Mercedes Lackey - Fiddler Fair

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Fiddler Fair

by Mercedes Lackey

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.

“Fiddler Fair,” in Magic in Ithkar 3 (Tor 1989) “Balance” and “Dragon’s Teeth,” in Bardic Voices One (Hypatia Press 1988) (HC), in

Spell-singers (DAW 1988) (PB); “Dance Track,” in Alternate Heroes, Mike Resnick, ed. (Bantam Spectra 1989); “Last Rights,” in

Dinosaur Fantastic, Martin Greenberg, ed. (DAW 1993); “Jihad,” in Alter-nate Warriors, Mike Resnick, ed. (Tor 1993); “Dumb Feast,”

in Christmas Ghosts, Mike Resnick, ed. (DAW 1993); “Small Print” in Deals with the Devil, Mike Resnick, ed. (DAW 1994); “The Cup

and the Caldron,” in Grails of Light (DAW); “Once and Future,” in Excalibur!, Martin Greenberg, ed. (Warner Aspect 1995); “Enemy

of My -Enemy,” Friends of the Horseclans, Robert Adams, ed. (NAL 1989)

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-87866-2

Cover art by Clyde Caldwell

First printing, April 1998

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

How I Spent My

Summer Vacation

And every other free minute

for five straight years

After any number of requests to put all our short stories together in one place, the idea began to take on some me

rit.

When Larry and I looked into the idea we discovered that we had a lot of other short fiction; about ten years’

worth.

Ten years? Unbelievable as it seemed at the time, I found the very first story I ever had published (I had sold one

story before that, but it wasn’t published until the following month). Fantasy Book magazine, September 1985. The

story was “Turnabout” which was a Tarma and Kethry story, which is going into another collection. For the record,

the first story I ever sold was for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Free Amazons of Darkover “Friends of Darkover”

anthology, which was published in December of that year. The story was “A Different Kind of Courage.”

Some of these stories are a little grey around the edges, but I include them as a kind of object lesson in writing.

Some of the things in them I winced at when I read again—I had no idea of how to write a well-viewpointed story, for

instance, and someone should have locked my thesaurus away and not given it back to me for a while! And insofar as

the march of technology goes—the earliest were written on my very first computer, which had no hard-drive, a

whopping four kilobytes—(that’s kilobytes, not megabytes)—of RAM, and had two single sided single density disk

drives. I wrote five whole books and many short stories on that machine, which did not have a spell-check function,

either. On the other hand, if ewe sea watt effect modern spell-checkers halve on righting, perhaps it that was knot a

bad thing. It’s just as well; if it had, it would have taken half a day to spell-check twenty pages. So for those of you

who are wailing that you can’t possibly try to write because you only have an ancient 286 with a 40-meg hard-drive . . .

forgive me if I raise a sardonic eyebrow. Feh, I say! Feh!

I held down a job as a computer programmer for American Airlines during seven of those ten years, and every

minute that I wasn’t working, I was writing. I gave up hobbies, I stopped going to movies, I didn’t watch television; I

wrote. Not less than five hours every day, all day on Saturday and Sunday. I wanted to be able to write for a living,

and the only way to get better at writing is to do it. I managed to slow down a bit after being able to quit that job, but I

still generally write every day, not less than ten pages a day. And that is the answer to the often-asked question,

“How do you become a writer?” You write. You write a great deal. You give up everything else so that you can

concentrate on writing.

There are many fine books out there (the title usually begins with “How to Write . . .”) to teach you the mechanics

of writing. Ray Bradbury has also written an excellent book on the subject. You only learn the soul of writing with

practice. Practice will make you better—or it will convince you that maybe what you really want to do is go into

furniture restoration and get your own television show on The Learning Channel.

Here are the answers to a few more frequently asked questions:

How do you develop an idea?

Mostly what we do is to look at what we have done in the past and try to do something different. As for finding

ideas, I can only say that finding them is easy; they come all the time. Deciding which ones are worth developing is the

difficult part. To find an idea, you simply never accept that there are absolute answers for anything, and as Theodore

Sturgeon said, “You ask the next question” continuously. For example: one story evolved from seeing a piece of paper

blowing across the highway in an uncannily lifelike manner, and asking myself, “What if that was a real, living creature

disguised as a piece of paper?” The next questions were, “Why would it be in disguise?” and “What would it be?”

and “What would happen if someone found out what it really was ?”

Do you ever get “writer’s block” and what do you do about it?

When I get stalled on something, I do one of two things. I either work on another project (I always have one book

in the outline stage and two in the writing stage, and I will also work on short stories at the same time) or I discuss the

situation with Larry. Working with another person—sometimes even simply verbalizing a snag—always gets the book

unstuck. There is a perfectly good reason for this: when you speak about something you actually move it from one

side of the brain to the other, and often that alone shakes creativity loose.

How do you do revisions?

I may revise the ending of the book between outlining and actual writing, but that is only because a more logical

and satisfying conclusion presents itself. I am really not thinking of anything other than that. The only other revisions

are at the request of the publisher, and may vary from none to clarifying minor points or further elaborating a minor

point. In the case of clarification, this amounts to less than 1,000 words in a book of 120,000 or more. In the case of

elaboration this usually amounts to the addition of 5,000 words to 10,000 words, generally less.

Would you call your books “character driven?”

I think that is quite correct, my books are character-driven. To me. How people react to a given situation is what

makes a story interesting. History is nothing more than a series of people’s reactions, after all, and many “alternate

history” stories have been written about “what would have happened if.” The idea—the situation—is only half the story.

What the characters do about it is the other.

Do you base your characters on people you know?

With very rare exceptions I don’t base my characters on anyone I know—those exceptions are -minor ones, where

I’ll ask permission to write a friend into a walk-on role. They do come out of my observation of people in general.

When did you know you wanted to write?

I knew I wanted to tell stories from a very early age—in fact, I told them to the kids I babysat for, then wrote them in

letters to friends and pen-pals. It was only when I “graduated” from amateur fiction to being paid for what I wrote that

I realized I did have a talent for writing—and I had the will to pursue it. That was some thirty years later.

Where do you start?

Plotting is usually done with Larry, and one of the first things we do is determine what the characters will be like,

then what the major conflict of the book will be. Then we figure out the minor conflicts, the ways that those characters

will deal with those conflicts, and ways we can make their lives even more complicated. The resolution generally comes

at that point, but not always; sometimes it doesn’t come to us until we are actually writing the book, and we change

the way it ended in the outline.

When did you start reading science fiction?

I started reading sf/f when I was about eight or nine. As I recall, it was the “Space Cat” books, followed by

something called The City Under the Back Steps, a kind of ant-version of “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids,” followed

immediately by a leap into Andre Norton, Heinlein, and my father’s adult sf. Daybreak 2250 AD by Norton was one of

the first things I read, James Schmidt’s Agent of Vega was another. Mostly I read Norton, all the Norton I could get my

hands on, saving my allowance to order them directly from Ace. Little did I guess I would one day be working for Andre’s editor

(Donald A. Wollheim)!

Who were your influences?

In order of influence: Andre Norton, J.R.R.

Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Thomas Burnett Swann, Anne McCaffrey, C.J. Cherryh, Marion Zimmer

Bradley. As for editors, I learn something from every editor I have. My three main editors, Elizabeth Wollheim, Melissa

Singer, and Jim Baen, have been incredibly helpful.

What do you choose to write?

I write what I would like to read, with a -caveat—after thirteen years in the marketplace, I am beginning to

get a feeling for things that will sell, so obviously I do tailor what I would like to write to the marketplace. I never wrote

intentionally for any particular audience, but I seem to have hit on a number of things that are archetypal in nature,

which may account for the appeal. The other possibility is that I tend to write about people who are misunderstood,

outsiders . . . people who read tend to think of themselves that way, particularly sf/f readers, so they can identify with

the characters.

Do you answer fan-mail?

When possible, we do. We always read it. When mail comes without a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply,

we assume the writer doesn’t want a reply; it is only courteous not to waste the time of someone you supposedly like

by including a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you want an answer. We don’t answer abusive mail, but it does get

filed in a special file for future reference. We return manuscripts unread; after some trouble Marion Zimmer Bradley had

with a fan-writer, our agent has advised both of us that we can’t read unsolicited manuscripts anymore. This

is an awful pity, but life is

complicated enough without going

out and finding ways to add trouble!

How do you work with a collaborator?

Working with collaborators depends on the collaborator. If possible, we work on the outline together until we’re

both happy with it, then one of us starts, passes it off to the other when s/he gets stuck, and gets it passed back under

the same circumstances. It goes incredibly fast that way, and it is the way Larry and I always work, even though he is

not always on the cover as a co-writer.

Have you ever encountered any censorship?

I haven’t encountered any censorship at the publisher/editor level on any of my books. I have heard rumors of

fundamentalist groups causing problems with the Herald Mage series because of the gay characters, but I have never

had any of those rumors substantiated. There are always going to be people who have trouble with characters who

don’t fit their narrow ideas of what is appropriate: I have perfectly good advice for them. Don’t read the books.

Nobody is forcing you to march into the bookstore and buy it. Actually, I have been considering borrowing the

disclaimer from the game Stalking the Night Fantastic by Richard Tucholka—“If anything in this book offends you,

please feel free to buy and burn as many copies as you like. Volume discounts are available.”

What’s Larry like?

I’ll let him answer for himself!

Misty and I met on a television interview just before a convention in Mississippi; we were both Guests of Honor

there. By the end of that weekend, we had plotted our first book together (Ties Never Binding, which later became

Winds of Fate), and have been together ever since.

I am an alumnus of the North Carolina School of the Arts, and while there I made some fairly respectable inroads

into the world of Fine Arts. However, my basic trouble with galleries was that regardless of the content of my work, it

would only reach that segment of the population that went to galleries. I was “preaching to the converted.” Couple

that distressing truth with an irrepressible irreverence, and my days of wearing black and being morose for my art were

limited. I needed giggles, I needed money, and I needed to accomplish something. I had been an sf and fantasy fan for

years. When I saw the other people who were also fans, I knew that here was a place to be welcomed, serve an

audience, and make a difference through entertainment. Ever since, it has been a matter of matching the message to the

-medium. Some lend themselves well to text, others to paintings, others to satire or dialogues.

I have been introduced to folks as “The other half of Mercedes Lackey,” and there’s a bit to that. I’ve been working

with Misty on prose since and including Magic’s Price, which I co-plotted and alpha-edited. Incidentally, it was

accepted by DAW exactly as it is printed; there were no revisions or mispe . . . misspel.., uhm.., words spelled wrong. Since then

I’ve worked on them all, with heavier co-writing on the subsequent trilogies. I’m not about to steal any of Misty’s

thunder, though—she is a mighty fine writer without me! Our styles, skills, and areas of knowledge happen to

complement each others’. I also get a kick out of hearing old-fogy writers grousing about female fantasy writers, when

I’ve been one for years now. The Black Gryphon was about my fourth or fifth co-written book (silently, with Misty),

but was one of the first with a cover credit. Go figure. My future is inextricably linked to Misty, and I would want it no

other way. High Flight Arts and Letters is flying strongly, and the best is yet to come.

You may have noticed that there is not a lot of really personal information in all of this, and that’s on purpose.

Larry and I tend to be very private, and frankly, we find all the self-aggrandizing, highly personal “I love

this” and “I hate that” in some Author’s Notes kind of distasteful. We’ve included some historical notes on the

various stories, and while I will be the last person to claim I’m not opinionated (see the note to “Last Rights” for

instance) just because I think something, that doesn’t mean you should. Go out, read and experience everything you

can, and form your own opinions; don’t get life second-hand from a curmudgeon like me!

I thought it might be fun to start this off on a lighter note.

This is an entirely new story, never before seen, and was supposed to be in Esther Friesner’s anthology, Alien Pregnant By Elvis

(Hey, don’t blame me, this is the same lady who brought you the title of Chicks In Chainmail by Another Company). For some

reason it never got printed, and none of us understand why. Must have dropped into the same black hole that eats alternate socks

and the pair of scissors you’re looking for at the time the anthology was put together.

Anyway, here it is now. Any resemblance to the writer is purely coincidental.

Aliens Ate My Pickup

Yes’m, I’m serious. Aliens ate my pickup. Only it weren’t really aliens, jest one, even though it was my Chevy

four-ton, and he was a little bitty feller, not like some Japanese giant thing . . . an’ he didn’t really eat it, he just kinda

chewed it up a little, look, you can see the teeth-marks on the bumper here an’ . . .

Oh, start at the beginin’? Well, all right, I guess.

My name? It’s Jed, Jed Pryor. I was born an’ raised on this farm outsida Claremore, been here all my life. Well, ’cept

for when I went t’ OU.

What? Well, heck fire, sure I graduated!

What? Well, what makes you thank Okies tawk funny?

Degree? You bet I gotta degree! I gotta Batchler in Land Management right there on the wall of m’livingroom and—

Oh, the alien. Yeah, well, it was dark of the moon, middle of this June, when I was out doin’ some night-fishin’ on

m’pond. Stocked it about five years ago with black an’ stripy bass, just let ’em be, started fishin’ it this year. I’m tellin’

you, I got a five pounder on m’third cast this spring an’—

Right, the alien. Well, I was out there drownin’ a coupla lures about midnight, makin’ the fish laugh, when wham! all

of a sudden the sky lights up like Riverparks on Fourth of July. I mean t’tell you, I haven’t seen nothin’ like that in all

my born days! I ’bout thought them scifi writers lives over on the next farm had gone an’ bought out one’a them

fireworks factories in Tennessee again, like they did just -before New Years. Boy howdy, that was a night! I swan, it

looked like the sky over ol’ Baghdad, let me tell you! Good thing they warned us they was gonna set off some doozies,

or—

Right, the night’a them aliens. Well, anyway, the sky lit up, but it was all over in lessn’ a minute, so I figgered it

couldn’t be them writers. Now, we get us some weird stuff ev’ry now an’ again, y’know, what with MacDac—that’s

MacDonald-Douglas t’you—bein’ right over the county line an’ all, well I just figgered they was testin’ somethin’ that

I wasn’t supposed t’ know about an’ I went back t’ drownin’ worms.

What? Why didn’ I think it was a UFO? Ma’am, what makes you thank Okies got hayseeds in their haids? I got a

satylite dish on m’front lawn, I watch NASA channel an’ PBS an’ science shows all the time, an’ I got me a

subscription t’ Skeptical Inquirer, an’ I ain’t never seen nothin’ t’make me think there was such a thang as UFOs.

Nope, I purely don’t believe in ’em. Or I didn’t, anyway.

So, like I was sayin’ I went back t’ murderin’ worms an’ makin’ the bass laugh, an’ finally got tired’a bein’ the main

course fer the skeeters an’ chiggers an’ headed back home. I fell inta bed an’ didn’ think nothin’ about it till I walked

out next mornin’.

An’ dang if there ain’t a big ol’ mess in the middle’a my best hayfield! What? Oh heckfire, ma’am, it was one’a them

crop circle things, like on the cover’a that Led Zeppelin record. Purely ruint m’hay. You cain’t let hay get flattened

down like that, spoils it right quick ’round here if they’s been any dew, an’ it was plenty damp that mornin’.

How’d I feel? Ma’am, I was hot. I figgered it was them scifi writers, foolin’ with me; them city folk, they dunno you

cain’t do that t’hay. But they didn’ have no cause t’fool with me like that, we bin pretty good neighbors so far, I even

bought their books an’ liked ’em pretty much too, ’cept for the stuff ’bout the horses. Ev’body knows a white horse’s

deaf as a post, like as not, less’n’ it’s one’a them Lippyzaners. Ain’t no horse gonna go read yer mind, or go ridin’

through fire an’ all like that an’—

Oh, yeah. Well, I got on th’ phone, gonna give ’em what for, an’ turns out they’re gone! One’a them scifi con

ventions. So it cain’t be them.

Well, shoot, now I dunno what t’think. That’s when I heerd it, under th’ porch. Somethin’ whimperin’, like.

Now y’know what happens when you live out in the country. People dump their dang-blasted strays all th’ time,

thinkin’ some farmer’ll take care of ’em. Then like as not they hook up with one’a the dog packs an’ go wild an’ start

runnin’ stock. Well, I guess I gotta soft heart t’match my soft head, I take ’em in, most times. Get ’em fixed, let ’em run

th’ rabbits outa my garden. Coyotes get ’em sooner or later, but I figger while they’re with me, they at least got t’eat

and gotta place t’sleep. So I figgered it was ’nother dang stray, an’ I better get ’im out from under th’ porch ’fore he

messes under there an’ it starts t’smell.

So I got down on m’hands an’ knees like a pure durn fool, an’ I whistled an’ coaxed, an’ carried on like some kinda

dim bulb, an’ finally that stray come out. But ma’am, what come outa that porch weren’t no dog.

It was about the ugliest thing on six legs I ever seen in my life. Ma’am, that critter looked like somebody done beat

out a fire on its face with a ugly stick. Looked like five miles ’a bad road. Like the reason first cousins hadn’t ought

t’get married. Two liddle, squinchy eyes that wuz all pupil, nose like a burnt pancake, jaws like a bear-trap. Hide all

mangy and patchy, part scales and part fur, an’ all of it putrid green. No ears that I could see. Six legs, like I said, an’

three tails, two of ’em whippy and ratty, an’ one sorta like a club. It drooled, an’ its nose ran. Id’a been afraid of it,

’cept it crawled outa there with its three tails ’tween its legs, whimperin’ an’ wheezin’ an’ lookin’ up at me like it was

’fraid I was gonna beat it. I figgered, hell, poor critter’s scarder of me than I am of it—an’ if it looks ugly t’me, reckon I

must look just’s ugly right back.

So I petted it, an’ it rolled over on its back an’ stuck all six legs in th’air, an’ just acted about like any other pup. I

went off t’ the barn an’ got Thang—I ended up callin’ it Thang fer’s long as I had it—I got Thang a big ol’ bowl’a dog

food, didn’ know what else t’give it. Well, he looked pretty pleased, an’ he ate it right up—but then he sicked it right

back up too. I shoulda figgered, I guess, he bein’ from someplace else an’ all, but it was worth a try.

But ’fore I could try somethin’ else, he started off fer m’bushes. I figgered he was gonna use ’em fer the usual—

But heckfire if he didn’t munch down m’ junipers, an’ then sick them up! Boy howdy, was that a mess! Look, you

can see the place right there—

Yes’m, I know. I got th’ stuff tested later, after it was all over. Chemist said th’ closest thang he’d ever seen to’t was

somethin’ he called Aquia Reqa or somethin’ like—kind’ve a mix a’ all kinda acids -together, real nasty stuff, etches

glass an’ everthang-.

Anyhow, I reckon gettin’ fed an’ then sickin’ it all back up agin jest made the poor critter ’bout half crazy bein’

hungry. But next I know, Thang’s took off like a shot, a headin’ fer one’a my chickens!

Well, he caught it, an he ate it down, beak an’ feathers, an’ he sicked it right back up agin’ ’fore I could stop ’im.

That made me hot all over agin’. Some dang idjut makes a mess’a my hayfield, then this Thang makes messes all

over m’yard, an’ then it eats one’a my chickens. Now I’m a soft man, but there’s one thing I don’t stand for, an’ that’s

critters messin’ with the stock. I won’t have no dog that runs cows, sucks eggs, or kills chickens. So I just grabbed me

the first thang that I could and I went after that Thang t’lay inta him good. Happens it was a shovel, an’ I whanged him

a good one right upside th’ haid ’fore he’d even finished bein’ sick. Well, it seemed t’hurt him ’bout as much as a

rolled-up paper’ll hurt a pup, so I kept whangin’ him an’ he kept cowerin’ an’ whimperin’ an’ then he grabbed the

shovel, the metal end.

An’ he ate it.

He didn’t sick that up, neither.

Well, we looked at each other, an’ he kinda wagged his tails, an’ I kinda forgave ’im, an’ we went lookin’ fer some

more stuff he could eat.

I tell you, I was a pretty happy man ’fore the day was over. I reckoned I had me th’ answer to one of m’bills. See, I

c’n compost ’bout ev’thang organic, an’ I can turn them aluminum cans in, but the rest of th’ trash I gotta pay for

pickup, an’ on a farm, they’s a lot of it what they call hazardous, an’ thats extra. What? Oh, you know, barrels

what had chemicals in ’em, bug-killer, weed-killer, fertilizer. That an’ there’s just junk that kinda

accumulates. An’ people are always dumpin’ their dang old cars out here, like they dump their dang

dogs. Lotsa trash that I cain’t get rid of an’ gotta pay someone t’haul.

But ol’ Thang, he just ate it right up. Plastic an’ metal, yes’m, that was what he et. Didn’ matter how nasty, neither.

Fed ’im them chemical barrels, fed ’im ol’ spray-paint cans, fed ’im th’ cans from chargin’ the air-conditioner, he just

kept waggin’ his tails an’ lookin’ fer more. That’s how he come t’ chew on my Chevy; I was lookin’ fer somethin’ else

t’feed him, an’ he started chawin’ on the bumpers. Look, see them teethmarks? Yes’m, he had him one good set of

choppers all right. Naw, I never took thought t’be afraid of him, he was just a big puppy.

Well, like I said, by sundown I was one happy man. I figgered I not only had my trash problem

licked, I could purt-near take care of the whole dang county. You know how much them fellers get

t’take care’a hazardous waste? Heckfire, all I had t’do was feed it t’ol’ Thang, an’ what came out

’tother end looked pretty much like ash. I had me a goldmine, that’s how I figgered.

Yeah, I tied ol’ Thang up with what was left of a couch t’chew on an’ a happy grin on his ugly face, an’ I went

t’sleep with m’accountin’ program dancin’ magic numbers an m’head.

An’ I woke up with a big, bright light in m’eyes, an’ not able t’move. I kinda passed out, an’ when I came to, Thang

was gone, an’ all that was left was the leash an’ collar. All I can figger is that whoever messed up m’hayfield was

havin’ a picnic or somethin’ an’ left their doggie by accident. But I reckon they figger I took pretty good care of ’im,

since I ’spect he weighed ’bout forty, fifty pounds more when they got ’im back.

But I ’spose it ain’t all bad. I gotta friend got a plane, an’ he’s been chargin’ a hunnert bucks t’take people over th’

field, an’ splittin’ it with me after he pays fer the gas. And folks that comes by here, well, I tell ’em, the story, they get

kinda excited an. . . .

What ma’am? Pictures? Samples? Well sure. It’ll cost you fifty bucks fer a sample’a where Thang got sick, an’

seventy-five fer a picture of the bumper of my Chevy.

Why ma’am, what made you thank Okies was dumb?

This story appeared in Deals With The Devil, edited by Mike Resnick. Larry and I live near Tulsa, Oklahoma, home of Oral

Roberts University and widely termed “The Buckle of the Bible Belt.” We have more televangelists per square mile here in this part

of the country than I really care to think about. Maybe somebody out there will figure out how to spray for them.

Small Print

Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

Lester Parker checked the lock on the door of his cheap motel room for the fifth time; once again, it held. He

checked the drapes where he had clothes-pinned them together; there were no cracks or gaps. He couldn’t afford to be

careless, couldn’t possibly be too careful. If anyone from any of the local churches saw him—

He’d picked this motel because he knew it, frequented it when he had “personal business,” and knew that for an

extra ten bucks left on the bed, the room would be cleaned completely with no awkward questions asked. Like, was

that blood on the carpet, or, why was there black candlewax on the bureau? Although he hadn’t checked in under his

own name, he couldn’t afford awkward questions the next time he returned. They knew his face, even if they didn’t

know his name.

Unless, of course, this actually worked. Then it wouldn’t matter. Such little irregularities would be taken care of.

His hands trembled with excitement as he opened his briefcase on the bed and removed the two sets of papers from

it. One set was handwritten, in fading pen on yellowed paper torn from an old spiral-bound notebook. These pages

were encased in plastic page-protectors to preserve them. The other was a brand-new contract, carefully typed and

carefully checked.

He had obtained—been given—the first set of papers less than a week ago, here in this very -motel.

He’d just completed a little “soul-searching” with Honey Butter, one of the strippers down at Lady G’s and a girl

he’d “counseled” plenty of times before. He’d been making sure that he had left nothing incriminating behind—it had

become habit—when there was a knock on the door.

Reflexively he’d opened it, only realizing when he had it partly open just where he was, and that it could have been

the cops.

But it hadn’t been. It was one of Honey’s -coworkers with whom he also had an arrangement; she knew who and

what he really was and she could be counted on to keep her mouth shut. Little Star DeLite looked at him from under

her fringe of thick, coarse peroxide-blonde hair, a look of absolute panic on her face, her heavily made-up eyes blank

with fear. Without a word, she had seized his hand and dragged him into the room next door.

On the bed, gasping in pain and clutching his chest, was a man he recognized; anyone who watched religious

broadcasting would have recognized that used-car-salesman profile. Brother Lee Willford, a fellow preacher, but a man

who was to Lester what a whale is to a sardine. Brother Lee was a televangelist, with his own studio, his own TV shows, and a

take of easily a quarter million a month. Lester had known that Brother Lee had come to town for a televised revival, of

course; that was why he himself had taken the night off. No one would be coming to his little storefront church as long

as Brother Lee was in town, filling the football stadium with his followers.

He had not expected to see the preacher here—although he wasn’t particularly surprised to see him with Star. She

had a weakness for men of the cloth, and practically begged to be “ministered to.” Besides, rumor said that Brother Lee

had a weakness for blonds.

Lester had taken in the situation in a glance, and acted accordingly.

He knew enough to recognize a heart attack when he saw one, and he had also known what would happen if

Brother Lee was taken to a hospital from this particular motel. People would put two and two together—and come up

with an answer that would leave Brother Lee in the same shape as Jim Bakker. Ruined and disgraced, and certainly not

fluid enough to pay blackmail.

First things first; Brother Lee’s wallet had been lying on the stand beside the bed. Lester grabbed it, pulled some

bills out of it and shoved them at Star. The little blond grabbed them and fled without a word.

Now one complication had been dealt with. Star wouldn’t say anything to anyone; a hooker whose clients died

didn’t get much business.

Then, he had helped Brother Lee back into his pants; shoved the wallet into his coat-pocket (a small part of his

mind writhing with envy to see that the suit was Armani and the fabric was silk) and draped the coat over Brother

Lee’s shoulders. He could not be found here; he had to be found somewhere neutral and safe.

There were car keys on the nightstand too; Lester had assumed they were for the vehicle outside. He had hoped

there was a car-phone in it, but even if there hadn’t been he could still have worked something out.

But there had been a phone, a portable; Lester dialed the emergency number, returned to the -motel room, got

Brother Lee into the car and got the car down into the street moments before the ambulance arrived. There was, after

all, no harm in being rescued from the street—only in being taken from a motel room in a state of undress. He had

followed the ambulance in Brother Lee’s car, and claiming to be a relative, set himself up in the waiting room.

The reporters came before the doctors did. He had told them a carefully constructed but simple story; that he had

met Brother Lee just that day, that the great man had offered his advice and help out of the kindness of his heart, and

that they had been driving to Lester’s little storefront church when Brother Lee began complaining of chest pains, and

then had collapsed. Smiling modestly, Lester credited the Lord with helping him get the car safely to the side of the

road. He’d also spewed buckets of buzzwords about God calling the man home and how abundant life was to

believers. The reporters accepted the story without a qualm.

He had made certain that Brother Lee found out exactly what he had told the reporters.

He bided his time, checking with the hospital twice a day, until Lee was receiving visitors. Finally Brother Lee asked

to see him.

He had gone up to the private room to be greeted effusively and thanked for his “quick thinking.” Lester had

expected more than thanks, however.

He was already framing his discreet demand, when Brother Lee startled him by offering to give him his heart’s

desire.

“I’m going to give you the secret of my success,” the preacher had said, in a confidential whisper. “I used to be a

Man of God; now I just run a nice scam. You just watch that spot there.”

Lester had been skeptical, expecting some kind of stunt; but when the quiet, darkly handsome man in the blue

business suit appeared in a ring of fire at the foot of Brother Lee’s hospital bed, he had nearly had a heart-attack

himself. It wasn’t until Brother Lee introduced the—being—as “My colleague, Mister Lightman” that Lester began to

understand what was going on.

Brother Lee had made a compact with the Devil. The “number one saver of souls” on the airwaves was dealing with

the Unholy Adversary.

And yet—it made sense. How else could Brother Lee’s career have skyrocketed the way it had without some kind

of supernatural help? Lester had assumed it was because of Mafia connections, or even help from—Him—but it had

never occurred to him that Brother Lee had gone over to the Other Side for aid. And Brother Lee and his “colleague”

had made it very clear to Lester that such aid was available to him as well.

Still, there was such a thing as high-tech trickery. But Mr. Lightman was ready for that suspicion.

“I will give you three requests,” the creature said. “They must be small—but they should be things that would have

no chance of occurring otherwise.” He had smiled, and when Lester had a glimpse of those strange, savagely pointed

teeth, he had not thought “trickery,” he had shuddered. “When all three of those requests have been fulfilled, you

may call upon me for a more complete contract, if you are convinced.”

Lester had nodded, and had made his requests. First, that the transmission of his car, which he had already had

inspected and knew was about to go, be “healed.”

Lightman had agreed to that one, readily enough.

Second, that his rather tiresome wife should be removed permanently from his life.

Lightman had frowned. “No deaths,” he had said. “That is not within the scope of a ‘small’ request.”

Lester had shrugged. “Just get her out. You can make me look stupid,” he said. “Just make me sympathetic.”

Lightman agreed.

And third, that the sum of ten thousand, two hundred and fifty three dollars end up in Lester’s bank account. Why

that sum, Lester had no idea; it was picked arbitrarily, and Lightman agreed to that, as well.

He had vanished the same way he had arrived, in a ring of fire that left no marks on the hospital linoleum. That was

when Brother Lee had given him the battered pages, encased in plastic sleeves.

“This is yours, now,” Brother Lee had said. “When you want Lightman to bring you a contract, you follow these

directions.” He grimaced a little. “I know they’re kind of unpleasant, but Lightman says they prove that you are

sincere.”

Lester had snorted at the idea of the Devil relying on sincerity, but he had taken the sheets anyway, and had

returned to his car to wait out the fulfillment of the requests.

The very first thing that he noticed was that the transmission, which had been grinding and becoming harder to

shift, was now as smooth as if it was brand new. Now, it might have been possible for Lightman to know that Lester’s

tranny was about to go—certainly it was no secret down at the garage—but for him to have gotten a mechanic and a

new transmission into the parking lot at the hospital, performed the switch, and gotten out before Lester came down

from the hospital—well, that was practically impossible.

But there were other explanations. The men at the garage might have been lying. They might have doctored his

transmission the last time he was in, to make him think it needed work that it didn’t. Something could have been “fixed”

with, he didn’t know, a turn of a screw.

Then two days later, he came home to find a process-server waiting for him. The papers were faxed from his wife,

who was filing for divorce in Mexico. He found out from a neighbor that she had left that morning, with no

explanations. He found out from a sniggering “friend” that she had run off with a male stripper. As he had himself

specified; she was gone, he had been made to look stupid, but among his followers, he also was garnering sympathy

for having been chained to “that kind” of woman for so long.

She had cleaned out the savings account, but had left the checking account alone.

But that left him in some very dire straits; there were bills to pay, and her secretarial job had been the steady income

in the household. With that gone—well, he was going to need that ten grand. If it came through.

Late that Wednesday night, as he was driving back from the storefront church and contemplating a collection of

less than twenty dollars, the back of an armored car in front of him had popped open and a bag had fallen out. The

armored car rolled on, the door swinging shut again under its own momentum as the car turned a corner. There was no

one else on the street. No witnesses, either walking or driving by.

He stopped, and picked up the bag.

It was full of money; old worn bills of varying denominations; exactly the kind of bills people put into the collection

plate at a church. There were several thousand bills in the bag.

They totaled exactly ten thousand, two hundred, and fifty three dollars. Not a copper penny more.

He drove straight to the bank, and deposited it all in his savings account. Then he drove straight home, took out

the papers Brother Lee had given him and began to read.

Before he was finished, his mind was made up.

The ritual called for some nasty

things—not impossible to obtain or perform, but unpleasant for a squeamish man to handle

and do. Dancing around in the nude was embarrassing, even if there was no one there to see him. And although he

was certain that this motel room had seen worse perversions than the ones he was performing, he felt indescribably

filthy when he was through.

Still; if this really worked, it would be worth it all.

If. . . .

“Now how could you possibly doubt me?” asked a genteel voice from behind him.

Lester jumped a foot, and whirled. Mr. Lightman sat comfortably at his ease in the uncomfortable green plastic chair

beneath the swag-lamp at the window. Lester thought absently that only a demonic fiend could have been comfortable

in that torture-device disguised as a chair.

He was flushing red with acute shame, and terribly aware of his own physical inadequacies. Mr. Lightman cocked

his head to one side, and frowned.

“Shame?” he said. “I think not. We’ll have none of that here.”

He gestured—not with his index finger, but with the second. Suddenly Lester’s shame vanished, as if the emotion

had been surgically removed. And as he looked down bemusedly at himself, he realized that his physical endowments

had grown to remarkable adequacy.

“A taste of things to come,” Lightman said easily. “You must be a perfect specimen, you know. People trust those

who are handsome; those who are sexy. Think how many criminals are convicted who are plain, or even ugly—and

how few who are handsome. People want to believe in the beautiful. They want to believe in the powerful. Above all,

they want to believe.”

Lester nodded, and lowered himself down onto the scratchy bedspread. “As you can see, I’m ready to deal,” he

told the fiend calmly.

“So I do see.” Lightman snapped his fingers, and the neatly-typed pages of Lester’s contract appeared in his hand.

He leafed through them, his mouth pursed. “Yes,” he murmured, and, “Interesting.” Then he looked up. “You seem to

have thought this through very carefully. Brother Lee was not quite so—thorough. The late Brother Lee.”

Lester nodded; then took in the rest of the sentence. “The—late?”

Lightman nodded. “His contract ran out,” the fiend said, simply. “Perhaps he had been planning to gain some extra

years by bringing you into the flock, but he had not written any such provision into his contract—and a bargain is a

bargain, after all. The usual limit for a contract is seven years. I rarely make exceptions to that rule.”

Lester thought back frantically, and could recall no such provision in his own contract.

But then he calmed himself with the remembrance of his loophole. The very worst that would happen would be that

he would live a fabulous life and then die. That prospect no longer held such terror for him with the hard evidence of

an afterlife before him. With the Devil so real, God was just as real, right?

That beautiful loophole; so long as he repented, merciful God would forgive his sins. The Adversary would not

have him. And he would repent, most truly and sincerely, every sin he committed as soon as he committed them. It was

all there in the Bible, in unambiguous terms. If you repented, you were forgiven. That was the mistake everyone else

who made these bargains seemed to make; they waited until the last minute, and before they could repent, wham. He

wouldn’t be so stupid.

But Mr. Lightman seemed blithely unconcerned by any of this. “I’d like to make a slight change in this contract, if I

might,” he said instead. “Since Brother Lee’s empire is going begging, I would like to install you in his place.

Conservation of effort, don’t you know, and it will make his flock so much more comfortable.”

Lester nodded cautiously; the fiend waved his hand and the change appeared in fiery letters that glowed for a

moment.

“And now, for my articles.” Lightman handed the contract back, and there was an additional page among the rest.

He scanned them carefully, including all the fine print. He had expected trouble there, but to his surprise, it seemed to

be mostly verses from the Bible itself, including the Lord’s Prayer, with commentaries. It looked, in fact, like a page

from a Bible-studies course. He looked up from his perusal to see Lightman gazing at him sardonically.

“What, have you never heard that the Devil can quote Scripture?” The fiend chuckled. “It’s simply the usual stuff.

So that you know that I know all the things people usually count on for loopholes.”

That gave him pause for a moment, but he dismissed his doubts. “I’m ready to sign,” he said firmly.

Lightman nodded, and handed him a pen filled with thick, red fluid. He doubted it was ink.

He was the most popular televangelist ever to grace the home screen; surpassing Brother Lee’s popularity and

eclipsing it. His message was a simple one, although he never phrased it bluntly: buy your way into heaven, and into

heaven on earth. Send Lester Parker money, and Lester will not only see that God puts a “reserved” placard on your

seat in the heavenly choir, he’ll see to it that God makes your life on earth a comfortable and happy one. He told

people what they wanted to hear, no uncomfortable truths. And there were always plenty of letters he could show,

which told stories of how the loyal sheep of his flock had found Jesus, peace of mind, and material prosperity as soon

as they sent Lester their check.

Of course, some of those same people would have been happy to ascribe a miraculous reversal of fortune to their

“personal psychic” if they’d called the Psychic Hotline number instead of Lester’s. Above all else, people wanted to

believe—wasn’t that what both sides said?

He had a computerized answering service for all his mail; no dumping letters into the trash at the bank for him, no

sir! He had a fanatically loyal bunch of part-time housewives read the things, enter the letter’s key words into the

computer, and have an answer full of homey, sensible advice and religious homilies tailored to the individual run up by

the machine in about the time it took to enter the address. Every letter came out a little different; every letter sounded

like one of his sermons. -Every letter looked like a personal answer from Lester. The computer was a wonderful thing.

They could have gotten the same advice from Dear Abby—in fact, a good part of the advice tendered was gleaned

from the back issues of Dear Abby’s compiled columns. But Abby didn’t claim to speak for God, and Lester did.

He also preached another sort of comfort—that hatred was no sin. It was no accident that his viewers were nearly one

hundred percent white; white people had money, and black, yellow, and red ones didn’t, or if they did, they generally

weren’t going to part with it. That’s what his Daddy had taught him. He sprinkled his sermons with Bible quotations

proving that it was no sin to hate unbelievers—or to act on that hatred. After all, those people had placed themselves

beyond the pale of God’s forgiveness. They had not and would not repent. They should be purged from the body of

mankind. “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!” he stormed, and his legions of followers went out looking for

offending eyes, their own blind to mirrors.

Most of his prosperity he owed to his own cleverness, but there were times when he needed that little helping hand—just as he had

thought he might. Like the time when his network of informers let him know that Newsweek had found his ex-wife, and

she was going to spill some embarrassing things about him. Or that one of his many ex-mistresses was going to write a

tell-all biography. Or that the IRS was planning an audit.

All he had to do was whisper Lightman’s name, and his request, and by midnight, it was taken care of.

By twelve-oh-one, he was truly, sincerely, repenting that he had ordered his wife’s murder—or whatever other little

thing he had requested. Truly, sincerely, and deeply, confessing himself to God and showing that repentance in

concrete sacrifices of tears and cash. From the beginning, he had told himself that he was acting on God’s behalf,

spitting in the face of Satan by tricking the Great Trickster. He told himself every time he prayed that he was working

for God.

It was a foolproof scheme, and the seven years flew by. During the last year, he was cautious, but resigned. He

knew that Lightman would arrange for his death, so there was no point in trying to avoid it. And, indeed, on the very

instant of the seventh-year anniversary of the contract, he had a heart attack. As he prayed -before his

video-congregation. Just like Brother Lee. * * *

Lester stood beside the body in the expensive hospital bed and stared down at it. The monitors were mostly

flatlined; the only ones showing any activity were those reporting functions that had been taken over by machines.

Strange, he thought. The man in the bed looked so healthy.

“Ah, Lester, you’re right on time,” Lightman said genially, stepping around from behind a curtain.

Lester shrugged. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?” he asked, just as genially. He could afford to be genial; after all,

he wasn’t going to be leaving with Lightman.

“What, no screaming, no crying, no begging?” Lightman seemed genuinely surprised. “Normally your kind are the

worst—”

Lester only chuckled. “Why should I be worried?” he replied. “You only think you have me. But I -repented of

every single one of those crimes I asked you to commit. Every death, every blackmail scheme, every disgrace—I even

repented the small things, repented every time I accepted someone’s Social Security check—every time I arranged a

special-effects miracle or convinced someone to leave me everything in their will—”

But he stopped as Lightman began laughing. “Oh yes, you did,” Lightman told him merrily. “And my Opponent has

forgiven you for those sins. But you didn’t read the fine print.” He handed Lester the copy of his contract, and pointed

to the last page. “Read the commentary, dear boy. Carefully, this time.”

The words leapt off the page at him.

Sins repented will be forgiven

by the Opposition, but forgiveness

does not imply repayment. All

sins committed by the party of the

first part must be repaid to the

party of the second part

regardless of whether or not

forgiveness has been obtained.

“These are the sins you’ll be repaying, my boy,” Lightman said pleasantly, waving his hand. A stack of computer

forms as tall as Lester appeared beside him. “But that is not why I am truly pleased to have you among us—”

Another stack of computer forms appeared, impossibly high, reaching up as far as Lester could see, millions of

them.

“This stack—” Lightman placed his hand on the first pile “—represents all the sins you committed directly. But this

pile represents all those you encouraged others to commit, with your doctrine of salvation through donation and

hate-thy-neighbor. And those, dear boy, you did not repent of. You are a credit to our side! And we will be so happy

to have you with us!”

The floor opened up, and Lightman stood in midair. “Learn to enjoy it, dear Lester,” he chuckled, as the demons

drew the false prophet down among them. “You’ll reach your depth soon enough.”

Lightman smiled as the mountain of sin forms buried Lester Parker. “So I believe.”

Larry and I are members of the North American Falconry Association and federally licensed raptor (bird of prey) rehabilitators.

We have to be pragmatic and scientific—when you take care of predatory birds, they eat meat, and when you teach

them to hunt so that they can be released, they have to learn how to make kills on their own. There is no shortcut for that

process, and no way to “fake” making a kill. Needless to

say, we Do Not Do Politically Correct, although we have not (yet)

suffered harassment at the hands of people with Way Too Much Spare Time On Their Hands that some other rehabbers and

fellow falconers have. Nevertheless, we’ve gotten very tired of seeing people who have never lived next to a field of cattle claim that

cows are gentle, harmless, and intelligent—or try to raise their dogs on a vegetarian diet. So when Mike Resnick asked us for a

story for Dinosaur Fantastic, we knew immediately what we were going to write for him.

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摘要：

FiddlerFairbyMercedesLackeyThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©1998byMercedesLackey“FiddlerFair,”inMagicinIthkar3(Tor1989)“Balance”and“Dragon’sTeeth,”inBardicVoicesOne(HypatiaPress1988)(H...

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