2014 Campbellian Anthology

by Various

  With Morris out, I had to acknowledge a pair of unpleasant facts: First, Morris may have been an overpaid PR gimmick, but he was still a better scorer than anyone else we had at power forward. When our offense fell off, Coach asked me to pick up Morris’ slack. Flattering, really, except for unpleasant fact number two: The NBA may have ignored me, but I didn’t escape our opponents’ notice. I saw a lot more double teams and my production dropped. After four years, it finally dawned on me there was a reason I wasn’t playing in the NBA. So even by sitting the bench, Morris made me look bad.

  I was almost glad when Mr. Sidorov forced Morris back into the lineup. Mr. Sidorov wasn’t happy that his investment in the “great NBA star” wasn’t panning out. With five games left in the season, Morris was back in the lineup even though the guy could barely stand up. I have to give him credit, Morris actually looked like he was trying. But that only made the way he hobbled down the court and massaged (or was it scratched?) his sore feet during timeouts more painful to watch. He got called for a three-second violation once, and I seriously think it was because he physically couldn’t move across the free-throw lane in less than three seconds.

  After ten minutes, he collapsed, and I think everyone in the arena was relieved he was out of the game. When he got to the bench, Morris looked like he was trying to tear through his sneakers. He planted the heel of his right sneaker onto the top of his left and ground it back and forth. Morris’ substitute came in and played well enough for us to eek out a two-point victory.

  I asked the trainer the next day what was up with Morris. He said LaWilliam refused to see him. The next time I saw Morris he was on crutches. He favored his left foot, but the way he walked I could tell his right foot didn’t feel so hot, either. Mr. Sidorov, desperate to get some return for the money he’d paid Morris, mandated that Morris attend all games and practices to sign autographs. The autograph lines inevitably thinned themselves out, though, when Morris spent more time scratching at his foot with his pen than talking to fans.

  It was the last game of the season. If we won, we’d go to the playoffs. If not, our season would end and I could go back to America, so it was win-win for me.

  I stomped into the locker room, looking for Morris. I wanted him to watch me dump the contents of his bag, piece by piece, into the trash. Hey, he’d stolen my dignity. What honor did I have to lose by kicking a guy when he was down? And if I was lucky, Mr. Sidorov wouldn’t want to sign me next season.

  I couldn’t find Morris anywhere. He’d ruined my season, possibly my career and certainly my love of the game, so it was only natural he’d try to ruin my half-assed revenge, too. He must have known I’d do something like this.

  I lugged his stinky bag around with me. I think the smell was starting to get into my clothes. That was okay, I planned on burning them, along with my jersey, after the season anyway.

  After wandering the arena for fifteen minutes I’d decided on smashing his stupid bag over his head. Then throwing each of his rank shoes at his fat head. When I found Morris in a stairwell, crying, I knew I’d do none of those things.

  “Morris?”

  He made no effort to hide his tears, which made me uncomfortable. After basing his entire career on a tough-guy persona, he had no business crying anywhere but a funeral.

  Morris kept bawling another minute before he said anything. “It itches so bad.” Sniff. “I just wanted to play ball, I didn’t want money, I just wanted to play ball.”

  I knew Mr. Sidorov paid Morris more than double what he paid me, so Morris’ idea of not playing for the money rang hollow. But watching him cry was worse than any salary difference.

  “What’s wrong, man? Talk to me.” I tried to force some compassion into my voice.

  “God, it itches so bad. Whatever you do, don’t take my shoes off, no matter how hard I ask you,” he said.

  This must have been the first time that sentence had ever been uttered by a human being. It also marked the first time I’d ever had an impulse to remove another male’s footwear. “Dude, what’s wrong with your feet? Do you need a doctor?”

  “Yes!” he said. “Yes. I need a doctor. An American doctor. These trainers and Russian doctors don’t know shit!”

  “Well, go get one.”

  “I can’t go back. I owe a million bucks in child support. I got nothing if I go back.”

  “So why don’t you—ugh, just let me see,” I said, stooping to grab his shoe.

  “No!” He grabbed my hand. His nails were caked with what looked like grey modeling clay. They stunk like his shoes. I jerked my hand away. Beads of the clay-like stuff clung to my skin. I wiped them on my jeans, but that only smeared the stuff.

  “What the hell is wrong with your feet, man?” I started untying his shoes. He moaned the way a girl does when you slide off her panties, which really didn’t help my comfort level.

  I pulled the size-fifteen shoe off. The smell made me gag and turn away. When I looked again, Morris was scratching furiously at his… well, foot didn’t describe it, but there was certainly nothing else it could be.

  His sock just hung there, at about the midway point of the foot. The front half of the foot was… well, gone.

  When you’re an athlete you see lots of injuries—finger dislocations, broken bones—so gore doesn’t bother me, but this gave me the creeps. I touched his sock to yank it off. It swung loosely as it dangled from his foot, a small weight at the bottom of it, like marbles. I jerked my hand away again. I forced myself to grab hold of the sock and yank it off.

  Half of Morris’ foot was gone. Like a block of cheddar cheese that had been grated down to a stump. The half that remained resembled the grey modeling clay on Morris’ fingers. Red and white lumps stuck out here and there—bone and blood vessels, I thought a moment later. Dissolved into the mush of his foot.

  While I gawked at the grey stump on the end of his ankle, Morris wasn’t sitting still. He scratched and clawed at his foot like an ant colony had set up shop inside. On his face was a look of sublime ecstasy.

  “Stop doing that!” I told him. I tried to grab his hands and stop the scratching, but he nearly clawed my skin off. I saw some of my own blood on his fingers, the red popping against the grey blotches around his cuticles.

  Morris resumed scratching. “It feels like five blowjobs at once,” he said. How the hell do you respond to that?

  Without a word I stood, turned and walked away.

  “Don’t leave me, rook!”

  I kept walking.

  “Tyler!” he said.

  I found the nearest bathroom and began scrubbing my hands. All I could think of was Morris’ rotting skin festering in the wounds he’d opened in my hand. This place didn’t have soap dispensers, just regular old bars of soap. I lathered it down to half its original size. I ran the water as hot as it would go. When I’d finished I had blisters on my fingers. They hurt like hell. At least they didn’t itch.

  I showed Coach my blistered fingers and told him I couldn’t play. He swore at me in Russian. I didn’t understand most of what he said, which was nice. I got my bags, walked outside, and got a cab back to my apartment. I booked a flight online, packed everything I could carry in my suitcase, took another cab to the airport. I didn’t sleep until my flight for America left nine hours later.

  So to sum up: Morris definitely didn’t lose his legs in a car wreck.

  As for me, you won’t see my face on an ESPN puff piece. These days I’m a first-year math teacher and an assistant basketball coach at my old high school in Jacksonville. I’ve officially given up the dream. Yeah, I miss it sometimes. But it’s nice going to bed in the same city every night. Of course, not living in hotels means cleaning my own shower, which I do every day.

  Another nice thing about teaching—summer break. In June I’m hitting the beach. I could use a little sun. My skin looks kinda pale—almost grey.

  Max Gladstone became eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer with the publication of Th
ree Parts Dead (2012), from Tor; he was also a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer on the 2013 Hugo/Campbell ballot.

  Visit his website at www.maxgladstone.com.

  * * *

  Short Story: “Drona’s Death” ••••

  DRONA’S DEATH

  by Max Gladstone

  First published in XO Orpheus (2013), edited by Kate Bernheimer

  • • • •

  WAR RAGES ON, and Drona is its heart.

  Some songs tell of good wars, kind wars, wars where, when the fighting’s over, you sit alone in the woods and breathe and think, this was good, this thing I’ve done. I have saved lives, I have served my king, I am the man I always hoped to be. Drona’s heard these songs; he’s never seen the wars they mean.

  This war has lasted fifteen days. Not long, but vicious. Mountains lie broken to shards by warriors’ wrath. No war has been this great since the first one, which gods and demons fought in mortal guise. Cleaner, Drona thinks as he draws his bow. Safer. Gods and demons, each knows the other an enemy. This is war between men, between brothers.

  The sun stands one fist’s distance above the eastern horizon. Cries of dead and dying men and elephants, screams of horses and of tortured metal, fill the heavy air. Fifteen days ago there was a jungle here. Now patches of forest stand like tombstones on a blasted heath. There is no word for the world the war has made.

  The sun is one fist’s distance above the eastern horizon, and already Drona has killed ten thousand men. He looses an arrow, and a mountain fortress breaks like glass. He feels the men there die. Ten thousand fifty seven.

  Two miles away a Pandava chariot swoops low over one of the many wings of the army Drona leads. In the chariot’s wake fire spreads, burning men and fortifications that belong to Drona’s King. Skin flakes and crisps and peels from flesh. Men stagger under that fire as under a weight. A boy runs from the carnage and flame, swift, bearing bow and arrows with him. Brave. No deserter.

  Drona looks on the chariot, and sees his student, Arjuna, standing behind the driver. Hair dark as a night without moon, eyes flashing golden and white with the lightning caged inside his body. Arjuna laughs, and Drona remembers the way he laughed as a boy, remembers the day Drona taught him to kneel, to draw sight on a flying eagle, to loose and fix the bird through its eye.

  Drona knows he should loose his arrow and kill Arjuna. This is a war between brothers, and brothers die in war.

  The stumbling boy turns, knocks arrow, draws and aims at Arjuna’s chariot overhead. But Drona did not train fools, or blind men.

  Arjuna has seen the boy. Smooth as poured water, he draws his bow.

  Drona could kill him now. Or not. There is a privacy in being the greatest warrior in the world: no one knows your limits. Drona need only kill someone else, somewhere else: any of the chariots dealing death over the battlefield, any of the elephants or tank divisions. His masters might say: “You should have killed Arjuna.” But his masters are not him, and when he strokes his mustache and says, “There were better targets,” who will know if he lies?

  Drona himself would know.

  He scans the battlefield for an alternative, and tries not to think about the boy he’s leaving to die.

  Arjuna changes target.

  Curious, Drona follows Arjuna’s new line of aim, adjusts for wind and the chariot’s speed, and sees, sword drawn on a broad broken field, surrounded by corpses of Pandava warriors, his own son. Ashwatthama, strong and tall. Ashwatthama, with his mother’s hair. Ashwatthama, whose sword runs red with blood, Ashwatthama, who has never stepped back from a fight, Ashwatthama, who can stun an elephant with a slap, Ashwatthama, who will die if Arjuna decides to kill him. Drona’s son has trained since youth, but Arjuna is a god’s child, and Drona’s finest pupil.

  Arjuna prepares to loose. Ashwatthama does not know he should prepare to die.

  Drona does not scream. He does not call out. Ashwatthama is miles away, and could not hear him if he did.

  Drona aims for the chariot, for Arjuna, for Arjuna’s eye, for the root of his optic nerve. The arrow will enter the young man’s brain and bounce within his skull, destroying that fine killer’s mind Drona wasted years training.

  Arjuna adjusts for wind, and his jaw clenches as it always does before he lets fly. A bad habit, Drona’s told him.

  Drona’s arrow springs free of the bow, and hungry. It shines as it flies. If you stood before Drona and looked into his eye you would see a mandala turning, in three dimensions, a palace, a universe in which God lies dreaming of this war.

  God is kind, Drona thinks, and cruel.

  Arjuna’s chariot turns faster than such chariots can turn. Light twists around it, and space. In his ear, Drona hears laughter and the tinkling of bells.

  The arrow strikes the chariot’s undercarriage, splinters its diamond armor, shatters its engines, slags its titanium shell. The carriage falls. Drona reaches out with his soul. He feels many spirits rise to the world above, but none of these belongs to Arjuna. Surely he would burn in death as in life, a beacon among hungry ghosts.

  A god has saved Arjuna. But his carriage is broken, and he will fight no more today.

  Ashwatthama is safe.

  And Drona will not be forced to lie.

  He smiles, and knows his smile sick. This thing he does is not glorious. That he saved his son without killing his student is an accident, no more, and it is strange to be glad of such an accidental pause from death.

  Drona is no philosopher. His world is bound by duty, and by the range of his bow.

  On the battlefield, the stumbling boy escapes into the wood, and is lost.

  Drona strides forward on air, draws his bow, and kills again.

  • • •

  War does not stop at day’s end, but changes. Scouts and sentries play their games of seek and find, with knives in place of flags. Sages ride the minds of birds to plot the next day’s raids. Holy men bless certain battlegrounds to hide their soldiers’ footsteps, or blunt the enemy’s weapons. Fighting continues by other means.

  The Pandava brothers and their advisors gather in the command tent. Two weeks ago, they prepared for this nightly meeting: they arrived shorn and bathed, hair and skin oiled, clad in fine silks and silver ornament, as befit their rank. Time has passed, and war has crept into their minds. Tonight they wear stark uniforms the colors of dust. Stubble grows on their cheeks and chins. They stink of fire, blood, and sweat.

  Still, Yudhisthira the eldest pours them tea. He is the wisest of men, and has never lied. When he walks, his feet do not touch the ground.

  Arjuna paces the tent. Since he learned to crawl he never could stay still. Like the storm his father, his life is movement. “Drona would have killed me.”

  “You sound,” says Bhima his brother, “as if you are surprised.” Bhima sits like a mountain. Ten days ago he began carrying his great mace with him into the council tent. They all bear their weapons with them now. Yudhisthira has seen that mace break open the earth’s crust, until lava flowed from the wound.

  Yudhisthira thinks he may be scared of his brothers.

  “We are at war,” Bhima says. “Drona is the finest fighter on the King’s side. Of course he will try to kill us. I am surprised he has not already.”

  “He shot at me.” Arjuna steps on the seat of his chair, steps down, turns away, circles the table. “Without warning.”

  “How do you know it was him?”

  “Would you like to see the chariot? I would show it to you, but I can’t, because the entire thing melted before it hit the ground.”

  “He is our teacher,” Yudhisthira says, and Bhima closes his mouth. “He is our teacher, and he is a servant of our enemy. He has not tried to kill us yet because he loves us. He tried to kill you today because he can no longer make excuses for not doing so. The war does not go well for his master the King.”

  “It does not go well for us,” says Dhristadyumna, their brother-in-law. The men who cannot fly
, who cannot call upon the gods for aid, who know no dharma weapons, no mantras, no deep magics, are under his command. “Four hundred thousand dead today. At least a third of those I lay at your teacher’s feet. More, if we count those he allowed his side to kill by suppressing our air support and artillery. He did not kill Arjuna, but he is slaughtering our men.”

  Arjuna and Bhima do not speak. Nakula and Sahadeva, their two youngest brothers, nod. Yudhisthira bows his head, and blows on his tea. Arjuna completes his circuit of the tent, sits in his chair, stands, turns the chair around, sits again. Yudhithira paces. Air cushions his feet. Warm wind blows over and through the dead jungle outside. “Nothing will grow here again,” Yudhisthira says, and because he says it, the others know it is the truth. “I have never seen a weapon like the one Drona used on us today. His arrows consumed the world where they fell, and they traveled faster than sunlight. Arjuna, have you ever seen the like?”

  Arjuna tilts his chair forward so its back rests on the table’s lip. “Drona told me once of a weapon used by God to right the world when it goes astray. No man can call upon it more than once and live. If Drona knew the secret, he never taught me. But I could feel his arrow’s strength when it consumed my chariot. If such a weapon exists, he turns it against us now.”

  “Could any power resist this weapon?”

  Arjuna stops drumming his fingers on the table. He sits as still as Bhima. He shakes his head.

  “With all respect, my princes, you are asking the wrong questions.” The voice is new. No one turns to look. They know the speaker, though he stands in shadow. He watches them all, calm, patient, smiling. Bells ring behind and beneath his voice. Krishna is dark and lustrous, as if a glacier-melt ocean rolls within him. Naked from the waist up, slender, a blade made man. Arjuna’s charioteer. A prince in his own right. Not to mention a god.