Ages of Wonder Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY

  The Curse Tablet

  To Play the Game of Men

  Mist Wraith

  Written in Smoke

  THE AGE OF SAIL

  Cloud Above Water

  Crossing the Waters

  Here There Be Monsters

  A Swift Changing Course

  THE COLONIAL AGE

  Blood and Soil

  Fletcher’s Ghost

  Immigrant

  THE AGE OF PIONEERS

  A Small Sacrifice

  Pony Up

  Gold at the End of the Railroad

  THE PRE-MODERN AGE

  The Stone Orrery

  Sphinx!

  A Bird in the Hand

  THE AGE AHEAD

  Mars Bound

  Angels and Moths

  EDITORS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  “And where did you go after you left the witch?”

  “Only the marketplace, Master. For fruit.” Lucius looked down at his empty hands.

  “Not some temple? You weren’t hanging around with lackwits planning some slave rebellion?”

  “No, Master! Only the marketplace!”

  “How did you come by a mark of Apollo?”

  “I played my flute in the marketplace.”

  Master Gaius took a step backward, his head shaking from side to side.

  “There was music, Master. You have not forbidden me music. I didn’t disobey you, I swear it. I only stopped for a moment to play my flute with some children.”

  “The mark came then?”

  “We played a hymn. It pleased the god, or so I thought. I never meant to disobey you.”

  “I imagine you didn’t.” Master Gaius sighed and handed the rag back to Sulia. “Too late to do anything about it now, I suppose,” he said. “Maybe the mark will give you some protection from the witch. I had better send a bonus with you when you go tonight, and I’d better make plans to get you more training on that flute. I don’t want the god angry with me.”

  “Master.” A tension Lucius didn’t know he was carrying eased from his shoulders.

  “Perhaps you can be useful to me in different ways. I could hire you out to religous festvals. I’ll talk to some priests. Go have some lunch, and then take a nap. The gods only know what the witch wants with you; you should probably rest up for it.”

  —from “The Curse Tablet” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  Also Available from DAW Books:

  MISSPELLED edited by Julie E. Czerneda

  There is a right way and a wrong way to do practically anything. And when it comes to magic, skipping the directions, changing the ingredients, garbling up the words of a spell—all of these can lead to unusual, sometimes dire, sometimes comical consequences. Here seventeen authors—Kristen Britain, John Zakour, Doranna Drugin, Jim C. Hines, and others—accept the challenge of creating spell-driven situations that get out of control where: a cybermancer has her spell disk corrupted by unexpected input . . . two students out to brew up some spells completely outside the curriculum forgo a most important ingredient . . . a has-been golf pro finds an old family spell that should improve his game, but at what cost? . . . and a young woman orders a fairy-tale life, but she forgets to read the fine print and ends up with the worst parts of two fairy tales.

  WE THINK, THEREFORE WE ARE, edited by Peter Crowther Writers have been telling stories about sentient robots, computers, etc., since the Golden Age of science fiction began. Now fifteen masters of imagining have turned their talents to exploring the forms AIs may take in the not too distant future. Here are the descendants of Robby the Robot, the Terminator, and the Bicentennial Man, by authors such as Stephen Baxter, Brian Stableford, James Lovegrove, Tony Ballantyne, Robert Reed, Paul Di Filippo, Patrick O’Leary, Ian Watson, and others.

  IMAGINARY FRIENDS edited by John Marco and Martin H. Greenberg

  When you were a child, did you have an imaginary friend who kept you company when you were lonely or scared, or who had the most delightful adventures with you? For anyone who fondly remembers that unique companion no one else could see or hear, here is a chance to recapture that magical time of your life. Join thirteen top imaginers like Rick Hautala, Anne Bishop, Juliet McKenna, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Kristen Britain, Bill Fawcett, Fiona Patton, and Jim C. Hines, as they introduce you to both special friends and special places in their spellbinding tales. From the adventurous doings of a dragon and a boy . . . to a young woman held captive in a tower, and the mysterious being who is her only companion though he can’t enter her room . . . to a beggar, a bartender, and a stray dog in the heart of Nashville . . . and a woman who seems to have lost her creativity until a toy Canadian Mountie suddenly comes to life . . . you’ll find an intriguing assortment of comrades to share some of your time with.

  Copyright © 2009 by Tekno Books, Julie E. Czerneda, and Rob St.

  Martin.

  All Rights Reserved

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1470.

  DAW Books is distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

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  eISBN : 978-1-440-68777-8

  First Printing, March 2009

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  Acknowledgments

  Introduction © 2009 by Julie E. Czerneda and Rob St. Martin

  Section Introductions © 2009 by Rob St. Martin

  The Curse Tablet © 2009 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  To Play the Game of Men © 2009 by Caitlin Sweet

  Mist Wraith © 2009 by Urania Fung

  Written in Smoke © 2009 by Karina Sumner-Smith

  Cloud Above Water © 2009 by Natalie Millman

  Crossing the Waters © 2009 by Ika Vanderkoeck

  Here There Be Monsters © 2009 by Brad Carson

  A Swift Changing Course © 2009 by Jana Paniccia

  Blood and Soil © 2009 by Ceri Young

  Fletcher’s Ghost © 2009 by Liz Holliday

  Immigrant © 2009 by Sandra Tayler

  A Small Sacrifice © 2009 by Kristen Bonn

  Pony Up © 2009 by Linda A. B. Davis

  Gold at the End of the Railroad © 2009 by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  The Stone Orrery © 2009 by Jennifer Crow

  Sphinx! © 2009 by Tony Pi

  A Bird in the Hand © 2009 by Queenie Tirone

  Mars Bound © 2009 by K. J. Gould

  Angels and Moths © 2009 by Costi Gurgu

  Introduction

  When Rob and I started this anthology, we thought it would be simple. He’s the historian. I have a love of unusual story settings. We both enjoy fantasy and had noticed that much of it was set in, to be honest, essentially the same place and time. While there’s nothing wrong with castles, kings, and interesting peasantry—and nothing wrong with magic in a modern, western city of skyscrapers and cell phones—Rob brought up the notion of how much more there was in human history for writers to use. Every age offered myriad cultures, any of which could be mined for the basis of a wonderful fantasy setting.

  Simple, right?
r />   As the hard-working authors in this anthology will tell you (and the many whose otherwise excellent stories we had to turn down), it wasn’t simple at all. We weren’t after alternate history, however fascinating the premise. We wanted fantasy stories set in their own unique worlds, but those worlds had to be based on a lesser-used place, time, and culture of our own. A world drawn using the inks, as it were, of human history.

  Such demanding editors. But we held true to our vision and, thanks to our authors, the result is in your hands. Enjoy the forgotten, the familiar, and the utterly fantastic settings of these delightful stories.

  Welcome to the Ages of Wonder.

  Julie E. Czerneda and Rob St. Martin

  THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY

  At the dawn of human civilization, small kingdoms grew into great empires that spanned vast areas of land. Though they worshipped different gods and spoke different languages, though they might go to war and slaughter one another, these empires were united in a common belief: that they shared the world with wonderful, fantastic creatures—mythic beings who strode the earth just as they themselves did, sometimes hidden, sometimes revealing their true nature to the mortals who worshipped, feared, and loved them.

  The Curse Tablet

  Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  Lucius found the witch at one of the termopolia near Ostia Harbor. She sat on a stone bench near the sale counter of the sidewalk restaurant, a pottery bowl of puls porridge in her lap and a wedge of bread in her hand. The restaurant was doing brisk business—many people stopped by for their breakfasts; the man behind the counter was hard-pressed to keep up with requests for round loaves of bread. A child darted in and pulled a loaf from the bottom of a stack so skillfully the shopkeeper never noticed it. Lucius remembered doing things like that before his mother sold him to Gaius Tullius Paulus.

  The spring air was soft, damp, and almost warm, heavy with scents of smoke and sewage. A lot of good-natured shouting and joking filled the air. Toward the water, someone played a flute, but Lucius could not catch the melody, only a sense of the music, which was melancholy and carried a thin thread of power. Lucius had his own flute tucked into his waistband under a fold of tunic. It was a memento of his childhood, when he had played for money and food in the marketplace with his mother, sister, and older brother. He rarely found time to play these days.

  Most people ate as they walked toward their work, but some squatted on the sidewalk to eat, or sat on benches under the overhanging arches of the shops that lined the street. The donkey-driven mills in the center of the building were grinding grain, adding to the cacophony. The smell of baking bread made Lucius hungry; he had had his own breakfast at dawn, a couple hours earlier.

  No one sat near the witch. She tossed crumbs into the street. Small birds landed to eat the crumbs, scattering every time someone came near.

  Lucius approached the witch, his gaze on the muddy paving stones. He did not want to meet the witch’s eyes. One of the other slaves in Master Gaius’ household, a strapping man named Deodatus, had been bewitched only last week, falling into frequent fits, and afraid, now, of water. Since Deodatus’ bewitching, Lucius had been pressed into accompanying their master to the public baths and then scraping the oil off his skin; Deodatus could no longer abide the sight of the pools.

  “Have you a task for me?” the witch asked Lucius. Her voice was warm, low, and pleasant.

  “Are you the one known as Cassia the Witch?” he asked. The cook had told him the witch had much shaggy red hair, and that she wore it loose instead of braided or dressed, and that the color of her tunic was usually blue, and that on cool mornings like this one, she wore an overrobe of paler blue. All of which she was and wore: he had seen as much, before he fixed his gaze on the ground.

  “I am called Cassia,” she said.

  “My master wants to hire you.”

  “I won’t work for someone who won’t look at me,” said Cassia. She tossed crumbs toward his feet, and he was standing so still that the birds landed, pecking near his sandals.

  “Honored mistress, I don’t want you to work for me,” Lucius told the birds at his feet. “It is my master who needs your services.”

  “I won’t accept his commission unless you look at me,” she said.

  He sighed and closed his hand around the bag of denarii tied at his waist, enough to hire the witch for ten curse tablets, if the cook was to be believed. The cook had told the master’s personal servant about the witch’s powers. The personal servant had gossiped to the master, and the master had decided this was the route he wanted to go. The master’s marketplace rival had stolen and imprisoned the master’s mistress, and such a deed could not go unavenged.

  Lucius touched the slave collar around his neck, with its inscription of ownership. Most of Master Gaius’ slaves didn’t wear collars, but Lucius had made one unwise attempt to run away when he was ten years old and new to the household, before he realized that life could be much worse. The collar was his penance; he had been wearing it for five years now. He had never done anything else to jeopardize his position in Master Gaius’ household. He wasn’t ready to start now.

  He had been charged to find and hire this witch. He looked into her eyes.

  They were as green as the glass tiles in a water mosaic. The witch did not blink. Lucius felt his will run out of him like sand.

  “You’re a pretty boy,” she said. “Hold out your hand.”

  His arm lifted, though he did not direct it. The witch set her bread on top of her porridge bowl, reached into a wallet at her waist, pulled out a red string, and tied it around his wrist. He felt the magic in the knots as she laced the ends together. “There, now. You’ll come when I call you, won’t you, Lucius?”

  He swallowed. His adam’s apple bobbed against the collar, where his name was written for anyone who could read to see: “I am Lucius. Hold me so that I do not run away, and take me back to my master, the most illustrious man Gaius Tullius Paulus, who lives on the corner of Cardo Maximus and Via Di Diana.” “Yes, mistress,” Lucius said to the witch.

  “What does your master want?”

  “A curse tablet.” His voice was steady. Now that the worst had happened and he had been bewitched, he was no longer afraid of her. Fear would come later, when she pulled the red thread and made him do her bidding.

  “Do you know the text of it?”

  “I’ve memorized the outline.” He had scribed what his master wanted onto a wax tablet, smoothed it out, written it again twice more, each time erasing it, trusting his mind to hold it; he didn’t want to carry a curse through the streets, where any citizen or freedman might claim authority over him and ask to see what he carried.

  “Do you have money to pay me? I charge by the word. Does he want many words?”

  “He does,” said Lucius.

  “Do you have any personal thing from the one he is cursing? Hair? Nail clippings? Lost teeth, or something the accursed has touched often?”

  Lucius touched the other pouch at his waist. He had sneaked into Quintus Valerius Cato’s house, with generous bribes to Master Quintus’ slaves at a time when Master Quintus was in his shop and his wife and children had gone to visit relatives. The slaves, unhappy in their household and willing to take small risks, had let Lucius into Master Quintus’ room, though they warned him Quintus was meticulous in burning any hair he brushed and any nails he clipped. They had also let him see Prisca, Master Gaius’ mistress, chained to a bed in one of the slave rooms near the back of the house. She had cried and begged for his help. All he had been able to do for her was give Master Quintus’ slaves money and hope they spent at least a fraction of it on food for her.

  On a pillow of Master Quintus’ sleeping couch, Lucius had found a single short and shining hair. He had pressed it into a ball of wax so he wouldn’t lose it. “I have it,” he told the witch.

  “Come to my workshop.” She handed him her food, the bread still stacked atop the bowl, tossed a coin to the baker—“I’ll bring
the bowl back tomorrow,” she said, and he nodded to her—and strode down the street toward a block of sagging tenements. Lucius, who had lived in worse places, followed her up a rickety staircase to a hallway on the third floor, which was built of wood. The ceiling was blackened from lamp smoke; one window at the far end of the hall let in a little light.

  The witch unlocked the third door to the right and let Lucius into a cramped apartment. A sturdy work table took up most of the room. Shelves to the left overflowed with filled glass and pottery jars and wooden boxes and some things that were dried and looked as though they had joints and bones. “Sit,” said the witch, gesturing toward a square stool.

  Lucius sat while the witch went to a shelf and fetched a rolled papyrus scroll with many darkened finger marks on it, a stack of prepared lead sheets, and a stylus. She also brought a wax tablet. “Tell me,” she said, opening the hinged wood backing of the tablet to reveal the waxed surfaces inside.

  “Since it is a matter of love, he thought the curse should be directed to Venus,” Lucius said.

  The witch shook her head. “Venus is cruel, but she doesn’t traffic in the kinds of curses I write. This is a curse to harm another unless restitution is made, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was something stolen?”

  “My master’s mistress has been taken captive and imprisoned by his rival. She was a slave at the brothel down on the crossroads by the water, the House of the Three Gorgons. My master paid for her exclusive use, but his rival bought her from the proprietress and now has her imprisoned in his house.”