The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Enough!” she said, not looking at me, and as if she were speaking against her will.

  “Why?”

  “You are small and covered in running sores.”

  And it was true: After her words I looked at myself and saw how small I was beside her, almost nothing, what a needless, alien, used-up remainder of a person I had become; she was beautiful and uncannily silent, while beside her I was covered over with pustulent sores….I got up, got down out of the bed, and left her lying there by herself. I looked at her once more, at her indifference, her alienation from me, her contempt and desire to be left alone, for me to leave. I thought a bit, thought and soon I understood: a witch! I was under the spell of a witch! I got out of the room as quick as I could, out of the palace, into the fresh air. I went to the sea and stood there in the power of the moon. From the sea, I could see, toward the shore, where the water was not deep, there was a camel standing on all fours with water up to its knees and a wound on its head. It stood silently, masticating nothingness, taken up with itself and whatever spell it was under. I went to the camel, as if I had found a friend, a companion in suffering, a neighbor in the water. I turned to it and asked it a question:

  “What do you think, camel?”

  “I think it is not the first time, and that you are not her first suitor.”

  “What is to be done?”

  “Go to the desert.”

  “And do what?”

  “Find others like you, and turn them around from the path they are taking.”

  I listened to the camel and got on its back, and it carried me out of the sea and across the shore, onto the sand and into the desert, where I settled in a tent, and warned every passerby who was going that way of what awaited that way—and that is all.

  * * *

  —

  And so the leper ended his story, and remained silently wrapped in his cloak, and in his going silent, standing with head bowed, with his body and his silent standing he waited upon the giant who was standing over him.

  “And what do you say I should do now?”

  “Don’t go.”

  “And the bird who called upon me?”

  “It is one of her messengers.”

  After some more minutes of silence, the giant rose from his bent position and turned his head toward the horizon where the bird had flown before. He looked for the bird, seeking it out with his eyes, but did not find it, thus passing a bit more time. It flew back, returning to the giant.

  “What do you want, giant?”

  “I want to know the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “About the daughter of giants, and your message.”

  “It is the truth.”

  “And what the leper has said?”

  “The words of a leper.”

  “Do you have a sign for me?”

  “The camel.”

  “Where?”

  “There!”

  And a camel had shown itself standing next to the giant, its back uplifted and its head and face turned toward a corner of the sky. It looked so thoughtful, ready, waiting at attention to answer any of the giant’s questions.

  “And what do you say, camel, about the leper?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “And who brought him here?”

  “Not I, and none from my kind, none of those like me…”

  “Leper!” The giant shouted, lifting his foot over the leper’s body and head, ready to plant it down upon him. “Leper!!” He raised his voice and then brought his foot down with great force….And the leper was annihilated. The giant returned to his makeshift desert hut and gathered the rags and sticks, and used them to build a gravesite, a memorial—“There he lies, the liar.” And the giant continued on his way.

  * * *

  —

  So the giant traveled another day through the desert, and then a second, with no impediment, nor any sign of change, along his way. The desert remained desert, and no way out was to be seen. So at twilight he laid himself down upon the sand and called out to the bird, his wayfinder, leader, and his vanguard, and commanded: “Bird, show yourself!” The bird returned flying from a distant corner of the sky, his wings dull in the advancing darkness. Then holding himself humbly before the giant, in the last rays of sun cast upon the desert, he made his way toward the giant, asking:

  “Giant, what is your command?”

  “How far is it still to the giantess’s tower?”

  “Not far now. You can get yourself ready.”

  “For what?”

  “For night and what comes after it.”

  Since the giant had laid down, stretched out upon the desert sands with legs and limbs relaxed, his eyes closed and sleep cast its spell upon him soon enough. When he was fully asleep, he started to dream: The lost mountain of the gods, the dune that formerly sheltered him, had once again come to life. On top of the mountain, at its peak, there was a temple, a newly built temple, shining and renewed and open today for a holy day, a festival…and now it is night, and outside it is dark and tenebrous, but inside the temple all is illuminated, and the lights of the festival shine through the windows of the temple onto the slopes of the mountain outside….And the temple is empty; there is just one servant at its threshold, opening the treasures and readying the temple for pilgrims and entering priests. And the pilgrims can be seen approaching the mountain from all around, gathered around on every side at its foot, coming by foot and by caravan, all carrying candles in their hands, protecting the flames from being extinguished by the winds. They come up the mountain in groups and enter the temple, walking through its portal, stunned silent by its insides. And the pilgrims multiply, women carrying children, elders led by the young, and all enter the illuminated temple carrying their candles. Upon an altar against the eastern wall, opposite the entrance, an old High Priest reveals himself, dressed entirely in white. He stands silently before the congregation, stands silently and then begins to speak to them:

  “In the name of the temple, and in the name of its gods, I declare the temple reopened and renewed! For this we have one of us to thank, who was one of the last remainders of our kind, he who strived for this, who worked for this renewal, and thanks to his will and his effort we are gathered here today, we have returned here once again. Come forward, and honor the temple.”

  And the congregation heard the High Priest, and bent at the knees with their lights in their hands, and the High Priest lifted his hands in silent prayer, the congregation still kneeling silently, taking the prayer and the silence upon their heads.

  “And now,” said the High Priest. “Rise and take heed.”

  And the congregation rose from its knees and from the ground, and all were looking at the High Priest, and all were waiting for his word. And the High Priest called out again, saying:

  “In the name of the temple and of its gods, we make this offering to our benefactor upon his wedding night, may there be two candles, unlit, for him and for his mate, for him and for the daughter of giants so long awaited.”

  And from the podium of the altar, which was full of burning candles, the High Priest took two candles which had not been lit, which were not burning: large and long, waxen, and with brand-new wicks, he held one in each hand, his arms stretched forth toward the congregation, and he called out again, saying:

  “May he continue and may he take strength, our benefactor and the builder of our temple, unto the wedding canopy and his first night with his bride, and as he finds his destined one and is reunited with his other half, so shall the two candles have their wicks alit, one shall burn the other and they shall become one fire, and a message shall go forth unto the people, and the people shall see the candles and they shall know: The ancient race has risen again, the old gods have come back to life, and the f
amily of giants are once again in power.”

  And the giant heard this for he was among the congregation. He came out from among the congregation and approached the old High Priest upon the altar, reached out his hand and took one of the candles away, carrying it to the back of the sanctuary.

  And when the giant reached the back with the candle, he saw that the temple had gone completely dark. All the candles had been put out as at the end of the festival, and an air of mourning had come over the walls of the temple. It was as if the entire congregation had been wrapped and covered in a dark shadow, and remained in darkness, having extinguished each candle in their own hands. So, too, had all the candles on the altar begun to flicker out. The temple had gone silent. And he saw upon the altar that in place of the High Priest who had been there before, was instead a bent-over person, wrapped in a crude cloak completely covering both its body and head, and from beneath that covering its voice could be heard, weakly, saying:

  “And the giant, he should not think, he should not imagine, that what he has seen here he has seen true, that what passes here before his eyes shall come to pass in truth….It is just a dream, a self-deception. He should accept what he does not want to accept, that he who now speaks, speaks the truth, and the leper spoke the truth. The giant has smashed the leper but not his truth! He does not want to hear it, but so it is….”

  And then the temple and all that had filled the temple vanished before the eyes of the giant; the congregation was gone, and silence, emptiness, and night reigned once more upon the dune. At its peak, the memorial-tent of the leper stood in silence, and the leper beside it….The giant woke up, trembling.

  “Bird!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  The giant had startled himself awake with his own shout, opening his eyes wide open. He looked around at his surroundings, near and far, on all sides. To his disappointment he found a gray dawn, silent and deserted, with nothing living in his surroundings, not a single creature showing itself all around. Everything was still asleep, or dead silent. The giant called again for the bird, and the bird shouted back. He came back flying out of the gray sky, drowsily, presenting himself to the giant like a sleepwalker, asking, “What do you want?”

  “I had a dream.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “And the two candles?”

  “There they are!”

  The bird pointed to the camel, who was coming from the direction of the rising sun. After some time had passed, the camel arrived next to the bird and the giant bearing two large, long, unlit, waxen candles, one on each of his two humps. They were resting against each other, crossed over the camel’s humps, and the camel bore them in camelian silence. The camel waited for the giant to rise from the ground, so they could resume their travels.

  And the giant stood, having consoled himself from the night’s upsetting dream, and the bird was already flying in the distance once again to show the way, and the camel was also moving from his place, the giant following along, resolved upon another day of travel.

  For the third and last time, the leper met the giant on his way, and this is how it happened: After the giant had been traveling for some time, and the desert was no longer all that could be seen, when he could finally begin to see a corner of the sea and the tower in the distance, a mirage appeared to the giant in the middle of the bright desert. In the sunlight reflected from the sand it appeared to the giant as though there were a large town, with walls and buildings and alleyways, full of the tumult of people in the streets. People rushing about and banging into one another, people making haste and shunning their fellows, and all bearing the burdens of business. Suddenly a plaza opened up within the city—a large, one might even say, gigantic plaza—where a great mob of people could assemble. But the plaza remained empty for the time being, no one gathering there, no one appearing. Only after it was completely emptied did people begin to trickle in; they came out from every corner, street, and alleyway and began to gather. Those who before were occupied with their solitary affairs were now gathered into masses, and gradually the plaza was filled completely by a great assembly, until it was completely crammed. The plaza was black with people, and a black mood had overtaken the crowd. In the middle an elevated platform could be seen, and one could not tell if it had been built from wooden boards, or was a pile of sand. From there, a person looked out and around from above the assembly. He waited a bit for everyone to settle down, a minute or two, looked around as he waited, and then, to grab the attention of the crowd, he stretched out his hand upward and began to speak:

  “People of the great assembly, a festival has been proclaimed for us, great events are overtaking us, and it is this: A giant has been seen in the desert, one who has until now lived alone in the desert, the last remaining of his kind, so he thought, but now he has met his mate, and today the two of them will mate; that means a new generation, regeneration of his kind, the race of his ancient ancestors, and great giants going forth from their land. That means great giants coming to our town, and a new regime coming to rule over our heads. The giant’s throne will be built tall enough to reach the skies, so that his head will be crowned by the sun itself. And you shall be under the protection of the Crown of Giants, and no enemy shall attack you. Even the enemy’s pioneering scouts will not dare to cross the border….Hear the news and understand, hear it and rejoice in what you have been told!”

  The audience heard him out, and then remained silent. After the man’s speech, the crowd did not budge a hairbreadth from where they stood; no one raised their voice, and no expressions of joy erupted from any portion of the audience. The audience was so silent, in such tense readiness, that suddenly when a voice did cry out, from outside the plaza, it echoed through it from every corner. The echoing shout: We don’t want him! We don’t need him! We are not waiting for him, and he should leave the sun alone!

  “We don’t need him! We don’t want him!” It came from every wall and corner, and also from voices within the crowd itself. “We don’t need him! He is a stranger to us! The giant, he will trod on our heads! He will destroy our buildings! He will steal our sun and consign us to the darkness! We don’t need him!”

  Each person in the crowd bowed to the ground to pick up handfuls of dirt, sand, dust, clods of earth, and stones, and waving their full hands at the person on the platform they turned toward him shouting:

  “Where is he?” as if in one tremendous, bellowing voice.

  “There!” The person pointed to the giant standing in the desert. “There he is, and do what you will to him! He is in your hands!”

  The people tried throwing whatever they had, stones, dust, making a great tumult within the crowd. Some were trod underfoot by their fellows, others hit with stones, and all came to some sort of injury one way or the other, but they kept drawing closer and closer to the giant, until suddenly—the vision dissolved and nothing remained of the crowd, the plaza was completely emptied—completely cleared out, not a soul to be seen anywhere but one alone upon the platform, the town crier from before, who looked to the giant as though he were standing face to face with him. They were in the plaza by themselves, silently looking one another over. Now that he was alone, the town crier looked sad, a bit bereft, and turning silently toward the giant, he began to speak:

  “Giant, where are you going? Where are your giant steps taking you?”

  “Over there, where the bird is leading me,” answered the giant.

  “Toward what?”

  “To renew the ancient powers of the giants and bless the town with my might.”

  “Who wants that?”

  “I want it, and I must have it!”

  “And the people?”

  “The leper!”

  The person had begun to remove the veils and clothing which had hidden his face and head from the giant…and truly it
was his old acquaintance, the leper from before, standing in front of the giant, bent over and wrapped in a mantle. The giant beheld him with surprise, anger, and disgust….But the leper did not remain, nor any of the desert mirage, for it all dissolved around the giant—the city, the streets of the city, and every trace was soon gone—the sun was already setting in the desert, and the giant looked around himself in shock, looking for some trace of the leper. With his eyes wide open, he had lost track of the desert, his exit from the desert, and his destination….Then he caught a taste of the sea on the breeze, which turned his attention toward the sea and with it, he could soon detect a trace of the shoreline, and on the shore, the tower, an old, solitary tower with windows turned toward both sea and desert….It was darkening, and the flag on top of the tower was being lowered, and the giant saw it, and turned his footsteps toward the tower.