The Unbalancing Read online

  Praise for R. B. Lemberg and the Birdverse

  “In a narrative by turns gentle and implacable, Lemberg writes movingly and magnificently about disaster, survival, and hope.”

  —Kate Elliott, author of the Crown of Stars series

  “Lemberg’s stories embrace truths that we are afraid to confront: that sometimes failure is inevitable, but that hopeful futures can still be found amid the destruction. Despair, love, survival, death, identity, and community are intimately intertwined in the Birdverse. This is one of the most beautiful and important books I’ve read this year.”

  —Nibedita Sen, Hugo, Nebula, and Ignyte Award–nominated author

  “Reading this book is like diving into the most beautiful language exploring various aspects of human possibility. Everything in this book is so fluid from the words, the setting itself, but also the characters—the way they think, the way they feel, and the way they present.”

  —Infinite Text

  “The lush lyricism of the mythology, culture and history in The Unbalancing is illustrious and transportive. It’s an enchanting world of star lore, magic and gender identity with a roster of heartfelt characters told with such rich prose that kept me rooting for Ranra.”

  —Tlotlo Tsamaase, The Silence of the Wilting Skin

  “R. B. Lemberg’s Birdverse is one of my favorite places to visit, full of queer possibilities and deep emotional and philosophical musings. In The Unbalancing they give us wonder, devastation, resilience, and love. Lemberg’s poetic voice makes even the harshest explorations of loss beautiful and manages to balance grief and horror with hope and joy.”

  —Julia Rios, Hugo Award–winning editor of Uncanny Magazine

  “The Unbalancing is a story of people and their power, in nature and society, in interactions and relationships, and of consent and belonging, and of failure and hope. ‘We gift all to each other,’ a wise advisor says, ‘nobody and nothing can destroy this.’ In the face of catastrophe and deepest fear, Lilún and Ranra learning to strive and share and acknowledge failure brings survival and hope.”

  —Scott H. Andrews, World Fantasy Award–winning Editor/Publisher of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazine

  “The Unbalancing is a heartrending book about power and responsibility; the courage to act and the wisdom to think before acting; about relationships and collaborations that cross differences; about traumas and attempted healings, large and small; about what we can do and what we can save when it’s too late to avert the worst. It’s beautiful and queer and challenging and tender. And it’s a story that could not have been told without Erígra’s autistic point of view, without a deep respect for needs like Erígra’s, which comes from lived, thoughtful experience. I love all of R. B. Lemberg’s work, but I might love this book most out of any of them.”

  —Ada Hoffmann, Philip K. Dick Award finalist and author of The Outside

  “The Unbalancing is the latest glimpse into the great tapestry of Birdverse, and it’s inspiring and contemplative and hot and tense. It finds a group of queer nerds thrust into a place of power, tasked with the impossible, and faced with the legacy of loss, despair, and inaction. Through that, though, they find strength in each other to act, and to reach for an outcome that might not be victory, but which isn’t entirely defeat. It’s a beautiful and nuanced work about love, power, and magic.”

  —Quick Sip Reviews

  Praise for R. B. Lemberg and the Birdverse

  “The prose is blunt and powerful, the narrative compelling, and the worldbuilding both deep and lightly-sketched, lending an impression of a full world while only touching on what is immediately important.”

  —Tor.com

  “Soaked in sensory detail, transporting the reader to the world of the tale.”

  —A.C. Wise, author of Lambda finalist The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories

  “I wish I’d read this 20 years ago. I needed this story when I was first coming into my transness and trying to imagine my own future and what it could be.”

  —Corey’s Book Corner

  Also by R. B. Lemberg

  Everything Thaws (2022)

  The Four Profound Weaves (2020)

  Marginalia to Stone Bird (2016)

  As Editor:

  An Alphabet of Embers (2016)

  Here, We Cross: a collection of queer and genderfluid poetry from Stone Telling 1 – 7 (2012)

  A Note from the Publisher About Piracy

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for purchasing this digital copy. We hope you enjoy it.

  This ebook is intended for personal use only. Please do not share, reproduce, post, or resell it. All editions of this book are protected by international copyright law; all rights are reserved without the express permission of the author and the publishers.

  Piracy is illegal. It hinders publishers from putting out more great books like this. Most importantly, piracy keeps authors from getting paid.

  If you have any questions about copyright, or if you think this copy was pirated, please immediately contact us at [email protected].

  Thank you,

  Tachyon Publications LLC

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  415.285.5615

  [email protected]

  The Unbalancing

  © 2022 by R. B. Lemberg

  This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the author and the publisher.

  Interior and cover design by Elizabeth Story

  Author photo by Bogi Takács

  Tachyon Publications LLC

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  415.285.5615

  www.tachyonpublications.com

  [email protected]

  Series editor: Jacob Weisman

  Editor: Jaymee Goh

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61696-380-4

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-61696-381-1

  Printed in the United States

  First Edition: 2022

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Corey

  Variation the First: ICHAR

  I leap sideways

  Erígra Lilún

  When I first came to Semberí’s hill, it was frizzed in fog, soft and wispy like ghost breath. The hill was just off the harbor to the north, down a path overlooking the sea. The islands were small enough that I thought I knew every curve and stone here, but I had never seen this place before. I stood waiting for something, I did not know what—a shimmer, and an ending. But the hill continued to stand. Soon enough, the cool breeze pushed the fog aside to reveal a path leading up. Upon the bluish-green hill grew an ancient quince grove—a company of short, gnarled trees, their arms laden with spring blossom.

  The air was brisk that morning, and I huddled in my woolen knit vest, my skin clammy with sweat that had cooled in the wind. The boughs of the trees on the hill swayed with the motions of air, the petals rustled and clung to each other, and no other sound could be heard but my own labored breathing, harsh like words that demand to be written down right away. A poem about the deeds of creation, the goddess Bird descending toward the land with the twelve magical stars in her tail. I had forgotten to bring my notebook.

  I went up, and up. All the fruit trees here were quince. I had seen such trees in town, growing alongside the more plentiful apples and pears—but they’d all looked younger. Here, the knobbly quince trees stood side by side, an old guard protecting each other; still fertile, still blossoming. They did need a good pruning. Later that day, I met Semberí.

  That was a year ago. I came here almost daily now, often with my pruning shears and my trowel stuffed in the pockets of that same woolen vest, now more tattered for the wear. But this morning there was urgency in my step. Just before dawnbreak, the islands had quaked, knocking me right out of bed.

  I had been dreaming—I think—of the Star of the Tides, a desperate blue presence under the wave, contracting and expanding. A scream. I wasn’t sure if it was me who shouted. A few books fell off the shelf. An earthenware cup of water cracked by the bedside.

  I barely remembered to pull on a pair of pants before running east through the streets of Gelle-Geu. Instead of turning south toward the harbor, I headed north on the narrow, now-familiar path to Semberí’s hill. To the east was the angry sea, all muttering water and spittle of foam. I looked up at the grove. The trees were still standing.

  Now that I was here, I wanted to stay at the foot of the hill, postponing any actions or conversations, simply to listen. I heard my own strained breathing, and beyond it, the sea lapping anxiously, incessantly at the moss-laden stones below. The hill itself, in my mind, was grasped from within by the roots—the invisible, deep, endless roots of the quince trees. If the roots could speak, I would come here with my notebook and write down the words, then perform that as poetry.

  A small notebook was, in fact, in my pocket—I had a habit of stashing them in every piece of clothing. But I needed to check on Semberí, and so, with a sigh, I climbed up the hill to the grove.

  There was nobody there.

  I stood for a while, waving my arms just slightly in the air, as if I was a tree among others. The earthquake had passed, but the roots of the trees felt shaken, like limbs
taken to tremor long after a heart murmur settles. Some of the branches lay broken, but most of the quince trees made it through the night unharmed.

  After a while, I crouched. It was always a visceral relief to touch the soil here with my fingers. I inhaled deeply, anchoring myself in the wet smell of the earth, and the delicate, sweet perfume of the quince. Many of the trees still held on to their blooms. Defiant, like me.

  At last, a semblance of peace settled in my body. I closed my eyes and called on the magic of my two deepnames. I pronounced each deepname in my mind, first the longer, weaker two-syllable, then the stronger single-syllable, and felt them unfold, like a sudden burst of a strong headache. A few moments later the pain receded, leaving behind a feeling of heat at the crown of my head. I could now envision my deepnames, two strong lights hovering just above my hair. The two-syllable’s shining was blended of two smaller pinpricks of its syllables, adding up to a word. The single-syllable’s power could not be divided. Having called on these lights, I now could make a line between my deepnames, and make magic. But I often was tempted to let them simply flicker, like tiny lighthouses calling ships to the shore.

  A named strong, a person with magical power, could hold as many as three deepnames. I only had two, but single-syllables were the most powerful, and rare. The weakest, five-syllables, were almost equally rare, and not good for much. But my configuration was strong.

  With an effort of will, I focused my magic on the trees, and traced the roots’ journey into the earth.

  Not good. The earthquake was over, but the disturbance itself continued.

  It came from far below the ground, from the southeastern direction. I turned that way. The curve of the hill here obscured the sea, but I knew what was there—a vast expanse of water, and in it the Star of the Tides tossing and turning in its restless sleep.

  With my magical senses extended, I perceived the star in my mind’s eye as a mass of azure deep within the blue of the wave, a tangle of deepnames as wide as the isles themselves. The Star of the Tides, the Sputtering Star, the Unquiet Sleeper—all the names we had given it over the last thousand years. The star was tethered to the archipelago, to the Mother Mountain at the heart of this island, our largest island, Geu. A thousand years ago, it was Semberí who had brought the star to the archipelago, and cast it into the wave.

  “You should reach out and touch the star,” a familiar voice behind me said. “Extend your deepnames and reach.”

  You’re alive, thank Bird, I thought. Or—not alive—but something. Not gone.

  I exhaled, and with that relief came well-practiced annoyance.

  Why must you always sneak up on me?

  Still crouching, I turned to face the speaker. My ancestor Semberí, or more precisely, their ghost, as tattered and intricate as the latticework of foam, floated under the flowering quince tree. They did not look worse for the wear after the earthquake, and I did not care to find out what worse would look like on them.

  I’m just really glad you’re safe.

  After a while, I settled on, “I will not reach out.” In the year since we’d first met, I must have refused them sixty times. “The star is asleep, and I will not bother it, no more than I would disturb your own sleep.”

  Semberí moved this way and that, as if in the wind. There was no wind. “You do not want to disturb the star, but it disturbs you. There is barely a year left. The islands rattle while it screams and tosses—don’t tell me you don’t care, not after you ran all the way here in pajamas!”

  “These aren’t . . .” I took a look at myself, and sure, I had my day pants on, but also my sleeping top, embroidered with very small cats. I opened my mouth to produce I dressed in the dark, then closed it. I squinted at Semberí’s subtly quivering form, through which the thickest of quince boughs were visible. “You critique my dress, but you yourself wear nothing but air!”

  “I’m a ghost,” Semberí replied sagely. “Why would I wear pajamas?”

  Something occurred to me. “Do you even sleep?”

  “No,” they said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  They shrugged away my meaningless apology. “But if I were the Sputtering Star, the Unquiet Sleeper, I’d want you to disturb me.”

  “You cannot give me the star’s permission.”

  Arguing with Semberí was easy. Annoying, but easy. In truth, I had no idea if I would reach out even if the star was awake, or if I would continue to hide. But it bothered me.

  “The star is asleep,” Semberí said. “If it cannot consent while asleep, you must wake it, rouse it just enough to bond with it.”

  “And has the star ever told you that it wanted to be awakened? Has the star, in all this time, been awake even once?” I asked.

  “You do not listen, Erígra. I am the first starkeeper, and I know—”

  “You say you’d want to be disturbed, but where was your hill before last spring? You hid it away and you unveiled it when you wanted.”

  “I wanted you to listen, Erígra, which is why I opened the hill and allowed you to find it, not because I’m fond of—”

  They stopped. Could a ghost catch their breath?

  “I do like you, Erígra,” Semberí said, slower this time.

  “You say you like me, but you keep pressing me.” I, too, can say that I like you, but I never did invite you to call me Lilún.

  For a moment, I wondered if Semberí, too, had an inward-facing name they would share with a friend or a lover—share it with someone who wasn’t me.

  “I only press you because I must,” said Semberí. “We all have our work, and yours is to take this power. Each of the stars must have a starkeeper, to keep the stars safe. This is the foundation of the land, the foundation of our magic, our inheritance from Bird herself and the obligation from her great labor. The goddess brought us the stars so that we could live, and we must take care of the stars. Especially this star. It needs to be safe, to feel safe. Especially now.”

  “You want me to disturb the star so that I would make it feel safe?” I frowned.

  “Not everybody could. But you would, I am certain of it.”

  Semberí kept insisting that I was the one. When I slept, I could sometimes hear the star. It cried out from the depths of its nightmares; or, on quieter nights, from an easier dreaming that rose against my mind like a caress, then sank back into the water. But these dreams did not make me the one.

  The ghost stared at me for a moment, then spoke. Their voice acquired a singsong quality. “The star is asleep because it is ailing. For a thousand years it will sleep, trying not to remember what caused this great sorrow. The deeds of creation, the great Birdcoming—you must reach out to the star, Erígra, with gentleness. It would come to trust you.”

  Semberí was persistent, but I still didn’t know what they wanted from me. “I have no desire to become a starkeeper, Semberí. I am a poet who likes gardening, or a gardener who likes poetry, and that’s the sum of my ambitions.”

  “You are not yet a starkeeper, but this is your destiny. Ambition is irrelevant. The star can die, Erígra. If you won’t keep it, someone else will ascend to the responsibility, someone who will be even worse than your current starkeeper, Bird praise and amplify his years.”

  It sounded more like a curse.

  “Did you . . .” I said. “Did you ever summon Terein to this hill? Anybody else?”

  “No. And yes.” The ghost moved back and forth, dragging their suddenly long cloudy sleeves around in the air. “Terein is a lost cause. Others . . . came and went. Some became starkeepers, but never did the work. Others refused the work. Meanwhile the earthquakes multiply, the earth shakes, the sea . . . Terein will not last, and the council will choose a successor. They will send for you then, I’m sure.”