Songs of the Dying Earth

by Gardner Dozois

  “Wisdom suggests you should divest yourself of that,” Saloona shouted above the din of crashing stone and brick. She ran to where the prism ship hovered, a rainbow teardrop whose petals expanded at her approach.

  “Calamity!” exclaimed the ship. Saloona touched it gently, settling into her seat; but the ship continued to express alarm, especially when Paytim Noringal hauled herself in beside Saloona.

  “My poor basilisk.” The fire witch gazed at the ruins of her home. A single tear glistened at the corner of her eye, before expiring in a minute puff of steam.

  “Perhaps it escaped,” said Saloona as the prism ship floated upward. In truth, her greatest regret was for the loss of Paytim’s kitchen, in particular the last remaining globe of locust jelly. “It may well follow us.”

  She glanced at the silver rod Paytim grasped. The lustre of its glowing numerals had diminished, but now and then a bright ripple flashed across its surface. The sight made Saloona shiver. She seemed to hear an echo of that strange, plangent tone, and once she flinched, as though someone had struck a gong beside her ear. She wished that she had heeded the warnings of her prism ship, and remained at home among her mushrooms.

  Now, no matter the imminent danger to herself, Saloona was bound by ancient laws of hospitality. It would be gauche to refuse an offer of refuge to the fire witch; also foolhardy, considering the power of the charm Paytim held. When the prism ship had traveled a safe distance from the fire witch’s demesne, skimming above an endless canopy of blue-green spruce and fir, Saloona politely cleared her throat.

  “I am curious as to what use a musical charm might be to one as learned in the incendiary arts as yourself.”

  Paytim stared at the rod in her lap. She frowned, then flicked her fingers as though they were wet. A thread of flame appeared in the air, darkened to smoke that, as it dispersed, left a fluttering fold of purple velvet that fell onto Paytim’s knee. Quickly, she draped it around the silver rod. Both rod and cloth disappeared.

  “There,” she said, and Saloona noted the relief in her tone. “For a day and a night, we can mention it with impunity.” She sighed, staring down at the foothills of Cobalt Mountain. “I have been summoned to the Paeolinas’ court to attend the coronation after-ball.”

  “I was unaware the Queen was ill.”

  “The Queen was not aware of it either,” replied Paytim. “Her brother poisoned her and seized control of the Crimson Messuage. He has impertinently invited me to attend his coronation as Paeolina the Twenty-Ninth.”

  “An occasion for celebration. The charm is then a gift for him?”

  “Only insofar as death is that benefaction offered by envious gods to humankind. My intent is to destroy the entire lineage of Paeolina, so that I will never again be subjected to their abhorrent notions of festivity.”

  “It seems excessive,” suggested Saloona.

  “You have never eaten with them.”

  For several minutes, they sat without talking. The prism ship hummed high above the trees, arrowing homeward. A red-dimmed fog enveloped the sky as the dying sun edged toward the horizon, and the first mal-de-mutes began to keen far below.

  Finally, Saloona turned to the fire witch, her gray eyes guileless. “And you feel that this—spell—will be more provident than your own fire charms?”

  “I feel nothing. I know that this is a charm of great power that relies upon some subtle manipulation of harmonics, rather than pyrotechny. In the unlikely event that there are survivors besides ourselves, or an inquest, I will not be an obvious suspect.”

  “And my innocence?”

  A flurry of sparks as Paytim made a dismissive gesture and pointedly looked away from Saloona. “You are a humble fungalist, awed by very mention of the Crimson Messuage and its repugnant dynasty. Your innocence is irrefutable.”

  The mal-de-mutes’ wails rose to a fervid pitch as the prism ship began its long descent to Saloona’s farmstead, and the humble fungalist gazed thoughtfully into the enveloping darkness.

  Paytim was understandably disgruntled over the destruction of her home, and, to Saloona’s chagrin, showed little interest in preparing breakfast the next morning, or even assisting her hostess as Saloona banged about the tiny kitchen, looking for clean or cleanish skillets and the bottle of vitrina oil she’d last used three years before.

  “Your cooking skills seem to have atrophied,” Paytim observed. She sat at the small twig table, surrounded by baskets of dried fungus and a shining array of alembics, pipettes, crucibles, and the like, along with discarded circuits and motherboards for the prism ship, and a mummified mouse. Luminous letters scrolled across a panel beside the table, details and deadlines related to various charms and receipts, several of which were due to be completed the next morning. “I miss my basilisk.”

  “My skills never approached your own. It seems a waste of time to improve them.” Saloona located the bottle of vitrina oil, poured a small amount into a rusty saucepan, and adjusted the heating coil. When the oil spattered, she tossed in several large handfuls of dove-like tricholomas and some fresh ramps, then poked them with a spoon. “You have yet to advise me as to how I will address the customer whose charm you ruined.”

  Paytim scowled. The divining rod sat upon the table beside her, still wrapped in its Velvet Bolt of invisibility. She waved her hand above it tentatively, waited until the resulting flurry of silver sparks disappeared before replying. “That flaccid oaf? I have seen to him.”

  “How?”

  “An ustulating spell directed at his paramour’s bathing chamber. The squireen has been reduced to ash. The optimate’s need to retain his affection has therefore diminished.”

  Saloona’s nostrils flared. “That was cruel and unwarranted,” she said, and tossed another bunch of ramps into the skillet.

  “Pah. The optimate has already taken another lover. You are being uncharacteristically sentimental.”

  Saloona inhaled sharply, then turned back to the stove. Paytim was correct: this was more emotion than Saloona had displayed, or felt, in decades.

  The realization unnerved her. And her dismay was not assuaged by the thought that this unaccustomed flicker of sensation had manifested itself after Paytim had uttered aloud the names of the harmonic spell that was, for the moment, contained by the Velvet Bolt.

  Saloona shook the saucepan with more vigor than necessary. Since that moment in the tower, she continued to hear a low, tuneless humming in her ears, so soft she might have mistaken it for the song of bees, or the night wind stirring the firs outside her bedroom window.

  But it was only late afternoon. There was no wind. There were no bees, which were unnecessary to propagate mushrooms and other fungi.

  Yet the noise persisted. Saloona almost imagined that the humming grew more urgent, almost minatory.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked Paytim. “A sound like hornets in the eaves?”

  The fire witch cast her a look of such disdain that Saloona turned back to her stove.

  Too late: the ramps were scorched. Hastily she dumped everything onto a single pewter dish and set it on the twig table.

  “This—charm.” Saloona pulled a stool alongside Paytim and began to eat. “Its potency seems great. I don’t understand why you have need of my feeble powers to implement it at the Crimson Messuage.”

  Paytim regarded the mushrooms with distaste. “Your false modesty is unbecoming, Saloona. Also, I need your ship.” She glanced out the window to where a maroon glow marked the onset of dawn. “The Crimson Messuage is gravely suspicious of me, as you well know, but that’s never stopped them from wanting me to join their retinue as Court Incendiary. In addition, I have a torturous history with this particular Paeolina. He made disagreeable suggestions to me many years ago, and, when rebuffed, grew surly and resentful. I am certain that his invitation will lead me into a trap.”

  “Why didn’t you refuse it, then?”

  “It would merely have been tendered at another time. Or else he might have attempted
to take me by force. I tire of their game, Saloona. I would like to end it now, and devote myself to more pleasurable activities. My basilisk.” She dabbed at a sizzling tear. “And my cooking…”

  A sideways glance at Saloona became a more meaningful look directed at the blackened saucepan. Saloona swallowed a mouthful of tricholomas.

  “I still don’t—”

  Paytim banged her fist against the table. “You will be my Velvet Bolt! I need you to sow clouds of unknowing, of rapture, forgetfulness, desire, what-have-you—whatever you wish, whatever distractions you can conjure from this—”

  She stormed across the cottage to the window, and pointed at the ranks of neatly-tended mushroom beds, flushed with the first rays of morning. “Disarm the Paeolinas and their subordinates, so that we enter the court unaccosted, and with the Black Peal intact. During the evening’s entertainment, I will enact the spell: their corrupt dynasty will fall at last!”

  Saloona looked doubtful. “What is to keep us from succumbing as well?”

  “That too will be your doing.” The fire witch cast a sly glance at the pharmacopoeia bag hanging at Saloona’s waist. “You possess the Ubiquitous Antidote, do you not?”

  Saloona ran her fingers across the leather pouch, and felt the familiar outline of the crystal vial inside it. “I do. But very little remains of last year’s tincture, and I must wait another month before I can harvest the spores to infuse more.”

  Paytim sniffed.

  Saloona finished the last of the mushrooms and pushed aside her platter. The faint pricklings of emotion had not subsided when her stomach was filled. If anything, she now felt even more distressed, and ever more reluctant to commit to this hapless venture. Paytim’s must be a very powerful spell, to so quickly undo decades of restraint and self-containment. It would be dangerous if the fire witch were aware of Saloona’s sudden lability.

  “You require the use of my prism ship and my fungal electuaries. I remain uncertain of the benefits to myself.”

  “Ungrateful slut! I saved your life!”

  “After you attempted to wrest it from me!”

  Paytim tapped distractedly at the windowpane. The glass grew molten beneath her fingertips, then congealed again, so that the view outside blurred. “The robust holdings of the Crimson Messuage will be ours.”

  “I am content here.”

  “The Crimson Court has a legendary kitchen. Too long have you languished here among your toadstools and toxic chanterells, Saloona Morn! At great danger to myself, I have secured you an invitation so that you may sample the Paeolinas’ nettlefish froth and their fine baked viands, also a cellar known throughout the Metarin Mountains for vintages as rare as they are temulent. Still you remain skeptical of my motivations.”

  Saloona rose and went to stand beside the fire witch. Small flaws now flecked the window, like tiny craters or starbursts. The scents of sauteed mushrooms and burnt ramps faded into those of ozone and hot sand. Her hair rose slightly, tingling as with electricity. If she were to refuse the fire witch, Paytim was likely to exact a disagreeable vindication.

  “I will do what I can.” Saloona pressed a palm against the glass. “I have heard that the Paeolinas’ kitchen is extensive and the chef’s repertoire noteworthy if idiosyncratic. But if I fail…”

  “If you fail, you will die knowing that you have tasted nettlefish froth, a liqueur more captivating than locust jelly. And you will have heard the Seventeenth Iteration of Blase’s “Azoic Notturno.” Some have claimed that death is a small price to pay for such a serenade.”

  “I have never been a music lover.”

  “Nor I,” said Paytim. She laid her hand upon Saloona’s shoulder. “Come now. Time for a proper breakfast.”

  By the morning of the after-ball, Saloona had devised a half-dozen charms and nostrums of varying power. The fire witch wanted nothing to interfere with her deployment of the Black Peal: her plan, therefore, was to sow the air with sores and spells that would discourage or retard any effort to restrain her once inside the court. The most severe was a spell of Impulsive Corrosion, caused by spores of panther caps, pink mycenas, and fragile elf cups infused with azalea honey and caladium. The rest made ample use of fungi that caused convulsions, temporary paralysis, hallucinations, reverse metamorphosis, spasms, twitches, and mental confusions.

  Saloona refused to create any charm that might induce fatality. Still, for many years a favored entertainment had been researching the means by which her crop could depopulate large areas of the surrounding mountains. She grew poisonous mushrooms alongside their benign and sometimes all-but-indistinguishable relatives, and took pride in recognizing the subtle differences between, say, the devil’s bolete and its honey-scented cousin, the summer bolete. Her longtime sangfroid had made this a macabre but innocent pleasure. It had never crossed her mind that she might someday harvest spores and stems and caps from this toxic wonderland.

  She took no delight now in concocting her poisons. More alarmingly, she did feel guilt. This too she associated with the long echo of the Black Peal. It must be a most powerful charm, to overcome the emotional inoculation she had experienced from handling so many psychotropic substances for so long.

  “It seems inappropriate to sow such tumult among innocent guests,” she observed to the fire witch.

  “I assure you, no one within the Crimson Messuage is innocent.”

  “I am innocent!”

  Paytim held up a deadly gaelerina, a fatal mushroom which Saloona claimed tasted exquisite. “A dubious statement. Innocent? You use that word too often and inappropriately. “Naive” would be more accurate. Or “hypocritical.”

  “Hypocritical or not, we will be fully reliant upon the Ubiquitous Antidote,” said Saloona, whose efforts to create a spell to cause temporary deafness had been ineffectual. “If this spell is as powerful as it seems…”

  “So few spells are not reversed by your marvelous restorative,” replied Paytim in silky tones. “You are certain there is sufficient to protect us both?”

  Saloon removed the crystal vial from her pouch. A small amount of glaucous liquid remained, which the fire witch regarded dubiously. “There is enough to preserve us, if the Black Peal does not prove resistant. Its potency is such that a very small amount is effective. Yes, there is enough—but no more than that. We’ll be cutting it fine, and not a drop can be wasted.”

  “If necessary, we can stop our ears with beeswax.”

  “If that succeeds, this is a far more feeble charm than previously suggested,” said Saloona, and replaced the vial.

  Paytim Noringal said nothing; only stood before a deeply recessed window and stared mournfully at the dark line of spruce and cat-fir that marked the horizon.

  She was looking for her basilisk. Saloona considered a sharp retort about the unlikelihood of its return.

  But pity stayed her tongue, and apprehension at the thought of annoying the fire witch, whose temper was formidable. Saloona had never seen her neighbor exhibit much fondness for other humans. Paytim’s treatment of her former lover, the Court lutist, was not anomalous.

  Yet she displayed great, even excessive, affection for the basilisks she bred. They were lovely creatures, otter-sized and liquid in their movements, with glossy, sharply defined scales in vibrant shades of coral, cinnabar, chocolate-brown, and orange; their tails whiplike and their claws sharp enough to slice quince-apple rinds. They had beautiful, faceted eyes, a clear topaz yellow. Unlike their mythological counterparts, their gaze was not lethal. Their breath, however, was fiery as an athanor, and could turn sand to glass at a distance of three paces.

  They were almost impossible to tame. To Saloona’s knowledge, only the fire witch had ever succeeded in doing so. Her affection was returned by her charges, who consumed whatever was offered to them, living creatures or inert matter, but showed a marked preference for well-seasoned hardwood. Saloona imagined that was why Paytim’s gaze returned to the nearby forest, despite the inferior quality of the evergreens.
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  “Perhaps it will find its way here.” Saloona wiped fungal detritus from her fingertips. “You have always claimed that they have a well-developed homing instinct.”

  “Perhaps.” Paytim sighed. “But this is not its home. And in a few hours, we depart.”

  Saloona touched her hand. She hoped the gesture was reassuring—she was out of practice with such things. She very much needed the fire witch’s assistance during this final stage of assembling each spell. Since breakfast, they had worked side by side in the small, steel-and-glass-clad laboratory that stood in the darkest corner of Saloona’s farmstead, deep within a grove of towering black spruce.

  There, beneath glowing tubes of luminar and neon, Saloona utilized an ancient ion atomizer that reduced spores and toxic residues to a nearly invisible dust. The fire witch then used Saloona’s telescoping syringes to inject the toxins into a series of jewel-toned vesicles. Paytim strung these gemlike beads onto a chain of finest platinum, which would adorn Saloona when she entered the after-ball. Saloona and Paytim had taken mithradatic doses of each poison.

  When the last vesicle had been strung, they returned to Saloona’s cottage. There she decanted half of what remained of the Ubiquitous Antidote into a vial and gave it to the fire witch. Paytim then organized lunch. Saloona continued to express reservations regarding the night to come.

  “I received no personal invitation to this celebration. Surely they will not be expecting me.”

  Paytim stood beside the stove, preparing two perfect omelets laced with sauteed ramps and oryx bacon. “My response to the court was clear: you will be my guest.”

  “I haven’t left this place for nine years.”

  “You are well overdue for a journey.” Paytim slid an omelet onto a copper plate and set it in front of Saloona, alongside a thimble-sized lymon tartlet and a glass of fresh pepper jelly. “There. Eat it while it’s hot.”