Birthnight
by Michelle
Sagara
Rosdan Press, 2011
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
SMASHWORDS EDITION:
978-1-927094-14-3
Copyright 2011 by Michelle Sagara
All rights reserved
Cover design by Anneli West,
Four
Corners Communication
Dragon: photoshop brush by Rob
Marks/Breezy.com
Palm trees: photoshop brush by
horhewbrushes.com
“Birthnight” Copyright 1992 by Michelle
Sagara. First appeared in
Christmas Bestiary
, ed.
Rosalind M. Greenberg and Martin H. Greenberg.
Introduction Copyright 2003 by Michelle
Sagara. First appeared in
Magical Beginnings
ed. Steven
H. Silver and Martin H. Greenberg.
Smashwords Edition License
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Novels by Michelle
Sagara
The Book of the Sundered
Into the Dark Lands
Children of the Blood
Lady of Mercy
Chains of Darkness, Chains of Light
Chronicles of Elantra
Cast in Shadow
Cast in Courtlight
Cast in Secret
Cast in Fury
Cast in Silence
Cast in Chaos
Cast in Ruin
Cast in Peril (September 20, 2011)
The Queen of the Dead
Silence*
Touch**
Grave**
*Forthcoming in 2012
**Forthcoming
Memory is a tricky thing. When I decided I
would reprint all of my short stories as individual ebooks, I also
decided I would take the time—and space—to write introductions for
each of the stories. But
Birthnight
had been reprinted
once, in 2003, for a collection of first stories by various
authors. So I already had an introduction for the short story.
Except, rereading it, there are things I don’t remember, in 2011,
the way I did in 2003.
Other things have changed. I am not,
obviously, working on the fifth book of
The Sun Sword
now. I
am, on the other hand, working on the fifth book of
House
War
now, and I thought that would be two books too, and I am
reading a new Tanya Huff novel, one chapter at a time—and Tanya
actually doesn’t write
quickly
when a book is being read
that way—so I guess the more things change, the more they stay the
same. I’ve been nagging her. I did that back in 1990 as well, but
it was easier as she was in the store thirty-six of the same hours
a week as I was.
“Birthnight” was the first short story I
sold. It’s not the first short story published—that was “Gifted”,
because they moved the anthology which contained it up a month to
coincide with the Disney Aladdin movie that was being released that
month. But I was probably more nervous and more worried about
“Birthnight” than I was about the novel which would see print in
the same month.
I wrote this story twenty years ago. It has
some of the wildness and some of the sense of elegy that I feel I
absorbed from the books I loved in my childhood—
Lord of the
Rings, Forgotten Beasts of Eld
—and while it is not the story I
would write today, I can honestly say I still see the heart of it
clearly.
Toronto, August 2011
------
There are a number of loosely related facts
that underpin the writing of this story. First: I love Christmas
stories. The story of Santa Claus, the jolly, white-bearded
whimsical gift-giver, coupled with the certain knowledge that my
parents had lied to me, deliberately about his existence, is
probably chiefly responsible for the way that love is expressed;
there is both giving and losing, gift and loss, inherent on the
occasion.
Second: Although I’m not what anyone rational
would call a religious person, there’s a certain element of
Christian myth that I find fascinating, in almost the same way that
I find Tolkien fascinating; it speaks to me in a way that
resonates, that feels true, and that I rationally would never
defend as reality, no matter how much it can inform my own.
Third: When this story was written, I knew
almost nothing about the short story market, because my first
attempt at a short story was what eventually became the
Hunter’s Oath
and
Hunter’s Death
duology; my
third attempt was what eventually became the four book
Books of
The Sundered
tetralogy. Just for the record, I originally
thought that the
Sun Sword
series, of which I am currently
working on volume five, would be two novels—so I admit up front
that I don’t always understand the concept of “length” when it
comes to number of words. Mike Resnick, who had written more novels
than I, and vastly more short stories than I, and with whom I’m
never likely to catch up – and who has also won almost every award
known to man for the writing of those – informed me of the
anthology for which Birthnight was originally written—one which
Marty Greenberg was editing. He also had a lot of advice to offer,
and if I wasn’t afraid of embarrassing him with what is admittedly
my terrible memory, I’d probably attempt to reconstruct it all.
Suffice it to say that if it weren’t for Mike Resnick, this story
and most of the others over which he has no direct bearing, would
probably not exist.
Fourth: I was working with Tanya Huff when I
wrote this story. She had written a story for the same anthology a
month or two earlier, and as I pretty much got to read all of her
work before she submitted it – which was wonderful for short
stories because she handed me the whole thing at once, whereas with
novels it was one chapter at a time—and she likes to end her
chapters in a way that will “keep people reading”, but I digress—I
had actually read the story in question. It was, of course,
excellent, and had all of the earmarks of a Tanya Huff story: It
was funny, it made me sniffle in places, and it was completely
rooted in contemporary culture from beginning to end. So when I
realized that this fledgling story would be in the same book as her
story, I knew damn well that I wasn’t going to write a contemporary
piece. She laughed when I told her this. She laughs when I remind
her of it. But really, it was true, and it still is; I love her
writing, and it is just so different from mine that I always feel
nervous after finishing something she’s written because I know my
work won’t evoke the same response.
I was living in my first house, and the room
that I worked in—which was my office until my oldest son was born
-- was painted bright pink (a leftover gift from the previous owner
of said house—we had always intended to repaint that room, but we
had never gotten around to it, and in the end, my mother painted
that room pale blue while I was in the hospital delivering my first
child because she wasn’t going to condemn a child to that despised
and loathsome pink), and the story was written on a Mac SE30, and
it was many, many months before Christmas, but all of that story
came to me in a sitting, in a mad rush of messy words and the
emotions that come out of that particular time of year.
I tweaked it afterwards, of course, poking
and prodding it, and stripping out words so that I would actually
come in at the right length, but I was happy with the story as it
came out, and it was this story that I chose to read at
Harbourfront, when I was—as usual—petrified about having to do
anything in a public venue.
I really hope you like it.
Toronto, 2003
On the open road, surrounded by gentle hills
and grass strong enough to withstand the predation of sheep, the
black dragon cast a shadow long and wide. His scales, glittering in
sun-light, reflected the passage of clouds above; his wings, spread
to full, were a delicate stretch of leathered hide, impervious to
mere mortal weapon. His jaws opened; he roared and a flare of red
fire tickled his throat and lips.
Below, watching sheep graze and keeping an
eye on the nearby river where one of his charges had managed to
bramble itself and drown just three days past, the shepherd looked
up. He felt the passing gust of wind warm the air; saw the shadow
splayed out in all its splendor against the hillocks, and covered
his eyes, to squint skyward.
“Clouds,” he muttered, as he shook his head.
For a moment, he thought he had seen ... children’s dreams. He
smiled, remembering the stories his grandmother had often told him,
and went back to his keeping. The sheep were skittish today;
perhaps that made him nervous enough to remember a child’s
fancy.
The great black dragon circled the shepherd
three times; on each passage, he let loose the fiery death of his
voice—but the shepherd had ceased even to look, and in time, the
dragon flew on.
* * *
He found them at last, although until he
spotted them from his windward perch, he had not known he was
searching. They walked the road like any pilgrims, and only his
eyes knew them for what they were: Immortal, unchanging, the
creatures of magic’s first birth. There, with white silk mane and
horn more precious to man than gold, pranced the unicorn. Fools
talked of horses with horns, and still others, deer or
goats—goats!—but they were pathetic in their lack of vision. This
creature was too graceful to be compared to any mortal thing; too
graceful and too dangerously beautiful.
Ahead of the peerless one, cloaked and robed
in a darkness that covered her head, the dragon thought he
recognized the statue-maker from her gait. Over her, he did not
linger.
But there also was basilisk, stone-maker, a
wingless serpent less mighty than a dragon, and at his side, never
quite meeting his eyes, were a small ring of the Sylvan folk,
dancing and singing as they walked. They did not fear the
basilisk’s gaze; it was clear from the way they had wreathed his
mighty neck in forest flowers that seemed, to the sharp eyes of the
dragon, to be blooming even as he watched.
And there were others—many others—each and
every one of them the first born, the endless.
“Your fires are lazy, brother,” a voice said
from above, and the dragon looked up, almost startled, so intent
had he been upon his inspection. “And I so hate a lazy fire.”
No other creature would dare so impertinent
an address; the dragon roared his annoyance, but felt no need to
press his point. It had been a long time since he had seen this
fiery creature. “I was present for your last birth,” he said, “and
you were insolent even then—but I was more willing to forgive you;
you were young.”
“Oh indeed, more insolent,” the phoenix
replied, furling wings of fire and heat and beauty as he dived
beneath the dragon, buoying him up, “and young. My brother, I fear
you speak truer than you know. You attended my last birth—there
will be no others.”
The dragon gave a lazy, playful breath—one
that would have scorched a small village or blinded a small
army—and the phoenix preened in the flames. But though they played,
as old friends might, there was a worry in the games—a desperation
they could not speak of. For were they not immortal and
endless?
* * *
“They do not see me,” the unicorn said
quietly, when at last the dragon had chosen to land. The phoenix
alas, was still playing his loving games—this time with the
harpies, who tended to think rather more ill of it than the dragon
had. They screeched and swore and threatened to tear out the
swan-like fire-bird’s neck; from thousands of feet below, the
dragon could hear the phoenix trumpet.
“Do not see you? But sister, you hide.”
“I once did.” She shook her splendid mane,
and turned to face him, her dark eyes wide and round. “But now—I
walk as you fly, and they do not see me. I even touched one old
woman, to heal her of her aches—and she did not feel my presence at
all.”
Dragons are proud creatures, but for her
sake, he was willing to take the risk of exposing a weakness. “I,
too, am worried. I flew, I cast my shadows wide, I breathed the
fiery death.” He snorted; smoke cindered a tree-branch. Satisfied,
he continued. “But they did not even look up.”
