Barbara Hambly - 04 Mother Of Winter

"They were on the road up here," Gil said. "Look at 'em, they look like they've been wandering around in the wilderness for years. What they were doing up here..." Rudy laughed. "Well, I'll be buggered. Nedra Hornbeam's idea worked after all. I've been trudging out to that frigging circle at the Tall Gates every day and Summoning All Useful Animals. I never thought it'd pay off."

"I thought they seemed in an unlikely hurry to get up here." Ingold scratched the corner of his mustache, which looked as usual as if he trimmed it with a sword and no mirror.

"It will be good to sleep in a bed again, not to mention speaking to one of the wizards from the Times Before. And I'm delighted you were able to make the roses viable-there've been no singlepetal white roses in the world for centuries. Really, Rudy, you-"

He was stopped on the steps by Enas Barrelstave, who bustled out and caught his arm in an eager grip. "Inglorion!" He shook his finger in remonstrance, stepping out of the way of cattle, sheep, and horses being led up the steps around them and into makeshift byres in the Aisle.

"Now, it's all very well of you to disappear on a cattle-buying trip, but you really should have consulted the Council about it before you left. It's not that we don't respect and value your services, but you can't simply..."

"You okay, spook?" Rudy slung his arm around Gil's shoulders as they mounted the steps in the wake of the chattering mob.

She glanced sidelong at him and smiled again. "Yeah," she said. "I'm okay." The scar seemed a part of her features, as if she'd always had it, like the dark smoke-rings around the pupils of her eyes.

"I guess you won't be training with the Guards for a while."

"The hell I won't," Gil said. "There's no reason a woman can't train up until the month before she delivers-though I'm not going to get into any death-fights unless I have to. You think I can't deal with it, punk?" She gave him her old cold stare, and Rudy dropped his arm and backed hastily away.

"No- I just meant... I know you can deal with it."

Between Ingold and Gil, he thought, that was gonna be one tough kid. Cold wind blew across them from the glaciers above; in the doors of the Keep the Guards beckoned, wanting to lock up for the night, black forms silhouetted against the gold lamplight inside.

"There gonna be much of a harvest?" Gil asked.

"Some. We'll send out an expedition to the marshes down by Willowchild for hay. But we've got the hydroponics tanks up and running the way they were originally designed, so even if we get thwacked by another ice storm, we should be fine. I don't think we'll have any problem talking Barrelstave and Company into okaying some kind of underground stables. It might be that until the weather evens out we have to give up outside farming completely, except for things like the orchard. Even at that, we got more apples than we thought we would, growing in late..: "

They paused on the steps, looking back at the bleak landscape. Somewhere down the valley a mammoth hooted; a small herd of squid-like gaboogoos flapped slowly from the slunch beds, palely glowing like otherworldly birds. Rudy shook his head at the alienness of the scene.

Until the weather evens out. However many centuries that might take.

But they had food. And they had books. And they had roses, for when the weather warmed up again.

"So what'd you name her?" Gil asked. "Your daughter?"

My daughter.

"Gisa," Rudy said softly. "That was the name of Dare of Renweth's wife, who died on the way up to the Keep... died because Dare wouldn't pull the wizards off raising the walls. Gisa of the Flowering Hands. She's been a long time on her way here."

"Gisa," Gil said softly, turning over the word in the tongue of the Wathe, and Rudy nodded.

"The old word for spring."

At various times in her life Barbara Hambly has been a high school teacher, a model, a waitress, a technical editor, a professional graduate student, an all-night clerk at a liquor store, and a karate instructor. Born in San Diego, she grew up in southern California, with the exception of one highschool semester spent in New South Wales, Australia. Her interest in fantasy began with reading The Wizard of Oz at an early age, and it has continued ever since.

She attended the University of California, Riverside, specializing in medieval history. In connection with this, she spent a year at the University of Bordeaux in the south of France and worked as a teaching and research assistant at UC Riverside, eventually earning a master's degree in that subject. At the university she also became involved in karate, making black belt in 1978 and competing in several national-level tournaments. She now lives in Los Angeles.