The Circle Harp

by Donna Glee Williams

I climbed Harper’s Mountain in my fifty-seventh year.

I didn’t really believe that I was ready, but the old tunes had grown stale and my right knee pained me worse each year. The old music wasn’t enough anymore and the door to newness was closing. Wouldn’t it be better to try and be refused than to live out my life untested, still playing the same harp I had been given as a girl? Now or never, now or never, now or never—the words niggled at me like a song stuck in my head.

So when the long days of summer came and the weather promised fine, I gave in. I bagged up my harp and some food and I latched the door on my cabin before daybreak, with my walking stick to help me on the way and a water-skin hanging heavy on my shoulder. The early start would give me the whole long day’s sunlight for the trip and—more important—it would get me out of town without having to answer questions. My neighbors know my skills. They would think me silly to travel the long hard way to ask for a circle harp. I’m not a master. I’m just a village musician, good enough for weddings and birthdays. I never took the road to learn from great teachers in distant lands and I never played for high folk or saw my music work on subtle ears.

After I failed, I could always pass off the trip as a whim, a summer jaunt without meaning. But when I was just starting out…? I didn’t think I could bear their questions and opinions following me up the road.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Part 2

Authorship uncertain.
Translated by Sir Richard Burton

Hearing these words, Ali Baba rejoiced with exceeding joyance and said to her: “I am well pleased with thee for this thy conduct, and say me what wouldst thou have me do in thy behalf. I shall not fail to remember thy brave deed so long as breath in me remaineth.” Quoth she: “It behooveth us before all things forthright to bury these bodies in the ground, that so the secret be not known to anyone.” Hereupon Ali Baba took with him his slave boy Abdullah into the garden and there under a tree they dug for the corpses of the thieves a deep pit in size proportionate to its contents, and they dragged the bodies (having carried off their weapons) to the fosse and threw them in. Then, covering up the remains of the seven and thirty robbers, they made the ground appear level and clean as it wont to be.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Part 1

Authorship uncertain.
Translated by Sir Richard Burton

And when he came to the aforesaid rock and to the tree whereon Ali Baba had hidden himself, and he had made sure of the door he cried in great joy, “Open, Sesame!” The portal yawned wide at once and Kasim went within and saw the piles of jewels and treasures lying ranged all around, and as soon as he stood amongst them the door shut after him, as wont to do. He walked about in ecstasy marveling at the treasures, and when weary of admiration, he gathered together bags of ashrafis, a sufficient load for his ten mules, and placed them by the entrance in readiness to he carried outside and set upon the beasts. But by the will of Allah Almighty he had clean forgotten the cabalistic words, and cried out, “Open, Barley!” Whereat the door refused to move. Astonished and confused beyond measure, he named the names of all manner of grains save sesame, which had slipped from his memory as though he had never heard the word, whereat in his dire distress he heeded not the ashrafis that lay heaped at the entrance, and paced to and fro, backward and forward, within the cave, sorely puzzled and perplexed. The wealth whose sight had erewhile filled his heart with joy and gladness was now the cause of bitter grief and sadness.

We Never Talk About My Brother

by Peter S. Beagle

But back then, back then, Esau was just a little way south of a movie star. Couldn’t walk down the street, go out grocery shopping, he’d get jumped by a whole mob of his fans, his groupies. Couldn’t turn on the TV and not see him on half a dozen channels, broadcasting, or being interviewed, or being a special guest on some show or other. I mean everything from big political stuff to cooking shows, for heaven’s sake. My friend Buddy Andreason, we go fishing weekends, us and Kirby Rich, Buddy used to always tease me about it. Point to those little girls on the news, screaming and running after Esau for autographs, and he’d say, “Man, you could get yourself some of that so easy! Just tell them you’re his brother, you’ll introduce them — man, they’d be all over you! All over you!”

No, it’s not a nickname, that was real. Esau Robbins. Right out of the Bible, the Old Testament, the guy who sold his birthright to his brother for a mess of pottage. Pottage is like soup or stew, something like that. Our Papa was a big Bible reader, and there was…I don’t know, there was stuff that was funny to him that wasn’t real funny to anyone else. Like naming me and Esau like he did.

A lot easier to live with Jacob than a funny name like Esau, I guess — you know, when you’re a kid. But I wasn’t all that crazy about my name either, tell you the truth, which is why I went with Jake first time anybody ever called me that in school, never looked back. I mean, you think about it now. The Bible Esau’s the hunter, the fisherman, the outdoor guy — okay, maybe not the brightest fellow, not the most mannerly, maybe he cusses too much and spits his tobacco where he shouldn’t, but still. And Jacob’s the sneaky one, you know? Esau’s come home beat and hungry and thirsty, and Jacob tricks him — face it, Jacob tricks him right out of his inheritance, his whole future, and their mama helps him do it, and God thinks that’s righteous, a righteous act. Makes you wonder about some things, don’t it?

Another Word for Map is Faith

by Christopher Rowe

On the other side of the valley, across the creek, the real ridge line—the geology, her father would have said disdainfully—stabbed upstream. By her rough estimation it had rolled perhaps two degrees off the angle of its writ mapping. Lucas would determine the exact discrepancy later, when he extracted his instruments from their feather and wax paper wrappings.

“Third world bullshit,” Lucas said, walking up to her. “The transit services people from the university paid these little schemers before we ever climbed onto that deathtrap, and now they’re asking for the
fare.” Lucas had been raised near the border, right outside the last town the bus had stopped at, in fact, though he’d dismissed the notion of visiting any family. His patience with the locals ran inverse to his familiarity with them.

“Does this count as the third world?” she asked him. “Doesn’t there have to be a general for that? Rain forests and steel ruins?”

Lucas gave his half-grin—not quite a smirk—acknowledging her reduction. Cartographers were famous for their willful ignorance of social expressions like politics and history.

Outlander

by Samantha Henderson

I well know the whole disgraceful affair was my fault. I was the one that befriended that great beast of an Outlander, spawn of his border-clan House, and led him with such fatal consequences to my family’s heart.

But Lukah Brehill seemed such harmless oaf, charming in a way rare among my fellows, and I thought it was a kindness to introduce him to proper society. He’d been sent by his House to pay his respects to Sireni and its Duke, and was housed among the rest of the young bucks of the Houses too far and unfortunate to live in the heart of the city spectacular.

Golden City Far

by Gene Wolfe

This is what William Wachter wrote in his spiral notebook during study hall, the first day.

Funny dream last night. I was standing on a beach. I looked out, shading my eyes, and I could not see a thing. It was like a big fog bank was over the ocean way far away so that everything sort of faded white. A gull flew over me and screeched, and I thought, Well, not that way.

So I turned north, and there was a long level stretch and big mountains. I should not have been able to see past them, but I could. It was not like the mountains could be looked through. It was like the thing I was seeing on the other side was higher than they were so that I saw it over the tops. It was really far away and looked small, but it was just beautiful, gold towers, all sizes and shapes with flags on them. Yelllow flags, purple, blue, green and white ones. I thought, Well, there it is.

A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet

by Garth Nix

Sir Hereward sighed as he turned another page. His enthusiasm for reading had diminished in the turning of several hundred pages, with its concomitant several hundred finger lickings, for he had found only two entries worth reading: one on how to cheat at a board game that had changed its name but was still widely played in the known world; and another on the multiplicity of uses of the root spice cabizend, some surprising number of which fell into Hereward’s professional area of expertise as an artillerist and maker of incendiaries.

In fact, Hereward was about to give up and bellow to the housekeeper who kept the tower to bring him some ale, when the title of the next commonplace caught his eye. It was called “On the Propitiation of Sorcerous Puppets.”

As Sir Hereward’s constant companion, comrade-in-arms, and one-time nanny was a sorcerous puppet known as Mister Fitz, this was very much of interest to the injured knight. He eagerly read on, and though the piece was short and referred solely to the more usual kind of sorcerous puppet—one made to sing, dance, and entertain—he did learn something new.

The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman

At last Destiny brought us to an island, fair and verdant, in trees abundant, with yellow-ripe fruits luxuriant, and flowers fragrant and birds warbling soft descant, and streams crystalline and radiant. But no sign of man showed to the descrier- no, not a blower of the fire. The captain made fast with us to this island, and the merchants and sailors landed and walked about, enjoying the shade of the trees and the song of the birds, that chanted the praises of the One, the Victorious, and marveling at the works of the Omnipotent King.

Lavanya and Deepika

by Shveta Thakrar

Once upon a time, in a land radiant with stars and redolent of sandalwood, where peacocks breakfasted on dreams salty with the residue of slumber, a rani mourned. On the surface, the rani had everything: a kingdom to care for, fine jewels to wear in her long black hair, silken saris threaded through with silver and gold, and a garden of roses and jasmine to rival that of Lord Indra in his celestial realm. When she rode atop her warrior elephant, her subjects
bowed before her in awe and love. But one thing remained out of reach–an heir. She longed for a small, smiling face to call her own.

Gulabi Rani consulted midwives, healers schooled in the art of Ayurveda, and magicians. Knowing better than to refuse a monarch, they plied her with charms and salves, medications and horoscopes. She ate the roots and leaves of the shatavari plant as they recommended, and drank creamy buttermilk while fastidiously avoiding the color black. Yet her belly stayed flat. At last the healers admitted that, without a husband, there was no hope.

But the rani did not want a husband. Nor did she suffer from a lack of hope. After dismissing the healers and her servants both, she readied a place in the garden. If no one else could help her, she would find the answer herself. Surrounded by her beloved roses, garnet and pink and ivory, Gulabi  meditated for weeks on end.