Nova 3

by Anthology

  Miss Emily sighed. “Will he catch her, Miss Emily?” asked the blonde girl.

  “Eventually, yes,” she replied softly, picturing it in her mind.

  “What will he do with her?”

  “He will make her very happy,” said Miss Emily. Then, abruptly: “Come along, darlings, that’s all for today.”

  They started back along the trail, each lost in private thoughts of wonderful things. I may not be able to join the unicorns, Miss Emily mused, but I don’t have to just sit and watch. The field trip, for today at least, was over.

  The nymph allowed herself to be caught by a sylvan pool, and she cried with delight as her satyr made his thrust. They gasped and panted, moaned and shouted, rolled and giggled among the rushes until the final overwhelming crash of delicious pleasure. Then they lay together, trading caresses, whispering of this and that, in the quiet afterglow.

  A mermaid, her upper body propped on a rock at the side of the pool, her twin tails swishing lazily through the water, turned from the display of passion to the young man sitting cross-legged beside her. “If,” she said, “love rules in this place, as they say it does, then surely those two are among the highest nobility.”

  The young man seemed disinterested. He carried on the conversation, it seemed, not so much because he wanted to, but because it was simply easier than remaining silent. “Why do you say that?” He shook his head. “Everything else here is supposedly motivated by the same emotion. Why should they be different?”

  The mermaid’s long auburn hair streamed back from her head to float on the water. She moved one hand sensuously over her breasts, smiling at the young man. “Because, you see, they live for nothing but love. They revel in it; it is endlessly fascinating to them. And their love is unrestricted. Watch the pegasus as it soars through the sky. The poor beast longs to approach other animals, but it is too timorous to mingle with any but his own kind. And so it remains an ornament to be admired at a distance.

  “And the unicorns, ah, they have an odd sort of morality. They belong to the innocent. Thus, only the young and virginal can ride them. However, you may have noticed that the nymph and the satyr are also allowed to approach the herd. Have you ever wondered why?”

  “Not really,” yawned the young man. He felt like getting up and walking away; however, although he wasn’t particularly happy where he was, he wouldn’t have been any better off anywhere else.

  “They, too, are totally innocent. They feel no shame, no guilt, no inhibitions, and that is the source of their innocence.”

  The young man yawned again, and made a noncommittal noise.

  The mermaid gave him a solemn look. “William,” she asked, “do you love me?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to make love to me?” asked the mermaid.

  “No.”

  “No?” The mermaid was surprised. “Have you never wondered what it’s like to float in the water, washed in ecstasy, my twin tails wrapped around your body, and you deep in my mythological recesses? It is, I assure you, an unequaled experience.”

  William shrugged. “It would be too much trouble.”

  “I’m very strong. I could hold you in my arms, bear you up. Your head would never get wet.”

  “Thanks all the same.”

  “I could seduce you,” said the mermaid. “You attract me. I could sing my siren song and draw you to me.” She began to hum.

  “There’s no point to it,” said William. “I’m not in the mood. You don’t interest me.”

  “Why, how cruel,” exclaimed a new female voice. “How can you be so selfish?”

  William looked up and saw the nymph and the satyr, arms linked, playing the audience for the scene.

  “You can give her something she wants,” said the satyr. “It would be so easy for you, so enjoyable. You can give and receive unbounded joy all at the same time. Surely you are not so disinterested as all that?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m pretty damn bored by this whole thing.” The siren song had begun by this time, and William was obviously moved by the sound. Stubbornly he shook off the effects. He stood up, intending to leave, but the satyr raised his pipes and added his music to the mermaid’s song. William stood rigid as the music swept over him, then his eyes took on a happy gleam, his mouth smiled as he fought against the compelling sound. Strangely, he looked younger, more energetic . . .

  And happier.

  The music faltered, and the satyr lowered his pipes. The mermaid slid sadly back into the water and slowly off. William took a deep breath and cheerfully exhaled it. Then, this small victory enjoyed, he lost the feeling.

  The satyr took a few steps forward, watching William curiously. “You are a strange one.”

  “Am I?”

  “Well, one rarely sees a case of boredom like yours.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s too much to see and do,” said the satyr. “Worlds of experience to gather.”

  “Safe, secure, and predigested.”

  There was a pause, and then the satyr smiled. “Why do you want to fight, William? There’s nothing really to fight against.”

  William smiled back at the satyr, rather cynically. “Yes,” he said, touching a stud on his belt, “I know.” And with a whoosh he sailed up over the trees toward the city.

  There was a man in the city who did a peculiar thing. Each evening, at sundown, he would go out on his terrace to watch the homing flight of the pegasi. He would raise his eyes to the heavens as the winged horses galloped through the sky in silent formation, bound for their nests cradled in the lofty peaks of the Sierra-Nevadas, and he would feel, as always, the burning ache of unrequited love, the sharp pain of wanting the unattainable.

  This man was childlike in his obsession. He wanted nothing but to fly with pegasus, race through the clouds as one of them and play their games far above the land. Perfection, for him, rested with these shy chargers of the sky. And he knew that he could never realize his dream.

  For once he had tried.

  He had, and not too long before, flown up to the nesting grounds and hidden until the roosts were deserted. Seizing his chance, he flashed in and stole a newborn foal, a tiny little animal whose wings were still too feeble to lift him. And he’d returned to his apartment with his prize, determined to raise it without the timidity of its brethren.

  The infant pegasus had shortly died of loneliness.

  So now the man merely stood and watched, and dreamed, as the herd soared out of reach, untouchable. Remembering, he wept, sinking to his knees on the terrace, pouring out his grief for what could never be. And when the spasm had passed he walked slowly inside, secure in the knowledge that, if nothing else, he was at least a genuine misfit. It didn’t provide much comfort.

  The diminishing light of the setting sun activates a photoelectric switch and then, in the dusk, little doors pop open in the grass, in hillsides, beneath trees and shrubs. The time has come for the elves to emerge from their stainless steel burrows and roam the Park.

  The elves are the whimsical gardeners of a world: lawn mowers, tree pruners, leaf rakers, hedge trimmers, and plant doctors. They scurry on their appointed rounds, thousands upon thousands of them, bustling tirelessly on their individual tasks, maintaining the beauty of the countryside.

  The night belongs to the dragons as well, those beasties gentle enough to be allowed out of the Blackwood. They assist the elves by trimming away excess foliage.

  The dragon near the lake woke from his dreams of battle and lumbered from his cave, blinking sleepily at the illumination that brightened the sky above the nearest city. A mighty yawn stretched his jaws, and a trickle of flame escaped. He began browsing for his dinner.

  Small patches of cold light zipped here and there to all sides of his scaly body; the dragon lashed his tail in greeting, for this was the firefly-glow of the elves as they went about their duties. Tiny hands waved in return, and a few of the miniature androids deposited armfuls of grass and leaves in
front of the dragon’s head. The dragon gratefully chewed them down, for he was fat and just a bit slothful; he disliked clumping up and down the forest in search of tender vegetation. The elves, for their part, knew logically that the best way to get rid of the trimmed and cut plants was by feeding the lizards. No waste, no mess, everything useful.

  The dragon, in a contemplative mood, began to enjoy his dinner.

  A rabbit appeared in front of him.

  The rabbit had been hopping along, engrossed in his rabbity thoughts, so he was less alert than he might have been. The sight of the dragon froze him in his tracks; for an instant he stood transfixed, nose quivering pinkly in surprise and shock.

  And in that instant the dragon, without thinking, roasted the rabbit with one short, hot whisper.

  Then, shifting uneasily from one massive foot to another, he stared in bewilderment at the smoking carcass, somewhat irritated at the reflex that had taken control of him. Now why did I do that? he wondered. The thought briefly struck him that he could get in trouble for this breach of manners, but dragons don’t have a very large attention span, and this thought was driven out by a sneaking sort of pride in his act. It made him feel . . . well . . . fearsome. And, with the thrill of sin coursing in his veins, he reached down his great head and daintily munched the rabbit, savoring with great pleasure the long-forgotten taste of roast meat.

  After that he continued to forage for salad, feeling just a little guilty about the incident. Still, he felt, what was the loss of one rabbit, more or less? What could it hurt, if I don’t do it again? After all, one gets a bit tired of nothing but vegetables eventually. Maybe I’ll eat another one someday, in twenty or thirty years, just to keep in practice.

  It gave him something to think about as he ate.

  “Do you know what mythology means?” Miss Emily asked the class. They were strolling along the path that led to the meadow of the unicorns.

  “Mythology is old stories,” piped up James, the dragon expert.

  “Fairy stories,” said a tiny dark beauty.

  “Very good, darlings,” said Miss Emily in delight. “Myths are legends, stories that are mostly untrue.”

  The class looked puzzled. “But unicorns come from legends,” said a boy, “and mermaids, and dragons, and pegasuses, and . . .”

  “But those things are real. They’re not myths.”

  Miss Emily smiled. “They used to be, my loves. You see we have a magical sort of world, and quite a lot of it didn’t exist at one time.”

  “Why, Miss Emily?”

  “Well, when God made the world He made it in a certain way, a way that appealed to Him. But men had their own ideas about the way things should be, about things that were beautiful, or awe-inspiring, and they made up stories about those things. It must have saddened them, knowing deep down that the stories weren’t true.” She put her hands on the shoulders of the two children closest to her. “Finally we humans reached the point where we could do something about it; we could more or less tailor the world to our own specifications. And that’s what happened. Out of the rough material God gave us we fashioned a work of art. So now all of these things are real, more or less.”

  “They’re not all real?”

  “Not all.” Miss Emily was about to give an example when she was interrupted by a frenzied ululation, which suddenly erupted in a nearby tree. The class jumped, then followed Miss Emily’s pointing finger to a bird whose brightly colored wings frantically beat the air.

  “What is it?” the children whispered.

  “A phoenix. Watch.”

  The bird began to shimmer, its bright colors wavering and running together. Tiny plumes of smoke rose delicately from its agitated body. And then the orange flames sprang out here and there, growing and spreading and joining until at last the bird was totally hidden by the bright crackling fire. Strangely, the tree was not harmed. The pyre rose gloriously and then died down, leaving nothing but ash in its wake.

  Some of the children were crying.

  “Don’t weep, loves,” said Miss Emily. “Just watch.”

  As tiny hands rubbed wetness from pink cheeks the ash in the tree began to move, stirring fitfully as if disturbed by some slight breeze. Stronger, it pulled together and piled itself up. Then, with an abrupt blaze of light that hurt the eye the ash swirled, reformed and stood revealed as that same phoenix that had just been incinerated. The bird cooed happily.

  The children laughed and clapped their hands. And, although she had expected it, Miss Emily also felt a surge of joy. “The phoenix,” she explained, “is not exactly alive, nor is it exactly dead. It is a compromise between the natural and the artificial, and we have to be satisfied with it.”

  A fearful voice spoke up. “Unicorns are real, aren’t they, Miss Emily?”

  “Oh yes, darling, unicorns, pegasi, dragons, mermaids, satyrs—they’re all very much alive. But some of the more exotic creatures are artificial. The chimera, for instance, or the cockatrice. They’d be dangerous if they were real.”

  “Some dragons are dangerous.”

  “Yes, but they are under control. They are allowed to be wild so that hunters can hunt them.”

  Little James got a faraway look in his eye. “I will hunt them,” he said. “When I am older I will go to the Blackwood and fight the biggest dragon I can find. And I’ll use a spear, too. I won’t use a gun.”

  Miss Emily tenderly patted his head. “And you’ll get a fine trophy, my darling warrior. But you must promise to be careful, James, for the dragons of Blackwood Preserve are strong and fierce.”

  “They won’t hurt me.”

  “Of course they won’t,” smiled Miss Emily.

  An attractive elderly couple strolled by, going the other way, and exchanged smiles and waves with the group of children. “Have you been to the meadow at the end of the path?” asked Miss Emily.

  “We’ve just come from there,” said the gentleman.

  “Did you see the unicorns?”

  The woman nodded. “We saw them. They’re in a fine humor this morning.”

  “How marvelous!”

  “Yes,” said the woman as they walked on, “yes, it is.” The children leaughed in delight when they reached the meadow and again saw the game of the one-horned horses. The sun gleamed from the silvery spikes, sending brilliant shafts of light flashing off everywhere; the whinnies were bell-like in the soft clean air. Miss Emily was struck by the sweet melancholic knowledge that the game, for her, was closed.

  “Today, my little loves,” she breathed, tears sparkling in eyes held spellbound by the cavorting animals, “you can go out and play with them.”

  There were ecstatic shouts, and small forms danced with excitement. “Quiet, children, you must be quiet. Unicorns are skittish and easily frightened, so you must not make them nervous.”

  “Won’t they run from us, Miss Emily?”

  “They will be happy to have you join them,” she answered, “if you show them that you love them. Now run along and enjoy yourselves, for all too soon will come the day when you can only stand and watch them.”

  The children, in a babble of laughter and talk, skipped out to join the herd. All, that is, but James. He held back, aching to go with the rest, but unwilling to leave Miss Emily alone. “Won’t you come too, Miss Emily?”

  “I can’t, darling, I can’t. When I was as young as you I danced with the unicorns, but now that I’m older they would run away from me.”

  “Are you sad?”

  “A little, maybe. But you see, James, the games of the unicorns are for the children alone. You are the ones who enjoy them the most. And when you get older you’ll be content to observe them for their beauty, leaving them for the younger ones to play with.”

  “That will make me cry.”

  “Perhaps a bit, at first. But by then you’ll be eager to become a brave dragon hunter, and it won’t bother you quite so much.”

  “That’s right, isn’t it?” His face lit up with joy. “The d
ragons will be waiting, won’t they?”

  “Yes, James, my darling; you do understand. There are so many, many things for you to see and do when you’re older. The unicorns are here for you now. So go and have a good time.”

  He gave a wave and ran off, bolting like an arrow from the bow across the grass to join the others. And Miss Emily put her hands to her lips and smiled a tiny smile, suddenly realizing that everything she told him was true.

  The satyr had never known true unhappiness. But then, why should he? He was the living, breathing symbol of love—physical, sexual love, true, but of all the loves possible, perhaps that is the deepest, the most honest. It may be that it has the shortest existence, lasting at times no longer than a heartbeat, but it is no less real for all of that, and in that moment, oh, what fires can bum! In the space of a glimpse it is passion unchained, the lifeblood of the satyr. And whether anything comes of it, whether it changes into love of a different sort or ends as suddenly as it came is of no importance. It is enough that it happened.

  He’d seen unhappiness; he’d wandered around the fringes. There were people, even now, who just couldn’t seem to relax and enjoy themselves, who just couldn’t. . . But why submerge your own particular self in the self-imposed misery of others? The satyr tried to ease sadness where he found it, but he was wise in the ways of emotion, and he knew that true healing must come from within. The most he could hope for was to point the way.

  The satyr had once been human, and, if he so desired, could be again, but the thought never even entered his mind. Why be merely human when one could be a satyr, beloved by everything and adoring everything, feeling the heady liquor of life filling your body? The satyr possessed so much ecstatic rapture that at times he had to let it overflow, spill out and wash everything around him.

  This was such a time. He sat, naked as always, on a grassy knoll a few hundred feet away from the mermaid pool, elbows resting on lifted knees, his pipes filling the air with their hypnotic melody. Chipmunks and squirrels, rabbits, cats, foxes, dogs, sheep and deer surrounded him quietly and listened. Birds, envious and admiring, sat on their branches themselves swayed to the rhythm. Grass and flowers leaned toward him, bathing in his sun-bright music.