Songs of the Dying Earth

“Tell me,” the old witch said, “how happy are you, with your life?”

Caulk thought. Not very, was the answer to that. He’d chased witches the length and breadth of old Earth, watched the stars start to go out, made enough to survive, little more. Plus there was the constant annoyance of folk like Mott. When younger, the work had afforded a degree of satisfaction, but of late, that had begun dangerously to pall…

The young witch rustled her cloak, revealing hints of skin that were starting to become more appealing.

“Then I have an idea…” the old witch began.

Caulk’s boat put back into Almenomei harbour on a rising tide. He stepped out onto the dock, seeing the ancient town with different eyes, evaluating turrets and gables and eaves. Absently, he rubbed the sore place on his wrist: the old witch had not been gentle, but then, that wasn’t the way of owls, as Caulk now more fully appreciated. Yet, it was a small enough price to pay for the quietening of the pervulsion, which now lay still within his head.

He had been told to send word by courier to Mott, using a certain combination of digits and letters which, the owl-killer had assured him, would be comprehended by any reputable messaging company. Caulk located a courier at the inn, and then waited in the same upstairs chamber in which he had met Mott. It brought back memories, none of them pleasant. And yet, it had led to changes that were intriguing…

There was a knock on the door; Caulk opened it, to find an eager Mott outside.

“Well, did you find my owl-witch, Caulk?”

“I did.”

“Where is it?”

“Within.”

Mott took care to keep out of immediate dagger thrust, Caulk observed, but that hardly mattered. He fingered the bite on his wrist. The owl-killer glanced impatiently around the chamber. “It looks empty. I see no pelt, no hangings. Where is my owl-witch?”

“Here,” Caulk said and felt the wrench as bone turned, skin turned, soul turned. He swept up on broad black wings to the height of the chamber, then down, as Mott’s pale eyes widened for the last time.

Some while later, Caulk hoicked up a pellet and spat it onto what was left of Mott’s body. Then he soared up and out of the chamber, over the roofs of Azenomei, heading first down the Xzan and then the Scaum towards the open sea. He’d told the girls that there would be a recently empty turret — much nicer than the boulders of Llantow, with plenty of room and a nice view. It would, he thought as he flew, prove eminently suitable for a new home.

Afterword:

I was eleven years old. It was the mid 1970s and I lived in a small, bucolic city in the West of England. I longed to travel to the Gobi desert, to Siberia, to South America, but options for doing so were…limited. So I voyaged through books instead, and by the time I was eleven, I was already widely travelled — to Narnia, Prydain, Green Knowe, Prince Edward Island. Then one day my mother grew bored with the Gothic novels she’d been reading and brought back something different from the local library — a novel called City of the Chasch. I read it, very quickly. Then I read it again. After that, we went back to the library and returned, over time, with Planet of Adventure and the Demon Princes books, and with The Dying Earth.

Since then I have been to the Gobi, and to Siberia. I’ve never taken a spacecraft or a time-machine to Tschai, or the Dying Earth, but I know they’re real places — I’ve been there, too, after all. And when I was eleven, I started writing the novel that would, years later, become Ghost Sister. I was nominated for the Philip K Dick Award, some years ago in Seattle, for that book. And, during the convention, I interviewed Jack Vance. I told him it was all his fault. ‘Godammit,’ he growled. ‘You gotta be so careful with stuff like that.’

— Liz Williams

Mike Resnick Inescapable

Sometimes you’re better off if your heart’s desire is out of reach…