FSF, January-February 2010 (24 page)

"Here,” said the spectrum girl. She had some food for me, hot burritos in a greasy paper bag. “You need your strength."

"Thanks."

Our commander was an old man like me, a gap-toothed old black man in an Argyle vest and charcoal suit, standing away from the others with a pair of binoculars. I walked over. Even though my neck was painfully stiff, I could turn from my waist and shoulders and look north and east. I could see how the land had changed. Instead of the middle of the city, I stood at its outer edge. North, the forest sloped away from me. East, past Loch Raven Boulevard, the land opened up around patches of scrub oak and ash, and the grass was knee-high as far as I could see. There was no sign of any structure or illumination in either direction, unless you count the lightning on the eastern horizon, down toward Dundalk and the river's mouth. The wind blew from over there, carrying the smell of ozone and the bay. Black birds hung above us. Thirty-third Street was a wide, rutted track, and as I watched I could see movement down its length, a deeper blackness there.

The commander handed me the binoculars. “She's brought them up from the Eastern Shore on flatboats,” he said.

I held the binoculars in my hand. I couldn't bear to look. For all I knew, among the pallid dead I would perceive people that I recognized—Shawn Rosenheim, perhaps, a bayonet in his big fist. And one young woman, of whose face I'd be less sure.

"She'll try and take the citadel tonight,” murmured the commander by my side. Behind us, the road ran over a bridge before ending at the gates of Homewood. St. Charles Avenue was hidden at the bottom of a ravine. The campus rose above us, edged with cliffs, a black rampart from the art museum to the squash courts. And at the summit of the hill, light gleamed from between the columns of the citadel.

I had to turn in a complete circle to see it all. But I was also imagining what lay behind the hill, the people those ramparts housed and protected, not just here but all over the world. Two hundred miles south, in Richmond, a boy and his mother crouched together in the scary dark.

"I fought with your grandfather when I was just a boy,” said the commander. “That was on Katahdin Ridge in 1963. That was the first time I saw her.” He motioned back down the road toward Loch Raven. I put the binoculars to my eyes, and I could see the black flags.

"Her?"

"Her."

I knew whom he meant. “What took you so long, anyway?” he asked. I might have tried to answer, if there was time, because I didn't hear even the smallest kind of reproach in his voice, but just simple curiosity. I myself was curious. What had I been doing all these years, when there was work to be done? Others, evidently, started as children—there were kids among us now.

I was distracted from my excuses by the sight of them building up a bonfire of old two-by-fours and plywood shards, while the rest of us stood around warming our hands. I heard laughter and conversation. People passed around bottles of liquor. They smoked cigarettes or joints. A woman uncovered a basket of corn muffins. A man had a bag of oranges, which he passed around. I could detect no sense of urgency, even though the eastern wind made the fire roar, while lightning licked the edges of the plain. The crack of thunder was like distant guns.

"Here they come,” said the commander.

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Now for something completely different, here's the skinny on five classics of fairytaledom. When anyone asks you where you got the inside dope on ‘em, be sure to tell them you heard it here first.

Emperor Thomas had heard about Po and Ho long before he met them. Not that he begrudged two scam artists a living. He liked the Salt Dodge and the False Gumdrop as much as anyone and had a good laugh on how they had modified the Glam and took everything the Widow Stein owned, right down to her porcelain teeth. But all good things come to an end and
their
end was in sight when the local magistrate hauled them up in front of the Emperor.

When Ho and Po suggested they had something in mind that the good Emperor might be interested in, Thomas was intrigued and kept a close eye on his wallet. The thought of the two of them as master tailors amused him and he let them go ahead for a month—expecting he must bid them a sad but final farewell at the month's end.

The nonexistent clothes exceeded his expectations. An early summer heat wave made the ruffles and brocade hot as hell. A little naked parading was just the right prescription. Everyone saw through it instantly (
heh
) of course but who was going to say anything?

As the naked emperor wandered in the yard outside, feeling the gentle wind tickle him in places unexposed for decades, Thomas thought:
I could get used to this
.

A young boy on the wall called out: “He's
naked!
"

The Emperor didn't even have to raise an eyebrow. His Minister of Personal Security had the boy silenced before his next breath. The boy was immediately and publically dismembered as philosophical instruction to the populace and, more importantly, to members of the court. The Emperor was clearly the final arbiter of fashion.

As Thomas retired back inside—it did look like rain—he considered the possibilities. There were a number of Ladies and daughters of Ladies who could benefit from the gift of Imperial clothing. At least, it would benefit Thomas. And by declaring this gift Imperial, Thomas could insure the quality of the court landscape since no one would be wearing the ephemeral clothing but by his Imperial decree.

The more he thought about it, the less necessary Ho and Po appeared. But by the time Thomas sent his Minister of Personal Security to pay a visit to the two tailors, they were already gone.

The kingdoms of Althamea and Gerk were side by side on the coast, far enough from the seat of Thomas's empire not to worry overmuch but close enough to smell it if things got too close.

Gerk had enjoyed a regular involuntary infusion of Viking DNA resulting in a population that was big, blue-eyed and blond, heavily muscled and ready for action. Althamea's people, denied these advantages, were short, thin, splay-footed, pigeon-chested, buck-toothed, and myopic. Every few years, the Gerks would convince themselves to attack. The Kings of Althamea would sigh and reluctantly annex another hectare or two. It was a shame, really. The poor sods just didn't seem to learn.

It was no surprise, therefore, when King Richard of Gerk had a handsome son, Charles. The beauty of King Alfred of Althamea's daughter, Snow White, was a shock.

Snow White's name had a double meaning. On the one hand, it signified an innocent lack of guile and a symbol of purity. On the other, like a flat, featureless snowfall, no one could tell what was underneath. She was as smart as they come.

Her stepmother, Queen Rose, had been her father's mistress for four years before she bore him a sickly son. At that point, King Alfred had Snow White's mother killed and married Rose. Snow White was fifteen.

It didn't surprise her at all when Ho, Rose's huntsman, took her out into the forest. But Snow White's mother had been one example of how to manage a man and Queen Rose had been another. The huntsman, having been instructed to kill Snow White and bring her wet beating heart back to the castle, was reluctant to fulfill his instructions after a couple of hours’ romp with her. It's just tough to slaughter a beautiful naked woman.

Instead, he sent Snow White (and her clothes) deeper into the forest. Ho killed a boar, took out the heart, and presented that to the Queen. But figuring that fooling the Queen was likely only temporary, he left town.

Chance plays a big role in most lives and Snow White's was no exception. It wasn't chance that Rose sent her away. Nor was it chance Snow White lived to tell the tale—that was pure skill and single-minded determination. But it
was
chance that brought her to the Trollback Mine successfully operated by seven brothers named, unsurprisingly, Trollback.

Whether it was the contaminated water, persistent parasites or inbreeding, all seven brothers were afflicted with achondroplasia. They were dwarves.

The number seven has special significance in fairy tales: seven swans, seven dwarves, seven deadly sins, seven cardinal virtues. It could have been worse. This fairy tale could have been about the seven lepers.

Regardless, not all of the Trollback brothers were equally afflicted. Pedro, for example, was mentally retarded and referred to as Dopey. Karl was consumptive and called Sneezy. You get the idea.

Rupert (Grumpy) was the oldest of the Trollback brothers and had achieved the neat trick of both managing a successful jewel mine and defending the Trollback claim from King Alfred and King Richard, the Emperor Thomas being just too far away to worry about.

Snow White's appearance out of the forest struck the Trollback brothers like a pickaxe. If she had been the shy, virginal girl her face suggested, she would still have been the only woman available. And since she was not, her effect was even more devastating. Pedro and Karl died more from neglect than anything else. The remaining brothers competed, fought, and ultimately murdered for sexual favors that before they'd never known existed. Finally, it was Rupert and the humorless Guillermo (Happy) who beat each other with oaken staves in front of the mine, the others having died under mysterious (or not so mysterious) circumstances. Rupert struck Guillermo's eye with his axe but didn't kill him. Guillermo ran screaming into the forest. But before Rupert could take full possession of Snow White, there rode onto the scene one Prince Charles, son of King Richard, to negotiate the year's taxes.

Charles, also called “Charming” as a joke, was a bona fide prince with a kingdom nearly his own just going to waste. Snow White seduced Charles and Charles returned to his father with her. Rupert followed, hating himself but still in thrall.

King Richard, a widower with his wife safely beyond harm, died the following spring of a lingering illness. Prince Charles became King Charles.

With a kingdom of her own and a constant revenue stream of jewels, Snow White hired every mercenary she could find and drafted the population without mercy. She smiled to herself. When she was done, Queen Rose would be dancing on red hot iron plates. She wouldn't be dancing alone. King Alfred would be dancing with her.

There's an old joke that Saint Peter, bored with his job admitting souls to heaven, began to guess the IQs and occupations of the entrants as they passed the Pearly Gates. 150: surgeon. 135: attorney. The joke's obligatory third guy showed up. Peter gave him a once-over and, too polite to give a number, said: “Get your deer this year?"

That's Jack.

He lived in a Gerklander hovel with his mother in the town of Grunt hanging out in the village square on a soap box yelling about the impending menace from Althamea. The Althameans had weakened Gerk by introducing regulations on swordbearing—the real reason Gerk hadn't won a war with Althamea in two hundred years. They had introduced foreign substances into the water to turn Gerks stupid. (The Gerks in the square, observing Jack, were almost persuaded.) They were corrupting our schools by introducing secular humanism and teaching that the earth was neither the center of the universe nor flat.

Mostly, the Gerks ignored Jack, though some of the more gullible invited him to speak at the enormous church they were building just outside of town. Jack distributed pamphlets on the Althamean menace, abstinence family planning, and God's plan for Gerk.

Jack would have eventually died of tuberculosis, unknown and nameless, but for the draft. When the new Queen started building her army, each town was tasked with gathering up as many able-bodied men (meaning still warm, able to walk and possessing neither money nor strong ties to anyone important) as possible. The current mayor and his ministers didn't want to have anything to do with it. But, since it came from the Queen, it was a dirty job
somebody
had to do. Jack was standing in the square yelling at the populace when the Mayor hooked his thumb out the window and said, “Let's get
him
to do it."

Jack was appointed Chairman and Sole Responsible Member of the Grunt Draft Board directly by the Queen herself, since nobody in the Mayor's office wanted their fingerprints on the deal.

Jack took the office as a sign from heaven. He gave talks to hulking, nineteen-year-old eighth graders in the local schools using maps he devised to show the true size of Gerk—that is, the size Gerk would have been if it hadn't lost all those territories to Althamea over the last couple of centuries. The only indication on the map that the territories were no longer under Gerk control were little dotted lines of asterisks and a note at the bottom in print so fine it looked like a smudge saying these were “disputed” lands. Jack didn't just distribute these maps to potential recruits but to all the students, thinking wisely for perhaps the first time in his life that this war could go on for a long, long time. Forty young children who didn't know any better grew up with these maps and eventually settled in the “disputed” lands only to find themselves loyal Althamean citizens.

So equilibrium was established. Jack sent off troublemakers, squints, boys trying to avoid incarceration, and boys already incarcerated. Nobody meaningful was tagged. Everyone was happy.

Trouble rolled up when Jack drafted Edward Serk the Younger.

Edward Serk the Younger was the son of Edward Serk the Elder who, himself, was brother to Simon Serk the Mayor.

Clearly, Jack's usefulness had come to an end.

But now came a dilemma. Jack, for all his faults (and they were many) had been appointed to an office by the Queen. The Queen had not shown herself to be forgiving. It was probable that Mayor Serk, Serk the Elder and Serk the Younger would all serve in the front lines if removing Jack could be traced to
them
.