The Emperor of the Ancient Word and Other Fantastic Stories. Darrell Schweitzer

into the paper like butter into toast. I followed her to where she lived, and slid the poem under the door—”

      “Where for all you know the scullery-maid found it, and used it to wipe her nose when she sneezed.”

      “All gooey with melted butter?” asked Nick.

      “Alas, for unrequited love!” said the Poet. “Now sorrows and fancies pour from my heart, which is somewhere else, so what can I hope to do about it?”

      “I think I know,” said Tom.

      * * * * * * *

      And One who bore a scythe and hourglass, and had to hold both rather uncomfortably under his bony arms as he paged through his notebook, stood on the doorstep of the house where the Poet lived in the loft. There were by now twenty-seven moons in the sky, but the night was still somehow dark, the light itself steely, gleaming of death, the air chill, Doom and Gloom and Melancholy flowing by in the street like a vast river from an overturned witch’s cauldron. (In fact every witch in the kingdom rushed out with a jar or a jug to get a sample.)

      At last he found the page in his notebook. Yes, he did know these two, who were due and overdue and had evaded the ravages and reapings of himself and all his kind. These two had escaped all the tyranny of Time, for entirely too long.

      Now would be a reckoning.

      He passed through the door of the house and began to ascend the stairs to the loft, his scythe scraping awkwardly as he held notebook in one hand, hourglass in the other, and in situations like this wished for a third.

      Just then Tom, Nick, and Peter the Poet came padding or clattering down the stairs (depending on condition of footwear) and nearly collided with the One who ascended.

      The Poet let out a frightened cry. Nick just tugged on Tom’s sleeve as if to say, Do something, and Tom, calmly, with the assuredness of madness, snatched the gravestone notebook out of the apparition’s hand, flipped through it back and forth, laughed at a few things he saw in there, sighed at a few others, and said, “Oh, alas, I have lost your place.”

      While the hooded One was still sputtering “Stop that!” and trying to find his place again, Tom said, “May I borrow this?” and took the hourglass. He popped off the top, wet his finger with his tongue, and reached in to draw out a few of the Sands of Time on his fingertip.

      He touched his finger to his tongue, then turned to Nick and Peter and touched their tongues also.

      * * * * * * *

      It was a beautiful spring day, the sky so bright it was almost booming, “Hey! Look how bright I am!” Birds sang, not one of them with a hey-nonny-nonny either. The air was filled with the scents of flowers wafting as such scents traditionally do (as a poet would describe it); and on such a day, Tom, Nick, and Peter the Poet came to a country fair. There, amid the bustling country folk, among the motley of jesters and clowns, the fantastic costumes of the players (who noisily out-Heroded Herod), the puppets, the banners, and funny hats with exotic feathers, there, shining before them all like a beacon, her beauty parting the mass of confusion as a the staff of Moses parted the Red Sea, stood none other than Rosalind.

      “That’s her,” said Peter the Poet.

      Thus she had appeared to his eyes when first he saw her.

      “I am without words,” said the Poet, enraptured once again.

      So it was Tom who went up to the lady, bowed low and gallantly, did several somersaults, stood on his hands with his toes waving in the air, while he said, “Your pardon, gentle maid, but if you will take the word of a poor madman, there is a poet yonder who is mad for love with you—”

      But the lady merely shrugged and said, “Why of course? I am of radiant beauty, am I not? Poets appreciate that sort of thing.”

      She laughed. Tom fell over onto his feet. He found himself with Nick and Peter, back in London. The sky darkened and was once again filled with dripping melancholy and intermittent droplets of ennui, which rattled off windowpanes like sleet.

      “That didn’t accomplish very much,” said Nick.

      “I feel a hey nonny-nonny coming on,” said the Poet.

      Again, Tom held up his finger and touched their tongues.

      * * * * * * *

      The Hooded One flipped through his notebook furiously. These things had to be done according to protocol. He would have to be patient. But not too patient.

      * * * * * * *

      Now it was past high summer, with just a touch of autumn in the air, night-time but a proper night-time, with only one moon (a crescent) in the sky, and the Hunter rising to gaze over the horizon onto the fields and towns of England.

      Tom, Nick, and the Poet came to a cottage. They knocked on the door and a plump, middle-aged woman met them.

      Tom introduced himself, did a few handstands, pulled an egg out of his ear (which hatched in his hand; he gave the woman the resultant chicken) and explained why they had come.

      “Ah, madmen,” she said. “Of course. Enter.”

      “I’m not mad,” said Peter. “I’m a poet.”

      “The same.”

      They entered in, and before Peter could launch into another of his flowing, poetical, and very long speeches, the lady broke in and said, “My name really is Rosalind, which is but happenstance. You, young man, are too wild-eyed for me, too like these other madmen. You speak of love. I remember love in all its rages. I think of it sometimes, on quiet evenings by the fire. But my life is not like that now. I count the days. I count sheep. I go to market on market day. The seasons follow one another the way they should. I am content. I might have cared for love once, but not now. Why bother?”

      She served them warm ale and bread. They sat by the fire for a while, but said little.

      Peter the Poet began to weep. Then he stood up, and swept his arm back as if he were about to declaim.

      “Quick!” said Nick in alarm. “It might be one of those hey nonny-nonnies—!”

      Tom bowed politely to the lady and touched Peter’s tongue with the last grains of the Sands of Time, then Nick’s, then his own.

      * * * * * * *

      The Hooded One had it figured out. All he had to do, ultimately, was wait. Time, after all, was on his side. They were relatives. They saw each other occasionally at parties and family reunions.

      Yes, wait. He reset his hourglass and thumbed his scythe-blade with a bare, pale bone.

      * * * * * * *

      In London again, in the snow, Tom, Nick, and the Poet walked along the dark streets. There was no moon at all in the sky this night, only stars, but there were lights in windows, wreaths on doors, and groups of people singing carols. It must have been close to Christmas. From the taverns came the sounds more singing, and of much roistering.

      Nick held up his foot. His bottomless shoes flopped around his ankles. He wiggled purplish toes.

      “Couldn’t we go in and roister for a while? I’m getting cold.”

      “Not yet,” said Tom. “Not quite yet.”

      They came to another house, in the city, and climbed a long, dark flight of stairs, the bells on their caps jingling softly, the Poet’s boots scraping.

      Gently, Tom pushed open a creaking door, revealing a room where an old woman lay in a bed under thin, ragged blankets, by the light of a single sputtering candle.

      She sighed as they entered, “Alas, my love, you do me wrong....”

      “I beg your pardon,” said Peter the Poet.

      “Had I known when I was young what I know now,” she said, “I would have found a time and place for love. It is the one thing which is both constant and