The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  As I stepped forward, my foot sank into a trough of soft tissue, and a gust of fetid gas blew through an aperture between the ribs. Retreating from the fouled air, which hung like a cloud over my head, I turned towards the sea to clear my lungs. To my surprise I saw that the giant’s left hand had been amputated.

  I stared with bewilderment at the blackening stump, while the solitary youth reclining on his aerial perch a hundred feet away surveyed me with a sanguinary eye.

  * * *

  —

  This was only the first of a sequence of depredations. I spent the following two days in the library, for some reason reluctant to visit the shore, aware that I had probably witnessed the approaching end of a magnificent illusion. When I next crossed the dunes and set foot on the shingle the giant was little more than twenty yards away, and with this close proximity to the rough pebbles all traces had vanished of the magic which once surrounded his distant wave-washed form. Despite his immense size, the bruises and dirt that covered his body made him appear merely human in scale, his vast dimensions only increasing his vulnerability.

  His right hand and foot had been removed, dragged up the slope and trundled away by cart. After questioning the small group of people huddled by the breakwater, I gathered that a fertilizer company and a cattle food manufacturer were responsible.

  The giant’s remaining foot rose into the air, a steel hawzer fixed to the large toe, evidently in preparation for the following day. The surrounding beach had been disturbed by a score of workmen, and deep ruts marked the ground where the hands and foot had been hauled away. A dark brackish fluid leaked from the stumps, and stained the sand and the white cones of the cuttlefish. As I walked down the shingle I noticed that a number of jocular slogans, swastikas and other signs had been cut into the grey skin, as if the mutilation of this motionless colossus had released a sudden flood of repressed spite. The lobe of one of the ears was pierced by a spear of timber, and a small fire had burnt out in the centre of the chest, blackening the surrounding skin. The fine wood ash was still being scattered by the wind.

  A foul smell enveloped the cadaver, the undisguisable signature of putrefaction, which had at last driven away the usual gathering of youths. I returned to the shingle and climbed up on to the winch. The giant’s swollen cheeks had now almost closed his eyes, drawing the lips back in a monumental gape. The once straight Graecian nose had been twisted and flattened, stamped into the ballooning face by countless heels.

  When I visited the beach the following day I found, almost with relief, that the head had been removed.

  * * *

  —

  Some weeks elapsed before I made my next journey to the beach, and by then the human likeness I had noticed earlier had vanished again. On close inspection the recumbent thorax and abdomen were unmistakably manlike, but as each of the limbs was chopped off, first at the knee and elbow, and then at shoulder and thigh, the carcass resembled that of any headless sea-animal—whale or whale-shark. With this loss of identity, and the few traces of personality that had clung tenuously to the figure, the interest of the spectators expired, and the foreshore was deserted except for an elderly beachcomber and the watchman sitting in the doorway of the contractor’s hut.

  A loose wooden scaffolding had been erected around the carcass, from which a dozen ladders swung in the wind, and the surrounding sand was littered with coils of rope, long metal-handled knives and grappling irons, the pebbles oily with blood and pieces of bone and skin.

  I nodded to the watchman, who regarded me dourly over his brazier of burning coke. The whole area was pervaded by the pungent smell of huge squares of blubber being simmered in a vat behind the hut.

  Both the thigh-bones had been removed, with the assistance of a small crane draped in the gauze-like fabric which had once covered the waist of the giant, and the open sockets gaped like barn doors. The upper arms, collar bones and pudenda had likewise been dispatched. What remained of the skin over the thorax and abdomen had been marked out in parallel strips with a tar brush, and the first five or six sections had been pared away from the midriff, revealing the great arch of the rib-cage.

  As I left a flock of gulls wheeled down from the sky and alighted on the beach, picking at the stained sand with ferocious cries.

  * * *

  —

  Several months later, when the news of his arrival had been generally forgotten, various pieces of the body of the dismembered giant began to reappear all over the city. Most of these were bones, which the fertilizer manufacturers had found too difficult to crush, and their massive size, and the huge tendons and discs of cartilage attached to their joints, immediately identified them. For some reason, these disembodied fragments seemed better to convey the essence of the giant’s original magnificence than the bloated appendages that had been subsequently amputated. As I looked across the road at the premises of the largest wholesale merchants in the meat market, I recognized the two enormous thighbones on either side of the doorway. They towered over the porters’ heads like the threatening megaliths of some primitive druidical religion, and I had a sudden vision of the giant climbing to his knees upon these bare bones and striding away through the streets of the city, picking up the scattered fragments of himself on his return journey to the sea.

  A few days later I saw the left humerus lying in the entrance to one of the shipyards (its twin for several years lay on the mud among the piles below the harbour’s principal commercial wharf). In the same week the mummified right hand was exhibited on a carnival float during the annual pageant of the guilds.

  The lower jaw, typically, found its way to the museum of natural history. The remainder of the skull has disappeared, but is probably still lurking in the waste grounds or private gardens of the city—quite recently, while sailing down the river, I noticed two ribs of the giant forming a decorative arch in a waterside garden, possibly confused with the jaw-bones of a whale. A large square of tanned and tattooed skin, the size of an indian blanket, forms a backcloth to the dolls and masks in a novelty shop near the amusement park, and I have no doubt that elsewhere in the city, in the hotels or golf clubs, the mummified nose or ears of the giant hang from the wall above a fireplace. As for the immense pizzle, this ends its days in the freak museum of a circus which travels up and down the northwest. This monumental apparatus, stunning in its proportions and sometime potency, occupies a complete booth to itself. The irony is that it is wrongly identified as that of a whale, and indeed most people, even those who first saw him cast up on the shore after the storm, now remember the giant, if at all, as a large sea beast.

  The remainder of the skeleton, stripped of all flesh, still rests on the sea shore, the clutter of bleached ribs like the timbers of a derelict ship. The contractor’s hut, the crane and the scaffolding have been removed, and the sand being driven into the bay along the coast has buried the pelvis and backbone. In the winter the high curved bones are deserted, battered by the breaking waves, but in the summer they provide an excellent perch for the sea-wearying gulls.

  Satu Waltari (1932–2014) was a Finnish writer known mostly for her fearless young characters. She traveled frequently, and her affinity for France in particular is evident in her work, especially her first novel, Kahvila mabillon (“Café Mabillon,” 1952), which tells a tale of Finnish students in Paris after World War II. Her later works often included fantasy elements, and many were concerned with the relationship between humans, animals, and nature, particularly her final novel, Kumma rakkaus (“Strange Love,” 1968), which was dedicated “to horses, who might like it if they could read.” After the 1960s, having grown uncomfortable with public attention and the work of publicity required of a writer, Waltari stopped publishing and retreated from the public eye. “The Monsters” is an excerpt from her novel Hämärän matkamiehet (“Twilight Travelers”) published in 1964.

  THE MONSTER

  Satu Waltari

 
; Translated by David Hackston

  IT WAS A WONDERFUL NIGHT. Almost full, the moon was shining against the black sky like a toddler’s self-portrait. They were infuriating—little children’s self-portraits—they were everywhere. On the walls, on book covers, on every piece of paper imaginable; always entirely misshapen. The one in front of her now was rather more successful; it had been drawn with a good orange crayon and this time its eyes and mouth even fitted inside the outer edges of its face and didn’t bulge outside as in the majority of Romi Nut Bunny’s drawings. At least Stumpy’s drawings were slightly more skillful, even though she only ever drew crown princesses, which, from a distance, looked like nothing but big triangular tents. She gave a sigh and looked away from the sky. There really was no time to lose, sometimes the nights seemed to fly past in the blink of an eye.

  The open bed yawned white in the darkened room. On the pillow there was a large black hole: it was brown spittle. It’s never really a good idea to fall asleep with a piece of chocolate in your mouth. Out in the hall there stood a tall white ghost.

  Her own reflection in the hall mirror: a girl dressed in a white night gown stretching all the way down to the floor. Viivian. At first she had been furious upon noticing the name on the covers of her school books. Every single book contained that same name written out in her own handwriting. If she was not allowed to keep her own name then she might at least have been called Helena or Leif or Boy, anything else remotely tolerable. Never in her whole life had she heard of anyone called Viivian. Still, people eventually get used to all sorts of things. But on that first night it had made her very cross indeed.

  Even so, Stumpy was a very silly name. Stumpy was fast asleep with her beloved spotted blanket pulled up over her lips, snoring softly and dreaming with her brow knotted, her bare feet hanging out of the bed like a chariot driver fallen on his back. Viivian giggled quietly to herself. Outside beneath the window a horse whinnied faintly in reply. Truly. But first she thought she had better do a little check before getting dressed; sometimes Father would sit up in bed reading almost until daybreak.

  Everywhere was quiet and dark. A rasping sound came from the kitchen. The small door on the cuckoo clock creaked open and the cuckoo popped out. “Cuckoo, look at you, how time flew,” it said. How infuriating! You never knew whether it meant the strike of three o’clock or a quarter to without going up close and squinting. It was 33 o’clock. Romi Nut Bunny was asleep curled up beneath his red silken quilt with one dummy in his mouth and another clasped in his fist. Asleep he simply looked like a chubby baby. No one could have imagined how he hit, kicked, ripped, scratched and tore at everyone and everything and dashed about like a bundle of bones and muscles let loose, just like the real White Rabbit, who always feared he would be late and miss out on something exciting. Whilst he was asleep you could even stroke his cheek.

  The faint smell of roast chicken hung around Mother, as always when she had started another one of her endless dieting regimes and was dreaming of good food. She was snoring too.

  Father’s clothes were strewn all over the floor; he was sleeping with two foreign books under his head and another open across his face with a mountain of blankets covering him, and on top of the mountain sat the middle cat who narrowed its eyes, raised its head and winked. The coast was clear.

  Viivian ran with silent, rapid steps back into the hall, tying her plait around her head as she went—hanging loose it would only get in the way beneath her helmet and would catch in the trees and bushes. She tore off her nightgown and quick as a flash slipped on a long-sleeved gray vest and tights, an iron chain mail suit, leather knee pads and spats, bent down to attach spurs to her shoes. She got rather flustered with the awkward straps and buckles of her plated armor bearing an Airedale terrier crest, tied a sword belt around her waist, a dagger hanging from one hip, a sword from the other, pulled first a gray hood then a helmet complete with plumes and Airedale terrier motifs over her head, checked that the visor moved freely up and down, slipped on a pair of long-sleeved leather gloves with metal knuckle protectors, picked up her bow and arrows from the coatrack in the hall and threw them over her shoulder, and with only a few swift leaps she was at the window again and jumped out straight onto the back of the black horse waiting beneath. The horse gave a contented snort and set off at a furious pace.

  The fresh night air brushed her face like soft, moist fern leaves; the air whistled through the helmet’s raised visor and its plumes, through the feathers of the arrows and the horse’s thick mane. Tired of waiting, the horse galloped joyously with all his strength; he did not care for the bridge beneath which silent bats swirled on their rapid hunting flights, oh no, but he raised his shod hooves in a great leap, stretched his entire body and together they flew across the babbling brook as easily as the nighthawks. In a blur they scaled the hillside, then rushed down into the meadow. At the edge of the forest Viivian pressed her face against the horse’s fragrant mane so that the low-hanging branches would not whisk her from the saddle. She gently stroked her steed’s silken neck, a shudder ran through the horse’s body and he burst into an even more dizzying gallop. Startled red deer ran crashing from where they slept; squealing frantically, a family of wild boars dispersed across the dark pathway; Viivian laughed with joy. A large bird all but lost its footing on its branch, dived to just above the forest floor, then with a fluttering of its great wings disappeared into the shelter of the trees.

  Deep inside the forest it was pitch dark. Every now and then the horse’s hoof would strike a stone among the moss and give off a bright spark. Viivian slowed the horse a jot. It would be dreadful if the horse should suddenly stumble on some of the tree roots creeping out across the path and she were to be thrown to the ground. Though in fact riding a horse was no more difficult than sitting on a hay sack lain across the cottage doorway.

  “Oh no! Don’t change,” she shouted anxiously. “My dear, dear horse, don’t ever change,” she said in fright, taking hold of the horse’s hot, muscular neck. The horse gave a snort, bounded onward, and in only a few leaps they had crossed a small swamp. The water splashed up to her knees; it smelled of mud and of the night. Only for a split second had her steed resembled the old hay sack, that horrible limp old thing with two dried thistles sticking through as ears. At the other side of the swamp they paused for a moment in a moonlit copse. Viivian thanked the horse with a gentle stroke along its quivering neck from the silken skin beneath the ears right down to the saddle’s breast strap, and at this the horse turned its head and very carefully touched her foot with his lips.

  “You are real,” she said softly, consumed with a silent joy. She patted the horse’s shanks and gently hopped down from the saddle. Only once she was standing with both feet firmly on the ground again did she realize that she was shaking through and through, as though they had just been saved from a terrible danger. She rested her head against the horse’s neck, stroking its powerful breast and filling her nostrils with its wonderful, warm scent.

  The horse belonged to her, it was entirely up to her whether she kept it or not and whether she could breed it into the fastest and bravest horse in the world. A single unhappy thought could destroy it all. Nonetheless, not even two happy thoughts were enough to grow the horse a pair of wings, because such things simply don’t exist. Viivian gave a wistful sigh. Then she shook herself from her daydreaming, checked the horse from the tip of its muzzle to the hairs on its tail, pulled its bridle straps, tightened its saddle belt, lifted each and every one of its legs to make sure no sharp stones had caught in its hooves, ran her fingers through the horse’s wavy mane and tail, and with a fragrant bundle of ferns she brushed away the sweat on the horse’s sides.

  Once the horse had taken a few sips of water from a spring, their reflections dancing with the stars across the surface, she led her steed over to a suitable rock and hopped once again into the saddle.

  “What now?” she said to herself. They co
uld easily have stayed there forever, like the Red Knight who, at the ford in the river, sat night after night upon his horse thinking and waiting for imaginary enemies. In among a clump of mountain currant bushes sang a nightingale, the forest was filled with the scent of butterfly orchids and moss. The horse listened to something far in the distance with his ears pricked; the still and calm was like a restful dream.

  Viivian let the reins dangle loose around the horse’s neck and spread out a small map, etched on a soft, paper-thin piece of lamb’s skin that she kept in her saddlebag.

  In the dim light of the stars she did not even have to squint to examine the map, because it was very old indeed and therefore simple and as easy to read as a child’s drawing.

  “We’re in the King’s Wood, to the left of Badlucksberg, and here is the swamp,” she said; the horse stretched one of his ears back to listen to her. “If we travel straight ahead for a while we’ll cross the Black Hills and arrive at an uncharted area marked with three stars.”

  She rolled up the map, picked up the reins and with her spurs touched the horse’s side as gently as a feather. The steed rose up on his hind legs, excitedly snorting the slumber from his nostrils and galloped forward. A fanfare of horns could be heard in the distance.

  “They’re at the pond,” Viivian said to herself. “The King is calling in the crayfishers, they are on their way home.”

  At that moment they arrived at the Black Hills, but behind the row of hills a terrible surprise awaited them. Quicksand stretched through the darkness as far as the eye could see.

  “Well, boy,” Viivian spoke to the horse, whose ears were twitching restlessly as they took in the sight before them. “No wonder this territory has been left uncharted.”