The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction - July/August 2016

by Various

  I'd blown half her face off, and the wig, which fell and lay on the ground matted in blood. Ulla Blau collapsed after it. She lay by the car and didn't move. There was a small gun in her hand where she'd intended to shoot me.

  I walked over to her and fired another bullet, just to be sure.

  Gunther stood there all the while. He didn't move. His eyes found mine at last. "What did you do that for?" he said numbly.

  "You never asked her," I said.

  "Asked her what?"

  "What else she did to earn a living. Someone must have told you."

  I could see it in his eyes. Someone must have said something but he never thought to follow it up. I said, "You want to know why she was so protected? She sold us Jews. To the Gestapo."

  "So?" he said.

  "She worked in the theater in the aftermath of the war. She recruited the girls. She knew where people were hiding. It was just another way to make a living, and buy some protection on the side."

  "So what?" he said. "They were just Jews."

  "Sure," I said. "Sure. They were just Jews."

  He really looked at me then. I think it was the first time he really started to see things for what they were and not for what he thought they should be.

  "But you can't be," he said. "You're not—"

  "I knew Tom Everly in Berlin, before the war," I said. "We were at university together. He became a committed Nazi, and when he went back to England he was already working for the Abwehr. "

  I was watching Gunther's eyes. He wanted to run but there was nowhere to go. You can't outrun a bullet.

  "We found him in the last few months of the war. Just enough time for me to take his place," I said. "He had a wife and a son, but it's no use having a family in this line of work."

  All Gunther did was keep shaking his head. No, no. "There are no more Jews," he said.

  "I told you," I said. "We're a vanishing kind."

  Later, I stood over him. I knelt beside him and put the gun in his hand. They looked good together, he and Ulla. I felt bad for Gunther. He wasn't a bad guy, and none of this has really been his fault. He came to London following a woman, which is how these stories usually start, and he found her: which is how they usually end.

  * * *

  The Desert of Vanished Dreams

  By Phyllis Eisenstein | 9505 words

  Alaric the Bard made his first appearance in F&SF with "Born to Exile" in our August 1971 issue, and for the last forty-five years he has been a regular if not a frequent visitor to these pages, making this one of the longest running series in the magazine. And yet, as this tale shows, the author has not run out of fresh twists and surprises.

  ALARIC THE MINSTREL looked westward across the great desert. A line of dunes lay behind him, and the hard-baked desert pavement stretched ahead as far as the eye could see, good footing for both man and beast, though hot underfoot by day if the man were actually foolish enough to walk. Alaric rarely walked. A minstrel by trade and a traveler by choice, he rode his camel as he had formerly ridden a horse, with practiced ease, his teachers all members of the caravan that had accepted him into its company for the sake of his lute and his songs. Moving forward slowly beneath the relentless sun, that caravan seemed to him like an endless string of beads, each bead a man with a story that might be fashioned into yet another song. Alaric could have made the crossing in a few dozen heartbeats, using his witch's power to flit from horizon to horizon till he reached the desert's western edge, but those men and those potential songs drew him and made the journey worth as much as the destination. The man who rode ahead of him had told his own tale beside a campfire one night, and Alaric had found a song in it, and made the man smile at his own life. There would be another campfire tonight, another tale, another song—the minstrel never doubted that. Young though he might be, he was skilled at transmuting those tales and those lives into entertainments any crowd would pay good coppers—or even silver—to hear.

  Just now, he had no interest in coppers or silver. Just now, he was thirsty, as was every other man of the caravan. The last three wells had been dry, not even a trace of dampness in their depths to show that water had once seeped upward in them. Now the goatskin water bags that every camel carried were thinner than Alaric had ever seen them, and the men of the caravan were rationing their drinks to make the contents last. Alaric, of course, could have visited any of the wells they had passed farther east, could even have gone beyond the desert itself, to any place he had ever been or seen, and quenched his thirst and filled his bag there. But he did not—not as long as Piros, the caravan master, was certain that another well lay not far away. The man had not led caravans across the desert for three decades without knowing where water could be found. And so, like all the other men, Alaric sipped sparingly from his bag, grimacing at the stale and brackish taste of the liquid, and wondered where in all that seemingly endless landscape they would find the next well.

  On his left, toward the southern horizon, hovered the phantom city that sometimes kept pace with the caravan. At least, it looked something like a city, blurred with distance, its towers and walls wavering shapes in the desert sunlight, with silver water all around them. On some days, the towers were tall and slim, on others squat and fat, as if pressed down by some giant hand. Sometimes they disappeared entirely, fading away like frost in the spring warmth of the North. They were illusions, like the shimmering water that surrounded them, that sometimes spread across the desert ahead of the caravan, never to be reached. The desert air played tricks on men, he had been told, and one could never trust the visions that it offered. He had tried to craft a song about the phantom city, the phantom water, but it had eluded him so far, perhaps because his mind was taken up with the problem of real water.

  He tilted his water bag and took the tiniest possible sip, barely wetting his tongue, and wondered how far Piros was willing to go before asking for his help. Of all the men in the caravan only Piros knew his secret, and because he owed Alaric his life, he kept that secret to himself. But how many men might die of thirst because two men were keeping that secret?

  Alaric moistened his lips again and rode on, thinking of the rushing rivers of the North.

  That evening, at the caravan master's fire, Alaric pled that he was too dry to sing, and Piros gave over his own share of the tea they all drank so that there could be some entertainment. The rest of the men crowded around, listening, and when Alaric finished his song and gave back the cup with a mouthful remaining in it, Piros stood and stretched his arms out to command attention.

  "I know you think that too many wells have dried up," he said. "That we may die out here because of it."

  The faces that had turned to him were stark, the eyes red-rimmed, the lips cracked and peeling. No one said anything. He looked from one man to another. He had promised to pay them from his profits when they returned to the eastern edge of the desert. It had sounded like a fair enough bargain at the beginning of the journey.

  "There is a place where the water never fails," he told them. "I had not planned on stopping there, but now we have no choice. We turn southwest at first light. Find what rest you can, and if any man feels he might fail before morning, let him ask for some of my water. I don't plan on losing a single one of you."

  Again, none of them said anything, and Alaric thought that must be because their throats were so dry. And he felt remorse for having drunk the tea and traded only a song for it.

  Later, in the deepest darkness of the night, when the stars shone overhead like so many gemstones and yet shed precious little light, he went to Piros's tent and whispered the caravan master's name. A moment later, the man emerged, as if he had never been asleep.

  "A word in private," Alaric murmured, and the two of them walked some distance from the camp. Even so, the minstrel kept his voice low. "You haven't asked for my help."

  "There will be magic water enough tomorrow," said Piros. "No need for you to take the blame for it."

  Alaric shook
his head in bewilderment.

  Piros laid an arm across the minstrel's shoulders. "I'll need your courage tomorrow. And your strong back. Will you lend both to me?"

  "Of course."

  "Then that will be enough. Find your rest, lad. We have a long ride in the morning." Without another word, he turned and went back to his tent.

  The caravan roused in the dawn twilight, and everyone was mounted well before the sun began to show itself at the horizon. Piros sent his most experienced men up and down the line to encourage everyone to drink freely. Most did so, and a few muttered that they might as well, for if there was truly water at their next destination, it would not matter, and if there was not, it would matter even less. Mounted, waiting for the signal to move, Alaric took two mouthfuls from his water bag. Then he offered some to the man behind him but was refused, though the man's lips were dry and cracked.

  Tonight, he thought. Tonight there will be water, one way or another, and he began laying his plans.

  By midmorning they were moving almost directly south, and the phantom city, with its many towers and its illusory surrounding water, lay before them in what appeared to be the far distance. By midafternoon, the towers and the water had faded away, but something remained ahead, something like a wall, gleaming white beneath the high sun, and it did not disappear but rather increased in size and clarity as they rode toward it, until it was unmistakably real. The caravan halted some distance from it, and all the men sat their camels and stared as if they had never seen its like before.

  Alaric knew he had not.

  It was a wall indeed, wide, stretching left and right as far as a man could walk in five hundred heartbeats and as high as several men standing on each other's shoulders. It had a smooth façade, the wall merging seamlessly with an arching roof, its only blemishes a series of shoulder-high square openings too small for a man to squirm through, though a child might have done so. Windows, Alaric thought, showing only darkness within, though that might have been the result of coverings on the inside. Four times, instead of such a window there was a large panel, taller than a man and slightly less white than the wall, that could have been a door, though closed tightly now. In front of the wall, spreading in a semicircle from one end of it to the other, was a broad plaza with a white pavement, clean-swept, not a trace of sand upon it, rimmed by a low white wall, just knee-high, with occasional gaps, each gap wide enough for half a dozen men walking abreast to pass through. And in the center of the plaza was a sculpture that might have portrayed some kind of low, fanciful tree, standing in a shallow, circular basin.

  Piros was moving along the caravan, telling the men they would camp where they were and a party would go with him to fetch water.

  From where ? Alaric wondered. He saw no well and no sign of residents such as always lived around other water sources.

  They made camp, and Piros told off a dozen men and mounts to accompany him. Alaric volunteered, as promised, and helped load sacks of grain and salt on the animals—and half a dozen times as many empty water bags as there were camels. At the caravan master's signal, the chosen men mounted for the short ride to the nearest gap in the low wall. There, they left their camels in the care of one of their number, and the rest walked into the plaza, each carrying at least one sack of grain or salt and several empty water bags. Piros himself strode forward with purpose, the sculpture his obvious goal. So close, Alaric could see that the branches of what he had thought a tree had openings at their tips. They were pipes. The sculpture was a fountain, the basin intended to catch its flow.

  The basin was bone dry.

  Alaric sighed. Perhaps there had been water here in the past, but it was long gone. How many years had it been, he wondered, since Piros last visited this place? Yet there was no sign of disappointment on the caravan master's face.

  Piros directed his men to set their bags of provisions some paces to one side of the basin. Then he opened the mouth of one of his water bags wide and held it beneath the end of one of the pipes with his left hand while his right curved around the pipe an arm's length above the end. When the water began to flow, his men gasped and stepped back. When his water bag was full, its mouth snugged shut with sinew, he half-turned to them and said, "Well, do you want water or no?"

  For a long moment, no one moved.

  Piros leaned close to the end of the pipe, opened his mouth beneath it, and took a long drink. Then he doused his head till the liquid dripped down his face and over the shoulders of his desert robes. Straightening up, he wiped his chin with one sleeve and turned back to his men. "Are you too frightened to live?" he said. "The spirit of the city will give us what we need. Fill those bags!"

  Alaric was the first to step forward. He cupped his hands beneath the flow and drank. The water was as cool and sweet as any from the North. He filled his water bags and gestured for the other men to join him.

  The first to break from the group drank and drank and, with a deep, satisfied sigh, began to fill a bag. The rest crowded behind him, jostling to be next. Stretching out his free hand, Piros gripped a second pipe, and as water began to flow from it, some of the men diverted there.

  "Minstrel," said the caravan master, and he tilted his head toward the next pipe to his right.

  Alaric understood and touched it as Piros had touched his. When its flow began, he did the same with the next pipe beyond, and the men broke into two more groups to take advantage of those. Slowly, the pale basin at their feet accumulated what their bags did not catch.

  It took some time for all of the bags to fill, but at last Piros looked over the group and nodded. Taking one more drink for himself, he let go of the pipes, gesturing for Alaric to do the same, and almost immediately the flow of water stopped, leaving only the pool of liquid in the basin. A few heartbeats later, it, too, was gone, vanished down barely visible slitted drains. Piros signaled his men to start loading the camels with the now-heavy water bags. He and Alaric were the last to load their bags and climb into their saddles.

  "We'll do this again tomorrow," Piros said, "until every bag and pot and man in the caravan is full. Then we'll water the camels. They don't truly need it, but they'll drink if the water is in front of them."

  "And the salt and grain?" asked Alaric.

  "Payment," said Piros. "There must always be payment for the city's water."

  "Payment to whom?"

  Piros smiled. "That's a story you might want to make into a song. I may tell it tonight."

  "I've seen no one," said Alaric.

  "Oh, but they've seen us."

  Back at the encampment, the men who had stayed behind were gathered together, every eye on the returning camels. There were some anxious faces in the crowd, but most of the men surged forward to help unload the water bags. Soon enough, tea was being brewed, supplies had been broken out to make a good meal, and men were beginning to laugh around their campfires. The sun was long gone before Piros succumbed to Alaric's encouragement and began to tell what he knew of the city's past.

  "It's an ancient place," he said. "Some say from the dawn of time, though I can't guess how anyone could know that. Few enough from beyond the desert have visited it. I have, and my father before me, and his father as well. I once met another caravan master who said he'd been here, and I had little reason to doubt him. Still, in spite of its water, caravans avoid it. There are powers here that men fear, and rightly so. At night, lights can sometimes be seen in its windows, and not firelight, nothing so welcoming." Every face turned toward the city, but it was lost in the desert darkness, with no hint of light about it anywhere. "The doors will open now and then," Piros continued, "but few dare to go inside, and no one has ever spoken of what he found there. A door once opened for me and I looked in, but I did not have the courage to enter. Yet people do live here, perhaps the descendants of its first inhabitants, perhaps travelers lost in the desert and glad enough to find a refuge. There are a few who know our language, and I spoke to them years ago, but they sounded mad to me. I think i
t would be easy to be driven mad by such a place." He looked at Alaric. "Does all of this make you curious, minstrel?"

  Alaric smiled and sipped some tea. "Somewhat. Yet I am wary of places that others fear. Usually there are good reasons for that."

  Piros nodded. "Then you'll have to invent quite a lot if you plan to make a song of this place."

  "I've had some experience at that."

  Piros poured himself another cup of tea. "Let us hear some of those inventions, then, while we all drink our fill of this good water."

  Alaric's lute was never far away of an evening, and he swung it into his lap now, tested the strings, and launched into the most humorous tunes of his vast collection. He thought the caravan men needed humor to justify the thin laughter he had already heard, and indeed, they were ready enough to chuckle at the least jape.

  Four songs later, as his listeners began to drift away toward their tents, Alaric watched Piros speak softly to a number of them, and those men scattered to form a night guard around the camp. A night guard was common enough on the desert journey, but on this night, Alaric thought, Piros was being especially selective, delegating that duty to the toughest men of the caravan. As the minstrel crawled into the low tent he shared with two other men, he wondered how many dwellers there might be in the city. Not many, he judged, for there was no sign of anything edible in the immediate area, not even the date palms that flourished at many another desert waterhole. Would those bags of grain and salt truly sustain more than a few inhabitants, and for how long a time?

  He fell asleep thinking what madness it was to live in such a place.

  He woke to a furor in the camp. Someone had disappeared from the night guard and could not be found.

  "Who saw him last?" Piros was shouting the question, but no one seemed to have an answer.

  "He must have gone off on a call of nature and gotten lost," said one man.