by Tanith Lee
Danor halted when she saw the gathering.
Zirk bowed to her, bulging.
“Everybody understands,” he said penetratingly, “that none of this was your fault. I’ve no quarrel with you, Danor. In fact…” He coyly winked, then spun on his heel and rolled off.
The unneeded robot planes were scurrying skyward, but a couple of Flash Center bees were homing in, so I took Danor’s hand and began to walk her and the swan quickly away.
“It’s happened at last,” she said, very low.
“It certainly did. I bet the flashes will be blazing with it tonight.”
“Have a body change,” she said. “Come back a female. Then he won’t have the gall to fight you.”
“What does it matter?” I said. “It’s my fault for starting it off with Hergal. And in any case, if he shoves his crackpot pseudo-steel fencing foil right through me, the Limbo Tub will have me back on my feet in no time, right?”
“But, ooma,” she began, “don’t you see—”
“Yes,” I said.
I saw. If Zirk really meant what he said, and melodramatically stabbed me to the heart, it would be the first intended murder committed on our planet for over sixty rorls.
5
Somewhere about then, I made a decision. I decided that if Zirk and I were really going to that sort of limit—a killing—he was going to have to kill me. The decision was rational, which was rather a joke, since I have always been an emotional and impulsive character. I can think in straight lines, but, when it comes to the point, I find myself running about in circles, as usual. However, the thing with Zirk was that if anyone received the label “murderer,” it wasn’t going to be me. Zirk had, after all, so far led a fairly blameless Jang career—an excess of suicides and body changes, a measure of dome sabotage, and a nervous breakdown or two—but these were all perfectly normal as far as the Committee was concerned. I, on the other hand…Oh no, I wasn’t taking any chances.
Yet there was something working against me, something I’d never have reckoned on.
I’d forgotten that, ever since that last compulsory body change twelve vreks before which followed the historic swooning, I hadn’t suicided once. In itself this was fairly untypical, particularly since formerly I’d been one of the worst offenders, constantly drowning in order to acquire a new exterior. But suicide had become unappealing to me after that traumatic time; now I waited the prescribed thirty units between each change, and anyway, hardly ever did change. What was this? Could it be that I, even in the safe cities, had acquired an antique and obsolete fear of death? Or was it rather, perhaps, that somehow, somewhere along the stony path of my pathetic Janghood, I had evolved, despite everything, a life-wish?
And for the record also, for about a vrek I had been indulging in fencing practice, off and on, at the Adventure Palace. Presumably Zirk had taken a course, too, but really, built as he was, a power axe was far better suited to his style than a poetic slender sword, weapon of emaciated princes and dreamers.
Dawn takes place always at the same split each day, prophesied always by the same streamers of rose and ember, and the identical singing of mechanical, light-reactive birds, dumped here and there in the parks and gardens. Imported real birds from BOO ignore dome-dawn with lofty disdain, and, having witnessed an authentic desert sunrise or two, I don’t blame them.
The jade leaves of the jade-trees of Ilex Park glowed and flashed under the pink sky. Long, black-green shadows were creeping down the slopes, and a little artificial ground mist—most artistic—was smoking about in the grottoes and groves.
As I approached the west corner, however, I began to hear the hubbub.
I won’t say my heart sank. It had been fairly sunk for hours, what with the depression that had set in at the thought of letting that moron Zirk impale me. But a cryogenic sensation idled up my guts like a cold snake out for a walk. Of course, odds on there would be a crowd, after Zirk’s public fashion of announcing our plans. This, though, sounded as if half the city had crammed itself into the park, and I wasn’t in the mood for making a spectacle of myself in front of forty million sensation-seeking thalldraps.
Just then I came to the carefully sculptured avenue that leads down to the west, the sun behind me. And out of the trees nipped Doval, Zirk’s out-circle Jang friend, afire with enthusiasm and importance.
“Attlevey,” he drawled. “Got your svork?”
“Sword. Yes, I do.”
“And your seconds?”
I looked at him sourly. Zirk really had been reading things up.
“No.”
“Well, you ought to have seconds,” said Doval. “Zirk has.”
“Let me guess,” I guessed. “You and Hergal.”
“Kley and Hergal,” Doval announced loftily.
“Female seconds aren’t generally allowed,” I said, “not if Zirk wants to follow the old customs accurately. Or has Kley changed?”
“No,” said Doval. “She’s just slavering to see you gutted.”
“How sweet of her,” I said.
We walked down the avenue together, Doval eyeing my fine-honed silver-of-steel sword with contempt inadequately masking his interest. The house robots, which can be quite versatile with a bit of re-programming here and there, had made the sword yesterday. They had been making my clothes and other gear for two vreks.
“Danor not with you?” inquired Doval.
“Something wrong with your eyes, Doval?”
Danor had been tense and pale, so last night I’d slipped a minor soporific in her snow-in-gold, and left her sleeping. The swan was firmly anchored to the bed, its beak stuffed three inches deep in a plate of swan-food.
The noise of the crowd was impressive now, and as we emerged from the trees into the clearing Zirk had elected for our duel, most of my fears were realized.
The bulk of the onlookers were Jang. Glittering and giggling, shoving, pushing, and gulping their pills, an enchanting picture they made. The air was full of their bees, bringing them mirrors and scent and cigars and wine and meals and pets. And every so often the bees would ram each other, and Joyousness and bright-blue kicking animals would rain upon the press below. Zirk, Hergal, Doval, and Kley between them had recruited their own bees to erect a temporary fence to hold the crowd back from the clearing. Some terraces went up on the north and east sides, so they would all get quite a decent view, damn them.
Zirk himself was sitting on a big platinum chair, stripped to the waist. Somewhere in his reading he had been led astray, for he was wearing a rather peculiar helmet, brazen greaves and so on. Need I say he looked magnificent? Because he did, and also a complete idiot. Kley, in spiky gold with gilt dragon heads pasted over her nipples, was honing Zirk’s sword personally, and sparks were flying. Hergal lounged in the shade, handsomely bored. I could see he was regretting the inconvenience already—was I worth all this trouble? The rest of the circle were there too. Thinta in pale-green see-through with a cat or two hooked on; Mirri, a male for once, being very obviously married to Thinta and making sure I noticed it. I even detected Hatta by a blunder of scarlet among the glass shrubbery.
Doval strutted up to Zirk and said something. Zirk grinned, Hergal yawned. The circle clustered together and looked at me out of their cozy togetherness. Then Mirri detached himself and came over.
“I’ve said I’ll be your second, since you haven’t got one, you thalldrap.”
Hatta, tripoddling up behind on his three legs, said:
“Me, too. You may need us.”
“May I?”
“Zirk will rip you in shreds,” said Mirri, twisting his mustache playfully. “So you’re going to have a painful time till you get to Limbo.”
Everyone seemed so certain Zirk was going to finish me that I suppose I might have relaxed with a happy sigh and just let events take their course. However, I’ve never been a lover
of pain—I’m a whimpering coward, in fact—and I could just see me, bleeding slowly and agonizingly away in the silk-grass while Kley or somebody misled the robot rescue planes just long enough to make sure I got the most out of it. Naturally, you couldn’t really fool them, and they’d save me in the end; they always do. But for someone who flies to the medicinal-salve-dispenser for a hangnail, the prospect was unpleasing.
“Aren’t you pale?” said Mirri “Scared?”
“Shut up,” said Hatta. “If you’re his second, you’re supposed to be on his side.”
I won’t say Hatta’s loyalty touched me, but his stolid sense of fairness certainly brought a note of humor to the drumdik scene.
The Jang crowd, meanwhile, were setting up a hooting howl for us to begin. Zirk stood up and cracked his muscles loudly. Doval, primed in the formalities, came over and offered me wine, which I refused. Zirk swilled his mouth and spat, all brutal, on the quartz flowers. Then he marched into the clearing’s center and Kley brought him the sword. It was a sort of cleaver, notched here and there to suggest previous (nonexistent) fights. Zirk had certainly caught the spirit of the thing.
I, modest sword in hand, joined him.
“Right,” said Zirk. “To the death. Agreed?”
He really was about twice the size of me, and, for a couple of splits, I wished I’d done as he suggested, and got Limbo to fit me up with a new heroic body. His sword was definitely nasty, and bloodlust gleamed in his eye. And there stood my lovable circle, hoping for, and anticipating, my demise. My vitals turned over and icy sweat threatened my brow. But I nodded and smiled in true histrionic fashion.
“Ready when you are, floop.”
And sword clanged on sword, as they say. Sword also clanged on air and tree bole—Zirk’s sword, that is. I’d temporarily forgotten how much more agile slight, poetic me was than this musclebound freak. Besides, I had the art of it somewhat, while he obviously believed he only had to swing at me heartily and presently he’d cleave me from crown to crotch. Which, left to himself, he probably would have done eventually. But he wasn’t left to himself, not quite. Two things had happened. Some of the skill I’d learned over my vreks of practice-fencing asserted itself automatically. I found myself parrying and riposting very adequately in all directions on a pure reflex. Additionally, my peerless cowardice had turned into a bright-red anger, which mounted and blazed the longer I fought him. It wasn’t like any of those noble fighting dreams I’d ever programmed for myself. I was just shaking and snarling with fury at the mean-mindedness of them, the way they’d ejected their stupid little poison-sacs at me. Maybe, too, there was something of the old rage on me, the rage against our whole way of living, our mores and our superficial codes.
It was quite warm by now, and I could just hear the squealing and yelping of the Jang crowd beyond the barrier—experiencing our battle secondhand, as we all did most events—but everything seemed to be coming from miles off.
Just then the edge of Zirk’s cleaver slashed diagonally over my chest. It bit through velvet and satin-of-steel shirt, and through me.
There was no pain for a moment, as if my body didn’t realize what had happened to it. Then the pain did come, a white zinging pain from shoulder to ribs. It felt as if he had laid bare tissue and bone, but there was no chance to look, luckily. Blood, my blood, was running exuberantly from the wound, as if it had been waiting for ages only for a chance to get free of the skin envelope, and now, burbling to itself, fled like the kids at hypno-school at midperiod.
I knew enough to guess that the more I bled, the less chance I had of getting Zirk. Which was splendid, wasn’t it? Just what I wanted?
Then I saw Zirk’s face.
It had tightened, knotted up. It had a look of alarm, even of fright. He was a mirror. I saw what I had become by looking at him. And I understood then that I was going to kill him. Strive as I might, I couldn’t stop myself.
I don’t know how long it took. Not long, I suppose. From the moment I admitted my desires, I seemed to open up and catch fire. I didn’t feel any danger from him. I found after that he’d nicked me again once or twice, but nothing like the first time. At this stage I was driving him back, the way you drive a reluctant house machine back into the wall, back and back.
Suddenly he collided with a tree. His arms went wide, he aimed a mad blow at me and missed me, and I went in under his arm, catching him hard in the thigh. He screamed in agony, a deep bellowing scream, connected with his bulk. It was like a cry out of prehistory indeed. It seemed to silence the whole city, let alone the crowd in Ilex Park.
I could have left him like that, to pump out his life there, as I thought he’d have left me. But instinct, which had possessed me, was too thorough, too clean. As he was falling, eyes rolling, mouth stretched over his teeth, I struck at his heart. He made no other sound, merely crashed like a colossus in the silk-grass, his weight tearing the sword from my hand. I could never have come near his heart unless he’d been on the way down; he was too tall.
6
They flew at me in unison, and at once.
“What a fight!” said Mirri, squeezing my arm, and I could see his male eyes already looking forward to the next female session he planned with me. “What a fight!”
Thinta and her cats meowed in my ears, which were beginning to din thickly:
“Ooma, are you all right?”
“He’s excellent,” said Kley. “That hulking dope didn’t stand a chance.”
Even Doval was smirking: “Ever so good.”
Only Hergal wasn’t there—looking green, he’d gone behind a tree. I could conjecture how he felt. There was no triumph now, only a grizzly, clammy horror, heightened by the extraordinary attitude of my friends, not to mention the crowd, most of whom were dissolving into hysterics of nausea or delight. The blood loss was telling also, and any split I was going to repeat my famous action of twelve vreks ago, and faint dead at their spangled feet.
Above, dimly heard by me, the wailing of robot sirens as the rescue squad homed in on Zirk. The sirens seemed to fill my lungs and push them out of my temples. Then a solid bulk inserted itself between me and the black pit I was about to fall backward into. Some kind of strong hand got hold of me, and I became aware, through the swarming black stars that were invading my eyes, of a scarlet presence on my left.
“Hang on to me,” said Hatta in a voice so full of conspiracy that a feeble laugh reverberated my shattered frame. “Or do you fancy being carted to Limbo too, along with Zirk’s last body?”
“No thanks. Hatta, you’re amazing.”
Hatta got me around, and we began to make it toward the avenue and away from the clearing. Not even Thinta, apparently, tried to stop us; maybe they were fascinated with the approaching Limbo team—I was too far gone to see or care.
Hatta, three-legged monster that he was, managed me reasonably well, but somewhere on the avenue I imagine I dropped in my tracks, for the next thing I knew I was hanging over his unrestful balloon shoulder, and we were jogging along at a cracking pace.
“Hatta,” I mumbled, “do you have to run so fast? Two legs would be bad enough.”
“Clearly,” said Hatta, “you don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”
“I think so.”
“Then if you know, you’ll know why I’m going fast.”
My head swam with the motion of our career. I could no longer feel the wound of Zirk’s sword. I must have said so, for Hatta panted:
“I put stuff on it, of course. Now quiet.”
Quiet came, black as the mountains of the desert, soft as Danor’s hair.
7
I woke to find the swan seated on my belly, dulcetly singing: “You are the wonderful sun of my sky.” I took this initially as a sentimental gesture of concern for me on the swan’s part, and was quite moved, until I recollected that this particular ditty seemed to be its method of
calling for help. I struggled up and discovered, sure enough, that it had got its leash—snapped again—tangled around the bed legs, and was slowly strangling. I released it with some difficulty, and it strode out in search of Danor or food, or both.
The windows had been clouded. I cleared them. Outside it was night, the sky glowing with stars and flash signs.
I felt almost normal, and the sword slash had healed completely in response to Hatta’s quick-cure salve. It could only have been a flesh wound after all, though a bad one.
Hatta had apparently brought me home, also. A noble gesture, or maybe he was just nosy and/or after Danor.
There was no sign of either of them, but, following a split or two during which I warded off urgent robot plates with viands and noticed that the recluse switch was firmly depressed, I picked up the sound of their voices in the garden.
For some reason, or perhaps it was obvious, I guessed they were talking about me, so I sneaked toward the door and leaned there.
It was a strange sight, an azure angel in conversation with a red balloon, and, midway between them, the swan staring up at the dome-sky in a bemused yet creative fashion, as if trying to fathom the secrets of the universe.
“It’s all so silly,” Danor was saying vehemently. “So stupid, so silly, like everything else.”
“It may be,” said Hatta, “but the fact remains that it’s a Committee order.”
“It must have happened before,” said Danor, “sometime.”
“Never, they say. At least, not on city record. The notion of crime has been abolished for rorls, so they don’t know what to do. That means they’ll invent things, and that means a superlative screwup.”
Stunned by Hatta’s perception, rancor, and colourful choice of words, I emerged on the marble terrace, and Danor jumped guiltily.
“What Committee order?” I inquired.
But they burst out, Danor:
“How could you leave me behind like that?”