Down on his knees now in the blind darkness, but with his head full of light, the priest gives thanks over and over.
Kaundinya stands above her in the moon-thrown shadow of the pillar. He holds the delicate fabric of her sari in his hands. Already it has begun to part between his strong fingers.
Red Flower cannot awaken from this dream. The warm night is shelter no longer. Even the faint rumble of thunder has vanished, as though the gods themselves have turned their backs on her. She closes her eyes as one of Kaundinya’s hands cups her face. As his mouth descends on hers, he lowers his knee between her thighs, spreading her. For a long moment, nothing happens. She hears the bandit youth take a long and surprisingly unsteady breath.
Red Flower opens her eyes. The pillar, the nearby temple, all seem oddly flat, as though they have been painted on cloth. At the base of the hill, only a few paces from where she sits tumbled on the grass, a huge pale form has appeared.
Kaundinya’s eyes are opened wide in superstitious dread. He lets go of Red Flower’s sari and lifts himself from her.
“Lord Siva,” he says, and throws himself prostrate before the vast white beast. The rough skin of its back seems to give off as much light as the moon itself; and it turns its wide head to regard him, horn lowered like a spear, like the threat of lightning. Kaundinya speaks into the dirt. “Lord Siva, I am your slave.”
Red Flower stares at the beast, then at her attacker, who is caught up in something like a slow fit, his muscles rippling and trembling, his face contorted. The Nosehorn snorts once, then turns and lumbers away toward the distant trees, strangely silent. Red Flower cannot move. She cannot even shiver. The world has grown tracklessly large and she is but a single, small thing.
At last Kaundinya stands. His fine features are childish with shock, as though something large has picked him up by the neck and shaken him.
“The Lord of all the Gods has spoken to me,” he whispers. He does not look at Red Flower, but at the place where the beast has vanished into the jungle. “I am not to dishonor you, but to marry you. I will be the devaraja and you will be my queen. This place, Angkor, will be the heart of my kingdom. Siva has told me this.”
He extends a hand. Red Flower stares at it. He is offering to help her up. She struggles to her feet without assistance, holding the torn part of her gown together. Suddenly she is cold.
“You know your father will give you to me,” he calls after her as she stumbles back toward the palace. “He recognizes what I am, what I will be. It is the only solution. He will see that.”
She does not want to hear him, does not want to think about what he is saying. But she does, of course. She is not sure what has happened tonight, but she knows that he is speaking the truth.
Marje is silent for a long time after the Artist has finished. The grayness of the day outside the north-facing window is suddenly dreary.
“And is that it? She had to marry him?”
The Artist is concentrating deeply, squinting at the drawing-board. He does not reply immediately. “At least it was an honorable marriage,” he says at last. “That is something better than rape, is it not?”
“But what happened to her afterward?”
“I am not entirely sure. It is only a story, after all. But I imagine she bore the bandit king many sons, so that when he died his line lived on. The man who told me the tale said that there were kings in that place for seven hundred years. The rhinocerus you see in that drawing was the last of a long line of sacred beasts, a symbol to the royal family. But the kings of Cambodia have left Angkor now, so perhaps it no longer means anything to them. In any case, they gave that one to the king of Portugal, and Portugal gave its stuffed body to the Pope after it died.” The Artist shakes his head. “I am sorry I could not see it when it breathed and walked God’s earth.”
Marje stares at the picture of the Nosehorn, wondering at its strange journey. What would it think, this jungle titan whose ancestor was a heathen god, to find itself, or at least its image, propped on a chair in Antwerp?
The Artist stirs. “You may move now, Marje. I am finished.”
She thinks she hears something of her own unhappiness in his voice. What does it mean? She gets up slowly, untwisting sore muscles, and walks to his side. She must lean against him to see the drawing properly; she feels his small, swift movement, almost a twitch, as she presses against his arm.
“Oh. It’s...it’s beautiful.”
“As you are beautiful,” he says softly.
The picture is Marje, but also not Marje. The girl before her has her eyes closed and wears a look of battered innocence. The long line of her neck is lovely but fragile.
“Saint Barbara was taken onto a mountain by her father and killed,” the Artist says, gently tracing the neck of the false Marje, the more-than-Marje, with his finger. “Perhaps he was jealous of the love she had found in Jesus. She is the martyr who protects us from sudden death... and from lightning.”
“Your gift is from God, Master Dürer.” She is more than a little overwhelmed. “So are we finished now?”
Marje is still leaning against his arm, staring at the picture, her breasts touching his shoulder. When he does not reply, she glances up. The Artist is looking at her closely. From this close she can see the lines that web his face, but also the depth of his eyes, the bright, tragic eyes of a much younger man. “We must be,” he says. “I have finished the drawing and told you the tale.” His voice is carefully flat, but something moves beneath it, a kind of yearning.
For a moment she hesitates, feels herself tilting as though out of balance in a high place. Then, uncomfortable with his regard, her eyes stray to the picture of the mighty Nosehorn, which seems to watch them from its place on the chair, small eyes solemn beneath the rending horn. She takes a breath.
“Yes,” she finally says, “you have and you have. And now there are many things I must do. Mistress will be very anxious at how I have let my work go. She will think I am trying to rise above my station.”
The Artist reaches up and briefly squeezes her hand, then lifts himself from his chair and leads her toward the door.
“When I have made my print, I will send you a copy, pretty Marje.”
“I would like that very much.”
“I have enjoyed our time together. I wish there could be more.”
She drops him a curtsey, and for a moment allows herself to smile. “God gives us but one life, Sir. We must preserve what He gives us and make of it what we can.”
He nods, returning her smile, though his is more reserved, more pained.
“Very true. You are a wise girl.”
The Artist shuts the door behind her.
Not with a Whimper, Either
>Talkdotcom >Fiction
Topic Name: Fantasy Rules! SF Sux!
Topic Starter: ElmerFraud - 2:25 pm PDT - March 14, 2001
Always a good idea to get down and sling some s#@t about all thoseuppity Hard SF readers...
RoughRider- 10:21 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Um, okay, so let me get this straight—the whole Frodo/Sam thing is a bondage relationship? Master-Slave? Can anyone say “stupid”?
Wiseguy- 10:22 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
No, can anyone say “reductio ad absurdum”?
RoughRider- 10:23 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Hell I cant even spell it.
Lady White Oak- 10:23 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I don’t think TinkyWinky was trying to say that there was nothing more to their relationship than that, just that there are elements.
RoughRider- 10:24 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Look I didn’t make a big fuss when Stinkwinky came on an said that all of Heinleins books are some kind of stealth queer propaganda just cause Heinlein likes to write about people taking showers together and the navy and stuff like that but at some point you just have to say shut up that’s bulls@#t!
Lady White Oak- 10:24 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I think you are letting Tin
kyWinky pull your chain and that’s just what he’s trying to do.
RoughRider- 10:25 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
He touches my chain he dies...
Wiseguy- 10:25 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I just can’t stand this kind of thing. I don’t mean THIS kind of thing, what you guys are saying, but this idea that any piece of art can just be pulled into pieces no matter what the artist intended. Doesn’t anybody read history or anything, for God’s sake? It may not be “politically correct” but the master-servant relationship is part of the history of humanity, not to mention literature. Look at Don Quixote and Sancho Panda, for God’s sake.
Lady White Oak- 10:26 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Panza. Although I like the image... ;)
BBanzai- 10:26 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Tinkywinky also started the “Conan—What’s He Trying So Hard to Hide?” topic. Pretty funny, actually.
RoughRider- 10:27 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
So am I the only one who thinks its insulting to Tolkiens memory to say this kind of stupid crap?
RoughRider- 10:27 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Missed your post wiseguy. Glad to see Im not the only one who isn’t crazy.
TinkyWinky- 10:27 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Tolkien’s memory? Give me a break. What, is he Mahatma Gandhi or something? Some of you people can’t take a joke—although it’s a joke with a pretty big grain of truth in it. I mean, if there was ever anyone who could have done with a little Freudian analysis...The Two Towers, one that stays stiff to the end, one that falls down? All those elves traveling around in merry bands while the girl elves stay home? The ring that everybody wants to put their finger in...
ANAdesigner- 10:28 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Wow, it is really jumping in here tonight. Did any of you hear that news report earlier, the one about the problems with AOL? Anybody using it here?
BBanzai- 10:28 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I’d rather shoot myself in the foot...:P
Lady White Oak- 10:28 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Hi, TinkyWinky, we’ve been talking about you. What problems, ANA? I’m on AOHell but I haven’t noticed anything.
ANAdesigner- 10:29 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Just a lot of service outages. Some of the other providers too. I was just listening to the radio and they say there were some weird power problems up and down the east coast.
Darkandraw- 10:30 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
That’s one of the reasons it took me like five years to finish the rings books—I couldn’t stand all that “you’re so good master you’re so good”—I mean, self respect, come on!
TinkyWinky- 10:30 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I’m on AOL and I couldn’t get on for an hour, but what else is new...? Oh, and RoughRider, while you’re getting so masterful and cranky and everything, what’s with your nick? Where I come from a name like that could get a boy in trouble...!
RoughRider- 10:30 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
We should change the name of this topic to Fantasy Rules, AOL Sux.
Lady White Oak- 10:31 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Actually, it raises an interesting question—why do all the most popular fantasy novels have this anti-modernist approach or slant? Is it because that’s part of the escapism?
Wiseguy- 10:31 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Sorry, dropped offline for a moment. Darkandraw, it’s a book that has the difference in classes built into it because of who Tolkien was I guess. It makes hard reading sometimes, but I don’t think it overwhelms the good parts. And there are a lot of good parts.
RoughRider- 10:32 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
>Where I come from a name like that could get a boy in trouble...! Don’t push your luck punk.
ANAdesigner- 10:32 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Wow. I just turned the tv on and it’s bigger than just AOL. There are all kinds of weird glitches. Somebody said kennedy is closed because of a big problem with the flight control tower.
Lady White Oak- 10:32 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Come on, Roughie, can’t you take a joke?
BBanzai- 10:33 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Kennedy? Like the airport?
TinkyWinky- 10:33 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I love it when they get butch...!
Wiseguy- 10:34 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I’ve got the TV on too. Service interruptions and some other problems—a LOT of other problems. I wonder if this is another terrorist thing...
ANAdesigner- 10:34 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
This really scares me. What if they sabotage the communication grid or something? We’ll all be cut off I don’t know what I’d do without you guys—I live in this little town in upstate New York and most people here just think I’m crazy because I
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Wiseguy- 10:38 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Jesus, did that happen to the rest of you, too? I just totally lost the whole show for a while. Didn’t get knocked offline but the whole board kind of...dissolved. Anybody still out there?
Lady White Oak- 10:39 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Are you all still there? My television doesn’t work. I mean I’m only getting static.
TinkyWinky- 10:39 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Mine too. And I lost the board for a couple of minutes.
BBanzai- 10:39 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Hey you guys still there?
ANAdesigner- 10:40 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
My tv is just white noise.
TinkyWinky- 10:41 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Shit, this is scary. Anybody got a radio on?
Lady White Oak- 10:43 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
My husband just came in with the radio on the local news station. They’re still only talking about the power outages so maybe it’s just a coincidence.
RoughRider- 10:43 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
If its terrorists again then I’m glad I’ve got a gun and screw the liberals.
Darkandraw- 10:44 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
My browser just did this really weird refresh where I had numbers and raw text and stuff
TinkyWinky- 10:45 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Yeah, right, like the terrorists are going to blow up all the power stations or something and then come to your house so you can shoot them and save us all. Grow up.
ANAdesigner- 10:45 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Guys I am REALLY SCARED!!! This is like that nuclear winter thing!!
Wiseguy- 10:45 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Okay, let’s not go overboard. RoughRider, try not to shoot anyone until you know there’s a reason for it, huh? We had power outages from time to time even before the terrorist stuff. And everything’s so tied together these days, they probably just had a big power meltdown in New York >where a lot of this stuff is located.
Darkandraw- 10:46 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
I just went outside and everyones lights are still on but the tvs off in my apt and I can’t get anything on the radio. I tried to phone my mom she’s in los angeles but the phone’s busy, a bunch of ppl must be trying to call.
Lady White Oak- 10:47 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
It’s okay, ANAdesigner, we’re all here. Wiseguy’s probably right—it’s a communication grid failure of some kind on the east coast.
Wiseguy- 10:47 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Ana, you can’t have nuclear winter without a nuclear explosion, and if someone had blown up Philadelphia or something we’d probably have heard.
TinkyWinky- 10:48 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002 I checked on the MSN site and CNN.com and there’s definitely something big going on but nobody knows what. Here’s something I got off t
he CNN site:
“Early reports from the White House say that the President is aware of the problems, and that he wants the American people to understand that there is no military attack underway on the US—repeat, there is NO military attack on the US, and that the United States Government and the military have command-and-control electronic communications networks that will not be affected by any commercial outages.”
BBanzai- 10:49 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Everybody assumes its terrorists, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s UFOs or something like that. A big disruption—could be!
Lady White Oak- 10:50 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
Been checking the other news sites and at least a couple of them are offline entirely—I can’t get the fox news online site, just get a 404 error. Anybody here from Europe? Or at least anyone know a good European site for news? It would be interesting to see what they’re saying over there.
Wiseguy- 10:51 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
BBanzai, come on, UFOS? you’re kidding, aren’t you? And if you are, it’s not very funny when people are close to panicking.
TinkyWinky- 10:51 pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
All I can find is the BBC America television site—stuff about tv programs, no news.
RoughRider- 10:52pm PDT - Jun 28, 2002
You guys can sit here typing all you want I’m going to make sure I’ve got batteries in all the flashlights and bullets in my guns. Its not aliens I’m afraid of its fruitcakes rioting when the power goes off and the tv stays off and people really start to panic. Tinyweeny you can yell grow up all you want—looters and raghead terrorists don’t give a shit what you say and neither do I...