“Hello, Melanie.” He looks up and smiles like a teacher smiles when you’re doing something wrong, but he’s not real upset by it. “Jeremy, you don’t want to be here,” he says. “You’ll get into a lot of trouble and your parents won’t ever really trust you again. They won’t wake up if you sneak back in, now. I won’t even give you detention for skipping. You were worried about a friend, and that’s a good thing. Go to bed now, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
He sounds so warm. So worried about Jeremy. And I look at Jeremy, and he’s squirming. And even I want to go inside and go to bed and see him in the morning.
“Melanie, you need to go home right now. Your father is really worried about you, you know. He might…well, you know that if he thought he had lost you, too, as well as your mother, he might do something terrible to himself.”
And I’m on my feet. Dad. I haven’t really thought about him, and Mr. Teleomara is right…
“Stop it, Zoroan.” Cris’s voice sounds like a frog croaking, but the gold is real bright, all sparkly. “Don’t play your tricks on them.”
And it’s like someone dumped a bucket of water on my head.
“He’s lying, Jeremy.” My voice sounds ugly, too. “Don’t listen to him.”
“This is not your worry, children.” He’s still smiling. “It’s not your world. Nothing that happens here has anything to do with you. Go home. Go to bed. Everything will be all right in the morning.”
The silver words smell sweet. Words don’t smell. Wrong, wrong, wrong. “Don’t, Jeremy.” I grab him as he makes a move toward the door. “It really is a trick or a spell or something.” But he’s not hearing me, and he pulls away, and I really want to do what Mr. Teleomara says, too.
And then…my dad walks out of the woods.
“Melanie?” he calls. He stops at the edge of the yard. What is he doing here? “Melanie?” he yells again. His green words sound…scared.
“Dad,” I say, and it comes out like a mouse’s squeak. But he hears.
“Are you okay?” He starts for the tree fort like Mr. Teleomara is invisible. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
Mr. Teleomara steps in front of him and blocks his way. “Go home,” he says, and that silver stuff gets thick all around my dad. “Go home now.”
And I realize all of a sudden that he wasn’t going to let me leave, that Cris is right, and he wants me, too.
“I see you. I know what you are.” My dad doesn’t move. “She doesn’t belong to your world. Get out of my way.”
I’ve never heard my dad talk like that, not to anyone.
“Too late.” Mr. Teleomara smiles. “She’s mine now, too.”
My dad punches him.
Jeremy whoops and Mr. Teleomara falls on his butt and all the silver vanishes, and for a second I think it’s going to be okay.
And then the silver stuff just sort of rises out of the grass and it wraps around my dad. He stumbles back, his mouth open like he’s screaming, but I can’t hear anything, and he’s all arched backward like he’s going to fall, but he’s frozen in place.
And he’s going to die, any second now, pop like a bubble and just vanish. Like the owl. I know it like someone told me.
I’m firstborn. I’m my mother’s firstborn. And I grab the dagger out of Cris’s hand and he yells and I don’t care. I jump down from the fort and land on my hands and knees. Zoroan doesn’t notice, he’s looking at my dad and having fun, just like Mr. Beasley with his mice. And I crawl over, and on my knees, holding the dagger with both hands, I stab him in the leg.
The dagger melts.
Just like that.
And Mr. Teleomara looks down at me and smiles. “Half-breed,” he says. And something like a giant hand slaps me and I hit the trunk of the apple tree and end up on the ground.
Firstborn, but my dad’s firstborn as well as my mom’s. Maybe he’s right. And maybe there’s no true-world for me.
“Melanie, Melanie.” Jeremy jumps down from the fort, pulls me to my feet. “Are you okay? What happened?”
And I get it. I hope I do. I look up at the fort and I see a place where the plywood has split. Grab it. A long splinter comes off, about as long as my finger. “Stab him with this.” I shove the splinter at Jeremy. “You’re a firstborn, right? Just do it, Jeremy. This is your true-shape weapon. Stab him!” And I don’t wait for him to answer, I just throw myself on Zoroan, trying to scratch his eyes, pounding on him with my fists. And the silver stuff wraps around me like a burning hand and I can’t breathe and I was wrong, and Zoroan is laughing and I’m going to die, too…
…and over his shoulder, through all the glitter and the hurting, I see Jeremy do this wild, crazy stab with the stupid little splinter and it sticks into Zoroan’s back.
It goes right in, so easy that Jeremy trips and falls flat. Everything starts to shake, like an earthquake or something. And I’m on the ground looking up, and Cris falls out of the fort and nearly lands on top of me. The fort is falling apart. All the tree branches are waving. I roll over, and Zoroan is standing with his arms in the air, and the silver stuff is all gone. His face is changing, melting into another face, and another, young, old, men, women, even kids’ faces, faster and faster, until his face is a kind of blur. Then this icy wind like the middle of winter starts blowing, and it smells like the dead possum I found under the porch of our house when we moved in.
And this hole opens. It goes down forever, and that’s where the smell and the cold wind are coming from. The last of the fort shreds apart, books, CDs, and boards all falling into the hole, and I’m sliding toward it, like the wind is dragging me, and Jeremy’s at the edge, going over, and I grab him, and Cris is sliding in, too, and…
…something hard wraps around my waist and yanks me back and all of a sudden I’m up in the apple tree. And the wind stops. And the hole is gone. Another limb is holding Jeremy, and Cris is sitting in the crotch of the tree where the fort used to be. There’s nothing left of it.
My dad is lying on the grass like he’s asleep, and all of a sudden the limb under me bends down and sort of dumps me on the grass. And I run over to my dad, who’s starting to sit up, and I’m so glad that I can’t talk and I’m crying and all I can do is sort of burrow into his arms. And he holds me so tight it hurts and that’s fine.
“Wow.” Jeremy’s voice is a real pale yellow. He’s still up in the tree. “That was cool.” His laugh is kind of shaky. “Make a good end for a horror movie.”
“He’s gone. He’s destroyed. Zoroan can’t ever come back. You fulfilled the prophecy. How did you do that?” Cris slides to the ground looking confused. “You’re not…you’re not one of us. You can’t have done that.”
“He’s a firstborn, too,” I say, still hanging on to my dad. “And the prophecy said true-shape. You said the wood in the fort was a true-shape for us…for Jeremy. I think the dagger melted because I don’t…belong in either world.” The words are really hard to say and I don’t look at my dad.
He gets to his feet, pulling me with him, then he turns me around so that I have to look at him. “You’re part of both worlds,” he says, real low. “That’s what your mother and I wanted.” He swallows hard. “When he…took her, I was afraid. I wanted you to…be safe.” He kind of brushes my hair back from my face. “I was wrong,” he said. “I should have taught you about her…your world. When the owl came, I saw it was one of the owls that your mother used to talk to. And I knew I’d made a mistake. So I followed it.”
The owl with the glowing eyes? “Zoroan killed it,” I whisper. “I didn’t know…” I’m not really sure what I want to say.
“I know.” He pulls me real close. “I’m sorry.”
“Ouch.” Jeremy yelps as the apple tree dumps him onto the ground. “Okay, I’m sorry I built a fort in you. Hey.” He ducks as a twiggy branch swipes through his hair. “Now cut it out.”
“I can’t believe you really did that.” Cris holds out a hand to Jeremy. “Every true-being owes you thanks.
I’ll never think that you people are less than us again. Just because you can’t see the true-world. He could have killed you in a second.”
“Glad I didn’t know that.” And Jeremy shoots me a look, but his words are sun yellow. “You’re cool, Cris.” He combs leaves and twigs out of his hair. “Hey, are you gonna stick around? For when I get done being grounded forever? I really want to see what your world looks like. Can you show me?”
That’s Jeremy. I smile.
“Just give me a call. Whenever you’re not grounded.” Cris laughs. “I’ll hear you.” And he looks thoughtful. “Maybe I should find out more about your world. I don’t know…I never thought it mattered. But maybe it does.”
“Well, I think so.” Jeremy makes a face. “Hey, you can come with us to a baseball game. I bet you’ll like it.”
“It’s a deal.” Cris smiles. “And I’ve got some friends who’ll give us a ride and then you can really see a lot.”
“Oh, cool, what kind of friends? I hope they can fly. Oh gosh, look.” Jeremy points at the sky. “It’s getting light. Oh, man, I’d better get inside. Or I’ll get grounded for two forevers. You gonna come to school, Mel?” He’s already heading for the house. “I bet they won’t let me say I’m sick.”
“I’ll be there,” I tell him. I guess I want to prove to myself that Mr. Teleomara isn’t there, that we really did destroy him. “What about you, Cris?”
He shrugs. “I’m going to go find people…let them know what happened.” He gives me a shy smile. “I’ll tell ’em about you, Melanie. And Jeremy. I think we’ll all feel a little different about you people from now on.” And he holds out his hand to me. “Can I come back and visit?”
“You bet.” And then I look up at my dad. “Uh…are we gonna stay here for a while?”
“Why not?” But his smile is kind of sad. “I don’t think we have to run anymore. This is as good a place to live as any and you have friends here.”
Cris turns and walks away and I notice that he doesn’t leave any tracks in the dew-wet grass. Then he fades into the tree shadows. Jeremy is already inside. It’s just Dad and me, and the sun comes up and makes the dew glitter like diamonds. And all of a sudden, I see diamonds hanging on the bushes and sprinkled on the grass. And then it’s just dew again.
Dad’s looking at me and he looks…well…shy. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I get it. You were afraid someone was going to come after me. And he did.”
“No.” He puts his arm around me. “It’s more than that. I was angry. At her world. Because it…took her.”
He can’t say it either…that she’s dead. What did Jeremy’s mom call it? “I guess I’d have been angry, too,” I tell him, but he’s shaking his head.
“It’s your world, too. That apple tree that saved you all…the apple is your birth tree.”
Mine, too? And I think how that old apple sort of helped me over the wall, back when I found Cris.
“I think you’ll find that you’re more a part of your mother’s world than you realize.” Dad sighs. “Maybe Cris can help you.”
Lights are going on in the houses, people are letting dogs out, and a kid on a bike pedals up the street, tossing papers into yards from a bag on the handlebars. I know him. He’s in the other sixth-grade class and put a green bean up his nose in the cafeteria last month. He talks bright pink. “Maybe I can be sort of in between,” I say. I’m trying out the words, but they feel right. Half-breed. Maybe that’s a good thing. I stop talking because there, back in the tree shadows, I see one of the Shy Folk. She notices me looking and waves one pale hand. Huh.
“Does it bother you?” Dad asks. “Being…between worlds?”
“No.” I say it first, for him, but then I think about it. It really doesn’t. Cris seems so…well…alone. Why didn’t the First Born get together to stop Zoroan? Why didn’t someone help him or come looking for him when Zoroan trapped him? I think of Jeremy, and I think maybe I like my world. But the unicorns were cool. I smile up at Dad. “I like being part of both.” And I really do.
“Your mother would be…” He clears his throat. “Your mother would be so proud of you.” He looks around. “We’d better get home if you’re really going to go to school. If we hang around here much longer, we’ll get arrested for trespassing.”
And we both laugh, and he keeps his arm around me, and we take the path through the woods back to the little rental dump where we’re living. We can stay. That thought sort of feels like…well, like a birthday present. You know, the kind you don’t really want to unwrap because you know what it has to be and it’s gonna be so cool and you just don’t want that feeling to be over yet.
Dad keeps his arm around me and that feels good, too.
I see a unicorn when we’re almost home. Not close, just kind of drifting through the woods like a pale deer with a single horn. Wow. To quote Jeremy. Maybe, when Zoroan died he let loose all that First Born power. Or maybe it was me and I didn’t want to see, before. I can just make out our house in the deep shadows of the tall Sitka spruce that sort of leans over it.
Dad left the lights on.
“I didn’t leave the lights on,” Dad says.
We both stop under the Sitka’s branches. Dad is holding his breath and he’s scared and so am I. The door opens. This woman comes out. Black hair, like mine, all curly around her face, and she’s wearing a white dress. She’s shorter than I remember. Well, I guess I’m taller. I look like her. That shocks me. I didn’t know that.
Dad lets go of me and charges through the ferns that grow behind the house. She opens her arms to him and I can see diamonds that are probably tears in her eyes. Or maybe they are diamonds. She looks just like I remember.
Oh, Cris, I think. You, too, I hope. Then I stop thinking.
“Mom,” I yell, and charge after Dad.
The Ruby Incomparable
KAGE BAKER
One of the most prolific new writers to appear in the late nineties, Kage Baker made her first sale in 1997, to Asimov’s Science Fiction, and has since become one of that magazines most frequent and popular contributors with her sly and compelling stories of the adventures and misadventures of the time-traveling agents of the Company; of late, she’s started two other linked sequences of stories there as well, one of them set in as lush and eccentric a High Fantasy milieu as any we’ve ever seen. Her stories have also appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Sci Fiction, Amazing, and elsewhere. Her first Company novel, In the Garden of Iden, was also published in 1997 and immediately became one of the most acclaimed and widely reviewed first novels of the year. More Company novels quickly followed, including Sky Coyote, Mendoza in Hollywood, The Graveyard Game, The Life of the World to Come, as well as a chapbook novella, The Empress of Mars, and her first fantasy novel, The Anvil of the World. Her many stories have been collected in Black Projects, White Knights, Mother Aegypt and Other Stories, Dark Mondays, and a collection of Company stories, The Children of the Company. Her most recent Company novel is The Machine’s Child. In addition to her writing, Baker has been an artist, actor, and director at the Living History Center and has taught Elizabethan English as a second language. She lives in Pismo Beach, California.
When purest Evil and purest Good join in marriage, you can’t expect the relationship to be a tranquil one—but sometimes it can produce unexpected consequences that surprise both.
THE girl surprised everyone.
To begin with, no one in the world below had thought her parents would have more children. Her parents’ marriage had created quite a scandal, a profound clash of philosophical extremes; for her father was the Master of the Mountain, a brigand and sorcerer, who had carried the Saint of the World off to his high fortress. It’s bad enough when a living goddess, who can heal the sick and raise the dead, takes up with a professional dark lord (black armor, monstrous armies, and all). But when they settle down together with every intention of raising a family, what are respectable people to think?
The Yendri in their fore
st villages groaned when they learned of the first boy. Even in his cradle, his fiendish tendencies were evident. He was beautiful as a little angel except in his screaming tempers, when he would morph himself into giant larvae, wolf cubs, or pools of bubbling slime.
The Yendri in their villages and the Children of the Sun in their stone cities all rejoiced when they heard of the second boy. He too was beautiful, but clearly good. A star was seen to shine from his brow on occasion. He was reported to have cured a nurse’s toothache with a mere touch, and he never so much as cried while teething.
And the shamans of the Yendri, and the priests in the temples of the Children of the Sun, all nodded their heads and said: “Well, at least we have balance now. The two boys will obviously grow up, oppose each other, and fight to the death, because that’s what generally happens.”
Having decided all this, and settled down confidently to wait, imagine how shocked they were to hear that the Saint of the World had borne a third child! And a girl, at that. It threw all their calculations off and annoyed them a great deal.
The Master and his Lady were surprised, too, because their baby daughter popped into the world homely as a little potato, by contrast with the elfin beauty of her brothers. They did agree that she had lovely eyes, at least, dark as her father’s, and she seemed to be sweet-tempered. They named her Svnae.
So the Master of the Mountain swaddled her in purple silk and took her out on a high balcony and held her up before his assembled troops, who roared, grunted, and howled their polite approval. And that night in the barracks and servants’ hall, around the barrels of black wine that had been served out in celebration, the minions of the proud father agreed amongst themselves that the little maid might not turn out so ugly as all that, if the rest of her face grew to fit that nose and she didn’t stay quite so bald.
And they at least were proved correct, for within a year Svnae had become a lovely child.
Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy Page 11