Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (48 page)

There is no record of whether he was killed by a Parthian or whether, as some suggest, one of his own lictors slew him, wishing to spare him the indignity of death on a barbarian blade. Regardless: so died one of the wealthiest men the world has ever known.

When he was found to be dead, his body was bundled into the chariot, and Surenas and his aerial guard departed for Ctesiphon, and indeed, by noon of that day, Crassus descended into the capital city of Parthia, as the prophesy had foretold.

A few of the Roman army—perhaps a thousand — escaped from Zeugma. The rest capitulated and were taken prisoner. We do not know what happened to them, but there is one tale of interest, which relates that the king of Parthia eventually gave them as a gift to the emperor of the Han, from far Tartary, and that their descendents live still in the East, at a place that is called Lechien, for they were legionnaires.

As the Parthian cataphracts rounded up their prisoners, they came across a warehouse, in the gloom of which they discovered a nonsense machine: pale youths tied to cranes in a huge bronze tub with a grinning face on the side. The Parthians looked astounded, shook their heads at the infinite perversity of Romans, shut the door, and thought no more of it.

In Ctesiphon, chief city of that country, General Surenas processed down the main avenue in his chariot with the body of Crassus beside him while the people shouted his name in joyous acclamation. He made the corpse indulge in all manner of kisses and bowings to the crowd, bending the stiffening limbs in positions of coarse effeminacy. In the great square, surrounded by thousands of the citizens, the general stood by while a guardsman hacked off Crassus's head. Then, mocking the dead man for his infamous greed and avarice, they poured molten gold into his open mouth, so it burned away the lips and flowed out the throat. This mutilated head, this terrifying object, Surenas raised up before the crowd, and it is said that the cheers could be heard far across the desert. Thus was Crassus, as the prophesy related,
showered with gold.

That night, Hyrodes, king of Parthia, flew down from Armenia, where he conducted a campaign, and there was a great feast held at the palace, and a play in celebration. The play (so says Plutarch) was
The Bacchae,
in which King Pentheus is beheaded and torn limb from limb by crazed women—a drama that had figured in the
sto-chastikon's
education. This play was performed in honor of Dionysus. When the final scene of decapitation was presented, an enterprising actor called Jason danced onto the stage with no plaster head but with the head of Crassus, and acted the scene with that grisly trophy clutched by its hair in his hand.

Holding it aloft, he sang:

"See, citizens, what we have seized for you!

Behold the quarry we hunted on the mountain!"

Crassus's blank eyes gazed down stonily at the king of Parthia, who sat below, with his son the prince on one side and General Surenas on the other; and the king shook with laughter as his enemy's head was so abused.

Thus was the final prophesy of the oracle engine fulfilled, for indeed, King Hyrodes trembled beneath dead Crassus's gaze.

The wine flowed and there was rejoicing among all the Parthians. Sitting at this feast, General Surenas could not know that the king of Parthia, already jealous of his success, would soon have him executed. The king of Parthia could not know that his own son would try quite soon to poison him. And the prince himself could not know that his poison would fail, and that all other methods being exhausted, he should eventually have to resort to murdering his father by strangulation with his bare hands. That night, fate had not been written, or at least it was not yet calculated, and so they drank and laughed heartily while Crassus's dead eyes surveyed them. Our eyes are always blind when they view the future.

The serving women came with almonds, King Hyrodes clapped, the actor Jason pranced upon the stage, and behind him, the chorus boys, dressed as women, moving their arms in delicate dance, sang of the gods, of their generosity, and of their love for all mankind.

M. T. ANDERSON
has written picture books for children, stories for adults, and novels for teens. His satirical science-fiction novel
Feed
was a National Book Award Finalist and winner of a
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize. The first volume of his Octavian Nothing saga won the National Book Award and a
Boston Globe-Horn Book
Award; the second volume won a Michael L. Printz Honor and a
Boston Globe-Horn Book
Honor. Two of his stories have appeared in
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.
About "The Oracle Engine," he writes: "Almost everything in this story, believe it or not, is taken directly from real Roman history. I added Marcus Furius, the oracle engine itself, its prophesy, and, of course, a flying ship or two. Though the machine's prophesy was something I made up, the hideous fate of Crassus and his head was taken right out of Plutarch and Cassius Dio. It just goes to show you that truth is more gory than fiction."

HOLLY BLACK
is the author of best-selling dark contemporary fantasy for kids and teens. Her books include
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale;
two related novels,
Valiant
and the
New York Times
bestseller
Ironside;
the Spiderwick Chronicles (with artist Tony DiTerlizzi); the short story collection
The Poison Eaters and Other Stories;
and a graphic-novel series, the Good Neighbors (with artist Ted Naifeh). Holly has coedited three anthologies:
Geektastic
(with Cecil Castellucci),
Zombies vs. Unicorns
(with Justine Larbalestier), and
Welcome to Bordertown
(with Ellen Kushner). Her latest novel,
White Cat,
is the first of a new series.
Red Glove
is the second book. She and her husband, Theo, live in Amherst, Massachusetts.

LIBBA BRAY
is the author of the
New York Times
best-selling Gemma Doyle trilogy and the Michael L. Printz Award-winning
Going Bovine.
She has contributed to many anthologies, including
21 Proms, The Restless Dead, Vacations from Hell,
and
Up All Night.
She lives in Brooklyn.

SHAWN CHENG
is a creator of handmade, limited-edition comic books. He is a member of the Brooklyn-based comics and art collective Partyka. His work has appeared in the SPX anthology and in
The Best American Comics,
at the Fredericks & Freiser gallery in New York City, and at the Giant Robot galleries in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Shawn lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and two cats.

CASSANDRA CLARE
is the
New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
and
USA Today
best-selling author of the YA urban fantasy series the Mortal Instruments. She is also the author of the steampunk prequel trilogy the Infernal Devices. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and two cats.

CORY DOCTOROW
is a science-fiction author, as well as an activist, journalist, and blogger. He is coeditor of the blog Boing Boing and the author of novels such as
For the Win
and the best-selling
Little Brother.
He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and cofounded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, he now lives with his family in London.

DYLAN HORROCKS
is a writer, artist, and cartoonist who lives in New Zealand. Comics he's written and/or drawn include
Pickle, Atlas, Batgirl,
and
Hunter: The Age of Magic.
His graphic novel
Hicksville
has been published in several languages and won an Eisner Award. He sometimes teaches writing and drawing at various universities and art schools around New Zealand, and in 2006 he was awarded the Auckland University Literary Fellowship. For some years, he's also been running a steampunk fantasy role-playing game for a group of friends, and he is slowly writing a novel based on some of the characters and settings.

KATHLEEN JENNINGS
is an illustrator and writer who lives in Brisbane, Australia. She was raised in very do-it-yourself fashion on a cattle property in western Queensland, by an inventive father and a mother who made her own stew and bread, with the result that steampunk and fantasy have always felt more real to her than "real" fiction. "Finishing School" is inspired by Brisbane in the 1880s (there really was a steam biscuit factory) and stories of bushrangers and daring escapes and runaway bicycles.

ELIZABETH KNOX
has published eight novels for adults, two for young adults, three autobiographical novellas, and a collection of essays. Her novel
The Vintner's Luck
won the Montana New Zealand Book Award and the Tasmania Pacific Region Prize and has been translated into nine languages. Her young adult duet
Dreamhunter
and
Dreamquake
earned recognition as American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults, and
Dreamquake
won a Michael L. Printz Honor. Elizabeth Knox lives in Wellington, New Zealand, with her husband and son.

KELLY LINK
is the author of three short-story collections:
Stranger Things Happen,
which was a
Salon
Book of the Year;
Magic for Beginners,
(named a
Time
Magazine Best Book of Year); and a collection for young adults,
Pretty Monsters.
Her stories have appeared in the anthologies
The Faery Reel, The Restless Dead, The Starry Rift, The Best American Short Stories, Poe's Children, McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
and
Firebirds Rising,
and have won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Tiptree, British Science Fiction Association, and World Fantasy Awards. She worked for three years at a children's bookshop in North Carolina and for five years at Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop in Boston, and she has always loved reading anthologies. Some of her favorites include those edited by Helen Hoke.

GARTH NIX
was born in Melbourne, Australia. A full-time writer since 2001, he has previously worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve. His novels include the award-winning fantasies
Sabriel, Lirael,
and
Abhorsen
and the YA sci-fi novel
Shade's Children.
His fantasy books for children include
The Ragwitch;
the six books of the Seventh Tower sequence; and the seven books of the Keys to the Kingdom series. His books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the
New York Times, Publishers Weekly,
the
Guardian,
the
Sunday Times,
and the
Australian,
and his work has been translated into thirty-eight languages. He lives in a Sydney beach suburb with his wife and two children.

CHRISTOPHER ROWE
'S short stories have been nominees for the World Fantasy, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, and Seiun (Japan) Awards and have been reprinted and translated around the world. His first novel,
Sandstorm,
was published in spring 2011. He lives and works in a century-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, which he shares with his wife, the writer Gwenda Bond.

DELIA SHERMAN
writes historical/folkloric/semi-comic fairy stories with a serious twist. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in many anthologies, most recently
The Beastly Bride, Poe,
and
Teeth.
Her adult novels are
Through a Brazen Mirror; The Porcelain Dove,
which won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and (with fellow fantasist Ellen Kushner)
The Fall of the Kings.
She has coedited three anthologies, including
The Essential Bordertown
(with Terri Windling). Her novel
The Freedom Maze
and her New York Between novels,
Changeling
and
The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen,
are for younger readers. She is a past member of the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council, an active member of the Endicott Studio for Mythic Arts, and a founding member of the board of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. She has also taught writing at Clarion, the Odyssey Workshop in New Hampshire, the Cape Cod Writers' Workshop, and the American Book Center in Amsterdam. She lives in New York City with Ellen Kushner, travels whenever she gets the chance, and writes wherever she happens to be.

YSABEAU S. WILCE
is the author of the Flora Segunda books, the second of which,
Flora's Dare,
won the Andre Norton Award. Before she was steampunk, she was just punk, and now she is considering trying on steamgoth for size.