Fearsome Journeys (The New Solaris Book of Fantasy)

by Jonathan Strahan

  Sudden terror. Broken glass, her mother-in-law screaming, a dark object landing on the rug. The storm suddenly loud through the shattered window. Udi clung to her, his nails biting her wrist.

  “It’s a horseshoe, mama. Someone threw a horseshoe at our house.”

  But Majka was gazing at the stranger. He was flat against the wall of the parlor, twelve feet from the woodstove. This man named for a bird had moved like a snake, faster than the eye could follow. He had slipped one hand into his coat, reaching for something beneath his left underarm.

  He had a knife after all.

  Through the broken window, a man’s voice, loud and derisive: “Majka! What’ll you do in a month’s time, eh? When the snow lies deep and you’re hungry?”

  “That’s Pankolo,” said her son, his voice trembling. The stranger shot a hard glance at Udi.

  “You can come to the back door,” shouted Pankolo. “There’s a little dish Tabitha puts out for the cats. You can bend down and lick, you hear me? You and your boy.”

  The stranger moved to the window, looked out through the shattered pane.

  “Never mind him,” said Majka. “He’s a drunken fool. Get the broom, Udi.”

  Her son did not seem to hear her. “Pankolo,” said Wren. “Is that short for Panarikolos? Is your drunken fool Panarikolos Rabak?”

  Majka froze. Wren turned from the window and studied her, waiting.

  “Yes, that’s him,” said her mother-in-law.

  Majka winced; the old woman’s voice was caustic. She had never said a word about Pankolo, but she knew.

  “Tata—”

  “It’s a large family, the Rabaks, though most of them have ended up in Shyram. They were respectable once.”

  Majka couldn’t look at her. “I’ll make him pay for that window,” she said.

  “Will you?” muttered the old woman, nudging the horseshoe with a slipper. “I’m sure I don’t want to know how.”

  The stranger walked to the front door and opened it wide. Cold wind flooded the parlor; the rain lashed him in the face. There he paused, and Majka took a step towards him, not knowing why. The man glanced up at her fiercely, then closed the door behind him and was gone.

  SHE CUT A square of canvas and nailed it over the broken pane. They rebolted the front door and fastened the chain lock on the door in the kitchen. Udi asked if the man was going to fight Pankolo, and she told him yes, probably. When he asked if one of them would be killed she sent him upstairs to pray.

  The wind grew fiercer. Majka took a lamp into her bedroom and gazed mutely at a trio of crude earthenware saints on her dresser. Behind them stood a little congregation of lead and glass bottles: half-empty salves, rancid skin creams, a bottle the size of her little finger that contained the ghost of a perfume and the memory of the night Udi was conceived. No one would ever hurt him. There was no logic left to her but that.

  Her fingers crept to the bottle with the tooth. As always the little lead vessel was extremely hot. She lifted it gingerly. No reason to open it, now or ever. There was nothing inside but sesame oil and a fragment of bone.

  “A finger bone, I think,” her husband had said. “You keep it, Majka; remember that it’s something to be proud of. And perhaps it will bring good luck.”

  She walked to the window overlooking the ravine. Four years since she’d made the descent. Four years since that river stopped giving and decided to take. She held the bottle in her fist until she could no longer stand the heat, then wrestled open the window and hurled the bottle into the night. She let the rain cool her throbbing hand. She was done with luck.

  Returning to the dresser, she opened the bottom drawer, slid a hand beneath her petticoats and drew out a machete. She removed its sheath and ran her fingers up the blade until they met with a dry spot of blood. Something else to be proud of. She tested the weight of the machete in her hand.

  Then she heard it: the clop of hooves on the muddy street. She left the sheath in the dresser and hurried downstairs, where she looked around the empty rooms in desperation. At last she rushed to the cellar door. With great care she propped the machete on the first stair, handle against the wall. There came a knock on the door of the kitchen.

  Majka closed the cellar door. She had to compose herself. When the knock was repeated she walked to the kitchen door and opened it as far as the chain would allow.

  Wren stood there, drenched. He’d gone out without his hat. One of Pankolo’s better horses stood steaming behind him.

  “He subtracted six cockles from the price of the stallion. For your window, of course.”

  The stranger reached through the gap, and Majka let him pour the heavy coins into her hand. Six gold cockles. Twenty times what she needed for the window. “You bought a horse from Pankolo? Just like that?”

  She might have been asking if he had walked on water. But what was odd about it? He needed a horse, he bought one. And if his hand was shaking a little, what did that mean?

  “Your friend said you might have room in the barn.”

  “He’s not my friend. And you. You looked like something drowned.”

  He brought his face close to the gap. “The prospect grows more likely by the minute,” he said.

  No smile, but a wryness to his look. Majka found herself laughing. She grabbed her overcoat and unchained the door and stepped out into the rain.

  PAST MIDNIGHT. THE mandolin sang softly in her son’s gifted hands. Udi smiled as he played; Majka rarely let him stay up late. The room was dark: she had lowered the flame on the oil lamp as far as she could without snuffing it altogether.

  Her mother-in-law had retired. Bishkin purred at Udi’s feet. Wren had changed into her husband’s clothes, although the dead man’s shirt would scarcely button across his chest. He still had his cup of wine; she had never seen a man drink so slowly. Majka herself had taken a cup, her first in several years.

  The music affected Wren. The line of his mouth softened, and the wariness left his eyes. He paced the house, listening with great intensity and turning often to glance at Udi, and sometimes at Majka herself. They had spoken no more of what was to come.

  Majka tensed each time he drew close. She felt him pause behind her chair. In her bedroom she had rummaged through her old crates and foot-lockers, at last finding a warm shirt and pair of trousers. She had turned, and there he was in her room, watching her, glistening with rain.

  “I’ll undress now, if you don’t mind.”

  She had placed the folded clothes on the bed and stepped into the hall. When she returned a moment later with a towel he was already removing his shirt. He grew still, noticing her gaze. She put down the towel and turned quickly away.

  I was only looking for his knife.

  Udi finished his tune. Wren stopped his pacing and nodded his approval.

  “You’re a fine player already,” he said. “Do you have a profession in mind, boy?”

  Her son averted his eyes. “Stone,” he mumbled.

  “Stone?”

  “Walls and such. My mother’s teaching me; she’s better than anyone. She built our garden wall.”

  “There’s no demand for it,” said Majka. “He can’t make a living from stonework in Chamsarat. But then what could he make a living from?”

  She wished she hadn’t spoken, for she knew the answer too well. He could have made a living from horse breeding. Pankolo had offered, several times, that spring when she first let him bed her. Majka had never raised the issue since.

  “You must keep up with the music, come what may,” said Wren, seating himself again by the stove. “Will you play us one more tonight?”

  Udi shrugged. Then, shyly, he began the first tune the mandolin’s owner had taught him. The melody was simple, haunting. Majka glanced at Wren and found him sitting oddly still.

  When he finished, Udi rested the mandolin on his knees. “There’s words, but I never learned them,” he said.

  “Many words,” said Wren. “It is a balladeer’s standard, kno
wn all across the Republic. I have heard the tale of Niseta the Beautiful set to that music. Niseta, who waited years for her lover’s return, knowing he still lived because he entered her dreams every new moon, and lay with her to sunrise, and she woke drenched with love.”

  Udi squirmed in his chair. “The one I heard was about a goat.”

  Majka lifted the wine jug, reached casually to take Wren’s cup from his hand. Casually! There was nothing casual about it. She let her fingers graze his own and the breath went out of her. She was not a selfish person; no one could accuse her of that. She filled the cup and pressed it back into his hand. Give me this night, God of mine. One night only. Let him stay.

  “I have heard a much longer lyric as well,” said Wren. “It tells of an ancient clan who called themselves Ve’saqra, which means the Forever People.”

  Majka froze.

  “They were few in number but very proud,” the man continued. “Absurdly proud, one might say. They told themselves that their clan would never perish from the earth. But they failed to notice the earth changing around them. They were a woodland folk—warriors, hunters, trappers. They did not understand cities, or that a man could build armies from the peasants who came to cities like moths to a blaze. And they laughed when a certain warlord decreed that he was God’s will incarnate, and would rule over them.”

  “Time you slept, Udi,” said Majka.

  “Incarnate?” said her son.

  “God’s will made flesh,” said Wren. “And it is true that heaven seemed to favor his soldiers. They conquered all the lowlands, from the Ilidron Coves to the pine barrens of the north. But the Forever People would not yield. They had strong men and swift horses, and above all they did not fear him. We are conquered first through fear, boy. I hope you will never forget that.”

  “Did they fight?” asked Udi.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And beat him in the end?”

  Wren shook his head. “They lost their land, village by village. Half their men were slain, and the whole clan driven into exile. But even in exile they resisted. They seized an old castle and began to repair it, stone by stone. And the warlord ignored them. ‘Let them rot in those hills,’ he declared. And so within their rebuilt walls the Ve’saqra knew some years of peace. It was doomed from the start, however. The warlord had turned his back on them, yes, but only because he had developed a new fascination.”

  Majka brought the jug down on the stove with a smack; droplets of wine flew and hissed. Udi did not even glance at her. “What fascination?” he asked.

  “Sorcery,” said Wren. “He became the patron of conjurors, necromancers, priests of the Night Gods. He gathered them to his court, plied them with gifts, granted them titles and estates. Year by year they claimed more of his attention, and more of his gold.

  “One day he found the royal coffers empty. Having already squeezed his own people dry, he sent a messenger to the hills where the Ve’saqra lived, demanding a tribute of men and gold. The man was met with jeers. If the wolf in his prime had not killed them, they said, why should they tremble if he crawls from his cave a last time, toothless and feeble, to howl at the moon? And to underscore the point they took the scroll case with the royal demands away from the messenger and stuffed it with horse dung, then sealed it and sent it back to the king.”

  Udi’s jaw hung open. For a moment he struggled with himself; then he collapsed in laughter, shrill boyish peals. Majka gripped her chair. Horror had pounced on her again.

  “Udi, to bed. We’re done with stories for tonight.”

  “But the story’s not done,” cried Udi, instantly contained. “Let him finish, Mama. Then I’ll go.”

  They bickered. Majka started counting to three. Udi whined as though his life depended on hearing the end of the tale, and in her fear Majka found herself imagining that it might be so. That, or the reverse.

  “Get marching!”

  “No!”

  She pointed at the mandolin, “I’ll send your plaything back tomorrow. Just try me, you little runt.”

  Tears sprang to Udi’s eyes. Majka swore, crossed her arms, turned away from the man and child. She was trembling; they would notice. She surrendered with a wave.

  Wren looked down into his cup. “I’ve done wrong,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  “Not fucking likely.”

  “It’s just a story, Mama,” said Udi. “What happened? What did the king say to the people?”

  The stranger shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying,” said Udi, forgetting himself entirely.

  “No, I’m not,” said Wren. “The king sent no word to the Forever People. He called instead for his sorcerers, and told them it was time to prove their loyalty. And the sorcerers locked themselves in a tower for five days and nights, and a blood-red glow lit the tower windows. When it was done a great shriek went up from the tower, and half the sorcerers went mad and never recovered. But the curse was cast, and it fell upon the Ve’saqra and heated their bones like irons in the forge, and all eight thousand were scalded to death from within.”

  Silence. Udi looked at Majka. She could find no face for him but rage.

  “Is it true, Mama?”

  She couldn’t speak. The man looked at Udi with a strange intensity.

  “It is a legend, boy. Legends are never simply true or false. The Ve’saqra were real; there are ruins to prove it. And the warlord: he was very real. His descendants are men of power in our Republic today.”

  Udi frowned. “But the curse wasn’t real.”

  The stranger cocked his head slightly to one side.

  “I misspoke in one regard. There were survivors. It seems the curse glanced off certain houses, just as a whirlwind may tear fifty homes to pieces and leave the fifty-first untouched. In the case of the Ve’saqra, about a hundred souls were spared.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve just said I don’t know, Udi. No one does. It was four hundred years ago.”

  “What did they do with the bodies?”

  Majka looked at her son, appalled. The fascination in his voice.

  “What indeed?” said Wren. “The bones went on burning, like white-hot coals. What does one do with such relics? And what if they go on blazing for centuries, reminders of infamy, proofs of an unthinkable crime?”

  Majka seized Udi’s chin and turned it. Udi winced at her brutal grip, but one glance ended his whining: Majka’s face left him terrified. He rose and whispered goodnight.

  A log cracked in the woodstove. The stranger sat like a statue, or a corpse. Majka listened to Udi’s feet ascending the stairs, the groan of the top step, the squeak of his bedroom door. Finally the latch clicked shut.

  “I was sent here to kill you.”

  Her mind seized. Don’t look towards the cellar. Don’t leap up or he’ll move like a snake again. Don’t laugh or scream or weep. Stay alive, stay alive.

  “You can spare us,” she whispered. “Just take what you want, and go.”

  “Take your name? Your ancestry?”

  “But there’s some mistake,” she said. “We haven’t done anything. What could Udi have done?”

  The man shook his head. “Not this household. This village. First the people, then the crops, then the ancient bones you’ve scattered or concealed. And in the springtime, the very ruins of Chamsarat, stone by stone. By next summer it will all be gone.”

  “You knew Pankolo’s name.”

  “From traders in Shyram. He’s the big man in town, they said. The one with all the horses. I had to see to those horses.”

  Majka shuddered, recalling the tremor in his hand.

  “They gave me your name as well. Majka, the savage one. You’re a little bit famous.”

  “They don’t know anything, they’re dullards like Pankolo.”

  “They know that you chopped a man to bits with a machete.”

  “He climbed in Udi’s window,” she said. “A baby, not old enough to walk. You make it sound as though I
liked it.”

  “Did you?”

  “He was touching Udi. He was drooling.”

  The stranger closed his eyes. What if she just walked to the cellar and took out the machete? Or screamed? Udi could jump from that same window, run away into the night.

  “You’re not alone, are you?”

  “Of course I’m not alone.”

  “You don’t have to do this. You’re a human being.”

  “Oh no,” he said, “not for ages.”

  She should get up now. Stand up, walk to the cellar. She felt as if her legs were missing. As if by some nightmare procedure they had been removed.

  “You starvelings,” said Wren. “You beggars with your rags and rotten teeth: you’re what’s left of the Forever People. A sad end to the story, isn’t it? But you’re still an inconvenience to my master. This is an election year, after all.”

  He sighed and leaned forward, resting elbows on knees. “He’s quite the ambitious man. He would make a modern country of us, do away with old factions and beliefs. But he can do nothing without votes. Tell me, Majka: who would vote for a man whose forefathers scalded eight thousand peasants to death? No one, in fact. So the legend must be disproved, the evidence effaced. The work began years ago: my master’s grandfather arranged for the disappearance of certain history books, and their authors. That was good enough for a time. But a would-be Proconsul attracts far closer scrutiny. It was his wife who put her foot down. Rub out the stain, she said.”

  “The stain.”

  “Chamsarat Village. You.”

  He drew a weary hand across his face. Something in the gesture freed Majka to rise and move towards the cellar. Weak with fear, dragging her feet like a whore at sunrise. She had wanted him to fuck her. She had prayed for it. Her first prayer in ever so long.

  “They also told me you were kind-hearted,” said Wren.

  She turned away from him, leaned her cheek against the cellar door. “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Well, yes,” he said. “Drunks talk.”

  He was approaching. She rested her hand on the doorknob, exhaled, tried to make her face serene. Udi would get away somehow. Others would die but not her son. He would cross the ravine and flee into the Thrandaal and become a prince of the forest, wed some Thrandaal girl, found a new clan, die surrounded by family in a mansion of logs.