The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 18

by Gardner Dozois

  “And one night she caught me watching her, and she cursed me. I ran away. I hid for years. She’s forgotten me, now. But when I saw her at Arges, and you with her, I thought – he can help me.

  “So! You find out what’s in that Black Cup of hers, and bring it back to me. I’ll share it with you. We’ll live forever and become rich as kings.”

  “Will I betray the woman I love?” said Golescu. “And I should believe such a story, because –?”

  The old man, who had worked himself into a dry trembling passion, took a moment to register what Golescu had said. He looked at him with contempt.

  “Love? Mother Aegypt? I see I have been wasting my breath on an idiot.”

  The old man rose to his feet. Golescu put out a conciliatory hand. “Now, now, grandfather, I didn’t say I didn’t believe you, but you’ll have to admit that’s quite a story. Where’s your proof?”

  “Up your ass,” said the old man, sidling away from the table.

  “How long were you with her?” said Golescu, half rising to follow him.

  “She bought me from the orphan asylum in Timisoara,” said the old man, turning with a baleful smile. “I was ten years old.”

  Golescu sat down abruptly, staring as the old man scuttled out into the night.

  After a moment’s rapid thought, he gulped the rest of his schnapps and rose to follow. When he got out into the street, he stared in both directions. A round moon had just lifted above the housetops, and by its light the streets were as visible as by day, though the shadows were black and fathomless. Somewhere, far off, a dog howled. At least, it sounded like a dog. There was no sign of the old man, as far as Golescu could see.

  Golescu shivered, and went in search of a cheap hotel.

  Cheapness notwithstanding, it gave Golescu a pleasant sense of status to sleep once again in a bed. Lingering over coffee and sweet rolls the next morning, he pretended he was a millionaire on holiday. It had long been his habit not to dwell on life’s mysteries, even fairly big and ugly ones, and in broad daylight he found it easy to dismiss the old man as a raving lunatic. Amaunet clearly had a bad reputation amongst the people of the road, but why should he care?

  He went forth from the hotel jingling coins in his pocket, and walked the streets of Kronstadt as though he owned it.

  In the Council Square his attention was drawn by a platform that had been set up, crowded with racks, boxes and bins of the most unlikely looking objects. Some twenty citizens were pawing through them in a leisurely way. Several armed policemen stood guard over the lot, and over two miserable wretches in manacles.

  Catching the not unpleasant scent of somebody else’s disaster, Golescu hurried to investigate.

  “Am I correct in assuming this is a debtors’ sale, sir?” he asked a police sergeant.

  “That’s right,” said the sergeant. “A traveling opera company. These two bankrupts are the former managers. Isn’t that so?” He prodded one of them with his stick.

  “Unfortunately so,” agreed the other gloomily. “Please go in, sir, and see if anything catches your fancy. Reduce our debt and be warned by our example. Remember, the Devil has a stake in hell especially reserved for defaulting treasurers of touring companies.”

  “I weep for you,” said Golescu, and stepped up on the platform with an eager expression.

  The first thing he saw was a rack of costumes, bright with tinsel and marabou. He spent several minutes searching for anything elegant that might fit him, but the only ensemble in his size was a doublet and pair of trunk hose made of red velvet. Scowling, he pulled them out, and noticed the pointy-toed shoes of red leather, tied to the hanger by their laces. Here was a tag, on which was scrawled FAUST 1-2.

  “The Devil, eh?” said Golescu. His eyes brightened as an idea began to come to him. He draped the red suit over his arm and looked further. This production of Faust had apparently employed a cast of lesser demons; there were three or four child-sized ensembles in black, leotards, tights and eared hoods. Golescu helped himself to the one least motheaten.

  In a bin he located the red tights and skullcap that went with the Mephistopheles costume. Groping through less savory articles and papier-mâché masks, he found a lyre strung with yarn. He added it to his pile. Finally, he spotted a stage coffin, propped on its side between two flats of scenery. Giggling to himself, he pulled it out, loaded his purchases into it, and shoved the whole thing across the platform to the cashier.

  “I’ll take these, dear sir,” he said.

  By the time Golescu had carried the coffin back to his hotel room, whistling a cheery tune as he went, the Act had begun to glow in his mind. He laid out his several purchases and studied them. He tried on the Mephistopheles costume (it fit admirably, except for the pointy shoes, which were a little tight) and preened before the room’s one shaving mirror, though he had to back all the way to the far wall to be able to see his full length in it.

  “She can’t object to this,” he said aloud. “Such splendor! Such classical erudition! Why, it would play in Vienna! And even if she does object . . . you can persuade her, Golescu, you handsome fellow.”

  Pleased with himself, he ordered extravagantly when he went down to dinner. Over cucumber salad, flekken and wine he composed speeches of such elegance that he was misty eyed by the bottom of the second bottle. He rose at last, somewhat unsteady, and floated up the stairs from the dining room just as a party of men came in through the street door.

  “In here! Sit down, poor fellow, you need a glass of brandy. Has the bleeding stopped?”

  “Almost. Careful of my leg!”

  “Did you kill them both?”

  “We got one for certain. Three silver bullets, it took! The head’s in the back of the wagon. You should have seen . . .”

  Golescu heard no more, rounding the first turn of the stair at that point, and too intent on visions of the Act to pay attention in any case.

  So confident was Golescu in his dream that he visited a printer’s next day, and commissioned a stack of handbills. The results, cranked out while he loafed in a tavern across the street in the company of a bottle of slivovitz, were not as impressive as he’d hoped; but they were decorated with a great many exclamation points, and that cheered him.

  The Act was all complete in his head by the time he left Kronstadt, just before dawn on the third day. Yawning mightily, he set down the coffin and his bag and pulled out his purse to settle with the tavern keeper.

  “And a gratuity for your staff, kind sir,” said Golescu, tossing down a handful of mixed brass and copper in small denominations. “The service was superb.”

  “May all the holy saints pray for you,” said the tavern keeper, without enthusiasm. “Any forwarding address in case of messages?”

  “Why, yes; if my friend the Archduke stops in, let him know that I’ve gone on to Paris,” said Golescu. “I’m in show business, you know.”

  “In that case, may I hire a carriage for you?” inquired the tavern keeper. “One with golden wheels, perhaps?”

  “I think not,” Golescu replied. “I’m just walking on to Predeal. Meeting a friend with a private carriage, you know.”

  “Walking, are you?” The tavern keeper’s sneer was replaced with a look of genuine interest. “You want to be careful, you know. They say there’s a new monster roaming the countryside!”

  “A monster? Really, my friend,” Golescu waggled a reproving finger at him. “Would I ever have got where I am in life if I’d believed such stories?”

  He shouldered the coffin once more, picked up his bag and walked out.

  Though the morning was cool, he was sweating by the time he reached the outskirts of Kronstadt, and by the time he stepped off to the campsite track Golescu’s airy mood had descended a little. Nonetheless, he grinned to see the wagons still there, the horses cropping placidly where they were tethered. He bellowed heartily as he pounded on Amaunet’s door:

  “Uncle Barbu’s home, darlings!”

  Not a soun
d.

  “Hello?”

  Perhaps a high thin whining noise?

  “It’s meeee,” he said, trying the door. It wasn’t locked. Setting down the coffin, he opened the door cautiously.

  A strong, strong smell: spice and sweetness, and blood perhaps. Golescu pulled out a handkerchief and clapped it over his nose. He leaned forward, peering into the gloom within the wagon.

  Amaunet lay stretched out on her bed, fully dressed. Her arms were crossed on her bosom, like a corpse’s. Her skin was the color of ashes and her eyes were closed. She looked so radiantly happy that Golescu was unsure, at first, who lay there. He edged in sideways, bent to peer down at her.

  “Madame?” He reached down to take her hand. It was ice-cold. “Oh!”

  She just lay there, transfigured by her condition, beautiful at last.

  Golescu staggered backward, and something fell from the bed. A cup rolled at his feet, a chalice cut of black stone. It appeared at first to be empty; but as it rolled, a slow black drop oozed forth to the lip.

  “The Black Cup,” stated Golescu, feeling the impact of a metaphorical cream pie. He blinked rapidly, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. It was a moment before he was able to realize that the whining noise was coming from the cabinet under Amaunet’s bed. Sighing, he bent and hauled Emil forth.

  “Come out, poor little maggot,” he said.

  “I’m hungry,” said Emil.

  “Is that all you have to say?” Golescu demanded. “The Queen of Sorrow is dead, and you’re concerned for a lousy potato?”

  Emil said nothing in reply.

  “Did she kill herself?”

  “The cup killed her,” Emil said.

  “Poison in the cup, yes, I can see that, you ninny! I meant – why?”

  “She wanted to die,” said Emil. “She was too old, but she couldn’t die. She said, ‘Make me a poison to take my life away’. I mixed the cup every month, but it never worked. Then she said, ‘What if you tried Theobromine?’. I tried it. It worked. She laughed.”

  Golescu stood there staring down at him a long moment, and finally collapsed backward onto a stool.

  “Holy God, Holy mother of God,” he murmured, with tears in his eyes. “It was true. She was an immortal thing.”

  “I’m hungry,” Emil repeated.

  “But how could anyone get tired of being alive? So many good things! Fresh bread with butter. Sleep. Making people believe you. Interesting possibilities,” said Golescu. “She had good luck handed to her, how could she want to throw it away?”

  “They don’t have luck,” said Emil.

  “And what are you, exactly?” said Golescu, staring at him. “You, with all your magic potions? Hey, can you make the one that gives eternal life, too?”

  “No,” said Emil.

  “You can’t? You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “But then, what do you know?” Golescu rubbed his chin. “You’re an idiot. But then again . . .” He looked at Amaunet, whose fixed smile seemed more unsettling every time he saw it. “Maybe she did cut a deal with the Devil after all. Maybe eternal life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, if she wanted so badly to be rid of it. What’s that in her hand?”

  Leaning forward, he opened her closed fist. Something black protruded there: the snout of a tiny figure, crudely sculpted in clay. A crocodile.

  “I want a potato,” said Emil.

  Golescu shuddered.

  “We have to dig a grave first,” he said.

  In the end he dug it himself, because Emil, when goggled and swathed against daylight, was incapable of using a shovel.

  “Rest in peace, my fair unknown,” grunted Golescu, crouching to lower Amaunet’s shrouded body into the grave. “I’d have given you the coffin, but I have other uses for it, and the winding sheet’s very flattering, really. Not that I suppose you care.”

  He stood up and removed his hat. Raising his eyes to heaven, he added: “Holy angels, if this poor creature really sold her soul to the Devil, then please pay no attention to my humble interruption. But if there were by chance any loopholes she might take advantage of to avoid damnation, I hope you guide her soul through them to eternal rest. And, by the way, I’m going to live a much more virtuous life from now on. Amen.”

  He replaced his hat, picked up the shovel once more and filled in the grave.

  That night Golescu wept a little for Amaunet, or at least for lost opportunity, and he dreamed of her when he slept. By the time the sun rose pale through the smoke of Kronstadt’s chimneys, though, he had begun to smile.

  “I possess four fine horses and two wagons now,” he told Emil, as he poked up the fire under the potato kettle. “Nothing to turn up one’s nose at, eh? And I have you, you poor child of misfortune. Too long has your light been hidden from the world.”

  Emil just sat there, staring through his goggles at the kettle. Golescu smeared plum jam on a slab of bread and took an enormous bite.

  “Bucharest,” he said explosively, through a full mouth. “Constantinople, Vienna, Prague, Berlin. We will walk down streets of gold in all the great cities of the world! All the potatoes your tiny heart could wish for, served up on nice restaurant china. And for me . . .” Golescu swallowed. “The life I was meant to live. Fame and universal respect. Beautiful women. Financial embarrassment only a memory!

  “We’ll give the teeming masses what they desire, my friend. What scourges people through life, after all? Fear of old age. Fear of inadequacy. Loneliness and sterility, what terrible things! How well will people pay to be cured of them, eh? Ah, Emil, what a lot of work you have to do.”

  Emil turned his blank face.

  “Work,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Golescu, grinning at him. “With your pots and pans and chemicals, you genius. Chickens be damned! We will accomplish great things, you and I. Future generations will regard us as heroes. Like, er, the fellow who stole fire from heaven. Procrustes, that was his name.

  “But I have every consideration for your modest and retiring nature. I will mercifully shield you from the limelight, and take the full force of public acclaim myself. For I shall now become . . .” Golescu dropped his voice an octave, “Professor Hades!”

  It was on Market Day, a full week later, that the vardas rolled through Kronstadt. At the hour when the streets were most crowded, Golescu drove like a majestic snail. Those edged to the side of the road had plenty of time to regard the new paint job. The vardas were now decorated with suns, moons and stars, what perhaps might have been alchemical symbols, gold and scarlet on black, and the words:

  PROFESSOR HADES

  MASTER OF THE MISERIES

  Some idle folk followed, and watched as Golescu drew the wagons up in a vacant field just outside the Merchants’ Gate. They stared, but did not offer to help, as Golescu unhitched the horses and bustled about with planks and barrels, setting up a stage. They watched with interest as a policeman advanced on Golescu, but were disappointed when Golescu presented him with all necessary permits and a handsome bribe. He left, tipping his helmet; Golescu climbed into the lead wagon and shut the door. Nothing else of interest happened, so the idlers wandered away after a while.

  But when school let out, children came to stare. By that time, scarlet curtains had been set up, masking the stage itself on three sides, and handbills had been tacked along the edge of the stage planking. A shopkeeper’s son ventured close and bent to read.

  “‘FREE ENTERTAINMENT,’” he recited aloud, for the benefit of his friends. ‘“Health and Potency can be Yours!! Professor Hades Knows All!!! See the Myrmidion Genius!!!!’”

  “‘Myrmidion?’” said the schoolmaster’s son.

  “ ‘Amazing Feats of Instant Calculation,’” continued the shopkeeper’s son. “‘Whether Rice, Peas, Beans, Millet or Barley, The Myrmidion Genius will Instantly Name the CORRECT Number in your JAR. A Grand Prize will be Presented to Any Person who can Baffle the Myrmidion Genius!’”

  “What’s a
Myrmidion?” wondered the blacksmith’s son.

  “What’s a Feat of Instant Calculation?” wondered the barber’s son. “Guessing the number of beans in a jar?”

  “That’s a cheat,” said the policeman’s son.

  “No, it isn’t!” a disembodied voice boomed from behind the curtain. “You will see, little boys. Run home and tell your friends about the free show, here, tonight. You’ll see wonders, I promise you. Bring beans!”

  The boys ran off, so eager to do the bidding of an unseen stranger that down in Hell the Devil smiled, and jotted down their names for future reference. Dutifully they spread the word. By the time they came trooping back at twilight, lugging jars and pots of beans, a great number of adults followed them. A crowd gathered before the wagons, expectant.

  Torches were flaring at either side of the stage now, in a cold sweeping wind that made the stars flare too. The scarlet curtain flapped and swayed like the flames. As it moved, those closest to the stage glimpsed feet moving beneath, accompanied by a lot of grunting and thumping.

  The barber cleared his throat and called, “Hey! We’re freezing to death out here!”

  “Then you shall be warmed!” cried a great voice, and the front curtain was flung aside. The wind promptly blew it back, but not before the crowd had glimpsed Golescu resplendent in his Mephistopheles costume. He caught the curtain again and stepped out in front of it. “Good people of Kronstadt, how lucky you are!”

  There was some murmuring from the crowd. Golescu had applied makeup to give himself a sinister and mysterious appearance, or at least that had been his intention, but the result was that he looked rather like a fat raccoon in a red suit. Nevertheless, it could not be denied that he was frightening to behold.