by Garth Nix
I had to wait a little while for the breeze to come up, but as it streamed through the room and teased at the hair I should have had cut several weeks before, I spoke.
‘Hey, Anax. I bought you a coffee.’
The wind swirled around my head, changing direction 270 degrees, blowing out the window it had come in by and in by the window it had been going out. I felt the floor tremble under my feet and experienced a brief dizziness.
Anax, proper name Anaxarte, was one of my oldest friends. We’d grown up together and had served together in two cosmically fucked-up wars, one of which was still slowly bleeding its way to exhaustion in fits and starts, though the original two sides were long out of it.
I hadn’t seen Anax for more than thirty years, but we scribbled notes to each other occasionally, and had spoken twice in that time. We talked a lot about meeting up, maybe organizing a fishing expedition with some of the old lads, but it had never come together.
I knew that if he were able to, he would always answer my call. So as the coffee cooled and the white plastic chair lay vacant, my heart chilled and I began to grieve. Not for the loss of Anax’s help against the enemy, but because another friend had fallen.
I sat in the sunshine for an hour, the warmth a slight comfort against the melancholy that had crept up on me. At the hour’s end, the wind shifted again, roiling around me counterclockwise till it ebbed to a total calm.
Even without the breeze, I could smell the weed. It had a malignant, invasive odor, the kind that creeps through sealed plastic bags and airtight lids, the smell of decay and corruption.
My options were becoming limited. I took up my stick and went downstairs once more to the café. The afternoon barista did not know me, though I had seen her often enough through my expansive windows. She did not comment on my order, though I doubt she was often asked for a soy latte with half poured out after it was made, to be topped up again with cold regular milk.
Upstairs, I repeated the summoning, this time with the chill already present, a cold presence of somber expectation lodged somewhere between my heart and ribs.
‘Balan,’ I called softly. ‘Balan, your lukewarm excuse for a drink is ready.’
The wind came up and carried my words away, but as before, there was no reply, no presence in the empty chair. I waited the full hour to be sure, then poured the congealed soy drink down the sink.
I could see the weed clearly in the breakers now. It was almost entirely one huge, long clump that spanned the length of the beach. The lifesavers had given up trying to break it apart with their Jet Skis and Zodiac inflatables, and there were two ‘Beach Closed’ signs stuck in the sand, twenty meters apart. Not that anyone was swimming. The beach was almost empty. The reek of the weed had driven away everyone but a sole lifesaver serving out her shift and a fisherman who was dolefully walking along in search of a weed-free patch of sea.
‘Two of my old friends taken,’ I whispered to the sun, my lips dry, my words heavy. We had never thought much about our futures, not when we were fighting in the war, or later when we had first escaped our service. The present was our all, our time the now. None of us knew what lay ahead.
For the third time, I trod my careful way downstairs. There were a dozen people outside the café, a small crowd that parted to allow me passage, with muffled whispers about blindness and letting the sightless man past.
The crowd was watching the weed, while trying not to smell it.
‘There, that bit came right out of the water!’
‘It kind of looks alive!’
‘Must be creating a gas somehow, the decomposition …’
‘…check out those huge nodules lifting up …’
‘… a gas, methane, maybe. Or hydrogen sulfide … nah … I’m just guessing. Someone will know …’
As I heard the excited comments I knew that I had mistimed my calls for assistance. The weed was very close to catalysis and would soon spawn its servitors, who would come ashore in search of their target.
I had meant to ask the owner of the café, a short, bearded man who was always called ‘Mr. Jeff’ by the staff, if he could give me a glass of brandy, or at a pinch, whiskey. A fine Armagnac would be best, but I doubted they’d have any of that. The café had no liquor license but I knew there was some spirituous alcohol present, purely for Jeff’s personal use, since I’d smelled it on his breath often enough.
But as I said, it was too late for that. Palameides might have answered to a double brandy, but I secretly knew that he too must have succumbed. It had been too long since his last missive, and I accounted it one of my failings that I had not been in touch to see where he was and if all was well with him.
‘Someone should do something about that weed,’ complained a thickset young man who habitually double-parked his low-slung sports car outside the café around this time of day. ‘It really stinks.’
‘It will be gone by morning,’ I said. I hadn’t meant to use the voice of prophecy, but my words rang out, harsh and bronze, stopping all other conversation.
Everyone looked at me, from inside and outside the café. Even the dog that had been asleep next to one of the outside tables craned his neck to look askance. All was silent, the silence of an embarrassed audience who wished they were elsewhere without knowing why, and were fearful about what was going to come next.
‘I am a … biologist,’ I said in my normal tones. ‘The weed is a known phenomenon. It will disperse overnight.’
The silence continued for a few seconds, then normal service resumed, at a lower volume. Even the double-parking guy was more subdued.
I spoke the truth. One way or another, the weed would be gone, and likely enough, I would be gone with it.
As the afternoon progressed, the stench grew much worse. The café was shut, staff and customers retreating to better-smelling climes. Around five o’clock, nearby residents began to leave as well, at the same time the fire department, the Water Board, the police, and several television crews arrived.
An hour after that, only the firefighters remained, and they were wearing breathing apparatus as they went from door to door, checking that everyone had left. Farther afield, way down the northern end of the beach, I could see the television crews interviewing someone who was undoubtedly an expert trying to explain why the noxious odors were so localized and dissipated so quickly when you got more than three hundred meters from the center of the beach.
The ‘DO NOT CROSS’ tapes with the biohazard trefoils got rolled out just before dusk, across the street about eighty meters up from my apartment. The firefighters had knocked at my door and called out, gruff voices muffled by masks, but I had not answered. They could probably have seen me from the beach, but no one was heading closer to the smell, however well protected they might be. The sea was bubbling and frothing with noxious vapors, and weedy nodules the size of restaurant refrigerators were bobbing up and down upon the waves. After a while the nodules began to detach from the main mass of weed and the waves carried them in like lost surfboards, tendrils of weed trailing behind them, reminiscent of broken leg-ropes.
I watched the nodules as the sun set behind the city, mentally mapping where they were drifting ashore. When the sun was completely gone, the streetlights and the high lamps that usually lit the beach didn’t come on, but that didn’t matter much to me. Darkness wasn’t so much my friend as a close relative.
The lack of artificial light caused a commotion among the HAZMAT teams, though, particularly when they couldn’t get their portable generators and floodlights to work, and the one engine they sent down the street choked and stalled before it had even pulled away from the curb.
I had counted thirteen nodules, but more could be out in the weed mass, or so low in the water I’d missed them. My enemy was not underestimating me, or had presumed I would be able to call upon assistance.
I had presumed I would be able to call upon assistance, a foolish presumption built upon old camaraderie, of long-ago dangers shared, of
the maintenance of a continuum. I had not thought that my friends, having survived our two wars, could have had a full stop put to their existence in more mundane environments, or at least not so soon. Which meant that they had met the same fate that now threatened to be mine.
‘Anax, Balan, Palameides,’ I whispered. By now there would be three new death-trees laid out in a nice row in the arboreal necropolis, with those nameplates at their feet. There was probably a Nethinim carving my name onto a plaque right now, and readying a sapling. They always knew beforehand, the carriers of water and hewers of wood.
I dismissed this gloomy thought. If my time had come, it had come, but I would not wait in a dark apartment, to acquiesce to my fate like a senescent king grown too tired and toothless to act against his assassins.
I took off the blindfold and tied it around my neck, returning it to its original use as a scarf. It became my only item of apparel, as I shucked white cotton trousers, white T-shirt, and underwear.
The stick I gently broke across my knee, sliding the two lengths of wood apart to reveal the sword within. I took the weapon up and made the traditional salute toward my enemies on the beach.
Courtesies complete, I shaded my skin, hair, and eyes dark, a green almost heavy enough to match the blackness of the night, and with a moment’s concentration, grew a defensive layer of young bark, being careful not to overdo it, while overlaying the sheaths in such a way that it would not limit my movement. Novices often made the mistake of armoring up too much, and found themselves extraordinarily tough but essentially sessile. I had not made that mistake since my distant youth.
The wind lifted a little, and the stink of the weed changed, becoming more fragrant. I heard thirteen soft popping noises come from the beach and knew that the nodules were opening.
There was little point in dragging things out, so I simply walked down the street to the beach, pausing to bid a silent farewell to the café. Their coffee had been quite good.
I paused at the promenade railing, near the block of stone surmounted by the bronze mermaid, and looked across the beach. There was a little starlight, though no moon, and I thought both sea and sand had never looked prettier. The humans should turn the lights off more often, though even then they would not see the way I saw.
The thirteen had emerged from their nodules, or perhaps I should call them pods. Now that I saw them clearly, I knew I had even less chance than I’d thought. I had expected the blocky, bad imitations of human women that looked like Bulgarian weightlifters, armed with slow, two-handed axes that, though devastating when they hit, were fairly unlikely to do so provided I didn’t make a mistake.
But my enemy had sent a much superior force, testament I suppose to the number of times I had defeated or evaded previous attempts to curtail my activities. This time they were indeed what long-gone inhabitants of this world had called Valkyries: female human in form, tall, long-limbed, and very fast, and the sensing tendrils that splayed back from their heads could easily be mistaken for a winged helmet, as their rust-colored exoskeleton extrusions could look like armor.
They lifted their hatchets – twenty-six of them, as they held one in each hand – when they saw me, and offered the salute. I returned the greeting and waited for the eldest of them (by a matter of seconds, most like) to offer up the obligatory statement, which also served as a disclaimer, thrust all liability for collateral damage upon me, and usually offered a chance to surrender.
‘Skrymir, renegade, oathbreaker, and outcast!’
I inclined my head.
‘Called to return eight times; sent for, six times.’
Had it been so many? I’d lost count. Too many years, across too many worlds.
‘Surrender your sword!’
I shook my head, and the Valkyries attacked before I could even straighten my neck, running full-tilt at the seawall that bordered the promenade. Six stopped short before the wall and six leaped upon their backs to vault the railing, while the last, the senior, stood behind in a position of command.
I lopped two heads as I fell back, the Valkyries concerned momentarily confused as their major sensory apparatus went bouncing back down to the sand. As per their imprinting, they stopped still, and if it had not been for the others I could have felled them then. But the others were there, attacking me from all sides as I danced and spun back to the road, my sword meeting the helves of their hatchets, nicking at their fibrous flesh, but their weapons in turn carved long splinters from my body.
If they could surround me, I would be done for, so I fought as I had not fought since the wars. I twisted and leaped and slid under parked cars and over them, around rubbish bins and flagpoles, changing my sword from left hand to right hand, kicking, butting, deploying every trick and secret that I knew.
It was not enough. A skilled and vicious blow caught my knee as I took off another head, and in the second I was down, a dozen other blows put paid to my legs. I rolled and writhed away, but it was to no avail. The Valkyries pinned me down and began to chop away.
The last memory I have from that expression of myself was of the starry sky, the sound of the surf a deeper counterpoint to the thud of axework, and the blessed smell of fresh salt air, the stench of that particular rotten weed gone forever.
I cannot smell anything where I am now, nor see. I can sense light and shade, the movement of air, the welcome sensation of moisture on my extremities, whether above or below the earth.
Neither can I speak, save in a very limited fashion, the conveyance of some slight meaning without words.
But I am not alone.
Palameides is here, and Balan, and Anax too. They have grown tall and overshadow me, but this will not last. I will grow mighty once more, and one day, They will have need of us again … and then, as we whisper, tapping with our roots, signaling with the rustle of our leaves, then our hearts will bud new travelers, and we shall go forth to do the bidding of our masters, and perhaps, for as long as we can, we four friends shall once again be free.
Standing Up to be Counted
The Quiet Knight
‘NO GOING OUT TILL YOU’VE split that wood, Tony. All two tons, you hear?’
Tony looked up from lacing his outdoor boots and made a gesture to indicate he’d already done the job. His father understood the sign, but he still went outside to check, returning a few minutes later as Tony was finishing winding the lace around the top of his left boot.
‘When did you do it?’
Tony held up five fingers and curled back his forefinger, to make it four and a half.
‘Four thirty? This morning before school?’ his father exclaimed. ‘You’re crazy, son. But good on you for getting it done. You must have chopped like crazy.’
Tony nodded. He had chopped like crazy. He’d enjoyed it, though, crossing the lawn to the shed, the frost cracking under his boots. It had been cold to start with, and quite dark, under the single lightbulb high above his head. But as he’d swung the blockbuster, split the wood, and stacked it, he’d gotten hot very quickly, and the sun had come up bright and strong.
‘What is it tonight? Basketball practice?’
Tony nodded again and shrugged on his backpack. It was a full-on hiker’s backpack, not a school satchel or day bag. He carried it everywhere outside school, notionally for all his sporting equipment, and his father had gotten used to it long ago and didn’t inquire what was actually inside.
‘Considering how much practice you do it’s a wonder you guys never win a game,’ said his father. He’d been an all-round athlete in his youth, and he couldn’t help but needle Tony a little about his lack of sporting success. He didn’t come to the games, either, not for the last few years. He didn’t like being with the other dads when Tony’s team didn’t win. He was also too busy. Though they lived on a farm on the outskirts of the city, it was a hobby farm, a tax deduction and sideline interest for his dad, who was a senior executive in some shadowy government intelligence outfit. Tony’s mother and younger sister lived on
the other side of the city, almost an hour’s drive away. He spent some time with them, but not much. He preferred the farm, even though it took him forty minutes to get to school on the bus.
Tony settled his pack, then mimed turning a car key to his dad.
‘You want to borrow the monster again?’
Tony nodded.
‘You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to talk to me.’
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Tony. His voice was low and scratchy. It sounded like a rough scrubbing brush being drawn across broken stones. He’d accidentally drunk some bathroom cleaner when he was little, and it had burned his throat and larynx. His mother had blamed his father for it, and his father still blamed himself. ‘Can I borrow the car?’
‘Of course. Be careful. No drinking after practice. None at all, you hear?’
Tony nodded. He looked old enough that he could easily pass for legal drinking age. He stood six foot four in bare feet, and took after his father in both his heavy build and an early onset of dark stubble on his face. But he planned no drinking and he wasn’t going to basketball practice anyway.
He took the keys to the farm truck. His father moved as if to hug him, but didn’t follow through. Tony waited stolidly, ready to hug if that was what was required to get the keys.
‘Okay. I’ll see you later. I’ll be in my study, working till late. Check in when you get home.’
Tony nodded and walked out into the cool, near-freezing air of the night.
The backpack held his armor, belt, helmet, and mask. His foam-wrapped PVC pipe ‘boffer’ sword was in a sack in the tray of the truck. Tony checked it was still there, unlacing the top. His dad hardly ever used the truck, and practically never looked in the back, but a good knight always checks his weapons before venturing to battle.
That night’s game was being held in the usual place, the old woolshed and farm buildings on Dave Nash’s family property. Dave was a big mover and shaker in LARP circles; he’d been involved in live-action role-playing for more than twenty years. He was in his forties, heavier and slower than in the old pictures and videos Tony had seen. He was still a tough fighter, though he mostly ran the games rather than participating in them.
