Songs of the Dying Earth

“Chun,” he repeated.

“You are Chun the Unavoidable. You have one day to put your affairs in order. Then you will do my bidding. Now begone!”

And Chun found himself standing in the darkened street between the Place of the Seven Nectars and Leja’s House of Golden Flowers.

At first, he was disoriented. Then he saw a figure lurching drunkenly down the street, and he knew that his cloak would soon begin.

An instant later, Taj the Malingerer felt a presence beside him in the night.

“I am Chun the Unavoidable,” said a deep, inhuman voice. “And you have something I need.”

Afterword:

One of the very first science fiction books I bought as a kid was Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, in its original paperback edition published by Hillman. (It cost me a quarter; it goes well over $100.00 on eBay these days.) I became an immediate fan, picking up Big Planet and all the other Vance titles — but then, as now, I had a special love for his tales of the last days of a dying Earth in a worn-out solar system. (So did a lot of other writers — not just the ones in this tribute volume, but dozens of writers over the years have emulated his style and borrowed some of his concepts, not as plagiarists, but as a loving tribute to his skills and his enormous influence throughout the field.)

When Carol and I decided, back in the 1970s, to enter a few Worldcon masquerades, the very first costume we chose to make was Chun the Unavoidable and his shill, Lith the Golden Witch. We won at Torcon, the 1973 Worldcon in Toronto…and now, thirty-six years later, it’s a pleasure to go back and offer my literary thanks to Chun and Lith, two of Jack’s more unforgettable characters.

— Mike Resnick

Walter Jon Williams ABRIZONDE

Walter Jon Williams was born in Minnesota and now lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico. His short fiction has appeared frequently in Asimov’s Science Fiction, as well as in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Wheel of Fortune, Global Dispatches, Alternate Outlaws, and in other markets, and has been gathered in the collections Facets and Frankensteins and Other Foreign Devils. His novels include Ambassador of Progress, Knight Moves, Hardwired, The Crown Jewels, Voice Of The Whirlwind. House Of Shards, Days of Atonement, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire, a huge disaster thriller, The Rift, a Star Wars novel, Destiny’s Way, and the three novels in his acclaimed Modern Space Opera epic, “Dread Empire’s Fall,” Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis, Dread Empire’s Fall: The Sundering and Dread Empire’s Fall: Conventions of War. His most recent books are Implied Spaces and This Is Not a Game. He won a long-overdue Nebula Award in 2001 for his story “Daddy’s World,” and took another Nebula in 2005 with his story “The Green Leopard Plague.” He also scripted the online game “Spore.”

In the fast-moving and suspenseful story that follows, we journey with a student architect headed through the mountainous Cleft of Abrizonde to the school in distant Occul, who inadvertently gets caught up in a war between the Protostrator of Abrizonde and the rulers of Pex and Calabrande, and who finds that opportunity can come along at the most unexpected of times — and that you’d better seize it when it does!

The student architect Vespanus of Roe, eager to travel to the city of Occul in the country of Calabrande, left Escani early in the season for an ascent of the Dimwer, the deep river that passes through the Cleft of Abrizonde on its way to the watery meads of Pex, the land where Vespanus, waiting for the pass to open, had passed a dreary winter in the insipid flat callow-fields of the brownlands.

The local bargemen claimed an early ascent was too hazardous for their craft, so Vespanus traveled upriver on a mule, a placid cream-colored animal named Twest. The Dimwer roared in a frigid torrent on the left as Twest made her serene ascent. There was still snow in the shadows of the rocks, but the trail itself was passable enough. The river bore on its peat-colored waters large cakes of ice that, Vespanus was forced to admit, would in fact have posed something of a danger to barge traffic.

Though nights were frigid, Vespanus employed his architectural talents and his madling Hegadil, who each night built him a warm, snug little home, with a stable attached for the mule, and who disassembled both the next morning. Vespanus thus spent the nights in relative comfort, reclining on purfled sheets, smoking Flume, and perusing a grimoire when he was not experiencing the pleasing fantasies brought on by the narcotic smoke.

On the third day of his ascent, Vespanus perceived the turrets and battlements of a castle on the horizon, and knew himself to be in the domain of the Protostrator of Abrizonde. Against this lord he had been warned by the bargemen—“a robber, boorish and rapacious, and yet strangely fashionable, who extorts unconscionable tolls from any wayfarer traveling through the Cleft.” Vespanus had inquired if there were routes available that did not involve traversing lands menaced by the Protostrator, but these would have involved weeks of extra travel, and so Vespanus resigned himself to a severe reduction in his available funds.

In any case, the Protostrator proved a pleasant surprise. A balding man whose round face protruded from a tissue-like lacy collar of extravagant design, and whose personal name was Ambius, the Protostrator offered several nights of pleasant hospitality, and never asked for a single coin in payment. All that he desired was news of Pex, and gossip concerning the voivodes of Escani, of whose affairs he seemed to know a great deal. He also wished to know of the latest fashions, hear the latest songs, receive word of new plays or theatrical extravaganzas, and hear recitations of the latest poetry. Vespanus did his best to oblige his host: he sang in his light tenor while accompanying himself on the osmiande; he discussed the illicit loves of the voivodes with a completely spurious authority; and he described the sumptuous wardrobe of the Despoina of Chose, who he had glimpsed in procession to Escani’s Guild of Diabolists, to which she was obliged by ancient custom to resort every nine hundred and ninety-nine days.

“Alas,” said Ambius, “I am a cultured man. Were I a mere robber and brute, I would rejoice on my perch above the Dimwer, and gloat as the contents of my strongrooms grew and glittered. But here in the Cleft, I find myself longing for the finer things of civilization — for silks, and songs, and cities. And never a city have I seen for the last thirteen years, since I assumed my present position — for if I traveled either to Pex or to Calabrande, I would instantly lose my head for violation of the state’s unjust and unreasonable monopoly on taxation. So I must content myself with such elements of culture as I am able to import.” He gestured modestly toward the paintings on the wall, to the curtains of mank fur, and to his own opulent, if rather eccentric, clothing. “Thus I am doomed to remain here, and to exact tolls from travelers in the manner as the Protostratoi before me, and dream of distant cities.”

Vespanus, who was not entirely in sympathy with the Protostrator’s dilemma, murmured a few words of consolation.

Ambius brightened.

“Still,” he said, “I am known for my hospitality. Any poet, or performer, or troupe of players will find me a kind host. For these are immune to my tolls, provided that they bring civilization with them, and are willing to provide entertainment. And gentlemen such as yourself,” with a nod toward Vespanus, “are of course always welcome.”

Vespanus thanked his host, but mentioned that he would be leaving for Calabrande in the morning. Ambius returned a sly look.

“I think not,” he said. “There will be a storm.”