Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

would hurt me badly.:

Carthea snorted again. :I knew.:

:Why didn’t you save yourself this trouble and pain? Why didn’t you just tell me? :

Carthea rolled the one eye he could see. Her ears pricked forward. :You know why.:

:I do?: And, suddenly, Lubonne realized, he did. I wouldn’t have believed it. I would have thought she was lying to get me to join her.

Though he made no attempt to Mindspeak the thought, Carthea apparently received it. She bobbed her wise, white head once before the man holding the rope jerked it still.

At the violence of the movement, anger flared anew. I was so busy chasing fake love, I didn’t see the real thing when it thrust its huge, fuzzy head through my bedroom window. Lubonne turned his attention to Haralt and Honoria, driving all trace of malice from his tone and his features. “How much?”

“What?” The word was clearly startled from Haralt’s mouth.

Honoria had more experience in matters of finance. “You want to buy her from us?”

“Yes.”

Honoria’s smile broadened, and Lubonne wondered why he had never before noticed how dingy her teeth looked, the meanness in her grin. “It would cost you . . . your inheritance.”

“Sold!” Lubonne said, before she could change her mind or think to ask for more. He had no wish nor need to reduce the deal to writing. Honoria had four witnesses to corroborate her claim, and he had no intention of dishonoring his word. He claimed the ropes from each man in turn. Carthea remained utterly still while he unwound each rope, removed the offending bridle, and tossed the makeshift saddle to the ground.

:I’m not going to fall off, am I?:

Carthea turned him a withering look.

Using a deadfall for a step, Lubonne clambered upon his Companion, a Herald trainee astride his heartmate and bound for Collegium. “Tell my parents the money is yours. And that I’ve gone to Valdemar.”

Carthea bounded over a copse of berries in one smooth leap and settled onto the packed earth, forest road. :Home for your things?:

:And spoil this grand exit for a few possessions?: Lubonne made a broad gesture in the general direction of Valdmar. :I have my future and my Heartmate. What more do I need?:

:What more, indeed.: Carthea agreed.

A Storytelling of Crows

by Elisabeth Waters

Elisabeth Waters sold her first short story in 1980 to Marion Zimmer Bradley for

The Keeper’s Price

, the first of the Darkover anthologies. She continues to sell short stories to a variety of anthologies and magazines. Her first novel, a fantasy called

Changing Fate,

was awarded the 1989 Gryphon Award. She is now working on a sequel to it, in addition to short story writing and editing the annual

Sword & Sorceress

anthology. She has also worked as a supernumerary with the San Francisco Opera, where she appeared in

La Gioconda, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Khovanschina, Das Rheingold, Werther

, and

Idomeneo

.

The horse wasn’t the first animal to come to Maia calling for help, but it was the first one with a human on its back. Not that Maia noticed the human at first. She sat in a clearing in the Forest of Sorrows, avoiding her older brother. She was listening to the chatter of the crows while working on the fletching of the arrows that she made and her brother sold to support them. Then the voices of the crows changed, warning her of strangers in the forest. This was followed by the sound of something large stumbling through the trees and then the sight of a white horse with an arrow protruding from a hind leg and a pile of arrow-studded red and white rags on his back.

:Help my Chosen!: His voice was very clear in Maia’s head; he spoke as if he expected a human to hear and understand him.

Maia been able to hear—and converse with—animals as long as she could remember, but this mental voice wasn’t like that of any animal she had encountered before. It sounded more like a human, which made her wary. Shortly after the death of her parents three years ago, the people of their village suddenly and inexplicably didn’t like her any more—and her brother had never liked her. Now she avoided people whenever possible. Living at the edge of Sorrows helped; she could retreat into the forest and be left alone.

Still, whatever this was, he was in distress, so she dropped the arrows and moved to his side.

“Help your chosen what?” she asked him.

:My Herald. Her name is Samina. I am Clyton.:

“Let’s get this arrow out of you, Clyton,” Maia said, “and then perhaps you can get closer to the ground so I can get her down without dropping her.” She looked at the arrow in his leg and frowned. “This looks like one of mine,” she remarked, grasping it firmly below the fletching and pulling it straight out. The horse cried out in pain, and Maia stared in horror at the arrow she was holding. It was one of hers, but the last time she had seen it the shaft had simply been sharpened to a point. Since then somebody had added metal barbs to the tip, and it had not slid out as she expected it to. Instead, it had ripped a chunk out of Clyton’s leg.

“I am so sorry,” she gasped. “It didn’t have barbs when I saw it last!” She snatched up a cloth she used to wrap supplies in and pressed it against his leg to stop the bleeding.

:It’s not that bad,: Clyton said, although she suspected him of being less than truthful. :At least we’re far enough into Sorrows that the bandits aren’t likely to track us here.:

“Probably not,” Maia agreed. “My brother won’t even come in here.” Still keeping pressure on the leg, she twisted to look at the woman on his back, who had at least four arrows in her. “Bandits?” she asked. “There are usually no bandits anywhere near here.”

:There are now,: Clyton said grimly. Suddenly she found herself looking through his eyes. She recognized the road leading to her family’s farm, not that it was much of a farm since her parents had died and her brother had sold all the animals and stopped working the land.

As Clyton and his Herald approached the farm, men fired arrows—all of them barbed—from the trees on both sides of the road and then moved into the road to surround horse and rider. She saw her brother’s face clearly for a moment as he reached to grab the left side of Clyton’s reins, but then everything blurred as Clyton put on a seemingly impossible burst of speed and broke out of the trap.

Maia blinked and found herself back in the present and seeing through her own eyes again. “Was that real?” she asked. “What I just saw, I mean.”

:Yes. That’s what happened to us. You obviously have Mindspeech if you can pick it up from me like that.:

Maia lifted the cloth carefully and looked at his leg. The bleeding had almost stopped. “I think you’ll be all right for the moment if you don’t try to move much,” she said. “I’ll just have to lift Samina down as carefully as I can and hope for the best. I can see four arrows in her back—do you know if there are any more?”

:I don’t think so, but check before you try to move her. And be careful removing the arrows!:

“Don’t worry,” Maia assured him; “I learned my lesson with the one in your leg!”

:Better my leg than her body,: Clyton sighed.

Maia felt around Samina’s body to check for additional arrows, but she didn’t find any more. She wriggled her arm and shoulder between Samina’s body and the saddle, took most of the woman’s weight, and went to the