Each year, the intrepid writers who frequent SFFWorld.com’s Discussion Forum unite to create a collection of stories. Most years, N. E. White heads up the effort, and for 2016, she offered forum members several themes. A map-themed anthology edged out a shared-world anthology and we decided to open up submissions to non-forum members.
We had just about 80 submissions. For our little anthology, that was a landslide! Rob Bedford, Dag Rambraut, Andrew Leon Hudson, and N. E. White had the pleasure of reading through all those submissions. We then had the unsavory task of winnowing down the submissions to a selection of stories we thought spoke to the chosen theme, were entertaining, and exemplified a specific sub-genre of fantasy and science fiction.
In addition to these great stories, we have a special treat.
Lindsay Buroker, indie writer extraordinaire, agreed to offer an original story set in her popular Fallen Empire series. For her fans, Ms. Buroker’s story, Remnants, tells of Alisa Marchenko and Mica Copperfield’s very first meeting. The two Alliance soldiers are ensnared by a Seer’s artifact. Along with Alisa’s penchant for getting into trouble, the two have to figure out a way to stay alive.
This anthology charts eighteen worlds which are beautiful, frightening, alien, familiar – sometimes none of these, sometimes all. These stories cover every corner of the speculative map, featuring horror, science fiction, steampunk, high fantasy and more, in styles ranging from the literary and the lyrical to the pulpy and the thrilling.
We are proud to present this year’s anthology: You Are Here – Tales of Cartographic Wonders
Get your copy today!
We are offering a special introductory price of $2.99. For less than a cup of fancy coffee, you’ll get 18 great stories, over 100,000 words of excellent fiction.
Still not convinced? If you buy today, you’ll be helping out critters across the United States of America. Ms. Buroker graciously donated her writer’s fee to the Humane Society of the United States. We’ll also be donating all proceeds earned during this introductory period to the Humane Society. So don’t wait! Get your copy today before the price goes up and while you can help animals less fortunate than your pet.
Available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Kobo, and Smashwords.
But wait, there’s more!
One of our forum members is a very prolific writer. Not only can he whip out a story at a moment’s notice, we are partial to his humor. His story, Forward, a time-travel piece, appears in You Are Here, but the map-theme so inspired him, he wrote another story for us. We couldn’t resist.
We offer Igor Ljubuncic’s second story below. For free!
Enjoy.
A Tale of Guns and Goats and Velvet Coats
A short story by Igor Ljubuncic
“Follow Yellow Sick Toad,” Margot read.
“What?” Gustave frowned, straightening up.
“Stay still,” Margot chided, pushing him down.
She stared hard at the faded writing of the map pressed against his wide back, tracing the old ink with her gloved fingers, permanently smudged with dust. Realization suddenly struck her, and she followed the emotion with a solid slap to her forehead.
“Oh, it says Todd. Not Toad.”
Gustave stepped away from her and spun around. “What does that mean?”
Margot shrugged. “I don’t know, Gus.”
Gustave looked at the landscape as if seeing it for the first time. He was still getting used to being on solid ground again, his stomach protesting the lack of the seesaw motion of the ship. Those slow, rhythmic lurches had been his loyal companions for the last two months.
The richness of details stunned him. Everything looked so distinct, so vibrant. After half an eternity spent staring at the two endless strata of blue, divided by a sharp, unchanging line of madness, the chaos of the island made him dizzy and nervous.
Margot did not seem to share his plight. She was light-footed, eager to step off the shore and move inland, to wade through the gullies and hills toward the buried treasure.
Only now, the map didn’t really tell them where they should be going.
What—or who—the hell was Todd?
The island wasn’t big, but it was big enough to see a man embark on a fruitless treasure hunt for the rest of his life.
“You’ve always had an intuition for adventure,” he told her. “So pick a direction.”
Margot neatly folded the map and placed it in a waterproof pouch at the small of her back, right next to the ivory handles of her two revolvers. She rested her chin in the hook between her thumb and forefinger, thinking, squinting at the trees, the weed-bearded rocks, the gurgle of a nearby stream, lurking somewhere behind the ragged creases of an untouched land.
Margot pointed. “We will go there.”
Gustave did not argue. She was always right with her hunches.
He watched her take the lead, her somewhat boyish gait amusing, as ever. Then, she was carrying a lot of heavy gear in her pack and all about her hips, and that did not help accentuate her femininity.
Gustave sighed, removed a falchion from a sheath tied to his thigh, and joined his friend.
Less than a furlong from the beach, insects swarmed to his sticky skin. He found himself waving the blade furiously.
Margot snorted. “They won’t harm you.”
Gustave grimaced, trying to avoid snorting in the gnats. “How come they never accost you?”
He had hoped the salt and wind would make him unpalatable to mosquitoes and other pests. But it was only Margot who enjoyed the unexpected advantage of their ship’s inadequate sanitation.
“My blood is less sweet.” She leered.
A lady’s smile, but an adventurer’s mouth. Brawls, fistfights, punches given and received in narrow, dark alleys, harsh weather, bad food, and an odd incident with a donkey had left Margot with less than a full set of teeth.
Gustave still found her odd manners and her unconventional humor endearing.
He had never expected to befriend a female treasure hunter, especially not one raised in a manor house, with personal servants, silk napkins, and a thoroughbred pony that had been worth more than his little shop of charms, relics and stolen goods in Elkona. But luck and lunacy had brought them together, first as rivals and then as inseparable companions, a good eleven years ago.
He had been fleeing pirates, she had been fleeing the aristocracy, and they both had a soft spot for gemstones. After hovering gun barrels in front of each other’s respective brains for a good hour, arguing, negotiating, they had figured there was enough bounty for both of them, and if they shared this compass and that map here, and maybe this grapnel and that shovel there, they had better chances of going home rich.
He sure had come a long way since that manky little cellar in Elkona’s least reputable quarter. His travels had taken him everywhere, but he had never gone back home.
Maybe this time, he finally would.
The only question was, would Margot come with him? Settle down?
She had her own reason never to look back to her boring, sheltered life on the plains of Nestoria. But he didn’t know if she was willing to give up on the thrill of danger, cold nights, bad food, and ancient, forgotten wealths just yet.
“You’re daydreaming, Gus,” Margot called, too far ahead. “Is your pack too heavy? Should a poor girl give you a hand?”
“I was admiring the flowers,” he said, picking up the pace.
“Which ones?”
“The yellow ones,” he blurted, keeping his eyes forward.
The yellow ones…
He dropped to the ground with a loud clatter of metal and leather, staring at the clumps of colorful growth. Flowers of all sorts and hues, including yellow ones. But if any were called Sick Todds, he couldn’t tell. He had never been too keen on plants. Margot claimed it was a great drawback in a treasure hunter, but she wasn’t an expert on flora, either.
“Are there any flowers called Todd?” he said, grass tickling his lips and nose.
Margot took a swig of water from a canteen. “Unlikely.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Most flowers have female names.”
Gustave rose, dusting himself off. “Carry on.”
He hurried after her, so he would not be left behind. But he still kept some distance between them. If there were traps or sudden dangers, the one following could avoid them and hopefully rescue the other.
The pleasant coolness of the beach vanished. The heat sank in. The island looked very similar to his homeland; gorse, thorns and conifers, and the terrain wasn’t too rugged. The trees grew sufficiently apart to allow enough sunlight and easy passage, but Margot stuck to the open stretches of rock and pale grass, keeping an eye on anything suspicious; Gustave nursed a fairly impressive scar on his chest from an angry wild cat. They called him One-Nip Gus in the seedy taverns of Lechorn.
The ground rose, and a brow of outcropping forced them to veer south-east. The trail, if the patches of stone and tough weed could be called that, started climbing, leading toward the noon sun. Margot beat a steady walk, the kind she could maintain for the entire day.
Covered in sweat and dead mites, Gustave went back to thinking about the treasure. If the last map was genuine and its worn writing and markings were true, he—they—could easily become the richest people in the known world.
A year of travel and peril coming to an end.
Except now, they didn’t really know what to do.
Whoever had hidden the treasure had a real knack for mystery—and torture. The map Margot carried was the twelfth piece so far, found exactly where the previous one had promised, on the beach of this strange island, identifiable only by its sextant angles, in an unlocked chest, tied to a dying cypress with rusty but sturdy chains.
All maps had pointed to a location.
This last one was a bloody riddle.
Symbols and shapes he did not understand, and then, that one vague phrase.
Gustave loved mysteries. But he was slowly getting tired of the never-ending quest.
Maybe I’m getting old. Or the greed is making me sick.
Gustave stopped to catch a breath—but all he caught was a mouthful of salty-tasting bugs. He spat them out vigorously, taking longer than necessary to recover. Partly because he had never liked heat—he had always preferred crawling inside icy caves and bumbling through foggy forests than hot, sunny places. Partly, because he was ever so slightly paranoid that someone was watching them.
Quiet, strange places always did that to him.
He looked back toward the beach, then at the cove where the mercenary ship Lion’s Breath anchored, waiting, spouting sooty smoke from its shiny silver chimneys. The problem with hired crews was that they were notoriously unreliable. But they sure weren’t stupid.
They expected the two of them to climb back on board with gold in their hands.
Gustave feared what the crew would think if they came back empty-handed.
And then, there was always that one silly fool who nursed the lethal idea of why-share-the-treasure-when-I-can-have-it-all-for-myself.
Such thoughts always ended up in bloodshed.
“What if they leave us here?” he said, mostly to himself, sheathing his falchion.
“There are worse ways and less interesting people to spend the rest of our lives with,” Margot grumbled. “And we won’t starve.” She was sniffing some kind of a berry growing on an impressive spiky bush at the side of their trail. Her nose was touching the branches.
Gustave smiled.
He heard a bleet.
They both drew revolvers at the same time.
Carefully, they continued climbing, the sounds of animal presence guiding them on.
The hill peaked and became a brow of rock and weed. A few stunted trees clung to the hard soil, permanently bent by the sea wind, roots like broken fingers, half sticking out of the ground. There was a valley with a steep but not deadly drop on the other side, and across, standing on a knuckle of gray-ocher stone was a wild goat, with lank rusty-red hair of a majestic shine, and beautiful black curved horns. It was expertly browsing on a clump of grass peeking between jagged stones.
“We sure won’t starve,” Gustave whispered.
The goat flicked its ears. It might have heard him, but it did not flee.
Margot was pragmatically aiming her weapons at the animal.
“You want to kill it?” Gustave hissed, shocked.
She frowned at him while squinting down the barrel. “I thought you’re the one who did not want to starve.”
“I’m not hungry just yet!”
“I say, let us not waste a chance to feed our bellies.”
“Yes, but this is no—”
CRACK!
It was the unmistakable bar of a firearm.
But it wasn’t Margot’s.
The goat disappeared in a red cloud.
Instinctively, they flattened themselves to the ground, ignoring the prickly grass and thorns, wild-eyed, seeking danger. But they could not see any.
“Someone else seems to have a liking for goat meat,” Gustave said, scanning the hilltop.
“Usually you don’t blow the goat to pieces. The idea is to eat it.” Margot rose to a crouch.
“See anyone?” Gustave crawled forward, trying to see into the valley.
Margot sniffed. “No.”
Maybe this was a cruel joke by the ship’s crew? Captain Lino may have sent a party to follow them. But the mercenaries were sailors, not experienced trackers. They would not be able to hide themselves so well.
Time stretched. Bugs kept on pestering Gustave. What now? They could not stay at the hilltop forever, waiting for whoever had fired that gun to reveal themselves. Margot and he had lots of experience dodging and outmaneuvering hunters, killers and soldiers. They understood the game of patience. But if you could not see your enemy, eventually they would win. You would have to do something, as innocent as seeking shade, water, or a bush.
Then again, if the hidden man wanted them dead, why wait?
“Maybe it wasn’t a firearm?” Gustave said.
“It was definitely one.” Margot was staring at the trees and the folds of the land, blinking sweat from her eyes.
“It might have been lightning.”
Margot looked up. She sniffed the air. “Not humid enough.”
“Maybe the goat overfed on something dangerous that made its stomach swell and explode.”
Margot wiped her brow. “Have you ever heard of exploding goats, Gus?”
Not yet, but there’s always a first time. “See anything?”
She shook her head.
Time stretched some more.
“Let us check that goat, shall we?” Margot said, standing up.
Gustave wasn’t keen on examining burst carcasses, especially since he did not know how it had become one. He rose, stretching his stiff, fear-tense muscles. “I would rather if we left it be and went searching after Yellow Sick Todd instead.”
“No need, I am here.”
Panic, terror, and they both spun toward the source of that thick, accented voice.
A man was standing behind them, armed with a big smoking gun, and Gustave swore by a hundred and seven deities he could name by heart that he had not been there a blink ago.
They lifted their revolvers, aiming with trembling hands, their blood saturated with combat rush. The man did not look concerned. He was frowning at their gesture, as if it was odd and unwarranted.
Margot recovered first. “Who are you?”
The stranger smiled. “Todd.”
Gustave lowered his revolver. He hadn’t failed to notice the giant blunderbuss in the man’s arms, definitely a tool that could turn a beautiful goat into broken pulp. Margot was still aiming. Gently, he pushed her hands down.
“What are you?” Margot growled, not giving up.
Todd was dressed in loose clothes befitting an adventurer, practical, durable, worn and faded by the weather and the sun, with a hundred pockets, straps and clever folds. His shirt and trousers had an old, archaic cut, something that had gone out of fashion in Lechorn a century ago. He was wearing a hat with a brim that looked to have been chewed over by a horse. But most impressively, he was wearing a knee-low coat, shiny, soft, too heavy for the island heat and untouched by time and elements like the rest of him.
It was the color of rich mustard.
“Does that look like yell—” Gustave whispered.
“Yes,” Margot hissed.
“What are you?” Gustave repeated in a low voice, curiosity battling his fear.
“I am the guardian of this island,” Todd said.
Gustave was staring at the man, looking for blemishes or scars on his face and neck. But apart from a somewhat glassy, fish-like glaze in his eyes that never quite matched his relaxed smile, there was nothing remarkable about Todd.
I don’t like this. Gustave edged away from the man. “We should go back to Lion’s Breath. Take our chances with Lino. He will be forgiving.” No, he will not be.
“No, he will not be. We are not going back empty-handed,” Margot warned.
Todd raised his brows. “You are looking for the treasure?”
Gustave and Margot exchanged glances. “Yes…”
“Let me take you to it then.” And without another word or a backward glance, Todd started descending into the valley, his steps precise and sure-footed.
“What do we do?” Gustave croaked.
Margot popped the joints in her neck. “Like the map says. We follow him.”
“This is madness.”
“Only the last part of our adventure, you mean?”
“Marge, this is dangerous. We should go back.”
“Gus, the only way I’m going back is with that treasure on my back.” She dashed off.
Gustave cursed in five languages and followed.
They stumbled and tripped and slipped after Yellow Sick Todd, their fingers bloody with thorns. But the guardian never stopped, not even when Gustave yelped and Margot cursed in half a dozen tongues of her own, or when a trail of little stones came rushing down and past him, riding the wave of swearwords and their clumsy amble.
This must be a dream.
They found the remains of the goat about two hundred yards downslope, its head missing, the rest of it splattered over a sizable area. A thousand red pieces, like the shards of a mosaic.
Gustave mustered courage. “Todd, why did you kill it?”
Todd frowned. “I have been searching for that goat for almost three years.”
Gustave couldn’t contain himself. “So you have been on this island for a long time, Todd?”
“Eighty-four years.”
Gustave had to run forward to catch Margot’s hand from drawing the revolvers again. The look on her face was clear.
“We might never find the treasure if we kill him,” he spoke through gritted teeth.
“I don’t mind. No one that age should look so…young.”
“Maybe he got confused with the numbers. After all, he’s been on this island for a long time.”
“He does not look confused.”
Gustave stopped walking, holding on to her wrists. “If he’s really that old, do you think we should provoke him?”
“It’s worth the risk.”
“Are you two coming?” Todd called, already a distant dot at the far end of the valley.
Gustave frowned. He had never seen magic first hand, but now he was starting to believe it wasn’t all superstition and trickstery.
Margot shook her arms, disentangling herself, and marched off. Grudgingly, Gustave loped after her. But his palms tingled, and the solid weight of steel on his hip beckoned him.
At the far end of the valley, there was a cave.
Gustave stared. Why did it always have to be a cave?
Todd was standing close to the entrance, his glassy stare unnerving. “Inside.”
Margot forced a grin onto her lips. “After you, guardian.”
“Todd, how did you end up here, on this island?” Gustave asked, trying to make his voice sound disinterested.
The guardian did not reply.
“How old are you, Todd?”
No answer.
Margot knelt and retrieved a torch from her pack. It was made of rolled hessian, soaked in wax and resin and doused in sulfur and lime, so it would even burn underwater. Reluctantly, she holstered her left-hand revolver, and lit the torch.
The cave was a wonder of nature, but Gustave was too nervous to pay attention to the cuts and striations. His eyes were desperately seeking traps, enemies. Apart from the cold wetness you always found in caves, there was no visible danger. He could walk fully erect without banging his head on low overhangs, and there were no sharp edges to snag their clothes or tear the skin.
The cave curved sharply, and they lost sight of the entrance. Momentary panic hit Gustave in the chest. He inhaled deeply. There were no side opening branching off the tunnel. That gave Gustave some peace. He hated dark, enclosed spaces. More than that, he hated getting lost in dark, enclosed spaces. Hated it even more than insects.
The cave opened up into a large, empty space. Sunlight fell on the floor in solid columns, stabbing through cracks in the ceiling roughly thirty feet above. Todd was standing off to one side, cradling his blunderbuss. Waiting.
Margot let the torch drop. Then her revolver dropped, too.
Gustave rushed to her side, fearing she might have been hurt, then saw the reason for her behavior.
Three chests full of precious stones were beckoning the two of them from their place on the cave floor. The sunlight didn’t touch the gems directly, but their vibrant gleam was unmistakable. The blue of frosted ponds, the green of deep forest ferns.
The colors of unfathomable wealth.
And bottomless fear.
This is too easy.
“There might be traps,” he warned.
“There might be,” Margot agreed.
“We should leave.”
“Not without the gems.”
Gustave looked at their strange chaperon. “What now?”
Todd pointed at the chests. “You take the treasure.”
“And your role in this, guardian?”
The man with the mustard-colored coat did not even blink. “I am staying here.”
“Margot, I beg you, let us leave this cursed island.”
But she had already decided. She stepped forward. “Cover me, Gus.”
Gustave put his hand on the revolver, ready to draw and fire. Margot moved forward, gently placing her feet on the ground, years of expertise in dodging lethal traps and devious contraptions evident in her posture. To the untrained eye, she might look merely greedy, but Gustave knew better. She was a practiced contortionist and a circus performer. She was a dancer. Every fiber of her body was tuned to danger. And she had a tough but lightweight silk-and-mail undershirt to protect her from needles and arrows. Even bullets.
She made it half across the floor without any incident. She dipped her arm into one of the light beams. She clapped her hands. Yelled. Nothing. She jumped, stomped her foot, tossed a satchel of sand into one of the chests. Still nothing.
Crouching, ready to spring if need be, Margot donned a pair of stout gloves, so she wouldn’t touch or get bitten by anything poisonous. She put on a pair of spectacles, to shield her eyes the same way. She clasped a metal gorget round her neck. Then, she resumed her slow progress.
She was now standing in front of the chests, studying them carefully. She let her spit drop onto one of the gems. She angled her head left and right, stared into the mote-filled shadows behind the chests, looked up at the distant ceiling, looked at Todd, looked at him, and smiled.
Gustave swallowed.
Todd watched, neither amused nor agitated.
He did not seem concerned at all, which deeply concerned Gustave. This did not make any sense. Why would the guardian let them take the treasure?
Gustave suddenly realized his grave error.
Todd had said he was the guardian of the island.
Not the treasure.
“Margot, no!”
She had just put her hand on one of the gems.
A dazzling flash of light.
Margot was gone.
In her place, there was a goat, surrounded by the impressive kit of a treasure hunter and a pile of lady’s clothing.
The goat was small, wiry, with a short black hide—very much like Margot’s decidedly boyish haircut.
Todd burst into laughter.
Startled, the goat scampered out of the cave.
Gustave was left standing, terrified.
Now, you have seen magic, Gus. Happy?
“Your turn,” the guardian said, still laughing.
Gustave hesitated only for half a breath before he fired his revolver. But the guardian was already rolling away, and the lead pellet hit the wall behind him, breaking off a decent chunk of stone.
Annoyed, Gustave kept on firing, but Todd was quick, and had safely retreated behind the chests.
The forlorn click of the firing hammer made Gustave realize he was standing in the open with a spent weapon.
Todd raised his head, his fish-like eyes glowing, and released thunder from his blunderbuss.
Gustave jumped into the tunnel, dust and noise raining on his head. He ignored the pain in his knees and elbows, crawling to the safety of a corner. Listening for footsteps, he started reloading the revolver. His ears hurt, and there were tears in his eyes. Was it from the peal of the gunshot, or maybe…something else? It didn’t matter.
“You bastard!” he screamed at the guardian. “Why?”
“Ask yourself why.”
Gustave fired a shot, but it was badly aimed. He thought about the little black goat. Should he chase after it? And then what? Carry the animal on his shoulders to the Lion’s Breath? He was convinced it had been Margot, but somehow, he wasn’t quite sure that it was still Margot.
“What sick game is this?”
“You will not leave this island,” Todd warned in a dead voice.
“What happened to my friend?”
“She has fallen victim to her avarice. The magic of this place is quite special.”
Gustave fired again. Todd lazily ducked behind the chests. “Magic?”
“Maybe sorcery is a better word. But she is gone, stranger. Sooner or later I will find her and kill her. At least she is no longer aware of her predicament. You can choose the same fate. Buy yourself a few more days of senseless existence, or let me end your life now.”
Gustave answered with four more shots. Then he was reloading again.
Todd returned fire.
Gustave flinched as the hail of blunderbuss lead chomped the wall to his right. A cloud of fine dust engulfed him, and he was choking and sneezing and blinking away a painful itch from his eyes. Half-blinded, he fired randomly to keep Todd from coming close.
Moving faster than expected—no, he should have expected it, he had seen the guardian move earlier—Todd was on top of him, pushing the giant maw of the blunderbuss toward his face. Gustave found himself on his back, trying to push the barrel away. But at this range, any shot would kill him. His ears would burst, and the shrapnel would tear into his skull. Todd did not seem concerned for his own safety. There was cold, resolute madness in his eyes.
“Stranger, do not fight,” Todd said, then laughed.
But the laughter made the guardian slacken his grip, enough for Gustave to wedge his knees in between them and push him off. Todd discharged his blunderbuss into the cave above him, and they were both stunned by the noise.
Gustave kept his eyes closed as he tried to crawl away, senseless, face and hair singed by the heat of the shot. He had no idea where the guardian was.
Blurred shades of silver and gray slowly filled his vision, and he saw the black silhouette of the guardian, on his knees, facing away from him, trying to reload the blunderbuss. Staggering to his feet, Gustave reached for the falchion and charged.
He jumped and stabbed. There was a grunt. Maybe his own lungs as they deflated on hard impact, ribs cracking against the cave wall. Maybe Todd, as he keeled over, the blunderbuss falling from his fingers.
The cave was silent.
Then, more mad laughter.
But this time, it came with bloody foam on the guardian’s lips. “My my.”
Gustave sat up, nursing his side, trying not to lose consciousness. Every breath was a sharp punch. After a while, Gustave realized he was not going to faint, and air oozed into his chest, but it was hard, sticky breathing, like sucking honey through a straw.
“I defeated you,” he croaked.
Todd was touching the handle of the knife wedged in his stomach. He tried prying it out, but his grip was weak and slippery. “That you did, stranger. I am impressed.”
“What is this place?” Gustave said. He knew he sounded pleading and he hated himself for it, but he needed to know the secrets of the island before Todd died. The guardian’s end was imminent. The black blood leaking out of him was an unmistakable sign of a liver injury. Gustave had seen enough fighting to know a fatal wound when he saw one.
“It’s a cave, with a cursed treasure, this is what it is,” Todd panted.
“And who are you? Please.”
Todd smiled. “I was a treasure hunter, just like you. I came here, searching for wealth. Just like you.”
Gustave rested his head on the cool, slick rock. “What happened?”
“We met the guardian.” He laughed, spitting blood. “He led us here. My companions became goats. I fought the guardian. Killed him.”
Gustave waited.
“Just before he died, he told me about his own journey. How he had come to this island, looking for treasure… He gave me a choice, the same one I am going to give to you.”
“No.”
“Take my place. Become the guardian.”
I will rather be a slave on a ship somewhere. Captain Lino is a reasonable man. Instead, he said, “What is the price?”
“You will not age. But you must stay on the island.”
“And…?”
“Whenever a new party of fools arrive, you lead them here. Let them become goats or kill them. It does not matter. But they must not leave the island.”
Gustave rubbed his forehead; it was nicked in a dozen places. How many copies of those cursed maps are out there in the world, he wondered. “Why do you need to kill the goats?”
Todd snorted. “Boredom. It creeps up on you after a few decades.”
Gustave tried to stand up. He almost gagged in agony. “I will not take your offer.”
Todd rolled his head, trying to look at him, those fish-like eyes piercing and knowing. “Of course you will. Are you going to crawl back to the shore? Row to whatever ship is waiting out there? Convince the sailors you had found nothing?”
“We have steam boilers now. I will not take your place,” Gustave swore.
“Sure you will.” Todd coughed. Then, his blinking slowed. “Take the coat. Take the…”
The guardian died.
Gustave spent an hour sitting, nursing his strength back. Eventually, he managed to get off the floor, battered, bruised, bleeding, weak, his lungs on fire. He knew he would never make it back to the Lion’s Breath. He would die a fool’s death on this cursed island.
He thought about the gems.
No, he was not going to do that.
Gustave almost made it to the cave’s bright entrance when he turned and shuffled back inside. He looked at the guardian. It all still felt like a great ruse. But that archaic clothing style, that blunderbuss.
And then he thought of Margot.
His lifetime companion was gone.
He was no expert on sorcery, but he knew she was lost to him, forever.
There would be no more adventures, no more treasures.
With lancing agony under his ribs, he managed to remove the sickly yellow coat off Todd’s shoulders. The dead man was drenched in blood, but the coat was pristine, clean. Not a drop marred its velvety texture.
I can always choose to become a goat.
He put the coat on.
The pain in his lungs was gone. His weakness was gone. He was whole again.
Several days later, he stood on a hilltop, watching a dinghy paddle toward the island’s peaceful shores. It was the spare boat from the Lion’s Breath, and it didn’t have the luxury of an engine to propel it across the waves. The small team of sailors was hard at work pulling the oars. Captain Lino was definitely keen on making profit on this journey.
Gustave knew what would happen.
They would find the chest, and they would find the message inside. It would tell them to follow Yellow Sick Todd.
I guess I’m Todd now.
Roughly a hundred yards away, a small black goat was browsing on a bush of berries, flicking its tail in response to the sounds of birds, crickets, and the wind. Todd had tried to approach it twice, but each time, it had fled. In time, he would find a way to befriend the animal.
Right now, he had to convince a bunch of mercenaries to follow him to a cave.
It would not be difficult, they knew who he was. He wouldn’t even have to introduce himself and lie.
A part of him sought death in the encounter ahead of him, but he knew, as long as Margot was alive, he owed it to her to fight and survive. She would expect nothing else from him. And maybe, just maybe, one day, he would find a way to undo the sorcery.
Todd waved at the black goat, checked that his revolver was fully loaded, and started downhill, toward the shore, his magical coat fluttering behind him.
Igor Ljubuncic is a physicist by vocation and a Linux geek by profession. He is the owner of the popular website www.dedoimedo.com. Igor really likes to write, particularly in the fantasy genre, and he even got a literary nomination for his efforts. You can learn more about Igor’s books on thelostwordsbooks.com.
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