Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe (29 page)

“Just tending my garden, princess,” Gran told her, rising from his knees to stand and then bow in front of her.

“My brother the prince used thorns!” Eilin cried, raising her pricked palms toward him and then pointing to the gash in her neck and the others on her arms. “He put roses in my bed.”

“I can help you,” Gran said, nodding toward his cottage. “A bit of brew, some cold water, and you’ll be right as rain.”

“And how is rain right?”

“It’s right when there’s a rainbow and the air is clear of dirt and full of freshness.”

Eilin nodded. Rainbows were expensive outside of Faerie; her father had the drudges work until they expired to find the treasure required for each rainbow. Gran had once called him too vain for his own good, but Eilin could only think of the pride of the kingdom and the bounty of the Elvenworld. The drudges were only human, lured by the same gold they died to provide, no matter to her father the king or even to Eilin herself.

Gracefully, Gran followed her to the cottage and bowed her inside, gesturing toward his comfortable chair. She sat waiting in pain while he pottered over the stove and set potions to brew.

Presently he was back and had her in his lap again, gently applying his hot brew and holding pressure on her pale white skin until the thorn punctures closed and the pain went once more.

“Do have you more tea, Gran?” Eilin asked as the last of the pain faded into dim memory.

“Tea?” Gran asked as he put his potions and clothes to one side.

“The purple tea you made,” Eilin said.

“Unicorn tea,” Gran said in a questioning tone.

“Yes.”

“No one can see unicorns,” Gran said, half-teasing her.

“The tea was good,” Eilin said, feeling her eyelids drooping as the rise and fall of his chest and the warmth of him calmed her.

“The tea will make your stings come back,” Gran said. He took a breath, and then continued, “Let me tell you about the rainbows.”

“There were three that day,” Eilin said, recalling his words from so many times before. It was a marvelous story; Gran told it so well and Eilin always filled with pride at the brilliant trick her father had played.

“Three rainbows and only one with gold,” Gran said by way of agreement.

“Fool’s gold,” Eilin remembered, a smile playing on her lips.

“Fool’s gold,” Gran agreed. “And the fool was me, parted from friend and family by the faint hope that I could find enough gold to save them—”

“—from the famine,” Eilin finished, her eyes now closing. “The unicorn ripped through that day, ripped from our world to yours three times.”

“Ripped indeed,” Gran agreed, his tone tightly neutral. “But no one saw them.”

“Unicorns are invisible,” Eilin agreed, closing her mouth at last and snoring gently on the old man’s chest.

“Clear as the water they drink,” Gran said softly to himself while the little elfish girl slept on.

“Gran!” Eilin shouted as she traipsed up the path to the cottage. Drat the man, where was he? “Gran!”

He usually replied by now, doddering out from his cottage or around from the silly garden on which he so doted. He was being slow and she’d make him bow so long in penance that his back would hurt. Well . . . maybe not that long.

“Gran!”

No sign of him in the cottage. He was old, Eilin remembered, and picked up her pace. Disposing of bodies was something she never liked, and then there’d be the bother of having to find a new human—she sprinted around the corner, looking for him kneeling over some of his silly rhubarb or his beets, but he wasn’t there.

His garden opened up on the fields of cloudgrass— the favorite food of unicorns. Gran had insisted on it as inspiration, and the best location for the sun his plants required.

Every now and then over the years, she’d find him looking at the fields of cloudgrass, waving white and brilliant, watching as clumps were eaten by invisible grazing unicorns.

“What do unicorns eat?” Gran had asked early on when he still dreamed of escape from the Elvenworld.

“They eat cloudgrass and drink clear water,” Eilin had told him expansively. “That’s why they’re invisible.”

“And how they can cut between the worlds?”

Eilin didn’t know and, as it was inappropriate for a princess to be ignorant, she said nothing.

Eilin gazed from Gran’s garden to the field and her jaw dropped as she spotted the path. She followed it with her eyes, even as she willed her feet into action.

“Gran!” she cried, racing into the cloudgrass fields. She couldn’t see him; the grass was nearly taller than her. She’d forgotten that most days when they’d gone into the fields she’d been riding on his shoulders—Gran being her very own special two-legged beast of burden.

“Gran!”

In the distance she heard thunder. Unicorns were racing. She saw lightning where their hooves struck hard ground.

They were stampeding. Soon enough they’d bolt and tear holes between the Elvenworld and the slow world of humans. Was Gran hoping to catch one? How could he— they were invisible!

“Get on!” A thin reedy voice came to her over the winds and the thunders. “Ride on, go on!”

“Gran!” Eilin cried. “No, Gran, you’ll never catch one!” He’d be trampled for certain, unable to see the unicorns, unable to dodge their panicked flight.

“On with you! Thunder and lightning!” Gran’s voice, exultant, came over the noises and the cloudgrass.

Eilin remembered a knoll nearby and raced toward it. It was only a few quick strides for Gran, but for the little elfish girl it was nearly a hill.

At the top she could see over the cloudgrass, across the fields and—there!

“Gran!” Eilin cried. Oh, the fool, the fool!

He was riding a unicorn, his weak old arms tightly clasped around its neck, his bony legs gripping its withers tightly, and in one hand he held a long- stemmed rose, waving it wildly, striking the unicorn’s hindquarters— the unicorn’s purple hindquarters.

Rhubarb and beets, Eilin thought to herself with sudden clarity. All those years he hadn’t given up hope, he’d merely been planning. Oh, clever human!

He’d raised the beets and the rhubarb for the unicorns. Fed enough, the usually invisible hide took on a faint purple hue. Coaxed with a gentle voice and the sweet and the sour of the rhubarb, it was no trouble to bring one of the unicorns to within hand’s reach.

“Gran!” Eilin cried, her thin voice dying in the winds. “Oh, Gran, take me with you!”

The old man didn’t hear her.

“Gran!” Eilin cried at the top of her lungs, realizing at last how much she loved the old human. How he’d been the only one to hug her to him, the only one to ever care the slightest about her as a person. “Gran!”

Thunder. Lightning tore through the sky and suddenly, the wicked electric- blue glow of lightning burst from the purple-veined horn of the unicorn Gran rode.

In an instant, the Void was torn and the far human world sprang into view. The unicorn, goaded unerringly by Gran, leaped through, and the tear closed.

A final burst of lightning and thunder rolled through the skies— unicorn and rider were only a dimming memory in the elfish girl’s eyes.

Todd McCaffrey wrote his first science fiction story when he was twelve and has been writing on and off ever since. Including the New York Times bestselling Dragon’s Fire, he has written eight books in the Pern universe, both solo and in collaboration with his mother, Anne McCaffrey. His work has appeared in many anthologies, most recently with his short story “Coward” in When the Hero Comes Home (2011), and with Robin Redbreast in When the Villain Comes Home (2012), and the mini-anthology Six. His latest book, City of Angels, is currently available as an e-book in both Nook and Kindle formats. Visit his website at www.toddmccaffrey.org.

JUDI ROHRIG

On Gene Wolfe:
During my stint as publicity coordinator for the 2002 World Horror Convention, I had the honor of discovering that guest of honor Gene Wolfe was not only an amazingly talented writer, but a crafty pirate who could break out in silly singsongs at the drop of a hat. (And in his case, a rather dapper hat.) Our friendship grew from there, based on our mutual fondness for wolves, mermaids, interesting words, Chicago Cubs baseball, the Li’l Pirate, and wooden pencils.

The title of this story, “Tunes from Limbo, But I Digress,” first popped into my head several years ago. When I shared it with Gene, he told me, “Hurry up and use that or I’m going to steal it.” Luckily he didn’t. And luckily, I saved it for the right story. What also found its way into “Tunes . . .” (a tromp inside his Home Fires world) was an offhanded comment he made when I asked him how he liked his new laptop. After a low grumble, he said, “I would have been better off buying a really good pencil.” And for a writer that would be a Palomino Blackwing 602.

One thing I have learned from the man my daughter and I call “Raggedy Man” is to be constant in my pursuit of ripe story titles. (Good golly, look what grew from the one he wanted to pilfer!) And that this same extraordinary writer will rationalize appropriating any writing instrument if he takes a liking to it. (Or lead others to purloin one for him. I mean, what would you do to earn a Gene Wolfe approving chuckle?)

D
ear—

What do I call you when I don’t know who you’ll be? If only the Fates allowed me to address you face to face as we plummet through space on the Domum Ignes. You could help me to untangle what’s happened. An accident, the ship’s doctor tells me, his fumbling explanation to my once prevalent headaches and confusion perhaps, but not the lingering visions.

They arrive in bits and pieces mostly. A sudden smell or taste. The flash of an idea. A picture. Unexplained feelings and urges. Dreams. Remembrances of what we’ve left behind on our humble planet? I don’t know.

Yet there they are: crackling flames from an open hearth blushing my face while my outstretched frozen fingers thaw, or sugarsand beaches with frothy ripples tickling my toes while an unhurried wind peppers a salty mist. In my unfolding palms, I could tender a delicate bud of spring’s promise or a plump fruit of autumn’s harvest as well.

Then it all disappears.

In a way, I’m oddly reminded of a game played long ago on a rainy afternoon. Except here Colonel Mustard didn’t use the candlestick in the conservatory to commit any crime. Though there are indeed pieces to this puzzle: Hayward Madden and his diplomatic entourage, each entubed in suspended animation, to be revived when we finally reach the treaty zone at the Gates of Johanna; Captain Tynan-of-Hod, crew member; the Admiral’s library; a smuggled pencil; and . . . Threeve, a Même.

Me.

The title of my function stems from the words même récit, referring to what I do, not who I am. I read our most precious cargo of slumbering diplomats their own life histories while they are in stasis. It isn’t all that complicated, but here’s the twist: They don’t simply listen or absorb the information. The electrodes attached to the ridge on each Tuber’s cerebral cortex— the superior temporal gyrus—processes and transmits auditory information from them to the receiver d-comm implanted in my own device. In essence, we enjoy verbal interaction, though only one of us is fully awake.

Hayward—as he is so good to do—once boiled down the process for me: “On Earth, there are these beautiful black birds with red patches on their wings. They line the open fields, perching on a fence post or atop a bush and mark their territory by calling out ‘I’m a red-wing blackbird and this is where I live.’ That’s what rendering is, Threeve. You come each day and help me to remember ‘I am Hayward Madden, a representative of the North American Union, on my way to negotiate a truce with the Os.’ ”

And yet as a Même, I do more than simply regurgitate information. After I settle myself comfortably in the slingseat adjacent to the individual’s tube, I shut my eyes, clear my mind, and focus. Spreading my hand along the benumbed metal casing, imagining the warmth from my fingertips penetrating the barrier, conveying my touch, helps me orient myself. Then, sans scouring the d-comm files, trusting my memory alone to refresh nuances of facts and feelings, I tip my imaginary Sheltonian wild violet bone china teapot and let the relaxing aromas of ginger and lemon balm swirl warmly in the air.

Conversation. That’s all it will be. Between friends.

Though we may be nowhere near land or soil or even a planet, I infuse our homogenized air with civility, re-forming this artificially illumined cocoon into a lush garden: a prickly rosebush over there entwining its thorny arms around a wooden trellis, its vibrant velvety buds unfolding in delicate measures. And dangling over the top of the painted slats are plump purple lilacs. From time to time a mockingbird pops up, heralding a greeting in whatever tongue moves him, or a feisty robin redbreast skitters along the grassy green carpet. Sometimes I can almost hear the low rumble of thunder and catch a whiff of approaching rain.

And who’s to know?

Besides Hayward, that is.

“They’re gonna find you out, Sleeping Beauty. Then what?” he’d scolded on my last morning of true innocence. But before I could protest, he broke into one of his silly singsongs. “ ‘And the Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes. Tells ’em to me, if’n I be good sometimes.’ ” Then he laughed as much of a laugh as any Tuber could. “My mother used to read the poem to me before I went to sleep. James Whitcomb Riley. He wrote children’s poems. Well, mostly children. I’m hardly a child, but could you find it and read it all to me, Threeve?”