“I’ve seen it in movies,” I say. “I can handle it.” I love those sorts of movies. “You think I can hatch a baby dragon and rear it as my own?”
“The Dragon Jade,” says Mr. Strange, “has as a section of his spine the entire mountain range of the Himalayas. If he were actually to wake up fully, one of his wings would rip India in half. His right claw pokes out somewhere in Shanghai; one nostril is Krakatoa. Speaking of Krakatoa—you’ve heard of the big climate change in 535 AD? I guess not. The Dragon Jade had a nightmare. He stirred in his sleep. Fire shot out through that one nostril. The sun was blotted out for months—read your ancient history—droughts, famines, bubonic plague, the collapse of Byzantium—it was the end of classical times, and the world was plunged into the Dark Ages. That’s what a single misplaced breath can do; that harks back to TWO: cause: effect. This isn’t Siegfried versus the Giant Iguana. Get serious.”
I don’t talk back for a while. I’m thinking. Despite the supposed opening of my third eye, much of this is still going in one ear and out the other. This is all clearly a lot more than I can chew, even if I am some kind of divine avatar. There’s a big difference between conjuring up a lottery ticket and fighting a dragon the size of a continent. And maybe Mr. Strange is a reincarnation of Ganesha, one of the world’s most popular deities, but who am I?
We stop at a food stall so Mr. Strange can buy a bag of sugarcane. He doesn’t suck the pieces; he just wolfs them down whole. He keeps walking; I can barely keep up and I wonder whether he will let me ride again. “Where are we going?” I ask him.
“A hero must have his weapon.”
We turn down a side alley. It must be three in the morning by now, but people still jam the street and several of the shops are just opening up for business. An old Chinese lady is setting up baskets of fruit as another winds up the steel blinds of her grocery. A restaurant is hanging up whole boiled chickens in a glass case, getting ready to dole out huge helpings of chicken rice. Next to it lies a glittering array of cameras and electronics. “I’m lost,” I say. I’m assuming this is somewhere near Yaowaraj, which is the Chinatown of Bangkok, but I know that it is nowhere near the orphanage, and I wonder just how far I have ridden on the back of the god.
“I know you are,” he says. “Who wouldn’t be? You were blind, but now you see.”
“See what?”
“That we are all lost.”
* * *
We stop in front of a pawnshop. There is a red neon sign in Chinese; I wouldn’t have been able to read the sign as there was neither Thai nor English, but from the window display, with its used electric guitars, broken necklaces, and weather-beaten knickknacks, I can tell what kind of place it is. I’m about to ask why we’re going in when suddenly it becomes clear.
We step into the shop; an electronic bell goes ping, and a huge man shuffles to the front. He seems to be a farang, but he speaks Thai with the most upper-class accent I’ve ever heard. The shop, which couldn’t have been more than ten square meters when viewed from the outside, has become huge. It is lined with books, CDs, DVDs, and all sorts of repositories of knowledge like ancient banana-leaf manuscripts and ancient Roman scrolls. In one bookcase, hundreds of little clay tablets are stacked, filled with a fidgety, squidgy, wedgy kind of writing. It’s not a pawnshop at all.
Or is it?
Music is playing. It’s music I can’t put my finger on. It sounds familiar and strange at the same time: a woman sings with an orchestra (Father Duvalier relaxes with CDs of opera, so that’s what I think it must be), but her voice keeps soaring higher, higher, higher until it passes out of the range of human hearing, and yet I know it’s still going on.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” says the proprietor. I see he has been weeping. “It’s the opera Beethoven would have written, about the nature of deafness, about love, about . . . oh, it’s positively semiotic!” He looks up at us, doesn’t seem to really see us until Mr. Strange clears his throat. “Yes, daring, isn’t it, you say, stretching all the way into the range of canine hearing like that. Inaudible, you complain! But it wouldn’t have made any difference to Beethoven.”
“Customer!” says Mr. Strange.
“May I help you?” says the fat farang. “We’ve got a run on James Joyce right now, The Secret Key to the Puns in Finnegans Wake. And the Lost Plays of Euripides seem to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance, don’t you know. And of course, the Unwritten Beethoven Quartets is a perennial favorite . . .”
“Later, Bob,” says Mr. Strange. “Mr. Halliday, Mr. Krit.”
“Krit, you said! Oh you mean Kris! Ah, you’ll be wanting the dagger. Exquisite workmanship. Very ancient. Feel the raw power.” He reaches under the counter and pulls out a kris. My kris.
“That’s mine!” I say. “But Father Duvalier keeps it in his office.”
Mr. Strange says, “My boy, the orphanage has been through hard times. When was the last time you saw the notorious knife that came in the basket you arrived in?”
“Why—” He was right.
I look at the twisty thing. It’s maybe nine inches long, and it glitters, it writhes, it’s alive. It occurs to me that my dagger may have a soul. That it may have lived with me before, in the other life, the one I cannot yet remember.
“Perhaps you recall,” says Mr. Strange, “the time when you were eight years old, and the orphanage didn’t serve supper for three days? The big stock market crash? Don’t blame good old Father Duvalier. He has every intention of redeeming the dagger. But now, he won’t have to.”
Mr. Halliday holds out the kris to me, handle first. I clutch it for the first time. That handle: it molds itself to my hand. It is alive. It’s warm, not like metal, but like an old friend. “Ooh,” Mr. Halliday says, “he knows you.” He offers me a cookie from a jar on the counter. It tastes like chicken.
“I was going to warn you,” Mr. Strange says. “Mr. Halliday’s day job is food critic for the Bangkok Post. Don’t eat anything here unless you’re expecting the unexpected.”
“I see you remember the episode with the dragon’s fin soup,” Mr. Halliday murmurs with a certain ruefulness mixed with nostalgia. I bite down on the cookie again, and the next bite tastes like french fries.
“Next time you come,” says Mr. Halliday, “let me know in advance. I’ll order the oyster wontons from next door. You will think you’ve gone to heaven.”
“This isn’t a pawnshop,” I say, “and you’re not a pawnbroker.” I turn to Mr. Strange, desperately seeking confirmation. “Well, it’s true! Pawnbrokers are wizened old men who look at your earrings and tell you they’re worthless and cackle as they dole out a few miserable baht. This man, who’s as round as the whole world, and who seems to know everything . . . I think he’s one of . . . one of the FIVE!”
And Mr. Halliday begins to laugh heartily; when he laughs, he’s like a jelly on springs, but it’s a kindly laugh and it makes me want to laugh too. “The force is strong in this one,” he intones in an uncanny imitation of Darth Vader. Then, switching to his soft-spoken, normal self, he says, “You’re right. This isn’t a pawnshop. It’s a library that contains all the missing knowledge of the world. All the music Mozart didn’t have time to finish. All the unmade movies still rotting in development hell in Hollywood. It’s all here. All you have to do is know what to ask. Now, put away the knife before you poke someone’s eye out.”
In the distance, I hear a bell. “Matins!” I say. “The brothers are being called for the pre-dawn vigil. It’s almost time to get up.”
“No time to waste, then.” Mr. Strange takes me in his arms and hoists me to his shoulders—like the father I never had. He leaps into the air and sort of unfolds himself, and the ceiling suddenly gives way—
And yes, I’m on the back of the elephant once more, but we’re high above Bangkok. Far to the east, the Temple of Dawn rises in silhouette above the Chao Phraya River, and the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha begin to glimmer in the twilight; the expressways twine and in
tertwine in a jumble with the elevated Skytrain, as to the west rise gaudy skyscrapers, some painted in rainbow colors, some topped with pseudo-Babylonian hanging gardens or Venetian cupolas, interspersed with clusters of spiky gold pagodas. Below me, the streets are not exactly springing to life, because they never really sleep. As we hover over the main road that connects to the alley that connects to the orphanage, I see the yellow-robed monks walking in single file, their begging bowls held under their robes, moving slowly as the early-morning devotees come forth from homes, from shops, from the vegetable market, standing in their path with folded palms, waiting for their offerings to be accepted; the dek wats scurrying behind the monks, staggering from their tote bags filled with alms, and this whole saffron-colored processional snaking down the street inside a long tunnel of utter silence and tranquility while the rest of the city jangles and honks and hawks and hustles. Mr. Strange spreads his ears like sails, catching the hot breeze, and he flies low, majestically, more like a zeppelin than an elephant; the wind cushions him.
The city in miniature sparkles; the world’s problems seem distant for the moment. But I know I can’t rest easy.
“What’s the plan?” I crouch on Mr. Strange’s neck and whisper just above his ear, and the wind almost blows me off.
“The plan,” Mr. Strange says, “is up to you. I haven’t come to lead you, but merely to hold up a signpost from time to time. It’s up to you to save the universe, not me. It’s up to you to find teammates and build up the expedition. There’s no instruction manual, but there’s a lot of fantasy novels, even translated into Thai, and of course you’ve seen all those movies. There’ll be princesses to rescue, treasure to unearth, and gut-wrenching sacrifices you’ll have to make so you can achieve maturity. And before you can even think of the Dragon Jade, you’ll have to work off those demerits, but I suspect you can do that as you go along.”
Then, in one of those abrupt disjunctions that I’m now starting to get used to, I find us standing at the entrance to the orphanage one more time. I can hear the monks intoning the matins service from the chapel, and I know that the boys in my dorm are going to be woken up in a few minutes and I have to get inside quickly. But there is still so much more to find out, so much more that I need to know—can’t we talk a little while longer?
“See you in class,” says Mr. Strange.
“Wait! Mr. Strange!”
“Can’t. I have a grungy apartment in Upper Sukhumvit. Washed-up writers teaching English in orphanages are not well paid, you know. I have to go by Skytrain; flying in the daytime’s much too conspicuous.”
But something is nagging at me. I have to ask. “Mr. Strange, you’ve explained all the numbers from zero to seven . . . except for SIX.”
It seems to me that dawn stops in its tracks. My heart just about stops beating; I’ve never felt so much sheer terror before. Mr. Strange’s face freezes. This is not a metaphor. I mean that tears form on his cheeks, harden instantly, and break off like icicles; it takes him a few moments to return to normal temperature.
“It’s not for me to explain that part,” he says. For the first time, it is almost as if words fail him. “I am a creature of the light, a son of heaven. It’s not good for me to talk about Les Six.”
“But who are they?”
“You’ll learn soon enough, Krit. For now, it’s enough to know that they’re the Bad Guys.”
And he’s gone.
DEJI BRYCE OLUKOTUN
Between the Dark and the Dark
from Lightspeed
Two hundred ships moved through the stars, leaving an iridescent trail of transmission beacons in their wake. Five billion kilometers long, the beacons stretched all the way to Earth, a desiccated and shaken planet that the passengers once called home. Sometimes simple messages from the ships arrived in the data. After a long time, images came and—after an even longer time—clips of the passengers going about their lives. But the vast distances meant these clips were rare.
Normally an image arriving on Earth was cause for celebration, because it meant the crew was still alive, or at least the ship’s systems were still functioning. Such moments affirmed they were still following their route to a habitable planet that could save mankind. But Steward Mafokeng recoiled from her module, and the image recently downloaded from the Lion’s Mane.
“You think we should retire the ship?” she asked her fellow steward. The other steward was on the lunar base, while she was on Earth, buried twenty stories underground, protected against the torrential storms.
Steward Hutchins nodded his head on her communication module. “Clear evidence of cannibalism. Look at the missing hand. It was intentionally severed.”
“The wound seems to have healed.”
“Cauterized, I think. Look at the captain.”
Mafokeng looked at the woman bringing a detached finger to her lips, as if about to eat it. The fingernail on the brown flesh was painted a dull gray. “How do we know that finger is from the missing hand?”
“What does it matter? They’re eating fingers. That is cannibalism. We must assemble the stewardship council.”
Thin, tall, and without a hint of congeniality, everything Steward Hutchins said always felt like a judgment.
“You’ve run the checks?” Mafokeng asked. “The image isn’t doctored?”
“There’s no evidence of tampering.”
“And you’re confident we can rule out murder.”
“We cannot rule out murder—”
“—in which case, the internal justice system of the ship would punish the offender.”
“Authority on the ship rests with the captain.”
“Not on every ship.”
“Not every ship has a captain, this is true,” Hutchins sighed. “Some are run by consensus or by computer. But Captain Chennoufi is wearing official insignia. The insignia has changed somewhat, of course, from its original picture of a lion—after a hundred years, it would be natural for the heraldry of leadership to evolve.”
“It looks more like a fish than a lion,” Mafokeng admitted. “But she does appear to be the captain. Could it be a mutiny?”
“A possibility. There are many possibilities. All of which we have considered, and not one of them can justify the fact that the captain is about to eat a human finger, and she currently holds authority over the passengers on the vessel. That is a clear violation of the Exploratory Covenant.”
Steward Mafokeng examined the image again, scrutinizing the face of the victim. Difficult to place his ancestry: He seemed to be a mixture of Mediterranean, with full West African lips, a long, slender neck, and eyes that might have been Korean or Japanese. He looked oddly resigned to his fate, raising his mutilated arm in the air over a sort of raised platform covered with shallow dark water. He appeared poised to say something, but it might also have been the pain causing him to grimace. The captain, meanwhile, was gazing triumphantly around her as she held the severed finger aloft like a trophy. Worse, the other crew members in the photo looked celebratory, as if attending an immaculate feast.
Steward Hutchins was correct. The evidence was alarming enough to consider retiring the ship.
“Convene the council,” she said.
* * *
No one hides in the same way. I remember watching my elders being hauled away to the Renewal Pond. Elder Volker was cowering in his own urine as they came for him in an escape hatch. The following year, Elder Amina was hiding under her berth, the most obvious place in the world, when they discovered her. They were intimate lovers who had been born on the Lion’s Mane, and shared every confidence together throughout their short lives, but even though they knew each other intimately they still hid differently, as if they had never spoken about it at all.
There is no shame in being found, you should know. Indeed, the most courageous elders celebrate the moment of their discovery, knowing that the Pond will forever preserve them in our journey. So I was embarrassed when Elder Amina clawed at me as they pul
led her away. And I remember turning my head in disgust as Elder Volker pulled against his restrainers when they dragged him out of his escape hatch, thrashing about until they stunned him into unconsciousness. I felt ashamed at their desperation, as any child would. The Finding brought honor and fecundity to our voyage, and without it we would not survive. Didn’t they understand that?
“You have my eyes, Rory!” Elder Amina shouted on that day, clutching at her bedsheets. “Look in the mirror and you will know!”
But the idea was preposterous to me. I hadn’t spoken to either of them for four years, not since I’d commenced the initiation. None of us children had—we’d been sealed off from them. And we had learned during the mysteries that the seeds of our elders are intermixed by our ship system so that we have no parents and they have no children because all of them are our parents and we are all their children. We prize the health of the journey above everything else, and because I looked so healthy, the other elders and even my young peers always complimented me on my looks, how my face, skin, and hair were the perfect blend of all the elders on the ship. They said I had Elder Miyoko’s thick eyelashes, Elder Anatoly’s compact torso, and Elder Michael’s curly hair, which grew so short that it rarely had to be cropped. To them, I was a marvel of our ship’s gen-gineers. So I did not believe Elder Amina when she claimed I was her child when everyone else aboard considered me their own. Who did she think she was? Did she think she was more important than our journey?
“What a healthy child,” people said as Elder Amina wept from fear in the dark waters of the Renewal Pond. I tried to hide my pity for her as the fight began. “He knows he belongs to our journey,” they said. “Surely he’ll one day be captain!”
* * *
They were the ones who forced us to consider cannibalism. They arrived as crystalline blooms on the mountains, first Kilimanjaro, then K2, McKinley, Denali, and the Matterhorn. It was as if smoked glass covered the peaks. The blooms were impenetrable and, according to the radiologists and chemists, completely inert. They spread down the snowy peaks, cloudy thick crystal, through the plunging gorges and foaming rivers all the way to the mountain’s base. If the blooms were alien, they did not care to communicate. Sensors could not detect any readings inside or out, until the seismic activity began. Elemental earthquakes that shook the mountains and sent shock waves across the land and tsunamis raging through the seas.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 Page 10