The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  She walked away, asking to be alone. Berk and Cog watched her from the cave. They saw the guard from the palace who approached with an official message, and they overheard. Yig Morrow had sent for her.

  They saw her walk down across the town, through the twisted streets among the stone-and-mud buildings, through the shadows of the open plaza by the sea, toward the spiral ascent at one end of the palace. She walked alone, at a little distance behind the guard, and though people called to her she didn’t turn aside.

  “What will Yig Morrow say to her?” Berk asked.

  “Probably what he said before—that she should prepare to enter the Dart of Fire. It’s supposed to be a high privilege to go to Kessa by the fire route.”

  “How does one actually go anywhere in this land?”

  “One goes to Kessa only by thinking so,” said Cog, the skeptic. “What it means is, she’ll be burned to ashes in a public ceremony—as if you didn’t know.”

  “Is this Yig Morrow’s idea of a sacred trip to join the god?”

  “Not Yig’s. Yours,” Cog said.

  “Prophet or not, I’m a stranger here,” Berk said. “I’m asking for information.”

  “Then come down to the plaza with me and I’ll show you the Dart of Fire, built truly upon your own words.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  From his place on the balcony of the palace the ruler of the city watched the girl approach. His eyes lighted at the sight of her. Her steps reminded him of the calm dignity of her father. No one had been more important to the success of Yig Morrow, in ruling this little seaside nation, than Daunsa’s father.

  The girl moved gracefully up the spiral ascent. Yig Morrow, breathing deeply with inner excitement, dismissed his guards, and made ready to meet her. He donned his gray feathered cape, preened himself for a moment at the polished black marble wall which gave back his reflection, then settled himself at a table feigning ease and unconcern.

  He had discussed the matter of Daunsa with his trusted officer a number of times in recent days, and his plans for the girl had undergone a change. He had sighed at every memory of her beauty, and this had led him to debate within himself whether Kessa might not be willing to wait. A single day of marriage before the fires were allowed to take her beautiful body away forever seemed very little. In Yig Morrow’s private realm, any beauty would soon grow tiresome. But while many of the females who had undergone this double ceremony of marriage and departure had become unendurable within a matter of hours, because of outrageously bad tempers, Yig Morrow felt sure that a person of Daunsa’s kindness and gentleness might add pleasure to the palace for many days.

  This plan had so filled him, in recent hours, that he had thought of pressing Daunsa’s father for approval.

  But Daunsa’s father was missing from the tower, one of the guards had said. This news, along with the later word that Daunsa herself had run away, had been highly upsetting to Yig Morrow’s palace.

  However, this morning the guards, returning from their desert search, had brought the reassuring news. The girl had come back. And now, with stately step, she approached his table.

  She listened in silence as Yig Morrow set forth his change of plan. She did not appear properly pleased.

  “Then Kessa does not want me, after all?” she asked.

  “I want you. Kessa can have you later.”

  “My father did not warn me of third.”

  “He’ll approve, I’m sure.”

  “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.”

  “Why?”

  “He is all through with giving consent to your plans.”

  “I don’t like the way you talk,” Yig Morrow said petulantly. “I’m not sure that I like you as well as I thought I would.”

  His jealousy of old Daunsog’s power and knowledge was always ready to flare. “When did you see him last?”

  “Yesterday.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  Yig Morrow’s harshness softened a trifle. “Well, just remember, I’m still Yig Morrow, and he speaks to the people only through me. How do you know but what I talked with him this very morning, and won his approval to my plan?”

  Daunsa gave a little cry of bitterness, rose, and walked away. She hurried past the guards and down the spiral way.

  Yig stared after her. He ordered his officers to come to him and report what they knew of old Daunsog. A little later in the morning he pieced the story together. Daunsa had buried her father on the desert the previous day. And she might never have returned if she had not met a very unusual stranger along the way who was able to restore her broken faith.

  The stranger? He was said to be no other than Berk the Prophet, the very one who had come many years before and planted all the seeds of truth in the mind of the youthful Daunsog.

  In utter disbelief Yig Morrow commented, “These tales have no meaning for me until I see this stranger.”

  “Then look into the plaza,” one of the guards said. “See your traitorous officer Cog, with his arm and head bandaged. And beside him a man in red and black costume. That is Berk the Prophet. See, they’re walking over to the Dart of Fire.”

  CHAPTER IX

  In the company of Cog, Berk approached the circular platform. This object had been built since his previous visit. The curious structure was unsightly, he thought, marring the looks of the open plaza. An elevated walk led across to it from the palace balcony, and the platform itself was elevated a few feet, so that he might have walked under it if the circular space had not been filled with red-blooming Kessa plants, a mass of green stalks four or five feet high, topped by the ball-shaped blossoms.

  The strangeness of the structure was not the circular platform itself, or the mass of flowers beneath it, but the spaceship-shaped monstrosity that towered straight up from the center.

  “There it stands, the Dart of Fire,” Cog said. “It was built from the description you gave Daunsog.”

  Berk stared in amazement. It bore resemblance to a space ship in outline only. From its slender cone-shaped point to its base, the sides of rough masonry formed a cylinder. Slender open arches had been built into the base so that a man of full height might have squeezed through. These openings were smoke-blackened, giving the structure the appearance of a one-man pyre—which, as Cog explained, it virtually was. Burning oils would pour down through it.

  “That,” said Cog, “is where the chosen ones are burned.”

  “Why?”

  “My own answer is not the popular one. I say it is only for the excitement of Yig Morrow, playing on the religious passions of the people. Call it a sacrifice. Call it a visit to Kessa. It all adds up to murder.”

  “But—why?”

  “They tell us it is based on your words to Daunsog.”

  “It can’t be! What words?”

  “Shall I repeat them? ‘The stream of fire gives one a swift flight out to the vast Beyond, and in flight he may come to know Kessa as never before.’ There.” Berk’s thoughts spun. He asked for the words again before he was sure. Then he saw it clearly.

  “That was my explanation of a spaceship!”

  Cog shook his head. There was no word for spaceship in his tongue. Dart of Fire was the best he could do. “By whatever name, this is it.”

  “It’s no more a spaceship than a pebble is an egg.”

  “This isn’t an accurate copy, then?”

  “You can’t begin to know. It would take thousands of years of development before you could possibly know.”

  This statement, however vague, seemed to give Cog a measure of satisfaction. He had talked with Daunsog himself in the past, and he had grown sure in his own mind that Yig Morrow’s interpretation couldn’t be the true one. “I could never believe that you meant for the stream of fire to engulf the person and consume his flesh.”

  “A furnace! A ritual of murder! Out of my words!”

  “To the glory of Kessa!” The bitterness of Cog’s words brought to Berk’s mind the danger before Daunsa.

&n
bsp; Berk gazed in silence at the smoke-darkened structure while Cog told of old Daunsog’s futile fight against it. Daunsog had been kept out of circulation, virtually imprisoned in a tower in the palace, and plainly his last hope had been that his daughter could run away from it all. He had given his own life in an effort to force her escape across the desert. But the tradition had such a tight grip on her that the sight of “Berk the Prophet” had turned her back, repentant for losing faith. Now she fully expected to go through with the ordeal, Cog was sure.

  Berk spoke quietly as they came away. “Neither Daunsa nor anyone else shall enter this trap. You’ll help me, of course.”

  “But how?” Cog glanced at his bandages.

  “Not by violence. By reason. We must spread the word. This is all a mistake.”

  “The belief runs deep,” Cog declared. “Yig Morrow is strong. He would murder a prophet sooner than see the light.”

  “His eyes might be made to open. Suppose it were to happen to him?”

  “It happens only to beautiful females. He has turned it into a ritual of private lust. Each chosen one is granted a day of marriage to him before the fires flow.” They walked a wide circle around the plaza, avoiding the little huddles of curious citizens who had gathered for a glimpse of Berk. The news of his coming and of his miracle in bringing Cog out of a strangely frozen state of death was spreading across the city. Berk hardly noticed the onlookers; through Cog’s counsel he meant to find a key to the dilemma. Cog was sure this mountain of superstition couldn’t be cut away with reason. It would take more.

  “Then here is our answer,” Berk said finally. “We shall pretend to approve the ceremony. But we will go a step further and approve it not only for women but for men. That is what I have come to say. I, Berk the Prophet, declare that the god Kessa now wishes a man to be sacrificed, not a woman.”

  Cog scowled, trying to foresee the consequences.

  Berk went on. “Set these wheels in motion for me, Cog. Let this idea be established in all minds throughout the city. That is my mission. The god Kessa has sent me to say that he would be pleased to receive some noble man such as Yig Morrow himself, no less!”

  Cog continued to withhold his thoughts. Perhaps, Berk thought, he was disillusioned to see a prophet turn to scheming. Fearing this, Berk tried to back away from his rash idea. “Get word to Yig Morrow that I wish to meet him. If he will listen to reason—”

  “He won’t.”

  “We’ll try. Tell him I have come, in all humility, with messages for him from Beyond.”

  CHAPTER X

  Berk awakened in the middle of the night, haunted by nightmares of victims being burned to ashes in the name of Kessa. He walked along the path from the cave to the spring, a little distance down the slope. For half an hour he sat, gazing across the city to the mists of the silent moonlit sea. The city was sleeping. There were no lights except the three or four torches that glowed dimly from the gates of the palace. Berk had had no word from Yig Morrow. He had not been asked to come to this world. Coming, he had not been welcomed by its ruler.

  He looked down on the sleeping city and thought timeless thoughts. Centuries would come and go, and it would remain the same, steeped in moonlight by night, kissed by the breezes of a calm sea, fragrant with the rich smells of the Kessa flowers.

  What had Berk to do with this world? His imprint had been left before, only to be twisted into something hideous. Now his friend Daunsog was gone—his only tie to this people.

  Yet there was Daunsog’s beautiful daughter . . .

  Berk walked back to the mouth of the cave.

  She was there, sleeping. Her graceful fingers covered her eyes against the orange light of the skies. The moon’s cast overlapping shadows through the filmy scarf that she had drawn over her body for a night covering.

  Near her, lying about on beds of grass, were the ill persons she was looking after, now lost in sleep. She had had enough faith in Berk to bring them to him. He was not a doctor. Nevertheless his knowledge in such matters was far superior to their own. His chosen headquarters, the open cave, was rapidly becoming a sanctuary for people needing care; and Daunsa had watched and helped.

  Why should he care about them?

  But Daunsa—he did care about her, there was no denying that.

  He knelt near her. His hand touched the strands of dark hair that lay across her shoulder. Her arm moved slightly.

  Gazing at her, he pictured himself carrying her across the quiet desert back to his waiting spaceship.

  How unfair would it be if he took direct action to get her out of this world? He would only need to touch the trigger of his ray pistol; a paralysis would seize her; no one would hear; he could carry her lightly.

  Would she not thank him later?

  He thought of the Dart of Fire, waiting.

  He took the pistol in his hand, aimed, waited, thinking. For minutes he debated. It was easy to say that his way would be best. But what—exactly what was in her heart?

  She moved. Her fingers slid from her eyes. She awakened, looked up into Berk’s face and smiled. His hand went back to his side and the pistol was put away.

  “Why are you looking at me?” she whispered sleepily.

  “Daunsa, I want you to promise me something.”

  “Yes?”

  “That you will have faith in me. If I take you away—to other lands—don’t be angry. It will be for your own good.”

  “You mean—the Beyond?”

  “Yes—to lands known only to Kessa.”

  The girl looked dreamily at the starry sky. “I am going, of course. The Dart of Fire will take me.”

  “Not the Dart of the plaza, but my own, somewhere across the desert—a dart that really moves through the sky, just as a boat moves on the sea, and carries you without harm. Daunsa, believe me, the one on the plaza is false—your father knew it; Cog knows it, and so do I. It takes you nowhere. It is a trap of final death.”

  With a look of shock in her dark eyes, she faced Berk. “No. No. You are telling me this to try my faith. But I have no fear. I’ll go. Before the eyes of the people, I’ll go.”

  “Your father tried to tell you, didn’t he?”

  “But he was only putting my faith to a test. I’ve thought about it constantly since he died, and I’m sure—”

  “No, Daunsa, he was sincere. It’s not a route to Kessa. It’s only a death trap that Yig Morrow uses to excite everyone, especially himself. You mustn’t fall victim.”

  The girl lay back and closed her eyes. She drew the filmy scarf closely over her breasts. She spoke softly. “I want to believe you, Berk, for I know you are the prophet who came to my father. But I must do what is right in the eyes of my people.”

  She looked full into his eyes. He bent close to her. “Come with me now, Daunsa. Forsake this world and travel to a new one. Be my bride. Let me take you to the Beyond. Whatever the-name of the god that you call Kessa, the powers of that god shall be known to you as never before if you come with me. This city by the sea is only a speck in the vast universe of space. These people are only a breath of the life that exists on uncounted planets across the sky. With your own beautiful eyes you’ll see things you never dreamed of. Come with me. Now.”

  “I couldn’t be your bride, Berk. You are a prophet. Besides, it’s my duty to become the bride of Yig Morrow.”

  “And die!” Berk’s voice wanted to roar with anger. “Who says it is your duty to do anything so stupid?”

  “The Dart of Fire was built, Berk, because of things you once said. That was the start. The beliefs have deepened—”

  “Deepened I They’ve twisted into murder!”

  She gazed at him in silence, and he knew that his show of anger had shocked her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have lots to do, looking after these ill ones. You’d better go back to sleep.”

  “Thank you.” She slipped her graceful fingers over her eyes and said no mere.

  Berk climbed over the rid
ge of mountain and walked a little distance out onto the desert. Exhausted in spirit, he dropped down and slept. His coming to this land had been a misguided venture, a complete failure. Tomorrow he would leave.

  CHAPTER XI

  With the coming of dawn he repeated his resolve: Tomorrow he would leave—tomorrow or the next day. But today there were things to be done. Already Daunsa was taking care of the ill ones, and already a new group appeared, needing a touch of care.

  “The Prophet Berk has the wisdom to make you well again,” the girl could be heard saying.

  Tomorrow and another tomorrow. The cave of Berk the Prophet turned away no one.

  From all parts of the city people came to him. as the busy days Went on. Fishermen learned new tricks in the making of nets. Gardeners were told how to improve their crops. Religious zealots came merely to look at him out of eyes of wonderment; and to each he gave some wisp of instruction for a better life.

  Cog was often with him as well as Daunsa. They listened like children, drinking in the words of wisdom he spoke. But whatever he said was first sifted through the sieve of caution. He was constantly aware that gems of wisdom he had left with Daunsog, only two generations before, had been misshapen into weird and often dangerous half-truths.

  Then came the epidemic, and Berk was put to a severe test.

  If this man is indeed the Prophet Berk, let him put an end to this wave of illness. Those were the challenging words from the palace that reached Berk’s ears one morning as he walked along the path above the city.

  He proceeded cautiously. He studied the directions of the capricious winds that played through the horseshoe-shaped city. Was one section of the town more affected by illness than another?

  “Bring me a Kessa flower,” he asked one of the natives who had followed him.

  The flower was brought to him. The native apologized for picking it. No one liked to disturb the Kessa flowers. Their name surrounded them with sacred superstitions.