All These Shiny Worlds

by Jefferson Smith

  Then she looked at Fluffy. His fingers were balled up into little fists, and his nose was tucked between them. He was snoring very softly.

  Finally, she looked at Tiffany. The girl’s head was bowed, so all Callie could see was her roughly parted dark-blond hair.

  “Yes,” Callie said. “I can do that. I’d be happy to.”

  For the first time, Tiffany smiled. “Thank you.”

  Then she ate her Rudolph, every last crumb.

  About The Author

  Becca Mills doesn’t want to write about what she knows. That gets enough coverage in real life. Instead, she focuses on what she doesn’t know, because our information is always incomplete and it is folly to think otherwise. The lines between knowledge and conjecture are blurry, so Becca prefers to embrace the teeming void of “I don’t know.” She challenges us all to think deeply, and to ask “What if?” Because by making new worlds, we can reimagine the one we have. Come on. Let’s get our imaginations on.

  For more information, visit http://the-active-voice.com/.

  The Red Flame of Death

  Van Allen Plexico

  Editor’s Note: Written in the same high style as the adventure serials it celebrates, this story takes us to yet another of the rich milieus of fantasy history: the treasure filled desert wastes that lie east of the Mediterranean. A fitting place for any righteous demon hunter to track his ungodly prey.

  In May of the Year of Our Lord 1693 the puritan soldier Gideon Cain left his family and home in Salem, Massachusetts on a mission from God. He left behind a town and colony shattered by accusations of witchcraft and by the execution of his neighbors.

  After the witch trials, Cain had come to believe a demon of the ancient world dwelt among the people of Salem, subtly tempting mortal men and women and influencing their decisions and their judgment. He later claimed that, upon discovery, the demon fled from his holy wrath.

  Over the next seven years he traversed the globe on a self-appointed–he would have claimed divinely appointed–mission, seeking the biblical demon Azazel, its agents and mortal pawns.

  Cain’s dogged pursuit of Azazel carried him from the Atlantic coast of the American Colonies to the far corners of the world. By mid-1697 Cain’s epic chase across half the world brought him at last to the forgotten desolation of legendary Dudael in the deserts of the Middle East. Scholars may yet argue over the exact location of the scriptural prison of the demon Azazel but few will review the account of Cain’s visit there without a shudder…

  ***

  The hellish, burning sun had long since set, and now a baleful moon stared down cold and hard on the trackless wastes of the Middle East. Beneath that pitiless, star-pocked sky sat a group of four men of diverse origins and appearances, their blanket-swaddled forms huddled about a lone campfire.

  Each of the men kept to himself and an eerie silence reigned—until at last one of them cast off his blanket and stood, stretching his lean form. The tallest of the four, he was clad in plain, somber garments that included a long, dark-stained suede buff coat of apparent military origin and matching slouch hat. His motions revealed a sheathed blade at his side, the hilt fashioned in the form of an English mortuary sword.

  “Tell us again, effendi,” called one of the rugged men at the fire—the leader, called Aqhar. “What wants an Englishman here in Mesopotamia?”

  “My business is my own,” the tall man answered brusquely. “And I hail not from England, but from America.”

  The questioner shrugged. “It is all as one to me, Puritan,” he replied. “Still, you must have a reason for hiring three guides such as Faruq, Aziz, and myself, and paying us to bring you here—to the middle of nowhere.”

  “Indeed I do,” Gideon Cain replied, “and those who love God and despise the Devil would do well to follow my lead and otherwise remain silent!”

  Whether the man thought to react verbally or physically to the puritan’s stark warning, Cain would never learn. For scarcely a moment had passed after he had uttered those words before a monstrous, batlike shape swooped down upon the group. Its leathery wings beat against the cool night air and its unearthly shriek chilled the very blood of those there who heard it, each of whom pressed flat to the ground in shock and terror. Each, that is, save the tall, dour puritan, who instantly drew his sword and swung it in a long arc in the direction of the attacker.

  A furious hissing sound greeted his efforts, and the bat creature struck again, talons lashing out and catching Cain on the side of his head. His dark slouch hat tumbled to the ground, and he felt fortunate his head was not still inside it. Quickly then, before the monstrous, only half-glimpsed beast could come at him again from the stygian sky, he whipped one of his flintlock pistols free from his belt and attempted to aim.

  The wings beat again. The shriek sounded, making his skin crawl in revulsion.

  He fired the pistol. Its report added one more layer of deafening sound to that which now drenched the heretofore silent desert.

  Whether his shot struck home he could not say—but, in any case, the creature swooped down again, razor-sharp talons slashing. Casting his pistol aside angrily, Cain drew its twin from his belt, then waited until the horrifying visage was mere feet away, closing fast. He fired.

  The pistol’s flash revealed a frozen and horrific image of the bat-thing bearing down on him, shrieking its fury all the while, before darkness enveloped them again. The shot seemed to Cain to have struck the beast, and yet it continued on unimpeded, and only a frantic dive to one side prevented Cain from being torn to ribbons.

  The guides were scrambling here and there in terror, shouting and cursing in Arabic, but Cain paid them no mind. He stumbled backwards over the rough, rocky ground, the creature moving in and out of his vision as it fluttered through the inky darkness. His spent second pistol had joined the first on the ground, and now he stood armed only with his sword.

  A second passed. Two. The bat creature did not strike; it was lost to him somewhere in the darkness.

  “Silence!” he cried to his guides, who instantly quieted their frantic jabbering. Then, cocking his head to one side, he listened.

  The bat creature came down at him in a rush from behind, its wings pulled back as it plunged with great speed toward his back. It made so little sound he barely heard it at all. Just before it could reach him, however, those leathery wings fluttered a mere tad—and Cain whirled, the mortuary sword flashing in the firelight, its blade lashing out in a curving arc.

  Another unearthly shriek, this one cut dramatically short, changing midway to a hideous gurgling sound.

  Cain stepped forward and struck again, seeing his target revealed now, fluttering madly before him, silhouetted against the firelight. A mighty downward blow served to lop the thing’s head from its body. With a final, demonic screech, both parts tumbled to the ground.

  The native guides climbed to their feet and rushed over, eyes wide and mouths hanging open. As they stared down at the ruined body where it lay on the rocky surface, it caught fire in a dozen places and began to burn.

  “Your death awaits you soon, Gideon Cain,” croaked the severed head nearby. “My master is with you always, even as you dog his steps and track him ceaselessly across the globe. He is closer than you know, now, fool of a man. Soon…”

  Cain plunged the silvery sword blade through the bat-thing’s forehead. The awful voice ceased instantly and then the head, too, began to burn.

  “Get thee back to Satan,” Cain breathed, his face twisted with revulsion. “Tell him thus would Gideon Cain treat with any of his ilk who dare oppose my righteous mission.”

  The guides prayed silently while Cain looked on, jaw firm and eyes reflecting the blaze. Soon enough, nothing remained of the creature but ashes. One of the Arabs kicked at them quizzically as Cain walked back to the fire and seated himself, as if nothing unusual had happened.

  “What in God’s name was that thing?” asked Aqhar as he dropped to the ground beside the puritan, nervously r
unning his still-shaking hands through his thick beard and tugging at his gray turban.

  “Some creature of the Devil, surely,” Cain muttered, retrieving his hat and wiping methodically at his sword. “I know not. But it is a good sign.”

  The guide stared at him, incredulous. “A good sign?”

  “Yes. It means we draw nearer to our goal.”

  Aqhar appeared to consider this for a few seconds but did not reply. He merely gazed into the campfire as the other two men returned to their spots. They cast sullen glances his way, clearly discomfited by what they had witnessed, but they said nothing.

  Cain stared up at the full moon rising, its form all too similar to a skull lost amid the stars. A sort of chill moved through his gaunt frame. Grunting, he reloaded his pistols and then continued wiping down his sword. When he was finished he cast the cloth aside. The flames flickered off the polished silver blade as he turned it this way and that, examining its fine, two-edged surface.

  The man nearest him, Faruq, leaned in and gasped, his eyes widening. He exclaimed a few words in his native tongue and Aqhar translated.

  “He says that your sword, Puritan, has some sort of writing carved into it.”

  Indeed, from hilt to tip, the sword blade sported an etched design consisting of long, curving forms of an almost Arabic design, punctuated by odd, individual shapes that resembled nothing so much as Icelandic runes. The shapes appeared to sparkle and dance in the cold moonlight.

  “Faruq wonders if this, too, is the work of the Devil.”

  “God curse any who would suggest such a thing,” Cain growled.

  The others moved in closer and studied the fine engraving work in amazement.

  “I have some acquaintance with the blades of the world, Puritan,” Aqhar stated, flexing his muscular shoulders as if to drive home his words. “And I have seen the likes of yours only once before—in the hands of a veteran of Oliver Cromwell’s wars in England.”

  Cain said nothing by way of reply.

  “So—were you a soldier for Cromwell, then?” asked Aqhar, his bushy black eyebrows extending out past his tattered hood. “What was it called, that army?”

  “The New Model Army,” Cain whispered.

  “Yes, yes,” Aqhar nodded. Beside him the third guide, dark-skinned Aziz, continued to gaze in silence at the sword, seemingly hypnotized. “You were a part of that?”

  “I did not serve the Protector,” Cain replied coldly. “I was but a boy when his bold experiment—the Puritan Commonwealth—ended in failure. My parents took ship to America—to the Massachusetts Colony. I hail from Salem Town.”

  Aqhar took this in and nodded slowly.

  “Salem,” the Arab replied. “I have heard strange tidings of the events that transpired there—”

  “I will not speak of it,” Cain muttered.

  Aqhar made a placating gesture with one hand and then turned his attention to the blade once more, a subject about which Cain appeared slightly less reticent.

  “The etching—it appears to be writing of some sort, but I cannot read it. It is not English, certainly, but neither is it Arabic, nor Farsi—all languages with which I as a guide have at least a passing familiarity.” He pursed his lips. “Parts appear to be similar to those languages, though.”

  “‘Tis no language you would recognize,” Cain replied cryptically, “for God and His angels alone speak it. Though,” he added, “there is one other for whom it has a…special meaning. And I aim to acquaint him with it very soon.”

  With that, he slid the blade back into its scabbard and lay down to sleep, pulling his dark slouch hat over his face. The three guides stared at him in puzzlement for some time afterward, but kept their further questions to themselves that night.

  ***

  With the morning light, Cain was up and on his feet, urging the three guides to wakefulness and exhorting them to hurriedly pack up camp and get moving.

  As they made ready to move on, Faruq approached the leader, Aqhar, and nervously whispered something to him. Aqhar shushed him quickly, casting nervous glances Cain’s way.

  “What troubles your man?” Cain asked as he tucked his pistols safely into his belt.

  “Faruq thought he heard something moving out beyond the fire during the night,” Aqhar replied. “But I told him to pay such things no heed. He is merely nervous and shaken from the attack of that creature last night.”

  Cain appeared to consider the words. Then he said, “I am well aware that something tracks us,” he told them brusquely. “Something more dangerous, I believe, than the bat-thing. If it values its life, it would do well to keep its distance from me, and not interfere with my holy mission.”

  “You are either very brave, effendi,” Aqhar said to him by way of reply, “or very foolish.”

  “Which would you suppose?”

  “It is not my place to judge, Puritan. But after last night, I feel we are at least on the side of God.”

  “Never doubt it,” Cain breathed, and the little group set out across the rocky wastes.

  On they marched, as the sun climbed the sky and the oppressive heat increased. After a few hours they moved at last out of the flatlands and into a rugged, ravine-filled region covered in light scrub. Cain strode quickly, his long legs propelling him at an almost unnatural and untiring pace. Aqhar and Faruq managed to keep up, though they occasionally had to slow in order to accommodate the tall, slender Aziz, who carried a large, heavy pack on his back.

  The sun rode high in the sky by the time they entered a particularly tall and narrow canyon, its sides mercifully blocking out much of the light.

  Cain removed his hat and mopped his brow for a moment, then searched about the dim and rocky terrain with his eyes.

  “We are close now, yes? To the cave we spoke of?”

  “Close, yes,” Aqhar nodded. “Though—as I have told you more than once—why you should wish to go there I cannot fathom. There is nothing of value there.”

  “I believe you are wrong,” Cain replied. “The texts pointed me there, and thrice since departing Constantinople have I dreamed of the location. God means for me to find it—else how would I even know of it?”

  Aqhar could only shake his head in wonder. “God does as God wills,” he answered, “and you will do as you will—though I am not so sure the two are one and the same, in this case. But so long as my friends and I are paid…”

  “You will be paid, I assure you of that. Now blaspheme no more and lead on,” Cain demanded coldly.

  The sun had reached its height in the sky, standing clear of the steep canyon walls and beating down mercilessly, by the time the band reached their destination. Aqhar stood with hands on hips, regarding the sheer stone wall for a long while, taking in its nearly blank features with a studied, scholarly air, before nodding at last and beginning to work his way laterally along the formation. Meanwhile, his two assistants looked on in silence. Aziz dropped the heavy pack from his shoulders and seated himself, waiting.

  Cain pulled his hat down to shield his eyes further and hooked his thumbs in his plain leather belt. He could make out nothing special about the cliff wall, but the anxiousness burning within his breast compelled him to await some indication from his hired man.

  At last, after much searching, Aqhar returned and nodded to Cain, pointing in the direction from which he had come. “This way,” he told them, and then he strode confidently to his left, his brown robes flaring behind him. The others followed.

  “It is there,” he said, pointing down the curving slope of the ravine floor to another seemingly blank segment of rock wall. “You see?”

  “I see naught but cold stone,” Cain replied, “but you were hired to lead me to this place, so I have no choice but to trust you.”

  “Your trust is well placed, effendi,” Aqhar stated firmly as the group started to move forward. “For I have not failed you.”

  “Why could you not find it more easily?” Cain asked, picking his way over the rough terrain. “
You told me you have been there before.”

  “Well,” Aqhar began with some reluctance, “I must admit I was last here many years ago, effendi… And something about this area has changed. I do not pretend to understand it, but…”

  Cain regarded the man with skepticism but nonetheless continued onward, his pace now faster than before. Within minutes all four men stood before the spot Aqhar had indicated.

  In answer to Cain’s unspoken query, Aqhar moved to his left and pointed around behind an outward-jutting rock formation. Cain realized at that moment that the formation had blended perfectly into the background, such that he had not realized it was there. He stepped past the three guides and around it—and the narrow mouth of a cave loomed before him.

  “Yes,” Cain muttered almost inaudibly. “Light the torches,” he ordered his guides, who scrambled to obey. And then, drawing his mortuary sword and holding it aloft before him, he led them into the darkness.

  His confidence reigning supreme, Cain did not deign to glance back and assure himself that the three men were following him. Had he done so, he might have noticed the torch flames reflected in the eyes of his guides—and the bizarre, crimson light that flickered in the eyes of one, out of synch with the torch he carried.

  ***

  The group reached the back of the narrow, low-ceilinged cave in short order, and to Cain’s puzzled expression Aqhar could only shrug.

  “You asked me to lead you to the hidden cave in these hills, effendi, and that is what I have done. And you will see that it is just as I told you—hidden, yes, but not worth the trouble of finding it.”

  “No,” Cain breathed, his eyes narrowing and his mouth drawn into a tight line. “No, this cannot be.”

  Raising his sword high in his right hand and a torch in the other, he strode to the very rear of the cave and studied the bare walls, misery creeping over him.