Bloodsong

by Melvin Burgess

  There was also heavy artillery hidden in the copse beyond the end of the garden, and missiles in a bunker under the edge of the hill in the bottom pasture. There was a network of underground passages, hiding places, tunnels and bunkers, a small hospital, storerooms, control rooms—everything that made up the muscles of power, wherever the powerful dwell. That rustic-looking farm that was their nearest neighbor on the other side of the beck was a barracks, housing a small but well armed and highly trained task force. In the nearby village, a battalion was stationed.

  Grimhild lived here permanently since war had broken out—her beloved children were scattered all over the country, running various operations. She watched the servants run the house and bit her tongue when they took liberties. It was the price she had to pay. She had her own work—secret things, kept out of sight. Now of all times it was important to keep copies of everything. Duplicates of duplicates; you never knew when they would be needed.

  When Sigurd arrived, she greeted him fondly, running out on her odd little legs, taking him by the hand and jumping up at him in little starts. Sigurd picked her up and they embraced, soldier and sorceress, man and dog, neither quite what they seemed. Then she led him inside and watched as he ate a sandwich, wagging her plumed tail whenever he looked up at her, barking in reply when he spoke.

  As he ate, Sigurd wondered—how much did Grimhild know, how much could she understand? It was something her children often talked about. The doctor who had first treated her after her accident told them she knew more than an ordinary dog, but he was being kind. Privately he suspected she couldn’t recognize much more than sit and lie down. They had all come to share this view. For kindness’s sake, Sigurd talked to her, since she wanted company and Gunar had told him that she liked it. He felt a bit of a fool at first, not knowing if he was talking to the air or not. Gudrun had once remarked that maybe she was better this way, a comment that puzzled him, but which he hadn’t had time to probe further. Had they known just how aware she was they might have warned him that she was prone to crazy little plans and secrets, but she had hidden herself more deeply than anyone could have guessed and no one thought to forewarn him.

  So he chatted on to Grimhild, talking for the sake of it. The journey over, fine. It was summer, the woods were full of birds—wasn’t it lovely, what a day! Summer. Sunlight. Sigurd sighed, thinking of who was missing this fine bright day, with its blue skies and bright high clouds. And the war ending, and how life can now begin. In another week or so, Grimhild, he’ll be taking off with the dragon skin. It was kept here, at the Old House, he was told, did she know if that was true?

  Grimhild hung out her tongue to dry and panted lightly, cocking her head to one side in that bright, inquisitive way dogs have, but she didn’t say a word or nod her head. Yes, he has someone to rescue, someone very dear to his heart—very dear. Isn’t it wonderful, the war is almost over? Wonderful! Sigurd stood up and smiled, suddenly overcome with it. Now death stops and life begins. Yes!

  “And Bryony will be with me!” he exclaimed, and he smiled down at the dog at his feet.

  Sigurd pulled a face, frustrated that there was no one there to share his joy with. When the war had broken out, he felt bereft. Now it was time for the real adventure to begin—love.

  Later, as he lay in the bath, there was that familiar tap at the window. Streaming water, Sigurd jumped up to let Jenny Wren in. It had been three days. He was scared that Bryony was in trouble.

  He need not have feared. There was a scrap of her vest, cut neatly away. Lately she had been sending him these shreds of her underwear. Fondly Sigurd imagined her wandering around down there naked from the waist up. Yes . . .

  No words—she didn’t need words. What could she say? Waiting? What else could she do? Sigurd had his return gift ready—another piece of ribbon. On it, the words, PEACE, LOVE, and SOON. Yes, he could say that now—soon. He would be there soon. What on earth could stop him now?

  The little bird sat on the edge of the bath while Sigurd petted her, stroking her soft back. But the wren never hung around for long. Already she was flickering her wings; now she was on the windowsill. She lived life at ten times human speed.

  “Okay, okay already,” said Sigurd. He reached over and tied the ribbon around the little bony leg. Jenny piped and was gone again, out of the window.

  Sigurd sighed and leaned back in the bath. He was melting with exhaustion. He needed a night’s sleep, but then: peace, soon. Yes, soon. Very soon. And love.

  Then it was time for bed.

  Every one of us, they say, has infinite selves living out their lives in universes folded up together in such a way that one can never know the other. Here, in our particular little bag of reality, we have a single past and many possible futures, of which only one can ever be realized. If you turn left now, you can never turn right at that time ever again; turn right and you can never go left, everything will change forever. Some say that for those who live in the world where the old gods have risen up out of our souls and from rusted factories and cloned flesh, the future is as fixed as the past.

  Could it have been different? Could Sigurd have seen the dangers the old woman presented—looked beyond her kind doggy face into the madness underneath? In other worlds, in other times, in another age of self determination and free will, any one of a thousand decisions he or his parents and guardians, friends and lovers made could have changed Grimhild’s plans for this night. Or what if there was another kind of world altogether, with another kind of god less familiar to us, where the past can be changed by decision, just as we think the future can? How deep our lives would become then, if we could live their entirety backward and forward, over and over again, no two runs ever the same. Such a world is not familiar to us but we carry with us at least one set of the endless possible pasts. When she took the bloodstained bandage from Sigurd a month before, Grimhild was trying to ensure that come accident or murder, one version of Sigurd at least would always be with us.

  See now, he sleeps. Oh, Sigurd—don’t sleep now when the danger is greatest. Didn’t you learn that the greatest danger always comes from home? Guns are obvious—it’s love and kindness and goodwill and hope that hide things. Grimhild means well—do you doubt it? Or do you think goodwill is enough? Perhaps you do. Sleep on, then, as the old woman and her servant wheel you down the hallway and into the main barn. The house is empty tonight, the servants dismissed. Tomorrow Gudrun will be here, too late. Sleep as they take you across the lawn to the ruins of an old stone outhouse. It’s a feature, a kind of folly, with rose and clematis scrambling over it, a bit of roof left up—big enough to shelter under from the rain; and enough to fit in a secret door. Sleep, Sigurd, as they carry you through the door and into Grimhild’s secret place; sleep as they push you along to the laboratories where Grimhild keeps her experiments. You’d have thought that soldiers, servants, and the family themselves would have worked out that there was space unaccounted for down there— but why should they? The entire thing is folded away like Grimhild’s brain, folded up and hidden—clever Grimhild!— inside a door. Magic objects are not what they seem.

  Sleep on, Sigurd. You have no choice. Your good-night cocoa was drugged.

  A fond old thing is Grimhild. Fond of her children, fond of insurance. When he was alive, Al Niberlin always used to complain about it—she spent a fortune on insurance, more than you could ever get back. Overcautious to the point of recklessness, he used to joke, but he knew that something didn’t fit. It was greed, greed for control, greed to protect, fear of losing what she had. Like the dragon on his hoard, Grimhild watched over every trinket. In her case, her treasure was her family.

  She and Ida roll the sleeping godling through the corridors to the treatment room. On the walls, her favorite expressions. When she was at school, they used to paint worthy sayings and exhortations on the walls. “Excellence is a habit,” for example. “We lead by example,” is another. Here, she has her own favorites up, things her mother used to say to
her, sayings that she heard over the years that come to mind about her daily life.

  She and Ida wheel Sigurd past the writing on the wall: HONESTY IS THE GOOD MAN’S BURDEN. True, Grimhild, very true. Worth knowing. A sense of humor perhaps behind those dark eyes? Grimhild can’t smile and Ida never does. Perhaps she’s heard the joke once too often. Dear old Ida. She has a face like a slab of stone, a good solid Lancashire face, as Grimhild used to say. The children always called her Ugly behind her broad back, she could scare them just by staring at them when they were small. But she has nice eyes, a pretty pair of blue that look forever surprised. Perhaps they are.

  But what’s this one, on the inside door of the treatment room? A PROVERB UNSAID IS WISDOM WASTED. What’s all that about, Grimhild? Not much wisdom coming out of your mouth, is there? Well? Speak, tell us what you think! But no, nothing. Can’t speak? Won’t speak.

  It’s a penance, that’s how she thinks of it, although it serves her purpose. The fact is Grimhild never could keep a secret. Things just slipped out of her brain onto her tongue and gone—whoops! She could wander around all day with her lips pressed together and then out it would come, plop, onto the floor, embarrassing everyone. It was a form of self-sabotage, she used to think. It didn’t happen often, once in a few years, but when it did, it blew her away.

  When she had her own shape, when she was a woman, she had affairs. Several. Not that she was ever promiscuous, but the king was busy a lot of the time, and, well—she had an eye for an attractive man. There was a bullish member of the bodyguard, strong as an ox, who used to make love to her like a rough sea; a wolfishly handsome member of a big business family, and an older man from the corporation, white-haired, slow but vigorous who spent the whole night moving over her body like a kind old friend.

  But she let it slip—one, two, three times, regularly, every few years. Some silly clue fell out of her lips, giving away that she hadn’t actually been where she said she was the previous night, or that she had actually met someone she’d sworn she never had. Silly mistakes, palpable lies, enough to lead her husband on to discover the truth. On the third occasion he’d had enough and swore to divorce her. He’d said that before but this time he meant it. And so he had to be . . . replaced? No, that was not the plan. Altered.

  It was a simple thing in theory, she’d planned it for long enough, but it was the first time and it went wrong and he woke up in the middle of the transfer process. The point was to remove a memory—well, several memories to be precise, might as well make a few more adjustments while they were at it. But Al had come to, looked around, seen the versions of himself staring at him like huge pale prunes in their glass tanks. Sick with the drugs, he’d gone a bit crazy. Then, as he came round even more and realized it was actually not a nightmare but real, he’d become angry. Copies of him! Copies of his children! How dare she do this without his knowledge.

  “It’s not just them, Al. I’ve done me, too,” insisted Grimhild. But Al was furious; there was no reasoning with him. He went mad, smashing up the tanks, destroying himself over and over again. Suddenly his hands were on her throat, his hot breath in her face, his eyes glaring, his face twisting. Of course it wasn’t his fault—he wasn’t all there, poor dear. Ida had saved the situation with an ax in the back of his head, and that was the end of him. It was awful. Grimhild was inconsolable; she hadn’t planned on murder, merely a readjustment. Remove the memories of her infidelities, and they could get on with their lives as if nothing had happened. She hadn’t even wanted to replace him with a clone, the original was good enough for her. Now he was gone, his memories out of date, his clones damaged beyond repair. What a mess!

  She and Ida had saved the situation with a good old-fashioned lie. Assassination! The king dead, Grimhild attacked. They staged it all in her bedroom and waited for the morning and discovery. She had insisted on her own punishment—imprisonment in the shape of a dog. Her children assumed she had been trapped magically in mid-change, between dog and woman. But it served a purpose, this punishment. Now she had one secret too many. What if this stupidly slipped out? The dog’s face takes care of that. Ida, bless her, was as helpful as ever and cut out her own tongue with a kitchen knife before Grimhild performed her last act in her own body, and tied her convincingly to a chair.

  They lay Sigurd out next to the computers and begin to attach wires, coils, fibers and drips. The transfer of the mind is a delicate and tricky thing. Behind the smooth gray paneling where the blood-filled computers are housed are cloned brains; yes, what else can store so much information? As Crayley realized sometime ago, there is no substitute. Each one of these machines has to be individually grown. Those gray coils bathed in blood behind the machine are all grown from Sigurd’s own cells. Fast work, Grimhild—only a few weeks and it’s all ready. Science? Certainly—but there has to be a little sorcery in there, I think. The recipe’s a secret? I won’t tell, I promise—but neither will you. . . .

  And what’s this on the wall above him?

  A BARGAIN YOU DON’T WANT IS A LUXURY YOU DON’T NEED. That’s a bit thick, isn’t it, Grimhild? When you have no less than five replacements for each of your children hanging around down here as well as the other five back at Democracy Palace? Just in case, you say? In case of what— serial murder of the same person?

  And sleep, Sigurd, as Grimhild watches carefully over the dials. Already you are you and not you. Like Gunar, Hogni, and Gudrun, Grimhild has made five of you—see how closely she has taken you into her family. Your own faces look impassively on, the bright blood throbbing inside them, the empty brains registering nothing. Every cell of those brains is separate; not until the tails entwine will a single thought or feeling come. They are blank Sigurds, Sigurds from other worlds brought into this one, bottles waiting to be filled. What an army they would make! Each one with his invulnerable skin, each one made to lead. They could destroy the world, this lot.

  What Grimhild is up to is possible nowhere else in the world. Scientists with technologies years ahead of ours who have been experimenting with personality transfer for generations would grind their teeth to hear about it. Look! The poor old woman is using a 1207/35 Matsina computer to try and hold an entire personality during transfer! She wouldn’t be able to manage a newt with that equipment. And the carvings on the computer housings? What’s that all about, it means nothing! But still the World Trade Organization has embargoes on England, for unfair competition.

  Anything is possible if Odin wills it. But nothing turns out as it seems if Loki is involved.

  One Sigurd from all these Sigurds, chosen at random; they’re all the same. Out of its tank, it is laid next to the old one. Grimhild and Ida prepare to fire up the new and close down the old. Throughout it all, Sigurd sleeps on like a baby— the soldier, the lover, the golden boy. It’s already too late. With wires and currents, chants and elixirs, he is poured across to his twin from another place. One Sigurd is emptied and another filled: one taken out of the world, one put in.

  It doesn’t take long. If you can fit a house into a door you can pass a man down a wire. Four hours, that’s how long Sigurd took. And at the end of it the two men lie so much the same. The same bodies, the same scars even—Grimhild has great art. The same gifts and weaknesses, the same hopes and dreams. The same memories—well, most of them, anyway. Grimhild nods, content. The deed’s been done.

  But why? Why pour wine from one identical bottle into another? Sigurd never lost a leg or an eye, he could hear with both ears. He was as perfect as it was possible for anyone to be, ready for his time and place. What fault was there in this Sigurd, that she wanted him swapped? Surely not simply to move him from left to right for fun?

  Now the two women go back to work. The Sigurds are unplugged, one with a universe inside him, the other empty, with only a few dregs of memory left swimming around his skull. Ida helps the old bitch upstairs with the new version, and then trundles the old out of the back door and along the path to the lake. It has been tightly bound. A
round its feet, a great ring of steel locked with a key.

  At the lakeside, Ida bends and looks into the face of the empty bottle and scowls. She doesn’t like it. Grimhild should have emptied it right out. You can’t kill an empty man, he’s already dead, but this one still has . . . something left. Ida’s not got the stomach for murder unless it’s absolutely necessary. She doesn’t like the suggestion of a smile on the drooling face, that faraway look, or the tears. There’s a memory left in there, though god knows how such a cabbage as Sigurd is now could reach it.

  Ida grunts: dregs. That’s what Grimhild said. Dregs. She dumps the body in the boat and gets in after it and grabs the oars. The boat slides quietly out over the dark water.

  But another has an interest here. The sliver of a moon reflecting on the water is cut by a dark spot moving rapidly toward the boat. It is the tiniest of breathing things, a bird. Unusual for this time of night. Unusual too that it makes no noise, but lands in the bottom of the boat in the pitch dark and looks up into the face of the empty vessel. So small, Jenny Wren—but so full of intent. Without a squeak—Ida looks around but sees nothing—the wren flits up, stands briefly on Sigurd’s nose. She pecks his cheek. A flick of that tiny tail. Standing on his face, she stares carefully into the bottle as if examining the dregs inside. Then, with a slight, deliberate step unlike her usual twitch, the wren steps, one two, three, straight through Sigurd’s eye and into his mind.