The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Read online

  THE FLY HOUSE

  MISTY PROVENCHER

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2014 by Misty Provencher

  Cover & Interior Design by Misty Provencher

  Publication Date: January 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Connect with the author online at: [email protected]

  or on Facebook and Twitter: @mistyprovencher.

  ISBN: 9781311701008

  DEDICATION

  For Janet Wallace

  This book was inspired by UtopYA Con 2013.

  Thank you, Janet,

  For creating an experience for readers, bloggers and authors

  to come together

  and infuse the book world with infectious positivity.

  You are one of the Good Guys, no drait.

  USEFUL WORDS

  Food

  Gorne ~ a plant that is part tree, shrub and flower. Every bit of the plant offers humans perfect nutrition. The bark can be ground for flour, the flowers are sweet, the tubers growing from the roots are both a fruit and a vegetable, the weedy stems at its base can be gathered for salads. Even the sap can be collected for a nutritious drink.

  Caffe ~ A drink, similar to coffee

  Animals

  Punaise ~ chamber bugs

  Hampig ~ small rodents, a dragon’s delicacy

  Melellurms ~ a stinging worm that eats dead things, or, if starved, kills things to eat

  Gorne Warvils ~ biting bugs found in wild gorne

  Ratfish ~ a hybrid animal, part rat and part fish, that lives in water but is able to emerge and walk on land.

  Dragon Terms

  Catch ~ A grouping of dragon eggs

  Hoarde ~ A hatched, young group of dragons

  Hens ~ Young dragons, not yet mature

  Swol ~ A female dragon ready for mating

  Heathen ~ A male dragon

  Sheathen ~ A female dragon

  Hating ~ The violent act of mating between two dragons

  Flex ~ A male dragon’s erection

  Frivoling Axe ~ An axe used to castrate a dragon

  Drait ~ in modern terms, shit. Precisely: dragon waste. Farming the drait is a common slang term used to mean that someone is talking garbage about someone else.

  Lair ~ a cave in which a dragon makes its home

  Plants & Growth

  Gorne Tree ~ a growth, designed by Plutians, to provide perfect nutrition to humans. Used as medicine as well.

  Buntle Tree ~ sturdy trees used for furniture

  Spindling Tree ~ non-flammable wood used for housing

  Shorb Brush ~ thick, low-lying bush-like shrubbery used for stuffing mattresses and spinning fabrics; hampigs often nest in it

  Terms & Slang

  Rha ~ A leader of one of the five Houses

  Generation ~ children; also used in terms of bringing forth children

  House ~ A huge structure that physically houses occupants; the term referring to a group of people who are defined by one of the five parts of the dragon harvesting process

  Blessings ~ A proper greeting

  Good Life ~ Friendly words uttered when parting

  To talk goose ~ To gossip

  Ice Seed ~ A pod which has the ability to radiate cold when opened

  Fire Seed ~ A pod which has the ability to radiate either small amounts of heat or open flame when opened

  Coring ~ The horrific coring out of the interior of a body, produced by contact with the spittle-like venom cast from a Plutian’s mouth.

  Cost ~ Dowry

  Link ~ To be married; marriage; a significant other recognized by ceremony

  Intentions ~ The act of asking a Rha for the ability to Link with a female of his house

  Mating ~ To have sex with; sex

  Scorching ~ The time when the Plutians burned human civilization away from the Earth, in order to reconstruct the Earth for the dragon harvesting trade

  Archaic ~ A term referring to the Earth, the beings or the lifestyle that existed pre-scorching

  Hope Market ~ Black marketing; illegal dealings either performed among the Houses or to in interplanetary dealings

  Trans ~ The transportation container used to ship dragons between Earth and Pluto

  Portions ~ The allotment given by a Plutian overseer to reward a House for their efforts, for reaching their quotas, or for aiding the overseer in an illegal Hope Marketing venture

  Dragonwind ~ A whirlwind; chaos

  Planting ~ To impregnate a woman

  Shebele ~ Homosexual

  Sparking ~ To yell

  What in thunder ~ What in hell

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hot Season 3, Year 2079

  They fed the old traveler at their fire, as was right to do, since he had their past to tell.

  They offered him Ratfish stew in the only bowl that wasn't decorated with a chip. The traveler hated Ratfish, but he took the bowl and thanked the woman whose offering hands were as mapped with wrinkles as his own. She smiled in a way that made that first chewy bite of the stew more palpable.

  A small boy observed the old traveler's meal from the doorway. He was nearly ragged with waiting when the old man asked for more bread.

  As soon as the traveler finished, and the occupants of the Fly House were all gathered round the fire, he began. It was the same story, told on each visit, of how they’d arrived at this point in the Earth's history.

  The children huddled, the adults stirred. They knew, in privacy and whispers, what the truths were. But in any open telling of their history, there was no way to avoid repeating those parts of the tale that no human had ever witnessed and no human believed to be true. To do otherwise would be treason.

  "If the meeting, in the beginning, had happened on these grounds," the traveler said, "there would have been an official board room with long tables, soft chairs, and platters of bread wheels, which were called bagels.

  "But, as it were, the meeting that took place was not on any ground. It could not be." The old man paused to scratch his ribs with the knob of his walking stick, which someone had retrieved for him. It was only polite to keep a traveler's items nearby, so there was no question of thievery.

  "The deities," the man went on, "converged in an open, airless space between Mercury and the Sun. Being of consciousness only, the heat and lack of oxygen was not a point of suffering for them."

  "Why couldn't they come here?" the boy asked. He was immediately hushed for the interruption. He knew better than to do it, but the question had burned in his mind since the last traveler's visit. The boy had to know. The old man turned to him.

  "The deities watch over from afar. It is said that they walk upon the sun. They could take the shape of a human body and tread upon our Earth, but they choose not to, and for very good reason. To look upon a deity's face, is to be struck down with immediate death. So, a deity walking upon our soil would mean death to us all. Especially those so curious."

  The traveler gave the boy a nod as he said it. A shiver went around the circle and the boy felt the slithery wiggle down his own back. But he could not stop himself from asking another question.

  "Only their faces? We could look at any other part of them?"

  "Their eyes." The old man held pronged fingers in front of his own. "You don't look a deity in the eyes, because we are not their equal."

  The boy shut his mouth then, looking out at the stars. He thought of his Gra beside him, and of his small sister, too young for a telling yet and tucked away in bed, deep within
the House. The boy knew at that very moment that he would do whatever was required to keep his small family safe and to protect the rest of his House. So pointed was the thought that the boy suspected it would someday define him as a man.

  "The deities considered the planet in question, our Earth, which was the only item of real value in the particular lot being distributed,” the old traveler continued. “The Earth, as far as the Plutians have told us, belonged to the deity the Plutians called, Ahanas. The Plutians maintain that it was only natural then for the deities to converge and distribute those items of responsibility that Ahanas had left behind. Us. Earth.

  "Humans have never recognized a deity by the name Ahanas, but when the Plutians insisted that the entity was our deity, then the humans decided to profess no pleasure by that name. Instead, we utter our curses on Ahanas, as well as our surprise and shock and disgust. The Plutian’s Ahanas left us to be acquired by whichever brutal hands were fastest to take hold. He deserves no glory."

  The boy's Gra, the woman who had so kindly given the traveler his stew, leaned forward and offered the old man a drink from her own bottle. It was the first softening of the old man's face that the boy had seen since arriving. The traveler took it with a dip of a nod.

  "Thank you, young lady. And your name?" the old man asked. The boy's Gra giggled like the girls who blushed when they were to be Linked. The boy was a little embarrassed to hear it.

  "Rha Breathe," she told him. The traveler’s eyebrows spiked.

  "You are the Rha of this House?"

  "I am," she said. Again, the sideways dip of her chin and flutter of her eyelids embarrassed the boy at her elbow. The old traveler chuckled.

  "What a beautiful and accurate name," he said. His smile was suddenly charming; the curve of his lips soft. "Breathe. Yes, my dear, you make a man want to do just that."

  He handed her bottle back to her, and from that point on, the entire story seemed to belong to Breathe alone. The narrative leapt to an intriguing pace and the boy's embarrassment turned to pride when Breathe pulled him close. It was a rare front row seat to the rare entertainment that occasioned their House.

  "The deities debated who should control our Earth, and in the meantime, our planet fell to neglect. It has been said that the disintegration of Earth's atmosphere was all part of the plan of acquisition. There were even rumors that a wormhole was used to bring it to that state, possibly even the same wormhole we still use to transport our shipments to and from Pluto.

  "Without this Ahanas to maintain our Earth, the detrimental effects of the neglect multiplied. The patches in our atmosphere created what we once called global warming. We were so quick to accept blame that had nothing to do with us. Our crops began to die, as well as Earth's animals—even us. The effects of it rippled out to the very edges of existence.

  "After several eons of deliberation among the deities, the Earth was in ruins. The human race was said to have become a liability to the property instead of a selling point."

  Breathe nodded sadly and the old traveler nodded back, his eyes tender with mutual understanding. A tear drained from Breathe's eyes. The boy was concerned. Elders were always the most resilient. To see two of them clinging to one another, as if they needed reassurance themselves, made everything in the boy's life and that which surrounded it, seem suddenly unstable and terrifying.

  But then Breathe wiped her eyes and the old man patted her hand before releasing her fingers. It settled the boy to hear the old man's voice plod on with the telling once again.

  "Our Earth was in ruin. Most of us died. Some of us vanished. And some of us, us," he motioned around the circle at the fire, "we survived."

  "How?" one of the smallers squeaked. It was the thick of the story and the most dangerous to hear. The old man's eyes moved around the fire at this point, making sure of who was in attendance. The boy's Gra nodded to continue, a small assurance that all in attendance were human.

  "The deities reached a decision. None wanted our dying planet, but Pluto's deity," the old man put a finger to the side of his nose as his eyes flashed with contempt, "1295 was a savvy mind.

  "I must remind you at this point of our story that I am nothing more than a Traveling Taleor. Not the tailor of old, that mended clothes, but a Taleor, one that mends the forgetful places of our human minds with the tales of our past. My job is not to give you opinions of Pluto or of 1295, no. We know that to be the highest treason and as sure a death sentence as stumbling upon a pair of dragons in the middle of their hating. We would not dare to express opinions here."

  The old man's teeth ground between sentences. Some of the Elders at the fire cracked knuckles. Some whispered curses on Ahanas's head. But none voiced contempt.

  "The Houses have assigned me the task of reminding you all of our history, even if certain entities would prefer that we forget."

  "Can you tell us of the Scorching?" the boy said. Breathe squeezed his arm with pride, but she said what was required to keep everyone at her House's fire safe from any Plutians who could be wandering in the shadows.

  "Diem," she admonished him tenderly, "Always so eager to hear how Pluto saved us all, aren't you? This taleor will certainly tell us. Do you have a proper name, sir?"

  She let the rest of her concerns drift as she lifted her brow to the old man.

  "Journey, ma'am," he said. "I took the name as a Taleor, but as old as I am, I think my name will soon become a good joke, as my legs are growing tired. I have begun to search for the House that will take an old man with a few years of wisdom left in him."

  The boy thought his Gra blushed. How humiliating. Diem's best friend, Eon, giggled. Diem shoved him off his seat for it. The old taleor took the cue, looking away from the pleasure that was seated at his elbow, and took up his purpose with the people around the fire once again.

  "Yes, merciful 1295 took pity on us all, when he took ownership of our Earth." Journey said. His bitter tone was hard to misinterpret. Even Breathe flitted on her seat. No one was concerned about opinions around the campfire, but what laid beyond it in the shadows could never be guaranteed. Breathe cleared her throat.

  "Yes, bless merciful Pluto," she said as if she were bridging an agreement with the old taleor. The mumbled blessing rolled sluggishly around the fire.

  The old man's grin took on an air of defeat as he looked upon Breathe. The boy got the feeling that the old man had wanted to spark a revolution that night, even if only in one other kindred spirit.

  The Plutians did not understand sarcasm, so the taleors were never seen as the threat they actually were. But the cloak of the taleors’ sarcasm did not mean that they were exempt from danger, especially those who grasped the ropes that could clang the bells of revolution.

  The boy knew that his House would never do anything so incredible as initiate change. His Gra ran the House and she was the perfect hostage for 1295's grand plans. Revolution—change—takes sacrifice, and Breathe's one affliction was the most beautiful weakness found in the human race. She loved those around her too much to risk even one of their lives.

  So, when the boy saw Breathe smile, he saw how deeply concerned she was with the old man's safety. The boy noticed that even the taleor detoured from carrying the torch of revolution any further into the shadows that night. But, it did not stop the old man from completing his telling.

  "How did merciful Pluto help us survive? Well, 1295 had the Plutians fashion us tents, which we could huddle beneath, as he released his Gall dragons that set our planet ablaze. 1295 removed the atmosphere protections and, in his brilliance, guided the ruin of our technology, our advances, and our way of life with the beastly fire that was meant to purify the Earth's crust. When the scorching was over, every advancement and sign of the human race, and nearly the race itself, was incinerated. It was fair, wasn't it? After all, our Earth was an investment in a dragon empire 1295 hoped to build.

  "We were spared, you could say, and it would be true. But spared hardly seemed to be a gift any of us wan
ted in those days. The months we spent, huddled within our Plutian tents, never knowing if our tent would be one of the many defective shelters that brought screams from our neighbors and friends and family when the scorching was upon us. We had no other option, but to do our best to survive the heat that still boiled our skins.

  "We were spared," the old man said with a bitter laugh. "We bedded down in our own waste. We ate whatever was delivered by the sporadic visits from the Plutians, to the chosen ones of us. Those of us who succumbed to hunger, to eating our own, cannot be blamed. Their grief and shame is their only judge, as we forgive them completely for what we all considered doing ourselves.

  "And once our Earth was thoroughly cleared of the life we once knew, merciful Plutians came and gifted us our new life. We were given hybrid seeds, some made from those the Plutians had taken before the scorching, some created new. We were not given the seeds to grow the food we knew, but instead, we received the plants that were necessary to construct the atmosphere required to build a dragon trade.

  "We struggled to hold to the vestiges of our language, but had to choose a common ground for our communication. All of our children now speak only English. They have a different world in which to relate. They don't understand us or our symbolism- this new world holds nothing of our old." The old man stood and paced in front of the fire, his arms flinging shadows toward the edge of the light.

  "Some would despair that Pluto populated our landscape with foreign fields that bring us little food...but none in this circle, no. We are grateful to 1295 for restoring a base humanity. We are blessed to rely upon Pluto's generosity for our food and clothing and shelter. What use is independence? We are Dragon Harvesters. Our job is repopulation of our thinned race. We are fortunate for these lives that trundle on without the complication of advancement."

  The was dancing quite close to a sort of treason once again and the people around the fire shifted like the last nervous birds that had been eaten by the first dragons that came to Earth. The boy looked upon his Gra for a final vote. She was craned toward the taleor herself, as if he were her pied piper.