The Golden Helm: More Tales from the Edge of Sleep

by Victoria Randall

  “I’ll be happy to,” Bertha said, her eyes watering. Bertha always tended to be a little emotional.

  “Thank you.” Edith waved her away feebly.

  She knew that Bertha returned another day to tell her she had carried out the request, though she felt too sleepy to do more than smile to acknowledge her friend’s presence.

  Later on Bertha brought her yarn and needles, and often Edith held them in her hands, but she never seemed to have the strength to begin another project. Sometimes she wondered whether she should have accepted Tima Angelica’s offer; she pictured herself dancing down the avenue under the chestnut trees of Paris. But there was something awry with the vision, something that always set her teeth on edge. She had lived through those years already; it did not seem right to try to relive them.

  She made friends, while she still had the energy to talk, with Frances Brandt, a white-haired woman who was full of energy and enthusiasm despite being confined to a wheelchair after a stroke. Frances’ nieces and nephews often visited with their numerous children, filling the hallways with chatter and laughter which Frances found invigorating. She shared these visits with Edith, always including her in introductions.

  Mortality, thought Edith, sitting in the hall one day next to Frances’ chair; mortality is a strange thing. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it. One moment you’re swinging on a gate in the sunshine, nine years old—flash! And you’re thirty, working hard at a new job in a new firm—flash! And you’re thinking of retirement—flash! again and you’re fast approaching eighty. Where does the time go? It moves on, inexorable, relentless. She looked up and saw a hooded figure in a pale blue cloak walk past her down the hall, eyes cast down, hands folded. She felt a chill go through her.

  She felt a touch on her arm, and turned to see Tima Angelica. “It’s not too late,” she whispered, her voice caressing. “Think of Paris. The City of Light. Apple blossoms reflected in the water . . .”

  Frances wheeled her chair up beside them. “I think Edith’s a little tired,” she said. “Maybe if you could come back later—” Tima turned an icy look on her, and Frances faltered and fell silent.

  Edith clenched her fist, drawing it back. “Leave me alone,” she whispered.

  Tima raised an eyebrow. She patted Edith’s fist, and said, “As you wish.”

  Edith closed her eyes with a sigh as she walked away. Frances shook her head. “A very . . . forceful young woman,” she murmured.

  Edith gave a ghost of a smile, too weak to speak any more.

  Later that afternoon as Edith sat in the hall beside Frances she saw another young woman in a dark blue cloak coming toward them. She thought at first that the woman would simply pass her, but she paused beside her chair and said, “Edith.”

  Edith looked up into her smiling eyes. Her hair was raven black, and her smile was warm.

  “Who are you?” Edith meant to say, but was not sure whether she had spoken aloud. The woman seemed to understand.

  “I am Muretta, Tima’s sister,” she said. “But look, you have a visitor.” She pointed down the hall to a young woman who had just come in and was talking to the nurse. In her arms she cradled a bundle wrapped in a yellow blanket.

  “Not my visitor,” Edith tried to say.

  “It’s my niece Patricia,” said her friend Frances with delight. “And look, she’s brought her new baby. I told you, Edith, that they just adopted him from St. Joseph’s, didn’t I? I haven’t seen him yet.”

  Edith tried to remember but could not. She smiled and nodded for her friend’s sake.

  Patricia came and kissed her aunt. “You remember my friend Edith,” Frances said to her niece. “And this is the baby. What is his name again, dear?”

  “Alan,” said the mother with pride. “Alan Joseph Chambers.” She lifted the blanket to show them the sleeping infant. His eyes were closed, his mouth a pursed rosebud, his skin the color of café au lait.

  Edith reached out a frail hand to touch the fuzzy yellow blanket. It looked familiar to her, with its border of white lambs.

  “Yes,” Frances said. “That’s a lovely blanket. Did you make it, Patricia?”

  “No,” Patricia said. “I wish I had. There’s a woman who makes them for the hospital, isn’t it beautiful? I’m thinking of taking up crocheting. Maybe I can learn to make something that nice.”

  “A labor of love,” said Frances.

  Edith smiled. Tima’s sister touched her hand. “You have done something very lovely,” she whispered. “And it will be passed on.”

  Edith looked into her smiling eyes. “You are not like your sister. You have a warm heart.”

  “You mustn’t be too hard on Tima,” said Muretta. “She has a difficult role. Will you come with me now?”

  Edith nodded. The woman held out her hand, and she took it.

  * * *

  “Your friend has gone to sleep,” Patricia whispered.

  “Yes. Nurse,” Frances called. “Edith has fallen asleep.”

  The nurse came over and touched Edith’s arm, then felt for a pulse. “Oh. Oh, dear, so she has.”

  The End

  Influence

  August 10, 2017

  P aul was digging weeds in his garden and mulling over ideas for his next book, when he heard a crystalline chiming sound. He glanced up in time to see a young woman step out of thin air in the corner of his yard. She stood blinking around, looking like a tourist just off the plane.

  He sat up, staring at her. With a delighted smile, she spotted him and hurried over. “Mr. Paul Corbin?”

  “Ýes, that’s me.” He rose slowly. “Who—where did you come from?”

  “I come from your future.” She held out a hand. Her hair, coiled in silver bangles that dangled to her shoulders, glittered in the morning sun. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you!”

  “The future. You’ve heard of me in the future?”

  “Yes, indeed. We know that you were one of the first influences on Abraham Solisky. I’m doing a dissertation on him, and got permission to interview you! It’s so exciting! May I ask you a few questions about your writing?”

  “I suppose so,” he said, feeling off balance. “Come and sit down.” He indicated the chairs around the white metal table on his patio.

  She had some questions about his writing, but it was clear her focus was on this Solisky. In the course of the conversation she let slip that Paul’s books were no longer read in the future.

  “Not at all?” he asked, a lump in his throat.

  She shook her head. “Of course you might run into an old copy in a junk shop. But everything of any value has been uploaded to the Mindnet. Physical books are collector’s items.”

  “What have I ever done to you?” asked Paul. “Why have you chosen me to—to haunt?”

  “I am not a ghost,” Opal said with a laugh.

  “A ghost of the future,” he said darkly. “You’ve come back in time to destroy any hope I have of being a writer. Who do you think I write for, if not for the future? And you tell me I’m forgotten?”

  She gestured around at the garden, bright in the California sunshine, the tomato plants, the golden asters, the kitchen windows of his house. “You write for the present—for your readers.” She shook her silver bangles, casting reflections across the garden. “And you are important, as I said, since you were one of Mr. Solisky’s early influences.”

  “An influence,” he said gloomily. “What has he written?”

  She caught her breath. “How strange, to meet someone who has never heard of Mr. Solisky! But of course, how could you? You live in his past, he has not yet written anything yet. His work—how can I describe it? He has laid bare the hearts of the people—of all people. You cannot read him without laughing, without weeping. No one can read him and go on with his life as it was before. He creates change in his readers’ lives; he does it by exposing the best and the worst in us. Our world is so much richer for his writing . . . it is impossible to say how deep and wi
despread his influence has been.”

  “And I have been an influence on him,” said Paul. “But no one reads me anymore.”

  “No one is read much from your time—it’s still considered very rough—a transitional period. Your Hart Crane, O. Henry—”

  “They wrote a hundred years ago!” protested Paul.

  “Oh, yes? Well, it’s all considered the same era . . . I’m very grateful for your taking the time to talk with me. Now I must get back to my time.”

  “What’s the rush?” he asked with a bitter smile. “I presume you’ll return to the same instant that you left.”

  “There are temporal constraints, of course. I will return a few milliseconds later; but I’ll perceive no difference.”

  “You’re not worried about repercussions? Have they solved the problem of accidentally changing the future by interfering with the past?”

  “We students are very careful. There can be no harm in a brief conversation, such as we’ve had. It was very pleasant meeting you, Mr. Paul Corbin. Good luck in your efforts.”

  “You have seen to that,” he said with a brusque laugh. He watched her step back into a lattice which cast a shadow over her, and vanish.

  * * *

  He walked to the edge of the cliff which rose sheer from the surf, thundering white far below. For long minutes he stood there, struggling with the pain of bitter knowledge. It was one thing to suspect he would never be more than a mediocre, soon-forgotten writer, another to have confirmation.

  He thought about taking another step, into thin air. But then he glanced down and saw the tiny brave faces of the daisies at his feet, upturned to the sun. Not worth it, he thought. He turned away from the cliff and trudged away down the dusty lane.

  He never wrote another word.

  * * *

  September 8, 2267

  “You’re really going to go through with this?” Amber asked. She sat in her favorite pose, legs up on the shot-silk sofa of the living room they shared.

  “You’re much too timid,” said Opal. “It will be an exciting experience for Mr. Corbin, and instructional for me. A wonderful footnote for my dissertation on Solisky.” She glanced at her bookshelf, where next to her mother’s vase stood her most prized possessions: a series of ten books, spines stamped in gold: Solisky’s works.

  “But to meet an actual influence . . .”

  “Not a very great one, according to all I’ve read. Just one of the first. And I’m going to contact him before he’s written the two books which were his major works. He’s not at all famous yet, even in his time.”

  Amber sat up and glanced out of the window. From next door came the melodious voice of their neighbor, Mrs. Garcia, raised in an aria from the latest opera. “Well, if it’ll help your dissertation, of course. Anything you want me to do?”

  “Stand by,” said Opal. She shook her bangles so they glittered. “I’m going now.”

  She moved to the apparatus, shadowy and half-seen, in the corner of the room. Taking her place in it, she gave the voice command.

  She flickered. To Amber, nothing seemed to have changed.

  Opal stepped out of the transport and stretched. “What an interesting trip! How glad I am that we live now.”

  “Did you get what you went for?” asked Amber.

  She had to raise her voice over the shrieks from next door, where Mrs. Garcia was still beating her child and screaming at her.

  “I think so,” said Opal. She turned slowly in the cramped room, glancing at the bookshelf where she kept her most prized possessions: a blue vase her mother had given her, and a framed photo. “I think I did . . .”

  “Well, you’d better get some sleep,” said Amber. “You’ve got to be at the factory at six tomorrow, same as me.”

  The End

  Dragon Fire

  Challa paused at the crest of a rocky rise to wipe sweat from her brow, and glanced back at Quvorn dragging his unwieldy bulk after her. His wings trailed in the dust as he raised one slow laborious claw after another to follow her up the slope. Pain stirred in her heart at the sight, a frightening emotion to her, who had lived all her life with the Firebreathers’ cool acceptance of fate.

  Quvorn had been ancient when she was an infant, sixteen winters ago, but she could recall when his uplifted claw was all that stood between her and a snap of the other Firebreathers’ jaws. He was nearly blind now, and she was not sure he could still fly. His ribbed wings hung frail, tattered and thin as fallen leaves.

  He raised his head and breathed a puff at her that signified, What do you see?

  She glanced down at the village of Withenby, nestled among fat pasturelands, shadowed by a mountain range, calm and peaceful on this bright spring afternoon.

  “I see the village below,” she said in the ancient dragon speech.

  “This is a bad idea.” He paused in his struggle up the slope, breathing hard.

  “There is no other way.” She had thought for days, but could come up with no other solution. Quvorn needed to eat, and the villagers of Withenby owned cattle. He was no longer able to hunt, so she would ask the villagers for help. It did not matter that she could not remember ever speaking with another human being in her life.

  “You do not know what they will do,” Quvorn said. “They may attack you.”

  “I am not afraid.” She thumped her thorn spear on the ground.

  “I did not say you were afraid.” Quvorn’s jaw crinkled in one corner, which was his equivalent of a smile. “It is not right that you should court danger on my behalf. You are only an eyeblink old, while I have lived long enough to see the stars change courses. My death lies in the shadows and watches me with cold eyes, waiting. You should not come between us.”

  She gave him a cool measuring look. “I will not come between you. But neither will I welcome it with open arms. Friends should not face death alone.”

  “What is that word—friends?” He used the human word, as she had, as there is no word in the Firebreathers’ tongue which signifies more than members of the same tribe. “I never taught you that.”

  “Cuya taught it to me. It means someone who is important to you.”

  “Human nonsense!” he hissed.

  The other Firebreathers had left on a foray seven days ago. His daughter Cuya alone had stooped to nuzzle Quvorn briefly before she raised her wings, lumbered from the cavern and flew off; the rest abandoned him without a word. Dragons were not sentimental.

  “Do you even have enough human words to speak to these creatures?” asked Quvorn.

  “Cuyo taught me enough, I think. And they seem familiar, as if I have heard them before.”

  “You were the size of an acorn when you came, but perhaps old enough to recall their speech.”

  “I’m going down now.” She turned and started down the slope.

  She saw the half grown boy spring to his feet from behind a rock and race down the hill, zigzagging as if afraid she might loose a spear at him. With a grim smile she went on down the narrow sheep trail at a slow pace, setting one bare calloused foot after the other. Behind her she heard the painful scraping of Quvorn’s scales as he followed.

  She reached the outskirts of the village, marked by a rail fence. Thirty men stood in a crowd behind the fence, armed with such pitiful weapons as farming tools and butcher knives. They could not hurt her, for she was armored in clothing she had made herself, of dragons’ scales. A stone’s throw from them she halted and stared with interest at her first close sight of human men.

  They seemed small to her, accustomed to the huge size of the Firebreathers. Small, vulnerable, nervous, shifting from foot to foot, clutching their pitchforks and pruning shears with sweating hands. One stepped forward, half a head taller than his fellows, black haired, clutching an axe. His black brows were drawn down in a thunderous frown. “Who are you, who comes with a dragon?”

  “I am Challa,” she said in a clear voice, speaking the strange human words slowly. “This is Quvorn the Old. He will
not hurt you.”

  The men did not seem reassured. “He is a dragon,” said the leader.

  “That is true,” she said. “But his days of flight are over. He only came with me because I asked him.”

  Quvorn drew level with her and stopped with a sigh which released a little black puff of smoke. The men all drew back a step. “Tell him to stop there,” said the black haired man, taking a tighter grip on his axe.

  She put a hand lightly on Quvorn’s crest and murmured in the dragon tongue, “Best to go no farther.”

  He cast one pale eye up at her, as if to say he would have preferred not to come at all.

  “What is your name?” she asked the leader.

  “I am Abel, the mayor of this village.” His dark eyes were stern. “I ask you to take your dragon away from here.”

  This was the delicate part. “I have come to ask a favor of you.”

  “A favor.” Abel’s voice was cold as any Firebreather’s.

  “Yes. In exchange for the safety of your village from the dragons for a lifetime of men, I ask a cow each month for Quvorn.”

  Abel’s mouth opened in disbelief, and the men behind him glanced at each other, frowning.

  “You are joking!”

  She straightened. “A joke is a lie, is it not? I do not lie; there is no need. Quvorn cannot hunt cattle any more, and you have cattle to spare.”

  “If he cannot hunt, what need do we have of protection from him?” asked a sandy-haired man behind Abel.

  “He is not the only Firebreather. The others visit each village in turn. They wait some years between forays, to allow time for the crops to grow and the herds to replenish. Your turn will no doubt come soon.”

  “Who are you, that you can make promises on behalf of the dragons? Are you their queen?”