“That was the problem with the World Government—they interrupted the natural cycles of history that I depend on, and it threw me out of synch. They’d made stability such a science they might have kept things static for fifty or a hundred thousand years. Ten or fifteen thousand, and I could have come back here and outwaited them, but fifty thousand was just too long. I had to get things moving again, or I’d have been out of business.”
Wim’s imagination faltered at the prospect of the centuries that separated him from the peddler, that separated the peddler from everything that had ever been a part of the man, or ever could be. What kind of belief did it take, what sort of a man, to face that alone? And what losses or rewards to drive him to it? There must be something, that made it all worthwhile—
“There have been more things done, Wim, than the descendants of Sharn have dreamed. I am surprised at each new peak I attend . . . I’ll be leaving you now. You were a better guide than I expected; I thank you for it. I’d say Darkwood Corners is two or three days journey northwest from here.”
Wim hesitated, half afraid, half longing. “Let me go with you—?”
Jagit shook his head. “There’s only room for one, from here on. But you’ve seen a few more wonders than most people already; and I think you’ve learned a few things, too. There are going to be a lot of opportunities for putting it all to use right here, I’d say. You helped change your world, Wim—what are you going to do for an encore?”
Wim stood silent with indecision; Jagit lifted the rifle, tossed it to him.
Wim caught the gun, and a slow smile, filled with possibilities, grew on his face.
“Good-bye, Wim.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Jagged.” Wim watched the peddler move away toward his cave.
As he reached the entrance, Jagit hesitated, looking back. “And Wim—there are more wonders in this cave than you’ve ever dreamed of. I haven’t been around this long because I’m an easy mark. Don’t be tempted to grave-rob.” He was outlined momentarily by rainbow as he passed into the darkness.
Wim lingered at the entrance, until at last the cold forced him to move and he picked his way back down the sterile gray detritus of the slope. He stopped again by the mirror lake, peering back past the magician’s bullet-shaped vehicle at the cliff face. The rising sun washed it in golden light, but now somehow he really wasn’t even sure where the cave had been.
He sighed, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, and began the long walk home.
Lord Buckry sighed as memories receded, and with them the gnawing desire to seek out the peddler’s cave again; the desire that had been with him for thirty years. There lay the solutions to every problem he had ever faced, but he had never tested Jagged’s warning. It wasn’t simply the risk, though the risk was both deadly and sufficient—it was the knowledge that however much he gained in this life, it was ephemeral, less than nothing, held up to a man whose life spanned half that of humanity itself. Within the peddler’s cave lay the impossible, and that was why he would never try to take it for his own.
Instead he had turned to the possible and made it fact, depending on himself, and on the strangely clear view of things the peddler had left him. He had solved every problem alone, because he had had to, and now he would just have to solve this one alone too.
He stared down with sudden possessive pride over the townfolk in the square, his city of Fyffe now ringed by a sturdy wall ... So the West and the South were together, for one reason, and one alone. It balanced the scales precariously against plenty of old hatreds, and if something were to tip them back again— A few rumors, well-placed, and they’d be at each other’s throats. Perhaps he wouldn’t even need to raise an army. They’d solve that problem for him. And afterward—
Lord Buckry began to smile. He’d always had a hankering to visit the sea.
AFTERWORD—
THE PEDDLER’S APPRENTICE
This is the only collaboration I’ve attempted so far; it was the second story I sold, after “Tin Soldier.” It was conceived by my first husband, Vernor Vinge, who is also a writer, and who had written about half of the story and then gotten stuck on it I’d read the fragment before I’d begun to write seriously, and had liked it and wished that he’d find the inspiration to write the rest of it But then he got a job teaching mathematics at San Diego State University and didn’t have time to do any writing for a number of years. Meanwhile, he had been encouraging me to take my own writing seriously, and I had written “Tin Soldier” and sold it I was casting around for something to work on next, and he offered me the novelette fragment of “The Peddler’s Apprentice.” He said that he felt my writing style and inclinations seemed more suited to writing the second half of it than his did; the fact that he had that much confidence in my ability was something that did a great deal for my own confidence as a writer.
I began writing the second half, attempting to match my writing style to his style, which is basically sparer and more straightforward than my own. (I find that if I read enough of someone else’s work, I can begin to pick up their style almost instinctively, rather like doing voice imitation—which is something I have no ability at It’s a skill that can be both useful and dangerous, depending on what books you happen to be reading. I have to be very careful about reading other people’s work when I’m writing something of my own.) I felt that I had a responsibility to maintain both Vernor’s tone and his intentions about how the story should develop, since it was his idea in the first place. Generally he was quite pleased, although we had a number of disagreements at the very end of the story, where I kept insisting that I had made exactly the point he’d wanted made, and he kept insisting that I hadn’t; eventually we both agreed about what was really said on the page.
I rewrote the rough draft of his half and mine to make everything consistent and sent the finished novelette to Analog, which had published a number of Vernor’s stories previously. They bought this one too, and we were both delighted; but they ignored our request that our names be listed separately, and lumped us together like a nightclub act. We both felt that if I was going to seriously pursue a writing career, I needed to keep my identity independent, even in a collaboration. (The story was chosen for two Best SF of the Year anthologies, and both got our separate names correct)
A note for the curious reader: I took up writing the story at the point where Wim realizes that “Mr. Jagged” is posing as Axi Bork, and has just gotten rid of the entire Bork gang.
Vernor had originally envisioned “The Peddler’s Apprentice” as one of a series of stories about Jagit Katchetooriantz, the trader through time. It’s quite possible that one or the other of us (or even both) may do more of his strange life history someday.
PSIREN
I don’t know why she came that evening. Maybe it was for the reasons she gave me, maybe not. If I’d known her mind the way I used to, when I was really a telepath, maybe everything would have come out differently.
But I might as well have been a blind man, falling over furniture in silent rooms, with just glimmers of gray to show me there was still a world outside my own head. And so I didn’t even know she was there until I heard her voice, “Knock knock.” Jule never used the stairs, so I never heard her coming. She didn’t need to. She’d just be there, like some nightwisp who’d come to grant you a few wishes. I didn’t mind that she came in first and knocked afterwards; we’d shared too much for that.