Even in the dreams, though, she knows what she’s done. The gods have turned Their faces away from her; and every night she wakes up with the memories of the torture chambers—the consequences of what she’s ordered, the consequences she has forced herself to face, like a true warrior.
Here’s the thing: she’s not sure how long she can last.
She burns—every day of her life, wondering if what she did was worth it—if she preserved the House, or corrupted it beyond recognition.
No. No.
Only this is worth remembering: that, like the escaped prisoner, Onalli and Xochitl will survive—going north, into the desert, into some other, more welcoming country, keeping alive the memories of their days together.
And, over Greater Mexica, Tonatiuh the sun will rise again and again, marking all the days of the Revered Speaker’s reign—the rising tide of fear and discontent that will one day topple him. And when it’s finally over, the House that she has saved will go on, into the future of a new Age: a pure and glorious Age, where people like her will have no place.
This is a thought the mind can hold.
Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a computer engineer and way too much imagination for a normal hobby. After unsuccessfully trying to make it as an origami artist and a guitar player, she’s now writing speculative fiction, which gives her an excuse for indulging her love of history and mythology. Her short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Asimov’s, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction, among other venues. Her novels, the Aztec noir fantasies Obsidian and Blood, are published by Angry Robot.
THE GREEN BOOK
Amal El-Mohtar
I’m a first-generation Lebanese Canadian, but the last three years have seen me living in the southwest of England: above a wine bar, on the head of a hill, and in an old library built from dismantled ships, while working on a PhD about fairies in Romantic-era writing.
“The Green Book” began in an actual green journal I bought for Nicole Kornher-Stace. I didn’t want to give it to her empty, so I began scribbling a story in it, about a woman who was absorbed into a book as she died. I filled it with ink blots and different handwriting, tried to build an artifact of it. Nicole later transcribed it for me at my request, so I could work on it further.
Fast forward a year, and Cat Valente was asking me to contribute to Apex. I’d been stewing a story about sentient diamond oceans on Neptune for some time, but didn’t yet have the language necessary to write it, and as the deadline approached, was getting more and more frustrated. With a day to go, I gave up and told Cat I couldn’t do it, I was sorry. Cat became Very Stern, said she knew otherwise, and gave me an extra day; I dropped the diamond oceans and picked up “The Green Book” again. Eight hours later, I had a story. I hid from the Internet for a whole day after sending it in, convinced it wasn’t any good—and here I am now, writing this. I’m amazed.
MS. Orre. 1013A Miscellany of materials copied from within Master Leuwin Orrerel’s (d. Lady Year 673, Bright Be the Edges) library by Dominic Merrowin (d. Lady Year 673, Bright Be the Edges). Contains Acts I and II of Aster’s The Golden Boy’s Last Ship, Act III scene I of The Rose Petal, and the entirety of The Blasted Oak. Incomplete copy of item titled only THE GREEN BOOK, authorship multiple and uncertain. Notable for extensive personal note by Merrowin, intended as correspondence with unknown recipient, detailing evidence of personal connection between Orrerel and the Sisterhood of Knives. Many leaves regrettably lost, especially within text of THE GREEN BOOK: evidence of discussion of Lady Year religious and occult philosophies, traditions in the musical education of second daughters, and complex reception of Aster’s poetry, all decayed beyond recovery. Markers placed at sites of likely omission.
My dear friend,
I am copying this out while I can. Leuwin is away, has left me in charge of the library. He has been doing that more and more, lately—errands for the Sisterhood, he says, but I know it’s mostly his own mad research. Now I know why.
His mind is disturbed, Twelve years of teaching me, and he never once denied me the reading of any book, but this—this thing has hold of him, I am certain plays with him. I thought it was his journal, at first; he used to write in it so often, closet himself with it for hours, and it seemed to bring him joy. Now I feel there is something fell and chanty about it, and beg your opinion of the whole, that we may work together to Leuwin’s salvation.
The book I am copying out is small—only four inches by five. It is a vivid green, quite exactly the color of sunlight through the oak leaves in the arbor, and just as mottled; its cover is pulp wrapped in paper, and its pages are thick with needle-thorn and something that smells of thyme.
There are six different hands in evidence. The first, the invocation, is archaic: large block letters with hardly any ornamentation. I place it during Journey Year 200—250, Long Did It Wind, and it is written almost in green paste: I observe a grainy texture to the letters, though I dare not touch them. Sometimes the green of them is obscured by rust-brown stains that I suppose to be blood, given the circumstances that produced the second hand.
The second hand is modern, as are the rest, though they vary significantly from each other.
The second hand shows evidence of fluency, practice, and ease in writing, though the context was no doubt grim. It is written in heavy charcoal, and is much faded, but still legible.
The third hand is a child’s uncertain wobbling, where the letters are large and uneven; it is written in fine ink with a heavy implement. I find myself wondering if it was a knife.
The fourth is smooth, an agony of right-slanted whorls and loops, a gallows-cursive that nooses my throat with the thought of who must have written it.
The fifth hand is very similar to the second. It is dramatically improved, but there is no question that it was produced by the same individual, who claims to be named Cynthia. It is written in ink rather than charcoal—but the ink is strange. There is no trace of nib or quill in the letters. It is as if they welled up from within the page.
The sixth hand is Leuwin’s.
I am trying to copy them as exactly as possible, and am bracketing my own additions.
Go in Gold,
Dominic Merrowin
[First Hand: invocation]
Hail!
To the Mistress of Crossroads, [blood stain to far right]
The Fetch in the Forest
The Witch of the Glen
The Hue and Cry of mortal men
Winsome and lissom and Fey!
Hail to the [blood stain obscuring] Mother of Changelings
of doubled paths and trebled means
of troubled dreams and salt and ash
Hail!
[Second Hand: charcoal smudging, two pages; dampened and stained]
cold in here—death and shadows—funny there should be a book! the universe provides for last will and testament! [illegible]