The Book of the Emissaries: An Animism Short Fiction Anthology

by Kevin J. Anderson

  William shook his head. “I don’t want to shoot pigeons. I want to shoot Frenchmen, like father. I’m going to be a hero just like him.”

  “Tomorrow,” Thomas said. He walked over to the soft chair he’d made last summer and sat down heavily. “For now this hero needs a little nap.” He let his eyes drift closed, warmed more by the closeness of his wife and son than by the fire itself.

  “Nice family,” a voice said.

  Thomas woke up with a start. “Damn you, Reynard. Do you drug me every time we meet?”

  Reynard kicked dirt over the leaves to put out the small flame. “Your dreams sound perfectly pleasant. How is William, by the way?”

  Thomas smiled. “Sixteen and already the best archer in the county. Robert’s coming along too, and Elizabeth is pregnant with our third.”

  “Sounds delightful,” Reynard said, in a voice that made it quite clear he couldn’t care less.

  Thomas pushed himself up from the ground. “So it’s over, then, this trick of yours? You fooled me into fighting in three wars and in exchange I got a family and a nice cottage? You must really hate the French, Reynard.”

  “I don’t give one whit about the French. Besides, it seems to me that you got a fair trade in return, doesn’t it?”

  It was, Thomas knew, more than fair. He loved his family, and, truth be told, he was proud of his service in the wars. A life that could have been about nothing more than scraping the next season’s meagre crops from the dirt had become one of plenty.

  And yet . . .

  Even after all these years, there was still a knot in Thomas’s stomach when he thought back to the day Sir Hamond had taken half his father’s lands. Some wounds never seemed to truly heal. “When do I get to kill Sir Hamond?” he asked.

  Reynard was deeply occupied in carefully arranging a leaf on the ground. “Hmm? Oh, him.” He shrugged. “You don’t kill him. Actually, you end up reasonably good friends with Hamond, all things considered. He gifts your family with quite a substantial plot of land and, when you die, it’s he who pays for the bronze plaque on the cathedral floor in Cragston that will bear your name. It’ll be quite pretty, and say, ‘Here lies Thomas of Braiden, The Archer.’ Your sons and daughters will be buried there, too, with their names alongside yours. And everyone who visits the cathedral will look at the plaque and wonder, who was this man they called ‘the archer’?”

  It was a remarkable thing, Thomas thought, but the casual, almost dismissive way Reynard said it made him angry. “So all those years ago when you told me you’d bet this Wetiko person that I would kill Sir Hamond, it was really just a trick to get me to live a better life?”

  Reynard put down the small squirrel he’d been gently petting and gave Thomas a look of utter disbelief. “Are you absolutely mad?” He asked. “You think I care one whit about whether you have money or family or fame? I thought we agreed this was about revenge.”

  “You’re not making any sense!” Thomas shouted. “What the hell do you mean by revenge? This was all a trick!”

  “Of course it was a trick. Look at the wind.”

  Frustrated, Thomas turned to stare at the breeze blowing the leaves on the trees. “Fine, I’m looking at the wind.”

  “Not the leaves, silly. The wind.”

  “No one can see the wind,” Thomas said, turning back to Reynard. “It’s—”

  Reynard blew straight into Thomas’s eyes. Suddenly Thomas could see the years flying past him. Springs and Summers and Falls and Winters, spinning round and round. The grass grew and died and grew again as fifty years passed by. Then the air became still, and Thomas looked out onto a wide field between two forests. “Another battle,” he said, trying to sound unimpressed. This time Thomas wasn’t even part of the battle—he was above it. But what he saw horrified him: French soldiers, thousands upon thousands of them, marching against a force of Englishmen barely one quarter their number. Over a thousand knights on horseback charging English longbowmen. The archers were terrified—certain that they faced steel-helmeted death coming right for them. Thomas tried to call out to them, to encourage them. Fight, he wanted to say. We’re archers. Longbowmen. We fear no knights! Then he saw a dark-haired young man, standing there in the midst of the other archers, standing firm and shouting the very words Thomas had longed to speak. The young man fired an arrow three hundred yards into the neck of a French knight. Without a moment’s hesitation, he nocked another arrow and fired again, and again, and again, and . . .

  “Who was that man?” Thomas asked, still watching the battle unfold.

  “Your grandson,” Reynard answered.

  “My grandson? But . . .”

  “The year is 1415, as your people will reckon it. The place is a lovely field surrounded by woodland called Agincourt.”

  “And the knights?” Thomas asked. “There were so many of them!”

  “Destroyed. Utterly. Thousands of wealthy men in armour, convinced they can’t be defeated, taken apart by peasants with sticks and lengths of string.”

  Thinking back to the young, dark-haired man, standing so tall and brave amongst all those other archers brought a flush of pride to Thomas’s heart. “So what we started, all those years ago . . . it wins the war for us in this Agincourt place you showed me?” Thomas turned to see Reynard gesticulating wildly in an effort to coax a caterpillar to go left instead of right along a ridge of soil.

  “What? No, of course not. Wars are complicated things. Lots of moving parts. Like legs on a centipede or . . . a caterpillar.” The fox-faced man seemed to find that funny. “Besides, what do I care about which country wins or loses a war? The whole thing is silly if you think about it.”

  “Then—“

  “The knights. They’re the ones who truly lose that battle.” Reynard grinned. “Well, the knights and Wetiko, of course."

  “The knights? Won’t there just be others to replace them?”

  Reynard shook his head, though Thomas wasn’t entirely clear whether it was in response to his question or to the new direction the caterpillar was taking.

  “The knights will disappear from this world not long after Agincourt,” Reynard said. “And I will have proven once and for all that all this progress nonsense Wetiko prattles on about means nothing compared to the wild ways of the world.”

  The wild ways of the world. Certainly life had proven itself to be unpredictable, but Thomas couldn’t imagine a world without knights, strutting about in their armour, cutting people down and taking whatever they wanted. No, he realized suddenly. I really can see it now. “So that’s been your plan all along. Even though I never got to kill Sir Hamond . . .”

  Reynard raised a finger in the air. “You were very clear with me, Thomas. You said, ‘I want revenge on the knight.’” He smiled. “You didn’t say which one. Wetiko was equally clear when he said, ‘The boy will never kill the knight.’”

  All those years, Thomas thought, and despite himself, he nearly broke out laughing. But then he saw Reynard’s features become grim, and for the first time Thomas thought the other man might be capable of violence.

  “They are vain, and violent, these malicious worms in their steel carapaces. They hide behind words like honour and chivalry even as they wreak havoc—and not the good kind, mind you—on the earth and all her children. I’ve watched them pillage and murder their way across one continent and into another, all the while telling themselves it’s a god’s work they do. They offend me. Wetiko thought his little metal men couldn’t be stopped. Well, you and I and your heirs will prove him wrong.”

  Thomas felt his knees go a little weak from the enormity of it all. “So all those years ago when you told me to go fight in Sluys, that caused the end of the knights? Forever?”

  Reynard laughed. “Oh, it’s never quite as simple as that, Thomas. But you’ve been a part of it. An important part. A truly admirable trick requires many pieces—all in their perfect place—to work its magic.” Reynard gave a grin then, and for a moment, with his russet
hair and pointy features, looked more fox than man. “And this, I’m sure you’ll agree, has been a most magnificent trick.”

  The Seven Thousand Year Chase – Part III

  by Jordan Ellinger

  If the time I’d spent travelling with Zahra had passed quickly, the following years passed quicker still. By the year 1518 I had nearly lost hope of catching Penarddun. I’d heard stories of his interference in events all over the world, but no one seemed to realize that he was an impostor, not even Wetiko or the Mother, my sister goddess. I wasn’t even sure it mattered to them anymore. Penarddun had grown into his power. For all intents and purposes I was the pretender now.

  I went with Cortes to the New World because I’d heard of an Aztec Trickster god named Huehuecoyotl and, though I was in the grips of despair, I’d chased Penarddun for so many years that I knew not what else to do. I chased him out of habit.

  Hernan Cortes was a large man with dark, piercing eyes and a square-cut beard. He dressed plainly, despite his august position as mayor of Santiago in Cuba. He had a fondness for the colour blue, which I knew was because he’d been chosen as an agent of Wetiko.

  Cortes was as hungry for power and wealth as Baryoom and Hox the Younger were before him – it was a trait that all of Wetiko’s Emissaries shared. I’d opposed Hox because he had attacked my people, and Baryoom because I’d hoped to regain the mask, but having failed to catch Penarddun both times, this time I thought I might try working with Wetiko instead of against him.

  I knew from my experience with Baryoom that the Emissaries of my ancient enemy couldn’t sense me in the way that I could sense them, so I used my skills and a touch of power to secure a position as Cortes’s secretary. We gathered a fleet of eleven ships and 500 men and travelled by a tangled path to Veracruz where he scuttled his ships. When I asked him why, he told me it was to “inspire the troops.” They were indeed inspired, as anything less than complete obedience meant being left behind in a hostile land with no way of returning to Cuba.

  From there, we journeyed through inland Mexico towards the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, and all the while Cortes gathered allies to him like moths to a flame. He made lavish promises to local tribes and they quickly joined him. By the time we reached Lake Texcoco, the vast lake which was home to the island where the Aztecs had built their capital city, over three thousand natives had joined us.

  Wetiko’s methods were an education for me.

  As the Trickster, I had travelled the world by myself, meddling in human affairs whenever I felt like it. Wetiko, on the other hand, chose charismatic Emissaries who already held some small amount of power and then showed them how to use it to conquer vast lands and bring thousands of people under His sway. Like snowballs dropped at the top of a mountain, their power multiplied many times as they travelled downhill until sooner or later they became an avalanche.

  I mused that if I simply helped Wetiko take over the whole world, Penarddun would have nowhere left to hide.

  The city of Tenochtitlan was as magnificent as any I’d seen. Small buildings were flung across the surface of the lake Texcoco, towers of masonry and floating rafts with only docks and catwalks to unite them. Three great causeways that led from the shore to the main island dwarfed them all, arteries to the small capillaries that united the townships. Each was wide enough for ten horses to trot side by side and were held aloft by massive stone columns that disappeared into the lake. It was an impressive feat of engineering, but the palace of Moctezuma was more impressive still. A great stone building many stories tall, and pyramidal in shape, it lay at the very centre of the three causeways. If they were the arteries of the Aztec Empire, then here was its heart.

  In no small part thanks to the army he had amassed on the lakeshore, Cortes received an invitation from the Emperor to travel there with twenty of his men. We were met at the city’s gates, each the size of the elephants I’d seen in Persia, and brought to one of His Majesty’s zoos for a tour.

  Ten pools were arrayed on either side of the path. The ones to our left, our guide explained, were fresh water. We could see many colourful fish in their depths, as well as other animals such as snakes and turtles. The ones to our right were filled with salt water, and were home to different varieties of fish, as well as saltwater crocodiles and even a dolphin. The differences between fish species were subtle and I admit that if I had not been told, I might not have been able to tell which were fresh water and which were salt.

  It was during the tour that I first sensed a presence I’d not felt for decades. There were performers in the courtyard, many of them dressed in flamboyant costumes – jaguar warriors, parrots, even fish. I could not tell which of them was the source of the familiar presence, so I left the group as our guide was regaling Cortes with tales about the ferociousness of the piranha fish and followed my instincts.

  I caught sight of a woman in the crowd. Her hair was the colour of a raven’s wing and she had bound it in a headdress of eagle feathers. To complement it, she wore a style of ornamented red blouse and skirt the women here called a cueitl huipilli. In addition to her red dress, she wore elaborate red and black eye shadow that sparkled in the sun. Her features were bird-like, large keen eyes that seemed to hold you in place until she looked away, and a hooked nose that was slightly too large for her face. She was beautiful and, though she was a creature of bright colours, and Zahra a woman of blacks and whites, I was still reminded of my former love. I could not tell you why.

  I caught up with her behind a jaguar cage made from iron and stone and, as we spoke, I could sometimes hear the animals pacing inside

  “Your name is Lugh, is it not?” she asked me.

  I was caught off guard by the question. I had not used that name for many eons. “My lady, you have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Alonso de la Cuesta.”

  She grasped one of the chains of beads that hung from her dress and twisted it between two fingers. “Really? Then where, may I ask, did you learn to speak Nahuatl?”

  I winced. I had been so captivated by this woman that I’d forgotten to hide my ability to speak and understand other languages. “I – ”

  “You are Lugh of Brodgar’s Ness, and I am Inex of Tenochtitlan.” She curtsied as a European might, and I knew that I was not dealing with just any Aztec woman.

  “You are a Defender of the Mother. I should have guessed. Wetiko’s followers prefer the colour blue, while hers adorn themselves in red.”

  “And yours choose yellow.”

  “I have no followers now. I follow others.” I looked back at Cortes’s group. They had moved on to a new cage that enclosed a small copse of trees. Something I could not quite make out moved among the branches. A monkey perhaps. “I should get back to them.”

  “What are you doing with Wetiko, Lugh?” she asked sadly. “He intends to conquer this place and my people will never recover.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps that is the way it was meant to be.”

  She took my hand and I nearly recoiled from the sense of human touch. “We need your help, Lugh. Wetiko has grown too strong for the Mother to resist by herself.”

  “You want the Trickster. Not me.” I thought I might turn away, but she wouldn’t release my hand.

  “Penarddun is not here. You are.”

  I stared into her eyes and felt something stirring inside me that I hadn’t felt in many years. Something I hadn’t felt since Mumbai. “I have very little pull with Cortes...” I said.

  Inex glanced over my shoulder. “I must go. Meet me at the Old Houses at Axayacatl after the sun sets.” She let my hand drop and then turned and dashed down the narrow alley between cages. A jaguar screamed in the enclosure next to me and a hand fell on my shoulder.

  “What are you looking at, my friend?” Hernan Cortes’s words were friendly, but he wore a suspicious expression and he stared down the passageway.

  “Tours bore me,” I said. “I was hoping to get a closer look at the jaguars, but they don’t seem to be in the mood
to perform today.”

  Hernan glanced into the animal enclosure and then turned his gaze on the palace itself. “They’re animals, Alonso. If they won’t perform, you need to make them.”

  Moctezuma was not the king I expected to meet after witnessing the opulence of his palace. He was physically strong, a warrior king though he bore no scars. His face was long and thin and he had cropped his hair just above his ears, a style we’d seen imitated in many of his guards. He was clean, his skin was free from blemishes, and he smelled like soap. This, I was told, was because he and many of the Aztecs we met scrubbed themselves with the fruit of the copalxocotl tree during their twice daily baths.

  Canez, his high priest, was the polar opposite of his liege. He was fat and he dyed his teeth red with cochineal – powdered insect husks which the Aztec treasured. He wore his hair long and since he refused to bathe after a sacrifice it was constantly matted with blood. Here, claimed Cortes, was the evidence that the Aztecs were a nation of heathens and devil-worshippers.

  We were introduced in Moctezuma’s throne room, an impressive chamber at the top of his palace that looked out over the lake. He sat on a throne of gold and his high priest stood just behind his left shoulder. Certainly, to the Spaniards, it might have looked like an angel sat before them and Death stood close behind.

  “Your army is made up of tribes that dislike me. And my scouts tell me that you have fifteen cannons,” said Moctezuma.

  Cortes smiled, and I can tell you truly that it was not a crocodile’s smile. He had a terrible ability to appear genuine no matter the lie he was speaking. “My army is composed of both our peoples,” he said through a female translator who had joined our group some months ago. “Our cause unites them. And the cannons are there for defensive purposes only. I have heard about your exploits in the North. You are a warrior of some renown.”

  The Emperor showed no inclination to respond to the flattery. “What do you want with my city, Hernan Cortes?”