The skinchanger, in human shape, was a full-formed woman, but so small she curled in Jack’s arms like a cat. Her hair was longer than her body, which was so supple and slippery Jack had to use all his wiles to keep hold of her. She was the color of pitch and of flame, and sometimes of lightning, and then she would shiver and chime and change. That night Jack Yap held in his arms a baby lynx, an ostrich chick, an elephant calf and a fawn, a pink weasel baby, a black colt, and a white lamb. He sang lullabies to all of them, with his Marm’s corpse and the mason’s looking dully on.
Pudding fell asleep to the sound of lullabies and skinchanging, his sweet, lax, flower mouth brown-stained all around with blood.
“Sleep, my Tam,” Jack Yap soothed the changeling. She was now a chimpanzee, clinging to his neck, now a python wrapped about him playfully. “Sleep and Jack Yap will guard you. And tomorrow, me and you and Uncle Pudding too, why, we have some traveling to do.”
Fiction: Unrequited Love by Gene Wolfe
“Two loves I have, of comfort and despair.”
—Shakespeare
You have no reason to listen to me, but may sigh and turn the page and be none the worse for it. Yet I have every reason to speak out. If this public confession of my innocent guilt lifts my spirits to the slightest degree, it will be well worth the loss of your esteem. You see, I am one who had done wrong while seeking to do good. There are millions like me in that, and most acknowledge no smallest trace of guilt.
“My intentions were good!”
Soon, one hopes, a great, blood-colored hand whose fingers are tipped with claws will close about them and drag them down to Hell.
So it may drag me; and mine were good, though I scorn to offer that in my defense. It is results that matter in this world and in every other. My good intentions brought innocent hearts pain that will not end. Each night, once, twice, sometimes three times in a night, I rise and dress and go out to see if they are there.
They are not, but would be if they could—poor simple little beings whose torment I began. Do you understand?
Of course not.
How could you? I will explain everything in order, starting with Roberta.
#
Roberta belonged to the Robinsons, the couple who have the house one door west of mine. I first saw her one May morning walking to school, with her own little laptop in a shiny new bag, the picture of beauty, innocence (there is that word again) and blooming health. She was a ‘bot, of course. Either the Robinsons could not have a child of their own, or were unwilling to undertake the travail and expense of a real child. I could not—I do not—blame them in the least. But I wondered, because I have never had much to do with such ‘bots, about her schooling.
So it was that I struck up a conversation with her one day when I happened to be walking in the same direction. I asked the inevitable, utterly banal question: “Do you like school?”
And Roberta answered, “Oh, yes! It’s fun.”
“Really? What’s your class studying?”
“Oh, you know. The names of the letters and how each one sounds. The color wheel and watercolors. Arithmetic. Stranger danger.”
“I’m no stranger,” I told her.
“Of course you aren’t. You live next door.”
“Exactly. And I’m not about to ask you to go anywhere with me or do anything, though I do enjoy talking to you.”
“That’s good!” She smiled.
“For me, at least. What do you get if you mix black and white?”
“Grey if you mean paint. Brown if you mean people.”
“I meant paint. Blue and yellow?”
“Green.”
“What’s the square root of two hundred and fifty-six?”
“Sixteen.” She looked around at me with a charming little grin. “Only that’s not fair. It’s not first-grade work.”
“Exactly. You must know everything the rest of your class—“
“No, there are three of us.”
“Is there to learn. So how can it be fun for you?”
“Oh, it’s lots of fun!”
“Is it really? What part do you like best.”
“Tutoring. That’s where one of us takes a boy or girl who isn’t doing very well and tries to help him. Or her.” For a moment she looked serious and a little sad. “It’s nearly always a boy, because there are five boys and two girls besides us. Only what I like best is when it’s a girl like me. Sometimes I know I’ve really, truly helped. Helped her and helped Mrs. Morse, too. I like that a lot.”
We had nearly reached the elementary school, so I said, “Well, I hope you get a girl today.”
She said, “So do I! I hope I get Julianne!” and ran into the school.
Not too long after that I met Julianne, and here I intruded. If I bore no guilt until now (though I think I did) I certainly bore it in that.
I saw her shuffle sadly past our house on her way the Robinson’s, a small girl with a pinched face and long black braids. I saw her, too, on her way back home, and could not resist. I went out and walked more or less with her, trying to look as though I were enjoying the sunshine, and contrived to strike up a conversation. “Do you play with Roberta?”
“Sure.” It was mumbled; I shall not mention the mumbling in the future. Everything Julianne said was mumbled.
“It must be fun.”
A sad nod. “She’s my best friend.”
“Do you have many friends?”
She shook her head.
“I’m know I can’t play with you the way another girl would, but I’m Roberta’s neighbor and I’d like to be your friend, too.” I introduced myself.
“I’m Julianne.”
I had been fairly certain of that already.
She sighed. “My father’s a cook. We’re supposed to say chef. But he is. That’s why I’m Julianne. He fixes salads, mostly.”
I said, “A good chef is a treasure among men.”
“Mom says the money’s pretty good.”
“No doubt the salads are, too.”
“So I’m going to get another friend.” The small, pinched face seemed to brighten somewhat. “I’m going to get a puppy. Roberta’s going to have a puppy and I told Mom and Dad, so I’m getting one, too.”
“’Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of Man, without his vices.’ Lord Byron said that. I believe his dog was a Newfoundland. Do you know what breed you’ll be getting, Julianne?”
“A robot. Roberta’s going to get a border terrier, though.” For a moment it almost seemed that Julianne smiled. “They can play with each other while we do.”
It left me speechless. Or if I spoke, I do not recall what it was I said or why I said it.
Perhaps I turned at some corner or other, or perhaps Julianne reached her home and went inside. I do not recall that either. I only know that I walked on, alone, filled with a tragic anger. Our gently curving streets offended me. Our neatly finished green lawns, more than half of them of artificial grass, offended me still more. I hated every house I saw; their fresh paint and absurd mixture of styles were more than sufficient to account for any amount of hatred.
Yet I had another, better, reason. I hated then because there was scarcely one that housed two children, and that most housed none.
Like my own.
My kind had built a paradise, of which I was a part. A paradise for machines, in which the human race, though welcome, could not and did not thrive. In and around the filthy huts of the medieval peasants, children ran and shouted, laughed and wept, and no doubt received sturdy buffets when they made too much noise. There the family sang around a table we would scorn. There grandmothers recounted wild tales before the fire, tales full of bold boys who made good and honest country maidens who tricked evil dwarves like me.
Tales that were full of life because the children were, and full of death, too, because each child had to learn that death is life’s shadow.
Here—But I have go
ne on too long already.
#
A week passed before I spoke to either girl again. As often as I could I watched them out my windows or from my deck. Sometimes they waved to me, and when they did I took care to smile and wave in return.
For the most part they did not.
Roberta remained the perfection of childhood beauty. Julianne seemed always her sad, pinched self. This though once I heard her laugh, a sound every bit as unnatural as her playmate.
The promised puppies appeared, Roberta’s first. It was small and wigglesome, brownish, reddish, and blackish. Both girls embraced and kissed it, Julianne shyly and Roberta often.
Julianne received hers a week or two later. It was larger and seemed to be a caricature of a Dalmatian, white with over-regular black spots and too-large eyes. Perhaps I can best characterize it as resistibly cute, though both girls appeared to adore it. Roberta’s puppy played with it as he might have played with a ball or any other inanimate object. I doubt that he knew it was a counterfeit of his own species.
Watching them, I meditated upon a plan. It is because of that plan and its result that I am writing this.
First I seized an opportunity to speak to the girls together. Roberta’s puppy had penetrated the hedge that separates the Robinson’s back yard from our own. Both girls screamed, jumped up and down, and did little else. I quieted them, assured them that I would capture their small fugitive, and did so by tempting him with scraps of meat.
He was a charming little creature when I held him at last, innocent as are the young of almost every animal, and friendly as are the young of a very few.
I carried him back to the waiting girls, cautioned them against permitting him to escape again (fruitless cautions, as you shall read), and broached my plan. “Have you two ever thought of trading puppies for a few days? A friend and I did it (this was a lie) when I was a boy. He took mine for a week—maybe it was two, I can’t remember for sure—and I took his. We both had a lot of fun. We learned something, too.”
Roberta asked, “Do you think our parents would let us?”
“I don’t see why not, and certainly there could be no harm in asking.”
She turned to Julianne. “Do you think you could give up Robber for a week if I gave you Rover?”
Hesitantly, Julianne nodded.
So it came to pass, even as I had planned. Julianne, the human girl, went home with Rover, the flesh-and-blood dog. Roberta, the blond robot girl, remained at home with Robber, the black-and-white robot dog.
I thought it a great improvement, and would fearlessly have predicted that both dogs had found new homes.
In which I was wholly wrong. A few days later, I met Julianne, and she had Robber once more. I petted him, and he wagged his tail and licked my hand.
“He’s a nice dog,” Julianne said unnecessarily. “He won’t bite.”
I said, “I didn’t imagine he would, but I’m surprised you didn’t keep Rover longer.”
“I didn’t want to. I like Robber better.”
“I see. Can you tell me why?”
She shrugged and turned away. “He don’t mess the carpet.”
After that I spoke with Roberta, and for once I did not contrive some supposedly accidental encounter. She was playing with Rover in her back yard, and I simply went to the hedge and told her I wanted to speak to her. After all my pretense, it was a great relief.
“I’m going to pry, Roberta. I’m going to ask you about things that are none of my business. I hope you’ll answer.”
She nodded.
“But if you don’t, I’ll understand. You and Julianne were supposed to exchange dogs for week, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, we were.”
“But it ended after what? Three days?”
“Two.” Roberta would not meet my eyes.
“Was it you who called it off? Or Julianne?”
“It was both of us.” I must have looked doubtful, because she added, “It really was. We were talking at recess, and we both started crying. I—I don’t know why she didn’t like Rover.”
She seemed about to cry again. I kept my voice as soft as I could. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Robber thinks he’s a real dog.” The words held a world of agony.
“Does he?”
“Yes! He’s—he’s a thing, but he thinks he’s a real dog.” She turned away and ran into her house.
Glancing out my picture window a few days after that, I saw Dan and Tamara Robinson—and Roberta, too—roaming the neighborhood with flashlights. I went out and asked how I might help, and they explained that Rover was lost.
“Or missing,” I said.
I am not a brilliant man and this was not a brilliant idea, simply what proved to be a useful one. You see, I recalled the sentimental dog stories I had heard or read over the years. Lassie coming home, Grayfriars Bobby, and all the rest. I got Julianne’s address from Roberta, drove over there, and found Rover lying quietly by the side of the house, half hidden by shrubbery, under a window that I would guess was that of Julianne’s bedroom.
God forgive me! I picked him up and carried him home.
#
That should be the end of my story, and I wish it were. Julianne and her mother came to the Robinsons’ the next day to get Robber, whom Roberta had found waiting for her when she left for school. During the weeks that followed, I saw him there twice, his dotted white coat plainly visible as he waited on the Robinsons’ porch.
Twice, as I said. I have never seen him again. Julianne says they keep him chained up.
Interview: Patrick Rothfuss By Alethea Kontis
The first time I saw Patrick Rothfuss, he appeared on my desk, cloaked all in black, with one of the largest post-it notes I’ve ever seen plastered to him. The novella-length sticky was handwritten from the publisher rep specifically to me, gushing about how this new guy was the greatest thing since sliced bread and would I pleasepleaseplease read The Name of the Wind and let them know what I thought?
It’s not the first time a publisher has fawned over an author, but it is rare for a publisher to fawn over an SF/F author. I read the note again and said aloud the same thing I said when I picked up one of the TWO different versions of Patrick’s fabulous debut hardcover release:
Whippersnapper.
I decided I’d like to know a bit more about the wunderkind that is Patrick Rothfuss, so I invited him to meet me at a virtual café with the express purpose of discussing Life, The Universe, and Redheads. He ordered a white chocolate mocha with a shot of blackberry and a cinnamon bun. I ordered an iced vanilla chai and a d20.
Alethea Kontis: Did you ever play D&D?
Patrick Rothfuss: Ah hell. My secret shame. Here’s the deal. I’ll answer this question if everyone who hasn’t role-played skips to the next question. Alright?
These days when I roll play, I use Hero system. D&D will always have a special place in my heart, but the mechanics of Hero are much cleaner. They allow a lot more flexibility in character creation, and more versatility in the flavor of the game you want to run. You want to play an X-men game? Hero will let you do that. Want cyberpunk? Steampunk? Star Wars? High fantasy? A young arcanist seeking his fortune in the Four Corners? It’s all good in Hero.
Over the years I’ve used the Hero system to field test elements of my world before I wrote them into the book. Someday I hope to do a Hero-system sourcebook for my world. Since I’ve already run a decade’s worth of games in my world, I already have the mechanics worked out. I think that would be a blast….
Check out their website if you’re curious.
AK: What character did you play?
PR: For the most part, I played wizards. I will even admit to playing a wild mage whose name was, in fact, Kvothe. But the similarity stops there. You can bet your ass that at no point in this series will Kvothe start running around casting Nahal’s Reckless Dweomer.
AK: What was your opinion on thieves? (I was always a thief. Being a magic user took to
o much friggin’ time choosing spells.)
PR: I never played a thief. Which is kinda odd, as Kvothe actually is as much a thief as he is a Wizard. Not that he fits very well into the D&D paradigm at all…
That’s one of the main failings of D & D in my opinion. The character creation process is not just limited, but rather unrealistic. Why can’t a Wizard learn how to pick a lock? Why can’t a thief learn some Hapkido? Things are better now in the newer editions, but they still aren’t really fluid enough to create the sort of character I really want to play. They can’t really create a character like Kvothe. That’s one of the main reasons I’m in love with hero system. It’s easy to make Kvothe there. It’s easy to make any character.
AK: What do you suppose is the literary world’s fascination with redheads?
PR: I don’t think it’s just the literary world. All throughout history redheads have always been larger than life. Gilgamesh. Alexander the Great, Ghengis Kahn. Napoleon, all redheads. Even Jesus was rumored to have red hair, the deep color of wine.
In Germanic and Egyptian cultures, redheads were rumored to have magic abilities, and occasionally, killed because of it. In ancient Greece redheads were thought to become vampires after they died.
Almost every culture has some bizarre belief about redheads, but no matter what the specific detail, it’s usually tied to magic, power, charisma, and usually darker things as well.
Sound like anyone you know?
AK: Are you afraid of spiders?
PR: Not for the most part. Not the spiders we get up here in Wisconsin, anyway.
I went down to Florida for a wedding once and while I was visiting the Weeki Wachee Mermaids, I saw a spider as big as my spread hand hanging out in a web between two trees. I swear this thing would have been big enough to kill and eat a kitten.
That’s part of the reason I like Wisconsin. Five months of badass winter every year does a lot to keep the bugs in their place.
AK: How’s your memory?
PR: It’s crap. Pure crap. Especially for names. I can’t remember anyone’s name. I remember the person, but not what I’m supposed to call them.
Summer 2007 Page 22