The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women

by Alex Dally MacFarlane

  For a time the palace of the Empress Sesdimillia stood closed but well maintained by servants who had remained behind for that purpose; but though the children the empress had with Ledonoïnor the Vacant and those she had with the Southerner respected her wishes, her grandchildren didn’t care much about a palace they’d never seen, and failed to replace the caretakers when they got old and died. One night somebody stole the great bronzeand-golden bell from the main door, and that was the signal for general looting. Not violent, brutal looting as in war, but a mild, intermittent, natural, easygoing depredation, not totally secret but not overt, that went on till nothing was left of the palace but the walls, the roofs, a few doors, and the stone and marble pavements.

  The mysterious, peaceful, labyrinthine city continued to offer its waters to those who came seeking a cure for something, though they were far fewer than in the times of the Listener. The skeleton of the deserted palace was about to be knocked down when a mayor asked permission of the capital to take over what was left of it and turn it into a cultural center. They sent word that he could do as he pleased, which is exactly what this mayor, who had written poetry and plays as a young man, did. He repaired the ruinous building at a low cost, remodeling the rooms for readings, concerts, lectures, plays, dance, and exhibitions of art. There was a natural history museum, two libraries, and a historical archive. The people of the city never took a great deal of interest in so much art and culture, but the invalids and the convalescents paid money to go in and see plays or hear music, or merely out of curiosity, and so for many long years the great doors were never locked.

  The Empire didn’t entirely forget the mountain city during this period, because its curative waters kept it in mind, and because vehicles carrying freight went on using the north road to and from the port, but indubitably its fame, importance, and attractiveness had declined. It was just another city: people knew somebody who lived there or had lived there, people had a relative who went to take the waters there, people consulted the annals in the archives seeking information on the various imperial capitals, people remembered a trip, a conversation, a name. And that was all. The city didn’t die, but it rested, it dozed. I’d say it was making ready for something.

  Have you heard tell of Heldinav’Var? Of course you have, of course you have. I’ll bet my boots and buttons you’ve forgotten all the virtuous emperors, but who is there, eh, that doesn’t wink and grin as soon as they hear that name, Heldinav’Var? Well, I’m about to disillusion you, because I’m not going to talk about that lecherous and vicious emperor. Who did have some good qualities, though most people don’t believe it, or don’t want to. No, I’m not going to talk about him but about one of his relations, Meabramiddir’Ven, Baron of the Towers, Seneschal of the Walls, and a lot of other equally meaningless titles – and the emperor’s first cousin. That, now, is meaningful. It means, for instance, that he nursed certain pretensions about sitting on the imperial throne some day, despite the fact that he was ninth in succession. Heldinav’Var was a swine, but he wasn’t stupid, which was one of his good qualities. It’s always good not to be stupid, and when it’s the emperor who isn’t stupid, people can have hope; not security, of course, but still, hope helps. Heldinav’Var was Crown Prince and his father the Emperor Embemdarv’Var was dying. The prince began planning what he’d do when he succeeded to the throne. He knew, among other things, that his cousin the Baron of the Towers was capable of murder to clear his own way to the throne, and that the first to fall would be the Crown Prince, and since the Crown Prince had no interest whatever in dying, because he was having a stupendously good time and intended to go on doing so when he was emperor, and since – another of his good qualities – he wasn’t an assassin or a despot and therefore didn’t consider poisoning or hanging his cousin even if his cousin deserved it, he sent for the Seneschal of the Walls and informed him, in public, what he thought of him, and added that either his august cousin would depart from the capital before nightfall and go as far as he could possibly go, or the tenth person in the line of succession, Goldarab’Bar the Obese, the author, as you know, of the First Codex of River Commerce, would instantly become the ninth. Meabramiddir’Ven, who hadn’t expected this, sought a defense, an explanation, anything, but couldn’t think of anything, which suggests that he was considerably stupider than the future emperor. And the worst of it was that his illustrious cousin did not address him with indignation, nor demand justifications or avowals of innocence, but merely waited, almost smiling, arms crossed, to hear what the aspirant to regicide would say. He finally hit on a way out, not a very plausible one, but very seemly: He had no aspirations to the throne, to power, to be ruler of the Empire, oh, no no no; if he had been asking the opinion of some strategically placed persons concerning the desirability or indesirability of Heldinav’Var’s succeeding to the throne, it was because he wished to prevent the vice, the shamelessness, the indecency of his cousin from being openly displayed in the person of the emperor. What would become of the Empire? What would become of its subjects, with such an example at their head? And he went on to explain how good he himself was, how honest, decent, discreet, modest, and virtuous. All the same the future emperor sent him off, because he was not only dangerous and a very poor liar, but boring. And the Baron of the Towers had nothing for it but to go, not swearing vengeance because that wouldn’t have suited his role of redeemer, but declaring that he pardoned and forgave.

  Since it had been made clear that he was to go as fast as possible, he set out for the mountain city. Foreseeing that he might be observed, he arrived as a redeemer, a pilgrim, on foot and poorly dressed. So much so that some gave him alms and others bowed their heads as he passed. When an ancient, poverty-stricken woman called him to come in and share her midday meal, he wouldn’t sit at the table, but ate humbly crouching in the doorway. That was when he discovered that he liked this job – not as much as the job of emperor, maybe, but it was all he had. That same evening he preached for the first time.

  He didn’t himself know very clearly what he was preaching about, and at first he had to be careful not to get mixed up or contradict himself, but so what? If he couldn’t be an emperor he’d be a saint. Chance certainly favored him; he’d found the perfect stage for his sanctification. The city was full of petty little people who had nothing but their little jobs and their little superstitions all ready to be set in order and pigeonholed. There were the invalids, too, trying to get well or trying to die, and their relatives, hoping the invalids would get well or would die, according to the closeness of the relationship and the quantity of money involved. And all of them welcomed piety and preaching.

  The emperor’s cousin struck it rich. Not in gold, for as he won converts and began to believe he really was the mouthpiece of Truth and Goodness, he didn’t need to fake it any longer but embraced poverty with all his heart; but in prestige, fame, respect, that’s to say, in power of a certain kind. And power is what he’d been looking for. He preached in the streets, lived frugally, went barefoot, walked with his hands joined and his eyes downcast, never raised his voice or indulged himself in bad temper or anger or impatience. He wasn’t a saint, but he seemed one.

  Now let me tell you, sanctity is catching, much more so than vice. Obviously, Heldinav’Var never converted anybody nor even tried to, since those who succeeded in getting close to him were already convinced, but his cousin converted multitudes of unbelievers and persuaded many to pray, to live frugally and chastely, to fast and sacrifice, and other idiocies of the genre. And he induced even more to take up preaching.

  A year after the precipitate departure from the capital of the Baron of the Towers, now the Servant of the Faith, the mountain city had become the most pious, holy, and overwhelmingly prayerful city the Empire had ever known. A hundred religions and a thousand sects sprouted and thrived as, in other times, painting and poetry had sprung up, or the curative waters, or the curfew, or luxury, or fortune-tellers’ tents. Going out in the street you weren’t pou
nced on by people selling baskets, jewelry, carpets, crockery, or herbs, but by people selling eternal salvation, which is a treacherous bit of merchandise, believe me, requiring wit and prudence in the handling, since even when you can sell it for a good price, once the bargain’s sealed it can always turn against the seller. But like baskets, crockery, and carpets, religion offered plenty of choices. The priests revealed to the people that the roads leading to bliss were almost infinite in number and followed the most surprising routes. From frugality and abstinence to the unbridled exercise of every passion and perversion, by way of spiritual and bodily disciplines, the study of arcane texts, contemplation, renunciation, introspection, prayer, you name it, everything was a means of reaching a paradise which, according to the divinity-peddlers, could be attained by just a little effort and, of course, a little donation, usually directly proportionate to the client’s – I mean the believer’s – bank account.

  Yet those were the years in which the face and body of the city changed the least. This really isn’t surprising, given that religion doesn’t take up much room; some people say it requires no room at all, at least not externally. A space about the size of a dining room was big enough for a good-sized family, with a platform or pulpit, or a column, or a niche, or a well, or some cushions, or nothing, depending upon which route to heaven was being followed. And a lot of people held their services outdoors, perhaps with the idea that without a roof to interrupt them the prayers would get aloft faster. Change, what there was of it, occurred on the roofs and rooftops and terraces, from which rose the symbols of the innumerable religions – images, stars, crosses, spheres, shafts, some of them fancy, some of them humble, all competing for the most followers in the shortest time. For there were feuds, battles, even wars between the sects, over a forgive-my-sins here or an absolve-me there, over a dozen renegades or a half-dozen apostates, over a ritual murder or a tonality in the dogma. But that brought no changes. That people were arguing over religion instead of politics or money didn’t change the direction of streets or knock down old buildings or get new ones built. It merely increased the population. No longer did people come from afar seeking a cure for their ills in the water that bubbled from the depths; but they came seeking in the signs and symbols erected on the rooftops a cure for other ills, not so very different from the first ones, may I remark.

  The Emperor Heldinav’Var died, and his cousin who had been Baron of the Towers and Walls died. We know who the vicious emperor’s successor was, but the preacher had no successor. His sect split and split again until it was lost in the sea of creeds and soon forgotten. The city reached its apogee as a religious center, in fact, some hundred years later, under the reign of Sderemir the Borenid, a soldier of fortune in the west who, having attained the throne by unspeakable means, became a good ruler, much better than many who had royal blood and a right to sit on the throne.

  To get from the western provinces to the capital, the Borenid certainly had no need to go via the city of the religions, but to understand his devious itinerary, one must remember what his intentions were. And he never forgot the generous welcome and the favors shown him, most of them quite disinterested, when he encamped at the gates of the city. So, three years later, when he took the throne of Empire, he presented the city with gifts and authorized special subsidies for it, proclaiming it Mother of True Religion.

  A fine name. And a clever one. Let us recall that the Borenid, that apparently brutal man, that deceptive warrior who knew the souls of men even better than he knew swords and shields and chariots, always distrusted any power attained by inexplicable forces. Thanks to his subtlety disguised as benevolence, every creed, every church of the mountain city was convinced that it was the owner of the True Religion, and swelled up with pride, and pride is an ill counselor. Every creed and church looked down with placid condescension on its rivals. So many donations, so much official recognition could only be the perdition of the thousand sects. It’s much more stimulating to be marginal, to act without recognition, than to receive public thanks; it’s through struggle and polemic that the True Religions grow robust, invent new ways of drawing people, fabricate saints and prophets, apostles and popes, sharpen their wits, freshen up the merchandise and advertise it cleverly. But what do they become if all they do is repeat today and tomorrow and next year the same thing they said yesterday, the same words, the same gestures, the same expressions of piety and conviction, without risks, without competence, without ups and downs, without, in a word, martyrdom? What they become is boring. The priests got tired, the gods got tired, and the faithful got very tired. Fewer and fewer pilgrims traveled north. Since the city still had from its years as the capital all it needed to support itself without relying on goods from other places, the highways leading to it fell into disuse, got cracked, grassy, full of ant hills and badgers’ holes, and the Empire, this time, really forgot it. It was remembered only by the drivers of the cargo-caravans going to and from the port, but that’s very few out of the huge population of the biggest empire known in human history. At best it was a subject of a little interest to the men who drank and smoked in the bars of the seaport; to the other cities, the other ports, the other states, and the capital, it was nothing. The Borenid ruled for many years. Since he was an exceptional man, many say he was the worst emperor ever to occupy the throne and others say he was beyond all comparison the best. Be that as it may, he didn’t forget the city of the true religions; they say he never forgot anything at all, and that may be true. He didn’t forget the city, but he didn’t worry about it either, and, without entirely neglecting it, since at least once a year he sent a confidential agent to look about and sniff the air and listen to what was going on, he classified it as a harmless place.

  So it was throughout the Borenid’s life and that of his sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons. The city lived on, silent, obscure, with its merchants, its rich and poor, its courts of law, its women of the streets, its officials, kids, madmen, its holidays, schools, theaters, professional societies, with everything a city should have, isolated, deaf and dumb, its back turned to the Empire, alone. Since it had been solid, rich, great, it still had the public buildings and mansions that had been built to last, but it was all getting covered with moss and lichen and vines. Abandoned pools filled up with water-lilies, wild varieties of drahilea grew in the marble hair of the statues. Everything was yielding, fleshy, full of leaves and green stalks swollen with lazy sap. Many say it had never been more beautiful, and they may be right. It was absorbed into the mountains and all that grows on the mountains, becoming part of the earth within which it had been born, deep down in the caverns. Maybe it would have been all right if it had gone on that way; today it would be a vegetable city inhabited by willowmen and palmwomen, a city swaying in the wind and singing and growing in the sunlight. But human beings are incapable of being still and letting things happen without interference. Some say this is how it should be, since restlessness and dissatisfaction are the basis of progress, and that’s an opinion that has to be taken into account, though it’s not really worth much consideration.

  To explain what happened next, we have to go back to the Borenid. That extraordinary man, strong as an ox and clever as a fox, frugal as a saint although there was nothing saintly about him at all, that conqueror risen from the mists, that king engendered in a plebeian womb by a nameless vagabond, not only knew how to keep the Empire unified and satisfied, peaceful, prosperous, active, and proud throughout his whole reign, but also managed to make his achievement last. What’s more, his heirs didn’t try to undo it. Generation after generation of emperors and empresses benefited from the legacy of the Borenid, and though not one, except perhaps Evviarav II, the Drakuvid, had his strength or his vision, all of them were sensible, just, and prudent. What more can one ask? Then the dynasty of the Eilaffes, also remote descendants of the Borenid, but in whom the traces of his blood were slight and dubious, came to the throne, and with them came catastrophe.

  This time
the South played no part. The South remained tranquil and disposed to sneer, half amused, half hopeful, at their northern brothers tearing themselves to pieces. And their northern brothers as if to please them put on a great show, violent, tumultuous, filling earth and sky with battle-cries and screams of pain. Yes – I’m talking about the Six Thousand Day War. Which didn’t last 6,000 days, nowhere near it, and nobody seems to know why it got called that, except some obsessive collector of historical curiosities who might explain that it took about 6,000 days for the Empire to recover from the war of the three dynasties and to re-establish order, peace, and its borders. Or so say the academic historians. Maybe the true truth is something else, but I only say maybe. Maybe the true truth is that it took 6,000 days, more or less, for Oddembar’Seil the Bloodthirsty to seek, locate, and exterminate the members of the other two dynasties and all their followers. What we do know is that the whole North was one great battlefield, and that since fighting was the sole occupation of the time, the northern seaport was paralyzed, and no freight-caravans passed by the mountain city. The war itself was far away; the city continued to be draped in moss and ivy, with flowers in the water tanks and on the cornices, bright-colored beetles hiding in the stone eyes of the statues and the fountains, and so it went on almost until the end, and all might have remained the same, maybe right on up to now, if Bloodthirsty, who fully deserved his appellation, hadn’t been betrayed by an ambitious general.