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Spillage

Before Paphos by Loretta Casteen

By Nancy Kress

8 January 2007

27 September 2004

It starts again. The Reprinted by permission; originally published in Thebaby begins to cough Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April and choke. 1988. Locked Doors When the coach broke for the third time, the by Stephanie Burgis second coachman was flung sideways over the shrieking axle and down an embankment. He rolled 1 January 2007 in the moonless darkness, over and over, brambles You can never let tearing at the velvet of his livery and whipping across his face. He uttered no sound. There was anyone suspect, his mother told him. That water at the bottom, a desultory and dirty little stream: the coachman lay in it quietly, blinking in was the first rule she pain at the stars, blood trickling from one temple. taught him, and the last, before she left A rat fell on top of him, squeaked once, and him here alone with It. scurried off into the brush. Heroic Measures From far above, the coachman heard a sudden feminine cry. It was not repeated, but after a while by Matthew Johnson there came to his dazed ears a muffled sound, not quite footsteps, as if someone were dragging along 18 December 2006 the road above. The lady in the coach, or the Pale as he was, it was First Coachman himself— The sound receded hard to believe he and died, and no other took its place. would never rise from this bed. Even in the He lay in the ditch without moving, at first frightened that some bone might have broken in the darkest times, she had never really feared for darkness without, later more frightened by the greater darkness within. No matter how hard he him; he had always looked, there was nothing there. Not a name, not a been strong, so strong. place, not a history. Love Among the Only the lady in the coach, and the First Coachman: the lady more beautiful than stars, the Talus First Coachman portly and sharp-eyed as he by Elizabeth Bear peered back over his shoulder at his apprentice hanging on behind, to make sure he was doing it 11 December 2006 right. He had been doing it right. He had stood tall and unsmiling on the perch; the jeweled night had Nilufer raised her eyes to his. It was not what flown past the shining sphere of the coach; the horses' hooves had struck sparks from the stone women did to men, road. They had passed other coaches, each a glow but she was a in the darkness growing to an exhilarating rush of princess, and he was beast and metal, and then the thlock-thlock dying only a bandit. "I want away behind, leaving the scent of perfume and oiledto be a Witch," she leather, with never a word spoken. And finally the said. "A Witch and destination: leaping from the perch to let down the not a Queen. I wish to carriage steps onto cobblestones so polished they be not loved, but reflected perfect rectangles of yellow light from the wise. Tell your bandit