The Best of Michael Swanwick

by Michael Swanwick

  “This here’s my hog, goddamnit!” he explained. “I chopped her myself—you put a sidecar on it, it’ll be all the fuck out of balance.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope you enjoy jerking off. Because my fucking ass is so goddamn sore that…”

  He’d opened up the throttle to drown out what she was about to say when suddenly Annie was pounding on his back, screaming, “Pull over!”

  Crow was still braking the Harley when she leaned over to the side and began to puke.

  When she was done, Crow dug a Schlitz out of the saddlebags and popped the tab. Shakily, she accepted it. “What was it?” he asked.

  Annie gargled and spat out the beer. “Another premonition—a muckle bad one, I trow.” Then, “Hey. Who do I have to fuck to get a smoke around here?”

  Crow lit up a Kent for her.

  Midway through the cigarette, she shuddered again and went rigid. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks, and her eyes turned up in their sockets, so they were almost entirely white. The sort of thing that would’ve gotten her burned for a witch, back in good old sixteenth-c England.

  She raised a hand, pointing. “Incoming. Five of them.”

  ***

  They were ugly fuckers, the Basilisks were: black, unornamented two-rotor jobs, and noisy too. You could hear them miles off.

  Luckily, Annie’s foresight had given Crow the time to pick out a good defensive position. Cliff face to their back, rocks to crouch behind, enough of an overhang they couldn’t try anything from above. Enough room to stash the bike, just in case they came out of this one alive. There was a long, empty slope before them. Their pursuers would have to come running up it.

  The formation of Basilisks thundered closer.

  “Pay attention, babe,” Crow said. “I’m gonna teach you a little guerrilla warfare.”

  He got out his rifle from its saddle sheath. It was a Savage 110 Tactical. Good sniper rifle. He knew this gun. He’d packed the shells himself. It was a reliable piece of machinery.

  “This here’s a trick I learned in a little jungle war you probably ain’t never heard of. Hold out your thumb at arm’s length, okay? Now you wait until the helicopter’s as big as the thumb. That’s when it’s close enough you can shoot it down.”

  “Will that work?” she asked nervously.

  “Hell, if the Cong could do it, so can I.”

  ***

  He took out three Basilisks before the others could sweep up and around and out of range again. It was damned fine shooting if he did say so himself. But then the survivors set down in the distant snow and disgorged at least thirty armed men. Which changed the odds somewhat.

  Annie counted soldiers, and quietly said, “Crow…”

  Crow held a finger to her lips.

  “Don’t you worry none about me. I’m a trickster, babe. I’m archetypal. Ain’t none of them can touch the Man.”

  Annie kissed his finger and squeezed his hand. But by the look in her eyes, he could tell she knew he was lying. “They can make you suffer, though,” she said. “Eric has an old enemy staked to a rock back at his estates. Vultures come and eat his intestines.”

  “That’s his brother, actually.” It was an ugly story, and he was just as glad when she didn’t ask him to elaborate. “Hunker down, now. Here they come.”

  The troops came scattershot up the slope, running raggedly from cover to cover. Very professional. Crow settled himself down on his elbows, and raised his rifle. Not much wind. On a day like today, he ought to be able to hit a man at five hundred yards ten times out of ten. “Kiss your asses good-bye,” he muttered.

  He figured he’d take out half of them before they got close enough to throw a stasis grenade.

  ***

  Lord Eric was a well-made man, tall and full of grace. He had the glint of power to him, was bold and fair of face. A touch of lace was at his wrist. His shirt was finest silk.

  “Lady Anne,” he said.

  “Lord Eric.”

  “I have come to restore you to your home and station: to your lands, estates, gracious powers, and wide holdings. As well as to the bed of your devoted husband.” His chariot rested in the snow behind him; he’d waited until all the dirty work was done before showing up.

  “You are no longer my husband. I have cast my fortune with a better man than thou.”

  “That gypsy?” He afforded Crow the briefest and most dismissive of glances. “’Tis no more than a common thief, scarce worth the hemp to hang him, the wood to burn him, the water to drown him, nor the earth to bury him. Yet he has made free with a someat trifle that is mine and mine alone to depose—I speak of your honor. So he must die. He must die, and thou be brought to heel, as obedient to my hand as my hawk, my hound, or my horse.”

  She spat at his feet. “Eat shit, asshole.”

  Lord Eric’s elegant face went white. He drew back his fist to strike her.

  Crow’s hands were cuffed behind his back, and he couldn’t free them. So he lurched suddenly forward, catching his captors and Eric by surprise, and took the blow on his own face. That sucker hurt, but he didn’t let it show. With the biggest, meanest grin he could manage, he said, “See, there’s the difference between you and me. You couldn’t stop yourself from hurting her. I could.”

  “Think you so?” Lord Eric gestured and one of his men handed him a pair of grey kid gloves of finest Spanish leather. “I raised a mortal above her state. Four hundred years was she my consort. No more.”

  Fear entered Annie’s eyes for the first time, though nobody who knew her less well than Crow could have told.

  “I will strangle her myself,” Eric said, pulling on the gloves. “She deserves no less honor, for she was once my wife.”

  ***

  The tiger cage was set up on a low dais, one focus of the large, oval room. Crow knew from tiger cages, but he’d never thought he’d wind up in one. Especially not in the middle of somebody’s party.

  Especially not at Annie’s wake.

  The living room was filled with demiurges and light laughter, cocaine and gin. Old Tezcatlipoca, who had been as good as a father to Crow in his time, seeing him, grimaced and shook his head. Now Crow regretted ever getting involved with Spaniards, however sensible an idea it had seemed at the time.

  The powers and godlings who orbited the party, cocktails in hand, solitary and aloof as planets, included Lady Dale, who bestowed riches with one hand and lightnings from the other, and had a grudge against Crow for stealing her distaff; Lord Aubrey of the short and happy lives, who hated him for the sake of a friend; Lady Siff of the flames, whose attentions he had once scorned; and Reverend Wednesday, old father death himself, in clerical collar, stiff with disapproval at Crow’s libertine ways.

  He had no allies anywhere in this room.

  Over there was Lord Taleisin, the demiurge of music, who, possibly alone of all this glittering assemblage, bore Crow no ill will. Crow figured it was because Tal had never learned the truth behind that business back in Crete.

  He figured, too, there must be some way to turn that to his advantage.

  ***

  “You look away from me every time I go by,” Lord Taleisin said. “Yet I know of no offense you have given me, or I you.”

  “Just wanted to get your attention is all,” Crow said. “Without any of the others suspecting it.” His brow was set in angry lines but his words were soft and mild. “I been thinking about how I came to be. I mean, you guys are simply there, a part of the natural order of things. But us archetypes are created out of a million years of campfire tales and wishful lies. We’re thrown up out of the collective unconscious. I got to wondering what would happen if somebody with access to that unconscious—you, for example—was to plant a few songs here and there.”

  “It could be done, possibly. Nothing’s certain. But what would be the point?”

  “How’d you like your brother’s heart in a box?”

  Lord Tal smiled urbanely. “Eric and I may not see eye to eye on everything, yet
I cannot claim to hate him so as to wish the physical universe rendered uninhabitable.”

  “Not him. Your other brother.”

  Tal involuntarily glanced over his shoulder, toward the distant mountain, where a small dark figure lay tormented by vultures. The house had been built here with just that view in mind. “If it could be done, don’tyou think I’d’ve done it?” Leaving unsaid but understood: How could you succeed where I have failed?

  “I’m the trickster, babe—remember? I’m the wild card, the unpredictable element, the unexpected event. I’m the blackfly under the saddle. I’m the ice on the O-rings. I am the only one who could do this for you.”

  Very quietly, Lord Taleisin said, “What sureties do you require?”

  “Your word’s good enough for me, pal. Just don’t forget to spit in my face before you leave. It’ll look better.”

  ***

  “Have fun,” Lord Eric said, and left the room.

  Eric’s men worked Crow over good. They broke his ribs and kicked in his face. A couple of times they had to stop to get their breath back, they were laboring so hard. He had to give them credit, they put their backs into the work. But, like Crow himself, the entertainment was too boorish for its audience. Long before it was done, most of the partyers had left in boredom or disgust.

  At last he groaned, and he died.

  Well, what was a little thing like death to somebody like Crow? He was archetypal—the universe demanded that he exist. Kill him here-and-now and he’d be reborn there-and-then. It wouldn’t be long before he was up and around again.

  But not Annie.

  No, that was the bitch of the thing. Annie was dead, and the odds were good she wasn’t coming back.

  ***

  Among twenty smog-choked cities, the only still thing was the eye of Crow. He leaned back, arms crossed, in the saddle of his Harley, staring at a certain door so hard he was almost surprised his gaze didn’t burn a hole in it.

  A martlet flew down from the sky and perched on the handlebars. It was a little bird, round-headed and short-beaked, with long sharp wings. Its eyes were two stars shining. “Hail!” it said.

  “Hail, fire, and damnation,” Crow growled. “Any results?”

  “Lord Taleisin has done as you required, and salted the timelines with songs. In London, Nashville, and Azul-Tlon do they praise her beauty, and the steadfastness of her love. In a hundred guises and a thousand names is she exalted. From mammoth-bone medicine lodges to MTVirtual, they sing of Lady Anne, of the love that sacrifices all comfort, and of the price she gladly paid for it.”

  Still the door did not open.

  “That’s not what I asked, shit-for-brains. Did it work?”

  “Perhaps.” The bird cocked its head. “Perhaps not. I was told to caution you: Even at best, you will only have a now-and-again lady. Archetypes don’t travel in pairs. If it works, your meetings will be like solar eclipses—primal, powerful, rare, and brief.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  The creature hesitated, and if a bird could be said to look abashed, then it looked strangely abashed. “I was also told that you would have something for me.”

  Without looking, Crow unstrapped his saddlebag and rummaged within. He removed a wooden heart-shaped box, tied up in string. “Here.”

  With a glorious burst of unearthly song, the martlet seized the string in its talons and, wings whirring, flew straight up into the sky. Crow did not look after it. He waited.

  He waited until he was sure that the door would never open. Then he waited some more.

  The door opened.

  Out she came, in faded Levis, leather flight jacket, and a black halter top, sucking on a Kent menthol. She was looking as beautiful as the morning and as hard as nails. The sidewalk cringed under her high-heeled boots.

  “Hey, babe,” Crow said casually. “I got you a sidecar. See? It’s lined with velvet and everything.”

  “Fuck that noise,” Annie said and, climbing on behind him, hugged him so hard that his ribs creaked.

  He kick-started the Harley and with a roar they pulled out into traffic. Crow cranked up the engine and popped a wheelie. Off they sped, down the road that leads everywhere and nowhere, to the past and the future, Tokyo and Short Pump, infinity and the corner store, with Annie laughing and unafraid, and Crow flying the black flag of himself.

  The Dog Said Bow-Wow

  The dog looked like he had just stepped out of a children’s book. There must have been a hundred physical adaptations required to allow him to walk upright. The pelvis, of course, had been entirely reshaped. The feet alone would have needed dozens of changes. He had knees, and knees were tricky.

  To say nothing of the neurological enhancements.

  But what Darger found himself most fascinated by was the creature’s costume. His suit fit him perfectly, with a slit in the back for the tail, and—again—a hundred invisible adaptations that caused it to hang on his body in a way that looked perfectly natural.

  “You must have an extraordinary tailor,” Darger said.

  The dog shifted his cane from one paw to the other, so they could shake, and in the least affected manner imaginable replied, “That is a common observation, sir.”

  “You’re from the States?” It was a safe assumption, given where they stood—on the docks—and that the schooner Yankee Dreamer had sailed up the Thames with the morning tide. Darger had seen its bubble sails over the rooftops, like so many rainbows. “Have you found lodgings yet?”

  “Indeed I am, and no I have not. If you could recommend a tavern of the cleaner sort?”

  “No need for that. I would be only too happy to put you up for a few days in my own rooms.” And, lowering his voice, Darger said, “I have a business proposition to put to you.”

  “Then lead on, sir, and I shall follow you with a right good will.”

  ***

  The dog’s name was Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux, but “Call me Sir Plus,” he said with a self-denigrating smile, and “Surplus” he was ever after.

  Surplus was, as Darger had at first glance suspected and by conversation confirmed, a bit of a rogue—something more than mischievous and less than a cut-throat. A dog, in fine, after Darger’s own heart.

  Over drinks in a public house, Darger displayed his box and explained his intentions for it. Surplus warily touched the intricately carved teak housing, and then drew away from it. “You outline an intriguing scheme, Master Darger—”

  “Please. Call me Aubrey.”

  “Aubrey, then. Yet here we have a delicate point. How shall we divide up the…ah, spoils of this enterprise? I hesitate to mention this, but many a promising partnership has foundered on precisely such shoals.”

  Darger unscrewed the salt cellar and poured its contents onto the table. With his dagger, he drew a fine line down the middle of the heap. “I divide—you choose. Or the other way around, if you please. From self-interest, you’ll not find a grain’s difference between the two.”

  “Excellent!” cried Surplus and, dropping a pinch of salt in his beer, drank to the bargain.

  ***

  It was raining when they left for Buckingham Labyrinth. Darger stared out the carriage window at the drear streets and worn buildings gliding by and sighed. “Poor, weary old London! History is a grinding-wheel that has been applied too many a time to thy face.”

  “It is also,” Surplus reminded him, “to be the making of our fortunes. Raise your eyes to the Labyrinth, sir, with its soaring towers and bright surfaces rising above these shops and flats like a crystal mountain rearing up out of a ramshackle wooden sea, and be comforted.”

  “That is fine advice,” Darger agreed. “But it cannot comfort a lover of cities, nor one of a melancholic turn of mind.”

  “Pah!” cried Surplus, and said no more until they arrived at their destination.

  At the portal into Buckingham, the sergeant-interface strode forward as they stepped down from the carriage. He blinked at the sight of Surp
lus, but said only, “Papers?”

  Surplus presented the man with his passport and the credentials Darger had spent the morning forging, then added with a negligent wave of his paw, “And this is my autistic.”

  The sergeant-interface glanced once at Darger, and forgot about him completely. Darger had the gift, priceless to one in his profession, of a face so nondescript that once someone looked away, it disappeared from that person’s consciousness forever. “This way, sir. The officer of protocol will want to examine these himself.”

  A dwarf savant was produced to lead them through the outer circle of the Labyrinth. They passed by ladies in bioluminescent gowns and gentlemen with boots and gloves cut from leathers cloned from their own skin. Both women and men were extravagantly bejeweled—for the ostentatious display of wealth was yet again in fashion—and the halls were lushly clad and pillared in marble, porphyry and jasper. Yet Darger could not help noticing how worn the carpets were, how chipped and sooted the oil lamps. His sharp eye espied the remains of an antique electrical system, and traces as well of telephone lines and fiber optic cables from an age when those technologies were yet workable.

  These last he viewed with particular pleasure.

  The dwarf savant stopped before a heavy black door carved over with gilt griffins, locomotives, and fleurs-de-lis. “This is a door,” he said. “The wood is ebony. Its binomial is Diospyros ebenum. It was harvested in Serendip. The gilding is of gold. Gold has an atomic weight of 197.2.”

  He knocked on the door and opened it.

  The officer of protocol was a dark-browed man of imposing mass. He did not stand for them. “I am Lord Coherence-Hamilton, and this—” he indicated the slender, clear-eyed woman who stood beside him—“is my sister, Pamela.”

  Surplus bowed deeply to the Lady, who dimpled and dipped a slight curtsey in return.

  The protocol officer quickly scanned the credentials. “Explain these fraudulent papers, sirrah. The Demesne of Western Vermont! Damn me if I have ever heard of such a place.”