The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 40

Then they leaped up, and I gasped-but they did not come at us. At the scorpion's head they fitted their blades together, and grew and worked against each other; along its spine they danced up in an arch and bobbed there, winking. The reeds flew out, to make a fine weaving, to indicate an outline: a long sketchy crocodile-head, muscled shoulders, strong haunches, between them a bulky belly flattened as yet to the floor. The tail went from wisps to cable at the foot of the platform, and the knifelets busied and tinkled along its length, then firmed in their places, and even the reedy parts began to smoothen out, and their green-ness to gleam, and when I looked up to the rest it was bulked there clearly alive, trembling with a pulse from some big magicked heart inside it, swelling and shrinking and swelling with its ongoing breath. And eager, it was, restrained-only just-by the King's voice pouring through the mask.

Completed, the creature described a great hunched curve, nearly to my eye-level on the high platform; all men were dolls beside it, and the shepherdess was the smallest doll of all. Spiked head to tail-tip, was the beast, with knife-blades become spines, and its claws were of the same sharpness. Its mouth could not contain all its ma.s.s of teeth, but two of them must needle upward and another two down, outside its lips of glinting mail. From its nostrils puffed an air choking in its heat and smell, and the thing did not care that we could not breathe it, we courtiers, we watchers. All its attention, as a cat's is with a sparrow, was directed from the limits of its poised body, its bunched muscles, through its dazzle-yellow eyes, upon the woman before it, standing in my view like a priest between candles, between the two gleaming uprights of its projecting teeth.

As the King spoke, it huffed a breath at her. She blinked, but no more than that; her clothing sizzled dry at the front, and a lock of her hair glowed and fell to white ash on her bodice. She gazed at the teeth ma.s.sed before her-we all did, for they were like lanterns in the dark chamber-at the tongue, golden, curved and crackled on the surface, and within the cracks red, bright as blown-upon coals.

The King ceased his awful ventriloquy. The great lizard grinned, or perhaps only prepared its mouth. It did not pounce like a cat, or like a cat toy with its prey; in a bite it had taken the woman in down to the thighs; in a second one, she was gone, and the thing was reared-headed, tossing her back into its throat as a bird must do a beakful of water, swallowing her down a neck that it stretched out as if purposely to show her traveling down its length and narrowness. The fire-tongue flailed against the scaly lips and the skin stretched and winked, and I will never forget the sound of the lizard gulping-relishless, only mechanical, the kiss and slide of searing flesh within its throat.

The Captain hissed so hard, I felt his spittle on my cheek. "Is what happens when you do not marry as you are told!"

He shook with fear, though, and I did not. Nonsense, I thought. As if the King himself would go through such a business for only me, a captain's daughter of his vast military. Still it did speak to me, this horror before me and my father's spittle cool on my skin. It told me the size of his rage; it showed me the enormity of refusing a king's, or a father's, demands. I could not deny that it impressed itself upon me as a lesson: however enraged the Captain was with my refusal of that foolish soldier, his wrath when he learned the rest of it would be something else again to witness.

Then there was no more s.p.a.ce or time or breath for learning, for the creature sprang and bucked as if speared. Flame spouted from its mouth, shrivelling the flesh and igniting the clothing of a guard, and throwing him back so that he fell, and rolled, and tumbled into the cat-pit. Forgotten, he was, immediately, by me and all the company, because the lizard folded, flopped open again and contorted, hugely, dangerously above and below us. It leaped and whipped, growling gasps in its throat, fire and fumes sputtering at its lips. It flung itself to the floor, coiled and writhed there; its tail broke the wheel in a single swipe, and set the pieces burning; it coughed forth a fire-ball that flew against a wall and burst, leaving a vast black star-shape on the stone.

And then, the belly-skin of the beast opened, like a dreadful flower, like a house-fire bursting up through thatch and timbers. Think of any bird you have gutted, any fish or four-legged thing; add fire and magic and stupendous size to the wonders of those internals, and then picture from the glare, from the garden of flame, from the welter of dragon-juices, through the smoke of its dying gasps, a small, cool woman climbing towards you.

The sight of her froze the Captain faster in his fear than had any of the lizard's cavorting. "No!" he whispered at my ear, as I leaned out elated, all but cheering.

She stepped down free of the dying ruin of the creature, to stand on a dagger-shape of flayed skin like some weird cindered carpet, the beast's last breaths heaving behind her. "Sir!" she said, to the King and to the power within and beyond him. "You see you are matched and bettered! I tell you!" She laughed, which in that chamber full of fear, the courtiers piled wide-eyed on the steps where they had scrambled to escape the monster's flailing, was the clearest, refreshingest sound, like water filling a cup when you are thirsty. "I tell you, sir: my Lord's and my Lady's powers are greater than myself, and longer than my life. To kill me, foolish man, makes no mark upon Them. And should you succeed, further I tell you this: Does anyone tell my life, or pen it onto skin, or rush-paper, or read it off again, or even only hear it said, at nurse's knee or among the gossips in the marketplace, they will be blessed, and the women of their family kept strong and fruitful and safe in childbed. My faith is pure and powerful, here and beyond the grave; it is only the very hem of the mantle of the King and Queen who work the world, from the depths of the seas to the heights of the stars, and every continent and creature in between."

The Captain was gone from behind me; others had taken his place, pressing forward, staring down, marvelling at the beast's remains, the straight-backed woman defying the King, the smouldering rack, the flaming wheel, the burnt guard dead in the pit.

And then there he was, my father at the foot of the steps, pushing free of the crowd, drawing his sword.

"I will rid you of her, Your Majesty!" he cried.

He strode to her; she watched him come, unmoved, unafraid ,a woman indulging a child. I so strongly expected his humiliation, his defeat, her continuing, that I waited in utter calm as he slashed her throat through to the spine-bones, as she fell, as she bled, her heart living on, unaware that the head was gone, flinging and spreading the bright blood on the charred dragon-skin, slowing, slowing, stopping. My father stood over her the while; we all stood over her, attentive, as closely as the dragon had attended in the moments before it ate her.

But she only died, the shepherdess, and was dead; there were no more miracles to her.

I cried out, loud and high in the huge room under the smoking roof-beams. They held me back from clambering over the railing, from crawling underneath it and smashing my own life away on the flags before my father. "She is maddened," someone said. "She should never have been allowed to see-it has unhinged her." But I was clear in my own mind, afflicted indeed by a terrible sanity, a terrible seeing of this moment as it truly was, with the miracle woman gone from the world and me still prisoned in it, with my lover and my baby and my punishments awaiting, with my angry father-while she was free, dissolved into her faith, glorifying her G.o.ds among all the saints there. Such a stab of jealousy I suffered! Such rage did I try to loose, at her and my father both, such grief that a soul so freshly known, so marvellous, was so quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed from my sight.

They tried to help me down; I would not be helped. They had to bind and carry me, and quickly, for the roof was fully afire now, and the King and his closest had been hurried away. My father met us at the foot of the stairs, took me up and slung me like a carca.s.s over his shoulder. I banged away my tears against his back, and strained, as we pa.s.sed the swollen smouldering corse of the dragon, its juices running out black, to see the body and the skewed head of the saint who had burst him open with her holiness. She lay there uncovered; she would not even be buried with her own rites and customs, but roof slates would rain upon her as she stewed and shrank in the lizard-blood. Beams would crush her bones; fire would consume them.

My father carried me out, through the long halls of the prison and into the day. The courtiers and councillors and soldiers flowed out with us, exclaiming, into the crowd, into the clamour of the town; my noise went unheard among them, and the tears ran unnoticed through my eyebrows, down my forehead, and onto the leather of the Captain's back-plate, drawing long dark lines there.

THE TASTE OF NIGHT.

PAT CADIGAN.

Pat Cadigan is the author of about a hundred short stories and fourteen books, two of which, Synners Synners and and Fools Fools, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. She was born in New York, grew up in Ma.s.sachusetts, and spent most of her adult life in the Kansas City area. She now lives in London with her husband, the Original Chris Fowler, her son, musician and composer Robert M. Fenner, the Supreme Being, Miss Kitty Calgary, and co-conspirator, writer, and raconteuse Amanda Hemingway. She is pretty sure there isn't a more entertaining household.

The taste of night rather than the falling temperature woke her. Nell curled up a little more and continued to doze. It would be a while before the damp chill coming up from the ground could get through the layers of heavy cardboard to penetrate the sleeping bag and blanket coc.o.o.ning her. She was fully dressed and her spare clothes were in the sleeping bag, too-not much but enough to make good insulation. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours, though, she would have to visit a laundromat because phew phew.

Phew was one of those things that didn't change; well, not so far, anyway. She hoped it would stay that way. By contrast, the taste of night was one of her secret great pleasures although she still had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Now and then something was one of those things that didn't change; well, not so far, anyway. She hoped it would stay that way. By contrast, the taste of night was one of her secret great pleasures although she still had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Now and then something almost almost came to her, came to her, almost almost. But when she reached for it either in her mind or by actually touching something, there was nothing at all.

Sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch. ________.

Memory sprang up in her mind with the feel of pale blue stretched long and tight between her hands.

The blind discover that their other senses, particularly hearing, intensify to compensate for the lack. The deaf can be sharp-eyed but also extra sensitive to vibration, which is what sound is to the rest of us.

However, those who lose their sense of smell find they have lost their sense of taste as well because the two are so close. To lose feeling is usually a symptom of a greater problem. A small number of people feel no pain but this puts them at risk for serious injury and life-threatening illnesses.

That doctor had been such a patient woman. Better yet, she had had no deep well of stored-up suspicion like every other doctor Marcus had taken her to. Nell had been able to examine what the doctor was telling her, touching it all over, feeling the texture. Even with Marcus's impatience splashing her like an incoming tide, she had been able to ask a question.

A sixth sense? Like telepathy or clairvoyance?

The doctor's question had been as honest as her own and Nell did her best to make herself clear.

If there were some kind of extra sense, even a person who had it would have a hard time explaining it. Like you or me trying to explain sight to someone born blind.

Nell had agreed and asked the doctor to consider how the other five senses might try to compensate for the lack.

That was where the memory ended, leaving an aftertaste similar to night, only colder and with a bit of sour.

Nell sighed, feeling comfortable and irrationally safe. Feeling safe was irrational if you slept rough. Go around feeling safe and you wouldn't last too long. It was just that the indented area she had found at the back of this building-cinema? auditorium?-turned out to be as cozy as it had looked. It seemed to have no purpose except as a place where someone could sleep unnoticed for a night or two. More than two would have been pushing it, but that meant nothing to some rough sleepers. They'd camp in a place like this till they wore off all the hidden. Then they'd get seen and kicked out. Next thing you knew, the spot would be fenced off or filled in so no one could ever use it again. One less place to go when there was nowhere to stay.

Nell hated loss, hated the taste: dried-out bitter crossed with salty that could hang on for days, weeks, even longer. Worse, it could come back without warning and for no reason except that, perhaps like rough sleepers, it had nowhere else to go. There were other things that tasted just as bad to her but nothing worse, and nothing that lingered for anywhere nearly as long, not even the moldy-metal tang of disappointment.

After a bit, she realized the pools of color she'd been watching behind her closed eyes weren't the remnants of a slow-to-fade dream but real voices of real humans, not too far away, made out of the same stuff she was; either they hadn't noticed her or they didn't care.

Nell uncurled slowly-never make any sudden moves was another good rule for rough sleepers-and opened her eyes. An intense blue-white light blinded her with the sound of a cool voice in her right ear: Blue-white stars don't last long enough for any planets...o...b..ting them to develop intelligent life. Maybe not any life, even the most rudimentary. Unless there is a civilization advanced enough to seed those worlds with organisms modified to evolve at a faster rate. That might beg the question of why an advanced civilization would do that. But the motives of a civilization that advanced would/could/might seem illogical if not incomprehensible to any not equally developed.

Blue-white memory stretched farther this time: a serious-faced young woman in a coffee shop, watching a film clip on a notebook screen. Nell had sneaked a look at it on her way to wash up in the women's restroom. It took her a little while to realize that she had had a glimpse of something to do with what had been happening to her, or more precisely, why why it was happening, what it was supposed to mean. On the heels of that realization had come a new one, probably the most important: it was happening, what it was supposed to mean. On the heels of that realization had come a new one, probably the most important: they they were communicating with her. were communicating with her.

Understanding always came to her at oblique angles. The concept of that missing sixth sense, for instance-when she finally became aware of it, she realized that it had been lurking somewhere in the back of her mind for a very, very long time, years and years, a pa.s.sing notion or a ragged fragment of a mostly forgotten dream. It had developed so slowly that she might have lived her whole life without noticing it, instead burying it under more mundane concerns and worries and fears.

Somehow it had snagged her attention-a mental pop-up window. Marcus had said everyone had an occasional stray thought about something odd. Unless she was going to write a weird story or draw a weird picture, there was no point in obsessing about it.

Was it the next doctor who had suggested she do exactly that-write a weird story or draw a weird picture, or both? Even if she had really wanted to, she couldn't. She knew for certain by then that she was short a sense, just as if she were blind or deaf.

Marcus had said he didn't understand why that meant she had to leave home and sleep on the street. She didn't either, at the time. But even if she had understood enough to tell him that the motives of a civilization that advanced would/could/might seem illogical if not incomprehensible to any not equally developed, the motives of a civilization that advanced would/could/might seem illogical if not incomprehensible to any not equally developed, all it would have meant to him was that she was, indeed, crazy as a bedbug, unquote. all it would have meant to him was that she was, indeed, crazy as a bedbug, unquote.

The social worker he had sent after her hadn't tried to talk her into a hospital or a shelter right away but the intent was deafening. Every time she found Nell it drowned everything else out. Nell finally had to make her say it just to get some peace. For a few days after that, everything was extra scrambled. She was too disoriented to understand anything. All she knew was that they they were bombarding her with their communication and her senses were working overtime, trying to make up for her inadequacy. were bombarding her with their communication and her senses were working overtime, trying to make up for her inadequacy.

The blinding blue-white light dissolved and her vision cleared. Twenty feet away was an opening in the back of the building the size of a double-garage door. Seven or eight men were hanging around just outside, some of them sitting on wooden crates, smoking cigarettes, drinking from bottles or large soft-drink cups. The pools of color from their voices changed to widening circular ripples, like those spreading out from raindrops falling into still water. The colors crossed each other to make new colors, some she had never seen anywhere but in her mind.

The ripples kept expanding until they reached the backs of her eyes and swept through them with a sensation of a wind ruffling feathery flowers. She saw twinkling lights and then a red-hot spike went through her right temple. There was just enough time for her to inhale before an ice-pick went through her eye to cross the spike at right angles.

Something can be a million lightyears away and in your eye at the same time.

"Are you all right?"

The man bent over her, hands just above his knees. Most of his long hair was tied back except for a few long strands that hung forward in a way that suggested punctuation to Nell. Round face, round eyes with hard lines under them.

See. Hear. Smell. Taste. Touch. ________.

Hand over her right eye, she blinked up at him. He repeated the question and the words were little green b.a.l.l.s falling from his mouth to bounce away into the night. Nell caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep herself from laughing. He reached down and pulled the hand over her eye to one side. Then he straightened up and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. "I need an ambulance," he said to it.

She opened her mouth to protest but her voice wouldn't work. Another man was coming over, saying something in thin, tight silver wires.

And then it was all thin, tight silver wires everywhere. Some of the wires turned to needles and they seemed to fight each other for dominance. The pain in her eye flared more intensely and a voice from somewhere far in the past tried to ask a question without morphing into something else but it just wasn't loud enough for her to hear.

Nell rolled over onto her back. Something that was equal parts anxiety and antic.i.p.ation shuddered through her. Music, she realized; very loud, played live, blaring out of the opening where the men were hanging around. Chords rattled her blood, pulled at her arms and legs. The pain flared again but so did the taste of night. She let herself fall into it. The sense of falling became the desire to sleep but just as she was about to give in, she would slip back to wakefulness, back and forth like a pendulum. Or like she was swooping from the peak of one giant wave, down into the trough and up to the peak of another.

Her right eye was forced open with a sound like a gunshot and bright light filled her mouth with the taste of icicles.

"Welcome back. Don't take this the wrong way but I'm very sorry to see you here."

Nell discovered only her left eye would open but one eye was enough. Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, the social worker. Not the original social worker Marcus had sent after her. That had been Ms. Petersen, Call-Me-Joan, who had been replaced after a while by Mr. Carney, Call-Me-Dwayne. Nell had seen him only twice and the second time he had been one big white knuckle, as if he were holding something back-tears? hysteria? Whatever it was leaked from him in twisted shapes of shifting colors that left bad tastes in her mouth. Looking away from him didn't help-the tastes were there whether she saw the colors or not.

It was the best they could do for her, lacking as she was in that sense. At the time, she hadn't understood. All she had known was that the tastes turned her stomach and the colors gave her headaches. Eventually, she had thrown up on the social worker's shoes and he had fled without apology or even so much as a surprised curse, let alone a good-bye. Nell hadn't minded.

Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, was his replacement and she had managed to find Nell more quickly than she had expected. Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, had none of the same kind of tension in her but once in a while she exuded a musty, stale odor of resignation that was very close to total surrender.

Surrender. It took root in Nell's mind but she was slow to understand because she only a.s.sociated it with Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne's unspoken (even to herself) desire to give up. If she'd just had that missing sense, it would have been so obvious right away.

Of course, if she'd had that extra sense, she'd have understood the whole thing right away and everything would be different. Maybe not a whole lot easier, since she would still have had a hard time explaining sight to all the blind people, so to speak, but at least she wouldn't have been floundering around in confusion.

"Nell?" Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, was leaning forward, peering anxiously into her face. "I said, said, do you know why you're here?" do you know why you're here?"

Nell hesitated. "Here, as in..." Her voice failed in her dry throat. The social worker poured her a gla.s.s of water from a pitcher on the bedside table and held it up, slipping the straw between her dry lips so she could drink. Nell finished three gla.s.ses and Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, made a business of adjusting her pillows before she lay back against the raised mattress.

"Better?" she asked Nell brightly.

Nell made a slight, non-committal dip with her head. "What was the question?" she asked, her voice still faint.

"Do you know where you are?" Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, said.

Nell smiled inwardly at the change and resisted the temptation to say, Same place you are-here. Same place you are-here. There were deep lines under the social worker's eyes, her clothes were wrinkled, and lots of little hairs had escaped from her tied-back hair. No doubt she'd had less rest in the last twenty-four hours than Nell. She looked around with her one good eye at the curtains surrounding them and at the bed. "Hospital. Tri-County General." There were deep lines under the social worker's eyes, her clothes were wrinkled, and lots of little hairs had escaped from her tied-back hair. No doubt she'd had less rest in the last twenty-four hours than Nell. She looked around with her one good eye at the curtains surrounding them and at the bed. "Hospital. Tri-County General."

She could see that her specifying which hospital had rea.s.sured the social worker. That was hardly a major feat of cognition, though; Tri-County General was where all the homeless as well as the uninsured ended up.

"You had a convulsion," Call-Me-Anne told her, speaking slowly and carefully now as if to a child. "A man found you behind the concert hall and called an ambulance."

Nell lifted her right hand and pointed at her face.

Call-Me-Anne hesitated, looking uncertain. "You seem to have hurt your eye."

She remembered the sensation of the spike and the needle so vividly that she winced.

"Does it hurt?" Call-Me-Anne asked, full of concern. "Should I see if they can give you something for the pain?"

Nell shook her head no; a twinge from somewhere deep in her right eye socket warned her not to do that again or to make any sudden movements, period.

"Is there anyone you'd like me to call for you?" the social worker asked.

Frowning a little, Nell crossed her hands and uncrossed them in an absolutely-not gesture. Call-Me-Anne pressed her lips together but it didn't stop a long pink ribbon from floating weightless out from her mouth. Too late-she had already called Marcus, believing that by the time he got here, Nell actually would want to see him. And if not, she would claim that Marcus had insisted on seeing her, her, regardless of Nell's wishes, because he was her husband and loyalty and blahblah-blah-social-worker-blather. regardless of Nell's wishes, because he was her husband and loyalty and blahblah-blah-social-worker-blather.

All at once there was a picture in her mind of a younger and not-so-tired Ms. Dunwoody, Call-Me-Anne, and just as suddenly, it came to life.

I feel that if we can re-unite families, then we've done the best job we can. Sometimes that isn't possible, of course, so the next best thing we can do is provide families for those who need them.

Call-Me-Anne's employment interview, she realized. What they they were trying to tell her with that wasn't at all clear. That missing sense. Or maybe because were trying to tell her with that wasn't at all clear. That missing sense. Or maybe because they they had the sense, they were misinterpreting the situation. had the sense, they were misinterpreting the situation.

"Nell? Nell? Nell?"

She tried to pull her arm out of the social worker's grip and couldn't. The pressure was a mouthful of walnut sh.e.l.ls, tasteless and sharp. "What do you want?"

"I said said, are you sure?" sure?"

Nell sighed. "There's a story that the first people in the New World to see Columbus's ships couldn't actually see see them because such things were too far outside their experience. You think that's true?" them because such things were too far outside their experience. You think that's true?"

Call-Me-Anne, her expression a mix of confusion and anxiety. Nell knew what that look meant-she was afraid the situation was starting to get away from her. "Are you groggy? Or just tired?"

"I don't," she went on, a bit wistful. "I think they didn't know what they were seeing and maybe had a hard time with the perspective but I'm sure they saw them. After all, they were were made by other humans. But something coming from another world, all bets are off." made by other humans. But something coming from another world, all bets are off."

Call-Me-Anne's face was very sad now.

"I sound crazy to you?" Nell gave a short laugh. "Scientists talk about this stuff." talk about this stuff."

"You're not a scientist, Nell. You were a librarian. With proper treatment and medication, you could-"

Nell laughed again. "If a librarian starts thinking about the possibility of life somewhere else in the universe, it's a sign she's going crazy?" She turned her head away and closed her eyes. Correction, eye. She couldn't feel very much behind the bandage, just enough to know that her right eyelid wasn't opening or closing. When she heard the social worker walk away, she opened her eye to see the silver wires had come back. They bloomed like flowers, opening and then flying apart where they met others and connected, making new blooms that flew apart and found new connections. The world in front of Nell began to look like a cage, although she had no idea which side she was on.

Abruptly, she felt one of the wires go through her temple with that same white-hot pain. A moment later, a second one went through the bandage over her right eye as easily as if it wasn't there, going all the way through her head and out, pinning her to the pillow.