A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  Strange that he had gotten rid of Ellen’s photograph, ostentatiously made a point of not displaying it, but kept all the rest of these things, all the memorabilia of their years together—as though subconsciously he was expecting her to come back, to step back into his life as simply as she’d stepped out of it, and pick up where they’d left off. But that wasn’t going to happen. If they were to have any life together, it would be very far away from here, and under conditions that were unimaginably strange. Would he have the courage to face that, would he have the strength to deal with starting a new life? Or was his soul too old, too tired, too tarnished, no matter what nanomagic tricks the Mechanicals could play with his physical body?

  Joseph was gesturing urgently to him again, waving both arms over his head from the middle of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. He released the valet from reserve-mode, and Joseph immediately appeared beside the kitchen table, contriving somehow to look flustered. “I have this Highest Priority message for you, sir, although I don’t know where it came from or how it was placed in my system. All it says is, “You don’t have much time.”

  “I know, Joseph,” Czudak said, cutting him off. “It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to tell you—” Czudak paused, suddenly uncertain what to say. “I just wanted to tell you that, whichever way things go, you’ve been a good friend to me, and I appreciate it.”

  Joseph looked at him oddly. “Of course, sir,” he said. How much of this could he really understand? It was way outside of his programming parameters, even with adaptable learning-algorithms. “But the message—”

  Czudak spoke him off, and he was gone. Just like that. Vanished. Gone. And if he was never spoken on again, would it make any difference to him? Even if Joseph had known in advance that he’d never be spoken on again, that there would be nothing from this moment on but non-existence, blankness, blackness, nothingness, would he have cared?

  Czudak stood up.

  As he started across the room, he realized that the time-travelers were still there. Rank on rank of them, filling the room with jostling ghosts, thousands of them, millions of them perhaps, a vast insubstantial crowd of them that he couldn’t see, but that he could feel were there. Waiting. Watching. Watching him. He stopped, stunned, for the first time beginning to believe in the presence of the time-travelers as a real phenomenon, and not just a half-senile fancy of his decaying brain.

  This is what they were here to see. This moment. His decision.

  But why? Were they students of obscure old-recension political scandals, here to witness his betrayal of his old principles, the way you might go back to witness Benedict Arnold sealing his pact with the British or Nixon giving the orders for Watergate? Were they triumphant future descendants of the Meats, here to watch the heroic moment when he threw the Mechanicals’s offer of immortality defiantly back in their teflon faces, perhaps inspiring some sort of human resistance movement? Or were they here to witness the birth of his new life after he accepted that offer, because of something he had yet to do, something he would go on to do centuries or thousands of years from now?

  And who were they? Were they his own human descendants, from millions of years in the future, evolved into strange beings with godlike powers? Or were they the descendants of the Mechanicals, grown to a ghostly discorporate strangeness of their own?

  He walked forward, feeling the watching shadows part around him, close in again close behind. He still didn’t know what he was going to do. It would have been so easy to make this decision when he was young. Young and strong and self-righteous, full of pride and determination and integrity. He would have turned the Mechanicals down flat, indignantly, with loathing, not hesitating for a moment, knowing what was right. He already had done that once, in fact, long before, teaching them that they couldn’t buy him, no matter what coin they offered to pay in! He wasn’t for sale!

  Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  Now, hobbling painfully toward the front door, feeling pain lance through his head at every step, feeling his knee throb, he was struck by a sudden sense of what it would be like to be young again—to suddenly be young again, all at once, in a second! To put all the infirmities and indignities of age aside, like shedding a useless skin. To feel life again, really feel it, in a hot hormonal rush of whirling emotions, a maelstrom of scents, sounds, sights, tastes, touch, all at full strength rather than behind an insulating wall of glass, life loud and vulgar and blaring at top volume rather than whispering in the slowly diminishing voice of a dying radio, life where you could touch it, all your nerves jumping just under your skin, rather than feeling the world pulling slowly away from you, withdrawing, fading away with a sullen murmur, like a tide that has gone miles out from the beach . . .

  Czudak opened his front door, and stepped out onto the high white marble stoop.

  The Meats had moved their demonstration over from the park, and were now camped out in front of his house, filling the street in their hundreds, blocking traffic. They were still beating their drums and blowing on their horns and whistles, although he hadn’t heard anything inside the house; the Mechanical’s doing, perhaps. A great wave of sound puffed in to greet him when he opened the door, though, blaring and vivid, smacking into his face with almost physical force. When he stepped out onto the stoop, the drums and horns began to falter and fall silent one by one, and a startled hush spread out over the crowd, like ripples spreading out over the surface of a pond from a thrown stone, until there was instead of noise an expectant silence made up of murmurs and whispers, noises not quite heard. And then even that almost-noise stopped, as if the world had taken a deep breath and held it, waiting, and he looked out over a sea of expectant faces, looking back at him, turned up toward him like flowers turned toward the sun.

  A warm breeze came up, blowing across the park, blowing from the distant corners of the Earth, tugging at his hair. It smelled of magnolias and hyacinths and new-mown grass, and it stirred the branches of the trees around him, making them lift and shrug. The horizon to the west was a glory of clouds, hot gold, orange, lime, scarlet, coral, fiery purple, with the sun a gleaming orange coin balanced on the very rim of the world, ready to teeter and fall off. The rest of the sky was a delicate pale blue, fading to plum and ash to the East, out toward the distant ocean. The full moon was already out, a pale perfect disk, like a bone-white face peering with languid curiosity down on the ancient earth. A bird began to sing, trilling liquidly, somewhere out in the gathering darkness.

  Exultation opened hotly inside him, like a wound. God, he loved the world! God, he loved life!

  Throwing his head back, he began to speak.

  2000

  THE COMPANY OF FOUR

  Elizabeth Bear

  Many are the days and the nights. Many are the things that must be, that have been, that never should be. Much is the time that passes. Much is the time that remains. Few are the memories which are more than a handful of dust, to be let run through the fingers. Such are the dangers: “Am I not powerful? Am I not fair? Do you not love me, Niamh, Daman, Daithi?” Such are the words, of a black spell cast.

  This is the Company of Four, as they ride through the shadows between here and there. This is the Company of Four, and the barred light moves across them as they ride beneath the branches of strange trees.

  Here is a dark-magicker, mage of little power, or, perhaps, who is denied his power. Here is a jester decked in bells and black and silver motley, a jester sad as snow. Here is a bard with a curse hung on his shoulders like the mantle of his trade. And here is the fourth . . .

  What Faerie touches cannot be trusted, and yet. And yet, the very air about the tall, fey man whispers, “Believe me.” There is a look of honor in his carriage and on his curl-crowned brow, and below that beautiful brow gleam eyes as blue as shadowed snow. His charger and his mail are as white as any good king’s, and the sword at his knee is straight and swift. He is as fair as his companions are dark.

  The magicker is slight and sleek as the rapier he
bears, and his supple grace reveals a cool, feline charm. His dark hair is simply parted, and falls to his collar, as straight and smooth as a young boy’s. With the bard, he shares a fierce love, a brotherhood that might only be ended by steel through both hearts—steel like the steel in his ten bright rings.

  That bard’s heart beats in a chest massive as a bull’s, and his face is lined by weather where the magicker’s is strangely smooth. He is almost silent, usually somber, except for when he weaves his tales out of music and firelight and wine. His matted hair is a dark cloak on his shoulders, his full beard hides the lips that rarely smile.

  The jester—she is different. There is something inhuman in her night-colored skin and her star-tinted eyes. Her costume is quartered silver and black, and on the seams of the silver side bright bells are hung, thousands and thousands of infinitesimal, sweetly chiming spheres. They are woven on chains into the moon river of her braid, and each one sings a different note.

  She rides close to the magicker and the bard, as if drawn to their bond even as she is not quite included in it. She loves them well, in her secret way, and they know and return this, but she is cautious. Friendship can snap like ice, just as you trust it with your weight.

  The jester and the magicker tease and fence with words, and she juggles her steel and copper balls and rings in fanciful bridges and arches. The bard watches, and sometimes a faint smile might curve his moustache, and sometimes he slides a word or a phrase into the dialogue as tight as a carpenter planking a ship. He is humming softly to himself the while, and the music is sad and deep. The white lord rides ahead and slightly to the side, and seems lost in his own thoughts, his own travel.

  The magicker pays little attention to the reins, rather playing with his rings. They are of faceted steel, and there is one on every finger, and each thumb as well. They are lovely things, each one different and cunning and graceful. They have left on his skin, beneath, a rash of long wear like the scar of an ancient blister or burn.

  The jester catches her balls and rings and slips them into a pouch that hangs from her saddle. She lifts up her reins, which she had hung about the neck of her grey mare, in her black left glove, and she urges her mount up beside the lord. “Where are we bound now, Master?” she asks him, and he is jerked up from the depths of his thoughts like a startled fish upon a hook.

  “To the castle of Fearghall,” he replies. He glances over at her, and there is a questioning expression on his face. She hears his voice over the pleasing jangle of her bells. “Lately of Niamh.”

  But though he watches her eyes closely, he sees no recognition of the name. His gaze is disconcerting, however, and her mare shies a pace away from the pale stallion before the jester can bring her under control. Her eyes, guileless, return to his. “You say that name as if I should know it, Master.” She glances down at the path below her horse’s feet, then up again, perhaps more bold than wise. “Yet I do not.”

  “I have heard nothing of this king, Fearghall,” the bard interjects, his thoughtful baritone puzzled. “Is he a new King?”

  The lord smiles, and white teeth flash between rose-petal lips. For a second, the sun tangles her fingers in his golden hair, like a lover, and he is crowned in light. “A new King.” His eyes crinkle in amusement. “Aye.” And he turns away, and lifts up the reins of his milk-white steed, and breaks into a canter and away, ahead of the rest. The bard blinks slowly after him, but says no more.

  And so they ride, until their eyes strain against the edges of the strangling dusk. And then the four dismount, and the magicker sees to the horses, and the jester builds the fire. The white lord watches, until they bring him his dinner, and the bard paces and grumbles and refuses to eat. It is the night of the full moon, and food, for him, has no savor.

  As the white lord rolls himself in his blankets on the other side of the fire, the magicker and the jester build it higher. The bard continues his pacing, restless, irritation and rage in every line of his body, every movement of his flesh. When he tugs ineffectually at his clothing, the magicker stops him, and begins to unfasten his laces, undressing him as one might a child. As he removes each item of clothing, he gives it to the jester, who folds it piece by piece as it is handed her. When the bard at last stands naked except for the impressive pelt that nature gave him, the jester turns away, and places his clothing in his pack, and his boots beside his saddle.

  The bard sits down on the ground, and, lost under some tremendous pressure, buries his face in his hands. The magicker pats his shoulders ineffectually. Full night has fallen. The moon parts the branches of the trees with long fingers and smiles down at them, beside their pathetic campfire. It is a cruel and a terrible smile.

  The bard begins to scream.

  He rises to his feet, his neck corded in agony, his chest seeming to swell with the power of each indrawn breath. The magicker croons affectionate nonsense, but he does not touch the bard. The scream continues forever and then longer, wailing out into the pitiless night as the bard jerks convulsively, his body wracked by brutal seizures. His flesh melts—he expands—he wrenches apart and seamlessly knits together as bones crack and muscles twist and the bottomless scream deepens and deepens into a final, shattering roar, and in his place there stands a giant bear, a bear so black that only its eyes and teeth and its red, red maw are visible in the firelight.

  The bear snarls, and soft, heavy paws begin to pad toward the blanket-wrapped figure beyond the fire. The magicker runs to meet him, steps into his path, spreads his beringed fingers on hands held wide. “No,” he says, softly, his own eyes finding the small, piggy eyes of the bear.

  The bear rears up, menacing, showing fangs and claws that could destroy him with one casual blow. The magicker holds his ground. “No,” he whispers again, his voice calm and serene. He is trusting of the bard’s love. The jester, standing behind him, hearing the tinkle of her bells, is less so. The jester does not believe in love.

  In the bear’s dim mind lives hatred, lives passionate fury and rage. It wants to rend the soft, pale thing wrapped in the blankets. It wants to smash it to earth until there is nothing left. But the ones who guard it—they are to be protected. They are adored.

  It is too much for such simple understanding. It tries to shoulder them aside, and they will not move, and it will not push hard enough to risk harming them. The bear presses its broad chest against the magicker, and the jester, with her heart between her teeth, runs up and throws her arms about its hairy neck. She clings to it like a burr, lost in the dark fur, hearing the low rumble of its growl over the frantic clamor of her bells. She does not know why it needs to destroy their guardian, but she knows it must be stopped, even should it cost her life.

  With a final snarl, the bear tears free of the encircling arms, and shuffles into the night. Magicker and jester sit side by side by the fire, awaiting its return.

  The bear pads into the camp before sunrise, and lays its heavy head down on its paws, and when he raises his head he is a naked man once more. “If I had known, if I had known, Tam Lin,” the bard murmurs, and then the magicker brings him a steaming cup and the sun glances around the corner to be sure that it’s safe to come out and the night, at last, is done.

  Midday brings them to a castle under a hill with thorn trees growing at the crown, where they are made welcome and given to eat, and to bathe. It is the seventh anniversary of Fearghall’s ascension to the throne, and nothing will do but for there to be a masque. And at that masque will mage and bard and jester all perform.

  The jester lingers in a curtained doorway, gazing into the mirrored hall, and she listens to the strains that the bard pulls forth from his harp strung with golden wire. She watches him upon the stage, and thinks, That is not his harp, and does not know why, because it is the harp that he has strummed by the fire, every night when he is not a bear. He has no other. She watches the bright skirts of the ladies and the gay coats of the lords, and does not venture forth into the hall. There is an ache across the bridge of he
r nose, like unshed tears, and she feels, all at once, both forlorn and at home.

  “Finnegan,” says the King, as his and the white lord’s footsteps carry them past the curtained doorway, “Hiding them in this way is clever enough by half. But are you quite sure that it was safe to bring them back here, on this night of all nights?”

  “It is seven years since the spell was cast, Fearghall,” the white lord replies. “Tonight is the night that is must be renewed, and this is the place where the spell may be cast.” He sighs.

  The King, tall and fair and golden and costumed as the rising sun, tugs at the lobe of one pointed ear, raises a pointed eyebrow. “Would that we could simply slay them.”

  But the white lord’s answer is lost to the jester’s ears as they sweep by, and are gone into the crowd. The implications of the speech, however, are not.

  Under a spell, she thinks. We are under a spell. The bard’s curse—is that my Master’s doing? She leans back against the arch of the door, feels the cold roughness of the stone snag at her motley, and listens to the rustle of her bells, in time with the rhythm of her heart. If only I could think, she muses, mind already drifting onto something else. Just for a moment, clearly think . . .

  The hand at her elbow all but startles her into a scream. She jumps and stiffens, and her bells clash, and whatever erring thought she chased is gone. She whirls, and the magicker stands behind her. In his hand that does not rest on her sleeve is a cage of doves, with which he will later conjure. “Jester,” he says, softly, insistently, raising his hand to her cheek. “Jester. This is important.”