The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

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

  I heard them at the cave’s entrance; faint voices whose words were indistinguishable. The voices continued awhile. Never growing louder, never coming closer and then they were gone. I crouched and wept. Hours passed before I dared make my way out again; our fire was cold and the cave was empty. I heard birds and knew no humans were near. Still I went back to the inner chamber to hide awhile longer. This time I slept. I dreamt I saw the painting again, in full sunlight, in full detail. I took the charred end of a used torch—I was moved to add to the painting and I wrote the sign for my name under the drawing of the man. Then I erased it dreamstyle, by having not done it. I put the mark under the picture of the felled beast instead and I woke up.

  In that moment, and never afterwards, I faced the death of my family. There are some now who say it was inhuman not to seek revenge. They miss the point. I had stopped being human. I had no fires; my father’s strike-alight and the flask for carrying water were gone. I became a beast and I gave myself over to the protection of my enemy, the forest. I thought of nothing but survival.

  And I survived. My hair and my nails grew and I ate my food raw and there was never enough of it. When I was finally taken from the forest it was by force. Three men surprised me by the same stream. One seized me and I opened the veins in his arms with my teeth, so the humans struck me and bound me and carried me out of the trees on their backs. They took me to an unknown village where they told the other humans fanciful stories about me, stories I only began to understand after much repetition had reminded me of the meanings of words. They said that I had been raised by wolves, that I was half-wolf myself and twice as mad. The more I fought to escape, the more I behaved exactly as they wished.

  They took me from village to village, showing the humans how I would eat meat thrown to me raw, how I could snarl, how frightened I was of fire. Until finally we came to Brenleah where I discovered I had been wrong. My mother and sister still lived there and they set about the formidable task of retaming me.

  * * *

  —

  Carl was leaving. The friendship he had offered Wystan, the haven he provided had lasted only a few weeks. Carl’s uncle was returning ahead of schedule and Carl was being put into a hospital. Wystan thought Carl was crying, but Carl said it was just another cold. “I want to stay out,” he said, “as long as I can, but everyone else is in agreement. Villanueva is too wild for me. I need an absolutely human environment.” Carl’s voice was strained and sarcastic. He stood with Wystan together at the tree. Carl lit a cigarette. “No point in my quitting,” he said, waving the match to extinguish it. “No matter what they say.” He coughed and covered his mouth. “Back up,” he said to Wystan. “I don’t want to cough on you. Don’t come close at all.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Wystan asked. In another year he would have known better than to ask it, though he still would have wanted to know.

  Carl tried to smile, more a baring of teeth than amusement. “I have the plague,” he said. “I have a monkey disease.” Smoke came from his mouth. “My uncle had a hell of a time finding a hospital that would take me.” If the planners of Villanueva had known about Carl’s condition they would not have wanted him in Villanueva. They would have been relieved to know he was going.

  Wystan felt desperately sad. “Will you get well?” he asked.

  Carl’s eyes glassed over. “Sure,” he said. “Sure I will.” He averted his face. “You better go home now.”

  Wystan left him in the shadow of the tree, holding his small flame to his mouth. Wystan slid toward the creek, knelt by the water, and watched long-legged bugs skate across it. The algae was spreading. A late toad hopped by his hand.

  The humans were taking Carl away from him. Wasn’t that what Carl had said? Very well. He, Wystan, had had enough of humans. He was giving his notice. He was signing on with the toads. Wystan took three hops on his long back legs along the side of the creek. He heard the boys above him on the bike path and straightened up hastily. He looked for more tenable alternatives.

  He supposed he would have to ask for swimming lessons again. He would spend his whole summer at the pool, where the boys would tell stories about him, calling him a sissy, and a jerk and other names Wystan would not even know, but where lifeguards were paid to protect him. Someday he might be able to protect himself. Someday he might be able to run or hide or fight like a beast. It wasn’t likely. But he could try to learn.

  Marie Hermanson (1956– ) is a Swedish writer who studied literature and journalism at Gothenburg University and later worked as a journalist at daily newspapers. It was then that she began writing stories infused with elements of fairy tale and fantasy. Her novel Himmelsdalen (2011) became her first book to appear in English when it was released as The Devil’s Sanctuary (2013) in a translation by Neil Smith and adapted into a TV series, Sanctuary, in 2019, starring Matthew Modine. Her mystery novels are huge bestsellers in Sweden. “The Mole King” was originally published in her 1986 collection There’s a Hole in Reality. This is the first publication of the story in English.

  THE MOLE KING

  Marie Hermanson

  Translated by Charlie Haldén

  ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a King who couldn’t bear life aboveground. There were demands on him to make wise decisions, to allow and to forbid, to lead and command, condemn, punish and reward. He neither wanted to nor knew how to do any of this. He tried to avoid it as much as he could. Told his councillors to wait, asked for more time to think, locked himself in his chambers and cried. He often lay sleepless through the night, worrying about all the problems he had to solve in the morning. When he finally fell asleep, sleep itself was a difficult chore, and he awoke tired, though he had accomplished nothing. He knew the whole castle talked about his incompetence. All he wished for was to not have to be King. But this was an unattainable wish, for he was his father’s only son, and his life was woven into the heavy crown.

  One day he was walking the grounds, deeply despondent, when he came upon a large tree that had been uprooted by the storm. He looked upon the hollow by the upturned roots, and he remembered crawling into a hole just like that once, as a child, and staying there for a good long while although everyone was looking for him. It was a pleasant memory. The King glanced around, and then crawled into the hole. He lay there, looking up into the gray clouds covering the sky. There was a slight breeze, and the dead tree branches rustled. He felt something resembling calm. And he fell asleep.

  When he awoke, it was night and dark. For the first time in many years, he felt rested. He walked back to the castle. In the dark, his life seemed more bearable. But the next morning, it was just as difficult again. As soon as he could get away, he headed for the woods. He walked far, and when he found a cleft of rock, he crawled inside to lie down. The peaceful sensations from the hole by the uprooted tree came over him again. He fell asleep and did not wake up until night had fallen. With great effort, he got up from the cleft and fumbled his way home through the dark woods.

  From then on, the King escaped into the woods as often as he could find the time. He could not resist the vast attraction pulling him to various kinds of cavities. As soon as he found a suitable space, he curled up in it, and all his heavy thoughts left him while sleep crept in. When he awoke, he felt like he had regained health and strength after a long illness. He trained his eyes to spot hollows and crevices. On his wanderings, he inspected the mountains in the hope of uncovering hidden caves or clefts. He always walked around any old oak tree to see if its trunk might be hollow. In the dense brush, he sought for openings that would fit his body. When in council with his closest advisors, he couldn’t help peering down into the dark crannies under the table, or wondering whether he could flatten his body and press it against the floor so it would fit underneath the big cabinet that held the laws of the kingdom. While he wondered, one of his councillors reported on the very precarious plight the country was currently in.<
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  Then one day, they received word that the enemy had attacked the country’s borders. The King was expected to lead his troops into war. The King was not afraid of dying himself, but he didn’t want to lead other young men to their death. He didn’t want to make their wives into widows and their children fatherless. He didn’t want to ride into war knowing beforehand that he would lose. This time, he felt, what they expected of him was something he could not possibly achieve. And at the same time, being the King, it was not possible for him to refuse to defend his country. He felt cornered on all sides. As usual, he asked for some time to think. The councillors looked at him with dismay and disdain.

  —Surely Your Majesty realizes the urgency of this matter? one of them exclaimed.

  The King blushed and nervously fidgeted with his mantle clasp. His head did not even hold heavy thoughts any longer. It was empty.

  Suddenly, he turned his back on his men and bolted through the big stone hall, out of the castle, across the courtyard, past fields and pastures, and into the woods. The councillors ran after him, and some soldiers joined in the pursuit. They chased him over hill and dale, and the King’s eyes filled with tears of shame and despair as he ran on. His crown fell off and his clothes tore and ripped on branches. All the while he searched for a hole, just like a rabbit running from a pack of dogs, and to his great relief, he found one. It was the entrance to an abandoned badger’s den, and he crawled down as far as he could go. “They won’t find me here,” he thought. It was completely dark in there, and a faint, strange scent of badger tickled his nostrils.

  He lay in the den all day. He heard shouts and steps, but nobody found him. After a while he fell asleep, as usual. But he did not crawl out when he woke up. He stayed in the den all through the night and the whole day after. They searched after him with dogs. Petrified, he heard paws scraping and noses snuffling at the entrance to the den. But the badger smell threw the dogs off the scent and they disappeared.

  The King didn’t dare stay in the den. But he didn’t dare get out either. No, he could never ever get out of there. When on the third day he heard the dogs again, he thrust his hands into the wall of earth and started digging inwards. And on that day, his underground life began.

  * * *

  —

  He stayed between half a meter and two meters below the surface. He did not know which direction he was digging in, and soon he lost his grasp of time. There were periods of ferocious hard work, when he slashed his way forward like a plow, relishing the strength of his arms. In other periods, he lay still and curled up in one place.

  He listened to the soft, muffled sounds of the underworld. The rustling shoveling of earth from a persistent mole. The curious pattering of a vole gliding through its tunnel just below the surface. The purring sound the badgers made when burrowing in the earth for bugs. He learned to recognize the faint sound of earthworms munching on soil, and the tingling of their wanderings up and down their tunnels. Sometimes he plunged his hand through the earth, clutched the wriggling body, and devoured it.

  He discovered how many had chosen to live in the sheltering darkness like himself. The earth was a well-spun web of tunnels for different creatures.

  Meeting a mole always filled him with a gentle joy. He could feel the warm breath from the animal’s searching snout. They inhaled each other’s presence and went on to dig their own tunnels. Silent, blind encounters with no questions. Why could people not meet like this aboveground?

  He fed on earthworms, bugs, and roots. When he was thirsty he dug downward, until water flowed into his tunnel and reached his mouth. Occasionally, he found the underground wells of the moles. His fingers brushed a dozen of the marvelously soft animals who had gathered down here to drink. If they did not know him, they swiftly scattered into their safety tunnels. But often, they were old friends, and then they went on drinking while he listened to the sounds of the water trickling down their earthy throats.

  Once in a while, he left his underground life for a short spell and crawled up out of the ground. He only ever did so at night, and only for a few short minutes at a time. The potent air tore and clawed at his lungs.

  Sometimes, he dug himself new tunnels, sometimes he crawled along in his old ones. He crawled without aim. Once he crawled backward for a change. He did not have to explain his path to anyone. On one occasion, he happened upon a tangle of roots. He got stuck, and while he fought to get free, he felt great relief that nobody could witness his embarrassing plight. Now and then he encountered a rock face and had to turn around, but he did not mind at all, since nobody observed his retreat.

  He wondered why he felt such joy. “It is because I’m free,” he thought. “You can’t be free until nobody sees you.”

  As time went on, both his body and his senses adapted to underground life. His arm muscles developed. His hands grew large and broad like shovels. Because he used his head to shove aside the earth he had shoveled away, his neck muscles grew stronger. His eyesight deteriorated, his eyelids grew swollen, and his eyes turned into narrow slits.

  At times, a great tiredness overwhelmed him. He stopped crawling then, and lay still for a long time. He didn’t know how long. A week, a month, a year. He felt his pulse slow down and his body grow colder. He lay there slumbering, enjoying his feebleness. A mole or two passed by, gave him a friendly and understanding sniff, and burrowed pleasantly along. He could hear everything that was happening around him. Even the sounds of the very small creatures. All these lives sharing his aimless crawling around in a sightless existence. Beetles, wood lice, and centipedes weaving a cocoon of vigorous, determined sounds around him. A whispering, rustling murmur filled his entire being, and he fell into a deep sleep. A long while later, he woke, with a voracious hunger and an uncontainable urge to move, to crawl. And so he continued on his underground journey.

  After some time, he noticed that the worms were behaving strangely. They seemed distressed, and they wriggled back and forth in their tunnels as if they didn’t know which way they needed to go. Later, he too felt that there was something unusual happening. A faraway rumble rolled over them, and the earth shook slightly. He dug upward to find out what this was. The top layer of soil was damp. He emerged somewhere in the woods at night. It had just stopped raining, and drops were falling from the trees. He sat down beside the mound of soil he had flung out and waited for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight that came and went between wandering clouds. Then he heard the rumbling again. It was significantly stronger overground, and the sky above the treetops lit up with a red blaze. “This must be war,” he thought. The stars gazed at him through thousands of eyes and pierced him with guilt. Hastily, he crawled back down the hole.

  He dug himself far away from the rumble and the tremors. But they caught up. He dug even farther, but the rumbling grew stronger, the ground trembled as if there was an earthquake. The war was right above him. It was the same wherever he crawled. The war seemed to be everywhere. Gradually, he got used to the noise and felt thankful for the protection of the earth. He was just a few meters away from bloody battles, but still untouchable.

  As time went by, things turned calmer above him. The worms went back to their normal behavior, venturing up to the surface whenever rainfall moistened the soil. Often, he thought about how the lives of the worms ran parallel to his own. They were meant to live underground, everything they needed was provided here, but they seemed to always long for the surface. Even though their visits there often ended in death, they couldn’t resist the urge to crawl up there after the rain. In dry weather too they often lay in the topmost parts of their tunnels, right by the surface, feeling the clear air of the overworld on their heads. Oftentimes, a robin would spot them. He felt the vibrations of their terrified, thrashing bodies, and then the short, satisfied chirp of the bird.

  He was made to live aboveground. He had been given legs to walk with and eyes that could tolerate the sharp
daylight. And yet, all his life he had carried a longing for the underworld.

  * * *

  —

  Princess Esmeralda sat in her tower. A beautiful lynx in a golden harness lay on the floor before her. Esmeralda rested her bare feet on his back, using him as a footstool. She loved running her toes through his pelt, and the lynx purred and kneaded the floor with his front paws.

  Esmeralda was beautiful and intelligent, but she caused her father a great deal of worry. For several years, suitors had come riding from faraway lands to win her hand in marriage. There had been magnificent tournaments and all manner of contests and trials to let the suitors prove their courage and strength. But the princess just shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want any of the young, handsome men who went clanging about in their armor. She found them silly, and the jangling of spurs was as painfully irritating to her as nails on a chalk wall.

  Her father, who realized that the pool of suitable candidates for marriage was not bottomless, wrung his hands and pleaded with her to choose someone. But Princess Esmeralda said that she was fine with things the way they were and had no interest in getting married.

  It was late at night and everyone was sleeping, apart from the guards who walked back and forth along the walls. Esmeralda went out into the castle park to walk the lynx. During the day, he was content to lie around being lazy, but at night he wanted to go out. She let him loose to hunt birds and mice while she slowly strolled around the nocturnal park. She stepped in among the dense bushes where the darkness was so thick she didn’t know where she was. She liked it when the darkness stroked her from head to toe, making her smooth and flat and calm.

  Suddenly, she heard the lynx growling and yapping. She found him among the fruit trees. Between the lynx and the wall were several dug-up mounds of soil that looked like oversized molehills. The lynx seemed to have caught some prey. Something large, something that fought back. She edged in closer and clasped her hands over her mouth in horror. She saw a hand and an arm flailing, another arm, a bloody head…Half a human! But when she looked closer, she saw that the human was not halved but half buried in the ground, only visible from the chest upward.