by Garth Nix
The other side appeared completely blank. But when olive oil was drizzled upon it, strange runes appeared around the rim. Slowly, letter by letter, the Wise began to spell it out.
‘A s-a-i-l-o-r w-e-n-t t-o s-e-a s-e-a s-e-a t-o s-e-e w-h-a-t h-e c-o-u-l-d s-e-e s-e-e s-e-e.’
Days went by, then weeks, then months, as you would expect. If it was the other way around, it would be a sign that the Overlord had already triumphed. Finally the Wise puzzled out the entire prophecy.
A sailor went to sea sea sea to see what he could see see see
But all that he could see see see
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea
The meaning of this prophecy was immediately clear to the Wise. They knew that somewhere in the Lower Kingdoms a boy would be born, a sailor who would use the power of the sea to defeat the Overlord. A boy with eyes as black as the bottom of the deep blue sea. A boy who might even have vestigial gills and some scales or maybe a sort of fin along his back.
But the Wise also knew that the Overlord would know the prophecy too, for his spies were everywhere, particularly among the waiters at the Wise Club. They knew that he knew that they knew that he knew.
They all knew that the Wise must find the boy with the power of the sea at his command first, and take him somewhere where he could grow up with no knowledge of his powers or his destiny. They must find him before the Overlord did, for he would try to turn the boy to the powers of darkness.
But who was the boy? Where was the boy? Was there a second salad bowl, a second verse to the prophecy, long lost to the Wise but known to an aged crone in the forest of Haz-chyllen-boken-woken, close by the sea, where a small boy with eyes the color of dark mud swam with the dolphins?
Yes, there was.
THREE ROSES
INTRODUCTION TO THREE ROSES
I WROTE THIS STORY THE DAY BEFORE I needed to read something at an event in Melbourne in late 1997. The occasion was the annual celebration organised by Australian children’s literature champion Agnes Nieuwenhuizen for librarians, teachers, and book aficionados, and this one was entitled ‘An Enchanted Evening.’ Half a dozen authors were to speak, each reading or telling a story about love or in some way related to love.
I don’t know why I wrote a story about a dead wife, since at that time I was single, I had never been married, nor had I ever had a significant partner die. I also don’t know why it came out as a fable or fairy tale. Part of it was written on a plane, and part in a hotel room. It wasn’t even typed when I read it for the first time at ‘An Enchanted Evening.’
But it surely was a tale of love, and the evening was indeed enchanted, as I met my future wife, Anna, there. So perhaps it is the most important story I have ever written, for the greatest reward.
THREE ROSES
THIS IS THE STORY OF A GARDENER who grew the most beautiful single rose the world had ever seen. It was a black rose, which was unlikely, and it bloomed the whole year round, which was impossible.
Hearing of this rose, the King decided to see it for himself. With his entourage, he rode for seven days to the gardener’s simple cottage. On the morning of the seventh day, he arrived and saw the rose. It was even more beautiful than the King had imagined, and he wanted it.
‘How did you come to grow such a beautiful rose?’ the King asked the gardener, who was standing silently by.
‘I planted that rose on the day my wife died,’ replied the gardener, looking only at the flower. ‘It is a true, deep black, the very color of her hair. The rose grew from my love of her.’
The King turned to his servants and said, ‘Uproot this rosebush and take it to the palace. It is too beautiful for anyone but me.’
But when the rosebush was transplanted to the palace, it lasted only a year before it withered and died. The King, who had gazed upon it every day, angrily decided that it was the gardener’s fault, and he set out at once to punish him.
But when he arrived at the gardener’s cottage, he was amazed to see a new rosebush growing there, with a single rose. But this rose was green, and even more beautiful than the black rose.
The King once again asked the gardener how he came to grow such a beautiful rose.
‘I planted this rose on the anniversary of my wife’s death,’ said the gardener, his eyes only on the rose. ‘It is the color of her eyes, which I looked into every morning. The rose grew from my love of her.’
‘Take it!’ commanded the King, and he turned away to ride the seven days back to his palace. Such a beautiful flower was not fit for a common man. The green rose bloomed for two years, and the King looked upon it every day, for it brought him great contentment. Then, one morning, it was dead, the bush withered, the petals fallen to the ground. The King picked up the petals and spoke to no one for two days. Then he said, as if to convince himself, ‘The gardener will have another rose.’
So once again he rode off with his entourage. This time, they took a spade and the palace jardinier.
Such was the King’s impatience that they rode for half the nights as well as days, but there were wrong turns and flooded bridges, and it still took seven days before he once again rode up to the gardener’s cottage. And there was a new rosebush, with a single rose. A red rose, so beautiful that the King’s men were struck silent and the King himself could only stare and gesture to the palace jardinier to take it away.
Even though the King didn’t ask, the gardener spoke before the spade broke the earth around the bush.
‘I planted this rose three years after the death of my wife,’ he said. ‘It is the color of her lips, which I first kissed under a harvest moon on the hottest of summer nights. This rose grew from my love of her.’
The King seemed not to hear but kept staring at the rose. Finally, he tore his gaze away and turned his horse for home.
The jardinier watched him go and stopped digging for a moment.
‘Your roses are the most beautiful I have ever seen,’ he said. ‘They could only grow from a great love. But why grow them only to have these memories taken from you?’
The gardener smiled and said, ‘I need nothing to remind me of my wife. When I walk alone under the night sky, I see the blackness of her hair. When the light catches the green glass of a bottle, I see her eyes. When the sun is setting all red against the hills and the wind touches my cheek, I feel her kiss.
‘I grew the first rose because I was afraid I might forget. When it was gone, I knew that I had lost nothing. No one can take the memory of my love.’ The jardinier frowned, and he began to cut again with his spade. Then he asked, ‘But why do you keep growing the roses?’
‘I grow them for the King,’ said the gardener. ‘He has no memories of his own, no love. And after all, they are only flowers.’
ENDINGS
INTRODUCTION TO ENDINGS
THIS IS ONE OF THOSE ODD STORIES that come out of nowhere. It was written in one sitting and then revisited numerous times over several years as I tried to make it work. Finally, when I thought it did work, I wasn’t sure what I could do with it, as it was very short. Fortunately, a year or so after I felt it was done, an opportunity arose for it to be the final story in the anthology Gothic! , edited by Deborah Noyes. As a kind of coda for the whole collection, it found its place in the world.
I was particularly pleased (and surprised) that this story also then went on to be selected for the inaugural volume of The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy for Teens, edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. It’ll be interesting to see if they put it at the end, as at the time of this writing I haven’t seen that book.
If they do put it at the end, as it is in this book, I can draw all the wrong conclusions (like a Hollywood studio looking at last summer’s hits) and will immediately begin work on a story called ‘Beginnings’ and another one called ‘Middlings,’ in order to maximise my chances of inclusion in future collections.
ENDINGS
I HAVE TWO SWORDS . ONE IS NAMED Sorrow and the oth
er Joy. These are not their real names. I do not think there is anyone alive who knows even the letters that are etched into the blue-black blades.
I know, but then I am not alive. Yet not dead. Something in between, hovering in the twilight, betwixt wakefulness and sleep, caught on the boundary, pinned to the board, unable to go back, unable to go forward.
I do rest, but it is not sleep and I do not dream. I simply remember, the memories tumbling over one another, mixing and joining and mingling till I do not know when or where or how or why, and by nightfall it is unbearable and I rise from my troubled bed to howl at the moon or pace the corridors . . .
Or sit beneath the swords in the old cane chair, waiting for the chance of a visitor, the chance of change, the chance . . .
I have two daughters. One is named Sorrow and the other Joy.
These are not their real names. I do not think even they remember what they were called in the far-distant days of their youth. Neither they nor I can recall their mother’s name, though sometimes in my daytime reveries I catch a glimpse of her face, the feel of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the swish of a sleeve as she leaves the room and my memory. They are hungrier than I, my daughters, and still have the thirst for blood.
This story has two endings. One is named Sorrow and the other Joy.
This is the first ending:
A great hero comes to my house without caution, as the sun falls. He is in the prime of life, tall and strong and arrogant. He meets my daughters in the garden, where they stand in the shade of the great oak. Two steps away lies the last sunlight, and he is clever enough to make use of that, and strong. There is pretended amour on both sides, and fangs strike true. Yet the hero is swifter with his silvered knife, and the sun is too close.
Silver poisons, and fire burns, and that is the finish of Sorrow and the end of Joy.
Weakened, the hero staggers on, intent on finishing the epic that will be written about him. He finds me in the cane chair, and above me Sorrow and Joy.
I give him the choice and tell him the names.
He chooses Sorrow, not realising that this is what he chooses for himself, and the blades are aptly named.
I do not feel sorrow for him, or for my daughters, but only for myself.
I do drink his blood. It has been a long time . . . and he was a hero.
This is the second ending:
A young man not yet old enough to be a hero, great or small, comes to my garden with the dawn. He watches me through the window, and though I delay, at last I must shuffle out of the cane chair, toward my bed.
There are bones at my feet, and a skull, the flesh long gone. I do not know whose bones they are. There are many skulls and bones about this house. The boy enters through the window, borne on a shaft of sunlight. I pause in the shadowed doorway to watch as he examines the swords. His lips move, puzzling out what is written there, or so I must suppose. Perhaps no alphabet or language is ever really lost, as long as some of it survives.
He will get no help from that ancient script, from that ancient life.
I call out the names I have given the swords, but he does not answer.
I do not see which weapon he chooses. Already memories rush at me, push at me, buffet and surround me. I do not know what has happened or will happen or might happen.
I am in my bed. The youth stands over me, the point of a sword pricking at my chest.
It is Joy and, I think, chosen through wisdom, not by luck. Who would have thought it of a boy not yet old enough to shave?
The steel is cold. Final. Yet only dust bubbles from the wound.
Then comes the second blow, to the dry bones of the neck.
I have been waiting a long time for this ending.
Waiting for someone to choose for me.
To give me Joy instead of Sorrow.
LIBRARIAN’S NOTE
This manuscript was either purchased or donated at some time in the sixteen year period when Seren daughter of Uile (Seren IV) was Chief Librarian. Due to fire damage sustained during the notorious ‘Orange Book’ conflagration in the Seventh Twist-Lefthand Store Five Back Up little of the manuscript remains. As it had not been catalogued at the time (the delay back then was a mere seventeen years but it had not been long in our possession), there is no index record, so the exact time and nature of the acquisition cannot be determined. It was possibly bought from an itinerant book trader and not one of our more regular merchants of that time as later enquiries did not discover any further information about its origins. It is also possible that it was donated by the Abhorsen Alliel or his immediate successor.
Due to the nature of the manuscript it has been bound with Marks of Warding, Deception and Misdirection and chained with silver. It is forbidden to all outsiders save the Royal or Abhorsen families, and all Clayr without the express permission of a Deputy or the Chief Librarian.
AN EXTRACT OF THE JOURNAL OF IDRACH THE LESSER NECROMANCER
FROM THE COPY MADE SAFE , DECIPHEREDAND WRITTEN PLAIN BY JALEREL , FIRSTASSISTANT LIBRARIANOF THE CLAYR
. . . at last I have obtained something that is of real use! Korbid returned from his northern expedition last week. In addition to some small exotic fruits that I liked not the look of, he also brought me a great iron-bound chest of books and papers. He claimed to have found it in a cave in which he took shelter from a great storm of dust, but knowing him as I do, I doubt it. There were bloodstains on the chest and they were not long faded. Sand had been rubbed in to obscure them, but had only spread the stain.
The papers were dull records of trade in peppercorns, spices and silver bars. The books were also of no interest, but my examination of the chest led to the discovery of a hidden drawer within its over-thick base. Opening it, I found a slim volume bound in some form of leather I had not seen before. Even before I touched the book, I knew that it contained arcane writings. My fingers felt a sudden, almost unpleasant heat as I reached for it, and my thumbs twitched, almost circling in their sockets, though I tried to keep them still.
Better still, the book was clearly not of the Charter magic. I have seen such, and they liberally swarm with Charter Marks, defying any rational attempt to recognise or quantify them. Apparently those with the baptismal Charter Mark are able to train themselves or be trained to recognise and use the symbols, but without the forehead Mark, it is beyond the ken of even an intellect such as mine.
It matters not. My father found other magics to serve him when he was cast out and the Charter Mark burned from his brow. I inherited both his power and his knowledge,and though I have studied his books only five years, already I can master the minds of my servants and even those of a barbarous thug like Korbid. He does not know why he bows down to me. He resents it, but bow he must.
From my father’s books I have learned some small tricks with fire and shadow, and how to master the minds of the living. But greater power can be gained from the Dead. This new book I have obtained shall set me on the path to do so. It is a book written by a Necromancer for the instruction of his children, and I shall become one of his brood. I am most fortunate to have found it.
Necromancy is the greatest calling of a sorcerer. I am not concerned with the Abhorsen. She is old and rarely comes to Estwael. Her nephew and heir has passed through within the last year, but he is of no great moment. A beardless stripling, I doubt he has either knowledge or power . . .
[pages 2-45 of the manuscript were burned to ash, extremely suspiciously as the pages to either side are hardly scorched. Is it possible that the Orange Book fire is misnamed as this manuscript may be the true source of ignition? I estimate the missing pages cover a year to sixteen months of this Idrach’s journal.]
I have walked in the First Precinct of Death, nigh on to the First Gate. As I had read, it is a river unlike any other. Cold, so cold my teeth chattered immediately. I had to clench them tight, for unruly sound is dangerous in Death. The current was vicious, almost taking me under in the first few seconds. It dragged me to my knees
, but I fought it, and stood triumphant. It is fortunate I was not attacked at the same time, for I would have been lost for certain.
With the current beaten, at least for that moment, I was able to look around and prepare myself. The light is grey in Death. Grey and never-changing, akin to a storm-clouded afternoon, with no sight of any sun. There is only the river to look at, stretching as far as can be seen to either side, ahead and behind. Yet I could feel Life at my back, as the book instructed, and knew I could return to the living world.
Instead, I strode onward, wading with the current that snatched at my ankles and tugged at my knees. Once again, the book spoke true, as before I had gone more than a dozen paces, I heard the distant rush of a waterfall, the sound that marked the First Gate.
I was not eager to continue deeper into Death, as at that time I had only a small complement of tools and weapons, and none of the most useful. I had not even one of the seven bells. I admit that I was afraid, for I knew that Dead spirits might attack at any time. Even so, I forced myself to wade forward a further eighty or ninety paces, fighting the current that tried to drag me under and onward with every step.
[a page missing here]
fled with the thrice-spelled, thistle-tipped spear through its eye or where an eye might once have been. The spear would not slay it, I knew, but would distract it for a time. Long enough for me to complete the ritual of the First Bell.
I knew I must quench the bell metal in the waters upon the very brink of the First Gate. I had purchased a small silver bell with a pure voice and had prepared it according to the book. All that remained was to make it red-hot and plunge it into the river. The spell to fire it burned behind my eyes, aching for release. I still feel that spell, and may easily make use of it again, which I hope . . .