And then there were the whispers, the hints, the covert rumors of how the elite among these people—the Master’s own, the select of the select, chosen of the chosen—not only enjoyed the benefits of earthly renown, but would in due time know the ultimate gift: Immortality.
The first time I heard such a rumor, I laughed it off. The second time, I refused to believe it, rejecting it as a sacrilegious joke in the poorest of taste. The third, I began to doubt my own adamant adherence to what I thought were the dictates of simple common sense. At last I opened my eyes and beheld evidence as irrefutable as it was unthinkable: Death had no meaning for these people. Indeed, the so-called “dead” walked among us. I had felt their presence and been affected by their influence as much and more than that of our so-called real leaders, the puppets who postured and chattered in the chambers of Congress or from the tawdry stage of the Oval Office.
I wanted that power. I hungered for it. I wanted that chance to win eternal life, eternal influence. I was willing to do whatever it took to achieve it.
Now see where it had brought me.
A cool breeze caressed my cheek. My eyelids fluttered, then opened to a muted amber glow. I felt a cushion of scented softness beneath me and gazed up at a ceiling painted by the hand of genius. The scene above my head was an idyll straight out of Classical mythology, a verdant mountainside where satyrs, fauns, gods, and goddesses danced. But in one corner of the painting, just out of sight of the heedlessly frolicking throng, I saw a lone figure of gaunt, intent aspect. Cloaked and crouching, he watched the merrymakers, a malicious, knowing smile playing over his thin lips.
I knew that look. I had seen that look before, on the faces of the men who had brought me here and on the faces of their colleagues as well: It was pity. The gods frolicked, but their joy was a fragile, hollow thing, their powers a joke. The true power lay elsewhere and they, poor fools, would never know.
“No!” I cried, tossing my head to one side and closing my eyes tightly. The ghost of mocking laughter filled my ears, together with those sly, hurtful words of so-called “encouragement” that had been my bane from the first day I determined to make myself one of the chosen:
Just keep at it; it’s only a matter of time.
You’re really doing everything right. I’m sure you’ll succeed any day now.
You can’t waste your time obsessing over things that aren’t in your power anymore. Keep busy. You’ll hear something when there’s something for you to hear.
Hey, don’t feel bad: We all had to pay our dues. It comes with the territory.
Look, we both know you’re better than a whole lot of the people who’ve succeeded already. You’ll get your turn before you know it.
No, really, just keep working. It’ll happen for you. Trust me.
“My dear, are you all right?” A gentle hand touched my cheek and a deep, compelling voice thrilled in my ears. I opened my eyes once more and gazed up into the sharply-drawn, handsome face of a silver-haired gentleman. His eyes, the color of a winter’s dusk, regarded me with genuine concern and compassion.
“Y—yes,” I faltered, laying one hand to my damp brow. “I—I think so.” I tried to sit up, but the room spun around me. Candles burned everywhere, and their fat, crimson bodies traced smears of blood and light across my dazzled vision. It was too much for me; I sank back into the welcoming contours of the plush chaise longue upon which I had awakened. The tawny cushion offered up the scent of lavender and crushed roses.
“I—I’m sorry, sir,” I said, my lips dry. I knew to whom I spoke. Could it be any other? “O great Master, if my weakness has offended you, I beg of you, forgive me!”
The Master sat back and smiled, his long, graceful hands folded in his lap. He was clothed from neck to ankles in a robe of midnight blue, the collar secured by a silver pin shaped like a brace of lions couchant, with glinting sapphire eyes. Nobility and benevolence clung to him, along with a bittersweet aroma that was oddly evocative. Where had I smelled that before? Every cell in my brain clamored that it had been a recent experience, one that would be stunningly self-evident if only I could call it forth from the fogs of treacherous memory.
Then it hit me: the hood. The hood had contained exactly such a smell, and that smell was—
“Chocolate?” The Master picked up a small, golden box from the little table at his elbow and offered it to me. “I sometimes find it to be a better restorative than liquor.”
Chocolate, the famed elixir of the brethren, the eternal bean whose transfiguring power was second to none, not even its baselessly proud cousin, coffee! Wordlessly, I plucked out the first bonbon that my fingers touched, without my usual dithering over such choices. I was rewarded for my maturity with a mouthful of smooth, delectable rum truffle. It could have been the hated and shunned orange cream just as easily. In my overwrought state, I decided that I had just received a divine sign, an auspicious omen. I sat up again, more slowly this time, and rejoiced to find that my balance was restored, my vision steady. O blessed confectionary panacea!
The Master seemed to understand that I was myself again. All at once his air of sympathy transformed into a brisk, professional attitude.
“Welcome, child,” he said. “I trust you comprehend the full significance of your presence here?”
I slipped from the chaise longue and knelt at his feet, my head bowed before him with the utmost deference. “I have been brought here, O Master, for you to determine whether or not I am worthy of the sublime favor, the grand blessing of membership among the chosen brethren.”
I heard him utter a short, dry laugh. I didn’t dare look up to see whether he was regarding me with contempt for such a toadyish response. Inwardly, I berated and abused myself for having expressed myself so feebly. How could I now hope to be admitted to the ranks of the favored few—those beings of legendary eloquence and verbal skill—after having given such a display of my own sorry way with words? I fought valiantly to hold back hot tears of disappointment.
To my surprise, the next speech from the Master’s mouth was not a summary dismissal, laced lightly with scorn, but rather: “Rise, child. You do me too much honor.”
I saw his hand before my face, palm upward, offering to help me to my feet. I took it and rose. He, too, stood, and his warm grip on my fingers did not slacken. When I dared to meet his eyes, I saw nothing there but kindness.
“You are only partly right,” he told me. “I do not command my servants to bring me just anyone. The fires of ambition burn high and hot in you, but that is not enough. You yearn for the privileges and boons reserved for those of our clandestine brotherhood, but that is not enough.”
“You have a killer rack, but that is not enough.” The impious words that shattered the holy moment were spoken in a whisper so low that in ordinary circumstances they would have passed unheard, unheeded. Alas, the acoustics of this strange chamber were such that the blasphemous sally was greatly amplified. It echoed from the high, painted ceiling, snaked swiftly through the forest of gold-capitaled, green jasper pillars supporting that lofty vault, and fell like the knell of doom at the Master’s feet.
His blazing eyes flashed at once to the unlucky man who had let the desire to be accounted witty supersede the discernment to be accounted wise. I knew him: He was that one of my escorts here who had spoken of manipulating me with the routine, and who had mocked me and my dreams. A gloating demon sparked to unnatural life in my belly. I would enjoy watching this one receive his comeuppance at the Master’s hand.
I did not have long to wait. The Master held my hand even more tightly, then without warning turned away so that both of our backs were toward the hasty-tongued fool.
“Child, pay close attention,” he said. “This is your test: succeed, and you may call yourself one of us from this day forward. Fail, and you deserve to share that thickwit’s ostracism.” His fingers traced strange shapes within my palm, after which he hooked the first two fingers of his right hand onto the webbing between my thumb a
nd forefinger. He completed his odd succession of gestures by enclosing all my fingers in his grasp and squeezing them quickly once, twice, and after a pause of no more than two seconds, a third and final time.
“There,” he said, smiling. “Now teach him.” He indicated my other escort, the man whose devotion to the Master had caused his companion so much ill-considered mirth.
I obeyed. It was such a bizarre thing, to see the look of perplexity and astonishment in that man’s eyes as my hand mimicked the same motions that the Master had just taught me. I worked as swiftly as I could, and instinctively took the greatest care to conceal what I was doing from the wretch who had so foolishly provoked the Master’s wrath.
I dropped the brother’s hand: I was done. He looked immediately to the Master who nodded benignly and said, “Yes, that’s right: A new one. It’s just as well; this last one was getting a bit too old, and I was afraid that the uninitiated would discover it. That would not do. Now come to me, my son. Let me see whether this child has discharged her trust faithfully.”
My partner crossed the floor, under the stricken eyes of his former comrade, took the Master’s hand, and stealthily repeated the same series of manipulations I had just performed upon him. I held my breath and pressed a fist to my mouth, praying fervently that I had remembered every nuance of those secret hand signs and reproduced them faithfully.
The Master looked at me. He was smiling. “Welcome, child,” he said for the second time, and I understood that this was no ordinary salutation, but my official reception into the ranks of the elect. I wanted to sing for joy, to seize the Master’s hands and bathe them with tears of thanksgiving, but before I could make any such untoward show, I felt my every natural impulse unexpectedly dampen and subside. A Jovian calm infused every fiber of my being. Dignity set her seal upon my brow. I stood tall and inclined my head only slightly to the Master.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I promise that in thanks for the great distinction you’ve given me today, I will dedicate my work and my life to bringing honor to our ranks.”
“Ah, promise . . .” the Master mused, steepling his fingertips. “That, my child, was why I had you brought here in the first place. But surely you must know that there are many, many souls out there with equal or greater promise than you own. It is no easy task, determining which shall rise and which shall fall.”
He sighed wearily, then his expression hardened into an icy, terrifying mask of Judgment that he brought to bear upon the gabbling dunce whose rash words became a snare for his own feet.
“You!” the Master’s voice rolled like thunder through the hidden chamber. The man collapsed in a heap, face to the ground, groveling and babbling for mercy. “Save your breath. You forgot the one rule by which all of us live or die: For every one of us within the charmed order, there are a thousand clamoring to take our places. You, fool, have now been thus displaced. The word will go forth, along with the newly established secret sign by which our brethren live and thrive: You are outcast! Outcast! Begone, and may your error serve as a cautionary lesson to us all.”
The pitiful object of the Master’s wrath slowly raised his face from the carpet. There was a feeble glimmer of defiance in his eyes. “You can’t scare me,” he declared. “And you can’t displace me. Do you even know how powerful I am, how many follow me, hanging on my every word?” He clambered to his feet and shook a fist in the Master’s face. “All this mumbo jumbo, all the secret handshakes, the so-called exclusionist conspiracies, they’re nothing but a load of hooey! It’s quality that counts in this world, quality and skill that get rewarded. I don’t need you or your stupid secret society! I can still make it on my own! You’ll see!”
He ranted on until his former comrade glided up behind him and clapped a chloroform-soaked rag to his face. Then he crumpled.
“Well done,” said the Master. He cast a long, regretful look over the splendors of his den. “The new secret handshake is the least of the changes that churl has forced upon me. I shall need a new lair—I mean, a new headquarters—as well. Too bad: I liked it here,” he said with a shrug.
My new brother and I bowed low, and in perfect accord intoned: “As you will, O Master; as you will.”
I did not encounter the Master again for almost five years after my initiation into the hidden brotherhood. I would have regretted this more if I’d had the leisure to do so. Instead, almost from the day of my admittance, my life was transformed from a series of petty, exasperating disappointments, to a progression of triumphs, each greater than the last. As marvelous as my newfound success was, it did keep me busy. (It is a grand thing to be rewarded for doing work you love, but that does not mean you will be rewarded if you do no work at all. A golden touch still requires that you touch something.)
Those who had scorned and dismissed me in the past now became my dearest friends. Those who formerly had neither known nor cared to learn my name now counted themselves fortunate if I knew theirs. I was acclaimed, feted, lionized, and if the monetary rewards were not all I could have wished, the salve to my ego was often enough to take the edge off that discontent.
Oh, what a heady delight, to achieve such recognition! My new brethren chuckled indulgently over my neophyte’s elation, and showed their support by attending as many of the gatherings that honored me as I attended those which honored them. The halls of many a fine hotel buzzed with our knowing whispers.
It was at one such convocation that I saw the Master again, seated at the bar. He greeted me warmly and insisted I join him. As we spoke, my eye happened to light on a sorry sight: In the dimmest corner of that same bar, huddled over a lone beer, long gone flat, was the man whose exile from our ranks I’d witnessed at my own initiation. His eyes were glazed and he held forth pompously for the benefit of empty chairs that his mad fancy had populated with his former acolytes.
A discreet cough behind me diverted my attention from that dreadful spectacle. I turned to face one of my own followers, a young man in his early twenties, bashfully requesting my autograph. (His eagerness to accost me had led him to edge his way into the space between the Master and myself. Ever gracious toward the young and ingenuous, the Master took no offense at this.) As I signed the title page of my eighth novel, I saw my supplicant’s gaze wander to that same shabby corner of the bar where the poor madman blustered among his phantoms.
“Say, isn’t that X over there?” my fan asked. “Didn’t he used to be somebody?”
“Yes,” I said, a catch in my throat. “Yes, he did.”
At that moment, the atmosphere in the bar tensed. An editor had come in. The tables filled with aspiring writers hummed as they fumbled for copies of their latest manuscripts, their famished eyes fixed upon the all-powerful one, their minds clearly working wildly, trying to come up with a way to obtain his favorable attention without appearing to be too pushy.
I glanced back at my fan. A sheaf of crisp, neatly printed pages had appeared in his hands as if by magic. That same ravenous, yearning look was in his eyes as once had been in mine.
“Gosh,” he said. “He’s coming this way! Do you think—Do you think that if I handed him my story, he’d mind? I mean, if I offered to buy him a drink first—?”
I smiled and patted his hand. “That’s not the way a real pro does it.”
“Does what?” the editor asked, taking his place beside me.
I leaned toward him. “So good to see you,” I said, taking his hand and making the secret sign.
“Ah! That reminds me,” he said. “That latest submission of yours, the one about the cat who coughed up a hairball that was a transdimensional portal? Loved it. I’m making it the cover story for our January issue. The check’s already in the mail.”
I heard a wistful sigh from my fan and saw his head droop over his precious manuscript. Perhaps it wasn’t the kindest thing I could have done, but I felt that I had to do something.
“You mustn’t feel bad,” I said to him. “You have to understand, it wasn’t always li
ke this for me. Getting published isn’t easy, but it can be done. You’ll get your turn before you know it. After all, it’s not as if we’ve got some secret handshake or anything.” Here I laughed lightly. “No, really, just keep working. It’ll happen for you. Trust me.”
His sorrow turned to gratitude. He put away the manuscript and offered to buy me a drink.
Behind his back, the Master caught my eye and smiled approval.
Noblesse oblige.
Nebula Award winner Esther Friesner is the author of thirty-one novels and over one hundred short stories, in addition to being the editor of seven popular anthologies. Her works have been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, and Italy. She is also a published poet, a playwright, and once wrote an advice column, “Ask Auntie Esther.” Her articles on fiction writing have appeared in Writer’s Market and Writer’s Digest Books.
Besides winning two Nebula Awards in succession for Best Short Story (1995 and 1996), she was a Nebula finalist three times and a Hugo finalist once. She received the Skylark Award from NESFA and the award for Most Promising New Fantasy Writer of 1986 from Romantic Times.
Her latest publications include a short story collection, Death and the Librarian and Other Stories, Turn the Other Chick, fifth in the popular “Chicks in Chainmail” series that she created and edits, and the paperback edition of E.Gods, which she cowrote with Robert Asprin. In addition to continuing to write and publish short fiction, she has two Young Adult novels forthcoming in 2006, including Tem ping Fate and Crown of Sparta.
Educated at Vassar College, Esther went on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, where she taught Spanish for a number of years. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, two all-grown-up children, two rambunctious cats, and a fluctuating population of hamsters.
Under Cover of Darkness Page 19