The Book of Swords. Gardner Dozois

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      He narrowed his eyes at her and showed his teeth. Her breath caught in her throat. Papa crammed the last of the bread into his mouth. He stuffed the cheese in after it. He rocked from side to side in the chair as he chewed it then stood. She backed away from him. He picked up the mug, drank the last of the water and dropped it. “Papa?” Taura begged him.

      He looked past her. He walked to the couple’s bed. He took Jelin’s extra shirt from its peg on the wall. He put it on. It was too small for him. Jelin’s wool cap fit him well. He peered around the cottage. Jelin’s winter cloak was on a hook beside the door. He took that, too. He swung it around his shoulders. Then he rounded to look at her accusingly.

      “Please, Papa?” Could not he be who he had been, just for a time? Even if he cared nothing for them as the bastard had said, could not he be the man who always knew what they must do next to survive?

      “More food?” He scratched his face, his blunt nails making a sound in his short beard. His gaze was flat.

      That was all he said. He was thinking only of what he needed now. Nothing for what tomorrow might bring. Nothing for where he had been, what had happened to him, what had befallen the village. “You ate it all,” Taura lied quietly. She scarcely knew why she did so. Papa gave a grunt. He nudged at Jelin’s body and when he didn’t move, he stepped over it to stand in the open door. His head turned slowly from side to side. He took one step out the door and stopped.

      His sword was still on the floor. Not far from it, the sheath lay as well. She heard her mother’s breathed prayer. “Sweet Eda, make him go away.”

      He walked out into the night.

      The other villagers would kill him. They would kill him and they would hate Taura forever because she hadn’t killed him. Because she’d let him kill Jelin. Darda would not be silent about that. She would tell everyone.

      Taura looked over at her mother. She’d taken a heavy iron pan from the cooking shelf. She held it by the handle as if it were a weapon. Her eyes were flat as she stared at Taura. Yes. Even her mother would hate her.

      Taura stooped to pick up the sword. It was still too heavy for her. The point of it dragged on the floor as she reached for the sheath. “Follow a Strong Man” the carved lettering told her.

      She shook her head. She knew what she should do. She should close the door behind Papa and bar it. She should say she was sorry a hundred, a thousand times. She should bind Mother’s wound and help Darda compose her husband’s body. She should take Papa’s sword and stand in the door and guard them all. She was the last person they had who might stand between them and the Forged ones roaming the streets.

      She knew what she should do.

      But her mother was right about her.

      Taura looked back at them all, then took Darda’s cloak from the hook. She put it on and pulled the thick wool hood up over her damp hair. She heaved the sword up so it rested on her shoulder like a shovel. She stooped and took up the fine sheath in her free hand.

      “What are you doing?” her mother demanded in outrage.

      Taura held out the sheath toward her. “Following a strong man,” she said.

      She stepped out into the wind and rain. She kicked the door shut behind her. A moment longer she stood in the scant shelter of the eaves. She heard the bar slammed down into the supports on the door. Almost immediately, Darda began shrieking, anger and grief in furious words.

      Taura stepped out into the night. Her father had not gone far. His hunched shoulders and stalking stride reminded her of a prowling bear as he moved through the rain toward his prey. A decision came to her. She pushed the empty sheath through her belt and gripped the sword’s hilt in both hands. She considered it. If she killed him, would her mother forgive her? Would Darda?

      Not likely.

      She ran after him, the bared sword heavy and jouncing with every step she took. “Papa! Wait! You’ll need your sword!” she called after him. He glanced back at her but said nothing as he halted. But he waited for her. When she caught up with him, he walked on.

      She followed him into the darkness.

       Ken Liu

      Ken Liu is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among many other places. He has won a Nebula, two Hugos, a World Fantasy Award, and a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award, and been nominated for the Sturgeon and the Locus awards. In 2015, he published his first novel, The Grace of Kings. His most recent books are The Wall of Storms, a sequel to The Grace of Kings, a collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, and, as editor and translator, an anthology of Chinese science-fiction stories, Invisible Planets. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

      Here a young girl pressed into service as an assassin faces one final test of her skills—if she lives through it.

       THE HIDDEN GIRL

       Beginning in the eighth century, the Imperial court of Tang Dynasty China increasingly relied on military governors—the jiedushi—whose responsibilities began with border defense but gradually encompassed taxation, civil administration, and other aspects of political power. They were, in fact, independent feudal warlords whose accountability to Imperial authority was nominal.

       Rivalry among the governors was often violent and bloody.

      On the morning after my tenth birthday, spring sunlight dapples the stone slabs of the road in front of our house through the blooming branches of the pagoda tree. I climb out onto the thick bough pointing west like an immortal’s arm and reach for a strand of yellow flowers, anticipating the sweet taste tinged with a touch of bitterness.

      “Alms, young mistress?”

      I look down and see a bhikkhuni. I can’t tell how old she is—her face is unlined but there is a fortitude in her dark eyes that reminds me of my grandmother. The light fuzz over her shaved head glows in the warm sun like a halo, and her grey kasaya is clean but tattered at the hem. She holds up a wooden bowl in her left hand, gazing up at me expectantly.

      “Would you like some pagoda-tree flowers?” I ask.

      She smiles. “I haven’t had any since I was a young girl. It would be a delight.”

      “If you stand below me, I’ll drop some into your bowl,” I say, reaching for the silk pouch on my back.

      She shakes her head. “I can’t eat flowers that have been touched by another hand—too infected with the mundane concerns of this dusty world.”

      “Then climb up yourself,” I say. Immediately I feel ashamed at my annoyance.

      “If I get them myself, they wouldn’t be alms, now would they?” There’s a hint of laughter СКАЧАТЬ