Some of these guys, he’d said. Not himself. And there was an undercurrent there, enough to make me say, “I don’t happen to swing that way, myself.”
The sunlight caught his hair, which held a blue shine like the underplumage of a Stellar’s Jay, dark but unmistakable, as his smile swelled.
“Neither do I.”
He’s flirting with me. I wanted to flirt back. To banter, begin the dance that would lead us into bed.
This was not the time, with some unknown opponent laying traps for me. This was too probably part of that—at least my application of Occam’s Razor argued that it did.
“Perhaps I’ll come to a bingo game sometime,” I said, reluctant to shut the door between us.
“That’s in the winter only. Months away.”
“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “perhaps I’ll see you somewhere else.”
Disappointment flickered across his face. Again, the emotion seemed genuine. Perhaps I’d made the wrong decision.
I could feel the poison spell working in me. Solve that first. Otherwise I might be dead before we had any chance to go to bed.
“You’re not a spontaneous person,” he said. Not question, but statement. “You don’t jump into things.”
This was overly personal for someone I’d known less than five minutes, no matter how pretty he was.
“I have work to do,” I said bluntly, resting the heel of my hand on the door.
He was graceful enough, I’d give him that. Inclining his head, he flashed me a smile that made promises: that he was not offended, that he was still interested, that what would eventually happen in bed would surprise me.
I closed the door. I rested my forehead against its cool hard surface and cursed things: the universe’s odd sense of timing, my unseen and unknown opponent, the curse eating away at my blood.
And my own cowardice. No, I’m not a spontaneous person. I view the world with a caution and suspicion acquired through experience. Had I ever been spontaneous, had I ever had that easy grace of going with the flow, of being one of the people who skated easily through life?
Such things were foreign to my nature. My mother told me she hadn’t seen me smile until I was over three, said she’d even worried about my development, taken me to a child psychiatrist (an event of which I have no recollection) who had pronounced me sullen but normal.
I made myself coffee, brewing it strong and dark and bitter as my thoughts. I had a long day ahead and I wanted to see the end of it. Right now, that was in doubt.
No time for distractions, no matter how dark their hair, how bright their eyes. No matter how charming the slight, unplaceable accent, the lilt to his voice. No matter what he had seemed to promise. Such things are never free, and the ones that claim to be often have the highest price.
What was it time for?
An Oracle, that was what.
#
I hadn’t consulted an oracle in years. Never in this area.
I went to a closet and took down the usual sorts of accumulated boxes before finding a box of cedarwood holding a small red velvet pouch. I took out the contents and cast the runes.
And frowned at them. Had I been overly casual, insulted them?
I took the time to center myself and cast again.
The same result. Which couldn’t be right.
An Oracle here in Friendly Village itself? Pleasant, unmagical Friendly Village?
Only a few trailers away?
#
The singlewide trailer was small, and dowdy, but a profusion of flowers surrounded it. Hummingbirds clouded the standing fuchsia spilling blooms across the compact-sized driveway. Beside the door, a silver witch ball reflected everything around it, inverted and in miniature.
Before I could knock on the door, it jerked open. A long-nosed, wrinkled face above a solid body in an “Embrace Your Inner Crone” t-shirt, said, “You don’t need me. Go see the god.”
“Beg pardon?” Behind her head, I glimpsed a living room decorated in white seashells and royal blue velvet.
“Go back to Osprey Lane. He’s at the end there.”
The door shut in my face.
I knocked again, but there was no answer. Very well. There’s nothing obliging an Oracle to help everyone that stops by. Some keep odd hours; others have odder restrictions, though the runes should have warned me of either.
And, technically, she had given me direction. A street name, even. And an idea about who lived there.
A god? One of the beings discarded by our age, living a prayer to prayer life in a forgotten corner of the world? Usually they were hard to find. But there was no reason why one might not have taken up residence here.
Jason had steered me to Friendly Village. Had he known of its double nature? Surely not, when I’d had no inkling. On the other hand, he’d been born in this area. He knew the history.
When you grow up someplace, you learn many of its secrets.
Perhaps not all. But certainly most.
Friendly Village loops and winds, narrow lanes scattered among the trailers. Every patch of landscaping is different: cacti surrounded one mobile home, followed by a forest of rhododendrons, then dahlias that might have originated in my own garden.
Up along the creek a little road ran, unlined with homes. It led to a trailer of a peculiar pearly hue that might have been mistaken for grime at first. It was a Nordic style, almost, simulated white pine beams, rough wrought ironwork on the walls. Its landscaping was bare: a line of rocks, two tiny fir trees, one slightly larger than the other.
Outside, a massive rock crouched beside the mailbox.
In Greek mythology, such stones were sacred to Aphrodite. But I didn’t think a Greek god lurked within.
A man stood on the front porch, watching me approach. His attitude was expectant, perhaps even impatient, as though my visit was overdue. His gray beard hung down to his belly, woolly as a blanket. His eyes were blue and a few golden strands showed among the silver on his scalp to attest to his Nordic heritage.
I stopped a few feet away, looking at him.
“You’ve come of your own accord,” he said. “It would’ve been easier if you just let them bring you.”
I acted unsurprised, and maybe I was. Occam’s razor again. One) move to a new place. Two) be attacked by a powerful magical adversary. More than time connected that chain.
“I’m Forseti,” he said.
I searched through crumbs of mythology. My knowledge might have only the depth of a Wikipedia article, but it was wide. You learn the names of all the gods, once you realized most still exist in our world, acting out their own plans, few of which are constructed to advance humanity. Or even take it into account, really.
“Justice, right?” I said.
He dropped a slow nod.
“What justice is there in killing me?” I asked.
He said, “Perhaps you should come inside for tea.”
#
Inside the trailer, I could see its true aspect. Like many magical things, it was far larger on the inside than out. The ceiling glittered as though made of silver and pillars of red gold supported it. The walls were gone—or clear –as though we stood inside an open pavilion, able to see Friendly Village’s trailers and hills all around, except at the back, where the home overlooked the low banks of Bear Creek.
A nifty trick. I would’ve liked to have known how to do it. But I didn’t ask, just took the teacup my host summoned from thin air, and sniffed it. Gunpowder and lemon wafted on the moist steam.
I didn’t drink, although I nodded in thanks. Everyone knows better than eat something conjured. You didn’t know what the caster had been trying to create, or even if she or he was likely to get it right, without a single molecule twisted out of place.
He smiled at that.
I guess I might’ve too. I had the poison he’d already given me, permeating me. It was highly unlikely he needed to add something else to it.
The god addressed me, his tone formal. “Rahul Macomber. Mage.”
I nodded this time.
Forseti said, “I must protect this place. I am the one who does so. You know as well as I that it’s up to us.”
The truth that none of us like to dance with, what I’d told Jason. At the heart of it, there is no balance of good or evil. It’s all random. That sniper on the playground? No demon possessed him, no alien mind control set him off. It was all accident of chemicals and brain impulses.
We like to pretend, we gods and magicians, that we represent an order, but it’s all hollow. There’s nothing at the heart of it.
“You have a life, but you choose not to use it,” he said. “Who would mourn you? You’ve shunned connections. You hide. You skulk. You never dare.”
That seemed unfair to me. “I enjoy life, nonetheless,” I protested.
He shook his head. “Do you?” He gestured all around us. “Here in Friendly Village are others like you. But they dance and quarrel and fuck and love each other. They live. You don’t. You waste your life hiding from living it. Why is it not justice that I should take someone who has renounced life, and use them to protect those who have not?”
“How is it your decision?”
He drew himself up and suddenly was towering over me. “I am a god, one of the Aesir. And you question me?”
I squared my chin. “I do.”
“Protest as you will, mortal,” he declaimed. He could have made a fortune doing radio with that voice. It shivered down my spine and loosened my bowels almost to the point of accident.
He made a gesture and the beads sewn into my shirt exploded, one after another, striking me like blows. The air around me thinned with the magic’s dissipation.
No one fights gods. No one sane, or long-lived, anyhow. I could see in his implacable gaze that his decision would not change. I set the teacup down on the ground between us.
“How long?” I asked.
He knew what I was asking. “One sunset more for you,” he said. “If you are willing to come lay your life at my feet, I will use it to protect this place. Otherwise you will fall to my curse and no good will come to anyone from your death.”
Less time than I’d thought. Not enough to escape to someone who might heal me, even if I knew anyone who might be inclined in that way. Not enough to research or dig out some solution, unless I was incredibly lucky. And I knew no way of binding luck: the forces of randomness are as implacable as any god.
I was tempted to try walking out through one of the transparent walls, but the thought of Forseti laughing at me after I’d broken my nose in an unsuccessful attempt prevented me.
Even in death, I’d retain my dignity.
For what little good it did me.
He said, as I left, “Will you be back?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and it was true.
#
Lorca was sitting on my doorstep. It should have alarmed me. The fact that it didn’t alarm me should have alarmed me. But I found myself smiling at the sight of him, nonetheless.
What he said could have been a spell, but it was a love poem.
He said, “I will woo you with words like wine, like honey, like addictive smoke. I’ll insinuate my name into things until you won’t be able to look at a sunset, or the water, or even the smallest scrap of paper, without thinking of me. I will make you accustomed to me, till my absence becomes as marked as though your hand or foot were missing. I will make you drunk on me, will make you long for me. I will make you lonely without me, accustomed to me as though I were integral to your world.”
I said, “Why?”
“Do you not know that I love you? Isn’t that sufficient?”
Perhaps it should have been. I know it should have been. But as I said, I’m possessed of a suspicious nature and even here, with something that seemed too good to be true…well, as I said. Too good to be true.
I said again, “But why?”
“Who am I to decipher these things? I saw you and I knew you were mine.”
“And how many men have you known were yours?”
His gaze was steady. “I love you as I have loved no other.”
“You lust after me,” I corrected. “And had you seen me before you came to my door?”
“Countless times.”
His eyes glowed.
Now I knew who—or rather, what—I was facing.
Death.
No wonder Lorca had seemed so dark, so mysterious. So alluring. So unknowable in that way that every lover is unknowable, has unguessable depths that they will reveal.
I wasn’t ready. Yes, my 55th birthday had hit me hard but not because I thought I was about to meet death. But because inside, like everyone else, I’m a teenager wondering what the hell this aging thing is all about.
When had I gotten old, when had gray crept into my hair, when had the spring in my step begun to ebb? I wasn’t getting old—just more mature. Perhaps even distinguished.
I told Lorca, “I know who you are.”
“Then we will dissemble no longer.” He stretched out a hand, palm upward. Blue lines of veins throbbed there: a blood magician might have given way to that temptation. “Will you give yourself to me?”
Hope and sadness mingled in his tone.
This wasn’t how I’d expected this to happen. Every mage’s encounter was different, I knew that, but I’ve never heard of an amorous Death.
Perhaps no one had wanted to admit it, to set such a thing down.
“You can’t wait for the poison to take me?” I said, a little bitterly.
He said, “Take my hand and I will heal you.”
“That is not at all what I expected of Death,” I admitted.
He laughed. “The main purpose of expectations is to be defeated.”
Lore is carefully guarded among magicians. The ultimate currency, more precious than gold (you can always coax that from gnomes) or gems (you can only steal those from dragons) or any other object ever coveted by humans: tulips, spices, molybdenum, stamps, or other rarities like mummy amulets, or the bezoars taken from the heads of certain toads.
And within the categories of that lore, oneiromancy or speaking to trees, or anything else, knowledge of Death is among the most precious. Not what happens to the body after death: forces of decay and decomposition are easy enough to decipher, given how our bodies function. No, something more particular than that: the entity we know as Death, who doesn’t turn up usually as a robed skeleton with the scythe. Instead he or she takes forms that seem unprepossessing: a little old lady in a purple hat, a flaxen-haired farmboy, a pregnant woman (though pregnant with what, no one knows).
So it was not unprecedented, this sexy form.
But the proposition, that was something else.
“Why me?” I asked.
For the first time he looked perplexed, as though he didn’t know the answer either.
It was an unprecedented opportunity, though.
And, of course, it had presented itself at a time when I had nothing to spare for it.
Save myself first. Then talk to Death.
He said, slowly, “Something about the quality of your loneliness, I guess.”
His eyes seemed very human.
Have you ever fallen in love over the course of seconds? At first, they are unremarkable and then, like a lens slipping into focus, they’re entirely different and yet the same. They haven’t changed it all, of course. Instead your position has changed: you’re in a different alignment with the universe.
Magicians know love is petty and small, a thing built of pheromones and proximity. At least most of it. Fantasy books talk about love as though it were the most powerful force in the universe. But it’s not. It’s an entity as ineffectual as any of us. We can resist it. At least, in my experience. I’d never had a long-term relationship—Jason and I might have come close, but in truth a real relationship woul
d have distracted me from my work. Would have made me a lesser magician.
I said, “You know I don’t have time for this.” And then, less harshly, “No matter how tempting.”
That brought a flicker of a smile.
“Another sunset,” he said.
His eyes searched mine.
“You have but to speak and I will hear you,” he said, almost shyly. And was gone.
I unlocked my door and went inside to sit down on the couch.
I said there was one thing to keep in mind about magic, but really there are two. The first is that a magician’s focus affects their power. But the second is that there are magic things that anyone can do.
They are not truly magic; they are the result of being able to read the Universe. A combination of semiotics and micro-expressions and maybe, just maybe a thin thread of fortune-telling, the vague and swimmy kind that you see in the I-Ching, changing to match the situation.
Magicians know things. They know that demons do not like the smell of rosemary but can force themselves to touch it, and that they can be caught in pocket mirrors at certain times, when the light is right.
We know how people’s eyes tend to flicker when they lie and what words they will use to convince themselves that they are speaking truth. We know how to charm ourselves to sleep and that smiling makes you feel happier. We know all the practical little things, the shortcuts and tricks that let a magician navigate life more easily than most.
Death hadn’t been lying to me. I would have known.
I took a shirt covered with white orchids, their throats scarlet, and sewed white barkcloth into it. I would try purification. I put every healing and cleansing charm I knew into it.
When I put the shirt on, I had a few moments of hope that it was working, that it was drawing out the poison. I saw the mouths of the orchids waver, grow cyanotic over the scarlet. But then they twisted, driven awry by the magic, and I felt it wrench at my bones again, as though in admonition.
I managed to stagger to the shower, ran it hot and stood in the steaming water, letting it run over me as though I had any hope of it cleaning the taint from my core, and retched, over and over again.
I was almost wretched enough to speak Lorca’s name.
There was no reason not to, was there? Aren’t we all a little in love with death?
Genius Loci Page 34