Stories: All-New Tales ngss-1

Home > Fantasy > Stories: All-New Tales ngss-1 > Page 49
Stories: All-New Tales ngss-1 Page 49

by Neil Gaiman


  I backed away and my heels struck the stair behind me. I was in such a hurry to get away I fell sprawling across the granite steps. The bird on my shoulder took off, rising in widening circles through the air, but when I found my feet it glided down to where it had rested before on my

  shoulder

  and I began

  to run back up

  the way I had come.

  I

  climbed

  in haste for

  a time but soon

  was tired again and

  had to slow to a walk.

  I began to think about what

  I would say when I reached the

  main staircase and was discovered.

  “I will confess everything and accept

  my punishment, whatever that is,” I said.

  The tin bird sang a gay and humorous ditty.

  It

  fell

  silent

  though as

  I reached the

  gate, quieted by

  a different song not

  far off: a girl’s sobs.

  I listened, confused, and

  crept uncertainly back to where

  I had murdered Lithodora’s beloved.

  I heard no sound except for Dora’s cries.

  No men shouting, no feet running on the steps.

  I had been gone half the night, it seemed to me but

  when I reached the ruins where I had left the Saracen

  and looked upon Dora it was as if only minutes had passed.

  I

  came

  toward

  her and

  whispered

  to her, afraid

  almost to be heard.

  The second time I spoke

  her name she turned her head

  and looked at me with red-rimmed

  hating eyes and screamed to get away.

  I wanted to comfort her, to tell her I was

  sorry, but when I came close she sprang to her

  feet and ran at me, striking me and flaying at my

  face with her fingernails while she cursed my name.

  I meant

  to put my

  hands on her

  shoulders to hold

  her still but when I

  reached for her they found

  her smooth white neck instead.

  Her

  father

  and his

  fellows and

  my unemployed

  friends discovered

  me weeping over her.

  Running my fingers through

  the silk of her long black hair.

  Her father fell to his knees and took

  her in his arms and for a while the hills

  rang with her name repeated over and over again.

  Another

  man, who held

  a rifle, asked me

  what had happened and

  I told him-I told him-

  the Arab, that monkey from the

  desert, had lured her here and when

  he couldn’t force her innocence from her

  he throttled her in the grass and I found them

  and we fought and I killed him with a block of stone.

  And

  as I

  told it

  the tin bird

  began to whistle

  and sing, the most

  mournful and sweetest

  melody I had ever heard

  and the men listened until

  the sad song was sung complete.

  I

  held

  Lithodora

  in my arms as

  we walked back down.

  And as we went on our way

  the bird began to sing again as

  I told them the Saracen had planned

  to take the sweetest and most beautiful

  girls and auction their white flesh in Araby-

  a more profitable line of trade than selling wine.

  The bird was by now whistling a marching song and the

  faces of the men who walked with me were rigid and dark.

  Ahmed’s

  men burned

  along with the

  Arab’s ship, and

  sank in the harbor.

  His goods, stored in a

  warehouse by the quay, were

  seized and his money box fell

  to me as a reward for my heroism.

  No

  one

  ever

  would’ve

  imagined when

  I was a boy that

  one day I would be

  the wealthiest trader

  on the whole Amalfi coast,

  or that I would come to own the

  prized vineyards of Don Carlotta, I

  who once worked like a mule for his coin.

  No

  one

  would’ve

  guessed that

  one day I would

  be the beloved mayor

  of Sulle Scalle, or a man

  of such renown that I would be

  invited to a personal audience with

  his holiness the pope himself, who thanked

  me for my many well-noted acts of generosity.

  The

  springs

  inside the

  pretty tin bird

  wore down, in time,

  and it ceased to sing,

  but by then it did not matter

  if anyone believed my lies or not

  such was my wealth and power and fame.

  However.

  Several years

  before the tin bird

  fell silent, I woke one

  morning in my manor to find

  it had constructed a nest of wire

  on my windowsill, and filled it with

  fragile eggs made of bright silver foil.

  I regarded these eggs with unease but when I

  reached to touch them, their mechanical mother

  nipped at me with her needle-sharp beak and I did

  not after that time make any attempt to disturb them.

  Months

  later the

  nest was filled

  with foil tatters.

  The young of this new

  species, creatures of a new

  age, had fluttered on their way.

  I

  cannot

  tell you

  how many birds

  of tin and wire and

  electric current there

  are in the world now-but I

  have, this very month, heard speak

  our newest prime minister, Mr. Mussolini.

  When he sings of the greatness of the Italian

  people and our kinship with our German neighbors,

  I am quite sure I can hear a tin bird singing with him.

  Its tune plays especially well amplified over modern radio.

  I don’t

  live in the

  hills anymore.

  It has been years

  since I saw Sulle Scale.

  I discovered, as I descended

  at last into my senior years, that

  I could no longer attempt the staircases.

  I told people it was my poor sore old knees.

  But in truth I

  developed a

  fear of

  heights.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  Dublin-born Roddy Doyle has written novels, play, and screenplays. His novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize in 1993. His Barry-town trilogy has been filmed as The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van.

  Joyce Carol Oates has published more than fifty novels, as well as numerous short story collections and volumes of poetry and nonfiction. Her novel Them won the National Book Award.

  Joanne Harris is the author of The Evil Seed and Chocolat, which was a number one best-seller on the London Sunday Times and was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbre
ad Novel of the Year. Runemarks, published in 2007, was her first book for children and young adults.

  Michael Marshall Smith is a British novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer. He has won the British Fantasy, the August Derleth, and the Philip K. Dick awards. His book The Intruders was picked up by the BBC for a major new drama series.

  Joe R. Lansdale is the author of scores of novels and short stories, including the popular Hap and Leonard mystery series. He is a multiple winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife and family.

  Walter Mosley is the author of more than twenty books in many categories, but is perhaps best known for the highly regarded and popular Easy Rawlins hard-boiled detective novels. Born in Los Angeles, he now lives in New York City.

  Richard Adams is the author of Shardik, The Girl in the Swing, and many other novels, but is perhaps best known for Watership Down, which was a national best-seller, and was awarded the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction.

  Jodi Picoult is a number one best-selling author, with more than 14 million books in print worldwide. She won the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003, and currently lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.

  Michael Swanwick began publishing in the early 1980s, and is currently based in Philadelphia. He is the winner of the Hugo, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, and Nebula awards.

  Peter Straub’s novel Ghost Story is generally considered a high point of the modern horror novel. He has won the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, and International Horror Guild awards. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he now lives in New York City.

  Lawrence Block is the highly acclaimed author of two series set in New York, featuring Private Eye Matthew Scudder and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. In 1993 Block was tapped as a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

  Jeffrey Ford is known for his iconoclastic and literary dark fantasy novels. He is the winner of numerous awards for both his short stories and longer works. He lives in southern New Jersey with his wife and family.

  Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club and numerous other novels, including the recent novel Pygmy. He is the recipient of many awards, among them the Pacific Northwest Bookseller Association Award. He lives in Washington State.

  Diana Wynne Jones has written many fantasy novels for adults and children, among them the Chrestomanci series, which won the 1977 Guardian Award for children’s books. Her Howl’s Moving Castle was made into a notable film by Japanese director Havai Miazaki. She lives in Great Britain.

  Pittsburgh native Stewart O’Nan is the author of numerous novels, such as Songs for the Missing and The Good Wife. His first short story collection, In the Walled City, was awarded the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 1993.

  Multiple award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer Gene Wolf is perhaps best known for The Book of the New Sun, which comprises four volumes. He lives in Illinois.

  Carolyn Parkhurst is the best-selling author of The Dogs of Babel (which was also a New York Times notable book in 2003) and Lost and Found. She lives in Washington, D.C.

  Kat Howard currently lives in Minneapolis. She earned a law degree, then acquired a Ph.D. in English literature, both from the University of Minnesota. She is a 2008 graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. “A Life in Fictions” is her first published story.

  Jonathan Carroll, generally considered a magic realist, is the author of the novel The Land of the Laughs and many others. He has won the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy awards.

  International number one best-selling author Jeffery Deaver’s books are sold in 150 countries and have been translated into 25 languages. He is the winner of numerous awards. His most recent books are The Bodies Left Behind and More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume II.

  Tim Powers, another magic realist, has won the World Fantasy Award two times, for his novels Last Call and Declare. Born in Buffalo, New York, he grew up in California, where he still lives.

  Kurt Andersen is a novelist and host of the public radio program Studio 360. A cofounder of Spy magazine and former editor in chief of New York magazine, he has also written for Vanity Fair, Time, the New York Times, and the New Yorker.

  Michael Moorcock has published science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as more overtly literary works. As editor of New Worlds magazine, he helped foster the new wave movement in science fiction, which helped bring it into the literary mainstream.

  Elizabeth Hand grew up in New York and currently lives in Maine. She is the winner of the World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and International Horror Guild awards. Among her novels are Illyria and Generation Loss.

  New England native Joe Hill’s first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was a best-seller. He has won many awards. His first short-story collection, 20th Century Ghosts, was published in 2005, and his most recent novel is Horns.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: fbd-a5561e-84e7-b145-4bb7-c9d6-83c3-fe5b46

  Document version: 1.1

  Document creation date: 20.06.2011

  Created using: calibre 0.8.5, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

  Document authors :

  alaskin

  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net

  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/

 

 

 


‹ Prev