The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  The king nodded, avid. “Your report?

  “The paws are nearly finished, Sire. We had the thumbs off last week, as you know, and the fingers broken and bound with magics to force them into their proper shape.” He licked his lips. “We’ll move next to the hips and legs, and from there to the arms. The forelegs, I should say. Ah, Sire?”

  “Magister?”

  With another bow, the magister continued. “About the tongue. You have not changed your mind?”

  The king scowled. “Dogs have tongues. You may not cut it out.”

  “As you command, Sire. Perhaps his voice will be lost by the end.” The magister gave an elegant shrug. “If we deal with the body first, the mind will, perforce, follow.”

  “He will be a dog.”

  “As you command.”

  The screams grew hoarse and finally stopped altogether. Listening at the door, the king found, was no longer enough. On his first foray into the magister’s rooms, he expected to find the boy squirming on a pile of stinking rags in a dark corner. That was what his mind had been picturing for the past weeks.

  Instead, he found the object of the magister’s attention in a bed, covered by clean sheets, paws and legs wrapped in fresh bandages. The room itself was whitewashed, and certain magical instruments sparkled on a tray on a nearby table. The magister was the only dark spot present.

  “Why is he tied to the bed?” the king asked.

  The magister peered over the king’s shoulder. “Ah. If he is set loose, Sire, he tries to cast himself from the window. The pain is very great.”

  The king looked down at the very pale, silent, writhing figure in the clean bed. “Good,” he said, and left the room.

  Edard came to the king’s rooms to report on progress toward fortifying the border against depredations by the Vekoi. He stepped over the dogs in the doorway, pausing to give one of them a pat, but it flinched away. He straightened, then went to his king, who sat staring into the fire.

  “Reports have come in from Nath and Gariston, Sire.”

  “Have they?” The king did not look away from the flames.

  “The defense is not going well. The captains report that twenty men were massacred in a raid near Rocky Ford. A homestead in the foothills was burnt to the ground with its family inside.”

  “Your counsel?”

  “Sire, you must take the war to the Vekoi.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, the king spoke. “Last week the merchants’ delegate advised me to deploy the army to keep trade routes open. They advise raising tariffs on grain again. The magister, as always, advises assassination. You counsel war.”

  Edard rested his hand on the haft of his axe and paced quickly to the window and back. “Sire, the barons want action. It is all I can do to keep them from invading your chambers with their demands. We must do something!”

  The king frowned. “Something is being done.”

  A brief flash of distaste crossed Edard’s face. “The boy.”

  “The dog, Edard,” the king corrected.

  “As you say, Sire.” The knight gave the king a stiff bow, preparing to leave. He paused at the door, awaiting his liege lord’s permission to go. The dogs shifted at his feet; one got up and slunk away.

  The king sat silent.

  “Sire?” Edard prompted.

  The king looked up. “You knew him, before? When he was a boy?”

  Edard nodded, his face pale.

  “Before he was a dog.”

  “Y-yes, Sire. Before that.”

  The king leaned his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. “What was he like?”

  Edard stepped away from the door. “I gave him weapons training, along with the other fosterlings.” His hand gripped the haft of his axe, relaxed, then gripped again. “He was clumsy, Sire. Couldn’t seem to hold onto a sword without dropping it. But bold. Never afraid of a challenge.”

  The king got to his feet and went to the hearth, where he stirred up the fire. “You liked him, Edard?”

  “I did, Sire. He was a good boy. He lived here for over half his life. I do not believe that he thinks of himself — thought of himself, I mean — as Vekoi.”

  The king looked up. Edard met his gaze without flinching. “You may go, Edard,” the king said.

  Edard bowed and turned to go, then paused on the threshold. “Lorn, we were fosterlings together.”

  “That matters not. Keep the barons from my door.”

  “Yes, Sire.” The knight bowed again and left the room.

  The king found it easier to think when he was in the magister’s chamber. Too many people — barons, knights, merchants — hovered outside his door when he wanted to be left alone. Nobody, not even Edard, seemed to wish to enter the magister’s tower. The king had a comfortable chair brought in, and he sat for hours staring at the wall opposite him, listening to the whimpers coming from the creature on the bed.

  The paws were healed — they lay like pale flower-buds atop the clean white sheets — and the hips and hind legs were fully re-formed. Only the elbows were wrapped in bandages which were soon to come off. The tail had proven beyond the magister’s abilities, so the dog would have to do without.

  The king entered one evening not long after the magister had finished a magical treatment. The days were lengthening into spring; a soft caressing breeze entered through one window. The king took his usual seat and, after a quick glance at the bed, closed his eyes.

  For a time, the magister busied himself cleaning his instruments, then moved to a desk, where he sat writing. After a time, he got up and crossed to the bed. The king did not stir.

  There was a short, still silence.

  When the magister spoke, his voice was vibrant with surprise. “How strange!”

  The king opened his eyes. “What?”

  The magister bent over the figure in the bed. “He was restless before you came in, Sire, pawing at the bandages. But now he’s gone quiet.”

  The king looked at the bed. The dog’s pale, peaked face was clenched against the accustomed pain, but it was turned toward the king. As they watched, a small hairless paw reached out, brushing against the king’s knee.

  The king lurched to his feet, backing away. The dog whimpered.

  Without speaking, the king turned and fled.

  The king stayed away for weeks. He kept to his rooms and spoke to no one, not even the servants who scuttled in and out of his chambers, bringing meals and removing chamberpots. Finally, though, the magister advised him that it was time for the dog to leave his bed.

  It was a clear, warm day in early summer. The magister removed the last of the bandages and attempted to buckle on a leather collar. The dog flinched away, growling and snapping at the long, gray-white fingers.

  The magister snatched his hand away and huffed with impatience. “Ah, would you try, Sire?”

  The king had been standing behind his chair, watching. Reluctantly he took the collar. As the king approached, the dog whined, then lifted his chin while the king, with shaking hands, put the collar around the dog’s neck and buckled it.

  The king stepped back. The dog sat on the bed, regarding the king, brown eyes alert beneath the ragged fringe of hair. Stiffly, he climbed down from the bed. He wobbled, at first, on four legs, then seemed to find his balance. He approached the king, who backed away. The dog crouched, looking suddenly very small and bereft. The king took a deep breath. He snapped his fingers. “Come, if you must.”

  The king left the room, the dog trotting at his heels.

  At first, the stares of the knights and nobles disturbed the king. His subjects drew away from him as he paced the corridors of the castle, the little dog always at his side. He sat at table in the great hall, throwing a bone, now and then, to the pup, who leaped on every offering, holding it between his paws and gnawing, as a dog should. The nobles and knights ate in silence, casting appalled glances at the dog, at the king.

  Every morning, when the king awoke, the dog was t
here. The other dogs had accepted him immediately, and included him in their contented pile by the fire. The king climbed from his bed and the dogs groaned and stretched, but the young dog, Tomas, was always the first to scamper across the room to his master. If he had possessed a tail, he would have wagged it.

  The king moved carefully around the dog. He patted the others and sent them out with a servant to be fed, watered, and taken for a walk. But the dog Tomas would not leave his side. The servant, shivering with fear and abhorrence, tried to pull the dog away by the collar, but he howled piteously until the king relented and allowed him to stay. The dog relieved himself in a corner, and was punished, but still he would not leave until the king, frustrated, walked the dog himself, and gave him a bowl of water which he lapped up with an eye cocked, watching lest the king take the opportunity to sneak away.

  One morning, the king removed the red quilted robe, which had grown stained and tattered. “Burn it,” he told the cringing servant, “and bring me hot water.” After trimming his beard and washing himself, he donned his mail shirt, slung his sword around his waist, and went to the throne room. He seated himself upon the twisted metal chair, the dog alert at his feet. The counselors came in, one by one, to offer their advice.

  The magister licked his lips and told the king of a magical poison that would kill the Vekoi queen with the merest touch.

  The merchants’ delegate snuck quick glances at the dog while advising the king to raise tariffs and send soldiers to strangle Vekoi’s trade routes. The Vekoi raised no food of their own; soon they would starve and be forced to come to terms.

  Edard, with two barons at his back, told the king that war was the only way to deal with the Vekoi, who could understand nothing else.

  The king listened. The dog lay down with his head on the king’s foot, and went to sleep.

  “You may go,” the king said to his advisors. The merchants, barons, and knights began to file out of the throne room. “Edard, you stay.”

  At the sound of the king’s voice, the dog awoke. He sat up and put his head on the king’s knee. The king saw a louse burrowing through the dog’s matted hair and, after probing, found it and pinched it dead. He gave the dog a pat and the dog sighed, then lay down again at the king’s feet.

  “I have decided, Edard.”

  The knight, his face blank, bowed. “Sire?”

  “We will reduce the tariff on grain sold to Vekoi. Henceforth we will purchase all iron and copper from Vekoi mines. We will send a letter to the queen requesting the return of my son’s body.”

  The knight’s eyes widened. Then he nodded, understanding. “And the dog?”

  The king looked down at the small creature at his feet. He could send the dog to the Vekoi queen. It would be a sweet and fitting revenge. But, no. The dog would have to stay. Perhaps the magister would find a better spell to make a tail. The dog would like that. And fur might not be so difficult to achieve; the winter would be cold for the dog, without fur. The king looked up at his friend. “He stays with me.”

  “As you command, my liege.” The knight bowed, his face grave. “I am sorry, Sire, but I must ask. Do you regret the boy?”

  The king closed his eyes and nodded. “I do, Edard.” He sighed. “And so the dog stays with me.”

  Here’s another writer I’ve known for a long time. We used to be in a writer’s group together in the Seattle area, and we read a lot of each other’s fiction. It took him a few story sales to other magazines before he decided maybe he should try Talebones. He’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I think he got me with the first story he sent me (“Towfish Blues”). Then, you know, he happened to sell an urban fantasy series to Tor! I bought this story from him for the last issue. At the heart of its genesis is the U2 song “All Along the Watchtower,” when Bono sings “All I’ve got is a red guitar, three chords and the truth.”

  THREE CHORDS AND THE TRUTH

  JOHN .A. PITTS

  Ethan careened around the fountain where the water fell in sixteenth-notes. His boots thudded along the cobblestone square as he picked up speed, his backpack bouncing on his left shoulder. Crowds of college students flowed between the buildings of the University of Washington campus, forming a slalom course for his flight. Their voices arced outward in shimmering bursts of song, violets and pale blues streaming through the bright clear morning.

  Class had not yet ended, when the itching at the tips of his fingers had begun to grow, throbbing with the punctuated musical tones that reverberated through him. When the increasing cacophony drowned the professor’s voice he fled the classroom. The calling slammed into him like a hurricane, overwhelming with incomprehensible strength.

  The sounds of the city distorted, confusing his senses. Spikes of pain flashed down his arms by the time he crossed University Avenue and rushed into his apartment.

  The pull of the guitar roared in his head, jangling his raw nerves. He scrubbed his fingertips along his chest to take the edge off the itching and bolted up the stairs, two pounding half-notes at a time.

  He fumbled the keys, wincing as they scraped against the lock with a discordant G minor chord. Finally, he pushed the door open, then dropped his pack in the chrome and vinyl chair beside the kitchen table.

  The apartment smelled of stale beer and old socks. He stepped over a sleeping form in the living room, blanket pulled up over her head. Pink panties winked out from the edge of the covering. He paused a moment, a pang of loneliness driving against the pull of the guitar.

  Another fully-clad body lay draped over the couch, one leg off onto the floor, one arm flung over a shaggy head of hair. Refugees from another night of college life.

  The minefield of sleeping bodies stood between him and his guitar. Wincing as the itching turned to burning, shooting pain up his forearms, he stepped over and around the bodies that covered his floor.

  The door to his roommate’s room stood open. Harmonic snoring told him that Ian had finally hooked up with that biology student he’d been earnestly chatting up last night. Ethan smiled briefly. The emptiness crescendoed into his belly. With a sigh, he pulled the door closed and stumbled to the end of the hall.

  His small room was just as he’d left it hours earlier, stark and empty of life. A single desk sat against one wall, piled with papers. Posters of his favorite musicians and groups covered the walls: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin, Joe Satriani. He tossed his jacket over the back of his straight-backed chair, grabbed his guitar case from under the bed and climbed out his window.

  He had the smallest room in the house, but it had access to the beach. He walked along the ledge to the roof of the large front porch — a ten-by-twelve swath of tar and heaven. He shoved several dead soldiers off the spool-table with his guitar case, the glass bottles thudding against the thick tar surface. He flopped into the ancient lime-green armchair, flipped the latches on the case and raised the lid.

  The old guitar called to him like a lover, the deep red wood glowing in the new morning sun, the memory of it filling his mind. He gingerly pulled the instrument out of its crushed velvet lining and the need intensified. Not since his grandfather’s death had the guitar called to him so urgently.

  Gritting his teeth against the maddening sensation, he fell back into the chair, threw his left leg over the arm, hugged the guitar to his stomach, and placed his hands on the strings.

  The first note sprang into the chill morning, followed by a second, and a third. Ethan took a deep breath and launched into the song that sang in his head. A warmth spread outward from his fingertips, soothing the itching as the sweet melody of a new piece burst forth, stilling the chaos of the world.

  The next morning, Ethan sat on a milk crate in front of the new art gallery/coffee house on the corner of Stewart and Pike Place and tuned his guitar. His case stood open at his feet, three worn singles in the bottom as seed. After a few minor adjustments, he dashed off a quick chord change, cleared his throat and eased into the song that had haunted him sinc
e the day before. He hummed, unsure of the words, but his fingers danced along the frets, sure and strong, each note a delicate bit of joy and sadness.

  He watched the crowd move through the Market; freaks and yuppies mingling in the smells of fish, strong coffee, and fresh bread. His music mingled with the song of the Market — the hum of the crowd, the calls of the gulls, and the cries of the fishmongers.

  Ethan scanned the crowd for the hippie girl who had a booth on weekends, but she wasn’t around. He’d hoped to get up the nerve to talk to her this week.

  Instead, he spied a small Hispanic man across the road washing out a large white bucket, his back bent to reach the spigot. When the man finished, he placed one hand on his back, to help straighten his spine. He lifted the now clean and full bucket of water and walked back toward his stall of garlic, peppers, and fat juicy grapes. The man paused, glanced Ethan’s way and acknowledged him with a slight nod. The look on the man’s weathered face spoke to Ethan of toil and strife.

  Ethan returned the smile, and the words to the new song flowed from his lips:

  The morning sun is our mother, waking us to our day.

  She succors us and gives us life.

  But the moon is our lover, coming to us in the night.

  We dance in her glory and sleep in her gaze.

  Ethan sang on, the words flowing through him, filling the market with his rough tenor and the delicate notes from his guitar. He sang with passion and blind faith, knowing he would remember the song later, word for word. He reveled in the joy; his chest swelled with it. He turned his head to the side, eyes closed and sang the last few lines. This is what his grandmother always meant when she talked of the spirit moving in you. Only Ethan knew he wasn’t a vessel to hold the spirit, but a conduit for its transmission.