The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2016

by Paula Guran

  They both looked at me. That’s what we’d heard, the old man said, but we weren’t sure if we could believe it. And anyhow, isn’t that mind reading?

  So many of them say that. I don’t know how I do it, I told them, and neither does anyone else. None of the professors at the Studium could explain it. According to them, it’s not possible. All I know is, I can see my way into someone’s head—literally, I stare at him hard, and the wall of his skull seems to melt away, and then it seems to me that I’m standing in a library. On three sides of me there are shelves, floor to ceiling, spaced about nine inches apart; on the shelves are thousands and thousands of scrolls of parchment, like in the Old Library at Marshand. Each scroll is in a brass cylinder, with a number and the first line of the text embossed on the cap. Don’t ask me how, but I know what’s in each one. I reach out my hand—I actually have to lift my arm and reach out physically—and it seems to me that I pull down the scroll I want from the shelf and unscrew the cap; then I walk over to the window (there’s always a window) because the light’s better there, and there’s a chair. I sit down and unroll the scroll and look at it, at which point the memory becomes mine, just exactly as though it had happened to me. Then I roll up the scroll and put it under my arm; the moment I’ve done that, the whole illusion fades, I’m back where I started, and no time has passed. The memory stays in my head, but the client or the victim will have forgotten it completely and forever; won’t even remember that he ever had that memory to begin with, if you see what I mean. Anyway, I said, that’s what I do. That’s all I can do. But I’m the only man alive who can do it, and as far as I know, nobody’s ever been able to do it before.

  The old man was dead quiet for maybe five heartbeats, and his face was frozen. And you do this for money? he said.

  I nodded. For a great deal of money, yes.

  I could see he didn’t believe me. That’s pretty remarkable, he said, and it does sound quite a lot like magic. Is there any way—?

  I can prove it? I gave him my unsettling grin. Sure, I said. I can’t prove it to you, of course, but I can prove it, to someone else who you trust. I’ll have to damage you a bit, I’m afraid. Up to you.

  He actually went pale when I said that. He asked me to explain, so I did. I told him, think of a memory you share with someone else. I’ll take that memory out of your head. Then I’ll describe it, and the person you shared it with will confirm that it’s authentic. Of course, you’ll have forgotten it forever, so please choose something you don’t particularly value.

  He gave me that horrified look. You’re sure you don’t read minds, he said. I told him, I was sure. Can’t be done, I told him. Not possible.

  Well, he whispered with the young man for a moment or so, and then he told me about an afternoon in early autumn, twenty years ago. A boy falls out of an apple tree and cuts his forehead. He starts crying, and the noise disturbs an old black sow asleep in the shade; the sow jumps up and trots away snorting; the boy stops crying and laughs.

  I recited what he’d told me back to him, slowly and carefully. He gives me a worried grin. Will it hurt? He’s joking. I nod, tell him I’m afraid so, yes. Before he can answer, I’m inside his head.

  (This is where I’m uncertain. What I see, every time I go through, is always the same. It’s very much like the Old Library at the Studium, except that the shelves are a much darker wood—oak, I think, rather than red cedar—and the window is to the left, not the right, and the ceiling has plaster moldings, but vine and grape clusters rather than geometric patterns, and the line of the floorboards is north-south, not east-west. Maybe it’s just that my mind has taken the Old Library as a sort of template and embellished it a bit, and that’s what I’d prefer to believe. Another explanation, however, has occurred to me. What if someone else once found themselves in this place I go to, and it made such an impression on him that when he got given the job of designing the Old Library, he based his design on what he’d once seen?)

  The usual. I always know which scroll to pick, which is just as well, because although there’s writing on the scroll-caps, it’s in letters I can’t read, though I do believe I’ve seen something similar before, on a worn old stone somewhere; anyhow, they’re no help at all. I grab the scroll, undo the cap, tease out the parchment with thumbnail and forefinger; over to the chair, sit down; a boy falls out of an apple tree—ah yes, I remember it as though it were yesterday. There are dark clouds in the sky and I can smell the rain that’s just about to fall. I tread on a windfall apple and it crunches under my foot. The cut on the boy’s head is on the left side, about an inch long. I feel contempt, because he’s crying. I roll up the parchment, and—

  It does hurt the client, so I’m told. Not as bad as amputation or childbirth, but much worse than having a tooth pulled.

  The old man had gone white, and was leaning back in his chair as though he’d been spread on it, like butter on bread. I ignored him. I turned to the young man and described the memory, slowly, in exact detail, stuff that wasn’t in the old man’s summary. His eyes opened very wide and he nodded.

  You sure? I asked him. Quite sure, he said. That’s just how I remember it.

  I’d left out the contempt. I have my faults, but I’m not a bad person really.

  I turned to the old man. He looked blank. I don’t remember that at all, he said.

  Indeed. Memory is such a slippery thing, don’t you think? You think you remember something clear as daylight, but then it turns out you’ve been wrong all along; it was autumn, not winter, the horse was brown, not white, there were two men, not three, you heard the door slam after he came out, not before. Unreliable; but my unreliable memory is good enough to get you condemned to death in a court of law, provided I sound convincing and nobody spots the inconsistencies. And, furthermore, after a while memory is all there is—once a city stood here, or hereabouts; once there was a man called such-and-such who did these glorious or deplorable things; once your people slaughtered my people and drove them out of their own country. Only forget, and who’s to say any of it ever happened? What’s forgotten might as well never have existed.

  Think of that. If there are no witnesses, did it really ever happen?

  You know, of course. Even after the last witness has died, you still remember what you did.

  That’s why you need me.

  So I told them my terms of business. I remember the expression on the old man’s face when I got specific about money. The young man gave him an oh-for-crying-out-loud look, and he pulled himself together. You must be a rich man by now, the old man said. I just grinned.

  Right then, I said, tell me what you want.

  The old man hesitated. Just a minute, he said. You can take the memory out of someone’s head, fine. So, do you remember it?

  Of course, I told him. I just proved that.

  Yes, he said, but afterwards. Does it stick or just fade away?

  I kept my face straight. It sticks, I said. I have one of those special memories, I told him. Show me a page of figures, just a quick glance; five years later, I can recite it all perfectly. I remember everything.

  He didn’t like that one little bit. So I pay you to get rid of one witness, and in his place I get another one. With perfect recall. That’s not a good deal.

  I scowled at him. Total confidence, I said. I never tell. I’d rather die.

  Sure, he said. You say that now. But what if someone gets hold of you and tortures you? They can make anybody talk, sooner or later.

  I sighed. Oddly enough, I said, you’re not the first person to think of that. Trust me, it’s not a problem. It just isn’t.

  He was looking extremely unhappy, but I couldn’t be bothered with all that. Take it or leave it, I said. That’s how I do business. If you don’t like it, don’t hire me. I couldn’t care less.

  The young man leant across and whispered something in his ear. He whispered back. I could tell they were within an ace of getting really angry with each other. I made a big show of yawni
ng.

  The old man straightened his back and glowered at me. We’ll trust you, he said. It’s like this.

  Believe me, I’ve heard it all, seen it all. I remember it all. Everything. If you can imagine it, I’ve got it tucked away in the back of my mind somewhere, vivid as if it were yesterday, sharp and clear as if I were standing there. Murder, rape, every kind of physical injury, every variation and subspecies of the malicious, the perverted, the degrading, the despicable; sometimes as victim, sometimes as perpetrator, surprisingly often as both. And, given the slippery nature of memory, does that mean I’ve actually suffered those things, done those things? Might as well have. Close enough, good enough. Do I wake up screaming at night? Well, no. Not since I learned how to distill poppies.

  Turned out all they wanted me to fix was some trivial little fraud. There were two sets of accounts for the Temple charitable fund, and by mistake the younger man had let the auditor see the wrong ledger. No big deal. The auditor had told the old man, thirty per cent and I’ll forget I ever saw anything.

  I was relieved. The way they’d been carrying on, I expected a triple murder at the very least. I remembered to look grave and professional. I can handle that for you, I told them. But—

  But?

  I smiled. The price just went up, I said. And then I explained; as well as a really good memory, I’m blessed with an aptitude for mental arithmetic. If they were stewards of the White Temple charitable fund and they stood to save thirty per cent of their depredations through my intervention, the very least I could charge them was double the original estimate.

  The old man looked shocked. So much dishonesty and bad faith in this world, his face seemed to say. That wasn’t an estimate, he said, it was a fixed fee. You fixed it.

  I grinned. It was an estimate, I said. Maybe your memory’s playing tricks on you.

  We haggled. In the end, we settled on three times the original estimate. When I haggle, I haggle rough.

  They hadn’t asked how I would go about doing it. They never do.

  Actually, it was a piece of cake. The auditor was a priest, and it’s easy as pie to get a few moments alone with a priest. You go to confession.

  “Bless me, Father,” I said, “for I have sinned.”

  A moment’s silence from the other side of the curtain. Then: “Go on,” he said.

  “I have things on my conscience,” I said. “Terrible things.”

  “Tell me.”

  Oh, boy. Where to start? “Father,” I said, “do we need to have this curtain? I don’t feel right, talking to a bit of cloth.”

  I’d surprised him. “It’s not a requirement,” he said mildly. “In fact, it’s there to make it easier for you to speak freely.”

  “I’d rather see who I’m talking to, if that’s all right,” I said.

  So he pulled the curtain back. He had pale blue eyes. He was a nice old man.

  I looked straight at him. “If I close my eyes,” I said, “I can see it just as it happened.”

  “Tell me.”

  “If I tell you, will it go away?”

  He shook his head. “But you’ll know you’ve been forgiven,” he said. “That’s what counts.”

  So I told him, a round half-dozen memories. I think one of them was actually one of mine. He kept perfectly still. I think he’d forgotten to breathe. When I stopped talking, he said, “You did that?”

  “I remember it as though it were yesterday.”

  “My son—” he said, and then words must have failed him. I could see he was suffering. I’m no angel, but I couldn’t see any point in crucifying the old boy any further. I did the stare, and there I was inside his head, and it’s never easy but these days it’s nice and quick. I got what I came for, along with everything I’d just said to him, and then we were sitting opposite and he had this blank look on his face—

  “Father?” I said.

  He blinked twice. “My son,” he said. I felt sorry for him. He’d just come round out of a daze, with no idea of who I was or why the curtain was drawn. “Well?” I said.

  “Say six sempiternas and a sacramentum in parvo,” he replied, without turning a hair. “And don’t do it again.”

  I admire a professional. “Thank you, Father,” I said, and left.

  My family and I never quite saw eye to eye. You know how it is. They had strong views about morality and duty and the reason why we’re here; so did I, but they didn’t coincide all that often. My family gradually came to the conclusion that they didn’t like me very much. I can sympathize. As I think I’ve said, I’m no angel. Of course the faults weren’t all on one side, they never are. But most of them were on mine. No point in denying that.

  I remember how it all started. My sister and I were on our way back from town; we’d been sent to take five fleeces to the mill, but instead of hurrying straight back like we’d been told, we hung around until it was nearly dark. That meant we’d be late, a very serious crime, unless we took the forbidden short cut through Hanger copse—so naturally, that’s what we did, and we made good time. We were through the thick of the wood and coming out into the fields. There was no path in Hanger, so there were places where you had to make your own way by pushing through. I ducked under this spindly little copper beech and bent a low branch out of the way; I remember telling myself, don’t let go of the branch or it’ll spring back and smack her in the eye. Then it occurred to me that letting go and smacking her in the face would be a good joke (I was, what, nine, ten years old) so I did just that. I didn’t look round. I heard this terrible scream.

  The stupid branch had hit her in the eye all right. It was all blood, welling up and pumping out of this impossible hole in her face. Then she covered it with her hands, still yelling. I realized what I’d done. I felt—well, you can imagine. Actually, no, you can’t.

  “Stop yelling,” I said. “It’s only a scratch. Here, let me look.”

  She shied away, like the calf you can’t catch. “You did it on purpose.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “You did it on purpose. I know. I saw you.”

  I hate the truth sometimes. “I didn’t,” I said. “It was an accident. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault.”

  You can’t really lie to someone who knows the facts. She’d seen me; holding back the branch just long enough to give her the impression it was safe to take the next step forward, then opening my hand, relaxing my grip, like an archer loosing an arrow, deliberate, precise, accurate. She’d witnessed it, she understood what I’d done, and she was going to tell on me.

  I remember stooping down. There was this stone. You could kill someone with a stone like that.

  “I can’t see,” she said. “You did it on purpose. You did.”

  I think I would have killed her, there and then. I was looking at her, I remember, not as my sister, a human being, but as a target—just there, I’d decided, above the ear; that’s where the old man in the village got kicked by the horse, and he died just like that. I was staring at the exact spot; and then the side of her head seemed to melt away—

  And that’s a curious thing, because at that age I’d never seen a library, never even seen a book; heard of them, vaguely, like you’ve heard of elephants, but no idea what they looked like or how you used them. Goes without saying, I couldn’t read. But I could; at least, I could read the books inside her head, well enough to find what I needed, the moment when I let go of the bent branch and it came swinging at her, filling her field of vision and blotting it out in red. I knew what to do, too. It came perfectly naturally, like milking a goat or killing a chicken. Like I’d been doing it all my life.

  “Are you all right?” I said.

  “My face hurts,” she sobbed. “I can’t see.”

  “What happened?”

  “A branch jumped back and hit me in the eye.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  I remembered I was still holding the stone. I opened my fingers
and let it drop. “It’ll be all right,” I remember telling her. “We’ll get you home and then it’ll all be just fine. You’ll see.”

  It turned out that I was the hero of that story. They couldn’t save the eye, of course. It was too far gone. But everyone said how well I’d handled the situation, how calm I was, how grown-up and sensible. And what the hell: why not? The bad thing had already happened, it was gone, past repair. If the truth had come out, it’d have torn our family apart, just think of all the damage it’d have done, to all of us, right down the line forever. There’s too much unhappiness in the world as it is.

  Anyhow, I think that was me. Pretty sure.

  After all, what is truth but the consensus of memories of reliable witnesses? I think He (the fire-god, the Invincible Sun, whoever, whatever; I’ve had so many genuine mystical experiences, all totally convincing, most of them hopelessly contradictory) put me on this Earth as a sort of antidote to the truth—you know, like dock leaves and nettles. Under certain circumstances, I can do this amazing thing. I can reshape the past. I can erase truth. It sounds pretentious, but I regard it as my mission in life. Truth is like love; it’s universally lauded and admired, and most of the time it just causes pain and makes trouble for people. Obviously, I can’t be there for everybody, and there are some things so big and blatantly obvious that I can’t do anything about them—the Second Social War, for example, or the Great Plague. But I stand for the wonderful revelation that the past is not immutable and the truth is not absolute. This ought to inspire people and give them hope. It doesn’t, of course, because the essence of my work is that nobody knows about it, apart from the people who commission me (and half of them don’t remember doing so, for obvious reasons), and they ain’t telling.

  The memory of a priest, however, is a real bitch. People confess to priests. I guess being a priest is the closest anybody normal ever gets to being me. They have to open their minds and their memories to all the poisonous waste of Mankind—imagine being a priest with a memory like mine, it’d kill you. They have their faith, of course, which is a wonderful thing. It must be like those gravel beds they build in watercourses, to filter out all the crap. Breaking into a priest’s memory is, therefore, not something I enjoy.