Mercedes Lackey - In Celebration of Lammas Night

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LAMMAS NIGHT

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely

coincidental.

individual authors.

thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

ISBN: 0-671-87713-5 Cover art by Victoria Poyser First printing, February 1996

Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER 1230 Avenue of the America^ New York, N.Y.

10020

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Introduction, Josepha Sherman.......................... 1

Lammas Night, Mercedes Lackey....................... 3

Hallowmas Night, Mercedes Lackey................... 7

Harvest of Souls, Doranna Durgin................... 23

The Heart of the Grove, Ardath Mayhar......... 41

Miranda, Ru Emerson...................................... 45

Demonheart, Mark Shepherd............................ 62

Sunflower, Jody Lynn Nye ............................... 73

Summer Storms, Christie Golden..................... 93

A Choice of Many, Mark Garland.................. HO

The Captive Song, Josepha Sherman.............. 124

Midsummer folly, Elisabeth Waters.............. 141

The Mage, the Maiden and the Hag,

S.M. Stirling and Jan Stirling........................153

The Road Taken, Laura Anne Gilman........... 175

A Wanderer of Wizard-Kind,

Nina Kiriki Hoffman......................................191

Circle of Ashes, Stephanie D. Shaver.............200

A Choice of Dawns, Susan Shwartz...............215

Miranda's Tale, Jason Henderson...................231

Lady of the Rock, Diana L. Paxson................249

Before, Gael Baudino......................................267

Introduction

First there was the song.

Several years back, Mercedes Lackey wrote "Lammas Night," a spooky,

supernatural baUad that ended with the wizard protagonist facing a very

perilous choice that was left to the listener to decide.

Then came the birthday present that wasn't.

Bill Jahnel and friends put together a collection of endings for the song,

intending to offer it as a tribute to Mercedes, known to her friends as

"Misty." However, the best laid plans often don't come off as intended. The

project was shelved for a time, then offered to Baen Books for possible

publication. Unfortunately, while this project, in its original form, made a

lovely tribute ana Misty was quite touched, it was felt that a book made up

strictly of endings to a song would have made for rather limited reading.

And so the book now known as Lammas Night was born.

What you hold in your hands is an all-new collection of fantasy stories by

some of the brightest stars in the field. Each was given a copy of "Lammas

Night" and was told to use it as a springboard for his or ner imagination. The

only restriction was that their stories must show some tie-in to the original

song.

What resulted is a wild range of stories, some

2Lammas Night

traditional, some outright bizarre. Lammas Night is both a tribute to the song

and to Misty herself It is also a chance for readers to enter new worlds of

fantasy and see the creative imagination at work.

—Josepha Sherman

Lammas Night

MERCEDES LACKEY

A waning moon conceals her face Behind a scudding wind-torn cloud.

(a wind-torn shroud) She wraps herself in its embrace As in a tattered cloak.

(a shadow cloak) The wind is wailing in the trees. Their limbs are warped and

bent and bowed.

(so bleak and cowed) I stand within my circle now ^ To deal with what I

woke.

(I wake—I see, but not yet free.)

A wanderer of wizard land I was, until a month ago

(so well I know)

The headman of this village came And begged that I should stay.

(so cold and fey)

"For since our wizard died," he said "And why he died we do not know—

(so long ago!)

We have no one to weave us spells And keep the Dark at bay."

(the dark, so deep: so cold the sleep)

4Lammas Night

"His house and books are yours, milady, If you choose but to remain."

(remembered pain) His offer was too tempting To be lightly set aside

(remembered pride) I'd wearied of my travel, being Plaything of the sun and

rain—

(choose to remain—) This was the chance I'd hoped for— And I said that I would

bide.

(I hope—I pray—and you must stay)

Perhaps if I had been a man, And not a maid, perhaps if I Had been less

lonely, less alone, Or less of magic folk—

(the spell-bound broke) Whatever weakness was in me, Or for whatever reason

why

(my reason why)

Something slept within that house That my own presence woke.

(You dream so much—I try to touch)

A half-seen shadow courted me, Stirred close at hand or by my side.

(to bid you bide) It left a lover's token—one Fresh blossom on my plate.

(a fragrant bait)

I woke to danger—knew the young Magician still to Earth was tied—

(for freedom cried) And tied to me—and I must act.

LAMMAS NIGHT

Or I might share his fate.

(I neea your aid, be not afraid)

I found a spell for banishment—

The pages then turned—and not by me!

(look now and see) The next spell differed by one word, A few strokes of a

pen.

(and read again) The first one I had seen before, The spell to set a spirit

free;

(so I will be)

The second let the mage-born dead Take flesh and live again!

(one spell and then I live again)

Now both these spells were equal In their risk to body and to soul.

(I shall be whole) And both these spells demanded They be cast on Lammas

Night.

(the darkest night) And both these spells of spirit And of caster took an

equal toll,

(task to the soul) But nowhere is it writ That either spell is of the Light.

(to live and see and touch, to be)

Can it be wise to risk the anger Of the Gods in such a task?

(yet I must ask) Yet who am I to judge of who Should live and who should die?

(don't let me die—) Does love or duty call him?

gLammas Night

Is his kindness to me all a mask?

(take up the task) And could I trust his answer If I dared to ask him "Why?"

(give all your trust—my will [you must])

So now I stand within the circle I have drawn upon the floor—

(the open door) I have no further answer if This spirit's friend or foe

(nor can you know) Though I have prayed full often, nor Can I this moment

answer if 111 tell him "Come" or "Go."

Hallowmas Night

MERCEDES LACKEY

The moon is on the wane tonight, and her light is fitful and hard to work by.

There is a chill and bitter wind tossing the bare branches of the trees; had

there been any leaves left upon those sad, black boughs when the sun set, they

would have been ripped away by now. That same wind shreds the thin, fraying

clouds that scud across the moon's face, so that she seems to be dressed in

the tattered remnants of a shroud. The sound of it among the trees is like the

wailing of a hundred thousand lost souls.

And while my hands busy themselves with the preparations I have rehearsed in

my mind too many times to be counted, I find myself trying to trace the path

that brought me to this night, and these perilous rituals.

Was it only last month, a bare moon-span of days ago that I came to this

place? It hardly seems possible, and yet that is indeed the case. It seems so

strange, to look back upon the thing I was, so sure of myself and my place in

the world—

A wizard I was and am, for my talents lie with the manipulations of energy,

and my knowledge is that of the doors to and creatures of other worlds. Unlike

some of my fellows, I do not hold that witchcraft is the lesser art—oh no; I

have seen too many things to

8Lammas Night

believe that to be the case. Faced with an elemental or the need to bring

fertility to man, beast or field, I should be as helpless as a witch given a

wraith to exorcise, or a demon to subdue. And the healing arts that come so

easily to the witch born were slow and painful for me to learn. To each of us

her strengths and her weaknesses, say I—but in my craft, I count myself no

weakling. I long ago attained the Master's rank and staff—and yet, I wandered,

ever wandered, as if I were a Journeyman still. . At first it han been by

choice, for I took joy in the sights and sounds of new places—but that was no

longer the case. I was long wearied with traveling, with the hardships and

mundane dangers of the road, with being the plaything of the weather, the pawn

of the seasons. But I, having been hurt too many times by my fellow

man—fellows in my art, let me say— had grown shy of their company, and would

settle only in some remote place, far from other practitioners of my art, in

some rustic habitat where I might meditate and study at leisure, and use my

skills to the mutual benefit of my pocket and the well-being of ordinary folk.

But we of wizardly kind are often of that frame of mind; and it seemed that no

matter where my feet carried me, there were others settled there before me.

Until, one autumn day, my wanderings brought me here—

It was a goodly village I saw, nestled in a quiet little valley. The gold of

freshly-thatched roofs blended with the brighter gold and red of the autumn

leaves; there was a mill clacking and plashing the water of the stream (always

a good sign of prosperity) and from the row of carts next to it, the harvest

had been an ample one. Even more cheering, I could see

from my vantage point where my road crested the hill

HALLOWMAS NIGHT 9

that the mill wheel was being used to power a cider press at the side of the

building. Three or four village folk were tending it, and an errant breeze

brought the scent of apples to me even as I determined to descend into their

valley.

The inn, though small, was cheerful with whitewashed wall, red shutters, and

smoke-blackened beams. I took my seat within it at a trestle table and nodded

in a friendly fashion to two or three broad-shouldered lads (farmers waiting

for their grain to be ground, I judged). I had waited no more than a breath or

two before the portly, balding, redcheeked innkeeper appeared to ask my

desires.

I told him; he served me my bread, cheese, sausage and cider—then stood behind

me as if he wished something of me.

I let him wait for a little as I eased my parched and dry throat with his most

excellent drink, then looked up at him with a sidewise glance out of my eye—I

have found that common folk do not like to be looked at directly by a

practitioner of arcane skill.

"Your fare is quite satisfactory, good innkeeper," I said, giving him an

opening to speak.

" Tis afl of our own, milady," he made answer. "Well, and it may be humble by

some folk's lights, but 'tis proud we are of it. Milady—might I be askin'

ye—be ye a magiker?"

I nodded at my staff, that leaned against the wall beside my table. Carved

with silver-inlaid runes, and surmounted by a globe of crystal clasped in an

eagle's claw of silver, it told all the world what my calling was. "As you can

see, goodman. I am of wizard-teaching."

'Then, milady, would it be puttin' ye out of yer way to be speakin* to our

headman?"

I was a bit surprised by the question, but took pains not to show it. "I have

nowhere in particular to go,

Lammas Night

good sir; I am a free wanderer, with my time all my

own."

He bobbed his head at me. "Then, if ye'd be so

kind, I be goin' to fetch him."

And to my astonishment, he trotted across the rutted dirt street to the

chandler's shop.

He returned quickly enough, and by his side walked a thin, sallow-faced fellow

clad in brown homespun, who might well have looked disagreeable but for the

lines of good humor about his eyes and mouth.

He came straight to my table and wasted no time in coming to the point.

"Jesse tells me you are a magician—and a wanderer," he said. "Forgive my

impudence, but—milady, we have strong need of one such as you."

Again, I was astonished, for this seemed the perfect place for wizard or witch

to settle, and in truth I had been somewhat expecting to be greeted by another

such as I with a subtle hint that I should let my feet

carry me further.

"How so?" I asked, still not letting my astonishment show. "I would have

thought that so charming a place as this would have a resident mage."

"We—did have, milady," the man said, looking anxious. "He—died. We don't know

why."

By the Powers of Light, that had an ominous ring

to it! •

"Was he old?" I asked cautiously. "How did this

happen?"

"Nay, lady, he was young, young as you, I would reckon. He just—died. Between

sunset and sunrise. The dairymaid found him, sitting up at the table, when she

brought the morning muk, with not a mark

on him."

My mind worked furiously; such a death could have

any number of causes, some arcane, some as simple

HALLOWMAS NIGHT

as an unguessed heart ailment. "And why do you say you have need of one such

as I?" I asked while I thought.

"Because of the forest, lady," he said in a half-whisper, gesturing

northwards. "East, west and south, it's just woods—-but northwards—nay. It's

haunted, belike, or worse. Uncanny things live there, and sometimes take a

notion to come out. He kept 'em bound away, so that we never even heard 'em

squall on black nights, but since he died—well, we hear 'em, and we're

starting to see 'em again just beyond the fence he put 'round 'em, when we

nave to travel in that direction. We need another magiker to keep 'em bound,

and that's a fact."

That made sense; whatever their mage had been holding off, and however he'd

done it, the spells he'd set would be fading with his death.

I looked at the headman a little more closely, this time using a touch of

mage-sight. "I would say you need one for more than mat—or haven't you got a

healer hereabouts?" Mage-sight told me his sallow complexion came from a

half-poisoned liver; something a simple healing spell could deal with readily.

"Have you skill at healing, too?" He looked like a child with an unexpected

abundance of Yule giftings. "Nay, we've no healer; our herb woman died a good

three years ago and her kin hadn't the talent. And Master Keighvin, he didn't

have the knack, either, though he tried, I'll give him that. Milady, we built

him a house; we've kept it cleanly and snug, hoping one such as you would

chance this way. If you choose to stay, milady, the house and all he left are

yours; keep the evil in the forest bound, and we'll provision you as we did

him. Do aught else, and you'll be well repaid, in cash or kind."

The offer was far too tempting to resist. This was

12 Lammas Night

just such an opportunity as I had longed for; and whatever it was that had

killed Keighvin, I was certain I would be able to deal with it.

"Done," I said.

Perhaps I should have been more cautious; if any evil power had wanted to lay

a trap for me, this was the perfect bait. Yet such was my weariness, my

longing Tor a place to settle, that I threw all caution to the winds.

Headman Olam led me to a snug little cottage set apart from' the rest of the

clustered houses of the village. It was exactly the land of dwelling I would

have built for myself, far enough from the village to allow me to feel

undisturbed, yet near enough that isolation would not become a burden. Three

rooms below it had, and one above—and I knew without his telling me that the

one above was the former wizard's room of power and knowledge. I could feel

the residuum of magics worked there even from below. For the rest—a bedroom, a

sitting room, a tiny kitchen, all showing the subtle carelessness of a

bachelor. I probed about me carefully, paying closest attention to the area

where the wizard had been found dead, and felt—nothing. Nothing at all, I

stood quietly in the very center of the house, and still felt nothing. The

house was empty. If Keighvin had been killed by something here, it was long

gone. And I was certain m*/ waroings would be proof against any second such

intrusion.

I spent the remainder of that day cleaning out all traces of the former

owner—although I somehow could not bring myself to destroy his possessions.

Instead, I packed them away in three barrels brought me by the miller, and

stored them up in the attic.

My own few possessions were soon augmented by

gifts, brought shyly by the village women—a bunch

HALLOWMAS NIGHT

of bright autumn leaves and grasses in a homely pottery vase, a bright bit of

weaving to grace a chest, an embroidered cloth for the table, another in a

handmade frame to adorn the wall, some soft pillows to soften the wooden

settle. I surmised that they would gladly have gifted their former mage with

.such things, but that his bachelor austerity seemed to forbid such presents.

More substantial giftings came over the course of the next three days from

their spouses: firewood, smoked meat and fish, cheese and meal, ale and cider,

root vegetables. In return I began my own work; curing first the headman's

ailing liver, then the miller's .cow that had a tumor of the womb, then

casting half a dozen finding spells to recover lost objects.

By week's end the little things that had needed doing since their wizard had

gone were all taken care off and I had the greater work before me—to determine

just what it was that he had kept in check. And, if I could, what had killed

him.

I went out northwards into the forest; by night, for if I was going to

confront evil, I wanted to know it at its full strength. There was a kind of

path here, with a touch of magic about it; I surmised that he had made it, the

Wizard Keighvin, and followed it.

Deeper and deeper into the inky shadows beneath the trees it led. There was a

little breeze that murmured uneasily among the dying leaves, but there was no

sign of animal or bird. At last it grew so dark that even my augmented sight

could not avail me; I kindled a witchlight within the crystal on the end of my

staff, and forged onward by the aid it gave me. The branches of the trees

seemed to shrink away from tile cold blue light. My own steps crunching

through the fallen leaves seemed as loud as those of a careless

14 Lammas Night

giant. The shaip-sour scent of them told me that few, if any, had taken this

path of late.

When I had penetrated nearly half a league, I began to feel eyes upon

me—unfriendly eyes. And more, I detected that magic had been worked

hereabouts, somewhere. Powerful magic, wizardly magic, akin to mine, but not

precisely of the school I had been taught in. Soon enough thereafter I came

upon the source of that magic.

It lay before me like a wall that only wizardly sight could reveal. It was a

great circle-casting, fading now, but still powerful. Nothing material of evil

birthing could have passed it; only wraiths and shades, and they would have

found the passage difficult and painful. When Keighvin had been among the

living, it must have been impossible even for them to cross. I found myself

pausing to admire the work; it was truly set by the hand of a master, and I

wished I could have known him. Such an orderly piece of work bespoke an

orderly mind—and the strength of it implied a powerful sense of duty. Both are

traits I find admirable, and more pleasing than a fair form or comely face.

Vague shapes lurked at the edge of the light cast by my staff; I could see

only their eyes, and that not clearly. My mage-senses told me more than

enough— the villagers feared them, with good sense. Whatever it was that

spawned them, they hungered; some for flesh and blood, others for death and

pain. And now beneath the casting placed by Keighvin, I*could sense the faint

traces of others, older and older—it was plain that one wizard had always

guarded the people of the village from these creatures of the Dark, passing

the task on to a successor. I guessed (truthfully, as I later found) that the

Things had broken loose enough times that the villagers had come to value

their wizards, and to fear to be without one.

HALLOWMAS NIGHT

I opened my shields to the casting, for to reinforce it I would have to take

some of it into myself. No wizard's workings are the same as another's; were I

to impose my powers alone upon that circle of protection I would surely break

it. -I must blend my own magics with it, as all the others had done before me.

I ignored the looming presence of those Others— they could not harm me, double

armored as I was by the circle and my own shieldings. I tested the flavors of

Keighvin's magic: crisp and cool, like a tart, frost-chilled apple. I felt the

textures, smooth and sleek; saw the color, the blue of fine steel; knew the

scent, like jumper and sage. And beneath it, the fading flavors and colors and

scents of the others, cinnamon and willow and sunrise, ice and harpsong and

roses, fire and lightning and velvet—

When I knew them, knew them all, I built upon them my own power. I reached

into the core of myself, and wove a starsong melody, blending it with

pinesmoke silk and crystal rainbow; knotting it all into a cord stronger than

cold iron and more enduring than diamond; for those were the hallmarks of my

own powers.

When I opened my eyes the circle glowed at my feet and reached breast-high, so

brightly even the untaught could have seen it; glowed with the same blue as

the witchlight of my staff.

I felt exhausted, utterly drained, yet elated. To test the efficacy of my

weaving, I dropped my shielding, and waited to see what the creatures of the

Dark trapped within it would do.

Seeing me unguarded was too much of a temptation for them. A half-dozen

wraiths, thin, filmy arms outstretched and claws grasping, flung themselves at

the barrier, wailing. For the first time I saw some of what the magic barrier

had held at bay, and despite

Lammas Night

that I had been expecting something of the kind, I shuddered inwardly.

If you have never seen a wraith, they are hardly impressive. They seem to be

mist-shadows, attenuated, sexless man-forms of spiderweb and fog, with great

gaping mouths and hollow eyes. If you know what they can do, however, you will

fear them. They can tear the heart from the body with those flimsy-seeming

claws, and devour it with that toothless mouth. When you know that—when you

have seen that, as I have—you know them for the horrible creatures that they

are, and know that they present a greater danger than many birthings of the

Dark of a more solid form.

They struck the barrier, and rebounded, and fled back into the darkness beyond

my witchlight.

I laughed in my pride, and left them.

But that night something began—

It was little more at first than a simple, vague dream, insubstantial as

smoke, hardly more in the dawn than a distant recollection of something

pleasant. But the next night, the dream was stronger, clearer, and more

compelling. I am no virgin, I have known the loving touch of a man, but it was

long, two years and more, since I had shared such pleasures, and until now I

had thought I did not miss them.

But the dreams, as they became stronger, drew me more and more, until one

night they were as full of reality and solidity as my daylit world.

I dreamed of a lover, gentle, considerate, a lover who took as much care for

my pleasure as for his own. And we joined, not once, but many times, body to

body, and soul to soul, as I had never joined with any other.

I woke late, with sun wanning the foot of the bed. I was tired, but I had been

working late into the

HALLOWMAS NIGHT

night, constructing a set-spell to keep vermin from the village granary. But—I

was also curiously sated, as if the dream-loving had been real.

I rose and stretched lazily, and dressed. I entered my tiny kitchen to break

my fast.

Beside the plate I had laid ready the night before lay a single fresh blossom

of spring beauty.

This was autumn.

Still, I rationalized after my first surprise, many of the villagers had

forcing frames. Some kind soul, or admiring child, perhaps, had left it there.

Thus even the wisest can delude themselves when they do not wish to face the

truth.

I walked through the next two weeks in a waking dream—by day, doing my duty to

the now-contented villagers. They were well pleased, for now not even the

faintest hint of the creatures of the Dark reached to the lands they called

their own. Their needs (those that I could tend to) were few, and simple, and

quickly disposed of. In my free time, I studied in Keighvin's library. He had

owned a treasure trove of wjzardly lore, a cache of some three or four dozen

books. Some I was familiar with, but some were entirely new.

I studied also those notes he had made on the nature of the "haunted forest."

It seemed to him that there was a heart to the evil, a spawning ground^ where

the normal was taken in and perverted to evil. He referred often to the "heart

of darkness," and reading between the lines, I surmised that he intended to

confront this "heart," and attempt to defeat it. A worthy intention—if he

could remain untouched by it. If-—that was the operable word. Something so

powerful might well corrupt all it touched, a mage included.

By night I dreamed those erotic dreams, in which

18 Lammas Night

I was possessed by my lover and possessed him in turn. Each night they were

clearer; each night the murmuring of my lover came closer to understandable

words. Each morning I woke a little later. And yet— and yet, I recovered

quickly, nor was the heart of my magic touched in any way.

And each morning, there was another fresh blossom by my plate—now, invariably,

a red rose, symbolic of desire.

It seemed to me that the autumnal light did strange things within this little

house, for as I moved about it I was followed by a shadow, not quite a double

of my own. And never could I see it when I looked straightly at it—only from

the corner of my eye. It danced attendance on me from the moment I crossed the

threshold to the moment I left.

I really don't know why it took me so long to realize the danger I was in.

Perhaps—if I had been a man, this never could have happened. I was so lonely,

and had denied my loneliness so long that I was, I suppose, doubly vulnerable.

Nor, had I been less of a mage, could I have been so ensorceled, for a lesser

mage would not have been able to merge with Keigh-vin's magic as I had been

able to do.

For whatever reason there was, for whatever weakness lay in me, I had woken

something in that place with my presence.

I ventured at last a second time into that haunted wood—this time by daylight,

for I meant to cross the boundary.

I found die "heart of darkness" indeed, just as Keighvin had written of it.

It was a grove in the center of the haunted circle, a grove in which the noon

sun did not even penetrate the unleaving branches of the trees. I did not

venture into it, for there was a deadly cold about that place.

HALLOWMAS NIGHT

and I took warning by it. I sensed something buried beneath the font of an

ancient willow; something older than my art, something that hated with a

passion like knives of ice. Something so utterly evil that my very soul was

shaken to the roots.

Not death—that was not what it longed for—corruption, perversion of all that

lived and grew was the goal it sought. It was bound—but only half-bound. The

magics that held it were-incomplete. And they were Keighvin's; I could sense

this beyond doubting.

He had come here, then, but had left his work unfinished. Why? What had

disturbed him? Had he fallen ill, or worse than ill? The orderly man I

intuited from his work and writings would not so have left something

incomplete, unless—

Unless he had no choice.

And I dared not try to complete it, not without knowing exactly what he had

done, else I would loose what he had sought to bind.

But to leave tt half-bound—that was dangerous, too. If this thing should break

the half-bonds, and absorb them into itself, it would be powerful enough to

pass the boundary of the circle so many had cast.

I left that place more awake than I had been since I came to my village, and

returned, sobered and not a little frightened, to the home I had come to call

my own. I sat, my thoughts chasing themselves around in circles, until the

last light died and I lit a candle, placing it oir the table in the sitting

room. As I did so, I danced at the night-darkened glass of the window, looking

not at the landscape beyond, but at the reflection.

And it was only then, only when I saw the shadow standing behind me in that

reflection and recognized him for my dream lover, that I truly woke to what

bad been happening to me in my own home.

Lammas Night

How, why, I did not know, but I knew this—the shadow that courted me, the

lover of my drams, and the wizard Keighvin were one and the same. He was still

earthbound—tied to me, feeding on me. A benign, harmless relationship—now. But

unless I acted, and acted quickly, I could easily find myself being drained by

the ghostly lovemaking. With every dream-tryst, he was growing stronger, and

had been for some time. For the moment the relationship was harmless—but there

was no guarantee that it would remain so. I stood in mortal danger of becoming

exhausted, until I became another such wraith. Lake Keighvin, unliving, yet

undying.

I dropped the candlestick I was holding, and the chimney shattered at my feet.

Heedless of the shards of glass I trod upon, I ran for the stairs and the

library. I knew I must act, and act quickly, while I still had the resolution

to do so.

I remembered one book, a huge, hand-lettered tome, that held the spell I

needed. I pulled it down from its place on the shelf, coughing a little from

the dust that I disturbed, and set it on the table, flipping hurriedly through

the pages to find the one spell I needed.

I found it three-quarters of the way through the book; not a spell of

exorcism, but a different sort of spell. A spell to open the door between this

world and the next so that an earthbound spirit would be drawn through it and

into its proper sphere. It was a most dangerous spell, risking both body and

soul of the caster. The danger to the body lay in that the caster must leave

it to open the door, and that it would cause a deadly draining of physical

energy. The danger to the soul lay in that the spell left it vulnerable and

unshielded, and the temptation of that doorway would be very great.

HALLOWMAS NIGHT

Yet—I could not drive my gentle lover away by brutal exorcism; no, I could not

be so cruel to him who had only been (thus far) kind. This was the only spell

I could choose—

And then, in die draftless room, an unseen hand turned the page of the great

book.

I thought it was the same spell at first. Then I saw that it differed by one

single word, a few strokes of a pen. That first spell I knew, but this—this

was another totally unknown. And its purpose was—

Was to let the mage-born, if they nad died before their appointed time, take

flesh and live again.

Both spells were equal in danger to body and soul. The second, in point of

feet, placed a tolerable amount of danger on the spirit involved, for if he

was judged and found wanting, it meant utter dissolution. Nowhere was it

written that either spell was of Dark path, or Light; they were utterly

neutral.

Both required they be cast this night of all nights; Hallowmas, the perilous,

when Light magic and Dark are in equal balance, and either result is likely

from any spell made—and most particularly when, as now, Hallowmas falls under

a waning moon.

This is risking the anger of the gods, to take upon oneself the restoring of

the dead—yet what and who am I to judge who is fit to live or die?

Since that day, one week ago, he has not come to me by night; does he judge

that I would repudiate him {do I nave the strength?) or is he letting me make

my decision unsullied by his attentions?

What of the "heart of darkness?" Did he try to bind it, and become corrupted

by it? Why did he leave the task half done? Did it murder him, to keep him

from destroying it? Is this why he begs life anew? Duty? To see the task

through to its end?

Or—does he love me, as he seemed to? Is it me

Lammas Night

that calls to him? Never have I melded so with another's magics as I did with

his—never has my soul or body responded so to another's touch.

Or does he seek to use me, corrupted by that foul thing that lay beneath the

willow's roots? Will he use me, and then destroy me and set that evil free?

Could I trust his answer if I were to attempt to ask him why?

I have sought for an answer, and found none, but in heaven nor hell nor all

the lore that wizard-land knows. No gods have made their will manifest to me,

not even at this final hour, as my hands go through motions that I have

rehearsed so often that I could perform them sleeping or near-dead.

I stand within my circles now; my preparations all are made. I can see him, a

shadow among the shadows, standing just outside the boundaries I have made. I

can almost make out his face. I cannot tell what expression he wears. The hour

of midnight is drawing closer, and I have begun my chants. In a few more

minutes, I will speak that single word—

And I cannot at this moment answer if it will be "come" or "go."

Harvest of Souls

DORANNA DURGIN

"Kenlan died a year ago," die woman told Dyanara. "And things've gone from bad

to worse."

Dyanara looked into the stone-lined well; a sulfu-rous odor wafted up to sting

her nose. She stepped back from the wooden housing of the well, ner booted

feet sinking into ground softened by spilled water. The local wizard should

have taken care of this long ago, along with some of the unhealthy crops she'd

seen as she walked into the community of Churtna.

That is, if he hadn't been killed, and somehow gone unreplaced

The woman—her name was Parrie—squeezed one hand with the other, quietly

anxious. "We'll pay you the best we can. I ... I just don't know how much

longer we can drink this water. The new well Tavis dug out back gave us just

the same, only less of it." Her light brown hair was graying, her face browned

and wrinkled by the sun, and her expression tight.

And no wonder. The house garden was stunted and browning, in this late spring

when it should have been growing its fastest. The cow was ribby, the chickens

had pecked at each other until fully half of them were bald, and the hayfield

boasted sparse and stingy grass .that would never be ready for first harvest.

The entire

Lammas Night

homestead looked blighted, down to the thatched little cottage that served as

home for this family.

The oldest was a youth almost ready to be out on his own; there were a handful

of boys and girls in between, and then the youngest, a girl who looked to be

ten or eleven and brightly interested in the arrival of a wizard. A woman

wizard, with well-worn trews just this side of patching, and a loose, long

tunic with the symbols of her House of Magic embroidered on cuffs and around

the neckline. At thirty-four, Dyanara was hitting the strength of her powers,

and the strength of her body had not yet started to wane; she was, if neither

willowy and graceful nor plump and well-endowed, at least hardened by her

travels into something of clean lines and self-assured movement. She looked

down at the girl. Dyanara wondered if she, too, would have had such a family,

had she chosen other than a wanderer's path.

"I will cleanse the well," Dyanara said, "but I "do not work for nothing."

Parrie's already tight lips thinned even further; she wrapped her arms around

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LAMMASNIGHTThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©1996byMercedesLackeyAllmaterialisoriginaltothisvolumeandiscopyright©1996bytheindividualauthors.Allrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproduc...

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