The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

They thought they didn’t have to worry

  about anything.

  They thought this magic

  could give life to plants

  and animals.

  They didn’t know it was all just a trick.

  Our mother

  Nauats’ity’i

  was very angry

  over this

  over the way

  all of them

  even Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi

  fooled around with this

  magic.

  “I’ve had enough of that,”

  she said,

  “If they like that magic so much

  let them live off it.”

  So she took

  the plants and grass from them.

  No baby animals were born.

  She took the

  rain clouds with her.

  The wind stirred the dust.

  The people were starving.

  “She’s angry with us,”

  the people said.

  “Maybe because of that

  Ck’o’yo magic

  we were fooling with.

  We better send someone

  to ask her forgiveness.”

  They noticed Hummingbird

  was fat and shiny

  he had plenty to eat.

  They asked how come he

  looked so good.

  He said

  Down below

  Three worlds below this one

  everything is

  green

  all the plants are growing

  the flowers are blooming.

  I go down there

  and eat.

  “So that’s where our mother went.

  How can we get down there?”

  Hummingbird looked at all the

  skinny people.

  He felt sorry for them.

  He said, “You need a messenger.

  Listen, I’ll tell you

  what to do”:

  Bring a beautiful pottery jar

  painted with parrots and big

  flowers.

  Mix black mountain dirt

  some sweet corn flour

  and a little water.

  Cover the jar with a

  new buckskin

  and say this over the jar

  and sing this softly

  above the jar:

  After four days

  you will be alive

  After four days

  you will be alive

  After four days

  you will be alive

  After four days

  you will be alive.

  On the fourth day

  something buzzed around

  inside the jar.

  They lifted the buckskin

  and a big green fly

  with yellow feelers on his head

  flew out of the jar.

  “Fly will go with me,” Hummingbird said.

  “We’ll go see

  what she wants.”

  They flew to the fourth world

  below.

  Down there

  was another kind of daylight

  everything was blooming

  and growing

  everything was so beautiful.

  Fly started sucking on

  sweet things so

  Hummingbird had to tell him

  to wait:

  “Wait until we see our Mother.”

  They found her.

  They gave her blue pollen and yellow pollen

  they gave her turquoise beads

  they gave her prayer sticks.

  “I suppose you want something,” she said.

  “Yes, we want food and storm clouds.”

  “You get old Buzzard to purify

  your town first

  and then, maybe, I will send your people

  food and rain again.”

  Fly and Hummingbird

  flew back up.

  They told the town people

  that old Buzzard had to purify

  the town.

  They took more pollen,

  more beads, and more prayer sticks,

  and they went to see old Buzzard.

  They arrived at his place in the east.

  “Who’s out there?

  Nobody ever came here before.”

  “It’s us, Hummingbird and Fly.”

  “Oh. What do you want?”

  “We need you to purify our town.”

  “Well, look here. Your offering isn’t

  complete. Where’s the tobacco?”

  You see, it wasn’t easy.

  Fly and Hummingbird

  had to fly back to town again.

  The people asked,

  “Did you find him?”

  “Yes, but we forgot something.

  Tobacco.”

  But there was no tobacco

  so Fly and Hummingbird had to fly

  all the way back down

  to the fourth world below

  to ask our Mother where

  they could get some tobacco.

  “We came back again,”

  they told our Mother.

  “Maybe you need something?”

  “Tobacco.”

  “Go ask caterpillar.”

  So they flew

  all the way up again.

  They went to a place in the West.

  See, these things were complicated….

  They called outside his house

  “You downstairs, how are things?”

  “Okay,” he said, “come down.”

  They went down inside.

  “Maybe you want something?”

  “Yes. We need tobacco.”

  Caterpillar spread out

  dry cornhusks on the floor.

  He rubbed his hands together

  and tobacco fell into the cornhusks.

  Then he folded up the husks

  and gave the tobacco to them.

  Hummingbird and Fly thanked him.

  They took the tobacco to old Buzzard.

  “Here it is. We finally got it but it

  sure wasn’t very easy.”

  “Okay,” Buzzard said.

  “Go back and tell them

  I’ll purify the town.”

  And he did—

  first to the east

  then to the south

  then to the west

  and finally to the north.

  Everything was set straight again

  after all that Ck’o’yo magic.

  The storm clouds returned

  the grass and plants started growing again.

  There was food

  and the people were happy again.

  So she told them

  “Stay out of trouble

  from now on.

  It isn’t very easy

  to fix up things again.

  Remember that

  next time

  some Ck’o’yo magician

  comes to town.”

  Jane Yolen (1939– ) is an American writer, editor, children’s author, and poet. Her work often draws on folktales and fairy tales and has won the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, and the Jewish Book Award. She has also been awarded the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and been named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her collections include Sister Emily’s Ligh
tship (2000) and The Emerald Circus (2017). “Sister Light, Sister Dark,” written for the anthology Heroic Visions (1983), was included in Yolen’s collection Tales of Wonder (1983) and served as the basis for her novel of the same title (1988).

  SISTER LIGHT, SISTER DARK

  Jane Yolen

  THE MYTH

  THEN GREAT ALTA PLAITED the left side of her hair, the golden side, and let it fall into the sinkhole of night. And there she drew up the queen of shadows and set her upon the earth. Next she plaited the right side of her hair, the dark side, and with it she caught the queen of light. And she set her next to the black queen.

  “And you two shall be sisters,” quoth great Alta. “You shall be as images in a glass, the one reflecting the other. As I have bound you with my hair, it shall be so.”

  Then she twined her living braids around and about them, and they were as one.

  THE LEGEND

  It was in Altenland, in a village called Alta’s Crossing, that this story was found. It was told to Jonna Bardling by an old cooking woman known only as Mother Comfort.

  “My great-aunt—that would be my mother’s mother’s sister—fought in the army as blanket companion to the last of the great mountain warrior women, the one that was called Sister Light. She was almost six foot tall, my great-aunt said, with long white braids she wore tied up on top her head. Her crown, like. She kept an extra dirk there. And she could fight like a dust demon, all grit and whirling. “Twas known that no one could best her in battle, for she carried a great pack on her back and in it was Sister Dark, a shadow who looked just like her but twice as big. Whenever Sister Light was losing—and that weren’t often, mind—she would reach into her pack and set this shadow fighter free. It was faster than eyes could see and quiet as grass growing. But Sister Light used that shadow thing only when she was desperate. Because it ate away at her insides as it fought. Fed on her, you might say. My great-aunt never saw it, mind you. No one did. But everyone knew of it.

  “Well, she died at last, in a big fight, a month long it was, with the sun refusing to shine. And the shadow could only work with the sun overhead. When after a month the sun came out, Sister Dark crept out of the pack and looked around. The land was blasted, and she looked in vain behind every shriveled tree. But she couldn’t find Sister Light. She was long buried.

  “They say Sister Dark can still be seen, sometimes, at night under the full, high moon. Looking for her mate. Or perhaps for someone else to carry her, someone else she can eat away at. You have to be careful out there on the high moors. Especially when the moon is full. That’s where the saying ‘Never mate a shadow’ comes from. They’ll eat away at you, if they can.”

  THE STORY

  Under the eye of the leprous moon, two shadows pulled themselves along a castle wall. The ascent had been laborious: a single step, a single rock gained.

  One of the figures was tall, muscular, and sturdy, yet seemed exhausted by the effort. The other, nearly a twin of the first in dress, was thin and wraithlike, almost insubstantial, yet was not winded at all. They clung, dispatched a foot, then a leg, seemed to wait for gathered strength, then stepped together. They worked synchronically across the rock face. The soft leather of their boots was scraped. Their leggings each had a hole in the right knee. Still they climbed.

  The moon’s sores were suddenly hidden by a shred of cloud, and the thin figure disappeared—one moment clinging to the wall, the next gone.

  The sturdy twin, so intent on the rock underhand, never noticed.

  A minute later, and three more slow foot-and-hand holds farther on, the moon came out again. With it, the thin twin appeared on the rock, clinging with effortless ease.

  “You breathe hard, sister,” said the thin woman with a laugh. The laugh was soft, like a south wind, suddenly hot and then gone.

  “If I could appear and disappear under the light as you do, Skada,” groused her companion, “I wouldn’t need to breathe at all.”

  “I breathe,” Skada answered dispassionately.

  “In my ear,” came the reply. “You do it to annoy. And I wish to Alta you would stop.”

  “Sister, as you know, your wish is my…” but the moon disappeared behind another rip of cloud and cut off Skada’s retort. And when the moon pushed through again, the two were silent with one another, a silence born of long companionship. They had been reflectors, image sisters, and blanket companions since Jenna’s thirteenth year. It took many knots on a string to count their time together.

  The wall, shadow-scarred and crumbling, fooled the eye and hand. What seemed a chink was often solid. What appeared solid, a handful of dust. The mistakes cost them precious minutes, took them equally by surprise. Their goal was a small, lighted tower window. They knew they would have to be into it before dawn.

  The sturdy climber stopped a moment, cursed, put her left palm to her mouth. She licked a small, bloody shred there. Her wraithlike companion did the same, seeming to mock her. Neither of them smiled.

  They climbed on.

  Inches were gained. The wall did not fight them, but it did resist. Their own bodies became their worst enemies, for there is only so much stretch in the ligaments, so much give in the muscles, so much strength in arm and thigh.

  At last the sturdier woman felt the top of the wall under her fingers.

  “We’re here, Skada,” she whispered down to her companion. But the moon was again behind a cloud and there was no longer anyone there to whisper to.

  “Alta’s hairs!” she muttered, and pulled herself up and over the top. Even with the heavy brocade panels as protection, she felt the scrapes on her breasts. She rolled to her knees and found herself staring at a large pair of boots.

  “Look up slowly,” came the voice. “I would like to see the surprise on your face before I strike you down. Look up, dead man.”

  From her knees, Jenna looked up slowly and never stopped praying for a sliver of light. When she finally stared at the guard, his face was suddenly lit by a full and shining moon.

  Jenna smiled.

  “By the god Alto, you are no man,” said the soldier, relaxing for a fraction of a second and starting to smile back.

  Jenna looked down coyly, a maneuver she had learned in a minor court. She held out her hand.

  The soldier automatically reached out to her.

  “Now!” Jenna shouted.

  Startled by her cry, the guard stepped back. But he was even more startled when, from behind him and below his knees, he was struck by another kneeling form. He tumbled over and was dead before the blade came sliding easily out of his heart.

  Jenna hoisted the guard’s body on her shoulder and heaved it over the wall. She did not wait to hear it land.

  “You took your time, Skada. I hate to flutter at a man. But I knew no other way to stall.”

  “You know it is not my time to take or to give, Jenna.”

  “Don’t preach at me.” Jenna wiped her blade on her leggings, then shoved it back in the loop of braids on top of her head. “It is about time we got up that tower wall. In case there are other guards. Once daylight comes, you are of no practical use anyway.”

  Skada smiled.

  “And protect my back! If I die…”

  Skada nodded. “You do not have to remind me. Every Shadow Sister knows the rules of living and of light. I am called from your substance at the whim of the moon. I live as you live, die as you die, and so forth. Live long, Jenna, and prosper. Only get up that wall. I can’t start without you, you know.”

  Jenna moved to the wall and stared up. The bricks were newer than along the Great Wall, but the ravages of the northern winds had pulped part of the facade. Bits of every brick crumbled underhand.

  As the two began their ascent, whispered curses volleyed between them, though none so loud that they would awaken any gua
rds. The curses were only variations on old standbys, as meaningless as love taps, but the antiphonal play between the two voices made the swearing sound fierce and full of raw anger.

  Jenna reached the tower window first, but only fractionally. Below one of her torn fingernails blood seeped like a devil’s spot. She paid it no mind. All of her effort was concentrated on the sill. Under her dark tunic, muscles bunched as, with a final pull, she hoisted herself up to the sill and over. She landed heavily on her stomach, her legs tangling with her companion’s head.

  “Out of the way, Skada,” she huffed.

  “It is your legs that are at fault. My head is only movable in a limited direction,” Skada said breathily, pushing herself up. They slipped off the sill together and fell ungracefully onto the floor of the room. It was much farther down than they expected. As they landed, the lights suddenly flickered and went out.

  “My lord,” Jenna began hopefully, “it is Jo-an-enna, your white goddess. I have come to rescue you and…”

  “Have you indeed?” came a mocking voice from one of the dark corners. “Well, I fear you have come to the wrong room, my friend.”

  Jenna felt her arms seized. She was pushed to her knees and the sword belt slashed from her waist.

  The torches were lit again, slowly.

  There was a sudden scrambling from the corner, and the mocking voice cried out, “There’s a second one, fools! Bring the torches. Over there!”

  Two men—one with a torch and one with a drawn blade—ran to the corner, but the strong light dispelled all shadows. Only along the far wall, dark patterns, unfocused but tempting, danced. A shadow leg, a quick arm.

  “There is no one here, Lord Kalas.”

  “It was just a trick of the light,” said Jenna quickly. No one but the mountain women knew how to call up the shadow side. It was a secret they kept well hidden. She shrugged extravagantly. “I came alone. I always come alone. It is, if you will, my one conceit.” She looked up at Lord Kalas. She had heard many things about him, and none of them good. But could this faded coxcomb, with his dyed red hair and dyed red beard that emphasized the pouching under his eyes, be the infamous Lord K? “Do not tell me that Lord Kalas of the Northern Holdings is afraid of shadows?”