The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2016

by Paula Guran

  The hell with it; I walked to the next town, sat down in front of the mercantile, and started to play. Not even a hat at my feet—I didn’t actually possess a hat—just music, for its own sake. To begin with, people were reluctant, because there was no obvious place to drop their coins. But once two or three stuivers were gathered together in a little cluster that ceased to be a problem. The store owner came out and I thought he was going to move me on; instead, he brought me out a bowl of tea and a loaf of bread, quietly so as not to disturb me. I only stopped when my lips got sore, by which time the pile of coins was too big to hold comfortably in one hand. Best part of a quarter angel; more than a skilled man earns in a week.

  I slept, by invitation, in the storekeeper’s comfortable hayloft, and started playing again as soon as it was light. It helped that I can remember every tune I ever heard. On the third day it rained; but that wasn’t a problem, because the local lord-of-the-manor sent a cart for me. He had guests for dinner, and if I wasn’t busy . . . A month later, I’d moved to Cerauno, which is the third largest city in Scheria, and was playing indoors, to people who’d come specially to hear me, and who handed in their coins at the door rather than dropping them on the ground. Three months later, I was rich. Again.

  I seem to have this knack of hauling myself up by my bootstraps, usually when my mind is on other things.

  Practically every night in Cerauno I dreamed about the skinny girl. Sometimes she was in the dark looking for me, with a knife; sometimes I met her in the street or beside the river. Sometimes she had a knife, other times it would be a rope or an axe. The one constant was that she wanted to kill me.

  I heard the news of the coup back home from the ambassador himself, no less, at a reception. He confessed that he was terrified at the thought of being recalled, since he was clearly identified with the old regime. I asked him who was behind it all; he looked around to make sure nobody was listening, and whispered a few names. Two of them (father and son) I recognized.

  I reminded myself that I was a professional, and my clients’ secrets were sacrosanct, even if the clients in question had sent assassins to murder me. If I were you, I told the ambassador, I’d stay here where it’s safe. Those clowns won’t last long, sooner or later they’ll cut each other’s throats and everything will go back to normal. Don’t go back, whatever you do. He gave me a sad smile. My wife and daughter are still there, he said, in the City.

  I thought about that while pretending to sip my tea, though the bowl was empty. If he refused to go back, they’d kill his family. If he went back, they’d kill him and his family as well, because now they were in power they could afford to be particular about loose ends. I know; it was only my opinion, and what do I know about high-level politics? But I’d come to like the ambassador; he’d fallen asleep in the front row of one of my recitals, on a night when I was particularly uninspired—he clearly had taste, and I like that in a man.

  He turned away to grab one of those rice-cakes-filled-with-pureed-seaweed that the Scherians fondly imagine are edible. I stared at the side of his head, and then he turned back. He was frowning.

  Tell me, ambassador, I said. Are you married?

  He looked at me as if I’d just asked him for the square root of seven. No, he said.

  I smiled at him. If I were you, I said, I’d stay here in Scheria where it’s safe. He nodded. I might just do that, he said.

  As soon as I could, I left the reception, went home to my comfortable lodgings in fashionable Peace Square, and was violently sick. I can only assume it was the pureed seaweed.

  I’d been in Scheria for about six months when I started hearing rumors. News from the Old Country was hard to come by; my only reliable source was my friend the ambassador (Scheria didn’t recognize the new regime, so he stayed on; he was invited to receptions, but had to borrow money to live on) and all he knew came from refugees and exiles. Apart from what he told me, I heard the usual wild and improbable stuff, a mixture of impossible atrocity stories and political gossip, scurrilous in tone and often biologically impossible. But just occasionally I heard something that rang true. For instance: I heard that the society charlatan who used to claim he could read minds had mysteriously disappeared just before the coup, but lately there was a new mind-reader who’d taken over his old practice; she was in favour with the regime, who made no secret of her supposed powers. They used her for interrogations and to administer a particularly terrifying form of punishment—artificially induced amnesia. The victim, so the rumor went, was left with no memories whatsoever, not even his name. It was the proverbial fate worse than death, and apparently the new government kept her extremely busy. Her? Oh, yes, my informants assured me, this mind-reader’s a woman, actually just a young girl, but nasty as a sackful of adders. Also, they’ve put a price on the old mind-reader’s head; ten thousand angels dead, twenty-five thousand if they get him alive. Of course, it’s all nonsense, but—

  And my mother used to tell me I’d never amount to anything. Twenty-five thousand angels. It’s enough to make your head spin. No human being could conceivably be worth that. It made me wish I still had a family, so I could turn myself in and make them all rich.

  I remember the first time I saw her.

  I remember it two ways; in one version, I’m sitting on a low wall, talking to my best friend. The other way, I’m standing. Apart from that, it’s the same, up to the point where I say, “I think I know her brother,” in a soft whisper. From then on, the two versions diverge.

  In one version, I just stand there, bashful and hopeless. In the other, I go up to her, introduce myself. She gives me that look nice girls are supposed to give to importunate strangers. Then I ask if her brother is so-and-so, who was at the Studium at such-and-such a time. Why, yes, she says, and smiles, and he’s mentioned you.

  In the other version, I reflect bitterly on my lack of education, which meant I’d never been at some fancy school with the brothers of pretty girls. Meanwhile I watch my best friend exercise his legendary charm, and think: oh well.

  Footnotes: at this time, I’d been in the City for just under a year. I’d started exercising my talent in a controlled and profitable manner; I was making a lot of money, and spending it on playing the part of an affluent merchant’s son—no attempt to hide the taint of trade, but a surprising number of genuine young noblemen are happy to associate with parvenus, if they’re witty and presentable and prepared to buy the drinks and pay for the damage. Nobody asked me searching questions about my antecedents, because it was assumed they couldn’t possibly be more disgraceful than a rich wine-merchant for a father. My friend had recently left the military academy and was loosely associated with a good regiment (but not in such a way as to cut unduly into his free time).

  She had a friend, who I didn’t like much. The four of us went to various social events. It wasn’t a happy time for me.

  The news that I’d been supplanted in my profession didn’t bother me much, per se; I had no intention of resuming my practice if I could possibly avoid it. I much preferred flute-playing, and Scheria was starting to grow on me, like some sort of lichen. It was my supplanter herself who bothered me, that and the price on my head. If I was safe anywhere, it was Scheria—war hadn’t been formally declared, but the border was closed, and one of my compatriots would’ve been noticed and dealt with very quickly; the Scherians are good at that sort of thing. Even so, twenty-five thousand angels has a sort of inner momentum that tends to transcend politics. One thing was certain. I didn’t dare go back and investigate this woman, even if I’d wanted to.

  Instead, I played the flute. I’m not sure what got into me. Maybe it was the worry and the stress, or perhaps it was just Clamanzi getting used to my mouth and fingers. I got better and better. It helped that I was encouraged to tackle a wider repertoire—the great Scherian classics, Gorgias, Procopius, Cordusa; you can’t put an infinite amount of soul into the folk tunes I’d picked up back home, but if you put together Clamanzi’s technique and Pro
copius’s flute sonatas, there’s a sort of alchemical reaction that refuses to be confined by the spiritual poverty of the intermediary, even when he’s me. Also, people who know about music say that the great performer draws on his experience, which is just another word for memories; of those I had plenty. Even the greatest virtuoso—even Clamanzi—can only draw on his own experience, which limits him. Unless he happens to have a head stuffed full of other people’s lives, sorrows, joys, wickedness, weakness, and misery. I reached a point where I could let the music and the memories talk to each other. A hundred strangers provided the soul, Clamanzi operated the keys, I stood there while it happened, bowed when it was over, and took the money. I remember one reception, where I’d played for a bunch of ambassadors and ministers. Some fool came up to me, an old man, he looked like he’d been crying. He told me he’d heard the great Clamanzi play that sonata twenty years ago and had avoided hearing it since, because he was afraid to spoil the memory; but I had been better than Clamanzi, I’d found new depths, new resonances—

  I’m afraid I was quite rude to him.

  There was one piece I flatly refused to play; Chirophon’s Lyrical Dances, which was what the band played at a dance we all went to, around the time my best friend’s regiment was posted south. It was while they were playing the second movement and the four of us were sitting it out on the veranda that I realized how much she loved him. I remember there was a beautiful glass decanter on the table; I looked at it and saw that if I broke it on the side of the table, I could cut his throat with the sharp edge of the neck before he had a chance to defend himself. I reached for it, my fingertips registered the smooth, cold surface; and I realized that there was a better way. Which is how I come to have his memories of her as well as my own. On the way back from the dance I stole them all; and the next day his regiment marched for the southern frontier. A month later he wrote to me; he was getting love letters from some female he’d never heard of—hot stuff, he said, you had to wear gloves to read them. He thought it was a huge joke, and should he write back? Write care of me, I replied; I’ll deliver the letter and take a look at her for you. I don’t know if he ever got that, because he was killed very soon afterwards.

  The politics took a turn for the worse; enough to scare the Scherians into peace talks. A high-level delegation from the new regime would visit Scheria in the hope of preventing further escalation, and all that sort of thing. Naturally, there would be events, receptions. Naturally, I would be hired to play for them.

  I got as far as packing a bag. Two bags, five—I realized I had far too much stuff I couldn’t bear to be parted from, which was another way of saying that this time, I wasn’t prepared to run away.

  So I did the next best thing. I went to see my friend the director of the Conservatory—in Scheria, the country’s top musician is an ex officio member of the Council of State, can you believe that? He was pleased to see me, sent for tea and honeycakes. “You saved me a job,” he said. “I need to talk to you about the gala recital for the peace delegation.”

  I gave him a weak grin. “It’s sort of about that,” I said. “I can’t do it.”

  He looked at me as though I’d just cut off his fingers. “Not funny,” he said. I took a deep breath. “There are some things about me that maybe you ought to know,” I told him.

  And I explained. The story of my life. He sat perfectly still until I’d finished, and for a moment or so after that. Then he said, “But you haven’t actually done anything wrong in Scheria.”

  I frowned. “Not yet.”

  “Don’t mess with me,” he snapped. “Since you got here, you’ve been a blameless, productive member of society. Yes? I need you to tell me the truth.”

  I nodded. “Apart from lying about who I am.”

  “That’s not a crime,” he said quickly, “unless you’re on oath. So, the plain fact is, in Scheria you’re clean.”

  I nodded. “Like that matters,” I said. “Weren’t you listening? As far as this delegation’s concerned, I’m an enemy of the State. Also, I have information about two of the delegates that would kill them very dead if it ever got loose. Think about that.”

  He thought, though not for very long. “You wouldn’t consider—”

  “No. I’m definite on that. I don’t tell.”

  He shrugged. “Before you go, do me a favor and make me forget you told me that, because it’s my duty as a Counselor to go to my colleagues and inform them that you have vital information that could win us the war, and all they have to do is torture you till you spit it out.” He frowned. “You can really do that? That’s amazing.”

  For a moment I didn’t know what to say. “Thanks,” I said. “But the point remains. As soon as they see me, they’ll hit the roof. They’ll assume—”

  Suddenly he grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Won’t they just.” He leaned forward and gave me a slap on the back that loosened three teeth. “How does it feel to be a secret weapon?”

  It goes to show how stress mucks up your intellect; I hadn’t seen it in that light before. “All right,” I conceded. “But the moment that old devil sets eyes on me, my life won’t be worth spit.”

  “We’ll protect you.” He nodded several times; habit of his. “Oh, you bet we will.” He stopped and shook himself like a wet dog; I saw he was sweating, but he was better now. “Right,” he said, “that’s that dealt with. Onwards. I was thinking, we start off with the Nicephorus quartet in C.”

  I went home—I had a nice place, opposite the Power and Glory Stairs—bolted the door, shuttered the windows, and lit the lamp. The first thing I saw was this mirror.

  I bought it for half an angel, and I got a bargain; a genuine silver-backed glass mirror, Mezentine, about three hundred years old, there’s only five or six in all of Scheria. The man who sold it to me grinned: present for the wife? Daughter? Girlfriend? I just smiled at him. I bought a mirror—the best that money could buy—to remind myself of something.

  It was not long after she died, and I was called out to a surgeon, a household name. I can’t tell you what it was about, not relevant. But in his house he had a mirror, a cheap brass-plate job, entirely out of place in his sumptuously decorated home. He saw me looking at it and told me the story; how, when he was a young Army sawbones, he got caught up in some actual fighting and took an arrow in the gut. He knew that unless he got the loathsome thing out quick, he’d be dead, also that there was nobody competent to do the job within thirty miles. So he set up that mirror where he could see it clearly, and operated on himself. He nearly killed himself, and he was sick as a dog for a month, but he survived, and had kept the mirror ever since, to remind himself that he was a genius for whom anything was possible.

  And that, of course, set me thinking.

  I was in the money at that time, so I bought myself a mirror; silver-backed glass, Mezentine, about three hundred years old, I paid twenty angels for it at an auction. I hired a carpenter to build a special cradle for it, so it could be swiveled about and adjusted to exactly the angle I wanted. Then, one night, I barred all the doors and windows and lit a hundred oil lamps—I wanted to be able to see what I was doing. I had no idea if what I planned on doing was possible—just like my client the surgeon, I guess; as with him, though, it was a matter of life and death, because I knew I couldn’t carry on much longer, not with those memories inside my head.

  I fiddled with the mirror until I had a clear view of the side of my own head. Then I stared, really hard—and I was in.

  Exactly the same usual thing: a library, with shelves of scrolls. I knew, as I always do, which one to reach for. I picked it out, unrolled it. The page was blank.

  Two days later, I sold the mirror. I got thirty angels for it, from a collector. Born lucky, I guess.

  My friend the director and I eventually compromised on the Procopius concerto and the overture to The Triumph of Compassion (the Euxinus arrangement, not the Theodotus). I cancelled all my engagements for a week, and practiced till I could barely st
and up. Not that I needed to, but it helped me feel like I was doing something. I’m guessing that, to this day, there’s a company of the Third Lancers who cover their ears and whimper every time the band strikes up the Triumph overture; the poor devils ordered to guard me night and day must’ve heard the wretched thing a couple of hundred times.

  (In case you’re wondering, I didn’t wipe my friend’s memory after all; he got squeamish. He said he’d rather change his mind than have someone change it for him. I was mildly offended, but made nothing of it. I figure a friend has the right to offend you at least once.)

  The concert was held in the auditorium of the Silver Star Temple, my second favorite after the Imperial; I wondered why, since it seats less than a thousand, until I remembered that at the Silver Star, there’s an underground passage from the green room straight to the stage; the performers are out of sight of the audience until the screens actually come down. At the Imperial, you walk down the main aisle, and a man with a knife who didn’t care about his future could have a go at you, and there’d be nobody to stop him. The choice of venue was considerate, but mildly terrifying; but the acoustic at the Silver Star is just right for the Procopius, especially the slow second movement.

  The other thing about the stage at the Silver Star is that you’re quite high up, which means you’re on a dead level sight line with the best seats in the house (six rows from the front)—you can see them and they can see you. I remember peering out into the sea of faces just before I took my stand. I found them quite easily: the old man and his son. They were talking to each other, heads turned, not looking at the stage. Then, as I lifted the flute to my lips, the old man looked up and saw me, and he went white as a sheet. Then it was my cue, six bars in, and I forgot about everything else and started to play.

  Clamanzi was at the top of his form that day. Actually, I don’t rate the Triumph overture all that much—melodrama—but the Procopius is one of the supreme achievements of the human race (so very strange, that a really nasty piece of work like Procopius could have produced something so sublime) and I defy anybody who claims to be any better than an animal not to be completely carried away by it. I wasn’t really aware of anything else until I’d played that last long string of dying thirds. Then, when the music stopped, in the split second of dead silence you always get before the applause starts, I sort of woke up and looked down at the audience. I was looking for the old man and his son, but my attention was distracted. I saw another familiar face, in the row above them.