The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be home in your own bed? Your mother and father must miss you.”

  “Dad died during the war. The Japs shot him down over Osaka, but he got six of ‘em first. Mom married Bill. He worked with Dad at the factory, but he’s no good.”

  “No good how?”

  “He gets angry a lot.” Cubby empties the flask into his mouth and wipes his hand over his lips. “Are you the real Bluebeard, the one who killed all his wives?”

  “Killed my wives? I did no such thing!”

  “Bluebeard married seven women and killed them all, and then he told wife number eight not to go into the room, but she snuck in and found the bodies and saved herself. After that his soul was doomed to wander the earth forever.”

  Bluebeard tries to remember, but if he once had wives their names and faces are lost to him. “I don’t think that was me.”

  “Okay,” Cubby says, but distantly, as if he’s not even listening.

  Several minutes later the boy weaves his way back inside and lays down wrapped in the army blanket. Bluebeard can’t see him, but ever since Cubby’s arrival Bluebeard has grown more aware of interior sounds and smells, of the air that fills his rooms, of his own shuttered doors and windows. He thinks he is becoming smarter, perhaps, or simply more attuned to the world around him. He is mulling over the idea the next morning, when a black car parks at the curb and the cigar-chomping man emerges.

  “Wake up, Cubby!” Bluebeard says.

  “Huh?” the boy asks, groggy with sleep.

  “Run!”

  Cubby escapes by squeezing out a side door, but the cigar-chomping man finds his treasures and throws everything but the dirty magazines away. Bluebeard hears a chain and padlock clank on his side door. He doesn’t see Cubby again until the boy sneaks back in a few nights later.

  “I just came to say goodbye,” Cubby says. “This guy, Frank, he’s going to California and he says I can come too. We’re gonna hitch rides and stow away on trains.”

  “Where’s California?” Bluebeard asks.

  “It’s where they make movies.” Cubby slides out the window. “But I brought you this first, because you’re kinda my friend.”

  The boy crawls out on Bluebeard’s arm with a green bottle in his right hand. Bluebeard itches all over with anticipation. He feels the first cool splash inside his mouth and sees, on the dark horizon, a dozen silver porpoises arc into the air. The seawater is saltier and better than soot-tasting rainwater, but before he can register all the different flavors the water is gone, absorbed into his wood.

  “More,” he begs. “More!”

  “Can’t.” Cubby climbs down to the sidewalk. “Gotta meet Frank. See you around, Blue.”

  Bluebeard never sees Cubby again. He never learns where California is. The brief taste of seawater burns inside him, and he decides that somehow, in whatever fashion, he must obtain more.

  The crowds return. Bluebeard’s awareness expands. He grows angry at the unruly youngsters who kick his walls and slam his doors. He spies on sweethearts kissing in the maze and aches to feel the sweet crush of a woman’s lips against his own. His envy of the swimmers across the boulevard turns to bitterness as they frolic and play in the waves as if anyone could. Why them, and not him? He begins to see that beneath their smiles and laughter most of the people are hiding their own greed and longing — some for money, some for love, others for alcohol or attention or peace of mind.

  Their greed fills him as readily as air. Their longing amplifies his own. The sea calls to him from across the boulevard, the seawall, and the sand. One night, with the wind blowing hard and the crowds much thinner than usual, he tries to move his arm and hears a sharp, triumphant crack.

  “What was that?” a woman asks on the sidewalk.

  “It’s the storm, rising fast,” someone else answers.

  The bald ticket-seller emerges from his booth. “Just part of the fun, folks. Step on inside.”

  “It was me,” Bluebeard says, though no one can hear him, and his celebration is marred by the oddly charged atmosphere on the boulevard. People seem skittish and uneasy, their gazes pulled toward the horizon. The music from the carousel is unusually loud but the screams from the roller coaster half-hearted. Long before midnight the sidewalk empties. A police car with spinning lights drives by, garbled announcements pouring from its rooftop speakers. The cigar-chomping man arrives to help board up Bluebeard’s windows and doors, and the tip of his stogie glows cherry red.

  “Going to be a wild one,” he says.

  “We’ve had worse,” the ticket-seller replies, but he doesn’t sound confident.

  Pelting rain begins long before dawn. Morning brings a faint lightening of the sky, but the sun remains unseen behind fast-moving clouds of variegated gray. The wind whistles past Bluebeard’s teeth and pushes against the back of his throat. A white-crested wave spills over the seawall and races across the boulevard.

  “Yes!” Bluebeard shouts. “Come to me, come to me!”

  Waves boil up, foamy with sand and fury. The howling wind sends them crashing against the bathhouse and rips away the shingled roof in great jagged pieces. Further down the boulevard, the roller coaster groans and flails as if in its dying throes. Bluebeard can hear the terrified whinnies of the diving horses but instead of fear he feels exultation.

  “Here! I’m here!”

  The entire ocean rises and rushes forward. Bluebeard reaches for it with every bit of pent-up desire in his possession. Pain rips through his shoulder as nails pop loose and beams splinter. His arm falls free with a great ripping sound. A moment later his head tumbles forward into the storm surge, and blinded by darkness and water, he finds himself tossed about like a piece of driftwood.

  The sea tastes like salt and brine.

  The sea tastes like fury and force.

  The sea drags him across the boulevard, over the seawall, and into its turbulent black depths. Only then does he realize his mistake. Only then does he realize what he’s lost.

  Bluebeard longs for the sky. Half-buried in sand and silt, his gaze fixed eternally upward, he spends every daylight hour staring through several feet of water to the shimmering surface and the tantalizing blue beyond it. Fish and boats often obscure his view, and bits of seaweed sometimes float into his eyes, but even the most obstructed glimpse of sky is better than nighttime and blackness so complete he can’t even see the stars.

  “I would like to fly,” he says. “I would like to soar and dive, and make my home in the clouds.”

  “You are not a bird,” says the lobster who lives in Bluebeard’s mouth. “Why do you torment yourself with impossibilities? The sea is your home.”

  Perhaps the sea will one day evaporate, leaving him exposed to the sun. Perhaps a great storm will tear him from the seabed and send him washing ashore. He thinks that a storm is what brought him to the sea in the first place, but all he remembers is darkness and dizziness.

  “Are you Cubby?” he asks the lobster.

  “No. Who’s Cubby?”

  “I don’t remember,” Bluebeard says.

  The lobster shuffles away to find dinner.

  Daytime fades, blueness edging into black. Bluebeard longs for the sky.

  Sarah Prineas is another writer who’s made a big splash in the world of novels; in particular, readers should pick up the well-received Magic Thief series. Sarah’s story “The Dog Prince” in issue #29 offered her a chance to create a loathsome protagonist who could still gain the reader’s sympathy. She succeeded, and that’s definitely one of the reasons why the story ended up here.

  THE DOG PRINCE

  SARAH PRINEAS

  Under a lowering sky, the horse and rider, mud-spattered and exhausted, staggered to a halt in the castle bailey. Curds of foam dripped from the horse’s mouth and dappled its flanks.

  The rider dismounted. His knees gave way and he gripped the saddle, white-knuckled, gasping. The horse lowered its head, panting, its nose nearly touching th
e ground. The rider straightened and raised his face to the gray sky overhead; a few drops of icy rain pricked his cheeks. Leaving the horse, he crossed the courtyard and entered the castle keep, in search of his liege. The heavy door swung shut behind him.

  The sky opened up and the rain thundered down.

  The throne room of Castle Lorn was cold and dark and grim, and suited the king. He sat on a chair of wrought iron raised on a dais. As a practical man who knew the danger of assassination, he wore a coat of chain mail across his broad shoulders and carried at all times a sheathed sword at his belt. To the left of the throne stood the court magister, rank and filthy, his black hair clotted with grease and his skin gray with old dirt. To the right of the throne stood Edard, a plain young knight clad like the king in mail, but the weapon at his belt was an axe. Other knights and well-armed barons clustered against the walls and a knot of merchants hovered by the door.

  From his throne, the king surveyed the messenger, who went to his knees. “Sire.” The man trembled, exhausted, and pressed shaking hands to the floor to support himself. “I bring a message from the Vekoi.”

  The magister spoke, his voice soft, suave. “You have ridden hard, messenger. The news you bring must be dire indeed.”

  The messenger nodded. “It is. Sire, I —” His voice broke. The king noticed for the first time the messenger’s youth. The boy took a shaky breath. “I am under a compulsion —” he darted a look at the magister, shuddered, and looked away. “The Vekoi queen sends you a message. It was put onto me at the border station at Nath and I was bid bring it to you.” He gazed at the king, desperate. “I m-must speak it as it was spoken to me, Sire.”

  The king nodded and rested his hands on the twisted iron of his throne. “Stand and speak.”

  The messenger pushed himself to his feet. As he began, his voice had the tremulous tones of a boy pushed beyond his strength, but as he continued another voice could be heard, one forceful and bitterly triumphant. “King of Lorn. Five years ago we swore truce and, as is fitting, exchanged sons, hostages to good intent. The risk seemed worth peace and fair trade after so many years of discord between our two kingdoms. Peace, however, has not proven as sweet as I hoped it would be. You have raised tariffs on grain and you have traded with the Hellens for copper and iron instead of relying on my mines. My people find themselves growing tired of a peace that leaves them weakened and starving.” The messenger paused, catching his breath.

  “Go on,” ordered the knight Edard, staunch at the king’s shoulder.

  The boy steadied himself and continued. “This morning at dawn, I ordered your son, my hostage, to the block. His head sits dripping on a spike over the main entrance to my keep. His body has been tossed on a dungheap to be worried by dogs. By the time you receive this message, my soldiers will have raided the granaries at Gariston and retreated again to our mountains. Do what you will, King of Lorn, as I have already done.”

  As the queen’s final words left the messenger’s mouth, the compulsion released him. He fell away, landing limp on the stone floor.

  There was a long pause, silent but for the pounding of rain on the roof.

  His son was dead. The king gripped the gnarled iron of the throne, but the metal did not warm at his touch. Edard — good, solid Edard — put a steadying hand on his shoulder. The king pushed himself to his feet, staring but seeing nothing.

  The magister raised his skirts and went down the steps of the dais to crouch beside the messenger; he rested long, gray-white fingers on the boy’s neck. “He is dead.”

  The magister’s words seemed to echo from the stone walls of the throne room, brushing the ragged banners that hung from the ceiling, making them quiver.

  The king sat down again, hands shaking, tears pricking his eyes. The gathered knights and advisors murmured — dead, dead — shooting frightened glances at the king, and at the body of the messenger, sprawled before the throne.

  “The vengeance of the king must be terrible,” the magister purred, rising from beside the dead boy.

  “We must prepare for war,” Edard said, stepping forward to the edge of the dais. “Soldiers must be sent to Gariston at once.”

  The magister licked his lips. “No. Vekoi in her mountain lair is impenetrable to our army. We must send assassins.”

  “The raid on Gariston cannot go unpunished,” insisted Edard. “We need to act immediately.” The knights and barons murmured agreement.

  “Bring the boy here,” grated the king, silencing the discussion. He thought of his son’s head on a spike, the small body snarled over by dogs. “Bring him.”

  The courtiers stared at the king, blank-faced. “Sire?” Edard ventured, going to his knee beside the throne. “The boy?”

  The king turned his head slowly to regard his friend. “The hostage, Edard. I want him.”

  The knight’s eyes widened. He gave a slight nod, then rose and gestured to one of the men-at-arms posted near the door. “Bring Tomas, the son of the Vekoi queen. You will find him with the other fosterlings.”

  The murmuring of the gathered barons and knights grew louder at that. Edard gave further orders and other soldiers came and removed the body of the messenger. The king sat on the throne, a hand over his eyes; Edard drew his axe and stood ready to carry out his liege lord’s order. The room grew heavy with waiting.

  At last there came a commotion at the door. The high questioning voice of a boy was heard, followed by the gruff tones of a man; a moment later the guard appeared, a hand on the shoulder of the hostage. The boy paused on the threshold, staring open-mouthed at the gathering of nobles and knights. The guard shoved him forward and he stumbled into the throne room. His gaze darted to the magister, shied away to the king, and settled on Edard. They reached the dais and the guard pushed the boy to his knees.

  The king did not look up.

  Edard hefted his axe. “Sire?”

  Slowly, the king raised his head. He regarded the hostage. The boy looked like an ordinary boy; he had tousled brown hair and brown eyes and a slender, boyish neck; he wore a patched jerkin and had a smudge of dirt on his chin. He looked sturdy and healthy and frightened.

  The king closed his eyes. He saw his son, dark and slender like his long-dead mother, brought to the scaffold, shrieking with terror. He saw the axe descend in a glittering arc, the spurt of blood, the sudden stillness where there had been life. He saw the headless body, thrown down to rot among the kitchen scraps and the dung of animals; he saw the snarling dogs worrying an arm from its socket, snatching at the tender flesh of a leg.

  To return such a death with death was far too simple a revenge.

  The Vekoi queen had given his son’s body to the dogs. Well, then. He would do the same to hers.

  The magister’s rooms were located in the most isolated part of the castle, in a tower at the end of a disused gallery. Even so, the boy’s screams could be heard at odd times and in various parts of the castle keep, depending on the direction of the wind or whether certain doors had been left ajar.

  The king’s own rooms were particularly afflicted. The shrill sounds resonated through the stone walls; they echoed in the chimney, leaking out into the hearth to mix with the crackle of flames. The screams, for the king, served to give voice to his own grief; they reminded him of his son, dead and rotting in the walled keep of an enemy. In his dreams he saw his son’s head on a spike over the queen’s doorway, the flesh melting from the bones, the mouth widening in a deathly grin. He woke from such dreams with the fading sounds of his own screams mingling in his ears with those of the boy.

  The king’s dogs, three lean, gray hunters, had used to laze before the hearth in a warm heap of contentment. Of late, they had moved to the door, where they lay twitching at every unexpected noise, getting up frequently to pace, then returning to their places, where they curled up in miserable gray knots.

  Edard tried to convince him to accede to the barons’ demands: to muster an army, to invade the mountain fastness of Vekoi. The king h
ardly heard the advice, so intent was he on listening for the sounds of the boy.

  His old friend noticed his abstraction. “Sire,” Edard said.

  The king stood by the hearth, head cocked.

  “Sire?” Edard repeated. “The men are readying themselves. The barons are preparing to follow you to war.”

  He was answered by silence.

  “Sire?” The knight lay his hand on the king’s shoulder.

  The king blinked.

  “Your orders, Sire?”

  “Ah. I cannot leave Castle Lorn. Have the barons send men to fortify the border towns. We do not invade Vekoi.”

  “But, Sire —”

  The king stepped out of his friend’s reach. Edard’s hand fell to his side. “That is my order. Go.”

  Edard bowed and left the room. The king stood by the hearth, listening, but he heard nothing but the crackling of flames.

  *

  He began to go often to the magister’s door, standing outside in the dark corridor listening to the boy inside, screaming. He took grim pleasure in the sound. He wished he could bottle the screams like a fine wine and send them to the Vekoi queen. What satisfaction might she take in such a vintage? If his captains captured one of her men, he thought, perhaps he could have the magister lay on a compulsion and send the man back to the queen with a message composed solely of her son’s screams. That would be sweet vengeance, indeed.

  The magister came to the king’s rooms once a week, to report his progress.

  The king sat in a high-backed velvet chair pulled up close to the hearth. He spent little time outside his rooms, these days, so did not wear his coat of mail, but slippers and a quilted red robe with mink at the collar.

  The magister entered, stepping over the tangle of dogs in the doorway. He bowed, long and graceful, but filthy as ever. Rust-red stains clotted the loose threads at his cuffs; horny, blackened toenails peeked from beneath the skirts of his robe. “Your Majesty,” he said.