Other Earths (collection)

“Queen Aeve!” I shouted, above the sudden roar of magic and dead water. “Call on the Thames!”

And she did. She used incantations that blazed through me like flame, words that I, not of royal lineage, should not have heard, spells that are in the blood and bone of Albion’s ruling house. Oldmark was crouched on the floor of the rocking boat, his hands clasped to his ears. I nearly joined him.

Then a wind stirred my hair, and I turned. The prow of a ship arched above us, an immense thing, far larger than it had been in life. Its sails billowed out, lit by a light that I could not see, as though it were catching the last rays of the sun. I had never set eyes on this ship before, and yet I knew it: the lost Rose, with Admiral Drake standing at the wheel.

I seized an oar. “Oldmark! Set to rowing! We have to get out of the way.”

Aeve was still in the prow of the rowing boat, arms outstretched, calling magic in. I didn’t want to be responsible for pitching the Queen of Albion overboard into her own river, but I didn’t want to be run down by even a spectral ship, either. Frantically, Oldmark and I hauled the boat around as the Rose glided forward.

The Dutchman’s ship turned, wheeling on a tide that wasn’t there. I saw the guns of the Rose blossom silently over my head and a watery fire erupt from the sides of the Dutchman’s ship. There was the flame of a cannon behind the Dutchman’s vessel; the Rose gave a great shudder, as if struck.

“Mistress Dane!” Oldmark cried. “Turn her! Turn her now!”

But we were too late. The Rose glided forward and through us, sleek as a swan. Everything went black for a moment—it’s not pleasant, being run down by a ghostly galleon. My bones rang and my teeth chattered. When I could see again, the Rose was bearing down on the Dutchman’s ship, and the magic that had drawn the ghost of the Winterbourne upward was congealing, drawing around the Dutchman’s vessel to imbue it with power. Coldgate was once more visible through the shimmer of the river. The guns blazed again from the Rose, and this time I heard them. The Dutchman’s ship gave a groaning creak and listed. We huddled in the rowing boat, Aeve damp-browed and shaking, and watched the Dutchman’s ship go down.

It sank, stone-swift, as if the Thames had swallowed it. With it went the magic of Under-Hill, sucked into its wake, but the Winterbourne did not go too. Instead, I saw the course of the river turn and shift, sweeping away the post with the skull and all the spectral ships, carrying them out into the wide channel of the Thames and away toward the sea. At last the river was also gone, a foaming tide, and Coldgate loomed pale through the river mist. When the fog parted a little, I looked for the Rose, but it was no longer there.

Aeve proved more generous than I had expected, but then, I had saved her throne for her. I rode back to Gloucestershire and Severnside on a chilly November morning, a moneybag heavy against the flank of the mare. I felt drained, the wonder of what I had seen sitting within me as heavily as my reward, and I was thankful to see the Severn curling between its red-earth banks, with the blue hills of Wales rising beyond.

But I did not think I would be visiting those hills in the months to come, for fear of what lay beneath them. I set my heels to the sides of the mare and rode hard for home, along the river shore.

DONOVAN SENT US Gene Wolfe

The plane was a JU 88 with all the proper markings, and only God knew where Donovan had gotten it. “We’re over London,” the man known as Paul Potter murmured. Crouching, he peered across the pilot’s shoulder.

Baldur von Steigerwald (he was training himself to think of himself as that) was crouching as well. “I’m surprised there aren’t more lights,” he said.

“That’s the Thames.” Potter pointed. Far below, starlight—only starlight—gleamed on water. “Over there’s where the Tower used to be.” He pointed again.

“You think they might keep him there?”

“They couldn’t,” Potter said. “It’s been blown all to hell.”

Von Steigerwald said nothing.

“All London’s been blown to hell. England stood alone against Germany—and England was crushed.”

“The truth is awkward, Herr Potter,” von Steigerwald said. “Pretty often, too awkward.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

Listening mostly to the steady throbbing of the engines, von Steigerwald shrugged.

“A damned bloody Kraut, and you call me a liar.”

“I’m just another American,” von Steigerwald said. “Are you?”

“We’re not supposed to talk about this.”

Von Steigerwald shrugged again. “You began it, mein herr. Here’s the awkward truth. You can deny it if you want to. England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, and Northern Ireland stood—alone if you like—against Germany, Italy, Austria, and Vichy. They lost, and England was crushed. Scotland and Wales were hit almost as hard. Am I wrong?”

The JU 88 began a slow bank as Potter said, “Franco joined Germany at the end.”