Nebula Awards Showcase 2001: The Year's Best SF and Fantasy Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

by Robert Silverberg

  That depended on which Powers, Cappen thought. He knew of some—But they were elsewhere, gods and tutelaries of lands less stark than this.

  The drink was buzzing in his head. Dismay shocked through. Why am I jesting? It’s my life on the table tonight!

  Slowly, Deghred nodded. The one sensible thing for his caravan to do was retreat, wait out the winter, and cut its losses as much as might be. Wasn’t it?

  And absolute lunacy for Cappen Varra. Once he was back in the Empire, he himself would not bet a counterfeit lead bawbee on his chance of getting away again. The alert was out for him. If nobody else noticed first, one or another of his fellow travelers was bound soon to hear the description and betray him for the reward. Fleeing into the hinterlands or diving into some thieves’ den would hardly buy enough time. Though his amulet might keep Nerigo’s demons off his direct track, they could invisibly watch and listen to others, everywhere, and report everything suspicious to the sorcerer.

  Stay here in Khangaii? Surely the villagers could feed one extra mouth. He’d pay them well, with arts and shows, entertainments such as they’d never enjoyed before, keeping heart in them through the grim time ahead.

  Maybe they’d agree. Then maybe he’d starve or freeze to death along with so many of them. Or maybe Nerigo would get word of a vagabond who’d joined the men of Arechoum and stayed behind when they returned. He was not yet too far beyond the Imperial marches for a squad to come after him as soon as the ways became at all passable.

  Deghred barked a harsh laugh. “Yes, most certainly not to dicker and quibble with a female already incensed,” he said. “That would be to throw oil on a fire.” He sighed. “Very well, we’ll load up again tomorrow and betake ourselves hence. May we find it well with the High Folk when we come back.”

  The younger wife moaned softly in the shadows and clutched two of the children to her.

  Let her live, Cappen thought wildly. She’s beautiful. Several of them that I’ve spied here are, in their way. Though I don’t suppose I can beguile any—

  His heart leaped. His legs followed. The others stared as he sprang to his feet. “No, wait!” he cried. “Wait only a little span. A few days more at most. I’ve an idea to save us!”

  “What, you?” demanded Deghred, while his traders gaped and Bulak scowled. “Has a yawanna taken your wits? Or have you not understood what we were saying, how easily we can give the Lady offense and bring her fury straight against us?”

  “I have, I have,” Cappen answered frantically. “My thought is nothing like that. Any risk will be wholly my own, I swear. Only hearken to me.”

  Risk indeed. A notion born out of half-drunken desperation, maybe. But maybe, also, sired by experience.

  He called up coolness, to be a wellspring for a spate of eager, cozening words such as a bard and showman had better always be able to produce.

  Day came bleak and bright. Washed clean, newly smooth-shaven, wearing the finest warm raiment to be found in the caravan’s goods—plumed cap of purple satin, scarlet cloak, green tunic embroidered with gold and trimmed with sable, dark-blue hose, buskins of tooled leather—with a small harp in his hand from the same source, he left the village behind and made his way on up the path toward the heights. Wind whistled. Far overhead, a hawk rode it. The chill whipped his face. He hardly felt it, nor any weariness after sleepless hours. He was strung too taut.

  But when he reached the cairn they had told him of, from which rose a pole and flew an often-renewed white banner, while a narrow trail wound off to the left, an abrupt sense of how alone he was hollowed him out. Though he seldom thought about it, his wish was to die, sometime in the distant future, with a comrade or two and a girl or three to appreciate his gallantry and his last quip.

  He stiffened his sinews and summoned up his blood. He must not seem to be afraid, so best was to convince himself that he wasn’t. Think rather of this as a unique challenge.

  The trail went across the mountainside, near the edge of a cliff sheering down into dizzy depths. Elsewhere the land reached vast and tilted, here and there a meadow amidst the rock. A waterfall gleamed like a sword across the gorge. Its booming came faintly through the wind.

  Before long he reached the altar where they prayed and sacrificed to Aiala, a great boulder squared off and graven with eroded symbols. Cappen saw few if any other traces of man. No sacred smoke, but thin gust-borne streamers of dry snow blew past. Here, though, if anywhere, she should quickly discern any worshipper.

  He took stance before the block and turned his gaze aloft. Give her a short time to see, perhaps to wonder, perhaps even to admire.

  The air shrilled.

  Cappen tucked gloves into belt and positioned the harp. His fingers evoked the first chord. He began to sing.

  It was a song he had used more than once over the years, usually to good effect. Of course, it must be adapted to each occasion, even rendered into a different language, and he had lain awake working on it. However, if she really did know all human tongues, he could simplify the task by staying with the original Caronnais. If not, or if he was mistaken about her femaleness—He wouldn’t weaken his delivery by fretting about that. He sang loud and clear:

  “Be merciful, I pray, and hear my cry

  Into the winds that you command. I know

  That I am overbold, but even so

  Adore the one whose queendom is the sky,

  In awe of whom the moonlit night-clouds fly,

  Who dances in the sunlight and the snow,

  Who brings the springtime, when the freshets flow

  And all the world goes green beneath her eye.

  Yet worship is not that which makes me call

  Upon you here, and offer up my heart.

  Although I, mortal, surely cannot woo

  As man to maiden, still, I have seen all—

  No, just a little, but at least a part—

  Of that alive enchantment which is you.”

  And she came to him.

  “—However, speak,” she said.

  He suppressed a shiver. Now he must be as glib as ever in his life. “First, will my lady permit that I resume my cap and gloves and pull my cloak around me? It’s mortal cold for a mortal.”

  Again something like amusement flickered briefly. She nodded. “Then say what is your name, your home, and your errand.”

  “May it please my lady, the caravaneers I travel with know me as Peor Sardan of Lorace.” He was clearly from such parts. “But you of the high heavens surely recognize that this cannot be quite so.” Really? Well, anyhow, outright prevarication could be hazardous and should be unnecessary. She won’t deign to give me away. If she chooses to destroy me, she’ll do it herself. Battered to death by hailstones—? “My motherland is farther west and south, the kingdom of Caronne, and I hight Cappen Varra, born to the noble house of Dordain. As for my errand, I have none fixed, being a wanderer—in spite of the birth I mentioned—who wishes to see something of the world and better his fortune before turning home. Rather, that was my only wish until this happy day.”

  “Yes, I’ve spied the pack train,” said Aiala scornfully. “You hope I’ll grant you better weather.”

  “Oh, my lady! Forgive me, but no. Who am I to petition you? Nor am I in their enterprise. I simply took what appeared to be an opportunity to visit their country, of which go many fabulous accounts. Now I see this for the velleity it was.” He made his look upon her half shy, half aglow. “Here I find the fulfillment of my true and lifelong desire.”

  Was she taken a bit aback? At any rate, her manner grew less forbidding. “What do you mean?”

  Cappen gestured from beneath his cloak. “Why, my lady, what else than the praise of Woman? She, the flower of earthly creation, in her thousandfold dear incarnations, no wine so sweet or heady as her presence, she is the meaning of my existence and my poor verses in her honor are its justification. Yes, I have found her and sung to her in many a land, from the soft vales of Caronne to the stern fjords of
Norren, from a fisher but on Ocean shore to a palace in Sanctuary, and my thought was to seek her anew in yonder realm, perhaps some innocent maiden, perhaps some wise enchantress, how can I know before she has kindled my heart?”

  “You are . . . a flighty one, then.” She did not sound disapproving—what constancy has the wind?—but as though intrigued, even puzzled.

  “Also, my very love drives me onward. For see you, my lady, it is Woman herself for whom I quest. While often wondrous, no one woman is more than mortal. She has, at most, a few aspects of perfection, and they changeable as sun-sparkles on the river that is time. Otherwise, the flaws of flesh, the infirmities of insight, the narrowness of dailiness belong to being human. And I, all too human, lack strength and patience to endure such thwarting of the dream for long. The yearning overtakes me and I must be off again in search of that prize which common sense tells me is unattainable but the spirit will not ever quite let me despair of.”

  Not bad, Cappen thought. By now he half believed it.

  “I told you to speak in few words.” Aiala didn’t say that quite firmly.

  “Ah, would that I could give you obedience in this as I shall in all else whatsoever,” Cappen sighed into the wind. “Dismiss me, and of course I will depart, grieving and yet gladsome over what has been vouchsafed me. But until then I can no more curb my tongue than I can quell my heart. For I have glimpsed the gates of my goal, loftier and more precious than any knight before me can have beheld, and I jubilate.”

  “And never before have I—” escaped from her. She recalled her savage dignity. “Clarify this. I’ll not stand here the whole day.”

  “Certainly not. The heights and the heavens await your coming. But since you command me, I can relate quite plainly that, hitherbound, I heard tell of my lady. Beyond, perhaps over and above her majesty and mightiness, the tales were of visions, dazzlements, seen by an incredibly fortunate few through the centuries, beauty well-nigh too great to bear—and, more than that, a spirit lordly and loving, terrible and tender, mysterious and merry, life-bearing and life-nourishing—in short, Woman.”

  “You . . . had not seen me . . . earlier,” Aiala murmured.

  “But I had, fleetingly, fragmentarily, in dreams and longings. Here, I thought, must be Truth. For although there are doubtless other goddesses of whom something similar can be said, and I imply no least disrespect for any, still, Truth is One, is it not? Thus I strove to infer a little of the immortally living miracle I heard of. I wove these inferences into a humble tribute. I brought it to your halidom as my offering.

  “To do worship is an end and a reward in itself. I dared hope for no more. Now—my lady, I have seen that, however inadequate, my verse was not altogether wide of the mark. What better can an artist win than such a knowledge, for an hour of his few years on Earth? My lady, I can die content, and I thank you.”

  “You—need not die. Not soon. Go back to the plains.”

  “So we had decided, the caravaneers and I, for never would we defy our lady’s righteous wrath. Thence I will seek to regain my faraway birthland, that my countrymen too may be enriched by a hint of your glory. If I fall by the wayside—” Cappen shrugged. “Well, as I said, today my life has had overflowing measure.”

  She raised her brows. “Your road is dangerous?”

  “It is long, my lady, and at the outset—I left certain difficulties behind me in the Empire—trivial, but some people overreact. My plan had been to circumvent them by going roundabout through Arechoum. No matter. If the cosmic cycle requires that my lady decree an early winter throughout her mountains, I shall nevertheless praise her while blood beats within me.”

  “It’s not that.” Aiala bridled. The wind snarled. “No! I am not bound to a wheel! This is my will.”

  “Your wisdom.”

  “My anger!” she yelled. The storm in the west mounted swiftly higher. “I’ll show them! They’ll be sorry!”

  “They?” asked Cappen low.

  “Aye, they’ll mourn for that they mocked me, when the waters of Vanis lie frozen past the turning of the springtime, and the earth of Orun remains barren, and the fires of Lua smolder out because no dwellers are left alive to tend them.” Under his cloak, Cappen supressed a shudder. Yes, he thought, human rulers don’t take their subjects much into account either. “Then they’ll come to me begging my mercy, and I will grant it to them for a song.”

  I’m on the track. “But is it not my lady of the winds who sings to the world?” Cappen pursued, carefully, carefully.

  “So they’ll discover, when I laugh at their effort.”

  “I am bewildered. How could any being, divine or not, possibly quarrel with my lady?”

  Aiala paced to and fro. The wind strengthened, the dark clouds drew closer. After a stark minute she halted, looked straight at him, and said, “The gods fall out with each other now and then.” He forebore to mention that he well knew that. His need was for her to unburden herself. His notion that she was lonelier than she realized seemed the more likely when her tone calmed somewhat. “This—” She actually hesitated. “You may understand. You are a maker of songs.”

  “I am when inspired, my lady, as I was today.” Or whenever called for, but that was beside the immediate point.

  “You did well. Not that they could have appreciated it.”

  “A song was wanted among the gods?”

  Locks streamed and tumbled the more wildly as she nodded. “For a wedding, a divine marriage. Your countrymen must perceive it otherwise, but in these uplands it is Khaiantai who wakens at the winter solstice from her sleep, a virgin, to welcome Hurultan the Lightbearer, her bridegroom; and great is the rejoicing in Heaven and on Earth.”

  On Earth in better years, Cappen thought. Yes, the mythic event, forever new and forever recurrent. A chill passed up his spine. He concealed it as best he was able. “But . . . the occasion is not always the same?”

  “No. Is one day the same as the last? Time would come to a stop.”

  “So—the feast and—” his mind leaped—“gifts to the happy pair?”

  “Just so. Of us Four, Orun may bring fruits or gold, Vanis a fountain or a rainbow, Lua an undying lamp or a victorious sword—such things as pertain to them—while I have given an eagle or a fragrance or—We go there together; for we are the Four.”

  “But now lately—?”

  Her reasonableness began to break. “I had in mind a hymeneal song, like none heard before in those halls but often to be again. They agreed this would be a splendid gift. I created it. And then—” Elemental rage screamed through an icy blast.

  “And they did not comprehend it,” Cappen proposed.

  “They scoffed! They said it was so unworthy they would not come to the feast in my company if I brought it. They dare!”

  Cappen waited out the ensuing whirlwind. When Aiala had quieted down a grim trifle, he ventured, “My lady, this is often the fate of artists. I have learned how eloquence is meaningless to the word-blind, music and meter to the tone-deaf, subtlety to the blunt-brained, and profundity to the unlearned.”

  “Good names for these, Cappen Varra.”

  “I refer to no gods or other high Powers, my lady,” he made haste to reply. One never knew who or what might be listening. “No irreverence. Absolutely never! I speak merely of my small human experience and of people whom I actually pity more than despise—except, to be sure, when they set themselves up as critics. Yet even persons of unimpeachable taste and discernment can have differences of opinion. This is an unfortunate fact of life, to which I have become resigned.”

  “I will not be. Moreover, word has gotten about. If I come lamely in with something else than a song—No!” Aiala yowled. “They’ll learn respect when I avenge my pride with disasters like none since Chaos rebelled in the beginning.”

  “Ah—may that perhaps conceivably be just a minim extreme, my lady? Not that I can judge. Indeed, I am baffled to grasp how your colleagues could reject your epithalamium. The music of th
e wind pervades the world, lulling breeze, sough in forests, laughterful rain-squall, trumpeting gale, oh, infinite is its variety, and its very hushes are a part of the composition,” said Cappen with another sweeping gesture.

  She nearly thawed. “You, though, you understand me—” she breathed. “For the first time ever, someone—”

  He intended to go on in this vein until he had softened her mood enough for her to stop punishing the land. But she paused, then exclaimed, “Hear what I have made, and judge.”

  “Oh, my lady, I cannot!” gasped Cappen, aghast. “I’m totally unworthy, unfit, disqualified.”

  She smiled. “Be not afraid,” she said quite gently. “Only tell me what you think. I won’t take offense.”

  Too many others had insisted on declaiming their verses to him. “But, my lady, I don’t know, I cannot know the language of the gods, and surely your work would lose much in translation.”

  “Actually,” she said, “it’s in classical Xandran, as we’re wont to use when elegance is the aim.”

  He remembered white temples and exquisite sculptures in the South and West, too often ruinous, yet still an ideal for all successor peoples. Evidently the local deities felt that, while their worshippers might be barbarians, they themselves ought to display refinement. “But I also fear—I regret—my lady, I was not very dedicated to my schooling. My knowledge of Xandran was slight at best, and has largely rusted out of me.” True enough.

  Impulsive as her winds, she smiled afresh. “You shall have it back, and more.”

  “That would, er, take a while.”

  “No. Hear me. All tongues spoken by men anywhere are open to me.”

  Yes, so Bulak had said. How remote and unreal the Uryuk hut felt.

  “For the sake of your courteous words, Cappen Varra, and your doubtless keen judgment, I will bestow this on you.”

  He gaped. “How—how—And how can this weak little head of mine hold so overwhelmingly much?”