Founders

Chief Editor — Jeremy Whitted

Managing Editor — Jeff Wheeler
Contributing Editor — Brendon Taylor Table of Contents
Senior Staff
Note From the Editor 3
Tech Geek/Kenatos Lead — Steven Richards Lamp Post Awards Voting 4
Book Reviews Manager — Matthew Scott Winslow Writing Challenge 5
Copyediting Manager — JW Wrenn Fantasy Short: Thief of Children 9
Submissions Manager — Keri Stevenson Article: Books in the Digital Era 10
SciFi Short: The Bigelow 12
Staff
Featured Artist: Camille Kuo 13
Art Coordinator—Nikki Goethals Article: Of Elbows and Bathwater 15
Book Reviewer — Rochelle Buck Fantasy Short: The Bearer 16
Book Reviewer — Sean T. M. Stiennon Amberlin Books Publications 17
Book Reviewer — Ida Clinkscales
Deep Magic Looks at Books 18
Copyeditor — Mark Reeder
Copyeditor — Amy R. Butler
Copyeditor — Joel Brown
Copyeditor—Tamar Zeffren
Copyeditor—Robyn A. Hay
PocketDM Layout/Kenatos Lead — Mike Loos

Submissions Review — All Staff

Graphic Design — Jeremy Whitted
Art Director — Jeff Wheeler
Associate Art Director — Reuben Fox
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Cover: “Bioenery” by Camille Kuo

Deep Magic strives to produce and publish mor- If you are familiar with the internet at all, you know
ally responsible art and literature. Although great
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effort has been made to refer our readers to like-
minded websites, Deep Magic is not capable of to access a link from this e-zine and it no longer works,
controlling the content in other sites linked to or don’t give up. Go to http://www.deep-magic.net where you
referenced herein. Thus, Deep Magic encourages will find archives of previous issues. As we catch dead and
its readers to use their own discretion when visit- broken links, we will make a note on the corrections page
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Magic: The E-Zine of High Fantasy and Science
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All Content copyright © 2006 track down an updated URL for the information you seek.
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Note From the Editor 3

April 2006

I t’s official. The weather is getting warmer and I’m much happier. Nothing like the warm sun
and the kids being able to play outside to pick up your mood. The long winter is over, and it’s
now time to get active again. That includes here at Deep Magic.
The Lamp Post Awards voting is still going on. The first round is over, and now it’s time to
vote for the winners. Congratulations to all those who were voted into the finals. It’s going to be a
tough decision for all of us to choose. Be sure to cast your vote. The winners will be announced in
the May issue.
I thought I’d make another plug for more sign-ups for our mailing list. We’d love to get
those numbers up. It’s free, and you’ll never receive spam as a result. It does, however, let you
know when we’ve released our next issue of Deep Magic or, on occasion, when we have special,
earth-shattering news to share. Go to our website and click the ‘mailing list’ link.
We’ve got some great stories this month. Staff member Mark Reeder offers us The
Bigelow, a scifi story that all should enjoy. Former staff member Scott Clements is also featured
this month with his fantasy story, Thief of Children. Rounding out the stories is Erin Hoffman’s
The Bearer. You’ll like all three stories. Our cover artist, Camille Kuo, is one to enjoy. Check
out her artwork here and on her website. Not to be forgotten are our articles this month. Lynda
Williams discusses the state of books in the digital era, and newly-published author David Keck
offers some insight into the craft of writing.
That should do it for this month. Thank you for reading Deep Magic. Stop by the forums
and let us know what you think.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Whitted
Chief Editor
Deep Magic

Safe Places for Minds to Wander

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
The Lamp Post Awards 4

The Lamp Post Awards

T he first round of voting for the 2006 Lamp Post Awards is over, and now it’s time for the final
vote. You should have already read most of these, so now it’s time for one more vote. The fi-
nalists for each category are listed on this page. Go here to vote. The voting page will have links
to the issues each story/artwork appears in. Drop by the forums if you have any questions. Vot-
ing for this round will end on April 20th.

VOTE HERE

Fantasy Short Story

A Sorcerous Mist by Simon Kewin Cover Art
Carrying Souls by M. Thomas
Collection by Steven Richards July 2004
Imoen’s Arrow by Robert Shell September 2004
Infestation by Ian Creasey December 2004
Jodhin by Q.S. Archer
The Ravenmaster by Jeff Wheeler

SciFi Short Story

Contagion by Keith Robinson
Hunting with Flinteye by Sean T.M. Stiennon
Unless a Seed Dies by David Eland

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Writing Challenge
April 2006 Challenge 5

Writing Challenge

E ach month, Deep Magic offers an opportunity and a challenge for our readers who are also
writers. These challenges are designed to help you develop your writing talents. All are
welcome to participate. We select a small number of submissions each month for publication (we
don’t offer compensation for challenges).
To submit a challenge, go to our submissions system. You will need to create an author
profile and account. Please note the deadline date.

April 2006 Selections from the

February 2005 Challenge
Writing Challenge
Entries due May 10, 2006

W e all experience a gamut of The Tower of Turmoil

emotions as we go through our
lives. Over the period of a week or so,
write down ten things that made you The above story was selected from the Feb-
angry or pleased you, but do not try ruary challenge, which was to create a short
to explain why. Be specific because story using another author’s voice.
that makes it more realistic. Close
observation of your immediate world
is a good source of fiction and helps to Don’t forget the March
develop a sense of detail. With your challenge due April 10:
list of ten events, choose one or more
of them and incorporate them into a Do you have any recurring dreams or nightmares?
scene or story. Remember, the more They are often a strong source of feelings and creativ-
precise the detail, the more realistic is ity. Use a dream or nightmare you have had as the
inspiration for a story. Try and re-create the vividness
becomes. Try it out and keep it to 500
that made it memorable to you. But it should be set
words. in a fantasy or science fiction world. Keep it to 1000
words or less.

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Writing Challenge
Selections 6

The Tower of Turmoil

By Matthew Dunn

A foul wind blew off the waters of the Astry Ocean. Across the Isles of Trumbull it sped, caus-
ing rapturous adulation from the pagans worshipping their dragon-gods; past the shore com-
munities of the fisherfolk it meandered, bringing idle gossip of the migrations of the mer-salmon
schools. Deep into the plains of Allordia, ignoring the Horsepeople of Allords, through the fester-
ing marshlands of Norjersie, and straight into the towering ruby city of Dulchess. The stench of
the Norjer swamps dripped from the breeze as though by sheer stubbornness, stubbornness like
that of the Lady Marguerite. Marguerite stood and hastily crossed the cold stone room of the
tower to close the window’s shutters, grimacing at the odor.
She absently smoothed out her skirt, nervously awaiting word of that dolt of a man, Tip.
Despite his rugged countenance, the man with the golden curls sometimes positively made her
skin crawl. She thought to herself, Oh, I wish my friend Amorallia were here; she is so much
wiser in the ways of properly handling men. Those oafs just need to be shown the right direction
by a proper woman, and then they’re usually tolerable!

The roan Tip was riding sniffed warily at the foul-smelling breeze. He had been difficult to
control ever since entering the towering ruby city of Dulchess, perhaps picking up on the subtle
mood change of his rider upon reaching the final phase of this journey. Tip tried not to think
about Marguerite, or her long auburn braid that draped so cordlike from her shoulder. If only
Wallen were here. Wallen was so much better around women, he would know how to handle a
volatile lady like Marguerite. Wallen was much more worldly, and a whole three days older than
Tip as well. Surely he would not have the same problems finding words and remembering his
point in conversations the way that Tip did.
Rather than brood on the problem awaiting him within the Tower, Tip chose instead
to enjoy the splendor of the city during its annual harvest festival. Wagons and carts galore
cluttered the market streets, and the throngs of people about made a short, simple ride to
the tower into a maze of twists and ‘pardon me’s.’ Banners of crimson, auburn, and tan hung
between the many shops and boardinghouses, while many-colored wreaths decorated every door.
Ahead, atop the immensely tall, dragon-scorched, ruby-colored tower that gave the towering ruby
city of Dulchess its name, uncounted banners representing every known province of the lands
fluttered and snapped in the wind.
A path finally opened between Tip and the Tower entrance, and silently cursing under his
breath, he rode ahead to his fate.

Wallen couldn’t believe his misfortune. After following that cursed Tip’s orders for the
last three weeks, his supposed best friend had left him magically hidden in a brothel while he
went off scurrying into the towering ruby city of Dulchess at the slightest whim of his Lady
Marguerite. Now, here was poor Wallen, abandoned in a house with fifteen nubile young ladies,
all making the most decidedly inappropriate suggestions to him! And to think, they were even
offering their services free of charge, nay, begging him to take them up on their offers! Well,
Wallen was no freeloader. He was far too proper a young man to enlist the services of these girls,

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Writing Challenge
Selections 7

and even if he weren’t, he would certainly pay them their hard-earned wages!
Instead, Wallen disguised himself in a cloak of the magikal brotherhood, and bought
passage in the back of a passing merchant’s turnip wagon. Although the Smoochiites were out in
droves in the city, denouncing any members of the brotherhood they found, it was Wallen’s only
possible disguise. Finally, after what seemed like ages of bumps and jolts among the turnips, the
merchant called back to him, “Well, young fella, we’re here. I don’t know who it was you were
running from, but I hope they don’t find you here, in the Towering City.”
Wallen thanked the man and decided to walk the remaining league into the towering ruby
city, hoping to enjoy the splendor of the city during its annual harvest festival. Wagons and
carts galore cluttered the market streets, and the throngs of people about made a short, simple
walk through the city into a maze of twists and ‘watch yerself’s.’ Banners of auburn, crimson,
and tan hung between the many shops and boardinghouses, while many-colored wreaths
decorated every door. Ahead, atop the immensely tall, dragon-scorched, ruby-colored tower that
gave the towering ruby city of Dulchess its name, uncounted banners representing every known
province of the lands fluttered and snapped in the wind.
Wallen vowed to find Tip before his golden-haired friend could make a fool of himself, and
entered the Tower.

The Lady Marguerite was feeling overly warm and decided to open the shutters, despite
the stench of the wind. Far below, among the commoners whom she loved, yet never spoke
to, she could see the wonders of her city during its autumn harvest festival. Wagons and carts
galore cluttered the market streets, and the throngs of people about made the maze-like pattern
of streets below appear pulsing with life. Banners of tan, auburn, and crimson hung between the
many boardinghouses and shops, while multicolored wreaths decorated every door. Above her,
atop the immensely tall, dragon-scorched, ruby-colored tower that gave the towering ruby city of
Dulchess its name, uncounted banners representing every known province of the lands fluttered
and snapped in the wind.
Yet, wistful longing was not the impression she wished to convey to that lout, Tip, when he
arrived, so she instead sat upon her divan, by the fire, looking every bit as majestic as she could.
Her maids had told her he had but recently ridden into the stables, and they seemed all a-bubble
at his good looks and rugged handsomeness. That brutish man was probably counting the ways
he could squirrel them off somewhere and hold hands with them in the dark recesses of her ruby
Tower. It was enough to make her yank her braid! “Ugh! Men!” she shouted to the empty room.

Tip finally reached the doors to Lady Marguerite’s suite high up in the ruby Tower, but
stopped to marshal his thoughts before entering her chambers. “If only Wallen were here,
he would know what to do!” he thought, not for the first time that day. As he reached for the
polished brass knobs, a voice called out from behind him, “Don’t go in those doors, Tip!”
Wallen came panting up the stairs, reaching frantically for Tip’s arm.
“Wallen, don’t try to stop me, I must go to her!” Tip said to his childhood friend.
Wallen could only sigh at his friend, but inwardly cursed the woman who so changed Tip.
The Tip he grew up with would never have stood for the senseless demands she made of him. He
knew there was only one way to save Tip from himself.

Marguerite lay sobbing on the hearth in front of the fire. Tip had just left, after having
the gall to show up with his friend! Wasn’t that just like a man to bring his cronies along when

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Writing Challenge
Selections 8

she was ready to bare her soul to him! Men were such fools! She gave her braid such a fierce
yank that she erupted into a fresh bout of tears. Here she was, ready to profess her unwavering
love for Tip, and he lacked the brains to even come alone. Well, if he thought she would debase
herself so in front of his friend—for their amusement!—he obviously knew nothing about women!

“I just don’t understand it, Wallen,” Tip was saying over the warm ale that a particularly
saucy and flirtatious copper-haired wench had brought them. “She sent a messenger all the way
to the Flogging Isles, just to bring me with haste, and all she wanted to do was scold us on the
condition of our traveling tunics? I’ll never understand women.”
Wallen thought about his friend’s dilemma. He also noticed, in the filthy mirror about the
bar, the copper-haired wench sitting upon a soldier’s lap, laughing uproariously. “No, there’s no
understanding them, Tip,” he concurred.

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Fantasy Short
Thief of Children by Scott Clements 9

Thief of Children
By Scott Clements

Away, come away:

empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.

The Hosting of the Sidhe

William B. Yeats

“F inally,” Niall said with a smile. Beneath the waver-

ing glow of his lantern, he stared down at his baby
girl, born just three short weeks ago and so very new to
On pronunciation:
the world. Her eyes closed, her mouth twitched with half-
smiles. “What do you think she dreams of?” Casidhe = CAW—shee
Beside him, Casidhe reached across the small wooden Niall = NEE—ul
cradle that had taken Niall weeks to carve and finish, and Orlaith = OR—la
pulled the blanket up a little higher. “Your face and voice,”
she whispered. “The soft touch of my hand on her face. Of
bright things and love, the only things she has known in the
world. Now, hush. Would you wake her again?”
“Not for all the gold in the world.” Over the softness of his voice, thunder stirred the gray-
dark night. “But she will sleep for a time, I think. The storms have not yet finished with us, and
she likes the sound and smell of the rain.”
“Like her father.”
Casidhe bent over and kissed the sleeping child. “She is beautiful, Niall.”
“She is the most beautiful, most precious girl in all the world.”
Casidhe smiled. “Have you replaced me already?”
Niall laughed and pulled her to him. “No, not yet at least,” he said. Beyond the window
thunder, much closer this time, rumbled in the night sky. “Perhaps when you are old and
wrinkled,” he sighed, “or when your constant nagging has finally grown unbearable.”
“Ah, so soon then?”
Niall smiled. She had always been quicker, cleverer than he. “I can only pray that
this wonderful, perfect child grows into the woman her mother is. I could think of no greater
continued on page 21
Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Article
Books in the Digital Era by Lynda Williams 10

Poor Man’s Game or Eternal Art?

Books in the Digital Era
By Lynda Williams

I love books. I have also spent much of my adult life, to date, contributing to the cultural revolu-
tion of the digital era, from my FreeNet work to introducing web-based courses at my univer-
sity. I also watch movies and play video games. Since I have always done all these things simul-
taneously, I never understood the Big Scare about books becoming obsolete. It felt like someone
insisting fried eggs would vanish from menus, the world over, because ice cream was getting too
popular. It baffled me.
As I approach my fifties, I finally think I get it. A little bit. But I still think the fear is
wrong-headed. How books get produced and sold is changing. Yes, indeed. There are more small
presses (as well as big scams), and mass market sales have narrowed down to concentrate
fiercely on best-sellers to the detriment of diversity. But this may be a good thing for the art
form, even if it reduces the income of writers already established with big publishing companies.
True, the entertainment market is dominated by movies, with games contesting with them
for the royal scepter of maximum profitability. But popular forms of entertainment were always
more…well…popular than those that demand more of their audience. So what? Not everything
is about being the number-one-most-profitable media. For one thing, books are still the source of
most of the best stories that make it into other media in the end. For another, they have things
to offer that counterpoint the digital era. Things like permanence vs. transience and complexity
vs. the 30-second window for delivering a message. Few people have the luxury of settling down
with a good book, maybe, but it is still in that fertile, experiential space, that profound things
germinate.
Books will be loved in new ways in the digital era. They can’t be aloof and foreboding, as
they have sometimes been portrayed. They need to get down off the shelf and out into the world,
flowing through book clubs and read aloud at gatherings; reviewed and argued about by more
than just professional critics; illustrated and podcast; collected and traded; rising to prominence
through bottom-up processes in reading communities and blessed with awards by the literary
elite who have a complementary and equally valid role to play; circulated in a variety of forms
and imprints; scribbled on in the margins by their readers, but for all the world to see; reacted to
in public and treated like friends (or enemies).
In a world where it is harder and harder to find the right setting for a good, long think
about anything, books are one of the few surviving forms of magic able to encompass deep
reflection, casting spells that penetrate deeper than the amazing rush of visual spectacle and
vicarious thrill of a blockbuster movie. They are different and appeal to different people. But to
proclaim them extinct is as silly as declaring classical music defunct because hip-hop racks up
better sales.
In short, I see no quarrel between movies and books. Nor books and games. Except in
the ludicrous claims of games, in particular, to be able to out-do literature in the symphony of
shaped, emotional experience that an artist builds into a narrative to make it literature. My
reaction to such claims is dumbfounded bewilderment, followed by compassion for anyone whose

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Article
Books in the Digital Era by Lynda Williams 11

grasp of literature is so shallow that they perceive no more than If/Then branches or a set of
programming schemas in a work of art, deaf to the orchestration behind the scenes. Rather as if
they viewed the point, in Hamlet, as being how to win the duel at the end, or extract information
from a ghost.
I would not be sorry to see games replace books that do no more than capture action
movies in print. I’d probably play such a game, once. I enjoy playing games. I enjoy role-playing,
as well, but that is only the training ground for literature (whether realized in movies or in
books). The power of literature is in the orchestration of its layered parts.
Handing every reader a baton won’t get you a symphony, although you may inspire one,
eventually, by giving a new musician the experience of being in control. But in the end, we still
need scores created by great artists, and great improvisers too, as in jazz. Creating games that
empower non-musicians to mess around with the raw materials, and adding some thematic or
emotional elements to those raw materials, is an exciting goal. But it is not the end of narrative
as a self-consciously manipulated art form.
If literature ever does lose its place in the world to admittedly captivating problem-solving
exercises without any emotional, moral or artistic validity, in which, for example, the death of
a character has no meaning beyond being a bit of bad luck, then it will be time for me to start
pushing up grass somewhere, because the world will no longer make sense. There will be nothing
worthwhile to hang onto and believe in anymore.
With any luck, I’ll be buried with some good books.

Links of Interest

• A Clash between Game and Narrative by Jesper Juul, IT University of Copenhagen.

• Is it a Book? A site with essays and discussion centred around the nonlinearity of discourse in
pre-print, print and post-print eras.

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
SciFi Short
The Bigelow by Mark Reeder 12

The Bigelow
By Mark Reeder

L ungs wheezing, heart churning, the fat man limped out of the night-dark alley and slammed
into a light-carved street. Eyes blinking against the glare of neon, stuttering messages across
gaudy storefronts, he stumbled back into the alley’s mouth and stopped, bent over and heaving
for air. He swiped sweat from his face, felt it trickle down his arms and spine, cling to the curly,
gray hairs of his chest. Swarms of people oozed down the sidewalk, a wide conga line of gawkers
and shoppers, spilling occasionally into the street. He took a step toward them, hesitated, half
turned around. The alley’s darkness swallowed the hissing lights. He strained, saw nothing but
shadow. He let out a halfhearted sigh of relief.
He’d lost his pursuer. Maybe.
He breathed in, more steadily now, but no less scared. The air smelled of stale beer
and bile. He looked down. A yellowish-green stain spread across his pants. He grimaced,
remembering the fear-choking vomit and running. Then
nothing until he reached this place. He was in an ante-
corridor neighborhood, rundown but still mostly clean Over her shoulder she
with only some spillover from the highrise res. The
building next to him was an ancient brewery. He looked
called out, “Hey! Come
up. Two second story windows stared back at him, dark watch this.” A teenager
and empty, the glass uncommonly intact. He could hear with a mandala etched
faint, tinny sounds of Pod music coming from a third floor on the right side of his
window that also let out a flickering light from candles. chest shoved his head
A soft whispering overhead. He ducked behind
a garbage can, heard the noise pass and looked up. A
out beside hers. “There’s
flitter taxi glided over the buildings, its white crysteel a Bigelow down there.”
wings reflecting light pollution from the Cincy-Pitts
Corridor. He clenched his fists and, for a moment, willed
it to land. Then it was gone, behind the rooftop.
He slammed his hand against the brewery. Crumbling brick left a dark red smear on his
palm. “Damn!” he shouted, and his voice echoed in the night. Wincing, he flattened against the
wall, eyes scanning the alley.
When he calmed down again, he slid along the building’s street-side face. Dust streaked
his shoulders red. He squeezed through an iron gate and went up to the front door. Surprise
flashed across his face. It was palm locked.
“Hey!” he called out. “Somebody let me in!”
An emaciated, middle-aged woman with roses tattooed across her naked breasts leaned
out of an upper floor window. “Shut up!” she shouted. Over her shoulder she called out, “Hey!
Come watch this.” A teenager with a mandala etched on the right side of his chest shoved his
head out beside hers. “There’s a Bigelow down there.”
The young man scratched at the ever present lice in the hair on his belly and shrugged. “I
bet the old fart runs,” he said and turned away.
“I’ll bet you a day’s water ration he’s too scared to run.”

continued on page 49
Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Featured Artist
Camille Kuo 13

Featured Artist
Camille Ching-Yun Kuo

Age: 22
Residence: Taiwan, ROC.
Marital Status: Single
Children: None
Hobbies: Playing video games, singing, sleeping in the morning &
waking up in the afternoon.
Personal Quote: “Looks right, it’s right, then it’s right. Looks wrong
but it’s right, then it’s wrong. Looks right but it’s wrong, then it’s
right.”
Favorite Book or Author: Hmm…I don’t like reading.
Professional and Educational Information: A student in 4 year
University.
Started Painting In: 11th grade.
Artist Most Inspired By: Too many to list.
Media You Work In: For traditional: oil and pastel. For digital: Photoshop and a little Painter.
Educational/Training Background: For art, not until Junior year in the university.
Schools Attended: Christian High School, Community College, and then
University.
Other Training: For art, none.
Where Your Work Has Been Published or
Displayed: 3D User Magazine (Taiwan), Exotique
(Australia), Borderline Magazine (French),
InterNOVA 2 (Germany), The 3rd Alternative 42
(UK), 2005 Comic & CG Yearbook (China), EXPOS?II
(Australia), and DPI issue55 (Taiwan).
Where Someone Can Buy Your Art or Contact
You Professionally: Anyone can visit my website
to purchase prints of my art, or email me for
commissions or buying copyrights of previous art that
I’ve already done.
Website URL: http://camilkuo.com

Q: How did you come to be an artist?

A: I loved handcrafts when I was young, but I
was not so much into drawing or painting at that
early age. I started to draw manga in junior high
to entertain myself, and then I discovered digital
painting with many great digital artworks during
my high school years. I began training myself and

continued on next page

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Featured Artist
Camille Kuo 14

producing artwork like there was no tomorrow. I was very

into digital painting, and I hardly left the house.

Q: How would you describe your work?

A: It’s fantasy with a little bit of horror definitely, but not
necessary high fantasy like an elf or a dwarf. Basically
anything that escapes present time.

Q: Where do you find your inspiration?

A: From nature and anything I see and feel in life.

Q: What inspired this piece (our cover art)? (Tell us

its story...)
A: It’s not a story but an idea of how the future of
mankind might be—a bionic machine world.

Q: What has been your greatest success in your

artistic career?
A: I haven’t achieved it yet.

Q: What trends are you seeing in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy

genre?
A: It’s clear that the fantasy and sci-fi genres have been
hot in the entertainment industry, such as movies. Computer technology has been developed
as well, lately; therefore, a lot of special effects, action, and figures can be generated on the
computer. Because of this advantage, the sci-fi/fantasy genre can be well performed. Sci-Fi/
Fantasy has always been a popular theme in the gaming industry, and it’ll continue as long as
there are people who want to escape present time.

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Article
Of Elbows and Bathwater by David Keck 15

Of Elbows and Bathwater

By David Keck

I have research pathology. Without a clear understanding of santeria, wooden boat building
and the plumbing under Canterbury, I often feel that I can’t write the next page. Before my
heroic character can cross the street, I must ransack the nearest bookstore.
While any outsider must instantly recognize this for sheer procrastination, I believe that I
make these trips through the bookshelves of the world in search of elbows.
On its own, my imagination turns out ideas of many shapes. But compared to anything
found beyond my door, these shapes are bizarrely smooth and strangely simple. They make
sense from end to end. And they often borrow from the same easy sources.
It is as though my imagination is fishing around in its own bathwater.
In the world around me, there is nothing so simple. No single imagination invented
Christmas, the New York City public school system, or party politics. Every impulse has been
checked, every direction redirected, and a thousand contradictions heaped on the back of every
hallowed custom.
When I dig through the library, I find myself hunting for just these gawky redirections. I
collect them in little notebooks and hoard them like carbuncles. Who could imagine that a few
bouts of TB in back-woods Europe would lead to fangs, garlic, bustiers and fishnet stockings?
But this seems to be the way the world works.
To build a world with the same creaks and rattles as the real one, I need to read. I need to
search for the gangling contradictions and tangle them up like a typing bowerbird.
Even the beautiful have elbows. The sun god must let his son borrow his chariot. Your
father’s pea-green family V-8 has to be named after an antelope. And every year a dead Turkish
bishop must slide down your chimney to insert oranges in the end of your sock.
This is the world we live in—and we know a fraud when we see it.
My advice? Get out of the bathwater and search for those elbows!

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Fantasy Short
The Bearer by Erin Hoffman 16

The Bearer
By Erin Hoffman

T he kettle was rattling on the stove when the thin thread of a child’s scream pierced through
its small thunder. I stood, the scrape of my chair a goose-honk on the rough plank floor-
boards, and went to the counter. With an old knit potholder I lifted the kettle from the iron and
listened.
Silence. Beneath it, the twitter-chat of birds at the stone bath by the window, and then
there it was again: high and distinctive, the cry of a child in pain. I digested the sound like a
birdwatcher, measuring its pitch, matching it against the many samples in my memory. I set
the kettle and potholder on the stone countertop; my tea would have to wait.
Brushing black dust from my hands, I walked through the house, my little pocket of blue
twilight, and took a deep breath as I reached the door. My
timing is always right; I opened it to admit a gaggle of
I have never been
village women that poured inside with a flood of heavy
summer sunlight. I shut the door behind them, returning able to describe how I
the house to its comfortable curtain-filtered darkness. do this, except that it is
The women were laying a whimpering girl upon my couch like a bird flying from
before the hearth. hand to hand, and the
Little Maggie Cooper had been hunting wild honey
bird knows where to go.
again where she shouldn’t’ve. My arms were folded when
I approached, but it was too late to straighten them, and I
instead tried simply to soften my expression as I surveyed
the damage.
Maggie’s normally frizzy red curls were caked with dirt turned to mud with her sweat.
Her face was smudged where it wasn’t painted with tear-streaks, and as I approached her, pain
buzzed at me like the bees that had gotten the best of her. The family—I watched them out of
the corner of my eye, mother and sisters—fidgeted, but I remained still, observing. Her grimy
skin repulsed me; did any child stay clean for more than half a moment? She had been stung
before, attempting to raid the old oak hive, but this was worse. She could die from it. I waited.
The girl began to scream again with renewed vigor and finally one of the women couldn’t
contain herself. “Bearer?” she said, and, when I did not answer, “Bellona?” I was secretly
impressed that she managed to make herself heard over Maggie’s rather impressive shrieks. I
met her worried frown with a nod and knelt by the couch.
It was never easy, but with time it became less impossible. I felt my muscles clench just
before I touched her, but I firmly steered my hands to her shoulders anyway. My eyes shut as I
swam into her mind, opening the gates between us and letting her pain through.
I have never been able to describe how I do this, except that it is like a bird flying from
hand to hand, and the bird knows where to go.
Venom crept into my arms, tingling through my fingers and making my joints ache. The
clenching of my shoulders made it worse, but I couldn’t stop it; never have been able to. I kept
my grip strong and hollowed myself out, making space in my chest for Maggie’s injuries. They
pounded into me, pressing against the parts that were mine, muddying me, blotting out what

continued on page 55
Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
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Book Reviews
Page Turners: Deep Magic Looks at Books 18

Raoden’s betrothal to the princess of Teod, a strong-

willed diplomat named Sarene, does not end with his
Page Turners supposed death. So Sarene arrives as a widow rather
Deep Magic Looks at Books than as a bride. Instead of trying to repudiate the

B
alliance, she seeks to serve her husband’s people. Her
e sure to check out the Book Reviews website,
political acumen serves her well as the proselytizing
which contains all current and past book re-
priests of Jaddeth seek to convert the inhabitants or
views in an easily searchable format. It also allows
kill them all in a holy crusade. Sarene’s experience and
you to leave your own review or feedback for a book.
wit serves her well in Arelon, though she grieves for the
All you have to do is register on our message boards
relationship with Raoden that she was never able to
and you can tell others what you think of the books.
consummate.
We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll see you there!
Elantris is a debut fantasy novel that fulfils its
promises. Sanderson takes the clichés of the genre and
Deep Magic Book Reviews website
completely reinvents them. Elantrians are akin to elves,
but the Shaod makes it possible for anyone to become
one. The Seon are floating orbs of sentient light that
Editor’s Choice: Fantasy bond with masters. They communicate, offer advice, and
Elantris serve incredibly useful purposes, like allowing Sarene to
By Brandon Sanderson
talk to her father though he is far away. The magic of
the Elantrians, called Aon Dor, is very inventive. The
practitioner draws symbols in the air which invokes
the power and causes an effect—from healing a sword
wound to blasting an enemy with fire. The words of the
Aons are rife with inner meanings and a complexity that

E lantris was the city of magic inhabited by a race of

mystical beings. One was not born an Elantrian—
one was re-born as one. The process was called the
is fascinating. The pacing of the story is a little slow in
the first two thirds of the book, and I found the dilemma
of Raoden’s existence in the city of Elantris more
Shaod, a mystical event that struck randomly, affecting compelling than the court intrigues of his wife, Sarene,
beggars and kings, transforming them into silver-haired or the zealous chapters assigned to the Jaddeth priest
beings of tremendous power. But ten years ago, it all come to forewarn Arelon of its imminent destruction.
came to an end. Instead of heralding near-divinity, the There were enough twists and turns that kept me
Shaod induced a condition more akin to leprosy than turning the pages quickly, and the climax of the novel
immortality. The grandeur was lost. with its revelations and intensity made it well worth the
The novel begins ten years after the fall of Elantris wait. Some of the dialogue, at times, came across as too
with Prince Raoden, the crown prince of Arelon, similar to expressions we hear in our world, which jarred
awakening on a dull day to find that the Shaod has me from the story. But the conviction and compassion of
afflicted him. Instead of marrying the princess of Teod, the characters and the compelling tragedy of the Shaod
he is wrapped in graveclothes and shunted into the city provided a feast that I enjoyed to the last page.
of the damned. His heart no longer beats. Every scrap of
pain he suffers becomes a never-ending torment where Possible Objectionable Material: depiction of genocide
he learns that most Elantrians have lost their minds and one scene involving a cult ritual, though not graphic
with the constant suffering. Ever an optimist, Raoden in detail.
pours his heart into his new surroundings, seeking to
learn more about the ancient power of the Elantrians (Reviewed by Jeff Wheeler)
and how it might be reversed—if he does not go mad
with pain first.
continued on next page
Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Book Reviews
Page Turners: Deep Magic Looks at Books 19

Book Review: Fantasy seemed particularly threatening to me–the marines

March Upcountry have such advanced weaponry that they blast through
By David Weber and John Ringo whatever attacks them, animal or sentient, and the
action scenes were further weakened because I thought
the authors downplayed the effectiveness of traditional
weaponry. The Mardukans don’t seem to have invented
bows, although their technology level is basically
medieval, and an ambush with long bows made for three-

P
meter tall beings would cut the marines down pretty
rince Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock is the
quickly, plasma or no plasma. In general, the battle
third child of the Empress of Man, and most people
scenes seemed more interested in military jargon and
who know him consider him a spoiled brat. His marine
talking up the prowess of the marines than in portraying
bodyguards, the Bronze Battalion of Her Majesty’s Own,
the action in a dramatic and interesting fashion.
think he’s a joke, with his flowing blond hair and childish
The cast of characters seemed fairly standard—
moods, and most soldiers transfer to other posts within
there’s the smart one, the gruff commander, the company
eighteen months. Roger himself wishes he could get more
prankster, the crusty mechanic with a comical accent.
respect, but...it never seems to happen.
They weren’t even consistent—at one point, the company
When his mother sends him off to a minor diplomatic
captain curses, and we’re told that it’s the first time
function on an obscure planet famous for the stench of its
he’s ever sworn. Later, he’s dropping cusses right along
fishing industry, he knows she’s just trying to get him out
with his men at the slightest provocation. Prince Roger
of her hair, and it doesn’t do anything to improve his mood.
himself was more interesting, but I thought he wasn’t
However, Roger’s ship is crippled by a saboteur en route
quite spoiled enough—many of his actions which send
and then attacked by the Saints, the Empire’s greatest
the marines into fits of rage seemed fairly excusable to
enemies. Roger, his dapper servant Kostas Matsugae,
me, if not quite ideal.
his exasperated chief-of-staff Eleanora O’Casey, and
March Upcountry is the first book in a trilogy, but
the Bronze Battalion are forced to flee their destroyed
I probably won’t be seeking out the other books in the
ship and make an emergency landing on the world of
foreseeable future.
Marduk, a primitive planet covered in oppressively hot
jungle. Their mission: March halfway around the planet
Possible Objectionable Content: Extensive swearing,
on foot to capture the world’s only spaceport, held by the
including numerous comically accented f-words. There’s
Saints, where they hope to commandeer a ship which will
also a good deal of bloody combat violence, including a
get them home.
disturbing death by poison.
But many obstacles lie in their path, including native
predators, the heat and moisture of the jungle (which
(Reviewed by Sean T.M. Stiennon)
threatens to disable all the advanced weapons they need
to take the spaceport), and the Mardukans themselves,
a species of three-meter tall, four armed warriors. Their
mission is further jeopardized by Roger himself, whose
Book Review: Fantasy
judgment on when to shoot is often poor.
The Fragment
March Upcountry wasn’t really bad, but there just By Lance Bond
wasn’t too much in it that I thought was particularly
good. The writing is fairly bland, with some contorted
and clichéd analogies like “they were packed in like
old fashioned sardines in a can”. The book seemed too
long–five hundred pages–for the amount of interesting
material it contained.
One problem is that none of the dangers they faced

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Book Reviews
Page Turners: Deep Magic Looks at Books 20

I have before me the latest in a steady stream of self-

published and small-house books that seem to make
a steady stream to my door. It bears the marks of such
to find the Fragment and Artace to bring peace to Edino
where the evil Morgathians are killing any that get in
their way.
a book: simplistic cover art and layout, bombastic claims The story builds to a climactic confrontation between
about the contents of the book (‘the most detailed fantasy Artace, Bonlia, and Zard, but don’t expect resolution.
world ever created’), and more typos than one would find This book is but the first part of a multi-volume epic.
in a book from a large publisher. But don’t let that dissuade you from picking it up. Ignore
With the number of books I read each year as its packaging: this is an excellent read and an enjoyable
consideration for this column, it becomes quite easy story. Once I got over my prejudices about its appearance,
to judge a book by its cover, especially since those I found I couldn’t put it down. Now I’m waiting for the
judgments usually turn out to be accurate when I read next volume to find out how the heroes who survived this
the actual book. volume will continue in their quest for peace in Hârn.
But I’m glad—no, pleased—to say that *The
Fragment* is a wonderful book that one cannot judge Possible objectionable material: There are a couple
by its appearance. The story is the first in a series set attempted rapes, but neither is accomplished.
on the fictional world of Hârn, a world created originally
for a role-playing game. The story opens with a prologue (Review by Matthew Scott Winslow)
that sets the tone for the book. The sorcerer Emperor
Saurach uses an artifact from another reality, known
as the Fragment, to transport a soul from one body to
another. Just as he is about to consolidate his power
with the Fragment, he is wounded by his enemies. His
body appears to die, and so he is taken to a secret burial
chamber, there to wait nearly seventy years for a warrior
to come along whose body he can possess with the help of
the Fragment.
Nearly seventy years later, the Corani Empire of
western Hârn is on the brink of total anarchy, with
various factions vying for power. One of the warlords is
the religious leader, the Morgathian Gurim Zard, who is
seeking to consolidate his power by finding the Fragment
and using it for his own evil ends.
In the midst of all this is Artace Kand, the
illegitimately born son of a Coranian noble, who has just
come home to find that his brother Eladas has taken on
the role of Lord of Edino, but has had his mind poisoned
by one of Zard’s minions. As a result, Eladas does not
trust Artace and will instead do whatever his right-hand
man tells him to do.
Also thrust into the turmoil is Bonlia Taladin from
eastern Hârn, who through a series of incidents beyond
her control, finds herself in Coranan, working for the
secret Order of the White Hand, in an attempt to find the
Fragment before Zard does.

Artace and Bonlia cross paths and join forces, Bonlia

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Fantasy Short
Thief of Children by Scott Clements 21

continued from page 9

blessing.”
“Well,” she whispered, snuggling deeper into his embrace, “that’s better.”
Niall held her close for a moment, then took her by the hand. “Come,” he said, “we should
let her sleep. Goodnight, little one. May the Lord God guard your sleep.”
As they turned together toward the doorway, a flash of lightning lit the sky beyond the
deer’s hide that covered the small window in the nursery. When the thunder came, very near
now, it resounded with force enough to rattle the small wooden toys in the chest that rested
against the wall opposite the cradle.
When they reached the thin curtain that separated the rooms, Niall turned. In the light
of his lantern he could see the outline of the cradle. Raising the light, he revealed the small iron
crucifix hung upon the wall above the sleeping child. For a moment, he stared at the cross, lost
in thoughts and memories better left buried.
“Niall?” Casidhe whispered, tugging on Niall’s hand. Niall pulled his gaze from the cross
and thrust his thoughts aside. He turned to her and smiled, then let Casidhe pull him through
the curtain into the room beyond.
Across the nursery, the iron crucifix trembled before the burgeoning fury of the storm.

***

The hearth at the center of the small cabin crackled with warmth as white smoke rose up
the flue and escaped into the stormy night. The smell of roast rabbit, lightly spiced with herbs
from the forest, still lingered in the air; Casidhe’s kill from earlier in the day while Niall sat with
Orlaith. Absently, he recalled those days during their first year together spent practicing with
her in the woods. She had been eager to learn and he had been surprised at how quickly and
easily the skill had come to her. She shot nearly as well he did now. Which was good. It meant
that she could do the hunting once in a while, leaving him to spend more time with his daughter.
Over the familiar sounds of the falling rain and the moaning wind, over the crackle-snap
of flame and the crushing din of thunder, Casidhe hummed quietly. It was an old song, one he
did not remember the name of. But he loved—had always loved—when she made music, and
he would not stop her to find the name. It was not long before the rich scent of burning wood,
the staccato rhythm of the falling rain, and the feel of Casidhe’s graceful fingers idly twisting
the ends of his long hair, wove together to fashion about him a deep serenity. Niall’s eyes grew
heavy and his mind began to drift as images of his daughter’s face came to him unbidden. He
smiled as he realized he had never, in all his days, been so happy.
Niall had just begun to fall asleep when the lightning blazed.
Even through the lids of his eyes the blue-white flash on the other side of the hide-covered
window was brilliant. Startled, Niall opened his eyes and his head shot up. A moment later the
walls of the cabin trembled and a crack that was not thunder struck.
“Niall?” Casidhe asked quietly.
Niall laid a hand upon her shoulder and listened as the cabin groaned. “It’s all right,” he
said at last, letting out a breath he had not been aware he was holding. “I think everything is—”
Shadows danced across the taut deerskin, brought to life by the flickering glow of red-
orange flames beyond the window.
“The lightning,” Casidhe said, eyes wide. She knew as well as he the dangers of a
lightning strike in the woods. Together, they hurried to the door.
“Praise God,” Niall said, breathing a sigh of relief. As neatly as a sword stroke, the

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Fantasy Short
Thief of Children by Scott Clements 22

lightning had severed a large branch from the towering oak that grew at the edge of the clearing
where they had chosen to make their home. The burning branch had fallen into the clearing and
narrowly missed the surrounding trees. Already the heavy rains began to douse the flames. The
aged oak would bear the scar of the assault, but, as so many old things did, it would survive.
“We were lucky,” Casidhe said, reaching for his hand.
Before Niall could reply, his baby screamed and nothing was ever the same again.

***

Driven by the howling wind, rain lanced into the nursery through the open window.
Above the cradle the tattered remains of the thick, heavy hide he had fastened so securely as
proof against the anticipated storm flapped and cracked against the walls of the cabin.
Niall froze and the blood in his veins turned to ash. Unable to look away, he stared at the
window, at the shredded remains of the deerskin flapping in the night.
Not the storm. No wind or driving rain had shredded the thick, heavy hide. Niall
staggered forward, understanding already beginning to master him.
“Orlaith?” Casidhe called from someplace far away. She shoved past him and rushed into
the nursery. “Orlaith!”
He scarcely heard his wife’s cry as his gaze shifted from the open window to a place on the
wall above the cradle. “No,” he rasped, as the fear of all his days met his gaze and ground him
to his knees. “Oh, God, no.” Through eyes blurred with tears, Niall stared in absolute horror at
the empty place on the wall where the Crucifix had been. “Great and merciful God, please...” He
shifted his gaze again, and he watched Casidhe rush to the cradle. Futilely, he reached out a
hand. He wanted to call to her, to stop her before she reached the cradle. Why couldn’t he call to
her? Why wasn’t he outside, chasing after his baby in the storm? What kind of father was he to
stand so idly by?
One who, beyond all possibility of doubt, understood the truth.
Across from him, Casidhe drew near the cradle. The wind through the window carried
with it the faint smell of burned wood and felt colder than it should have, pricking his skin like
a million shards of blown glass. Outside the nursery, the crack of the torn hide as it snapped
against the side of the cabin was as sharp and clear as the lash of a whip.
Casidhe reached the cradle.
Screamed.
The sound curdled blood and soul. He could not breathe. Casidhe crumpled to the floor
and sprawled amid the pooling rain and lay still.
They steal children in the night.
“No. No. No.” Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he staggered across the rain-
soaked floor toward his wife. As he did, he saw the cross on the floor beneath the cradle. The
storm, the rattling walls. Fool! He should have checked, should have secured it better.
Hadn’t. And now...
Now.
Niall reached his wife and draped his body over her prone form to keep the rain from her.
His face close to hers, he stroked her cheek, whispered her name. When she did not answer, he
turned to the cradle.
They steal children in the night.
Gathering to him all his courage, Niall laid the head of his wife gently on the floor and

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Fantasy Short
Thief of Children by Scott Clements 23

looked up at the looming cradle. His breath exploded from his lungs in rapid, heaving bursts.
Hands trembling, eyes sealed tight, he grasped the side of the cradle and gritted his teeth. “No,”
he whispered, willing himself to his feet. “Please, God, no.”
When he stood over the cradle, Niall opened his eyes.
“NO!” he screamed, spinning away from the sight that greeted him and vomiting onto the
wet floor. He gripped his head in his hands, fingers laced and knotted in his dripping hair, and
slipped to the ground beside his wife.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he muttered over the growling thunder, his head rocking back
and forth. Unable to distinguish between tears and rain, he wiped savagely at his eyes and nose
with the back of his hand and drew a ragged breath. When he felt ready, he rose and turned
back to the cradle.
It was mottled green, the thing that lay now in the place where his child had lain, and
covered with a thin sheen of shimmering mucus. Its round face was appalling, a bloated parody
of an infant’s face, eyes, nose and mouth swollen shut. Its small arms and legs were bent at
hideous angles and covered with suppurating wounds. Its chest did not rise and fall, and it made
no sound. Niall suspected that wherever it had come from, the thing had never been alive.
They steal children in the night. Sometimes they leave something behind, something
wicked and cruel.
At his feet, his wife began to stir. Niall, head turned away in revulsion, reached into the
cradle and pulled the blanket over the dead grotesquerie.
“Niall?” his wife whispered, struggling to sit up. “Niall, what happened? I had the worst
nightmare. I dreamed—”
She seemed to notice the rain then, and the wetness of her face and clothes. Casidhe’s
eyes opened and met his own.
“No,” she said simply. She shook her head.
Niall could not hold her gaze. He fell to his knees beside her and tried to hold her.
“No,” she said again, struggling to rise.
Niall tightened his hold on her.
“Let go, Niall,” she said, her struggles growing. “She was just here. You should be out
there now, looking for her. We can still find her.”
“We won’t find her.” A truth he had known from the start. He held her tighter. When he
would not let her go, Casidhe began to flail her arms.
“Let go,” she said again, more urgently. “I have to go outside; I have to find her.”
Niall closed his eyes and waited. The darkness was full of pain.
“Niall,” she said, “let go. I can find her. Let go!”
Niall tucked his head and it began. Casidhe kicked and clawed at him. Her rage
was primal, the atavistic fury of a mother seeking to protect her only child. She screamed
incoherently and ripped at him with her nails.
But Niall would not let go. Could not. Like Orlaith, Casidhe, too, had never been
baptized.
After several exhausting moments, Casidhe’s struggles turned to heart-wrenching sobs.
She clung to him desperately, seeking a comfort he could not offer. Then, as quickly as it began,
it ended. Casidhe’s grip relaxed and she drew a deep, quavering breath. Without a word, he
helped his wife to her feet. They stared at each other.
“I . . . I could not . . .” Niall’s voice broke and he buried his head in Casidhe’s shoulder.
She stroked his hair.

Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006
Fantasy Short
Thief of Children by Scott Clements 24

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

Release came at last in suffocating sobs.
Finished, he held her hand and led her to the hearth. Once she was sitting, he took her
face in his hands, his heart dead, and said, “I need to do something. Wait here. Do you hear me?
Wait here.”
Casidhe nodded.
A man in a nightmare, Niall grabbed his coat and boots, pulled up the hood and went
outside to get his shovel. Shovel in hand, he walked past Casidhe who stared at him through
eyes that might never know joy again. He thrust aside the curtain to the nursery and walked to
the cradle. As he stared down at the covered monster, rank with the smell of disease, fear and
grief gave way at last to rage. He did not hate the thing that lay in the cradle, could not hate it.
There was even a place, deep, deep in his heart that pitied the dead thing. It too had not had a
choice. As he and his wife had not. As his baby had not.
Niall reached into the cradle with the shovel and lifted the dead thing out. Fighting back
a wave of nausea, he carried the abomination out of the nursery.
When Casidhe saw what he carried on the shovel, she did not flinch. With a strength that
humbled him, her jaw set and her back straightened.
Closing his eyes, Niall approached the fire. He drew a breath, then carefully lowered the
thing into the flames.
They watched it burn. As the smoke from the pyre rose, it changed from white to gray
before settling at last upon a sickly green. Niall gagged and turned away from the smell.
Behind him, Casidhe did not move. Staring into the blossoming flames, she appeared
beyond their ability to affect. Niall walked over and sat down beside her. Neither said a word as
the hungry flames went about their grisly work.
Later, after the rain ended and the flames dwindled, after the wind carried away the
stench of burning disease, Casidhe, in a voice as flat as a river-worn stone, asked, “What will you
do?”
Niall’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the glowing red embers.
What would he do?
He would get his daughter back, he vowed to himself, a promise forged in grief and hate.
He said nothing though, to his wife, and they fell asleep.

***

The trip to the small chapel outside of Ui Bairrche, where Orlaith was to have been
baptized next month, was not an easy one. Two days and a night it had taken him, and
Diarmada had borne him quickly—more quickly, truth be told, than was good for the aging mare.
The pass through the Wicklow Mountains was difficult in the best of times, but with the melting
snow and the storm, the threat of slides had been high and the trail all but impassable. Several
times throughout the course of the couple days, for his own safety and the safety of Diarmada,
Niall had been forced to dismount and lead the horse along a particularly treacherous stretch
of trail. Another month and most of the ice and snow would be gone. Until then, the journey
through the mountains held many perils.
Thirsty and cold and exhausted, Niall slid from the saddle with a groan.
“Such a strong girl,” he said, stroking the mare’s quivering neck. Niall quickly rubbed
Diarmada down and tied her to a post. “I won’t be long,” he said gently, and turned to the

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church.
The small stone church rose out of the rocky plateau like a half-buried relic and had done
so for more than a hundred years. Like the ancient stone of the hills that surrounded it, the
chapel was simple and unadorned. Only a small cross, etched above the doorway, gave any hint
of what the spartan structure really was. Niall had always thought it an odd place to raise a
chapel, so secluded and difficult to reach, but he had always felt at peace in this place, safe.
Until tonight. Stepping through the heavy wooden doors of the sanctuary, the smell of
incense greeted him. Across from Niall, Father Eoghan lit a candle on the altar.
“They took her, Father,” Niall rasped, collapsing to his knees.
“Niall?” the priest asked.
Niall nodded. Father Eoghan, who had presided over the church for as long as Niall had
been coming, rushed to his side, fear and confusion clearly writ in the stark lines of the priest’s
weathered face. Carefully, Father Eoghan guided Niall to a seat on a bench at the back of the
church.
“Water,” the priest called. A moment later, a young boy in a red robe, his footfalls echoing
hollowly through the stony expanse, brought a pitcher of water on a tray. “Drink,” Father
Eoghan said, handing Niall a glass of water.
Niall drank the glass down.
“Better,” the priest said, eyes grave with concern. “Now, tell me; what has happened?”
Niall told his story.
The lines that mapped the priest’s aged face deepened as Niall recounted his tale. When
he finished, Father Eoghan sat very still, his eyes focused on something beyond Niall.
“Father?” Niall whispered.
Father Eoghan snapped his head around, startled out of his reverie. His green eyes
softened at once. “Words cannot express my grief, my son. I pray the Lord—”
“I am going to get her back, Father.”
The priest paused for a moment, and then raised his eyes. In silence, Father Eoghan
seemed to plumb the depths of Niall’s conviction, sought an answer to a question that Niall had
never asked. Sought and found that answer.
“Do you know what it is you seek to undo? Truly?”
Niall shook his head. “No, not truly. Nor does it matter. They stole Orlaith, Father, and I
will get her back. Before almighty God, I swear it. Will you help me?”
Eoghan closed his eyes and muttered something that Niall thought might have been a
prayer under his breath. When he finished, he opened his eyes and said, “What would you ask of
me?”
Niall breathed a small sigh of relief. “Thank you, Father.”
“Do not thank me yet. I’m afraid I may be of precious little help. We . . . are urged not to
look too closely at certain things. Do you understand?”
Niall nodded. He knew well the views of the Church on the ‘Old Ways’. Knew too that
Father Eoghan had seen many things in his days on the island. One did not grow up on the
island and not see things.
“I need to know where they have taken her,” Niall said quietly. “Which of the hills is
Hollow?”
Father Eoghan shook his head. “Not that. If I knew, I would tell you, truly I would.”
“Then tell me what you can, and I shall do the rest.”
Eoghan drew a breath. “There is a legend,” the priest began with obvious effort. “When

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the children begin to disappear, the time of the Teind is at hand.”

“Teind? I don’t understand.”
“The legend speaks of a meeting that takes place every seven years between Finvarra,
King of the Otherworld, and . . . Satan. It is believed by some that if Finvarra does not pay
a tribute, a Teind, every seven years to the powers of Hell, Satan shall rise and claim the
Otherworld for his own.”
“What kind of tribute?” he asked at last, over his fear.
Eoghan’s eyes were filled with sorrow. “The tribute was to be paid in mortal souls.”
“No.”
“I am sorry, my son. Were she not so young, had we been able to baptize her... I am so
very sorry.”
“Tell me about this meeting place, Father. How do I reach it?”
Eoghan shook his head. “I do not know. No mortal man can know. But...”
Niall stared at the conflicted priest, urged him on.
“There is an old tale,” he said at length, quietly, “told about a woman with a single white
hand who lives in the valley to the north. Some believe that in the heart of the valley a very
special tree, a birch tree, grows. Legend has it that it grows alone, amid a clearing of dead grass
and stone, and that if you wait beneath that tree and pray to the hag of the valley, she may hear
your plea, and answer. She loves gold, if the tales are to be believed, and it is said she knows...
many things.”
“Gold? I’ve no gold. And how do I find a single tree amidst the whole—”
The priest raised his hands. “At risk of my soul, I only tell you what I have heard. But
hear me—there remains one more piece of the tale. It is believed, by those who are old enough
and wise enough to know, that any man who enters the valley seeking the woman is never seen
again.”
Fear crawled up his throat like a spider as Niall closed his eyes and prayed to God for
strength. He did not know how he would get the gold to pay the woman, or how he would find
the tree. But he had what he had come for. A chance. When he opened his eyes, he stared at
the priest. “Thank you, Father,” he said. Then, “Pray for us.” Niall nodded once, before rising to
take his leave.
As he turned, the priest sighed. “If you still insist on going through with this,” Eoghan
called in the voice of a man resigned to a decision, “perhaps there is one thing more I might do
for you. For Orlaith. Come with me.”
And Niall followed the priest.
Later, when he at last took his leave of the chapel, the machine awkward and heavy across
his back, the small glass tube secured in his pouch and nestled beside the vial of holy water, it
was with a sense of overwhelming awe. And a feeling of hope he thought he might never know
again.

II

The wind through the trees was a shaft of ice. It lanced through the wolf-skin hide of his
coat to settle deeply in his bones. The exposed skin of his face was scoured raw, and his hands

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on Diarmada’s reins ached with cold. Upon entering the woods, Niall had tried over and again
to light his torch, but the Powers of the forest, ancient before the Word was made manifest in the
Son almost nine-hundred-years ago, would not allow fire. No sooner would the flame begin to
rise, and with it his hope for blessed warmth, than it would be extinguished by something that
was more than the wind.
The worn leather harness that fastened the machine to his back had grown hard and
jagged enough cut into the side of his neck and shoulder, and the bronze nozzle clanged dully
against the small canister and echoed through the woods. A light mist, musty, damp and
cloying, rose from the valley floor and sought to obscure the surrounding pine and alder. High
above, the haunting light of the moon was strangled by the twisting branches of the highland
forest, leaving Niall to wend his way through a labyrinth of shadow.
More than the wind and the cold, though, more than the silver moon and its shadows, the
thing that frightened Niall most was the silence that surrounded him. No birds called from the
darkness, no animal stirred. It was as if he and Diarmada, uncharacteristically skittish beneath
him, were alone in the woods.
“Easy, girl,” he whispered, stroking the mare’s chestnut mane. “Nothing out here but
trees.” He was lying of course, knew full well that the primeval shadows hid things mortal men
had feared for centuries.
They steal children in the night.
His father’s words, spoken on a winter’s night many years ago, as Niall lay half asleep in
his bed. He had only ever told the story to one person, and Casidhe had listened quietly as he
awoke from his nightmare and spoke the fear of his heart. Then she had held him and they had
made love and the past had seemed very far away.
Not so far now, as he recalled that night with a clarity that frightened him. His mother
had come to him first that terrible night, summoned by Niall’s screams. He never forgot, would
never forget, the look of fear on his mother’s face as she rushed into his room.
His father, Connall, had stayed by the doorway as his mother came to him, eyes scanning
the darkness of Niall’s room.
“Oh, my dear,” his mother said, stroking his face and hair, “Niall, what is it?”
“Eyes,” he whispered, pushing deeply into the warm haven of her embrace, “eyes in
the night. They...were watching me.” Even amid the shadows of his room, Niall had seen his
father’s shoulders and back stiffen, saw his head turn toward the window. His father had left
then, as his mother hugged him and sang him a song. When Connall returned, he held an iron
crucifix in his hand. A small string dangled from the top of the cross, and with a hammer and a
nail, his father had hung the Crucifix upon the wall above Niall’s bed.
The same crucifix Niall had hung, so very carelessly, above Orlaith’s cradle.
When his father finished, he looked down at Niall and told him that he need never again
fear the eyes in the dark.
“The Lord God is looking down on you now,” Connall O’Callaghan said that night. “And
evil dare not enter His Sight.” Then his mother and father had stayed with him until they
thought he was asleep. As they left his room, he heard his mother whisper, “Connall, what was
it? What did he see?”
“The Fey Folk,” his father whispered in answer, his words cold with fear. “They steal
children in the night. Sometimes they leave something behind, something wicked and cruel.
They think it is a joke, stealing children. But the cross will protect him, and come spring, we will
take him to the chapel in Ui Bairrche where he will be baptized.”

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His mother had started to speak, but his father interrupted. “It matters not what we
believe, Fianna. Things change. That cross, this new God, they have power. They will keep him
safe.”
He cracked his eyes open and saw his parents standing in the doorway staring at him.
They stared for long moments before they turned and left his room.
Niall had never forgotten that night, had kept that cross close to him every day of his life.
And then he had passed it on to his daughter, that it might protect her, as it had protected him.
Niall knew it was not the cross that failed. Knew too, that he would make amends.
He cleared his throat and cried, “I seek the Woman With the White Hand.” As his voice
trailed off into darkness, he reached back with his hand to stroke the bronze canister. “I have a
gift.”
Niall had entered the forest with no real idea how to find the woman, knew that he could
spend weeks, months or more, scouring the valley, blindly searching for a single tree. He did
not have months, and so he had decided upon the most direct method he could think of. He only
hoped it worked.
The wind grew still at his words, and the rising mist eddied. Beneath him, Diarmada
nervously shuffled her feet. Niall’s heart thundered against his breast, and his white breath was
loud amid the depths of the silence.
“Do you hear?” he called again, louder. “I bear a gift for—”
The creature rose from the depths of the mist like an apparition, or a corpse.
“God in Heaven,” Niall whispered, crossing himself.
It was tall, with a man’s legs and arms, a man’s chest. It was not a man. Covered in
thick, matted fur, the massive tines of its antlers branching high overhead, the creature was an
overpowering presence, a testament to the Powers that had ruled this place since the world was
young. Covered in places with clumps of grass and dirt, it stank of wet fur and rotting earth,
and stared at Niall through eyes of liquid jet. The intelligence behind those eyes staggered and
frightened him. Diarmada’s legs stiffened beneath him and she trembled. He had no words to
comfort her, not here, in this place so far from the world he knew.
Before him, with great solemnity, its unblinking gaze never leaving Niall, the beast raised
its arm and pointed toward the forest. Fighting free of the creature’s gaze, Niall turned to follow
that outstretched arm. Where it pointed, the fog eddied and shifted, formed a gossamer tunnel
through mist and shadow.
Niall turned back to the beast in time to see the mists of the forest rise and swallow it as
though it had been nothing more substantial than a dream. Or a nightmare.
For long moments, Niall stared at the ethereal passage. Then, with a snap of the reins, he
urged Diarmada on.
His daughter was waiting.

***

Wet leaves, remnants of an autumn passed, described a path over sodden earth, between
trees and branches that seemed to shift behind their moon-mist shroud. The rich, earthy smells
of the forest, so familiar, so soothing, enveloped him, sought to convince him that this really was
just a forest, that he had not left the world and everything he knew of it far behind.
Niall was not deceived. He had lived his whole life in the woods. First with his father
and mother, learning to work wood and metal, then with Casidhe, who had taught him...so

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many things. He had come to recognize the sounds and smells and movements of the forest
as intimately as he recognized his home. Casidhe had always been cleverer, it was true, but
Niall knew the forest as well as any man. Though he recognized much of what surrounded him,
instincts honed over the course of a lifetime screamed at him, warned him there was something
more, something lurking beyond the welcoming façade. Clutching the reins tightly in one
hand, Niall reached out and stroked Diarmada’s quivering neck. The beast was terrified. Niall
imagined that on almost any other day, he would have been equally frightened.
But they stole his daughter and he would have her back.
Their journey through the spectral mists stretched for an indefinable time. The bitter
cold; the soft plodding of Diarmada’s hooves on the wet ground; the sighing wind through alder
and pine that carried the foul smell of decay; the eyes, red and gleaming, glimpsed sidelong, only
half-seen through the fog. It would be these things that Niall would always remember, these
things that would forever define for him his time in the Otherworld.
These things, and the tree.
It grew alone amid a sea of dead grass and half-buried rock at the center of a large
clearing. Like a desiccated hand, the tree rose from the black earth of the forest to scratch and
claw at the night sky. The fog flowed calmly around it, like a stream around a stone. Wispy
tendrils stretched languorously toward the tree’s gnarled white bark, but refused to touch its
spindly, leafless branches. From the edge of the clearing, eyes narrowed, Niall scanned the
surrounding gloom. Beneath him, Diarmada grew rigid with fear. Carefully, Niall slid from the
saddle.
“Damn,” he muttered, as his foot sank halfway to his knee in a puddle of cold, decomposing
muck. Careful not to lose his boot, Niall pried his foot loose and tethered Diarmada to a small
tree, then entered the clearing and approached the tree.
He had never seen a birch so large. Its branches were a spider’s web of complexity. Niall
stopped several paces away from the tree and raised his voice. “I have come to speak to the
Woman With the White Hand. My name is Niall O’Callaghan, and I bring a gift. I pray thee,
Lady, answer the call of your humble servant.” Niall’s words echoed through the woods as he
awaited a reply.
None came.
“I am Niall O’Callaghan,” he called again, louder. “I bear a gift for the Woman With the
White Hand. I beg thee, mistress of the valley, whose name is spoken even in the house of the
new god, hear my plea and answer my call.”
Again Niall’s words echoed through the heavy stillness of the forest without reply.
Had the creature in the mist lied to him? Led him down the wrong path? Niall’s heart
raced. He had been allowed to reach this place, he knew, and was not so foolish as to think
otherwise. Niall was here because the Powers that ruled the forest wanted him here. But what
if the reason they brought him here differed from Niall’s own reasons for being here? What if
they didn’t care about his offer? Niall had assumed they would at least let him speak, that the
woman would at least hear him before she decided whether or not to accept his offer. What
had led him to such an assumption? Pride, perhaps? Hope, more likely. And need. More than
anything, it had been a father’s need that made such thoughts seem rational. It had always
been possible, of course—likely, even, were he completely honest with himself, and given the size
of his task—that he would fail. A thought he had refused to credit, but now, gazing about the
clearing, feeling more alone than he had ever felt in all his life, his assumption, his belief that
such a task could be done, seemed incomprehensible in its stupidity. And for the first time since

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he entered the woods, he wondered if this task was beyond him.

Then the forest spoke and there was no more room for doubt.
“And how shall I answer?” The voice was the sound of wind through dry leaves, brittle
and hard.
Niall spun. Frantically, he searched the gloom. He saw nothing save Diarmada’s wide,
terror-filled gaze. He turned back to the tree and drew a breath.
“Lady,” he said, “I have come to ask a boon. In exchange for your aid, I offer you this
wondrous machine that will allow you to change water into gold.”
Silence. Then, “Gold?” The word was carried on the wind.
Inwardly, Niall breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes,” he said.
“Show me.”
Niall shook his head. “First, you must answer my questions, then I shall make gold for
you.”
Once again, silence fell like moonlight upon the clearing. For a terrifying moment Niall
wondered if she would answer. Then the Woman With the White Hand stepped from behind the
tree.
The first thing he noticed was the gold. Utterly at odds with her filthy gray robe, the
woman was bedecked in gold. Necklaces and chains; rings; bracelets around wrist and bare
ankles. Her gold glistened in the soft moonlight of the clearing, sought to draw the eye away
from the woman who wore it. The hood of the woman’s robe was pulled up and her head was
bowed so Niall could not see her face. The tattered remains of the robe hung loosely on her
hunched, skeletal frame, and the left sleeve, devoid of an arm, fluttered lightly in the cold
wind. Her right hand jutted from the end of her frayed sleeve like a spider. The ringed fingers,
impossibly long with joints like knots in wood, were the same death-white as the bark of the tree
and stroked the huge birch with all the gentleness of a lover. She did not look up as she spoke.
“Ask your questions, mortal man,” she hissed.
Niall clung to the image of the thing that slept in the cradle where his baby should have
slept. Rage strangled his fear.
“I wish to know of the Teind, Lady. When does Finvarra meet with the Devil, and where
shall the Teind be paid?”
The woman’s single hand continued to caress the tree. “Clever man. Knows so many
things, he does. Come closer,” she said, tilting her head to the side like an animal seeking a
scent.
Niall shifted the machine on his back, reached behind and grabbed the nozzle attached by
a long tube to the canister. Then, slowly, he took another step forward.
“Closer,” the woman urged, “let me touch you, let me lay my hand upon your heart that I
might know the truth of your words.”
“I am close enough. If you would have the truth and my machine, tell me of the Teind.”
“The seven-year is up and the tribute has come due. At the next full-moon, Finvarra will
lead his captives from the Hollow Hills to the place where the Devil waits.”
Niall looked to the sky. The moon was bright and waxing. Three nights would see it full.
Three nights until Orlaith would be lost to him forever amid the fires of Hell.
No. Never.
“Where does he wait, hag? Where does the Devil wait?”
“Where he always waits.”
Niall ground his teeth. At his sides, his hands balled into fists as hard as bone.

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“Ah, the man grows angry.” At her words, the branches of the ancient tree began to sway.
“Tell me, angry man, why do you seek that which no man in ten thousand years has ever seen?”
He would not speak Orlaith’s name in this place, would not have this creature know his
daughter’s name.
“Someone was stolen from you, no? A child? Was it a girl? Did the thief leave you a gift in
exchange for the life of your child?” The woman’s laughter fell from the air like shards of glass.
“Where do they meet?” he asked quietly.
“Do you think you are the first to seek the meeting place? So many fathers over the
centuries, filled with pain and wrath.”
His patience at an end, Niall raged, “Where do they meet?”
“Come closer,” she hissed over the echo of his words and the creaking of the branches,
tilting her head again in that peculiar manner she had, “and I shall tell you.”
“Tell me,” Niall answered slowly, staring at the woman and holding his ground, “or I shall
leave and you shall never see my machine again.”
Still she did not raise her head, and Niall at last understood. His heart beating quickly,
he added, “Then you shall be left wearing the tarnished fool’s gold that hangs from your neck and
fingers like so much cheap tinsel.”
His barb was rewarded. Her shift forward was subtle, would likely have gone unnoticed
were he not watching for some sign. A stillness descended upon her then—did he dare name it
doubt?—and her hand, though still in contact with the tree, stopped moving.
“Tarnished?” she whispered, her head rising slightly as though to better hear his answer.
“Certainly,” Niall said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Surely you can
see for yourself that it is not real gold?”
The woman ducked back a step, quickly, muttering to herself, her head shifting rapidly
from side to side.
She could not see it, of course—the woman was blind.
When she finished talking to herself, the Woman With the White Hand stepped forward.
“Your gold,” she said, her voice pleading, “it is real gold?”
“It is the finest gold in all the world. It shall make you sparkle like the most beautiful
star.” Niall took a step forward. As he did, he stumbled on one of the many half-buried stones
scattered throughout the clearing. He cursed inwardly his own clumsiness, and looked down at
the offending stone.
Not a stone.
A skull.
Niall recoiled, the nozzle clanging loudly against the canister on his back. Realization was
a lightning bolt. So many fathers over the centuries, filled with pain and wrath. Niall fought
back a wave of nausea that threatened to undo him. The fathers...
Niall understood at last why the Powers of the forest had brought him here, understood at
last who this woman truly was.
She leaned forward again, waiting.
Niall gathered himself, fought back the sense of loathing that rose like bile in his breast.
“Tell me, Lady,” he asked a final time, reaching desperately for calm, “where do they meet?”
Diarmada shuffled behind him. Niall turned in time to see shadows, darker than the
surrounding gloom, shift at the edges of the forest.
He did not have much time.
“If I tell you,” the woman said, “you will leave your machine?”

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Niall turned back to the woman. “Yes.”

“They meet at Aedh Errigal,” she said. “Now, the machine.”
Niall closed his eyes. Aedh Errigal. Relief that swept through his body, brought him near
to tears. He whispered a prayer of thanks to God, then carefully lifted the machine from his back
and placed it on the ground. Behind him, the darkness stirred.
“What are you doing?” the woman asked.
What, indeed? Earlier, before he entered the forest and left the world he had always
known so very far behind, everything seemed simple. He would enter the forest, find the woman
and learn what he needed to learn. And now, miraculously, he had learned what he needed to
learn, and all that was left was to leave this place. Could this really work?
With a trembling hand, Niall pulled the bronze nozzle free from the clamp that bound it
and the length of tube to the body of the canister. Despite the cold, his hands were slick with
sweat. “I am preparing the machine,” Niall said as calmly as he could, turning the small wheel
at the top of the canister. The machine emitted a dull hiss as the liquids within swirled and
mixed.
Behind him, he sensed the darkness drawing closer. They had come for him of course, to
ensure he never left the clearing, to ensure he, and the secret that was now his, joined those half-
buried fathers beneath the dead grass. For the Woman With the White Hand was the protector
of that secret, and no one else could be suffered to possess it. Niall had been led here, just as the
others had been led here for years that stretched into centuries.
That which no man in ten thousand years has ever seen.
No one, ever, would have left. Looking at the woman, Niall thought of all the lost children
in all the centuries, thought of the fathers, driven by love or rage to this dark place in the hope
of finding an answer to their grief. His hands stopped trembling and the tears began to fall. So
many lost.
He would not be one of them. But he would make answer. For the fathers and mothers
and children, he would make the forest pay.
Niall lifted the nozzle and pointed it at the tree.
The Woman With the White Hand sniffed the air.
“It was a child,” Niall said quietly, planting his feet firmly in the damp earth. “A girl. And
I will take her back.”
Then Niall turned his head and flipped the small switch atop the nozzle and unleashed
Armageddon.

***

“In 678,” Father Eoghan had begun, “the Byzantine Emperor, Constantine IV, faced his
gravest threat.” The aged priest led Niall through a labyrinth of passageways deep beneath the
old church until they reached a particular chamber. The chamber harbored two crates, one large
and one small. In the larger of the crates, a bronze canister had rested.
“Caliph Moawiya led his Saracen forces to Byzantium and laid siege to the capital. For
five years, the Caliph’s fleet blockaded the great city. The Empire might well have fallen that
day, were it not for the able precautions of the Emperor, and the deployment of his greatest
weapon.” Father Eoghan lifted his head and looked at Niall. “They say it burned on water, that
it devoured ships whole, and that once started, it could not be extinguished.”
Niall stared at the bronze canister.

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“They called it Roman Fire, and the secrets of its creation have been lost to time. When
you turn the wheel at the top, the liquids inside the canister are mixed. All that’s left then is to
raise the nozzle, flip the small switch and watch as the flames of Hell destroy whatever is in their
path.”
Niall could think of nothing to say.
“You are wondering how the Church has come into possession of such a hideous device,
no?”
Niall nodded, dumbly.
“After the near defeat by the Saracens, Constantine was afraid that a time would come
when he would be unable to defend the Church he fought so hard to unify. He wanted to ensure
that the Church had the means to defend itself. Constantine was a close friend to Donus, who
was Pope at the time. In a secret meeting, Constantine revealed the secret of Roman Fire to
Donus.”
“And Donus,” Niall said, “was then able to create his own Roman Fire?”
“So that the Church could be defended,” Eoghan finished. “However, one year later,
St. Agatho was named as Donus’s successor. When he became aware that the Church was in
possession of the most hideous weapon the world had ever seen, he forbade its use, decreeing its
creation went against the Laws of Church and God. St. Agatho named the weapon the Devil’s
Breath, and destroyed the secret formula. But secrets have a way of surviving, Niall, even when
we wish them dead.”
“But why is this here? What possible use could it be? Surely this small chapel, secluded
in the mountains, is safe enough.”
“Perhaps,” Father Eoghan had said. “And perhaps there is more to this small chapel than
you first thought.”
Then Father Eoghan reached for the second crate.

***

A tremendous, deafening roar that sucked the air from Niall’s lungs, and Roman Fire
erupted from the nozzle like dragon’s breath. For an instant, the smell of sulfur and quicklime
and something else that Niall could not quite identify burned his eyes and nose. Clutching the
nozzle in a death-grip, he turned his head, eyes and teeth clenched. He knew if he let up for even
a moment, the tube and nozzle would flail wildly, and the Fire would indiscriminately destroy
anything in its path. Both arms quivered with the effort of keeping the shuddering nozzle
pointed as far away from him as possible.
Not even his own straining effort or the roar of the Fire could drown out the woman’s
scream. Her cries, stiletto sharp, spiraled outward from the tree until they filled the clearing,
then the forest, and finally the world. He thought the sound might drive him mad.
Striving to keep madness at bay, Niall bent all his will to the task of clutching the nozzle
and withstanding the searing, staggering heat. Even as he fought to keep control of the rapidly
heating nozzle, Niall felt the hair and skin on the back of his hands begin to burn, felt sweat drip
down his face and chest. Suddenly his wolf-skin cloak became unbearable, and Niall wanted
nothing more than to tear it off. Behind him Diarmada cried out, struggling against her tether.
He added his own screams to the chaos of the night.
Niall’s hands began to blister when eternity passed and the woman’s screams finally
ended. In desperation, he flipped the switch and the stream of Fire cut off. Silence ground him

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to his knees. Panting, Niall let the nozzle slide from his damaged grasp. It hissed as it struck
the damp ground. A moment later, he opened his eyes.
To behold Hell on Earth.
“God above,” Niall whispered.
The tree was a conflagration, a tower of creaking, groaning flame. It lit the clearing and
the surrounding forest like the sun on a cloudless day, and all around him, wind-blown ash fell
to the ground like grizzled snowflakes. And while the smell of charred wood hung heavy in the
air, there was something more, something that lay beneath that familiar scent. Niall recognized
the diseased stench and gagged. He thought back to the thing in the cradle and knew that for as
long as he lived he would never forget it.
A sound from behind pulled him out of the abyss of memory.
Niall turned. “No,” he whispered. “Please, Lord, not like this . . .”
Behind him, an avalanche of shadow surged into the clearing from the edges of the forest.
In the harsh orange light of the burning tree, the shadows stood revealed as monsters, half-men,
creatures from myth and nightmare.
They flowed around Diarmada and came straight for him.
Niall scrambled on hands and knees through the muck and leaves, his red, blistered hands
screaming in pain as he sought desperately to avoid their approach. Then he huddled in the
mud, closed his eyes and prayed.
An advancing army, Niall heard them trample the ground all around him, felt the cold
splash of sodden earth at their passing. The stench of death, of things dying and dead, clung to
them as they passed. He thought of Orlaith and Casidhe and Father Eoghan, of all the other
fathers who had died in this place. Of all those who had failed.
And then, like a fading storm, the footsteps were past him and Niall cast aside his morbid
thoughts and opened his eyes.
The horde had passed him by almost as though he no longer mattered. A moment later, as
they gathered around the burning tree, he realized he didn’t. To them, all that mattered was the
tree.
In silent awe, he stared on as more and more of the forest’s creatures huddled around the
blazing tree. When the stream of shadows at last ended, they knelt down and began to chant
quiet words in a language Niall had ever heard before. But, as they chanted, the flames began to
lessen. Soon, Niall realized with a surge of panic, they would be extinguished.
His ruined hands making an ordeal of the task, Niall quickly got to his feet and replaced
the canister on his back. The Fire secured, he rushed toward Diarmada. Untying the horse, he
clambered awkwardly into the saddle. Niall knew he should just go, fly from the clearing and
forest as quickly as Diarmada could carry him.
An image of Orlaith flashed through his mind and from the back of the tall mare, he
turned a final time to the tree.
But for a few burning branches, the flames were nearly extinguished. Then, as though
sensing his gaze, a number of shadows that ringed the tree turned to him.
Niall recognized the hatred in their eyes.
He wondered if they recognized the hatred in his.
“This is for the children,” he whispered, and, ignoring the pain in his hands, he turned
from the tree and pointed the nozzle toward the forest. Staring at the wide-eyed shadows, he
flipped the switch.
Once again, Roman Fire spewed forth into the night. But this time, it was the forest itself

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that burned.
Over the sizzle and crackle of flames, the monsters screamed. Many of them flocked to
the edge of the clearing and began chanting anew. More and more shadows joined them in their
efforts to fight back the hungry flames.
Niall continued his onslaught, spraying the Devil’s Breath in all directions until at last,
his rage spent, the Fire sputtered and exhausted itself. Gasping for breath, Niall surveyed the
scene. All around him, trees and bushes burned, but, just as quickly, the shadows chanted and
battled the blazes.
“Go,” Niall said, shrugging out of the infernal machine. “Go!”
And driving his heels hard into Diarmada’s flanks, he made for the safety of the distant
mountains.
Behind him the Powers of the Night fought to keep their forest from burning.

III

“Good girl,” Niall whispered, patting Diarmada’s hanging head. The horse was thirsty
and exhausted from their break-neck dash through the forest. Many times Niall had had the
feeling something was behind them, gaining, gaining. But furtive glances behind showed only
the flickering glow of fires in a place where fire was never meant to be. Even still, he drove
Diarmada harder than he ever had before. She had responded, miraculously hurtling through
darkness and over the uneven ground of the woods as though guided by the hand of God. A
comforting thought, that.
But her wide-eyed, trembling form told the story of the price she paid for her bravery. She
did not have much left. As they reached the top of the mountain pass that would eventually see
them home, Niall dismounted and, after rubbing her down and letting her know how proud he
was of her, he let Diarmada graze on the wild grass that grew sporadically along the trail.
While Diarmada grazed, there was something he needed to do.
He tied the mare to a tall stone and wandered for a time off the path. In the darkness,
the broken ground, strewn about with slick mud and lichen-covered stones, was treacherous.
The heady smell of primroses and heather was thick in the early spring air, and hundreds of
shamrocks grew on the ground beneath his feet. Behind him, Diarmada snuffled as she grazed,
and her hooves pawed the scree that formed the path. He drew a breath and pressed on. Not
much further. When he reached the cliff face a few minutes later, he looked up.
Scarred by lightning six years past, the ancient rowan protruded from the side of the
mountain like a splintered bone. Parts of the tree’s roots were exposed, and a portion of the
brown bark was blackened where the lightning had struck.
Not everything had to be told to him. Some things you just learned by listening when
nobody thought you were listening, or by simply living your life. Niall could not have said
how he knew about rowan wood. Perhaps his father had mentioned it once, or someone in the
market, or the tavern. Perhaps he had heard it in a story or a song. In the end it didn’t matter
how he knew. That he did know was enough.
Niall looked up at the towering cliff face, then down at his injured hands. Many of the
blisters had broken, and even in the darkness he could see his hands were sticky and red and

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swollen. Gritting his teeth, he tore several thin strips from the end of his shirt and wrapped
them as tightly as pain would allow around the palms of his hands. He had to have his fingers
clear, no matter how much they hurt. Then, glancing upward, he reached for the wall and began
his ascent.
The pain in his hands was appalling. Each time he reached up to grasp the jagged rock
was like clenching shards of glass in his fist. The small holds where his hands found purchase
quickly became blood-slick and gleamed black beneath the light of the waxing moon. Already
blood began to soak through his makeshift bandages, but, without the limited protection they
offered him, Niall doubted he could have made the climb at all. As a boy growing up in his
father’s smithy, Niall had experienced his share of burns and scrapes, and as he grew and
began to work metal and wood on his own, the pain of burns and scrapes had become almost
commonplace.
The pain that flared up both his arms and was manifest in the path of bloody handprints
that stretched below him was anything but commonplace.
When he at last reached the small plateau where the tree grew, his chest ached and his
breath exploded from his lungs in heaving white gasps. Carefully, blood making each small
move a terrible risk, Niall clambered up to the ledge and leaned with his back against the
mountain as he gathered his breath. Resting his burning hands in his lap, Niall stared at the
tree.
It had long been widely held that rowan was sacred to the Otherworld, that the wood
was said to be home to spirits fey and dark. What was less widely known was that the Hanging
Rowan, the kind that grew free of the constraints and spirits of the earth, was (perhaps because
of its freedom, Niall surmised), anathema to the Otherworld.
At least that’s the tale the stories told. Staring at the wounded tree, Niall hoped with all
his heart that the stories were true. He leaned forward. The thought of pulling the knife from
his belt, of holding it in his burned hand and wielding it, was daunting. He sighed and drew
the blade. Gritting his teeth, he quickly hacked through a large branch that stretched out over
the ledge. When he finished, he sheathed the blade, its hilt sticky with blood, and picked up the
piece of wood. It felt solid in his hands, and gave him an odd sense of security.
Anathema. He prayed it was true, would need it to be true when, in less than three days’
time, he faced the King and the Devil. Niall dropped the branch over the side of the ledge, then
carefully began to make his way down the side of the cliff. Familiarity with some of the holds
should have made going down easier than going up, but the pain of his bleeding hands made the
descent arduous. When he could no longer stand the pain, Niall jumped free of the wall. Much
higher than he would normally have been when jumping clear, he landed hard, twisting his
ankle. He fought down a curse. Gripping his injured ankle in one hand, he gathered the length
of branch with the other. The ankle didn’t feel broken at least, as much as the pain screamed
otherwise. When he felt ready, he used the severed branch as a crutch to help him rise, then he
hobbled along to find Diarmada waiting contentedly by the side of the path.
His hands and ankle made mounting the horse awkward, but on the third try he made it.
Sore, and more exhausted than he could ever remember feeling, Niall whispered, “Home, girl.”
He was almost ready.

***

Holding the rowan staff in his right hand, he stared out the door at the winding trail that

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led through the forest. That would bear him at last, to an ending.
“The sun will set soon,” Niall said quietly. Beside him, Casidhe squeezed his hand and
said nothing. Niall turned to her, but she did not meet his gaze.
Could it really be four years since he had first seen her at the festival of Dub Siban? When
he had first heard her sing? In all that time, her beauty had never failed to stop his heart. But
when he arrived back home, bloody and sore, three days past, Niall had been staggered by
Casidhe’s appearance. It had been clear she had not slept in all the time he had been gone, had
not eaten any more than her body deemed absolutely necessary. The milky white of her skin had
been replaced by a dull gray, and her eyes no longer glittered with the joy of life. On top of that,
she was still not wholly recovered from the effects of bringing Orlaith kicking and screaming
into the world only a couple weeks past. The sight of her was almost more than he could bear.
She had always been a fighter. Casidhe had been a singer before they met, and though most
singers—especially good ones—were held in high esteem and were well respected, a woman who
traveled the roads and visited tavern after tavern had to learn to take care of herself.
As she silently led him into the house and bound his wounds, wrapping layers of bandages
around his blistered palms while leaving his damaged fingers free to do the work they would
need to do, she seemed to have no fight left. When Niall could no longer stand the silence, he
reached out to her and Casidhe stumbled brokenly into his embrace. They held each other for a
long time.
After that, Niall had made them a small meal and they ate and talked. He spoke of the
woman and the Fire, of the Teind and the rowan.
When he mentioned the rowan, she looked up. “Oak, birch and rowan,” she said simply.
The look in her eyes was one Niall could not identify. He nodded, uncomprehending.
“The trees, they are three in number.”
Niall blinked, was set to have her explain when it came to him. She had always been
cleverer than he. It was not the trees that were significant, but the number. Oak, birch and
rowan. Three. The number of God. He stared at his wife. Neither voiced the silent hope that
echoed in their hearts.
When they were finished eating, he told her of his plan to get their daughter back.
Later that night, they both slept well, huddled in each other’s arms for the first time in
days.
The next morning, utilizing the skills taught to him so long ago by his father, Niall began
work on the staff. It was not a masterpiece, was, in truth, wholly unimpressive. Five feet long,
the shaft was covered in rough, facet-like planes that would have taken too long to smooth. At
the top of the rounded handle he had carved a small cross, and burned into the side of the staff
with a hot iron was a single name—Orlaith. He stared at the blackened name that would have
to be enough until he held his daughter in his hands once more.
Because of the pain in his hands, and the bandages, it had taken him much longer than
usual to carve the staff. Rough as it was, it had still taken him most of the day and night to
complete. The following morning he rose early and, making use of the remaining wood, had
fashioned a pair of arrows. He fletched the arrows with hawk feathers, and in the shafts he
again burned his daughter’s name.
The Otherworld would never forget Orlaith. Niall would not let them.
Though smaller, the arrows had been much more difficult, much more painful, to carve.
They required a precision he could forego with the staff. Working the lungs of his forge, Niall
had been ready to melt two small blocks of iron to use for the heads when Casidhe came to him.

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“Use this,” she said.

And handed him the Crucifix.
Niall stared at her. Her gaze, as hard and unyielding as the iron cross, did not waver. He
nodded his head.
By the afternoon of the third day the cross was melted and the heads were tempered and
fixed to the shafts.
Almost time for him to go.
Standing at the door, holding Casidhe’s hand as the sun continued to set in the western
sky, Niall stared at the thin curtain that hid the nursery, imagined the bare place on the wall
where the cross had hung above his sleeping child, and thought of the arrows and their heads of
blessed iron.
He shook his head and prayed it would be enough. He felt Casidhe’s hand tremble in his
grasp, felt her turn to him. Niall looked down on her and kissed her, and she closed her eyes.
“How is it,” she whispered, burying her head in his chest, “that I can watch you do this
thing, all alone, and at the same moment wish with all my heart that you would not? Am I
mad?”
Niall held her tighter. He understood the fears that raged in her breast. She wanted him
to stay, but could not live with the thought that he might not go.
He understood all too well; the same fears were alive in him, eating away at his courage
and hope.
“Mad? Of course you are mad. Had you continued to sing, you could have been a partner
by now in some famous troupe. You could have been wealthy beyond your dreams. But instead
you chose me. The very height of madness!”
He felt her body shake against his, but didn’t know if she laughed or cried.
“I will be back before the sun rises on another day,” he whispered close to her ear. “God is
with me, Casidhe. I am never alone.”
“No,” she answered quietly, “Never, ever alone. I shall hold you to your promise.”
Niall embraced her for a moment, fought back the tears that longed to fall. So much pain,
enough to swallow them both forever. He released her and she stepped aside and turned away.
It was shame, Niall knew, that prevented her from watching him leave, for even as she urged
him on, she knew well that she might have been urging him to his death. That she could feel
such things was one of the many reasons he loved her so very much.
As he reached the door, he stopped a final time. “I swear I shall not fail you,” he vowed to
the empty room.
And then he was gone.

IV

Niall reached the outskirts of Aedh Errigal as the sun dipped below the rubicund horizon.
The moon had yet to show itself in the twilit sky, but when it did, it would show full and its stark
brilliance would bathe the grassy slopes in its argent glow.
From his place at the edge of the thinning forest, Niall overlooked the grassland valley.
Thick with burgeoning gorse and heather, the valley nestled between Aedh Errigal and its

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twin neighbour, Glenatuathail. Each of the hills had gentle, deliberate slopes that tapered off
in rounded peaks no more than forty feet above the floor of the valley, and blended into other,
surrounding hills, both larger and smaller. As far back as Niall could remember he had heard
legends about this place. Many believed it haunted, full of ghosts and secrets that mortal
man was never meant to know. Others claimed that on certain nights, the creatures of the
Otherworld would appear carrying their gold as they crisscrossed from hill to hill in straight
lines, forming an unholy cat’s cradle in the darkness.
Niall laid his bow upon the soft ground and from the pack he carried across his shoulder
pulled out the arrows and laid them beside the bow. Then, for what seemed like the hundredth
time, he reached down to the small pouch fastened at his waist. He could feel the vial and the
tube through the soft leather. In his right hand, he clutched his staff.
He was as ready as any man could possibly be. Now all he had to do was wait.

***

It was well past the dead of night, the full moon high overhead, when Glenatuathail
trembled and it began.
Niall had lain hidden among the tall grasses that bordered the edge of the woods for many
hours, and with each passing hour his fear mounted. Fear that the woman had lied to him, that,
as he lay there, waiting, his daughter—along with how many others?—was being sacrificed to
Hell. The thought urged him to run headlong into the valley, begged him to scream Orlaith’s
name from the very peaks of the haunted hills. Instead, he had lain there, waiting. The hours
spent at the edge of that forest had been the longest, most torturous hours of his life.
As the hill began to quiver and the music started, Niall almost wept with relief. The
old woman had spoken truth. His heart raced with renewed hope—and more than a touch of
lingering fear. His attention riveted on the hill, Niall pushed himself into a crouch and watched.
Breathtaking music emanated from somewhere deep inside the earth. Plaintive and
haunting, the music wove of the night a surreal tapestry. Niall’s eyes began to close as he
listened. The Otherworldly music grew louder, more insistent as it filled more and more of the
night. Like the fingers of an unseen hand, it seemed to draw nearer, to reach out to him, call
to him. Slowly, he began slipping away, as though he were dangling over the edge of a cliff and
the branch to which he clung was breaking. Gripping his staff tightly, he ground his bandaged
palms and burned fingers into the wooden shaft, distantly aware of the pain this caused. What
was happening to him? Where was he? The music, so seductive, as though he had waited his
whole life to hear it. He wanted—needed—to answer its call.
As his hands continued to mechanically work the length of the staff, his fingers brushed
against the letters burned into its rowan shaft.
“Orlaith!” he cried, shrugging off the siren call of the music. His eyes sprang open.
Just in time to witness the splitting of the hill.
It was as though one of the Fomorian Giants of legend had swung its massive blade and,
with a single sideways stroke, severed the top of Glenatuathail completely through. But the hill
did not bleed as a man did; rather, it bled light, brilliant, blinding light. Niall raised a hand to
shield his narrowed eyes and through the cracks in his trembling fingers watched as the hillside
grass stretched and tore and the top of the mountain began to rise.
Aside from the soft rasp of tumbling dirt and loosened stone, the rounded peak made
no sound as it rose, effortlessly separating itself from the much larger base of the hill. From

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the space between base and peak, white, dazzling light spread, flooding the valley. The peak
continued its slow, impossible rise for several seconds before it stopped and hung, perhaps twice
the height of a man, above the base. Somewhere inside the hill the music continued to play,
but Niall was now beyond its reach. He would not think about how close the music had come to
ending his quest forever.
Niall slung his bow across his back and grabbed his arrows; then he shuffled forward and
ducked behind a small tree, among the last offered by the forest. From behind the shelter of
the budding hazel, Niall watched as the hosts of the Otherworld strode forth from the manifest
bowels of the Hollow Hill.
“The Rade,” Niall whispered, crossing himself. Though old fears made him long to turn
aside, Niall forced himself to look on. He had first heard the song when he was a child. And
though he had long since forgotten many of the words, there were some that he remembered still:

“And when the Rade, in all its glory rides,

turn your head and seek the shadows;
better not to know the secret that it hides.”

Horrified, Niall now knew the secret of the Rade.

Silhouettes at first, the solemn procession issued from the heart of the white light. And
at the head of the procession, leading his gathered hosts down the side of Glenatuathail toward
the valley floor, was Finvarra, the king. Crowned with a circlet of gold, the king sat the most
beautiful mount Niall had ever seen. The black steed, darker than a starless night, glistened in
the light of the Otherworld, its eyes sparkling red as though the spirit of the beast was flame. It
carried the king with a grace no mortal steed could hope to match. The king himself was tall and
thin and armored in gold. Behind him, his great green cape, trimmed in white fur, rippled softly,
and in his left hand he brandished a staff of gold. Beneath the flowing red of Finvarra’s hair,
Niall could see the pointed tips of his ears.
Behind Finvarra rode his queen, Oonaugh, the most beautiful creature in all the worlds.
The sight of her stilled Niall’s heart. She was enchanting, perfect. The white of her gown, the
fall of her flaming hair . . . She was the music of the Otherworld brought to life, dream and
desire made manifest. Niall quickly looked away before he became lost in her beauty.
Behind the monarchs came the sons and daughters of the Otherworld, bedecked in radiant
green or blue mantles fringed with gold, with gold or silver helmets and armor, gold or silver
swords hanging at their sides. Most were mounted, though many walked. Of those who walked,
many carried instruments and made music. Some danced, lithe, hypnotic movements as fluid as
a running stream, while others held spears or banners of blazing colour. Still others held tight to
the leashes of blood-eyed hounds or carried raptors on their outstretched arms.
Some carried children. The secret of the Rade.
Even over the music and the dancing, Niall heard their cries. They were babies, all
of them, wailing for the succor of parents who themselves wailed at their loss. Niall leaned
forward, sought frantically for Orlaith.
Too far, he could not determine one swaddled child from another. He looked at the last
tree, well ahead of him, that might provide shelter from the collective gaze of the Rade. It would
mean coming well inside a stone’s throw from the Rade, closer than he wanted to be for the
moment. Close enough that any slip might alert Finvarra’s horde to his presence. And Finvarra
couldn’t know, not yet. But he needed to see Orlaith. Shaking his head, Niall crouched low and,

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as quietly and quickly as he was able, scurried through the tall grass and huddled behind the
last of the woodland trees.
Breathing hard, he watched the last of the Rade step forth from the bowels of
Glenatuathail, watched Finvarra lead them down the gentle slope of the hill toward Aedh
Errigal. There were perhaps sixty in all, Niall guessed. And seven children. One for each year
of Finvarra’s profane Pact. Seven sacrifices.
Rage made his breath come faster and Niall stood. As he did, the wind picked up, blowing
from the direction of Aedh Errigal.
It carried with it a hint of brimstone.
Niall stiffened and his rage drowned beneath a rising tide of fear and doubt. Had he
been completely honest with himself, had he allowed himself a chance to dwell on what he was
attempting, Niall would have admitted to some concern over meeting Finvarra and his Rade.
These were ancient, legendary beings, full of power and mystery. No sane man did what he was
doing without some measure of fear in his heart, but knowing they had his daughter, that they
had come into his home and stolen her away, made facing them easier because the knowledge
was a font of endless rage and hatred.
But as the acrid stench of brimstone burned his nose and throat, as his eyes watered and
his staff quivered in his hands, Niall knew he would need to find something deeper than rage to
survive.
He wiped at his eyes and covered his mouth. Then, with the image of Orlaith firmly in his
mind, he turned to face Aedh Errigal.
Where the Devil stood looking down upon the Rade like the god he so desperately longed
to be.
“Lord protect me,” Niall gasped, crossing himself as he fell to his knees.
The Devil was a citadel of shadow and appalling menace. He stood thrice the height of
a man. Behind a blurring, roiling darkness that not all the light in the world could dispel, the
Black Prince stared down at the approaching Rade with eyes that flared incarnadine. Through
the shifting veil of shadow, Niall saw a towering black crown and what might have been a pair of
wings.
Behind the Devil, a hole in the hill had opened, a black void from which the foul, gusting
wind breathed forth. Niall could not be certain, but as he stared at the void he thought he saw
things shifting within the blackness, impatient things angered by the sight of light and life in the
world.
The sight was nearly enough to undo him.
How could he, how could any man, hope to challenge such a thing? Despair, like an abyss,
opened wide beneath him.
Then he remembered what he carried. In the face of despair, the thought gave him hope.
Under his breath, Niall muttered the Lord’s Prayer. When he finished, he forced his stinging
gaze away from the Devil.
At the base of Aedh Errigal, the Rade came to a halt and Finvarra raised his hand. The
music and dancing stopped. Over the moaning wind, the only sounds to be heard were the
keening screams of children.
Finvarra spoke. “Bring forth the children!”
At the king’s command the children fell silent, and those who carried them approached the
front of the Rade.
Why were the children silent? Niall gripped his staff and rose. Had Finvarra woven some

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malign glamour with his words? Fear on top of fear invaded Niall’s heart. Leaning forward, he
watched each of the seven child bearers approach and bow before their king. Finvarra nodded
to each in turn as they rose and stepped in front of him. When all of them were ready, the seven
knelt as one, heads bowed before the Devil, and held the children out before them.
“Orlaith,” Niall whispered, thrusting his staff into the moist ground and reaching for his
bow. As near to the Rade as he was, he still could not be sure which of the children was Orlaith.
But she was there, so close . . .
“With these seven mortal souls,” Finvarra proclaimed, “the Teind is paid and the Pact
honored.” He paused and those bearing the children rose. “Carry them forward, my sons: Let
the children of mortal man burn forever, that the Otherworld might live!”
Behind the king, the Rade erupted, spears and swords up-thrust in answer to Finvarra’s
proclamation. Before the king, the child bearers began the ascent up the slope of Aedh Errigal
where the Devil waited.
“No,” Niall said from the shadow of the tree, and he knew the time had come. With his
bandaged hands he reached for an arrow. As he notched it, he strode from behind the tree and
screamed, “No!”
At his cry, an adamantine silence descended upon the Rade, and the only sound that was
heard was the hissing flight of the rowan arrow as it pierced the night and Finvarra’s heart and
struck dead the King of the Otherworld beneath the light of the full moon on the night of the
Teind.
Breathing hard, Niall stopped his advance only long enough to sling his bow across his
back and grab the remaining arrow and his staff. Thrusting the arrow into his belt, he reached
into the pouch at his side and drew forth the larger of the two glass vials.
The floor of the valley was a sea of chaos.
Finvarra’s majestic form was a tower of smoke and flame. All around the burning king,
the sons and daughters of the Otherworld scrambled and cried—many turned, fear clearly etched
in their ethereal features, and fled into the light of Glenatuathail. One of the Rade who walked
a blood-eyed hound turned and saw him. Niall recognized the hatred that burned in his eyes
before he unleashed the dog and escaped into the light.
With an unholy roar, the beast charged Niall, all snapping fangs and snarling rage.
His own teeth bared, Niall unstoppered the vial and stood his ground. When the beast
was near enough for Niall to feel its fetid breath, he doused it with the holy water.
The Hellhound died screaming and burning.
On the heels of the flaming creature, another of the Rade rushed at him, sword drawn and
raised. Clutching the vial still, Niall closed his eyes and swung his staff to meet the descending
blade. Upon striking the rowan staff, the sword shattered with a sound like breaking glass.
Instinctively, Niall sealed his eyes tight and raised the hand holding the vial to cover his face.
He cried out as pain hewed its way down his chest, across his waist and into his upper leg.
Niall had no time at all to understand what happened. In a moment, the enraged swordsman
discarded his ruined blade and lunged for Niall’s throat. A second, desperate swing of the staff
caught the warrior on the side of the head and killed him.
Even as his opponent’s limp, broken body struck the ground, two others, clad in their
green and gold armor, capes flowing behind them, charged at him. Niall, glancing down and
noticing the blood that welled from a terrible gash that had sliced through his clothing and
stretched across his chest and waist and down his leg, leveled his staff. Near panic at the sight
of all the blood, Niall shook his head and tore his eyes from the wound. It had to have been the

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sword. A piece of the shattered blade had cut him as neatly as a surgical instrument. How badly
he couldn’t say. His hand on his staff, he noticed, shook.
The warriors of the Rade stopped short of the burning beast, their eyes locked on Niall.
For an instant, through the rising flames, Niall met their collective gaze. He wondered what
they saw there, what his gaze held for them. Whatever it was, they were not able to meet it for
long. They looked down at his bleeding chest, at the flaming beast and their dead brother and
the pieces of his fractured sword scattered on the grass all around. They glanced back at their
burning king.
Slowly, they backed away. After several steps, never taking their eyes off Niall, they
joined the others of the Rade who had seen enough.
Niall, his breath a bellows, watched the Rade flee for the haven of Glenatuathail.
As though they had suddenly grown too heavy to hold, Niall dropped the staff and the vial
of holy water, and slumped forward in exhaustion. Timidly, afraid of what he would find, he
brought his hand slowly to his chest. The wound, though it burned like fire, was not deep. Niall
closed his eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks. Finished, he raised his head to watch the last
of the Rade flee the world of men.
Instead, he met the tear-filled gaze of Oonaugh, the Queen, who alone among the Rade,
remained. And, despite all he had done, despite the towering rage that engulfed him and drove
him to do things he thought beyond any man, Niall was afraid of the things he saw in her eyes.
A moment later, without a word spoken, Oonaugh too, turned, and then Rade was gone
and Glenatuathail was whole. And only the seven child bearers were left standing, their faces
aghast in the glow of their burning king, upon the side of Aedh Errigal.
The seven and the Devil.
The bearers of the children stared at him as though he were the most terrifying thing in
all the worlds.
He was not, of course, was nothing more than a man doing what he had to do, what they
had forced him to do.
And if, in light of all he had accomplished, the child bearers of Finvarra forgot that, the
Devil did not.
As Niall bent to retrieve his staff and finish what he started, his throat constricted and he
could no longer breathe. Eyes bulging, he clutched his neck, gasped desperately for air. Before
he could fully grasp what was happening, Niall was lifted, bleeding and wounded from the
ground, as though by an invisible hand. Uncomprehending, he dangled for a moment several
feet above the soft earth before he hurtled like a stone through the night up against the last of
the woodland trees. Air and blood exploded from Niall’s body as he was pinned to the tall trunk.
He closed his eyes and cried out in pain.
“Bravely done,” the Devil said. Though they were some distance apart, the Devil’s voice,
the sound of grinding bone, cut across the intervening expanse of grasslands to settle as a
whisper in Niall’s ear. Against the pain in his head and back, Niall forced his eyes open. The
Devil’s gaze was a winter wind, and for the second time that night, Niall wondered how he could
ever have imagined challenging such a being. The weight of the Devil’s livid gaze battered him
until Niall looked away.
“But what shall you do now? You are nothing to me. Less. You can no more harm me
than you can harm the stars. I am beyond your precious water, your pathetic iron and wood.
For all your courage, you have accomplished nothing. Another will rise in Finvarra’s place and
the Teind will go on. As it always has.”

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All at once, the force that held him in place released its grip and Niall plunged to the
ground. He landed hard against the base of the tree and collapsed to the ground reaching for his
injured ankle. Before he could grasp it, he was thrust again against the trunk of the tree. The
wind was driven from his lungs and for an instant the world went black when his head struck
the wood.
“I will take your daughter, and these others,” the Devil whispered in Niall’s ear from
across the clearing, “then I will visit you in your dreams that you might watch them burn. Bring
the children to me!”
At the Devil’s command, the force that held Niall in place was dismissed once more.
Barely able to draw breath, bleeding and battered, Niall toppled to the ground like a
broken toy. The damp coolness of the earth was a blessing against the stink of his sweating,
burning flesh. Lying amid the decomposing leaves and soft pine needles, unable to muster the
strength to rise, he thought of Casidhe, at home, alone. He would never see her again. Not
enough that he could not protect his daughter; now, on a fool’s quest, he had not only failed to
bring her back, but had thrown away his own life as well. Oh, Casidhe . . .
Do you know what it is you seek to undo? Father Eoghan’s words. Only now, at the very
last, his own blood soaking the forest floor, could he say yes, he understood. Only now could he—
Blood.
Like the Lord Christ rising on the Third Day, hope rose in Niall’s heaving breast.
Struggling through the many layers of his pain, Niall rolled onto his back and reached
down to his waist.
Felt all his hopes and dreams wither and die in his breast.
The shard of blade that cut him so neatly, that sliced so cleanly through his shirt and
breeches, had also severed his belt.
The belt that held his arrow. And his pouch.
“No. No. Nonononono.” Frantic, Niall scrambled to his knees, sought desperately for the
instruments that were his only hope of ever regaining his daughter. It could not end like this.
Not like this. The trees. The Crucifix. The blessed iron of the arrow that slew the King of the
Otherworld. Surely all these things had meant God was with him. God, who had watched over
him for so long, who had kept him safe. Who had never left his side even as Niall had left the
world. God would not do this, would not have brought him this far only to abandon him now.
But the pouch and the arrow were gone, and a creature from the Otherworld bore his
daughter into the Devil’s hands.
The arrow, the pouch, they must have slipped free as he hurtled through the air. Had that
been the Devil’s plan all along? To deprive him of the implements of his salvation?
Realization of his failure drove the breath from his lungs, struck him with all the force of a
collapsing mountain.
“Orlaith,” he whispered, tears tracing their paths down his muddied face. In his mind,
Niall pictured his daughter’s beautiful face, her tiny dimples and fine red hair. He thought of
her sleeping and dreaming, imagined how she might look when she was grown and ready to live
her life on her own.
Knew she would never have that chance because he had not been strong enough to save
her. Weeping, broken, Niall closed his eyes and collapsed to the ground.
And were it not for the hissing flight of the arrow, he would have missed the miracle.

***

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“I don’t understand.”
In the small, hidden chamber beneath the chapel, Niall had reached for the second box.
Perhaps twice the size of his clenched fist, the box had contained a slightly smaller chest. All
iron and gold, the chest was studded with precious gems and inlaid with the image of the
Crucifixion. In the uncertain light, Niall saw the image of the crucified Christ, the Spear of
Longinus protruding from his side. Beneath the dying Son, a man knelt, and in his hands he
held a small plate.
Niall’s eyes grew wide and he stumbled back from the chest, crossing himself quickly and
falling to his knees.
Father Eoghan stepped around and pulled the chest free of the box. He then withdrew a
small key from beneath the collar of his robe. Niall did not know where the priest inserted it,
but a moment later he heard a soft click. When Eoghan turned, the chest was open. Awed, Niall
leaned forward. Inside the chest were two glass tubes, each the length of his smallest finger.
The tubes sat nestled inside special gold-velvet slots clearly designed to hold them safe and
still. Inside each of the narrow tubes, a tiny amount of crimson liquid could be seen. Niall could
hardly breathe.
“Marvelous, are they not?” Father Eoghan whispered. “The most precious thing in all the
world.”
Niall could only shake his head. “The Blood of Christ,” he whispered. “Here?”
“And why not here?” Father Eoghan said. “It is the reason this chapel was raised. At the
end of a journey even I know little of, the chest was hidden at the great monastery of Clonfert.
When word arrived that the Norsemen had pushed into the territory of Ui Neill in 841, Abbot
Keallach decided he could not risk having the chest fall into the hands of the barbarians. Word
had reached Clonfert regarding the butchery and slaughter that followed the arrival of the
Norsemen, and in his heart, Keallach knew Clonfert would fall. So, in secret, he handed the
chest to one of his monks and told him to take it into the mountains, beyond the reach of the
invaders. When he found a safe place, the monk, whose name was never known, was ordered to
raise a small chapel and keep the chest safe. But before he went, Keallach offered him a second
gift.”
“The Fire,” Niall finished, understanding at last why the terrible weapon was in this place.
“Indeed. And since that time, this chapel, larger now, has stood as a haven for the chest,
and each new priest who calls this place home is told its secrets and sworn to protect the chest at
any cost.”
“Why have you shown me this, Father?”
Silent for a moment, Eoghan then reached into the chest and withdrew one of the glass
tubes. “For more than nine-hundred years this treasure has remained safe and inviolate, hidden
from the world. Though potent beyond measure, it has never had cause to make its presence
felt.” Father Eoghan stared at Niall. He handed him the tube.
“The holy water by the entrance should aid you against the foul creatures of the
Otherworld,” the priest said. “And there are other things, as you will know. But should you
succeed in finding Orlaith, there shall come a time during that terrible night when you stand
against the Devil himself.” Eoghan’s eyes dropped to the tube and its red-black contents. “It is
said that Christ loved all men equally, but that he held a special place for children. Use this gift,
Niall, and bring your daughter back.”

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***

It should have been too far. Casidhe had known when she notched and sighted in the
darkness, over the flames and across the expanse. She had learned quickly, knew she could
shoot as well as most. Knew too, that the shot was beyond her.
Casidhe had watched in horror from the edge of the forest as the Rade strode forth from
the bowels of Glenatuathail, had been forced to fight down a scream and an urge to flee that had
been towering in its strength, when she saw the Devil standing upon the slopes of Aedh Errigal.
Remaining there, in the forest and the darkness, in the face of that all-encompassing menace,
had been, perhaps, the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Then she had watched in
pride and horror as the arrow split the night and killed Finvarra, as Niall battled and killed the
hound and the warrior, wanted to cry out and run to him when the shard of the broken blade
carved its way down his chest.
But she had not. Through it all, she had stayed, buried in shadow. She could not have
said what it was that made her stay. Perhaps it had been the same force that drove her to
follow Niall to this dark, unholy place. Casidhe had not been baptized, did not know if Niall’s
God would have seen fit to guide her, as she knew He had been guiding Niall all along. But
something had made her follow him, and something had made her stay. And when Niall was
sent hurtling through the air by a power that was older than the world, and the arrow and the
pouch had fallen from his severed belt to land upon the soft forest floor, she understood at last
why it was she had been brought here.
In the face of her terror, a calm had come over Casidhe as she claimed the fallen
implements. No one paid her any attention; it had been as though she were not even there. In a
way, that was exactly how it felt. It seemed as though it were someone else opening the pouch,
someone else pulling out the vial that contained the blood of the Son of Man. Someone else who
poured that same sacred blood onto the blessed head of the arrow her husband had carved.
Then she had notched and sighted and knew, knew as well as she knew anything, that it
was too far, that the shot, in darkness, was beyond her.
Except on that night, it was not. And the arrow that bore her daughter’s name, that
was launched in love and carried on its blessed head the blood of Christ, flew like the Spear of
Longinus thrown so long ago, its crimson head gleaming in Finvarra’s flames, to strike the Devil
in the heart, penetrating the shadows that cloaked him as the sun’s rays penetrated the dark.
For a moment, Casidhe watched the Devil stagger back, watched his crowned head dip to
stare down at the impossible arrow protruding from his chest.
“What . . . is this?” the Devil asked, staggering back a second step.
Then he screamed.
The agony of the Devil shook the Hollow Hills and echoed far into the night. Casidhe
watched him collapse to his knees. As he did, the veil of shadow that protected him began to
burn away. Casidhe had a fleeting glimpse of a handsome face, of fire-scored wings shorn of
plumage. As the shadow continued to fall, three pairs of hands reached outward from the void to
grab him and pull him back into the waiting darkness. For an instant, the Black Prince weakly
fought against those come to gather him, and he turned, for the first time, to Casidhe.
“Never stray from His sight,” the Devil whispered. “For I shall be waiting.”
And then the hole in Aedh Errigal closed and the Devil was gone.

***

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Utter silence descended on the small valley. For a moment, Niall did not understand.
Lying on the ground, he stared up at his wife from her place far from him at the edge of the
forest. Holding her bow, standing straight and tall and proud, she seemed a goddess, one of the
Old Powers made manifest. It was, Niall realized with absolute conviction, a miracle. How did a
mortal man deal with such things? How could a mortal heart contain all the emotion that caused
his heart to lurch and buck inside him? Niall shook his head.
On the slope of Aedh Errigal, the gazes of the seven child bearers flitted from one of them
to the other. Then, very carefully, awe reflected clearly in their eyes, they placed the children on
the ground and fled into the surrounding shadows.
When they were gone, Casidhe turned to him for the first time. For a moment, she
hesitated. She would be fearing for him, would likely have seen the stroke that opened his chest.
She took a first step towards him.
He shook his head. “No. Go to her,” he said, his words carrying clearly through the
unnatural silence of the night. Then, louder, still unable to rise, “Go to her!”
She paused for only an instant before she dropped her bow and ran toward the slope.
Niall bowed his head. The children had made no sound for a long time.
“Please, Lord,” he whispered. “Just one more miracle.” When he looked up, he watched
Casidhe frantically search from one child to the next. None of them, he noticed, were moving.
Then all at once he heard Casidhe cry out, saw her fall to her knees and weep.
And what was left of his heart turned to ash and blew away.

Father Eoghan, radiant in his white stole, raised the wailing infant over his head for all
to see. When he brought her down and settled her against his breast, Niall and Casidhe reached
out and each laid a hand upon her. Then Father Eoghan dipped his hand into the baptismal
font and before the small congregation pronounced, “Orlaith O’Callaghan, I baptize thee in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” The declaration of each member of the Trinity
was accompanied by the pouring of a handful of Holy Water onto Orlaith’s forehead. When he
finished with the water, Father Eoghan reached behind to where the altar server stood holding
the vial of chrism. Dipping his thumb into the blessed oil, he made the sign of the cross on
Orlaith’s forehead and said, “Give to her to understand, Lord God, that from this day forward she
is united in Christ, engrafted on His body, and therefore is called a Christian.”
Niall thought his heart would burst as Father Eoghan recited the words.
The children on the slope of Aedh Errigal had been asleep. Of course they had been. The
Devil wanted living sacrifices. After Casidhe brought Orlaith to him and laid her down upon
the ground, he had watched her face twitch and knew she was dreaming. He had stared at his
daughter, then his wife. His face, he remembered, had felt too small to encompass the smile that
spread across it.
“I couldn’t let you do this thing alone,” Casidhe had said. “She is my child too.” There had
been nothing to say to that, nothing at all. So he said nothing, only stared at her and wondered
how he, of all the people in the world, had been lucky enough to find her.

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It had not been long after that all the infants, Orlaith among them, awoke and began
crying. Injured as he was, they had no way of carrying seven screaming children. Desperate,
uncertain how long it might be until help arrived, they found a small cave. Niall, unable to
travel any great distance on his ankle, decided he would stay with the children while Casidhe
went in search of help. Armagh, he had said, was not far. It was only a couple hours later
that Casidhe returned with a farmer, Padraigh, and his three sons. They brought with them a
horse. Padraigh and his sons took the children, and promised to do all in their power to seek out
the parents. “If you cannot find them,” Niall had said, “there is a small chapel in the Wicklow
Mountains...” Niall had also asked Padraigh not to mention his name, or Casidhe’s. Too much
had happened, too much he could never explain. The farmer had nodded his understanding.
Then Padraigh offered the mount to Niall, who had accepted gratefully, and the three of them, he
and his family, rode home.
Niall had returned the mount before they arrived at the church. He had offered to pay the
man, but Padraigh steadfastly refused. He had found four of the parents already, he told Niall,
and the looks on their faces were more than thanks enough. He had his sons out, even now,
searching for the others. Niall’s name, of course, had never been mentioned.
In the church, Father Eoghan placed a white veil on Orlaith’s head and declared, “Receive
this white garment, which mayest thou carry without stain before the judgment seat of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, that thou mayest have eternal life. Amen.”
“Amen,” echoed the few people scattered around the inside of the small church. Not
many, but more than had been present when he first started coming to this place. The Word was
spreading. As Father Eoghan passed Orlaith, who was no longer crying, back to Casidhe, Niall
thought back to that night in the forest.
Never stray from His sight. The Devil’s words, spoken to Casidhe, but heard by them
both, had been meant to frighten them, to make his family fear the dark. But he knew now
that the Lord saw through the deepest darkness, and that there was no place he could go where
God could not see him and those he loved. The thought sent peace and warmth flowing through
Niall’s body.
Casidhe handed Orlaith to him, then rose up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.
“Ready?” he asked.
Casidhe stared at him and nodded. “How could I not be?”
Then Father Eoghan, his infectious smile still spread across his face, reached across and
took her hand, and it was her turn to approach the font.

The End
Scott is an elementary school teacher from Windsor, ON, who has taught all grade levels
from elementary school through university. He lives at home with his wife (oh, yes, sorry)
WONDERFUL wife and two beautiful daughters.

Leave a note for the author on our Message Boards

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SciFi Short
The Bigelow by Mark Reeder 49

continued from page 12

He turned back and stared at her, weighing what he could barter the extra water for.
“OK,” he said and hunkered down on the sill to watch.
A pair of Corridor Cops, silver, double-star tattoos standing out like badges, walked past.
The younger one stopped when he saw the man lurking in the doorway of the old brewery. “Hey
buddy, c’mere. Let’s see your UCO.”
The fat man limped over and held out his wrist. The cop took out a comcorder. His
partner shook his head. “Don’t bother,” he said and pointed at the fat man’s chest. “It’s the start
of the Season.” The younger one nodded, and they moved on.
The hunted man brought his left hand up and gingerly fingered the tender, puckered
outline of a new, yellow crescent tattoo, which now overlaid the lifelong emblem of the Proctor &
Gamble Clan. He had been vested in the Company since birth. But at sixty-five. the Clan turned
him out. At the Senior Center that morning, a young artist painfully hammered and dyed the
new tattoo into him. The yellow crescent design identified him as a player in the Season; its
freshness identified him as a raw and untested newcomer . . . a Bigelow. When the operation
was complete, the workers at the Senior Center gave him his choice of bladed weapons and sent
him out onto the street.
He clutched the empty scabbard at his waist. The knife was also gone. They can be
replaced . . . can’t they?
A garbage can rattled in the alley. The man’s eyes darted to the people across the street.
He took a faltering half step.
A voice snicked out of the gloom. “No one will hide you in the crowd, old man.”
The man limped back to the door, trying to force it open. He looked up at the woman and
the young man in the window. “Please,” he begged.
Neither of them moved. “Now it gets interesting,” the woman laughed.
He turned once more toward the crowd, wondering if he could lose himself within the
swarms of people. Just then his pursuer came through the gate. The street light fell full upon
her. She was tall and thin, with the hooked nose of a Middle Easterner. She carried a Bowie
knife in one hand and his knife in the other. Tattooed on her chest was a long healed scar of a
yellow crescent. The hunted man sagged into the doorway, vainly trying to hide himself.
The woman caught this flicker of movement and walked noiselessly toward him. She
called out to her prey, “It’s all over, Bigelow.”
The young man leaned perilously out of the window. “Run, ya’ ol’ fart! Run!”
The rose tattooed woman pulled him back in. “Shut up!” she cried. “Let the Bigelow make
up his own mind.”
Below them, the man they called Bigelow simply gave up, falling against the brewery and
sliding down the rough bricks to his knees.
“Hey!” his pursuer cried out, truly concerned. “Don’t go having a heart attack. That won’t
help me at all.” She rushed forward and pointed the sword at the man’s throat.
“I’m not having a heart attack,” the man said matter-of-factly. He was surprised at his
own calmness. He was even a little chagrined that the letting go of his life was to be such a
simple affair after all. He smiled at the woman who was hunting him. “There’s just no place to
go.”
Shifting her stance backward a little, the woman glanced warily about her, but there was
no evidence of any trap.
Above, the young man spat in disgust and stomped away from the window. His companion

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said soothingly, “Look, we’ll use your water to bathe with, and I’ll let you wash me.” The young
man returned to the window to watch the sport below.
The old Arab woman looked down at her victim. “You just turn sixty-five, Bigelow?” she
asked in English Standard.
The man nodded. He suddenly felt loquacious. “My name isn’t Bigelow, you know. It’s
Hamlin.”
“Sure. And I’m Indra Hussein from Yemen. Glad to meet you,” the woman mocked.
“You’re a Bigelow until you make your first kill and earn your first red sash.” She laughed
harshly. “Something you aren’t likely to do this lifetime.”
Hamlin nodded, remembering the simplicity of the rules told him at the Senior Center—
kill or be killed. Kill and you stayed alive for a year.
The Arab relaxed a little, but her eyes kept searching the area around the two of them.
She hadn’t always been so generous. After turning sixty-five, twenty years earlier, she killed
quickly and savagely.
“I wasn’t prepared,” Hamlin said. “I expected the Season to be more genteel than this.
Something like dueling.”
“You had sixty-five years to prepare, Bigelow. You would have killed me.”
“I suppose.”
“I suppose.” Her eyes glared at him, and she pulled back her head scarf, revealing a lurid,
red line along her temple. Blood seeped from the wound, trickling in delicate, branching streams
through short, gray hair, down her cheek to pool along her jawline. “I suppose this was an
accident.”
“I was scared and didn’t know what I was doing,” Hamlin said. “I even dropped my
weapons, I was so startled when the tip struck you.”
The woman snorted contemptuously.
“Somehow, it doesn’t seem real,” Hamlin reflected sadly. “To live like this.”
“At least with the Season the Clans give us a chance to reclaim our credit and water rights
for a year. It’s better than lining everyone against a wall.”
Hamlin didn’t bother to argue. He knew the Yemeni was right. Instead, he just looked
into the face of the old woman he knew was going to take his life. He saw the ever present heat
there, in sweat beading up and running down the deep lines of her face. It collected in the space
between the hard, withered flesh of her breasts. He could count her ribs like steps carved into
the skin. Suddenly, looking up into her dark, hawk eyes, he felt ashamed of his corpulence. He
whispered to no one in particular, “When I was a boy, the Ohio Valley still had winter, and there
was snow sometimes.”
“What’s that, Bigelow?” asked the Yemeni.
He shook his head, as if clearing it of the trivia to concentrate on the last seconds of his
life.
“Nothing.” He eased himself against the door frame. Wariness snapped back into the
Arab’s stance, and she brought the rapier to bear on him. Hamlin laughed wryly. It was his
turn to be scornful. “I won’t try anything. Just make it quick.”
She didn’t answer. She stood close and pointed the sword tip at his heart. Hamlin flinched
as he saw the woman’s forearm tighten; but the Yemeni just toppled to the side slowly, as if she
had forgotten how to stand, and thudded against the concrete sidewalk at Hamlin’s feet. From
her back protruded a large knife.

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Hamlin reached out diffidently and touched the crudely made throwing knife sticking
between the third and fourth vertebrae. The iron handle felt cold. Strangely, he was aghast
at this violent act against the woman to whom he had just given his life. His eyes sought the
rapier, which had clattered to the ground beside him. Uncertainly his hand shifted toward the
handle. He heard the sound of footsteps. Flustered, he hid his hand under his armpit and drew
back against the building as an older man and woman pelted down the street from the corner.
“I thought they had gotten away from us,” the woman gasped.
“I guess not,” the man said grimly. He had a pencil-thin mustache in a hard lined face.
Impassively he pulled the knife from between the Arab’s shoulder blades.
Hamlin was shaking, his sudden reprieve unnerving him. “Th... th... thanks,” he
stammered hoarsely. “I... I don’t know who you are. But thank you for saving my life.”
“No need to thank us.” The man handed the knife to the woman haft first. “I’m Frank.
This is Harriet.” The woman smiled at him. Her hair was white, and she was very thin. She
looked far older than sixty-five. “You strong enough to stand?” Frank asked.
Hamlin nodded weakly. “I think so.”
“Here, let me give you a hand up.” Frank grabbed Hamlin’s wrists and jerked him up and
onto the knife in Harriet’s hand. The blade buried itself deep into his chest and twisted.
Hamlin, astonishment in his eyes, like open windows in the house of his face, died without
a whimper.

***

Harriet sighed. “The new Bigelows now-a-days are too easy. This one even lost his
weapons.”
“Ah, but the Arab was a coup. She must have been ninety. That’s a long time to survive
each Season,” observed Frank.
“True,” Harriet answered. “Kind of makes you wish you could mount her over the
fireplace. She should be remembered somehow. If the Center would allow us to keep the scalps,
that would be something, wouldn’t it? I mean, to be remembered in someone’s home at least.”
Frank nodded. He knew Harriet was right. The killing became impersonal once the
Senior Center tagged their claims, recording the DNA of the trophies and the victors, and then
gave them a red sash to wear—protecting them from those still hunting and allowing them to
receive once more their food and water pensions. Still, it was only the first day of the Season and
they would be safe for yet another year. No one would kill a person wearing a sash. He would
lose everything. He wouldn’t be able to hide. Everywhere people would turn him in for the extra
ration reward, usually water.
“Damn!” Frank exclaimed.
Harriet’s head jerked up and she looked around wildly. “What?”
Frank smiled. “Sorry. It’s just that we have their weapons. We should be able to sell
them for enough water to take a shower.”
“Better take the scalps to the Center,” was all she said.
Frank bent down and, with his knife, deftly made an incision around the hairline of both
victims. Then with the precision of a surgeon, he peeled back the scalps, careful not to get the
blood on his clothes. He placed them into a disposable baggie with the Senior Center’s logo on it.
A passing flitter cab, its wings folded and ground effect engines idled, halted. The driver

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stuck his head out the window. Jutting his chin at the two bodies at their feet, he asked, “Need a
lift to the Center? Usual fare.”
He was an ancient man with folds of weathered skin around his neck. From where they
stood, Frank and Harriet could see a hint of red across his left shoulder. They approached
slowly, relaxing only when they clearly saw the red baldric the cab driver wore across his chest
from shoulder to waist, showing a successful hunt. They entered the back seat. The cab’s license
said he was Ezra Halloway, 102 years old.
“He’s older than the Arab,” Harriet whispered to Frank. He nodded.
“Felicitations on your stalk,” Frank said politely to the driver.
“Thank you. And on yours too,” the cabbie answered just as politely. “Good to get it out of
the way early, before a pack of greywolves finds you, huh?”
Frank shuddered, thinking about the large gangs of seniors that swept the res, flushing
out single hunters.
The driver turned his swivel seat toward them. “OK. Show me your UCO’s.” The two
passengers extended their right arms. Implanted at birth under the skin along the wrist were
two rows of numbers and lines. The driver flashed a comcorder which zigged a red line across
each implant. At the end of the night, when the cabbie totaled his receipts, the bank’s DNA
computer would automatically debit the fares from Frank and Harriet’s accounts, which would
be unfrozen since they would have logged their individual tallies for the Season. The implant
only functioned while a person lived. Once he or she died, the numbers faded and became a
dark, unusable smudge.
“Let’s get you to the Senior Center,” the driver said. He adjusted the controls from street
drive to flight. “Watch the bounce,” he warned. There was a violent jerk as the flitter craft
shifted power to its takeoff spring and catapulted into the windless night. Everyone was pushed
deeply into the foam padded seats. Wings unfolded and snapped into place with a sharp crack
of crysteel against crysteel. The ground effect motor roared alive and drove them through the
canyons of the Corridor City, above the buildings and into the sable sky. Frank and Harriet
slowly exhaled.
The cabbie laughed. “I’ve been driving a flitter for thirty years, and the bounce still takes
my breath away. If the wings didn’t unfold, it could be a really hard landing.” His passengers
said nothing.
“I see you bagged Indra Hussein,” the cabbie went on.
“Frank did with a knife throw at thirty-five feet.”
The cabbie shrugged. “She was a good hunter. Who was the other?”
“Just some Bigelow,” Harriet said disparagingly.
The driver nodded knowingly. “I know what you mean. I got a Bigelow, right where
you’re sitting, this morning.”
Harriet squirmed a little.
“He got into my cab at the Senior Center right after he’d registered. Told me he was going
uptown to bag a Bigelow! Can you believe it? Haw! Haw!” The old driver swiveled his chair
and grinned at his passengers, revealing smoke-yellow teeth, cracked and broken. “I just turned
around and nailed him. Went into the Center and got my sash. Easiest stalk I ever made.” The
old cabbie cackled. After a few seconds he turned back and flew on.
The cab flitted through the night quietly. The cabbie concentrated on taking his
passengers to the old Cincinnati Senior Center at the abandoned Presbyterian Church on Vine

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Street. Frank watched the skin in the old driver’s neck furrow and flatten as he weaved through
the traffic. Harriet stared out the flitter’s plasglass canopy. Below, tall, angular buildings of the
Cincy-Pitts Corridor City stretched their metal and glass necks into the sky along the serpentine
banks of the Ohio River and faded into a shapeless, sparkling mass on the distant horizon. The
silence in the flitter deepened into melancholy.
Impulsively Frank reached over and patted Harriet’s knee. “Sam would have been proud
of you tonight,” he said softly.
Harriet looked at him, her eyes sad and filmy. “I suppose,” she answered. She reached
out and held his hand.

***

The flittercab shuddered violently. “Hold on!” the cabbie shouted. He gripped the stick
and drove it hard over. He and his passengers surged against the seat restraints. Night and
glass and metal whirled around them. Faces flowed and twisted under the G-forces of the
spiraling turn. Halloway made a raspy, sawing noise as he strained against the screaming
ground effect motors. Then the flitter shuddered a second time, banked hard, righted itself, and
shot along at street level. Finally the old cabbie brought it under control and set it down.
Frank and Harriet let go of each other as the cab coasted to a stop. A few blocks away, the
lights of the Senior Center blazed golden and inviting.
“That was close,” Halloway wheezed.
“We’ll . . . we’ll get out here,” Frank croaked and reached out to press the emergency
canopy release.
Halloway turned around. “Not so fast,” he said, pointing an ancient snub-nosed .38 at
them. Frank reached for his knife. Halloway pulled the trigger. The blast deafened all of
them. Frank cried out as he was slammed back into the seat. Harriet inched forward to steady
him, but the cabbie motioned her to sit back. He tossed her an oil-stained rag. ”I only winged
him. Put pressure on it to stop the bleeding.” She folded the cloth and held it against Frank’s
shoulder. Halloway chuckled. “Don’t see too many of these. It’s a relic from the early days of
the season, before the Clans outlawed them.”
“Why?” Frank asked through clenched teeth.
Halloway grimaced.
“I’m sorry; I truly am. But I need those scalps you took.”
Harriet frowned. “You have a sash.”
“My nephew and his wife are too crippled to hunt any more, so I’ll be taking your scalps for
them. You two can get new ones.”
He pressed a button on the center console. The plasglass canopy sprung open. He
motioned with the pistol, and Frank and Harriet got out. Seconds later he tossed their weapons
onto the pavement. “You’ll be needing these.”
Frank grimaced. “What for? You might as well kill us now and get it over with. We’re a
long way from home, and I won’t last long with this busted wing.”
Halloway laughed, his lips set in a mocking smile. “Now that would be breaking the rules
of the Season.” He then eased the joy stick forward, and the flittercab rolled away. Halloway
punched another stud, and the canopy snicked shut. The cab gained momentum and sprang into
the night. Wings snapped open as the engine hissed to life. He guided the flitter in a sweeping

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turn. Glancing below, he spotted Frank and Harriet. They had picked up their weapons and
now scurried toward the nearest building. A pack of greywolves turned the corner and trotted
after them. Halloway fled east. Red and purple seared the horizon. The second dawn was
coming.

The End
Mark Reeder kicked around the universe for 36 years before settling in Boulder, Colorado, with
his wife, Debbie Kranzler. Along the way he acquired a Master’s Degree in History from the
University of Cincinnati and several bruises from the College of Hard Knocks. Since then he
has learned to hangglide, was the chief writer for the nationally syndicated radio talk show,
“Against the Rush,” (listened to by tens of people across the country) and worked for Centre
Communications as a researcher and script writer. His short stories have appeared on the web
at ‘Deep Magic’, ‘Quantum Muse’, ‘Dark Planet’, ‘Rocket Stories’ and ‘Galaxy E-zine’. His first
science fiction/fantasy novel, ‘A Dark kNight for the King,’ written with co-author Ron Meyer, was
released by Publish America in 2002 and is available at amazon.com.

Leave a note for the author on our Message Boards

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continued from page 16

was Bellona. I felt welts lift on the skin and grow red and bulbous, even as I knew Maggie’s skin
would be growing clear and fair. I clung to that image of her cleansing and bore down against
the muffling of my own identity.
Maggie was smaller than me by half, but pain does not care. It pricked me with the
same intensity, quickened my breath with the same force. Finally, I was down to the redness in
Maggie’s tear-choked eyes, and as I felt my own eyes enflame, I opened them and looked at her.
Then a wave of dizziness hit me and I sank to the rug.
“Thank you, Bearer,” I heard Maggie’s mother say over my head, sensed her lean forward
and wrap her arms around her child. “Maggie, what do you say?” I sat back and tilted my head
up.
“Thank you,” Maggie said, running her hands across her flawless skin. I took inventory of
my new injuries. I counted up a few extra scrapes and bruises, the repertoire of the active child,
even one not chasing bees.
It was an effort to climb to my feet, and even the touch of the still air aggravated my
skin. My vision blackened and I took a rough grip on the wooden arm of the couch. The women
appeared in multicolored blotches in front of me, and I took a deep breath, forcing a smile.
“You’ll leave that hive alone now, won’t you, Maggie?” I knew the answer, whatever she might
say.
The girl nodded, but her eyes slid to one side. I saw her mother frown, but she made
sweeping motions with her hands to usher her family out of the house. Then she turned to
me. “Whatever would we do without you, Bellona?” She smiled. It might have been motherly;
I wouldn’t know. “I remember when you were just this big,” she held her hand somewhere
above her waist, “when they found your gift and gave you this house, took you away from that
soapmaker. How blessed we all are.” The words were hollow. Maggie’s identity and pain
crowding in with mine gave my eyes and ears a sharpness for untruth, and I think the petulant
mother sensed it. With a flash of sunlight from the door that dazzled my dry eyes, she and her
family were gone.
Sweat soaked my shift and bit my welted skin. I desperately wanted that cup of tea, but
turned toward the bedroom and walked there slowly instead. Bending carefully, I sat before the
cupboard beside the bed and drew a key from my pocket. Then unlocked and opened it, revealing
what I never let the villagers see.
Inside were three shelves, each covered with a layer of smooth river stones. I ran a hand
across them, palm and fingers slipping across their surfaces, and came to a flat clay-colored one.
I picked it up. It was heavy and cool.
Pressing the stone between my palms, I turned and leaned back against the bed.
Balanced, eyes shut, I opened the gates between myself and the stone.
Coolness flooded me, welcomed me, and a tense breath escaped my mouth. A whisper,
strange but grown comforting, murmured wordlessly in my ear before fading. This stone would
not hold much more, but it carried some of Maggie’s pain already, and it grew warm as it took on
its new burden. The stinging faded from my arms and the terrible lassitude in my chest began to
unravel, then disappear. When all of the poison was gone, I pressed the warm stone to my lips,
then returned it to its place and locked the cupboard.
Weary but relieved, I stood and returned to the kitchen for my tea.

***

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I was up late that night; I am always up late. When the dishes were done, the fire banked,
and I could find no other excuse to remain awake, I blew out the kitchen candle and walked
through the smoky darkness to my bedroom. Each stone rested in my mind as a little patch of
blankness even as they rested in the cupboard. With every addition I made to them, they became
clearer, deeper, even when I wasn’t touching them.
I knelt again by the cupboard, unlocking and opening it. Now that I held only my own
pain, the stones glowed to my eyes, each with a different color, except the ones that hadn’t yet
been filled. I passed my hands over them, a faint ache spreading through my fingers where they
touched, and memories of old pain taken and given whispered through my body. In the very
back of the cupboard was my first stone, a dark grey one no longer than my thumb. I had picked
it up as a child and accidentally sent a mosquito bite into it. The grey stone was my favorite, but
I tried never to think that around the others, lest they become jealous.
Sometimes I thought the stones spoke to me. They murmured when I touched them, and
sometimes I could even hear them when the cupboard was locked. They liked me, respected
me, even the ones that were angry, as several of them were. Unlike the villagers, they could
hold their own pain and more; they were like me. Each stone was unique, composed of its own
minerals, not like the villagers, whose pain was all the same. And stones did not sweat, did not
bleed.
My hands lingered over the rows of stones. They reminded me of my soap: shaped by the
water, accepting what was given them, uncomplaining. I said good night to each one in turn,
then locked them away, slipped beneath my quilt, and slept.

***

It was a busy week. I filled five new stones with pain for the village and had to make a
trip down to the river to collect more.
Gill Hammersmith and his son were repairing the roof of their house roughly six plots
away from my cottage. The river ran past it, powering a waterwheel that ground grain in the
adjacent mill. By sheerest chance I was there on the far side of the wheel, hunting for stones
along the shore, drawing in the scent of rocks and moss and wind. I was there to feel him fall.
The stones gave me sensitivity to pain, but only when it was nearly upon me, or so I
thought. Yet when twelve-year-old Vance Hammersmith fell from the half-tiled roof, I felt it.
His terror was mine the moment his foot slipped across the wet mortar; our elbow cracked as he
slammed it into the pile of baked clay tiles in an attempt to right himself.
We fell five feet and then caught the edge of a scythe—propped so benignly, so casually,
against the water barrels alongside the house—with his stomach. The curved blade cut through
his vitals easily and caught against his spine, creaking in my ears. For one macabre moment we
hung there like a hooked duck on a butcher’s rack, blood soaking through his shirt, before the
scythe shaft unbalanced and toppled him to the ground, blade still wedged beneath his ribs.
His impact with the ground jarred me out of my shock. I was running before I knew
consciously what had happened, and turned the corner of the house to catch sight of Vance before
me. Right around then the women of the house appeared in the doorway, caught sight of the boy,
and started to scream, rushing between us. Vance’s dog, a lean black and white creature with a
long nose, raced out in front of them and began to bark wildly. Vance’s pain roared at me, and I
could only feel fleeting annoyance for the family’s petty, useless fear.
I fought my way through the gaggle of hysterical women—someday they would learn that

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screaming does nothing for pain—and laid my hands on the boy. The heat of his injury blinded
me for a moment before I grit my teeth and collapsed the barriers between us, letting the full
brunt of his pain flood into my veins.
The body could never be made to like pain, but the mind could appreciate its variances. I
had never borne anything like this before. It was sheerest exquisite agony to stretch out one of
my hands and grasp the sickle-head of the scythe. When I pulled it free of Vance’s body, a cry
ripped forth from both our throats and hot tears striped my face. I fell across the boy’s chest, and
with the full contact of his blood and my skin, pulled his injury into myself.
I felt my own stomach tear open, and numbness spread through my arms. I knew what I
needed to do, knew what I would do, or die, but through the haze and darkness of my own agony
resisted the decision. The stones could not be seen before the villagers. They were mine. The
villagers did not understand them, not as I did. They never would.
My body would not listen. One hand managed to reach into my apron pocket and pull out
two of the new river stones. Breaking, I relentlessly siphoned pain into them, letting it burn
through me at such a rate that the stones scalded my palms and sucked the last of the light from
my vision. A moment of relief pulsed through me, and I was dimly aware of the barest knitting
of the flesh at my middle, before exhaustion took me.
I remember Vance’s face, imminent death not yet faded from his expression, etched
against my unseeing eyes, etched against the darkness.

***

When I woke, the stones were speaking to me.

Look at you, they said. Look at what they have done to you. The words slithered through
the pounding headache that had taken up residence between my temples, blurred together with
my own thoughts; my voice, not my voice.
My eyes were crusted with sleep-sand that crackled when I opened them. The wooden
ceiling of my cottage was overhead, and my bed beneath me. My quilt, stained with fluid, stuck
to my back when I folded myself upward; an action that didn’t last long, for my stomach, still
torn on the inside, stabbed my spine. I fell back to the bed, gasping and remembering what had
happened. And you, the stones said, two simple words that twisted my gut, you let them become
helpless.
My gorge suddenly surged upward and I struggled off of the bed, falling to the wooden
floor on my hands and knees. The impact was too much. I lost what little remained in my
stomach, and the sharp scent of blood and bile sent nausea coursing through my chest and
sinuses. It mingled with my sudden crushing guilt—from the stones or from myself I could not
know, but I hated it. The slash across my stomach split open with a pop and I heard blood drip
onto the floor, a patter that rattled through the roaring in my ears, incongruously loud.
The cupboard was not far away, and I crawled toward it. My hands felt sluggish and
unresponsive as I fumbled through my pockets for the key.
Why do you let them do this? the stones asked.
I paused. “I have to. They can’t do it for themselves.” My vision swam.
And when you can’t do for yourself? Where are they?
I didn’t want to listen to this; in my struggling state the words bled into my thoughts, or
maybe surged from them to begin with. Finally locating the key, I unlocked the cupboard and
pulled out my largest stone. I’d been saving it for a year.

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With the stone in my hands I fell against the bed, closing my eyes and letting everything
pour into it. My pain, my exhaustion, my fear—everything went into the stone, disappeared
beneath its smooth surface. Cold, the cold of stones, the cold of not-feeling, gripped me, not
comforting this time, but preferable to agony.
I do not know how long I sat there. In the ever-dusk of the little house, its blue curtains
always drawn. It could have been minutes or hours. I emptied myself, became nothing.
When my ankles began to buzz for lack of circulation, I pushed myself to my feet again
and placed the stone back in the cupboard, without locking it. With my pain gone, there was no
reason to just sit there any longer, so I went about cleaning up the remains of my illness. I clung
to my emptiness.
The quilt was ruined. My mother’s careful stitches were soaked with pink fluid from my
injuries, and they stank. I bundled it up in my arms and carried it to the kitchen, thinking that
perhaps later I could soak it in cold water, knowing that I was not ready to admit it would never
be the same. I returned to the bedroom with a pile of rags and cleaned up the floor. Finally,
when the rags were on the rubbish pile and the windows opened to let in the air, though I still
left the curtains drawn, I took a box from beneath the bed. If the stones spoke, I did not hear
them, and was grateful.
I opened the box on the floor and took my time selecting from its contents. It was filled
with handmade soap, carefully crafted in small batches and sculpted into shapes. These were all
over a year old. I hadn’t heated the lye vat behind the cottage for a very long time. Looking at
them now awakened memories of hot, intense days spent over the vat, gathering ingredients and
molding the still-warm soap with hands, wires, and pick. Days I spent living.
Finally, I brought myself back to the present and picked out a rosewood and lavender bar
shaped like a cat. Then, fetching a soft towel from my carefully guarded reserve, I walked out
the back door and closed it quietly behind me.
The dew-soaked leaves in the back wood were cool and primal beneath my bare feet. As
I moved further from the village, I began to wake up, to feel my spirit stir. I felt tattered and
tired, but the forest air, thick with the heady-sharp-sweet scent of pine, awakened me.
At last I came to my secret place. It wasn’t all that hidden, but I knew no one in the
village visited it. An inlet in the curve of the river that wound around to the west, it held a
gently spiraling churn of clear water that was cold and deep.
I set my towel and soap on a shale outcropping near the edge and plunged in, head first.
The water was so beautiful I almost tried to breathe it in. It embraced me, caressing
every inch of my skin and slicking my hair to an otter’s pelt; then when I rose I felt it sway in
the water, weightless and enveloping like a mermaid’s. Beneath the sun-shafted ceiling I was
sheltered. In my stone-walled bubble of water I felt only the elements, not even my own skin,
my own pain. My heart wrung with sudden longing. The coolness against my face, behind my
ears, around my waist, was sublime, and I stayed there until the pressure in my lungs grew
excruciating.
My head broke the surface to a rush of sudden sound that made me appreciate the silence
below all the more. Blinking droplets from my eyelashes, I tried to pierce the shadows near the
bottom of the pool with my paltry human gaze, before reluctantly swimming back to the edge.
I stepped onto an underwater stack of shale near the rim of the pool and its feathery
carpet of freshwater moss tickled between my toes. Already I could feel the gentle currents of
the river washing away the sweat, the dirt—the anxiety, the pain—but I took up the bar of soap
to make the experience complete.

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The cat was unrecognizable by the time I was done, its pink surface reduced to one or two
marks of detail beneath a fish-belly smoothness, but it was worth it. You should never use a bar
of soap twice, anyway, not if you really want to feel clean and new, washed of pain. The lavender
and rosewood flooded my lungs, and when I exhaled, even my breathing felt cleaner. When at
last I walked from the pool, unflinching in my nakedness, into the touch of the forest breeze,
I felt reborn and human again. Not human like those that lived around me, but human as I
thought I could be. I bent and picked up my towel from the shale, savoring the brush of its plush
fabric against my ribs as I wrapped it around me.
The stones had been silent throughout my self-ministrations, no longer deeply in my head,
unlimited by distance or time. They did not ask again why no one had stayed with me, perhaps
accepting that I understood. I could sense pain, but I could also sense fear; fear is a kind of pain.
The villagers did not understand pain the way I did, and so did not understand me. How do you
sit by the bedside of something you do not understand but in whose hands you place your life?
Once, I had met with someone else like me. The villagers had brought her to me from another
town, a larger one. But there was nothing for us to talk about. We understood each other,
understood what we did. We did not ask each other if we ever missed our parents, our friends,
our girlhoods; the loss had been for the greater good. When your life revolves around the needs
of someone else, you have very little to bring to a conversation.
The villagers feared me, but the stones did not.
Look what they have brought you, they whispered at last, when I re-entered the cottage.
I turned toward the cupboard, towel wrapped around my midsection, and for the first time
I noticed the bouquet of white flowers set atop it. They were scentless, and I recognized the
variety, picked from a nearby meadow.
I had been dying, and they had sent me flowers. I wondered what they were for.
Condolences for my pain?
Condolences for my death?
I turned away from the cupboard, suddenly angry. Seeking something to do with myself, I
walked across to the kitchen, leaving wet footprints across the plank floor. There was still water
in the kettle, and I stoked the fire in the stove and heated it. In a short while I was dressed
again, seated at my kitchen table, considering the day’s events over a cup of strong black tea
flavored with dried pomegranate.
What would you do, if you left? the stones asked. I thought of the soap, wondered how well
it would sell in neighboring villages, or farther away, where no one knew me as the Bearer of
Tophollow.
“People would die,” I said, not looking at the cupboard.
Sometimes they need to die, the stones answered. I felt my stomach sink, though twice
now I had brushed with death, mine and another’s; it was not so bad, first-hand. Sometimes, the
stones insisted, they need to learn.
I took a long drink of the tea, ignoring how it scalded my throat, and focused on the
warming of my stomach.
Think what you have learned from us, the stones said. Think what they have not learned.
Gradually the words grew in me, and certainty with them. Who was I, to take their pain?
The stones were like the soap: shaped by the water, and, if never moved, consumed by it.
“I am not a bearer,” I said. “I am a taker.”
Yes, the stones agreed.
“But not anymore.”

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You will leave then? Something quickened the voice in the stones. My heart accelerated
ever so slightly.
“Yes. But first I have something that belongs to them.”

***

My stones were packed into an old tackle box with my soap piled around them when I
opened the front door and stepped out into the summer sunlight. I squinted instinctively and
raised a hand to shade my eyes, but after a moment, it wasn’t so bad. I regretted leaving my
mother’s quilt, but could not bear to touch it anymore. I wanted nothing from the little house
save what was mine; I would find food, I could feed myself, clothe myself. I was strong. Hefting
the box, I set off for the town square.
The square was a small greensward with alders at each corner. I’d put on a pair of
working pants—they hadn’t been used since my last turn at the lye vat—and they bunched as I
climbed atop one of the benches between the trees. A few villagers passed by, some looking a bit
relieved at my apparent soundness of body, but no one spoke to me. I set the tackle box across
my left forearm and opened it, then plucked a stone from it at random. It was a narrow one,
yellow like mild farm cheese and riddled with holes.
I took a deep breath. The villagers continued to pass without acknowledging me, a
masked questioning glance here and there, but more often a gaze turned unflinchingly forward,
away.
Releasing pain from a stone was something I had never done, but it proved remarkably
easy. I pressed the porous yellow one to my palm with my fingers and opened its little gates.
The pain came surging forth, but I did not accept it, and it sought the only other place it knew.
A scream from behind me. Matron Onna wailed with terror as a wide slash appeared
across her left hand, a relic from a kitchen accident last week. I knew how she felt, and for the
first time, she knew how I felt. I wanted to savor the phenomenon, but quickly moved on to the
next stone.
I made it about halfway through the box before any of the villagers even realized what was
going on.
For such a little place, the square could sustain an awful lot of pandemonium. Somewhat
to my surprise, no one moved to stop me; they were too busy running madly through the streets
and fleeing the square, screaming wildly in fear and horror as they went. Running wouldn’t
help; the stone’s pain could find its owner anywhere in the world, I now realized, for it knew
where it belonged. I think it was at that moment that I realized, guilty but resolute, how far
gone they all were, to be reduced to a flock of farm chickens by a little pain.
I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time, though. Something strange was
happening. With every released stone I felt myself growing stronger, and I felt the voices of the
stones growing fainter, still talking, but as if from a greater distance. I didn’t care; I was too
buoyant with elation and completion. By the last row of stones, I realized I was smiling, and had
stepped down from the bench to move through the village, needing to walk, to exert some of this
wonderful energy. My feet carried me toward the river road.
As I walked, I contemplated Maggie’s stones. They seethed with pain, and like their
brothers now whispered for release. The stones knew where Maggie was. I set them free, but
let the pain sift through my fingers, changing it as I had never done before. Maggie’s pain was
lethal, but this time she would not die; she might only wish she had. This I did with all lethal

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stones, save three: my largest, and its two companions, still warm from Vance’s accident. Their
heat defied softening, defied the filtering I had used on the cooler stones.
I touched a fingertip to the two smaller ones, and this time accepted the pain. With the
rush of vitality in my veins, I hardly even noticed it. I didn’t keep it long, though. Even as it
lurched into my body I transferred it to the big stone, consolidating it all inside. Nice and clean.
Soon I approached the back of the Hammersmith house. The waterwheel was just visible
beyond it. Vance stood at the back door. I walked toward him.
Gina Hammersmith, Gill’s wife, was standing behind her son; I spared her half a glance
before turning my attention to the boy. The pain in the stone cried out for release. Vance’s jaw
was slack, his chest heaving deeply. He knew his death lay in the large, flat stone. I placed my
hand over it.
A sudden barking made me freeze. Vance’s dog was racing toward us, her neck
outstretched and her legs flying. She was very fast, and for the first time that afternoon I felt a
fingertip of fear trace lightly up my spine. I had never taken pain from the dog, and so could give
none to defend myself and at realizing this, I was surprised at my own abrupt desire to hurt the
creature. I had never desired to give injury before, but here, in the face of this force I could not
control... She could not kill me, certainly, for I could put any of my own pain into a stone, but,
liberated as I was from the weight of the pain-filled stones, I had no desire to return to my cage
again. My hand wrapped around the large stone, and I braced myself for the attack.
Still baying a threat and a warning, the dog skidded to a halt in front of Gina and Vance,
throwing up a swathe of dust as the hair on her neck stood on end. A growl curled the dog’s lip.
Even in the full throes of her menace, though, she faltered when I stared to one side, avoiding
meeting her challenge.
I looked down at the stone in my hand, then across at the dog. She was shaking, her
slender legs quaking, whether with fear or fury I did not know. I lowered my hand, and felt a
smile returning to my lips.
“I won’t be afraid of you, as they were of me,” I told the mutt, who lowered her lip and
sniffed. “Or at least I won’t act it. We both know they can’t control us, in the end. I hope you
never have to die for them.”
The stone was heavy in my hand, and suddenly felt much less immediate than it had. I
held it out to Vance, who most likely thought I was doing him far more a favor than I was. He
put his hand forward to accept the stone. “Take care of that,” I said. “It has your pain inside it.”
The boy wrapped his hands around the stone and held it to his chest.
“Bearer?” Gina said hesitantly. A large woman, heavy with muscle, she was favoring her
right ankle. I remembered that ankle. I also remembered seeing her with other injuries I never
tended. “Bellona? What do we do now? How will we survive without a Bearer?”
I closed my box. “You’ll do what I did,” I said. “You’ll heal. Or you’ll die.”
“But...” Gina started, and Vance reached out to take her hand. She nodded.
I lifted a hand to the dog, who tolerated a pat on the head.
“Where will you go now?” Vance asked, hands and arms hiding the big stone.
“To the river,” I said, giving my box a gentle shake. “Then, who knows.” Up the road at
the town square, the screaming had died down, and soon folk would be coming to ask questions,
probably more forcefully than Gina had. I gave the woman and boy a nod, then turned toward
the river road. Their eyes were upon my back as I walked, but I did not turn. It was in my mind
that the other villagers might later come for me, if they could overcome their fear, but by then I
should be ready for them.

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The Bearer by Erin Hoffman 62

The river wasn’t far. Soon the stones were home again, neatly stacked in a pile beneath
the cool, flowing water. For a moment I envied them. I raised a hand to my lips in farewell and
turned away.
Tackle box empty now, save for the soap, I started following the road north, absently
scratching at a mosquito bite on the back of my right hand. I thought of lavender fields, of a
fragrant herb garden, and of a quiet cottage in the woods, where there were no polished stones,
and no fear.

The End
Erin Hoffman is a freelance author and game designer currently residing in Troy, New York. She
lives with her husband and a small cadre of pets surreptitiously plotting world domination. Her
work has appeared in three print anthologies and online. Further information can be found on her
website, http://www.gryphonflight.com.

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Deep Magic: The E-zine of High Fantasy and Science Fiction April 2006