The Best of Kage Baker

by Kage Baker

  They painted the local landscapes, they made pots of the local clay, and wove textiles from the local plant fibers; and they even figured out that if they cut down the local trees to make charmingly rustic wooden furniture, sooner or later there wouldn’t be any trees. For the Children of the Sun, who were ordinarily remarkably dense about ecological matters, this was a real breakthrough.

  And so the other peoples of the world ventured up to Konen Feyy. The forest-dwelling Yendri, the Saint’s own people, opened little shops where were sold herbs, or freshwater pearls, or willow baskets, or fresh produce. Other folk came, too: solitary survivors of lesser-known races, obscure revenants, searching for a quiet place to set up shop. This was how the Night School came to exist.

  Svnae, wandering down Konen Feyy’s high street and staring around her, found the place at once. Though it looked like an ordinary perfumer’s shop, there were certain signs on the wall above the door, visible only to those who were familiar with the arcane sciences. An extravagant green cursive explained the School’s hours, where and how she might enroll, and where to find appropriate lodgings with other students.

  In this last she was lucky, for it happened that there were three other daughters of magi who’d taken a place above a dollmaker’s shop, and hadn’t quite enough money between them to make the monthly rent, so they were looking for a fourth roommate, someone to be Earth to their Air, Fire and Water. They were pleasant girls, though Svnae was somewhat taken aback to discover that she towered over them all three, and somewhat irritated to discover

  that they all held her mother in reverent awe.

  “You’re the daughter of the Saint of the World?” exclaimed Seela, whose father was Principal Thaumaturge for Mount Flame City. “What are you doing here, then? She’s totally the best at distillations and essences. Everyone knows that! I’d give anything to learn from her.”

  Svnae was to hear this statement repeated, with only slight variations, over the next four years of her higher education. She learned not to mind, however; for her studies occupied half her attention, and the other half was all spent on discovering the strange new world in which she lived, where there were no bodyguards (of which she was aware, anyway) and only her height distinguished her from all the other young ladies she met.

  It was tremendous fun. She chipped in money with her roommates to buy a couch for their sitting room, and the four of them pushed it up the steep flight of stairs with giggles and screams, though Svnae could have tucked it under one arm and carried it up herself with no effort. She dined with her roommates at the little fried-fish shop on the corner, where they had their particular booth in which they always sat, though Svnae found it rather cramped.

  She listened sympathetically as first one and then another of her roommates fell in love with various handsome young seers and sorcerers, and she swept up after a number of riotous parties, and on one occasion broke a vase over the head of a young shapeshifter who, while nice enough when sober, turned into something fairly unpleasant when he became unwisely intoxicated. She had to throw him over her shoulder and pitch him down the stairs, and her roommates wept their thanks and all agreed they didn’t know what they’d do without her.

  But somehow Svnae never fell in love.

  It wasn’t because she had no suitors for her hand. There were several young gallants at the Night School, glittering with jewelry and strange habits, who sought to romance Svnae. One was an elemental fire-lord with burning hair; one was a lord of air with vast violet wings. One was a mer-lord, who had servants following him around with perfumed misting bottles to keep his skin from drying out.

  But all of them made it pretty clear they desired to marry Svnae in order to forge dynastic unions with the Master of the Mountain. And Svnae had long since decided that love, real Love, was the only reason for getting involved in all the mess and distraction of romance. So she declined, gracefully, and the young lords sulked and found other wealthy girls to entreat.

  Her course of study ended. The roommates all bid one another fond farewells and went their separate ways. Svnae returned home with a train of attendant spirits carrying presents for all her little nieces and nephews. But she did not stay long, for she had heard of a distant island where was written, in immense letters on cliffs of silver, the formula for reversing Time in small and manageable fields, and she desired to learn it…

  ***

  “Svnae’s turned out rather well,” said the Master of the Mountain, as he retired one night. “I could wish she spent a little more time at home, all the same. I’d have thought she’d have married and settled down by now, like the boys.”

  “She’s restless,” said the Saint of the World, as she combed out her hair.

  “Well, why should she be? A first-rate sorceress with a double degree? The Ruby Incomparable, they call her. What more does she want?”

  “She doesn’t know, yet,” said the Saint of the World, and blew out the light. “But she’ll know when she finds it.”

  ***

  And Svnae had many adventures.

  But one day, following up an obscure reference in an ancient grimoire, it chanced that she desired to watch a storm in its rage over the wide ocean, and listen to the wrath of all the waters. Out she flew upon a black night in the late year, when small craft huddled at their moorings, and found what she sought.

  There had never in all the world been such a storm. The white foam was beaten into air, the white air was charged with water, the shrieking white gulls wheeled and screamed across the black sky, and the waves were as valleys and mountains.

  Svnae floated in a bubble of her own devising, protected, watching it all with interest. Suddenly, far below in a trough of water, she saw a tiny figure clinging to a scrap of wood. The trough became a wall of water that rose up, towering high, until into her very eyes stared the drowning man. In his astonishment he let go the shattered mast that supported him, and sank out of sight like a stone.

  She cried out and dove from her bubble into the wave. Down she went, through water like dark glass, and caught him by the hand; up she went, towing him with her, and got him into the air and wrapped her strong arms about him. She could not fly, not with wet wings in the storm, but she summoned sea-beasts to bear them to the nearest land.

  This was merely an empty rock, white cliffs thrusting from the sea. By magic she raised a palace from the stones to shelter them, and she brought the man within. Here there was a roaring fire; here there was hot food and wine. She put him to rest all unconscious in a deep bed, and tended him with her own hands.

  Days she watched and cared for him, until he was well enough to speak to her. By that time, he had her heart.

  Now, he was not as handsome as a mage-lord, nor learned in any magic, nor born of ancient blood: he was only a toymaker from the cities of the Children of the Sun, named Kendach. But so long and anxiously had she watched his sleeping face that she saw it when she closed her eyes.

  And of course when Kendach opened his, the first thing he saw was her face: and after that, it was love. How could it be otherwise?

  They nested together, utterly content, until it occurred to them that their families might wonder where they were. So she took him home to meet her parents (“A toymaker?” hooted her brothers) and he took her home to meet his (“Very nice girl. A little tall, but nice,” said his unsuspecting father. They chose not to enlighten him as to their in-laws).

  They were married in a modest ceremony in Konen Feyy.

  “I hope he’s not going to have trouble with her brothers,” fretted Kendach’s father, that night in the innroom. “Did you see the way they glared? Particularly that good-looking one. It quite froze my blood.”

  “It’s clear she gets her height from her father,” said Kendach’s mother, pouring tea for him. “Very distinguished businessman, as I understand it. Runs some kind of insurance firm. I do wonder why her mother wears that veil, though, don’t you?”

  Kendach opened a toyshop in Konen Feyy, wher
e he made kites in the forms of insects, warships and meteors. Svnae raised a modest palace among the trees, and they lived there in wedded bliss. And life was full for Svnae, with nothing else to be asked for.

  And then…

  One day she awoke and there was a grey stain on the face of the sun. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. It did not go away. It came and sat on top of her morning tea. It blotted the pages of the books she tried to read, and it lay like grime on her lover’s face. She couldn’t get rid of it, nor did she know from whence it had come.

  Svnae took steps to find out. She went to a cabinet and got down a great black globe of crystal, that shone and swam with deep fires. She went to a quiet place and stroked the globe until it glowed with electric crackling fires. At last these words floated up out of the depths:

  YOUR MOTHER DOES NOT UNDERSTAND YOU

  They rippled on the surface of the globe, pulsing softly. She stared at them and they did not change.

  So she pulled on her cloak that was made of peacock feathers, and yoked up a team of griffins to a sky chariot (useful when your lover has no wings, and flies only kites) and flew off to visit her mother.

  The Saint of the World sat alone in her garden, by a quiet pool of reflecting water. She wore a plain white robe. White lilies glowed with light on the surface of the water; distantly a bird sang. She meditated, her crystal eyes serene.

  There was a flash of color on the water. She looked up to see her eldest daughter charging across the sky. The griffin-chariot thundered to a landing nearby and Svnae dismounted, pulling her vivid cloak about her. She went straight to her mother and knelt.

  “Mother, I need to talk to you,” she said. “Is it true that you don’t understand me?”

  The Saint of the World thought it over.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she said at last. “I don’t understand you. I’m sorry, dearest. Does it make a difference?”

  “Have I disappointed you, Mother?” asked Svnae in distress.

  The Lady thought very carefully about that one.

  “No,” she said finally. “I would have liked a daughter to be interested in the healing arts. It just seems like the sort of thing a mother ought to pass on to her daughter. But your brother Demaledon has been all I could have asked for in a pupil, and there are all my disciples. And why should your life be a reprise of mine?”

  “None of the other girls became healers,” said Svnae just a little petulantly.

  “Quite true. They’ve followed their own paths: lovers and husbands and babies, gardens and dances.”

  “I have a husband too, you know,” said Svnae.

  “My child, my Dark-Eyed, I rejoice in your happiness. Isn’t that enough?”

  “But I want you to understand my life,” cried Svnae.

  “Do you understand mine?” asked the Saint of the World.

  “Your life? Of course I do!”

  Her mother looked at her, wryly amused.

  “I have borne your father fourteen children. I have watched him march away to do terrible things, and I have bound up his wounds when he returned from doing them. I have managed the affairs of a household with over a thousand servants, most of them ogres. I have also kept up correspondence with my poor disciples, who are trying to carry on my work in my absence. What would you know of these things?”

  Svnae was silent at that.

  “You have always hunted for treasures, my dearest, and thrown open every door you saw, to know what lay beyond it,” said the Saint of the World gently. “But there are still doors you have not opened. We can love each other, you and I, but how can we understand each other?”

  “There must be a way,” said Svnae.

  “Now you look so much like your father you make me laugh and cry at once. Don’t let it trouble you, my Dark-Eyed; you are strong and happy and good, and I rejoice.”

  But Svnae went home that night to the room where Kendach sat, painting bright and intricate birds on kites. She took a chair opposite and stared at him.

  “I want to have a child,” she said.

  He looked up, blinking in surprise. As her words sank in on him, he smiled and held out his arms to her.

  Did she have a child? How else, when she had accomplished everything else she wanted to do?

  A little girl came into the world. She was strong and healthy. She looked like her father, she looked like her mother; but mostly she looked like herself, and she surprised everyone.

  Her father had been one of many children, so there were fewer surprises for him. He knew how to bathe a baby, and could wrestle small squirming arms into sleeves like an expert.

  Svnae, who had grown up in a nursery staffed by a dozen servants, proved to be rather inept at these things. She was shaken by her helplessness, and shaken by the helpless love she felt. Prior to this time she had found infants rather uninteresting, little blobs in swaddling to be briefly inspected and presented with silver cups that had their names and a good-fortune spell engraved on them.

  But her infant—! She could lie for hours watching her child do no more than sleep, marveling at the tiny toothless yawn, the slow close of a little hand.

  When the baby was old enough to travel, they wrapped her in a robe trimmed with pearls and took her to visit her maternal grandparents, laden with the usual gifts. Her lover went off to demonstrate the workings of his marvelous kites to her nieces and nephews. And Svnae bore her daughter to the Saint of the World in triumph.

  “Now I’ve done something you understand,” she said. The Saint of the World took up her little granddaughter and kissed her between the eyes.

  “I hope that wasn’t the only reason you bore her,” she said.

  “Well—no, of course not,” Svnae protested, blushing. “I wanted to find out what motherhood was like.”

  “And what do you think it is like, my child?”

  “It’s awesome. It’s holy. My entire life has been redefined by her existence,” said Svnae fervently.

  “Ah, yes,” said the Saint of the World.

  “I mean, this is creation at its roots. This is Power! I have brought an entirely new being into the world. A little mind that thinks! I can’t wait to see what she thinks about, how she feels about things, what she’ll say and do. What’s ordinary magic to this?”

  The baby began to fuss and the Lady rose to walk with her through the garden. Svnae followed close, groping for words.

  “There’s so much I can teach her, so much I can give her, so much I can share with her. Her first simple spells. Her first flight. Her first transformation. I’ll teach her everything I know. We’ve got that house in Konen Feyy, and it’ll be so convenient for Night School! She won’t even have to find room and board. She can use all my old textbooks…”

  But the baby kept crying, stretching out her little hands.

  “Something she wants already,” said the Lady. She picked a white flower and offered it to the child; but no, the little girl pointed beyond it. Svnae held out a crystal pendant, glittering with power, throwing dancing lights; but the baby cried and reached upward. They looked up to see one of her father’s kites, dancing merry and foolish on the wind.

  The two women stood staring at it. They looked at the little girl. They looked at each other.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t enroll her in Night School just yet,” said the Saint of the World.

  And Svnae realized, with dawning horror, that she might need to ask her mother for advice.

  Plotters and Shooters

  I was flackeying for Lord Deathlok and Dr. Smash when the shuttle brought the new guy.

  I hate Lord Deathlok. I hate Dr. Smash too, but I’d like to see Lord Deathlok get a missile fired up his ass, from his own cannon. Not that it’s really a cannon. And I couldn’t shoot him, anyhow, because I’m only a Plotter. But it’s the thought that counts, you know?

  Anyway I looked up when the beeps and the flashing lights started, and Lord Deathlok took hold of my little French maid’s apron and yanked it so hard I had
to bend over fast, so I almost dropped the tray with his drink.

  “Pay attention, maggot-boy,” said Lord Deathlok. “It’s only a shuttle docking. No reason you should be distracted from your duties.”

  “I know what’s wrong,” said Dr. Smash, lounging back against the bar. “He hears the mating call of his kind. They must have sent up another Plotter.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Lord Deathlok grinned at me. “Your fat-ass girlfriend went crying home to his mum and dad, didn’t he?”

  Oh, man, how I hated him. He was talking about Kev, who’d only gone Down Home again because he’d almost died in an asthma attack. Kev had been a good Plotter, one of the best. I just glared at Deathlok, which was a mistake, because he smiled and put his boot on my foot and stood up.

  “I don’t think I heard your answer, Fifi,” he said, and I was in all this unbelievable psychological pain, see, because even with the lower gravity he could still manage to get the leverage just right if he wanted to bear down. They tell us we don’t have to worry about getting brittle bones up here because they make us do weight-training, but how would we know if they were lying? I could almost hear my metatarsals snapping like dry twigs.

  “Yes, my Lord Deathlok,” I said.

  “What?” He leaned forward.

  “My lord yes my Lord Deathlok!”

  “That’s better.” He sat down.

  So okay, you’re probably thinking I’m a coward. I’m not. It isn’t that Lord Deathlok is even a big guy. He isn’t, actually, he’s sort of skinny and he has these big yellow buck teeth that make him look like a demon jackrabbit. And Dr. Smash has breasts and a body odor that makes sharing an airlock with him a fatal mistake. But they’re Shooters, you know? And they all dress like they’re space warriors or something, with the jackets and the boots and the scary hair styles. Shracking fascists.