Sword and Song

by Kate Story

  PRAISE FOR ANTILIA

  “You know a good book as soon as you start it. It sings to you and makes an immediate connection. That’s what happened to me with Kate Story’s Antilia. I loved everything about the book.”

  —Charles de Lint, author of The Onion Girl and The Wind in His Heart

  “I fell in love with Antilia from the first page. With this book, you say to yourself, ‘I’ll just read a bit more,’ and then suddenly it’s three in the morning and you’re sorry because now the story will be over too soon. Kate Story has created an utterly contemporary, exquisitely imagined parallel-world fantasy with a deeply satisfying plot and unforgettable characters (including a few I wish I could forget). Ophelia and Rowan, Pim (oh, Pim!) and Ari, got under my skin and into my heart and stayed there long after the book was done.”

  —Holly Bennett, author of The Bonemender, Shapeshifter, and Drawn Away

  PRAISE FOR THIS INSUBSTANTIAL PAGEANT

  “Exotic, funny and very sexy . . .”

  —Alex Good, Science Fiction Book Picks, The Toronto Star

  “An ambitious deep space retelling of The Tempest that would have delighted Shakespeare and Sagan in equal measure.”

  —Eric Choi, Aurora Award-winning author and editor

  “Story has penned a sexy, sophisticated future-Shakespearean romp. Ambitious, rich, magical, and a joy to read.”

  —Kelly Robson, author of Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, A Human Stain, and Waters of Versailles

  PRAISE FOR Kate Story

  “Kate Story’s writing is inventive, rich with ideas that will make your head spin. She combines this imagination with keen insight into human nature and insider knowledge of the world of the stage. The resulting stories are rich pageants, tying the comforting to the unsettling and the familiar to the bizarre.”

  —A.M. Dellamonica, author of the Aurora Award-winning Hidden Sea Tales Trilogy

  “Kate Story’s debut novel is an unlikely marriage of New-foundland’s oldest traditional lore with the contemporary urban world of St. John’s and Toronto. The result is raw and strange and hilarious and affecting. Ruby Jones—itinerant waitress, sometime nude model, budding alcoholic—admits early on that tenderness and rage are her “heart language.” Blasted offers both in spades.”

  —Michael Crummey, author of River Thieves, The Wreckage, Galore, and Sweetland

  “. . . a strange, shining, soaring thing brimming with beauty and terror, pain and love, insight and redemption.”

  —Ursula Pflug, author of The Alphabet Stones, Green Music, Mountain, and After the Fires

  “I fell in love with these characters: saintly and monstrous, wrecked but not lost —castaways all. Kate Story is one of those rare writers who can plumb the darkness and retrieve from the depths a jewel, a truth, luminous and redemptive. A magical and moving novel. Prepare to be transported.”

  — Jessica Grant, author of Come, Thou Tortoise

  FIRST EDITION

  Antilia: Sword and Song © 2018 by Kate Story

  Cover art © 2018 by Erik Mohr (Made by Emblem)

  Cover design © 2018 by Jared Shapiro

  Interior design © 2018 by Jared Shapiro

  Map illustration © 2018 by S.M. Beiko

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed in Canada by

  PGC Raincoast Books

  300-76 Stafford Street

  Toronto, ON M6J 2S1

  Phone: (416) 934-9900

  e-mail: info@pgcbooks.ca

  Distributed in the U.S. by

  Consortium Book Sales & Distribution

  34 Thirteenth Avenue, NE, Suite 101

  Minneapolis, MN 55413

  Phone: (612) 746-2600

  e-mail: sales.orders@cbsd.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Story, Kate, author

  Antilia : sword and song / Kate Story.

  (The Antilia series ; 1)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77148-441-1 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77148-442-8 (EPUB)

  I. Title.

  PS8637.T677A65 2018 jC813’.6 C2018-900797-4

  C2018-900798-2

  CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS

  Peterborough, Canada

  www.chizinepub.com

  info@chizinepub.com

  Edited by Leigh Teetzel

  Copyedited and proofread by Samantha Beiko

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

  Published with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.

  “It is not down in any map; true places never are.”

  —Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  Chapter One

  TalL Blonde Fox

  When they get salt fish for a meal, it means her mother’s trying too hard.

  “Don’t stay too late,” Mary’d said about the protest. “Remember what happened last time. If any of those police show up, get the hell out. Stick with friends. Phone me.”

  Her mother still treats her like a kid. “Yeah, yeah.” And Ophelia escaped.

  That was two hours ago. Tens of thousands are here, people are saying: a record. The air vibrates with chanting, and the clatter of helicopters overhead. The protesters are heading north toward the park around the government buildings.

  “Peace, transparency, responsibility. Peace, transparency, responsibility.”

  It’s not the best chant, Ophelia thinks. A mouthful, and it doesn’t really scan.

  Candace grabs her arm, face flushed, hair swept back; she put on flawless makeup for the protest. “Check out that guy!”

  Ophelia laughs. “There are about a billion guys here.”

  “Over there.” Candace points, but it’s impossible to see who she’s indicating.

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “I’m a what?”

  It’s Ophelia’s word for the day and she tries to use it every way she can, so it sticks. “A delinquent” She wags her finger, a mock-serious lecturer. “We’re taking part in a vital political protest, Candace. The North American Union is at war in the Middle East. This is hardly a time to be checking out—”

  Candace groans. “Don’t be so serious. There! Look, up ahead, he’s really tall. So cute!”

  Some old guy has jumped up onto the pedestal of a statue of a former Canadian political leader, and is shouting through a bullhorn about the House of Saud, how the assassination was a setup by the covert forces of the United States so that opposing forces in the Middle East would start a war on Israel and oil would go up to 175 Ameros a barrel and everything would fall apart.

  A new chant begins.

  “Bring it on! Bring it on!”

  It’s ominous, but definitely more chantable than the other mouthful.

  And then the crowd up ahead parts for a brief moment. Ophelia spots Candace’s guy.

  And gives a long, low whistle.

  He is tall and slender, with white-blond hair and tilted cheekbones; he looks a bit feral, maybe like a fox. He’s walking a bicycle, talking to another white guy, big but shorter, with long hair. The press of people closes in again. She can still see his hair, a pale torch above the crowd.

  Candace flings her arm over Ophelia’s shoulders, throws her head back and closes her eyes. “Oh, I will have him. He will be mine, oh, yes.”

  Ophelia grunts. If Candace says a guy will be hers, he will be. Candace has that thing, that sparkle and glitter;
she has long straight hair and knows how to giggle.

  The tall blond fox will succumb.

  That was Ophelia’s word from yesterday: To yield to superior strength or force or overpowering appeal or desire. To be brought to an end (as death) by the effect of destructive or disruptive forces. On the same page of her father’s old dictionary as some other really great words like succinct and succor and succubus. That dictionary and a big atlas are all Ophelia has left of her father. She picks a word of the day, every day. And every day she thinks about her father, wondering where he is. Inventing stories about why he left her and her mother.

  The protest seems to have come to a standstill. People mill about, shouting and talking; there’s some laughter. It’s more like a street party than a protest and Ophelia wishes there was music. Candace pulls her along, shouldering through the crowd. She’s headed for the guy like a salmon going upstream.

  Ophelia tries to resist. “Please! I’m sick of being your wingman.” But it’s no use; the guy and his friend are suddenly right in front of them.

  “Hey!” Candace runs her hand over the seat of the guy’s bicycle. “Is that a Cervélo? Cool.”

  The guy stops whatever he’s saying to his buddy. “Yeah.” He sounds a bit surprised, maybe a bit embarrassed. “I saved up forever for it.” His voice is really nice, not deep but with timbre to it. Ophelia is a voice junkie. She wants him to talk some more. She thinks he doesn’t really like that Candace is fondling his bike but is too polite to say so. And his hands, holding the bike: long, strong fingers, tapered. Ophelia likes hands, too.

  What is she thinking? Candace is making small talk, making it beautifully; how did she know what the hell kind of bike that was? Ophelia, wingman, doesn’t stand a chance.

  She sighs and turns to the long-haired guy, asks how they heard about the protest, yadda yadda. The guy, whose name is Joe, tells her he is a member of a pacifist group working to reverse the mandatory military service law.

  This speech surprises Ophelia a bit. Joe looks well off, has that aura of people who grow up with money despite his attempt to blend in, with the long hair and ripped jeans. People like him usually go to university, thus escaping the military.

  Then he says he’s gotten word the authorities are really going to crack down on this protest. This makes Ophelia nervous. At the last one, a bunch of people got arrested and beaten up. And as the only black person in sight, she could be a target. Joe checks his phone. It’s one of those new ones that does everything. Yup, he’s well-off. Like the tall blond fox. Out of her league, housing project girl that she is.

  The swirl and press and noise of the crowd sweep around her.

  “Bring it on! Bring it on!”

  She doesn’t like crowds. It was a mistake to come here. As she tries to force down panic, her feet and hands go cold.

  She feels a hand on her arm, hears a voice. Shakes her head. “Sorry?”

  “I said, my name’s Rowan, by the way.”

  She looks up. It’s him.

  Rowan.

  That’s a nice name. It sounds sort of medieval or Old English or something, without being freaky-weird like her own name. Might as well get that out of the way fast. “Ophelia.”

  He’s smiling down at her. He doesn’t say anything about her name being dramatic, or any of the other things people usually say. He has a great smile, sort of shy. After a beat, she smiles back.

  Candace switches over to Joe, her voice animated. “Oh my god! What a cool phone.”

  “Hey, Rowan?” Joe’s still looking at his phone. “Kennedy says the riot police are coming down that way.” He points north.

  “That explains why we’ve stopped moving, then.”

  The guy with the bullhorn is still shouting from his pedestal. “The fascist NAU police state cannot suppress us! The people will not be silenced!”

  They’ve all become, over the last five years, used to military police on the streets. Toronto is now almost wholly policed by private NAU forces made up of Mexicans and Americans. Canadian personnel mostly get sent down to the States and Mexico, “to assure mutual cooperation and neutrality,” says the NAU head (an American of course). Canada gets the worst of the deal, Ophelia thinks. The Mexican and American private security forces have a reputation for suppressing even the mildest protests with brutality.

  Ophelia begins to wonder if maybe—she hates to admit it—her mother was right. Maybe she shouldn’t have come to this protest.

  But she has to try. Right? She has to do something, even if it feels like nothing.

  They hear it first, and then they see it: the line of police with shields and helmets, coming at them from the north, and also the east. They look like Roman soldiers, only all dressed in black.

  The crowd tries to stand its ground. “Peace, peace, peace,” a chant begins.

  The shields, the faceless masks, stop.

  “Peace.”

  The line of shields takes a concerted step forward. And another. They push into the crowd. The sound of their steps is audible over the chanting, a mechanical sound. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The chant gets louder, ragged. People in front of Ophelia are backing into her, and people behind her have nowhere to go because the crowd down the line has no idea what’s happening up ahead. It’s getting squishy. Someone almost falls over Rowan’s bicycle.

  “Listen, I’m going to try and deke out, head back south,” Ophelia says. “I can’t get into . . .” She gestures.

  “I’m with you,” says Rowan. This surprises Ophelia.

  Joe texts furiously. “I’m letting them know further back what’s going on.”

  “Good idea. I think . . .” Rowan shades his eyes. “I can see a way out across the park.”

  “But we’ve got to stand up to them!” Joe protests. “We can’t just run away at the first sign of . . .”

  “Yeah, that’s what they want,” agrees Candace.

  Ophelia wants to say, Since when did you become a radical? but of course she doesn’t. “I know, Candace. I want to stay. But . . .” Don’t make me explain this. Don’t make me point out to three white people that most of the people arrested at the last protest were people of colour. “I promised Mom. You know what she’s like. I just want to get away from that line.”

  Joe stops texting for a moment. “Okay. There’s a rallying point just a block back there, at the kids’ hospital.”

  They manage, with the aid of Rowan’s tallness, to navigate out of the crowd and squeeze through the park, back the way they’d come. Most of the people here are about her age, Ophelia notes. There are some oldsters, people who were probably around for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and all that, but most are teenagers like her. It makes her angry. Where are the people who voted in the political leaders who made all this happen? Next year Ophelia will be old enough to vote, and she wants to, but there’s not a single candidate who is against the NAU or could work to end it.

  They tell the people they meet about the line of riot police blocking the way to the parliament buildings.

  The crowd gets thick, and thicker still.

  People tell them there’s a line of riot police coming up the other way, from the south.

  “Kettled,” Ophelia mutters.

  “Kettled?” Candace looks scared.

  “They’re closing us in.”

  Joe looks up from his phone. He meets Ophelia’s eyes, the first time he’s done that. “There’s a third line of police coming this way along Gerrard.”

  “You called it,” Rowan says to Ophelia. “We’re trapped.”

  Chapter Two

  Song Falters And Dies

  Over the next few hours, Ophelia learns that being kettled is simultaneously horribly scary and horribly boring.

  The police come in from three sides, and a bunch of the protesters—her, Candace, Rowan, and Joe included—get backed against a big hospital building, its front doors barricaded. There’s maybe a hundred of them in the kettle, she figures. From texts that she an
d the others receive from friends elsewhere in the protest, they discover that groups have been cordoned off all along the protest route.

  They are pushed closer together. People begin to step on each other’s toes. Tempers rise. Someone starts a peace song, which soon fritters out; then they all sing “O Canada,” badly and off-key. This angers the foreign police. Ophelia has a loud voice—it might not be the best, her choir teacher is always telling her to back off, but she loves singing—and one of them lifts his mask long enough to say to her, “Can it, Beyoncé!”

  Nice.

  So O-friggin’-Canada peters out.

  There’s a man with a bullhorn—is it the same guy from before?—who keeps yelling slogans. It is alternately rallying and annoying.

  She and Rowan discover that they are the same age, and what schools they go to—he’s at the alternative high school where all the professors’ and lawyers’ and doctors’ kids go, no real surprise there. She’s embarrassed to name the Catholic girls’ school she and Candace go to—but he knows it of course, it’s in the same neighbourhood. Cue jokes about Catholic girls and short-skirted uniforms.

  But he doesn’t do that. He says, “Your choir kicked our ass last year!”

  That’s true; they walked away with almost every prize. “You’re in your school choir?” She thinks she would remember him if he’d been at the festival.

  He gives a strange, short, bitter laugh. “No.”

  Something about how he says that one word makes Ophelia sad.

  More time. They talk about conscription. “But they don’t even need national armies any more. They have all those private firms to do the fighting,” Candace says.

  “Sophisticated, high-level mercenaries,” Joe agrees.

  “That’s not the point, though,” Ophelia says. “Armies are used to mobilize patriotism, nostalgia, public outrage. And of course also they were smart enough to make it a lottery. That way people’s energy gets taken up in hoping, which weakens opposition to the new law. ‘Oh, thank god my son wasn’t picked,’ that kind of thing.”