* * * * DARK ALCHEMY Magical Tales from Masters of Modern Fantasy Edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU * * * * CONTENTS Preface BY JACK DANN AND GARDNER DOZOIS The Witch’s Headstone BY NEIL GAIMAN Holly and Iron BY GARTH NIX Color Vision BY MARY ROSENBLUM The Ruby Incomparable BY KAGE BAKER A Fowl Tale BY EOIN GOLFER Slipping Sideways Through Eternity BY JANE YOLEN The Stranger’s Hands BY TAD WILLIAMS Naming Day BY PATRICIA A. MCKILLIP Winter’s Wife BY ELIZABETH HAND A Diorama of the Infernal Regions, or The Devil’s Ninth Question BY ANDY DUNCAN Barrens Dance BY PETER S. BEAGLE Stone Man BY NANCY KRESS The Manticore Spell BY JEFFREY FORD Zinder BY TANITH LEE Billy and the Wizard BY TERRY BISSON The Magikkers BY TERRY DOWLING The Magic Animal BY GENE WOLFE Stonefather BY ORSON SCOTT CARD * * * * Preface Wizards have stalked through the human imagination for thousands and thousands of years, perhaps even from a time before we were fully human. Traces of Neanderthal magic have been found at prehistoric sites: a low-walled stone enclosure containing seven bear heads, all facing forward; a human skull on a stake in a ring of stones. A few tens of thousands of years later, in the deep caves of Lascaux and Altamira and Rouffignac, the Cro-Magnons were practicing magic too, perhaps learned from the vanishing Neanderthals, filling wall after wall in the most remote and isolated depths of hidden caverns with vivid, emblematic paintings of Ice Age animals and the abstract and interlacing paint-outlined human handprints known as “Macaronis” (there’s little doubt that these paintings were used in sorcerous rites, especially as many of the paintings seem to have been ritually “killed,” perhaps to ensure success in the hunt). These ancient walls also give us what may be the very first representation of a wizard in human his tory, a hulking, shaggy, mysterious, deer-headed figure watching over the bright, flat, painted animals as they caper across the stone. Wizards, sorcerers, shamans, witches, medicine men, seers, root women, conjure men—every age and every culture from prehistoric times on has had its own version of the magic-user, the-one-who-intercedes-with-the-spirits, the one who knows the ancient secrets and can call upon the hidden powers, the one who can see both the spirit world and the physical world, and who can mediate between them. Sometimes they’re benevolent and wise, sometimes evil and malign, sometimes—ambiguously—both. Even here in the twenty-first century, where space stations and satellites whirl overhead, you can communicate instantly with someone on the other side of the world, and you can cross a continent from one coast to the other in a matter of hours (things that would themselves have seemed like the most extreme magic only a few hundred years ago), the figure of the wizard is still a deeply significant one, an archetype that haunts art, advertis ing, literature, folklore, cartoons, movies, and even our very dreams. We asked some of the very best modern fantasists—Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Elizabeth Hand, Eoin Golfer, Jane Yolen, Peter S. Beagle, Kage Baker, Tad Williams, Orson Scott Card, Gene Wolfe, Patricia A. McKillip, Terry Bisson, Nancy Kress, Andy Duncan, Mary Rosenblum, Jeff Ford, Tanith Lee, Terry Dowling—to write stories about that most potent of fantasy archetypes, The Wizard. The book you hold in your hands is the result, and here you will find wizards young and old, evil and benign, male and female, living in the ancient world and in the modern world and in fantasy worlds that never were…children who can talk to animals, and animals who are willing to give up their lives to fight evil magic, boys who are raised by the dead, and girls who make friends with ghosts in haunted houses, boys who find the Devil ruffling through magazines in their garage or who secretly have the power of gods, and women of deep secret knowledge who marry Winter, young men and women who fight Iron Magic with Holly Magic through the deep forests of Arthurian Britain, or who fight deadly magical conspiracies in their own backyards, talking chickens and monstrous manticores, stone men, mysterious strangers, and a ruby incomparable, wizards as blackly evil as night or as bright and gentle as a summer’s day . . . plus a few wizards who just can’t make up their minds! We hope you enjoy them. * * * * The Witch’s Headstone NEIL GAIMAN One of the hottest stars in science fiction, fantasy, and horror today, Neil Gaiman has won three Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, one World Fantasy Award, six Locus Awards, four Stoker Awards, three Geffens, and two Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards. Gaiman first came to wide public attention as the creator of the graphic novel series The Sandman, still one of the most acclaimed graphic novel series of all time. Gaiman remains a superstar in the graphic novel field; his graphic novels, many in collaboration with Dave McKean, in clude Black Orchid, Violent Cases, Signal to Noise, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch, and the children’s books The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. In recent years he’s enjoyed equal success in the science fiction and fantasy fields as well, with his bestselling novel American Gods winning the 2002 Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Awards, Coraline winning both Hugo and Nebula in 2003, and his story “A Study in Emerald” winning the Hugo in 2004. He also won the World Fantasy Award for his story with Charles Vess, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and won the International Horror Critics Guild Award for his collection Angels & Visitations: A Miscellany. Gaiman’s other novels include Good Omens (written with Terry Pratchett), Neverwhere, and, most recently, Anansi Boys. In addition to Angels & Visitations, his short fiction has been collected in Smoke & Mirrors: Short Fictions & Illusions. He’s also written Don’t Panic: The Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion, A Walk ing Tour of the Shambles (with Gene Wolfe), and edited Ghastly Beyond Belief (with Kim Newman), Book of Dreams (with Edward Kramer), and Now We Are Sick: An Anthology of Nasty Verse (with Stephen Jones). Coming up is a new collection, Fragile Things. In the lyrical tale that follows, he blurs the distinction between the quick and the dead—and shows us that what really counts is kindness, no matter which side of the grave you’re on ... * * * * T HERE was a witch buried at the edge of the graveyard; it was com mon knowledge. Bod had been told to keep away from that corner of the world by Mrs. Owens as far back as he could remember. “Why?” he asked. “T’ain’t healthy for a living body,” said Mrs. Owens. “There’s damp down that end of things. It’s practically a marsh. You’ll catch your death.” Mr. Owens himself was more evasive and less imaginative. “It’s not a good place,” was all he said. The graveyard proper ended at the edge of the hill, beneath the old apple tree, with a fence of rust-brown iron railings, each topped with a small, rusting spear-head, but there was a wasteland beyond that, a mass of net tles and weeds, of brambles and autumnal rubbish, and Bod, who was a good boy, on the whole, and obedient, did not push between the railings, but he went down there and looked through. He knew he wasn’t being told the whole story, and it irritated him. Bod went back up the hill, to the abandoned church in the middle of the graveyard, and he waited until it got dark. As twilight edged from grey to purple there was a noise in the spire, like a fluttering of heavy velvet, and Silas left his resting-place in the belfry and clambered headfirst down the spire. “What’s in the far corner of the graveyard?” asked Bod. “Past Harri son Westwood, Baker of this Parish, and his wives, Marion and Joan?” “Why do you ask?” said his guardian, brushing the dust from his black suit with ivory fingers. Bod shrugged. “Just wondered.” “It’s unconsecrated ground,” said Silas. “Do you know what that means?” “Not really,” said Bod. Silas walked across the path without disturbing a fallen leaf and sat down on the stone bench, beside Bod. “There are those,” he said, in his silken voice, “who believe that all land is sacred. That it is sacred before we come to it, and sacred after. But here, in your land, they bless the churches and the ground they set aside to bury people in, to make it holy. But they leave land unconsecrated beside the sacred ground, Potter’s Fields to bury the criminals and the suicides or those who were not of the faith.” “So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?” Silas raised one perfect eyebrow. “Mm? Oh, not at all. Let’s see, it’s been a while since I’ve been down that way. But I don’t remember any one particularly evil. Remember, in days gone by you could be hanged for steal ing a shilling. And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to has ten their transition to another plane of existence.” “They kill themselves, you mean?” said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid. “Indeed.” “Does it work? Are they happier dead?” Silas grinned so wide and sudden that he showed his fangs. “Some times. Mostly, no...
widez2