Child of Words Issue 1

Child of Words

Science Fiction and Fantasy

March 2014

Big Pulp Publications

Bill Olver, editor and publisher

Bill Boslego, associate editor (editorial)

contact: childofwords@bigpulp.com

Cover illustration by Ken Knudtsen

Child of Words Vol. 1, No. 1

March 2014

ISSN 2333-7982 (print)

ISSN 2333-7990 (electronic)

Child of Words is published twice yearly in March and September by Big Pulp Publications. 
All credited material is copyright by the author(s). All other material © 2014 Big Pulp Publications.

The stories and poems in this magazine are fictitious and any resemblance between the characters in them and any persons living or dead—without satirical intent—is purely coincidental.

Reproduction or use of any written or pictorial content without the permission of the editors or authors is strictly forbidden, with the exception of fair use for review purposes.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of our writers.

From the Editor

Welcome and thank you for purchasing the debut issue of Child of Words, the magazine of science fiction and fantasy!

Child of Words is a new branch off Big Pulp, an all-genre magazine that debuted online on March 3, 2008, and in print in December 2010. This new publication represents another step towards fulfilling our long-term goal of creating a whole line of magazines and anthologies featuring the best in fantastic fiction from new and established authors.

A story is a child of the writer—equal parts passion, magic, and imagination—in its own way as real as a biological offspring. As a reader of fantastic fiction, it’s likely that you too are a child of words, whether you were reared on the pulps or an iPad, on Ray Bradbury or J.K. Rowling, comic books or back pocket paperbacks.

In this issue, you’ll meet a freed slave who returns to his tribe too late to marry his beloved and young urbanites who lease out their brain capacity to corporate masters.

You’ll travel with a man with a sapling for a sibling and assassins killing time. You’ll mourn with parents missing a son and cheer a man who finds family in an unlikely place.

You’ll be touched by a woman who feels the past, duck bombs with an executive with a need for speed, and root for an unlikely warrior who saves the damn day.

We hope you love them as much as we do.

Bill Olver

Editor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FICTION

Kingcrux by Betsy Dornbusch

Let Us Use That For Which You Have No Use by Stephen Ross

Planting Robert by John F.D. Taff

Killing Time by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Spin Cycle by Selina Rosen

The Tavern of the First Village by Michael Andre-Driussi

Attila’s Throne by Fi Michell

Hard Rain by Ian D. Smith

Mad Dog Saves the Damn Day by DeAnna Knippling

POETRY

Actor’s Resume by Charles Leggett

The Lonely Future of Philip K. Dick by Adele Gardner

Another Season by Adele Gardner

Faded Remnants by WC Roberts

Candles Shining in the Night Sky by WC Roberts

Birthright by WC Roberts

Journey’s End by Neil Weston

Charles Leggett is a professional actor based in Seattle, WA. His publications include The Germ, The Far Field (WA State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken’s blog), Graze, Bottle Rockets, The Centrifugal Eye, The Lyric, and Measure; work is forthcoming in The Worcester Review, GlassFire, and Constellations. His long poem Premature Tombeau for John Ashbery was an e-chapbook in the Barnwood Press Great Find series. His play, The River’s Invitation, was featured at Seattle’s Theatre Off Jackson as part of its inaugural Solo Performance Festival, SPF 1: No Protection! in March 2007.

______________

ACTOR’S RESUME

Nature uses the instrument of human fantasy in order

to pursue her works of creation on a higher level.

—the father, Pirandello’s Six Characters

in Search of an Author

The only thing worse than not getting an erection when you want one, quips John Worthing, sipping champagne, is getting one when you don’t.

Elyot Chase snickers over his martini. Mirabell grins through thick streams of pipe smoke, takes a swig of sherry. Deputy Governor Danforth raises an eyebrow; Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Ignatyvich Vershinin heaves a shot of Smirnoff and a sigh; Major Sergius Saranoff scowls privately into his cognac. Pastor Manders bums a smoke from Elyot and orders another decanter of the house red as the father slams down his fist in protest: Why do you laugh? It’s awful, isn’t it, when you don’t have control?

Oh dear, moans Elyot, suppressing a giggle.

Control over what? queries Danforth, his eyes narrowing in a leer.

An unconscious Bob Acres belches underneath the table. Good heavens, mutters Jack.

Control over appetite? offers Vershinin with a guffaw.

Or execution, adds Danforth with a yellow-toothed grin. Sergius cackles violently and slaps the barmaid’s behind as she clears Bob’s empty schooners. Manders nearly knocks her over rushing to the men’s room. Mirabell buys the next round and toasts:

"To talk control is all quite well and good;

A woodpecker is naught without the wood;

Some birds know much more than they really should—

But here’s a branch you won’t see under-stood!"

Hilarity erupts.

Even the father cracks

a meek smile. Bob

wakes up, drooling, hits his head

on the table bottom. Manders’

sheepish return from the bathroom, to think that they—

Sergius his cackle, Vershinin his belly laugh,

Elyot’s snickering, Jack’s exclamations

couched in tense giggles, Judge Danforth’s bared yellow teeth

venting of shallow, unvoiced exhalations,

Mirabell’s billows of pipe smoke through sherry-red

lips stretched in self-satisfaction, the father’s

wan, guilty grimace, Bob’s agonized grunting—

all, Manders thinks, must be laughing at him.

Finally, Oberon arrives

out of nowhere with the herb

and they all vanish into the forest.

#

(back to table of contents)

Betsy Dornbusch is the author of a dozen short stories, three novellas, and two novels, the latest of which is Exile. She also is an editor with the speculative fiction magazine Electric Spec and the longtime proprietress of Sex Scenes at Starbucks. Emissary is due out from Night Shade Books in 2014. Betsy’s story Balesat’s Ashes—set in the same world as this issue’s Kingcrux—appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of Big Pulp. Her SF tale To Stop a War and her vampire detective story Kenna’s Song both appeared in Big Pulp’s online edition.

______________

KINGCRUX

The last rays of sunlight revealed two columns of Armidian soldiers. They filled the raised road ahead, returning to Armidia proper from the front lines of her ever-reaching border. As they drew near, Saxot Kingcrux guided his horse down the gully alongside the road to make way for them. The dried grasses of late summer brushed the bottoms of his boots, sounding like something stalking him.

A lord with fair coloring led the troops. A bandage around his arm leaked blood. Dirt and worse caked him from the creases around his eyes to his battered boots. The fifty soldiers riding behind him all bore wounds and the stunned, grim expressions of the newly embattled. A barred prison wagon trailed behind, rattling over the ruts.

Saxot wondered why such a large company accompanied only one prisoner cart, but then the wind straightened their banner. The Crowned Armidian Tiger. He studied their leader again. Too young and dirty to be King Anders. He could only be Prince Regan. Saxot frowned at the cart. What captive was important enough to warrant an escort by the Prince?

The Prince reined to one side of the quarters and squinted down at Saxot in his gully. Do you join your quarter at the battlefront?

No, Your Highness. I quit the war.

Indeed. Your name?

Saxot Kingcrux, Your Highness.

I thought my father-king killed the last Kingcrux fifteen years ago. The prince sounded more weary than ironic.

The words slipped out before Saxot could stop them. All but me.

The prince’s voice sharpened. You lie. There were no survivors among the rebels.

My father’s brother helped me escape. Only to die himself amid the butchery.

The prince narrowed his eyes. Show me your brand.

Heart thudding, Saxot urged his horse up the embankment. When they were a pace apart, he drew back his sleeve.

Prince Regan grasped Saxot’s arm and twisted it toward the dying sun. He studied the flame burned into the pale skin of his forearm, marking him as liege to no living