Mercedes Lackey: Lamma's Night (anthology)

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

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

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

I was, until a month ago

(so well I know)

The headman of this village came

And begged that I should stay.

(so cold and fey)

"For since our wizard died," he said

"And why he died we do not know—

(so long ago!)

We have no one to weave us spells

And keep the Dark at bay."

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

"His house and books are yours, milady,

If you choose but to remain."

(remembered pain)

His offer was too tempting

To be lightly set aside

(remembered pride)

I'd wearied of my travel, being

Plaything of the sun and rain—

(choose to remain—)

This was the chance I'd hoped for—

And I said that I would bide.

(I hope—I pray—and you must stay)

Perhaps if I had been a man,

And not a maid, perhaps if I

Had been less lonely, less alone,

Or less of magic folk—

(the spell-bound broke)

Whatever weakness was in me,

Or for whatever reason why

(my reason why)

Something slept within that house

That my own presence woke.

(You dream so much—I try to touch)

A half-seen shadow courted me,

Stirred close at hand or by my side.

(to bid you bide)

It left a lover's token—one

Fresh blossom on my plate.

(a fragrant bait)

I woke to danger—knew the young

Magician still to Earth was tied—

(for freedom cried)

And tied to me—and I must act.

Or I might share his fate.

(I need your aid, be not afraid)

I found a spell for banishment—

The pages then turned—and not by me!

(look now and see)

The next spell differed by one word,

A few strokes of a pen.

(and read again)

The first one I had seen before,

The spell to set a spirit free;

(so I will be)

The second let the mage-born dead

Take flesh and live again!

(one spell and then I live again)

Now both these spells were equal

In their risk to body and to soul.

(I shall be whole)

And both these spells demanded

They be cast on Lammas Night.

(the darkest night)

And both these spells of spirit

And of caster took an equal toll,

(task to the soul)

But nowhere is it writ

That either spell is of the Light.

(to live and see and touch, to be)

Can it be wise to risk the anger

Of the Gods in such a task?

(yet I must ask)

Yet who am I to judge of who

Should live and who should die?

(don't let me die—)

Does love or duty call him?

Is his kindness to me all a mask?

(take up the task)

And could I trust his answer

If I dared to ask him "Why?"

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

So now I stand within the circle

I have drawn upon the floor—

(the open door)

I have no further answer if

This spirit's friend or foe

(nor can you know)

Though I have prayed full often, nor

Can I this moment answer if

I'll tell him "Come" or "Go."

MERCEDES LACKEY

The moon is on the wane tonight, and her light is fitful and hard to work by. There is a chill and bitter wind tossing the bare branches of the trees; had there been any leaves left upon those sad, black boughs when the sun set, they would have been ripped away by now. That same wind shreds the thin, fraying clouds that scud across the moon's face, so that she seems to be dressed in the tattered remnants of a shroud. The sound of it among the trees is like the wailing of a hundred thousand lost souls.

And while my hands busy themselves with the preparations I have rehearsed in my mind too many times to be counted, I find myself trying to trace the path that brought me to this night, and these perilous rituals.

Was it only last month, a bare moon-span of days ago that I came to this place? It hardly seems possible, and yet that is indeed the case. It seems so strange, to look back upon the thing I was, so sure of myself and my place in the world—

A wizard I was and am, for my talents lie with the manipulations of energy, and my knowledge is that of the doors to and creatures of other worlds. Unlike some of my fellows, I do not hold that witchcraft is the lesser art—oh no; I have seen too many things to believe that to be the case. Faced with an elemental or the need to bring fertility to man, beast or field, I should be as helpless as a witch given a wraith to exorcise, or a demon to subdue. And the healing arts that come so easily to the witch born were slow and painful for me to learn. To each of us her strengths and her weaknesses, say I—but in my craft, I count myself no weakling. I long ago attained the Master's rank and staff—and yet, I wandered, ever wandered, as if I were a Journeyman still.