Modern classics of fanta.., p.59
Modern Classics of Fantasy, page 59
Percy and Marburton, who was fishing with a shorter but thicker rod, were ready before Cotton.
“I’ll take this fishy spot here,” said Percy, “and you can have that grown-over place there.” He pointed beyond the preacher.
“We won’t catch anything,” said Marburton suddenly and pulled the bait from his hook and threw it into the water. Then he walked back to the cart and sat down, and shook.
“Come, come,” said Izaak. “I’ve never seen you so discouraged, even after fishless days on the Thames.”
“Never mind me,” said Marburton. Then he looked down at the ground. “I shouldn’t have come all this way. I have business in the city. There are no fish here.”
Cajoling could not get him up again. Izaak’s face became troubled. Marburton stayed put.
“Well, I’ll take the fishy spot then,” said Cotton, tying onto his line an artificial fly of green with hackles the size of porcupine quills.
He moved past the preacher.
“I’m certain to wager you’ll get no strikes on that gaudy bird’s wing,” said Percy.
“There is no better fishing than angling fine and far off,” answered Cotton. “Heavens, what a stink!”
“This is the place,” said the preacher without looking up, “where all the sins of mankind have been flowing for sixteen hundred years. Not twenty thousand cartloads of earth could fill it up.”
“Prattle,” said Cotton.
“Prattle it may be,” said the preacher. He puddled solder in a sandy ring. Then he dipped the pot in it. “It stinks from mankind’s sins, nonetheless.”
“It stinks from mankind’s bowels,” said Cotton.
He made two back casts with his long rod, letting more line out the wire guide at the tip each time. He placed the huge fly gently on the water sixty feet away.
“There are no fish about,” said Percy, down the mire’s edge. “Not even gudgeon.”
“Nor snakes,” said Cotton. “What does this monster eat?”
“Miscreant children,” said the preacher. “Sin feeds on the young.”
Percy made a clumsy cast into some slime-choked weeds.
His rod was pulled from his hands and flew across the water. A large dark shape blotted the pond’s edge and was gone.
The rod floated to the surface and lay still. Percy stared down at his hands in disbelief. The pole came slowly in toward shore, pushed by the stinking breeze.
Cotton pulled his fly off the water, shook his line and walked back toward the carts.
“That’s all for me, too,” he said. They turned to Izaak. He rubbed his hands together gleefully, making a show he did not feel.
The preacher was grinning.
“Call the carters down,” said Walton. “Move the cart to the very edge of the mere.”
While they were moving the wagon with its rear facing the water, Walton went over to the preacher.
“My name is Izaak Walton,” he said, holding out his hand. The preacher took it formally.
“John Bunyan, mechanic-preacher,” said the other.
“I hold no man’s religious beliefs against him, if he be an honest man, or an angler. My friends are not of like mind, though they be both fishermen and honest.”
“Would that Parliament were full of such as yourself,” said Bunyan. “I took your hand, but I am dead set against what you do.”
“If not us,” said Walton, “then the sheriff with his powder and pikes.”
“I shall prevail against them, too. This is God’s warning to mankind. You’re a London man. You’ve seen the Fire, the Plague?”
“London is no place for honest men. I’m of Stafford.”
“Even you see London as a place of sin,” said Bunyan. “You have children?”
“Have two, by my second wife,” said Walton. “Seven others died in infancy.”
“I have four,” Bunyan said. “One born blind.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “I want them to fear God, in hope of eternal salvation.”
“As do we all,” said Walton.
“And this monster is warning to mankind of the coming rains of blood and fire and the fall of stars.”
“Either we shall take it, or the townsmen will come tomorrow.”
“I know them all,” said Bunyan. “Mr. Nurse-Nickel, Mr. By-Your-Leave, Mr. Cravenly-Crafty. Do ye not feel your spirits lag, your backbone fail? They’ll not last long as you have.”
Walton had noticed his own lassitude, even with the stink of the slough goading him. Cotton, Percy, and Marburton, finished with the cart, were sitting disconsolately on the ground. The swamp had brightened some, the blazing blue mountain ahead seemed inches away. But the woods were dark, the defile precipitous, the noises loud as before.
“It gets worse after dark,” said the preacher. “I beg you, take not the fish.”
“If you stop the sheriff, he’ll have you in prison.”
“It’s prison from which I come,” said Bunyan. “To gaol I shall go back, for I know I’m right.”
“Do your conscience,” said Walton, “for that way lies salvation.”
“Amen!” said Bunyan, and went back to his pots.
* * * *
Percy, Marburton, and Charles Cotton watched as Walton set up his tackle. Even with flagging spirits, they were intrigued. He’d had the carters peg down the trace poles of the wagon. Then he sectioned together a rod like none they had seen before. It was barely nine feet long, starting big as a smith’s biceps, ending in a fine end. It was made of many split lathes glued seamlessly together. On each foot of its length past the handle were iron guides bound with wire. There was a hole in the handle of the rod, and now Walton reached in the wagon and took out a shining metal wheel.
“What’s that, a squirrel cage?” asked Percy.
They saw him pull line out from it. It clicked with each turn. There was a handle on the wheel, and a peg at the bottom. He put the peg through the hole in the handle and fastened it down with an iron screw.
He threaded the line, which was thick as a pen quill, through the guides, opened the black case, and took out the largest of the hooks he’d fashioned.
On the line he tied a strong wire chain, and affixed a sinker to one end and the hook on the other.
He put the rod in the wagon seat and climbed down to the back and opened his bait box and reached in.
“Come, my pretty,” he said, reaching. He took something out, white, segmented, moving. It filled his hand.
It was a maggot that weighed half a pound.
“I had them kept down a cistern behind a shambles,” said Walton. He lifted the bait to show them. “Charles, take my line after I bait the angle, make a hand cast into the edge of those stumps yonder. As I was saying, take your gentles, put them in a cool well, feed them on liver of pork for the summer. They’ll eat and grow and not change into flies, for the changing of one so large kills it. Keep them well-fed, put them into wet moss before using them. I feared the commotion and flames had collapsed the well. Though the butcher shop was gone, the baits were still fat and lively.”
As he said the last word, he plunged the hook through the white flesh of the maggot.
It twisted and oozed onto his hand. He opened a small bottle. “And dowse it with camphire oil just before the cast.” They smelled the pungent liquid as he poured it. The bait went into a frenzy.
“Now, Charles,” he said, pulling off fifty feet of line from the reel. Cotton whirled the weighted hook around and around his head. “Be so kind as to tie this rope to my belt and the cart, Percy,” said Walton.
Percy did so. Cotton made the hand cast, the pale globule hitting the water and sinking.
“Do as I have told you,” said Walton, “and you shall not fail to catch the biggest fish.”
Something large between the eyes swallowed the hook and five feet of line.
“And set the hook sharply, and you shall have great sport.” Walton, seventy years old, thin of build, stood in the seat, jerked far back over his head, curving the rod in a loop.
The waters of the slough exploded; they saw the shallow bottom and a long dark shape, and the fight was on.
The preacher stood up from his pots, opened his clasp Bible and began to read in a loud, strong voice.
“Render to Caesar —,” he said. Walton flinched and put his back into turning the fish, which was heading toward the stumps. The reel’s clicks were a buzz. Bunyan raised his voice, “… those things which are Caesar’s, and to God those things which are God’s.”
“Oh, shut up!” said Cotton. “The man’s got trouble enough!”
The wagon creaked and began to lift off the ground. The rope and belt cut into Walton’s flesh. His arms were nearly pulled from their sockets. Sweat sprang to his forehead like curds through a cheesecloth. He gritted his teeth and pulled.
The pegs lifted from the ground.
Bunyan read on.
* * * *
The sunlight faded though it was only late afternoon. The noise from the woods grew louder. The blue hills in the distance became flat, grey. The whole valley leaned over them, threatening to fall over and kill them. Eyes shined in the deeper woods.
Walton had regained some line in the last few hours. Bunyan read on, pausing long enough to light a horn lantern from his fire.
After encouraging Walton at first, Percy, Marburton, and Cotton had become quiet. The sounds were those of Bunyan’s droning voice, screams from the woods, small pops from the fire, and the ratcheting of the reel.
The fish was fighting him on the bottom. He’d had no sight of it yet since the strike. Now the water was becoming a flat black sheet in the failing light. It was no salmon or trout or carp. It must be a pike or eel or some other toothed fish. Or a serpent. Or cuttlefish, with squiddy arms to tear the skin from a man.
Walton shivered. His arms were numb, his shoulders a tight, aching band. His legs where he braced against the footrest quivered with fatigue. Still he held, even when the fish ran to the far end of the swamp. If he could keep it away from the snags he could wear it down. The fish turned, the line slackened, Walton pumped the rod up and down. He regained the lost line. The water hissed as the cording cut through it. The fish headed for the bottom.
Tiredly, Walton heaved, turned the fish. The wagon creaked.
“Blessed are they that walk in the path of righteousness,” said Bunyan.
* * * *
The ghosts came in over the slough straight at them. Monkey-demons began to chatter in the woods. Eyes peered from the bole of every tree. Bunyan’s candle was the only light. Something walked heavily on a limb at the woods’ edge, bending it. Marburton screamed and ran up the road.
Percy was on his feet. Ghosts and banshees flew at him, veering away at the last instant.
“You have doubts,” said Bunyan to him. “You are assailed. You think yourself unworthy.”
Percy trotted up the stony road, ragged shapes fluttering in the air behind him, trying to tug his hair. Skeletons began to dance across the slough, acting out pantomimes of life, death, and love. The Seven Deadly Sins manifested themselves.
Hell yawned open to receive them all.
Then the sun went down.
* * * *
“Before you join the others, Charles,” said Walton, pumping the rod, “cut away my coat and collar.”
“You’ll freeze,” said Cotton, but climbed in the wagon and cut the coat up the back and down the sleeves. It and the collar fell away.
“Good luck, Father Walton,” he said. Something plucked at his eyes. “We go to town for help.”
“Be honest and trustworthy all the rest of your days,” said Izaak Walton. Cotton looked stunned. Something large ran down from the woods, through the wagon, and up into the trees. Cotton ran up the hill. The thing loped after him.
Walton managed to gain six inches on the fish.
Grinning things sat on the taut line. The air was filled with meteors, burning, red, thick as snow. Huge worms pushed themselves out of the ground, caught and ate demons, then turned inside out. The demons flew away.
Everything in the darkness had claws and horns.
“And lo! the seventh seal was broken, and there was quietness on the earth for the space of half an hour,” read Bunyan.
He had lit his third candle.
* * * *
Walton could see the water again. A little light came from somewhere behind him. The noises of the woods diminished. A desultory ghost or skeleton flitted grayly by. There was a calm in the air.
The fish was tiring. Walton did not know how long he had fought on, or with what power. He was a human ache, and he wanted to sleep. He was nodding.
“The townsmen come,” said Bunyan. Walton stole a fleeting glance behind him. Hundreds of people came quietly and cautiously through the woods, some extinguishing torches as he watched.
Walton cranked in another ten feet of line. The fish ran, but only a short way, slowly, and Walton reeled him back. It was still a long way out, still another hour before he could bring it to gaff. Walton heard low talk, recognized Percy’s voice. He looked back again. The people had pikes, nets, a small cannon. He turned, reeled the fish, fighting it all the way.
“You do not love God!” said Bunyan suddenly, shutting his Bible.
“Yes I do!” said Walton, pulling as hard as he could. He gained another foot. “I love God as much as you.”
“You do not!” said Bunyan. “I see it now.”
“I love God!” yelled Walton and heaved the rod.
A fin broke the frothing water.
“In your heart, where God can see from His high throne, you lie!” said Bunyan.
Walton reeled and pulled. More fin showed. He quit cranking.
“God forgive me!” said Walton. “It’s fishing I love.”
“I thought so,” said Bunyan. Reaching in his pack, he took out a pair of tin snips and cut Walton’s line.
Izaak fell back in the wagon.
“John Bunyan, you son of a bitch!” said the Sheriff. “You’re under arrest for hampering the King’s business. I’ll see you rot.”
Walton watched the coils of line on the surface slowly sink into the brown depths of the Slough of Despond.
He began to cry, fatigue and numbness taking over his body.
“I denied God,” he said to Cotton. “I committed the worst sin.” Cotton covered him with a blanket.
“Oh Charles, I denied God.”
“What’s worse,” said Cotton, “you lost the fish.”
Percy and Marburton helped him up. The carters hitched the wagons, the horses now docile. Bunyan was being ridden back to jail by constables, his tinker’s bag clanging against the horse’s side.
They put the crying Walton into the cart, covered him more, climbed in. Some farmers helped them get the carts over the rocks.
Walton’s last view of the slough was of resolute and grim-faced men staring at the water and readying their huge grapples, their guns, their cruel, hooked nets.
They were on the road back to town. Walton looked up into the trees, devoid of ghosts and demons. He caught a glimpse of the blue Chiltern Hills.
“Father Izaak,” said Cotton. “Rest now. Think of spring. Think of clear water, of leaping trout.”
“My dreams will be haunted by God the rest of my days,” he said tiredly. Walton fell asleep.
He dreamed of clear water, leaping trouts.
* * * *
LUCIUS SHEPARD
The Man Who Painted the Dragon Criaule
Although Lucius Shepard’s work in general probably leans more toward horror than fantasy, the brilliant story that follows was one of the most popular and talked-about pieces of fantasy short fiction of the 1980s, and was followed by other related (and also well-received stories) such as “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter” and “The Father of Stones.” It takes place in a land dominated by the immobile but still-living body of an immense, mountain-huge dragon, enchanted into stillness in some sorcerous battle in the unimaginably distant past, so long ago that forests and villages have sprung up along the dragon’s mountainous flanks. But, as we shall see, even into the lifetime of such a creature, change must come—sometimes even change of the most elemental and revolutionary sort…
Lucius Shepard was perhaps the most popular and influential new writer of the 1980s, rivaled for that title only by William Gibson, Connie Willis, and Kim Stanley Robinson. Shepard won the John W. Campbell Award in 1985 as the year’s Best New Writer, and few years since have gone by without him adorning the final ballot for one major award or another, and often for several. In 1987, he won the Nebula Award for his landmark novella “R & R”; in 1988, he picked up a World Fantasy Award for his monumental short-story collection The Jaguar Hunter, following it in 1992 with a second World Fantasy Award for his second collection. The Ends of the Earth; and in 1993 he won the Hugo Award for his novella “Barnacle Bill the Spacer.” His novels include Green Eyes, the best-selling Life during Wartime, Kalimantan, and The Golden. He’s currently at work on a mainstream novel, Family Values. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, he now , lives in Seattle, Washington.
