Songs of the Dying Earth

“My dears, my poor little dears, we must move on,” said Daratello the Psitticist, in a voice of tender regret. “This was a most excellent hiding place, and you have been brave little girls, but this two-legged weasel has penetrated our long refuge. What shall we do with him? Shall I allow you to peck out his eyes? But then he’d still have his tongue, to tell of what he’s seen here. And I can’t ask you to pull out his tongue, darlings; the nasty creature might bite one of you. No…Daddy will deal with him, after all.”

Daratello extended his hand. “Felojun’s Spell of Delusion, little Vaissa, if you please.”

The last thing Cugel heard was the shrill metallic voice of one of the green birds, reciting dread words, before Daratello’s voice repeated them and the universe shattered into meaningless color and sound.

The kitchen drudge waited an hour past the usual time for Cugel to come for the hot water, before deciding she’d better carry it in herself. Two paces inside the solarium door, she stopped and stared openmouthed, to see Cugel the Clever perched inside the iron ring, his knees drawn up about his ears, his elbows held stiffly back. He cocked his head, observing her with a blank inhuman eye; then bent awkwardly and dug about in the seed-cup with his long nose, searching for millet seeds.

Afterword:

In the early Sixties, just after Tolkien’s books had made their initial tremendous splash in the American market, stateside anthologists were scurrying to cash in on the renewed interest in fantastical tales. I was home from school with bronchitis and my mother picked up a paperback anthology for me from Ferguson’s Drugstore, The Young Magicians, edited by Lin Carter. The anthology’s cover copy implied that if I loved Tolkien, I’d love the anthology because it was chock-full of similar fanciful goodness. The actual contents were garnered mostly from American pulps; there was a Robert E. Howard story, there were a couple of Lovecraft pieces, there was some Clark Ashton Smith, and “Turjan of Miir” by Jack Vance. Vance’s story made the strongest impression on me, with its depiction of the decadent court of Prince Kandive the Golden and the perpetually furious anti-heroine T’sais. I loved the way Vance used language, dangling archaic words through his tale like clusters of ripe grapes, throwing out references to other places and people of the Dying Earth without explaining them, so that my imagination scrambled feverishly to color them in.

Many years later I encountered the tales of Cugel the Clever, a liar and thief in a doomed world of liars and thieves, as hapless as Wile E. Coyote and by several degrees less moral than Harry Flashman. Probably the least attractive hero it would be possible to find, struggling through a universe like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a hero only in that nearly everyone else he encounters in that universe is on the make too; and yet the Cugel stories are howlingly funny. If I’d contributed a story to this anthology much earlier in my life, it might have been about T’sais, a girl raging at an imperfect universe. Having made it to midlife, though, and knowing now the value of a good pratfall, I was instead inspired to write about Cugel.

— Kage Baker

Phyllis Eisenstein THE LAST GOLDEN THREAD

Even if you come from a rich and successful family, the life of a mushroom merchant is not an exciting one. When the scion of such a family decides to spurn the mushroom business and pursue instead the difficult and dangerous trade of magician, he’ll need all of his courage and all of his wits and resources…and yes, a few mushrooms as well!

Phyllis Eisenstein’s short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Amazing, and elsewhere. She’s probably best-known for her series of fantasy stories about the adventures of Alaric the Minstrel, which were later melded into two novels, Born to Exile and In the Red Lord’s Reach. Her other books include the two novels in The Book of Elementals, Sorcerer’s Son and The Crystal Palace, as well as standalone novels Shadow of Earth and In the Hands of Glory. Some of her short fiction, including several stories written with husband Alex Eisenstein, has been collected in Night Lives: Nine Stories of the Dark Fantastic. For twenty years she has taught creative writing at Columbia College Chicago, where she and her husband created and edited Spec-Lit, a trade paper anthology showcasing work by her students. Currently, she is employed full-time as Manager of copy editors at a major Chicago ad agency. Phyllis holds a degree in Anthropology from the University of Illinois, where she studied archaeology and traditional societies with arcane belief systems. She and her husband were born in Chicago, and have lived there together for the last forty years.

As the elder son of the house — by half an hour — it was Bosk Septentrion’s privilege to sit beside his father at dinner. Generally, he avoided that privilege, having long since lost interest in his father’s unending supply of advice, but this night they had a guest, and it was only common courtesy to share a meal with a traveler bound home to Ascolais. He knew his father’s only concern was to create another mercantile connection with the south; Bosk’s concern was the sapling that Turjan of Miir had caused to sprout from their dining table.

“A charming gift,” said Bosk’s father, passing Turjan another serving of succulent three-mushroom stew.

“A bagatelle,” said Turjan. “It will live on the scraps of your meals and bear fruit in a year.”

Bosk could not keep his eyes from the tree, its graceful bole and nodding leaves like a dancer with feathery hair waiting for the music to begin. He had never desired to be a merchant, though for ten generations that had been the fate of every Septentrion son. Now, fifteen winters into his life, he finally knew what he did desire. He looked at his father, speaking earnestly to Turjan of business. He looked at his younger brother Fluvio, at the other end of the table, stabbing the mushrooms in his stew as if they were small animals that might escape. Fluvio, he knew, enjoyed sitting next to their father; Fluvio was the true Septentrion heir.

Bosk reached out to touch the tree. The pale bark was as smooth as the timeworn surface from which it had sprung. Under the table, his father’s buskined foot nudged his ankle, and he drew his hand back to take up his crystalline goblet and sip at the aromatic infusion of fermented mushrooms which was the culmination of the meal as well as the current topic of conversation.

“It may be an acquired taste,” said Turjan.

“As so many things are,” said Bosk’s father. He lifted his own goblet high to show the warm bronze color. “We’ve also found it a useful anodyne for the headaches of overindulgence.” He smiled at Turjan. “You’ll take a flask home with you.”

Turjan set his goblet down and lounged back in his chair. “You’ve laden me with gifts enough already, Master Septentrion.”

Bosk’s father waved that aside. “Dried mushrooms weigh nearly nothing. I merely wish you to remember the friendship you know here.” He inclined his head toward Bosk, though his eyes remained on Turjan. “You have made an impression upon my boys that they will not soon forget.”

Bosk noted that he did not even glance in Fluvio’s direction.

With scarcely a pause, he went on. “Perhaps my eldest can show you around the estate. It has a few vistas worthy of attention. The gorge, of course.”

“Of course,” said Turjan. “And the mines themselves, possibly?”

Bosk’s father shook his head with every evidence of regret. “Much too long a ride for an afternoon, I fear, and the miners are not eager for strangers. They barely tolerate our own visits.”

“A shame,” murmured Turjan. “Well, the gorge then, young Bosk?” He turned to the boy. “I think I would