When you show, you are writing in scene, putting the reader right in the thick of the action, emotional or physical or both.

I love having old files to embarrass myself with. The following is an example of telling, from an old version of Gordath Wood.

Music. The KGSR compilation CD Broadcasts volume 16.

(Note: I don’t like prologues. I think that the device is overused in fantasy and is relied upon by writers who don’t start in the right place. One exception is the prologue to G.R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire but let’s just say he’s the exception that proves the rule. Anyway, I don’t like prologues but that doesn’t stop me from trying to write them. Thankfully, my writer’s group told me to deep-six this prologue, since everything that happens in it is repeated later in the book, and better. I don’t always listen to my writer’s group, but I’m usually happy when I do.

Note the second: Not that there’s anything wrong with prologues, or even necessarily anything wrong with the deleted scene here. It’s just that, as you write, try to be aware that you aren’t turning a tool into a crutch. And prologues can be an expository crutch. Unless you are G.R.R. Martin.)

The old morrim hulked in the twilit darkness of the forest. Tall trees blocked out most of the sky. There was very little understory, only a few spindly shrubs where pale sunlight stabbed through to the earth. Marthen’s feet sank into loamy soil, and he could feel the tickling of insects and the dampness of the earth through the worn soles of his shoes.

The morrim was a broken boulder that looked much like the other granite outcroppings in the woods. It was patched with moss and lichen. It didn’t rest on the forest floor so much as was rooted in it, like the tall hickories that surrounded it. He got the sense that the morrim was as big below the surface as it was on the top.

Marthen had traveled months to find this hidden place, deep in the woods. He was on foot – he had sold first his warhorse, then his gear, and finally his sword, all for whispers of this place, coin passed from secretive hand to secretive hand.

He kept the saddle and the gun.

Now he set down the little saddle in the dirt by the morrim, and placed his hand on the cool rough surface of the rock. He felt nothing. The guardians could feel the living morrim, the anchor that held down the gordath between the worlds, but he felt nothing.

Then again, that could have been because he was dead drunk. He fumbled for the lid on the bottle that Kate Mossland brought with her between worlds, and took a swig. The buzzing in his head kept itself to a dull whisper, but he could still hear it. The whisper had been his constant companion for months. Carefully, he replaced the lid, screwing it on with great deliberation. The little bottle was cloudy and light, unlike a heavy blown glass bottle. He had saved it all those months. It was perfect for whiskey.

“Perfect,” he said, enunciating each syllable. He was not a sloppy drunk. He wasn’t a drunk at all, except for the buzzing in his head. He didn’t like to lose control. Marthen replaced the bottle in his shirt pocket. The shirt once had been of fine lawn, a creamy white that his orderly kept crisp and clean with brushing and pressing. Now it was soiled, stained with dirt, sweat, and blood. “There,” he said out loud to the forest. It remained indifferent. The trees hulked with life but there were no insects, no birds, no rustling of creatures. The forest could have been dead, except for Marthen.

And the morrim.

What if he dug? Could he find the gordath? The morrim was the anchor. Uprooted, would the gordath open once again?

He had nothing to dig with but his hands. Shakily, one hand on the rock, he sank to his knees, swallowing to keep from vomiting. When his head settled, he began to dig with rough and dirty hands, his fingernails blackened and broken, into the loamy soil and decaying leaves. At his predicament, Marthen giggled, aware of the absurdity of his situation.

“Kate Mossland,” he said, and this time he slurred. “Are you there? I’m coming to find you.”

He wouldn’t even have come this far if it hadn’t been for that other stranger. Bahard. He had been the one who brought the guns through the Wood and set off a war, and brought Marthen to this pass. Marthen had spent months tracking him down, and his search had led him to this.

Worms and beetles were churned up by his digging. He scraped and dug and scraped. His hands stung where the scrapes broke the skin. At length, Marthen had to stop. He stretched himself out next to the morrim, his heart hammering. He tried to get the bottle of whisky out of his pocket but it was too much for him, and he gave it up. The ground was spinning.

“Kate Mossland,” he said again. He made feeble digging motions with his fingers but he knew he was going to pass out. Help me, Kate Mossland.

Joe parked the Impala off the street in front of the tired brick buildings that lined downtown and headed for the map place he’d looked up that morning. The old pamphlet map of the North Salem trail system crinkled in the back pocket of his jeans. He had removed it from the bulletin board in the tack room, a dusty, forgotten piece of paper, one of those hand-inked maps more decorative than informative, with an elaborate North arrow and elegantly scripted names. But it had the main entrances of all the bridle paths, and he had to take it on faith that the trails were more or less accurate.

The bell jangled when he opened the door and the clerk, the only person in the place, looked up from his newspaper. His eyes were bland behind his glasses, giving him the look of a blond owl.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his tone implying he doubted it.

“Howdy. Do you carry maps of Connecticut and New York?” Joe said. He knew after his short experience in New England the impression he was making. The boots and drawl that made thirteen-year-old girls giggle tended to bring out hostility in men.

“Yeah,” the clerk said, making no move to fetch the map.

“Can I take a look?” Joe asked patiently, knowing the clerk was hearing Kin ah? The clerk got up without any sense of urgency and rifled through the shelves, finally pulling out a folded map emblazoned with the USGS logo. He held it out. Joe paid for the map and then hesitated, canting his head toward a table. “Can I just borrow that for minute?” he asked. Now that the transaction was finished and he no longer had to interact with a customer, the clerk nodded and went back to his paper. Joe moved a few maps out of his way and rolled out the survey, pulling the trail map for comparison. He found his spot easily enough, and even accounting for the artistic turn of the cartographer, he could see where the trails went and where they came out. He was able to match up the streets, taking note of where bridle paths crisscrossed roads.

Joe could see nothing unusual in the USGS map, only the spider web of border lines that radiated from the area, delineating state, county, and town lines. He felt the eyes of the clerk on him and he hastily folded up the map and tucked the trail guide into his pocket again. Giving the clerk a tilt of an imaginary hat, he sauntered out into the crisp afternoon.

Joe hurried back to his car, half-wishing he knew how to ride a horse so he could search the trails. Abel Felz, his father, didn’t believe in horses. He had his pickup and his tractors, and he saw horses as a frivolous expense, not a necessity.

Then again, riding the trails was probably not the answer anyway. The woods had been thoroughly searched by fire and police investigators, and volunteers who had ridden out that first day. Both New York and Connecticut state police continued flying over in helicopters. Nothing had turned up yet. His crazy idea to match the maps would probably be as fruitful.

He figured that even if he did find something, it would only make the police more suspicious of him than they already were.

The forest had long gone silent when Lynn, sitting on the floor of the clearing hugging her knees, raised her head. She had often prided herself on never crying. It didn’t ever do any good and it was a sign of weakness that most people were impatient with despite all their hair pats and sympathy.

Now she wiped her tear-streaked face against her sleeve and thought about survival. Up until the theft of Dungiven, she had only been thinking about being found. That was a luxury she could no longer afford. She could not rely on rescue.

Lynn took a mental inventory. She had her vest. Her boots were good — they weren’t made for walking, she thought with a wan smile, but they were sturdy and would protect her feet from harm. Her socks were useless though, just the thin nylons she always wore so they would fit under her skin-tight breeches and her custom tall boots. They were probably already in tatters, or would be when the time came to peel them off.

Her breeches were no longer skin tight. She straightened out her injured leg, wincing as it protested. A bit more blood had seeped through the knee, and warmth radiated off of it when she placed her hand there. Gathering herself, Lynn got to her feet. Slowly she unbuckled her breeches and began to pull them down, gently drawing them over her knee. The stiff fabric stuck on the abrasion and she cried out, turning it into a curse. Finally it came off, and she took a long look.

The joint was swollen and bruised, the skin already turning red and purple. There was a long deep cut that could use soap and water and an antibiotic ointment. Not to mention anti-inflammatories and an ice pack, she thought.

All in short supply in the woods.

She hated having to draw up her pants again but she took a deep breath and began to inch the whipcord back over her knee. For the second time she burst into tears, it hurt so bad.

“Okay,” she whispered as she tried to regain her composure. “Okay. But it’s not broken. And I just had a tetanus shot last year, so that’s something.”

Not that the cut couldn’t still get infected. At least she could walk though. If she needed to she could find a stick in the tangle of deadwood along the creek and use it as a staff.

So. She had adequate clothing. She had water, if she stayed along the creek. She had daylight still, although the Woods seemed perpetually twilit. She had the weather on her side, if the dryness of the creek was any indication. She had plenty of firewood, if she could make a fire, which she knew she could not.

No fire — and no food either. She would have to be careful about what she sampled of the wild vegetation. Her stomach had the grouchy feeling it got when she passed beyond hunger. She would have to find food soon, or she would end her days sitting by the creek, too weak to continue.

Lynn took a deep breath. “Then I best get a move on while I still can,” she said to the silent forest.

Her first obstacle was the sharp hill that Dungiven and the horse thief had taken. She tackled it slowly, hauling herself up by pulling on saplings and reaching for jutting rocks. The footing was treacherous, covered with slick leaves turning into mold and hiding loose rock. She fell and slid a couple of times, and banged up her other knee, though not nearly as bad.

When she reached the top, though, she was rewarded with a tuft of blue yarn, snagged on a maple sapling whose leaves were already turning bronze. A stray shaft of sunlight stabbed down into the gloom, illuminating the yarn and the great gouges in the leaves that Dungiven’s hooves had made. Nearby, tickling over moss-covered rocks, ran the little stream, the merest reminder of the waterfall the cataract must be in the spring and early summer. Lynn knelt again and drank her fill. Then she stood, straightened her vest and brushed off as much of the dirt as she could, and limped off in the direction Dungiven had gone.

She didn’t know why, but she felt suddenly optimistic.

Toy Soldier

He had the kind of high coloring associated with little Dutch boys; his cheeks wore a rosy blush and his lips were pale, set in a firm line of perseverance. His hair was blond and neatly trimmed, kept under a military cap that could be taken off and put back on; presumably, the toy manufacturers had thought that such a brave soldier would lose his hat crawling through the mine fields and gas-filled front lines at Argonne. His eyes were painted a piercing blue that in a later age would be taken for bits of plastic in Real people but were only the result of the overzealous hand of the toy painter at his bench.

His uniform was an Authentic Reproduction, according to the box, and the bayonet could be removed and put back on his rifle.

He stood firmly at attention, awaiting orders, and when the Boy opened up his gaily-wrapped box on Christmas Day, he eagerly took him from the package and examined him thoroughly, taking off his hat and putting it back on, and poking the bayonet at his little brother until he cried. Then the grown-ups told him To Put It Back and he had to open his other toys.

Then there were visits and more grown-ups, who hugged and kissed him and his little brother, and Christmas dinner to eat and sweets to nibble on and the toy soldier was abandoned among the wrapping, flat on his back and helpless, his rifle removed from his hand and out of his reach.

He felt quite bewildered. He had stood on the shelves in the store for only a few days, since he was one of the Newest Toys and so was in great demand, and saw as one by one his comrades taken off the shelf, wrapped, and taken away. Now here he was, and he was not exactly sure what he was supposed to be doing but determined to do his best at it.

“Oh dear,” he thought. “I hope my orders won’t be too difficult to carry out. I’m only a toy and a very new one at that!”

Late that night both children were carried up to their beds, very sleepy and sticky. The Boy had wanted to bring his Toy Soldier outside with him to play, but his parents said No; it was snowing too hard and they were afraid the Boy would lose the Toy Soldier in the drifts. The Boy had to settle for riding his new sled alone; sadly thinking it would have been grand to ride down the steep hill with the Toy Soldier sitting in front of him with his bayonet sticking out.

The grown-ups soon removed the bayonet from the rifle and put it away, for Safekeeping, they said. That made the Toy Soldier a little worried; he hoped an officer did not come by and ask him why he was disobeying orders by not having his bayonet. Á9p<Á“I will just have to tell him it posed a danger to the children,” he resolved at last, and was a little comforted; he was not much more than a child himself, having been designed to look like a very young man just drafted.

The Boy played with the Toy Soldier often, organizing elaborate campaigns involving his set of cowboys and Indians and a variety of stuffed animals as well as his little brother. Since the Toy Soldier was grander than all the others, he was often appointed general, which amused him but secretly appealed to his martial spirit. He often longed to have been an Authentic Reproduction of a general, or even just a lieutenant.

“But a private can always be promoted,” he thought optimistically, never allowing his spirits to fall, even when he considered that there were no officers to promote him. One never knew.

His days fell into a pattern. In the morning the Boy went to school and the Toy Soldier spent the day in his bedroom with all the other toys.

The Boy had all manner of toys, some very fine that ran on batteries, and the most expensive of all, the flat booklike (or so they seemed to the soldier, who was only a reproduction and not modern at all) toys that were inserted into the television and created all sorts of marvelous images. The latter knew they were the most expensive, and they often boasted about it, talking among themselves about how much they cost and how often the boy played with them. They snubbed the other toys, even the ones that ran on batteries, as backward and childish, and called the Toy Soldier a doll.

“We’re realistic,” they said to the Toy Soldier with a sneer. “Look at how bright our colors are and how our pictures move and jump. And the noises we make are just the same as in the real world!”

“What’s realistic?” the Toy Soldier asked the Teddy Bear who sat on the top shelf in the Boy’s closet. “Is it making loud squeaking noises and having bright colors?” The Bear was the oldest of all the animals, quite shabby from having been the Boy’s first toy. He was losing all of his stuffing and was missing a shoe-button eye, which gave him a squint. His fur was bald in places and he had many sutures where the Boy’s mother had to sew up his scrapes and bruises. As part of his exalted status, he was wrapped in plastic and saved “for when the Boy has children of his own.” Only the best toys were saved like that; the Toy Soldier had even heard himself being referred to that way. It gave him a queer excited feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if he were going to be promoted.

“Realistic means looking like something that’s Real,” the Bear said.

“Like an Authentic Reproduction?” the Toy Soldier asked excitedly.

“Yes, quite like that,” the Bear replied. “When you are realistic, you look and move and sound like you are supposed to be Real. Realistic toys, though, never seem to last very long. They usually break easily or their battery packs or computer chips lock up.”

The Toy Soldier was crestfallen at first, until he realized that he was specially made to be strong and sturdy, and he didn’t have a battery pack or a computer chip. “Why, I’m Realistic,” he though proudly, and he never let the computer toys’ teasing bother him again.

In the afternoons the Boy came home, slamming doors and dropping his books on the kitchen table. He ate a snack and then went out to play in the snow. At night, after dinner and bath, he was allowed to play with his toys until bedtime. That was a wonderful time for the Toy Soldier, for then the Boy would set up exciting night time raids, making caves and tunnels under the bedclothes and letting the Toy Soldier rappel down the side of the bed to the floor using a shoelace.

When the weather got better, the Boy took the Toy Soldier on foreign wars in the woods and on the lawn surrounding the house. As they played through the summer, he never realized that his uniform was becoming quite shabby and his face and hands were smudged with from the dirt. He lost his hat and his painted hair shone almost white in the sunlight until it, too, got dirty.

It all came to an abrupt end. The grown-ups, seeing the condition the Toy Soldier was in, swooped down and took him away, telling the Boy they wanted to keep the Toy Soldier “nice for his children.”

His promotion had come. Excitedly, the Toy Soldier endured a good washing. “Perhaps I will get my bayonet back!” he thought. Someone found his hat and it was cleaned and dried and pressed and put carefully back on his head. Sure enough, the bayonet was taken from the box on the mantel where it had been saved and mounted on his rifle. Then he was carefully wrapped in plastic and placed up on the closet next to the old Bear.

A little sadly, the Toy Soldier waited. He missed the days of playing with the Boy, planning and executing campaigns, ambushes and war raids. It had all been quite exciting. He sniffled a little sadly and tried to see out the crack of the closet door.

Suddenly the little point of light in front of him grew and grew until the Toy Soldier was blinded. He tried to close his eyes but they were painted open and so he stared resolutely ahead. The light suddenly winked out and there glowing in front of him was a little man, dressed in khaki with a black beret sitting at a jaunty angle on his close-cropped pale hair.

“Who are you?” the Toy Soldier asked, astonished.

“I am the Nursery Magic Fairy,” the little man barked, his olive drab wings fluttering. “It’s time to report for duty, soldier.”He gathered up the Toy Soldier in his arms and off they flew. The toy soldier didn’t like leaving his post, but he was not unhappy to be leaving the dark closet. The Fairy set down with him in the woods and tore away his plastic wrapping. Then he tapped him with the butt of his gun and the toy soldier felt a very strange shiver all through his body. He sat up and realized he was big! Awkwardly the Toy Soldier scrambled to his feet and looked all about himself, taking in his hands, his hair, his soft, real skin. The nursery magic fairy shook his head with disgust. “Ah nuts,” he said, and clenching a cigar between his teeth, he flew off.

Shouldering his weapon, the Toy Soldier set off through the woods to try to find a commanding officer.

Many years later, there was a war, and the Boy, who was all grown up with children of his own, was watching the news on television. As the five-star general explained the campaign and talked about bombs and mines, troops and tanks, he thought,

“Why, he looks like my Toy Soldier, who was lost when I was little!”

He never knew it was his own Toy Soldier, who had gotten his promotion at last.

It was a fine day for a journey. The morning mist burned off under the strong summer sun, and they rode with their cloaks rolled up and tied at the back of their saddles. It was a six days’s ride to Salt, which bordered Red Gold Bridge’s southern border, along the Aeritan River. Crae led Alarin through the wilderness that he and Lynn had fled through last winter. They had fled Trieve when Kenery had marched through on his way to join up with the council’s army. Galloped right into the swords of Hare, the tricky Brythern lord, he remembered.

Back then, winter had draped the land in a blanket of unbroken snow. The stars had burned fiercely overhead, and the cold had caused him and Lynn to wrap up together in one blanket. They had not given in to their desires though, but he remembered it now with a kind of homesickness. As tired and cold and desperate as they were, she had lain within the curve of his body, and he had stayed awake, arms around her, as she slept, taking the peacefulness for what it was, knowing it could not last.

The weather was very different now. They walked along a narrow game trail, their stirrups brushing the tall grasses with tiny purple flowers, letting loose grains of pollen and dust. The air smelled warm, the sun beating down putting a shine into their horses’ coats. They were able to trot and walk and trot again, keeping a steady pace without hurrying. The first day was fine, Crae falling into the ease of travel. Alarin was a good traveling companion too, quick with a joke or a story. Crae pulled out his tale easily; the young man had always been a smallholder and had grown up in one of the Trieve villages. His father was a blacksmith, his mother shepherd and spinster, whose good yarn was known for its softness and evenness. He had brothers and sisters – all were grown.

Farming was not for him. “I wish that I had taken up soldiering as a boy,” he said. “A captain came through a few years ago, looking for men, but my parents asked me not to go. And no one has come since, but you. I’d like to become more proficient with a sword, and get a place somewhere.”

Crae nodded. A farm boy with ambitions for soldiering wasn’t unusual. The world could seem awfully small when you spent it in one place.

“I would not want to lose you but you can talk with the captains and the lords we meet at council,” he said. “You are a good hand with a sword, for sure. We had the proof of that.”

“If you think that you want me to stay,” Alarin began. Crae laughed, and the horses bobbed their heads at the sound. Sham snorted as if taking part in the conversation.

“No, your parents have the right to ask you to stay but I don’t. Help me find a good captain, though, before you take your leave.”

“No one shoddy or ill-fitting,” Alarin promised. He threw a glance at Crae.

“What about you? How did you become captain at Red Gold Bridge?”

It had been ten years since he had persuaded Lady Sarita to make him her captain. She had been young then – well, he had as well. He had stood in the entrance to her chamber at the grand house in Wessen as she and her householders had packed her belongings. She had married Lord Tharp a month before, and they were off that day to Red Gold Bridge.

She was beautiful. Crae couldn’t help but note it. Her hair was covered under her well-tied kerchief, but it only accented the clear lines of her face and her pale complexion. Freckles dusted across her nose and her eyes were a clear brown under arched brows. She was tall and well-formed and he stammered a little as he laid out his request.

“I am a second in command under your mother’s captain,” he told her, standing as tall as he could in her doorway. The sunlight shafted across the room, raising dust motes as women and men bustled around him. “I would be honored to put my sword and my bow at your service at Red Gold Bridge.”

She had a way of looking directly at people as if she could see through them and she looked straight at him now. “You would leave your home and come with me?” She sounded surprised. One brow arched.

“I would, Lady Sarita.” He wanted to say something about being a familiar face from home, but he it sounded presumptuous, and they barely knew one another. The other members of the Wessen family unbent but not Sarita. She was like her mother in that respect, though the two ladies fought oh so much.

“It’s a forest,” she said, looking out the window at the plains of Wessen, the good horses the country was known for grazing in their fields. “The sun only comes through between the trees, although Eyvig said there are meadows.”

He wondered if she was talking to him, or herself. Sure enough, she turned her gaze back on him. “Could you stand to leave the wide open spaces in Wessen?”

He heard it as clearly as if she had said it out loud: she could not bear to leave, and only the marriage vows kept her on this course.

“The spaces of Wessen are not so wide open for all of us,” he told her. “I would have my own command. I’ve picked men, good men,” he added hastily.

She sat at the window and folded some clothes, smoothing them over her arms. She didn’t look at Crae but out the window. That he remembered clearly. The sun shone on her face and a few brown locks that curled at the nape of her neck were caught in the light. She was beautiful and hard, like a statue. Lord Tharp was lucky, was the consensus among the men at Wessen, the guards and the soldiers, the householders and the crafters. She was the most beautiful woman in all of Aeritan.

But Lord Tharp was a handsome man too – they had all heard the women sighing and giggling over him.

And she had accepted him, even married him. She should be happy, he thought.

But Lady Sarita was not. And so, ever hopeful, he decided to say it after all.

“I would be a friend from home, Lady.”

She looked at him directly and the surprise was clear in her expression. Crae groped for honesty. “We don’t know each other, but I’m ambitious, and want to lead my own men. And you – you will be far from home. Your own guard could escort you for visits to Wessen.”

She smiled at that, a genuine smile.

“You could at that. All right, Captain. We have an agreement.” She held out her hand and he shook it, and he knew he was half in love with her at that moment, for her beauty and her forthrightness, and the way she had smiled, as if he had given her a gift.

He came back to the present when Alarin sneezed at a cloud of pollen that rose around them. In the distance birds wheeled high up in the blue blue sky, lost against the wispy clouds. In the distance birds called to one another and bees buzzed drowsily in the flowers.

“That’s how it happened,” Crae said. He hadn’t known it then, but it was the beginning of more change than he had ever imagined. And as for ambition. Well. He was a lord now.

And she was still stranded in a forest with only shafts of sunlight instead of wide open spaces. He wondered if she had such spaces on the other side of the gordath. He hadn’t been able to fathom much of the stories Lynn had told him, and in truth most of the concerns were in this world.

Alarin grinned at him, his open face as impish as a boy’s.

“Got more than you bargained for?”

Crae laughed. “Sometimes I think so. Sometimes I just can’t believe it.”

The farmer had stepped out of line, perhaps, but Crae enjoyed the comradeship. It had been a while since he had that simple sort of friendship.

Not since Stavin died, anyway. As if he knew what Crae was thinking, Alarin said, “You were so different from Lord Stavin, we didn’t know what to expect. And you were just a captain, or had been. But you lead us well at least.”

At least. Crae gave him a keen look. “Did Stavin not lead you well?”

Alarin gave a rueful laugh. “He was a lord, and you were friends. I best not speak.”

Crae drew the reins through his fingers, feeling along the braided leather. The smell of sun-warmed horse, mingling with the tall grasses, made him sneeze too. When he could speak he said, “We were friends, and good friends. But we knew each other’s faults and favors too. He used to say I brooded too much. And he, oh lord, if he thought it he said it. But he was a good friend, one of the best. A good man.”

“How did you become friends?”

Crae grinned, remembering their first meeting. The lords’ convocation had been held at Red Gold Bridge the year of Lord Tharp and Lady Sarita’s wedding. Crae and the Red Gold Bridge captains had spent much of the weeks of the meeting keeping peace. Where men came together from different companies, plus the merchants from the river, keen to make a profit on the gathering, there was no end to the fights.

Stavin had been boasting in one of the taverns that sprung up by the docks. There were lines of them, under white tents that sprang up like mushrooms in the forest. Crae had gone in to break up the fight his loose tongue had started with some Camrin soldiers, and he ended up backing up the brash young lord instead.

“I told him later that I should have thrown him into holding with the others, but he said that he would have just argued his way out of it.”

They saw each other a few times a year, when Stavin came to Tharp’s holding on business, or Crae took his leave and journeyed to Trieve. Once Lady Sarita had disappeared, he never returned to Wessen, but he had no family there anymore anyway. His parents had died and he had no brothers or sisters.

Reminiscence made Crae ill at ease. The trail widened a bit and flattened out. Crae nodded. “We can make some time here. Let’s go.”

He urged Sham into a slow gallop and Alarin followed. The sound of the grasses brushing over their stirrups and the muffled hoofbeats of the horses mingled together in a strange counterpoint. He didn’t know what he was racing toward, but it was better than riding slow to meet it.

#

 Lady Blackheart

The Lady Cietu Blackara found herself in an uncomfortable position.

Her wrists were chafed raw under the shackles that bound her to the damp cell wall. She hung listlessly from the chains, her dark curly hair falling over her face and her breeches and shirt tattered and soiled.

At the sound of scraping on stone, Cietu looked up at the ceiling of her prison. Bits of mortar rained down as a few bricks were pulled away, revealing a patch of twilit sky.

“Lady Cietu?”

“Is that you, Oord?” she whispered weakly.

“None other!” he called back cheerfully. “We’ll have you out in two shakes, darling!”

She grinned, hope giving her new strength, just as footsteps on the stairs alerted her.

“Hsst! Oord! Someone’s coming!”

Cietu pretended to slump defeatedly as Morrit, head of the King’s special forces, entered the cell. Behind him loomed Captain Goshawk, his second-in-command. If he has the eyesight of his namesake, we are sunk, she thought.

“Why Lord Morrit and Captain Goshawk, what a pleasant surprise,” she said politely.
“Hardly that, Lady Blackara–or should I say, Lady Blackheart?” As always Morrit’s voice grated.

“Goodness, sir, is that what the balladiers are calling me now? I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.”

Goshawk coughed into his fist, and not very convincingly either. Cietu decided that she liked him for that.

Morrit merely grunted snidely and motioned to the guards. “Unchain her.”

The shackles fell open with a tiny snick, and tears sprang to her eyes as she was finally able to move her arms. Goshawk waved back the guards, courteously allowing her to rub life back into her shoulders.

“May I ask where you are taking me?” she asked lightly, trying to disguise her discomfort.

“To the executioner, Lady Blackara. Just a short stroll up the stairs.”

He nodded curtly at the door. Stalling, Cietu smiled sweetly at him and waited. Morrit took the hint even as Goshawk moved restlessly. Must have Tamu in him, she thought, he can tell something’s wrong. With compressed lips Morrit offered her his arm, just in time for Oord to come crashing through the ceiling in an avalanche of bricks and mortar and land on him. A rope, attached to a harness at his waist, snaked through after him.

“Grab the rope!” Oord shouted and she groped for it, holding on tight. To her astonishment they were both drawn into the air with a jerk and then pulled smoothly up along the wall.

Goshawk recovered his presence of mind.

“Catch them! Stop them!” he shouted, and he and the guards darted forward. The captain caught her foot and she kicked him square in the nose. He yelled and fell back, and she was yanked willy-nilly through the barely-wide-enough opening in the ceiling. Morrit, from the floor, was screaming,

“Sound the alarm! After her! Onto the roof! At once!”

The guards fouled each other as they plunged through the door, and the last thing the fugitives heard was Lord Morrit’s incoherent screaming in rage and frustration.

#

Oord pulled her through the opening and hoisted her to her feet. He shrugged out of his harness just as a golden fireball exploded, sending up shards of tile roof. They half-jumped, half-fell onto the next level of roof and rolled out of range.

“It’s an adept!” she gasped. Despite her bravado, her ordeal had left her weak and dizzy. “Which way?”

Another fireball, this one a vivid green, sailed over their heads. Reflexively they ducked.

“Over here,” Oord said. He slid down a peaked roof and she followed, praying she could brake before she plunged over the side.

A shout rose up to their left, and they could see a trio of guards silhouetted against the twilight sky. Swords in hand, the soldiers minced gingerly across the precarious roof.

Breathing hard, Oord and Cietu reached the north face and climbed onto the crenelated wall. At the fifth gargoyle he reached down.

The rope that came up in his hand had been cut about three feet below the knot.

“Cornered,” came a voice behind them, dripping with satisfaction. They turned to look as the adept, a straw-thin figure in the fading light, raised his hand for the final blow.

Oh dear, Cietu thought distantly and threw herself backward, even as blue light flickered around his fingers and gathered itself into a ball. The energy exploded from his hand, and for an instant she teetered frantically, arms windmilling as she struggled for balance.

Then Lady Cietu Blackara, and Oord, for company, plunged into the moat twenty feet below.

#

“Did you find them?” Captain Goshawk asked, his voice temperate and controlled. Morrit, his throat raw from screaming, had left him this mess to clean up. No doubt I will have to tell the King too, Goshawk thought bitterly. The adept and the officer looked at one another and swallowed.

“Well, sir, not exactly. But it’s a hard fall, sir, and she was weakened by her imprisonment.”

“I see.”

Goshawk looked out his study window at the market below, the shops closing up for the night and the torchlight coming out like nearby stars.

“How do you know this?” he asked politely, still looking out the window.

“Sir?” the officer said fearfully.

“That she was weakened by her imprisonment. Did she tell you?”

“Well, no sir, but–you saw her, sir! She was weak. Sir.”

The adept stepped forward.

“Captain Goshawk, I assure you, my fireball struck her squarely. She could not have survived the blow from the light energy. That, more than the fall, should have killed her.”

Goshawk swung around.

“Should have! But did it? If it did, why have we found no body in the moat? And if there is no body, why are you telling me Lady Blackara is dead?”

He planted his hands on his desk and glowered at the two men.

“Bring me the body of Lady Blackara, gentlemen, and don’t tell me she is dead until you do so.”

#

A fish jumped in the deserted moat beneath the castle’s wall, and frogs croaked rhythmically from the reeds. The sound of water lapping at the stones was unnaturally loud in the darkness. The splashing resolved itself as two bedraggled figures pulled themselves from the moat and lay exhausted on the bank. The frogs ceased their music for a moment, then the chorus began once more.

Lady Blackara rolled over and nudged Oord.

“What now?” she asked. He groaned and sat up.

“Hmmm. They were supposed to meet us at the north wall. It complicates things.”

“Didn’t you have a contingency plan?”

“Awww, darling, that’s bad luck. That’s like saying you expect to fail the first time.”

She frowned at her manservant, an indistinct form in the darkness.

“Oord, stop calling me darling. Well then, if we’re lucky we can make it to the harbor by dawn. Unless Reith and the others managed to scry our location.”

“I don’t think so,” Oord said. “None of ‘em have Tamu powers that I know of, and since I’m captain, they would have told me.”

Cietu got to her feet and looked down at Oord.

“When did you become captain?”

“After you got taken. Reith said it fitted me best.”

Cietu grinned dryly. Reith, a pensioned foot soldier, hated officers.

“Was Reith the one behind that rope trick?”

Oord’s answering grin could practically be heard in the darkness and he clambered to his feet.

“Me ‘n him, darling. We figured it out.”

“You can explain it to me when we reach Samerra.”

#

A thin strip of red highlighted the horizon in the east when they limped their way over cornfields to the harbor. The silhouettes of fishing boats crowded cheek by jowl with fat-bellied merchantmen. Farther out, anchored proudly alone, a King’s warship waited, spiky masts poking at the sun.

“Damn!” she whispered. “Where’s the Lady Karr?”

“Anchored in a cove near the Five Islands. Awaiting word from you, darling.”

She frowned at her henchman. The wiry, little man with the weathered face and sandy hair waited expectantly. The day had brightened enough to let her take in his soiled, damp, bedraggled appearance. He was spotted with green algae. I must look much the same, she thought, and smell worse–she brushed back her tangled brown hair. “How long will they wait?”

“Three days, no more. I said I’d have you back by then.” He chewed his lip worriedly.

Even that was too long; every hour the ship remained anchored they risked detection.

“Oord, listen. We need to get there by tonight or send word to set sail. If they’re captured everyone will be hanged before breakfast.”

He shook his head, matted locks bobbing damply.

“They won’t leave without you, Lady.”

But they had to. She thought of the Tamu outcasts waiting to sail to freedom. Cietu shook her head and started toward the waterfront. First order of business–hire a boat to take her out to the Five Islands.

#

The waterfront was thronged. Cietu and Oord waded through the crowd much as they breasted the water of the moat, keeping together with difficulty. He had produced a dress for her, stolen from the wash line of a conscientious farmwife, which she wore over her breeches and shirt. So they were disguised after a fashion, if no one looked too closely at her matted hair and slightly green-streaked complexion.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Her voice was almost lost beneath the fishmongers’ cries and the shouting of the wharfmen.

“The Drunken Oyster,” he said into her ear. “If there’s a boat to hire, we’ll find it there.” He dropped something round and hard into her hand and she looked down discreetly. Her father’s signet ring, a dark ruby carved with the family’s coat of arms, winked up at her.

“It’s all we have in the way of cash,” he said, troubled. Cietu fumbled it loosely onto her thumb. She smiled a little.

“It’s all right, Oord. He would have approved.”

For answer Oord squeezed her hand, deftly drawing off the ring and making it disappear in his coat again.

“You take after him, darling.”

She didn’t reply; instead only stared at the disturbance in the crowd ahead. A squad of soldiers thrust through the mob, swinging indiscriminately with the flat of their swords. Behind them, scanning the crowd from his seat on a spiritless hack, was the skinny adept who had knocked them into the moat the night before.

Cietu looked around wildly, then tugged Oord’s hand, drawing him with her into an alley between stalls. The smell of rotting fish entrails almost made her lose the previous night’s gruel. Water lapped at the dock under their feet. Glancing around for observers, they slipped into the water and under the dock. Her skirt belled up around her and she beat it down with one hand, holding onto the rough boards of the dock with the other. The water was freezing and filthy.

As if to underscore their misery, a fishwife dumped a full chamberpot over the dock into the water. Oord and Cietu looked at one another.

The soldiers’ bootsteps thudded down the dock. Indifferent to the shrill hostilities of the fishwife, the soldiers tipped over casks and dumped counters at every stall along the dock. Fish slid everywhere.

At length, the hubbub died down, and the soldiers moved on. With curses, shouts, and a few thrown fish heads, the fishmongers began to clean up their stalls. Oord and Cietu began to pull themselves along board by board beneath the dock. It was cold, hard work. When they finally judged they had found a quiet spot to emerge, Cietu’s fingers could hardly grip the rough wood. Oord pulled himself and then her onto the surface, and they flopped there for a moment, dripping. The stalls were abandoned here, for the crowd was following the soldiers. Cietu clambered to her feet and twisted water out her skirt. They began moving away from the crowd, casting back anxious looks, and sloshed as inconspicuously as possible toward the Drunken Oyster.

“Hey!”

They froze at the shout, then turned, ready to run. A farmer’s wife, market basket on her arm, was staring at them with red-faced fury.

“That’s my dress!”

How her voice rose above the settling crowd, now drifting back from its interest in the soldiers, was a matter of mystery. But it caught the attention of the adept. Cietu could see him twist in the saddle and stare at them, and even at that distance she could feel his eyes burning a hole straight through her forehead.

“Run!” She picked up her skirts, cursing their pointless weight, staggered a few feet, and then fell. A binding fell upon her, a deadly weight that caught her wrists and ankles and pinned her to the ground. She arched her back against invisible restraints, to no avail. “Run, Oord!” she commanded one more time. Another binding dropped over her mouth, and she could only hope he obeyed.

Mute, furious, she looked up at the inverted face of the adept when he rode back to his captive. His narrow face grinned with satisfaction.

“The captain wants you dead and your body as proof,” he said to her. “I’m sure I can think of something to do with it in the meantime.”

#

Goshawk pulled up and dismounted in a flurry, tossing the reins to the soldier at the tavern door.

“Where is she?” he demanded. The soldier saluted.

“The graycloak’s got her, sir. He took her upstairs.”

The shock and unease was evident in his voice and Goshawk understood what he left unsaid. Triumph turned to fury. He pushed past the soldier and bounded up the stair to the second floor. Indiscriminately trying doorknobs and kicking in doors, he made his way to the end of the hall.

She was huddled on the floor, eyes closed, the adept standing over her with his arm outstretched and his fingers making an odd shape. He looked up at Goshawk’s sudden entrance.

“Captain!” the man’s voice rose an octave.

“Get out!” Goshawk said.

The adept fled, face as gray as his cloak. Goshawk knelt and hoisted her into a sitting position. She opened her eyes woozily.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said.

“Did the graycloak hurt you?” he asked, dreading her response.

“Not–in the manner you mean.”

But as bad, he thought, judging from the hurt, angry, shamed expression on her face.

“Lady Blackara, you are under arrest for–”

“Treason, calumny, aiding and abetting fugitives from the King’s justice,” she chorused along with him.

“And evading arrest,” he finished. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

“The Tamu are harmless people, Captain. They do not deserve to be hounded from their homes, callously murdered…”

“The Tamu are hotheaded troublemakers who have willfully declared allegiance to their own God and will stop at nothing to sow discord throughout the country to further their own agenda, which is nothing more than toppling the throne.”

“Yes, well, I beg to differ.”

She pushed herself to her feet and angrily shed her stolen dress, ignoring his shocked expression. As she emerged, still fully clothed, she said bitterly,

“Is there still time to make the execution?”

Before he could answer, a grappling hook sailed through the open window and caught on the bedpost.

“Oh, no,” Goshawk said, grabbing for her wrist as the sound of footsteps against the outside wall clumped closer to the window. “Not again, my lady.” He began pulling her toward the door. Cietu gritted her teeth and dug in her heels, giving Oord and the others time enough to pull themselves into the room.

Goshawk never stood a chance. They swarmed over him and had him trussed in an instant, helpless on the floor.

“Quick, my lady, down the rope!” said Reith, and he gave it two quick tugs. She swung over the windowsill and made her way to the ground, followed in quick succession by her men.

Someone had procured horses; the fugitives mounted and galloped off for the Five Islands.

#

“If you hadn’t interfered at the tavern, this never would have happened,” the adept said primly. They were in Goshawk’s office at the city fortress along with Morrit. He sat at Goshawk’s desk; the Captain stood rigidly at attention in front of him.

“This isn’t like you, Goshawk,” the man said reprovingly.

Goshawk forebore explanation. “I know, sir.”

The man turned to the adept. “Can you scry her?”

“It’s not my area,” the adept protested virtuously.

“Try.”

It was not an invitation. The adept flashed a furious look at Goshawk. Scrying was the most difficult of the dark arts; its aftereffects could be debilitating. Training and practice mitigated that to some extent, but Goshawk knew that the adept preferred throwing fireballs to practicing the farsight. He would pay for his neglect. The captain kept his delight to himself.

The adept sat reluctantly on the floor, eyes closed, and halfheartedly began to chant. Morrit caught Goshawk’s eye and jerked his head toward the door. They left the man to his meditation and waited in silence in the hall.

Goshawk found himself wondering about his elusive fugitive. The eldest daughter of the renegade Lord Blackara had not been a familiar presence at court, though that was to be expected if she followed in her father’s troublemaking footsteps. She was strong-featured and plain with brown hair and brown eyes, nothing flashy like some court ladies, he thought. And he suspected that her nature tended toward shrewishness, which he, as a soldier who despised any pettishness, personally disliked.

Probably the only thing that could stop her tongue was a kiss, he thought, disgruntled, and then he flushed, wondering why he had thought such a thing of a woman he did not like and was adamantly not attracted to–and who was a traitor to boot.

Mercifully his unsettling thoughts were driven away when the door opened and the adept crept out, practically doubled over in pain.

“Five Islands,” he muttered, and groaned. “They’ve set sail for open water.”

#

The Lady Karr plowed through the waves, the dark green waters completely submerging the bowsprit and sending foamy spray onto the deck. The sails popped briskly in the wind. Off to starboard the first of the Five Islands made a dark shape on the horizon. It was another sight, however, that captured the attention of the Lady Karr’s crew and passengers, as well as her nominal commander, Lady Blackara.

The royal warship flanked them, and was using the wind to good effect to block their escape to open waters. Cietu’s expression was stonelike.

“Can we outrun them?” she asked Reith. He shook his head grimly. The Lady Karr, though stoutly built, was a pleasure yacht. She was no match for a ship of the line. The leader of the Tamu came forward, his lined face sorrowful.

“I did not mean for it to end this way, Lady Cietu,” he began, and she held up a hand, her expression softening.

“We all knew the risks, Shan.” She looked at Reith. “What can we expect?”

“Cannon. No doubt an adept or two with fireballs or lightning bolts.”

The irony of it was, the Tamu had more power than all the guns of the King’s fleet, with the meager powers of any number of adepts thrown in. But equally as strong as their magic was their vow to never injure or kill, even to save themselves. No one understood that, Cietu thought sadly. Despite her family’s taking up the Tamu cause, and her father dying for it, the Tamu remained persecuted, because all anyone else saw was the power, not the vow.

“Is there any way–” she began, but the look on Shan’s face made her subside.

“We could drop off longboats,” Reith said. “Let them row to the islands, scatter there while we distract ‘em in the Lady Karr. No warship can drop anchor in the archipelago. They’d run afoul on the rocks.”

“Once they dispatched us, they could send in boats at their leisure, finish everyone one by one,” Cietu said. But a niggling plan was coming to her and she frowned at the islands. “Shan,” she said suddenly, “Can we make them think we’re going to try that ploy?”

“My lady, our vow–”

“Good lord, Shan, this won’t hurt anyone! A simple sleight of hand, no more. An illusion.”

They all looked at her, puzzled, even her crew and officers. Except one.

“What are you saying, darling?” Oord said, his eyes wide with delight, and she grinned back at him in relief, her expression lighting up.

“What I’m saying, sweetheart, is an image, to let our friends think we’re letting off longboats, and behind that image, us, sailing for Samerra.”

“It’s not easy,” Shan warned. “And it won’t last very long. We will have to be well away before the glamour fades.”

“The Lady Karr won’t fail us,” she said, bubbling with relief. “You’ll do it, then?”

The Tamu looked at one another and nodded.

The families crammed together in the belly of the ship, connected by a web of clasped hands. The ship rose and fell, swaying and creaking, and the darkness gathered over the Tamu until even the wee bit of light let in through the hatch was shut out by its heaviness. Cietu, peering at the hatch, was disturbed by the darkness taking place below decks. A strange power rode the air, like the sparks given off by a cat’s fur, and it prickled the back of her neck.

What have they set in motion? she thought, and swallowed.

Oord gasped.

“Look!” he whispered, and pointed. Boats rode the seas toward the islands, their spidery oars pulled by the indistinct forms of men.

“It’s working,” said Reith, nodding his chin at the warship, which had come about.

They waited in tense silence as the warship let off boats of her own to chase down the phantom craft, and the Lady Karr fled for the open seas. Cietu’s cheeks were whipped red by the wind and her hair flew about her face wildly. There’s more to this than just wind, she thought, as the brave ship crashed through the waves. How long can they hold it up?

Even as the thought crossed her mind, the darkness at her feet gave a little, and she could see the edges of the hatch again. A longboat winked out, and then another. The wind slackened until they were running before a normal breeze, and the Lady Karr seemed to slump with relief.

With ponderous grace, the warship set sail after them, but it was clear her quarry had slipped the noose. All on deck of the Lady Karr let out a sigh. Cietu knelt and wrestled open the hatch.

“Here. Help me get them out.”

The Tamu were stirring themselves weakly. Cietu helped draw them up, blinking and weeping, into the daylight.

“You did it. You’re safe,” she told them over and over. When Shan emerged she pulled him up and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you,” she told him. He nodded, looking away. Guilt pricked her and she thrust it away with anger. You broke no vow, she thought stubbornly, but she knew better than to tell him that.

One of the Tamu, staggering over to the rail, cried out in horror.

“Look!” he cried. “She founders!”

The captain of the warship, in his haste to cut them off, had sailed too near the outermost island, and the treacherous rocks had caught the ship. She listed sideways, her sails flapping. The sailors gave a cheer, but Cietu’s heart sank. She gripped Shan’s hand.

“Shan,” she said tightly. “We have to keep going.”

He was calm. “No. That is not our way.”

“This isn’t our doing! If they had not set out after us–if they had not hounded you, persecuted you, imprisoned you, killed you, this would not have happened! They have reaped this!”

“You know that isn’t true, Cietu. It was our illusion that caused this.”

“We’re almost free,” she said. “You’re almost free.”

“That’s a bigger illusion than those longboats. Cietu, ask yourself. If we Tamu are resigned to our fate, why can’t you be? Is it because you fight for us, or because you are fighting something else?”

“Someone has to fight for you!” she snapped back. “Look at you! All that power, and no courage to use it! If you won’t fight, I will!” She turned to Reith. “By the spirit of my father, do not change course.”

“That’s not what your father would have wanted,” Shan said.

“You don’t know what my father wanted,” she said, her voice shaking. “You never knew. He fought for you, and you couldn’t even return the favor.”

“He fought for our way of life, Cietu. He fought for our right to live in peace in our ancestral lands. This exile was your idea. You convinced us. And now all it leads us to is death.”

She was unable to keep up her anger in the face of his calm and looked out at the empty sea, her eyes brimming.

“I just wanted to continue his work as I promised,” she whispered at last.

He reached out and took her hand.

“You honor us and him,” he said. “But the only help we need is to let us be who we are. Or else you obliterate us as surely as our enemies would.”

Oord put his hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll stand with you, darling,” he said, his kind eyes anxious, and she thought of all the people she was condemning to death, no matter the decision she made. She closed her eyes, despair washing over her, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“Reith,” she said. “Drop the boats for the Tamu–and me. You and the others set sail for Samerra.”

She looked at Shan.

“I got you into this. I will see it through to the end,” she told the Tamu leader.

“No,” said Reith. He set his mouth in the face of her resolve. “I’m not handing you over by yourself.”

“Reith–”

“We’ll come too. Take our medicine with the rest.”

“Reith, I can’t let you do that.”

“While we’re talking, they’re drowning,” Oord said, jerking his head at the sinking ship. “Best get moving, darling.”

For a moment Cietu held Shan’s gaze, and then she dipped her head tightly.

“Man the boats. Let’s rescue who we can.”

#

They put her in a different cell and she was guarded round the clock. Cietu learned to ignore the young guards, who seemed nervous. My reputation precedes me, she thought. If she had the energy to laugh she would have. Lady Blackheart was no more. All that was left was Lady Blackara.

The cell door opened. She didn’t look up, just kept her eyes closed.

“Lady Blackara,” said Captain Goshawk.

She raised her head with difficulty as he went behind her and unlocked her manacles.

“I’m here to take you home,” he said. “After learning of your bravery — and the Tamu’s — in saving the men of the warship, the King commuted your sentence to house arrest. The Tamu are being sent into exile, but to Obis, where they can be kept an eye on, not Samerra.”

She closed her eyes.

“And my men?” she asked at last.

“They have each been sentenced to ten years in prison.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“All this for my foolish, stubborn pride. The Tamu asked me what I was fighting for. Oh Captain, please don’t let it be only for this!”

Goshawk had no answer for her, no comfort. He shifted awkwardly, clearing his throat.

“All I wanted was to continue my father’s work,” Cietu went on. “But I never stopped to think what the Tamu wanted.”

“You did what you thought was right,” Goshawk said. “A leader has to act. And you led us a merry chase for a while there.”

She looked him straight in the eye.

“The Tamu are a good people, Captain. They aren’t harmful. They simply want to live in peace. My merry chase, as you called it, did nothing but make them a laughingstock and damaged their case with the king. I don’t know how I will ever make amends.”

“I’m just a soldier, Lady Blackara, but it seems to me that speech makes a good start. Sometimes apologizing gives you a second chance.”

“Ouch,” she said ruefully. “I think hanging might be easier.”

“Then don’t apologize for your own sake. Do it for your men — and the Tamu.”

#

Goshawk was at her side, ostensibly as her jailer, when she went before the King, begging pardon for her men though her pride made a bitter mouthful. He was also there when Oord and the others were pardoned and released. Oord hugged her unabashedly.

“I knew ye’d speak for us, darling,” he said.

“It’s wonderful what a few well-chosen words can do,” she agreed, thinking of Goshawk’s. “I suggest a new tactic, Oord. Let’s give Lady Blackara a turn, and retire Lady Blackheart. Her methods were, ummm, less than persuasive.”

Oord nodded judiciously. “But just between you and me, darling, I think I’ll miss the old girl.”

Cietu laughed ruefully. “I think I will too. But maybe now we can get some real work done.”

She let Goshawk take her arm, and, ignoring the significant looks cast among Oord and the others, they left the prison behind.

The End

The night of their conversion

what if you knew you had only one night left to be human? what if you knew that was the last night you wouldfeel,breathe, eat, sleep, cry?what wouldyou do?

Rachel crumpled the scribbled paper and dropped it on the sidewalk. She looked around, waiting for Ellie. The rusted bus stop sign bent at an angle over the empty street. She could see every manhole cover for a block, and each one was nudged askew, a carefully disordered symmetry. Rachel made herself look beyond them, scanning the distant shops.

A gust of spring wind came down the street, rustling trash and pushing the power lines like lazy jump ropes. CIN-der-ella, DRESSED in yella…

“Whatcha waiting for?” said Ellie, behind her, and Rachel spun. She grinned, her hair wild from the wind.

Ellie had an armload of loot.

#

“I don’t know,” Ellie said. They spread all the stuff over the dining room table in the deserted townhouse they squatted in, looking at it by the light coming in through the french doors. Rachel’s Anthropologie jeans felt like heaven. She wished that there was more light so she could see better in the mirror in the living room. My God, she thought. My ass has never looked so good. Ellie had lifted a pale pink jacket for her that accentuated Rachel’s green eyes and dark hair. Ellie herself wore a chocolate twin set, delicate gold pencil skirt, and pumps. She looked like a secretary.

Ellie lifted up a narrow delicate leather purse, tossed it at Rachel. “This is Prada? My God, all my dreams, shattered.”

Rachel inspected it. “My mom always carried one of these.”

Ellie wriggled her nose. “Ugleee. No offense.”

Rachel shrugged. “Rich old lady bags. Rich bags for old bags. And you didn’t answer the question.”

“Oh I don’t know. Maybe have sex with some guy. Lots of guys.” She gave Rachel an oblique look. “All at once.”

Rachel made a noise. “Cliche.”

“Okay, party pooper, what would you do?”

Rachel pulled out a bracelet from the pile and put it on her thin wrist. It was an elaborate silver cuff that gleamed against her tanned skin. “I don’t know,” she said. She held put her arm, modeling the cuff. “It’s like, there’s only one night, right? But I’d want a night to be good, too. A night to do all those things I’m supposed to want to have done. Jump out of a plane, or ride a horse, or something. Only, all the infrastructure to support those dreams – pfft.” She waved the bracelet, and it glowed through the air.

Ellie looked up from the small compact and paused before applying lipstick.

“And I’m a cliche.”

“That’s just it! It’s a stupid question. How are you supposed to decide? And then the last night ends up being just like life anyway – you just sort of muddle it anyway.” She took off the cuff, and threw it across the room. It hit the hardwoods with a satisfying thunk, and rolled off into a dark corner. “The guy who came up with that question – what a jerk.”

“Yeah.” Ellie snapped the compact shut and got up from the table. “Let’s go kick his ass.”

Rachel peered into the corner where the cuff had landed. “Okay, but let me get the bracelet first.”

Lynn Romano threaded through the crowd around the warmup ring, shouldering between horses, riders, and spectators. She squirmed between someone’s black warmblood with a checkerboard design gleaming on its huge haunches and a tall skinny man at ringside. In the ring, a rider on a chestnut thoroughbred nodded to the judges and put his horse into a canter, circling before he began his course. Everyone around the ring hushed as the chestnut soared over the first fence, a simple four-foot rail decorated with plastic flowers.

Lynn watched for only a moment before turning to the skinny man. “Harris,” she said. “What the hell is going on?”

Harris rested his arms on the fence rails. The sleeves of his smart hacking jacket were pushed back and his white stock was loosened at his throat. His head was bare — his plush black velvet hunt cap rested on the top of the fence post. He turned to look at Lynn and the look on his face, was, if not exactly blissful, the face of a man who had made a decision and found peace with it.

“I quit,” he said. “I told her, and she said fine, and said to find you. But I already quit, so –” he shrugged, making it quite clear that finding Lynn was no longer his problem.

Lynn felt a shriek coming on. Out of deference to the horse and rider negotiating the course (knocked a rail at the in-and-out, but it didn’t fall, so they still had a chance in the ribbons) she whispered instead.

“I know. Kate found me. And Joe, and Gina, oh, and Caroline, don’t forget her, she was her usual self about it too.” Hysteria caused her voice to rise and she tamped it down with effort. With a huge breath she said, “You can’t quit. You have to ride Dungiven in the next class.”

“I’m sorry, Lynn. I should have told you sooner, I know, but I’ve decided this just isn’t me anymore.” He waved a hand indicating the horses, the crowd, the loudspeaker announcing the winners in the pony classes.

“You decided this fifteen minutes before the Classic?” Her voice rose; the owner of the warmblood gave her a disgusted look, clucked to her horse, and led him away from the crazy woman shouting ringside. Lynn gave her glare for glare and wormed into the empty spot. “Why? Just tell me why? Wait—” she held up her hand. “I changed my mind. Tell me after the class, Harris. Please. One more class. That’s all I ask.” She tried to smile winningly and knew it came out as a ghastly grimace.

His smile became sad, a little rueful. “You know why. We’ve talked about it. Horse shows. All this money and effort and time – for what? So a bunch of rich snobs can play lord of the manor and dress up and we ride their horses and win their ribbons and sleep in tiny apartments over their barns.”

“It was worth it! That’s what we talked about, Harris! It was worth it! Not give it up!”

“Not anymore. Not for me.” He shook his head, forestalling her next protest. “You don’t want me to ride him, Lynn. Not with my heart not in it. Bad stuff happens.”

He walked off then, taking off his hacking jacket as he made his escape and flinging it over his shoulder. He left his hard hat on the fence post – Lynn picked it up and watched him head for the parking lot.

(Note: I loved this scene, which was one of the first ones I wrote for Red Gold Bridge. I felt like it did a lot of great story work. It showed where Kate was after Gordath Wood and the kind of person she had become. The problem was, it distracted from the story arc and weighted the sequel too much toward Kate and away from the rest of the characters. And so it had to go. The final book is stronger without it, but if you believe that characters live on while we close the pages of the book, this is something that happened to Kate and Allegra in their own lives outside the story.)

“Kate! Look over here!” It was her mom, with the new digital video camera. She waved. Kate Mossland tried to smile and sat straight on Allegra’s back. The mare tossed her head and shied sideways as if the camera were a dangerous weapon. Kate sat deep in the saddle, her gloved hands expertly collecting the reins as the undisciplined mare acted up.

Kate was in full show drag – dark blue hacking jacket, white shirt and stock, fawn breeches and black boots. The velvet hunt cap sat securely over her hair, now tamed into a french braid with hairspray and bobby pins. She had given in to her mom’s urging and gotten highlights, and she knew that where the braid peeked out from the back of the cap, her brown hair gleamed.

Look at me, she thought, giving her mom another smile and urging the dark bay mare into trot in the warmup ring. No longer the sloppy horse-crazy girl she had been. Just like everyone else now. She posted to Allegra’s trot, putting the mare into circles and half halts, and the mare settled into the work. The trick was to keep her busy. The mare that was, though Kate thought it probably went for herself too.

The loudspeaker blared, making Allegra snort and break into a gallop before Kate brought her back. “Intermediate Hunter-jumpers over fences, ring four. Hunter-jumpers, ring four.”

Kate followed the others as they filed out of the practice ring toward ring four. Lynn caught up with her, clipboard in hand.

“How’s she doing?” she said. She wore sunglasses, and all Kate could see of her was her serious mouth, pursed over her notes.

“Same old. She’s such a pain.”

Lynn smiled. “Well, there’s a good chance you won’t have to worry about it much longer. This one couple is interested. They want to buy her for their daughter.”

“Poor kid,” Kate muttered. As if she understood the sentiment Allegra snorted and reared. People shouted and scattered. Kate sat it like a statue. Lynn put out a hand and took Allegra’s rein when she landed, blowing.

“Kate stop it. It’s not her fault.”

Kate gave an exaggerated sigh. “I know that.” Allegra used to be owned by Carolyn, a self-absorbed rider, not even a real horsewoman, who took the high-strung Thoroughbred and ratcheted up the hysteria until the mare was almost unrideable. By the time the gordath destroyed almost half of New York, Carolyn had fled, leaving Allegra behind. Kate had been working with her, and while there were times the mare could be fun – she was bouncy, loved to jump, and would make an experienced rider a good mount – she could fly into inexplicable rages and be truly dangerous.

Instead of scolding, Lynn put a hand on her knee. “Hey,” she said softly. “You okay?”

Kate bit her lip. “I don’t know. I guess – I don’t know.”

“I know. It’s been crazy for me too.”

Kate didn’t know all of what had happened to Lynn in Aeritan, but she knew that she had to leave her boyfriend behind – he was a guardian now, helping to keep the gordath closed. Sure, Lynn owned Hunters Chase, but Kate knew it hadn’t been easy for her. Lynn gave her a reassuring smile and stepped back. “Okay, deep in the corners and remember to look your turns.”

It was such Lynn advice that Kate smiled back, and her spirits lifted a little. She collected Allegra and turned her toward the entrance to the ring, waiting for her number to be called.

The course was fairly straightforward, the fences no higher than three foot six, with nothing tricky except for the triple combination and a lead change crossing the diagonal. Allegra could do all of it, unless she decided to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of the ring.

At last her number was called and she urged the mare through the gate. Kate nodded to the judge, the whistle blew and she pushed Allegra into a canter, making a wide circle.

When she came on the first fence she collected the mare so that she launched herself from her haunches in a great arc. Kate kept contact with her hands and calves, her heels down to give her muscles strength, her back arched to lower her center of gravity. She sat Allegra as if she were glued to the saddle. Kate couldn’t help it – she grinned. So it’s going to be like that, huh? she thought at the mare. Allegra was on. Her petal-shaped ears were straight forward until the tips almost touched. She hated being talked at or clucked to by her rider so Kate kept her silence, using only her hands, her heels, and her balance to communicate.

Allegra took every fence that way, knees practically up to her chin, great springing jumps for sheer athletic joy. At the triple combination, a set of jumps with one stride between the first two fences and two long strides before the third jump, Kate stopped time in her head. She checked the mare so Allegra landed compactly, launched her with her heel behind the girth, and leaned slightly to the inside in the air over the fence. She let time go again. Allegra landed correctly, on the right lead, and flew over the next fence, aimed on the diagonal across the ring. The barrels were a breeze. Kate finished, brought Allegra to a trot and a walk and they exited the ring to hushed cheers. Kate’s heart swelled with joy from the great round they had gone. She wanted to jump off Allegra’s back and give the mare a hug. Instead she slid a sedate hand along Allegra’s wet shoulder. The mare tossed her head and snorted – even that much affection disturbed her. Kate bit her lip to keep her happiness from overwhelming her. Instead she muttered under her breath, “You are a great horse. You are a great horse.”

Allegra flicked an ear back at her and Kate knew she had heard.

When they left the ring she slid to the ground and put her forehead against Allegra’s, trying to hide her tears of happiness, mixed, as they tended to be these days, with sorrow. I am just a mess, she thought. Just one hot mess. She dried her tears hastily as Lynn came up with the interested couple and their daughter. Lynn gave Kate a brief glance of concern, then turned back to the couple.

“So, here she is. As you can see, for an experienced rider, she can be a joy.”

The girl was about thirteen, skinny, freckled, and serious in her breeches and jacket. She looked at Kate and Kate flushed, knowing the girl could see the streaks of tears on her face.

“You should have shortened her stride at the in-and-out. She took it too fast.”

Embarrassment turned to anger. “Really?” Kate said coolly. “Imagine that.” I’d like to see you even stay in the saddle over a course like that, you little snot.

Lynn coughed. “Now, she would also be a great dressage prospect but we haven’t started her yet. We figured her new owner would like to develop her –”

“Dressage is boring.”

There was a moment of silence all around. The girl’s mother said anxiously, “Is she, is she a nice horse?”

Allegra laid her ears back and bared her teeth at a passing chestnut mare.

Lynn had a strange expression on her face as if she was trying to keep back a laugh. “She can be tough. She needs a firm hand.”

“Oh,” the mother said anxiously. “Well, honey, don’t you want a horse who can be a friend? Like your Dandy was?”

“I just want to win at Nationals, mom. I don’t care what the horse is like.”

The girl’s father chuckled. “That’s my girl. She’s got a real competitive spirit. When can we come by the farm and let Kelsey give her a test drive?”

Kate looked at the irascible horse who had been her nemesis for months. She looked at the girl. The girl had taken her phone out and was now texting.

“We’re closed tomorrow, so how about Tuesday –” Lynn began.

“Actually, we’re thinking about her too,” Kate cut in. Everyone looked at her. Even with sunglasses, Lynn’s surprise came through bright and clear. “So, ummm, I’m just going to talk to my mom, actually, about her. And here she is.”

Mrs. Mossland came up, camera still in hand, looking at everyone, a bemused expression on her face.

“So, can we buy her?” Kate said. “Please?”