The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Take him away," Onyx Ermine whispered to her friends. "Oh take him quickly and end this. She will not care if he comes early."

  "The risk we run. . ."

  "Would you have her come here? For three years I have lived in misery, seeing her in every shadow. I can't bear it longer. I can't bear touching what I'm going to lose. Take him there. Now."

  He tried to speak. He could not. They wrapped him in the sheets and satin cover and carried him, a short distance at first, and then to the stairs, by many stages. He heard finally the thunder of the falls of the Sin, and the echoes of the lower levels. . . heard the murmur of spectators near him at times, and knew that none but Jade might have interfered. They were all merely spectators. That was all they wished to be, to avoid complications.

  Even, perhaps, Jade itself. . . observed. They laid him down at last in a place where feet scuffed dryly on dust, and fled, and left silence and dark. He lay long still, until a tingling in his fingers turned to pain, which traveled all his limbs and left him able again to move. He stirred, and staggered to his feet, cold in a bitter wind, chilled by the lonely dark. From before him came the dim light of lamps, and a shadow sat between them.

  "You are betrayed," the Death said.

  He wrapped his arms about him against the chill and stared at her.

  "She doesn't love you," said the Death. "Don't you know that?"

  "I knew," he said. "But then, no one ever did. They've forgotten how."

  The Death lifted her hands to the veils and let them fall. She was beautiful, pale of skin, with ebon hair and a blood-red stain of rubies at her brow. She held out hands to him, rising. And when she came to him he did not look away. "Some change their minds," she said. "Even those who come of their own will."

  The eyes were strange, constantly shifting in subtle tones. . . the fires, perhaps, or all the souls she had drunk, all the torment. "I bring peace," she said. "If I did not exist, there would be no way out. And they would all go mad. I am their choice. I am possibility. I am change in the cycles."

  He gazed into the flickerings, the all-too-tenanted eyes. "How is it done?" he asked, fearing to know.

  She embraced him, and laid her head at his shoulder. He flinched from a tiny sharp pain at his throat, quickly done. A chill grew in his limbs, a slight giddiness like love.

  "Go back," she said releasing him. "Run away until your time."

  He stumbled back, found the door, realized belatedly her words.

  "Go," she said. "I'll come for you. . . in my agreed time. I at least keep my word, Jade Alain."

  And when he would have gone. . . .

  "Jade Alain," she said. "I know you have moved to Onyx. I know most things in the City. Tell your wife. . . I keep my promises."

  "She fears you."

  "She is nothing," the Death said. "Do you fear me?"

  He considered. The question found him numb. And for all his numbness he walked back to her, faced the dreadful eyes. He tested his courage by it. He tested it further, took the Death's face between his hands and returned the kiss she had given three years before.

  "Ah," she said. "That was kind."

  "You are gentle," he said. "I shall not mind."

  "Sad Jade prince. Go. Go away just now."

  He turned away, walked out the grim doorway into the light, walked up the stairs, a long, long walk, in which there were few passersby, for it was what passed for night in the City now, and of that he was very glad, because of the shame which Onyx had dealt him and the anger he felt. Those who did see him stared, and muttered behind their hands and shrank away. So did those at the doors of Onyx, who blanched and began to bar his way.

  But the doors opened, and Ermine's several friends stood with knives.

  "Go away," they said.

  "That was not the bargain," he replied.

  "Your wife is the bargain," the oldest woman said. "Take Ermine back to Jade. Don't involve us."

  "No," Ermine wailed from the hall beyond; but they brought her to him, and he took her by the hand and dragged her along to his own doors. She ceased struggling. They entered within the ornate halls of Jade Palace, and under the fearful eyes of his own kin, he drew her through the maze of corridors to his own apartments, and sealed the door fast behind them.

  She was there. There was no possible means that she could be. . . but there the Death stood, clothed in black, among the green draperies by the bed. Ermine flung about and cried aloud, stopped by his opposing arms.

  "Go," the Death said. "I've nothing to do with you yet. Your wife and I have business."

  He held Ermine still, she shivering and holding to him and burying her face against him. He shook his head. "No," he said, "I can't. I can't give her to you."

  "I've been offended," the Death said. "How am I to be paid for such an offense against my dignity?"

  He thought a moment. Smoothed Ermine's pale hair. "The year that I have left. What is that to me? Don't take Ermine's lives. She cares so much to save them."

  "Does Ermine agree?" the Death asked.

  "Yes," Ermine sobbed, refusing to look back. He sighed, hurt at last, shook his head and put Ermine from him. The Death reached out her hand, and he came to her, embraced her, looked back as she put her black-robed arm about him. Ermine cowered in the corner, head upon her knees.

  "Cousin," the Death whispered to him, for she was once of Jade. He looked into the shifting eyes, and she touched her finger first to her lips and to his; it bled, and left the blood on his lips. "Mine," she said. "As you are."

  He was. He felt cold, and hungry for life, desired it more than ever he had desired in his youth.

  "I also," the Death said, "am once-born. . . and never die. Nor shall you. Nor have a name again. Nor care."

  "Ermine," he whispered, to have the sight of her face again. She looked.

  And screamed, and hid her face in her hands.

  "When the lives grow too many," the Death said, "and you grow weary, Ermine. . . we will be waiting."

  "Whenever you wish," he said to Ermine, and slipped his hand within the Death's warm hand, and went with her, the hidden ways.

  Pertito shook his head sadly, poured more wine, stroked the cheek of Legran, who was his lover this cycle, and Claudette's sister. Below their vantage, beyond the balcony, a pale figure wavered on the tenth level stairs, where the Sin began its dizzying fall. "I'll wager she's on the verge again," he said. "Poor Ermine. Thousands of years and no invention left. Never more years than twenty-two. When she reaches that age. . . she's gone."

  "Not this time," Legran said.

  "Ah. Look. She's on the edge."

  Legran stretched her neck to see, remained tranquil. "A wager?"

  "Has she whispered things in your brother's ear, perhaps? Lovers' confidences?"

  Legran sighed, smiled lazily, settling again. She sipped at her cup and her smoky eyes danced above the rim. A crowd was gathering to watch the impending leap.

  "Do you know something?" Pertito asked.

  "Ah, my tragic brother, to be in love with Ermine. Three lifetimes now he could not hold her. . . Wager on it, my love?"

  Pertito hesitated. A hundred lifetimes without variance. It was a small crowd, observing the suicide indifferently, expecting no novelty from Ermine.

  "This time," Legran said, eyes dancing more, "there is a rival."

  "A second lover?"

  The white figure poised delicately on the topmost step of the chute. There were sighs, a polite rippling of applause.

  "A very old one," Legran said. "For some months now. Ah. There she goes."

  There were gasps, a dazed silence from the crowd.

  Past the falls, this time, and down and down the stairs, a gleam of white and pearls.

  1981

  THE HAUNTED TOWER

  (London)

  There were ghosts in old London, that part of London outside the walls and along the river, or at least the townsfolk outside the walls believed in them: mostly they were attributed to the
fringes of the city, and the unbelievers inside the walls insisted they were manifestations of sunstruck brains, of senses deceived by the radiations of the dying star and the fogs which tended to gather near the Thames. Ghosts were certainly unfashionable for a city management which prided itself on technology, which confined most of its bulk to a well-ordered cube (geometrically perfect except for the central arch which let the Thames flow through) in which most of the inhabitants lived precisely ordered lives. London had its own spaceport, maintained offices for important offworld companies, and it thrived on trade. It pointed at other cities in its vicinity as declined and degenerate, but held itself as an excellent and enlightened government: since the Restoration and the New Mayoralty, reason reigned in London, and traditions were cultivated only so far as they added to the comfort of the city and those who ruled it. If the governed of the city believed in ghosts and other intangibles, well enough; reliance on astrology and luck and ectoplasmic utterances made it less likely that the governed would seek to analyze the governors upstairs.

  There were some individuals who analyzed the nature of things, and reached certain conclusions, and who made then attempts on power.

  For them the Tower existed, a second cube some distance down the river, which had very old foundations and very old traditions. The use of it was an inspiration on the part of the New Mayoralty, which studied its records and found itself a way to dispose of unwanted opinion. The city was self-contained. So was the Tower. What disappeared into the Tower only rarely reappeared. . . and the river ran between, a private, unassailable highway for the damned, so that there was no untidy publicity.

  Usually the voyagers were the fallen powerful, setting out from that dire river doorway of the city of London.

  On this occasion one Bettine Maunfry came down the steps toward the rusty iron boat and the waters of old Thames. She had her baggage (three big boxes) brought along by the police, and though the police were grim, they did not insult her, because of who she had been, and might be again if the unseen stars favored her.

  She boarded the boat in a state of shock, sat with her hands clenched in her lap and stared at something other than the police as they loaded her baggage aboard and finally closed the door of the cabin. This part of the city was an arch above the water, a darksome tunnel agleam with lights which seemed far too few; and she swallowed and clenched her hands the more tightly as the engines began to chug their way downriver toward the daylight which showed at the end.

  They came finally into the wan light of the sun, colors which spread themselves amber and orange across the dirty glass of the cabin windows. The ancient ruins of old London appeared along the banks, upthrust monoliths and pillars and ruined bits of wall which no one ever had to look at but those born outside—as she had been, but she had tried to forget that.

  In not so long a time there was a smooth modern wall on the left side, which was the wall of the Tower, and the boat ground and bumped its way to the landing.

  Then she must get out again, and, being frightened and unsteady, she reached out her hand for the police to help her across the narrow ramp to the shore and the open gate of that wall. They helped her and passed her on to the soldier/warders, who brought her within the gates; she stood on stones which were among the most ancient things in all of ancient London, and the steel gates, which were not at all ancient, and very solid, gaped and hissed and snicked shut with ominous authority. The chief warder, a gray-haired man, led her beyond the gatehouse and into the interior of the Tower which, to her surprise, was not a building, but a wall, girding many buildings, many of them crumbling brick and very, very old-seeming. Guards followed with her baggage as she walked this strange, barren courtyard among the crumbling buildings.

  "What are these stones?" she asked of the older man who led the way, proper and militarily slim. "What are they?"

  But he would not answer her, as none of them spoke to her. They escorted her to the steps of a modern tower, which bestraddled ancient stones and made them a part of its structure, old brick with gleaming steel. The older man showed her through the gateway and up the steps, while the others followed after. It was a long climb—no lift, nothing of the sort; the lights were all shielded and the doors which they passed were all without handles.

  Third level; the chief warder motioned her through a doorway just at the top of the stairs, which led to a hall ending in a closed door. She found the guards pushing her luggage past her into that short corridor, and when she did not move, the chief warder took her arm and put her through the archway, himself staying behind.

  "Wait," she cried, "wait," but no one waited and no one cared. The door shut. She wept, she beat at the closed door with her fists, she kicked the door and kicked it again for good measure, and finally she tried the door at the other end of the hall, pushed the only door switch she had, which let her into a grim, one-room apartment, part brick and part steel, a bed which did not look comfortable, thinly mattressed; a bathroom at least separate of the single room, a window, a wall console: she immediately and in panic pushed buttons there, but it was dead, quite dead. Tears streamed down her face and she wiped them with the back of her hand and snuffled because there was no one to see the inelegance.

  She went to the window then and looked out, saw the courtyard and in it the guards who had brought her heading to the gates; and the gates opening on the river and closing again.

  Fear came over her, dread that perhaps she was alone in this place and the stones and the machines might be all there was. She ran to the panel and punched buttons and pleaded, and there was nothing; then she grew anxious that the apartment door might close on its own. She scurried out into the short hallway and dragged her three cases in and sat down on the thin mattress and cried.

  Tears ran out after a time; she had done a great deal of crying and none of it had helped, so she sat with her hands in her lap and hoped earnestly that the screen and the phone would come on and it would be Richard, his honor Richard Collier the mayor, to say he had frightened her enough, and he had.

  The screen did not come on. Finally she began to snuffle again and wiped her eyes and realized that she was staying at least. . . at least a little time. She gathered her clothes out of the boxes and hung them; laid out her magazines and her books and her knitting and sewing and her jewelry and her cosmetics and all the things she had packed. . . At least they had let her pack. She went into the bath and sat down and repaired her makeup, painting on a perfectly insouciant face, and finding in this mundane act a little comfort.

  She was not the sort of person who was sent to the Tower; she was only a girl, (though thirty) the Mayor's girl. She was plain Bettine Maunfry. His Honor's wife knew about her and had no resentments; it just could not be that Marge had turned on her; she was not the first girl his Honor had had, and not the only even at the moment. Richard was jealous, that was all, angry when he had found out there might be someone else, and he had power and he was using it to frighten her. It had to be. Richard had other girls and a wife, and there was no reason for him to be jealous. He had no right to be jealous. But he was; and he was vindictive. And because he was an important man, and she was no one, she was more frightened now than she had ever been in her life.

  The Tower was for dangerous criminals. But Richard had been able to do this and get away with it, which she would never have dreamed; it was all too cruel a joke. He had some kind of power and the judges did what he wanted; or he never even bothered to get a court involved.

  The tears threatened again, and she sniffed and stared without blinking at her reflected image until the tears dried. Her face was her defense, her beauty her protection. She had always known how to please others. She had worked all her life at it. She had learned that this was power, from the time she was a tiny girl, that she must let others have control of things, but that she could play on them and get them to do most things that she wanted. I like people, was the way she put it, in a dozen variants; all of which meant that as much as she
hated technical things she liked to know all about different types of personalities; it sounded altruistic, and it also gave her power of the kind she wanted. Most of the time she even believed in the altruism. . . until a thing like this, until this dreadful grim joke. This time it had not worked, and none of this should be happening.

  It would still work, if she could get face-to-face with Richard, and not Richard the Lord Mayor. She tested a deliberate and whining smile in the mirror, perfect teeth, a bewitching little twitch of a shoulder.

  Downy lashes rimming blue eyes, a mouth which could pout and tremble and reflect emotions like the breathing of air over water, so fine, so responsive, to make a man like His Honor feel powerful. . . that was all very well: she knew how to do that. He loved her. . . after a possessive fashion; he had never said so, but she fed his middle-aged vanity, and that was what was hurt; that had to be it, that she had wounded him more than she had thought and he had done this, to show her he was powerful.

  But he would have to come, and see how chastened she was and then he would feel sorry for what he had done, and they would make up and she would be back safe in the city again.

  He would come.

  She changed to her lounging gown, with a very deep neckline, and went back and combed her dark masses of hair just so, just perfect with the ruby gown with the deep plunge and the little bit of ruby glitter paler than the blood-red fabric. . . He had given that to her. He would remember that evening when he saw her wearing it.

  She waited. The silence here was deep, so, so deep. Somewhere in this great building there should be someone else. It was night outside the window now, and she looked out and could not bear to look out again, because it was only blackness, and reminded her she was alone. She wished that she could curtain it; she might have hung something over it, but that would make the place look shabby, and she lived by beauty. Survived by it. She sat down in the chair and turned on the light and read her magazines, articles on beauty and being desirable which now, while they had entertained her before, seemed shatteringly important.