Weird Tales, Volume 51 (5 page)

Just as he promised, the delivery went smoothly. For both of us. And for Mother too. In spite of her exhaustion, she was cheerful, and everyone misunderstood my cries. They shouldn't be criticized for this, though. Every baby cries at birth. How could they suppose that my tears were from parting with a brother no one knew about?

Although quite weak, ever since Mother first drew me to her breast I made every effort to put my little head on her stomach. At first she found it unusual and brought my head back up, but she got used to it over time. Particularly since I fell asleep the fastest in that position. And what mother wants to have trouble putting her baby to sleep?

My brother's heartbeats, although barely audible, had a calming effect on me. We were no longer touching like before, but we were separated by the very small partition of Mother's skin and a thin layer of fat. You could even say that we were still connected. Just like when we were happily inhabiting the same body.

Well, no idyll is ever of long duration. This one ended when I was four and a half months old. Not all at once, but over three days. At first I thought there was something wrong with my hearing. I had to press my head harder and harder into Mother's soft abdomen to make out the sound of the tiny heart inside.

And then with horror I realized the truth. My brother had set out on the final minimization. At the end of the third day I could no longer hear him regardless of my efforts. And I couldn't try any harder because Mother's stomach had started to hurt from all my pressing, so she held me away from it.

Inevitably I fell ill. Many adults, let alone a baby, would have been crushed by such a trauma. My illness caused the doctors great concern. No one could discover its cause. They examined me thoroughly and tried various therapies, but nothing helped improve my blood count and bring back my appetite. And pull me out of my apathy.

I got better at the beginning of my sixth month. They thought it happened all by itself. The doctors couldn't find the reason for this spontaneous recovery either. But it caused them no concern. Who cares why things are going fine, while they are? They didn't miss a chance, however, to give themselves credit for this favorable turn of events.

And the credit was all mine. I simply started to look at things rationally. At that age a lot of maturing happens in a month and a half, even when you're sick. Or rather, particularly then.

All right, I can't hear my brother's heart anymore, but that doesn't mean, as he himself said, that he died. He's still alive in Mother's womb, he just got smaller. To the quantum level. Maybe even below it. Indeed, miniaturization truly knows not boundaries. And there, as we all know, it's completely immaterial to talk about sound, so there isn't any beating.

This silence from the womb actually came at just the right time. I couldn't keep my head on Mother's stomach forever. What would that look like? Babies have to be weaned sooner or later. It's a bit hard in the beginning, but then they get used to solid food. And start enjoying it.

I rarely think of my brother today. You know how it is: out of sight, out of mind. I only remember him when I look at this photograph, and I don't do that very often. You can't see him, but I know he's there. And I hope he's well wherever he is now. In any case, it was his own choice.

I don't know whether I've convinced you, though. I'd say I haven't. Congratulations on the quantum world, I can almost hear you thinking, but if a person doesn't believe their own eyes, whom will they believe and why? Appearances can be deceiving, but not that much. The picture only shows an ordinary young mother with babe in arms. And since the baby truly doesn't look like me now at this advanced age, how can you believe me when I say it's me? Particularly since my penchant for wild ideas earned me a bad reputation long ago. I'm even trying to make a living out of it.

Zoran Živkovi
is a writer, essayist, researcher, editor, publisher and translator from Belgrade, Serbia, where he still resides. He is the author of seventeen works of fiction including The Fourth Circle (1993), Time Gifts (1997), The Last Book (2007) and Escher's Loops (2008). Živkovi
has been nominated for several awards and received the Miloš Crnjanski Award, World Fantasy Award, the Isidora Sekuli
Award, and the Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša Award for Life Achievement in Literature. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages.

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THE GONG

by Sara Genge

In Which the Sword Battle is Vicious & an Unman's Scheme is More So

On the eve of the battle, the Gong chimed from the turret on the temple. The sound vibrated through the metal fittings on the city's walls and onto the warriors armour, making nobling spears and peasant hoes quiver alike.

If you were touching the ground that day you must have felt it, rising from your bare feet, up your thin, fat, agile or decrepit legs, through your loins (may you always keep them) and on to your stomach, your heart, maybe your vocal cords. If you opened your mouth at that moment you may have exhaled a perceptible—ahhh—a reflex sound, a sigh of death and probable defeat.

In my case, the vibration stopped at my loins, or what was left of them. I do not think it was because of an obsession with that missing part of my anatomy but that the missing link stopped the chain reaction, my body could relay the sound no further and it died there, with my unborn children and my weakness.

The peasants took it well, they collected their miserable belongings, their families and their animals and moved in a steady flow towards the citadel. How it must have shone for them, the tungsten walls, ornate decorations, white drapes on slender windows! Even then, nimble archers peered out from them, noting landmarks that would help them aim later on.

The better informed warriors trembled. Some buried their gold, although we knew that if the Farong came that would be our last concern. Some polished old armour and set for the castle, but those were too few. Most ran, or hid in stubborn glue bunkers hoping the enemy would overlook them. Only Aghar kept his cool and ordered us to form, trembling halfmen, under the white battle flags of the turret. In those days he was cold as a knife and the wind whipped his hair against his copper jaw. His words were crisp and surgical, cutting into our bowels and releasing us from our fear. We, the eunuchs, would fight the Farong! Alone if we must.

We were poorly trained, of course, but not as desperate as the peasants that even now were being recruited to defend the city. We were all noble-born, although our families had fallen in disgrace, and had all received standard battle training before we were put to the knife. I fumbled with my sword and dagger, trying to remember the knowledge that I had so easily wielded when I was twelve and wincing at the easy muscularity of the whole men around me.

Rumours said that the nobles were refusing to fight, holding back, they said, as shock troops for the day when the need was dire. I knew they were stalling, pulling strings, making alliances and even sending parleys among the dreaded Farong to see when to throw their weight, and with whom. We marched to see the King, Aghar speaking for us all. The Law says a eunuch cannot fight, but His Majesty sighed and laid a two fingered benediction on Aghar's nehilim sword. After that, nobody tried to stop us.

When the Farong came, we left the citadel and went out to the trampled dirt-bowl to meet them. Their first instinct was to jeer at us. I can still hear their battle cries, their coy seductions and their threats. The Farong women stood out like jewels on the field, diamond tipped spears and well oiled scales reflecting the light like myriad green prisms. Their partners marched by their female's sides, five men to each wife.

Aghar surveyed the scene calmly, as if we weren't staring at our deaths. When they cut him, they took away from his skin the capacity to wrinkle, and his face seemed flat and inscrutable, like that of a young girl who does not wish to be married. His hair, which had been oiled by kings in the bedchamber, now flew loose in the wind.

Aghar barked his orders.

We spread out and formed three columns, the better trained Sworn Maidens on the sides, eunuchs and conscripts in the centre. Farong fight in family packs with their females as leaders. Discipline is exquisite inside each pack and every male has a rank which is achieved through a complex scale of feats, but they don't have an overall strategy of war. Still, they outnumbered us five to one.

We did what we could, but soon the central column started to fold. Eunuchs are trained for the bedchamber, not for the sword. Aghar's orders kept us fighting but we were ceding ground. The enraged Farong inched in on us.

“Central column, retreat!”

I ran for my life.

The enemy came after us and was surrounded by the Sworn Maidens. I scrambled into their left column and they let me pass to safety with amused grins.

Shrieks pierced the air. In my flight, I slipped on red and green blood. Soon there were no more formations and I did not know where to run. My companions were scattered and Aghar had his hands full, directing the Sworn Maidens to where they could do the most harm.

I stood trembling, the sun beating down on my helmet. I could not run much further. Around me, green Farong limbs continued to twitch, even after being severed from their bodies.

At first it seemed the Maidens had the situation under control, but I soon realized that many felled Farong were regenerating and getting up to join the battle again.

Without hesitation I walked to the nearest fallen brute and severed her head. I stood next to her, watching, but she stayed down. The other eunuchs picked up the idea. Soon, we were joined by the conscripts and by some of the wounded Maidens.

It took a while, but when the Farong saw there was no hope for them once they'd fallen, they retreated. There is nothing so enticing as a running enemy. The blood frenzy went to my head and I started to fight in earnest, without care for my safety, swinging my sword wildly, parrying, attacking, cutting, crushing and maiming what stood in my way. After a while, somebody pulled me back and dragged me to camp. That's all I remember of the first day.

That night, I oiled Aghar's back until he seemed to melt under my hands and asked him what he thought of our chances.

“It won't be so easy tomorrow, they will have learned from this mistake,” he whispered. I trembled, my shoulders ached from supernatural fatigue and I didn't know if I could fight again. “If the nobles don't commit themselves...” he sighed.

“The Sworn Maidens are the best...” I muttered, trying to appease him. It hurt me to see him worried.

“But there are just too few of them!”

I winced. I'd been trained to please and I took a man's anger as a personal rebuke. Aghar noticed.

“Poor Telora, come here,” he said, holding my head against his chest. “Don't worry, the nobles will come and all will be well.”

The next day, Aghar placed most of the eunuchs on top of a small hill and let the Sworn Maidens and the conscripts form to our right. Then he walked among the ranks of Sworn Maidens and chose one of every three to join us. This way, the enemy would see roughly an equal number of men and women on each flank. Farong are bad at distinguishing men from eunuchs, especially in armour.