The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Caitlin doesn’t know what I saw, there in the rose garden. She babbles about it in the carriage. “We went into the garden, in the moonlight—he kissed me and held my hands, because he said they were cold. His were so warm! He told me I was beautiful; he said he loved me. And he picked roses for me, and he bled where the thorns had pricked him. He bled for me, godmother—oh, this is the one! This is my prince. How could I not love him?”

  I remain silent. She doesn’t yet know what she loves. At length she says, “Why aren’t we home yet? It’s taking so long. I’m hungry. I never had any dinner.”

  “We aren’t going home,” I tell her, lighting my lantern and pulling down the shades which cover the carriage’s windows. “We have been discovered, Caitlin. It is quite possible we are being followed. I am taking you somewhere safe. There will be food there.”

  “Discovered?” She laughs. “What have they discovered? That I am poor? That I love Randolph? What could they do to me? He will protect me; he said so. He will marry me.”

  This is the moment I must tell her. For all the times I have done this, it never hurts any less. “Caitlin, listen to me. You shall never marry Randolph, or anyone else. It was never meant that you should. I am sorry you have to hear this now. I had wanted you to learn some gentler way.” She stares at me, bewildered, and, sadly, I smile at her—that expression she has teased me about, asked me for, wondered why I withhold; and when she sees it she understands. The pale eyes go wide, the beautiful hands go to her throat; she backs away from me, crossing herself as if in imitation of Lady Alison.

  “Away,” she tells me, trembling. “I exorcise thee, demon. In vain dost thou boast of this deed—”

  I think of kind Thomas, chanting valiantly in an empty stone chamber as men at arms wait outside the door. “Keep your charms, Caitlin. They’ll do you no good. Don’t you understand, child? Why do you think everyone has begun to look at you so oddly; why do you think I wouldn’t give you a mirror? What do you think was in the soup I gave you?”

  The hands go to her mouth now, to the small sharp teeth. She cries out, understanding everything at once—her odd lassitude after the first few balls, the blood I took from her to cure it, her changing hours and changing thirsts—and, as always, this moment of birth rends whatever I have left of a heart. Because for a moment the young creature sitting in front of me is not the apprentice hunter I have made her, but the innocent young girl who stood holding that first invitation to the ball, her heart in her eyes. I? I have been invited? I force myself not to turn away as Caitlin cries out, “You tricked me! The story wasn’t true!”

  She tears at her face with shapely nails, and ribbons of flesh follow her fingers. “You can’t weep anymore,” I tell her. I would weep for her, if I could. “You can’t bleed, either. You’re past that. Don’t disfigure yourself.”

  “The story was a lie! None of it was true, ever—”

  I make my voice as cold as iron. “The story was perfectly true, Caitlin. You were simply never told all of it before.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to end like this!” All the tears she can’t shed are in her voice. “In the story the girl falls in love and marries the prince and—everyone knows that! You lied to me! This isn’t the right ending!”

  “It’s the only ending! The only one there is—Caitlin, surely you see that. Living women have no more protection than we do here. They feed off their men, as we do, and they require permission to enter houses and go to dances, as we do, and they depend on spells of seeming. There is only one difference: you will never, ever look like Lady Alison. You will never look like your mother. You have escaped that.”

  She stares at me and shrinks against the side of the carriage, holding her hands in front of her—her precious hands which Randolph held, kissed, warmed with his own life. “I love him,” she says defiantly. “I love him and he loves me. That part of it is true—”

  “You loved his bleeding hands, Caitlin. If I hadn’t interrupted, you would have fed from them, and known then, and hated him for it. And he would have hated you, for allowing him to speak of love when all along you had been precisely what his aunt warned him against.”

  Her mouth quivers. She hates me for having seen, and for telling her the truth. She doesn’t understand our danger; she doesn’t know how the woman she has scorned all these weeks died, or how close she came to dying herself.

  Gregory was a clever man; the plot was a clean one. To sacrifice Randolph to Caitlin, and kill Caitlin as she tried to escape the maze; Gregory would have mourned his nephew in the proper public manner, and been declared a hero for murdering one fiend in person as the other was destroyed in the castle. Any gossip about his own soul would have been effectively stilled; perhaps he had been seduced, but surely he was pure again, to summon the righteousness to kill the beasts?

  Oh yes, clever. Alison would have known the truth, and would never have accepted a title won by Randolph’s murder. Alison could have ruined the entire plan, but it is easy enough to silence wives.

  “Can I pray?” Caitlin demands of me, as we rattle towards daybreak. “If I can’t shed tears or blood, if I can’t love, can I still pray?”

  “We can pray,” I tell her gently, thinking again of Thomas who spared me, of those tenuous bonds between the living and the dead. “We must pray, foremost, that someone hear us. Caitlin, it’s the same. The same story, with that one difference.”

  She trembles, huddling against the side of the carriage, her eyes closed. When at last she speaks, her voice is stunned. “I’ll never see my mother again.”

  “I am your mother now. What are mothers and daughters, if not women who share blood?”

  She whimpers in her throat then, and I stroke her hair. At last she says, “I’ll never grow old.”

  “You will grow as old as the hills,” I tell her, putting my arm around her as one comforts a child who has woken from a nightmare, “but you will never be ugly. You will always be as beautiful as you are now, as beautiful as I am. Your hair and nails will grow and I will trim them for you, to keep them lovely, and you will go to every dance, and wear different gowns to all of them.”

  She blinks and plucks aimlessly at the poor fabric of her dress, once again a kitchen smock. “I’ll never be ugly?”

  “Never,” I say. “You’ll never change.” We cannot cry or bleed or age; there are so many things we cannot do. But for her, now, it is a comfort.

  She hugs herself, shivering, and I sit beside her and hold her, rocking her towards the certain sleep which will come with dawn. It would be better if Randolph were here, with his human warmth, but at least she doesn’t have to be alone. I remember my own shock and despair, although they happened longer ago than anyone who is not one of us can remember; I too tried to pray, and afterwards was thankful that my own godmother had stayed with me.

  After a while Caitlin’s breathing evens, and I am grateful that she hasn’t said, as so many of them do, Now I will never die.

  We shelter our young, as the mortal mothers shelter theirs—those human women who of necessity are as predatory as we, and as dependent on the invitation to feed—and so there are some truths I have not told her. She will learn them soon enough.

  She is more beautiful than Lady Alison or her mother, but no less vulnerable. Her very beauty contains the certainty of her destruction. There is no law protecting women in this kingdom, where wives can be poisoned in their own halls and their murderers never punished. Still less are there laws protecting us.

  I have told her she will not grow ugly, but I have not said what a curse beauty can be, how time after time she will be forced to flee the rumors of her perpetual loveliness and all that it implies. Men will arrive to feed her and kiss her and bring her roses; but for all the centuries of gentle princes swearing love, there will inevitably be someone—jealous wife or jaded lord, peasant or priest—who has heard the whispers and believed, and who will come to her resting place, in the light hours when she cannot move, bearing a hammer and a
wooden stake.

  MICHAEL FLYNN

  The Forest of Time

  Here’s a thoughtful and compelling novella by new writer Michael Flynn, which demonstrates that Going Home Again might be even more difficult than Thomas Wolfe thought.

  Since his first sale in 1980, Michael Flynn has become a regular contributor to Analog, and is at work on a novel. He has a BA in math from La Salle College, an MS for work in topology from Marquette University, and works as an industrial quality engineer and statistician. Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, he now lives in Edison, N.J. His popular story “Eifelheim” was a Hugo Award finalist last year.

  THE FOREST OF TIME

  Michael Flynn

  It was the autumn of the year and the trees were already showing their death-colors. Splashes of orange and red and gold rustled in the canopy overhead. Oberleutnant Rudolf Knecht, Chief Scout of the Army of the Kittatinny, wore the same hues mottled for his uniform as he rode through the forest. A scout’s badge, carefully rusted to dullness, was pinned to his battered campaign cap.

  Knecht swayed easily to the rhythm of his horse’s gait as he picked his way up the trail toward Fox Gap Fortress. He kept a wary eye on the surrounding forest. Periodically, he twisted in the saddle and gazed thoughtfully at the trail where it switchbacked below. There had been no sign of pursuit so far. Knecht believed his presence had gone undetected; but even this close to home, it paid to be careful. The list of those who wanted Knecht dead was a long one; and here, north of the Mountain, it was open season on Pennsylvanians.

  There were few leaves on the forest floor, but the wind gathered them up and hurled them in mad dances. The brown, dry, crisp leaves of death. Forerunners of what was to be. Knecht bowed his head and pulled the jacket collar tighter about his neck.

  Knecht felt the autumn. It was in his heart and in his bones. It was in the news he carried homeward. Bad news even in the best of times, which these were not. Two knick regiments had moved out of the Hudson Valley into the Poconos. They were camped with the yankees. Brothers-in-arms, as if last spring’s fighting had never happened. General Schneider’s fear: New York and Wyoming had settled their quarrel and made common cause.

  Common cause. Knecht chewed on his drooping moustache, now more grey than brown. No need to ask the cause. There was little enough that yanks and knicks could agree on, but killing Pennsylvanians was one.

  He remembered that General Schneider was inspecting the fortress line and would probably be waiting for him at Fox Gap. He did not feel the pleasure he usually felt on such occasions. Na, Konrad, meiner Alt, he thought. What will you do now? What a burden I must lay upon your shoulders. God help the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

  He pulled in on the reins. There was a break in the trees here and through it he could see the flank of Kittatinny Mountain. A giant’s wall, the ridge ran away, straight and true, becoming bluer and hazier as its forested slopes faded into the distance. Spots of color decorated the sheer face of the Mountain. Fox Gap, directly above him, was hidden by the forest canopy; but Knecht thought he could just make out the fortresses at Wind Gap and Tott Gap.

  As always, the view comforted him. There was no way across the Kittatinny, save through the Gaps. And there was no way through the Gaps.

  Twenty years since anyone has tried, he thought. He kicked at the horse and they resumed their slow progress up the trail. Twenty years ago; and we blew the knick riverboats off the water.

  That had been at Delaware Gap, during the Piney War. Knecht sighed. The Piney War. It seemed such a long time ago. A different world; more innocent, somehow. Or perhaps he had only been younger. He remembered how he had marched away, his uniform new and sharply creased. Adventure was ahead of him, and his father’s anger behind. I am too old for such games, he told himself. I should be sitting by the fire, smoking my pipe, telling stories to my grandchildren.

  He chewed again on his moustache hairs and spit them out. There had never been any children; and now, there never would be. He felt suddenly alone.

  Just as well, he thought. The stories I have to tell are not for the ears of youngsters. What were the stories, really? A crowd of men charged from the trench. Later, some of them came back. What more was there to say? Once, a long time ago, war had been glamorous, with pageantry and uniforms to shame a peacock. Now it was only necessary, and the uniforms were the color of mud.

  * * *

  There was a sudden noise in the forest to his right. Snapping limbs and a muffled grunt. Knecht started, and chastised himself. A surprised scout is often a dead one as well. He pulled a large bore pistol from his holster and dismounted. The horse, well-trained, held still. Knecht stepped into the forest and crouched behind a tall birch tree. He listened.

  The noise continued. Too much noise, he decided. Perhaps an animal?

  Then he saw the silhouette of a man thrashing through the underbrush, making no attempt at silence. Knecht watched over his gun-sight as the man blundered into a stickerbush. Cursing, the other stopped and pulled the burrs from his trousers.

  The complete lack of caution puzzled Knecht. The no-man’s-land between Pennsylvania and the Wyoming was no place for carelessness. The other was either very foolish or very confident.

  The fear ran through him like the rush of an icy mountain stream. Perhaps the bait in a trap; something to hold his attention? He jerked round suddenly, looking behind him, straining for the slightest sign.

  But there was nothing save the startled birds and the evening wind.

  Knecht blew his breath out in a gust. His heart was pounding. I am getting too old for this. He felt foolish and his cheeks burned, even though there was no one to see.

  The stranger had reached the trail and stood there brushing himself off. He was short and dark complexioned. On his back he wore a rucksack, connected by wires to a device on his belt. Knecht estimated his age at thirty, but the unkempt hair and beard made him look older.

  He watched the man pull a paper from his baggy canvas jacket. Even from where he crouched, Knecht could see it was a map, handsomely done in many colors. A stranger with a map on the trail below Fox Gap. Knecht made a decision and stepped forth, cocking his pistol.

  The stranger spun and saw Knecht. Closer up, Knecht could see the eyes bloodshot with fatigue. After a nervous glance at the scout’s pistol, the stranger smiled and pointed to the map. “Would you believe it?” he asked in English. “I think I’m lost.”

  Knecht snorted. “I would not believe it,” he answered in the same language. “Put in the air your hands up.”

  The stranger complied without hesitation. Knecht reached out and snatched the map from his hand.

  “That’s a Pennsylvania Dutch accent, isn’t it?” asked his prisoner. “It sure is good to hear English again.”

  Knecht looked at him. He did not understand why that should be good. His own policy when north of the Mountain was to shoot at English-speaking voices. He gave quick glances to the map while considering what to do.

  “Are you hunting? I didn’t know it was hunting season.”

  The scout saw no reason to answer that, either. In a way, he was hunting, but he doubted the prisoner had meant it that way.

  “At least you can tell me where in the damn world I am!”

  Knecht was surprised at the angry outburst. Considering who held the pistol on whom, it seemed a rash act at best. He grinned and held up the map. “Naturally, you know where in the damn world you are. While you have this map, it gives only one possibility. You are the spy, nicht wahr? But, to humor you…” He pointed northward with his chin. “Downtrail is the Wyoming, where your Wilkes-Barre masters your report in vain will await. Uptrail is Festung Fox Gap … and your cell.”

  The prisoner’s shoulders slumped. Knecht looked at the sun. With the prisoner afoot, they should still reach the fort before nightfall. He decided to take the man in for questioning. That would be safer than interrogating him on the spot. Knecht glanced at the map once more. Then he frowned and looked mo
re closely. “United States Geological Survey?” he asked the prisoner. “What are the United States?”

  He did not understand why the prisoner wept.

  * * *

  There was a storm brewing in the northwest and the wind whipped through Fox Gap, tearing at the uniform blouses of the sentries, making them grab for their caps. In the dark, amid the rain and lightning, at least one man’s grab was too late and his fellows laughed coarsely as he trotted red-faced to retrieve it. It was a small diversion in an otherwise cheerless duty.

  What annoyed Festungskommandant Vonderberge was not that Scout Knecht chose to watch the chase also, but that he chose to do so while halfway through the act of entering Vonderberge’s office. The wind blew a blizzard of paper around the room and Vonderberge’s curses brought Knecht fully into the office, closing the door behind him.

  Knecht surveyed the destruction. Vonderberge shook his head. He looked at Knecht. “These bits of paper,” he said. “These orders and memoranda and requisitions, they are the nerve messages of the Army. A thousand messages a day cross my desk, Rudi; and not a one of them but deals with matters of the greatest military import.” He clucked sadly. “Our enemies need not defeat us in the field. They need only sabotage our filing system and we are lost.” He rose from his desk and knelt, gathering up papers. “Come, Rudi, quickly. Let us set things aright, else the Commonwealth is lost!”

  Knecht snorted. Vonderberge was mocking him with this elaborate ridicule. In his short time at Fox Gap, Knecht had encountered the Kommandant’s strange humor several times. Someone had once told him that Vonderberge had always dreamed of becoming a scientist, but that his father had pressured him into following the family’s military tradition. As a result, his command style was, well, unorthodox.

  Na, we all arrive by different paths, Knecht thought. I joined to spite my father. It startled him to recall that his father had been dead for many years and that they had never become reconciled.