Benjamin Rosenbaum - Embracing The New

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Science Fiction

By Benjamin Rosenbaum

Embracing-

The-New

Embracing-The-New

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

Fictionwise

www.Fictionwise.com

First published in Asimov's Science Fiction,

January 2004

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Embracing-The-New

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

The sun blazed, the wagon creaked and shuddered. Vru

crouched near the master's canopy, his fur dripping with

sweat. His Ghennungs crawled through his fur, seeking

shade. Whenever one uprooted itself from his body, breaking

their connection, he felt the sudden loss of memories, like a

limb being torn away.

Not for the first time, Vru was forced to consider his

poverty. He had only five Ghennungs. Three had been with

him from birth; another had been his father's first; and the

oldest had belonged to both his father and his grandfather.

Once, when both of the older Ghennungs pulled their fangs

out of him to shuffle across his belly, sixty years of memory—

working stone, making love to his grandmother and his

mother, worrying over apprenticeships and duels—were gone,

and he had the strange and giddy feeling of knowing only his

body's own twenty years.

"Vile day," Khancriterquee said. The ancient godcarver,

sprawled on a pile of furs under the canopy, gestured with a

claw. "Vile sun. Boy! There's cooling oil in the crimson flask.

Smear some on me, and mind you don't spill any."

Vru found the oil and smeared it across his master's

ancient flesh. Khancriterquee was bloated; in patches, his fur

was gone. He stank like dead beasts rotting in the sun. Vru's

holding-hands shuddered to touch him. The master was

dying, and when he died, Vru's certain place in the world

would be gone.

Around Khancriterquee's neck, as around Vru's, Delighting-

In-Beauty hung from a leather cord: the plump, smooth,

Embracing-The-New

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

laughing goddess, twenty-seven tiny Ghennungs dancing

upon her, carved in hard gray stone. Khancriterquee had

carved both copies. How strange, that the goddess of beauty

would create herself through his ugly, bloated flesh!

Khancriterquee's bloodshot eyes twitched open. "You are

not a godcarver," he croaked.

Vru held still. What had he done wrong? The master was

vain—had he noticed Vru's disgust? Would Khancriterquee

send him back to his father's house in disgrace, to herd

fallowswine, to never marry—hoping, when his body was

decrepit, to find some nephew who would take pity on him

and accept a few of his memories?

"Do you know why we have won these territories?" the

master asked. Pushing aside the curtains, he gestured over

the wagon's side at the blasted red crags around them.

"We defeat the Godless in battle because the gods favor

us, master," Vru recited.

Khancriterquee snorted. "It is not that the gods favor us. It

is that we favor the gods."

Vru did not understand, and bent to massage the master's

flesh. Khancriterquee pushed Vru's holding-hands away with a

claw and, wheezing, sat up. He stared at Vru with disgust.

Vru realized that he was clicking his claws together, and

forced himself to stop. The master watched him—

remembering Vru's every twitch into the Ghennungs the

journeymen would soon carry.

Vru pulled himself erect. "Master, there is something I

have never understood."

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ScienceFictionByBenjaminRosenbaumEmbracing-The-NewEmbracing-The-NewbyBenjaminRosenbaum2Fictionwisewww.Fictionwise.comCopyright©2004byBenjaminRosenbaumFirstpublishedinAsimov'sScienceFiction,January2004NOTICE:Thisebookislicensedtotheoriginalpurchaseronly.Duplicationordistributiontoanypersonviaemail,fl...

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