Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe (18 page)

It was my own.

Susanna said nothing during the long walk home, nor did I.

Maitresse, however, spoke at length and without emotion. “Your mother made many children. You”—(she meant Susanna)—“were natural. You”—(me)—“were the first of many clones commissioned in an attempt to create a male heir, all failures. When your mother was sent away, your father resolved to get rid of everything that reminded him of her. I argued against it and in the end we compromised and kept the two of you while selling off the others. I have no idea how many survive. However, the economic realities of the day are such that, were either of you to be sold, you would fetch the highest price here.” She said a great deal more as well but it was unnecessary; we already well understood everything that she had to tell us.

When we arrived home, Maitresse took our masks from us and bid us both a pleasant good-night.

We went to sleep, my sister and I, cradled in each other’s arms, the first time we had done so in more than a year. In the morning, Tante Amélie was gone and our formal educations were done forever.

Last night, as I said, I returned to my old dormitory room. It took me awhile to realize that I was dreaming. It was only when I looked for Susanna and found nothing but dust and memories that I recollected how many years had gone by since my childhood. Still, in the way of dreams, there was a pervasive sense that the entire world was about to change.

“You know what to do now,” a rasping whispery voice said. “Don’t you, daughter?”

I turned and the she-wolf was not there. But I felt sure of her presence anyway. “Is it time?” I asked.

She did not reply. Her silence was answer enough.

I grinned for I now understood where the she-wolf had been hiding all this time.

Not so much awakening as taking my dream state with me into the waking world, I got up out of bed and walked down the hall to my husband’s room. Then I paid a visit to the nursery, where my twin sons were sleeping. Finally, I went out into the night-dark streets to look for my sister.

The night is almost over now, and we must hurry to finish what we have begun. At dawn we will leave the cities behind and return to the swamps and forests, the caverns and hills from which the humans had driven us, and resume our long-interrupted lives. I have taken off my skin and now prowl naked through the streets of Port-Mimizon. In the shadows about me I sense many others who were once human, and I devoutly pray that there are enough of us for our purpose. In the back of my mind, I wonder whether all this is real or if I have descended into the pit of madness. But that is a minor concern. I have work to do.

I have freed the she-wolf from within her hiding place, and there is blood on her muzzle.

Only . . . why does the world smell as it does? Of canvas and bitter truffle.

Michael Swanwick writes science fiction, fantasy, and occasionally nonfiction. He has received the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards and has been nominated for and lost more of these awards than any other human being. Michael lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter. His latest novel is Dancing with Bears, a post- utopian adventure featuring confidence artists Darger and Surplus, and he is currently at work on two new novels.

His web page can be found at www.michaelswanwick.com and his blog at www.floggingbabel.blogspot.com.

MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE

On Gene Wolfe:
He is a writer whom I have admired from afar. His work intimidates me. He has the uncanny ability to draw me immediately into his characters so deftly and with such a subtle hand that to merely glance at a page is to be sucked into a story for a chapter or three. It is sorcery, I’m fairly certain. It has to be, because I can study his work and can’t crack it. While that’s a bit frustrating, it’s also a joy because it means his work remains a seamless pleasure in which I can truly delight.

T
he gray fog tendrils swirled around the wound in the mountain’s granite flank. Misty scraps twisted down into it. The haze obscured its black depths, but even its absence would not have let Kellach see much. Standing high on the wooded ridge as dusk came on, he could see little of the slender footpath leading down into the narrow valley. He saw nothing of where it came back up through the forest toward the hole.

“Just as well you’ve stopped here, friend. The valley will be as much your enemy in the night as what waits in that abyss.”

Kellach turned slowly but did not raise his double- bitted great axe. The warmage stood half-hidden by a rock, and far enough away that he could cast a spell well before Kellach came into axe range. He wore a red cloak, which the dusk made the color of drying blood—save where iridescent crimson pulsed through webwork veins. He bore a slender sword, which could only function when stiffened by magick. Similarly, the brown leather jerkin and silken trousers could be sorcerously fortified, giving each the strength of the mail Kellach wore.

Since the warmage’s words had carried no threat in tone or meaning, the Cengar elected to respond with caution over hostility. After all, if the man needed killing, later would serve just as well as now. “You wait here for the same reason?”

“I came as quickly as I could, but it appears she eluded me, as well.” The smaller, wiry man smiled easily as he slipped from cover. White teeth split black mustache from goatee. “Both of us thwarted. We should make the best of it. I would have company over a fire this evening, and aid of that axe in tomorrow’s endeavor . . . if you are of a mind of sharing my hospitality.”

Kellach nodded.

The warmage pointed back down from whence he’d come. “On this side is a sheltered outcrop. Easy to defend, not easy to see, even for the maggot-folk.”

Kellach glanced back. “Nothing hospitable back for a mile or more.”

“Then you shall be my guest.”

Kellach, taller, broader, and heavier than his companion, slipped along in the man’s wake. The Cengar made less noise than the lonely breezes washing through the pines. Kellach did not carry much kit, and his mail rustled with a serpent’s whisper. The forest, though old, was but an infant to the forests in which he had been raised, and these mountains mere molehills to the icy rock spires of his homeland. Here, in the north, noise would get a man noticed. In Cengaris, it would get a man killed.

The warmage stepped to the center of the clearing, and then spread his arms as if a noble welcoming a favored vassal. “Hardly a proper display of hospitality, but it must do. I, Praetor Azurean, bid you welcome.” His cloak clung to him as a jealous lover might, and the hem snapped as if angered to be sharing the camp with Kellach.

Wood had been gathered inside a ring of stone, awaiting the kiss of a spark. A metal pot for tea, a cup for same, a different cup for wine, a thick sleeping carpet and blanket to cover, and a small folding chair had all been arranged on one side with measured precision. Back away, beyond the carpet, sat a small leather chest. Straps, now loose, would bind it; the brown skin had been worked with a variety of symbols arcane.

The man might have been making haste in pursuit, but was not so hasty that he could not see to his comforts. Kellach smiled, not surprised. Civilized northerners often entangled themselves in unnecessarily complex circumstances.

Kellach shrugged off his bedroll, waterskin, and a small satchel with a dwindling supply of trail rations. He piled everything by a small rock, then sat. He leaned his axe on the rock and unbuckled the wide belt that gathered his mail and supported a Haranite longknife. He set the belt with his pack, but did not doff his mail.

“That rock looks none too comfortable.” Praetor looked at this chest. “I’ve got another chair in there, but I doubt it would support your weight. Some pillows, perhaps?”

Kellach shook his head, his emerald eyes tightening. “I will be fine. I would contribute to the meal. I can make the fire.”

“No need for that, my friend.” Praetor dropped to one knee and thrust a hand into the woodpile’s heart. His eyes closed for a moment, then he yanked his hand away and slapped at a spark on his sleeve. His hand got it a half second before the cloak’s tail did. Smoke rose from the wood, then flames licked up. “See; done easily.”

Yet my way would not have threatened to catch my sleeve on fire. Kellach stood. “Let me fetch water.”

“Yes, splendid idea.” The warmage opened the chest and pulled out a small leather bucket. “This should hold all we need.”

The Cengar caught the bucket and headed into the forest, assuming he’d be making more than one trip. The bucket might hold enough to fill the teapot, but not much more. He figured the warmage would have some ritualistic ablutions to perform. If he wants a bath, he hauls his own.

Kellach followed the trail Praetor had used coming from the west, then cut over a hill to the north and down into a ravine. A little brook trickled. Kellach ducked the bucket into a small pool. Instantly the pool lost two fingers’ width of depth and ceased spilling downhill.

The Cengar’s brow furrowed. He tugged on the handle to pull the bucket free, but the wet leather slipped greasily out of his grasp. Bending, he gripped the handle tight with both hands. Muscles bulged, but he couldn’t shift it. He stepped into the pool, squatted, and lifted with his legs, again to no avail.

He grunted and tipped the bucket as if pouring water out. The pool’s level rose and the stream flowed again. Kellach cautiously hauled the bucket out of the water. At best it should have held a quart, but weighed as if it contained five gallons. Kellach really didn’t appreciate his companion having so casually tricked him. Deviltry— like the bucket and cloak—and trickery did not inspire trust.

He thought he had hidden his concern, but Praetor smiled broadly upon Kellach’s return. “Amazing little thing, isn’t it? The magick is aeons old. Sorcerers made those buckets to try to stem the flooding sea. Problem was, no one could lift the buckets. Eventually the buckets all burst—magick does have its limits—and the flood was unabated.”

“Even if they could have lifted them, there was no spout to pour the water.”

“Very good point, my friend.” Praetor smiled, firelight playing over his short black hair. “But let us not be coy, shall we, since most likely, tomorrow, we shall be staunching each other’s wounds. How much is the bounty on the girl?”

Kellach’s dark brows narrowed. “Her parents sent me after her.”

“Truly? How interesting.” Praetor slipped off his swordbelt and coiled it round a hand. “Do you know how to read this?”

Kellach deftly caught the swordbelt. A number of symbols had been burned into it. Neither Praetor nor his belt were unique. The symbols identified schools and traditions of magick, as well as honors he’d been given. Kellach recognized a few of them. He grunted, then rolled the belt and lofted it back.

“I knew you for a warmage by your . . . blade.” He’d almost said he’d known him for hiding behind a rock, but that would have been an unnecessary complication of circumstance. “Aught else means nothing to me.”

“You’ve figured some things out, though. You know I am from Athanis, or perhaps Peris. Born in one, trained in the other. I am a student of the College of Ktheru, in good standing. You’ve heard of it?”

Kellach nodded, his long black locks brushing forward of his shoulders. “It is a school not without honor.”

“Good. Then you know why I am out here, Cengar.” Praetor’s smile straightened itself. “You are a Cengar, though I can’t read the clan from the plaid of your trousers. Well worn, though, so you are an adventurer or in exile. Strong, and your axe has more scars than you do, so well trained. Not a bandit, I think, but certainly a mercenary—now, or in the past, and certainly in the future.”

Kellach’s head came up. “A warmage who divines the future?”

The Athanite laughed. “That would be the trick, wouldn’t it? No. War magicks create chaos. Divination seeks to impose order. They are an anathema. But, tell me truly, why are you hunting the girl?”

Kellach pointed back south. “She and her family were running. We shared a campsite.”

Praetor arched an eyebrow. “You were not afraid?”

“Afraid? Of the snowchild? Why?”

“Is that what you call them? Here, in the north, they are fell things. In their presence milk sours in the udder, hens cease laying, crops wither. If a child is born white and misshapen and squiggly, he is left on a hillside to die. If he’s lucky, that’s what happens. If not, the maggot-folk find him and keep him as their own. But for one such as she, who changes as womanhood beckons, of them the tales are yet worse. They become witches of great power, with no schooling, no allegiance, and no discipline. They live alone, shunned, hated, feared; unless courted to work their magicks. Often they are vengeful. Those tales you must have heard.”

“The only White Witch we fear is she who sends storms north to bury us in winter.” Kellach slowly shook his head. “This girl, Serinna, is not that witch. Nor is she maggot-folk.”

“I’d not be so confident of that, my friend.” Praetor dipped water from the bucket into his teapot and set it to boiling. “I’ve learned much of the maggot-folk. There are those who claim they are what men once were, when the Sepheri ruled over this world. Others say they are what we will become, with our living in sin and with profligate use of magick. They say the gods are not pleased, and send us maggot whelp to remind us to mend our ways. Both sides are persuasive. I’m not certain what I believe. How about you?”