Relics, Wrecks and Ruins: Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

We ran to the octagonal opening set into the body of the ship with a set of stairs that were definitely not built for human anatomy—the rise far too high and bent, and the steps too narrow.

Catet, Havarr said in my mind. I did not understand the word, but it felt like home.

“Climb it like a ladder on all fours,” Mr. Wainright instructed. “Like this.”

I followed him up the metal construction, the oddly shaped edges catching at my fingers and ripping my lace gloves. As I hauled myself into the ship, I looked back across the grid. The Brotherhood posse had reformed and was galloping towards us.

Mr. Wainright spread both hands across a panel in the wall and the stairs retracted with a mechanical whine. The octagonal doorway closed behind us.

“Up here,” Mr. Wainright said.

He led the way through a cargo hold, crammed with crates labeled tea, beans, flour, salt. I heard a soft clucking. Good God, a coop of live chickens too. Strips of light—without candle or oil lamp—were set within the walls and illuminated the whole area. A marvel.

“You have found the ship’s power?” I said.

“Not really. Only for some of the basic systems.” He pointed to a door as we ran past. “That is the oxygen garden. And beside it, the water storage.”

He looked up another strange set of steps. “And that is the bridge.”

He made way for me. I felt Havarr’s excitement as I climbed.

The bridge had the dimensions of a respectable drawing room, and indeed, a large fleur-de-lis Aubusson rug had been laid down. A window wrapped around the sloping front, extending to become part of the floor. Two Chesterfield leather armchairs had been bolted down to look out upon the view, replacing, no doubt, the salvaged command chairs. The walls were covered in banks of odd buttons and toggles, but the strangest instrument was a huge frame in the shape of a diamond set across the back wall. I ran to the window. The Brotherhood had passed the cargo ship. By my reckoning they were less than a minute away from launching their knives.

“Do you have any idea what to do?” Mr. Wainright asked, climbing the last of the steps.

I stared at him. “No. I thought you had some theory.”

He gestured to the diamond frame. “That is my theory. I thought you would be able to ask your knife.”

“I don’t understand her language. I told you that!”

He hooked his hands into his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

Havarr spun beside me, her agitation reflecting my own. I had to try.

What is the diamond? I asked.

Aridyi?

It was a question. Not an answer. But behind it, I felt a gathering within her power. Time to play the odds.

Yes, Aridyi!

It was as if I had finally unleashed a straining hound. She flew into the center of the diamond and spun upon her tip. The frame burst into blue energy around her. Now I understood. Havarr was not only her name, it was her position. She screamed, silent to my ears but blasting through my mind and body. I doubled over. No, not a scream, a command. To the other knives.

“Mr. Wainright, down!” I launched myself at the man and caught him around the waist, crashing full length upon the rug. A scandalous tangle of arms and legs.

Forty-nine wary knives slammed into the air above us. A wave of energy pressed us against the floor. With breathtaking speed, one knife after another locked into the diamond around Havarr. As the final knife clicked into place, the ship roared into life. Every bank of buttons and toggles lit up and I felt the landing runners retract.

The ship lifted into the air, ready for my command.

Dear God, I could feel the ship. Havarr and I were the ship. And all fifty wary knives were now under my control. All of them. When the Brotherhood worked out what had happened, they would be livid.

Ridec pah? And I knew what Havarr asked. Go now?

“Yes, ridec pah,” I yelled.

The ship gathered herself, the power thrumming through the knives. Through me. Something to explore—to revel in—later. Right now, I had a ship to launch.

“Mr. Wainright,” I said, pulling my arms free from under his body, “I advise you to get into a chesterfield. We are about to take-off.”

We clambered up from the rug and flung ourselves into the armchairs. Through the window at our feet, I saw the Brotherhood wrench their horses around and flee in all directions.

“Dear God, it is happening! It is really happening!” Mr. Wainright said, the wonder in his voice almost matching my own.

We launched, the thrust pressing us back into the chairs. The power, the glory of it all closed my eyes for a second. My mind full of speed, trajectory, and a dizzying sense of freedom. I did not know where we were going but, for now, going was enough.

“Are you doing this? Is this you?” Mr. Wainright asked over the rising hum of acceleration.

I gathered all my strength and leaned forward to look out the window again. Below us the scattered Brotherhood dwindled into specks upon the shrinking lift-off grid. Too bad I could not see their faces.

“Yes, this is me,” I said and smiled.

The Movers of the Stones By Neil Gaiman

Early afternoon, as the sun was setting, I took a piece of mudstone,
flaked by cunning hands twelve thousand years ago,
from the pile where the archaeologists discarded their waste,
took a crayon of brickish ochre from the beach. I coloured in a jut of beach-rock,
where a chance arrangement of lines and dents had made a fish.
Or I revealed a fish that had been waiting in the rock.
Or thousands of years ago, in that rock, someone had carved a fish.

To the south, up on the hill, Vikings made a village:
huts, longhouses, and even a hall. The stone outlines remain,
each habitation’s corpse limned by heather and bracken.
Vantage over the bay. They could see for miles, there.

The bones of the Earth are stones. We move them, split them, flake them,
leave cups and lines and hollows in them. Leave stone behind.
When we leave no trace of flesh or hair or breath.
When we leave no trace of wood or thatch or corn.
When we leave no trace of bone or ash or blood.
As the winter sun rises and falls like the opening of a single eye
or a bird that flies low on the horizon, then returns to dark
and all the stars there ever were come out.

To the north, on a different hill, a stone circle,
near to the other stones, the ones the old man called the graveyard,
where something happened, perhaps six thousand years ago.
The standing centre stone
where a sharp stone edge cut the child’s throat at sun-up,
in the mid bleakwinter, to bring the sun and warmth and life back to the land.

If one day, as it may prove, the sun still burns,
The ones who come after the ones who come after us
will see, beneath different star-patterns, the old stones here.
The cairn that keeps the wights beneath from walking,
besides our Flora’s secret tumbledown house.
They will observe our tumbled walls and boundaries,
and one might find the fine and fancy neolithic stone
(carved and hollowed by hands now dead a million years)
I use to keep the lid on the bin, when the wind gets high.