Lamma's Night (anthology)

In Celebration of Lammas Night

Created by Mercedes Lackey

edited by Josepha Sherman

Copyright 1996

version 2.0 completely edited, compared to original, spell checked. finished March 13, 2004

CONTENTS

Introduction — Josepha Sherman

Lammas Night — Mercedes Lackey

Hallowmas Night — Mercedes Lackey

Harvest of Souls — Doranna Durgin

The Heart of the Grove — Ardath Mayhar

Miranda — Ru Emerson

Demonheart — Mark Shepherd

Sunflower — Jody Lynn Nye

Summer Storms — Christie Golden

A Choice of Many — Mark Garland

The Captive Song — Josepha Sherman

Midsummer Folly — Elisabeth Waters

The Mage — the Maiden and the Hag — S.M. Stirling and Jan Stirling

The Road Taken — Laura Anne Gilman

A Wanderer of Wizard-Kind — Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Circle of Ashes — Stephanie D. Shaver

A Choice of Dawns — Susan Shwartz

Miranda's Tale — Jason Henderson

Lady of the Rock — Diana L. Paxson

Before — Gael Baudino

Introduction

First there was the song.

Several years back, Mercedes Lackey wrote 'Lammas Night,' a spooky, supernatural ballad that ended with the wizard protagonist facing a very perilous choice that was left to the listener to decide.

Then came the birthday present that wasn't.

Bill Jahnel and friends put together a collection of endings for the song, intending to offer it as a tribute to Mercedes, known to her friends as 'Misty.' However, the best laid plans often don't come off as intended. The project was shelved for a time, then offered to Baen Books for possible publication. Unfortunately, while this project, in its original form, made a lovely tribute and Misty was quite touched, it was felt that a book made up strictly of endings to a song would have made for rather limited reading.

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

What you hold in your hands is an all-new collection of fantasy stories by some of the brightest stars in the field. Each was given a copy of 'Lammas Night' and was told to use it as a springboard for his or her imagination. The only restriction was that their stories must show some tie-in to the original song.

What resulted is a wild range of stories, some traditional, some outright bizarre. Lammas Night is both a tribute to the song and to Misty herself. It is also a chance for readers to enter new worlds of fantasy and see the creative imagination at work.

—Josepha Sherman

Lammas Night

MERCEDES LACKEY

A waning moon conceals her face

Behind a scudding wind-torn cloud.

 (a wind-torn shroud)

She wraps herself in its embrace

As in a tattered cloak.

 (a shadow cloak)

The wind is wailing in the trees.

Their limbs are warped and bent and bowed.

 (so bleak and cowed)

I stand within my circle now

To deal with what I woke.

 (I wake—I see, but not yet free.)

A wanderer of wizard kind