Beneath Ceaseless Skies #122

by M. Bennardo

There were no bodies, no birds, no dogs fighting over scraps. No rats scuttling in empty pantries, no lines of ants carrying away the countless abandoned morsels of food. Whether the frogs still slept under the river ice and the wasps in their paper nests, waiting for the spring—he didn’t know. But this winter world, at least, was vacant and silent of every man and beast.

  Even now, No. 17596 couldn’t think of himself by his own name. He couldn’t shake the discipline and routine of the penitentiary, and as darkness fell he turned his feet back to the prison again. Here, at least, there were footprints in the snow—even if they were his own. And here at least, once he reached his own cell again, he was meant to be alone.

  On his way back, in the failing light, the newspaper in the guardroom caught his eye. The date was close enough to his own reckoning—he had believed it should be two weeks later or so. Perhaps he’d been wrong, or perhaps it was an old newspaper.

  But it was also the latest date for which he had any evidence that anybody else was still in the prison, or the city—or the world. No. 17596 sat down and tried to focus his eyes, to read the headlines. Perhaps there was some explanation here.

  No. 17596’s eyes fell almost at once on an etching of a two-masted merchant ship. She was called the Henrietta, or so said the newspaper. Three months earlier, she had reached the city after crossing the ocean clipper route from the east.

  She’d been found drifting silently, darkly, strangely, outside the harbor—sails set, heading true, cargo and effects in place, on a placid sea. But there was no sign of the people who had been aboard—captain, crew, and passengers—and no clue to their fate recorded in the log.

  This had only been the beginning, it seemed. As No. 17596 read on, he found that two other ships had suffered similar fates while sailing the same route a week later. Then five more the week after that. Soon, ships on other routes were affected as well. Commerce across the ocean all but stopped.

  The day before the date of the newspaper, lighthouses and lightships beyond the harbor had fallen dark. Any boats that went out to them did not return. Instead, they simply went dead—bobbing listlessly in the waters beyond the breakwall, their decks intermittently visible to a spyglass through the shifting mists. And empty. All the men on them, somehow suddenly gone.

  With trembling hands, No. 17596 set the newspaper aside. There was more, but he did not wish to read it. It was clear enough where the tale had been leading—if not how or why. Neither did No. 17596 understand why he had been spared.

  His isolation, perhaps? Was this disappearing condition some social disease? Was it communicable, like leprosy? Someone, at the last moment, had put the key to his door. If they had succeeded before they too vanished, would he also have shared the same fate?

  As No. 17596 re-entered his cell, he stumbled in the dark over his food tray. For a moment, he paid it no mind—then he froze.

  What did it mean? His food had not stopped coming. If every resident of the city had disappeared two weeks ago, how could that be? Had he finally lost his mind after all?

  No. 17596 bent down to pick up the scattered remnants of his food, putting them back on his tray and pushing the tray back out the slot into the corridor again. Yes, of course—he was mad. He had gone mad at last, alone in his cell. The world was full of people, the door to his cell was locked. All of this—his secret excursions, the empty city, the tale of the Henrietta—it was all just a mad man’s delusion.

  Relief washed over No. 17596. There could be no other explanation. No other, at least, except that he was his own jailor. That he, in the dead of night, while he slept, rose and prepared his own food. That every night he played the somnambulist and then returned unknowing to his own cell to awake in the morning.

  But such a solution was unbelievable. It would mean that he was free—but alone. That he could go wherever he liked in a world utterly depopulated. It would mean that his door really had been unlocked. It would mean that he really had been outside.

  Slowly, with heart beating, No. 17596 patted down his shirt. While he had been out—no, while he had been fantasizing, while he had been having mad dreams!—he had picked up several biscuits and put them into his shirt. His hands patted down his body. Of course they wouldn’t be there now. Of course—

  No. 17596 froze. Standing, he ran to his exercise yard, flinging the biscuits over the wall—flinging everything over the wall, even his shirt. Then he went back to the cell door and pushed against it. It was locked of course—but no! It opened. No. 17596 removed the key from the lock and pulled the door shut. Locking it from the inside, he threw the key over the wall of the exercise yard as well.

  Then, No. 17596 sat down on his cot. He picked up the book that had come in with his food two days earlier. That was real enough—a kindly gift from his jailors—not a cruel trick on himself! No. 17596 opened the book and began to read. He would continue reading through the night, by whatever light he could find. He would not fall asleep.

  He would not.

  As many days and nights as it would take, he would stay awake. For if he fell asleep, then the tray must either come or not. If he were mad, the tray would come—pushed in by his jailors. If he were not mad, then it would not come—the now-locked door barring his own way out. And then, of course, there would be no more uncertainty.

  One way or another, he would know.

  And so No. 17596 read on and on, all through the night, until morning.

  Copyright © 2013 M. Bennardo

  Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

  M. Bennardo’s short stories can be found in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Shimmer, as well as previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He is an editor of the Machine of Death series of anthologies; the second volume, This Is How You Die, will be published by GCP in July 2013. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, but people anywhere can find him online at http://www.mbennardo.com.

  Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  DREAMS OF PEACE

  by Dana Beehr

  The rift hung in the sky, and Chaladon walked onward.

  The Land of the Lost was behind her; the Wastes of Steel, the Great Serpent River, the Tower of Shalott. She had set out from the last crèche of the Deep Dancers a young almost-girl, full of laughter and joy and strength, her friends Chaläestra and Chalira beside her. They had journeyed across the world together, secure in their friendship, back when everything was new. But Chaläestra had fallen after the Tower, and Chalira had turned aside in the Garden of Forking Paths. Only Chaladon remained, and in her journeying, she had passed from youth through the prime of life, and now stood on the cusp of middle age. Still she pressed onward: the Fire Veil wrapped around her, her zils in their pouch at her waist, her dance sword at her back. She was the last of the Deep Dancers—the last Deep Dancer—and she could no more turn aside than she could cease to breathe.

  She pressed on, seeking the Edge of the World.

  * * *

  She had left the deceptive Grasslands behind her; she journeyed now across an empty waste, so flat and devoid of life that she seemed the only living creature in existence. The rift in the sky pulsed like a gash, glaring down on her. And always behind her, at the Center, the vast Ever-storm raged. She and Chaläestra and Chalira had visited there, early in their pilgrimage; had gone as close as possible for the raging winds and flying debris, and had watched it slowly expanding outward: cliffs, houses, trees crumbling away. Cities, nations had been swallowed up in that Storm; someday, it would consume the world. The storm had been there since long before her birth. The rift in the sky, though: that was new.

  She traveled on as the three moons ascended, leaping past the rift as a jumper might hurdle a ditch, rising to shed their cold light on the gray wastes. Just as she thought she could go no further, she came upon the outskirts of a town.

  Or rather, it had been a town once; now it was broken and deserted, the skeletons of its former buildings a flat black against the looming sky. Two streets met in the center�
�shallow depressions in ashy soil, lined by dilapidated structures with gaping windows and collapsed roofs. Holes showed in their sides where boards were missing. The town might have been twenty years old or two hundred; this waste was so arid that the buildings might last forever. Faded signs showed that one building had been a blacksmith shop; one a livery; one a tavern. A wagon lay in front of the livery, overturned, one of its wheels bent out of shape. The air was heavy with the dry, desert scent of dust and time.

  The town was completely abandoned. There was no sign of people, not even bodies or bones. Chaladon had come across many such deserted villages in her travels. It seemed as if the world was a little emptier every year.

  The building whose sign proclaimed it the Grand Hotel was still in fairly good condition, though a section of the veranda had collapsed and one side of the balcony had fallen in. There was a pump out back where Chaladon washed herself quickly and filled her waterskin with metallic, bitter-tasting water. She climbed the dusty stairs to the top floor and settled into a room containing a tattered mattress over rusty box springs. She set a simple ward on the door, then wrapped herself in the Fire Veil, laying her head on her bag. She was asleep within moments.

  * * *

  She dreamed, as she did every night, of vast realms of space, endless, yawning reaches: a place where the land fell away and there was nothing beyond but the stars and a sense of a towering, ancient, feminine presence. Two eyes gazed at her out of that abyss, opening themselves into her soul: huge, and dark, and summoning.

  Find me. Though it was only a whisper, it set her soul ringing like a sonorous bell. Find me, Chaladon. Chaladon the Ninth. Chaladon the Last. Find me there, at the edge of the world.

  How long since she had first dreamt this irrefusable call? It seemed to her that even as a child in the womb, that call had been there, that she had felt it the first moment she drew breath. Certainly she had sensed it when she and her friends had set off on their quest to stop the Ever-storm, at the dawn of the world; even then, she had felt it in her bones, this powerful onward summons. She could no more resist it than the tides of the Sea of Sands could resist the moons. Had the others felt it? She could not be sure, but she thought not. Not Chaläestra at least; Chalira, sometimes, she wondered.... but Chalira had turned aside. Only Chaladon continued on.

  She slept wrapped in her veil, in that dead room in that dead building in that dead town, and dreamed of vast infinities.

  * * *

  Two things woke her: sunlight against her eyelids, and a resounding crash that shook the entire room.

  She started awake to find herself staring at a young woman—almost a girl—carrying a pile of wood. Two sticks had fallen to the floor, and the girl began to babble apologies: “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am—so clumsy—Mistress Etta always tells me I shouldn’t try to carry so much, but I hate to make two trips—”

  Chaladon’s head was spinning. She stretched out one hand. “Enough.” She had not spoken in so long that she was almost afraid she had forgotten how. “Who—who are you? Where did you come from?” My wards, she thought, but—she could still feel them in her head, a pulsing net, perfect as she had laid them. This girl should not be here—could not be here.... And yet there she was.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am—I’m Lia, Mistress Etta lets me work here for a few silver to help out at home—we live a few leagues out of town on a spread we registered a few years gone, and this is the proving year, Da says if we can—”

  “Stop!” Chaladon ordered, and the girl fell silent. And into that silence came the babble of a thousand other sounds: voices laughing, talking, arguing, the muted clatter of dishes from the dining hall below, the tinkle of a piano, the rumble of wheels in the street, the neighing of horses....

  No. This cannot be—

  Chaladon got to her feet and went to the window. She threw the shutters wide, and sunlight swept into the room. Looking out, she saw an impossibility.

  The town was vibrant with life. The once-barren streets were bustling: wagons rumbled past, carrying lumber, barrels, boxes; riders walked their horses, waving to passersby. Men and women stood in the doorways of their shops—the tanner’s, the tailor’s, the blacksmith’s—practicing their trades. The ruined buildings of the night before were gone; walls stood strong, roofs were firm, signs were freshly painted. As Chaladon watched, a woman dumped a bucket of slops from a second-story window, narrowly missing a drover who shook her fist and cursed. The rich, vivid aromas of livestock and dung drifted up to her from the street below.

  A blank wall of something very like panic leapt across her mind. She spun to face the rest of the room. While she had been sleeping, a great change had come. The tarnished brass bedstead now shone brightly, freshly polished. The old mattress was decently covered with a faded but clean counterpane. Last night’s rickety nightstand with missing drawers now was whole, its wood gleaming mellowly, its drawers fitted with porcelain knobs. The washstand in the corner now sported a jug and bowl with a pattern of painted blue roses. In the distance, she could smell breakfast cooking, bacon and ham and fresh bread.

  Chaladon looked away from this simple, well-kept room to the busy street outside. Yes, the traffic was still there.

  And at the far end of the street, the lone and level waste stretched far into the distance.

  She turned on the girl, who was staring at her, bewildered. “You. Girl. Where is this?”

  The girl blinked. “Where? I don’t—”

  “This town!” Chaladon had to restrain herself from shouting. Was she mad? Bewitched? Under a spell? “What is the name of this town?”

  “I—we—we’re—” Chaladon wanted to grab the girl and shake the answers out of her. At last the girl stammered, “This is Senpost—seventh post on the Courier route. This is the—the realm of Ut. The High Speakers declared this land open for settlement, so—”

  “And you, girl. Who are you?” Ut, Ut— The name was unfamiliar, but that meant nothing; she had left behind the lands she knew long ago.

  “Well, I—I already told you, ma’am, begging your pardon. My name’s Lia. My family’s spread is a little ways out of town, like I said. Mistress Etta lets me work here to—”

  “All right, enough!” None of this told her anything. Lia fell silent, wide-eyed and fearful. Chaladon raised one hand to forehead, closing her eyes; the ground seemed to rock under her feet.

  What is happening?

  When she opened her eyes, Lia was still watching her. With a curious gentleness, the girl said, “Mistress Etta’s got breakfast laid in the dining room, and it please you.”

  “Breakfast,” she repeated; then, with more assurance, “Breakfast. Yes. I will be down momentarily.” There was a reassuring normality to the thought of simply going down to breakfast....

  She was like to learn more that way than by simply standing there, amazed.

  The girl seemed relieved too. “Yes, ma’am. If you know what you’d like, I can tell Mistress Etta—”

  “No need. Just go.”

  She practically had to shoo the girl out the door. Left alone, Chaladon examined the water jug. It had been cracked and bone-dry the night before; now it was unbroken, with beads of condensation forming on its thin ceramic walls. When she picked it up and tilted it, water sluiced out into the washbowl. Experimentally, Chaladon splashed some on her face. She did not, however, suddenly awaken into the world she had left.

  She stood listening to the sounds drifting through the open window, her mind slowly ticking through the options. An illusion. She had traveled through time. A hallucination.... So far, she did not have enough information to confirm anything.

  She wound the Fire Veil around herself again; then hooked her zil pouch to its place at her waist. Finally, she drew from her pack a flat, carved box—her jewelry case—and extracted a pendant: a bronze disk with a star ruby at the center, hanging from a chain of beads. She fastened it around her throat, so that the disk lay flat against her skin; then, placing her palm over it,
went back to the window and looked out.

  What she saw was neither surprising nor edifying. Everything in sight—people, animals, buildings—glowed with a faint aura, indicating the presence of magic.

  But where had this magic come from? And what was it?

  She slid her dance sword into its place at her back. There was only one way to find out: Take action. Make something happen. It was the driving force of her life.

  And the first step, she thought, is to go down to breakfast.

  * * *

  The rickety stairs from the night before now rose solid and sweeping. Last night’s dimly seen traces of fabric revealed themselves to be a thick runner patterned in red and blue, probably from Farsa-Beyond-the-Dunes. Chaladon had been there once, so long ago that she could scarcely remember; it might have been years or centuries, for time ran differently out here than it did nearer the Center. That was one reason why she and Chaläestra and Chalira had known, when they had set out from the crèche, that they would not be returning.

  Chalise must have known, too. She remembered how their Linemistress had stood in the doorway, waving them off. Ostensibly in farewell; but looking back, it seemed as if Chalise had been barring the gate, as in the old tale about the seraph and the flaming sword.

  Shaking off such thoughts, she studied her surroundings. The wreckage of the previous night was gone; the lobby shone. Maroon-upholstered armchairs stood under glazed windows, and a matching sofa facing a cast-iron potbellied stove formed a cozy nook across the room. The wood-paneled walls and pewter lamps gleamed, as did the counter facing the entrance. Through an archway was a sunlit dining room with linen-covered tables and a sideboard heavy with food. Several tables were occupied already: men and women in traveling garb sat alone or in small groups, taking breakfast. The air was rich with the scent of bacon, bread, and brewing cha, and Chaladon abruptly realized she was hungry; she had had nothing but hard bread and dried sausage for longer than she could remember.