The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015

by Paula Guran

  She was nine years old. Taraxin was fifteen. They had what was left of the clothes the Supervisors of the poor had issued them with, and Taraxin had a small hammer he’d found beside the road and never got around to handing in to the overseers. She remembered him looking at her oddly and saying: Now, what can we do to feed ourselves with just a hammer?

  She remembered their first victim very clearly, she told me. After they left the transportation camp, they walked for two days across the desert until they came to a small group of houses built where the road crossed a small stream running down out of the mountains. There was an inn—not what we’d think of as an inn nowadays, she said, it was a place where caravans of traveling merchants bartered a little of what they were carrying in return for food, shelter, and fodder for their animals. Most of the traffic was big parties of men and oxen, but there were a few small-time traders, men on their own, staggering along under a huge bale of flax or a big jar of wine or butter, and the occasional hunter, walking to and from the city with furs, skins, and feathers. The man they killed—they didn’t mean to, but it was Taraxin’s maiden effort and he didn’t know how hard to hit—was a bird-catcher. He’d been snaring finches with limed sticks in the foothills of the mountain, and had a bale stuffed full of blue and yellow feathers, the sort that fine ladies in town liked to decorate their hats with. They hadn’t realized that, of course. They’d been hiding in the ditch beside the road for most of the day, and only big caravans had gone past, no single men on their own. The bird-catcher had been the first, and they’d assumed that the huge fat bag he was carrying on his head was flour or something like that. When they pulled it open and found nothing but feathers, they were heartbroken.

  Still, you learn from your mistakes, as their mother used to say, and they made sure the next man was carrying something they could eat. Butter, as it turned out. He had a jar almost as tall as he was, sort of carrot-shaped, with ropes rigged through the handles to make it easier to carry. Taraxin didn’t hit quite so hard this time, and the butter-man was still breathing when they left him, carrying the jar between them, since it was too heavy for Taraxin to lift on his own. They didn’t stop till they found a cave in the mountainside. Then they gorged themselves on white salted butter until they couldn’t bear to eat another handful.

  There was still quite a lot left, and they didn’t want to waste it, that would be sinful. Taraxin said they should carry it to the nearest town and sell it. She was afraid, someone might recognize the jar, she thought, or what if the man had recovered and made it to the town, and told everyone there that he’d been robbed on the road? Taraxin laughed at her. One jar of butter’s very much like another, he said. If they were stopped and questioned, all they’d have to say was that they’d found it abandoned beside the road.

  Where they’d gone wrong, the jailer explained to her later, was in not killing the man they robbed. The jailer was a kind man at heart; he had a daughter about the same age as her, and he thought it was a shame that she was to be hung in the morning, even if she was guilty of robbery and murder. It was, he told her, a mistake so many novices made. Just silly sentimentality, he said. After all, the penalties for murder and robbery with violence were the same; dead men tell no tales, whereas merely wounded ones make excellent witnesses for the prosecution. Never say die, though, he urged her. There was always the chance of a last-minute reprieve, though the new Prince didn’t go in for them much, not like his father. Still, the jailer said, that’s progress for you.

  I don’t know how she managed to sleep that nighy. I don’t usually get much sleep in condemned cells, believe me. But I guess if it’s your first time, and you’re worn out with fear and worry, I can see how it’s possible. Anyway, she fell asleep, and she had a dream.

  She remembers asking: Are you my mother?

  Not in the sense you mean, the dream said. I look like her because you want me to. But your mother was a stupid woman. I can be your new mother. I’m not stupid.

  She said: What would be the point? They’re going to hang me in the morning.

  The dream smiled. Once upon a time, she said, there was a blind girl. One day her true mother came to her and said, look at the pretty flowers. I can’t, the girl said, I’m blind. No, said her true mother, your eyes are shut. Open them. And the girl did, and she saw the flowers. They can only hang you if you let them, and even if they do, it won’t matter. They can’t kill you.

  She remembered thinking, that doesn’t make sense. But she asked the dream: So she wasn’t blind after all?

  No, said the dream, because her true mother taught her to open her eyes. I’m your true mother. I can teach you lots of things.

  Such as?

  But the dream shook her head. That’s not important, she said. You’ll come to understand that. When you can do anything, details don’t matter. What matters is that you accept me as your true mother.

  All right, she remembers saying. I accept you. Now what?

  The dream laughed. Say it again.

  I accept you, she said.

  And again. You have to say it three times.

  I accept you, she said. All right?

  The dream sighed happily. Yes, she said, everything is now all right. I bestow upon you, and you agree to accept, the power of the witches, to have and to use, forever and ever. Now, the dream went on briskly, do you know what that means?

  No.

  I assumed you didn’t, said the dream. But that doesn’t matter, it’s done now. Think about your life.

  I’d rather not, she remembers saying. What’s this power you keep talking about?

  Think, said the dream, about your life. All your life, you and everyone around you, have tried to do the right thing, from your mother to the Prince. Is that right?

  She shrugged. I guess so.

  All your family’s dead. They killed your whole family. In the morning, they’re going to kill you. Now, would you say that was fair, or just? Was it the right thing?

  She thought about that. I don’t know, she said. No, I don’t think it was.

  I don’t either, said the dream. So, good intentions made bad things happen. Now then, what happened when you stole the butter? What was the first thing you did?

  We ate it.

  The dream nodded. You were hungry. You ate the butter. Was that good?

  She remembers saying, I suppose so, yes. We were hungry, then we weren’t. That was good.

  Ah, said the dream, and she remembers thinking: I said the right thing. Now then, said the dream, did you intend to steal the butter? Did you intend to hit the butter-man and hurt him?

  Yes.

  So, said the dream, from a bad intention a good thing came about. You ate the butter. If you hadn’t, you’d probably have died. From an evil intention came forth good.

  Yes, but—She stopped. She was confused. What does all that mean?

  It means, said the dream, that you don’t have to die tomorrow. Name me a good thing. Name me the best thing.

  She remembers thinking. She remembers remembering what she’d been taught, when she was a little girl. Love, she said. Love is the best thing.

  I see, said the dream. Have you ever loved anyone?

  Of course, she said. My family. My mother and father, my sister, my brothers. Taraxin. Of course.

  Yes, said the dream. And how did you feel when they all died?

  Very bad, she said. Very, very bad.

  Of course, said the dream. Love, the best thing, made you feel very, very bad. It always has. Love is in fact the worst thing, the very worst thing, because it can hurt us more than anything else, more than fire or a broken arm or childbirth. Love is worse than death, because it carries on hurting the living. Love is the worst thing of all, because we always lose the people we love, and it hurts so very much. Is that true?

  Yes, she said. Yes, that’s true.

  But the dream smiled at her. I have given you, the dream said, the power of the witches. No one you love need ever die again. Now then, she w
ent on, isn’t that a good thing?

  If it’s true.

  It’s true, the dream said. I wouldn’t lie to you, I’m your true mother. You have the power of the witches. The power is the only good thing. The only good thing is being able to do whatever you want. Everything else is bad, everything else is hurtful and evil. Only the power of the witches is good. Good is being able to do everything you want. Do you understand me?

  If it’s true.

  Oh, you’re hopeless, said the dream, and then she woke up.

  She remembers thinking: It was only a dream. That made her feel sad. She thought: I wish it hadn’t just been a dream. I wish I could make that door fly open, so I could walk out of here and be free.

  The door flew open.

  She remembers staring at it for a while, then thinking, I must still be asleep. But she got up and went to the door, peered round it. The corridor outside was empty. She thought: I can’t just walk out, I’m not supposed to, it’s not allowed. Then she remembered what the dream had told her. She walked out of the cell and down the corridor until she came to another door. She smiled at it, and it opened.

  On the other side of the door was a jailer. He swung round and stared at her. She thought: I hate the jailers, they keep people locked up and take them to be hanged. I wish this man’s head would burst, like a big white spot when you squeeze it. And the jailer’s head burst, and his brains splashed on the wall, and she walked on past him.

  I must find Taraxin, she thought. At first she didn’t know where to look, then a picture formed in her mind, and suddenly she wasn’t in the corridor any more, she was outside, in the square. She looked up at the great arch that led out into the main street of the city, and saw Taraxin’s head, stuck on a rusty iron spike. His mouth and eyes were open and he looked terrified. She stared at it for a while, then walked under the arch and out into the street.

  That night she slept in a warm bed in an inn. The dream came to her. Well? said the dream.

  You lied to me, she remembers saying. Taraxin’s dead. I loved him best of all. You said nobody I loved would ever die.

  He was dead already, the dream said. But from now on, it’ll be different. You have the power of the witches, which is the only good thing. From now on, nobody you love will ever die.

  She smiled at the dream. I’m still asleep, aren’t I? she said. Soon I’ll wake up and be back in prison.

  The dream said: Maybe. But if so, the trick is not to wake up.

  She frowned. That sounds very clever, she said, but I’m not sure if it means anything.

  The dream looked at her. Let’s assume, she said, that the power of the witches is only a dream. In dreams, things happen that can’t possibly happen, like magic. In dreams, the people we love who have died can come back to us. In dreams, we can do whatever we want. But the power of the witches is no dream, it’s real.

  Is it? Is it really?

  Oh yes. Provided you don’t wake up.

  And then (she told me) she woke up. And, to make absolutely sure, she made the bed lift off the floor and fly around the room.

  One thing, while I think of it. After the revolution, when the Republic was overthrown and Victorinus II established the Directorate, they set up a Truth & Justice Commission to grant posthumous pardons to all the so-called traitors who’d been executed over the last three hundred years or so. My poor father, God rest him, was pardoned and declared a Hero of the People, and there’s a small statue tucked away in the northeastern corner of the Shambles. It doesn’t look a bit like him, needless to say.

  I remember one night, back when we were still talking to each other. We’d just stolen HS320,000 from the Sashan provincial treasury in Ormiget. There was so much gold bullion in our tiny room next to the stables in the inn that we were having to perch on the edge of the washstand.

  “She was wrong,” I told her. “It can’t just be a dream, because I’m in it, and I know I’m awake.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a shared dream.”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “True,” she conceded. “But there’s no such thing as magic, either.”

  I wasn’t having that. “If it’s a dream,” I said, “then it’s my dream, and you’re not really real. And that would make you the girl of my dreams. Which you are,” I added politely. “But I think you’re real.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “In which case,” I concluded triumphantly, “it’s not a dream. In which case,” I went on, “she was wrong. She was misleading you.”

  She shook her head. “She wouldn’t do that,” she said. “She’s my true mother.”

  Circular argument. “Have you seen her since?” I asked.

  She sighed. “No,” she said. “Well, once. At least, I’m not sure. I did see her, but I think I was dreaming. A real dream,” she explained, “rather than a—well, a vision.”

  I ate a honey-cake. Sashan cuisine isn’t really my thing, but I do love their honey-cakes. “She’s still wrong,” I said.

  “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

  “She’s wrong,” I maintained, “when she says there’s no good or evil, just doing what you want. That’s been comprehensively disproved, loads of times. The third book of Saloninus’ Contradictions—”

  She yawned. “It’s not doing what you want,” she said, “it’s being able to do what you want, there’s a difference. And it can’t be disproved, because it’s true. And I met Saloninus once, and he was an idiot.”

  I stared at her. “You met Saloninus?”

  “The way I see it,” she said, “is, the power of the witches is the—what’s the expression? It’s the exception that proves the rule. The rule applies to everybody except us. The fact that we’re the only exceptions proves that the rule is valid. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  “You never told me you met Saloninus.”

  I remember opening my eyes. The light hurt, really badly. I thought, oh hell.

  She was looking down at me. She looked so terribly sad. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  I can’t remember her ever looking more beautiful, even though her eyes were red from crying. “I’m alive,” I said. “Am I all here?”

  She nodded. “I really am so sorry,” she said. “I guess I never realized you were so unhappy. I thought—”

  “What?”

  “I thought it was just—well, because you weren’t getting what you wanted. I thought, I must not be understanding you right. I’d assumed that what you wanted to do was rob people. You did always say that deep down, you’re a thief.”

  I did say that, as it happens.

  “So,” she went on, “I thought, if we go around stealing lots of money from the biggest treasuries and banks and places in the whole world, that’ll make him happy. I thought that was what you wanted, that and being young and having a beautiful girl and never having to worry about getting caught or getting hurt or dying. I thought that was all you wanted.”

  “Did you now.”

  She wiped away a tear with her knuckle. I’d never seen her cry before. “Because being able to do anything you want is the only good thing. She said so.”

  “What I want,” I said, slowly and gently, “is to be rid of you.”

  Then I went out into the street. She didn’t try and stop me. About twenty yards from the inn door, I paused and concentrated on the back of my neck. No bite. Not even an itch.

  I walked around for a while; found myself in a wine-shop. I’d had a drink or two, not enough to signify, when I realized someone was staring at me. A fat man with curly white hair, about sixty years old, in an expensive red gown with a fur collar. He couldn’t take his eyes off me.

  That rang warning bells, obviously. But I was in the sort of mood where you simply don’t care. I had another drink, then got up and went and joined the fat man. He didn’t lower his eyes or look away.

  “Something I can do for you?” I asked.

  He was still gazing at me. “Sure,
” he said. “Sit down, let me buy you a drink.”

  “Got one, thanks,” I said. “Do I know you, or something?”

  That made him laugh. “Now that,” he said, “is a bloody good question. On balance, I’m guessing no, you don’t. Question is, do I know you?”

  “Well?”

  “And I can’t. It’s impossible. Still, it’s the damnedest thing.” He poured himself a small drink of the house white and nibbled at it. As far as I could tell, he was perfectly sober. “You look just like someone I met once,” he said.

  “Oh yes?”

  “Just like.” He grinned. “So you can’t be him,” he went on, “because that was nearly forty years ago. You’re, what, nineteen?”

  I shrugged. “I’m a fairly common type,” I said.