Issue 40 - November 1998

Welcome new readers, and welcome back old readers, to the third edition of Ibn Qirtaiba to be released in conjunction with the Sci-Fi Channel's SCIFI.CON. I always look forward to SCIFI.CON, not only because of the high-profile guests and events, but because the con's pavilions (of which this is one) give you a unique opportunity to take a whirlwind tour of the SF World Wide Web by merely flexing your clicking-finger. I will be spending as much time participating in this year's SCIFI.CON as I can, so if you see me around, give me a virtual wave!

For those new to Ibn Qirtaiba, this issue's combination of fiction, non-fiction and poetry is characteristic of most issues of the magazine (although we do like to throw in a few surprises now and then as well!). The issue kicks off with a dark, imaginative work of fantasy from Noel Ace entitled "Soul Tattooed", followed by the first instalment of an article on adventure gaming by Fred Noweck (who is better known to regular readers as IQ's resident book reviewer). More fiction follows; a chilling short-short story by Pavel Boychev entitled "Game Over". Pavel, who is not a native speaker of English, would like to thank Beryl, Louise Blyton, Neil Ennis, Valerie Kirkwood and Vanessa Lim for their help in proof-reading his story.

The issue concludes with poetry from W Gregory Stewart. Greg, one of Ibn Qirtaiba's most regular contributors of poetry, is a 3-time Rhysling Award winner for science fiction poetry, a past Nebula finalist, the 1994 recipient of the Asimov's Readers' Poll Award for best poem, and has been published in Amazing Stories, Science Fiction Age, Aboriginal SF and many more. This issue is illustrated by a talented Netherlands artist Kent Kuné. Kent is a student of physics at the University of Twente whose dream is to turn science fiction into reality in the areas of space technology and robotics. Click on any of his futuristic images to visit a portfolio of his other computer-generated graphics.

If you're reading IQ for the first time at SCIFI.CON, don't forget that the magazine is also available all 362 other days of the year at http://sf.sig.au.mensa.org, with a new issue usually released around the first of each month. Enjoy this issue, and enjoy the con.

Contents

Short story: Soul Tattooed by Noel Ace

The Compleat Adventurer, part 1 by Fred Noweck

Short-short story: Game Over by Pavel Boychev

Poem: To Come in Presence, the Princess, Wu by W Gregory Stewart

Short Story: Soul Tattooed © 1998 Noel Ace

The fog pulled in and Barry escaped. Out of his bathroom window he miraculously squeezed his 200 pound frame and dropped to the grass below his apartment. Only a two story fall, Barry had made the jump without breaking any bones and then frantically darted up the slanted street in his black trench coat hoping he had been quiet enough not to have awakened the attention of the crowd forming outside of his apartment door. Any one seeing him run up this steep hill in the fog would think he were a San Francisco ghost running away from a crime in his heart.

Looking back at his followers who surrounded his life and kept vigil at his apartment day and night, Barry knew that he had finally escaped the line of people who demanded to be touched by him, the block long snake waiting to eat him alive.

"My God! When will they ever get a clue and find a real Messiah?" Barry panted as he finally made it to the top of the hill. By instinct he could feel the sea stretched out from the bay even though Barry couldn't see it through the fog. The ocean breeze comforted him as he stood alone, unclear where to go or who to turn to now that he was free from the grips of his confined life. He pulled his trench coat closer to his naked body and rushed forward, anxious to find a dark corner to hide in the shadows of the early morning before anyone on the street spotted him and sideswiped his attempt at desertion.

But it was too late in the morning to expect that the true commuter pedestrians of San Francisco would stay indoors on this day just because Barry needed his solitude. His life just didn't work that way. People appeared transparent through the fog, rushing past him to jobs and responsibilities. Once, a couple of years back, Barry had been one of these strangers he saw scurrying past his shadow. But now his life moved against the foot traffic, against this bustle of the city. instead, Barry ducked and hid in alleyways and took cover in closed the depth of closed store fronts, away from the chance glance of a curious onlooker who might be looking for an unusual sight to liven up this Monday morning drudgery.

Too concerned for his own safety and nestled in the comfort of the fog, Barry did not see the man in front of him rollerblading down the hill at the same moment Barry stood on the sidewalk, deciding which direction to take.

"Hey, man! Watch it!" The well-built man's flight soon ended as Barry and he collided. The rollerblader flew a few feet in the air and fell to the pavement. "Jesus Christ. What the hell are you doing, you jerk? You got right in my way!" Seeing the man spilled on the concrete ground scared Barry. He wanted to help the man but instead looked to ground and pulled his blue snow cap lower on his head. With skates twisted into angry angles, the man sat on the pavement, bleeding from his elbows and knees. He examined his ankles; he gripped his thighs and threw his head back in agony as he struggled to bend his skinned joints.

Barry struggled with his instinct to bring this man back to balance while he moved closer to the victim bleeding on the pavement. "Hey, look. I'm really sorry."

Struggling to rise up from the concrete on his own without Barry's help created more anger in the man. "At least you could give me a hand."

Instead of giving in to the man's wish, Barry backed away from this potentially dangerous scene and fastened every button on his trench coat. Hide as much of me as I can. Maybe he won't notice, Barry thought, struggling with his impulse to rescue the man from his pain.

Turning to run off and continue on his way, Barry was caught by the steady anger in the man's voice. "Where you going so quick? Bastard like you think you own these damn streets. Just spill a man and run, you stupid freak." The man bent his body forward and sat on his knees. With full force and will power, the man rose up like a giant. Composure regained, this towering Cyclops searched through the fog for the nobody who had blinded his eye sight.

"I was... uh... just... uh...." Barry stumbled with his words, afraid to further anger this man who could so easily squash Barry like a bug. Becoming uncomfortable with the rock hard stare the man gave him, Barry reached for the hood of his trench coat and put it over his head, bracing himself for the inevitable confrontation since the man moved closer into Barry's space.

"I was just taking a walk," Barry mumbled, his eyes darting to all sides of this stranger. Just get away quick, now. Run straight into him if you have to.

"Hey, I know you...." The gravity of the hill interrupted the man, and the wind sought to drive him down to the pavement again. But he held his stance battling the pull with every expletive he knew. Now balanced on the street for the second time, the man came back to focus on the man in front of him and looked Barry full in the face, eyes widening in obvious acknowledgment. "Jesus Christ, it's you. I can't believe it. I was just on my way to see you," the man blurted out like a nuclear factory horn warning of danger on the job. He automatically reached for Barry's hand. But no such luck with Barry. He never shook hands with strangers he knew nothing about. Knowing so little bit about their past and their present health made their ritualistic greeting a danger.

"Nice meeting you. I was just on my way. Gotta go," Barry managed to say before the man reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Barry's coat.

"Look, I'm sorry. I know how busy you are, but you've gotta help me. It's my father. He's killing me. He's too much for me to hold inside. It's destroying my family." The man pulled and shook and clung desperately to Barry.

"Help me. You are the only one who can. The newspaper's all say you can cure any evil on this planet. If that's true, then I'm a definite candidate for healing." The man struggled to keep Barry from running off while Barry tried to free himself from the tight hold. "You are the Messiah, praise you! I will give you anything you want- my daughter, my BMW, my Victorian chateau in downtown- if you would just please take my violence away."

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you today. I've gotta go. I can't do this any more. This healing is just too much for one man." Barry pushed himself forward with all of his strength freeing himself from the man's grasp but leaving his trenchcoat behind. Stripped of his trench coat, Barry stood with only his striped boxers and white tank top to cover the body he wished to hide. For the condition of Barry's body, he might as well have been naked. He realized how hard hiding would be for him now that he stood out from the normal commuters rushing off to work. "One hour to myself for one day is all I ask," he said to no one in particular as he ran up the hill, again on his way to nowhere in particular.

As Barry reached the top of the hill and turned into an alley, a crowd stood in a pack, blocking his escape, angry faces showing them to be witnesses to Barry's confrontation with the rollerblader.

"Hey! What's wrong with you? That man needs your help." The crowd moved closer to him, jeering at him, showing their disappointment at Barry's unwillingness to work his magic. "Heal the ones you hurt." With the blader gaining speed from behind and the crowd pressing closer in front of him, Barry knew his opportunity to be alone today had blown away with the San Francisco wind, eaten away by the aggressive needs of the crowds that never stopped coming to see him.

"I just needed the day off. One day and then tomorrow I will be back to heal all of you." Barry stood, hands in pocket, eyes cast downward, caught in his followers' stares. Guilt racked his mind, What a selfish bastard I am. Can't even clean up my own messes. I can't stand to see that man's blood flow. For once Barry exposed his full body to the crowd that had only seen his media-fed heroic image on the front pages dressed in a purple sequined gown with the title of "Superstar" stitched on the back of his costume. Shivering, body tense, ready to run once the opportunity approached, Barry felt his pores open and his ink come alive as the wind continued its steady pace.

Barry felt the points of the lightning bolts on his chest as they moved and swirled in the wind. He could hear the gasps in the crowd, comments about the skeletons rising up on his skin, seeming to stretch in the morning dawn, The tattoos were awakened by Barry's own adrenaline rush as the crowd circled around him. Never before had anyone seen Barry's flesh up close. Sometimes even Barry forgot that demons adorned every inch of flesh on his body. Every evil spirit that had ever been exorcised from his followers had planted themselves under Barry's skin, using him as their personal temple.

"My God! Look at them all!" one of the followers gasped. The colors on Barry's flesh swirled with movement as Barry shrunk under the lasers of the people's stares.

A man - six foot, pot-bellied, and a cigar sticking out of his lips - moved right into Barry's face and glared at him. "Who said you could have the day off, freak? We didn't."

With this man's obvious dominance over Barry, the crowd's hungry mouths opened and begged for fulfilment. The crowd's voices were indistinguishable to Barry; the crowd was like one brain with the same desire.

"Heal us! Touch us! Take our demons away!" they yelled in unison, the chant that normally sent Barry into a welcoming trance. But not today. Turning around, looking for a way out, Barry saw flailing arms in front of him, raised in the air in praise of their Messiah, beckoning him to save them, desperate for his healing touch, desperate for his magic to take their pain away. Nowhere to turn as more of his followers joined the crowd and blocked his path of escape. Closer they pushed towards the man who tried to fight their need for him until he had to kneel on the ground in front of them in beggar repose- the only space left for him to breathe. Some day I will escape all of this. Chanting mantras, dancing hands, snapping fingers calling on their heaven in the foggy sky, the crowd became lost in this rabid ritual.

"Help us!"

"Give us relief."

"We need you."

"Touch us." The people begged, whined, pleaded.

One of the women in the crowd moved forward from the rest, unbuttoned her blouse, and revealed her chest to Barry's hands- colors swirling in multiple dimensions in his palms, attracted to her closeness- coaxing him to touch her heart as he had done for so many thousands in the city over the past year. "Please heal me. I won't do you any harm. Set your spell on me."

Knowing from past experience that he could not escape the crowd's aggressive nature when they were in the throes of passion like they were now, Barry tucked his hands between his legs and wrapped himself into a fetal position, letting the warriors on his skin protect him from this surging crowd. Axes raised, spears readied for bloodshed, Barry's demons raised themselves to the surface to protect this man they also saw as their savior.

As a last attempt, Barry yelled, "Please, just go away. All of you." He tried to push the woman away. The woman instead saw the ink designs stretching up the full length of his arm and immediately breathed onto the face of one of the warriors.

"My God! Look at you. You are so beautiful." Her eyes travelled further down to Barry's legs, his calves, each individual toe, back up to his chest, his other arm, every fold of his flesh. "Look at all of these faces, these demons you have captured in your skin. How beautiful their darkness is." She looked at Barry's face and wiped away his tears. "Like silk you must feel. Let me feel you as you are, sweet one." She reached out to touch Barry's tattooed body, "Let me have some of your dark power, baby. Let me heal some of your wounds." She reached out for Barry as he recoiled, his voice begging her to give him the privacy he desired.

"Don't touch me. Please! Just leave me alone." As if they had heard an invitation rather than a rejection, the crowd as one creature reached out and stroked Barry's frame, felt his smoothness, felt its heat. Anonymous voices swept through Barry's buried ears.

"Yes... I can feel his magic in my veins."

"Oh yes, let my healing begin."

Violently Barry's body shook with each caress. The tattooed images on his skin came alive as the crowd dug deeper into his silky flesh. Barry gave up the fight and curled himself into a tighter ball. The crowd continued to feel him, penetrate him with their need, and caress the heat of healing Barry offered like a sacrifice and at one time a gift to the citizens of San Francisco. Snarled, raptured beasts enjoyed the stroking of his skin as Barry lay still, no longer trying to control the direction of his life on this day. His consciousness fully retreated into his own fog, and the crowd was left to dance with the images tattooed on the flesh before them. The tattooed warriors readied themselves for a fight and rose up in caution at the crowd's aggressive but instead found themselves enjoying the faithful crowd's touch of admiration.

"My god, they are still alive within him, all those evil spirits taken from others just like us." The woman, bare breasted, deeply breathing, reached inside Barry's white cotton tank top and felt the dominant tattoo on his chest- the two-headed skeleton with a dead woman strangled in his fist.

"Oh, I like this one," she cooed. The tattoo swayed with her touch, and she quickly ripped Barry's shirt from his body to better feel the tat's full effect from her touch. The demon's spine arched, ready to pounce on her, ready to take his next victim. "Amazing," she uttered as she pulled Barry's boxers to his knees. The creature's body extended down below the Messiah's waistline, covering the man's privates and backside. Amassed in barbed wire and dripping of blood, the tattoo was becoming fully fleshed at this woman's provocative touch. I've got another fist to clench you in, this demon sneered through Barry's mind, ready to leap on this woman he saw as his prey. The woman reached out to Barry's penis, hoping to get a rise out of the savior, but saw the tattoo she had been playing with quickly losing its three-dimensional shape.

"Ah, man. He's getting cold," the woman sighed, seeing the demon retreat back into its line form. "He probably fainted or something." The crowd stopped probing Barry's lifeless body and rose up to move on its way.

"Where's the heat, now?"

"Damned burned out, Messiah."

"He's no good to us now. He's cold as stone."

"Let's get out of here."

"Yeah, you're right," the woman, once so intrigued, buttoned up her blouse, sighed and spit on Barry's face, leaving him for dead in the middle of the foggy alley.

"Just when we were having some fun, he's gotta check out."

While talking rapidly of the miracle of healing they had felt through their bodies, the crowd moved on to the local park where a beating could occur, a purse snatching, or any form of excitement imaginable. They felt energized and alive, while Barry lay helpless in the streets, in the fog of his own coma, defenceless, ready for the taking by the next passerby to do what he wished to the city's Messiah.

In the fog of this busy morning, foot traffic scurried along, downhill, uphill, and most people did not have time to stop and wonder why a crumpled form lay in the alley, naked, writhing in pain. They saw the tattooed man seemingly dead in the street but this scene was nothing new to them. Most of the commuters had seen this type of scene before- maybe on a different street with a different victim, who might be conscious and begging for help. But work was work to the commuter moving on, not bothering to stop and call the police for the victim of the street. They kept their noses in their own business and cast their eyes to the ground while moving to the pace of the rhythm flowing through their headphones. Besides, the fog cast a spell over anyone who dared its thickness.

Most of all, it was comforting to the citizens of San Francisco to know that not much was new in the city today.

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The Compleat Adventurer, part 1 © 1998 Fred Noweck

So you want to take out your suit of armor from the closet and buckle on your broadsword for a weekend of slaying monsters and questing for treasure. Well, I did recently but before I speak of that, let me back up a minute and fill you in on some items.

1) Find a weekend event.

Most states have their own events. Obviously, if you can't find an event, you can't go, now can you? A web search, if you are on the Internet, will come up with some. Try searching under Adventure, Guild, Fantasy, Myth, and other like words or phrases. You should come up with several. I have a couple from people that I have met on the Web. Fantasy Quest and Mythical Journeys. They try not to schedule events on the same weekends because they are vying for the same people for the most part. Does the adventure game have its own Web pages? These are a good indication of what has been going on in the continuing history of the game.

2) Send off for the rule book.

These will run you from 10 to 15 dollars. Also, arrange to get the newsletter at the same time. The rulebook should tell you everything you need to know about the events. History of the Realm, major races, system of combat, system of magic, how to build your character, how to build safe weapons (called boffers), how to handle anything that comes up. Believe me on this: reading the rulebook is not sufficient preparation for the real (?) thing.

3) Ok - you have decided on which event you want to go to, they have a cool Web site, you've read the rulebook, now - you need to select your character and name -

Most adventures have races like human, elf, Ork, dwarf, and others. The one I was at, Mythical Journeys (MJ for short) also had some specialized races: Ra'Kash - a feline race, Famori - an offshoot race from Ogre roots (the Famori got the looks and brains - the Orks, their cousins, got everything else), and Warg - a hybrid race - incredibly ugly - I never saw a female Warg - possibly there are none.

There are also the professions: fighter, mage, thief, cleric (which comes under mage in some systems), ranger, ninja, etc. There are also combination classes - fighter/mage, mage/thief - you get the idea.

Ok - you have decided who and what you want to be and you have come up with a really nifty name for yourself and you have given yourself some great abilities - now you look through the rulebook and find out - oops - those abilities are really expensive - especially for a new character. At MJ, a character starts with just 110 points which must be divided in such a way as to support your character, so, you start paring down your wish list of abilities. Does your character use a weapon? He/she had better have some way of defending/attacking!

Does your character use a shield? If the character can get by without one (especially a new character), don't bother.

Special abilities - is your character a spell caster? Then he needs to be able to read! That's right - reading ability is not a given. If a thief, the character needs to be able to skulk unseen. Will you be handling poison? You need poison craft or you will poison yourself every time you handle it!

Can your character use spells? Better get Mana (the ability to work spells) or you will have lots of nifty spells but not be able to use them.

Now, send your proposed character history to the game-masters for review. If you e-mail it in, do not send your character history and profile as a separate text file. Not all machines can read all text files (mine got totally garbled in transmission). Send the entire text in the e-mail and not as an attached file.

Let's see - you have your character generated, you know where and when the event is going to be - so it's time for:

4) Making your costume.

Now, this doesn't have to be really expensive but let's face it: the better it looks on your character and for the medieval period, the more expense! If you have someone else make it, this can mount up fast! Let's say you have access to a sewing machine and that you have some (minimal) skill. Fabric costs from 2 to 6 dollars per yard. I found out while pricing mine that a yard of fabric is not a yard wide by a yard long... no... it's a yard long by however wide the bolt of cloth is - usually 5 to 6 feet. That made the fabric prices easier to live with.

Got a pattern in mind for your costume? Then you will just need appropriate colors and thicknesses. Buttons and zippers didn't exist (or don't exist - you figure it out). Closures are with ties - if the ties are going to be under a strain (like a bodice), brass grommets should be used and a thick enough fabric (or leather) so that they don't pull out. You are going to be falling down wounded or dead a lot, so use durable fabric.

Several changes of costume are recommended.

Boots are not a firm requirement but do not wear white tennis shoes - this jars the "suspension of unbelief" too greatly. No wristwatches or beepers and only wear costume jewelry.

Now you need an appropriate weapon for your character. Two-handed sword, short sword, dagger, axe, club, staff... the rule book tells you how to make a safe weapon. The MJ rulebook, however, does not include pictures of what the typical weapon looks like, so you have to go with your imagination until your first event and see what others have come up with. If your character uses a crossbow - the NERF crossbow is acceptable. Until you have been to at least one event, I would not recommend using a bow and arrow as it is very difficult to make them safe. The bow must be very under-powered (range about 30 - 40 feet) with the arrow tips covered with a lot of foam rubber.

Now we come to:

5) Provisions!

There is, for the most part, no food or water at these events. You must bring everything with you. Nothing that needs refrigeration (unless you bring plenty of ice in a cooler). Some camps require no alcoholic beverages - you can be ejected if caught with any. Unless you bring a hibachi, don't bring anything that requires cooking. On the other hand, cheese, beef jerky, and hard salami gets tiring very fast. Bring treats to trade with the other players (Rice Krispy Squares are popular). A cooler with ice and soft drinks (to keep in your cabin) is recommended. A bota (one of those leather Spanish wine flasks) is also useful for carrying water or other potables around.

If you are handicapped, remember that these things take place in the woods. Not all areas are wheelchair accessible. If you have any physical condition that would make it hazardous to fall down or you have limited mobility, at MJ you wear a bright yellow arm-band - this warns everyone to take special care with their attacks. Other events will have similar signals. EMTs are on hand for emergencies.

Also lots of Scotchgard is recommended. These events are not called on account of rain. You take what comes and work around it. I forgot the Scotchgard. Your costume gets very heavy when wet.

Finally, bring someone along! Two have much more fun than one. You can also share driving duties. Or even arrange for a group to go - that way you can have a lot of interaction otherwise impossible. Arrive in plenty of time. Extra game points are given for helping to set up and take down the camp-site. Also check in with the game-masters about what items you can bring to donate to the game for extra points and to improve everyone's enjoyment. These extra points can come in handy!

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Short-Short Story: Game Over © 1998 Pavel Boychev

Darkness. Straight ahead - a small monitor with a white screen. Steady images. A dusty room. Uninhabited. A bare concrete floor. A rocking chair before an outdated monitor. Wallpaper with a pattern of flowers. Withered flowers. A rugged ceiling. A long cable with a blind bulb.

Thin lines on the screen. Blue and straight. Crisscrossing lines. Slightly curved. Green. And yellow. And red. A colourful screen of lines and curves, colours and forms. A kaleidoscope of lines. Thick and thin. Monochrome and gaudy. Chaos and symmetry.

A dark room. Wallpaper with dead flowers. Flickering light from the small monitor. A shadow of a chair. Long and sad. A second shadow - of a man. Convulsed. Light in his eyes. In front of a screen of lines and curves. Kinked curves. A reflection in the eyes. Motionless face. Motionless eyes. A dead man.

A screen of shapes. Sharp and brave. Running lines. And curves. And letters. And digits.

A pale spider's web in the corner. In the middle - a small fly. Grey. Motionless. Dead. Hollow.

Light from a monitor. A pantomime of shadows. Grotesque. A chair frame. A man's head. And one small hollow fly.

Outside. Night. Silence. An open-air kindergarten. A sandpit and sandy towers. Prams and benches. Cradles. Slides. And many children. All of them too young. With horror, and fear, and lots of questions in their eye-sockets. There, frozen forever. And their mothers nearby, mute. Focused smiles. Lifeless and rigid. Fleshless. In grey and white. Ash and bone.

Around them - trees. No leaves and no tremor. Blackened branches. Reddish. A remembrance of a fire.

Two cars. Blue and yellow. Brand new. Smooth paint. Droplets of melted glass. Images of thousands of mirrored moons. Gentle solid droplets. Like the sand in the kindergarten.

A mute town. Asleep. No dreams. Forever.

An ugly building. A ten storey building. Black. Fifth floor. A light in a window. And shadows and flickering. Shadows of a chair, a fly and a man. A monitor with a screen of white. Lifeless lines. And letters. And digits. A text in red.

"Game over."

"Press [Enter] to continue."

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Poem: To Come in Presence, the Princess, Wu © 1997 W Gregory Stewart

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