The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four

by Jonathan Strahan

  "Oberon," Darlington said through his teeth. "It was Oberon who shopped you."

  "Aye, I never doubted that, nor did Titania. But it is a curious thing, how certain horrors are so vastly horrible to think about that they simply do not take hold on your imagination at the time, but go almost unnoticed—sooner or later to wake you screaming, surely, but not now. What was real was Titania, crouching beside me in a thicket while those—what were they? Demons, monsters, damned souls? I've no idea to this day—while those creatures who had been sent for me glided soundlessly by, close, so close, drawn perhaps by the ticking of my blood, perhaps by the chatter of my mind, the betraying rustle of the hair rising on my forearms." He paused for a moment, and then said in an oddly younger voice, "Or by the sweetness of Titania's breath on my cheek, which I will not think of, will not remember . . . " He caught himself, abruptly, but Darlington could hear the effort.

  "If I had a shilling for every man, woman and child who's shopped me," Darlington murmured, "well, they'd not do me much good just now, all those shillings, would they? Except maybe to bribe a turnkey to let a wench into my cell. Go on."

  Elias Patterson said, "Titania led me a long way, circling and doubling back at the least sign of danger, sometimes standing motionless for minutes at a time, even when I could sense nothing. It was a strange, slow flight, and a sad one, for we passed through fields where we had rambled together in sunlight, crossed a stream where the Queen of Faery had tucked up her skirts like a girl and shown me how to tickle fish with my toes; and rounded the golden corner of a wood where I had flattened myself, marveling, against a tree to see her take down a grimly boar with nothing but a slender oaken spear longer than she was. She had leaped into my arms afterward, and rubbed her bloody hands all over my face. But we could speak of none of this, or anything else, for fear of attracting my hunters' attention. We moved along in silence, her hand always in mine; and now and then, when we could, we looked long at each other. I remember."

  He was silent for a few moments, and then continued, "We came very near to evading them altogether. Titania had just pointed to a grove of tall hemlocks a little way ahead, and whispered, 'There, my love—pass under those trees and step safely home into your own world,' and I had turned for . . . what? A last look, or word, or hopeless embrace? Perhaps none of these, for I had sworn to myself long ago that there would be no such tormented farewell for us when the time came. But all at once my mind filled with fire and stench and despair bearing down on me from all sides. I could not see Titania—I could see nothing but howling shadows—and I cried out in fear, and felt her push me down, hard, so that I sprawled flat on the ground. Something was flung over me, covering me completely, and I knew by the dear scent of her that it was Titania's cloak. I cowered in her smell, feeling the shadows raging around me—around her—expecting my pitiful refuge to be torn away from me at any instant. All I could think, over and over, the one light trembling in my darkness, was when I am in Hell, I will hold her with me, and eternity cannot be so dreadful then."

  Darlington said quietly, "It's that cloak you're wearing, isn't it? That's Titania's cloak."

  "I heard her laugh," Elias Patterson said, "and it was like the first time I had wakened to her singing—soft and clear and proud, as though she had just invented singing at that very moment. She was moving away slowly, back the way we had come—I could feel it, just as I felt the great shadows sullenly trailing behind, and felt their savage bewilderment. Under that cloak, I did not exist for them; and yet the Queen of Faery was laughing joyously at them, and they knew it. I could feel them knowing it, as their night lifted from my mind."

  "It's a cloak of invisibility, like in the fairy tales." Darlington was talking aloud to himself. "But it can't be, for you're plain enough to see right now. How does the bloody thing work?" His voice had grown harsh and hungry when he raised his eyes to meet Elias Patterson's eyes.

  "I wish I could tell you," Elias Patterson answered him sincerely. "It didn't make me invisible—unthinkable, really, is what I suspect. All I can say with any certainty is that it's quite a warm cloak. And easy to clean."

  "Good to know." Darlington brought out his pistol, though not particularly pointing it at Elias Patterson. "For a man in my profession."

  Elias Patterson smiled at him. "Your gun's empty, as we are both aware, but that doesn't matter. I'll give you the cloak, gladly—but if I might make a suggestion, you should wait a bit before you take possession. For your own good."

  Darlington scowled, puzzled. "Why?"

  "Trust me. I was, after all, a minister of the Gospel."

  Darlington put his pistol away. "I do have bullets around somewhere," he said, but absently, still caught up in the tale, still eyeing Elias Patterson's cloak. "So she led them away, and you escaped back to this world."

  "So it was. I waited until I could feel that I was safe, and then I scurried to that hemlock grove Titania had pointed out, like a frightened little mouse, with her cloak wrapped round me. Between one mouse-step and the next, I was walking English earth, under an English heaven, safe from the wrath of Hell and Oberon alike—and, if you'll believe it, already frantic to turn and go straight back, whatever the price, whatever the doom. But the grove was gone, the land was as flat and flavorless as I remembered it, and hemlocks don't grow in that soil, anyway. The country Under the Hill was shut to me. I was . . . home."

  "And was it,"—Darlington hesitated—"is it a hundred years later? Than when you walked out of your house, that Beltane eve?"

  "It was a hundred and six, to be accurate, which such things rarely are. But yes, it turned out exactly as the ballads have it. All my friends and family were long gone, my house had apparently blown down in a storm—and been quite nicely rebuilt, by the by—and my church now belonged to a denomination that hadn't existed in my time. There was nothing of me left in that town, except for an All Hallows' Eve tale of the minister who was snatched away by the Devil—or by the Old Ones, if you talked to the most elderly of the villagers. Tabula rasa, you might say, and doubtless the better off for it."

  Darlington was staring at him, his expression a mixture of superstitious awe and genuine pity. Elias Patterson laughed outright. "Believe me, good highwayman, there's something to be said for the completely blank slate, the scroll of perfect virgin vellum on which anything at all might yet be inscribed. I wandered away from my village for the second time, perfectly content, and I have never looked back. I have been . . . otherwise occupied."

  "Doing what? If you're not a minister anymore—"

  But the white-haired man was suddenly on his feet, half-crouched, his posture almost that of an animal sniffing the air. "Down," he said very quietly. "Down."

  Darlington had not heard that particular voice before, and he did not question it for a moment. He knelt clumsily, briefly noticing Elias Patterson fumbling with the fastenings of his cloak; then he was flat on the cold ground, with the cloak over him, listening helplessly to slow, deliberate hoofbeats and the soft ring of light mail. He heard Elias Patterson's voice again, now with a strange, singsong boyishness to it, saying eagerly, "Welcome, welcome, captain! It is captain, isn't it?"

  A growl, impatient but not discourteous, answered him. "Sergeant, sir, sorry to say. What are you doing up here alone?"

  The reply, tossed back lightly and cheerily, chilled Darlington more than the ground beneath him. "Why, searching for Faery, sergeant. That's my appointed study in this world, and I flatter myself that I'm uncommon good at it."

  Three horses, by the sound, so two other riders, and very bewildered riders they must be by now, Darlington thought.

  The sergeant said, a little warily, "That's . . . interesting, sir. We've been all this day and night in pursuit of a dangerous highwayman named Roger Darlington. Would you have seen him the night, by any chance, or heard any word of him? There's five hundred pounds on his head."

  Elias Patterson was saying, in his odd new voice, "No, sergeant, I'm afraid I hardly notice anythi
ng when I'm at my searching. It's terribly demanding work, you know."

  "I don't doubt it," the sergeant rumbled agreement. "But isn't it cold work as well, on a night like this? That fire can't throw much heat, surely—and you without a proper cloak, at that. Hate to find you frozen stiff as a bull's pizzle on our way back."

  Another rider's grunt: "Wager old Darlington'll be happy when we catch him, just to get in out of the weather."

  I'm right at your feet, you natural-born imbecile! Practically under your feet, and you can't see me!

  "Never fear, good sergeant," Elias Patterson chirped in response. "All the warmth I need is here in my hand." Darlington heard the leather flask gurgle. "Taste and see, I beg you."

  Three clearly audible swallows—three distinctly louder gasps of "Jesus!"—then the third rider: "God's teeth, rouse a stinking corpse, this would. Where'd you come on it?"

  Elias Patterson giggled brightly. "The Queen of Faery gave it me, as a remembrance. We are old friends, you see—oh, very old. Very old."

  He'll never get away with it. But plainly he had done exactly that—Darlington could hear it in the sergeant's words: "Well, that's a fine thing indeed, sir, to be a friend of the Queen of . . . But you won't want to be passing it around so free, or there'll be none left to warm your old bones, hey?" The horses were stamping fretfully, already beginning to move away.

  Another playfully demented giggle. "Ah, no fear there either." Christ, don't overdo it! "This is an enchanted flask, never yet empty in all the years it's companioned me on my quest. A wonderful gift now, don't you think?"

  "Wonderful," the sergeant agreed. "Well, we'll be on our way, sir, and my thanks for your kindness. And if by chance you should hear any word of that Darlington fellow—"

  "I'll pass it on to you directly, of course I will. On the instant." A knowing chuckle. "I know how to reach you on the instant, you see."

  "I'm sure you do. Good night to you then, sir."

  Darlington waited a good deal beyond the time when he could no longer hear the hoofs crunching the light snowcrust before he threw off the cloak and scrambled to his feet. "I wouldn't have believed it! I wouldn't have bloody believed it! I really was invisible, the same as you were!"

  Elias Patterson shook his head. "No, I told you—they saw you, all right, just as those creatures come from Hell saw me. They saw that cloak covering some object, but it meant nothing to them, it suggested no connection, no picture in their minds, as most things we even glimpse do. The cloak breaks that connection in some way. I don't understand it, but I know that must be what it does, when sorely needed." He paused, watching Darlington staring after the departed horsemen. In a lower voice, he said, "And why Faery is only seen when it chooses to be seen."

  "Well, however it works, it's bound to come in useful," Darlington said. "And so might that ever-full flask on a hard night, now I think of it." He held out his hand.

  "I think not, Mr. Darlington," Elias Patterson said gently. Their eyes met, and though the reverend was a century and more older than the other, in a little while Darlington lowered his hand. Elias Patterson said, "It is growing light."

  "Aye, I'd best be off, find myself a horse. First farm I come to—" Darlington grinned suddenly—"if the goodman's a bit easier to bluff than you."

  He offered his hand again, in a different manner, and Elias Patterson took it, saying, "I'd head south and west if I were you. As far as Sheffield, and straight west from there. Dorset might suit you for a time, in my opinion."

  "Poor as churchmice, Dorset. Nothing worth stealing but a bit of copper piping, a bit of lead off the roofs. Hardly my style." He shook Elias Patterson's hand firmly. "But southwest you tell me, so southwest it is. And good fortune to you on your own quest, Reverend."

  "Faery is all around us, Mr. Darlington," Elias Patterson said. "The border never stays in one place—Oberon moves and maintains it constantly, to keep me from crossing back—but it is always permeable from the far side, not merely at Beltane and Samhain. That is how the fox and unicorn come and go as they please, as do the phoenix and the mermaid. Not even Oberon can bar their way." He folded his hands where he sat, and nodded again to Darlington. "And that is why I pay heed to foxes."

  Staring at him, Darlington saw the madness fully for the first time. He said, "You really believe you can cross a border that the King of Faery is determined to hide from you forever? A border that will keep moving and moving away from you, even if you find it?"

  "The Queen of Faery remembers me," Elias Patterson said. "I have faith in that, as I once had faith in something quite different; and what a fox knows a determined man may discover. Go now, Mr. Darlington—south and west—before those men come back. And do not trust my lady's cloak to hide you a second time. It never did for me. I think you must give it to someone else, in your turn, before it chooses to work again."

  "No doubt I'll find reason to test that, Reverend."

  "No doubt." Elias Patterson nodded once, placidly. "God be with you, my friend."

  Darlington started off, fastening the cloak at his throat. The sky was pale green with dawn over the moors before he looked back. He could still see the hilltop, and even the last bright threads of the dying fire, but there was no sign of Elias Patterson. The highwayman stood for some while, waiting; then finally snugged Titania's cloak about him again, and walked on.

  BLACK SWAN

  Bruce Sterling

  Bruce Sterling published his first novel, Involution Ocean, in 1977. The author of ten novels and four short story collections, he is still perhaps best known in science fiction as the Godfather of Cyberpunk. He edited the cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades, and his early novels The Artificial Kid and Schismatrix are perhaps the closest things he wrote to cyberpunk. After closing the 'zine Cheap Truth and leaving cyberpunk to others in November 1986, he went on to write major science fiction novels like Holy Fire, Distraction and The Zenith Angle. He is the author of a large and influential body of short fiction, much of which have been collected in Crystal Express, Globalhead, A Good Old-Fashioned Future and Visionary in Residence. His most recent books are new novel The Caryatids and major career retrospective, Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling.

  The ethical journalist protects a confidential source. So I protected "Massimo Montaldo," although I knew that wasn't his name.

  Massimo shambled through the tall glass doors, dropped his valise with a thump, and sat across the table. We were meeting where we always met: inside the Caffe Elena, a dark and cozy spot that fronts on the biggest plaza in Europe.

  The Elena has two rooms as narrow and dignified as mahogany coffins, with lofty red ceilings. The little place has seen its share of stricken wanderers. Massimo never confided his personal troubles to me, but they were obvious, as if he'd smuggled monkeys into the café and hidden them under his clothes.

  Like every other hacker in the world, Massimo Montaldo was bright. Being Italian, he struggled to look suave. Massimo wore stain-proof, wrinkle-proof travel gear: a black merino wool jacket, an American black denim shirt, and black cargo pants. Massimo also sported black athletic trainers, not any brand I could recognize, with eerie bubble-filled soles.

  These skeletal shoes of his were half-ruined. They were strapped together with rawhide boot-laces.

  To judge by his Swiss-Italian accent, Massimo had spent a lot of time in Geneva. Four times he'd leaked chip secrets to me—crisp engineering graphics, apparently snipped right out of Swiss patent applications. However, the various bureaus in Geneva had no records of these patents. They had no records of any "Massimo Montaldo," either.

  Each time I'd made use of Massimo's indiscretions, the traffic to my weblog had doubled.

  I knew that Massimo's commercial sponsor, or more likely his spymaster, was using me to manipulate the industry I covered. Big bets were going down in the markets somewhere. Somebody was cashing in like a bandit.

  That profiteer wasn't me, and I had to doubt that it was him. I never financially speculat
e in the companies I cover as a journalist, because that is the road to hell. As for young Massimo, his road to hell was already well-trampled.

  Massimo twirled the frail stem of his glass of Barolo. His shoes were wrecked, his hair was unwashed, and he looked like he'd shaved in an airplane toilet. He handled the best wine in Europe like a scorpion poised to sting his liver. Then he gulped it down.

  Unasked, the waiter poured him another. They know me at the Elena.

  Massimo and I had a certain understanding. As we chatted about Italian tech companies—he knew them from Alessi to Zanotti—I discreetly passed him useful favors. A cellphone chip—bought in another man's name. A plastic hotel pass key for a local hotel room, rented by a third party. Massimo could use these without ever showing a passport or any identification.

  There were eight "Massimo Montaldos" on Google and none of them were him. Massimo flew in from places unknown, he laid his eggs of golden information, then he paddled off into dark waters. I was protecting him by giving him those favors. Surely there were other people very curious about him, besides myself.

  The second glass of Barolo eased that ugly crease in his brows. He rubbed his beak of a nose, and smoothed his unruly black hair, and leaned onto the thick stone table with both of his black woolen elbows.

  "Luca, I brought something special for you this time. Are you ready for that? Something you can't even imagine."

  "I suppose," I said.

  Massimo reached into his battered leather valise and brought out a no-name PC laptop. This much-worn machine, its corners bumped with use and its keyboard dingy, had one of those thick super-batteries clamped onto its base. All that extra power must have tripled the computer's weight. Small wonder that Massimo never carried spare shoes.

  He busied himself with his grimy screen, fixated by his private world there.