by Tanith Lee
The three riders of the peculiar vehicle will ride on, bumping over the terrain, which is momentarily veiled with verdancy, and which next will be barren as a burnt dry crust.
In a while Linardien will say, “I shall miss them, those dragons.”
But Simyo will contradict, “The sorcerers are better.”
“Were,” will add Ulvad, the syntactical pedant, “were better.”
Simyo: “For now, just for a second, they still are.”
Linardien: “Look, here comes another!”
Ulvad: “Use your eyes, old darling. That’s no dragon. It’s a giant bird.”
“Oh, so it is!”
And they will again gaze upward, as the feathery white form gushes by above, a sky-shutting storm of wings and wonder, beautiful, terrible, until it too is gone behind a crag.
Simyo will then say, “A colossal dove.”
No one will argue, not even Ulvad. For this time Simyo will be quite correct.
A dead sea.
Whomsoever the traveller was, could he be indifferent to this sumptuous expanse of gleaming, dancing water? To have journeyed so long across the endless sea-green hills, but now – at last – to crest the rise and find before him the vista of an emerald infinity.
Woods, pastures, fields and lawns – to this – were as mild velvet to the wildest silk. Or, more aptly, verdigris (beautiful though it was) to jade.
And the green lived. It moved. It breathed.
After a while, however, the traveller became aware that not merely had liquid ocean permeated the arena of the shores, rising and falling, withdrawing, incoming – but the essence of life was also there.
Thus inevitably and soon the god of the depths rushed forth. Crowned with shells, in his chariot of green-gold drawn by dolphins, porpoises, sea-horses of great size, he rode toward some other junction of his aqueous kingdom. Who could have dared detain him?
The sea will be dead now, and approaching it Linardien, Simyo and Ulvad will look at it uneasily. Despite that, when the other image, the vastness of enormous waters filling the corroded, shelved, dry bowl – like some library of knowledge sweeping in to reveal a Past-Time of opulence and excellence – as a flowing tap must fill up a marble basin – they will look at it, and turn away. Though Linardien will need to wipe tears from his eyes, (water to water, earth to earth, dust to dust), and Ulvad will utter a soft and unobtrusive curse. And Simyo, bless her rebellious heart, will think: No, no. This is not to be the only truth. I will write of this. I will sing of this. One day, please – oh, no gods remain to pray to – fuck that. Please, God, one day it will return, the sea –
But nevertheless, the sea, by then, will be dead, the image of it already re-cancelled. No gods, no chariots, no... what will be, or what is – the word? No soul –
Oh – Yesterday!
Yesterday the world was full of magic. Dragons flew, lions with wings, gargantuan birds all fire. Unicorns cantered, white as ice and icing – alabaster in motion. The skies melted through cinnabar and bronze to sapphire, topaz, ruby – to ebony, black- pearl and iron set with diamonds. And an ivory moon rose, who changed her shape, the outline of a bow into a single swan’s wing into a clock that had upon it not one mark of time – unless a blue cloud passed. But the cloud would pass on, and time was over, meaningless and gone. Only the changes of the moon told time, but this was in circles: bow to wing to orb to wing to bow to wing... And on the changeable shape of the moon might only be played, as on an instrument of great worth, a song to break – and mend – the hearts of any that might hear it.
Oh gods, oh God, oh any that may listen – listen then. That Then was Yesterday. When time shifted in a circle and dragons flew and snakes cast off their skins and were maidens and heroes, and stars were born, and love changed but never died, and we were young, and miracles were possible.
Come, walk on the waters of our lives, view these deserts and dead seas, these broken mountains and these far abyssal depths that hold not even a single bone, let alone a tempting devil –
Linardien, Simyo and Ulvad will pitch their high-tech camp beside the edge of a dry ocean, now a psychic tip.
Simyo will look upward, her dark, sensibly cropped hair, which on the long journey has managed to grow a little, like a naughty child, will stir in a faint breeze that is real, and therefore scentless, textureless and nearly lifeless.
Simyo will suddenly see a sparkling palace, set some five miles out from shore on what after all appears to be a lake. The palace will have (had) glowing windows, and enormous sails which, when the palace, or the palace’s inheritors desire, will move it like a ship.
But the palace, like dragons and giant doves, sorcerers, antique seas and lakes, will be by this future date, un-existent. It, they, will be gone. They will be goned.
Simyo will weep then, without tears. Simyo will be – and is – by then a pragmatist.
The past will have to die, for the ghost of the past, with all its glory of sorcery and glamour and loveliness, impairs this barren future. How, in whatever Nameless-as-it-will-be name, can anything build up again, form and flower and prosper, unless all such lies as were the Ghost of Yesterday Past are – is – will be – destroyed?
One must not live on memories.
One shalt not, will not, (though may slightly, somewhat), hold fast to dreams of former times.
Now the moon will not change. Will not even rise.
Now we will all be bold and face the facts. We will forget and leave the sand in which we buried our heads. (The sweet cool-warm gentle sand, kind as a kiss.) We will be strong and clever, and have no hearts.
Ulvad will emerge at this point from out of a technologically infallible tent, stoically heated and ultra clean, with carefully chemically sterilised bitter water, and nourishing, un-fattening, tasteless food, and wise sexual aids that elevate the art of making love into a nonsense, and orgasm into a sensible duty. Ulvad will stand there, in the tent’s mouth, and politely inquire if Simyo might return with him inside said tent.
There will be no moon like a bow, a lute, a mandolin, a violin, a mirror, a clock, to say No.
Yes, of course, will say the night, empty of reason and of stars.
Or no, no, no, no, not THIS way will say the vanished stars, (like diamond jewellery of another jewelled time, before the wonderfully scientific and most excellently tempered future-tomorrow-laws will destroy them, and it all). No, No, No, will say those stars. But Man cannot stand very much Unreality – Man, getting the message wrong, as ‘Man’ will do. Imagination, says the insanity of misunderstanding, must and will die. We will and must face the future.
God help us all, though God will be dead too.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Oh, Yesterday.
“Oh, yes, then,” will courteously answer Simyo. And Ulvad will go back into the techno-tent, and Simyo will follow, for a strict half hour of the sexual act. Act being the valid word.
And Linardien meanwhile will walk about the hills.
How closed will be the dark, since the dragons and giant birds, the sorcerers and other wonders, and the moon, stars, seas and all heaven-on-earth will have departed.
Linardien will have a secret.
Linardien will look, and look, hoping for some sudden otherness.
Until –
Over a hill, cat-fur dark with pines and eucalyptus, the Phoenix lifted. Burning bright. Up and up the Phoenix flew. Whoever had seen such luminescence would know the Phoenix was true fire. But more than fire, the Phoenix rose and had risen and will rise – from ashes.
Linardien wept, but he did not comprehend his tears.
Ulvad and Simyo lay athletically together in the clever tent.
It was their task, these three travellers, to exorcise – destroy – by their mere technically and logically tinted (polluted) progress through such lands – all the old dreams, the supernatural alchemic imaginative visions of Yesterday, and the ghosts of Yesterday. Nevertheless, even so, once or twice
, now and then, here and there, up and down, in and out...
...they did not.
Seeing the Phoenix, Linardien cried salt tears, which fell like silver drops, which fell, which fall, which shall fall – upward into heaven.
How else, indeed, for fuck’s fucking fuck-sake, will we ever get back the God-remembering stars?
Yesternight
A bride, the Day, in golden flower,
Burned through her life until the violet hour,
When, in the funeral dusk, she sank beyond
The shoulder of the world that she had danced upon.
Then rose her ghost, at silent pace,
In shadow-black, yet lit with eerie grace
By tangling spangles and one coldest, pale,
Thin, clouded lamp, that followed her, but seemed to fail.
The bride becomes the died. Dead day,
A phantom only, left to mourn, to stay
Haunting the earth beneath her pallid light:
The ghost of Yesterday is Yesternight.
When comes tomorrow, up will rise
Another golden girl to light the skies,
Till she too dies, and all the world goes dark,
And Day’s black widow, Night, weeps out each star.
Publishing History
Ablan
Original to this collection
The Abortionist’s Horse – Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror, ed. by Stephen Jones and David Sutton, Gollancz, UK, 2001
The Year's Best Fantasy And Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, USA, 2001.
Blue Vase of Ghosts
Dragonfields: Tales of Fantsy no. 4 magazine, ed. by Charles de Lint and Charles Saunders, Canada, Winter 1983
The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 10, ed. by Arthur W Saha, USA DAW, 1983
Top Fantasy, ed. by Josh Pachter, Dent, UK, 1985
Nightshades: Thirteen Journeys into Shadow, Tanith Lee, Headline, UK, 1993
The Ghost (In Two Letters)
Hauntings, ed. by Ian Whates, Newcon Press, UK, 2012
The Ghost of the Clock
The Dark: New Ghost Stories, ed. by Ellen Datlow, Tor, USA, 2004
The Lady-Of-Shalott House
Realms of Fantasy, Vol 4, no. 1, USA, October 1997
Tempting the Gods: The Selected Stories of Tanith Lee, Volume One, Wildside Press, USA, 2009
The Minstrel’s Tale
Invitation to Camelot: An Arthurian Anthology of Short Stories, ed. by Parke Godwin, Ace, USA, 1988
A Night on the Hill
After Hours, Volume 2, No. 3, USA, Summer 1990
Seeing, Believing
Original to this collection
The Sky Won’t Listen
Sky Whales and Other Wonders, ed. by Vera Nazarian, Norilana Books, USA, 2009
The Squire’s Tale
Sorcerer’s Apprentice 7, USA, Summer 1980 Women as Demons: The Male Perception of Women Through Space and Time, stories by Tanith Lee, The Women’s Press, UK, 1989
Tan
The Immersion Book of SF, ed. by Carmelo Rafala, Immersion Press, UK, 2010
Thuvia Made of Mars
Original to this collection
The Winter Ghosts
Weird Tales – No. 303 (Vol 53, No. 2, Winter 1991/92 (USA)
100 Fiendish Little Frightmares, ed. by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin H Greenberg, Barnes and Noble, USA, 1997
Yesterday
Original to this collection
Yesternight
Original to this collection
About the Author
Tanith Lee was born in North London (UK) in 1947. Because her parents were professional dancers (ballroom, Latin American) and had to live where the work was, she attended a number of truly terrible schools, and didn’t learn to read – she is also dyslectic – until almost age 8. And then only because her father taught her. This opened the world of books to Lee, and by 9 she was writing. After much better education at a grammar school, Lee went on to work in a library. This was followed by various other jobs – shop assistant, waitress, clerk – plus a year at art college when she was 25-26. In 1974 this mosaic ended when DAW Books of America, under the leadership of Donald A Wollheim, bought and published Lee’s The Birthgrave, and thereafter 26 of her novels and collections.
Since then Lee has written around 95 books, and over 300 short stories. 4 of her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC; she also wrote 2 episodes (Sarcophagus and Sand) for the TV series Blake’s 7. Some of her stories regularly get read on Radio 4 Extra.
Lee writes in many styles in and across many genres, including Horror, SF and Fantasy, Historical, Detective, Contemporary-Psychological, Children and Young Adult. Her preoccupation, though, is always people.
In 1992 she married the writer-artist-photographer John Kaiine, her companion since 1987. They live on the Sussex Weald, near the sea, in a house full of books and plants, with two black and white overlords called cats.
Books by Tanith Lee
A Selection from her 93 titles
The Birthgrave Trilogy (The Birthgrave; Vazkor, son of Vazkor, Quest for the White Witch)
The Vis Trilogy (The Storm Lord; Anackire; The White Serpent)
The Flat Earth Opus (Night’s Master; Death’s Master; Delusion’s Master; Delirium’s Mistress; Night’s Sorceries)
Don’t Bite the Sun
Drinking Sapphire Wine
The Paradys Quartet (The Book of the Damned; The Book of the Beast; The Book of the Dead; The Book of the Mad)
The Venus Quartet (Faces Under Water; Saint Fire; A Bed of Earth; Venus Preserved)
Sung in Shadow
A Heroine of the World
The Scarabae Blood Opera (Dark Dance; Personal Darkness;
Darkness, I)
The Blood of Roses
When the Lights Go Out
Heart-Beast
Elephantasm
Reigning Cats and Dogs
The Unicorn Trilogy (Black Unicorn; Gold Unicorn; Red Unicorn)
The Claidi Journals (Law of the Wolf Tower; Wolf Star Rise, Queen of the Wolves, Wolf Wing)
The Piratica Novels (Piratica 1; Piratica 2; Piratica 3)
The Silver Metal Lover
Metallic Love
The Gods Are Thirsty
Collections
Nightshades
Dreams of Dark and Light
Red As Blood – Tales From the Sisters Grimmer
Tamastara, or the Indian Nights
The Gorgon
Tempting the Gods
Hunting the Shadows
Sounds and Furies
Also Published by Immanion Press
The Colouring Book Series
Greyglass
To Indigo
L’Amber
Killing Violets
Ivoria
Cruel Pink
Turquoiselle
Other Tanith Lee E-books Available from Immanion Press Through Kindle
Death’s Master
Night’s Master
Delusion’s Master
Delirium’s Mistress
Kill the Dead
Turquoiselle