L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35 Read online

  I thought I was dreaming when I opened my eyes to see a blurry figure wreathed in light. He bent over me, long hair brushing my face, and asked me if I knew him. I nodded. I did know him, though only from afar. He was Shae, our magus, the vessel of the gods. He replied softly that he knew me too. Then he told me he was going to take me away.

  “To the Afterworld?” I asked—or something to that effect. And he laughed the most delighted, silken laugh. I recall being unsure if he would be able to lift me; he was so slight. But he did so with ease, letting my soiled blankets slide to the floor and bearing me out into the cold daylight in only my nightshirt. My eyes watered in the sunlight, so my family’s tent blurred as I took my last look at it over his shoulder. And then, all at once, it burst into flames.

  I cried out, only half sure the flames were real—they wavered and danced so phantasmically. Names spilled from my lips—those of the people we’d left inside—though now I cannot recall them. Shae murmured something meaningless and calming, holding me firmly as I struggled. And as we departed, I saw that all the tents around us were burning. The air shimmered, flakes of ash gathered in Shae’s long hair, and for the first time in ages, I felt warm.

  Illustration by Alexander Gustafson

  We did not go to the Afterworld. When I came to myself, I was buried in soft furs and the air was sweet with wood smoke. The canvas that arched overhead glowed softly in the afternoon sunlight. My body felt languid, boneless, and my mind was pleasantly muddled. I would have described the feeling as drunkenness had I been old enough to enjoy the pleasures of wine.

  Voices reached me faintly from outside, rising and falling in a lulling manner. It took me some time to identify one of them as Shae’s and to realize that he was angry.

  “I have done my duty. The north side of the camp is cinders.”

  “Your duty was to eliminate the plague. Not to bring it into our midst.” This voice, I did not know.

  “I knew when I saw him that the child would live.”

  “And what is to be done with him now? No family will take a child of plague.”

  “He will stay with me.” The words were cool and placid, but for the taut silence that followed, he might have shouted them.

  When the man—I was sure it was a man—spoke again, his voice was thick and pent. “You think that is wise?”

  “It is not your concern whom I share my home with, Councilor. Now I ask that you leave me be.”

  There was another fraught pause, and then the man—who I now suspected was Councilor Glenn—uttered stiff departing words, which Shae politely returned. I lifted my head as the dim tent was briefly flooded with light and then darkened again as the door flap fell back into place. Shae’s slender figure approached me, and as he passed the fire pit in the center of the room, the flames within sprang brightly to life, illuminating rich carpets and polished wood furnishings the likes of which I’d never seen.

  It frightened me to see the fire flare so suddenly. I buried my face in the luxuriant furs. But my fear flickered out as I felt him settle beside me, replaced by curiosity. He smiled as I peeped at him, and the effect was truly startling. He had a face like no other: smooth, sculpted, and ageless. Tawny skin and ink-black hair that fell in a rippling curtain to his waist. And when the light caught his eyes, they were jeweled amber.

  “I suppose you heard all that,” he said. His voice made me think of clear water. “But I don’t want you to worry. You are my ward now, and no one can take you away from me.”

  “Ward,” I repeated the strange word, pleased by the way it rolled out of my mouth.

  “It means you are under my protection.” Smiles came to him so easily; it was as though his face were made for them.

  But, overwhelmed by the strangeness of my new surroundings, I could not share his joy. Turning my face back into the furs, I whispered that I wanted to go home. He answered calmly that I was home, and I started to quietly cry. He stayed beside me until I hiccupped myself into silence. Then he asked me if I wanted something to eat. I sat up and nodded, suddenly ravenous. I never asked to leave again.

  The following days passed, dreamlike. The sweet, heavy wood smoke made me sleepy and the tea Shae brewed for me, thick with honey, made me feel light and dizzy in a not-unpleasant way. It would take me time to grow accustomed to this muddled state of being that I would soon learn was simply the way Shae lived. It would take me time also to adapt to the luxury, the softness, and the warmth. I had lived a harsh life before coming here, though the details of it were fading fast. Sometimes, I was woken by terrible nightmares in which faceless people called my name and reached for me with skeletal hands, black with ash. But he was always there, a quiet presence in the dark, and his soft, even breaths would lull me back to sleep.

  He bathed me in warm water and patiently trimmed the mats out of my hair. He clothed me in his spare garments at first, which were long and silken and trailed behind me on the floor when I walked. He laughed to see me stumble about and promised to have proper-fitting clothes made for me. One day, a woman came to measure my arms, legs, and torso, though she didn’t look me in the eye or touch me directly. She murmured something strange and stomped in a hurried circle before entering and leaving the tent.

  “Superstition,” Shae said when I looked at him questioningly. I did not know this word, so he went on, “She believes that you have cheated death, so death will forever seek to claim you. She believes that this curse may cleave to her if she comes too close. She asks for the gods’ protection.”

  “And will the gods protect her?” I asked.

  He shot me a conspiratorial look. “The gods do not entertain such foolishness.”

  “Then I am not cursed?” I pressed with a cautious hope.

  “No,” he replied, placing a warm hand atop my cropped curls. “You will live a long life and you will never suffer sickness again. But it will take others some time to see that. You must be patient with them.”

  I nodded, forever anxious to please him. When the clothes arrived, they were perfectly fitted and made of the richest fabrics I had ever felt. There were soft underthings, thick tunics for winter and lighter ones for summer, trousers and leggings, and fur-trimmed cloaks. There were boots as well, of supple deerskin, and leather belts with pouches for keeping whatever trinkets a child might wish to keep. Shae watched with quiet delight as I marveled over it all—I could tell by the way his eyes danced. They were like crystallized honey, enchanting.

  “You will never want for anything again,” he told me, snatching the finest of the fur-lined cloaks and swirling it around my shoulders.

  “Where does it all come from?” I asked, clutching the thick fabric around me. I meant not only the clothes, but all the wonders the large and beautiful tent contained. And I truly asked not where, but why—why were these things here and nowhere else?

  “It is gifted to me in return for the service I offer the clan,” he answered.

  “But I thought you served the gods,” I said. With my returning health, my questions had grown bolder.

  He smiled that secret smile that made me feel privy to something I didn’t understand. “I am a magus. I serve all but myself.”

  Often, his answers confused more than they clarified. Of magi, I knew only what every child knows. Magi were granted power by the gods. This power they used to protect and guide the clans. Each clan had only one magus, and he or she was regarded with honor. Shae’s name had forever been spoken with reverence in my hearing. Though it was true he possessed the power to call or quell storms, to spark fire from nothing, to summon and ward off sickness, to control animals, and to foretell the future, he was not to be feared. Magi were benevolent and wise beyond measure. This was all children needed to know.

  But I was no longer an ordinary child. I was ward to a magus, and I wanted to know more. “Is it true they share your body?” I asked him. “The gods?”


  He appeared surprised, but not displeased by my forwardness. It was a look I would come to know well—the sort one might give a small animal if it suddenly spoke. As time went on, I would come to suspect that he knew very little of children and had expected something far tamer than the whirlwind I turned out to be.

  “In a sense,” he replied with that unshakable steadiness. “But it would be truer to say that they are me. The gods and I are one.”

  “Then when I speak with you, I am speaking with the gods?” I uttered, awestruck for an instant.

  “No,” he chuckled. “The gods do not speak. They do not need to.”

  “Oh.” I was relieved; it had perturbed me to think I might be plaguing an ancient divinity day in and day out with childish chatter.

  “They listen though,” he amended, watching my face. “Not to your words, but to your heart. And they know when the two do not align.”

  I received this not with the shock he clearly expected, but rather with skepticism, for it seemed to me a very adult thing to say. “Are you only saying that so I won’t lie to you?”

  His face, I thought, took on a special sort of prettiness when he was caught off guard. All at once, he broke down laughing and grabbed me and tumbled me to the floor, where all my lovely new clothes lay strewn about, and rolled me around in them until I was breathless with giggles.

  “You’d better not lie to me, Noch,” he scolded, collapsing beside me at last. His hair had come loose from its binding to cascade over his shoulders. “I’ll always tell you the truth.”

  I peered at him from beneath the cloak that had enveloped me. “I won’t lie,” I promised, and I meant it. Inside, I felt a spreading warmth like the sort one feels after a sip of whiskey. At the time, I did not recognize it as love, but as comfort, kinship, and the feel of home, which I suppose are not all that different.

  No matter how sharp my tongue became, he was gentle with me. I tested him sometimes, as children are wont to do, but he met every challenge with unwavering kindness. He regarded me, it seemed, with the same cautious wonder any new parent might feel for their delicate and mysterious offspring. But I grew strong again quickly under his doting care, and soon my stunned complacency was overtaken by restlessness. I questioned him incessantly, maddened by his secret smiles and careful replies. I began to slip off when his back was turned to wander the nearby lakeshore and woods. I always returned before I might give him cause to worry, though. Privately, I dreaded disappointing him.

  The rest of the clan avoided me as a rule. When people passed me, they averted their eyes and hurried their step. Occasionally, I spotted children peeping at me from the safety of their doorways. I pretended not to notice, but my skin prickled with shame. Shae said it would pass; people would forget. People forgot everything in the end, he told me. Even things that had once been insurmountably important. I knew he was right, because when I tried to remember my life before Shae, I was met with a gray blur and a dull ache that I couldn’t place.

  For months on end, we were left entirely alone—except for the people who brought food, drink, and whatever other comforts Shae could think to ask for. But this was not to last forever. One morning, I woke to hear again the stern, disagreeable tone of Councilor Glenn outside our door.

  “Don’t you think this has gone on long enough? You’ve made your point, had your small rebellion. Now, for pity’s sake, put an end to it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Shae replied unassumingly, his voice like cool grass to the councilor’s gravel. “Caring for a child isn’t something one can simply ‘end.’”

  “Give him to someone else—they will take him if you insist.”

  “It does a child no good to be shunted from caregiver to caregiver.”

  “It does a child no good to be raised in a home shadowed by death and enchantment by a caregiver with one foot in this world and the other in the next!”

  A short silence followed that for some reason made my heart race. When Shae spoke again, his voice dropped to near inaudibility. “I assure you this place is no more shadowed by death than your Elders’ Lodge where death warrants are signed, stamped, and sealed.”

  The conversation ended abruptly, and I had to quickly feign sleep as Shae burst inside. I waited until he had stopped his pacing and settled down near me to cautiously raise my head.

  “Why does he want you to send me away?”

  He shot me a wearied look. “Why aren’t you ever asleep when you ought to be?”

  I kept quiet, knowing he would answer me sooner or later.

  Finally, he sighed and said, “He still thinks of me as a child. I suppose he thinks I’m unfit to care for my own. It comes as no surprise—the Council and I have never seen eye to eye.”

  Watching his face, it dawned on me that Shae was quite young. Up until now, I had simply categorized him as an adult. It had never occurred to me that his quietude and eternal patience might make him seem older than he was.

  “Like you, I was left parentless very young,” he said after a moment. “I had the Council, the occasional caretaker, and all the luxuries a child could want. But no one to call my own. I suppose that’s why I brought you here. It’s selfish, really. I’m sure someone else could give you a better life.”

  My eyes must have widened in alarm because he smiled and added, “Don’t worry. I don’t intend to let you go. I think even a magus deserves one selfish act in his lifetime.”

  I allowed this to comfort me for only a moment. “But won’t it cause trouble? Defying the Council like this?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. But they’ll let it go eventually, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my duties.”

  I reflected on this and quickly realized that I had never seen Shae do much of anything. “What duties?”

  He laughed self-consciously and said, “The ones I’ve been neglecting.”

  I gave my best stern look, but he poked his tongue out at me and my efforts were dissolved. “You’d better start setting a better example. Or I’ll grow up to be lazy like you.”

  He sighed. “If you say so. But if you knew how dull Council meetings can be, you’d have more sympathy for me.”

  “It’s no good feeling sorry for yourself,” I declared, perhaps echoing a mother or father I’d forgotten.

  He gave me that pretty, startled look. “I thought children were supposed to be fun.”

  He started to attend Council meetings after that. Sometimes, he would be gone all day. I didn’t mind the solitude at first. I relished the small freedoms it offered. But after a while, I began to miss him—especially at night when the fire cast shadows and my dreams crept up on me. It was always a relief to wake and find him soundly asleep beside me. The Council meetings made him unhappy, I knew, though he never told me much about them. If I ever asked, he would sigh and say he didn’t want to think about it; let’s play a game, let’s roast chestnuts, let’s go outside and count the stars. I stopped asking, but I didn’t stop wondering.

  It turned out he was right about people forgetting; slowly but surely my exile ended. Soon, people looked at me and saw only a child—if a mysterious and well-dressed one. Others my age no longer watched me from afar but began to trail after me in groups. Now and then, they called out questions: “Is it true you live with Shae?” “Is he your brother?” “What’s he like?” I started to make up stories of fantastic magic I had seen: beasts of flame and shadow, feasts produced from thin air, and whatever else my wild imagination could conjure. Before long, I had friends, though part of me would always remember when all the clan had turned their backs except for him.

  So, the years began to pass in comfort and strangeness, and I grew up as any child of a small, secluded clan might—despite sharing a home with the gods. Shae went about his duties as magus, which he kept largely private from me. In fact, I believe he told me nothing of his dealings with the Council, except to c
omplain of their dullness, until I was around the age of sixteen.

  “There is war in the South,” he informed me over dinner, after returning from the Elders’ Lodge one night. “Beyond the realm of the clans. Its refugees are moving northward.”

  I stopped chewing and stared at him, startled by his sudden forthrightness and baffled by such foreign concepts as war, refugees, and a land beyond ours.

  “They are not a warlike folk,” he went on, “but they are hungry and desperate. There has been some thievery and violence. Far away from here. But they will keep coming north.”

  “Will the clans not offer them shelter?” I asked, having swallowed my mouthful at last.

  “Some will,” he answered. “Some will not. A few newcomers is one thing—many is another. They carry with them new beliefs, new ways of living. Any clan that accepts them is bound to find itself changed.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” I pressed, watching his face. He gave me a small, weary smile. He was always tired after dealing with the Council.

  “It depends,” he replied enigmatically, and I got the feeling his short burst of honesty was drawing to a close.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I demanded before he could retreat completely.

  “Because if change comes—good or bad—I don’t want it to catch you by surprise,” he said with an air of finality. “Now, let’s talk about something else. Who was the girl you had here the other day?”

  I averted my eyes, chagrined. “She only wanted to see the place. She was more curious about you than me, really.”

  He lifted his brows at me skeptically. “Well, if you’re going to give out private tours, at least give me fair warning next time. Perhaps I could put on a magic show.”

  I snorted and returned to my dinner, hoping he would drop the matter. He did and retired early, leaving me to see to the dishes. When the fire burned low, I crawled into bed and watched the light play on the screen that divided his bed from mine. It was a pretty and delicate thing of paper—a common furnishing in households that valued a small measure of privacy. I had despised it at first. For the first month we slept apart, I had stubbornly crept into his bed nearly every night. He never sent me away, but at some point, I stopped of my own accord. With age had come distance. But the sound of his breathing still lulled me to sleep.