by Tanith Lee
A month or two passed, and it was harvest time in the few fields between the hills. As the men and women worked, they heard a strange note sounding in the sky, and in the village they heard it too, and the women that were there came out of their doors.
The sky was clear as the blue eye of a child. Nothing was in it, not a cloud, not a bird. And then there appeared a tiny dot, which began to grow bigger, and soon those that looked saw how it grew bigger since it fell towards the earth.
Slowly it fell, as if it had no weight, or very little, yet directly down. And before it reached the earth, the watchers saw plainly that it was a boat, a boat having one sail, and from her sides floated out the rent nets like a web. And those that were close enough saw too how on the curve of her side there was the painting of her name, a girl with a blue gown and shells in her yellow hair.
She settled light as a leaf over the third hill, and they went running to see, leaving their scythes in the fields, and in the village the pots to burn.
When they reached her, they knew her for sure. They were afraid, how not? But going near, they started to call out the names of her crew. None answered. None were there. The boat was empty of everything, all vanished but the spoiled nets, not a bucket, not a rope, and nothing of the men, even when the villagers got up their courage and mounted the deck, and stepped into the little cabin. All was gone, even the compass, even the lamp. And of the crew not a trace.
The five widows had come up by then, and the four children. It was one of these children that remarked on the odour of the boat. It had naturally smelled of tar and of fish, and now it did not. Now they did not know what it smelled of, although the child had said that it was flowers.
The fifth widow, one of the two who had no children, saw the small wooden things that lay under the wheel. They had mostly gone back from the boat by then, but one of the men got over into her again, and took the things up and brought them out.
Sometimes the fishers would carve in wood, to pass time as they waited on a still sea, or by night at home before the fire. They recognised the carvings as their own, that is, the carving of the men who had been lost, who had disappeared. They did not know what the carvings meant, except, four of them. That is, the fish bearing the boat, which was the sea, the roaring fish, which meant a storm, the upturned cup which was the symbol of want, hunger and thirst, and the skull, which, to most of the world, has always signified death.
The other carvings, the amalgam of flying creatures, the sun, the man and woman who embraced, even the angel, these perplexed them, while the abstract pattern made them uneasy. They carried the enigmas to the village, and put them in the church, where the priest bent over them and asked God for help.
At this point in the story, Aelin will tell you that, when at last the carvings were set on the ends of the nine pews, they were placed deliberately out of order. This is because their force is so enormous, even in mere simulation, that it is considered best that it does not run in the correct sequence. So it comes about you can never properly deduce the tale merely by examining the carvings. You can only ever be told.
That night, the village slept restlessly, yet sleep it did, for the sea’s sound induces sleep for those who have always lived within hearing of it, the lullaby that is heard perhaps in the womb. And the five widows and the four children slept, and they dreamed, each of them, the same dream, and waking up in the darkest hours of morning, they ran out into the street and stood there, those nine humans, as they had stood before at the edge of the sea, looking for the boat that instead dropped down from heaven.
They did not know which of their men had carved the wood, or if all of them had done it, as maybe all of them had. But, without the skill of writing, it had been their only method to reveal what had gone on. And in their dreams the women and the children had seen these men, each one her husband, or the child its father, and showing the carvings, they had explained with care the nature of events.
They had sailed, the fishermen, on a calm sea, which was the fish with the vessel on its back. But soon, they had lost sight of the other boats, as might happen. Then without warning the sky turned black, and a storm blew up—the roaring fish—worse than they had known on such a morning. They rode it out as best they could, and eventually, the wind sank, and the clouds melted, and the day was as before, blue and calm, and still now as a thing deeply asleep.
They sensed that they were far from land, and worse, most strangely, as if they had gone somewhere far from everything that they had known. The boat could not sail, there was no wind. They waited for the going of the sun at last, and for the sunset wind that almost always rises. But the day did not alter, the sea did not, nor the sky, and at length they must admit the sun itself did not move from the centre of heaven.
One man had a pocket watch, and by this thereafter they timed the days and nights. They drank the ale they had brought, only a jug of it, and they had some bread to eat, but it was quickly consumed, though they tried to make it persist. Nor did any fish approach the nets. The sea was bottomless and lucid, and nothing was in it, and no bird crossed the sky. Thus then, what they foresaw, the upturned cup, and so the ultimate parting from their wives and children—that last embrace—and at the end the skull of death.
They were not afraid, more dreary, resentful, for they were all young men. They raged, they prayed, and some wept. But then they were too weak for anything, and sat on the deck, their spines against the sides of the boat, under the lovely, perfect sky. After this they forgot to measure the passage of time.
Maybe they sank into a sort of trance or faint. They woke as one, and everything was changed. Their weakness had left them, each man felt refreshed as if from a fine meal, and a sweet slumber. They stood up, and as they did so, an enormous light enveloped them, a light whiter than snow, more brilliant than the heart of the sun, a light which should have blinded and slain them, but it did not, no, it was like a balm, and they laughed aloud. In the middle of the light they presently saw a creature that they took for an angel, for it was very beautiful and had wings, yet there were no features to its face, only two most wonderful shining eyes, and even this, the form of it, its eyes and wings, they knew in those moments were more the manner of their seeing, than the reality. Nevertheless, it touched them gently with its hand, and all at once, the boat was lifted up into the sky, up with the glory of the light, up and up and so to the place that now, speaking to their wives and children in the dream, they were powerless to describe, and shook their heads, smiling, and indicating the carving which had no form, was only a pattern, and that not regular, or similar to anything. An inexplicable place—but a place that was, to the world. Heaven.
In the dream then, the women had asked, and the children had asked, would they not return, these men, since they still lived? The men replied that this was not possible, now, but they had sent a sign at least, and the sign should be heeded. Not as a promise or reward, but as a certainty. Look at the final carving, which had attempted to show how everything in the world grew wings and flew upward—save that these were not wings, nor was it upward, though it might seem to be—all was not as it appeared, yet better, much, much better, as a blind man who had imagined sight, should he be able suddenly to see, or as true love is better than loneliness, or children grow up into men and women, or summer comes after winter, and there has always been a morning after night.
The village, Aelin will then say, stands where it has always stood, and the boat lies between the hills, but the carvings were attached to nine of the pews in the church, the nine pews that remain.
He will not then argue or, shamed and smirking, apologise for any foolishness, or what you might desire to call whimsy. He will not try to answer any questions to do with religion or faith, although he will be silent only in the most courteous way. If you ask him what became of the five widows, he will say that he believes, in time, they remarried. If you ask if he credits the story of the carvings and the boat, he will nod.
Then you may s
tay drinking, and he will stay with you if you request it, but no longer allow you to pay for his drinks, but this is done so simply and in so friendly a fashion, it will not be a rebuff, and is not a rebuff, not even if you have sneered and cackled, and said he was an imbecile. He does not mind. Why should he mind? There is nothing to mind about. Words are not always facts.
If you wish, you may sleep that night in one of the three large herbal-scented beds at The Guest, and tomorrow he will take you back across the sea. Or he will do so by night even, if you crave for it.
Even he will go walking with you, back to the church, and stand by as again you observe the carvings, or he will go up the hills with you, and proceed with you about the boat. He will reply to such questions as are pertinent—the vanished painting on the side, the type of birds that fly over in the dark, singing, what he supposes might have been the thoughts of those villagers two centuries off, after the dream was revealed, how the carvings were fixed to the pews—with great ease, apparently—his age, which is almost ninety, the names of the stars above.
If you are angry he will speak softly of little things. If you are sad he will murmur that all will be well. But he has already told you that. Perhaps this is his only concession.
When, that evening or night, or that next day, he has taken you back over the water, and you get out on the mainland, hard as concrete, built high and blown loud with life, then you will be in a position of examining properly, if you mean to, what you have seen and heard. You will decide then, and possibly in a different form from your decision in the village. You may find you believe it all, or some of it, or none of it. Or next year you may. One dusk, or dawn. Or never. You may never ever believe a word.
I do.
Xoanon: Primitive, usually wooden image of deity supposed to have fallen from heaven.
Concise Oxford Dictionary (1987)
Land’s End, The Edge of the Sea
Have you ever seen them? Many have. I have. Once I saw two very young children. Her hair was the colour of honey, his like molasses. The morning sky was blue and the sun shone with summer. They were playing, running to and fro, throwing little sticks, each for the other to catch, laughing and careless as the young, if possible, should always be.
Intuitively, having watched them a moment, smiling, pleased with their pleasure, I glanced beyond them to see if some nearby cottage, their home, stood there, just above the line of the water and the sand.
No house was to be seen. It must be farther off, then, or a little further inland. No matter. They were in the prime of health and high spirits, obviously cared for.
Presently, together, they ran away along the surf-line fizzing on the beach, sprinting towards the early west.
The second time, about three months later, I saw a young couple, he perhaps twenty or so, and she a little less. There they were, strolling there, at the brink of the land, the water, alternately leaving their elegant footprints in the sand, or splashing through the foam.
Her hair was black as a crow’s wing, and his was pale as barley. They laughed gently and talked intently, the way, still, lovers may.
The next couple I beheld, it was quite a few years later. I had been elsewhere. They too held hands, like lovers, and both their sets of hair were iron grey. They were some eighty or ninety years in age, I thought. They did not chatter or murmur, but in a while he picked up a cream-white shell, and they passed this delicately and respectfully between them, as if it were some great treasure.
He walked then on the inside of the way, tending left and nearest to the land. But the fourth time I saw them, I was in company with two or three friends. We had come from a village feast a little farther up the coast. It was almost midnight and we bore a single flaming torch. She, now was on the inside of the way. Her dress had spangles on it and none that saw them could doubt it was a wedding dress, and that they had been joined together that very day. They were in age about thirty.
One of the strangest times, perhaps, was when she was far older, and he a little boy, running up to her, smiling. Their skins then were smoky dark but their eyes a pale blue. Sister and brother? Mother and child?
How delighted they were in each other’s company, but nothing smug or excluding about this—if they caught your eye, they would willingly exchange talk with you. There was one time, an old fellow from my own birthplace had stumbled and hurt his ankle, and carefully and good-humouredly, the man and woman, then about twenty years old perhaps, helped him to the nearest house. He said later, he felt he knew them, was even related to them, but did not know how, or from where.
Another acquaintance of mine, a young fisher-woman, glimpsed the couple at midday, out in the full bright sun, and on this occasion, they were two babies, rolling and chortling, as ever at the border between land and water. My friend was concerned for they were so very young and no one with them... but they seemed, she said, to dissolve into the midday glow.
No one I know has seen them either swimming or walking inland. They paddle through the surf, or walk the land side about four feet in.
It is the border, the literal seam that connects land and ocean. Where the glittering and restless join of white stitchwork is, of surf and sand. The sea never fully empties there. The land never encroaches.
Water and earth have married. They became each other, and new things, and human things, and doubtless too others, marine and harder to perceive—fish and sea-crabs, limpets and beings of the rock-pools, blue serpents like ropes.
The very last time I beheld them was a year back. Her skin was black as iron, her hair like golden thread. His skin was tanned to copper and his hair like silver silk. She was about eighteen years young, and fresh as the spray and the first spring flowers. And he, despite his colouring, plainly was as old as the hills inland, and old as the tides beyond the surf.
None of us really know their purpose, if even they have one.
It is enough they are there. As it is enough the fluid sea is there, and the water’s edge, and the solid land, the sky, night and day and time. And the air and the void of space. Every one with its join, its border, its compact, its marriage.
All things are separate. And all things: One.
Publishing History of the Stories
Girls in Green Dresses
Weird Tales. No 321 (Vol 57, No 1), Fall 2000.
Octocon Souvenir Programme. The National Irish Science Fiction Convention 2004, Dublin.
Magritte’s Secret Agent – Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine. Vol 1 No 2, May 1981.
Dreams Of Dark And Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee, Arkham House, USA, 1986.
The Gorgon And Other Beastly Tales, DAW Books, New York, 1985. New edition Fantastic Books, USA, 2013.
Mermaids And Other Mysteries Of the Deep. San Francisco: Prime Books, 2015. Edited by Paula Guran.
Paper Boat – Arts Council Anthology – New Stories, 1978
Realms Of Fantasy. Vol 3 No 3, February 1997.
Lace-Maker, Blade-Taker, Grave-Breaker, Priest – Lace and Blade, Leda, an imprint of Norilana Books, 2008, edited by Deborah J Ross.
Under Fog (The Wreckers) – Subterfuge. NewCon Press, England 2008.
The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 20. New York: Running Press, 2009. Edited by Stephen Jones.
The Sea Was In Her Eyes – Octocon Souvenir Programme. The National Irish Science Fiction Convention 2004, Dublin.
Because Our Skins Are Finer
Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine. Vol 1 No 8, November 1981.
The Gorgon And Other Beastly Tales, DAW Books, New York, 1985. New edition Fantastic Books, USA, 2013.
Dreams Of Dark And Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee, Arkham House, USA, 1986.
Leviathan – original to this collection
Where Does The Town Go At Night
Interzone. No 147, September 1999.
H.P. Lovecraft's Magazine Of Horror. Vol 1 No 2. (Spring 2005). Pages 62-74.
Tempting The Gods: The Selec
ted Stories Of Tanith Lee Volume One, Wildside Press, USA, 2009.
Xoanon
H.P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror. Vol. 1, No. 1 Spring 2004.
Land’s End, The Edge Of The Sea – original to this collection
Books by Tanith Lee
A Selection from her 93 titles
The Birthgrave Trilogy (The Birthgrave; Vazkor, son of Vazkor, Quest for the White Witch)
The Vis Trilogy (The Storm Lord; Anackire; The White Serpent)
The Flat Earth Opus (Night’s Master; Death’s Master; Delusion’s Master; Delirium’s Mistress; Night’s Sorceries)
Don’t Bite the Sun
Drinking Sapphire Wine
The Paradys Quartet (The Book of the Damned; The Book of the Beast; The Book of the Dead; The Book of the Mad)
The Venus Quartet (Faces Under Water; Saint Fire; A Bed of Earth; Venus Preserved)
Sung in Shadow
A Heroine of the World
The Scarabae Blood Opera (Dark Dance; Personal Darkness;
Darkness, I)
The Blood of Roses
When the Lights Go Out
Heart-Beast
Elephantasm
Reigning Cats and Dogs
The Unicorn Trilogy (Black Unicorn; Gold Unicorn; Red Unicorn)
The Claidi Journals (Law of the Wolf Tower; Wolf Star Rise, Queen of the Wolves, Wolf Wing)
The Piratica Novels (Piratica 1; Piratica 2; Piratica 3)
The Silver Metal Lover
Metallic Love
The Gods Are Thirsty
Collections
Nightshades
Dreams of Dark and Light
Red As Blood – Tales From the Sisters Grimmer
Tamastara, or the Indian Nights
The Gorgon
