by Bill Fawcett
Rhubarb and Beets
TODD McCAFFREY
On Gene Wolfe: Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, including The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, and The Citadel of the Autarch, reinvigorated and defined a whole genre, raising the bar for all who came after him and uniting his works with those of Dickens, Lewis, Swift, and Tolkien. Gene’s style and wit and his willingness to invent new words that seem like they ought to exist is charming to read and frustrating to emulate. Truly he’s one of the genre’s great treasures.
The elfish girl walked spritely up the path.
“Gran!” she called, stopping for a moment to peer ahead and then starting forward again with a skip in her step. “Gran, where are you?” There was no sign of him in the front of the stone cottage. “Eilin?” an old voice called in surprise. The doddering old man, steps quick but wobbly, rounded the corner from the back of the cottage. He had a guarded look on his face and then smiled as he spotted the girl. “Eilin, what brings you here?”
“My lady was worried,” Eilin replied, peering up at the silver- haired man. “She didn’t see you in the garden.”
“Oh, I was around back, just pottering.”
“Pottering?” Eilin repeated. It was a strange word, like so many of the other words he used.
“Aye, nothing more,” Gran replied, gesturing toward the front door. “Come in and I’ll put on some tea for ye.”
Eilin nodded, not trusting her face. Gran was forever going on about “tea,” but it was always hot water poured over strange roots and never quite the amazing brew he made it sound like. She glanced back over her shoulder down the path she’d taken. Finding no respite—no signs of her lady mother beckoning her back imperiously—
Eilin knew she had no choice but to accept her gran’s offer. “And what brings you here on such a fair day?” Gran asked as he opened the door to his cottage and bowed her in.
“My lady mother—”
“Ach, lass, that’s what ye said,” Gran interrupted. “I meant the real reason.”
The silver-haired man followed her into the cottage, waved her to her favorite seat, bustled about near the stove and came back, beckoning for her to stand again, while he settled in the one plush chair and settled her on top of him.
“Was it the spiders?” Gran asked softly as she rested her head on his warm shoulder.
“No,” Eilin said in a half-drowsy voice. Her lady mother said that they kept Gran because he was so good with children. Perhaps it was true: Eilin could never listen to his singsong voice for long before falling asleep on his lap. “Not spiders.”
“The prince, then,” Gran decided.
“The baby, actually,” Eilin allowed. Her brother the prince was no more a pest after she’d discovered that he was more afraid of spiders than she—one night harvesting the worst of them and then laying them over him as he slept cured the prince of any desire to annoy her—which was as it should be.
A whistle from the kettle on the stove disturbed them and Eilin allowed herself to be manhandled as Gran stood, deposited her gently back on the warm chair, sauntered over to the stove, and poured steaming water into a clay pot.
Eilin’s nose crinkled as the strange smell came to her. Another of Gran’s terrible brews, she thought.
How long had it been now? Twenty years? Forty? More? Once his hair had been red, his eyes keen, his face fresh like a new apple.
Now it was lined, his eyes were dimming, his hair all white and lanky. Even his body seemed smaller than once it had been, as though time had forced it to curl in obeisance.
Changelings never lasted very long. She’d only just gotten him properly broken in and now he was all worn out.
The smell shifted and Eilin sniffed again, her eyes open and senses curious. This time Gran’s brew did not smell so bad. Gran came back with two mugs on a tray and set them near the sofa. He scooped Eilin back up, settled himself, and pulled a mug over in one hand.
“If you’d care to try . . .” Gran offered.
“Of course,” Eilin said, never one to refuse a graciousness. She sniffed, took a quick, thin sip and—amazed—her eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise. She took another sip, a bit deeper but only just— the liquid was piping hot.
Gran chuckled at her evident pleasure.
“Rhubarb and beet,” Gran said. He took the second mug for himself.
“What’s it for?”
“It’s for the unicorns,” Gran said.
Eilin took another sip. It was always unicorns with Gran. Always the same joke.
“Do you think they’ll like it?” Eilin said, deciding this time to play along.
“We’ll see,” Gran said, taking another sip. “We’ll see.”
“Tell me about the unicorns,” Eilin said as she’d said most every day she came to the cottage. She sipped her tea and wondered why in the Elvenworld Gran could ever come to the notion that unicorns might drink such brew.
“What’s to tell?” Gran teased her.
“No one can see them,” Eilin said, repeating his old story. Days and years he’d told her, put her to sleep with his singsong, sad, sorry voice telling her about the unicorns.
“No one can see them,” Gran agreed. “Their horns take them from Elvenworld to our world and back.”
“They brought you here.”
“When I was just a lad,” Gran said in agreement.
“And now you’re here and you’ll never leave,” Eilin finished. She leaned back, resting her head on his warm shoulder companionably. “You belong here, with us.”
“Forever in Fearie.”
“With the Elves and the unicorns, my lady mother, lord father, and the prince, my brother,” Eilin concluded. “This is your home and we love you.”
“I had a home,” Gran reminded her, his voice going soft and a bit hoarse, “and those who loved me.”
“Long gone, time slips differently here,” Eilin reminded him. “Drink your tea,” Gran said, raising his mug to his lips and draining it impatiently.
For once, Eilin did as he said.
“No one can ever see a unicorn,” Gran said to her as she drifted off into pleasant slumber.
It was weeks later when Eilin came again. Her brother the prince had discovered thorny roses and had tormented her by hiding them in her bed as she slept.
The pricks and pains of the thorns had sent her crying to the comfort of Gran’s cottage in the distance.
“Gran!” she cried. He had the greatest cures and poultices; perhaps he could pull the sting out of her. “Gran!”
No answer, no movement from the cottage. Alarmed, Eilin picked up her pace.
No sign.
She ran around the cottage to the back, crying, “Gran!”
“Sssh!” Gran called from the far end of the garden. “I’m here, no need to shout!”
“What are you doing?” Eilin asked, eyeing the green growth and dirty ground in surprise.
“Just tending my garden, princess,” Gran told her, rising from his knees to stand and then bow in front of her.
“My brother the prince used thorns!” Eilin cried, raising her pricked palms toward him and then pointing to the gash in her neck and the others on her arms. “He put roses in my bed.”
“I can help you,” Gran said, nodding toward his cottage. “A bit of brew, some cold water, and you’ll be right as rain.”
“And how is rain right?”
“It’s right when there’s a rainbow and the air is clear of dirt and full of freshness.”
Eilin nodded. Rainbows were expensive outside of Faerie; her father had the drudges work until they expired to find the treasure required for each rainbow. Gran had once called him too vain for his own good, but Eilin could only think of the pride of the kingdom and the bounty of the Elvenworld. The drudges were only human, lured by the same gold they died to provide, no matter to her father the king or even to Eilin herself.
Gracefully, Gran followed her to the cottage
and bowed her inside, gesturing toward his comfortable chair. She sat waiting in pain while he pottered over the stove and set potions to brew.
Presently he was back and had her in his lap again, gently applying his hot brew and holding pressure on her pale white skin until the thorn punctures closed and the pain went once more.
“Do have you more tea, Gran?” Eilin asked as the last of the pain faded into dim memory.
“Tea?” Gran asked as he put his potions and clothes to one side.
“The purple tea you made,” Eilin said.
“Unicorn tea,” Gran said in a questioning tone.
“Yes.”
“No one can see unicorns,” Gran said, half-teasing her.
“The tea was good,” Eilin said, feeling her eyelids drooping as the rise and fall of his chest and the warmth of him calmed her.
“The tea will make your stings come back,” Gran said. He took a breath, and then continued, “Let me tell you about the rainbows.”
“There were three that day,” Eilin said, recalling his words from so many times before. It was a marvelous story; Gran told it so well and Eilin always filled with pride at the brilliant trick her father had played.
“Three rainbows and only one with gold,” Gran said by way of agreement.
“Fool’s gold,” Eilin remembered, a smile playing on her lips.
“Fool’s gold,” Gran agreed. “And the fool was me, parted from friend and family by the faint hope that I could find enough gold to save them—”
“—from the famine,” Eilin finished, her eyes now closing. “The unicorn ripped through that day, ripped from our world to yours three times.”
“Ripped indeed,” Gran agreed, his tone tightly neutral. “But no one saw them.”
“Unicorns are invisible,” Eilin agreed, closing her mouth at last and snoring gently on the old man’s chest.
“Clear as the water they drink,” Gran said softly to himself while the little elfish girl slept on.
“Gran!” Eilin shouted as she traipsed up the path to the cottage. Drat the man, where was he? “Gran!”
He usually replied by now, doddering out from his cottage or around from the silly garden on which he so doted. He was being slow and she’d make him bow so long in penance that his back would hurt. Well . . . maybe not that long.
“Gran!”
No sign of him in the cottage. He was old, Eilin remembered, and picked up her pace. Disposing of bodies was something she never liked, and then there’d be the bother of having to find a new human—she sprinted around the corner, looking for him kneeling over some of his silly rhubarb or his beets, but he wasn’t there.
His garden opened up on the fields of cloudgrass— the favorite food of unicorns. Gran had insisted on it as inspiration, and the best location for the sun his plants required.
Every now and then over the years, she’d find him looking at the fields of cloudgrass, waving white and brilliant, watching as clumps were eaten by invisible grazing unicorns.
“What do unicorns eat?” Gran had asked early on when he still dreamed of escape from the Elvenworld.
“They eat cloudgrass and drink clear water,” Eilin had told him expansively. “That’s why they’re invisible.”
“And how they can cut between the worlds?”
Eilin didn’t know and, as it was inappropriate for a princess to be ignorant, she said nothing.
Eilin gazed from Gran’s garden to the field and her jaw dropped as she spotted the path. She followed it with her eyes, even as she willed her feet into action.
“Gran!” she cried, racing into the cloudgrass fields. She couldn’t see him; the grass was nearly taller than her. She’d forgotten that most days when they’d gone into the fields she’d been riding on his shoulders—Gran being her very own special two-legged beast of burden.
“Gran!”
In the distance she heard thunder. Unicorns were racing. She saw lightning where their hooves struck hard ground.
They were stampeding. Soon enough they’d bolt and tear holes between the Elvenworld and the slow world of humans. Was Gran hoping to catch one? How could he— they were invisible!
“Get on!” A thin reedy voice came to her over the winds and the thunders. “Ride on, go on!”
“Gran!” Eilin cried. “No, Gran, you’ll never catch one!” He’d be trampled for certain, unable to see the unicorns, unable to dodge their panicked flight.
“On with you! Thunder and lightning!” Gran’s voice, exultant, came over the noises and the cloudgrass.
Eilin remembered a knoll nearby and raced toward it. It was only a few quick strides for Gran, but for the little elfish girl it was nearly a hill.
At the top she could see over the cloudgrass, across the fields and—there!
“Gran!” Eilin cried. Oh, the fool, the fool!
He was riding a unicorn, his weak old arms tightly clasped around its neck, his bony legs gripping its withers tightly, and in one hand he held a long- stemmed rose, waving it wildly, striking the unicorn’s hindquarters— the unicorn’s purple hindquarters.
Rhubarb and beets, Eilin thought to herself with sudden clarity. All those years he hadn’t given up hope, he’d merely been planning. Oh, clever human!
He’d raised the beets and the rhubarb for the unicorns. Fed enough, the usually invisible hide took on a faint purple hue. Coaxed with a gentle voice and the sweet and the sour of the rhubarb, it was no trouble to bring one of the unicorns to within hand’s reach.
“Gran!” Eilin cried, her thin voice dying in the winds. “Oh, Gran, take me with you!”
The old man didn’t hear her.
“Gran!” Eilin cried at the top of her lungs, realizing at last how much she loved the old human. How he’d been the only one to hug her to him, the only one to ever care the slightest about her as a person. “Gran!”
Thunder. Lightning tore through the sky and suddenly, the wicked electric- blue glow of lightning burst from the purple-veined horn of the unicorn Gran rode.
In an instant, the Void was torn and the far human world sprang into view. The unicorn, goaded unerringly by Gran, leaped through, and the tear closed.
A final burst of lightning and thunder rolled through the skies— unicorn and rider were only a dimming memory in the elfish girl’s eyes.
Todd McCaffrey wrote his first science fiction story when he was twelve and has been writing on and off ever since. Including the New York Times bestselling Dragon’s Fire, he has written eight books in the Pern universe, both solo and in collaboration with his mother, Anne McCaffrey. His work has appeared in many anthologies, most recently with his short story “Coward” in When the Hero Comes Home (2011), and with Robin Redbreast in When the Villain Comes Home (2012), and the mini-anthology Six. His latest book, City of Angels, is currently available as an e-book in both Nook and Kindle formats. Visit his website at www.toddmccaffrey.org.
Tunes from Limbo, But I Digress
JUDI ROHRIG
On Gene Wolfe: During my stint as publicity coordinator for the 2002 World Horror Convention, I had the honor of discovering that guest of honor Gene Wolfe was not only an amazingly talented writer, but a crafty pirate who could break out in silly singsongs at the drop of a hat. (And in his case, a rather dapper hat.) Our friendship grew from there, based on our mutual fondness for wolves, mermaids, interesting words, Chicago Cubs baseball, the Li’l Pirate, and wooden pencils.
The title of this story, “Tunes from Limbo, But I Digress,” first popped into my head several years ago. When I shared it with Gene, he told me, “Hurry up and use that or I’m going to steal it.” Luckily he didn’t. And luckily, I saved it for the right story. What also found its way into “Tunes . . .” (a tromp inside his Home Fires world) was an offhanded comment he made when I asked him how he liked his new laptop. After a low grumble, he said, “I would have been better off buying a really good pencil.” And for a writer that would be a Palomino Blackwing 602.
One thing I have lea
rned from the man my daughter and I call “Raggedy Man” is to be constant in my pursuit of ripe story titles. (Good golly, look what grew from the one he wanted to pilfer!) And that this same extraordinary writer will rationalize appropriating any writing instrument if he takes a liking to it. (Or lead others to purloin one for him. I mean, what would you do to earn a Gene Wolfe approving chuckle?)
Dear—
What do I call you when I don’t know who you’ll be? If only the Fates allowed me to address you face to face as we plummet through space on the Domum Ignes. You could help me to untangle what’s happened. An accident, the ship’s doctor tells me, his fumbling explanation to my once prevalent headaches and confusion perhaps, but not the lingering visions.
They arrive in bits and pieces mostly. A sudden smell or taste. The flash of an idea. A picture. Unexplained feelings and urges. Dreams. Remembrances of what we’ve left behind on our humble planet? I don’t know.
Yet there they are: crackling flames from an open hearth blushing my face while my outstretched frozen fingers thaw, or sugarsand beaches with frothy ripples tickling my toes while an unhurried wind peppers a salty mist. In my unfolding palms, I could tender a delicate bud of spring’s promise or a plump fruit of autumn’s harvest as well.
Then it all disappears.
In a way, I’m oddly reminded of a game played long ago on a rainy afternoon. Except here Colonel Mustard didn’t use the candlestick in the conservatory to commit any crime. Though there are indeed pieces to this puzzle: Hayward Madden and his diplomatic entourage, each entubed in suspended animation, to be revived when we finally reach the treaty zone at the Gates of Johanna; Captain Tynan-of-Hod, crew member; the Admiral’s library; a smuggled pencil; and . . . Threeve, a Même.
Me.
The title of my function stems from the words même récit, referring to what I do, not who I am. I read our most precious cargo of slumbering diplomats their own life histories while they are in stasis. It isn’t all that complicated, but here’s the twist: They don’t simply listen or absorb the information. The electrodes attached to the ridge on each Tuber’s cerebral cortex— the superior temporal gyrus—processes and transmits auditory information from them to the receiver d-comm implanted in my own device. In essence, we enjoy verbal interaction, though only one of us is fully awake.