by IGMS
Then everything stopped, like a switch was turned off.
Violix's tentacles retracted, the devices slipped away into his head, and for a few heartbeats he just stood there. Then he slowly toppled sideways in the silence.
I leaped towards him and caught him, lowering him gently to the floor.
I wept for them both.
For how long I didn't know.
The lights from the night market below marked the passing of time with their multi-coloured tattoo across the ceiling.
Mixed with the tears was a dawning realisation that I couldn't dare trust Mr. Long.
I had to call him, to tell him what happened, but I didn't dare trust him.
Glancing at the deadly painting, I pulled out my satcom from my pocket and inserted Hei Long's white card.
"You finished, Mr. Whistler? Already?"
I nodded at the small holo. "You'd better come over."
"Yes? Okay, I am nearby. Five minutes."
I paced the far side of the studio as it dawned on me that I was contemplating murdering a man. But once the painting was destroyed no one would ever know.
I looked again at Violix's crumpled body.
He'd suffered for years because he'd lost Valentina and blamed himself -- he'd had a way out, but hadn't the courage at the time to take it.
I clenched my jaw; that wasn't going to happen to me.
Something scraped behind me and I spun round.
"So, are you making plans, Mr. Whistler?"
Hei Long and the black, panther-like beast, Mr. Chasin, stood by the entrance to the studio.
"What . . . I . . . What do you mean?"
Hei Long pointed to the pictures as he walked across the wooden floor towards me. "Plans for the show for the paintings, of course. What else? You like them? Where is the painter? Violix?"
I had to be very careful. "The paintings are unique, Mr. Long. They will command a high dollar value and will only go up over time. Especially now --" I pointed to the far side of the gallery, to the dark shape on the ground by the easel. "-- that the artist is dead."
Hei Long turned back, his eyes narrowing. "What did you say? Dead? This isn't true, he --"
"He killed himself. He wanted to be with his wife, Val --"
Hei Long waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, yes. I know all about Valentina. He was obsessed with her. Never let her go. Fool." Hei Long turned and looked at the body. He stood there for a moment.
"He owed me much money. Did you help him?"
"No, I didn't. I --"
"But you didn't try stop him, did you?" Hei Long looked sharply at me, as though weighing something up. "His debt transfers to you. Now it is your debt, Mr. Whistler."
My heart accelerated. "But what about our deal?"
"New deal now." Hei Long pursed his lips and arched a scarred eyebrow. "Is this a problem for you? Perhaps I should speak to Justin?"
Why didn't he just take the paintings and be done with it? Every fibre of my being wanted him to take back those words, but it was too late. He wasn't going to just let me go. Not now, not ever. He would own and use me the way he owned and used Mr. Chasin.
Any doubts I'd had about what I needed to do vanished.
I shook my head. "No, no. Leave him out of this."
"Sensible." Hei Long glanced back at the body. "How did he do it, then?"
"I don't know." I lied. "He just toppled over and stopped moving. He had a last message for you." I felt like an assassin loading a weapon. "Something he asked me to tell you."
Hei Long snapped his head round, his sparkling eyes narrowed as they searched mine. "A message for me? Yes? What did he say? What was the message?"
His glinting eyes seemed to see through me.
I cleared my throat and ploughed on. "He said to tell you that his final painting was for you -- to clear all debts between you. His greatest masterpiece, he said. It's the one there." I lifted my hand.
I could have been pulling a trigger, not pointing a finger.
"To clear all his debts? He actually said this to you?" Hei Long turned and looked across to the picture.
"Yes, that's what he said."
"Then, I look." Hei Long walked a few step across studio before stopping. He stood there looking at the distant picture for what seemed like minutes. Then he glanced at the body on the floor.
"Powerful picture, I think."
I willed him to walk closer, but instead he spun on his heel and looked at me, a smile curling his lips. He tapped his toe a few times on the floorboards.
"You know what my name means, Mr. Whistler?"
I shook my head, and swallowed.
"It means Black Dragon." He shook his head. "Not my real name, but people have called me that for years. The Chinese think dragons can become a man, if they want to. They think I'm a dragon. Know why?"
"No," I mumbled.
He smiled slowly. "It is impossible to trick a dragon, Mr. Whistler. You stink of lies."
I stepped away. "I haven't tried to trick you, Mr --"
Hei Long's eyes blazed. "Shut up."
An electro-knife mysteriously appeared in his hand. The glistening re-curved blade slid out, buzzing like a muted bee.
"I think you look in picture instead, Mr. Whistler."
I shook my head, my heart hammering. "I can't." I had nothing to lose. "You have to believe me. Violix said the painting was just for you." I waved at the other pictures. "I . . . I . . . I've only just looked at five of the pictures. My heart can't handle any more. It would kill me."
I rubbed my chest to illustrate.
Hei Long seemed amused. He smiled. "You've got a weak heart all of sudden, eh?"
"No. It's been weak for some time."
The beast jumped to its feet and padded across to the picture. Hei Long smiled. "Then Mr. Chasin will look for me. Anything happens to Mr. Chasin and I will cut out your weak heart, followed by your son's. Fair?"
I nodded barely hearing, knowing I was just delaying the inevitable. My mind cast desperately for ways out of the net I felt enclosing about me.
I glanced at the studio door. For a second I considered making a dash for it.
Then I remembered that Hei Long controlled the beast and manipulated it against its will. I felt a surge of guilt.
I turned back.
But the beast was already turning away from the picture -- unscathed.
I blinked.
It walked back and looked first at me, then at Hei Long. "It's just a picture. Nothing special."
It didn't make any sense.
Hei Long lifted an eyebrow. "So you weren't lying, Mr. Whistler. I'm not normally wrong." The electro-blade slid back into the handle and quieted.
He walked to the picture and stopped. He shivered, then glanced over his shoulder at me.
"I'm curious why he gave it to me, now." But his eyes were already milky and blood dripped from his ear lobe to the floor -- he appeared not to notice.
He turned back to the picture.
It was like looking back in time to the moment I first saw him: silhouetted before Gova's Sensate in my own gallery. I'd thought, at the time, that he'd looked like a traveller about to step into a vortex.
When the small tremor started in his left foot and spread up his leg and I knew he was travelling the vortex for real.
His torso shook and within moments his whole body vibrated, his arms flailing about like a rag doll's in a hurricane.
He gasped and blood sprayed in a fine mist, then his back arched like bow.
For a brief instant his whole body tensed and was motionless -- a statue balanced perfectly on its toes. Then he crumpled to the floor, his life spent.
I stood there swaying for a moment, hardly daring to breath.
The beast looked at me. "He's dead. I can't feel his thoughts in my head anymore."
"But how? I don't understand . . ." I said. "You didn't die. Why --"
"Perhaps you have to see the colours for it to work. I have panther eyes." Th
e beast stretched. "He could make me do most things, but differentiating a red from a green, wasn't one of them."
I nodded, remembering Violix asking me if I had any colour blindness.
Later, as I poured the solvent onto the picture and the impasto sloughed onto the floor, I realised something: Hei Long had died with Valentina's arms around him, his life of villainy forgotten, erased by the power of the picture.
I felt the pinch of resentment and a pang of jealousy.
It was too good a death for him.
How about it, Roomie?
by Chase Guymon
Artwork by Lance Card
* * *
43 hours, 26 minutes, 32. . . . No, 33 seconds . . . 34 . . . 35 . . .
Well, roomie, I really ought to clean up. I already stumbled once over that pile of towels I left over by the toilet. I'm not the cleanest person, you know. I tend to forget little things. The water wasn't hot, but it was warm; warm enough to get the scum off my hands, anyway. Water is calm and gentle, not like my life has been lately. Not like this past week. No, this week has been hectic and painful and irritating. So I'm glad I can finally relax.
Where to begin, where to begin . . .?
Mother, I guess. That would be the logical place, and I'm nothing if not logical. Mother and I had a fight, I was kicked out of my flat, and I lost my job. But, now I'm here with you, roomie, and life is bliss. I think that sums it up pretty well.
What? You want the longer version. Well, all right.
When Mother and I had our last argument, it seemed to begin just like all of our other spats. But it sure didn't end like any of them. I couldn't contain myself, that's all. Mother had asked me to visit her. She promised me breakfast; she loved to make pancakes for me. Sure, she seems like a nice lady, but I can't stand the way she ignores me. The doctor said that she had had a hearing defect, so she didn't hear everything people said to her. A defect? More like selective hearing.
So, I went to her small ranch home, still snuggled in the nice wool blanket I had brought with me. At the time she walked in, I was pleased to see her. But she was not pleased to see me. It never seemed like she was anymore. She walked into the room mumbling to herself. I couldn't tell what she was talking about at first.
"My boy, my son; he's all I have left. He doesn't have the decency to visit me now and again," she said.
At first I thought she was just hadn't noticed me.
"Mother, I just arrived, just now. What are you talking about?" I was always so proper to my mother, with me being the only relative she had left. "Mother," I said, "I'm right here."
"Oh, my boy," She continued without moving, not even responding to my existence. "Why does he fail to do anything productive . . .?"
This is when even her eye-sight became selective, I swear. I was half tempted to walk in front of her and wave my arms and yell.
She went on and on. "He's never made anything of himself. I do wish he'd leave me here and let me die."
She spoke like that far too often. I hated it. I hated to hear her moan and cry. And I hated it when she criticized me. She began making my pancakes, commenting here and there, cruel, biting words, while she cooked. My mother was a good woman once, before Dad died. Now she moped and wept all the time. I had to do something.
"Mother, I want you to know I'm leaving."
She started sobbing, but before she could guilt me into staying, I headed for the door. She threw all of her energy into stopping me, but her guilt was not enough this time. I was going to leave, just like she told me to.
"Don't go" she said, "Why would you leave me?"
I just couldn't take it anymore.
I picked up the hot frying pan, extending it behind me and with a catapult arm I comforted her, saying, "Mother, it'll be over soon."
43 hours, 49 minutes . . .
I'd make you coffee, but I don't think you'd be in the mood. I am, though. It's far too early to be drinking wine, but I figure coffee will do just fine.
Besides, I used the wine to clean off the body, so I'd have to get more later. I wish it was the body of my landlord instead. I hate that woman. I guess 'hated' that woman, would be more proper, seeing as I don't have to worry about her anymore. I left my apartment when my landlord demanded that I pay my rent after I lost my mother. The heartless monster.
I left everything behind. I have nothing left from the apartment; I even got the clothes I'm wearing here, in this apartment. My landlord, strangely enough, died near a riverbank, not long after we had our conversation. But that was completely accidental - excuse me, coincidental. Coincidental is what I meant to say.
And that man on the floor over there? He probably looks familiar, unless he stole your former roommate's keys just before I did. I met him outside a bar. He seemed like such a nice fellow, too. Now he's lying in the hall, much cleaner than he was when I first brought him back here.
We met at a bar a few miles from here. He was grabbing a Paulaner dunkel lager after what seemed to be a long day at work. Seeing him drinking such a strong lager, I thought he might need some help. He told me how his girlfriend left him and how his job was a bore and when he started getting real drunk, he started talking about his hatred for such a miserable life. And just before he went outside to find a cab, he told me, "I'd rather be dead than face another tomorrow."
So, here I am, roomie. At least, as long as it's okay with you. It's been 45 hours since I decided to change my life, to be reborn. And I'm being so productive with my life. I'm getting so much done. Mother would be proud.
However, you're not Mother, are you? And I understand we've started off on a bad foot, you and I, what with you being tied down and dragged everywhere I go in this apartment. But you understand, I can't have anything else go wrong in life. I was sick of my sorry excuse for an existence. I needed to start anew, and can't have anybody getting in my way.
If I'd known he had a roommate, I might've let you kill him instead. You wouldn't have done it, though, would you? You need me as much as I need you, I think.
Honestly, I'm glad I met you when I did. I appreciate you listening to everything I had to say.
So, there's my story. Now that you know me better, can I stay?
Eye For Eye - Part 2
by Orson Scott Card
Artwork by Kevin Wasden
* * *
Eye for Eye was published in 1990 as a Tor double novel, along with "Tunesmith" by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. It is currently out of print, although it is available as an audiobook.
Part 2
Continued from issue 17
Except that along about six o'clock in the evening I woke up and the car was stopping and I didn't know where I was, I must have slept all day, and the guy says to me, "Here you are, Eden, North Carolina."
And I about messed my pants. "Eden!" I says.
"It wasn't far out of my way," he says. "I'm heading for Burlington, and these country roads are nicer than the freeway, anyway. Don't mind if I never drive I-85 again, to tell the truth."
But that was the very guy who told me he had business in D.C., he was heading there from Bristol, had to see somebody from a government agency, and here he was in Eden. It made no sense at all, except for what that woman told me. Somebody was calling me, and if I wouldn't come, they'd just put me to sleep and call whoever was driving. And there I was. Eden, North Carolina. Scared to death, or at least scared a little, but also thinking, if what she said was true, my folks was coming, I was going to meet my folks.
Nothing much changed in the two years since I ran off from the orphanage. Nothing much ever changes in Eden, which isn't a real town anyway, just cobbled together from three little villages that combined to save money on city services. People still mostly think of them as three villages. There wasn't nobody who'd get too excited about seeing me, and there wasn't nobody I wanted to see. Nobody living, anyway. I had no idea how my folks might find me, or how I might find them, but in the meantime I went to see about the only people I ever much cared
about. Hoping that they wouldn't rise up out of the grave to get even with me for killing them.
It was still full day that time of year, but it was whippy weather, the wind gusting and then holding still, a big row of thunderclouds off to the southwest, the sun sinking down to get behind them. The kind of afternoon that promises to cool you off, which suited me fine. I was still pretty dusty from my climb up the hill that morning, and I could use a little rain. Got a Coke at a fast food place and then walked on over to see Old Peleg.
He was buried in a little cemetery right by an old Baptist Church. Not Southern Baptist, Black Baptist, meaning that it didn't have no fancy building with classrooms and a rectory, just a stark-white block of a building with a little steeple and a lawn that looked like it'd been clipped by hand. Cemetery was just as neat-kept. Nobody around, and it was dim cause of the thunderclouds moving through, but I wasn't afraid of the graves there, I just went to Old Peleg's cross. Never knew his last name was Lindley. Didn't sound like a black man's name, but then when I thought about it I realized that no last name sounded like a Black man's name, because Eden is still just old-fashioned enough that an old black man doesn't get called by his last name much. He grew up in a Jim Crow state, and never got around to insisting on being called Mr. Lindley. Old Peleg. Not that he ever hugged me or took me on long walks or gave me that tender loving care that makes people get all teary-eyed about how wonderful it is to have parents. He never tried to be my dad or nothing. And if I hung around him much, he always gave me work to do and made damn sure I did it right, and mostly we didn't talk about anything except the work we was doing, which made me wonder, standing there, why I wanted to cry and why I hated myself worse for killing Old Peleg than for any of the other dead people under the ground in that city.
I didn't see them and I didn't hear them coming and I didn't smell my mama's perfume. But I knew they was coming, because I felt the prickly air between us. I didn't turn around, but I knew just where they were, and just how far off, because they was lively. Shedding sparks like I never saw on any living soul except myself, just walking along giving off light. It was like seeing myself from the outside for the first time in my life. Even when she was making me get all hot for her, that lady in Roanoke wasn't as lively as them. They was just like me.