Chronicle Worlds: Feyland Page 15

  Bat glared at Winhome. “You’re in no place to demand anything, pal. You kidnapped my girl.”

  “To discover what plans for your war against my homeland—”

  Bat shook his head. “I’m not looking for a war. I just got done fighting a war.”

  “Those rotted dead things, they—”

  “I didn’t send them to kill you, they snuck in under the defenses—”

  Tam waved for the chance to speak. “Uh… gentlemen—”

  Aoife tired quickly of the bickering and took Sabine and Norma to one side. Her glare intensified as she focused her violet eyes on Sabine. “Child,” she commanded, “tell me of your travels. Leave nothing out.”

  Sabine complied. Finally, Norma put her hands on Sabine’s shoulders, staring into her eyes. “Oh my god,” she breathed, “you’re not a fey at all, are you? You’re just a regular kid with a fancy VR rig in her basement, right?”

  “It’s at a sim café, but, yeah.”

  “But you’ve been playing with fae for weeks,” Norma said. “You’ve actually been there.”

  Sabine shrugged, her face reddening as she finally realized how stupid she’d been. “I guess so. It seemed so damn real—”

  Norma broke contact and turned to the group of arguing men. “Guys,” she called, “It’s not a war!”

  One by one they quieted and turned to her. “What’s not a war?”

  “It’s not a war,” she repeated. “It’s not an attack, and it’s not an incursion. It’s server lag.”

  “What?” Bat said. “How?”

  Norma shook her head. “She’s not a fae. She’s just a kid who’s playing a game. An incredibly complex VR sim. The company that runs it just upgraded all their gear and content. And people are people. You announce a grand opening, add enough bandwidth for a million people, you can expect five million to show up. The new players create characters, log on to the matrix, and some of them get stuck while the servers crap out due to the extra demand.” She looked at each of the others. “Those people in the Airlock aren’t fae. They’re just human players who got stuck in the game and now they’re here.”

  Bat looked puzzled, but his third eye glowed as if working overtime to figure the problem out. “We’re drifting through their matrix, and the Airlock is just sweeping up the leftovers,” he said.

  Norma clapped her hands. “Exactly!”

  “Good. Now you can explain it to me,” Tam said.

  “The city isn’t a static entity,” Bat told him. He raised viewing surfaces as he spoke to illustrate his point. Graphs, maps, and charts illuminated them instantly. “If cyberspace is an ocean, then Justice is a whale swimming through it. There are currents, eddies, backwash. Basically, we’re drifting through Feyland’s portion of cyberspace right now. We don’t know how long that will take, but we do know the Airlock won’t last much longer as things now stand.” He stared at one of the viewing screens. The Airlock was now literally filled with people. “We need to close the borders between Justice and Feyland. Immediately. The Airlock expands to accommodate its contents, but at some point it will be so full that Theopolis will need to cut city services to maintain it. We need to fix it before it gets that far.”

  “I can do that,” Norma offered. “I’ll need Tam to help me, though.”

  “Certainly,” Tam confirmed. “I’m on speaking terms with one of the game’s designers. Worst case, I’ll be a liaison between you.”

  “Good,” Bat decreed. “I’ll need you two to start as soon as possible. And good luck, Mr. Linn. Norma’s a harsh taskmaster.” The blonde girl blushed and frowned, then stalked away to study a viewing surface intently.

  Bat strode over to Sabine and glared at Winhome. “You two will have to go back immediately, along with the other players who found their way into the Airlock.”

  Sabine cleared her throat. “Does closing the borders mean cutting off the Cothram forest, too?”

  Bat looked to his daughter, who nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Can’t I stay just a little longer?” Sabine pleaded. “It’s only been a few hours. This is so different from my world.” She took a deep breath. “And Jonny is here.”

  Bat shook his head gravely. “I’m sorry. This was a unique anomaly. Tam and Norma will plug the holes, Justice will drift out of Feyland’s space, and that will be that. Besides, you have a home. You’d be missed if you stayed.”

  Winhome puffed out his chest. “This purple wight speaks truly, girl. The sooner events are put to right, the better.”

  “Agreed.” Bat waved to Norma and Tam even as he showed disgust at being called a wight. “Time’s wasting, kids. We have worlds to fix.”

  Jonny Wonderful raised his hand. “A moment, please.” He turned to Aoife. “My queen,” he began, “might I beg thee a favor?”

  The Cothram ruler raised her eyebrows. “Ask your favor, J’orham Winterstead.”

  “Might I be allowed to leave with the Feyland citizens?”

  “To live there? It is an interesting request. From what little I have heard today, you are not well loved in Feyland.”

  “I can look out for him,” Sabine offered. “We’re a good team.”

  “You are due for naught but a cell and sentencing,” Winhome growled at her.

  “You sure about that, Captain?” Tam Linn asked. “I mean, last I heard you were being called a traitor for abandoning the Dark Queen’s realm. Her bard has all the dirt on everyone.” Winhome drew breath to argue but Tam wasn’t finished. “The way I see it, you and Sabine can alibi each other or both end up in cells, her for theft, and you for treason.”

  Winhome’s face darkened to a dull purple. “I will see the charge of theft is dropped. If, Tamlin, you would vouch for my intent when the court inquires.”

  “I can do that,” Tam confirmed.

  Aoife glanced around at the room. “I grant your request, J’orham, but I have a condition.”

  Jonny snapped to. “Do speak it, my queen.”

  “You have a talent for finding hidden doors to new places,” she noted. “Therefore, you will seek out and lock every door in my forest which leads to Feyland. Do that, and I will permit you to remain on their side of the last door you close. You will be closely watched as you work.”

  “It will be done, my queen.”

  “Then you may remain there when you complete your task.”

  Sabine cheered as Winhome grimaced.

  Jonny Wonderful smiled as he took his friend’s arm. “Surely, this is the start of the greatest adventure of all!”

  A Word from Jon Frater

  Two things got me into this project: first, the chance to contribute to a Future Chronicles collection. The opportunity to play in the coolest of indie publishing anthologies was too good a chance to pass up. Beyond that, the brilliance of Anthea Sharp’s Feyland storyverse is the fact that it’s built on a solid foundation: the Tale of Tam Lin, a Scottish ballad. The worst part of modern tales of fey are the inconsistencies that creep into the stories as writers strive to make things unique but lose the soul of the story in the process. Feyland gets the details correct and piles the fun on top of them.

  Writing in an established world is troublesome for some authors, as rules of canon can often be arbitrary and cover especially minute details (pro tip: Romulan ale is blue, not green.) I actually prefer working in a world that’s already there. It frees me to concentrate on the action and not worry so much about the world-building. My biggest challenge in writing “The City of Iron and Light” was figuring out how to get my characters to play with Anthea’s in a way that seemed natural and engaging; there is nothing worse than a story that rings forced and contrived, and that goes double for established works.

  I’ll be honest: I don’t particularly like the Fey Folk. They’re spiteful, sadistic, pernicious, and utterly bored. They’re not the fat-faced cherubs we see in Renaissance art. They’re as likely to terrify as mystify. And yet well-written faery tales contain wisdom, grandeur, and valuable
lessons for mortals. I can only hope that I managed to live up to the reputation that Anthea Sharp’s series has built.

  And then there’s the gaming element. I started playing World of Warcraft in 2009 because I wanted to see what all the hype was about. The “Make Love, Not Warcraft” episode of South Park pushed me over the edge. Within six months my entire family was hooked. The next five years of my online life was dominated by questing, PvP, collecting mounts, and opening up each new expansion that came on the market. I don’t WOW much anymore but the experience came in handy when devising the action for “The City of Iron and Light”.

  If you’re looking for more of my work, you can head on over to http://jonfrater.thirdscribe.com. I’ve got more Feyland projects in the works, and Norma Phastlight’s story will be published this summer as a standalone book, Digital Idols. In the meantime, take a look at The Taste Makers, the first book in my Expocalypse series.

  The Gossamer Shard

  by David Adams

  “I think that people who can’t believe in fairies aren’t worth knowing.”

  ― Tori Amos

  BLOOD AND FIRE in the heart of Soviet winter.

  My T-34/85 tank rumbled underneath me, tank treads churning up the tundra of the Belorussian Front, the air an icy blast against my face, smelling of earth and oil. My avatar crouched a little lower in the commander’s hatch. A wing of IL-2 Sturmoviks soared overhead, their engines barely perceptible over the loud rattle of my war machine. Great tech.

  Soviet Storm was a gritty, historical war sim. My kind of game. This was my first time in this particular one and it was pretty ‘leet. I could see it was going to be my favourite; not only could I actually play a woman—I liked making my avatar look like me—but Soviet Storm had all these touches that showed the programmers knew their stuff. Just the little things, like the T-34/85 having to travel long distances with its turret reversed, the ability to select male or female crew, and the details in the uniforms of friend and foe alike. I’d only been playing for an hour but I’d already knocked out a series of German machine gun nests. That was probably the tutorial. Plenty of infantry backed up by a fierce anti-tank gun, but they’d gone down easy. Where were the panzers? I was itching for tank-on-tank combat.

  “Comrade-Sergeant Cassie,” said my driver, Nemtsev, her voice filled with excitement as she shouted over the noise of the engine. “We are approaching the fascists’ position.”

  Awesome. Level 1. This battle might actually test me. “Swing the turret forward and load AP,” I commanded. “Today is the day we drive these dogs from the rodina!” I liked to get into the sims I played. RP. With flight simulators I gave myself call signs. Dorky, sure, but it was more immersing.

  “In the name of the Queen,” said Buzinskaya, my loader, “it shall be done.”

  Queen? The USSR had no queen, and certainly not in 1944. I was something of a history fangirl. Perhaps the programmers were confused. The Czarina would have been out of the picture for a long time by this point.

  Weird. Probably a fault of the programmers. The first mistake I had noticed. Nobody’s perfect, I thought, and put it out of my mind.

  The tank cleared a small rise. Ahead, a sprawling valley stretched out before us, dotted with pine trees jutting out of the frozen ground. This was a great vantage point and our hull was protected by a stony outcropping, rocky teeth poking out of the white snow. Right into the maw of the beast.

  “Driver, halt.”

  The tank ground to a halt right in the middle of all the stones, the engine sighing in relief. I moved my thumb out to activate the binoculars; the view switched to first person and the world became magnified. I searched around. Pine trees, snow banks…tank tracks in the snow.

  German panzers. Great! I scanned the valley floor, following the tracks to a tree line. And from there—

  A bright flash amongst the trees. A high velocity shell screamed past, missing our vehicle by less than a metre. Illuminated by the blast I could see it, thick and angular and boxy. A tank. Finally.

  “Contact!” I shouted. “Panzer III, eight hundred metres, by those trees!” I didn’t want to be destroyed on the first level. “Gunner, traverse left.”

  The tank’s turret swung around. I kept my head tilted, watching the target.

  “I see them,” said Baranova, my gunner, her husky Ukrainian voice almost shockingly calm. “Sighted.”

  I curled my trigger finger like one might to fire a gun.

  “On the way,” said Baranova. The 85mm cannon roared, the turret shook, and a bright light leapt down the valley. The round splashed against a tree, blowing it to smithereens.

  “Loading,” shouted Nemtsev.

  Flash. The German tank fired again. This time their aim was true; the round glanced off the side armour of the tank, howling as it ricocheted away, barely missing the stone teeth nearby.

  So much for cover. We’d been damaged and hadn’t even hit our enemy. That wasn’t my fault; I was losing because an NPC couldn’t aim.

  I mashed the fire button again, keeping my crosshairs on the enemy tank. What else could I do?

  “On the way,” said Baranova. Again the cannon spoke, and this time our round struck the enemy tank dead-on. It exploded in a shower of flame and sparks, a fiery blossom that lit up the tundra.

  There’d be more. There were always more. “Watch for more tanks,” I said, as the fire grew and grew, simulating the enemy vehicle’s fuel and ammunition igniting.

  Static crossed my game helmet. Was it malfunctioning? I reached up and whacked it. And then again. It stabilised.

  Tracers splashed into the snow nearby, hissing as they kicked up debris. We were being flanked; I was going to lose because the stupid helmet broke down… sparks from the destroyed enemy tank continued to fall, lighting up the whole valley.

  Then the sparks drifted toward me.

  There was no way the wind could blow them that fast. They were rising and spinning, too, like little fireflies. Closer and closer. Brighter and brighter, blue and white.

  My game was glitched. I’d probably have to replay this level; Joshua would be ahead of me. I grit my teeth and got ready to log out.

  As the sparks got closer, I could see little wings on them.

  Wings.

  They were butterflies made of ice.

  Swirling angrily, the swarm descended on the tank, landing on the metal tracks. Pieces of the steel cooled and crusted over with ice, cracking the metal and freezing it in place. Was this part of the game? A military-fantasy mash up? I didn’t have anything that could defeat something like that. I used my thumb to scroll through weapon options. Main gun, co-axial machinegun, ramming…nothing. Where was the ‘kill the swarm of bugs’ option?

  The earth rumbled below me and the snow shifted. The stone teeth around me moved, shifted, and came alive.

  What?

  Razor sharp rocks closed around my tank, a massive maw of stone shark’s teeth, crunching the metal. Two red eyes glowed beneath the snow. I swung the tank’s turret around and fired, point blank, into a tooth. It exploded in a shower of black blood.

  Maybe I had to dismount. Maybe level 1 was a foot-slogging combat. That didn’t make any sense. Maybe there was a way to get out…

  But before I could find the option the stone jaws tightened, the hull buckled, and the tank exploded in a fiery inferno.

  GAME OVER

  Urgh. A reload menu appeared. The avatars of my crew stared at me. I took off my sim helmet and pushed back the gaming chair in the sim-café. What had been an engaging, realistic depiction of bloody conflict had quickly become just like every other idiot action game. I still had like an hour of time. While I waited for Joshua to finish his game, I pulled up Soviet Storm’s description.

  A fast paced, brutally accurate simulation of the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Command a realistic simulation of the famed T-34/85 tank and repel your homeland’s invaders! Fight alongside the finest women and men to ever serve the Red Army. Be a
part of the bloodiest battles in world history. Genre: Military Simulation, War.

  Nothing about fantasy elements. Maybe it was a twist, sometimes games did that. I looked up reviews.

  Great game! Stalingrad was difficult but I finally beat it. The key is to keep your hull behind cover and use the rubble to your advantage.

  ‘Leet sim, but nerf Panzer 4 please.

  Noobs can’t beat the Königstiger hahahaha

  I scrolled down. Some complaints about the manual controls. Arguments about the finer minutia of historical accuracy. Nothing about any sparks that were butterflies, or stone teeth that ate tanks. I even looked up a walkthrough for the first level. Where I’d parked was the ideal firing position, giving full view of the valley. There were three Panzer III’s, and a Pak-38, absolutely nothing about any fantasy elements.

  So what had happened?

  * * *

  “Hey Cassie,” said my friend Joshua. He took off his helmet and peeled off gloves. “How did you do in Level 2?”

  “I couldn’t even get past the valley,” I said, making a face. Joshua was normally not quite as good as I was at war simulators. I snuck a glance at his avatars. His guys were totally default, they were even called Gunner, Loader, Driver, Radio Operator. I’d named mine properly. Given them all a unique appearance. In my head they even had backstories.

  “Really?” He twisted his chair to face mine. “Cassie the war nerd got taken down in Level 1? Even I could manage it. The big gun thingie—”

  “You mean the Pak-38,” I said. Very common on the Eastern Front.

  “Um, yeah, the gun. That gave me trouble but I blew it up eventually.” He seemed concerned, but also a little pleased. “Cassie, you seriously got beaten on Level 1? What did you do, just charge in there?”