Modern Classics of Fantasy, page 57
He turned restlessly and was surprised to see that the tent side facing the grove was backlit by some kind of diffused lighting. Perhaps it was the moon. It had become a screen, and shadow women seemed to dance across it in patterned friezes. It had to be a trick of his imagination, trees casting silhouettes. Yet without wind, how did they move?
As he watched, the figures came more and more into focus, clearly women. This was no trick of imagination, but of human proposing. If it was one of the columnists or some of his erstwhile friends…Try to frighten him, would they? He would give them a good scare instead.
He slipped into his khaki shorts and found the pistol in his pack. Moving stealthily, he stuck his head out of the tent. And froze.
Instead of the expected projector, he saw real women dancing, silently beating out a strange exotic rhythm. They touched, stepped, circled. There was no music that he could hear, yet not one of them misstepped. And each was as lovely as the girl he had met in the grove.
Jeansen wondered briefly if they were local girls hired for an evening’s work. But they were each so incredibly beautiful, it seemed unlikely they could all be from any one area. Then suddenly realizing it didn’t matter, that he could simply watch and enjoy it, Jeansen chuckled to himself. It was the only sound in the clearing. He settled back on bis haunches and smiled.
* * * *
The moon rose slowly as if reluctant to gain the sky. Arrhiza watched it silver the landscape. Tied to its rising, she was pulled into the Dance.
Yet as she danced a part of her rested still within the tree, watching. And she wondered. Always before, without willing it, she was wholly a part of the Dance. Whirling, stepping along with the other dryads, their arms, her arms; their legs, her legs. But now she felt as cleft as a tree struck by a bolt. The watching part of her trembled in anticipation.
Would the man emerge from his hasty dwelling? Would he prove himself a god? She watched and yet she dared not watch, each turn begun and ended with the thought, the fear.
And then his head appeared between the two curtains of his house, his bare shoulders, his bronzed and muscled chest. His face registered first a kind of surprise, then a kind of wonder, and at last delight. There was no fear. He laughed and his laugh was more powerful than the moon. It drew her to him and she danced slowly before her god.
* * * *
Setting: moonlit glade. 30-35 girls dancing. No Busby Berkley kicklines, please. Try for a frenzied yet sensuous native dance. Robbins? Tharp? Ailey? Absolutely no dirndls. Light makeup. No spots. Diffused light. Music: an insistent pounding, feet on grass. Maybe a wild piping. Wide shot of entire dance then lap dissolve to single dancer. She begins to slow down, dizzy with anticipation, dread. Her god has chosen her…
Jeansen stood up as one girl turned slowly around in front of him and held out her arms. He leaned forward and caught her up, drew her to him.
A god is different, thought Arrhiza, as she fell into his arms. They tumbled onto the fragrant grass.
He was soft where the Huntress was hard, hard where She was soft. His smell was sharp, of earth and mold; Hers was musk and air.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered, though Arrhiza had made no movement to go. “I swear I’ll kill myself if you leave.” He pulled her gently into the canvas dwelling.
She went willingly though she knew that a god would say no such thing. Yet knowing he was but a man, she stayed and opened herself under him, drew him in, felt him shudder above her, then heavily fall. There was thunder outside the dwelling and the sound of dogs growling. Arrhiza heard it all and, hearing, did not care. The Dance outside had ended abruptly. She breathed gently in his ear, “It is done.”
He grunted his acceptance and rolled over onto his side, staring at nothing, but a hero’s smile playing across his face. Arrhiza put her hand over his mouth to silence him and he brought up his hand to hers. He counted the fingers with his own and sighed. It was then that the lightning struck, breaking her tree, her home, her heart, her life.
* * * *
She was easy, Jeansen thought. Beautiful and silent and easy, the best sort of woman. He smiled into the dark. He was still smiling when the tree fell across the tent, bringing the canvas down around them and crushing three of his ribs. A spiky branch pierced his neck, ripping the larynx. He pulled it out frantically and tried to scream, tried to breathe. A ragged hissing of air through the hole was all that came out. He reached for the girl and fainted.
Three old women in black dresses found him in the morning. They pushed the tree off the tent, off Jeansen, and half carried, half dragged him down the mountainside. They found no girl.
He would live, the doctor said through gold and plaster teeth, smiling proudly.
Live. Jeansen turned the word over in his mind, bitterer than any tears. In Greek or in English, the word meant little to him now. Live. His handsome face unmarred by the fallen tree seemed to crack apart with the effort to keep from crying. He shaped the word with his lips but no sound passed them. Those beautiful, melodious words would never come again. His voice had leaked out of his neck with his blood.
Camera moves in silently for a tight close-up. Only sounds are routine hospital noises; and mounting over them to an overpowering cacophony is a steady, harsh, rasping breathing as credits roll.
* * * *
HOWARD WALDROP
God’s Hooks!
Howard Waldrop has been called “the resident Weird Mind of his generation,” and he has one of the most individual and quirky voices (and visions) in letters today. Nobody but Howard could possibly have written one of Howard’s stories; in most cases, nobody but Howard could possibly even have thought of them. Nor is any one Waldrop story ever much like any previous Waldrop story, and in that respect (as well as in the panache and pungency of the writing, the sweep of imagination, and the depth of offbeat erudition), he resembles those other two great Uniques, R. A. Lafferty and Avram Davidson.
Waldrop is widely considered to be one of the best short-story writers in the business, and has produced some of the best short work of the last few decades, including such flamboyantly unclassifiable stories as “Mary Margaret Road-Grader,” “Flying Saucer Rock & Roll,” “Ike at the Mike,” “Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me,” “Man Mountain Gentian,” “Fair Game,” “The Lions Are Asleep This Night,” “Heirs of the Perisphere,” “He-We-Await,” “Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?”, “Night of the Cooters,” and many others. His famous story “The Ugly Chickens,” which can be found in my Modern Classics of Science Fiction, won both the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award in 1981.
For a while in the middle 1970s, Waldrop was being talked about as the progenitor of a subgenre of fantasy called “Outlaw Fantasy,” but creating a literary movement out of the work of one eccentric genius alone is difficult, and little is heard of “Outlaw Fantasy” these days, although echoes of it are still to be found in the work of Neal Barrett, Jr., Don Webb, and Joe R. Lansdale; for a while in the mid-eighties, “Outlaw Fantasy” seemed to be evolving into what has been called “cowpunk,” a cross between gonzo fantasy and the Western, but that subgenre also seems to have faded. Meanwhile, resolutely ignoring all such matters, Waldrop continues to produce his own eclectic and unclassifiable work, just as he had before. In the end, perhaps all that can usefully be said about a Waldrop Story, as far as classification is concerned, is that it is a Waldrop Story.
Waldrop’s work has been gathered in three collections: Howard Who?, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past: Neat Stories by Howard Waldrop, and Might of the Cooters: More Meat Stories by Howard Waldrop, with more collections in the works. Waldrop is also the author of the novel The Texas-Israeli War: 1999, in collaboration with Jake Saunders, and of two solo novels, Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs. He is at work on a new novel, tentatively entitled I, John Mandeville. After spending many years as one of the best-known residents of Austin, Texas, Waldrop recently moved, and now lives in a small town outside of Seattle, Washington.
In the delightful story that follows, he takes us along on one of the most unusual fishing expeditions of all time, for the biggest fish of all…
* * * *
They were in the End of the World Tavern at the bottom of Great Auk Street.
The place was crowded, noisy. As patrons came in, they paused to kick their boots on the floor and shake the cinders from their rough clothes.
The air smelled of wood smoke, singed hair, heated and melted glass.
“Ho!” yelled a man at one of the noisiest tables to his companions, who were dressed more finely than the workmen around them. “Here’s old Izaak now, come up from Staffordshire.”
A man in his seventies, dressed in brown with a wide white collar, bagged pants, and cavalier boots, stood in the doorway. He took off his high-brimmed hat and shook it against his pants leg.
“Good evening, Charles, Percy, Mr. Marburton,” he said, his grey eyes showing merry above his full white mustache and Vandyke beard.
“Father Izaak,” said Charles Cotton, rising and embracing the older man. Cotton was wearing a new-style wig, whose curls and ringlets flowed onto his shoulders.
“Mr. Peale, if you please, sherry all around,” yelled Cotton to the innkeeper. The older man seated himself.
“Sherry’s dear,” said the innkeeper, “though our enemy the King of France is sending two ships’ consignments this fortnight. The Great Fire has worked wonders.”
“What matters the price when there’s good fellowship?” asked Cotton.
“Price is all,” said Marburton, a melancholy round man.
“Well, Father Izaak,” said Charles, turning to his friend, “how looks the house on Chancery Lane?”
“Praise to God, Charles, the fire burnt but the top floor. Enough remains to rebuild, if decent timbers can be found. Why, the lumbermen are selling green wood most expensive, and finding ready buyers.”
“Their woodchoppers are working day and night in the north, since good King Charles gave them leave to cut his woods down,” said Percy, and drained his glass.
“They’ll not stop till all England’s flat and level as Dutchman’s land,” said Marburton.
“If they’re not careful they’ll play hob with the rivers,” said Cotton.
“And the streams,” said Izaak.
“And the ponds,” said Percy.
“Oh, the fish!” said Marburton.
All four sighed.
“Ah, but come!” said Izaak. “No joylessness here! I’m the only one to suffer from the Fire at this table. We’ll have no long faces till April! Why, there’s tench and dace to be had, and pickerel! What matters the salmon’s in his Neptunian rookery? Who cares that trout burrow in the mud, and bite not from coat of soot and cinders? We’ve the roach and the gudgeon!”
“I suffered from the Fire,” said Percy.
“What? Your house lies to east,” said Izaak.
“My book was at bindery at the Office of Stationers. A neighbor brought me a scorched and singed bundle of title pages. They fell sixteen miles west o’town, like snow, I suppose.”
Izaak winked at Cotton. “Well, Percy, that can be set aright soon as the Stationers reopen. What you need is something right good to eat.” He waved to the barkeep, who nodded and went outside to the kitchen. “I was in early and prevailed on Mr. Peale to fix a supper to cheer the dourest disposition. What with shortages, it might not pass for kings, but we are not so high. Ah, here it comes!”
Mr. Peale returned with a huge round platter. High and thick, it smelled of fresh-baked dough, meat and savories. It looked like a cooked pond. In a line around the outside, halves of whole pilchards stuck out, looking up at them with wide eyes, as if they had been struggling to escape being cooked.
“Oh, Izaak!” said Percy, tears of joy springing to his eyes. “A star-gazey pie!”
Peale beamed with pleasure. “It may not be the best,” he said, “but it’s the End o’ the World!” He put a finger alongside his nose, and laughed. He took great pleasure in puns.
The four men at the table fell to, elbows and pewter forks flying.
* * * *
They sat back from the table, full. They said nothing for a few minutes, and stared out the great bow window of the tavern. The shop across the way blocked the view. They could not see the ruins of London, which stretched, charred, black and still smoking, from the Tower to the Temple. Only the waterfront in that great length had been spared.
On the fourth day of that Great Fire, the King had given orders to blast with gunpowder all houses in the way of the flames. It had been done, creating the breaks that, with a dying wind, had brought it under control and saved the city.
“What the city has gone through this past year,” said Percy. “It’s lucky, Izaak, that you live down country, and have not suffered till now.”
“They say the fire didn’t touch the worst of the plague districts,” said Marburton. “I would imagine that such large crowds milling and looking for shelter will cause another one this winter. Best we should all leave the city before we drop dead in our steps.”
“Since the comet of December year before last, there’s been nothing but talk of doom on everyone’s lips,” said Cotton.
“Apocalypse talk,” said Percy.
“Like as not it’s right,” said Marburton.
They heard the clanging bell of a crier at the next cross street.
The tavern was filling in the late afternoon light. Carpenters, tradesmen covered with soot, a few soldiers all soiled came in.
“Why, the whole city seems full of chimneysweeps,” said Percy.
The crier’s clanging bell sounded, and he stopped before the window of the tavern.
“New edict from His Majesty Charles II to be posted concerning rebuilding of the city. New edict from Council of Aldermen on rents and leases, to be posted. An Act concerning movements of trade and shipping to new quays to become law. Assize Courts sessions to begin September 27, please God. Foreign nations to send all manner of aid to the City. Murder on New Ogden Street, felon apprehended in the act. Portent of Doom, monster fish seen in Bedford.”
As one, the four men leapt from the table, causing a great stir, and ran outside to the crier.
* * * *
“See to the bill, Charles,” said Izaak, handing him some coins. “We’ll meet at nine o’ the clock at the Ironmongers’ Company yard. I must go see to my tackle.”
“If the man the crier sent us to spoke right, there’ll be no other fish like it in England,” said Percy.
“Or the world,” said Marburton, whose spirits had lightened considerably.
“I imagine the length of the fish has doubled with each county the tale passed through,” said Izaak.
“It’ll take stout tackle,” said Percy. “Me for my strongest salmon rod.”
“I for my twelve-hair lines,” said Marburton.
“And me,” said Izaak, “to new and better angles.”
* * * *
The Ironmongers’ Hall had escaped the fire with only the loss of its roof. There were a few workmen about, and the company secretary greeted Izaak cordially.
“Brother Walton,” he said, “what brings you to town?” They gave each other the secret handshake and made The Sign.
“To look to my property on Chancery Lane, and the Row,” he said. “But now, is there a fire in the forge downstairs?”
Below the Company Hall was a large workroom, where the more adventurous of the ironmongers experimented with new processes and materials.
“Certain there is,” said the secretary. “We’ve been making new nails for the roof timbers.”
“I’ll need the forge for an hour or so. Send me down the small black case from my lockerbox, will you?”
“Oh, Brother Walton,” asked the secretary. “Off again to some pellucid stream?”
“I doubt,” said Walton, “but to fish, nonetheless.”
* * * *
Walton was in his shirt, sleeves rolled up, standing in the glow of the forge. A boy brought down the case from the upper floor, and now Izaak opened it and took out three long grey-black bars.
“Pump away, boy,” he said to the young man near the bellows, “and there’s a copper in it for you.”
