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  Cross Plains Universe

  Cross Plains Universe: Texans Celebrate Robert E. Howard

  Copyright © 2006 Scott A. Cupp and Joe R. Lansdale

  Cover illustration © 2006 Gary Gianni

  A Co-publication of

  MonkeyBrain Books and

  the Fandom Association of Central Texas

  “Cross Plains and Imagination” copyright © 2006 Scott A. Cupp

  “The Pillar in the Mist” copyright © 2006 Ardath Mayhar

  “A Penny a Word” copyright © 2006 Paul O. Miles & Rick Klaw

  “Slim and Swede and the Damned Dead Horse” copyright © 2006 C. Dean Andersson

  “The King Comes to Texas” copyright © 2006 Robert E. Howard Properties Inc

  “An Excerpt from The Stone of Namirha” copyright © 2006 Bill Crider & Charlotte Laughlin

  “Two Hearts in Zamora” copyright © 2006 Jessica Reisman

  “One Fang” copyright © 2006 Scott A. Cupp

  “The Bunker of the Tikriti” copyright © 2006 Chris Nakashima-Brown

  “Six from Atlantis” copyright © 2006 Gene Wolfe

  “A Whim of Circumstance” copyright © 2006 Conan Properties International LLC

  “Wolves Of The Mountains” copyright © 2006 Robert E. Howard Properties Inc

  “Thin, On the Ground” copyright © 2006 Howard Waldrop

  “The Warrior and the King” copyright © 2006 Carrie Richerson

  “The Diamonds of Golkonda” copyright © 2006 Lillian Stewart Carl

  “Prince Koindrindra Escapes” copyright © 2006 Jayme Lynn Blaschke

  “Boomtown Bandits” copyright © 2006 L. J. Washburn

  “The Jewel of Leystall” copyright © 2006 Monkeybrain, Inc.

  “The Heart” copyright © 2006 Neal Barrett, Jr.

  “The Toughest Jew in the West” copyright © 2006 Lawrence Person

  “The Sea of Grass on the Day of Wings” copyright © 2006 Melissa Mia Hall

  “The Roaming Forest” copyright © 2006 Michael Moorcock and Linda Moorcock

  CONAN™, CONAN THE BARBARIAN™ and related logos, names, characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks and copyrights of Conan Properties International LLC unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

  EL BORAK© 2006 and related logos, names, characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks and copyrights of Robert E. Howard Properties Inc. unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

  KULL® and related logos, names, characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks and copyrights of Kull Productions Inc. unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

  ROBERT E. HOWARD™ and related logos, names, characters, distinctive likenesses thereof, and any and all logos, names, places, artifacts, characters, and distinctive likenesses thereof created by Robert E. Howard are trademarks and copyrights of Robert E. Howard Properties Inc. unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

  CLAY STARK™ and related logos, names, characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Mark Finn unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic,

  electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information

  storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

  MonkeyBrain Books

  FACT, Inc.

  11204 Crossland Drive

  P.O. Box 26442

  Austin, TX 78726

  Austin, TX 78755

  info@monkeybrainbooks.com

  forinfo@fact.org

  www.monkeybrainbooks.com

  www.fact.org

  ISBN: 1-932265-22-8

  ISBN: 978-1-932265-22-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have happened without the help and prodding of some special folks who deserve to be recognized.

  First, we want to thank the people at FACT, Inc. (The Fandom Association of Central Texas, Inc.) for providing the impetus for the book, specifically Renee Babcock and Fred Duarte.

  Also, Jack and Barbara Baum, who owned many of the Robert E. Howard copyrights during the initial stages of the book, and Fred Malmberg and Paradox Entertainment who now owns all the Howard rights. They were supportive throughout the genesis of this work.

  Mark Finn and Rusty Burke worked as liaisons with the copyright owners and provided much needed encouragement and advice.

  Willie Siros pushed to make sure that this book happened. It was as much his vision as anyone else’s that allows you to hold this volume in your hands.

  Chris Roberson agreed to make the tales into a volume that would be admired by all.

  Thirty years ago, Steven Utley and George Proctor put together the first all-Texan anthology. Their Lone Star Universe served as a model for this volume.

  Our wives, Sandi and Karen, put up with our obsessions and lifestyles and make it all worthwhile.

  And, without the genius of Robert E. Howard, this volume would not have existed. He remains, seventy years after his death, a strong and vital influence on writers, not just from Texas, but from the whole, wide world.

  Project Pride

  The Fandom Association of Central Texas is proud to celebrate the life and literature of Robert E. Howard during the 2006 World Fantasy Convention. In partnership with MonkeyBrain Books, and with the cooperation of Paradox Entertainment, we present this anthology as tribute to the creator of Conan the Cimmerian and the heroic fantasy tradition he inspired. If you would like to help preserve Howard’s legacy and honor his contributions to fantasy literature, please support Project Pride, the non-profit institution that maintains Robert E. Howard’s family home and heritage in Cross Plains, Texas. Project Pride can be found on the Web at: www.crossplains.com/howard/museum.htm, or mailed at Project Pride, PO Box 534, Cross Plains, TX 76443.

  Contents

  Introduction: Cross Plains and Imagination

  Scott A. Cupp

  The Pillar in the Mist

  Ardath Mayhar

  A Penny a word

  Rick Klaw & Paul 0. Miles

  Slim and Swede and the Damned Dead Horse:

  A Tale of Bloodsong

  C. Dean Andersson

  The King Comes to Texas

  Bradley Denton

  An Excerpt from

  The Stone of Namirha

  Bill Crider & Charlotte Laughlin

  Two Hearts in Zamora

  Jessica Reisman

  One Fang

  Scott A. Cupp

  The Bunker of the Tikriti

  Chris Nakashima-Brown

  Six from Atlantis

  Gene Wolfe

  A Whim of Circumstance

  Mark Finn

  Wolves Of The Mountains:

  An El Borak Story

  James Reasoner

  Thin, On the Ground

  Howard Waldrop

  The Warrior and the King

  Carrie Richerson

  The Diamonds of Golkonda

  Lillian Stewart Carl

  Prince Koindrindra Escapes

  Jayme Lynn Blaschke

  Boomtown Bandits

  L. J. Washburn

  The Jewel of Leystall

  Chris Roberson

  The Heart

  Neal Barrett, Jr.

  The Toughest Jew in the West

  Lawrence Person

  The Sea of Grass on the Day of Wings

  Melissa Mia Hall

  The Roaming Forest

  Michael Moorcock

  About the Authors

  Cross Plains and Imagination

  by Scott A. Cupp

  Texans are a funny lot. They love their state and decry anyone who suggests that they live elsewhere. Your two editors have logged about a hundred years in the state. Some of the writers in this volume can claim many years while others got here as fast as they could.

  The state had a wild and varied birth. Settled only by Native Americans until the arrival of the Spanish, it was a sleepy sort of place until various people began offering free land to anyone who could survive on it. The settlers came. They came from a variety of countries (communities of Germans, Czechs, and Poles flourished among the Americans and Hispanics). The popular amusement park concern Six Flags, which got its start near Dallas, was named for the six flags which at various times flew over the state (Spain, Mexico, France, Texas, Confederate States of America and USA, for those curious). It is a huge state and that is a source of state pride (Alaska notwithstanding). It is the only state to have been an independent, functioning republic (1836 to 1845) before entering the US. There is still a provision that, should it be deemed necessary, it can divide into five separate states.

  Texans were among the greatest liars of all times. When the westward expansion of the US began, Texas was a popular spot. “Gone to Texas” was a frequent sign seen in abandoned homes and businesses. But it was not heaven. It took hard work to scrape out a living. There were a variety of natural causes for failure—the heat, droughts, snakes, flash
floods, Comanches, deserts, and hurricanes all took their tolls.

  But as people settled in, Texas towns attracted more and more residents. And those hardy settlers were a wild sort. Proper and genteel Eastern families did not make the move. It was made by dreamers and visionaries, younger sons who would not inherit the family business, people who had a reason (frequently of a legal variety) to remove themselves from an area. New identities were as easy to have as anything. You’re wanted as John Carter in Virginia, move to Central Texas and become Carson Napier. Simple.

  Visionaries, dreamers, and liars. Great stock for the writers to come.

  For our purposes, the single most important fiction writer from Texas is Robert E. Howard. born in Peaster, Texas in 1906, he began writing in his teens and continued until the day he died. Throughout his life, he had heard stories from these various characters of Texas. He would have heard the life stories of people who fought in the Civil War, who fought the Comanches, people who survived out on the Llano Estacado, who had relocated from out East or from Europe via covered wagon, people who had seen the Texas Rangers in action.

  As a result Howard had an outstanding breadth of knowledge and wrote everything—westerns, boxing stories, detective fiction, oriental tales, medieval tales, sea tales, humor pieces, and the fantasies. About the only things he did not write were outright romance stories or science fiction (to our thought, Almuric is science fantasy rather than science fiction). While his fame rests on the fantasy work, Howard never wrote a bad tale in any of those genres. He had a sense of pacing that was unrivaled and his dialogue may occasionally be stilted but it rang true for his characters. His suicide remains a pivotal day in the history of Texas writers.

  Now Texas has had quite a few writers of science fiction and fantasy over the years. Walter Miller wrote much of A Canticle for Leibowitz while living south of Austin in Wimberley, Texas. Greg Benford and Tom Reamy grew up in the Dallas area. John Varley, Gene Wolfe, and Sean Stewart were all born in Texas. Marion Zimmer Bradley spent quite a while in the state. Chip Delany spent a summer working the shrimp boats in the Houston/Galveston area.

  Everyone knows many of the current Texas writers—Bruce Sterling, Joe Lansdale, Brad Denton, Elizabeth Moon, Howard Waldrop, William Browning Spencer, even our British transplant Michael Moorcock—award-winning, idiosyncratic writers all. Texas is a part of their soul and their writing.

  So, to celebrate the centenary of Howard’s birth, we asked fifty Texas writers to provide us with stories that featured a Robert E. Howard character, featured REH himself as a character, or which were inspired by Howard’s work. Seems a rather broad request. Lots of leeway for the writers.

  Also, in 1976 George Proctor and Steve Utley, two young Texas writers, put together Lone Star Universe, an original anthology of Texas speculative fiction writings. It was our wish to provide an updated version of that volume along with honoring Robert E. Howard.

  The editors got back an amazing assortment of tales covering all these aspects of REH’s work. They are as wild and varied as their inspiration, sometimes making a tenuous stab at connectivity to our theme. They represent some of the best of Texas fiction in any field.

  While there are many fine writers represented here, we could not get everyone in. Check out some of the folks who are not here. Writers like the aforementioned Bruce Sterling, Elizabeth Moon, William Browning Spencer and Sean Stewart. Science fiction and fantasy writers like Martha Wells, Aaron Allston, Lou Antonelli, Don Webb, John Moore, Angeline Hawkes-Craig, Carole Nelson Douglas, Pat Anthony, Kim Kofmel, P. N. Elrod, Christopher Fullbright, Rachel Caine, Katherine Eliska Kimbriel, Walton Simons, Thomas Knowles, and Charlee Jacob. Former Texans now hiding in other states/countries like Steve Utley, Lewis Shiner, Steve Gould, and Lisa Tuttle. Other genre writers like Elmer Kelton (the greatest western writer ever), mystery writers Jesse Sublett, Rick Riordan, Ben Rehder, Carolyn Banks, Susan Rogers Cooper, Jeff Abbot, Jan Grape and Mary Willis Walker. Romance writers like Jane Archer. In the works of these writers and many, many more, you will find imagination and the spirit of Texas.

  The Pillar in the Mist

  by Arclath Mayhar

  We tore through the thickening mist like mad things. I was drunk with rage and my steed unnerved by the weirdness of the place and the wind that in some strange way failed to dissipate the fog. We were on a moor, pounding along a winding track that skirted distorted tors and treacherous bogs, but I was too lost and angry for fear.

  Flavius Severus had chosen to leave me behind when the legions returned to Rome, ignoring the fact that my father was one of his finest centurions. Even now, months afterward, I burned with anger at his words. “You are a half-breed, Kerak, born to a barbarian woman. I do not agree with those who consider their half-breed troops to be Roman. I do not return to Rome with inferiors among my soldiers.” A flame singed my heart every time I thought of that.

  My Briton mother had died soon after my father left, and I gathered my few possessions, took my father’s horse Camerak, and headed toward the southeast, hoping to find a way to reach the mainland. I would go to Rome! But I found that metheglyn eased my hurt, and so I drank away my small patrimony. Now I was a trained soldier without an army, drunk and desperate, lost in the mists on a mount gone wild and uncontrollable.

  If I had been less intoxicated I would have understood his terror, for this track, on this night, was a terrifying place. After a time, sobered by the chill mist on my face and the effort to control Cam’s wild careering along the track, I began to feel my hair rise on my neck, and I pulled harder on the reins, trying to slow the maddened horse.

  Ahead the mist swirled in the wind, and for an instant I saw, standing in the center of the track, a pale pillar of stone. I used all my strength, striving to turn the animal’s head, but he sped forward as if determined to dash out his brains against that standing stone. Now my heart was thudding as if to break from my chest, and I knew that if I did not act swiftly I would die with Cam. Perhaps I would be dashed to death on a boulder beside the track, but I had to choose at once. Without pausing to think, I threw myself from the horse and rolled painfully over splinters of stone, to land in a prickly gorse.

  Half stunned, I struggled to catch my breath, but before that was done I heard the agonized whinny of Cam as he thudded into the pillar. Pushing myself upright, I staggered toward the sound. Yet the mist and the eerie feel of the place made me reach for my sword—to find it gone, tied with my pack on the back of the horse. I must find it. The last remnant of my life as a Roman soldier, it was vital to my survival as a free man. The knife I pulled from the thong at my waist was not enough to protect anyone from the wicked forces now afoot in this land. Still I held it, comfortingly solid in my hand, as I moved toward my dying horse and the mist-shrouded pillar that had killed him.

  The darkness was complete, now, and it was only because the edges of the track were overgrown that I was able to follow in the path of the horse. I found him by stumbling over his leg and falling onto his still-warm body. I could feel it quivering beneath me, as the animal’s life ebbed, and I found myself strangely moved. Cam was the last connection to my father, and with his going my life changed from that of a mounted man to one afoot. And that brought difficulties and dangers even greater than those I had faced before.

  Crouching beside the dead horse, I retrieved my pack, luckily a small one, found my sword, and unbound my leather cloak from Cam’s back. Even as I worked, I felt some chilly presence about me, and I knew I must leave this spot beside the tall stone. The thing had killed my horse, and I felt that if I remained within its baleful influence it might well kill me, as well. My father had talked of the Old Ones and their cruel rites, and this place reeked of old deaths and agonies.

  Traveling this unchancy road in darkness seemed almost as frightening as staying in place, but I had been a soldier, though not for very long, and I scorned to let my fears drive me. I felt my way cautiously around the still-warm carcass and touched the stone itself. My hand jerked, burned and frozen equally by the uncanny nature of that pillar. Without touching it again, I edged along the side of the road, feeling the growth of gorse against my elbow, until I no longer sensed the pillar. Yet even then my feet disliked the texture of the road, rough and tussocky, with scattered stones to trip the unwary.