Songs of the Dying Earth

by Gardner Dozois

  The Twk-woman tugged at the moth’s antennae. It fluttered down and settled on one of the dwarf conifers that kept the fungus garden in shade.

  “Give me salt,” she said.

  Saloona reached into her pharmocopia bag and handed the Twk-woman a salt pod, waiting as she lashed it to the moth’s thorax. The Twk-woman straightened, adjusted her cap, then struck a pose like that of Paeolina II in his most well-known execution portrait.

  “Paytim Noringal came here at moonfall and shook your spore-net. I watched unobserved. The resulting cloud gave me a coughing fit, but my leman swears I appear more distinguished than this time yestermorn.”

  Saloona cocked her head. “Why would Paytim do that?”

  “More I cannot say.”

  The luna moth rose into the air and drifted off, its bright wings lost amid the ripple of jade and emerald trees crowding the hillside. Saloona rolled up the spore-net and set it with those to be laundered. She was neither perturbed nor angered by Paytim’s action, nor curious.

  Still, she had to eat.

  She had promised the optimate his physic two days hence. If she captured another Deodand this evening, it would be a week before the spores were ripe. She secured the sporenets against rain or intruders, then walked to the paddock beside her cottage and beckoned her prism ship.

  “I would see Paytim Noringal,” she said.

  A moment where only dappled sunlight fell through the softly waving fronds of cat-firs and spruce. Then the autumn air shimmered as with heat. There was a stinging scent of ozone and scorched metal, and the prism ship hovered before her, translucent petals unfolding so that she could spring inside.

  “Paytim Noringal is a harlot and a thief,” said the prism ship in a peevish tone.

  “She now appears to have become a vandal as well.” Saloona settled into the couch, mindful that her pharmacopoeia pouch was not crushed. “Perhaps she will have prepared lunch. It’s not too early, is it?”

  “Paytim Noringal will poison you in your sleep.” The ship lifted into the air, until it floated above the hillside like a rainbow bubble. “If you’re hungry, there are salmon near the second waterfall, and the quince-apples are ripe.”

  Saloona stared down at her little farmstead, a pied checkerboard of fungi, cerulean and mauve and creamy yellow, russet and lavender and a dozen hues that Saloona had invented, for which there was no name. “Paytim is a very fine cook,” she said absently. “I hope she will have blancmange. Or that locust jelly. Do you think she will?”

  “I have no opinion on the subject.”

  The ship banked sharply. Saloona laid a hand upon its controls and made a soothing sound. “There, you don’t need to worry. I have the Ubiquitous Antidote. It was a twenty-seven-year locust jelly. It was generous of her to send me some of it.”

  “She means you harm.”

  Saloona yawned, covering her mouth with a small freckled hand. “I will sleep, ship. Rouse me when we approach her enclosure.”

  The glorious spruce and granite-clad heights of Cobalt Mountain fell away, unseen by Saloona Morn and unremarked by the prism ship, which had little use for what humans call beauty.

  The fire witch’s villa nestled in a small valley near the caves of Gonder. The structure had seen better days. It had been commissioned as a seraglio by the Crimson Court lutist Hayland Strife, whose unrestrained dalliances caused three of his aggrieved lovers (one of them Paytim Noringal) to first seduce then subject him to the torment known as Red Dip. When, after seventeen days, the lutist expired, the fire witch prepared a celebratory feast for her fellow torturers, using skewers of oleander for the satay. All died convulsing before daybreak. In the decades since then, the seraglio had been damaged by earthquakes, windstorms, and, once, an ill-conceived attack by Air General Sha’s notorious Crystal Squadron.

  And, of course, Paytim’s own mantic enterprises had left the gray marble walls and sinuous columns blackened with soot, and the famous tapestries singed and smoke-damaged beyond repair. She paced now before the ruins of the arras known as The Pursuit of the Vinx, heedless of the geckos and yellow-snouted lemurs that clambered across the backdrop to one of her more notable love affairs.

  Paytim disdained magic to enhance her charms, though she had for many decades employed the Nostrum of Prodigious Regeneration to retain the dew of youth. She remained a remarked beauty. Like her neighbor, she was flame-haired, though Paytim’s was brazen tigerlily to Saloona’s pale marigold, and Paytim’s eyes were green. Her skin was the bluish-white of weak milk and bore numerous scars where she had been burned while conjuring, repairing the bouche a feu, or carelessly removing a pot from the oven. The scars were a mark of pride rather than shame; also a warning against over-confidence, in particular when dealing with souffles, or basilisks.

  Today, her thoughts wandered along their customary paths: concoting a receipt for the season’s bountiful quince-apple harvest; estimating when her young basilisk might be successfully mated; brooding upon various old wounds and offenses. She paused in her pacing, withdrew a shining vial like a ruby teardrop from the pocket of her trousers, and, with a frown, gazed into it.

  A dark shape, so deep a red that it was almost black, coiled and uncoiled within the vial. At intervals, the shape cohered into the image of a gysart in scarlet and saffron motley, which would extend its arms—in joy or anguish, she could not say—then, in a voice pitched like a bat’s, exhort her.

  “Paytim Noringal, Incendiary and Recusant! Your exile has been revoked, following the abrupt and unfortunate death of Her Majesty Paeolina the Twenty-Eighth. His Majesty Paeolina the Twenty-Ninth hereby requests your attendance at the after-ball following his coronation. Regrets only to be tendered by…”

  Here the harlequin doubled over in a spasm and began once more to writhe.

  Paytim’s frown smoothed into a small smile: for anyone who knew her, a far more alarming sight. She crossed the chamber to a low table, pressed a button that caused a cylindrical steel cage to rise from the floor. The young basilisk slept inside. Minute jets of flame flickered around its nostrils as it exhaled, also a faint sulfurous stink.

  The vial bore a summons, not a request. Paytim’s exile had been voluntary, although, in fact, she loathed all of the Paeolinas, going back to their progenitor, a court dancer who claimed to have invented the gavot.

  His new Majesty, Paeolina XXIX, was indulging a customarily vulgar display of power. When Paytim had been at court, she had noted the lascivious glances he directed her way. The looks had been easy to ignore at the time—the present Paeolina had been little more than a spindle-necked boy. Now his attentions would be more difficult to deflect.

  Despite this knowledge, she had already decided to attend the coronation’s after-ball. She had not traveled beyond the mountains in some time. Also, she had recently made a discovery, an arcane and unusual spell which she hoped to implement, although its success was dependent upon Paytim receiving some assistance.

  Not, however, from the monad gysart. She lifted her hand and gazed impassively into the vial, then nudged the steel cage with her foot. The basilisk stirred. It made a soft croaking sound, opened its mouth in a yawn that displayed a fiery tongue and molten throat.

  “Inform His Majesty that I will be delighted to attend,” announced Paytim. “May I bring a guest?”

  The mote ceased its wriggling to regard her with bright pinprick eyes. Flashes of silver phosphorescence overtook the whorls of crimson and jet. The gysart shuddered, then nodded.

  “In that case,” said Paytim, “Please inform His Majesty that I will be accompanied by Saloona Morn.”

  “Your reply has been registered with the equerry of invitations. You are welcome to bring one guest. Further instructions will be—”

  Paytim’s eyes narrowed. With one long finger, she flicked open a slot in the lid of the basilisk cage. Its inhabitant scrambled to its feet and stretched out its neck expectantly, as she held the ruby vial above the opening. A nearly inaudible shriek stirred the
chamber, startling the geckos so that they skittered back behind the tapestry as the vial dropped into the basilisk’s mouth, and, with a burst of acrid steam, disappeared.

  From the air, Paytim’s villa resembled a toy that had been kicked to bits by a petulant child. Ivy and snowmoss covered heaps of hand-painted tiles fallen from the roof. The entire east wing had collapsed, burying solarium and manta pool. The collection of musical scrolls Hayland Strife had painstakingly assembled when not dandling some fawn-eyed courtesan was ash, destroyed when lightning struck the library tower. Its skeletal remains rose above the north wing like a blackened scaffold. Spiderwebs choked the famed boxwood maze, and the orchards of pomegranate trees and senna grew wild and blackly tangled. Saloona spied a thrasher’s nest atop a quince-apple, the white bones of some unfortunate snagged in its branches like a broken kite.

  Only the kitchen wing was intact. Smoke streamed from its five chimneys and the windows gleamed. Troilers wheeled through the herb and root-vegetable gardens, harvesting choi and sweet basil and yams. Sallona gazed down, her mouth filling with saliva.

  “Poison,” hissed the prism ship. “Ergot, chokecherry, baneberry, tansy!”

  “Fah.” Saloona waved a hand, signaling that they should descend. “Remain in the garden and do not antagonize her. I smell braised pumpkin.”

  Other, less attractive odors assailed her as she approached the dilapidated household, scents associated with the fire witch’s metier: sulphur, burnt cloth, scorched hair, gunpowder; the odd sweetish reek of basilisks, reminiscent of barbecued peaches and fish. Paytim stood at the entrance to the kitchen wing, her wild hair barely restrained by a shimmering web of black garnets, her trousers flecked with pumpkin seeds and soot.

  “Mother’s sister’s favored child.” Paytim used the familiar, if archaic, salutation favored by the fourth caste of witches. “Will you join me for luncheon? Port-steeped pumpkin, larks-tongues in aspic, I just picked some fresh cheeps. And I saved some of the locust jelly. I remember how much you liked it.”

  Saloona dipped her head. “Just a bite. And only if we share it.”

  “Of course.” Paytim smiled, revealing the carven placebit she’d made of the lutist’s finger-bone and implanted in her right eye-tooth. “Please, come in.”

  Over lunch, they made polite conversation. Saloona inquired after the newest litter of basilisks and feigned dismay to learn that only one had survived. Paytim wondered innocently if the prism ship had been confiscated during the most recent wave of enforced vehicular inspections.

  When the dishes were cleared and the last of the locust jelly spooned from a shared bowl, Paytim poured two jiggers of amber whiskey. She removed a pair of red-hot pokers from the kitchen athanor, plunged one into each jigger, then dropped the spent pokers into the sink. She handed a steaming whiskey to Saloona, and, without hesitation, downed her own.

  Saloona stared at her unsteady reflection in the simmering liquid. When it cooled, she took a sip.

  “What a remarkable cook you are,” she said. “This is utterly delectable. And the aspic of larks’-tongue was sublime. Why did you shake my sporenets last moonfall?”

  Paytim smiled unconvincingly. “I long for company. I wished to invite you for luncheon, and feared you would refuse an invitation.”

  Saloona thought on this. “Probably I would have,” she conceded. “But your invitation has cost me a week’s worth of spores I need for a client’s physic. I can’t afford to—”

  “Your cantrap is a childish game,” exclaimed Paytim. She could forestall her habitual impatience for an hour, no more. “I have discovered a charm of immense power, which Gesta Restille would have slain her own infant to possess! Eight sorcerers and twice that many witches died in their efforts to retrieve this spell. Do not think you can thwart me, Saloona Morn!”

  “I have but this instant learned of your spell.” Saloona set her unfinished tumbler of whiskey back upon the table. “I am unlikely to thwart you.”

  “Then you agree to assist me?”

  Saloona raised a marigold-colored eyebrow. “I am a humble farmer of psychoactive fungus, not a fire witch. I can’t be of any use to you.”

  “It’s not an incendiary spell. It’s far more lethal.”

  Saloona’s lips pursed oh so slightly. “I have taken a vow not to cause death by intent.”

  “Any death would not appear intentional.”

  “I have taken a vow,” repeated Saloona.

  “I am without transport and require the use of your prism ship.”

  “No one but myself may use my ship.”

  “The aspic you just devoured was made with tingling spurge and an infusion of castorbean. I took a mithradatic dose two days ago.”

  Outside, the prism ship made a keening sound. Saloona began to unloosen the ribbons of her pharmacopoeia bag. “I have the Ubiquitous Antidote…”

  “There is no antidote. Save this—”

  Paytim opened her hand. In the palm quivered what appeared to be a drop of water.

  “That could be rainwater,” said Saloona. “I think you are lying.”

  “I am not. You will imbibe the last of your panacea and still die convulsively.”

  The ship’s lament grew so loud that the dishes in the sink began to rattle. Saloona sighed.

  “Oh, very well.” She extended her tongue to Paytim’s outstretched hand, felt a drop like freezing hail upon its tip, and then a pulse of heat. She grimaced. “What is the spell?”

  Paytim bade her accompany her to the ruins of the library tower.

  “I found it here,” the fire witch said, her voice hushed with excitement. “I have not removed it, lest someone arrive unexpectedly and sense my discovery. Clans have fought and died over this periapt. My great-great-great-grandame sawed the windpipe from a bel canto singer who was rumored to have possession of it.”

  “In his throat?”

  Paytim stood on tiptoe to avoid a puddle of green muck. “None knew where the spell might reside. Throats were slashed, golden thulcimers melted down, kettledrums covered with the skin of youths and maidens. Hayland Strife swore his father strangled his mother while she slept, then restrung his lute with her hair. All for naught—all for this.”

  She stopped at the foot of a crumbling stair that curved up and up into the skeletal remnants of the library tower. Swiftly, almost girlishly, she grasped Saloona’s hand and led her up the rickety steps. Around them, the structure shuddered and swayed, its exposed struts of hornbeam and maskala tusk all that remained of the tower walls.

  Cold wind tangled Saloona’s hair. It carried the smells of fermenting quince-apple and moldering paper, scents overpowered by the stink of smoke and ozone as they approached the topmost level, which shook as though they stood atop a storm-tossed tree. They stepped out into a small platform, inefficiently protected by makeshift panels of oiled silk.

  The fire witch dropped Saloona’s hand, and, with care, crossed the unwieldy space. A single wall had miraculously survived that long-ago lightning strike, festooned now with cobwebs. Bowed and mildewed, it held row upon row of small round holes, so that it resembled an oversized martinhouse.

  “Hayland kept his musical scrolls here,” explained Paytim Noringal. “I use them to start the cookstove sometimes. It was purest chance, or mischance, that I found it.”

  She stepped lightly among the desiccated scrolls scattered across the uneven floor. Some had unspooled so that their singed notations could still be read. Others were little more than skeins of dust and vellum. More scrolls were wedged into the wall’s pigeonholes, along with miniature assemblages of circuitry and glass, a theramin wand, coils of lutestrings and ivory lute-keys, stacks of crystal discs, a broken gamelan.

  When Paytim reached the wall, she hesitated. A crimson flush spread across her cheeks; a bead of blood welled where she bit her lower lip. She drew a quick breath, then thrust her hand into one of the holes. Saloona was reminded of a time years before, when she had spent an idle afternoon with a lover, ca
tching fileels in the shallows of the Gaspar Reef. The young man had reached into a crevice, intending to grasp a wriggling fileel. Instead, he had inadvertently antagonized a luray. Or so she assumed, as a cloud of blood and pulverized bone bloomed around the crevice and she quickly swam back to their waiting caravel.

  No luray appeared now, of course, though there was an instant where an inky blackness spread across Paytim’s arm like a thrasher’s bite. With a gasp, the fire witch snatched her hand back. The stain was gone, or perhaps had never been.

  But her fingers were closed tightly around a shining silver rod, slender as a bastinado and half again as long as her hand. It was inscribed with a luminous equation, numerals unrecognizable to Saloona, and which even the fire witch seemed to regard with profound unease.

  Saloona asked, “Is that the charm which Gesta Restille so desired?”

  The fire witch nodded. “Yes. The Seventeenth Iteration of Blase’s ‘Azoic Notturno,’ known by some as the Black Peal.”

  Her lips had barely uttered that final word when a frigid gale tore through the flimsy walls, shredding silken panels and making shrapnel of scrolls and shattered instruments. At the same moment, a strange sound clove the air, a sound which Saloona sensed in her bones as much as her ears: a deep and plangent twang, as though an immense theorbo, too tightly strung, had been plucked.

  “Quickly!” gasped Paytim Noringal, and lunged for the spiral stairs.

  Saloona ducked to avoid being decapitated by a brazen gong, then followed her. With each step, the stairs buckled and fell away behind them. What remained of the tower walls crumbled into ivory and sawdust. A steady hail of blasted scrolls and blackened silk fell upon their heads, until, at last, they reached the ground and dashed from the tower seconds before it collapsed.

  Scarcely had they raced into the corridor before it, too, began to fall away. Marble columns and tiled floor disintegrated as though a vast invisible grinding wheel bore down upon the fortress. Saloona dashed through a narrow door that opened onto the kitchen garden. Paytim Noringal stumbled after her, still brandishing the glowing silver rod.