"A life without risks is no life at all, Tim."
* * * *
We go a lot of places, but we can't go everywhere, so we made this little ‘zine, this chain letter, and started sending it around. If you've read this, you already know the important thing: the researchers are lying to us. They've got a hidden agenda. Just having that knowledge in your head helps ruin their study—whatever it is. We hope you'll make a copy of this, handwritten or otherwise if you've still got access to working tech, and that you'll pass it on. Or start digging your own hole, and see if you hit a shortcut, and tell whoever you find on the other side. The shortcuts are all over. Maybe they're part of the experiment, Dawson says it's possible, anything is, the researchers are smarter than us, but he told me something else I take comfort in. He said if we were really a historical simulation before, we were constrained by whatever we'd actually done in our original lives, controlled by historical imperatives. But now history is broken, the future is wide open, and we're free. For the first time, we're free. We'd better start acting like it.
Because this shit can't go on. We're not rats, we're not worms, we're not fruit flies—we're sentient. Maybe the researchers made us that way, but every abused kid should know you don't owe unconditional loyalty to the ones that made you, and our makers haven't earned our respect. So let's fuck up their game. Let's smash their study. Let's break the experiment. Let's climb on our rooftops and shout, “We know, you bastards, we know you're lying to us.” We'll have the world's largest sit in, or the world's biggest riot, and maybe the experimenters will pull the plug on us, or maybe they'll erase our memories and put us back in the old maze to live out our old lives, but the minute they do something—that's when we know we've won.
And even if they just ignore us, hell—what else do you have to do with the time you've got left on this imaginary Earth?
* * * *
On my road trip, I spent a lot of time wondering what happened to the real me. The unsimulated Tim. Did I stay with Heather? Did we get married, have children, were we happy? I've always been fascinated by roads left untaken, possibilities unfulfilled, and now I was living in the ultimate wrong path. I used to write stories about regret and parallel universes and many-worlds theory and the god of the crossroads, and now I'm living in one.
Mostly—and I know it's shallow, but if I can't be honest with the anonymous masses of the world, who can I be honest with?—I wondered whether or not the real me ever became a famous writer. If maybe people even in Professor Fuckwit's time read the books I hadn't quite gotten around to writing yet in late 2001. I always wanted to be a famous writer, or, more specifically, I wanted to be a writer so good that fame was just an inevitable side effect—a writer that everyone would read, that everyone would feel compelled to read, a writer who was important, a writer who was great. I mentioned that old ambition to Dawson, just now, and he said, “That's a classic example of ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ bro."
I guess he's got a point. Because you're reading this, aren't you?
Copyright © 2009 Tim Pratt
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[Back to Table of Contents]
LADY OF THE WHITE-SPIRED CITY—Sarah L. Edwards
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* * * *
Illustrated by Martin Bland
* * * *
People keep asking Sarah L. Edwards what she's going to do with her life, and she keeps answering, “Wouldn't I like to know!” While she figures it out, she continues to write science fiction and fantasy, read a lot, knit (anybody need a scarf?), and wonder what to do with this math degree she just got. She has previously sold short fiction to Writers of the Future XXIV, Baen's Universe, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and other markets.
* * * *
She came, Evriel Pashtan, emissary of his justice the high regent. Weary, silver-haired, faint-hoped she came to Kander, near-forgotten colony circling its cold little rose-hued sun. She greeted the honcho of Colonth, its foremost city; she nodded politely and distributed vids and holos; she attended a festival in her honor. And then she left the ship to the city's technicians for refitting and she flew off in her personal carrier to the far side of the planet, to a highland village enfolded in the deep of winter.
No one came out into the falling dusk to greet her. She pulled her layers of corn-silk closer around her and trudged the few meters through knee-deep drifts of snow to the single village street.
It had not changed so much. The houses were all different, rebuilt ten times or more since she had known them, and yet their number was nearly the same. There in the middle rose the sharp-peaked roof that marked the travelers’ rest, its edging still painted scarlet like those in the regent's city—did anyone remember, or was it only tradition now? She paused in front of its door, glancing to the empty street behind her, and then she knocked.
It was a girl of maybe ten or twelve who opened the door, and her dark eyes widened in wonder when she saw Evriel.
"I've come a long way,” Evriel said. “I wonder if I might stop here a while?"
The girl reached tentative fingers towards Evriel's over-robe. “Are you from down the mountain?"
Evriel smiled. “I'm from a good deal farther away than that."
The girl stepped aside. “Mother will want to see you.” If she was surprised when Evriel walked unerringly to the welcome room with its coal-brimming brazier and its piled cushions, she didn't show it. She left Evriel there among the cushions and soon returned with a tea mug in her hand. Behind her came a woman, ebon-haired, with eyes older than her thirty-odd years.
Evriel rose and offered her hands in the old way. After a pause, the woman clasped them both in hers and kissed them, and Evriel kissed the woman's in turn.
"Sit, stranger, and be welcome,” the woman said, the formal words old and familiar, long though it was since Evriel had heard them last. The woman motioned her to the cushions again while the girl handed Evriel the hot tea mug. “I am Sayla, and this house is open to any who seek shelter. This is my daughter, Asha.” The girl nodded, setting her curls bobbing.
"I am Evriel Pashtan, emissary of our lord the high regent."
"Emissary?” the woman said, blankly.
"You are?” blurted the girl. “From Alabaster?"
"From Alabaster,” Evriel agreed.
"From the home star—it's not possible,” said Sayla. “The ships don't come anymore, not even to Colonth."
"Not for years and years,” Asha added. “They talk about how a ship fell like a burning egg onto the Colonth plain, and how the people wore strange clothes—like yours.” She reached for Evriel's robe again, then drew back. “But they're all gone now."
"Why have you come to the village?” said Sayla. “I don't understand. Did you wish to speak with my husband? You cannot. The fever took him this summer past."
"No, I'm not looking for your husband,” said Evriel. Then she realized what the woman had said. More softly, “I'm so sorry for your loss."
The woman shrugged. “It was bad timing, was all."
And what bitterness lay there, Evriel wondered. She turned the thought aside. “I should say, I have been emissary of the high regent. I'm on leave now, to travel as I wish for a little while."
A faint smile, not quite ironed of the pain that had creased it before. “And you come here? Whatever for?"
Evriel could not put it so baldly as she wanted—not because of politics, for once, but because the truth sounded feeble, even narcissistic. It was narcissistic, looking for one's old footprints on the world. She shouldn't have come.
"Certainly you needn't tell us such things,” Sayla was saying, with careful incuriosity. “It is not a season when we see many visitors"—not that we ever see many, the tone implied—"but you are welcome to what we have. Asha, bread and cream for the emissary."
Asha dashed off, eyes still wide. She returned in moments with a cloth of rye bread and a bowl of goats’ milk cream, which she handed to Evriel, and then she stood a
t the door as both daughter and servant of the house.
"I've visited your village before,” Evriel told Sayla, “long ago. It was ... a very peaceful time in my life.” She paused, wondering how to put into words what she'd come so far to ask. “I knew a family before. I can't remember them very well now, it was so long ago. They lived here, I think. Their name was Reizi."
Sayla's eyebrows rose. “There are Reizis in a village down the mountain. They are my cousins, very distantly. But none have lived here since before I was born—perhaps you confused the villages. One is very much like another."
Cousins to the Reizis.
Only years of diplomacy kept Evriel's fingers from reaching to touch this woman, so distant a connection and yet nearer than any she'd had since ... Since.
Maybe Sayla saw some of that hunger in her eyes. She said something about chores for the night and took herself away. Asha settled into the cushions nearby and paused, apparently trying to decide where to start. Evriel turned her attention to the bread cloth and waited.
"You're really from Alabaster,” Asha said finally.
"I really am,” said Evriel, dipping a chunk of bread into the cream.
"So you've been traveling years and years to come here, haven't you?"
"It has seemed only a bit more than a month to me. But yes, it's been many years since my ship left Regent City."
"So if you went back ... everyone you knew would be dead?” There was no malice in her voice, only curiosity.
"Yes,” Evriel said quietly. “Everyone is already dead except for a handful of emissaries, like myself, off in their starships."
"Then everyone you visited here, when you were here before, is dead as well?"
Evriel nodded.
"You knew the Reizi family when they lived in this village."
"Yes."
"And you knew their names?"
"Ander and Ivolda Reizi. And"—Evriel's voice caught—"and a little girl named Lakmi.” Lakmi, child of my body, daughter of my heart.
Sayla returned and announced it was time for sleep, and led Evriel to the room at the center of the house. A blanket large enough to span the entire room was half-draped over the covered grate in the center, already brimming with coals. Evriel laid aside her heaviest robes and burrowed under the blanket, into the sleeping cushions beneath. Nearby Asha did the same as Sayla closed the door and blew out the candle.
Evriel closed her eyes against the sudden darkness and steadied her breathing, shallowing it, drawing to herself the sleep that threatened not to come. Asha lay only an arm's length away. Would Lakmi have looked like her, at her age?
* * * *
The next morning Evriel woke to a sharp draft blowing past Sayla, standing in the doorway. “They've come to talk to you,” Sayla said. “The other folk of the village. They want to talk to the regent's emissary."
Of course, her carrier. It was bound to draw curiosity, and hadn't she wanted to talk to them, anyway? Though perhaps not all at once. She pulled on her robes and tidied her white hair back into its braid, and then followed Sayla to the front door.
For a moment she could only see the deceptive, almost depthless view of brilliant snow and blue shadow. Then the shadows resolved into the long rolling hills down to the Serra River, miles away. It was a view she hadn't seen in forty-five years—or several hundred. Either way, it hadn't changed.
Then somebody coughed, and she realized the lane in front of the house was crowded with villagers—half the population, at least.
Evriel smiled on them all and turned to Sayla. “Bring them to the meeting room one at a time, or in small groups, as they wish."
Soon enough a small balding man stood in front of her, bowing and nodding, his young wife and three small children behind him. “We come to bless the regent and his emissary, and wish fair success,” he said, stumbling over the formal words but managing to get them all out. His wife nodded while the children stared at Evriel, wide-eyed.
Comforting to hear the old phrases spoken here, when even the honcho of Colonth hadn't known them. Evriel gave them a genuine smile, no hint of diplomatic edge about it. “The regent and his emissary thank you, and bless you likewise.” More bowing, and then they were gone and replaced by another family, with similar greetings.
It wasn't until the third group of well-wishers that Evriel remembered to ask questions: did they know the Reizis, or their kin? What of other emissaries passing between the regent and his colony? “Old Mergo Reizi lives down by the Serra,” she heard, “but he's the last of his kin I know of.” Or, “There was an emissary off in the spacewalker city, I hear. But that was a long time ago.” Or, “I just mind my sheep, Lady Emissary."
When the last of them was gone, Sayla brought tea and a plate of bread heaped with cured meat—goat, Evriel guessed. She took mug and tea from Sayla and said, “Will you sit with me?"
Sayla crossed her legs and sat down, silent.
"Sayla, how would you suggest I look for traces of a little girl? You know better than I who would know, who remembers things."
"There's the archivist,” Sayla said. “Likely you'll want to see him."
"You've an archivist here? Yes, I should like very much to speak with him.” Not yet, something whispered. If there was nothing, she didn't want to know. Not yet. “And what of your cousin down the mountain, this Mergo Reizi?"
The smallest of grimaces crossed Sayla's face, and was gone. “I doubt you'll get anything from him."
"Oh?"
"He ... hasn't much of a memory anymore. Won't have anything to tell you."
"I see.” Evriel frowned at a strip of goat and bit in. Excellent; probably supplied to the travelers’ rest by a local goatherd. “Still, I rather think I'd like to meet him."
Sayla shrugged. “I'll tell you how to get there—you taking your flyer?” When Evriel nodded, she said, “Take Asha with you, she can tell you the landmarks."
"That sounds like just the thing."
"I'll tell you,” Sayla repeated. “Just don't go giving any greetings from me."
* * * *
A beaten track of small footprints circled the carrier. “Kids,” Asha said scornfully, but she approached the carrier cautiously, reaching out to stroke one gleaming wing. Evriel settled her in the cockpit and she peered all around at the dials and switches, her hands carefully folded in her lap. Once in the air she kept her eyes on the white expanse below and said very little, except to point out landmarks: a solitary copse of pines; the long blue shadow that marked a boundary wall.
Mergo Reizi was a rheumy-eyed, suspicious man who declared he had little use for “up-hillers.” He lived in a hut of mud reinforced with straw. Evriel felt a flash of sorrow to think of Lakmi living in such a place, until she reminded herself that the structure couldn't be more than five years old. The man had never heard of any ancestress or cousin named Lakmi, though if he had Evriel wasn't sure he would have told them. But he was, she thought, telling the truth. He claimed no living relatives.
It was hardly surprising; the girl would have taken another name when she married. A complete sweep of genealogical records for the area might conceivably turn up a Lakmi Reizi, married to a Master So-and-So and proud matriarch of the Clan Such-and-Such.
But this was to have been a short stay; she and the small, ship-merged crew would begin the long voyage home as soon as the ship was refitted. She had already fulfilled the mission's purpose: to appear in Colonth, deliver the regent's many gifts and promises, and remind the colonists of their allegiance to the Regency—for all it mattered to them.
It was Asha who finally broke the silence. “Mother would tell me it was rude to ask questions."
"I wouldn't,” Evriel said. “Unless you mean to ask rude questions.” She gave Asha an encouraging smile.
Asha shook her head. “No—at least, I don't think they are. But there are things I have to know. If you would tell me,” Asha added, bobbing her head nervously.
"Yes?"
"Is it—th
at is—we are a very small village, aren't we?"
Evriel thought of Colonth's swinging gates, wider than two village houses together. And then of Regent City, vast anthill of tunnels and streets and spires. “Yes."
"That must be why you went away?"
"Went away? I visited once before..."
"But you lived here, didn't you? The ‘shining star of the regent king, shot to Kander to speak his words'—that's you, isn't it?
"Is it a song? I don't..."
"'Married a son of Kander's earth, a shepherd rough but warm of eye'—don't you know it? But I suppose they didn't write it until you'd gone back to the regent."
Evriel shook her head, but she was beginning to get the idea. “You've a song about a regent's emissary?"
Asha nodded, and red curls bobbed free of her hat. “I'll sing you all of it, if you like. It's of an emissary that came to our very village, perched on the tumbling plains, and fell in love with one of the folk and decided to stay, never to fly the long journey across the stars to the city of the regent.” Cadence crept into her voice. “But her love died of the summer fever, and in grief she flew away again, weeping her loss and raging against the planet that killed him. And as she flew she promised that when she came again, it would be with scourging fire."
Evriel had turned and was staring down, down those “tumbling plains.” Had she promised fire? Yes, she'd been angry, though the memory of it was vague. It was a young, violent anger, now long burnt out. The lack of him remained, but it did not even ache anymore.
Yet Lakmi, whom she'd known so briefly, seemed more absent now than she had in forty years.
* * * *
Evriel piled cushions next to the glass-block window, laid a blanket over them all, and sat watching the snow wisping and swirling. It had been like this the winter before Lakmi, when she sat at another window in another house, now torn down. Japhesh had just put a grate in the room before the first chill came, and Evriel had sat with a fire's warm glow at her back, watching the snow. It was security, a wall of blankness between her and the outer world. All she'd needed was Japhesh and his warm stone house and his child she was waiting for, the first of many hoped for, and she could leave that world behind her with no regrets.
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #222 Page 5
