.

            She had blue skin and hair, and gold eyes.  Her wrists were bound with slave bracelets that connected to rings on all her fingers.  She had on a kind of jeweled headdress that terminated in a ruby exactly like the one on my ring.

            She said something incomprehensible, and bowed to me.

            “What?” I replied.  Not my finest moment of dialogue.  “You’re a genie, aren’t you?”

            She asked me something.  I could tell it was a question by the tone of voice, but still couldn’t understand.

            “I don’t speak… Urdu or genie or whatever.  This better not cost me a wish, but I need you to speak my language.”

            She tried another language, I think, then another that sounded a little like Italian.  She was getting increasingly upset.  Finally, she stamped her foot and reached over to put her palms on either side of my head.  Sparks flew through my brain.  I kind of fell backwards into my chair.

            “There,” she said.  “That’s better.  What year is it?”

            “Year?” I asked.  “What the hell did you do to me?  I want my wishes.”  Like any good fantasy gamer, I’d planned what I’d do on this day in excruciating detail.  “I wish for… wait, are you the kind of genie who grants just three wishes, or the kind that grants any number of minor services?”

            “I am a lesser genie, Master, but…”

            “Okay, so whatever I want, but only conjurations.  You can’t make me immortal or change reality to suit me.  Just make stuff.”

            “That is correct, Master, but only…”

            “Then first of all, I want a black Lamborghini Diablo out in the driveway, fully fueled and ready to drive.”

            Immediately, something shifted in the world.  It felt like being electrocuted by an earthquake inside a freezing volcano.  And the ring dropped off my finger.  “What was that” I asked.  Where had that come from?  I tried to pick the ring back up, but my hand passed through it like it wasn’t there.  “What the HELL?!?”

            The genie looked a little sad.  “I was trying to warn you.”  She shrugged, reached down and picked up the ring, slipping it onto her finger. 

I realized her headdress was gone, and felt something on my own head.  As she put the ring on, I felt another shock go through me.  I also noticed she wasn’t blue anymore.  Her hair still was.

“I’ll need some modern clothes,” she said.  “Do it now.”

“Yes, mistress,” I said instantly.  It was as though I had no control over myself.  Power flowed out of me, and an outfit appeared on the table; a sundress, sandals, and appropriate underwear.  “Mistress?” I asked.  Where the hell had that come from?  None of my plans included any of this.

“I was trying to warn you, my service had a limit, an expiration date.  I was bound to serve for 1000 years in… you’d say the year 1009.  Counting the years by the Hijri calendar, my term of service ended in your year 1979.  But my last master lost me many years ago.  I was trapped in the ring until someone freed me.  But if someone tried to command me after my term of service ended, well… they’d be forced to take my place. 

“I did try to warn you.”  She started taking off her clothes to put on the dress.  “But now, I’ve been stuck in that ring for over 100 years, and nobody ever even wore it.  I’ve been bored out of my mind, and based on what I read from your head, your century looks like a lot of fun.”

“Yes, Mistress,” was all I could say.  I stood there, totally stricken.

She reached up to pat me on the cheek.  “Don’t take it too hard, kid.  You only have to serve me for 1000 years.  Of course, since I’m an immortal, I’m not going to lose you like some of my past masters did.  Now, I think I want a black Lamborghini Diablo, fully fueled and ready to drive, in your driveway.”

Prophecies Always Come True

By David Goodner

            Bertram the Prophet only had one prophecy: that in the two hundredth year of the Dark Lord’s reign, a child would be born marked by the sign of the Eastern Star.  That child would be the Child of Light who would bring down the Dark Lord.

            So the Dark Lord in his tower was afraid.  His Dark Legions traveled the land, looking for the Child of Light, and crushing his followers wherever they might be found.  The Legions were very harsh and very thorough.  They left blood in their wake.  Blood and ashes.

            Blood, ashes, and resentment.  Resentment grew in the far corners of the Dark Empire.  Resentment gave way to rebellion.  Rebellion spilled over into open revolt.

            The Cult of Light had been scoured from the land, with only a few scattered members left.  But other bastions of good, or just rebellion, stood firm: the Sisters of the Moon, with their blood magicks; the survivors of fallen Tyer; the Paladins of Yyin all rose up to avenge themselves on the Dark Lord who had slain their wives and mothers, brothers and sons.

            And in the one hundred and ninety ninth year of the Dark Lord’s reign, the tower of Darkness fell.  The Dark Legions were routed.  The Dark Lord himself was slain before his own evil altar, which was riven asunder, the ground salted, and the temple put to the flame.

            So, in the end, Bertram the Prophet turned out not to be a prophet at all.  He was forever after known as Bertram the guy who said that thing one time.

Oathbound

By David Goodner

            Sir Markos stood on the ramparts on Ashday, watching the fighting below.  Fires raged in the city, particularly in the festering Carthian quarter, where the rebels had the strongest foothold.  The King’s Guard were outnumbered by the rioting peasants, but Markos had no doubt they would prevail.  He had trained them, after all.

            With a bit of regret, he realized they had probably started the fires.  Sir Borz, who now lead the Guard, was known as a pragmatic knight.  Markos might say “callous,” instead.  Setting fire to the wooden shacks near the edge of the outer wall would give the rebels something else to worry about, and the fire would be unlikely to spread to the better-constructed portions of the city, and certainly it would not spread to the castle itself.  King Yoland was not the man his father had been.  He seemed more concerned with his due as monarch than his responsibilities as steward and protector. 

The people chafed under his rule.  Where his father had been kind, Yoland was cruel.  Where his father had made sure his people always had enough to eat, Yoland cared only that their tributes filled his silos and coffers.  He took all his due and a little more. 

It turned Markos’ stomach, but the old Knight had sworn an oath.  He turned away and continued his inspection of the defenses.  Yoland had expanded and modernized the castle since he took the throne.  The work was still ongoing.

The fighting had spread throughout the city.  Not all of the rebels were peasants and townsmen.  Yoland had seized the holdings of several Carthian Lords for himself.  One, Baron Taelaad, had been Markos’ friend and a fellow member of the Royal Guard.  But Yoland did not trust Carthians, even though some of them had been in the Pyriades since before the Wars of the Lilly.

Taelaad did not submit lightly.  He’d fled his keep with a coffer of silver that he used to hire mercenaries and fund the rebellion.  And rumor said the man himself had been seen in the capital.  The Guard had been searching for him non-stop.  Other rumors said Taelaad had found Yistina, the king’s eldest, the Lost Princess.  If so, Yoland’s entire rule was illegitimate.

Markos climbed heavily down from the battlements to inspect the old wall.  The new wall for the expanded inner bailey was incomplete.  A temporary curtain closed it off, but with the Guard spread so thin, it was less secure than Markos would like.  Still, the old postern gate would probably keep the riff-raff out.  You’d have to know about the old gate to even know it was worth trying to breach the wall there at all.

Markos stood before the old gate, really almost a secret door.  It was too small to mount any kind of successful sally.  It was only really designed as an escape hatch.  Only the castle servants and a few key retainers really knew it was there.

The old knight stood for a long time.  He reached under his tunic, where his fingers closed on a sweat-stained parchment.  He read it by torchlight for the thousandth time.

Old friend,

On Ashday, three weeks hence, are all are hopes pinned. 

If you love this land more than its king, you know what you must do.

Taelaad’s badge of two lovebirds before a crescent moon decorated the bottom.

Markos held the parchment to the torch and let it burn.  Then he took an iron key from around his neck and opened the lock.

The Water and the Wild

By David Goodner

            Jeremy wandered through the wood, wondering.  This, he decided, was a tulgy wood if ever he’d seen one.  In his eight years of life, he had seen many more in his dreams than in real life.  Pale light filtered through the leaves of strange trees.  Birds with songs more beautiful than real life flittered and sang.  Their plumage was jewel-colored.

            Jeremy liked the forest.  It was nice here, clean.  If his mother was here, she wouldn’t cry.  She wouldn’t need to drink.  She’d remember supper.  And shopping.

            “Hello, Jeremy.”

            The little boy turned, frightened.  No one else should be in the wood, not even a bandersnatch.

            There was a woman.  She had huge, green eyes and long, blond hair.  Her skin was smooth, and glowed in the moonlight.  She was a stranger, but she seemed nice.  She held an apple in slender, graceful fingers.

            “How do you know my name?”

            “I know everyone in my forest, Jeremy.”

            “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

            “That’s okay,” she said.  “You’re probably not supposed to take food from them either, but you can have this apple if you want.  I promise it won’t hurt you.”

            Jeremy’s stomach rumbled.  His thoughts were troubled.  “My mama will want me home,” he said, or perhaps asked.

            The woman knelt down.  “Of course she will.  Mothers should take care of their sons.  But she’s asleep now, isn’t she?  And she forgot to make your supper.  Why don’t you come home with me?  It’s late.  It will be getting colder.  I can make you some supper, and if you want I’ll take you back to your mother when she wakes.”

            Her fingers were warm, maybe even hot, where they gently touched Jeremy’s face.  “You can have the apple either way.”

*          *          *

            Margo sat by her son’s bedside in the hospital, missing a shift at the factory, craving a drink.  But she couldn’t leave him.  She’d never leave him again, if only he’d wake up.  The coma had come out of nowhere.  The doctors still didn’t know what caused it.  And she hadn’t noticed for a whole day.  She’d been so lost in herself, drunk out of her mind, that her son had slept for a whole day and she didn’t realize.  And he slept still.

Two Wishes

By David Goodner

            Here, on a lonely hill, stands the old chapel, a shrine left by forgotten priests, and maintained because no one wishes to offend the gods.  Though the ground nearby is fertile, no one furrows the soil with a plow, because this is a place where the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead grows thin.  Or so the old women say.

            The hill, with its little copse of trees, is a cemetery of sorts, for those who die near the village without kin to claim them.  With no one to say their names, the villagers think, perhaps it’s easier for their souls to find the way to the afterlife here than back in the village.  And if not, they’d rather the hill be haunted than their homes.

            The old women also say that if you come here on a moonless night and make an offering on the shrine, your wish will be granted.  But only a certain kind of wish.  Whatever god once lived in this shrine, he’s long gone.  The dead answer prayers here now, and there’s only one prayer the hungry dead can hear.

            And here comes Meg Willow, daughter of Bran Willow, who everyone knows as a good man.  Meg’s his good daughter, born before his son Little Bran.  She was always a bit of a wild one, sneaking out of the house at night to watch the stars or listen to the night birds.  And later, she came out to see Kemp MacAsher, son of the Laird.

            Kemp MacAsher was betrothed, just a moon past, to Bella MacRea.  Their marriage will make the Laird a little richer and tie the clans together so the MacRea boys will go east instead of west to steal sheep.  It’s good for everyone, they say.

            Meg has a bundle with her, thrown over her shoulder.  Inside are two rabbits, tied with twine.  The twine she spun with her own fingers, and the rabbits she raised in her own pens.  She’s taking nothing from her father that won’t be easily replaced.  In the bundle also are two scraps of aspen-tree bark.  Paper is too expensive, even if Meg crushed her own rags to make it.  Long before rags should be paper, they could be patches for a tunic, or batting in a quilt.

            Also she has a taper lamp, and a bundle of twigs and dried moss, and a cake of sheep’s dung. The old women say it’s bad luck to burn the wood from the hill.

            Meg reaches the shrine by the feeble light of her lamp.  The night is clear and dark.  To Meg, it seems that there’s too much space around her.  The familiar hills are invisible, and the night drinks in all the sounds.

            On the altar, she starts a fire.  She uses the lamp and kindling, and the dried sheep dung to keep it going.  And she pulls from her bundle the two rabbits, one for each wish.  She kills them and lets their blood decorate the altar, careful not to douse her fire.

            Does the fire change?  Does it now burn with ghost light?  Meg doesn’t know.  All her life, she’s stayed away from magic and faeries and anything that stinks of the veil.  But now she doesn’t know any other way forward. 

So she pulls out her little scrolls of tree bark.  The old women in the village say that if you make a sacrifice and write the name of a person and burn it in a fire on the altar of the shrine on the lonely hill, the keepers of the dead will take the person who’s name you wrote, and they’ll dwell in the land of the dead forever.

The first scroll has a name scratched out in charcoal, “Kemp MacAsher.”

The second one says “Meg Willow.”

A Small Boat on a Dark Night

By David Goodner

            Billy Todd pulled his hood lower, again.  Working the oars made his shoulders start rolling it back, again.  So the rain dripped in his eyes, again.  He tried to think more about the three silver pennies in his neck pouch and less about warm broth, fresh bread, and roast sea bass in his cozy, dry, cottage by the dockside.

            For three silver coins, he’d row further, and with much more cargo than a spindly old man with a bent back and a crooked staff.  His passenger was so old and wrinkled that his eyes were almost invisible beneath the lines of his face and the bushy eyebrows.  The rest of his hair was wispy, like something an artist had barely sketched in.  And his nearly toothless mouth lent a mushy sound and a bit of spittle to every word he said.  He wore no cloak against the chill or the rain, just a tattered robe in a style Billy didn’t know.

            “More to the right,” the man said.  “And faster.  If we’re not there, we’ll miss it.”

            “Starboard, Codger.  If you want to go faster, take an oar,” Billy said.

            “Bah!  Mind your elders.  If we get there on time, it’s another penny for you.  Hell, if we get there on time I’ll not be needing coins at all.”

            “On time for what?”

            “For the conjunction, of course.”  The old man said.  “The day and the hour, the place and the time.  Stars, moon, and sea are perfectly aligned, as they haven’t been for twenty years and won’t be for another twenty.  I missed the last one, but I won’t miss this one.

            He pointed with his stick, to something over Billy’s shoulder.  Billy half-turned to see, but there was only dark sky covered by thick clouds through which the moon barely shown as a slightly lighter smudge.

            “Moon and stars?  There are none.  Try not to make me feel like more of a damn fool than I already am for being out in this mess.”  But Billy knew those three silver pennies would see him in fish and ale for several days.  Hells, he might buy pork or mutton.

            “You can’t see them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there, stupid boy.  Just like the faeries, and the Isle of the Young.”

            “The Isle of… Satan’s shit!   You’ve dragged me out here to find the Isle of the Young!  It’s just a stupid legend, and anyway it’s supposed to appear on clear nights once each seven years off the coast of Mahnn.”

            “I went.  Legend was wrong.”  The old man spat off the side of the boat.  “But the Isle is real.  I lived there once.  Fell in love with a mortal girl and followed her here.”

            Convinced his passenger was crazy, Billy rolled his eyes.  He had the coins.  He could turn back.  “Did you?” he asked.  “So you was a fairy?  Then why don’t you just fly to the damn island?”

            “Idiot!  Nay.  I’m a man as true-born as you.  Stolen from my cradle as a child.  I stayed on the island and aged only a day every year.  But out here time took what it’d been robbed of.  And once I left the island, I knew no way back.

            “But I was smart, wasn’t I?  I listened.  I learned.  I read books.”

            Billy couldn’t even read his own name.  But he could see that the cold and the wet was doing the ancient man no good.

            “I learned to follow the stars and the moon.  I learned about conjunctions, like tonight, when the moon comes near to the earth and the ways open.  I’ll go back.  You’ll take me there.  And the faeries will restore my youth, and never again will I be so stupid as to touch mortal soil.  Never aga…”

            The old man didn’t finish.  He keeled straight over the side of the boat in the space of a word.  Billy reached for him, but the dark sea was hungry, and the light of their one lantern wasn’t even enough to reflect off the surface.

*          *          *

            So in the end, Billy’d rowed out past the harbor lights for naught but three pennies.  He wasn’t going swimming to find the rest.  But he had a story to tell.

            For true and sure, as he was rowing back for home and hearth, he saw an island appear out of the gloom, shining silver and bright.  He fancied that he might have seen a few people on the shore, but he didn’t look too close.  There were things a wise man didn’t poke at.  One was ant hills.  Another was sleeping bears.  A third was anything to do with faeries.

            Billy decided he’d spring for a meal of mutton and a bottle of good wine.

Emerald City’s favored son, Jon Clark Nedor has long been loved from afar, traveling the world, frequently alone, sometimes assisting parties as varied as Doctors without Borders, Books without Frontiers, and the U.S. State Department.  He’s often known as the Renaissance Man of the new Millennium: a true polymath, scholar, and inventor.  Recently, he has returned to the city of his birth

EC caught up with Jon, who the press has dubbed Mister Amazing, for an interview.

EC: Thank you for your time, Mr. Nedor.  Lots of people want to know more about you.  Pardon the humor, but you’re pretty amazing.

JCN: It’s my pleasure.  Ask me anything.  I might even know the answer.

EC: Since you’re known as the seventh smartest man alive, I certainly hope so.

JCN: <laughs> That was totally a joke, and now it follows me everywhere.  I don’t really know where I stand, or even if you could really make up a list that wouldn’t just be “my favorite geniuses.”

EC: Well, you’re our favorite genius.  And a certified one.  Besides multiple advanced degrees, three well-received books, and a Centurion prize, you’ve developed some really impressive technology.  Of your inventions, which is your favorite?

JCN: They’re all my favorite, at the time.  I mostly build things I see a need for, and once I have it I move on to the next challenge.  I guess my favorite is the skybike.  I mean, seriously, it’s a flying bike.  Who wouldn’t love that?  The core of them all, of course, is the Deep Energy Converter, which remains held up in litigation with the Department of Energy.  I have a Congressional dispensation to build them for my own use, but not to distribute them or use them for “public provision of energy.”

EC: But you’re not bitter, right?

JCN: I’m pretty solidly bitter.  Deep Energy stands to free the world from its fossil fuel addiction, reduce pollution, and improve quality of life for billions of people.  But instead, I have four converters, one running my home, one in the skybike, a little one for my force pistol, and one for emergencies.

EC: What can you tell us about the case?

JCN: I can’t really discuss pending litigation, and I won’t express an opinion of the merits of the case, scientific or legal.  The scientific literature on Deep Energy speaks for itself, and anyone with an internet connection can find out all they need to know about the legal case.

EC: You’ve been abroad for over twenty years.  For quite a bit of that, you were completely off the grid.  What were you up to, and why did you come back now?

JCN: My father always pushed me to excel, not in an adversarial way, but he encouraged me.  He gave me the tools.  He paid for the best tutors, made sure I had the best opportunities.  He never made things easy for me, but he always told me I could do anything I put my mind to, and he’d be there to catch me if I fell.

When I was eighteen, I felt like I’d reached the highest point I could reach at home and it was time to go see more of the world, and it was time to see how I could do without my dad there to back me up.  I sort of went on walkabout.  I studied for a few years at a monastery in Tibet, and spent about a year as a fugitive of the Chinese government.  I traveled to the Middle East and Africa.  I attended Oxford.  I did a fellowship at CERN.  Mostly, I just went wherever I felt like and did whatever seemed to need doing.  I tried, as much as I could, to avoid dropping my dad’s name or use his connections.  It didn’t always work out that way.  Several times, people who were connected with my dad needed my help.

Eventually, I figured out that dad would always be a part of me, but that didn’t mean I was letting him carry me.  Then, in the past year or so, I came back home a few times, more and more often.  Last month I decided to stay.  Dad loves this city, and so do I.  I thought it was time to give something back to the city that has done so much for our family.

Wow, all that sounds really self-aggrandizing.  I don’t want people to think I was running around like some kind of superhero who needs no one and nothing.  I had a lot of help at every turn.  I wouldn’t be here today without the aid and sacrifices of many good people.

For that matter, I’ve met a few superheroes, and they don’t need no one and nothing either.  They’re people with some really stressful jobs.

EC: Now that you’re back in town, what are you going to do?

JCN: I’m starting a consultancy, bringing unique perspective and expertise to unusual problems.  It’s probably not really the kind of thing you can make a living at without a multi-million dollar trust fund.

What I hope is that my experiences will let me see things other people don’t see and my skills will let me do things that might otherwise take a host of separate experts.  At the same time, I want to help with the Nedor Foundation and volunteer with some local charities to help them make the most of resources and opportunities.

EC: Is there anything you don’t do?

JCN: I can’t make a soufflé to save my life.  My teacher at La Cordon Bleu despaired of me.

And really, there are a lot of things I can’t do.  People hear that I’m skilled in multiple disciplines and think I’m omnipotent.  I’m really not.  If I’m more skilled than other people, it’s because I’ve had more opportunities, and I’ve always been very focused on learning whatever the world could teach me.

EC: People do say you could do anything.  They say if you turned your hand to politics, you could be state governor in the next election and President in no more than twelve years.  You’re not just a celebrity, you’re a voice for change and unlike a lot of celebrity spokespeople, you really know what you’re talking about.  Experts in the causes you champion acknowledge your expertise.  If you wanted, you could be JFK, Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, maybe all three at once.

JCN: But I don’t really want any of those things.  I enjoy helping people.  I love learning.  I thrive on solving problems.  Power comes with responsibility, or it should.  And money is just a tool to get what you want.  I pretty much have all the responsibility I can handle, and I have all the stuff I’ll ever need.

EC: Tell us more about these problems you solve.  Like the job you did for the State Department in the Congo.

JCN: I carried out negotiations, and when those failed a rescue mission of some hostages from the Sons of the Dark Earth.  That was pretty intense.  Despite what people think, I’m not usually an international man of mystery.  It got even more interesting when the SDE called up something called a Dark Totem.  The Freedom League even got involved to put the thing down.  Captain Thunder really is awesome to behold.  That was the first time I used a force gun.  I had cobbled one together as a proof of concept.  It was kind of big and failure prone.

While the Freedom League fought the Dark Totem, I helped rescue the hostages from the SDE compound.

EC: Was your life in danger?

JCN: Not really, although it was pretty scary at the time.  The Totem was at a temple several miles away, and there were only a few guards left at the compound.  And it turns out that other than all their crazy magical stuff, the SDE didn’t have much in the way of weapons – they were on patrol with AK-47s with just a few bullets each.

I’m still trying to figure out what the Dark Totem really was, maybe an energy-based alien trapped in a matrix of Element X, and the latent psychic energy from the terrorists was enough to free it.

EC: And what kind of problems do you solve now?

JCN: I hope less dangerous ones, although a little excitement is good once in a while.  Right now I’m working with a company that owns the old Forum Imperial mall and a group of Suquamish merchants and craftspeople, along with some Chinese Americans and an artists’ collective to revamp the mall into a cultural center.  They all really want the same thing, but they don’t always know how to communicate with each other.  I can’t talk a lot about specific details, but if we can iron out the kinks, it’ll make a lot of money for some people who really need it.  It’ll help revitalize a part of the city that’s currently suffering economic decline.  And it’ll be cool.

Since the alternative is that the mall where I saw all three Star Wars movies gets bulldozed and turned into warehouses or something, I think something cool is a much better alternative.

I’m also consulting with PrimaTech on a new aerosat design that will be able to help rescue workers in isolated areas and improve communications in the third world.

Before you ask, an aerosat is an ultra-high altitude dirigible with minimal payload that uses solar power and storage batteries.  Put one up, and it’s good for about a week to bounce data.  I’m helping them improve their batteries and power efficiency so they can stay up a little longer and have slightly more powerful engines so they’ll be more stable.

EC: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  What do you do for fun?

JCN: Work is fun for me.  Otherwise I’d do something else.  But I try to find some time every day to relax.  I like live music.  Emerald City is great for that.  On Thursday nights, I play jazz and blues with some guys at Sachmo’s down on Byrne and Claremont sometimes.  It’s kind of an informal jam session.

I like to build new stuff and test it out.  Sometimes I’ll do some surfing or diving.

 I still love to travel and see new things, so even though Emerald City is my home again, I think I’ll move around a bit, at least to visit friends.

For now, I’m trying to get reacquainted with my home.  I’ve been away too long.

--EC.

What He Doesn’t Know, What She Can’t See

By David Goodner