Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology Read online

  BEYOND

  THE PALE

  Saladin Ahmed

  Peter S. Beagle

  Heather Brewer

  Jim Butcher

  Rachel Caine

  Kami Garcia

  Nancy & Belle Holder

  Gillian Philip

  Jane Yolen

  Edited by Henry Herz

  Birch Tree Publishing

  3830 Valley Centre Dr., Suite 705-432

  San Diego, CA 92130

  www.birchtreepub.com

  Selection and editorial material copyright © 2014 by Henry Herz. The moral right of Henry Herz to be identified as editor of this work and the individual authors as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Individual copyrights are:

  HOOVES AND THE HOVEL OF ABDEL JAMEELA copyright © 2009 by Saladin Ahmed

  THE CHILDREN OF THE SHARK GOD copyright © 2010 by Avicenna Development Corporation

  SHADOW CHILDREN copyright © 2010 by Heather Brewer

  MISERY copyright © 2012 by Heather Brewer

  EVEN HAND copyright © 2010 by Jim Butcher

  DEATH WARMED OVER copyright © 2009 Roxanne Longstreet Conrad

  RED RUN copyright © 2012 by Kami Garcia LLC

  PALE RIDER copyright © 2012 by Nancy Holder

  FROST CHILD copyright © 2011 by Gillian Philip

  SOUTH copyright © 2012 by Gillian Philip

  A KNOT OF TOADS copyright © 2005 by Jane Yolen

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LIGHTNING MERRIEMOUSE-JONES copyright © 2006 by Nancy & Belle Holder

  Cover illustration “Snow White” copyright © 2010 by Abigail Larson

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopy, recording, or information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, businesses, organizations and events are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-989-44873-4

  With gratitude to my parents and the Author of all things

  Praise for Beyond the Pale

  “Beyond the Pale features a stellar, diverse line-up, brimming with talent and imagination.”

  - New York Times bestseller Jason Hough, author of The Darwin Elevator

  “Beyond the edge of fear and dread, shadows tell each other beautiful and frightening stories. Crack open this book and listen to the voices.”

  - New York Times bestseller Richard Kadrey, author of Sandman Slim

  “Magic truly exists in Beyond the Pale. These tales are at times elegant, witty, romantic, frightening, exciting and always entertaining. Highly recommended.”

  - New York Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry, author of Fall of Night and V-Wars

  “Beyond the Pale is the kind of thing to keep loaded on your reader in case you need a quick fix of fine fantasy by one of the field's finest fantasy writers.”

  - Nebula Award-nominated Greg van Eekhout, author of California Bones

  “Light a black candle and crack open this collection of short stories from writers who are more than mere wordsmiths. A thrill runs up my spine as I wonder, could these scribes be messengers from in-between worlds sent here to prepare us for our own crossings? The veil thins and the candle flickers. Fiction? I’m not so sure.”

  - New York Times bestseller Frank Beddor, author of The Looking Glass Wars

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  1

  Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela by Saladin Ahmed

  2

  The Children of the Shark God by Peter S. Beagle

  17

  Misery by Heather Brewer

  40

  Shadow Children by Heather Brewer

  53

  Even Hand by Jim Butcher

  61

  Death Warmed Over by Rachel Caine

  84

  Red Run by Kami Garcia

  115

  Pale Rider By Nancy Holder

  128

  Frost Child by Gillian Philip

  152

  South by Gillian Philip

  179

  A Knot of Toads by Jane Yolen

  186

  The Adventures of Lightning Merriemouse-Jones

  by Nancy & Belle Holder

  210

  About the Contributors

  221

  INTRODUCTION

  ~

  by Henry Herz

  This is an anthology of fantasy, urban fantasy and paranormal stories that skirt the border between our world and others. Was that my imagination, or did I hear something under my bed? What was that blurred movement in my darkened closet? There is but a thin Veil separating the real and the fantastic, and therein dwell the inhabitants of these stories.

  The noun “pale” refers to a stake (as in impaling vampires) or pointed piece of wood (as in a paling fence). “Pale” came to refer to an area enclosed by a paling fence. Later, it acquired the figurative meaning of an enclosed and therefore safe domain. Conversely, "beyond the pale" means foreign, strange, or threatening. You are about to go Beyond the Pale.

  It was an honor and delight to work with such gifted authors. I hope you enjoy reading their work as much as I did.

  HOOVES AND THE

  HOVEL OF ABDEL JAMEELA

  ~

  by Saladin Ahmed

  As soon as I arrive in the village of Beit Zujaaj, I begin to hear the mutters about Abdel Jameela, a strange old man supposedly unconnected to any of the local families. Two days into my stay, the villagers fall over one another to share with me the rumors that Abdel Jameela is in fact distantly related to the esteemed Assad clan. By my third day in Beit Zujaaj, several of the Assads, omniscient as “important” families always are in these piles of cottages, have accosted me to deny the malicious whispers. No doubt they are worried about the bad impression such an association might make on me, favorite physicker of the Caliph’s own son.

  The latest denial comes from Hajjar al-Assad himself, the middle-aged head of the clan and the sort of half-literate lout that passes for a shaykh in these parts. Desperate for the approval of the young courtier whom he no doubt privately condemns as an over-schooled sodomite, bristle-bearded Shaykh Hajjar has cornered me in the village’s only café—if the sitting room of a qat-chewing old woman can be called a café by anyone other than bumpkins.

  I should not be so hard on Beit Zujaaj and its bumpkins. But when I look at the gray rock-heap houses, the withered gray vegetable-yards, and the stuporous gray lives that fill this village, I want to weep for the lost color of Baghdad.

  Instead I sit and listen to the shaykh.

  “Abdel Jameela is not of Assad blood, O learned Professor. My grandfather took mercy, as God tells us we must, on the old man’s mother. Seventy-and-some years ago she showed up in Beit Zujaaj, half-dead from traveling and big with child, telling tales—God alone knows if they were true—of her Assad-clan husband, supposedly slain by highwaymen. Abdel Jameela was birthed and raised here, but he has never been of this village.” Shaykh Hajjar scowls. “For decades now—since I was a boy—he has lived up on the hilltop rather than among us. More of a hermit than a villager. And not of Assad blood,” he says again.

  I stand up. I can take no more of
the man’s unctuous voice and, praise God, I don’t have to.

  “Of course, O Shaykh, of course. I understand. Now, if you will excuse me?”

  Shaykh Hajjar blinks. He wishes to say more but doesn’t dare. For I have come from the Caliph’s court.

  “Yes, Professor. Peace be upon you.” His voice is like a snuffed candle.

  “And upon you, peace.” I head for the door as I speak.

  The villagers would be less deferential if they knew of my current position at court—or rather, lack of one. The Caliph has sent me to Beit Zujaaj as an insult. I am here as a reminder that the well-read young physicker with the clever wit and impressive skill, whose company the Commander of the Faithful’s own bookish son enjoys, is worth less than the droppings of the Caliph’s favorite falcon. At least when gold and a Persian noble’s beautiful daughter are involved.

  For God’s viceroy the Caliph has seen fit to promise my Shireen to another, despite her love for me. Her husband-to-be is older than her father—too ill, the last I heard, to even sign the marriage contract. But as soon as his palsied, liver-spotted hand is hale enough to raise a pen… Things would have gone differently were I a wealthy man. Shireen’s father would have heard my proposal happily enough if I’d been able to provide the grand dowry he sought. The Caliph’s son, fond of his brilliant physicker, even asked that Shireen be wedded to me. But the boy’s fondness could only get me so far. The Commander of the Faithful saw no reason to impose a raggedy scholar of a son-in-law on the Persian when a rich old vulture would please the man more. I am, in the Caliph’s eyes, an amusing companion to his son, but one whom the boy will lose like a doll once he grows to love killing and gold-getting more than learning. Certainly I am nothing worth upsetting Shireen’s coin-crazed courtier father over.

  For a man is not merely who he is, but what he has. Had I land or caravans I would be a different man—the sort who could compete for Shireen’s hand. But I have only books and instruments and a tiny inheritance, and thus that is all that I am. A man made of books and pittances would be a fool to protest when the Commander of the Faithful told him that his love would soon wed another.

  I am a fool.

  My outburst in court did not quite cost me my head, but I was sent to Beit Zujaaj “for a time, only, to minister to the villagers as a representative of Our beneficent concern for Our subjects.” And my fiery, tree-climbing Shireen was locked away to await her half-dead suitor’s recovery.

  “O Professor! Looks like you might get a chance to see Abdel Jameela for yourself!” Just outside the café, the gravelly voice of Umm Hikma the café-keeper pierces the cool morning air and pulls me out of my reverie. I like old Umm Hikma, with her qat-chewer’s irascibility and her blacksmithish arms. Beside her is a broad-shouldered man I don’t know. He scuffs the dusty ground with his sandal and speaks to me in a worried stutter.

  “P-peace be upon you, O learned Professor. We haven’t yet met. I’m Yousef, the porter.”

  “And upon you, peace, O Yousef. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure’s mine, O Professor. But I am here on behalf of another. To bring you a message. From Abdel Jameela.”

  For the first time since arriving in Beit Zujaaj, I am surprised. “A message? For me?”

  “Yes, Professor. I am just returned from the old hermit’s hovel, a half-day’s walk from here, on the hilltop. Five, six times a year I bring things to Abdel Jameela, you see. In exchange he gives a few coins, praise God.”

  “And where does he get these coins, up there on the hill?” Shaykh Hajjar’s voice spits out the words from the café doorway behind me. I glare and he falls silent.

  I turn back to the porter. “What message do you bear, O Yousef? And how does this graybeard know of me?”

  Broad-shouldered Yousef looks terrified. The power of the court. “Forgive me, O learned Professor! Abdel Jameela asked what news from the village and I… I told him that a court physicker was in Beit Zujaaj. He grew excited and told me to beg upon his behalf for your aid. He said his wife was horribly ill. He fears she will lose her legs, and perhaps her life.”

  “His wife?” I’ve never heard of a married hermit.

  Umm Hikma raises her charcoaled eyebrows, chews her qat, and says nothing.

  Shaykh Hajjar is more vocal. “No one save God knows where she came from, or how many years she’s been up there. The people have had glimpses only. She doesn’t wear the head scarf that our women wear. She is wrapped all in black cloth from head to toe and mesh-masked like a foreigner. She has spoken to no one. Do you know, O Professor, what the old rascal said to me years ago when I asked why his wife never comes down to the village? He said, ‘She is very religious’! The old dog! Where is it written that a woman can’t speak to other women? Other women who are good Muslims? The old son of a whore! What should his wife fear here? The truth of the matter is—”

  “The truth, O Shaykh, is that in this village only your poor wife need live in fear!” Umm Hikma lets out a rockslide chuckle and gives me a conspiratorial wink. Before the shaykh can sputter out his offended reply, I turn to Yousef again.

  “On this visit, did you see Abdel Jameela’s wife?” If he can describe the sick woman, I may be able to make some guesses about her condition. But the porter frowns.

  “He does not ask me into his home, O Professor. No one has been asked into his home for thirty years.”

  Except for the gifted young physicker from the Caliph’s court. Well, it may prove more interesting than what I’ve seen of Beit Zujaaj thus far. I do have a fondness for hermits. Or, rather, for the idea of hermits. I can’t say that I have ever met one. But as a student, I always fantasized that I would one day be a hermit, alone with God and my many books in the barren hills.

  That was before I met Shireen.

  “There is one thing more,” Yousef says, his broad face looking even more nervous. “He asked that you come alone.”

  My heartbeat quickens, though there is no good reason for fear. Surely this is just an old hater-of-men’s surly whim. A physicker deals with such temperamental oddities as often as maladies of the liver or lungs. Still… “Why does he ask this?”

  “He says that his wife is very modest and that in her state the frightening presence of men might worsen her illness.”

  Shaykh Hajjar erupts at this. “Bah! Illness! More likely they’ve done something shameful they don’t want the village to know of. Almighty God forbid, maybe they—”

  Whatever malicious thing the shaykh is going to say, I silence it with another glare borrowed from the Commander of the Faithful. “If the woman is ill, it is my duty as a Muslim and a physicker to help her, whatever her husband’s oddities.”

  Shaykh Hajjar’s scowl is soul-deep. “Forgive me, O Professor, but this is not a matter of oddities. You could be in danger. We know why Abdel Jameela’s wife hides away, though some here fear to speak of such things.”

  Umm Hikma spits her qat into the road, folds her powerful arms and frowns. “In the name of God! Don’t you believe, Professor, that Abdel Jameela, who couldn’t kill an ant, means you any harm.” She jerks her chin at Shaykh Hajjar. “And you, O Shaykh, by God, please don’t start telling your old lady stories again!”

  The shaykh wags a finger at her. “Yes, I will tell him, woman! And may Almighty God forgive you for mocking your shaykh!” Shaykh Hajjar turns to me with a grim look. “O learned Professor, I will say it plainly: Abdel Jameela’s wife is a witch.”

  “A witch?” The last drops of my patience with Beit Zujaaj have dripped through the water clock. It is time to be away from these people. “Why would you say such a thing, O Shaykh?”

  The shaykh shrugs. “Only God knows for certain,” he says. His tone belies his words.

  “May God protect us all from slanderous ill-wishers,” I say.

  He scowls. But I have come from the Caliph’s court, so his tone is venomously polite. “It is no slander, O Professor. Abdel Jameela’s wife consorts with ghouls. Travelers ha
ve heard strange noises coming from the hilltop. And hoofprints have been seen on the hill-path. Cloven hoofprints, O Professor, where there are neither sheep nor goats.”

  “No! Not cloven hoofprints!” I say.

  But the shaykh pretends not to notice my sarcasm. He just nods. “There is no strength and no safety but with God.”

  “God is great,” I say in vague, obligatory acknowledgment. I have heard enough rumor and nonsense. And a sick woman needs my help. “I will leave as soon as I gather my things. This Abdel Jameela lives up the road, yes? On a hill? If I walk, how long will it take me?”

  “If you do not stop to rest, you will see the hill in the distance by noontime prayer,” says Umm Hikma, who has a new bit of qat going in her cheek.

  “I will bring you some food for your trip, Professor, and the stream runs alongside the road much of the way, so you’ll have no need of water.” Yousef seems relieved that I’m not angry with him, though I don’t quite know why I would be. I thank him then speak to the group.

  “Peace be upon you all.”

  “And upon you, peace,” they say in near-unison.

  In my room, I gather scalpel, saw, and drugs into my pack—the kid-leather pack that my beloved gifted to me. I say more farewells to the villagers, firmly discourage their company, and set off alone on the road. As I walk rumors of witches and wife-beaters are crowded out of my thoughts by the sweet remembered sweat-and-ambergris scent of my Shireen.