Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  The skin of my belly hurt horribly. I twitched my shirt aside and found red-burning skin and the puncture mark. Why, somewhere, during my mad running after I had stolen the horn, I must have blundered through an orb-spider’s web, the thing had bitten me, and I hadn’t even known it until now.

  It wouldn’t kill me. I’d had a bite from one of them before, on the arm. Needles were doing a jerking jig all over me, and my guts ached. I wouldn’t sleep much, I knew. Tomorrow it would become an infernal itch for a while, and then stop hurting.

  I wondered, as if someone had spoken aloud to stab me with the thought, whether I’d ever sleep well again.

  I took out the horn with wobbling hands, unwrapping it from the moss. Oh, the clear splendor, and the shining! Forest daylight flowed into it and was itself a silent music. And the horn was mine. Wasn’t it?

  I raised it to my lips, trembling but compelled. It amazed me—still does—how naturally the body of the horn rests against my body, and my right hand moves without guidance of thought over those three pegs. Did the faraway makers of the horn leave in it some Old-Time magic that even now tells the holder of the horn what he must do?—oh, foolishness; they simply remembered the shape and the needs of a human body, the way the maker of a simple knife-hilt will remember the natural shape of a human hand. But still, still—that kind of thinking and remembering, planning for necessity but also dreaming your way into the impossible until it changes and becomes true and real in your hand, isn’t that a kind of magic? And so, many of us are magicians but have never noticed it; anyway I give you the thought if you’ll have it.

  I did not dare blow into the horn; then I did so in spite of myself, not puffing or straining but breathing gently and, by accident I think, firming my lips and cheeks in what happened to be the right way. It spoke to me.

  It was mine.

  Only one note, and soft, so light was the breath I dared to use. But it was clear and perfect, the sunlight and the shining transformed to sound, and I knew then there was music hidden here that not the mue, maybe not anyone since the days of Old Time, had ever dreamed of until it came into my hands. And, sick and scared and miserable though I was, I knew it was for me to bring forth that music, or die.

  Then I shook with common fright, for what if even that small sound of the horn could travel by some magic around the mountain where the true owner—

  But I was the true owner. It was mine.

  I returned it to the sack and stumbled on down the mountain toward the city. The spider-bite was making me dizzy and slow, a bit feverish. Once I had to stop and heave, all blackness surging around me—any hunting beast could have had me for nothing. That cleared, and I went on. Near the edge of the forest, a hundred yards or so from the stockade, I holed up in a thicket, enough sense left in me to know I must wait for dark and the stockade guards’ supper-time.

  That was a bad hour. I crouched hugging the horn against my middle where the spider-bite jabbed me with fire-lances. I vomited again once or twice. I couldn’t stand it to think of the mue, his friendliness, his human ways, for that would start me wondering what sort of thing I was.

  There are tales of brain-mues. The most frightful kind of all, for they grow up in the natural human shape, and no one knows they are devil-begotten until, perhaps when they are full-grown, they go through a change that is called madness, behaving like wild beasts, or sometimes forgetting who or where they are, seeing and believing all manner of outrageous things until their infernal origin becomes known to everyone and they must be given over to the priests. What if I—

  I could not examine nor tolerate the thought then. It stayed, at the fringes of my mind, a black wolf waiting.

  Yes, a bad hour. Maybe it was also the hour when I started changing into a man.

  * * * *

  The spider-bite was still a blazing misery under my shirt when it grew dark enough for me to move. All I remember about the agony of climbing the stockade is that when I reached the top of it I had to scrounge back out of sight and wait for a patrolling guard to walk on, and then waste my strength cussing his lights and gizzard when he met another guard and they spent ten minutes beating their gums. But that ended, I was in the city, the heavy burden in my sack unharmed, and I sneaked along easily enough to the Bull and Iron, keeping close in the shadow of the buildings.

  I saw a light in Emmia’s window, though it wasn’t late enough for her bedtime, and when I crept into the stable she was there, doing my work for me with a lantern. She’d just done watering the mule team an hour late, and turned to me quick and sore with a finger at her lips. “They think I’m in my room. I swear this is the last time I cover up for you, Davy. What are we going to do about you? Don’t you live here any more, Mr Independent?” I couldn’t answer. It took all I had merely to look at her and try to appear human while I squirmed my sack off and set it on the table floor. I wished there was more shadow. I pulled my shirt open, and even in the dim lantern light she noticed the red patch on my belly. “Davy darling, what happened?” She dropped the water bucket and hurried to me, with no more thought of scolding, or of anything except helping me. “What is it?”

  “Orb-spider.”

  “Davy, boy! You silly jerk, the way you go wandering off where all those awful things are, I swear if you was only small enough to turn over my knee—” and she went on so, quite a while, the warm soft-mother kind of scolding that doesn’t mean a thing.

  “I didn’t goof off, Emmia, I thought it was my regular day off—”

  “Oh, shed up, Davy, you didn’t think never any such thing, why’ve you got to lie to me? But I won’t tell, I said I’d covered up for you, only more fool me if ever I do it again, and you’re lucky it’s Friday, you wasn’t missed.

  Now look, you go straight up to your bed and I’ll bring you a mint-leaf poultice for that nasty bite. The things you get into! Here, take my lantern up with you, I won’t need it. Now you—”

  “Kay,” I said. There was that about Emmia—she was sweet as all summertime, but if you wanted to say anything to her, you had to work a mite fast to get it in. I tried to scoop up my sack without her noticing, but she could be sharp too sometimes, and I was clumsy with the lantern and all.

  “Davy, merciful winds, whatever have you got there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing! There you go again, and the thing as big as a house. Davy, if you’ve gone and taken something you shouldn’t—”

  “It’s nothing!” I was yelling at her, and hurrying for the loft ladder. “If you got to know, it’s some special wood I picked up, to carve something for—for your name day, if you got to know.”

  “Davy! Little Spice!” So here she comes for me all in a warm rush. I swung the sack around behind me before a kiss landed—not on my mouth, where I wanted it, because I ducked, but on my eyebrow anyhow, and anyhow a kiss. Well, “little Spice” doesn’t mean the same or even half as much as just “Spice.” “Please forgive me, Davy, I’m sorry! Me scolding you, and all the time you’re sick with that awful bite. Here!” I looked up, and she kissed me again, sudden-sweet, full on the mouth.

  When my arms tightened around her she pulled away, staring at me deep, her eyes swimming in the lantern-light. She looked surprised, as if nothing like that had ever crossed her mind. “Why, Davy!” she said, dreamy-voiced. “Why, Davy boy…” But then she pulled her wits together. “Now then, straight up to bed with you, and I’ll bring you that poultice soon as I can sneak the stuff and slip away with it. I’m not supposed to be here, you know.”

  I climbed to the loft, not too easily. I was thinking of other things she’d be bringing me, up that ladder. I couldn’t make it seem real, yet my heart went to racing and thundering for other reasons than sickness from the bite and memory of what I’d done to a friend.

  * * * *

  I hid the sack in the hay near my pallet, carelessly because dizziness and fever from the spider’s poison had grown worse. Besides, I had a half-desire to show someone that horn and
tell my story. Who but Emmia? Of all the South District boys I knew—few enough, for I never ran with the street gangs—there wasn’t a one that I thought would understand or keep quiet about it. I could picture myself being called yellow for not killing the mue and wicked for not reporting it…

  A chill shook me as I slipped off my loin rag. I kept my shirt on as I crawled under my blanket, and there’s a kind of blank stretch when my wits were truly wandering. I know I was trying to fold the blanket double for warmth and making a slithery mess of it when a second blanket was spread over me. Emmia had come back so softly that in sickness and confusion I hadn’t seen or heard her. The blanket was wool-soft, full of the special girl-scent of her. From her own bed, and me a dirty yardboy, and a thief. “Emmia—”

  “Hush! You’re a bit fevery, Davy. Be a good boy now and let me put on this poultice, ha?” Well, I wouldn’t stop her, her hands gentle as moth wings easing down the blankets, pressing the cloth with some cool minty stuff where my flesh was burning. “Davy, what was you raving about? Something about where the sun rises—but it’s only evening.” She brought the blanket back up to my chin, and pushed my arms under it, and I let her, like a baby. “You was talking about going somewhere, and where the sun rises, and funny stuff. You’re real light in the head, Davy. You better get to sleep.”

  I said: “What if a man could go where the sun rises, and see for himself?” Yes, maybe I was light in the head, but it was clearing. I knew where I was, and knew I wanted to tell her and ask her a thousand things. “You go to church better than I do, Emmia, I guess you never miss—is there anything says a man can’t go looking, maybe for other lands, go out to sea, maybe a long way?” I believe I went on that way quite a while.

  There was no harm in it. She blamed most of it on the fever, which I wasn’t feeling any more, and the rest on a boy’s wildheadedness. She sat by me with a hand resting light on the blanket over my chest, and now and then said little things like “You’re all right, Davy boy,” and “It must be nice to travel a bit. I always wished I could…”

  I felt better merely from the talk. When I quit, the fever from the bite was gone. Leaving the other fever, which I understood fairly well for fourteen, enough to realize that something was wrong with it.

  I knew what men did with women. Any South District kid knows that. I knew it was what I wanted with Emmia. I knew she knew it, and wasn’t angry. My trouble was fear, cold shadow-fear. Not of Emmia surely—who’d be afraid of Emmia, gentle as spring night, and her face in the dim glow of the lantern a little rose?

  “Are you warm enough now, Davy?”

  “I’m warm, I wish—I wish—”

  “What, Davy?”

  “I wish you was always with me.”

  She moved quickly, startling me, and was lying beside me, the blankets between us, lying on my right arm so that it couldn’t slide around her, and when my other arm tried to she caught my wrist and held it awhile. But her lips were on my forehead and I could feel her breathing hard.

  “Davy, Spice, I oughtn’t to do this, mustn’t. Little Davy…” She let go my wrist. Our hands would wander then, and mine didn’t dare. Hers did, straying over the blanket, resting here and there light and warm.

  And nothing happened. I knew what ought to happen. It was almost as if someone in deepest shadow was muttering over and over: “I show you good things, I.”

  And I thought, What if she rolls over and bumps against that horn?—it’s right behind her. And, what if Mam Robson, or Judd, or Old Jon—

  She sat up brushing a wisp of hay out of her hair and looking angry, but not at me. “I’m sorry, Davy. I’m being foolish.”

  “We didn’t do anything, S-s—”

  “What?”

  “We didn’t do anything, Spice.”

  “You mustn’t call me that. It’s my fault, Davy.”

  “We haven’t done anything.”

  “I don’t know what got into me.”

  “I wanted you to.”

  “I know, but…We must forget about it.” Her voice was different, higher, too controlled, scared. “They’d all be after us.”

  “Let’s run away, you and me.”

  “Now you’re really talking wild.” But at least she didn’t laugh. No, she sat quiet three feet away from me, her smock tucked neat and careful over her knees, and talked to me awhile sweet and serious. About how I was a good, dear boy except for my wildness, and was going to be a good man, only I must prove myself, and remember that being a man wasn’t all fun and freedom, it was hard work too, and responsibility, minding what people said and she meant not only the priests but everybody who lived respectable, learning how to do things the right way, and not dreaming and goofing off. I must work out my bond-period, and save money, and then I’d be free and I could go apprentice and learn a good trade, like for instance inn-keeping, and then some time—why, maybe some time—but right now, she said, why didn’t I set myself something sort of difficult to do, a real task, to prove myself, and stay right with it? Not goofing off.

  “Like what for instance?”

  “Like—oh, I don’t know, Davy dear. You should pick it yourself. It should be something—you know, difficult but not impossible, and—and good and honest of course. Then I’ll be proud of you. I know I’m right, Davy, you’ll see. Now I’m going to say good night, and you go straight to sleep, you hear? And we won’t talk about any of this in the morning, either. I wasn’t here, understand? You was here all day, and fed the stock yourself.” She took up the lantern. “Good night, Davy.”

  “Good night,” I said, and could have tried for another kiss, but instead I lay there like a boy wondering if she’d give me one, which she didn’t. She left the lantern by the top of the ladder, blew it out, and was gone.

  * * * *

  I slept, and I woke in a place full of the black dark of horror. The loft, yes—gradually I knew that, as a dream drained away from me. Some of me, though, was still running mush-footed through a house something like the Bull and Iron but with ten thousand rooms, and the black wolf followed me, slow as I was because he could wait, and snuffling in noises like words: “Look at me, look at me, look at me!” If I looked, he would have me, so I went on, opening doors, every new room strange but with no window, no sunrise-place. Not one of the doors would latch. Sometimes I leaned my back against one, hearing him slobber and whisper at the crack: “Look at me!” He could open it as soon as I took my weight away, and anyway I must go on to the next door, and the next…When I knew I was awake, when I heard my own rustling against the hay and recognized the feel of my pallet, my own voice broke loose in a whimper: “I’m not a brain-mue. I’ll prove it, I’ll prove it!”

  I did get myself in hand. By the time I thought I had courage enough to fumble after the lantern and my flint-and-steel, I no longer needed the light. It was just the loft, with even a trace of moonlight in the one high window. I could wipe the sweat from my body (remembering too late that it was Emmia’s blanket) and think awhile.

  Something difficult, and good, and honest. I knew soon enough what that had to be. Then it hardly even troubled me that I couldn’t tell Emmia of it afterward, for there was much about it that wouldn’t seem right to her and so couldn’t be explained. I understood there would always be many things I would not be telling to Emmia…

  When the square of moonlight began to change to a different gray I was dressed and ready, the sack with the horn over my shoulder. Nothing remained of the spider-bite but a nasty itch, and that was fading out.

  I went down the ladder, out and away, across the city in the still heavy dark, over the stockade and up the mountain with barely enough light to be sure of my course. I traveled slowly, but I was passing my cave (not pausing even to see if the ants had got after my bacon) when the first-light glory told me that sunrise would arrive within the hour. I didn’t see it—when it happened I was passing through that solemn big-tree region where yesterday I might have killed the mue. If I were the killing kind.

/>   In the tangled ugly passage where the grapevines thickened overhead, I caught a wrong smell. Wolf smell.

  My knife came out, and was steady in my fingers. My back chilled and tingled, but I think I was more angry than anything else. Angry that I must be halted or threatened by a danger that had nothing to do (I thought) with my errand. I didn’t stop, just worked on through the bad undergrowth watching everywhere, sniffing, as nearly ready as I could be, seeing that no one is ever quite ready to die. All the way to the cat-briers.

  The black wolf was directly below the strand of grape-vine that hung down outside the mue’s tulip-tree, and she was dead. I stepped up to the huge carcass and prodded it with my knife. She stretched maybe six feet from nose to tail-tip, an old one, scarred, dingy black, foul. Her neck was broken. I proved to myself, lifting and prodding, that her neck was broken—if you don’t believe it, remember you never saw my North Mountain mue, and his arms. The patches and spatters of blood on the rocks, the ground, the dangling grape-stem, were not hers.

  Her body was beginning to stiffen, and cold. It must have happened yesterday, maybe when he came back from the pool, careless perhaps, wondering why he hadn’t started changing to man-beautiful.

  I set down my sack and climbed the tulip-tree. I called to him a few times. It troubled me that I hadn’t any name for him. I called: “Friend? I’m coming up, friend. I brought something back to you.” He didn’t answer. I knew why, before I reached the branch above his nest and looked down. The carrion ants were already at work, earning their living. I said: “I brought it back. I did steal it, friend, but I brought it back.”

  I don’t remember how many other things I said that would never be answered.

  * * * *

  I went back through the forest to my cave, with my golden horn, and the day passed over me. Much of the time I wasn’t thinking at all, but in other hours I was. About the thirty-tonners that sail out of Levannon for the northern passage, and then eastward—for the safe Nuin harbors, yes, but eastward, toward the place where the sun is set afire for the day. And I would not go to Levannon on a roan horse, with the blessing and the money of the Kurin family and three attendants, and a serving-maid to warm the bed for me in the next inn. But I would go.