The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-II

by Jonathan Strahan

  The redoubt, when we reached it, was less a thing than a congeries of defenses—here a wall, there a scarp at the top of which defenders stood with piles of stones. If the mountain had been taller and steeper, the People could have held it forever. But I had seen the Igigi's swarming millions and knew that inevitably Ararat must fall. Nevertheless, when I came strolling up King Nimrod's path, whistling and swinging my arms as Irra had directed me to do, I was waved on upward by the guards after the most cursory of examinations.

  I was home again.

  Despite everything, it felt wonderful.

  The People were everywhere working urgently. Shelters were being built and defenses strengthened. Sparks flew upward from the smithies and baskets of apples and cattail roots were hustled away into newly dug caves. Most astonishing of all, the oxen were People once more! I saw them carrying long-knives and spears and huddled over plans for the defenses, arguing in grunts and snorts. They were clapped on the shoulder in passing by others who clearly could not understand them, and there were even those—I noticed them, though Irra did not seem to—who could speak both tongues. One tall woman strode by with a war-trident over her shoulder, singing words that sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. Clearly, the oxen-speech had evolved.

  I was but newly arrived when my old friend Namtar rushed up and, dropping an armful of long-knives on the ground, hugged me.

  I pawed the ground with one foot: Hello.

  Namtar made a cage of one hand and whistled frantically like a captive bird. Then, opening the hand, he trilled like that same bird escaping. Finally, he said, "Eh?" Meaning: How had I escaped?

  I slammed one fist into the other. Holding my hands out as if throttling a monster's neck, I twisted them. "Snap!" I lied: I fought my way free.

  Namtar grinned appreciatively. Then he made a noise—"Shhhweeoo, shhh-weeoo!"—like the hurrying wind and pointing first to me and then to the swords, made a carrying gesture. He lifted his voice in a sweet, clear note, which could only refer to she who had invented song: He had to hurry. Would I bring these things to Aruru?

  I snorted assent, and he was gone.

  "That was well done," Irra said from within my ear. "Walk briskly. Wait until nobody is watching. Then get rid of this junk."

  I dumped the long-knives on a dung heap, and threw an armload of hay over them so that no one would know. Soon after, somebody called me to her and gave me another chore. So went my day. I worked my way up the slope, smiling cheerfully (for Irra punished me if I was anything less than upbeat), accepting whatever work was given me and then abandoning it when I could and performing it with apparent enthusiasm when I could not. Three steps forward, two steps back. By degrees, I pushed toward Ararat's summit.

  At midday I ate a meager lunch of two taro-cakes and an apple while sitting at the top of a short cliff. It was not far to its bottom, I reflected, only five body-lengths or so, yet the fall would certainly be enough to kill me.

  Though he could not read them, Irra was able to intuit my thoughts. "Cast yourself off," he suggested mockingly. "If you die, so will I, and Their Anarchic Majesties' plans will come to nothing."

  I shivered involuntarily at the awfulness of his suggestion. For, wretched as I was, I did not wish to die. Nobody truly knows what death is, and so we fear it above all things. Moreover, my dread was all the greater for the idea of death being so new to me.

  And yet—was it an altogether ignoble idea?

  Irra, I reasoned, taunted me because he thought that I would not—that I could not—kill myself, and surely this was an understandable thing to assume since nobody had ever done so before. But after all I had seen and experienced, nothing seemed impossible to me anymore. I went to the very brink of the precipice and looked down. I thought of the People and how much I loved them. I thought of Nimrod, their bulwark and strength. I thought of my joyless existence. But mostly I thought of Silili, lost to me forever. Then I did the bravest thing I had ever done in all my life.

  Light and giddy with relief and fear, I stepped off.

  Or, rather, I tried to.

  My feet would not obey me. Will it though I might, I could not take that one crucial step forward. Deep within my ear, Irra laughed and laughed. "You see? I can control your actions. Never forget that."

  All this time I had been thinking, and the more I thought, the less plausible it seemed that when I finally stood face to face with King Nimrod, I would defeat him in combat. A hundred such as I could not have done so. It did not matter what magics and powers Irra might have. The very idea was absurd.

  Now I was angry enough to say so.

  Irra was unmoved. "Humbaba invented death," he said complacently. "Between them, the Igigi and the People invented war. Great works come in threes. You and I, Gil, will create a third and final novelty, and in some ways it will be the greatest of all, for where the others are universal and impersonal, this will be singular and intimate."

  "Will we?"

  "Oh, yes, I call it murder."

  Irra explained his intent. I was unimpressed. "How does this differ from simply killing somebody?"

  "By its treachery. You will approach Nimrod with smiles and salaams. You will oil and braid his hair for him, all the while praising his wisdom and his strength. Then, with his back turned and he unsuspicious, you will pick up a rock and smash it down upon his head with all your might."

  The picture he drew sickened me for I could imagine it all too well: The weight of the rock in my hands. The unsuspecting king. The sound of that great skull splitting. And afterwards, his blood on my hands. I would give anything not to have this crime on my hands. But Irra had already taught me that pain could render me helpless before it. I sobbed wordlessly.

  "Come. We have mighty deeds to accomplish."

  Irra walked me away from the cliff.

  The sun was sinking in the west by the time I found myself standing outside a line of new-dug storage caves near the top of the redoubt. Only a steep and stony path separated me from the summit of Ararat, where King Nimrod stood thinking his dark thoughts alone. I put down the basket of bread I had carried hither. From one of the caves I retrieved a jug of oil.

  Nobody was looking. I carried the oil and a loaf of bread upward.

  Though Nimrod was king and mage, the crest of Ararat was stony and bare. No advisors waited upon him, nor was there any furniture of any sort. He sat brooding upon a rock outcrop, his bow and quiver at his feet. A goatskin of water rested in his shadow, along with a shallow clay bowl for him to drink from. And that was all.

  "I remember you, little one," the king rumbled, glancing down at me. "Whatever became of your lover, your woman-to-me?"

  Irra whispered: "He wills comprehension upon you. You may reply."

  I made a bird of my hands and flew it off into the sky. "Chree!" I said, in imitation of its cry. Gone.

  King Nimrod looked sad at that. He reached out one tremendous hand, closed it lightly on my shoulder, and squeezed gently. I thought he would say something consoling, then, and the very thought of him doing so when I had come to kill him nauseated me. But he said only, "Why are you here?"

  I proffered the bread.

  King Nimrod accepted it. The loaf was large enough to feed three ordinary men, but it looked small in his hand. He began to eat, staring moodily into the distance. Though the invaders had destroyed the trees and rushes, they could not make the waters go away, and so the setting sun filled the land with reflected oranges and reds, rendering it briefly beautiful again.

  After a long silence Nimrod spoke to me as one might to a beloved dog—affectionately, but expecting neither comprehension nor response. He was speaking to himself, really, sorting out his thoughts and feelings. "Behold the world," he said. "For a time it was our garden. No more. When Humbaba introduced death, I thought it an evil that might be endured and later undone. For though I cannot negate its effects and those who have died will never return to us, yet I have power to put an end to death. It would drain me com
pletely to do so. But afterwards, nobody would ever die again.

  "Alas, the world is become a wasteland and there is no way back into the garden. Our choice now is enslavement or death. There is no third way."

  I thought that Irra would make his play then, while Nimrod was distracted. But he was cannier than that. Perhaps he noticed some lingering trace of vigilance in the king. Perhaps, knowing that he would have but one opportunity, he was taking no chances. In any event, he waited.

  "Ah, child! I am contemplating a great and terrible crime. Would you forgive me for it, if you understood its cost? For henceforth, every man and woman must grow old and die. Is slavery truly worse than that? Yet so great is my hatred for the Igigi that I would rather you and I and everyone else die and turn to dust than that we should submit to them again."

  I could not bear to look at the king, knowing what I was about to do. So I stared down at the ground instead. There was the slightest motion in the gloom as a small and torpid animal shifted itself slightly.

  It was a toad.

  In that instant, a plan flashed into my mind. Casually, so as not to alert Irra, I squatted and picked up a stone. Then I cleared my throat: Watch.

  King Nimrod glanced incuriously at me.

  Forgive me, little brother, I thought, and I smashed the toad with the stone.

  Beaming, I said, "Squirp!" In imitation of the sound it made.

  Nimrod's face was a wall of granite. "Never do that again," he said. And, when I flung out an arm indicating all the lands below, infested with demons and suffering and death, "Yes, the world is full of cruelty. Let us not add to it."

  He turned away.

  Irra was furious. But in Nimrod's presence, he dared not punish me. "This is no time for playing games!" he cried. "After we have done our great deed, I promise you that there will be suffering enough for everyone and that if you want to be among the tormentors, that honor will be yours. But for now, you must think of nothing but our goal and how to reach it. Pick up the oil."

  I did.

  Standing before the king, I held up the jug in one hand and a comb which I had stolen earlier in the day in the other. I gestured toward his beard. Nimrod nodded abstractedly, so I poured oil into my hands and then, rubbing them together, applied it. I had to stand on tiptoe to do so. When his beard was fragrant and glossy, I began combing it out. Finally, I braided it in many strands, as befit a ruler of his dignity.

  I had just finished when, with sudden resolution, King Nimrod stood. "I fear you will curse me every day of your short life for what I am about to do, little one," he said. His words were an almost physical force. I did not need Irra to tell me that he was willing comprehension upon me. "Yet I see no alternative. So it shall be done. This will take all my power and concentration, so I must ask that you not disturb me before it is finished."

  At Irra's direction, I tugged my hair and made braiding gestures. "Eh?"

  Nimrod laughed gently, as one might at the antics of a child. "If it makes you happy."

  Closing his eyes, King Nimrod stretched out his arms to either side, palms upward. His fingers flexed, as if grasping for something in the air, and then clenched as if grasping that intangible thing. A low sound escaped from somewhere deep within his chest. It might have been the mountain talking. A shudder passed through his body, and then Nimrod stood as motionless as the moon before Humbaba had set it in the sky. His face was grim as granite.

  After a few minutes, drops of blood appeared on his forehead.

  "Go!" Irra whispered urgently.

  I picked up a large rock and climbed to the top of the low crag behind the king. There, I set the rock down and, standing beside it, began to oil and comb his hair.

  Thunder rolled in the distance, then fell silent. But there was an uneasiness to the silence. It was like unto a distant sound too vast and low to be heard which nevertheless can be felt in the pit of one's stomach and in the back of one's skull. Time passed. The sun touched the horizon and a thin line of liquid gold spread to either side faster than quicksilver.

  "What is he doing?" Irra fretted. "What is he doing?"

  I shrugged, and continued my work.

  Never had the sun moved below the edge of the world so quickly. All the land beneath it was an oily darkness, as if something were moving there unseen. Perhaps, I thought, Nimrod was calling great armies of beasts to eat the Igigi. Perhaps he was turning the marshes to tar, to envelop and swallow up our enemies. If such was his contemplated crime—the death of billions—I did not care. Let it happen! Yet the tension in the air intensified as if somewhere too far away to be heard, a giant were silently screaming.

  Nimrod was a statue. The blood from his brow ran down his face and pooled at his feet.

  Then the horizon bulged.

  Deep in the fastness of my mind, Irra cried in a tone of mingled horror and awe, "He is calling in the ocean! He is commanding it to come to Ararat."

  I passed the comb through King Nimrod's hair over and over again, smoothing out the tangles. "So?"

  "It will roll over the armies below. It will kill the King and Queen and all their servants!"

  "Good. Then there will be a cleansing."

  "There is still time!" I hopped down from the rock on which I stood, dropping the comb. I bent down to seize the rock in both hands. With a mighty effort, I raised it up to my chest. None of this had been my doing. Indeed, I tried desperately to resist it. But Irra had seized control of my body.

  If Irra could control my body now, that meant he could always have done so. There had been no need for him to drive me with threats and pain. He had only done so in order to make me complicit in his guilt and thus increase my suffering, so that he might enjoy my revulsion and shame.

  King Nimrod towered above me. With a jerk, Irra raised the stone up above my head. I gasped in pain.

  That was the extraordinary thing. I had gasped in pain. Irra had not made me gasp. I had simply done so. Which meant that he controlled only those parts of my body he set his thoughts to controlling. All else was still mine.

  I licked my lips to test my theory. And it worked. My mouth remained my own.

  "Squirp!" I cried as loudly as I could.

  Had Nimrod turned to see why I had made such an extraordinary noise, he would have died then and there, for already the stone was descending upon his head. But I had taught him the meaning of my new word, and so he instantly apprehended my warning. Using only a small fraction of his power, the mighty wizard caused tree branches to sprout from his head and shoulders and back. They burst through his skin and clothing. With dazzling swiftness, they divided and multiplied, the end of each branch and twig putting out a long, sharp thorn.

  My stone crashed down into the tangled thorn-tree, snapping limbs but coming nowhere near King Nimrod's body, motionless at its center. Twisted black branches grew around me in a cage. The thorns grasped me tightly and I was flung high into the air.

  A despairing wail escaped my lips. I did not know if it came from myself or from Irra.

  Then, with a roar like the end of the world, I fell into darkness.

  When I came to, it was morning and Irra's body lay on the ground beside me. I sat up and touched his throat. It was stone cold. Irra was dead.

  Sore and aching though I was, I could not help but feel glad.

  The sunlight was brighter than I remembered ever seeing it, and the air smelled of salt. I stared down the slopes of Ararat and for the first time in my life I saw the ocean. It sparkled and danced. White gulls flew above it with shrill cries. To one side, fierce waves crashed against the mountainside with a thunder and boom that said they had come to stay. First Haven was a seaport now and its inhabitants would henceforth be fishermen and sailors as well as hunters and crofters.

  The Igigi were nowhere to be seen.

  King Nimrod sat hunched nearby, his head resting in his hands. But when I tried to hail him, nothing came from my mouth but a wordless cry. So by this token I knew that our first language—the
one that Nimrod had invented to deliver us from Urdumheim—was gone forever, drowned with our demonic foes.

  At the sound of my voice, Nimrod stood. To my surprise, when he saw me he grinned broadly. He pawed the ground with one foot, as might an ox. Meaning: Hello. Then he rubbed his hands together and snorted: Let's get to work.

  Uncomprehendingly, I watched as Nimrod stooped to pick up a stone from the ground. He held it out toward me. "Harri," he said. "Harri."

  Then, like the sun coming out from the clouds, I understood. He was creating a new language—not a makeshift thing like my oxen-speech, but something solid and enduring.

  "Harri," I said.

  The king clapped me approvingly on the shoulder.

  Then he went down the mountain to teach the People language for a second time.

  Thus began the Great Work. For shortly thereafter, Nimrod set us to work building upon the base of Ararat a tower so tall that it would reach to the sky, and so large that a hundred generations would not suffice to complete it. Indeed, our monarch explained, it was entirely possible that the tower never would reach completion. But this did not matter. For within the tower a thousand languages would bloom and those languages, through exposure to each other, would be in constant flux and variation, every profession creating its specialized argot and every new generation its own slang. Like the tower itself, each language would be a work forever in progress and never completed. So that if the Igigi returned, they could never again prevail over us, though they stuffed their stomachs so full of language that they burst. In token of which, we named the tower Babel—"Mountain of Words."

  Thus ends my story.

  Except for one last thing.

  One day, when I was working in the fields, Silili returned from the forest. She was scratched and bruised and filthy from living like an animal, and half-starved because unlike those who are born animals, she was not good at it. One of her fingers was crooked, for it had broken and not set well. She was naked.