Contents (Annually) Editor’s Note —3— EP309:The Insurance Agent By Lavie Tidhar —4— Review: The Magician King By Josh Roseman ­—12— EP311: The Faithful Soldier, Prompted By Saladin Ahmed —14— EP312: Night Bird Soaring By T.L. Morganfield —20—

Escape Pod Publisher: Paul Haring – paul @ escapeartists.net Founder: Steve Eley – steve @ escapeartists.net Editor: Mur Lafferty – editor @ escapepod.org Assistant Editor: Bill Peters – bill @ escapeartists.net

The Soundproof Escape Pod and all works within are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. All works are copyright their respective authors. Hey Folks, This is the October issue, so I guess I should be sounding all spooky in the editor’s note, but That Holiday Which Must Be Feared is a month away, so instead why don’t we talk about reinvention. I’m not that great at waiting out long serialized stories, and honestly with longer book series where the author is know for long stretches between novels (Cough-George-RR-Martin-Cough) I usually stop one before the last one out so I can at least control when I’ll restart the story. So comics have never been an ideal form for me, except for when the storyline’s collected into a volume. Or, in the case of The Sandman, 10 volumes. But we’re a bit into DC’s reboot, and their reinvention means a bit more critical eye is being cast over their crop than would be if they hadn’t resorted to remaking themselves in the great American tradition. And while there are highs in the new crop, the lows have been getting most of the attention, because, well, while any reboot is going to lose you fans, it shouldn’t do this to young female fans: http://io9. com/5844355/ On a happier note, this is one-year anniversary of Escape Pod reinventing a bit of itself into a text product in addition to the audio coming into your ear canals every week. I think it’s been a success, but this is as good a point as any to stop and ask for feedback, so hit up [email protected] with your suggestions for what we can do different/better in Soundproof. This Soundproof is bringing you Lavie Tidhar’s The Insurance Agent, Saladin Ahmed’s The Faithful Soldier, Prompted, and T. L. Morganfield’s Night Bird Soaring. So it’s a strong issue. Hope you enjoy it, —Bill Bill Peters Assistant Editor

P.S. SF Signal put together an awesome, awesome flowchart of NPR’s top 100 SF/F books. Go get lost in it here: http://www.box.net/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg

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3 EP309: The Insurance Agent By Lavie Tidhar The bar was packed and everyone was watching the Nixon-Reagan match. The fighters were reflected off the bar’s grainy wood countertop and the tables’ gleaming surfaces and seemed to melt as they flickered down the legs of the scattered chairs. The bar was called the Godhead, which had a lot to do with why I was there. It was a bit of an unfair fight as Reagan was young, pre-presidency, circa-World War Two, while Nixon was heavy-set, older: people were exchanging odds and betting with the bar’s internal gaming system and the general opinion seemed to be that though Reagan was in better shape Nixon was meaner. I wasn’t there for the match. The Godhead was on Pulau Sepanggar, one of the satellite islands off Borneo, hence nominally under Malaysian federal authority but in practice in a free zone that had stronger ties to the Brunei Sultanate. It was a convenient place to meet, providing easy access to the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and, of course, Singapore, which resented the island’s role as a growing business centre yet found it useful at the same time. She wore a smart business suit and a smart communication system that looked like what it was, which was a custom-made gold bracelet on her left arm. She wore smart shades and I was taking a bet that she wasn’t watching the fight. She was drinking a generic Cola but there was nothing generic about her. I slid into a chair beside her and waited for her shades to turn transparent and notice me. ‘Drink, Mr. Turner?’ I liked the name Turner. It was Anglo-Saxon generic, a mid-level executive’s name, white as beige. ‘Call me James,’ I said. I liked James too. You could tell what a James Turner did just by hearing his name. The rest of me was tailor-made for the name, had been for some time: I had the kind of tan that suggested I had been East for just long enough to have acquired it, black hair that was short but not too short and had a decent but not overly-expensive cut, pale blue eyes behind shades that cost a lot of money to look like a knock-off. There was a suggestion of a smile in the corners of her mouth and she said, ‘I don’t think I will.’ ‘Mr. Turner, then,’ I said. ‘One name’s good as another.’ ‘Quite,’ she said. There was something dismissive in that single word. For the likes of you, was what it implied. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll have that drink.’ ‘Preference?’ she said. I said ‘Orange juice,’ wanted vodka. She didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. A moment later a waiter glided over and deposited the drink on the table, moisture condensing on the outer surface of the manifold that was the glass. I took a sip, put it down again into the ring of water that had immediately formed. Below, Nixon knocked out Reagan in the second round. I heard groans and shouts around me, tried to tune them out. ‘What can I do for you?’ I said. I couldn’t quite tell where she was from. She had pale skin carefully kept out of the sun, an Oxford-ac- quired accent and eyes I couldn’t see. She said, ‘I would like to buy insurance.’ ‘That,’ I said, possibly a little stiffly, ‘is why we’re here.’ 4 ‘Quite,’ she said again, and I felt I won the round – she did not like to waste her words and by answering me she had already thrown out six. ‘Is this personal insurance or –?’ I said and she said, a little too quickly, ‘Personal.’ ‘Who’s the IE?’ I said. She frowned for a moment and I could almost feel her scanning some remote database. Then she relaxed and again I had the impression of an almost-smile. The next fight was announced, Lenin versus Ho Chi Minn. I’d heard a rumour the company behind the fights modelled Lenin on his actual, mummified body, but it seemed unlikely. I don’t know how they did Uncle Ho. They were circling each other and I was taking a sip of juice when she said, ‘The Insurable Entity’s name is Kim,’ and I almost choked on a cube of ice, which wasn’t very professional. ‘Do you fear she is in danger?’ It was her round and she knew it. She didn’t answer me but she smiled. Of course she was in danger. Aliens always are. ### To understand Kim, you have to understand the Alien Theory of Spiritual Beings. It has been in and out of vogue since the early twentieth century, and goes something as follows: There have always been, throughout human history, figures of extraordinary spiritual power, who have changed the course of human history. These figures have been, without exception, aliens. As a theory it isn’t quite provable, of course. And purists always argue about the List. Jesus, Buddha, Mo- hammed, Jean D’arc, L. Ron Hubbard, Elvis, Uri Geller, sure. But what about Marx, Hildegard of Bingen, Madonna or Ogko (if he was even real?). The problem was that the theory gained, if not credibility, then popular appeal some time post-Ogko and, to make matter worse, was complicated with the addition of the Conflict Codicil. The Conflict Codicil of the Alien Theory of Spiritual Beings suggests that the alien manifestations on Earth belong to two or more opposing factions. What these factions are, or how many of them exist, is unknown, but the addition of the CC led to several bloodied clashes, most notably the Gellerite-Elron War in the South Pacific and the destruction of the Singularity Jesus project in South East Asia by forces unknown (various factions have been accused over the years, including Mossad, the Vatican and the SCR, the so- called Special Committee on Relativity, since listed as a terrorist organisation by the UN). Which is where I come into all this. ### I took the shuttle to Kota Kinabalu. From there by plane to Kuala Lumpur and from KL to Ho Chi Minn City, to find out I was in the wrong country altogether and Kim had left by then and no one knew where. It was my job to find out where and so I did, but it took me two days and then I was on a private helicopter going over Laos and into the badlands. Kim, I only found out later, was about to declare herself independent. She and her followers had acquired land that straddled the borders of Laos, Thailand and the country that was variously known as Myanmar or Burma. The intersection used to be called the Golden Triangle and it was, literally, a dump. Over the years, various factions in South East Asia found it useful to dump unwanted things into the forests of the badlands. Discarded Vietnamese battle dolls; Thai war drones that refused to shut themselves down and lived in complicated social flocks; Chinese nanogoo that never quite worked the way it was supposed to; in other words, crap. The drug trade was out ever since opium production for medical purposes was 5 authorised for the entire region (previously almost the sole domain of India and Tasmania) by the UN, and the former heroin labs were abandoned and moved to new industrial cities where the offices were much better. Newsweek called it The Morphine Revolution in a cover story and then everyone did a good job of forgetting the whole thing ever took place. The first thing Kim said to me was: ‘I don’t need protection.’ ‘With all due respect,’ I said. ‘Your advisors disagree.’ ‘My advisors know shit.’ I could see why it was easy to fall in love with her. She was born a boy, was a popular boxer in her teen years, had the operation, stayed a popular boxer for a couple more years, branched into films, a brief pop career, and then came her revelation and before you knew it there were Temples of Kim in every major city on the continent and the North Americans were begging to be let to join. ‘I was hired to guard you,’ I said. ‘I can take care of myself.’ ‘With all due respect,’ I said again, and she smiled, and said, ‘that just means you do not have respect.’ ‘I have a job,’ I said. She nodded, once. ‘Fine. Just don’t get in my fucking way.’ She had a way with words, Kim did. The first tenet of the Book of Kim says: Do not fuck up. The second tenet is: If you do, hide the evidence. So I did my job. ### There was nothing to do but watch American wrestling, which was still live. The whole camp felt as if it were waiting for something, and I worried it might be another rapture. There was shit in jungles. I installed perimeter defences, sent out bat-scouts to fly and report back, anti-missile weaponry, a firewall. Kim had surprisingly wide bandwidth going into her camp and I didn’t know what she did with it. Every day fol- lowers would come. Some came by car, some on foot, some arrived in helicopters. I didn’t see the woman who hired me though I sent her daily reports. My people tried to be unobtrusive, and they were good at that, but still. I was getting edgier by the day, knowing I wasn’t being paid the amount I was getting to sit around watching the two hundredth and twenty-second reincarnation of the Undertaker fight in the ring. I didn’t even know where the threat would come from. It didn’t seem reasonable that another Spiritual Entity or various faction groups were in the area – and I checked, and there weren’t. And the other SEs all had their own insurance policies anyway. We regulated the industry quite well, and there hadn’t been a major SE war in a long time. But Kim was obviously expecting trouble of some sort, and so I worried and checked the defences and the news networks and stuck close to Kim, and I was with her when she went into the forest. ### Kim was the name she chose for herself when she became a player, because it had a nice all-American girl’s name ring to it. Call it alien, call it SE, call it what you will but sometimes it is as if the old entity had been cast off, a new one taken its place. Rumour is that it happened that way with Ogko but no one re- ally ever understood Ogko properly. I had been a follower of Ogko for a while (a lot of people are, when they’re young) and I never understood it either. Kim was different. She swore a lot and she drank and she watched American wrestling and she was very much – alive, I guess is the word I’d use. She wasn’t very holy, but then neither were Elvis or Geller or Ogko. I followed her into the jungle. She had decided to go on her own. I said, ‘You can’t do that.’ ‘I can do whatever the fuck I want.’ 6 ‘I will come with you.’ She only shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said. We left the camp. I had arranged for the bat-drones to go discretely ahead and for some of my people to follow us at a distance. Kim didn’t seem to mind. I should have sensed trouble. I didn’t. ### My first sign of things going wrong came when the feed from the bat-drones turned into static. Then there were some wet explosions behind us and I panicked. Kim seemed oblivious to the whole thing. She sat in the lotus position, eyes closed, breathing deeply and evenly. I built a hasty setup of motion mines around her and doubled back. My team was gone. I found the remains of one, an ex-Swiss Guard, spread out across several thick-trunked trees. There was a silence in the forest that was unsettling. It was impossible to see the skies through the canopy, had been for some time, and I felt trapped inside that net of growing trees, oppressed by the heat and the humidity and the insects and the knowledge someone had just eliminated my team. I went back and Kim was still sitting there, meditating or asleep or doing fuck knows what. I didn’t disable the mines. I said, ‘Kim, we have a problem.’ She didn’t even open her eyes. she murmured, ‘No, you have a problem.’ There is a long distinguished protocol for SE to go off into a wilderness and there achieve some sort of new equilibrium. Ogko was inspired by the death of a backpacker who drowned in the Mekong (in The Way of Ogko). Jesus went into the desert (in The New Testament). Geller went into the jungle (in I’m A Celebrity, Get Me out of Here!). I said, ‘Kim, did you wipe out my team?’ She didn’t answer, but I knew it wasn’t impossible. ### When she surfaced she didn’t say a word to me, just shouldered her backpack and kept walking. I fol- lowed. I worried about an external agency. Someone killed my people. Someone disabled the drones. Someone was out there and I had the suspicion Kim had gone out into the jungle to meet them. If I was being honest, I was afraid of aliens. ### I don’t subscribe to the AToSE. There has been no evidence of alien intelligences on Earth, nor of any radi- cally new theory that would allow to break the speed of light. If there were aliens they were a long way away, on their own alien planets, worrying about their own alien politics, their own crazy SEs. The prob- lem, though was that it depended on your definition of aliens. ### There were things in the jungle that shouldn’t have been there. Kim seemed strangely immune to them. I wasn’t. The first came when a tree tried to kill me. We were passing through a coconut grove when they began to fall down. Coconuts fall silently, but usually as long as you’re aware of the danger you can avoid it. This, however, was not a single coconut dropping, but a bombardment. The trees stretched above my head and, as they did, their trunks bending like the necks of giraffes, they dropped their fruit directly above me. Kim walked calmly ahead. I began to run and the coconut trees stretched to follow me, massive green coconuts falling in absolute silence, narrowly missing my head, exploding at my feet. As I ran a tree root tripped me up. I turned on my back and stared directly at the falling load and knew it would burst my brain open and that would be the end of that. I felt strangely calm about it. The air smelled very thick with 7 fragrance, there had been strange little white flowers growing all over this region. The coconuts seemed to fall in slow motion, cannonballs or daisy-cutters dropped from a great height. Kim saved my life. It was perhaps at that point that madness set in. ### What does it mean to be mad? Were the SEs, all throughout the age, mad themselves? Perhaps madness is seeing the world in a different light, perhaps it is seeing things that are not there. But how much more crazy is it when they can then transfer their vision of the world, this stream of skewered, alien data, from themselves into other people? The coconuts slowed in mid-air. They hovered above my head, ready to fall down and smash it, ready to cave-in my skull, destroy neural pathways, erase the entity that thought of itself, collectively, as I. They never did. They hovered in the air and then Kim came closer and batted two of them aside – I heard them hit the ground with a thud and roll to a standstill – held the third one with her palm upturned, reached with her other hand and gently split it open. I rolled from the it and stood up. The ground was covered with green coconuts like rolled heads. ‘Come,’ Kim said. ‘Look.’ I looked. I couldn’t help it. She had split open the coconut as if it were made of something soft and pliable and she showed me its inside. There was a tiny living-room in there. Table, chairs. An old-fashioned tv of a defunct Japanese make. Tiny cups and saucers on the table. A fire place. ‘No one in,’ Kim said, sounding sad. I stared at her, stared at the open coconut. ‘What are you do- ing to me?’ I said, or thought I did. She said, ‘Come on.’ She let go of the coconut and, like in one of those magic tricks that use invisible thread, it stayed suspended in the air. I reached out and touched it. The mo- ment I did it fell to the ground. Kim said, ‘Come on,’ and started walking again. I stared at the coconuts lying on the ground, wondering what each of them hid inside. Then I followed Kim, deeper into the forest. ### How do I describe that journey into the forest? One could never see the sun beyond the canopy. Things slithered and crawled on the ground where the mulch of dead leaves, branches and roots had its own odour, its own separate life. How do I describe my certainty that the trees were watching me, that unseen assailants were lying in wait, that things will end up badly? My people had died. I walked like Lear, alone and crazy. I was a tow-boat and Kim was my anchor, but an anchor to what? She made me see things her way. I don’t know how long we travelled in that region. The first night we camped in a clearing. I built a fire while Kim stared off into space. I began to hear voices. They came from nowhere. They spoke in a mul- titude of languages. It was like being tuned in at once to a thousand audio channels. Kim seemed to be listening for them too. Occasionally she would seem to reply. At some point the ground shook. Kim had slowly turned around to the source of the quake. I watcher her. The ground shook and something came out of the ground. It was a dull-grey, earth-brown creature. It shook and shivered as it climbed from its hole. It took me a moment to recognise it. A semi-autonomous mine-layer, of an old Vietnamese make. Kim called to it and the machine crawled towards her, and she slowly stroked its head, murmuring to it. After a moment the thing turned back, its snout pointing at the ground, and began to dig. Soon it was gone back into the earth. ‘What are we doing here, Kim?’ She smiled. ‘We are going,’ she said, ‘on a journey.’ ‘No shit.’ 8 ‘Language, Mr. Turner.’ Then she turned to me and the smile melted away and she said, ‘What is your name?’ ‘James,’ I said. ‘James Turner.’ She shrugged. ‘I have no doubt you used some extremely clever algorithm to come up with that name,’ she said. ‘However, it won’t serve you very well in this place.’ We use names like shields. We use names to blend in. I tried to remember my original name and couldn’t. I said, ‘What is your name, Kim?’ ‘I have no name,’ she said. ‘Not here. One must be honest, here.’ ‘Then I shall have no name either,’ I said. ‘In the interest of honesty.’ She smiled at that. ‘Good,’ she said. Why did I have the feeling she had trapped me then? I knew then that the insurance contract had been a scam. I had been set up, hired for something I was not prepared for. She did not need my protection – I needed her. And yet… I said, ‘Where are we going?’ She said, ‘To the place where names begin.’ ### We came to an open area where the forest had been pushed back. There were banana trees here and wild drones flying overhead in formation. I watched them hunt, firing tiny missiles at an animal running through the trees. I watched them sit motionless in the sun, recharging. Kim called to them and they flew to her and one perched on her hand. There were too many deadly things in this place and they all came to Kim. With the exception of the trees before, they ignored me. We walked in the open and I was grateful for the sun. Then we went back into the trees. ### The attack came at night. I had been stumbling after Kim. It was very dark, and there were noises in the forest. I no longer knew where I was, what my name had been, I knew nothing but Kim, but she was no longer there. Something erupted from the trees and slammed into me. I fell back and it was on top of me. I grappled with it. It felt alive, though there was metal there too. I could not see it. My breathing was very loud to myself. I punched and tried to roll away but it had me pinned down and I used a miniature de- vice, a pen like delivery system that went like a blade into the thing’s flesh and embedded a tiny explosive charge. I pushed and flailed but it wouldn’t leave and then it exploded above me, burning my skin, cover- ing me with blood and bones and metal. Kim came to me then. ‘It was a bear,’ she said. ‘A half-mech. It must have been lonely.’ They’d been bred – manufactured – for jungle warfare. I didn’t reply. ‘We must be getting close,’ she said. We were. We came at last to a clearing in the forest. It was if the trees had simply uprooted themselves and retreated further from the spot, creating a perfectly circular space. A full moon shone overhead and in its light I saw him. ### They are not like you and me. ### 9 I recognised him, of course, the boy in the moonlight. His feet were bare, the nails of his fingers ruined where he bit them. Skin like ground Blue Mountain coffee, eyes as innocent as a baby’s. I had seen him numerous times, but never in the flesh. He began as a poet, and at some point he started to perform his poetry, not in any formal way but spontaneously, in roadside cafés and waiting rooms and train stations, and people began to listen. He was SE, one of the great SEs, and he should have been nowhere near this place, and yet he was. He said, ‘There is no longer a Nash Equilibrium.’ Kim said, ‘This place is mine.’ The boy smiled. ‘Is this your champion?’ he said. Kim said, ‘He will do.’ I realised they were discussing me. I sat on the ground, stilled my breath. I thought about the tiny living- room inside the coconut. Perhaps all living-rooms exist, in potentia, inside coconuts. A Nash Equilibrium is when all the players follow their best strategy and will only lose out if they change it. The boy said, ‘This is not a theme park.’ ‘Do you understand what is here?’ Kim said. The boy smiled again. ‘Do you?’ he said. I began to hear voices again. They were not in my head – not exactly. Something had congealed in this part of the world. Discarded technology, discarded ideas – they did not die but evolve, and finally meshed – became something new, something alien. The voices whispered in my head and the boy smiled and he had a nice smile. I had nothing to do with this, I realised. This was between SEs, a secret war of control. This place was a spiritual resource, and these two both wanted it. The boy made a motion with his hand. A figure stepped into the moonlight. ‘Bradford?’ I said. He looked at me. He could have been my twin. We were both so carefully tailor-made to be what we were. ‘Turner?’ ‘Well, this is fucking touching,’ Kim said. ‘Fucking touching,’ the boy said. He laughed. He had a laugh like breaking glass. Brad was an insurance agent. I said, ‘What happened to your team?’ ‘They were taken out.’ He looked rough. He mirrored me. ‘There were things in the coconuts,’ I said. ‘There was this living room.’ He said, ‘There was a cave. There were winds living there. Localised tornadoes, sentient. They showed me…’ his voice was husky from disuse. He said, ‘There was a crab with a top a hat that could talk.’ ‘The crab or the top hat?’ I said. He shook his head. ‘You will have to decide this,’ Kim said. She motioned for me and I obeyed her. I stood up. Bradford did the same his side. We faced each other in that perfect circle of trees. I could sense the silent watchers around the circle: wild drones and mech-bears and mine-layers and trees and wind. I knew Brad could feel them too. I landed the first punch. ### Life, Ogko says, is like a river. It is a metaphor, he goes on to say, and not a particularly good one. Never- theless. We could use road, says Ogko, but a road is a created thing, while a river exists independently of human- ity. The river can be turbulent or quiet. It can be calm and smooth and clear – or rough and full of turmoil. Though the river is infinite, individual journeys across it are finite. Lives sail the river for infinitely small 10 stretches. Human lives are like tiny craft sailing the river. They are like canoes. They are organic, like the trees from which canoes are made. They are born of the natural complexity of the world and, like great complexity, they can appear very simple. We fought. We were both very good at it, and neither of us wanted to fall into the river. And yet… I understood, at that moment, that the battle being waged was bigger than a single life, human or otherwise. It was about reclaiming, for one side or the other, a wider stretch of river. I did not know why. But at least, for the first time, I knew why I was being paid. ### They made love as we fought. Kim and the singer, naked in the moonlight. At one point I took Bradford’s eye out. Later, he had broken my knee. I knew then that we were not truly fighting, but re-enacting some- thing primeval. The wheel of love and the wheel of violence turned like clockwork against each other, and slowly, slowly, the silent watchers came. The boy sang then, as I tore Brad’s ear off with my teeth, as he sank his thumb into my neck until blood sprouted out, and Kim spoke, and they were, and the jungle came to them and they claimed it. I know what happened but I do not understand it. Much later it was daylight and Brad and I were lying on the ground and there were roots holding us down and strange creatures lapping at our wounds and Kim said, ‘Hush, now. It is over.’ I could hear helicopters in the distance, thought I was hallucinating. ‘Fighting and fucking,’ Kim said, close in my ear. ‘Ogko never understood that about life.’ They had needed a show and we provided it. The helicopters landed and Brad and I were loaded onto them. They took us to the clinics in Yunnan and rebuilt us. ### Six months later I was in a bar in Mexico City watching the Ali-Tyson fight when she walked in. I’d been reading the papers: Singularity terrorists in South America, industrial strikes in the Belt, the appearance of a black-out area in South East Asia, a slice of Earth sunk into maplessness, a Here Be Dragons because one no longer knew what was really there. I’d been there and I didn’t know. Something alien… SEs change things. History is like a river, and human lives are rafts or leaves or corpses floating in it for a while. So said Ogko. But sometimes lives flare brightly, like an explosion, a seismic shift. SEs are history bombs, shifting the courses of rivers, causing floods or watering a desert. It’s hard to say which. I wondered what would come out of that place, what beast, its time come at last, as Yeats had said, would be sham- bling towards Bethlehem to be born. Or towards Ho Chi Minn City or Kunming or Chiang Mai, at least. I turned off the news feed and she came towards me, Smart suit smart shades Oxford accent – she smiled when she saw me and said, ‘I would like to buy some insurance.’ ‘That’s lucky,’ I said. ‘That happens to be what I do.’ She nodded and sat down, and I let her pay for the drinks.

—30— Lavie Tidhar grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and has lived variously in South Africa, the UK, Asia and the remote island-nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Lavie won the inaugural Clarke-Bradbury competition in 2003 (sponsored by the European Space Agency), is a three times nominee for the Israeli Geffen Award, and was nominated for the Sturgeon Award in 2011.

11 Review: The Magician King Review by Josh Roseman Book by Lev Grossman Please note: this review contains spoilers for Lev Grossman’s previous novel, The Magicians. ### In The Magicians, Lev Grossman introduced us to Quentin Coldwater, an intelligent, callous, callow youth who was picked for the entrance exam to Brakebills, a secret magical academy in upstate New York. Be- cause this is a fantasy novel, I think we all knew he’d make it in. He spent several years learning magic, and learning that it was nothing like Harry Potter. But what made Quentin different is that he also believed in Fillory, a Narnia-like world created by an English novelist. He never expected to actually find it. Now, a couple of years later, Quentin is one of the two Kings of Fillory. Joined by his Brakebills cohorts Eliot and Janet, and his high school friend Julia, the four of them rule the strange, magical kingdom. But Quentin is getting bored, and what do kings do when they get bored? They go on quests. And Quentin’s quest takes him right back to where he started: Brakebills. Among other places. Along the way he meets up with his friend Josh and Josh’s new cohort, a dragon-ologist named Poppy. Then Quentin meets a dragon and he learns that his quest might affect the future of magic as he — and everyone in all the worlds — knows it. As with many sequels, it took me a few chapters to really start enjoying The Magician King. The sense of wonder and discovery from the first novel isn’t quite as evident, although Quentin’s bone-dry sarcasm and asshat-like behavior certainly are. However, the discovery returned when Grossman started layering in flashbacks to Julia’s life — for Julia, unlike the other three rulers of Fillory, did not come up through Brakebills. No, her journey to magic was much rougher, much more “street” — think of those annoying teen films where the from-the-streets dancer has to fit in with the classically-trained ballerinas — and while nothing really new happened, it was still interesting to learn how the other half of witchcraft lives. And judging from what Julia went through at the hands of a trickster god, perhaps it would be better to not have learned magic at all. But Julia’s journey does introduce us to some interestingly-named characters, such as Pouncy Silverkitten and Failstaff, even if parts of it are quite cliche and technologically silly-sounding (especially the bits with the text-to-speech forum reading software). And, as each layer of Julia’s journey is revealed, so too do we get a little closer to figuring out why Julia acts the way she does in Fillory. One of the better points of The Magicians was that the book attempted to subvert most of the common tropes of magic-school fiction — either that, or hang such a hugely-kitschy lampshade on them that read- ers can’t help but wonder how they ever worked in other books. The Magician King does some of the same with Fillory — the random kids who just show up and become kings, the silly-named islands that are actually pretty boring, the constant references to Fillory’s peculiar moon. The seagoing parts of the book directly draw from CS Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader — as I said before, all of Fillory draws from Narnia — although here again Grossman hangs massive lampshades upon pretty much everything, at least until the story gets serious. Since the world of Fillory is intended to be Narnia-esque, the author pretty much has to depend upon char- acterization to fulfill my personal “must have good worldbuilding and interesting characters” requirement. Quentin, while interesting, is quite annoying in his world-weary way; at least Eliot is a little less hipster- mage in this book. He really bugged me in The Magicians. The main characters, though certainly well- rounded, are in their own way fantasy tropes, but again Grossman’s subversion and lampshading of the 12 standard fantasy fiction toolbox makes them worth getting to know. From Benedict the emo-cartographer to Bingle the extra-awesome swordsman, from the talking sloth who won’t shut up to the holier-than-thou of Penny, even from the irrepressible sidekick humor of Josh to the let’s-see-it-through-her-eyes character- ization of Poppy, the people (and animals) who populate this book are exactly where they should be. The overarching plot of the novel felt a bit forced to me — “complete this quest or all magic will go away” — but Grossman manages to pull it off by keeping Quentin’s character consistent. Though Quentin does change as a result of what he goes through, he’s still the same old ennui-filled Quentin. Also, the whole “the hero pays the price” angle didn’t seem like much of a price to me. Still, I enjoyed reading the book, and there were a lot of clever and funny things to keep me interested until I got to the next plot point. And, unlike the first book, The Magician King clearly sets up another sequel. I’m not sure how much longer Grossman can keep up this particular style of storytelling, but I’m on board for book three. ### Note to Parents: This book contains adult language, violence, adult situations, and sexual situations — one of them very violent. I would not recommend it to any but the most mature teens. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

—30— Josh Roseman (not the trombonist, the other one) is a writer and web developer. His fiction has appeared in Big Pulp, and on the Dunesteef and the Drabblecast. He also has a decade of news and feature writing experience. Visit his website at roseplusman.com, or find him on twitter @listener42.

13 EP311: The Faithful Soldier, Prompted By Saladin Ahmed If I die on this piece-of-shit road, Lubna’s chances die with me. Ali leveled his shotgun at the growling tiger. In the name of God, who needs no credit rating, let me live! Even when he’d been a soldier, Ali hadn’t been very religious. But facing death brought the old invocations to mind. The sway of culture, educated Lubna would have called it. If she were here. If she could speak. The creature stood still on the split cement, watching Ali. Nanohanced tigers had been more or less wiped out in the great hunts before the Global Credit Crusade, or so Ali had heard. I guess this is the shit end of “more or less.” More proof, as if he needed it, that traveling the Old Cairo Road on foot was as good as asking to die. He almost thought he could hear the creature’s targeting system whir, but of course he couldn’t any more than the tiger could read the vestigial OS prompt that flashed across Ali’s supposedly deactivated retscreens. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will report for uniform inspection at 0500 hours. Ali ignored the out-of-date message, kept his gun trained on the creature. The tiger crouched to spring. Ali squeezed the trigger, shouted “God is greater than credit!” The cry of a younger man, from the days when he’d let stupid causes use him. The days before he’d met Lubna. A sputtering spurt of shot sprayed the creature. The tiger roared, bled, and fled. For a moment Ali just stood there panting. “Praise be to God,” he finally said to no one in particular. I’m coming, beloved. I’m going to get you your serum, and then I’m coming home. A day later, Ali still walked the Old Cairo Road alone, the wind whipping stinging sand at him, making a mockery of his old army-issued sandmask. As he walked he thought of home–of Free Beirut and his humble house behind the jade-and-grey-marble fountain. At home a medbed hummed quietly, keeping Lubna alive even though she lay dying from the Green Devil, which one side or the other’s hover-dustings had infected her with during the GCC. At home Lubna breathed shallowly while Ali’s ex-squadmate Fat- man Fahrad, the only man in the world he still trusted, stood watch over her. Yet Ali had left on this madman’s errand–left the woman who mattered more to him than anything on Earth’s scorched surface. Serum was her only hope. But serum was devastatingly expensive, and Ali was broke. Every bit of money he had made working the hover-docks or doing security for shops had gone to prepay days on Lubna’s medbed. And there was less and less work to be had. He’d begun having dreams that made him wake up crying. Dreams of shutting down Lubna’s medbed. Of killing himself. And then the first strange message had appeared behind his eyes. Like God-alone-knew how many vets, Ali’s ostensibly inactive OS still garbled forth a glitchy old prompt from time to time God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will pick up your new field ablution kit after your debriefing today.

14 God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will spend your leave-time dinars wisely–at Honest Majoudi’s! But this new message had been unlike anything Ali had ever seen. Blood-freezingly current in its subject matter. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will go to the charity-yard of the Western Mosque in Old Cairo. She will live. Ali’s attention snapped back to the present as the wind picked up and the air grew thick with sand. As storms went, it was mild. But it still meant he’d have to stop until it blew over. He reluctantly set up the rickety rig-shelter that the Fatman had lent him. He crawled into it and lay there alone with the wail of the wind, the stink of his own body, and his exhausted, sleepless thoughts. When the new prompt had appeared, Ali had feared he was losing his mind. More than one vet had lost theirs, had sworn that their OS had told them to slaughter their family. Ali had convinced himself that the prompt was random. An illustration of the one-in-a-trillion chance that such a message could somehow be produced by error. But it had repeated itself. Every night for a week. He’d told the Fatman about it, expected the grizzled old shit-talker to call him crazy. Half wanted to be called crazy. But Fahrad had shrugged and said “Beloved, I’ve seen a few things in my time. God, who needs no credit rating, can do the impossible. I don’t talk about this shit with just anyone, of course. Not these days, beloved. Religion. Hmph! But maybe you should go. Things sure ain’t gonna get any better here. And you know I’ll watch over Lubna like my own daughter.” So now Ali found himself following a random, impossible promise. It was either this or wait for the med- bed’s inevitable shutdown sequence and watch Lubna die, her skin shriveling before his eyes, her eye- whites turning bright green. After a few hours the storm died down. Ali packed up his rig-shelter and set back to walking the ruined Old Cairo Road, chasing a digital dream. There was foot traffic on the road now, not just the occasional hover-cluster zipping overhead. He was finally nearing the city. He had to hurry. If he was gone too long, Ali could count on the Fatman to provide a few days of coverage for Lubna. But Fahrad was as poor as Ali. Time was short. Running out of time without knowing what I’m chasing. Ali blocked out the mocking words his own mind threw at him. He took a long sip from his canteen and quickened his pace. Eventually, the road crested a dune and Old Cairo lay spread before him. The bustling hover-dock of Nile River Station. The silvery spires of Al-Azhar 2.0. The massive moisture pits, like aquamarine jewels against the city’s sand-brown skin. Lubna had been here once on a university trip, Ali recalled. His thoughts went to her again, to his house behind the jade-and-grey marble fountain, but he herded them back to the here- and-now. Focus. Find the Western Mosque. The gate guards took his rifle and eyed him suspiciously, but they let him pass. As he made his way through the city, people pressed in on every side. Ali had always thought of himself as a city man. He’d laughed at various village-bumpkin-turned-soldier types back when he’d been in the army. But Old Cairo made him feel like a bumpkin. He’d never seen so many people, not even in the vibrant Free Beirut of his childhood. He blocked them out as best he could. He walked for two hours, asking directions of a smelly fruit-seller and two different students. Finally, when dusk was dissipating into dark, he stood before the Western Mosque. It was old, and looked it. The top half of the thick red minaret had long ago been blown away by some army that hadn’t feared God. Ali passed through the high wall’s open gate into the mosque’s charity-yard, which was curiously free of paupers.

15 God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will remember to always travel with a squad mate when leaving the caravansarai. “Peace and prosperity, brother. Can I help you?” The brown, jowly man that had snuck up on Ali’s flank was obviously one of the Imams of the Western Mosque. His middle-aged face was furrowed in scrutiny. Ali stood there, unable to speak. He had made it to Old Cairo, to the charity-yard of the Western Mosque as the prompt had said, and now… Ali didn’t know what he hoped to find. A vial of serum, suspended in a pillar of light? The sky splitting and a great hand passing down cure-money? He was exhausted. He’d faced sandstorms and a tiger to get here. Had nearly died beneath the rot-blackened claws of toxighuls. He’d traveled for two weeks, surviving on little food and an hour’s sleep here and there. He started to wobble on his feet. Why had he come here? Lubna was going to die and he wouldn’t even be there to hold her. The Imam stared at Ali, still waiting for an explanation. Ali swallowed, his cracked throat burning. “I…I…my OS. It–” his knees started to buckle and he nearly collapsed. “It told me to come here. From FreeBey. No money. Had to walk.” They were a madman’s words, and Ali hardly believed they were coming from his own mouth. “Truly? You walked all that way? And lived to tell the tale? I didn’t know such a thing was possible.” The Imam looked at Ali with concerned distaste and put a hand on his shoulder. “Well… The charity-yard is closing tonight for cleaning, but I suppose one foreign beggar won’t get in the way too much. You can sleep in safety here, brother. And we can talk about your OS tomorrow.” Ali felt himself fading. He needed rest. Food. Even a vet like him could only go so long. He sank slowly to the ground and slept. In his sleep he saw the bloody bodies of friends and children. He saw his squadmates slicing the ears off dead men. He heard a girl cry as soldiers closed in around her. He woke screaming, as he had once done every night. His heart hammered. It had been a long time since he’d had dreams of the war. When they were first married, Lubna would soothe him and they would step into the cool night air and sit by the jade-and-grey marble fountain. Eventually, the nightmares had faded. Her slender hand on the small of his back, night after night–this had saved his life. And now he would never see her again. He had abandoned her because he thought God was talking to him. Thinking of it, his eyes began to burn with tears. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will deactivate the security scrambler on the wall before you. She will live. Ali sucked in a shocked breath and forgot his self-pity. His pulse racing, he scrambled to his feet. He looked across the dark yard at the green-glowing instrument panel set in the mosque’s massive gate. But he did not move. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will deactivate the security scrambler on the wall before you. She will live. The prompt flashed a second time across his retscreens. I’ve lost my mind. But even as he thought it, he walked toward the wall. Screen-jacking had never been Ali’s specialty. But from the inside interface, the gate’s security scrambler was simple enough to shut down. Anyone who’d done an army hitch or a security detail could do it. Ali’s fingers danced over the screen, and a few seconds later it was done. Then a chorus of angry shouts erupted and an alarm system began droning away. Two men in black dashed out of the mosque and past him, each carrying an ornate jewelry box. Thieves. 16 By the time he decided to stop them, they had crossed the courtyard. He scrambled toward them, trying not to think about him being unarmed. Behind him, he heard the familiar clatter of weapons and body armor. “Thanks for the help, cousin!” One of the thieves shouted at Ali. Ali was near enough to smell their sweat when they each tapped their h-belts and hover-jumped easily over the descrambled wall. Infiltrators wait- ing for their chance. They used me, somehow. He panicked. What have I done? His stomach sank. They’ve been using my OS all along! How and why did they call him all the way from FreeBey? He didn’t know and it didn’t matter. I’m screwed. He had to get out of here. Somehow he had to get back to Lubna. He turned to look toward the mosque– –And found himself staring down the barrel of the jowly Imam’s rifle. The holy man spat at Ali. “Motherless scum! Do you know how much they’ve stolen? You helped them get out, huh? And your pals left you be- hind to take their fall? Well, don’t worry. The police will catch them, too. You won’t face execution alone.” He kept the weapon trained on Ali’s head. Ali knew a shooter when he saw one. This was not good. “I didn’t–” Ali started to say, but he knew it was useless. A squad of mosque guardsmen trotted up. They scowled almost jovially as they closed in. Ali didn’t dare fight these men, who could call on more. He’d done enough security jobs himself to know they wouldn’t listen to him. At least not until after they’d beaten him. He tensed himself and took slaps and punches. He yelped, and they raked his eyes for it. He threw up and they punched him for it. His groin burned from kicks and he lost two teeth. Then he blacked out. He woke in a cell with four men in uniforms different from the mosque guards’. Cairene police? They gave him water. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will report to queue B7. Ali ignored the prompt. The men slapped him around half-heartedly and made jokes about his mother’s sexual tastes. Again, he pushed down the angry fighter within him. If he got himself killed by these men he would never see Lubna again. They dragged him into the dingy office of their Shaykh-Captain. The old man was scraggly and fat, but hard. A vet, unless Ali missed his guess. “Tell me about your friends.” the Shaykh-Captain said. Ali started to explain about being framed but then found the words wouldn’t stop. Something had been knocked loose within him these past few days. He talked and talked and told the old man the truth. All of the truth. About Lubna and the messages, about leaving Free Beirut, about the toxighuls and the tiger, the Western Mosque and the thieves. When he was done he lowered his eyes, but he felt the old man glare at him for a few long, silent mo- ments. Ali raised his gaze slowly and saw a sardonic smile spread over the Shaykh-Captain’s face. “A prompt? Half the guys with an OS still get ‘em–what do they mean? Nothing. I got one that said I fucked your mother last night. Did she wake up pregnant?” The men behind Ali chuckled. In the army, Ali had hated the Cairenes and their moronic mother jokes. “Sometimes I don’t even know where the words come from,” the old man went on. “Random old satellites squawking? Some head-hacker having a laugh? Who knows? And who gives a shit? I got one a couple weeks back that told me to find some guy named Ali, who was supposed to tell me about ‘great riches lying buried beneath a jade-and-grey marble fountain.’” For a moment, Ali listened uncomprehendingly. Then he thought his heart would stop. He did everything he could to keep his face straight as the Shaykh-Captain continued. 17 “Do you know how many fountains like that there are here in OC? And how many sons of bitches named Ali? What’s your name, anyway, fool?” “My name? Uh, my name is F-fahrad, Shaykh-Captain, and I…” “Shut up! I was saying–I told my wife about this prompt and she said I should go around the city digging up fountains. As if I don’t got enough to do here.” He gestured vaguely at a pile of textcards on his desk. “‘In the army,’ I told her, ‘I got a prompt telling me about some pills that could make my dick twice as long. Did I waste my pay on them?’” The old man gave Ali an irritated look “Y’know, you and my wife–you two fucking mystics would like each other. Maybe you could go to her old broads’ tea hour and tell them about your prompts! Maybe she’d even believe your donkey-shit story about walking here from the north.” The Shaykh-Captain stood slowly, walked over to the wall, and pulled down an old-fashioned truncheon. “But before the teahouse, we have to take you back downstairs for a little while.” Ali felt big, hard hands take hold of him and he knew that this was it. He was half-dead already. He couldn’t survive an Old Cairo-style interrogation. He would never see Lubna again. He had failed her, and she would die a death as horrible as anything he’d seen in the war. Faithful Soldier, she will live. The prompt flashed past his retscreens and he thought again of the Shaykh Captain’s words about riches and the fountain. This was no head-hacker’s trick. No thieves’ scheme. He did not understand it, but God had spoken to him. He could not dishonor that. He had once served murderers and madmen who claimed to act in God’s name. But Lubna–brilliant, loving Lubna–had shown him that this world could hold holiness. If Ali could not see her again, if he could not save her, he could at least face his death with faith. He made his voice as strong as he could, and he held his head high as he uttered words that would seal his fate with these men. “In the name of God, who needs no credit rating, Shaykh-Captain, do what you must. But I am not lying.” The Shaykh-Captain’s eyes widened and a twisted smile came to his lips. “So that’s it! In the name of your mother’s pussy, you superstitious fool!” The big men behind Ali grumbled their southern disgust at the fact of Ali’s existence and started shoving him, but the old man cut them off with a hand gesture. He set down the truncheon, pulled at his dirty grey beard, assumed a mock gravity. “A genuine Free Shi’ah Anti- Crediteer. The scourge of the Global Credit Crusaders. Hard times for your kind these days, even up north, I hear.” The Shaykh-Captain snorted, but there was something new in the man’s voice. Something almost human. “You think you’re a brave man–a martyr–to show your true colors down here, huh? Pfft. Well, you can stop stroking your own dick on that count. No one down here gives a damn about those days any more. Half this city was on your side of things once. Truth be told, my fuck-faced fool of a little brother was one of you. He kept fighting that war when everyone knew it was over. He’s dead now. A fool, like I say. Me? I faced reality. Now look at me.” The old man spread his arms as if his shabby office was a palace, his two goons gorgeous wives. He sat on the edge of his desk and gave Ali another long look. “But you–you’re stuck in the fanatical past, huh? You know, I believe this story about following your OS is actually true. Not a robber. Just an idiot. You’re as pathetic as my brother was. A dream-chasing relic. You really walked down the OC Road?” Ali nodded but said nothing. A sympathetic flash lit the Shaykh-Captain’s eyes, but he quickly grimaced, as if the moment of fellow- feeling caused him physical pain. “Well, my men will call me soft, but what the fuck. You’ve had a rough

18 enough trip down here, I suppose. Tell you what: We’ll get you a corner in steerage on a hover-cluster, okay? Those northbound flights are always half-empty anyway. Go be with your wife, asshole.” Ali could not quite believe what he was hearing. “Thank you! Thank you, Shaykh-Captain! In the name of–” “In the name of your mother’s hairy tits! Shut up and take your worn old expressions back to your falling- apart city. Boys, get this butt-fucked foreigner out of my office. Give him a medpatch, maybe. Some soup. And don’t mess him up too bad, huh?” The big men gave him a low-grade medpatch, which helped. And they fed him lentil soup and pita. Then they shoved him around again, a bit, but not enough to matter. When they were through they hurled him into the steerage line at the hover-docks. Ali was tired and hurt and thirsty. Both his lips were split and his guts felt like jelly. But war had taught him how to hang on when there was a real chance of getting home. Riches buried beneath the jade-and-grey-marble fountain. Cure- money. Despair had weakened him, but he would find the strength to make it back to Lubna. He would watch as she woke, finally free of the disease. Faithful Soldier, you will The prompt cut off abruptly. Ali boarded the hover-cluster and headed home to his beloved.

—30— Saladin Ahmed was Born in Detroit to leftist parents of Lebanese/Egyptian/Irish/Polish descent. He grew up in a huge, colorful family, blocks from Detroit proper in working-class Dearborn, the town that Henry Ford built. He has written quite a bit of poetry, has been published often in Podcastle, and has a the first book in a series being published by DAW next February.

19 EP312: Night Bird Soaring By T.L. Morganfield On his sixth birthday, Totyoalli’s parents took him to the holy city to see the Emperor Cuauhtemoc, but the plane ride proved the most exciting part. He kept his nose to the window, taking in the vast lands of the One World, from the snow-capped mountains of his home in the northern provinces to the open plains of Teotihuacan. He marveled at the miniature cities and cars passing below. All his life he’d dreamt of flying, ever since the first time he’d seen a bird gliding through the air. From the airport, they took a cab to the royal palace on Lake Texcoco. Tenochtitlan, the single largest city in the world, sprawled around it for miles. The cab buzzed across one of the royal causeways, the water blue and shimmering in the hot sun. Inside the walled royal complex stood the Great Temple, meticulously maintained by a crew of thousands, its sacred Sun Stone keeping watch over the visiting crowds. At the palace, two genetically-engineered royal jaguar knights escorted Totyoalli’s family to the Emperor’s gardens. Totyoalli watched their tails swish behind them, fascinated. Their heads looked so soft he wished to pat them between the ears, but when he tried to talk to them, they bared their fangs and gripped their spears a little tighter. Ahead, a doorway opened onto a stone patio overlooking an expanse of grass and trees. Marigolds and birds of paradise choked the flower beds. Cranes stepped gingerly through the ponds while monkeys chat- tered in the trees. The Revered Speaker stood at the crest of the nearest hill, his hands behind him and his back to them. “Good of you to come, Totyoalli.” He didn’t turn. “Let me take a look at you.” Unafraid, Totyoalli hurried to him. His friends claimed the Revered Speaker was seven hundred years old, that he’d been emperor when the Spanish Devil Cortés tried to bring the One World to its knees. Some said Cuauhtemoc was the War God himself, or maybe the Fifth Sun incarnate, come to Earth to lead the Mexica through a thousand years of glory. Totyoalli had expected someone very old and wise. But in fact the Revered Speaker looked hardly out of his teens. He wore green robes with the sacred day symbols embroidered in gold and silver thread, and his long black hair was tied back in a complicated knot. Blue, red, white, and black tattooed lines formed the profile of an eagle on the right side of his face. Cuauhtemoc knelt and kissed the earth at Totyoalli’s feet, quoting dedications and blessing him. He then took the boy’s head in both hands and granted him the kiss of Divine Grace on his forehead. “Now that we have the formalities out of the way, walk with me.” Cuauhtemoc took Totyoalli by the hand and they moved down the hill, past the egrets, until his mother and father vanished from sight. They sat on a stone bench under a grove of willow trees. “So, how is calmecac?” Totyoalli shrugged. The Revered Speaker’s smile widened. “Haven’t much interest in studying?” “I like the learning part, but the other boys say I should go to the telpochcalli with the rest of the poor kids, and they pick fights.” “You haven’t told them you’re the Night Wind?” “Mother told me not to.”

20 Cuauhtemoc nodded. “She’s not pleased with your destiny.” Totyoalli shook his head. His mother wished he weren’t the Night Wind; in fact, she’d gone to great lengths to plan a home delivery, so the priests and government augurs couldn’t record the exact time of his birth. His father had thought her ridiculous, but respected her wishes, and studied the instructional books to prepare for delivering their baby himself. No doctor would attend; Totyoalli’s mother suspected they were spies for the Temple. But she couldn’t fool the gods. After eight intense hours of screaming with no sign of the baby, Totyoalli’s father lost his resolve and called an ambulance. Just seconds after midnight, surgeons brought forth their son through caesarian and his parents named him Night Bird. The next morning, the local priest—dressed all in black and stinking of the rancid blood he smeared on his body—came to inform them that the god Tezcatlipoca had chosen their son as His Teotl Ixiptla, to represent the god on earth for the Toxcatl—the Festival of Dryness—during his twenty-ninth year. Totyoalli’s mother had cried almost daily since then. “How do you feel about it?” Cuauhtemoc asked Totyoalli. “It’s always a great honor to serve the gods in such a personal manner,” Totyoalli replied, quoting what his father had told him. “You don’t mind dying before you’re thirty?” Cuauhtemoc pressed. Death shadowed every aspect of life in the One World. People died daily at the sacrifices, usually broad- cast on television, and Totyoalli and his friends played at death all the time, pretending the dog-god Xolotl was guiding them through the nine trials of the underworld to reach Mictlan. Those who ran home cry- ing from scuffed knees or a bloody nose lost the game and the other boys teased them for days. “You’ll open death’s door and find Xolotl left only a pile of shit to guide you!” they’d chant mercilessly. Totyoalli’s mother thought such games disrespectful and would he find it so funny when Xolotl sent him into the underworld alone? The Revered Speaker was awaiting an answer, so Totyoalli replied, “Do you fear death, My Lord?” His face suddenly guarded, Cuauhtemoc said, “Why do you ask?” “My friends say you’re one of the gods. Is it true? Did you kill the Spanish Devil?” “I’ve seen more than most men.” “But are you a god?” Cuauhtemoc chuckled. “You’re an inquisitive little boy, Night Bird. You do well in the sciences, don’t you?” “I’m very good at math,” Totyoalli said unabashedly. “My teacher says I’m his best student, and someday I’m going to be an astronaut.” Cuauhtemoc raised his eyebrows. “That takes many years of work, perhaps more than the gods have granted you.” “I’m very good at math,” Totyoalli insisted. Cuauhtemoc patted him on the back. “Come see me again next year and we’ll talk some more.” He led Totyoalli back up the hill to where his mother and father waited. As they departed, Totyoalli looked over his shoulder and waved at Cuauhtemoc. The Revered Speaker waved back. But his mother grabbed his hand and hissed at him, “I will not have you playing cute with the man who ordered your execution.” ### Totyoalli’s father bought him a telescope for his tenth birthday, and he spent nearly every evening out on 21 the back porch, studying the stars’ steady progression across the sky. His father often sat with him, testing his son’s growing knowledge and listening to anything new he’d learned. When cold weather moved in, Totyoalli merely donned his coat and hat for stargazing, if the skies permitted, and his father always had a cup of hot chocolate waiting. In the summer, they took the telescope along on camping trips and his father promised, “Next summer I’ll take you to see a rocket launch at Yoatitlan.” Totyoalli counted down the days on his calendar. Then one night, on his way to the bathroom, he overheard his parents talking about him. “It’s not good for him to dream so much,” his mother said. “He’ll never go to space. Cuauhtemoc wrote his destiny the moment he was born.” “That’s how it’s always been,” his father replied. “I just can’t bear to see him struggle for nothing—” “It won’t be for nothing. He’ll grow up to be man, perhaps have a family of his own—” “Until Cuauhtemoc cuts his heart out in front of an audience of millions!” “I’m not talking about this any more.” Hearing his father approach, Totyoalli hurried to the bathroom. Before returning to bed, he went to the kitchen and saw his father sitting outside on the porch, staring at the telescope and sipping a glass of milky- white octli mixed with soda water. He didn’t come back inside for the rest of the night. ### At the Revered Speaker’s request, Totyoalli had been visiting the palace twice a year. His mother didn’t come along again after that first trip; Totyoalli’s father said she never would have gone at all if the Emperor hadn’t insisted on meeting her. His father passed the hours with silent prayer at the Great Temple while his son spent the afternoons in the gardens with Cuauhtemoc, talking about his classes and interests. Over the years, the Emperor had come to seem something of a second father to the boy, but when Totyoalli arrived at the palace that summer, his mother’s bitter declarations about Cuauhtemoc’s intentions weighed heavy on his mind. “Have they taught you the names of the planets yet?” Cuauhtemoc asked as they followed the winding brook to the south end of the gardens. Unable to resist showing off his knowledge, Totyoalli rattled off the long list. “Piltzintecuhtli, Quetzalcoatl, Cem Anahuac, Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, Ometeotl, and Tlaloc.” He was one of the few in his class who could recite the names from memory. Cuauhtemoc smiled, impressed. “Your father tells me you’re very handy with your telescope. You’re still planning to be an astronaut?” “Mother says I’m wasting my time. She didn’t want father to get me the telescope.” “Knowledge is never a waste of time.” “She also says you’re going to cut my heart out.” Totyoalli hadn’t intended to bring it up, but it just spilled out. He couldn’t meet Cuauhtemoc’s gaze. He hated that his mother thought so badly of his friend, yet he knew she spoke the truth. Earlier that month, the priests had called him to the temple to watch the Toxcatl broadcast. “It’s time you began learning what’s expected of you,” they’d said. He’d feigned illness and his father hadn’t made him watch on television, but how much longer could he avoid it? He didn’t want to see anything that might alter his friendship with Cuauhtemoc.

22 After a moment of silence, the Revered Speaker replied, “It’s not a day I look forward to. I’d rather it never came.” “Then she’s right. It’s all a waste of time.” Cuauhtemoc set a firm hand on Totyoalli’s shoulder. “Everyone meets Xolotl; you just know ahead of time the exact moment and place He will visit you. Eighteen years is a long time, and there are still many op- portunities to pursue your passions. Living is not wasted time. Always remember that.” “I can still be an astronaut, then?” Totyoalli asked. Smiling, Cuauhtemoc replied, “We’ll discuss that when you’ve finished calmecac.” That evening, they sat in the royal observatory, Cuauhtemoc telling tales of the stars, the planets, and the gods that named them, while Totyoalli gazed at Quetzalcoatl through the telescope’s super-powered lens. He imagined a giant feathered serpent swimming through its swirling yellow clouds, His home since conflagrating Himself on a pyre of wood and snakes and ascending to the heavens as the Morning Star. Someday I’m going to visit Him, he thought. If the gods will allow it. ### Totyoalli finished calmecac two years early, and, a few days after graduation, received an invitation to at- tend the Royal Academy in Tlaxcala. The evening before classes began, his father called him, so distressed he could hardly speak. “She left.” “Mother?” Silence on the other end answered the question. “Are you okay?” “She took all of her things and most of the furniture.” He paused for a moment before adding, “I guess she thought she’d stayed long enough.” “Do you need me to come home?” “No, of course not. I’m fine.” “You don’t sound fine. I think you should come live here. We’ll get an apartment in town.” ### That first semester, Totyoalli joined the Aerospace Corps, where, for beginner training, cadets parachuted out of airplanes high above the northern plains—an exercise he dreaded more the more he did it. Surely one day his fear would get the better of him and he’d refuse to jump, and that would end his space ca- reer before it ever began. That thought always made him jump when he hesitated, but he still worried he wouldn’t pull his cord in time. Yet even the one time his first chute failed, he managed to deploy the emergency one. Between the stress of finals and worries that he’d never pass his first-year requirements, he welcomed Cuauhtemoc’s invitation for him and his father to celebrate the five days of Toxiuhmolpilia and the New Fire Ceremony at the palace. Toxiuhmolpilia happened only every fifty-two years, when the ancient calendars aligned. Days of fearful apprehension preceded the New Fire Ceremony; would the gods end the world or spare it a little longer? At the end of the fifth day, every city—from the farthest icy northern towns to the tourist meccas at the tip of the southern continent—extinguished their lights and broke the last pots made in the flames of that century’s fire. Then, just shy of midnight, the jaguar knights would escort Xiuhtecuhtli’s Teotl Ixiptla—the fire-god’s representative on earth—to the Hill of the Stars outside the city. If the priests observed the con- stellation Tianquiztli rising above them, Cuauhtemoc would cut Xiuhtecuhtli’s heart out and light the New Fire in his chest. Then all the lights would come back on all over the empire and the masses would cel- ebrate with feasting and sacrifices, to give thanks to the gods for granting another fifty-two years of mercy. 23 But first, Totyoalli had to meet his future wives. Cuauhtemoc introduced him to the four young ladies before a modest dinner the day he and his father ar- rived. Like him, each had been selected at birth to represent one of the goddesses on Earth, and, according to tradition, he would marry each of them and they’d spend the last year of his life showering him in luxury and affording him every pleasure he could imagine. Then, on the evening of the Festival of Dryness, they would escort him to the temple where he was to be stripped of everything, beginning with his finery and ending with his life. The following year, they too would die at the various festivals honoring the goddesses they represented. Most of the girls were curious about him, following him from a distance, giggling and whispering. But one—the maize goddess Xilonen’s incarnation—showed only polite interest and spent most of her time reading textbooks and scribbling in a notebook. Of everyone he met that holiday, hers was the only name he remembered: Zaniyo, Alone. He felt sure the love goddess Xochiquetzal had planted every flower in the world just for her, and he concocted excuses to walk past her in the gardens as she studied. One time, as he came across her studying near the flowerbeds, she suddenly muttered a curse and tossed her pencil down in frustration. “Maybe I can help with something?” he offered and she looked up, startled at first, then blushing. He sat on the grass next to her. “Calculus, huh?” “I hate it,” she admitted. “But I need it to get into the Royal Academy.” “I attend the Academy.” “Obviously.” She pointed to the silver badge on his chest, with the embroidered gold-feathered serpents Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca creating the stars. “Cuauhtemoc assures me he’s reserved me a spot next semester, but that’ll hardly matter if I can’t raise my math scores.” “I can help you with the math,” Totyoalli replied. “I’m really good at it.” Zaniyo set the textbook in his lap and smiled. “From what Cuauhtemoc tells me, you’re good at every- thing.” “That’s not true,” Totyoalli said, his face flushed. “I’m sort of having a hard time with the Aerospace Corps.” “What about it?” “Free fall makes me sick.” When Zaniyo laughed, Totyoalli added, “It’s not funny. If I can’t pass the train- ing, I’ll never go to space.” She gave a dismissive wave. “The more you jump, the more your confidence builds, and eventually you might even enjoy free fall.” “How would you know?” “I did my first solo jump when I was ten,” she told him. “My grandfather was an Eagle Knight and he took me up in his plane all the time. I started tandem-jumping with him at five. He taught me to fly, and I’m going to be an Eagle Knight. If the gods will it, I might even get to go to Quetzalcoatl and work on the space station.” For the next three days, Totyoalli spent every spare moment helping Zaniyo with calculus or lounging along the banks of the garden stream and recounting to her his misadventures with parachuting. They hid from the trio of giggling girls when they came looking for him, and on the evening of the New Fire cer- emony, Zaniyo invited him to watch it with her from atop the palace wall. When they crawled out of the hole in the floor of the southernmost bastion, a startled jaguar knight hissed at them, but let them run off down the length of the wall. They stopped halfway and leaned against the 24 outer edge, gazing down at the dark waters of Lake Texcoco. Totyoalli savored the warm breeze ruffling his short black hair. As the city grids fell dark one after another, Zaniyo said, “In the old days, everyone extinguished their fires at the beginning of the festival. Can you imagine? Five days lit only by the sun?” “Sounds like a hassle,” Totyoalli replied. “The gods rarely make anything easy for us.” The land fell dark and silent. It was considered bad luck to speak during the dark time, and, although To- tyoalli dismissed the whole spectacle as superstitious rubbish, he maintained the traditional silence. He and Zaniyo stood close together, watching the mountains for the first signs of fire. When the flicker finally appeared, distant and dim, Zaniyo grabbed his hand and squeezed. “And so the world continues a little longer,” she breathed with relief. Tenochtitlan’s lights came back on one grid at a time. “Of course it will continue,” Totyoalli said with a laugh. “Cuauhtemoc keeps the gods fat on blood. Why would they want the feast to end?” Zaniyo sat with her back to the stone wall. “You don’t really believe, do you?” Totyoalli joined her. “I find it hard to,” he admitted. “How can you not? We’ve eaten dinner with the War God himself every night this week.” “You mean Cuauhtemoc? Why would you think he’s Huitzilopochtli?” “Have you ever noticed that he doesn’t age?” Totyoalli shrugged. “Good genetics.” “He doesn’t get old because he’s a god,” Zaniyo declared and when Totyoalli chuckled, she laughed and said, “My father wouldn’t like you. He’d say you’re an affront to the gods with your disbelief.” “If Tezcatlipoca chose me as his Teotl Ixiptla, I must not be too offensive.” “No, the gods don’t make such mistakes,” she said, then kissed him. When she finished, he felt as if he’d drunk a whole bottle of octli, and his toes were numb. “I must fly home tonight, but will you write to me?” “Every day, if you wish,” he whispered. ### Totyoalli wrote to Zaniyo not quite every day, but enough to irritate her father, who didn’t approve of this attention, even from the man destined to marry his daughter. But soon enough she moved into her dorm at the Royal Academy and they spent every spare moment together, eating lunch in the cafeteria and helping each other with homework. On the short days, at the airfield, Zaniyo showed Totyoalli the controls of the single-engine planes, and by the beginning of the Hollow Days, she’d gotten him flying short distances. They took the zero-gravity simulation classes together and trained in the mock spacecraft, each doing their best to one-up the other. Their playful flirting soon developed into Zaniyo staying over at Totyoalli’s apartment for days at a time. Eventually, she moved in. ### In the spring of his twenty-third year, Totyoalli went on a routine two-week lunar mission, to the base or- biting Coyolxauhqui’s Head. Zaniyo went up three months later and when she returned, they got married, six years ahead of schedule. 25 They applied for positions on the expedition to Quetzalcoatl, but mission control turned them down for lack of experience, encouraging them to reapply in four years. “But by the time it leaves, we’ll both be twenty-eight,” Zaniyo protested to the mission coordinator. “Each mission lasts five years; the government won’t let us go if we can’t be back in time for the Toxcatl. This is our one chance.” “You need more experience,” he said. “If you’d done more missions to the lunar base—” “We’ve taken every mission they offered us,” Totyoalli said. “We just graduated last year. How can you expect us to have flown more than a mission apiece yet?” “I wish I could make exceptions, but I’m afraid the rules are explicit. We require a three-mission mini- mum.” The commander sighed. “I’m sorry.” Totyoalli wouldn’t concede defeat. As soon as the next mission call came up, he signed them on, and they spent two weeks in orbit fixing a spy satellite. Back home on Earth, they enrolled in a series of deep-space crisis-training courses so they could take longer missions. The following summer, they went to the lunar colony for a two-year assignment. Totyoalli maintained the water recyclers in the geodesic dome while Zaniyo piloted biweekly supply transports to and from the orbital station. When the applicant pool for the Quetzalcoatl expedition reopened, Totyoalli again added their names, but didn’t tell Zaniyo. She found out when their commanding officer delivered the rejection notices and his condolences. “I’ve accepted the fate the gods have handed me. Why can’t you do the same and stop dwelling on dreams that we’re never going to live to see?” She refused to speak to him for nearly three days. ### Six months later, during an orbital mission, he watched Europe pass silently above his shuttle bunk and wondered whether he and Zaniyo could flee there and seek political refuge. But Zaniyo would never agree to go, nor could he leave her behind. She’s right. Accept your fate and stop ignoring it. So he took out the Toxcatl book Zaniyo always packed in his bag when he went away and finally started reading. He practiced the reed flute he would play during the ceremony, but he stumbled over the notes; his breath caught in his chest when he thought of being stripped naked and cut open on the altar like a frog being dissected. ### Totyoalli returned home the day before his twenty-eighth birthday, and in the morning, after Zaniyo left for work, he drove to the palace to request an audience with Cuauhtemoc, to beg the Emperor to spare his life. While waiting for a jaguar knight to escort him inside, he paced the courtyard, mulling over what he’d say. If he hadn’t known Cuauhtemoc personally, he’d never have considered asking him this. Trying to weasel out of one’s spiritual responsibilities was considered as dishonorable now as fleeing a battlefield had been back in the early days of the empire. If he were smart, he’d leave now and never tell anyone how he’d nearly dishonored his entire family. But before he could settle on what to say or whether to leave, the jaguar knight returned and told him the Revered Speaker would see him. I’d be dishonoring myself not to fight for what I believe, he decided as they approached the Emperor’s study. Cuauhtemoc greeted Totyoalli with a firm embrace. “So good to see you again, Totyoalli. I trust your mis- sion went well….”

26 Totyoalli nodded and accepted a cup of octli when Cuauhtemoc poured some. When the Emperor asked for details of the trip, he gave them, stuttering over nearly every word, and by the time he’d finished, he was sweating and the alcohol had soured his stomach. Cuauhtemoc, now sitting behind his desk, scrutinized Totyoalli for a moment. “You seem nervous. Is something wrong?” Just speak your mind, Totyoalli thought. He set his glass on the table at the end of the couch, then sat with his hands clasped, making himself hold Cuauhtemoc’s gaze. “I don’t wish to die, My Lord…especially for something I don’t believe in.” Cuauhtemoc raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “My father always told me there was no greater honor than to serve the gods like this, but I’ve never seen anything to suggest that the gods even exist, let alone that they care what we do one way or another. I’ve been to Omeyocan, where all our religious texts say they live, and yes, there are fabulous wonders out there in space, but no gods demanding blood in exchange for our passing through….” “Certainly you’ve seen the prelaunch sacrifices?” Cuauhtemoc replied. “I have,” Totyoalli admitted, searching for hints that he should stop pushing his argument and shut up. But Cuauhtemoc’s gaze was steady and neutral, so he continued, “It’s not my intention to offend you, Your Grace, or to criticize our sacred ways, but they contradict everything science has taught me, everything I believe. Don’t the gods deserve the blood of someone who actually reveres them rather than someone who questions their very purpose in our lives?” Cuauhtemoc chuckled. “The gods hardly care about such trivial details as dedication and spiritual loyalty; they care about blood, and lots of it. But I understand your point. A growing number of people believe like you do.” He refilled his glass and, after a slow sip, he said, “They sneak off into the night and hide, preferring to live their lives as outlaws rather than face death on the Eagle Stone. Just a few months ago, a young man killed a priest and a jaguar knight when they came to collect him. And a bunch of usually law-abiding citizens helped him escape the city afterwards. No, you’re not the only one questioning the validity of forcing people to the sacrifice. “But until now, no one has ever come directly to me and stated their dissatisfaction. You do realize that by doing so, you’re committing treason against the gods, and I could lock you away in prison until the day of your Toxcatl?” Totyoalli nodded, feeling numb. “The jaguar knights who watch over the prisoners aren’t known for their kindness. A year with them and you’d beg me to kill you. You’d be better off just running away like the others.” “But that won’t get me the mission to Quetzalcoatl,” Totyoalli said. “And frankly, I think I’d prefer death to throwing away everything I’ve worked for to go on the run. I belong in space or I don’t belong in this world at all.” Cuauhtemoc’s face relaxed into a proud smile. “You never cease to surprise me, Totyoalli. From the mo- ment I first met you, I knew you were special. Do you remember what you asked me that day, when we walked in the garden and I asked you how you felt about being the Night Wind?” When Totyoalli shrugged, he said, “You asked me if I was a god.” “I was just a stupid child,” Totyoalli said, shifting uneasily in his seat. Cuauhtemoc peered at him for a moment before saying, “There’s something I want to share with you, something I’ve rarely told anyone else; then you can tell me whether your question was really stupid or not.” He went to the glass and mahogany showcase behind his desk and took out a human skull, mildly 27 yellowed with time. “Do you have any idea whose skull this is?” Totyoalli shook his head. “Hernán Cortés’,” the Emperor replied as he set it carefully into Totyoalli’s hands. “I cut it off his neck when he and his men attempted to take the beach at Chalchihuecan.” “You did?” Totyoalli said, not sure he’d heard right. Cuauhtemoc nodded. “I still remember the smell of the gunpowder, the shouting of the warriors. That night we celebrated our victory with song and dances around a huge bonfire on the beach; our victory against history. He would have destroyed everything we were, everything we had created, and we’d have vanished into time, virtually forgotten except as bloodthirsty, freakish monstrosities. “But look what we’ve become: we’re the most powerful nation on Earth, we’ve placed colonies on the moon and we’re traveling to other planets—” “Are you saying you are a god?” Totyoalli interrupted. “That all depends on how you define a god. You’re an engineer. Certainly you learned something about nanotechnology in those classes you took?” “A little bit, though it’s all still completely theoretical….” Realizing what Cuauhtemoc’s question suggested, Totyoalli set the skull on the table next to his glass before he could drop it. “You’re…you’re a computer?” “Artificial intelligence,” the Emperor corrected. “At least that’s what they called it where I came from.” “And where’s that?” “Somewhere that doesn’t exist anymore,” Cuauhtemoc replied. “They sent me into the past, in the body of a snake, and I bit one of the nephews of then-Emperor Motecuhzoma the Younger, which transferred my nanites into this body.” “But why?” “To prevent the Spanish conquering us. The council elected me Revered Speaker after Motecuhzoma died in a freak palace fire, and, well, it’s been a long seven hundred and thirty-three years, but I’m still the Emperor.” “And the nanites kept you young all that time,” Totyoalli said, studying Cuauhtemoc with new fascination. “Zaniyo was right…well, not about you being a god, but about you not aging.” “I’d rather people think of me as a god,” Cuauhtemoc replied. “People are less suspicious of gods. But you don’t believe in gods; you’re a scientist.” Cuauhtemoc put the skull back on its glass stand in the cabinet, but then took out a flint dagger. “There’s something I want to give you. Two things, actually.” “You don’t have to give—” “You could have gone into hiding like the others,” Cuauhtemoc said. “But instead you risked everything and came directly to me. I admire integrity, and that’s why I’m releasing you from your obligations. You’re no longer the Night Wind. Go to Quetzalcoatl and take Zaniyo with you, because I’m releasing her too. Go study our most Precious Twin and bring home knowledge that will benefit us far more than your blood ever would.” For a moment, Totyoalli didn’t know what to say. Excitement and joy washed over him like cool water relieving sun-blistered skin, but then he said, “Can you do that?” “I am the Emperor,” Cuauhtemoc said as he sat on the windowsill and turned the knife over and over in his hand. “Besides, there’s always the alternate.” “Alternate?” 28 “Every Teotl Ixiptla has several. Misfortunes happen.” “But I can’t send this other man off to die for me. It wouldn’t be right—” “Your alternate is very pious,” Cuauhtemoc said. “A priest, in fact. He’ll not only go to his death willingly, but with joy in his heart. By your own rationale, it’s what the gods deserve.” Totyoalli sat in shocked silence for a moment before finally saying, “How can I ever thank you for your mercy, Your Grace?” “Please, no more formalities,” Cuauhtemoc replied. “I would rather think of us as friends, and there’s still one final thing I want to give you.” He closed his fist around the stone blade and dragged the knife through, wincing. When he opened his hand, he coated the blade with blood. He then held it out to Totyoalli. After a brief hesitation, Totyoalli took the knife. Cuauhtemoc wrapped his hand in a length of cloth he took from one of his desk drawers and said, “In my many years, I’ve had a lot of sons, all of them mortal and quite foolish in their ambitions, and often not as dedicated to integrity as the sons of an emperor should be. That’s why I stopped fathering children two hundred years ago. But my lack of a reliable heir has al- ways weighed heavily on my mind. I haven’t needed one yet, but even I could fall victim to an injury so severe that my nanites can’t fix it, and then what will become of our empire? Will it fall to the priests, who will ban all scientific research because it might instill doubt about the gods? Or maybe the military would take over? Can you imagine what this world would be like run by jaguar knights? No, it must be someone I trust, someone with integrity. Like you.” Totyoalli nearly dropped the knife. “But I know nothing about running a government!” “Minor details,” Cuauhtemoc said, waving him off. “You’ll have plenty of time to learn.” He studied the bloodied rag for a moment, then said, “I’ve always thought of you as a son, Totyoalli—the son I’d always wished I’d had—and that’s why I offer you this gift. I won’t make you accept it, but if you wish to, merely mix the blood with your own. The shadow of death will never again darken your thoughts.” ### Totyoalli didn’t tell Zaniyo about his conversation with Cuauhtemoc; instead, he told her the priests had seen omens pointing to the gods wanting them to go to Quetzalcoatl. This, accompanied by a letter from the Revered Speaker himself, she accepted with little protest. He never showed her the knife, either. He kept it in a lockbox at the bottom of his footlocker. After a month at the lunar space station helping prep the cargo convoy, Zaniyo and Totyoalli finally boarded the ships for the three-month journey to Quetzalcoatl. When they arrived, they circled the planet for a day before meeting up with the ring-shaped space station in a polar orbit. That same night, Totyoalli stood at the tiny window in their quarters, gazing out at the turbulent yellow planet and silently thanking Cuauhtemoc for doing so much to get him there. For the first several months, Totyoalli worked with the crews retrofitting the space station with the newly- delivered materials, but after that he worked on systems maintenance and collaborated on plans for up- grading the station designs. Zaniyo piloted shuttles, taking workers and supplies back and forth between the research satellites deployed around the planet. Fish, beans, maize, and squash lived in the self-sus- taining bio dome, producing enough surplus to feed the convoys on their trips back to the One World. The station had a temple, but health and safety issues forbade bloodletting and allowed only fish and vegetables as sacrifices. Most of the crew preferred symbolic offerings of fine paper butterflies and snakes, which were easily reabsorbed into the bio-system and honored the god Quetzalcoatl, who most believed allowed them to orbit and study His sacred world only by the grace of His divine mercy. Zaniyo offered Him silent prayers every night.

29 For months, Totyoalli didn’t think about the knife or Cuauhtemoc’s offer of immortality, but on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, he opened the lockbox for the first time since placing the blade inside. He lay on his bunk, holding it by the handle and poking the dried blood on the blade with his finger. It wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it might be; it gave like a sponge under his prodding. All it takes is a small cut, he thought, tapping the pad of his index finger with the tip of the blade. But what about Zaniyo? Cuauhtemoc hadn’t given him permission to share this immortal gift with her or anyone else, but Totyoalli couldn’t imagine watching her grow old and die while he remained young. Or their children. Or their grandchildren. Was this why the Emperor had offered it to him? Not so much out of fear of the end of the empire he had created, but because he’d grown tired of watching friends and loved ones come and go with the bundles of years while he went on and on with no one to share that eternity? I owe him so much, Totyoalli thought, pressing the blade a little harder, but still not enough to cut the skin. It’s the least I can do for him. But hearing the door slide open in the other room, Totyoalli quickly stashed the knife away in the box and buried it under his clothes in the footlocker. “We have no octli to celebrate with,” Zaniyo said as she walked into their bedroom carrying a bottle and some small cups. “But there’s this papaya juice.” She sat on the bottom bunk next to him and poured him a drink. “To the mercy of the gods,” she said, and they both drank their cups empty. “I made you one of those fish tamales you adore so much.” She held the foil-wrapped food out to him with a smile. The tamales smelled fabulous, but the enticing aroma couldn’t overpower the longing he felt as he kissed her. He could decide about Cuauhtemoc’s gift tomorrow, after he and Zaniyo had celebrated life. ### The next morning, Totyoalli joined his engineering partner Etl at storage area sixteen to fix a window frac- tured by debris. The air in the storage area had slowly leaked out through the three-inch crack. “Real poor quality control on that piece,” Etl noted as Totyoalli examined the damage. “I’m going to report this glass manufacturer to mission control, and we’ll see if they ever get a contract again.” Totyoalli just replied, “Let’s hurry. I’m having lunch with my wife in an hour.” And hopefully Zaniyo want- ed a little more than just fish and tortillas. Totyoalli packed his tools and supplies into his belt pouch and headed for the airlock. He double-checked his pressure settings, then activated his magnetic boots. Before stepping out of the open airlock, he hooked his tether to the rings outside the door. This section had no protective outer plating yet, so he placed his feet carefully so as not to knock open any ducts or conduits. Fifteen minutes later, he reached the window. “You and your strolling, Night Bird,” Etl’s voice crackled from the foam pads against Totyoalli’s ears. “Do you keep your wife waiting like this?” Totyoalli unsheathed his utility knife and unscrewed the outer brace while Etl peeled back the seal around the inside. His tether was too short for him to reach the outer edge, and after contemplating going back to exchange it—further irritating Etl—he decided to unhook it from his suit, latching the end onto a conduit next to the window. He increased the power on his magnetic boots and finished unscrewing the brace. He then hooked the metal frame to a latch on his belt so it wouldn’t float away. “Have you cut the outer seal yet?” Etl asked. “In a minute.” Totyoalli started slicing through the gummy rubber coating over the gasket. A couple of min- utes later, they carefully knocked the glass free of its moorings. Totyoalli handed it to his partner through 30 the six-by-four opening. Etl handed the new pane through and Totyoalli set it into place. Once it fit snugly, each reapplied sealant on their side. “Let’s make sure it’s airtight before you screw the brace back on,” Etl said. Totyoalli waited while he went to the wall panel and pushed buttons and turned the dial. Etl then came over to inspect the seal while Totyoalli scrutinized his side. At the far right corner, Totyoalli found the sealant bubbling and splitting. “We don’t have proper seal,” he said into his microphone. “All right, I’ll decompress the room again; meanwhile, you should step aside—” A crushing blow sledge-hammered Totyoalli in the stomach. The world spun around him, a blur of black, white, and yellow that turned red when he vomited blood into his helmet. He waved his arms, reaching for anything but finding nothing to grab. His headset buzzed with emergency alarms. “Etl,” he coughed into his microphone, his chest throbbing. “Etl? Can you read me?” Nothing. He couldn’t see anything beyond the veil of crimson coating his visor, and already the smell threatened to make him retch again. “Etl, come in please!” “Totyoalli?” The voice of Azcatl, from station control, burst over his headset. “We lost contact with Etl. Are you okay?” “I’m injured.” Totyoalli cringed when he touched his side and pain shot through him. A quick feel of the front of his pressure suit found his control panel smashed. “The window blew out.” “I’m sending someone to retrieve you,” Azcatl said. “You’re out by section thirteen, right?” “I can’t see where I am. And…I took my tether off.” “What about your air-thrusters?” “My control panel is smashed.” Azcatl sighed. “It’s okay. We’ll locate you by your transmission. Just hang on.” Totyoalli waited, his pain growing with each minute. “Still there?” Azcatl’s voice crackled over the radio again. “Where else would I be?” Totyoalli coughed. “Bad news first, friend.” Azcatl took a deep breath, then said, “You’re in a reentry vector with the planet and you’ve just passed out of reach of our longest tethers.” “And the good news?” Azcatl’s voice faltered for a moment before he managed to say, “You’re leaking oxygen. You’ve got maybe a half-hour supply left.” He tried to laugh as he added, “At least you’ll die before you burn up.” Totyoalli stared at the thin crimson veil on his visor and said nothing. All I had to do was prick my damn finger. Clearing his throat, Azcatl continued, “I’ve sent for the shuttle to retrieve you, but it’s two hours away, at Satellite Number Three. We won’t leave you out there. We’ll make sure you get back to the One World, I promise.” “Thank you,” Totyoalli whispered, numb. “I’m going to get Zaniyo, okay?” Totyoalli nodded, unable to speak.

31 After forever, Zaniyo finally came on the radio. “Totyoalli, what’s going on?” “An accident,” he told her, his voice choked. “Death was my destiny all along.” She didn’t say anything, but he heard her suddenly-harsh breathing. “It’s all right. Don’t cry.” “How can the gods be so cruel?” she demanded. “To spare you from the temple altar just to steal you away like this? How is that fair? Will they come and take me too?” “The gods didn’t kill me, Zaniyo. I took my tether off.” “You’re not funny,” Zaniyo said, tears clouding her voice. She sniffled and muttered, “Why were you so careless?” So I wouldn’t miss a moment with you. He couldn’t say it. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me.” “Of course I will,” she whispered. “There’s something else,” he said. “When you go back to the One World, return something to Cuauhte- moc. It’s in a small lockbox. In my footlocker. Don’t open it. Promise.” “I promise.” His breathing was seriously labored now. “Tell him I’m sorry. I wanted his gift. But I didn’t…. I was afraid. Tell him I’m sorry.” He couldn’t think straight, and he felt sure he was forgetting something. Finally he sputtered, “And one last thing…. I love you, Zaniyo.” He didn’t know whether she answered him or whether they talked any more after that. He did think of their first meeting in Cuauhtemoc’s gardens and that first kiss that had left his toes numb, and how this morning he’d looked at her over their breakfast table and marveled that he was even alive to enjoy that meal with her. But now he floated free, Quetzalcoatl spinning peacefully below him. He was Night Bird Soaring, racing away on outspread wings as he rode the light waves, skimming Quetzalcoatl’s upper atmosphere while the clouds twisted and coiled below him, serpent-like. A large black dog—the god Xolotl, his guide in death—watched from atop the space station, a smile on His face. Come, Night Bird, He said, so I may show you the endless bounds of the universe.

—30— T. L. Morganfield was born in San Diego, California in 1976, but she’s spent most of her life living in Colorado. She fell in love with writing in fifth grade with her first writer’s workshop class, and she spent her childhood dreaming of someday being a writer. In 2009, her Aztec alternate history story “Night Bird Soaring” was a finalist for the Sidewise Award, and in 2010 her first professional publication came out in Realms of Fantasy.

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