The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2011 Edition

by Rich Horton (ed)

  “Well, it’s time you learned some proper crafts,” Irrel said. He gestured at the coil of rope. “We’ll start with knots. Do you know any of those?”

  Tyrrel nodded. “Niiv taught me the one to stop a nosebleed with a red thread.”

  “All right, let’s see you do that one—but with a rope.”

  Frowning, Tyrrel picked up the knife and cut off an arm’s-length of rope. He drew it into a loop, then crossed the standing part and brought it back up through the loop, drawing it tight. He regarded the knot for a moment and then held it up to his father.

  “That’s the knot your sister taught you?” Irrel asked.

  Tyrrel nodded. “I think so. She only showed me once.”

  “And does it work?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Maybe to stop a nosebleed, but it won’t hold for much else. Untie that and let me show you a real knot.” Tyrrel held the rope out to his father, but Irrel shook his head. “No—I’ll tell you what to do, and you tie the knot. Hold up the rope and let one end drop. The part you’re holding is the standing part. Between that and the end is the bight. Do you have that?”

  “Yes, father,” Tyrrel said, rolling his eyes a little.

  Irrel took a breath and went on. “Drop the end under the standing part and bring it back over. Now draw it back through the loop you’ve made.”

  “That’s the same knot I did,” Tyrrel said.

  “It’s not—and that’s the difference between a knot that holds and one that betrays you. Now make a loop big enough to go over a cow or a horse’s head. Mark the point where the loop closes, then tie the knot I just showed you right there. Now make the loop again, so that it crosses just below the first knot—crosses under. Bring the end around and over the standing part, now pass it under and up through the loop.”

  Tyrrel’s hands moved hesitantly, finally pulling hard at the end: It slipped the length of the rope and his knot vanished. “Why can’t you just show me?” he asked.

  Irrel shook his head. “You have to feel it in your hands.”

  “Is that what makes a wizard?” Tyrrel asked, looking at his hands. “Did Uncle Allel have clever hands as a boy?”

  “Try that knot again,” Irrel said. He repeated his instructions, slowly, and this time Tyrrel’s knot resolved into a figure eight. “Do you see? That knot brings the loop closed, but the first one keeps it from closing too tight on the animal’s neck.”

  Tyrrel frowned. “That didn’t feel like making a charm.”

  “It wasn’t—not yet. The craft comes from doing it right: from tying it so well that your hands move the rope themselves, and you just step out of the way.”

  “What will it do if I do it right?”

  Irrel reached out to touch the loop of rope his son had tied. “That’s the Lamb’s Knot. It’ll keep an animal gentled so long as it’s around him.”

  “Oh,” Tyrrel said. “What about the other knots? What do they do?”

  “There’s no end to them,” Irrel said. “There’s clever knots that will slip under a thief’s fingers or bite like a snake, and wise knots that know the hand that touches them before they loosen or hold. But you be careful, and not just with knots. When you work a craft, it works you too.” He looked Tyrrel in the eyes. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Tyrrel said after a moment.

  Irrel held his son’s gaze for a moment and then stood. “Here,” he said, placing his hands flat against Tyrrel’s elbows. “Push against my hands as hard as you can, as though you were trying to spread your wings like a bird.”

  Tyrrel nodded and began to push. Irrel had to work harder than he had expected to keep the boy’s arms at his side, but after a few dozen heartbeats Tyrrel gave up. “Now what?” he asked.

  Irrel released the boy’s arms and they rose up of their own accord, as though he had been charmed. He looked from one arm to another in amazement.

  “D’you see now?” Irrel asked. “Whatever you craft, you’re always pushing against something—and it pushes you too.”

  “I understand,” Tyrrel said, in the deadly serious tone he used when he was trying to be grown-up. He frowned. “If I learn knots well enough, do you think I could do magic? Wizard magic?”

  “A wizard’s just a crafter who doesn’t make anything useful. Your mam could craft a candle that brought warmth to anyone in the home, a shoe that made a horse never stumble and jam that let you remember the day the berries were picked: That’s magic enough.”

  Tyrrel said nothing. After a few moments he turned away, untied his knot and began to tie it again, his brow furrowed.

  Irrel watched him for a while and then stood. “When it feels like a craft, you’ll know,” he said. “When that happens, tie a half-dozen or so more. There’s like to be some noise tonight, and I want the cattle to stay in their places.”

  When he went to the barn he could see the work Niiv had done, repainting the hex signs. She had been doing them for years, since she had been about Tyrrel’s age, and while he could still discern the shapes of his originals underneath they were clearly her work: much more ornate, with his simple sunwheel shapes fractured and filigreed, and more colorful as well. He admired them for a moment and then took his spade to the northeast corner of the barn. He dug a hole a hand deep and then took from his pouch one of four thunderstones—flat stones shaped like ax-heads, which had been left buried in the ground where lightning bolts had struck—and sang:

  Roll, thunder, roll

  Down from mountains tall

  Where lightning touched once

  Let never lightning fall.

  With haying time so soon past, the barn might as well be a box of tinder—and he had seen enough to expect fire in the sky tonight. He went sunwise from corner to corner, burying a stone and singing the charm at each one. When he rounded the northwest corner he saw Niiv up on the ladder, freshening the paint on that side’s hex signs. When she saw him she stopped her work and came down the ladder.

  “Did Sifrid talk to you this morning?” she asked.

  Irrel frowned. “Did you not ask him that?”

  She laughed. “I think you scared him, father. I haven’t seen even his shadow since dinner-time.”

  “Well. Yes, he did talk to me.”

  “And?”

  He took a slow breath. “And you already know what he said, so what questions could you have of me?”

  “Are you happy for me?” she asked, wrinkling her nose with exasperation. “Do you approve? Will you bless our wedding?”

  “This is not some fancy then? You haven’t just cooked him up a love-apple, or twisted your belt to get him hot?” Like her brother, she had always been skilled at the children’s charms: Like her mother, hers had served to get the village boys running around after her like puppies.

  She crossed her arms. “Father. No. This is real—we both want this. And we . . . ”

  He let her silence hang in the air. “Your mam could have taught you a crafting for that,” he said quietly. “I haven’t given you everything she would have, I know. But the wise woman owes me for winter corn—she could . . . ”

  “It’s what I want,” Niiv said.

  Irrel nodded. “It’s love, then? Truly?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “His father is the best goldsmith in Rebenstod. We could craft a charm that would make me the most beautiful woman there is.”

  He smiled. “You are the most beautiful woman there is.”

  She smiled too, sighing. “I know, Father. But really.”

  “And do either of you know any handfasts?”

  Niiv shrugged. “Sifrid doesn’t. I’ve tied a few, with boys from the village, but . . . well, they weren’t ever meant to last.” She looked away, towards the farm-house, then back to him. “I thought . . . I was hoping you could teach us the handfast you and mother tied.”

  Irrel said nothing, holding his hands in front of him. He curled his fingers and then straightened them again, slowly. “No,” he said at la
st. “That’s past me now—and besides I needed your mam to tie that.”

  “Of course,” Niiv said.

  He let his hands drop, put them on his hips. “You know, when your mam and I were young we spent our winter nights learning handfasts. There was none of that sledding around to farm and village you have today.”

  “I know, Father.”

  “There are plenty of fine handfasts I could teach you, ones that will last you a lifetime.” He brushed his hands against the front of his pants. “I’ve got to finish burying these thunderstones and then get on my other work. I’ll see you at supper.”

  When he passed by the porch he saw that Tyrrel was not there. There were about a dozen knotted harnesses lying abandoned on the ground—the first few tangled messes, the rest perfectly tied Lamb’s Knots. He sighed and set out to find out how Sifrid was doing with the fence.

  He followed the fence’s circuit until he heard voices ahead, one a young man’s and one a child’s—answering the question of where Tyrrel had gone. Irrel looked at his hands and began to move them, stiffly at first, to do the charm his son had done that morning. He had not crafted it since he himself had been a boy, but he found his fingers remembered the motions—held up flat, then turned inwards, then coiled into a ring, bowing, dancing, tucked away into fists—as he quietly chanted the charm:

  Ten little men standing straight

  Ten little men open the gate

  Ten little men all in a ring

  Ten little men bow to the king

  Ten little men dance all day

  Ten little men hide away

  Irrel could feel the craft working through him as he did the charm, and unlike his son he did not need to repeat it to keep it going. Sifrid was leaning against the fence, his face covered with dust and his shirt damp with sweat; Tyrrel sat on the fence-post, curled like a gargoyle as he interrogated the young man.

  “Will you and Niiv live in Rebenstod?” Tyrrel was asking.

  “I expect we will, if we get married,” Sifrid said.

  “Is it a big place? Are there wizards there? Did you ever see my uncle there?”

  Sifrid turned to look at the boy. “He passes through from time to time. And it’s not as big a place as some, but it’s bigger than others. Bigger than your village.”

  “Does it have a schoolhouse?”

  “Several.”

  Tyrrel nodded sagely. “In the schoolhouses there, do they just teach you children’s crafts or do they teach you to be a wizard?”

  “I don’t know,” Sifrid said. He held his fingers splayed out in front of him. “I was never in a schoolhouse: I was apprenticed as soon as I could hold a graver. Every time my hands grew, my father wept.” He was silent for a moment. “But you don’t need a school to teach you crafting, or your uncle for that matter. I’m sure your father could teach you anything you might want to know.”

  “Father?” Tyrrel asked. “All he ever does is farm-craftings. He won’t even do knots, because of his fingers.”

  “Maybe now, but he did a great one once—he and your mother, that is. Didn’t you ever notice how you’re never short of water here? How spring comes a little sooner than in the other farms, and summer stays a little later—fruits ripen without rotting and keep without spoiling? That’s from the handfast they tied at their wedding. It bound them to each other in a way no other handfast had ever done—bound them to this farm and it to them, bound even time itself. My father said it was the finest working he ever saw—as great as anything the Margrave or the Thaumaturge ever did.”

  “Is that why you want to marry my sister?” Tyrrel asked. “To learn our magic?”

  Sifrid was silent for a moment. “No,” he said. “I want to marry her because I love her.”

  Tyrrel jumped down from the fence-post. “I think that would be a good reason to marry somebody,” he said.

  A growing noise had been coming from up the road, and now it resolved itself into the tread of dozens or hundreds of men, marching together in ragged rhythm: soldiers, as many leaning on their spears as carrying them, and each with a holed coin sewn over his heart to protect him. Not the Margrave’s things, Irrel could see. These had to be the Prince’s men.

  “Come back to the house,” he called to Tyrrel and Sifrid.

  “I want to watch.”

  “Tyrrel. To the house, now.”

  The boy threw him an angry look and then began walking slowly toward the house. Irrel kept his eyes on the Prince’s soldiers; they were not nearly so wild as the Margrave’s beasts, but desperate men could do desperate things.

  “Karten told me they’re letting people shelter inside the walls at Rebenstod,” Sifrid said quietly. “We could be there by nightfall if we rode.”

  “I’ll tie the holdfast,” Irrel said. “We’ll be safe.”

  “Yes, I know,” Sifrid said. “I just thought—”

  “We’ll be safe.”

  Without another word they went back to the farmhouse. Irrel and Niiv brought the animals from the pasture back into the barn, dropping the tally sticks into the pail to keep from counting the cattle too closely. Then it was time for supper: Irrel sat on a bench facing his daughter, eating his bread and soup in silence, while Tyrrel sat beside Sifrid, peppering the young man with questions.

  They sat around the small fire for a while after supper while Niiv did the dishes; then it was time for Tyrrel to go to bed. Irrel opened the bedcloset and crouched to tuck his son into the quilts, reciting the night-charm:

  Touch your collar

  Touch your toes

  Never catch a fever

  Touch your knee

  Touch your chin

  Never let the burglar in

  Tyrrel giggled when his father tapped his chin, then smiled sleepily. “Do you think Uncle Allel will ever come to see us here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Irrel said. “He’s a busy man.”

  “Could we go to visit him? It’s not right, you know, that I’ve never seen my uncle, and I’m almost a man.”

  Irrel shook his head. “I can’t be traveling, you know that. I’ve the farm to care for, and in the winter the roads are no good.” He took a breath. “But you might, perhaps—now that you’re almost a man. Or perhaps he’ll come to Rebenstod to see your sister, when she marries, and you can see him then.”

  “Yes,” Tyrrel said, his eyes half-shut. “Yes, I think so.”

  Irrel crouched there for a few moments more, listening to his son’s breathing settle into the slow rhythm of sleep; then he rose, with some difficulty, and went back out into the long hall. It was nearly dark, lit only by the embers of the small fire in the main room, and he did not know where Sifrid and Niiv had gone. Sighing, he went out the main door and up the path to the gate.

  He took the previous night’s holdfast from where he had hung it on the fencepost and began to untie it; his clawed hands struggled with the knot, plucking at it and fraying the rope. Holding the end of the rope toward himself he made an overhand loop and then, his arm shaking, passed the end through it and up behind the standing part. He had made the base of the holdfast, a Sheep’s Tail knot, and the shaking in his arms was gone.

  By the time he passed the end down through the loop again his fingers were softening like butter, and he began to more fully elaborate the knot. A few more twists and loops and he had made a holdfast that would hold against the Margrave and the Thaumaturge both, but he did not stop. The rope danced in his hands, twisting around and around itself and slipping over and under the loops he had made, and he knew that if he only kept on going he would tie a knot that would be greater even than the handfast he and Eliis had made: a knot that would hold everything just as it was, bind them all and hold fast against time and chance. He held the end of the rope in his hand and took a breath.

  The night passed, as all nights eventually do, but it never grew very dark, with spells, lightning and dragon-fire lighting the sky. Unable to sleep, Irrel went to the summer kitchen, kicked at the c
oals in the firepit until he exposed a glowing ember and lit a candle from it. Then he went to the storage room and hauled up the trap-door to the cellar before going carefully down the stairs. In the dim light of the candle it took him a while to find what he was looking for: a few jars of blackberry jam, hidden away in memory of the day he and Niiv had gone foraging in the bush and Eliis had preserved the few berries they had brought home. He went back upstairs and sat on the bench by the cold ashes of the fire, licking the dark jam from his fingers.

  When true dawn finally arrived he went outside and surveyed the farm. The barn was entirely intact, even the hex signs unmarked, and the stable door still held. He walked down the path to the gate and kneeled down to untie the holdfast, feeling the craft dissipate as he loosened the knot.

  “Morning find you!” Allren was coming down the road toward him, the front of his hat pulled down low to block out the morning sun.

  “And you.”

  Allren stood on the other side of the gate, his hands on his hips. “Did you hear? The Prince’s men prevailed, if you can believe it. Why, they say the Thaumaturge himself took part in the battle.” He tilted his hat upwards as a grin crossed his face. “The Margrave is overthrown!”

  Irrel undid the last loop and hung the now-slack rope on the fencepost. He stood up and nodded slowly, brushing the dirt from his knees.

  “Well, there’s that.”

  STANDARD LONELINESS PACKAGE

  CHARLES YU

  Root canal is one fifty, give or take, depending on who’s doing it to you. A migraine is two hundred.

  Not that I get the money. The company gets it. What I get is twelve dollars an hour, plus reimbursement for painkillers. Not that they work.

  I feel pain for money. Other people’s pain. Physical, emotional, you name it.

  Pain is an illusion, I know, and so is time, I know, I know. I know. The shift manager never stops reminding us. Doesn’t help, actually. Doesn’t help when you are on your third broken leg of the day.