Tales of Neveryon

by Delany, Samuel R.

  Away in another alley, children’s shouts pummeled and tumbled in the autumn sun, though they were too far off to distinguish any one word amidst their childish gamings.

  – New York

  June ’78

  The Tale of Dragons and Dreamers

  But there is a negative work to be carried out first: we must rid ourselves of a whole mass of notions, each of which, in its own way, diversifies the theme of continuity. They may not have a very rigorous conceptual structure, but they have a very precise function. Take the notion of tradition: it is intended to give a special temporal status to a group of phenomena that are both successive and identical (or at least similar); it makes it possible to rethink the dispersion of history in the form of the same; it allows a reduction of the difference proper to every beginning, in order to pursue without discontinuity the endless search for origin …

  – Michel Foucault

  The Archeology of Knowledge

  1

  Wide wings dragged on stone, scales a polychrome glister with seven greens. The bony gum yawned above the iron rail. The left eye, fist-sized and packed with stained foils, did not blink its transverse lid. A stench of halides; a bilious hiss.

  ‘But why have you penned it up in here?’

  ‘Do you think the creature unhappy, my Vizerine? Illfed, perhaps? Poorly exercised – less well cared for than it would be at Ellamon?’

  ‘How could anyone know?’ But Myrgot’s chin was down, her lower lip out, and her thin hands joined tightly before the lap of her shift.

  ‘I know you, my dear. You hold it against me that I should want some of the “fable” that has accrued to these beasts to redound on me. But you know; I went to great expense (and I don’t just mean the bribes, the gifts, the money) to bring it here … Do you know what a dragon is? For me? Let me tell you, dear Myrgot: it is an expression of some natural sensibility that cannot be explained by pragmatics, that cannot survive unless someone is hugely generous before it. These beasts are a sport. If Olin – yes, Mad Olin, and it may have been the highest manifestation of her madness – had not decided, on a tour through the mountain holds, the creatures were beautiful, we wouldn’t have them today. You know the story? She came upon a bunch of brigands slaughtering a nest of them and sent her troops to slaughter the brigands. Everyone in the mountains had seen the wings, but no one was sure the creatures could actually fly till two years after Olin put them under her protection and the grooms devised their special training programs that allowed the beasts to soar. And their flights, though lovely, are short and rare. The creatures are not survival oriented – unless you want to see them as part of a survival relationship with the vicious little harridans who are condemned to be their riders: another of your crazed great aunt’s more inane institutions. Look at that skylight. The moon outside illumines it now. But the expense I have gone to in order to arrive at those precise green panes! Full sunlight causes the creature’s eyes to inflame, putting it in great discomfort. They can only fly a few hundred yards or so, perhaps a mile with the most propitious drafts, and unless they land on the most propitious ledge, they cannot take off again. Since they cannot elevate from flat land, once set down in an ordinary forest, say, they are doomed. In the wild, many live their entire lives without flying, which, given how easily their wing membranes tear through or become injured, is understandable. They are egg-laying creatures who know nothing of physical intimacy. Indeed, they are much more tractable when kept from their fellows. This one is bigger, stronger, and generally healthier than any you’ll find in the Falthas – in or out of the Ellamon corrals. Listen to her trumpet her joy over her present state!’

  Obligingly, the lizard turned on her splay claws, dragging the chain from her iron collar, threw back her bony head beneath the tower’s many lamps, and hissed – not a trumpet, the Vizerine reflected, whatever young Strethi might think. ‘My dear, why don’t you just turn it loose?’

  ‘Why don’t you just have me turn loose the poor wretch chained in the dungeon?’ At the Vizerine’s bitter glance, the Suzeraine chuckled. ‘No, dear Myrgot. True, I could haul on those chains there, which would pull back the wood and copper partitions you see on the other side of the pen. My beast could then waddle to the ledge and soar out from our tower here, onto the night. (Note the scenes of hunting I have had the finest craftsmen beat into the metal work. Myself, I think they’re stunning.) But such a creature as this in a landscape like the one about here could take only a single flight – for, really, without a rider they’re simply too stupid to turn around and come back to where they took off. And I am not a twelve-year-old girl; what’s more, I couldn’t bear to have one about the castle who could ride the creature aloft when I am too old and too heavy.’ (The dragon was still hissing.) ‘No, I could only conceive of turning it loose if my whole world were destroyed and – indeed – my next act would be to cast myself down from that same ledge to the stones!’

  ‘My Suzeraine, I much preferred you as a wild-haired, horse-proud seventeen-year-old. You were beautiful and heartless … in some ways rather a bore. But you have grown up into another over-refined soul of the sort our aristocracy is so good at producing and which produces so little itself save ways to spend unconscionable amounts on castles, clothes, and complex towers to keep comfortable impossible beasts. You remind me of a cousin of mine – the Baron Inige? Yet what I loved about you, when you were a wholly ungracious provincial heir whom I had just brought to court, was simply that that was what I could never imagine you.’

  ‘Oh, I remember what you loved about me! And I remember your cousin too – though it’s been years since I’ve seen him. Among those pompous and self-important dukes and earls, though I doubt he liked me any better than the rest did, I recall a few times when he went out of his way to be kind … I’m sure I didn’t deserve it. How is Curly?’

  ‘Killed himself three years ago.’ The Vizerine shook her head. ‘His passion, you may recall, was flowers – which I’m afraid totally took over in the last years. As I understand the story – for I wasn’t there when it happened – he’d been putting together another collection of particularly rare weeds. One he was after apparently turned out to be the wrong color, or couldn’t be found, or didn’t exist. The next day his servants discovered him in the arboretum, his mouth crammed with the white blossoms of some deadly mountain flower.’ Myrgot shuddered. ‘Which I’ve always suspected is where such passions as his – and yours – are too likely to lead, given the flow of our lives, the tenor of our times.’

  The Suzeraine laughed, adjusting the collar of his rich robe with his forefinger. (The Vizerine noted that the blue eyes were much paler in the prematurely lined face, than she remembered; and the boyish nailbiting had passed on, in the man, to such grotesque extents that each of his long fingers now ended in a perfect pitted wound.) Two slaves at the door, their own collars covered with heavily jeweled neckpieces, stepped forward to help him, as they had long since been instructed, while the Suzeraine’s hand fell again into the robe’s folds, the adjustment completed. The slaves stepped back. The Suzeraine, oblivious, and the Vizerine, feigning obliviousness and wondering if the Suzeraine’s obliviousness were feigned or real, strolled through the low stone arch between them to the uneven steps circling down the tower.

  ‘Well,’ said the blond lord, stepping back to let his lover of twenty years ago precede, ‘now we return to the less pleasant aspect of your stay here. You know, I sometimes find myself dreading any visit from the northern aristocracy. Just last week two common women stopped at my castle – one was a redhaired island woman, the other a small creature in a mask who hailed from the Western Crevasse. They were traveling together, seeking adventure and fortune. The Western Woman had once for a time worked in the Falthas, training the winged beasts and the little girls who ride them. The conversation was choice! The island woman could tell incredible tales, and was even using skins and inks to mark down her adventures. And the masked one’s observations were very sharp. It w
as a fine evening we passed. I fed them and housed them. They entertained me munificently. I gave them useful gifts, saw them depart, and would be delighted to see either return. Now, were the stars in a different configuration, I’m sure that the poor wretch that we’ve got strapped in the dungeon and his little friend who escaped might have come wandering by in the same wise. But no, we have to bind one to the plank in the cellar and stake a guard out for the other … You really wish me to keep up the pretence to that poor mule that it is Lord Krodar, rather than you, who directs his interrogation?’

  ‘You object?’ Myrgot’s hand, out to touch the damp stones at the stair’s turning, came back to brush at the black braids that looped her forehead. ‘Once or twice I have seen you enjoy such an inquisition session with an avidity that verged on the unsettling.’

  ‘Inquisition? But this is merely questioning. The pain – at your own orders, my dear – is being kept to a minimum.’ (Strethi’s laugh echoed down over Myrgot’s shoulder, recalling for her the enthusiasm of the boy she could no longer find when she gazed full at the man.) ‘I have neither objection nor approbation, my Vizerine. We have him; we do with him as we will … Now, I can’t help seeing how you gaze about at my walls, Myrgot! I must tell you, ten years ago when I had this castle built over the ruins of my parents’ farm, I really thought the simple fact that all my halls had rooves would bring the aristocracy of Nevèrÿon flocking to my court. Do you know, you are my only regular visitor – at least the only one who comes out of anything other than formal necessity. And I do believe you would come to see me even if I lived in the same drafty farmhouse I did when you first met me. Amazing what we’ll do out of friendship … The other one, Myrgot; I wonder what happened to our prisoner’s little friend. They both fought like devils. Too bad the boy got away.’

  ‘We have the one I want,’ Myrgot said.

  ‘At any rate, you have your reasons – your passion, for politics and intrigue. That’s what comes of living most of your life in Kolhari. Here in the Avila, it’s – well, it’s not that different for me. You have your criticism of my passions – and I have mine of yours. Certainly I should like to be much more straightforward with the dog: make my demand and chop his head off if he didn’t meet it. This endless play is not really my style. Yet I am perfectly happy to assist you in your desires. And however disparaging you are of my little pet, whose welfare is my life, I am sure there will come a time when one or another of your messengers will arrive at my walls bearing some ornate lizard harness of exquisite workmanship you have either discovered in some old storeroom or – who knows – have had specially commissioned for me by the latest and finest artist. When it happens, I shall be immensely pleased.’

  And as the steps took them around and down the damp tower, the Suzeraine of Strethi slipped up beside the Vizerine to take her aging arm.

  2

  And again Small Sarg ran.

  He struck back low twigs, side-stepped a wet branch clawed with moonlight, and leaped a boggy puddle. With one hand he shoved away a curtain of leaves, splattering himself face to foot with night-dew, to reveal the moonlit castle. (How many other castles had he so revealed …) Branches chattered to behind him.

  Panting, he ducked back of a boulder. His muddy hand pawed beneath the curls like scrap brass at his neck. The hinged iron was there; and locked tight – a droplet trickled under the metal. He swatted at his hip to find his sword: the hilt was still tacky under his palm where he had not had time to clean it. The gaze with which he took in the pile of stone was not a halt in his headlong dash so much as a continuation of it, the energy propelling arms and legs momentarily diverted into eyes, ears, and all inside and behind them; then it was back in his feet; his feet pounded the shaly slope so that each footfall, even on his calloused soles, was a constellation of small pains; it was back in his arms; his arms pumped by his flanks so that his fists, brushing his sides as he jogged, heated his knuckles by friction.

  A balustrade rose, blotting stars.

  There would be the unlocked door (as he ran, he clawed over memories of the seven castles he had already run up to; seven side doors, all unlocked …); and the young barbarian, muddy to the knees and elbows, his hair at head and chest and groin matted with leaf-bits and worse, naked save the sword thonged around his hips and the slave collar locked about his neck, dashed across moonlit stubble and gravel into a tower’s shadow, toward the door … and slowed, pulling in cool breaths of autumn air that grew hot inside him and ran from his nostrils; more air ran in.

  ‘Halt!’ from under the brand that flared high in the doorframe.

  Sarg, in one of those swipes at his hip, had moved the scabbard around behind his buttock; it was possible, if the guard had not really been looking at Sarg’s dash through the moonlight, for the boy to have seemed simply a naked slave. Sarg’s hand was ready to grab at the hilt.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  Small Sarg raised his chin, so that the iron would show. ‘I’ve come back,’ and thought of seven castles. ‘I got lost from the others, this morning. When they were out.’

  ‘Come now, say your name and rank.’

  It’s only Small Sarg, master – one of the slaves in the Suzeraine’s labor pen. I was lost this morning –’

  ‘Likely story!’

  ‘– and I’ve just found my way back.’ With his chin high, Sarg walked slowly and thought: I am running, I am running …

  ‘See here, boy –’ The brand came forward, fifteen feet, ten, five, three …

  I am running. And Small Sarg, looking like a filthy field slave with some thong at his waist, jerked his sword up from the scabbard (which bounced on his buttock) and with a grunt sank it into the abdomen of the guard a-glow beneath the high-held flare. The guard’s mouth opened. The flare fell, rolled in the mud so that it burned now only on one side. Small Sarg leaned on the hilt, twisting – somewhere inside the guard the blade sheered upward, parting diaphragm, belly, lungs. The guard closed his eyes, drooled blood, and toppled. Small Sarg almost fell on him – till the blade sucked free. And Sarg was running again, blade out for the second guard (in four castles before there had been a second guard), who was, it seemed as Sarg swung around the stone newel and into the stairwell where his own breath was a roaring echo, not there.

  He hurried up and turned into a side corridor that would take him down to the labor pen. (Seven castles, now. Were all of them designed by one architect?) He ran through the low hall, guided by that glowing spot in his mind where memory was flush with desire; around a little curve, down the steps –

  ‘What the –?’

  – and jabbed his sword into the shoulder of the guard who’d started forward (already hearing the murmur behind the wooden slats), yanking it free of flesh, the motion carrying it up and across the throat of the second guard (here there was always a second guard) who had turned, surprised; the second guard released his sword (it had only been half drawn), which fell back into its scabbard. Small Sarg hacked at the first again (who was screaming): the man fell, and Small Sarg leaped over him while the man gurgled and flopped. But Sarg was pulling at the boards, cutting at the rope. Behind the boards and under the screams, like murmuring flies, hands and faces rustled about one another. (Seven times now they had seemed like murmuring flies.) And rope was always harder hacking than flesh. The wood, in at least two other castles, had simply splintered under his hands (under his hands, wood splintered) so that, later, he had wondered if the slaughter and the terror was really necessary.

  Rope fell away.

  Sarg yanked again.

  The splintered gate scraped out on stone.

  ‘You’re free!’ Sarg hissed into the mumbling; mumblings silenced at the word. ‘Go on, get out of here now!’ (How many faces above their collars were clearly barbarian like his own? Memory of other labor pens, rather than what shifted and murmured before him, told him most were.) He turned and leaped bodies, took stairs at double step – while memory told him that only a handful would flee
at once; another handful would take three, four, or five minutes to talk themselves into fleeing; and another would simply sit, terrified in the foul straw, and would be sitting there when the siege was over.

  He dashed up stairs in the dark. (Dark stairs fell down beneath dashing feet …) He flung himself against the wooden door with the strip of light beneath and above it. (In two other castles the door had been locked.) It fell open. (In one castle the kitchen midden had been deserted, the fire dead.) He staggered in, blinking in firelight.

  The big man in the stained apron stood up from over the cauldron, turned, frowning. Two women carrying pots stopped and stared. In the bunk beds along the midden’s far wall, a red-headed kitchen boy raised himself up on one arm, blinking. Small Sarg tried to see only the collars around each neck. But what he saw as well (he had seen it before …) was that even here, in a lord’s kitchen, where slavery was already involved in the acquisition of the most rudimentary crafts and skills, most of the faces were darker, the hair was coarser, and only the shorter of the women was clearly a barbarian like himself.

  ‘You are free …!’ Small Sarg said, drawing himself up, dirty, blood splattered. He took a gulping breath. ‘The guards are gone below. The labor pens have already been turned loose. You are free …!’

  The big cook said: ‘What …?’ and a smile, with worry flickering through, slowly overtook his face. (This one’s mother, thought Small Sarg, was a barbarian: he had no doubt been gotten on her by some free northern dog.) ‘What are you talking about, boy? Better put that shoat-sticker down or you’ll get yourself in trouble.’