The Best of Lucius Shepard Read Online Free PDF

almost
twenty years after that, and then one day I received a letter, which I will
reproduce in part.
     
    “My old
friend from Regensburg, Louis Dardano, has been living here for the past few
years, engaged in writing my biography. The narrative has a breezy feel, like a
tale being told in a tavern, which - if you recall my telling you how this all
began - is quite appropriate. But on reading it, I am amazed my life has
had such a simple shape. One task, one passion. God, Lise! Seventy years old,
and I still dream of you. And I still think of what happened that morning under
the wing. Strange, that it has taken me all this time to realize it was not
Jarcke, not you or I who were culpable, but Griaule. How obvious it seems now.
I was leaving, and he needed me to complete the expression on his side, his
dream of flying, of escape, to grant him the death of his desire. I am certain
you will think I have leaped to this assumption, but I remind you that it has
been a leap of forty years’ duration. I know Griaule, know his monstrous
subtlety. I can see it at work in every action that has taken place in the
valley since my arrival. I was a fool not to understand that his powers were at
the heart of our sad conclusion.
     
    “The army
now runs everything here, as no doubt you are aware. It is rumoured they are
planning a winter campaign against Regensburg. Can you believe it! Their
fathers were ignorant, but this generation is brutally stupid. Otherwise, the
work goes well and things are as usual with me. My shoulder aches, children
stare at me on the street, and it is whispered I am mad…”
     
    - from Under
Griaule’s Wing by Lise Claverie
     
     
     
    3
     
    Acne-scarred, lean, arrogant, Major Hauk was a very
young major with a limp. When Meric had entered, the major had been practising
his signature; it was a thing of elegant loops and flourishes, obviously
intended to have a place in posterity. As he strode back and forth during their
conversation, he paused frequently to admire himself in the window glass,
settling the hang of his red jacket or running his fingers along the crease of
his white trousers. It was the new style of uniform, the first Meric had seen
at close range, and he noted with amusement the dragons embossed on the
epaulets. He wondered if Griaule was capable of such an irony, if his influence
was sufficiently discreet to have planted the idea for this comic opera apparel
in the brain of some general’s wife.
     
    “… not a
question of manpower,” the major was saying, “but of —” He broke off, and after
a moment cleared his throat.
     
    Meric, who
had been studying the blotches on the backs of his hands, glanced up; the cane
that had been resting against his knee slipped and clattered to the floor.
     
    “A question of
materiel” said the major firmly. “The price of antimony, for example…”
     
    “Hardly use
it any more,” said Meric. “I’m almost done with the mineral reds.”
     
    A look of
impatience crossed the major’s face. “Very well,” he said; he stooped to his
desk and shuffled through some papers. “Ah! Here’s a bill for a shipment of
cuttlefish from which you derive…” He shuffled more papers.
     
    “Syrian
brown,” said Meric gruffly. “I’m done with that, too. Golds and violets are all
I need any more. A little blue and rose.” He wished the man would stop
badgering him; he wanted to be at the eye before sunset.
     
    As the major
continued his accounting, Meric’s gaze wandered out the window. The shantytown
surrounding Griaule had swelled into a city and now sprawled across the hills.
Most of the buildings were permanent, wood and stone, and the cant of the
roofs, the smoke from the factories around the perimeter, put him in mind of
Regensburg. All the natural beauty of the land had been drained into the
painting. Blackish grey rain clouds were muscling up from the east, but the
afternoon sun shone clear and shed a heavy gold radiance on Griaule’s