Songs of the Dying Earth

by Gardner Dozois

  “Warned?” said Pelmundo, frowning. “But you have told me nothing about Graebe the Inevitable.”

  “I was not talking about Graebe,” replied Umbassario.

  Pelmundo turned and left the cave, and began climbing down over the rocky outcroppings. When he was finally on level ground, he considered going to a lesser mage, but he knew that if Graebe was truly Umbassario’s creature, only a magician of equal power could supply him with the charms and spells he needed.

  “Then I shall have to defeat you as I have defeated all other foes,” muttered Pelmundo, staring off toward Modavna Moor, which separated Maloth from the Old Forest. “Be on your guard, monster, for Pelmundo, son of Riloh, is on your trail.”

  And so saying, he began his march around the village and into the foreboding darkness of Modavna Moor. The mud seemed to grab his foot with each step, and to hold it tight, as if to say, “Foolish man, did you think to run from Graebe the Inevitable?”

  Suddenly he saw a Twk-man mounted on a dragonfly. The dragonfly circled his head twice, then perched lightly on a leaf.

  “You are far from your stomping grounds, Watchman,” said the Twk-man. “Are you lost?”

  “No,” answered Pelmundo.

  “Then beware lest you be found,” said the Twk-man, “for Graebe the Inevitable is abroad this day.”

  “You have seen him?” said Pelmundo. “Is he near?”

  “If he were near, I would be elsewhere,” said the Twk-man. “Endlessly he searches, both for his loom and the witch who took it.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear,” said Pelmundo.

  “I have a life and a soul, and I wish to keep them both,” said the Twk-man. “You would do well to preserve yours while you still can.”

  “But you tell me he wants Lith.”

  “He searches for her,” corrected the Twk-man. “But he sucks the souls of whatever crosses his path.”

  “Fly ahead, Twk-man,” said Pelmundo, “and tell him that his fate is approaching him inexorably.”

  “Approach Graebe the Inevitable?” gasped the Twk-man, clearly shocked.

  “Then fly away—but know that after today there will be no more cause for fear or alarm.”

  The Twk-man tapped his dragonfly, and circled Pelmundo twice more. “I have never seen such suicidal madness before,” he announced. “I must burn it in my memory, for surely no one will ever go searching for Graebe again.”

  “Not after I slay him, they won’t,” promised Pelmundo.

  “It is very odd,” said the Twk-man. “You do not look like a man who wishes to race into the gaping maw of his death.”

  “Or his destiny,” said Pelmundo, visions of Lith’s undulating golden body dancing in his mind.

  “She must have promised you much, Watchman,” said the Twk-man.

  “She?” repeated Pelmundo.

  “Did you really think that you were the first?” said the Twk-man with a laugh. Then he was gone, and Pelmundo was alone once more.

  “Father,” said Pelmundo softly, “I pledge the coming battle to you, for after I have slain the Umbassario’s nightmare creature my triumph shall be written up in song and story, and the day will come when as Chief Curator you file it in a place of honor in the Great Archive of Zhule.” Then, looking forward, he said in a steady voice: “Creature, beware, for your doom is approaching you!”

  Deeper and deeper into the moor he went, the mud grabbing at his feet, his sweat cascading down his body. “Here I am, creature,” he said again and again. “You have but to show yourself.” But there was no sign of Graebe the Inevitable.

  Pelmundo trod through the moor for an hour, then another, with no sign of any other living thing.

  “The Twk-man was wrong,” he said aloud. “There is no monster abroad today. I must find the wherewithal to pay a mage for a spell to draw him to me, for without him there can be no ultimate reward from the golden witch.”

  He plodded ahead, and finally reached the edge of the moor. The trees were less closely clustered now, and narrow rays of sunlight finally penetrated through the dense foliage. Birds chirped, crickets sang, even the frogs seemed at peace with their surroundings.

  And then, suddenly, there was silence—an almost tangible silence. Pelmundo lay his hand on the hilt of his sword and peered ahead, but could see nothing—no shape, no movement, nothing at all.

  He looked to the right and the left. Not a thing. His hand moved to his medallion, which he touched for luck and moved slightly to cover his heart. “Fear not, beasts of the moor,” he said at last. “My quarry has fled.”

  “But your inevitable doom has found you,” growled an inhuman voice from behind him.

  Pelmundo whirled around and found himself face to face with a creature out of his worst nightmares. The bullet-shaped head boasted coal-black eyes slit like a cat’s at high noon, nostrils that were uniquely shaped for sniffing out souls, gross misshapen lips whose only function was to suck the souls from its prey. It was shaggy, covered with coarse black hair. Its hands had but a single function: to grab souls and hold them up to its mouth. Its feet served but one purpose: to carry it to its prey, on dry land, on mud, even on water.

  “I am Graebe the Inevitable,” it growled, stepping forward as Pelmundo retreated step by step, the mud feeling like more of Graebe’s hands, grasping at his ankles, holding tight to his feet.

  “No,” said Pelmundo. “You are my tribute to Lith, the golden witch.”

  “She has taken what does not belong to her,” said Graebe. “Now she tempts you with what does not belong to you.”

  “I have nothing against you, monster,” said Pelmundo, “but you stand between my and my heart’s desire, and I must slay you.”

  “Your heart has nothing to do with the desire you feel,” said Graebe contemptuously. Suddenly, the creature smiled. “This is a most fortuitous meeting. I have not dined all day.”

  Pelmundo tried to step back as Graebe the Inevitable approached him, but his feet were mired in the mud, and he knew he would not be able to fight on a firm terrain of his own choosing. He withdrew his sword, grasping the hilt with both hands, holding it upright before him, prepared to slash in any direction—

  —and at that instant a shaft of sunlight struck the Watchman’s medallion.

  Graebe stared at the shining medallian, the smile frozen on his misshapen, soul-sucking lips. Suddenly he emitted a howl of anguish that echoed through the moor, and held his hands up to shield his eyes from the vision he saw.

  Finally, he lowered his hands and stared once more at his image in the medallion.

  “Can that be me?” he whispered in shock.

  Pelmundo, puzzled, held the sword motionless.

  “I was a man once,” continued Graebe, still barely whispering. “I made a bargain, but not to become…this! It is more than I can bear.”

  “Have you never seen your reflection before?” asked Pelmundo.

  “A very long time ago. When I was…as you.” Graebe stared hypnotically at his face in the medallion. “The rest of me,” he said, “is it the same?”

  “Worse,” said Pelmundo.

  “Then do what you must do,” said Graebe, lowering his hideous hands to his side. “I cannot go on. Do your worst, and claim your golden reward, little joy may it bring you.”

  The creature lowered its head and closed its eyes, and Pelmundo raised his sword high and brought it down swiftly. A moment later, the head of Graebe the Inevitable rolled on the ground, but when Pelmundo looked at it, it was the head of a man, not handsome, not especially ugly, but a man, not a creature of darkness and horror.

  Pelmundo squatted down next to the severed head, frowning. He felt no regret about having killed the thing that had become Graebe the Inevitable. He felt no guilt about the fact that in death it had metamorphosed into a man. But he felt outrage that he could not prove to Lith that he had indeed slain the creature of the moor and should be given that most coveted reward.

  “It is Umbassario’s doing,
” he growled, and he made the decision to confront the mage, and either get him to change the human head back into the hideous Graebe, or at least testify to Lith that he had performed the task she set for him.

  But when he stood up he felt somehow strange, not as if he had drunk too much at the Place of the Seven Nectars, but as if the world had somehow changed in indefinable ways. The colors seemed different, darker; the birds and insects louder; the mud weaker, as if it had finally decided to relinquish its hold on him; and he could sense the unseen presence of three Twk-men, two mounted on dragonflies, a third sitting on a branch high above the ground.

  He began the trek to Umbassario’s cave, finding himself strangely unwinded as he climbed over the rocky outcroppings that led up to it. He reached up, gaining purchase on a rock, and his hand seemed to be a claw.

  “A trick of the light,” he growled, blinking his eyes rapidly. But the hand did not change.

  “Come in,” said Umbassario’s voice from within the cave, and he entered.

  “I have come—” he began.

  “I know why you think you have come,” said Umbassario of the Glowing Eyes. “But you have come because I called to you.”

  “I heard nothing,” he said.

  “Not with your ears,” agreed Umbassario. “You have killed my pet, my servant, he who did my bidding, and I demand reparation.”

  “I have no money. You know that.”

  “I said reparation, not tribute,” said the mage. “And you shall supply it. I warned you not to harm my creature, and you ignored me. I must have a servant. It shall be you.”

  “I cannot,” he said. “I have my duties as the Watchman—and I have a reward to claim.”

  “You shall never claim it,” said Umbassario. “The golden witch will shrink from your touch as she shrinks from no other. As for you, no-longer-Watchman, your servitude to me has already begun, and will last until the sun finally burns itself out. Study your hands well—and your feet. Place your fingers to your face, a face that would have frightened even Graebe. You are mine now.”

  He felt his face. The contours were strange, inhuman. He screamed, but it came out as an inhuman howl.

  “And because the golden witch is the reason you disobeyed my orders and killed my creature, she shall serve you as you must serve me. You will never touch her, but you will use her. Her beauty, her sensuality, will attract an endless stream of admirers. Men will come from as far away as Erze Damath and Cil and Sfere to gaze upon her, and I will allow you this one freedom, this one happiness: in your rage and jealousy, I will allow you to kill these men that she attracts. You will thread their unseeing dead eyes upon a cloak, and when the cloak is full, when it cannot accommodate one more eyeball, then perhaps we shall talk about restoring you.” A crooked smile. “But I suspect by then you will not want to return the weak, puny thing of flesh and blood that you once were.”

  He tried to speak, but words felt strange in his mouth.

  “I intuit that your name tastes of guilt and shame upon your tongue,” said Umbassario. “You shall need a new sobriquet.”

  “I am…I am…” He tried to pronounce “Pelmundo,” and the word died on his tongue.

  “I am…” He fought to force the words out. “I am…the…son of…” He stopped again.

  “Once more,” said the mage.

  “I am…” His tongue felt thick and alien. “I am chun of…”

  “So be it,” replied Umbassario, who knew his creature’s name all along. “You are Chun.”

  “Chun,” he repeated.

  “You are Chun the Unavoidable. You have one day to put your affairs in order. Then you will do my bidding. Now begone!”

  And Chun found himself standing in the darkened street between the Place of the Seven Nectars and Leja’s House of Golden Flowers.

  At first, he was disoriented. Then he saw a figure lurching drunkenly down the street, and he knew that his cloak would soon begin.

  An instant later, Taj the Malingerer felt a presence beside him in the night.

  “I am Chun the Unavoidable,” said a deep, inhuman voice. “And you have something I need.”

  Afterword:

  One of the very first science fiction books I bought as a kid was Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, in its original paperback edition published by Hillman. (It cost me a quarter; it goes well over $100.00 on eBay these days.) I became an immediate fan, picking up Big Planet and all the other Vance titles—but then, as now, I had a special love for his tales of the last days of a dying Earth in a worn-out solar system. (So did a lot of other writers—not just the ones in this tribute volume, but dozens of writers over the years have emulated his style and borrowed some of his concepts, not as plagiarists, but as a loving tribute to his skills and his enormous influence throughout the field.)

  When Carol and I decided, back in the 1970s, to enter a few Worldcon masquerades, the very first costume we chose to make was Chun the Unavoidable and his shill, Lith the Golden Witch. We won at Torcon, the 1973 Worldcon in Toronto…and now, thirty-six years later, it’s a pleasure to go back and offer my literary thanks to Chun and Lith, two of Jack’s more unforgettable characters.

  —Mike Resnick

  Walter Jon Williams

  Abrizonde

  Walter Jon Williams was born in Minnesota and now lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico. His short fiction has appeared frequently in Asimov’s Science Fiction, as well as in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Wheel of Fortune, Global Dispatches, Alternate Outlaws, and in other markets, and has been gathered in the collections Facets and Frankensteins and Other Foreign Devils. His novels include Ambassador of Progress, Knight Moves, Hardwired, The Crown Jewels, Voice Of The Whirlwind. House Of Shards, Days of Atonement, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire, a huge disaster thriller, The Rift, a Star Wars novel, Destiny’s Way, and the three novels in his acclaimed Modern Space Opera epic, “Dread Empire’s Fall,” Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis, Dread Empire’s Fall: The Sundering and Dread Empire’s Fall: Conventions of War. His most recent books are Implied Spaces and This Is Not a Game. He won a long-overdue Nebula Award in 2001 for his story “Daddy’s World,” and took another Nebula in 2005 with his story “The Green Leopard Plague.” He also scripted the online game “Spore.”

  In the fast-moving and suspenseful story that follows, we journey with a student architect headed through the mountainous Cleft of Abrizonde to the school in distant Occul, who inadvertently gets caught up in a war between the Protostrator of Abrizonde and the rulers of Pex and Calabrande, and who finds that opportunity can come along at the most unexpected of times—and that you’d better seize it when it does!

  Abrizonde

  Walter Jon Williams

  The student architect Vespanus of Roë, eager to travel to the city of Occul in the country of Calabrande, left Escani early in the season for an ascent of the Dimwer, the deep river that passes through the Cleft of Abrizonde on its way to the watery meads of Pex, the land where Vespanus, waiting for the pass to open, had passed a dreary winter in the insipid flat callow-fields of the brownlands.

  The local bargemen claimed an early ascent was too hazardous for their craft, so Vespanus traveled upriver on a mule, a placid cream-colored animal named Twest. The Dimwer roared in a frigid torrent on the left as Twest made her serene ascent. There was still snow in the shadows of the rocks, but the trail itself was passable enough. The river bore on its peat-colored waters large cakes of ice that, Vespanus was forced to admit, would in fact have posed something of a danger to barge traffic.

  Though nights were frigid, Vespanus employed his architectural talents and his madling Hegadil, who each night built him a warm, snug little home, with a stable attached for the mule, and who disassembled both the next morning. Vespanus thus spent the nights in relative comfort, reclining on purfled sheets, smoking Flume, and perusing a grimoire when he was not experiencing the pleasing fantasies brought on by the narcotic smoke.

  On the third day of his as
cent, Vespanus perceived the turrets and battlements of a castle on the horizon, and knew himself to be in the domain of the Protostrator of Abrizonde. Against this lord he had been warned by the bargemen—“a robber, boorish and rapacious, and yet strangely fashionable, who extorts unconscionable tolls from any wayfarer traveling through the Cleft.” Vespanus had inquired if there were routes available that did not involve traversing lands menaced by the Protostrator, but these would have involved weeks of extra travel, and so Vespanus resigned himself to a severe reduction in his available funds.

  In any case, the Protostrator proved a pleasant surprise. A balding man whose round face protruded from a tissue-like lacy collar of extravagant design, and whose personal name was Ambius, the Protostrator offered several nights of pleasant hospitality, and never asked for a single coin in payment. All that he desired was news of Pex, and gossip concerning the voivodes of Escani, of whose affairs he seemed to know a great deal. He also wished to know of the latest fashions, hear the latest songs, receive word of new plays or theatrical extravaganzas, and hear recitations of the latest poetry. Vespanus did his best to oblige his host: he sang in his light tenor while accompanying himself on the osmiande; he discussed the illicit loves of the voivodes with a completely spurious authority; and he described the sumptuous wardrobe of the Despoina of Chose, who he had glimpsed in procession to Escani’s Guild of Diabolists, to which she was obliged by ancient custom to resort every nine hundred and ninety-nine days.

  “Alas,” said Ambius, “I am a cultured man. Were I a mere robber and brute, I would rejoice on my perch above the Dimwer, and gloat as the contents of my strongrooms grew and glittered. But here in the Cleft, I find myself longing for the finer things of civilization—for silks, and songs, and cities. And never a city have I seen for the last thirteen years, since I assumed my present position—for if I traveled either to Pex or to Calabrande, I would instantly lose my head for violation of the state’s unjust and unreasonable monopoly on taxation. So I must content myself with such elements of culture as I am able to import.” He gestured modestly toward the paintings on the wall, to the curtains of mank fur, and to his own opulent, if rather eccentric, clothing. “Thus I am doomed to remain here, and to exact tolls from travelers in the manner as the Protostratoi before me, and dream of distant cities.”