The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013

by Angela Slatter

  “Injustice! As always. ‘Bertók, you talk too much. Bertók, you ate all the wild cherries. Bertók, you didn’t bring me back that crown. Bertók, you’re snoring too loudly.’ It’s getting so a bird can’t fart let alone express an opinion without getting locked up.”

  In the brief respite while he took a breath Emer used the chance to change track. “You mentioned a giant?”

  “Giantess. Always hungry—I don’t know if they’re all like that. I wonder −”

  “So, this giantess lives atop the glass mountain and has the mysterious crown and eats everyone who comes to visit?”

  “Well, except us—except the ravens—not enough meat. But it doesn’t stop her using us for target practice.”

  “And the crown can only be gained by someone with pure intent? I don’t imagine that would include you.” The bird didn’t answer. “Raven?”

  He gave a shrug of sorts. “Well, that’s what we told her—the part about pure intent.”

  “You lied?” Emer was less scandalized than delighted by this breathtaking bit of avian bravery. “You lied to her?’

  “She doesn’t know everything, you know,” the raven squawked. “She’s just so . . . We couldn’t bear the idea of losing more of our number every time she sent us off on one of those quests. She’s crippled but she’s got everything and it’s never enough. Imagine her with that crown, whatever it does, still demanding more, more, more! We—I—thought if we put her off long enough, maybe she’d run out of time, so we haven’t been trying too hard to do what she’s asked.”

  “Why are you helping me? After all, you were the one who started this whole thing.” She waved at him so he could see the scar still marring her palm. The bird had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  “It’s not easy, you know. Disobeying her takes effort and it hurts. And I had no idea of what she was planning. I’m sorry for what I did. You deserve no more torment, nor does your mother. You saved me from that cage and I owe you a boon. I’ll help you retrieve what you need; what you do with it after is something you must consider carefully.”

  * * *

  The journey had been interrupted only by the raven’s chatter. They had covered leagues and leagues, the line of the river easy to follow, the roan tireless and intent. Yellow eyes gleamed from shadows and thickets, hands gnarled against tree trunks as their owners peeked out. Emer heard snuffles and snorts, snarls and grumbles, but nothing came near them. Wolves and trolls, ogres, and things with no name watched as they passed, but left them unmolested. She wondered if the Black Bride’s power stretched this far, or if these brutes simply sensed her touch on Emer. Or worse, she thought, sensed that they shared blood.

  Their destination was less a castle than a single stout tower of ochre-coloured stone. Inside, the main chamber was topped by a stained glass dome that, on sunny days, showered the room with shafts of colour. The air was icy, however; it leeched the hope from Emer’s bones and she wondered if she’d ever see the sun again. She could feel the raven trembling on her shoulder. He’d been silent ever since they set foot in the bastion.

  The giantess, all big bones, protruding eyes and corkscrew auburn hair, was ensconced in a wingback chair, knitting, and giving Emer the same look one might bestow on a beef roast. Emer was glad she’d left the horse—who had taken the glass mountain at a canter and danced a kind of jig to show how pleased he was with himself—outside. Along the wall behind the enormous woman was a series of hooks, almost all hung with ill-made scarves. The scarf-free one held a huge bow of elm wood and a leather quiver filled with arrows longer than Emer’s arm.

  “How accommodating of you to arrive at lunch time,” rumbled the giantess, who began to roll up her knitting. The door behind Emer shut with a clang and she rubbed sweaty palms against her trousers. She lifted her chin defiantly and wished she could fly away.

  “My lady,” she quavered and the giantess seemed taken aback to be so politely addressed. “I’ve come to ask—to beg with pure intent—for the crown.”

  They both looked to the crystal plinth in the centre of the room; it was topped by a primrose cushion that held a circlet of white and black feathers.

  “Ask as purely as you like, my girl, you’re still going to be eaten.” The amazon nodded, rose, and reached for her weapon.

  “Wait!” yelled Emer, and something in her tone stayed the woman.

  “And why should I? I don’t like to wait and I’m starving—always starving.”

  “I imagine it’s hard to get enough food when you’re stuck up here, madam,” said Emer.

  The giantess loomed and Emer quaked. She hurried on. “I do not ask your bounty for free. I offer you something most valuable in return.”

  “What could you possibly have to interest me, you little thing?”

  “What if I were able to provide a loaf of bread that is never depleted and a flask of wine that never runs dry? Would that not sate your hunger, mistress?”

  The giantess crossed her arms over her mammoth chest, contemplating. “And where would you find such a treasure, little scrap?”

  “Outside, on my horse,” answered Emer, hoping the stallion hadn’t taken it into his head to go for a run elsewhere.

  “Then bring it hither. I demand proof before I agree to consider this bargain. And I am not saying I will . . .”

  Fifteen minutes later, when the giantess had attempted and failed to entirely consume the loaf and the wine three times, Emer thought her troubles were over.

  “And so, my dame? Do we have an accord?”

  “Let’s not be hasty, little speck,” said the woman slyly. “What’s the point of eternal food and drink without companionship? It’s been decades since I’ve had a chat—what with my tendency to eat my guests. Stay awhile.”

  “My lady—” began Emer, aware of the night’s hours bleeding away.

  “My lady, this young one is no fit companion for you—she has not lived long enough. What stories could she possibly tell? How she once wet her bed nightly, what frocks she has worn?” The raven began to wax lyrical. “I, on the other hand, am no mere bird.”

  Looking into the creature’s swirling, sparking eyes the giantess admitted this fact. She seemed to nod more than was necessary. It was no wonder the woman normally shot birds out of hand; it was dangerous to listen to them. Bertók’s voice swooped low, its ragged edges barely discernible as he promised hours, days, weeks, months, and years of conversations. The woman, Emer thought with a tinge of sympathy, had no idea what she was getting herself into.

  By the time the raven had finished, the giantess leapt to her feet, removed the delicate crown from its cushion, and held it toward Emer.

  “Thank you,” Emer said, as she reached out. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” growled the giantess and snatched the crown away, while wrapping one meaty paw around both of Emer’s wrists. “Did you think me a fool to fall for sweet words? Anyway, what’s a sandwich without meat?”

  Emer’s heart hammered, and her mind emptied of all thoughts but these: feathers and air, lightness and flight. Just as her memory retained the language of birds, so too her flesh kept recollection of their form. This time the shape was her choice—no one else’s to give or take or impose. She gladly shifted, shrank, sprouted plumes. Within seconds, the giantess clutched only emptiness, for the girl had slipped the fleshy bonds and snatched the crown of feathers with her beak.

  The door to the chamber remained shut. Emer flew around the room, faster and faster, higher and higher, knowing the giantess was reaching for her bow. She heard the nocking of an arrow, curses thundering from the woman, the twang of a bowstring. She braced herself, heard a thud, but felt no pain. Risking a glance, she saw another black body hurtling downwards. Resolute and determined not to waste Bertók’s gift, she raised her head and aimed towards the stained glass.

  The raven-girl pierced the dome, raining coloured shards on the giantess. She shot upwards, a shadow against a pallid sky. With the dainty ador
nment gripped tightly in her beak, she flew on, tracing the snake of the river back to whence she came.

  * * *

  If the Black Bride had been surprised to see Emer feathered once more, she did not show it. The girl landed and transformed, steadfastly meeting her captor’s gaze.

  “Give it to me, girl,” said the Black Bride, her tone limned by longing, and not a little desperation.

  Emer shook her head. “My mother first. Restore her.”

  A brief, tense standoff took place while the Black Bride insisted her niece hand over the artefact before anything else occurred. Emer remained adamant. In the end, a rage-induced coughing fit tipped the balance in Emer’s favour. The Black Bride was forced to concede that she did not have enough time left to indulge in a battle of wills.

  When her mother at last stood beside her—shaking, dazed—Emer held the out crown. The Black Bride snatched at it greedily, turned it this way and that, held it up to the light, her eyes shining. Then she faltered, looked at her sister and niece and asked plaintively, “How does it work?”

  And Emer recalled the story from her aunt’s own lips, how she had done away with her mentor before full knowledge could be passed on; for all her power, the Black Bride was a half-written book—she might well know what an object did, but not how.

  “Put it on, I’d imagine,” Emer said, then asked quietly, “What does it do?”

  In an equally hushed voice, the Black Bride replied, “It mends broken things,” and, reverently slid the delicate diadem onto her blackavised brow. She waited, breath rattling, eyes wide and avid, a covetous child expecting a treat. Seconds stretched to minutes as she attended, with increasing impatience, for any sign of change, of amendment.

  When it became apparent that no healing was forthcoming, the Black Bride’s face seemed to split with rage.

  “What have you done? Did you think to defy me?” She turned on Emer, stalking towards her, spitting out every horrible name she could muster. “I told you there would be no second chances! Both of your lives are forfeit.”

  Emer and her mother stumbled backwards, transfixed by the sight of the Black Bride summoning her power, watching as it coursed around her body, and sparked at the fingertips. Wanting, but not daring, to turn tail and run—for that would be certain death.

  The dark woman drew back her unmaimed hand, and just as it seemed she would strike Emer down, the White Bride, in a flash of ash and silver, threw herself at her sister. The attack, so brutal and brave, so unexpected, knocked the Black Bride off balance and she retreated under each enraged blow her sister rained down. The firebolt-bright magical charge around her stuttered and snuffed, but she struck back, her nails tearing furrows along her sister’s smooth cheeks. The White Bride snarled and leapt, not noticing how close they had come to the windows, and the force of her bound sent them crashing into one of the shutters. The wood, brittle and ancient, splintered like twigs and both women were oh-so-briefly silhouetted against the winter sky . . . then gone.

  Emer rushed to the sill and peered down, too terrified to catch enough breath to scream as she watched them fall. She clung to the hope that her mother’s flesh would remember the shape of wings, that she might fly; but it did not.

  Flames erupted when the Brides hit the cobbled courtyard. Emer waited. The fire burned down quickly, leaving a cloud of dust and cinders that swirled and circled and, finally, found form.

  Where two women had fallen, only one remained, unfurling like a lily, her hair a mix of light and dark, skin a creamy melding of the two extremes, limbs intact, unharmed. A single woman, lovely and whole. The mother-aunt raised her head, looked at Emer and beamed.

  “Come home,” she called. Emer stared, an uncertain smile on her lips, and she heard the echo of the Black Bride’s voice: She raised an army to find you. She thought of her mother as she had always known her, the docile White Bride, so kind and loving; wise, but so bound by convention; always passive, meek and accepting—until the loss of her daughter. It had taken tragedy to give her the strength, determination, courage the Black Bride always had but used selfishly.

  And Emer reflected on her entire life, on how it was moved by the ebb and flow of others’ desires. She thought of her mother and aunt remade, all their chances given to them anew. She contemplated updrafts and thermals, swooping and diving. She looked at the sky, at the horizon.

  “Come home,” called her mother-aunt again.

  Emer shook her head, only vaguely aware of the ruckus in the chamber behind her, of hares returned to the shape of men, and dogs released from servitude.

  “I shall find my way there . . . some day.”

  Emer-that-was thought herself weightless. She thought herself plumed, skipped onto the sill and pitched out to spiral down and hover in front of the woman. The raven-girl memorized the new face, the familiar features, so she might recognize them later, then with a powerful flap of her wings, Emer-of-feathers rose towards the dawning firmament.

  La Mort d’un Roturier

  Martin Livings

  Juliette stood against the pastel-painted wall of the magnificent candlelit ballroom and watched disinterestedly as more than a hundred masked guests, mainly Parisians but with a few recently liberated Americans fresh from their French-funded revolution, each dressed in their finest clothes, danced and drank and gorged and indulged in any other debauché they could get away with in the flickering light of the chandeliers above, not to mention the numerous discreet shadowy corners they provided. Unfortunate servants all across Paris would be scrubbing unmentionable stains from the finery for days after this grand masquerade had ended. She was just deeply grateful that she wouldn’t be one of them.

  The windows of the ballroom were dark, midnight long since passed, though rain fell against the glass in a steady stream, and there were occasional distant rumbles of thunder that made Juliette shiver. Her costume was far less extravagant than those of the invited guests to this grand masquerade, of course, a simple dark blue masculine pageboy costume, her dark hair pinned up inside her cap. She wasn’t there to be seen, not in the same way as these overweight nobles and other bourgeoisie. No, she was there for a far simpler function. The same function, she had to admit to herself with no small measure of reluctance, as the six drunken dwarves to her left juggling pigs’ testicles tied with bright red ribbons while singing “Marlbrough S’en Va-T’en Guerre,” and the raggedy stilt walkers who stalked the crowd, frightening delicate noblewomen by brushing spindly wooden claws across the backs of their corpulent necks.

  She was an entertainment, a diversion, nothing more. She and Isaac. And clearly far less popular than the others, for obvious reasons. Those who partook in the . . . demonstration invariably walked away sucking their fingers and clutching a scrap of paper in their free hand, glancing time and time again at the writing there, working hard to look nonchalant and amused by the whole affair, but there was that disquiet in their eyes, a darkness that shadowed their mood.

  Juliette smiled a little at that thought. You really shouldn’t ask a question that you don’t wish to know the answer to. They never learned.

  “Mademoiselle Jaquet-Droz?” a light, effete voice spoke from beside her. She turned to face the speaker and recognized him immediately. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to; the generous host of this masquerade made an ostentatious display of his anonymity, as he did of everything else in his profoundly entitled life. Nobody here knew who he was. Everybody here knew who he was. It was all part of the charade. The man was fat, of course, as were almost all the guests, and wore a flamboyant ball gown, his face half-covered by a deep purple mask. What flesh was exposed there was painted white, and his lips were stained red, as if he’d been eating mulberries. Juliette resisted the urge to look for his infamous wife, la putain autrichienne.

  “Oui, monsieur?” Juliette responded as casually as she could manage. This man was her employer tonight. Her performance could mean considerable monies, or a swift exit to the shit-stained cobbled streets outsi
de. The outcome was up to her. And Isaac, of course.

  “You’re not wearing a mask,” the man pointed out, rather unnecessarily.

  She smiled at him sweetly. “That remains to be seen. Do you wish to experience Isaac’s wisdom?”

  The man in the ball gown turned his attention to the incredible object that sat beside Juliette. A strange, crooked smile crept across his plump red lips. “Ah, oui,” he breathed.

  Isaac was an automaton, his face and hands carved from delicate wax, sitting at a small mahogany writing desk. He was dressed from the waist up in the clothes of a peasant, rough-woven fabrics stitched together by hand. Below the waist he did not exist, his body merging with the desk and casings for the intricate machineries hidden within. On his shirt was a patch, sewed to his left breast, a coat of arms, two pure white crossed bones on a black background. One of his smooth hands held a quill, the feather dyed a brilliant red. The other hand rested palm down on the desk. His eyes were closed, his waxen face patient, implacable. Waiting.

  “Incredible,” the fat man in the gown said, his hungry eyes sliding across Isaac’s mechanical form. He glanced back at Juliette. “It looks quite similar to L’écrivain, n’est ce pas?”

  Juliette nodded patiently. “The Writer was a superb piece of engineering, monsieur,” she agreed. “It could handwrite any twenty characters you chose, a marvel of intricate clockwork. It was, and still is, my father’s finest creation.” She smiled demurely. “Compared to my beautiful Isaac, though, it’s a mere windup toy, a plaything for children.”

  He laughed at that, a surprisingly hearty laugh considering his reedy voice. His jowls vibrated with it. It made Juliette feel a little ill to see. “That’s quite a claim, mademoiselle. We shall see.” He walked in front of the automaton, examining it closely. On the desk, directly opposite the mechanical hand holding the quill, was an indentation, four fingers and a thumb. There were a few dark, wet spots near the groove for the index finger. “Place my hand here, oui?” he asked her.