The Sea Peoples by S. M. Stirling
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Robert W. Chambers, author of The King in Yellow, one of the seminal texts of modern fantasy and horror, and pioneer of the unreliable narrator. If he was good enough for Lovecraft to be inspired by (aka “steal from”), he’s good enough for me to do the same!
Thanks to Kier Salmon, unindicted co-conspirator, who has been my advisor and helper on the Change since the first.
To Gina Tacconi-Moore, my niece, flower girl at my wedding twenty-nine years ago, Queen of Physical Fitness and owner of CrossFit Lowell, who gave me some precise data on what a really fit young woman, such as herself, could do.
To Steve Brady, native guide to Alba, for assistance with dialects and British background, and also natural history of all sorts. He saved me from an embarrassing error about vultures this time, for example!
Pete Sartucci, knowledgeable in many aspects of geography and ecology.
To Miho Lipton and Chris Hinkle, for help with Japanese idiom; and to Stuart Drucker, for assistance with Hebrew.
Diana L. Paxson, for help and advice, and for writing the beautiful Westria books, among many others. If you liked the Change novels, you’ll probably enjoy the hell out of the Westria books—I certainly did, and they were one of the inspirations for this series; and her Essential ásatrú and recommendation of Our Troth were extremely helpful . . . and fascinating reading. The appearance of the name Westria in the book is no coincidence whatsoever. And many thanks for the loan of Deor Wide-Faring and Thora Garwood, on whom she gave fresh advice and help for The Sea Peoples.
To Dale Price, for help with Catholic organization, theology and praxis.
To John Birmingham, aka that silver-tongued old rogue, King Birmo of Capricornia, most republican of monarchs.
To Cara Schulz, for help with Hellenic bits, including stuff I could not have found on my own.
To Lucienne M. Brown, Pacific Northwesterian and keen wit, for advice and comments.
To Walter Jon Williams, Emily Mah, John Miller, Vic Milan, Jan Stirling, Matt Reiten, Lauren Teffeau, and Sareena of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction.
Thanks to John Miller, good friend, writer and scholar, for many useful discussions, for lending me some great books and for some really, really cool old movies.
Special thanks to Heather Alexander, bard and balladeer, for permission to use the lyrics from her beautiful songs which can be—and should be!—ordered at http://faerietaleminstrel.com. Run, do not walk, to do so.
To Alexander James Adams, for cool music, likewise: http://faerietaleminstrel.com/inside.
Thanks again to William Pint and Felicia Dale, for permission to use their music, which can be found at www.pintndale.com and should be, for anyone with an ear and salt water in their veins.
And to Three Weird Sisters—Gwen Knighton, Mary Crowell, Brenda Sutton and Teresa Powell—whose alternately funny and beautiful music can be found at http://www.threeweirdsisters.com.
And to Heather Dale, for permission to quote the lyrics of her songs, whose beautiful (and strangely appropriate!) music can be found at www.heatherdale.com, and is highly recommended. The lyrics are wonderful and the tunes make it even better.
To S. J. Tucker, for permission to use the lyrics of her beautiful songs, which can be found at http://sjtucker.com, and should be.
And to Lael Whitehead of Jaiya, http://www.broadjam.com/jaiya, for permission to quote the lyrics of her beautiful songs. One of which became the Montivallan national anthem.
Thanks again to Russell Galen, my agent, who has been an invaluable help, advisor and friend for decades now, and never more than in these difficult times. I’ve had good editors, but none who’ve helped my career and work as much.
All mistakes, infelicities and errors are of course my own.
PROLOGUE
BETWEEN WAKING WORLD AND SHADOW
Where am I? Prince John Arminger Mackenzie thought. I was at the fort . . . we stormed the wall . . . something fell on me. . . .
Something loomed ahead of him, then vanished again in the blur.
Is that Carcosa?
Thinking about the ramparts glimpsed for a moment was a distraction from the pain, as John stumbled along with his feet bleeding on the ruts and rocks of the roadway and his shoulders screaming every time the two pulled on the pole.
I don’t know what they are but they have hands.
His hands were tied in front of him, and the stick was run between his elbows and his back, an arrangement which made it impossible to look up without straining his neck muscles and impossible not to stumble if he didn’t.
What’s different? he thought. Why am I having so much trouble concentrating? Apart from being in the enemy’s hands . . . and how did that happen? Why can’t I remember?
There had been windup record players in the places he lived most of his life, they were expensive but gave a reasonable sound . . . unless something happened to make one skip. That had always jarred his natural ear for music with a sense of discontinuity, like being startled out of a deep reverie by a flick from a wet towel.
Now his awareness itself was jumping like that needle. Was there really nothing but dank mist around, except for a stretch of roadway beneath his feet? Had he been plodding through a fog forever?
The world became clearer, fading into solidity again, and he wished it hadn’t. A gibbet stood by the side of the highway. The corpse hanging from it was withered and blackened, and one arm was tied out with a stick and string as a pointer, but what it pointed to was nowhere because it swayed and turned in the wind. The eyes moved and looked at him as the face came around, teeth forever bared by withered lips in a silent scream. A crow plucked at its rib cage.