The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

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

  “Hunters?” my father said, his voice breaking under the double strain of panic and drink. “Hunters?” We fled immediately with only those provisions and possessions we carried every day, over the fence and into the double darkness of the night and the trees.

  * * *

  —

  Of course he was followed. A child sees a fence as a challenge more than a discouragement and they had all been through this particular fence many times before. The man who owned the property had done everything he could to curtail this, had even called the police on two occasions. It was not that he disliked children, he told them, it was only that the boys upset the delicate ecological balance of the creek.

  In the summer the creek evaporated entirely exposing all manner of evidence to support his concern—pop cans, tennis balls, unmated socks, school papers carelessly or deliberately lost, and last year, a gruesome manifestation which turned out to be a headless doll.

  But now the creek was filled with clean, new water and even the algae growth was confined to the very edges. Wystan slid down the creek bank on the seat of his pants, leaving a wide, flat, muddy slide behind him. He set the toad free and ran into the water, slipping once as the mud attached itself to his shoes. He was wet to the knees, and quite unpleasantly so, when he reached the other side, but he was too small, too awkward to keep his lead under ordinary circumstances. His only chance seemed to lie in a direct route. He could hear Jason shouting behind him. His pursuers had just made the fence.

  Up the creek and slightly to the left, on the very edge of the cultivated lawn, was a tree Wystan had found about a year ago when he was chasing fireflies. This tree had an unusual trunk which curved about an open space like the letter C. A child, anyone not too big, could squeeze through the opening and be surrounded on three sides by living wood. Wystan had a faint hope that he was the only one who knew this tree. He thought it possible that no one else had ever ventured so far onto the property or gone so near the house. If he was wrong, he would be trapped inside.

  The boys’ voices behind him moved to his right. They were heading for the slender fallen trunk which bridged the creek. Wystan scrambled up the bank, his pant legs clinging wetly together, parting noisily with every step. He sprinted for the tree and curled his body into it. Then he tried to quiet his panicked breathing, which pounded in his ears like the tree’s own heart.

  * * *

  —

  There were paths into the forest, but none went very deep and my father ignored them. Soon the trees stood so close together we had to break their branches to move between them. My father led us, urging me often to follow more closely apparently unaware that if I did this I would take many stinging branches in the face and arms. Still, my father’s speed surprised me. We might have run for more than an hour before he was spent and collapsed against a rock, gasping in air. He did not try to speak until his breathing had become more even.

  “What now?” he asked despairingly. “What now?”

  “Will we go back?”

  “No.” He shook his head; the hair damp at his temples did not move. “We couldn’t go back even if I could find the way. Which I couldn’t.”

  “I could,” I told him. “We left such a trail of broken branches I could easily follow it home.”

  His eyes rolled back like a horse’s, startled. “A trail? There must be no trail!” He rose heavily to his feet, gestured with one skinny hand for me to take the lead. “No trail,” he repeated and though I could feel his impatience with my slow progress, could feel it like a heat on my back, he said nothing more and took care in how he moved, stopping for several long minutes to untangle the material one of his sleeves had left on a branch. All his shirts were old and very soft.

  Soon it was too dark to see at all and we were forced to stop. We slept together in a place our feet alone chose for us. My father wrapped his cloak around us both and took several long tugs on his flask without offering to share. I smelled his liquor and his sweat. I imagine I rested better than he did, though I awoke several times to strange noises. In addition to royal hunters, to royal beasts, and to ruthless outlaws, my mother had told me of the forests’ unnatural occupants. In Brenleah, when someone died, the corpse was beheaded to prevent it rising and walking the forest at night.

  When dawn came I slipped out of my father’s arms and followed the sounds of water to a pretty stream where I drank and washed. My father found me there. His eyes were red and caked; his hands shook in the cold water of the stream. He spoke and the suspicion in his words surprised me. “Don’t sneak away from me like that,” he ordered harshly. “Every minute, I want to know where you are.”

  * * *

  —

  Over the sounds of his own breath, now successfully muffled, of his own heart, which refused to slow, Wystan heard an unfamiliar voice—male and authoritative. “I suppose you boys know you’re trespassing?” it asked.

  Enrique answered. “Sorry, mister. We were just playing a game.”

  Jason—God, Jason was much closer than Wystan had imagined—affected a tone of innocence. “We didn’t hurt the creek, sir,” he said.

  “I’m sure there’s been no harm done,” the strange voice conceded. “Still, you know you’re not welcome here. If I mention this to my uncle, he’ll have the police out again. But—if you go home now, I might forget to mention it.”

  The voices retreated. Wystan heard Enrique saying thank you; it sounded distant. Minutes passed. Wystan closed his eyes. He was as safe as a bird in his tree. He was as comfortable as a squirrel, except for his sopping footwear. He smelled tree all around him. It was a lovely smell. Wystan felt moved to say thank you, himself. He reached into his pocket for his boy scout knife. He had been a cub once for about thirty minutes when his parents had hoped it might ease the way to social acceptability. He opened the blade and carved a large and wonderful W into the inner bark of the tree.

  He dropped the knife with a start. The strange voice he had heard in the distance was speaking to him. “You can come out now,” it said, then its tone changed. “What the hell are you doing to the tree?”

  Wystan did not answer. He leaned forward, hugging his wet knees. He became a small and pitiable ball of a boy. It was not a plea a child would have responded to, but an adult might. Unfortunately the face which had appeared in the opening of the trunk was not clearly identifiable as one or the other. Older than Wystan, certainly. Lots older. But not old enough to be a parent or a teacher. The face was not looking at Wystan, anyway. It was focused on Wystan’s W, an undeniably clean, new wound in the side of the tree. Wystan looked at it, too. The tree was bleeding; he had not expected this. He felt horrible and slid his left foot forward, ever so slowly, until it covered the open blade of his knife.

  “What does the W stand for?” the young man asked. His voice hovered somewhere between the friendly, “You can come out now,” and the hostile, “What the hell are you doing…?”

  “Wystan,” Wystan said.

  “That your name?”

  Wystan nodded. When the man looked away again, he slid his right foot forward to cover the knife handle, although the W was still there and no one was going to believe he had done it barehanded. To Wystan the knife suggested premeditation. Or malice. He really hadn’t meant to hurt the tree.

  The man was expressing his opinion of Wystan’s name by whistling quietly. He shook his head. “Bet you hate it.”

  This was patently obvious. Wystan did not respond. “You could tell them to call you Stan. That wouldn’t be so bad. I knew a couple Stans.”

  This was stupid. He could tell them to call him Rex. What difference would telling them make? “It’s a poet’s name,” he offered.

  “So is William Williams. That’s no excuse.” The young man inserted a hand through the opening of the trunk. “I’m Carl,” he said. Wystan shook Carl’s hand; Carl withdrew it and his face disappeared.
Wystan snatched up his knife, closing it and shoving it deep into his pocket. He wriggled his shoulders through the tree trunk, emerging on the grass at Carl’s feet. Carl was lighting a cigarette. “Don’t ever start smoking,” Carl told him. “You already know that, right?”

  Wystan nodded. Carl had a sharp nose, light brown hair, and gray eyes with enormous irises. He breathed out a stream of smoke, tapped the cigarette with a fingernail. “You going to get home all right?” Carl asked.

  Wystan shrugged.

  “I could walk you.”

  “No. Thanks.” Wystan began to move in the direction of the fallen trunk bridge. If he crossed the creek there, then cut over two neighboring lots he could merge far down the bike path. He reached the top of the bank, then Carl called after him.

  “Wystan? Stan?”

  Wystan turned. “My uncle’s in Europe,” Carl said. “I’m watching the house for him. You can come back and play if you want to. Down at the creek or up here. It’s okay.”

  “Okay,” said Wystan.

  “Don’t carve up any more trees, though.”

  “Okay,” said Wystan. He picked his way down the creek bank, leaving no tracks, making no noise. He was a white man, stolen by Indians from his natural parents, trained in Indian ways, accepted by the tribe like a brother loved by the chief like a son. He was on his name-walk, the ordeal which would make him a warrior, which would determine the secret name his tribe would have for him. Wystan crossed the bridge from one world into another with great expertise.

  * * *

  —

  My one wish was to go home. I wept whenever I thought of my mother and sister and I could have left my father at any time, but it would have been his death and I knew it. He had no idea what could be eaten safely and depended on me. I bound my knife to a branch and caught fish. I found nests with eggs in them. We talked about traps, but never had the food to spare for bait. My father grew skinnier; the meals clung to his beard but not to his body. He suffered from cramps in his stomach and legs. One by one he broke the yellow nails from his fingers, but his hands were no more useful without them. His flask was empty. He was morose.

  “Happiness,” he said, “comes from doing what you are suited to do. I knew this happiness once. Long ago. Long ago.”

  “Let’s go back,” I pleaded.

  “Never.”

  We lived in a cave some bear had abandoned to the fleas. They were glad of our company We chose it for its depth. It had inner chambers and went back farther than we dared explore. One chamber held a surprise, a faded painting on its flattest wall. We examined it by torchlight. It showed a great beast driven to its knees by a slender stake which pierced its back and protruded from its chest. A small man danced before it, his arms and legs sticklike, delicate, but triumphant. I could not identify the beast with any assurance, a bear, perhaps. A giant boar? I asked my father what he thought, but the subject held no interest for him. “We could retreat this far,” he said. “If we needed to. We could put out the torches and still find our way out in the dark. And not be found, ourselves, unless the cave was searched thoroughly.”

  We went back to the cave’s mouth and the fire I had started with my father’s strike-a-light. Usually he put it out immediately when the cooking was done; he worried about the smoke. This night he was more relaxed. I had caught and cooked three fish. We sat and picked over the bones, watched, the suggestive shapes of the flame shadows on the cave walls. I heated water in my father’s flask, not too hot, and made a weak tea out of bitter nuts, leaves, and fish bones. My father was thoughtful. “I suppose this is what prison would be like,” he suggested. “Without the fire and the opening, of course. Would you go mad in the dark without them, do you think? So mad that light and freedom couldn’t heal you?”

  “Is it prison you’re afraid of?” I asked him. He seemed so relaxed I was willing to risk the question. I didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t get one. He didn’t say another word.

  We saw the sun directly only at noon. I’m not sure how many days passed. Not as many as I have made it sound, I suppose. A handful only. No seasons passed. The stars did not change their courses. My father began to teach me to read. I scratched the letters of my name in the dirt and he corrected them. “I once taught a king’s son,” he said suddenly. “I was once well paid for these instructions.”

  “Halric,” I guessed. Our young king.

  “No. Cynewulf: His eldest brother. I taught him his letters. I taught him history. I taught him statecraft. When he became king I advised him on everything.” I waited. A question from me and the story would end. It might be ended in any case. But after a long silence my father went on. “Cynewulf was a good king. He brought peace after a century of hostilities. The countryside had been bled of money and men. I wrote the treaty, he signed it and sent Halric as a hostage to seal it.”

  “His brother?”

  “Half brother. They’d never met. Different mothers. Oh, Halric’s mother was completely mad. Heard angels and devils. Dangerous woman. Removing Halric from her influence was one of the advantages to the treaty. And you mustn’t think he was ill-treated. He took his own servants, had his own rooms. In cruelty, I doubt it compared with what we now suffer.” My father scratched his own name above mine. His hands shook whenever he required small, controlled movements of them. “Halric was six years old and seven people stood between him and the throne. Who knew he would someday be king? An assassination, a hunting accident, the plague. Suddenly the boy has to be ransomed and brought back to rule. A boy who knows nothing of his own country, nothing of how to be king, and worse, has inherited his mother’s weakness.” My father dropped his stick, rubbed out our names with his boots. He fell on his knees and howled suddenly like an animal. It surprised and frightened me. “And all he wants is revenge. Revenge on those of us who brought this peace we still enjoy.” He collapsed on his side, curling his legs to his chest, his mouth slack with soundless weeping. He lay and rocked in the dust and never made a sound.

  * * *

  —

  Carl had a cold. Carl got lots of colds. He sat on the lawn chair in full sun, and his skin, Wystan thought, had taken on a chilly hue. He had heard Wystan down by the creek and invited him up to the grass. “I looked up your name,” he said. You know every name has its own story and its own meaning. The story is hard to find, but the meaning is usually pretty accessible. Yours is Celtic and old. It’s the name of a weapon, a particular sort of battle axe.” He blew his nose into a white Kleenex, dropped it with several others beside his chain. “I thought it might help. It’s a warrior’s name.”

  “What does Jason mean?”

  “I can find out,” said Carl, and the next day, same time, same place, he had. The lawn chair was in its reclining position; the tissues had been replaced by an untidy pile of library books. “Healer,” Carl told him. “Jason means healer.”

  Wystan laughed an adult, ironic laugh.

  “Not accurate?” said Carl. “Too bad. I was trying to find a picture of your axe, but the library here is pretty minimal.” He pulled a large book onto his lap and opened it to the photographic plates. “Look here.”

  Wystan pulled his chair closer; Carl tilted the book in his direction. Various artifacts were shown, the fruits of a single grave. There was a Celtic penannular brooch, a cruciform brooch, a ring sword with a skeuomorphic ring, whatever that was, and an iron strike-a-light.

  “You like this old stuff?” Wystan asked.

  “I like stuff even older.” Carl dumped the book from his lap and fished up another. “Look at this,” he said. “This is a cave painting. Cro-Magnon.”

  This plate was colored. Wystan examined the picture as best he could; the way Carl was holding it, it was upside-down to him. He thought it a rather clumsy drawing and said so. “I could do that.”

  Carl laughed excitedly. “You did do it.” He bent forward in Wysta
n’s direction. Wystan drew back. “You did!” Carl’s voice was insistent. “I’m thinking of that W you left inside the tree. Same impulse, or so I imagine. ‘I was here,’ in four quick strokes.” He fell back again, tapping the plate with his index finger. “The need to change the world is so basic—to mark it, to direct it. Anthropologists say these kind of paintings may have covered the world once, everywhere humans lived. And were still doing it. Like your W. This is the challenge the small human makes to the large world—I will change you to suit me.”

  Wystan’s W had been intended as a W of celebration, a W offered in gratitude to the natural world, but he remembered the bleeding tree and realized this would be hard to argue. He looked from the picture to Carl’s thin, sharp face. Carl’s eyes were closed. The veins branched over the lids like rivers, like roads.

  “What a glorious vision of the world it was,” said Carl. And it’s all come true. Except for the beast inside us. We can’t quite eradicate that one. When are we human? When we deal with other men, when are we dealing with humans?”

  * * *

  —

  We did not hear them come. My father was bent at the stream, drinking water from the cup of his hand. The noon sun flashed off silver and he froze, water dripping from his fingers. His last thoughts were for me. “Run,” he screamed. “Run!” and then he became a deer and his flank was opened by the blade of a ring sword. It dipped and rose. The man who wielded it had a torn sleeve pinned together with my mother’s brooch. I saw it and knew there was nothing to go back for.

  So I ran. I made the cave and forced myself deeper and deeper, lightless inside it. My feet and my fingers led me to the inner chamber we had chosen and I hid there and believed whole days were passing.