The second drawing shows a hand cradling an apple. Its fingers are slender, their joints slightly enlarged, the thick nails that end them jagged, dirty. Fine hair covers the skin, thickens toward the wrist that extends from a white cuff. The apple is the apotheosis of the fruit: large, perfectly proportioned, its skin shining. The reflection of Barbara Dinasha's face curves over the right side of the apple, foreshortened and distorted by the angle from which the artist has chosen to portray it, but the expression on her features appears to hover somewhere between horror and surprise. Dull yellow, the fingernails are the only color in this piece.
For the third drawing, the artist has turned the paper lengthwise. The Police Chief, in profile from the waist up, is at the left-hand edge of the picture. Together, his gun at hip level, his left hand outstretched, his eyes narrowed, suggest a man walking in little light. Behind him runs a wooden wall, the swirling grain of which composes figures twisting upwards, their mouths exaggerated screams. On the wall, a line of trees has been graffitied. Tall, thin, their branches bare, they would be easy to confuse with the writhing forms were it not for the fact that they have been painted. Gray, white, and black, they seem to recede into the paper.
Also done lengthwise, the fourth drawing is the most involved; perhaps this is why the artist has chosen to leave it in black and white. Set in the same space as the first, its left side is taken up by the man with the beast's head. He is in motion, his left leg up and bent, his left foot on the wooden table, his arms out and slightly forward. His suit strains against his arms, his legs. Its fabric looks more ragged, worn, almost hairy. Lips peeled back from a forest of curved fangs, the beast mouth is open in a snarl you can almost hear. Above, behind the man, the air is turbulent, a chaos of swirls, as if full of something that is expressing itself through this figure. In the center of the picture, Barbara Dinasha is diving to the floor, her eyes shut, her mouth taut, her hands over her head. It is as if she is trying to leap free of the scene in which she has found herself. The picture's right shows the Police Chief, his right arm straight out, braced with his left, his index finger already tightened on the trigger of his gun, which is just about to erupt with fire and noise. Lips drawn back from his teeth, the Police Chief's face is bright with rage. Above, behind him, the air is still, empty.
A single color, a deep, almost luminous red, splashes across the fifth drawing as if some terrific act of violence has burst across it. It's blood, an explosion of it, on the left side of which is the right shoulder of the man with the beast's head, and on the right side of which is the top of his right arm. His back is to you, the coat that looks even more rough, hairy, pierced by three holes surrounded by starbursts of blood. The beast head is thrown back, the eye you can see wide with pain, the mouth gasping at the wound being done to it. Behind him, the Police Chief leans forward and to his left, the pose of a man putting all his force into a throw. His eyes are shaded by the brim of his hat, but his mouth is open, his teeth clenched. Study the drawing and you will discern the fingers of his right hand gripping the right hand of the man with the beast's head.
Drawn from the floor of this space looking up, the final picture shows Barbara Dinasha to the left, leaning against the unfinished wooden table with her right arm. Her nightgown, her hair, are wet with blood. She is not looking at the Police Chief, who stands on the right, bent slightly at the waist, still holding the hand of the man with the beast's head's right arm, the torn end of which rests in a pool of blood on the floor. The arm is sinewy, covered in thick, coarse hair. The Police Chief's uniform is also stained with blood. His eyes do not register Barbara; like hers, they are focused on the object in the drawing's foreground, in its left-hand corner: an apple, only the right side of which is in view. It is impossible to tell whether the apple's skin is undisturbed, or if the white of its flesh shows through a bite. The artist has painted the apple pale-green-going-to-red, but that isn't what causes you to linger on this drawing, ignoring the customers shaking their newspapers at you, edging past you with weighted Excuse me's—no, it's the reflection the artist has suggested on the apple's shining skin. It's you.
At first, you aren't sure—actually, you are sure, almost before you realize what you're seeing, but there's no way it could be you, is there? A double-check of the artist's name confirms that you do not know him. Yet there you are; it isn't some quality of the paint making it a mirror. You're in there with Barbara and the Police Chief. And the man with the beast's head, too: he must be in there, even though you can't see him. Well, his body must be. The expression on your face is difficult to read. Is it curiosity? Eagerness? Hunger?
For Fiona: eleven years and counting (and with thanks to John Skipp for the prompt)
* * * *
"No one will suspect it's faux."
* * * *
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Short Story: THE TALE OF NAMELESS CHAMELEON by Brenda Carre
Brenda Carre lives in British Columbia and says that this, her first fiction sale, originated with her son's comment that she “should write him a story that had a really amazing sword in it.” One thought led to another, and eventually this fantasy came about.
I have heard the Twelfth Sage say the Honorable shall inherit the Earth, and I concur. Yet surely this shall be after the Dishonorable are finished spitting on it.
For here am I, encased in rose jade, yet allowed to speak, all because of the curse I put on Prince Sham of Hasp.
* * * *
I was born a nameless pauper, dragged through years of hunger and thirst by the thief who called himself my father. He did me one kindness by getting himself beheaded for cutting the pocket of the Emperor's Vizier. I may have been ten, or perhaps nine. My memories of that time are deliberately vague.
From then on, I lived quick and dark and careful, cutting drunkards’ pockets in the night, playing mahjong and discussing dreams of wizardry by the Fountain of Doves with my ancient and sage friend Chameleon, and sleeping with the maggots behind the empty ambrosial barrels belonging to the Blue Dragon Pleasure House. At times I even helped the amber-robed bath girls carry their water. They would stroke my cheeks and joke about my growing up beautiful and strong and ready for pleasure. I hated that, but I toiled with their water, and drank their fragrant tea. I learned to read their futures in their tea leaves as wise Chameleon taught me and listened to them gossip about their clients.
This was my life until I met Sham, First Heir to the Imperial Throne of Hasp that Glitters upon the Eastern Sea.
Sham was all a first son should be. He was the Emperor's joy, crafty, a strong warrior, ruthless and wary. By the age of twenty-two, he had already destroyed his three older brothers and was well on the way toward ending the lives of the five younger.
But I digress. This is not a tale of how Sham eviscerated his youngest sibling. It's a story of curses.
That particular false dawn, I lay behind the biggest barrel, just beyond a reeking puddle of mingled evacua. A loud noise cracked my restless dream. I did not recognize first Heir Sham immediately as four strapping young men disgorged themselves from the Blue Dragon's nether end. It was their barking laughter and their loud curses to the Ten Raucous Deities that roused my curiosity. They appeared to be guarding a fifth young man just coming out, still tying his costly robes.
I was actually toying with the idea of picking his pocket when a noise to the other side of my barrel told me someone was lurking there. I saw a weapon's shadow too, cast by the light from the Dragon's door. A blowpipe! The lurker planned to shoot one of those young men. I felt his bad intent even before I came fully awake.
I had less than a heartbeat to act. My instincts took over. I leaped at him even as his weapon pointed and he blew. I knocked the lurker flat. I heard later that the poison dart lodged in the door right beside the Prince's face.
Just then the man I'd flattened took care of me. I was but a child after all. His strong arms gripped me hard and slammed me into the barrels. He kicked me in the stomach
. Suns and moons exploded behind my eyes as I fell. I remember running feet, loud shouts, and a horrid scream as I lay in a puddle of old urine.
Then, because I was stunned, I heard little but the steady noise of one pair of boots crunching through fish bones and crusted filth. Not even when they stopped where my nose lay pressed to the stones, did I open my eyes.
The assassin, I wondered, come back to finish the job?
No.
The smell of this person, the costly spice of oranges, flowed over me as he grabbed me. My stomach heaved on rich perfume, as it had not while lying in stale piss.
"You saved my...,” he began.
I vomited across his boots.
"Balls of the prophet!” he swore, gripping my scruff, shaking me so hard my teeth rattled. “You locust dung wretch."
I looked at him then, saw two of him, and knew him at once because of the imperial dragon tattooed on his high cheekbone. He was about to hit me, I saw easily enough. But he stopped.
"Serpents of the lotus,” he said, holding me suspended like some odiferous cat destined for drowning, “it's a little whore."
"I'm not a whore, Exalted One, may your divine mother dine on the plums of wisdom with her revered kindred. I am a soothsayer,” I lied. I was a beggar who slept behind the inn barrel of a whorehouse. Ah, but thanks to Chameleon's friendship, I dreamed like a sage.
The denial of whoredom tangled together across my lips with a ten-year-old's need to be heard if only once by an Imperial Prince.
He guffawed at me, much to my anger. He dropped me and wiped his fingers on his silken trousers. That angered me more, but how was I, a lowly cutpurse, to say so without losing my head as my father had?
Yet I had felt the assassin's presence before seeing the blowpipe's shadow and if in some way I could impress on the Prince that I did have powers, maybe a sage's life could be mine? For does not the Seventh Sage say: far better the breath of choice than that of fear?
I was done with sleeping in urine, and I refused to be one of the ambrosia girls after being on the streets forever.
"I knew one would come intending you harm, Exalted One,” I said, lowering my rebellious eyes from his face, “may your radiant feet ever walk the bones of your enemies."
Just then his companions returned dragging the much-beaten assassin face down by the arms. Now he looked diminished. Little more than a trampled fowl in his black tunic and cowl. It was still too dark to identify him, but I felt confident I could use this incident to my advancement.
Emboldened, I continued, clear yet humble. “I would have shouted earlier, O Most High, but I knew he must be caught in the act itself. So, I waited for the instant I felt his evil mind rush toward the moment of the dart's release—may celestial glories grace your every breath."
If I'd had sleeves I'd have folded my hands obsequiously within them.
I bobbed lower anyway, as is worthy of a cutpurse addressing the First Imperial Heir in a back alley after the Heir has exited a whorehouse.
"You read his mind?” Sham said. There was curiosity now amid the scoffing tone. I do have some faint share of empathy within me. I sensed his interest there in the dark.
"May the stars sing at the shine of your smallest toenail, I did, Your Gloriousness—for does not the Tenth Sage say that the power to foretell may rise even out of a dung heap?” I thrust as much surety into my statement as hunger and desire could lend me. I would have promised my firstborn—given I should grow old enough to bear one—to the God of Imps, for the chance to learn wizardry at the Academy of the Twelve Sages.
(And surely one of those imps was whispering to me now?)
"Who is he then and who sent him?” Sham toed the limp form on the ground with a vomit-splattered boot.
"An assassin, as I have said, but his mind is clouded by the one who sent him.” I grew a little imperious and gestured toward the Blue Dragon and one of the Prince's companions. “Bring a lantern that I might gaze into the assassin's traitorous eyes. Once I am able to see his eyes, I can read his mind."
I knew most of the thieves and assassins in the district. None were accommodating or gentle toward me. Any story I made up about this one would mostly be true. Sham was powerful but he still had brothers and sisters living, never mind the scores of lovers he had slain and thrown aside since he learned the way of the pillow.
Sham grunted in agreement and waved at his companion to place the lantern by the unconscious assassin's head.
I squatted to identify him.
Though one of his eyes was gone, his gray beard bloody from froth from his lips, and his nose broken, I still knew him well. This was Chameleon, the man I called “Grandfather” because I revered his wisdom and his honest friendship. He was the only person in my short life I truly did love.
I had three choices: To lie and let them kill him. Unthinkable. To tell the truth and die myself. Equally bad. Or to think fast and save us both.
In that instant, what I possessed of intelligence told me the assassin had fled and my poor Chameleon had been mistaken for their quarry. Sham's bullies had leapt on the gentle philosopher, kicked him half-dead and dragged him back here.
"Who hired you to kill me, vermin?” Sham snarled before I could say anything. He kicked Chameleon so hard he rolled sideways. With a scream of anguish I threw myself to the stones to grab my friend, to keep him from rolling into my own fresh vomit.
A gout of blood shot from his mouth.
His lungs were torn. I knew it was so. He was about to die and I could not save him. My lie was going to kill him now. Despair and guilt swept through me.
But what could it matter what I said. I knew it was over and my one friend in the whole world was done for. Because of me.
"Brotherhood of the Twelve Sages,” he wheezed, so hard I think it was only I who heard as I put my head down beside his mouth. “You must live for me. Take my name. Do not grieve."
His teeth were broken and his lips swollen to the size of egg rolls. His breath bubbled.
"What did he say?” Sham demanded.
I had to say something.
"He told me his master is in the House of the Twelve Sages,” I said. The words flowed from my lips like a river in spate. My brain burned with the need to speak. I believe now, as I believed then, that the Sages themselves spoke through me. “Honored One, this man is inno—
"Cent! “
The end of my word echoed the snick of Sham's dagger drawn sharp across my friend's throat as the Prince grabbed him up and executed him. A gout of dark blood drenched me where I knelt. Chameleon's blood, warm and iron thick.
I moaned. No quiet Sage's voice could present me with a proverb for this. I expected Sham's boot in my own face, now that he thought he had what he wanted. He would level the House of the Twelve Sages next. I knew this as clear as I knew grief.
I drove myself to speak to Sham, looking up at him over the crumpled and soiled body of my friend. I must save the Sages and their House now at the cost of another lie. Again the words flowed out of me as if from another source.
"The answer does not lie in killing the Sages, Honored One—may the wrath of your eyes ever cleanse the pustules of the ungracious—but in killing the asp who lies hidden in their bosom of holiness. The Sages themselves are without stain. I swear it on my own soul. I swear it on the name of your Imperial Sire. I swear it even as I knew the intent of the assassin to dispatch you."
"And you know this how?"
My words flowed out unchecked, a warmth of surety flooding me. “I read his mind, Sire, as I said. The light struck his eyes and I saw. Your enemy is of high noble blood, he and that other one he commands were too much a shadow in a dying man's mind, but I know he commands one who serves the Sages. Let me go to the House of Sages, as your spy. I will learn the name of the one who plotted this terrible thing."
Sham tugged at the slender beard on his chin. The stink of death already rose from the corpse between us. Sham's thoughts chased across his lamp-lit face. There
was no justice there at all. No. It was the idea of finding and twisting his enemy between his fingers until he screamed for death that made Sham listen to my words.
"I give you the span of a moon. Find my enemy and you shall live."
"With the Sages?” My voice stayed miraculously steady as I asked this.
Sham gave a curt nod. There was no justice in that either. He could change his mind. I knew this as clearly as I breathed, but it had to be enough.
"Find him,” Sham repeated. He gestured to his bullies, drove his bloody dagger carelessly back into his belt, and turned from me. He was done.
They left me there with my dead friend and the smell of rot around us, cursing Sham and all his heirs to come, from the depths of my angry soul.
* * * *
The Academy of the Twelve Sages lay just beyond the Fountain of Doves, which in turn lay removed from the Imperial City by three walls, a river, and the entire teeming quagmire of Hasp.
I climbed the three hundred lotus stairs to the portals of entry, bathed, spiced, and wearing a cheap saffron robe provided by Jasmine Blossom, one of the bath girls at the Blue Dragon. I hadn't wanted to ask her for help but I knew I dared not approach the Sages’ realm covered in filth.
Jasmine Blossom had only asked that I assist her should the Golden Dove of Luck ever nest in my hair.
This high up the smells of dung and blood, smoked meats, cooked noodles, spoiled fish, and the clamor of ox drivers, the scream of children, the braying of animals, the discord of too many people crammed together, grew transparent and light as soap bubbles, grew exalted as the chime of bells and the joyful swoop of skylarks.
I told the acolyte at the gilded Dragon door that I was called Nameless of Hasp and I told him the Imperial Heir had sent me there for training.
"Come in, Nameless One, may you earn a glorious name within these halls."
The tone of his voice, squawky with the onset of puberty, told me otherwise. Beggars turned soothsayers for a night had arrived on the Sages’ doorstep before this but none who claimed they had the Imperial Heir's approval. The youth eyed me up and down from his lofty height of five feet none, his bright orange-yellow silks glinting in the holy sunlight, his dark eyes beady as a crow's.
FSF, July-August 2010 Page 12
