A Stay At the Red Lion
by Rupert Haigh

The look that passed through his eyes registered something more than fear. With a manifest effort of will, he continued.

‘I woke abruptly, frozen, a little while later. It was beginning to get light. The outlines of the furniture were emerging gradually from darkness. Then I saw her standing at the foot of the bed, perfectly still, looking at me, looking straight into my eyes.’

‘Saw who?’

‘A girl. A young, terribly thin and pale girl, perhaps seventeen years of age. She was dressed in a ragged nightdress. She had golden hair tied in a long plait. The look in her eyes seemed to express both love and suffering. As I looked at her, I had a strange intuition that she had once been beautiful but that beauty had been driven from her by cruel usage. It remained in her eyes. She looked at me steadily for perhaps half a minute and then backed away towards the window, beckoning me with her hands to come with her. Her lips moved but I could hear no sound. It was horrible, Charles, horrible. I have deluded myself. I have been a fool. All is clear now.’

‘But,’ I said slowly, ‘I don’t understand. Who was she?’

‘Can’t you see, Charles? It was a sign. She was a spirit sent to warn me of the imminence of my own death. She was drawing me towards death.’

‘Nonsense, James, nonsense!’ I exclaimed. You’ve just had a bad night that’s all. This vision is doubtless purely a symptom of your illness. You’ll be fine in a week or so, just as you told me yesterday. However, as a precaution, I’ll send for the doctor to look you over.’

M’seryl, My Son
by R.R. Brooks

M’seryl killed the muscle-bound Gjopyllan and fled into the barrens. Despite a clear conscience—the despicable slave master deserved death for beating the helpless man—he found himself, with head bowed before the hot blowing sand, muttering justifications to his silent god.

“I probably acted hastily, Lord, but you saw the torture, the injustice. Was I to stand and watch in silence? No, my deed brought justice. In a way I was just doing your job.” He scratched his short black wiry beard.

God was silent, nothing new to M’seryl who had been conducting the monologue for years. Nevertheless, he looked up from the hot glary landscape of rocky thrusts and sandy vales, hoping to find some sign of divine sympathy. In the distance he thought he detected a movement that could be his pursuers, but the stirring became only thermal shimmers, dancing like storks with burning feet.

“So my fate is this white, waterless hell. I sense that you are not pleased with me, Lord.”

M’seryl draped the thermal fab cloak over his head and felt the weight of his water pack, estimating that less than a day’s supply remained. He had to find some hydrogneus, the planet’s water-containing stones. He also sensed the planet’s increasing pull in the strain of every step and knew he needed a new vitigneus, the bluish anti-gravitic rock that balanced its holder’s mass against the globe’s crushing gravity.

“Is it too much to ask that you provide some water and relief from the pull, Lord? What is the point of all these petty discomforts?” He winced as his ankle turned in a hidden depression.