Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories Read online

  Nikki struggles through muffling

  layered sleep. Her world of muted days

  and cloud-reflected city glow at night

  has

  vanished. Overhead

  the stars hang near,

  intense and lapidary, as though

  the gem-encrusted fabric of the sky

  drooped with their weight.

  Wondering, she lifts her hand. Sudden

  hunger makes her fingers curl,

  coveting glory, coveting their fire.

  Stars suddenly as real

  as the fizz of soda pop, as close

  as sparklers on her birthday cake.

  Will they be here tomorrow?

  No, just tonight.

  Aren’t you a lucky girl

  to see the stars

  at least this once.

  But luck drains out of Nikki's eyes,

  like starlight through her small

  plump fingers.

  They won't be here

  tomorrow?

  The loss assaults her. Some birthright

  snatched away before she knew

  the heritage was hers. She is angry.

  Her voice beats wings

  above the reverent murmur of the crowd.

  No! No!

  I want them again

  tomorrow.

  The stars sing back to her,

  their voices incandescent.

  Pale faces flower in the pricking flame

  of starlight. The watchers seek

  to memorize unearthly messages

  ciphered by far-off suns and sent

  across millennia.

  Some among the multitude begin

  to drowse and screen the dark

  hollows of their mouths, heavy eyes

  able to absorb only so much glory,

  cups that fill too quickly.

  But most cradle wonder like a quiet infant

  all night in their arms, yearn upwards

  to the moon’s bridge, to the stars’ black lake,

  to the wide-set floodgates of the firmament

  until the clouds come.

  Originally published in On Spec Fall 1994 Vol 6 No 3 #18

  Alice Major has published nine highly praised poetry collections and a book of essays, “Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science.” She served as the first poet laureate for Edmonton.

  The Reality War

  Robert Boyczuk

  Magic! Bertwold thought, grinding his teeth and staring at the castle wedged neatly—and quite impossibly—in the heart of the pass. Nothing good ever comes of magic! Beside him, Lumpkin, his crew chief, mined his nose abstractedly, evincing no interest whatsoever in the castle.

  The two men stood at the juncture where the road turned from gravel to dirt. All work had ceased; picks, shovels and wheelbarrows lay in the long grass next to the idle road crew. Behind them the paving machine huffed in a quiet rhythm, its bellows rising and falling, as if it were a beast drifting off to sleep. The digging and grading machines had already been shut off and lay like giant, inanimate limbs on the road. Bertwold had fashioned them thus—in the shapes of human arms and legs—to assuage the King’s distrust of machines. But now their very forms irritated Bertwold, reminding him of all the hoops he had already had to jump through to win the Royal contract.

  And now this.

  Clasping his hands behind his back, Bertwold stared miserably at the castle.

  Its outer walls were fashioned of basalt, rising seamlessly from the ground to a height of nearly ten rods. Each corner boasted a square tower surmounted by an enormous ivory statue. Curiously, all four of the carvings appeared to be of imperfect figures, each lacking one or more limbs. The statue on the nearest corner was missing a head and sporting two truncated stumps where there should have been arms. Within the castle itself, visible above the crenellations of the walls, were apical towers of coloured emerald and ruby glass; and between them, the tops of ovate domes that shone with the lustre of gold and sparkled with the cool radiance of silver. Thin, attenuated threads, the colour of flax, (walkways, Bertwold reckoned, though they were empty) wound round and connected the buildings in an intricate pattern that was both complex and beautiful to behold—and, he thought with a slight degree of irritation in his engineer’s mind—altogether impossible.

  “How long has it been there?” he asked at last.

  “We’re not sure, boss,” Lumpkin said. “It was there when we came out this morning to start work.”

  “Have you sent anyone to . . .” Bertwold hesitated, not sure exactly what might be appropriate in this case. “. . . to, ah, ring the bell?”

  “Well, no sir. I tried to order a man to do it, but they’re scared of its magic, you see . . .”

  Turning to Lumpkin, Bertwold tapped him on the chest with his forefinger. “Then you go and find out who lives in that thing, and what they’re doing there. You, personally. Don’t send a labourer.” Lumpkin opened his mouth, as if to say something, but Bertwold cut him off. “Or I’ll find someone else who’s hungry for a promotion.” Lumpkin clamped his mouth shut. “In the meantime, I’ll get the men back to work. We’re still at least half a league from the castle, and there’s plenty of road yet to lay. As far as I know, there’s nothing in the contract that prevents your men from working in the presence of the supernatural.”

  Lumpkin, now a shade paler, nodded and swallowed hard. Spinning on his heel, he stumbled away, the gravel crunching under his boot soles.

  Bertwold sighed. He had not counted on this when he had won the king’s commission to build the greatest road the land had ever seen. He looked at the castle, imagining the pass as it had been yesterday, and the day before, and every day before for as long as men remembered: a wide, inviting V of sky that gave onto the tablelands beyond.

  Why would anyone want to drop a castle there?

  Lady Miranda peered through the arrow slit. Ants, she thought, watching as a clutch of figures emerged from a tent and scattered, busy with their unfathomable, pointless tasks. Insects.

  She looked at her right hand, then at her left, and pursed her lips. Between the two there weren’t enough fingers remaining to end this quickly. Perhaps if she asked Poopsie . . .

  No, she thought, he’d never agree. He was still off somewhere, sulking. It had been as much as she could do to convince him to move the castle from that horrid swamp to where they were now, even though he’d undershot their destination by over a hundred leagues. If she had been the one with the talent for moving, it would have been done right; but her talent was transubstantiation, of little use in such endeavours. She knew he should have offered his entire leg and not just the shin, for the gods were capricious and not entirely to be trusted. But that was Poopsie, always trying to cut corners, to save a finger here, a toe there, and ending up paying a much higher price for it in the long run. She’d wanted to warn him, but had, with difficulty, held her tongue. Now he’d have to go an entire arm or the other leg to unstick them if they ever wanted to leave this absurd spot.

  And they must.

  The mortals would never leave them alone until both she and Poopsie had been whittled down to their trunks. Humans were ants, swarming over their betters and bearing them down by dint of sheer numbers. Crush a hundred and a thousand would return. Their thickheadedness was simply incomprehensible.

  Like the one who had disturbed her sleep yesterday morning. Lumphead, he had called himself. Lumphead, indeed! A thoroughly nasty bug of a man. Imagine the nerve, asking her to move the castle! Never! She had shouted, outraged at the impudence of the request, though it was the very thing for which she wished. How dare he! Her anger rekindled for an instant as she remembered his effrontery—and how she had reacted instinctively without thinking. Then she smiled, recalling the startled look on Lumphead’s face as she had reached out and touched his nose, and broccoli had sprouted in its place.

  It had been worth her little toe.

  Bertwold tried hard not to
stare at Lumpkin’s nose.

  Instead he watched his three sappers wrap burlap around the explosives before carefully packing them on small, two-wheeled carts. Another coiled varying lengths of fuse around his shoulder.

  “Ready, sir.”

  Bertwold nodded at the fusilier who had addressed him. “Then let’s get on with it.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The men lifted the handles to their carts and began jogging along the dirt path towards the castle, the wheels raising small clouds of dust. Ha! Bertwold thought as he watched his men draw closer to the base of the wall. Let them magic their way out of this!

  Lady Miranda’s beauty was legendary. At least in her presence.

  Studying herself in the mirror, she daubed an exact amount of rouge beneath her eye patch. She frowned, then turned her head so that her face was in profile, her patch blending in with the dramatic shadows and angles of her sculpted features. She had changed into a slinky black velvet number that matched the colour of the patch. Yes, she decided, perhaps I can use it to good effect. The patch certainly added to her air of mystery, making her flawless skin appear even more striking. Picking up a silver-handled brush, she began stroking raven hair that fell to the small of her back. She smiled. Ya still got it, baby, she thought. Then, with just a slight degree of irritation: Lord knows I might need it soon. She sighed. Certainly she’d been careful, very careful, to dole out her magic in small doses over the years, saving it for only the most pressing occasions. Her appearance had, after all, been her saving grace; it was how she’d attracted Poopsie—and his countless predecessors. She’d managed to remain relatively whole while her suitors had whittled themselves down to slivers of flesh to gain her favour. But Poopsie had reached the point where he was becoming more and more reluctant to do so. He, along with his ardour, was thinning out. That’s what had landed them in this cursed mess in the first place.

  The mirror chimed, snapping Miranda out of her reverie; its surface shimmered like a windblown lake, distorting her reflection. A moment later, a pasty-faced cherub wearing a headset appeared where her reflection had formerly been. “Ladyship,” it intoned in a thin, reedy voice. “The bugs are restless.” The cherub disappeared and was replaced by a scene outside the castle. Several figures toiled along the road, dragging wooden carts behind them. The view narrowed, drawing in on the men. Visible, some rods behind, and exhorting the men on loudly, was that hideous lumpy fellow whose nose she’d transformed the previous day; and beside him stood another man, a head taller, and broad of shoulder. A breeze flicked his locks of golden hair restlessly in the wind. Miranda ordered her mirror cherub to zoom in.

  She sucked in a breath. He was a big fellow. A towering bear of man, arms locked defiantly across a barrel chest, a scowl twisting up his face. And a striking face it was. Eyes grey as sea mist, nose long and straight, cheeks prominent and sculpted like her own. And four, perfect, fully-formed limbs. Miranda’s heart skipped a beat. Why, she wondered with no small amount of bitterness, couldn’t more immortals look like that?

  “Milady, the ants draw nigh . . .”

  A V creased Miranda’s brow; she shifted her attention back to the figures dragging the carts. Explosives, she suddenly realized with distaste.

  She expelled a sharp breath and cursed loudly. They would be at the gates in a few minutes. It was too late to find Poopsie.

  Gathering up her skirts, she dashed out of her sitting room and down the stairs, taking them two at a time, emerging in the courtyard. She ran over to the front gate and knelt in the dirt, her velvet gown forgotten. Placing her palm flat on the ground, she concentrated on the two remaining fingers of her left hand and began chanting under her breath. Almost immediately her fingers stretched, then liquefied, soaking into the earth and transmuting the hard-packed, washed-out dirt to a lumpy beige mass centred around her palm. It glistened in the sunlight. The transmutation grew, milk-white circles forming in pockets on its surface. It continued to spread, now moving away from Miranda, following the path under the gate and out towards the men trotting up the road.

  Bertwold watched the sapper slip and fall. The man tried to rise, but the more he struggled, the further he sank into the ground. He managed to drag himself up slightly on the protruding edge of his cart, but his efforts only mired the cart deeper. He wiped his face with the back of his arm and spat something from his mouth. “Oatmeal!” he screamed.

  “What did he say?” asked Bertwold.

  “Ootmal,” said Lumpkin, his voice altered since his nose had been turned to broccoli. “The rood’s been tooned to ootmal.”

  “Oh,” Bertwold said. “I see.”

  Two of the men—along with the cart—had already slipped beneath the surface. Another had managed to half-swim, half-crawl to safety at the side of the road where the ground was firmer.

  Bertwold stared at the castle and ground his teeth.

  A moment later there was a muffled roar. The oatmeal road exploded upwards like a fountain; it showered down in thick droplets splattering all those who had gathered to watch, a large lump narrowing missing Bertwold and plopping wetly atop Lumpkin’s skull.

  Miranda reached the ramparts just in time to see the ensuing explosion. She laughed aloud as the oatmeal rained down on her enemies. Chew on that, silly mortals! she thought. Vulgar food for vulgar pests. That big one didn’t seem to be quite so haughty now that he was wearing a suit of oatmeal.

  Miranda felt exhilarated, alive. And something else, too. A strange, yet not wholly unpleasant tingling. Perhaps, this was just what she needed. Nothing like a bit of excitement to shake the dust from your bones.

  She clambered onto the thick edge of the crenel so she would be visible to those below. Then she waved, looking directly at the big man, laughing and knowing her laugh would be carried clearly on the tongue of the wind to those annoyingly perfect ears . . .

  There was no denying she was beautiful.

  Bertwold stared through his brass telescope at the infuriating woman. She sat on the parapet, brushing her hair as if nothing were amiss, acknowledging his presence by blowing him an occasional raspberry. Cheeky impertinence! he thought. He was angry at her—and angry at himself for finding that damned eye patch so fascinating!

  “Weel?”

  “Well what?” Bertwold answered irritably. He stepped back from the telescope and made a mental note that, at a more discreet moment, he would suggest a thorough steaming might help Lumpkin in the preservation of his wilting nose.

  “Whoot shud I teel the mun?”

  Bertwold turned. Some of the crew were playing cards, others stood in small groups, talking in low voices. Bertwold stared at a digging machine, its oak bucket cupped in the shape of a human hand, resting uselessly on the side of the road.

  “Assemble the men,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  Bertwold stood behind the machine, pleased that its design and construction had proceeded so smoothly. It had taken only a day, remarkably, really, when he thought about it. Perhaps his men shared the same agitation to get on with things that dogged him; or maybe they were just anxious to complete the road and return to their families. Whatever the case, the guilds had worked cooperatively for once, and would have posted their first injury-free day had it not been for the knifing.

  Bertwold walked the length of his new machine, checking the work. Inside the frame from the levelling machine, they had placed the arm from the digging machine, hinged on a massive, metal pin. Bertwold nodded at the end of his inspection, deciding it would make a passable catapult.

  He surveyed the castle wall with his telescope, settling on a spot midway between the towers.

  The men stood ready.

  Bertwold barked an order and three bare-chested men bent to the task of turning a large windlass that drew the catapult’s arm lower. A ratchet snicked in time to the men’s grunts. When the arm would go no lower, a second crew wrestled a round, black bomb into the cupped palm at the end of the arm. Lumpkin, who Bertwold had placed in
charge of the catapult, jotted a few quick calculations on a pad he held in his hand, and directed the men to angle the cart ever so slightly. A moment later, he turned to Bertwold and said, “Weady, Sur!”

  Bertwold nodded.

  “Fur!” Lumpkin shouted at a burly man holding a mallet.

  The man raised his eyebrows in a quizzical look.

  “Fur! I said!”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Fire,” Bertwold said quietly.

  “Oh,” the man said, then turned and knocked the ratchet stay free with his mallet.

  The arm flashed upwards, and the cart jerked sharply, its wheels momentarily lifting off the ground. Bertwold watched the bomb arc towards the castle.

  It struck near the top of the wall and exploded, a thunderous sound rushing back to them a second after the flash. A section, just above the point at which the missile struck, slowly tumbled backwards and out of sight, leaving a small, but noticeable gap, like a missing front tooth.

  The men cheered and Bertwold turned to look at Lumpkin. Though it was hard to tell, he thought he could detect a smile of satisfaction beneath the green mass of broccoli.

  “Aieee!” shrieked Miranda, dancing backwards when the wall tumbled down, narrowly missing her and burying Poopsie, who had been seated in the rose garden. “Aieee!” she said again. Then, recovering her composure, she stamped her feet in indignation. How dare they? she thought. The insolent insects! “That’s it!” she said to the rubble heap that had been Poopsie. “Now I’m really mad!”

  “Now, now Miranda, better not to get yourself worked up,” Poopsie’s voice was barely audible from beneath the debris. “They’re only doing what mortals usually do. Let’s think about this thing rationally . . .”