by Frank Tuttle
MALLARA AND BURN: ON THE ROAD
Frank Tuttle
Published by Sizzling Lizard Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Sizzling Lizard Press
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Cover (courtesy of Beth Morgan)
Table of Contents
Foreword
The Ringed Round
Night Stand
The Asking and the Vow
The Helpers
Foreword
The very first professional fiction sale I ever made, Night Stand, is included in this collection.
Night Stand sold to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. MZB herself was the publisher and the editor and the slush-pile reader and the author of some of the most direct and scathing rejection letters ever to grace the public mails. Really, her rejections were that good; writers compared them on writing discussion boards, almost boasting at the severity of them.
I got quite a few of them from MZB before she passed away.
All of them were deserved. She helped me recognize -- and avoid -- a few of the flaws in my own writing style. For that I will always be grateful.
I got lucky in another respect, too. My very first published short story was illustrated by none other than Vincent Di Fate. The illustrations he did for Night Stand were beautiful, were works of art all on their own. The title image, matted and framed, still hangs in my study.
Mallara and Burn went on to enjoy several more short stories in various other publications. I think my personal favorite is The Ringed Round, which is a Halloween story with a Christmas twist.
I'm always eager to hear what readers have to say. And one of the best things about e-books is how easy they make it for authors and readers to communicate. So if you have any comments, be they praise or scold, feel free to email me at [email protected]. too, please visit my website at www.franktuttle.com!
I hope you enjoy traveling along with Mallara and Burn as they see to the magical well-being of the Five Valleys. Oh, one last thing -- a huge THANKS to Beth Morgan, who once again created a brilliant cover! Thanks Beth!
THE RINGED ROUND
by Frank Tuttle
"Looks like the storm is over," said Burn, who hovered in the shelter of a grinning Ollow's Eve pumpkin. When he spoke, his voice set the candle within the pumpkin to flickering, and Mallara's frown deepened at the thought of Burn as the spirit of Ollow's Eve.
"Any villagers still lurking about?" asked Mallara.
"Not a one," said Burn."Thank the rain."
Mallara sighed and stood."Good," she muttered."I'm not in the mood for an audience."
As if there will be anything to see here tonight, she thought. Dancing bones on Ollow's Eve. Bah. There's nothing here but a prehistoric ring of badly-carved stones and a weary Sorceress with a blister on her heel.
About her, rain-water still dripped and splashed from the circle of twelve tall stones the Tothish villagers called the Ringed Round. Probably half of the traditional Ollow's Eve twelve dozen carved pumpkins scattered about the Round were still lit, their candles having braved the storm; Mallara was thus surrounded by glowing orange eyes and wide, toothy grins, each pumpkin face lit by red-orange flickers and each casting small quick flocks of shadows.
Mallara looked away from the leaning old stones and the leering pumpkin-faces, threw back her wet hood, and sought out instead the moon or the stars. The sky above was inky black, though -- the rain might be gone, but the clouds hung low and thick.
"We won't be checking the alignment of Stone Seven against the north star tonight," she said.
"Pity," said Burn, still in his mad-eyed pumpkin."Still, perhaps we can make it back to Toth before the Ollow's Eve party breaks up," he said."You think?"
Mallara shrugged. Now that the wind had died, she could hear faint tootles and pipes of music from the village below; music, and snatches of laughter and singing.
"That isn't the dance I came to see," she said. She whispered a word, and caught her staff as it fell from a hole in the air."And this night is far from done."
Burn flew out of his pumpkin's grin."Mistress," he said, darting to hang over Mallara's right shoulder."How many times did you say Master Wesseven held vigil in this very spot?"
Mallara walked to the center of the Round and planted her staff upright in the thick red mud.
"I didn't," she said.
"Eight times," said Burn."Eight Ollow's Eves he spent on this very spot. Eight nights of watching and waiting. And what did he see?"
Mallara said a Word, and a handful of light sprang to life at the top of her staff, rose, and halted when Mallara snapped her fingers.
The light lit the Round. Not noonday-bright, but bright enough that Mallara could see her own shadow, and Burn's faint blur in the air.
"Master Wesseven saw nothing," said Burn, in reply to his own question."He tried every spell, every trick, every conjuration he knew, and aside from the time the goat wandered up behind him and ate his hat the great and terrible Master Wesseven saw not a single dancing leg-bone."
Mallara spoke a Word. A writhing tangle of lights, like firefly glows stretched into strings and hung in a whipping wind, flared in her hands. She tossed the glows into the damp air, and they spread out, darting to and fro among the stones.
"I'm talking to myself again, aren't I?" asked Burn.
Mallara spoke another Word, and caught her glass wand as it appeared before her.
"Fine," said Burn."Mope all you want. Mope through a jolly all-night back-country Ollow's Eve party. Mope when your faithful assistant tries to cheer you up. Mope all night, for all I care. Just don't mope when Old Bones doesn't show up, because we both know you aren't really here to investigate legends of dancing bones and ghostly pipers. You're here to stand in the mud on a rainy Ollow's Eve and mope."
"Burn."
Burn buzzed away from Mallara's shoulder."The Sorceress speaks," he said."What an honor. Pity, though. I've got work to do. No time for idle pleasantries. Might be any number of dire magical threats lurking among these freshly-carved yet sinister vegetables."
And he was gone, buzzing like a hornet.
Mallara sighed. Her wand grew warm in her hand, and she idly soothed it with a whispered Word and a gentle squeeze.
A damp wind rose up, stirred the pumpkin-candles, and quickly died. Mallara's tangle-spells returned as the wind failed, and the spells whispered briefly of wet stones and shadows and Burn's angry buzz.
But nothing else. No hint of ancient magic, no taint of hidden haunts. Just rain and stones and grinning candle-lit pumpkins.
And a lone moping Sorceress, thought Mallara. He's right, she realized. I am moping.
It's all this Ollow's Eve business, she decided. Pumpkins and parties and gifts in the night. Oh, I know that there is no Winter King, no thinning of the veil between this world and another, no moonlit tide of magic sweeping through the night. I'm all grown up now, and I know all this, and all too well.
Mallara sighed and shifted her feet and nearly lost a boot to the mud. As she struggled to free it, the music on the wind waxed louder, and Mallara recognized the tune as"Hail, Hail the Winter King."
The words sprang unbidden to Mallara's mind, and she shook her head and wrenched her boot from the mud. As a child, I sang myself to sleep with that very song, many an Ollo
w's Eve. How ironic, she thought -- my childish love for the kindly Winter King led me to the study of magic, and he was the first to fall to my newfound knowledge.
Pumpkins are just pumpkins, and better used for pies.
"Burn," she said, after sending the tangle-spells back among the Round."I'm sorry."
Burn made no reply. Mallara sighed, spoke to her wand, and filled the stone circle with a soft golden glow.
"Anything?" asked Burn, from above.
Mallara shook her head."Nothing," she said."Not a trace, not a hint, not a stir."
Burn fell to hang before Mallara."Same here. Stones and mud and pumpkins." He paused, and his blurred volume of air shrank suddenly."Dare I suggest a retreat to yonder inn?"
Mallara lowered her wand."That is a perfectly reasonable suggestion," she said."But I've made a decision. Unlike Master Wesseven and Mage Illswit and who knows how many Mages before, I am not going to spend my tour as Mage to the Five Valleys tramping to Toth every few years."
"I see," said Burn, cautiously.
Mallara nodded."Tonight, we shall stay. We shall watch. If we see no dancing bones, hear no ghostly pipers, then we shall leave, and not come here again, Burn. Ever. Regardless of how many bakers and shepherds and Mayors swear they've watched whole platoons of limber skeletons dance each night the month of Ollow. Agreed?"
Burn bobbed back a bit."Agreed, Mistress," he said. His voice softened."This night, then."
"This night." Mallara slipped the wand in her pants pocket, hung her damp cloak up by the hood on her standing staff, and began to pace.
"Right," said Mallara, struggling through the mud."What, precisely, do the stories say about the Round?"
Burn flew above her, matching her pace."On Ollow's Eve, when the piper plays, Old Bones comes out to dance," he said."Old Bones is understood to be a euphemism for the Winter King, a local harvest spirit..."
"I know all about the Winter King," said Mallara. He brings gifts to good children, brings peace to the troubled. An image of a bone-bodied, pumpkin-headed sprite rose to her mind, and she quickly pushed it away."What we need to know," she said, "is what makes this Piper play, and when."
"According to everyone who has studied this place, Mistress, the piper plays only when Mages aren't around," said Burn."The only recent sightings have been by shepherds, by kids, and at least one wandering minstrel." Burn settled nearer."I never understood why Master Wesseven was adamant that the Round be studied; he didn't believe half the stories."
"He believed a few," said Mallara. She halted and kicked the foot of Stone Five, knocking gobs of red mud off her boots."And he always said that if even one story was true, then the Round was worth the time," she added.
Burn snorted."No disrespect, Sorceress, but the man believed stones sometimes fall from the sky," he said.
Mallara shrugged."Perhaps they do," she said.
Burn flew a small loop above her head."Fine," he said."Taunt me. But the fact remains -- no Mage ever saw the Old Bones dance, or heard the piper play."
Meralda resumed her slow, noisy circuit of the stones, and nodded in agreement.
"Why not?" she asked."What did they do wrong?"
"Knowing Mages -- aside from you, Mistress -- they stamped in here grumbling, snuffed out a cigar with their boot in the exact center of the ancient sacred space, and unleashed two dozen hostile spellworks at the pumpkins," Burn said."Bless their enlightened souls," he added, quickly.
Mallara managed a smile."You're probably correct," she said."They all looked for remnant magics. They all set ward spells and cast look-sees and tangles at the stones."
"They all saw nothing," said Burn.
Mallara nodded."They all saw nothing." And then she spoke a Word, and the light hanging above the Round went dark. She raised her hands, and spoke another word, and the tangled skeins of light returned to her, and she thanked them, and they too went dark.
Night reclaimed the Round, the wet stones touched here and there by flickering orange pumpkin-light."Mistress?" said Burn, from above.
"My predecessors had mage-lights and tangle-spells and half a dozen other magics," said Mallara. She marched back to stand by her staff, her boots making loud sucking noises in the mud with every step."We'll wait in the dark. With nothing."
Burn followed, buzzing in the shimmer frown."Ah," he said."Say it a bit louder, won't you? I'm not sure each and every bandit and haint in the Five Valleys heard you, that time."
Mallara reached her staff, retrieved her damp cloak, and threw it over her shoulders."Nonsense," she said.
Burn sighed."Can I at least look around?" he asked.
"Of course," said Mallara. The light wind shifted, and the music from Toth came with it, faint but clear.
"Happy Ollow's Eve, Mistress," said Burn."Peace and plenty to you and yours."
"To you too," said Mallara. Burn flew up into the dark.
Mallara waited until Burn was gone, and wiped away a tear.
"Midnight at the bell," said Mallara's clock, from its perch on her shoulder. She heard it whisper a countdown --"Three, two, one," -- and then it struck a tiny silver bell.
A fat drop of rainwater dripped off a stone and went plop into a puddle. Burn hovered near, silent and still. Candle-eyed pumpkins looked on, flickering and glowing, their eyes mad and bright, triangular teeth fixed in leering grins.
Mallara strained her ears. There was piping, but from the village; within the Round, the only sounds were those of wind and water and night.
The clock tugged gently at her hair."Midnight and one," it said."Midnight and one."
Mallara sighed. Burn dropped near."Just rocks and pumpkins," he said.
"So it seems," she said. She turned in a circle and looked upon each of the standing stones, saw nothing, heard nothing.
Rocks and pumpkins, she thought. What am I doing wrong?
You're waiting for something that isn't ever going to come again, she thought, in reply. Waiting for the Winter King, and you thirty years of age.
"Losing the lights and the tangles didn't work," said Burn. He fell to the level of Mallara's face."I have an idea, if you're willing."
Mallara cocked her head."I'm listening," she said.
"Maybe we're waiting for the wrong piper," said Burn."In fact, maybe Old Bones is waiting for us to play, before he can dance."
Mallara frowned."None of the sightings mentioned that," she said."They all claimed the music came from the stones."
Burn's blur expanded."That's what they said," he said."But we're talking about kids here. Kids and minstrels. Now what do you suppose parents hereabouts have been telling their kids for a millennia or two?"
"Stay out of the Round," replied Mallara.
"Exactly," said Burn."Which draws them to the place like ants to molasses." Burn's voice fell."Now what else -- and maybe most specifically -- do you think Mother and Father Toth emphatically forbade their children to do?"
Mallara shrugged.
Burn made a sighing noise."It's obvious, Mistress," he said."The kids. The minstrel. They weren't up here sitting quietly in rows, waiting to take careful notes when Old Bones appeared," he said."One had a pipe. Or maybe one whistled, or sang."
"You're saying they came up here to raise Old -- to raise the entity?" said Mallara."That's insane, Burn. No one with any sense would dare such a thing. What if an elemental, or some leaving of an Old One came forth?"
Burn made a small circle."Kids and minstrels, Mistress. Bored young shepherds with too much time and too much homebrew apple-jack. Tall, pale young men desperate to impress the local females. They came, they piped, they ran home screaming. And maybe they calmed down just enough to hide the pipes and claim they were just walking past the stones minding their own business when Old Bones jumped out of the ground and grabbed their shirt-tails."
"And the minstrel?" said Mallara.
"He was probably told to keep his pipes out of the Round, too," said Burn."He could hardly look the Mayor in the eye and tell him he'
d gone up there to play. Not without losing his room at the inn and his month of nightly singings," he said.
Mallara shook her head.
Burn made an exasperated buzz."Oh, bother," he said."Mistress, you were born a polite, obedient, well-mannered young lady," he said."But the rest of the human race is composed entirely of persons who would gleefully exhume Old Ones and shout Dread Words at their skulls just to watch them twitch," he said."I'm right in this. In fact," said Burn, his voice a purr,"if you'll agree, I'll pipe. And if Old Bones doesn't put in a dance I'll only speak when spoken to for five whole days."
"Five days?"
"Five days," said Burn."Furthermore, I'll address you only as 'Your Majesty,' and I'll hum a fanfare as you walk."
Mallara smiled, and Burn hooted in triumph.
"What song?" he said."'Hail, Hail the Winter King?'"
Mallara took in a breath. The clock tugged at her hair, and reached out to pat her neck with its cold brass hands.
"What else?" said Mallara."You may proceed."
"You won't be sorry," said Burn. He darted away, to a point high above the Round, and a strong, steady piping began.
Mallara spoke a Word, and the brass clock leaped from her shoulder and vanished into a sudden hole in the air.
Burn's piping grew louder. And try as she might, Mallara couldn't keep the words to 'Hail, Hail,' out of her mind.
Hail, hail the Winter King,
Snow and ice and harvest bring . . .
She recalled her father's gruff voice, singing the words as he'd put her to bed, so many years ago. And she recalled the toys she'd always awakened to find hidden in her snow-hat. All were carved from rich golden iron oak, and all had been wondrous. How long, Mallara wondered, did my father work, carving quiet by the fire, just to give me that one brief moment of magic?
Burn's piping grew faster, and he swooped down close to Mallara head.
"Nothing yet," she said. She turned a circle in the dark and wished for even the smallest light spell. But I'll do without, she decided. If there is any magic loosed here tonight, let it be that of the Round and the Round alone.