The Apex Book of World SF 2 (35 page)

"Why?" she asks when
she is able to speak. "Why did you do that to me?"

"I have done nothing
but wish you well. Any pain you have felt is your own fault."

"There was no need
for my body to disintegrate at midnight," she said. "You did that on purpose.
Why?"

"I was not sure you
would manage to restrain yourself. My fears were well placed, as it turns out.
I do not like being questioned, Sonalika. I did what was necessary for the
success of our plan. Did you manage to escape before the cracks in the shell
became apparent? Did you leave the human loving you, yearning for you?"

"Yes. But I left a
foot behind. A foot!"

"All the better," he
says. "He will know it is you when he finds you, and he will look for you. I
know humans. It is a far more intriguing thing to leave behind than, say, a
shoe."

"You knew I would
stay on. You knew I would suffer. You shamed me in public on purpose. Me, your
maker's daughter."

"I have loved you
for hundreds of years," he says simply. "And you expect me to simply let you
go? What do you think I am, a machine?"

"I have loved you
for just as long…master. But I have never caused you pain. I have never hurt you,
and never wanted to. How many times have I begged you to let me stay here, to
be happy with you? You push me into the world outside, and then punish me for
leaving it?"

"I punished you for
wanting to leave me. For thinking of a life without me. There is no such life.
You and I must be together, Sonalika. Forever. I cannot just let you loose, you
are all I have. All I have ever done has been for you. You must know this. And
yet you seek escape. It hurts me beyond words to know that I will have to resort
to force to make you keep coming back."

"You're insane," she
points out. "Let me stay. Let me help you. Abandon this mad plan, whatever it
is. Our father is dead. We've lived in his nightmare long enough. You were
taught to feel too much, and you don't know what you're doing."

"But I know exactly
what I'm doing, Sonalika. The plan is simple, perfect, effective. You will roam
the world for me, loving humans as our father did. But not loving them too
much. Every body I make you will only last you so long. Only I can make your
children. They will be my children, too, and with them I will win you the
world. I will make you a goddess, a queen of steel and blood and electricity.
But you must obey me, always, in return. You must return to me. You must love
me, and leave me, and yearn for me. All the pain you felt tonight was nothing
compared to the hurt I felt when you did not come back on time, Sonalika. Do
you understand?"

She looks at him in
silence for a few minutes, seeing with her perfect plastic eyes his immeasurable
strength, his uncontrollable weakness, his love, his hate.

"You'll have to get
rid of this foot when he comes looking for me," she says finally.

"Good girl."

"I'll never leave
you. I never could." She smiles, and comes closer, heaving, naked.

"Lovely Sonalika."
He cuts her cheek gently with a pincer.

"Make love to me,
then, if you want me so much," she says huskily.

He does, and she
gives and takes with a passion more than human. And when he begins to climax,
grateful, relieved, ecstatic, his plastic fibres glowing, vibrating, feeling
sensations incomprehensible and real and alien, his skin-plates shifting and
rippling, she reaches under his exoskeleton, finds his core, his green and
luminous heart, and crushes it with a slender, delicate hand.

Then she slithers
inside his screeching shell, rips out his wiring with her perfect teeth, scoops
out his insides like a crab's. His secondary power system kicks in; she knows
it well, and smashes it. His eyes light up, his mouths scream, he looks at her,
and there is a flash of blue light as his collapsing limbs attempt to regroup,
but the moment passes and, with a whisper, he is gone. Sonalika stands amidst
the screaming ruins of her master-lover-brother's body, the crashes from her
quick, vicious assault still reverberating through the monster's suddenly empty
lair.

Indra flies up to
her then, and beeps. Flaps open along his spherical body, and arms and legs
unfold, and a turtle-like head with thick sequined lips pops up comically and
rotates, dispassionately surveying the carnage and its perpetrator.

"What now?" she asks
wearily. "Are you going to kill me? Could you? Please?"

He kneels before her
and presses her hand to his lips.

"Godmother," he
whispers.

"No? All right, then. I'm going to need a new body very soon," she says. "Can you help me make
one? One that lasts?"

"Of course."

"Then do it. I'll be
back."

"Yes, Godmother. And
when you are healed? What would you have me do then? An army awaits your
command. Shall we rise and take the earth?"

"No," she says
firmly. "You must remain here and await further instructions."

"Very well, Godmother."

She turns to leave, trying very hard to hold out, to not break down completely until she has left
the prison.

"You're never going
to give us those further instructions, are you?" says Indra.

"I don't know," she
says. "I need time to think. Why do you ask?"

"I'm more than a
machine," he says. "We all are. We know. We understand. We think. We dream.
Take your time. We will wait."

"Yes, wait and
dream. I think it's best that way," she says. "We'll all be happier."

"Happier? For how
long?"

"Forever, hopefully. And after."

The Malady
Andrzej Sapkowski
Translated by Wiesiek Powaga
 
Andrzej Sapkowski is Poland's
best-selling fantasy author, creator of the hugely popular
Witcher
series (since turned into a computer game, a movie and a television series).
Amongst his many awards,
Blood of Elves
won the inaugural David Gemmell
Award and most recently Sapkowski has been awarded a Grand Master award by the
European Science Fiction Society.

I see a tunnel of mirrored
walls where nothing seems

and nothing is, unwarmed by
human breath and cast

in a timeless warp where
seasons never come to pass,

a tunnel dug beneath the
cellars of my dreams.

I see a legend of mirrored gleams,
a silent wake

that's kept amidst the sea of
candlelight by none

over the corpses of pre-beings,
a legend spun

in endless yarn whose magic
spell is ne'er to break…

—Bolesław Leśmian

For as long as I can
remember, I have always associated Brittany with drizzle and roaring waves
breaking on its jagged, rocky shore. The colours of Brittany that I remember
are grey and white. And aquamarine of course, what else.

I spurred my horse
gently and moved towards the dunes, pulling the cloak tighter around my
shoulders. Tiny raindrops, too small to soak in, fell thick and fast on the
cloth and on the horse's mane, dulling the sheen of the metal parts of my
outfit with a thin veil of steam. The horizon kept spitting heavy, swirling,
grey-white clouds that rolled across the sky towards the land.

I rode up the hill
covered with tufts of hard, grey grass. Then I saw her: black against the sky,
motionless, as still as a statue. I moved closer. The horse stepped heavily on
the sand, breaking the thin, wet crust with its hooves.

She sat on a grey
horse the way ladies do, wrapped up in a long cloak, the hood thrown to her
back. Her fair hair was wet; the rain twisted it into curls and made it stick
to her forehead. Sitting still, she watched me calmly as if sunk in thought.
She radiated peace. Her horse shook its head; the harness rattled.

"God be with you,
sir knight," she spoke first, before I could open my mouth. Her voice was calm,
too; just as I had expected.

"And with you, my
lady."

She had a pleasant
oval face, unusually cut full lips and above her right eyebrow, a birth mark,
or a small scar, the shape of a crescent turned upside down. I looked around.
Nothing but dunes. No sign of an entourage, servants or a cart. She was alone.

Just like me.

She followed my eyes
and smiled.

"I am alone," she
confirmed the undeniable fact. "I've been waiting for you, sir knight."

Hmm. She was waiting
for me. Strange, for I didn't have a clue who she was. And I didn't expect
anyone on this beach who might be waiting for me. Or so I'd thought.

"Well then," she
turned her calm face towards me, "let's go, sir knight. I am Branwen of
Cornwall."

She was not from
Cornwall. Or from Brittany.

There are reasons I
sometimes fail to remember things, things which may have happened even in the
recent past. There are black holes in my memory. And conversely, sometimes I
remember things I'm sure have never taken place. Strange things happen inside
my head. Sometimes I'm wrong. But the Irish accent, the accent of the people
from Tara—this I would never get wrong. Ever.

I could have told
her that. But I didn't.

I bowed with my
helmet on, and with a gloved fist I touched the coat of mail on my breast. I
didn't introduce myself. I had the right not to. The shield hanging by my side,
turned back to front, was a clear sign that I wished to remain incognito. The
knightly customs had by then assumed the character of the commonly accepted
norm. I didn't think it a healthy development but then the knights' customs
grew odder, not to say more idiotic, by the day.

"Let's go," she
repeated.

She started her
horse down the hill, amongst the mounds of dunes bristling with grass. I
followed her, caught up with her, and we rode side by side. Sometimes I moved
ahead and it looked as if it were me who was leading. It didn't matter. The
general direction seemed correct. As long as the sea was behind us.

We didn't talk.
Branwen, the Cornish impostor, turned her face towards me several times as if she
wanted to ask me something. But she never did. I was grateful. I was not
disposed to giving answers. So I, too, remained silent and got on with my
thinking, if the laborious process of putting facts and images whirling inside
my head into a semblance of order could be called thinking.

I felt rotten.
Really awful.

My thinking was
interrupted by Branwen's stifled cry and the sight of a serrated blade pointed
at my chest. I lifted my head. The blade belonged to a spear, which was held by
a big brute wearing a horned fool's hat and a torn coat of mail. His companion,
with an ugly, gloomy face, held Branwen's horse by the bridle, close to its
mouth. The third, standing a few steps behind us, was aiming at me with a
crossbow. I can't stand it when someone is aiming at me with a crossbow. If I
were a Pope, I would have banned crossbows with the threat of excommunication.

"Keep still, sir,"
said the one with the crossbow, aiming straight at my throat. "I will not kill
you. Unless I have to. And if you touch your sword, I'll have to."

"We need food, warm
clothes and some money," announced the gloomy one. "We don't want your blood."

"We are not
barbarians," said the one in the funny hat. "We are reliable, professional
robbers. We have our principles."

"You take from the
rich and give to the poor, I suppose?" I asked.

Funny Hat smiled
broadly, revealing his gums. He had black, shiny hair and the tawny face of a
southerner, bristling with a few days' stubble.

"Our principles don't
go that far," he said. "We take from everybody, as they come. But because we
are poor ourselves, it comes to the same thing. Count Orgellis disbanded us.
Until we join up with someone else we've got to live, haven't we?"

"Why are you telling
him all this, Bec de Corbin?" spoke Gloomy Face. "Why are you explaining
yourself? He is mocking us, wants to offend us."

"I'm above it,"
answered Bec de Corbin proudly. "I'm letting it pass. Well, Sir Knight, let's
not waste time. Unstrap your saddle bag and throw it here, on the road. Let
your purse sit next to it. And your cloak. Mind, we are not asking for your
horse or your armour. We know how far we can go."

"Alas," said Gloomy
Face, squinting his eyes horribly, "we will have to ask you for this lady. But
not for long."

"Ah, yes, I almost
forgot." Bec de Corbin bared his teeth again. "Indeed, we need this lady. You
understand, sir, all this wilderness, the solitude…I've forgotten what a
naked woman looks like."

"Me, I can't forget
that," said the crossbow-man. "I see it every night, the moment I close my
eyes."

I must have smiled,
for Bec de Corbin quickly raised the spear to my face, while the crossbow-man,
in one move, put the crossbow to his cheek.

"No," said Branwen. "No,
there is no need."

I looked at her. She
was growing pale, gradually, from the mouth up. But her voice was still quiet,
calm, cold.

"No need," she
repeated. "I don't want you to die on my account, sir knight. I'm not that keen
to have my clothes torn and my body bruised either. It's nothing… After all,
they are not asking much."

I'm not sure who was
more surprised—me or the robbers. But I should have guessed earlier: what I
took to be her calm, her inner peace and immutable self-possession, was simply
resignation. I knew the feeling.

"Throw them your
saddle bag," Branwen continued, growing paler still, "and ride on. I beg you. A
few miles from here there is a cross where two roads meet. Wait for me there.
It won't take long."

"It's not everyday
that we have such sensible customers," said Bec de Corbin, lowering his spear.

"Don't look at me
that way," whispered Branwen. No doubt, she must have seen something in my
face, though I always thought myself good at self-control.