Tales of Old Earth

by Michael Swanwick

  My face felt tight and dry. I slid a finger under my mask to scratch at the scar tissue where it touched one corner of my mouth.

  Even the air smelled different. The smoky haze of my boyhood, oak and cedar from the chimneys of the rich, driftwood and dried dung from the roofholes of the poor, was changed utterly, compounded now of charcoal and quarry-dug coal with always a sharp tang of sulfur pinching at the nose. Wondrous odors still spilled from the cookshop where old Hal Baldpate was always ready with a scowl and a sugar-bun, but the peppery admixture of hams curing next door was missing, and the smokehouse itself converted to a lens-grinder’s shop.

  The narrow gap between the two buildings remained, though—do you young ones still call it the Gullet?—and through it rose a light breeze from the Awen. I halted and leaned on my spear. It was exactly here one long-ago evening that Becky had showed me her freckled breasts and then fleered at me for being shocked. Here Jon and I would kneel to divvy up the eggs we’d stolen from the cotes of Bankside, which, being off the Bridge, was considered fair game by all good river-brats—I see you smiling! Here I crouched in ambush for a weaver’s prentice whose name and face and sin are gone from me now, though that folly cost me a broken arm and all of Becky’s hard-won sympathy.

  Somebody bumped into me, cursed, and was gone before I could turn and crave pardon. I squeezed into the Gullet so others could pass, and stared out over the sun-dazzled river.

  Down the Awen, a pyroscaph struggled toward the bay, smoke billowing from its stack, paddles flashing in unison, as if it were a water-beetle enchanted beyond natural size. The merchanters entering and leaving the harbor were larger than I remembered, and the cut of their sails was unfamiliar. Along the banks the city’s chimneys had multiplied, pillaring smoke into the darkened heavens. It was a changed world, and one that held no place for such as me.

  The ghosts of my youth thronged so thickly about me then that I could not distinguish past from present, memory from desire. It was as if I had turned away for an instant and on turning back discovered myself two decades older.

  Fill the bowl again. One last time I would hear the dawn-music of my youth, the sound of lodgers clumping sleepily down the stairs, the clink and rattle of plates and pewter in the kitchen. The quick step of Eleanor returning from the cookshop with her arms full of fresh-smelling bread. The background grumbles of Black Gabe standing just out of sight, finding fault with my work.

  What a cruel contrast to this morning! When I turned away from the Awen, the Bridge was thick with scurrying city-folk, shopkeepers and craftsmen in fussy, lace-trimmed clothes. The air was full of the clicking of their heels. Men and women alike, their faces were set and grim. For an instant my spirit quailed at the thought of rejoining human company. I had spent too many years in the company of owls and wolves, alone in the solitudes of the north, to be comfortable here. But I squared my shoulders and went on.

  The old Pike and Barrel stood where it has always stood, midway down the Bridge. From a distance it seemed unbearably small and insignificant, though every stone and timber of it was burned forever into my heart. The tavern-placard swung lazily on its rod. That same laughing fish leaped from that same barrel that a wandering scholar had executed in trade for a night’s stay when Aunt Kate was young. I know, for she spoke of him often.

  Below the sign a crowd had formed, an angry eddy in the flow of passers-by. A hogshead had been upended by the door and atop it a stout man with a sheriff’s feather in his cap was reading from a parchment scroll. By him stood a scarecrow underling with a handbell and behind him a dozen bravos with oaken staves, all in a row.

  It was an eviction.

  Kate was there, crying with rage and miraculously unchanged. I stared, disbelieving, and then, with a pain like a blow to the heart, realized my mistake. This worn, heavy woman must be my sister Dolly, turned horribly, horribly old. The sight of her made me want to turn away. The painted pike mocked me with its silent laughter. But I mastered my unease and bulled my way through the crowd.

  Without meaning to, I caused a sensation. Murmuring, the bystanders made way. The sheriff stopped reading. His bravos stirred unhappily, and the scrawny bell-man cringed. The center of all eyes, I realized that there must be some faint touch of the elven glamour that clung to me yet.

  “What is happening here?” My voice was deep, unfamiliar, and the words came hesitantly from my mouth, like water from a pump grown stiff with disuse.

  The sheriff blusteringly shook his parchment at me. “Don’t interfere! This is a legal turning-out, and I’ve the stavesmen to back me up.”

  “You’re a coward, Tom Huddle, and an evil man indeed to do this to folk who were once your friends!” Dolly shouted. “You’re the rich man’s lickspittle now! A hireling to miscreants and usurers, and naught more!”

  A mutter of agreement went up from the crowd.

  The sheriff ducked his massive head and without turning to meet her eye, grumbled, “By damn, Dolly, I’m only doing my—”

  “I’ll pay,” I said.

  Tom Huddle gaped. “Eh? What’s that?”

  I shrugged off my backsack, of thick dwarven cloth embroidered with silk orchids in a woods-elf stitch, and handed my spear to a gangly youth, who almost dropped it in astonishment. That was you, wasn’t it? I thought so. The haft is ebony, and heavier than might be thought.

  Lashed to the frame, alongside my quiver and the broken shards of what had once been my father’s sword, was a leather purse. After such long commerce with elves I no longer clearly knew the value of one coin over another. But there would be enough, that much I knew. The elvenkind are generous enough with things that do not matter. I handed it to my sister, saying, “Take as much as you need.”

  Dolly stood with the purse in her outstretched hand, making no move to open it. “Who are you?” she asked fearfully. “What manner of man hides his features behind a mask?”

  My hand rose involuntarily—I’d forgotten the mask was there. Now, since it no longer served a purpose, I took it off. Fresh air touched my face. I felt dizzy almost to sickness, standing exposed before so many people.

  Dolly stared at me.

  “Will?” she said at last. “Is it really you?”

  When the money had been counted over thrice and the sprig of broom the sheriff had nailed over the doorsill had been torn down and trampled underfoot, the house and neighbors all crowded about me and bore me into the Pike and Barrel’s common room and gave me the honored place by the fire. The air was close and stuffy—I could not think. But nobody noticed. They tumbled question upon question so that I had but little chance to answer, and vied to reintroduce themselves, crying, “Here’s one you’re not expecting!” and “Did you ever guess little Sam would turn out such a garish big gassoon?” and roaring with laughter. Somebody put a child on my knee, a boy, they said his name was Pip. Somebody else brought down the lute from its peg by the loft and struck up a song.

  Suddenly the room was awhirl with dancers. Unmoved, I watched them, these dark people, these strangers, all sweaty and imperfect flesh. After my years with the pale folk, they all seemed heavy and earthbound. Heat radiated from their bodies like steam.

  A woman with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mischief within them, drew me up from the stool, and suddenly I was dancing too. The fire cast an ogreish shadow upon the wall behind me and it danced as well, mocking my clumsy steps.

  Everything felt so familiar and yet so alien, all the faces of my youth made strange by age, and yet dear to me in an odd, aching way, as if both tavern and Bridge were but clever simulacra of the real thing, lacking the power to convince and yet still able to rend the heart. My childhood was preternaturally clear, as close to me now as the room in which I sat. It was as if I had never left. All the years between seemed a dream.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?” my dancing partner said.

  “Of course I do,” I lied.

  “Who, then?” She released me and stood back, hands on hips
.

  Challenged, I actually looked at her for the first time. She moved loosely within her blouse, a plump woman with big brown freckles on her face and forearms. She crossed her arms in a way that caused her breasts to balloon upward, and laughed when I flushed in embarrassment.

  Her laughter struck me like the clapper of a great bell.

  “Becky!” I cried. “By the Seven, it’s you! I never expected—”

  “You never expected I’d grow so fat, eh?”

  “No, no!” I protested. “It’s not—”

  “You’re a fool, Will Taverner. But that’s not totally unbecoming in a man.” She drew me into the shadow of the stairway where there was privacy, and a small bench as well. We talked for a long time. And at the end of that conversation I thought she looked dissatisfied. Nor could I account for it until she reached between my legs to feel what was there. My cod, though, was a wiser man than I and stood up to greet her. “Well,” she said, “that’s a beginning. Cold dishes aren’t brought back to a boil in a minute.”

  She left me.

  You look unhappy. Becky’s your mam, isn’t she? Now that I come to think of it, there’s that glint in your eye and a hint at that same diabolus that hides at the edge of her mouth. Well she’s a widow now, which means she can do as she pleases. But I will horrify you with no more details of what we said.

  Where’s my pipe? What happened to that pouch of weed? Thank you. I’d be long asleep by now if not for its aid. This is the last trace of the margakasaya left in all the world. With me will die even the memory of it, for there are no elves abroad in the realms of men anymore. They have found parikasaya, “final extinction” you would say, or perhaps “the end of all.” Did you know that am’rta skandayaksa means “deathless elf-group?” There’s irony there, knew we only how to decipher it.

  Maybe I was wrong to kill the dragon.

  Maybe he was all that kept them from oblivion.

  When we had all shared Cakaravartin’s vision of Great Asura and of the giants at labor, their faces stolid and accepting of both their guilt and their punishment, and spoken with Boramohanagarahant, their king, it was almost dawn. Cakaravartin passed around the pipe one more time. “I see that you are determined to come with us,” he said to me, “and that is your decision to make. But first you should know the consequences.”

  Ratanavivicta’s mask tilted in a way that I would later learn indicated displeasure. But Cakaravartin drew in deeply and passed the pipe around again. I was trembling when it came to me. The mouthpiece was slick with elf-spit. I put it between my lips.

  I inhaled.

  At first I thought nothing had happened. The common room was exactly as before, the fire dying low in the hearth, the elkmaid slowly quartering out the air as ever she had done. Then I looked around me. The elves were gone. I was alone, save for one slim youth of about my own age, whom I did not recognize.

  That youth was you.

  Do I frighten you? I frighten myself far more, for I have reached that moment when I see all with doubled sight and apprehend with divided heart. Pray such possession never seizes you. This—now—is what I was shown all these many years ago, and this is the only chance I will ever have to voice my anger and regret to that younger self, who I know will not listen. How could he? A raggedy taverner’s boy with small prospects and a head stuffed full of half-shaped ambitions. What could I say to make him understand how much he is giving up?

  By rights you should have been my child. There’s the bitter nub of the thing, that Becky, who had all but pledged her heart to me, had her get by someone else. A good man, perhaps—they say half the Bridge turned out to launch his fire-boat when he was taken by the dropsy—but not me.

  I have lost more than years. I have lost the life I was meant to have, children on my knee and a goodwife growing old and fat with me as we sank into our dotage. Someone to carry my memory a few paces beyond the emptiness of the grave, and grandchildren to see sights I will not. These were my birthright, and I have them not. In his callowness and ignorance, my younger self has undone me.

  I can see him, even now, running madly after the elves, as he will in the shadowy hour before dawn. Heart pounding with fear that he will not catch up, lungs agonized with effort. Furious to be a hero, to see strange lands, to know the love of a lady of the am’rta skandayaksa. They are fickle and cruel, are the elves. Ratanavivicta snatched me from my life on a whim, as casually as she might pick up a bright pebble from the roadside. She cast me aside as easily as she would a gemstone of which she had wearied. There is no faith in her kind.

  Ah, it is a dreadful night! The winds prowl the rooftops like cats, bringing in the winter. There’ll be frost by morning, and no mistake.

  Is the story over, you ask? Have you not been listening? There is no story. Or else it all—your life and mine and Krodasparasa’s alike—is one story and that story always ending and never coming to a conclusion. But my telling ends now, with my younger self starting from his dream of age and defeat and finding himself abandoned, the sole mortal awake on all the Bridge, with the last of the elf horde gone into the sleeping streets of the city beyond the Dragon Gate.

  He will leap to his feet and snatch up his father’s sword from its place over the hearth—there, where my spear hangs now. He will grab a blanket for a cloak and a handful of jerked meat to eat along the road, and nothing more, so great will be his dread of being left behind.

  I would not stop him if I could. Run, lad, run! What do you care what becomes of me? Twenty years of glory lie at your feet. The dream is already fading from your head.

  You feel the breeze from the river as you burst out the door.

  Your heart sings.

  The moment is past. I have been left behind.

  Only now can I admit this. Through all this telling, I have been haunted by a ghost and the name of that ghost was Hope. So long as I had not passed beyond that ancient vision, there was yet the chance that I was not my older self at all, but he who was destined to shake off his doubts and leap out that door. In the innermost reaches of my head, I was still young. The dragon was not slain, the road untraveled, the elves alive, the adventures ahead, the magic not yet passed out of the world.

  And now, well. I’m home.

  17

  Midnight Express

  Excuse me. This can’t be right.

  Yes?

  According to this schedule, we arrive at Elf Hill Station at 8:23 PM and after a half-hour layover, the train departs exactly two hundred years later.

  Quite right.

  But that can’t be!

  Is this your first time on this route?

  Yes, my company is expanding into new markets. I’m a commercial traveler. I used to cover Indiana and Illinois.

  Well, that explains it. I take it this is your first visit to Faerie? No previous travel experience in the Noncontiguous Territories—Grammarie, Brocielande, Arcadia, et cetera?

  Well … no, but I’ve done a lot of traveling, and I’ve got an excellent record. I won the Daniel L. Houseman Sales Cup three years running.

  Most impressive. An obviously intelligent man such as yourself, then, should have no trouble comprehending the chronologically liberated nature of the night lands, as we like to call them.

  I beg your pardon. Chronologically liberated?

  That’s what I said. You’ll have noticed that physical travel here is particularly dreamlike, that an hour can be spent rushing furiously past a small pond, that a hundred miles can go by in the wink of an eye. That’s because you journey not only physically but temporally—back, forth, sideways in time. Much of the governance of the Territories is managed in that way. Which is a good thing, given how fey most of the officials of Oberon’s court are. I doubt they could deal with matters in a more straightforward manner.

  Phew! You’ll pardon me for feeling dizzied. Things don’t work that way where I come from.

  That’s not entirely true. There are owls.

  Owls?

 
Owls are continuously flying back and forth through time. It’s their nature. That’s why they have that short labyrinthine name: the circle, the recomplication, the straight line. It’s also why they’re nocturnal. Ambichronology is so much easier when nobody’s looking.

  Then that’s why it’s still night, even though we’ve been traveling so long?

  I said that you were intelligent! To differing degrees, it’s always night here. Don’t worry about Elf Hill. You’ll make up the time later. Or earlier—fourth-dimensional grammar is so boring, don’t you think? I trust you have a Baedeker. You’ll want to study it carefully.

  I see I will. Well. That clears things up quite a bit. Thank you.

  You’re welcome. Do you like my breasts?

  I—yes, they’re quite lovely.

  You may touch them if you wish. Yes, like that. Mmmmm. Both hands, please.

  They’re amazingly soft and … warm, aren’t they?

  It’s the fur. You haven’t said anything about my nipples.

  They’re beautiful too. And pink. Startlingly so.

  All my leathers are pink. Look at the pads of my paws. Exactly the same.

  Wow! Those are some claws.

  Three inches long. Needle sharp. Retractable. They can slice through steel. They can gut a man from crotch to sternum in less time than it takes to say it. You took your hands away.

  I wouldn’t want to get, ah, overly familiar with you.

  I’ll let you know if you’re getting fresh. You’re not entirely unattractive, you know. For a mortal.

  Really, I’m nothing much. Just a commercial traveler. Nobody special.