Nightmare Magazine, Issue 84 (September 2019)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Issue 84, September 2019 FROM THE EDITOR Editorial: September 2019 FICTION Beyond the High Altar Ray Nayler The Tiger Nina Allan Sweet Dreams Are Made of You Merc Fenn Wolfmoor Wilderness Letitia Trent NONFICTION The H Word: You Really Don’t Want to Do This Lisa Morton Book Reviews: September 2019 Terence Taylor AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Ray Nayler Merc Fenn Wolfmoor MISCELLANY Coming Attractions Stay Connected Subscriptions and Ebooks Support Us on Patreon or Drip, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard About the Nightmare Team Also Edited by John Joseph Adams © 2019 Nightmare Magazine Cover by Chorazin / Fotolia www.nightmare-magazine.com Editorial: September 2019 John Joseph Adams | 116 words Welcome to issue eighty-four of Nightmare! This month we have a new short horror story from Ray Nayler (“Beyond the High Altar”) that will take us into the cold peaks of nineteenth century Afghanistan and leave us with chills. Merc Fenn Wolfmoor’s new short, “Sweet Dreams are Made of You,” spins obsession and video games into an unsettling read. We also have reprints by Nina Allan (“The Tiger”) and Letitia Trent (“Wilderness”). If you’re starting to plan your Halloween adventures, Lisa Morton talks about extreme haunts in the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word.” Plus we have author spotlights with our authors, and book reviews from Terence Taylor. ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Nightmare, is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, an science fiction and fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, including The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent projects include: Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Loosed Upon the World, Wastelands 2, Press Start to Play, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two- time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist eleven times) and is a seven-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams. Beyond the High Altar Ray Nayler | 5946 words A note to the reader: I purchased these letters at the bazaar outside the gates of the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2006. I was working that winter for a humanitarian organization in Kabul. The bazaar was a row of shipping containers and battered tarpaulins along the road to the base’s fortified gates. Military vehicles rumbled past, splattering sleet and mud. Inside the containers, merchants warmed their chapped hands before makeshift propane heaters and haggled over cold piles of misappropriated objects: Enfield rifles abandoned by fleeing British armies, Soviet tank helmets abandoned by fleeing Soviet armies, the military surplus contraband which surfaces in the markets of any country where America is fighting a war, and many stranger curiosities. In those piles, I found hundred-year-old pocket watches engraved to long-dead sweethearts, and even a water-damaged copy of Where the Wild Things Are—which I thought might be the strangest thing anyone had ever discovered at a roadside bazaar during a war, until I came across these letters. The letters were in a leather portfolio, itself enclosed in a weathered oilcloth bag. The letters are undated, though paper, ink, and contents indicate they are from the late nineteenth century. They are signed only “M.” Enclosed along with the letters is a page of rough pencil sketches of a geared object which bears, I believe, similarity to the Antikythera mechanism—though I am a layman, and the sketches are hurried and incomplete. Perhaps the device referenced by M will surface from among the flotsam of human conflict in some other war bazaar someday. Until then, we have only speculation. Based upon the scant geographical details provided, I believe the area referred to in the letters is the Afghan side of the Wakhan corridor. The nomad guides referred to in the letters are most certainly from a Kyrgyz tribe, though they appear to be a splinter group, long isolated from their fellow Kyrgyz. I have failed to turn up any reliable clue as to the identity of M, or of her husband Richard, or any record of the expedition described. Perhaps publishing the letters will bring someone forward who can establish to whom the correspondence belongs. Or perhaps, by sharing them, I simply hope to rid myself of the power they have held over me since I first read them, lying awake by electric lantern in my narrow cot in Kabul, accompanied only by the hiss of my propane heater and the purr of snow against the windowpanes. • • • • Dearest Emily, After months of travel (by turns a fascinating adventure and a miserable slog) we are here. By “here,” I mean the middle of nowhere, in the loneliest place imaginable. For weeks now I have been surrounded by people with whom I can hardly communicate. I can say “Ova” and “Jok” (yes and no) and a smattering of other things; but mostly I just flail my hands about like an idiot while the women of the tribe make signs until I understand they want me to drink a cup of horrible butter, salt and flour- laden tea or eat yet more mutton. Richard, at least, is pleased. As our guides promised (lured by a few crowns, and the promise of more once we return to Qabul) they have led us to The High Altar. This is where all the threads have led to, beginning with Richard’s purchase at auction of a traveler’s unpublished manuscript, and winding through Paris, Istanbul, Qabul, and over the mountain passes. I, however, am worried: lately our guides have been demanding more money. Even now, as I write, there is an argument going on outside the iurt between Jyrgal and Richard. The place: we are high up in a small mountain valley. We reached it last morning, by ascending from a larger valley through a narrow canyon mouth, almost like a gate between two cliffs. The defile beyond was narrow, with black, wet stone on all sides, running for miles with barely enough room for the horses and carts between. Then suddenly it opened up to this magical place—a diamond-shaped field of mountain grass, flanked by cliffs on all sides, with a waterfall sliding thinly down the stones behind the altar. We have pitched three iurts here—the one they have lent to Richard and myself, and the two iurts of our “guides”—one for Taalai and his wife and two sons, and one for Jyrgal. Jyrgal is the younger brother of Taalai, Richard tells me Jyrgal’s wife died last year, and left him grieving, with no children. Perhaps this is why he is causing so much trouble for us. The High Altar is a chunk of white marble, run through with veins of crimson. It was hewn from its place, dragged here at heaven knows what effort, and chiseled into its current rough rectangular shape. A gnarled evergreen, stunted by altitude, overhangs it. The tree’s branches are knotted with fragments of cloth tied to it as offerings. Some are bright and recent, others faded by the seasons. Most extraordinary, though, are the skulls; piled around the altar are hundreds of Marco Polo ram skulls with their great, occult yards of spiraling horn. The skulls are stacked in pyramids taller than a person. Their empty eye sockets stare south over the green diamond of the valley. The altar is no unused artifact. The path leading to it across the grass is well worn. Beyond, another path—so dreadfully faint it almost seems an illusion—leads further into the mountains. Tomorrow they will make their offering. Richard is coming into the iurt. I will break off here. I love you dearly. There is nowhere I would rather be than with you on your picket lines. When I return to England, I am going to stand beside you on those lines. I know this will surprise you. I will explain in my next letter. For now I remain your devoted sister M • • • • Dearest Emily, Our guides are abandoning us. They tell us they will go down the mountain after making their offering. Richard is in a cold fury at their broken promises. The faint trace of a trail leading beyond the altar has convinced him we are near our goal. After the argument, he came into the iurt, loaded both his Webley revolvers, and sat on the trunk, mumbling “damn it all” over and over again. For a moment I thought he was going to walk out and gun them all down—starting with Jyrgal, who has been a continual thorn in his side. After sitting there for some time, however, he holstered the two guns, wrapped them in their oilcloths, and put them in his satchel. He got a fire lit and tea going, bringing me mine in the enameled cup you gave to me. Watching him, I was again struck by the fact that here, lighting fires and making tea in the least comfortable of conditions, he is in his element.