The youth barely glanced over his shoulder. He seemed unsurprised to see Alaric.
“Come back,” said the minstrel. “There’s nothing out there. There’s no city.”
“You listened to my father too much,” said Rudd. “He knew there was a city, but it frightened him, and so he denied it.”
“It’s an illusion,” said Alaric. “A trick of the desert. I’ve seen it nearly every day, and it always disappears eventually.”
“It won’t disappear for me.” He sped up his pace, as if to catch it before it vanished.
Alaric stopped and let the space between himself and Rudd increase. The city was there, ahead, tantalizingly indistinct, but still there. Piros had said it was an illusion, and Alaric had accepted that, but what if it was something else? What if there was a city—some sort of city—out there? What if Rudd was the one who was right? He gauged its distance and leaped toward it in his own special way, a leap the equivalent of a man walking half a day across the desert. When he looked back, he could no longer see Rudd, but ahead, the city remained as far off as before. Another leap. Two. Three. At the tenth, the city was gone, though the sheet of water that had surrounded it still spread enticingly across the desert in the distance. A few more leaps showed the water continuing to recede.
Illusions, all illusions. Now he knew for certain, and he felt disappointed as well as a trifle embarrassed that he had let himself think otherwise even for a short time. He returned to the spot he had left, now a few score paces behind Rudd, and he ran to catch up with the boy.
“Still here?” said Rudd.
“I’ll walk with you,” Alaric said, “and when the city disappears, we’ll go back.”
“Go back to what?” said Rudd. “Hanio runs the caravan now; he won’t want me there.” He glanced at Alaric. “Yes, I know my father is dead, and so are you. You’re an illusion, but here you are. Why should I believe in you and not the city?”
Alaric did not try to answer that. Instead, he said, “I’m here to take you back to the land of the living. To your uncle’s inn, if you wish.”
Rudd fumbled at a fold in his robe and brought out a leather pouch such as might hold coins. But when he dipped his fingers into it, they came out with a pinch of gray powder that he licked away. “I am in the land of the living,” he said. “And the city will welcome me.”
“Rudd …”
The boy held the pouch out toward Alaric. “Can the dead enjoy the Powder?”
Alaric shook his head.
“That’s a shame,” said Rudd. “There’s plenty of Powder in the city.” He closed the pouch and tucked it away.
“There’s plenty of Powder in the caravan,” said Alaric. “Come back to it with me.” He caught at Rudd’s arm just above the elbow.
Rudd stopped abruptly and stared at the hand gripping his arm. “No illusion at all,” he murmured. He jerked his arm free and pushed the minstrel away. Then he took a few steps back, pulled a knife from his sleeve, and thrust it toward Alaric.
Alaric skipped sideways, fighting his instinct to vanish.
“So you can die twice,” said Rudd, and he lunged forward.
An instant later, Alaric found himself in the North. At his feet was the pallet of stone with its scattered human bones. He took a deep breath and leaped back to a spot a dozen paces behind the boy. “Rudd!” he shouted. “The city doesn’t want you. It sent me to keep you away!”
The boy twisted around. “Liar!” he shouted, and he waved the knife. “It’s always wanted me!” Then he turned back to the south and resumed his march.
“Rudd!”
The boy did not respond this time.
“Rudd,” Alaric said more softly. And he watched for a long time while the boy’s figure dwindled in the distance and the phantom city beckoned beyond him, unreachable. When he had become no more than a dot in the broad desert landscape, Alaric returned to the gaunt men’s cluster of huts.
Piros was there alone with the camels, inspecting the lashings of the many bags of Powder. He looked up as Alaric approached. “He wouldn’t come?”
Alaric shook his head.
“I didn’t think he would.” He patted the neck of the camel beside him. “We’ll leave now. We’ve been gone long enough.”
Alaric looked to his left and right. “The harvesters?”
“Run off,” said Piros. “Perhaps back to their prince, with some story about our magic, if they dare. He’ll lay it off to the Powder, I’d guess. Or perhaps they’re just out in the desert, waiting for us to go. No matter. We don’t need them anymore. We have enough of the Powder for this trip. And I’d wager they’ll have forgotten it all by this time next year.”
“And you and I?”
“Back to the village to resume our journey. Pack up a bit of that goat meat for tomorrow.”
Alaric tore some scraps from the bones and wrapped them in a sack that had formerly held bread. He tucked the sack into some netting on Folero’s side. By the time he finished, Piros was atop his own camel.
“How many of the others know, do you think?” Alaric said as Folero knelt to let him mount.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Piros. “They’ll follow the one who comes back.” His lip curled, but there was no humor in the expression. “Do you think this is the first time someone tried to kill me?”
Alaric frowned.
“It’s a rich trade,” said Piros. “And the men are paid well at the end. But sometimes someone wants to be paid even better. Before today, Hanio was the one who took my side. I thought … Well, no matter what I thought. Folero is waiting for you.”
Alaric mounted, and the camel lurched to its feet with the odd combination of awkwardness and grace that Alaric had become accustomed to. “You’re leaving your son out there,” he said. “Perhaps the two of us could persuade him together.”
“I have no son,” said Piros. He tugged at his camel’s lead, and the animal began to amble northward. The others, linked to it by a line of ropes, began to move in its wake. He looked back at Alaric and gestured for him to follow. “But that might be mended, given time.”
As he rode at the rear of the miniature caravan, Alaric could not help thinking that Piros was not speaking of taking a new young wife.
All the next day, as they moved northward, every time the minstrel looked back, he saw the phantom city on the horizon, beckoning, but he stayed with Piros and tried not to think of the boy who had answered its call but would never reach it. The song was already shaping itself in his mind, a poignant tale, fit for long winter nights by a blazing fire far, far away from the desert. Someday, he might be able to sing it without wondering what else he could have done to change its ending.
Lisa Tuttle
Lisa Tuttle made her first sale in 1972 to the anthology Clarion II, after having attended the Clarion workshop, and by 1974 had won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of the Year. She has gone on to become one of the most respected writers of her generation, winning the Nebula Award in 1981 for her story “The Bone Flute”—which, in a still-controversial move, she refused to accept—and was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1993 for her novel Lost Futures. Her other books include a novel in collaboration with George R. R. Martin, Windhaven, the solo novels Familiar Spirit, Gabriel, The Pillow Friend, The Mysteries, and The Silver Bough, as well as several books for children, the nonfiction works Heroines and Encyclopedia of Feminism, and, as editor, Skin of the Souclass="underline" New Horror Stories by Women. Her copious short work has been collected in A Nest of Nightmares, A Spaceship Built of Stone, Memories of the Body: Tales of Desire and Transformation, Ghosts and Other Lovers, and My Pathology. Born in Texas, she moved to Great Britain in 1981, and now lives with her family in Scotland.