He wasn’t. Not really. But now he will be.
* * *
But you need context. Let’s try the ending again, writ continentally.
Here is a land.
It is ordinary, as lands go. Mountains and plateaus and canyons and river deltas, the usual. Ordinary, except for its size, and its dynamism. It moves a lot, this land. Like an old man lying restlessly abed it heaves and sighs, puckers and farts, yawns and swallows. Naturally this land’s people have named it the Stillness. It is a land of quiet and bitter irony.
The Stillness has had other names. It was once several other lands. It’s one vast, unbroken continent at present, but at some point in the future it will be more than one again.
Very soon now, actually.
The end begins in a city: the oldest, largest, and most magnificent living city in the world. The city is called Yumenes, and once it was the heart of an empire. It is still the heart of many things, though the empire has wilted somewhat in the years since its first bloom, as empires do.
Yumenes is not unique because of its size. There are many large cities in this part of the world, chain-linked along the equator like a continental girdle. Elsewhere in the world villages rarely grow into towns, and towns rarely become cities, because all such polities are hard to keep alive when the earth keeps trying to eat them . . . but Yumenes has been stable for most of its twenty-seven centuries.
Yumenes is unique because here alone have human beings dared to build not for safety, not for comfort, not even for beauty, but for bravery. The city’s walls are a masterwork of delicate mosaics and embossing detailing its people’s long and brutal history. The clumping masses of its buildings are punctuated by great high towers like fingers of stone, hand-wrought lanterns powered by the marvel of hydroelectricity, delicately-arching bridges woven of glass and audacity, and architectural structures called balconies that are so simple, yet so breathtakingly foolish, that no one has ever built them before in written history. (But much of history is unwritten. Remember this.) The streets are paved not with easy-to-replace cobbles, but with a smooth, unbroken, and miraculous substance the locals have dubbed asphalt. Even the shanties of Yumenes are daring, because they’re just thin-walled shacks that would blow over in a bad windstorm, let alone a shake. Yet they stand, as they have stood, for generations.
At the core of the city are many tall buildings, so it is perhaps unsurprising that one of them is larger and more daring than all the rest combined: a massive structure whose base is a star pyramid of precision-carved obsidian brick. Pyramids are the most stable architectural form, and this one is pyramids times five because why not? And because this is Yumenes, a vast geodesic sphere whose faceted walls resemble translucent amber sits at the pyramid’s apex, seeming to balance there lightly—though in truth, every part of the structure is channeled toward the sole purpose of supporting it. It looks precarious; that is all that matters.
The Black Star is where the leaders of the empire meet to do their leaderish things. The amber sphere is where they keep their emperor, carefully preserved and perfect. He wanders its golden halls in genteel despair, doing what he is told and dreading the day his masters decide that his daughter makes a better ornament.
None of these places or people matter, by the way. I simply point them out for context.
But here is a man who will matter a great deal.
You can imagine how he looks, for now. You may also imagine what he’s thinking. This might be wrong, mere conjecture, but a certain amount of likelihood applies nevertheless. Based on his subsequent actions, there are only a few thoughts that could be in his mind in this moment.
He stands on a hill not far from the Black Star’s obsidian walls. From here he can see most of the city, smell its smoke, get lost in its gabble. There’s a group of young women walking along one of the asphalt paths below; the hill is in a park much beloved by the city’s residents. (Keep green land within the walls, advises stonelore, but in most communities the land is fallow-planted with legumes and other soil-enriching plants. Only in Yumenes is greenland sculpted into prettiness.) The women laugh at something one of them has said, and the sound wafts up to the man on a passing breeze. He closes his eyes and savors the faint tremolo of their voices, the fainter reverberation of their footsteps like the wingbeats of butterflies against his sessapinae. He can’t sess all seven million residents of the city, mind you; he’s good, but not that good. Most of them, though, yes, they are there. Here. He breathes deeply and becomes a fixture of the earth. They tread upon the filaments of his nerves; their voices stir the fine hairs of his skin; their breaths ripple the air he draws into his lungs. They are on him. They are in him.
But he knows that he is not, and will never be, one of them.
“Did you know,” he says, conversationally, “that the first stonelore was actually written in stone? So that it couldn’t be changed to suit fashion or politics. So it wouldn’t wear away.”
“I know,” says his companion.
“Hnh. Yes, you were probably there when it was first set down, I forget.” He sighs, watching the women walk out of sight. “It’s safe to love you. You won’t fail me. You won’t die. And I know the price up front.”
His companion does not reply. He wasn’t really expecting a response, though a part of him hoped. He has been so lonely.
But hope is irrelevant, as are so many other feelings that he knows will bring him only despair if he considers them again. He has considered this enough. The time for dithering is past.
“A commandment,” the man says, spreading his arms, “is set in stone.”
Imagine that his face aches from smiling. He’s been smiling for hours: teeth clenched, lips drawn back, eyes crinkled so the crow’s feet show. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them.
“Chiseled words are absolute.”
He speaks to no one in particular, but beside the man stands a woman—of sorts. Her emulation of human gender is only superficial, a courtesy. Likewise the loose drapelike dress that she wears is not cloth. She has simply shaped a portion of her stiff substance to suit the preferences of the fragile, mortal creatures among whom she currently moves. From a distance the illusion would work to pass her off as a woman standing still, at least for a while. Up close, however, any hypothetical observer would notice that her skin is white porcelain; that is not a metaphor. As a sculpture, she would be beautiful, if too relentlessly realistic for local tastes. Most Yumenescenes prefer polite abstraction over vulgar actuality.
When she turns to the man—slowly; stone eaters are slow aboveground, except when they aren’t—this movement pushes her beyond artful beauty into something altogether different. The man has grown used to it, but even so, he does not look at her. He does not want revulsion to spoil the moment.
“What will you do?” he asks her. “When it’s done. Will your kind rise up through the rubble and take the world in our stead?”
“No,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Few of us are interested in that. Anyway, you’ll still be here.”
The man understands that she means you in the plural. Your kind. Humanity. She often treats him as though he represents his whole species. He does the same to her. “You sound very certain.”
She says nothing to this. Stone-eaters rarely bother stating the obvious. He’s glad, because her speech annoys him in any case; it does not shiver the air the way a human voice would. He doesn’t know how that works. He doesn’t care how it works, but he wants her silent now.
He wants everything silent.
“End,” he says. “Please.”
NEBULA AWARD NOMINEE
BEST NOVEL
EXCERPT FROM ANCILLARY MERCY
ANN LECKIE
Ann Leckie is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She has also published short stories in Subterr
anean Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her story “Hesperia and Glory” was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007, edited by Rich Horton.
Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
FROM THE AUTHOR
I have yet to outline. Maybe I will someday. I knew how I wanted this story to end, but not exactly how it would end up there, so it was kind of nerve-wracking, especially when I could see people online saying things like “I can’t wait to find out what happens in this book!” and I would think, “Neither can I!”
. . . The hatch clicked, and thunked, and swung open. Governor Giarod stiffened, trying, I supposed, to stand straighter than she already was. The person who came stooping through the open hatchway looked entirely human. Though of course that didn’t mean she necessarily was. She was quite tall—there must have barely been room for her to stretch out in her tiny ship. To look at her, she might have been an ordinary Radchaai. Dark hair, long, tied simply behind her head. Brown skin, dark eyes, all quite unremarkable. She wore the white of the Translators Office—white coat and gloves, white trousers, white boots. Spotless. Crisp and unwrinkled, though in such a small space there could barely have been room for a change of clothes, let alone to dress so carefully. But not a single pin, or any other kind of jewelry, to break that shining white.
She blinked twice, as though adjusting to the light, and looked at me and at Governor Giarod, and frowned just slightly. Governor Giarod bowed, and said, “Translator. Welcome to Athoek Station. I’m System Governor Giarod, and this”—she gestured toward me—“is Fleet Captain Breq.”
The translator’s barely perceptible frown cleared, and she bowed. “Governor. Fleet Captain. Honored and pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Dlique.”
The governor was very good at looking as though she were quite calm. She drew breath to speak, but said nothing. Thinking, no doubt, of Translator Dlique herself, whose corpse was even now in suspension in Medical. Whose death we were going to have to explain.
That explanation was apparently going to be even more difficult than we had thought. But perhaps I could make at least that part of it a bit easier. When I had first met Translator Dlique, and asked her who she was, she had said, I said just now I was Dlique but I might not be, I might be Zeiat.
“Begging your very great pardon, Translator,” I said, before Governor Giarod could make a second attempt at speech, “but I believe that you’re actually Presger Translator Zeiat.”
The translator frowned, in earnest this time. “No. No, I don’t think so. They told me I was Dlique. And they don’t make mistakes, you know. When you think they have, it’s just you looking at it wrong. That’s what they say, anyway.” She sighed. “They say all sorts of things. But you say I’m Zeiat, not Dlique. You wouldn’t say that unless you had a reason to.” She seemed just slightly doubtful of this.
“I’m quite certain of it,” I replied.
“Well,” she said, her frown intensifying for just a moment, and then clearing. “Well, if you’re certain. Are you certain?”
“Quite certain, Translator.”
“Let’s start again, then.” She shrugged her shoulders, as though adjusting the set of her spotless, perfect coat, and then bowed again. “Governor, Fleet Captain. Honored to make your acquaintance. I am Presger Translator Zeiat. And this is very awkward, but now I really do need to ask you what’s happened to Translator Dlique.”
I looked at Governor Giarod. She had frozen, for a moment not even breathing. Then she squared her broad shoulders and said, smoothly, as though she had not been on the edge of panic just the moment before, “Translator, we’re so very sorry. We do owe you an explanation, and a very profound apology.”
“She went and got herself killed, didn’t she,” said Translator Zeiat. “Let me guess, she got bored and went somewhere you’d told her not to go.”
“More or less, Translator,” I acknowledged.
Translator Zeiat gave an exasperated sigh. “That would be just like her. I am so glad I’m not Dlique. Did you know she dismembered her sister once? She was bored, she said, and wanted to know what would happen. Well, what did she expect? And her sister’s never been the same.”
“Oh,” said Governor Giarod. Likely all she could manage.
“Translator Dlique mentioned it,” I said.
Translator Zeiat scoffed. “She would.” And then, after a brief pause, “Are you certain it was Dlique? Perhaps there’s been some sort of mistake. Perhaps it was someone else who died.”
“Your very great pardon, Translator,” replied Governor Giarod, “but when she arrived, she introduced herself as Translator Dlique.”
“Well, that’s just the thing,” Translator Zeiat replied. “Dlique is the sort of person who’ll say anything that comes into her mind. Particularly if she thinks it will be interesting or amusing. You really can’t trust her to tell the truth.”
I waited for Governor Giarod to reply, but she seemed paralyzed again. Perhaps from trying to follow Translator Zeiat’s statement to its obvious conclusion.
“Translator,” I said, “are you suggesting that since Translator Dlique isn’t entirely trustworthy, she might have lied to us about being Translator Dlique?”
“Nothing more likely,” replied Zeiat. “You can see why I’d much rather be Zeiat than Dlique. I don’t much like her sense of humor, and I certainly don’t want to encourage her. But I’d much rather be Zeiat than Dlique just now, so I suppose we can just let her have her little bit of fun this time. Is there anything, you know . . .” She gestured doubt. “Anything left? Of the body, I mean.”
“We put the body in a suspension pod as quickly as we could, Translator,” said Governor Giarod, trying very hard not to look or sound aghast. “And . . . we didn’t know what . . . what customs would be appropriate. We held a funeral . . .”
Translator Zeiat tilted her head and looked very intently at the governor. “That was very obliging of you, Governor.”
She said it as though she wasn’t entirely sure it was obliging.
The governor reached into her coat, pulled out a silver-and-opal pin. Held it out to Translator Zeiat. “We had memorials made, of course.”
Translator Zeiat took the pin, examined it. Looked back up at Governor Giarod, at me. “I’ve never had one of these before! And look, it matches yours.” We were both wearing the pins from Translator Dlique’s funeral. “You’re not related to Dlique, are you?”
“We stood in for the translator’s family, at the funeral,” Governor Giarod explained. “For propriety’s sake.”
“Oh, propriety.” As though that explained everything. “Of course. Well, it’s more than I would have done, I’ll tell you. So. That’s all cleared up, then.”
“Translator,” I said, “may one properly inquire as to the purpose of your visit?”
Governor Giarod added, hastily, “We are of course pleased you’ve chosen to honor us.” With a very small glance my way that was as much objection as she could currently make to the directness of my question.
“The purpose of my visit?” asked Zeiat, seeming puzzled for a moment. “Well, now, that’s hard to say. They told me I was Dlique, you recall, and the thing about Dlique is—aside from the fact that you can’t trust a word she says—she’s easily bored and really far too curious. About the most inappropriate things, too. I’m quite sure she came here because she was bored and wanted to see what would happen. But since you tell me I’m Zeiat, I suspect I’m here because that ship is really terribly cramped and I’ve been inside it far too long. I’d really like to be able to walk around and stretch a bit, and perhaps eat some decent food.” A moment of doubt. “You do eat food, don’t you?”
It was the sort of question I could imagine Translator Dlique asking. And perhaps she had asked it, when she’d first arrived, because Governor Giarod replied, calmly, “Yes, Translator.” On,
it seemed, firmer ground for the moment. “Would you like to eat something now?”
“Yes, please, Governor!”
NEBULA AWARD NOMINEE
BEST NOVEL
EXCERPT FROM THE GRACE OF KINGS
KEN LIU
Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he has been published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. His debut novel, The Grace of Kings (2015), is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty. It won the Locus Best First Novel Award and was a Nebula finalist. He has a collection of short fiction, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016). He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
In addition to his original fiction, Ken is also the translator of numerous literary and genre works from Chinese to English. His translation of The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, the first translated novel ever to receive that honor.
FROM THE AUTHOR
The Grace of Kings began as a suggestion from my wife to try to re-imagine one of the foundational narratives of Chinese culture, the founding of the Han Dynasty, as a modern epic fantasy. Ultimately, I decided to reject many of the popular techniques of contemporary epic fantasy and draw inspiration instead from both Western epics and Chinese historical romances. That decision led to some challenges as I had to think through what made modern narratives “modern” and what it meant to consciously evoke much older narrative traditions. Working through the voice and characterization techniques that I wanted to employ—many of which are no longer popular in contemporary fiction—taught me a lot about the arbitrary nature of many of our judgments about what a “good story” was. And I was glad that I chose to write an extremely challenging book for my first novel.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 Page 24