21st Century Science Fiction

by D B Hartwell

  It had been a long time since I had been the subject of even implied ridicule. Not many willingly mock a demon of the scorched desert. I had chosen one of my more forbidding guises before I opened the door. My skin was black as the sand, my naked body sexually ambiguous and covered with thousands of tiny horns that swiveled in whatever direction I looked. The horns had been one of Charm’s ideas—the kind he gets when he’s drunk on saltwater. At his request, I wore them on this occasion—the one day each cycle when I accept supplicants. I had thought that my appearance be appropriately awe-inspiring, and yet from the look in the not-quite-a-man’s eyes, I realized that he had not been inspired to awe. I growled to cover my uneasiness—what creature is this?

  I stormed back inside the house, sulfur gas streaming from between the growing cracks in my skin. The mist groaned when it touched me and then receded. I didn’t need to look back at the man to know that he hadn’t moved. Inside, door shut, I changed my appearance again. I became monstrous, a blue leviathan of four heads and sixteen impossible arms. I shook my wrists in succession, so the bracelets made of human teeth clacked and cascaded in a sinister echo off the walls of my castle.

  Yes, I thought, faces snarling, this should do.

  I stepped forward to open the door again and saw Mahi’s face on the floor beneath me, grinning in two-dimensional languor.

  “You look nice,” he said. “Some upstart at the door? Drop him in the maw, Naeve. I’m sure it’s been some time since she’s had a nice meal.”

  The maw is Mahi’s mother, but she rejected him because he can only move in two dimensions. She considered him defective, but I have found his defect to be occasionally very useful. He vents his anger by suggesting I toss every supplicant across the scorched desert into her mouth. I did once, nearly three hundred cycles ago, just for his benefit, but we could all hear the sound of her chewing and mating and screaming in some kind of inscrutable ecstasy for days.

  Two of my faces snarled down at him, one looked away and the fourth just sighed and said, “Perhaps.” The maw is all the way on the Eastern border of the desert, but that day her screams pierced as though she were gifting it to our ears—some property of the sand, I suppose. Charm, Top and I nearly went crazy, but Mahi seemed to enjoy it. My family is closer to me than the Trunk ever was, but I know no more about their previous lives than what they choose to tell me. I often wonder what Mahi’s life was like inside the maw.

  He faded into the floor, off in some two-dimensional direction I couldn’t see. I stepped back outside.

  The man was still there, absolutely motionless despite the veritable riot of mist-shapes that struggled to entangle him. My uneasiness returned: what is he? When he saw me, his eyes widened. No other muscles moved, and yet I knew. Oh, for that economy of expression. Even my malleable body could not convey with a hundred gestures the amusement and understanding and wary appreciation he expressed with a simple contraction of eye muscles. I did not scare him.

  “Who are you?” I used my smallest head and turned the others away—the view of him through four sets of eyes was oddly intense, disconcerting. He didn’t answer. “What are you?”

  I turned my head to the deer who was kneeling peacefully at his side. “Why did you bring him, honored one?” I said in the language of the butterfly men.

  The deer looked up, purple eyes lovely enough to break a lesser creature’s heart. Before I saw this man, I would have said that only demons and butterfly men could look in the eyes of a deer and keep their sanity.

  “Because he asked me,” the deer said—gracefully, simply, infuriatingly.

  I went back inside. Because I only had one more chance to get rid of him, I stalked the hallways, screaming and summoning things to toss at the walls. Top absorbed them with her usual equanimity and then turned the walls a shimmering orange—my favorite color. Charm screamed from somewhere near the roof that he was attempting to rest, and could I please keep my temper tantrum to myself? I frowned and finished changing—it was a relief to have one set of eyes again. Some demons enjoy multiplicity, but I’ve always found it exhausting. Top turned that part of the wall into a mirror, so I could see my handiwork.

  “It’s very beautiful,” she said. A hand emerged from the wall and handed me a long piece of embroidered cloth. I wrapped it around my waist, made my aureoles slightly larger and walked to the door.

  The corners of his mouth actually quirked up when he saw me this time, and the understanding in his eyes made me ache. I did not believe it, and yet I did. I walked closer to him, doggedly swaying my mahogany hips, raising my arms and shaking my wrists, which were still encircled with bracelets of human teeth. This close I could see that his skin was unnaturally smooth—the only physical indication that he was something other than human.

  “Come,” I said, my voice pitched low—breathy and seductive in a human sort of way. “Just tell me your name, traveler, and I’ll let you inside.”

  I leaned in closer to him, so our noses nearly touched. “Come,” I whispered, “tell me.”

  His lips quirked again. Bile of frustration and rage choked my all-too-human throat and I began to lose my grip on my body. I could feel it returning to my mundane form, and after a moment I stopped trying to resist. My skin shifted from glowing mahogany to a prosaic cobalt blue. My hair turned wild and red; my second arms grew rapidly beneath the first and my aureoles contracted.

  My skin tingled with frustration and not a little fear—I didn’t need anyone else in my family—but I refused to show it as I took a passing glance in his eyes. No triumph there, not even relief.

  I walked up the stairs, but I didn’t hear his footsteps following.

  “Well,” I said, gesturing with my left hands, “are you coming?”

  The man took a step forward, and then another—he moved as though he were exhausted, or the cold of the maggots and mist had subtly affected him after all.

  “Go home,” he said to the deer, who had risen beside him. “One way or another, I will not need your help when I leave this place.”

  His voice made me want to weep tears so large Charm would dance beneath me, singing as though nectar were falling from the sky. It was uncompromisingly strong, yet tender all the same, as though he had seen too much not to grant anyone the tenderness he had been denied.

  Do not believe it, I told myself, but I was already losing the battle.

  “Are you coming?” I repeated, forced by unexpected emotion into a parody of callous disdain.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. I do not think I could have stood it if all that unexpected tenderness were suddenly directed at me, but he seemed distracted, watching the mist long after the deer had disappeared.

  “What is your name?” I asked, just before I opened the door again. An unlikely gambit, of course, but I had to try.

  Amusement suddenly retuned to his eyes. “I’m called Israphel,” he said.

  • • • •

  Mahi had positioned himself in front of the door in his best impression of three-dimensionality. It nearly worked, if you didn’t look at him too critically, or move. He grew indistinct when viewed from oblique angles, until he disappeared altogether. His appearance was, in some ways, even more malleable than my own. For this occasion he had fashioned himself to look like one of the wildly costumed humans we sometimes saw in our travels: decked entirely in iridescent feathers of saffron and canary yellow, strewn together with beads that glinted in an imagined sunlight.

  “You let him in?” Mahi shrieked, several octaves higher than normal. I’ve often wondered how a two-dimensional creature can create such startlingly loud sounds in a multi-dimensional universe.

  Something in Israphel’s demeanor exuded fascination, though when I looked closely at him I didn’t know how I could tell—his expression was still one of polite interest.

  “The maw’s only son, I presume? I had heard she rejected you, but . . . this is an honor.”

  Mahi sniffed, put out at having been discovered so quickly. Hi
s feathers bristled. “Yes, well. A two-dimensional mouth is not particularly useful for three-dimensional food, is it?” He turned to me, his human mouth stretching and widening as it always did when he was hurt or angry. If it continued to expand, it would settle into a shape even I sometimes found disturbing. Mahi was still, after all, the son of the most feared creature in the scorched desert. He grinned—cruelly—revealing several rows of teeth that appeared to be the silently wailing heads of countless ancient creatures.

  “I’m surprised at you, Naeve,” he said, his voice a studied drawl. “Confounded by a pesky human? Losing your touch, are you?”

  I frowned at him, trying to decide if he was being deliberately obtuse. “He’s not a human, Mahi,” I said carefully.

  Mahi’s face had now been almost entirely subsumed by his hideous mouth, but he still managed to look thoughtful. “No . . . he isn’t, is he? Well, I trust you’ll get rid of him soon.” He folded himself into some inscrutable shape and seemed to disappear.

  Israphel turned to look at me. He smiled, and I felt my skin turning a deeper, more painful shade of blue. For a calculated moment, eyes were transparent as windowpanes: amusement and fascination and just a trace of wonder . . .

  By the Trunk, who is this man?

  “What is my first task, Naeve?” he asked, very gently.

  I turned away and walked blindly down a hall that had not been there a moment before. I didn’t look, but I knew he was following.

  • • • •

  I could practically feel his eyes resting on my back, radiating compassion and equanimity. Out of sheer annoyance, I shifted my body slightly so a gigantic purple eye blinked lazily on my back and then stared straight at him. I had hoped for some kind of reaction—a shriek of surprise, perhaps—but he simply nodded in polite understanding and looked away. His eyes focused on the indigo walls, and he jerked, ever so slightly, in surprise. For a moment I wished for a mouth as big and savage as Mahi’s to grin with. I knew he had noticed the gentle rippling of Top’s smooth muscles. Israphel looked sharply at my back, but my third eye was beginning to make me feel dizzy, so I subsumed it back into my flesh. No use, I could still sense him.

  I ran my hand along Top’s indigo gizzards and silently drew the symbol for where I wanted to go. The walls shivered a little in her surprise—it had been nearly a hundred cycles since I had last visited there. But I needed to get rid of this not-a-man quickly, and it was in Top’s second appendix that I had saved my cleverest, most wildly impossible task. Even Israphel, with all of his jade green understanding and hard-won wisdom would not be able to solve it.

  A light blue membrane slammed across the corridor a few feet ahead of us, blocking the path. Seconds later, a torrent of unidentifiable waste roared just behind it, smelling of freshly digested nematodes and one-eyed birds. Top tried her best, but it was difficult to keep things clean this deep in her bowels. As soon as the last of the waste had gone past, the membrane pulled back and we continued. I surreptitiously glanced at Israphel, but his expression was perfectly bland. Too bland? I wasn’t quite sure. Top shunted her waste past us several more times before we reached the entrance to her second appendix. The air here smelled funny, not quite foul but still capable of coating your throat with a thick, decaying mustiness.

  “Are you sure about this, Naeve?” Top asked, just before she opened the membranous gate. “It’s taking a lot of energy to shunt the digestive flows around you. I’m having difficulty keeping things up. Charm is complaining that his bed feels like cartilage.”

  “Charm always complains. Let us in.”

  Israphel paused before the open membrane. “Are you from the scorched desert?” he asked, addressing the walls as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  I could tell that Top was just as mesmerized by his eyes as I was. Of course, she had always loved eyes—mostly for eating. Perhaps I’ll give his to her as a treat once he fails the task—but the thought made me unexpectedly ill.

  “No,” Top said. “I’m the first of Naeve’s family. She found me on another world.”

  Israphel frowned, such an unprecedented expression that it had the impact of a fiery declamation. “Another universe?” he said.

  “I’m not sure. It’s been many triads. You have quite beautiful eyes.”

  Israphel must have heard the predatory overtones, but he simply smiled and thanked her. Irrationally annoyed, I stepped through the opening into the chamber. Israphel followed me, glancing at the pulsing yellow walls and then the enormous heaps of bric-a-brac that littered the space. Some, including the one for my impossible task, had been there for countless cycles, but they were all immaculately clean. Dust was one of Top’s favorite things to eat, which was one of the many reasons that made her an excellent castle.

  I summoned the object to me—a fantastic, mysterious device that I had discovered on my travels and had saved for just this sort of emergency. In the far corner of the room something crashed to the floor as my object began its slow, lumbering way towards us. The humans of whatever place I had found it clearly hadn’t designed their objects for summoning—it moved gingerly, as though its stubby wooden legs or wide, dark glass screen were in danger of breaking. It had a dark brown tail made of some strange smooth-shiny material that was forked at the end.

  I had wanted to destroy his easy composure, and yet I still wasn’t prepared for his reaction when he saw the object laboring towards him. He shook with laughter, his hands opening and closing as though they were desperate to hold onto something. He laughed, and yet his eyes nearly seared me. Top gave a sort of giggle-sigh that made the walls shudder. Was it the pain lurking behind his eyes that had made them so beautiful? But the pain wasn’t lurking anymore, it was pouring and splashing and nearly drowning both of us. I looked away—what else could I do?

  He stopped laughing almost as abruptly as he started, with a physical wrench of his neck. “Where did you find this?” he asked quietly. It had stopped in front of him and shuddered to a halt.

  “I don’t really remember. Some human place.”

  He turned to me and smiled. I coughed. “The first human place,” he said.

  I tried to mask my dismay. “Do you recognize it?” I asked. None of my tasks were allowed to be technically impossible, but I had hoped that this one would be about as close as I could get.

  “Yes. They didn’t really look like this, when—yes, I do.”

  “What’s it called?” I asked, intrigued despite myself.

  “A tee-vee. Television. Terebi. Many other things in many other dead languages. So what task have you set me, o demon of the scorched desert?”

  His voice was slightly mocking, but raw, as though he hadn’t quite gotten over the shock.

  “You have to make it work,” I said.

  • • • •

  Back through Top’s lower intestines, he carried it in his arms—carefully, almost lovingly, the way I imagine humans carry their babies. I had often pitied humans because of their static bodies and entirely inadequate one pair of arms, but Israphel did not ask for my help and I did not offer. Awkward though he was, he still managed to look dignified.

  By the time we reached the end of her intestine, Top had managed to redecorate the front parlor. I can’t say I was entirely pleased with the changes—fine, gauzy cloth of all different shades of green draped gently from the ceiling, rippling in an invisible breeze. The floor was solid, but appeared to be the surface of a lake. It reflected the sky of an unknown world—jade green, just like Israphel’s eyes.

  I could have killed her, only it was notoriously difficult to kill a castle. Instead, I felt my skin tinting red, like my hair.

  Israphel gently set the tee-vee down on the rippling lake floor and looked around contemplatively.

  “It’s quite nice,” he said to the ceiling. “I thank you.”

  Top knew how angry I was, so the only response she dared was a kind of wistful “good luck” that made me turn even redder. My own family!


  Perhaps, after all, they wanted a . . .

  I didn’t even want to think of it.

  “You have until first light,” I said curtly, and walked straight into a nearby wall.

  • • • •

  Hours later, when twilight had sunk onto the scorched desert and the maggots were giving their farewell light show as they burrowed deeper into the sand, Charm found me. I knew he was there because of the peculiar smell wafted towards my nose this high in castle—that tang of fresh saltwater could only mean that Charm had been drinking again.

  “He’s interesting, that fellow,” Charm said in a studied drawl.

  “You noticed?” I summoned several balls and began juggling them in intricate patterns—a nervous habit.

  “Not really human, but . . . I mean, he doesn’t smell like one, he doesn’t smell like anything I’ve ever encountered, but he still feels like one. Looks like one. The way he stares at that tee-vee thing of yours? Very human.”

  I nearly fumbled my balls and had to create an extra hand just to keep the pattern going. “He’s succeeding, then? He’ll get it to work?”

  “I don’t know. He isn’t doing anything, just sitting there. But still . . . something’s just funny about him. Powerful, that much is obvious.” He paused. “Mahi is sulking,” he said, after a few moments.

  I let out a brief laugh. “Typical. Does he really think I’ll let this man succeed?”

  “I don’t know, will you?”

  I lost the pattern of the balls entirely, and glared in the direction I guessed Charm was—a challenge even when he wasn’t trying to hide.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I said as the balls clacked and bounced on the floor. “I’ve lived this long without a . . . why would I need him now?”

  Charm laughed and I caught a strong whiff of saltwater. “Why, indeed? But Top was telling me about your fixation with his eyes, his broken nose—”

  “My fixation . . .”