Hi guys, here's a story I wrote a few years back for the UMass Science Fiction yearly publication. Still not sure if that yearly ever got off the ground again x3
The squall outside deepened along with the twilight through which its pearly cargo fell. A pair of dark eyes watched its progress through the dusty window of an abandoned metal shack. The three weary travelers had come far and with much toil, and this unexpected shelter against the darkness and the cold was a bit of welcome luck.
“We’re just lucky we got under something before it hit,” said the watcher, a tall man with a six-o’clock-shadow. “It came so suddenly, I don’t even think we would’ve had time to make camp.”
“That may be, Alain,” said his younger brother Thomas, a boy no older than ten. “But now that we’re here, what shall we do?”
“Hope that whoever left this place sealed all the cracks,” said the third, their sister, glancing with a shiver at the high uneven ceiling that creaked in the cold wind. The builders had known their craft, however, and no white drifts were able to find their way in. “Well, you are the best storyteller this side of the Rockies, Alain.”
“You speak too highly of me, Judith,” said Alain, but he turned from the window and paced to where his kin were huddled around the embers of a fire. Sitting, he glanced at them in turn. “What could I possibly tell you that you haven’t heard before?”
“Oh, but they get better in the telling, Alain,” said Thomas eagerly. “Let’s hear one of the tales of Germaine, or the one about the boy and the dragon’s tooth!”
Judith smiled at him. “You never get sick of that one, do you Thomas?”
Her younger brother grinned back widely, brushing the grey dust off his hands as he looked to Alain. “How about it, then?”
Alain rekindled the fire which lay on the cold earthen floor with an idle move of his hand. He sighed deeply and nodded. “All right, I suppose I can’t argue. I know just the story.” He leaned back against the side of an old dusty armchair that looked far too hazardous to sit upon, gazed at the fire, and began the tale.
* * *
In the elder days there was no winter, and in parts the lands were so dry a sharecropper was lucky to even be blessed with rain. The entire planet was wilting in the heat and the dust. It was in these hazy days that the boy came, and no one quite knew what to make of him. He was said to have come from off-world, although no ship was ever found, and he was evidently highly trained in the great Art.
Although he was not yet a man, he had the wisdom of those many years his senior. An orphan, he studied and lived alone, and continued to work upon his greatest project with his skill of the Art. Many came to him for counsel and advice about the great drought: what should be done about the sea levels here or the dustbowls there. His mind, however, was forever returning to his grand project, and what he hoped to discover.
One evening as he toiled in his workroom, with all of his attention focused upon the shimmering white material underneath his viewing scope, an assistant twice his age entered and broke his concentration. The boy set the precious materials aside and was called out into the Hall, where it was announced that he was to receive a medal from the Imperial Council for his work. After the celebratory feast that followed, the boy returned to his workroom in the late hours to check on the project that had not only gained him fame, but sparked hope in the minds of the entire planetary Electorate. To his horror his utensils were shattered, all his notes burned, and in the midst of the ruined workroom stood a large white-furred creature, like a dog but with a long scaled tail like the desert-lizards. The boy unsheathed a knife and to his own amazement demanded what the dog-creature had done to all his work.
“Who sent you?” said the boy, who used the Ancient Tongue.
The dog-creature bared its teeth in a cruel smile and spoke without moving its jaws, in a voice that was like wind on the ice.
“You sent for me, foolish boy. You have meddled in things beyond your control,” whispered the creature, nodding towards the shattered glass that was all that remained of the view-scope. White mist spread from the broken container of material and curled itself around the creature’s feet. “Your planet has suffered much, a great hurt goes to its very heart. In order for this wound to heal, all must first be scoured away. It starts in one passing of the sun. Consider yourself warned.”
The creature laughed sullenly and melted into the mist, which was already trickling through the cracks in the windows of the little room. The boy watched, powerless, as it dissipated entirely. Standing tall, still bewildered but resolute, he walked over to inspect his broken materials, his shoes crunching on broken glass as he went. The shimmering white material, the rare thing from off-world that had puzzled the on-world Artists and had been so like a fungus, was gone.
It was the next night that the boy first noticed the strange second moon, and then it started to snow.
* * *
Alain’s voice ceased and the trio sat in silence, contemplating the old story. Thomas and Judith had heard it before, but there were no exclamations of protest or dismay. After a long pause, Thomas looked up from the floor and out the window.
“Look! The snow has stopped,” he said, rising to his feet.
Judith stood and stomped out the last of the fire. As she passed Alain, who appeared lost in his thoughts, Judith’s hand glanced his shoulder.
“This is evil weather for that story, Alain,” she said quietly, as she went to join Thomas.
Alain turned to watch them. “We should get moving before it comes again and traps us in.” He got up and gathered their few belongings, packing away the rest of the meager meal. He paced over to his brother and sister, watching out the window. Outside the world was white, but it was not still. White trees were covered in still more whiteness, and it shimmered and moved in a disorienting way. Several of the trees had already crumbled to the ground. The three travelers bundled up and covered their faces with cloth, their eyes with lenses.
“Let’s go,” said Alain, and they walked out along the squirming path, with the soft white spores crunching beneath their feet.
