Five Stars: Five Outstanding Tales from the early days of Stupefying Stories

by Aaron Starr

  “You’ve had no lessons.”

  Desperation stained her voice, “Help me release my fear! Now!”

  Fump paused then said, “The first lesson is the one that brought you here.”

  “What?”

  “Desire. You desire nothing so much as learning to fly again.”

  The sun drifted farther down, flaring briefly as it disappeared below the horizon. She looked at Fump. “I want to fly again more than anything else. What else do I have to do?”

  It thrummed then said, “Nothing. Put on the wings.”

  She hastily got into the flying suit, saying, “Tie the straps, please. We have to hurry. They’re leaving soon.”

  “Turn around.”

  She did and with deft fingers, Fump tightened and tied the straps. When it reached her ankle, she cried out, “That’s too tight!”

  “The wings must cling to you as if they were your own or they will not work.”

  Celianne tugged at the arms, saying, “Are the others tight enough, then?”

  Fump tested each tie, retied two then said, “These are well done. Do you think you are ready?”

  “I am.”

  “Come with me. We will go to the platform edge. Push out as far as you can. You will dive between the north branch and the southeast branch. Jump and stretch your arms out. Keep them rigid, but flexible. Do not fight the wind. Let it support you. You will fall quickly at first, then the wind will catch the membranes. Follow the sense of your body. You have flown among the stars. You will remember how to fly the short distance to the starship.”

  They walked out of the box to the edge of the platform. Fear surged in her stomach. “What about Uzzal?”

  “He will be well cared for.”

  She said softly, “Do you have any other words of wisdom for me?”

  “You know the terrain and landscape, the mud and sky?”

  Celianne nodded. Too well and too long she’d known these parts of Enstad’s Planet.

  “Feel the precise direction of the wind at the exact place in which we are standing.”

  Celianne nodded, closed her eyes and whispered, “I can.” Drawing in the cooling air of the marsh below, she held her breath, hands slowly reaching as if she were going to hold and manipulate space again. From memory, she could imagine hard white points stretched to hydrogen spikes cut by calcium strips of purest yellow.

  She leaped from the platform, falling into the night.

  Celianne caught her breath and her eyes snapped open as the membranes pulled free, flapping behind her. She fell until she could fall no faster. It was never the fall that killed you. She knew the wings were props and that Fump had kept its alien promise.

  Just before the sudden stop, the water boiled with life.

  Guy Stewart is a husband, father (biological, in-law, grand, and foster), teacher and school counselor as well as a writer (not necessarily in that order). He’s also a member of SFFWA and has had short stories published in ANALOG, AOIFE’S KISS, STUPEFYING STORIES, AETHER AGE, AURORA WOLF, and PERIHELION, as well as having science fiction stories for young adults in CRICKET MAGAZINE and podcast on CAST OF WONDER.

  The King of Ash and Bones

  by Rebecca Roland

  A man is no longer a king without a kingdom to rule over. What did that now make me? I sought the answer as I spurred the gray gelding through the cobblestone streets, setting thatched roofs on fire.

  We weaved our way among the dead. They walked slowly, their hands out to feel where they were going, as they were headless. Dried blood stained fine robes and drab wool garments alike. They were equals now, joined by the plague that had driven them all to sever their own heads. Once I saw to them, I would seek out the witch who had cursed them and ensure that she could never do this again.

  The gelding snorted and sidestepped as we rounded a corner, to find a mob of headless people blocking our way. The stench of rotting flesh and loosed bowels was strong here. I turned the gelding and we sought a different path, all the while my torch setting fires behind me.

  Flames arose from the city center as the stables and outbuildings burned, surrounding the dark gray stone of the castle I had called home. Somewhere inside those buildings, my son and his family had already burned. An image of my granddaughters taking kitchen knives to their own necks came unbidden to me. Their blood stained my cream-colored linen shirt. I had tried to stop them, but the plague had imbued them with unnatural strength. I’d tried to pray for their souls, but the words choked me far more than the smoke.

  Having done all I could, I led the gelding on a gallop towards the nearest gate, his hooves clattering against stone. Once through, I reined him in and dropped to the ground, nearly falling when my quivering legs failed me. Digging my feet into the ground, I heaved the wooden gate along its ruts until it slammed shut. Then I mounted the gelding again, and we surged up a grassy hill dotted with wildflowers in pink and yellow and violet. At the top, I turned him, and watched as the town and my home became a giant funeral pyre.

  I should have cried at the sight of my city-kingdom going up in flames, all its people dead, but those tears had been spent a long time ago, leaving me hollow.

  The fire sent billows of smoke into the air, turning the afternoon hazy. Ash began to rain down around me like sooty snowflakes, and still I remained, to make sure every corpse burned and none escaped.

  Within the leather bag tied to the saddle, the worm writhed. It had been the witch’s, the one I’d gifted her with, the one I’d wrenched from her body when I found how she’d abused her power. The wretched thing was the only survivor, save for myself and the gelding.

  The sun sank in the sky, and still the fire burned through the town. A full moon rose, large and blood red. My kingdom glowed with its own twilight.

  Night had come, and darkness settled over everything, by the time the fire had been reduced to embers. Nothing moved within the city walls. Only then did I turn the gelding away, to seek out the woman who had made me the king of ash and bones.

  ¤

  A few miles had passed when the gelding slowed to a walk. No amount of spurring could urge him back to a canter. He shook his head, nostrils flaring as he snorted. Lather broke out along his neck. I dismounted, removed the leather bag holding the worm, and tied it to my belt.

  The gelding let out a whinny filled with pain. He lowered his head and began to jab at it with one hoof. I should have felt sinking despair at the sight of one of the finest horses from my stables falling victim to the plague, but only numbness filled me as I drew my sword from its scabbard and thrust it into the soft flesh just behind his jaw, driving the point into his brain. He crumpled and lay still. I cleaned the blade on the grass. I’d have to walk the rest of the way to Lowshire, the city-kingdom the witch now called home.

  Giddiness rose from the depths, threatening to burst from my lips as laughter. Once I started laughing, I would not be able to stop. Madness loomed that way. My breath came in shallow gasps as I fought for control.

  My thoughts turned to my family. No. I could not dwell on them, not yet. That way, too, was madness, and paralyzing grief.

  I thought, instead, of the garden behind my castle home. In the center of that garden, behind tall hedges and rose bushes and fig trees, was a labyrinth of stepping stones laid out in the lush grass. In my mind I walked that path, hands clasped behind my back, each step purposeful and in rhythm with my breathing, until I reached the very center, which was marked by a marble bench large enough for one person to sit upon. In my imagination I sat on the bench, the coolness of the marble seeping through my clothes and chilling my buttocks and thighs, the air perfumed with the sweet scent of roses.

  The madness faded. I let out a long, shuddering breath.

  My hand strayed to the crown on my head. When the witch unleashed the plague, she’d put a curse on it. Spikes grew in from the crown and pierced my skull. Hard as I might pull, I could not make it budge. The crown was the only thing keeping the plague from affectin
g me. She’d said she wanted me to be the only survivor, to experience loss as I’d made her experience loss.

  There was nothing to do but start walking. I veered through the woods toward the road, but remained in the shadows of the trees should anyone pass. The air was crisp and smelled of summer with a hint of autumn. My sword tapped rhythmically against my leg. The worm, squirming earlier, had settled in the leather bag.

  The trees thinned as I neared flatter land. The first farm I came to, I slipped close to the house, a small, mud-brick structure with a thatched roof. Wheat grew tall in the fields, nearly ready for harvest. Cows lowed inside a white-washed wooden barn.

  A man’s clothes lay draped over a large rock. They were made of rough material, slightly damp and smelling of cattle and dirt, but they were about the right size. I shed my blood-stained clothes, gooseflesh forming along my arms as the cool night touched my skin, and left them in a heap on the ground, save for the cloak. Enough muck covered it that it would pass as a commoner’s. The farmer’s clothes on, I hurried back into the woods. I draped the cloak across my shoulders and pulled the cowl over my head, covering the thin, golden crown.

  I stopped at a streamlet to drink, but otherwise walked through the night. Fatigue settled in my bones, and my joints ached. This was a young man’s task, and youth was far behind me. Then I thought of my granddaughters and how the witch had robbed them of their youth and the rest of their lives. My pace quickened.

  The first light of dawn tinged the sky when I crested a gentle hill and found the witch’s town of Lowshire spread before me in a lush, green valley. The valley floor had long been cleared of forest in order to build homes. Cattle and sheep dotted the land outside the city-kingdom’s stone walls.

  King Wren was the ruler of Lowshire. He had taken in the witch, bestowed upon her a new worm, and restored her power. Wren had always wanted more in order to make his city-kingdom self-sufficient. He was a fool to think he could control the witch. He had welcomed a snake into his home.

  Witches were supposed to help their kings and their people. They were supposed to protect crops against disease, speed healing for the ill, and ensure that animals fared well. But the witch I’d brought into my kingdom allowed greediness to twist her powers, and made her think it suitable to help my people hurt each other.

  Once Wren restored her power, she had sent the plague to my kingdom. My hands curled into fists until my nails dug into my palms. For a moment, I allowed the pain to pierce sweetly through me. Then I relaxed.

  Farmers with eggs, milk, and cheese shared the road into Lowshire with traders bringing cloth and spices. Any other morning, my people would also be on that road, carrying fresh fruit or jams and wheat. Their lack of presence distressed me as would the loss of a limb.

  I slipped into the deep morning shadows of the woods and loosened the leather bag. “Come, worm, and make your home within my flesh.” The witch would not expect me to take such an action, and so it seemed the right thing to do.

  The worm’s head rose from the bag. The gray shade of dead flesh and eyeless, it opened its mouth, to reveal a row of needle-sharp teeth.

  I drew back the tunic, baring my shoulders.

  The worm crawled onto my leg and torso. Its mouth yawned wide, and it buried its teeth in my flesh.

  A circle of pain burned in my shoulder. I fought the darkness that threatened to take me.

  The worm’s gray flesh shimmered, sparkling like a sunlit river. It burrowed into me until only its hooked tail remained. This hook grabbed my flesh and held, leaving a loop large enough to snake a finger through. Only a king had the power to bestow or remove a worm. It wouldn’t come out until I either pulled it out or died.

  My heart raced. Pounding filled my head, and a feverish flush flowed through me. This hadn’t happened to the witch. But then, she had been meant to take a worm into her. I had been born a man. The worm would kill me within a day, if I didn’t remove it.

  But the worm was the only way I could think of to gain an advantage over the witch. And now that it resided within me, it too was exposed to the witch’s plague. Being a magical creature it would be merely a carrier of it, immune to the plague’s ill effects.

  The flush ebbed. I joined the steady stream of people on the wide dirt road. Murmured conversations and the creak of harnesses and wagons washed over me. Beside me rolled a wagon filled with large oak barrels, driven by a couple with two bleary-eyed young boys sitting between them.

  I walked at the wagon’s rear corner, one hand on it for support. The wagon slowed as it neared the gate into the city. One of the stocky ponies pulling it tossed her head and snorted. Two sullen guards in King Wren’s blue livery stood at the gate, passing people through with hardly a glance.

  “Go on,” one of the guards muttered to the farmer driving the wagon.

  My legs strove to carry me forward with it, but the worm writhed inside me as if wringing out my innards. The creature might kill me before I could find the witch. I had to find her without delay, but the pain drove me to my knees as I clutched at my belly. A moan escaped me.

  “Hey,” a guard said. “What’s this?” A shadow fell over me. The young man, scant red hair covering his chin, said, “Are you ill?”

  The second guard kneeled beside him. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “The witch,” I gasped.

  The first guard shook his head. “Doesn’t look like you can afford her fees.”

  Pushing back the cloak, I revealed my crown, the only item of worth left on my person.

  The second guard shoved my face to the ground. Pain exploded from my nose and radiated through my face. “She told us you might show up,” the guard spoke, near my ear. “You can forget about getting in.” He hauled me to my feet. “Now hear this,” he called out, gaining the farmer’s attention and that of the others nearby. “Anyone caught helping this man to get inside these walls will be thrown into the dungeons with no chance of getting out.” He pointed to the farmer perched on the wagon. “Spread the word.” Then he shoved me back down the road. “Now get out of here, old man.”

  My feet carried me blindly away until the guards paid me no more attention. I left the road and studied the walls around Lowshire. Scaling them would be dangerous. I would be leaving myself open for attacks, and doubted I had the strength to make it to the top. Perhaps, with the help of the worm—

  The worm. “Show me where the witch resides within those walls,” I whispered.

  A glow lit the ground around my feet and became a faint sparkling trail that led towards the eastern wall. I walked in that direction at a normal pace, careful not to draw attention to myself. A few glances told me the guards were busy with people entering the city-kingdom and paid me no heed.

  Soon I rounded the wall and was out of sight of the guards altogether. The glimmering trail disappeared beneath the stone wall. I sensed it did not go much farther. Steep thatched roofs rose above the wall, shutters thrown open to the morning. Smoke curled from stone chimneys, carrying the aroma of burning wood, baking bread, and sizzling ham.

  Perhaps it would be easier to get the witch to come to me. Her desire for power could lure her, if she knew I had another worm.

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and called out, “Witch, you think you’ve had the best of me. But I have your old worm. I will find another witch and bestow it upon her, and then return for you.”

  A middle-aged woman appeared in one of the high windows, the scarf covering her hair marking her as a servant. Her face was all harsh angles. “Quit it ’fore I call the guards on ye!”

  “My quarrel is not with you, but with your new witch. If she were to only come out and speak with me—”

  “You’ll be speaking to the rats in the dungeon if ye don’t get.”

  “Do you know where she lives? Could you carry a message to her?”

  She ducked her head inside the house and yelled at someone, “Fetch the guards.” Then she slammed the shutters closed.

 
I paced alongside the wall, calling out for the witch until my voice grew hoarse. Nobody else challenged me, but shutters closed on all the surrounding homes.

  Hoof beats thundered from somewhere around the wall’s curve. Moments later a dozen guards in Wren’s blue livery appeared, led by a captain in a red cloak, and they surrounded me.

  A brown beard shot through with gray covered much of the captain’s face, and above it, dark eyes regarded me with a mixture of curiosity and distrust. “Will you come quietly, or will we have to force you to come along?” he asked me.

  “That depends on where you plan to take me.” The worm writhed inside me. I fought the urge to grimace, not wanting the captain of the guards to find me weak.

  “The witch would like to see you.”

  Not the dungeons then. “Very well. I’ll go quietly.”

  They kept me in their midst as they led me back to the gates and then through. Hooves clattered against cobblestone streets, and everyone gave us wide berth. I ignored the curious stares as we passed through the strangely quiet market and then entered the narrow lanes between homes.

  We came to a road which ran to a dead end, butting up against the stone wall that surrounded Lowshire. Ivy covered most of the wall on this side, but could not hide the drab gray stone altogether. At the far end stood the two-story home from which the servant woman had yelled at me.

  The witch’s shop-sign hung from a house near the end of the street. A worm, outlined as if in diamonds, sparkled from the wooden square hanging over the door. Unlike other signs, this one was alive with magic. The worm crawled across the side facing me, then disappeared to the other side only to return again a moment later. The one within me twisted as if in response.

  The captain of the guard prodded me with one boot. “Go on.”

  They remained at the road’s junction. With each building built against the next, there was no way for me to escape. That suited me fine. I meant to finish my business with the witch.

  My heart hammered when I stopped before the witch’s door. I took a deep breath and pushed. It was locked.