by John Grant
But, were Durblediabolo dead and rotting on a thousand poles, where then the saltmoney?
The Bright King: he knew Durblediabolo had the strength of ten, the art of killer beasts that dwell in darkness. Friendless our monarch might be (save his daughter, LoChi: I have mentioned her), but his House's reign was thousands-year-long, and we folk of the tiny Skysown Lands are better at talking change than being it: the Bright King saw swords and axes rise and fall on soaked battlefields a decade wide, and at the end of all no victory. (In this he saw less true than the idlemen and the damselfines drinking in our streetways, for his eyes were clouded by his own sagacity.) Most of all, Durblediabolo's daughter: I mention her name again, for it tastes well: she was LoChi – and she aquaked the Bright King far as much as did her father, for she could command men nigh well as he. The legerdemain of false souls was called for, deemèd he, our deliverer (as now we know him, later), the Bright King; and his paws who crept the Palace saw Qinmeartha, and Qinmeartha's safeguarded skin, and the wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are) whose souls Qinmeartha's own false soul was shackled to, and they whispered to Qinmeartha behind hands and doors, telling me of glory dawning and the subtleties of true valor.
I listened, listened Qinmeartha. Qinmeartha the future saw as clear as any man can see, save soothsayers, and even they have muddied eyes, mosttimes. I saw Durblediabolo's fall, and mine with it. Yet (so those furry whisperers whispered), there was no need for me to ungain as the Bright King triumphed: for he sought my sort, who would serve as secret soldiers for his good, and afterwards step out in open sunshine to receive the benisons he fed us.
So listening, I befriended LoChi.
Qinmeartha was not the sole one whispered to. Others were among the throngs, telling tales of her vile doings: the mother's death was a creation of those times (for all those years before, fair Galinea of the springbreeze smile had died of a fever took her through foul water), as were the true histories, tracted on all corners, of babies spitted and consumed, of baths in virgins' splashing blood, of demons' nipples clustering beneath the royal braid, of hornèd portraits (hung in dusty places) whose faces moved and spoke profanely. LoChi played the harpsichord poorly and sewed a neat exemplar, when she was not horsed and armored; but Qinmeartha too told these tales of her in both earnestness and taverns, even as I othertimes turned the fairest of my faces towards her, beguiling her with oil-honed friendship, making her lips curve as I soldiered and guarded.
She was dark: that the ballads have right – her eyes were night-black and her hair yet darker, and her skin shone from its lack of light – yet still they do not describe her. Qinmeartha saw her – these now-scalded eyes of mine – and his clothy ears heard the reflected sun-glitters of her laughing as I promenaded her, me so stately (Qinmeartha I was then and am now still, but there was more dignity in my name then) and seeming-solemn about her, while she became a girl again, walking in the grounds, making chains of murdered flowers, brushing boughs away, casting stones in pools made quiet by their hiddenness.
Kissing me on the lips, one time, and then another. Qinmeartha was a valorous soldier in the secret glory.
I was a valorous soldier in the secret glory, I say, and behind veiled eyes Qinmeartha thought pictures of Qinmeartha's wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are) as LoChi's lips enlivened mine. Qinmeartha enwebbed her, for the Bright King, for his army, for my glory, for those who loved me.
Enwebbed her? Proud I was not to be spidercaught myself by her gossamer-spinning eyes; conversewise they made me steel the participles (especial fine I made those in Qinmeartha's pride of life) as Qinmeartha did nightly tell the gawpeyed of the cruelties she wrought behind the Palace's gilden gates – she and Durblediabolo both, for I spared her father nothing of my wordscourge. Now the Skysown Lands could glutton the truth of how LoChi slept in sheets made of women's skins and played croquet on the fine-hewn Palace lawns with infant skulls for balls and gnawed femurs for clubs. Her father, in the mean, was presenting himself by day for buggery with the flintgod of thunderclouds whose strike of wrath can make a man baked meat; and by night the sins of Durblediabolo were too unhearted for even a sturdy such as Qinmeartha to recount without a further drink of ale.
The idlemen became less so, for thanks to me and others like me; the tongues of the damselfines flicked them into talk of usurp, and then into the hefting of old weaponry from older lofts, and they lost their idleness for wrath of all these accusèd wrongs. And yet, as the sun shone where my pretty princess and I intricately danced for the enjoyment of the day's view, I told her that she should have no fears, that there was hard metal and leather between her and the growling mobs: even my stout muscles were a shield of her.
The whisperers – the Bright King's corporals – came to me again. We must, they said, us as loyalty owed to the fairheart monarch from outside the Skysown Lands, prepare for the royal twain to be sundered. Even with the people uprose, even with Durblediabolo's army half betraying, even with all this and the will of the fairer gods as strength to us, Durblediabolo with LoChi (that was the daughter's name) had many times the might of normal men: not ten, but scatteredsun diamondfalls of rainstorms' worth. The vampiress must be persuaded to leave her hungry-mawed father for ample long that the Bright King might slay this monster, and so bedeck the Palace with his colors.
She loves you, the soothers soothed. It is carolled in the way she is sometimes shy to touch you, but cannot bear her hand to drift too far from yours. She is a manlike warrioress when the demon moves her among others, but she bends to the words you softly wield. She will believe you: she is no soulreader, to know you are the Bright King's hero.
So Qinmeartha sent his wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are) away from Durblediabolo's over-live city, to a place where none raged except the puffchested smaller birds; and Qinmeartha cloaked my face in gray concern as that day I strode (for Qinmeartha then strode well, among his many attributes) into first the Palace and then the princess's (she was called LoChi) chambers where I found her, fathom-deep eyes wet from concern – for she was not unknowing of the way the idlemen's grumblings had become a share-throated bellow – and also, for the whisperers' senses were no falsesayers, with a welcome for me, truest friend she bore.
My plan was fickly made. The Bright King was making noise and racket on our southern borders, it was true, but spies had come from distant north to say that there was, too, an army bided there, halting for the while until her fine father (Durblediabolo, the one of whom the mobs told gaudy tales) struck in his impatience south: then they would savage down through the northern scantlands and seize the Palace and the city and his daughter LoChi (which was the vargr's name, as you may know). But I and others loyal to her father had, in knowingness of this, covertly detailed a legion two days' journey beyond the city's loom that none among the citizens cognized (for the Bright King had his listeners everywhere, I truthfully reminded, and we wished all to be kept ashroud). This small host I had been charged to lead, but my glamour (Qinmeartha bore glamour) was not the kind that stirs to the mud and dust of bravery.
Had any other told her this, LoChi would have picked apart the web and seen its strands' melting weakness, but it was Qinmeartha who spoke, the stalwart in whose shadow she was gay to caper in the sunlit days, and so her flesh married with my words and found them entire.
She alone, I said, could lead, in the clear-singing gold of her shone armor, the men assembled; could spring the warriors of our troupe to glory, so that the Bright King's (I do not, did not, speak the name his father gave him: he is our splendid defender, and needs no given naming, having conquered one for his own) northern armies would be laid in shards. The flutter of her flag was more powerful than the call of my voice might ever be.
Qinmeartha was a fine weaver of webs, for she told all to her father (Durblediabolo) who, like she of me, would have believed this confection from no other. By the following nightfall she and I an
d bare a dozen others (all like myself bedizened in the invisible raiment of the secret valor) were crept from the city and on the northbound road; our quest, though my cobwebs hid LoChi from this knowing, being for a chimera's sake.
I thought of my wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are) as our hooves filled the twilight. I swear to few truths now that my hand is never still, but this is one of them. The vampiress, her glitter hidden by wool as she rode alongside me, smile grim, could fill my vision with her darkness but she was not upon the stage that bright lights lit for my loved ones.
Two moons vied for the topmost sky before we pitched camp, sparked a sallow fire, posted guards, found sleep. In the morning only the souldrinker and I remained, one each side of the cooling ashes. This (Qinmeartha later learned) according to the plan twined far south by the Bright King's counsellors and brought like a silk coil to our once companions for unspinning.
She would have fled furiously back to her father (called Durblediabolo); she should have done so: she did not do this for I, seeing her eyes' intention, made frantic light of the desertion, telling her that there was no abandonment at all, rather that I had not before dared tell her that she and I should journey solitary together, for discretion's sake, else those ears of which I had told her would hear our doings. It was a palsied lie (although in part unknowing true), and its frailty might not have secured her had my own (Qinmeartha's) greatwise stronger arm not, for the first time, gone about her shoulders and drawn her to me.
I enjoyed nothing, not of that kiss. Her softhard body was in my arms like a sheep struggling to avoid shearing: that is what I can remember. Yet I would, in duty to my wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are), have divested her of wool and polished gold both, myself likewise, had she not laid her finger gently down my nose and lips and told me that northwards we must hie with more speed than love permitted.
Reprieved, I rode beside her through the day. We took the road that cuts not far below where the trees, for fear of skybeings, dare not ascend. We saw curved-bill birds floating maps of the fertile hills beneath skeined clouds that seemed more distant than the sky. We startled a rabbit once, but she (LoChi) would not let me slay it for our dining, saying that we bore with us enough tack in our bags to take us to the waiting secret band. We sang sometimes as our horses picked their own ways over scree-littered carvings in the hills' sides: the dark lady's skin shone to the sound of our unioned voices. Our hands touched as they willed: I can feel her knuckles brush Qinmeartha's.
And far past the day's end we paused and my wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are) declined to be beside us in the campfire's blanket. As two moons above us once more competed, the spiritstealer (LoChi) and I made these listed things: much sweat; much toiling; much entanglement; many little cries; much laughter; much and many.
Then, as the dawn, met sleepless, showed us lines and puffinesses bought together (and now explored together in smiles), she took a smooth-rubbed stone from around her neck (Qinmeartha had it not discovered there in the nightlong twinings, but it must have been) and gave it to him. This, she said, would make the day-night eternal, never unremembered: it was all the magic the Aranthons had ever known. It was a Stone of Loving, a piece of memory; its hidden crystals breeze-kisses.
He, Qinmeartha – I – took it and put it about my neck, and it still hung there as afternoon came and I delivered her up to my fellowmen of the Bright King.
She too hung, days later, beside the already crow-picked body of her father (Durblediabolo, slain in brawlery as the Bright King first struck into the Palace with his northbound hordes); they were not cruel to her before she died, save that they tore out her night-far eyes that had with mine watched curved-bill birds sail. I was glad of this, for I was gloried near where her dark-skinned emptiness swung, and, though she was a blooddrinker and seeddrainer, had no wish that she might be tormented by seeing me be made a full Commander for her pains.
That night, bunked before departure to retrieve my wife (comely) and children (there were three, and still maybe are), I took the lamia's Stone of Loving from its thong about my neck – a memento, fine as all my medals – and as I made to beside my bunkside lay it, my fingers, unbehested, wrapped themselves about it.
She (LoChi) and I ride daylong beneath a sky with thin-skeined cool clouds that touch us over all their distance, drawing song from us. The curved-bill birds are nearer companions, but no less close. With the embrace of night we too embrace, joying in our defenselessness, discovering that our two bodies have been always one. And in the dawnlight she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
Eye-gritting daylight came into that soldierly barracks to awake me; the walls had once been whitewashed, but bore old stains, and the male smell was spiky in the air. The Stone was on its thong about my neck.
Wonderlostly, I touched it with my fingertip.
Qinmeartha is by LoChi's side this day as their horses tease a way through scree and insecurity. Beyond the trees is heather, its white and blue perfumes mingling to make the sky. The birds, gliding on the trivial winds, mock the shapes of the breathing hills. Night comes, and trees rustle fondly, and she and I find warmth amid coarse warrior blankets that cools the fire, her laughter hot as it flows in curl-evading runnels down my chest. And in the dawnlight she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
It was evening in the lodgeplace, and many watched me wake. They fed me, arms pinioned so that struggle I might not. They forced water upon me, and called me madman: the Bright King's commander, for all his medals, was childish weak, vacant-minded, lackly. This food and water, though I spat most out, they were generous to give; my next meal would be begged, and all thereafter.
In the street, bruised, as the dogs howled for nothing I touched the Stone that hung by its thong about my neck.
I (Qinmeartha) travel through a bluegold day with her (LoChi) until the night weaves us. And in the dawnlight she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
I woke to find a rat whiskering my fingers. I struck it away. I peed into the rags from which all medals had been torn, and touched the Stone.
The breeze washes our faces as we come over the crest of a hill to see a quilted valley spread out in a dance before us. There are lights hither and thither, for dusk has soaked across much of the world. We camp after the dark has truly come; the touch of her tonguetip to my tonguetip is lettuce-crisp. And in the dawnlight she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
A priesthouse took me in that night, and I was fed and washed before being given over to the pleasure of the priests. I gripped the Stone before the first spread me, and am traveling through an eternal day, in which LoChi is ever by my side, both of us wanting the hours to be both brief and long until the campfire glows dimly on our sheen. And in the dawnlight she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
I passed another day.
And in the dawnlight she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
I have seen her often since – I think she in the Palace dwells still, perhaps as the Bright King's bride. She cannot return my gaze, of course, for they ripped her eyes away before she dangled; but I have sensed her sensing my nearness. I was the first that loved her closely: she told me this, and never lied. For that reason she will always feel the touch of my glance, as I feel her blindness.
And in the dawnlight, always in the dawnlight, she gives me the Aranthon Stone of Loving for my own.
They made her body cavort on the rope for the idlemen's and damselfines' merriness, yet she lives still.
And my life dwindles.
Snare
Every year – for, let's see, it must be fourteen years now – on the 17th of September he's made a solitary pilgrimage down to the river, and this year is no exception. And, again as always, you'll be going with him.
He's married now, of course. His wife's a sales executive for Wellington & Sons, where he's seco
nd in charge of the accounts department – the friendliest accounts department in the English South West, as they like to boast to their trainee recruits. He wasn't much more than that – a recruit – when the dashing Miss Thomas, rising star in sales, the secret torrid dream of the spots-and-lunchtime-sandwiches-in-clingfilm brigade, staggered the offices by announcing that henceforth she and young Mr. Doremus in accounts were to be considered as an item. David himself could hardly believe his luck: perhaps Carol was a groupie manqué, or something, with a penchant for retired minor members of unsuccessful Seventies rock bands; the thought occurred to him the first time she allowed him to undress her, and it came near to unmanning him. But she went through with the wedding, and until the kid was rising two, by which time it was too late, the sleekness of her body and the size of her salary distracted his attention from the fact that he didn't like her very much.
Mr. and Mrs. Doremus live in a converted Georgian house in the right part of Exeter in a state of perfect connubial contentment. They have sex once a month because, as she puts it, that's often enough for anyone. She drives the kid to school each term-time morning in the Volvo and then, stereo blaring, carries straight on to Wellington & Sons to get stuck into work early, as she always has. He takes things a little more slowly, pottering about the house for a half-hour, making himself one cheese and one peanut-butter sandwich for lunch before traveling in on the minibus to start work at 9.29-and-not-a-moment-later.
Except that once a year, on the 17th of September, he takes a day's leave – or, when it falls at a weekend, is phoned by a friend who's just passing through and wants to talk about the old days over a pint – and goes down to the river.
No Carol. No kid.
He goes on his own.
Except for you.
There's a precise ritual that he follows. Today, like last year, the year before, and the year before that, he waits until he's certain that Carol and the kid have really gone, and then he reaches to the very back of the tools drawer, trying not to get stray tacks under his fingernails as he scrabbles around looking for the C90. He pulls it out and blows twelve months' dust from the box; then he fastidiously wipes off the stickier grunge and the desiccated moth with a couple of sheets of peach-colored toilet tissue and flushes the grimy package down the apricot lavatory, watching as it's sucked away with an expensively near-silent gurgle. The ball-point writing on the cassette's insert has faded into brownness now, of course, but that doesn't matter because he knows exactly what it reads. He smiles at it sadly – hello, too-old friend – and stuffs it into the right-hand front pocket of his least uncomfortable trousers.
