Fantasy Scroll Magazine Issue #2

by Iulian Ionescu

  I turn away from the plaque, and I go back to my quarters, looking neither right nor left for fear of seeing some building, some artifact that has no place in my memory, something that reeks of permanence and yet is unknown to me, and I find a scullery maid waiting for me. She is young and very pretty, and I will know her name tomorrow, will roll it around on my mouth and marvel at the melody it makes even coming forth from my old lips, but I look at her and the fact dawns upon me that I cannot recall who she is. I hope I have not slept with her — I have a feeling that as I grow younger I will commit more than my share of indiscretions — only because I do not wish to hurt her feelings, and there is no logical way to explain to her than I cannot remember her, that the ecstasies of last night and last week and last year are still unknown to me.

  But she is not here as a lover, she has come as a supplicant, she had a child, a son, who is standing in the shadows behind my door, and now she summons him forth and he hobbles over to me. I look down at him, and I see that he is a clubfoot: his ankle is misshapen, his foot is turned inward, and he is very obviously ashamed of his deformity.

  Can you help him, asks the scullery maid; can you make him run like other little boys? I will give you everything I have, anything you ask, if you can make him like the other children.

  I look at the boy, and then at his mother, and then once more at the boy. He is so very young, he has seen nothing of the world, and I wish that I could do something to help him, but I no longer know what to do. There was a time when I knew, there will come a time when no child must limp through his life in pain and humiliation, I know this is so, I know that someday I will be able to cure far worse maladies than a clubfoot, at least I think I know this, but all that I know for sure is that the boy was born a cripple and will live a cripple and will die a cripple, and there is nothing I can do about it.

  You are crying, Merlin, says the scullery maid. Does the sight of my child so offend you?

  No, I say, it does not offend me.

  Then why do you cry, she asks.

  I cry because there is nothing else I can do but cry, I reply. I cry for the life your son will never know, and for the life that I have forgotten.

  I do not understand, she says.

  Nor do I, I answer.

  Does this mean you will not help my son, she asks.

  I do not know what it means. I see her face growing older and thinner and more bitter, so I know that she will visit me again and again, but I cannot see her son at all, and I do not know if I will help him, or if I do, exactly how I will help him. I close my eyes and concentrate, and try to remember the future. Is there a cure? Do men still limp on the Moon? Do old men still weep because they cannot help? I try, but it has slipped away again.

  I must think about this problem, I say at last. Come back tomorrow, and perhaps I will have a solution.

  You mean a spell, she asks eagerly.

  Yes, a spell, I say.

  She calls the child to her, and together they leave, and I realize that she will come back alone tonight, for I am sure, at least I am almost sure, that I will know her name tomorrow. It will be Marian, or Miranda, something beginning with an M, or possibly Elizabeth. But I think, I am really almost certain, that she will return, for her face is more real to me now than it was when she stood before me. Or is it that she has not stood before me yet? It gets more and more difficult to separate the events from the memories, and the memories from the dreams.

  I concentrate on her face, this Marian or Miranda, and it is another face I see, a lovely face with pale blue eyes and high cheekbones, a strong jaw and long auburn hair. It meant something to me once, this face, I feel a sense of warmth and caring and loss when I see it, but I don't know why. I have an instinctive feeling that this face meant, will mean, more to me than any other, that it will bring me both happiness and sorrow beyond any that I've ever known. There is a name that goes with it, it is not Marion or Miriam (or is it?), I grasp futilely for it, and the more franticly I grasp the more rapidly it recedes.

  Did I love her, the owner of this face? Will we bring joy and comfort to one another, will we produce sturdy, healthy children to comfort us in our old age? I don't know, because my old age has been spent, and hers is yet to come, and I have forgotten what she does not yet know.

  I concentrate on the image of her face. How will we meet? What draws me to you? There must be a hundred little mannerisms, foibles as often as virtues, that will endear you to me. Why can I not remember a single one of them? How will you live, and how will you die? Will I be there to comfort you, and once you're lost, who will be there to comfort me? Is it better than I can no longer recall the answers to these questions?

  I feel if I concentrate hard enough, things will come back to me. No face was ever so important to me, not even Arthur's, and so I block out all other thoughts and close my eyes and conjure up her face (yes, conjure; I am Merlin, am I not?) — but now I am not so certain that it is her face. Was the jaw thus or so? Were her eyes really that pale, her hair that auburn? I am filled with doubt, and I imagine her with eyes that were a deeper blue, hair that was lighter and shorter, a more delicate nose — and I realize that I have never seen this face before, that I was deluded by my self-doubts, that my memory has not failed me completely, and I attempt to paint her portrait on the canvas of my mind once again, but I cannot, the proportions are wrong, the colors are askew, and even so I cling to this approximation, for once I have lost it I have lost her forever. I concentrate on the eyes, making them larger, bluer, paler, and finally I am pleased with them, but now they are in a face that I no longer know, her true face as elusive now as her name and her life.

  I sit back on my chair and I sigh. I do not know how long I have been sitting here, trying to remember a face — a woman's face, I think, but I am no longer sure — when I hear a cough, and I look up and Arthur is standing before me.

  We must talk, my old friend and mentor, he says, drawing up his own chair and seating himself on it.

  Must we, I ask.

  He nods his head firmly. The Round Table is coming apart, he says, his voice concerned. The kingdom is in disarray.

  You must assert yourself and put it in order, I say, wondering what he is talking about.

  It's not that easy, he says.

  It never is, I say.

  I need Lancelot, says Arthur. He is the best of them, and after you he is my closest friend and advisor. He thinks I don't know what he is doing, but I know, though I pretend not to.

  What do you propose to do about it, I ask.

  He turns to me, his eyes tortured. I don't know, he says. I love them both, I don't want to bring harm to them, but the important thing is not me or Lancelot or the queen, but the Round Table. I built it to last for all eternity, and it must survive.

  Nothing lasts for eternity, I say.

  Ideals do, he replies with conviction. There is Good and there is Evil, and those who believe in the Good must stand up and be counted.

  Isn't that what you have done, I ask.

  Yes, says Arthur, but until now the choice was an easy one. Now I do not know which road to take. If I stop feigning ignorance, then I must kill Lancelot and burn the queen at the stake, and this will surely destroy the Round Table. He pauses and looks at me. Tell me the truth, Merlin, he says, would Lancelot be a better king than I? I must know, for if it will save the Round Table, I will step aside and he can have it all — the throne, the queen, Camelot. But I must be sure.

  Who can say what the future holds, I reply.

  You can, he says. At least, when I was a young man, you told me that you could.

  Did I, I ask curiously. I must have been mistaken. The future is as unknowable as the past.

  But everyone knows the past, he says. It is the future that men fear.

  Men fear the unknown, wherever it may lie, I say.

  I think that only cowards fear the unknown, says Arthur. When I was a young man and I was building the Table, I could not wait for the future t
o arrive. I used to awaken an hour before sunrise and lay there in my bed, trembling with excitement, eager to see what new triumphs each day would bring me. Suddenly he sighs and seems to age before my eyes. But I am not that man anymore, he continues after a thoughtful silence, and now I fear the future. I fear for Guenivere, and for Lancelot, and for the Round Table.

  That is not what you fear, I say.

  What do you mean, he asks.

  You fear what all men fear, I say.

  I do not understand you, says Arthur.

  Yes, you do, I reply. And now you fear even to admit to your fears.

  He takes a deep breath and stares unblinking into my eyes, for he is truly a brave and honorable man. All right, he says at last. I fear for me.

  That is only natural, I say.

  He shakes his head. It does not feel natural, Merlin, he says.

  Oh, I say.

  I have failed, Merlin, he continues. Everything is dissolving around me — the Round Table and the reasons for it. I have lived the best life I could, but evidently I did not live it well enough. Now all that is left to me is my death — he pauses uncomfortably — and I fear that I will die no better than I have lived.

  My heart goes out to him, this young man that I do not know but will know someday, and I lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  I am a king, he continues, and if a king does nothing else, he must die well and nobly.

  You will die well, my lord, I say.

  Will I, he asks uncertainly. Will I die in battle, fighting for what I believe when all others have left my side — or will I die a feeble old man, drooling, incontinent, no longer even aware of my surroundings?

  I decide to try once more to look into the future, to put his mind at ease. I close my eyes and I peer ahead, and I see not a mindless babbling old man, but a mindless mewling baby, and that baby is myself.

  Arthur tries to look ahead to the future he fears, and I, traveling in the opposite direction, look ahead to the future I fear, and I realize that there is no difference, that this is the humiliating state in which man both enters and leaves the world, and that he had better learn to cherish the time in between, for it is all that he has.

  I tell Arthur again that he shall die the death he wants, and finally he leaves, and I am alone with my thoughts. I hope I can face my fate with the same courage that Arthur will face his, but I doubt that I can, for Arthur can only guess at his while I can see mine with frightening clarity. I try to remember how Arthur's life actually does end, but it is gone, dissipated in the mists of Time, and I realize that there are very few pieces of myself left to lose before I become that crying, mindless baby, a creature of nothing but appetites and fears. It is not the end that disturbs me, but the knowledge of the end, the terrible awareness of it happening to me while I watch helpless, almost an observer at the disintegration of whatever it is that has made me Merlin.

  A young man walks by my door and waves to me. I cannot recall ever seeing him before.

  Sir Pellinore stops to thank me. For what? I don't remember.

  It is almost dark. I am expecting someone, I think it is a woman, I can almost picture her face. I think I should tidy up the bedroom before she arrives, and I suddenly realize that I don't remember where the bedroom is. I must write this down while I still possess the gift of literacy.

  Everything is slipping away, drifting on the wind.

  Please, somebody, help me.

  I'm frightened.

  © 1991 by Mike Resnick

  First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch for Mercury Press, Inc., 1991.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  * * *

  Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the trade paper of the science fiction field, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction. Mike is the winner of 5 Hugo Awards, from a record 36 nominations. He has also won the Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Poland, Catalonia, Croatia, and Japan, and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia.

  Da Capo al Fine

  Patrick G. Jameson

  Jack put resin to bow, an absence in his eyes.

  The violin's neck was warm beneath his callused fingers. He had placed it upon the radiator to push back the midwinter frost, the musician within him fighting to preserve his instrument even as all else lay in ruins. Jack maintained it as he did his own body, by force of habit rather than any true effort of will, and in the past few days even the regular grind of sustenance and sleep had fallen away in the pursuit of his goal.

  The object of his fervor sat before him upon a broken stool; a battered messenger bag that held a surcease to sorrow, an end to pain. From its leather folds he withdrew a stack of vellum pages, bound with twine and covered in neat, fluid notation. Settling them atop the music stand, Jack looked hungrily on the rows of notes marching hypnotically from left to right.

  The Song to End the World.

  He had stumbled upon them by accident, or fate, or through some divine act of will by an otherwise disinterested creator. The how was unimportant, it was the why that mattered now. Why it had come to him, why he held the pages, and Jack was convinced he knew the answer.

  The notation was of an old style, early 1600's at the latest, and difficult to read. Partial notes and scattered damage to the pages would require significant effort and skill to restore. The positioning shifts of the melody alone would have been difficult for a master, but the rapid sequencing in the central section was nearly impossible for all but the most gifted of players. Jack believed that he alone in all this wretched life possessed both the ability and the will to perform this task, and it burned in him to do so.

  When he'd first found the pages, Jack had thought little of it, aside from briefly considering how much they might be sold for. In some idle searching online he had translated its name from the original Italian, La Canto che Finisce il Terra, and snorted aloud at the composer's arrogance. Later, numb with boredom and dulled by drink, he had touched bow to string in an effort to delay the black depression that settled upon him every evening.

  A stanza later he fell to his knees, filled with the certainty that this was all it claimed to be. He awoke the next morning held by a stony purpose such as he had not felt in years, and set to repairing what was lost from the cracking pages. As he pieced together note and rhythm he saw beneath them the bones of a song far older than the renaissance, more ancient than the lyre or lute that were the progenitors of the instrument he now held. What genius had discovered this pattern interwoven with the fabric of the creation Jack did not know, the signature smeared by age to a black mark of ink.

  It had taken three months of labor, testing and trying and practicing until he was again in the form he had fallen so far from. Three months until he was capable of bringing the full glory of this masterpiece into existence. For this all-consuming mission he had sold what remained of their home, his home, to keep himself alive as the snows of winter fell.

  So now he sat within the bare gray walls of a slum husk in the poorest part of town. He had found the former resident departed at the end of a needle, having rigged the radiator to give some spare heat and then shuffled free the mortal coil by his own hand, drawn away into the darkness by whatever drugged pleasure had been his life's vice. Jack had removed the man, a distant part of his mind feeling pity for the wretch — one more reason to make certain that the source of such misery was finally, and permanently, removed.

  To this purpose he took up his bow, and read again the small note he had translated below the unknown composer's name.

  To bring forth the end, one must start at the beginning

  And so he began to play.

  As before, when the first long, slow notes flowed forth from within his violin, the light began to drain from the room. The sun's watery winter rays grew weaker every moment, leaving Jack in a lonely dimness that seemed to have neither distan
ce nor time. He could not read the notes before him, but it did not matter. This passage he knew by heart, as it echoed the yawning hollow he carried within his chest.

  With almost immeasurable grace the tempo began to increase, throwing out swirling bright notes to burn like errant embers against the lightless melody. Jack drew breath in deep, preparing for the rise he knew to be coming, tears slipping from beneath closed eyes. As he burst into the swelling harmony he was pulled again to that moment so long ago, when his son first woke to him and smiled. The melody alighted upon days of pure life and light, the softly formed vibrato a child's quick blue eyes as he laughed aloud at a world still new. Fresh air streamed through the window cracks, bringing with it the impossible scent of dandelion and fresh cut grass.

  The memory sunk bitter claws into his soul, tearing old wounds anew, and Jack surged on into the coming fall. As he forced such thoughts from his mind, the music slowed once more, dropped down in octave, and brought to mind a freshly cooling world. The wild heat of youth abandoned for a more stable and dependable base. Unbidden, it called forth in Jack's mind his own adolescence, playing the slow progression of a young man locked away from the sun and forced to try and create beauty. Within that darkness he had found a love for his art, but a violent love that carried with it an edge too sharp to hold, the edge that would drive him long past reason in pursuit of utter perfection.