Fantasy: The Best of 2001

by Robert Silverberg

  Her hand chopped the air, impatient. “Now you are ready to hear me.”

  He braced for it.

  Gaze expectant upon him, she cleared her throat and launched into her song. Fantastically, the Xandran lyrics rang Caronnais-clear. He wished they didn’t. As for the melody, she possessed a marvelous voice, but these notes took a drunkard’s walk from key to key.

  “The universe has looked forward with breath baited,

  Not only Earth but the underworld and the starry sky,

  For this day so wellknown, even celebrated,

  When all of us assembled see eye to eye

  About the union of our shiny Hurultan, whose ability

  It is the daylight forward to bring,

  And dear Khaiantai, who will respond with agility,

  So that between them they become parents of the spring—”

  Cappen thanked the years that had taught him acting, in this case the role of a gravely attentive listener.

  Aiala finished: “ ‘—And thus let us join together in chorusing my song.’ There! What do you think of that!”

  “It is remarkable, my lady,” Cappen achieved.

  “I didn’t just dash it off, you know. I weighed and shaped every word. For instance, that line ‘Birds also will warble as soon as they hatch from the egg.’ That did not come easily.”

  “An unusual concept, yes. In fact, I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “Be frank. Tell me truly, could I make a few little improvements? Perhaps—I’ve considered—instead of ‘as ardent as a prize ball,’ what about ‘as vigorous as a stud horse’?”

  “Either simile is striking, my lady. I would be hard put to suggest any possible significant changes.”

  Aiala flared anew. “Then why do Orun, Vanis, and Lua sneer? How can they?”

  “Sneering comes easily to some persons, my lady. It is not uncommonly an expression of envy. But to repeat myself, I do not propose that that applies in the present case. Tastes do differ. Far be it from me to imagine how your distinguished kindred might perceive a piece like this. Appropriateness to an occasion need have nothing to do with the quality of a work. It may merely happen to not quite fit in—like, say, a stately funeral dirge in a series of short-haul chanties. Or vice versa. Professionals like me,” said Cappen forbearingly, “must needs learn to supply what may be demanded, and reserve our true art for connoisseurs.”

  He failed to mollify her. Instead, she stiffened and glared. “So! I’m unskilled, am I? I suppose you can do better?”

  Cappen lifted his palms with a defensiveness not en­tirely feigned. “Oh, absolutely not. I simply meant—”

  “I know. You make excuses for them on behalf of your own feelings.”

  “My lady, you urged me to be forthright. I hint at nothing but a conceivable, quite possibly hypothetical reconsideration of intent, in view of the context.”

  Indignation relieved him by yielding to haughtiness. “I told you how I would lose honor did I by now give anything but a song. Rather will I stay home and make them sorry.”

  Cappen’s mind leaped like a hungry cat at a mouse. “Ah, but perhaps there is a third and better way out of this deplorable situation. Could you bring a different paean? I know many that have enjoyed great success at nuptial gatherings.”

  “And the gods will know, or in time they’ll discover, that it is not new in the world. Shall I bring used goods to the sacred wedding—I?”

  “Well, no, my lady, of course not.”

  Aiala sniffed. “I daresay you can provide something original that will be good enough.”

  “Not to compare with my lady’s. Much, much less exalted. Thereby, however, more readily blending into revelry, where the climate is really not conducive to concentrated attention. Grant me time, for indeed the standard to be met is heaven-high—”

  She reached a decision. “Very well. A day and a night.”

  “Already tomorrow?” protested Cappen, appalled.

  “They shall not think I waver weakly between crea­tivity and vengeance. Tomorrow. In classical Xandran. Fresh and joyous. It had better be.”

  “But—but—”

  “Then I will give you my opinion, freely and frankly.”

  “My lady, this is too sudden for imperfect flesh and feeble intelligence. I beg you—”

  “Silence. It’s more than I think I would grant anyone else, for the sake of your respectful words and song. I begin to have my suspicions about it, but will overlook them if you bring me one that is acceptable and that my winds can tell me has never been heard before on this earth or in its skies. Fail me, and your caravan will not get back to the plains, nor you to anywhere. Go!”

  In a whirl of white, she vanished. The wind shrieked louder and colder, the storm clouds drew nearer.

  * * *

  Villagers and caravaneers spied him trudging back down the path and, except for those out forlornly herding the sheep, swarmed together to meet him. Their babble surfed around his ears. He gestured vainly for silence. Bulak roared for it. As it fell, mumble by mumble, he and Deghred trod forward. “What did you do yonder?” he asked, less impassively than became a headman.

  Cappen had donned his sternest face. “These be mys­teries not to be spoken of until their completion,” he declared. “Tomorrow shall see my return to them.”

  He dared not spend hours relating and explaining, when he had so few. Nor did it seem wise to admit that thus far, in all likelihood, he had made matters worse, especially for the travelers.

  Bulak stood foursquare. Deghred gave the bard a searching and skeptical look. The rest murmured, fin­gered prayer beads or josses, and otherwise registered an awe that was useful at the moment but, if disap­pointed, could well turn murderously vengeful.

  Cappen went on headlong. “I must meditate, com­mune with high Powers, and work my special magian­isms,” he said. “For this I require to be alone, well sheltered, with writing materials and, uh, whatever else I may require.”

  Bulak stared. “Suddenly you speak as if born amidst us.”

  “Take that as a token of how deep and powerful the mysteries are.” Cappen forgot to keep his voice slowly tolling. “But, but does anybody here know Xandran?”

  Wind whistled, clouds swallowed the sun, three rav­ens flew by like forerunners of darkness.

  “I have some command of the tongue,” said Deghred, almost as if he suspected a trap.

  “Classical Xandran?” cried Cappen.

  “No. Who does but a few scholars? I mean what they use in those parts nowadays—that is, the traders and sailors I’ve had to do with. And, yes, once a crew of pirates; but I think that was a different dialect.”

  The foolish, fire-on-ice hope died. Still—“I may want to call on what knowledge you have. That will depend on what my divinations reveal to me. Hold yourself prepared. Meanwhile, what of my immediate needs?”

  “We have a place,” Bulak said. “Lowly, but all we can offer.”

  “The spirits take small account of Earthly grandeur,” his elder wife assured them, for whatever that was worth.

  Thus Cappen found himself and his few possessions in the village storehouse. It was a single room, mainly underground, with just enough walls beneath the sod roof to allow an entryway. After the door was closed, a lamp gave the only light. While the space was fairly large, very little was available, for it was crammed with roots, dried meat, sheepskins, and other odorous goods. The air hung thick and dank. However, it was out of the wind, and private.

  Too private, maybe. Cappen had nothing to take his mind off his thoughts.

  He settled in, a pair of skins between him and the floor, one over his shoulders. Besides the lamp, he had been given food, a crock of wine, a goblet, a crock for somewhat different purposes, and his tools—a bottle of ink, several quill pens, and a sheaf of paper, articles such as merchants used in their own work. Now he began won­dering, more and more frantically, what to do with them.

  Ordinarily he could have dashed
something off. But a canticle in classical Xandran, suitable for a marriage made in heaven? Especially when the cost of its proving unsatisfactory would be widespread death, including his? He did not feel inspired.

  The language requirement was obstacle enough. His wits twisted to and fro, hunting for a way, any way, around it. Through Deghred, he could now get a doubtless very limited acquaintance with the presentday speech. He recalled hearing that it descended directly from the antique, so much of it must be similar. How would pronunciation have changed, though, and grammar, and even vocabulary? In his days at home he had read certain famous poems five or six hundred years old. It had been difficult; only a lexicon made it possible at all; and the archaic idiom of the Rojan hillmen sug­gested how alien the verses would have sounded.

  He glugged a mouthful of wine. It hit an empty stomach and thence sent a faint glow to his head. He did have a bit more to go on. When he concentrated, he could drag scraps of the proper classical up from the forgetfulness in which they had lain. Maybe his newly acquired facility helped with that. But they were just scraps. He had yawned through a year of this as part of the education that even a bastard son of a minor nobleman was supposed to receive, but declensions, conju­gations, moods, tenses, and the dismal rest set his attention adrift in the direction of girls, flowery forests, rowdy friends, composing a song of his own that might seduce a girl, or almost anything else. What stayed with him had done so randomly, like snatches of his aunt’s moralizings when he was a child and couldn’t escape.

  And then he had Aiala’s lyrics. That wasn’t by design. Every word clung to him, like the memory of every bit of a certain meal years ago that he had had to eat and praise because the cook was a formidable witch. He feared he would never get rid of either. Still, the thing gave him a partial but presumably trustworthy model, a basis for comparison and thus for a guesswork sort of reconstruction.

  He drank again. His blood started to buzz faintly, agreeably. Of course; he’d need his reason unimpaired when—if—he got to that task. But “if” was the doomful word. First he needed the poesy, the winged fancy, con­cepts evoking words that in turn made the concepts live. Anxiety, to give it a euphemistic name, held his imag­ination in a swamp of glue. And wasn’t that metaphor a repulsive symptom of his condition? Anything he might force out of himself would belong in yonder crock.

  So he must lift his heart, free his spirit. Then he could hope his genius would soar. After which he could perhaps render the Caronnais into Xandran without muti­lating it beyond recognition. The basic difficulty was that to create under these circumstances he must get drunk, no good condition for a translator. He suspected the necessary degree of drunkenness was such that when he awoke he wouldn’t care whether he lived or died—until much too late. The lady of the winds did not expect to be kept waiting.

  Besides—he spat a string of expletives—she de­manded not only words but music. The two must go together as naturally as breath and heartbeat, or the song was a botch and a mockery. This meant they must grow side by side, intertwining, shaping one another, as he worked. Oh, usually he could find an existing melody that fitted a poem he had in process, or vice versa. Nei­ther was admissible in this case; both must never have been heard before in the world. He could attempt a dou­ble originality; but that, he knew, would only be possible with the Caronnais native to him. To force the subse­quent translation into that mold—well, give him a week or two and maybe he might, but since he had only until tomorrow—

  He glugged again. He would doubtless be wise to ballast the wine with food. It wasn’t the worst imagi­nable food, caravaneers’ rations, smoked meat and fish, butter, cheese, hardtack, rice cold but lately boiled with leeks and garlic, dried figs and apricots and—On the other hand, he lacked appetite. What use wisdom anyway? He glugged again.

  If this was the end of his wanderings, he thought, it was not quite what he had visualized and certainly far too early. Not that he did well to pity himself. Think of his waymates, think of the poor innocent dwellers throughout these mountains. Surely he had enjoyed much more than them, much more colorful. It behooved a minstrel, a knight of the road, to hark back; as gladly as the wine enabled.

  Most recently, yes, to Sanctuary. He had had his troubles there, but the same was true of every place, and the multifarious pleasures much outnumbered them. Ending with delicious Peridis—may she fare always well—and their last, so unfortunately interrupted mo­ment—

  He stirred on his sheepskins. By all the nymphs of joy, it happened he had brought away a souvenir of it! There he could for a while take refuge from his troubles, other than in drink. And perhaps, said practicality, this would liberate his genius.

  Groping about, shivering in the chill, he found the book. Cross-legged, he opened it on his lap and peered through the dim, smoky, smelly lamplight.

  The words leaped out at him. They were in no lan­guage he had ever heard of, nor was it anywhere named; but he read it as easily as he did his own, instantly understanding what everything he came upon referred to. Not that that brought full knowledge. The world he found was an abstraction, a bubble, floating cheerfully free in a space and a time beyond his ken. No matter. He guessed it was almost as airy there.

  The musical notation stood equally clear to him, tunes lilting while he scanned them. Their scale was not too different from that common in the Westlands. He would need only a little practice before singing and strumming them in a way that everybody he met ought to like. What exoticism there was should lend piquancy. Yes, for his future career—

  Future!

  He sprang to his feet. His head banged against a rafter.

  Hastily fetched through biting wind and gathering murk, Deghred im Dalagh hunkered down and peered at Cappen Varra. “Well, what do you crave of me?” he asked.

  “In a minute, I pray you.” Himself sitting tailor-fashion, the bard tried to arrange paper, inkpot, and open book for use. Bloody awkward. No help at all to the image of a knowing and confident rescuer.

  “I’ve a feeling you’re none too sure either,” Deghred murmured.

  “But I am! I simply need a bit of assistance. Who doesn’t ever? The craftsman his apprentices, the priest his acolytes, and you a whole gang of underlings. I want no more than a brief . . . consultation.”

  “To what end?” Deghred paused. “They’re growing dubious of you. What kind of Powers are you trying to deal with? What could come of it?”

  “The good of everybody.”

  “Or the ruin?”

  “I haven’t time to argue.” If I did, I suspect you’d be utterly appalled and make me cease and desist. Then you’d offer an extravagant sacrifice to a being that no such thing will likely appease—for you haven’t met her as I have.

  Deghred’s voice harshened. “Be warned. If you don’t do what you promised—”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly promise—”

  “My men won’t let you leave with us, and I suspect the villagers will cast you out. They fear you’ll carry a curse.”

  Cappen was not much surprised. “Suppose, instead, I gain clemency, weather as it ought to be, and the passes open for you. Will they give me anything better than thanks? I’m taking a considerable personal risk, you know.”

  “Ah, should you succeed, that’s different. Although these dwellers be poor folk, I don’t doubt they’d heap skins and pelts at your feet. I’ll show you how to sell the stuff at good prices in Temanhassa.”

  “You and your fellow traders are not poor men,” said Cappen pointedly.

  “Naturally, you’d find us, ah, not ungenerous.”

  “Shall we say a tenth share of the profit from your expedition?”

  “A tenth? How can you jest like that in an hour like this?”

  “Retreating to winter in the Empire would cost more. As you must well know, who’ve had to cope year after year with its taxes, bribes, and extortionate suppliers.” Getting snowed in here would be still worse, but Cappen thought it imprudent to explain that th
at had become a distinct possibility.

  “We are not misers or ingrates. Nor are we unrea­sonable. Three percent is, indeed, lavish.”

  “Let us not lose precious time in haggling. Seven and a half.”

  “Five, and my friendship, protection, and recommen­dations to influential persons in Temanhassa.”

  “Done!” said Cappen. He sensed the trader’s surprise and a certain instinctive disappointment. But the need to get on with the work was very real, and the bargain not a bad one.

  Meanwhile he had arranged his things just barely well enough that he could begin. Dipping pen in ink, he said, “This is a strange work I must do, and potent forces are afoot. As yet I cannot tell of it, save to pledge that there is nothing of evil. As I write, I want you to talk to me in Xandran. Naught else.”

  Deghred gaped, remembered his dignity, and replied, “May I wonder why? You do not know that tongue, and I have only some smatterings.”

  “You may wonder if you choose. What you must do is talk.”

  “But what about?”

  “Anything. Merely keep the words flowing.”

  Deghred groped for a minute. Such an order is not as simple as one might think. Almost desperately, he began: “I have these fine seasonings. They were shipped to me from distant lands at great expense. To you and you alone will I offer them at ridiculously low wholesale prices, because I hold you in such high esteem. Behold, for an ounce of pungent peppercorn, a mere ten zirgats. I look on this not as a loss to me, although it is, but a gift of goodwill.”

  Cappen scribbled. While he listened, the meanings came clear to him. He even mentally made up for the stumblings, hesitations, and thick accent. The language was his to the extent that it was the other man’s; and he could have replied with fluency. What slowed him was the search in his mind for words that weren’t spoken. “Knot” and “insoluble,” for instance. How would one say them? . . . Ah, yes. Assuming that what he pseudo-remembered was correct. Maybe the connota­tions were strictly of a rope and of minerals that didn’t melt in water. He jotted them down provisionally, but he wanted more context.