“I wonder how much fresh Powder they gave him,” said Piros. “It’s stronger fresh. He probably sees alabaster towers and gardens of flowers in full bloom where we see shapes that could as easily be clouds. And perhaps even boats on the water.” He took a deep, heavy breath. “That’s what I saw. And it frightened me enough that I never tried the Powder again.”
“We can fetch him back,” said Alaric.
“We can,” said Piros. “But I had no need of Hanio to tell me that the boy knew. Else they would have tossed him into the cave along with us. Hanio was ever a careful man. A good subordinate who never left anything to chance. If he killed you to leave no witness, he would not have spared Rudd.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” said Alaric. “Hanio could have been lying to gain an advantage in the fight. He might have trusted the Powder to befuddle the boy’s mind.” He squinted against the sun, gauging the distance. It would be an easy enough journey with his special power, and if he seized the boy quickly enough, while he was too surprised to struggle, the return would be easy, too. “Piros,” he said, “he’s your son.”
Piros laughed softly, ruefully. “He’s the Powder’s son. And I, too, have had enough of managing his prison.” He took another deep breath and then turned away from the south, the city, his son. “Let him have his heart’s desire.” He started down the north slope, toward the gaunt men’s cluster of huts.
Alaric trotted after him. “Piros …”
The caravan master kept walking. “Isn’t this a good enough end to your song, minstrel?”
“A perfect end for a song,” said Alaric. “But not for a man’s life. Will you let him die out there because the Powder is twisting his mind?”
“If you go after him,” said Piros, “he will become your charge. Is that what you want?”
Alaric swallowed hard. “Piros … I can’t let him die.”
Piros shook his head. “I didn’t take you for a fool, minstrel, but it seems you are.”
A heartbeat later, Alaric was walking south a few paces behind Piros’s son. “Rudd!” he shouted.
The youth barely glanced over his shoulder. He seemed unsurprised to see Alaric.
“Come back,” said the minstrel. “There’s nothing out there. There’s no city.”
“You listened to my father too much,” said Rudd. “He knew there was a city, but it frightened him, and so he denied it.”
“It’s an illusion,” said Alaric. “A trick of the desert. I’ve seen it nearly every day, and it always disappears eventually.”
“It won’t disappear for me.” He sped up his pace, as if to catch it before it vanished.
Alaric stopped and let the space between himself and Rudd increase. The city was there, ahead, tantalizingly indistinct, but still there. Piros had said it was an illusion, and Alaric had accepted that, but what if it was something else? What if there was a city—some sort of city—out there? What if Rudd was the one who was right? He gauged its distance and leaped toward it in his own special way, a leap the equivalent of a man walking half a day across the desert. When he looked back, he could no longer see Rudd, but ahead, the city remained as far off as before. Another leap. Two. Three. At the tenth, the city was gone, though the sheet of water that had surrounded it still spread enticingly across the desert in the distance. A few more leaps showed the water continuing to recede.
Illusions, all illusions. Now he knew for certain, and he felt disappointed as well as a trifle embarrassed that he had let himself think otherwise even for a short time. He returned to the spot he had left, now a few score paces behind Rudd, and he ran to catch up with the boy.
“Still here?” said Rudd.
“I’ll walk with you,” Alaric said, “and when the city disappears, we’ll go back.”
“Go back to what?” said Rudd. “Hanio runs the caravan now; he won’t want me there.” He glanced at Alaric. “Yes, I know my father is dead, and so are you. You’re an illusion, but here you are. Why should I believe in you and not the city?”
Alaric did not try to answer that. Instead, he said, “I’m here to take you back to the land of the living. To your uncle’s inn, if you wish.”
Rudd fumbled at a fold in his robe and brought out a leather pouch such as might hold coins. But when he dipped his fingers into it, they came out with a pinch of gray powder which he licked away. “I am in the land of the living,” he said. “And the city will welcome me.”
“Rudd …”
The boy held the pouch out toward Alaric. “Can the dead enjoy the Powder?”
Alaric shook his head.
“That’s a shame,” said Rudd. “There’s plenty of Powder in the city.” He closed the pouch and tucked it away.
“There’s plenty of Powder in the caravan,” said Alaric. “Come back to it with me.” He caught at Rudd’s arm just above the elbow.
Rudd stopped abruptly and stared at the hand gripping his arm. “No illusion at all,” he murmured. He jerked his arm free and pushed the minstrel away. Then he took a few steps back, pulled a knife from his sleeve, and thrust it toward Alaric.
Alaric skipped sideways, fighting his instinct to vanish.
“So you can die twice,” said Rudd, and he lunged forward.
An instant later, Alaric found himself in the North. At his feet was the pallet of stone with its scattered human bones. He took a deep breath and leaped back to a spot a dozen paces behind the boy. “Rudd!” he shouted. “The city doesn’t want you. It sent me to keep you away!”
The boy twisted around. “Liar!’ he shouted, and he waved the knife. “It’s always wanted me!” Then he turned back to the south and resumed his march.
“Rudd!”
The boy did not respond this time.
“Rudd,” Alaric said more softly. And he watched for a long time while the boy’s figure dwindled in the distance and the phantom city beckoned beyond him, unreachable. When he had become no more than a dot in the broad desert landscape, Alaric returned to the gaunt men’s cluster of huts.
Piros was there alone with the camels, inspecting the lashings of the many bags of Powder. He looked up as Alaric approached. “He wouldn’t come?”
Alaric shook his head.
“I didn’t think he would.” He patted the neck of the camel beside him. “We’ll leave now, We’ve been gone long enough.”
Alaric looked to his left and right. “The harvesters?”
“Run off,” said Piros. “Perhaps back to their prince, with some story about our magic, if they dare. He’ll lay it off to the Powder, I’d guess. Or perhaps they’re just out in the desert, waiting for us to go. No matter. We don’t need them anymore. We have enough of the Powder for this trip. And I’d wager they’ll have forgotten it all by this time next year.”
“And you and I?”
“Back to the village to resume our journey. Pack up a bit of that goat meat for tomorrow.”
Alaric tore some scraps from the bones and wrapped them in a sack that had formerly held bread. He tucked the sack into some netting on Folero’s side. By the time he finished, Piros was atop his own camel.
“How many of the others know, do you think?” Alaric said as Folero knelt to let him mount.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Piros. “They’ll follow the one who comes back.” His lip curled, but there was no humor in the expression. “Do you think this is the first time someone tried to kill me?”
Alaric frowned.
“It’s a rich trade,” said Piros. “And the men are paid well at the end. But sometimes someone wants to be paid even better. Before today, Hanio was the one who took my side. I thought … Well, no matter what I thought. Folero is waiting for you.”
Alaric mounted, and the camel lurched to its feet with the odd combination of awkwardness and grace that Alaric had become accustomed to. “You’re leaving your son out there,” he said. “Perhaps the two of us could persuade him together.”
“I have no son,” said Piros. He tugged at his camel
’s lead, and the animal began to amble northward. The others, linked to it by a line of ropes, began to move in its wake. He looked back at Alaric and gestured for him to follow. “But that might be mended, given time.”
As he rode at the rear of the miniature caravan, Alaric could not help thinking that Piros was not speaking of taking a new young wife.
All the next day, as they moved northward, every time the minstrel looked back, he saw the phantom city on the horizon, beckoning, but he stayed with Piros and tried not to think of the boy who had answered its call but would never reach it. The song was already shaping itself in his mind, a poignant tale, fit for long winter nights by a blazing fire far, far away from the desert. Someday, he might be able to sing it without wondering what else he could have done to change its ending.
Lisa Tuttle
Lisa Tuttle made her first sale in 1972 to the anthology Clarion II, after having attended the Clarion workshop, and by 1974 had won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of the Year. She has gone on to become one of the most respected writers of her generation, winning the Nebula Award in 1981 for her story “The Bone Flute”—which, in a still-controversial move, she refused to accept—and was nominated for the Arthur C. Clark Award in 1993 for her novel Lost Futures. Her other books include a novel in collaboration with George R. R. Martin, Windhaven, the solo novels Familiar Spirit, Gabriel, The Pillow Friend, The Mysteries, and The Silver Bough, as well as several books for children, the non-fiction works Heroines and Encyclopaedia of Feminism, and, as editor, Skin of the Soul: New Horror Stories by Women. Her copious short work has been collected in A Nest of Nightmares, A Spaceship Built of Stone, Memories of the Body: Tales of Desire and Transformation, Ghosts and Other Lovers, and My Pathology. Born in Texas, she moved to Great Britain in 1980, and now lives with her family in Scotland.
Here a proper young nineteenth-century gentlewoman who is acting in the unlikely role of “Watson” to an eccentric Sherlock Holmes-like figure must delve into the mystery of a woman who is both missing and not missing, and dead but not dead.
THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF THE DEAD WIVES
Lisa Tuttle
The calling card rested dead center in the gleaming silver salver on the credence in the hall. I saw it the moment I entered, but the thrill I felt at the prospect of a client was tinged with anxiety because I should have to deal with this person on my own. Where was Mr. Jesperson?
We had grown bored, waiting indoors day after day for something to happen, and had gone our separate ways that morning without agreeing a time for return. It was, I knew, unfair of me to feel annoyed—it was not his fault. I could use his absence as an opportunity to prove myself an equal—or more than equal—partner.
Miss Alcinda Travers was the name on the card. I wondered how long the lady had been cooling her heels, and if the sight of a female detective would please her, but most of all I wondered if she had brought the genuine, challenging mystery we had been longing for. I checked my appearance in the gilt-framed mirror on the wall, tucked back a strand of hair that had escaped from the coil at the back of my neck, and adjusted my waist. My costume was sadly old and shabby, but if it was unfashionable, at least it might be seen as businesslike. I looked, I decided, neat, composed, and serious; I could only hope that I would satisfy Miss Travers’s expectations.
Moving the card to the “quarter past” position to signal that I was with the client, I went into the room that served as both parlor and office, and was startled to discover a child waiting there alone.
She was masquerading as an adult, in an expensive, ill-fitting pink silk dress with an excess of flounces, and a hat that was simply absurd, but the serious, anguished look on her face convinced that me her visit was no joke, so I pretended to have been taken in by her deception and spoke to the adult she wished to seem. After introducing myself to Miss Travers, and apologizing for keeping her waiting, I asked her business.
“I want you to find my sister.”
“Her age?”
“Seventeen and three-quarters.”
“Name?”
“Alcinda Travers.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I thought that was your name?”
She flushed. I heard a faint rustling sound and saw it came from her clutching at a brown-paper parcel in her lap. “No. I’m sorry. I should have said … I … I wasn’t expecting to be asked, and I don’t—I didn’t—that is, I had one of Cinda’s cards, and I didn’t think it would matter—”
“It doesn’t matter at all, my dear,” I said gently. “I am simply trying to establish the facts. If your sister is Alcinda, you are—?”
“Felicity Travers. Alcinda is—was—is my half sister, actually, but she has been more like a mother to me. I can’t believe she’s gone. I never imagined she would leave me. I can’t believe it, still, even though it has been a month. A whole month!” Twisting her hands, she bit her lip and fell silent.
I shifted in my chair. “She went missing a month ago?”
“Not missing. Well, not exactly. But it was a month ago that it happened. That she … she … she didn’t wake up one morning. Nobody could understand why. It was completely unexpected. She wasn’t ill. She was never ill. And she was so happy. Excited, I should say. She had a secret, something was about to happen, some sort of adventure, but she wouldn’t tell me what; she said she would explain everything later—“afterwards”—but afterwards it was too late, because in the morning, in the morning …” She shook her head helplessly. “She never woke up.”
I waited for a moment before prompting: “Your sister died in the night?”
She stared at me, outraged. “She is not dead!”
“I beg your pardon. When you said she did not wake … What happened next?”
“The doctor was called, of course, but not even he could find a pulse. He said it must have been her heart, some weakness like the one that killed her mother although we had never seen a sign of it. But he said she was dead, so it must be true. Even I believed it.”
Some people know how to tell stories; others must have them dragged out of them in bits. “And when did you realize that she was not dead?”
“When I saw her last week.”
“Last … week? But she had seemed to be dead for a whole month?”
She nodded. I found that I was massaging my temples in just the way I used to see my mother do when my sister was attempting to justify some outrageous scheme.
“What happened after the doctor said she was dead and before you saw her again?”
She shrugged. “Why, just what you might expect. A lot of crying. We were all terribly sad. Friends and relations came to the house the next day and brought us food no one wanted to eat. I sat with her in the parlor all night, thinking that she must wake up; she could not really be dead. She didn’t even look dead, just like she was sleeping. But no matter how I chafed her hands and whispered her name, she just lay there, perfectly still, and in the morning, they took her away and buried her.”
“She was buried? You are quite certain of that?”
“I didn’t see it if that’s what you mean. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. But my father was there, and he wouldn’t lie. I have seen her grave although my stepmother did not wish it; she wanted to forbid me going to the cemetery after what happened to Cinda.”
“What happened to Cinda?”
She looked cross. “I just told you.”
“I mean, how was that connected to visiting the cemetery?”
“It wasn’t. That’s just the way our stepmother thinks. If you can call it thinking. Cinda went to visit her mother’s grave practically every day in the months before she died, so maybe that’s why she died? It’s crazy, that’s all, and if she had stopped my going there, I would never have seen Alcinda.”
I felt my heart sink. Once, I would have found her story of great interest, but not now.
“You saw your sister last week, in the cemetery where she was buried?”
She nodde
d vigorously.
“I suppose she wore a veil?”
“Yes!”
“Yet, although you could not see her face, you were quite certain of her identity?”
More nodding.
“She was standing above her grave?”
“No. By her mother’s grave—that’s where she always went. I had brought some flowers to put on it because I thought that would please Cinda, if she knew, more than my putting flowers on her grave.”
“It didn’t occur to you, that the figure you saw could be a ghost?”
“Of course. That’s why I didn’t dare speak to her, or go closer, because ghosts never let you touch them. It was only when I saw the man that I knew she was really there. That she must be alive.”
“What man?”
“Why, the man who took her away! I don’t know who he was, but I can show you just what he looked like.” She ripped open the brown paper to reveal a square black book which she opened and handed across to me.
I looked at a pencil portrait of a heavily bearded fellow with narrow, squinting eyes and a snub nose. It was not a flattering likeness, but there was a spark of life to it that made me think it true.
“You drew this from memory?”
“Gosh, no, not me! Alcinda did it. That was her book, and she kept it very close. She used to show us her drawings, but not recently, not what she was drawing or writing in that book. I never saw it until after—after she was gone.”
“But it was the man you saw?”
“It was him. I saw him as clearly as I see you now, and I was nearly as close. He walked up to Alcinda, and said, “Mrs. Merle!” Then he said something else that I couldn’t understand—I don’t think it was English—and he took hold of her arm, and she didn’t resist.”
She took a deep breath. “You can’t touch a ghost. So, unless he was a ghost as well, she must be alive. I ran after them, but just as I was about to catch up, he turned round and looked at me.” She clasped her hands beneath her chin and drew her shoulders in, hunching down in the chair. “He glared at me in the most horrible way, I can’t tell you how horrible it was! And he said—his voice was soft and gentle, but that made it worse—he said, ‘Go away, little girl. Don’t bother me unless you are ready to die.”
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