Uncanny Magazine - JanFeb2017

by Uncanny Magazine

  “Ah!” said Nes Imosa. “I understand you. All your ideas about humans are one thing, but being one is quite another. So, what have you learned?”

  Aworo took another mussel. “Sometimes I think even humans don’t understand why they do what they do.”

  Nes Imosa grinned. “Ha ha! Nothing I didn’t know already.”

  As Aworo left the guesthouse, he glanced at the green–coated man. But there wasn’t time, not if he wanted to see Smerdis.

  At this late afternoon hour the market stalls were empty and shuttered, the street eerily quiet, even with people gathered to watch the procession. As he walked by the fountain, he heard a familiar croak. The frog was still perched in its bowl on the edge of the basin. Next to it sat a young man, pale, almost girlishly pretty, eating something wrapped in bread.

  “Aworo!” called the frog. “This is my boy.” The boy nodded perfunctorily, all his attention on his food.

  “The one who sells your lotion?” Aworo asked. “What does it do, anyway?”

  “It smells very nice,” said the frog.

  The boy swallowed. “It moisturizes and refreshes the skin,” he said, his voice surprisingly deep. Aworo couldn’t place the accent.

  “Isn’t he wonderful!” said the frog. “I got him from one of the slave pens down the street. He was a scrawny little thing, the dealers didn’t know what they had! Half of what he brings in I spend feeding him, but he sells a lot. Very popular with the women. They love the accent. So where are you off to?”

  “I’m here to see Smerdis.”

  The frog croaked in surprise. “Smerdis!” It shifted uneasily in its bowl. “Look here, Aworo. I’ve never met Smerdis, and none of the gods I’ve asked have either.” The boy laughed, at what Aworo wasn’t sure. “He doesn’t have an account at the temple of the Nalendar, it’s in the name of the temple itself, as a business entity. The Nalendar refused to open one if he wouldn’t come in person.”

  “Then where did he come from?” asked Aworo. “How did he get any worshippers at all?”

  “How should I know?” asked the frog. “I could give you a string of theories longer than my tongue, but who knows if any of them would be the truth?”

  “What if his followers are right? What if he’s the Supreme? The god of gods?”

  The boy snorted and wiped his now–empty hands on the front of his coat. “Smerdis is a fraud,” he declared, and before he could say anything else a long chorus of jingling started, and in the near distance, the procession came out from the temple gates and into the street.

  First came a dozen men in conventional dress—the coat and leggings most men in the Nalendar Valley wore—shaking long strings of small bells. Behind them, stepping sedately, came one of the largest, whitest bulls Aworo had ever seen. As Nes Imosa had said, its horns were gilded, and they shone bright in the afternoon sunlight. Behind it came more men, singing. “Is that the bull?” Aworo asked. “The one that answers questions?” Spectators reached out to touch it, and the great bull merely walked, slow and calm, behind the bell–shaking priests as they approached the well. Not what you’d expect from a bull. But definitely what Aworo would expect from a bull that was possessed by a god. His breath caught, and his skin prickled.

  The priests and the bull were circling the well, still singing. He moved slowly forward and reached out his hand as it came by. It didn’t react to his touch, just stepped slowly forward, muscle moving and warm under his hand. He looked up at its head, its calm face, its eye…

  Aworo dropped his hand and stepped back. Behind him the frog’s boy swore. “Hey, watch where you’re going!”

  “Well?” asked the frog. “What do you think?” The bull was still walking sedately around the fountain, its attendants before and behind it.

  “That bull,” Aworo said, and then hesitated. But he was sure he was right. “That bull is drugged.”

  “How can you tell?” asked the boy.

  “Its eyes.” The singing, and the chaotic jingling, continued, but the procession was moving away, back the way it had come. Aworo shook his head.

  “It doesn’t necessarily prove Smerdis isn’t the Transcendent One,” the frog said. “But you’d think the Supreme God of Gods wouldn’t have to resort to that sort of thing.”

  Aworo looked at the boy, who said, “I’m still hungry, can I buy a cake?”

  “Yes, my dear,” said the frog, “and get a basket of crickets too.” The boy ran off into the swirl of dispersing onlookers, and the frog puffed a few times. “So, and what about this business with Saest?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Thinking!” The frog considered that for a moment. “Well, maybe that’s best, after all.”

  Back at the guesthouse, the dice game was still in session, and Nes Imosa was watching it with great interest. “You’re back!” he cried as Aworo came in the door. “Girl! A drink for my friend here. And everyone else!”

  “You seem to be feeling generous,” Aworo said as the woman brought him a cup of beer.

  “A salute to Nes Imosa!” called one of the dicers, and Aworo saw that it was the green coated horse salesman. The other dice–players cheered.

  Nes Imosa smiled and bowed. “Ha ha! Yes, I come to Kalub to enjoy myself. So how did your errand go? Did you find what you were looking for?” Aworo hesitated, and Nes Imosa suddenly turned serious. “No simple answer, eh?”

  “That depends,” said Aworo, surprised, but Nes Imosa’s solemn mood was gone as soon as it had come, and his normal genial expression had returned.

  The man in the green coat tossed, and then gave a cry of defeat. “I’m out!”

  “Pay up!” said another man. “You’ve been throwing on promises for the last hour.”

  “I don’t have anything!” protested the green–coated man. “I meant to win it back. I’ll seal…”

  “Cash!”

  “I’ll go to the temple of the…”

  “You won’t go anywhere!” said the other man, and stood and crossed his arms. “I want the money you owe me.”

  The man in the green coat looked over to Nes Imosa. “Friend! Can I seal a draft for some coins?”

  Nes Imosa frowned. “I’m not sure how much I have on me… ”

  “Nes Imosa, don’t,” said Aworo.

  “I have plenty,” said the man in the green coat, “but as you can see, this man—” he gestured to the other man. “Won’t let me leave to get it. I’ll make it out for whatever you can give me, plus fifty gold more.”

  “Fifty!” Nes Imosa looked pleased. “That’s a nice profit. Let me see what I have.” He pulled out a purse and poured its contents on a nearby table, a spill of gold and silver coins and a few coppers. “How much do you owe?”

  “A hundred ten,” said the threatening man, and the green–coated man nodded.

  “Nes Imosa,” Aworo began, “this man…”

  Nes Imosa dismissed him with a wave. “Now, friend, please don’t interrupt.” He turned back to the dicers. “So I’ll give you a hundred and ten, and you’ll seal a draft for a hundred and sixty. Your gambling debt will be paid and I’ll be fifty richer! Ha ha!”

  “It’ll be worth it,” said the green–coated man, casting a glance at his antagonist.

  “I’ll bet it will,” said Nes Imosa, and waved over the serving woman and asked for a tablet. She stood by while the man in the green coat rolled his cylinder seal across the clay, and Nes Imosa handed over the gold.

  “Now sir,” said the serving woman then, putting her hand on the green–coated man’s shoulder. “We’ll be off to the temple of the Nalendar.” Before he could move she had a knife at his throat. The other dicer swore, and spun around and ran out the door. “He won’t get far,” said the woman. “There’s half a dozen of the city guard outside.”

  “What!” exclaimed Nes Imosa. “What’s this?”

  “You’re too trusting, sir.” The green–coated man made as if to struggle and she tightened her hold and pushed her knife just a b
it harder against his throat. “Move and you’ll bleed to death.” He stood very, very still. “I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. You’d have presented that draft at the temple and found there was no money to back it up.”

  “Look into his horse dealing as well,” Aworo suggested.

  The woman shrugged. “Not my area.” She tugged at her captive. “Come on, you.”

  As they left Nes Imosa sank into the nearest seat. “Well!” he said, serious again. “That’s that, then. Now, friend Aworo, what are you going to do about lady Saest?”

  It was as though Aworo had blinked and his vision had cleared, or as though Nes Imosa had taken off a mask. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Nes Imosa,” said Nes Imosa. “A foolish merchant from upriver who came to Kalub to take the waters and have a bit of fun.” No ha ha , only a pleasantly serious expression. “Sometimes—because of my generous nature, you understand—I get swindled.” He smiled, but there was no sign of the expansive, affable Nes Imosa of moments before.

  “Did the Nalendar send you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Why not just say so?”

  Nes Imosa lifted his cup, looked at it a moment, and then drank. “You could probably be forced to remove the curse one way or another, but it’s better for everyone if you’re persuaded instead.”

  Aworo thought about that for a moment. “Is that a threat?”

  Nes Imosa betrayed no surprise or indignation. “Does it sound like one?” When Aworo didn’t answer, he sighed. “Yes, it’s a threat. The island is as much as the Nalendar can do and it’s hardly satisfactory. Saest is unhappy there, and it’s a terrible waste of her abilities.”

  “The Nalendar wants me to just take it back?”

  “I’ll be frank. You’re a very powerful god. But so is the Nalendar, and she could probably force you to do what she wants.” Nes Imosa picked up a pitcher, looked inside it, looked around for the serving woman, and then shrugged. “But if you were killed, or too badly weakened, someone else would fill your space. There are several candidates, none of whom appeal to the River Nalendar. She likes stability. Stability means peace and prosperity. Open trade routes.” He set the pitcher down again. “You’re powerful enough that taking the curse back would be a temporary inconvenience. At worst it might jeopardize your hold on the body you’re inhabiting.”

  “But I haven’t…”

  “Haven’t caused enough trouble?”

  “Haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

  Nes Imosa laughed. “What is it you’re looking for, Lord of Horses? Do other gods worry about things like that?”

  Aworo thought about Smerdis’ bull, shining white, groomed and gilded. Drugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t, before I was human.” He caught Nes Imosa’s dubious look. “Does that mean it’s not a valid question?”

  Nes Imosa shrugged. “I have no idea. But I do know that the Nalendar has very little patience for your spiritual crisis. And I’ll tell you what I think. I think it suits you to have Saest trapped on that island. When she can go where she wants, she won’t go where you want her to.”

  Angry and indignant, Aworo opened his mouth to protest.

  “Don’t speak without thinking,” Nes Imosa cautioned. “Being human is a game to you. You can always try it again some time, if you lose this body. But Saest only has this one life.”

  Aworo wanted to say it’s not a game to me . But he knew Nes Imosa was right. “Saest won’t die when she turns away from the river,” he said, and was suddenly sick to his stomach, heart pounding, unable to speak. He collapsed forward, head hitting the table, glad he was already sitting.

  “I was going to suggest going upstairs and lying down first.” Nes Imosa’s voice came from somewhere distant. “You’re a little impulsive, Aworo.”

  When he was well again, Aworo went to the marketplace. The summer was well–advanced by now; the heat rising off the flags wouldn’t dissipate until well after sunset, if even then, and the golden roof of Smerdis’ temple shimmered in the afternoon sun. The street was deserted, except for the frog resting in its bowl, chin on the rim, eyes closed, and the boy leaning nearby, drooping in the heat, perceptibly taller than he had been when Aworo had first seen him. He nodded negligently as Aworo approached.

  “I’m going,” Aworo said.

  The frog opened one eye, and then closed it. “Where?”

  “Home.”

  The frog opened both eyes this time and fixed its beady gaze on Aworo. “Saest went downriver.”

  “I know,” Aworo said. “I hope she does well.”

  “I think she will,” said the frog. They were both of them silent for a few moments.

  “Gets hot on the plains,” the boy said. “The sun beats down.” His surprising baritone turned suave and melodious. “It does terrible things to your skin.” He reached into a box at his feet and pulled out a small bottle, black glass wound with a spiral of red.

  “Clever boy!” said the frog. “You know, Aworo, you could import this…”

  Aworo tossed a coin in the bowl and took the bottle from the boy. “I think it’s better if I just go home.”

  The frog puffed thoughtfully. “But what about the god of gods?” it croaked. “Truth through meditation?”

  Aworo shrugged. “I can meditate on the plains.”

  “I imagine so,” agreed the frog. “But where will you get the drugged cattle?”

  The boy snorted, limply in the heat, and Aworo looked at him, eyebrow raised. But he couldn’t summon any real anger. “It’s safer if I go.”

  The frog wiggled down further into its bowl of water. “For that body, likely. You barely managed to hold onto it. But do you think you’re going to do something this stupid again?”

  “Probably not this particular kind of stupid.” Aworo brought a handful of water out of the well and emptied it into the bowl. “But I’m not making any guarantees.”

  The frog croaked its amusement. “Do I detect wisdom at last?”

  Aworo thought of the long ride west, the hills that would give way to his own sparsely wooded plains, his home. He had been away too long. “I hope so,” he said. “I hope so.”

  © 2010 by Ann Leckie. Originally published in the February 2010 issue of Realms of Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  * * *

  Ann Leckie is the author of the award winning novel Ancillary Justice and its sequels Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy . She lives in St Louis.

  * * *

  Inferior Beasts

  Mark Oshiro | 2137 words

  ( Content Note for descriptions of child abuse and homophobia.)

  Sirius shook his head and said, “She’s got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”— Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  I can’t pick a single moment to denote as the first. The first moment a voice pitched higher, the first hand raised in the air, the first time I got welts on my skin, the first time I cried myself to sleep. My childhood blurs together like watercolors, one memory washing into the next. Some seem like they happened all in one day. Others are stretched thin over years, spanning two cities, two bedrooms, two locations haunted by the ghost of my pain and terror.

  “But your parents got to choose to have you,” people told me. “Doesn’t that mean they love you more?”

  I wish that is how it worked.

  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn’t necessarily a bad movie. It’s got a host of problems—the whitewashing of Harlem, the “forbidden” love story given to a white heterosexual couple—but this is J.K. Rowling. It’s par for the course these days. Her post– Deathly Hallows output has been a challenge to get through for fans. She used Pottermore to define characters who are frequently headcanoned as queer as being undeniably straight; she’s written stereotype–ridden and dangerous alternate histories involving the indigenous people of North America
; it’s as if she cannot help but contradict or muddle up her fictional world.

  Yet up to the point where Credence Barebone becomes a significant element of the plot, Fantastic Beasts was a thrilling film. I admit that I have a thing for characters discovering magic worlds hidden within their own, but watching Newt Scamander introduce the wizarding world to Jacob Kowalski reminded me of why I loved Harry Potter in the first place.

  Newt showed Jacob kindness. Understanding. He recognized that Jacob wanted to be a successful baker, that his job at the cannery had been sucking the life out of him. And I’d be eager to argue that he purposely delayed obliviating him, all so he could get someone—anyone, really—to understand why magical creatures were important enough to deserve protection. Indeed, Fantastic Beasts aims to spread a message of tolerance and acceptance. The wizarding world does not understand most magical creatures, and their reaction towards them often creates the violent responses they claim are natural in these animals. Newt acts as a bridge of sorts between the two worlds, and it is his job to prove to other wizards that they grossly misunderstand their fellow magical beings.

  He succeeds by the end of the film, and yet, the film itself does not succeed as a whole. There is a glaring flaw: Credence Barebone is not offered the same sympathy or understanding as is given to all of the fantastic beasts.

  We meet him in a scene that shocked me, not because I’d never seen abuse depicted in film, but because the moment is so tonally jarring to everything before that. Credence cowers on the stairway as his adoptive mother, Mary Lou Barebone, stretches out her hand. I recognized the gesture in an instant: my mother used to do the same thing. Then I thought about Mary Lou, about how committed she was to the New Salem Philanthropic Society (the anti–witch society within this world), and I saw something striking and visceral. Here was a woman who believed so fiercely in her beliefs, so completely in the dichotomy of good and evil, that she would extend a hand and ask a child of hers to give over their belt so she could beat them.