2014 Campbellian Anthology

by Various

  (A sudden slowing. The wordless, plaintive tune recurred, and Athba drew herself back, returning to the menacing voice she had at the first. There was a new tone in it, too, a bittersweet acceptance.)

  Keloth had won, but the bleeding was too heavy, and from too many wounds. Knowing nothing could save him, he refused the attentions of healers. Instead he sat down by the remains of the glass dragon and murmured to it.

  He died smiling, without regrets.

  • • •

  Athba held her pose for a moment as the strings died away. Then Keloth applauded, and the rest of the room followed suit.

  She curtsied, breathing a sigh of relief. She always worried that one day she would have nothing new to say about the single word, “GLASS,” no remaining way to satisfy the court’s morbid tastes. But that day had not yet come.

  A whirring servitor rolled over to Keloth, clearing his plate and depositing a plate of lime ice. Keloth picked at it, but his eyes rested on the musicians. “Athba, will you do something for me?”

  Another silly question. “I am at your service, my lord.”

  “A week from today, Lady Irathi arrives to discuss an alliance against Lord Ulan. Compose and perform one of your songs for her.”

  “My lord?”

  “A deathsong. That is what you do best. The words on which to expand are ‘BLUE FEVER.’ That is all.”

  Athba’s rather hefty stomach turned to ice. Morbid lords like Keloth could commission their own Deathsongs as much as they liked. But to commission them for someone else? This was never done. Lords of the same standing never mentioned each other’s deaths. It would be taken as a threat: I know how you will die. I can make it happen quickly if you like.

  But one did not say no to Lord Keloth—particularly not when one had gone to the clacking clockwork machine in the highest tower and spilled one’s own blood. Keloth had seen the parchment predicting Athba’s death before permitting even Athba to read. He rarely passed up an opportunity to remind her, or any of his other servitors, that he knew what would kill them.

  “I will do as my lord commands,” said Athba, and she wondered if this next deathsong would be her last.

  • • •

  “Can you believe it?” Athba said later in the practice room. She paced through mountains of unattended sheet music, scattering paper through the velvet chamber. Nanu could not even control her frizzy red hair, let alone the volumes of paper she needed, but she was a good confidante for all that. “Because I can’t.”

  Nanu shrugged her scrawny shoulders. “I heard that Lady Irathi never commissions Deathsongs at all. But I’m sure Keloth has something planned. He wouldn’t throw away an alliance just to amuse himself.”

  Maybe not, Athba thought, but he would certainly throw away a courtier who displeased him. The deathsinger before Athba had once sang a deathsong in which Keloth was dragged across shards of glass while comically tangled in his horse’s reins. He was forgiven, or so people whispered, for the grisly description, but not for making Keloth look foolish. In any case, no one ever heard from him again.

  If Irathi was displeased, Athba would go the same way.

  “I heard she kept her death secret so no one could use it against her. I’m surprised he even managed to find it. Why’s he blurting it out in front of the whole court?”

  Nanu chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe she’s changed her mind. You remember how you got when you first had your death read. It takes some getting used to, you know? It is morbid.”

  “These are morbid times.”

  Athba’s death, predicted by the clockwork machine, was “GRAPES". She had avoided fruit with amused horror for several weeks, but she couldn’t keep it up. Keloth made a point of serving Athba his best wines. Not as a punishment, he said. Merely to keep her on her toes.

  Nanu did not know her own death, or claimed not to, though Keloth assuredly knew it. She had closed her eyes while the machine spun its clacking gears, telling the lord she preferred uncertainty. He had humored her by making everything uncertain: requesting new music at the last minute, hinting that they might or might not be employed in the future. Nanu seemed not to mind.

  “And ‘BLUE FEVER’. It’s such an unromantic disease. How am I supposed to sing about that?”

  Nanu took Athba’s hands and brushed her thumbs against the singer’s palms. Though Nanu was the younger of the two, there was something motherly in her smile. “You’ll think of something, and I’ll help with the arrangement. Keloth’s always enjoyed what you do. I’d trust him.”

  • • •

  In her quarters, Athba started with lyrics. She gnawed nervously at an apple with her left hand while she scribbled with her right, and crumpled page after page. She knew the signs of blue fever: discolored skin, boils, slow suffocation. It was not pretty like “GLASS", nor pleasurable like “GRAPES". With a dramatic framing story, it might have pleased Keloth. But not a squeamish woman who kept her death under lock and key.

  “One day in an infirmary…”

  No. What would Irathi be doing in an infirmary, when she knew the risks?

  “When Irathi’s father…”

  That went into the wastebasket straightaway. Bad enough to have to do this for a squeamish Irathi; even worse to threaten her family.

  “Without warning, without sign…”

  She worked on that one for a little while, leaving her apple to go brown at the side of the desk. It almost worked. Irathi contracted the fever for no reason, through no fault of her own, and everyone clucked over the tragedy while…

  While what? While she resigned herself to a senseless and pointless death? While she learned there was some cosmic reason she had to die? No. If Athba had learned one thing during her patronage, it was not to bring philosophy into it. No one would enjoy the song, and everyone would start to worry about free will or inevitability, whichever happened to scare them more.

  Athba’s mind wandered to her family. What would they say if she failed and died? She could picture her father’s lined, jowly face, though she hadn’t had time to go see him in months. I told her not to take the offer of patronage, he would say. And her rosy-cheeked mother would nod: All the money but constant murder. Not a fair trade in my book. Poor dear.

  At last she threw down her notebook and stormed back to Nanu.

  • • •

  “He’s going to kill me.”

  “Hm?” Nanu looked up, pausing in the middle of a scale, and put down her violin carefully, brushing piles of sheet music aside to make room.

  Athba collapsed into a wrought iron chair. “I’ve figured it out. He’s too proud to ally with Lady Irathi, but doesn’t want to lose face for turning her down. So I sing a Deathsong, she storms out, and the blame goes to me. Keloth kills me with grapes, he’s rid of Irathi, and no one blames him. Then Lord Ulan rides in, takes over both holdings and impales everyone.”

  “Oh, sweetie, that doesn’t even make sense. For one thing, I think he likes you too much to kill you. For another, if he blames it on you, and Lord Ulan keeps pressing in at Irathi’s borders, she’ll want an alliance anyway, once you’re gone.”

  “So maybe he keeps me around, or… I don’t know. But I can’t make blue fever sound nice.”

  “Who said it has to sound nice? Keloth never liked them nice. Remember the one where he drank ground glass and vomited blood?”

  Athba grimaced. She remembered. Keloth had applauded, and then sent a hooded assassin to her quarters in the night. Not to kill her, or even to scare her, but to explain that ground glass didn’t work that way.

  “And the one with the molten glass and the angry glassblower? That one made me shudder. But he loved it.”

  “Yes.” Athba took a few deep breaths, forcing her shoulders to relax. “But Irathi’s not Keloth.”

  “That’s the point. You don’t really know what she likes. It’s Keloth who will decide if you live or die. So write it the way he would like. Let him worry about the rest.”

  “He’
ll still kill me.” Athba slumped, then straightened again, as the wrought iron chair back dug into her shoulders. Keloth did not furnish his servants’ quarters with comfort in mind. “I’m sorry. You’re right, of course.”

  She still thought that Keloth planned to drive off Lady Irathi and blame it on her. But what did that matter? If he had plans for her, how could she stop them? Better to stop worrying. Better to be morbid, like everyone, until death ceased to frighten.

  • • •

  Lady Irathi rode in on a horseless carriage, traveling by some obscure magic of its own, and strode into Lord Keloth’s banquet hall with her retinue trailing behind. Her courtiers peered at the blood-red tapestries and copper silverware. Lady Irathi was sharp-chinned and bright-eyed, and wore a long, trailing dress in pale green. Cold seemed to follow in her footsteps.

  “Eat,” Nanu muttered to Athba, before she launched into an instrumental serenade, the kind that dining guests could listen to or ignore as they chose. “You’ll feel better with food.” But Athba did not feel ready for food. The wine was even worse: looking at it sickened her. She barely heard anything until Keloth called her name.

  “Athba.” From the impatience in his voice, it might be the second time he’d said it. “Won’t you sing for our guest?”

  She forced herself upright and strode to the front of the hall. She could not feel her feet touching the floor. Keloth’s courtiers whispered to each other; no doubt they knew why she was worried. But Lady Irathi’s retinue kept quiet. Athba kept her face as serene as she could, though her heart hammered. She was a trained performer, after all. She could hide fear.

  She took a deep breath and began.

  • • •

  “Plague!” This time she did not start low and menacing, but urgent. The violinists cantered to keep up.

  “Plague in the towns,

  Plague in the fields and the city

  Blue skin bringing death swift and sure.

  Wails of despair,

  But wise women whisper

  That there is a cure…”

  Athba widened her eyes and waved her hands, letting the anxiety of a blue fever epidemic fill the room—though she could not allow it to influence her lungs or throat. The sound must come up free, full and pleasing. She kept her own anxiety locked up in the back of her mind. Her expression came not from her heart, but from a place she pictured behind and to the right of her, a repository for imaginary emotions.

  Only when the prophecy of a cure appeared did the tempo slacken slightly. Nanu brought in a sweet, hopeful countermelody. But the cure could only be delivered by Lady Irathi’s hands, and only with the aid of a particular emerald-green flower.

  The song became a quest-song, leaping along in hope and fear. Lady Irathi endured magical trials, found the flower, and went from house to house, laying a petal on each fevered brow. When the fevers began to flee, Nanu’s melody leapt in outright joy, though the other violinists played short, tense notes underneath. It was not yet over.

  There was always a catch.

  When the plague had all but run its course, Lady Irathi began to notice blue marks on her skin. And the emerald-green flower could only be used to heal others.

  The violins slowed.

  The song became a stately, reverent dirge. The whole land praised the dying Lady. She raved, choked, withered before their eyes, and they only loved her more. Irathi, said the people in Athba’s Deathsong, was a saint.

  That is how it ended: on a soft, high note and a prayerful arpeggio, and in awe.

  • • •

  Athba forced herself not to try to gauge Lady Irathi’s reaction, not even in the ringing silence after the last note.

  No one applauded. Everyone knew Lady Irathi’s dislike of Deathsongs. Everyone but Athba was watching her face.

  And in the silence, Lady Irathi chuckled.

  “Lord Keloth,” she said, clapping slowly. “I heard you were terribly morbid. I see that it’s true. But you have given me a wonderful gift: a chance to forget. To escape into someone else’s death, brought by a disease entirely unlike the one fated for me.”

  Athba stared. Everyone stared but Keloth, who perched there, smiling, not surprised in the least. Lady Irathi ascended the steps to him, leaving a chill in her wake.

  “Now, then,” she said, “I think we have an alliance to discuss.”

  • • •

  Athba collapsed against the wall in Nanu’s practice room, accidentally scattering a pile of rehearsal pencils. “I can’t believe it wasn’t her real death. And he didn’t tell me. I can’t believe he put me through that!”

  “I can,” Nanu said cheerily. “He loves this kind of thing. Keeping you on your toes, hmm?”

  Nanu and her musicians had kept the wine going all night. Even Athba felt good. After the alliance was settled, Keloth had showered the group with gold. Athba especially.

  Nanu drained her wineglass. Athba paused for a split second, knowing Nanu had nothing to fear from “GRAPES", then recklessly downed her own. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

  “Not tomorrow if I can help it,” said Nanu. “So what are you spending your gold on?”

  “Savings. In case I survive.”

  They exchanged grins. It was mostly true. But she had set aside a little for her family, too, and a little to spruce up her quarters. A more comfortable chair. Better lamps. And a little piece of art for the wall. A stained glass rendering of a cluster of grapes on the vine, for inspiration.

  After all, these were morbid times.

  AND ALL THE FATHOMLESS CROWDS

  by Ada Hoffmann

  First published in Dead North (2013), edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  • • • •

  Queen’s University

  Department of Survival

  SURV 110

  Final Examination

  April 21, 2031

  Professor Lita Yao

  Name: Sandra Chakarvarthi

  Student Number: 1715-5730

  Written Component, Part 1

  Q. When is it advisable to use deadly force against a Non-Mind?

  A. When you are threatened, and not before. Attempting to exterminate Non-Minds on sight is a sign of Romero Disorder. In the days immediately after 12/12, many human survivors developed this disorder. The sheer number of Non-Minds overwhelmed them, and each human died of exhaustion mid-rampage—if the Non-Minds didn’t get them first. Arguably, Romero Disorder itself is a form of Mindlessness.

  Practical Component, Part 1

  FIVE HOURS, forty minutes, and fifty-eight seconds to go.

  Your first destination is City Hall, and you’ve picked a lakeside route because that’s what gets you top marks: Professor Yao needs to know you can deal with any terrain. There are plenty of creatures on land who cannot enter running water. But there are creatures in the water as well. You split the difference and jog along the wave-lapped rocks, past the Time Statue, which was once a pair of simple metal blocks but nowadays dances to its own irregular ticking sounds, half-melted. Sunlight glints off the water, drawing your eye to the storklike walk of the windmills on the other side.

  First lesson: Apart from the insides of Certified Homes, everything is alive.

  Confidence is more important than speed. You can’t look like you’re fleeing. So you jog along, not too fast, and fix the thought deep in your centre. I am safe in this place. I refuse to be afraid.

  It’s not like you haven’t walked this route before. Even walking from your residence to the classroom is a form of practice. All year you’ve gathered your friends on assignments and walked all around the city: visiting shut-ins in their Certified Homes, harvesting resources from emergency stores, gaping at the beauty of the lake and the old buildings. But alone, with the clock ticking and your grades at stake, the trip gives you jitters.

  I refuse to be afraid.

  A tentacle of pure water rises out of the waves and gestures to you. You wave back, but don’t look at it long
. Be polite, says the rule, but don’t get them too interested. The tentacle dissolves back into the lake.

  A few blocks on, a small crowd of Purples emerges from City Park. You see Purples at least once a week around campus: violet-skinned, young and beautiful, except for the matted, paint-colored hair. You wrote your ANTH 101 midterm essay on Purples, on how they retain just enough Mind to ape human sociality. They crawl out from the trees, howling and hooting and slapping their jackets on the ground. One calls to you.

  “Oil Thigh na Banrighinn!” It’s the only thing Purples ever say.

  It’s a crapshoot with Purples. You can ignore them and risk their ire. Or you can interact—even a little—and risk being swarmed.

  I refuse to be afraid.

  “A’Banrighinn!” you call back, grinning jauntily. Not breaking stride. Making it clear you’re on your way someplace else.

  The Purples cheer, and the rhythmic thunk of jackets slapping on the ground follows you all the way to the harbourfront, where twist-sailed boats mutter unintelligibly to each other. When the sound dies away, you glance over your shoulder: they aren’t following. Not a threat.

  You look forwards again and there’s a dead woman standing there.

  You freeze. You stare. You’ve heard of zombies before, but never seen one up close. She’s not pretty like Purples, not ethereal like the tentacle. She’s foul-smelling and swollen and bluish, with a rigor-mortis smile. Bits of her have come off or rotted away: you can see the bones of her knuckles.

  You’ve seen other disgusting things since you came of age and left your Certified Home. The disgust by itself would not stop you. You stop because you know those eyes. You know the red sari she wore to your sending-off, which the robots dressed her in again before they lowered her body into the earth.

  You’re suddenly not thinking of the exam rules at all.

  You open your mouth:

  “Mom?”

  Written Component, Part 2

  Q. Briefly list the major known causes of Non-Mundane Events, including the creation and control of Non-Minds, and explain the implications for the Minded.