The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13

by Gardner Dozois

  She would not give that up. Let men have every other kind of danger. This was something they had to share.

  She went in and found the actors, a shabby group. As she had thought, they were short-handed.

  The senior man was pudgy with a scar on one side of his face. “Have you any experience?” he asked.

  “I’ve practised on my own,” said Ahl.

  The man tilted his head, considering. “You’re almost certainly a runaway, which is bad enough. Even worse, you’ve decided you can act. If I was only one man short, I’d send you off. But two of my men are gone, and if I don’t find someone, we won’t be able to continue.”

  In this manner, she was hired, though the man had two more questions. “How old are you? I won’t take on a child.”

  “Eighteen,” said Ahl.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” she answered with indignation. Though she was lying about almost everything else, eighteen was her age.

  Maybe her tone convinced the man. “Very well,” he said, then asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Dapple,” she said.

  “Of no family?”

  She hesitated.

  The man said, “I’ll stop asking questions.”

  She had timed this well. They left the next morning, through fog and drizzling rain. Her comrades on the ship would think she was sleeping. Instead, she trudged beside the actors’ cart, which was pulled by a pair of tsina. Her tunic, made of thick wool, kept out the rain. A broad straw hat covered her head. Oiled boots protected her feet against mud and pools of water.

  From this point on, the story will call her Dapple. It’s the name she picked for herself and the one by which she was known for the rest of her life. Think of her not as Helwar Ahl, the runaway girl, but Dapple the actor, whose lineage did not especially matter, since actors live on the road, in the uncertain regions that lie between family holdings and the obligations of kinship.

  All day they travelled inland, through steep hills covered with forest. Many of the trees were new to her. Riding in the cart, the pudgy man – his name was Manif – told her about the company. They did mostly comedies, though Manif preferred hero plays. “These people in the south are the rudest collection of louts you can imagine. They like nothing, unless it’s full of erect penises and imitations of intercourse; and men and women watch these things together! Shocking!

  “They even like plays about breeding, though I prefer – of course – to give them decent comedies about men having sex with men or women having sex with women. But if they insist on heterosexuality, well, we have to eat.”

  This sounded bad to Dapple, but she was determined to learn. Maybe there was more to comedy than she had realized.

  They made camp by the side of the road. Manif slept in the cart, along with another actor: a man of twenty-five or so, not bad looking. The rest of them pitched a tent. Dapple got an outside place, better for privacy, but also wetter. The rain kept failing. In the cart, Manif and his companion made noise.

  “Into the halin, I notice,” said one of Dapple’s companions.

  “And one another,” a second man added.

  The third man said, “D’you think he’ll go after Dapple here?”

  It was possible, thought Dapple, that she’d done something stupid. Cholkwa had warned her about the south.

  “He won’t if Dapple finds himself a lover quickly,” said the first man.

  This might have been a joke, rather than an offer. Dapple couldn’t tell. She curled up, her back to the others, hoping that no one would touch her. In time, she went to sleep.

  The next day was clear, though the ground remained wet. They ate breakfast, then struck the tent and continued inland. The change in weather made Dapple more cheerful. Maybe the men would make no advances. If they did, she’d find a way to fend them off. They might be shabby and half as good as Perig and Cholkwa, but they didn’t seem to be monsters or savages; and this wasn’t the far north, where a war had gone on for generations, unravelling everything. People on this continent understood right behaviour.

  As she thought this, one of the tsina screamed and reared. An arrow was stuck in its throat.

  “Bandits!” cried Manif and shook the reins, crying, “Go, go,” to the animals.

  But the shot animal stumbled, unable to continue; and the second tsin began to lunge, trying to break free of the harness and its comrade. The actors pulled swords. Dapple dove into the edge-of-forest brush. Behind her was shouting. She scrambled up a hill, her heart beating like a hammer striking an anvil, though more quickly. Up and up, hoping the bandits would not follow. At last she stopped. Her heart felt as if it might break her chest; her lungs hurt; all her breath was gone. Below her on the road was screaming. Not the tsin any longer, she thought. This sound was men.

  When she was able to breathe, she went on, climbing more slowly now. The screaming stopped. Had the bandits noticed her? Had they counted the company? Four of them had been walking, while Manif and his lover rode. But the lover had been lying in the back, under the awning, apparently exhausted by his efforts of the night before. If the bandits had been watching, they might have seen only five people.

  No way to tell. She continued up the hill, finally reaching a limestone bluff. There was a crack. She squeezed her way in, finding a narrow cave. There she stopped a second time, leaning against the wet rock, trying to control her breath. Somehow she’d managed to keep her bag. She dropped it at her feet and pulled her knife.

  For the rest of the day, she waited, then through the night, dozing from time to time, waking suddenly. No one came. In the morning, she went down the hill, stopping often to listen. There was nothing to hear except wind in the foliage and small animals making their usual noises.

  The road was empty, though there were ruts to show that a cart had passed by. Dapple saw no evidence that a fight had ever taken place. For a moment she stood with her mouth open, wondering. Had it been a dream? The attack and her flight from it? Or had the actors managed to drive off the bandits, then gone on, condemning her as a coward? Across the road, a bird took flight. Large and heavy, it was mottled black and white and green. Not a breed native to Helwar, but she knew it from her travels in the south. It ate everything, plant and animal, but had a special liking for carrion.

  Dapple crossed the road. On the far side, beyond the bushes, was a hollow. Something lay there, covered by branches and handfuls of leaves. She moved one of the branches. Underneath was the shot tsin, dead as a stone; and underneath the tsin were the actors. She couldn’t see them entirely, but parts protruded: a hand, a leg to the knee. One face – Manif’s – stared up at her, fur matted with dark blood, one eye already gone.

  Shaking, she replaced the branch, then sat down before she fell. For a while, she did nothing except rock, her arms around her knees, silent because she feared to mourn out loud.

  Finally, she got up and uncovered the grave. There was no way for her to move the tsin’s huge body, but she climbed down next to it, touching the actors, making sure they were all dead. Everything she touched was lifeless. There was nothing in the grave except the corpses. The bandits had taken everything else: the cart, the surviving tsin and the company’s belongings. There was no way to bury the actors properly. If she tried, she would be leaving evidence of her existence.

  She climbed back out of the grave. Where should she go? Back to the harbour town? But the bandits had obviously been waiting along the road, and they might have gone back to waiting. If so, they were likely to be where they’d been before: somewhere to the east.

  If they intended to set ambush farther west, surely they would have done a better job of covering the bodies. Birds had found them already. By tomorrow, this spot would be full of noisy, filthy eaters-of-carrion.

  It’s possible she wasn’t thinking clearly in reasoning this out. Nonetheless, she decided to go west. According to Manif, there was a town less than a day’s journey away: solid, fortified, and fond of acting. Slingin
g her bag over her shoulder, Dapple went on.

  The road wound through a series of narrow valleys. After she had gone a short distance, she saw the cart ahead of her, motionless in the middle of the road. She glanced back, planning to run. Two men stood there, both holding swords. Goddess! Ahl glanced at the forest next to her. As she did so, a man stepped out of the blue-green shadow. He also held a sword.

  “I should have gone east,” said Dapple.

  “Some of our cousins went in that direction. Most likely, you would have met them.”

  Was this the moment to reveal she was a woman? “Are you going to kill me?”

  “That depends on what you do,” the man said. “But I’d prefer not to.”

  The other bandits came close. There were four of them, all dressed in worn, stained clothing.

  “He’s handsome,” said the youngest fellow, who had a bandage wrapped around one arm. “Worth keeping.”

  “For what purpose?” asked Dapple, feeling uneasy.

  “We’ll tell you later,” said the man from the forest.

  After that, they took her bag and knife, then tied her hands in front of her. The man with the injured arm took the rope’s other end. “Come along, dear one. We have a long way to go before nightfall.”

  He led her off the road, onto a narrow path. Animals had made it, most likely. A second man followed. The others stayed behind.

  The rest of the day they travelled through steep forest. Now and then, the path crossed a stream or went along a limestone outcropping. Dapple grew tired and increasingly afraid. She tried to reassure herself by thinking that men rarely killed women and that rape – of women by men, at least – was an almost unknown perversion.

  But women rarely travelled alone. Obviously they came to little harm, if they stayed at home or travelled in large companies; and this was the south, the region where civilization ended; and these men were killers, as she had seen. Who could say what they might do?

  For example, they might kill her before learning she was a woman. Was this the moment to tell them? She continued to hesitate, feeling ashamed by the idea of abandoning her disguise. She had wanted to be different. She had planned to fool other people by using her intelligence and skill. Now, at the first set-back, she was ready to give up.

  What a finish to her ambitions! She might die in this miserable forest – like a hero in a play, though with less dignity.

  Worst of all, she needed to urinate. She knew from Perig and Cholkwa that all actors drank only in moderation before they went on stage. But she hadn’t thought that she’d be acting this afternoon. Her bladder was full and beginning to hurt.

  Finally, she confessed her need.

  “Go right ahead,” one of her captors said, stopping by a tree.

  “I’m modest and can’t empty my bladder in front of other men.”

  “We won’t watch,” said the second bandit in a lying tone.

  “Let me go behind those bushes and do it. You’ll be able to see my head and shoulders. I won’t be able to escape.”

  The bandits agreed, clearly thinking that she was some kind of fool. But who can explain the behaviour of foreigners?

  Dapple went behind the bushes. Now her childhood practice came in useful; unlike most women, she could urinate while standing up and not make a mess. From situations like these we learn to value every skill, unless it’s clearly pernicious. Who can predict the future and say, this-and-such ability will never be of use? She rejoined the bandits, feeling an irrational satisfaction.

  At nightfall, they came to a little stony valley far back in the hills. A stream ran out of it. They waded in through cold water. At the valley’s end was a tall narrow cave. Firelight shone out. “Home at last!” said the bandit who held Dapple’s rope.

  They entered. The cave widened at once. Looking around, Dapple saw a large stone room. A fire burned in the middle. Around it sat women in ragged tunics. A few children chased each other, making shrill noises like the cries of birds. At the back of the cave were more openings, two or maybe three, leading farther in.

  “What have you brought?” asked one of the women, lifting her head. The fur on the woman’s face was white with age, and the lenses of her eyes were cloudy.

  “A fine young man to impregnate your daughters,” said the man holding the rope.

  The old woman rose and came forward. Her body was solid, and she moved firmly, though with a cane. Bending close, she peered at Dapple, then felt an arm. “Good muscle. How old is he?”

  “Tell her,” the man said.

  “Eighteen.”

  “Men are active at that age, no question, but I prefer someone older. Who knows anything about a lad of eighteen? He hasn’t shown the world his nature. His traits may be good or bad.”

  “This is true, mother,” said the man with the rope. “But we have to take what we get. This one is alive and healthy. Most likely, he can do what we need done.”

  Dapple thought of mentioning that she could not impregnate a female, but decided to wait.

  “Come over to the fire,” the old woman said. “Sit down and talk with me. I like to know who’s fathering the children in our family.”

  Dapple obeyed. The man went with them. Soon she was on the stone floor, a bowl of beer next to her. In her hand was a piece of greasy meat, a gift from the old woman. Around her sat the rest of the family: thin women with badly combed fur. Most likely they had bugs. One held a baby. The rest of the children were older, ranging from a girl of four or five to a boy at the edge of adulthood. The boy was remarkably clean for a member of this family, and he had a slim gracefulness that seemed completely out of place. The other children continued to run and scream, but he sat quietly among his female relatives, watching Dapple with eyes as yellow as resin.

  The man, Dapple’s captor, sat behind her, out of sight, though when she moved her bound hands, she could feel him holding the rope.

  There had been five families in these hills, the old woman said. None of them large or rich, but they survived, doing one thing or another.

  Five lineages of robbers, thought Dapple.

  “We all interbred, till we were close kin, but we remained separate families, so we could continue to interbreed and find lovers. The rest of the families in this region never liked us and would have nothing to do with us. We had no one except each other.”

  Definitely robbers.

  In the end, the large and powerful families in the region combined against the five. One by one, they were destroyed. It was done in the usual way: the men were killed, the women and children adopted.

  “But our neighbours, the powerful ones, never allowed any of the people they adopted to breed. They would not let women and children starve, but neither would they let traits like ours continue. We were poisoned and poisonous, they said.

  “Imagine what it was like for those women and children! It’s one thing for a woman to lose her family name and all her male relatives. That can be endured. But to know that nothing will continue, that her children will die without children! Some of the women fled into the hills and died alone. Some were found by us. We took them in, of course, and bred them when we could. But where could we find fathers? The men who should have impregnated our daughters – and the women we adopted – were dead.

  “We are the last of the five families: more women than men, all of us poor and thin, with no one to father the next generation, except travellers like you.

  “But we refuse to give up! We won’t let rich and arrogant folk make us vanish from the world!”

  Dapple thought while drinking her beer. “Why did your men kill the rest of our acting company? There were five more – all male, of course, and older than I am.”

  The bandit matriarch peered past Dapple. “Six men? And you brought only one?”

  “They fought,” said the man behind Dapple, his voice reluctant. “We became angry.”

  The matriarch hissed, a noise full of rage.

  “One other is still alive,” t
he man added. “My brothers will bring him along later.”

  “You wanted to rape him,” said the matriarch. “What good do you think he’ll be, after you finish? Selfish, selfish boys! Your greed will destroy us!”

  Obviously, she had miscounted, when she climbed into the actors’ grave. Who was still alive? Not Manif. She’d seen him clearly. Maybe his lover, who was young and handsome.

  “Don’t blame me,” said the man sullenly. “I’m not raping anyone. I’m here with this lad, and I haven’t touched him. As for the other man, he’ll still be usable. No one wants to make you angry.”

  The matriarch scratched her nose. “I’ll deal with that problem when your brothers and male cousins return. In the meantime, tie up this man. I need to decide who should mate with him.”

  “Why should I do this?” asked Dapple. “There is no breeding contract between your family and mine. No decent man has sex with a woman, unless it’s been arranged by his relatives and hers.”

  “We will kill you, if you don’t!” said the man behind Dapple.

  “What will you do if I agree to do this very improper thing?”

  The people around the fire looked uneasy.

  “One thing at a time,” said the matriarch. “First, you have to make one of our women pregnant. Later, we’ll decide what to do with you.”

  Dapple was led into another cave, this one small and empty except for a pallet on the floor and an iron ring set in the wall. Her captor tied her rope to the ring and left her. She sat down. Firelight came from the main cave, enough to light her prison. She tried to loosen the knots that held her. No luck. A cold draft blew down on her. At first, she thought it was fear. Glancing up, she saw a hole that led to starlight. Too far for her to reach, even if she could manage to free herself, and most likely too small to climb through. Only a few stars were visible. One was yellow and very bright: the Eye of Uson. It made her think of Manif’s one eye. How was she going to escape this situation? The hole seemed unreachable, and the only other route was past the main cavern, full of bandits; and she was tired, far too tired to think. Dapple lay down and went to sleep.