by Paul Hazel
of them she did not know. Perhaps, if she abandoned them,
they would pass from his mind as well. Surely they were the
ghosts of something that had happened long ago. Yet it had
seemed a sort of unfaithfulness to let them fade. Well, he
had seen them now and he could make of them what he
wished. For herself, she could not think of what to do with
them.
For one brief moment she had considered Indians. Might
they not sweep down from the valley’s rim, an ancient host,
reclaiming with fire and thunder the world they too had lost?
But the rock was here before they came and death, she knew,
could never take again what already it had stripped and
robbed. Still, it had its use.
She had made his bed a place of death. Once, without
watching, at least without knowing that she watched, she had
seen the other woman at the train. Alone in his bed, wondering how many women had loved him, how many he had loved, it was this face, not the dark-haired child’s, that
stirred her memory. In the darkness of that bed, in the gulf
between what is and what may never be, she called to her.
And the woman came.
She was not surprised when death came after. It was
fate, Nora thought, still recklessly, still not certain it was
so. Yet it pleased her to see the ease with which she had
repositioned all their lives.
2 5 8
WINTERK1NG
She was well across the yard, nearly under the ragged
elms, when, for a moment, she found herself wondering
about His Grace. His arms, she remembered, had been
warm and gentle about her waist. His dark eyes, looking
down, had filled her with anxious tenderness. She knew she
was frightened by those eyes and with her fear there came a
desperate urgency, a sense of the quickly passing years. She
ran.
In the torchlight even the stones’ huge shadows glittered
red. The snow was red about his feet.
“You keep out of this!” Houseman cried.
But she never could. She only hoped she had not
forgotten anything.
It was only a little distance from the porch to the patch
of broken ground where Nora stood by herself, watching
Martin Callaghan opening the door. He blinked, trying to
adjust to the cold and the wind. She was amazed how frail he
looked. He came down the porch steps slowly, casting glances
back at the house and then toward the wood. She saw his face
darken as he noticed the man and the girl. They had stopped
just short of the trees. Wykeham had been leading a horse by
its bridle. Now they were both standing still, looking back at
the house. Then carefully, showing her the stirrup, he lifted
the girl onto the stallion’s wide back. When he had climbed
up beside her, he gave a flick to the reins.
The Duke never saw the stableboy. It was Nora who
watched him standing alone in the open door of the barn,
quietly folding the rag of a cloak.
Nora made no move at all.
The Duke stopped.
“I don’t understand,” he said resentfully, realizing suddenly he knew a great deal more than he thought.
Tlie snow was still falling. Without answering, she took
hold of his arm. He limped a little as they walked together
toward the house. She saw the pain in his face and knew that
he was dying. Not all at once, but by inches, as men always
died. Still, there will be a few years more, she thought. Time
enough, when the world was her own.
At the top of the hill, because the trees were bare, she
caught sight of the river. The hill was not of sufficient height
to see the whole pattern but the river’s jagged line, black
Winterking
2 5 9
against the snow-mired banks, described, she was certain, a
nearly perfect figure.
“N” for Nora, she thought, smiling, remembering as well
the little curving lake in Black Wood. “C” for Callaghan, she
thought and went on smiling. From a distance both figures
would appear to join, a piece of common mischief, shining
out against the coming darkness, as if someone on the dwindling continent had left a message for a god.
EGRESS
Bridgeport— Ridgefield
March 1982—September 1984
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THE FFNNBRANCH
TRILOGY
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“PROFOUND AND BEAUTIFUL . . .
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MEMORY
WIRE
BY ROBERT CHARLES WILSON,
AUTHOR OF A HIDDEN PLACE
Seeking escape from his tragic past, Raymond f i l l e r
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“SUPERIOR SCIENCE FICTIO N . . . AMONG T H E
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W h en
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BY GEORGE ALEC EFFINGER
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PAUL HAZEL received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees
from Yale University. A former English teacher and founder-
director of an alternative high school, he is currently a public
schools personnel director in Connecticut. Mr. Hazel lives in
Connecticut with his wife and two children.
“ Winterking is like
a blessing, a garden of
delight. It should be read and
reread.” —fhe Washington fbsl
MYSTERIOUS, ENIGMATIC, YOUTH-
EULLY IMMORTAI. YET EONS 0 1 A
Wyck, now called Wykeham, begins a
strange and perilous final quest to fulfill
his destiny. Heir to a mysterious age-old
will, Wyck leaves New Awanux under
great secrecy for his estate in a distant
land, bringing with him the eight-legged
horse he stole from the world of Undersea.
In this new world populated by ancient
Druids, talking crows, winged sorcerers,
the ghosts of the dearly familiar and the
eerily bizarre, Wyck puts into play a mesmerizing, unpredictable chain of events that not
even he can control.. .a plan that may destroy
the very foundations of a world where time
may or may not exist, where nothing is as it
seems, and where Duinn, the god of death, is
ever close at hand.
Richly conceived and brilliantly written,
y j
Winterking is the final volume in the
v
acclaimed Einnbranch Trilogy, which began
^
with Volume One, Year w ood and Volume
Ln
Two, Undersea.
O