Points of Departure: Stories

by Pat Murphy

  The giant frowned. “Your mother’s men have fled. Her castle is broken. But still she holds the winds in her power. She stands there where we cannot follow.” The giant gestured to the tallest tower. Tarsia noticed that the wind had scoured a bare spot in the snow at the tower’s base. “Visit her if you will.”

  Tarsia left the white horse standing by the tower door and climbed the cold stairs alone. She could feel a breeze tickling the back of her neck and tugging at her clothes. She was cold; so cold, as cold as she had been the morning she stole the loaf of bread.

  A slender figure was silhouetted in the doorway against the sky. “So you have come to destroy me,” said a voice that was at the same time silky and sharp.

  “No,” Tarsia protested. “Not to destroy you. I came to help you.”

  She looked up into the gray eyes. The Lady was as beautiful as Tarsia’s vision: slim, gray-eyed, ashen haired, dressed in a gown as white as a cloud. In her hand, she held on leash four hounds. They were silver in the moonlight and their bodies seemed to shimmer. Their eyes were pools of darkness and Tarsia wondered what the winds of the world thought about. Where would they wander if they were not on leash? The breeze tugged at her hair and she wondered why they needed to be bound.

  Tarsia stared into the Lady’s eyes and the Lady laughed a sound like icicles breaking in the wind. “I see myself in your eyes, Daughter. You have come to help.” She reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder, pulling the young thief to her. Her hand was cold—Tarsia could feel its chill to her bones.

  The wind beat in Tarsia’s face as she stood beside the Lady, looking down at the giant and the snowbank, silvered by moonlight. The dragon swooped down to land nearby and the glow of his flames lent a ruddy cast to the snow.

  “We are above them, Daughter,” said the Lady. “We don’t need them.”

  Tarsia did not speak. Looking down, Tarsia saw the piece of chain still dangling from the giant’s arm and remembered wondering why he had been bound.

  “You are waiting for the coming of the one who will destroy me?” called the Lady. “You will wait forever. Here she stands. My daughter has joined me and we will be stronger together than I was alone. You will be cast back to your prisons.”

  The dragon raised its fiery wings in a blaze of glory. The giant stood by the gate, broad face set in a scowl. The undine flowed from one ice pillar to another—her body distorted by the strange shapes through which she passed.

  “All who have risen against me will be chained,” said the Lady.

  “That need not be,” said Tarsia, her voice small compared to her mother’s. Then she called out to the three who waited, “Will you promise never to attack us again? Will you vow to—”

  “Daughter, there can be no bargains,” said the Lady. “No deals, no vows, no promises. You must learn. Those who betray you must be punished. You have power over them; you cannot bargain with them.”

  The Lady’s voice gained power as she spoke—the cold force of a winter wind. Not angry, it was cold, bitter cold. Like the bitter wind that had wailed around the towers of the city—alone, lonely, proud. Like the gusts that had chilled Tarsia when she slept on the city wall. Like the chill in the dungeon when she was chained and unable to escape.

  Tarsia looked at the hounds at her mother’s feet: shimmering sleek hounds with eyes of night. Why must they be chained? She looked at the Lady: sculpted of ivory, her hair spun silver in the moonlight.

  “Go,” Tarsia told the hounds. “Be free.” The words left her body like a sigh. And the power that would have been hers, that had been hers for a time, left her with the breath. With her sharp knife and an ease born of a magic she did not understand, she reached out and slashed the leashes that held the hounds. Beneath her, the tower trembled.

  The hounds leapt forward, laughing now, tongues lolling over flashing teeth, sleek legs hurling them into the air, smiling hounds looking less like hounds and more like ghosts, like silver sand blown by the wind. The Lady’s hair whirled about her. She lifted white arms over her head, reaching out to the faraway moon. Tarsia watched and knew that she would never be so beautiful, never be so powerful, never would the winds heel to her command.

  The tower trembled and the scent of sulfur was all around and crystals of snow beat at Tarsia’s face. She felt herself lifted—or thrown—and caught and tumbled like a coin through the air.

  Somehow, someone shut out the moon and stars.

  A scent of a charcoal fire—damp dismal smell in the early morning—and … damn, she thought. Will I never be free of this? She forced her eyes open.

  “You’re awake,” said the prince. “How do you feel?”

  She had been angry, she remembered. And she had been cold with a frozen bitterness. Now she felt only an emptiness where once the power had dwelled within her.

  She felt empty and light.

  She looked back at her mother’s castle. A ruin: scorched stones marked with the handprints of the giant, dusted with snow and tumbled by the wind. The ice had crept over the ruin, cracking some stones. Tarsia shivered.

  She struggled to her feet and stepped away from the castle, toward the village. Ahead, she could see snow crystals whirling on the surface of a drift. The grass around her feet shifted restlessly in the breeze. She looked at the prince and thought of all the things that she wanted to explain or ask—but she did not speak. The wind flirted with the hem of her skirt and tickled the back of her neck.

  “I’ll take you with me to my land if you bring the Winds along,” the prince said. His gaze was steady, regarding her as an equal.

  “I can’t bring them,” she said. “I’m not their mistress.”

  “They will follow,” said the prince. “You’re their friend.”

  The breeze helped him wrap his cape around her and the winds made the flowers dance as the prince and the thief rode away from the ruins.

  On the Dark Side of the Station Where the Train Never Stops

  THIS IS THE STORY of how Lucy, the fireborn, became the North Star. It happened last month.

  (What do you mean—the North Star was there the month before last? I’ll bet you believe in dinosaurs too. Take my advice. Don’t.)

  I’ll start the story in an Irish pub in the heart of New York—a pub full of strangers and dark corners and the smell of good beer. Beer had seeped into the grain of the place and you could scarcely get away from the scent, any more than you could get away from the sound of laughter and the babble of voices. The locals were puzzled by the strangers in their pub, but the Irish have always recognized the fey. The fireborn and the shadowborn are fey without a doubt.

  It was a party and Lucy was there. Of course she was there: Lucy always found the parties or the parties found Lucy, though sometimes it was hard to say which.

  Lucy was fireborn and a bag lady. No sweet-lipped heroine she. A chin like a precipice, a nose like a hawk, a voice like a trumpet, and eyes of a wintery blue.

  Lucy was charming the bartender, asking him for a full pint measure, rather than the half-pint he usually drew for a lady. The rings on Lucy’s battered hands caught the dim glow of the lights. Lucy herself glowed, just a little, with stored radiance. A glitter from her buttons, a sheen from her gray hair. Her eyes sparkled with the light of distant stars.

  She was explaining to the barkeep with a straight face, “… but you can see for yourself that I’m not a lady.”

  The barkeep grinned. “So tell me who you all are and what you’re all doing here.”

  “We’ve always been here,” she said.

  “In my pub?”

  “No—but around and about. Under the city and over the city and such.” She waved a hand in a grand gesture to include the world. “Everywhere.”

  The barkeep nodded. It was difficult to disagree with Lucy when she fixed you with her blue eyes. He drew her a pint.

  I will tell you a little more than Lucy told the barkeep, just so you’ll be satisfied with the truth of it all. Lucy and her friends ar
e the people who run the world. Often people confuse them with bums, hobos, and bag ladies.

  People don’t know. Lucy and her friends are the people with the many small-but-important jobs that you know so little about: the man who invented ants; the strange-minded dark-dweller who thought that boulders should be broken down into sand and sand shaped back into boulders again; the woman who puts curious things in unlikely places—like the gold lame slipper you saw by the road the other day.

  Some say that Lucy and her friends are gods and some give them names like Jupiter, Pluto, Mercury, Diana. I do not agree. They are people—longer-lived and more important people than most, but people nevertheless.

  Lucy took her beer and drifted away from the bar. She wandered—talking to people she knew and people she didn’t and people she might like to know. She drifted toward a dark corner where she heard a voice that interested her. And so, she met the man in the shadows.

  A cap like a ragpicker, boots like a rancher, a shirt with holes it is better not to discuss—he was one of the shadowborn. No matter what you have heard, they are not all bad, these shadowborn. Not all bad, though their minds are a little twisted and their bones are in the wrong places. Sometimes, they are very interesting people.

  He had a nice laugh, and many a meeting has been based on no more.

  “Hello,” said Lucy to the laughter in the darkness. “My name’s Lucy.”

  “I’m Mac,” he said.

  “And what’s your excuse for being here?” she asked.

  He laughed again—an interesting chuckle, more interesting because it held a hint of shadow. “I’m in the business of inventing the past and laying down proof that it really was.”

  (Now there’s a secret of the fireborn and the shadowborn. The world is really only a few years old. Some say five years; some say three. It really doesn’t matter that I tell you this. You won’t believe it anyway. People rarely believe important truths.)

  “What do you do, Lucy?” he asked.

  “I’m a firecatcher on the Starlight Run,” she said—and it sounded very important when she said it. Well, firecatcher is an important job, I suppose. Someone has to catch the light of distant stars and guide it down to Earth. But really, the Solar Run and the Lunar Ricochet Run (with the tricky reflection) are more important to folks on Earth.

  The Starlight Run is simply longer and lonelier.

  Lucy had been put on the Starlight Run younger than a firecatcher usually was. She had many people fooled into thinking that she was stronger and smarter and tougher than she was. She was on the Starlight Run, and there are many ways that a firecatcher can make that run and be lost forever.

  (You want to know how and when and why? Who are you to ask for explanations of things that even people of power don’t understand? And explanations will do you no good anyway. Trust me.)

  “Interesting job,” Mac said. “Not an easy one.” And Lucy grinned and set her pint on the table as if she would stop for a while. You know how it is when you meet someone who seems like a friend? You don’t know? You should. But even if you don’t, just trust me: that’s how it was. He seemed like a friend.

  “Hey, Lucy,” a firecatcher called from the bar.

  Lucy laid a hand on the shadowborn’s shoulder and said, “I’ve got to talk to that one. I’ll be back.” And she ran away to talk and never did get back to the shadows. Parties can be like that.

  And that night, Lucy left the city, running up and away to the far-off stars. And after a time, she came back. She went away, and she came back. And each time she came back, the world seemed a little brighter and the space between the stars a little darker. But she was a firecatcher and she went away and she came back, and there was another party.

  The gathering was in the phantom subway station at Ninety-first Street, where the train never stops anymore. The old station was lit by fireballs that Lucy had placed in the rafters. Laughter and voices echoed from the tiled walls.

  “You seem a little tired tonight, Lucy,” said Johnson, a jovial man who knew everyone’s business but managed to keep it all to himself. He lived by the stone lions at the public library and had the look of a fireborn but (some said) the twisty mind of a shadowborn. He was not all sparkle—he governed the sky over the city and some of that sky was clouds.

  “I am tired,” Lucy said. “Could you do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Make it cloudy tomorrow night. I need a holiday.”

  Johnson frowned. “It’s not in the schedule.”

  She watched him silently. Did I tell you—it’s hard to say no to Lucy.

  “All right, I’ll fix it,” he said at last. “We’ll have rain.”

  “Thanks,” she said and her eyes studied the crowd.

  “Who are you looking for?” Johnson asked.

  “Looking for trouble. What else?” Then her eyes stopped on a shadowy alcove beneath a stairway. “I think I found it.” She grinned at Johnson and started to turn away.

  “Hey, hold on,” said Johnson, laying a hand on her shoulder. “He’s a shadowborn and—”

  “I talked to him at a party a while back,” she said. “He seemed interesting. I always wanted a friend in dark places. Besides …” She let the word trail away, she shook the restraining hand from her shoulder, and she headed for the stairway. There never was any explaining Lucy’s “Besides …” And explanations would do no good anyway.

  She headed for the shadows.

  On the edge of the bottom step of the stairs, a spot of white fluttered in the darkness. Another spot of white crouched nearby.

  “Hello, cat,” Lucy said to the crouching whiteness, but the young animal was intent on the white scrap of paper that twitched on the stairs.

  There was no wind.

  Lucy watched and the paper moved—a slight twitch and a bit of a tumble. The cat’s eyes grew wider and she inched forward. Again, the scrap moved, fluttering like a bird with a broken wing. The cat flattened herself to the floor, staring.

  Not a breeze. But the paper fluttered again and the cat pounced. She held the scrap down with one paw and waited for it to struggle. And waited. Batted at it gently with the other paw.

  Lucy heard the darkness ahead chuckle, and she chuckled too. She had a nice laugh, or so folks said. Despite her nose and her chin and her voice, she had a nice laugh. She raised a hand in the darkness and the glitter from her rings became brighter. Still, it was difficult to see him in the dim light and easy to see that he liked it that way.

  A cap like a ragpicker, boots like a rancher. Lucy grinned and he grinned back.

  “Give up,” she said to the cat. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Things hardly ever are,” said the man in the shadows.

  He looked back at the cat and the bit of paper fluttered away, flying like a bat to disappear in the darkness.

  The sound of a train in the distance interrupted further discussion. The train never stopped at the Ninety-first Street station—not anymore. But it passed through with a rush of displaced air and a shriek of metal wheels on metal tracks and a headlight like a blaze of glory. The light flashed over peeling advertisements and mosaic tiles obscured by graffiti and empty spaces and a wide-eyed cat who crouched low to the floor.

  The rumbling train passed, leaving a great silence behind. Then party guests emerged from behind pillars and from shadowy corners.

  Lucy sat in the alcove beneath the stairs. “So what have you been up to, Mac? I haven’t seen you since the party in the pub.”

  “Manufacturing things that never were,” he said. “I’ve been over on the East Side, laying in a fossil bed that should complicate the history of life by more than a little. All sorts of inconsistencies. They’ll be confused for weeks. Serves them right for trying to find explanations where there aren’t any.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with explanations,” she said.

  “Ha! They only muddy things,” he said. “If only people would accept fossils as interesti
ng art forms. Or the bones of dragons.” He shrugged. “What can you expect? They wear lab coats and never see past one kind of truth to another kind. So what have you been doing, Lucy?”

  “Going on the Starlight Run.” She grinned and her eyes sparkled. “I’m off again, day after tomorrow:”

  “It’s a dark and lonely run,” he said.

  “Ah, but it’s worth it,” she said. And she told him about the Starlight Run and about how she dodged through time to jump vast distances and how she caught the light. And he talked to her about the dark ways beneath the city. I can’t tell you all that was said.

  But they weren’t just talking. This was something else and it’s hard to say just what. No, there was no crackle of sparks, no ozone in the air. But there was a bright chill that was not just the chill of the unused air of an ancient subway station. There was a tension that was something more than the tension of a party.

  Lucy, the fireborn, and Mac, the shadowborn, talked and chuckled. Around them, the party died down. The fireballs were fading when Mac said, “Hey, I’ll show you the project I’ve been working on.”

  They walked hand in hand. He found his way confidently through the darkness and their footsteps echoed in the tunnels. They stepped into a cavern—she could tell by the change in the echoes. Lucy lifted her hand and her rings glittered with light.

  They stood at the edge of a pit. Mac waved at the bones below. “I’m having trouble with this one,” he said. The skull looked vaguely crocodilian; the rest was a jumble of bones. “I don’t mind making a creature that can’t walk, but this one won’t even stand. I was playing with the joints and ways of putting them together and—” He stopped, shaking his head.

  Lucy frowned, looking down at the bones. “Let’s see,” she said. She reached a hand toward the pit and the bones began to glow. The heavy skull seemed to shift a little in its resting place, then a shining replica of the head lifted free. The beast raised itself slowly, bone by glowing bone. Each bone was a duplicate of the jumble in the pit.