Carolyn Kephart, Her Blog

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Short Fiction: REGENERATED

One of my early short stories, first published in Quantum Muse. Information about my other writing can be found here. Happy reading!

Cela always hoped she’d find Jorgen again someday…but was this really Jorgen?

Regenerated

No one ever really got to know a rashak, and Cela had never made an attempt. She patched them up and they paid her if they had money, giving exactly what her services were worth, neither more nor less. However much agony they might be in, they never showed it. Their flat wide-mouthed saurian faces remained stonily impassive even when the pain ebbed, and their gratitude was equally effusive.

Irksome though the rashaka were, Cela could not help being impressed by at least some their traits. True, they were almost pathologically inscrutable. Vowed to stern and unforgiving gods, they lived in continual self-denial. They had no written language, little if any spirit of inquiry, and more than a few disgusting habits. But none were better fighters, formed for war and the hunt, tireless in strength and highly resistant to wounds thanks to their massive, manlike physiques and scaly hide; their uncannily keen senses and formidable stamina were legendary. Their loyalty, when they chose to bestow it, was beyond question or reproach. They were also never violent unless goaded, a trait which was not generally known nor entirely believed by humankind, most of whom made every effort to avoid them. Cela's lack of prejudice was atypical, and thus she and Koth had met.

She had been out in the far hills one day, foraging for rare herbs and enjoying the last of hot high summer, when she discovered a rashak male finishing up a battle with a rout of drabbs, the vicious near-men who roamed that lawless part of the land. Stupid and weak, drabbs never hunted save in packs; yet for even four of them to consider themselves the match for a rashak was a foolish, fatal error. Still, by the time the last drabb fell, the rashak was covered in blood―the almost black blood of his race. As Cela watched, he dropped to his knees without a sound save a slight hiss, and shut his eyes, his head bent, his great shoulders drooping, his thick tapering tail motionlessly curled behind him. Cela realized that he was either calling on his gods for strength, or resigning himself to death. When she approached, he barely seemed to notice her, save for a momentary flaring of his nostril-slits that in a single breath determined that she was human and female―and a healer, from the aromatic herbs she carried. But then he drew another breath and caught it, and his shoulders straightened and his eyes opened very fast, fixing on hers. Startled by the stare, Cela controlled her dislike of his reptilian features, looking away as she reached for her satchel's clasp.

"I intend no harm. Permit me to aid you," she said to him, speaking the formal tongue that united all the rashak tribes. She knew only a few phrases, and spoke them badly―there were gutturals and clicks that she would never get right―but still he understood, and shook his head as he looked away.

"You should leave. Just go." He had replied in the common tongue, rasping and hoarse but almost without accent, quite as if that were his native language―unusual, since rashaka usually bothered to learn only the rudiments, and let gestures and grunts fill in for the rest.

"Payment isn't necessary," Cela said with a touch of impatience, knowing it could only be lack of money that made him refuse her help. Warriors of his kind spent every copper they had on their gear, and his was, she noted, of the highest quality, and rather more showy than rashaka tended to favor. She did not say more, since it would be a waste of words.

He hesitated yet again. "I need water. And food."

Cela was provided with both, and gave him what she had. As she set about healing him, he ate and drank with undisguised greed that made clear how long he had gone without, and why the drabbs had managed to inflict such damage. Taking a little jar of salve from her satchel, Cela anointed the rashak's lacerated skin―or rather his scaly hard hide, rough and cold under her fingers. Soon he was close to whole again, and his powers of regrowth would do the rest.

"Good work," he said, glancing at his arm, that had been cut to the bone. "I've seen few better."

"I thank my teachers," Cela replied, a little startled by the extravagance of the compliment.

His opaque eyes scanned her with an attention that rashaka seldom deigned to confer upon a mere human. "It hasn't made you rich."

Cela glanced down at her mannish near-rags with a shrug. It had been a very long time since she had cared about her looks, but to hear a rashak comment on them was...strange. "That salve costs a fortune to make," she said, staring at the now-empty little jar.

The information didn't seem to impress him. "I'm called Koth."

Rashaka never gave their names away lightly either, and at least initially used the first four of them. "Greetings, Koth," Cela replied, looking hard at him now.

"Greetings, Lady Celandra. And thank you." At her wide-eyed shock he gave the closest thing a rashak had to a smile. "You don't recognize me." Standing with only a little difficulty now, moving from corpse to corpse, with practiced brutality he wrenched off their long greasy scalps, which were worth money. One of the drabbs wore a jewel that had probably cost its original owner her life; this Koth appropriated with a hard tug, snapping the chain. For some time the rashak stared at the sunlit blue spark in his hard razor-nailed palm. "Take it," he finally rasped, holding the gem out to Cela. "You always said these were your favorites."

Cela's fingers closed around the jewel as her attention fixed on Koth's flat face, and its stare so widely spaced that it seemed to look clear past her.

"You used to tell me that my eyes were brighter," she replied, fighting to keep her voice calm.

He inclined his head in a way she remembered from someplace far, someplace deep in the past. "Yes. I said that."

She felt her grip on the gem loosen. "But―I had thought Transformation was a fraud."

"It exists." His opaque gaze flicked. "Hard to find, costly to buy, and not easy to survive."

Cela remembered the rest of the hearsay, and spoke it dry-mouthed. "Nor is there any going back. It cannot be reversed."

His broad, thick-muscled shoulders barely shrugged, and he made no answer.

For a long time she could only stare at him, stunned by the change, trying and failing to find the man she had loved. "But Jorgen ... why?"

"The name is Koth." His thick-lidded eyes flashed coldly. "Human flesh is weak in too many ways. I knew I could be stronger. Much stronger."

Ah, but he was ugly―that toad's head with its recessive planes and mottled scales and wide, lipless mouth. Unable to make any form of reply, Cela turned her full attention to putting her healing items away, and finding a bit of leather lacing to hang the gem around her neck. After a very long silence Koth spoke again.

"This place isn't safe for you." Another hesitation. "You are alone."

Cela wanted to say that she had been alone since he had left her, that she never dreamed they would meet again; that she was overjoyed, furious, and appalled to the depths of her soul. But far too much had changed, and she merely nodded a reply. For Koth, it was enough.

Since that time on they had been together, and from a strictly survival viewpoint it worked very well. Koth put himself in continual danger, and Cela coped with the consequences, across endless reaches of lucrative terrain. Cela's memories merged into the present and momentarily fixed on Koth, who continued to sit in the meditative trance that prefaced every fight, communing with his adopted gods. She sighed, inwardly as always. Over the month they had spent together, she had realized hour by hour that whatever she once loved in Jorgen had burned to dust. The present moment found them in yet another breathtaking landscape they would only hunt in and hurry through, where in another time they would have lain down in the sweet grass and...she bit her lip lest the sigh escape her as she turned away again, locking her attention elsewhere until the murmur of Koth's reptilian blur startled her more than a scream.

"I'm sorry."

Her attention never wavered from the mists now hovering up from the meadow beneath their safe spur of rock. She was required to keep watch, sitting absolutely immobile, during Koth's period of meditation. Silence was also expected, but this time she had to reply, whispering through frozen lips.

"Sorry for what, Koth?"

She fought to keep her voice calm, and to quiet her heart that was beating all but audibly. What she had waited so long to hear might be on the point of being said.

He hissed faint irritated regret. "That dagger was a bargain. I should have bought it."

Cela's emotions silently collapsed within her. Focusing again on the lovely curling tendrils of opalescent mist in the gold-grassed, pond-dotted valley below them, she noted those spirals that were most likely to jet suddenly upward and twist themselves into translucent, delicate, appallingly murderous gloamrippers. Night was coming on and several of the monsters were now taking shape, elegantly slim and feral, seeking to feed on whatever they might find, with a ravenous preference for flesh. Once they were killed, which would take some time and considerable risk, their hearts would fetch a high price. Automatically Cela forgot how beautiful the creatures were.

"There," she whispered, barely indicating the now fully-formed 'rippers as she spoke. Koth stared where she pointed, blinked acknowledgment, then rose and made his soundless half-slithering way down the hill to the ponds without a single word or backward look.

***

Life was all about death, anymore.

"Seven hearts. Not bad."

To Koth's flat sibilant observation Cela nodded. Koth had been badly damaged during the fight―wounded almost to death, something Cela never really got used to despite its frequency. Nevertheless, she had yet again managed with all her skill to heal him, save this time for a missing part of his tail; but it would grow back within a few days and look the same as ever. The two were now camped and finishing the evening meal. Koth was feeding on some fish that might have been fresh a few days before, a chance find on the lake's margin. As Cela sat across from him prudently upwind, washing her dried rations down with lukewarm pond water and celebratory last swigs of sour wine, she once again reflected, too tired for rancor, on the luxury that used to be a regular part of her life, and how sweet that life had been once Jorgen had found his way into it. But all fires died eventually. They blazed, they devoured, they were satisfied and they died. What was left never looked anything close to what it had been in life.

"Cold?"

Koth was actually looking at her. He seldom did, unless it was to express the only emotion he seemed to possess in any degree, irritation. Usually they sat well apart from each other, and Koth's gaze focused someplace too distant for Cela to ever hope to find. His flat hooded eyes in his lizard face were unreadable, as always, but he threw a handful of branches on the fire and the flames leapt to warmer life.

"You were shivering. Can't have you catching a chill."

No, they could definitely not have that. If Cela fell sick, it would decrease her effectiveness. With a half-shrug of thanks she finished her meal, and then reassessed the days earnings with greater, less gain-related attention. Gloamripper hearts were like jewels; once taken from the body, they hardened and shone. Crowded in the palm of Cela's hand they shimmered within, changing color from green to dawn-orange to gold. She would have liked to keep one for its beauty, but that was out of the question; they were simply too valuable. Koth would insist on an even split of the proceeds of the sale, but Cela's wants were few and she would inevitably give Koth most of her share, which he would accept without protest, thanking her with his usual word or two.

Cela felt a small ironic smile lift her mouth-corners as she studied the shimmering little lumps, dead flesh animated by a semblance of life. Fires might blaze and die, but the light of the gems would never go out; they were in their own way immortal.

She heard Koth's voice, a warning rasp. "Don't lose them."

Without replying, she returned the hearts to the pouch, and the pouch to her inner pocket, and looked over to her companion, now re-settling into meditation. Watching him, knowing she could do so completely unnoticed, she permitted herself the futile indulgence of recalling the past.

It had been a very short time to her, that single year with Jorgen, so sweet it had seemed as if all of existence was light caught in a prism and refined to its purest. It had begun in the dead of winter, a spark floating amid the snowflakes. The wars had just ended, and he was a wounded hero; out of charity she had taken him into her house and made him well again. Everything about them seemed to balance: a lord's untimely widow, and the younger son of nobody; she studious and retiring, he brash and heedless, brimming with charm. It was only natural that she should fall deeply in love with him, and to her amazement he had seemed to reciprocate in full. Never during their seeming infinity of bliss had it ever occurred to Cela that she was part of Jorgen's life only as an hour is to a day, and that she might be for the moment noontide in all its warmth, but there had been a dawn before her, and sunset was to come, and then another day, with fresh pleasures and adventures. For her, time had stalled at a brilliant height, and the only things that changed were her emotions, that shifted from shock, to rage, to agony as Jorgen gradually sought fresh distractions, both carnal and combative. When he had suddenly become fascinated with the sternly ascetic way of the rashaka, Cela had almost been relieved. Never could she have envisaged how far he would take that admiration.

He at last left entirely, and time for Cela became a long weary walk down a blank corridor filled with fog. She had not been rich despite her rank, and the gifts she had heaped on Jorgen, garnering the less thanks the more she gave, had impoverished her. Forsaking the home that now seemed unbearably empty, she wandered as an itinerant healer, aiding and learning as she sought word of Jorgen. Although often in need, she never asked payment, accepting whatever was given no matter how small the amount; and unlike many healers she willingly helped all races, from human as she was, to rashak, which was far from that. Thus she and Jorgen had met again, only he wasn't Jorgen anymore. He was Koth, whose blood would run cold until the day he died.

Perhaps the thing she missed most was the laughter. During the time of fire, she and Jorgen had always joked, teased, traded wits, and so often their play had led to passion. Made bold by the drink, she decided to coax a spark. Reaching as his back was turned, she put her hand on Koth's shoulder, lightly moving up his neck. He no longer had ears, but she tickled the place one of them would have been, and called him a few of the hundred little names she had once used with him.

He shook her off instantly, his voice a snapped hiss. "Stop it."

The shock amazed her. The suddenness of it, the clear implication that if she ever tried anything like that again, all would be over between them...she moved back to her place, staring into the faltering fire, feeling her features stiffening to a mask as if she had thrust her face into the flames. Rashaka only mated in a once-yearly obedience to instinct, vent to vent. She'd been stupid yet again.

Wordlessly turning away, she began her usual preparations for sleep. She knew that as she undressed and washed and performed her other necessary tasks, Koth would be looking on with complete indifference if he bothered to look at all. Her beauty, which she had taken pains to revive for his sake, made no more impression on him than the sight of a corpse many days dead. "Good night," she said once she had lain down, her face to the stars, feeling the little sparks torment her eyes until they blurred.

Usually Koth replied more or less at once, with no particular interest, to Cela's words that always ended the day, but this time he was silent awhile before his voice hissed in its hoarse undertone.

"Celandra. Just because I do not choose to remember never means that I forget."

Had he struck her or said something tender, Cela could not have been more shocked; yet as almost always, Koth's flat black eyes held no emotion that she could read. The reflection of the campfire gleamed in them, but they had no light of their own. Once again, he was merely making a statement, and clearly neither wished nor expected an answer; and he got none.

Sleepless, Cela at last looked across the waning flames at the immobile form outlined by the darkness. Koth lay with his back to her, asleep on the bare stone, his rasping breath slow and regular. His big manlike body was perfectly muscled, its symmetries striking, and it would stay that way long past the limit of a human lifetime, its vigor undiminished. But what did Koth live for? The hunt and the kill and the loot; money and weaponry and the honing of his fighting skills. He had allies, but no friends, and no real kinship with his foster race. No beauty moved him, nor horror. He ate the most loathsome refuse and the rarest delicacies with equal indifference. It was not a life for a being fully human, with warm deep feelings and gifts to give the world, capacities for joy and wonder, and few years left to savor them. Since their reunion, she had followed Koth wherever he led, trying to find any trace of Jorgen; tonight she had given up the search. The night air's chill seemed to emanate from her soul, and she trembled in her meager blanket.

Finally, she had told herself the truth. Tomorrow, after she and Koth returned to the settlement and sold the gloamripper hearts, she would quietly depart and find her way back to the city she had called her home. He would perhaps search for her a day or so, maybe even make inquiries, but that would be the extent of his concern. They would never see each other again.

Reaching for the pouch that held the gloamripper hearts, Cela once again poured them into her palm and watched their shifting exquisite glow. Returning the hearts to the pouch all save one, she leaned to the fire and dropped it into the center of the blaze, as a sacrifice to several gods who so far had ignored her. Never before had she been so rash and wasteful, but she was at last beyond caring. Then she quietly got up and circled the waning flames that separated her from Koth, lying down next to him as close as she dared, studying the rise and fall of his broad muscle-laden shoulders and back in the last of the light.

"Goodbye, Jorgen," she whispered soundlessly. Emotions of every kind mixed within her, canceling each other out, forming a flat, numb weariness. Lightly she ran her hand over his unconscious outline, tracing but not daring to touch...

With a movement too fast to even startle her, Koth rolled over and caught her in his arms. He was still asleep, his eyes shut, but his breath came fast. He clutched her body to his, grinding her tender flesh against his stone-sharp scales.

All he wanted was her warmth. She knew that, and she gave him what she had, fighting not to shiver as he drained her heat and made it his. The only thing that mattered was that she was in his embrace for the first time since he had left her as a human. Jorgen may have become Koth, but when Cela shut her eyes and willed away the pain she felt herself transmogrified, returned to a joy thought forever lost; and as she thrilled with the heat of remembrance, Koth wrapped her ever closer, exactly as Jorgen had once done with his goddess, his adored, his diamond star.

I will leave you, she thought. But not yet, for reasons he chose not to remember. Turning her head, she took a last look at the ashes of the fire where the gloamripper heart gleamed and shimmered like the miracle it was, and fell asleep.

END

First published in Quantum Muse

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Short Fiction: THE KIND GODS

One of my early short fantasy works, first published in Bewildering Stories.
(Information about my other writing can be found here. Happy reading!)

Did the old gods really die?

A warrior seeks answers at the burial-mound of his greatest enemy.

The Kind Gods

They rode light, for these had long been times of peace, yet still they rode armed from old habit, in steel-studded leather many times mended, battered greaves over scuffed boots, vambraces scored from years of sword-blows. Still, the metal gleamed, and the tough hide was supple, and from a distance they seemed young men, straight and easy in the saddle. Only a closer look would note their greyed hair, and faces as weathered as their gear.

Emerging from the forest, the four soldiers entered a wide field where tall pale grasses glowed in the crisp light of a fine fall afternoon. In the midst of the field rose an abrupt little hill, their destination. They had been friends since boyhood, and later comrades in war, always ready with a jest to lighten harsh odds or to add more merriment to a victory; but their mood this day was quiet. One of them began a song that the others joined in, and its cadences meshed with the jingling of harness, the clinking of steel, the grass-softened thud of cantering hooves―not a full-throated war-cry, but the kind of ballad sung after a battle around embered fires of quiet camps, meant to soothe wounds and weariness and sorrow.

They halted at the foot of the hillock, and the leader of the company dismounted with grace only a little stiff, moving with just a hint of a limp as he began to climb the slight slope. His companions hastened to aid him, but he waved away their help. For a moment he was silent, looking from one comrade’s face to the next; and then he smiled faintly as he turned to gaze around him at the field, ending at the mound’s rise. “Rest awhile. I won’t be long.”

He turned and went alone upward, his breath laboring harder with every step he took. When he at last reached the summit, he removed his helm as he slowly fell to his knees, his chest heaving awhile before he ungloved to caress the grass with a battle-scarred hand.

“I told you I’d return,” he said, and his damp gray braids brushed the grass as he bowed his head in greeting. “I didn’t think it’d take me thirty years. Remember when all this field was flat? Perfect for a fight it was. Many an arrowhead and blade-shard they struck that wrought this mound at my order, for your sake.”

He lifted his eyes and squinted far, over the wide meadow and into the past. Memory made him grimace, sharpening his face’s lines and seams, as his fingers slid over a deep crease in his brow. “It was almost me under this earth, not you. I’ve never fought that hard before or since. The bards still sing of you and me, when the priests aren’t around to stop them.”

He took a flask from his belt, removed its stopper and lifted it to the sun now slipping down toward the trees, murmuring words of ancient prayer. Then he poured a drop of its contents on the ground.

“Here. Drink with me. It can’t harm you.”

His thoughts drifted to the day of that battle, when he and all his friends were alive and young and strong, fighting to the death for a world in peril. Slitting his eyes against the keen radiance of the cloudless sunset, he again saw the field’s tall grasses trampled into blood-muck, churning and darkening with battle, heard the stray sweet birdsongs twisted into clamors and yells. Again he heard the shouts, and the clash of swords. His heart raced, awakening his body’s sickness, and he clenched his teeth to quiet a groan of pain lest his men hear. A slight sip of the flask eased him, and he was able to speak again, although haltingly.

“I don’t have long. I’m rotting inside. My sons wish me gone, and I’m going—but I’m dreading it. In my prime I never feared dying, but it’s different now. There’s a new god now since you and I fought, that’s killed off all the ones you and I knew. There’s a new heaven too, but no one fights or drinks there; all they do is sing. The new hell’s all torture, and that’s where most people end up, it seems. Not much to look forward to, either way.”

He sighed, and murmured an oath now obsolete. “It’s a better world now, but I don’t belong in it. You were lucky, to die while the old gods still lived. I’ve broken all of the new god’s laws in my time, and I won’t be up in the clouds howling hymns, oh no. I’ll be deep in what those smooth-faced priests call the Pit, frying in flames. And you’ll never get your revenge…”

As he said those last words a long fierce growl of thunder seemed to make indignant answer, strange in a cool autumn sky without a single cloud. The thane blinked, for though the potion in the flask was strong, he knew he hadn’t taken enough of it to mislead his senses. After a long moment he put his hand to the ground again as if testing for a heartbeat, his scarred fingers trembling.

“Did they die indeed, the old gods?” he whispered. “Tell me.”

Something lightly tapped his shoulder as soon as he spoke, and he looked around to find a fallen leaf in the grass, red as blood, shaped like a spear-head. No wind had blown it there. He took it up by the stem, and it quivered in his fingers as his heartbeat quickened until he barely had breath to speak again.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered, his eyes on the last of the sun now vanishing amid the grasses. “I’ve missed the world we had. The gods that forgave us…”

All the wounds he had known in all his life seemed to ache anew, and he shivered. But then the sharp air of the oncoming night seemed to warm around him, and some unseen presence bade him turn around. There in the deep blue of the cloudless sky he saw the full moon rising like a great shield of gold, dented by countless blows; and he understood.

A long while he watched the radiant orb as he listened to the voices of his friends, who waited for him at the foot of the mound.

“Soon, lads,” he whispered. “Soon.” And he lifted high the silver flask in honor of his buried enemy before drinking it empty.

***

As night came on, the old warrior’s lieutenant climbed the barrow, and found his lord lying as if asleep. Seeking a pulse, he found none; and taking up the flask he scented what it had held, and nodded in resignation. He called the others to the mound’s top, and they came with lighted torches to bear witness to the thane’s passing.

“The new god was kind to him,” one of them said at last, who had been his lord’s messenger during the wars. “A quiet death, without suffering. He deserved it.”

The lieutenant gently placed the red leaf on the thane’s unbreathing breast, and spoke in a voice unsteadied by sorrow, and by anger too. “No. He should have died fighting sword against sword with he that lies below, while he was young. While the old gods yet lived.”

The thane’s standard-bearer bowed his head in assent, and his reply was bitter. “We all should have.”

A long silence followed those words. But then youngest of the three, who had been the chief’s squire since boyhood and whose hair was not yet wholly gray, made a swift silencing gesture. “Wait. Listen.”

The noise came again: a faint rattling, very close.

“A viper,” the lieutenant said, scanning the grass as he drew his dagger.

The standard-bearer shook his head. “No. It’s…under the ground.”

Each man froze, listening to the strange rippling clatter deep in the barrow, and the squire spoke again, barely a whisper. “Bones…”

It sounded like a skeleton slowing coming to life. The thane’s body lay motionless and silent, but the red leaf twitched as two muffled voices issued from deep within the mound, both of them taut and harsh with anger; both the voices of young men in the prime of their strength. Then the clash of edged steel mingled with the curses and taunts and yells, and the noise went on for the space of several breaths before ebbing into the darkness.

Slowly the thane’s men looked around at one another, at first in disbelief, then in wonder, then in joy. All that night they kept vigil with their lord, their eyes and weaponry glinting by moonlight and firelight as they recalled his deeds with glad laughter, and drank to the gods still among them.

***

The mound was opened in days to come, so that the old warrior might be laid to rest next to his enemy, as he had wished. The priests noted in their chronicles that within the crypt was found a trove of precious goods, and the remains of a tall well-shaped warrior clad in magnificent armor, his skull still covered with skeins of long yellow hair. But only the bards told of how all the treasures seemed disordered and scattered, and how the skeleton seemed to be rising, clutching its great sword two-handed as if parrying a hard slash, and how it seemed to grin in fierce delight.

The thane’s men restored the treasures to their places, and reverently arrayed the remains so they lay at rest once more. As they covered their lord’s body with a rich grave-cloth, they observed that his lips seemed to shape a smile at the last; and they smiled as well.

When the tomb was sealed once more, the priests of the new god placed a solemn curse upon the barrow and the land about it, and no one dared come near the place thereafter. In time, forest claimed the grass, and thicket grew to cover the grave; but old believers knew that ever afterward on the first full moon of autumn, one might hear the wild din of battle, buried deep beneath the thorn-clad mound.

End

First published in Bewildering Stories

With thanks to the musical group Fleet Foxes for their 2008 ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song,’ which inspired this story.

The cover design features a reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo burial mask, c. 600-700 CE.

Short Fiction: LAST LAUGHTER

One of my early short fantasy stories, first published in
Silver Blade Fantasy Quarterly.
(Information about my other writing can be found here. Happy reading!)

A cautionary tale about a wicked court jester and his comeuppance.

Last Laughter

He was a troublesome fool, whose unbridled tongue and vicious tricks went unchecked because they amused the King. Whenever his behavior became simply too appalling, the jester took care to re-ingratiate himself with all manner of silly japes and tumblings and blandishments, but it was well known that he wore a mail shirt under his motley to ward off vengeful stabs, and amulets to avert curses.

Keeping on the jester’s good side was a prudent measure in a court full of idlers constantly seeking to work mischief on one another out of simple ennui, forming little cells and circles of self-interest that continually jerked apart in loathing or merged in cooing accord, isolating and ostracizing. Amid these inimical orbs the jester bounced and skipped, prodding and tickling and puncturing as the whim took him. Although his magic was of the lowest kind, it was effective enough to be exceedingly troublesome and embarrassing, and the wiser spheres took care to roll well aside at his approach. Only the Thaumaturge Royal, who made it a point to be in a class by himself, looked upon the fool with icy indifference, and stood his ground immovably.

The Countess had always avoided the fool whenever possible, but that was becoming ever more difficult since her growing friendship with the King. She had been of the Queen’s retinue, chosen for her pleasant voice and tranquil manner to read aloud to Her Majesty during that lady’s last illness, and the two women had grown close thanks to their shared love of books and the harmony of their tastes. After the Queen’s untimely death, the Countess had only wished to retire to her lands and grieve, but the King persuaded her, or rather all but commanded her, to remain at court. He was a young man, good to look upon, active in all the sports befitting a gentleman, and of sound intelligence; but he was also wild and given to bad company, which had caused the Queen great chagrin. The King for all his faults had loved his mother dearly, and his sorrow and remorse were solaced by the Countess’s gentle conversation, which naturally soon turned to books.

The Countess was as reclusive as the King was riotous, but she genuinely admired him for many reasons, and knew that her esteem was reciprocated. Nevertheless, she was even more aware of the fool’s resentment, which inspired her with an emotion she was too proud to call fear. The fool enjoyed flaunting his power, and often hinted that he was the baseborn son of a great lord he chose not to name, which caused understandable uneasiness among some of the court. Others, the Countess among them, preferred to believe that the King had plucked him from the gutter. True, the fool had some polish, but it was a very thin gloss like the sheen on a fly; and like a fly he seemed to delight in annoying her.

“Sweet lady, in truth his majesty seems to like you perhaps too well,” he said to her one day as she sat reading in the park. She had heard him at her back, the combined jingling of bells and chain mail; had seen his cap’s spiky shadow fall over her book, darkening the sweet spring afternoon. He leapt uninvited on her quiet bench, squatting apishly, grinning witlessly; but his eyes sparkled more than was safe. “The court’s marked the way you and he constantly wander off alone to the library, where no one else ever goes and where I hear there’s a very large and comfortable couch.” As he said the last words, he suggestively dangled his bauble.

Although the implication disgusted her, the Countess kept her wonted calm, her face its habitual, unreadable mask save perhaps for a hint of flush. The jester’s position on the bench brought his exaggerated codpiece directly into her line of sight, and she had been keeping her eyes well averted. “You know as well as I, fool, that His Majesty’s wedding to the Princess is only two months away.”

She put a sharp contemptuous emphasis on his title, but he only shrugged, sending his bells bobbing. “True, true, but in the meantime people will talk, won’t they? They’re already talking, you know.”

“Let them say whatever they please,” the Countess replied, candidly and coolly meeting the jester’s glittering stare. “His Majesty and I converse about books, nothing more.”

The jester goggled, waggling his eyebrows luridly. “Books! Why, books are full of bad things, naughty things. That’s why I never read ‘em. Neither should you.” And with a swat of his bauble he knocked the volume from the Countess’ lap, sending it into the nearby pond.

Although the book had been valuable, it was not priceless, and keeping one’s temper was of far more worth at such a time as this. “His Majesty and I discuss literature,” the Countess said, very clearly enunciating the last word. “Literature, and history, and philosophy now and then.”

The fool gave a doltish gasp, eyes wide with terror transparently feigned. “Oh, but that’s far worse! He’ll think thoughts too big for his head, and they’ll crack his skull. Regicide’s a bad thing, sweet lady. Have a care.”

The Countess looked him straight in the eye, unblinking. “You’re not very amusing just now, fool.”

He grinned ear to ear, batting his lashes. “And you’re not very pretty, but you never are. The King likes my antics far more than he likes your books, sweet lady…your books or your looks.”

Stung by the insult, the Countess recoiled. “His Majesty’s taste in reading is far more choice than your jests,” she said through set lips.

The fool’s eyes narrowed. They were an odd toad-color, greenish gray. “He never liked reading until you caught his eye. How did you manage it, I wonder?” His gaze slitted as his head tilted. “Were you using magic, Countess? I’d never have dreamt it of you.”

Almost everyone in the court studied magic, but very few had any proficiency, and what little they knew was confined to practical jokes more or less tasteless. Serious Art was the province of the Thaumaturge Royal, who deeply resented any infringement on his expertise. Besides, using magic to influence the mind of the King was a capital offense, and the very idea made the Countess feel cold despite the day’s warmth. Could this trifling, spiteful creature actually imagine…actually intend…

The fool could read masks as well as faces, and gave a silly little simper as he shrugged disarmingly. “Oh, now, now. No harm meant. I’m only an idiot, after all. Right?” During the silence that followed, he sat properly on the bench and removed his cap, flicking at the bells, watching them jiggle.

The Countess studied him more closely than she had ever wished to before. This was the first time she had ever seen him in a sober mood, let alone without his fool’s cap. Far from being laughably malformed, he was slender and well-shaped, of lithe middle height that made his frequent acrobatics effortless. Nor was he comically hideous, as was the general rule for his kind; indeed, one might be disposed to call his sharp mobile features good-looking, save for the indelible marks of constant debauchery and the unrelenting strain of having to always amuse. His tousled sandy hair made him seem boyish; in truth, he was barely thirty, the same age as the King.

She had to resist the urge to reach out and smooth his weedy hair. “Perhaps you’re not quite as bad as you seem.”

He nodded with a child’s righteous solemnity. “I can assure you I’m not.” But suddenly his eyes glittered again, and he winked. “Then again, I wouldn’t be too sure.” Pointing his bauble, he flicked at her skirt. “I do believe that’s a bug, your ladyship.”

She looked down, and gasped. Not only had he ripped a ruffle’s delicate lace, but red ants and cockroaches were crawling all over her gown. As the Countess leapt up and began frantically shaking them off, the fool jammed his cap back on his head and cartwheeled away, hooting and gibbering.

The next day when she went to the palace library at the appointed hour, the Countess was astonished to find the jester there, addressing the King in tones so low she could not make out a word. When they finally noticed her, the jester winked, smirked and gave a far too elaborate bow, while the King stared at her in a way that first confused her, then chilled her clear to the heart.

Ignoring the jester, she addressed his master. “Sire, is something amiss?”

To her question the King only motioned to the door. “Go. And let this be the last I see of you.”

She stared from he that she’d considered a friend to his grinning favorite, and lifted her chin, calm with rage. “Sire, what did this…this poisonous buffoon say to turn you against me? I demand to know.”

The King’s eyes were those of a complete, coldly furious stranger. “Demand? I’m not surprised you presume to issue orders. You’ve been using enchantment to gain my favor, and who knows how far you might have taken your trickery. Consider yourself under arrest. I’ve given order to the Thaumaturge to put you to the question—go to your apartments quietly, or I’ll have my guards drag you to the dungeons.”

Stunned with confused horror, the Countess remembered the many times they had conversed, she and the King, and how pleasant it had always been; how inquiring and engaging he had never failed to be. It had been one of the great joys of her life, the only thing that had made the court bearable. She clasped her hands, hard enough to bruise her fingers. “Sire, I have no skill in magic, none. I swear it! I…”

The King gave a disgusted shrug and turned his back on her, and the fool brayed with laughter. The Countess felt all her body go blank clear to the eyes, and when she could see once more she found she had fled the room and was leaning against the wall of the corridor, sliding downward, strengthless. But a sudden stalwart arm raised her upright, and she heard a calm, very distinct voice close to her ear, deep and steady.

“There, there. You have nothing to fear from me, Countess. I give you my word.”

She knew the voice, but it came as a shock almost as great as the one she’d just endured. Lifting her gaze from the speaker’s dashing black and silver garb that blended knight with mage, she stared into the cool dark eyes of the Thaumaturge Royal. She had always been on civil terms with this man, whose powers of the Art were the kingdom’s safeguard, but he moved in military circles and they seldom met. He was said to join wry humor with absolute ruthlessness. Putting her hopes on the former, she fought to answer. “Then you aren’t going to torture me?”

The question seemed to faintly shock him. “Countess, please. The very idea.” He motioned her to silence, and led her further down the corridor to a little windowed recess, offering her a chair that she sank into gratefully. He remained standing, and momentarily lifted a hand in an arcane warding gesture, ensuring private conversation before bending to continue. “The King and his fool were utterly unaware that I was present and heard everything.” He gave a discreet cough. “I was disguised as the gargoyle paperweight. Security reasons prohibit me from further disclosure, but the fool’s slanders were beyond preposterous.” The mage paused again, eyeing her keenly. “You’re too pale, Countess. Drink this.”

With a trembling hand she accepted the silver goblet that he materialized and offered, drank the delicious elixir it held, and felt blessed calm well outward from her newly-soothed spirit. “Then you don’t believe I used magic against His Majesty.”

The Thaumaturge barely disguised a snort. “Of course not. You’re incapable. That wasn’t meant as an insult, your ladyship; it’s just that you’re as clear as glass. I can read right into you, and I have to say it’s very entertaining.”

“Then you know I did nothing wrong,” she whispered. “We only talked of books.”

The mage again coughed discreetly. “I’m well aware of that, your ladyship, for often in the guise of the dragon inkwell I used to listen to your conversations.” At her shocked expression he again held up his hand. “Security reasons only, I assure you. I must say I was in constant suspense lest His Majesty dip a pen into me, but otherwise the experience was always delightful. I’ve never heard such good talk anywhere in this detestable place, and no one could possibly reproach either of you in any way regarding the subject matter.”

The Countess felt herself coloring hot at this admission despite her relief. “Perhaps your wondrous powers might have been better employed than by eavesdropping, my lord mage.”

The Thaumaturge was quite unmoved by the reproach. “I’d been biding my time, watching to see just how far the zany would go.” He took the silver cup from her hand, noting with satisfaction that it was empty before vanishing it. “He’s gone very far indeed, and has no intention of stopping. His ambitions are beyond his capacity, and they’ll be thwarted. I’ll make sure of it.”

With a helpless sigh the Countess turned to the window. Spring was in every bud, but all her heart was winter. “His Majesty wouldn’t listen to me. He didn’t care. Suddenly I was…nothing.”

At the Countess’s slow, numb phrases, the court mage hesitated a long moment. “I would do you any service possible, your ladyship. Believe that. But the jester, for all his cheap trickery and low sleights, possesses a greater power than any magic—the power to make the King believe that white is black. None of all my strength of Art can change that.” His lips quirked with rancor. “It’s rather trying, really.”

The Countess blinked at the tears stinging her eyes. “Then there is no help.”

The Thaumaturge lifted a steel-pauldroned shoulder, noiselessly. “As long as the jester holds sway, His Majesty will never again trust you. I strongly advise departing the court before you’re banished…or worse.” He hesitated as the Countess turned to him in shocked amazement, then spoke very quietly, his gaze steadily meeting hers. “You know you never really belonged here, your ladyship. Trust me, you’ll be far better off away. You and I have seldom conversed at any length, but I’ll take this opportunity to inform you that I enjoy books very much, and that my taste is quite probably better than His Majesty’s. Farewell.”

He clasped her cold hands for an instant, warming them with his Art; bent over them in soldierly respect, and then took his leave in a silent billowing of black. Only much later did the Countess observe that on one of her fingers was a splendid jeweled ring where none had been before.

She was no longer permitted access to the King after that, and the fool bounded away giggling whenever she approached him. Heeding the Thaumaturge’s advice, the Countess quietly retired to her peaceful manse deep in the country. Now and again she would receive messages from some of her acquaintance, recounting the jester’s ever more outrageous antics. When she learned that the King’s marriage to the princess had been broken off, the Countess did not need to ask who had instigated the rupture; and she gave the court little or no thought thereafter. She had learned to cherish her new life, there amid the quiet. Now and again she felt lonely, for she had no one now with whom to talk of books; but the King no longer figured in her feelings, save for the occasional random pang. She kept the Thaumaturge’s gift on her finger, and gazed upon it often.

One afternoon as she was taking a rest from her latest reading, leaning at her library window to admire her flourishing summer garden, her ring suddenly sparkled, and in another moment a letter materialized on the broad stone of the casement-sill—a square missive of rich black paper and pure silver ink, boldly and elegantly penned, and addressed to her. Astonished, she reached for it cautiously, examined it awhile, and then broke the seal with greatest care. The message, to her surprise and pleasure, was from the court mage.

“Most well-remembered and much-regretted ladyship:

“Forgive this intrusion upon your retreat, but I thought you might be diverted by an amusing occurrence yesternight involving the King’s fool. His Majesty’s favored companions were assembled at the drinking bout which ends every evening nowadays, whereat the jester, in that sportive fashion which endears him to so many, indecently mimicked several of the most notable ladies of the court, to shouts of merriment and approbation. Needless to say, the ladies in question were not present, but I joined the company in the guise of a tankard. I regret to divulge that the fool did not spare you in his mirth, and at one point remarked that the look on your face when the King scorned you in the library made him almost die laughing. I quivered with indignation, my emotion perhaps unsteadied by the strong ale that filled me to the brim; but I managed to control myself, and my outburst went unnoticed.

“Midnight sounded, the revels broke up, and the jester staggered back to his rooms, where he cast off his motley and his mail and went to bed, no sooner there than snoring. A little before dawn, however, he was awakened by a strange sensation, a scurrying underneath him like that of snakes, or rats. Startled, he attempted to rise, but the bed held him fast; and then the entire mattress came alive, all its feathers rustling with mischievous energy until they broke free and burst through the sheets, tickling the poor zany’s naked skin without mercy in every place imaginable and unmentionable.

“The bed continues to confine the fool, whose incessant laughter, now quite mirthless, gives him no chance to eat or drink or perform any other necessary action. At present he can barely speak, which some consider a blessing; but you can well imagine that matters are becoming urgent, not to mention by now somewhat noisome.

“The King is sifting the court for the perpetrator, and I have been called upon to put many to the question, which is certainly diverting in its way; but whoever conceived the spell seems disinclined to end it, and I am oddly unable to discover the wrongdoer. His Majesty asked me if you might be involved, and I rather curtly assured him to the contrary.

“Still…it could it be, Countess, that you have more magic within you than you’ve any idea, and that a simple word of yours might deliver the jester from his torment. I will be glad to discuss this possibility with you as soon as you wish—preferably in your manse’s library, which I hear is a very fine one.

“I hope you have kept well, Countess, and have now and again remembered kindly

“Your constant friend,

Cyril Dagleish Dacier,

Thaumaturge in Ordinary.

P.S.: You might at this time consider turning around and addressing a few words to the vase on your desk, which has taken the liberty of replacing its fading roses with fresh orchids.”

End

Visit the author's website at carolynkephart.com for
first chapters of her novels, reviews, and more.

Carolyn Kephart's publications:

Wysard and Lord Brother, Parts One and Two of the Ryel Saga duology, acclaimed epic fantasy (available at Amazon)

The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic, combining the duology in a single volume (available at Amazon)

Queen of Time, contemporary magic realism that takes the Faust legend in new directions (available at Amazon)

At the Core of the Happy Apple: A Mystery Solved, an essay on the inner workings of the popular 1970s Fisher Price wobble toy (available at Amazon)

PenTangle: Five Pointed Fables, a collection of short stories previously published in ezines (available at Smashwords and its associate vendors)

Short Fiction: THE HEART'S DESIRE

One of my early short stories, set in the near future. It's not the sort of thing I usually write, and after a few kind rejections from thronged venues I decided to publish it on Smashwords, where it's garnered far more readers than I ever expected. Information about my other writing can be found here as well as at the bottom of the page. Happy reading!

A government scryer's life is a prison until she discovers the
ultimate secret language.

The Heart's Desire

The gavel struck once, then twice, sharply quelling the crowd. The third blow echoed in total silence.

“Let the Scryer be summoned.”

Her entrance was all but noiseless, save for the faint clinking of her bodyguards’ weaponry. It was always a ritual, a procession of ominous state with fully-geared special forces providing escort as she glided deliberately down the aisle in her trailing gray robe, her lowered head entirely cowled by its overhanging hood. All around her she heard the surge of many people rising to their feet, and furtive murmurs that were sternly hammered down again as everyone re-seated themselves. In the now complete silence the Scryer halted at the bench to incline her head to the judge, and then moved to face the accused, her gloved hands clasped and hidden by her sleeves, her guards at ready on either side. During her silent progress the judge and spectators had donned the same kind of close-fitting reflective glasses her guards wore, and when she turned about she met only blank bug-like stares.

It was almost amusingly eerie, but no one smiled as the cameras recorded everything for the benefit of posterity―and a very sizeable video audience worldwide. Prior to the Scryer’s appearance, that audience had been treated to a full and unsparingly graphic recounting of the accused’s atrocities, but the robed figure’s complete ignorance of all details regarding the case was both expected and enforced. She had been summoned as the last arbiter of guilt and innocence, the simple, absolute truth. The accused had waived his right to a jury trial as a desperate means of evading a guaranteed death sentence, putting his fate entirely in the Scryer’s hands. The judge was little more than a referee.

Reaching the isolated dais where the accused sat, the Scryer pushed back the hood of her robe, revealing the black mask like a fencer's that hid and protected her face. She alone stood between the defendant and his doom, and she felt all the weight of that burden. Her body was sticky and cold beneath the cumbersome sexless robes, that swathed her like the pleurant of a medieval mourner.

“The accused will face the Scryer.”

The accused, the only one in the room with naked eyes, a young man with tight Aryan features, appeared to suddenly realize the seriousness of his decision and made things difficult for his guards, who after some struggling bound his hands, gagged his screams and fitted his eyelids with retractors. When the audience at last silenced, the Scryer began. Clicking the button on her mask that unveiled her naked eyes, she meshed her stare with that of the accused. The spectators fixed their attention on their video monitors, eagerly tracking the images of the accused’s brain scan, the flares and throbbings of ever-intensifying color that meshed with his choked keenings.

The Scryer felt her entire body growing cold, sweat trickling at her nape as she stared into the accused’s wan blue wide-stretched eyes with their now almost invisible pupils. Every time she thought there could be nothing worse to see, that she had finally come to the end of everything rotten and twisted and senseless, creatures like this hell-wrought youth proved her wrong. For fifteen seconds' worth of lifetime she plunged into the unspeakable sewer that was his essence before closing her eyes, forcing her heart and guts to calm; but she felt faint and staggered slightly, causing a murmur among the spectators that the judge sternly banged into silence.

“Scryer, your decision?”

The judge’s question, one she had heard so often in the last five years, reminded the Scryer of her power, and it gave her a surge of intense, terrible joy. Her mask contained a device that would distort her normal voice beyond detection, and her words would emerge in a flat, sexless staccato. Always her statements were given tersely, whether advising incarceration or execution; but this time she said nothing.

Her eyes again locked on the accused’s. Reaching out, she put her hands on either side of his head, and even though her touch was gentle, the accused screamed behind his gag.

She mirrored him. All that he had inflicted, he now felt.

He twitched and thrashed, and his muffled shrieks never stopped. The Scryer wrinkled her nose as he lost control of his bodily functions, but her stare never wavered; and finally his body relaxed as his head went limp in her hands, lolling backward as she let go. In the total silence, the slight thud of his head striking the chair’s back seemed to echo as his brain’s desperate, throbbing, brilliant colors faded to flat pale gray.

Amid the collective gasp of the spectators, many of whom applauded and cheered, some of the accused’s supporters hurdled the barrier to exact vengeance. The guards rushed in to earn their pay, and at the same time the Scryer felt a steel-strong pair of arms grabbing her about the body, lifting her up and carrying her to the safety of the judge’s chambers.

The heavy door slammed and locked. Her rescuer looked her up and down through the impenetrable sunglasses that for the Scryer had become part of his face. “You okay, ma’am?”

She pushed at the spring that detached the mask, her fingers cold and frantic in their gloves. “I’m freezing. And I’m going to be sick.”

Her savior caught the mask with one hand as it dropped, setting it aside as with his other hand he reached into a pocket and took out a slim silver vial, lifting its cap with an expert flick of his thumb, extracting one of its contents. The Scryer at once held out her hand to receive what looked like a pretty piece of hard candy, and popped it into her mouth. In seconds, sweet expected calm ensued in her stomach, a tranquil warmth that soon ebbed out to her body, working its blessed way upward to quiet first her battering heart, then her jangled mind. “Thanks, Dave.”

He nodded slightly, then pushed back the Scryer’s hood and carefully removed the helmet. “What happened to that guy?”

She knew what Dave really wanted to ask, but there was always someone else listening. “It was a heart attack, or a stroke. The autopsy will prove that.”

Dave only nodded again. After he packed the robe and mask into its case, he led the Scryer to the private exit that led to the secluded garage, and helped her into the car. Its back windows were coated with an opaque film, making it impossible for the Scryer to see anything outside, but that didn't matter. Past the barrier that divided her from Dave, she could feel him compelling the expensive machine with smooth stops and precise gradual turns. It always calmed her, his driving.

His voice understood. “Feeling any better, ma’am?”

“Yes.” But she only meant her husk. Inside, the emanations of the accused still poisoned her.

He knew. His voice became level and detached, in a way she had learned to take very seriously. “What happened today won’t ever happen again. Sec, making a call.”

He got on his phone and began speaking in Soldier, a language of acronyms and expletives. The Scryer took out her music player, donned her headphones, and escaped into her needful paradise of fugues and arpeggios and adagios.

When at last Dave stopped the car and opened her door―he had to, since he controlled the lock―the Scryer blinked at the sudden light, and found that they were at the front of the hotel, not inside the closely guarded space in the building's depths.

Dave shrugged off her surprise, and handed her their room’s keycard. “Something’s come up, ma’am. You know the drill.”

She did, although she’d very seldom met with this part of it. Donning her dark glasses as required, she went as far as the door with Dave and then entered the lobby alone.

She was expected to head directly for the room elevator, but her stomach didn’t give her time. Rushing to the ladies’ room, she bolted into a stall and vomited. Having thus at least partially exorcised the accused, she went to a sink and rinsed her mouth, poured hot water over her hands to warm them, then took off her dark glasses and gazed into the mirror, pushing back her disordered hair, shaping it and her thoughts into order. Face to face with her mirrored self she calmed as she always did, and began freshening the light makeup she was required to wear on assignment. Her features combined the golden symmetry of a Botticelli portrait with the meditative stillness of a Noh mask, and her eyes were pure and clear, the only eyes not a monster’s she was ever allowed to look into.

She knew it. Knew she’d killed him. All she felt was relief…and a sense of power so alien it confused her.

Freshened and put to rights she headed again for her room. The candy drug given to her by Dave tenderly cocooned her as always, sliding a fine mesh between memory and reality, turning the horrors into dismissible blurs, and making any thought of running away, escaping, getting free, a laughable, touching folly.

On her way to the elevator, she passed the cocktail lounge. Halting in the doorway, she listened to the murmur of relaxed conversation and calm piano undercurrent for a few indecisive instants before entering and seating herself at the bar. She’d never done such a thing before, and wondered why she dared to now. Perhaps it was the detached peace of the place, or the skill of the musician despite the cheapness of the music. Perhaps it was anger, that always dwelt in her like a dormant seed, waiting its chance to burst into a blood-red flower. But most of all it felt like the new, strange sensation that had come over her when she’d seen the face of the accused grow white and stiff around his staring eyes. Joy. Sheer rapturous joy.

Part of her instruction, although she very seldom had occasion to make use of it, included how to move smoothly in a public setting, and she was secure in the knowledge that she fitted in seamlessly. She felt the bartender’s approving scrutiny as she ordered her drink with downcast eyes. More than one man came over to speak to her, low-toned and interested, and she listened to them with bemused half-smiles as she sipped her iced Cointreau, wordlessly examining their cufflinks or their watches or their rings until they became tired of trying and left her alone.

“What would the lovely lady like to hear?”

Her seat at the bar was very near the piano, and the musician had addressed her. She felt a blush well up in her cheeks, a confused smile quiver on her lips as she turned toward him, evading eye contact as a matter of instinct. “Anything by Couperin.”

Her words had rushed out of her, breathless, and her blush deepened at them. The musician had been playing a medley of pop tunes, and must have found her request bizarre. But then he amazed her with ‘Les Baricades Mistérieuses,’ and she leaned close to listen, feeling every note imbue her with peace. When it was done she applauded, and to her surprised pleasure a few others did so too. Encouraged, the pianist moved on to a Bach prelude and was beginning a Mozart rondo when the hotel manager appeared and said something to him in a low warning tone. The music instantly reverted to bland, facile pop. With a sigh the Scryer motioned to the bartender for another drink, but a sudden hand unlike all the others intercepted her glass. The voice that came with it was low and taut, very like the manager’s to the musician.

“Damn it, ma'am, you know you shouldn't be here.”

The Scryer was startled only for an instant, and replied calmly as she studied the hand’s fine white scars. “You shouldn’t either, Dave. Civilized clothing doesn’t look right on you.”

It took him a few seconds to reply. “Did you use the can?”

He spoke very quietly, but she colored up anyway, and answered only with a nod. Muttering a curse he got out his phone and punched in a text message. When he’d finished, he pocketed her glass, ice and all. “Let’s go. Keep the shades off―it looks weird for us both to be wearing ‘em.”

She knew better than to protest, and left the bar at his side with eyes downcast. They were silent in the elevator, and neither of them spoke on the way to the room. As soon as the door was closed she buried her face in her hands. “It was so alive, that music. Like all the places I know only from pictures, places I’ll never see…”

The last words cracked and stalled, and Dave sighed and put his arms around her, cradling her quiet. “Shh. I know, babe. Shush.”

The music had been so beautiful. The Cointreau had tasted like paradise. She hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. “You used to be free. You―” His embrace tightened a warning instant, and she drew a deep steadying breath. “I didn’t get you into trouble?”

“Nah.” His fingers slid to her waist in that warning way she'd grown used to, but then the touch became appraising. “Let's find you some food.”

Before Dave, the Scryer had lived mainly on sugar, alcohol, and vitamins, the latter prescribed by the state, which was extremely solicitous of her health. But Dave never failed to take full advantage of room service at a five-star hotels with famous restaurants, and made sure she did too. Going to the room phone, he ordered dinner for both of them, calmly and unerringly as if planning a crucial mission. Finishing the order he gave the Scryer that grin she always liked and seldom saw. Addressing the phone again, he said, “Plus a bottle of champagne. Your best. Oh, and fruit fondue.” He knew well that she adored both, and the latter combined two of his passions, chocolate and fire.

***

The fondue pot's candle made just enough light.

“Permission to speak freely, ma'am?”

“Granted, Dave.”

“You're a damn fine lay.”

She laughed, low and soft. “I think I’m the one who should be saying that.”

In the darkness visible she caught the edge of his smile as he covered her bare shoulders with the rustling luxurious sheet. “Honored, ma’am.”

She snuggled against his side. “The others were impossible. They’d have treated bed like one of those video games they were always playing―get in, score, and get out.” Her fingertips traced his chest as she spoke. “Until you, it was a lot more fun to say no.”

“They were hand-picked to serve your every need.”

“By very bad pickers. I didn't know I even had needs, until you.” She'd always wondered who'd chosen Dave. He was older than the others, and she could tell that he had been an officer, and fought in wars. Her next words were whispers. “You've seen the kinds of things I have.”

He didn’t answer, but took her hand and gave it a surrounding, gentle, warning pressure. Most of their communication was like that. So much she wanted to ask him but knew he could never reply to, because of the watching eyes, the listening ears of the administration that had taken her when she was almost too young to remember and kept her sequestered ever after like a mouse in a box, a terrified little mouse that didn't want to live and had often tried very hard to die. But Dave had brought in the light…warm bright light. And she had changed from a mouse to a princess in a tower.

Surely he’d have known what life with her would entail―jagged moments of raw danger, spaced by long empty stretches that had driven the others desperate. He was required to be with her constantly, and she was permitted no contact with anyone else. They had been together half a year now, and she could no longer envision life without him, but she had no idea what he really felt, or how much longer it would be until he broke like the others. She would not blame him for leaving, nor for what happened to her afterward.

“I read somewhere that it is a prisoner's duty to escape,” she said, softly into the darkness. “Then again, I'm always reading.”

“Yeah. High-falutin' old stuff.”

“It's beautiful. It keeps me alive.” Moving to rest on her side, she fixed her gaze on the candle that now made only a faint fleck of light. When she spoke again, her voice had cooled to wryness. “It was so embarrassing, making the first move.”

“You had to. Regulations.”

She half laughed, remembering some lines lately read. “'The amours of an empress, as they exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much sentimental delicacy.'”

In the fallen silence Dave lay motionless, but then his hand moved to her bare shoulder, gripping it gently. Slowly and carefully, each word clear, he said, “To heal, as far as was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of Pertinax.”

She felt a shock well through her, quickening her heart. She trembled, but somehow kept her voice steady. “I'd wondered who was dog-earing my Decline and Fall. I'd never have thought you the Gibbon type.”

His chuckle made a soft rumble under her ear. “Yeah, I’m more of an ape, huh. But believe it or not, I read that guy quite a while ago before I got here. I’ll even admit to liking poetry.”

He was amazing her, but she fought to reply calmly. “Give me an example.”

“Okay, but promise not to laugh.” And he began.

“She is coming, my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a tread,

My heart would hear her and beat,

Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead,

Would start and tremble under her feet,

And blossom in purple and red.”

He spoke the words matter-of-factly, as if reading a list; but she felt his heart beating as fast as hers. They had discovered a language, a code, that the administration could not understand. They might have very little time to use it.

His hand, that still held hers, gave another, longer, gentler pressure. The little flickering flame quivered in death, leaving them in complete darkness. She felt him take off his glasses and set them aside. “Your turn.”

She understood. Summoning all her calm, she spoke the words she had wanted to say for a very long time.

“Now that I have your heart by heart, I see

The wharves with their great ships and architraves;

The rigging and the cargo and the slaves

On a strange beach under a broken sky.

O not departure, but a voyage done!

The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps

Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps

Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.”

As she spoke the last line, she turned to look directly at him, and she knew their eyes had met entirely naked, blind in the darkness. It didn’t matter. She rested her head on his shoulder once again, and he wrapped her in his arms no differently than he always did. “What the hell are architraves...” His lips touched her hairline. “I have to tell you about tomorrow, babe.” And quietly he explained what was scheduled to occur, and how her life would change.

The new administration had for some time decided that the scryer’s talents were wasted on No Mercy, and this day’s show would be her last. In the coming week she would be flown to the nation's capital to attend a reception in honor of the visiting leader of the world's second most powerful nation. He was said to be utterly inscrutable, this leader; he had only just come to power and it was suspected that he might have dangerous tendencies to megalomania, but so far no one had been able to ascertain the truth. It would be her task to learn it.

So much became clear, suddenly―the lessons in etiquette, the guidance of her education. “So that was the test I passed. At the cocktail lounge.”

“Yep. I figured it called for bubbly.”

She had also been taught to hold her liquor, and her thoughts were sober, but it was hard to calm her heart. At last she would see those places she’d only known in pictures; watch an orchestra playing the music she knew only by recordings; view the paintings she loved in the museums where they hung, instead of on a screen…and much, much more than that. Her blood heated with a surge of sudden, terrible joy. “I just thought of another poem.”

He felt her quickened pulse, and twined his fingers with hers. “I’m listening.”

She licked her lips, which were very dry, and forced the words to issue softly, calmly.

“Ah Love, could you and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits―and then
Re-mold it nearer to the heart’s desire!”

He was silent a long time, but then his hand closed around her wrist, and she trembled even though his touch was barely a squeeze, just as his voice was scarcely a murmur. “You really need to get some sleep, hon.”

Suddenly she felt very tired. “You’re right.”

Dave tensed ever so slightly, then relaxed. “Hear that? Thunder. It'll rain soon.”

“Yes.” She loved rain, but she had only ever seen it through windows, heard it on roofs. She had spent her life behind glass, darkly. Now that would change. Now...

A massive detonation made the distance vibrate, and she gasped. Dave's touch at once gently reassured her, fingers warmly wrapping hers.

“Just a storm, babe. It won't last long.”

“Then I don't want to miss it.” Slipping free, she got out of bed and went to the window, struggling with the latch, shocking herself with her language. “These goddamned things never open. Ever.”

Dave joined her. “Easy. You’ll cut yourself.” But he didn’t make her stop. He only shooed her hand away, clicked the latch and slid the glass wide open. The lightning was coming down in great bolts, but she leaned out, feeling the rain striking her face, streaming through her hair down to her naked skin.

“Jeez, you're gonna get yourself electrocuted.” Dave pulled her away and held her close as a great jolt of blinding white shook the building, and all the lights went out.

Her shriek had been muffled against his chest. Beneath her cheek, past his warmth, she felt his heartbeat. Save for the storm’s hectic incandescence, the world was lightless, soundless, safe. She moved to look up at Dave and their eyes met, as naked as their bodies.

What she saw, she'd known all along. He had the soul of a hero. And he’d die for her, but she wouldn’t let him.

His fine clear gaze seemed to know her fully as deep. “Be gentle, Medusa.”

“No worries, Galahad.” She wrapped her wet arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes as she listened to the rain.

Dave's voice threaded the downpour. “Tomorrow’s a big day, hon. Let's get some sleep.” He gathered her closer, and his lips smiled against her brow. “You know, it’s not going to be easy.”

She smiled too. “Shattering the sorry scheme, you mean?”

“Nah. Having kids who can see right through me.”

They both laughed. The storm's thunder was distant now. Sweet clean rain-washed air filled the room, and morning would come with warm, bright light.

End

Note: The first poem quotation is from ‘Maud,’ by Alfred Tennyson, 1855; the second is from ‘Song for the Last Act,’ by Louise Bogan, 1949; the third from ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,’ translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1859.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Short Fiction: REGENERATED

Short Fiction: THE KIND GODS

One of my early short fantasy works, first published in Bewildering Stories. (Information about my other writing can be found here. Happy reading!)

Short Fiction: LAST LAUGHTER

Short Fiction: THE HEART'S DESIRE

One of my early short fantasy works, first published in Bewildering Stories.
(Information about my other writing can be found here. Happy reading!)