I had about twenty-five stories left to send to Tachyon. Publisher Jacob Weisman and my buddy Jim DeMaiolo wrestled with who loved which stories most. I think they disagreed on three. Small arguments ensued. No blood was spilt.
Next we talked about which stories went first, last. No fingernails were pulled. I had been an editor with my own line of books for Harcourt, had also produced or co-edited a bunch of anthologies, so I knew the drill. (Wait, no drills, no carving knives, no box cutters, no. . . .)
Finally I wrote this intro, did the backmatter about each story, and chose which poem of mine worked best with the individual story, some poems published, some new.
In the end, with only a bit of sweat, we produced the book. You are now judge and jury of it all.
There will be no executions.
Much too bloody.
Jane Yolen
The Weaver of Tomorrow
ONCE, ON THE FAR SIDE of yesterday, there lived a girl who wanted to know the future. She was not satisfied with knowing that the grass would come up each spring and that the sun would go down each night. The true knowledge she desired was each tick of tomorrow, each fall and each failure, each heartache and each pain, that would be the portion of every man. And because of this wish of hers, she was known as Vera, which is to say, True.
At first it was easy enough. She lived simply in a simple town, where little happened to change a day but a birth or a death that was always expected. And Vera awaited each event at the appointed bedside and, in this way, was always the first to know.
But as with many wishes of the heart, hers grew from a wish to a desire, from a desire to an obsession. And soon, knowing the simple futures of the simple people in that simple town was not enough for her.
“I wish to know what tomorrow holds for everyone,” said Vera. “For every man and woman in our country. For every man and woman in our world.”
“It is not good, this thing you wish,” said her father.
But Vera did not listen. Instead she said, “I wish to know which king will fall and what the battle, which queen will die and what the cause. I want to know how many mothers will cry for babies lost and how many wives will weep for husbands slain.”
And when she heard this, Vera’s mother made the sign against the Evil One, for it was said in their simple town that the future was the Devil’s dream.
But Vera only laughed and said loudly, “And for that, I want to know what the Evil One himself is doing with his tomorrow.”
Since the Evil One himself could not have missed her speech, the people of the town visited the mayor and asked him to send Vera away.
The mayor took Vera and her mother and father, and they sought out the old man who lived in the mountain, who would answer one question a year. And they asked him what to do about Vera.
The old man who lived in the mountain, who ate the seeds that flowers dropped and the berries that God wrought, and who knew all about yesterdays and cared little about tomorrow, said, “She must be apprenticed to the Weaver.”
“A weaver!” said the mayor and Vera’s father and her mother all at once. They thought surely that the old man who lived in the mountain had at last gone mad.
But the old man shook his head. “Not a weaver, but the Weaver, the Weaver of Tomorrow. She weaves with a golden thread and finishes each piece with a needle so fine that each minute of the unfolding day is woven into her work. They say that once every hundred years there is need for an apprentice, and it is just that many years since one has been found.”
“Where does one find this Weaver?” asked the mayor.
“Ah, that I cannot say,” said the old man who lived in the mountain, “for I have answered one question already.” And he went back to his cave and rolled a stone across the entrance, a stone small enough to let the animals in but large enough to keep the townspeople out.
“Never mind,” said Vera. “I would be apprenticed to this Weaver. And not even the Devil himself can keep me from finding her.”
And so saying, she left the simple town with nothing but the clothes upon her back. She wandered until the hills got no higher but the valleys got deeper. She searched from one cold moon until the next. And at last, without warning, she came upon a cave where an old woman in black stood waiting.
“You took the Devil’s own time coming,” said the old woman.
“It was not his time at all,” declared Vera.
“Oh, but it was,” said the old woman, as she led the girl into the cave.
And what a wondrous place the cave was. On one wall hung skeins of yarn of rainbow colors. On the other walls were tapestries of delicate design. In the center of the cave, where a single shaft of sunlight fell, was the loom of polished ebony, higher than a man and three times as broad, with a shuttle that flew like a captive blackbird through the golden threads of the warp.
For a year and a day, Vera stayed in the cave apprenticed to the Weaver. She learned which threads wove the future of kings and princes, and which of peasants and slaves. She was first to know in which kingdoms the sun would set and which kingdoms would be gone before the sun rose again. And though she was not yet allowed to weave, she watched the black loom where each minute of the day took shape, and learned how, once it had been woven, no power could change its course. Not an emperor, not a slave, not the Weaver herself. And she was taught to finish the work with a golden thread and a needle so fine that no one could tell where one day ended and the next began. And for a year she was happy.
But finally the day dawned when Vera was to start her second year with the Weaver. It began as usual. Vera rose and set the fire. Then she removed the tapestry of yesterday from the loom and brushed it outside until the golden threads mirrored the morning sun. She hung it on a silver hook that was by the entrance to the cave. Finally she returned to the loom, which waited mutely for the golden warp to be strung. And each thread that Vera pulled tight sang like the string of a harp. When she was through, Vera set the pot on the fire and woke the old woman to begin the weaving.
The old woman creaked and muttered as she stretched herself up. But Vera paid her no heed. Instead, she went to the Wall of Skeins and picked at random the colors to be woven. And each thread was a life.
“Slowly, slowly,” the old Weaver had cautioned when Vera first learned to choose the threads. “At the end of each thread is the end of a heartbeat; the last of each color is the last of a world.” But Vera could not learn to choose slowly, carefully. Instead she plucked and picked like a gay bird in the seed.
“And so it was with me,” said the old Weaver with a sigh. “And so it was at first with me.”
Now a year had passed, and the old woman kept her counsel to herself as Vera’s fingers danced through the threads. Now she went creaking and muttering to the loom and began to weave. And now Vera turned her back to the growing cloth that told the future, and took the pot from the fire to make their meal. But as soon as that was done, she would hurry back to watch the growing work, for she never wearied of watching the minutes take shape on the ebony loom.
Only this day, as her back was turned, the old woman uttered a cry. It was like a sudden sharp pain. And the silence after it was like the release from pain altogether.
Vera was so startled she dropped the pot, and it spilled over and sizzled the fire out. She ran to the old woman who sat staring at the growing work. There, in the gold and shimmering tapestry, the Weaver had woven her own coming death.