The Wildside Book of Fantasy: 20 Great Tales of Fantasy

by Gene Wolfe

  “Savil!” I called, but he did not pause. Then the flames were upon him, and I could not bear to see more.

  I woke, gasping, the bitter taste of smoke still in my lungs. My brother Aghen stirred beside me, but did not wake. I forced myself to silence.

  Bright images of those dream-fires still lingered in my eyesight, as though I had been there, as though I had actually seen Savil die. I shuddered at the thought, then denied it. It had only been a nightmare, I told myself, and made signs of aversion to keep away evil.

  After that I could not rest, could not lie still. I rose and went to the window in only my nightgown, threw open the wooden shutters, and gazed down into the street.

  In those days it was said Adjaphon never slept: merchant caravans moved through the city’s gates like an endless serpent, bringing all manner of fabulous animals and weavings and trinkets and slaves to the marketplace at every hour of the day and night. But at this moment,oddly, there was only a single man in a hooded cloak standing there. He leaned on his staff and seemed to peer up at me, and where his face should’ve been I saw only blackness.

  “Jadred,” I thought I heard him say, “you are called.”

  Quickly I shuttered the window and barred it. Had the man truly spoken, or was it another part of my dream? He seemed to have been waiting for me. I could not rid myself of that thought. And the moon was bright enough; why hadn’t I seen his face?

  I stood there beside the window for a long time, feeling the cold of the floor beneath my feet, feeling my heart beating in my throat.

  That was the start of the end, in the dreamtime of Adjaphon, though I did not know it yet.

  * * * *

  My father’s shop consisted of three rooms. The largest of these was the workroom, where flat sheets of leather lay bundled up against the two largest walls and the sweet, musty smell of tanning-cream was so thick you could almost see it. Here my younger brothers and sisters and I cut leather strips and thongs from patterns every morning. In the afternoon my mother and father sewed them into sandals and boots—mostly boots these days, boots for the Emperor’s army, since the purchasing agents always came to my father’s shop first.

  The second room was for storage, mostly of leather but also of finished goods not yet on display. It was small and dark.

  The third room opened out onto the street. Finished boots and sandals of every design and size imaginable filled it. They hung in strings from the rafters, from pegs in the walls, from intricately carved wooden racks in the center of the room. Here my mother and father sat during the morning hours, speaking with those who came in to buy or to gossip, laughing and joking, or just watching the parade of passers-by in their few idle moments.

  Early that afternoon I heard many feet enter the shop at once, and my father’s welcoming call cut short.

  “Where is Jadred, your son?” a loud voice cried. “Tokos-Dien has called him.”

  My mother screamed. I stood, shoving back my chair, looking at my two brothers, at my four sisters. None of them said a word; none of them moved. They stared at me, their eyes wide.

  Abruptly the curtain to the workroom swept aside. A middle-aged man in the gold robes of a priest of Tokos-Dien ducked through the doorway. He was tall and his features had a proud, chiseled look to them, almost as though he were made of stone. Behind him moved a tide of underpriests in blue robes, and all manner of other servants of the god-patron.

  Only the priest’s eyes moved as he surveyed the room. When his gaze fell on me, he knelt. “It is you,” he said. “You are the dreaming one.” He said it with such awe and reverence that I did not know how to begin to reply. And yet as he said it I also knew what he meant: my dream the night before had been more than a dream. It had been a vision sent by Tokos-Dien for purposes only the god-patron or the god-patron’s priests could ever fathom.

  “Please,” I said. I licked my lips. I didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to abandon my parents or the safety of their home. “Please,” I said again. “What do you want of me?”

  “I want nothing,” the priest said. “It is Tokos-Dien who calls you.”

  He rose, and at his gesture, the underpriests came in around him, as though a floodgate had been let loose. They ushered my brothers and sisters from the room and blocked the way so my parents could not enter nor see. Then their servants stripped my clothes away and I stood there naked and shivering while they chanted over me.

  “You are called,” the priest kept telling me. “You are called.”

  I tried to run as an underpriest began to shave my head, and his knife opened a shallow gash beside my ear so that blood ran quickly. The priest grabbed me and hugged me to him, talking like a farmer soothing a frightened beast. His robes were smothering, full of odd spicy smells. I struggled, but his grip was too strong, and his voice had begun to lull me. In moments everything became a blur of sight and sound. Distantly I felt myself being shaved all over, then dressed in gold robes like the priest’s. Finally I felt myself being carried out into the street.

  I am called.

  My parents were huddled in the corner of the display room, my brothers and sisters clutched tight. They dared not protest, I knew.

  I am called.

  The underpriests trundled me into a golden carriage. The prist climbed in beside me, still whispering his soothing, mind-numbing words. Someone clicked to the horses and we were off in a mad rush down the street. The servants were running ahead, clearing the way for us, and I felt a cold, sick fear at the thought of what was to come.

  How could Tokos-Dien have called me? Surely I was unworthy. I didn’t want to go. I longed for release, wished I were dead, wished I had never been born. The god-patron seemed to have singled me out for particular punishment or persecution. In that moment I learned what it was to hate—to hate the god-patron’s priests, and to hate Tokos-Dien himself. Mostly I hated Tokos-Dien; young as I was, I knew the priests were only servants doing their master’s will.

  Once, long before, I had prayed to Tokos-Dien for help, for a man’s body, when I was a child and everyone my age had beaten me. He had not answered then. Why had he sent a vision to me now?

  That, too, was part of the beginning of the end.

  * * * *

  My first days in the Temple of Tokos-Dien were the most painful of my life. I refused to speak of my vision; rather, I denied it, said I had seen nothing, heard nothing, done nothing. They should let me go, I said. They should let me return to my mother and my father and my life as a cobbler’s son.

  To their credit, they did not believe me. Finally, on the eighth day, they locked me in a small room, and priest after priest came in to question me, to prod and probe my mind. They did not let me sleep or rest or eat or drink.

  On the second day of their questioning I croaked my confession: “Yes!” I cried. “I saw a vision!” And, after I had drunk and eaten, I babbled of all that I had seen.

  The priests transcribed my every word and went away to study what I had said. They left me by myself, in a locked room, with a soft bed and as much food and drink as I could possibly want. I should have been happy, I know, but instead I cursed Tokos-Dien. I did not expect a reply,and there came none.

  That night I dreamt a second time, and in this dream I was floating down a river on my back. It was dark here, but somehow I could see. A mountain loomed ahead, and the river ended in a vast whirlpool. I knew without a doubt that I would enter the whirlpool and be sucked down into the underworld, where Tokos-Dien rules. Somehow the god-patron was bringing me to him.

  There were hundreds—thousands—of soldiers’ corpses floating down the river around me. Turning my head, I noticed Savil bobbing to my left. I almost failed to recognize him. His skin was white as a slug’s belly, his body bloated by the corrosion of death to nearly twice its normal size. But there was a smile on his face, and though he was dead,he seemed happy. Tokos-Dien had called him, too, but in a different way.

  Standing alongside the river were men with staffs. T
hese, I knew,were the servants of the god-patron. They used their staffs to keep the corpses from coming to rest against the river’s banks.

  One of them reached out and hooked my shoulder, pulling me over to him. I found I could move, suddenly, and stood. The water ran from my shaved head and priestly robes in rivulets. I walked to the bank.

  The man—if man he was—had no face. There was only blackness inside the folds of his hood. He leaned on his staff and said, “You are called, Jadred. Will you serve the god-patron?”

  “Why does he want me?” I whispered.

  “He is a god. His reasons are beyond your comprehension, or any mortal’s. It is merely enough that he wants you.”

  “Why does he not just take me?”

  “You must go of your own free will. Enter the river and it will bear you to him.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Do you realize what you are saying? The anger of a god is a fearsome thing. Do you wish to anger him?”

  “I want to go home,” I said. “I want Savil alive. I want everything back the way it was!”

  “So be it,” he said, with a cold finality…and, I thought, with a touch of a sorrow.

  * * * *

  I awoke in my bed, beside my brother Aghen, in our little room over our father’s shop. I was dressed in my nightgown, and when I touched my head, I felt my hair once more, thick and long. But there was also a scar beside my ear: the place where the underpriest had cut me.

  It was early, but the street was eerily silent. I felt too much joy at being home, at being safe, to worry about anything, though.

  Finally I heard a crier approaching, shouting the news.

  “Defeat at Solcena!” he cried. “Two thousand dead! The Heron King is marching on Foltrene!

  I sat up, startled, bewildered. Foltrene was scarcely a day’s journey away. How could the Heron-King have reached it so quickly? How had the Adjaphon’s great armies ever been defeated?

  A shiver went through me. Roughly, I shook my brother awake. “Aghen! Tell me the news! How did the Heron King defeat our army?”

  He stirred and mumbled, but finally he sat up. “Idiot,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Lemme alone.”

  I demanded the history of the war, and when he finally saw I wouldn’t let him sleep until I knew, he told me. Told me how the Heron King had gathered thirty thousand men in a time of peace and attacked our furthest borders. Told me how the Heron King’s soldiers had swept into Adjaphon’s outlying cities like an unstoppable tidal wave. Told me how the Heron King’s god-patron, Tokos-Dien, promised nothing but victory while the priests in our temples, the temples of Condja-Dien, the god of the fields and harvest, predicted nothing but death.

  And as he spoke I remembered all these things; but I also remembered another time, another place, when Tokos-Dien had blessed Adjaphon and nothing could hold back our Emperor’s armies.

  I tried not to sleep that night for fear of dreams, but when I finally dozed off, I saw only blackness. Tokos-Dien had truly abandoned me.

  * * * *

  The next morning the news was worse. Foltrene had fallen in a matter of hours. My mother wept and my father tried to comfort her, but could not. My younger brothers and sisters huddled in their beds. Only I moved through the house almost untouched by the news. It had such an air of unreality about it that I hadn’t yet grasped all it meant.

  Outside, panic ruled Adjaphon’s streets, as a last few people fought their way to the one open gate. There was a rumor of safety to the South; they would follow that rumor, though they would most likely be overtaken by the Heron King’s army along the way. There was surely no safety in Adjaphon, they said, or anywhere nearby.

  I wandered the streets myself for a time, easing my way through little knots of arguing people. It was strange to see rooftops of bare tile and slate, without the thousand eyes of Tokos-Dien painted on them. Everywhere I went the shops and houses were closed and shuttered. It would not be long, everyone said, before the Heron King’s forces attacked. His scouts had already been sighted.

  I came upon Savil. He was hobbling on crutches toward the southern gate, a pack on his shoulder, a look of weary hopelessness on his face. When I saw him, I abruptly remembered the horse trampling him three years before. He had not been able to join the army, even though he’d wanted to. But at the same time I also remembered the proud day he’d enlisted, though it seemed more like a dream. He had come back and showed me his uniform, his sword, his shield with the thousand eyes of Tokos-Dien painted on it.

  The anger of a god is a fearsome thing.

  I embraced him, said, “I’m sorry,” and ran away before he could reply.

  I found myself near the temple of Tokos-Dien. I ran up the wide steps and into the huge altar chamber, where prayers were held and sacrifices made. Only everything was different now; it had become a temple to Condja-Dien, I saw. Plants grew in wild abundance; it was more a garden than a building, but that only made sense, for Condja-Dien was god-patron of harvests and growing things.

  I heard a scuffle and a scream from one of the side rooms, then a grim looking captain from the Emperor’s private guard came out, followed by a handful of his men. Their swords were bloody. I stared, shocked, bewildered.

  “It was the Emperor’s orders,” the captain said at last, in a strangled voice, as if that excused him. “The priests foretold the Emperor’s death this morning.”

  “Oh,” I said. Then: “I came to pray.”

  “Go ahead, for all the good it will do.” He headed for the door, followed by his men, and they marched down the steps to the street, armor jingling.

  I realized then that I had come to pray—to Tokos-Dien. I’d never meant for all this to happen, never meant for Adjaphon to fall or the Emperor to die or Savil to be crippled. I thought of my mother weeping and my brothers and sisters huddled in their beds, waiting for the Heron King’s soldiers to break down the doors to our home.

  The anger of a god is a fearsome thing. I shuddered. It seemed mad that Tokos-Dien had done all this because I had refused his calling. I hated him for that pettiness, but I feared him more now and did not dare to speak my hatred. Had I been offered the choice again, I would have gone, and willingly, into the whirlpool to answer my calling and serve him.

  This temple, though, had one of the highest towers in the city. I climbed it, carefully avoiding the corpses of priests on the steps. From the top of the tower I could see clearly over Adjaphon’s walls.

  On the horizon an army was assembling, columns of troops lining up, the leaders on their horses, others holding aloft the proud banners of Tokos-Dien—I could just make them out—so they fluttered overhead. The mass of soldiers stretched right and left for what seemed like miles. I did not doubt that the Heron King had thirty thousand men or more at his command.

  “Stop it,” I whispered. “Stop it and I’ll serve you.”

  There was no answer. Somehow, I had expected none.

  Throughout the day I stood there and watched the Heron King’s forces gather. The smoke from their campfires darkened the sky. That night, the lights in their camp seemed to wink like a million stars fallen to land.

  Then I wept and I prayed and I pleaded with the Tokos-Dien, the god-patron I knew, to spare Adjaphon. And when he did not answer I no longer cursed him. I grew silent and thought about all that had happened. If the Emperor had known I was the cause Adjaphon’s downfall, he would have killed me rather than the priests. It was almost a funny thought. I did not laugh.

  * * * *

  With dawn came the attack. As men with ladders rushed the walls, as battering-rams attacked all six gates, balls of fire came hurtling into the city from the Heron King’s catapults. Soon flames were leaping everywhere throughout the city.

  I could not bear to watch. I turned away, buried my head in my hands, and tried to shut out the sounds of fighting.

  Ages passed. The buildings burned and I could hear the crackle of flames and smell the acrid smoke. Bands of the
Heron King’s soldiers roved the streets, looting, raping, destroying everything of beauty. Finally the temple itself was on fire. I felt the heat and looked up.

  There was a man in a hooded cloak standing before me, leaning on his staff. I could not see his face.

  “What do you want of me?” I cried. “What more is there?”

  He shook his head. “Adjaphon’s time had come. If you had answered your calling and served Tokos-Dien, it would not have mattered. The god-patron would have found another to deny him, and this city would still be dying, only you would not remember the past or the glory Adjaphon once had.”

  I made no answer; there could be no answer. I was just a tool, a pawn in Tokos-Dien’s game. I realized that now. It made me ache inside with a hurt that no amount of time could ever heal.

  The god-patron’s servant said, “He calls you now. Will you go with him?”

  Slowly, I nodded. Perhaps that would help end the suffering. Perhaps it would spare my parents and my brothers and sisters and my friends some little measure of pain. Perhaps. But I did not think so. Tokos-Dien is not merciful.

  * * * *

  I am floating down a dark river, and around me are the bodies of the Emperor’s soldiers newly-dead in the battle. The Heron King has won, and perhaps for a time his city will flourish. But Tokos-Dien is quick to bore, and soon he will favor another, and then the Heron King’s lands will fall to a different conqueror and the cycle will start anew.

  I weep not for proud Adjaphon, which died a sorrowful death; I weep for Tokos-Dien. Or perhaps I weep for those who now serve him. A god-patron without mercy is a terrible curse.

  Perhaps I shall say that to him. I have nothing left to lose. When the whirlpool drags me under, I shall be reborn. Adjaphon will never die so long as I remember her. Perhaps this is not an end, but a beginning. Perhaps the dreamtime will end and all will be reborn.