IAN R. MACLEOD

SEALIGHT

YOU WILL BE CAREFUL, dear?"

"Of course I'll be careful." Ran Kirving carried his mother from her bed to the
wicker wheelchair, smoothing the blankets over the remains of her legs.

"Tomorrow's a big day, son. The happiest day of your life."

"Yes, Mother." He kissed her temple.

"So you will be careful, won't you?"

Ran smiled and patted her hand. Then he picked up the bag of skidling sandwiches
she'd made him the night before. "See you this evening."

He took the stairs of the creaky tenement three at a time, past the screams of
babies, the slow rumble of household arguments that would last into the night,
the cabbages talk reek of too many lives pressed too close together.

The courtyard was filled with flapping washing and sunlight. Ran paused to take
a breath of the relatively fresh air. As always, it was flavored with rotting
seaweed and stagnant canal.

"What a lovely morning? a voice called.

Ran looked up and saw Piir leaning from the creaky balcony of her parents'
tenement. She was still in her nightgown, her red hair tied back from her wide
and innocent face.

"Yes," Ran said, squinting at her through the fluttering sheets, telling himself
over and over again how lucky he was to be marrying her, hoping that with enough
repetition he might come to believe it.

"I've just got the hem of my dress to finish," Piir said. She laughed. "Think of
me, all in white." She turned slightly and the flashing sunlight caught the
rounded shape of her figure, the curve of her belly that people were already
starting to notice.

"I've got to go," Ran said with a wave.

Piir waved back. "You will be careful, won't you?"

It was a fine day for fishing. The wind had veered away from the dimly foul
stench of the marshes and Ran's sail snapped taut in the breeze. The sea was
flat blue and almost waveless. Even the ancient hull of Ran's boat had decided
not to leak for a change.

Ribald shouts rang across the little flotilla. Ran's fellow fishermen knew that
he was getting married tomorrow, and were full of advice as to his wedding
night. Ran made the appropriate gestures to them, knowing that they would be
unable to tell whether he was actually smiling.

The wind hurried them down through the main channel toward the lagoon. The
seagulls circled and cried. Spires and cupolas flashed bronze and drifted to
leeward.

Off to the east, the last island of the city soared darkly from weedblack rocks.
As he had done each morning since his childhood, Ran gazed toward it. This was
where the palace of Torea raised the dark shoulders of its impenetrable seaward
face, shrugging off storm and time. He had learned of its legend, which is also
the legend of Lady Jolenta, from his long-dead father as he sat at the prow of
this same little boat. How Jolenta had been cursed with ageless beauty five
centuries before, and how it was said that she still lived somewhere beyond
those ragged battlements. Every few decades, some nobleman would tire of writing
turgid poetry in her honor and vow to release her, make her his lover, even his
wife. But the stories always ended there. The abandoned Eastern Quarter of the
city was a dangerous place at the best of times, where ghosts darted in the dark
canals and the mined houses held secrets best left undiscovered, those who tried
to penetrate the walls of Torea were invariably never heard of again.

What Lady Jolenta needed, Ran had decided long ago, was an adventurer, a hero
from the dazzling pages of the books Ran lacked the talent to read. Some giant
built with shoulders like a milk yoke, golden hair and flashing blue eyes, a
magic sword and a dark secret. Ran gazed up at Torea's massive central tower,
topped by a widening profusion of roofs, weathervanes and turrets like a warted
mushroom. Sometimes, when he returned weary from a day hauling the nets and
stared up at it through the grainy evening, he thought he glimpsed a light
flickering from the highest window. But tomorrow he was to be married, and the
sun was already bright enough to douse a thousand lanterns. It seemed that there
was no room left in his life for such mysteries.

Ran hawked up a gob of spit, lobbed it an admirable distance. He swung the boom
toward the wind and cut through the water, leaving the little flotilla behind.
Partly, he wanted to spend his last day of bachelorhood alone, but also the
further west he sailed along the coast, the bigger his catch of skidling was
likely to be. Mostly, the fishermen in their fragile boats preferred to keep
together and net the thinner shoals in the middle flats of the lagoon rather
than risk going near the marches. Even the surrounding waters were places of
uncertain danger, tied to the past by a gray pall of nightmare legends. But
Ran's boat was close to the end of its life. His grandfather had bought it
thirdhand many years ago. Now, the boards were split and the sail was more patch
than canvas. Within the next year or two, and if a storm didn't catch him
before, Ran would need a new boat. With his mother to support -- and now Piir
and the child that was forming in her belly-- it was imperative that he find the
money.

The keel creaked and the ominous coastline grew nearer as Ran daydreamed of
heroes and quests. Green scum veined the water. Islands of slick black sand
slumped to the horizon, tufted biliously green in patches. The catches were
abundant here -- the water was like soup and the fish thrived -- but so were the
risks, not least of which was grounding the keel on some hidden mudflat. The
sail sagged in the still air. Ran unstowed the oar and swept it slowly to each
side, canoe-fashion. The wooden blade made a sucking sound. Otherwise there was
silence.

Ran glanced down over the side of the boat, praying for the continuance of open
water, wishing, too, that he did not have to fish here. He jumped as water
erupted close to his elbow, but it was no more than a bubble of marshgas,
foul-smelling but harmless. The disturbance caused a shoal of skidling to
scatter through the silt like spilled coins. He nodded to himself and leaned
forward to stow the oar. This was as good a place as any. He unfurled the nets.

The dark air was hot. He sweated as he worked, drawing the nets through the
sleek water. Gutting the skidling, feeling the bright shudder as each life
spilled in a gathering slick, he pictured Jolenta, alone in her tower. He saw
the fall of her hair against pale shoulders, tha gleam and shift of silk across
her limbs, a sea-diamond glinting in the soft valley between her breasts. . . .
He shook his head and squeezed a skidling eyeball between finger and thumb until
it popped.

Noon came. Time for Ran to eat the skidling sandwiches his mother had made for
him. Off to the west, he had noticed astony gray island that seemed more
substantial than the rest. Welcoming the prospect of resting on solid ground for
half an hour, Ran eased his boat through the maze of channels. He threw a
grappling iron across the last few feet. It struck the gray surface of the
island with an oddly liquid smack. He hauled himself in.

Ran had half his mind on the grim horizon, watching the glint of distant
marshlight. If he hadn't been doing so, he might have noticed the gray-green
coils that began to seethe beneath the boat a vital moment earlier. As it was,
when he jumped from the prow his feet struck the island with a fleshy slap. His
right boot split the surface and black blood puddled up over his ankle, but by
then it was too late. The water was starting to boil with angry, seeking flesh.

Tentacles writhed dripping from the water. A rough grayish lump that Ran had
assumed to be a rock set in the middle of the island split open to reveal a
malevolent yellow eye. A tentacle swung around his arm like a wet rope. Others
smacked across his waist, his neck. The muscular flesh bulged, then relaxed,
holding without crashing. It lifted Ran lightly toward its steaming maw. Ran
screamed and straggled, but the creature's strength was enormous. And he was no
hero -- he could think of nothing he could do that would make any difference to
his fate. He thought instead of his mother, he thought of Piir, the way she
furrowed her brow when she was unhappy, the way she crinkled her eyes when she
smiled. The beak and lips dilated to accept his kicking feet, his legs, his
thighs.

It would all have been over quickly enough had the creature not been indolent
and ancient, used to eating nothing larger than the frogs and snakes and gray
things of the marshes. Somehow it couldn't swallow Ran past his hips. He was
stuck -- the mouth would widen no further. The throat pulsed uselessly, grinding
Ran's legs. The creature began to thrash wildly, turning pinkish in anger, then
red as it began to choke. The yellow eye watered and blinked. The creature grew
desperate. One of the tentacles pulled hard at Ran's right arm. For a moment, he
felt as though it might bust from its socket, but the creature's strength was
failing. It was choking, dying.

The tentacles fell uselessly into the water. Silt swirled, began to settle. Ran
heaved against the collar of flesh that held him. He pushed again, images of a
slow death inside the maw of this dead creature playing through his mind. Given
the choice, he would rather the thing had consumed him -- but then he felt
something give. Lubricated by stinking saliva, he hauled himself out.

He picked his way across the bobbing island of flesh, trying to ignore the white
parasites that scuttled around his feet. Before he jumped back into the boat, he
noticed something glimmering at the comer of his sight. Filled with a weird
sense of curiosity, he decided to look.

He expected no more than light on water or a dead fish, but what he found was an
oddly shaped knife wedged into the wrinkled flesh where two tentacles joined.
The handle terminated in two golden loops. He took it and pulled. The blade
winked in his face, seeming to focus what little light penetrated the marsh. He
smiled and stuffed it into the belt beneath his sodden jerkin, wondering whether
it might finally signify a change in his luck.

IT WAS GROWING dark when Ran's boat drew back into sight of the city. He drifted
on the stale evening breeze through the treacherous channels, past salt pans and
weed-strung bones of ancient wrecks toward the fishermen's harbor. His body
responded to the boat's needs as he stared east. Torea was black with night, but
he was sure he could see a filigree of light from one window. Breathing the
gathering aroma of the city, he thought of Jolenta, the white purity of her
flesh. Clean and cool, like sheets of new linen . . .

Most of the other fishermen were already back at their moorings. They all wanted
to know about Ran's plans for the evening, which inn they would be starting the
traditional pre-wedding carouse in. Ran plucked a name at random -- the
Captain's Lash; a suitably lowlife dive. He told them he'd be there at seven
bells, and wondered how long they would sit there waiting for him with tumblers
of spiked ale before they realized he wasn't going to show.

He made his way home across bobbing walkways, over creaking bridges, through the
courtyard and up the final stairway where the same babies were crying, the same
arguments rumbling. His mother was sitting up in bed in the smoggily lit parlor;
Piir generally came around about midday to see to her. Ran noticed that the
flask of cheap nullwine that she used to relieve her pain was almost empty. She
must have had a bad day--it was always worse when the weather was close and hot.

Her illness was now progressing toward its later stages. He remembered his
father first breaking the news to him many years ago. Him saying, Son, I've got
to tell you something that means you're going to have to grow up quicker than
your mother and I would wish. Ran didn't really understand then. Something
called mermaidosis. But then a kid from across the courtyard showed him a cheap
painting of a woman with the lower body of a fish and laughed and said, that's
what's happening to your Mum, stoopid. Mermaidosis was a virus that took women
in youth and slowly turned their legs and belly to fishscale and/in. The lucky
majority died when the silvering reached their waist, but it was said that some
became fish in the whole.

"Have you had a good day, dear?"

"You know." He shrugged. "Average." What was he supposed to say, some creature
choked when it tried to eat me? Now, maybe if he'd battled it to death . . .

"Looking forward to the wedding tomorrow?"

"Of course."

"Piir's a lovely girl, Ran. She'll make a fine wife . . . " She gave him a look.
" . . . and mother. Living here with us, we'll be more of a family again. Like
long ago when your poor Dad was alive. Come here." She opened her arms.

Ran knelt beside the bed and leaned into the fishy scent of her embrace. He
could feel the pressure of the jeweled knife beneath his jerkin where he had
pushed it into his belt. When his mother's hands patted close to it, he drew
back.

Ran fried skidling for them both on the smoky hob. They ate in silence, both
wrapped in their own visions of the future. Afterward, he washed himself at the
communal tap, changed, refilled his mother's flask of nullwine, settled her
blankets and snuffed out the lights. He tiptoed away, thinking she was asleep,
but as he reached the door, he heard her mutter, "You will be careful, won't
you, dear?"

"You know me," he said. "I'm always careful."

He descended the stairs to the courtyard, looking up, he could see the light of
Piir's window through the shaggy curtain. He turned quickly left alongside the
canal. Loose gray entrails of mist were forming over the water but the heat of
the day remained. Worn paving and crumbling walls gleamed like sweatslick skin.

Ran took a bridge toward the prosperous Middle District. His nostrils were
assailed by different mixes of odor with each breath; potpourri from an open
window, patchouli from a lady, her skirts discreetly lifted to avoid the mud,
the brown reek of a sewer rising up through grating, incense from the open door
of a temple, the spice of a hot meats stall. And sweat on sweat. Heat on heat.

No fishermen could afford to live in these middle districts. Ran was very
conscious that he didn't belong here -- conscious also of the many patrols of
the State Police he saw, with their blue uniforms and bronze truncheons, tipping
their caps to anyone who looked wealthy, glaring at the poor. Ran was relieved
to find that they only glanced neutrally at him. He was wearing his best jerkin
and trouser: they weren't new or even first-hand, but they were clean and
unpatched, good enough at least to convince the Police that he wasn't a
candidate for a night in their tide-flooded cells.

He took one of the many ferries across the Great Canal. Beyond, and even this
late in the evening, the tight alleyways of the Jeweler's Quarter were doing a
good trade. Ran wandered, gazing through the barred windows at displays of
seajade, dwarfen gold, bloodpearl earrings, and necklaces of wyvern teeth. After
passing and re-passing several times, he eventually settled on a jeweler away
from the main thoroughfare with a display of dusty birthstones and dead insects
in the window. The sign above the door said GRIMMIERY AND HALE, ARTICLES FOR THE
DISCERNING.

The interior was thick with shadow and the underwater glint of jewels beneath
glass. A gray-haired man behind the counter raised an eyebrow, then let it drop.
"Can I be of . . . assistance?"

"I want something valued."

"Insurance purposes?"

Ran shrugged. He wasn't sure what insurance was, except that his mother had
complained once or twice that they didn't have any. "It's, er, this," he said.

The jeweler extended his fingers. "Let me examine, Sir."

Ran hesitated, then handed it over.

A flicker of distaste passed over the jeweler's face. It dissolved as he
examined the knife.

"Where did you get this?" he asked.

"I'm a fisherman . . . I mean, a captain. We're very rich. It's been in the
family for years."

"Then doubtless you'll know what it is?"

"Well, a knife...dagger, I suppose."

"A knife, dagger." The jeweler chuckled -- not a pleasant sound. Then he did
something with the knife that -- to Ran at least -- seemed extraordinary. He
looped his long fingers into the twin gold hoops at the top and pulled. The
knife was hinged in the middle. It split into the shape of an X; two separate
blades. The jeweler closed it again with a snip.

"Have you not heard of scissors?"

"I, er . . . can you remind me, please?"

"Scissors are used by the comfortably off and the well educated to cut their
hair. Of course, the poor use a razor . . . " He gazed at Ran. The eyebrow went
up again. " . . . if they use anything at all. But this pair, I would not like
to guess at their intended use, or their value. See the way the blades fit
together, so tightly? Yet they slide apart like oil on water if the pressure is
applied just so." Snip. "The work is finer than the finest smithy in this city
could produce. They are dwarfen, I would guess, although you would need the word
of an expert to be sure. For all I know, they have some magic cast into them;
certainly the level of craftsmanship suggests it. Scissors such as these might
be used to cut a lock from the mane of a unicom . . . " He gazed absently into
the gloom. " . . . that kind of thing." Snip. "So I must repeat my question.
Where did a lout like you find them?"

Ran lunged forward. He snatched the scissors from the jeweler's hand, narrowly
avoiding serious injury to them both. He was out of the shop and off down the
maze of alleys before the jeweler had a chance to cry out or raise the alarm. It
was only when Ran was catching his breath in the darkness half a mile off that
it occurred to him that he really had no reason to run or feel guilty. The only
other creature who could possibly claim ownership was the octopus -- and that
was dead.

So the knife -- the scissors -- might be valuable. If he was lucky, he told
himself firmly, they would bring enough for a down payment on a boat . . . or a
new wheelchair for his mother. Or a crib for the baby. He turned the golden
blade over in his hands. Dwarfen . . . magic . . . unicoms . . . he couldn't
help thinking that these scissors were just the kind of thing that a hero might
carry . . .

Ran slid the cold metal back into his belt and glanced around. He saw decrepit
high-gabled buildings. He had run further than he realized; their ornate style
was characteristic of the ancient Eastern Quarter. Only a few lights glowed from
the highest floors or flickered through the gaps in the sag-roofs, and those
were pale and cold; as likely a sign of ghosts as habitation.

He picked his way through the litter of moonlight and rubble. He was lost, but
he knew where he was going. Tomorrow might be the biggest day of his life, but
this last night was his alone. Ran's feet crunched the broken remains of mosaics
and stained glass, passed over bridges and through courtyards. This had once
been the wealthiest district of the city, where the barge sails were silk and
the water sellers sang bel canto. Here, Lady Jolenta would once have walked,
drawing all eyes, all dreams, all envy. Hardly anyone lived here now, just the
ancient and the insane, muttering over days of past glory. He saw two such
creatures fighting over the corpse of a cat washed up in the scum of a canal.
Opinions varied as to the reasons for the decline of the Eastern Quarter. Some
said it was no more than the drift of fashion and problems with the seadrains.
Another version of the story -which Ran preferred not to dwell on tonight -- was
that creatures had started to ferment spontaneously in the fetid silt.

He came suddenly to a wide canal arched by the bonewhite branches of dead nsia
trees. The far end was blocked by a massive wall. Above it, reaching far into
the sky, were the roofs and pinnacles of Torea, much closer than he had ever
seen them from the lagoon. Unmistakably, a light glinted from the highest tower,
although from where he stood it looked as though it was coming from somewhere
amid the stars.

Ran reached back into the belt, drew out the scissors, held them menacingly
before him in his right hand in much the same way as he had seen adventurers
depicted in woodcuts. He prowled along the footway. The waters of the canal
beside him were flat, catching the night like a dark mirror. The moon shifted
through the white branches overhead.

He stopped: the moon still slithered through the branches. The sensation of
watching it was odd, like staring from a stationary ferry at a moving deck
beyond. Then he realized that the branches were soundlessly rubbing together
like greedy hands.

He started to back away. The whole avenue was twisting and swaying now, and in
total, unnerving silence, although the white branches looked as though they
should clatter like ancient bones. Then something tapped Ran's shoulder. He spun
around. A thousand arms opened to embrace him. He lashed out with the scissors,
but a twig whipped instantly around his wrist. Feeling their touch on his face,
his hands, his body, Ran understood why the branches made no sound. They were
soft as flesh.

They picked him up easily. A branch slid across his mouth, searched and parted
his lips. He kicked and squirmed as others lowered him toward a gray trunk which
had splintered open to form a wet and hungry maw. He tried to scream, but by now
the fleshy softness of the wood had circled his tongue. The yawning trunk was
filled with pulsing redness -- Ran could smell its greed. He was gripped
helpless and rigid. So much for magic scissors -- it seemed that the fates had
decreed that no matter what else happened today Ran was destined to be eaten by
something large and many-armed. Some adventurer you are, he thought, haven't
even reached the walls of Torea. Then he thought of his mother, and wondered if
Piir would ever marry.

Darkness dosed over him. Sadness, too, and a kind of relief. He didn't expect to
awake.

RAN DREW A slow breath, then another. The third -and the ache in his bruised
ribs -- was enough to convince him that he was actually alive. He could hear the
clash of sea against rock, but the sound was faint, and something about it told
that it came from far below. The air was almost cool, brushing lightly against
the sweat on his face. It tasted sweet. Like the sound of the sea, the green
scent of canals was there, but it was distant.

Finally, he risked opening his eyes. Nothing happened; but now he could feel the
soft pressure of a blindfold against his lids. Still drowsy, but alarmed, he
tried to shift his arms and legs, but he found that he was bound, seated in some
kind of high-backed chair.

Softly female laughter made him start.

"So you are awake now, my gallant knight. What is your name?"

Ran opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His tongue was as sore as his ribs from
the grip of the nsia trees. He swallowed, tried again. "Ran Kirving, your --
your ladyship."

"My ladyship." Again, that laughter. It came from behind him. Something about it
gave Ran goosebumps. It was warm, friendly, cold, harsh . . . fire and ice. "You
do me this honor without even seeing me, without knowing who I am."

Ran felt a rush of disappointment. "But aren't you Lady Jolenta?"

"So, after all this time, I am still known of in the city?"

"My father told me . . . I--I'm just a fisherman. I pass the seawalls of Torea
every morning."

"A fisherman. Sometimes I watch your sails from these windows. Do men still
write poetry about me?"

"I suppose so."

"Have you written any?"

"No." Ran felt his cheeks flush. "I can't read or write."

"Well, thank God for that, Ran Kirving, for I cannot stand poetry, especially
the kind that men write about me." The voice drifted from his back to his left
side, then to the front. "Now, will you tell me why you are here?"

Once again, Ran was struck speechless. He had given the details of the matter
perilously little thought, but he had imagined that reaching Jolenta would
involve many dangers which would be bravely and ingeniously overcome. Beyond
that, he had little idea of what would happen, except that it would be likely to
involve a strong element of the erotic or -- failing that the romantic. But
hearing her voice . . . all wonder and beauty was there like the swirl of an icy
current on a cloudless day. And age too; five centuries of solitude.

She laughed. "You probably expected me to welcome you with open arms." Her voice
was close now. Her breath was odorless yet its scent was dark and sweet,
overpowering.

Ran shivered and nodded; there seemed little else to do but admit the truth.

"You need not feel ashamed -- you are no different from the others. The vanity
of man changes little with these many years. But still it puzzles me why anyone
should assume I seek male company when I have so conspicuously isolated myself
from the world."

"Isn't there . . . some kind of curse?"

"A curse? Oh yes, there is indeed a curse. I am cursed with this beauty that
will not age. But the way I choose to live my endless life, that is my own
freedom. Every few years, the far-seeing waters of that canal tell me of some
new adventurer who seeks to disturb my solitude. Usually, I simply leave the
nsia trees to deal with the problem, and I must confess, Ran Kirving, that was
my first inclination with you too. But you were obviously of a different breed
to the pampered noblemen who usually come this way. And instead of a wand or a
knife, you carried a pair of scissors! For that alone, I thought you deserved
just a little mercy."

Ran was silent. Her breath, her voice, the slight warmth that came from the
close presence of her body, had drifted further away from him again, but still
he felt light-headed.

"What did your father tell you about me?"

"That you were beautiful. I was just a child. He's dead now."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ran, even if I envy his release."

"Envy?" Ran heard his own voice with surprise. "How can you say that? You live
here in a huge palace . . . I have to share rooms with the smell of the toilets
below and people yelling and the floor creaking . . . skidling for breakfast,
dinner . . . "

"Yes, of course. And I am glad that I allowed you to enter Totes, Ran Kirving,
if only to remind me that suffering is never unique. Desperation must lie
somewhere in your heart. If you look at it in one way, I suppose trying to see
me is a kind of suicide. Certainly, none have yet survived to tell the tale."

Ran said nothing.

"Did your father tell you nothing more about me?"

"No."

"Well, while there is still some portion of the night remaining, perhaps I might
help you to understand. It goes back at least as far as the Third Campaign,"
Lady Jolenta began. "I was born to riches, a merchant family whose wealth began
with blood and piracy generations before. It was said that my great-grandfather
gained this palace of Torea in a drunken wager over which of two turds floating
out from a sewer sluice on the Great Canal would pass under Ridotto Bridge
first. Wealth and idleness had corrupted the vigor that sent my forefathers to
sea."

Her voice had lost some of its icy calm.. She began to pace to and fro. Ran
heard the gentle sigh of silk against flesh, the pad of footsteps on stone.
"Before I was born, my mother employed an ancient hag who was skilled in the
arts that women use to make themselves look comely. The hag was a whispering bag
of bones who lived in a hut on the marsh flats and survived by scouring the
shore drift and seaweed for dead fish and maybe the occasional jewel or relic
washed up from some forgotten wreck . . . hardly an advert for her trade, but
then I have heard it said that the best magician is often the least likely one.
My mother's hair was dark of course, as is my own, as is the hair of most women
in this city probably to this day. But she wanted to be blonde, and the hag gave
her a potion. It worked, in a way. It made her hair blonde, but made it all fall
out. . . .

"You might smile, Ran Kirving, but you must understand that to a woman of court,
this was as the loss of gallantry might be to a knight . . . or so at least it
seemed to my mother. She had the hag convicted under some statue about the
Description of Trades. And she came to watch the beheading. Before the axe was
raised, the trembling creature saw her sitting amid the nobility in the most
expensive seats. With the presence of death at her shoulder the hag also sensed
that my mother was with child. She screamed a curse across the heads of the
crowd, one of the strangest curses in this city of strange curses. The hag said
that my mother would bear the most beautiful child in the Known World.

"It came to pass. I was born beautiful beyond imagining. For his own reasons, my
father doubted the tale of the curse. One look in the mirror told him that I was
not his child. As I grew, the thought became an agony to him, until he murdered
my mother in a fit of rage and then threw himself from this tower. I found half
of him next morning on my balcony. He had struck the sharp railings as he fell.
The other half lay amid the scattered petals of a rose garden far below.

"It was the first of many tragedies that were to blight my life. You must
realize, Ran, that I was truly young then, that I had the same hopes and fears
as any other girl approaching womanhood. But women who thought themselves
beautiful despoiled their looks with acid rather than accept the flaws that my
face threw at them like a mirror flashing in the sun. Others simply ended their
lives. Of course, there were many who wished to kill me, but the attempts always
ended in bizarre tragedy. The wet nurse who had been my friend and companion
from birth was poisoned by a draft intended for me. Children were drowned on a
barge on which I was to have traveled.

"Men, of course, all longed to gain my favors. There were duels and suicides,
endless reams of turgid poetry. I longed for companionship, love. But people
grew pale and trembled in my presence, and I soon found that those who disguised
their feelings and reigned simple friendship were not to be trusted. I began to
realize that beauty is power, and that like all power it brings everything but
that which you desire. Increasingly, I became a recluse, counting the bright
years of youth by the sealight that passed across the inner walls of Torea.
Perhaps, I thought, time would finally despoil my beauty and bring me peace. But
when I gazed closely into the mirror at the turn of my thirtieth year, I could
see no trace of line or wrinkle. And ten more years brought no change. At fifty,
when I hadn't ventured from Torea for decades, I finally realized the full power
of the water seller's curse on my mother. I would never grow old.

"So I ordered my few remaining servants to spend all the great wealth I had
inherited on filling the halls and rooms of Torea with supplies that would last
until all the clocks in the Known World stopped beating. Then I sent them away
and sealed the windows and doors against all possible intrusion. I paid the best
magicians in this city to set traps and golems to guard the ways against any who
might be foolhardy enough to intrude. I turned inward to solitude . . . to this
tower, to this room . . . "

Her footsteps ceased. The faint sound of the waves had changed. Ran guessed that
the tide was drawing out, that morning was approaching. The stray thought came
to him that this was to have been his wedding day, that even at this moment,
Piir would probably be gazing at the light gathering beyond the grubby curtains
in the room she shared with her younger brother and sister.

"You mean that you wish to die?" he asked eventually.

"Yes, if I cannot live some life other than this."

"Could you not simply --"

"Stab myself, throw myself from the window? Do you think I have not tried all of
these things? I feel pain, but the healing is instant . . . "

Her voice quavered. Ran sensed that she was close to tears. He also sensed that
she was a little mad -- but then in view of the tale she had told it could
hardly be otherwise.

She began to pace again. "It is nearly morning, Ran Kirving. I am grateful that
you have allowed me to unburden myself . . . You probably do not realize that I
see your face whole. The blindfold you feel on your eyes is no more than a
spell."

Ran instinctively tried to reach toward his face. But his hands were still bound
-- or perhaps that was a spell too.

"I think I will let you go, Ran. But you must prove to me that you wish to live.
After all these years, I must admit that I would find the demonstration of such
a desire interesting. I will let you go, but first you must agree to my changing
the blindfold spell to something stronger. I found it glimmering in a box many
decades ago and it seems a pity not to use it. The spell will show you that
which you most fear in all this universe and the many, many others. For all I
know, it could bring madness. Would you submit to that, were I to let you go
free?"

Ran felt his spine freeze inside his back. He tried to picture the drooling
horrors he would have to face. One thing seemed certain -- from the way things
had gone today, they were likely to be hungry and have a great many arms. He
forced himself to nod before he had time to dwell further on the matter.

"I wish you luck."

The footsteps drifted away, returned. He heard the creak of a lid, the waft of
sandalwood. Then she was close by him. He heard the sound of her lips parting.
Her flesh gently brushed his face.

Something slammed into him. It was like being hit by a boom when the wind swung
suddenly. Ran braced himself for darkness and horror. He opened his eyes.

The scene was incredibly real. He could hear it smell it taste it. It was no use
telling himself that he was in Torea. He was here.

The tenement was lit by cheap fish oil candles that smoked and reeked of
skidling. Or perhaps the smell was coming from the dinner that Piir was cooking
on the merge fire. She turned to him and smiled. Her face was blotched, her
teeth had gone, she was hugely fat. A baby was screaming in a cot, unconsciously
batting a louse that was trying to crawl over the vomity blankets toward its
mouth. Beyond the half-open curtains where they slept, his mother was moaning,
thrashing her silver tail, shouting. "You will be careful, dear, won't you?"

The scene was horrible, overpowering, real. Yet, somehow, Ran had to laugh --
was this really the worst that the universe might offer him? Then he blinked and
it was gone.

He blinked again. Morning light was filtering through the great windows of a
circular room. Marble, silk, and gold gleamed. Lady Jolenta stood smiling before
him.

"I saw too," she said. "You are truly a brave man."

Ran tried to move. His arms were free.

"I think these are yours." She held out the scissors.

"Thank you." Ran took them without shifting his gaze from her eyes. He was no
longer bound. He made to stand up, then hesitated. "Can I ask . . . "

Her look grew fierce. For a moment, he sensed the madness and the darkness of
centuries. But he forced himself to speak. "For a lock of your hair."

"My hair . . . that has never been cut since I was born . . . yet since you ask,
and since you have the scissors."

Ran stood up. Jolenta was fully as tall as he was. His hands were shaking and
clumsy, unused to such a delicate job, even if the tool had been familiar. But
they were strong from years of hauling nets and gutting skidling. He took a
tress of her hair, he put thumb and forefinger through the handle of the
scissors. As the jeweler had said, their workmanship was exquisite. The blades
moved apart like oil on water.

He cut. There was no snip, but an instant of thunderous silence. The brightening
morning dimmed. Sparks ran from the blades, shivered the image of Lady Jolenta.
She shattered like a broken mirror, flew in a thousand directions as an ancient
wind poured through the air. Then something solidified again before him. He
looked down at it in pity and horror.

"Ran Kirving." A voice that he half recognized whispered from toothless gray
lips. A voice that might once have quivered from the perfect lips of Lady
Jolenta before they were eroded by age. "Thank you . . . you have brought me
release."

"But . . . "

A withered claw waved at him. "No, there has been enough talk. You must hurry to
your wedding."

The wind blew again, lifting him into darkness. In a moment, he found himself
standing at the start of the avenue of the nsia trees with the walls of Torea
rising beyond. The trees looked harmless enough in the morning light, but Ran
wasn't going to dally long enough to make sure. He broke into a run along the
ruined walkways, back toward his home.

The wedding went well as such things are counted. Piir and Ran's mother had been
concerned about Ran's absence the night before, but assumed without asking that
he had been up to the sort of drunken pranks husbands-to-be generally undertook.

Afterward, Piir moved into their little tenement and her belly grew taut and
life went on and the catches of skidling were mostly good, even far from the
marshes. Mostly, Ran took the advice his wife and mother offered each morning
and was careful. The baby was a sweet thing. They named her Dottie. She had her
mother's rare red hair, the same pretty green eyes. There were days when Ran
came home tired and Dottie was screaming and Piir was irritable with lack of
sleep and from dealing with his mother's increasing pain when he remembered the
sour vision that Lady Jolenta had presented him with. But the good came with the
bad as it had always done: little triumphs, the play of the sun, the breath of
the sea, Piir's laughter and her sense of humor, his mother's joy at Dottie's
smile.

Ran's boat still leaked, and sometimes he thought of trying to sell the scissors
he kept hidden with a lock of hair inside a niche in the tenement wall. But he
could never quite bring himself to do it. And as he finally honored an
oft-broken resolution and set about teaching himself to read, he discovered the
tale of the Sea Prince Roderick, who had been required to perform nine quests to
win the hand of the wild and beautiful Juliana, the Princess Bowskill. The proud
Sea Prince had returned from his final quest for a flask containing the breath
of a dragon with his features so scalded and ravaged that he was promptly called
upon the perform a tenth. The tale then told that he had set out to shear the
snakes from the head of a marshharpy armed only with a pair of enchanted
scissors, and was never heard of again. All of which gave Ran cause to think.

On holy days the Kirving family would sometimes walk the long breakwater beyond
the glittering wharves where the waves flashed and the buoybells clanged. Ran
would push his mother's wheelchair, and Piir the pram for Dottie that a
carpenter cousin had made them. Usually, they would turn back when they got to
the stretch of shore that lay at the edge of the city, but sometimes at Ran's
insistence they would go farther on to give scraps of food and old clothing to
the withered hag who lived in a hut on the marsh flats and scoured the shore for
whatever the tides might bring. The hag was a mad old creature, but mostly she
seemed happy. It was said that others now came this way to seek her wisdom, or
simply to gawk at her ugliness. It was said that she had once been a great
beauty, a turner of heads, but few except Ran could credit that it was possible
for loveliness to lie beneath those ruined features. And he shared his secret
with no one.

Walking back along the breakwater toward home one autumn evening, something
strange happened. Ran was pushing Dottie's pram, Piir his mother's wheelchair.
His thoughts were far away, deep in the half-finished text of a salt-stained
book that the old hag had found on the shore and given him. He was reading the
book as he rested at anchor each noon in his boat, prising each new page apart
to discover the joys of wonder and an escape that he had spent his life yearning
for.

The sea along the breakwater was restlessly choppy and the wind was rising from
across the lagoon, but still there was no warning and no reason for the great
wave that broke over them. Ran and Piir were drenched, and Dottie spat out a
mouthful of water and began to cry, but the wheelchair had been overturned, and
Ran's mother had fallen from it. Before Ran could help her, she flicked her long
fishy tail and began to haul herself hand over hand across the wet stone,
leaving the fallen wheelchair and the tumble of blankets behind. There was a
frozen moment -- filled only with the sea and the crying gulls -- then Ran and
Piir began to move. But it was already too late. Ran's mother slithered over the
edge of the breakwater and plunged into the deep rising ocean beyond.

There was a flash of silver fin, the wave of a hand. In another moment, she was
gone.