Fiction Vortex - February 2014 Read online

  Then it turned ugly.

  Light started to come from Fred10. But not his whole body, just the inside of his body. "Something’s wrong," he managed to say. Light started to pour from his eyes, from under his fingernails.

  Fred2 turned her back on 10 and grabbed Fred94’s hand. "You don’t want to see this. Come on."

  She led him down the hallway just as the screaming started.

  ~~~~~

  It took a full five minutes for the light to subside. Even standing outside, the three of them could hear the screams as Fred10’s body was torn apart from the inside.

  When it was all over, the three of them quietly went through the house, finding control units and pressing buttons, removing bodies and blood from this universe, sending them back to where they belonged.

  Fred10’s body was a nightmare. It looked as if it had been hollowed out from the inside. His chest was sunken, his limbs limp and drained of blood. His eyes were pure white and his mouth gaped open, a look of pain and horror on his lifeless face.

  "I can’t look at that," said Fred16, walking out again.

  Fred94 just stood there, staring. "What happened to him?"

  "I don’t know," said Fred2. "When he pressed the button, Fred22’s blood went back to its native universe."

  "That blood had been in his veins," Fred94 said, finishing her thought. The process had hollowed him out. He shuddered. "Should we clean that up, maybe bury him?"

  "I-I can’t," Fred2 replied. "I just can’t."

  Fred94 nodded. He couldn’t either, and Fred16 was obviously too squeamish to do it. In a few days, the neighbors would notice the smell and call the police. They would find Fred10 there in the bathtub, and it would be an local mystery for years to come.

  ~~~~~

  Fred opened his eyes.

  The process had hurt. Far more than he had expected. So much pain, and then so much light. He never expected it to end, but then ... it did. And he found himself home. Or close enough, anyway.

  He stood up and looked around. It was like his own kitchen, but different. Sitting on the floor, next to the refrigerator was an ugly silver box. This, Fred assumed, was the device connected to the control unit he held in his hand.

  His body showed no signs of the trauma it had been subjected to. Or any at all, come to think of it. He wasn’t sure how this was possible, but a childhood scar on his left shoulder was gone. And he felt ... great. Things made sense all of a sudden. He knew how the machine that had brought him here worked. How was that possible?

  He walked around the house, amazed. He had done it. He had actually done it. All that was left was to explore this new life of his.

  ~~~~~

  Fred94 went back to his universe. The others went with him to say goodbye, but there wasn’t much to say. He was happy to be home, and didn’t much care for company, even if they were all the same person, more or less.

  Fred sat at his kitchen table — his own kitchen table — drinking tea, staring at the ugly machine that had caused so much trouble. He had spent ten years of his life working on that machine, devoting every moment of his spare time to it. And it worked. But he didn't like what he had found.

  Fred resolved right then and there to dismantle it. His universe wasn’t a nexus — Fred2 had told him as much. He would devote himself to making his life in this dimension better. Maybe he wasn’t an engineer, but he had seen what his scientific mind was capable of, and it disturbed him.

  Let the other Freds explore the multiverse. This Fred was perfectly happy teaching math.

  ~~~~~

  A click and then the light flooded over him, a million little daggers of light.

  When the light dissipated, Fred found himself standing in the same kitchen as before, but where his had been filled with broken and discarded bits of machinery, this one appeared to be filled with actual, working appliances. Nice, high-end appliances, even. The clock read 9:45 PM, same as before, but this one was an antique pendulum clock, not his own wrought-iron model.

  "It worked!" Fred exclaimed. "It actually worked!" He was overjoyed. "I’m the first person to travel to a parallel universe!"

  "Not quite," said this universe’s version of himself, as he walked into the kitchen. He was smiling. "You’re far from the first, I’m afraid."

  "You mean—"

  "Oh yes, there are lots of us. So many that we call each other by numbers. That would make you Fred115."

  "Wow," said Fred, excited by the possibilities. "What number are you?"

  He held out his hand, smiling. "I’m Fred10. It’s a pleasure to meet you."

  ~~~~~

  ~~~~~

  Jason X. Bergman has worked in the video game industry for a very long time, acting as producer on games such as Bioshock, the Sid Meier’s Civilization series, and Fallout: New Vegas. He is currently at work on The Evil Within, which will be released in 2014. When he’s not working on games or spending time with his family, he can be found writing short stories or comic book scripts, the overwhelming majority of which will probably never see the light of day. He can be found on twitter at @jasonxbergman. For more information visit https://about.me/jasonxbergman.

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  Men Are Not Dragons

  by Stephen V. Ramey; published February 11, 2014

  Winner of the Editor's Choice Award, February 2014

  In a cave high above the kingdoms of man, the last dragon awaits a boy's awakening. Smells surround her: sulfur, humid tears, gas from a horse flank decomposing in her belly. Breath rumbles down her throat to return as smoke and a rain of fine ash.

  Where am I? The voice is weak and so very young.

  Her throat clenches. Overlapping scales rasp the sword wedged into the base of her neck. She feels pain.

  Why am I here? Why is it dark?

  "You are inside my mind," she says. "Inside me." She swings her head around. The boy's hair, once long and golden, is a forest of dark stubble against crisped black flesh. Fluids glisten. Teeth show a defiant smile through shredded lips. Near an outstretched arm, embers peer from the charred-wood crevices of a torch. His jerkin is mostly ash.

  That's not me!

  It feels as if the sword has leapt forward and pierced her heart. More smells, burning flesh, fresh dung, a pool of urine. She never liked to kill.

  You want to confuse me so I can't push the sword. You want me to think—

  "Go," she whispers, and some hidden part of her mind closes down. He will be terrified, alone, but she cannot bear more. If she were to squeeze harder, the boy would pop out of her like the bones of a digested meal. But she cannot do that. He would do it easily enough had their roles been reversed, but he is man, and men are not dragons. They do not see past themselves.

  She searches the sky beyond the ledge for the twinkling departed souls of her kind, but daylight masks even the brightest dragon flame. Men never see the dragon souls. Their world is the sun and moon and trampled earth, a place to conquer. She closes her eyes. Where will her flame fit into that tapestry?

  ~~~~~

  One Day

  She crawls to the cave opening. At one edge, water trickles, becoming a gentle spray that evaporates before it hits the ground. When first she inhabited this cave, the stream was more significant, the waterfall real, and she sometimes watched rainbows fringe its sparkling spray. Now, to look down is to see man's domain, the sprawl of his houses and agriculture.

  A bird feeds her young in a nest tucked between rocks. The chicks are so scruffy, their eyes and beaks too large for tiny heads, their cries far louder than seems possible.

  The dragon opens her mind the tiniest crack. You're dead, beast, the boy screams. That was no ordinary sword, but a heart-seeker. Each time you bump it, every time you flex muscles, it will dig deeper until you die.

  "It is unfortunate," she says, "that you will die with me." One so young should not have to die.

  Death is nothing to a brave man.

  "Light is nothing to
the blind, but it is everything to those who see."

  The boy's movements cease. He does not speak. Perhaps she has been cruel. Far below, men march through fields of brown and black. Armor glints. Smoke lifts from a hundred smoldering huts. Does their warfare never end? Do they never give up their anger? In her mind, each hut becomes a dragon's carcass.

  ~~~~~

  One Week

  Hunger growls through the dragon's belly and reverberates in her hollow bones. Today, she will feed. With a massive shove from her haunches, she leaps into the sky.

  The wound screams through her chest. She plummets dangerously. It is all she can do to catch an updraft. She has tried removing the sword, but her short arms are clumsy and the blade wedged too deep.

  Warmth flows from the back of her mind. What are you doing?

  "I must hunt."

  Why? You'll be dead soon and everyone will know that I have slain you.

  The dragon focuses on a stone spire to the east. Blue and green banners wave above the highest tower.

  That's where I live. A shudder. Lived. My father was captain of the guard until Lord Samler had him murdered.

  The dragon alters course for the castle. The moat is clotted with green-blue scum. The drawbridge hangs crookedly. Between the moat and the pocked wall, boys play with wooden swords while girls watch.

  The dragon feels the boy's longing. If only she had been awake when he came to slay her. Instead, he sneaked in while she slept, rammed the blade into her chest, and she breathed by reflex.

  If you have the power to trap me, the boy says, you must have the power to release. I don't belong to you. My family has been free mercenary for a dozen generations. My name is Alvin Sharpstone.

  "Names are man-things," the dragon says. She spies a dust cloud. A solid stream of horseflesh flows toward a canyon. Along its fringe, men on horseback raise whips. Whistles pierce the air.

  Men stampede wild horses when they kill too many of their own at war. Many will die in the crush, but plenty will remain. It is a short-sighted outlook that annoys the dragon. She feels the boy watching through her eyes, breathing in her mind.

  The dragon descends toward a gray mare that has fallen. Whinnies echo. The men on horseback do not bother with her.

  The dragon lands. With a quick thrust, she severs arteries in the mare's neck and tears the head apart from the body. She settles back to feed.

  Dismay emanates from the boy. You're a carrion crow.

  "I could land in one of your cities," she says. "I could burn buildings and kill numbers of your people, and feast on the tender meat of your women. Would this quench hunger better than a horse that goes willingly?"

  No, but—

  "But what? I have fed and I have ended misery. Not every act need be a conquest."

  ~~~~~

  One Month

  The dragon's slumber is disrupted by a rustling sound. Her eyes open. The boy in her head is already awake.

  Somebody's coming to kill you, and then I'll be free.

  "To do what?" the dragon says. "Do you know what exists after this life? Dragons take flight beyond the world, but where will you go? Your death will be as black and blank as your perception of the night sky."

  Mother told me I would go to Father. He loved me. You wouldn't know about love.

  The dragon remembers her mother stroking her scales, regurgitating meat, teaching her the things she would need to understand. Except man. Man had barely organized his tribes then. Her mother could not have known what waited.

  A scuffling echo sounds. The dragon tenses. She stares at an opening where two stones lean together to form a triangle.

  The boy laughs coldly. You're about to die.

  "'s me, Lord Dragon," a reedy voice calls. "It's harmless Gred." The man who comes in is nearly bald. He squints constantly, his mouth a pink line between black whiskers. His clothes are finely tailored, but soiled and torn. "I've come to tidy up." He holds a sack in one hand.

  What is this? He's one of Samler's men.

  The dragon snorts ash. She has no love for this stringy man, but needs him. His greed keeps others from investigating her caves.

  Gred extracts kerchiefs from the sack. The dragon flicks a few scales from her side. Their iridescence sends flashes spinning across the ceiling. Gred scurries around, grabbing scales up, shrouding each in a separate cloth. His eyes settle on the sword embedded in the dragon's chest. "I might be able to help you with that, Lord Dragon."

  No! the boy shouts. He means to steal my claim. A taste worse than soot fills the dragon's mouth. Does the boy think her stupid? She knows better than to trust a man, especially one that would profit greatly from her death.

  "Approach me, and you will die," she growls into the cavern. The boy relaxes. The dragon is glad that he does not wish to die despite his bluster, but saddened that her wound makes her less able to protect him. The boy is to blame, she reminds herself. The argument is unconvincing. It was her breath, her reaction that led to this.

  Gred slings scales over one shoulder and hurries away. He trips at the entrance and sprawls into the outer corridor. Curses echo.

  The dragon laughs softly. She feels the boy laughing too. For a moment they are connected, and her loneliness lifts like rainfall evaporating in a shaft of sunlight.

  ~~~~~

  One Year

  Dragon? The boy's voice increases in volume. Dragon.

  She opens one eye.

  Someone approaches.

  "I am weary," the dragon says. Her chest aches constantly. The sword barely protrudes and sometimes there is blood in her mouth. "It must be the man called Gred." She closes her eye.

  No, the boy says. Gred comes in the morning. It's night now. Look at the sky.

  And she does gaze through the cavern's maw, not because the boy has asked, but because there are memories there. She recalls a springtime when every dragon within calling joined her in flight. In her mind she soars higher than ever, so high the lack of oxygen brings giddiness, and her fire-breath will not stay ignited beyond her lips. Dragon flame streaks the skies, thousands of fiery emissions, too many to count.

  Someone is coming to slay you.

  She would rather sleep. Grunting, she settles her chin onto the floor. Moonlight touches the cave opening, but the moon is too high to see and the rest of the sky is a uniform black. She blinks. It must be the boy. She's seeing through his empty perspective. No wonder men cling to life. But why do they kill each other? It is a riddle beyond her ken.

  Footsteps echo. Metal clanks, a sword is unsheathed. A new worry percolates deep within the dragon. Perhaps it is not the boy who cannot see, but her kind that sees what is truly not there. Could she have imagined all those souls?

  Rouse yourself, the boy says. They'll kill us. She forces her eyes to open. She owes something to this boy, however different their perspectives.

  A deep breath to get things started. Liquid from the organ beside her liver drips into her air stream. Bone chips and powder from her crop join the mix, and she works the bellows that are her lungs. Flame erupts from mouth and nostrils, a billowing heat that brings a warm orange glow to the cavern. In this moment she imagines her freedom from responsibility, her domination of world and man.

  Beyond the archway, shreds of moss flicker. Someone says, "God's Dung!" A pounding, the clatter of armor shifting.

  Why aren't they running? the boy says.

  "Shall I give them another chance?" The dragon is fully awake now, rising to the task at hand. Of course, she will not let these men kill her.

  A keg bounces from one of the tilted rocks, hits the floor, and falls upon its side. Black powder leaks.

  The dragon breathes in. Liquid drips.

  Wait! Her neck swivels without her will, against her will. It will explode if you breathe now.

  A chill goes through the dragon. The boy has taken control. Her neck stretches to its limit, her jaws open, her teeth clamp around the keg. Powder leeches into her saliva, a
very bitter taste. Her body twists and flings the foreign item through the cave opening. The boy releases her. She breathes a concentrated flame.

  Explosion fills the cave. Even through ear flaps clamped tight the noise invades with the force of a storm. Heat buffets her. The sky comes alive with streaking lights. For an instant she sees dragons.

  They're beautiful, the boy says. A sudden fondness dulls the ache in the dragon's chest. For the first time in a very long time she feels love.

  A mustached face appears between the leaning stones. "It's still alive," the man says.

  "I told you this wouldn't work." The face pulls away. Echoing footsteps recede.

  ~~~~~

  One Decade

  The dragon awakes in the boy's dream. This happens occasionally now that their lives are intertwined. In his dream, he plays at swords with another boy larger than him, but slower in his reflexes. A girl with crinkled brown hair and wide green eyes smiles when she sees him looking. A feeling like dragon flame pushing through his gullet fills him.

  "Did you lie with her?" the dragon says. The experience crumbles. She feels a chill. Since she has had to rely on the man called Gred to supply food, her scales have been disappearing at an alarming rate. One flank is gray skin now, the other nearly as barren. What will he do when she has no more scales to pay?

  What? the boy says groggily. He is a man now, but she cannot think of him as other than a boy.

  "The girl in your dream? Did you lie with her? Did you procreate?"

  I don't wish to speak of it. The boy's voice is wistful and solemn.

  The dragon's thoughts drift to her first mating, the blue-scaled male's neck twining hers, his musky scent filling her with lust. Then later, eggs heavy in her belly. She never knew if they were fertile. As they had agreed, flame consumed them before the first sign of life.

  ~~~~~

  One Lifetime

  So, dragons have kingdoms too? The voice has focused over the years. Now it is an itch she wishes she could summon the strength to scratch. More and more often his voice is all that brings her back from her dreams.

  Like men, he says. Kingdoms just like men.

  The dragon feels a pinch of irritation. "Not like men," she says. "Territories. We forage an area large enough to sustain us, and that is all." It seems to her they have already had this conversation.