by Kij Johnson
The bookseller only shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “Now, do you need a book?”
His stall was covered in paperbacks. Most were best-sellers, since those were the ones they printed most of. Now the survivors of Tel Aviv lit fires with them and always kept a book close by—you never knew when you might need to go, and a single book could last a long time . . .
“I have little enough to trade,” the priest said—looking longingly at a particularly thick thriller. He searched in his pocket. “I found these,” he said. Rings, of yellow gold and sapphires, a ruby chain of white gold, a diamond bracelet—there was still a market for jewelry in the city, with clan leaders cladding themselves in looted gold. The bookseller took the objects, examined them, made a motion with his head. The priest nodded thanks, and helped himself to the book.
Behind him the whistling continued. People stared, but did not move towards the child. Holy child, the priest thought. They can recognize that in him. Sometimes he thought the boy’s whistles were the language of the whirlwind.
He walked away, towards the Rat House.
“Priest!’
The Rat Lord was an old friend—and a believer. A large man, with hairy arms and thinner hair sprouting out of his ears, and reading glasses too small for his face. he had once been a general, and an aspiring politician, before the event put an end to both careers before the one had ended and the second began. Now he bred and butchered rats, and his fingers were covered in diamonds and topaz. “Lord of Rats,” the priest said, nodding.
“Have one,” the Rat Lord said generously, waving his hand, “on the house.”
“Thank you,” the priest said. “Is the gathering ready?”
“Ready and waiting,” the Rat Lord said.
“Then let us pray,” the priest said—and he followed the Rat Lord into the building, where the screams of rats could be heard, and their scrabbling feet, and into a back room of the old pharmacy, where a dozen people had gathered, waiting.
My flock, he thought. My lost little rats, anxiously awaiting the fire.
“Friends,” he said, looking at their faces. From all over the city they came, young and old, women and men, the lost, the mad—those touched by fire. Those who believed. “The hour draws near, and on top of the mountain the fire beckons. He is coming. Soon we shall be delivered.”
“Soon we shall be delivered,” they echoed him. The shrill sound of a whistle sounded outside. The priest knelt down on the hard floor and joined his hands before him. “Let us pray,” he said; and so they did.
He used to like Louis Armstrong music, pizza with olives, fresh cold water from the fridge, cartoons on Saturday morning TV. Now his thoughts were fire and his nights were waiting, always waiting for a sign from above, a sign that never seemed to come. Why has it happened? he thought. The storm had come and lashed the city of Tel Aviv into oblivion, but why? It occurred to him frequently that he might as well be asking—Why life? Why Death? The universe held no answers, and humanity went through cycles of life and death, birth and life and death, endlessly, no more comprehending than ants or dogs or rats. Did rats have a religion? Did rats pray to a rat-god? If so, what did they pray for?
Salvation, he thought. I pray for salvation.
Yet what sort of salvation could a Fireman bring?
The streets back were dark and cold and quiet. Too quiet. The silence was pierced only by the boy’s incessant whistling—and suddenly the priest was very afraid.
Shadows moved ahead . . . they skulked in the darkness of ruined hallways. He turned, began to walk back. Don’t run, he thought. When he came to the boy he said, “Come with me—” wondering if the boy understood.
“Come with me—” but even as he spoke he saw the shadows congeal ahead, and knew they were coming.
Stupid, stupid. He had not been paying attention. “There is nothing to take from me,” he said loudly, speaking to the approaching shadows. “Nothing that hasn’t already been taken.”
He did not even have the jewelry any more. All he carried was the book, and a wrapped package of three plump, salted skinned rats. And the Book, too, of course. The Holy Book of Fire. But they would not want that.
“I have nothing,” he said again, feeling the weight of the words tightening around his neck, pulling him down. “Nothing . . . ”
“You have your life,” the shadows said. They came closer and closer, and one of them held a torch now, and in its light he could see them, young faces, hungry, without mercy—faces from which laughter and light had been bleached clean. “We shall take that, and the child.”
“Pretty boy!’ crowed another of the shadows. “We’ll put you to work in the mines, old man. There is much to be mined for, in this God-forsaken city.”
He knew about the mines. Deep they dug, into the cellars and the hidden warehouses, and as they dug they built, caves for the cave-dwellers, a hidden dark city under the city . . . some said the miners, too, had their own religion, and were seeking escape down there, in the darkness below the sands—seeking a way out of the city, tunnelling their way towards—
But there was nothing. He knew that. They all knew that. The city was no longer a part of the world, the other world. It had been annexed, and now belonged only to the mountain, and to what lay beyond.
“Take me,” he said. “But leave the boy.”
“The boy too can work,” the same voice said. They all looked the same to him, these boys who had once been soldiers or construction workers or delivery boys or telemarketers. They had been scourged by wind, he thought, scourged clean as bones. The dead had no mercy. “We have work for the boy.”
Ugly laughter. The priest, with shaking hands, brought out the holy book. “The Fireman comes,” he said, his voice weak in the cold night. “And the city shall be delivered at His approach. He has seen much that has been hidden, the bringer of fire, the bringer of ligh—”
A back-handed slap felled him, the pain burning, burning, and he welcomed it. “Take him,” another voice said. All the while the boy was whistling, whistling, a forlorn cry in the night, the call of an extinct animal sensing its fate. Hands grabbed the priest, pulled him up. He saw knives, a rope. Their leader—if that’s what he was—approached the boy. “Shut up,” he said. But the boy’s only answer was his whistle.
The leader slapped him, casually, and the boy fell back a step, the whistle falling from his bloodied lips.
“There’s men would pay good food for a boy like this,” he said, “and wouldn’t mind a bit of blood on him, either.”
“He is innocent!’ the priest cried, and the leader turned to him, a snarl on his boyish face, and said, “No one is innocent.”
It was true, though the priest hated to think it. None of them were innocent, none of them who survived. And yet the boy, at least . . . surely the boy was innocent, if anyone was?
Fire and air, and high above the shadowy presence of cold, enormous beings in the mountain, and he thought, Let him call, let him—
And as he rose, as he charged at these shades, these cold men of the ruined city, he thought not of fire or prophets, messiahs or signs, but only of the boy—Let them come, he thought. He ran at the leader, bringing him down, and the others turned away from the boy and came for him, knives glinting in the light of the torch—and the darkness was pierced with the sound of a lone whistle, a whistle in the night, and they came—he felt them come even as the knife slashed down on his arm and the pain rose in him, and brought his old name with it.
They converged on the street from all corners, it seemed. Hovering in the air, these cold, unknowable whirlwinds, and starlight was bent and transformed as it passed through them. Silent, they came closer, and the men left him, and tried to run, and someone cursed, and the priest lay on the ground, waiting for his death still, hoping for it, and all the while the boy’s whistle cut through the air like a surgical blade—
Holding his arm, blood trickling through his fingers, he watched the whirlwinds come. Where they passed th
e ground was torn up, buildings collapsed, their sound drowning the boy’s whistle. When the men tried to flee some were snatched up by the wind, rising up in the air slowly before exploding, their blood raining down like fallen poppies. But some escaped, moving between the columns of air, vanishing in the distance, to live another day in the city, to die another night.
“They came,” he said, speaking to the boy—but the boy was no longer there.
When he raised his eyes he saw the boy hovering in the air above him, caught inside a whirlwind. Round and round and round he went, his face placid, his eyes the color of a grey storm, his shirt a mix of blood old and new. The whistle sounded, shriller than ever, communicating in a language the priest could not, would not understand.
Higher and higher the boy went, and the priest began to shout, screaming at the storm, but it was no good—the boy rose and then the whistling stopped, and a faint “pop’ sounded, like a bottle being uncorked—
Red rain fell down on the priest, softly, like a whisper in the night, like a mother’s goodnight kiss. Red rain fell and the whirlwinds turned away, and from the sky an object fell down to the ground, and the priest grasped for it with bloodied fingers, barely seeing:
It was a cheap, plastic whistle, the mouthpiece still moist where it had been blown, and teeth marks that were the only thing to remain of the boy.
He stared at the object in his hand, and raised his head, and watched the mountain rise, mute and inexplicable as life, as death, impossibly-high in the distance.
Why? he said, or thought he had, though no sound came. When he cried it was without sound and the tears mingled with the blood of the boy. Why? he said, or tried to, but the whirlwinds were gone and the street was deserted again, and very quiet, and very dark, and after a while he put the whistle in his pocket and resumed the long walk home, alone.
About the Author
Lavie Tidhar has been nominated for a BSFA, British Fantasy, Campbell, Sidewise, World Fantasy and Sturgeon Awards. He is the author of Osama, and of the Bookman Histories trilogy, as well as numerous short stories and several novellas.
A Sweet Calling
Tony Pi
Red paper lanterns, strung high like persimmon moons, welcomed customers to the market street. I announced my next performance of the sugar opera to passers-by, hoping to draw the curious to my stall. But if the row of candy zodiac animals in front of me couldn’t lure them in, perhaps my show would.
Taking a dollop of warm caramel, I fashioned a straw-thin spout and blew into it to inflate a bubble of sugar. An elderly couple stopped to watch, while two boys gaped in amazement as I pulled limbs and long ears from the hollow, golden shell to make a rabbit. Satisfied with my handiwork, I stuck the candy-hare onto a bamboo stick and dabbed on molasses eyes.
The elderly pair complimented me on the show and bought two caramel monkeys I had on display. I thanked them. I had arrived in Chengdu with very little money, but hoped to make a small profit by the end of the night. For each creation I sold at the festival, I earned a coin. Such was the simple life of a candyman.
Few customers, however, lingered as long at my stall as Lun the wheelwright. It wasn’t my sugar-figurines that caught the lad’s eye, but the winsome lass ladling out yuanzi dumplings across the street.
“You want to win her heart, Lun?” I held the caramel rabbit forth. “Give her this. I guarantee she’ll adore it.”
Lun wavered. “I’m grateful, Tangren Ao, but suppose I say the wrong thing?”
“Courtship, like any craft, needs practice. Compare her to the moon; they love that. Quickly, before nightfall brings more admirers to her stall.” I’d seen her turn away two suitors already, a willowy scholar and a brocade merchant with a fat purse.
The lad took the gift and trudged across the stone road, yielding to peasants, horse carts, and even a stiltwalker who passed before him.
I tried not to smile. I would surprise them both with a little magic when he showed her the rabbit: wrinkle its nose, waggle its tail. They’d dismiss it as a trick of the crimson light. But in sharing that moment of delight, perchance they’d fall in love.
Spring’s a delicious time to meddle!
“Make a lóng next!” demanded the pesky boy, who had yet to buy anything.
“Dragons are hard, kid.”
“Bet you don’t know how,” said his snotty friend.
“I said hard, not impossible. After my break, I’ll show you.”
I sat, shut my eyes, and hurled my senses into the sugar-rabbit across the way.
I spied through dotted eyes at the world grown vast. Lun’s stammer thundered in my pulled-candy ears. The yuanzi girl’s lips curled in a grand smile. But there came an odd cracking sound from near her soup-pot. The girl glanced down and shrieked.
Lun backed away but stumbled, and I—rabbit-I—fell from his hand. My vision spun, but I caught a glimpse of flames before the impact against the cobblestones shook me from the candy-shell and back into my body.
I blinked open true eyes.
A monkey shaped from fire hunched on top of Lun, setting his shirt alight. Lun grabbed for it but winced as he clutched only flame.
The crowd fled in panic.
“Roll, Lun!” I cried as I bolted into the street. “Smother the flames!”
Lun obeyed, but the fire monkey pressed its attack.
I grabbed the ladle from the yuanzi girl (with muttered apologies) and scooped soup from the pot, slinging the hot broth at the fire-beast. The splash doused only its tail, but before I could dip the ladle for more sweet soup, the monkey darted away with all-too-human strides.
“Lun! Are you all right? What happened?”
The lad winced and blew on the burns to his hands. They’d blister, but he was lucky his wounds hadn’t been worse. “The fire under her pot just came alive! Is it because it’s the Year of the Monkey?”
“Doubt it.” It moved too like a man to be a wild spirit. Could it be an elemental conjuration under a puppeteer’s sway?
The monkey clambered up the stiltwalker’s wooden legs, its flaming paws raking the startled performer’s flesh. Climbing onto the man’s shoulders, the beast leapt onto a riddle lantern before the man toppled over.
People cried for the city guard.
I called to the frightened yuanzi girl. “Please, look after Lun!”
The girl remembered to breathe and hastened to Lun’s side, concern clouding her face.
I dashed to the fallen stiltwalker and untied the stilts from his legs. Motes of burning paper rained down on us as the fire monkey leapt from one lantern to another, then another and another, until it landed on the thatched roof of the yuanzi girl’s family teahouse. With mad glee, it set the thatch ablaze, and the flames regenerated its tail.
I cursed. Our troubles had just begun.
Lun raised the cry of “Fire!” while the girl screamed for everyone to get out. Patrons poured out of the teahouse, but those in nearby establishments heeded the call as well, knowing the blaze would eat through the row of wood and thatch buildings like a child through a skewer of candied haws.
Proprietors filled buckets with water from the bronze vats outside, but how could they tame the rooftop fire?
I left the stiltwalker and flitted between terrified citizens towards my stall. I saw the boys Pest and Snot run off with fists full of sugar zodiac animals, leaving only a pair of Oxen-on-a-stick and a half-gnawed Rooster in the dust. Greedy brats!
With the teahouse roof vigorously ablaze, the monkey hopped across a string of lanterns to my side of the boulevard and ignited a new fire. Wide streets normally prevented flames from leaping the gap, but tonight, a web of lanterns crisscrossed all of Chengdu. The monkey conjuration could travel the high paths and set fires wherever it pleased, and no man could hope to intercept it.
Even the animal seemed deliberate, as the abundance of the Monkey sign would cast suspicion on an angry spirit, or worse, someone who played with that shape.
Like a Tangren ma
king candied monkeys in plain view of the teahouse.
Had the arsonist planned it all, choosing the Lantern Festival to wreak the most havoc without getting caught? But who’d harbor such calculated hatred, and how would I catch him?
The mystery taunted me like a devious lantern riddle, but I hadn’t the time to mull over clues. I couldn’t stand idly by while Chengdu burned.
My father had taught me the secret of sweet possession. Each generation of Tangren in my family would push the bounds of our magic the way we’d inflate a candy-bubble. Spying was our earliest power, then animation, and last year I discovered water-shaping. To fight the fires, I’d need that new skill now, and also water and golden caramel to conjure with.
With mandated fire stations every three-hundred steps, the fire-fighting force soon swarmed the street with buckets, but the number of blazes daunted them. Lun, with cloth-bandaged hands, pointed out the monkey to incredulous men.
At my stall, I pulled a glob of hot caramel from my pan. Years of practice making the scalding heat bearable as I palmed, twirled, and blew on the gooey lump to cool it.
To battle such hungry blazes spreading by rooftop, I’d need a storm’s worth of water, maybe from the Jinjiang River nearby. The sun had set and the River Bridge Gate was shut, but I had no choice. I tucked a bamboo stick behind my ear and ran southward, rolling the sugar ball between my palms to keep it soft. In my haste I nearly collided with a dour-faced official who glowered and barreled past me, roaring orders to the fire-fighters.
The walls of Lesser City loomed ahead, too high to climb. But if I chose the right animal, it might be no obstacle at all.
Only twelve primal shapes could contain an elemental conjuration: the animals of the shengxiao zodiac, the foundation of every Tangren master’s repertoire. Goat, Rabbit, Pig; Tiger, Horse, Dog; Snake, Rooster, Ox; Monkey, Dragon, and Rat.
I had to call the Dragon, rider-of-mists and bringer-of-rains, the most dangerous of all.
I shaped a hollow in the caramel with my fourth finger and stretched it funnel-long. Snipping away excess candy with a bite, I blew into the thin sugar-pipe, making the bulbous end expand, but this time I laced the breath with half of my soul like Iron-Crutch Li of the Eight Immortals.
