Apex Magazine Issue 17 Read online
Apex Magazine
Issue 17
October, 2010
“Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)” Copyright 2010 by Ian Tregillis
“The Girl Who Had Six Fingers” Copyright 2010 by Brenda Stokes
“Citizen Komarova Finds Love” Copyright 2009 by Ekaterina Sedia (First published in EXOTIC GOTHIC 3, Ed. Danel Olson, Ash-Tree Press)
“Love’s Ecology” Copyright 2010 by Rose Lemberg
“Anything So Utterly Destroyed” Copyright 2010 by Elizabeth McClellan
Publisher—Jason Sizemore
Fiction Editor—Catherynne M. Valente
Senior Editor—Gill Ainsworth
Submissions Editors—Zakarya Anwar, Ferrett Steinmetz, Martel Sardina, Mari Adkins, George Galuschak, Patrick S. Tomlinson
Cover designed by Justin Stewart
Cover art by Mitenkov Maxim
ISSN: 2157-1406
Apex Publications
PO Box 24323
Lexington, KY 40524
Please visit us at http://www.apexbookcompany.com.
Submission Guidelines are listed at the end of this issue.
Table of Contents
Fiction
Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)
By Ian Tregillis
The Girl Who Had Six Fingers
By Brenda Stokes Barron
Citizen Komarova Finds Love
By Ekaterina Sedia
Poetry
Love’s Ecology
By Rose Lemberg
Anything So Utterly Destroyed
By Elizabeth McClellan
Submission Guidelines
Title Page
Front Matter
Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)
By Ian Tregillis
Every evening was a fin de siècle in the great sprawling castle-city of Nycthemeron. But, of course, to say it was evening meant no more than to say it was morning, or midnight, or yesterday, or six days hence, or nineteen years ago. For it was every inch a timeless place, from the fig trees high in the Palazzo’s Spire-top cloud gardens all the way down to the sinuous river Gnomon encircling the city.
Nycthemeron had tumbled from the calendar. It had slipped into the chasm between tick and tock, to land in its own instantaneous eternity. And so its residents occupied their endless moment with pageants and festivals and reveled in century-long masques, filled forever with decadent delights. They picnicked in the botanical gardens, made love in scented boudoirs, danced through their eternal twilight. And they disregarded the fog that shrouded their city with soft grey light.
As for time? Time was content to leave them there. It felt no pity, no compassion, for the people stuck in that endless now. This wasn’t because time was cold, or cruel, or heartless. But it had no concern for that glistening place, no interest in the people who existed there.
Except one. Her name was Tink.
And it was said (among the people who said such things) that if you sought something truly special for your sweetheart, or if you yearned for that rarest of experiences—something novel, something new—you could find it at Tink’s shop in the Briardowns. For Tink was something quite peculiar: she was a clockmaker.
Indeed, so great were her talents that normally staid and proper clock hands fluttered with delight at her approach. Time reveled in her horological handiwork. If it had to be measured, quantified, divvied up and parceled out, it would do so only on a timepiece of Tink’s design.
How could this be? She was a clockwork girl, they said. And indeed, if you were to stand near Tink, to wait for a quiet moment and then bend your ear in her direction, you might just hear the phantom tickticktickticktickticktick serenading every moment of her life. Who but a clockwork girl would make such a noise, they said. And others would nod, and agree, and consider the matter settled.
But they were wrong. Tink was a flesh and blood woman, as real as anybody who danced on the battlements or made love in the gardens. She was no mere clockwork.
Tink was the object of time’s affection. It attended her so closely, revered and adored her so completely, that it couldn’t bear to part from her, even for an instant. But time’s devotion carried a price. Tink aged.
She was, in short, a living clock. Her body was the truest timepiece Nycthemeron could ever know; her thumping heart, the metronome of the world.
But the perfectly powdered and carefully coifed lovelies who visited her shop knew nothing of this. They made their way to the Briardowns, in the shadow of an ancient aqueduct, seeking the lane where hung a wooden sign adorned with a faceless clock. Midway down, between an algebraist’s clinic and a cartographer’s studio, Tink’s storefront huddled beneath an awning of pink alabaster.
Now, on this particular afternoon (let us pretend for the moment that such distinctions were meaningful in Nycthemeron) the chime over Tink’s door announced a steady trickle of customers. The Festival of the Leaping Second was close, and if ever there was an occasion to ply one’s darling with wonderments, it was this. Soon revelers would congregate on the highest balconies of the Spire. There they would grasp the hands of an effigy clock and click the idol forward one second. Afterward, they would trade gifts and kisses, burn the effigy, then seek out new lovers and new debaucheries.
If you were to ask the good people of Nycthemeron just how frequently they celebrated the Festival of the Leaping Second, they would smile and shrug and tell you: When the mood descends upon us. But Tink knew differently. The Festival came every twenty years, as measured by her tick-tock heartbeat. She felt this, knew it, as a fish feels water and knows how to swim.
To a marchioness with a fringe of peacock feathers on her mask, Tink gave an empty, pentagonal hourglass. “Turn this after your favorite dance, and you’ll live that moment five times over,” she said.
To a courtier in a scarlet cravat, Tink gave a paper packet of wildflower seeds. “Spread these in your hair,” she said. “They’ll blossom the moment you kiss your honey love, and you will be the posy she takes home.”
Tink requested only token payments for these trinkets, expecting neither obligation nor gratitude in return. Some, like the marchioness, paid handsomely; others, such as the tatterdemalion scholar, gave what they could (in his case, a leather bookmark). And sometimes she traded her wares for good will, as she did with the stonemason and gardener.
Though she was young and strong and did not ache, Tink spent what her body considered a long day rummaging through her shop for creative ways to brighten static lives. Her mind was tired, her stomach empty.
Unlike the rest of Nycthemeron’s populace, Tink had to sleep. She announced her shop closed for the remainder of the day. Cries of dismay arose from the people queued outside (though of course they had long ago forgotten the meaning of “day”).
“The Festival!” they cried; a chorus of painted, feathered, and sequined masks. Everyone wore a mask, as demanded by the calculus of glamour.
“Come back tomorrow,” she said (though of course they had forgotten the meaning of this, too). But a tall fellow in a cormorant mask came jogging up the lane.
“Wait! Timesmith, wait!”
Nobody had ever called her that, but the phrase amused her. Few people dared to let the word “time” touch their lips. The rest of Tink’s petitioners grumbled at the bold fellow’s approach. They dispersed, shaking their heads and bemoaning their bad luck.
“Sorry, pretties. Sorry, lovelies,” said Tink. “You’ll get your goodies tomorrow.”
The newcomer laid a hand upon the door, panting slightly.
His breeches, she noticed, displayed shapely calves. “Are you Tink?”
“I am.”
“Fabled maker of clocks and wonderments, I hear.”
“Let me guess,” said Tink. “You’re seeking something for the Festival. Something with which to impress your lady love. You want me to win her heart for you, is that so?”
His shrug ruffled the long silk ribbons looped around the sleeves of his shirt. Some were vermilion, and others cerulean, like his eyes. “It’s true, I confess.”
“The others wanted the same,” she said. “I told them I could do no more today. Why should I become a liar?”
“Do it for my flaxen-haired beauty.”
Tink thought she recognized this fellow. And so she asked, knowing the answer, “Will you love her forever?”
“Forever? That is all we have. Yes, I will love her forever, and she me. Until the Festival ends.”
Aha. “You are Valentine.”
He bowed, with a flourish. The ribbons fluttered on his arms again. “You know me?”
“Everybody knows you.”
Valentine: the legendary swain of Nycthemeron. Valentine, who could spend centuries on a single seduction. Valentine, famed for his millennial waltz. Charmer, lothario, friend of everyman, consort of the queen.
Though it was against her better judgment, Tink beckoned him inside. Valentine’s eyes twinkled as he examined her space. The shelves were stacked with odds and ends culled from every corner of Nycthemeron: strange objects floating in yellow pickle jars; workbenches strewn with gears and mainsprings, loupes and screws and a disassembled astrolabe; the smell of oil and peppermint.
He said, “Your sign says ‘Timepieces’.”
“Is that somehow strange?”
“But you gave that fellow with the scarlet cravat just a packet of wildflowers.”
“You know this how?”
“I stopped him and asked. I knew he’d come from your shop because he looked happy.” He crossed his arms. “Flowers are nice, but they’re no timepiece.”
“Everything is a clock,” said Tink. “Even the buckles on your shoes and the boards beneath your feet. But this place,” she said, with a gesture that implied all of Nycthemeron, “has forgotten that.”
“The stories are true. You are a peculiar one.” And then he cocked his head, as if listening to something. “They say you are a clockwork, you know. “
His gaze was a stickpin and Tink a butterfly. She shrugged, and blushed, and turned away.
Which was odd. Time had never seen her fall shy.
“As for your lady love,” said Tink, changing the subject, “I know what to do. Come with me.”
She led him to shelves stacked with clocks of sand, and candle wax, and other things. (Time frequently sprawled here, like a cat in sunlight.) She stopped at a grandfather clock carved in the guise of a fig tree. Tink set it to one minute before midnight.
“Hold out your hand,” Tink said. She gave the clock a nod of encouragement, and it began to tock-tick-tock its way toward midnight. Valentine watched with fascination. But, of course, he had never seen a working clock.
A miniscule hatch opened above the twelve and a seed plinked into Valentine’s hand. Tink repeated the process.
“What are these?” he asked.
“Intercalary seeds. At the Festival, put one under your tongue. Have your lady do the same. The seeds will release one minute that belongs solely to the pair of you.”
Valentine tucked the seeds into the tasseled sash at his waist. He took her hand. His touch, she noticed with a shudder, was warm and gentle. With his other hand he removed his mask, saying, “I am in your debt.”
He winked and kissed her hand. Now, Tink was prepared for this, for Valentine was nothing if not notorious for his charms. But when she saw the laugh lines around his eyes, and felt his breath tickle the back of her hand, and felt his soft lips brush against her skin, her metronome heart—
...diners in a sidewalk café marveled at a turtledove hanging motionless overhead, just for an instant...
—skipped—
... the candles in a Cistercian chapel, all 419 of them, stopped flickering, just for an instant...
—a—
...all the noises of life and love and revelry and sorrow, the voice of Nycthemeron, fell silent, just for an instant...
—beat.
Tink did not sleep that night. Lying on a downy mattress just wide enough for one—she had never needed anything more, having never known loneliness—she replayed those few minutes with Valentine in her head, again and again. She smelled the back of her hand, imagined it was his breath tickling her skin.
Tink could win his heart. All she needed was time.
She awoke with a plan.
In order to win Valentine’s heart, she had to know him, and he had to know her. In order to know him, she had to be near him. To be near him, she had to get into the Palazzo. She could get into the Palazzo if she brought a birthday gift for Queen Perjumbellatrix.
Of course, birthdays held no meaning in a place exiled from the calendar. But the eternal queen was fond of gifts, and so she held masques and received tributes once per year (measured, as always, by the ticking of Tink’s heart). And Valentine, her consort, attended each. Even so, Tink would be fortunate to get more than a few moments with him.
Thus, after the Festival, Tink went to work on a special series of clocks. Each was designed to delight the revelers in Her Majesty’s grand ballroom.
And each was designed to steal one minute from Her Majesty. Each clock would swaddle Tink and Valentine in sixty purloined seconds. Nor was that all.
For Valentine—pretty, perfect Valentine—minutes held no meaning. One was much the same as another. Thus, it would be nothing odd for him to experience a conversation strung across the decades, one minute per year.
But Tink—mortal, metronome Tink—had to live her way from one stolen minute to the next. So she designed the clocks to string those moments together like pearls on a necklace, forming one continuous assignation with Valentine.
The first clock was a simple thing: a wind-up circus. But Her Majesty disappointed courtiers throughout the Palazzo when she declared it her favorite tribute.
Tink curtsied, feeling like a dandelion in a rose garden. The braids in her silvery hair had unraveled, and her gown—the finest from the secondhand shop in the Briardowns—was not fine at all in this company.
She retreated to a corner of the ballroom. Tink had never learned to dance.
Valentine danced with every lady in the hall, always returning to Perjumbellatrix in the interim. He hadn’t changed one tock from the way he’d appeared at Tink’s shop. The ribbons on his sleeves traced spirals in the air when he twirled his partners so, the feathers of his cormorant mask fluttered when he tipped his ladies thus. Tink fidgeted with her embroidery, waiting until the clockwork elephants on the queen’s gift trumpeted midnight.
Everything stopped. The ballroom became a sculpture garden, an expressionist swirl of skin and feathers and jewels and silks. Beads of wine from a tipped goblet sparkled like rubies suspended in midair; plucked harp strings hung poised to fling notes like arrows.
“Well done, Timesmith.” Tink turned. Valentine bowed at her. “It is a wonder,” he said, marveling at the motionless dancers. “But I think your wonderment has missed its mark, no?” He pointed: Tink’s clock had made a statue of the statuesque monarch.
Tink swallowed, twice. She found her voice: “The clock is for her. But this,” she said, “is for you.” And me.
Valentine smiled. “I’ve never seen its equal.” He took her hand. Her skin tingled beneath his fingertips. “Thank you.” Her metronome heart skipped another beat when he touched his lips to the back of her hand. But the world had stopped, so nobody noticed.
He asked, “How long will they stay like this?”
“That’s complicated,” said Tink. “But they’re safe.”
The room blurred about them. Merrymakers
blinked into new positions around the ballroom. The eternally tipping wine goblet became an ice sculpture of the queen. And her gift, the clockwork circus, became an orrery.
A year had passed.
“I see! I see, I see!” Valentine clapped. He understood, for every moment was the same to him.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“It’s marvelous,” he said. “Now let me show you something you’ve never known. Dance with me.”
She wanted to waltz with him, but feared to try. She had impressed him. But could that be undone by a single awkward step? Valentine was a graceful creature, accustomed to graceful partners.
“I don’t, that is, I’ve never—”
“Trust me,” he said.
Valentine pulled her to the center of the ballroom. His hand warmed the small of her back. He smelled like clean salt, like the distant sea. Dancing, she discovered, came naturally. It was, after all, a form of rhythm. And what was rhythm but a means of marking time?
The room blurred around them. The orrery became an hourglass. They wove and whirled amongst the motionless dancers. Tink laughed. It was working.
“Look,” said Valentine. “Look at their eyes.”
Masks hid their faces, but not their eyes. She looked upon a man who wore the burgundy cummerbund of a baronet. His eyes glistened with hidden tears. They pirouetted past a countess with a diadem on her brow, butterfly wings affixed to her cheeks, and soul-deep weariness in her eyes.
Valentine asked, “What do you see?”
“Sorrow,” said Tink.
“They’ve lost something. We all have.”
“Three things,” said Tink. For suddenly she knew what Valentine wanted and needed. He didn’t know it himself.
Yet still they danced. It was wonderful; it was magical. But his eyes returned again and again to Perjumbellatrix. He danced with Tink—and what a dancer he was—but his heart and mind were elsewhere.
The final timepiece expended its stolen minute. The bubble of intimacy popped under the assault of music, laughter, and voices raised in tribute to the queen.