Uncanny Magazine - JanFeb2017 Read online

  When he’d finished he saw that the room was more crowded. The woman who’d brought his bowl was fetching cups and pitchers, and he stopped her as she passed, her arms full of crockery, and asked her for beer. It came sooner than he expected, and he sat drinking, watching the people around him.

  Saest was alive. He had cursed himself for his cowardice and now he was even more disgusted with himself, both for not thinking of the obvious solution that the Nalendar had seen immediately, and for abandoning a woman he loved. He’d spent the last year wondering if what some humans said was true, that something survived after death. If somehow he could tell Saest he was sorry, get her forgiveness. And now he found she was alive after all and he sat here afraid to actually face her, dreading that moment.

  “Mind if I join you?” The speaker was a short, stocky man with a neatly trimmed beard and an expensive–looking dark blue coat. Aworo made a gesture of assent, and the man pulled out a stool and sat. “Crowded today!” Aworo agreed that it was. “I’m Nes Imosa.” His accent said he was from the northern Nalendar valley.

  “I’m Aworo.”

  Nes Imosa’s eyes widened. “Distinguished name! I suppose your parents hoped you’d be good with horses.” Aworo opened his mouth to say something noncommittal, but the other man kept talking. “I came down yesterday with a boatload of grain. I love Kalub at this time of year, and there’s nothing like the baths! I mean, a man can get a hot bath at home, but there’s something special about the hot springs. Not to mention the pretty serving girls at the bath houses.” He winked.

  “You left your wife at home, then?”

  Nes Imosa laughed as though Aworo had told a tremendously amusing joke. “Ah! Ha ha! I did. Though the wife likes a soak when she can get it, too. And,” his expression was suddenly earnest. “I don’t give her reason to complain. Take my advice, and never give your wife reason to complain! It makes it much easier to take the waters at Kalub every now and then.” He winked again. “Married yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, I know that look,” said Nes Imosa. “She left you?”

  “She wouldn’t marry me to begin with.” Aworo looked around for the serving woman, hoping for more beer.

  “Hah! When a woman says no, it wasn’t meant to be, it’s better that way.”

  “I’m convinced you’re right,” said Aworo.

  “I am, I am! So, what are you here for? You’re not from Kalub, not with that name and that accent.”

  Aworo thought of the frog, skeptical by the side of the well. “I’m curious,” he said. “I’ve been hearing a lot about this god, Smerdis… ”

  “Smerdis!” Nes Imosa said, surprised. “Smerdis. Yes, I’ve heard of him. The One, the Supreme, his followers call him, but I’ve never heard that he’s done much for anyone. Well, there’s Smerdis’ bull—pure white, they say, with gilded horns.”

  Aworo had heard of devotees who, laying a hand on the bull as it passed, had been granted inner peace and enlightenment. “There’s a procession…”

  “Every month. They’d like to do it more often, of course, but they can’t get the permit. Can’t have gods parading around the city whenever they like, we’d never get anything done!”

  Aworo nodded. “Do you know when it is?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, I think. Or you can go into the temple, and for a fee you ask a question and the bull nods or stamps or what have you, for an answer. For a slightly larger fee a priest watches it walk round its ring and then produces a few lines of doggerel.” Nes Imosa shook his head. “Supposedly Smerdis so transcends this corrupt world that only the specially trained can receive his messages, and even then they’re garbled. And what good is that, I ask you?”

  “I’ve heard,” Aworo ventured, thinking of the perfect world of the atheist’s teachings, “that the benefits he confers are spiritual rather than physical.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard that too, and I don’t say I think much of it. My spirits are always in good shape when my body is too!” He laughed again, very amused at himself. “It’s true that some people seem to have… something wrong. And maybe Smerdis helps them. I couldn’t say. I’d rather deal with a god I can get an answer from, one who’s got a track record.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Aworo. The serving woman set down a pitcher on the table, took the old one away.

  “Yes, girl, that’s just what we need,” said Nes Imosa, with good–natured enthusiasm.

  The woman was broad–shouldered and tall—a good six inches taller than Nes Imosa. She hadn’t been a girl for a few years at least. But she turned and asked, pleasantly enough, “What, sir?”

  Nes Imosa grinned up at her. “More beer!”

  As the evening progressed, and the serving woman brought more pitchers, Nes Imosa became even more voluble. How he’d learned the rumor and gossip—some of it from across the continent—Aworo wasn’t sure; Nes Imosa never seemed to stop talking long enough to learn a new story. But somehow, in the very early hours of the morning, Aworo was struck with a confessional impulse and found Nes Imosa listening intently, if drunkenly, to his intentionally vague tale of having fallen in love last year, been turned down, and left the woman in trouble.

  The words in trouble had a galvanizing effect on Nes Imosa. “You can’t leave a woman in that condition!” He punctuated his exclamation by striking the table with his cup. “Where is she?”

  “An island in the…” Before he could finish, Nes Imosa had Aworo by the arm and was pulling him up off his seat. “It’s not that kind of trouble,” Aworo insisted.

  “Girl!” cried Nes Imosa, “put it all on my bill!” And next thing Aworo knew they were stumbling down to the river to look for a boat.

  The sun was just rising as the boat scraped the shore of the island. “I doubt anyone’s awake,” said the fisherman they’d paid to row them over.

  “No worries,” said Nes Imosa and staggered onto the beach. Birds twittered, and somewhere along the shore a heron made its scratching croak. The fisherman shook his head doubtfully and Aworo climbed out. “Hallooo!” called Nes Imosa. “Aworo’s lady!”

  Appalled, Aworo listened to the echoes of Nes Imosa’s shout die down. Five minutes later Saest came out of the woods, her dark hair down, a large brown shawl wrapped around her. “You!” she said, striding up to where the two men stood. “You’re drunk!”

  “Best way to do this sort of thing,” said Nes Imosa.

  “I’m not drunk!” said Aworo, and then staggered and dropped to his knees as the lie hit. A wash of nausea overtook him. “I didn’t think I was,” he said.

  “Lady,” said Nes Imosa, with a courtly bow. “I am…”

  “I don’t care who you are,” Saest said. “And you.” She turned to Aworo. Her voice had suddenly turned flat. He’d never seen her so angry. “Unless you’ve come to remove the curse you put on me, you can leave right now.”

  Aworo looked over his shoulder—carefully, sudden movement was too disquieting. The boat was gone. He looked back to Saest. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Nes Imosa pointed. “You! I know who you are! You’re Aworo!”

  “I told you I was,” said Aworo, irritably. The sun seemed awfully bright for so early. “The boat left.”

  “Swim!” said Saest, and turned and walked back the way she’d come.

  Saest lived in a house with two other priestesses of the Nalendar, who tended a beacon at the end of the island. What Saest did wasn’t clear. Perhaps nothing more than tend the garden and feed the chickens, which, Aworo thought, would certainly have contributed to her resentment at being stuck here.

  Inside, once the shutters were open, was warm and bright—though not so bright as outside. Food cooked over a low fire at one end of the room. One woman rolled up mats and blankets on the floor, while another took crockery off a shelf. “What exciting work!” said Nes Imosa, digging into a plate of eggs with a chunk of flat bread. “Chasing down swindlers.”

  “Yes, it was,” said Saest, with v
enom. She sat at the end of the table, still wrapped in the shawl, though her hair was now tied up in a blue scarf. A priestess put a plate of eggs in front of Aworo. He waved it away and put his head in his hands.

  “Everyone knows who you are now,” said Nes Imosa, blithely. “I’ve always wondered, why doesn’t the Nalendar just say something like everyone who tries to cheat me will die ?”

  “Too broad,” said the woman who was still holding Aworo’s spurned breakfast.

  “She could narrow it down.”

  “No,” said Aworo, still looking at the table. It was plain polished wood with a swirling, convoluted grain. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “There are hard ways to do things, and easy ways,” said Saest. “The hard ways cost more. If a god makes a general statement, it could easily come true the hardest way possible. And it might have other consequences.”

  “The more specific you can be, the more control you have,” said Aworo, not looking up. “For instance, if I knew what caused hangovers.” Saest made a derisive snort. “If I knew how they worked, I might be able to make a statement that would affect a very small thing, something that would ultimately end the hangover. If I were just to say that I didn’t have a hangover anymore—imagine all the conditions under which that might be true. Anything could happen.” He considered for a moment whether it would be worth the risk. He was revered on the plains, prayers and sacrifices were regular and plentiful, he was powerful. But he remembered the blow of the untruth down by the water, and decided he’d taken enough chances for one day. “The more things that would have to happen to make it true, the more power it would take.”

  “What causes hangovers?” asked Nes Imosa.

  “Drinking too much,” said Saest, acerbic. Nes Imosa laughed.

  Aworo winced. “I never made it a study. There are other gods for that. I think it’s a couple of different things.”

  “So it’s easier,” said Nes Imosa, “for the Nalendar to send out investigators pretending to be rich young widows.”

  “We’re not all undercover,” said Saest, “but yes.”

  “I’d be afraid to defraud the Nalendar,” announced Nes Imosa. “Much, much too powerful. Besides, the whole temple deposit system makes it so much easier to do business up and down the river. Very convenient. I would hate to do anything to compromise it.”

  “You’d be amazed what people try,” Saest said. “People come in with forged seals every day. Sometimes they’re obvious, but sometimes they’re very well done. Or there’ll be a team—one person will deposit money in Kalub and get a seal for the account, and make a copy. Then a confederate will take the copy to another city, and they’ll both withdraw most of the money on the same day. It takes the messenger with the day’s numbers a while to reach the other temples, and meantime they’ve gotten away with twice the money they started with.”

  “Ingenious!” Nes Imosa was clearly impressed. “And you track these people down and catch them in the act.”

  “I used to.” She was bitter again.

  “Friend Aworo,” said Nes Imosa, his voice scolding. “This won’t do. You’re just going to have to remove that curse.”

  “The Nalendar has lots of people working for her,” Aworo said. “It’s not like Saest was the only one.” He couldn’t see Saest’s reaction, but he could imagine it. “Besides, I have to be careful how I do it.”

  “You’ve had a year to think about it,” Saest pointed out.

  He looked up. The sun shone in the open shutters, making her brown skin glow warmly, and her eyes… His breath caught for a moment, a stomach–turning combination of desire and shame. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Ridiculous!” said Nes Imosa. “You should have known better.”

  “Thank you,” said Saest. “So what have you been doing for the last year?”

  He owed her the unevasive truth, but couldn’t bring himself to say.

  “Looking for the mythical Higher Power,” Nes Imosa said. “The god of gods.”

  Aworo was struck with horror at how much he’d said, that he’d thought had been vague and equivocating, during last night’s drunken conversation. “I really did think you were dead,” he said. “I wanted… If there was something beyond this world, or someone to forgive me what I’d done…”

  “You were looking for justification,” Saest said. “When you decided to be human you went all out, didn’t you.”

  Aworo sighed and put his head down on his arms.

  He woke stiff and sore, still bent over the table. The sun no longer shone in the unshuttered window, the fire at the end of the room was banked, and he was alone. He pushed himself up, creaky and unsteady, and went outside.

  One of the priestesses was throwing grain to the chickens. Without speaking, she gestured down the pathway that led to the shore.

  A rowboat rested on the beach. A few yards away, Saest was conferring with Nes Imosa. “Drinking too much indeed,” Nes Imosa was saying as Aworo walked up. “But it seemed like such a good idea at the time.” Saest snorted and Nes Imosa flinched. “I beg you madam. The light, the noise… I can hardly bear it.”

  “Saest,” said Aworo.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” said Saest, her voice even. “I don’t want your apology, I don’t want you to tell me you love me, or that it was all your fault, or all my fault.”

  “But I…”

  “You nearly killed me because you loved me?” asked Saest, angry again. “You leave me trapped here for a year because you loved me? You can’t decide whether or not to free me because you loved me ?” Nes Imosa winced, and backed away from her, but she ignored him. “I can do without that sort of love!”

  “Aworo, don’t say anything more,” begged Nes Imosa. “Just get in the boat.”

  Back on shore, they parted ways, Nes Imosa to a bath house and Aworo back to the guesthouse common room. Guests sat at a few tables, and over in a corner a knot of men were throwing dice. Aworo ordered cheese and bread and beer and sat by himself for some time, thinking.

  Before he’d tried being human, he’d never thought much about Truth in the abstract. Truth was what was, the way things were. Once he’d been human a while, truth became a slippery concept. Things that seemed true were provably not. Convictions presented themselves to him from nowhere he could trace. He’d thought Saest was dead, believed it utterly, and yet it had been untrue, and Nes Imosa was right, he should have known it.

  He was afraid to state his motives for anything aloud, because he could never be sure if what he thought was true, or something his human mind had provided after the fact in some attempt to make order out of its own chaos.

  Running away from the river that night, he had first been horrified at what he’d done, and the fact that he was running away. By the next day he began to entertain the idea that it had all been beyond his control, not his fault. The teachings of the atheists he’d spent the fall and winter with had reinforced that idea—this world was broken, corrupt. Nothing went as it should. Living creatures were merely following their natures, and no one was at fault but the power that had brought this flawed world into being. And none of it mattered. The only important thing was to purify oneself so that one could shed one’s imperfections and reach the universal Truth.

  Over at the table where the men were dicing a familiar voice cried out. Aworo looked up and recognized the man in the green coat, who the morning before had sold the horse he’d claimed was one of Aworo’s own.

  Before Aworo could get up, Nes Imosa sank into the seat across from him. “You’re looking better. Ha ha! Girl! Some bread!” He grimaced. “And a pitcher of water.” When the food came he took a chunk of bread. “I don’t think I’d like being a god. I mean, I’d like the power, who wouldn’t? Girl! Cheese!” He took a swig of water. “Feeling much better now, must be the food. But as I was saying. Can you imagine, never being able to lie?” He laughed. “Oh, ha ha! You can! Well, you can twist words around, but there are some things you just can’t get pas
t. But now.” Nes Imosa looked up as the woman brought the cheese. “Some of those mussels as well, my dear.” He looked around and then lowered his voice. “What are you going to do about this curse? She’s safe as long as she stays on the island, it’s true, but I know I wouldn’t want to be stuck there. Not if I couldn’t leave. Ha ha!”

  “The thing is,” Aworo said, and then waited as the dice–players shouted, variously triumphant or disappointed. “The thing is, I didn’t specify how she would die if she turned away from the river. And I don’t know what would be likely to happen right now if she did.”

  The mussels arrived in a steaming bowl of broth. “Help yourself,” Nes Imosa invited. “So is it something that’s likely to hurt you really badly?” He picked up an open shell and blew on the meat inside. “If it’s something that big, then it’s going to cost you that much to begin with, right?”

  The mussels smelled good. Aworo took one while he tried to make sense of what Nes Imosa was asking. “Are you asking if since I spent a certain amount of power when I made the statement, it should take the same amount of power to take it back?”

  “Ha ha. Right.”

  “Imagine I’d said that a particular person was dead. And a certain amount of power was to have made that true. How much would it take, for me to take that back?”

  “Ah! I see your point,” Nes Imosa said genially, scooping up another mussel. “So. I’m curious. Most gods possess a person or an animal some of the time, but that’s not what you’re doing.”

  Aworo sighed. “No.”

  “In fact—correct me if I’m wrong—gods hardly ever use humans that way.”

  “I wouldn’t say hardly ever.” The dice players shouted again, and the serving woman brought a new pitcher of beer. Aworo reached out to fill his cup again, and then remembered the night before and took some cheese instead. “But not like this, not very often.”

  “So, ha ha! Why are you doing it?”

  “Because sometimes—not very often, understand, but it happens—humans do something completely unpredictable. You make such careful plans, and you think you know someone—I can know, from the moment a particular human is born, what they’ll look like and mostly how they’ll act when they’re grown. But sometimes…”