Songs of Love & Death

by George R. R. Martin; Gardner Dozois

  Ahead of her the path divided in two. The left-hand way wound on up the mountain, paved with jagged rocks and overhung with scrawny trees.

  The right-hand side led off through what seemed a glade, where the sun streamed in through tall, fair oaks and lit the flower-dappled grass between them, and the path led easily downward, smooth and wide.

  She gulped. She had been up this road before, not often, but enough to know this right-hand path had never been here before. The old man’s words came back to her.

  A place where you could be made whole, and beautiful, and happy again—

  Behind her, closer, Palo called.

  Uncertainly she took a step forward, into the right-hand path.

  The air was warmer here. The sunlight touched her face. She walked on, hitching along on her crutch, the ground deep with leaves, soft underfoot. The trees seemed to spread their arms over her, like a ceiling overhead, so she walked down into a dark tunnel. The wind blew through their leaves and they whispered like voices, too soft to hear the words.

  A wave of uncertainty broke over her: She should go back. She turned and saw, far up at beginning of the path, where the sunlight shone, Palo’s dark shape against the afternoon sky. Then, coming up the other way, she heard the bustle and laughter of a crowd of people.

  She turned toward them, wondering where they had come from. They gamboled toward her, bright and pretty as a flock of butterflies, girls and men in beautiful clothes, gathering up armfuls of wildflowers as they passed through the grassy glade at the far end of the tunnel of oaks. Fioretta drew aside, to let them go by, but they did not. They gathered around her, mirthful and bright-eyed, and took the gathered flowers and wreathed her in them. She stood, too amazed to move, drenched in buttercups and violets and sprays of yarrow, and the crowd around her parted.

  Through the gap came the old man. He had shed the gray cloak. He looked much younger, his beard darker. He wore white, head to foot, a gown, a peaked cap. He said, “Welcome home, Fioretta,” and took her by the hands, smiling.

  She could not speak; glad, and grateful, she let herself be drawn forward, into the midst of these fair and merry people. They hurried her down the road. The trees ahead parted, and across a flowery meadow, a castle tower streamed a red pennant against the violet sky. That was where they were going, that white spire above the forest.

  She thought suddenly of Palo, and turned and looked back, but he was gone. Good, she thought, relieved, and turned forward, toward the wonders that awaited her.

  She had known, even then, that there would be a cost, but then she had not cared.

  FROM THAT MOMENT on, she had been beautiful. Her legs were quick and her feet sure, her hands graceful, with delicate fingers; her hair was like spun silk, braided with ribbons and jewels. She wore a satin gown that glistened with embroidered figures and on her feet were soft leather shoes. That first day she sat on a raised dais beside the wizard-king, looking out over his great pillared gilded hall, and watched his glittering, exuberant court flirt and laugh, dance and declaim before them.

  The hall was wide, and yet full of light, from lamps standing everywhere. Round golden pillars held the roof up high above them. The crowd whirled and dipped across the floor in a constant gaiety. And she was their queen. One by one they all came and bowed down before her. Servants brought trays of bread and fruit and cheese and she ate until she was stuffed.

  She put her hand to her face; the scar was gone, her cheek as soft as a rose petal. Her leg was straight again; she was whole again.

  Before her passed a constant stream of amusements. There were jugglers and tumblers, which made her laugh, and singers who played so tunefully she held her breath to hear them. She turned to the man on the throne beside her, and he smiled, and patted her arm. She wondered what to say to him, how to thank him, but he only nodded, and gestured toward some new fancy. She wondered how long this would last.

  A clown in red pants brought out a bear, which turned in circles, smirking. Girls wearing almost nothing commanded monkeys in little red hats to ride dogs, and the dogs to run in circles, and then stand on their hind legs and yap, the monkeys clinging tight.

  Three men rushed out bearing on their arms a host of brilliant birds that shrieked and flapped their wings, deafening. She put her hands over her ears at their screams, and beside her the wizard-king gave her a sharp look and waved his hand and said something, and abruptly they were ponies.

  A little group of musicmen sat down below the dais, tuned their lutes and patted their drums, and the court began to dance. The wizard turned to her. “Dance, my dear one,” he said to her. “Let me see you merry.”

  “With you?” she asked, shy; he seemed so solemn, too majestic to dance, and in spite of her gratitude, she did not really want to touch him.

  “No, no,” he said, with a smile. “I will watch.” He gestured her toward the round dance forming on the floor. “Show me your grace and beauty, my queen.”

  She stood, delighting in her nimble legs. She ran out neat-footed as a goat to the spreading circle of girls in the center of the hall. Without thinking, she knew every step perfectly, and she whirled and dipped so elegantly everybody else stopped and gathered to see it. The music was beautiful. The dance was a song her newly perfect body sang. But when, out of breath, she went back to the edge of the floor, to let someone else have a place, she heard the wall behind her murmur.

  She turned her head, looking out of the side of her eye. The wall was of pale stone, the surface carved intricately into vines and leaves. At first she saw nothing, but then, in the spaces between the leaves, eyes appeared.

  Desperate, gleaming with tears, they turned on her, and through a crevice between the stone vines a hand reached out.

  She jerked herself forward again, her heart pounding, and stepped out a little into the middle of the floor. Out of reach. She would not see this misery. She was too happy. She could dance, and she had never eaten so well, and she was beautiful. That was what mattered. She made her way back to her place by the wizard-king.

  But now she saw bits of people everywhere, eyes in the columns, too, hands, and feet, and the tables, she saw, had human legs, and the braziers were the bottom halves of people, with their open bellies full of fire. The lamps were long thin girls, all gilded, their hair aflame. When she looked down, she thought she saw the floor was made of twisted bodies jammed together. Yet it was smooth and hard as stone. She lifted her gaze to the happy whirling courtiers around her, and her heart froze.

  She stood beside him, and said, too loudly, “I loved the dancing.”

  The wizard said, “You were the most beautiful dancer there, my Queen Maeve.”

  Then from the crowd suddenly a woman strode forward who was not joyous and not laughing. Her eyes flashed with anger. She cried, “No! I won’t have this—I was there, yesterday—”

  Fioretta stiffened, her mouth falling open. She turned toward the wizard, and he gripped her arm, leaning toward her. His gaze turned on the angry woman. “Be warned,” he said, in a deep, harsh voice. “Remember what you were before.”

  The woman flung her arms out to him. She was beautiful, tall and shapely, with long black hair and red lips. Her clothes were magnificent, sheets of silk and silver cascading from the glowing purple calyx of her bodice. Her hands reached toward him, pleading. “Please, my lord—I did everything you wanted, I—”

  “Rosa,” the wizard said, and made a gesture.

  Fioretta gasped. Before them the woman writhed a moment, shrinking. Her clothes shed from her like the petals of a blown flower, to leave behind a withered crone, her hair stringy and white, her arms with the skin hanging like bags off the bones. From the court looking on there went up a cry of disgust and contempt. Fioretta’s arm was still tight in the wizard’s grasp. The hag in the middle of the floor sank to her knees, sobbing, and then from all sides the others pelted her with food and hats and shoes.

  Fioretta spun toward him. “No,” she said. “Don’t punish he
r so. I beg of you.”

  The wizard smiled at her. His hand on her arm did not ease its grip. He said, “Sit down, my fairy queen, my Gloriana. Remember, I am master here.” His voice turned smooth. “Are you not happy here? What else can I bestow upon you? Only let me make you happy. That is all I wish.”

  Fioretta stood rigid under his eyes; she tore her gaze from his. Down there they were dragging off the beaten woman Rosa. Another flower. His hand on her arm tugged commandingly. Then, where all the others were moving, her gaze caught on one who did not go with the others, who stood where he was, staring at her.

  He wore a red tabard and spurred boots, a gold-hilted sword at his side, and a hat with a plume. She swallowed. He was tall, with brawny arms and legs, and a proud tilt to his head, but she knew those blue eyes. Palo had not escaped after all. Another tug, and this time, weak-kneed, she sat down. Beneath her, the chair shifted and sighed, and she sat as lightly as she could.

  NOW IN THE night the horrible thing groaned over her, it slobbered over her lips, and poked at her body, and she wanted, she wanted to receive it. She wanted even its loathsomeness. She thought of the walls, and what Rosa had said, but she thought most of Palo. What a fool, to follow her. Yet it was her fault he was trapped here. She clenched her body against the dream and forced herself to waken in the dark.

  The incubus was gone, when the dream was gone. She pried herself up from the bed. Six other girls slept around her, all deep in their slumber. She threw a cloak around her and went quietly among them to the door and out. She would find Palo, and she would help him escape.

  She went down the great main stair in the dark, to the hall. There was only this one tower, and the hall; Palo had to be here somewhere.

  The wizard was here somewhere also, and she dreaded meeting him. But she had to find Palo.

  Even before she reached the hall she heard the sounds of voices. The two tall doors were wide open but no light shone beyond, only a faint blue glow, like moonlight. When she came to the last step, the broad, dim room before her was empty. Yet it was noisy with calling, sighing, weeping, cries, and curses. She stood on the step and saw, from every wall, from the columns, the hands reaching out, the fingers stretching out into the air, struggling toward the open. The tables trudged back and forth groaning and mewling, and the braziers and lamps sat slumped on the floor.

  She could not bear this, and she could not find Palo anywhere. There was no sign either of the wizard, who was perhaps out prowling, as he had been when he caught her. She ran back up the stair to the next landing, below the tower room where she was supposed to be sleeping. On the far side of the landing was the narrow arched opening to another stairway, and she followed it.

  This one spiraled around and down, darker with every step, soon pitch dark. The steps grew rough under her feet. Then ahead, below, the darkness yielded to a faint red light, shining on the rock.

  She went around a bend into the full brightness, and stood on the edge of a kitchen, made all of fitted stone, where a fire burned in a great hearth, huge pots lined the walls, and spoons and forks hung in hooks from the ceiling. At a table in the middle sat a woman, her wispy gray hair only half-covered by a scorched linen cap, who was kneading a mass of brown floury dough.

  Fioretta stopped. The woman lifted her head and gave her a gappy grin. “Well. It’s been long since anyone came to see me.”

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  The woman wiped her wrist across her forehead.

  “Why, I’m the cook, of course. Without me, you wouldn’t eat.”

  Fioretta went farther into the kitchen, into the warmth and the good smells. She felt suddenly much better. The cook’s arms went back to her work, the dough constantly swelling, and her hands constantly kneading it down again. Fioretta said, “You aren’t—his?”

  “You mean the one upstairs.” The woman’s arms thrust and beat on the dough. “We have an agreement. I don’t poison him and he doesn’t turn me into a toad.”

  “Who is he? How can I get out of here?”

  The cook’s eyes twinkled at her. “His name is written down around here somewhere. Can you read?”

  “No.”

  The cook shrugged. “Neither can I.”

  She turned to the hearth, with her burly arms poking and turning the fire, and the flames shot up. The light and the heat flooded the room. Behind her on the table the dough seized the chance to grow into a wild floury puff as tall as a man. The cook came quickly back, and punched it flat again.

  Fioretta came to the edge of the table. “Is there any way out—back to the real world?”

  “I don’t know. This is a haunted place, and since he came nothing is what it seems.”

  “How did you get here?” Fioretta asked.

  The cook looked startled. “I—” Her eyes widened, and she peered around as if she had just noticed where she was. “I’ve always been here, haven’t I? That’s why it’s…” Her gaze returned to Fioretta. “Maybe the question is, who are you?”

  “I—” Fioretta stopped, not sure what to say.

  The cook smiled at her, and then, on the stair, the young man in the red tabard came down around the corner.

  “He’s come for you,” the cook said.

  Fioretta got up. The young man stood there on the last step, his blue eyes on her, and without a word she went past him, up the stair, around the curve. He followed her, and when they were out of sight of the kitchen she faced him.

  With the light behind him she could not see his face. He was taller, with brawny arms and chest. He said, “Well, here we are,” and it was Palo’s voice.

  “It is you,” she said.

  He said, “Yes. Not so changed as you are. I would not know you, had I not seen it happen.” His voice quivered. “You are so beautiful, and so graceful.”

  He put out his hand to her, and she knocked it aside.

  “Why did you come?” she cried. “You must get away, somehow, you must see what becomes of people here.”

  “I knew you’d need help,” he said. His voice twinged with sudden anger, and he put his hands on his hips, as he was used to do. “You’ve really gotten yourself into something this time.”

  “I do not need help!” But she was glad he was here, familiar even with his new good looks, his tall and broad-shouldered body. “There has to be some way out of this place.”

  “I’ve looked,” he said. “I can’t find any doors that open out of the castle. At night everything falls asleep; I almost did too, and in a few more days I probably will.” He yawned, veiled in the half-dark, the light brimming him like a nimbus. “What are you doing out of bed, anyway?”

  She blurted out, without thinking, “Looking for you.”

  “Well,” he said. “Here I am.” He reached for her hand.

  “No,” she said. “Don’t touch me. He’ll know.”

  He gave a sharp twitch, as if she had struck him. He backed away, and slid his hands behind him. “Oh,” he said, in a different voice. “That’s how it is. I guess you have what you want already. You’d better get back where you belong, then, hadn’t you.”

  She grew hot with shame. He thought she had yielded to the wizard. In a way, she thought, she had, coming here. His voice changed, almost wistful now, softer. “You are so beautiful. You were pretty before, and clever and brave, and after the fire I thought I’d have a chance with you, but now you are so much beyond me—Go on.” Brisker. “I can’t bear to think what could happen to you, if—”

  The worst would be that he would see me again as I really am, she thought. Gimp. Squinty-eyed. The idea drove a sort of panic through her, and then a rising resolve: She would be happy, as long as she could, as long as this lasted. But she would try to get Palo out of it. She turned and went quickly up the stair.

  IN THE MORNING, she came down to the hall, and the whole court bowed down before her, and the wizard stood to greet her. “You are as glorious as the sunrise,” he said. “Wherefore today I call you
Io, my darling.” He led her to the chair beside him, and as he sat beside her, he said, under his breath, “I have done my part.” His eyes drilled into her. “Don’t you think you owe me something?”

  She lowered her gaze; she began to feel guilty, ungrateful. A quiver went along her nerves; she felt herself weakening, dissolving into the illusion.

  He said, “Or perhaps you need some additional persuasion? What do you think of my new knight here—the one who came in with you?”

  She licked her lips. “I was alone.”

  “There was someone else. What was his name—Buffo, Salo—”

  He was playing with her, his eyes glittering. She looked away. Then a brassy blast of horns made her start.

  Down the center of the hall walked a tall man dressed in black. Two trumpeters preceded him, blasting shrill challenges on their horns; after him came two more men, carrying a sword and a shield. He stopped before the wizard.

  “I am here to claim your place, king of the wood! Send out your champion, and we will decide the issue now!”

  The flock of courtiers had divided to let him through; now in one breath they cried out in scorn, and pressed closer. Fioretta sat up, her hands in her lap and her heart in her throat; she glanced at the wizard, wondering what this meant.

  He did not look troubled. His mouth curved in a smile, and he never looked at the black knight, his gaze steady on her; she realized this was a trap.

  “Name your champion,” cried the black knight. He turned to his squires and drew a long gold-fitted sword from the scabbard.

  From the crowd, one man after another leaped forward. “My lord, name me!” “No, me!” “Me, my lord.”

  The wizard’s look, heavy with meaning, never left Fioretta. He stood, lifted his hand, and pointed toward the mass of the court. “You, my newest knight, you shall prove yourself today.” She looked where he was pointing, and saw Palo.