The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“The animals are in relief?”

“Yes.”

“What do they look like, if not tli?”

Haik thought. “An animal about as long as my arm, four legged with a tail. Spines protrude along the back, as if the animal had a fin there like a fish. That was the thing I did not imagine: the spines. And the tail is different also, flat from side to side, like the tail of a fish.”

“What color is the glaze?”

“Black, except the skull, which is white.”

“Tai,” said the old woman.

“Mother?”

“Is it beautiful?”

“She is the Potter of Strange Animals. The pot is strange, but well made.”

“I want it for my ashes.”

“You will have it,” he said.

She gave her son the pot. He turned it in his blunt, strong-looking hands. Hattali turned her blind face toward Haik. “You must still believe your crazy idea, that we are descended from bugs.”

“That the world is old and full of change, yes,” said Haik.

“Sit down and tell me about it again.”

Haik obeyed. The old woman listened as she explained about beauty, death, and change.

“Well, we have certainly improved our lineage through careful breeding,” said Hattali finally. “The child your kinsman fathered on Sai is a fine little girl. We hope she’ll be as clever as you are, though I’m still not certain about your idea of time and change. Why didn’t the Goddess simply make people? Why start with bugs?”

“She clearly likes bugs,” said Haik. “The world is full of them. They are far more common than people and more varied. Maybe her plan was to create a multitude of bugs through beauty and death, and we are an accidental result of her breeding of bugs.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No. She told me we have a gift no other living creature had: we know what we do. I believe this gift is not an accident. She wanted comprehension.”

Haik was wrong in saying this, according to modern scientists. They believe life is entirely an accident, though evidently an accident that happens often, since life has appeared on many planets. Intelligent life is far less common, but has clearly appeared on at least two planets and may be present elsewhere in a form we do not recognize. It also is an accident, modern thinkers say. This is hard for many of us to believe; and Haik, living in the distant past, could hardly be expected to bring forward an idea so disturbing.

“Well, you certainly ought to listen to the Goddess, if she talks to you,” said Hattali. “When will I hear your play, Dapple?”

“It will take a few days to prepare.”

The matriarch tilted her head in acquiescence.

They left Hattali then, going back to their room. “I want you to make masks for a new play,” Dapple said. “Five of your strange animals. They interest Hattali. Sit with her while you work, and tell her about your ideas. Taiin is an excellent man. None better! But her illness has got him frightened; and his fear is not helping her mood. Maybe she knows what she’s doing. Maybe it is time for her to die. But I wonder if the fall has frightened her as well as her relatives. A woman like Hattali should not die from fear.”

“Has she no daughters?”

“Two. Good women, but not half what she is, and she’s never gotten along with either. The love of her life has always been Taiin.”

He left the next morning, called to the western border. Gwa scouts had been seen. Their old enemies might have heard that Hattali was dying. What better time to attack?

“They expect that grief will break me,” Taiin said, standing in the house’s front court, dressed in metal and leather armor. A sword hung at his side, and a battle axe hung from a loop on his saddle. “It may, but not while there’s work to be done.” He swung himself onto his fern easily, in spite of age and his bad leg. Once settled on the animal, he looked down at Haik and Dapple.

“She is the last of her generation. What people they were, especially the women! As solid as stone walls and towers! I have lived my entire life in their protection. Now, the walls are broken. Only one tower remains. What will I do, when Hattali is gone?”

“Defend Ettin,” said Dapple.

He gathered the tsin’s reins, grinning. “You’re right, of course. Maybe, if I’m lucky, we’ll capture a Gwa spy.”

A moment later he was through the house’s gate, moving steadily along the dusty road, his men following, armed and armored.

“You may be wondering about his last remark,” Dapple said.

Haik opened her mouth to say no.

“There are men who take pleasure in raping prisoners before they kill them. Or in harming them in other ways. I have suspected Taiin is one such. Now I’m certain.”

This was how he’d deal with his grief at Hattali’s illness: by making someone else’s end unpleasant.

“Beauty and death,” Dapple said. “This is the way the Goddess has organized her world, according to you and your bones.”

They spent the next several days on Ettin Hattali’s terrace. The weather remained dry and sunny. Haik worked on the masks, while Dapple sat with paper and brush, sometimes writing, more often listening.