by Rich Horton
“You’re bleeding,” he said. “There’s blood coming out of your ear.”
I gave him a weak grin. “It does that sometimes,” I said.
He frowned and peered at the side of my head. I could feel the blood trickling down my neck, like a snake crawling. At last he said, “There’s no point killing you. You’ll be dead anyway inside a week. You’ve been bewitched. There’s maggots in your brain or something.”
I really wanted to laugh. I managed not to. “That would explain it,” I said.
Even now I’m not sure why the snake didn’t kill me for telling lies. She wanted to, I know. She said so. Her story is that she tried to do it, but my skull was too thick to pop. She always tells the truth. I don’t believe her.
It was touch and go, though, for a day or two. I got out of there and back to the guest hut, where I fainted half in and half out of the doorway, on my knees, with my ass in the air. When I came round, I couldn’t move my left arm, and the left side of my face was frozen. It makes talking difficult, as you’ve probably gathered. I sound like I’m drunk, which is so unfair.
For weeks, apparently, I talked nothing but drivel. I find that odd, because I can remember having a lot of long, intelligent conversations during that time; with many of the great names in my profession, with interesting spirits I’d never come across before, with people I used to know, with my relations. I even got to talk to the Black One himself.
He came and sat beside me, or rather he squatted on his heels, perfectly balanced. He was much younger than I’d expected. He was frowning. I didn’t dare speak. He scratched his ear, then looked at his fingertip. My mouth was as dry as shield-leather.
“Hello,” he said suddenly, and his voice was much higher than I’d thought it would be. “You don’t know me. I’m your great-great-great-grandfather.” He grinned awkwardly. “Silly, really. I don’t feel old enough to be anybody’s grandfather, or anything like that. But I died young, you see.”
He sounded almost apologetic, as though he’d been inconsiderate. “Lord,” I mumbled. “Great one, Eater-Up-Of-Elephants.”
He gave me a look. “Yes, all right,” he said. “I don’t actually like that stuff. I used to,” he added with a little grin, “and look where it got me. My brothers killed me, you know.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“So.” He put the tips of is fingers together, aligning each one precisely. He had long, slim hands, like a girl. Everything about him was precise, delicate, elegant, even though he was so big and broad. He hadn’t lived long enough to run to fat, of course. “You’re the last of the family, then.”
“Am I, Lord?”
He nodded. “My children and my children’s children have seen to that,” he said sadly, “slaughtering each other till there’s nobody left. I don’t know why they had to do that, it’s stupid. You’d have thought, the first duty of a king is to make sure he’s got a son to take his place. Not our lot, apparently. Too scared of being murdered by their own kids. I ask you, what kind of way is that to live? No,” he went on, “you’re the last of us, and you won’t have any children, being a wizard and all.”
I’d been figuring it out in my head. When he died, he’d been just six years older than I was at that moment. He’d started young, of course. Won his first major battle when he was fifteen years old. “I wish I’d been a wizard,” he said.
“Lord?”
“Never had the talent, of course,” he said. “I’ve always felt bad about that. A wizard’s got it all, hasn’t he? Power, cattle, everybody’s scared stiff of him, even kings; you can make people do what you want and they’d never dare try anything with you. Wizards are so much better than kings.”
“Lord.”
“Well, it’s true,” he said. “I mean, look at our family. You know how many of us lived to be thirty? Four, out of fourteen. You know how many of us died natural deaths? None, that’s how many. Not one.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Is that true, Lord?”
“Are you calling me a liar?” For a moment, I thought lightning was going to strike me and burn me up. Then he grinned sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said, “force of habit. I always made a point of taking offence at pretty much everything. It made people scared of me, you see. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He shrugged, then went on; “Wizards, now, they all live to be old men, respected, looked up to, and the older they get, the more people respect them. Opposite of what happens with everyone else, when you get old, nobody bothers with you, you’re just a nuisance. Even kings. Your sons sit there watching you, waiting for you to die, and it’s them people talk to and listen to, because you won’t be around much longer and they want to be in with whoever’s going to take your place. No, wizards are much better than kings. Well, you know that. You had that idiot eating out of your hand.”
“It didn’t feel like it, Lord.”
He frowned. “Really? I thought you handled him really well. Smooth as butter, I thought.”
“I was frightened, Lord. I was very frightened.”
That made him laugh. “Well, of course you were,” he said. “That’s natural. I mean, look at me. I was scared stiff most of the time. Absolutely petrified.”
“Lord?”
“Oh yes.” He nodded seriously. “Oh, I yelled and roared and carried on like I was wrong in the head; people respect that, they don’t dare answer you back, even if you’re doing something bloody stupid. And I went on about how being brave is so wonderful, and if anybody did anything that even looked like cowardice I was down on them like a leopard, no second chances, nothing. You do that, people think ‘he must be really brave.’ But I wasn’t. The number of times I pissed myself down the leg just before we started fighting. But nobody saw, I don’t think, so that was all right.” He shook his head. “Wizards are better. You don’t get to marry and have kids, but that’s probably one of the good things about being a wizard, I don’t know. Really, you’ve got everything. You people aren’t even afraid of death, isn’t that right? That must be wonderful. Like being, I don’t know, free.”
I stared at him. “But Lord,” I said, “you were the greatest king of all time. You conquered the world, you stamped out the tribes like the embers of a fire—” I stopped. He was giving me a sad look and shaking his head slowly. “Lord?”
“You’re smart,” he said, “you should know better. I wasn’t smart, like you are.” Suddenly he laughed. “Believe me,” he said, “I wouldn’t lie to you. Heaven-Thunders-The-Truth, remember?”
“Heaven thunders the truth,” I said. But it didn’t mean anything any more.
Five years later, when the king was dying, he sent for me. I replied that I was too busy, which was true. He commanded me to attend on him. I didn’t bother to reply.
A lot had changed in that time. The People of Heaven had fought a bitter war against an alliance of their most powerful neighbours and had lost badly; we’d managed to patch up a sort of a peace, but it wouldn’t be long before they’d be back to finish us off. The king’s army was mostly dead; of the survivors, five regiments had crossed the northern border and kept going, until nobody knew where they were, and the king was only still alive because his three senior generals were still trying to decide which of them was going to kill him and take his place. There weren’t enough soldiers left for a civil war, so they were having to talk it through instead.
Meanwhile, the king’s illness, which he’d suffered from on and off for the last five years, had finally broken his will to resist, and he was about to save his loyal people the job. I, on the other hand, had prospered. I’d cured a plague. More to the point, I’d accurately predicted each crippling defeat, with enough circumstantial detail to convince even the most sceptical observer. I was turning away any job that didn’t interest me, and asking for (and getting) ridiculous fees for the few I condescended to take on. I think it’s fair to say I was the only doctor in the country who hadn’t messed up at some point in the war. I was univer
sally respected, and if I’d wanted to, I could’ve chosen who was going to be the next king, and everybody would’ve accepted my decision. But I chose not to. I was, I gave them to understand, above things like that, who cared only for wisdom. And truth. Heaven no longer thundered it. I did.
So he came to see me instead; unannounced, uninvited. But he still had a bodyguard of two hundred picked veterans; I had about seventy men minding my cattle and doing odd jobs for me, but even if I’d had notice and mustered them to fight, they wouldn’t have lasted very long against the guards. So, when two guard captains burst into my cave late one night and said the king was paying me a visit, I just yawned and said yes, I’d been expecting him.
He’d changed. It was a particularly unkind sort of illness. He’d swollen up like a body that’s been in the water. His arms and legs were like tree-trunks, and his body was grotesque; his head, though, was more or less the same size, which made him look ridiculous. He couldn’t stand or sit, so he had to be carried on a stretcher, with trestles to rest it on. They brought him in, and I didn’t look up. “Go away,” I said. A moment or so later, I heard them filing out of the cave. Only then did I lift my head and look at him.
“Hello, uncle,” I said.
His puffed-up cheeks had almost closed his eyes; they were narrow almonds of white, glaring balefully at me. “It’s true, then,” he said.
“Oh yes. How did you find out, by the way? Oh,” I added, because my father was standing over him, He was grinning.
“Is he still there?” asked the king.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “I can’t see him all the time, but I know he’s there, I can feel him.”
My father shrugged and pulled a face. He’s a jolly man, with a good sense of humour. I like him. I wish I’d known him.
“The illness,” I said, “is incurable. You have about five days to live. Then the weight will get too much for your heart and you’ll die. I’m sorry,” I added.
“Was it you?”
Inside my head the snake shifted ominously. All right, I told her, settle down. “Yes,” I said. “I put a spell on you, the night I lied to you. I had to, I’m afraid. It was the only way the snake would forgive me. I’m sorry, you can’t possibly understand that. The point is, I didn’t want to. But there was no other way.”
He nodded as much as he was able to, an inch or so. “The war?” he said. “Did you do that?”
I wanted to look away, but I reckoned I owed him eye-contact. “Yes,” I said. “I bewitched you into arrogance and stupidity. You were half-way there, but the other half was all me. I’m sorry for that, too.”
“You’ve destroyed the country.”
“I know,” I said. “We’re this close to being stamped flat. But it had to happen. The kingdom began with our family, and it’ll end with it. And frankly, no great loss. What did we ever do, apart from kill people?”
He closed his eyes. “If I tell my guards to cut your throat, I wonder if they’ll obey me.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “Would you like to try yourself? You can if you like, though the effort will probably kill you. I’m not bothered, one way or another.”
He was exhausted. Just talking, moving his head a few times, had drained all his strength. “What’s the point?” he said. “It’s all over now.”
“It will be,” I told him, “soon. Was there anything in particular, or did you just want to hear what you know already?”
His breathing was slow and shallow. Maybe I should’ve said, five days if you don’t exert yourself. “Do one thing for me.”
“It depends what it is.”
“Make him go away,” he replied, very softly. “Please. It’s only for a short while, and then he’ll have me forever. Can you do that?”
I looked at my father, who shook his head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “He wants to stay till the end.”
“Then give me some poison,” the king murmured. “I can’t stand him any more.”
“You should have thought of that before you killed him.” But I was already mixing two powders together in a little gourd of water. He couldn’t see that, of course. Neither of them could. “Drink this,” I told him, and he managed to get his lips apart a tiny crack. “It’ll make you feel better.”
I lied, of course. The war was nothing to do with me. My snake let me tell the lie because it counted as part of the king’s punishment. In fact, it was her idea. But I do think the war has been a good thing, broadly speaking. It’s put an end to the line of kings that began with the Black One, and I don’t think the People of Heaven will have kings after that, just some sort of governor answerable to whoever conquers us. Whoever that turns out to be, they can’t possibly be worse for the people than my family. Can they?
You have to ask yourself the question; does the snake choose you because you’ve got the talent, or do you have the talent because the snake chooses you? Everybody’s always told me it’s the first one—wizards, spirits, the snake, everybody who ought to know.
But take me as a case in point. Before she found me, I was stupid. I can just barely remember what it was like. You know when you’re sitting inside, and outside there’s two people talking, you can hear the voices but you can’t make out the words. After the snake found me, I could hear all the words. I think that if ever the snake left me, which she can’t do, she’d die; me too probably—but if that were to happen, I’d go back to being stupid again. Does that sound like the talent to you? I think the talent is the snake, and the other way about. I think that’s why the snake chose me; because my father was the prince, and someone somewhere decided that making the last lost surviving son of the royal house into a wizard would have interesting results, which would facilitate some larger strategy. Otherwise, the whole thing’s just one damn coincidence after another, and I don’t believe it. The snake says otherwise, of course, and she’s incapable of falsehood.
But I lied, yes. That makes it twice now that Heaven, as embodied in me, hasn’t exactly thundered the truth. I don’t care, and I don’t suppose anyone else does either. Not even the snake.
After all, why not? Heaven should tell lies from time to time. Everybody else does.
Selfie
Sandra McDonald
If you ask me, I’m more like my mom than my dad. She and I love astronomy and the mysterious origins of the universe. Dad’s not only stuck on the past, he literally would move there if he could. Every summer he drags me along on his research trips to eras where sweaty-smelling people with wool bathing suits hole up in seaside deathtraps.
“The Belleview is a beautiful hotel,” Dad protests, studying the snaps displayed on our living room wall. “It’s not a death trap.”
“Dad, it’s a wooden structure filled with flammable furniture and gas lamps, populated by people smoking pipes and cigars,” I say, from where I’m doing homework. “You told me yourself the number one enemy of old wood buildings is one careless spark. Show me a place with sprinklers and fire extinguishers, and then we’ll talk.”
He waves his hand to make the images scroll sideways. Some are black-and-white grainy images, while others are color chronoshots, and scrolling along the screen is a real-time cost analysis of different routes to get there. The cheapest option right now would require passing down three separate time tunnels and crossing two multidimensional borders. I hate the borders. They’re always crowded and boring and the lines seem to take forever, because you’re actually crossing forever.
“You didn’t object last summer when we visited the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island,” Dad says.
“Last month I did a school report on famous fires. Do you want me to read it to you?”
The color and angle of light slanting on Dad’s face changes as he brings up the blueprints. One of his many jobs is designing interactive tours of nineteenth century Victorian resorts for chrono tourists. The hotels all either burned down, got razed for redevelopment, or were destroyed by the rising tides that took out the o
ld coastal cities. The Belleview is a sprawling white structure on the Gulf of Mexico, a tempting beacon for both termites and hurricanes.
Dad says, “Susan, you can’t stay home for two weeks while I’m away. You’ll like Florida. The space program started there.”
He goes back to his plans. I think about the Gemini and Apollo missions and the first man on the moon, more than a hundred years ago.
Mom’s surprised when I call her a few days earlier than scheduled.
“I want to come visit while Dad goes to 1899,” I tell her.
She frowns on my palmscreen. “You want to come up here?”
“You said I could for my birthday.”
“Which is eight months away. What’s wrong with time trips? You used to like them.”
“Do you know how uncomfortable a corset is?” Especially now that I’ve gotten a lot bigger on top, but I don’t mention that. “And the shoes kill my feet.”
She glances away and taps on a tablet. “What does your father say?”
They were never married. In most timestreams they probably would never even dated, but in this one they met at a wedding while in grad school and drank too many glasses of champagne. Mom gestated my embryo and Dad took over after that. Everything’s mostly worked out fine, except they’re not quite friends and do most of their communicating through me.
“I haven’t told him,” I say, spinning the moon globe dangling over my desk. The settlement she lives in is built to scale and smaller than the crescent on my thumbnail. “He’ll be okay with it.”
She makes a distracted noise. “Well, he’s got to pay half. This time of year, the rates are very expensive.”
Lunar travel is never cheap. Luckily, every time Dad drags me to the past I take snaps of old jewelry, clothing, and furniture. I send them to a replication database for commercial and private users and earn a commission on anything they use. I’ve been doing it for four years now and there’s more money in my account than either Mom or Dad suspect.
“So I can come up?”