Weird Tales, Volume 350

by Norman Spinrad

  For a while.

  But the scholar looked out on the lands and how the people looked to the queen for their answers and thought it is not right for a simple farmer to give answers to the people.

  And the warrior looked out onto the lands and saw that the people looked to the queen for protection and safety and thought it is not right for a mere woman to provide protection and safety.

  And on that day, the warrior and the scholar met in secret and began to scheme.

  The queen did not know of their scheming. What she did know is that the ewes stopped lambing, milk dried up in the teats of the heifers, and her favorite foal, the one with stars in its eyes, died in the noonday sun amid the fields of shriveling grain. Children starved, mothers could not nurse, and husbands turned away from their lonely wives.

  Those who were angry joined the armies of the warrior husband. Those who were grieving joined the armies of the scholar husband. And the armies grew until they marched across the barren fields to the slumped figure of the queen.

  “Your people do not want you,” said the scholar husband. “Your answers are circuitous and vague and lacking in subtlety. They need a king, and that king is me.”

  The warrior husband nodded and elbowed him out of the way. “Your people do not want you,” the warrior said. “Your protection has not protected and your powers have proved useless. They need a king, and that king is me.”

  The queen hung her head. Her husbands smiled, assuming that she accepted defeat, but she was only thinking. “If I can convince them otherwise,” she said quietly, her mouth tilted to the ground. “If I can make them trust me again, will you give up your claim? If I can promise them that the land will give them grain and milk and meat by the end of the day, will you lay down your swords?”

  The scholar and the warrior agreed, and she turned to the people. “My friends,” she said, “look at your feet. What do you see?”

  “Stones,” the people yelled, baring their teeth.

  “Then we will use stones. Please, everyone, reach down and take a stone. If you can, take two. Those with aprons, gather stones in your aprons. Those with pockets, stuff stones into your pockets.”

  The queen walked into the fields and the people followed her, burdened with stones.

  “Here,” the queen said. “Plant your stones.”

  The people looked around incredulously, but did as they were told. They knelt in the dirt and buried their stones.

  “Now,” the queen said. “Sleep.” And everyone slept. Everyone except the warrior and the scholar.

  Creeping across the sleeping figures, they came and stood over the place where the queen lay.

  “She'll trick us,” they said. “She'll turn them against us.”

  They unsheathed their swords and sliced off her head. Then her tongue, her hands and feet, each breast, each strand of golden hair. They buried each piece separately, so as to prevent her ghost from re-associating and coming back. They let her blood soak into the ground.

  When the people woke, the stones had sprouted. They became green orchards, endless millet, murky rice pallets, succulent vegetables, and miles and miles of wheat. Milk flowed, animals bloated with young, and children came back into the arms of their mothers. The people looked for the queen to thank her, but she was gone. They called her name but she did not answer. The scholar and the warrior tried to tell them that it was for the best, but the people did not listen. They wept and mourned and prayed. They threw themselves into their farms and families, hoping to draw the queen back with abundant life.

  They wait for her still.

  When I arrived at the castle, the king was already dead. He had probably been dead for a day. His body was strung from the outer wall, limp and blue and naked. The horse beneath me shuddered and quaked, and I dismounted, bringing my nose to his nose.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And I'm sorry. Rest and go home. You'll find your way.”

  The armies still loyal to the dead king made war on the armies of the big man and his hungry band of big men. The big men rode on horses. On the ground were scattering boys, some with swords, many with sticks, all with bloody rags wrapped around their mouths. I did not see my brothers. I did not doubt that they were there. Overhead, masses of crows, lured by the stink of battle spiraled and twined, waiting for the masses of meat — both dead and mostly dead — that waited deliciously on the blood-soaked dirt. I thought of my father, crumpled on the ground, now part of the ground.

  “Ah,” a voice said behind me. “A girl. I've seen prettier, of course, but you'll do.” I turned. The man with the leather mask on his face emerged from the trees. He was big, colossally so. His chest was bound with leather and iron, as were his boots. His sword was unsheathed, and so sharp it sang in the air as though slicing it cleanly in half.

  “You don't seem to be fighting,” I said, yanking at my own sword. It was stuck slightly in its sheathing, from so many years of disuse. The staff I had retied tightly on my back so as not to lose it. I did not dare untie it now. “Frightened are we?”

  He scoffed and narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you, girl?”

  “I don't think so,” I said and made a stab at his shoulder. I missed of course and was thrown off balance. He laughed.

  “Poor thing. Poor little thing. Did we think we were going to be a brave girl today? I suppose you have a brother down there.” He tutted. His lips, through their hole in his mask, were big and thick and purple. “My, my. How awfully stupid.”

  I slashed again with my sword, this time hitting his blade with a sharp tang. The sound of metal on metal rang through my bones, rattled my teeth, hummed against my cold, stone heart. And in this moment, I saw him as a stone sees. He was a baby, a man, a dead man, all at once. He was flesh and soft and laughably weak. The staff on my back, without my touching it, grew hot. It hummed and vibrated and whispered. Under my feet, the stones whispered too.

  “What the hell is that,” the man demanded.

  “I hear nothing,” I said, as the stones told me what to do. I dropped to my knees. “Please,” I begged. “Please don't kill me.” My eyes did not tear, but my lips quivered. I laid the sword on the grass and lifted up my hands.

  The man relaxed and smiled. “Well that depends my dear. Are you going to make it worth my while?” The voices of the stones grew louder until they screeched under my knees. I smiled at the man in the mask and tilted my head. He grabbed me by the front of my tunic and lifted me up. With both hands I grabbed the daggers from my boots and slid each one neatly into his belly. He gasped, brought my cheek to his face. His breath was pale and dry and cool. Like a stone. I felt it flow out, fade, and disappear as he slumped down to the earth, a crumpled, lifeless heap.

  “Sorry,” I said. And I meant it. I pulled the staff off of my back. It was still hot. I walked down the hill into the battle field. I saw as a stone sees and felt as a stone feels. Under my feet, the grass, the dirt, the rock, the pillars of the earth, all whispered and sang. Poetry first, then battle songs. Though really, aren't they the same?

  Once, when my father was a young man, the warrior king sent a messenger into the depths of the library.

  “Your presence,” the messenger said. “Now.”

  Sometimes, when I imagine my father that young, he looks like Stephen. Other times he looks like Hans. Or my mother. Or me. Regardless, he was young enough, he likely was smooth-faced, small-boned, more child than man. He left his books still opened, his pages uncategorized and unfinished.

  “You.” The warrior king sat on a throne made from bent swords, molded shields and carved bone.

  “Yes sir,” my father said. And though his voice trembled, though his face was pale, his heart did not quake inside of him. Even that young, his power was great, and he knew it.

  “You seek to overthrow me I assume.”

  “No, sir,” my father said truthfully. “I don't.”

  “And you would lie to a king.” The king stood, raised his sword, and placed its tip on my fath
er's chest, an inch above his heart. The blade shimmered in the candle light, and bored through the pale muslin. Slowly, a dark red rose bloomed. My father swallowed but his mouth was dry.

  “No sir,” he replied. “I would not lie to a king.”

  “I will ask this once,” the king said. “And if I do not like the answer, I will slice your throat, and will then cut out your heart and feed it to the crows. Yesterday, someone translated an incendiary text — a worthless, pitiful excuse for falsified folklore. That someone tacked the document in the market square. And now, those who can read are telling these — lies, this heresy — to those who cannot. And now all I hear is a mythical Stone Queen and her magical beasts. Do you deny that this person was you?”

  “Not at all,” my father said. His voice still quaked. His hands still shook. But his breathing was easy and gentle. His mouth made words, but his other mouth, the mouth in his head and in his cool, still heart, made something else entirely. Sleep, said the mouth in his head. Sleep, said the mouth in his heart. “I discovered the text in my translations, and was moved by its tender descriptions of our primitive forebears.” The king swayed slightly, and touched the tip of his sword on the marble floor, resting his weight upon the hilt. But the tip slipped and the king staggered.

  “I shall sit,” said the king, and he swayed back to his seat.

  Sleep, said my father's other mouth. The king yawned. “Once upon a time,” murmured my father, and the king's eyes started to droop. “All kings were farmers and all farmers were kings.” And the king slept.

  My father did not return to his desk, but went to his horse instead, riding swiftly to the land of the scholar king where the university welcomed him with satisfaction and relief.

  No one noticed me as I returned to the castle. The battle raged and men and horses fell. I raised my staff to the sky. It hummed and sang. My hands began to blister and peel, yet I still hung on. I heard the language of the sky, the stones, the birds, and the core of the earth. And the words were the same, and the words were mine. I called out — a single, rasping cry, and brought my staff to the ground with a loud crack. The sky flashed and poured and the men looked up.

  “Birds,” I yelled. And there were birds. Just the crows at first, but then sparrows and doves, then hawks and eagles and herons and turkeys. They swooped and scurried and pecked. They made off with swords, confused archers, and flew in the faces of men bent on blood. With my staff on the ground, I could hear things that I could not hear before. I could hear my mother singing war songs as she gathered the farmers together. I could here men and women of the villages armed with whatever they could find marching towards the castle of the scholar king.

  They sang the song of the Stone Queen.

  The big man saw me with the staff and reared his horse.

  “Well, well,” he said. “I believe the young lady is confused. We have no need for magicians here. The land needs blood, not some girl mumbling magic words.” He rode towards me, his poor horse foaming and panting, its eyes bloodshot and wild.

  I did not move from my spot, but instead reached into my bag and pulled out a handful of the bloody dirt. When he was close enough, I reached back and threw it into his face. He fell from his horse, and after rolling backwards a few times, staggered up, desperately clawing at his eyes.

  “What is this,” he bellowed. “Get it out, get it — dear god. Dear God. No! Not the knife! Not the —”

  He pawed at the bloody dirt, then at the air around him, then at his mouth. As he screamed, blood dripped, then poured from the corners of his mouth. He tried to speak, but he could not. His tongue was gone.

  I turned away. “Stones,” I yelled. And there were stones. They rolled from the hillside, and birthed themselves from the dirt under our feet. Eight stones rolled over the big man, and continued to roll. Anyone brandishing his sword was crushed. Anyone who dropped his sword was spared.

  I dropped my staff, utterly spent.

  The boys with bloody mouths walked away from their battle places and wandered towards me. Hans was there, Stephen too. Hans was missing a few teeth, Stephen, his left hand. Both stared at me silently, their faces dark with dried blood.

  Once, when my mother was out, my father took me out to the forest to tell me about magic. I was twelve years old and impatient and exasperated. Magic, if it existed at all, was clearly an occupation for old men, and my father was the oldest of them all. I dawdled, and sighed, tried to make a show of not listening.

  “Listen,” my father said. “There is nothing I can teach you. Absolutely nothing. It cannot be taught. It is simply instinct. When you are faced with a situation, your first instinct is probably right. This is important.”

  I shrugged. I didn't believe him.

  The farmers arrived at the outer lip of the western hills. They saw me with my staff and their bloody, ruined sons. They did not move.

  The boys without tongues gathered round me. They touched my face, my hair, my hands. Their faces were silent and sad and very, very old. The staff in my hands began to hum once again.

  I knelt on the ground, told the boys to kneel too. Then I told them to lay down. I gathered what was left of the bloody dirt into my hands and scattered it on the ground in front of my knees. The stones under my feet sang quietly. A slow sad song. The sky above my head whispered encouragement.

  “I need a knife,” I said. “I left mine up there.”

  It would have been easier, of course, if the knife was sharper, but sometimes you use what's available. After three tries, my tongue lay on the mound of bloody dirt. I tried hard not to cough or vomit. The boys looked so peaceful lying there. So peaceful and so sleepy. My stone heart was heavy within me. Heavy and cool and quiet. I laid down. Later, I remember thinking that I was a stone again in the tomato patch. That my father was there and alive, that my mother whispered a poem — something long and sweet and tender. Something called the Stone Queen. When I woke, I heard the sound of singing. It sounded like angels, like birds, like angels who wish they were birds. It sounded like Hans. Or perhaps it was Stephen. Or perhaps, it was me.

  They called her the Silent Queen while she was alive and the Stone Hearted Queen after she had died. While the years prior to her birth, and the years leading up to her eventual crowning had been marked by violence, her reign was peaceful, as were the two centuries following her death. If the accounts are to be believed, she governed in total silence, due to a battle wound that left her without the power of speech. And while she relied heavily on the assistance of her two brothers, in all accounts available in that period, there was no doubt that the citizenry looked to their queen for leadership and guidance.

  The stories get strange, of course, when it comes to the matter of her heart. In no fewer than eighty-two accounts of the Silent Queen, people make reference to the fact that her heart is not flesh, but stone.This is further odd because fifty-seven documents attest that at the point of her death her body became stone and her heart, finally, became flesh. This would have been discounted as mere myth, were it not for the fact that the Silent Queen, or the Stone Hearted Queen, if you will, is not buried in the castle crypt along with her brothers, her mother, and the subsequent royal family. Instead there is a statue of an old woman with a crown, presumably a rendering of the queen in her later years, holding a rough-hewn staff. Even today, five hundred years later, many people attest to that if one is to put one’s ear on her chest, that a faint beating can be heard. Like that of a human heart.

  Kelly Barnhill is an author in Minneapolis, Minn. Her latest children’s books are Monsters of the Deep and Animals with No Eyes, both released in January 2008 by Captstone Press. She is online at www.kellybarnhill.com.

  GANARANOK'S LAMENT

  (A Shakespearean love story)

  by Rory Steves

  Ganaranok wept, his tears flowed down his face and created a small pool next to his fourth foot on the left side, the one with the hangnail that he had never been able to completely chew away. All six of his
arms flailed at the mushroom he leaned his blue millipede body against; little pieces of the mushroom formed a small pile by the 14th, 15th, and 16th feet on his right side, the ones with that stubborn rash.

  Naranite had never said a word, not once, about the rash or the hangnail, they had never mattered to her. Oh, sweet Naranite, never again to see the three suns reflect off of her luminous pink segments. Grief shook the entire length of his body; sorrow filled his hearts, all four of them.

  Why? Why? His weeping continued, how by all the thousand knees of the Bringer could this have happened? The pain filling his soul was so great he thought of drowning himself in the lake, but he was fearful that the fish might reach him before he joined the Taker. He was also certain he would strangle the Taker when he arrived for even conceiving of so heinous a fate for him.

  He paused his silent wailing when he heard his name called, and the voice calling his name was female. The voice called again.

  It was Lacintana, brood sister to his beloved Naranite. She moved close to him and gently licked away his tears. Then she suddenly flexed her segments and bumped him, a bump that could mean only one thing! Ganaranok blinked his twelve eyes in surprise; he never even suspected!

  She began the dance, the dance that would culminate in the mating ritual. He was enthralled as he watched the moon chain's reflections dance along her sinuous multi-segmented body. Grief and sorrow vanished as he began his part of the dance.

  Lacintana knew she would always miss her sister, but now Ganaranok was available, and she had always thought he was the most virile of all males.

  The mating had lasted long into the night, causing Ganaranok to awaken late in the morning; the light of all three suns warmed his face.

  He looked over at Lacintana, still sleeping, so beautiful. He rose and stretched, preparing himself for his dance of joy.

  He began his dance, weaving, coiling, racing up to the top of a mushroom and jumping — this took a great deal of coordination — to the top of another.