Happy Ending Not Guaranteed E-Book

Liam Hogan

• Herausgeber: Arachne Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 236

Beschreibung

'Deliciously Twisted' In the realms of fantasy, it is foolish to upset the wee folk. Downright dangerous to incur the curse of a witch. And above all, it is perilous to ignore a warning. Happy Ending Not Guaranteed Contains 27 stories of dark fantasy, from chess-playing automatons to smooth-talking Celtic faeries; from the Longitude Act of 1714 to the End of the World (in fractal form). Bad Kings, bad demons, and bad days abound. There is humour even in darkness. You just have to look harder for it.

Leseprobe

About the Author

Liam Hogan was abandoned in a library at the tender age of three, only to emerge blinking into the sunlight many years later, with a head full of words and an aversion to loud noises.

He’s a Liar and co-host of the award-winning monthly literary event, Liars’ League, and winner of Quantum Shorts 2015 and Sci-Fest LA’s Roswell Award 2016. His steampunk stories appear in Leap Books’ ‘Beware the Little White Rabbit’ #Alice150 anthology, in Flame Tree Publishing’s ‘Swords&Steam’, and in Steampunk Trails II. Science fiction stories appear in DailyScienceFiction, in Sci-Phi Journal, and in Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.

He lives in London, tweets at @LiamJHogan and dreams in Dewey Decimals.

http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk/

Acknowledgements

This collection would be a lot slimmer and indeed, wouldn’t exist at all, without Liars’ League, for whom many of the stories were originally written. A big thanks to Liars’ founder and stalwart Katy Darby for her edits on those that were selected and her advice on those that weren’t, and to the wonderful actors who brought my stories alive in various rooms in various London pubs.

Thanks also to Cherry Potts of Arachne Press, who published Rat and Palio in the first Liars’ anthology, ‘London Lies’, and has been a valiant supporter, both of Liars’ League and my writing, ever since.

Contents

To Be A Hero

Feathers

Scarecrow

Greenwich Noon

The Giant, Snow-White

Blaxley And Whiteclaw

Internet Dating For Immortals

Crossroads

Kingdom

Stars

The Black Bull

Worming Advice for Werewolves

The Sword Master

Penny Prince

Miscellaneous, Spooky, Weird

After the End of the World, Mother Bakes Cakes

Time, The Devourer

Bring Rope

Temp

Mechanical

Gean Cánach

The Painted Platform

Late

The Burden

Tigg Montague’s Ponzi Pyramid Scheme

ValCon

Bad Day

This collection of short stories puts its warning in the title. Whether through the inevitable and appalling logic of Kingdom, or via the perverse delight of a dark imagination in Bring Rope, many of these tales end badly. Deals with the Devil often do, but here deals with Gods and Kings backfire just as tragically.

Of course, that doesn’t begin to explain why some of them start badly.

Perhaps I’ve never trusted tales of mighty heroes. (Somewhere in a mountain shack an old crone stirs. Heroes, she spits into the fire.) Or rather, heroes who fail to face a proportionate threat. Even Odin must face Ragnarök and all heroes eventually fall, whether mighty, or meek.

Perhaps I just have a warped mind.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should warn that some of these stories do have happy endings. But I won’t tell you which in advance. I like to keep you on your toes, keep you guessing as you read. Is this tale going to end horribly, or happily? Happily-ish? For the here and now, anyway.

Because Happily Ever Afters are never guaranteed: Tempus edax rerum.

Consider yourself warned.

If you like your endings happy, Dear Reader, best seek them elsewhere.

To Be A Hero

‘So,’ the crone said, looking up at the tall, muscular man holding a stout cherry-wood pole. ‘You want to be a Hero, do you?’

Her cackle was cut short as he shook his head and his wife stepped forward, a cloth-covered bundle in her arms. ‘Wise woman,’ she said, tugging back the shawl to reveal a sleeping baby, a wisp of pale hair on his crown. ‘Please – it is not for us, it is for our son.’

‘A long-term project, eh?’ the crone chuckled. ‘Unswaddle him.’

The woman did as she was asked and the crone took the babe in her lap, holding each tiny hand, each delicate foot, in turn.

‘Well. The boy is healthy enough.’ She turned and skewered her two visitors with an icy stare. ‘If you want your son to be a Hero,’ she said, raising a crooked finger and pointing it at them, ‘then you will need... to die!’

There was a stunned silence, punctuated by a small cough. ‘Excuse me?’ the father said.

‘Orphans make the best heroes,’ she shrugged. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘They do?’ said the woman, unable to tear her fearful gaze from this aged and quite possibly deranged woman who was clutching her only child.

‘From infant wizards and caped crusaders to once and future kings, even Superman: all orphans.’ The crone stared at them expectantly.

The woman bit her lip and shook her head, her hand seeking that of her husband.

‘Look,’ said the man, ‘is that strictly necessary?’

‘Oh yes,’ the crone replied. ‘Think about it. What Hero has the chance to run to his mother, who’ll comfort him and kiss it all better? Or can hide behind his father whenever something frightens him?’

The two parents stood in confused thought until the man shook his head. ‘I don’t think–’

‘Well,’ the crone cut him off, ‘How about if just one of you died?’

‘I... erm–’

‘–Preferably the mother?’

‘The mother?’ spluttered the father, tightening his grip on his walking stick.

‘That way the father is a distant figure, blaming the infant for the death of the mother in childbirth. Though we might have missed that window of opportunity. Don’t worry, sir!’ the crone continued, ‘you can remarry! As long as the step-mother is particularly mean-spirited and preferably has a brace of her own needy and brutish children.’

‘Isn’t that Cinderella?’ the mother croaked.

‘Yes, yes, Cinderella and a dozen others. It works just as well on sons, trust me.’

‘I don’t think either of us are prepared to die,’ the man said, firmly. ‘Perhaps if we left him with a distant relative?’ he suggested, though the look he got from his wife had him wishing he hadn’t.

The crone appeared to think on this. ‘No, I’m afraid that won’t work. Your son’s quest will be to track you down, rather than rescuing fair maidens or fighting fearsome dragons. Also, it leaves the door open for you to return in a moment of high crisis and save the day. Death is preferable.’

Again the two parents frowned and stayed silent. This wasn’t going the way they had hoped.

‘Suit yourself,’ the crone said, ‘though it does make the whole “Hero” thing a bit more difficult. Any royal blood in him?’

The two of them shook their heads in concert.

‘Pity. An attempt to reclaim a stolen throne usually works quite well. Any prophecies I should be aware of?’

‘Erm, no,’ admitted the father.

‘Hmm.’ It was the crone’s turn to frown. ‘Look, don’t take this the wrong way. You seem like nice people and obviously want the best for your son, but are you sure you want him to be a Hero?’

‘Yes!’ exclaimed the father.

‘Why?’ asked the crone.

‘Well... because...’ the woman began.

‘Because Hero is a Great and Noble thing to be!’ completed the man. ‘Famous deeds, bravery, honour, a chance to win glory!’

‘There are many professions that are noble,’ pointed out the crone. ‘Craftsman, teacher, leader. And “great” is a measure of how well you do your chosen task, however humble.’

The man’s face darkened. ‘If you won’t help us, wise woman, there are others...’

‘Oh okay, fine. Keep your hair on. I’ll see what I can do,’ the crone said.

The boy was awake now, his hands clasping and waving around. The crone stuck a couple of fingers into the nearest cauldron and rubbed a white, waxy substance on the infant’s dry scalp while it cooed and squirmed in pleasure.

‘Is that it?’ the woman said doubtfully.

‘Is that it?’ echoed the crone. ‘No! Of course that’s not it. You must also... tell your son he is a hero – ah yes! You must tell him that he is “My Hero” whenever he is kind to you or to others. You must feed him well, so that he grows up big and strong. And you must tell him that you love him.’

‘Love him?’ queried the mother.

‘Yes. You do love him don’t you?’

The mother and father nodded, as the child gurgled and kicked its legs.

‘Then that shouldn’t be too difficult. Finally, and this is very, very important, possibly the most important of all, you must allow him to find his own way.’

‘And then he’ll become a Hero?’ asked the father.

‘Yes, yes. Of course. He’s bound to. Look at the way he’s gripping my finger, a real Hercules in the making. Right, well, I think that’s everything.’

‘Don’t you have a magic sword, or a protective talisman, or something?’

The crone looked at him incredulously. ‘A magic sword? No, no... he won’t need one of those. In fact, best keep swords and other sharp edges well away from him until he’s fully grown. The, um, magic is within, and will only be revealed when the time is right.’

‘Then thank you, wise woman,’ the mother said, bowing her head before eagerly reclaiming her child.

‘De nada,’ replied the crone.

‘How can we repay you?’ said the father.

‘Think nothing of...’ the crone tailed off, thoughtfully. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘We don’t have much,’ admitted the mother.

‘But you may take anything you desire,’ the father said.

‘Anything?’ the crone asked, eyeing the man’s strong limbs and straight back.

‘Anything.’

*

Heroes, she snorted as she poured herself another cup of tea and replaced the lid on the cauldron of freshly prepared cold cream. It was getting harder and harder to convince parents what a stupid idea that was. Sure, heroes made for rousing tales, but role models? Really? Misogynistic, brittle-tempered, muscle-brained oafs? Why didn’t the parents ask for robust health instead? For happiness? For a solid career path that didn’t involve trying to hunt and slay mythical creatures, or to messily hack to death other Heroes whose only crime was to be sporting a differently coloured shield?

Ah well, she thought as she cradled the warm cup in her frail hands, at least she’d got a nice new cherry-wood walking stick out of it.

Feathers

Two statues gaze at each other with longing across the London skyline. One perches high above a Victorian telephone exchange, now converted into artists’ studios, and is in the image of Mercury, the winged messenger. The other stands proud atop the cupola of a church and represents either one of the nine Muses, or more probably Ariadne; the detailing is rather uncertain.

They talk.

This astounding feat is achieved by means of pigeon. It is a slow, laborious form of communication, but lacking pens or paper they encode their messages the only way they can: by the careful plucking of the wing and tail feathers of captured birds.

We cannot say how it is that they learnt Morse code. We do know that they have been talking for a very long time. Perhaps, though the records do not exist to either confirm or deny this, they shared the same stonemason’s yard before being lifted into their exalted positions. Perhaps the lightning conductors and metal pins securing them to their posts picked up the early telegraph signals and radio messages of a once busy shipping city and they learnt by sheer repetition. But then to explain the elaborate error correction necessary in what is a very unreliable messaging system... well, maybe she is a Muse after all.

Nor will we bore you with a detailed description of an average day in their glacially slow lives. The waiting for a pigeon to land, the stealthy capture between lichen-covered fingers, the careful plucking and then release! Only to see the frightened bird vanish into the distance, or worse: plummet to the streets below, the victim of too much information. All in all they manage to exchange a couple of words at most, even on the best of days.

And we will not waste your time asking you to unravel the messages, which, due to the slowness of their communication, inevitably overlap, two sentences flying between them a few letters at a time, such that an answer might arrive before the question is fully posed.

Instead, let us hasten the passage of time so that whole seasons last but a minute and unravel the dits and dahs to relate their tale, in their own words.

‘Dear Heart,’ proclaimed Mercury. ‘My love is as constant as the elements, the rain, the snow, the wind...’

‘Really?’ replied Ariadne.

‘Without doubt, without hesitation!’ he insisted.

There was a pause – a fortnight or two – and then: ‘Prove it.’

‘I would swim rivers for you,’ Mercury boasted, amid a flurry of feathers. ‘I would climb mountains, scale ravines, battle demons!’

‘I don’t see you getting any closer,’ she retorted.

It was his turn for a silent pause. ‘What would you have me do?’ he asked, as spring gave way to summer.

‘Come to me,’ she replied.

‘Nothing would please me more!’ he exclaimed. ‘To move an inch in your direction, to be closer to your divine form, your exquisite beauty, would be sweeter than heaven to me!’

‘Then do it.’

‘I’ – this di-dit was encoded upon a single bird for dramatic emphasis and, for that single bird, constituted a lucky escape – ‘cannot.’

‘Have you tried?’ she asked.

‘My feet are firmly bound by metal rods, my legs, in any case, are poorly defined and permanently joined,’ he replied with sorrow.

‘Where there’s a will, there is a way.’

‘The climb in itself would be impossible–’

‘There’s a kiss in it for you.’

‘–What?’

‘Come here,’ she cajoled, ‘and I promise you a kiss.’

We can only imagine the thoughts passing through Mercury’s solid stone head at this point. We know, from the messages through the years, that he was a romantic. What else could he be? Proclaiming his passion from the rooftops, separated by such a distance from the one he loved? What did he dream of? Did he imagine a day when they might by some miracle be together again, as (perhaps) they were a century earlier in that stonemason’s yard?

It was lucky that the first stone fell into an area already cordoned off for road-works and was followed by a cloud of discarded feathers, drawing the eye of the Works’ Foreman to the ramparts above, before the second, even larger chunk of masonry crashed to the hastily cleared pavement which, moments before, had thronged with early morning commuters. The taped off area was quickly expanded and grumbling passers-by directed to the opposite side of the street, while the engineers worried that the excavations at street level might somehow have triggered the collapse above and who would get it in the neck as a consequence.

Mercury’s last message, ‘I love–’ never made it across the divide, the over-plucked bird falling easy prey to one London’s few hawks. In what to Ariadne appeared the mere blink of an eye, Mercury was surrounded by scaffolding and flapping white sheeting as Health and Safety sprang into action. She gave a wry smile and shifted her attention to the muscle-bound form that was Atlas.

But Atlas didn’t know Morse code and even if he had he could not have replied, his bronze arms weighed down by the mighty globe suspended above him. Despite a number of increasingly desperate attempts to attract his attention, his focus remained stubbornly angled down, peering into a busy side street just off Oxford Circus where shop workers gathered for a crafty cigarette and a scaldingly hot Styrofoam coffee.

So when the scaffolding was dismantled and Mercury stood once again in restored splendour, Ariadne tried to rekindle their love, sending messages of entreaty, reminding him of the promises he had once made. Mercury ignored them, and her. His resculpted eyes saw her as she truly was: a crumbling, lonely figure blighted by pollution and droppings and the passage of time, with a heart as cold as stone.

He caught a pigeon for old times’ sake and then, with a smile, let it go.

Scarecrow

‘There he is,’ the farmer nodded.

I looked up to the brow of the hill, where the crucified figure stood against a steel-grey sky, shirt sleeves flapping in the wind.

‘And what exactly do you want me to do?’ I asked, not for the first time.

The farmer smirked. ‘Just touch him. If you dare. I’ve got twenty says you can’t.’

I couldn’t see the snag. The ground was muddy from the recent rains, but I’d been through worse. I shrugged and climbed up onto the gate.

‘Just touch him?’ I asked again.

The farmer rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘Well now, if you feel that’s not enough, I’d be much obliged if you could uproot him and drag him back down here. He’s served his time.’

I looked out over the field from my perch. The wheat was ripe, but there wasn’t a bird to be seen. I wondered why it hadn’t been harvested yet; the neighbouring fields were strewn with bent straw.

I dropped lightly over the other side, a satisfying squelch as my boots took purchase, and started up the hill. It all seemed a bit too easy. Farmers like McGaskill didn’t give away their hard-earned money for free. I looked back to where he stood, resting his arms on the gate, and he gave me a cheery wave.

Perhaps there was a bull loose in the field. Just the sort of ‘joke’ a farmer might try on a townie. I couldn’t see one, but that proved nothing. You could have hidden a small battalion behind that hill. I felt my heart pounding and wondered how fast I’d be able to run if push came to shove.

The ground was drier on the slope and I’d just begun to pick up my pace when my army-issue boot struck something. I had a sudden and all-too-vivid image of being thrown through the air, my limbs shredded by an anti-personnel mine or an unexploded cluster bomb. I slowly raised my foot to see the piece of flint hidden beneath.

The wind stroked the wheat, making the heads bend in waves that sped towards the foreboding figure ahead. I scanned the darkening horizon; pretty bloody stupid, marching to the top of a hill in the middle of a storm! My pace slowed even as my brain was telling me to get it over with quickly: touch the scarecrow and back down the hill before the rain and lightning began, to hell with uprooting it, the farmer could do his own dirty work.

I imagined him appraising me from below, seeing my faltering steps, judging me by my weakness. I tugged up the collar of my coat and stamped my feet a couple of times to chase away the feeling of cold.

An odd noise it made, like distant mortars being fired, the whump-whump that were the last sounds you ever heard if they were on target...

But that was crazy! This was rural Bedfordshire, less than a hundred miles from London, not some god-forsaken Afghan hell-hole! And yet I could feel the hairs on my neck stand on end and my breath caught in my throat. Perhaps the farmer was just plain psycho and was waiting with a double barrelled shotgun until I was silhouetted against the sky. He’d seemed sane enough, if a little taciturn, in the pub last night. Until his eyes lit up when he heard I was ex-services and he’d casually suggested I drop by his farm on my way out of the village.

Maybe it was the land itself. What might be buried beneath the soil? Burnt carcasses from the BSE epidemic? Anthrax spores? Or a mass grave from a Viking raid, bodies with arms tied tightly behind their backs before being dispatched with cruel blows of sword or axe?

I shook the images from my head. You wouldn’t farm on contaminated land and if it was some ancient burial mound, well what of it? The bones were hardly able to hurt me now.

I must have been about half way up that bleak and desolate hill, when I ground to a halt once more, raising my hand above my eyes to get a better look at what lay ahead. I was approaching the scarecrow from behind. It wore tattered trousers and a jacket with the arms half rolled up, leaving the shirt sleeves free to flutter about the wooden pole. The head was made of straw beneath a grey cap, but it almost looked like there was hair there as well. Christ! Maybe it wasn’t made of straw at all. Maybe it was a corpse, left to dry in the wind, its heart rattling around an empty chest, its eyes rotted and–

Goddamnit! Anyone would think that I was a little kid, listening wide-eyed and open-mouthed to ghost stories around the camp fire. It was just a scarecrow, an inanimate object to frighten away the birds, not grown men, not me. I slowly took another half step forward.

Maybe... maybe it was better if I just asked the farmer what the catch was? He could hardly refuse to tell me, could he? I was in no fit state to negotiate the hazard, whatever it might be; my heart was racing, my back was slick with sweat, and my left leg trembled as if it had a mind of its own and was busy remembering past injuries, past nightmares. I should ask...

And then I was marching, almost skipping, back down the hill, at full speed, grateful for every step I took away from the dark shape behind me. As I neared the gate I slowed, suddenly wary of the farmer’s reaction, but he just stood there white faced, without a trace of a grin. He held out a dull grey hip flask which I gratefully received, taking a good gulp of the fiery liquid, before hopping back over the fence.

The farmer eyed me narrowly. ‘It sure is something, isn’t it?’ he asked.

I nodded slowly, uncertain exactly what he meant.

‘If it’s any consolation, that’s further than I, or anyone else from the village got.’ He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. ‘Even tried to take the tractor up there, flatten the bugger, but, well. We’ll pass it on the way.’

I followed him along the edge of field. We stopped at a gate. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing down to some seed that had been spilled on the ground. It formed a neat line exactly where the gate passed over it. ‘All the seed on this side of the fence, gone. Eaten by the birds, or mice, or whatever. All the seed on that side of the fence, untouched. Not a single bloody bird, they won’t even fly over the field.’ He shook his head. ‘This is the gate I tried to drive the tractor through.’

There were a set of tram lines through the crop, initially heading straight up the hill, then quickly wavering, before veering dramatically off to one side. I craned my head over the fence and saw the tractor wedged at an angle in the hedge some twenty or so yards further along.

‘I was lucky not to kill myself; felt the tractor tip as I wrenched the wheel. Not sure how I got through the hedge, it’s all a bit of a blur, but the tractor isn’t coming out that way. Not unless I cut the hedge down, which I’ve thought of doing, then I suppose I could tow it,’ he mused.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What’s causing all of this?’

He turned and stabbed his blunt fingers up the hill. ‘That thing. That bloody scarecrow. “Best scarecrow you’ll ever have”, the gypsy said. “Guaranteed bird free.”’ The farmer spat. ‘Nobody and nothing has been able to enter the field since he put it up. And now all that wheat’s going to go to waste. Damn. I shouldn’t really have expected you to do any better.’

I bristled at this; hadn’t I got further than anyone else? But how far had I got? Not much more than half way up the hill, that’s for sure. ‘I could get your tractor for you,’ I said.

He turned, a pained expression on his face. ‘Yes? You sure about that?’

I trembled and suddenly realised I couldn’t. Not today, anyway.

‘Thought as much. Thanks for the offer, though.’ He gazed off into the distance and I hung my head. ‘Look, I shouldn’t have done that to you. It was mean. But I could hardly tell you, could I? Had to let you try on your own. Ah damn. Will you come back to the house? There’s hot soup on the stove.’

We trudged in silence to the small farmyard. I felt drained, cold and weary, my mind numb. But as the farmer pushed the heavy wooden door aside a border collie leapt up at us and I felt the warmth of the stove even from the kitchen door.

‘Daft pup,’ the farmer said, as he stroked the dog’s head affectionately. ‘Only six months old and ain’t a patch on his mother, but there you go. Refuses to leave the farmyard, never mind going anywhere near the scary man on the hill. Maybe not so daft after all. Make yourself at home, man, I’ll get you a bowl.’

I shed the jacket and thought about removing my muddy boots, but McGaskill wasn’t removing his, so I left them on. I sat on a wooden bench at the rough table and he brought out a hunk of bread on a chopping board before plonking something more like a stew than a soup before me. I ate ravenously, feeling the warmth and energy flow back.

‘Have you tried shooting it down?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘You can’t get a steady aim on the thing. Even from outside of the field. Not that my shotgun would do any damage from there.’

‘Burning it?’ I said between mouthfuls.

‘Hah! Well that would get rid of it, but it’d take out the whole crop as well. Besides, you can’t even burn stubble these days without a permit.’

I thought for a moment. ‘What about the gypsy?’ I asked.

‘What about him?’ the farmer said with disdain.

‘Have you tried to find him? Surely he’d be able to take the scarecrow down?’

‘No doubt he could, at a price,’ the farmer replied. ‘Which hell, I’d be willing to pay. But they don’t exactly leave a forwarding address. Best I can hope is that he’ll be back next spring. But that’ll be two crops wasted, it’ll be too late to sow by then.’

‘Won’t it seed itself?’ I asked.

He snorted. ‘It might. But it won’t weed itself. It’ll be okay maybe for animal feed, but nowt else.’

I was silent, gears whirring in my brain, but with little effect.

‘You done?’ the farmer asked.

‘Err, yes. Thanks.’ I handed him my empty bowl. ‘Look, I’m sorry...’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t be. You did ya best. My own stupid fault. Never trust a tinker.’

At the door I shouldered my pack. ‘Best be getting on,’ I said, as I ruffled the neck of the border collie.

The farmer nodded. ‘Where next?’

I shrugged, suddenly unable to meet his eye. ‘Northampton,’ I replied. It wasn’t on my route, but the thought of another two weeks hiking, even if it was for charity, left me cold. ‘Walk for Heroes’. Some hero I’d turned out to be. A small detour, to somewhere with pubs and people and rooms with showers, wouldn’t upset my plans too much if I did decide to continue.

And even though my pack was heavy and my gammy leg complained bitterly, I left the farmyard at a brisk jog. I didn’t even look back, averting my eyes from the brow of the hill as I passed, eager to put some miles between me and that damned scarecrow.

Greenwich, Noon

I know when it is noon.

Though I am blind and dumb and kept in a small cell in the rafters of the Royal Observatory, I know when it is noon.