Destiny Pills & Space Wizards Read online

  Destiny Pills

  & Space Wizards

  JEAN DAVIS

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any forms or by any means without prior written consent from the author excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Jean Davis

  April 2018

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  I was raised on a wide variety of horror, mystery, science fiction and fantasy. These genres stuck with me and when I began writing, steered me toward speculative fiction. I’ve always enjoyed pondering the what if questions. They keep me company on sleepless nights, when working in my garden, washing the dishes, and probably when I should be paying more attention to work.

  This collection features short stories was published from 2010-2017. Several of the magazines and sites are sadly no longer in existence. It seemed a shame for these stories to do nothing more than gather virtual dust in retirement. With a little refreshing and some fun artwork, I offer them again in one easy to read location.

  An eclectic mix of fantasy, fable, science fiction, fairy tale and paranormal await you. Dragons, mermaids, wizards, healers, and thieves, oh my!

  I hope you enjoy this collection.

  Sincerely,

  Jean Davis

  .

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  SOLITUDE

  THE EMPLOYER

  CHILDREN OF THE TREES

  FOUND

  A LITTLE THING LIKE DEATH

  TO EXIST

  SUNSET CRUISE

  SPACE COMMANDER

  TAKING A BREATHER

  LATE

  HEALER

  THE SPELL

  KICK THE CAT

  MOTHER

  GIVING CHASE

  CHETRIC THE GRAND

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SAMPLE • SAHMARA

  SAMPLE • A BROKEN RACE

  SOLITUDE

  First published in Tales of the Talisman 2010

  Zephros stared upward through the swirling clouds of orange and yellow gases outside his protective energy bubble. Far above him, in a ship floating in the blackness of space, his people slept, awaiting world they could once again call their own. He bore the power to transform one for them, to give his people a new chance at life.

  If only he could find success where all those before him had failed.

  Closing his eyes, he stretched his hands out before him. Tingling power built in his chest and coursed through his body. The equations he’d learned from his predecessors sped behind his eyelids, computing, projecting. Incantations slipped from his lips as he constructed the burst of power that would begin the transformation of this ball of gas.

  Warmth spread over his palms. The air inside the bubble grew hot. Sweat trickled down his forehead and ran alongside his nose to drip from his chin onto his jumpsuit. The thin material clung to his skin. Zephros cast his discomfort aside and cracked an eye open just far enough to catch a glimpse of the spark hovering above his hands.

  The light grew brighter, steadier, as it coalesced into a brilliant white teardrop. The faint glimmer of hope he’d carried for the last twenty-three years ignited, sending his heartbeat into a frenzy.

  Zephros imagined the sound of voices other than his own. Laughter. Footsteps. A smile. A loving touch. To be alone no longer.

  The growing light in his hand sparkled through his tear-filled vision. Zephros drew a ragged breath and threw all his power into creating the seed of life.

  His breath came in shallow gasps, the air inside the bubble so hot that it seemed to sear his lungs. Sweat glistened on his palm, reflecting the light of the seed.

  The light blinked out.

  The seed fell into his moist palm. No bigger than the nail of his smallest finger, the brown, burnt-looking seed just sat there.

  The records left by the other seed wizards alluded to the idea that it should do something. Glow, quiver, float above his hand, anything to let him know that the spell had been successful.

  Maybe it wasn’t quite done. Zephros squeezed his eyes shut and searched deep inside himself for even the smallest particle of power.

  Empty.

  He clutched the seed in his shaking fist and worked backward, repeating the process in his mind, searching for the moment of fault. He found nothing.

  Zephros slumped down along the curve of the bubble, coming to rest on the transparent arc at the bottom. Staring at the seed brought him nothing but an utter sense of failure.

  He pinched the brown shell. Hard, with the slightest bit of give in the thicker middle, its very existence taunted him. Had the seed wizards been given a faulty spell to work with, their mission sabotaged from the very beginning?

  “Too cruel. Who would send out hundreds of thousands of people, only to doom them to endless sleep?” Zephros regarded his failure and then looked up through the swirling clouds of the gas planet, imagining the faces of the sleepers gazing down upon him. “I’m sorry.”

  He pressed the useless seed against the wall, loosening his hold on the membrane in that tiny space. The seed slid through the energy bubble, seeming to hover there amongst the gas clouds. Then it drifted downward, as if it had all the time in the universe.

  As Zephros watched the tiny seed vanish, a hollow feeling took hold in his stomach. He’d need to rest for days before he could consider another try.

  The computer had chosen this planet as a viable option. He had years to try and make a successful seed, but only a finite amount of power with which to create one. Already his bones ached, and his skin felt thinner than it had when he’d descended into the atmosphere. Twenty-some years of his life gone, spent in a few hours of effort.

  With a weary command, he bade the bubble to climb back through the atmosphere and into the blackness where his sleeping people waited.

  The ship’s bay doors opened with the wave of his trembling hand. The bubble carried him safely inside. A heavy metallic clank broke the endless silence inside the bay as the outer doors sealed. He guided the bubble through the airlock and released it. The protective shield evaporated with a faint pop.

  The empty bay greeted him. No small ships, no way to escape the duty to which he had been bound. He could only sustain the bubble for a few hours at a time, not near long enough to relocate.

  As if he’d ever found anywhere else to go.

  Drained, Zephros trudged through the dim, quiet corridors. He passed by the wall where the other wizards had etched their names. Aphros through Mephos, all with neat handwriting, their names straight and proud, filled three-quarters of what had once been a blank metal wall. From Nephros on, the names grew smaller, scrawled and crooked. At the bottom, mere inches from the floor where he’d had to lay in order to make a legible effort, was his name. Etched upon the day of the passing of power, moments after Yeteros had smiled down upon him and proclaimed him ready to bear the burden of being the last of the seed wizards. The old man had breathed the power into him, and then crumpled to the floor, a lifeless husk.

  Zephros knelt and traced the letters. The rough edge of the etching caught his fingertip. Blood dripped into the metal groove. He pulled his hand back and pinched the wound closed.

  Was it too much to ask for a healing spell? For that matter, he couldn’t wake the sleeping sections of the ship, speed along its search, or restore his memory of the time before the long sleep. He couldn’t do anything beyond the spells integral to his purpose—creating the energy bubble, and th
e seed. He’d tried, but the well of power within him refused his commands. The engineers had been quite thorough in protecting the people onboard and the goals of the ship, stripping him and his fellow wizards of everything but faint memories of their past abilities.

  He’d had a name. A different name. But try as he might, Zephros could only grasp a hint of it in the vast grey spaces that permeated his distant memory. He’d spent long hours deciphering the shadows that teased him on the edge of slumber. Nebulous shapes of smiling faces. Trees against a blue sky. A child’s laughter. Did he have a child? He couldn’t remember. If he did, perhaps the child slept with the others, waiting, depending on him to create a home where children could run and play once again.

  The only solid memory he held of the time before the long sleep was of sitting at a table with three engineers as they explained his rights and what he would lose. Their words were more impressions now than factual recollections. He remembered a sense of urgency, an imminent danger to his people. He’d been adamant that he should be included, slamming his fist on the long wooden table and declaring that he would do whatever he could to help. Had the wizards been responsible? If so, his wrongdoings were relegated to the shadows.

  “Just give me the damned document so I can sign it already.”

  He’d flexed his fingers and the paper and pen had flown into his hand. He’d signed his name. But every time he looked down at the paper, he couldn’t read it. He couldn’t remember his name, why they’d left, or what had spurred him to make his sacrifice. All he knew now was that he’d woken here, hoarse and hungry with an old man looming over him, a relieved smile on his bearded face.

  “Damn ship!” His voice echoed through the metal corridors as he made his way to the nearest wall-mounted med kit for a bandage.

  With his finger bandaged, he slogged to the cafeteria. The lights flickered on with his arrival. The projected face on the food replicator’s screen greeted him with the same inane smile she worn for the past twenty-three years.

  In the few weeks they’d shared together, Yeteros had told him what he’d learned of the wizards who had come before, including a beautiful female named Theros. Loneliness had driven Zephros to name the replicator’s face within the first few weeks of being the sole living occupant on board.

  Today he was too tired to smile back. “Hello, Theros.”

  “Hello, wizard. What will you have today?”

  “I’ve given you a name, is it too much to ask that you remember mine? I am more than a designation.”

  Theros’ smile didn’t waver, nor did her eyes blink. “What will you have today?”

  “Surprise me.” The replicated food all tasted the same. The real food supply lay somewhere deep within the ship, locked away, safeguarded for the population upon their awakening.

  “I am sorry, wizard. I am not familiar with that dish. Please restate your request.”

  Zephros rubbed his hands over his face. “Oatmeal.” If the food was going to taste bland, there was no use attempting to mask it with names like ‘steak’ or ‘ice cream’. Whispers of memory assured him that these were both sought after delicacies, but he couldn’t remember tasting them in their true form.

  He sat at one of the fifty empty tables, in one of the two hundred empty chairs, and shoveled the lackluster, protein and vitamin rich oatmeal into his mouth, keeping his eyes on the bowl rather than the seats that should be filled with newly-awakened people. If only he hadn’t failed.

  They’d all failed.

  He should have known he’d be no different. Yet Zephros had harbored a hope that he would be the one to be successful. That hope fizzled and faded with each second he dwelled on the memory of the lifeless seed in his hand. Instead, he would be the one to confirm the dismal failure of the seed wizard program.

  His stomach filled, Zephros dropped the empty bowl and spoon into the replicator’s return basket.

  “Thank you, wizard. Have a nice day.”

  His shoulders slumped as he left the cafeteria. Was he to blame for the seed failing or was the planet not suitable for transformation? Yeteros had attempted a seed three times before giving up on the one suitable planet the ship had located during his life. He’d grown old and feeble in his two hundred fifty-three years on board, never getting another chance. The records of the other seed wizards told similar tales.

  The ship’s drives had slowed in the past five hundred years, the engine’s efficiency lessening with age. How long would it take to find another world if he chose to leave this one behind? All it would take was the push of one button in the wizard’s wing—a button pushed by all those who had come before him. If he followed suit, he might die before the ship found another. If he stayed, he might use up his life, each attempt growing more desperate than the next until he had nothing left.

  Zephros entered the wizard’s wing, the one brightly lit corridor on the entire ship. He paused to stand in the archway of the hatching room. Twenty-six pods were embedded in the wall. One for each wizard packed aboard the ship—they alone would walk the corridors while the people slept, locked away from prying wizardly eyes or interference. His gaze darted over the empty pods and then came to rest on the one at the end. His pod. There would not be a successor for him to breathe power into when he died. He would simply cease to be.

  The cleaning bots would harvest his body and feed him to the replicator. At least there would be no other wizards to eat the oatmeal he would become.

  Zephros sighed and left the vacant room. He entered his quarters at the end of the hall. Three rooms comprised his world. A bathroom, a bedroom, and a room with a chair, a computer terminal, and an empty ceramic pot with blue flowers painted on it. Someone had a plant in it once. He couldn’t remember who. Aphros most likely. A souvenir from the world they’d left behind.

  As he had for the last three weeks since the computer informed him they were approaching a suitable planet, Zephros sat at the terminal and brought up the file labeled ‘Plan B’. Twenty-five other users had also requested this file. He wondered how long they had waited to look at it. Did it matter as much to them, knowing there would be other wizards to follow if they failed?

  His eyes skimmed over the information he’d memorized. In the event of seed wizard failure, the ship would awaken its population to give them the opportunity to fend for themselves. The computer would continue its quest for a viable planet, but with no further wizard to rely on, the criteria would now be narrowed to a near exact match to the home they’d left behind.

  If the ship had yet to find an exact match all the thousands of years of the wizard program, how many countless generations would live and die, encased in metal walls and bathed in artificial light? They would run out of real food within a generation and have to resort to the replicator.

  Zephros’ eyes grew heavy as defeat tore at his soul. He shut down the terminal and shuffled to bed. Behind his eyelids, Theros served up Zephros to starving, hollow-eyed children. They ordered him as ice cream and steaks. Their teeth tore at him, mashing and grinding until they swallowed him into their darkness within.

  Stomach walls rumbled around him. The children were still hungry. They began to feast on each other. Their screams pierced his ears. Wet bits of flesh rained down upon him.

  He woke with a cry, his jumpsuit wet and stuck to his skin. With his heart still pounding, Zephros tossed the blankets aside and walked to the bathroom. He stripped off the jumpsuit and stepped into the shower. The weak flow of cold water ran over him, washing away the starving children and their grisly meal.

  After pulling a clean jumpsuit from the chute on his bathroom wall, Zephros dressed and returned to the computer terminal.

  He searched the records of his predecessors, as he had a thousand times before, studying how each had failed. His effort was no different than many others. He’d followed the instructions to the letter.

  Perhaps a clue lay in what came after the failure rather than fixating on the frequency of attempts or errors in creation
. He expanded his search, reading passages he’d never bothered with before.

  Most had been able to create the seed. Of those, a few noted bringing the seed back on board to toss in the replicator. Others had rid themselves of it, as he had. Mephos logged, that upon his lack of success, he’d returned to the ship and craving the taste of something real, had swallowed it. His replacement had been hatched two days later and had noted no sign of Mephos.

  Zephros drove his knuckles into his temples. “If Mephos was gone, how would Nephros gain his power? The chain would have been broken.”

  He scrolled through Nephros’ first entries, those he’d made upon hatching to a vacant ship, alone and bewildered.

  He’d found a plant. A seedling, sitting on the floor of the bedroom in a handful of dirt. He’d asked the replicator to make a pot and had planted the tiny seedling. And it had grown.

  “Mephos, what did you do?” Zephros touched the empty pot beside the terminal. Cold and smooth, it offered no clues. He skimmed over more entries. Months of watching new leaves unfurling and the dirt multiplying to fill the plot. And then a bud.

  Nephros woke one afternoon to see a white flower in full bloom. Its scent permeated the air with sweetness. He’d run to it and breathed deep.

  Zephros’ heart thudded hard and heavy as he read on. A burst of power leapt from the flower to Nephros, knocking him back. Then the flower faded before his eyes, dropped from the plant and fell to the floor, shriveled and brown. Within two days, the plant yellowed, withered and then died.

  The empty pot taunted him with the new knowledge of what he had to do.

  Had Aphros known the true end of the spell and the cost? If he had, his lack of nerve had driven him to erase it from the records. From then on, they’d all been doomed to learn the solution for themselves or live long lives of failure.

  For six days, Zephros dutifully visited Theros and ate his oatmeal. He slept for long hours without nightmares or the plaguing shadows of faint memories. On the seventh day, he felt strong enough to try the seed spell again. For an eternity of ten minutes, he stood before the button that would command the ship to leave orbit and continue its search. How many others had found the answer but lacked the courage?